The National Forest’s LANDshapes project interview with Vera Hammonds

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LANt033 Vera Hammonds
LANDshapes Oral History interview summary

In this captivating recording listen to Vera Hammonds as she takes us back in time to a slower, gentler pace of life. Born in 1916, Ibstock lass Vera says that "I was born in one war and got married the first week in the next". Listen as Vera recalls her earliest memory of walking "….across the field to the allotment" to take her father's lunch "I had to walk right down Grange Road, across the fields there, across the Overton Road to some other fields and these fields were actually off the Hinkley Road" and recollects "Conkering with the lads", making daisy chains, walking by the "Battram Plank" and picking turnips for lunch. At the age of 14 Vera and her friends would congregate on Ibstock High Street but she remembers that "You were scuffed out by the sergeant…" for hanging around in doorways! Hear Vera's reminiscences of her courting days "….down Locker's Lane, then it was called Lovers' Lane cos everybody used to go round there…" and her memories of going "Blackberrying when the blackberries were out…This was either made into blackberry and apple jam, blackberry and apple pudding, also blackberry vinegar…" and of making Elderberry wine and "…dandelion flower wine….used to have to break the heads off dandelions and take them home" - despite never having touched a drop in her life! And discover who the Ibstock 'Ranters' were.

Interviewer: Roger Kitchen.
Inyerview Date: 18/04/2005
Landshape Zone: Leicestershire and Derbyshire Coalfield
Parish: Ibstock
Location: Ibstock, Leicestershire,
Date of birth: 28/09/1916
Location of Original: Originals held with The National Forest Company
Reference LANt033

Last updated: 15/9/2005
East Midland Oral History Archive Web maintainer
This document has been approved by the head of department or section.