CD2

(68 mins)
 

2/1

CHURCHILL / SOCIAL MOBILITY / DIALECT / PREP SCHOOL AT KESTRELS / DISLIKE OF RIDING

He remembers at the end of the war going down to play with Alan Tarr and his mother came out with a Daily Mirror. It had a picture of Churchill with a gun, and the headline asking who's finger was on the trigger. It was before the election of 1945-6, when Churchill didn't get in. He remembers being quite surprised how vehement old Mrs Tarr was about this. It was his first realisation that there was a difference in the way people thought, who were not as well off as he was or who didn't have as many advantages. She wanted Churchill out. She was what would be called now very left wing. Fair enough! He didn't realise that people had those views.

Although his parents were socially mobile, they were still happy for him to play with whoever he wanted to. His mother didn't like him talking in the local dialect. She asked him why he wanted to talk like that to them and he answered that it was because that was how they talked, and why shouldn't he. She never bothered and just said all right. She had planned to send him away to school and she thought he would sound a bit funny somewhere else. He soon learned to do both and he still can. If he's out hunting and talking to a fairly old-fashioned farmer he would talk to him in the local dialect. He's very interested in that sort of thing. He has a dictionary of local dialect. He's hardly ever found any words that aren't in there, only one or two.

When he finally went to a public school and learnt about Chaucer, they read little bits 'The Wife of Bath', the master said what did they think a phrase meant and he put his hand up and said he knew. He said how do you know what it means. TY said that they use the same word at home. He looked astonished. After the class he said he was very interested in what TY said, and to tell him some other words. Of course he told the master a few he could think of. He didn't realise that it was interesting. The word that the master didn't think anyone would know was 'ort', [spells it]. To ort something was when an animal picked out the best of food. They used to feed the horses oat and sheaf chaff, which was straight sheaves of oats chopped up into chaff. The horses would always ort out the oats and eat that and leave the bits of straw. He knew it from that. It was in Chaucer and why shouldn't it have been. The master didn't really believe that a little boy would know those words.

[question about where he went to school] Miss Harris taught another sort of age group [as well as kindergarten]. People like Bron Waugh went there, and people like that.

His parents were very friendly with someone called Richard and Felicity Stapleton who owned a house over at East Anstey, which is now called Kestrels, which was an old people's home. Richard Stapleton was a shipper from Liverpool, who retired when he was 25 and came and lived on Exmoor, to be a country gent. He thought he was going to live on his shares then the slump came along and they weren't worth any thing in money. He tried chicken farming and all sorts of things which didn't work. During the war he lent his house to prep school from Surrey called Hillsborough.

TY was sent there as a day boy, when he was about 6 or 7. He caught the bus out in the road. It was just a school bus. It dropped him off and ran up the road to school. That went on. It was a terrible school because it was run by an autocratic old chap. He was probably homosexual. He had an old mother who was difficult. Local people were masters there which probably improved it a bit.

Dick Stapleton who owned the hunt kept some ponies and they had riding lessons. TY hated it. He fell off every time he went there riding. He used to run to the notice board hoping he wasn't on the list to go riding. He never talked about that sort of thing, so nobody knew. He hated it because he was nervous of horses. Little boys are often nervous of horses. Little girls are often much braver. Because he was called Yandle and the connection with Dick Stapleton and he was friends with TY's parents, they assumed he was going to be like Roy Rogers and ride of into the sunset on every horse that came along. He was a) frightened and b) wasn't very good at it and he hated it. There was also a pony provided at home for him and he remembers trying to think of an excuse not to go hunting. His mother would say that he had a tummy ache. All he wanted to do was go and play with a little boy down the road. [Back to top]
 

2/2

KESTRELS / CHELTENHAM JUNIOR SCHOOL / FATHER'S ATTITUDE TO BOARDING SCHOOL / EFFECT OF OLDER FATHER / CHELTENHAM COLLEGE / MATERNAL GRANDFATHER / COMING BACK TO FARM

So TY went to that school until 1947 when they went back. Then Dick Stapleton, who had no money said that he was going to start up his own prep school, which he did. He taught Latin, and he was an Oxford Blue. He ran it. It was called Kestrels. He ran it quite successfully for some years.

When he was setting it up, Mrs Nelder from the Carnarvon Arms, who was a school teacher, did lessons with TY until it was set up, then he went to Kestrels for about a year. He was already booked into the prep school at Cheltenham, Cheltenham Junior School it was called. When he was 11 he went off to that school, which he didn't think much of, having been a day boy. In those days there was no question of anyone coming to see you, or anything like that. After the war, the austerity was almost worse than the war. His mother probably did come up once a term. He doesn't remember. His father certainly wouldn't have thought of it.

He doesn't think his father approved of him going away to school anyway. He thought the proper place for a farmer's son was on the farm. He used to say when TY came back in the holidays that he had had 3 months off and that now he must go to work. The only thing he was allowed to do was go hunting. Then he was older and stronger and he could pull the reins and the horse would actually stop. He realised that he didn't actually mind riding. The only thing his father approved of him doing other than farming was hunting. Even then he made it difficult. He would say that they had to stick up the corn, or clean out some shed first then he could go off.

TY used to go round with him helping. But he's jumping ahead a bit. He was 11 when he went away to school. He doesn't imagine he did much farming in the holidays then. But certainly is father never really approved if his mother had other little boys and girls to play tennis. He said that he should be learning farming not tennis. TY thinks a lot of it was bluff. It didn't worry him. He was very happy doing it. Tennis must have been later. The court was built in 1934. By the end of the war it wasn't very good. His mother still played with her friends as she was much younger than his father. By 1947-8 the thistles were coming up and it had degenerated. He didn't play all that much there.

Having a father who was so much older actually affected his whole life. He went to this prep school then he went to Cheltenham College. He was head boy at the prep school. He doesn't know why but he was for a year. So going to the boys college, he didn't think anything of it at the time, he was obviously thought of as that sort of material. It was probably in competition with other people, he doesn't know. Then he went to this house. He didn't think much of that either. He was like any other normal little boy. That was what people did in those days.

He took books called school certificate which all got taught. You had to be 15 or 16 to take the exam. Because he was in the A form they actually did it when they were 14½ to 15. They had done the course and they had done enough to take the exam. It was probably a mock exam. They couldn't take the proper one.

All his contemporaries then went up a form and started their advanced level work. Although they hadn't taken the school certificate. Then they had to drop everything later and take it. It was considered relatively easy. By then his father's sight had gone, he had glaucoma, which his father had had, and TY will probably get as it runs in families, and his father said if he wanted want to farm he must come back and farm. He said he was an old man and he wasn't going to bother with it if TY wasn't coming back. He didn't believe in farming colleges or education. He said that when he went to school the only thing he had ever learnt was looking over his neighbour's shoulder and copying what he had written down. Yet he wrote good letters and TY says he had picked up the rudiments of education as he went along.

So his father didn't think that TY needed any more education. TY thought it was ridiculous that he had done his year's preparation for school certificate, and then he couldn't take it for a year. Normally he would have gone to the next form up and learnt and done half of the course for the higher exam, but he didn't. He just stayed in the same form and spent a year not doing any work at all, quite happily, enjoying what ever else you did at boy's colleges. The he left at the age of 16½.

TY thought it was wonderful. He was quite happy to come home and do the farm. Looking back on it he thinks he would have been much better kicked off to do something else. His grandfather, the silk throwster, offered to pay for him to go to university, then come back and learn the trade of throwing silk. To a little boy who had grown up on Exmoor, to go to university and then work in a factory or a office was not right.

His poor old grandfather, who had no sons rather hoped that his grandsons would carry on. The only grandsons he had were Peter Cox and TY. Peter Cox was he was son of Laura Cox, Harding who was master of the hounds for so long. Laura was TY's maternal aunt. She had two sons. TY's mother had one son. The other aunt had a daughter. So he didn't get on very well with his grandsons. Charles Harding was the other one. He was the one who kills the moles and things. He's much younger.

 So TY came back at the age of 16½. They sold the factory in the end. There were 2 or 3 factories up there. They sold to British Nylon Spinners. It had become a corporate business by then. His grandfather didn't own it by then. They had done that in order to expand. He died quite a poor man because he provided for his 3 daughters with a little trust fund for each of them. He got that dealt with and said he was going to spend what money he had. He didn't leave anybody much which was fair enough. [Back to top]
 

2/3

SOCIAL LIFE / FATHER'S BLINDNESS / TAKING OVER FARM AT 21 / MOTHER'S REMARRIAGE / INHERITANCE / MARRYING AT 24

TY came home at 16½ in 1951. In 1951 his father was 71. He was really quite happy. There weren't any other children of that age around there, because they were either at school or in National Service. The girls were off doing whatever girls do, in London or somewhere. The local boys he had played with by then because he had been away from 11 to 16, had got their own lot of friends.

It was also slightly more difficult when he was trying to be part of a farm. Even in those days there was a difference. He had always been called Tom but nobody who worked for his father would have ever called his father by his Christian name. He had been aware he supposes before in the holidays. It wasn't that much of a change. He's still friends with them he hopes.

His father got blinder and blinder and quite morose and difficult. He was quite difficult for his mother. The only thing wrong with him was his sight. He could see a bit, but in those days they couldn't do much about. He had an operation. The chap said that he could make him much better, but they could only arrest it, it doesn't take you back to square one. Nowadays they can give you drugs and stuff and do better. They didn't do it very well in those days. So he got blinder and blinder.

He would just sit. He wouldn't really go anywhere. So TY was his only contact for the last 3 years with the outside world. He would go out and TY would drive him somewhere. He had passed his test and he would take him over to Brushford to see the sheep. He would do all that. He didn't like reading. There was no such thing as television, even if there was he wouldn't have looked at it. He had to struggle to read the paper. He listened to what he called the wireless all the time. He wouldn't listen to anything but the news.

In a way it was good that TY was home because he died when he was 76 so TY was 21. So that was all quite convenient in a way. It seems a nasty thing to say but he wasn't enjoying life much. He wasn't an easy person for his mother in the last few years. She was still in her 40s. She was 46 when he died.

So suddenly at the age 21 TY was left there with the farm. He had his mother to look after him. He had learnt a bit because he had been at home for a long time. A lot of boys coming into farming at 21 would have been off at college. He didn't do any of that. It was left to his mother until her death or her remarriage and she did remarry, fairly soon. She married a chap called Stephen Robinson, who TY didn't think much of. He supposes you wouldn't think much of your stepfather. He came from Molland. He was supposed to be a farmer. He was a sort of secretary person to Colonel Harrison up the road. He was also an alcoholic, which didn't help, but not a running down the street with nothing on type of alcoholic, but a sipper of drink. Actually he thinks his mother was quite happy with him. They bought a little house in France and went out there a bit. They had their own life. They went and lived where Dr Ashton lives on the way out to Marsh Bridge from Dulverton on the left. They bought it and did it up and lived there for a bit. TY married when he was 24. He married and they married so they all went their ways. He was very lucky he was left a sizeable farm at the age of 25, which he supposes was when she got married. So there he was with a wife and a farm at the age of 25. That was fine. [Back to top]
 

2/4

FARMING COMPARED WITH TODAY / BURNING / HEDGING / EXPANDING / RESULTING PROBLEMS / FARM WORKERS NOW

TY was already running the farm, effectively, when his father died, because he couldn't see. So he went on running it. As he had been home for 5 years it wasn't really very difficult.

Farming was very different then. They had 135 ewes and about 12 cows and his father and he used to go to market in the spring and buy a few more cattle, a big deal, and graze them and sell them again in the autumn. They would keep the offspring from the135 ewes, keep them 12 months before they sold anything. The government in the war, Tom Williams in the war, was very switched on to making people produce as much as possible. So you knew the prices you were getting a year ahead. So when your lambs were born in February you knew what prices you would get the following June, in 18 months time.

Looking back on it, it wasn't terribly difficult. That was on the 300 hundred acres. In farming terms it's absolutely ludicrous nowadays when you think of it. Most of the fields had uneaten grass on it. The spring never happened until June, because the new grass couldn't come through the old tufty stuff that should have been properly grazed. Nethercote up there, at Winsford [where BJ lives], there would have hardly have been a blade of grass up there. That is really tightly grazed, fair enough that is how things happen now. At least when the grass grows it's all young and fresh, that never happened. His father never did it and TY didn't know any different. That was how they farmed. He remembers going around burning the grass in March time because there was a lot of old dead grass everywhere, like they burn on the commons to kill the molinia. If you see some grass growing the animals eat it now.

He must have had 2 people working for him or even 3 when his father died. Then there was 2. They did a bit of farm maintenance. Hedging was the thing in those days. All through the winter the farm worker went hedging. It took ages to do the hedge. It all had to be done by hand. The first thing you did was what you called casted up. It was taking turfs off the side of the ground and packing them up to make the hedge. It took ages. 2or 3 men would take a winter to do a long hedge anyway. Then you laid the hedge and chopped it down.

Then of course he started increasing the stocking [rate] because you couldn't go on with a few sheep. The sheep then managed to knock down everything you had made anyway, or the cattle would rub it. Then you had to put barbed wire to keep the cattle off. Then they had to put up a fence to keep the sheep off eventually. That is why the hedges on Exmoor have been lost because they just didn't work. When the National Park [Authority] came along and started paying for fences to protect the hedges it was when it all started working again.

He spent the first few years of his farming life protecting these hedges which as soon as you stopped looking at them they fell down anyway. The hedges were probably all right until the stock was increased [reply to a query from BJ]. Because they have got road hedges and various boundaries on the farm, it's not a prairie, they put in last year for the FWAG (Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group) award. He didn't win the prize, only 4 put in, but he was praised. The judges were Ollie Edwards, Hugh Ormington, and some wildlife chap called Peter. When they came and looked TY says you won't give him the prize, they would give it to an arable farm with 3 trees planted in every corner, with a fence across and a bramble bush, and you think that is wonderful. They laughed and went off and did just that.

The farm obviously changed with the higher stocking rate. Then they bought the next door farm in 1970. Then they were renting other land, so now the operation is much bigger. Instead of 135 sheep there are now 3000. There are 100 cows. It's all a nightmare in his opinion. He's been losing quite considerable sums of money in the last 2 years. With all the land they rent the acreage is 700 and something hectares which is about 1500 acres. They own about less than half of it. They have a farm down at Bampton, that his cousin had. He died and left it to Timmy, TY's son. Some old aunts who lived down there left some land to TY and he made it over to Timmy. They bought a farm up the road called Highleigh So they have accumulated a bit and they rent bit. That's how you are supposed to keep up with it. It doesn't work now because on the books they lost a lot of money. He suspects most farmers have. The bigger they are the more money is lost. Logically if each ewe is losing £3, if you have 500 you lose £1500 if you've go 5000 you are going to lose £15,000. He's fairly optimistic about the future but at the present it's not good at all. He won't be the first person to say that.

One of the farm workers wanted to go back to Lynmouth and live which he did. He had come from Lynmouth. One stayed there until he retired and his wife died. They always had cottages full of old retainers. You couldn't call them farm workers. One moved the other day. He had lived in a cottage there, he didn't even work there, he didn't pay any rent. He never offered any. They never expected any [laughs]. Obviously the retired one didn't pay any rent. Originally they had five cottages. One of them has fallen down, it's up the valley and hasn't been lived in since the 60s, 50s probably. So they have 4. One of them they did up for his mother when her second husband died. She sold the house and came and lived in one of the cottages. And they have a farmhouse up the top at Highleigh that they bought. So they have several cottages. Some are occupied fruitfully and some not so fruitfully. (The building work going on outside is nothing to do with the cottages, they are doing up the dog kennel.) [Back to top]
 

2/5

WORKING WITH HIS FATHER / MANGELS / HURDLNG / TURNIPS / FARM WORKERS / RUNNING FARM NOW

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Timmy will work much harder now than TY ever did. He thought he was working hard, but he doesn't suppose he was looking back on it. They worked hard doing different things, things that Timmy wouldn't think of doing. For instance his father always grew a field of mangels. They are like fodder feed, really great big things. They are like your spinach beet. Everybody grew a field of mangels, not 10 acres but an acre. You drilled them in May. The seed has 4 or 5 little seeds in each bigger seed. So you're bound to get 4 or 5 plants coming up together. So you hoe them once in bunches because you can split them and then you had to go through the bunch and single out one seed from this group. To think of doing that even in a acre. You would need 3 or 4 men and it would take you a week to do it.

The weed was always terrific. There were no sprays in those days. His father always insisted they grew these damn mangels! Then at this time of the year you had to cut the leaves off and put them in heaps, cover each heap in case the frost hurt them, then you left them for a bit, he can't think why, then you went with a horse and cart, later a tractor and trailer, and  threw them all from the heap into the trailer. Then you had to back it into a hopeless building that you couldn't get into, with a little old door, throw them through there, put them all in a clamp which had to be indoors, which made it very complicated getting them in there. Usually you had to throw them twice. Then they were covered up with straw for the winter.

If you handle mangels, they are big, they slip in your fingers. The skin goes under your finger nails. Very often for some reason it would go septic. They always had sore fingers from the blooming mangels. It was raining and you were covered in mud.

In the spring he would lamb in February. You were allowed to use a mangel in a shed for a ewe. If you had a ewe you were getting to adopt a lamb. You didn't use a mangel for a ewe just lambing. TY asked his dad what they were keeping them for. He said when the ewes are out in the fields with the lambs. But he wouldn't feed them until about April when there was plenty of grass anyway. Then they would throw all these damn mangels out that they had been struggling the year before to grow.

So it didn't take TY long to stop that. That went on until the 70's really. You wouldn't find any plots of mangels on Exmoor now. In those days it was procedure and you had to have some Swedes for the same reason and flatpoll cabbages. They were a couple of feet across. They grew quite big. You had to buy them from someone who dealt in them. You had to plant each plant then you had to hoe them and fertilise them. Then you cut them and gave them to your cattle. They grew fields of roots for the ewes, turnips. That still happens a bit now. It was happening 10 years ago.

When he increased the ewes he thought he had better increase the root yield, have 2 fields and then the ewes had to be hurdled every day. Originally it was just that you move the hurdles every day. Carry them and give them another segment of the field to eat. Then you did it with wire netting and sheep wire. You'd roll up the wire, carry it from the bottom to the top of the field, then unroll it again. Then you had to knock the stakes in and unroll the wire and fix it. It was usually freezing cold so your skin nearly stuck to the iron bar and put up a fence. The next day you would do it all over again put up another fence. There was no electric fencing. All that sort of thing was very labour intensive. That's what they used to do.

The best job he ever did was give up growing turnips, because it was a nightmare. Then of course the sheep would knock the fence down. They probably had too many. They got hungry.

[question about who works for them permanently today]. The last worker who lived in the cottage was Eddie Tarr, but he died. Then they had various people, but never more than one. Then they did have 2 because they had Fred Griffin. There was a girl who lived in the flat with her husband, then he went off with a neighbour's wife so that finished that. Now they have Timmy and a permanent chap from Brushford. He gets various strappers, which is the local term for someone who takes his chance, works wherever he can. There is one in Winsford. They do your hedge or dig up your garden. There are one or 2 around who will help Timmy when he wants. So he's got one full time and a half.

Timmy runs the farm now really. TY tries to help with the paperwork. He tells everyone he gets the shitty jobs. If the bullocks get in someone's garden Timmy says will you go and see her. TY does it while he is here but he's nearly 66, so he doesn't work hard. He used to think that he worked hard. He didn't work as hard as Timmy. He sheared sheep up to 2 or 3 years ago. [Back to top]
 

2/6

OPTIMISM / RICHARD STAPLETON'S FAMILY / DR HARDMAN / CHILDREN / WIFE MARGARET

Most farmers are optimistic they have to be. Farmers have got to be people who look after the land one way or the other. They are in a better position on Exmoor to look after the land than on a prairie farm in Wiltshire. He's optimistic enough. Timmy's not married so he doesn't have a problem over money. They have 2 daughters who have gone off.

Richard Stapleton, great friend of TY's parents, had a son called Norwood Stapleton who went off in the navy. He reappeared in the 50s, married a cousin of TY's, produced a daughter, bought a little farm up at Wheddon Cross, managed to kill himself on a tractor, and his wife died 3 years afterwards of ovarian cancer, which Dr Hardman said was probably brought on by the stress of losing her husband, so they inherited the little girl.

Dr Hardman was a brilliant doctor. He would come in at 10 o'clock at night and talk to her although he couldn't do much for her. So they inherited the daughter, who is now married and lives in Norwich. She married someone who drives helicopters. So she's all right.

TY's own daughter has married a ski-bum she found on the slopes and they have opened a shop in Paris selling smart gent's shoes. They have 2 little children. Timmy's not married. The fact that the farm isn't going very well - it could be much worse for them he supposes. The family other than Timmy are making their own life elsewhere.

[BJ queries his optimism about farming] He is a natural optimist. Farmers must be needed. Farmers like Timmy who are prepared to work hard should succeed in the end. Timmy likes doing it. He's never been trained to do anything else. He went to the same school [as TY]. But of course he went to university and all that. Then he went abroad to New Zealand and Australia. TY made sure that he was pushed off. TY was 30 years younger [when he had to take over]. Timmy was 23 when he came back. TY said why don't you go and learn about arable farms. Timmy said 'well you've pushed me off for 11 years, do you want me to go off again now?' TY left it up to him. He's been home ever since. He gets on very well. He's got lots of friends locally. He knows everyone on Exmoor because of the hunting. He's made his own life.

Timmy's friendships go across all sections. It's not a problem nowadays. He doesn't know why it was ever a problem. They often find the kitchen full of people, whoever they are. It could be dear old Mike Hayes and people; it could be Wattsie [?sp], the whip that was, or 2 or 3 yobbos that TY has never seen. Timmy gets very well with everybody. It's part of modern life.

TY's wife, Margaret, comes from Exmouth. She worked as a girl groom for Michael Murphy, Master of the Staghounds. She has a sister down at Exmouth still and her mother is still alive. [Back to top]
 

2/7

AUBERON HERBERT / NATIONAL PARK AUTHORITY / GENERAL WILSON / OPPOSITION TO NPA / OTHER NPOs / GRANTS / BECOMING NP COMMITTEE MEMBER / STANDING UP FOR EXMOOR / PLANNING

[question about designation of Exmoor as a national park in 1954, and whether TY was aware of it]. He has been great friends with Auberon Herbert [Pixton] since he was married although he was much older than TY. He had various friends he liked calling in on, talking to or going to the pub to meet. BJ's father was one of them. Through Auberon TY met all sorts of people because he had a very diverse life. He had a life on Exmoor, a life in Italy and a London life. He was a bachelor.

His mother, Mary Herbert, was the doyenne of the Dulverton Rural District Council, which TY's mother was on as well. Then Auberon was one of the first members of the National Park Committee. As far as h remembers it was just the Rural District of Dulverton and Lynton. They had about 4 or 5 workman, if that, that did up a few paths or something. Then of course Dare Wilson, General Wilson, was the first executive. That was in the 70s, when it came to Dulverton and started getting bigger. Nobody told him he had to do a PR job. He was a General, a paratrooper, a mature student. He married a young bride and then came back to live on Exmoor and took the job. He just looked on it as a job to run the National Park, and people saw it all happening and wondered what they were doing. Perhaps there was a bit of a recession, or something. There seemed to be more and more people working for them, and when asked they just said 'Don't worry, the money comes from Whitehall'. TY was one of the people who wanted to know who was paying Whitehall.

Then too late, Dare Wilson started going round. TY went to some of the meetings. He went round to each parish council and parish meeting to explain what the National Park concept was. It was very unpopular in those days. There was a lot of excitement. Then old Curtis [Dr Len Curtis, DW's successor] came along. TY doesn't think he was up to it. When Keith Bungay [LC's successor] took over he had a much easier job because they suddenly had money they could spend on people, with farm schemes. They topped up other grants. Suddenly the money came in. They had these heather moorland schemes where they paid you not to plough it all up. There were management agreements. TY thinks that Keith did a terrific job in PR terms. It was easier for him than Curtis. TY was on the committee for a bit. [BJ asks him how he felt about that if he was a farmer vociferous against the National Park.] He just rather agreed with other people who thought it was totally unnecessary. He thought that at the time, but not now. As a member of the committee he found some of it quite frustrating.

He doesn't know how he became a member of the committee. He supposes it was because he was interviewed by Derek Barber, now Lord Barber of  Tewkesbury, head of ADAS, all that sort of thing. He must have chaired the Countryside Commission at one time. TY had a letter from the commission. Somebody must have put up his name. Anyway he came and talked him. Nothing happened for about 5 years then TY was asked to join. He was a ministerial appointment. Doing it gave him a different impression of what was going on. He understood it a lot more. He still thinks they are way over the top in staffing. They have got the PR right and they listen to people. They do it very well.

He got to know a lot of the people when he was there. One came to see him last night, they had a deer meeting [at Riphay]. It was David Lloyd. He must have been there some time now. They come and go. He did it for 5 years. You do it for a term. They told him that was it. He had done his term. He was glad to stop because he didn't take much interest in some of the things that were going on, workshops and things like that. He felt he had local knowledge which in those days they were lacking. Before the insistence on so many from each parish on the park committee, there wasn't any of that. Then they became very political, with the Liberals forming the county council. So he felt he was there to stand up for Exmoor a bit. They were quite successful. There isn't any need to now. You can't not get interested in the planning if you sit on those committees. Some of it was very boring. He used to enjoy going to hear people say why they wanted to knock down their house and build it up again. [Back to top]
 

2/8

NATIONAL TRUST COMMITTEE / NATIONAL TRUST RESPONSE TO LETTERS OF COMPLAINT

He also did the National Trust Committee for some years. He was recommended and he was asked if he would do it. He didn't know a bit what it was. He's a member of the National Trust. He was actually interviewed by a very nice man called Derek O'Riley. He and his chief agent came to see him. TY told him there was one problem he wasn't a member. You have to be a member for so many years before you can go on the committee. Derek said just go away and be a member and that he hadn't heard what he said.

He enjoyed that because the Wessex Region was very big, it goes right to Dorset and Wiltshire. So that was quite demanding. He did it for 5 or 6 years. For reasons that are obvious he doesn't think much of the National Trust now. He made a lot of friends and met a lot of people. He's still able to ring them all up and talk to them.

He annoys them at intervals, because they took a particular view on the sport he happens to like doing. When he'd done his time with the National Trust the then chairman rang up and said 'you know that you finish at the end of next year.' TY felt he was the Exmoor representative on the committee, if you like. He saw his place as being the liaison between Exmoor and the National Trust. He remembers the chapa ringing up and saying that now he was chairman of the Staghounds he didn't think it was really suitable for him to reappear on the committee after the time which they normally did. TY he would have thought that was just what they did need, somebody who understood what was happening on Exmoor. That was long before the ban.

That was the position they took. They were so concerned about the letters. Even if it wasn't anything to do with hunting, they only had to get 4 or 5 letters from the parish of Winsford saying the National Trust oak tree wanted limbing up, and they would hold a meeting on that. They take a hell of a lot of interest in what they consider is public opinion. They were getting letters so that was how that happened.

[BREAK AT LUNCHTIME - RECORDING SUSPENDED] [Back to top]
 

2/9

MOTHER / PARENTS' RELATIONSHIP / CHRISTMAS / OBSERVING BIRTHDAYS / HOME SITUATION NOW

[recording resumed Monday 5 November]

[recap question about TY's mother, who was 30 years younger than his father]. His mother was quite pretty. Blonde, artistic in a vague way. She and her sisters were products of Cheltenham Ladies College, as was her mother and indeed his daughters. He was an only child, born 12 months after they were married. His father thought one was enough, him being an old man. His parents appeared to get on well, in spite of the age gap. His father accepted she wanted to do things he didn't want to do, like going to the continent and travelling in France particularly. As soon as the war ended, when TY was 13, she took him off.

His father was obviously interested in the hunting, but by the time he was 15 his father was too blind to go. His mother went on hunting. She had younger friends, which his father accepted as part of his life. But the last 6 or 7 years of his life, because he couldn't see very well, she had to devote to looking after him. Then when he died she married again quite soon. She said, and he has no reason to doubt it, that his father had always said he would expect her to do that.

He supposes he was very close to his mother. It's a long time ago now. [question about Christmas memories]. He supposes as a child they had normal Christmases with Christmas trees. His father usually sitting in a chair saying 'don't put up too many decorations, it looks too bare when you pull it down.' TY doesn't think many men like Christmas much.

His maternal grandmother lived in Minehead. She had amicably parted from her husband, TY's grandfather, and spent most of her time in Minehead. So she was part of his Christmases. His mother's sister, Mrs Cox, and her husband Dennis, and son, used to come for Christmas. His father's sisters came, his brothers a bit, but it wasn't a big family party [cock crows in background]. He doesn't remember much about presents. Father Christmas used to come. He's sure there were presents given. It was never a big item, nor indeed are birthdays in their family. His son is 40 today [5 November] and TY hasn't even wished him many happy returns, he forgot. So Christmas on a farm usually means there is nobody else to do the work and if you've got a lot of animals about they still need feeding at Christmas.

His son still lives at home. TY thinks he probably works harder than ever he did. Probably plays a bit harder too. Sharing a house still with his parents doesn't seem to have been a problem. There have been a succession of girlfriends around who have come to stay. There doesn't seem to be much around at the moment. There are plenty of cottages on the farm he could go to. They are getting a bit old, that's the only thing, to want to go on looking after a 40 year old son. But there's not much they can do about that. He said that his grandfather didn't marry until he was 55, so he's got another 15 years he reckons. [Back to top]