Purbeck Born and Bred
by Belinda Norman and edited by Sue Mills
Some of my recollections may be slightly inaccurate and are written through my childhood eyes, some dates and facts may be just slightly inaccurate too, don't forget- it is written by 'a yokel' and not some great historian, so hey... I do, because I can, and they (historians) shouldn't and couldn't get away with it!
Worth Matravers
Some of the villagers called people who lived beyond Wareham Bridge 'Foreigners' or 'Londoners.' I have to admit that the Wareham folk had a different, very distinguishable kind of Dorset accent and dialect which was nothing like the dialect or accent of us lot living over the other side up in the Purbeck Hills. Although theirs had slight similarities to the accent of those who lived close to Poole Quay, it was even once possible to work out who came from Kimmeridge for example, as each village and town had its own variation of the Dorset accent and dialect, and Dorchester was particularly different, a soft and rolling gentle toned accent; here in Worth and around Acton and Langton, it was more of a friendly growl.
I was born in Worth Matravers in 1961 and left in 1979; you only stop living in such a beautiful place for financial reasons. I do miss the old days and the old faces, but I don't miss the cesspits or the smell of boiling crabs and lobsters one bit. I miss Peter and Biddy Newton’s Poultry Farm at Abbascombe, and Bill Wilson’s pigs behind there, Miss Begbie and her Jack Russels and her horses, especially Polly. I miss helping out with bale-carting, riding back on a hay-bale laden trailer, spur of the moment jaunts around the hills and cliff tops and the smell of cow manure, (honest I do). I also miss my childhood days out at Renscombe, watching and listening to the throbbing mechanical purring sounds of the ancient threshing and baling machine as the bales trundled along the conveyer belt, plonking them with a dull thud into the trailers. I miss looking out of my bedroom window on summer mornings watching the old tractors and combine harvesters over on West Man as they soared across the fields chugging and purring as they went. The cargo boats battling the stormy seas, or gliding slowly across the horizon from St Aldhelm’s Head and past Winspit and Long Ledge on calmer days. The night-time boats and their rattling engines travelling close to the cliffs and their foghorns hooting like mythical sea creatures calling for a mate. The ‘Dragon’ rumbling through the ground and then counting the seconds before hearing the explosion from the stone blasting up at Swanworth Quarry. And going up into the old hay loft at Renscombe, stripping down to my undies and diving into the large square wooden corn bins and…no I think I had better leave it there…
When I lived in Worth Matravers it was already becoming a slowly diminishing real old fashioned community, with families who'd been around for generations. The farms and quarries had been busy thriving industries ensuring employment for the heads of the households and their offspring. Fishing was also part of the men's working day; many men declared themselves as Fisherman/Stone-Quarrier, Fisherman/Farmer, Fisherman/Builder etc. Everybody knew everybody's business to a certain degree, but people cared and helped one another out. You were never alone in your joy or sorrow and squabbles were few, and generally only between siblings. Although I have been living in Bournemouth now for the past 30+ years, my yearning for the familiar smells of Worth Matravers to come wafting up my nostrils once again - Chapmans Pool's rotting bait and seaweed, and Weston Farm's cow dung, ensures that I am in Worth Matravers during most of my spare time. Nowadays I walk into the centre of the village and rarely see anyone that I know, but when I do, it's like I've never been away.
My childhood playgrounds were The Village Green and Pond, The Fete Field, Miss Begbie’s Field, The Square & Compass, The Church Yard, Winspit Caves, Seacombe Valley - especially playing around Blackman's Stile. The skeletal remains of a negro was dug up there apparently by Bob Harris; I was told that it was the resting place of one of the negro servants from the wreck of The Halsewell. I don't know if it is actually true though, but we used to say "Good day to you Mr" as we climbed over the stile, just in case he grabbed our ankles if we didn't acknowledge him and I still do that even now. I also used to play around the woods at Hill Bottom and ride my bike up to Swyre Head, but the one place where I spent the majority of my childhood and where my heart truly lies is Chapmans Pool.
The Square & Compass
As a young child in the 1960s, I often went along with my mother Esme to watch her play squash at Forres School in Swanage. Our evenings often ended up at the Square and Compass; the landlady back then was Eileen Newman. The early evenings would start with me sat on the stairs, where I'd take my place on the third step up, waiting for mum to have a drink or two. I tried being as inconspicuous as possible whilst attempting to peer through the small wire mesh-grid peephole that was and still is set in the wooden panel between the stairs and the tap-room, straining to hear the words of the local farmers, quarrymen and fishermen, such as farmer Pete Cuff who worked at Renscombe Farm for Colin and Beth James, the Bowers, Buglers, Burts, Cobbs Corbens, Normans, Samways, and the hilarious, but not to be messed with Bob Harris and the lovely gentle Paddy Gillespie, as they yarned on and delighted in the roars of laughter from their fellow drinkers, farmhands, fishermen, quarrymen and old codgers who were the visible audience of their tales of old.
I sat there precariously on the creaky stairs which lead up to the bedrooms and bathroom of the private quarters of the Square and Compass, practicing my hobby of squatting whilst squinting through the nicotine and cobweb encrusted mesh with one eye closed, trying in vain to look around corners at the faces of the men whose backs were parallel to me on the other side of the wooden panel. It was a little easier to spy on the rest of the men that were sat playing cribbage and shove ha'penny at the oak tables situated by and opposite the windows. It was often impossible for me to not join in with their laughter, but I'd have to stifle my giggles by stuffing my face into my knees to make sure I wasn't discovered spying on the men. Not that I understood much of what was being said, but seeing the sun-baked, craggy faced, crooked toothed, lime-dusted men all merge into shoulder shaking mirth, banging their ale mugs on the tap-room tables in time with their laughter, well, to a small weary girl it was more amusing than a trip to the circus could ever be.
Sometimes Paddy Gillespie brought along a harmonium and the men would have a bit of a sing-song. I recall Paddy and his father in-law Jack Corben trying to revive the 'Worth Matravers Hymn', a song to this day I've not ever heard in full, and I believe at the time when I overheard Paddy talking of it, it was feared lost forever, as one old boy had passed away and was thought to be the only local left who knew it in full. Very recently I read that it's possible to get a copy of the hymn from the Langton Matravers Museum. I had thought of popping in and purchasing a copy, however I'm rather afraid that I could quite possibly be disappointed and prefer to leave things where they are 'in my memories' so to speak.
Vivid are the memories of drunken quarrymen tilting and swaying like a ship in a squall, as they passed the stairs, then shuddering and jumping as they got the fright of their lives when they'd caught a glimpse of me from the corner of their eye as I sat there in the semi-darkness like a ghostly spectre haunting the staircase. But mostly they didn't take a second glance and walked swiftly on, probably due to being too scared of conferring with a possible troublesome spirit that may have been stirred from their eternal rest by the rowdy revellers in the Tap-Room; or more than likely they thought they were hallucinating on the troublesome spirits of the alcoholic variety.
My regular position on the staircase at the Square and Compass could be likened to being the priest on the other side of the confession box. I know I saw and heard a lot that maybe I oughtn't to have, particularly from Quarry/Fisherman Bob Harris. I also recall hearing murmurs of 'sorry affairs', Deadman's Pool, the SS Treveal and men discussing rabbit hunts, gun-dogs, shotguns, fishing and boats, and the Purbeck stone-beds. Men spoke obsessively about their quarries, their dogs and guns, boats, lobster pots and fishing nets, just as men do about their cars and football teams nowadays. Sadly, I mostly never really understood much of what was being spoken of, I'm sure if I had understood and remembered, then there'd be some mighty juicy tales I could tell 'ee, ah if only..
Ray and Stella Newman and their children Mary and Charlie lived opposite the pub at Channel View for a while, which is where my father Reggie Prior was born in the 1930's. Mary Newman was and still is one of my dearest friends, even before we started school together. Her family moved to the Abbascombe Council Houses in Worth Matravers, then Ray and Stella ran the Kings Arms in Langton Matravers for a while. I recall that wonderful day when they all returned to Worth Matravers and took on The Square and Compass. I worked there from time to time, generally just the washing up and collecting the empties. When both Stella and Mary were very ill and Ray needed to attend to them, I also looked after the bar. Ray, like his Grandfather before him, became the type of man that legends are made of. I miss him dreadfully as do many of the Square & Compass patrons from both the past and present. The Newman Family and their long term association with the Square & Compass are definitely top of my list of happy memories and Ray in particular will always remain a piece of treasure encrusted with happy jewelled memories, forever set in my heart.
One well known customer back then was Old Georgie Bugler. He had previously lived at Hill Bottom, but I only remember him living in an old tin and wooden shack half way up Wild Hill which leads onto Winspit Road. Georgie's little home consisted of two small rooms; a kitchen/living-room and a bedroom. The two rooms were partitioned off by a corrugated and wood panel with a doorway cut into it and curtain pulled across to keep out the draft. In the living room there was a small wood burning cooking stove and a small table with one wooden chair and a big plush arm chair. The only lighting was by Tilley and paraffin oil lamps. My mum Esme used to send us along with a lobster or homemade chocolate eclairs for Georgie and he always greeted us with an "Arr thas boo'ful vank you!" Georgie was a regular at the Square and Compass; he was an elderly, rather long legged gentleman, and when he'd ended up having more than a tipple one of the Villagers would see him home and make sure that he got in safely. One evening after a darts match, my father Reggie walked him home. Georgie was wobbling all over the place, and Bryan Wallace who was Percy and Dora’s nephew - he was staying with us at the time - joined my dad Reggie to lend a hand. When they arrived at Georgie's shack and opened his front door, Reggie asked "Where do ee keep yer lights then Jarge?" "Uuupsturrs!" (Upstairs) came his drunken witty reply - of course there was no upstairs.
The Village Shop
John Pushman (1960's) was the shop keeper who I remember well for his generosity and kind nature. He was a truly wonderful person, as were his assistants Ronnie Samways and Hazel Buglar. Hazel was so sweet and kind I named my first-born after her. She was a not too distant cousin; not that I knew it at the time. There was none of this modern serve yourself shenanigans, you stood at the counter with the list written out by your mum, or the list from your mum that you'd memorised in your head and wait as they sliced the bacon, cut the cheese, weighed the vegetables and gathered your order together. No worries about losing your Mum's purse as the total was added to the 'book' and your mum could pop by in the week and pay the bill then.
The Village Green
We children often played in the walled part of the village green with its small paved and grassed terraces and stone seating; it was a perfect location and size for our imaginary castle. Some of the village girls made daisy-chain crowns or if it was the boys who happened to come along, spears and arrows would be plucked and crafted from the Withy-Bed, just the thing for defending the castle and fighting off enemy invaders. These were actually imagined enemies, just rooks and ducks really. They were very obliging though and always let us win the battle.
The Village Pond
You are not an official Worthite (if born there) or Honorary Worthite (a visitor) unless you have accidentally fallen in the pond. Purposely dunking yourself in there or merely having a paddle doesn't count. Initially there wasn't a wall around the pond, but following various accidents and one particular very nasty accident involving a young man on a bicycle, a rather ugly hogs-back/cock and hen style stone wall was erected around half of the pond. Later the ugly wall was removed and the Steps-Style wall was built in its place.
The section near to the mouth of the pond had initially been built too low and not deemed safe enough for the smallest and youngest of children, but in the early 1960s that was remedied. And so, Jim Kempster Norman, and Jack Corben were given the task of making it a little higher and as far as I know, Jack Corben and Jim Norman and his son Allan had built the stone step type wall in the first place. But at the very end corner of the pond there was still the old cock and hen topped low wall which was originally placed there to match in with the first wall; that part was removed and sorted in the early 1970s. Allan Norman told me that Jack Corben, Jim K Norman and he had also worked on the other stonework and kerbing around the pond and village green area when he had first left school (Allan was born in 1931, so the date would have been around 1947-50). The rest of the work to posh-up the village green was done in about 1974/5 by John Stockley, Ian’s dad, with some additional work done my dad, Reggie Prior. Norman and Corben did the earlier work as mentioned, and Bill Norman, Nobby’s dad was the stone mason who made and laid the sign at the end of the pond wall.
I remember the day that I became an official Worthite. It was at the start of the school summer holidays I think, about 1968, and was shortly after I'd broken my collarbone when I fell off of Mum’s washing line would you believe? She hadn’t pegged me out to dry. I had decided to get a stool from the kitchen and to attempt to make a swing out of the line. A few weeks later there I was playing happily along the pond wall and stepping down each stepped segment, then hopping to the side, jumping down onto the tiny narrow pavement, running back to the other end and starting the process over again. I could hear Dad's Mini pick-up truck approaching as he drove through the village on his way back to work after having his dinner. I raised my good arm to give him a wave and lost my balance and toppled off of the wall feet first onto the slimy-sloped mouth of the pond and ending up with a plop under the water, emerging with a mouth full of pond weed and to the sound of the ducks' guffawing quacks. Dad pulled up alongside the pond and asked me if I was alright then declared, "Well maid, you'm a Worthite now!"
As I understand it, the village pond is fed by a spring somewhere around Begbie Fields; the pond has an overflow and also a 'plughole' for emptying the pond. I remember one summer during the early 1970's when the pond was emptied for cleaning, we made the most of its empty basin by racing our Raleigh Chopper bicycles around it and playing hide and seek too. When the pond was refilled with fresh water, some of the village boys from Weston Farm - Jeremy and Gavin Hibbs and I think that it was also Tony Hooper - brought inflated tractor inner-tubes and had fantastic fun swimming and splashing around. Somebody put a stop to it in the end though.
The Village Pump
I recall that when I was very small, we had a concrete lined water reservoir tank at our home; it was situated beneath the terrace, which ran the length of the dining room and sitting room. The terrace was approx 20ft in length and 12ft in width. Water was bought from and delivered by the local water company; other villagers relied on spring-wells and the village pump for their water supply. As we had a sufficiently sized reservoir tank we were also fortunate to have a flush toilet and running water for the bath, although on occasions we'd get frog spawn, spiders and crane flies mixed in with the water and spewing forth from the taps. We also had a cesspit in the front garden which was basically a concrete storage tank that was periodically emptied - pumped out by the local sewage disposal company.
In 1965, Worth Matravers was finally connected to the main water supply. London Row houses and their residents had just one mains tap each; this was situated in their front porches. I remember one family eventually having such a tap installed and I also recall them having to use the village water pump prior to that and they collected their water in a galvanised bucket.
Many homes including those in London Row didn't have the luxury of an inside or flush toilet and even after the mains water event occurred, they continued with having to be content with using bucket toilets which were housed in their own little shed. The toilet was normally situated in the back garden and was generally just a short step or two away from the back door; usually the shed was constructed of wood and/or corrugated iron. Many homes still had to use bucket toilets well into the 1970's. Those people in the village who had large enough gardens would dig a deep hole in which to empty their week's worth of dung and urine. Every few weeks that hole was abandoned and a new one was dug. London Row residents and other Worth residents who lived in very small houses and possessed very tiny back gardens, used to use the services of the 'Scent Bottle' as it was affectionately known. It was a small tanker lorry that had a large opening at the top of the tank for the buckets of muck and on odd occasions vegetable peelings, egg shells and left-overs to be emptied in to it and then it was taken away to wherever the local midden was situated.
Homes were charged per bucket no matter how full, so I guess that's why decomposable matter was also deposited on top of these buckets prior to the 'scent bottles' visit. They may as well have gotten their monies worth I guess. I know ashes and soil were often put on top of the slurry as this helped to solidify and deodorise the contents.
'Scent Bottle Day' AKA 'Stink Day’ and unprintable nicknames for that day was a major, not to be missed event for the village kids who found 'Emptying Day' extremely entertaining and for some it was the highlight of the week. The monthly mobile library was never quite as popular, something which I've puzzled over since, although I do recall squabbling over who's turn it was to take Barbar the Elephant out on loan and settling for Worzel Gummidge instead, a book that I love and probably still have somewhere...whoops, I wonder how big my fine is now?
The village kids often sat on the back footplate of the 'scent-bottle' and the driver allowed them to have a ride. Usually this would be for just a few yards at a time and no more than at five miles per hour as he stopped at the next block of houses.He mainly worked only around the homes in the centre of the village and those on the approach to the main village centre, excluding the farm cottages of course. There was generally only room for three small kids at a time; one in the middle facing backwards and then one to the left and one to the right facing outwards. The kids whose homes possessed bucket toilets declared their right as having first dibs on having a ride. One day I watched in misguided envy as I saw some of my friends climb aboard the Scent Lorry unnoticed by the driver - they ended up in Kingston. The traumatised driver banned footplate rides after that.
Many of the older houses had no bathroom or special room in which to keep their tin/galvanized baths. The baths were generally brought to the front room and placed beside a roaring fire every Sunday and were filled by saucepans and whistling kettles of hot water which were prepared on the stove in the kitchen, or on a special trivet that was placed at the side of the fire. It was periodically topped up as each family member took their turn in the tub. An improvised curtained or panelled screen was pulled around the bath and acted as a crude, prefabricated fold-away instant bathroom. Often the much prized clothes horse was adapted as a make-shift screen. Sheets, towels and other suitably-sized cloth and garments were carefully draped over these 'must have' appliances and offered the bather a fair degree of modest privacy. This was the only time that front doors were shut; traditionally they would be wide open until just after dusk. Then it was a case of curtains closed, doors shut, although some front doors remained opened until ‘closing time’ during the warmer evenings.
When the family’s tin bath was not in use - in some cases for the rest of the week - it was usually to be found propped up around the back of the little shed that housed the bucket toilet. A sewage drainage system was installed in the 70's by Dean & Dyball, an Indian engineer who was employed and brought over from India as he was an expert at installing sewage systems in similar isolated villages in his home country. My father Reggie Prior and his cousin Dick Bartlett built the Purbeck Stone building at the sewage pump and works that is situated alongside the track to Winspit. Visitors to the village often mistook it for a bungalow with a swimming pool on the terrace.
We kids had great fun blocking off the little relief overflow drain-hole which served as an overflow for the excess water pumped from the Village Pump. The drain was cut in under the low grass bank opposite the London Row houses. We'd take it in turns to man the pump and by doing so, caused the slow trickles to the overflow to very rapidly grow into a 'river' due to our carefully engineered water-diversion construction of stones, twigs, leaves and mud. Miniature rivers on which to sail our little paper boats which we fashioned out of home-made jam jars, greased proof paper lids and cake paper cases, or large matchboxes with matchstick pushed through leaves and wedged into a piece of modelling clay at the inner base of the craft as the ships-masts; sailing them down towards the path and style to Winspit, catching them before they went down the drains until a spoil-sport got fed up with the racket that the kids were making. As we each cheered on our own particular handcrafted boat, the spoil–sport would pick up the coal tongs or whatever was to hand and then hacked away, dragging out the blockage of mud, leaves and stones that were the cause of the river, and source of our fun. Often after this we'd watch our boats -'The Halsewell' and 'The SS Treveal', being sucked into the overflow with all the ships company assumed drowned, as the whirlpool at the entrance of the overflow dragged our little homemade ships under the water, spiralling into the mouth of the drain, never to be seen again, well, until the next game of course.
As far as I can recall, it was ‘Aunt’ Doll (Harriet) Hancock of “Rosendale” Number 2 London Row who showed us how to make the boats, and who had suggested the games, and she told us about how she had watched other village children playing the same game when her family came to Worth Matravers from Kingston. Kitty Stockley (nee Corben) of number 4, collected empty match boxes for us, and Barbara Lander of Number 3, provided the modelling clay/plasticine .
When I was around 4 years old the road around the pond area was tarred and gritted; it was exciting to see the steamroller. In 1982 the village roads were tarmacked just in time for our wedding at St Nicholas of Myra’s Church; my wedding dress still has the tar stains.
Chapmans Pool
I remember sitting on the beach at Chapmans Pool in the 1960's, sifting through the tiny shingle and searching for blue glass 'sapphires', green glass 'emeralds' and white glass 'diamonds'; very often finding a black substance that was harder and darker than the usual Kimmeridge shale and also a fibrous material. Coast Guard and fisherman Percy Wallace told me it was manganese ore and jute from Calcutta, part of the cargo that had been aboard the Treveal and it was part of a cargo bound for Dundee. However the wrecking of the SS Treveal occurred in 1920, so I doubt very much that the jute would have survived for all of that time.
Percy Wallace was a very religious and an extraordinarily superstitious man regarding affairs of the sea. He always insisted that it was bad luck to ignore his advice of ensuring the turning of your boat towards the sun when wishing to change direction no matter if it meant going around in a a three quarters circle rather than the shorter route of one quarter turn away from the sun. Even if it did require less time and energy and regardless of the tidal flow. He also insisted on doing the blessing prior to the maiden voyage of any new fishing boats that were to be stationed at Chapmans Pool including several of my Dad's boats. Percy was a coastguard at St Albans/Aldhelms Head during World War II; it has been written that the sight of the convoys of ships steaming across to France on D-Day had a profound effect on him. His thoughts from what he saw from the Coastguard Lookout are recorded in the book 'The Dawn of D-Day', by David Howarth. His wife Dora was the daughter of Frank Lander, one of the village men who was one of the few heroes of the day during the SS Treveal disaster at Chapmans Pool. Frank attended first, along with the Church verger Horace Piercey, who risked his life in order to save as many men as he could, but the trauma of that day haunted Frank Lander for the rest of his life, so I suppose Percy had good reason to be overly cautious.
My father Reggie and three of his siblings were born in the centre of Worth Matravers and during his school years lived at Afflington Barn. My grandmother, Winifred Prior nee Bartlett, died from peritonitis when my Uncle Ed was just twenty months old. Ed was born at 'the Lookout', Afflington Barn, Worth Matravers. My Grandfather Arthur Prior, was born in School Lane (Queens Road Swanage) in 1903, and his family then lived near Quarr. Granddad was just a few weeks old when his father George Edward Prior died. After they had lived near Quarr Farm, the family moved to Hill Bottom. Granddad worked in the quarries before he was of school leaving age; for a string of reasons he only attended school a few times at Langton, but never attended any school after that. He worked at Sheepslight quarry later known as Swanworth, joined the army for at least five years where he was well fed and educated, and then returned to Worth Matravers and worked at Swanworth until he retired. He was also a coastguard and member of the Auxiliary LSA team at St Albans Head. After the family moved to 'The Lookout', Afflington Barn, my dad considered Kingston to be his home village. He went to school there although he did attend St George’s in Langton for a couple of terms during WWII and I think that he also spent some time at Langton St George’s during his first year or so of schooling.
When Dad and Mum married they bought a plot of Land in middle Winspit Road and Dad built their first house there. A few years later he sold that house to Romsey & Romsey of Swanage and with a mortgage of £1,000, built our family home just across the way. Plots of land were really cheap in the 1950's and early 60's as nobody wanted to live in Worth Matravers back then. It took many, many years before the surrounding plots began to fill up. Now with all of the high hedges around the gardens, Winspit Road is unrecognisable, and the views have been blocked out by buildings and these tall hedges; no wonder it is often referred to as “Winspit Road Estate” by the estate agents these days. It does seem to resemble a Country Estate Mansion’s garden maze, and for the visitors or even delivery vans, it had just as well be a maze, the amount of times that people have got lost, and who have gone around and around in circles trying to find their way back onto the road to the village centre. Or trying to find a particular house and unable to find their way back to the main road and ending up asking for directions. The only problem being, a lot of the houses are second homes, or holiday homes, so they have to knock on quite a few doors before they find someone who can give them clear directions.
Dad did his apprenticeship with Jefferson Pond, the Builders of Swanage. I believe Dad started his apprenticeship when he was aged 15. He completed his term in 1952. I'll let you boffins work out the maths bit. One of his final pieces of work towards the end of his term as apprentice stone layer was to install the quite ornate and rather grand looking Purbeck marble fireplace in at Spyway School's prep room.
My Grandparents, George Ford (who also lived at Quarr Farm with relatives for a short while and attended St George’s School in Langton Matravers as a child) and Louisa Ford, nee Hargedon, lived at Compact Farm where my Aunt Lena was born. They lived at various farms in Dorset, including Kimmeridge where my Mother Esme was born and Orchard Hill at Kingston. When Granddad Ford moved to Bovington Camp as Gardener, he used to cycle all the way to Worth Matravers and do the gardening for some of the villagers, including Mr Newton, Jo Lawrence and Basil Stump. My Great Grandparents ran Swalland Farm in Kimmeridge.
Not only was my father Reg a master builder and stone layer, from the mid 1950's into the late 1970's he also earned a good income as a regular sea fisherman at Chapmans Pool; his main catch consisted of lobsters, crabs, whiting, bass, turbot, skate and mackerel. During the summer, I'd return home from a day at school or from playing in the fields, or swimming down at Winspit to find our kitchen full of lobsters and crabs crawling around the floor. I was regularly greeted by lobsters' fanned tails flapping and their pincers waving in the air to say hello, and crabs side-stepping towards other crabs, and locking claws together. They'd start dancing around like Torvill & Dean upon the tiled kitchen floor. Every now and then, a crab would make a break for it and start to scuttle up the hallway. Rudy, our big ginger cat, would nudge the escapee back towards the kitchen and wait for titbits, looping figure of eight's around Mum's ankles as she stood at the cooker periodically sinking and holding down a couple of crabs or a lobster into a large pan of warm water, where she'd be squealing, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry" as she put them to sleep before boiling them to kingdom come.
I sometimes went out in the boat with Dad and Dick Bartlett when they went fishing together and Dick usually helped me to haul in my line full of fish and unhook them all and he was always very considerate and thoughtful. On one trip he laughed when I wanted to throw the poor mackerel back into the sea and started arguing with Dad, "Well I caught them, so if I want to put them back I can!" Most of the fishermen considered it to be bad luck to have a female onboard their boats.
The most prominent fishermen at Chapmans Pool were the Landers - Sid (The son of Worth's hero Frank) and his son Alan and most recently his sons. We still take our boat out and do a bit of fishing. It is very heart-warming indeed to occasionally see Jonathan 'Charlie' Lander down there carrying on with his family's traditions, although Alan and his sons moved on and operated and launched from Swanage a long, long time ago. Now, they still have their shed at Chapmans Pool, which incidentally was once a bit of a ramshackle affair. It had belonged to The Hoopers, and was shared with Frank and Fred Miller Lander and was made up of half of an upturned boat, and old timbers that had been washed up, and was partly roughly thatched with reeds. But now it’s very different and modernish. The depletion of lobster and crab stock seemed to follow shortly after the sinking of the Aelian Sky off St Alban's Head in 1979. Its cargo was mainly drums of chemicals, and whether it was due to leakage of the pesticide cargo or due to overfishing I wouldn’t like to say for certain, but I suspect it was the combination of both.
I know that we were also supposed to have all been exposed to a harmless virus, or actually a supposed harmless bacteria, namely Ecoli. We found out many years later; it ended up drifting as far away as Wiltshire, around lands that were used as pasture for cattle. It is not surprising to learn in later years, that Ecoli bacteria found in uncooked beef and in a local private water supply was suspected as being the source responsible for almost killing several local children who had attended a birthday party at Renscombe Farm, my brother’s eldest children included. The bacteria which was released along the coastline by the M.O.D. was dreadful, but I think what was worse for our health was in the 70's and early to mid-80's when the spraying of crops with pesticides was practiced at Worth,
One of the farmers had a helicopter and I’ve been told by another villager who used to live at Abbascombe Cottages, that he also hired a small aircraft and pilot and used it to spray crops on the top of East Man opposite our home on West man; the invisible cloud of poison used to drift towards our house and the taste of the chemically charged air was disgusting and suffocating and affected pregnant animals and unborn children. At least one woman that I know of, as well as her dog, miscarried during the same week. The farmer also managed to wipe out the butterflies at Seacombe Valley and Winspit. Fortunately, most varieties began to return in the late 1980's early 1990's largely thanks to the efforts of my parents who worked hard to provide a suitable environment in their large garden for any surviving moths and butterflies and went all around Purbeck in search of caterpillars, chrysalis, and butterflies in order to bring back the native species to this part of Worth Matravers. The newts also disappeared around that time, in particular the once very common great Crested Newts, so my parents reintroduced those too. The Great Crested Newts don’t seem to have survived around here, but the common newts are still seen if you know where to look. I recall the day that I walked down Winspit valley field and across to the path from the village that leads over the hill and down again towards Seacombe Valley. The clouds of butterflies and skippers rose up from the grass, just as I had recalled it being when I was much younger, and after such a long absence of this magnificent sight, seeing this for the first time after many years, was gloriously satisfying. Thank you, Esme and Reggie!
The SS Treveal
As a small child growing up in the 1960's and 70's, I had picked up on the general feeling that to speak of the Treveal was disrespectful. If anyone spoke her name the person next to them would give a look that indicated disgust and repulsion, wives would elbow husbands sharply in the ribs and let out a tut-tut, for to speak of the Treveal would it seems, have been worse than dancing upon the graves of the dead. So the elderly villagers just didn't dare utter a word. Not unless it was behind closed doors, or spoken in hushed whispering tones, as the speaker looked suspiciously around in case they were being spied upon whilst they dabbled with taboo murmuring and mumbling about the terrible disaster whilst supping a mug of ale in The Square and Compass Tap room. Or stood on the slipway and outside the block of fishermen's sheds at Chapman's pool, stacking up their lobster pots, repairing and disentangling their fishing nets. One rather nervy fisherman at Chapmans Pool would tremble and hurry away wailing "No, no, no, by the grace of God, we mustn't talk of such things around here" if a curious child (such as myself) asked, "What's a Treveal, where's Deadman's Pool, what's jute?"
Apparently there was copious gossip going around after that. Accusations were made both in Dorset and in Cornwall: "The Coastguard were all drunk... Captain Paynter was drunk and was a frequent tippler...The Captain drowned himself rather than face questioning about his incompetence as a Master Mariner... The Captain ensured that he tossed the ships log and charts overboard before abandoning ship...it was all a set up, a joint fraudulent insurance job set up by the Hain Ship Co and the merchants of Dundee, the intention of damaging the ship a little and at the same time spilling some of the jute cargo was a set up, but it all went so horribly wrong..." Even I recall hearing such talk about Captain Paynter some forty odd years later and I have lost count of the times that I had heard one particular statement: "The Captain/ crew were drunk." I recall such accusations being bandied about when listening to the kaleidoscopic tales of the Sand Dart which ran aground in the 1960's and then similar rumours after the Dutch ship The Lumey ran aground under St Albans Head cliffs on my father Reggie's watch. It does seem to me that this was the usual cry from the old locals up at the Square and Compass. Each time a ship came a cropper they'd blame alcohol and well, I suppose they were experts on the stuff, and of course colourful alcohol laced tales and exaggerations are what legends are made of.
The following is a poem that I wrote for a school’s competition when I was in my last year at Langton St George’s; I didn’t win the prize that year. It tells the story, or the Legend that I frequently heard being told initially by Jack Corben, and by Bob Harris after Jack had passed away. Will Corben was Jack Corben’s real name, but he was always known as Jack by his friends and the younger villagers, and ‘Pappy’ Corben by his great grandchildren.
"Who will come before the night is done?" cried Captain Paynter,
"Who will plot our imminent course and keep us out of danger,
Who will hear our cries of fear?
The coastguard with closed eyes and ears?
Are people here all carved from stone?
It appears tonight lads we're on our own,
Without a North Sea pilot we'll plod on alone."
Fred Argall apprentice lad, allowed his fear to be shown.
As he prayed aloud "Oh Lord take me back to Truro, my dear old home",
His prayers and requests were surely to be condoned,
As the gales did howl and the wind did moan,
So Fred's pleading words in that fearful tone,
Became intermingled with the Treveal's deadly groans,
As she swayed and listed in the waves and foam
"I fear all onboard will come to harm",
Said the wireless man tapping out the alarm,
"The Lord has sent out an almighty tempest,
On the Kimmeridge ledges our ship's come to rest,
Should we abandon ship, do you think that's best?"
Captain Paynter once more glanced in trepidation,
Towards St Alban's coastguard station,
"Can they not realise our consternation,
Their lack of assistance is an abomination?"
So the call was sounded to go overboard
"We need volunteers to man the oars,
Our lives we now place in the hands of the Lord,
We must abandon ship and head for shore!"
After putting on life belts over their oiled coats
They got into the little rowing boats,
The Treveal as it happened would remain afloat.
Yet how were they all to know what in hindsight we know now
As they heard the Treveal crack and split stern from bough,
For Captain Paynter and forty-two of his crew,
It seemed it was all those poor souls could do,
If they'd stayed onboard they'd have all been saved,
And lived to sail for many more days,
Instead for that decision with their lives they paid.
As the Devil smiled and the demons laughed,
The crashing waves upturned their craft,
Rocks tore at flesh, sea filled up lungs,
To one another in vain, the sailors clung
The treacherous tide at Deadman's Pool,
Tortured those men with waves so cruel,
Threw them mercilessly towards the shore,
Then sucked them back down beneath the waves once more.
For some it was to be the end of them,
And if it weren't for the bravery of two village men,
Horace Piercey and fisherman Frank Lander,
They'd heard the maroon rocket whilst out for a gander,
My tale may well have ended at this line,
If it weren't for those villagers who did a job so fine.
So, there's more to tell you of this tragedy,
A story about the cruellest of seas.
Frank and Horace, realising they had no time to waste
Onwards to Chapmans Pool the two men made haste,
Battling on through the freezing sleet,
Lashing, whipping their faces as it came down in sheets,
Not realising the carnage they were about to meet,
Sailors not unlike flotsam and jetsam were fighting the fate,
Of ending their lives as lobster bait.
Had those two brave men not been there first,
The story would have been even worse,
Both staring death in the face, as they reached about,
Near the gully 'neath the shadow of the great Hounstout,
With valiant hands grabbing at the sailors as they dragged them out.
Mont Hooper, and Walter Welsh arrived to aid with respiration & revival.
Horace dashed out into the sea towards Fred Argall, not caring about his own survival.
Horace too was washed out to sea, then mercifully washed back in with the tide.
Horace was the village clergyman; doubtless God was at his side.
Miraculously young Fred Argall was pulled to the safety of drier land,
Helped along by Horace, as Frank firmly grasped his hands,
Fred sobbed for his mother as he slipped into an unconscious state,
Later he was taken to The Anchor Inn, Swanage to recuperate.
Farm carts were sent down to Chapmans Pool to collect all the dead,
Bessie Hooper and Floss Welsh prepared to wash the bodies from toe to head.
Herbie Hooper and Will Corbin loaded up the corpses,
They drove their cart up Renscombe hill using a team of ploughing horses.
As they unloaded the sailors, so I've heard the tale said,
A woman saw Will and Herbie trampling on the dead,
"You disrespectful scoundrels" the woman did cry,
But she hadn't anticipated Will's reply,
"They'm past minding missus and so be I !''
Charlie Newman found a wallet on one of the deceased,
A card inside from the sailor's children told of a Christmas feast,
How they looked forward to being reunited with their darling dad,
For those poor children the ending was certain to be sad.
A father that that was loved so much, the dear children that he cherished,
Were soon to hear that he was one of the Treveal's thirty-six crew who had perished.
In preparation before their final place of rest,
The Sailor's bruised arms were crossed onto their chests,
Battered bodies were wrapped in white linen of the very best,
In the Church-yard a large hole was being dug as a mass burial tomb.
As the corpses lay waiting in the make-shift mortuary at the Reading Room.
Will and Herbie stood at the edge of the massive pit,
Exhaustedly they began heaving the cadavers into it,
Then hearing their next orders, Will began to shout,
"The buggers, they be messing thee and I about,
Those bodies they do tell I, have to be brought back out!"
Herbie lost his composure when the grave's sides began to collapse,
He did cuss and swear quite a bit, as would any chap,
Along came a lady with a nasty scowl,
Herbie was thinking "oh I wonder what she's scolding us for now?"
She was the lady who had scolded the weary pair once before,
Now she was nagging at Herbie even more,
"How dare you swear in the presence of our Lord"
Herbie glanced upon the ship's company all laying there dead,
And back at the woman he angrily said,
"If the good Lord's listening, I have to say,
I don't reckon he's got much to be proud of right now anyway!"
Like a deadly plague the news spread along the coast.
Mothers, wives and children heard those words they'd dreaded most.
Cornishmen born and bred, raised within sight and sound of the tide,
Out of forty-three sailors only seven had survived
Charlie Argall, who years before bullied his younger brother to learn to swim,
Was relieved to hear his brother Fred's voice over the phone, duly thanking him.
Garfield Andrews's poor mother, whose heart had been surely broken, then to add to her dismay,
She found that due to her son's 'drowning', twenty seven pounds had been deducted from his pay.
At St Ives along the Malakoff to the Railway station, mourners bowed their heads,
An entire town stood still in silence as it welcomed home its dead.
Basset, Cogar, Andrews, Pearce, Phillips, Noall, their families united in grief.
Some were buried at Barnoon, in sight of the ocean above Porthmeor beach.
Captain Paynter with the ship's records was lost at sea, as the swell pulled him down,
There's no back-door to the sea you know, so the poor Captain drowned.
He took with him the identity of the two Tynesiders, the only two that were unnamed,
I now wonder, were these two Tyneside's the men buried in my Village, left there, unclaimed?
On a windy hill in Purbeck, beside a tumbling wall of stone,
Two sailors lay together, beneath the inscription 'names unknown'.
The survivors were initially taken to the Anchor Hotel/Inn at Swanage and later they and the dead were transported to Wareham Station, where a special carriage was coupled to the train to transport the dead. Long after the dead were buried, the Treveal still lay visible and looking pretty much intact other than being split in two on the ledge just below Hounstout, proving that in the benefit of hindsight the crew would have all almost certainly have survived if they had remained with the ship on that catastrophic and tragic day of 10th of January 1920.
The next also rather rubbish poem that I scribbled down for my English Homework for my teacher Mr Clarke (probably on Sheasby’s coach on the way to The Purbeck Upper School) when I was aged about 15. I think that this was around the time that I had to study “Return of The Native, and Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy and I’d also become interested in the stories and poems by Edgar Allen Poe, and in particular, his poems, ‘Dream Within a Dream’, ‘The Raven’, ‘Lenore’, and ‘Alone’ along with the stories of Pandora’s Box, and by that time I had learned a little more about how the SS Treveal had affected the villagers of Worth Matravers.
Curiosity the child
Jute what is that, it sounds so regally important?
I've heard that it was rescued from the SS Treveal and lovingly laid about the hedges, grassy banks and dry-stone walls in my village, left to dry and then collected by the merchants who'd commissioned its import to this land, grown in India, softly caressed by tender hands, so precious a substance yet absent of soul.
Jute what is that, it sounds so regally important?
They knew of its origin, to whom it actually belonged to and to where it was bound. It was still worthwhile claiming, even though it had been tossed about and salted in the treacherous waves. Worth a King's ransom to those who worked on the land and at sea - tending, toiling, rescuing, and reaping; blood, sweat and toil from Calcutta to Purbeck, an unexpected harvest that fused land, oceans and cultures around our great globe.
Two unknown Sailors who were they, why were they left unnamed, unclaimed? Surely they too were worthy of collection, even though they'd been tossed about and salted in the treacherous waves along with the regally important jute; blood, sweat and toil from Calcutta to Purbeck, an unexpected harvest, disjointed, disfigured, drowned and disowned; not worth a second glance, let alone a King's ransom.
Two unknown, unnamed, unclaimed Sailors, poignantly buried together beside a brambly stone wall in a Purbeck Village Churchyard, who were they, why were they less important than jute, though bound together by sweat, toil, sea-salt and blood, entwined in unity for eternity with each other, akin to the fibres of a bushel of Jute, why is that?
The Old School - Village Hall
Worth Matravers Village School was closed way back in 1921 due to the school mistress's ill health, with the last of the children being moved to Langton Matravers, St Georges School by 1922. The children who lived out at the Coastguard Cottages and at Weston and Renscombe, as well as those at Hill Bottom, initially had the long walk into the centre of the village in order to attend school. So when the school closed, in order to catch the small coach, it was eventually arranged for it to be driven to Renscombe and to also stop off at Weston. The coach was Reg Bartlett’s of Langton Matravers, and the very same one that had been used for transporting the survivors and also some of the dead from the SS Treveal disaster. However, the children at St Aldhelm’s Head and Hill Bottom still had a long walk, which would have been lovely on a summer’s day I’m sure, but on icy cold or rainy and windy days it must have been dreadful. I found it bad enough just coming up from our part of Winspit Road, muddy, slippery and stony, with often deep muddy or iced over grooves near to St James’ and Bee’s Cottages where the road had not been surfaced with hardcore. Worth’s school was just one room partitioned by a curtain, a female monitor looked after the youngest children; Dora Wallace nee Lander was once one of them. She looked after the infants aged 3-7 and children aged 8-14 were in the juniors. Children left school at the age of between 12-14.
Christmas
My father Reggie told me his earliest memory of living in Worth Matravers was back in 1934, when as a toddler, he saw Father Christmas approaching the front door of Channel View, the little wooden bungalow that he was born in opposite the Square and Compass. This is roughly the story that he told us: "I looked out of my parent’s bedroom window one morning, and heading for our front door was this man dressed from head to toe in red, a long white curly beard covering his face, carrying a big sack over his shoulder. I was terrified and ran to my parent’s who were in the kitchen crying me eyes out."
Father Christmas was in fact Eileen Newman; she was also the Sunday School teacher back in those days, her father Charles Newman ran the Square and Compass. On Christmas morning she dressed up and walked around the village, going from door to door dealing out parcels to all the youngsters.
When I myself was a nipper, some of the Village Fete and church funds were used to put on a Christmas Party for the village children. The parties were held at Worth Matravers Village Hall at the top of Pike's Lane. Dora and Percy Wallace organised the parties; in the earlier days Eileen Newman helped out too, until her commitments of running a busy Inn took up more of her time. Dora and a couple of the other village women would go to Bournemouth and Poole on a grand shopping spree and handpick a present to delight and suit each individual child. Dora and the other village women including Ivy Turner and Olive Miller, also made a multitude of jellies, cakes, tarts and sandwiches for the partygoers and their parents to enjoy. I can vaguely remember the women dressing in fancy- dress and one year Eileen dressed as a man as Dora paraded around with a cushion up her dress; she'd come as a heavily pregnant lady, possibly as a seasonal Virgin Mary and Eileen as Joseph. Dora's husband Percy dressed up as a Chinaman and he ran the fun and games.
At the end of the party, Percy dressed up as Father Christmas; as we got older we realised that Father Christmas and Percy had the same accent, and the same two fingers missing too. Certainly by the time we were aged five or six years old we knew it was Percy hiding behind Eileen Newman's old hand-me-down white beard and Father Christmas suit.
The Pylon
One of the best things that ever happened for me was witnessing the demolition of the last WWII - Radar Mast/ Pylon at Renscombe, Worth Matravers.
From an early age I had nightmares about it chasing me or falling on me. It became a real phobia of mine. It was so massive and tall that, it seemed that no matter where I went in the main village, or even in the back garden the pylon appeared to always be in the next plot beside me; it was like it was following me about, watching my every move. I was really petrified of it. Nobody; not even my brother Ross, who virtually pooed himself at the sight of the dustbin lorry, nor my parents or the other kids in the village, could understand my fear. As I got a little older and got used to going near it with my friends, I attempted to conquer my fear by climbing it. It was then that I also realised I was scared of heights too and I still had nightmares about the blasted thing anyway.
When the Pylon finally got pulled down, I was around 12 years old when the top part came crashing to the ground as its first part was demolished and around 14 when the last bit was pulled to the ground. Like the Jack and the Beanstalk tales of the giant, it left an indent in the ground where it fell, as the monster had been slain, and all that was left behind was its concrete boots. Everyone else seemed rather sad, but I felt an overwhelming sense of joy, now assured of my safety and a sense of freedom at being able to roam around the village, free from the fear of that wretched monster stalking me. I was no longer a prisoner in my own back garden. My regular nightmares ceased as soon as it was demolished. Only now do I feel sad and mourn its loss especially as I realise that that rumbling sound as the pylon fell, signified the end of my childhood. The event was also to signify the end of a bygone era, an era that had marked the start of my parent's childhood during WWII when the pylons were first erected.
St Nicholas's Church
I had a brief spell of attending Sunday School. Miss Gladys Howick was the Sunday School mistress and sometimes she was also the organist, Barry Phelps was also the organist and Rev Harry J. Lloyd was the vicar. I vaguely recall going on Sunday School outings to pantomimes at both Weymouth and Bournemouth; I remember seeing Arthur Askey in one of them. I think that was at Weymouth.
I used to write little notes and post them through the crack in the tomb style grave of an ancient grave of a young girl. I also picked primroses and violets from the church grounds and made daisy chain wreaths and placed them in the vases and around the gravestones, particularly around the stone cross of the SS Treveal's unknown Sailors' grave. I've had a fascination with the Legend of Deadman's Pool since I was a youngster and recently visited the Cornish gravesides of some of the poor sailors who were drowned at Chapmans Pool, including the ship’s carpenter, Peter Cogar and the memorial to Captain Paynter.
I still visit the graveyard; seeing all those names of the people who were around when I was growing up, people who made my life so full of wonderful, happy memories and who earned my affections. I was very fortunate to have known them all, as well as the very few who are still around living in the village today especially Charlie Newman, Bill and Nobby Norman, Alan and Barbara Lander, the relatives of the Corbens, the Buglers and Gillespies. They don't make people like that anymore, but I have to add there have been some wonderful newcomers living in the village since I left. It's still a community, although a totally different one from the one I grew up in.
St George's School Langton Matravers
On my first day at school I recall mum drove me to school and I cried all day. The next day she walked me up to the village shop and put me on the Sheasby's of Corfe Castle's Old Bedford school coach and asked one of the older girls on the coach to look after me. The coach took us to St George's then went on to Swanage Secondary and the Grammar School to drop off the older children. All I remember about my first few weeks is that I cried every day and more or less cried all day. We started in the Infants and there was a sand pit trolley and several wooden stacking toys to play with and stencilled letters to draw around. There was a small store cupboard in the wall opposite the windows which had numerous wooden puzzles, crayons and other equipment neatly stacked inside it. There was also a smaller cabinet style cupboard that seemed to be placed so high up the wall near the ceiling, so high that I just could not imagine how anyone could ever reach it. I spent many an hour staring up in wonderment at that little cupboard built only for a giant's reach; I blame that cupboard for turning me into a blather 'eaded dunce!
Our infant teacher was Miss Burr; she was only 24, a really gentle and pretty lady. She wasn't at St George's for long as she left to get married. There were four classrooms altogether at St George's. The infants, then Class 1 which was divided off by a foldaway partition from the larger Class 2, then there was the juniors at the far end classroom. Opposite the junior's class was an alcove that housed our tiny library and either side of that was single toilet cubicles and just beyond those was a small room that was used as a medical room. You went there for a plaster or a dab of witch hazel and some TLC from Hetty Glassock if you'd had a bump in the playground. When I went into Class 1, to my dismay the regular teacher went to take over the infants until Mrs Ashcroft was appointed and I had Mrs Vera 'Fanny' Bower as my teacher, then to add insult to injury she was also my teacher in Class 2 when Mrs Ashcroft arrived to teach the infants and Mrs Scudamore took up her position in class one. The first headmaster I had was Mr Stucky. He was amazing and he used to play with the children and was great fun; he was a little too soft hearted though and sadly he became very ill and never returned.
Mr David Drewer was our headmaster after that. Mr Drewer brought with him a lot of modern teaching methods including modern maths and art. I wonder how many of my friends will remember ‘Taking A Line For A Walk’? Mr Drewer had a pottery kiln installed at the school and although he was very strict, he was a brilliant teacher and was one of the first to recognise that some pupils were possibly dyslexic and not merely lazy as Fanny Bower would have it. He made arrangements for a specialist teacher to come from Poole to teach some of the obvious dyslexics; there was one girl and a couple of boys. I think the help came too late for one boy though, as he tells me that he's resented the education system since thanks to the ill treatment that he received from Fanny Bower.
Mrs Midwinter was a part time teacher who had also taught at Herston School. Many of the children had very little respect for her, but I found her to be such a refreshing change to Fanny's vindictive reign of terror. Mrs Midwinter had such obvious kindness in her heart; she would read a story to us one afternoon per week and the stories invariably had a component of moralistic goodness within their themes, and had examples of kindness towards others within the framework of each story. Mrs Midwinter always reminded us about the story of 'the Good Samaritan'. She was a bit of a Good Samaritan herself and over the holidays she took in disabled children welcoming them into her home and giving them a break from the institutes they'd been sent to. She told us that she was in a wheelchair herself as a child due to a childhood illness and had to learn to walk again. I recall that she walked around with a slight stoop and was rather stiff legged. She told some of us the reason why she muttered to herself all the time was because when she was ill and had no children to play with, she would have an imaginary group of friends that she chatted to. Her illness had also caused some form of nerve damage and made her head wobble and she used to be bullied about it. Sadly for her, after her marriage ended, she moved away and ran a guest house, and being the Good Samaritan, she took in homeless young men and one of them, a heroin addict, repaid her by robbing and murdering her. I shall always be indebted to her, she taught me compassion and empathy, although she was a bit dotty she always made my day at St George's enjoyable, very happy and relaxed.
Mrs Dianne Burt was the School's cook and she made some lovely meals. Mrs Boxall was one of her team. Mrs Hetty Glassock was our playground lady and she was also the Langton Cub and Brownie leader; she was an angel. We had another part-time teacher Mrs Smith. She was a bit of a misery and I only really remember her teaching us maths and handwriting throughout the years; she left shortly after Mr Drewer arrived. She was also involved in the Swanage Girl Guides.
Vera 'Fanny' Bower was acting Head between the period that Mr Stucky left and until they appointed Mr Drewer. It probably wasn't for all that long, but to me and most probably to the rest of the pupils, it seemed like Mrs Bower was in charge forever and a day. St George's was a great school though and it was small enough for all the children to know each other by name and everyone got on like one big happy family, with just a few exceptions. And to be honest, Vera Bower was a very good teacher, but just overly strict.
Some memorable events during my days at St Georges:
All of the teachers and students and a few locals of Langton congregated in the School Hall to watch the Lunar Landings on the TV that was placed on the stage. It took a good half an hour for the B&W set to warm up and Mr Grant, the School's gardener, and former pupil in the earlier part of the 20th Century, spent the whole time of the broadcast holding the aerial in his right hand, standing on tippy-toes, shuffling around the stage like a ballerina, ensuring that there was a good clear picture on the screen, bless him! There was also another man from Langton who helped out during many of the events, but I can't remember his name. He was lovely too.
Mr Batten, Christine, Marion and Peter’s (?) father who worked for the Kingston Estate, often took care of the Netballs and Footballs. There was another man from Kingston around Mr Batten’s age who also did little tasks for the school, such as making a multitude of wooden items with small nails spaced out and half hammered into them so that we could make woven designs from string. Then Spirograph arrived in the toy shops, and that was the end of that. Mr Drewer also introduced us to scratch and sniff cards and the poems by Spike Milligan, as well as Moonfleet by John Meade Falkner, which is a story that is partly based in Dorset, Purbeck and the Isle of Wight .
The Play where Bernie Tatchell played the part of Burger - Maister Grumpy-Growl/Happy Smile.
The School play when we were in the infants, where I think, Ian Travers was a toy soldier with a little drum hanging around his neck (or it may have been Suzanne Bonfield). I played the part of a doll. Booey Smith was another toy and we all ended up as presents on Christmas morning, I wore a pair of blue ballerina slippers that Percy Wallace's relatives Mary and Bryan Wallace had bought me in Bristol. The slippers had a squeaky fluffy toy dog's head sewn onto the toes. Booey Smith kept using Ian's (or was it Suzanne Bonfield?) little toy drumsticks to tap at the squeaker as we curled up at the front of the stage waiting to be discovered by the children that supposedly received us all as presents. Those parts were played by Caroline Pike (or was she the Christmas fairy), Helen Smith and Tony Suttle. There were a few giggles from the parents in the audience as Booey hammered at my feet and the slippers gave out a squeak, followed by my cries of "Ouch!"
Another School play was based around the Volcano of Popocatepetl, and was performed during our final year at St George's. Tony Suttle, Booey Smith and Eddy Cooper were the stars of that play.
There was also a School Pageant, celebrating the Centenary of the School. It was written by Mr Drewer himself. Carol Lander dressed up as St George in a Knight's outfit with The Cross of St George painted on her sheet over-vest, and her Knights helmet was her brother Jeff's old grey school balaclava. Percy Wallace's wife Dora, who was once the monitress at Worth School, loaned me her mother's woollen Victorian style dress to wear. Vera Fanny Bower indignantly said, "That dress is no more Victorian than I am!" She wouldn't let me use it and gave me a damp smelling bright blue nylon nightdress to wear instead, the dopey mare! We had to act like Victorian school children and recite the catechism; Nobby unwittingly called it the 'cataclysm' and Fanny Bower poked him and clipped him round the ears. We were armed with slates to write on. The slates were salvaged and cut to shape by Vera's husband, Nelson Bower who was a quarryman and a really nice man in contrast to his wife. Mr Grant, the School's gardener and caretaker, helped him out too. We all looked the part. I reckon that I would have stood out in the crowd in that stinky brushed bri-nylon nightdress. Fortunately though, Caroline Pike came to my rescue at the last minute and loaned me one of her pretty satin tiered party dresses and I sneaked out to the playground and took my place at the back of all the rest of the children with my head down in case Fanny Bower saw me..
Music and Movement which was a radio programme broadcast on The BBC for schools channel; we had to run around in our vest and navy blue knickers in the hall pretending to be trees, giants, ships or whatever the bloke on the other side of radio dictated we should be. I was praised for my tree impersonation; you could say that I branched out during that lesson.
Watching Picture Box on the black and white TV, with the wonderful fairground organ style introductory theme tune. One of the short films that we watched on picture box was about a French boy with a balloon.
Country Dancing with Mrs Bower: Gay Gordon didn't have the same meaning as it does today.
Christmas Parties: We could wear fancy dress and Percy Wallace who had a couple of fingers missing and wore brown woollen gloves to try to disguise himself, was Father Christmas.
Easter Parties, we used to have an Easter Bonnet Competition and we were given Chocolate Eggs to take home. My brother made a robot hat out of a bucket and tap…no comment!
School Outings: An outing to London which included a boat trip along the Thames then on to Windsor Safari Park and Windsor Castle, watching such events as a Motorcycle Display Team. A few marching bands too. The Queen was in residence so we couldn't look around the Castle.
A Trip to Longleet (That actually may have been a trip with Harman's Cross Youth club though).
A trip to the New Forest and an outing to Beaulieu Motor Museum.
An outing or two to Poole Park Zoo, a ride on the Model Steam Train and high tea at the Cafe there, and an outing to the Isle of Wight by Hover Craft.
Sports Day: We had the usual flat races, egg and spoon, sack races and the parents' three legged race which Esme and her sister Doreen always won, apart from the time that Jasmine Cattle and her sister won. One year when Mr David Drewer was the Headmaster, we took our bicycles in and we did the slow bicycle race; the last person to reach the finishing line without having to put their feet down was the winner. Ross was first and I was second or should that read - Ross was last and I was second from last, Ross won anyway? We also had a Space-Hopper race one year and I won that one; Debbie Hobbs came 2nd.
The Solar Eclipse: (probably a partial eclipse) sometime during the late 60's early 70's we prepared pinhole cards and brought in mirrors too…oh dear!
Nature treks in the Woods below Crack Lane cemetery, and trips around the village and quarries learning about local history, courtesy of the amazing Mr Reggie Saville.
All the juniors made Coconut Ice and peppermint crèmes during one of Mrs Midwinter's lessons, where we also had a student teacher in the class. Unfortunately some of the children weren't allowed to take their confectionary home as they'd nibbled at bits. She didn't catch me at it though; I had the sense to nibble from beneath rather than from the sides and I'd scoffed the lot by the time I'd got off the school bus to home.
The surprise farewell to the Drewer family when they left the village; we sang parodies of Jamaican songs, the lyrics adapted to enable us to inform Mr Drewer of our deep sadness of his and his family's imminent departure "Come back Sir, come back Sir, water come to me eye!"
Mrs Stewart the St George's Vicar's wife backed into and flattened my Chopper-bike when she drove off in the family Land Rover. I used to play with their daughter Christine and that day I stupidly rode my Chopper down from Worth, parked it outside of the Langton Rectory front door, right in front of the Land Rover. Bless them, they took my bike to Two-wheels in Swanage and had it repaired. Rev Stewart was building a sailing boat in one of the unused bedrooms upstairs. I wonder how he got it out of there once he'd finished. In another bedroom he had a railway set and I think I'm right in saying that he had made a miniature model of Corfe Castle. Christine Stewart and I used to climb over the wall at the side of the rectory garden and play in the old cemetery. I'm sure I saw my Great Grandfather George Edward Prior's headstone somewhere there; he died prematurely leaving a widow and several children when he fell off the roof at the Anchor Inn in Swanage in July 1903, breaking his back and dying shortly afterwards. He was a Master Stone layer. We can't find any record of his burial though.* I felt sure that I saw my Great Grandfather George Edward Prior’s Headstone somewhere there, but I didn’t.
George Edward Prior was buried in an unmarked grave at Northbrook; he died prematurely leaving a widow and several children, when he fell off of a ladder after being on the roof at the Anchor Inn in Swanage in July 1903, breaking his back and dying several days afterwards. He was a bricklayer and a member of the Swanage Fire Service, and had been given the task to clear one of the flues of the kitchen’s stove and to repair some of the brickwork of the chimney, which was part of the requirements for the fire insurance. He attended the job at 6-6.30 am in the morning, where he had been affected by carbon monoxide poisoning when attending to the chimney and flue. He became dizzy and fell backwards off of his ladder. His coffin was transported on the Fire apparatus wagon, and his Fire Service colleagues carried his coffin. My great uncle Bert Prior recalled a pause at the entrance to the graveyard, and then a long train whistle sounding, then the coffin being lifted, as they then entered the cemetery, but that was the only clue that my grandfather had as to where his father may have been buried. Looking at the wider story, that train whistle was probably arranged by colleagues of the railway carman John Crabb. This theory is based on the coroner’s inquest and newspaper report below:
“On July 4th 1903, he (George Edward Prior), had arranged to clean the kitchen flue with the help of a man named John Crabb. They arranged to meet at 5:30 a.m. but Mr Crabb arrived ¾ of an hour late. George Prior was found injured on the ground; he had already been up on the roof in order to inspect and work on the flue, and had got back onto the ladder and subsequently fell backwards for the final 6-9 feet, ending up on the road. George Prior was taken on the back of a cart to Swanage Cottage Hospital, suffering concussion of the spinal cord at the lower neck. He finally ended up paralysed from the waist down, and had some paralysis of his arms and had difficulty with breathing immediately after regaining consciousness and after the accident, but paralysis became worse as each hour came. When the Doctor visited him at Swanage Cottage Hospital, George Prior was able to speak and was conscious, but sadly he died from his injuries five days later. George Prior’s coffin was carried to his grave at Northbrook by members of the Swanage Fire Brigade; his coffin was transported on the Fire Apparatus truck, buried with full honours as a member of George Burt’s Swanage Fire Brigade.”
There was a collection made in the town to support his widow and family, but she refused to talk to anyone or to accept it, and so her eldest son Frank was persuaded to take the money on her behalf; enter the evil abusive predatory and recidivist character Albert Edward Puckett and a novel’s worth of ensuing stories for another time.
*Originally, we didn’t know where George Prior had been buried, but thanks to Sue Mills, and the work of John Patrick that has now been remedied .
I’m sure if I sat and had a further think, I’d remember many more events from Langton School.