CD1

(58 mins)
 

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BORN EDBROOKE, WINSFORD 1913 / FAMILY BACKGROUND / LYDDON FAMILY / EDBROOKE

[recorded 21.7.1994. This recording was made as part of an exhibition in Winsford village hall, celebrating the centenary of the parish council, for which Fanny Jenkins provided a number of old photographs of Edbrooke].

Her parents were John and Annie Bale. They lived at Edbrooke. Her grandmother had lived there. She was cook to the Lyddon family. Grandfather looked after 3 horses and was stable boy for the Lyddons.

Her mother became cook for the Lyddon family, but for a niece or something, at Crediton, called Mrs Norrish. When her grandparents married the Lyddons them move into Howetown Farm. Then Mother married Father and they had a son called John, on Coronation day, so they called him John George Dale. Ann Le Bas' grandfather sent him a mug. FJ was born in 1913. The nurse at that time had married mother's eldest brother, so there was no nurse. Tom Sully, a young man living in, had to take the pony and trap to collect a niece from Exford.

She was born at Edbrooke. In those days it was thatched. The Lyddons owned quite a few farms. Upcott, Howetown, Hue Hill [?sp], and Coppleham. Edbrooke was called the Manor Farm. The Lyddons were landowners like the Aclands, in a small way. That's why there's a tablet in the church, in memory of them. Everybody had their own seats. The Edbrooke seats were the 3 under the tablet, 'In memory of the Lyddon family, who were landowners in the parish, at Edbrooke, for 300 years'. Edbrooke was the main house of the Lyddon family [refers to photo of Lyddon nieces].

Her father came there in 1905/6 from Brendon. There were 2 aunts, Maud's [Maud Bale, now Harding, a fellow contributor to the archive] father, an uncle, his parents and Granny and Grandfather. Quite a lot of them. They all had to work quite hard. It was a little agricultural farm, 150/180 acres. Everything was done there. They made their own beer and cider. They had an orchard and press and everything. [Back to top]
 

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FATHER'S VOICE / GRINDING CORN / FARM ACTIVITIES / WATERWHEEL

Her father had a wonderful voice. That's how she knew a lot of the old songs as she and her brother would go out with him in the evening, which was when he was able to use the water wheel, to grind the grain for the cattle. He sung as he ground the grain. The pond was half way up to Yellowcombe and everything had to be done full speed ahead before it ran out.

They had their own corn. One of the pictures [in the exhibition] is where she was taking lunch up to the men in 'pig's nose' field, in a big market basket. Edbrooke Hill was very rough then. It took 3 horses with a putt to get the manure up there. It was hard work, but people enjoyed it.

Father cut the grass with a mowing machine [clock chimes]. They had a big hay shed the other side of the road, near the waterwheel. It's been turned into houses now. There was always plenty of fodder for the cattle in the winter. Father had pure Devons. He sold 3 or 4 bullocks for £10 each. [Back to top]
 

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EDBROOKE KITCHEN / HAYMAKING AND HARVEST / ROOK SHOOTING PARTIES / SHEARING PARTIES / SINGING

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Mother baked bread. They had an open fireplace. They had another kitchen, a top kitchen, with an Eagle range. There is a picture [in the exhibition] of FJ sitting in the bottom kitchen, now the Godsals' lounge. People always came to help with haymaking and harvesting. Mother cooked a big ham. The men and boys came in from the village. Victor Langdon, Reg Steer, Leonard Gardner and Harold. They were all there. They had a picnic in the hayfield. She was 12, 14. Her brother was 2½  years older.

They used to have a rook shooting party in May, organised by Squire Everard's keeper. There's a photograph of that, with Alma [Tunstall, née Gardner, fellow contributor to archive], with a little dog. The rooks were tied up in sixes and given to people. you can only use the breast. They didn't like them. When they killed chicken, they would knock them on the head and bleed them over the bridge. Eels would smell the blood and come out. That was in May.

June was shearing. Shearing parties were organised with friends from different farms. Their day was 18 June. Maud's father at Torre was the 20^th, Mr Milton's the 22^nd,  she thinks. The last day was Mr Fred Stevens over at Higher House. After they'd had the last drink in the barn for good health to the flock they had a meal in the dining room. There was a big table, which opened out to seat 20. Mr Fred Stevens was the chairman, and he organised who had to sing a song, say a piece of poetry or give a joke of some sort. This went on until 12 o'clock at night. She remembers Maud and she went over to Mr Milton's shearing party. Maud's father hadn't got a very good voice, but he and Mr Stevens, who lived at Gunns Farm at Luckwell Bridge at that time, sand 'Old folks at home'. [Back to top]
 

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FATHER'S SINGING / SINGING AT OARE MANOR / 'THE FOX OF BRENDON HILL' / SQUIRE'S DINNER / BROTHER'S ACCIDENT / FATHER'S RETIREMENT / MR MILTON

Her father had a wonderful voice. When he was young at Brendon, theatrical people came to stay at the Staghunters and offered him £30 a week to go and sing in London on the stage. He didn't go. It was no effort to him to give a speech or sing a song. Her mother sang, but not the same. No, they didn't have musical evenings. The squire had 15 farms then and would give dinner for his tenants at the Rock, as it was then, in Bridgetown. They all performed afterwards. When he was young, at Brendon, and Colonel Snow at Oare Manor asked him to sing to his parties at Christmas, the Miss Chanters, 2 teachers, made up 'The fox of Brendon Hill', and brought in all these people's names, of the farms. Squire Everard asked him to do the same thing.

Unfortunately she hasn't got the song. She hadn't got the heart to ask her father for it when he was ill. Unfortunately her brother got killed when a workman felled a tree. He was 21, she 19. Father was in bed with lumbago. He jumped out and didn't feel it again for 5 years. At the same time Maud Barwick's [wife of Walter, a fellow contributor to the archive] brother had galloping consumption and died in a week. Her brother was killed on Saturday, Maud Barwick's brother died on Sunday and the old man who was the shoeing smith died the next day. Father was 74 when he died, 69 when her brother was killed.

After that her father gave up and bought a little cottage at Luckwell Bridge. Mr Milton, their lifelong friend, was in Edbrook Farm at Luckwell Bridge. They retired the same year and were looking at each other across the valley. [Back to top]
 

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SCHOOL / BAKERS / COBBLER / WALKING TO SCHOOL / WORKING AT HOME / HOME LIFE / MUSICAL / VISITORS / CREAM / MEETING TRAINS

She went to Winsford school with Maud Harding [then Bale]. Miss Baker and her parents were at the shop. There was a bread baker than. Miss Lyle, a cousin of Miss Baker's, lived in Dunster and ran the bakers shop there. She brought bread to Winsford. Miss King's house [opposite post office] was bread bakers shop. There was a cobbler, where Walter Barwick lives now [Oaks Cottage]. She fancies he was called White. She remembers going there as a girl to get her boots mended.

Yes, she enjoyed her schooldays. They were all happy together. Children together. The Blackmore girls, twins, were at Coppleham. They'd come to Edbrooke and they'd all walk together. Cyril Wyatt and Alec Phillips, from Exton, came along the same way. Then there was Molly Sellick, from Week, she'd come down Week Lane. There was the Needses at Mousehanger. They walked a long way, the other side of Leigh Farm. They'd all go along together, and she remembers in the Autumn they'd rustle through the leaves. They were all happy together because it was a simple life, and they made their own fun in those days.

Yes, she worked at home as well, all the time. Milking cows, feeding pigs. They played draughts in the evening. Or her father would sing. They had a piano. She still has it. She was musical.

The took in a lot of visitors. £2 a week. They had a mile of fishing rights. If they made £5 a season it was quite a thing. They always took visitors, from before she was born [refers to exhibition photos]. Everybody took visitors. It was entirely different in those days. People used to like to be waited on, and they had their own cream. Cream was made in big pans, and skimmed off. Visitors came to Dulverton station. Her grandfather at Howtown had a horse and trap and he'd fetch them from the station. Other people did too. There was a chassis up at Karslake as well in those days, and possibly others. There's photographs of her grandfather with his trap. [Back to top]
 

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DADDS AND BEVIN FAMILIES / ERNEST BEVIN / EDBROOKE HOSPITALITY / ORCHARDS / APPLES / CIDER MAKING / THE EVERARD FAMILY / EDBROOKE NOW

The Dadds family were a wonderful family in the village. They lived where the post office and shop is now. They were Methodists, and the chapel was built there. But the old chapel is where the craft shop is now. It was thatched. That's where Ernest Bevin had his first Sunday school. Her mother went to Sunday school at the same time. His brother and wife have stayed with FJ at Karslake [guesthouse]. The Bevins were a wonderful family. Father Bevin was a tailor. He had a little shop and as you opened the door there was another door inside, and his shop was inside, where he did his work. She thinks Jim Dadds, down there, was something to do with tailoring as well, unless it was boots. They loved to play cards together, Mr Bevin and Mr Dadds.

[BJ asks about story of Ernest Bevin being born in a different house] Oh yes. She's got the photographs. She's let the parish council have them to copy. There's a photograph of the little house, which is where George Strickland's garage is now, where he was actually born. The house that's got the plaque on, apparently he went there when he was about 2 years old. That's what she's been told. His mother worked at the Royal Oak. The Bevins were a wonderful family. Old-fashioned, but very well liked. They used to come to Edbrooke.

Everybody called at Edbrooke. Her mother made farmhouse cake, bread and cream, and blackcurrant or gooseberry jam, because that was they only 2 things they had. [BJ asks about orchards] It's such a pity orchards have been let down now. There were some beautiful apples in that orchard just beyond the council houses now, before you get to Edbrooke. There was Tom Podds. They were lovely at Christmas time, and would go all red. And there was a lovely tree of Bramleys, which they used to make apple dumplings out of.

They had a cider press at Edbrooke. There's a lawn there now. They didn't always have a good crop of apples mind. They always made cider. They had little firkins. She remembers taking firkins of cider on horseback up to the men working in Pig's Nose, to 10 acres up there, and 7 acres at the top of Edbrooke Hill.. They made it for home consumption. They very often had it mid-morning, because people used to  have what they called lunch, then they'd call midday 'dinner'. and then supper. So they'd have a glass of cider. She doesn't know that she ever had much of it. It's a bit acidy.

[BJ asks what happened to the cider making equipment] Well, unfortunately Squire Everard lost his 2 sons and son-in-law in the first world war. It wiped the whole lot out. He had a grandson. They used to call him Master Dick, he was a nice young gentleman, the same age as FJ. They used to measure the two of them by the door at Edbrooke, but he got very much taller. And he got killed in this war [second world war]. So it's all very sad. And then the son, Christopher Thomas Everard, hasn't got the same interest, and he's sold up so much of it. That's why all the buildings at Edbrooke have been sold and made into houses. The saw yard's gone, and everything. [Back to top]
 

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WATERWHEEL / SAW YARD / ACLAND ESTATE / LOCAL EMPLOYMENT / WORKING AT HOME / LOCAL ACTIVITIES / AMATEUR DRAMATICS / MRS ANDERSON / CHOIR / SINGING / THYROID / VISITORS

The waterwheel was sold. It went to Bickleigh [clock chimes]. The saw yard went too. The saw yard wasn't anything to do with them. It was the squire and a man called George Down, who walked from Exton to the saw yard for 40 years. Squire Everard had quite a lot of staff on the estate and he'd have trees chopped down and taken to Edbrooke to be sawn up. And when they weren't sawing he'd have hurdles made and gates for the estate.

[BJ says Maud Harding's grandfather also had a saw yard and asks about the Acland estate presence] Well, the Acland estate was the whole estate, practically everything. She did hear that Mr Acland could ride from Killerton to Holnicote on his own ground. Yes, Winsford was busy then. There wasn't the machinery. It was all horse drawn things and they kept more men on the farms. Mr Steer [Maud's grandfather] had quite a lot of men working for him as well. There was always activity locally.

[BJ asks what she did when she left school] She worked at home, there was always plenty to do. Her father said if she had to wait on any people she'd have to have a horse to ride round the table! She loved riding.

There weren't so many things on then. Their parents would go to things in the village, like the Conservatives whist drive and dance, and then Mrs Dicker (her husband was the schoolmaster) would get up a concert. Everything was held in the schoolroom in those days, or the Fairfield Room, if it was bigger. Then there was the sheep fair, which was quite a thing. It finished in 1939. The next day it was the meet in the village [last meet before the war] and everybody had the day off to go [refers to picture].

She started getting interested in amateur dramatics when she was still at school. They did maypole dancing on the vicarage lawn. Mrs Anderson organised that. Mr Anderson ran a garage at Dulverton and Bridgetown. He married Miss Westall, who was the schoolteacher, with her mother, after the Dickers left. Miss Westall was a LRAM and had a magnificent voice. She played the organ in church. They had quite a choir in those days. The Hayeses at Nurcott, .the Williams at Week. Different people who had all grown up together. They were all back where the organ is now. There were men in the choir as well. Albert Calloway was the sexton [phone rings].

Mrs Anderson, yes, she had a lovely voice. She used to sing beautifully, and get up things. Yes, she had a good voice herself once. What's upset her more than enough is her thyroid which she has to take tablets for, which has upset her voice., which has upset her voice. Yes, she loved acting.

Going back, she worked at home. Visitors came and stayed. In fact only last year one of them, who had been a little girl at Edbrooke, came from Salisbury to stay with her. Yes, then it was people coming down for the fishing and hunting. [asks BJ if she knows Charmaine Jackson] Her father, Colonel Jackson, had the hounds out at Oare Manor. Her father was asked to sing at his hunting parties when he was young. [Back to top]
 

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SALE OF HOTEL TO PEOPLE'S REFRESHMENT HOUSE ASSOCIATION (PRHA) / MEETING HUSBAND TED / HUSBAND / WORKING FOR HOTEL / LEARNING TO DRIVE / GETTING MARRIED / RUNNING HOTEL ANNEX

Going on from the days when she was at Edbrooke, her husband's sister ran the hotel. The hotel was sold after the Aclands Estate was sold. It was bought by the People's Refreshment House Association - PRHA. Her husband came down from Port Sunlight to work as a general man and taxi driver at the pub, with his sister who was running it. And that's how she met him, in 1931. He taught her to drive [tells story]. She was about 19 when she met him.

Her parents didn't like her husband. They really thought she ought to marry a farmer. They had given up Edbrooke by then and they were all at Luckwell Bridge [tells story of her husband telling her he'd put the bans in]. They married at 10 o'clock on the Monday, after having the bans called 3 times. She was married in blue, and Maud Harding was a bridesmaid. Her father gave her away. But it all happened ever so quick. It's been a laugh all her life. 

So then they ran the annex for the hotel. Her husband did all that banking up and made the lawns. Because in those days the Veseys were there and it was just vegetable gardens, and the post office was there then. [Back to top]