PREWD'S PRUNINGS

Being those portions of the Mousehold Press book 'Prewd and Prejudice' deemed too long, short, irrelevant, irregular or downright irreverent for inclusion in the original publication.

'All good things around us, belong to someone else.'

1 August, Monday

(about the sheep shearing)

The sheep shearing gang which worked from St Just-near-Trunch at this time was led by Wally Whiting, who gathered together his crew to tour the farms around.  Shearing was hard work, and a long day was normal.  Occasionally a member of the gang would go down with 'shearer's frenzy', becoming so caught up in the work that he would attempt to shear anything within reach, including his fellow shearers.  In such a case the only thing to be done was to keep everything away from him but sheep.  Many was the case of temporary baldness among the gang, however, and sometimes more permanent losses might be incurred.

The St Just shearers, like all the other gangs around, had their own style of work.  In the St Just style a ridge of wool was left along the sheep's back, with an intricate design halfway along.  This developed from the work of Berty Brown, the local thatcher, who was a perennial member of the gang.  It was his boast that he could "Shear a sheep, thatch a house, or make love to a woman, and you couldn't tell the difference".

Everyone in the village was welcome to attend the feast which marked the end of shearing, and most did.  It was said that if Farmer Trout had a shilling for every person in his barn on the night of the festival he would be a very rich man.

The entry fee was a shilling.

4 August, Thursday

(about the harvest)

This entry, perhaps more than any other in the diary, shows just what a 'towny' Mrs Prewd was.  In these days of rural longings and television detective series it seems impossible that anyone could be so ignorant of the ways of agriculture.  But 1904 was a time of rural decline, and country matters were unfashionable.  City people would not rediscover the countryside until the 1920s, and knew it only through the straw-haired hayseeds of the music hall.  Artistes such as Rosie 'I'm Blooming' Nice, who did plant impressions, and Burningham Bertie, who sang songs such as 'Hiking And Biking Are Not To My Liking', and 'Didn't We Have A Lovely Time The Day We Went To Selfridges?'

There was still much of the Victorian attitude abroad, and quite a lot in this country.  Greenery on a large scale was considered far too fecund for decent people, and was tolerated only in highly formal gardens.  Mrs Prewd's garden was a case in point.  After it had been cobbled she gave pride of place in it to one single aspidistra, and took every care to see that it didn't grow to vulgar proportions.

8 August, Monday

When one thinks of a small rural village at the turn of the century one might easily imagine it to be cut off from all the influences of the outside world, quietly slumbering under the patchwork quilt of its own isolation.  But in fact there were many who left such villages to seek their fortunes, or perhaps to avoid the local constabulary, having already sought other peoples' fortunes.  Albert Kipper was one such, although I have been unable to find out which one.  He left home at an early age to join the merchant navy.  Then, his adventures completed, he returned home to his native St Just-near-Trunch.  He had a small pension, but was unable to live in it, as he had been thrown out of France as an undesirable alien.  He became a much loved character, eventually marrying one of his loves, Betsy, the barmaid of the Goat Inn, in 1931.

9 August, Tuesday

One of Albert Kipper's notes to Mrs Prewd survives in the form of a poem:

I don't half fancy you Mrs Prewd,

Like Daisy fancies cud that's chewed,

Like Dobbin fancies getting his oats,

And Mareseys fancy dozy dotes.

You are my reason for getting up;

You are my reason for falling down.

Come be my lamb, and I'll be your tup;

We'll be the talk of the village.

I think you will agree it has a certain pathetic quality.

11 August, Thursday

The Kipper family were, like many working people in Norfolk strongly non-conformist in religion.  Apart from the working part, that is.  Methodism was very strong in the are, associated as it was with the agricultural workers unions, but there were others:

Sid      The Chapel of Rest was very strict.  No decorations in church, except a lot of flowers, of course.  No smiling during the service, nothing like that.  No altar, just a sort of wooden box.

My parents were married there.  They reckon it was very moving.  The Minister sprinkled them with earth and just said "Spratt to Kipper, Kipper to Spratt".  Spratt was her maiden name, you see.  His was Kipper.

12 August, Friday

(regarding the Glorious 12th - the start of both shooting and poaching seasons)

The Silver-Darlings often accounted for hundreds of birds, although they could not, of course, eat them all themselves.  They were sent down to London for the tables of the rich.  The cost of carriage meant that this was actually done at a loss, but this was a matter of principle.  Lord Silver-Darling is reported to have said; "I don't mind losing a bit of money, just so long as these buggers round here don't get my birds for nothing".

The lists of those bags read like a twitcher's notebook, except for the fact that each species was present in huge numbers.  Some of the birds listed in the nineteenth century records were either common species known by local names, or now extinct rarities.  The bag for 1881, for instance, included "127 snape, 53 lesser crested grebe, 1 dodo, 35 pairs of flip-flops, and lots of little brown ones".

The idea of a poaching season may puzzle people in these days of laissez-faire, but at that time there was a certain order to life which we seem to have lost.

Sid      Well, in them days you knew what was what.  You knew who was who as well.  And where was where.  You even knew who was where, why, when and what for.  Not like today.  Today you don't even know what is why.  For instance, like you say, no-one would poach out of season.  It just wasn't done.  And since it wasn't done, then nobody did it.  It all makes sense if you look at it like that.

Today, unfortunately, these old values are largely lost.  Poaching is a year round business, and the Silver-Darlings no longer roam the lanes on the Inglorious Twelfth.  Life is not what it was.  Life is what it is.

17 August, Wednesday

(regarding the confrontation on the bowls green)

So many divots were raised in the incident that the green was totally unplayable for the rest of the season.  The following notice appeared in the Trunch Trumpet of August 19th 1904:

WEARING OF THE GREEN

A most unusual thing has occurred at the St Just-near-Trunch bowls green, in that it has become worn out before the end of the season.  Phil or Ray Lewis, one of identical twins and Captain of the Old Goat Bowls Club, told our reporter "There's never been anything like it before.  Even in all my years at sea I never saw a bowls green go like that.  It's my opinion that something like a snake must have got into the grass".

All home games have been cancelled.

In fact the Old Goat bowls Club never played another match, and concentrated on their other activity, the study of ancient goat bowls.  These oddly shaped pieces of pottery so caught the fancy of the erstwhile sportsmen that they held regular meetings for many years after, just to talk about bowls.

Sid Kipper has a theory as to why the bowls club were unwilling to let the true nature of the damage to the green become public knowledge:

There was a lot of fraction about the bowls club in them days.  They banned my uncle Albert because they reckoned his wooden leg damaged the green, which it didn't, because he used to take it off to play, and stand on his own two feet.  Anyhow, the bloke from the Trumpet was called Chutney, or some such, and he hated bowls.  He'd have loved it if he'd heard that old 'Skip' Smith had actually done the damage, and they didn't want him to have the satisfaction.  So they kept it quiet from him so he couldn't crow about it and wake them all up in the mornings.

26 August, Friday

The St Just may Fair has many other traditional features, as well as its weather.  The village green is a mass of tents, stall and games, all designed with one aim in mind - to take money from people in aid of the New Organ Fund.  Since 1897, when the fund was first instituted, a considerable amount has been raised for this worthy case.  Unfortunately, due to a terrible run of bad luck with the weather, the sums raised have never quite kept pace with inflation.

The present incumbent, the Rev Derek Bream, has suggested that it might be better to give up the unequal struggle and use the money to refurbish the present organ, thus allowing hymns to be sung in keys other than G flat minor.  When put to a recent Parochial Church Council meeting, this suggestion did not meet with general approval.  "We've had a New Organ Fund in St Just all my life", spluttered one local worthy, "and it's not for newcomers like him to change it just for change's sake".  The organist himself was upset at not being consulted about the matter.  "Rev Aubrey Gudgeon never told me what to do with my instrument, and nor didn't Rev Sileas Skate before him, so I'll thank Rev Bream to not do the same, and keep his hands off my organ".

So it seems that the May Fair, and the New Organ Fund, will carry on in St Just for many years to come.