Dorothy Kemp

Beginning of the war the worker came into the field to start digging the foundations for the Nissan huts while we were still at harvest on the glebe land so there was us clearing up the shoves one side of the field and the bulldozers working next to us.
Born at point farm Beeston.
When the American airmen left, all their bicycles were lined up on the runway and then a brengun carriage was driven over the top to crush them. I remember when the Americans use to tip all the oranges ect, they did not want into a old gravel pit near the point, then the word would get around and people would turn up from all around with their bikes and prams to load up of all these goodies to take home.
Another thing the Americans left behind was the old stretchers, which our neighbours would stand on end with the handles in the ground there were thousands, so many the people over the road nearly went all round the field with theirs to keep all the chickens and that in. “ don’t know if there are any around now”.
I went to Sutherland House boarding school Cromer (privet school) which had about 200 pupils. As the boarding school was separate from the day school we would have to walk down Cliff Avenue and Overstrand road to the Warren at Cromer not far of the light house, in the winter of 47 when we had masses of snow my mother but me and my sister on a bus at Dereham to Norwich but when we got to Norwich there were no buses to Cromer with my sister being in a hurry to get to the Jenny Lynn hospital where she worked, she telled me to get on a bus and get off at a certain stop to meet some distant relations who I had never meet and still don’t know who they were too this day and stayed the night with them then got a bus to Cromer the next day. Schools didn’t close after a little drop of snow in those days

When I left school at 17 for my first winters job I would bike to Weasenham to exercise horses for the master hounds, who in those days was Major Bob Hall, that was a long old bike ride I use to go from Beeston to Litcham then vireos routs up to Weasenham and then I would work for Enid Carlson with her horses who had Holkham house in Beeston it belonged to major Wilson Miss Carlson was his sister in law, he was a man who had money left him and didn’t know how to spend it, he bought this little stable place with a few acres and then she started a prep school and sometimes I would take those kids for a little walk round Beeston or go down to the lily pits which is an old pit hole near Primrose farm.
Mum used to do a milk round in Litcham and Beeston with our pony called Jenny and her cart, as a child I would walk the cows from point farm though Beeston to our meadow just passed the school.
After the war I used to keep pigs on the field where the old air-raid shelters are, one day I went to feed these pigs but when I got to the field there were no pigs to be seen, just the sound of slashing coming from the shelters, so I looked inside to find all the pigs had gone down the steps and were having a swim in the water that had filled these dug out buildings.

Then in 1959 my farther died and I had to run the farm with my mother for several years. One day I was stripped down to my bra cocking hay in one of my fields and decided to have a dose with my Jack Russell laying beside me. Unknown to me a neighbouring farmer Alec Wales known to be a man full of a bit of buggerment sneaked over the bank with a stinging nettle and was about to pounce when my little dog grabbed him in the ankle and bit him so hard he had to go to the doctors with it.

I used to pump the organ for years while my mother was playing it for weddings and funerals; it’s electric now so they don’t need someone to pump it now!
In the Bell public house the old boy would sit in the kitchen (that was what they called the bar) and if anybody went in he would bang on the table, “you’re wanted Mrs, you’re wanted Mrs” then she would have to todle down the corridor and down the steps to the cellar to get a pint.

Longham
In 1947 there was deep snow so the men from Longham decided walk to Stanfield to get the bread but got as far as the Maids Head pub at the top of the road and got well sozzled then turned home but got a third of the way home where Andrews had a stack of hay went behind it and went to sleep, the women got so worried they sent out a search party. The same winter all the local men signed up to the local council to clear the roads of snow it took 30 men 5 days to clear the road from Longham to Stanfield but that weekend, more snow came and filled it back in so they had to start again but this time it was twice as deep