From A History Of The Wiltshire Strattons, updated and edited by Richard Flower Stratton, 1987:
Jack Stratton 1879-1970
Born 30th June 1879, John Maurice, but always known as Jack. He was a very sensitive man, but his childhood was so traumatic that emotionally he retreated into himself and never came out. I was probably closer to him for longer than anyone else in his life, but I never ever got an emotional spark out of him on any occasion. When I tried to introduce him into an emotional crisis in my own life, he would immediately change the subject.
“Uncle Jack” as everyone knew him, was a remarkable horseman. He gave a horse immediate confidence and horses would do anything for him. As a young man he had a wonderful mare called ‘Marmaid’; he won many point-to-points on her and then went on to steeplechasing at Wincanton and looked all set to become one of the leading steeplechase riders in the country. He once took three horses down to Sparkford Vale point-to-point and won four races with them – the first and the last with the same horse. With a groom he rode down and back from Kingston Deverill in the day, as his father would only give him one day off.
He kept the ‘Marmaid’ line going at Codford until after the Second World War. There was an exceptional mare called ‘Lonely’, a marvellous hunter and point-to-pointer in the thirties and just at the end of the Second World War, ‘Golden Plover’. To my infinite chagrin, he sold him to a Major Armitage who won the Grand Military on him. The last of the line was ‘Star Turn’, a beautiful mare; she was not “got up” and in no way fit, but a specious rascal (to whom my uncle was always prey), asked for a ride in the last South and West Wilts point-to-point at Kingston Deverill. ‘Star Turn’ led all the way round, but dropped dead of a heart attack just before the finish. Uncle Jack showed no emotion and expressed no regret.
Uncle Jack was a passionate hunter; up till Christmas he hunted with the South and West Wilts. The horses were stabled at Codford and it was a long ride down to the Semley Vale and back. He kept a cake at Willoughby Hedge petrol station and would call in on his way back, bang on the tin roof with his crop and dear Mrs. Harper would run out with the cake. After Christmas the horses were taken down to Sherborne and he hunted with the Blackmore Vale. He rode with tremendous courage.
In about 1905, when he was 26, Uncle Jack was tightening barbed wire round the cricket pitch at Monkton Deverill (in a field opposite what used to be the pub), when the wire snapped and went back across his face and damaged one eye. He went to Bristol for treatment and they decided not to take the eye out, because it was his best one, but to try to repair it. A year later his perfectly good eye decayed with sympathetic opthalmia and had to be removed. For the rest of his life he was left with the very minimum of sight.
He made absolutely no adjustment whatsoever to his loss of sight; he made no attempt to change his life style, he carried on regardless. Horses seemed to understand and would always bring him home somehow. He landed in the most appalling predicaments – he never complained, or felt sorry for himself or lost his nerve. He used to say that everyone should be blind for a day and then they would never complain again. The Fates must have been at their most cruel to have selected Uncle Jack, of all people. to deprive of sight, but because of his marvellous courage, they relented enough to detail off a squad of guardian angels to hover over him for the rest of his life.
When hunting, he would have a pair of horses and another rider (originally Harry Dufosee) with a big white patch sewn on the back of his coat. Uncle Jack would follow the white patch.
After a year or two, a cataract began to form over the remains of his one eye. The surgeons said that it was impossible to operate and he must resign himself to going quite blind. Of course he carried on hunting and one day over-rode his guide and jumped a fence into a quarry. It was a frightful crash and he was terribly damaged about the head. After weeks in hospital, the bandages were removed and they found that the cataract had completely disappeared. It never recurred.
Uncle Jack’s father was a highly educated man, but, because of the agricultural depression, he decided that Jack (and his elder brother Dick), should leave school in their middle teens and work on the farm. About 1905 they took over Kingston farm from their father. When Dick got married in 1914 Jack took over Pertwood from their partnership and took a tenancy on Codford Farm. He went to live at Warminster with his father, step-mother and half-sister Jessie. Harry Dufosee lived at Codford as his manager. When the war broke out, the military descended on Codford immediately and it became one vast camp and eventually Anzac Headquarters. Farming activities more or less ended.
After the war his nephew Jack Houghton Brown, after a spell at Reading University, came to join him as Farm Manager and a large and successful business was built up. He bought Codford farm from the Yeatman-Biggs in 1921 for £7000 and Monkton Deverill from Lord Bath in the same year. He sold off the bottom half to Mr. Hinton and added the top half to Pertwood which at the same time he bought from Kings College, Cambridge. In 1930 he took a lease of Manor Farm, Stockton, for three years rent free, his landlord putting up ten miles of fencing and laying on water in the fields. In 1932 he bought Clump Farm, Chitterne, for £3 per acre from the Bankruptcy Commissioners. He rented all the land to the north of Great Ridge from Fonthill Estate to join Stockton to Pertwood. It was thirteen miles from one end at Chitterne to the other end at Pertwood. In addition, great tracts of the Imber Ranges were taken for winter grass keep, fenced with a single strand of barbed wire and stocked with cattle.
The business was a huge ranch. With the collapse of cereal farming, farmers were going in for dairying everywhere and, while JMS/JHB ran two dairies at Codford and Stockton, their main business was supplying downcalving heifers to the dairy industry. Great numbers of Shorthorn stirks were bought in Ireland, shipped across the Irish Channel and arrived by train at Warminster and Codford Stations. Every autumn they held special sales of heifers with calves at Chippenham, Warminster and Salisbury markets.
Sheep were also brought down in trainloads from Scotland and a big poultry egg-laying unit was set up in the “arks” on the downs which had to be moved every day – an awful job in bad weather.
The business was managed off horses and two sets were kept in the stable – one for the morning – one for the afternoon.
In the desperate economic conditions of the twenties and thirties, this was a highly successful business. It was almost entirely due to the drive, energy and business acumen of Jack Houghton Brown. Uncle Jack was not interested in the business side of farming, he was quite incapable of working out a cropping programme or forward planning of any sort. He loved the sidelines of farming – driving cattle, picking up stones, etc. – not the mainstream. As I have said, he was a very sensitive man, but never showed it. Jack H.B. was either unaware of this or took no notice of it. Uncle Jack became more and more disenchanted with the way J.H.B. ran his highly successful business, but gave no outward indication of his feelings.
One morning in 1937, J.H.B. received a letter through the post giving him the sack! There was a major explosion! When the dust settled, Pertwood and Hill Deverill were made over to J.H.B. and Uncle Jack retained Chitterne, Codford and Stockton, with another nephew, myself, bespoken as heir apparent. Uncle Jack then moved from Warminster to live for the first time at Codford.
With the outbreak of the Second World War his properties were again immediately requisitioned by the Army and he spent this war surrounded first by the Guards Armoured Division and then a series of American Divisions. He didn’t bat an eyelid at this and when in 1943 Codford farm house was burnt down he delighted in taking his meals with the Americans. Most of the land was swept into military training areas, but with the little he had left he got into quite a mess and was losing money by 1945. He was an embarrassing problem to his brother who was Chairman of the War Agricultural Committee.
I came back from the war and took over management of the business in 1946. Uncle Jack was able to devote himself to his ploys – he usually had a farm pupil – a long-suffering young man who was woken at dawn, trundled round all day with a horse and cart picking up stones, dead sheep and odds and ends. Uncle Jack always took out his lunch – consisting of 2ozs cheese, 2ozs bread and a small bottle of home brewed raw cider. On such rations the wretched young man starved. At night the pupil either had to play bridge or read aloud, at least till midnight. Bridge to Uncle Jack was entirely a game of chance, not of skill, and was torture to a partner who played well. As he had difficulty in seeing the cards, he constantly revoked by mistake, and, if he found it annoyed his partner, would start doing it on purpose.
I spent two years in this role before the war. I remember the hunger and lack of sleep and lack of money. Money meant nothing to Uncle Jack – one way or the other. He spent nothing on himself – bought secondhand clothes if he could – and couldn’t see why anyone else wanted money. He wasn’t mean – he didn’t think that money mattered. I worked twelve hours a day for him seven days a week and wasn’t paid a penny. They were the happiest days of my life.
Until his ninetieth year Uncle Jack walked about six miles a day and rode as well. He liked walking in sunny weather in the early morning or late evening. With the rays of the sun almost horizontal behind him he could see along the rays a surprising distance. When he was ninety he finally lost his last vestige of sight. Life had nothing left for him and he just sat in his chair and set about dying. He died on 10-11-1970, aged 91.