CD2

(31 mins)
 

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1952 FLOOD / BURY FLOOD / WINTERS / AUBERON HERBERT DIED 1974

PK didn't know about the 1952 flood until some men came from Tiverton. They were very late arriving on the Saturday morning; they thought they had gone somewhere else to do another job. When they arrived at half past eleven, they should have been there at eight o'clock; they said they had a job getting from Tiverton because of trees across the road and floods. They also said Dulverton was in a bad way. They didn't believe them, so they were taken in the van and to see the floods in Dulverton. It was the Barle that was flooded not the Exe. There was a weir on the Exe where the sawmill was, but it didn't flood to the extent of the Barle, which was up to the switches.

Mary [his wife] was in the flood. She was living next door to it. She said the water was up to the electric light switches. They got out of the bedroom window, on to the roof at the back of the other house. They got down a ladder, which was there because her brother did odd jobbing. It was fortunate it was there. They got down the roof and they were up to their waists in water. They climbed up over the bank there, to a cottage. Miss Abbott put them up for the night in her cottage. She climbed out of the house next door. It was called the Cottage. She climbed out of the house next door to where PK is being interviewed. It's a sloping slate roof at the back. They dropped the ladder down, which had been parked on the roof, and when they got there, they were up to their waists in water. It was all in the dark but with torches they managed to scramble up the bank.

When PK drove into Dulverton he was shocked. He'd never seen it before or since. It was made worse because of a tree across the river by the bridge. It eventually came out and damaged the garage across the bridge. All the sticks and everything else had piled up behind, which turned the water either way. The river was full anyway but it didn't help. It wouldn't have been so bad if the tree hadn't come across the bridge. There were lots of sightseers. This was about half eleven or twelve o'clock, midday Saturday. It was August 15th 1952. The night before PK had been to a film.

It was the night when they opened the Wenvoe transmitting station. The television shop next to the surgery in the town had a television in their window. They stopped for a momentary look at the programme of the opening. They had come from the cinema in Dulverton. There was a flash of lightening, which put the set right out. It didn't come back so they decided to go home. PK was on his bike. There were fierce flashes on the way home, flashing on the handlebars. It was the only clue that a storm was coming. They thought it was at Exford, and it was. It was actually the Lynton [Lynmouth] flood. It fell on the Chains on the top of the moor, and most of it went down to Lynton and Lynmouth. About a third of it came this way. So they weren't too badly damaged. Two houses across the road were washed down. [query by BJ about the Exe not being a problem at Weir, because Exford and Winsford were flooded] He doesn't remember Winsford and Exford being flooded. That would be from the Exe would it? It was bad, but not as bad as the Barle. The Barle was twice as much.

Years later Bury was flooded. That was through the Exe and the Haddeo over-spilling. It didn't wash main buildings down but it washed outhouses down. That would be thirty years ago now. It was just in the lower part of Bury. It washed away their woodsheds and outhouses. The river runs almost parallel with the houses down at the bottom. It came over everywhere and everyone was flooded. It went down to Exebridge and lots of people got flooded down there. He's sure the Anchor was flooded, because it always does. He doesn't know of any other flooding that did any damage. Except when he left his bicycle down there and it ended up at Exebridge in the bushes. Someone recognised it and brought it back. He's still got it. [Laughs]

They weren't affected too much by hard winters. At Jury they didn't have any electricity until 1954. But they were geared up. They had plenty of oil. They were using Tilley lamps, and smaller lamps with oil. Travelling was the worst. They were up at Pixton a mile away. They only had bikes. They were used to walking. It wasn't until later years, when they were used to cars, and you couldn't get the car out that it was bad. When Mr [Auberon] Herbert died in 1974, nobody bothered to clear the drives, so they were marooned. They had to walk to Dulverton and everywhere because he couldn't get the car out. So they were really worse off in the later years when they had a car than they had been earlier when he had only a bicycle. [Back to top]
 

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JOB POST- WAR / MRS HERBERT DIED 1970 / RENOVATIONS / SPLIT

When PK came back after the war he was still doing the same kind of work. The old carpenter wasn't there. It was a new one from when he had been called up. The old boy had died just about when he was called up, within about three weeks. Things went on in the usual way. The other chap came on when PK left and looked after the houses. He was still doing the job in 1970 when Mrs Herbert died.

The son took over completely then. Up until then he hadn't been allowed a word in. Mrs Herbert was the boss. He would have been forty-eight. Sadly he only lived another four years. He died in 1974. During that four years PK remained in Pixton, decorating room by room, because Mrs Herbert had not had much done because she thought it was a waste of money. She thought there was far more important work to do on the farms. He said Pixton was his home and he wanted it looking tidy.

PK spent ninety-five per cent of his time up there until he [Mr Herbert] died. Many times people at Bury said they wanted window mending or roof mending or whatever, and Mr Herbert said they would have to get someone in because Paddy had to stay at Pixton. They changed some of it. They split up a bedroom and made an extra bathroom. They put a shower in another one. By that time PK was doing it mostly by himself. He didn't get any help, but he could literally do it in his own time. If he was doing carpentry, putting doors up, putting partitions up, putting plaster board up, plastering, plumbing, putting baths in, Mr Herbert understood. He came in now and again and would say it was fine, and that he was getting on well. He left PK to his own devices.

The timber didn't come from the estate. By that time it was coming from Goodlands. All the staff had gone. Pixton got a firm in to cut their timber. Things were run down. By 1950 they had turned all the servants quarters into flats. He thinks about 1951-1952. There were four flats at the back. So they were all occupied. There were five flats in actual fact. There was about four staff. There was a man and wife. Another one came and did the housework. Another part-time one helped. The man and wife were a Polish couple. He waited at table. He was a general factotum, going out and doing the shopping, did a bit of driving to the station at Taunton. The railway was closed down. She did the cooking. They ran it.

Pixton didn't have the parties that they had had before the war. They often had dinner parties and guests staying as many as ten, twelve or fifteen. There were fourteen bedrooms up the front. He forgets how many at the back. It would have been twelve or fourteen more at the back with the staff. The paintings were still there when PK did the decorating. Mr Herbert had a swimming pool put in. PK had built a summerhouse there beside the pool. He built a changing room. Possibly it had a bar up there as well. They concreted all round the pool, which was a big job, because it's rather a large pool, twenty-four by forty-eight. That was all without extra staff. He had help to do it. They had ready-mix concrete, but all the rest of it [he did]. He fetched the timber, fetched the materials, and worked entirely on his own. It had got to be a one-man band. [Laughs] That didn't worry Mr Herbert, as long as he was at Pixton doing things.

Sadly he died before the thing was finished properly. So PK went back to going round the cottages again. Mr Dru, his nephew, was in Pixton then and his mother. They carried on. Mr Herbert split the estate up, one north of the Haddeo and one south of the Haddeo, one to each nephew. His eldest sister's son had the Pixton side. He came to live there and tried to carry on as normal, but with no income, no farms or anything like that to pay the rents; he couldn't afford to keep it. Mr Herbert had several nephews, but it was left to eldest daughter and the next daughter's, sons. Mrs Grant at Hele Bridge had one son and Mrs Dru had one son. They had plenty of daughters but they had only one son each. They were the children who got half of the estate each. Mrs Waugh had three sons but they didn't come into it. There was a certain amount of money he thinks. [Back to top]
 

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EVACUEES

Pixton House was full of evacuees during the war. It was like a nursery for pregnant women being evacuated from London. They went down to Dulverton. He thinks they had one over there [points] which is now Exmoor House. It used to be a training centre, but they took it over and made it a hospital for the women to have their babies. They were moved to Pixton after a week or a fortnight. There was always about fifty women and babies there.

They took over the top floor. They had two or three women organisers, paid by the government. When the mothers had recovered, they were parked with other people. So he had to go up there. One of the first jobs he did, apart from doing the creosoting, was making beds. The government supplied mattresses, two sized double ones and one-size single, and they made boxes out of matchboarding, with wire netting bottoms, to fit the mattresses. They had them side-by-side in all the bedrooms, to keep the children in. The double sized mattresses were for the older children who had not been planted on other families.

Some of them were evacuated down without their parents. It could have been that parents split up. There were a lot of children about three or four years old. They would share the mattress. He doesn't know how they worked it. He just made the beds and the children were in them.

It must have been that five of the seven bedrooms had children in them. There must have been about fifteen or twenty children in each room. There would have been about fifty in all.

They had an evacuated woman cooking for them. They had a new kitchen with a new stove in downstairs. They had a room, which used to be a servants hall, rather a large room, for eighteen staff, with a sitting room and dining room, the evacuees had this for a dining room. The woman left and they had a French couple, who had escaped from France, who did the cooking. He did the vegetables and a bit of cleaning. They stayed up to the end of the war and then they went back to France.

PK doesn't remember much about it because he was away in the war. They didn't mix much with the rest of the staff and Mrs Herbert. They were up in the servant's quarters on the top floor of the house. It's a three-storey house, ground floor, first floor and second floor house. Mrs Herbert involved herself. She had a van. She helped. But when they were eating or sleeping they had their own quarters. Mrs Herbert helped in general, ran messages and organised committees. She was quite a busy woman during the war.

The children used the lawns. She let them run around anywhere. They could do what they liked really. In fact she was rather fond of children and interested herself in them quite a lot. The war was a bit of excitement, particularly when the government came and fixed the canvas chutes up for the children. They were about forty foot up. They thought if there was a bomb or a fire, and they wanted to escape, and if the staircase had been bombed, they would need these canvas chutes. So they fixed them to all the windows. They all had to practise when there was a new lot, sliding down the chutes. You could hear them screaming but they had to go in case there was an emergency. The older ones thought it was fun, but the younger ones who went down on their mother's laps, found it quite hectic. They didn't like it at all.

When hetook out the chutes they didn't bother to collect them. It was beautiful canvas. He still has a piece of it now. They didn't know what to do with the chutes, so PK said he would have one. At that time he was doing a bit of camping abroad and it made a lovely wind- shield. They never had to use the chutes, apart from when a new lot of children came, so they knew what to do. It was essential. It was a least forty-foot up.

There are two bathrooms on the front landing, and they turned one of them into a washroom. The first floor was seven bedrooms and two bathrooms, and the top floor was seven bedrooms and two bathrooms. It was a repeat. They put in big washbasins so they could wash the nappies.

The top floor was nicknamed, very appropriately at the time, Poland, as it was the reason for starting the war. There were all these little children about with their potties, so some one christened it Poland, much to the annoyance of some of the regulars who were running it. They were forbidden to call it Poland but it still carried on. [Back to top]
 

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MR HERBERT IN POLISH ARMY / WORK POST 1974 / WIFE MARY / RETIREMENT IN 1989

There was a connection between Pixton and Poland, since the war. Mr Herbert was in the Polish army. He tried about four or five times to join the British services, but they didn't have him because he wasn't fit. He had trouble with his sinus and his feet and other things. So he did the next best thing. He was quite a clever man. He spoke about nine languages. He had learnt Polish. So he joined he Polish army. They took him instantly as an interpreter. After the war he busied himself with Poles. They had foresters and people in the house at various times, five and six at a time, on the estate. That was the connection with Poland. There wasn't any connection before the war. Mr Herbert appreciated that the Polish army took him in the war. He was desperate to do something in the war, and they made him useful. He never forgot them. He always belonged to the Anglo-Ukrainian Society, where he was always president or something. He was at their dinners, making speeches, raising money for them, the ones who were over here. PK expects he [Mr Herbert] would have been delighted now to see Russian communism had collapsed and that Poland was free; he was quite wrapped up in Poland.

PK went on working for the estate until just after Mr Herbert died. He finished in about 1975 and Mr Dru took over and asked him to stay on for two days a week. He couldn't afford to keep PK any more. Within a year he wanted him there all the time. PK stayed with him. He [Mr Dru] also had a house at Bickham, Timberscombe, so PK went out there as well and worked out there. When he got rid of Pixton PK went on to work for Mr Bell, the new owner until he retired. Mr Bell came in 1981. PK went on until 1989, until he retired. PK didn't intend to retire at sixty-five but Mary his wife is disabled, and it coincided that she was off her feet because she had just lost the hip. She had a new hip, got an infection, which they couldn't cure so they removed the hip. So she couldn't walk for three years. So he had no choice but to stay home. He did a few odd jobs for Mr Bell and Mr Dru in his workshop, but not permanently. He's enjoying it now, but he would have gone and worked a lot longer, but that was impossible. His time at Pixton was from1939 to 1989. It's not bad, he says, fifty years.

[BJ says thank you] That it's the end of the story. [Back to top]
 

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EARLY PAY [ADDITIONAL QUESTION]

PK's pay in his first job was brilliant. It was ten shillings a week. Fifty pence in today's money. That was for about a year and he had to purchase his own tools. This was working for Pixton. They got paid once a fortnight. He got nineteen and fourpence a fortnight. They took out for insurance. After a year it went to fifteen shillings a week. Then they had to register as the war was on, for jobs of national importance. They pushed them in with the farmers and immediately his pay went up to twenty-five shillings a week. He thought he had won the lottery. He was paid cash. They were paid down at the estate office. They all queued up outside the office on every other Saturday morning. They would count it to see how much more they had taken out, because when the pay went up they took out more. He had to pay another one and six a week out of his wages, plus paying for the tools. So you see, he never had many suits on it! [Laughs]

[RECORDING ENDS] [Back to top]