- Douglas Howells (Redwick)
Douglas (Emma Drabble)
“Redwick, it’s too posh now. Too many electric gates,” reckons Doug reflecting on how social change has affected the Levels.
Brought up in a village where family ties were strong, Doug remembers the days when his nan, Beatrice Parker, ran the village store.
“It was just a little country shop: sweets, tea, sugar, cakes, tomatoes from the greenhouse, a bit of fruit and potatoes. There was a counter on the left in the front room with a fridge and all the ice cream in. The shop was open all through the day. She’d sit in the back room and the bell would ring and she would go to the counter in the front room. It wasn’t very big - I don’t expect she made a lot.”
Doug’s father, railwayman John Howells, rose from signal man to fireman earning enough to buy a caravan for family holidays and a Sunbeam to tow it: “£125 for his car in 1957 - a lot of money then!”
Doug spent summer school holidays haymaking for the local farmer, and winters, when the reen by the house froze, skating on the ice - “no skates, just ordinary shoes, like.” Doug did his paper round from his nan’s shop: “People would be in their houses, their doors always open.”
