CD2

(72 mins)
 

2/1

chimney sweeping / haymaking / harvesting / changes to small farms

His father didn't drive or ride. Everyone walked in those days. On the estate, they walked to work. The furthest points were Hindon and Wydon, Minehead way, that was North and East. South East was Holt Ball. West would be Wilmersham, all the hill farms around. He would walk everywhere, carrying his sweeping machine on his back. Actually only a few rods and a scraper. He did that as a bit of a standby for him. He wouldn't do it until he had 18 to 20 to do. HR used to go with him to Luccombe rectory, round there. It was a bit extra for the week.

[BJ says that if his father worked for the local farmer as well he must have been pretty busy]. Where the Dutch barn is now [opposite], used to be a hayrick, against the garden wall, with lean-to sheds where they kept various implements. They had an elevator carrying the hay up to the top of the rick, with the horse going round in a circle working the elevator. His father would help them out haymaking, and corn carrying at harvest, with the elevator attached again. The old chap next door, the horseman, used to keep the horse. It used to do the same job every year. It was hitched to a pole driving a cogged wheel which drove all the rest of it. The horseman used to plough, cut grass, cut the corn. People can't imagine what it was like in those days. This fellow here now, Clifford, or at least his son, has got all the latest implements. Of course what's happening is that all these small farms [the land] are put onto this fellow and the living is gone. Probably some fellow with a couple of horses has got it. [Back to top]
 

2/2

Holnicote / Sir Richard Acland / Holnicote / Fred Clark / building at Horner / changes post National Trust / strangers

His father worked for the Acland estate all his life. Yes, everyone was doing other jobs as well. He doesn't think it was because they couldn't live on what they earned on the estate, but if they could earn extra it was all right with the Aclands.

When his father worked for the estate a man called Donati was in charge. HR used to play cricket with 2 or 3 of his sons, for the Holnicote cricket team. Eddie, and Marcus. He supposes it was Sir Thomas Acland, the first 3 Aclands. When HR was there a foreman was employed, who came from the Dulverton area, called Jack Parkhouse. He was a good chap. They can't today do what they did.

He remembers the Aclands. He had about a 2 hour talk with Sir Richard. He came to see him and they sat having tea for three-quarters of an hour. But he didn't think the Holnicote estate would have come to this. It's now a dictatorship, and that's what he fought against in the army. You are dictated to, what you can do and what you can't do. It isn't a country way at all. He didn't know the estate was going to be passed over to the National Trust until the last minute. One or 2 bits were sold off. The house at Horner, right on the corner as you go round to the tearooms above. He helped build it. The man that built it was shepherd for Fred Clark, who used to farm here, at West Luccombe. He [the man] was wet through every day of his life, because he picked the stones out of the river, which the Aclands had given him permission to do. Because it had to be stone built.

Richmond, he was called. He walked up behind HR one day on the staircase, when he was fixing the architrave round the door, which had to be mitred, saying, 'But for the putty and the glue, what would the carpenters do.' He was pleased with the way HR was doing it. That's his offspring at the garage opposite the chemist shop [in Porlock]. Harding. He knows all 4 of them.

[BJ asks what happened when the estate was passed over to the National Trust, how things changed. HR's response isn't entirely clear] They've changed all right. Their cottage used to be £8.2.6d a year. Today it's £3000. That's the way it's changing. It makes life harder. He didn't work for the National Trust.

You see in the papers about the things the National Trust are doing. Well, they're not doing anything. The other day, he went to Porlock with the community bus. From one end to the other he only met one person that was local. It's all strangers. And of course house prices are going up and up and local people can't buy them. Then they're sold to strangers. [Back to top]
 

2/3

FIRst job / Holnicote / heather burning

He was 16 when he left Minehead school. He started work at Porlock for some people (builders) called Cooksley. They built the house at Horner and 2 at Wootton Courtenay area. He supposes he chose building because of his father, but actually he should have gone farming. He was there for 5 years, learning his trade. He was taught by the old people. When he left he went up to see Mr Donati, the Manager at the estate. He asked HW whether he had had anything to do with hardwoods. He said every wood he could mention. So he said the job was his. And he worked there right till they finished. He trained as a carpenter. House builder, actually. Roofing, anything in the building line.

He didn't have to report anywhere every day. You went to your job every day until you'd finished. Then you'd go back to the yard and you'd be given another job, and that would last for another 12 months [laughs]. Meanwhile, come the spring of the year, you were stopped from the job you were doing and you weren't burning the hill country. He's burnt it many times. It would keep growing until it got rank, hard. He was up there a few weeks back, with the community centre car, at  Lang Combe Head. The heather was about this high [indicates ?3 ft]. Years ago, they used to burn off about a couple of acres here and there. Never make a mess, always 2 or 3 acres. It used to keep everything at a reasonable level. It used to provide grazing for the animals, Exmoor ponies, sheep, deer.

They burnt in front of the wind. You'd follow it along. One morning they got in the yard and word came back, he supposes from neighbour to neighbour, there wasn't any telephone in those days, that fire had come in from Lankcombe Head, through the side of Dunkery, and they needed all hands. Do you know, that fire burnt all night. It swept acres and acres, right through from Lang Combe Head to Dunkery beacon. They finished up at Dunkery Hill Gate. He expects it was started by the hill country farmers. Hill country farmers used to start some of them. They knew they did. No, they wouldn't help put it out. They'd done what they required, burnt off quite a bit of moorland. But it used to take a couple or 3 years to regain its original grass. It used to be ling heather and bell heather. The bell heather seems to be harder than the ling. The ling is very small. It takes a long time for it to pick up again. [Back to top]
 

2/4

Cloutsham deer / hunting / Holnicote / fishing Horner Water

He was up at Cloutsham farm one day checking gateposts etc. Barkhouse was the foreman. Three of them went up. As they walked up from the valley under Cloutsham up to the level, a couple of stags jumped up, lying in the gorse. They shouted. They galloped away and dropped into the combe again. He counted them as they went out of the combe. 134 deer, different sizes. They were sheltering in the combe. Today they're on about preservation, but they're not preserving them at all. A lot of them have got shot. He's got no confirmation of that, but you hear things. The National Trust don't like hunting.

He was always a hunter, but he likes to see it conducted in a proper manner, as most people did. But you won't find 130-odd deer, all different kinds, now. [BJ says that 130 deer, to her, sounds like too many.] They never interfered with them, other than hunting them. But there was always hundreds of thousands of acres for them to roam over. He's sorry to see the estate's gone like it has, with just a few people saying, 'you can do this'. They used to fish Horner Water straight from there [Honeysuckle Cottage] to Silk Woods. The most trout he's ever caught there was 50 one week end, with a dry fly.

His father used to fish, with a worm [laughs]. This weekend they'd had rain for 3 days and nights and the river was in full flood. Of course it brought the trout out from the pools. They were under the banks. That weekend he caught 50 trout. A lot of them were the size of herrings.

Every so often father would say, 'there's a tree wants cutting down there, I can't cast a fly.' Holnicote would let him deal with it because he did the fishing. He and one of his mates would cut the tree. Sometimes it would want limbing, and they would have the wood. They used to keep the rivers clean, all the way up, 5 or 6 miles. No, the estate didn't generally stock the river. But they did at one period, he's heard his father say. It was rainbow trout. And you could tell those trout for years after, the way they took the fly. A nice freshwater trout is beautiful eating. [Back to top]
 

2/5

Honeysuckle cottage / social life / Mr and Mrs Wallace and daughter / bees

He has lived at Honeysuckle Cottage all his life [but see comment about Allerford below]. If it was the same now as it was back then, his daughter, if she wanted, could take it over from him. But they say they can only let it once or twice to a family. A lot of tripe, that is. He lived at Allerford when he was married, when he was about 28.

He doesn't think they had much social life. If there was anything on in the parish they used to get asked to help out. He can't remember the dates, but a family came there called Wallace. Mr and Mrs Wallace and their family took on the living at Selworthy church. They had 2 daughters and one son. The eldest daughter used to run the scouts and guides, and her sister. And she got in tow with a lady rider who lived at Timberscombe. He believes she was to do with the scouts, guides. They [we] used to walk together, and go out camping. They used to get up concerts, all sorts of things. She was a very good girl. Yes, he sang. Anyway, he used to keep bees as well [tells story about eldest daughter wanting to keep bees, not wearing her brother's trousers as he'd suggested, and getting stung.] He's had a few stings in the day.

He used to take off about 3 quarts of honey every year. That was spare time beekeeping. He'd sell it. Some shops would take it. They'd have customers calling. They sold it for 3/6 a jar; 4/6 in the comb. They had a proper machine to extract it from the comb. They had to buy shallow frames, about 14 inches long, 5 inches deep. Then they used to be able to have the comb out each side. He says 5 inches deep, but they used to vary occasionally. Anyway, they were all sealed over, all the length of the frame. They would have a de-capping knife. A special knife with the blade at an angle. They used to cut off all the capping into a dish, which was put onto another dish to drain the honey from it as there was always a bit left. Then you'd put it in this machine and turn the handle and it went round at a terrific rate, you couldn't see it rolling. It would throw it to the sides of the cylindrical container. It would run down the sides, concave. There used to be a tap on the side. You'd turn on the tap, and there again you had a strainer. You'd hang it on the tap, put a jar in under and strain through. There was a lot of time involved.

He kept the bees in the garden. There's an empty box still out there. [his wife Olive returns and goes through to kitchen] [Back to top]
 

2/6

concerts / church / choir / FIRST WORLD WAR

[BJ asks what the concerts were like] They had quite a name for themselves. They used to get crowds coming to the school. They used to maintain the stage up at Holnicote yard, in the dry. The day before a do they would haul it down in sections with a horse and cart and put it up at the bottom end of Allerford school. They used to do various small plays. Some would sing a song, and [indistinct]. He sang, he's acted on the stage. But it was quite amusing actually, and entertaining. He would have sung any part.

Selworthy church was his church for years. He started off at Luccombe, as a youngster. Then all his school friends were at Allerford, and involved in Selworthy church choir, and eventually he went there with them. Yes, he was part of the choir as well. It used to be old people that had been there for years. Old Jack Kent, of the blacksmith's shop at Allerford. Ted Rawle, another carpenter on the estate. Quite a number of them. He would wear ordinary clothing to sing in the choir.

He doesn't really remember any special occasions from the church, or village events like the coronation or jubilees. He doesn't remember anything really from the first world war. Only that one or 2 of the men who were working there were killed. That's all. [Back to top]
 

2/7

2^nd WORLD WAR / Royal Engineers / James Brindle / rejecting promotion / Norfolk / Minehead pier

In the 2^nd world war there were fellows he'd gone to school with that were killed.

He was in the Royal Engineers, based in Norfolk. He used to drive a vehicle round in the company. One day he was sent down to the station to pick up a man who was joining the company. His name was Brindle, James Brindle. He seemed to fall for HR straight away. He doesn't know why, he didn't treat him any differently than he did the rest. Eventually HR went home with him on a weekend leave, to meet his father and mother. They were old people. He was a dear old chap. He couldn't do enough for HR. When they got back it came up on the noticeboard, 'Driver Reeves has been appointed Lance Corporal.' He knew straight away what Jim had been doing. Next morning, he went in the company office and asked him [?] to remove his name from the noticeboard. He said they already had 2 men in the company that were engineers, why was he telling him to step in and take their position away from them? He didn't know anything about, and those 2 men had it at their fingertips.

Anyway, one of those lads got the position, Corporal. He wished them good luck, and he thanked him very much. And those 2 would do anything for him. Anyway, Jim wanted him to sell up at Allerford [and move to Norfolk], but he couldn't see his way clear. It's a big undertaking, to move your family up to a strange country. Anyway, they [Jim's family] had got a holding of their own, a small farm, and there was more coming up which they could take over; they had plenty of money to buy it. He couldn't bring himself to it, and his wife didn't want to go. Not the wife he's got now. He's been married twice. He lost his first wife. It would have been a real upheaval. His mother was in her 80s, and he didn't want to leave her behind. What they were going to do was go in for hatching poultry and rearing calves, which he understood. But he never got round to it. Jim said, 'There's nobody else to have our money. You're the likeliest one for it.' But somehow it didn't ring a bell really. But since then, on one 2 occasions he wishes he had [laughs], when he's seen the countryside going like it is. It's wrong.

[BJ refers to a remark by Dennis Corner about coastal defence work, taking down the Minehead pier] When he left Porlock he got put in Minehead, with a building firm. He got in with a fellow there, that was foreman, and they took down Minehead pier, and general defence work. He was called Charlie Sage. [BJ asks why they took down the pier, but HR doesn't respond.] [Back to top]
 

2/8

flood / hunting / Sir Richard Acland / retirement / head keeper

[BJ asks whether they were affected at the time of the Lynmouth flood, in 1952] A lot of people can't believe this, but it's a fact. On Allerford bridge, immediately the other end of it, there was the 2 cottages. You had to go under the porch of one to go up the hill to walk on to Selworthy. He lived in the one below that. You went in the back gate. There was a gate across each end of bridge, a pale gate. One onto the road and one the other end. There was also fencing across the ford of the river. It was all fenced. Why they did that he doesn't know. Acland must have done it, some time or other. But it was there when he was a youngster and for years after. [tails off]. [BJ asks whether the 1952 flood affected that, but gets no response].

He's ridden to hounds many times. He used to delight in getting hold of 3 or 4 couple of hounds and going off on his own. They used to take in a couple of ponies every year, after they'd finished hiring them out, and they always had a couple there [Honeysuckle Cottage] every winter. He doesn't remember who would hire them out. Olive [his wife], would remember their names better than he can. Then they'd hunt them in the winter. They used to keep them in the yard. There's a big house there, the fowl house. He's enlarged it over the years. Olive used to ride one, he'd ride the other.

[BJ asks how hunting has changed over the years] There isn't any, is there? That's how it's changed. They [the National Trust] have stopped it. They've got no right to do so. Sir Richard and he talked over it and he assured HR it would carry on the same. They chatted quite 2 hours over various things, on the estate. In the winter he used to have pheasant shoots there. HR's been at many of them, driving the birds out. Then there was fox hunting. There still is, one pack. And how it keeps going, he doesn't know. [Back to top]
 

2/9

retirement / head keeper / Stan Hooper / Holnicote and Blathwayt shoots / family

He supposes he retired 10 years ago. A lad down at Allerford used to work with him. Stan Hooper, he's 95 [fellow contributor to the archive, actually 90]. HR won't be 90 until the last day but one of the year. HR used to be the head keeper at Holnicote. They asked him to take it on when the previous chap retired. He used to be under-keeper with HR, and he's walked thousands of miles. He's 95 [90] and can walk as well now as he ever did.

HR was head keeper. The shooting side of the estate had been taken on by a man from Bristol. [laughs] There again, it's a thing that you want to do in a proper manner. You can't govern it because you get so many people out that go crazy when they see a bird coming over. [BJ asks what made him change from doing building work] When you're working on and on, it was a case of money, it gave him money for the family. It wasn't big pay, but it was something steady. [points to picture of cottage]. Down behind that is a cover, trees. That's where they did all the hatching. He used to hatch out 1800 to 2000 chicks every year, and deal with the hens, and a 250 acre we had there [indistinct]. He supposes he hatched more chicks while he was over there than anybody else ever did since they've been shooting on the estate.

Various people would have come for the shooting, business people mostly. They [we] used to do reasonably well on a shooting day. A tip here and there. Of course, he used to have to share out with 2 others.

[BJ asks whether they would have had their meal together when they shot] Sometimes they'd go in the farm building, or the farm itself. Or if you weren't near a farm you'd go under the hedge. [BJ asks whether anyone has ever had an accident, but HR doesn't reply].

He started up another shoot at Porlock, after he finished over there [at Holnicote], on the Blathwayt estate [indistinct]. They asked him to start it up. To start a shoot you have to have money, and you have to spend money. And he [the man running it] wasn't spending any money. He thought it could be done just like that. Well, it can to a point, but then there's all the feed costs, and all the equipment. He hadn't got a clue.

He has 5 daughters. Three by the first wife, and 2 by the second. One of them will be coming home at the end of next week. One is down Allerford with 4 children, which she's beginning to get off her hands now. They're going to Minehead school every day, so that only leaves her the one. His first wife died back 30 year ago. Two of his daughters are dead.

Well, there's all the moorland to talk about.

[BJ thanks him for his time and says he must be wanting his midday meal]

[RECORDING ENDS] [Back to top]