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Vol.30 No.4 WINTER 2014
The Christmas Story
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Of all the world’s best-sellers that fill the library shelves, And of all the age-old tales that spring to mind, Of all the ancient fables, that life has had to tell — Handed down throughout the course of time. Of all the much-loved parables, we’ve always liked to hear, And the stories that the good book has to hold, The baby born in Bethlehem within the cattle stall — Is still by far the greatest ever told. GILLIAN WALSH
QUARTERLY
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A Miscellany of This & That & Things Gone By WINTER 2014 20/10/2014 15:27
Contents
Winter 2014
Frozen in Time . . . . . Maureen Warner 4 Rural Rides . . . . . . . . Peter Gaston 12 Famous Names in Football . . Alan Robinson 17 Castles & Cottages . . . Philip Mott/Lee Beel 18 Music Makers . . . . Edmund Whitehouse 20 Percy’s Postbag . . . . . Percy Bickerdyke 26 Then & Now . . . . . . Henry Spencer 32 The Literary Pilgrim . . . . . Tom Bowden 34 Whatever Happened to...? . . . Angeline Wilcox 38 Gleanings . . . . . Bernard Chamberlain 40 Rib-Ticklers . . . . . . . . . . . — 46 Almanac . . . . . . . . Eddie Weir 48 Bookworm . . . . . . . Stephen Garnett 52 Cinemagic . . . . . . . Stuart Millson 54 Feast of Family Favourites . . . Angeline Wilcox 62 The Lion of Flanders . . Graham Bebbington 64 Where Are You Now? . . . . . . . . — 68 On the Air . . . . . . . Peter Worsley 70 The Old Tea Chest . . . . . Helen Stafford 74 The Long Walk . . . . . . . Bob Rogers 76 TV Memories . . . . . Charles Meredith 84 Home Town . . . . . . Karen McCreedy 86 Delivering the Catch for 25 years Graham Gough 92 From the Deputy Editor’s Desk . Angeline Wilcox 94 Clippings . . . . . Letters to the Editor 96 Hit Parade . . . . . . . . Bill Baxter 108 Juke Box . . . . . . . . Geraldine Miller 112 The Past in Colour . . . . . . . . — 115 Our Christian Heritage . . . Dorothy Priest 116 The Evergreen Prayer . . . Elizabeth Gozney 119 Byways . . . . . . . . John Husband 120 Raise a Glass . . . . . . Geoff Simpson 126 Scrapbook . . . . . . . . . . . — 130 Bookshelf . . . . . . Henry Hardcastle 134 The Christmas Story . . . . Gillian Walsh 148 Front Cover: Hold on tight! Skaters having fun at the Tower ADINA TOVY of London Ice Rink.
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Advertisements of Yesterday
This advert from “Hulton’s 1957 TV Annual” was aimed solely at the rich because a 21” television set was beyond the means of Mr. and Mrs. Average who, if they owned a set at all, were much more likely to rent or buy a cheaper and smaller model. Other famous names of the time included Murphy, Bush, Pye, Ekco, Sobell, HMV and Philips.
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was a Cornishman living in of poems, Making Cocoa for Kingsley Bath and our most famous Amis, and I thought listening to the Cornish poet, Dr. Charles author would be very interesting Causley CBE, of Launceston, and and amusing. Wendy Cope, the popular poet Charles Causley was born in with a comic wit, were giving Launceston on 24th August 1917. poetry readings at His father was a the Royal West of gardener who then The day I met England Academy in became a private in Charles Causley Bristol on Thursday the army during the 11th July 1991, so I First World War and decided to attend. I have been a fan returned home with lung damage of Charles Causley for many years: through German gas attacks. He ever since I first read his emotional died in 1924 when Charles was poem “Timothy Winters” which seven years old. is about a poor, starving, Cornish Charles left Grammar School working-class boy. I think it ranks early to go to work. Then he served with the best poetry ever written in the navy during the war and then and he deserved to have been Poet trained as a teacher and taught at the Laureate. I also knew that Wendy Grammar School in Launceston. Cope had achieved “World Best He wrote plays, short stories and Seller” success with her first book several books of highly praised
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poems for adults and children. He was awarded Travel Scholarships by the Society of Authors in 1954 and 1956. He was then made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1958, and served on the Poetry Panel of the Arts Council of Great Britain from 1962 to 1966.
The house where Charles Causley (pictured) was born.
When Charles retired from teaching in 1976 he took up literary appointments in Australia, Canada and America. He was then awarded a CBE in 1986 and he held honorary degrees from Oxford and Exeter, where he was also Honorary Fellow in Poetry. Wendy Cope was born in Erith in Kent in 1945 and she read history at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, and then did postgraduate teacher training. She was a full-time primary teacher
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and became head of a school in the Old Kent Road. Wendy started her writing career in 1973 and then her first collection of poem, Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis, was published by Faber and Faber in 1979 and went straight into the bestseller lists. In 1987 she won a Cholmondeley Award for Poetry. Then in 1993 Wendy Cope was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature,
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The Lion of Flanders
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hroughout history, there has been an affinity between soldiers and members of the animal kingdom. For example, some regiments have official mascots which can often be seen on parade on ceremonial occasions. On the other hand some animals, having been abandoned in war zones, have attached themselves to passing battalions in a desperate search for food etc. The situation
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was no different during the First World War with the exception that one officer had a lion which was allowed to wander freely down the front-line trenches! The officer concerned was Major General Sir Tom Bridges, the Commanding Officer of 19th (Western) Division. Bridges was a larger-than-life character, highly respected, and famous amongst other things during the retreat from Mons
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Major General Sir Tom Bridges and soldiers in a trench at Beaumont Hamel.
in August 1914 for the now legendary and unconventional way in which he led the remnants of two battalions of infantry back to the safety of the British lines. This was achieved with the aid of his trumpeter playing “The British Grenadier” and “Tipperary” on a tin whistle and Bridges himself beating a tin drum “like mad” while the two marched around the fountain in St. Quentin! This rallied and encouraged the exhausted men to join in and “after a short exhortation” they fell in and “moved slowly off into the night to the music of the
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improvised band now reinforced with a couple of mouth organs”. According to his autobiography (Alarms and Excursions, Longmans, Green & Co., 1938), Bridges was on a period of short leave in Paris during the spring of 1916 enjoying lunch with fellow officer, Captain Arthur E. Capel, when he detected “something strange in his garden”. This proved to be none other than a lion cub, apparently won in a Red Cross raffle a few days earlier. Capel offered him the animal which he accepted, taking it away in a champagne hamper in the car and thereby acquiring “a new recruit for the Division”. The cub was given the name Poilu who “soon made himself at home,
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The Long Walk
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s marches go it wasn’t the longest one my father was destined to undertake and nowhere near the most arduous, but it was close to 200 miles and the majority of it through a country whose language was utterly alien to him. It would have been a daunting prospect for anyone unaccustomed to life on the road but for a 17-yearold farm lad from the tiny village of Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd, near Ruthin in North Wales, carrying just a change of clothes, a packed lunch, a harmonica and a little over ten shillings of savings it promised to be an unprecedented education.
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Not enthralled by the prospect of the unceasing toil and monotony of a life on the land, Bob Rogers, the fifth child of a farm worker, sought adventure and, inspired by films he had seen of faraway places in the Saturday matinees, was off to join the army. Short and stocky, the redhead had initially reported to the Welsh Guards recruiting office in nearby Wrexham and had been told in no uncertain terms he was, at five foot two and three quarters, not tall enough to guard Wales! The sympathetic recruiting sergeant had told him, however,
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Left: Sunset at Dinas Bran, Llangollen. STEPHEN LEWIS
that the Royal Berkshire Regiment was one of the few outfits with no height restriction — but they were based in Reading. “Ever been to England?”, the man had asked. Bob had shaken his head. In common with most of his friends and family he had never travelled far from home. He had heard the English language spoken in Ruthin by visitors to the town, but beyond, “hello”, “please”, “thank you”, and the names of a few farm animals he had picked up on trips with his employer to market, he had never needed to learn more.
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Above: The clock tower in the centre of Ruthin. DOROTHY BURROWS
His mother shook her head, his father shook his hand and, with scarcely a backward glance to acknowledge his waving parents and sisters, Bob set off alone on his adventure on a spring morning in 1932. His muscles were finely tuned through four years of arduous farm work and he covered the 15 miles to Llangollen with ease in the mild sunshine on his first day. It was an age of itinerant workers seeking a wage in the tough climate of the 1930s and Bob drew little attention from passers-by as the
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Ten Reasons to Visit
Bognor Regis
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ention Bognor Regis to people and chances are they will either refer to Butlin’s, or quip George V’s supposed deathbed words. But Bognor Regis has a rich and interesting heritage, with plenty to see and enjoy. James Joyce, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and R.C. Sherriff are among the famous names who visited or resided in the town and, despite several decades of redevelopment and rebuilding, there are still a number of historic and architecturally-interesting buildings to see. Tony Hancock’s 1962 film The Punch and Judy Man was filmed in Bognor, as was the 1987 Emily Lloyd film Wish You Were Here. More recently, there was much excitement when it was reported that a scene in the James Bond film Skyfall had been filmed in the area and the town
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hosted a red-carpet premiere for the film in October 2012. Located on the south coast in West Sussex, Bognor Regis can trace its history back to Saxon times — the Saxon name, “Bucganora”, meant “Bucge’s shore”, but until the 18th century, it was little more than a fishing village. It was a London hatter, Sir Richard Hotham, who had the idea of turning the area into a holiday resort. He had been prescribed sea air for his health, and enjoyed his time in Bognor so much that he decided to move to the town. To the east of Bognor — and only five minutes’ walk from the Grade II-listed railway station — the residence he built in 1792, Hotham Park House, still stands in a corner of what were once Sir Richard’s private gardens. In 1977, the house was converted into private flats, while the gardens were renamed Hotham
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Park and opened to the public in 1947. Since 2008, thanks to a generous grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, a £1 million scheme of works has restored 19th-century planting schemes, and brought 51⁄2 acres of derelict land back into the main body of the park, which is now a 22-acre haven of plants, wildlife and fun activities. The boating lake, putting green and miniature railway are all open throughout the summer, and there are concerts on the bandstand through July and August as well as a carol concert in December. From the park’s main entrance by the lodge, you can cross over to the university grounds, and take a look at the three beautiful Regency buildings that front the campus. Now Grade I listed, they were built in the 1790s by Sir Richard Hotham, who hoped that Hothampton Crescent (which the buildings then formed) would attract royalty to Bognor. But although Princess Charlotte spent two holidays at Dome House — the middle building — in the early 1800s, her patronage
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87 Hotham Park House and Clock Tower.
was not enough to attract the fashionable set away from Brighton, where her father, the Prince Regent, built the Pavilion and entertained Mrs. Fitzherbert. The buildings became a college of education after the Second World War, and are now part of the University of Chichester’s Bognor Regis campus. However, The conservation pond in Hotham Park.
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Winter
Mary White, aged 93, and Margaret Jeens 80, both from Dudley in Worcestershire, have been customers of Jonathan Spencer since he began selling fish door-to-door 25 years ago. Jonathan from Langley Gardens, Wolverhampton, covers a large area and his little red van is well-known in town and country. From the large towns of Wolverhampton, Dudley and Stourbridge to the many villages in rural South Staffordshire and to Bridgnorth in Shropshire, he has become friends with many of his customers and Mrs. Jeens said: “He is such mobile fishmonger a nice man. We have watched his celebrated a quarter of a whole family grow up and he used to century in the business by bring his little children on his rounds raising a glass of champagne with when he started out, now they are two of his oldest customers, earlier grown up and in their 20s.” this year. Mrs. Jeens said she disliked supermarkets and tried Jonathan’s to support independent delivery traders wherever possible. van on his “When I left work, after rounds near Enville, South getting married, everything Staffordshire. was delivered, bread, milk, fruit and vegetables, but now it’s all changed.” “Having the fish delivered is much more convenient, but sad to say Jonathan is a dying breed.”
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Brixham, Devon, one of the many places where Jonathan sources his fish.
Another long-standing customer, Mrs. Pamela Hutton, from Kinver in South Staffordshire, even wrote a poem in praise of her reliable and smiling fish man. Mr. Spencer said his rounds expanded after other sellers left the trade. “I buy my fish from the markets in Wolverhampton and Birmingham and I remember a time when you could not get parked for the number of other vans doing the same,” he said. “It is easy to get a spot now, which shows you how many fish sellers have given up.” He sources his fish wherever possible from English ports such as Brixham in Devon, Newlyn in Cornwall and Whitby in Yorkshire. “People like their fish to be caught off our coast by our fishermen,” he GRAHAM GOUGH said.
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Below: Celebrating 25 years of business with loyal customers Mary White (centre) and Margaret Jeens.
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Hit Parade Singers & Songs from the Sixties & Seventies
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n a recent survey for Radio 2, programme presenters, music critics and record producers voted for the 100 best guitar riffs in popular music. The results were fascinating, and it’s hard to disagree with them when, in their top ten, they included “Whole Lotta Love” (Led Zeppelin), “Smoke on the Water” (Deep Purple), “Sweet Child of Mine” (Guns ’N’ Roses) and “Layla” (Derek and the Dominoes). The sound of any one of these on the radio is guaranteed to make me stop what I’m doing and send me air-guitaring dangerously around the room. Another good survey would be to list the most memorable openings to popular songs. You’ll probably have your own favourites, but I
think you’d be hard pushed to find anything as distinctive as the searing saxophone solo that blasts out at the beginning of “Baker Street”, Gerry Rafferty’s wondrous hit from 1978. When writing these articles I usually leave details of useful and relevant websites etc. to the end, but if you are a fan of Gerry Rafferty and his unforgettable song, I recommend you visit www.gerryrafferty.com, home of the official Gerry Rafferty site, as soon as possible. When you do you’ll find a short article by Gerry’s daughter, Martha, in which she paints a lovely, affectionate portrait of her late father and describes how “Baker Street” was born out of Gerry’s frequent, reluctant visits to London to deal with the cut-throat commercial
Gerry Rafferty
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Paisley Abbey in Gerry’s home town. IAN ROBERTSON
world of the music business. “In that saxophone solo,” she writes, “one can hear the soaring, transcendent optimism of the promise of a new life, a new way of living, the discovery that life could, indeed, be ultimately meaningful.” She also recalls how her father was driven by the need to work and how she would hear him singing, playing and writing late into the night. Had he done nothing else in his life but written and recorded that song, it would be an existence worth celebrating, but reading Martha’s words you realise how there was so much more to him; so many other levels. Having been born (in 1947) into a poor working-class family in the Scottish town of Paisley, Gerry left
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school without any qualifications. He drifted through a number of jobs, including work in a butcher’s shop and shoe shop, but surrounded by music (folk songs from his parents and the songs he heard by Bob Dylan and The Beatles) all he ever wanted to be was a musician. He served his apprenticeship busking on the London Underground and playing in a local group, The Mavericks, with school friend Joe Egan. He then joined
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or most of us, among our less was William Newcombe Homeyard, pleasant childhood memories and in 1902 he patented a herbal has to be taking a dose or remedy which he called “Liqufruta” two of cough mixture, but in two and built a factory in Camberwell to West Country communities they manufacture it. have cause to be grateful that one He married Maria Laetitia Kempe particular brand was Roberts, his second popular enough to wife, in 1907. They Liqufruta’s be consumed in large had met in London, Legacy quantities! but both had West The villages of Country roots, Shaldon, overlooking the Teign William’s family from Devon estuary in South Devon, and Veryan and Maria’s from Cornwall. She in Cornwall, have both benefitted was born in Poplar, and had been from the legacy of one remarkable brought up by her grandmother, lady who accrued a personal fortune with whom she shared the same from sales of a patent cough mixture Christian names. Spending most of invented by her husband. His name her childhood in London, and only living for a brief period in Cornwall, William and Maria Homeyard on she never forgot the villages of Teignmouth beach, 1920s. ROGER WILLIS Veryan where her grandmother was born, or Shaldon, where she died. William had a flair for advertising, and soon sales of Liqufruta were making him and his wife a fortune. As employers they were ahead of their time, providing housing for the workforce near the factory, and occasionally bringing them
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View of Shaldon from the Homeyard Allotments. The Homeyards is the long row of slateroofed terraced houses in the centre.
down to Devon for a seaside penchant for Arts and Crafts design, holiday. This was possible because, she engaged a firm from Southwark, by 1921, they had purchased a Thomas Rider and Son, to design property in Shaldon, where Maria’s and build 54 houses on the fields grandmother had lived for the they had bought in Shaldon. Her last few years of her life and was right-hand man throughout this buried. Ness Cottage was sited on a period was William Sears, Rider’s hill looking across to Teignmouth, landscape architect, who was beside unspoilt fields which in time the The Hamiltons, Mrs. Homeyard’s upmarket detached houses, Homeyards also Shaldon. acquired. When William died in 1927, Maria inherited the factory, which she continued to run, and even expand. Having a latent interest in architecture, and a
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Penguins on Parade How many of you watched the delightful BBC drama Our Zoo, based on the founding of Chester Zoo by the Mottershead family in the 1930s? On the subject of zoo visits we were sent this humorous verse, by Ethel Thomas, of Kilbarchan, Renfrewshire. It recalls a trip that she made many years ago to Edinburgh Zoo. We’re all off to Edinburgh Zoo To see the penguins And what they do. The crowd gathered round And out came the king Followed by the rest
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Two-by-two and all dressed Up in their best. They walked up and down And they flapped their wings, And they bowed to the crowd, The crowd all clapped And someone said: “Jings! Did Ever you see such a thing?” So they did it all again. They walked up and down And flapped their wings And bowed to the crowd. Then they walked up the path And through a wee gate Where the keeper was waiting With a teapot and a plate. They all sat down And had fishcakes and tea Because the next parade Was at half-past three.
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Book Bonanza The humorous book titles sent in by Sue Gerrard (Winter 2013 and Summer 2014) have got you all chuckling and prompted several readers to send in their own favourites. Among those titles which Pat Maher, from Gloucester, recommended were: How to Make a Complaint by Mona Lotte Easy Gardening by Rose Bush and Dai Backe Mistaken Identity by Mick Stupp Household Tips by Dustin Mopp Showjumping by Jim Kannah
Another reader, Yvonne Cronk, in Nettlestead, Kent, suggested: At the Well by Phil A. Ewer The Ungallant Knight by E. Rhoda Way The Open Cage by Freda Bird
One of many secondhand book stalls in Hay-on-Wye, Breconshire. See “Book Bonanza� for more reading material. DAVID HUNTER
Happily Married by Adora Mann Roaming by Wanda Lust
Finally, chief librarian Sue Gerrard has also been busy restocking her bookshelves with the following: Do It Yourself by Ivor Hammer The History of Hats by Ed Wear Miracles and Healing by Faith Works Warfare by Dee Struction The Art of Delegation by Hugo Instead
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Words of Comfort This heartfelt passage offers words of comfort, solace and strength at times of grief. It was written by Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918) who was a canon at Christ Church, Oxford. Death is Nothing At All Death is nothing at all, I have only slipped away into the next room, I am I, and you are you, Whatever we were to each other, that we are still,
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EVERGREEN
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£4
Vol.30 No.4 WINTER 2014
The Christmas Story
AI IT
OV 'S L
Of all the world’s best-sellers that fill the library shelves, And of all the age-old tales that spring to mind, Of all the ancient fables, that life has had to tell — Handed down throughout the course of time. Of all the much-loved parables, we’ve always liked to hear, And the stories that the good book has to hold, The baby born in Bethlehem within the cattle stall — Is still by far the greatest ever told. GILLIAN WALSH
QUARTERLY
1 Front Cover winter 2014.indd 1
A Miscellany of This & That & Things Gone By WINTER 2014 20/10/2014 15:27