Lived: Winsford, Dulverton, Minehead
Recording made: 2001
Length of recording: 4 hrs 3 mins
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KEN BAKER
Born:
Winsford,
Somerset, 1907
Lived:
Winsford,
Dulverton, Minehead
Recording made: 2001
Length of recording: 4 hrs 3 mins
To read a summary of the contents of the oral history recordings click CD1, CD2, CD3 or CD4.
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Ken Baker was a boy at the time of World War 1 and remembers horses training on Winsford Hill. Soldiers rode through the village blowing their trumpets and Mr Dicker, the schoolmaster, read the war news to them every morning. With his father away in the Royal Engineers, he learnt to milk a cow, crying because the bucket was too heavy.
After school he had a variety of jobs as gardener/chauffeur/butler, driving once from Torquay to Stroud to collect some flowers for a boss who had three cars and 11 houses. He loved waiting on tables.
He was a transport driver in the war, ferrying bombs and petrol down the line. Back in Minehead he worked for the council for 24 years and then for Derek Merson at the Metropole Garage. He was fit years ago, he says, and roamed the hills, running for miles following the hunt. He finally retired at 90. His Morris Traveller, 34 years old, has 77,000 miles on the clock.
postscript - Ken Baker died in March 2003