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- Herausgeber: Merlin Unwin Books
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
The unassuming north Shropshire village of Myddle first came to prominence with the publication of Richard Gough's history of his village, written in the 1700s. Now a fascinating new account has come to light: the account of a poor farm-labourer's daughter, Helen Ebrey, born into a large family in Myddle in 1911, and her memories of the family's daily struggle to survive in the years just before the First World War, up to the point when she finally left the village as an adult. The hardships and poverty in Myddle were immense but Helen's rural childhood was a largely happy one, and she relates with an uncomplaining clarity the way the children all worked to bring in additional income, not for luxuries but for the common basics. The children are set to fruit-picking, milking, ferrying telegrams and newspapers, sewing, collecting fuel and every other ingenious way to make ends meet. Life in Myddle at the turn of the century was, in certain ways, not so far removed from medieval village life, and to read of a relatively recent Shropshire existance so different to that of today, is a revelation.
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Myddle
The life and times of a Shropshire farmworker’s daughter 1911-1928
HELEN EBREY
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the many people in and around Myddle who helped my mother and myself, over the years, during preparation of her childhood story - in some cases, replying in detail to my various queries that arose from my mother’s telling of her story.
I also wish to thank the Local Studies Department, Shropshire County Libraries; Janice V. Cox for the photo of Webscott Chapel; page 111.
Drawings (pages 12, 44, 46, 124 and 147) are of local scenes in the 1980s by myself.
I have made use of the following books in my research:
The History of Myddle Richard Gough (1701)
The Buildings of England (Shropshire) Nikolaus Pevsner
We are Seven William Wordsworth
A Short History of the Church and Parish of St. Peter’s, Myddle, Shropshire E.M.W. Rogers 1984
An English Rural Community – Myddle under the Tudors and Stuarts David G Hey, MA, PhD
Elizabeth Brown
Richard Gough’s History of Myddle (1701) and Helen Ebrey’s Myddle (2016)
Around 300 years before Helen related her own childhood story, Myddle resident Richard Gough wrote a remarkable, detailed account of the lives of people living in that same village at that time.
Many towns and villages throughout England are well represented in terms of our knowledge of the gentry and the most important families. But Gough put Myddle in a rare position. We not only know who occupied the Castle and the various Halls in the area, but also who did what and to whom (in incredible detail) among the local population.
So (for example) we know that poor Anne Parkes ‘learned to knit stockens and gloves’ to earn her living; just as Helen’s mother did in Myddle (almost three centuries later) as one of numerous ways to achieve a basic subsistence level for the family.
Likewise we discover from Gough that one ‘Cooke Hayward gave £10 to the Poore of this side of the Parish of Myddle, the interest to bee dealt in bread on the first Lord’s day of every month, among such poore people as come to Church to receive it’.
But it is only from Helen that we learn that receiving such bread at Myddle Church (sometimes less fresh than it should have been!) remained an essential part of the sustenance of ‘poore people’ such as her own family, well into the 1900s.
Children at Myddle School (such as Helen) probably learned that Richard Gough had been a pupil there – but not necessarily that he wrote what was to become a key work in the study of English local history, as seen from the viewpoint of ordinary folk.
If Helen Ebrey had set out to leave us a 20th-century updating of Gough’s groundbreaking work, then Myddle might be that book.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
A Twentieth Century Village Childhood
Helen Ebrey, my mother, was known locally as Nell. She spent her childhood in Myddle, Shropshire. She was born in 1911, shortly before the Great War. This is Helen’s story.
My parents were poor, living in a tied farm cottage near Balderton Hall, where Father worked as a labourer. The Hall was a magnificent Elizabethan farmhouse situated on the north side of the road from Yorton to Myddle. At the period of my childhood, however, Father was more concerned where the next meal was coming from than the handsome group of buildings in which he found employment.
The cottages were in a terrace of three (we lived at No. 2) and the lane continued beyond them towards the scattered dwellings known as the hamlet of Houlston.
Father (William Henry Ebrey) was a Myddle man and Mother (Emily Davis Ebrey) came from Baschurch. Ebreys had lived in Myddle in 1758 when a Sara Ebry married Joe Davis at Myddle Church (St Peter’s). They may have originally come from Wem, where records are available of various spellings of Ebrey from 1685 onwards.
To return to my early life at Balderton Cottage: I was the second child in the family, Emily (Em) being one year older. We were close friends, she being my confidante and this companionship was vital when we commenced employment together and were forced to face horrors we could never have imagined. However, I race ahead. Many years of childhood intervened before this unhappy period.
When I was four [1915] we moved from my birthplace into the very heart of Myddle. Mother had wanted to move to be near the school, church, store, pump and family members, especially Father’s mother, our Granny Ebrey, who lived in the Gullet – but I return to this ancient water channel/footpath later.
Our new home in the heart of the village was ‘Rose Cottage’ and had previously been occupied by an Estate Bailiff. It sat on the road which continued through the pretty village on its way to Baschurch and Ruyton-XI-Towns (a river town on the River Perry, so-called because eleven townships comprise the parish).
We were proud that our village possessed a castle. Although visibly not a great deal remained, an interesting corner turret survived, with attractive, centuries-old sandstone masonry. The castle ruins were located at Castle Farm.
Our Parish Church, St. Peter’s, was near Castle Farm, in the heart of the village. Much later, when Father retired, he became a church sexton and rang the bells for services from the ancient tower.
It was quite usual to see cattle on the hoof in those days. Cows were driven by shouting drovers on the occasions of the market at Shrewsbury Smithfield, the 8 miles or so along the lanes. Two working farms, Alford and Castle, occupied the village centre. Milking of cows, by hand, twice daily including Sundays brought employment to local women.
Our magnificent inn, the Red Lion, was built in the seventeenth century and thought originally to have been a barn belonging to Eagle Farm (now called Alford). The Inn dominated the village centre with its immense size. Much land was then appended to it (several fields in the village as well as at Myddlewood). The clubroom, over the inn stables, was the centre of business activities. Estate rents were collected here and the eventual sale of all estate property was undertaken here also. On days when the hunt met in the square in front of the inn, the sight was a colourful spectacle.
Myddle Castle as it stood in Helen’s younger years. In reality a fortified manor-house, dating from a time when Welsh incursions necessitated such structures. It fell into ruins in the 16th and 17th centuries, only this corner turret surviving to modern times. Not until the 1980s was anything done to prevent its further onslaught by wind and weather, by which time there was little left to save.
I attended the sandstone village school, which the Myddle author Richard Gough, born 1635, had also attended.
The cast-iron pump for drinking-water was in the school playground, near the road and within a low wall to keep schoolchildren away at breaks when villagers might be collecting their water.
The well or pump was the focus of village life, for it was here everyone queued for vital drinking water, and the spot where news and gossip was shared. The clanging of empty buckets was a pleasant familiar sound as folk passed our cottage on the way to collect the precious commodity.
The old quarry at the end of our lane was a huge, deep hole in the ground, where sandstone had been quarried over the years. It was the place where folk threw their rubbish. We were not anxious to play here however, for fear of rats!
ROSE COTTAGE
Our new cottage was small, homely, and constructed on lines of rudimentary simplicity. Two rooms and a tiny pantry occupied the ground floor, and access to the two bedrooms was by a dark staircase and a long, equally-dark landing. An outside wash-house built at the side of the cottage housed a log-burning boiler, and here sacks of Indian corn were stored for the hens. A generous garden extended from the back of the dwelling.
It was customary for estate cottages to be provided with a field or orchard, to encourage tenants to keep livestock, and ours was at the top of the hill behind the cottage, approached by a steeply sloping footpath from Myddle Bank.
Many exposed beams added to the character of the interior of Rose Cottage. The focal point in the living room was, without doubt, the magnificent cast-iron range, always warm and inviting, and a most pleasing object to sit near. Mother lovingly cleaned it every Saturday morning with faultless regularity. The black-leading she used was available at ½d per brick; flues at the back were cleaned out at the same time. A piece of binder twine, stretched between nails across the mantelpiece, provided a useful hanging place for damp clothes. Mother and Father each possessed an old-fashioned second-hand armchair but we children had to sit on solid straight-back wooden chairs.
Our bedroom was above the living room, with an enormous chimney-breast which warmed the room a little. A double bed occupied most of the floor space, with pretty brass bedsteads, where we hung our clothes overnight. Nails had been driven into the latch-door to hang clothes on. A large cot stood in the corner, suitable for the two smallest children. (At this point in time we were two but gradually our family increased to six children).
Mother had a special propensity to make much out of little. She made attractive warm rugs from old tweed coats and jackets acquired at jumble sales, cutting the fabric into small lengths which she pulled through a sack base with a wooden prodding tool, before knotting them. Farmers gladly gave her the sacks, and some bore the emblem of a cow or cockerel, being an advertisement. This design was often incorporated into the rug, and a border added in whatever dark shades of cloth she had. These warm rugs covered the floors, which were cold red bricks downstairs and wooden boards in the bedrooms.
We used paraffin lamps and candles for lighting, and went to bed by candle light in winter. Our cottage door was usually wide open on warm days because of the heat from the range. Passers-by would call a friendly greeting to Mother and news was regularly exchanged.
BATHTIME
Saturday evening without fail was bathnight. It was chaos and confusion when the old tin tub was carried indoors by Father from the wash-house and placed in front of the range. Mother heated water in a variety of pots and pans and soon bathtime was underway. This weekly immersion in hot water was to ensure we were clean for Sunday School. Our long hair was washed at the same time, dried, and tied in rags to encourage curls.
What may be astonishing now was that Mother then washed all our clothes in the bathwater in front of the fire, wrung them out by hand, and hung them on washing lines of binder-twine strung between the beams in the front parlour. The pieces of crude furniture we possessed were pushed out of the way, and the water dripped onto the brick floor. While the clothes dried, we wore our old coats. Usually the washing was dry enough for Mother to iron in time for the garments to be worn for afternoon Sunday School.
Meanwhile on Sunday morning, we were sent off round the village in our petticoats and coats to seek to purchase a few eggs at ld (when our own hens were not laying). These were boiled and cut in half for dinner.
Helen’s mother feeding her hens in her top field.
An observant lad once commented that I was not wearing anything under my coat. I blushed, and was glad that my sister was close at hand.
Half an egg on Sunday was a special treat. That was for dinner. After Sunday School we had tea, for which Mother always baked a fairly plain cake. I should mention that Emily and I were presented with bibles and prayer books by the Rector (Reverend S.A. Woolward) for answering religious questions at Sunday School. The presentation was made on his lawn and parents were invited.
The only meals the family ate together were on a Sunday. On other days Mother and Father ate first, while we went out to play and then we had bread and dripping (kindly donated by Mrs Colemere of the Red Lion) or a baked potato.
Meat was available for those who could afford it. Mr Brisbane called each week with his horse and cart, the cart having a box contraption on the back in an attempt to keep meat-flies/dust and elements off the meat. The source of his supply was his brother’s farm at Webscott known as ‘Brisbane the Lane’. Myddle was supplied on Fridays, in all weathers, approaching via the old quarry. Mrs Davies and Mrs Painter came with their plates, then Aunt Alice next door. Mother took her plate out next for two-penny-worth of brawn, which was all we ever purchased.
Mr Brisbane’s horse was then fed from a nosebag outside our cottage, while he lifted down a great basket from the seat beside him. This he filled with the choicest joints and cuts of meat, and took this heavy basket first to Mrs Porch’s home (where her maid would be expecting him), then to the shop, and then to the inn. He then returned to collect the horse and cart and drove off to Alford Farm, the Rectory and Castle Farm. I often wondered why these people couldn’t come out with their plates, as we did!
BREAD
Mother purchased bread baked at Baschurch by ‘Francis the Baker’ who delivered once a week to the village by pony and trap. She took eight loaves which lasted a week until his next visit. Father usually took cheese sandwiches for his lunch (cheese was either 2d or 4d per lb).
I was always called at 6am to help Mother light the fire to enable a kettle to be boiled for tea, and make sandwiches etc.
*****
To return to the cottage: window sills were frequently crowded with plants as geraniums, cactus and ferns all competed for what little light penetrated through the tiny windows. Ours were no exception, but the leafy greenery afforded us some small element of privacy when we all washed for school in an enamel bowl on the scrubbed whitewood table placed under the window.
Later on, when we were older, our ablutions (for some reason not at all obvious to me at the time) were performed out in the wash-house, or in the garden. In the latter case, a small section of high stone wall near the cottage offered a degree of shelter from the public gaze. We used chilled rainwater from the butt, first skimming the usual assortment of dead insects from the surface with our bowl-dish, which we then placed on an old school bench standing under the wall and acting as a wash-stand. Very occasionally a little square of green household soap cut from a larger slab might be available.
Our toilet was a small bucket closet in a brick hut at the top of the garden, built by the estate shortly before we moved to Rose Cottage, to replace an earlier earth closet. During warmer months it buzzed with a common selection of flies, and we were constantly harassed by large blowflies. The pigsty was part of the same building, but later Father moved the pigs into the orchard. The Wellington Journal served as toilet paper.
On wet days, we threw an old coat, from the back door, over our shoulders and ran, water dripping down upon us from the many knotty damson trees which lined the path. Our garden and closet were somewhat exposed to public view from the road. The degree of this exposure became more embarrassingly apparent to us when we grew a little older and big red service buses appeared on the scene. These came with faces which peered and sometimes even smiled at us when we answered the calls of nature, for there was no disguising our destination.
POLITICS
During a period prior to a general election the conservative agent called throughout the village enquiring if anyone would be prepared to allow a room to be rented for the day of the poll. A committee room was required and they needed somewhere close to the school while polling took place. Mother agreed to allow our front parlour to be used. The remote village fell under the Ellesmere Estates of Lord Brownlow.
Mother, in a sudden flash of inspiration, wrote to the Estate Office saying that as the room was to be used by the Conservative Party, was there any possibility of it being redecorated? (The years of hanging wet washing here to dry in time for Sunday School had taken their toll). Mother’s mention of the political party involved had a remarkable influence, producing the surprising result of a decorator being sent along post-haste with rolls of paper and paint. Soon Mr Davis, the decorator for the Estate, set to work. The paper had a white background with chandeliers of red, in fact, it resembled bedroom paper, but we children loved it, and it smartened the room immediately.
The Conservative candidate was a ‘Bridgewater’ of Oswestry. It was a foregone conclusion that the conservative would win, because local people were fearful of their jobs on the estate and cottages and rents, if they voted any other way.
CHAPTER TWO
Childhood Fun and Games
We often played in the Rector’s Coppice, approached by an ancient walled track which ran between Myddle Bank and the Lower Road. This coppice was quite a walk from the Rectory, being at the opposite end of the village. But it was an exciting playground for us with many rocky outcrops behind which we could hide.
We knew where to find some old inscribed headstones, placed in the coppice by past rectors in memory of departed pet dogs. I can remember one, which as far as we could read [the inscription being rather weathered] was dedicated to a dog called Sam who died in 1857, aged 13 years. This was at a time when deceased members of most village families were buried in the churchyard in unmarked graves [the Church of England owned much land in the village then]. The coppice was also an ideal location from which to view the castle, because it was in an elevated position, with sweeping views across the fields to Castle Farm. I suppose strictly speaking we were trespassing, but we played here often without hindrance; people didn’t seem to mind in those days, and we did no damage.
Father acquired an odd 4-wheeled truck of the type which might have been used in a Welsh slate quarry. The new acquisition provided the means of moving hitherto impossibly heavy weights and bulky objects around. Goodness knows where it came from!
We used it to fetch coal from Yorton Station siding, which was a cheaper way to purchase it (at 1s 4d per sack). The journey to the station was most enjoyable. When the high sandstone wall was reached, on the stretch from Balderton Hall to Newton, one child pulled the truck, while the others jumped up onto the wall and ran along the top. This we always did as it was one of the special pleasures of walking to Yorton. Upon reaching the top of the hill near the site of St. Mary’s Monastery, we all four children sat inside the truck, gradually gaining speed down a very steep hill. It’s a miracle we were never involved in a serious accident; the truck had no brakes. A right turn into the station yard, and the goods siding and coal merchant’s office were on the left. On warm days we sought shelter from the sun on a seat placed under a leafy weeping tree in the attractive platform garden which was kept neat and trim by the resident station-master.
The children had to push sacks of coal two miles home from Yorton station, to save the cost of having it delivered! When the Queen arrived in the 1920s to stay at Shotton Hill, this unassuming structure had been built for her possible use, doubtless bedecked with flags and bunting.
Helen’s birthplace was Balderton Hall Cottages near Myddle.
Our visit to the station was never complete without a peep inside the ladies’ waiting room and closet, the only water closet we had ever seen. We usually squabbled over who should pull the chain! The oddly-shaped porcelain Victorian closet-bowl was eyed with wonder, as was the dark polished wooden seat. The walls were covered with blue Delft tiles in a delicate floral design.
Eventually we concluded the business which had brought us thus far, the eldest child handing over the money for the sack of coal.
The journey home took several hours and was planned with precision. At the bottom of the hill we took off some large lumps of coal, and one of us stayed with this at the side of the lane. The others pulled the truck to the top of the hill. They then took off the sack, and one of us would mind the sack, while the others went back to fetch the coal we had taken off. This was the worst part of the journey; for other, smaller hills we all pushed and pulled hard. We were usually exhausted when we eventually arrived home.
Thus we saved Mother the delivery charge on coal brought by cart, and she needed every penny.
We assisted with the shopping. Mother’s purchases were recorded in a book – farmworkers’ wives did not have ready money every day, but paid their accounts after pay-day at the end of the week. If children were sent to settle their parents’ accounts, the shopkeeper rewarded them with a small conical packet of sweets.
The arrival of a fairground roundabout in the village caused great excitement. It was sited near the inn, so children living in the direction of our cottage had the added pleasure of passing the apparatus, and glimpsing colourful sections projecting from beneath the rough tarpaulin cover on the way to school. The early evening sound of music wafting through the neighbourhood signalled that the roundabout was finally ready for business, and brought children hurrying from all directions to the inn.
What we saw was quite unbelievable – the most magnificent wooden horses, embellished with carvings of roses and scrolls; some were open-mouthed with lovely pearly teeth. There were gold-painted poles, rather like barley-sugar twists, affixed to each horse, which the children held on to tightly while riding round. I should have loved a ride but Mother could not manage the 1d for all of us. Instead we stood and watched while a dark-skinned man turned this amazing roundabout by hand; we heard the same tunes played over and over again, indeed long after our bedtime the rhythms filled our room and eventually lulled us happily to sleep. One evening a farmer from Myddlewood brought his two daughters for a ride and generously paid for all the watching children to have a turn – which was how I got my ride on the roundabout.
Good Friday each year was a specially memorable time for us. After obligatory attendance at morning worship, the remainder of the day was ours. We were free from the numerous money-earning jobs all poor children were obliged to undertake.
After an early lunch of bread and jam, about ten of us set off on our expedition, our route lying via a maze of lanes and tracks and over fields to the pools. Firstly we stopped at Marton Pool which was fairly close to the Hall. Next we went to nearby Fenemere Pool, which was somewhat larger, lying between the hamlets of Eyton and Fenemere. A chilly wind blew down upon us as it swept across the plain, and we were in constant sight of the Welsh mountains about 15 miles or so beyond us. The
