BARBARA BURROUGH TALKING TO LESLIE CROCOMBE ON 17TH SEPTEMBER, 2021 AT MOSTERTON
TRANSCRIBED BY SALLY WAKEFIELD SEPTEMBER 2021
LC It’s wonderful to have you talk to us about your memories. What can you tell us about where you were born and then brought up?
BB Yes. Well, actually I was born I will confess in 1943 – it’s a family joke, I was born mangold pulling time, you know, on a farm – my father…………….. My grandparents lived at South Egardon Farm and my father took over and in 1946 my father’s brother actually was farming at Tyneham and, of course, they had to evacuate Tyneham because of the Ministry of Defence and unfortunately my father got moved to one side because of not being the eldest son and that was when we moved over to Higher Kingcombe and I spent most of my childhood, until I was 21, at Kingcombe. It was great. I went to school at Hooke, which closed, then we went to Toller. We could walk to Toller. We used to walk through the Kingcombe valley to school. Strange difference in these days because now and again we used to have a competition at school where we were encouraged to pick……….. see who could get the biggest, the most, variety of wild flowers. You would be scorned this day and age wouldn’t you. You wouldn’t do that. But anyway, that was a long time ago wasn’t it.
From Toller School I passed my 11+ to Beaminster Grammar but what may be interesting too, I had two older sisters who actually went to the Bridport Grammar School and they used to cycle to Toller station – there was a station to get to Bridport – but when my brother, who was a little bit older than me (his name was Winston Churchill, proud of that) he passed his 11+ and they moved him over to Beaminster because they taught Agriculture at Beaminster Grammar.
Well, of course, when I came along two years later I was automatically put to go to Beaminster and we used to go on a school taxi down to Beaminster from Hooke. I can remember when Hooke Woods was part of Powerstock Common I suppose, was actually planted. I mean I see them now as mature trees. It’s incredible. But anyway, very happy days but when we think about education I think I must have had a……….. I don’t know what sort of day because somehow I found………… I didn’t find it easy. I was always a much more practical girl. I did win a prize for Art. That was more my forte. But then I didn’t…… my father was poorly and it was one of the things in those days that farmers’ sons could take time out during haymaking time and things like that. My brother was doing his, would have been O Levels so, of course, guess who stayed home and helped because my father wasn’t able.
Consequently I don’t think I excelled at school but nevertheless I caught up at a later date with City & Guilds and all sorts of things and I actually worked as a………. I lived with a family who were very kind and I helped with their children generally and through the Young Farmers Club which was Beaminster I met my husband although he was a Somerset……… well he was actually a Devon farmer and came to Mosterton to live. We lived at West Farm. It was my father in law’s family farm and it was quite lonely out there. I had………. we’ve got two sons. The eldest was born in ’68 and he was more a craftsman. My youngest son he was more academic. Anyway the eldest one started school in the village school here in Mosterton and the younger one was one of 4 pupils that started school the day that the new school – well it was new in those days wasn’t it. It’s not now. But it was great fun actually in the village because coming down as I was up on the hill, I didn’t see many people although there was plenty to do being a farmer’s wife, I joined in a group which we were raising money. Oh it was fun. We used to do sort of concert parties for fundraising and partly – I don’t really know why – but we had to……….. whether we had to or whether we volunteered – to subscribe a small amount towards the new school. But anyway, whatever it was, it was a community effort. Believe it or not I was dressed up as a Diddy Man once – do you know what I mean? My grandchildren now think it’s hilarious. Then I was a Womble, all sorts of things. But we had singing and…….. it was the Vicar’s wife because in those days although we are a separate parish within the Team, in those days South Perrott, Chedington and Mosterton were very much the three villages – the parish council, the school, I think I’m right in thinking the W.I.s – there was two W.I.s in those days and those were all three parishes. I think it was in ’72 that the Team took over and that was when I think we came – I think Mosterton as a village, the church itself was like a Chapel of Ease or something to South Perrott in those days. But the old churchyard is of course still ….. the previous church is now a ruin and there’s just the remains of some of the tombstones.
[00:07:45]
But to do about school. Very happy days the little school, the old school, was expanding in numbers. In those days I have to say I’m almost overlapping in going into housing because the first housing development was Broadmead Close and whereas…………. I don’t know how to put it…………… I don’t mean this to be ……………. the children going to school was for children that parents worked on the land or they worked in the cattle feed mill but when Broadmead Close was built we started off, we had families from Yeovilton, Westland workers and all things. It made for a much more mixed school. The pupils, different interests, families from different interests. So then, eventually, I think it was in ……………. the new school came into being. There’s been various headteachers – just generally retirement or moving on, not for any other reason. It’s got a very good reputation nowadays. They not only accommodate Mosterton, South Perrott children, they come in……….. It’s still known as Parrett & Axe School because of the rivers which it was named after. It’s a lovely idea. we’ve got children now, they come in from Somerset because there’s a three tier system in Somerset and I think over the years people, parents, have preferred the two tier system. And also I understand it channels into the Beaminster Comprehensive School which they prefer as well. It’s all the things we do for children, we do our best for them.
LC How do you think your experience of say primary school compares with say your children and their children?
BB How? Now I think nowdays its much more varied. I suppose I should know about the present day not only through my own experience, because at one time I was a School Governor, but not because I was a School Governor, I used to go into school and help do craft work, cooking and listen to reading. It was just lovely. Great fun. I could tell you some lovely stories but I’m not sure we’ve got time. One little boy, he came in one day and he said ‘Mrs. Burrough I’ve got a problem’. ‘Would you like to talk about it?’ ‘Well yes,’ he said, ‘I’ve got a girlfriend and I love her but she doesn’t love me.’ So I said ‘How old is this girl? And Ellie was only 4! I didn’t dream of things like that when I…………… But anyway that’s just a little story and the fun and games you get listening with them.
LC What about things like the teachers. Can you remember any of your primary school teachers?
BB Yes I can. Some I suppose. In fact you get your favourites. I don’t know how long youve lived in Beaminster? But in actual fact the point is there is three teachers that taught me – or at least tried to teach me – that also taught my sons in the Comprehensive School and that would be, she was Margaret Cummins and to think I used to play hockey and what have you. She was a teacher and then we ended up cleaning the Scout Hut together. There’s a Mr. Fox and a Mr. Barratt. They taught my sons as well. As I say, I was at the Grammar School, I personally think I just got to playing hockey on the new school pitch. Myself I think I might have benefitted from Comprehensive rather than the Grammar School but my brothers certainly otherwise you know. But that’s how it goes. Teachers…..I can’t really…. I can only speak for my children’s age bearing in mind that my eldest son is 53 so you can imagine it’s quite a few years back. But I still think………….. I have very little to do with children of the teenage years and what have you now. I’ve got two grandsons here now – one’s actually just started at Beaminster Comprehensive now and he seems to be settled in really well. He’s got a brother going in next year.
I’ve also got a son that went through the Beaminster Comprehensive School and he did very well thank you and he went up to Durham University and he had a Double First in Physics and Maths and then…………….. We all thought he was going…………. he considered doing a Ph.D in Physics but somehow or other – I think they do this what they call the milk run at university – and he was tempted – he was offered a job in the City and he went into the City working. He’s worked in Toronto – he did an exchange with a banker with the Bank of Canada – and then 12 years ago he was offered a post in Australia for a four year contract and he went, and the rest is history. He’s still over there now, he’s in Sydney working, and he’s got two daughters.
[00:14:40]
LC Big changes really. You were talking about when you went first of all to primary school and you could walk down the valley and then when you went to secondary school you said there was a school taxi?
BB Taxi, from Hooke, yes.
LC And that picked up people from………….
BB It did, you just had to cycle up to Hooke. But actually thinking of getting to Toller School you see we were safe weren’t we. We could walk. I’ve been thinking how did I get to Toller School? We must have just walked. We used to walk down through the Kingcombe Valley. We had a wonderful childhood really.
LC Presumably there weren’t that many people at the time who had their own transport apart from bicycles?
BB No I don’t think there was. I suppose they used the train to get to Bridport for work. That’s it. To Maiden Newton. Do you know actually it’s lost me. I know we had a car but I mean that was just an old Austin car.
LC Now thinking about all the different places you’e lived. I mean you’ve seen all sorts of different styles of housing that you’ve lived in. What about the first places in which you lived with your father and mother and so on. What can you remember about then?
BB That was a cottage, a detached cottage, cos that was my grandparents’ house. I was only 3 when we actually…….I was saying it was a sad time for the family because my sisters were at school at Askerswell at that time (? unclear speech). Fortunately – you may have heard of the Walbridge family up through the Kingcombe valley? Well, my paternal grandmother was a Walbridge so I’m connected with……….. I’ll tell you actually, its amazing who I’m connected with in the Beaminster area. So I really am very local really. I think initially we moved over to Kingcombe and we, my father, helped a cousin and then he eventually got the tenancy of a farm so we were there farming until – when I was 21 by the sound of it. By then I was living and working with a family and helping with children generally. They were very kind. It wasn’t like ‘Upstairs Downstairs’ or like that. It was a case of living with them as a family which was lovely. My two brothers actually they started farming at Beaminster. Shatcombe Farm at the top of Beaminster until ill health really.
LC What kind of farming was it? Arable, or…………..?
BB No, no. It was always dairy as far as we were concerned. It’s only after I married and came here we had sheep and we had a little bit of corn. We planted quite a bit of woodland as well in the years we came. Families’ farms are fine if its going fine but you find that…………….. my husband was from a family of 6 boys and a sister and you can imagine it gets a bit complicated. We wont go any further. Our eldest son actually, he at Beaminster, he was, well yes, he was talented at carving. In fact he went to Parnham with a friend to do a …………… they were to choose for an apprenticeship that was, and he went and his friend Dan went too and Dan was chosen of the two. And I thought how wise, he said to me, ‘I said how disappointed are you?’ and he said ‘Well we’ll put it this way, if you were to say to Dan are you going to go in your workshop or play tennis? Dan would say I’ll go in my workshop’. If you said to me ‘Are you going to have a game of cricket or go in your workshop?’ he said, ‘I’d go and play cricket.’ And I thought, for a 17 year old I thought it was a very wise way he got around that.
LC I can imagine.
BB He came back farming.
LC What do you think you’ve noticed are the main changes say in Mosterton? You say you’ve been here 54 years. It’s a long time. You’ve seen a lot.
BB Yes, I have. Right, now I can tell you that possibly a lot of this was before I came, but there was as many as 10 dairy farms. Just small ones. And now there are just really 2. There’s one, one of the Dibberfords, although I think the address is Mosterton I’m not sure whether they’re not in Beaminster parish. These farms now have either…… one has certainly been built on where i.e. the village shop is, the whole of that area was a small dairy farm, there’s certainly the farm at the top, it’s called Down Barn farm, that’s the House family. That’s the second generation and they’re still milking the dairy. The interesting thing, there’s a young farmer’s son in our village, he’s the middle of three sons, and he’s really bucking the trend. Whereas a lot of farmers have gone out of farms and farms have merged and taken over big farms, this lad, he had his own car repair place. He’s obviously a qualified mechanic but hs is now in the process of building up a new dairy unit. Very brave. I was talking to his mother actually, yesterday, and she said we just hope he’s set on wanting to get back into the family farm. And they’re building a – because they went out of dairy farming themselves I think it was about 14 years ago – so in fact they’ve now got to renovate the buildings and get it all set up you know.
LC Is he thinking of doing something like those machines where you can take your own bottles and fill up……………?
[00:22:20]
BB I’m not quite sure because I think maybe he’ll start at the beginning and move up sort of thing. I don’t know. I did actually – she does hairdressing roundabouts – I said ‘Do you mind if I ask some questions because……….’ Village life, initially thought about doing this and I did enquire from someone else and I only define that his wife told me he’s also had a letter similar and I said ‘Well, my reason for ringing was just in case he would like to……….. perhaps we could work together.’ But I haven’t heard back. She said he’d just put it to one side but I did learn on Sunday, he did tell me, that actually he had now sent an email to say that he would take part. But he hadn’t come back to me to say we will work together. I just thought two heads would be better than one.
LC What other sort of changes – I mean you’ve mentioned new houses being built and so on which has obviously expanded the area very considerably. What about things like local businesses. Were there shops at all when you came, was there a village shop?
BB There was an old village shop, yes, and that was down in the centre of the village not quite near where it is now, it was by the bridge. Now that was a shop and Post Office. That closed and the Post Office and shop moved up to Sandiford Farm within a complex. That was a farm complex surrounded with cottages. Well, farm buildings that had been renovated and they were let as holiday lets really. And then the present village shop was incorporated in the village. We, I don’t know how to put it, lost our village shop a few years back now and I think that’s similar with other villages but we’re very lucky, we do have a Post Office comes to the village hall for 2 1/2 hours on a Monday which is brilliant because lots of people transport wise, they’ve got to get into town to even post a parcel, get stamps, and even you can draw cash there.
LC I was going to ask about that because having no banks can be a real problem.
BB This is the problem in this day and age. If you go into Crewkerne……………… I mean I know myself, with banking, I moved it to Crewkern because it was just convenient on the doorstep, then Bridport Barclays, then Chard. I thought Chard’s easier probably because I hate driving into Yeovil and now they’ve closed. The end of June. But the Post office in Crewkerne is very good but, nonetheless, you can draw cash at our Mondays Post Office down here.
LC I wondered if there might be a mobile bank that came as there is in some places in Devon?
BB Never heard anything about it no. The actual other industry because down in the centre of the village where there is a commercail vehicle repair, when I first came here that was a mill that made cattle feed. That sort of thing. And that was originally I think a flax mill and it’s sort of by the River Axe which goes down through and also I think there’s somewhere in behind that does tyres and what have you. Well then on the Drimpton Road there’s a small industrial estate where I think (? unclear) are there. I’m not sure what the other ones are.
LC So there are places that people can go and work rather than having to ………………………?
BB Well, no, there really isn’t that very much you know. No not at all. Really this is the problem I find with housing in the village. The majority of people who move to the village they’ve either got to have two cars because transport is not good, I think the school is a magnet because it’s an attraction but, no, certainlly transport is a problem. And there’s so many people my age and younger that………… the bus service is not good. I understand that – I was looking about education because from Beaminster you can go to Yeovil Tech. and there is a bus I understand goes through there and there’s also more than we, more these days that Kingston Maurward. There’s a bus I think will take pupils there but otherwise there isn’t a vast amount to go to Bridport and our new neighbour, here, he walks down each morning to collect a paper at the village shop at 7 a.m. and he says the traffic on the road………………. it’s a fact you get cars from Bridport going toYeovil and from Yeovil they’re going to Bridport to work and ………….. the road itself is quite dangerous despite the 30 mile an hour limit.
To be fair, this morning I heard a hooter going through the village and I said to my husband ‘Gosh, school time’ because my grandson, the one that’s here, he’s sarted just now being independent because big brother’s gone to Beaminster. ‘I’m, going to cycle’. Immediately I though Oh golly! But luckily the school bus, the older one goes on the school bus now. But it’s going to be interesting. I don’t know what notes I’ve got. We’ve got, I mean years ago this was before my time, there was actually two pubs in the village of Mosterton. One of them is now the pottery and that was called the Crown and Anchor and the pub at the moment, the Admiral Hood, was the New Inn and I gather there was a fire at one time and then it was – I’m not sure how badly but it was something to do with a firework.
LC So that’s one kind of occupation people can’t have any more.
BB Yes, but as I say, I mean again I’m diversifying again. Going back to ………. I think that there should be …………say like Yeovil should be expanded so that people are near work because even if they live in the village they’ve still got to get to Yeovil for concerts, entertainment or Bridport for swimming, all sorts of things. I know Beaminster has, they’re doing very well now, they’ve got things, but the bigger sports complex……. so therefore it’s all to-ing and fro-ing and I don’t think it’s well thought out. That’s my opinion. And the school, I realise now, there’s 140 on the number. I think the school – I can’t remember exactly – but it was about just over 100 I think it was actually built for. But they now, because when it was built there was, they cooked the school dinners there, but the kitchen has now moved into now a classroom. Mosterton School actually, when the school dinners, they stopped it, Dorset, that they stopped doing the school dinners and a group, myself included, but we did luckily have a very good businessman, and he actually, between us, we got the school dinners going as a committee and we employed the cook and the assistant but then, after a while, it was needed as a classroom. But we were one or two schools in West Dorset at least which we thought that was rather good.
[00:32:23]
LC Absolutely. And very lucky still to have a village school.
BB Oh definitely. Oh yes. It’s a lovely atmosphere, lovely little school up there. I’m obviously not so involved as I was earlier, quite involved at one time. I can remember being in School Governors once and they were talking about a particular extension and they were talking about the numbers and I was insisting that it would just expand the numbers and it was going to be a problem for the school. It was going to be over subscribed. And somehow through…….. because it was a Voluntary Aided School, through Salisbury, and it came back that apparently there was some ridiculously low number of, I don’t know how they got the number, point three of a child would come out of that development. Well if you drive from Beaminster and follow the school bus you wonder where all these children come from. It really is amazing the number of children that have probably gone through the primary school.
LC Its a community which is lucky in the little school it has and confident in the secondary school. What happens to the young people when they’ve finished school generally speaking? I mean you’ve talked about your own family…….. do people manage to stay here or do they……. are they forced to move on?
BB I think some and some. I think they do move on. There are some local houses. Strange really, when you’ve helped in a school when you see these children, after a while you see them with “L Plates” and you see them pushing prams so obviously some of them stay around the area. I think the ones in my son’s school year you don’t see them in the village. Very few.
LC Do you think it would be employment opportunities or being priced out of the market in terms of property? Or a combination of all the things we’ve talked about.
BB It is a combinaton. it’s difficult really because they’re saying people want to live within the area but I don’t think – because I when I can remember Mosterton, when I moved here, there were so few children so there’s not many of that generation left so it’s not like if you were to get a village like Loders whereby it’s a much bigger village to start with. There would be more children, descendants of previous families. My father had a wonderful expression. He used to say ‘I can hear what you’m saying Maid, but it’s a job to understand what you mean.’ I do but its very difficult to put it over. No I can’t think of many families except for like the Boundy family where they’ve got families, their children are living fairly local still.
No. There are the……… well they’re sort of starting local housing ones at the top of the village, there are some that were, there are one or two I know that were at school with my son.
LC Do you think it’s easy for a new family to blend in with ……………………
BB I think it’s up to them. They certainly, age wise, if I were to say when I think the things that we were doing years back there’s very little, they get very, they don’t get very involved in the village life. I mean the argument is ‘Oh we’re busy and we’ve got to………..’ But there again you see, to do a lot of things a lot of both parents are working these days. I know my friend would say well we worked too but somehow you found time to ……………. I don’t know, I think it’s a different outlook they’ve got really.
[00:37:07]
LC And I think also, you know, when you come in new maybe…… well seeing the, what you were talking about, the spread of family networks, almost everybody is related to somebody else and that, perhaps is a little………….
BB Probably not so much in Mosterton but certainly where, like, if you get up through the Hooke valley, up through there, well yes.
LC And I mean that’s an advantage to the people who are part of it because of the feeling of your roots being in a place and a landscape.
BB Obviously because it’s not my generation I suppose I don’t know – I’m sure the youngsters do things but if it came to an event in the Village Hall you wouldn’t see many people. Young families. For the Harvest Supper there wouldn’t be, even though there’s one or two come and they keep their children up a little bit late, but you don’t………
LC Interesting that the Harvest Supper is still kept which has vanished in lots of places.
BB Well, exactly. When you look back over the years I mean the things that the village did and you had more, you used to get more village family participation. Because, when we were up the farms we started off doing, up at the farm, we used to have Cheese & Wine (? unclear) we used to think they’d come and see you know where the funny people on the hill live. The next year we tried, and the pancake suppers which we do. We started them at the farm and then we outgrew it so we moved to the Village Hall. It’s like with the Harvst Supper see, I can remember the Harvest Supper in the new school because they had the kitchen and it was just so many people there but you don’t get them now to the Village Hall
LC What about things like, I mean in places I’ve lived, the May Day celebrations were a really big thing?
BB No, we don’t do that but I’ll tell you what is an interesting thing. Memories of when the old school, I had my eldest has been there, and the children paraded in fancy dress from the old school following the Bishop of Salisbury to the new school. And just recently (? unclear) at a wedding and they used that hymn “One more step along the way I go” and I can’t remember that song but I looked it up the other day and I thought…….. I think that one is relatively new.
LC “I’ll be following along with you” It’s early 20th Century I think.
BB Yes, I can’t remember but how appropriate it would have been because these children, I can picture them now in fancy dress, following the Bishop from one school to another. But what music they played I can’t tell you.
LC That’s wonderful. Things like Harvest, things like……………. what about Christmas parties they used to do in schools didn’t they? Other things which are not celebrated any more like Empire Day and so forth.
BB I think at school last year they certainly had a Remembrance Service. That was pre-Covid obviously which was a good thing. They have to trail up from the school but on a good day they don’t seem to mind. I think they’ve been very lucky. They’ve had a good…………… interesting headteachers who ………… they’ve tried to keep the school …………… well obviously being a Church of England School I suppose they had to but, of course it covers the three ….. the school still covers the three villages as the Parish Council did as well. And W.I.s as I said earlier.
I’m trying to think. Family farm. My husband’s family they are very much a Devon family farm. Can I just tell you that my youngest son was the 82nd Great Grandchild of Great Grandma Burrough and there are 9 in his immediate family. She lived until she was 104. They had a party in the Guild Hall at Axeminster. We looked like the Cup Final crowd. We really did it’s true. The only reason I knew that Nicholas was 82nd was because a cousin had kept account and she’d had a baby about two weeks earlier and she’d said hers, this Kevin, was 81st so I thought he must be the 82nd but, as I say, my brother, one brother-in-law has got 6 daughters, another one’s got 4 daughters and we’re in the middle with 2 sons.
LC What brought them in from Devon, into …………….?
BB Well I think it was just a big family and a farm came on the market and it was the right price and they were in rented accommodation and that’s hence, really, partly I mean, why when father-in-law died they don’t always make things straight do they (? unclear)
LC What sort of changes in farming practices do you remember?
BB Oh yes, well I can remember like at the farm you see, we used to milk by machines and it was in churns and then, not long afterwards, the milk lorry came and he would take the churns away. But then, again, you’d get a milk tanker, tankers would come and take it out. We came out of farming, dairy farming, in 1980 up there because, one reason was my husband had been milking cows since he was – I don’t know how long – and then we had a road which was nearly a mile long. We used to maintain it. We used to keep it……………….. perhaps spend a couple of thousand every other year and do a patch, and go it like that. Well I’ve never been back to the farm actually, I have to admit, since we left but, from what I can understand, it is now that’s the base of the log store which is another business industry. People working out there. And I gather it’s just gone to, not very good at all. There’s lots of footpaths around Mosterton you can walk.
[00:44:16]
LC How did farmers tend to view people walking on footpaths because opinion is divided isn’t it on them?
BB Well no, I think on the whole we didn’t have a problem. I think most people …….there were one or two, you’ll always get that anywhere wont you. But I did find, during the Foot & Mouth it was an amusing …….. it was in a way. Because the footpath at that time – I think mind you that was by probably my husband’s choice because they used to go down through and occasionally a gate was left open – so they used to walk right through the farmyard. And when it was the Foot & Mouth, people from the Seaborough side, they could not come through to Mosterton. There was a sign not to. But yet they could walk up the lane, walk through our yard and walk to the Seaborough boundary. I don’t know why.
LC I think that’s what’s known as a loophole! (Laughter)
BB But actually going back (? unclear) it’s racing stables now. That’s one of the farms is now a racing stable but there’s not any particular individual farms but I think…………….. what else can I think………. housing………………
I do think, on the housing thing, my husband has got a – was it you that I said he can be quite controversial because he’s been trying to get just one……………….
LC I believe it might have been – I think we were comparing notes at the time.
BB He just wants to build a bungalow. His idea was to retire down there and that’s what it’s been and he’s not been able to do it and he’s like a dog with a bone. When you see round and about I think it’s probably rather galling. But there we are. What have we now? Education, local housing, transport (I think we’ve covered that) local industry. but on the whole, people moving to the village I mean it’s been good in some ways but I just, if you go to the school gates now I just think……………….. Well of course they’ve got pre-school on the same site now so it’s very congested up there at the school gates now and I understand there’s some ill feeling at times which must be difficult if you’ve bought accommodation there – you’ve bought a house and now it’s not just two ends of the day, there can be a pick up in the middle of the day and everything else.
When I…………. I’m going back to Kingcombe now, but snow! The only snow, really bad snow since I’ve been in Mosterton, it happened to be we were still milking in the dairy and my sons were home from school because they couldn’t get to school. I was one of those awful mothers. The road opened up and I ended up taking them and they came home and they said……………….. the following week they said ‘We’re only doing the same as what we did last week ‘cos half the children in Beaminster didn’t even bother to go’! But I was the dragon who got them to school. It wasn’t I wanted to get them out of the way it was just that I thought that was the way to bring them up.
[00:47:59]
I can remember the whole of the half-term holiday literally, instead of taking them somewhere we were getting milk across the fields to the Drimpton Road and then taking down to Chard whereas when we were living at Kingcombe it would have been ’62-’63 year my brother would have been 21 and we planned a party in the Village Hall at Toller. Do you know you couldn’t get out of Kingcombe with the car and the ladies of Hooke because the farmers, there was a milk factory in Maiden Newton at that time, and the ladies of Hooke used to have lifts on hay bales on the trailers with the churns, where the farmers were going through with tractors, and catch a train at Toller to go and do their shopping. And it was 23rd Februry I think, was the first time we managed to get out with a car. Wasn’t bad was it?
LC It was a very bad winter wasn’t it that year? i can vaguely remember that. The weather does play a big part in how you live your life.
BB Oh certainly it does, I mean even like with farming, I mean this year it must have been a very difficult season for farmers. Going back to farming you see we living here and because there’s a farm, if you go up the road there’s a turning, you go down through a yard and it’s …………… can’t remember …………………… anyway, it’s a family farm but it’s been taken over, it’s being either rented or run by a big set up to do with Arla Milk. Now you see that they’ve worked out a wonderful route where they go out with these gi-normous tractors and they go down through, they obviously spray whatever they’ve got to spray, and they go down through into South Perrott and they go to South Perrott and I happened to be at Misterton Cross one day and I saw it go down to North Perrott, down through that way. And they’ve worked out this wonderful route where they come out and instead of passing in the lanes they go round and around. It’s quite efficiently worked out. But people across the way moved from London, they can’t understand. It’s quite difficult. (Laughter) And then they do actually – they move down from London and they say ‘There’s nothing going on’. But our Village Hall as you see by that sort of newsletter that ……….. they used to have a craft group but that’s disbanded – Covid – whether we will get back together……….. There’s various dance and exercise classes restarting…………
LC Do you have the mobile cinema that comes round?
BB We don’t. I think probably it might be a good idea but no, they haven’t. I’m trying to think of other things in the hall. There’s ……………………….(Sounds of pages turning)
LC As you say, there’s all these things that you could do if you look for them.
BB They don’t have many dances as such. One of the big fundraisers two weeks ago, there’s a family, the Fry family, one of them, the one that runs the commercial vehicle down there, they’ve (? unclear) Bands on the Green. It’s a terrific noise but at the same time they raise a lot of money which it would take a lot of coffee mornings etc. to actually get.
Village Hall, that’s right, Art Club. There’s an Art Club, now that was started in the memory of a lady some years back and I think that’s going to restart. Garden Club of course – I should say that as I’m on the committee. Not many members but we get some interesting speakers. Drama group. We had a drama group and I gather, according to this newsletter, there will be another……….. someone else wants to start it up.
LC Have you got any singing and things like that?
BB No. Only we did years ago when we did that fundraising towards the new school We used to get some gentlemen from Crewkerne that did this Barber Shop sort of singing. They came and just…………………….
LC Right, well I think we’ve kept you going for quite long enough. I’m very grateful to you for all your memories.
BB Well I just hope you can make good of my gobbledegook.
LC Oh yes,I think we may have snaked around a bit but I think we’ve covered lots of things and its been really interesting. thank you very much.
BB I didn’t tell you about we had a bakery?
LC Oh no, tell me about the bakery before we sign off.
BB Yes we used to have a bakery, that is, was, returned to a cottage now, a terraced cottage. I can remember the baker coming. This nutritious fresh bread. I’m going to get into trouble if anyone reads this because they’re going to say ‘Why didn’t you include this?’ But you can’t ……………………………
LC You can’t do everything and I think you’ve given us a very wide ranging survey. Thank you very much indeed.
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