‘The
Nottingham Knockers’
My wife defended her decision to feed a hungry lad no matter who it was, it’s always been in her nature to help those who in need, and feed anybody be it animal or human who is hungry, she had always done it, and it’s always been appreciated.
In
our farm house I can never remember our back door ever being locked or bolted, on
the front door there was a key hole and a key, and it had two strong bolts on
the inside as well, then there was the side door, to which most folk came and
knocked when they called which again had a similar set up. But the back, back
door was the one where we always used to go in and out of to work and back in
with boots and dirty working clothes that could be taken off at that point to
go into the house proper for meal times and a rest. That door only had one big
bolt on the inside that was never used and the old conventional thumb latch
that most doors had in them days.
 |
| This big old bolt has been used in more recent years |
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| The old thumb latch the part that you press with ya thumb and goes through the door is missing |
We
did have folk calling wanting to pick up scrap iron, and also there was a
market for empty hessian sacks that had been used for different feed stuffs for
the cattle. It got that you sort of trusted some of them who called regular,
but there were others who called who were positively not trustworthy. They had
eyes everywhere, looking in the tool shed, and round the corners of buildings
to see what we were hiding, you never knew if they would be back that night
after dark thieving.
This
was where the local bobby came to the fore, the policeman used to ride round
quietly on his bike at night, and if he had had a tip off, would watch and keep
a look out for anyone who he did not know and tackle them if they had gone into
the farm buildings or gate.
Nowadays
the police are more mobile and in marked cars, and drive through the different
villages and do not make contact with the residents, and do not know who they
supposed to be caring for.
So
we now have a neighbourhood watch system in place for the police control centre
to give an early warning to a couple of folk in each village, who then will
ring round the neighbours warning of criminals or suspicious folk who is active
in the local district.
We
always make a note of the number plate of any strange van or car driving
through very slowly just in case it is a criminal, more often than not it’s
quite an innocent person just lost, but ya conna be too careful nowadays.
One
such warning came and the news got round just a bit too late, and that there was
of a gang of three touting small household goods door to door. It said that
while one is keeping you talking at the front door the other one is walking
round to the back door to go in to steal anything they can get their hands on.
On this day we had a knock on our front door while we sat having a cup of tea
at 3pm before we started our evening feeding of the stock.
My
wife went and answered the door, which was way down the other side if the
house, to be confronted by a dishevelled looking young chap, in her words
looking hungry and tired, he was selling kitchen cloths and towels and other
small plastic kitchen gadgets, she felt sorry for him and bought a few items
which were of very poor quality in relation to the price she paid. (In my words
there’s one born every minute) , then she appeared back in the kitchen (we
could not hear what was going on) and
dug out a can of coke and cut a couple of big slices of cake that we had been
eating and took it to feed the young man at the door.
Then
on the evening local new came a warning to watch out for the “Nottingham
Knockers” a gang of three men were working their way around the midlands area,
it said they would keep you talking at the front door while the other two would
be robbing you through the back door. It went on to say, do not confront these
men, just report it to the police and then they would then know where they were
working and arrest them.
It
seemed that we had had the “Nottingham Knockers” knocking on our door, but at
our house there were two or three strong farm workmen and lads having a cup of
tea in the kitchen, so the second part of their ploy would not work. To his
credit, the chap/lad who did knock the front door got a drink and was well fed,
it just goes to show how careful you have got to be with some of these
criminals.
In
the meantime my wife defended her decision to feed a hungry lad no matter who
it was, it’s always been in her nature to help those who in need, and feed
anybody be it animal or human who is hungry, she had always done it, and it’s
always been appreciated. He had been telling her of his hardship of just having
been let out of prison and trying to make a living selling door to door just
enough to buy his food and clothing. They had chatted for a good ten minutes
whilst he ate his cake, then politely said thank you to her and left.
But
it got a good laugh in our house when the announcement came on the news about
these “Nottingham Knockers” and the fact that Eileen had been ‘watering and
feeding’ them, and we pondered as to what the next nights news might have been if we
reported that they had got well fed in our village.
As a foot note Nottingham is about 40
miles north east of where we live, and these criminals were known in the
Nottingham area for how they worked, and had widened out to new areas to where
they were not known.
Owd Fred
