Interview with Dionis MacNair
My
grandmother came to Burley in the first decade of the 20th century after her
husband who was a Captain in the KOSBs (Kings Own Scottish Borders) picked up
some fell disease (thermatoid arthritis) in South Africa in the Boer War. He was
told that he must never winter in Scotland again so for a few years they went
every winter to Po in Southern France and then he died and my grandmother came
here when my mother was a small child. She came here because her brother was
already here living in Garden Road, I think at Middlefield, and he'd come
because he had a son who in those days had what was known as a weak chest, I
suspect it was asthma, and this was supposed to be very good clean air and
funnily enough the Botterills at the end of World War II came for the same
reason because Gillian had asthma very badly. Anyway my grandmother also had
various friends and relations in the neighbourhood and she got Mr. Clough to
build Beacon Corner for her, design it - well he was the architect for her.
Dovey was the builder she described Mr. Dovey as being like the pictures of St.
John with a white spade beard and very blue eyes but he was virtually illiterate
so his calculations did not always quite work. There is a bit on the stairs
where there is a gap but, of course, Mr. Clough lived at Castle Top at the time
and he had a step-son who kept a jackdaw in what Mrs. Mackworth-Praed later on
used as her dairy. My grandmother was quite a feature in the Village because she
was one of the first people when the WI started - she was the first secretary.
Her name actually was, May Violet Dent, or Mrs. Edgar Dent and as I said she was
first of all secretary and then president of the WI and in due course my mother
was also president. She was also a school governor and a Sunday school teacher
and instrumental in getting the first district nurse.
He
hadn't an "H" to his name (talked with an affected accent). Also when
the electricity came, I think it was in 1937, the pond at the foot of the road
was considered so beautiful that she persuaded them to put the electricity for a
short space underground passed the pond and you can still see it is but they
have wrecked the pond. They drained it because of the water snails carrying red
water for the cattle. The man from the Ministry said that the best cure for red
water was ducks but when we stopped keeping ducks because the fox kept taking
them they drained it along with a great many other little ponds around the
Village and all they got left with was a nasty swamp and they didn't get rid of
the water snails because they were still hanging out under the Byways wall - up
to last year anyway, this summer may have finished them off. But what I can
never understand was why on earth they got rid of the ditch along the side of
the road. That was quite crazy. So my mother was brought up here, my grandmother
who had been to boarding school at St. Leonards and she always said she was
fleeing from the Scottish East wind - her father was a professor at Edinburgh
University - and he was the son of the notorious Patrick Sellar, but perhaps we
won't go into that..........and, so my mother had a sort of series of shared
governesses here part of the time with her cousins down Garden Road and she
always used to say that if it really rained, really hard, the ponds on either
side of the Pound by the cafe met across the road and then you couldn't get to
school, and that was great - but it didn't happen very often.
Burley
Village School and Mr. Medway was the headmaster. He hadn't an "H" to
his name (talked with an affected accent). Also when the electricity came, I
think it was in 1937, the pond at the foot of the road was considered so
beautiful that she persuaded them to put the electricity for a short space
underground passed the pond and you can still see it is but they have wrecked
the pond. They drained it because of the water snails carrying red water for the
cattle. The man from the Ministry said that the best cure for red water was
ducks but when we stopped keeping ducks because the fox kept taking them they
drained it along with a great many other little ponds around the Village and all
they got left with was a nasty swamp and they didn't get rid of the water snails
because they were still hanging out under the Byways wall - up to last year
anyway, this summer may have finished them off. But what I can never understand
was why on earth they got rid of the ditch along the side of the road. That was
quite crazy. So my mother was brought up here, my grandmother who had been to
boarding school at St. Leonards and she always said she was fleeing from the
Scottish East wind - her father was a professor at Edinburgh University - and he
was the son of the notorious Patrick Sellar, but perhaps we won't go into that..........and,
so my mother had a sort of series of shared governesses here part of the time
with her cousins down Garden Road and she always used to say that if it really
rained, really hard, the ponds on either side of the Pound by the cafe met
across the road and then you couldn't get to school, and that was great - but it
didn't happen very often.
During
the First World War my grandmother was sort of a housekeeper at Blackmoor, which
was at Burley Street, which was a home for convalescent Belgium refugees. My
mother kept a sort of diary, which I think I left behind at the last training
and she, having had an extremely sheltered childhood, was, I think, rather
lonely when she came here because she was an only child. She had actually had a
younger brother but he was a "blue baby" so he died and, of course, in
those days they couldn't do anything about it.
s
in the Army and before the Boer War he was a rather dashing young officer who
hunted in the winter and played polo in the summer and had a pony he used to
drive called Tess and so on, but then as I say he was invalided home from South
Africa and forced to retire and then he died quite soon after that and she came
here as a young widow. ......My mother, I think, was rather lonely, longed to go
to boarding school but my grandmother had hated it so much that she wouldn't
send her. She had various friends both up in Edinburgh and all over the country
for some reason or other, and she started a children's magazine called Pierro
and everybody, all her friends, used to send in contributions. She would bind
them and it would go round and there was a 1p fine if you kept it too long. They
eventually all came back to her and we adored them when we were children.
Unfortunately the mice got at them rather badly and the ones that were not too
badly damaged went to the Museum of Childhood in Edinburgh. But she also got
frightfully carried away by the new Scouting movement and she sort of started
unofficial Guides here. She rode with agister Evemy. She said she could remember
trying to bring back six donkeys that had strayed down to Christchurch. Up the
road it was fine but when they got to Thorney Hill they went in six different
directions............ then when she was sixteen I suppose she was very artistic
and she went to the Edinburgh Art School and lived with her grandmother during
the term and came back here in the holidays. She met my father up in Edinburgh
when she was at Art School. His aunt was also a "Sellar" so they were
distantly connected by marriage but not by blood. She met him - his aunt wrote
to his relation, my grandmother's mother, and said my "nephew is coming to
Leith Docks with his ship and would you be kind to him" so she asked him
out to lunch. Well, it was a horrible day, pouring with rain, very bad light,
and my mother decided to come home early from the Art School because she
couldn't get far with the bad light and so on, and he was just leaving and they,
their eyes met and he wrote her a most lovely sonnet about "You Stole my
heart on an Edinburgh stair, here's the tale begun". He always wrote poems
throughout his life.... he wrote that particular sonnet actually when they had
been married for sixteen years and he was at sea during their anniversary so he
sent her that because he couldn't be there. She, as I say, was very artistic and
of course she followed him round because he was in the Navy. In the First World
War he was at the battle of Jutland; he was at the first battle of the Falklands,
he was then out in a submarine in the Dardanelles so he was extraordinary lucky.
They used to have afternoon dances in Edinburgh but they actually got engaged in
the Easter holidays I think it was, it must have been the Easter holidays - he
came out to dinner here and they walked up the track here and got engaged under
a tree on Castle Top on the earthwork and they were married in August 1918 and
there was an awful panic because his submarine was delayed and nobody knew what
had happened, but he was OK. Then, of course, they started their married life in
rooms with a landlady down at Plymouth and she was only eighteen and almost
immediately he was sent out to China to Wei Hi Wei, which she simply loved, she
and my father had a great friend who unusually actually learnt Mandarin and the
second time they were out in China in 1926 out in WHW he managed to take out a
car in a submarine. He broke it down and took it out in the submarine and it was
known as the "flying banana". It started as a ripe banana but when it
had been covered with green American cloth it became an unripe banana and of
course he could fuel it in the dockyard and he drove it round. Well the Chinese,
up in that part of North China, had never seen a car and he got a special permit
to see if the roads were suitable for motor vehicles, which they weren't, and
all the water buffalo used to take off in a panic. He got the job of taking the
governor around so he tended to arrive a day or two before he was expected. The
Chinamen, they are sort of big red men up there and they thought it was
frightfully funny. My mother did a lot of sketching up there and she said they
were so nice they would bring her out cups of tea and water for her paints and a
stool to sit on and up there it hadn't changed at all - they still had pigtails
and bound feet and ladies in sedan chairs. My father wrote two children's
stories - Wing Wong Woo and Ginger, which my mother illustrated, which were
published by Basil Blackwall and they used to do various stories and poems and
so on for Blackwall's Christmas annual and just before the Second World War they
were commissioned to do a full length book but unfortunately, of course, the War
came and Blackwalls turned entirely to educational books so it never happened so
we have still got one or two manuscripts that never got any further - one of
them because my mother unfortunately used gold paint and it wouldn't reproduce.
We were always rather amused because my mother always did the correspondence -
father never wrote letters if he could possibly help it - but they always
replied to father. Then, of course, after the Second World War my father retired
and came back to live here with us- we had lived here through the war with my
grandmother - having been thrown out of Gibraltar at four hours notice and taken
eight days to come back ,across the ocean, not in a convoy and the Admiral said
"write them off, write them off"- not surprisingly really because it
was the time of Dunkirk and we were supposed to have gone into Plymouth and
Plymouth was bombed, so they sent us on; Southampton wouldn't have us because
they hadn't got any customs men. Well if -being thrown out at four hours notice
you would hardly have thought that was necessary. We sat in the channel for two
days and eventually came up to Tilbury - lovely calm sunny weather and I thought
the banks of the Thames were like Beatrix Potter illustrations. Railway station,
in the black out, were very scary. This was the trace of Dunkirk.?
What
job did your grandfather do?
He
was in the KOSBs in the Army and before the Boer War he was a rather dashing
young officer who hunted in the winter and played polo in the summer and had a
pony he used to drive called Tess and so on, but then as I say he was invalided
home from South Africa and forced to retire and then he died quite soon after
that and she came here as a young widow. ......My mother, I think, was rather
lonely, longed to go to boarding school but my grandmother had hated it so much
that she wouldn't send her. She had various friends both up in Edinburgh and all
over the country for some reason or other, and she started a children's magazine
called Pierro and everybody, all her friends, used to send in contributions. She
would bind them and it would go round and there was a 1p fine if you kept it too
long. They eventually all came back to her and we adored them when we were
children. Unfortunately the mice got at them rather badly and the ones that were
not too badly damaged went to the Museum of Childhood in Edinburgh. But she also
got frightfully carried away by the new Scouting movement and she sort of
started unofficial Guides here. She rode with agister Evemy. She said she could
remember trying to bring back six donkeys that had strayed down to Christchurch.
Up the road it was fine but when they got to Thorney Hill they went in six
different directions............ then when she was sixteen I suppose she was
very artistic and she went to the Edinburgh Art School and lived with her
grandmother during the term and came back here in the holidays. She met my
father up in Edinburgh when she was at Art School. His aunt was also a "Sellar"
so they were distantly connected by marriage but not by blood. She met him - his
aunt wrote to his relation, my grandmother's mother, and said my "nephew is
coming to Leith Docks with his ship and would you be kind to him" so she
asked him out to lunch. Well, it was a horrible day, pouring with rain, very bad
light, and my mother decided to come home early from the Art School because she
couldn't get far with the bad light and so on, and he was just leaving and they,
their eyes met and he wrote her a most lovely sonnet about "You Stole my
heart on an Edinburgh stair, here's the tale begun". He always wrote poems
throughout his life.... he wrote that particular sonnet actually when they had
been married for sixteen years and he was at sea during their anniversary so he
sent her that because he couldn't be there. She, as I say, was very artistic and
of course she followed him round because he was in the Navy. In the First World
War he was at the battle of Jutland; he was at the first battle of the Falklands,
he was then out in a submarine in the Dardanelles so he was extraordinary lucky.
They used to have afternoon dances in Edinburgh but they actually got engaged in
the Easter holidays I think it was, it must have been the Easter holidays - he
came out to dinner here and they walked up the track here and got engaged under
a tree on Castle Top on the earthwork and they were married in August 1918 and
there was an awful panic because his submarine was delayed and nobody knew what
had happened, but he was OK. Then, of course, they started their married life in
rooms with a landlady down at Plymouth and she was only eighteen and almost
immediately he was sent out to China to Wei Hi Wei, which she simply loved, she
and my father had a great friend who unusually actually learnt Mandarin and the
second time they were out in China in 1926 out in WHW he managed to take out a
car in a submarine. He broke it down and took it out in the submarine and it was
known as the "flying banana". It started as a ripe banana but when it
had been covered with green American cloth it became an unripe banana and of
course he could fuel it in the dockyard and he drove it round. Well the Chinese,
up in that part of North China, had never seen a car and he got a special permit
to see if the roads were suitable for motor vehicles, which they weren't, and
all the water buffalo used to take off in a panic. He got the job of taking the
governor around so he tended to arrive a day or two before he was expected. The
Chinamen, they are sort of big red men up there and they thought it was
frightfully funny. My mother did a lot of sketching up there and she said they
were so nice they would bring her out cups of tea and water for her paints and a
stool to sit on and up there it hadn't changed at all - they still had pigtails
and bound feet and ladies in sedan chairs. My father wrote two children's
stories - Wing Wong Woo and Ginger, which my mother illustrated, which were
published by Basil Blackwall and they used to do various stories and poems and
so on for Blackwall's Christmas annual and just before the Second World War they
were commissioned to do a full length book but unfortunately, of course, the War
came and Blackwalls turned entirely to educational books so it never happened so
we have still got one or two manuscripts that never got any further - one of
them because my mother unfortunately used gold paint and it wouldn't reproduce.
We were always rather amused because my mother always did the correspondence -
father never wrote letters if he could possibly help it - but they always
replied to father. Then, of course, after the Second World War my father retired
and came back to live here with us- we had lived here through the war with my
grandmother - having been thrown out of Gibraltar at four hours notice and taken
eight days to come back ,across the ocean, not in a convoy and the Admiral said
"write them off, write them off"- not surprisingly really because it
was the time of Dunkirk and we were supposed to have gone into Plymouth and
Plymouth was bombed, so they sent us on; Southampton wouldn't have us because
they hadn't got any customs men. Well if -being thrown out at four hours notice
you would hardly have thought that was necessary. We sat in the channel for two
days and eventually came up to Tilbury - lovely calm sunny weather and I thought
the banks of the Thames were like Beatrix Potter illustrations. Railway station,
in the black out, were very scary. This was the trace of Dunkirk.
When
and where were you born?
Here in Beacon Corner in 1930, in my grandmother's house. And it was always our home, we always came on leave here, we always had Christmas here, we always whenever we were on leave we came here and then, as I say, during the War we lived here all the time.
My
sister was born 1921, my brother in 1937. He was born in Beacon Corner too, my
sister was conceived in Hong Kong and actually was born in London, much to her
fury...............I think there were slight problems so I think that was why
she was born there. But anyway, as I say, we lived here through the War and
after the War my father retired. He helped me, I could never have set up the
riding school I had without my parents help. My father went round cutting
people's long grass, turning it into hay. We threw it over the fences and
brought it back in the trailer behind the car and built one big stack and so
saved an awful lot of money that way, but it was darned hard work........ I was
eternally grateful for that because I don't know how anybody gets started these
days. He became a school governor here and he was Chairman of the Parkstone Sea
Cadets for many years but he also completely revived the golf course after the
War. He did a lot of manual labour on it, apart from anything else, and so he
always said he worked a lot harder after he retired than before.n born in May
1894.........During the War the Mackworth-Praeds were wonderful. They thought
that children were missing out so they not only had what was known as The Castle
Top Academy a governess for their boys and others, of which my brother has
written a little bit about. But far more than that she also, because part of
Mudeford was the only beach that was accessible during the War for bathing, but
Castle Top had a swimming pool, it had been put in before the War. It was a bit
green and the thatched cob shed used for changing in was a bit dank but
nevertheless it was hugely appreciated and she employed a rather fearsome lady
called Miss Dawson to teach swimming and tennis because they also had a hard
tennis court too so far more than the children the Governess taught were taught
swimming and she had one evening when the swimming pool was reserved for the
scouts and cubs and another evening when it was reserved for the guides and
brownies for the whole village and she was also the only person who gave real
parties during the war because they had a shoot down on the Avon Valley and they
had wonderful parties with moorhen soup and roast swan, and things that were off
the ration. They kept cows, pigs, poultry and so on, so they had cream and
butter, and they had a big kitchen garden. Well we all had kitchen gardens. We
all kept poultry and rabbits, my mother made fur gloves and things from the
rabbit skins and we had ducks, geese and hens, and rabbits as I said, and we
used to go gleening after harvesting to get corn for the chickens. Of course
they lived on all the scraps and I can remember the slight blight of the
Christmas holidays was that we had to start by getting rabbit food either weeds
or holly, cut holly, and of course they got all the bolting cabbages and
lettuces and things.- we used to ride them and the pony club kept going through
the War and the Burley show kept going through the War and there were a lot of
gymkhanas in aid of, you know, "build a Spitfire" and "parcels
for prisoners of War II" and things like that. And I can remember always
hoping when we were sat around for hours in pouring rain that everybody else
would go home and then I would actually win something.....................because
I wasn't very good. But there was one great occasion when I beat a girl who was
very good in the under 12s at the Burley Show for the best rider. What I didn't
know was that her pony had a foal in the collecting ring and though she rode my
pony very competently I hadn't a clue and when I got on hers of course it tried
to go back to its foal and I was determined I wasn't going to be taken out of
the ring by this pony.............and I actually succeeded in getting it to go
passed the entrance and go on and the judges, of course, knew it had got a foal
in the collecting ring so they were duly impressed with my determination if not
my style........... did your mother cook?of course, rations were terribly tight
but we were lucky here because we had friends who, we were able to barter, we
had eggs because we had chickens and of course we used to preserve the surplus
in the Spring in water glass and mother did a huge amount of preserving in
kilner jars which did not require any sugar of vegetables and fruit and she also
kept bees so we had honey and one day a week, Fridays, when the rations ran out
we used to go out either we would walk up to The Copper Kettle at Picket Post or
at Mary's cafe down in the Village (New Forest Tea House) and have a war time
meal there. Food was fresh, it was seasonal, it was slightly monotonous, perhaps
a bit dull and I mean there weren't any things like bananas or oranges or
anything like that but we all grew a lot of soft fruit and apples and pears and
plums and, I mean, you made use of everything - nothing was wasted, everything
was recycled and used again, and again, and again and of course there was
clothes rationing too and so it was very much pass-me-down and parachutes were
the great things, old parachutes were the great things to get hold of but the
chief thing here, I remember, was before D Day there was a tent or a vehicle
under every tree and the place was absolutely hotching with troops and yet
nobody locked a door and we used to ride our bicycles and our ponies through all
these camps and nobody would ever have thought of molesting a child. There was a
flasher round at Woods Corner, Brush End which had been a school before the War
was evacuated down to Cornwall and it was taken over by the military and he was
one of the ones who were stationed there. We ran a mile from him but if you are
on a pony you have a pretty good opportunity of running faster......and I can
remember coming back from Pony Club one night, because of course blackout really
was a blackout, and this was after the black Americans arrived and all you could
see literally was the whites of their eyes and their teeth and we rather put our
heels into our ponies' sides that night. My mother was first of all what was
known as an "immobile VAD" which meant she had children under five or
something because of my brother. She worked for a bit at the hospital up at
Bisterne Close, which I think you will hear quite a lot about. I went up there
one Sunday and the chief thing I remember about it was that the insulation on
the AGA had gone and the hotplate got literally red hot. The immobile VADs were
quite quickly disbanded because they couldn't be moved because of their small
children. She then joined the WVS and did taking mobile canteen round the
aerodromes; she once got chased by a Wellington bomber on Holmsley because she
got on to the runway by mistake. The trouble with that machine was it was a very
old machine and it suffered from wheel wobble and of course they were all china
cups so you can imagine the racket and those cups were washed in the stream on
the way back in cold water so health and safety would not have liked it. It
could get quite noisy when they were bombing Southampton, it could get quite
exciting and there were over ninety bombs dropped on the forest, not one of them
in the open forest actually hit anything but I remember riding one day with Olga
Golby up through towards Old House and we met Mr. Deacon coming down in his cart
"You shouldn't go up there, me dears" he said "because of there's
a risk of unexploded bombs" so we turned and went down through Markway
where we found a parachute from a German that was up in a tree and we approached
it with a certain amount of caution but the chap had actually undone himself,
fallen through a gorse bush into the bog and floundered out on the road and been
picked up but I had to show the Police where the parachute was and my brother
thought I was being arrested. For one thing it was a controlled area and huge
areas of the forest were out of bounds. When the red flag was flying they were
firing over it, the tanks were exercising everywhere - you can still see the
tank tracks out here and all over the place where they were manoeuvring and they
tested the stuff for getting the tanks over the sand in the desert on the forest
bogs. Along the other side of the Crow Road rather unsuccessfully they sank a
tank there and for a long time there was a neat rectangular pond where the tank
had sunk. There were firing ranges out from the Crow Road out this way and there
was another one below this side of Wilverley along there and there were two
between here and Brockenhurst so there were a heck of a lot so when the red flag
was flying you couldn't and there was always the danger of unexploded ammunition
so you stayed on the tracks where they weren't. Of course the roads weren't
fenced and it was always quite exciting when you came back from Brockenhurst
from a gymkhana or pony club or something, because ponies wanted to get home,
and they canter furiously, gallop, up whether you stopped before you got to the
main road was always a matter of and the same as the A31 coming up from that
direction but of course there wasn't much traffic around which was just as well.
Then again, the health and safety - I can remember when I was six I was
absolutely delighted I was allowed to ride with the "big ones". Well
the "big ones" from Castle Top were Humphrey who would have been about
sixteen, I suppose, or even seventeen, my sister who was nine years older than
me - so I was six so she would have been fifteen - Stephanie who was the same
age as her, Josephine who was a couple of years younger and I was allowed to go
with the "big ones". Of course, I couldn't stop and... I just hoped
the pony would stop with the others but my sister invariably got run away with,
she had a very "hot bottom" so it was always a bit exciting and I used
to cling on for dear life because I would have been to in for a dig if I had
fallen off and I remember one great occasion when having had very exhilarating
gallop up Mill Lawn, we were coming back round Bisterne Close, it was the
evening and the flies were very bad, and my pony
What
age was he when he retired?
Oh.......I
would have to work it out. I mean, he retired in the end of 1946, he would have
been born - my mother was born in October 1898 - he would have been born in May
1894.........During the War the Mackworth-Praeds were wonderful. They thought
that children were missing out so they not only had what was known as The Castle
Top Academy a governess for their boys and others, of which my brother has
written a little bit about. But far more than that she also, because part of
Mudeford was the only beach that was accessible during the War for bathing, but
Castle Top had a swimming pool, it had been put in before the War. It was a bit
green and the thatched cob shed used for changing in was a bit dank but
nevertheless it was hugely appreciated and she employed a rather fearsome lady
called Miss Dawson to teach swimming and tennis because they also had a hard
tennis court too so far more than the children the Governess taught were taught
swimming and she had one evening when the swimming pool was reserved for the
scouts and cubs and another evening when it was reserved for the guides and
brownies for the whole village and she was also the only person who gave real
parties during the war because they had a shoot down on the Avon Valley and they
had wonderful parties with moorhen soup and roast swan, and things that were off
the ration. They kept cows, pigs, poultry and so on, so they had cream and
butter, and they had a big kitchen garden. Well we all had kitchen gardens. We
all kept poultry and rabbits, my mother made fur gloves and things from the
rabbit skins and we had ducks, geese and hens, and rabbits as I said, and we
used to go gleening after harvesting to get corn for the chickens. Of course
they lived on all the scraps and I can remember the slight blight of the
Christmas holidays was that we had to start by getting rabbit food either weeds
or holly, cut holly, and of course they got all the bolting cabbages and
lettuces and things.
How
long did you go the Castle Top Academy for?
I
didn't, my brother did. I was at school by then. It was a sort of pre-school
they had there and they also had seven ponies- we used to ride them and the pony
club kept going through the War and the Burley show kept going through the War
and there were a lot of gymkhanas in aid of, you know, "build a Spitfire"
and "parcels for prisoners of War II" and things like that. And I can
remember always hoping when we were sat around for hours in pouring rain that
everybody else would go home and then I would actually win something.....................because
I wasn't very good. But there was one great occasion when I beat a girl who was
very good in the under 12s at the Burley Show for the best rider. What I didn't
know was that her pony had a foal in the collecting ring and though she rode my
pony very competently I hadn't a clue and when I got on hers of course it tried
to go back to its foal and I was determined I wasn't going to be taken out of
the ring by this pony.............and I actually succeeded in getting it to go
passed the entrance and go on and the judges, of course, knew it had got a foal
in the collecting ring so they were duly impressed with my determination if not
my style...........
What
do you remember eating, what sort of things did your mother cook?
During
the War? Well, of course, rations were terribly tight but we were lucky here
because we had friends who, we were able to barter, we had eggs because we had
chickens and of course we used to preserve the surplus in the Spring in water
glass and mother did a huge amount of preserving in kilner jars which did not
require any sugar of vegetables and fruit and she also kept bees so we had honey
and one day a week, Fridays, when the rations ran out we used to go out either
we would walk up to The Copper Kettle at Picket Post or at Mary's cafe down in
the Village (New Forest Tea House) and have a war time meal there. Food was
fresh, it was seasonal, it was slightly monotonous, perhaps a bit dull and I
mean there weren't any things like bananas or oranges or anything like that but
we all grew a lot of soft fruit and apples and pears and plums and, I mean, you
made use of everything - nothing was wasted, everything was recycled and used
again, and again, and again and of course there was clothes rationing too and so
it was very much pass-me-down and parachutes were the great things, old
parachutes were the great things to get hold of but the chief thing here, I
remember, was before D Day there was a tent or a vehicle under every tree and
the place was absolutely hotching with troops and yet nobody locked a door and
we used to ride our bicycles and our ponies through all these camps and nobody
would ever have thought of molesting a child. There was a flasher round at Woods
Corner, Brush End which had been a school before the War was evacuated down to
Cornwall and it was taken over by the military and he was one of the ones who
were stationed there. We ran a mile from him but if you are on a pony you have a
pretty good opportunity of running faster......and I can remember coming back
from Pony Club one night, because of course blackout really was a blackout, and
this was after the black Americans arrived and all you could see literally was
the whites of their eyes and their teeth and we rather put our heels into our
ponies' sides that night. My mother was first of all what was known as an
"immobile VAD" which meant she had children under five or something
because of my brother. She worked for a bit at the hospital up at Bisterne
Close, which I think you will hear quite a lot about. I went up there one Sunday
and the chief thing I remember about it was that the insulation on the AGA had
gone and the hotplate got literally red hot. The immobile VADs were quite
quickly disbanded because they couldn't be moved because of their small children.
She then joined the WVS and did taking mobile canteen round the aerodromes; she
once got chased by a Wellington bomber on Holmsley because she got on to the
runway by mistake. The trouble with that machine was it was a very old machine
and it suffered from wheel wobble and of course they were all china cups so you
can imagine the racket and those cups were washed in the stream on the way back
in cold water so health and safety would not have liked it. It could get quite
noisy when they were bombing Southampton, it could get quite exciting and there
were over ninety bombs dropped on the forest, not one of them in the open forest
actually hit anything but I remember riding one day with Olga Golby up through
towards Old House and we met Mr. Deacon coming down in his cart "You
shouldn't go up there, me dears" he said "because of there's a risk of
unexploded bombs" so we turned and went down through Markway where we found
a parachute from a German that was up in a tree and we approached it with a
certain amount of caution but the chap had actually undone himself, fallen
through a gorse bush into the bog and floundered out on the road and been picked
up but I had to show the Police where the parachute was and my brother thought I
was being arrested.
Were
there a lot more tracks through the Forest then if everyone was riding horses?
No,
because there were an awful lot less people. For one thing it was a controlled
area and huge areas of the forest were out of bounds. When the red flag was
flying they were firing over it, the tanks were exercising everywhere - you can
still see the tank tracks out here and all over the place where they were
manoeuvring and they tested the stuff for getting the tanks over the sand in the
desert on the forest bogs. Along the other side of the Crow Road rather
unsuccessfully they sank a tank there and for a long time there was a neat
rectangular pond where the tank had sunk. There were firing ranges out from the
Crow Road out this way and there was another one below this side of Wilverley
along there and there were two between here and Brockenhurst so there were a
heck of a lot so when the red flag was flying you couldn't and there was always
the danger of unexploded ammunition so you stayed on the tracks where they
weren't. Of course the roads weren't fenced and it was always quite exciting
when you came back from Brockenhurst from a gymkhana or pony club or something,
because ponies wanted to get home, and they canter furiously, gallop, up whether
you stopped before you got to the main road was always a matter of and the same
as the A31 coming up from that direction but of course there wasn't much traffic
around which was just as well. Then again, the health and safety - I can
remember when I was six I was absolutely delighted I was allowed to ride with
the "big ones". Well the "big ones" from Castle Top were
Humphrey who would have been about sixteen, I suppose, or even seventeen, my
sister who was nine years older than me - so I was six so she would have been
fifteen - Stephanie who was the same age as her, Josephine who was a couple of
years younger and I was allowed to go with the "big ones". Of course,
I couldn't stop and... I just hoped the pony would stop with the others but my
sister invariably got run away with, she had a very "hot bottom" so it
was always a bit exciting and I used to cling on for dear life because I would
have been to in for a dig if I had fallen off and I remember one great occasion
when having had very exhilarating gallop up Mill Lawn, we were coming back round
Bisterne Close, it was the evening and the flies were very bad, and my pony rather
sensibly got its head under Josephine's pony's tail swishing but my pony had its
mouth open and Josephine's pony Tommy got his tail wound round my pony's bit and
we were inextribly tied together but we were never allowed to go out without a
penknife, a piece of string, sixpence and a clean handkerchief - there was
something else, there were five items we had to take - and so of course Humphrey
produced a penknife and hacked the tail off. We got a terrible rocket when we
got back for ruining Tommy's tail. Of course the odd thing in a way during the
War was that people had gardeners and maids and of course there were the
evacuees. We had an evacuee from Portsmouth and her mother, her father was in
the Merchant Navy, and Sesca was the same age as me and I think it was quite
unusual but I kept up correspondence and Sesca used to come out and visit and
stay and so on all her life; she died about two years ago and I think that was
quite unusual. I can remember her mother used to make her dresses by the simple
principle of towing a piece of material into half and cutting a hole for her
head and binding round it and sewing up the sides. It was a restricted area and
people weren't allowed in and out without a permit much but we didn't notice it
much at the time.
a
few civilians who got petrol - my mother got a gallon a month which you had to
go the other side of Ringwood to collect so you made sure you did all your
shopping in Ringwood once a month when you went to collect your gallon. At the
beginning of the War she bought a baby Austin for £19, licensed and insured for
six months, and she went to buy a hen house and she came back with a baby Austin
and a hen house because my father still had the car out in Malta and she felt
she could not do without a car. She got a gallon a month because my grandmother
was over 70 and we were more than a mile from a railway station and a mile from
a Church and shops. Actually we were three quarters of a mile, but pulled that
one, and so she got a little, a very small petrol allowance but that was all. I
can remember her coming back terrified one night because she had been up to the
hospital on night duty, came back in the dark, and the headlights were
completely blacked out except for an inch across the middle. The headlights on
an ancient baby Austin were never very good and she found herself in the middle
of the cricket pitch...............and that did give her a fright. who stayed on
and was nanny to all of us and then stayed on, she stayed on as my grandmother's
lady's maid after my mother grew up and then she took us all on as nanny and
then she became cook when servants completely disappeared. My grandmother, in
Beacon Corner, she had a cook and a housemaid and Maggie House or Mrs. Dodge who
came in to help clean. And she had Mr. Dodge as the gardener and a boy to help
him part-time, some of the time. In that, well she called it her cottage, you
know, it was so different and during the war they gradually disappeared.?The
servants left at the beginning of the War but Dodge stayed on. He was, of course,
in the Home Guard, but he stayed on as gardener because, of course, growing
vegetables was a very important work and, of course, quite a lot of people had
sort of part time land girls with their poultry and their gardens and so on.
Burbush House was commandeered as a hostel for the Land Girls. So, Burley was a
completely self contained village until, I suppose, about the early 60's well no
50's some time.from?
How
did they stop people getting in and out of the area?
I
have no idea. I mean trains and things, I mean the petrol rationing was so tight
that the only a few civilians who got petrol - my mother got a gallon a month
which you had to go the other side of Ringwood to collect so you made sure you
did all your shopping in Ringwood once a month when you went to collect your
gallon. At the beginning of the War she bought a baby Austin for £19, licensed
and insured for six months, and she went to buy a hen house and she came back
with a baby Austin and a hen house because my father still had the car out in
Malta and she felt she could not do without a car. She got a gallon a month
because my grandmother was over 70 and we were more than a mile from a railway
station and a mile from a Church and shops. Actually we were three quarters of a
mile, but pulled that one, and so she got a little, a very small petrol
allowance but that was all. I can remember her coming back terrified one night
because she had been up to the hospital on night duty, came back in the dark,
and the headlights were completely blacked out except for an inch across the
middle. The headlights on an ancient baby Austin were never very good and she
found herself in the middle of the cricket pitch...............and that did give
her a fright.
Your
mother made your clothes?
Yes.
Most of them and we had an old nanny, who had been my mother's nanny who stayed
on and was nanny to all of us and then stayed on, she stayed on as my
grandmother's lady's maid after my mother grew up and then she took us all on as
nanny and then she became cook when servants completely disappeared. My
grandmother, in Beacon Corner, she had a cook and a housemaid and Maggie House
or Mrs. Dodge who came in to help clean. And she had Mr. Dodge as the gardener
and a boy to help him part-time, some of the time. In that, well she called it
her cottage, you know, it was so different and during the war they gradually
disappeared.
Where
did they all live?
The
cook and the housemaid slept together in one of the rooms in the house. They
lived in. Then of course it was when they left then there were refugees, the
evacuees had that room. The servants left at the beginning of the War but Dodge
stayed on. He was, of course, in the Home Guard, but he stayed on as gardener
because, of course, growing vegetables was a very important work and, of course,
quite a lot of people had sort of part time land girls with their poultry and
their gardens and so on. Burbush House was commandeered as a hostel for the Land
Girls. So, Burley was a completely self contained village until, I suppose,
about the early 60's well no 50's some time.
Could
you buy a lot of goods from?
There
were three grocers or more, I think that is what I wrote here.
When
my grandmother came to Burley in the first decade of the 20th Century Burley was
a Forest village where losing a cow was a disaster and the hat was passed round
the village to fund a "replacement". Every house had a well, the
better off had engines that daily pumped water from the well to the tank in the
attic. A few houses had a similar engine to generate electricity. Mains
electricity came in 1936 or 1937, main water just before and gas to a very few
houses just before World War II. It came up here because Mr. Henderson-Scott was
a director of the Gas Board and so that was why it came to this part of the
Village and not to most of the rest of it.
Mr.
Boyle ran a bus service to Christchurch and Ringwood in what was known as
"The Burley Pig", a green fat bodied, snubbed nosed vehicle which
didn't always work, I mean it tended to break down occasionally and it took over
from Mr. Eastlake's carriage which was what was used during my mother's
childhood.
Burley
was very self-sufficient. Nearly everyone had a kitchen garden and fruit trees.
There was a village policeman, a doctor, a gas man and two electricians. The
doctor lived at the Tree House in the middle of the village and had his surgery
there. From the mid 1930's there was a district nurse. The church had a large
Victorian vicarage, which Mr. Eastman was the last vicar to inhabit. The Chapel
also had a resident minister. The organ had a boy who worked the bellows and we
would watch him going up and down every Sunday and we used to sit in the pew
under my grandmother said "under Admiral Prothero, and the Mackworth-Praeds
sat in front and I used to envy Josephine and Stephanie their long fair hair.......I
wanted long hair then too. There was Shutlers garage at Burley Street and in the
village. There was, of course, a blacksmith first of all at the Queens, then it
moved down to where the garage building was last then and finally to Burley
Street where it is now a bungalow. There was, of course, the school and the
Headmaster lived in the cottage there, Mr. Medway and the Church not only had a
vicar but it also had a sexton, what do you call it.
My
grandmother got Nurse Jones in the 1920's and I was one of her babies.
The
Queen's Head and the Work Men's Club, and of course there was the WI and various
others catered for leisure time. The Headmaster lived next to the school. Mr.
Todd, the shoemaker did minor saddlery repairs for 9d old money (about 3.5p
today!) Shutlers had a garage at Burley Street and another in the Village
because there were three brothers. The third brother used to run a hunter livery
at the Manor Stables and he was a forest agister for a bit. He'd started life as
groom to Lord Lucas up at Picket Post. There was a bakery at Lester Square. Two
butchers, one was killed by the rationing I think; butchers had to be paid by
the Government not to sell meat! There was a Post office/ grocers at Burley
Street and a fishmonger who after the War also mended clocks and they used came
back smelling strongly of fish. There was Bromfield and Waters and Misslebrook
and Westons groceries in the Village and Pound Lane Stores and then there was
the Post Office of course which was also the telephone exchange where Felicity
Hardcastle worked during the War as well as running the Cubs and teaching them
how to bake squirrels and hedgehogs and so on in clay. She knew everybody's
business, she used to say "It is no good ringing them, they are at lunch
with so and so" and on one occasion my grandmother gave her own number and
said Burley 72 , "you are 72" said Felicity, so she said "No I'm
not I am 80". Bromfield and Waters fell victim to the rationing, I think.
They used to have seats you know, biscuit boxes and blue sugar paper and all
that sort of stuff. Moormans, Mrs. Moorman used to live in a cage, you know, one
of those built round in the corner where the door is now and my sister said she
could remember when she could just get her chin on it and it had a spike where
the receipts used to go on. Next there were two banks and the shop that is now
the souvenir shop, there was a bicycle shop at one juncture next in what was
Broomfield and Waters and next to that was Mrs. Evemy's drapers shop and then
there was Post Office at Burley Street too and for a bit there was the bicycle
shop, haberdashery at the end of the row, there were two Banks operating twice a
week. Next to the Queens Head was one of two newsagents/tobacconists and on the
corner of Garden Road was Miss Kirkman the chemist, whilst up the hill by the
Club was Lawfords Ironmongers. George Lawford was the plumber and he used to go
round praying over people's - always used to put his hand together and look as
if he was praying over your boiler and of course there was Dovey's builders
yard. Before the War there was a Toy Factory just in Pound Lane, just beyond
Lawfords and the front of the shop was like a Noah's Ark with the sign of the
dove with an olive branch in its mouth and they used to make lovely solid wooden
toys from local material and it was the last idea of Mr. Clough, who of course
also built and had orchards around the Village. He was great on getting local
employment. He went broke and so it was actually Colonel Mundy and somebody else
who financed the toy factory and Cloughville which was built to house the
workers in the toy factory with the foreman's house on the end. The toys as I
said there was a lovely fort with a central tower and it all packed into its
base and there was a wooden gun with an elastic band and you fired and if you
hit the central tower it was on a spring and it all blew up. There was a war
ship that did the same thing and there was a lovely dolls house like a forest
cottage, various lovely toys which we all had as small children. Then of course
during the war it folded and that became a small munitions works during the war
and after the war it was taken over by the Ordnance Survey for a bit and then,
of course, the sort of Army hut that was a workshop behind the shop was pulled
down and there are now two houses there. There were also during the War sawmills
at Woods Corner and at the top of Lucy Hill and enough timber was extracted from
the forest during the war, so they told us, to build a bridge from Southampton
to New York 9ft wide and 2inches thick, so quite a lot came out of that.
Holmsley
Station won the prize for the most traffic per employee. Well the employee was
one and they, they did the leave traffic and so on for Holmsley aerodrome and
also there was a big gravel pit out there so both the gravel and the timber all
went out and there was another big Saw Mill, of course, where there still is at
Holmsley and these various small ones round the Forest which left the most
enormous piles of sawdust. Amazing how they disappeared but Frank Shutler had a
totally unstoppable thoroughbred, but by galloping down the track in Oakley into
this enormous pile of sawdust which was about 6 ft high and about 20 ft wide.
That stopped it.......really completely self supporting. It did have the
reputation of being a bit exclusive.
How
did they move the timber - by road?
By
rail. Holmsley Station won the prize for the most traffic per employee. Well the
employee was one and they, they did the leave traffic and so on for Holmsley
aerodrome and also there was a big gravel pit out there so both the gravel and
the timber all went out and there was another big Saw Mill, of course, where
there still is at Holmsley and these various small ones round the Forest which
left the most enormous piles of sawdust. Amazing how they disappeared but Frank
Shutler had a totally unstoppable thoroughbred, but by galloping down the track
in Oakley into this enormous pile of sawdust which was about 6 ft high and about
20 ft wide. That stopped it.......
It
sounds like Burley was a really busy place?
It
was and as I say really completely self supporting. It did have the reputation
of being a bit exclusive.
Shutlers,
of course, also ran a taxi service and Holmsley Station was functioning then -
that was one of Dr. Beeching's cuts.
There
was a full time verger/gravedigger and of course there was Picket Post - there
was The Kettle and there was the cafe in Pound Lane. The Manor Tea rooms
actually closed during the War and they also, before the War, had Tea Rooms at
Holmsley Station.
Were
there visitors to Burley before the War?
Yes,
but not many. The hotel started - well the Willans were the last tenants - I
can't remember it when it wasn't a hotel but my sister could remember being
taken by my grandmother when she was about five or six to call on Mrs. Willan
and was very impressed because Mrs. Willan kept a man-trap in the hall......
ich
Hotel was that?Moorhill was a home for non-conformist clergyman or something
like that and, of course, Old House, Auberon Herbert lived out there, his wife
wouldn't have the servants in the house so the two little places were built and
Mr. Deacon, lived out there and that was an illegal bacon factory during the
World War II. There was quite a lot done, of course, obviously trying to get
round the various -- Auberon Herbert was supposed to haunt Old House in a deer
stalker with a, you know, sort of fishing bag and so on and plus four things -
what were they - Norfolk breeches I think and a jacket thing round. I reckon I
say him once and just after the War, after the army left - because they
commandeered it during the War, it was in a terrible state - some boys from the
Village went up there and they were poking around and they found an old tea
chest and they looked inside and found it was full of skulls. You wouldn't
believe how fast they ran. And they ran over the Jorden, which is the little
ditch at the beginning of the stream there because there was a Forest law, well
a Forest myth, that witches and things couldn't cross water so you always had to
run over water if you thought you were being pursued by spirits. Of course,
actually he had been an anthropologist and they were plaster casts but it was
still quite alarming to find and then the old Old House was pulled down and
Dudley Forward built what's there now so we said we'd seen the newest Stately
Home in the oldest forest and the address was New Forest, Old House. The
daffodils were there as long as I can remember. The gypsies used to go up and
scythe them. The gypsies were quite a feature at Thorney Hill - Anne Powell will
tell you about them, she used to take the chickens off the bed before she could
deliver the baby. They used to come round asking for flowers to put on the old
man's grave and if you said "yes" they would take a certain number but
if you said "no" there was a mark on your gate and they would come in
the night and scythe the lot. They were known as "didikoys"; I think
they were more tinkers than real gypsies - but anyway they were quite a feature
and obviously there was a lot of snaring and ferreting and so on that went on
and the red deer population got down to three during the War but I suspect that
was more the American army than anybody else.. Where does the witches in Burley
bit come from? her name, the witch woman? I will think of it presently - she
also had a tame jackdaw and this jackdaw got away from her one day and sat on
the corner of the stables and I was taking some small children for a ride and
the jackdaw came too. The jackdaw perched on the children's hats and backs of
the ponies and those children were terrified. Couldn't get rid of the ruddy
thing - eventually it flew off and went back to her I imagine but she pulled a
lot of stories.she took herself off to America where I think she did even better.
Which
Hotel was that?
The
Manor Hotel. Moorhill was a home for non-conformist clergyman or something like
that and, of course, Old House, Auberon Herbert lived out there, his wife
wouldn't have the servants in the house so the two little places were built and
Mr. Deacon, lived out there and that was an illegal bacon factory during the
World War II. There was quite a lot done, of course, obviously trying to get
round the various -- Auberon Herbert was supposed to haunt Old House in a deer
stalker with a, you know, sort of fishing bag and so on and plus four things -
what were they - Norfolk breeches I think and a jacket thing round. I reckon I
say him once and just after the War, after the army left - because they
commandeered it during the War, it was in a terrible state - some boys from the
Village went up there and they were poking around and they found an old tea
chest and they looked inside and found it was full of skulls. You wouldn't
believe how fast they ran. And they ran over the Jorden, which is the little
ditch at the beginning of the stream there because there was a Forest law, well
a Forest myth, that witches and things couldn't cross water so you always had to
run over water if you thought you were being pursued by spirits. Of course,
actually he had been an anthropologist and they were plaster casts but it was
still quite alarming to find and then the old Old House was pulled down and
Dudley Forward built what's there now so we said we'd seen the newest Stately
Home in the oldest forest and the address was New Forest, Old House. The
daffodils were there as long as I can remember. The gypsies used to go up and
scythe them. The gypsies were quite a feature at Thorney Hill - Anne Powell will
tell you about them, she used to take the chickens off the bed before she could
deliver the baby. They used to come round asking for flowers to put on the old
man's grave and if you said "yes" they would take a certain number but
if you said "no" there was a mark on your gate and they would come in
the night and scythe the lot. They were known as "didikoys"; I think
they were more tinkers than real gypsies - but anyway they were quite a feature
and obviously there was a lot of snaring and ferreting and so on that went on
and the red deer population got down to three during the War but I suspect that
was more the American army than anybody else.
You
mentioned the schoolboys and the witches. Where does the witches in Burley
bit come from?
Oh,
that was later and that was a purely commercial undertaking, I think. I think
she did very well out of that. The only thing she did do, which I think was
rather nice, was outside Ridley she hung moons and bells on an oak tree.
Who
was she?
What
was her name, the witch woman? I will think of it presently - she also had a
tame jackdaw and this jackdaw got away from her one day and sat on the corner of
the stables and I was taking some small children for a ride and the jackdaw came
too. The jackdaw perched on the children's hats and backs of the ponies and
those children were terrified. Couldn't get rid of the ruddy thing - eventually
it flew off and went back to her I imagine but she pulled a lot of stories.
This
was after the War
Oh
yes, I thing that was in the 60's or even later but then she took herself off to
America where I think she did even better.
There
was also the PNEU school of course before the War run by Miss Passey and her
sister, Izult, who was, well I don't know they were both a trifle mad honestly.
They had their netball pitch outside the school and it was the first school I
ever went too.
Passey's
PNEU School that was round at Brush End on Forest Road and as I say their
netball pitch was out on the forest outside. Izult, the headmistress's sister,
kept, bred forest ponies and of course so did Miss Jackson next door. My sister
started riding there and then the elder
Burley
Village School?
No,
no, Miss Passey's PNEU School that was round at Brush End on Forest Road and as
I say their netball pitch was out on the forest outside. Izult, the
headmistress's sister, kept, bred forest ponies and of course so did Miss
Jackson next door. My sister started riding there and then the elder
Miss
Jackson, I think they kept liveries as well, the elder Miss Jackson was killed
by being kicked on the head by, I think it was one of these liveries and the
younger Miss Jackson rather surprisingly went on with the riding school and she
carried on right through the War and she had Olga Golby who was a rather
mysterious character and the girlfriend of Ben Watson at North Farm. She always
wore a dust coat with a leather belt and the most revolting brown felt hat which
was so greasy that eventually Gillian Finlayson peeled it off her head and threw
it up into the tree where it stuck and the bridge parted company from the crown
but she taught us. My sister thought she had very pale blue eyes and mousy hair
and her teeth were the same colour as her hair and her skin was much the same
colour as it all but Eleanor never got on with her but I did because she used to
teach me about the Forest as we went round as well as the riding and she was
very kind to me. She gave me my first stud book as a Christmas present, which
got me completely hooked and she helped me a lot when my mother gave me Bramble
for my thirteenth birthday she helped me get her home and halter broke her and
do everything and I used to go to shows with them and had an enormous amount of
fun. They and the Mackworth-Praed's were the two influences in my life and of
course Miss Jackson also kept cattle. She had two house cows and used to give me
cream to take home and so on which was lovely and I spent a huge amount of time
round there. I remember one occasion when there was a "foot and mouth"
epidemic and she got a licence to move three heifers provided they were led from
here to Burley Lodge where she got some grazing for them because they couldn't
go out on the forest and they weren't really halter-broken. They went charging
and bucking and so on along and they had little horns because they weren't very
old - they were only yearlings I think, but anyway this heifer got its horn
under the front of my shirt - all the buttons came off, so it was a bit
embarrassing - I had to sort of tie my shirt across - so I was helping them do
that. But, as I say, she taught me a lot and she used to tell me what was going
on as she was on the Pony Society Council and so on. So there were the two -
there was Miss Jackson breeding and taking children at Brookside and there was
the PNEU school next door where Iscell kept ponies and bred and used to take all
the children from the school. Twice a week when I first went to that school I
used to ride home from school, which I adored and I can remember the first time
I ever fell off a pony was in Gibraltar where the Admiral had a Shetland pony
and I used to ride that, and I fell off one day when it stopped dead when it saw
its reflection in a puddle when it hadn't rained for about four months, and my
mother caught me and I yelled - not because I was hurt- but because there were a
whole lot of soldiers on parade and I was very embarrassed about having fallen
off in front of them. The second time I fell off was going up the track to Turf
Croft; we were cantering and I don't quite know what happened, it swerved or
something and I fell off and the pony went on cantering up the hill and I was
terribly upset because I was quite convinced I would never see the pony again -
I was only six. The girl who was taking me from Miss Passey said "oh don't
worry, don't worry, it won't go far - we'll find it eating" and sure enough,
of course, when we got round the corner, round the back by the gorse bushes
there it was eating so that was alright.
That
was quite fun, but that was one of the other schools that was in Burley. Then,
of course, after the War there was one opposite Mill House, can't remember what
that was called, but she had a little school there. The person who can tell you
about that would be Brenda Farrell because she taught there.
I
think probably our generation that lived through the War, is probably the
healthiest ever because Lord Woolton, who I think has always been very
underestimated what he did as Minister of Food, his rations were actually
extremely good, very little fat, not a lot of sugar, not a lot of red meat - a
shilling a week - but vegetables and fruit and bread were never rationed during
the War, it was the Labour Government that rationed bread and cakes and things
after the War so it was actually an extremely healthy diet and, of course,
because there was no petrol we had to either walk, ride or bicycle everywhere
and we thought nothing of taking plenty of exercise - the only other place you
could swim was in the salt-water bath at Lymington - and we used to bicycle to
swim there - ten miles there and ten miles back. I can remember one ghastly
occasion when the bearing on the wheel wasn't working and it was such hard work
because it wasn't running free and my mother kept swearing at me you know "come
on keep up, we've got to get back". She couldn't understand why I was so
slow. My father came home on leave and he looked at it and he said "Well, I
am not surprised the wheel hardly goes round at all". So, we used to do
that and we used to go every Easter on the bus to Ringwood and then the bus up
to Breamore and then walk up round Breamore House and up to the Mizmaize and I
can still remember under the wall of Breamore House there were wallflowers and
forget-me-nots and polyanthus and they were lovely. You know, I can still see
that. My mother used to go and laugh at the memorials in the Church - very 18th
century about the man who put in London sewerage. But there is a lovely memorial
in the Churchyard here which is practically unreadable and it needs digging out.
It was to Mr. Watham-Bartlett and it says he was "watchful of lizards, a
warm friend to trees, and a traveller in stony places which to him were not
barren". Now don't you think that needs preserving............?
So
I always feel that you could do quite a good quiz around the church - find the
church mouse, find the Spitfire, how many flowers and animals are there in the
Henderson-Scott window - and you would be surprised how many there are and what
the significance of them is and so on. Can you find the crossed hockey sticks,
and why are they there. You know, there is a lot there that is actually
interesting and, of course, the really interesting thing about Burley which has
never been emphasised enough is that, with Fritham, just about the only example
of what used to be a very common characteristic, which is a village entirely
surrounded with common land which makes it an island, but the common land
penetrates into the Village and there are a lot of island sites, land that has
got forest all round it, but there are also a certain number that have been
returned to the forest at one stage or another and there are mounds that were
marl pits where the cob was dug and also fertiliser for the fields and of course
digging marl for fertilizer is one of the six common rights which is no longer
being used, but it still exists and out across the moor there, there are bronze
age barrows, bronze age field banks - Burnt Axon says it all because "Axon"
is Saxon and burnt pretty well says what happened to it and it is almost
certainly a holding that was thrown back into the Forest by William. Beyond that
the bog shows extensive 18th century peat cuttings when the turf right was the
most commonly used common right used and you can see where the track went down
to get it out and there are various places like just up here there is a ring
fence back in the forest now but there was a cob cottage there once and when my
mother was a child she said there was an old lady who lived there with her cow
and she used to take the cow for walks...... and decorate it.
it?
Age workings up there and the Eyre Stone in that property which they have just
redone but they have moved it. It was by the front door but it now by the back
with its lovely 18th century sentiment at the bottom saying "Be civil,
sober and useful" which again is nice and, of course, there are Bronze Age
tumuli all round the Village. My brother and the McGregors and Benjamin
Mackworth-Praed actually excavated one near Berry and they found an urn which is
now in the Red House Museum so Burley has been inhabited since Bronze Age times
but of course these fields almost certainly by the time of the conquest had lost
fertility, because the Bronze Age people cut down so many trees, they made the
moors and they made the bogs and so the land leeched out and very soon it
wouldn't grow anything worth having but they had found wheat pollen in soil
samples.
Whereabouts
along Castle Lane is it?
Just
above here, on the right, just before you get to Cranes Moor and then of course
there's the Bronze Age workings up there and the Eyre Stone in that property
which they have just redone but they have moved it. It was by the front door but
it now by the back with its lovely 18th century sentiment at the bottom saying
"Be civil, sober and useful" which again is nice and, of course, there
are Bronze Age tumuli all round the Village. My brother and the McGregors and
Benjamin Mackworth-Praed actually excavated one near Berry and they found an urn
which is now in the Red House Museum so Burley has been inhabited since Bronze
Age times but of course these fields almost certainly by the time of the
conquest had lost fertility, because the Bronze Age people cut down so many
trees, they made the moors and they made the bogs and so the land leeched out
and very soon it wouldn't grow anything worth having but they had found wheat
pollen in soil samples.
But
of course the names give it away. I mean, Chapel Haye with Ladywell Lane just
outside that would have been where the pre-reformation minor chapel was and it
would have been our lady's well and they think at one time there were three
manors here and Stocks Farm would have been a manor house at one time and of
course you can see where the window tax affected it and it was supposed to have
a smugglers passage underneath the road.
But
the village has changed; you have still got the commoners animals going through
it but what you haven't got is the commoners, which is actually a bit of a
disaster. About sixty years ago there were still quite a lot of commoners. Pound
Farm was still a farm selling what was known as liquid milk. Burbush was still a
farm and it had its platform outside where the milk was collected. Watts used to
live in the thatch cottage down the Pound and Chestnut Cottage was his cowshed
and all that which is now Warnes Lane Council houses - that was a farm during
the War. And, of course, Pound Farm had all the estate that has been built up
that side.
Vereley,
after the War, Mrs. Watham-Bartlett was still there and she allowed the
Pony Society to have the Stallion in Hand there for three or four years until
she died. Then, it was bought by some people called Caldwell and they ran a herd
of Jerseys there and they had a cowwoman - nobody actually knew whether it was a
man or woman, there was great speculation on this subject. And, they had two
daughters who were at the same school as me but as I say there was a lot and
then Vereley was farmed and Turf Croft was farmed and various small-holdings up
round Bisterne Close and so on and I say it wasn't until after the War that you
got the really major changes when the population doubled. Before that, commoning
for a long time had been uneconomic on its own but what you got here was people
retiring either from the Services or the Colonies and they bought the Victorian
villas and the Mr. Clough's houses and so on and right back to about the middle
of the 19th century they were coming here. It was a lovely place to retire to,
there was a lot going on. It was very good for all sporting points of view and
they employed the commoners, of course, as gardeners and their wives as
domestics and so on and that's what kept commoning going then. And, most of them
would have a bit of land on which they would keep probably a hunter or two,
originally a trap pony or so on and a house cow and if they had any surplus they
would let it to the commoner who worked for them, virtually for nothing but more
or less to keep their privacy but then times changed and the thing I miss most
is the cow bells because when everybody had a house cow and you had to find it
for milking and they all had bells and it was the most lovely noise. I remember
my brother was absolutely terrified of it when he came back from Gibraltar and
hadn't met it before, for a little while anyway - he was very upset by the cow
bells but I thought they were absolutely lovely. But they went, of course, and
it's not been good actually the change from dairy cattle to beef. We have lost
the traditional Channel Island cross cow which went back to the monks at
Beaulieu. It was a Brindle, like the Normandy cattle are still today, and the
commoners loved the Brindles and although there was never a brindle bull licence
they used to keep any brindles they could. I remember Miss Jackson had a Brindle
cow.
ith
Channel Islands again and again the actual ones from Normandy were dual purpose
they were much heavier so in a way it's a pity they don't get a bull from
Normandy and cross it with some of the cattle and try and get that back because,
of course, when they went to beef because you have to have animals that have
adapted to the Forest they couldn't go direct to breeding satisfactory beef they
went through where they crossed their Channel Island crosses first with
Herefords and then with Blue Greys and then with Chevrolets and then, now, with
real hefty beef cattle and the snag of that is that there are far fewer
commoners running much larger herds and that doesn't do anything for the balance
of the grazing, the distribution of the grazing, but they are also much bigger,
heavier cattle so they poach more and they are far more destructive with fences
so from the Forest point of view and the residents' point of view it's a
retrograde step but, of course, it was inevitable when they stopped collecting
milk at the farm gate. Cooking, and in between whiles helped Nancy Keymer who
was at that time doing the riding at the school at Campden House. Nancy Keymer (nee
Tate) had been brought up in Burley Grange down Mill Lawn, the big house
-Georgian House there, yes Burley Grange - she was brought up there but
unfortunately, sadly, she lost both her father and her brother during the War
and her mother moved to a little house down Garden Road called Croftlands in
Garden Road.around by Fisherman's Walk...........Either that, or bicycle and
sometimes we bicycled. Alternatively, we bicycled to Christchurch but Nancy,
there was a private school started after the War in Campden House and they had a
pony for their child and they asked Nancy to do the riding for the school and
she had about half-a-dozen ponies and I helped her and I provided a couple more
and so first of I worked for her. I then went down to Sussex and did six months
training down there and got my BHS Instructors certificate and, Assistant
Instructors Certificate, and then I came back and worked for her until she got
married and went out to Cyprus so I took over the riding at the School and then
the School got too big and moved to Downton and I didn't want to go over to
Downton every day so I started up on my own and one year I had 196 different
children so, you know, I wouldn't say I could ever have lived on the profits but
by living at home it paid its way and paid for the keep of the ponies and
allowed me to breed Forest ponies and show Forest ponies which is what I really
wanted to do, and then, of course, Raymond Bennett put me up for the Council,
which was lovely, and I was very flattered that I was put up by an Agister and
then in 1966 I took over from Mrs. Parsons as Secretary of the Pony Society and
I did that for 34 years and in due course I was on the Commoners Council and the
New Forest Association Council, which I still am. The commoners threw me off
because when the Ministry gave up licensing stallions for which there had been
and exemption here, for all ponies running in their native habitats, the Breed
Societies took over the licensing and we insisted, we got together with the Vets
and the other Breed Societies, and we drew up a list of hereditary diseases
based on the Ministry Licence, but that went back to about 1890 so it needed a
little revision, and all the Breed Societies agreed on a minimum with certain
additions, particular to their area. We put in an addition that we wanted a
second inspection not just at two but also at five because we were very keen not
to let the ponies get too big and we were also very keen that they should be
examined when they got their adult teeth because grazing on the forest it is
essential that the teeth meet square. So we added that and the Welsh added, they
had a particular problem with the twisted testicle, and we added that in due
course and we also had a problem with sweet itch so we added that, and so on. I
always thought my greatest achievement was in persuading the Verderers to accept
the proper vetting of stallions. The commoners hated me for it, they thought it
was an interference with their rights and they threw me off their Council. But I
am very glad to say that this year when I got my MBE they wrote me a
congratulatory letter so perhaps all is forgiven and I think they have now
accepted it and fortunately the thing that really made it acceptable was what we
had the problem here was called "heath cramp" locally, sublaxation of
the patella -knee joint going out - and the Agisters were always being called
out to ponies with broken legs and they would go out, they would suspect it was
one of these "heath cramp" mares but they always had to go and they
wasted an enormous amount of time going out to the same mare again and again and
again and when they got there they clapped their hands and she would
go"eeeeeeeeeeeeee" and perfectly sound gallop off - another heath
cramp one. Quite soon after we introduced that as one of the things the
stallions couldn't have it dramatically fell. I think the commoners, some of the
commoners anyway, thought well if you don't allow it in stallions perhaps we had
better not keep and breed from a mare that does it and they knew it was tiresome
for the Agisters, so the Agisters were delighted that they were no longer called
out to these and I think that was probably what turned the table - Dartmoor had
no stallion control and Dartmoor has been a disaster since - it didn't have
Agisters or Verderers and, of course, it was because the Forest had its own Acts
and it had the Verderers and so on that it wasn't made a National Park in 1949
and instead they reconstituted the Verderers Court but there were two fatal
flaws in their reconstitution one was that the only source of income the
Verderers had was either giving away whey leaves and bits of the Forest in
compensation for loss of grazing, which was not a good idea or from the marking
fees and the marking fees are not a grazing fee, they are a fee which actually
pays the agisters' wages to supervise the animals on the Forest so the Verderers
had no money to run their office or anything like that. Also, although nothing
in theory could be done on the open forest without their consent, it didn't
apply to the private lands or the Forestry commission lands and the Forest
desperately, desperately needed a buffer zone. It was too closed in between
Bournemouth and Southampton so the County, the District Council, introduced the
heritage Zone which virtually was a buffer zone. They tried to have National
Park planning in the buffer zone in the heritage area but unfortunately, of
course, it was only a local arrangement and it had no legal standing and for
every application that was turned down it went to Appeal and 99% of them were
over-ruled so it simply didn't work. Nicholas Ridley was the worst offender - he
over-ruled them over and over and over again so they said "Well, what's the
point" and that is really the justification for a National Park which
otherwise is a waste of money and another layer of bureaucracy and has actually
what they call a "democratic deficit in its constitution" but there
you are and, of course, the thing that really annoyed people was when John
Prescott said he had given it to the Nation - well George III did that - so -
and another big mistake was under the old arrangement the public had privilege
of access to the Forest. The commoners and the Crown were the only people who
had rights. The public had privilege of access. Well that, if you have a
privilege it implies that it could be taken away even though it wouldn't be and
it implied that you look after it. Now they have a right to roam and if you have
a right you can do what you like. It did not make any practical difference but
it was a disastrous change of attitude. The litter problem is appalling and the
vandalism and so on is very sad so that is how things go isn't it? The continued
Urbanization is another and the commoning is always under threat from one source
and another and yet it is absolutely essential for the survival of the forest so
we have to keep plugging on and hope that times will change a bit but whether
they will or not...... one of the big problems is that, well you know the
percentage of holiday homes here and the percentage of commoners to the
population is less than a tenth of one percent so they are so outnumbered that
though in some ways they have been given quite a bit of help it's still very
unbalanced and as I say the lack of back-up grazing, because you can't common
without "in buy" grazing and so much of the grazing in the "core"
of the forest has gone, here and in Brockenhurst and everywhere else and that is
meaning the commoners have got grazing a long way away which is unsatisfactory
from the welfare point of view, if nothing else. But it is the only way they can
survive; also they can't afford the house prices to live here. now? to let their
dogs chase deer, particularly dogs that chase them out of their own property,
the deer have become much taller and with the increase in the number of people
in the depths of the forest so there is nowhere now quiet enough for the deer to
hide out. You may have noticed that the Forestry Commission are very jumpy about
deer - they will not allow any permissions in October when the rut in on because
any zoo keeper will tell you the most dangerous animal in the zoo is the stag
when he is rutting, and they are terrified that sooner or later a dog will go
for a deer, the owner will go in to rescue the dog and be killed by the deer and
I think it is an accident waiting to happen but I don't think the number of deer
has increased. The Forestry Commission do an enormous cull every year. What has
happened is they have got much tamer and they never used to come into the fields
and gardens because they were frightened of people's dogs and the buckhounds
drove them back from the villages into the middle of the Forest - they only
killed about eight or nine a year - but they chased back these deer twice a week
- they had a very long season - from August to May, but not October because of
the rut. They did a very good job and this is one of the unconsidered
consequences of banning hunting and I think a certain amount of chasing of deer
by dogs was probably a darned good thing but you are not allowed to do it now.
Unfortunately, the dogs that chase deer out in the open will also chase cattle
and ponies and this is another big problem because dogs that are brought up in
the forest from puppies treat the cattle and ponies as part of the landscape and
don't take any notice of them but visitors who bring dogs in the dogs say "Ooh
whoopee" and they are a prize menace - they chase riders, they chase cattle
- we had a horrible occasion when somebody who had a rescue dog and they thought
well it would be a lovely place to let it go free and it tore the throat out of
a foal and they were absolutely appalled but, you know, this sort of thing it
happens and it is very difficult to know what you can do and the answer is not
all dogs on leads, the answer is control your dog and so many people take no
effort to teach their dog anything. after all the Forest was made for hunting -
hunting deer.... and it's such a traditional sport. I mean our only contribution
to Art is the sporting print, the sporting picture, mostly hunting, it is so
much part of our tradition and as I say all the field craft that went with it
and goes with it, looking to see where the birds are getting up and that sort of
thing, you lose that. You can work out where a human is going to go, working out
where a wild animal is going to go is another matter and I don't know if you
read Airey Neaves' book about his escape from Colditz but he was hunted by
bloodhounds literally for his life and he used the skills of field craft that
he'd learnt hunting and got away. He did all the business about running through
a muck heap to disguise his own smell, running along the top of a wall, going
through water upstream - all these things he did it and he said when he was
being hunted the adrenaline was running so high that he wasn't afraid but when
he was in what was supposed to be a safe place - which was a barn- the loft of a
barn, he said he was absolutely in a blue funk because he knew if that trap door
opened and anyone came up he had had it. So he said, I don't believe hunting is
cruel because I think the adrenaline is running and they are either killed
quickly before that's died down or they get away scot free, whereas there is too
much poor shooting when the animals were injured and so on and trapping, snaring
and the most cruel thing of all, of course, is the humane trap actually.s - you
mentioned you mostly existed on things that were locally produced - what would
you eat for breakfast when you were young?we had eggs in all forms and, of
course, toast and honey or, not marmalade so much, but jam - honey we had mostly
of course because as I said my mother had bees so we were lucky. There was a lot
of barter that went on, people used to swap fruit and vegetables of course when
they had a surplus and there used to be one egg for a box of rabbit food and,
you know, people used to do things like that.?
What
colour were they?
Fawn,
with black or dark chocolate brown stripes. Quite unusual and a certain amount
of white some of them had, not a lot, but they were very distinctive and they
were really the Forest cattle but they were dairy cattle and light because they
had been crossed with Channel Islands again and again the actual ones from
Normandy were dual purpose they were much heavier so in a way it's a pity they
don't get a bull from Normandy and cross it with some of the cattle and try and
get that back because, of course, when they went to beef because you have to
have animals that have adapted to the Forest they couldn't go direct to breeding
satisfactory beef they went through where they crossed their Channel Island
crosses first with Herefords and then with Blue Greys and then with Chevrolets
and then, now, with real hefty beef cattle and the snag of that is that there
are far fewer commoners running much larger herds and that doesn't do anything
for the balance of the grazing, the distribution of the grazing, but they are
also much bigger, heavier cattle so they poach more and they are far more
destructive with fences so from the Forest point of view and the residents'
point of view it's a retrograde step but, of course, it was inevitable when they
stopped collecting milk at the farm gate.
What
did you do when you finished school?
First
of all I came back, I hated school so I left at the earliest opportunity when I
was sixteen, and the first thing I did I went for two days a week to Bournemouth,
which was the Technical College at the time, and I did a mixture of Art and
Cooking, and in between whiles helped Nancy Keymer who was at that time doing
the riding at the school at Campden House. Nancy Keymer (nee Tate) had been
brought up in Burley Grange down Mill Lawn, the big house -Georgian House there,
yes Burley Grange - she was brought up there but unfortunately, sadly, she lost
both her father and her brother during the War and her mother moved to a little
house down Garden Road called Croftlands in Garden Road.
How
did you get to Bournemouth?
By
bus, first of all in the Burley Pig and then change at Christchurch and go all
around by Fisherman's Walk...........Either that, or bicycle and sometimes we
bicycled. Alternatively, we bicycled to Christchurch but Nancy, there was a
private school started after the War in Campden House and they had a pony for
their child and they asked Nancy to do the riding for the school and she had
about half-a-dozen ponies and I helped her and I provided a couple more and so
first of I worked for her. I then went down to Sussex and did six months
training down there and got my BHS Instructors certificate and, Assistant
Instructors Certificate, and then I came back and worked for her until she got
married and went out to Cyprus so I took over the riding at the School and then
the School got too big and moved to Downton and I didn't want to go over to
Downton every day so I started up on my own and one year I had 196 different
children so, you know, I wouldn't say I could ever have lived on the profits but
by living at home it paid its way and paid for the keep of the ponies and
allowed me to breed Forest ponies and show Forest ponies which is what I really
wanted to do, and then, of course, Raymond Bennett put me up for the Council,
which was lovely, and I was very flattered that I was put up by an Agister and
then in 1966 I took over from Mrs. Parsons as Secretary of the Pony Society and
I did that for 34 years and in due course I was on the Commoners Council and the
New Forest Association Council, which I still am. The commoners threw me off
because when the Ministry gave up licensing stallions for which there had been
and exemption here, for all ponies running in their native habitats, the Breed
Societies took over the licensing and we insisted, we got together with the Vets
and the other Breed Societies, and we drew up a list of hereditary diseases
based on the Ministry Licence, but that went back to about 1890 so it needed a
little revision, and all the Breed Societies agreed on a minimum with certain
additions, particular to their area. We put in an addition that we wanted a
second inspection not just at two but also at five because we were very keen not
to let the ponies get too big and we were also very keen that they should be
examined when they got their adult teeth because grazing on the forest it is
essential that the teeth meet square. So we added that and the Welsh added, they
had a particular problem with the twisted testicle, and we added that in due
course and we also had a problem with sweet itch so we added that, and so on. I
always thought my greatest achievement was in persuading the Verderers to accept
the proper vetting of stallions. The commoners hated me for it, they thought it
was an interference with their rights and they threw me off their Council. But I
am very glad to say that this year when I got my MBE they wrote me a
congratulatory letter so perhaps all is forgiven and I think they have now
accepted it and fortunately the thing that really made it acceptable was what we
had the problem here was called "heath cramp" locally, sublaxation of
the patella -knee joint going out - and the Agisters were always being called
out to ponies with broken legs and they would go out, they would suspect it was
one of these "heath cramp" mares but they always had to go and they
wasted an enormous amount of time going out to the same mare again and again and
again and when they got there they clapped their hands and she would
go"eeeeeeeeeeeeee" and perfectly sound gallop off - another heath
cramp one. Quite soon after we introduced that as one of the things the
stallions couldn't have it dramatically fell. I think the commoners, some of the
commoners anyway, thought well if you don't allow it in stallions perhaps we had
better not keep and breed from a mare that does it and they knew it was tiresome
for the Agisters, so the Agisters were delighted that they were no longer called
out to these and I think that was probably what turned the table - Dartmoor had
no stallion control and Dartmoor has been a disaster since - it didn't have
Agisters or Verderers and, of course, it was because the Forest had its own Acts
and it had the Verderers and so on that it wasn't made a National Park in 1949
and instead they reconstituted the Verderers Court but there were two fatal
flaws in their reconstitution one was that the only source of income the
Verderers had was either giving away whey leaves and bits of the Forest in
compensation for loss of grazing, which was not a good idea or from the marking
fees and the marking fees are not a grazing fee, they are a fee which actually
pays the agisters' wages to supervise the animals on the Forest so the Verderers
had no money to run their office or anything like that. Also, although nothing
in theory could be done on the open forest without their consent, it didn't
apply to the private lands or the Forestry commission lands and the Forest
desperately, desperately needed a buffer zone. It was too closed in between
Bournemouth and Southampton so the County, the District Council, introduced the
heritage Zone which virtually was a buffer zone. They tried to have National
Park planning in the buffer zone in the heritage area but unfortunately, of
course, it was only a local arrangement and it had no legal standing and for
every application that was turned down it went to Appeal and 99% of them were
over-ruled so it simply didn't work. Nicholas Ridley was the worst offender - he
over-ruled them over and over and over again so they said "Well, what's the
point" and that is really the justification for a National Park which
otherwise is a waste of money and another layer of bureaucracy and has actually
what they call a "democratic deficit in its constitution" but there
you are and, of course, the thing that really annoyed people was when John
Prescott said he had given it to the Nation - well George III did that - so -
and another big mistake was under the old arrangement the public had privilege
of access to the Forest. The commoners and the Crown were the only people who
had rights. The public had privilege of access. Well that, if you have a
privilege it implies that it could be taken away even though it wouldn't be and
it implied that you look after it. Now they have a right to roam and if you have
a right you can do what you like. It did not make any practical difference but
it was a disastrous change of attitude. The litter problem is appalling and the
vandalism and so on is very sad so that is how things go isn't it? The continued
Urbanization is another and the commoning is always under threat from one source
and another and yet it is absolutely essential for the survival of the forest so
we have to keep plugging on and hope that times will change a bit but whether
they will or not...... one of the big problems is that, well you know the
percentage of holiday homes here and the percentage of commoners to the
population is less than a tenth of one percent so they are so outnumbered that
though in some ways they have been given quite a bit of help it's still very
unbalanced and as I say the lack of back-up grazing, because you can't common
without "in buy" grazing and so much of the grazing in the "core"
of the forest has gone, here and in Brockenhurst and everywhere else and that is
meaning the commoners have got grazing a long way away which is unsatisfactory
from the welfare point of view, if nothing else. But it is the only way they can
survive; also they can't afford the house prices to live here.
What
do you think about the number of deer in the Forest now?
Ah
ha, the number of deer - people say they have increased, they haven't, but what
has happened is with the demise of the Buckhounds and people no longer being
allowed to let their dogs chase deer, particularly dogs that chase them out of
their own property, the deer have become much taller and with the increase in
the number of people in the depths of the forest so there is nowhere now quiet
enough for the deer to hide out. You may have noticed that the Forestry
Commission are very jumpy about deer - they will not allow any permissions in
October when the rut in on because any zoo keeper will tell you the most
dangerous animal in the zoo is the stag when he is rutting, and they are
terrified that sooner or later a dog will go for a deer, the owner will go in to
rescue the dog and be killed by the deer and I think it is an accident waiting
to happen but I don't think the number of deer has increased. The Forestry
Commission do an enormous cull every year. What has happened is they have got
much tamer and they never used to come into the fields and gardens because they
were frightened of people's dogs and the buckhounds drove them back from the
villages into the middle of the Forest - they only killed about eight or nine a
year - but they chased back these deer twice a week - they had a very long
season - from August to May, but not October because of the rut. They did a very
good job and this is one of the unconsidered consequences of banning hunting and
I think a certain amount of chasing of deer by dogs was probably a darned good
thing but you are not allowed to do it now. Unfortunately, the dogs that chase
deer out in the open will also chase cattle and ponies and this is another big
problem because dogs that are brought up in the forest from puppies treat the
cattle and ponies as part of the landscape and don't take any notice of them but
visitors who bring dogs in the dogs say "Ooh whoopee" and they are a
prize menace - they chase riders, they chase cattle - we had a horrible occasion
when somebody who had a rescue dog and they thought well it would be a lovely
place to let it go free and it tore the throat out of a foal and they were
absolutely appalled but, you know, this sort of thing it happens and it is very
difficult to know what you can do and the answer is not all dogs on leads, the
answer is control your dog and so many people take no effort to teach their dog
anything.
Is
there much hunting in the Forest now?
Foxhounds
continue as a drag hunt but it is not the same thing. There is no field craft
involved and if the hunting ban goes on a lot longer they will lose the real
hunting skills in the hounds which would be very, very sad because after all the
Forest was made for hunting - hunting deer.... and it's such a traditional
sport. I mean our only contribution to Art is the sporting print, the sporting
picture, mostly hunting, it is so much part of our tradition and as I say all
the field craft that went with it and goes with it, looking to see where the
birds are getting up and that sort of thing, you lose that. You can work out
where a human is going to go, working out where a wild animal is going to go is
another matter and I don't know if you read Airey Neaves' book about his escape
from Colditz but he was hunted by bloodhounds literally for his life and he used
the skills of field craft that he'd learnt hunting and got away. He did all the
business about running through a muck heap to disguise his own smell, running
along the top of a wall, going through water upstream - all these things he did
it and he said when he was being hunted the adrenaline was running so high that
he wasn't afraid but when he was in what was supposed to be a safe place - which
was a barn- the loft of a barn, he said he was absolutely in a blue funk because
he knew if that trap door opened and anyone came up he had had it. So he said, I
don't believe hunting is cruel because I think the adrenaline is running and
they are either killed quickly before that's died down or they get away scot
free, whereas there is too much poor shooting when the animals were injured and
so on and trapping, snaring and the most cruel thing of all, of course, is the
humane trap actually.
Can
we just go back to meals - you mentioned you mostly existed on things that were
locally produced - what would you eat for breakfast when you were young?
Porridge,
eggs, bacon, sausages - as I said there was an illegal sausage factory, not
often sausages - sausages were a Sunday treat and not always then, but eggs and
bacon, well bacon again was strictly rationed but you would have it occasionally.
Eggs we had a lot of, we had eggs in all forms and, of course, toast and honey
or, not marmalade so much, but jam - honey we had mostly of course because as I
said my mother had bees so we were lucky. There was a lot of barter that went on,
people used to swap fruit and vegetables of course when they had a surplus and
there used to be one egg for a box of rabbit food and, you know, people used to
do things like that.
What
would you eat for lunch?
Well,
as I say, we would have... until the meat ration ran out, then we went to the
café, but of course again we were lucky because we had rabbits and we had, you
know, old hens boiled up, ducks, geese so we didn't do too badly at all and
people used to shoot pigeons and so on a bit - we didn't actually have much of
that - and of course as I said we had a very productive garden. We grew our own
vegetables which kept us all the year round.
What
time did you each your main meal?
Lunch
Supper
was pretty light but again largely I think consisted of eggs, as far as I can
remember. There was a cheese ration but it wasn't very high and, of course,
there was a certain amount of spam and things that you got on points, so that
was the sort of thing you got with points. What else would we have? - of course
we had masses of milk and we drank milk rather than tea or coffee. There was a
certain amount of tea and coffee around but there again under pretty tight
control and things that weren't rationed, of course, tended to disappear on to
the Black Market. As I say, I think we actually did pretty well, we never wasted
anything and the sweet ration was very small but that was probably a good thing
because I notice it is the really older people who have got the better teeth...............so
as I say I think we actually had an extremely healthy upbringing - there was no
television - we had the radio, of course, which we listened to a lot - ITMA (popular
comedy show on radio) and, you know, this sort of thing otherwise we had to
entertain ourselves, which we did. We played games, and cards and all sorts of
silly games. Dressed
up. the Girl guides?
Twelve
o'clock one o'clock?
One
o'clock, or half-past one sometimes - usually one. Supper was pretty light but
again largely I think consisted of eggs, as far as I can remember. There was a
cheese ration but it wasn't very high and, of course, there was a certain amount
of spam and things that you got on points, so that was the sort of thing you got
with points. What else would we have? - of course we had masses of milk and we
drank milk rather than tea or coffee. There was a certain amount of tea and
coffee around but there again under pretty tight control and things that weren't
rationed, of course, tended to disappear on to the Black Market. As I say, I
think we actually did pretty well, we never wasted anything and the sweet ration
was very small but that was probably a good thing because I notice it is the
really older people who have got the better teeth...............so as I say I
think we actually had an extremely healthy upbringing - there was no television
- we had the radio, of course, which we listened to a lot - ITMA (popular comedy
show on radio) and, you know, this sort of thing otherwise we had to entertain
ourselves, which we did. We played games, and cards and all sorts of silly
games. Dressed up.
Did
you belong to the Girl guides?
Yes,
and we had a camp in Vereley down by the stables, the old stables where there is
a house there now and they had a lake at Vereley with an island and a little
boat and we used to play endless games of taking your prisoner across to the
island and then you had to capture the boat to get them free and so on - oh, and
we had sing-songs and so on down there, that was great fun. We learnt useful
things in the guides - we learnt how to make a fire, even how to make a bed if
we didn't know before which I think most of us probably did. A certain amount of
rudimentary cooking but we learnt map reading and knots and, you know, a lot of
how to get by.
has
now been pulled down, the Morant Hall. The Pony Club had its Christmas party, as
I said the Mackworth-Praed's always gave a Christmas party. Granny Ralston at
Crow gave a great children's party on one occasion when she announced at the
beginning "There is one cucumber sandwich for everybody and half a slice of
birthday cake. There is also one chocolate biscuit for each of the children...................."
but that was quite common but I don't know we never seemed to miss things. We
didn't go on holidays or anything but as I say what you don't know you don't
miss and we used to play "kick the can" out in the forest and we used
to race the ducks......there was a wonderful time when they got drunk on rotten
apples and that was huge fun and one of the chickens put its foot on the edge of
a tin bowl and tipped it over its head and ran round and that was enormous fun.
And, as I say, we rode and there were gymkhanas and things like that. The WI
used to have a children's party too where everybody used to contribute something.
My sister got up a play - she did "The Rose and the Ring" out in
Gibraltar during the phoney war - that was quite something but that was a bit
different. Here she got up a sort of entertainment at Christmas where we did-
enacted the various verses and so on, you know, the King asked the Queen and the
Queen asked the Dairy Maid, and Olive Flood was the cow............Nancy
Finlayson, Mrs. Finlayson, used to get up a Nativity Play every year which used
to happen and my mother got up another Chinese play which was done in the garden
at Durmast House and she said "I have never been so tired in my life"
because it looked as though it was going to rain and it would have rained it off
and she said "I think I kept that rain off by sheer willpower and prayer"
because it rained at Thorney Hill but it never quite got to Burley - it was grey
and so on, but the play went through and Colin McGregor had to say to the
executioner "take off the jade necklace it is too precious to cut in half
" - Take it Away" he said, his mother was absolutely black affronted
and he also got hold of the lipstick and there was lipstick over everything.
What
sort of entertainment would be in the Village in the evening?
There
were dances in the Village Hall from time to time.
Once
a month?
I
can't remember how often. Occasionally there were dances in what was the old
hall in Brockenhurst which has now been pulled down, the Morant Hall. The Pony
Club had its Christmas party, as I said the Mackworth-Praed's always gave a
Christmas party. Granny Ralston at Crow gave a great children's party on one
occasion when she announced at the beginning "There is one cucumber
sandwich for everybody and half a slice of birthday cake. There is also one
chocolate biscuit for each of the children...................." but that
was quite common but I don't know we never seemed to miss things. We didn't go
on holidays or anything but as I say what you don't know you don't miss and we
used to play "kick the can" out in the forest and we used to race the
ducks......there was a wonderful time when they got drunk on rotten apples and
that was huge fun and one of the chickens put its foot on the edge of a tin bowl
and tipped it over its head and ran round and that was enormous fun. And, as I
say, we rode and there were gymkhanas and things like that. The WI used to have
a children's party too where everybody used to contribute something. My sister
got up a play - she did "The Rose and the Ring" out in Gibraltar
during the phoney war - that was quite something but that was a bit different.
Here she got up a sort of entertainment at Christmas where we did- enacted the
various verses and so on, you know, the King asked the Queen and the Queen asked
the Dairy Maid, and Olive Flood was the cow............Nancy Finlayson, Mrs.
Finlayson, used to get up a Nativity Play every year which used to happen and my
mother got up another Chinese play which was done in the garden at Durmast House
and she said "I have never been so tired in my life" because it looked
as though it was going to rain and it would have rained it off and she said
"I think I kept that rain off by sheer willpower and prayer" because
it rained at Thorney Hill but it never quite got to Burley - it was grey and so
on, but the play went through and Colin McGregor had to say to the executioner
"take off the jade necklace it is too precious to cut in half " - Take
it Away" he said, his mother was absolutely black affronted and he also
got hold of the lipstick and there was lipstick over everything.
Well,
we had a lot of fun and certainly I had a wonderful childhood.