DERBY DAY

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Win Hilling. Stories for my Grandchildren

DERBY DAY

1919
When I was seven or eight years old we lived in Wimbledon, England in premises behind our shop which was on a busy main road.

Derby Day was always exciting. Shops closed early and crowds took up positions in front of the shops, waiting to see the traps and other horse driven vehicles return from the Derby racing at Epsom. The people driving by were dressed for the occasion. The fashion-conscious were in their large beautiful hats and elegant clothes, some with soft feather marabous or shawls around their shoulders, while others were in fancy dress. Loud oohs and aahs were accompanied by much clapping as each vehicle passed.

For about two hours more and more horse driven vehicles passed and it was easy to see which folk had been lucky and had won money, although they all enjoyed the fun. Children on the path were shouting “Throw out your mouldy coppers!’’ A penny in those days would buy a bar of chocolate, and some of them gathered a good amount by the end of the day.

My sister and I were sat on chairs at the back of the crowd outside our shop. No coppers came our way until toward the end of the day when a whole lot of coppers fell all around us. We did not realise as we happily scrambled for them that they were thrown by our parents who were sitting behind us! Derby Day was always a very happy and exciting time when we met many friends and enjoyed all the activity and fun.

I remember one Derby Day when we were sitting in the school playground in the morning and we saw our elder sister Violet arrive. She told us that dad had decided to take us to our farm for the day and because the roads would be busy and difficult to cross Violet had been sent to look after us. So we happily left school early.

The next day at school we were told to go and see the headmistress who gave us a scathing lecture for leaving the school without permission. Her final words were, “I wonder your parents don’t wrap the two of you in cotton wool!”

Our father received this information with indignation and wanted to see the headmistress to tell her what he thought of her lecture. Mother managed to change his mind as she thought that a visit from our irate dad would probably make matters worse for us. She was probably right!