The edited transcript of a tape-recorded conversation Danny Howell made with Abner Brown at Abner’s home, Hillwood Lane, Warminster, on Wednesday 29th April 1998. This was first published in the book Remember Warminster Volume 5, complied by Danny Howell, published by Bedeguar Books in October 1998.
Abner Brown said:
“My full name is Alfred Abner Brown. I don’t like the name Alfred, so I use the name Abner instead. My parents always called me Abner in any case. Abner is a name from out of the Bible. I don’t know why my parents called me that. I suppose it was a name my mother had come across and liked.”
“I’m 81. I was born on 9th November 1916. The First World War was on. I was born at Hillwood Dairy, on the corner of Hillwood Lane. That was my father’s farm. The house is different today. There’s an extension built on the house now. It’s now the home of Adrian Pickford and his wife.”
“Years ago people had big families because they didn’t have any television in them days and they used to go to bed early. Ha ha ha. I had four brothers and two sisters. Bill was the oldest. He worked for father on the farm, doing the milkround. Winnie came next. She married Horace King, the head porter at Warminster Railway Station. Then came Nora. She was in the Land Army during the Second World War. She went to work for the Post Office. She married Johnny Bourne, who lived out Crockerton at Sutton End Farm. It’s opposite where the Dale family have got their vineyard now. I was born after Nora. I worked for my father, milking the cows and doing all the farm work. Jack came next. He worked for the electric light company all his life. Stan was born after Jack and he worked for Culverhouse’s, the builders. Louis was the baby of the family. He was a market porter with Jim Brown who used to live at the bottom of Elm Hill. They used to go round all the markets together. There’s only Louis and me left now. Louis lives at Andover.”
“My father was Frederick George Brown. He was a Warminster man. He was born in Warminster but I don’t know where exactly. His father, George Albert Brown, was a gardener. Dad came from a big family because I had quite a few uncles and aunts. Father was both a farmer and a tailor. Father worked on the tailoring, while still keeping the farm. He combined the two together and he worked hard during his life. Father was short, he had my build and he was clean-shaven. Father was religious. He went to church on special occasions. He was a placid sort of a chap. He wouldn’t quarrel with a flea in the road. He was like me.”
“Father had a bit of a Wiltshire brogue. He used the old words. He used to swear like we all do at different times, especially when something upset him or he hit his thumb with a hammer. He was down to earth though. He was mechanically minded and he could turn his hand to anything. He liked sport. He was a big cricket fan. He followed Warminster Cricket Club but he didn’t play himself. He smoked Woodbines. If he had two packets of Woodbines he would always hide one in one of his boots so that our mother wouldn’t know how many he was smoking. Fags came in packets of five and they were cheap then.”
“Father didn’t bother much with politics. He kept out of that. He was a chap that didn’t want to upset anybody. He had his own mind and ways but didn’t push on to anyone. He belonged to the Conservative Club when it was down Church Street. He used to go down there for a drink. He had an occasional drink but he never got drunk or anything like that. His friends included Bernard Butcher’s father who used to keep the Globe pub down the Common. Bernard’s mother and father used to keep that. Father was pally with they. Father was also pally with Piggy Payne, the local pig killer.”
“Dad went off to France during the First World War. He went in the Army. I think he served in the Wiltshire Regiment. He joined up with all his mates and went off. He wanted to do his bit for the Country I suppose. He was lucky, when you think about it, to have come back from France. He never used to say anything about it. Father rarely spoke, if ever, about his time in the War.”
“After the First World War dad went to work for Foreman & Sons, the clothing people, in Warminster. They had a place in the High Street. He did tailoring for them. When Imber village was alive, the people there, like the Jeans family and all they old boys over there, used to have their clothes made. Father had to cycle over to Imber on his bike, measure ’em up, come back and make the suits up. Then he’d take the suits back to Imber and fit ’em up on them. One day he was going back over to Imber on his bike and he could hear a lot of noise coming across the Plain. That was a load of rats on the move. They were running across the downs. They crossed over the road and went on across the next part of the Plain. Where they had come from and where they were going we shall never know but father saw them. He said there were thousands and thousands of them on the move together. It must have been like something out of a horror film. It frightened him nearly to bloody death. That’s true. Father often remarked about that.”
“My mum’s name was Mildred Edith Wildman. She came from Northants. Her father, Edward Wildman, was a farmer. Mum came to Warminster for a holiday and ended up staying here. She was a dressmaker by trade. She came from a big family and she had worked dressmaking in Northants. She worked hard. Father and mother met through him being a tailor and she being a dressmaker. They were married by the Reverend Stuart at Christ Church [on 26th December 1906].
“Mother was a good catch for my dad. She was very attractive. She had dark hair which she wore in a bun and she was good-looking in the days when women didn’t wear make-up. She was slim and wore long dresses with high collars. She wore the proper Victorian clothes but she was a smart woman. There’s no doubt about that.”
“Mother was happy-go-lucky. She never used to lose her temper. She was very placid like my father. She didn’t belong to any clubs or societies but she used to go to church. She was a religious person. She saw that we kids went to church every Sunday. Some Sundays I didn’t want to go to church. I used to skive. I would clear off up the golf links on Arn Hill, picking up the golf balls. The vicar at Christ Church was the Reverend Jimmy Stuart. He was a real gentleman. When I failed to turn up at church he called round to see my parents a couple of days afterwards. He wanted to know where I had got to. He asked my mother. She said ‘As far as I know he was at church.’ The Vicar said ‘Oh no, he never came to church.’ I got a good hiding from mother for that. I got a belt round the bloody ear hole.”
“I was in the choir at Christ Church. That was alright. I used to enjoy singing. Several chaps from along Christ Church Terrace were in the choir.”
“Mother was in charge of family and home. She held the purse strings. Mother used to like to go to the Globe, at Brook Street, on Saturday nights for a drink. When we had a car, an old Morris 1000, I used to take her down to the Globe on a Saturday night. Like my dad, she was very friendly with Bernard Butcher’s mother and father. She used to have a drink and a natter with them. I used to drop her off and go back and pick her up about ten o’clock time. She used to enjoy that. She looked forward to it.”
“Mother took to the farm. She was interested in it. When dad joined the Army and went away to fight in the First World War my uncle, William Wildman, ran the farm. That was my mother’s brother. That was dad’s brother-in-law. Mr. Wildman used to work on the Longleat Estate, on the forestry side. He was the Head Forester for them. He was known as Bill. He came to look after the farm at Hillwood while my dad was away. After the Wat Mr. Wildman went back on the forestry. His wife lived with my mum and dad as well. Mr. and Mrs. Wildman didn’t have any children.”
“One day my mother and aunt were in home. A knock came on the door. My aunt answered it. That was an old boy, a tramp, and he had a little billycan he wanted filled up with tea. My aunt didn’t have a pot on the boil at the time but he wouldn’t take no for an answer and got his foot over the doorstep so she couldn’t shut the door. My uncle happened to come out of the farmyard. He saw what was going on. He said ‘What’s the matter my dear?’ She said ‘This bloke won’t take his foot out the door.’ My uncle said ‘I’ll soon shift he.’ In the passage was a sill and on there was a stick, about four foot long with a big knob on the top of him. Mr Wildman picked the stick up and fetched old matey against the bloody head, knocking him down. He chucked that tramp out in the road. After that bloke got a bloody good hiding he didn’t come back no more.”
“Other blokes kept coming to the house though, asking for cups of tea. Wildman happened to go out one day. Coming out the front door to go round to the yard he noticed marks on one of the bricks. That was a message to these tramps to tell them it was a place where you could get your billycan filled up with a drop of tea. We used to see a lot of tramps travelling about years ago. They used to go to the workhouses at Warminster, Frome, Salisbury and Shaftesbury. They would walk from Shaftesbury to Warminster and then on to Frome, before walking back the way they had came. They used to walk miles. People used to call them milestone inspectors. Most people wouldn’t know where the old milestones are now. There’s one opposite Bore Hill Farm and another one by the bus shelter in Crockerton. There’s one near the George at Longbridge Deverill and another up the top of Lord’s Hill.”
“The house had flagstone floors. There was a wooden floor in the front room. When I was growing up, my parents had some old-fashioned furniture. They had electric for lighting. We had a bucket toilet. It was on the side of the house. That was emptied on a regular basis and the contents were carted up the allotment and ploughed in. That used to make the stuff grow. We didn’t have toilet paper. We used squares of newspaper. We saved the newspapers and cut them up into little squares. My mum and dad used to take a daily paper. They would read it and talk about different things that were going on. We had books in home too and I used to get a few comics like The Beano.”
“Mother was a good housewife. She did her washing on Mondays. She had quite a bit to do, with all us kids. She didn’t have time to sit about. She worked hard to bring us up. She had a big boiler for washing, in a lean-to out the back. There was a well but the water used to run off the roof of the house into this place. My uncle put his potatoes, which he had grown from seed, in the cellar. Later on, he went to get them out and when he lifted the big stone slab back, the cellar was all full up with water. The water had ran off the roof into there. The potatoes were floating on top of the water. He got the fire brigade to come up and pump the water out. They got it sorted. Afterwards Mr Wildman had things altered so that the water ran off the roof and away to a pond.”
“Mother cooked on a range. It had a big oven. We ate good solid food. We always had a good table and we never went hungry. Mother cooked stews and she used to bake her own bread, twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays. The doctor who used to come round, Dr Hogan, came round one Tuesday when she was baking the bread. He said to her ‘This smells nice.’ She said ‘I suppose you would like a little loaf, wouldn’t you?’ He said ‘Yes. I would.’ She said ‘Next Tuesday, you come round and I’ll have one ready for you.’ She made him a little loaf about six inches round. He enjoyed it so much he came round every Tuesday after that to get a loaf. It became a regular thing.”
“Father had about 40 or 50 acres at Hillwood. It was rented. The landlord was a Mr. White who lived at Gipsy Lane. He was a builder. You know where Percy Vincent lived at Gipsy Lane? Mr. White lived in the next cottage to Percy. The land at Hillwood Dairy was in small paddocks. The fields ran across what is now Ashley Place and Ashley Coombe, down over to Bore Hill and up to Ludlow Close. They were small fields with a lot of hedges. We didn’t have any names for the fields. The land was alright. It was mostly greensand so it was a bit hungry. You had to feed it with plenty of manure to keep the body in it. If the ground was a bit ‘acidified’ you spread chalk or lime on it. We used to spread the lime about in big lumps and the wind would blow it across the field. We used to get it from the lime kiln up Arn Hill. You just went up to the lime kiln and helped yourself. You didn’t have to pay for it.”
“The farm buildings have since been demolished. It’s all gone now but there were quite a few buildings. There was a building by the lane, where they’ve a garage next to the house now. There was another one by the yard. There were a row of pigsties down the bottom. There was a big tall place where we used to keep the implements. We had two sheds for milking. One held so many cows and the other a few more. All the cows knew where to go.”
“Father kept a herd of dairy cattle. It was all Shorthorns. They’ve gone out of fashion now but I saw one at market the other day. That brought people’s memories back. Even the auctioneer said ‘You don’t very often see Shorthorns today.’ Shorthorns used to be the breed. They were a commercial beast. They give a lot of milk and when they go barren, when you can’t get them in calf, they’re alright for beef. They served two purposes. The milk yield was good. We fed them cake and all the homegrown stuff we could.”
“Where they are now building the new houses up Bradley Road (The Heathlands), that used to be all allotments years ago. People used to plough the allotment ground and grow mangolds and swedes there. We sowed the mangold seed about April or May. We had no artificial fertiliser. We used farmyard manure. That’s what used to keep the body in the ground. We used to grow some big mangolds. They weren’t expensive to grow. The seed was easy to get in those days but you can’t seem to get hold of any today. I want some now. I’ve tried Moore’s and Mole Valley Farmers. You ask them about it and they look at you as if you’re talking out the top of your head. They can get fodder beet and sugar beet but not mangolds. When the mangolds were dug they were put in a clamp and fed to the cows in the winter. We used to chop them up with an old root cutter.”
“My father ran a big piece of allotment. Cutty Curtis, from Rehobath, had some up there as well. Lionel Pearce’s father had some too, and a bloke who lived at King Street, Tom Carter, was another allotment holder. Tom had a little farm at King Street. They all grew mangolds on the allotments. They used to go up the allotment and use a horse hoe to weed between the mangold drills. I can remember when the old lady, Mrs. Carter, used to lead the horse and Tom did steer the hoe. Mrs. Carter wore a long black dress and she used to carry Tom’s son, Billy Carter, in a shawl on her back while leading the horse up and down the allotment. Billy lives out Tisbury now. He’s got a big farm out there.”
“Cutty Curtis’s boy, Ron Curtis, used to be ‘a bit upstairs.’ He’d take a load of manure up to the allotments at Bradley Road with a horse and putt. He’d go from down Rehobath up to there and pull the horse on to the allotment. He used to get brainstorms at different times of the year. He’d leave the horse on the allotment and bugger off down round Cannimore. They used to wonder why the horse hadn’t come back. They’d go up and find the horse up the allotment on it’s own and him gone. They’d have to go looking for him and they’d find him down Cannimore, near the farm where Pizzey used to be. Poor old Ron. It was rather sad really. He’s dead now.”
“We let the horns grow on the cows. People didn’t bother about de-horning years ago. We used to have a vet out if the cattle were sick. His name was Golledge and he lived at Bath Road. Golledges had a farm there. It was the top side of where the County Council Depot is now. After a while Golledge sold the farm to Stan Pitman’s parents and he bought a place near the Kicking Donkey pub at Brokerswood. Golledge kept a herd of Red Poll cattle at Bath Road. His cowman was killed by a bull. He was leading it one day and it knocked him down and gored him. They used to hold sales at the farm every so often. Later on Mr. Golledge had a veterinary practice at Trowbridge. He was a good vet. There was another vet in Warminster called Webster but he wasn’t no good. He was a bit of a bloody rogue. He lived at Craven House, on the corner of Silver Street and Vicarage Street.”
“Father had one of the biggest milkrounds in Warminster. My brother Bill used to take the milk out on the milkround. Some people paid for their milk every day and some paid at the end of the week. Bad payers used to pay up eventually but we still let them have little bits at a time. They paid a few pence a week until the bill was paid off. We had competition. Dawkins at Church Street, Cutty Curtis at Rehobath, Georgie Greening at the bottom of Bore Hill, Ollie Pinnell at Green Farm, Crockerton, and Mr Hulley at Henford Marsh, near where Hunter’s Moon is now, all had little milk rounds. The Young family had Excelsior Farm, below Christ Church, and they had a dairy. They later went up Tascroft. Harry Young had a herd of Shorthorns at Tascroft and his brother, Jack, lived at Whitbourne Springs, at Corsley. Oh yes, there was a hell of a lot of milk rounds. There was competition.”
“George Greening would go in all the pubs bar the Bell And Crown while he was doing his milkround. The horse would go past all the pubs until he come to the Bell And Crown. He wouldn’t go past there because George never went in there. George would go in the Fox And Hounds at Deverill Road, the Cock Inn at West Street, the Lamb at Vicarage Street, and the Ship And Punchbowl at Silver Street. He went in the Ship And Punchbowl once, when Frank Chinnock had it, and the horse ran off down the road and broke the shafts of the cart. They had to go and get a piece of timber from Butcher’s the builders and strap it round to get the bloody thing back home.”
“Father had about a dozen or so pigs. He used to breed his own. He had sows and he had his own boar. George ‘Piggy’ Payne used to come and castrate the piglets. I used to have to hold the pigs in a big thick sack, with the head downwards, and the back legs up and apart while Piggy would make a couple of snips and take the testicles out. One day I never had hold of the pig tight enough and when George went to nick it the pig moved. George said ‘You silly bugger, what did you want to let go of he for?’ I can remember him cussing me. We used to save the testicles for people to eat as sweetbreads. We used to eat them and they were beautiful.”
“Piggy Payne came round to kill the pigs when they were fat and ready. When the pigs were killed they had to be burnt, you know, singed. I was sent up to Johnny Ryall’s at Ludlow Farm, to get some sheaves of corn. When they threshed the corn it was tied up in bundles. I had to go up and get two or three bundles for burning the pigs. The pigs were laid on the straw and burnt. You had to put so much down, lay the pig on that, and then chuck so much on the top. You set fire to that.”
“After the pig was burnt he was put on a trolley and they wheeled him up to one of the cow sheds on the right hand side of the farm. The pig was hung up in the shed. Piggy used to dress it in there. We had a big lead silt. We used to stand that in the dairy on two trestles. We used to put the bacon in there to salt it. I used to have to go to Warminster Co-op, where Spec Savers is now, in the Market Place, and get a big lump, a big block of salt to rub into the meat. That’s how you cured it, and the chitterlings was run through a bamboo cane.”
“Mother used to have two pigs a year killed. One at the beginning of April, before the hot weather started, and the other in November, ready for Christmas. That gave us pig meat all the year round. We had a big open fire and we’d smoke one half of the pig by hanging it up on a big bar across the chimney. They used to burn a lot of wood in them days. We’d be like fighting cocks over the big rashers of bacon we used to have. It isn’t bacon today, it’s only pork. The food today is rubbish, compared to what we had. Years ago when you used to kill a bacon pig he was over 12 score. That was a big pig. People weren’t bothered years ago about fat. People used to like fat bacon. You could cut a rasher off the side of bacon, and chuck it in the pan, and the fat on the bacon would cook it. You didn’t need to have any lard in the pan to fry it. It was beautiful bacon. We never went short of food.”
“At Christmas we always had a ham for breakfast. We took that down to a baker called Max Holloway who had a place and shop behind the Bell and Crown pub. The bakery was round the back. That was an old-fashioned place. Max Holloway was a big, thick set bloke. He was another hefty bloke. When he finished taking the bread out of the oven on Christmas Eve, the ham was wrapped up in a pie crust and put in the oven to cook. After he finished baking the bread there was enough heat in the oven to cook a ham. We paid a couple of shillings to have the ham cooked. I’d go down on the Christmas morning and get it. That was lovely ham. It was beautiful. We lived alright. We always had ham for breakfast on Christmas morning and a goose for our Christmas dinner.”
“We used to have a good time at Christmas. We put decorations up and we had a tree. That came out of Longleat Woods. It was pinched, ha ha ha. You could go out then and cut one down and nobody noticed. We hung our stockings up. We got a couple of oranges and a bar of chocolate and maybe a sugar mouse. Not much but what you did get you appreciated. We didn’t have many toys when we were children compared to what the kids have got today. I used to have a top to play with and we used to play games outside like hopscotch.”
“My father’s brother, Frank Brown, lived at 14 West Street and was a bond maker for the vinegar people down at Frome. He had to make all the bonds. He and auntie Ada used to come to us for Christmas and we’d go up to them at West Street on Boxing Day. Auntie Ada never had no electric. She used to have oil lamps in her place.”
“When father had pigs to sell he used to take them to Moody’s bacon factory, at Fore Street, where Colliss Motors are now. Sometimes we took pigs to Ewart Payne, the butcher and baker at George Street, or Porky Lewis at East Street. We used to walk the pigs. We didn’t take them in a cart. You had to run on in front and shut people’s gates. I had to do that while my father and uncle came on behind the pigs.”
“We kept poultry and geese as well. We had plenty of animals and eggs. The surplus stuff was sold. People used to come to the farm and buy it. We sold milk at the door too. We had a lot of customers.”
“Father used to go to Warminster Market on Mondays. There’s no livestock market now. Clarks built their shoe factory on the market site. I used to take the calves in with the pony and trap on market day. I would take the calves up and put them in a pen. Then I’d take the horse and cart to the Three Horseshoes pub, where the shopping mall is now. There were stables there. I would leave the float outside, put the horse in one of the stables, and go in the pub and have a drink. Father didn’t mind me doing that. Fred Curtiss was the landlord of the Three Horseshoes.”
“The Market was a thriving concern in those days. All the farmers would get there. There were lots of farmers in and around Warminster because there were lots of little farms years ago.”
“Harold Wright was at Damask Farm. His farm was at Upper Marsh Road and his ground ran to the Park and down to Lower Marsh. Upper Marsh Road was always called Top Road. Harold Wright kept a dairy herd and he used to deliver his milk with a motorbike and sidecar. He walked with a limp. Harold used to keep a big stallion; what they called an entire horse. A chap called Jack Tarr used to take it round to different places to serve the mares. Jack lived in a cottage at the farm. He was a little short bloke and he always wore breeches and leggings. He walked miles and miles with that horse. He would go as far as Salisbury or Shaftesbury. He would walk him there and walk him back and think nothing of doing that.”
“Lennie Hannam was at Butler’s Coombe Farm. He was a nice old boy and he was on the Council at one time. He had a brother there, Billy, who was a bit simple and used to get fits. He’d be there milking a cow, have a fit and fall arse over head under the cow. The cow didn’t take no notice of him. He wouldn’t kick him. The bucket might get knocked over though. Lennie used to pick his brother up, take him in the house and he’d come round. They had all Shorthorns. They also had a couple of big horses down there. A big thick set bloke married one of Lennie Hannam’s sisters and they lived there as well. There were quite a few people living at Butler’s Coombe Farm. Arthur Lush has got it today and the Warminster Bypass runs very close by it now.”
“George Greening had Bore Hill Farm, where Ollie Stokes lives now. George had a dairy herd of Shorthorns and did a little milk round. George Greening always kept a billy goat. They used to reckon that if you had a billy goat with the cows it would keep the TB away. George used to buy some keep at Victoria Road, off Chummie Smith. George used to take the cows up there, through the Common and along Pound Street. The billy goat used to go on in front and the cows used to follow it. Greening’s land used to run from Bore Hill up past the sweetnut wood, up through the valley towards Botany. George was going up through the valley one day to do something with the cows and the billy goat knocked him arse over head. It was very strong and had big horns. George went back home, got his gun, and shot it. That was the end of that.”
“George’s son, Georgie Greening, went to Canada and set up over there. He went corn growing. In the winter time he used to do logging. He used to cut trees down, cut them into lengths and send them down the river to the mill. He worked hard while he was out there. I’ve never been abroad. I had a chance to go to Canada with Georgie Greening but I didn’t go. I had a farm to run and I thought I had better stop home. Georgie offered to take me. I said ‘I can’t afford that.’ He said ‘Don’t worry about the cost Abner, I’ll pay for you to come out.’
“Eventually Georgie came back from Canada. His mother wrote to him and told him that his father was getting behind with things on the farm. She asked him to come back. So he came back and took the farm over. Later on he sold it and he bought a smallholding at West Street where Dave Hunt has got his car sales place now. That was some slaughterhouses years ago. Georgie ran a market garden there. After a while he sold the market garden and retired. When he gave up he moved to Boreham Road and lived there, nearly opposite Holly Lodge.”
“Cutty Curtis had a place at Rehobath. His name was Frank but he was known as Cutty because he was only a little bloke. He wasn’t very big. He kept a herd of Shorthorns and did a milk round. He also used to hire horses and carts out for council work, doing the roads and things like that. His son, Ron, worked for him. The farm had quite a few buildings but they’re all pulled down now. There’s houses built there now.”
“Johnny Ryall had Ludlow Farm and he kept a herd of Shorthorns. He also had a sawmill at Princecroft at one time. He used to haul a lot of timber with Sentinel lorries and carriages. He did a terrific amount of haulage work for the council as well. I can remember when they used to park the carts on the corner of Folly Lane and where Cannimore Close is now. Mr Ryall lived at Rehobath.”
“George Whittle had Princecroft Farm. He had a dairy of Shorthorn cattle too. He married his housekeeper. George is dead now but his widow lives at Crockerton. His sister used to have a clothes shop, Willmott and Bee, on the corner of George Street and Portway.”
“John Pizzey was at Cannimore Farm. He was a nice old boy. He had a fairly big herd of Shorthorn cattle. He used to take his milk, with a horse and float, up to the Station every day. Louis Prince was a carter cum cowman for him. Pizzey lived along Boreham Road when he retired. He was a bachelor and had a housekeeper.”
“There were several auctioneers at Warminster Market. There were some from Chippenham called Tilley & Culverwell and a couple from Warminster. The Warminster ones were David Waddington and Algy Dart. David Waddington was a good bloke. He was friendly and good at his job. Waddington sold the poultry and rabbits up in the corner. Algy Dart used to be a partner in a firm called Harding & Sons. They were from Frome and Algy ran their Warminster branch. Algy was always pissed up. He was a very good auctioneer but he liked his drop of drink. The Chippenham ones were good auctioneers too.”
“They used to sell deadstock as well as livestock at Warminster Market. They sold chickens and all sorts. They used to sell a lot of Irish cattle at Warminster years ago. They were brought over by boat and then transported by train. They used to unload them at Warminster Railway Station and run them straight into the market. They were always in demand. There were quite a lot of sheep too.”
“They used to hold regular sheep fairs in the field where the shoe factory is now. That was the fair field. It was a big field and they used to put hurdles up for penning the sheep. Two sheep fairs were held each year. That was the April Fair and the October Fair. Thousands of sheep were sold at they fairs. The sheep were walked along the roads from the farms to the fair. The drovers used to do that. It was quite a sight to see them coming in to Warminster.”
“The sheep fair coincided with the fun fair. That were good days when they used to have the fun fair through the Market Place. It was held on both sides of the road from the Athenaeum to the corner of Station Road, and also a little way along Weymouth Street. It’s a pity they stopped it. There were lots of different stalls and rides. They had the big horses, the gallopers, up near the Post Office. They had a boxing booth and the showman would say ‘Anyone want to challenge the boxers?’ Not many people would have a go but Jim Summers would shout ‘Yes, I’ll have a go.’ He lived down at Portway and he was a slaughterman. He had bloody girt hands like plates of meat. Jim used to hit the hell out of them fairground boxers. They were big blokes and they thought they were it but Jim only had to hit them once and they were out. He used to make the blood flow. They didn’t ask him to come back a second time. Talk about poleaxing a cow. I expect he thought he was doing that when he was hitting they blokes. He worked at a knacker yard down Coldharbour Lane.”
“We had dogs on the farm and we used to go down Coldharbour Lane on Saturdays to get meat for them. There were three brothers. Jim lived in Warminster but Buff Summers and the other one lived in Trowbridge. Buff Summers committed suicide. I think his brother committed suicide as well. There was an old boy who worked down Coldharbour Lane for them, doing odd work, and he lived at Trowbridge too. He had a big boiler which all the fat out of the animals went in. I asked that old boy once what that was for. He said it was to make soap. It was a hell of a big boiler.”
“A lot of the cattle, when they got down to the slaughterhouse at Coldharbour and smelled the blood, got a bit ‘upstrompish’ and wild. If Jim Summers had a cow that was a bit wild and he couldn’t get near to it to poleaxe it he would get out the old 12 bore gun and shoot it. He’d put two barrels into a beast and knock it down.”
“That slaughterhouse at Coldharbour wasn’t the only one in Warminster. Moody’s had one, and there was Eastman’s at the back of George Street, behind Gingell’s shop. Eastman’s and Whitmarsh shared the same slaughterhouse.”
“Yes, there were a lot of hard cases and characters about years ago. There were plenty of ’em down at Warminster Common. That was a very rough and ready place. The people used to fight like tigers. People got in punch-ups. They used to drink the old farmhouse cider and end up hitting one another up and down the road like cockerels.”
“The Bell And Crown was a cider pub. There was sawdust on the floor and a spittoon for the blokes to spit in. It was always crowded in there. Jack Saunders had the Bell And Crown for years. When he packed up his son took it over. Jack Saunders always used to say ‘Hello Gosling’ to me whenever he saw me. My nickname was Gosling but I don’t know why.”
“We used to go down Somerset with the milk van and bring back these big hoggins of cider straight off the farm. We used to go and collect it for Jack Saunders. That was some rough cider. It was green cider. If the cider makers had a calf that had died they used to chuck that in with the apples. All the meat would be eaten off the bones as the cider fermented. That’s true. That’s right.”
“In the Bell And Crown they had all sorts of stuffed animals in glass cases around the room. There was a big old fireplace. An old chap who lived out Crockerton used to go in there with his old dog. That was Frank Oakley. He lived up the top of Dry Hill. His dog used to get all het up and wild. People in the pub would start shouting at it. The dog used to shoot up the chimney and look out over the top. They had to light the fire to get the dog to come down.”
“Jack Saunders used to keep an old boar pig in the paddock beside the pub, where the beer garden is now. People used to take their sows there and get them served. There were some pig sties there. Jack kept some breeding sows himself. That boar was a large white. It was a girt big pig about the size of a bloody donkey. He was that big. If he caught hold of you he’d bite your bloody arm.”
“The Globe sold cheaper cider. The Butcher family were at the Globe. Granny Butcher wore the old-fashioned clothes, the long dresses with the frill all up round the neck. She was proper old-fashioned. A good crowd of roughs used to get in there. The drink got in people. Scrumpy used to drive them fighting mad. They’d come out of the pub, the Globe, and fight one another. They’d hit one and another all along the stream beside the road at Brook Street.”
“It was pretty rough at the Fox And Hounds on Boot Hill. The Pollards had the Fox And Hounds. They were some relation to Frank Whitmarsh. I went in there once or twice. I had a couple of pints of scrumpy one day and I was bad for a fortnight.”
“There were some real old characters at Warminster Common. The shopkeepers were real characters. You had to watch it when you bought anything. The shopkeepers were rogues. They’d diddle you if they could. They were fly buggers. Well, they thought they were. You had to be a bigger fly than they.”
“Ducky Dodge had the shop and post office on the corner of Fore Street and Bell Hill. He was a hard case. He was married and had a family. His daughter lived across the road. Ducky had a bloody big oven in his place. He was a baker and he went out delivering with a horse and cart. He used to put a lot of potato peelings in the bread to keep it moist. That was his method of doing it. Very often you’d see a bit of tatty peeling poking out the side of the bread. I used to pull it out and eat it.”
“Benny Withey lived in a little cottage at Fore Street, just by the Post Office. He used to make humbugs and they were good. People used to queue up outside his place to get them. He used to sell humbugs at the fair.”
“There was a fellow called Baker who lived just past King Street. He had some old buildings up there. He was a man in his sixties I suppose and he used to make peppermint. Well, he didn’t really make it. I never had any of it but I knew what it was made of. Mr Baker would walk across the road and dip the water out of the stream. That was clear water. He used to get some water out of the stream and mix some peppermint essence, from elsewhere, in with it. He used to add some essence to it to give it a sweet taste. That was bottled and sold. He had photographs on the bottles showing a big factory with big chimneys. He had that photo specially made. That was where he so called made the peppermint. His place was nothing like that. All he had was some run-down old sheds. No one ever said anything. People got taken in but no one used to bother. Frank Carter, who lived at Crockerton, used to deliver the bottles of peppermint with a van, all out round the countryside. He’d go out Crockerton, through the Deverills, Sutton Veny and Upton Lovell. This is when I was about 14. It was a racket.”
“Sam Burgess was another hard case. He was a little short chap and he had a shop at Brook Street. He used to get about on a bicycle and he was a rough old boy. If Sam got a bit upset he’d sort anyone out. He sold sweets and stuff and he used to take photographs. We had our photographs taken down there. That’s the only way we could get a photo. Sam had a room up some stairs in a shed for a studio. He had the camera on a tripod and he’d get under a black cloth. I can remember him doing that. The shop had a window facing out on to the road. Later on it was Myall’s shop. Myall sold sweets and stuff. Later on Myall’s had a painter’s and decorator’s shop at Silver Street, selling wallpaper and things. Later on they left Warminster and went away to live.”
“Mrs Speedy had a shop on the corner of Bread Street. Tom Holton lived on the opposite side of Bread Street. He had horses and carts and he had a lot of work. He used to do all the council work. He had four horses. Tricky Pearce used to work for him. He was the carter and he used to like his drop of cider. He was another hard case.”
“Frank Moody had a furniture shop at Fore Street, where Mr Colliss has got his motor car showroom now. Moody also had a bacon factory up behind his shop. I can remember the bacon factory being built. People used to go there to buy pig meat and trotters and things. You could hear the pigs squealing. George Payne killed the pigs. He lived at Chapel Street and he was known as Piggy Payne. He was a proper little piggy man he were. He wasn’t very big but he knew how to kill a pig. He used to doctor dogs and cats for people. He used to come and do ours. He was a handy bloke. He was alright but if you crossed his path he’d cuss you up hill and down dale.”
“There was a corn dealer called Factor Daniell and he lived at Hampton House, at the bottom of Boot Hill. He used to buy and sell corn off the farms. He had lots of wagons and carts in some sheds not far from his house. Factor Daniell had a lot of statues in the rooms of his house. They were stone statues of naked women. As you walked by you could see them through the bow windows at Hampton House. You could see them from outside. People were a bit narrow-minded about it and used to think it was out of character to have things like that.”
“The little building, which is now an antiques shop, at the bottom of Boot Hill, nearly opposite Hampton House, was used by a boot-mender called Mr Christopher. He’d hold the nails in his mouth while he tapped away. He was a good snobber. He spent a lot of hours working away in there. I think his wife was a teacher. Next door to Christopher’s was a fish and chip shop. There was another fish and chip shop at Pound Street and that was run by Eli Curtis. He used to do the best fish and chips in Warminster. When Eli died, his son Alwyn took it on but it wasn’t the same. Of course the chips were full of fat. People talk about cholesterol now. What are they on about? I’m not bothered about it. I’ve ate bloody tons of fat and I’m still here.”
“U-ey White sold coal. He had a yard at the bottom of King Street. There were some cottages there but they’ve been done away with now. U-ey used to sell a lot of coal. He had a big trade. He used to look as black as the ace of spades. He had horses and carts and he used to go up the Railway Station and pick the coal up. There was a weighbridge outside Bryer Ash’s, at Station Road, by the Post Office. He’d weigh the coal on there. Mr Hankey, who lived at Victoria Road, used to be in charge of the weighbridge. Later on Mr Hankey was the manager of the Brick Works at Crockerton.”
“Bill Hurd was at Starr’s Farm at Crockerton. If anyone out Crockerton way wanted a hundredweight of coal Bill would go to Warminster Railway Station and get it for them. He had a big old sort of cart pulled by a mule with bloody girt ear holes. Coming back, going up Bell Hill, the mule and the cart wouldn’t go straight up the hill. It used to zig-zag. It used to wind its way up, to make it easier. Bill was a big hefty bloke. He’d knock your head off if you got in an argument with him. It was a hard life.”
“Years ago, if a stranger walked into Warminster Common he didn’t stop for long. He would soon be chased out of there like a bloody rabbit with a stoat after it. Everyone at the Common was a hard case. The police had to be hard too. They used to patrol the Common. They worked round the clock. If you stepped out of line they let you know. I can remember P.C. Stone.”
“The people at the Common were rough and tough. They had to be like that to survive. Even the Salvation Army had to watch themselves at times. They used to go from place to place around the Common (and in town) singing under the old gas lamps. A bloke used to come round and light the gas lamps with a stick. At about six o’clock, just as the wife put the baby to bed, the Salvation Army would gather under the lamp light and start singing like hell. If they picked the wrong time to do it, they could get a telling off from someone at the Common. The Salvation Army had to pick their moments. They used to wait until the blokes from the Common had gone to the pub and only the women were at home. One of the places the Salvation Army would gather and sing at, was on the corner of Hillwood Lane. There was an old gas lamp there. They’d do some singing and then tap the door for a few coppers.”
“Stan Bush used to be the head one in the Salvation Army. He used to work for Steppy Whatley. Steppy was a rag and bone man. He had a place at King Street. You know where Mr Weeks, the gardener, lives in a bungalow at King Street now? Well, Steppy Whatley lived in a big house, up on the bank, there. The house is still there. He used to have a yard at the top with some big galvanised sheds. He used to buy rabbit skins. When we were kids we used to take some rabbit skins there in the morning. He used to give you a penny or tuppence each for them. He’d hang them up in the yard. At night, after he had gone to bed, we’d go back down there and pinch the rabbit skins. We’d take ’em back the next morning and get a few more pence. We were always doing that and he got wise in the end. Steppy could be a bit funny at times, especially when he found out we were pinching the rabbit skins and taking them back. He wasn’t a gipsy but he was quite a character. He was another hardcase. He had a wife and children. Steppy was his nickname but I don’t know why he was called that.”
“The Salvation Army was strong at Warminster Common. They had their headquarters on the side of Newtown School at Chapel Street. That’s where they used to meet and have their meetings. They had outings and they also had a band.”
“I was about four or five when I started school. I went to Newtown School at Chapel Street. Miss Green was the headmistress. She was tall and thin and she was always very smartly dressed, not like today when the women often wear t-shirts and jeans. There were two other Miss Greens teaching at the school. They were sisters and they all lived at Sambourne in a house opposite Christ Church, near the end of Christ Church Terrace. They were very strict. They didn’t have no messing about. If you stepped out of line they were soon on your back. There was also a teacher called Miss Bailey. She was from Bradford On Avon.”
“I didn’t like school. I was a bit of a bloody dunce. I used to take the milk round Warminster Common, delivering for father in the morning, before I had to go to school. The milk was in little tins hung on the handlebars of my bike. I would hang about while delivering the milk, deliberately, to get back home late, after nine o’clock, to try and dodge school. It worked for a while until Mr Wildman, my uncle, who was living with my mother and father, found me out. My uncle had a different opinion about it. He dragged me to the school by my ear hole and got me in front of the headmistress. He said ‘Here you are Miss Green. He thought he wasn’t going to come to school today but I’ve bloody well brought him down here.’ There was no dodging him. He was a hard bugger. He were a hard case.”
“My school pals at Newtown School included Frank Searchfield. He lives at Henford House now. There’s only Frank and me left now. [Frank died on 14th August 1998, during preparation of this book]. All the others, like Ralph Sargood and Fay Davis, are dead and gone.”
“Some of the kids came to school with the arse out of their trousers and their shoes all to pieces. No one picked on them. Most of ’em were the same and they never knew no different. There weren’t many that were dressed properly but I wasn’t untidy. Nor were my brothers and sisters. Mother made our clothes. Remember she had been a dressmaker. She used to make us velvet trousers and a velvet top with a black velvet thing round the neck. She made our collars. She was good at it. She always kept me and my brothers and sisters smart. Our shoes used to come from Dodge’s at George Street, where the Homemaker electrical goods shop is now. They sell cookers and things in there now.”
“We wrote with pencil and paper. There was a blackboard in the classroom. There was an old-fashioned stove in the middle of the room with the chimney going up through the roof. There was a playground outside.”
“I used to go home from Newtown School to dinner. It was only up the hill. As soon as I got home mother would send me off to the Co-op in Warminster to do some shopping for her. She might want some salt or something like that. When I used to go to the Co-op they’d be baking the bread round the back and that used to smell beautiful. They were always baking fat cakes, what they call lardy cakes today. I always used to have a lardy cake. Jack House and Jack Sims, who worked in the bakery or taking the bread round, would always give me a fat cake. They’d say ‘Here Abner, you better take this fat cake on with you.’ It was big, about six inches across and I ate it on the way home. Today fat is supposed to be bad for you but we ate enough of it.”
“I had to go most days to get a bit of shopping for mother. She usually had a few errands for me to do. I didn’t mind. I enjoyed it. I knew I had to do it and I just got on and did it. I was happy to run round like that. Mother did most of her shopping at the Co-op but she also went to Porky Lewis’ at East Street. He wasn’t the only butcher in town. There were plenty of butchers and slaughterhouses. They used to kill pigs round at the Close and there used to be a slaughterhouse at Station Road, on the corner of what is now Fairfield Road, where that garage is now, where they sell cars today. Payne’s were bakers and butchers at George Street. Ewart Payne was a nice man and they used to kill pigs at his place. Piggy Payne used to kill the pigs for him.”
“I never used to bother with sweets. If anybody gave me a penny or tuppence I would go down to Moody’s bacon factory at Fore Street, where Colliss Motors are now, and get a pig’s trotter. You could buy pig’s trotters and pig’s noses. I would get a couple of trotters or noses and take ’em home to mother who would clean them out and cook ’em and I’d eat one of they. I never spent no money on sweets. I’d rather have something to fill my stomach. I was always like that. I still am. I’ve been like that ever since. I like my food. That’s why I’ve lasted so long and look so well. Ha ha ha.”
“My parents gave me sixpence a week pocket money but I wasn’t allowed to spend it. I had to take it to the Co-op. There was a savings club round the back of there. Mr and Mrs Hill lived there and they ran the savings club. I had to put the sixpence, all of it, in the savings club. If I wanted to buy anything I had to save up first and then I could buy what I wanted, like a bike or something. Mr Sheppard had a bike shop in the Market Place where the Beeline taxi office is now. I bought a bike from him. I thought the world of that. I was about 14 when I bought my first bike. It was a Raleigh. It was a lovely bike. I was so proud when I took that home. It cost about £6 and it took a long time to save up for it. It had a three speed and everything. If I was out and it rained and the bike got wet I’d dry it when I got home.”
“I left Newtown School when I was about ten and I went to Sambourne School. Jimmy Bartlett was the headmaster at Sambourne School. If anyone upset him he’d say to them ‘I’ll thrash you to an inch of your life.’ He always used to say that. I had the cane more than once for talking back. I had the cane so many times one of the boys said to me ‘What you want to do is to get a couple of hairs out of a horse’s tail and lay them across your hands, and then, when he hits you with the ruler, it will break the ruler off in half.’ I did that and it worked but he got wind of it. He thought this is queer why the ruler breaks. He found out and I was in trouble again.”
“Jimmy Bartlett was a little short bloke with a beard. He had a craze for bees. If anybody went home for dinner and came back afterwards and said they knew where there was a swarm of bees he’d say ‘Right,’ and he’d have all the young uns out on their bikes. They’d have to carry all the bee equipment. They’d go out and catch the swarm. He was a bugger for bees was Jimmy Bartlett. He had some hives at the school and he used to sell the honey to different people and shops.”
“The other teachers at Sambourne included Mr Victor Manley. I liked it at Sambourne. The school had an allotment, where they’ve built some bungalows now. We used to have to dig that. We had to go to the Close to do woodwork. Mr Foreman took us for woodwork. We had to make something and then polish it before we could take it home. We used to make boxes and cupboards. I used to like woodwork.”
“I left school when I was 14. I was glad to leave school. I wasn’t very bright. I was a bit of a bloody dunce. I was glad to get away from school. I went straight out to work on the farm. It was taken for granted that I would work for my dad. It was all arranged. Dad never paid me any money. I continued to get sixpence a week pocket money. I was quite happy to dodge along like that. I liked what I was doing. I enjoyed the outdoor life. I had already been working on the farm in the evenings and at weekends.”
“I used to go down town and meet different people. I had several mates. I used to get around with them. Bert Legg’s brother Wilf was one. He’s dead now. He committed suicide. He drowned himself in a cattle trough. He was one of my mates. We used to try and pick up dolly birds. I had a fair few girlfriends. They were always crazy for me, ha ha ha, because I was good looking, ha ha ha, and I was always dressed smart. I used to go to the pictures at the Regal. We used to get up in the back row, in the corner, in the dark, having a bit of a smooch.”
“We used to go to dances, especially the ones out in the villages. We used to go to Norton Bavant. They used to hold dances in the old school. That’s a house now. Edward Moore, the solicitor, and his wife live there now. It’s called the School House. Jesse Drake was farming at Norton Bavant. I got pretty pally with Jesse Drake’s sister. I didn’t know at the time but she was seeing someone else from Melksham. I went to Norton Bavant one night to take her out for a dance and this other bloke was there. I didn’t take very kindly to that and it was the end of that romance.”
“I used to get all dressed up to go to the dances. There was a Mr Godden who had a little shop at East Street, where McAllister’s, the estate agents, were until just recently. It was next to Bush & Co’s. Bill Harrington worked in Bush & Co’s. He did carpentry and French polishing. He lived at Polebridge, at Crockerton. As I say, Mr Godden was next door to Bush & Co’s. He was a little chap and he used to do harness work and saddlery work. I’ve still got a pair of leggings in my wardrobe that Mr Godden made.”
“I used to wear breeches and leggings. They had buckskin all up inside. All the farmers used to wear them. I used to think that I was it when I had my breeches and leggings on. I thought I was the king of the castle. I wore breeches and leggings, a proper jacket, a pair of high boots and I used to wear a deerstalker cap. That was my dress clothes for when I went out in the evenings. I was a smart bloke years ago. They used to say ‘Here’s Lord Brown coming.’ The girls used to come after me like flies. Ha ha ha. Now I have to chase them but I can’t run! Ha ha ha. I just go through the motions in my mind now.”
“I’ve still got a pair of high boots upstairs now. The breeches were usually made in London. Dad would measure me and send up to London for them. I wore a collar and tie. We had stiff collars. We used to get them cleaned at the Castle Steam Laundry at George Street. The collars had a stud at the back. Sometimes I wore a dickie bow.”
“I don’t think much of fashion today. There’s no fashion today. People just chuck their clothes on now. If a youngster gets a hole in their trousers they stick any colour material on it for a patch. It’s all jeans and jogging shorts today. The young uns wear their jeans now with the knees out. I couldn’t walk about like that. How these youngsters can get around looking like that I don’t know. It would drive me crazy. I would feel uncomfortable. They’re wearing jeans now with the crotch down by the knees. They look like they want to pull their trousers up. Kids today don’t know how to dress. They wear baseball caps but they’re worn backwards. I don’t see any sense in that. They’re not made to be worn like that. The price of clothes is ridiculous now. You see on television the women and the men walking up and down the cat walk. It’s a lot of rubbish. It’s not quality stuff. It’s not made to last. It’s made by foreigners. Cheap labour yet it costs the earth when you go to buy it. Years ago you had a suit made and it used to last.”
“By going to the dances I met Harold Bastable. He lived at Norton Bavant, at Mill Farm, next to Jesse Drake’s. Harold lived at Mill Farm with his parents. We got pally and we used to go places together. He had a big powerful Norton motorbike and we used to go all over the place. We used to go to the dances at East Knoyle. The music was provided by local people. Someone would play a piano. Quite a few people went and it was always full up. We also used to go to Frome and Shaftesbury. We used to leave Warminster Town Hall at quarter to nine and we used to be under the clock at Shaftesbury Town Hall by nine o’clock. That will tell you how fast we went. I wasn’t frightened. The faster he went the better I liked it.”
“Unfortunately Harold Bastable got killed. He used to go fox-hunting with the Wylye Valley Hounds. They were hunting over Lord’s Hill one Saturday morning [6th March 1948] and he was going over a fence when the horse stumbled and chucked him off. They reckoned the horse had caught one of its hooves in a rabbit hole. It kicked him in the head. They found Harold on the downs lying injured next to his horse. He regained consciousness for a while but he died the next morning. He was only 34 and had been living at Vern Hill Farm, East Knoyle. Harold was a nice chap and we had some good times. He’s buried at Norton Bavant. When we went to his funeral the cows in the field came over to the fence and followed the hearse as it went along the road. It was uncanny. Harold’s brother married one of Wightman’s daughters and they went out Knoyle to live.”
“When Harold and I were at Shaftesbury I met a girl called Linda Few. Her family live out Long Ivor Farm now. She was a nice girl. I started going out with Linda and we enjoyed ourselves until I found out she had another bloke. I was let down again.”
“The Second World War broke out. Warminster never had any air raids. We had an air raid shelter, an Anderson, in the corner of the garden. We used to get in there. We also had a square metal plate in the house in case of bombing. We were supposed to prop that up and get under there when there was an air raid.”
“Being on the land I was in a reserved occupation. By that time we had Broadmead Farm at Crockerton, as well as Hillwood Dairy. I used to go out to Broadmead to milk the cows. We had a van then for doing the milk round. As I pulled out of Broadmead on to Clay Street one day, Captain Hay, from Job’s Mill, was there was a big boat wagon across the road. I said ‘Would you mind moving that? I want to get by. I want to get home.’ He said ‘You’ve got to join the LDV.’ I said ‘What do you mean?’ He said ‘You’ve got to do something.’ He was stopping everybody and getting them to join. I said ‘I don’t want to join it.’ He said ‘You’ve got to. You’re working on the land and you’ll have to join.’ So, I joined the LDV. That was the Local Defence Volunteers. People used to joke that it stood for ‘Look, Duck and Vanish.’ After a while the LDV got organised and it was re-named the Home Guard.”
“Bob Dufosee was the captain of the platoon. Mr Algar, the Magistrate, from Rye Hill, was a major. Charlie Carpenter, from Clay Street, Crockerton, was a sergeant. Guy Holton, from Sutton End, was a corporal. Harold Baker and Ern Baker, who worked on their own at Pond Farm, Crockerton, and Mr Hurd and Mr Paradise, were conscientious objectors. They didn’t want to join the Home Guard. They had to go to Trowbridge, to a court martial. They got raked into it in the finish. They had to join.”
“To start off, if anyone had a shotgun they had to bring that along. They issued us with some cartridges. These cartridges had a big ball bearing in. When you pulled the trigger a flame used to come out the end of the barrel about two feet long. It used to blow the end off. Then they issued us with rifles. We got proper rifles and a proper uniform.”
“We had to go twice a week, on Wednesday and Sunday nights, to guard the reservoir at Bradley Road and the pumping station at Shearwater. We had to guard those places in case the Germans captured them. They must have thought the Germans would only come on a Wednesday or Sunday!”
“The planes used to come over Warminster, going across to Bristol. On a clear day if you were on top of the reservoir at Bradley Road, you could see the planes over Bristol. You could see the ack-ack going at ’em. One day a plane turned round to come back. He was shot at. They belted hell out of he and he finished up crashing out Lord’s Hill way. The pilot was blown all to pieces. The seat he sat in looked just like it had been cut with a hack saw. I went up Cow Down in the evening and had a look at it. John Everett and a whole gang of us went up there.”
“The plane was off the bottom of Lord’s Hill, down in what they called Swancombe Bottom. There were some gypoes down in there. A gypsy woman had just given birth to a baby. They had a big galvanised bath full up with cold water and they were dipping that baby, just born, in and out of the water. It was a little boy. John Everett said to them ‘What do you think you’re doing? Are you trying to drown that baby?’ They said ‘No, we’re not trying to drown it. We always do this to a new born baby, dipping it in cold water, so he’ll never catch cold.’ Poor little bugger was as blue as a whetstone.”
“Another place we had to guard was the Crockerton Brickyard, where the trading estate is now. At Foxholes they put big concrete pillars in, in the woods, so that tanks couldn’t get through. They put a trench through Foxholes, too.”
“We had a drill hall at Foxholes. That was the old Reading Room. That’s where we went on Wednesday evenings. A bloke from the Coldstream Guards put us through our paces. He was a bit of a bugger. He made us jump and hop about. There was no messing about with him.”
“The Home Guard had a hut at the top of Potter’s Hill, where you go round to Crockerton Church, near where Mrs Mead used to live. This hut, which was a big shed, was built by Butchers. It had bunks inside and that’s where we used to sleep. We had to do so many hours on and so many hours off. Working from six o’clock in the morning until 11 at night I used to get really tired. I used to hop up on the top bunk. Arth Player, Cecil Pinnell, Frank Carter and all they would get about a dozen greatcoats and chuck them on top of me when I was asleep. With all them greatcoats on top of me I’d wake up sweating like a bull. That was their idea of a joke. Another thing they used to do was to tie my legs up to the ceiling for a laugh. I would end up trussed up like a bloody chicken.”
“We used to go on manoeuvres on Sunday mornings. We got mechanised if you can call it that. I had an old yellow Fordson tractor that I used to use on the farm. I also had a four wheel wagon. We used them for manoeuvres. All the Germans had to do was look out for this yellow tractor! The blokes would climb aboard the wagon and I had to take them out Shearwater and up through the woods. I used to drop them off and I’d go back and wait at Shearwater, where the car park is now, and wait for them to come back. They’d get on the trailer when they returned and we’d go to the Bath Arms in Crockerton. We’d go in there and have a good booze up. That was our manoeuvres on a Sunday morning.”
“The Home Guard was as bad as you see on Dad’s Army on television. If the Germans had come we wouldn’t have had a hope in hell. Winston Churchill reckoned he had so many trained men in England. Those trained men were the Home Guard. Churchill bluffed Hitler.”
“My wife saw Mr Churchill during the War. She worked as a cook cum housekeeper for a secretary to an admiral at the Royal Naval College at Greenwich. This is before I met her. She was coming out of the college one day. There were policemen as usual on the gates. The east gate and the west gate. One of them said to her ‘Do you know who you have just passed?’ She said ‘No.’ They said ‘You’ve just passed Mr Churchill.’ She turned round and there he was with his black hat on and he was smoking a cigar.”
“I met my wife after having quite a few girlfriends. There was an RAF camp at Crabtree on the Longleat Estate. I used to go up there with a horse and cart getting the leg wood out of the woods. I would bring it back to the farm and stack it up. Then I used to saw it up into logs and I used to take it round, selling it in bags for about half a crown a bag. I used to sell it at Warminster Common and other places. We used to saw the wood up with a circular saw. We got the saw from the Longleat Estate. They bought a more modern one and our dad bought the old one. We kept the saw in a shed, a lean-to place, at the back of the farm.”
“I cut my hand on the circular saw. I was putting a piece of wood through. It was a frosty morning and this wood had a lot of frost on it. I was pushing it through and my hand slipped. I cut my hand and I wet myself with shock. I used to milk the cows and my brother Bill used to deliver the milk. Because I cut my hand I couldn’t milk the cows. So, my brother did the milking and I went out delivering. I delivered milk to Mrs Trinder at Job’s Mill, at Five Ash Lane. Mrs Trinder lived there with her husband Captain Trinder. They used to have three quarts a day but they weren’t supposed to. It was rationed but Mrs Trinder used to have it. Elsie was the cook at Job’s Mill and that’s how I met her.”
“My wife was from Folkestone in Kent. Her surname was Spearpoint. That’s a Kent name. Her first name is Elsie. She was in London when the Second World War broke out. She later went to work for a doctor in Bath, at the Circus. His name was Barnes-Birt and he was a specialist at the Bath Royal Mineral Hospital. Elsie was his housekeeper. She fancied changing her job and she heard about a job going at Job’s Mill. She came over and saw about it and got the job. I called there with the milk, after cutting my hand on the saw, and that’s how I met her. I suppose it was love at first sight, more or less. I asked her if she wanted to go to the pictures.”
“My wife’s father was a fisherman in the end but he had been in the Navy. His name was William Spearpoint. I didn’t know him. He was dead before I met my wife. I met her sisters because they came up to Warminster but they’re both dead now. I never met her mum though because she never came to Warminster and I never went to Kent. I only saw photographs of her. She was 88 when she died. Not meeting her meant I didn’t ever have any mother-in-law trouble.”The wife and I courted for a few months before deciding to get married. We got married on 10th October 1947. We were married 50 years last year. I haven’t regretted it. We got married at Warminster Registry Office. It was up by Mr Thick’s shop in the Market Place, near where the Gateway Supermarket was later on. Mr Bradbury married us. We had two witnesses. That was Uncle Mark and Nora. Elsie’s two friends, Mr and Mrs Turner, came from Keynsham to see her get married. We didn’t have a reception as such. We didn’t have a big do. We just went back to the farm and then we went away for our honeymoon to my uncle Mark’s in Northamptonshire for a week or a fortnight.”
“We weren’t wealthy when we started off married life. My dad was paying me twelve shillings a week. We set up home at Job’s Mill, where Elsie was working. I lived in down there. It was alright at the Mill. It was a lovely place. Mrs Trinder used to do a lot of entertaining. She used to hold dinner parties at night. All her friends used to come. They had seven course meals. When the dinner table was laid it was absolutely superb. It was all done correct and the glasses used to sparkle and shine. They’d have a centrepiece on the table and it was all done properly.”
“Meat was rationed but the Trinders used to go to Cirencester to get great big pieces of lamb and beef. They knew a butcher in Cirencester. Mrs. Trinder used to say ‘If you’ve got the nerve you can get anything.’ That was true. If you had a bottle of whisky or something like that you could bribe anyone for anything. Meat was rationed during the War and for years afterwards. You were only allowed your minimum. You couldn’t get any extra. You could get a joint for three shillings and sixpence and the wife used to get a bit of mince during the week.”
“The Trinders were well off. He had the money and she used to spend it. They had a big cream Rolls or Bentley car. Later on they had a big shooting brake with the wood all round. They had a chauffeur. That was Mr Garrett, the taxi driver, from Portway in Warminster. He used to come down Job’s Mill to take Mrs Trinder to London for the weekend. He came down in his taxi, left it there, and drove her to London in her Bentley. She liked to be seen in a nice car. She used to tell us how she liked to be seen being driven by a young man. Mr Garrett was the only taxi driver in Warminster that looked young. The others like Mr Sloper looked old. Mr Garrett used to wear a peaked cap and Mrs Trinder liked that. She used to stay at the Dorchester when she was in London. She used to call it ‘her dirty weekends.’ She used to tell us that’s what it was. Mr Garrett would also stop over in London until it was time to bring her back to Job’s Mill.”
“Sometimes the Trinders used to go to the Old Bell in Warminster on a Saturday night. They would bring me back a bottle of beer. One night they went to the Regal cinema. He had a suspected heart attack and was taken bad. I had to go into Warminster and bring him home.”
“We were at Job’s Mill for ten months. We put in for a council house and we got this one at Hillwood Lane. They built 16 here to begin with and this was the first one available here. Ewart Payne was on the Council. My wife saw him one day. She asked him when we would get a house. He said ‘You’ll get the first one that’s let at Hillwood Lane.’ That’s what happened. When we moved in the road outside was just dirt. Opposite here was a Nissen hut which Holdoways used as their office while they were building the houses.”
“Jessie Tanswell lived in the old house next door to us. My wife and I were in bed one night. It was about half past ten. We heard an awful bang. We thought what the hell is that? We went out in the morning and saw that the roof next door had fell in. The bath which had been upstairs was hanging down through the kitchen ceiling. It was a shame to see it like that. We wanted the chimney pot but it smashed when the roof came down. We would have liked to have had that chimney pot. The house had to be demolished. They’ve built three starter homes there now.”
“As soon as we got this house we left Job’s Mill. My wife gave up working for the Trinders. Captain Trinder wrote a book about water divining. It was a hardback [Dowsing by William Henry Trinder was published in 1939 by the British Society of Dowsers]. He died [aged 73] and was buried at Crockerton [on 8th March 1950]. He died first and his widow went to Sutton Veny to live. There’s a big bungalow, painted white, set back in. She had that. That was hers. When she died, what was left of the money had to go the daughters. They had two daughters. Captain Trinder didn’t want girls so he brought them up as boys. One did fishing and the other one did horse riding.”
“I don’t know where Mrs Trinder is buried. She had pots of money. I don’t know how they made their money because he was only a captain. As well as a cook and a chauffeur they had also employed a gardener and an under-gardener. Job’s Mill was a beautiful place and it was all done out with Victorian furniture. The stairs were made out of some old pews from a church. I think Lord Bath had that changed when he went there to live. He had the fireplaces altered.”
“During the War Lord Bath had to sell a lot of farms because of death duty. Broadmead, out at Crockerton, was for sale. You go along Clay Street and there’s a lane goes off opposite the old chapel. That’s Broadmead Lane, where the houses are now. That’s where the orchard used to be. There was a track going down to the house. The road goes down round a bend and up the other side to Potter’s Hill. Broadmead is down in there. Down there and turn right.”
“My mother bought Broadmead Farm off the Longleat Estate. She got a bank loan to buy it. There were about 30 acres there. The house is still there and the buildings are still there. Maslins, of Devizes, built the house out there. He’s pitched right from the bottom to the top, to the roof. He never gets damp. Mother and father went out there to live.”
“There was only one shop in Crockerton. That was Mrs Godfrey’s. She had a little shop opposite the church. She sold sweets and bits and pieces. There was only that shop and the pub. There wasn’t a lot going on in Crockerton, work-wise. Bull Mill used to be a silk factory but that’s years ago. The people that had that also had a silk factory in Warminster, where Alcock Crest is now. Most of the local women who lived at the Common or down the Marsh worked at the Silk Factory. They had to work from eight o’clock in the morning until six at night. They had to work hard for a little bit of money.”
“A lot of people used to go out Shearwater for something to do. People walked out there or cycled out. You didn’t pay to go in. You get charged today. People used to wander about and sit by the boathouse. You could watch people fishing. Ernie Trollope used to run the little tearoom. He went to Horningsham to live. You could have a cup of tea and get an icecream. You could come out at Heaven’s Gate but it’s blocked off now because of Center Parcs. You could walk up through the Rhododendron Walk to Heaven’s Gate and look down on Longleat. I think you’ve got to pay if you want to drive up Heaven’s Gate now. You’ve got to pay at the little toll booth on the way into Longleat.”
“I used to run the farm at Hillwood Lane and the farm at Broadmead together. Father had about 20 cows altogether at Hillwood and another 15 out Crockerton. I used to start at six o’clock in the morning. I used to milk the cows at Hillwood, turn them out up Bradley Road, give them hay and mangolds, and do everything else before cycling out to Crockerton to do the milking and work out there. I would finish milking the cows at Hillwood at half past seven and then go out to Crockerton. I’d finish at Crockerton about dinnertime. I would do the same again in the evening.”
“We had a bull. He was called Billy. I used to lead him backwards and forwards, to and from Warminster and Crockerton. I used to lead him on a stick, what they called a staff. That had a ring on the end of a pole which went in the bull’s nose. I used to keep the bull out Crockerton but if some cows at Hillwood wanted serving I used to walk him into here, let him serve the cows, and take him back again. He was quiet enough.””If we had to bring the cows across the road at the top of Bell Hill, my wife would help me and we would have a hurricane lamp which shone red on one side and white on the other. We managed. The cows were milked by hand. The milk had to be cooled. Before we had a cooler out Crockerton we used to stand it in a churn in a big bath of water. We’d put it through the strainer. The Government, or the Milk Marketing Board, brought in regulations, that it had to go through a cooler.”
“We had a big van for delivering the milk. My brother Bill was out practically all day on the milk round. He’d go off about ten o’clock in the morning and he’d get back at about half past four or five o’clock. He used to go up to Picket Post, on the Frome road, near Cley Hill. He used to go out Norton Bavant, to the Lodge. All round there. He used to deliver twice a day. By the time he finished the morning round it was time to start the second round. He’d go out on the second round in the evening, after the afternoon milking. He’d get home at 11 o’clock at night. Milk was about a penny or two pence a pint. He’d dip the milk out of the churn into the customers’ cans.”
“Bill did the milk round and I did all the donkey work. During the summer, like haymaking time, when we had the ground at Bradley Road, where we used to make all the hay up there, my brothers used to come out and help in the evenings. My wife and my uncles from West Street used to help too. They’d help get the hay in. Afterwards they’d come back to the farm and my mother would have big lumps of bacon and cottage loaves with the tops and bottoms cut off. That’s what they got for helping. They weren’t paid. No one from outside the family ever worked on the farm.”
“One year we were making hay up Bradley Road and George Greening had a thunderstorm down in the valley. It blew his grass all over the place. He used to pick his hay up and leave it on wagons. As he wanted it he used to pull a wagon in and take it off.”
“The weather was different years ago. You had hard winters and hot summers. From October to March it used to freeze day and night. When that broke up you could rely on a long hot summer. You could rely on the weather. You could get by. We’d start haymaking in May. You could cut the grass and the heat of the ground used to dry the grass. I used to get up at three o’clock in the morning and go cutting grass until about half past five or six o’clock. Then I’d have to get the cows in and milk them and do all that. It was hard work. It was a hard life but I enjoyed it.”
“We had a horsedrawn mower. I used to cut the grass and our dad used to sharpen the knives. If the grass was a bit old or a bit tough you had to keep sharpening the knives. The grass was cut, turned, and swept in to the elevator. You could roll it up and sweep it to an elevator at the rick. I’ve been out and cut a field of grass at Bradley Road, left it for a couple of days, not touch it, and then gone along with the tumbler and tipped it up in heaps, ready for pushing to the ricks.”
“You used to see ricks of hay everywhere but not now. Today they make silage. One year we had some wet weather so I made some silage. I pushed the grass into a heap and covered it with soil. That was some good silage. The cows used to lick the ground where it had been. That’s the only time I ever made any silage. You had to keep the air out of it. It came out like tobacco. That smelled beautiful. The old cows used to like it.”
“We made a big rick of hay in the corner of the field. That pasture had a lot of plantain in it. If you didn’t get it properly dry it used to heat up. I used to build the rick. One year we got it so high and I was just going to put the top on. I got the ladder and I thought this hay is a bit hot. I put my hand in and pulled some out. That was as brown as a berry. That rick was about to explode. That was that plantain. We had to cut a hole down through and chuck it out. When that came out it was just like tobacco.”
“The top of the rick would be thatched. We made a little ridge along the top. When we used to have the allotment we used to grow a big patch of rye for straw. Rye straw grew quite tall. That’s what we used for thatching the ricks. I did the thatching. You had to make your own spars. We cut the spars out of the hedge. We used mostly nut wood, hazel, because that would split just right for spars. No one showed me how to do it. It just came natural. I learned by experience. I didn’t go to university!”
“We got one cut of hay off the field and when the grass grew again we strip-fed it. The cows were allowed a bit at a time. We had no artificial fertiliser. We used farmyard manure. That went out in the winter. We tipped it in heaps and then spread it about with a prong. We chain harrowed it in and rolled the fields.”
“I used to go to Frome Market on Wednesdays. Frome and Warminster were about the only two markets I used to go to. Now and again I might go to Chippenham on a Friday. Frome Market was a good market. They used to sell a lot of calves and sheep. Frome is a good market at the moment, but it’s at Standerwick now of course. They get quite a lot of cattle there. They have a calf market on a Monday now. Sturminster Newton used to have the biggest calf market in the south west on a Monday but that’s closed down now. They’re talking about building a supermarket on that site. They’re belly-aching now about trying to close Shaftesbury Market. That’s on a Thursday. Waitrose want to get in there but whether that will come off I don’t know. Salisbury Market has moved out of the city. There’s a Waitrose on the old Salisbury Market site.”
“If you take an animal to market now you’ve got to have two tabs in its ear. There’s too much paperwork now. We used to dress the cattle for warble fly. The warble fly used to drive them crazy and the cattle would run round with their tails in the air. We used to dress the horses with a mixture of water and paraffin to keep the flies off. We’d dilute the paraffin with water and then get a cloth and rub it over the horse. I used to have things to put over the horses’ ear holes, with tassels on, to keep the flies away. All the brass shone up. I used to shine the brass so that I could see my face in it.”
“Alec Fitz used to shoe our pony and our big heavy horses. He used to have a forge at the Furlong in Warminster but he lived at Longbridge Deverill. We had a little pony called Kitchener. We used Kit to horse hoe the mangolds. You had to go up through the rows of mangolds hoeing the weeds out. When the pony turned round he always used to stop and stand on my wife’s foot.”
“Major Whistler, at Imber, used to breed Clydesdales. During the War, when Imber village was evacuated, our dad went up there and bought two of Whistler’s Clydesdales. They were big tall horses. When I put their collars on I had to stand on an orange box to do it. They were two lovely horses. They were called Colonel and Blossom. I used to plough an acre a day with those two Clydesdales. Once you had struck out your ground, you know, those horses would walk up and down and you didn’t really want any reins. When you got to the end you just sort of sat on the handle of the plough as the horses turned round. They’d come round. If you wanted to turn round the other way you sat on the other handle. I used to love my ploughing and the horses were beautiful. We sold them in the finish.”
“Lennie Hannam, down at Butlers Coombe, had a big cart horse. I asked him once if I could borrow it to plough the garden here at Hillwood Lane. He said ‘Yes, come round and get it.’ I went down there, harnessed it up, and brought it home. I started to plough the garden. It was a big heavy strong horse. As soon as he found something a bit tight he’d pull on. He’d put the strain on the traces. I got a share under a drain and he hooked the bloody lot up. Oh dear. Ha ha ha.”
“I used to like working with the horses. That was always better than tractor work. During the War every farmer had to plough up so many acres of land. We ploughed a strip all up through Foxholes using a Fordson Standard. That tractor once pulled 40 tons up Bell Hill. I was up Bradley Road doing some mowing once when Walls’ icecream lorry got half way up Bell Hill and the clutch went. That was an articulated lorry and he weighed 40 tons. It couldn’t move. Someone come out to the field and asked me if I’d pull the lorry up to the top of the hill. I pulled him up to the top of the hill and away he went. He got as far as Crockerton but he couldn’t get up the hill by the Bath Arms. They had to get a recovery vehicle out from Wincanton. I’ve still got that old tractor. It’s still going strong. I take it to different shows. I wear a bowler hat and a spotted neckerchief on those occasions.”
“At the last going off we grew some corn. We grew some oats. We used to grow that on part of the allotment. There was a farm sale, on the Tilshead road going out of Chitterne. I went out there and bought an old combine. I brought it back and that’s what I used to cut those oats. We stacked the oats up in a rick in the corner of the allotment at Bradley Road. Some kids set it on fire. They were playing about with matches. They lit a bit and the whole lot went up. The fire brigade came out to see to it. They got there pulling the sheaves about. George Butcher was the head fireman then. He had a wedding ring on his finger. The ring came off and he never did find it. The police said the boys were too young to be prosecuted. I think we got a bit of insurance through the National Farmers Union.”
“The farm was a struggle at times. Father wasn’t a millionaire. He used to cover his costs. Some years he would have a good year and another time he’d have a bad year. When he had a bad year the old bank manager used to start looking into things. Father banked with Lloyds. I’ve always banked with Lloyds too.”
“For years dad paid me 30 shillings a week. That was for working from six o’clock in the morning until eleven o’clock at night, every day of the week, week in week out. After I got married my dad paid me £4 a week but my wife had a go at him and he gave me another pound. We had to pay our rent and rates out of that.”
“We had one daughter. I had to pay £15 when we came out of the hospital at Bradford On Avon. I had to go in the office at the hospital and pay that. That was the hospital bill. That shook me. I thought there won’t be any more hanky panky. That’s the end of that. £15 then was a lot of money but she’s worth it. I haven’t regretted it since. She’s a very good daughter and I couldn’t wish for a better one. I named my daughter Lyn after my old girlfriend Linda Few.”
“Mother died on 13th December 1948. She was 63. She had a weak valve in her heart and they couldn’t do anything about it in them days. They could now. Her funeral was held at Christ Church. Mum died before my dad. Father lived until he was 78. He died on 16th May 1960. Dad had good health right up to the last. He’s buried at Christ Church, round the back, where you look down over the Common. The farm at Hillwood, after dad died, was sold. A relation to Arthur Lush bought it. He used to do a lot of photography. All of a sudden he sold the house and part of the field and the paddock. That’s where those bungalows are built now.”
“I took Broadmead Farm over, after my dad died. We kept Broadmead going until Bill and I decided to give up. I was the only one working there. It was all sold off and split up and that was the end of that. When the farm was sold up I had to get a job. I went to work, as an employee, for a farmer on the outskirts of Warminster. He used to go to the Roman Catholic church at Boreham Road every Sunday morning. He’d go and then he’d come back and cuss and swear at me like a bloody trooper. I said to him one day ‘Have you been to church?’ He said ‘Oh yes, I’ve been to church.’ I said ‘You’re nothing but a bloody hypocrite! You go there and then you come back and start cussing and swearing like that.’ I said what I thought and he didn’t bloody like it.”
He said to me one day ‘Would you and your wife like to move into my cottage?’ I wouldn’t do that in case I lost my job and had to get out. As it happened I did lose the job. He sent me on an errand. He had borrowed a concrete mixer off John Wallis Titt’s at Woodcock. He wanted to concrete a yard. When he finished with the concrete mixer he said to I ‘You better take it back down to Titt’s.’ I took it back. On the way I called in home at Hillwood and had a cup of tea. I wasn’t very many minutes having a cuppa. When I got back he said to me ‘You’ve been a long time coming back from John Wallis Titt’s.’ I said ‘I’ve come straight back up ‘ere.’ He said ‘You’ve been gone too long. You’d better take a month’s notice.’ I said ‘Take a month’s notice?’ He said ‘Yes, starting as from now.’ I said ‘Well, if I can find another job before the month is up I shall leave and take the job straight away.’
“I got a job before the month was out. I got a job down at John Wallis Titt’s. I told him. I said to him ‘I’m finishing tonight.’ This was on the weekend. He said ‘What do you mean, you’re finishing?’ I said ‘I’ve got another job.’ I thought you can stick your bloody job up your arse. I’m leaving. I asked him for my cards and I left.”
“I went down Titt’s to work and I did quite a few years down there. That was the best firm I ever worked for. I started on the waterworks’ side. Then a lot of farmers started selling up their land for golf courses. So, Titt’s started doing a lot of golf courses in different parts of the country. Everything had to be measured up and the cost worked out. I and Toby Maxfield, who used to live at West Parade, used to go away working on these golf courses. Toby was a bellringer at Christ Church. We went to Basildon and then we went all over the country. We went up to Scotland. We stopped up there for seven or eight weeks. We had good lodgings and I enjoyed it. My wife got a night job at Warminster Hospital while I was away.”
“Les Price was my boss. He was a real gentleman. I used to cuss he and he used to cuss me but we got on alright. He was a bloody good bloke. Harry Ball was working at Titt’s when I was down there. Years ago he used to drive the coal lorry for Button’s. Everyone who worked at Titt’s was friendly and the people had nice manners there. The only bloke I didn’t like there was Fred Baker. He was in charge of the stores and the petrol pumps. He had to issue out the petrol and the oil. I didn’t like him and he didn’t like me. The feeling was mutual. Apart from that I was quite happy working at John Wallis Titt’s. I retired from there when I was 65.”
“I don’t think a lot about the world today. It’s going too fast. These politicians have encouraged things. All Governments are the same. They’re all out for their own ends. It’s ‘Bugger you Jack, I’m alright.’ I don’t care for politicians. Margaret Thatcher was rubbish. Utter rubbish. She said all women had to finish work at 60. My wife was working in the canteen at Geest’s. They told her she had to finish. She said ‘I have got to finish?’ They said ‘Yes, Mrs Thatcher says all women have to finish at 60.’ Mrs Thatcher was gone 60 herself but she was still working. My wife didn’t like her and I didn’t like her. If I was Prime Minister I’d have all they politicians out of it. I’d have them shot straight away. Ha ha ha. They could go in the beef pit.”
“They talk a lot of utter rubbish about this BSE. We’ve ate beef all our lives and it hasn’t killed us yet. We were brought up on beef and fat. They say you shouldn’t eat this and you shouldn’t eat that. If you listened to these politicians you wouldn’t eat nothing and then you would die. You’d be a bloody skeleton. I’ve had good meals all my life. I eat beef and chicken and pork and it hasn’t killed me. I still eat beef and I shall continue to do so.”
“The BSE scare hasn’t done the farmers much good. The price of cattle has dropped ridiculous but the price of the meat in the supermarket hasn’t gone down. A farmer has got to slaughter his beasts now before they are 18 months old. You could never fatten a beast by 18 months years ago. They use all these antibiotics now to get ’em to grow quick. It’s just the same with the pigs. They give antibiotics to a litter of little pigs and before you look round they’re hung up in a bloody slaughterhouse. They electrocute the pigs to kill them. Now these politicians say it would be better if they gassed them. I should think that would be an odd death. What if the gas effected the meat? They don’t know. I won’t eat the meat if they gas them. Killing them with electric must be quick. Same as when they used to poleaxe them years ago. That was quick. You gave them one clout and that was that.”
“The regulations have ruined farmers. There’s too much paperwork now. I’m glad I’m not in farming today. I couldn’t cope with it now. It’s all forms and you’d need a secretary to keep up with all the writing. I was a farmer, not a writer. Now it’s rules for this and subsidies for that. We never had any of that. I don’t believe in subsidies. We never had them. What we got we had to work for. We made a living but it was a hard living. You got by, you didn’t sink and you kept going. It was a case of having to keep going. It wasn’t no good to give in. If you had a hard time you had to make the best of it.”
“A lot of farmers are committing suicide now. A farmer in Somerset killed himself only a week or two ago. That was worry over this BSE business. It’s a shame. No, I’m glad I’m not in farming now. Let’s face it, I couldn’t keep a few cows now and do a milk round in Warminster. I wouldn’t be allowed to. I couldn’t make that pay today in any case. Supermarkets have seen to that. They’re partly to blame. Mind it’s cheaper to buy your milk at a supermarket than at the doorstep. There aren’t many round here who have a doorstep delivery. The dairies kept putting the price of a doorstep pint up. It’s about 37 pence a pint now, compared to 20 something in the supermarket. You can collect your milk from a supermarket when you want it, Sundays and all. We buy four pints at a time. That’s handy for us.”
“I don’t agree with the way these scientists are messing about with the vegetables now. They can clone tomatoes and they can grow vegetables without soil. They’ve even started selling peeled oranges in the supermarkets now. They come ready peeled. Surely the peel is to keep the juice in. I had a nice big orange last night while I was sat watching the television. It was beautiful. It had a big thick skin and it was nice and juicy. That slithered down my throat.”
“The biggest part of what we eat and drink now comes from abroad. Isn’t it stupid? With the amount of farms we’ve got in this country you’d think we could produce it ourselves. Same as industry, we ought to be able to support ourselves. The coal comes from overseas but you could go just down the road to Radstock and get it out of the hills. It doesn’t make sense. A hundredweight of coal is £6 something. The better stuff is £9. How can the coal from Poland and South Africa be cheaper when you’ve got the cost of shipping. No, this country could very well support itself if they went about things the right way. We shouldn’t be in the Common Market. We’d be better off out of it. It hasn’t done us any good. We should have stayed as we were before. We shouldn’t have gone decimal, neither.”
“Old age pensioners don’t get a fair deal. There’s too many benefits for people who won’t work. They throw money at people who tell a hard luck story. If an old age pensioner asks for anything they’re told they can’t have any. We’re living on borrowed time. They tell us that. Unmarried mothers are laughing all the way to the bank. The house rent is paid for, the council tax is paid, the school meals are paid for, and so on. And they expect it all for free. They see it as a right. They’ve got it easy.”
“A lot of these young girls today have no respect for their bodies. That’s why there’s Aids now. It’s horrible isn’t it. You turn the telly on now to watch Emmerdale Farm and there’s a couple of lesbians on there. You can’t get away from it. If it isn’t sex it’s drugs. Drugs are the ruination of young people today. They’re not on this world. They’re in another world. They take these drugs and then they don’t know what they’re doing. They have to go out pinching other people’s things to get money for more drugs.”
“There is more crime today. Years ago if you stepped out of line and you got caught, you didn’t do it a second time. If we went out shopping we left the door unlocked but not now. We feel safe but that’s only because we’ve got bolts and chains on all the doors. We’ve got double glazing so burglars would have a job smashing the windows.”
“They reckon they’re going to have cameras in Warminster now to catch thieves and vandals but that’s going to cost money. The tax payer will have to pay for it. It’s funny how they can find money for some things but not for others. There’s talk in the paper, the Warminster Journal, about closing Warminster Hospital. People are belly-aching about it.”
“We are lucky to have a National Health Service. The doctors used to have their surgery at Portway. That was started by Dr Willcox. He used to live on Town Hall Hill. Dr Hogan was our doctor. Doctors used to give you pills and you had to have faith in what they gave you. Dr Falk was a good doctor in Warminster. He lived at West House at West Street. He had been a prisoner of war out in Japan. He was a proper gentleman. He and his wife moved out to Lavington way, on Salisbury Plain. They both died only recently [October 1997].”
“Years ago if you had the doctor out you had to pay. Most people couldn’t afford it. They didn’t bother with doctors. They went to a chemist to get something to dose themselves up with if they were ill. There was a chemist called Siminson at George Street, at the bottom end of the High Street, opposite Portway. He was an old boy who always wore a high collar with two little bits cocking out. He was a nice bloke and he used to go miles on his bike. His shop was rather dull inside. It was painted dark for some reason. Everything was on shelves and he could put his hand on anything straight away. Mr Siminson had a brother working alongside him. They were nice people.”
“Mr. Siminson was better than a vet. If I had a cow that had calved and the afterbirth hadn’t come away properly from the side of the stomach, I used to go down there and get some stuff in a bottle with a long neck so that I could drench it. Then I’d tie half a brick on the end of the cleanse so that it would draw away steady. It was some good stuff that Siminson did make up. It didn’t matter what you had wrong with an animal he could mix up something for it. He could cure them. Like I say he was better than a vet.”
“There are a lot of people in Warminster who will remember Nurse Giles. She lived at Hillwood Lane. I used to see her going about on her bike. She used to go miles on it. She brought lots of babies into the world in her time. She brought all of us into the world. She was a good midwife. She knew what she was doing. She wore a proper nurse’s outfit. It was a blue uniform. I don’t think she got married. She lived at Hillwood Lane practically all her life. After she died Jack Randall went to live at her house. Lily Pearce lived on the end one. Lily’s husband was a soldier but I don’t remember much about him.”
“If I had a loose tooth when I was a kiddy our dad used to tie one end of a bit of cotton round the tooth and tie the other end to the door handle. The he would slam the door. That was his way of pulling a tooth. He always used to do that. We put the tooth under our pillow when we went to bed and when we woke up in the morning the tooth fairy had been and left us sixpence.”
“There used to be an isolation hospital at Bradley Road. It was a big place. It’s where the Ambulance Station is now. It had a fence round it to keep people out. Our fields ran around it. Scarlet fever was quite common. They didn’t give you anything for it. It just had to take its course. You stayed in isolation for six weeks. Freddie Adlam had scarlet fever. They took him up to the isolation hospital in the afternoon. In the evening the nurses couldn’t find him. He had got out and gone home. He lived at the top of Bread Street. The nurses went down to his home, picked him up and took him back. He was a postman later on.”
“I’ve enjoyed my life. I’ve had a hard life but I’ve enjoyed it. I’ve had plenty to eat and drink along the way and I’ve always had good food. Years ago we worked hard and played hard. I had to do all the donkey work on the farm. I was like the black sheep of the family. I had to do all the graft. I’ve never had much illness. I put that down to fresh air and hard work. We never had time to be ill years ago. You had to keep going or go to the wall. I wouldn’t mind having my life over again but I do believe in the hereafter.”