Country life in the 1920s

12:10pm Thursday 8th February 2007

Nowadays, the poor of Oxfordshire are concentrated in its towns, particularly Oxford and Banbury. But only a generation ago, it was the villages that were poor and backward, with no electricity or sewerage, writes Maggie Hartford.

In Carrier's Cart To Oxford (Wychwood Press, £10), Mildred Masheder describes her 1920s childhood in Elsfield. It was just a couple of miles from Oxford, but a completely different world.

As a farmer's daughter, she was a cut above the rest of the village children, but was allowed to roam free with them, playing elaborate games in the fields, woods and farm buildings. Even so, trips away from the village were a rare treat, and it is difficult for us now to understand how isolated the villagers were.

Since her father could afford the fee to send her to Milham Ford School, plus a bicycle, she was separated from her childhood friends. She says: "My step up this ladder was greatly marred for me by the fact that I was alienated from my former playmates.

"A gap of nearly 70 years went by before I contacted them to help me with this book and so an old wound was finally healed."

The book is available from the Wychwood Press, Alder House, Market Street, Charlbury, OX7 3PH, tel 01689 870437, or from the author at 75 Belsize Lane, London, NW3 5AU, or by email from sales @positivechildhood.net.