CD2

(64 mins)
 

2/1

LANDSCAPE PAINTING / CHANGING LIGHT / PAINTING NOW / WINSFORD HILL / AMATEUR v PROFESSIONAL / LEARNING TO DRAW / NEW ENGLISH ART CLUB & ROYAL SOCIETY OF PAINTER-PRINTMAKERS / ASHMOLEAN EXHIBITION / ROYAL ACADEMY / SELLING PAINTINGS

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[BJ question about landscape painting] If the weather was right she'd go off in the morning and work through until the light changed. Very often if you were out on the moor, and it was the morning light, you'd get there at 10 o'clock or something like that. You could usually work on to 2 to half past, that sort of time. By which time you were a bit hungry, rather cold and very miserable. The light had completely changed by then. You came home and had a late lunch. Then you go out to the studio and look at what one had done, perhaps work on it a bit. If not leave it. Either do something else, work on something else. It depends on what was happening at the time. But it's a difficult country to work in as the light changes all the time. You start something and you can't finish it. You may have to wait weeks. Sometimes she had to wait a year to finish the same thing because she never got the right conditions. Particularly if it was October time, because if you don't finish it quickly you go up there and there's been a frost over night and all the leaves have come off. [laughs]

She had her own car as soon as she was old enough to drive. You didn't have the hoards of tourists that you now have, and the restrictions of the National Park putting barriers everywhere so you couldn't park. So you could park and safely leave the car and walk to wherever you were working and come back and find everything safe. She wouldn't like to risk it now because you are always hearing of cars being smashed up and broken into. The days of painting for her on the moor are over now, in the way she used to do it, because there are so many people about. Winsford Hill was one of her favourite places, because there's more variety there. Now there are caravans parked and people flying kites and it doesn't seem like the wild moor any longer. You're sensitive to atmosphere if you're a painter and it puts you off.

She still does landscapes but perhaps one has a different way of working. She's perhaps more experienced now and can work more from notes, at home. She does go out, and makes studies and things. She would paint the finished thing outdoors if she could, you get a spontaneity you don't get otherwise.

Painting has been her profession all her life. That's the difference between the amateur and professional. One does it because they want to amuse themselves, the other does it because it's their job, whether or not they want to. She'd always painted, ever since she was a small child, if they gave her a pencil. She was hopeless, she couldn't draw for little apples. It was hard work learning to draw. It was just a way of life. It's what she's done ever since the war.

Just the other day she got a catalogue  Elected to English Art Club in 1971. Pleased, as it's quite difficult to get in. They have an annual show and the work has to be in this month. She goes up and helps. While she was there she went down to Bankside Gallery, where her other society, the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, are. It was Painters, Etchers and Engravers. She was elected as a print maker in 1960. She was honorary curator for a number of years. When you're elected you have to submit a portfolio of work and some framed work as well. If you're successful they choose the one they think is your best one and they keep that. It's known as a 'diploma print'. It's an old society, over 100 years old, and people like Sickert and Graham Sutherland and a lot of famous names have been members of it.

The collection for which she had responsibility as curator wasn't safe at Bankside and it was eventually arranged the Ashmolean would have it in Oxford. They had been doing a lot of curating on the collection. They have now put on a big exhibition at the Ashmolean and produced a history and catalogue of the society. She got a copy while she was at Bankside and was looking through it on the train coming home and found herself the second illustration in the book, next to Sir Seymour Haden, who was the founder of the society, and their current president. She couldn't believe she was in that exalted company. So that was quite nice. She came home feeling cheerful about that.

One of the first paintings she sold was when she first got into the Royal Academy in 1945. She was in 3 years running, 45, 46 and 47. The first one, she always thought she'd like to give to a great friend. But she walked into the gallery after the private view to find it had been sold. She was quite pleased in one way but disappointed in another. So the next year when she got in she made sure that one of them was kept back. She's got it now and is having to have it restored as it deteriorated in her friends' attic. She makes most of her own frames and she's now doing a frame for it before it goes back to its owners.

She was 22 or 23 then [when she got into the Academy]. It wasn't bad. Children occasionally get in, at 12 years old. That sort of thing. Then she had a long period of not getting in, then she got in again. It doesn't mean a thing. People always think that if you're in the Academy you must be a genius. They always think you're a Royal Academician, which is nonsense. There are only about 50 of them and you have to be elected. It's such an element of chance. Now of course it's all things to all men and really you wonder whether you want to be part of it sometimes. She thinks she's happier in the New English Art Club, which does have a good reputation.

She marketed herself chiefly through them [the Academy], those sort of sources. [interrupted by front door bell] [Back to top]
 

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WARTIME EVACUEES / WINSFORD SCHOOL / EXMOOR DIALECT / EMERGENCY FIRST AID / BOMBS

[continued 11 October]

She remembers when they first decided to implement the plan for evacuation from London. That was in 1940 or 41 when the bombing really got going. Suddenly at about half past ten at night - of course it was all black out, very strict - they were aware of a bus arriving in the village full of unaccompanied children. They were very bewildered. Nobody was expecting them or knew where they'd come from in London. Everyone had to rush round and try and find them homes. Luckily they were all taken in within an hour or two but nobody had got any beds or anything ready as they weren't expecting them.

Within a very short time they'd settled in, but there were various teething troubles, like them never having had fresh food. They'd all lived out of tins so wouldn't eat fresh vegetables. Feeding quite difficulty as rationing was strict by then. Eventually they settled in and became very much part of the Winsford community. All the children went to the school. The school in those days, you went there at 5+ or 6 and remained there until you were 14, unless you won a scholarship to Minehead school. And there weren't too many of those. There was no middle school in Dulverton, you stayed in the village. Of course from her early youth onwards there were always an enormous number of children at the schools, round about 80. In the war it went to over 100. They had one extra teacher who was evacuated. He had a strange name like Draghorn.

They all settled in happily and the dismal people said that would be the end of the Exmoor dialect they'll all be speaking cockney, but not a bit of it. In a very short time the children picked up all the local words, pronouncing them with a London accent. So it was a happy mixture. Many of that original lot have come back over the years, to see the people they were billeted with, or the area. She sometimes gets people knocking on the door saying 'I don't suppose you remember me' and hasn't a clue who they are. They kept a regular contact.

They didn't have evacuees in their house because her father was the area warden for the civil defence and they had to keep one place for emergency first aid and that kind of thing and their house was designated for that. People didn't get a huge number, perhaps one or a brother and sister. Never more than a couple, so it seemed to work all right.

Nobody had been expecting the bus which arrived. There was a billeting officer, who had been appointed by the local council, but they expected some warning. Nobody knew they were coming. But they had previously gone round and found out what accommodation was available. Rather like the Ministry of Agriculture did with the farming, they said 'you've got so many acres of land and you will plough up a proportion of each year and grow corn on it,' regardless of the fact that it never grew in this part of the world. [laughs] It was the same with the evacuees.

There's nothing really to tell about being an emergency first aid place because it didn't get activated, luckily. But it would have been a casualty clearing place. They could have had bombs on the village, it is just luck they fell on Winsford Hill. It was a chance in a million, but they were dropped around by people trying to bomb the manufacturing parts of South Wales. There are craters about on the moor, there probably gone now, but there was a line of bombs across Draydon Knap, and that part. It was feasible that it could have happened. [Back to top]
 

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ROYAL OAK  -  PUBLICANS / STORIES / BOOK FROM BAR / EXPANSION AND LAYOUT

Daniel Evans, who ran the pub, was way before her time. He was a great character, rather like Charlie [Stevens] is now. He was there for a number of years. She doesn't know whether he died as pub keeper or retired. He was followed by another one, who she just remembers, she can't think of his name at the moment. They were very good. He went to manage the Anchor at Porlock Weir and did very well indeed.

There were tales of people drinking at the pub [tells one], and all sorts of stories through the years. The family at Edbrook called Bale were quite famous. They used to have a great time at Christmas. Mrs Bale made wonderful home made wines [tells another story]. She can't think of any other tales of the pub.

They have a book in the house, which is quite interesting. The pub used to be a free house, as it is again now, and it was bought in the 30s by the People's Refreshment Houses Association and run as a chain. She supposes it was when Daniel Evans gave up and they sold the contents. There was a book which was written by Dr Paul Collins, who was the doctor in Dulverton and a very great and eminent naturalist and expert on the deer, she thinks its called 'The red deer of Exmoor'. He published this book and the pub got it. It used to be in the bar and some of the men would tear a page out here and there to light their pipe. It's quite a valuable book now. Her grandfather managed to buy it and they have it in the house. He had it mended, but with blank pages to show where the tears had been. It has never been out of this parish. She intends in due course to leave it to the Winsford archives, because it has always been there.

The pub was much smaller in those days. She can remember the annex being built on, which is now the dining room, and the bedrooms over it. The People's Refreshment Houses built that on. As her grandfather foretold she thinks they rued the day. It used to be a small country pub which a family could run without employing labour. Once you made it bigger you had to employ people and the season was short and it was difficult to make it pay. They had a succession of landlords, some of whom were good, but you never seemed to get a husband and wife who were good together.

Where the dining room is now it was open ground. The room on the corner was known as the tap. They've turned it into a place for bar meals. But it was where the locals went and got their drinks. Then they had a saloon bar in the other bit for the visitors. She vaguely remembers that the dining room was where the main visitors lounge is now. But they could only put up half a dozen people, until they built on. [Back to top]
 

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WINSFORD / STEERS BUILDING BUSINESS / FELLING TREES / UNDERTAKING / HOUSE BUILDING / BUILDING BRENDON ROAD / CHANGED ROUTE THROUGH WINSFORD / ROAD BUILDERS

Winsford was fairly self-supporting. There was the big building business run by Steer. Joseph Steer was the man who built her house (the front part of it), which he intended to retire into. His son James is the one she remembers, he was quite an old man when she was a child. He was Maud Harding's grandfather. She is now over 80.

The Steers did everything. They felled the trees. It was all done by selecting the tree you wanted, and felling it and hauling it out with a horse and wagon. Then you let the undergrowth grow up, it was self-generating. It wasn't until clear felling came in nowadays that they've had the problem about the woods not being so able to regenerate. It is happening to some degree in places, but because of the clear felling it causes such frightful upheavals that the saplings all get trampled and killed.

Anyway, they used to haul the logs back to the saw yard and saw them up into planks and everything. The carpenters workshop was across the road. As she's mentioned before, he was the local undertaker and they used to make coffins. They'd have to come in over the weekends very often to make the coffins. And he had stone masons. And of course the older houses mostly were built from the stone from the old quarry on her land across Howtown Bridge, which is now worked out and disused. The whole thing was a family business, they did the lot. He employed something like 20 men at the very least, until the slump in the 30s when he had to turn them all off and there was quite high unemployment.

At that time in the early 30s, '29, they started to make this road through, which ended up at Brendon Two Gates. Once it got to the county boundary Devon County Council very wisely refused to have anything to do with it, so the road just fizzled out there. Wisely, because it was a waste of money, you didn't want a great thoroughfare running through the place. They're beginning to realise now that the more you have motorways, the more cars you get.

It didn't change Winsford violently, but it altered it because the road where the filling station is now was a field and the only road over towards Exford was past the tea shop, that was the old bridge. The saw pit, which they used to use for the builders yard before the advent of circular saws driven by engines, was opposite the tea shop, where the car park is now. There's a photograph of the saw pit being used.

After that the road went on as it does now. They rebuilt the vicarage bridge (not the packhorse one) and widened it, made it rather horrible. Then the road ran as it does now, up to Stone Cross. She presumes the county council, or whoever the highway authority was, did it. She was only six, so she can't tell. But they imported labour to make up enough gangs to do all the roadworks. Many were miners from South Wales. That is why you'll find a sprinkling of Welsh ancestry in the village. They weren't madly popular in those days because the slump was happening and they were taking work away from locals.

Then they had a gang of people, she doesn't know who they were, they were a fairly rough crowd, who lived in huts in Farm Cleeve, the other side of the river of the road that runs to Stone Cross. There's some flat ground at the bottom where they had the huts. One or two of them integrated into the villages and married and settled here. They weren't here for all that length of time. She only heard tell of them. She used to ride past on her pony and hear this was where this gang of people were. [Back to top]
 

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NEW HOUSES / ACLAND SALE / TENANTS' DINNERS / FAIRFIELD ROOM / VILLAGE POPULATION

Otherwise, the village hasn't changed a great deal, except for a lot of building. She can remember virtually all the houses in Ash Lane being built. Up past the turning to the church, the only houses that were there were the old council houses, the two lots of two on the right hand side. The farm yard just beyond the church yard, where Mrs Fraser lives, that was the Home Farm yard for when the Aclands owned Winsford parish. They had a bailiff who farmed all the land round Winsford. After the sale it was bought by a chap who made it into a small holding and turned the cow byre, or part of it, into a bungalow.

She was only 3 at the time of the sale. She was out in Egypt, her father was still in the army. She didn't come to Winsford permanently until 1929. She doesn't think the sale made an enormous difference. She thinks the Aclands had gradually wound down what they did. In many cases they sold the farms and various things to the current occupier. So it wouldn't have made a huge difference, except for things like the annual tenants dinner, which would have stopped.

She doesn't for a minute think anyone would have been ousted, because somebody else had bought their property. Mostly, it was probably more difficult to find anyone to buy it. She's got the sale catalogue, which her grandfather wrote the house prices down on, which is quite interesting compared with nowadays. In nearly every case it says 'sold to the sitting tenant'.

She imagines the tenants' dinners would have been held in the Fairfield Room. It was built by Lady Acland as the village hall. It was primarily done for the sheep fair, which she described last time, and the Exmoor Sheepbreeders Association. The person to talk to about that is Richmond Harding, who is still involved in it all. They had an annual dinner for that there. And it was used as a village hall until they built the new one, just after the first world war. But a pub yard wasn't the best place for it, and it had very limited facilities. All sorts of village entertainments were run, dances, whist drives, just like nowadays. Concerts.

The village has actually got smaller in population. When she was a child there were over 500 people in the parish, now they are down to 350, 375, something like that. [Back to top]
 

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MOBILITY / SELF-SUFFICIENCY / LOSS OF TRADESPEOPLE / KARSLAKE / BAKERY / COMBINING SHOP AND POST OFFICE / LOSING SCHOOL / BUYING PREMISES / EXMOOR COMMUNITY TRUST'S COMMUNITY COMPUTER CENTRE / CLOSING SCHOOLS

But of course they've got much more mobile. One had to be self sufficient then because you couldn't get about. That's why, as she said last time, they had a tailor, a baker, boot repairer, everything. Blacksmith. All in the village.

The baker lasted the longest. She doesn't remember the boot repairer, he was the first one to go, she supposes. And then the tailor died and that was the end of that one, that was Walter Barwick's brother-in-law. Each village had a tailor. Some of them had 3 or 4 tailors. But that [loss of tailors] ceased to be a problem because by then people had means of getting about and you could go to others. Then the Karslake shop folded. They ran it also as a guest house and made more money out of that than they did of the shop. They got less and less enterprising and finally stocked nothing. The current baker and his wife, Mr Gill, decided to start a little shop in the bakery. Mrs Gill turned her front sitting room into the shop and gradually took over from Karslake, which closed.

Then they enlarged the shop gradually because the baker stopped and they had a really nice big shop there. Various people came to run it, from outside. Some were good and some were bad, rather like the pub. They had one very good one who had been trained at the County Stores in Taunton. Finally they got some people who were just speculators in her opinion. They bought it and set about running it down in order to sell it as a private house, as it coincided with the housing boom. Fortunately the post then was opposite and Walter and Maud Barwick (she was the post mistress) realised that the village was being deprived of essentials and they started up where the shop now is.

That has gone from strength to strength. But of course the premises weren't as good as it was so small. It would have been far better premises-wise if they could have moved the post office over to the shop. But that wasn't to be. She thinks with hindsight the two things couldn't have continued separately, neither of them would have paid, so to that extent those people did the village a service because they have managed to keep the shop and post office going. She thinks there is now an awareness in the country of how vital these things are.

But then that was really the only business enterprise left. The builders had folded after the war, the blacksmith got ill and died before the war, that was converted. Then of course there was the big tragedy when they lost the school. But that was the most cynical business, it was a real Dr Beeching job. That was not quite 10 years ago. They had been gunning for it, they deliberately wanted to close it. The church authorities at the Diocese were in cahoots with the county council and they were both fiddling as hard as they possibly could to close it because they reckoned it was very expensive.

They had no thought for the community as such, they were out to save money. They let the Autumn term, the new academic year begin. And they had this feeder system as they have now, landrovers picking up children from outlying places and bringing them in to the bus, and they used to bring in the primary school as well. And they deliberately altered the routes of the pick-up landrovers, so instead of coming to Winsford they took them to Dulverton. That meant they lost 8 children at one fell swoop and reduced the numbers from 20 to 12, which was the number they needed to close the school. So that was it.

Then they fought like tigers for 3 or 4 years to retain the building, which belonged to the Diocese. They were determined to sell it off as holiday homes, of which they [the village] has too many already. She started to make a fuss because she knew that the building had been built by Lady Acland at a time before education was compulsory and given to the parish virtually free for the education of the children. They found the trust deed and the contract for the sale at the time of the auction. Sadly, although it was drawn up and it was to be sold at a very favourable rent - she can't think of the right word, not 'peanuts', but something like that - peppercorn, that's the word - rent. It was all drawn up that it should be sold to the school managers, who were drawn from the village and ran it. They [the school managers at the time] got cold feet at the last minute, which was understandable as it was a lot of responsibility. And so it was sold to the Diocese instead of the village.

She thinks the Diocese would have had a job to sell and perhaps they were beginning to realise that. Because the cost of conversion, to make it into viable housing, would have been enormous. The National Park would have insisted on retaining its present appearance. They wanted to put in 3 houses there, turning it into a town in a way. Anyway, they persuaded them [the Diocese] to give them time and set up a trust. They went to the Charity Commissioners who said it was permissible for one charity to hand on to another. But the Diocese wouldn't do it, they wanted their pound of flesh, of money, and told them that of course the [sale] money would be [used] for education. But they were going to use it for urban schools at the other end of the county and it wouldn't have helped their children a bit. So they managed to raise the money and they have now kept the place open as a community centre. She's glad to say that quite a lot of programmes are run for small children and it's lovely to have them back there, although intermittently. And they kept faith with the Aclands because in the deed they said that if the school was no longer needed they hoped it could still be used for educational purposes.

The school is owned by the Exmoor Community Trust now, whose trustees own it on behalf of the whole community. It is largely based on computer work, because that was what was needed. But it seems to be going from strength to strength and serving all sections of the community, which is what they had hoped would happen. So that in a way is a happy result, but everybody regrets that the school closed, because you take the heart out of the village and it means that the young married people tend to go and live near the schools because they don't want their small children dragged round Exmoor to get to school. She hears that they are trying to get everyone into Dulverton now, because they are going to build a great big one there. Of course from the point of view of the authorities it's much cheaper and easier, but she thinks it's wrong for the area. [Back to top]
 

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CHURCH / CHANGES IN SERVICES &  ATTENDANCE / PREBENDARY ANDERSON / OLD VICARAGE / VICARAGE LIFE / SITE OF NEW RECTORY / CUTCOMBE BENEFICE / THE GLEBE

It's hard to say how important the church has been to the village. She was church warden for 25 years. Obviously there is a decline in church going. Not necessarily because people no longer have faith in the Christian religion, she doesn't think it's anything to do with that. It's largely because in the old days on the farms, nearly all of them had farm workers, and it was so arranged that the farm workers would go to church in the evenings and the farmers themselves in the mornings. So you had a rota, and you could milk the cows and do all the things that had to be done.

Now there isn't one single full time farm worker in Winsford parish. The farms are entirely run by the families, in many cases with only one or two people doing it, and there's no way they can [tails off]. And the services can't be arranged for the convenience of the parish in the way they used to because you have one parson in charge of four parishes now, minimum. And if he's going to offer a service in each parish, as he tries to do, there's no way it can be done to suit everybody.

In her early childhood, there was morning service and evening service and a communion service about once a fortnight, something like that. But now they get the one service in each parish each Sunday. But if they have further amalgamations, as she thinks eventually may well happen. Then you won't even get one every Sunday, unless you can get lay people taking it.

Oh yes, there have been parsons who have been characters. Again, before her time, the famous one was Prebendary Anderson who was vicar there for 50 years. Her grandparents just came into the end of his time. He christened his future wife when she was a small baby, and when she grew up he married her. The family remained in Winsford when he died, his wife had to move out of the vicarage obviously, and they built the house known as The Close, next door to ALB's house, for her to live in. It was quite a big place. They had two sons and it was designed by the elder one. He was a bit of an engineer and he set up one of the first garages at Brushford, the Carnarvon Arms Garage. The younger son went and worked with Levers [comments later that it may not have been called Levers at that time] in Reading.

Edward married fairly late in life and had 3 children and the younger brother had 4 boys. But they spanned an enormous number of years, because with old Prebendary Anderson not marrying until he must have been middle-aged and his wife living as his widow until she was in her 90s, the 2 boys were more or less ALB's father's generation, but Edward, the elder boy, didn't marry until he was well into middle age either, so his children were quite young.

Prebendary Anderson ruled the village with a rod of iron, she believes. [Tells story about the Pring family at Withycombe having their son christened.] But she thinks he was quite liked really. They all stayed for years in those days.

The old vicarage, now owned by the Barracloughs, had been a vicarage for 500 years. There's a priest's hole in the back. The original vicars of Winsford, in late 1200s, were from the priory at Barlynch which is an off-shoot of Cleeve Abbey. That is before the Reformation, it was all Roman Catholic. And the priest lived in the part of the vicarage that is that old. Then it was built on. It's quite a nice old house. It was sold while she was church warden, after the war, because it was far too big for a modern parson to be able to manage. In the old day, with all the glebe land, they were self-supporting. They were smallholders. They had one parish and therefore their time was spent visiting, but apart from that they had very little to do, except for Sunday services. Most of them were scholars, so they wrote and did that kind of work, but they had plenty of time and could afford to employ someone to run the smallholding. They were provided with vegetables, with milk, probably a certain amount of meat. They would keep pigs, certainly hens. They really hardly needed to spend a lot of money, so it was all right.

But as time went on and things changed, like modern living is now, the stipends didn't keep up with modern way of life. And to have a great big house with no central heating, a leaking roof and everything else there was no way it could be kept. And the Diocese hadn't got the money to mend it, nor had the parishes. They were told that if they wanted to keep the vicarage, because naturally there was great opposition to the sale, they would have to find the money themselves. Well a small parish couldn't possibly, so they were forced to sell it. Luckily it was bought by people with understanding of an old house and they restored it very tastefully. But they spent more on the restoration than they did buying it. 

Deciding where the vicar went was a case of what was available. The house that is now the rectory was the only one for sale. It was after that, some time after, that Cutcombe [benefice] joined them. They have struggled since to try and persuade the Diocese to have it up there, but they're very on the edge, and in bad weather it tends to be inaccessible. It gets cut off very easily. So far the Diocese have refused to spend the money. She can't see them doing it, because eventually they will amalgamate them still further. 

At the moment the vicarage is opposite the pub. Some people are shocked by that, but she thinks it's quite good that the incumbent should know what his parish consists of, even if they aren't all churchgoers. You'll find that most of them will go in there and enjoy an evening with the people in the village, which in her opinion is the thing to do.

The Glebe, opposite the old vicarage, was built by the local builder, the Steers, in 1924 (she was a year old) by a family called Myers [?sp], who built the house from land sold off by the Diocese, what had been glebe land. The farm buildings for the vicarage, where Nick Ayliffe now has his horses, that was sold to the Myers family as well. So they acquired all that land on the top side of the Exford road and built the house there. That family lived there until the war. Then it was sold because the family moved away and it sat empty for most of the war. Then it was bought by a builder who, quite cleverly, divided the main  house into 3 and the stable block into 2. And that's how it is today. But they call it The Glebe because it was built on glebe land. [Back to top]
 

2/8

WATER SUPPLY / SEWAGE SYSTEM / THE WEIR

When she was a child main water was a village supply. They had 4 or 5 little tanks, situated round outskirts of village, fed by springs. Best ones under Burrow Wood. Old iron pipe network piped it to all houses, mostly one tap outside and nothing else. No flush lavatories. Local authority, not even parish council, ran local water supply. Mr Steer the builder was the main one on it. Her grandfather was on it and she would go round with him when she was a child and peer into the tanks. Very exciting. They used to get a drought nearly every year and supplies would be very short. Then they just did the best they could. They had a well at the back of the house and they would pump up the water to get baths. But it was hard work. It was all she could do as a child to reach the handle, let alone pull it. They used to pump every evening, so they just had the drinking water from the main supply.

That went on until, before the war she thinks, it was taken over by the Rural District Council. They gradually built big tank up Ash Lane. Not a reservoir, but quite large. Near Brimclose. They gradually got supply considerable better. Problem was that with all the fertilisers and stuff being used on the farms now, as a result of the war and being forced to produce that amount of food, what had been pure springs became less safe. So they had to fill the stuff up with chlorine and it was absolutely undrinkable. She doesn't like whisky, but she's told by those who do that if you put water with the whisky you couldn't taste the whisky because the chlorine ruined it.

This went on until about the 50s. Then they eventually got on to the mains. There was this big reservoir made at Wimbleball. They put pipes through the village. Once they got on to Wimbleball it was later, they had had mains water from the other for quite a time, but finally they got on to the main one and it's been much better.

But of course now a lot of houses outside the main supply have got bore holes. But she hears that it's very nasty water, hard. [Whereas] theirs is lovely and soft. They think it [bore hole water] comes from South Wales. It's so deep. These are houses like Val Vicary's at Larcombe Foot, and the old vicarage isn't on the mains. It didn't go across the river. It's only her part of the village that's on it.

The sewage, similarly, there wasn't any [drainage system]. It used to go straight into the river. The weir had been built for the mill at Pitcott, opposite, to direct water down the mill leat to work the waterwheel to grind the corn. When the Acland estate was sold they weren't very clever with the way they parcelled out the lots for sale. She thinks it was a bad agent, bad everything. The weir never got sold to anybody, it was left belonging to nobody. The mill had been discontinued and the only purpose of it, a very important one, was that it did keep water in the top half of the river, where all the sewage went straight in. If you let it get dry, of course the smell was absolutely impossible. Her grandfather used to work it and try and keep it repaired by getting subscriptions from those who were affected by it.

But eventually district council agitated and got a mains sewer put in. But that is quite recent, after 1960 she thinks. She can look the dates up. She's pretty sure it was after her father died as she remembers signing various papers about it all. [Back to top]
 

2/9

HOUSEHOLD PLUMBING / THE WEIR / ELECTRICITY / TELEVISION ASSOCIATION / PETTER ENGINE / CHARGING BATTERIES / FUEL / RIVER COURSE

She doesn't remember earth closets in her house, but yes in the cottages. And no running water in the houses. You had a back kitchen with one tap and for washing you had a copper and boiled water by lighting the fire underneath. They always had running water in their house, because it was built late enough for that to be the case.

They made their own electricity. Electricity didn't come in until well after the war. That was an occasion. Some friends had a party to celebrate the night it was switched on and all the lights went out in the middle of the party because it was all a bit dodgy in the early days. [laughs] Still get breakdowns now. Two or 3 times a year. They all keep lamps, except new arrivals to the village who don't realise what they are coming in to.

They had a Petter engine. It was low voltage and they had batteries which had to be charged up twice a week. Couldn't have a refrigerator as it took too much current. She had a gas one once. Calor gas in those days didn't have any indication how long a cylinder was going to last. Sometimes it lasted quite well, other times ran out almost the next day and you'd have a flood in the kitchen. It was really hardly worth it. Now they've all got mod cons.

Then there was the television. There's no signal there, for most of the houses. So they set up a television association and put a mast half-way up Winsford Hill to get reception. There's no signal on her house. Now they have dishes and things she supposes you can get it. BBC most unhelpful, didn't want to know. A vast number of houses needed reception before they would put up one extra mast. Exford managed it, they're in a better position.

So they battled on, but she doesn't know what's going to happen now, with all this digital stuff, with umpteen channels and everything. They keep on having meetings to discuss it but don't seem to get very far. [laughs]

Yes, she supposes wiring all the houses for mains was a major task. But it wasn't done publicly. It was done by the householders themselves. They would employ whoever they chose to do it. She thinks businesses spring up to meet demand. There are quite a number of electricians about nowadays who seem quite busy. But it happened gradually. You didn't get everybody put on straight away. And by the time they got it a certain number of houses were making their own. You could get those startamatic engines which ran when you switched on a light. Pub had it, shop had it and so forth.

They changed to a startamatic when the batteries wore out. Then they got full voltage, which was easier. The other instead of being 240 was a hundred and something [110]. You couldn't get the light bulbs any more, they weren't being made. Petter were a firm that made static engines, petrol driven, or diesel more recently. You had one over in the saw yard to drive the saw. Theirs would drive a circular saw as well, so they could saw up logs and things. It was just an engine that produced power. You had a dynamo, and a belt ran from the engine to the dynamo. That fed a charge into the liquid batteries, like a car battery. You had a little hut with a whole row of batteries in it and they all had to be charged up to a certain amount. Just like a trickle charger does with a car battery. The power would be stored in the batteries. And you had to recharge them twice a week.

Then other days they ran the engine to saw up the logs, because the way they got fuel was, there were people who would contract to make hedges. The farmer wanted his hedge made, and the person would say right we'll make your hedge for you and take the timber. So you paid the freelance hedge makers to make the hedge, then they had the timber hauled back [to Mill Meadow] and sawed it up. Of course coal was always terribly expensive because it had to be hauled. So not many people used it. Then after the war of course they got oil fired heating. But no gas, only calor gas.

They haven't had their well since the weir broke. Once main sewage was in there was no object in keeping it [the weir] repaired, they [the village] weren't prepared to pay for it. The flood gates were the first to rot, gradually the floods wore it away and it's all gone now. The result is the river has more or less made a new course for itself and it's altered the water table. In severe flood conditions it fills up, but they don't need to use it now. She's got water butts to collect the rain water, but that's it, because they are on the mains.

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