CD3

(72 mins)
 

3/1

HUNTING / CONTROLING FOXES / NATIONAL TRUST / DEER CONTROL / HARBOURING STAGS AT ASHWELL /  SHOOTING DEER / FOXHUNTING / WATCHING HOUNDS WORK

He's always been interested in hunting. When he was a boy the Taunton Vale Foxhounds hunted the country where had the farm. He Has always been interested in keeping foxes under control because his mother had geese and poultry and the foxes were a pest. It wasn't their own farm, it belonged to a man called Pringle at Grange. JC's great great grandfather was the keeper at Grange. They go back an awful long time as far as the countryside is concerned. He looked after pheasants. He [GGG] goes back to a time when there wasn't a Taunton Vale pack of hounds. The Tiverton Foxhounds hunted the Blackdown Hills. They came up to Chard Road by train and then up to places like the Eagle Tavern, a pub on the Blackdown Hills, hunted all day and then went back to Chard Road and took the hounds back. So it's in the blood, as one of his granddaughters said the other day when she was out hunting. He thinks the countryside is in the blood.

But he has always been interested in that side of it because he honestly believes it is the kindest way to keep foxes under control. He still has foxes, and deer in his field. He feels very strongly about the way deer are being controlled at the moment on National Trust land. Previous to that it was controlled completely and utterly by the Devon and Somerset Staghounds. When he was Ashwell, he kept deer there all the time he was there. They came out in his fields in the Spring when he had calves, he averaged about 8-10 beef cows when his father-in-law came to live with him. They used to save the calves. He used to look down in his fields and see anything up to 16 hinds and a couple of stags in his fields and used to drive them out.

From a hunting point view, Edgar or Arthur Webber would come down in August and ask him which big stags he'd seen, had he seen any in any particular part of the park. They did that because they were harbouring a particular deer, they were harbouring older deer. If there was a deer there that was what they call 'going back', he had only one antler, or he had two uprights and no bow, bay or trey, or he had no points and just a bow and trey on one side and a bow on the other - he was going back, he was a very old stag - that's the one they would harbour. And the staghounds would meet at Wheddon Cross, sometime in August of September. It's only a short period of time they've got, and they would come and search the woods around Ashwell until they found the deer they had harboured. And that deer might run from Ashwell to Horner or go on into Hawkcombe, but it would be just that one deer which had been selected and it would be accounted for, it would be killed. And if they killed it at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, or they killed it at 1 o'clock in the afternoon, or it went on to 7 o'clock because there was bad hunting conditions, then they accounted for that deer and it was all over. And all the rest of the deer, all the big stags, if he had another big stag, were left at Ashwell because the hounds can only come to a certain place like Wheddon Cross on a number of occasions. No more than 2 occasions throughout the season.

The same thing happened with the Spring stags. If he had young hinds that had given birth and he had a good crop of say 4 Spring stags, they just had their uprights, again the hounds would come and they would single out one Spring stag and they would hunt that. And the rest of the stags there were left for the rest of the season. No-one would suggest shooting them or getting rid of them. They were just there for people to enjoy and to look at. When they came to hind hunting of course, if you had an awful lot of hinds, they would probably kill 2 or 3 hinds in a day. But as far as stag hunting is concerned it was the one big stag in Autumn stag hunting and the one Spring stag in Spring stag hunting. To his mind now, they've got people with rifles and if it's on the end of their sights there's nothing to stop them shooting them.

Not only the National Trust. It's the same with the farmers. You can't expect a farmer to feed 40 deer in a field of kale or a field of swedes that he's saving for his sheep night after night. He's only got to get onto a telephone. JC can give the names of 4 people that live within 3 miles of where they [he and BJ] are sitting, who have got a rifle, got a slaughterhouse even. It happened on his doorstep. The people who lived in Periton Park before planted 700 wallflowers one night and in the morning they never had a wallflower. So they phoned up someone who lives down the road and he came and shot 5 deer, just like that. All legal. So, yes, he's always been interested in hunting [laughs]. 

He is a foxhunter himself. Staghounds, you're hunting a bigger animal, a selected animal, and he's always enjoyed watching hounds work. People don't realise that some days you can go out with a pack of hounds, and you can be drawing, and the fox will come out and literally run after the hounds. And there is no scent whatsoever and the hounds have to work so hard to find their fox. And to see hounds working, to see them drawing, spreading out over a large area, and then one old hound suddenly finds the scent and he starts to speak, and you see all the others go. Then in the Autumn, at this time of the year, you go out with young puppies. You have young puppies that haven't done any hunting at all. So you take out perhaps 2 couple (4 puppies), to get them used to hunting. And one will see a rabbit, and he'll start to speak, and all the old hounds will take not a blind bit of notice. It's just like human beings really, they say, 'Don't take no notice of her, it's her first time out, she hasn't a clue what she's doing.

And when the scent is bad, or the moor is burnt, the ground is black and there's no scent on it because it's all sooty, to see an old hound with his nose down, every so often speaking to tell the others - because they're not all as good as one another, they've got to rely on the good leading hounds, and good hounds that draw [tails off]. So that's the fascination as far as he's concerned, seeing the hounds work. And he likes the social side as well. [Back to top]
 

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MINEHEAD HARRIERS / SOCIAL SIDE / ST JOHN'S AMBULANCE / HARRIERS' MASTERSHIP / SIDNEY WESTCOTT / HUNTSMEN / HUNT FINANCES / AUTUMN HUNTING / HARRIERS' COUNTRY / CONTROLLING FOXES

He's always been on the committee of the Minehead Harriers, ever since he came to Exmoor. Again, because the farmers and landowners, not that he needed any encouragement, all expected him to join in. Again, it's the social side. His wife and he used to put on dances, and whist drives. He's been a bingo caller to raise money for the village hall, to raise money for the Minehead Harriers, to raise money for anything. He's always felt that once he became accepted at Wheddon Cross, and in the park, there was an awful lot he could do. He worked with St John's Ambulance Brigade for 15 years until he had to retire at the age of 67, which he thinks is their limit. He was the president of the Cadets, and the Badgers, in Minehead.

He took on the mastership of the Minehead Harriers in 1990, after he had retired from the NP. The master had been master for over 25 years, he gave up. By this time JC was retired and he didn't look forward to anything else in the winter, going out on a Wednesday and Saturday. He never missed a day in 9 seasons. And then in the 10^th season he only missed a Wednesday and a Saturday because he fell off a horse and the horse fell on top of him. He really looked forward to it. The Chairman, Jack Stephens [?sp], suggested he took them on. They had a very good huntsman at the time. JC wasn't going to hunt hounds, he was just going to be the master.

There's a lot involved in being master. You've got the kennels, you pay the huntsmen, you've got to look after the country, provide horses, arrange meets. At that particular time they had the problem of fallen stock. It was costing a fortune to have carcasses taken back. It's a very long story. Before he took on, Thomas's, the slaughter people down Exeter, used to pay the kennel huntsmen so much for bones and offal. Then suddenly with the BSE problem they had to stop. The hunt had to buy an incinerator and run a scheme whereby they collected all the stuff and the farmers paid them so much because they had to pay them [the slaughter people] to take it away. Then they bought the incinerator, and that turned out to be very expensive. All those problems of running the hunt.

But he was very fortunate. Somebody told him he was a bloody fool taking on a pack of hounds at his age. He was still very fit, still going out full time, but he thought it would be a very good thing if he had a joint master. A farmer, Mr Sidney Westcott, who is still master now, phoned JC up and said he had heard he was looking for a joint master, so he looked after the west part of the country. He was dedicated, he'd lived there all his life and knew every inch of it. Although they changed huntsman they had a very good man, Steve Collins. He was a professional huntsman. He hunted hounds for a season and then went to Ireland because he wanted a bigger hunt. He did a tremendous amount of good while he was with them. Then they had another, Gerald Keal, a Porlock man who had been hunting hounds in America. He was 12 years younger than JC. He hunted them for a year. So Sidney Westcott became huntsman and joint master.

You don't get paid for being a master. The hunt gives you a guarantee, and out of that guarantee you have to pay all the expenses. You've got to pay all the wages, the electric bill, the telephone bill, the petrol for the lorries, the terrier men. You've got to do everything out of your guarantees. The staghounds guarantee runs into thousands of pounds, whereas local smaller hunts are down to between £15,000-24,000. Obviously it has to go up with inflation, and you are also able to charge people who hunt that little bit more. But in a country like theirs you've got to keep it down. All the people who hunt with the Minehead Harriers are not people who come in their top hats, they are people who work their guts out to keep a horse. And he really means that. To keep a horse today, you are paying over £50 for a set of shoes every 6 weeks. Sometimes it's only 3 weeks, or a month. And then you've got all the food, and everything else. The vet's bills. The vet will charge you 20 quid just to come out from Minehead, 3 minutes in a vehicle, before he looks at the horse. Then he looks at the horse and it's another 6 or 7 quid for inspecting it. So these people who keep a horse for hunting really can't afford to be paying. It's not like some of the bigger hunts, where they can afford to charge somebody £700-800 [a year] for one day a week (that's in the hunting season).

They would normally start the autumn hunting, which used to be called cub hunting but isn't any more because it's not politically correct to call a cub a cub. But he's fully grown. The theory is that if you go to a place where a vixen has reared 4 cubs, if you go there first thing in the morning, the chances of you catching a cub out in the open is pretty bad because the growth is so thick, the bracken is so thick. Everything is thick. It's hot. It's hard for the hounds. But what you do do is you spread them around. A lady phoned him the other day and told him she'd lost all her poultry in Snowdrop Valley because they hadn't been there this year. They only go there a couple of times. They know where the vixen has had it's cubs. Everybody does. They love seeing them. They're not touched, they're not shot, they're not poisoned, they're not snared. Because they know that during the season they can control them.

Minehead Harriers country only goes from Minehead to Porlock, and from Minehead to Wheddon Cross. Every year that he's been associated with them they kill between 60 and 70 foxes, perhaps a bit over but never less than 60, depending on the state of the season. A few years before they killed an awful lot more because they had mange. If they got mange back now, and the foxes are crossing the main road, going down to the dustbins, half the dogs in Minehead would be riddled with mange. Again, they can't go and hunt on anybody's land, or do anything at all unless they want them to do it. They have to be invited. [Back to top]
 

3/3

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HARRIERS AND EXMOOR FOXHOUNDS / KENNELS / LAWN MEETS / ANTIS

The difference between Minehead Harriers and the Exmoor Foxhounds is that the Exmoor is a bigger hunt, they have a bigger country and bigger staff. They have a professional huntsmen and a couple of whippers in. But Mr Westcott, the harriers' master, was hunting hounds and the kennel huntsmen was whipping in. That was the only staff they had. Unfortunately Mr Westcott has had a heart operation. He's so much better, and fit and well, but realises he just can't go out and hunt hounds for 4 or 5 hours like he has done for the last 12 season now. So his kennel huntsman is going to hunt the hounds and his wife is going to whip in. That's the difference between a little hunt like theirs and a hunt like the Exmoor. The Exmoor has always had a good name, and people do travel to Exmoor. Again, they fill up the stables at the White Horse or the Crown in Exford, and bring money to the area. That's the big difference, the size of the country and the size of the staff.

The Harriers keep the hounds over at Wootton Courtenay, between Wootton Courtenay and Timberscombe. They have very nice kennels. They were more or less given them by a lady who was a tremendously popular Exmoor pony lady. Her family still has a herd of Exmoors at Wootton Courtenay. Miss Lillo Lumb, she was called. She was the secretary of the Minehead Harriers at one time. And Captain Best was [one as well.] They were the secretaries when JC came down to Minehead. Colin Webber, the farmer from over at Hindon was the master.

But it's always been a very small family hunt. People won't believe it, but they have about 60 meets during the year and every meet that they've had, during the time that he was master, from 1990 to last year [2000], every meet in the season was a lawn meet. That was where people invited them, they made sandwiches, they made cakes. There was sherry, whisky, drinks. A stirrup cup was given to everybody, not just the people on the horses. There was no difference made between the people who came on foot. That is some record when you come to look at it. He doesn't think it happens in any other part of the world, where they can honestly say that every meet is a lawn meet and everybody is treated the same. That's what makes them so different down here; they are different, they're completely different.

They haven't had any problems with people who don't like hunting. They meet right in the middle of Minehead on Boxing Day. They've had 60, 70 horses going into Wellington Square on every Boxing Day for the last 10 years. When he took them on in 1990 they met in the middle of Minehead on Boxing Day, and the only problem they have there is about 4 or 5 long haired, scruffy, almost smelly, people get up into the churchyard with placards and just stand there. Because it was his job, at the end of the meet at about 11.20, he stood up in the saddle and wanted to thank Barry and his wife, and the Wellington Hotel staff who had gone all around with drinks and trays and everything. As soon as JC stood up to thank everybody, these 4 or 5 would make all the noise they could possible make to try and drown him. And you can imagine that's a very, very difficult task, to drown him, after he's had 2 whiskies and a sausage roll and he's beginning to get a bit angry with them for being up there, and everybody is congratulating the harriers and saying how nice it is to have them. And you get 4 or 5 people that hadn't got a clue, that's the thing. [Back to top]
 

3/4

ATMOSPHERE AT MEET / WAYS OF KILLING FOXES / TAKING LAMBS / STRYCHNINE / ASHWELL GEESE

He'd only have one or 2 drinks at the most before going off. It's silly. And again, you don't expect your host to drown you in booze. Most people are satisfied with the one stirrup cup. It's the social, it's the atmosphere, it's the feeling you get that you're all there. Horses are already [?all ready,] steaming, they're all clipped out and looking nice, people have got their best on. Some of them can be in ordinary sports gear, but they've cleaned their horses and are looking nice. There's others in black coats, others in green coats.

It's just tradition, it's just done. The number of times they go out, somebody has got to control the fox. He can honestly sit there and say there isn't a way in which foxes can be killed that he hasn't seen done. He's seen them snared. He was in Australia for 2½ years in the navy. The farmers down there used to invite them from the Royal Naval Air Station to go out and shoot as many foxes as they could. And again, he has to be honest, even if you have a fox 25-30 yards away and you're using good shot, No 2 shot, or 4 shot, good powerful stuff, you very rarely kill that fox when you fire at it, if it's travelling at speed. Yes, you wound it, you hit it hard, but unless you have a hound or a dog that can follow that fox up, and you get another chance, that fox will go away and die of gangrene. Because it's been proved that when you fire a 12 bore into an animal like that it takes the hair into its flesh and it turns gangrenous almost immediately. And the fox will die of gangrene, even if you haven't broken any of its bones or hurt a vital organ.

[BJ asks how much shooting goes on now, parallel with hunting] He doesn't think anybody has started at the moment, but he can assure her that as soon as lambing starts, if they're not hunting [because of foot and mouth] and haven't been able to deal with the foxes then somebody is going to have to deal with them as best they can. It isn't every fox that takes lambs. You can see foxes out in flocks of sheep, in the field, picking up bits and pieces. But when they have a litter of cubs to feed, March, April time, you can imagine a fox going into a field and coming across a little lamb that's just popped out of its mother. Its mother's licking the twin, a few yards away. If she's got just that lamb the fox won't take it because she'll drive him away. But if she's got a twin and she's a little bit further away and the fox comes along and sees it lying there, all covered in blood and muck, and he's got a family to feed a few fields away, you can't blame him. He'll take it.

Every year they have to deal with that problem. As a master it was one of their jobs. He had a phone call a couple of years ago where 16 lambs were dead in a field at Luccombe. The farmer was absolutely devastated, especially the way things are at the moment. That was a lot of money he was losing. So they had to go down there, 6 o'clock in the morning with just a number of hounds, only about 6 or 8, and lay on, follow the scent and find where the vixen was with her cubs, and deal with them. She had to be killed, and the cubs. And that was only because she was a fox that hadn't been dealt with in and around that area during the season. They have to be dealt with, they really have to be controlled.

And to poison them is absolutely fatal. He was talking about the moles. God almighty, you could do it quite easily. You could take something up to the top of his field now, with some strychnine in it, and the fox would come along and eat it, and everything that ate the fox, from then until 9 times later, because that's what 'strychnine' means, it will strike 9 times. He knows perfectly well the moles will die underground, then the worms will come along and eat the moles and when the next mole comes along and eats a worm it will continue to work. it is a very lethal thing. So poisoning them, in his opinion, is completely out.

And snaring them, he's actually done that himself. At Ashwell, when the hunting season had started, he had 3 geese (one was a gander), 2 of them were sitting on eggs in the yard. The fox came into the yard and killed the goose and also ate all the eggs. Well, that wasn't too bad, he still had one goose sitting in a tea chest. He thought everything was all right because she'd been sitting for over 3 weeks. He's learnt since that the fox knows only too well that if you leave them until the egg is full he gets a bigger meal. Lo and behold he came along and ate all the eggs and killed the other goose. If anybody went to Wimbleball Lake 20 years ago, there was a big white goose on Wimbleball Lake. Well, that was his goose. Because he caught it, put it in the back of his landrover, took it down to Bessoms [?sp]Bridge and said to him, 'Go on old chap, off you go.' Strangely enough, he knew the warden down there, and there was a Chinese goose, one with a long dark neck, and they mated and actually had a nice clutch of eggs. And he thinks there's geese still on Wimbleball Lake which originated from that old gander. He wasn't going to let Charlie have him for any money. [Back to top]
 

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FOOT AND MOUTH CRISIS / STOPPING HUNTING / EFFECTS IF BANNED / GOING TO GROUND / NUMBERS ACCOUNTED FOR

[BJ asks about how he's coped with not hunting because of the foot and mouth outbreak]. He has his vegetable garden and normally he has three horses. Normally he would have left them out in the fields for longer, but this year they went out early. They finished hunting at the end of March, so they went out at least a month earlier than what they normally would have been. So he brought them in and he's riding a couple of times a week, with other people, just for exercise. Just waiting for the day when they can start hunting again. He has all sorts of interest, as BJ can well imagine.

They stopped hunting of their own accord, let's be absolutely sure of this. They didn't stop it because some government department told them to. They stopped overnight once the heard foot and mouth was down in Devon and even up there [?]. The whole country stopped it, even people without foot and mouth. They've had a month now without any cases and he thinks they ought very shortly to say, everybody else is riding over the country, they're doing everything, that they ought to be able to start hunting again. Whether the government is going to sneak in legislation through the back door. But he honestly, truthfully believes that they are so misguided about the effects that it is having on the country, and the effect that it will have. It's obvious. If they killed 70 foxes, and only half of those are vixens, and only half of them rear 3 cubs, that within 3 or 4 years we are going to be absolutely inundated with foxes. As he said before, if they get mange it's going to be a catastrophe. There's a number of them now which go down into Minehead, in the dustbins, and people are seeing them right down on the golf course. One or 2. But next year it will be 3 or 4, and the year after that [jumps].

And it's no good saying you can go off up here with a 12 bore shot gun and shoot them. It's even more ridiculous to say you can go up there with a high powered rifle and shoot them, you really can't. And as long as they stick to the guidelines, which they do, they hunt a fox fair and square, and he goes to ground and they blow for the terrier men, all the other people keep out of the way, and the terrier is put in. The terrier is even trained to do his job properly. He goes in and he starts barking when he's about a yard or two yards away from the fox. Very few terriers will go in and tackle a fox, or bite a fox, because they know perfectly well they're going to get clobbered themselves. Then the terrier men dig down. They've got a humane killer, and they account for the fox. Then the fox is given to the hounds. It's as simple as that. He supposes more than 75 foxes are accounted for in that way.

And all these people who say you can drag hunt. What farmer in his right senses is going to allow people to gallop across his fields chasing hounds for nothing. The farmer wants them [the hunt]. They have to find out before the season starts whether the person whose land they're hunting on will give them permission to kill the fox. There are 2 or 3 smallholdings in their country, that if the fox goes to ground they take the hounds away and forget it. If they don't want it killed, they don't kill it. You can't imagine what a farmer would be like if they hunted a fox onto his land, and had had a good day's hunting, and looked at their watches and said, 'It's half past 4 and starting to snow, we're all going to go home.' He'd go berserk, and so would they. If it's 4 o'clock in the afternoon, whether it's raining, snowing, whatever, they stay there to account for that fox, for the benefit of the farming community.

It's not in the hunt's interest to kill the fox, probably, especially if they've killed 2 or 3 in that area earlier in the season, but they wouldn't dream of backing off and going home. They'd blow for the terrier men, who may not be very happy, but when the flask comes out and someone gives them a drink [jumps]. And they may stay there until 7 o'clock at night, because it may be hard, stony ground, but they'll keep digging. Very often the hounds will be taken home. That would be the most sensible thing, if the terrier men told you after half an hour they were going to be there for another hour. The kennel huntsman would take his hounds home, feed his hounds, look after his horses. They've got a very good team of terrier men, they can very often leave them there to do the job themselves. And when they've shot the fox they leave it where it is, and fill in the hole, make it all proper again, and everybody's happy, the farmer's happy.

It's not a question of lust, to want to see a fox caught, and torn to pieces. It's not like that at all. His granddaughters wouldn't dream of going out with him if they thought for one minute he was going to hurt the horse he was on, or a hound he was using, or the fox. They realise the fox has more than a 90% chance of getting away from them every time they go out. If hunting conditions are bad, the scent is bad, Charlie is 2 miles away before the hounds climb out of the gully, or wherever it is. [Back to top]
 

3/6

ST JOHN'S AMBULANCE / IMPORTANCE OF LEARNING DISCIPLINE AND RESPECT / BRITISH LEGION / POPPY APPEAL / SURVIVORS

He took on the St John's Ambulance donkeys years ago, as president of the Cadets. It's more a figurehead. He goes down, and they have their training sessions, fund-raising things. And then the Badgers, the 6-10 year olds, started while he was there. He used to help organise things like the point-to-points, and get the ambulances. President, he wasn't a superintendent or anything like that. Again, he wasn't personally getting anything out of it, except entire satisfaction that he was pleasing an organisation. And he was very  honoured when they made him a Brother of St John and gave him the St John's medal. He went to Wells Cathedral a fortnight ago to a dedication service, with [his wife] Joan, and all their youngsters. It gave him a lot of satisfaction to see a child come in at the age of 6, then go on to be a cadet, then go on into the police force, or become a soldier, go out into the world as somebody that was fully trained in first aid, somebody who had a certain amount of discipline. It wasn't strict discipline, but they were taught how to stand to attention, how to march, how to treat people.

And he goes back to BJ's very first questions, when she asked about being in the services. It's completely different, he knows, but they were so different from the other kids you met when you went to talk to them in a school, or in an organisation, who had no discipline, or respect for superiors. That's the sad thing. Nobody wants everybody standing and saluting and calling everybody 'Sir', there's no need for it. But having a little respect for each other, especially your elders, is something he's always felt his mother would have been proud of him now [laughs].

He thinks he's mentioned his other interests. He was chairman of the Moorland Hall playing field [committee], then he had St John's. Then he's got the British Legion and hunting. He's chairman of the British Legion branch in Minehead. Again, that's another thing. They're all in their late 70s and 80s. There are a few of course from the Malayan war, the Korean war, the Falklands war and all the other bits and pieces, Northern Ireland. But the main bulk of people [are old], every time they have an AGM, one of the things he has to do is read out the number of people who have died. Ten, 12 years ago it would be 4, or even 2. Last time, a couple of month ago, there was 10. They have a meeting once a month. They do what they can for a local member who is ill, or sick, or needs any compassion, that sort of thing.

This year he has taken on the poppy appeal. He's so grateful that he can still do it. It gives you an interest. He's got about 130 tins out in Minehead, in the drapers shop, butchers shop, Tarr and Foys (the ironmongers), what have you. Tesco's, and those sort of places. They're going to do their bit for him. They'll have people in with trays of poppies. He himself is going down into Minehead from the 3^rd to the 10^th with a tray, looking at people. They're not allowed to rattle the tin any more. They probably raised over £5000, in Minehead [the previous year]. It all goes up to the poppy appeal people, and they keep, he thinks, 7 or 8 homes in the country.

A lot of people don't realise, it's not the ones that are blown to pieces and killed, you're finished then, but it's the ones that have lost a leg, or an arm. But worst of all is when it affects you mentally, the shell-shock side of it. That's the ones he pities more than anybody. And God knows they need looking after, they need caring for. It's given him something to do. If he had been hunting, he would have been torn between the devil and the deep blue sea. But because he's not hunting [because of foot and mouth], he's been able to put the time in. And because it's his first year it's been trial and error, he's been able to get help from other people. But if he does it again next year he'll have everything at his fingertips long before the poppy appeal starts. He's been ahead all the way through so far [laughs], because all the tins are out and they're not allowed to start selling until today. [Back to top]
 

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CHURCH / CHILDREN / MOVE TO BACKWOODS / FAMILY SITUATION / BUILDING GRANNY ANNEX / PLANNING PROBLEMS

[BJ asks what part the church plays in his life]. They [the British Legion] alternate the remembrance service between the Baptist, Methodist church and Anglican church.

[BJ says she meant him, personally] When he was NP warden, it sounds ridiculous, but he didn't have any time [to go to church] because Sunday, during the summer months, was his busiest time. When he was at Cutcombe church he read the sermon a couple of times, at Rogation services. He goes to funerals. Whenever there was a farmer, like when Jack Burge died. He wouldn't have missed his funeral for all the world, pay his last respects. He doesn't mind going to funerals. It's when you go to weddings, you think what's the chap let himself in for. But who is he [laughs], who's been married 57 years? He can't complain.

He has 2 children, Ann and Phillip [?sp]. Phillip has just retired after 32 years in the army. He went away as a 16 year old boy from Ashwell and he's come to Backwoods, to the granny annex next door, which JC built hoping his son would look after him in his old age [laughs].

They moved from Ashwell to Backwoods in 1982. He remembers it very well because Joan looked after her mother and father for 11 years, they were very old. They lived in a cottage at Savington (as he's said, he went to Savington when he came out of the navy) but couldn't look after themselves any more so came to Ashwell. the old man died at Ashwell and Joan was left with her mother in her 90s. He felt that Ashwell was a wonderful place, but he was still out all days with the NP and Joan was there with her mother, and it was a bit much for her, so he kept his eyes open and Backwoods was advertised in the Free Press and he was able to buy it.

Phillip, his son, was in the Falklands then. And it helped. They still had some animals at Ashwell to look after, but he was able to bring Joan down into the house at Backwoods and she was able to get on with bits and pieces, and planning curtains and things like that, which was a tremendous help during the Falklands. Phillip was in the Royal Marine Commandos, who are very well trained, but you've only got to be in the wrong place at the wrong time to catch something up. But luckily he got through it, the same as JC did the other lot. So there must be somebody there looking after them, there must be.

His daughter went into the airforce and married a chap in the airforce. She had 2 children. He finished up in Wales. They had 2 children who now both have places of their own in Bridgend. But Ann always wanted to come back to Somerset. When he sold Ashwell and bought Backwoods, and Phillip came out of the army, he got them together and said he'd give Phillip Backwoods and Phillip could let Ann have his place in Bircham Road in Minehead. And everything worked out beautiful. Phillip came out of the army and he and Jenny moved in next door. JC built the granny annex, alongside.

Again, planners can be silly, can't they? You could build a granny annex, but it had to be wrapped around the old building. That was the term they used. There had to be an access door. And when you do that, you have to pay VAT on everything. Whereas if you built a separate little place, and called it a granny annex, you called it whatever you liked, put all the restrictions in the world on it, you could have built that small place and you wouldn't have had to pay VAT. So his granny annex cost him about £5000-£6000 more than what it should have done. And then he drew the plans up [talks about problems with district council over plans]. In the end the plans alone cost him over £500. [Back to top]
 

3/8

WI TALKS / EXMOOR'S INCOMPARABLE BEAUTY / VARIED LANDSCAPE , MOODS & SEASONS / HAPPY LIFE / 19 YEARS IN SHIPS

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[BJ asks if he has a favourite place on Exmoor]. This chair, definitely [laughs]. No, he can honestly say he hasn't got a favourite place, and he's not saying this because it's being recorded. But he's said it thousands of times. When he's gone talking to the WI, which he's done hundreds of times - he supposes he's sung more Jerusalems than any man in Minehead over the years - but he does believe that we live in one of the most beautiful parts of the world. And he can say that because he's been to Canada, South America, you name it, he's spent time there during the war. And yes, in Canada they have wonderful beautiful forests, they've got big lakes, they've got prairies. In Australia, where he was for 2½ years, they've got beaches 7 miles long, of golden sand, with only 2 people on them during the day, they've got wide open spaces. But when you come here, and you get a chance, like he did, to go around, and you've got this beautiful coastline, from Minehead to Combe Martin. It doesn't matter where you go, whether it's Porlock Weir, or just across here to Greenaleigh, you go down on the beach and you've got the channel like it is today. And all the way round to Combe Martin.

And then when you get up onto Dunkery and you've got the heather-clad hills. Joannie How, and Robin How. And then you suddenly decide to go for a walk, and you walk in off the road and you see a spring of water. And you've got Hannycombe, and you've got the river Avill. There you are, little bubbly water. And by the time you've walked down to Wootton Courtenay or to Timberscombe, you've got a big river, all going down. And it all starts. The same like when you go to the river Barle, and you go out to Pinkery. And Hooray. There's a place up at the top of Hoaroak, he found, that is only about a yard square, and the water runs out one side, goes to the river Lyn, which goes to the English Channel, and the water that comes down the other side into the Bristol Channel. And you discover all these things. And by the time you've gone 2 or 3 miles, those rivers, you can name them, the Exe, the Barle, the Lyn, all of them. There's nowhere in the world. And the little villages. Wheddon Cross, Winsford, Withypool, Exford, Parracombe, Lynton, Lynmouth, all of them. Every time you go there.

That's another thing. All these things he's mentioned, all the moorland, all the forestry. You go up through Horner one day, in the Spring, and everything's just coming out. You go down through Horner now [Autumn], it's as if you're being married. All the leaves are coming down on your head, all the carpet ground is being covered. Even in dead of winter. You go there on a Wednesday and it's cold, it's blowing, it's raining, all icicles hanging off everything. You go back the following Wednesday and the sun is shining all through the trees. Every time you go anywhere on Exmoor it's different from the last time you went there. And that's what made it [his time with the NP] such a wonderful 25 years of his life.

And there's nobody in Exmoor that's had a more varied and happier life than he has. If you can have 25 years in the Royal Navy, go from a boy to a Lt Cdr, serve in every part of the world, do 19 years, as he did in ships, which is what he joined for. They'll never do that again, never. People will join the navy and if they go into a ship once in a blue moon they'll be lucky. That's one of the reasons why he came out when he did. He could have had another 5 years as a Lt Cdr. He just decided. He came home from Singapore. He'd already done 2½ years in the early 50s, and he went back again in '57/58, where he'd been getting mine sweepers ready for the Vietnam war.. He didn't know the Vietnam war was coming in those day. But when he came home from there, he was just politely told he would never go to sea again, because the navy was cutting down. He was on C-in-C staff at Portsmouth. That was a very interesting job because in the evenings he was training the Royal Naval Reserve, every Wednesday. He just felt he'd had the best of it. He bought himself a horse, even there. [Back to top]
 

3/9

HARDSHIPS / RUSSIAN CONVOYS / HOLIDAYS / JOAN JOINING HIM IN SINGAPORE / IMPORTANCE OF HEALTH

He came out of the navy in November 1962, and as he's said, went to work for the NP. Yes, he felt lucky. He's had 50 years of full employment, doing [what he enjoys].

He's not saying there wasn't hardships. He's not saying there wasn't times when he was frightened, when he wished himself in other places. But now when he looks back on them, even those 2 years on the Russian convoys, spending hours and hours in the field in Iceland, in the middle of winter, waiting for the next convoy to come up from England, knowing you had to take it through to Murmansk, or to Archangel, and be at sea for 3 weeks or so. And you're in a zoot suit for 3 weeks, you never took it off. And big thick gloves and everything, because it was so bitter cold, it was all done during the winter months. If your hands touched a piece of metal that was it, you'd get frost bite. He was a PO at the time, a Petty Officer, and was in charge of P1, that's the port anti-aircraft gun on the upper deck, so he was on the upper deck all the time. They had a shelter. But even then, as soon as they left Iceland, and got out into the cold weather, they had to keep every moving part of your gun going. You can imagine how difficult that is. You've got a gun layer, and a gun trainer, moving the gun, keeping it going. And it can be boring, you know. 'Send me the Tirpitz, send me the Graf Spee, send me the Charnos [?sp], and the Lutzow, and the Hipper.' [laughs]. But it was, 25 years. Even after the war he was so lucky. He went out to the West Indies for 2 years.

[BJ asks if he has been on holiday since he left the NP] Yes, he went to Cornwall for a week, this year. It was the first time. He doesn't want to go anywhere. He really doesn't. It maybe a bit selfish. Joan is quite happy. He was lucky to take Joan to Singapore twice. When he was in the minesweeper, the Lioness, in 1951/2, they went to Hong Kong and came back to Saigon and Hai Phong, Hanoi, when the French were fighting the Indonesian war. Then when they came back to Singapore they were told they were going to be in Singapore for at least 2 months, having a refit. In those days there was an organisation where you could bring your family out from England in an old Britannia aircraft. It took 3 days to get to Singapore. JC just sent Joan a telegram, she'd never left the Blackdown Hills, she had 2 children, Ann was about 6, and Phillip was just a little tot. He sent her a telegram and told her to go to Yeovilton and get all her injections. And she flew out on the Britannia, and was in Singapore with him then until he left the [minesweeper]. They went back to sea. The Malayan trouble was on, they were taking Gurkhas around the Malayan coast and dropping them off to deal with the bandits. That was their main job. The army of course was involved in a big way, in those days.

[BJ apologises for cutting him short talking about his time in the navy, but says it's 2.20, and she thinks he probably needs to have his lunch] He doesn't think he's got any [laughs], he didn't realise they were going to go on as long as this, but she thinks she's got all the history.

He doesn't think they've missed anything out. They've done most of the things from the park point of view. He hopes people will realise how important your health is to you. That's one point he keeps making to all his offspring [mentions grandchildren and great grandchildren] your health means everything to you, as long as he can keep going. That's all he can say really. He's so lucky to have had the life he's had. Been married, had 2 children who haven't caused him one moment's trouble as such. Worry, yes. You worry about them, you always will worry about them, if they happen to be ill, if they happen to be doing something that is a bit dangerous. But to have 2 children, 4 grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren, and he can honestly say that none of them have ever caused the family any worries or troubles. Which in this day and age, god, you have to be grateful for.

[END OF RECORDING] [Back to top]