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HAROLD REEVES
Born:
West Luccombe,
Somerset, 1910
Lived:
West Luccombe,
Allerford
Recording made: 2000
Length of recording: 2 hrs 24 mins
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Harold Reeves' father was a stonemason with the Holnicote estate and a chimney sweep in his spare time. Like his father, Harold worked for the estate, first for the Aclands, then the National Trust. He was a builder and later head keeper, but thinks he should probably have gone into farming.
As a child he spent all his spare time at Burrowhayes Farm, which was like a second home to him. He taught himself to shoot, taking a gun licence out when he was 14, and remembers his first shot, in the fields above the farm. Sometimes the rabbits were so thick on the ground that you could get two or three in a line.
He kept bees, sang in Selworthy choir and performed in plays and concerts, transporting the stage in sections from Holnicote yard to Allerford school. He says he once counted 134 deer at Cloutsham and thinks the Exmoor countryside has changed for the worse.