From Joan's memoirs:

I think this might be a good point to mention my holidays at Stow with my Aunt and Uncle and cousin Marjorie. During the school summer break most years we'd all go to Norfolk, and stay about a week,then mum,Dad and Ray would go home and leave me there for two or three weeks. I looked on my stay as a little time in Paradise.

My Uncle worked as a gardener for the Hare family at Stow Hall, as well as being the village postman. My Uncle and Aunt kept theStow Post Office which they ran as a General Store, selling groceries, sweets, cigarettes etc. Sometimes I was allowed to weigh up the sugar from big sacks and put 1lb in each of the bags. They led what might have seemed (to me,from London) a slow, uneventful life. Not so. I loved them both dearly and Marjorie (exactly 3 years my senior-same birthday) and I got on exceptionally well together.

They had a small cottage.Two rooms downstairs, one of which was used for the shop, and two bedrooms upstairs. There was a pump outside the back door, and a cold water tap. Also a large wash-house. No flush toilet. A privy was down the garden, screened by climbing plants. The privy had two wooden seats side by side-one normal size and one small size. I remember my Uncle had to periodically dig out the accumulated "waste" and bury it in the huge garden they had. No wonder the veg garden was so prolific!!

There was no elctricity laid on at Stow at that time. An oil lamp with a glass funnel was the means of lighting downstairs. The wick had to be kept trimmed,(I can't remember how often) which meant the edge which was blackened by the flame had to be trimmed off and a little more wick rolled up. It was never lit until it was too dark to see,then once the glass funnel was placed on top it gave out a lovely mellow light from where it stood in the middle of the table.

Candles,in metal candle holders were used upstairs.I was never allowed to carry the candle upstairs,and Marjorie had to put it her side of the bed. There was a door leading out of the downstairs room straight on to the staircase, a po was kept under the bed. There was a wash-stand with a large flowered earthenware bowl and a large jug to match which held silky soft pump water. We washed there every morning (cold water).

There was a feather mattress on the double bed which Marjorie and I shared.It was like climbing Mount Everest to get into bed, and the soft, billowy feather mattress puffed up around you as you sank into its depths. Heaven! An owl sometimes perched on the wash-house roof at night and tu-witted us to sleep.

Uncle Albert had fixed up a swing to a branch of the apple tree in the garden, and Marjorie and I took it in turns to swing.

My Aunt was tiny,moved like quicksilver,and had a tongue to match.No doubt about it, she liked to know what was going on and she usually did, via the shop. She said what she thought and shamed the devil(as she said).But her interest extended to her husband, daughter and me. I could tell her anything,ask her anything,even tease her and laugh at her.She was on my side and I always got a straight answer or opinion.She used to say I was a second daughter to her.

We went for walks every Sunday with their dog Bess. Bess was there all through my childhood,and had to be put to sleep when she was 17.(I was 3 years older than Bess). My Aunt packed up picnics for Marjorie and I. We visited other relatives at Stow and Downham. They bought me some wool and helped me knit my first jumper.We gathered mushrooms and wild flowers. I must have spent the autumns there because we gathered chestnuts from the trees in the Hall grounds.

My Grandfather then worked as horseman at a local farm until he was well over seventy. We went to the farm and took him his bait(cold tea,cheese,onion and a great hunk of bread)......