CD1

(63 mins)
 

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BORN COMBE MARTIN 1918 / FAMILY BACKGROUND / FATHER'S MARKET GARDEN AND SMALLHOLDING / LIVING WITH GRANDPARENTS AT BERRYNARBOR / SIBLINGS / HERNIA

Recorded Friday 8 March 2002, Combe Martin.

AI was born in Combe Martin at the head of the village at Lavercombe on 23 October 1918. Her parents was Edwin Archibald Richards and Aimie, maiden name Knott. At that time, her father was market gardening and smallholding, few cows and took his produce to Ilfracombe to the market on a Saturday. He was fonder of gardening than he was of farming.

The market garden was where they lived. One of the greatest delights of her mother's life was when she could go and pick the asparagus from the garden. They lived there until 1921 when her father bought a farm at Kentisbury. Father grew quite a variety of things in the market garden and a few flowers. He also had small quantity of milk and cream. He had a stall at Ilfracombe market.

She left her parents when she was 6 weeks old and went to live with her grandparents at Berrynarbor at Hammonds Farm. She remained there until January 1929 when her grandfather died. She left her parents because she had hernia. Her grandmother thought that she could take her, care for her; she had a spinster daughter living at home. They were able to give her more time than her mother was. She would have gone back with her parents in the January of 1919; her father went to fetch her but her grandmother had just had news of the loss of her son who died of the flu in Mesopotamia (he was in the army). The old family doctor, Dr Manning, suggested that her father left her with her grandmother so she wouldn't feel she had lost 2 children.

She had 4 sisters and 1 brother. The eldest sister, Gwyneth Minah, then AI, Aimie Alvina, the next sister down, Joyce May, Audrey Diana and Mary Doreen, then the brother, Hugh Benjamin. The difference between eldest sister and AI, 18 months; Joyce and AI 13 months; Audrey and Joyce 14 months; Mary and Audrey 15 months and 5 years between Benjamin and Mary. All the other sisters stayed at home, very healthy. Audrey was the smallest of the family, but very healthy and very wiry.

For about 3 months, her grandma bound her around with a very tight binder into which she placed a crown and held it to keep the navel in. It was about 6 months before it was decided it was OK. She had to be fed every 2 hours. Grandma and the aunt took it in turns during the night to wake and feed her. [Back to top]
 

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VISITING PARENTS AT KENTISBURY / ADAPTING BACK HOME / GRANDPARENTS FARM / GRANDFATHER / CHURCH / COUSINS AT BERRYNARBOR

She visited her parents twice a year when she started school in holiday time. Prior to that she remembers going home once and seeing Audrey just after they moved into Seven Ash Farm at Kentisbury. Audrey would have been 12 months. Her aunt and grandma drove her there in what they termed a jingo, pony and jingo. That was the transport they used mostly until in later years they had cars.

She didn't see her sisters a lot. When she went home to live, seemed very strange because there were 4 sisters, they paired off in twos. They were all so adept at doing the various jobs around the farm, took her a long time to adapt. She had no idea of doing anything, couldn't even peel a potato. That caused a lot of ribbing from them especially when it came to milking a cow. Her father said he would teach her but she was terrified. He had got a very old Jersey cow and that was the only cow she ever learnt to milk. The thing that took her longest ever to get done was pluck a chicken. Joyce was very quick at everything and seemed to be able to do it all; that was a thorn in her flesh!

It was her father's parents she went to stay with. They were also farmers. The time she went with them, they had Aunt Audrey living at home, the spinster, and also Uncle Claude [?sp], not married. Uncle Claude took their milk into Ilfracombe every day to the dairy, Norman's Dairy down in St James' Place.  Grandfather was a great man for the village of Berrynarbor. He was a councillor on the Berrynarbor Council and also a district councillor. He had a great interest in his village and the church. He was a church warden for many, many years. She was brought up Church of England - church in the morning, Sunday school and church in the evening.

It took her 5 to 8 minutes to walk to the village school from Hammonds Farm. She also enjoyed the company of her cousins who lived at Barton Farm, Berrynarbor. The cousins were her father's brother's children; they lived 3 fields away from Hammonds. [Back to top]
 

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GRANDPARENTS / GRANDMOTHER'S GOOD WORK / RETURNING HOME / DEATH OF GRANDPARENTS

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She got on with her grandparents very well indeed. She adored them. Her grandmother died in the same year, the April, that she got married. She chose to get married on her grandmother's birthday, 19^th November. Her grandma was Minah and her grandfather was Benjamin. Her grandmother always did quite a lot of good work in the village. She had a great feeling for people that were ill. She would take her steam kettle with the long spout to visit people who suffered with asthma and things affecting the chest.

The farm at Hammonds had a big open fireplace. She could sit in the inglenook with the hams hanging to be smoked. Life was very, very pleasant. Grandmother was a great needlewoman. She made all AI's clothes. She made her a deepish mauve/purple velvet cloak with a pocket in the lining. She was so thrilled to wear that every Sunday to church. When they went to church, grandma always took a little tin of  'tiny black cushions '. As soon as she was in church, AI would cough. Grandmother would give her one of her sweets.

She never felt that she missed out on anything. Her life was totally different being there on her own. Grandma would take AI with her a lot of the times. Their social life was going out to tea to various neighbours, She was always taken with grandma. She loved meeting people; she was a great fan of Lee Hunt, a poet.

Her relationship with her parents was very good. The night her grandfather died, sheI was at Combe Martin visiting her Uncle Claude's in-laws. Her own mother's parents lived just opposite. Father, uncle, aunt, they were all at the hospital and AI was staying with Mr and Mrs Jewel for the evening. Father took her home that night to remain at home. She had very mixed feelings about that. She loved the school at Berrynarbor, very fond of the headmistress, Miss Veale. When she went to the village school at Kentisbury, she found another very kind lady, Mrs Simpson. She also helped AI tremendously.

Her grandmother was very sorry to lose her, but she thought it was as it should be at that age. AI used to go back and stay in the holidays. Grandmother would stay on the farm at Kentisbury. Grandma moved out of the farm and Uncle Claude moved in, so she was living a different life also. When grandmother died she was 87, in '49, so she would have been 67 when AI left her. Her grandfather died in '29, he was in his early 70's. He was taken ill round about the October/November time. Dr Hollinshead, who later became the doctor in Combe Martin, realised her grandfather was suffering with cancer. He was in the hospital for 2 weeks before he died. She recalls grandma and aunt going to the hospital to visit and leaving her with her grandfather's sister, Aunt Edie Hancock, in Ilfracombe. [Back to top]
 

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TREATMENT OF GRANDCHILDREN / BOOKS / ADJUSTING TO KENTISBURY / FARMHOUSE AND BEDROOMS

Grandmother treated the 5 granddaughters and 1 grandson equally, never made any distinction, a very good thing; it would have made it bad for AI. She had a feeling there was a little jealousy because of the life and she would boast a little.

AI had a lot of her clothes sent on but a lot of her books, which she treasured, were left at Hammonds Farm. She wasn't one for dolls, but she was very sorry about the books. She never saw those again.

Benjamin was already born (in '27) when she went to Kentisbury. She felt for a long time that she was a person looking in on somebody else's life. It took her quite a while to get into the way of the life at Kentisbury. For one thing, they had a long walk to school there, a mile and a half. They stayed at school for their lunches, took their sandwiches. Those little things seemed so strange. Maybe because she was a lazy person and always has been. She likes the easiest way.

She shared a room with one of her sisters. Her mother was very farseeing about that. First night staying home, she shared a bed with Joyce. After that, she shared a bedroom but had a single bed on her own. 2 sisters shared a room and 2 shared a room with AI in a double bed. The house was the old type of long farmhouse. 4 bedrooms and 1 bedroom led into another. She had the largest room in the house. Benjamin was in a single bed in the same room as the other 2 sisters until he got older. [Back to top]
 

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CLOTHES AT KENTISBURY / DISAGREEMENTS WITH FATHER / FATHER'S MILK ROUND

When she got to Kentisbury, her clothes were totally different because her grandmother had made most of them. Her mother soon dressed her in the same clothes as her sisters. She didn't miss her old clothes.

She didn't always agree with her father and would contradict him. Her father had 2 workmen on the farm. When they sat at the meal table, 6 children, Mum and Dad and the 2 workmen, they never spoke much because father held sway. If he said something that she thought wasn't quite in line, she would say. That sometimes created a little argument. Understood each other in the end. He would get cross more by looks than maybe words. She knew when it was time to shut-up! He sort of admired her spirit.

She used to help him on the milk round in the village. At one time he took his milk straight to the Huxtable's Dairy. Eventually he had a milk round of his own and the girls helped him of weekends. He used to send AI in to collect the money; she wouldn't leave the house until she got it. Sometimes it was difficult; she tried not to be rude. Several people in the village she would talk to. [Back to top]
 

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VILLAGE SCHOOLS / TENNIS / MRS SIMPSON / EVENING VISITS TO MRS SIMPSON / DISCUSSIONS

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She left Kentisbury School at 14. Berrynarbor and Kentisbury were both very good for village schools, but it took her a little while to get into the different way. There was a difference. Mrs Simpson (Kentisbury) asked them if they would like to learn how to play tennis; they had just moved into the new school, opened in the March 1929. Only a rough playground at the old school. At the new school, had the asphalt one. Boys marked out a tennis court. For a while, just a piece of string across for the net. She got the boys in the woodwork to make solid wooden racquets. She taught them the scoring. That was the type of thing that Mrs Simpson was interested in for the village school. It wasn't all the 3 R's. AI thinks that was the thing that was the difference between the 2 village schools. Mrs Simpson opened another sort of world for her. She invited them down to her home of an evening and talk with them, especially about books, which was great.

During wartime, She came home from Luton [where she was working in a munitions factory] for the Christmas holiday. Mrs Simpson still living at Kentisbury. She had a lady with whom AI had great dealings at Berrynarbor, Mrs Kingston. Mrs Simpson and Mrs Kingston were living down at Sandpark (now the petrol station and also the post office). She walked down to see them. They were so delighted. She told the 2 elderly ladies of her experience of working with Vauxhall Motors. In later years Mrs Simpson went to Combe Martin in a flat and AI used to visit her.

When they went down to her house in the evenings, there were about 6 of them, all girls. She doesn't recall her sisters going. One girl, Rita, who spent a lot of time with her grandmother, used to walk down with AI. She was a fairly near neighbour of AI's father. Another girl walked in quite a distance, Kathleen. There was also Norah, who lived just over in Patchole. One other girl, Ina. Met there mostly in the wintertime about once a month. Great discussions, laughed and talked about various things. Mrs Simpson would never teach them, she would want them to talk to her. AI's was mostly books and poetry. One girl in particular would talk about farm life. Another one would talk about knitting. They took every subject they could possibly think of into the evening, just on a friendly level. [Back to top]
 

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READING / FATHER AND GARDENING / THE FARM

AI would not talk about knitting or sewing [laughs]. Not her life at all. She was lazy. Reading, writing, she likes to write letters. Her father was a great reader. He read Shakespeare, Charles Dickens. When she was 13, he bought her Arthur Mee's encyclopaedias. He bought Dickens books, she read every one of those. She is the only one in their family that enjoys reading a book. Mother said she had only read 1 book through the whole of her life, The Wide, Wide World. Sad story, AI did read it.

Her mother was always working. Her father was more of a market gardener than a farmer. He loved gardening. His recreation after a day's work on the farm was to work in his garden. AI hates gardening. Father did not like poultry; mother reared the turkeys, geese, chicken, ducks. She can't remember her father ever killing a chicken, he did not enjoy that part of it at all. One of the workmen would do it.

Her sister Audrey was the one that remained on the farm and worked all her life until she was married. They had to have a horse put down. Audrey went out and held the reins while the gentleman did it. Father could never stand to see animals slaughtered. He wasn't a natural farmer. After AI had left school, he would have liked her to remain at home, but she didn't like farming. She didn't like the mud or the hard work, so she went down into Combe Martin in a grocery shop. [Back to top]
 

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FARM WORKERS / TOM / VILLAGE LIFE

The 2 farm workers lived in the farm for quite a few years. When her brother got old enough, her father just had 1 lad living in. Then he had casual labour, by the day. Father had boys for a while from Wales from an orphanage. One in particular was very nice. Being Welsh, he was very musical. He played the cornet in the Combe Martin band. He was such a delightful person. Tom, the lad's name was. He had a 10 shilling note for playing in the Hall from Mrs Snell at Higher Leigh, very well to do people at the edge of the village. Tom was more interested in gardening so he left the farm and went as a gardener.

When he was in the house, they shared everything. Mother looked after the boys that went to work. A man in the village was employed by her father from the day he left school; he remained there for many, many years.

People in a village had to know how to make the best of everything. It was a way of life you have to learn from experience. She admires village people. In some respects it is a sort of backward way of life but you've got to know how to live. It shows courage and character. [Back to top]