CD2

(73 mins)
 

2/1

EXFORD FLOOD / CLEARING UP / COMBE SYDENHAM / LEAVING TO MARRY

The shop was a pretty good mess. He'd had everything through at about 4 foot. Everything below that level was covered in mud, stinking mud. Auntie was in the kitchen and managed to get through to go upstairs. Apparently it came in one rush of water. It came in through the back of the house, washed over the Aga and put that out. There was a cloud of steam. Then they spent some time there trying to clear up the mess. His dad came out with one or two of his workmen on the Sunday and helped clear up. There was no loss of life like Lynmouth but it was pretty disastrous. Clearing up, you washed stuff time and time again, with piles of stuff put outside the shop to be cleared away. Sugar and butter and loaves of bread all mixed up. He never heard but doesn't think there was any insurance. The strangest part was that by the Saturday it [the river] was just running a bit high and all back where it belonged.

The rest of the village was a pretty good mess. All the hotels had it through. He remembers the fire brigade was here and they had carpets out on the road; washing people's carpets and things like that. The stables were devastated and the bank manager's van was taken and dumped in the river; swept round; and the railings on the green there [were] washed down. Peter Steer had one of the posts in his front sitting room. Of course the reading rooms, that were on what is now Exmoor House car park, they went down the river. Auntie said her greatest loss was all the family photos. She said you could buy a new suite of furniture but you couldn't replace her photos.

He spent a day or two clearing up. It gradually got back to normal. There was so much done to the sitting room. There was wood panelling half way up and all that had to be ripped off. It was a long, long time before it was cleared up and the damage repaired. He supposed that with all the damage in the village it would have been difficult to get the repairs done but he had no first hand knowledge as he didn't have a home here that was damaged at all. He was still working at Honeymead then.

From Honeymead he went to Combe Sydenham as shepherd. He was there three years and then got married. Always wanted a place of their own. Combe Sydenham was a hard working place. It is frightfully steep there. There was some comparatively level ground that was workable but there were very steep sides to the valley there. One field he had ploughed up, Sid Sherrin did that with a tractor. He reckoned it was one in three, the contours of it. He sowed it with a fiddle, with roots, so the following year they grassed it out again. They used to hurdle it with sheep. That was a real effort carrying rolls of netting about that sort of terrain.

The Knotleys owned Combe Sydenham. Then they sold up the estate in several lots, but the person who had the farm was very upset because he couldn't get to the sale for some reason and it was all sold to these timber companies. Then they sold off the farm because they didn't want the farm they only wanted the woodlands. If he'd had the chance the farmer would have bought the lot and kept the woodlands as well. The farm was bought by a chap called Campbell-Voullair He didn't have much idea of farming but he had a manager in there. They got by but it was in a pretty poor state. They improved it a bit while PB was there. The manager was John Edwards to start with. He was only there for a while and came back to take over his father's place. Then there was someone Taylor who was still there when PB left. PB left to get married.

PB had known his wife since childhood in Minehead. She worked in Lloyd's Bank before they got married but she was perfectly happy to lead a country life.

When not working PB used to do gardening for his parents. [pause for tea] [Back to top]
 

2/2

RACKENFORD / RETURN TO EXFORD / JOBBING WORK / GUPWORTHY / EXFORD / MISS MILES / BUYING DERRYCOMBE / HEALTH

Having got married PB went to Rackenford on a small farm there. Eveything that could go wrong went wrong so in the end they said it isn't any good and gave it up after five years.

They came back to Exford assuming they could live doing job-work; hedging and shearing and that sort of thing. That went all right for a couple of years. They lived at Holmdale at the end of the village in front of the council houses more-or-less. There's a little patch of ground there with three houses built on it. They kept some poultry there. Then came the winter of '63 and he didn't do any work like hedging and that for nine weeks. That really floored him. He did a few odd jobs and some decorating for his mother-in-law and that sort of thing.

PB's preferred work was shepherding much better than dairy work. He could have 3 months lambing, 3 months shearing and 6 months hedging. That would make up his year.

Then he heard of [a job], if he could get up there, up at Gupworthy. His [Leslie Norman's] uncle had died who was working or helping out on the place. Still living at Exford PB went up there [to work]. Later in the year he moved up there. They lived for a short while at Goosemore  at the cottage there; then they built the bungalow at Gupworthy and they lived there for seven years.

Work at Gupworthy was just general farm work. He [Leslie Norman] didn't employ anybody else but the boys did a bit weekends and in the school holidays. He used to hire up at haymaking. He didn't have his own baler. PB knew Leslie Norman's father but he lived in Minehead then and came out a couple of days a week. When the boys got older and left school they did more work. Weekends PB would feed the stock but when they [the boys] were older they did that. The last year PB was up there his wages were less than the previous year. So he was on the look-out for something else again.

He heard about this job up at Lower Thorne. He'd always done gardening. He had quite a decent garden up at Gupworthy. The bungalow at Gupworthy had been built for a farm worker and PB had started the garden there. The period at Gupworthy was from 1963 to 1970. PB returned to Exford in 1970 to the bungalow which is virtually next door [to interview site - Derrycombe]. They lived there for thirteen years. They assumed they would have to get out some time or other and they'd always liked the look of this house [Derrycombe] which was in a dilapidated state. So when Miss Miles died ...

Miss Miles lived in Derrycombe. PB didn't know much about her. She was virtually blind. Occasionally PB would let her have a lettuce. She didn't go out very much. She had been a governess on the Glenthorne estate. This, PB supposes, was a "grace and favour" residence. She didn't used to go out much unless someone took her hunting. She used to like that. She used to do the church flowers. She used to know all that was going on in the village more than what PB did. He reckons she used the telephone a fair bit.

So they continued to live in the bungalow and gradually got this one habitable and did it up. It is in perfect condition now but it was very imperfect when they bought it. They bought it very cheap because of the state it was in but over time they've probably spent as much on it as they paid for it. perhaps not so much as that. They are very loath to leave it but they've made up their minds that if they can't keep it up, or it's too much for him to keep it in decent condition, they will move because he doesn't want to see it go to rack and ruin.

Despite looking very fit now, PB had a slight stroke about two years ago. That made them wonder what they ought to do; whether they ought to get out. They thought they'd see how things went and he was instructed to take it quieter and not force himself. He's tried to do what the medical people said and he feels alright now. He keeps saying it's his diet but he can't work as much as he used to and he gets more tired. Janette will say "you've done too much, you're looking tired; come and sit down." Previous to that he never did give in. [Back to top]
 

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GARDENING / MISS REED AND MISS FITT, LOWER THORNE / STAFFORDSHIRE POTTERY SALE

PB's always been interested in gardening. Whether he would have got on better in the gardening world if he'd gone in for it with proper training, but he didn't do; it's just been what he's learnt and been interested in and picked up as he goes along.

He worked for Miss Reed and Miss Fitt up there at Lower Thorne where he went in 1970. Miss Reed owned the place and Miss Fitt was a great friend of hers; you might call her a companion housekeeper. He was there until Miss Reed died in 1990 he believes. Miss Fitt asked him to stay on. He retired in '95 and Miss Fitt was still up there then. But he used to just go up and do some jobs for her. By then she used to like PB to drive her out and take her to Dulverton shopping. So he did some casual hours for her. Then she decided she'd sell up and she came to live in the bungalow [just next door], which, in the meantime since PB left there, she'd let out. She had some alterations done and moved down there. She wasn't there more than 18 months or 2 years before she was taken ill to hospital where they said there wasn't much wrong with her but she shouldn't go home on her own. So she went into a residential home in Minehead. Then she became more incapacitated and they didn't have the facilities to cope and so she moved to Mamsey House at Williton for about 18 months possibly. She sold Lower Thorne three or four years ago come December.

Miss Reed was a "real lady". They did see an old photograph of her out hunting riding side-saddle and wearing a top hat and veil. She'd given up riding by the time PB knew her. She was badly crippled with arthritis. She was very keen on gardening and had a great collection of Staffordshire pottery. It was in the papers when it was sold.

There was a dispute. She'd left it to the National Trust who said they didn't want it as they had nowhere to put it so they were going to sell it. There were 300 pieces, a huge collection. A lot of people were very disturbed about it and there were demonstrations outside the sale room at Taunton - Lawrences Fine Arts. It was nonsense for the National Trust to say they hadn't got room. It was kept in a private house and the National Trust have got more room than a private house. They argued that it didn't specify in the will that it had to be kept as a collection and it would give a chance for other people to start collecting. On the other hand if people wanted to see a collection of Staffordshire pottery, if the National Trust had it, anybody could go and see it for the cost of £4 or whatever it cost to go in the house.

[In the end] it was dispersed, they sold it and made £205,000. The National Trust said they were going to use the money to do up a walled garden at Knightshayes. PB would be interested to see if it's been done or what's been done to it.

The auctioneers, because PB got to know them when they came down and he helped them pack it up, said they'd never seen such a collection; not privately owned. She collected it over the years. PB personally didn't care for it very much but she did give him one little piece. [It's all right] if you know what you're buying.

The top price was £6,000 for one piece of china which, if you dropped it, that was that. Collectors [came] from all over the world and on telephones. It was very interesting to go to the sale. In the sale room they had one part screened off and all the stuff was in there for some furniture sale the following week. They'd washed it all [the pottery] and had it all on display nicely. The auctioneer stood on the rostrum and he said so-and-so and 150 on the telephone behind me; and the telephones were ringing. They did expect it to make that much money and they'd advertised it in all the right sorts of papers. The Catalogue was £10. She left it to The National Trust and PB was sure that she would have assumed that it would be kept as a collection. If you leave a collection to people you don't expect them to sell it off one item at a time. Had it been one item like a house or something like that they couldn't split that up could they?

Miss Reed came from Sussex, somewhere near Horsham and she came down, he thinks, in 1946. She was somewhat younger then. Miss Fitt came to join her a year or two after. Miss Reed did a lot for the WVS during the war. She did it voluntarily because PB supposes she was financially well off. She had the MBE or something or other for her work. Miss Fitt was her secretary who was paid by the government. That's how they came to know each other so well. When Miss Reed came down her gardener and his wife came with her but they didn't like it down here very well. They stayed a couple of years and went back. She was a bit lost on her own and Miss Fitt said she'd come down so she came down and never went back. PB doesn't know what made her choose Exford. She was a very keen gardener, she loved her garden and Janette [his wife] said you would have thought she'd have chosen a bit more of an equitable climate. Presumably she was quite happy here. She was 90 when she died and PB thinks Miss Fitt must be 87. [Back to top]
 

2/4

GARDENING AT LOWER THORNE / BEE-KEEPING

Although PB never saw either of them ride they [Misses Reed & Fitt] used to go out with the foxhounds; the Exmoor foxhounds. They used to follow them; they'd go capping [raising funds] for them and that sort of thing. That they gave up some years later.

PB was left virtually to his own devices up there so long as he kept it looking how she wanted it. He used to do odd jobs in the house, putting up shelves or washing the car for them, that sort of thing. She rarely told PB to do anything. They used to grow all their own vegetables; they had quite a big vegetable garden up there around the house; part of the field, fenced off. There was no conflict when she did some gardening. PB left the garden how she wanted it although he would have done things a bit different himself perhaps. It was her garden, she was paying him. She treated PB very well, as he says, she left him quite alone. She would say sometimes "can you give me hand here" or "could you do that". Other than that she didn't tell PB when the lawn needed cutting, he could see that himself. He didn't really socialise with her.

She kept bees and PB had already dabbled in bees. He had a hive of bees when he was up at Gupworthy and couldn't get on with them very well and he generally used to get stung; so he more or less gave it up. Then he came to work for her and she'd kept bees all her life (Miss Reed had Miss Fitt hadn't) and she was quite pleased to think he was interested because he could help her with some of the heavier work. A good crate of honey is quite heavy to take off. He learnt quite a bit from her so he started keeping his own ones (bees) there. She kept the bees up at Lower Thorne just near the veg garden. So then when Miss Fitt was preparing to leave and sell up they moved the bees down just near the kennels because their ground came down to there. She had a garage built there so if they couldn't get in and out of Lower Thorne because of the weather they could use the bottom garage. So they fenced off a little bit of the corner there (more or less waste ground) and they got the bees there. PB continues to keep them there now. It still belongs to Miss Fitt, the garage and the plot of land, but he's got his bees there now. It's a very convenient place for bees, a nice sheltered spot, and he's got the garage he keeps all the stuff in. [Back to top]
 

2/5

BEE-KEEPING

If anybody else asks about bee-keeping, PB tells them it is quite an expensive hobby to start. It's no good starting unless you're dressed properly and if you buy a boiler suit, PB has a white boiler suit, veil and gloves and things it costs you £100 to get dressed. If you buy a new hive it's quite expensive but if you look after them they'll last a good many years. He always tells people to get friendly with another bee-keeper and go with a bee-keeper before they get anything themselves because the first thing you want to do is find out if you get affected by being stung. PB had someone who started keeping bees and bought new equipment and all; came down with him one time to do a bit with his [bees], got stung and ended up in hospital twice. The doctor told him it was no good, he must keep away from them, so he had to give up unfortunately. He was interested, he wanted to do it, he spent a lot of money on it but it wasn't any good.

PB is not sure what the attraction is for him but just finds them fascinating. The more you do with them the more intriguing they become. He likes honey and has some for breakfast every morning. He gradually got accustomed to them. He's been stung so many times that it doesn't affect him now any more than a gnat bite on a summer's evening. You've got to be right natured, you've got to be quiet natured. They can sense if you're nervous and frightened of them: it's being able to just work quietly with them. If they aren't in a very happy mood, they don't like rough weather, windy weather, and they tend to get a bit nasty when it's thundery, it's just as well to shut them down again and leave them 'til another day.

But they vary a lot. He did have one lot some years ago, they were absolutely dreadful, you couldn't walk past the hive without they came out and attacked you. Some other gent in Minehead, he had been keeping bees all his life, said "Oh! I'll deal with them". So he came and took them away and it was the last PB saw of them. [laughs] Whether he quietened them down PB doesn't know. He was going to re-queen them you see, that was his idea.

To re-queen them you have to find the old queen that's in there and get rid of her, kill her, and introduce a new queen to them, one which is more [?less] temperamental. How would you find such a queen? - PB doesn't do any queen breeding but these people that breed queens they would get them from a known source of decent tempered bees. In the summertime the bees only live three or four weeks, they work themselves to death as it were, so if you put a new queen in, in about six to eight weeks they would all be her strain.

Most of the mating of queens is quite haphazard. They go out and meet up with the drones, mate and come back. In some places they do artificially inseminate them. He can't imagine what sort of fiddly job that must be. [laughs]

[BJ asks about reproductive life of a bee]. The young queen goes out and gets mated and comes back. She never leaves the hive again then until perhaps they go to swarm. They reckon they vary. Some strains of bees they keep on swarming but normally speaking [only] if they get over-crowded in the hive. A good hive of bees is going to have fifty or sixty thousand bees. If they build up more than that, the workers will draw out a queen cell, which is about the size of half his little finger [indicates], a good inch, inch and a half, and they rear a new queen. Generally speaking, a day or two before that one hatches out, the old queen will take off and a certain number of workers go with her, all the older bees, and you're left with about three-quarters of the hive. Then the young queen hatches out.

They know it's going to be a queen because it's in a queen cell. That's one of the marvels of it. It's the same egg, the queen's, as all the workers. The queen lays, some say, anything up to two thousand eggs a day, it's all the worker brood. Then she lays the same egg in a queen cell, which is drawn out a lot bigger, and the bees feed it with a different source of food. It's just the way they feed it, the grub, that develops it into a queen instead of an ordinary worker bee. That's nature. [question about a cell] - well you know what a honeycomb looks like, every one of those is a cell in which the queen lays an egg which hatches out in three days. They feed the grub for nine days, then it's sealed over and seventeen days later you have a worker bee or a queen bee will hatch out in fifteen days.

If a bee-keeper didn't want the bees to go he would look through the hive for the queen cell and get rid of it which would stop the tendency for them to go. Very often, if you give them a bit more room, put another crate of frames on that'll give them a bit more room and they are less inclined to swarm out. [Back to top]
 

2/6

BEE-KEEPING -SWARMING / WINTER / DRONES

When they swarm the queen goes out and a few thousand bees with her. They very often settle on a bush when it's most convenient. Previous to that a certain number of bees have been out, scout bees they call them, and found out the place where right we'll come here to live. Then they show them the way and then they go.

PB had two hives last year. He lost them both in the winter. One, he thinks, the honey wasn't fit, it had fermented and that upset them. The other lot, he thinks, suffocated in that snow we had in the middle of March. It was alright before then. Anyway he was a bit downhearted about that and Janette said you want to get some more and PB said "Oh! Yes I must get some more bees." Anyway someone came here from Minehead and said they had a swarm of bees in the chimney. After a lot of hard work he got those all right. Then in Dunster he went and found a nice little swarm, not so big, but quite a decent swarm, hanging in a bush just at head level. He drove into Dunster got the bees and drove home again in an hour. [laughs] The easiest ones ever he picked up.

He picks them up with a skep. He has a skep, a straw skep and he held it underneath and snipped away at the branches they were on and just let them in and covered them with a cloth. The ones in the chimney certainly were a bit of a problem. He had the skep then and put it on top of the chimney pot, just leaning at an angle. They were coming down in the bedroom. They had done away with the fireplace and put a ventilator there. So he went down there and puffed and puffed lots of smoke up and managed to drive them out. He put a piece of honeycomb in the skep and fortunately they [tails off]. The people were going out that night and he couldn't go back that evening so he went the following night, went up the ladder again and thought "That's all right they've come in". They were in the skep. He had a bit of a problem then trying to stand on the ladder and hang on with one hand and put the cloth over. But any rate he managed it and came down with it safely. They've gone on very well. They're both building up quite nicely.

When his bees swarm he tries to find where they've gone to start another hive. His bees shouldn't swarm this year but they might do next year if they build up too strong. Although the worker bees only live four weeks in the summer, sufficient of them live in the winter, reduced numbers as the queen slows down, and they go into a cluster. When the weather's cold they go more or less into a coma. Then when they stir a bit they eat the honey and work their way through it in the winter, whereas bumble-bees and wasps they don't need the queens to survive the winter and they start afresh next spring.

It's the workers that produce the honey. The drones don't do any work, they are just for mating. In September time when they're preparing for the winter they turn the drones out, most of them, because they're only wasting food. These drones just go out and die. In a hive of fifty or sixty thousand there are probably only a few hundred drones and just the one queen. Any swarm of bees will have that balance. [Back to top]
 

2/7

BEE-KEEPING - HONEY 

The honey in the comb is where they've stored it themselves. If you can get a big enough colony they'll get in more honey than what they need for themselves. PB likes to leave on about forty pounds for the winter for the colony of bees because they have a very long winter here.

Two years ago was a good year and he had 170 lbs and last year he had 22 lbs.[laughs] It's entirely due to the weather. This year there's a wonderful lot of clover about, the best for years, and now the weather's gone and spoiled it. The bees won't work now since it got wet. If we had three weeks of good weather now they should get a good crop of honey but it's not going to do much this week by all accounts. They were bringing in quite a nice little bit but now that's gone. The trouble is now if they can't get out they've got to eat something so they'll be eating the honey they collected last week.

The way the collected pollen is turned into honey is a bit complicated. The pollen is for feeding the young bees and in the spring of the year there's far more pollen about than there is in the autumn. Apparently this year is very good for honey because it's been humid and the flowers are producing more nectar. But the nectar they bring in is between 70% and 80% water. There's the warmth of the hive and the bees fan it to circulate it and the water's got to be evaporated out as the nectar gradually turns to honey. But if it's more than 17% water it won't keep, it'll ferment. These experts can get a special instrument to put the sample of honey in and it will tell you what percentage of water there is in it. But PB hasn't got so far as that.

In the winter you can either leave them with their honey or feed them sugar syrup. PB leaves them with their honey. Commercial people who want to sell for every penny they can get, they're different, they do feed a lot of sugar syrup. PB will feed the swarm when they come in because they're going into an empty hive and they've got nothing. He gave each of his 10 lbs of sugar syrup to get started and they've had all that.

When they go out to swarm they're ready to start a new hive. Well those bees he took from Minehead in the skep, they went up there on the Saturday morning, well there was quite a little bit of comb by Sunday evening. They start building right away. How do they build a comb? - they produce a wax gland somewhere on them and under a microscope PB thinks they're little tiny flakes and stuff and they gradually stick it together. Again this is the worker. You buy frames in the hive and foundation they call it made of beeswax and sort of marked out and they build out the honeycomb. By nature they know how to build a hexagonal comb. They're marvellous things and it's just the nature of them.

If there wasn't a frame there they would build what they call a "wild" comb. If you leave them in a skep you see several slabs of comb and they build it out so that the gap between them is just room for two bees to pass. It's just a rough shape.

PB extracts the honey. You used to get this comb honey. But if you extract it you just get a hot knife and take off the cappings. You get a centrifugal thing and you spin it round (if you've got enough you get the electric ones). The one PB has is only driven by hand. Then you can put the comb back again and refill it. He sells his surplus. He doesn't do a big [business]. All of his goes to friends and neighbours. He did when he had enough, he used to take perhaps a dozen to the shop. It's always useful to put in a drawer for presents, Christmas market and things like that. He doesn't suppose that over the years he's made any [money], it's just useful to have a bit to sell for money to buy the foundations and stuff.

Oh yes, he likes the bees. You've got to like them or dislike them. He's not a person who gets worked up over much and it's not much good going down there if the bees are not happy, you might just as well close them up and come another day. If they start to get stinging you, it only aggravates them. But you have a smoker and you give them a puff of smoke to quieten them down. Both of these lots, when he's dealt with them, there's hardly any point in lighting the smoker.

Visits to the hive are prompted by the need to see how they're getting on and if they'd had a good spell of weather and if they'd filled up one crate of honey he must put another crate on. He doesn't visit the bees like you might visit a dog, it's usually for some purpose. If he's walking past he might go and see, not open them up, but just see, how they're working, see what they're bringing in. If they drop any pollen on the floor of the hive they never pick it up again and you can see all sorts of different colours of pollen that they're working. Seeing the rain like this they're not going to be out working today. [Back to top]
 

2/8

CHILDREN / VILLAGE HALL / CHURCH / BELL RINGING / FLOWER SHOWS / EXFORD CHANGES /  / RURAL HOUSING / FOOT AND MOUTH / HUNTING

PB and his wife have two sons. Michael is 42 and Adrian is nearly 40, 40 in October. They started school at Withiel Florey but that was closed while they were there. Then they came to Exford school and then Dulverton and then Minehead Upper school.

Michael, the older one, went to Cardiff University and he now works for Hewlitt-Packard Computers. He's on the management side really. He doesn't actually make the computers.

Adrian, the younger one, he's always been a bit more mechanically minded. He worked up at Rocks Farm for nine years and then went lorry driving. He worked two different jobs lorry driving, long distance, and then eighteen months ago the traffic really got him down, it got worse and worse, so he was thinking of chucking it. He lives up Taunton and he saw a job advertised for crane driving. He suddenly fancied that. So he went and had an interview. He'd got all the necessary licences but he had to go on a training course. So he's been on cranes now. He finds that quite interesting. He does all sorts of things and goes all sorts of places. It's only a small firm, they've got five or six there working. He seems to keep them going. This week PB thinks he's got to go down to Torquay overnight to save coming back to Taunton.

PB lives right opposite the village hall. Some people call him the caretaker. He's not the caretaker really he's the keyholder if you like. They do the bookings down at the Post Office and they give him a photocopy of the diary for the week and he goes in and opens it and in the wintertime sets the heating and sets the room up ready for meetings and locks up after it's over. He's not the cleaner or anything like that. It's handy because he lives right opposite or virtually opposite.

He doesn't do a lot of other things in the village apart from the church. He is churchwarden and everything up there. Just the hall. He doesn't go down to the social club. He used to stick up for the skittle team but when that was disbanded a few years ago he didn't go on with anybody else.

Besides the churchwarden part there's assisting the rector when necessary. PB is sacristan, which is getting ready for the services and putting out the things ready; changing the altar frontals to different colours for different seasons. He's tower captain for bell ringing; he's a bell ringer as well; there's winding the clock and he took on the cleaning two or three years ago when someone else gave up. They spend as much time up there as anywhere.

He was connected with the flower show. He was on the committee and then secretary for a while. He was chairman and that until two years ago when he was bad and they said he had to give up something so he gave up that. They made him president of it but he doesn't do very much work towards it now other than putting in his own entries. That's more or less quietened down [has that the score???].

He does a bit of show judging. A gent in Minehead who he knows quite well, he's a judge, and he tried to coax him into doing it. PB was judging some gardens for "Minehead In Bloom" and he's judging flowers at Bicknoller this year and at Wiveliscombe. That's quite interesting really. You're getting around seeing a bit. He's had no professional training 'tis only just practical [stuff] learnt over the years.

[BJ asks about changes in Exford]. In the 30 years that PB has been living in Exford, Conifer Close, that has been built since they lived here. Although there are more people living here there is less employment in the village and the people who live here go off to work. They keep on about wanting more rural housing but PB personally can't see the point of it. If you live out in the country, by the time you've paid your rent and paid travelling expenses nowadays it must take most of your earnings. When Janette worked in Minehead, that was different in so much as their combined wages covered her expenses, but it would have been hardly worth [it otherwise]. If she was living on her own, no way would it have been worth doing.

[Question about that year's foot and mouth crisis]. It's ghost village now compared with what it was. They stopped hunting as soon as "foot and mouth" started (the stables are here) and just nobody came. Since then the holiday people - whether it'll be better when the school holidays start - it's getting slightly better he supposes - but all the people that depend on tourism have been devastated. You see people going to the seaside. My younger son, he took his little girl over to Lyme Regis and went out fishing, the man said they'd been doing very well, they'd had a bumper time over Easter because people had gone to the seaside there and avoided the country. How long it will take until they drift back he doesn't know. He thinks it will take a long, long time before they're back.

And of course if the hunting stops, that will make a big effect. They had a preview, if you like, this spring of what it will be like if the hunting stopped. PB doesn't personally go hunting but he would be in favour of keeping it for the fact that people, if they want to go hunting, why shouldn't they? He knows there's bound to be a certain amount of cruelty with it but if you live connected with nature like he has all his life, you realise that nature itself is cruel. If they stop hunting and they think the deer and the foxes are going to live happily ever after, it's just nonsense to think so. The foxes will be killed by some means or other and it might well be worse than hunting. [Back to top]
 

2/9

NATURE / HOLIDAYS / WIFE JANETTE / DERRYCOMBE

[Question about nature and the countryside]. PB's not a naturalist really. Obviously he's learnt and picked up things and seen things. What people don't understand is the difference between solitude and loneliness. It's two completely different things. He's worked up there at Miss Reeds for 25 years.

He said goodbye to Janette at twenty to eight, he spoke to someone when he collected the papers and milk at dinner time and said hello to Janette at half past five when he got home. He's not spoken to anybody in between and thought nothing of it. If you're at ease with yourself and live with nature where there's so much going on to see around you in the air, you don't need people.

You see these unusual things that you see once in a lifetime. He remembers seeing a pair of ravens one time and apparently that was a courting display. Have you seen a raven fly upside down only just a few yards. He thought "whatever's happening" and someone told him after that it was one of their courting displays.

He was up there one time walking round to see the sheep and he stopped suddenly because he could hear something. He stood in the gateway and watched three fox cubs squabbling over a rabbit their mother had just brought back. There's only once in a lifetime you see it. You remember these things.

He saw a buzzard one time, and there were flocks of starlings in the autumn; he was circling around and he just dropped down, grabbed a starling out of the flock and he went off up into the tree. All the flock of starlings swirled around and mobbed it. How often does that happen?

As Miss Fitt said once, she was in the house, you could look up across the yard, and she saw a stoat go across the gate followed by a baby. Well, you've never got a camera, have you, then? [laughs].

One time he was cycling back to work and just got up nearly to where the kennels are, saw something in the road there, it was something that was moving at any rate. He looked at it, there was these little stoats, four or five of them, two or three went one way and two went another way. He's never seen that before or since and never likely to. But all those sorts of things is what makes up your life, isn't it?

Holidays are something you don't have when you live in this area. They did go off two or three times with Traveline; went up to York and Norwich, that sort of thing and after he was ill his niece got them a cottage down in Cornwall and they went there for a week. It was the longest holiday they'd had in 45 years and they've got no particular desire to go on another one. All these people talk about going abroad but they've got no desire. They have a day off now and again to go here or go to a flower show or something or other.

His wife is resigned to it now but she'd much rather have a job. She feels that the firm she worked for, part time come finish and they closed, she thought she missed the discipline of going [to work]. She worked in a bank before she married but then she worked in a Solicitors for 30 years. The partners dissolved and she went with one of them and that closed down after a while. She misses the discipline. She used to say in the morning "what's the point of getting up today, what am I going to do if I get up?" But she is content here, she likes living here, she loves the house and what they've made it.

One of the things you get rarely that you see in a house are low windows. You can look outside and see all round and the traffic going up the road by sitting in the armchair. So many places you can't see out unless you perhaps stand up or something. The windows were like this when they moved in. When they had the double-glazed windows done they had to have toughened glass because according to the building regulations [you have to]if it's below a certain height because of the children falling and putting their heads through the window. That sort of thing you don't think of. It was obviously an architect designed house, it wasn't one of these "off the shelf" as it were, and that's one of the features in it.

The larder at the back of the house there you see is a lean-to. It's very cold. It has an old-fashioned marble slab in there. Some say they don't need a fridge in this house. There again, it was built purposely when there wasn't any such thing as a fridge.

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