'The Finest Golfer I Have Ever Seen'
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160 STOKE PARK CHAPTER TEN ‘The finest golfer I have ever seen’ An advertisement for the Golf Illustrated Gold Vase at Stoke Park in 1911. ‘The lamps are going out all over Europe’ For in that month of July I received an offer for the shares of the club (all On the day before Prince Albert left England for the last time he was of which I then held) at a very handsome premium, but owing to my sen- talking with my daughter in the lounge of the club and told her that next Peace again timental affection for the place I asked for a little time to consider the morning he would be going to Germany for six months. ‘Are you pleased matter. Unfortunately the war began during this period of delay, and it at the prospect?’ she asked, and the answer was that he disliked the idea Ladies too need scarcely be added that the offer was immediately withdrawn. Even so, intensely, but that he had to go, as otherwise he would lose his income. I however, I was not so very perturbed, for, like many another, I believed believe I am right in saying that at the actual moment of the declaration Joyce Wethered the war would soon be over. I therefore decided to close the short course, of war between England and Germany the Prince was on board the but to keep the club and eighteen-hole course open. Had I been wise I Kaiser’s yacht, and that he begged so earnestly not to be put on active Glenna Collett should have closed the club altogether ‘for the duration’, and have service against the British that he was appointed to some post or other in merely kept the greens in order; but as it was I tried to run it as well as Berlin and remained in it throughout the war. I have been told, too, that circumstances would allow and what with labour-shortage and one thing whenever he heard of an Old Carthusian being taken prisoner he did Enid Wilson and another I experienced the greatest difficulty in doing so. everything in his power to assist him. The visionary retires 162 STOKE PARK THE FIRST 1,000 YEARS 163 ‘The lamps are going where they were finding it difficult to dispose of their sur- plus. Jackson suggested that small markets should be set up to put the small consumer in touch with small producers and, as out all over Europe’ a result, was invited by the Controller of the Horticulture Department of the Board of Agriculture to assist in putting his suggestion into action. In the meantime, keeping the club going was proving The war made a big impact on the club, as it did at every immensely difficult. Jackson recalled just how tough it was: other sporting club. Many young men volunteered for the armed forces immediately, and others were conscripted when My reader may find it difficult to realise the trouble I had to keep the the country needed more than volunteers. The rest were Stoke Poges golf-course open during the war. We had, I think, only one working so hard that they could scarcely take time off during old man and a boy at our disposal by way of labour, and eventually I asked the week. The only players on the course apart from at week- Miss Talbot, the head of our Women’s Section, whether she could not let me have six or eight of her women to help on the farm and devote a day ends were officers on sick leave. The only caddies available on or two each week to the golf-course. This she peremptorily refused to weekdays were men unfit for service, though at weekends consider, pointing out that their women could only work for genuine munition workers were available. production of food, and that it would look very bad if she, a director of In early 1915, the Director General of the Food one department, were to assist me, a director of another, to break the rules. I need hardly add that I realise she was quite right. She suggested, Production Department wrote to all the owners of large gar- however, that I might try the Ladies’ Legion, of which Lady Londonderry dens, requesting that they grow as many vegetables as possi- was the head, and here I was more lucky, for I secured the services of a ble. The club was already doing this, indeed to the point party of girls who had gone to help on a large estate in Sussex, but had The Mansion in the 1920s. Pa Jackson did his utmost to revive the pre-war spirit. 164 STOKE PARK THE FIRST 1,000 YEARS 165 been so disgusted with the accommodation offered them that they had Edwin Shepherd, the son of Ernest and Agnes Shepherd, returned the next morning. had lived at Lion Lodge because Ernest was employed at Stoke The assistance we received from those splendid girls it would be Park. Edwin joined the Royal Navy at the age of fourteen in impossible to over-estimate. They practically ran the whole of the farm, and as we had about one hundred acres of wheat, in addition to other 1913. He served in a number of ships: HMS Powerful, crops, it may easily be imagined what hard work it was. Among the party Impregnable, Vernon and Vanguard. He fought at the Battle of was one very fine, strapping girl belonging to a noble family, and she took Jutland on board HMS Vanguard and was recommended for entire charge of a horse and mowing-machine and mowed nine of the promotion. He died when Vanguard was destroyed by an inter- holes through the green each week, while a similar task was performed by another young lady who afterwards became known as a successful sculptor. nal explosion on 9 July 1917 when lying in Scapa Flow. Three others divided the eighteen greens between them and kept them in The third Stoke Park employee to die was Harold Skues, excellent condition, while others attended to the general upkeep of the who had worked there for fourteen years at the outbreak of course in a most satisfactory manner. And all this they did, let it be war. He joined the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry in June remembered, in addition to their farm work. Another circumstance which was of great help to Stoke Poges during 1915, serving in the 5th Battalion. He was killed in an attack the war was that Mr Harold McIlwraith, a great friend of my youngest son, on Delville Wood (part of the Battle of the Somme) on 24 took up our unissued shares and joined the Board. I shall always regret August 1916. that the claims of his large business prevented him from taking over the Again, I am grateful to Lionel Rigby for his research into club with my son, Alfred S. Jackson, who, filling the position of manag- former Stoke Poges people who fought bravely for their ing director for some seventeen years, relieved me of many duties which, with my advancing years, it would have been very difficult for me to have country. Private Edmund Turner, who died at the Battle of fulfilled. To him, and to Mr McIlwraith, I am exceedingly grateful for Isandhlwana in January 1879 following the outbreak of the their help. We three were the only directors of the club. Anglo-Zulu War, was a Stoke Poges man. Rigby tells the story as follows: Among the twelve men from Stoke Poges killed in the First World War, three had worked at Stoke Park. William Mayne The Anglo-Zulu War began on 11 January 1879 when three separate was a reservist, having joined the Oxford and Bucks Light columns of British troops commanded by Lieut. General Lord Chelmsford crossed the border into Zulu territory. Infantry in 1903, and was one of the first to respond to gen- Chelmsford accompanied the Central Column, which was the eral mobilisation. He joined the 2nd Battalion of the Oxford strongest and included the 1st and 2nd battalions of the 24th Regiment and Bucks. The battalion left for France less than two weeks of Foot, the 2nd Warwickshires. This regiment’s base was established after war broke out on 4 August 1914, and in early September in Brecon in 1873 and although some of its recruits came from the he was wounded in the Battle of the Aisne. He died of his English-Welsh borders, most came from the industrial and agricultural areas of England and Ireland, and one of its men came from our village. wounds on 22 September, leaving a widow and one child and He was Private Edmund Turner of Wrexham, Stoke Poges, known in his becoming the first soldier from Stoke Poges to die in the war. family as Teddy. The view from the 12th fairway. 166 STOKE PARK THE FIRST 1,000 YEARS 167 The 2nd Battalion in which Edmund Turner served had been in Africa since March 1878 where they arrived in time to take part in the last skirmishes of the Cape Frontier War. Teddy had also served in India from 1869 and was therefore an experienced and long-serving sol- dier. Chelmsford passed through Rorke’s Drift – which he used as a depot on his line of com- munication – with just one company of the 24th and a company of the Natal Native Contingent to garrison it. Chelmsford reached Isandhlwana on 20 January and the next day he sent a probe into the hills to search for the Zulus.