PIG, PUBS, and PEOPLE : CHAPTER 3
VILLAGE CHARACTERS
Doll Andrews the Dairymaid
Doll Andrews used to deliver milk for Fraser’s farm. According to Ernest Poole, as she delivered milk to one house, her horse always used to carry on to the next house without her. “I remember her when you used to go round the back of Fraser’s farm to get the milk she always had her arms in water. She used to have a green plastic apron and wellies and there was always water everywhere.” Marjorie Wightman recalls that most people had their own milk can or jug with a long handle to dip into the churn. Marjorie says that Doll used to come round twice a day, after each milking, so fresh milk could be had in the afternoons as well. Doll’s pony was the only horse on Fraser’s farm. Stewart Fraser remembers that when Doll had finished her round, she used to come up and help in the house. “She was always in the door at 6.30am and we’d come down to a lovely lit fire.” Margaret Wrathall used to watch Doll during milking and see the milk rippling down the cooler.
Madame Arnold
Madame Arnold was the deputy head at East Haddon Hall School from when it opened soon after the Second World War. She was French, and, as Elsa Talbot recalls, she was always known as “Madame”. She arrived in England before the war as a student teacher, working at a south coast school run by her future husband, who had been a maths teacher at Northampton Grammar School. The couple gave up the school when war was declared, and Mr Arnold returned to Northampton, again teaching at the Grammar School. After her husband died, she remained living in the village, at Laundry Cottage. According to Elsa, “she kept her lovely French accent to the end and was always entertaining and much loved.” Jan Pike remembers Madame Arnold being:
A lovely lady – I still miss her. She was charming and fun and loved men. I remember being there when her chiropodist called and they were having such a flirtation, and she must have been very elderly! Her husband was quite a bit older than her and he died very suddenly, which must have been a great sadness for her as they were obviously very much in love.
Jan adds that Madame Arnold’s birthday was quite an occasion, with a stream of visitors all day from early in the morning. Jane Barrow recalls that Madame Arnold was a “delightful person”. She used to help Jane’s daughter, Fiona, with her French. Jack Halliwell remembers playing cards with her regularly: “She’d fill me up with gin and we’d speak French. We’d play cards for hours.” His wife, Diana, also remembers Madame Arnold’s fondness for gin:
I was working in the shop when Madame Arnold was having some rewiring done and the house was in an upheaval. Hilda Adams helped her straighten it out and she came into the shop about 4.00pm and said that the two of them were absolutely exhausted so they had to sit down and had a large gin each! A cup of tea wasn’t sufficient for them!
Michael French recalls Madame Arnold as being “a very charming lady”. He describes how she used to prepare a “dinner” every day for the birds, and spread it out on the ground. “The birds would all be there waiting for the feast. We had two cats at the time and the birds used to dive-bomb one of them.”
Mabel Austin
Edwina Canning moved to East Haddon in 1961 and immediately came across Mabel Austin:
We bought the two end houses but could only move into the middle one because the end one was occupied by Mabel Austin. Mabel had lived there since she was three years old... She had been told that we had bought both houses and that we were going to convert them into one and she was going to be evicted. She was very upset and frightened. She had no living relatives and she believed she was going to be thrown out onto the street. We were quickly able to reassure her.
Mabel had been paying five shillings rent a week but the Cannings told her they would not charge her rent. Nevertheless, they still used to sign her rent book for her, because someone had told her that this had to be done. Mabel could not read or write: she had a speech impediment due to having no roof to her mouth, and she had never gone to school because, according to Edwina, no-one had been interested in educating her. Edwina used to go shopping for her, but, because she was difficult to understand, sometimes returned with the wrong things. “I used to hang my washing on the line on Saturday mornings because I worked all week and she would knock on the door and point to my tights on the line and say ‘come ‘ere – I want some of them’. She was about four foot two and it was quite a problem getting tights for her.” Diana Halliwell remembers Mabel coming into the village shop: “I couldn’t understand her but she used to bring previous packets in to help us to know what she wanted.”
Mabel’s mother had died when she was very young and she had looked after her father, who had lost a hand in a farming accident, until the end of his days. She used to walk to Holdenby House every day to work cleaning the scullery, kitchen and cellar steps, for which she received 7s 6d a week plus a hot meal every day. According to Edwina, Mabel had never been anywhere else apart from East Haddon and Holdenby until one day she needed to go to Long Buckby surgery. “She had never been to Northampton and didn’t want to go there. Peter used to ask her if she would like to go to Northampton to see the market and she always said no.”
Mr and Mrs Butler
Mr Butler, owner of Cobby’s Nurseries, where the maisonettes on Tilbury Road now stand, used to live on Main Street, and Marjorie Wightman remembers him as being a “rather dapper man”. He was apparently “fond of the ladies”, but used to keep quiet about it because his wife did not approve. Once at a W. I. Dance in the 1950s, Marjorie’s children Roger and Jane, who were quite grown up then, gave a demonstration of the new rock and roll dancing. Afterwards a waltz was played and Mr Butler asked Jane for a dance. Mrs Butler stood stock still as they waltzed around the room, glaring at them with her arms folded. She may not have been happy, but it caused everyone else in the room to have a good laugh at her expense. Mrs Butler was a stalwart member of the W.I., and was always a good organiser, having a very precise nature. Her sister, Miss Richardson, was very different, and known as “the nice one” of the two – Mrs Butler could be very sharp and cutting if she wanted to be.
Joe and Alice Cadd (Picture)
Joe Cadd and his sister Alice, who lived on The Terrace, were very well liked in the village. Jan Pike remembers Joe Cadd as “such a sweet man and very appreciative of anything that is done for him. He never said anything bad about anyone.” Mrs Barnett describes him as “wonderful”. Joe himself has fond memories of his whole family, especially his mother whom he greatly admired and loved. They were also known by the name “Cadman” – somebody in the family (an aunt, Eileen Freeman remembers Alice once saying) objected to the name, and added the “-man”.
Alice used to work for Captain Fitzroy, who was at one time Speaker of the House of Commons, and Joe sometimes used to ride over to Foxhill to see her. Alice also worked for Captain Fitzroy in London. Joe says that the Fitzroys were very good employers and that they “thought the world of her”. Eileen Freeman describes Alice as “a wonderful lady”. She went into service at the age of 11, and worked in a few of the big houses in the district, starting as a scullery maid and eventually working her way up to being housekeeper to three Speakers of the Commons, living in quarters under Big Ben and feeding the swans on the Thames from her kitchen window. Eileen says her experiences working in London made her a lady, “because she learnt a wonderful life and learnt the way to live”. “I learned a lot from Alice. She told me one thing in particular: ‘always receive a gift with the grace in which it is given’.” Eileen remembers that Alice retired at 65 and returned to East Haddon to look after her mother. After her mother died, she moved in with Joe. She wanted him to modernise the house, but he refused – even though she was prepared to pay for half of it. She died at the remarkable age of 105, just short of her 106th birthday – the day she was actually buried. In her later years, Alice had lived in a home in Northampton.
Joe used to ring the bells in the Church and, at the age of 95, believed that he could still ring a peal! According to Phyllis Hobson, Joe had a set of hand bells as well. Joe also recalls that he was well regarded for his hedge-laying skills – he took part in many competitions, and once finished a hedge for someone else, but that person still won the prize! In his youth he used to play cricket and football in the village. He used to frequent both pubs in the village, but preferred the Plough. After Alice died, Eileen Freeman invited Joe to Christmas dinner. She says he was very appreciative, arriving in his smart suit with a gold tie pin, but he eventually found the “noise and goings-on” in the Freeman household uncomfortable. In subsequent years he declined the invitation, but Eileen used to take his dinner round to his house with a glass of wine to celebrate.
Joe had another sister, Ruth Andrews, who, Marjorie Wightman remembers, owned a parrot. Marjorie doesn’t know why, but Ruth was known to everyone in the village as “Phoebe”.
Mabel Cave
Mabel Cave was the daughter of the village cobbler. Norah Greaves remembers her playing the piano at the Village Institute for social evenings held there soon after the war. Mabel told her that she had been 40 years old before she learned to play, and then had saved up all her pennies and halfpennies with which to buy her own piano. Elsa Talbot recalls encountering Mabel when she was housekeeper at the Vicarage.
Soon after we arrived in the village we were invited to tea at the Vicarage. We arrived at about 4pm only to be greeted by Mabel, leaning out of the window above the porch shouting “you’re too early!” so we beat a hasty retreat.
Mabel used to help Elsa bath her children every night. “She died without having ever seen the sea.” Mabel was very friendly with Muriel Eglesfield, and, according to Marjorie Wightman, both of them used to travel to Northampton to All Saint’s Church rather than attend church in East Haddon. No matter who was vicar at the village Church, the two ladies disapproved of him. It seems that Mabel was the most resolute in this regard, because after she died, Muriel relented and started attending St. Mary’s.
Jim Chapman
Eileen Freeman remembers Jim Chapman as a “lovely man”, who would often stop for a chat as he walked his dog Trixie. “He used to look after our cat for us when we went away, and because he was so good to us, when his dog died we went to Thrapston to get another Trixie for him.” Barbara Pearson recalls the fire on the terrace. When the fire brigade came, Jim begged them to try to save a dressing table in one of his bedrooms. Although the firemen were more concerned with putting out the fire to save the houses and prevent it spreading, they did eventually rescue the dressing table. It was said to be full of money!
Miss Cross
Miss Cross came to East Haddon as headmistress of the school in 1958, first living in the School House, but then, shortly before her retirement, moving to a bungalow in Orchard Close. She had started teaching at Ilkeston in Derbyshire, followed by about 20 years at a school in Leicester and a few years at a Surrey music college and small schools in Wellingborough and Arthingworth. Marion Allen’s mother was caretaker and dinner lady at East Haddon school when Miss Cross was headmistress, and Marion remembers her sometimes having to go to the School House to wake Miss Cross up when she dozed off after lunch. After she retired in 1970, Miss Cross went to art classes. She was a talented painter in oils and watercolours, particularly enjoying painting the countryside. She was also gifted at portraiture, but she did not enjoy this as much as landscapes. According to Lyn Engle, she could capture not just the outward appearance of a person, but also their inner essence. In later years, unable to go out, she used to paint the clouds from her window.
Lyn says that Miss Cross was a staunch Labour supporter, “mostly because she had a deep concern for people”. She enjoyed a good debate, and was “very involved in life”, going to meetings and art exhibitions, and writing to the newspapers giving her views on various subjects. She was once taught by a Quaker, and although she had initially been attracted to the religion, she said in an interview in 1986, “I couldn’t be a Quaker because I couldn’t believe in peace at any price,” – but she added: “I continued my attachment to Quakerism right through my college days and I am a Quaker now.” She always enjoyed the company of children, and kept chocolate in the house for whenever they visited. According to Lyn, she never complained and always made the best of any situation. Ian Barnett remembers her playing the organ sometimes, and that she had “found it so difficult”. She would practise for hours in the Church with the door locked: she was a little deaf, and did not want to be startled by anyone coming up behind her. Marjorie Ennever found Miss Cross very welcoming when she first came to the village. On the day after Marjorie had moved into her house, she put a letter through the door asking if there was anything she could do to help. She also took her to the Women’s Institute in the Village Hall and introduced her to the members. According to Marjorie:
She was a wonderful character and very loyal: she wouldn’t have a word said against the village school. Even last summer [2000] she went to the fete and she went to the last jumble sale. She was an enthusiastic gardener and if a weed had a pretty flower on it she would leave it to grow. If it was a living thing, a plant, a bird or a mouse, it had to be left to live on... She loved birds and was always feeding them. She also grew a lot of soft fruit in her back garden.
Miss Cross had her idiosyncrasies, and once when wanting to drive down to visit her brother in Essex she asked Marjorie’s husband to work out a route for her “without any circles”. He managed to devise a way that avoided all roundabouts apart from the one near Billericay! She used to call on local men to do odd jobs round the house, and was always careful not to ask the same man too often. One day, Marjorie went into her house with some shopping and she could hear a ticking noise. Miss Cross insisted it was a cricket, despite it being the depths of winter. Marjorie discovered that it was in fact a smoke alarm that needed new batteries, but Miss Cross would not believe her until Graham Houston came in to change them and the noise disappeared!
Graham used to take her to church regularly. She enjoyed classical music and visits to the theatre with Lyn Engle and Leslie Roberts. Marjorie says that even in her nineties she was prepared to experiment with modern art, and produced pictures “with lots of brilliant colours”.
Marjorie says she misses Miss Cross greatly. “I miss going in on a Friday with her shopping. She was always grateful for help. She was a wonderful character. I found that if you introduced someone to her they said afterwards how much they enjoyed talking to her.”
Miss Cross died in August 2000.
Mrs Dickens (Picture)
A formidable character in the village, many people have vivid memories of Mrs Dickens. According to June and Peter Wilkinson, she “always spoke her mind”. One night at the Parochial Church Council meeting, she objected to something and stormed out in a temper. The meeting was being held in the Malt House in a room with several doors out of it, and it wasn’t long before Mrs Dickens returned looking sheepish because she couldn’t find her way out of the house. Victor Thorman remembers her making life “very difficult” for his father the vicar, “but when he died she couldn’t stop praising him. She always came to church and wouldn’t look at father when he preached, and she fell out with mother.” When Philip and Sylvia Blacklee moved to the village, one of the first things they were told, by Billy Jones, was “never cross Mrs Dickens”. Jack Halliwell quickly became involved in village life when he first moved to the village – too quickly for Mrs Dickens. “I was painting the old wooden pavilion inside and out and Mrs Dickens came along and said, ‘I don’t know why you are doing that – it’s nothing to do with you’. That’s because I was a newcomer to the village. She was abrasive but she didn’t mean to be and she had the village at heart.”
Of course, her powerful personality certainly was an advantage in some circum-stances, and she was instrumental in saving the Post Office when it was in danger of being closed. (Many would say it is a pity that she wasn’t around a few years ago to prevent its apparently irreversible closure this time.) According to Fred Moore, if you wanted anything done in the village, she’d see to it. Lynne Threadgold remembers that during the particularly bad winter of 1979, when snow blocked the roads in the village, Mrs Dickens collected the pensions of all the old people from the Post Office. Elsa Talbot remembers Mrs Dickens’s own little milk run round the village for which she used to wear First World War land army breeches.
According to Jane Barrow, Mrs Dickens was a stalwart supporter of the Conservative Party. “She had very definite opinions, but she did a lot for the community.” Daphne Walding’s father was chairman of the Parish Council and Mrs Dickens always used to “have her say” at council meetings. “One day she was going on about something for rather a long time and Dad wanted to get home, so in the end he asked her to sit down – she replied, ‘I’m not sitting down for you, Tom Snow’. I remember Dad coming home and laughing about it.”
Paul Capell recalls Mrs Dickens’s forthright manner:
I lived in Clifden Terrace on my own for about 12 months and it was a Bank Holiday and I’d been busy the night before and Mrs Dickens, who lived opposite, banged me up at 6.15 the following morning saying, “come on, come on, you’re late for work”. I said, “I’m not working,” but she said, “I know, but it’s no excuse for not getting up!”
Jan Pike remembers Mrs Dickens working her way round the village with a wheelbarrow full of library books that she had chosen for people. Jan used to get on well with her, as did Ernest and Gwen Poole. “Mrs Dickens was very helpful to us. She helped Karen, my daughter, with a school project on the history of the village. She had her own words like ‘gallond’ with a ‘d’ on it. She called a bus ‘a buzz’.” Mrs Barnett thought Mrs Dickens “was lovely” and the Barnett’s children “adored her”.
Connie Tenniswood, manager of the Red Lion, used to chat to Mrs Dickens in the village, although she never frequented the inn. She remembers that during one snowy winter, after she had kept Church Lane open with salt from a bunker, the bus company had been so grateful for this that they had given her a day out.
Marjorie Ennever remembers an awkward time with Mrs Dickens on an outing as part of a WEA course in medieval architecture. Mrs Dickens had approached her husband asking for a lift, and Marjorie had independently offered a lift to Miss Cross. They were unaware that the two women hadn’t spoken for years because of a quarrel in the past.
We didn’t know anything about the dispute but when we were driving there we couldn’t understand why they were so quiet in the back of the car. I had to keep turning round and chatting to keep things going. When we got to Kirby Hall, one member came up to me and said: How on earth did that happen?”
Marjorie told her that she was unaware of the falling out between the two women. “On the way home they chatted to each other all the way! So we did a bit of good!”
As Jane Barrow recalls, Mrs Dickens was very proud of the Maundy money she received one year from the Queen.
Muriel Eglesfield
Sallie Jones has fond memories of Muriel Eglesfield. She was the family’s babysitter for many years, and was asked to baby-sit on a weekly basis, even when they no longer needed her to, because she was such a sweet lady and had always loved children. Jeanette Barnes also observed Muriel’s love of children, and that she always had sweets in her pocket for them, particularly Cadbury’s penny chocolate bars. Sallie and her husband Nigel only stopped having Muriel to baby-sit when they found out that the children usually put themselves to bed because she had fallen asleep! Muriel used to have Christmas dinner with the Jones’s. Sallie remembers that she used to arrive at the house after visiting four others in the village for sherry, and that she was always very jolly! According to Daphne Walding,
Muriel used to eat our Mark’s dinner! She’d walk in one Sunday after church and she’d stand talking. We’d probably finished our lunch but Mark was always late so I’d put his out on a plate. She’d say, “Oh, you make the best Yorkshire pudding in East Haddon” and then she’d sit down and eat it!
Marjorie Ennever remembers Muriel selling raffle tickets for the village fete during the summer; this always meant a few glasses of sherry at the houses she visited! Marjorie says: “She was a lovely little soul. When her house was flooded, which it was on at least two occasions, we all went in and helped her. I remember cooking hot meals for her at such times and making sure she had a flask of hot chocolate at night.” The situation of Cosgrove Cottage, where Muriel lived, at the bottom of Tilbury Road, made it prone to flooding and Jeanette Barnes remembers men rushing from the pub when called to “sandbag her up”. Sally says that most people’s memories of Muriel are her love of cats and of the Royal family. She used to take in all the stray cats in the neighbourhood, and was helped out by other local people who used to donate tins of cat food. Her cottage was filled with photographs and memorabilia of the Royal family.
Eileen Ellershaw
Eileen Ellershaw was well known in East Haddon through her various activities, most notably working behind the bar in the Red Lion with Connie Tenniswood. Connie says:”She was a character!” According to Lynn Threadgold, Eileen came to the village in the 1960s after managing the pub in Welton with her husband, from whom she had now separated. She was the first tenant to move into the Hall flats, and she started her job at the Red Lion not long afterwards, working there until she retired at 65. Lynne remembers that she worked very long hours – 10am to 3pm and then again from 6pm to closing time, every day. After she retired, she joined the Church. Among other things, Eileen used to organise car parking for Haddonstone open days, and Jan Pike recalls that she also used to help at the Holdenby Christmas sales. Maureen French says that Eileen was one of the characters that she remembers most. “She was always very friendly to us and interested in our family.” Lynne Threadgold adds:
She liked to keep abreast of what was going on in the village, but she sometimes got it wrong. She tended a little garden at the front of the flats and also enjoyed sitting in her chair and talking to passers-by. She liked to walk down the Park and that is where her ashes are scattered.
Mrs Fooks the Cat Lady (Picture)
One of Jean Muddiman’s earliest memories is of Mrs Fooks, the Cat lady. She lived in a caravan at the Holdenby end of the village. Jean lived in Holdenby at the time and says she used to quicken her pace as she passed the caravan on her way home from school! June and Peter Wilkinson also remember the Cat Lady. She used to get her water from nearby houses. This was about 1964. She was eventually “taken away”, and the caravan gradually disintegrated before being removed by the Council. The local newspaper’s reporter visited her, and found that she had four cats and four kittens in the caravan, which had no electricity or gas. For warmth and cooking she had a paraffin heater. She was apparently 84 years old, and the reporter said: “There must be grave misgivings about a woman of 84 living alone in an old wooden caravan, with no water supply, out by itself in long, dank grass, with the risk which always attends the aged who rely on paraffin for heating and lighting.” Her weekly income was £4 4s, and she had to pay rent for the caravan “quoting a figure which astonished me”. The reporter concluded: “But Mrs Fooks is hardy, independent, and fond of her cats... There must be tact and understanding as well as sympathy if she is to be helped.”
Billy Jones
Paul Capell describes Billy Jones as “the motorbike farmer”. “He didn’t own any land, he rented it. He had some at Ravensthorpe and some at Long Buckby.” Ernest Poole remembers that
Billy Jones had a little motorbike and he used to go down to his buildings in Church Lane [now Tire Hill Farm] and you used to see him with a sheep or lamb on his bike and put it into the ‘club’ room at the Plough to recover.
David Muddiman remembers Billy having a minor accident:
One day Billy Jones fell off his motorbike by the phone box and I had to pick him up. Lots of times his dog was on the bike as well. His sheep used to get out a lot because he wasn’t too good at fencing and I often used to run and tell him and he used to say “they’ve taken their mouth with them”. He was never in a hurry to fetch them back.
Paul Capell, who used to work for him, remembers “cocking hay with a fork where the Playing Field is now for Billy. He was always getting things stuck and I was always being called to help get them out!” Ernest Poole recalls his practice of filling holes in fences with old bedsteads and scrap metal, known as “Billy’s barbed wire”. These can still be seen in fences around Tire Hill today.
Arthur Langton, the Road Sweeper
Dick Craddock remembers Arthur Langton shovelling leaves into a barrow one day outside the village shop, and somebody knocking it over:
You never heard such language in your life! I also remember the time when I was walking home with him from the Plough. We got to “Duffus” (Dovehouse) Doors, in the wall opposite Vicarage Lane, and the stick he was leaning on went down the drain and he fell flat on his face. I said, “What are you doing down there, Arthur?”
According to Ernest Poole, Arthur had a “twisted leg”. “When he retired he had two sticks, one to shake at people and one to lean on”. David Muddiman also recalls Arthur’s good work being undone after he had been clearing up leaves from the lime trees in the churchyard: “One year he had got them all swept up into heaps and a lorry came along and scattered the leaves all over the place, so he threw his brush into the road in a rage.” But Arthur wasn’t without a sense of humour. Norah Greaves remembers him having a rest near the gateway to Holdenby House. Arthur, who was hardly the most active man, told her: “They’ve just been to see me from the Council and told me to take it easy because they said I was going like a racehorse!” Norah once found him sitting in the bus stop having thrown his cheese sandwiches to the ground. He moaned to her about the rent he had to pay to his sister, Hilda, and that all she could give him for lunch was cheese sandwiches.
Paul Capell says he always got on well with Arthur, but he apparently had an irritable nature: “He used to stand up at the top of Church Street, directing traffic. One day a man comes up to him and he says, ‘How do I go to Hill Farm?’ and he says, ‘You ought to have had more bloody sense and asked before you got this far because you’ve gone past it!”
Margaret Wrathall remembers that, despite the fact that Arthur was usually seen “propping up the Church wall”, the village was always very clean. Dick Morton, Joan Page’s brother, used to work with him. Joan remembers Arthur before he worked as a roadsweeper, visiting farms with threshing equipment. He had a traction engine, and its brakes once failed on Tire Hill: “It ended up upside down in the hedge at the bottom of the hill!” June and Peter Wilkinson remember Arthur being a familiar sight in the village, with his cry: “The ‘unt’s coming! The ‘unt’s coming!” Arthur once waylaid Barbara Pearson’s husband Tony in the village and asked him if he was on his way to Northampton. When Tony said he was, Arthur asked him to go to White and Bishop for “some rubbers for the end of me stick”. Two weeks later, the same thing happened, and two weeks later yet again. Tony decided this time to bring back a supply of the “rubbers” to keep at home and ensure that Arthur was well stocked for a few months. He continued to do this for many years and still had some long after Arthur had gone.
The Mains
I remember the Mains who lived in the Malt House ever so well. The Mains were maltsters. Old Dick Main used to tell us these tales because he fought in the Boer War. Aunt Mary used to take me round there during the war so that they could practise First Aid on me because Annie Main ran a First Aid course from the house. I used to enjoy it because they had a coffee mill and this coffee was beautiful. Annie Main had an “olde world” cottage garden. At one time Walter Main managed the sewer bed farms over at Bagginton. Then his nephew, Harry Weston, took it on. The other sister lived in Somerset. Walter Main was a gent. One Friday he said to me, “I’ve got an appointment with a specialist over in Kettering, do you think you could run me over there?” I said I would. I went round the next morning and Sid Dixie said, “Mr Main’s died.” Annie Main was a nice old lady. She used to make lace. None of them married, except the sister in Somerset. Paul Capell
Marjorie Wightman thinks that Annie attended a lacemaking school in Bedford. According to Marjorie, tea parties at the Mains were always very correct, with just the right size lace napkins, two-tier cake stands, fresh hot scones etc. – teatime was evidently regarded as something of a ceremony. Elsa Talbot remembers that Annie was also a regular churchgoer and an enthusiastic gardener. According to Sylvia Blacklee, she made “the best cottage cakes that I ever remember”.
The Thormans (Picture)
Paul Capell remembers the Reverend Thorman as “a nice old man” but recalls that he once attacked a beech tree in his garden, chopping off so much that the whole tree had to come down. He was a keen gardener, and Ernest Poole remembers that he used to be quite competitive with his vegetables. When he met Ernest’s father, he’d say to him: “’Louis – show me your biggest potato’ and then he’d produce a big one from his cassock and say, ‘Is it bigger than this one?’.”
Marjorie Wightman recalls that Mrs Thorman always personally greeted any newcomer to the village, and if they did not attend church she would soon be knocking at their door to find out why! Mrs Thorman was very impressed that Marjorie’s baby son Roger was able to sleep through the church services, whereas Victor had howled as a baby when she had taken him to church.
Philip Blacklee remembers that Mr Thorman used to call round to their house at about 9pm for coffee and stay for hours. Sylvia had a tapestry that she always brought out to work on when he called –“she always got masses done!” Margaret Wrathall thought the Thormans “very eccentric but very kind”. She recalls the vicar ranting from the pulpit about the importance of coming to church, when of course the only people listening were those in the Church already – literally preaching to the converted! Debbie Williams remembers some of the family’s eccentricity, like how Mrs Thorman was frequently late for church on a Sunday morning, appearing at the last minute dressed from head to toe in mauve. She also remembers Mr Thorman’s “fire and brimstone” sermons. He always used to dress in his black cassock, except when he worked in his garden.
Other Ministers of the Church
Although not strictly speaking a member of the East Haddon community, and not even officially appointed as vicar, Max Parker did take the services at St Mary’s Church for a number of years. June Wilkinson remembers him as the one vicar that “shines out” in a period when there were many changes of vicar in the village. She says he was always around when anyone was in trouble. She particularly remembers him at christenings: “Babies didn’t cry when he took the service – he used to cuddle them and then he’d go back and he would show the baby to everybody with his face shining and saying ‘we welcome you’. He was just so special, we were very lucky.” When Max retired, there were parties held for him and he and his wife Jane were presented with tickets to visit their daughter in Canada and for the theatre in Stratford.
Peter Wilkinson remembers Canon Jim Richardson as being a very flamboyant character, full of energy. Apparently, one day he was preaching a sermon in a typically enthusiastic manner when he thumped the pulpit and a piece of masonry fell out! Despite this, he carried on as if nothing had happened.
Canon Keysell, who was minister just after the Second World War, was known to many as a typical “hunting parson”, and was also a keen cricketer. According to Elsa Talbot, “he was tall and good-looking with a beautiful hunter that he rode about the countryside. The story was that he had been chased by three wealthy ladies but managed to avoid them all. However, it is said that they all left him their money!”
Arthur Voss
Paul Capell remembers Arthur Voss as owning a lot of property in the village:
Mr Voss bought properties up all over the place, here and in Ravensthorpe and Long Buckby. I think the Voss’s were in the grocery trade but he did work up at Harlestone Firs because they made pit props in the First World War. He didn’t serve in the forces because he said he suffered from pernicious anaemia [others say he was a conscientious objector]. He also bought cottages up St Andrew’s Road in East Haddon. He also owned the fields past his house where Jane Spencer’s riding school is now and on up to the main road where he kept poultry and geese and all sorts of things.
Marjorie Wightman has one vivid memory of Mr Voss: she was once out collecting house to house around the village, and knocked at Mr Voss’s door only to be told, “We don’t give at the door!” Marjorie turned to depart, but heard the door opening again. She saw a little hand appear and a voice whispered, “I give at the door,” and Mrs Voss handed her half a crown. According to Ernest Poole:
Mr Voss was a chain-smoker with a black coat and black hat. He lived next to the Mannings who lived in the end cottage behind Muriel’s [Eglesfield]. My uncle’s (Mr Manning’s) garden went right up to the Vosses’ boundary. Sometime in the past there was a dispute and so their name wasn’t mentioned in this house. However, somewhere along the line there was a Manning née Voss! This was in the late 19th century, but we still haven’t managed to sort it out.
Miss Jarman
Sylvia Blacklee used to take Miss Jarman to Northampton once a week shopping.
She would sit next to me with her eyes shut and her mouth working and she was praying that we’d get a parking space. She always did this and I always got a parking space! She always helped me make my marmalade and while the marmalade was cooking she taught me to play bezique. We always seemed to make more marmalade than I wanted because she enjoyed it so much.
Mrs Smith
According to Marjorie Wightman, Mrs Frederick Smith Senior was famous for her Sunday hats. No-one dared to sit in the same pew as her in the Church. She seemed to have a different hat each week, but the other ladies attending the Church gradually realised that it was often the same hat, trimmed differently. Nevertheless, it became a Sunday church tradition to have a look at “the hat”.
Mrs Dixie
Mrs Dixie, the butcher’s wife, was also well known for her headgear: she always wore a bright salmon-pink crocheted hat. According to June Wilkinson, she was one of the 12 elderly people in the village to receive “meals on wheels” but was often not at home when they were delivered, so they had to be put in the oven to keep warm. She was a regular churchgoer, and June’s mother, Mrs Bettington, used to help her up the step to the altar rail to receive communion, despite the fact that Mrs Bettington was probably older than her. This procedure took so long that that one day they arrived at the rail after the vicar had dispensed the bread, and when he came back with the wine, Mrs Dixie called out at the top of her voice: “I haven’t had me bread yet!”