Kersey-10-Pubs

“… A Fairy-Tale Village” chapter 10. people, pubs, events & pastimes very village has its “characters” – people who stand out in some way, whether physically or because of their interests, temperaments or natural gifts. ¶ The immortality of past characters E is ensured by stories still told of them, while those alive today speak in ways which unintentionally stress their distinctiveness. Lance as we first saw him. This photo, taken by Maraday Robinson, won first prize in its class at the Kersey Flower Show at the time. 191 n a small community such people are usually So these men were apprehended for stealing George regarded with tolerance, their idiosyncrasies Wyatt’s horseradish. That was a very big case in the village, I accepted without question even when these tend can tell you. It got headlines! He was an old character and he Itowards the abrasive. And creative artists are left an old character, his son Lance. looked upon with pride, the whole village basking in the a reflected glory of their talents. Incidentally, in this chapter mention is also made of a few characters among When John and I were newcomers to Kersey not many the animals of Kersey! days elapsed before we encountered Lance Wyatt and his a dog Spot. They were to be seen every day processing slowly down to Lance’s allotment in Kedges Lane and Paul Ryde: During the war there were only about four cars back up to his home at 1, Row Cottages. The white-haired in the village; most people used the Eastern Counties bus. old man was bent almost double and invariably wore the And in those days it was a double decker bus and nearly same cap, overcoat, wellingtons and gloves. He used a everyone used to go on it to Ipswich. (It always used to run walking stick in his right hand but managed to carry a on Tuesdays because that was the cattle market day there.) couple of buckets in his left. Well, there was an old gentleman called George Wyatt Spot was usually a fair way behind him and from time who used to have an allotment on which he grew to time Lance would roar at him to egg him on. In a field horseradish. And I remember very well one Sunday there opposite the allotments Lance kept geese, chickens and a were some men arrived from Ipswich on the Eastern rather irascible donkey whom he called Peter. (Ada told Counties bus, and they proceeded to go down to George me that when he got the donkey its name was Penelope Wyatt’s allotment and dig up his horseradish and put it on but that was a bit of a mouthful. In any case, as she added, the bus. But Mr Wyatt found out because he was actually in it was a male donkey.) After feeding his animals, Lance The Bell at the time – his normal habitat on a Sunday would often go on to dig up some vegetables which were morning. And he got the bus driver out and took him for a then transferred to the buckets along with any eggs he’d drink in The Bell which solved the problem of keeping the been able to collect, and so began his journey home. thieves in the bus until the police got there! Because of his stoop, it was some time before any 192 conversations took place but eventually, having noticed two strange pairs of feet for several days in succession, he peered up and we were able to pass the time of day with him. After that we exchanged a few words at each meeting but his Suffolk accent was so strong and his deafness so severe that I’m afraid neither we nor he understood a word. Not that that mattered – contact had been made and apparently he sometimes mentioned to Ada that he’d seen “those two new women again.”! Unfortunately, after about eighteen months we saw no more of Lance as he first became confined to the house and eventually moved to a nursing home in Eye. Spot died, the poultry were distributed elsewhere and Peter Lance with kid on his shoulders was accepted by a donkey sanctuary. Short though our knowledge of them had been we felt that an era had hadn’t heard that he ever thought its name was Penelope! ended in Kersey. Imagine then, the feelings of those who Lance’s billy-goat had belonged to his brother Paddy, who had known Lance for most of their lives and watched him lived at the far end of Water Lane. Well, when Paddy died grow from schoolboy to handsome young man to spirited Lance took charge of the goat, and he had to go and collect it nonagenerian. and lead it right through the village all the way to Kedge’s Lane. That was a lovely sight! Jill Harbinson: Actually, Peter was originally one of my a donkeys which we gave to Lance when the donkey he had had for years died. My children had named him Dylan Ada Wyatt: I always used to say Lance should have been a because there was a Dylan on the television’s “Magic vet. He had such a wonderful way with animals and they Roundabout” at the time. But Lance didn’t take to that always loved him. Just look at this picture of him with a kid name, or couldn’t hear it, and so he called the donkey Peter. I on his shoulders! And he always had a dog. In this picture of 193 me at 25 when I a was cook for Mrs Sampson and Miss Viney Bigg: I remember Lance Wyatt up and down to the Cook at Ayres End, allotment with his dog. I remember one time, someone told I’m with his dog me there was this rattling and banging and they wondered Jock. That dog what on earth it was. It was Lance’s goat foraging in their worshipped Lance dustbin! That goat was a character and so was he. and when he died a Lance buried him in a part of our garden Sadly, as this chapter was compiled, Ada Wyatt died. She that’s in the garden had become ill just before Christmas 1999 and was taken of “Fair View” next to the nursing home in Eye where Lance had been for door now. nine months. There, she seemed to improve and she and a Lance had a happy Christmas together before her sudden death on 10th January at the age of eighty-eight. Ada had Leslie Williams: taken a great interest in this book and was looking When we were forward to seeing it in print. I am more sorry than I can working in the say that it was not to be. As I type, Lance is still alive and fields at harvest time quite well at ninety-five years of age. Ada with Jock at “Ayres End” we used to a take our “beaver”, as we called our lunch, wrapped up in a cloth and we’d take a At least one Kersey person has lived to be over a hundred bottle of cold tea to drink. years old. She was Miss Amy Gardiner, born in 1889 in 1, I saw old Lance Wyatt drink cold tea once too, but that Hollies Cottage, Wickerstreet Green. Sadly, Jessie died at was in his kitchen and he picked up the teapot and drank it the age of twenty-five and Amy had to have one of her legs straight from the spout! amputated when she was eighteen. However she always 194 managed to get about very well. She moved to Vale Lane and Gladys Rice looked after her there for a number of years. Amy was in hospital when she received her telegram from the Queen and Gladys went to see her there. Miss Gardiner eventually died in Raydon when she was Gladys Rice with Amy a hundred and one aged One Hundred years old. a Jim Gleed: Marjorie’s uncle lived in the cottage facing the Splash and he used to be the local roadman. On Friday afternoons at one o’clock he’d start at the far end of the street, round the corner past the White Horse, straightening all the paths and tidying up ‘til he got down to the Splash. Then on Saturday mornings he’d start up past the church and sweep Amy with doll and her sister Jessie holding all the street down to the Splash that way, and he was over a racquet. A friend is with them. sixty then! On his 80th birthday he cycled all the way to 195 Milden from Kersey Tye to his sister’s funeral and it was snowing and the wind was blowing. He was a marvellous old man. a Before moving on to quote Ted Martin on stories about another Kersey character Arthur Clarke, I should say that Ted himself is one of the best known characters in the village. Firstly, as this prize-winning photo of him taken by Marianne Lash shows, he has a very distinctive appearance and is rarely seen without his hat. Secondly, he Ted Martin faithfully walks down and up from his house in Vale Lane three times daily to tend his five allotments and his rabbits, stoats and chickens. And thirdly, he is the past three. You see, I got to feed me folls (chickens) and me most marvellous raconteur and likes nothing better than rabbits, and you can’t feed folls in the dark.

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