•
JEAN
CAMPBELL
Born:
Dulverton,
Somerset, 1920
Lived:
Dulverton,
Minehead
Recording made: 2001
Length of recording: 2 hrs 25 mins
To read a summary of the contents of the oral history recordings click CD1 or CD2.
Listen to an audio clip by clicking wma or mp3. (Click here for information about downloading audio clips)
Jean Campbell's family farmed at Hinam, outside Dulverton and took in visitors. At school they were taught how to milk a cow; in the holidays they played in the woods and swam in the river. Sir Alfred and Lady Munnings (pre-knighthood) lodged their horses with them, driving over from Withypool for a ride. Her mother died when she was 12, and then her elder sister died, and at 16 she found herself looking after everything at home.
She played for the women's football team, ran the cubs and joined the girl guides and Red Cross. When war broke out she nursed evacuee children and then went into the navy, where she met her husband. After the war they came back to Exmoor and while he worked for Radley and Chanters, the local builders, she became cook at the newly opened Dulverton Middle School, retiring 20 years later. She says making a pudding for 100 people came naturally to her.