BRITAIN'S LOVELY LITTLE GREEN QUARTERLY £4

A Miscellany of This & That & Things Gone By

WINTER 2014

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Of all the world’s best-sellers that fill the library shelves,

And of all the age-old tales that spring to mind,Of all the ancient fables, that life has had to tell —

Handed down throughout the course of time.Of all the much-loved parables, we’ve always liked to hear,

And the stories that the good book has to hold,The baby born in Bethlehem within the cattle stall —

Is still by far the greatest ever told.GILLIAN WALSH

Of all the world’s best-sellers

The Christmas

Story

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Contents Winter 2014Frozen in Time . . . . . Maureen Warner 4Rural Rides . . . . . . . . Peter Gaston 12Famous Names in Football . . Alan Robinson 17Castles & Cottages . . . Philip Mott/Lee Beel 18Music Makers . . . . Edmund Whitehouse 20Percy’s Postbag . . . . . Percy Bickerdyke 26Then & Now . . . . . . Henry Spencer 32The Literary Pilgrim . . . . . Tom Bowden 34Whatever Happened to...? . . . Angeline Wilcox 38Gleanings . . . . . Bernard Chamberlain 40Rib-Ticklers . . . . . . . . . . . — 46Almanac . . . . . . . . Eddie Weir 48Bookworm . . . . . . . Stephen Garnett 52Cinemagic . . . . . . . Stuart Millson 54Feast of Family Favourites . . . Angeline Wilcox 62The Lion of Flanders . . Graham Bebbington 64Where Are You Now? . . . . . . . . — 68On the Air . . . . . . . Peter Worsley 70The Old Tea Chest . . . . . Helen Stafford 74The Long Walk . . . . . . . Bob Rogers 76TV Memories . . . . . Charles Meredith 84Home Town . . . . . . Karen McCreedy 86Delivering the Catch for 25 years Graham Gough 92From the Deputy Editor’s Desk . Angeline Wilcox 94Clippings . . . . . Letters to the Editor 96Hit Parade . . . . . . . . Bill Baxter 108Juke Box . . . . . . . . Geraldine Miller 112The Past in Colour . . . . . . . . — 115Our Christian Heritage . . . Dorothy Priest 116The Evergreen Prayer . . . Elizabeth Gozney 119Byways . . . . . . . . John Husband 120Raise a Glass . . . . . . Geoff Simpson 126Scrapbook . . . . . . . . . . . — 130Bookshelf . . . . . . Henry Hardcastle 134The Christmas Story . . . . Gillian Walsh 148

Front Cover: Hold on tight! Skaters having fun at the Tower of London Ice Rink. ADINA TOVY

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2014 EVERGREEN 83

Advertisements of Yesterday

This advert from “Hulton’s 1957 TV Annual” was aimed solely at the rich because a 21” television set was beyond the means of Mr. and Mrs. Average who, if they owned a set at all, were much more likely to rent or buy a cheaper and smaller model. Other famous names of the time included Murphy, Bush, Pye, Ekco, Sobell, HMV and Philips.

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I was a Cornishman living in Bath and our most famous Cornish poet, Dr. Charles

Causley CBE, of Launceston, and Wendy Cope, the popular poet with a comic wit, were giving poetry readings at the Royal West of England Academy in Bristol on Thursday 11th July 1991, so I decided to attend. I have been a fan of Charles Causley for many years: ever since I first read his emotional poem “Timothy Winters” which is about a poor, starving, Cornish working-class boy. I think it ranks with the best poetry ever written and he deserved to have been Poet Laureate. I also knew that Wendy Cope had achieved “World Best Seller” success with her first book

of poems, Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis, and I thought listening to the author would be very interesting and amusing.

Charles Causley was born in Launceston on 24th August 1917.

His father was a gardener who then became a private in the army during the First World War and

returned home with lung damage through German gas attacks. He died in 1924 when Charles was seven years old.

Charles left Grammar School early to go to work. Then he served in the navy during the war and then trained as a teacher and taught at the Grammar School in Launceston. He wrote plays, short stories and several books of highly praised

34 EVERGREEN Winter

The day I metCharles Causley

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poems for adults and children. He was awarded Travel Scholarships by the Society of Authors in 1954 and 1956. He was then made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1958, and served on the Poetry Panel of the Arts Council of Great Britain from 1962 to 1966.

When Charles retired from teaching in 1976 he took up literary appointments in Australia, Canada and America. He was then awarded a CBE in 1986 and he held honorary degrees from Oxford and Exeter, where he was also Honorary Fellow in Poetry.

Wendy Cope was born in Erith in Kent in 1945 and she read history at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, and then did postgraduate teacher training. She was a full-time primary teacher

and became head of a school in the Old Kent Road. Wendy started her writing career in 1973 and then her first collection of poem, Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis, was published by Faber and Faber in 1979 and went straight into the bestseller lists. In 1987 she won a Cholmondeley Award for Poetry. Then in 1993 Wendy Cope was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature,

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The house where Charles Causley (pictured) was born.

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T hroughout history, there has been an affinity between soldiers and members of

the animal kingdom. For example, some regiments have official mascots which can often be seen on parade on ceremonial occasions. On the other hand some animals, having been abandoned in war zones, have attached themselves to passing battalions in a desperate search for food etc. The situation

was no different during the First World War with the exception that one officer had a lion which was allowed to wander freely down the front-line trenches!

The officer concerned was Major General Sir Tom Bridges, the Commanding Officer of 19th (Western) Division. Bridges was a larger-than-life character, highly respected, and famous amongst other things during the retreat from Mons

The Lion of FlandersThe Lion of FlandersThe Lion of Flanders

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in August 1914 for the now legendary and unconventional way in which he led the remnants of two battalions of infantry back to the safety of the British lines. This was achieved with the aid of his trumpeter playing “The British Grenadier” and “Tipperary” on a tin whistle and Bridges himself beating a tin drum “like mad” while the two marched around the fountain in St. Quentin! This rallied and encouraged the exhausted men to join in and “after a short exhortation” they fell in and “moved slowly off into the night to the music of the

improvised band now reinforced with a couple of mouth organs”.

According to his autobiography (Alarms and Excursions, Longmans, Green & Co., 1938), Bridges was on a period of short leave in Paris during the spring of 1916 enjoying lunch with fellow officer, Captain Arthur E. Capel, when he detected “something strange in his garden”. This proved to be none other than a lion cub, apparently won in a Red Cross raffle a few days earlier. Capel offered him the animal which he accepted, taking it away in a champagne hamper in the car and thereby acquiring “a new recruit for the Division”.

The cub was given the name Poilu who “soon made himself at home,

Major General Sir Tom Bridges and soldiers in a trench at Beaumont Hamel.

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A s marches go it wasn’t the longest one my father was destined to undertake and

nowhere near the most arduous, but it was close to 200 miles and the majority of it through a country whose language was utterly alien to him. It would have been a daunting prospect for anyone unaccustomed to life on the road but for a 17-year-old farm lad from the tiny village of Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd, near Ruthin in North Wales, carrying just a change of clothes, a packed lunch, a harmonica and a little over ten shillings of savings it promised to be an unprecedented education.

Not enthralled by the prospect of the unceasing toil and monotony of a life on the land, Bob Rogers, the fifth child of a farm worker, sought adventure and, inspired by films he had seen of faraway places in the Saturday matinees, was off to join the army. Short and stocky, the redhead had initially reported to the Welsh Guards recruiting office in nearby Wrexham and had been told in no uncertain terms he was, at five foot two and three quarters, not tall enough to guard Wales!

The sympathetic recruiting sergeant had told him, however,

The Long Walk

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that the Royal Berkshire Regiment was one of the few outfits with no height restriction — but they were based in Reading.

“Ever been to England?”, the man had asked.

Bob had shaken his head. In common with most of his friends and family he had never travelled far from home. He had heard the English language spoken in Ruthin by visitors to the town, but beyond, “hello”, “please”, “thank you”, and the names of a few farm animals he had picked up on trips with his employer to market, he had never needed to learn more.

His mother shook her head, his father shook his hand and, with scarcely a backward glance to acknowledge his waving parents and sisters, Bob set off alone on his adventure on a spring morning in 1932. His muscles were finely tuned through four years of arduous farm work and he covered the 15 miles to Llangollen with ease in the mild sunshine on his first day.

It was an age of itinerant workers seeking a wage in the tough climate of the 1930s and Bob drew little attention from passers-by as the

Left: Sunset at Dinas Bran, Llangollen.STEPHEN LEWIS

Above: The clock tower in the centre of Ruthin. DOROTHY BURROWS

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M ention Bognor Regis to people and chances are they will either

refer to Butlin’s, or quip George V’s supposed deathbed words. But Bognor Regis has a rich and interesting heritage, with plenty to see and enjoy. James Joyce, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and R.C. Sherriff are among the famous names who visited or resided in the town and, despite several decades of redevelopment and rebuilding, there are still a number of historic and architecturally-interesting buildings to see.

Tony Hancock’s 1962 film The Punch and Judy Man was filmed in Bognor, as was the 1987 Emily Lloyd film Wish You Were Here. More recently, there was much excitement when it was reported that a scene in the James Bond film Skyfall had been filmed in the area and the town

hosted a red-carpet premiere for the film in October 2012.

Located on the south coast in West Sussex, Bognor Regis can trace its history back to Saxon times — the Saxon name, “Bucganora”, meant “Bucge’s shore”, but until the 18th century, it was little more than a fishing village. It was a London hatter, Sir Richard Hotham, who had the idea of turning the area into a holiday resort. He had been prescribed sea air for his health, and enjoyed his time in Bognor so much that he decided to move to the town.

To the east of Bognor — and only five minutes’ walk from the Grade II-listed railway station — the residence he built in 1792, Hotham Park House, still stands in a corner of what were once Sir Richard’s private gardens. In 1977, the house was converted into private flats, while the gardens were renamed Hotham

Ten Reasons to Visit Bognor Regis

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Park and opened to the public in 1947. Since 2008, thanks to a generous grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, a £1 million scheme of works has restored 19th-century planting schemes, and brought 51⁄2 acres of derelict land back into the main body of the park, which is now a 22-acre haven of plants, wildlife and fun activities. The boating lake, putting green and miniature railway are all open throughout the summer, and there are concerts on the bandstand through July and August as well as a carol concert in December.

From the park’s main entrance by the lodge, you can cross over to the university grounds, and take a look at the three beautiful Regency buildings that front the campus. Now Grade I listed, they were built in the 1790s by Sir Richard Hotham, who hoped that Hothampton Crescent (which the buildings then formed) would attract royalty to Bognor. But although Princess Charlotte spent two holidays at Dome House — the middle building — in the early 1800s, her patronage

was not enough to attract the fashionable set away from Brighton, where her father, the Prince Regent, built the Pavilion and entertained Mrs. Fitzherbert.

The buildings became a college of education after the Second World War, and are now part of the University of Chichester’s Bognor Regis campus. However,

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Hotham Park Houseand Clock Tower.

The conservation pond in Hotham Park.

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A mobile fishmonger celebrated a quarter of a century in the business by

raising a glass of champagne with two of his oldest customers, earlier this year.

Mary White, aged 93, and Margaret Jeens 80, both from Dudley in Worcestershire, have been customers of Jonathan Spencer since he began selling fish door-to-door 25 years ago.

Jonathan from Langley Gardens, Wolverhampton, covers a large area and his little red van is well-known in town and country. From the large towns of Wolverhampton, Dudley and Stourbridge to the many villages in rural South Staffordshire and to Bridgnorth in Shropshire, he has become friends with many of his customers and Mrs. Jeens said: “He is such

a nice man. We have watched his whole family grow up and he used to bring his little children on his rounds when he started out, now they are grown up and in their 20s.”

Mrs. Jeens said she disliked supermarkets and tried to support independent traders wherever possible.

“When I left work, after getting married, everything was delivered, bread, milk, fruit and vegetables, but now it’s all changed.”

“Having the fish delivered is much more convenient, but sad to say Jonathan is a dying breed.”

Winter

Jonathan’s delivery van on his rounds near Enville, South Staffordshire.

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Another long-standing customer, Mrs. Pamela Hutton, from Kinver in South Staffordshire, even wrote a poem in praise of her reliable and smiling fish man.

Mr. Spencer said his rounds expanded after other sellers left the trade.

“I buy my fish from the markets in Wolverhampton and Birmingham and I remember a time when you could not get parked for the number of other vans doing the same,” he said. “It is easy to get a spot now, which shows you how many fish sellers have given up.”

He sources his fish wherever possible from English ports such as Brixham in Devon, Newlyn in Cornwall and Whitby in Yorkshire. “People like their fish to be caught off our coast by our fishermen,” he said. GRAHAM GOUGH

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Below: Celebrating 25 years of business with loyal customers Mary White (centre) and Margaret Jeens.

Brixham, Devon, oneof the many placeswhere Jonathan sources his fish.

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I n a recent survey for Radio 2, programme presenters, music critics and record producers

voted for the 100 best guitar riffs in popular music. The results were fascinating, and it’s hard to disagree with them when, in their top ten, they included “Whole Lotta Love” (Led Zeppelin), “Smoke on the Water” (Deep Purple), “Sweet Child of Mine” (Guns ’N’ Roses) and “Layla” (Derek and the Dominoes). The sound of any one of these on the radio is guaranteed to make me stop what I’m doing and send me air-guitaring dangerously around the room.

Another good survey would be to list the most memorable openings to popular songs. You’ll probably have your own favourites, but I

think you’d be hard pushed to find anything as distinctive as the searing saxophone solo that blasts out at the beginning of “Baker Street”, Gerry Rafferty’s wondrous hit from 1978.

When writing these articles I usually leave details of useful and relevant

websites etc. to the end, but if you are a fan of Gerry Rafferty and his unforgettable song, I recommend you visit www.gerryrafferty.com, home of the official Gerry Rafferty site, as soon as possible. When you do you’ll find a short article by Gerry’s daughter, Martha, in which she paints a lovely, affectionate portrait of her late father and describes how “Baker Street” was born out of Gerry’s frequent, reluctant visits to London to deal with the cut-throat commercial

108 EVERGREEN Winter

Hit ParadeSingers & Songsfrom the Sixties

& Seventies

Gerry RaffertyGerry RaffertyGerry Rafferty

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world of the music business.“In that saxophone solo,” she

writes, “one can hear the soaring, transcendent optimism of the promise of a new life, a new way of living, the discovery that life could, indeed, be ultimately meaningful.”

She also recalls how her father was driven by the need to work and how she would hear him singing, playing and writing late into the night. Had he done nothing else in his life but written and recorded that song, it would be an existence worth celebrating, but reading Martha’s words you realise how there was so much more to him; so many other levels.

Having been born (in 1947) into a poor working-class family in the Scottish town of Paisley, Gerry left

school without any qualifications. He drifted through a number of jobs, including work in a butcher’s shop and shoe shop, but surrounded by music (folk songs from his parents and the songs he heard by Bob Dylan and The Beatles) all he ever wanted to be was a musician.

He served his apprenticeship busking on the London Underground and playing in a local group, The Mavericks, with school friend Joe Egan. He then joined

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Paisley Abbey in Gerry’s home town. IAN ROBERTSON

school without any qualifications.

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F or most of us, among our less pleasant childhood memories has to be taking a dose or

two of cough mixture, but in two West Country communities they have cause to be grateful that one particular brand was popular enough to be consumed in large quantities!

The villages of Shaldon, overlooking the Teign estuary in South Devon, and Veryan in Cornwall, have both benefitted from the legacy of one remarkable lady who accrued a personal fortune from sales of a patent cough mixture invented by her husband. His name

was William Newcombe Homeyard, and in 1902 he patented a herbal remedy which he called “Liqufruta” and built a factory in Camberwell to manufacture it.

He married Maria Laetitia Kempe Roberts, his second wife, in 1907. They had met in London, but both had West Country roots,

William’s family from Devon and Maria’s from Cornwall. She was born in Poplar, and had been brought up by her grandmother, with whom she shared the same Christian names. Spending most of her childhood in London, and only living for a brief period in Cornwall, she never forgot the villages of Veryan where her grandmother was born, or Shaldon, where she died.

William had a flair for advertising, and soon sales of Liqufruta were making him and his wife a fortune. As employers they were ahead of their time, providing housing for the workforce near the factory, and occasionally bringing them

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William and Maria Homeyard on Teignmouth beach, 1920s. ROGER WILLIS

Liqufruta’sLegacy

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down to Devon for a seaside holiday. This was possible because, by 1921, they had purchased a property in Shaldon, where Maria’s grandmother had lived for the last few years of her life and was buried. Ness Cottage was sited on a hill looking across to Teignmouth, beside unspoilt fields which in time the Homeyards also acquired.

When William died in 1927, Maria inherited the factory, which she continued to run, and even expand. Having a latent interest in architecture, and a

penchant for Arts and Crafts design, she engaged a firm from Southwark, Thomas Rider and Son, to design and build 54 houses on the fields they had bought in Shaldon. Her right-hand man throughout this period was William Sears, Rider’s landscape architect, who was

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View of Shaldon from the Homeyard Allotments. The Homeyards is the long row of slate-roofed terraced houses in the centre.

The Hamiltons, Mrs. Homeyard’s upmarket detached houses, Shaldon.

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Penguins on Parade

How many of you watched the delightful BBC drama Our Zoo, based on the founding of Chester Zoo by the Mottershead family in the 1930s? On the subject of zoo visits we were sent this humorous verse, by Ethel Thomas, of Kilbarchan, Renfrewshire. It recalls a trip that she made many years ago to Edinburgh Zoo.

We’re all off to Edinburgh ZooTo see the penguinsAnd what they do.The crowd gathered roundAnd out came the kingFollowed by the rest

Two-by-two and all dressedUp in their best.They walked up and downAnd they flapped their wings,And they bowed to the crowd,The crowd all clappedAnd someone said: “Jings! DidEver you see such a thing?”So they did it all again.They walked up and down And flapped their wings And bowed to the crowd.Then they walked up the pathAnd through a wee gateWhere the keeper was waitingWith a teapot and a plate.They all sat downAnd had fishcakes and teaBecause the next parade Was at half-past three.

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Book Bonanza

The humorous book titles sent in by Sue Gerrard (Winter 2013 and Summer 2014) have got you all chuckling and prompted several readers to send in their own favourites. Among those titles which Pat Maher, from Gloucester, recommended were:

How to Make a Complaint by Mona Lotte

Easy Gardening by Rose Bush and Dai Backe

Mistaken Identity by Mick Stupp

Household Tips by Dustin Mopp

Showjumping by Jim Kannah

Another reader, Yvonne Cronk, in Nettlestead, Kent, suggested:

At the Well by Phil A. Ewer

The Ungallant Knight by E. Rhoda Way

The Open Cage by Freda Bird

Happily Married by Adora Mann

Roaming by Wanda Lust

Finally, chief librarian Sue Gerrard has also been busy restocking her bookshelves with the following:

Do It Yourself by Ivor Hammer

The History of Hats by Ed Wear

Miracles and Healing by Faith Works

Warfare by Dee Struction

The Art of Delegation by Hugo Instead

Words of Comfort

This heartfelt passage offers words of comfort, solace and strength at times of grief. It was written by Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918) who was a canon at Christ Church, Oxford.

Death is Nothing At All

Death is nothing at all,I have only slipped away into the next

room,I am I, and you are you,Whatever we were to each other, that

we are still,

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One of many secondhand book stalls in Hay-on-Wye, Breconshire. See “Book Bonanza” for more reading material.

DAVID HUNTER

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BRITAIN'S LOVELY LITTLE GREEN QUARTERLY £4

A Miscellany of This & That & Things Gone By

WINTER 2014

EV

ER

GR

EE

NV

ol.30 No.4 W

INT

ER

2014Q

UA

RT

ER

LY

Of all the world’s best-sellers that fill the library shelves,

And of all the age-old tales that spring to mind,Of all the ancient fables, that life has had to tell —

Handed down throughout the course of time.Of all the much-loved parables, we’ve always liked to hear,

And the stories that the good book has to hold,The baby born in Bethlehem within the cattle stall —

Is still by far the greatest ever told.GILLIAN WALSH

Of all the world’s best-sellers

The Christmas

Story

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