AN insight into life at Kempsey in Victorian times, when it was "a very gay little place," was given in Berrow's Journal half-a-century ago.

The edition for this week of 1954 carried this report: "Life was gay in the village of Kempsey back in the 1870s - gayer, in fact, than it is today, if we accept the view of Mrs Butcher, one of the village's oldest inhabitants, who took part in the radio exchange of Christmas greetings between Kempsey and its namesake town in Australia.

"Mrs Butcher, who has spent all her life in the same house, says the Kempsey of her youth was a very different place from today, and she preferred those physically harsher but more carefree days.

"Her father came to live in Kempsey as a doctor in 1871 and rode out to his patients over a wide area, either on horseback or in a gig. Mrs Butcher says people back then made their own amusements with friends, going on picnics, donkey cart rides and enjoying tennis or croquet parties.

"Mrs Butcher recalls that Kempsey was 'a very gay little place' in those days. Everybody knew everybody else. The large houses were all occupied by private families.

"The Nash, a lovely old Elizabethan house, then belonged to Sir William Temple Bart., who came up from London three or four times a year, bringing with him members of the Government, artists and musicians, most of whom I met from time to time.

"One special dinner party I remember was held for all the rajahs from India, over in England for the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria. It was a very gorgeous affair - the rajahs all dressed in cloths of gold with precious stones.

"The one who took me in to dinner was festooned with diamonds and rubies.

"Back in the 1870s, school transport was unheard of, and Mrs Butcher says children thought nothing of walking several miles to school, carrying their mid-day meal, and then walking back home in the late afternoon.

"Mrs Butcher also gives her impression of Kempsey now - 'Since the war, everything has changed completely from a very gay little village to a very quiet one.

"Everybody has too much to do in their houses and gardens to have much time for visiting or giving parties or making new friends. And most of the large private houses have been turned into hotels or road houses.

"Mrs Butcher contends that there is 'just one gay spot in Kempsey nowadays' - the Village Hall."