Mathon 1900

Although a century is not a great span in history it is not very easy
to think ourselves back to the year 1900. We must imagine a world
without aeroplanes, cars, tractors or the electricity which powers our
beloved household appliances. Even the power failures caused by violent
storms give us only a momentary taste of this vanished world then the
power is switched on, the lights return, the refrigerator hums again,
and we heave a sigh of relief as we are returned to our troubled but
comfortable 21st century.

The countryside, at the beginning of the last century was a quiet world with the lowing of cattle, the bleating of sheep, birdsong and the clatter of hoofs the only sounds to disturb the quiet of the fields. The occasional train might be heard, and perhaps a steam engine but these were rare occurrences. Now only in the most remote country are we free from the noise of plane, car, chain saw, tractor and other signs of our times.

England was a prosperous country, secure in its power and empire and still enjoying the lead obtained by being the first into the Industrial Revolution but not too much of this wealth had penetrated to the countryside. Nor had much changed in Mathon since 1826 when Robert Ravenhill provided a dinner at the Cliffe Arms on Easter Monday for the paymasters of the parish, the expenses not to exceed £5.

Apart from the steam engine, the only power to assist the farmer was still that of animals, the horse, and sometimes the ox, donkey or mule. The housewife’s daily routine was such as most modern women would find unacceptable. On wash days, water was drawn from the well, which supplied most houses, and in some cases still does. Some families did not even have a well, and had to fetch buckets from the nearest source. Clothes were boiled or scrubbed, dried outdoors, and ironed with a flat iron, heated at the fire, and which always seemed to be too cold or too hot and leave burn marks on the clothes.

Also very trying for a community which produced most of its own food, must have been the lack of any means of preserving food apart from salting or smoking. Even tinned food was some years away from common use.

The village looked much as it had for years. The new brick vicarage was the exception to the black and white timber framed cottages which housed most of the people. Almost all these houses which are now occupied by one family were then two or three dwellings, and since families were large, it must have been difficult to find room for everyone. For example. The 1901 census shows that 9 people were living at Lane End, 12 at Parkers, and 9 at Ravenhill. When all resources for sharing a small house with a large family had been exhausted parents must have been glad to see their elder children employed and accommodated as servants at a farm or large house. Colonel Thurlow employed 5 servants at Mathon Court. Most of the girls who went into service, would already have had experience of cleaning, cooking, and looking after small children in the family when their mother had a new baby and their pay small as it was would be a great help to their parents, when the girls unselfishly sent part of it home, perhaps also with some cast off clothes from their employer.

Boys also found employment as grooms or general farm servants taking their meals in the back kitchen and sleeping in the attic bedrooms of the farmhouse, as Leslie Lawrence did in the nineteen twenties at South Hide. Leslie was the farmer’s son but he shared the meals and sleeping quarters with his fathers hired men.

The village smelt of wood smoke and lamp oil in those days, and in summer the lanes were beautiful with the blossom of fruit trees which lined the village street from the church to Lane End. Most food was produced locally and there were few families that did not have a productive vegetable garden and a pig. Sons and daughters writing home, would enquire about the pigs health, so important was it to the family economy. Nothing provided by nature was wasted and mushrooms and blackberries were picked, and occasionally a trout was caught. Sometimes these small luxuries had to be sold to provide for winter coats and boots.

The 1901 census shows that families were still large. Several families had 5 or 6 children, and one had 9. Even then, some families managed to find room for an aged parent, or at some farms an old servant was given shelter. Some young men were boarders, preferring this to renting one of the houses which stood empty. Most of the work in the parish was still centred on the land. Of the men described as “Head of Household” 42 were farm workers, 14 more worked with horses, 4 more with cattle, and 9 were gardeners.

Owing to better travel facilities, many more men were now willing to travel to seek employment, higher pay, or a better cottage, and though nearly half the fathers of families were born in Mathon, or villages within 5 miles, the rest came from more distant places and Cheshire, Oxfordshire, Radnor, Gosport, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire Manchester, and Birmingham are all given as places of birth. It is clear that change was taking place however slowly.
Mrs. Minton’s essay which follows illustrates the life of the village in the 20th century.

Mrs. Gladys Minton, Twynings House

I was born on Dec. 21st 1905 at the above address. This is a black and white cottage, now 400 years old. The cottage had a thatched roof but this was soon removed and slates put on. The living room ceiling had been tarred but that too had to be changed to a white calico ceiling, the tar evidently hung in drops in warm weather. I still live in the cottage with my husband.

Twynings House

My father bought the cottage before I was born. He was the local tailor. He worked at home sitting on the table cross-legged. He got lots of work from the adjoining villages and some from abroad, people having lived in Mathon and had now gone abroad. My father was a cripple, he could not walk without two walking sticks. His boots had to be made and the soles built up. He was a very happy man and was very fond of his family life with his two sons and myself. He loved to walk with me and told me all the names of the flowers and footpaths He died at the age of 58 years in a flu epidemic.

I attended Mathon School from the age of 5 years and left at 14 years Mathon School was built in 1861 by public subscription and closed in the early 1950s owing to a shortage of children in the parish. During school holidays my mother and I would go hop-picking near the church for the farmer who kept Church Farm It was like a holiday especially on nice days but usually at that time of the year the mornings are frosty.

During my last years at school I learnt to play the piano and also the organ in the Mathon Church Mathon Church is 800 years old.

After leaving school I worked for West Malvern Post Office, delivering telegrams to the Wyche, Mathon and West Malvern. For this I was paid 5 shillings (25p) per week. While I waited for telegrams I did housework and mending for the Post Mistress. As I got older, I was able to learn the work of the Post Office, including the weekly accounts., which was very interesting as I was then allowed to go to another office as relief when required. After about 4 years, I was offered another Post Office to go to. That was at Sawbridgeworth and I went to find out all the details but decided it was not for me. A factory seemed to be the next best thing. Schweppes Colwall Springs. I worked there for 16 years before getting married.

In 1923 Mathon Parish Hall was built and used for meetings, dancing and men’s’ clubs. Mathon WI were allowed to have their meetings there, this was formed in 1924 I joined in June 1924 and have been a member ever since. I was also Clerk of Mathon Parish Council for several years and a member of that council for 40 years.

Monday was washing day, but before you could start the water had to be pumped up from the well in buckets to fill the copper, then a fire had to be lit to heat the water, the same procedure was done on Saturdays for the weekly bath. The toilet was at the end of the garden path usually hidden from view by a huge laurel or some other evergreen bush. It had a wooden seat with holes in, and a bucket into which was put some chemical which dissolved the contents which had to be emptied into a hole dug in the garden.

Winter evenings round the open fire, playing games of cards, draughts, ludo etc. Sometimes my brothers and I Would spend hours cutting strips of material from worn –out garments. These our parents would peg on to pieces of hessian to make warm rugs for the hearth.

In summer everyone had to help in the fields. Hay-making time the men would start to mow at 4.30 a.m., first the horses had to be fed and watered before being harnessed to the mower.

Hay-making and harvest time was a community effort, neighbour helping neighbour, lending each other machinery and labour, even the children had to do their share after school. My brothers would help to shake up the hay and rake it into “wallies” ready to be loaded on the wagons and taken to the farm to be made into ricks which were then thatched to keep the rain out. My job was to carry huge baskets of food; bread, cheese and huge lumps of fruit cake; cans of tea and home-made ginger beer to feed the workers. Harvest followed much the same pattern except that a road had to be cut round the edge of the binder so that no corn was wasted. This was done by hand with a wooden crook which gathered the stems together and then cut with a hook, these were then tied into sheaves with string, they were then stacked in groups of 5 or 6 wig-wam shape, the left in the field to dry before being carted to the barns ready for threshing time.

After harvest came hop-picking, families would arrive in the village from Dudley and other places in the Birmingham area. They would arrive loaded down with pots and pans. They stayed in the barns which were cleaned out ready to receive them. Hop-picking was a jolly time with much fun and laughter, although it was hard work. I think we were paid about 1 shilling (5p.) per bushel. The farmer would pay you at the end of the picking. This money went to buy winter clothes and fuel.

Kellys Directory 1905 Mathon

Population 387.

Public Elementary School erected 1861 for 60 children.

Average attendance 38. Edward J Chetwynd master.

Mathon Village 1905

Young army battles blaze

A dramatic account of a fire which swept the Malvern Hills on Sept. 16th 1902 appeared in the Malvern Gazette. “So extensive was the space that eventually became ablaze that the flames and smoke could be seen miles off, especially in the Mathon and Cradley districts,” reported the paper.

The fire apparently began when a small patch of gorse above the Workmen’s Institute in West Malvern was set alight. The local policeman, P.C. Mann suspected schoolboy mischief, but could not prove it. “There was a strong north-easterly breeze blowing at the time and the fire soon spread until the hill was entirely aflame” the paper continued “A walk round to the Lamb Inn revealed an extensive fire tearing up the side of the hill, burning all before it and leaving in its train smouldering gorse and ferns.”

When the fire was first noticed, P.C. Mann proceeded to the spot and endeavoured to extinguish the burning bush, but his efforts were fruitless so strong was the breeze. The fire provided fine sport for the children who, armed with sticks rushed up the hill to do battle with the foe. PC Mann was the commander in chief, and under his direction they set to work to extinguish each patch of grass that had caught fire. By 6 o clock the wind had increased and so had the smoke and flames. The former was so dense that it enveloped the whole of the North Hill and it was impossible for those in the midst of it to see a yard on either side. As the evening wore on the spectacle became a weird one. The lurid glare of the flames and dense clouds of smoke and dust rose in the air, and all around was a scene of destruction.

PC Mann and his youthful army were reinforced by another contingent of boys and following them came PC Ellison who remained until the last burning embers died away” The 1891 census shows PC Mann living at Stockton. He and his wife had 9 children of their own, so possibly the little regiment he commanded were his own. In any case, he had plenty of experience of dealing with children.

Two photographs from about 1905. The “Cliffe Arms” and “Badgers” which was owned by Henry Hehir, a baker. His donkey cart was used to deliver the bread.

Leslie Lawrence

Leslie was born at South Hide Farm in 1912. He had seven brothers and sisters and began work on the family farm as soon as he was big enough. His father had one of the largest farms in the parish, and owned other land as well. All the family worked on the farm, and several men were also employed, taking their meals in the back kitchen and sleeping in the top rooms of the three storey house, where Lesley joined them when he left school and started work. However, long before that, he had milked a cow before going to school and another when he came home, just as the Fitzers did. One night one of the hired men went to sleep leaving a candle burning on a wicker chair beside his bed, and woke later to find the chair in flames, fortunately before the house was on fire.

Leslies father kept a milking herd, and would drive the morning and evening milk down to Colwall station to catch the evening train to Birmingham. They kept 6 horses at South Hide, and as they bred their own, there were always foals. At that time Colwall had a race course, and Leslies father kept a few race horses. The family seem to have slightly resented this, because the race horses got the best of everything, and produced nothing.

As a boy, Leslie used to catch moles, and sell their skins, shopping round to find the best bidder when he sold them. We both remembered the Sikhs, who in the 1930s travelled around with a suitcase full of articles, selling at the door.

After the days work, his father liked to sit on a large wooden box which held tools, and stood near the back door., and his friends would find him here when they called in and enjoyed a mug of cider with him. It was here that Leslie looked for him, when on Sunday evening, the weeks work done, and after his bath and shave he would hope to get his pay. The agricultural wage at that time was 30s. (£1.50) Leslie got 2s.6d. (12-½ p.) and even then it was a battle of wits, because if his father could disappear into a barn or garden before Leslie got there, he would.

Leslie joined the Territorial Army, so in 1939, he was called up, and though his father tried to get him released, he failed to do so. Leslie would of course have been in a reserved occupation, but probably the fact that he was by now a trained soldier decided the issue. He joined the Shropshire Yeomanry, a medium artillery regiment which had 5.5inch guns. He was in this country until 1942, and then served in Iran, Iraq, and Italy. He fought at the Battle of Cassino, and considers himself very lucky to be alive, having had friends killed on either side, and a dud shell which landed at his feet. He was mentioned in despatches for rescuing wounded men from between the lines, and received the oak leaf award for a repeated act of bravery. He was discharged with the rank of Sergeant.

Coming back to peaceful Herefordshire must have been a strange experience. He remembers the feeling of lost comradeship, and a slight loss of security. Italian and German prisoners of war were still working in Mathon. Leslie, a life-long bachelor, had no time for the Italians –“Ladies men” He had much more respect for the German prisoners., but it must have been strange to be working alongside men against whom he had been fighting in such a bitter battle.

He now decided to take on contract work, for farmers who had not bought the machinery for mowing or threshing, and were glad to have the work done quickly instead of employing men with scythes. But like most men who worked on the land, he says “There was no money in farming till the war”

South Hyde House 1917

South Hyde House 2003-04-29

The First World War

In Mathon Church is a memorial giving the Roll of Honour for the village, and showing 13 names. We can suppose that probably 2 or 3 times that number of young men answered Kitchener’s call for volunteers inspired by patriotism and what they considered their duty. Some of them were probably encouraged by friends, always a powerful incentive with young people, and we know that later the military authorities took advantage of this by forming friends’ battalions. Some of them may have falsified their ages adding a year or two in order to stay with their pals. Others will have felt the call of adventure, a chance to “see the world”, and to be sure of food and clothes, for there was much poverty in the countryside. Agricultural wages at that time averaged 13shillings (65p.) per week, assuming that a tied cottage was provided rent free., and it was not until the submarine campaign became so effective , and it was essential to produce more of our own food that wages rose substantially . It was also due to the shortage of young men left to work the farms that Land Girls were now working beside the men. Not that this was something new. Women had worked in the fields since time immemorial., sometimes with a baby in a sling.

As early as 1915 when the Parish Council discussed the possibility of holding a Recruiting Drive in the village, they concluded that so few men were left that there was no point in doing so.

It was in 1915, that the W.I. came into being. This was certainly more than an opportunity for countrywomen to sell dressed poultry, eggs and jam at the markets, and supplement their incomes, welcome though that was. It was much more closely allied to the suffrage movement which their town sisters were concerned with, and a general tendency in time of war to look at one’s way of life and contemplate improvement. Mathons W.I. was founded in 1923. and has been well-attended since
In 1920 Mathon Court, which had been owned by the Abbaye Notre Dame de Bon Secours at Blauvac in France was sold. The abbaye had owned the house since 1912, using it as a “refuge”.

Why they needed a refuge in faraway Mathon is one of the puzzles of local history, and complicating matters still further is the presence in Hereford Record Office of a sale sheet for Mathon Court by the executors of W.C Vale on June 11 1914. At all events the nuns were here and it was John Pound’s first task to clear the rather neglected roads and paths when they left.

Michael Fitzer

Michael moved with his parents, Hubert and Beatrice (Beaty) and his elder sister, Hazel from Storridge to Little Southend Farm in 1936.He says conditions were primitive, and electricity was not installed till 1952 when they had left. Hubert later became a churchwarden and his name appears on one of the bells which was re-cast. Michael went to Mathon School, first milking a cow, then walking the mile to school. Hazel did the same. Later, Michael attended Cradley School, then Ledbury Grammar. Two more cows waited to be milked when he got home. There was lots of learning by rote at Mathon School, chanting of multiplication tables, learning by heart, and plasticene modelling. There was a hymn at morning prayers, but no other music, and the only games were the cricket and football they organised for themselves at lunchtime. Discipline was enforced by a slap on the leg, and for more serious offences, the vicar, Mr. Forrest was summoned to cane the offender. At school, they used slates and slate pencils quite frequently, and we both remembered what a terrible noise you could make with a slate pencil if you tried really hard.

Michael, aged 6, helped to drive cattle by road from Southend to Storridge , about 2 miles. He says not many sheep were kept then, but there were many small milking herds, and the milk money was the farmers principal income. Miss Hodges, their neighbour, had a herd of Ayrshires which were milked by Fred Jones. Fred arranged with Hubert to have a 28 gallon barrel of cider kept for his own use, and he paid for it when it was empty. After finishing the milking he came to the Fitzers door, and drank a pint of cider there and took two full quart bottles away with him. By the end of the month he had emptied the barrel. Sometimes in winter, he sat by the fire heating a poker to red and plunged it in the cider to take the chill off
He watched the barrel carefully and one day complained to Beaty that someone had been interfering with it. Beaty denied this, but what she did not know was that a small boy from nearby had been fiddling with the tap, and produced a few drops which he had tasted, and confided to Michael, “I likes cider”

Bath night at the weekend involved taking down the tin bath from the wall where it hung, and heating the water in the boiler. A bucket of hot and a bucket of cold, and you had your bath, Michael first because he was youngest.
Beaty plucked and dressed the poultry and had won prizes for her dressed poultry. She also delivered it to Malvern. Cider-making was Huberts task and also the salting of pigs which were killed when there was an R in the month, never in the warmer weather. Michael grew up, like most farmers sons with the sounds and sights of pig-killing. Then there were the great feasts, shared with neighbours who had sent them meat when they had killed their pig., the making of 3 pound pork pies, faggots, black puddings, hams, bacon, roasting joints and all the rest. These pigs realised up to 480 pounds of meat. No wonder sons and daughters working away from home enquired about the pigs health. The pig-killing was done by Jervy Jones, the son of the landlady at the “Cliffe Arms”, but when he was old enough, Michaels job, as Christmas approached was to kill the turkeys.

“The Fitzers gave great parties” but in the family the joke was that as soon as the first guests arrived the order was given “Cover the milk” The ceilings were whitewashed and when a large number of people began walking about or dancing, flakes fell into the open vessels in the dairy, unless the milk was covered.

The agricultural wage at that time was 30shillings (£1. 50) per week and although there were opportunities to supplement this, they too were poorly paid. Beaty was an expert hop-picker but two hours work, filling five big baskets was only worth one shilling (5p)

Little Southend had its own well observed, but friendly ghost. Michael says “We would be sitting, playing Ludo, or cards, while Mother was out at a meeting, and would hear the sound of footsteps and think she had returned, but nobody came in” Kath Blood, a neighbour, says “Light tapping footsteps going along the lane” Everyone who encountered her agrees that there was nothing malevolent about this ghost. When an uncle was staying he claimed that she appeared in the room where he was sleeping, but this seems to have been her final appearance.

The family moved to Hoe Farm in 1951, and Michael stayed in farming until his early thirties, but then deciding there was not much future in small farms went to work in a plastics factory in Malvern Link.

Tea Party at Mathon Court - Beaty Fitzer standing, Mrs. Thorburn at the far end of the table.

Beaty Fitzer , Gladys Daw, and an unknown lady run a fund-raising stall at Mathon Gymkhana. Beaty was a marvellous saleswoman. When you looked at her stall, you thought nobody would buy that lot, but at the end it had gone. Much to your surprise, you had probably bought something yourself.

1939 to 1945

Everyone who lived through the troubled years of the 1930s saw the inevitable approach of war, only temporarily postponed by the Munich crisis of 1938. In order to safeguard food supplies the government made farm work a reserved occupation though some men such as Leslie Lawrence and John Hehir served in the forces. Before war broke out, the parish records tell us that 6 air raid wardens were appointed and an instructor for anti-gas precautions, followed by a billeting officer and two more air raid wardens. The parish became the owners of a single stirrup pump and Mr Forrest, the vicar, organised a small auxiliary fire service to man it! Mr. Forrest was also arranging the collection of waste paper and scrap iron which was delivered to the vicarage, and probably became a considerable nuisance before it was finally disposed of. There was even a song on the radio at the time called “Up housewives and at ‘em”, one line of which ran “Save your paper, and keep your eye on, rags bones and any old iron” Well we know now that most of that scrap iron was useless and finished at the bottom of the sea.

There now began the great social experiment which seemed so necessary at the time, the evacuation of mothers and children from the cities to the country, to escape the expected bombing. The one thing that became clear was that neither city nor country people had any idea how the other lived. Mrs. Minton wrote, “ When the war broke out, the evacuees came, anyone with a spare bedroom was compelled to take some in. We had a young mother with three children under five years. On arrival the first question they asked was “Where was the pub and the chip shop?” On being told the pub was two miles away, and the ‘chippie’ the other side of the Malvern Hills five miles away, they nearly returned to Birmingham. One day when ours had been with us several weeks, I had to go out, and on returning in the late evening, was surprised to find the house in darkness and not a sound to be heard. On entering the living room I found one terrified lady with three sleeping children huddled in a corner. I had filled and trimmed the oil lamps before leaving but it hadn’t occurred to me that she hadn’t a clue how to light them. The eldest little boy was quite a chatterbox. One morning when I was dishing out the cereals for breakfast, he looked up at me and in his Brummy accent said “Where do ya keep getting the food from, lady? Ya never goes out but ya keep on getting it.” I had to explain that my groceries were only delivered once a fortnight so I had to get a supply in to last”

Being an evacuee was probably hardest on the very young. Some boys who came to the village enjoyed country life. And as for the people who were made to take in unknown women and children we only have to put ourselves in their place to imagine what it must have been like.

When the war ended and the servicemen came home, a public meeting was held to ask what improvements the village people would like to see. Their requirements were modest enough:

1. A fortnightly collection of refuse.
2. The Electricity Board to be asked when they would bring electricity to the village
3. The deep ditch alongside Stockton’s Farm was thought to be dangerous and reflectors were requested.
4. More buses to Malvern were needed.
5. Better lighting was needed in the Village Hall.

Things move slowly in the country and it was many years before these improvements happened.

In July 1939, the parish council in answer to an invitation from the RDC decided to apply for 4 council houses to be built in the village. Suitable sites were discussed, and the vicar offered the glebe land but that was thought to be too damp. The houses were finally built in 1950.

Mrs. Joan Ray (nee Botfield)

Mr. & Mrs. Ray were in the churchyard tending her parents grave. They were George and Marjorie Botfield, who died within a few months of each other in a nursing home. Joan’s daughter became interested in clairvoyance, and at a meeting the clairvoyant told her that a grumpy old man was trying to get in touch with her to ask why no one came to clean their gravestone. She replied that he was not grumpy, but following this news, Joan and Alec made the journey to Mathon and the gravestone was cleaned.

Joan and her brother Tony were born at Virginia cottage at the bottom of Harcourt Road., and lived in Mathon until she married Alec Ray, who worked as a civil engineer for the Port of London Authority. They lived in Tottenham until 1963, then Enfield for 20 years then South Mymms. Mathon to Tottenham was quite a change. Joan says “I must have been in love”

Joan’s father George had various jobs. He was a good gardener, a popular man who liked a drink at the “Old Bell”, sang in the choir, worked at Ballards, then at the Wyche Quarry, then for Mr. Davis at Ham Green Farm driving what must have been one of the first combine harvesters seen in these parts. He did contract work, and advertised the service at the Three Counties Show.

Joan remembers wartime very well, and the glow in the sky from distant air raids, and the occasional bomb (South Hide) One or two evacuees stayed with them from Birmingham, but seemed to expect to be waited on, or thought city life with bombs was better than country life without. Joan remembers her absolute terror when she saw her first black Americans, and how she fled into the house.

War time food was quite good. There was often a pheasant or rabbit available and not too many questions were asked about the provenance, and berries, nuts, apples and pears were always available.

She remembers Captain Harrison well; a tall military figure. His wife was the daughter of a baronet. Joan’s mother worked at Mathon Court, and Joan found herself cast in a play, and included rather unwillingly in games of whist, of which she had no experience and dreaded being scolded for making mistakes. Old fashioned dances were popular, and at Colwall Village Club, a penny entrance fee made you eligible for table tennis dancing and refreshments.

Joan attended West Malvern Primary School, Ledbury Grammar then worked in a Ladies Hairdressing Salon, a career choice that got her a scolding from her Headmaster, who “thought she should have done better” Joan had been told to have nothing to do with soldiers, so it was well that when she met Alec who was on “Z” reserve training, he had changed into “civvies” for the evening. When she was driven down the village street to be married “everyone stood at their doors. You knew everybody.”

Mrs. Betty Dalley (nee Mellings)

Betty’s parents kept the “Old Bell” Her mother ran the pub, which sold only beer, cider and soft drinks, no spirits. Like many country pubs it had its comical moments. There were times when the policeman would come to check on closing time, only to be invited in for a drink or two. Closing time became elastic, and once he fell off his bike when riding home.

Betty’s father worked on farms, and later when they left the pub, became bailiff at Church Farm. He was a Much Cowarne man, and was a special constable like Bob Wood the village blacksmith who lived at Smiths Green., and who enjoyed a drink at the Bell.

Joan’s mother had seen one of Mathon’s ghosts in one our old houses and the experience had been so frightening that she was very reluctant to talk about it. Betty and Joan Botfield were friends and Joan often had a lift in the Mellings family car on her way to work.

Irene Southall

Irene came from Blackheath village on the fringe of London for holidays in Mathon in 1940. She stayed at Church Farm, at that time in the care of Mr. Powell. She was glad to be away from the London blitz, then at its height. She met her future husband and married in 1942, and they lived for a time at Parkers, when it was two cottages before Tom Richardson converted it. Most of the village people had accepted her, but she knew she was really one of them when on her way to help with the decoration of the cottage she was finally spoken to by the vicar Mr. Forrest. Later they lived at Fernhill, just over the border in Cradley parish. Irene had a son and a daughter, but sadly her husband died when his son was 9. Irene is a qualified teacher and taught History and Geography at local secondary schools. She also gave some voluntary help at Mathon School when the Headmistress needed assistance. She ran a library at the school, and organised play-readings and current affairs talks in wartime. She was a member of the parish council.

When the vicar, Rev. Forrest left to take a parish in Lancashire, he was succeeded by Rev. P. Thorburn. Irene remembers how good he was with children, whom he liked, and who returned his affection His lessons with them were better than his sermons for adults.

During the war there was a Prisoner of war camp at Eastnor, and Italian prisoners were sent, under guard, to work on farms. They were not accustomed to the type of farm work needed in Herefordshire, but were friendly, and glad to be out of the war. In many cases they were fine craftsmen and they did a splendid job at Church Farm in cleaning, renovating and improving the farm buildings One of them, Joe Palmieri and another man from Rome returned to Italy after the war, and finding no work available wrote to Mr. Twist who was now running Church Farm, asking for help, and Mr. Higgins found work for them. They both married English girls, and Joe and his wife lived in West Malvern.

German prisoners were more of a mixture, some Nazi and unfriendly, some cooperative, and those who were, being more used to Northern European farming methods were useful farm workers.

Captain Harrison and his wife had a large oil painting, “Flight into Egypt” which neither of them liked and they presented it to the church. Pevsner mentions it in his Penguin book” Buildings of Herefordshire” It seems the P.C.C. did not like it either, because it was sent to Sothebys and sold to pay for improvements to the heating system.

Tony Botfield

Tony was born in 1940. As a small boy he was fitted with a red Micky Mouse gas mask. He went to West Malvern Primary School, and Ledbury Grammar. He remembers the end of the war and returning soldiers, and the Home Guards rifles, tin hats, and greatcoats. He played football, cricket had a bicycle and worked. He learned to drive a tractor, and says you found out why you had been allowed to drive; so you could work with it! He helped his father feed the cattle and sheep, and went rabbiting with him with ferrets and snares, and later with a shotgun at the age of 10. There was a bounty on grey squirrels of 2s. (10p) per tail.

Tony was not much impressed by the combine harvester which his father drove for Mr. Davis-“more of a curiosity than much use” It was towed by a tractor, and must have been a very early model. Perhaps the Jaguar motor car which Mr. Davis also owned was more impressive.

Tony enjoyed the entertainments provided at Malvern Winter Gardens. Big bands were then very popular, and “groups” were just coming into being. He “rather admired” Mr. Hinks, Betty Mellings grandfather, who lived at “Hillview” and had a horse and trap. He also remembers a local farmer (who had better be nameless) who turned his car over on a bend on more than one occasion, after having too much to drink.

Another nameless farmer often seemed to be racing to catch up the departed milk lorry.

George was very much against his son having a career in farming, so in spite of that early taste of country life, Tony had a career in Electronics.

He was determined to live in Mathon

Dennis George James Fairfax (1914—1989) was born in Mathon, in a black and white thatched roof cottage at Smiths Green. His father, Thomas Brace Fairfax was a postman who had to retire at 39 due to a serious heart complaint, so he decided to start a poultry farm, a dream of many men in those years. He was not entirely committed to the venture, and was perhaps unduly concerned by what the doctors had said about his future health. Since he lived to be eighty, they may have been too pessimistic. He had a donkey cart and sold some poultry in Malvern, but the family income was low, and his wife, in order to supplement it walked over the hills to clean the Post Office in Malvern

Dennis and Iris (b. 1916) met when they were 19 and 17 respectively and when they married they lived and worked in Worcester. Dennis was determined to live in Mathon, and Iris says “If I had disagreed, he would have dropped me like a stone” Would they have persisted if they had known how long it would take?

Thomas and his wife had found it difficult to bring up and educate their five children in the thatched cottage and Mary moved to Worcester and opened a boarding house for the theatrical profession, while Thomas stayed on in Mathon, being visited regularly by the family. After a time, he joined them in Worcester and the Mathon cottage fell into disrepair., having been unoccupied for some time. When Thomas died in 1947, the cottage was in a ruinous state, and Dennis and Iris realised that they would have to re-build.

They did not of course know, at this stage what a battle they were about to begin which would occupy their attention for years, Iris typing out endless letters of appeal to overturn refusals of planning permission. It is an experience which has become familiar to others who have sought to build in this village, but few can have shown the persistence of the Fairfax family. They visited the cottage frequently, travelling first by bus, then on foot, taking a picnic with them, and getting a cup of tea from a friendly neighbour, Mrs. Fox. The children enjoyed the day in the country. In 1953, the acquisition of a car made the journey less tiresome.

The cottage was quite uninhabitable, and the chimney was so dangerous that it had to be demolished. When planning permission was finally given, a 93 foot borehole had to be sunk to provide a water supply before building could begin. Building progressed to the plastering stage, and the family were living in a caravan on the site, and maintaining 6 paraffin heaters to protect the new plaster. They finally moved in in 1964. The children were 20, 19 and 17.There were pear trees on the site, and a cider mill, so the house was named “Perrymill”

Cradley, Mathon & Storridge Home Guard

Robin (Bob) Wood, Blacksmith & Special Constable at Mathon Gymkhana

Ghosts

Mathon seems to have a rather fine collection of ghosts, though it is easier to find people who have been told about a ghost by someone else than to encounter the person who has actually seen one. Are the folk who see the apparition in a rather special class, and would some of us be so insensitive that we would not recognise a ghostly spirit if it appeared to us?

The ghost at Little Southend, which has already been mentioned, is well authenticated. A number of people saw and heard it. They all agree that there was nothing malevolent about it; a friendly ghost. That was not so with another phantom, which appeared on the staircase of one of the old farmhouses. Little is known about it, except that it was so unpleasant that the two ladies to whom it appeared were unwilling to discuss it, and one of them only told her daughter about it very late in her life. The Southend ghost ceased to appear after a time, and there have been no more reports of the other less pleasant one. It is as though they appear for a limited time and almost for a specific purpose.

One late evening a few years ago, a farmer was driving through the village, on his way home, after attending a meeting, at which he was careful to say, nothing stronger than coffee had been served. As he approached the “Cliffe Arms” he saw a ghostly figure cross the road between the houses and the pub. He noticed particularly that it did not appear in the rear view mirror. When he reached home, he said “I’ve seen a ghost”, and his appearance was such that he was believed.

The same man was told about an unusual experience by his maternal grandfather who was a clockmaker. He had ridden to Colwall on his bicycle to deliver a clock, and was returning home along the lane by “Old Country” Farm. At a point where there is a gate on opposite sides of the lane, a ghostly horseman came through one gate and entered the other in front of the cyclist, who arrived home shaken by the experience, and later, by the discovery that he was missing the ten shilling note that he had been paid for the clock. He rode back to the place where he had seen the apparition, and found the note on the ground.

Finally the area near the back entrance to Mathon Court, known in the past as the “Blue Gates” is also said to be haunted.

Football Team 1920

Football Team 1957 

Ivor Minton, Percy Grundy, and Town House Farm

Ivor was born at Bodenham and was fifteen when he came to Mathon., with his employer who was taking over the farm. They drove the cattle and horses from Upper Sapey, a distance of perhaps 12 miles. Ivor said “They were frisky when we started but they were not frisky by the time we got here” Imagine driving cattle along the road from Bromyard to Mathon nowadays. Gladys lived in the cottage close by. Ivor cycled to Hereford each Saturday afternoon to collect his wages from the owner, Mr. Thomas.
Later he worked for Percy Grundy, a man who was never forgotten by those who met him. He was either a New Zealander or a returned emigrant, and was a man of great strength, even among the farm workers of that time, who were no weaklings and were accustomed to lift bags of grain weighing 2 ¼ cwts. When men assisted each other, as they did at harvest and haymaking, it was an ordeal to keep up with Percy. He was about six feet tall, with rather wild hair, and was held by the village boys with respect and a little fear. The corner near the farm was known for some years as Grundys Corner.

He owned a white bull, which was so fierce that even he took a pitchfork with him when he entered the field. It sometimes escaped and “You could be out for a walk and turn a corner and there was Grundys bull out again.” Once the bull got stuck in the mud so Percy hitched a rope round its horns and pulled it out. We do not know whether he then had to seize the pitchfork quickly. One snowy day, he needed to take some grain to Heathmill Farm to have it ground. It is about a mile away, and he did not want to bring a tractor or horse out so he hoisted the bag on his shoulders, and set off. He had a rest at the bridge then continued to the mill. He brought the flour, in three bags back the same way, one under each arm and one on the back of his neck
In time he bought a tractor, but the locals teased him because he had bought a small one. He replied that he reckoned if it got stuck in the mud he could pull it out. Perhaps he had the episode with the bull in mind. Anyway it did get stuck in the mud so his sister, who lived with him, got behind the wheel, he hitched a rope to the tractor and pulled it out.

One day, his old horse died, and Ivor was given the task of digging a hole to bury it. It needed a large hole, but eventually the job was done, and the horse was in its last resting place. However, it had stiffened up and its legs stuck up in the air, so Ivor asked Grundy what he should do. “Cut em off” was the reply. This story seems sufficiently original, perhaps unique, but surprisingly in one of Fred Archers splendid books about life in the Vale of Evesham, he tells a similar story, but this time about a donkey, and in this case, the farmer proposes to grow runner beans up the donkeys legs.

Everyone who lived through it remembers the great snowfall of 1947. Villages were cut off, trains unable to run and fuel scarce. Mathon was cut off for some time and Mr. Boyce who farmed at Mathon Court at that time was unable to get his milk out so the Mintons had free milk for a week or two.
Near their cottage, at Mill House lived one of two distinguished soldier brothers who owned the house in succession, Brigadier R.H.H.Scott (1900-1972) of the 5th Bttn. (Pathans) Punjab Regt. who gave a standing invitation to the children to watch childrens television in his house any day and to play in the garden with its grass, trees, shrubberies and mill pond so exciting to children.
But then the family had a real stroke of luck. Gladys bought a football coupon, one of the kind where you tear off the milled edge, and open it to see which team you have drawn. She won £587, in todays (2003) equivalent say £8000. They had an Austin Ruby car, a television set and a holiday. They invited the elderly sisters Misses Meek who lived nearby in Clyde Cottage to come and watch the 1953 Coronation., and they sat spellbound. These two ladies had no well, so they paid the Mintons 5s. (25p) a year to share their water supply but they only came to the well after dark. One of them took in sewing, and the other kept a drapers shop in Malvern and was known to the village children (who had a nickname for everybody) as Meek the Antique
After Brigadier Scott died, his brother and his wife came to live at Mill House. He was Brigadier R.B. Scott, D.S.O. Croix de Guerre of the Rajputana Rifles (Outrams), a distinguished soldier, artist, and gentle man, who with his attractive wife spent the rest of their lives here.
Ivor and Gladys have died, having both passed 90 years of age They are remembered with affection, and the family still live in the village..

Mrs. Joan Brett (nee Pound)

Joan’s father, John, was Farm Manager at Mathon Court in the 1920s and 30s, when it was owned by Captain Harrison. Joan and her brother, Philip and mother, Ellen lived in a bungalow in the grounds. Mathon Court had been occupied by a group of nuns, and the gardens were overgrown and neglected, and Johns first task was to cut roads through the shrubberies. Captain Harrison and his wife ran a small residential school for secondary girls and Joan was encouraged to join in with their activities, which seem to have been quite progressive for the time. Joan attended Mathon School, but in the evening and at weekends she was able to join the girls in some of their activities. They had dancing lessons, a boat on the lake, ponies to ride, percussion band, and piano lessons. Mrs. Harrison was a keen botanist and the girls were taken for nature walks. They also walked down to church on Sunday. For their formal lessons they were taught French by a Frenchwoman from West Malvern, and History by Mr. Hughes who lived near the “Old Bell”.
Joan stayed at the village school until she was 14. The older girls taught the young ones and had cookery lessons using vegetables supplied by the farms and milk from Burford Farm. They ate the results.
When war broke out, two evacuees, boys, arrived from London and loved their life at South Hide farm, but some mothers and children who came from Birmingham never settled and soon returned to the city.
Joan remembers the fun of hay-making, and threshing, and how men would go from farm to farm when many hands were needed to complete some of these big tasks. She also remembers stored apple crops, cider-making with the horse turning the mill, and her mother making the strong-tasting farm butter.  When the pig was killed (always when Joan was at school) John  made the bacon (usually a mans job) and her mother flavoured the lard with rosemary.
The W.I. were busy knitting for the forces and making jam when they could get the sugar, cooking in the village hall on 4 burner paraffin stoves. There was a village  “hop” which was so successful that people came from Malvern, Cradley and Bosbury. There was an American camp at Eastnor and the presence of black soldiers created a lot of interest among people who had never seen a coloured man before. Also strangers to the village were a number of Italian prisoners of war. They were quite popular, glad to be out of the war, and some of them were excellent craftsmen. By now England was short of all kinds of manufactured goods and one prisoner made good slippers. One of the Italians, known as Joe, who worked at Church Farm, was so happy here that he stayed for the rest of his life.
John and Philip were in the Home Guard which met at the village hall, and practised firing at West Malvern. In their photograph they look a great deal more formidable than “Dads Army”
In 1945 the roof of their bungalow caught fire and though many people rushed along with buckets of water the roof burnt out
About this time the Harrisons left and Mr. Boyce took over Mathon Court. He kept Ayrshire cattle and some sheep and John and Philip stayed on to work with him. The herd was known as the “Moon Hill herd”. The family moved to Cradley in 1953 and then to Newland. Joan worked on a fruit farm and then in Colwall, then Worcester, cycling to Finchers Corner and catching the bus. She sometimes walked along the country lanes at night but says she always felt safe, and perhaps the most alarming thing was the call of a vixen.
At Mathon Court, coal, fish, bread, newspapers, groceries and milk were all delivered by horse-drawn vehicles until the 1940s when motor vehicles were used. John had horses to look after too. The Harrisons kept two hunters, a heavy horse for the farm, and the girls ponies. Mangolds were grown for feed, and bracken cut for bedding.
Joan had been trained as a secretary, but there was no great pressure to work far from home when there was plenty of work locally. In particular, Kia Ora Schweppes at Colwall had a very good reputation as employers. Philip worked in farming most of his life.
At that time, Mathon had a Post Office run by the Misses Wall at Brook House, and several people remember the rather casual way it was run. There was always a candle on the table, but never a whole one, always a stump which smoked in the draught, and the knife needed to slit open an envelope seemed to have been used to spread butter.

 
John Pound, and his daughter, Joan.

Ray and Kath Blood

Ray was a Leicester man who came to work here in wartime and has enjoyed living in Mathon and stayed ever since. Kath is one of a family that has lived here for hundreds of years. She has always taken an interest in village history, has saved photographs and newspaper cuttings, and although over 80 has a memory good enough to name the children on a school photograph taken 70 years ago.
The 1891 census shows her grandfather, Charles Jones at Tan House, his wife, Emma, his sons Thomas and Albert, (Kath’s father) and Charlotte Calder, his mother in law. Ann Calder is shown on the Tithe Award of 1840, farming Old Country, with 150 acres.
Charles Jones was a farmer and sand merchant, who owned Chapel Cottage, built the house called “Nidus” where Ray and Kath live, and rented Dobbins Farm from the Church Commissioners.
Albert, and Percy who was born three years later, joined the army in the First World War. They both returned in 1918, but sadly Percy was so badly wounded that his life was cut short. Charles persuaded them to work for him and Percy moved to Dobbins. Tom, an elder brother had been sent to work in the mines in South Wales instead of joining the army, and was killed by a runaway truck. Later Percy died at Yew Tree.
He was 59, and the family were sure that he would have lived much longer but for the war wounds
One early memory is the great flood of 1924. Sydney James lost his pigs
which were washed away, and Nurse Pitt had to abandon her bicycle and travel by horse and cart, to deliver Kath’s baby brother..
Sydney and his wife had a bakery, and village shop, and Kath remembers him riding down Southend Lane on his mare, with a huge basket on his arm full of fresh baked bread. Kath was a frequent visitor to the shop. One of her father’s men sent her to buy 5 cigarettes in a paper packet for 2d., Woodbines or Park Drive.. The trouble was that he would often want another packet the same day, and Kath wondered why he couldn’t buy two packets at the same time. The shop supplied all kinds of domestic needs. Block salt for preserving was often asked for then but rarely needed now. And many children must have come in and asked “What can I have for a ha’penny Mrs. James?” Sydney had suffered a very serious head wound in the war, and sadly his life too was cut short., a reminder that the war continued to add to its victims after 1918.
Some years ago, the W.I. asked members to write essays describing their village, and entitled “Within living memory”. Kath’s essay was chosen, and published in the book titled “The Herefordshire Village Book”

Kath Blood’s brothers, Tom & Albert, and a fine litter of piglets.

Mrs. Ada Jones, her son, & Mr. And Mrs. Davis  hop picking

Rev.A.E.Forrest

Rev. A.E.Forrest was Vicar of Mathon from 1929 to 1943. He was a High Churchman and he set about transforming the village church paying for some of the work out of his own pocket, and without consulting anyone at all, or obtaining the faculty which is necessary before starting any work on the church. The altar was removed and in its place was set up a tabernacle and baldachino, a lady chapel was constructed and many other alterations which changed a Herefordshire village church into something one might find in a Catholic country in Europe. At least that was the opinion of some folk, though others thought it a great improvement, and perhaps, needless to say, clergy and laymen were included in each group, those for and those against.

As a result some village people stopped attending, but others came to services from Cradley, West Malvern and other places. When Mr. Forrest left, his successor, Rev. Philip Thorburn refused to be inducted before the church was restored to its former state. A huge fund-raising effort was required, and this enabled the work to be completed. A full account of all this has been made by Mr. C. L. Danks entitled “Matters of Interest” and is in Hereford Record Office.
Peter was the vicars son. He was a firm friend of Archie James, and lives in Colwall, so they are still able to keep in touch. They are both now in their eighties. Peter was educated at home by his father, and this probably gave him a fair amount of free time, which enabled him to become an unpaid extra labourer at Church Farm, and he accompanied Fred Layton in hedging, ditching building ricks and thatching them and having a swig from the small barrel of cider that Fred took with him. Church Farm was run by Charles Powell, his two sons, and several other men including Jim Botfield and Frank James, the cowman. There were 3 horses, Prince, Blossom and Violet.. Peter and another boy, Ernie Botfield, were using a Blackburn Oil Engine to cut chaff, when Ernie had a miraculous escape from death or serious injury.. His jacket was caught in the machine, but mercifully it was stripped off his back and chewed up and he was unharmed.
At lunch time, the boys organised football games on the glebe land behind the church, or had a run up the wooded Rowburrow Hill.A favourite game was to throw pebbles at the school bell and Peter found a catapult useful for this. He also liked to accompany Jervie Jones when he followed the hunt, and learned how to set a snare. He never caught anything, and attributes this to the fact that the strong-smelling carbolic soap which was popular then , and with which he washed his hands, could be detected by the rabbits on the wires. He got into serious trouble at home one night when Jervie had taken them so far from home (Crumpton Hill probably) that Peter did not know the way back and had to wait till Jervie was ready to go
Peter used to ride the James’s family mare round their field and sometimes borrowed the Pugh’s donkey. The church tower made a good point from which to take pot shots at birds with his Diana air rifle and there were so many birds then that every boy thought a few would not be missed.
In 1932, an advertisement appeared in the “Church Times” for a “Trojan” motor car for sale to any country parson for £10. The address was in Babbacombe, Devon, so after a family conference they set off to buy it. This was a remarkable car which was originally advertised as “Can you afford to walk?” It had a 4 cylinder 2 stroke engine started by pulling an internal lever, the chassis was pressed steel, the gearbox 2 speed and the bonnet housed the petrol tank and carburettor. The engine was underneath the front seats. Trojan became more famous for their vans than their cars, and the Brooke Bond tea van, in bright red, was seen in most villages.
Peter learned to drive this car at the age of 13, traversing the gravel in front of the vicarage. “When I got tired of going forward, I did it in reverse”. He now began to collect churchgoers from other villages, and bring them to Mathon for the service. In church he swung the censer, sometimes delighting his young friends by rotating it through a full circle, “to liven it up”
He also drove the car to Bromyard, when someone had to be taken to the workhouse, and to Folkestone where the family took their annual holiday.
When not farming, following the hounds, or rabbiting he found time to pummel a punchbag with Tom Richardson for hours on end. His friend, Archie James had a motorbike, so in the field they rigged up a contraption with petrol tins and planks to make a ramp to ride the bike up and down.
Peter has visited the village frequently and some years ago, he encountered Mrs. Minton. After a long hard look, she said “I know you. You’re Peter Forrest, and what a little devil you were !”

Philip Ballard (1910 - 1986 )

Philip was a member of the Ballard family of landowners, farmers, and engineers who have lived in the area, mainly in Colwall for hundreds of years. He graduated in Mathematics at Cambridge University and devoted himself to a life of gardening and farming varied with some mountaineering and foreign travel at a time when such interests were not so popular as they are now.
He worked first with his father at the nursery in Colwall, and developed a knowledge of plants which lasted a lifetime. But his real ambition was to farm, His mother died young, and he inherited money which enabled him to buy Old Country Farm and have drainage work done, always an expensive business. His farm workers came from Old Country hamlet across the fields on the Bosbury – Cradley road. Their names were Bill and Tom Nutt, and Mr. Oliver. The names of the farm and hamlet suggest that there may be a long-standing connection.
Mr. Oliver once confided that when he wanted to cheer himself up in wartime he cycled to the wood and listened to the nightingales.
Philip had known a girl called Helen when they were 14 and 13 and there must have been a mutual attraction, because when they met again, years later, Philip married Helen who had two sons by a previous marriage, and in the course of time, two more children were born, Philip, and Sarah. The parents shared a love of travel and took a holiday on their own every year, always to Italy.
Philip had a dairy herd of Northern Dairy Shorthorns, which was very successful and won various awards, but then they contracted brucellosis and he had no insurance, a bitter blow. Helen had poultry, and made butter and cheese, and also had a productive vegetable garden. Philip’s farming had its ups and downs. He bought Stonehouse, and three fields, and set up a sand quarry in an effort to improve finances. During wartime, they had Italian prisoners of war helping on the farm who were able to work with the two horses which were still kept. A German prisoner was less cooperative. Electricity was installed in the cowshed in 1954, but not in the house until a year later, perhaps a fairly typical farmer’s priority. Mains water was not laid on until the 60s.
One summer day, some young men working at the quarry at Southend constructed a raft and launched it. For a time all went well, but then it began to sink. One of them got off and reached the bank safely, but another lad went under and could not be pulled out. A third young man, a strong swimmer, summoned to help, dived in on the other bank to swim across and help but he too drowned, probably chilled by the cold water, a terrible tragedy which shocked the village. The police had great difficulty in recovering the bodies, and Philip who had diving experience, went to help, and was later sent a letter of commendation by the police.
Philip had made cider for years, mainly because farm workers appreciated receiving it as part of their wages, a custom dating back for many years. His interest later seems to have concentrated on perry, and while the must fermented, he amused himself writing in chalk on the brick walls of the barn quotations from books he had read on cider-making They are still there. At some stage there were no horses left on the farm to turn the ciderpress, so he used an electric motor, and bought an old motorbike and harnessed them to the mill. This too still stands in the barn., and by kind permission of the editor I am able to reproduce the article which appeared in the “Ledbury Reporter”
Philip’s solutions to problems could be a little unorthodox, but they seemed to work. He bought a Dutch barn, and when it was erected decided that it was in the wrong place, so he got the blacksmith, Jack Hales, to make four short legs with wheels on the end, and bolt them to the legs of the barn, and then towed it to the new site with his tractor
Helen’s gardening skills had now become so productive of new plants, especially hellebores that Philip encouraged her either to open a nursery, or set up a mail order business, and the latter plan prospered to such an extent that people frequently asked the way to Old Country Farm to buy plants. The magazine “Country Life” published an article about Helen’s house and gardening.
Fruit growing proved to be a successful and profitable venture, especially raspberries which were so good that they were sold at Covent Garden. Even so, there was such a surplus that raspberry jam, surely the best of all preserves was on the table so often that it became unpopular in the family.
Late in his life, Philip produced more cider than could be used, and he placed an advertisement in the “Malvern Gazette” that his cider was ready and free for collection by anyone who brought his own container. What an opportunity!

Old Country Farm

The cider press and graffiti

Rev. Mark Thompson-McCausland

Mark was Rector of Cradley and priest-in-charge of Mathon, Storridge and Fromes Hill from 1972 to 1982. Before that time two of the four parishes, Mathon and Cradley had their own priest, and this, when coupled with Mark’s choice to live in Mathon Vicarage were innovations which challenged both priest and parishioners.
He was, at that time, a young man who had worked out exactly what he considered important, made great personal sacrifices, and shaped his life accordingly. It was also a time of change for the church and clergy, as it was for the secular community and it is a small but significant point that Mark was the first vicar to ask to be called by his Christian name.
It is not unusual to find priests who have an affection for the stage; after all there are certain similarities between the professions, and come Christmastime, the annual pantomime found him the star of the show.
Mark was a little eccentric and liked to take his exercise by swinging from the lychgate or vaulting over the gravestones. But it was his love of the internal combustion engine which made him distinctly different. In addition to his bicycle and motorcycle he had a car , usually a Citroen, which he considered “broke the mould” and to keep them on the road, he filled the stone building in the vicarage grounds , known as the “studio” with spares for his own vehicles and for others standing by the vicarage..
None of this interfered with his pastoral duties which he conducted in fulfilment of the Gospels, and on one occasion, when in Worcester he felt compelled not to pass by on the other side when he saw an unkempt homeless man in the street and brought him back to Mathon for food and lodging. There was a P.C.C. meeting in the church that night, and deeming it unwise to leave his guest in the vicarage, he brought him to the meeting, where prayers were said for the guest, who was rather bemused.
Mark was generous too with his care for seriously ill or bereaved folk, and had been known to stay with them until 2 a.m. His wife said she never knew when he would come home.
It is true that he offended some parishioners as young men have offended their elders since time immemorial. Some did not like the election poster which appeared in his garden, particularly as it favoured the Liberal party. But his sermons were eloquent and challenging and it was generally felt by parishioners that here was a man of a strong faith , as they listened to his words and found in them a personal message. They felt they were lucky to have known him, here in Mathon.
Believing he had to follow a new path he left for a different environment, working in a London Transport garage, where he hoped “to be a genuine co-worker on the shop floor, and still a priest”
Later he moved to Craven Arms and opened a motorcycle repair shop appropriately named “Rev up” He is now retired but still takes some services in local churches as a non-stipendiary priest.

Harry Clifton Davies

Harry was born at Burnage, Lancashire. In 1940 he joined the R.A.F. as a wireless operator, and after training became a member of the force known as Y service, highly secret then. This work was later taken over by G.C.H.Q. Cheltenham, and consisted of tracking enemy bombers by listening to their radio messages which were in Morse Code. By triangulating with another R.A.F. radio station, it was possible to find their position, and alert Fighter Command. The call signs of the aircraft were recognised, and their home bases were known. Harry remembers that on one occasion, he picked up the call sign of Hitler’s personal aircraft. It was D 2600.
After serving in this country, he took part in the Tunisian campaign, then southern France, landing at St Raphael, and on to Avignon, Marseilles, Rome, Naples, Capri, Foggia, Bari Ancona and Loretto.
When the war ended, Harry volunteered to server 2 more years as a civilian in the same work. He had been writing to Pat while he was overseas, and they were married in 1947. He was working at Whitchurch in Shropshire and while they were visiting family in Herefordshire, they walked past the cottage, Mason’s Meadow, where Harry now lives. It was for sales, and they bought it, and Harry gave up his job which paid £11 per week, and worked at Pullen’s Farm for £7. He says that going from a sedentary job to manual work on the land, nearly killed him. However he stayed there for seven years.
He then felt the need for a change, and Mr. Higgins, a churchwarden at Mathon who owned a factory in Worcester gave him a job as a progress chaser and for a time Harry exchanged the quiet of the fields for machine noise, but then he began to long for the open air, and worked for Stephen Ballard as foreman at his farm in Colwall. This lasted for three years until Stephen retired. He had owned Groves End, Bank Farm and Pitlock Farm. When his daughter married he gave her Hope End as a wedding present. This was the site of a house owned in the past by Mr. Barrett, the father of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Harry followed this with working as a postman for six months, and then as groundsman at Chase School, though he was now handicapped by hip pain and went into hospital for a replacement. His last job was as assistant storekeeper at Broads of Malvern, which ended when the owner said to him, “Well, Harry, you’ve had your chips.”
So that was the beginning of Harry’s retirement. When Harry and Pat first lived at Mason’s Meadow, they had no car and used to walk to churches at Acton Beauchamp, Suckley, Evesbatch, Fromes Hill, Cradley, Mathon and Storridge. Rev Thorburn was Vicar of Mathon at that time, and they liked him immediately, especially when they found that his daughter had worked alongside Pat in Manchester. So they settled at Mathon Church, and he became churchwarden, ran a Scout troop, and took many services when the church was temporarily without a vicar. He has that rare gift of being able to be on goods terms with anyone as soon as he meets them.
He took the Scouts for camping holidays in the Lake District, New Forest, Gower Peninsula, Peak District, and to a jamboree in Wales. He met Lord Baden-Powell.
In retirement he became a skilled painter in oils, and for many seasons missed few county matches at Worcester. For years he would take services in churches when they had no parson, and on one of those visits, he was told by a lady in the congregation that one of their services had been taken by Rev. Mark McCausland. “Oh I know Mark,” Harry replied, “he was our vicar some years ago.” “Well, weren’t you lucky!” she replied.

Harry gets a medal for service to the Boy Scout movement

Lieutenant George Butler Honour 1918 –2002

George Honour was born at Bristol and joined the Royal Navy when war broke out in 1939, serving in small ships in the Mediterranean. He volunteered for hazardous duties, which proved to consist of commanding a midget submarine. These vessels had a 4-man crew, were powered by the same Gardner diesel engines used in London buses, and must have been one of the most uncomfortable craft ever devised. For rest, the crew used in turn a single narrow bunk, and if they turned over carelessly in their sleep, risked electrocution. The only means of heating food was in the control room, where the contents of a single tin could be heated..
In this alarming vessel, George Honour and his crew were submerged for 64 hours off the French coast, just before D-day, their vigil increased by the 24-hour postponement of the invasion ordered by General Eisenhower because of rough weather. Their task was to act as a navigation marker off Sword beach, and required them to erect an 18 foot high navigation beacon on the casing of the submarine in rough seas and in full view of the German defences. Incredibly they survived, and Honour was awarded the DSC, his citation concluding that his report of proceedings “was a masterpiece of understatement reading like the deck log of a ship in harbour in peacetime”
George Honour lived for some years at Pemberton Cottage, Mathon.

Brigadier Robert Scott 1901 – 1995

Brigadier Robert Scott was born in Calcutta. He was commissioned from Sandhurst and after attachment to the Manchester Regiment in Jubbulpore, India was gazetted to the 4th battalion Rajputana Rifles. His military career began with action on the Northwest Frontier in the Waziristan campaign. For three years he served with the Waziristan Scouts and was mentioned in dispatches.
After the outbreak of the Second World War, his regiment was part of the famous 4th Indian Division which with the British Army defeated a much larger force of Italians at Sidi Barrani. The regiment, of which he was now second in command, was sent to East Africa and took part in the Battle of Keren. After that they moved to Syria to fight alongside the Free French, and Scott was awarded the Croix de Guerre, but was captured by the Vichy French. His time as a prisoner was short and following an agreement he was restored to the Allies in Beirut.
He returned to his regiment and took part in Auchinleck’s battle to relieve Tobruk . When Rommel attacked with superior force in May 1942, the Rajputs , now commanded by Scott were part of the 8th Army, which was pushed back until in July it stood firm at El Alamein. In November, under General Montgomery, they attacked in the great battle which drove the enemy out of Libya. Entering Tunisia, the Rajputs were involved in some of the fiercest fighting of the war against the German armour around the Mareth Line and Scott was awarded an immediate D.S.O. for his “personal courage and outstanding leadership”. The citation went on to remark that he had been in continuous active operations since 1940.
Moving to Italy, he commanded the regiment at the Battle of Cassino. When the war ended he was in command of the 14th Parachute Brigade of the Indian Airborne Division, and in 1947 the brigade was at Lahore, with the Punjab Boundary Force, whose melancholy duty was to supervise the division of India and Pakistan.
From 1952 to 1961, he held the post of District Assistant, Northern Rhodesia Government. He and Peggy spent their retirement at Mill House, Mathon where they were visited by old comrades. This distinguished soldier was in old age a gentle kindly man who was always more interested in his visitors than in recalling his own outstanding career.

Eccentrics

Memories of the past are often those of childhood when adults are large, and sometimes frightening and whose mannerisms and speech are alien to children. But that is surely not the only reason for the stories of strange behaviour that are passed down. Some people would blame the media, which has made us more aware of each other, and more likely to conform., and so regard the behaviour of previous generations as strange.
The village children seem to have had a nickname for everyone. “Meek the Antique” has been mentioned already. One man named Jones who lived at Parkers Cottages, actually had the distinction of two nicknames. He was known as “Sounder” for the amount of volume his voice produced. When he walked to the “Cliffe Arms” with his dogs, he carried a big stick, and if the dogs ran in front of him, he bellowed “All dogs down and under” in a voice that could be heard two hundred yards away. He shouted at his pigs too. Sounder married three times, and perhaps there was some disapproval involved in the choice of his second nickname which was “Sounder the bounder” The young Margaret Fitzer provoked another explosion from him, when passing him in the lane, and not knowing but what it was his real name, she greeted him politely “Good morning Mr. Sounder”
Whistling Jinnie was a lady who lived in Southend and whistled wherever she went. She also had long conversations with her hens. The children would lie on their tummies and peep through the garden hedge to watch her feed them, and say “Come along, come along and have a bit of tea. Now say “Thank you” “
But far stranger was the behaviour of another lady known locally as “Mad Ellen” who would walk down her garden, climb a tall tree, and shout at the top of her voice, “They’re coming, they’re coming”. Nobody ever found out who the poor woman thought were coming.
Mr. Tandy worked at the sewage farm and supplemented his income by selling rabbits. He had a special word, known only to himself to describe the way he got the rabbits out of their burrows. He said “I pithered him out” He also sold tomatoes, but only to people who did not know where he worked. Mr. Tandy was another man who liked to create a lot of noise. He sang loudly all day.
It is impossible to find a reason for some of the nicknames. “Pubbles” Noble lived at Lane End and kept a flock of guinea fowl. And “Jervy” or “Gervy” Jones was not exactly an eccentric but a considerable character. He was the son of the landlady at the “Cliffe Arms”, was the pig-killer, sheep dipper, grave digger, worked in the sand quarry, and did a bit of rabbiting, and the children loved to watch him dipping the sheep at the bridge and even getting a sip from his cider bottle.

Anecdotes

“We had a rather disreputable mongrel called George. He had not been castrated and was for ever looking for the opposite sex. We did our best to keep him in, but when he had escaped yet again I was angry and pursued him shouting ‘George, George’. I was astonished to get a reply because he did not usually answer back. George, from the neighbouring farm, who was working over the hedge was equally surprised to hear an angry voice calling him.”
“They had a very quiet wedding, almost secret, so hardly anyone knew about it. When they went to bed, they did not bother to pull the curtains, and the men who were drying the hops saw them and thought the worst. They told the vicar, and he wrote to the convent, and suggested that the nuns who often came to the farm for a holiday, should no longer visit”
“The horses were often difficult to catch. They knew why you wanted them. But my mother knew how to catch them. She took a bucket out to the field with the hens’ food in it, and the horses came along to get their noses in it.”
“I was talking to him in a field one morning, and we heard footsteps in the lane and saw an old hat moving above the hedgerow. ‘My God,’ he said, ‘ that’s X. I must get back to the farm, or I shall have no cider left’”
“She wore stockings with so many holes, that someone said she must have had lessons from a flute player to put them on”
“ In wartime, the shop in Malvern got some sugar which as a result of a mishap, had pepper mixed with it. She bought some to use for chutney, and that was all right, but it got into something else as well, marmalade I think.”
“We sometimes walked across to the village and called at the “Cliffe Arms”. My father asked Mrs. Hatch if it was all right to bring me into the bar, as I was under age. ‘Quite all right’ she said. “the constable’s in the other bar””
“My father was short of cider to give the men, but he had some home
-made wine, so he mixed the two and gave them that. He had to go out on an errand, and when he got back they were all asleep.”
“There were two flitches of bacon and two hams hanging in the kitchen, and when they started to diminish, you looked at the next pig.”

Roll of Honour 1914-19 Mathon Church

W.R.Karslake Lt. Temporary Captain Pembrokeshire Yeomanry
Wlliam Jones Corporal Worcestershire Regiment
Henry E, Jones Lance Corporal South Wales Borderers
Frederick Wall Sergeant Canadian Mounted Rifles
Alexander Wall Corporal Worcestershire Regiment
William T. Drinkwater Lance Corporal Welsh Regiment
Ernest George Gunner Royal Garrison Artillery
Charles W. Powell Private Grenadier Guards
Arthur H. Ward Private Kings Liverpool Regiment
S. Harold W. Jones Private Kings Shropshire Light Infantry
Robert Wood Private Welsh Regiment Pioneers
Noble Vale Private Wellington Mounted Rifles - New Zealand

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank them for their help, and for their patience with my
enquiries, and apologise for any factual errors which may have occurred:

• Grace Bevan
• Peter Forrest
• Kath Blood (Jones)
• Ron Hadley
• Tony Botfield
• Archie & Jean James
• Sarah Bowen (Ballard)
• Leslie Lawrence
• Joan Brett (Pound)
• Margaret Norman (Fitzer)
• Betty Dalley (Mellings)
• Geoffrey Pugh
• Cecil Danks
• Joan Ray (Botfield)
• Harry Davies
• Ron Richardson
• Josephine Daw
• Irene Southall
• Iris Fairfax
• Ted Stewart
• Michael Fitzer
• Sheila Thomas (Minton)
• Rev. Mark Thompson-McCausland

John Drummond, whose photographic skill has done so much to preserve the history of the parish.

The Editor, Malvern Gazette for kind permission to use extracts from the newspaper

R. Spencer