.
I was twenty-three years old
My Family.
Reginald Saunders Langlois, born 21/8/1910, my father.
Kathleen Mary Phyllis Langlois, née Hodgetts, born 20/10/1910 my mother
Children: Reginald Charles Edward (myself) born 24/1/1936, Annette Mary,
Elizabeth Ann Rosemary.
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Percy Le Hardy Hodgetts, born 27/04/1882 my grand father, my mother’s father.
Gladys Pinel Hodgetts, née Anley, born 22/10/1884, my grand mother,
my mother’s mother.
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James Ferdinand Charles Langlois, of Sion Hall, Longueville, St Saviour,
born 23/04/1884 my grand father
Desiree Langlois (nee Saunders) born 26/8/1882, my grand mother.
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Auguste Louis Philippe Saunders, my great-grand father on my grand-mother’s side.
Desiree Saunders, my great-grand mother on my grand-mother’s side.
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Charles Edward Langlois, of Les Cosnieres, Swiss Valley, St Saviour,
born 31/01/1886 my father’s uncle.
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Dorothy Ena Kennedy, née Langlois, born 02/08/1906 my father’s sister.
Brendan Bartholomew Kennedy, born 02/01/1901, my father’s brother-in-law.
Children: Patricia Margaret Barbe, Finbarr Brendan David, Angela May,
Michael Dermot, Teresa Bernardette, Kevin Patrick Helier and Brendon Francis Paul,
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Desiree Fardon (nee Langlois) my father’s sister.
Reginald Fardon, my father's brother-in-law.
Children: Charles A, Desiree, James, Robert.
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James Ferdinand Saunders Langlois, of Val Poucin, Grouville, born 13/04/1909,
my father’s brother.
Dorothy Ada Edith Langlois, née Campbell, born 10/08/1911 my father’s sister.
Children: Dorothy Jean born 16/05/1935, and James Philip born 19/02/1940
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Edward George Langlois, born 18/12/1915, my father’s brother.
Iris Joan Langlois, née McKee, born 22/04/1918 my father’s sister-in-law.
Children: Peter, Colin, Pamela, Susan.
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Douglas Thurston Langlois, born 14/07/1914 my father’s brother
Mary MacKinnon Langlois, née Fletcher, born 13/10/1909 my father’s sister-in-law.
Children: Cynthia Mary, Fay Mary,
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Percy Osmont Hodgetts, , born 26/10/1908 my father’s brother-in-law. my mother’s
brother. Melba Hodgetts, née Langley, born 13/04/1910, my mother’s sister-in-law.
Children: Colin William John, David, Vivian.
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I arrived
I was born in 1936 in the family home known as Sion Hall (presently called Hotel
L'Emeraude ) in the parish of St Saviour in the Island of Jersey, Channel Islands,
British Isles.
And now with my cousin
My Ancestors
My great grand father and his brothers came over from France in 1845. Two of them
were farmers, one was a cobbler and the other a furniture maker. They lived in a cottage
in the Parish of St Clements along the South coast of the island. I know very little
about my great grandparents on my grandmothers side except to say that my great
grandfather’s surname name was Saunders, that he came from Scotland and that he
was a fisherman. I remember him as being a very kind, gentle man and a great storyteller.
He was quite small, maybe five foot tall, with a huge silver-white beard and was very
strong. He had fished most of his life and was capable of catching dangerous conger
eels longer then he was tall. He used to make his own wicker fishing baskets, as did
most fishermen in those days. Most of his fishing was among the rocks at St Clements.
The waters around Jersey on a spring tide rise forty feet from low to high. On a low
tide great grandfather Saunders would walk over the rocks and climb across the gullies
to his favourite fishing grounds. Although sandy beaches surround most of the coast
of Jersey, this area of coastline is completely covered by rocks. The rocky area along
the coast is over three miles long and the tide goes out for over a mile.
Great grandpa Saunders, my Grandmother Langlois's father
Great grandpa and Great grandma Saunders
Great grand mother's family, Les Cosnier
You should have seen the big one
Great grandfather would have fished for Spider Crabs, Lobsters, Conger eels and a lot
of different types of shellfish including Ormers (Abalones). My last memory of my great
grandfather Saunders was of his coffin covered with flowers being placed on a glass sided
hearse pulled by two black horses and of some of the family getting into horse drawn
carriages. I can remember waving as they moved down the road. I must have been about
three years old.
My father and mother having a night out
Another outing
My mother ......
My grandfather and grandmother Hodgetts my mother's parents,
Richard Enraght Hale Fletcher, grandfather of my cousins Cynthia
and Fay Langlois, the tall one is my uncle Eddie then my mother and father.
My sister and I
Looks fun
My first memories were when my baby sister appeared on the scene. I was eighteen
months old. It was not too bad because, as she grew older she would only play with dolls.
She always did girlie things while I played with toy tractors, my tricycle and other boy’s
things. However, when I was a little older, I borrowed the wheels from her pram to make
my first soapbox. She only discovered this when she tried to push her dolls pram and found
that the wheels were buckled. That was when war started between us and thereafter I could
do nothing right. Sixty years on we are the best of friends.
Started moving
A year after I was born my father, mother and myself moved to a farm called Gros Puit
at Bagot in the parish of St Saviour, only some two miles away from Sion Hall. I think we
moved because my father wanted his independence. We spent three years there . My
father grew tomatoes, potatoes and loads of green vegetables. We also had cows and
pigs but it was hard work for my father as he was just starting out to farm by himself. In
1939 he suffered a big setback when he discovered that he had arthritis at the top of his
spine which confined him to bed where he spent most of the next eighteen months on his
back.
Our next-door neighbours, the Pallot family, and work people from Sion Hall came
every day to keep the farm going. They were a great help, as we could not have
continued without them. At the farm my sister learnt to drive at a very early age. She
cannot have been more than two and a half when she got onto a Fordson tractor that
was parked on a slope and somehow managed to take the brake off. The tractor took
off with her sitting on it but she kept it in a straight line and parked it half in and half out
of an asbestos garage. Considering her age, she had done pretty well. Unfortunately,
she had taken the gable end with her. We had to forgive her for asbestos is not very
tough, is it?
Growing up
In 1940 I was four years old and beginning to understand a lot of what was going on
around me. My father was in bed, my mother was very worried and friends and family
were calling at all hours. I remember a lot of shouting and arguing from which all I could
make out was that we were going to move away somewhere. I later discovered that the
friends and family were trying to persuade us to leave the island because the Germans
were coming and my father would not have been able to work for them, had he been
made to. However Dad had the final word. He said, " We are staying". Mum had
started packing and crying all at once. She just wanted to do what was best for
everybody and did not want to go either.
I have no memory of the Germans arriving in the island but I do recall them being here
very well. One afternoon we were looking out over the fields from my father's room
watching the German soldiers going around doing their exercises. They were running,
jumping and crawling about on the muddy ground, leaping over low walls and climbing
over high ones, when one of the German soldiers had the bright idea of using a wooden
barrel he had found nearby to help them over a very high wall. It worked well until some
twenty odd soldiers had passed over the wall with the help of the barrel but, with only
two or three men to go, the barrel started to collapse, the bottom gave way and the
next man trying to get over disappeared inside. We were too far away to see if they
were laughing but fortunately they could not see us doubled up with laughter.
Unusual transport.
Transport was something to remember. My father's back problem had been improving
when he managed to find a very heavy bicycle somewhere. As before the occupation he
had always used a car, he must have found this kind of transport very hard work. As we
were only permitted to use our tractor for farm work, he made a luxury trailer for my
sister and myself to tow us behind his bicycle. The body of the trailer was made from a
heavy cabin trunk and the big fat wheels and tyres came off a couple of large
wheelbarrows. One fine day, my father, very proud of his invention, took us in the new
trailer for its maiden journey. Only a couple of miles on its test run we were on the way
home when he must have lost concentration for a split second and hit the curb pretty
hard. We bounced around like a ball because of the big balloon tyres and turned right
over tipping us out onto the hard pavement. Strangely enough I can remember that
incident as if it was yesterday.
In 1941, when I was five and my sister three and a half, we were on the move again.
We moved to another farm where, this time, the soil was very good. It was well drained
and had better shelter from the cold Easterly winds. This was Stirling Castle Farm whose
buildings dated from c.1590 - a wonderful place where everything was small, even the
only toilet around the corner behind the house. Compared to Sion Hall this was a dolls
house and I have many good memories of this farm. The farmhouse is situated halfway
up the side of a valley and the land branches away from it. Near the house we had glass
frames to bring on young plants and on the larger fields we grew wheat and oats for the
cattle and for making bread. We also kept cows for milking.
Germans everywhere.
There were German soldiers everywhere, probably because it was a valley and it gave
them plenty of shelter from RAF or USA aircraft flying overhead. Although it was
forbidden to collect leaflets off the ground, my mother used to find it satisfying to get
them before the Germans did and collect arms full of paper and silver foil. Every time
we harvested our crops we had by law to hand over a large amount to the Germans, at
least half I think. One day the Germans turned up in the yard with a very heavy wagon
drawn by two very large shire-type horses to collect the straw that was due to them.
They set about in a very business like way loading the wagon and the load got higher
and higher with a man working by stacking the straw squarely on the top, when suddenly
the horses who had been standing very still took fright and moved, dislodging the man
on the top of the load. He must have fallen at least fifteen feet onto the cobbled yard on
his head, from which blood was pouring. Without hesitation, my mother dashed indoors
for a bowl of water with Dettol and offered to clean the wound but the officer in charge
pushed her out of the way, tipping the bowl at the same time, and proceeded to clean the
mans head with a news paper. My mother was even more upset when she saw the
damage on the man's head yet she was not allowed to help in any way. He was taken
onto the road and had to wait until the soldiers had finished loading before being taken
off for treatment. Throughout the occupation she never forgave the Germans for the
treatment they gave to that man.
Being a youngster during the occupation was not as bad as it was for adults, who were
always looking around for things on which to survive. It was even harder for people living
in the town who had to come out to the farms to glean in the fields after the corn had been
cut. They had to pick the grains by hand off the ground to make bread and I would try to
help them but my fingers soon became sore as the dry stalks cut into them.
A German ...my friend
I was playing in the fields one day when a German soldier turned up with a spade to do
some digging. I remember that he gave me a grin and offered me the spade and, when I
shook my head, he grinned again. I thought that I had made a friend. He looked about
the garden for a while and started walking towards the farmhouse. I followed my new
friend and stayed nearby when he started digging on high ground near a pathway close
to the house. He must have been there a long time because he had dug a hole as big as
a table. It was so deep that, from where I was standing, I could not see the bottom.
When I think about it now, he had done a fine job of making a neat hole with straight
sides and he had even cleaned up the soil that he had taken from the hole. As my new
friend could not speak my language, when I asked him why he had dug the hole he just
smiled and, when he had finished, he shook my hand and went. I never saw him
again although I sat near the hole for several days waiting for him to come back.
Fed up I went in doors and told my mother about him. She said that he seemed a
nice man. I asked her how she knew and she said that she had been looking through
the window all the time while he had been digging that hole. (She called it a" dug out").
Nobody came near it for weeks so, bit by bit, I took it over. I dug steps into the sides
and put bamboo canes close together on the top to make a roof out of bits and
pieces, door knobs, nails, tin cans and so on, I could turn that hole into anything
I wanted - a plane, a tank or even a submarine. My new friend had given me the best
present I had ever had. I heard my father telling someone once that he reckoned
the German had dug that hole near the pathway and close to the house just for me.
The windmill.
As I said before, living at this farm brought back
many memories. A short distance from the house,
just over the brow of the hill, there was a windmill
used for pumping water up to a large water tank
for the cattle. The windmill was constructed of steel
and was quite tall as it was erected in a draughty
valley. It had four giant legs and a wooden shaft
that came down from the vane into the ground, the
idea being that the shaft goes up and down about
twenty inches and pumps water from a well. What a
great plaything for someone like me. I used to go
over the hill and down the valley to play on this
windmill. I would climb up the shaft to about ten
feet and wrap my legs around it, going up and down
for what seemed like hours. Well, that was until my
father caught me. My mother and father had been
looking for me for ages. Dad would always shout at
me when he was angry but Mum would always give
me a piece of her mind and then smack me. I
remember this time she smacked me across her
ironing table in the kitchen. Talking about that kitchen,
the doctor turned up to give my sister and myself our
vaccination injections and I ran away to hide. I
did not wait to see where my sister went, nor did I care.
I hid in my dugout but my father knew that I would be there and was all right about it. Once I
was with him in the top field near a water storage tank while he was milking the cows by hand,
when there was gunfire nearby. They were firing at a large aircraft passing over the island when,
suddenly, there was a loud crash. A chunk of an aircraft had fallen in the field and a lot of small
fires appeared. They turned out to be pieces of hot shrapnel. My father suddenly
scooped me up and we dived under the water tank, just in time as another piece of the
aircraft dropped onto the field very close to us.
The Chateau.
Across the road from our farm was a brick built, three-storey house that could be called
a chateau. It was set in its own grounds but my memory of the house and land is a little
blurred. It was empty during the occupation and was looked after by caretakers. One
was called Bob and he, his sister and brother used to take it in turns to come from town
every day. I would walk around the house with them and was fascinated with the beehive
they had up on the top floor. They let me travel by the dumb waiter (a mini lift just large
enough to hold me). Outside in the garden they had a petrol motor that powered a water
pump and, because they were not too good on mechanical maintenance, their pump took
a lot of patience to get started. They always took the spark plug out, laid it on an oily rag
soaked in petrol and lit it to heat it up. It worked most times but, if not, it would grow
cold and they would have to go through the whole process again. What I remember most
is the huge sunken rose garden. I wonder if it is still there. At the top of the hill the Germans
had taken up residence in a large property called Oaklands where they had a fuel
tank dump.
My father thought it was very convenient that he had someone who worked for him on
the farm that knew how to siphon petrol for the tractor and, at night, he would take a
little from the German's fuel tanks and put it into smaller tanks on the other side of the
hedge. He would only siphon a small amount from one or two of the hundreds that were
there. Thank goodness they never caught him as he was good with engines. He got a
BSA three wheel motor vehicle running. It had a flat platform on the back and helped a
great deal when my father needed to carry light weights around. As the platform extended
well over the rear axel, the driver had to remember to load up the front first. We lived on
a very steep hill and, if the BSA had been badly loaded, the little vehicle would have
lifted up in the air and there was every chance the load would have come off. One day
my father and I with the little BSA were climbing up this hill empty when we passed
some German soldiers. They laughed at us and tried to hitch a lift. My father said he
would take a couple of them but that we might tip up if we took more. Two jumped on
and off we went, steadily, but some of the others we passed thought that they would take
a lift as well and, although the first two told them to get off, it was too late. The little
three wheeler reared up and discharged its load, landing the soldiers on the roadway.
My father thought there would be trouble, but the soldiers sitting on the road laughed and
waved to us in a friendly way.
First school
In the last year at Stirling Castle Farm I started junior school with my eldest sister (by the
way, at this time I had another sister who was born in a nursing home in St Helier). It was
principally a girls' school called the Convent FCJ. A few young men were accepted if
they had sisters at the same school and also a few non-catholics like myself. Perhaps
the war made them bend the rules a little. At assembly in the mornings the non-catholic
boys had to sit at the back of the hall, whereas non-catholic girls could sit with all the
others. I was quite happy as I had two or three other non-catholic boys for company.
That school was dear to my heart. I learnt how to make jewellery boxes out of used post
cards. You have to make holes all around the cards then place the cards back to back.
Using blanket stitch you then joined them all together and they even had a hinged lid. I
have never forgotten those boxes. I also learnt to tie up my laces. When I kicked off
my shoes one day in front of the teacher, she suggested that I might like to learn how to
untie and tie them up properly. It took a week to learn and she made me do it twenty
times. I cannot remember learning anything else. Oh yes! We learnt how to be kind to
others. Each of us in the class had to collect money for our own adopted boy or girl from
another country. I chose a black boy from Africa because I liked the kind look in his
eyes and I think that I managed to collect five pennies for him. One more thing - you
were not allowed to carry matches.
One day the teacher asked us all to empty our pockets to play a game of something or
other and, to the class's horror, I took a match box out of my pocket. It was spotted by
the teacher who was very angry with me, even when I told her that there was nothing in
it. She picked up the box, shook it and it rattled. She was fuming and was even more
upset when a little, curled up woodlouse fell out. We had never seen her so angry.
Saying that she would have to smack me, she turned around and picked up a piece of
stick. She had tears in her eyes when she turned back and told me to hold out my
hand. At seven years old you can fake being brave but, when I held out my hand, I was
pleasantly surprised to find that it did not hurt-in fact that the piece of wood she was
using was elderberry which is quite soft. Within half an hour the whole school knew that
Mother Carmel had beaten me. Twenty years or more after I left that school Mother
Carmel still had my photograph up on the wall. She always kept her favourite pupils
on that wall.
Grandpa hiding
I asked my father one day what the noise was coming from in the loft and he said that it
was probably a mouse or perhaps a bird that had got caught up there. He went up to
take a look and came down saying that he could not see anything and he was sure that
it was not a bird. A few days later when I heard the noise again, I thought it was a mouse
but I said nothing that time or on other occasions when I heard it. We had a lot of mice
around the farm and they did not appear to do any harm. It was only at the end of the
occupation that I discovered that Grandpa Hodgetts had spent three weeks up in our
loft in the dark. He had been born in Birmingham in England and, had he been found,
would have been deported to Germany as were the other English people here.
I remember Grandpa Hodgetts cultivating a patch of about thirty perch of land at the
farm and spending many hours there, as he wanted to be self- sufficient, which was a
credit to him. He grew five perch of potatoes and twenty-five perch of tobacco. The
family considered he had his priorities right. When Grandpa cultivated the tobacco crop,
he bundled the giant leave together and hung them up in the rafters around the farm
buildings to dry. He then placed them in a homemade press which was only about
eighteen inches long and five inches wide. It had a lump of wood on the top of it to
squeeze the juice out of the leaves and I can just see him now tightening the screw
down bolts every day with loving care. During the occupation, lighter fuel was
non-existent and matches were hard to find so you either had to do without or think
up means of igniting your home-grown cigarettes or pipes. Grandpa had a friend in
the motor trade who came up with the idea of using a four-cylinder impulse magneto
which, by joining all the leads, produced a longer spark that worked well. Grandpa
had the idea of using a tin with a hole in the lid with a piece of window sash cord
through it as a wick. The oil in the tin came from many sources such as used engine
oil, fish oil, and chicken fat and sometimes all three. I shall never forget the horrible
smells of the burning oil and of grandpa's pipe.
Back we go.
I have good memories of Stirling Castle Farm which we left at the end of 1943 when
I was seven years old. My father had spread his wings and it was then time to return
to Sion Hall to work with his father again. What a change it was for my father.
Instead of a thriving tomato growing industry, the packing sheds and the land looked
more like a ghost town with only a few potatoes planted and a mere five people
working there instead of the fifty or so there had been before the war. Every year
during the occupation Grandpa Langlois made sure that the tomato seed had been
sown, the seedlings pricked out and that thousands of plants were ready for planting.
He said throughout that the war could not last for ever and that, when it was over,
everyone would want tomatoes. He was right and he was ready. When Jersey was
liberated on the 9th of May 1945 my father and grandfather immediately organised
the planting of all the tomato plants they had prepared months ahead. My
grandfather's foresight had paid off.
Next school
It was at that time that I changed schools and I was given an interview at Victoria
College Preparatory by Miss Cassimere. Fortunately I passed and started straight
away. I remember little of my days there. Our first classroom was a wooden
building raised off the ground with concrete blocks. I was no academic and my poor
results brought me many Saturday mornings in detention. Three detentions in a row
brought a caning from the head master, Mr. Thorne. I enjoyed art and woodwork
but not reading and writing on which I found it difficult to concentrate. I spent three
years in the Prep before going up to Victoria College.
I enjoyed being at college though I did not care for some of the teachers.
I can remember some of the friends I made:
Troy, Norman, Palmer, Foott, Stent, Brooker, Wakeham, Lane, Smith,
Rumfitt. Allo, Syvret, Touzel, Vibert, Dorey, Farnham, Baudains, Labey,
Voisin, Allen, Le Brocq, Godel, Pallot, Stead, Colley, Titterington, Abel,
Copp, Picot, Talbot, Sarre, Carter, Barette, Beckford-Smith, Egglishaw,
Bower, Blackwell, Grady, Burton, Cabot, Carter, Cavey, De Carteret,
De Gruchy, Miller, Drelaud, Le Riche, La Marquand, Clyde, Hucker,
Le Cheminant, Verriers, Pittard, Clark, Hamon, Renouf, Horsfall, Vibert,
Stride,
Alcock, Gwyther, Lewis, Miles, Harris, Ferbrache,
Jones.
I thought the prefects were a bit heavy handed at times - especially as they had the power
to use a shoe on your backside if you misbehaved. The prefects I remember were Haden,
Gould, Green, Gaudian, Tiffin, Christin.
The teachers I remember at college and prep. were Postill, Thorne Salt, Horn, Marshall,
Hamon, Nicoll, Green, Blomfield, Col. Finch, Coats, Black. Douglas, art master at
prep.. Mr. Harris and the caretaker, Mr. Lewis were helpful to me.
I left college as soon as I was fifteen years old and it was not a minute too soon.
Only in the last ten years have I realised that my backwardness at school was due to being
dyslexic and not to being lazy. (that is my story and I am keeping to it)
Sion Hall.
Grandpa and Grandma Langlois and family
Marble statures in the background before grandma's boys painted them
Grandma Langlois was a bit of a dare devil in those days
My great grandmother, my grandmother, my aunt and my cousin,
are all called Desiree.
Grandma Langlois's coffee morning
Grandma and Grandpa with friends sunbathing on the dunes
I should explain a little about Sion Hall. My Grandfather Langlois bought it in the 1920's.
It was a very large house with many bedrooms, probably fifteen or more, and all the
rooms were very large with large windows looking out over the countryside.
Approaching it from the front, you would first notice the enormous pillars supporting the
balcony which ran its full length. I was told that, had you visited the house in the early
1930's, you would have seen four or five full size white marble statues of beautiful,
scantily dressed ladies near the main doors. My grandmother had them removed
because her four sons would not stop painting them. The building was divided into two
homes with us living on the left side and my Grandfather on the other. There were many
more rooms on my grandfather's side of which the most memorable was about fifty feet
long and twenty feet wide with a large open fireplace at one end surrounded by giant sized
arm chairs and huge sofas. In the centre there was a heavy, ornate black oak table that
opened out to nearly fourteen feet with matching chairs and sideboards and, at the other
end of the room, there was a full-sized billiard table with all its accessories, including
boxed-in overhead lamps. Against the wall, there was a rack holding many cues as
everyone in the family had their own. I remember that there were huge pictures and heavy
curtains. Grandma Langlois' favourite party trick, which greatly annoyed Grandpa Langlois,
was to persuade Buddy, the large St Bernard who weighed in at over two hundred
pounds, to jump up on the billiard table, lay on his back and have his tummy tickled. The
grandchildren loved that game. It is strange the memories that come back to you as you
grow older. As I write this, I remember the large, D-shaped fish pond filled with large,
white water lilies. Behind this there was a dark tunnel of rough stones. Inside it was
spooky, with the strange sound of water always dripping on to the stones, which I now
realize were lava rocks filtering the water before it returned to the pond. We none of us
ever dared go through it.
War Time Dances
Can you imagine a house with its own ballroom? At Sion Hall that was to be expected.
The huge room with a proper dance floor also had a long conservatory leading off it
which was filled with geraniums. During the occupation, not only those who lived nearby,
but people from all over the island came to the dances, which were held every two weeks.
The music came from either a wind-up gramophone or, better still, a live band, led by
Eric Harrison. The dances started fairly early in the evening as the dancers would have
to be back home before curfew at about nine o'clock Those people living a fair distance
from Sion Hall must have had difficulty dodging the German patrols if they left the dances
too late. I would sit on the window ledge three stories up, with my legs overhanging the
sill, waving to the people going home. It was some time before my parents found out what
I was doing, while my sisters were asleep in their beds. We were supposed to have had
a young woman looking after us while the dance was on but she must have joined them.
New tyres
I remember the time I painted my bicycle with old paint that I had found in a shed. I mixed
together a little out of each tin I found and it came out a sort of grey-pink. A couple of
weeks later I asked Grandpa Hodgetts, my sign writer grandfather, why the paint on my
newly-painted bicycle was still soft and sticky. He said that I should have mixed the paint
in the cans before using it and that I must have only used the top of the paint with the
linseed oil. He offered to repaint it but I said, "No thank you. I will wait for it to dry."
Grandpa smiled. He knew better. On another occasion, I remember my father putting new
tyres on my bicycle. They were made of rubber hose pipe which he wrapped around the
wheels, threading a length of thick wire through the hose and tightening it with a pair of
pliers to keep the tyres on. When I was on my it, I could count the number of times the
wheel turned because, each time, there was a small bump where there was a join in the hose.
Sion Hall had its own electricity plant-110 volts and the family had to be careful not to turn
on too many lights at one time to avoid burning out the complete system. The Lister single
cylinder engine had a large and very heavy flywheel and took two men to start it They
would crank up the starting handle into the right position, take a deep breath, shout GO
and swing that handle as fast as they could. It did not always start but, when it did, all the
lights that had been left on would come on as if it was daylight. No one was allowed in that
engine room and no one was allowed to smoke anywhere nearby.
When I peeped through the doorway one day, I saw rows of glass tanks with wires
going from one to the other. They made strange, fizzing sounds that puzzled me as I
could not understand what was going on. Even the clocks on the walls bore no
resemblance to those I saw in our house. What a mad world when you are young!
The fire.
One night we were over at grandpa's house with a few cousins, aunts and uncles having
a noisy party, as was usual when we were all together, when there was a loud banging
and shouting at the back door. Dad and Grandpa rushed outside, calling over their
shoulders: "Get out of the house! The shed is on fire.” Without any hesitation, Grandma
Langlois took charge as she did in any emergency, though not usually as worrying as this.
We were herded out of the house through the front door and into the garden, where she
made sure that we were all together. We could not stay there as huge lumps of burning
straw were blowing over the house and over our heads. We had to run across the road
and up into the field to get out of danger. The noise coming from the direction of the fire
was horrendous and it was difficult to hear anyone speaking.
The smell from the fire was unforgettable and indescribable. We must have sat for some
considerable time in that field by its light, when my father came across to tell us we
would not be able to go back into the house as there was a danger the sparks could set
it alight. We had to go up to Uncle Jim's farm at Val Poucin, about half a mile away
over the brow of the hill.
We spent two or three days with Uncle Jim and Aunt Dorrie who let us do whatever we
wanted. We had almost forgotten about the fire at Sion Hall until Dad came up to take
us back home. Although it was close to home, we had not been abl