“… 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 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 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. A foll, that’s like a to talk to friends or strangers about the people and bird – when that get darkish they go up and what we call incidents he remembers from his long life in the village. perch – and they go to bed. They go to bed with the sun and a they get up with the sun. Now, in that red brick cottage just on the corner as you go Ted Martin: Well, I got to go down the allotments about half onto the road to Hadleigh, there used to be an old man living

196 there named Arthur Clarke – Tit “he came out neither did he, did he?! Clarke we used to call him. Vicious roaring like He was a contrary old man. I mean, when we was kids we old man he was. He went to bed with a bull and used to torment him – we did lots of people – but, I’ll give the birds and he got up with them. I chased us you an instance: He had an allotment down Kedges and he remember going by there as a lad round his was there diggin’ and I went walking along the bottom with with me pals about half past seven at Jimmy Squirrell who was killed in the war. I expect we’d be night, in the summer you know, and garden but thirteen year old. We never spoke to him but we just looked. he stuck his head out the window. of course He said, “What you lookin’ at?” and he put his spade in and, “Bugger off”, he say, “I wants to he never instead of turning the earth over, he threw it all over us. Just sleep.” He’d gone to bed! But he was caught us!” because we looked at him! up the next morning, four o’clock. Ted Martin a He had a walnut tree in the middle of his garden backing onto the school yard, beautiful Tit Clarke was a particularly well known and abrasive old tree it was and it used to be loaded with walnuts. But he character, but Viney Bigg told me a little tale of one never gave none away so we kids used to sneak in there and whose refreshing innocence she will always remember: pinch some! One time I crept through the hedge at play time a with a couple of pals and we was just picking a few when old Tit Clarke spotted us. Viney: The lady who sold us our cottage in Wickerstreet He came out roaring like a bull and chased us round his Green was lovely. I remember she said to me when we went garden and right round that lane in front of the school but of to look. “Of course, there’s not enough hot water for a bath course he never caught us. “I know who it is,” he kept really – you always have to heat some more.” And her son shouting, “It’s that Coogan”, which was my nickname. “You said, “If you hadn’t said that to so many people we’d have sold buggers”, he said at last, “You won’t get no more.” this cottage before!” But that made me convinced how nice And what do you think he done? He went straight in and she was and so genuine. Anyway, we never regretted it and took an axe and cut that old tree right down to the ground. we were so happy there. We called it Hamlet Cottage because Well, sure enough, we didn’t get no more walnuts but then that area of Kersey used to be called Hadleigh Hamlet.

197 a Somehow he contrived to acknowledge John and me politely and to remain dignified as he flung the pan into a Two particular memorable characters, Sir Laurence and flower bed, saying, “You left it on the heat again, Stella.” Lady Kirwan, lived in 1, Hollies Cottage, Wickerstreet “I’m always doing that,” his wife told us, undismayed. Green for 36 years. Larry, as he liked to be called, was a “Oh well, I’ll let them deal with it.” She draped herself respected explorer, traveller and geographer and, for around a fragile gate post and continued chatting while many years, was Director and Secretary of the Royal Sir Laurence and an overalled house painter dashed Geographical Society. Stella, his second wife, was a around opening windows to release the smell of burned staunch worker for the preservation of Suffolk’s food. (When we got back to our own cottage we ’phoned countryside and ancient buildings. Both have quite our friends and advised them to lose no time in securing a recently died, aged 91 and 85 respectively. beautiful property, before its aristocratic neighbour John and I met Lady Kirwan only once. We were burned it down!) looking at the exterior of 2, Hollies Cottage which was for a sale in Wickerstreet Green. Our friends Ann and Albert Walls, having received the estate agents’ specification of Margaret Needham: When I went to view 1, Hollies the property, had asked us to judge whether it was worth Cottage, I think I built up a bit of a rapport with Lady their while making the journey from Shenfield to view it. Kirwan because, in some respects, she reminded me of a As we stood admiring the cottage, a languid elderly dear old aunt of mine. I thought she was very elegant and a woman emerged from the attached property next door real lady, and she did love that garden. and enquired graciously whether we had come to view. She asked whether I would cut it all down and start afresh We explained, and she apologised because although she and I told her I liked rambling gardens and thought it was had a key from the agents she could not let us in without beautiful and if it was mine I would leave it just the way it an appointment. Just as we were assuring her that we was. I said, “I really love it all but I’m afraid I just can’t afford expected no such thing, an elegant white haired man ran it.” So she said to me, “I don’t want anybody else to look at it. out of her front door with a smoking saucepan in his Go back to the agent and put in your offer.” Well, I did, and hands. he thought my offer was a bit of an insult but, as I knew Lady

198 Kirwan wanted one last Summer here, I suggested that I’d night they all seemed to go the White Horse, Sunday exchange at once but not complete until about September morning to The Bell. There was a little man kept The Bell time. And they accepted! called Arthur Farthing, but everybody called him Ponky – But when it came to the time and I’d paid my money, I still I’ve no idea why. He kept that inn for many many years and had to wait another week because she wouldn’t leave! I went he played a great part in the village organisations. to sort the keys out on the Sunday before some furniture George Lemon the horse doctor told me that at one time auctioneers were due to go in the next day,and she said, “I’m Ponky had a donkey – this would have been at around the not going anywhere, dear, so you needn’t think I am.” I really beginning of the 20th century – and the men of the village thought that when I did move in she’d still be sitting there in used to play Ponky up. One memorable time they got the her chair. As it was, the fridge was still full of food and there donkey out and dressed it up in Ponky’s pyjamas and pushed was so much clearing out to be done but at least they had it into The Bell! And on another occasion they got a butt of gone! water – I don’t know how – and leant it at the door of The She was quite eccentric. I asked if I could take my friend Bell which opens inwards. Mary to see the place before I moved in and they insisted on They then primed poor old Ponky Farthing to go and open giving us afternoon tea. Well, she wouldn’t let me help her the door. Well, he wasn’t much taller than the barrel and he with the tray because she said it was “stuck” to the work just got dissolved in 50 gallons of water! But he lived through surface in the kitchen, and then she gave Mary her tea in the it all and he was a very popular licensee. biggest cup you’ve ever seen – it was nearly as big as the a teapot. Then she sat me down and gave me my tea in a tiny little teacup like a doll’s! It was just like Alice in Wonderland. Ray Goymour: All the business people like dad and the vets But he was as dignified as ever – he was a lovely man. and the other shopkeepers met at The Bell. They used to go in there about quarter past nine at night. But some preferred Ponky Farthing, and the The White Horse. That was Cobbolds beer then straight Village Pubs: from the wood, and a paraffin lamp on the table. We used to Paul Ryde: In the olden days The Bell was always notorious play Pokey-Die there, that was three dice up to 7, so you for use by the farm labourers on a Sunday morning. Saturday could get 21!

199 becoming more affluent and they could afford a car so they were out on a Saturday night whereas we all walked to the pub before. I’m convinced the thing that started the loss of actual village life was the motor car. a Jack: Well, I think what killed it absolutely in the last ten or twenty years was the television – the number of people now who buy beer out and take it home and watch television. They don’t dream of coming out and making conversation. And anyway nine out of ten of the pubs you go in now you can’t hear yourself think with the music going. So people have lost the art of conversation. The Bell pre-first world war and The White Horse, Kersey’s Creative perhaps a little later Artists: There are a great many talented a people in Kersey; artists, athletes, bellringers, calligraphers, Jill Stiff: On a Saturday carpenters, cooks, dancers, night you could go in The gardeners, historians, musicians, Bell or The White Horse and it was packed tight with local needlewomen, poets, sculptors, singers, speakers, people. They didn’t have to drink a lot but some of the wives teachers, writers – the list goes on and on. But five of were there – they used to sit all round the outside of the room these or, until recently, six have achieved a degree of – and the youngsters used to go. But then people started “fame” as creative artists and as such are generally

200 looked upon as characters. These are Terance James Bond, wildlife artist; Fred Bramham and Dorothy Gorst, potters; David Griffiths, local artist; the late Ralph Hammond Innes, author, and Peter Vansittart, author: a Terry Bond, wildlife artist: I paint for six or seven hours a day, depending upon the light. My surroundings are inspirational now but, when we first came, like most of Suffolk, it was intensively farmed. We’ve transformed our little patch, planting trees and encouraging wildlife of all kinds by opening up the mere and making ponds. We dug the ponds to encourage wildlife and now we’ve got dragonflies, damselflies and newts, and a kingfisher sometimes comes down and a heron. We’ve even had an osprey down occasionally. And in recent years William Baker Work on the mere, with 1 and 2 Hollies Cottage in the from Red House Farm, who lives at “Blessum Hall” has background begun to farm with much more sympathy for the environment. They’re creating several ponds there and have There are 260 on the list for the county so we’re not half way re-planted hedges and thousands of trees. yet but we’re getting there, and most people would probably I often go to Wales and other places where there are bird get 60 species in their gardens without trying too hard. We species which aren’t here but most of the things I paint are feed from about Christmas time until May and they get close to home. We do well for owls, and many species are through a quarter of a ton! increasing in number now that Bakers are putting the new For the background of my paintings, I usually work from woods in. photographs I’ve taken, and then decide which bird I’m In our garden only, we are up to about 101 species now. going to use on it. Sometimes I just photograph things

201 because I like them anyway. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a which is good but exhausting! Dot and I have a wheel each piece of fungus or Autumn leaves, bits of wood, anything. I and we fill these racks with new clay pots which are fired in might not even use it for a painting but it’s something I just the low temperature kiln which converts the dry clay into a like photographing. pinkish porous sort of pot for glazing. a Then round the other side of the work shop we do the glazing in all those buckets and pails and then, when the pots Fred Bramham, potter: Dot and I started working in are glazed, they go into the kiln room and we load up the kiln Kersey in 1982. Before that we worked in Angel Street in and fire it. And the whole cycle starts over again. It’s a sort of Hadleigh for ten years. From the time we came here until long drawn out treadmill, if you like. If it’s not continual you four or five years ago we lived in “River House” right next lose touch with the materials. After all, all you’re using is door. That was marvellous – a big roomy house with space to your wet hands and a ball of clay. spread out. When we stop for Christmas or whenever, it’s an effort While we were there I worked most evenings on the getting back into the swing of the concentration required to cottage we’d bought over at Lindsey – bricklaying, plastering, do it. But the exciting bit is the day like today when we open all the jobs required to restore an old timber framed cottage. the kiln and see what’s happened – sometimes it’s bad, It was thatched and the thatch had rotted off after a long sometimes it’s good – and we had a good one yesterday, period of neglect, so the roof timbers had rotted and it was in thank goodness! a state of ruination. If you hear raised voices in here you know something’s We bit off more than we could chew really but did learn gone wrong and there’s a sort of mutual blaming process the builders’ trades. I didn’t do the thatching of course – we going on for a while! Or we sell some of them as seconds just got Bob Stiff to come and do that, and he’s excellent. Then, because they’re not of the high standard that we demand of after we’d been working on the cottage for ten or twelve years ourselves. It’s endlessly gripping, although of course you have it seemed near enough to completion to move in there, so we moments of despair when things go wrong. did. Now we cycle or drive to and from the pottery daily. a We’ve made pots continuously in the area for twenty-five years – Hadleigh and Kersey – and we’ve always been busy, David Griffiths, artist: As a painter, I find it quite difficult

202 Peter and friend in Lance’s field and Lance’s decrepit hen houses) because Kersey is so pretty. It is difficult to get a new angle on a a pretty place that’s been so photographed and painted – a bit inhibiting really! But I have used it a lot, mainly because David: I think there’s something about the decaying and the I’m inspired by things around me. decrepit – like Lance Wyatt’s field used to be. That was really a interesting. I took these photographs of it but I never really got cracking on painting it. And Lance and Ada have a really Sue Griffiths: I haven’t been particularly inspired by Kersey decaying corrugated iron gate which is rusting away by their but that’s not because of Kersey itself. It’s just that the work I house so I’ve got to take a photograph of that before it gets do is not whole scenes – I tend to go a lot closer up. I like the replaced by something far less interesting! stones or flints on the church, say, but I would never draw a the whole church.

203 Sue: Oh, here’s our tame blackbird. He comes in here mostly away with murder! at this time of the year because he feeds his fledglings and of I miss Ralph (Hammond Innes) a lot actually. I mean he course the door is often open. At the end of the summer was always “Ralphish” but I think he was a very nice man. Of when he’s fed two lots of fledglings he’s completely course, he was such a private person and kept these barriers exhausted, and then they go through that moult and look up round himself and would never let them slip. I miss really dreadful. Dorothy too – she was a different sort of character – quite a dramatic! And I miss Verena and Reg coming up the hill every day. David: We thought he’d had his chips because he’s quite old, and we did wonder whether he’d reappear this year, but we Hammond Innes, Author know it’s him because he’s got one feather that’s a bit Verena Manning: I saw more of Mr Innes after Mrs Innes straggly! Every year he adds to his song – this year he’s died, naturally, because we had to contact each other more. incorporated the whinney of a horse which gets ridden But I’ve known times when he was writing, he’d just come up round the back here. He comes and perches on the kitchen for his lunch and back again. door handle until he gets some currants. And sometimes if I’ve been getting some flowers and he’s a walked from the study to the house, he’s been almost as close to me as what you are now but he wouldn’t speak and his Sue: Sometimes in the mornings I think I’ll have my cup of head was down and he wouldn’t look. And I wouldn’t speak tea first, so I draw the curtains, but he comes round to this because I knew he was just thinking something out – I knew window and sits staring at me while I put the kettle on. So I exactly how to be with him. Another time he would be all give up at that point and give him his currants! The cat’s very chat about something, but I knew exactly when he was tolerant of him. Not that Matey is about here too much when locked in on his writing. the weather’s good. He’s far too busy touring the village That last Alsation at “Ayres End” was lovely. I know Yseult kidding the residents that he’s starving or ingratiating was a nuisance, perhaps, to other people because she barked himself with the tourists. People are absolute suckers for a a lot but she’d got the loveliest nature – she’d cuddle up to friendly cat with a wall eye and a pathetic mew and he gets you, you know. And she knew everything.

204 Two minutes silence for Yseult with Hammond Innes, right, Reg Fletcher and Verena

Do you remember the article in the East Anglian with a picture showing how she sat in that kitchen with Mr Innes and Reg and me on remembrance day in 1996 and never moved all through the two minutes silence? At the end Reg was ill and then Mr Innes got ill and had to go into hospital and I couldn’t go into that house alone at nights to look after her. But when they came and took her to go into kennels, oh, she went off so happy and I thought, “What are you going into?” I felt really more upset when she went off than when Mr Innes and Reg went to hospital for the first time. She went off so trusting, and I didn’t see her any more, she died there. But there, she was twelve, so she wasn’t like a young dog, was she? She’d had a lovely life and Reg absolutely adored her. I used to say to Mr Innes, “Reg thinks more of Yseult than he do of you and me.” And he used to agree with me! a Peter Vansittart, author: Whether I’m writing in Kersey or asleep and wake up to the early morning news! Hampstead doesn’t make any difference. If you have My mother was very friendly with a diplomat and his something to say you can do it anywhere. After all, Primo wife who lived next door in “Woodbine Cottage”. When they Levi wrote in Auschwitz. I write in longhand and am left to go to Somerset it was quite a blow to her and indeed perfectly happy writing on a long country walk or on the top it was to me. of a bus, in a bar or on a cafe table – it really doesn’t matter. I was very fond of our neighbour, a very dear man – a As there’s no village shop here, I can use a great deal of great lover of birds – it was quite an education. He used to “thinking” time simply walking into Hadleigh to buy a take me wandering along the small rivers around Holbrook newspaper, a bottle of aspirin or a piece of bread. or up to the Norfolk bird reserves and he would see, Here, I write in my bathroom because that has the best allegedly, rare and marvellous birds on all sides. Not being view of the garden. I like throwing stuff out for the birds and very well sighted I saw almost nothing, but it was very watching the pecking order and the behaviour of these birds pleasant to be with someone so absorbed in the countryside. because I know nothing about birds His last job had been ambassador to Ireland, his brother “as there’s but can teach myself a little bit this was ambassador to Mexico and his son is ambassador to no village way. It’s a minor distraction but the Japan, I think. Like all ambassadors to Ireland, our friend shop here, sort of distraction which is useful. felt it his job to stop all this nonsense about North and South, i can use a Providing I get up early, there’s so he spent six months preparing for the world a great great deal of plenty of time in the day for speech which was really to settle the whole thing! ‘thinking’ everything. I get up much earlier The great day came and the entire diplomatic corps were time simply and go to bed much earlier here, there and the United Nations were there and it was beamed walking into compared to London, which works up for television and radio all over the world. And it was very well. going extremely well, everybody breathtaken with hadleigh I have a television in my bedroom admiration, and at the very end, just as he was reaching the to buy a and turn on something at half past real big thing, his wife standing beside him dropped dead. newspaper” ten and am extremely absorbed in it “Damn,” said the speaker, and the whole thing was ruined! Peter Vansittart for ten minutes and then I’m sound There was a General who lived in “Corner House” and he

206 was rather grand. He’d been military governor of Berlin in that his son was postman just down the road in about 1945 – a very interesting man in many ways. However, until recently? he let you know that he was a General and not a Private! a He used to give a Christmas party which I used to go to but once I said to the housekeeper, who was handing round Grace Farthing: We had Wilfred Pickles come to the village canapes and things ,“What a splendid party.” And she rather once with “Have a Go”. That was a big event. spoilt it by saying, “Well, yes. The real party of course is a tomorrow when the General has his important friends.” I looked around and they all seemed to me rather splendid Norah Orriss: Much later on, when the Metro car first came people, but there you are! out that was very, very secretive and all the cars were covered up before it appeared on television. But the filming for the Memorable Events in Kersey: advert for that was done down in the river. And we were all Many, though not all of the events recorded here have thrilled because we’d seen all these Metros before anybody had to do with the media. A village as beautiful and else had seen one!” unspoiled as this one is an obvious situation for a productions requiring an attractive or period background, and over the years countless scenes have Grace: They filmed “Lovejoy” here of course, and that other been shot here for films, television plays and big one, “Canterbury Tales”. And the other one that they did a documentaries. Kersey’s fame among tourists is probably lot of filming here for was the film version of “Oliver”. the reason it has been chosen as the venue for radio a shows, and it regularly appears in local and national newspapers, calendars and guidebooks. Norah: And “Witchfinder General”. They took ages getting a ready for that because they had to put a lot of straw down. Vincent Price was in that one so we saw him. And that was Owen Gillingwater: Years ago, Percy Edwards came to the when the children were small because I know I took Paul up village hall to give a concert of his bird song. Did you know to Parks meadow because that’s where they did the hanging.

207 Owen who played Compo in “Last of the Summer Wine” was one of the stars of the documentary. He’s on this television photo somewhere but I’m not sure where now. a Reg Farthing: Harry Secombe came once, didn’t he? Then Anneka Rice came round with that helicopter – she was supposed to land on Cherry Tree Meadow but she landed up on Roger Partridge’s bit of ground at the back of Hammond Innes’ (see newspaper cutting, right).

Geese at the splash

They’d got the gallows up there but they made us take the children away – they wouldn’t let them see it. And another time they did that documentary about the geese. a Jill Harbinson: The television story was that there was a lorry drivers’ strike, so geese had to be walked to London as of old. The presenters chose Kersey and to walk the geese through because they are picturesque villages, Harry Secombe at the gate of River House with but of course they all had a lift between locations! Gladys Rice wearing a hat, and two “Goon Show” They hired a couple of professional goose drivers, but Bill fans from California

208 Muscovys going”. They looked after them for a while and then they got fed up with the mess on their front doorstep and the cost of feeding them in the winter and at one of the village meetings they asked if anyone else would take them on. Nobody volunteered but they just sort of stayed. The number of ducks fluctuates from year to year. And in the past when there were too many, we always found friends or local farmers to take the surplus. Well, in And they did our Muscovy ducks for the television news 1995, when there were between thirty and forty Muscovies, I didn’t they? When some people wanted to get rid of them a brought the subject up at a Parish Council meeting on behalf few years ago. of a fairly new resident who was complaining about the mess a the ducks were making round her house. It was decided at the meeting that the number should be Jill Harbinson: The Muscovy ducks were introduced into reduced. But one person, not bothering to find out that this the village by Mrs Simpson when she lived in “River House”. meant finding new homes for some of them, left the meeting Well, when she was moving to the people who convinced they were going to be killed. By the time the story used to live opposite me kidnapped a brood of ducklings and reached the Press, it was alleged that I wanted to kept them in their garage until after she’d gone, “to keep the exterminate all the ducks in Kersey. I then had to endure

209 reporters ringing me up and knocking at the door, and some his own for a couple of years and the paper came and did an very nasty phone calls and hate-mail. It was horrible. I don’t article about us and she took a photograph of Alfonse and know if that individual ever realised the unpleasantness he told his story. And literally the next week he took interest in a caused me. Anyway, the publicity resulted in lots of the ducks three year old hen and later they had quite a family of chicks. being rehomed in very nice places. Now he’s extremely active and while his wife’s bringing up When I had my own Aylesbury ducks I used to bring them the first brood he’s got another lot with someone else! in off the Splash every evening which was quite an amusing a thing for people to watch as I said, “Come on ducks, time to go home,” and these five white ducks would waddle back In 1991 Jill Harbinson, who was then Mrs Finch and through my gate and into their run! There’s one duck left chairman of Kersey Parish Council, was approached by a now whom we call Penguin who was fathered by my television company regarding the possible filming in Aylesbury drake. He can actually quack a bit and he’s got a September for a pilot show for a projected series for different beak and a white shirt front and a black tie. I Channel 4. The producer Esta Charkham writes, suppose you could say he’s a bastard because his mother was “When my colleagues and I visited your village last weekend a Muscovy! we fell in love with it. I had always known about Kersey, Eventually I gave the ducks to the Mellors down at Kersey because my mother used to spend her summer holidays there Mill because I had bantams and Amherst pheasants as well, in the 1930s and had always conjured up a picture of a Fairy and the whole business of breaking the ice every frosty day Tale village for me. I wasn’t disappointed.” and having to shut them up at night became a bit of a bore. The letter goes on “ …We would like to film a funeral service The pheasants escaped so there might be some descendants in the church and some parishioners leaving the church after of Amherst pheasants around here! the funeral… also scenes in the graveyard looking out over the a village and one important scene around a newly dug grave! Other scenes would be of a cortege travelling down the hill Christina Mellor: We’ve had that cockerel, Alfonse the towards the village and stopping at the water splash, and ponce, for years and he never took any interest in the outside a home in the village. I have sent Reverend Sands a chickens. Then when his old cockerel friend died he was on script and asked him to put our case before the Church Council

210 for formal permission. We would of course expect to make a contribution to the maintenance fund for St Mary’s. If we are granted permission we would be approaching a householder with a view to using their house and would also need to have some Parishioners in the church and in the streets of the village, and it would be our intention to be able to offer crowd work to any villagers who might be interested. Again, we would of course be happy to make a contribution to Village Funds. We would love to be able to shoot our eccentric comedy, “Shall We Gather At The River”, in Kersey. It is the perfect location …” a Grace Farthing: Channel Four did some filming in our house for “Shall We Gather At The River”. They Villagers taking part in the filming of a funeral scene in used our front door and our kitchen and my washing Channel Four’s “Shall We Gather At The River” in 1991. line! Jenny Kerr is in front. The young boy is an actor and Eileen a Gleed is next to him. Gladys Rice is in the next row with Jack Stiff, and Frances Whymark is behind them. On the other side Reg Farthing: Yes, she got all her washing in and they of the aisle are Gladys Warren and Paul and Nora Ryde. came and put different stuff on the line!” a churchyard so that when his wife came out to hang her washing on the line, she could look across the valley at the Grace: The story was that this old man who lived in my churchyard and see where he was buried. And there was a house died and he wanted to be buried this side of the young boy in the story who had an obsession for going to

211 funerals whether he knew the person who’d died or not! I’ve got that on video actually. More Events to be Remembered: Harold Seggar: Talking about events in Kersey I’ve been told that before the turn of the last century, as well as in our time, they used to have Rolling the Cheese, Dutch cheeses, brown and red. They used to take them up by Stay Barn and roll them right down the middle of the street to the river to see who won. And another thing they used to do years ago, apparently, was grease a pig. And then they used to run after that and see who could catch hold of it first! a Remnant of the old Priory Owen Gillingwater: The men used to play quoits on the sideshows was a competition for a pig, presented by Mr pightle - the long meadow behind Stay Barn - great big steel Jackson … Teas were served in the ivy-covered remnant of the quoits they were. And they used to play at Kersey Priory too. old Priory.’ Here’s a cutting of what my father wrote for the Suffolk Free a Press in the early 1930s: “ … Mr Stephen Jackson was the host, and his grounds and Jim Gleed: In 1938 when all the mills round here were meadow were thronged with people intent upon enjoyment. working we had a really bad flood. You couldn’t get from The principal attraction was a quoit drive arranged by the Hadleigh to Kersey and in Kersey anyone living up our end local Quoit Club and it was a great success, no fewer than 42 couldn’t get to the shops or the pubs. Well, over the bridge players taking part, many coming from the surrounding was Gladys King’s sweet shop and her brother Bill King told villages to compete for twelve prizes … Amongst the many me he hadn’t lit his candle before he came down the stairs

212 that morning. Suddenly his feet were dunked in the wet! The water was actually coming in the front of the shop and going out the back. I said, “What about your goods, Bill?” and he said, “As soon as I opened the back door they disappeared.” Tobacco, sweets and all went floating off! Poor old Bill! Luckily the floods didn’t last much more than a day. a Norah Orriss: We used to have a lot of whist drives in the village hall, and there used to be a bus run from Boxford through Kersey to Bildeston and Bildeston, Kersey to Boxford and people used to come from both sides. We’ve had people on the stage and in the cloakroom because the hall’s been absolutely full - something like about fifty or sixty tables. People used to come for miles, you see. a Past reliance on local buses is obvious from the following brief extract from one of Alfred Gillingwater’s newspaper reports in December 1946: “Kersey Men’s Club’s visit to the Bildeston Social Club was cut short owing to the bus being an Rachel Wells hour late.” (Bildeston won the billiards and cribbage, and (right) and Kersey the darts!) Cathy Henley on the Rachel Wells: We did a Weaver’s Walk in 1969 to raise Weavers’ Walk money for the church tower. People sponsored us and we

213 walked all round the old weaver’s villages. We started at A Tale of a Tree to Finish the Kersey, then Milden, , , Preston, Chapter: , and Lindsey. We made £747 net on that walk, which was a lot of money then. Cathy Henley is Jill Harbinson: The original tree by the bridge over the with me in this photograph and you can see the scaffolding river had died, and was replaced by the Alder in 1973 when on the tower in the background. And there was a village everyone was being encouraged to “Plant a tree in ‘73”. festival in 1988, to make money for the church and other Vandals broke off all the main trunk, leaving only one branch organisations. Sir David Scott-Barrett was one of the which then straightened itself upwards and became the principal organisers. Altogether that weekend, we made flourishing tree we still have there now, twenty seven years £2,099 net and the profits were divided three ways. later.

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