CD1

(57 mins)
 

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FAMILY BACKGROUND / FATHER'S DEATH / MOVE TO PORLOCK / GRANDPARENTS / HEALTH / SCHOOL / RUNNING WILD / POLO TEAM

He was born at a little village called Worle, Weston-Super-Mare in 1926. It is now a great sprawling place. His father died when he was three years old. He was a blacksmith and wheelwright with his brother in Coronation Street in Worle. His mother stayed on in Worle for a few years and then they came on to Porlock to live with his grandparents and aunts. His mother went away to work. His brother and his sister had already come to Porlock. His father's father was also a wheelwright and blacksmith and he was at Hutton on what they called the moor between Worle and Hutton. Now all built on with an airfield.

His mother couldn't manage very well and she was left without a pension so the grandparents, who had a bakery in Porlock, took his brother in and then both of them. After they left school they worked in the bakery. His father died as the result of the First World War. He had enteric fever. He was serving in France and caught fever and then he was honourably discharged because of ill health and, like so many in those days, he developed consumption and that's what he died of. DC was six years old when he came to Porlock to live and he went to school there. He remembers very little of the move. His mother got rid of all the furniture and he came to Porlock in the bakers van. His sister was with another aunt in the village and his brother and he lived with his grandparents at the bakery. At that time there were two bakeries in the village side by side by the church. The first one was Stenners and the other was Burgess. His grandfather was Isaac Burgess. His family had been in Porlock for generations and his grandmother was a Floyd from Bossington. They go back to the Fry family, 1601 in Bossington. Although he wasn't born in Porlock he feels he ought to be classed as a local. There was seven years between his brother and himself and nine years between him and his sister. His sister was the eldest and he was the youngest.

He remembers going to school in Porlock and roaming the woods all around, the marsh and the sea and falling into the rivers.

The first year when he came to Porlock he only went to school mornings because the local doctor - Dr Tatlow [added later - actually a surgeon] - said, as he was a weakly boy, 'Oh let him run wild. So he had the joy of running around afternoons but eventually he went to school all day. He stayed there until 1938 when he went to Minehead County Secondary School which is now known as Minehead Middle School opposite the police station. He supposed he was 'weakly' because he was poor. A lot of people were poor those days and having lost his father's income, his mother didn't have the chance to give him everything he needed. They fed him up on cod liver oil and malt and he soon developed again.

When he roamed wild he would go up to Doverhay Plantation and when the other boys were around they would play Red Indians, build camps, make bows and arrows and so on and so forth. They roamed everywhere; all across the farm fields. The farmers didn't seem to mind. They learnt to swim in the sea. They made their own bows and arrows that went a long way - from one end of the goal posts in the recreation ground to the other. They were very good. They put feathers in the tails so they went straight.

The sea was fairly safe at what they called 'Red Sands' and Porlock beach but if you go over towards Bossington there was a bit of a pull of the tide and you felt yourself being dragged towards Hurlestone Point. Porlock Weir harbour was pretty safe although you had to be a swimmer. His uncle rescued a girl there. She was going down for the third time and he jumped in in his underclothes and pulled her out. Ruined his gold watch but it saved her life.

In those days they used to have a Porlock Weir Water Polo Team. He can just remember them. They were men and elderly chaps. They used to coat themselves with lard to keep themselves warm. He can't remember that but his uncle told him about it. [Back to top]
 

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PORLOCK THEN / VILLES LANE / PORLOCK HILL MOTOR TRIALS / WHORTLEBERRY PICKING / WESTCOTTS

Porlock was a very close community. It was much smaller because there were very few houses between the village and the sea. All the houses - Parks View, The Meadows, Healeys and all that have all been built since the Second World War. There were a few houses being built in Furzeland Road and the council houses in Bay Road - the first ones were built in 1919 and some more added later. After the Second World War even more were added. It always seemed strange that the council houses were built so far from the village. There were muddy old lanes. He can remember as a boy riding his bike down Villes Lane and having to lie in the hedge to let a baby Austin car pass him. It was so narrow and muddy. Cars weren't so frequent in those days. Except that at Easter and summer holidays one of his great joys was going up Porlock Hill to watch the London to Lands End Trials on Easter Saturday although Doverhay Hill was even better because that was rougher. He remembers when Porlock Hill was just tarred, he thinks the steep part was tarred in 1930. His brother used to tell him of the dirt and stones flying out from under the wheels when he went up there. They used to stand on the corner and watch them all come round and think, 'Oh this one won't get up'. When one stopped all the boys would rush out and push and when it got going would get on the running boards and ride up. Then they'd hope for a tip.

He would walk up Porlock Hill. In the summer time he would go with a friend and his family up to the top to pick whortleberries. He used to pick them up at Park Corner where the cattle grid now is and that's all been made into fields since then. He used to also walk through the woods to Horner and go up towards Webbers Post behind Horner Mill and pick all day up there. 4d. a quart they would sell them for then. Measured in a quart measure. He would put them in baskets - the same as those used for strawberries. In those days they were made of very thin wood. Today they are made of cardboard. Some people would take them to Porlock to sell or Horner and they would measure them. They would have a cloth on the ground and they would tip them out and as they were dropping down onto the cloth another person would be waving a tray up and down to fan all the leaves out. If you were a good picker you didn't get many leaves. Some people were what were called 'dirty pickers'. The whortleberries were sent away. He was told by Ken Westcott - his father had a business in Porlock (fishmonger and greengrocer) - he used to take in whortleberries, and the most he ever sent away in a day is almost unbelievable. They would take them to Minehead to go by train to the Midlands and the North for human consumption and the most he ever sent was a ton. Can you imagine a ton of worts? Gypsies and all used to pick. Mr Westcott used to go out with his van and buy them off these people and bring them back again. He also used to go down to Combe Martin for the strawberries and bring them back. (So many summer visitors used to come on cycles. It was nothing to see twenty or thirty bikes leaning against a wall in Porlock.)

A lot of strawberries from Combe Martin were sent by steamer to South Wales. Whortleberry picking was a great thing. A friend of his, in his summer holidays, went whortleberry picking every day and earned himself enough to buy a bicycle. DC couldn't go as he was working in the bakery by then.

A neighbour who used to live next door to him - he and his wife and boy used to go and they would earn enough in the whortleberry season to buy themselves perhaps a raincoat each. DC used to have the money for himself. [Back to top]
 

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SCHOOL / CAPERS / MINEHEAD SCHOOL / FRACTURING SKULL / MINEHEAD HOSPITAL / HOSPITAL LEAGUE / VISITORS / MISSING SCHOOL

By the time war came he was working in the bakehouse and going to school in Minehead. Then the evacuees arrived - hundreds of them. In Minehead the Regent Street Polytechnic came down with evacuees and they used his school in the afternoons which meant that local children could only use the school in the morning.

They used to catch the bus at 8.15am or 8.30am and they were supposed to arrive at school at 9.00am ready for assembly. They only stayed till 1.00pm and then they had to make their way down to the station to catch the Porlock bus a 2.10pm Because of this they got up to many capers. They used to play many games based on the war with an older boy being the Fuhrer and a fat boy being Goering. They used to have one boy who was 'captured' and made to be a prisoner and he had to carry all the satchels. Of course, they had gas masks to carry as well. In the winter they would sit in the waiting room at the station in front of a roaring fire and eat their sandwiches or if there was no fire they would sit in one of the carriages. There were about a dozen youngsters in all.

The evacuees were taught separately although some of their masters also taught the Minehead children.

At the beginning of the war there was a Smiths kiosk at the Minehead Railway Station, which had a shutter, which was pulled down when not in use. This was raised and lowered by a system of weights on pulleys. When the shutter was raised the boys used to creep behind the kiosk and untie the weights so that the shutter came down. The chap who ran the kiosk - Roomy (He doesn't know why he was called this) - had a catapult and he would fire stones at the boys so they stood in front of the Beach Hotel windows.

On another occasion DC was playing with a group of other boys on the beach and they were playing having a battle. He was hit on the head by a stone about the size of a tennis ball. This knocked him out. Staff from the station ran over and they put him on the tailboard of a station lorry and drove him to the hospital. (Very few goods came by road in those days so station lorries were used to offload goods from the train and transport them throughout the area). They put six stitches in his head but when the surgeon in charge heard of this he was furious as he should not have had the stitches as he had a depressed fracture of his skull and the bones were pressing on his brain. He had to have an operation which was carried out at Minehead Hospital. He very nearly died and was in hospital for seven weeks. He had a whole term away from school. This was in 1940.

The hospital was very good. It was like a little community. He remembers listening to some of the men talking - fishermen from down the quay, workmen in Minehead and so on. All the nurses had starched uniforms and wore hats. Very different from today. It was all very strict and you had to do what you were told. He was not sure if his family had to pay for him or not but thinks they might have belonged to the Hospital League. You paid so much a week to the Hospital League and you got so many weeks free. His mother used to visit him regularly when she had finished work at Porlock. He also had plenty of other visitors. The British Legion also had people whose job it was to visit people in hospital. [Back to top]
 

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BREAD ROUND / PORLOCK AND MINEHEAD SCHOOLS / MATHS / LEARNING GERMAN / AIR TRAINING CORPS / SCOUTS FELLOWSHIP

When he came out of hospital he went back to school and when he finished school and got home in the afternoon, he had to deliver bread with a carrier bike. He used to deliver up the Drang and Doverhay. They had delivery vans but their delivery area was Tivington, Luccombe, West Luccombe, Horner, Selworthy, West Porlock, Porlock Weir and Bossington. They used to do West Porlock and Porlock Weir side one day and Bossington and Selworthy side the other day. Later on when it came to leaving school at fifteen he didn't stay for any certificates. The war was on, his brother had been called up for the army his uncle in the bakehouse wanted help. Another old uncle was coming up towards seventy and he was still working so he said he would leave school.

He didn't like school. He preferred his army career later. He thinks it is because he missed so much when he was in hospital. He enjoyed his time at Porlock school. The head master was very fond of music. He feels he learnt a lot there. There were four classes with ages ranging from five years old up to fourteen. Part of the curriculum was gardening. He left before going into the top class. In those days very few people passed the scholarship and the year he sat the scholarship nobody passed. He wanted to go to Minehead School as many of his friends went there. In those days children used to go to school all around the area with some farmers sons going to Huish. His own uncle went to Wellington. [Back to top]
 

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SCOUTS / RUNNING PROGRAMME / CAMPING / FOOD / RE-STARTING SCOUTS / JAMBOREES

In 1910 there was a scout troop in Porlock and DC's uncle used to belong to it. There was a stop/start situation over the years with the group in Porlock but he joined when he was 14 yrs old. There had been a bit of a lull but one of the Methodist ministers in 1942 started a group with a curate starting the Wolf Cubs. It went on but the leader went off as a chaplain in the army and his wife and her sister continued to try to run it but because he was the eldest boy he ran the programme. They had camps locally at Horner, West Luccombe etc.

He wanted to be a scout and like most of the boys thought it was exciting. All boys have a vision of being backwoodsmen and they used to go to the woods, make fires, cook food, skin and cook rabbits and that sort of thing.  You had to make a fire using only two matches. You couldn't use paper; you had to use natural materials. They got so used to doing this that he remembers being at a camp for a week and it poured with rain but they still made their fires because they knew that if you get under walls there would be dry stuff to make tinder and you could get the fire going and keep it going. They would cook all their own food. One of the other boys would catch and skin a rabbit There was no tinned food. They used to take oatmeal, flour and any meat they could get hold of. Everything was rationed in those days. It was very good. There was no scout master with them. He had gone into the army. One time two of the ladies camped at West Luccombe to make sure they were all right but the boys did everything themselves. They were very self reliant. It never got out of control.

He went into the army and he had only been out a week when a fellow came to see him from Watchet. He was the first youth organiser in the area and they asked him to start the scouts. He re-started with the aid of another two chaps and an older man started up the wolf cubs. It was very flourishing. He feels they were more organised and disciplined when he was a boy than nowadays. They used to join in the jamborees. Because he was a baker he couldn't always go. He used to make all the arrangements but couldn't go. In his day they used to camp with the boys but nowadays the boys camp on their own and they are under supervision by other leaders who make notes on their cooking and whether they are clean and tidy. Most of the boys enjoy it but its not everyone's cup of tea. Some of them start as wolf cubs and go right the way through. He was speaking to someone the other day who said that it was as the result of his tuition that he became interested in his present job which was to do with monitoring flood defences. [Back to top]
 

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CONCERTS / 'SMILES WITH THE SMUGGLERS' / 'THE COLONEL TAKES A BATH' / SCOUTS NOW

He often meets boys / men who remember the wonderful times they had in the scouts and the concerts they used to perform and the camps they used to have. He remembers one chap, when DC was a leader, who lives in Porlock who wrote music. He was a music teacher. There was another friend who wrote words and they did a wonderful show called 'Smiles with the Smugglers' and the story was about a crew of smugglers in the Bristol Channel arriving in Porlock Bay and, of course, there was a village maiden - a lot of village maidens in fact. One maiden was to be the belle of them all. DC was the captain who was always in love with the village maiden.  The music teacher played the piano. Another person played the drums and someone else played the sax. That was the music. The show was in the village hall. Someone else had a van and they picked up a loud speaker and two or three of the lads went all round the village and all round the district all packed in the back of the van singing the songs from the show. Michael Ireland's father had a printing press so they were able to print their own tickets. They didn't expect everyone who bought a ticket to come to the show. They printed enough to fill the village hall. However, they sold out of tickets and people were asking for more so they printed some more and were packed out on the night. There was a queue on the night from the village hall to the Porlock road. They had one lady who made costumes. There were eight or ten girls in the show and later on the girl guides reformed and they combined with the scouts to do shows. They did 'Smiles with the Smugglers' and later on 'Return of the Smugglers'. They then did the story of Lorna Doone called 'Devilry with the Doones'. The shows were very popular. At the time of the Lynmouth Floods in 1952 they decided to raise some money and with a few days notice they got everyone together and put on a show and raised quite a bit of money for the flood fund. The boys were very keen and they didn't miss any rehearsals. They also put on a show at the Gaiety Theatre in Minehead to raise money for the scouts. They took all their scenery which they made themselves. One chap who was a good artist painted it.

Ralph Reader did the Gang Shows for the forces during the war and after the war the scouts continued to do the shows as Ralph Reader used to be a scout at Crewkerne. Eventually he went into the entertainment world and did the shows with the scouts. Anyway, he wrote some plays and he wrote one play called 'The Colonel Takes a Bath'. It was very funny and it was decided to do this play which was very successful. The theatre was very small - concert parties were held there during the summer season. They had a tin bath on the stage which was used by the 'Colonel' but they didn't know what to do with it when it was not wanted. They decided to put it outside and the second part of the show was 'Smiles with the Smugglers'. During that part of the show there was a song called 'The Rain is Coming Soon'. There were girls running around on stage with umbrellas. Suddenly they heard rain on the roof and there was a thunderstorm and the lights went out. They kept going and people shone torches until the lights went back on again. When they went outside, the bath was brim full of water.

DC does not have anything to do with the scouts now and so does not know how many boys are involved in the scouts in Porlock at the present time. [Back to top]
 

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SCOUT CAREERS / TRAINING / VENTURE SCOUTS / VISIT TO BULGARIA / BADGES / GIRLS

There is a serious side to scouting. They were very strict in those days about obeying the scout law. There were ten laws then - condensed to seven now - and every boy had to know the laws. The idea of scouting was good citizenship. He often looks at old photographs of young scouts and knows that one is now an accountant, another one an airline pilot another a sub-mariner. When young boys joined he would concentrate on those who appeared duller and he would go through things with them. He would go through their test work which sometimes had to be repeated several times. There were tests on map reading, knowledge of the law, first aid and things like that. They were very strict regarding uniform and every boy had to come turned out properly. Sometimes boys would say they wanted to leave and he would remind them to always remember the scout law throughout their lives. Other boys would stay for years. Some others would join another organisation and couldn't do both. Some would stay till they were eighteen and eventually go on to leadership. Most would leave at fifteen but then venture scouts was formed for older boys and this proved to be very successful. It is still going in Porlock.

It was a great thing when the Porlock Venture Scouts, at the time of the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, made contact with the scouts there. Bulgaria wanted help with re-forming a group. They had only a few elderly men who remembered scouting as scouting had been banned for so long. They asked for help from England and some twenty scouts went out from Devon and Somerset. Nine of them were from Porlock. They raised the money and they had one or two firms who sponsored them. They went out for a fortnight and camped up a mountain in Bulgaria. They were given meat which was a dead sheep which they had to cut up and cook.

Nine were chosen from Porlock. They were volunteers but they had to be up to standard. The following year they went up the mountains in Austria. They had to go off in groups and do a fifty mile hike as one of their test. This was part of their badge work.

In recent years they have allowed girls to join the scout movement. A lot of people were not happy about this because they thought it might detract from the girl guide movement - a sister movement. Both started by Baden Powell. Apparently it works but DC has no experience of it. The venture scouts start at sixteen and go up to about twenty. [Back to top]