East Brent Memories Fv3 0.Pdf

Contents 1 Earlier Days in East Brent by Ivor Punnett 3 East Brent 60 Years Ago by Grace Hudson 4 The Knoll Villages by Rosa Chivers 6 Brent Knoll Station by Rosa Chivers 7 Last Thatch at East Brent - Weston Mercury & Somersetshire Herald 8 East Brent in the 1920's and 1930's by Waiter Champion 9 A Musical Note by Freda Ham 9 A Journey Along Life's Path by Chrissie Strong 16 Childhood Memories of Old East Brent by Ruth Rider 19 East Brent Methodist Church by Grace Hudson 20 Random Recollections by Connle Hudson 25 Raise the Song of Harvest Home by Ronald Bailey 27 The First Harvest Home in East Brent by Ronald Bailey 30 'The Golden Age' at East Brent by John Bailey 32 Somerset Year Book, 1933 (extract) 33 Burnham Deanery Magazine (extracts, June and November 1929) 35 Acknowledgments 35 Index to Photographs 36-45 Photographs 46 Map of Brent Knoll 47 Map of East Brent Foreword It must have been about 1985 when we invited Chrissie Strong (nee Edwards) to have tea with us. She had been a family friend for many years having helped us in the house when we were children. She had a wonderfully retentive memory, and after she had been reminiscing about life in the village, we asked her to write down some of her memories. She was rather diffident about such an undertaking, but sometime afterwards we received a notebook through the post, containing her recollections. This was the start of the book. Chrissie's memories are not necessarily in chronological order, as they were random jottings, but we feel this in no way detracts from its interest. In some cases there is repetition, but this is unavoidable and highlights events which had made the most impact on people. Others from the village have added their stories, and articles from various publications have been included, making it into a worthwhile whole. We believe this to be a true picture of life as it was in the earlier part of the twentieth century, and we hope it will be enjoyed by its readers. Grace and Connie Hudson papers everywhere, and shouted 'get out and don't dare set foot in here again.' I went to the door and then his secretary, a Miss Bingham, caught my wrist and said 'If you go now you'll never get anything.' She then turned on Sir William and told him he was wrong and did owe us the money." "In the end, after much haggling, he paid up and I got my contract and from that moment on I was able to payoff all our debts and start EARLIER DAYS IN EAST BRENT farming by buying two or three cows and calves here and there. I worked like a dog for years Weekly News, March 20th 1992 and ended up owning two farms. In those days Feature by Ivor Punnett men were paid 15 shillings a week but I always paid an extra shilling for the best." Retired farmer Mr George Hill will be 91 in July and is one of the best known personalities in Mr Hill admits he always loved making a deal East Brent. He left school at the age of 12 but and smiles over one gamble. "For three years faced no handicap in life because he became running we had very wet summers and there a very astute businessman. wasn't one sheep left alive in the valley between the Mendips and the Quantocks. I "Like all country lads I would do anything to thought things just had to get better and when I earn a bit of pocket money and when I was ten went to a market near Minehead I bought two I went off milking for local farmers. I used to loads of sheep, all delivered for under a pound milk in the fields before I went to school and each." when I got back at night, and was paid sixpence a week. Mind, you could do a lot with "The next summer was long and hot and a penny then." farmers were glad to let me graze these sheep to eat up their grass. In the end I had 1,000 "I was born in this house and Dad was a sheep and didn't lose one. We had a small car manager of the Cheddar Valley Dairy. Then then and I put six lambs in the back and went he went out on his own making cheese, mainly off to Weston Market. They were snapped up double Gloucester. He was a very honest man and after that we couldn't keep the buyers who always stood by his word and when the away." great Depression came he always honoured . the milk contracts he had made with local He remembers as a boy how the roads were farmers. The result was that he was buying laid with limestone, which caused great clouds milk at five pence a gallon and selling cheese of white dust in the summer and were two at a penny a pound, and that was the road to inches deep in mud during the wet weather. ruin." "On Saturdays, the farm workers had to turn out and help scrape the mud off the roads so "Things became so bad that the family faced people could get to church in style. In those bankruptcy but were saved by a hard winter days the church was nearly always full." which created a demand for milk which they sent to London. Because of having a short Mr Hill remembers one local tradition which term contract, they were offered a penny extra always caused a lot of excitement. May rolling on each gallon. Later, when a long term contract was offered, there was a problem over down the Knoll. "It was held on the first Sunday the payment of the sum owing. So I went of the month and the winner was the one who down to London to see Sir William Price head rolled the furthest. It was hard going, they of United Dairies, who was a real tartar. ' I told would roll through cow pats and gorse bushes, and the reward for the winner was a cheese." him he owed my father £97 and at first he refused to listen." Another very well known village personality is 87-year-old Mrs Cicely Poole, a lively and "I told him a deal was a deal and asked him cheerful person who still enjoys a game of point blank if he was a man of his word. At skittles." I was born in Oxford but came to live that he banged his fist on the desk, scattering here 60 years ago as a young married woman. My husband sold sewing machines and it was a hard business. If he sold one machine a week would give you enough gas for one evening's we were comfortably off, if he didn't things light. And as a bonus we got a small rebate were hard. One Christmas he sold three to a from the meter, perhaps a couple of shillings, lady who wanted them as presents for her but every penny was useful." daughters and we had a good celebration." Though those were hard days for the women, "In the end he got a job delivering papers for a Mrs Moore believes times were better then. local newsagent and though it didn't pay a lot it "People were kinder then and helped each other was better than the dole. We rented a small much more." cottage for six shillings a week and when we moved to a larger house the electricity came to One person who has always taken a keen the village and they offered us three lights and interest in the history of the village is Miss a power point free if we would have it Grace Hudson, who came to the village as a girl connected." in 1922, when her father took over the post office and stores. During the Second World War, Mr Poole worked at an aircraft factory making "He was a director of a London drapery Beaufighters and she remembers the business and when he came here he sold frustration of trying to make hearty meals out everything, from boots and shoes to gowns and of 11d worth of corned meat, then a week's bedding and ironmongery. At first we had ration. acetylene lighting in the shop and made our . own gas supply. When the electricity came Mrs Poole is secretary of the East Brent Happy here, they offered to put it in for a pound a Circle and helps at the local day centre. She light." also gives a hand at the village harvest home, along with her daughter, Mrs Rita Thomas. Miss Hudson worked as a telephonist at Says Mrs Poole: "If you want to keep well you Burnham for nine years, returning home to take have to keep busy and active. That is my over the business in 1942. She remembers the belief and I think if you sit down and stop you war years as "very stressful" with all the soon go downhilL" coupons and problems of rationing. A family friend was Mrs Chrissie Strong, who died three Mr Moore, who is in his 79th year, was born in years ago at the age of 84. "We asked her to the village and remembers being paid three- write out her memories and she did so and it is and-sixpence a week at his first job.

Load more