Corsham

My other memories of Corsham are that I was friends with most of the children in the cul-de-sac. The family opposite us on the road were the Philpotts, they had a boy about my age called Paul. The family next to us had a slightly older boy who seemed very intelligent and at the bowl of the cul-de-sac was Peter (I think). We played in each other's gardens, along the footpath by the cow field and on the clay bank at the end of our garden.
The game foremost in my memory was only played once. At the entrance to the Close are two grass covered banks rising from the pavement to the hight of some back gardens. We thought it was a great idea for some of us to hide in the grass shooting pretend guns onto a fearless few left behind at the bottom of the bank. This was going well until someone had the bright idea of using large stones found at the bottom of the bank as grenades. These were duly lobbed in a high parabola to land vertically near the intended victim. Unfortunately for me, I moved and a sizeable stone cut my forehead around the hairline. My parents were met by apologetic children and a son with blood pouring down his face.
On another occasion it was so cold that the water trough in the cow field had frozen. I don't know why I decided to try and tap dance on it, but I did and of course, the ice broke, leaving me waist deep in very cold water.
I don't know if we were trespassing or not, but my father would occasionally take us for a walk around these fields , on one occasion I learnt about Scotch mist (a light ground fog that appears constantly at a distance and that dissipates before you can walk through it).
The earth bank at the end of our back garden was mostly mud. At the time I didn't know why it was there, during my last visit, I found that it now holds a road. Interspersed in the mud were strips of silver grey clay. These strips proved to be wonderful slides, however the down side of this adventure was that my trousers would become covered in the clay. I expect this was very hard to wash out and also I seem to remember it may have been the end of one washing machine. I am sure that on at least one occasion I was in trouble for using one of these slide whilst being prohibited to do so.
At the end of that new road is the entrance to Box Tunnel, part of the main railway line from London to Bath. Sometimes Dad took us for a walk to the tunnel entrance, sometimes along a small road that ran towards an army base on top of it. I remember investigating one or two pill boxes (small cement fortifications to position a machine gun) along that road and a football pitch. I also remember structures built to allow smoke to escape the tunnel.
Somewhere between there and the Close was a small forest, I think there was a footpath from there alongside the cow field and further into other housing developments. I remember having a toy pistol that could be loaded with bits of potato propelled by caps. I shot my sister with that gun on that path and got into trouble for that.
I had a bike from about the age of three, so by the age of six, I must have been a competent cyclist. So that explains my confidence to ride a bike much larger than myself, then falling off and having to be taken to hospital after hitting my head.
I went to a school that seemed to be the other side of town. I can still clearly remember the walk there. Out of the Close, through a subway under a main road, along a path overlooking more houses being built, over a smaller road, through a cycle path between some terrace houses, left turn up the hill past these houses and right turn would eventually bring you out on a main road opposite the school. I think the school had flints built into its walls and consisted of an infants and juniors school. I remember my first girlfriend was Clare Bailey. Though mostly I remember the drawer that she kept her pens and pencils in. I remember one year it was so cold the playground froze into one sheet of ice. I remember that our classroom was opposite the assembly hall and that the other side of the hall was a road which needed to be crossed in order to get to the school playing fields.