CD1

(65 mins)
 

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BORN RIPHAY BARTON 1935 / FAMILY BACKGROUND / GREAT-GRANDFATHER PIXTON TENANT / MOTHER'S FATHER SILK THROWSTER / PARENTS MEETING / FATHER'S SIBLINGS / PIXTON ESTATE / HELE BRIDGE FARM / GRANDFATHER

Recorded Thursday 18 October 2001 at Exebridge.

TY lives at Riphay Farm. There is a difference between Riphay Farm and Riphay Barton. The Barton was very often the major farm in the village, although he has heard of 2 bartons in one village. It's usually got a slightly better house. It was a Pixton Estate farm and it was probably a major farm in terms of acreage, so it had a slightly bigger house. The address is actually Riphay Barton.

 TY was born there. His family came there as tenants farmers to the Pixton Estate in 1901. His grandfather was the farmer and he had 4 sons. His father married in 1934 at the ripe old age of 54. His mother was 24. TY was born in 1935, by which time he had bought the farm. He thinks his grandfather and father had more interesting lives than he's had. His grandparents were dead when TY was born.

His mother was the daughter of some one called a silk throwster. Not many people know what a silk throwster is. They were a family called Heath in Cheshire. They bought silk from, he thinks, Japan. They bought raw silk on the cocoon, spun it or threw it, which meant extricating each strand from the cocoon, spinning or wrapping it so that it went onto a cocoon and then eventually made silk thread. His grandfather was the third generation of someone called a silk throwster. They had 2 or 3 factories there and he had 3 daughters. He was what is now called a field sportsman. He used to come and stay first in Minehead to hunt on Exmoor, then he stayed at the Carnarvon Arms.

Apparently his father went to the Carnarvon in the evenings for a drink and started talking to these 3 girls, the youngest of which was 10 and the eldest was 23. When they went into dinner at the Carnarvon, his father asked the barmaid, which one would suit him. She said she would think the eldest. She became TY's mother. He married her. There was 30 years difference in age. The second daughter went and married a Canadian, and went off and lived in Canada. The youngest daughter married somebody from Exford and became quite well known before she died. She was Mrs Harding, Norah Harding who was to do with the Staghounds for years and years with different jobs. So that is how TY came on the scene. There were no more children. His father said he couldn't put up with that excitement again. He died when he was 76. His mother died when she was 70. She married again when his father died.

TY's grandfather on his paternal side came to Hele Bridge Farm, when he was 7, from Wiveliscombe. He was called Tom, Thomas Culverwell Yandle. He came with his father who was called John, as a little boy. They walked the cattle from Wiveliscombe to Hele Bridge. Hele Bridge was a Pixton Farm. The estate in those days stretched from Hawkridge, Withypool, King's Brompton to Exebridge and up the valley to Oldways end. It was a large estate. Apparently John Yandle his great grandfather was what is now termed, no good. He spent most of his time in the pubs in Dulverton or out talking to his great friend at Northcombe, who was called Winzer. Jimmy Winzer of the same family is still around. So his grandfather, by the age of about 12, he was one of several brothers, was having to take quite an interest in the farming.

He married a farmer's wife [daughter] from Tiverton and they set up their married life at Hele Bridge Farm. His father had taken the tenancy 1847. His father just died when he was supposed to die. He imagines his great grandfather was already dead when his grandfather took on the farm. He guesses he was 30 odd when he married. He had 4 sons and 3 daughters. His father was born 1880. He wasn't the youngest or the oldest, he guesses that he married about 1872 or 3,which would have made him 33. The 4 sons were Jack, Perce, Bert and Ern. The 3 girls were Amy, Kate and Clare. TY's father was Ernest. [Back to top]
 

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MOVE FROM HELE BRIDGE / FARMS IN THE VALLEY / FATHER'S BROTHERS / FATHER'S CHILDHOOD DELICATE, BECAME DRAPER / GRANDFATHER AT RIPHAY / FATHER'S RETURN TO FARMING AT RIPHAY /RIPHAY

They left Hele Bridge 1880. His father was born. Grandfather Tom Yandle, fell out with the Pixton agent. In those days it was quite normal procedure to move farms. You don't really hear of people moving farms today because he supposes there aren't many tenanted farms anyway. The few tenanted farms there are around, people tend to stay there. In those days farmers could easily farm 3,4 or 5 farms in their life. To us now it seems incredible, with the hassle of moving it must have been unbelievable. He supposes the stocking rate was very low. Even with quite a large farm they didn't have many animals to move. He supposes the farm workers just stayed on the farm and you just moved off with your animals and started again somewhere else. So his grandfather left in 1880 and rented a farm called Duvale[?sp] which is just down the valley from Exebridge.

Eventually he put his 3 sons in different farms in the valley. They were Chevithorne Barton, which is the Amorys', Duvale Barton, and he came back and rented TY's farm in 1901, known as Riphay Barton, and he thinks he had a farm at Stoodleigh, all rented. He supposes that he was most the successful Yandle. Nowadays setting up 4 sons in reasonably sized farms would take a bit of doing.

So the 4 brothers Jack, Dave, Perce and Ern grew up at Duvale Farm down the valley. TY's father was not the youngest but considered delicate. He's never really found out why. There was another brother who died of consumption. Everybody can produce a family member who died of what was known as consumption. It was TB. Why nobody else got it when it was supposed to be catching, he doesn't know. The brother was called Tom and he died when he was 14. Ernest [TY's father] was the second youngest, and he was considered delicate and therefore at the age of 14 or 15 was sent away to Tiverton to learn his trade.

The only story TY knows about his father's young life is that he had seen his father, TY's grandfather, with the knife he used for whatever men used knives for, closing it up and putting it into his pocket. So his father picked up the carving knife and tried to do the same thing, and poked it into his tummy. His mother TY's Grandfather shouted to his father that Ernest has stabbed himself. He was bleeding a lot. The family doctor was in Dulverton because they had lived in Dulverton. Duvale was 4 miles down the valley so its 6 miles from Dulverton, so his father got on his horse and he rode to Dulverton. He found the doctor who probably had a pony and trap and trit-trotted down the road to this bleeding little boy. He couldn't have been too bad because they stitched him up and that was that

Ernest was sent off to learn his trade as a draper. TY is not sure what a draper is. He was sent to Tiverton. As he was considered a bit delicate he wasn't considered up to farming. He thinks he went to a shop in Tiverton. Then he went to Exeter, then he went to Bristol and draped. As he was born in 1880 and he didn't leave draping until 1910 he must have spent 14 years of his life in that trade.

By 1910 Grandpa Yandle was ensconced at Riphay with his wife and a couple of daughters and help from one of the sons. Ernest Yandle used to come there on holiday from wherever he was draping. The story has it that he went and got a job at Peter Robinson, he thinks, in London, a big draper's shop, and he got a job as shop walker, which was one up from what he did. TY imagines that he was a salesman of cloth. He had learnt his trade then became good enough to go and apply for a job as shop walker. So he put on a morning suit, in those days, and said, 'Can I help you Madam. This young man will help you'.

He got the job, history relates, but the chap who was doing it wasn't going for a few months so he came back to Riphay to holiday in August then go back to take up the job in October. His grandfather and all of them were keen on the hunting, so they gave him a horse and he was expected to help on the farm.

When it came to October he wrote and said that he wasn't coming. So he came into farming quite late in life really. TY would think that his father's his health then was perfectly all right. He doesn't really know. He doesn't know how the delicate bit came in apart from planting the knife in himself. He was born and brought up on the farm.

In those days a farm even of that size would have had 7 men. His grandfather couldn't have done much work because he had to supervise 7 men. The farm was 300 hundred acres. In 1918 Grandpa Yandle's sight began to go so he said that he was going to retire and that Ernest had better take on the tenancy of Riphay. This was quite lucky for his father because he hadn't been farming all those years. The other brothers were at different farms. There were 2 brothers left at Duvale. The elder brother Jack was at Chevithorne. So his father had a rather good opportunity. He was the only one who took on Riphay. TY knows how the brother's children felt about it but not how the brothers felt about it. The brothers seemed to get on very well, perhaps not quite so well when they got married, that seems to be normal. [Back to top]
 

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FATHER TAKING OVER RIPHAY / AUNTS IN SOCIAL TIME WARP / UNCLES / FARMING AND HUNTING / GETTING SMARTER / BAWDENS AT CLOGGS FARM

So his father was able to take on the farm in 1917 or 1918. His grandfather retired and went to live in the house over the road from Riphay, called Fairfield which they always called Fairpark, which was built by the retiring stud groom from the Carnarvon Arms. He was a chap called Bryce. He thinks that it was the great, great grandfather of Michael Hawkins who is in charge of the Exmoor Society. Grandpa Yandle retired over there with his wife leaving odd sisters around to look after the Yandle sons, their brothers. None of the boys married at the normal time that you might expect them to do so.

The sisters never married, probably because they were in a social warp. Amy, Kate and Clare, were a bit too smart to go to the village hops and not quite smart enough to go to the Hunt Balls and dinner parties. He knows that the 3 sisters were not allowed to hunt although they were interested. Grandpa Yandle, Tom Yandle, couldn't afford to buy the clothes, that he thought women should hunt in. It could have been side-saddle for all he knows. Anyway they were never allowed to ride. They used to hunt on bicycles or with a pony and trap, and yet he was the tenant of 3 farms.

He wouldn't let his sons dress up as the gentry dressed up because he said that they were farmers. If they put on top boots the land lord would put the rent up. So they wore quite smart, what he calls ratcatchers, matching coats and waist coats, breeches, boots and leggings. They were allowed to hunt. They wore flat hats [TY has a photograph] There is a picture of TY's grandfather dressed slightly differently to his 4 sons. The 4 sons must have been on average in their 30s in that picture.

The sons too were probably in that social time warp when they were younger. But men wouldn't get caught up in it quite so much. TY thinks it's a very interesting subject. Because his aunt, the youngest of the 3 sisters lived to the ripe old age of 108, she used to talk about her former life and he became old enough to be interested and ask those sort of questions. She did have a boyfriend or 2 but they considered that their life was looking after their brothers which wouldn't go down very well nowadays.

The first brother to marry was the eldest and he married out of the warp. She was called Rosalind. Her father was a cleric of some sort, a deacon or a canon, quite up in the church. Uncle Jack married her. May was the daughter. Uncle Bert married someone called Osbond. They were a bit smarter farmers from Dorset. He thinks Dorset farmers were always a bit smarter than Exmoor farmers. TY's father married the silk throwster's daughter who would have been trade. Even in the 30's it would have been considered that he was marrying below himself. It seems ridiculous to even discuss it today. That's what they thought. The fourth son didn't marry at all.

Their life after their father retired revolved around normal farming and the hunting. In a funny way the Yandles became smarter as they got older. Socially it was interesting. TY says there is nothing smart about him. He's just a farmer like they were. TY was sent away to public schools. So that finished with whatever system was operating before the war. The 3 aunts had smarter friends he supposes.

They were well known like the Miss Bawdens, they were the Miss Yandles. They were quite similar really. The family of the Bawdens, cousins of Ernest Bawden up at Cloggs Farm, up at Hawkridge have been there for ever, as long as the Yandles have been [at Riphay] he expects. Old Tom Bawden he remembers quite well, he died years ago. He had 3 children, Fred, Gwen and Barbara. Thise 2 daughters have never married and they have looked after their brother and now they look after their sister in law and they look after their nephew. That's a similar thing. [Back to top]
 

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AUNTS AS HOUSEKEEPERS / TAKING ON LOCAL PACK OF HOUNDS / AUNTIE CLARE / LOOKING AFTER RELATIVES

It was quite sad, when the brothers married his three aunts were effectively kicked out. They had been effectively the farmer's wife. They were quite big farms so they were quite important people in the little community.

Chevithorne Barton is an Amory owned farm, in fact Michael and Arabella, who is vice-chairman of the National Park [Authority], he's not quite sure why but that's another story. She lives there and it's a lovely old house. In those days the farmer of the land lived in one end of this quite large house. One sister lived with Jack and there was quite a bit of a community round Chevithorne, it's just this side of Tiverton.

Then another one lived at Riphay, looking after his father, her brother. When his grandfather retired to Fairfield, and his father was left at Riphay with a sister, that didn't work. Both his father and his sister were quite difficult. They agreed to differ. That sister went to look after her parents at Fairfield. Another sister was left at Chevithorne in other words at Duvale. The one that got on best was the one who was with the brother who didn't marry. They retired down there and died down there.

As a little boy TY didn't know that Auntie Amy and Uncle Percy weren't man and wife. He was about 12 before he realised about these two old people. The one who lived to 108 was the one who went to look after her parents over here [at Fairfield]. She was a great character, quite difficult. She would talk more about her life.

When the Yandles took on the local pack of hounds, they went up a few notches. They were able to organise things for the hunt. By that time the sisters were 40 he supposes they were a little bit on the shelf. Anyway they never married. The 108 year old [Aunty Clare] died about 10 years ago. So TY would have been 55. She lived at Fairfield. When her brothers died, she sold it. One of sisters was still looking after Percy at Bampton, so she couldn't go there, they would have fallen out, so she got a little house next to one of the farm cottages, did it up and lived there. Then the sister died so she moved in and looked after her brother, whom she doted on. Then the brother died then she came back to Riphay and TY's father did up a flat for her in the house. She lived there for a bit. She came back to the flat long after TY was married. Then she went off to live and was looked after by the lady who bought her house. She always considered it her house although she sold it to her! Then she got too much for the lady, she wasn't very well, and they had a bit of a row. She came back to the flat and eventually die at the age of 108.

There wasn't much wrong with her then. She was cross one evening, because TY and his wife had gone out. They had got a sitter, but she thought she ought to have been included, it was TY's daughters birthday, they had gone to a show in Taunton, and she was cross and annoyed and said she needed the doctor, which was just a way of drawing attention he fact that she felt neglected.

Her own doctor couldn't come so a locum came and looked at her files and found out how old she was and said she was on the way out, her heart was giving out and gave her a great injection. TY said that her heart was a lot stronger than you would think. Anyway she didn't wake up. She died very peacefully aged 108. He thinks she might have lived a bit longer. That was the last of that line.

They had got used to her being so old by then. They had celebrated her 100^th birthday and she had things from the Queen. After 104 nobody seemed to bother that much. It all went along quite normally.

She broke her hip as a lot of old ladies seem to do. They mended that. Obviously every time she did something she came and lived with TY. Then she fell and broke her femur. They called the doctor. She was downstairs in this room [where recording is taking place]. The doctor said she is 90 she is going to be bedridden, he really thought they would amputate. TY said how can you do that? She is very very tough. The doctor said he knew that, he had looked after for years.

The ambulance came and too her off. They pinned it all together and she came back and walked again for the rest of her life. Her brain was perfect but her sight was going. She had a specially blown up bank statement. She liked looking at that. She liked talking about old times. She liked annoying TY's wife, which is what people do. She was fine and quite a character.

The other 2 were quieter. He doesn't really remember Auntie Amy and Kate was much quieter. He thinks they had jobs in their 20s. They went off and did something and then they retreated back to the family farms. They had a sad life really but they didn't think it was sad. He used to ask Auntie Clare and she said that she was glad she hadn't got mixed up with men. The other 2 sisters got on very well. They were gentle nice people. Auntie Clare was the fiery one.

In farming life you expect to look after relatives. It has sadly gone out of modern life. On the continent they have friends who if granny can't live by herself, she comes and lives in the house. That was what always happened to their family. That's what happened to her. Then they took on another old lady who was a friend of his maternal grandfather who came down with him to visit his great grandchildren, TY's children. This old bird turned up. Her husband had died she hadn't got any children of her own. She said she would like to live down there. She took a cottage in the village and she got driven up every day to help with the children, she spent the rest of her life with them. Eventually she came and lived there. She was 104 when she died. So they had 2 centenarians. She was more pleasant than Auntie Clare. She was helpful and a good old sort. [Back to top]
 

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FATHER'S MARRIAGE / MOTHER'S FATHER / IMPROVEMENTS TO RIPHAY / RIPHAY FARMHOUSE / LORDY HOLCOMBE / PIXTON ESTATE / BUYING ESTATE FARMS

TY 's father married when he was 54. What must have happened was that his grandfather retired to Fairfield in 1918, if their was a sister still left at Riphay they soon fell out, or something went wrong. His father had a series of housekeepers, probably because he was independent. He would have been about 40, 43, so he didn't want to be bossed around by a sister. He suspects that is what happened. He had housekeepers up to the time when he married.

He wouldn't go away to be married. Men normally go to where their wives lived. He wouldn't go up to Cheshire to get married. So the wedding was at Brushford. He's got all the pictures of it. The Heath family came to stay at the Carnarvon, and they had a wedding. TY got married at Brushford.

There was an interesting combination because her father was by then a successful and reasonably well off silk throwster. He had survived the recession and was in the business of expanding. He finished up with 2 or 3 factories. He had made enough money to enjoy himself, although he went on working very late in life. Her husband, TY's father, was the same age as her father, almost exactly. So there you had 2 men both pretty opinionated, one with more money than the other.

TY's grandfather improved the farmhouse. He put in central heating which must have been unheard of in 1934. The same central heating pipes are still there. He built a tennis court which is now a bramble heap sadly. He had the house recovered, sort of plastered, you couldn't see the stone. He spent some money on his daughter's new home, which probably TY's father wouldn't have done. His father bought the farm in 1931or 2 for £5,000. He imagines that that was a lot money in those days. So he doesn't suppose he had much spare money to do up the house. The unfortunate Pixton estate had to spend the money to do up the house before.

Riphay a bit bigger than the normal farmhouse. There are similar houses. He thinks that what happened was that the existing house burnt down. There is a book, The Life of Lordy Holcombe. He was a poacher of the early 19^th century. There used to be a market and fair at Brushford and it was called Dulverton and Pixton Market. TY went to it as a little boy. They also had a fair. Apparently in Lordy Holcombe's book they talked about this fair at Brushford, and the bandstand collapsed that they had made for this fair, because it was made from the timbers of Riphay farmhouse that was burnt down. The timbers were obviously not safe and he thinks somebody was killed. So there was quite a fuss about it.

So presumably the house was burnt down in the early part of that century. There was a date on it but he has no way of finding out. So it was built with Georgian windows and things like that. It could easily have been built for some member of the family or the agent someone slightly smarter than the farmers to live in. It's quite possible. It's a pretty inconvenient really. It shaped like an E without the middle. He thinks that one end of it is the part of it that didn't burn down. Perhaps the end he is in is new, well 150 years ago new, more like 200 years.

He doesn't know how his father felt going from being a tenant farmer to an owner. TY says that it happened a lot in those days. As is well known the Pixton estate was the Carnarvon estate. It was the second son of the Tutankamen Carnarvon family. Aubrey Herbert and Mervyn Herbert were the 2 sons. The estate was bought by the Carnarvons or whatever they did in those days, before the turn of the century, and Almina, Lady Carnarvon owned it. He presumes that Lord Carnarvon was her husband. She was the second family of the Tutankamen one, and she used money lenders and never seemed to have enough money to run her estates which she had inherited or had been given as a grace and favour thing. He supposes she lived at Pixton.

On the old deeds of Riphay you can see where the farm has been used as a mortgage to borrow money. So he expects that she ran short of money in the slump and in those days the owner used to offer it to the tenants. Really it was more sensible to do that. He doesn't think they were being philanthropic. They did it because the tenants were more likely to buy it. They sold quite a lot, the farms up the valley, there's Upcott, several farms were all sold at the same time. He thinks that a lot of Exmoor farms probably belonged to estates. Some big or small, the Everard estates, what ever they were. His other brothers bought their farms at the same time more or less. Duvale was bought by Uncle Percy just before TY's father bought his. Uncle Bert bought a farm at Fitzhead. It was a normal thing. [Back to top]
 

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ONLY CHILD / WARTIME / SEARCHLIGHT BATTERY / AMERICAN CAMP / PATRIOTIC STAMPS / DULVERTON REMOTE / EVACUEES / HAPPY CHILDHOOD

TY's parents came to Riphay after the wedding and TY was born quite quickly afterwards. His father didn't have any more children. He had a happy enough childhood there. He was born in1935. He was 4 when the war started. He remembers his father taking him to one of the bedroom windows and listening to the planes going over to bomb Cardiff or wherever they went. There was this throbbing noise. They were Junkers. To a little boy, the throbbing [imitates noise] wasn't frightening because he wasn't old enough to be frightened, but he remembers it very well. Then of course they had a searchlight camp out in their field, which he imagines was built quite quickly after the war started, which was very much part of his life during the war. They built about 4 or 5 nissan hunts those round, incorrect, asbestos roofed huts. Everything was made from asbestos.

They housed about 20 people. They tended to be people who weren't quite suitable to go to war but were able to man this searchlight thing. They must have been sighted to pick up planes, then pass them on to the next searchlight batteries. There was one down round Exeter. As the planes came across on a clear night you could see them lit up by the searchlights. Then the searchlight at Riphay would pick up the plane and follow it on to the next battery up on the moor somewhere. He remembers there was a little dug-out with something which looked like a rifle but bigger. It was a machine gun. One day they [the men] ran, and as a little boy TY watched this chap go to the dug-out and go [imitates the sound] with the rifle. You couldn't even see the plane.. He thinks it would have been as good as a using a pea-shooter at it. So the searchlight was part of his life. They used the huts after the war. They have all gone now. They just left it. There were concrete pads and the huts so they used them for a bit of storage.

He remembers the Americans coming to the area and they camped there. He supposes, because it was a searchlight battery, they camped in the field next door. As a little boy he remembers being given something called a life-saver. He didn't know what a life-saver was. It was a little sweet with a whole in it. One of the Americans was the first black man he had ever seen. They were doing things on the moor. He's got an idea that Eisenhower came down to Exmoor before VE day. He wasn't really old enough to take any interest. He was 10 on VJ day and 11 on VE day. He remembers going to Dulverton and buying stamps from wherever to stick on a bomb that was going to be dropped on Hitler, so they told him. It was a way of getting money for the war effort. He supposes his mother and father gave him some money. In those days it was about 2d and you got a stamp and put it on the bomb that was going to fall on Hitler's head.

He was 4 miles from Dulverton so it wasn't part of his life. They had evacuees there, so he played with them. They did up one end of the house, they had some splendid evacuees. They came from somewhere in the East End of London. The parents hated it there. There were two wives with children. The husbands were working or fighting. There were no men around. They were used to gossiping in Shoreditch or somewhere with friends and going to the pub, that sort of life. They hated it. They came there, then they were gone after about 2 or 3 months. They had children who came down and they went to the local school and stayed at Riphay all through the war. He never kept up with them. He was too small. The children were unconnected with the women. They were all a bit older than TY. He had a very happy childhood doing whatever little boys do, going down the river with a bent pin. [Back to top]
 

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CHILDHOOD PLAYMATES / THE AMORYS AND HEAL MANOR /DRIVING IN WARTIME / BLACK MARKET / ASHWICK KINDERGARTEN / MISS HARRIS / KINDERGARTEN FRIENDS / SOCIALISING WITH LOCAL BOYS

He played with Tony Crook, who has got the gallery in Dulverton. His mother and father lived in the cottage down the road. His father was the blacksmith at the old saw mills, the Dulverton saw mills which was a big operation during the war. They employed about 30or 40 people. He was shoeing the timber horse and in those days joining up bits of metal, that sort of blacksmith, because there wasn't any welding. So Bert Crook and his wife lived in a cottage nearby but not there cottage. They had a son Tony who TY played with.

TY played with Alan Tarr, whose father worked on the farm. He's now retired and lives in Dulverton. He played with Chris Nelder who lived where his stepmother now lives. As you turn into the farm it's just up over the hill there. She still lives there. One day he went up there to play and he remembers sitting in the tool shed and playing around. He was suddenly told to go home. They had peeled all George Nelder's best seed potatoes! That was a disaster. He and Chris were great buddies.

He played with John Gale who he thinks might be dead. He kept up with him for a long time but he has escaped. He married and went off. He lived in another cottage down the road.

The Amorys have got a house [asks if BJ knows Mark Amory]. That was another story. When Grandpa Yandle was there, because of the hunting involvement, Tom Yandle was told by one of the Amory's from Tiverton, Harry, that he wanted to build a house in the Exe valley. Can you imagine anyone saying that now? That's what he said. His grandfather wrote to him and said there is a little farm next to Riphay for sale and it would be a good site for a house. This was 1908. Harry Amory was in the army and he came and said fine, he would buy the farm and build the house. It was called Hele Manor and its now called Hele Farm. Which is just past the entrance to Riphay and up the hill on the left. So that was another Amory connection down from Tiverton.

Captain Amory came and his first wife died then he married again, another lady, who already had got 2 children. Then he had a son and a daughter. The daughter was called Mary who married somebody called Smale at the same time as his father married his mother. She was driving ambulances, it was what young ladies did in the war. She sent her son back to the family home. So TY played with him a lot, he's still friends with him. That was about the total of his young life.

There weren't very many young people around. In the war if you had a gallon of petrol you had to eke it out. His mother had a nifty little drop head Hillman car, with a canvas top. They just put it in the garage up on blocks and left it there for the war. His father had petrol because he was a farmer, so he had a car and they shared one car. You weren't supposed to have head lights at night. You couldn't see where you were going. The enemy aircraft mustn't see you.

He remembers people used to talk about the black market, which as a little boy you didn't know what it was. He found out because particularly his grandfather had one or two acquaintances who were cheating on the rules. His grandfather wouldn't have it and neither would his father. Some people had a pig in the garden, killed it and gave it to their friends. He wouldn't have any jiggery pokery. His mother used to put the amount of butter in a little pot, you each had your pot of butter. If it was gone, tough! His father had ate his by Tuesday or Wednesday and he would try and dap his knife into TY's pot. Then his mother would go for him.

There was a splendid lady called Miss Harris who lived in Bury who had a kindergarten which happened up at Ashwick. Rosie Green as was, Rosie Wallace, was about 3 months younger than TY. Simon Smale, who was the Amory child, TY, Rosie and Richard Rothwell went to Miss Harris's. She had enough petrol. She had a Austin 7 and she used to pick TY up at Riphay Cross. They had to pick flowers the day before for a certain day, so that she could identify them and teach them about the flowers. TY had forgotten and he remembers running down the road to the crossroads and trying to pull some flowers out.

The people he went to kindergarten with were different to the ones he played with. Which he supposes was what happened in those days. He never went to the village school. He wouldn't have minded. Miss Harris was a good teacher and she taught all sorts of people years older than TY. He supposes if she started at 18 you could teach children of eight. You only had to be 10 years older than the pupils. Miss Harris certainly started them off pretty well. [BJ says he didn't mention any of these names when he was asked who he played with] He mentioned the ones who lived round there. He must have played with Rosie Wallace. He would have to get there to play with her. Simon Smale was just up the road so he could walk.

His own daughter takes her children all over the shop to play with people, but that never happened when he was a little boy on the farm. He was certainly friends with the children from the kindergarten. They had birthday parties. Socially speaking he didn't go to the birthday parties of the boys who lived in the cottages. He's not sure they would come to his. It just happened like that. Funny really. They didn't go into each others houses, not much. [Back to top]