MICHAEL AND THERESA WHEELER AT THEIR HOME IN NETHERBURY TALKING TO ALASTAIR WHEELER FROM BEAMINSTER MUSEUM, ACCOMPANIED BY JANE NEWBY, ALSO FROM THE MUSEUM, ON 11TH JULY, 2022 ABOUT THEIR LIFE IN THE VILLAGE.
TRANSCRIBED BY SALLY WAKEFIELD, 4TH SEPTEMBER, 2022
AW = Alastair Wheeler
MK = Milke Wheeler
TW = Theresa Wheeler
JN = Jane Newby
AW Would you introduce yourselves please
MW My name is Mike Wheeler – it’s Michael Wheeler really but Mike it’s been know to everybody around in the village and anywhere else. I am 72 years of age. I married my wife back in 1974 and came to this village at that point.
AW So you’ve been here since ’74?
MW I’ve been here since ’74, yes.
AW So you’ve seen quite a bit that’s gone on……………….. Theresa?
TW My name is Theresa Wheeler, I am 56 years old. I’ve lived in Netherbury all my………. I’m not 56 am I! I’m 66! Sorry (laughter) I’ve made a mistake. I was born in 1956 and I’ve lived in Netherbury all my life.
AW And what was your Maiden Name?
TW My Maiden Name was Hallett. (Spells it)
AW Did you have a big family, small family?
TW I’m one of 6.
AW All growing up in Netherbury?
TW Yes, we all grew up in Netherbury. I’ve got 4 sisters and 1 brother.
AW And how many of those are still in the area?
TW We all live locally. We don’t live in Netherbury. They don’t all live in Netherbury but all locally. Bridport. Mostly Bridport and Bradpole now. So not very far away.
AW So what was the village of Netherbury like when you were little?
TW Growing up we had lots of little children around to play with. A family that lived up the road was related to me and they had ten children so there was always one to play with another. We used to have sleepovers in each other’s houses. They were cousins of ours and also their grandparents lived next door to us. Growing up, everyone in the houses we lived in, we knew each other very well. We would go in and out of all the houses and there were several that were related to each other. Yes, I had two lots of cousins that lived up the road that were married to two brothers. So 2 of the men married 2 of the women and both the grandparents lived in Netherbury.
AW And that was quite, sort of, the done thing? Quite common in those days?
TW Yes, Well, when I was born my gran lived with us, and my great gran lived with us, and up until my great gran died. I was about 7 or 8 and I then, my mum had another baby at that time and she was 92 when she died and so we lived in a 3 bedroomed house. There was my mum and dad and the little one in their room, my great gran and my gran used to have the next room, and then we had 3 of my sisters lived in, had the little bedroom.
AW Three in the little bedroom?
TW Yes. And then, as my gran died, we sought of shifted bedrooms a bit and then mum had another two after that one and so there was a boy. And eventually the boy had the little bedroom and we, all the girls were, in one bedroom and my mum and dad ……………… Yes. As one died the bedrooms got taken over.
AW Everybody moved around?
TW Yes.
AW So how old was that house?
[00:04:38]
TW It was pre war, in the forties ……………. ’42. ’43 I think. Bowdens it’s called. I think they, my gran and my great gran, moved in when it was first built. Before that they lived in a couple of other places in the village.
AW So what did your dad do by way of work?
TW When we were small he worked in the milk factory in Beaminster. He was there for quite a few years………
AW Doing what sort of job do you know?
TW Well I don’t really. I mean I just take it he was a general………….. unloading the lorries, or the tractors, with the churns and…………. he used to bring home dried milk and also cream and we used to make butter.
AW Because the factory, one of it’s main products, was dried milk wasn’t it? Cow & Gate………..
TW Yes, that’s right. So he used to bring home that. It was OK. I remember it as being OK. My mum, she used to work at the fruit farm, Elwell……………
AW Where’s that?
TW At Waytown. As children, as small children, she used to take us with her and we used to entertain – me and my sisters – we used to entertain the workers there singing, and they loved it.
AW So Elwell fruit farm. What sort of fruit?
TW Oh, all different, apples, pears, strawberries, blackcurrants. We used to go blackcurrant picking. They used to have a bus from Beaminster – Gibbs old Bedford bus – and when it was blackcurrant season (which was probably a couple of weeks a year) they used to pick up from Beaminster, come through Netherbury. We used to go on up to the fruit farm, pick the blackcurrants, earn a little bit of pocket money. One of the things that does stick in my mind was……it was Mr. Russell and Mr. Douglas that owned it then and they used to make us wash our hands afterwards in a bucket of cold water in this green carbolic soap. The smell of it, I can still smell it now. It earnt us a bit of pocket money.
AW What happened to the fruit, do you know? Was it just locally sold or did it go off somewhere to market.
TW Well, I don’t know to be honest. I really don’t know what happened to it.
AW How long did the fruit farm keep going for? Is it still there?
TW It is still there. I’m not sure what they actually do now. I think it’s a lot of apples they grow and pears but I don’t know what they do with all the fruit and that now.
AW That sounds fun for………….. to entertain the fruit pickers.
TW It was, it was great fun.
AW And as you grew up, where did you go to school and what was schooling like for you?
TW Netherbury School.
AW Where was that?
TW That was down in the village and we only had two classes, the Infants and the Juniors. Mrs Hinton was our infant teacher and I do remember I was very young, I must have only been 5, and I was talking and she’d probably told me a few times not to talk so I had to stand in the corner. I cried and I think they had to get my sister out from the Juniors to come to me. But so we were in the Infants with Mrs. Hinton who lived in Bridport and her husband was the Vicar of St. Mary’s in Bridport.
AW St. Mary’s Bridport, not St. Mary’s Beaminster?
TW No, Bridport. And we used to go there carol singing and they used to take the school there and we used to go to the church carol singing. Then, as we got older we went into the Juniors where Miss Bailey taught us and she lived in the village. We used to listen to the radio I do remember and sing songs and things with the radio. We used to have concerts – what did they used to call them? Singing Festivals. And all the schools around the area used to gather in like Beaminster School, Woodroffe School, Colfox School and we all used to have to go for the day. We used to have auditions and we used to………….. if they picked you in the evening they had the parents come in and we used to entertain the parents.
AW Did you enjoy that?
TW Yes. We loved singing. All my sisters do as well. I think nearly all of us were picked to sing solos at one stage or another as we grew up. Yes, that was fun.
AW So, did you keep the singing going? In later years?
TW No which is a pity, but we didn’t. We did once actually, down in the village hall, have a litle concert thing down there and all of my sisters, it was when we had small children, got together and sang – in the ’80s that was.
AW So what happened as you grew up and grew on. Did you go out to work?
TW Yes. I left school at 15. Obviously went on to Beaminster Comprehensive School after Netherbury.
AW How did you get there?
TW There was a bus. A bus used to take us and bring us back.
AW Were there many kids in Beaminster Comprehensive then?
TW Oh hundreds. (Laughter) Lots more than our little village school. Big change. But actually I met a friend at Netherbury School – she came from Melplash because you know we had people from Melplash as well – and she’s my friend still today. We’ve always kept in touch and so we went to Beaminster School together so that made it easier. Yes, we used to go there and then went after school – I left school at 15, and went to work in Bridport at Western Dairy. Up until I ………………..
AW Carrying on the dairy connection?
TW Yes, up until I got married and then until I had our first child. Living in Netherbury I mean, as a child, we had Brownies and Guides and we had the playing fields which was always good, we had a youth club, we were in the choir, we had Sunday School so we did all that. Lady North was our Guide leader.
AW Who was she?
TW She lived in the village at Myrtle Cottage. I don’t quite know – I mean she was called Lady North but I don’t……… (muddled speech) and that was all fun. We used to go in the copse and have bonfires and cook our tea. It was all good fun. Oh we used to do Pantomimes. We had Pantomimes down at the old village hall which was a wooden hall at the time. I was Cinderella one year and I had to have my hair curled and that was a thing. I had to go into Beaminster. It was by the bridge in Beaminster, there was a hairdresser’s there and I had to have my hair curled to be Cinderella.
[00:13:41]
AW That was an experience.
TW It was an experience. Lady North took me. We had a great childhood in Netherbury really. You could wander the fields and go down to the copse, make bow and arrows. We all mixed you know, all the children together.
AW Does that sort of community feel still continue? Has it changed over the years?
TW We’ve still got quite a good community in Netherbury. We’ve got our Gardens Open weekend for instance which we’ve just had and a lot of the people are involved in it. They’re either opening the gardens or they cook, because we’ve actually helped with lunches for over 30 years down at the Village Hall and yes, it’s a great sort of community for that and, if you’ve got the time, there’s a few things that are going on. We play short mat bowls in the Village Hall which we’ve done for about the same amount of time – 30 years – which is great fun. Obviously things hae changed. As children we would gather in the evenings and go down to the Square or just talk, perhaps have a kick about or something. You do not see children wandering around now. I take my grandchildfren up to the playing fiels and there’ll be no-one else up there so things have changed. Children do different things now. Whereas we used to entertain ourselves………………..
AW To do with television and things. Electronic boxes. So the children and young people that are around don’t know each other any thing as like as you did. Is there a smaller number of children in the village now do you think?
TW There are a lot of children now. We did go through a time when there wasn’t so many but no, there seems to be a lot of children around now. We know from the buses that collect them for school.
AW So are they still the next generation down of the same families that you knew or has there been much moving in, moving out?
TW Moving in, moving out. Yes, there are a few like my cousin, her daughter lives in the village, well two of her daughters, so their children are still here but that’s about it, there’s very few now.
AW Did the village have shops when you were young? Post Office or anything like that?
TW We had two shops and one of the shops had the Post Office in. It was thriving. We used to…………. for my mum on a Saturday, my sister and I used to go down to the shop. We used to get the groceries, we used to carry the bag between us you know to bring up home. A nice little village shop then. Both of them.
AW So Netherbury’s in a valley, I notice you talk about bringing the shopping up home. You lived up the hill?
TW Well, we lived at Bowdens. The shop was down the hill nearly opposite the school so you had to come up the hill. Not this hill but…………………
AW And when was it that the shop disappeared, roughly?
TW We think it was in the ’80s, early ’80s it went. The shop that was at the top, that was earlier, that had already closed but the main shop which Mr. & Mrs. Hoskins had at that time I think that was in the ’80s because the son has only just left the village a couple of years ago.
AW So what did you and other families have to do then for getting shopping and supplies. You worked in Bridport so that presumably wasn’t a problem or did you stop the working when you had the kids.
TW Yes, I stopped working when I had the children. What I used to do, I couldn’t drive, well not until I was 30 I didn’t drive, so I used to take the children on the bus and used to go……… and then my husband used to come after work and pick us up because my – I used to have a sister who lived in Beaminser – and in Bridport so I could go there and then you know, he’d pick me up. But obviously Mike could drive so we were OK for shopping. We used to have a van that used to come round with groceries and so my mum used to get a lot off him and I suppose I used to do some for her. I can’t quite remember. Do now. (Laughter) We used to also have the fish & chip van come around on a Friday. A little mini van I remember and we used to get fish & chips.
[00:19:48]
AW What sort of vintage was that?
TW Well, I’m not sure. I can’t quite remember when it was now. I think it was……………….. I don’t know if Mike was here when the fish & chip man used to come………………..
AW Do you remember the fish & chip man, Mike, on a Friday?
MW Not off hand. I can remember of him but timewise it must have been in the late ’70s I am guessing.
TW We used to actually get our milk from the farmer in the village. Howard Moors. He used to farm here but that’s all gone now.
AW Did he have a shop at the farm or…………………
TW No, used to just bring the milk round in a van. My mum used to help sometimes with that. And also then after that we used to have Mr. Bush that used to come around delivering the milk.
AW So you say when the farm was gone ………………………. what changed there? If they were delivering milk they obviously had cattle and cows to milk………….
TW Yes.
AW But there aren’t cows around here these days?
TW No. Well, he died and I think that changed it really. He had two sons, one of them moved to Bridport way and the other one stayed in Netherbury but I don’t think it could have paid. He then set up a sawmills in the village and actually we’ve got a wood called Howard’s Woods. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, and they named it…………. it was the Moors’ land………. and they planted all woodland and named it in honour of his dad. So you can go through that, take your dog walking.
AW That’s still open access?
TW That is, yes. That’s all there now. It’s lovely actually. It’s all grown up now.
MW By the playing fields.
TW Yes, by our playing fields so you can get to it through there.
AW So you say there’s been some change of people coming and going in the village. What do you reckon people do for work and employment these days? Travel?
TW Yes, some travel, some perhaps go for the week and come back weekends. Some work at home.
AW So that’s quite a change from when you were young.
TW Oh yes, definitely. Very much so. There are still a few locals that like do the gardening and things like that. The building. But mostly it’s all computer working away. Because of the houses. I mean you just couldn’t afford, local people, the houses.
AW So you’ve seen and experienced the huge increase in house prices.
TW Gosh yes. A terrific amount.
AW When did that first happen. Was that ’60s, ’70s, ’80s? Roughly.
TW I do remember when we were getting married…………………
AW When was that?
TW 1974. At that time we were on the engagement list for the council and they were building flats in Flaxfield in Beaminster and they said that when they were built that we would get one of those . So when we got married we didn’t have anywhere to live. My sister said that we could live with her until that became available. Any way, in the meantime Slape Manor had a flat and they were looking for people to work down there so, when we got married, we went down to see them and we actually got the flat and we worked 6 hours each for the flat plus our full time jobs as well. We did that for 18 months and then after that, well Mike would probably say we’d had enough any way, and so we were homeless. So Rob Moors who was the local farmer said ‘if you get a caravan you can put it up in any of my fields’. So that’s what we did. We got a caravan. We put it up where the sawmills used to be and we lived there for 9 months. In that time Cyril Poole who was a Councillor then, he lived in the village and he had a word with us one day and this place, Neddy’s Close was becoming available and it was through him, actually, because we were local that we got this.
AW So you live here in Neddy’s Close. (spells it) So was that in the ownership of local people then?
[00:26:04]
TW This was a council house. We moved here then in ’76, we’ve been living here and at that time I knew all the people up here but I didn’t really know where they lived. Because we lived down in the village I couldn’t have come up and say, you know, my next door neighbour who was Mrs. Tithers (unclear) was next door. I didn’t know where she lived but I knew she lived up there.
AW Because this row of houses is up the hill out of the village a little bit isn’t it?
TW Yes it is, which, it was lovely you know getting this and that was all local people that had the houses that had been living in Netherbury for years. It was a real lovely community and everyone spoke to each other. Even growing up actually what we called the Gentry of the village, they were all lovely. I mean they would ask you into the house as children you know and that. They were all really nice. And I do remember when I lived at, still a child, at mum’s I lived at Bowdens, the people down the bottom of our road there, they must have celebrated their 60th Wedding Anniversary I think it was, and I had to present a bouquet of flowers to them which would have been from the village I’m sure. Things like that.
AW That’s the way it was and the way it felt back in those days? It wasn’t ‘us’ and ‘them’?
TW No, definitely not. I wont say that the people that have moved in………. a lot of them, we get on really well with, they’re really nice people. The only reason I think we don’t know all of them is because we haven’t got small children any more and I think if you’ve got children then you spend molre time with people with children. But definitely the cost of houses is not for local people. It’s for people that are earning a lot of money elsewhere.
AW So the families that would like their next generation down to have houses locally can’t afford them.
TW No, not at all. We’ve got two sons………….although they are, you know, one’s at Mosterton which isn’t far, and the other one’s at Kingcombe. It’s really priced out of this village.
AW So what sort of housing have they managed to get?
AW Well, my oldest son, he first moved into Beaminster in St. James in a little bungalow adn they got a place in Mosterton. Mosterton was always a bit cheaper and………………. near the shop in Mosterton. So they’re more modern houses and so he’s got a……………….
AW But not the council houses because of change in government policies and things like that?
TW Yes, that’s right. And our other son’s …………………….. actually our other son married a local girl who lived over the road from us in the end. So that’s very unusual too, in the same village.
AW Unusual these days.
TW Yes. Not years ago, no.
AW So, Mike, how do you come onto the scene. How on earth did you meet?
MW Well, it was a day we had nothing to do. I was living between Halstock and Corscombe and I went down to a friend down there and I said you know, what shall we do. And we decided to go down to West Bay for the day. So while we were down there we were just wandering around and decided to go out on a boat. One of the rowing boats down the River Brit which you hired. And going down through the river, rowing away, saw this boat in front of us with about 4 girls in, having a whale of a time rocking around, and that was it. When we all came back in together and moored up the boats my friend introduced Theresa and her friends and that’s where it all started from and we decided………………….
AW So you met on a cruise then? (Laughter)
MW Well, yes, a two-oared cruise. So that was the start of it all. Obviously I dated you and we started with a foursome and then things progressed and here we are.
AW So you’re somebody for whom growing up was somewhere else and you’ve come and moved in to the Netherbury community. How have you seen it change over the years you’ve been here?
MW Quite a lot really. First of all, I was always involved in working for somebody who was a builder in the village and they were known as Broom & Fleet and, after about six and a half years the chap that I worked with and I, we decided to come out and have a go on our own. Which we did for gosh I don’t know quite how many years now, but right up until about 10 or 11 years ago.
AW So that was just the two of you. What were you known as?
MW We were just independent.
AW Doing whatever was needed?
MW Yes, in the building trade. Doing small jobs and keeping at it. Unfortunately my partner that I was working with died about 11 years ago now and since then I carried on on my own. The changes in the village, well I’ve seen so many people that I’ve worked for that, there wasn’t many that I didn’t work for finally. They always asked me to do these little jobs and I’d be there for them and so that kept me going all through my working life and I retired at 66 – 67 that would be, yes, and changes, there’s always changes when people die. People move away. Yes, I’ve seen quite a lot of changes.
AW You’ve seen, from doing odd bits of building work, changes in the nature of the properties here because, presumably over the years that you’ve been doing some of the work they’ve improved or changed, or extended………………..?
MW Yes indeed.
AW Has there been a lot of that in properties around here?
MW I’ve built extensions round in the village. Nothing more major than that. I have been away and built bigger things – 6 flats in Bridport, a big farmhouse at Winterbourne – oh I could go on. Different places. Yes, I’ve enjoyed my working life and meeting the people has been one of the best things really. And always plenty of cups of tea.
AW So the state of the housing would be something of interest. How has it changed interiors of the houses over the years?
MW Well, I think, once upon a time houses that came available were cheap to buy and ultimately they were all……….
AW What were they like because some of them wouldn’t have been changed for decades?
MW No, some of them were really old. They would have been modernised.
AW Meaning what? What did you do to modernise a house in those days?
MW Not too much in that side of it. Replacing things would have been, rendering, pointing, windows, doors. General sort of smaller building things.
AW Just trying to improve to make them habitable.
[00:35:43]
MW Well, that’s right, yes. Always been there to help people when they needed it.
AW And how has life been the last ten, twenty years here in Netherbury. Have there been any significant changes? Things that have happened?
MW Not anything in particular.
AW So Netherbury has just kept on going with gradual change, gradual movement of people in and out. A tendency for people to work from home on computer or away during the week?
MW Yes, that’s pretty well it.
TW Yes, if you go back further obviously – no school, no shops, no pubs. Only the church.
MW That’s the biggest change isn’t it?
TW Yes, there were two pubs when …………………….
AW Were there? Where were they?
TW The Brandon Hotel which is now houses (spells Brandon) and the Star Inn which, I think the sign is still up, it’s on the house down by the bridge. Obviously when we were young I couldn’t go in but in the Brandon they had a side door and you could go in there and there was a little hatch and you could go in and we used to get a packet of crisps and a pickled egg. (Laughter) And also the Star, you could sit in, they had like a bar on two sides but there was a hall, and you could sit in there but you weren’t allowed to sit in. They also used to have a petrol pump down next to them.
AW Next to the Star?
TW Yes.
JN When you were first married what did you do about shopping? You still had the shops at that time? Or did you go into Bridport to bigger shops? On the bus?
TW Yes. Obviously when we were first married Mike could drive so obviously we could go in to Bridport but yes you could go on the buses as well. We used to have about three or four buses a day go through Netherbury to Bridport and Beaminster especially when I was growing up and we had family at Stoke Abbott, my grandad was the Miller at Stoke Abbott and they used to have a bus on a Wednesday and a Saturday that used to go to Stoke as well.
We also…… when I was working I used to catch the bus about 8.30 a.m. outside our door in the village and then I used to come back on what we called the Top Road Bus which was 6 p.m from Bridport that went to Beaminster but didn’t come into the village. So we used to have to walk down Joy Lane and walk home from that one. And I’m sure we used to have a late night bus that used to do that as well that when the pictures came out – which now they call the Palace – in Bridport you could get on that bus and come back. So obviously there wasn’t as many people that had cars then.
AW So the cinema closing time had to be geared to the last bus time?
TW Well, the other way round I expect. (Laughter)
JN Did your children go to school, the school that you went to, in Netherbury and then on to Beaminster?
TW No, the school had closed by then so they went to Salway Ash School. My three last…………… two of my sisters and my brother went to Salway Ash School because they’d closed by then. So there’s a bus that goes through the village – which still does – to take the children. So they went to Salway Ash and then on to Beaminster.
MW I was just thinking of one of my jobs that I did do, and that was down at near Slape Manor, River Cottage, and we had to sort of go and get it ready – this is one of the little jobs I did – and they decided to get themselves an old stove and it was a German wood burning stove and we had the job of trying to push this thing across this very fragile bridge down there which was wooden and this thing weighed, well, it weighed a lot. We put it on some rollers and very carefully took it across, took it up to the cottage and installed it. We then had to put it back into sort of ’50s style. We had to decorate it out in creams and that side of it. We brought in an old cupboard and had to instal an old Belfast Sink into it. This is all for the studio for the cameras and drilled a hole through the wall at the back and got the tap and connected a hosepipe, a garden hose from the tap back through the wall, outside to the outside tap. And that was for the cameras again.
AW So what cameras, what………………………….?
MW This is Keogh Films that were doing all the series of River Cottage with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. And among my other jobs was something quite interesting. Hugh asked me did I know of any old wood, ‘I don’t care what it’s like’, he said, ‘full of nails, whatever’. And at that time I did some work over at Stoke Abbott and there was a pile of wood out there which was ready to be burnt and that was full of nails and all sorts. So he said ‘well go and pick some up’. We brought it back, laid it out on the ground and he said ‘can you put that up on the wall like that’. And I thought, wow, what’s he thinking? So I did, I put it up on the wall and he got all his fishing nets, his fishing rods and hats and things and that was part of the set as well. Quite interesting.
Another thing was putting up scaffolding, tower scaffolding in various parts of the fields to get camera angles on the cottage. And putting it up and taking it down was …………………. quite a few times I did that one. Just one of my interesting little jobs.
AW So how many years did the filming of that go on?
MW They did quite a few series. Now obviously he’s moved away. It was interesting anyway.
AW Sounds fascinating. Did you meet any other famous names?
MW I have dealt with one or two sort of people. The Galtons – Ray Galton of Galton & Simpsons – they had a place down at West Bexington. We extended that out, did a huge patio on there for them and, who else? There’s……
TW Tom Sharpe
MW Tom Sharpe the author. He lived on the way into Bridport from Bradpole. Did work for him.
TW Paul. Paul Atterbury
MW Yes, Paul Atterbury of the Antiques Road Show. He was living down in Eype, had a railway carriage down there.
AW So there are these big name people that come into the area, stay here for a while and then tend to move on?
MW That’s right. A few different ones – Sheila Sanford the artist – just through word of mouth.
AW You were recommended to do the work for them?
MW Yes.
AW Thats brilliant Mike! So how have the last few years affected you as a family, affected Netherbury here, because it’s still recent for us here in 2022 and we’re still to some extent living through Covid, but how has that impacted you and your family and this community?
MW Covid has always been the worst part about it. Because you couldn’t obviously see people. I think that’s the worst part.
AW So during Covid there was the thing called the Lockdown when you weren’t allowed out of the house.
MW Well, that’s right. We were allowed to go for walks which we did very often.
TW Most days.
MW We were blessed with good weather as well to be able to to do it to start with and then, as time grew, it became a bit more monotonous and obviously today you’ve got to be a little aware of what’s going on.
TW I couldn’t even see my mum who lives in the village. We used to walk past and she used to open the door just to……………….. and that was it. I think one of the worst parts, she wasn’t very well at one time and that was quite hard you know, not being able to do what you would normally do for her. And the grandchildren. Not seeing the grandchildren was always a bit sad. We used to just go for walks. I don’t think ……. I mean as a family obviously we look after the grandchildren a lot now.
AW How many have you got?
TW We’ve got 4 so we range from 15 to 3. But because, well I used to look after the first 2 three days a week and so that took up quite a bit of time time. I still worked because as my two grew up I worked in the village. I used to clean houses and so that was to get a bit of pocket money together.
AW Was that for people resident in the village that you did the cleaning or for holiday lets?
TW No, not holiday lets. I’ve never done that.
[00:47:55]
AW So these were people who wanted a bit of a hand keeping the house going and you provided it?
TW Yes, or helping out with their children or something. I used to just do that. I still do a little bit. Not as much but obviously you fit it in with your own grandchildren so that’s how things have gone on for us isn’t it. We love gardening.
MW That’s one thing that really takes up my time and, well, we both do it don’t we, keeping the old gardens going. I’ve got a nice vegetable plot which I’ve had ever since I’ve been here. Nothing better than your own vegetables.
TW We love walking and we love our short mat bowls. We play that on a Tuesday night, a club night down at the village hall. That has changed a little bit. We’re in a little league which we’ve……. South Perrott, Beaminster, Toller and during Covid obviously we didn’t play and we haven’t really got back to playing other people because of illness or, I don’t know, Covid perhaps has still got something to do with it. So our league has actually finished at the moment but we hope that it’s going to be back up and running this coming Autumn. We have gone a bit further afield now and playing some friendlies with Odcombe near Yeovil so that’s our main sort of hobby isn’t it. But as for the village I think you could do a lot more. They’ve got book clubs, they’ve got Yoga, Pilates and they’ve got a children’s…… once every month or something.
AW This is all at the village hall as a focus for the community?
TW Yes. It is. So we’ve got all of that.
MW Our lives are kept busy.
AW Sounds busy but fulfilled.
MW Yes. Absolutely.
TW Which, I suppose…………… I mean when I think back as a child we did a lot you know. We went to Guides, we went to Brownies, we were in the choir you know. It’s a lot we used to do although we couldn’t get anywhere. There was a lot in the village we did.
AW A lot of that doesn’t happen these days?
TW No, there’s no Youth Club or anything. They’ve got the playing fields but no Guides or Brownies…….
AW No church choir?
TW No I don’t think so. No, there isn’t. They’ve got bell ringers.
AW So the bell ringers still keep going?
TW Yes. But no, I don’t think there’s a church choir going now.
MW Not that I’m aware of, no.
TW No……. yes, it is different.
AW Different, but you’re both happy and you’ve got the extended family and they keep you active when you’re not doing the gardening.
TW We’re lucky to have them around us. A lot of people aren’t as lucky as we are.
AW Ok, well thank you both very much indeed.
[00:51:55]