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JOAN SMITH
Born:
Henlade,
Somerset, 1918
Lived:
Countisbury,
Porlock
Recording made: 2001
Length of recording: 3 hrs
To read a summary of the contents of the oral history recordings click CD1, CD2 or CD3.
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Joan Smith's father came to Glenthorne as chauffeur/handyman to Miss Halliday when she was nine. They moved to Porlock a few years later. She went to Countisbury school, climbing up through heather higher than her, clutching at tussocks, and running and jumping on the way back, carried by the wind. The milkman, walking down through the trees in the morning light, was a knight in shining armour. Miss Halliday befriended her, inviting her to tea and telling her about the house and its furniture.
At school she was taught by Mrs Beck and her daughter Muriel. Inspired by them, and her parents, she went on to grammar school and then trained as a teacher. Her last position was deputy head at Wiveliscombe, where she drove up onto the Brendons to visit the parents and some of the boys took a week off at lambing time. She designs and makes all her own clothes and says her one regret is not being able to sing.
postscript - Joan Smith died in June 2007