#100daysofbfotc Day 32 Ada Wakely

Sep9 by thehistoryinterpreter

Ada Wakely grew up in the fishing hamlet of Peppercombe, the fourth of five sisters. She appears in Barefoot on the Cobbles as an acolyte to her elder sister, Polly. It is Ada who travels to Bideford to attend Polly’s wedding and Ada who is in Clovelly to assist when her sister gives birth to her firstborn.

One of Ada’s personal tragedies is alluded to chapter 4 of the novel. After marrying a cousin of Polly’s husband Albert, Ada settled in Bucks Mills as a fisherman’s wife. Her son was born after seven years of marriage. Sadly, he was severely disabled and died at the age of twelve. This was not to be the only misfortune in Ada’s life but you will have to wait for the post about her husband, George, to learn more. Ada herself lived to the age of 105, dying in 1981.

‘Ada arrived from Peppercombe on the Friday bringing family news.

‘Ma sends her love,’ she said. ‘She wishes you well, ’tis in part the journey, you know she’s never liked the town. ’Tisn’t that ma hasn’t taken to Albert so much but he is from Bucks and that’s hard for her to swallow. She wants us all to settle down in Peppercombe and not go no further.’

‘And shall you?’ asked Polly.

Ada reddened.

‘Well,’ she said hesitantly, ‘who knows? Maybe I’ll be wed to a man from Bucks too one day.’ ’

Barefoot on the Cobbles will be published on 17 November 2018. More information about the novel can be found here. Copies will be available at various events in the weeks following the launch or can be pre-ordered from Blue Poppy Publishing or the author.

#100daysofbfotc Day 31: Percy Cornelius

Sep8 by thehistoryinterpreter

Western Daily Mercury 20 January 1912

We only meet Percy Cornelius when the other characters, who share his Torquay household, mention him. You would be justified in asking why he appears in Barefoot on the Cobbles at all. He is included because his existence and his subservient attitude towards his wife, help to explain her attitudes and behaviour.

It appears that Percy lived in Torquay all his life. He was born in July 1881 and baptised at Upton parish church. Percy lived with his family in Market Street, Torquay and attended the local infants’ school. As a teenager, Percy, a butcher’s assistant, was summonsed for leaving a horse and trap unattended. The horse wandered off. The police had warned Percy about not securing his trap on previous occasions and he was fined ten shillings, or seven days’ imprisonment.

In 1912, when he was working as a manager for Messers Nelson of 186 Sidwell Street, Exeter, he was fined again, this time for adulterating sausages with boric acid. This was used as a preservative but could have harmful effects. Its use was not banned but it should have been labelled. The sausages had actually been made in Bristol but Percy was fined £2 plus costs for allowing them to be sold. This incident was referred to in an early draft of chapter 11 but suffered under the delete button’s mighty power.

Percy married in 1913 and he and his wife had two further children after Kathleen, who is mentioned in the novel. By the outbreak of the Second World War, Percy was a bus cleaner living in Chatto Road, Torquay. He died in 1967.

‘I don’t suppose it affected you in the countryside but we’ve had trouble obtaining foodstuffs here. Of course, there’s never a problem with meat, Mr Cornelius being a butcher but we’d like to have a few more vegetables for the table.’

#100daysofbfotc Day 30: Mr Tuke

Sep7 by thehistoryinterpreter

At the time of Barefoot on the Cobbles, Harry Tuke was the head gardener at Clovelly Court. We meet him in the summer of 1909, when Daisy has just come to work for him as a live-out servant. I wanted to explain Daisy’s move to Torquay and her rather unusual role there as a gardener. To place her as the Tuke’s employee not only help to do this but also gave me the opportunity of making the Tuke’s son a love interest for Daisy.

A Yorkshireman by birth, Harry was in Clovelly in 1893, when he married Eliza Brenchley from Kent in Clovelly church. By this time, Harry was in his thirties and it seems likely that he had just taken up his post at the Court. The Tukes had just one son. As head gardener, Harry’s home was Gardener’s Cottage, close to the church, the Court and the gardens that he tended. He worked for the estate for over forty years, retired to rooms over the stables and died there in 1936. He was involved in the life of All Saints Church, being both a sidesman and a member of the Parochial Church Council.

Harry Tuke’s role as a senior servant to Mrs Hamlyn and his home, which was away from the cobbled street, set him apart from Clovelly’s fishermen. His family were consigned to an ambivalent social milieu, not quite a villager, yet lacking the status of the respectable middle-class.

‘Mr Tuke had noticed the allure that the garden held for Daisy and the thoughtful gentleman had begun to tell her more about the plants and how to tend them.’

Day -2 Wednesday 5 September

Sep6 by thehistoryinterpreter

To say the last few days/weeks/months have been hectic would be an understatement of mammoth proportions. No sooner did the job we must not mention draw to a close, than the descendants descended. This was swiftly followed by a visit to the Secret Lives conference in Leicester, where I did manage to very briefly catch up with some family history friends across the globe.

Photo thanks to Dr Penny Walters

What little I was able to sample, suggested that it was an excellent weekend and I was pleased to be able to deliver my Occupational Hazards presentation to a full and appreciative audience. Next, it was home to two days of showing distant relatives round their ancestral areas, a day of meetings and then it was now.

I arrived back from my evening meeting with still plenty that needed to be done before my 10am departure and decided to sleep first and get up early. I awoke, convinced it was morning and began my daily routine, only to find that it was 2.30am. Needless to say, sleep then eluded me. I finally got back to sleep at 4.30am for an hour, accompanied by the most peculiar dreams. I hopefully completed all that needed to be done in time and prepared to enter what might be a ten day internet black hole. Will I survive? Unless I am already home, this post is coming to you via random free wifi somewhere or other. Those of you who rely on Facebook to tell you when I have posted something may find notifications magically appearing there. These will have been uploaded by my data self aka Martha who I have (rashly?) given access to my page in my absence.

Inevitably, I left the house thinking I had forgotten something. I locked the door and got half way down the path before I realised that I was still wearing my slippers! Then followed my usual lengthy wait, surrounded by luggage, at the coach stop, whilst my travelling companion disposed of the car and walked back down the hill to join me. Owing to a past-its-best printer, my coach ticket was decidedly blurry, making the QR code unscannable. ‘Never mind,’ says the driver, I can’t see it anyway. Should I be worried about this? Hopefully it is just his near vision that is faulty. Then, at Tiverton coach station, there are helpful instructions to drivers along the lines of ‘put the brake on’ and ‘don’t drive if there is something in the way’. Am I being driven by someone who needs to be reminded of this? The coach seat belts are officially the tightest in the world but we survive. At a services somewhere on the M4 we have to rescue some passengers whose coach has broken down, making it quite cosy in ours.

Once at Heathrow, I ask for directions to a bus to take us to the Travel Lodge. ‘Do you have a scannnable credit card?’ I am asked. This is not the first time that someone has expressed doubt that I might have such an indicator of the modern age. Do I look that provincial? I am in some doubt as to whether we are alighting at the correct stop but it seems that we are. The cheerful receptionist tries to persuade us that the unique selling point of our room is its distant glimpse of the runway, maybe this makes up for it being as far as possible from reception. Never mind, it will be good practice for the cruise ship.

#100daysofbfotc Day 29: Albert

Sep6 by thehistoryinterpreter

Albert allows us to view the events that occur in Barefoot on the Cobbles through masculine eyes. His reactions are very different to those of his wife, Polly. Throughout the book, the relationship between Albert and Polly develops and changes. We are introduced to Albert in the first chapter, when he is the shy young man, wondering how to approach the feisty girl from the neighbouring village. Albert’s tender relationship with his young adopted sister, Eadie, is an interesting insight into his character. He is a taciturn, hardworking fisherman, yet he has a tender side and we observe this in his interactions with his own children. It is largely through Albert that we understand the struggles of the Clovelly fishermen and the impact of a life that is circumscribed by the vagaries of the sea.

We follow Albert through the comparatively peaceful early years of his married life, then watch as tragedy touches the family. With Albert and Polly’s lives spiraling terrifyingly out of control, we find Albert desperately trying to understand his wife’s actions. As Albert strives to support Polly, we empathise with him in his impotence.

Born in Bucks Mills into a fishing family, Albert spent his married life in Clovelly. He lived until the age of ninety four and continued fishing until just a few years before his death.

‘In the bay, the herring were running and Albert and Bertie were making the most of the season, silver darlings shimmering in their nets. They would fling open the cottage door at the end of each day, bringing in the scent of the cold sea, fish scales sticking to their oiled-wool jumpers and to the backs of their scarred hands.’

#100daysofbfotc Day 28: Joe Prance

Sep5 by thehistoryinterpreter

North Devon Gazette 22 December 1896

Joe Prance appears in Chapter 2 of Barefoot on the Cobbles, when the action moves from the rural tranquillity of the North Devon coastline to the bustling town of Bideford. He was primarily a fishmonger and game dealer, with a shop at 26 Mill Street but he also sold dried goods. He had been born in 1834 in the fishing hamlet of Peppercombe, where his father was a fisherman. He was involved in a childhood accident, which left him with one leg longer than the other. Perhaps surprisingly, in an era before compulsory schooling, he received a good education. The 1861 census finds him lodging in Bideford in order to attend school. He returned to fish from Peppercombe and married a local girl, Susan Found; they had eight children, two sons and six daughters.

In the 1870s, the family moved to Bideford and initially the fishmongers was at 25 Mill Street. It appears that at some point during the next decade, the business absorbed the greengrocer’s at 26. In old age, Joseph and his wife lived at Lower Meddon Street with their married daughter. Joseph died in 1912.

‘Uncle Prance was at the counter arranging the dried goods to his satisfaction and awaiting the delivery of crabs, lobsters, and shimmering bass to lay temptingly in the window.’

#100daysofbfotc Day 27: Holidaymakers

Sep4 by thehistoryinterpreter

Capture 3 Holidaymakers who ventured to North Devon’s coast were welcomed and dreaded in equal measure. By the time in which Barefoot on the Cobbles is set, the income from tourists was an increasingly important part of the local economy. For those who lived in Clovelly in particular, money gained from providing for visitors enhanced the precarious living scraped by the fishermen. Some visitors took up residence in the local guest houses, many others were interlopers for a fleeting day. They came by sea from further up the Bristol Channel and were ferried ashore by the fisherman. Others arrived by charabanc from the station at Bideford. Still others were transported by horse-drawn vehicles, to be disgorged at the top the cobbles, so they could descend into a different world, stumbling in their unsuitable shoes.

Through the pages of the novel, we arrive in Clovelly when everything is changing. Soon, it will no longer be a fishing village, with holidaymakers providing a secondary revenue stream; before long tourist vessels will eclipse the fishing boats in the harbour. Folk from ‘up-country’ may pass through, leaving little of themselves behind, or they may dislocate the lives of the inhabitants forever. Welcomed or despised, holidaymakers were needed and they could not be ignored.

‘In half-forgotten pre-war holiday seasons P & A Campbell’s steamers had brought hundreds of day-trippers from Ilfracombe, or even South Wales. Tourists were tolerated. They spoiled the solitude, the silence and the regular rhythm of the fishing year. Yet with them came colour, diversion, bustle, excitement.’

#100daysofbfotc Day 26: Edward Collins

Sep3 by thehistoryinterpreter

Without Edward Collins’ actions Barefoot on the Cobbles would not have been written. He embodies human frailty, as do we all. His complexities are hinted at in the very brief glimpses of him that have been found in the records. He was key to my story, yet, of the main characters, he was the one about whom I could find least. As I sought to uncover a sympathetic, yet believable, motivation for his somewhat strange behaviour, a three-dimensional individual began to emerge; one who had experienced his own trauma and tragedy. Mainly due to his common surname, I was unable to contact any family members. Should they read the novel, I do hope that they feel the conclusions I have drawn from the meagre facts are not illogical. Despite the appalling, albeit largely unintentional, ramifications of his actions, I wanted the reader to be able to empathise with Edward Collins, who was, in his own way, a victim. I hope I have succeeded.

We meet Edward Collins in Clovelly, where he is staying for the benefit of his health. From the outset he is an enigma. He and his wife can clearly afford expensive hotels, what then are they doing in a small guest house on the North Devon coast? He is comfortably off, a professional, a university man. How will he interact with Clovelly’s down-to-earth fishermen?

Thornfalcon Church

Edward Laurence Collins was born on 1 May 1880 in Liverpool. He gained an MA from Cambridge University and became a consulting engineer. Although I have been unable to positively identify a role for him during the First World War, I think that it is likely that he saw action in some capacity. He married Amelia Martha Hutson in 1915. It seems unlikely that the couple had any children. It also appears that his two sisters died unmarried, hence the lack of living relatives. The Collins remained in Clovelly for some time after the events described in the novel. Edward then travelled widely, probably in the course of his work, going to Gibraltar in 1926 and Chile in 1936. He had plans to live in the Channel Islands but I have no firm evidence that he did so. Edward Collins died on 17 January 1953 in Somerset and is buried in Thornfalcon Church.

‘Clovelly slept. There were no sounds from the cobbled street but the night and its attendant horrors, closed in on Edward Collins. Even eighteen months spent embraced in the village’s serenity had not banished the terrors that darkness could bring. He awoke from the recurring nightmare, shaking and sweating. Curled in a foetal position, clasping his knees, he silently sobbed.’

Barefoot on the Cobbles will be published on 17 November 2018. More information about the novel can be found here. Copies will be available at various events in the weeks following the launch or can be pre-ordered from Blue Poppy Publishing or the author.

#100daysofbfotc Day 25: ‘Johnnie Adelaide’

Sep2 by thehistoryinterpreter

The home of ‘Johnnie Adelaide’ (right hand cottage)

‘Johnnie Adelaide’ is so called to distinguish him from another John, who lived at the other end of Bucks Mills village. Both men had their wife’s christian name appended to their own, becoming ‘Johnnie Adelaide’ and ‘Johnnie Lydia’. ‘Johnnie Adelaide’ is mentioned just once, in the first chapter of Barefoot on the Cobbles, along with two of his daughters Norah and Gertie. As inhabitants of 4 Forest Gardens, ‘Johnnie Adelaide’ and his family were Mary and William’s neighbours. John’s wife, Adelaide, had lived in the cottage with her widowed mother, Mrs Dunn and continued to bring up her family there. 4 Forest Gardens eventually passed to ‘Johnnie Adelaide’’s daughter, Louisa.

Like most of the men in Bucks Mills, ‘Johnnie Adelaide’ spent his working life at sea, combining fishing with engagement in the merchant service. He had been born in the village in 1847. At the age of thirty three he married Adelaide Dunn and they had four daughters and a son.

‘Firmly and before she could be gainsaid, Mary answered, ‘She be staying put. There’s too many of them down at Ivy. I could do with some help in the house now me arthritics be so bad and she will walk up to school with Johnny Adelaide’s girls. Norah’s about her age and Gertie can keep an eye on them both on the way. She won’t be no trouble.’ ’

#100daysofbfotc Day 24: Bucks Mills, The Coffin Arms

Sep1 by thehistoryinterpreter

Coffin Arms 1928 By the time that it is mentioned, in the first chapter of Barefoot on the Cobbles, it has been twenty years since the Coffin Arms closed its doors. Its unusual name comes from the local landowners, the Pine-Coffin family. The Coffin Arms served the fishing village of Bucks Mills as an ale house for fifty years before the licence was transferred to the Coach and Horses at Horns Cross. Bucks Mills has been a dry village since that time. It is likely that it provided off sales rather than being an inn.

The cottage formed part of the Pine-Coffin estate and was almost certainly built, along with most of the other dwellings on that side of the Bucks Mills road, in the 1810s. The earliest known tenants were the Bale family. During the 1840s the Coffin Arms was taken over by Samuel Harris, who combined beer selling with lime burning. Thomas and Thirza Webb were in residence in the 1860s, until Thomas transferred the licence to his brother-in-law, Joseph Dark.

Once the Coffin Arms became a private residence, it was the home of the Steer family for fifty years. Jane Steer took four orphaned nieces and nephews into her home. This brought the total number of inhabitants in 1871 to fourteen.

In the 1920s, with new owners, the name was changed to Woodlands. The house has lain semi-derelict for decades. More information about Bucks Mills can be found here.

‘He had signed the pledge at a young age of course but did not find abstinence irksome. Since the Coffin Arms closed to customers decades ago, there was no ale-house in Bucks Mills, so alcohol was not a temptation.’

The History Interpreter – Janet Few

Presenting and Preserving the Past

Monthly Archives: September 2018