Ida's diary

Ida Matthews, Born 1891 in Church Farm House.

Memories of my early childhood until the age of 15.

Before I start writing I had better mention that I was born under very sad circumstances.  My Mother and Father were farmers and we lived in Church Farm, Norton St. Philip, the house was near the road, the Village Green, Church and School.

I had a brother and a sister about 2 years old and Mother expecting her third child - which was me!  Agnes, the ‘maid’ was out walking with the children in the prom, and all of a sudden along came a runaway horse and cart.  The wheel of the cart caught the wheel of the pram, knocked Agnes against the wall and turned the pram over and dragged the children underneath, all down the road!  A man happened to be passing and bravely stopped the horse, then picking up the children, who were badly bruised but still alive, he called for help.  Mother heard the clatter and rushed to the door.  Seeing the accident, you can imagine her horror and the shock she suffered when the children were carried up to her.

As a result, I was born at 7 months.  My Father took care of me and at three days old he said “I don’t think this baby is going to live, I had better take her to Church to have her christened”.  He called the Vicar and his nextdoor neighbour and asked them to christen me.  On the way across the Village Green he said “but we haven’t chosen a name for her! What shall we call her?  I know, we will call her after you, what is your name?” And she said “Ida” and so it became, and I am Ida Matthews.  Dad always called me “His girl” and I expect he spoiled me a bit, or so the others said.

Anyway, I have been very fortunate and have had a comfortable and pleasant life with fairly good health and three lovely children who look after me with love and kindness at the age now of 96 and a half!

I think my earliest memory is sitting on my Grandpa Matthews’ knee.  He must have been nursing me on one of his visits.  I remember a fine rosy face and a white beard, and blue smiling eyes.  When my Father married, Grandpa retired, and Dad took over the farm.  My Great Grandfather farmed it before then so that made it three generations.  My next memory was standing in the window seat in the sitting room and Agnes, ‘the maid’ was looking after me.  She was crying for some reason and I remember seeing the tears in her eyes and I wondered what the matter was.  I was too young to ask her or to find out.

Another early memory was when Mother and Agnes used to take me for walks in the afternoons. Mother pushed the big Pham with two babies in it and Agnes the wheel cart, which sat one child in the front and one in the back.  It had two large wheels and long wooden handles and would easily tip up, the children had to be strapped in.  Sidney and Bert were about 5 years and I think they wanted to pretend they were horses and try to gallop and tip the wheel cart up.

Bath night was a very busy affair.  The water had to be boiled in large pans and kettles on an open fire and the bath filled in front of the fire.  One by one we were undressed and washed, some of us in the same water!  I expect we squealed when we got cold and it had to be changed.  You see there was no running water in pipes and taps, the water came from a well outside the back door and had to be pumped up and carried in.  We also had a large rain-water tank which helped with the household chores!  Can you imagine what it was like to carry and boil every drop of water for cooking and washing up etc.  There must have been several streams underneath the village because everybody had to do the same thing.

Washing day on Monday was a terrific task. There was a boiler with a fire underneath in the wash house and the clothes were first washed in two large baths and then boiled in the boiler.  Mrs Prescott used to come to help with the washing, she used to take the Eaton collars and other starch things home with her and iron them as well!  Our cotton dresses and tucks and frills.

After our bath we had a drink of milk and a biscuit and then carried up to our bedrooms.  We were taught to say our prayers “God bless Mummy and Daddy, Aunties and Uncles and all kind friends, make me a good girl for Christs’ sake, Amen”.  One night as I was getting older, Dad came into our bedroom to say goodnight, when he saw me kneeling on the bed, he said “Ida, you are getting a big girl now, don’t you think you ought to kneel on the floor? Jesus did not have a bed to kneel on!  He knelt on the ground!”.  I have always done so ever since.

There were four bedrooms - Mother and Father’s room, the girls’ room where there were two double beds, the boys’ room with two beds and the spare room for visitors.   Many years later, when we were young women, sadly this became the room which Ethel lived in for about two years until she died of tuberculosis.

Our farm was surrounded by thick walls of the local Bath stone.  Pretty lilac blue snapdragon flowers of ivy leaved toadflax and ferns grew in the crevices.  The farmhouse had a farm cottage attached to it next to the brew house, which we called the backhouse. Then between the cottage and the coach house was a wide entrance with wooden gates which were closed on Sundays.  Behind the house next to the wash house was Mother’s walled flower garden, the fruit garden and the kitchen garden.  Here was as wood house, for all the winter fuel.  Inside the yard were the stables and then the malt house, which was a huge three storey building.  Further down on the left, the hay barn and then the cow sheds and byres and at the bottom of the yard more double gates onto the Watery Lane.

As we grew older we learnt the names of our fields.  Some were outside the Village towards the north and some to the south.  They ripped off the tongue like poetry ....

Broad Close with medieval pump, hence Ringwell lane

Crowoak one and two.

Corn field

South field

The Acres

Godspiece Leaze

Ash Ground

Long Leaze 

Rough Ground

Long Paddock

Chatleigh Furlong

And the Hop Yard, which was still terraced where hops were grown for that huge boiler in the back house.

By this time Bert, Cyril and Dora were born and we were able to play in the yard and garden.  Playtime consisted of hunting the eggs and, as I loved climbing, it was fun.  The hens were free to run about and they chose to lay their eggs in the most secret places such as up in the hay loft above the horses in the stable.  So I had to climb up a ladder next to the horse, of which I was afraid, straight up the wall into the tallet and find the hen’s nest among the hay.  Then they would lay in the pig sty and also in the cart nearby.  Also above the cowshed where I had to climb up a wall and lift myself up over a wooden cross bar and up into the loft.  It was a wonder the cows didn’t toss me up by their horns!  One hen chose to lay her eggs on a high wall among the ivy and I remember seeing her coming down chirping and fussing and a little brood of baby chicks following her, as much as to say “Ah! You didn’t find my eggs that time!”

By this time Bert, Cyril and Dora were born and we were able to play in the yard and garden.  Playtime consisted of hunting the eggs and, as I loved climbing, it was fun.  The hens were free to run about and they chose to lay their eggs in the most secret places such as up in the hay loft above the horses in the stable.  So I had to climb up a ladder next to the horse, of which I was afraid, straight up the wall into the tallet and find the hen’s nest among the hay.  Then they would lay in the pig sty and also in the cart nearby.  Also above the cowshed where I had to climb up a wall and lift myself up over a wooden cross bar and up into the loft.  It was a wonder the cows didn’t toss me up by their horns!  One hen chose to lay her eggs on a high wall among the ivy and I remember seeing her coming down chirping and fussing and a little brood of baby chicks following her, as much as to say “Ah! You didn’t find my eggs that time!”

The boys had to work in the barn cutting chaff for the six horses and grinding swedes for the cows.  So I used to try and help them but I could not reach the handles very well.  There was a malt house opposite the barn and during the winter a Mr Pearce rents it to make malt from the barley.  A malt steer was employed in there, he kept a big fire underneath the floor where the grain was spread and as it was roasted there was a lovely rich smell.  It was warm and cosy in there and sometimes he wouldn’t invite us in to sit by the fire.

When I was three yeas old I went to Auntie “Bessie’s School” which was a large old house at the top of the Village.  To reach it we had to walk up the Village Green, along the Church Walk, and up through a field.  One day on the way I picked some buttercups and daisies and got to school very late.  I remember handing them to Auntie, and she said “Oh! Thank you dear but I would much rather you came to school in time!”.  She had a very lady-like voice and this almost crushed me.  I down very meek and mild.  Auntie lived with her father “Grandpa Matthews”.  Their house was near the school and named “Cedar Lodge”.  We entered the garden up four steps from the road through and intriguing heavy oak door like a portcullis set under a stone archway, which we thought very grand.  And there beyond the shrubbery in the middle of the lawn was the cedar tree, around which we used to play.

Another early memory was the little grocery shop kept by Mrs Greenland at the end of the street.  She always had sweets in the window and we used to try and peep in by stepping on a scraper which was fixed to the wall to see what sort of sweets we should choose.  We only had a penny a week so you can guess how we appreciated the sweets.  Mrs Greenland made her own bread which gave out a lovely home-made smell and we always bought our bread there.   I expect we sometimes had a nibble at the crust as we carried it home!

In the summer, when the Malthouse was empty, we could go in and play.  There were long ropes in the barn and we used to carry them to the malt house opposite and tie them to the rafters and beams and make swings, one for each of us.  Dad used to scold us for damaging his ropes!  Of course the rooms were very long and we could skip and play games.  There were large square holes in the floors where the grain sacks were let through from one floor to the other, and we used to hand on to the sides and drop from one floor to another - often coming a cropper!  Then we would go into the coach house where the flour wheel and the trap were kept and sit four in the back and two in the front.  One of the boys would take the long whip in one hand and the reins in the other, and in imagination would take us for rides to Frome or Bath, pointing out landmarks on the way.  We were not fond of Frome.  When I was about ten, we also had a governess, car and pony.  Dad sometimes used to take the Vicar or any other person who needed to go to town.

Now I must tell you about the brook at the bottom of the farm-yard.  We were playing there one day making clay marbles and jumping from one side of the brook to the other when Dora was on the bridge above watching us.  She fell into the stream and almost disappeared under the bridge.  You can imagine our fright and how we had to quickly jump into the water and pull her out quickly by her skirts, then carry her up through the farm to Mother all wet and dripping.

Now it has just occurred to me the importance of that little stream.  It just bubbled out of the ground in Watery Lane, a land which led to one of our fields and which always had a trickle of water running down it.  It ran on past a few houses, under the road, past our farm yard where the cows always had a drink when being turned out to the field and where we played, on down past the Manor Farm to the bottom of Ringwell Lane where there was a watercress bed.  On again down Wellow Lane where there was a waterfall and then a Mill where there was a large ‘Mill wheel’ which used to grind the corn.  We thought it was wonderful.  Our favourite walk was down Wellow Lane because the stream was gaining momentum towards the woods where the golden king cups or marsh marigolds grew in April, and the nightingales sang in May. Here the Bath asparagus was thick in the hedges.  Agnes picked it in bunches tied with white cotton and took it home to scald it.  We ate with bread and butter for tea.  The stream ran on down through the fields for 3 miles to Wellow where Mother and Dad retired in later life.

I have just remembered that one of my jobs on Saturday mornings was to scrub the kitchen table which I liked doing.  The younger children sat on the window seat and while I scrubbed for all I was worth with my two hands on the brush, they would sing!  I tried to make the table as white as I could.  Another job was to clean all the knives on a board which was sprinkled with Bath brick.  The good old-fashioned bone handled steel knives were rubbed with half a potato up and down the blade, and then the knife was pushed into a machine which had felt inside.  As one of the children turned the handle the knife was polished and came out fit to cut large platefuls of meat.

I must mention that potatoes were dug and vegetables brought in and peeled on Saturday, ready to cook on Sunday.  Sunday was a very busy day, after breakfast which always consisted of bacon and eggs and porridge we were all hurriedly dressed.  The boys in sailor suits and the the girls in their Sunday dresses and pinafores trimmed with embroidery and pretty hats.  We went to Church in the morning.  Poor little Lesley was in the choir and it was a rush to get him dressed in time.  He wore those still Eaton collars and they were so difficult to fasten with studies back and front, while getting a floppy bow underneath.  It was with pride that we used to peep round to our friends the Grists, Wadmans, Bells and the Combes to judge whose were the prettiest.

After Church in the summer we all went for a walk together, out of the Village, and up the Wells road.  Mother was so much shorter than Dad that we children used to drop back one at a time to walk behind and make fun of them.  Poor little Emmy.  In the winter we always lit a fire in the small drawing room where our best books were kept in a cupboard.  Auntie Bessie, my Father’s sister, always gave us books for Christmas and Birthdays.

Our of our greatest pleasures on Sunday evenings was to gather around the walnut piano which had a very sweet tone.  The candles were lit above the keyboard to throw light on the music.  Mother played beautifully and Dora and I had a competition to decide whose voice was best.  Mother also let us sing a solo.  Ethel played well, and Dora played by ear, but I could not learn!  Mother played to organ in the Church if she was needed.  She also taught several girls in the Village.  The room had a special delicate scent of flowers and ferns and old-fashioned fine china kept in a bow fronted marble topped sideboard.  We sat on elegant straight-backed ebony chairs inlaid with mother of pearl, which had cane seats.  As we were taught manners and deportment, by example, we were never allowed to slouch, our backs were straight too, so it was no hardship!

As we grew a little older we understood that our Great Grandfather Bissey Matthews was born in 1819.  His son William Bissey Matthews married Matilda Phillips who came from her parents’ farm at Harrington, a hamlet between Faulkland and Buckland Dineham.  Our Grandmama Matilda died young and lies with Grandpa in Norton Churchyard.  Great Grandpa’s stone lies against the wall.  It was said his wife was from a titled family in Broadway near Evesham.  John Bissey Matthews born 26 June 1864 and his brothers Harry and Frederick (Uncle Fred) after private tuition at Beckington, were sent, at an early age, to the Colstone School in Bristol as boarders about 1872.  We heard how they hated to come home to the Village wearing their dreaded school uniform.

In his early twenties Dad visited America and Canada. They had two good looking tall sisters, our aunts, Elizabeth (Bessie) and Flora (Flo).  Later on, we learned that Grandfather and his father before him were Gentlemen farmers, owning land and another farm in Southwick, as well as our farm in Norton.  Sometimes we were very excited when we were driven in the four wheel via Rode to collect the rents.  They also owned the inn at Limpley Stoke named the Rose and Crown, and the famous “George Inn’, a picturesque half-timbered house, which in its original form was a guest house and grange for the Carthusian house of Hinton Abbey in the thirteenth century, on the top floor is a vast fifteenth century wool store.

The Duke of Monmouth slept at the Inn on the night preceding the Battle of Phillip’s Norton in 1685, a few weeks before Sedgemoor.  Whilst he slept, a man attempted to shoot him through the bedroom windows in the hope of collecting the price on his head.  There is a lane nearby called Bloody Lane, and we were rather afraid of the place, expecting to see arms and legs sticking out of the ground, as it was rumoured bones were sometimes turned over if the soil was disturbed in different parts of the Village.  Judge Jefferies was said to have held a Bloody Assize from the balcony in the courtyard, and men were hung there.  We believed there was a secret tunnel to Farley Hungerford Castle and wished the poor prisoners could have escaped their sad end.  There was a tale that Samuel Pepys had visited the Inn, where cloth, wool and linen fairs were held.  I remember every year there was a sort of fair and swinging boats were set up in the road outside.

When we were sent to post or on an errand, we used to hold hands, hold our breath, avert our eyes and hurry past the “Fleur de Lys’, an ale house on one side of the road, and the “George” on the other - just in case we saw a drunken man because the casual labourers drank strong cider in those days, and there were always wagons and carts outside the “George”, farmers and business people gathered there.  A strong heavy horse was kept, which was hitched on in front of the teams hauling heavy loads up Norton Hill.

I must go back a little and add to my story.  When I was about five years old Agnes took me to the field near the Church where a mock battle was being fought to commemorate the battle.  I remember standing amount the crowd of sightseers and how very frightened I was when the soldiers on horseback wearing steel helmets on their heads, waving swords in their hands pretending to fight came up quite close to us.  The horses were rearing and prancing wildly and foaming at the mouth.  The noise was awful.  I shall never forget it!  Later on I thought of it as Armageddon.

My little brothers thought David and Goliath fought on what we called The Plain and the Philistines lived at Hinton!

More of the family history! - Mother’s father Mr William Salisbury Clement was a licentiate in Dental Surgery of the Royal College of Surgeons.  He originally had a practice in George Street, Bath and in Chippenham, and later a surgery adjoining the “Saracen’s Head Inn”, Broad Street, Bath.  he also owned the famous old coaching inn and lived above the premises.  My mother and her sisters were never allowed into the downstairs dining room or the bars, and as soon as they were old enough there were sent to Miss Longs’ boarding school at Corsham.

My mother, Emily Etta Clement and my father were married at St Michaels Church, Walcot Street, Bath on November 23rd 1887.  After her husband died, my grandmother, Martha, Married Mr Andrew Thomas, an Alderman of the City of Bath and she went to live at “Trevider”, Bloomfield Avenue, taking with her, her daughter Bessie who afterwards emigrated to Australia to marry.  She had one son, my cousin Sydney Clement Lloyd, born in Australia.  One other daughter, Floss, lived at Bloomfield until her death.

Mother used to go to Bath two or three times a year.  It was eight miles and very cold in the open air especially in winter, although we did not go when the snow was on the ground.  We had a warm carriage rug, it was made of thick blue felt with a leather edging.  We sat on each side facing each other in the back.

Mother had written ahead and liked to call on friends who were in school with her.  I remember a Miss Shackell who kept a florists shop and a conservatory near Evans and Owen.  We always went there for tea.  She always called Mother “dear little Emmie”.  Another of her friends lived on Wellsway in a nice house with red and blue glass in the front door.  I can see Dad stopping the horses now to put us down and calling for us later.

I forgot to say that after Auntie Bessie married, and grandpa died, I went to Miss Fudge’s School in a private house – Cedar Lodge, until I was 10 years old and then to the Church School which was opposite our house.  The Vicar used to come in once a week to give us a talk or Scripture lesson and ask us questions.  We had Scripture lessons every morning and learnt to say some of the Psalms etc.  Miss Alley taught us very well: when Sidney, Bert and Cyril were late she used to give them the cane and I knew that they could not help being late because they used to have to take the cows after milking to the fields and some of the fields were down Foxholes Lane.  It seemed a very long way away to us, and the lanes leading to the fields were deep in mud in the wet weather.  The poor boys and the cows used to get stuck in the mud, so you can imagine how I felt when I saw them having the cane!

While I’m on the subject of School, I may as well say that during the morning playtime at 11am I knew how busy mother and Agnes were and so I thought it right, that instead of playing with the girls I would run over and help.  So I made it a plan to peel as many potatoes as I could in the time.  It needed a big saucepan full for all of us.  I kept one eye on the window and one on the knife.  Then when I heard the bell I would run as fast as my legs could carry me to join the queue of girls.  Miss Alley knew what I was doing and used to give me a wry little smile as I ran.

Mother was wonderful!  She always managed to cook us a nice dinner.  I cannot remember how the plates kept hot and it was quite a business counting out ten plates.  Mother, Dad, Ethel, Sydney, Ida, Bert, Cyril, Dora, Leslie, Gwen!  It was also wonderful how Mother always seemed to finish her work by three pm and then go upstairs, have a good wash in her bedroom, where there was a washstand with a pretty china jug and basin to wash in.  Then she changed into a clean dress.  I remember she wore a gold brooch and often her gold chain.

I will continue now and tell you a bit more about our play combined with work.  On Saturday mornings we were sent into the garden in which there was a woodhouse, we had to cut up enough sticks for the week for the fires to be lit, but in between we used to play and try to light an old rusty stove and pretend to cook and warm ourselves on it.  One day we were looking for wood in the back of the house when we came across something which rather scared us! It was a cork leg!  I understand that my Great Grandfather fell off a horse and broke his leg and he had to have it amputated and wore this cork leg, so it must have been stored there after he died.  It was very hush, hush!

Another of our jobs to help on Monday mornings during the dinner hour was to clean 8 pairs of boots which we had worn on Sunday, they were our best boots and had to be put in a cupboard.  Candles were used to light us to bed and round the house and oil lamps in the living rooms.  These had to be cleaned and filled with paraffin, the wicks cut and glass chimneys polished.

In the diary were large pans filled with milk, and the cream came to the top and had to be skimmed every day for a week, and when the crock was full of cream it was put in the wooden churn.  We used to take turns to turn the handle until it became thick enough to take out and mould the butter into pats.  Sometimes mother would say “Oh dear! The butter will not come today”.  Oh how our little arms used to ache.  But it was worthwhile because people always said “Mrs Matthews’ butter is the best in the village”.  Very little was sold because we used to much of it ourselves.  It seems strange that mother was such a good housewife because she was not brought up as a farmer’s wife.  I do not think she did much work between the time she left boarding school and got married.

Cakes were always made for the week on Fridays and I learnt to cook when I was quite young by watching mother. (At 96 I can still make a pretty good fruit cake, beating butter and sugar by hand and often suffering from exhaustion afterwards, to the dismay of my children).  In the early days we had to bake in the oven of the range in the kitchen and it was very temperamental.  Could the chimney have been partly blocked with birds nests after so many centuries?  Little owls were known to have fallen down chimneys in the district.

It was always a tussle as to who should go to Bath with Mother because Dora would creep round her and pull her skirts while she was dressing saying “Take me! Take me!”.  Ethel and I wanted to go as well, so I suppose we had to take it in turns, because mother could only manage one at a time.

Mother must have been very fond of children or Dad, or perhaps both, because they had four girls and four boys.  And lost a couple I believe!  Each time mother was expecting a baby, two or three of us were sent to stay with an uncle or aunt.  When we went to Grandma Clement we were so very bored and hated it because we did not know what to do or where to go and play except just to watch the tennis being played on the courts in front of the house.  Sometimes we used to walk down towards Oldfield to watch the trains which ran on the Somerset and Dorset line from Green Park Station.  When Dad came to see us on Saturdays we cried to go home but he could not take us.  Grandma used to take us into Bath if she had any shopping to do, and I remember her wearing a grand cape, a skirt with a bustle, a bonnet with a little feather curled round the top and tiny beads scattered on a veil.  She was tall and elegant, and ….. it was whispered she spent a great deal of money on clothes because of all the receptions and public duties which she and Mr Thomas attended.

We used to walk to Bath down a hill called Holloway, she used to shop in Lipton’s and generally buy some cakes in Fortt’s.  Bath was a different world for us, full of glorious buildings and smart people in Bath chairs, pulled by bent old men.  All the shops and tradesmen had horse drawn delivery vans which fascinated the boys.  Missing our farmhouse meals we were often hungry.  I’m sure Grandma was not aware of it.  Our manners prevented a request for more.  Children were seen and not heard in those days.

I was also sent to Maiden Bradley where Dad’s brother, Uncle Fred, lived.  He was in the Estate Office of the Duke of Somerset.  They had a lovely house in the village.  I liked Auntie Annie his wife, they had baby twins Phyllis and Geoffrey, but tragically Phyllis was born blind.

Then I was sent to Auntie Flor who married and lived I Coventry, she had four children and eventually my cousin Eric married and had a son, David Holmes whom we used to see giving commentaries on the BBC television in the sixties.

In the autumn, my father, uncles and the two older boys used to shoot over the land and were sometimes invited to shoots at neighbouring farms.  When we were small we loved to go down the dark stone stairs to the cellar.  The first us held a candle which we feared might blow out.  And there!  Hanging on a long pole suspended from the rafters were rabbits, hares and pheasants.  Their fur and feathers gleaming against the surrounding deep shadows, their poor little legs and feet crossed neatly over the pole.  I’m afraid they simply meant meat and dinner to us!  By the time I was twelve I was able to draw and pluck a fowl and skin and clean a rabbit.  The men did the paunching in the fields.

Some people thought our solid old stone tiled house was Elizabethan.  It had dormer windows when we were very young, and we stayed at a house up in the village while the ceilings were raised and a new roof put on.  We had stone floors in most of the house.  And a stone circular staircase with niches in the wall for candlesticks and another back staircase to the room above the dairy which had a low window of small thick panes of greenish handmade glass, all set in the lead.  It looked out onto a dark overgrown part of the garden and we said “a witch lived there”, which made us open our eyes wide as shivers ran down our backs.

In the early days we had to cook on a range in the kitchen summer and winter.  But later and oil stove called “A Valor Perfection” was invented and we were delighted because it would heat much more quickly than the range.  So, we put it in the dairy, but even in summer by poor feet used to get so cold standing on the stone floor and I hadn’t the sense to put a mat under my feet.

Christmas Day was looked forward to for weeks and we used to try to peep at the parcels stored in the cupboard upstairs.  Christmas Day started with going to Church and then Christmas Dinner which we had taken weeks to prepare.  We used to all sit around the table stoning the raisins for about a week, and when the puddings were made and the suet skinned, they were boiled in the clothes boiler.  We made about twelve puddings.  After dinner and the washing up was finished, we all assembled in the drawing room and then the presents were brought down, and with ceremony distributed from the eldest to the youngest, of course we enjoyed them because we only had presents on our Birthday and Christmas Day.

Mother had a sister, Bessie, who had emigrated to Australia and married Mr Lloyd, a tea merchant.  He sent us 2lb wooden boxes of delicious fragrant tea.  And sometimes we had raisins too.  Mother loved to have letters with a Sydney post mark.  I still correspond with my cousin whose first name is Sydney.  Mother had a photograph of him when he was a choirboy.  It was much treasured.  One wonderful year Uncle Harry, who was in the Midland Bank in Milson Street, sent a huge wooden box and inside was a complete croquet set with four mallets, six hoops, eight balls and one peg.  We were stunned.  Another year we were given a phonograph, with a metal base and beige cylinders, which were the records, and a trumpet out of which came a whining voice – amazement!  Then we had a large cardboard donkey which was pinned to a curtain.  A pin was stuck through its separate tail and we were blindfolded outside the drawing room door and invited in to pin the tail on the donkey.  False instructions were shouted at us in the hope that the tail would be attached to the donkey’s nose.

Mercifully though, the boys generally received animals, beautifully carved out of wood to add to a lovely old Noah’s Ark or horses and carts which they played with every evening in the kitchen on the table, loading the carts with toy bricks and taking the horses out of the shafts pretending they were hauling stones etc.  We girls played with our dolls in the warm sitting room, and snap, and old maid.  We crocheted and knitted, and played halma, and later learnt to sew and mend and sometimes we were allowed to play whist – with the wooden shutters closed and the curtains drawn, the hot fire and the sparks flying up the chimney, it was all so happy and safe and innocent and seemed as if it would last forever.

Sometimes we were a little frightened when Dad brought the newspapers back from Bath and read about the Boer War.  Kruger and Kitchener and Baden Powell were still household words.  We heard about the battle of Omdurman.  I was nearly ten years old when school closed to celebrate the Relief of Mafeking in 1900.  The bells were rung again and again.  Nobody could believe it when Queen Victoria died in 1901.  Everyone went into black.

After the Spring ploughing, when barley and wheat were sown, we loved to go out and act as human scarecrows.  How we loved to make as much noise as we could, jumping up and down, waving our arms and screaming “chewala-chewalaaaaaa!!!”  The naughty birds, crows and rooks, pigeons, seagulls and jackdaws rose in the clear cold air to fly away for a few moments and would then circle back to try to steal again.

In the Summer it was haymaking time and Dad used his machine to mow our fields and sometimes for other people.  One of our fields was about a mile away, and he used to mow until quite late in the evening, and of course he wanted some tea.  So, after school two of us had to take it down to him carrying quite a heavy basket of food and a stoneware jar and teacups etc. It seemed a long way, and we were glad to sit down among the sweet hay and have some of his tea.  Then he wanted us to rake the hay on the corners away from the knives on the mower which did not like doing, as I was so afraid of the horses.  It was lovely walking home at dusk in the cool of the evening.  I think we had hotter weather in those days.

Thinking again of the food sent to the fields, one thing we always kept was a whole big cheese in the pantry.  It was straight from Frome market and had a good mature bite to it.  We often went in and helped ourselves, especially when we were cutting it up to tie in red handkerchiefs ready to send to the men.

All food was wrapped in clean newly laundered white napkins for Dad and for our picnics.  Remember we had no cling film or kitchen foil – neither did we have paper handkerchiefs when we had colds!

Another of my escapades was getting up at 5am to go down to the Foxholes to pick mushrooms before school.  As I wanted to be sure to wake up in time, believe it or not, I devised a plan to be called early!  George Grist used to pass down past our house at 5am to fetch their cows for milking.  So, I asked him to wake me by pulling a string which I tied on my big toe and hung it out of my bedroom window.  He did and we often had mushrooms for breakfast!

I am getting a bit older now, about 12 years old I should think.  The Village Hall was built just below our farmhouse and classes were held there for different things including sewing classes and dancing classes.  Dancing was held once a week and we were taught the proper steps of the Polka, Shotize, Waltz, Lancers and Quadrille, then once a month we held a “Long Night” and the boys and girls assembled and danced properly enjoying a real social evening!  The Lancers and the Quadrille were quite tricky and ti was difficult to remember the correct movements, there were four people to a set!  At Christmas time we had a real party with lovely refreshments.  Thinking back now, I realise how well the young men behaved in those days.  For instance, on Sunday evenings, in Summer, after Church we all went for walks together down Tellisford Lane or Wellow Lane or Farley Lane and there were never any monkey tricks.  We may have held hands and joked, but they never seemed to kiss any of us!  They must have been shy or did not fancy us.  We used to look at the sky and talk about the stars!  I remember just once John Phippen asked me to go for walked with him alone.  I did, but when he wanted to stop outside a gate I was scared stiff and moved on quickly!  He was a farmer’s son who went to sea.

I had some very nice friends named Julia, Edward and George Grist.  They were butchers and farmers and were very kind to me.  Julia, Edward and I played a lot together and sometimes we stole up to the slaughter house and watched the men killing the sheep.  What a cruel business it was, so slow, as they have to bleed to death from the neck!  We were not allowed to peep at the oxen.  I think it was an awesome sight.  Mrs Grist was very fond of playing whist so we often sat with her in the sitting room and learnt how to play cards, including Nap!  We always had lovely meals there, plenty of meat at lunch time and dainty cakes for tea as Annie, the eldest daughter, was a marvellous cook.

Mrs Grist was also very fond of sitting in her bedroom watching people pass by.  I think she knew everyone’s business, unlike Mother, who was reserved and kept a little aloof, though always kind.  We were advised not to tell takes.  Regarding birth, marriage and death, as children we were not exposed to the thoughtless uncontrolled manner in which people chatter today.  If there was an injudicious remark an eyebrow would be lifted, a parent would say “little ears!” and we would know we must go away and not listen.

What a blessing when the time came for the motor car, lorry and motor bus to take over from the horses and carts!  But that was a few years on from now.  I well remember the first car, and my friend George Grist had a motor bike and sidecar, I was so thrilled to have a ride in it.

I am 15 years old now and will start a new chapter in my life. It was time for me to leave school and therefore my parents had to decide what it was best for me to do.  There was nothing that I could do, in the small village of Norton St Philip, and so they decided that I would become an apprentice to learn millinery at the very exclusive shop named “Jolly’s” of Milsom Street, Bath.  This meant that they had to pay a premium for me for two years to cover my apprenticeship.  My friend Julia Grist also joined me.

The next problem was to decide where I was going to live, and it happened that the YWCA, which means Young Women’s Christian Association, was also in Milsom Street, opposite Jollys, and so they had to pay for me to live there.  I will tell you more about that later.  The room where we worked was above the showroom where the hats were sold.  There was a “Head Milliner” who was rather strict, and about sic other girls from chief assistant down to Julia and myself.  The Head Milliner did most of the trimming once the hats were made.  It was quite a work of art, different to the way they are made now in block.  Wire frames had to be made in the shape required, and tools called nippers were used to manipulate the bending and cutting and joining of the wires, leaving an opening for the head space.  Then straw in different widths and colours had to be sewn round and round on net which covered the straw, over which the hats had to be trimmed with flowers, ribbons etc.  Winter hats were made of buckram and were covered in silks and velvet.  I remember that my first job was to sort out and tidy a box of silks, and by stages I learnt how to make head linings and stitch them by machine.  I used to pedal the machine as hard and fast as my feet would go.  It was a great day when I first made a shape and learnt to sew the straw etc.

We had to learn to match the grain of a ribbon or material, how to steam velvet, always to stitch invisibly and drape and ruche fabrics.  Little boaters were discreetly trimmed with ribbons and flowers for Henley Regatta.  They had to be well fitting and neat or they might blow off into the water.  Picture hats were swathed in chiffon and roses, we even perched sprays of cherries above and below curving brims.  There were toques, and mourning hats loaded with pleated crepe and cockades.  We learnt to curl and bend ostrich feathers and osprey mounts.

We were not allowed to speak when the Head was in the room and I felt so shy and meek going out into the big world.  When we were sent down to the showroom to take a hat for the Head Milliner, to try on for the customer, we had to hide behind a curtain.  The people who bought hats in Jollys were very rich and special people, even royalty came there and their horses and carriages with coachmen, who wore cloaks and top hats, ranged down Milsom Street.  By the time my apprenticeship was over I was able to make a complete hat!

I will explain a little about living in the YWCA.  Happily, this building was in Milsom Street opposite Jolly’s shop.  You see it was too far for Julia and I to go home every day, 8 miles in those days was a long way by horse and trap or bicycle!  We loved living there, the food was very good.  There was a Matron, who supervised the servants who cleaned and cooked for about a dozen of us, and a secretary, who organised and prepared the meetings of Bible classes and lectures etc.  She wsa marvellous and I worshipped her.  She gave such wonderful talks and sermons which we always attended.  We also had games too.  Of course, several outsiders came to the lectures and Bible classes and prayer meetings.

Every weekend my friends and I used to go home.  In good weather we bicycled, usually via Hinton.  This meant a long toil up to Combe Down, then a whizzing ride down the hill into Midford and another steep climb up to Hinton.  Occasionally we would go a longer way round through Limpley Stoke with yet another steep hill through the woods.  On Sunday evenings we all had to ride back to Bath.  There was one hazard, the train lines from Combe Down to the Guildhall!  The thin front wheels of our bicycles sometimes got trapped between the metal rails and we were in danger of falling off at speed!

The two years soon passed and I went home again, but before long I answered an advertisement for an assistant milliner at the highest class shop in Trowbridge.  There was a head milliner and me in the back room and between us we made all the hats for the customers.  I lived in the same house as the owners of the shop, and of course I was about the do what I liked after business hours.  It was summer time and the evenings were long and I missed the meetings held in the YWCA in Bath and so I went for walks by myself – now this starts a new story in my life.

I was now 19 years old and I suppose becoming an attractive young women, because a young man spotted me and came up and introduced himself to me and asked me to come for a walk.  I was very shy but accepted and we walked towards the countryside!  So, each evening we would meet and after about a fortnight he stopped me by some trees and naturally asked me for a kiss!  Well!  Well!  What a mercy!  God must have directed for me to be protected!  He must have put it into the minds of my employers to watch over me, for what do you think. They had seen me meeting this young man from their windows and decided to follow me.  That evening after I returned from my walk they called me to their room and told me that they had seen me by the wood and that the young man had kissed me. They were so upset and anxious for me that they told me I had better leave and go home, which of course I did that day.  The young man was never seen again!

Home again just helping Mother in the house – but before long a message came from the lady named Miss Akery who kept the Post Office in the Village, please would I come to see her? Of course I went and when I arrived she told me “A lady from Cardiff wished to see me because she understood I had been trained as a milliner in Jolly’s of Bath”.  She owned a private business in Charles Street, Cardiff and did high class work and so she asked me if I would come to Cardiff to make hats for her.  I was only too pleased to accept her offer and went the following week!

The YWCA was again in Charles Street and I was delighted to be able to live there among other nice girls and Matron, and Secretary, who held many prayer meetings and Bible classes which we all attended and enjoyed.  We also had a tennis club and learnt to play tennis.  I settled down nicely in the business and satisfied my employers that I was very lady like.

Time passed nicely and I was very happy.  One day as I walked down the street to the shop I saw a group of young men waving to me from a window.  I tossed my head and did not wave back.  Next evening I was in the YWCA sitting room looking out of the window and there was a young man on the opposite side of the street looking up and beckoning to me.  I tossed my head and took no notice.  The following week and invitation came to me through a girlfriend with a ticket to a concert at the City Hall.  She asked me to accompany her to the concert and so I went.  The singing was wonderful and there was also a Male Voice Choir.  After the concert were about to leave when a young man appeared and my friend Mabel Lewis introduced me to him.  We chatted briefly and left.  Next Sunday he’d found out which church I went to and met me after Church.  He did this often over the next weeks.   He was one of the group I’d ignored who used to wave to me.  He had more sense than the other one who stood on the pavement.  I found out these chaps were in the offices of the Council in the Architects Department of the City Hall.  I had never head of an architect before, but came to understand that it was quite an important “livelihood”.  His name was Enoch Williams.  He was a Welshman from Swansea and he was studying hard to become an ARIBA.  Enoch had been on sketching tours in France and so at weekends we often cycled to surrounding villages near Cardiff to look at churches and I still have delightful water colour sketches which he used to do.  He was well behaved and we continued our friendship just slowly.  I continued with my business and YWCA lectures and was quite religious!

In time when I was about 21 we thought my parents ought to meet Enoch Williams, and decided the next time I went home he should come with me.  I can’t quite remember how we travelled from Bath to Norton St Philip but I think the buses had started running by then.  Because I remember the first bus that ever ran – we children took a ride to the next village of Hinton Charterhouse and walked back!  When we arrived home everybody was very shy of meeting a real stranger, especially a Welshman, and a man in an office!  And a small man at that!  The boys were intrigued by him.  They whispered and laughed, teased me, and peeped around doors.  He was intrigued by our beautiful village church tower which he told me was original in that it had a mixture of styles.  Built in the decorated period, the Church had been enlarged in 1847.  He wasted no time and sketched it during the weekend.  I was in turn intrigued and captivated by one who knew so much.  I felt my life opening out before me.  He was full of vitality, intelligence and humour.  He was ambitious and needed a wife to further his career.  Mother and Dad were very anxious and not at all sure he was the right one.  They were used to country people – farmers at that!  But I took no notice and continued my friendship with him.

In time we became engaged and then I had to meet Enoch’s relations. They lived in the small village of Bon-y-Maen near Swansea.  They kept a general store and grocers shop which sold everything from sacks of corn to boots and bootlaces, from whiting and paraffin to ham and flour, sugar and spices.

Besides owning 23 houses in the village Enoch’s father was an educated bookish man.  He had two Bardic Chairs and had published stories and poems in Welsh and English and made translations of Welsh literature.  Enoch had two sisters and I was welcomed by them as if I were a Duchess.  They came to Swansea railway station to meet me and took me to Bon-y-Maen in a hired horse and carriage.  I felt very spoilt.  Maggie Ann, the youngest sister, was very anxious to take me round to meet the relations and the next day we went to the country town of Llandilo where the aunts and cousins lived.  A wonderful welcome from everybody.  Then to Chapel on Sunday with great ceremony in our best hats and costumes.  Father dressed up in very best every Sunday and sat in the Big Seat as a Deacon! – but Oh Dear!  Can you imagine how I felt in a Welsh Chapel not understanding a word of Welsh and the loud singing and preaching, so different from the beautiful little Church of Norton St Philip.

When he was young Enoch had to walk three miles every day to the Swansea Grammar School.  Sometimes he took a short cut crossing the river by ferry, which was a rowing boat run by an old sailor and his son.  Subsequently, this had a great bearing on his life and eventually mine.  Strange to say, I had my palm read when I was young and the palmist was non plussed, almost frightened, repeating over and over again that she could see water, and something moving back and forth.

After leaving school he decided to become an architect and his father made enquiries and found a firm by the name of “Moxom and Petty”.  Enoch was articled to them for five years, then two years in an architects office in Craven Street, Westminster where he came under the influence of the head draughtsman who trained with Sir Edwin Lutyens.  His civic work reflected this when he became Assistant to the County Architect in Cardiff and later in Newport.

So now I was engaged.  My parents had given their consent.  In those days a young lady usually collected quite a trousseau and as I lived in Cardiff I could not very well do this, so Mother suggested that I left Cardiff and came home, which I did.  Enoch used to travel to Norton to see me during the weekends.  Mother and I did our shopping in Bath and bought dresses, underwear, sheets, pillowcases, blankets, towels and all household goods.  Now, where were we going to live?  Enoch was in lodgings in Llanishan!  That would not do.  We were very fortunate when Enoch’s father suggested that he should lend us the money to buy a house and we should pay it back gradually, which we eventually did.

We then had to decide on a date for the wedding.  It was planned for July 29th 1914.  My wedding dress was white with a long veil and coronet.  The two bridesmaids were my sisters Dora and Gwen.  I made their hats trimmed with flowers and the lovely church was decorated with flowers.  All the Aunts and Uncles came.  Their wives were very helpful.  The Williams family all came from Swansea and the Reception was held at the Village Hall which was just below our house. I remember that we thought they would expect a little “entertainment” so as Mother was a very good pianist she played the piano while Dora sang a song!

Now how were we going to travel to Cardiff? My large trunk had to be taken with us 9 miles by road to Bath station which meant Dad driving us by his Four-Wheel with the trunk strapped on the back.  Our honeymoon was to be spent in Ilfracombe and as the boat did not sail until the next day we had to spend the first night in our new house in Canada Road.   The next morning we thought that we were going to catch the boat to Ilfracombe but, upon my word, if Enoch’s father and Uncle David did not arrive and expect lunch!

We sailed next day and had ten days in Ilfracombe, walking and bathing in the Tunnels Baths and enjoying the sea.  Enoch read the papers, the news was very bad and war was declared on August 4th 1914.

The Campbells boats were commandeered and we came home.  So began my long and exciting married life of sixty five years.  Enoch studied very hard and entered several competitions for contracts, such as the Ralph Allen School in Bath and The Bristol Fire Station and Civil Buildings in Cathays Park, Cardiff.  He passed his finals and became an ARIBA and was proud to be a member of The Savage Club.

As a sequel to my story you will want to know what happened to my family.  It was a cruel war.  Two of my brothers, Sydney and Bertram, had gone to Canada, but on the appeal from the government for the Canadians to join up they did so.

The situation was so desperate that they were sent straight to France without training.  We only saw my brother Sydney for three hours.  He was 24.  But Bertram aged 22 was not allowed to come home.  The battle of the Somme broke out and they were both in it and were killed within three days of each other.  Their names are on the War Memorial at Norton.

My other two brothers were also sent to France.  Cyril was wounded and taken prisoner and Leslie was wounded but managed to crawl and hide until a German found him and helped him escape to our lines and he was saved.

As there were no able bodied men left in the village, my sister Gwen who was about sixteen years old, bravely offered to take the place of Cyril and Leslie.  Every day she harnessed one of the horses, put him in the flat and took twenty churns of milk to Staverton.  On the way there was a steep incline leading down to Farleigh and in the winter when the road was frozen the horse used to slide down the hill.  Everyone knew her as the little girl in the red beret.  She received a decoration for her war work.

Enoch joined The Royal Engineers in early 1916 and worked on surveying and erecting temporary bridges and pontoons during the ferrying of troops and supplies to the battlefield.  A tall gangling Tommy was detailed to carry his theodolite about, they must have looked a hilariously assorted pair – and they were dubbed – “Brains and Brawn”.

Often under heavy fire with his love of excitement, he was in his element.  Working with Gwilyn Lloyd George the two Welshmen spoke Welsh to each other.  Enoch liked to make his own decisions and was given promotion and stripped of his stripes several times.  Apparently, a visiting Colonel inspecting the troops looked at this small wiry Welshman, in full kit, and said “Good God” Among the men his name was “Sunshine” – he had a true Welsh tenor voice and had played the flute.  This became a tin whistle in the trenches.  He came back safely saying he would “always hate picnics” because he disliked the sand in the sandwiches.

My sister Dora married Robert Pickford from Wellow, he was a Cavalry Officer.  They farmed at the Row Farm Laverton, before farming at Charleton and later Standlake near Oxford.  My younger sister Gwen married Jack Harries, a Welshman from Newport.  They lived in the Cotswolds and had a Post Office and Stores at Filkins and Ewelme.  She now lives in Longhope.

Cyril married Mary from Portishead and was a farm bailiff.  Leslie married a Norton girl, Gladys Frost from Manor Farm, and they farmed for forty years at Church Farm, Woolverton.

Enoch fulfilled all his ambitions and his story is told in the book “Severn Enterprise” by Christopher Jordan.  We had three children Megan (named after Megan Lloyd George) 1918, Anne in 1925 and John born when I was 42 in 1933.

When he was Deputy Borough Architect Enoch built me a charming house overlooking Beechwood Park in Newport.  Since 1934 I have lived in Chepstow – for fifty four years in my dear house and garden “Oakley”, where I have gardened among the woods and looked out over the River Severn and the Wye.  When my son John married Monica, Enoch was ready and designed and built a bungalow for me in the adjoining field, now part of the Oakley grounds.

Finally, my tribute to him and his indomitable spirit of adventure.  His ferry over the Severn was his real “baby”.  His main enterprise and interest from 1923 until 1966, when the Queen opened the Severn Bridge.  But there were many others, if you will forgive me I will list them for my great grandchildren: Park Wall Garage (St Pierre), the Beaufort Hotel in Chepstow, the Cinema which he both designed and built.  The Caerwent Quarries, Woodcroft Quarries, Scowles Pitch Quarries, Sheepcot Farm, Madgett Farm, Poolfield Court Farm, Tump Farm and woods.  Grazing and arable land at Tormarton, Malmesbury and Keynsham.  He always retained his love of Wales and his bilingual talents until the end, and enjoyed his Welsh speaking tenants at Llandysyl, where he had meadowland and fishing rights on the River Teifi.  At Abergwili near Carmarthen meadowland and fishing on the river Towey.  Nearby he also had Machalws Farm at Abergwili.  Nearer home at Abergavenny, grazing at Llanvetherine and trout fishing on the Trothy and the ancient salmon fishery on the Severn near the mouth of the Usk at Goldcliff.  The land at Pilning and Portskewett may be in a favourable position when the new Severn Bridge or the Barrage are realised.  Death duties took a terrible toll when he died aged 91 in 1979.  He is buried in Beachley Churchyard.

What a full life we led, with no regrets, never seeming to waste a moment.  We had many friends from all walks of life.  I am very proud to say I still admire him.  My children are so good to me never allowing me to sleep alone in the house.  I am 96 years and 3 months old now and they all tease me and say “You tough old bird and will live to see 100”.  But who knows.   That is something which is a mystery, but when the time comes I shall be ready, and hope God will forgive me all my sins.  I am thankful for such a wonderful life and such good children, but above all for my happy, well disciplined, tranquil childhood, and loving parents in the Somerset village of Norton St Philip.

God Bless you All 

Ida