•
CYRIL
WYBURN
Born:
Withycombe,
Somerset, 1911
Lived:
Withycombe,
Treborough, Timberscombe, Old Cleeve
Recording made: 1999
Length of recording:
6 hrs 4 mins
To read a summary of the contents of the oral history recordings click CD1, CD2, CD3, CD4, CD5 or CD6.
Listen to an audio clip by clicking wma or mp3. (Click here for information about downloading audio clips)
Cyril Wyburn was a shepherd and sheepbreeder. He went to every Dunster Show from the age of ten, presented the Wyburn cup for the best local breed and ended up a vice-president. He has won a boxful of rosettes.
Brought up by his grandfather, he skipped school to go to market with him. The women pulled swedes in the fields and his aunts tied corn behind the reaper. Maharajahs played polo at Dunster, the Prince of Wales came staghunting at Cloutsham, and his wife offered tea to a German airman. It was wartime by then, and he was working for the 'War Ag', the county War Agricultural Executive Committee. He was with them in the winter of 1947 when rabbits walked up snowdrifts and froze in the treetops.
He sheared left and right handed and went in for ploughing and hedging matches, where men sometimes cheated by using a 'maygrow'. A lot of people can win, he says, but they can't take a beating. He takes it as it comes.
postscript - Cyril Wyburn died in September 2000
Photograph taken by Steve Guscott
Note: Cyril Wyburn's natural rhythm of speech is to repeat himself. I can't be certain, but I suspect there may also be a few instances where he has repeated a phrase because he was anticipating a verbal response, rather than just a nod and a smile. Not all the repetitions have been reproduced in the summaries. BJ