Eastsider News wants to share the beautifully written and evocative articles that Surrey Hills resident, Gill Bell has written about her experiences of living in this pleasant suburb with its tree lined streets and its strong community spirit.
Thank you Gill, for these lovely pieces. To read Gill’s account of the family’s day trip to Kallista, go here.
To find out more about Surrey Hills and its history, we suggest you go to the following websites:
Elegy for an era
Gill and the old Surrey Hills station ca 1971
Gill Bell
The magpies are warbling their delicious song as I step out of the shade of the trees lining Windsor Crescent into the joyful brightness of a summer morning. It is my last year at school, and this place and I are on the cusp of change.
In the small park the oak leaves are still a soft green, and the tender grass has not yet been dried by summer heat. The air is fresh, but there is the heady hint of warmth to come.
I settle on to a seat and the morning wraps me round. I hear the distant breath of the city, which sounds like a giant mother hushing her baby to sleep.
‘Husssh,’ she says.
This park by the station is a magic place. This is the beating heart of Surrey Hills.
To read more of this piece, please click here.
Growing up in Surrey Hills: Summer
Craig children at Rye late 1950s with friend Glenys (left). Gill kneeling
Gill Bell
To be once more a little child
For one bright summer day. Lewis Carroll
The summer air was already warm when I tiptoed out of the bedroom I shared with my brother and sister and made my way outside. Bees were buzzing about the flowering bean plants and the white clover on the lawn. My bare feet tingled with the remembered pain of a recent sting.
The summer garden was heavy with fruit. The blood plums hung like Christmas baubles on the gnarled plum tree, and figs were slowly turning purple with the promise of sweetness. The hens crooned softly in their cages.
To read more of this article, please click here.
Craig family outside 13 Sherwood Rd Surrey Hills. Left to right: Harry, Cliff, Mary, Walter, Effie, Hector.
Hector’s first day at work
Gill Bell
It is a bright Monday morning on 3rd January 1938, and sixteen-year-old Hector Craig is preparing for his first day at work at Challingsworth steelworks in Richmond. He is a slender but muscular lad, good at sports, winning a silver cup for running at the school sports the previous year. He has wavy brown hair and a shy smile. Hec is nervous, but his father Walter who will accompany him this morning is calm. He is already a veteran of almost twenty-seven years at Challingsworth as boilermaker and foreman.
Mary, Hec’s mother, hands them their brown paper bags of sandwiches. Walter claps his grey felt hat on his head, and together they set off. The large oak tree in the front garden waves a wistful goodbye to Hec’s childhood.
Growing up in Surrey Hills – A Winter’s Day
Gill Bell
I floated up from a dream to the sound of the milkman’s horse clopping its way along the street. There was the familiar clink of our six daily pints of milk. I drifted back to sleep and woke again to the sound of my older sister practising scales on the piano. It was 7 am on a freezing July morning in the nineteen fifties.
I made a shivering dash to the outdoors toilet. The backyard was carpeted in white frost and the chooks crooned softly in their cages as they scratched in the dirt. The water bowl of Gus, our black and white cocker spaniel, was covered with a thick sheet of ice.
To read more, please click here.
Canterbury Sports Ground in winter fog
Growing up in Surrey Hills – Spring
Gill Bell
In the magical sphere of my memory, I step into the spring garden of my childhood. The pittosporum hedge at the front puts out clusters of creamy yellow blossoms which give off an intoxicating scent as I brush past them. The quince tree by the gate reaches out branches decked with blossoms of palest pink. Beside the driveway the silver birch bears tender new shoots, while the majestic oak tree unfurls soft leaves of freshest green. The air is filled with the scent of spring and the promise of warmth to come.
In the back garden the fruit trees burst into flower. There are apricot, peach and apple trees, but the queen of them all is the gnarled old blood plum tree, which bears branches of sumptuous white blossoms
To read more, please click here.