Six years ago, Chellaston History Group published its first book based on the memories of the village's elderly inhabitants. Now the third and final publication in the Chellaston Lives series, right, has come off the presses. Jane Goddard reports.
BACK in 2007, Mick and Carol Appleby set about painstakingly recording the spoken memories of elderly residents for their Chellaston Voices book.
Following the success of the book, the couple, who are both members of Chellaston History Group, were asked by the group to produce a further publication.
The two retired teachers, set about the new project looking at the world of work and comparing jobs of yesteryear with those of today.
They had such a wealth of material that they decided to split the book into two parts.
Chellaston Working Lives 1 was published in 2012 and now they have reached the conclusion of their project with Chellaston Working Lives 2.
The book begins with the memories of market gardener Val Smith, who was born in Mickleover in 1940 to a father who was a butcher and a mother who worked as a nurse. She describes her early introduction to the countryside.
"Mickleover was just a little village then," she says.
"We couldn't get an awful lost of food because we were rationed but we were quite well off compared with people in the towns.
"My mum would get a few extra eggs from local farmers but I can remember being hungry.
"I love farming, animals – we always had an animal or two in the house. We'd always have a rabbit. During the war, we'd got no meat. My grandad cooked a pie. I found out it was my rabbit and I went and brought it all up down the toilet!
"When he came out of the Army in 1945, my father decided to breed rabbits, so that the neighbours and us would have fresh meat.
"We had about 20 rabbits with hutches around the garden. He used to send the rabbit furs away to Bristol to make fur gloves which were quite fashionable then."
Val's move into market gardening came on her second marriage to John Dagley-Smith, who owned a nursery in Back Lane with his brothers.
She says: "The day I got married I was thrown in at the deep end. I had to learn to grow. I started all the seed off. I learned as I went along.
"I just used my common sense, read a few books, chucked myself in and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it – it hadn't been such hard work!"
Crops they grew included cabbage, cauliflowers, runner beans and potatoes. They also grew flowers in a hot house and salad vegetables.
Val recalls: "Working in the greenhouses got so hot, we used to wear bikinis, Jenny and I. The blokes down in the village used to come down just to see us in bikinis – they'd say, 'We don't know you with your clothes on'."
As well as the laughs, times could also be very tough.
Val adds: "When my husband fell ill, I used to get up at half past three, go down to the wholesale market for four, and put my wares to people who were buying off me.
"I'd get home about half past seven and get the kids up for school. I used to give them all breakfast in bed to keep them from under my feet, get them to school and then go working in the greenhouses until they got home from school at night.
I'd be cooking dinner at 10 o'clock. It was tough going."
Other trials to contend with included the vagaries of the British weather and pests – insect, animal and human!
Val explains: "One day, I came home from market and found someone cutting all my large-head chrysanths into buckets."
The family sold the business to Barratts in 1989.
An interview with John Jackson, who owns Swarkestone Nursery, provides a present-day look at market gardening in the area.
Another local business to feature in the book is Chellaston Garage. Robin Taylor shares memories of his time at the business which came into the family in 1949 when his father, Cyril, bought it after going into partnership with Joe Allsop, whom he had met while working at the council workshops in Ford Street, Derby.
He recalls: "They worked literally six and a half days a week. They would alternate: one weekend my father would work all day Saturday and Sunday morning.
"In the early days, they would work on predominately pre-war vehicles, ranging from Austin 7s through to Rileys, Hillmans, even pre-war Jaguars, known as the SS Jaguar. My father ran a 1935 Vauxhall 14 right up until the late 50s or early 60s.
"They also worked on farm machinery. I remember my father going out and repairing a puncture on a tractor's rear wheel which is almost as tall as the average person, and all he had was a foot pump. I think it took him quite a few hours to blow that up!"
Robin did not initially work at his father's garage. He decided to go into agricultural engineering and got himself a job at Burgess's on the Cockpit in Derby.
But his father then heard of an apprenticeship at a small garage in Pittar Street run by Frank Rope so Robin went there.
Robin says: "My father wouldn't let me work with him, even though he'd got the garage. He said, no, if I wanted to go into the garage trade, I'd got to learn the trade away from him."
Robin spent six years gaining his qualifications before joining his dad at Chellaston Garage.
He recalls some of the customers who used the garage: "Miss Ford was quite a character. She had a Hillman. Apparently, she used to come down and ask for the tyres to be let down so she could have some fresh air put into them.
"Also, we had a customer who would only have distilled water put into his radiator."
Robin left the garage in 1966 and took a job lecturing at Derby College of Further Education.
The garage is still being run today by Joe Allsop's son Derek, who describes his own family's association with the business and how he is still working past retirement age at 71.
Retired teacher Barry Chadwick shares his memories of his years at Chellaston Primary School from 1951 to 64. When he joined, Percival Willis Francis was the headmaster.
Mr Chadwick recalls: "He was quite a character. Nobody ever met his wife, although she was living the other side of the playground.
"He was somewhat unorthodox in the way he ran the school. He just left you, more or less, to get on, without pestering you."
When Mr Willis Francis left, Richard Davis became headmaster. Mr Chadwick adds: "It was a happy school – partly due to the staff; they always got on very well together. That rubs off on the children.
"There was no overbearing authority coming from the top which enabled the staff to get on and not feel inhibited in doing what they felt was best for the children."
Mr Chadwick describes the school day, the curriculum taught in those days, testing, discipline and trips.
Of the classrooms, he says: "The conditions were very cramped. I don't remember how many children were in the class but it was so crowded that, if a child at the back wanted to come to the front, all the ones in front of him had to stand up to let him through!"
Life at Chellaston Junior School today is described by Dorothy Twells who worked there from 1986-2013. It provides an interesting contrast to Mr Chadwick's experiences.
The book also includes accounts of then and now from councillors, shopkeepers and church ministers. It concludes with the recollections of Pat Stone who ran a greengrocer's shop in High Street with her late husband, Don, who was a real joker.
Pat recalls: "Don was a little bit of a tease and he used to have a lot of banter with Pat Hopkins, the lollipop lady. I can't remember what she asked him one day but he told her to eat fresh parsley.
"She came in the next day and said 'I'll bloody kill you – I've been up all night in the bathroom!'
Parsley is a diuretic. She literally chased him round the shop."
Chellaston Working Lives 2, An Oral History Then and Now, by Mick and Carol Appleby, is priced £9 and available from: Chellaston Post Office, Whelan's Hairdressers and Far Below, all on the High Street; Chellaston Butchers on Derby Road; or direct from Kath Marvill on 01332 700987.
![Bygones: Working lives of Chellaston past and present]( "Bygones: Working lives of Chellaston past and present")
