Hook Norton Newsletter October 2000

There were some very generous people about these last two months which resulted in £97.50 received in donations. Thank you very much. The Editors would like to thank Jem Hayward, Bob Murray and Denis Wynn, organisers of the Beer Festival, for the generous cheque for £500 recently presented to the Newsletter.

Sadly we report the deaths of Patrick John Geoghegan, Susan Loveday Jepson and Phyllis Stephens and on behalf of the village send our condolences to their families and friends.

Barbara lives in hope that someone will soon appear to take on her half of the Newsletter (the collation and presentation of the text to Helen). Please ring to discuss this if you are interested. Helen could also do with a back-up for the electronic bits.

Thank you Alice Gray for the cover for this Autumn issue. Thank you to Class 6 for all the hard work, with its careful attention detail, which you put into the covers submitted. It was very hard to make a choice but in the end we narrowed it down to four: Alice Gray, Ashley Simmons, Jenny Thompson and Mark Wallington.

Next advertising copy by 15^th November. Final text copy by 18^th November

e-mail Barbara@news-hooknorton.freeserve.co.uk or helen.foster@viatel.com

PARISH COUNCIL

August Meeting: Mr N Matthews, County Councillor, spoke of his liaison with the County Council that he hoped would help resolve some of the problems associated with the Youth Club and had received a promise that a hole in the interior wall would be repaired. Mr Matthews said that the County would be more prepared to listen if they felt that the Parish Council was involved. Mr Jelf, Parish Council Chairman said that he had met Mr Neil Monaghan and he felt that they could liaise further. It was agreed that Mr Jelf would ask the County to put the Youth Club building into a satisfactory condition and to quote a figure for the Lease. The Parish Council would then consider its position.

Mr B Clay spoke as Chair of the Finance Committee and said he was surprised to find that once again the P.C. was being asked to subsidise the Library when he thought that there had been confirmation that the County was putting in extra money. The Clerk had investigated the matter and said that the main libraries were to receive extra funding first, then medium sized and then smaller ones. It would take until 2002/3 for Hook Norton to relinquish its obligation.

The skip had once again been a problem. The resident who had been cleaning up every time the skip came had withdrawn this “free” service over the past weekend. After discussion it was agreed that the Litter Picking in the Play Area with its associated jobs and the attendance at the skip would be classed as one job and subsequently would now be put out to Tender. Litter bins had not all been emptied and the Clerk would report this.

The Fire Service had sent a plan of the position of all the hydrants in the village as they hoped that the Council would inspect them on their behalf. The matter will be considered further.

Mr Fry had started to deal with Standing Orders that were required and felt that it could not be his decision alone and he needed a small committee. This was agreed.

Mr Gasson said that this was the last opportunity for the Council to make any comments on the Local Plan if there was to be no further major development in the village.

Mr Bullard said that the Doctors’ Surgery was going ahead at last and building would start in September.

Mr Jelf then reported that he had chaired a Committee that would find a successor to the Clerk who had said she would retire in September. Notices had been put up throughout the village and so far there had had been five applications. The deadline was August 13th.

The Clerk said she was upset and angry to find that the notices offered a salary of £3000 to £3500. Why had she only been paid £2250 for the last three years? She felt that under the circumstances she would leave the job on September 1st and withdrew her offer of free help to her successor or the Council.

This report was submitted by the outgoing Clerk, Mrs. Pogmore. Minutes of last October's Council meeting show that the clerk was offered and refused a salary increase. Parish Council Chairman

September Meeting: The Chairman reported that, following consideration of four applications, the Selection Committee recommended the appointment of Mrs Linda Chapman as the new Parish Clerk from 1st October. Mrs Chapman lives at 10 Ironstone Hollow, Hook Norton, OX15 5NA. She may also be contacted by telephone on 01608 737409 (between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. only) or by e-mail at barry.chapman@nbol.co.uk

Objection had been lodged to a planning application for two houses on land at the rear of Ruabon, East End, with a new access across The Mound into Hollybush Road. Mr Jelf had met Mr Monaghan of the County Council about the Youth Club building, and understood that the County was prepared to lease it to the Parish Council at a low rent. The County could not undertake any work to bring the building up to a reasonable standard, however. Mr Monaghan had been asked to ask W.S. Atkins, the County property maintenance company, to provide costed proposals for phased works for the Parish Council to consider. Mr Jelf feared that if the Parish Council did not take over the building, it would be lost to the village.

A tender from Mr Douglas Marshall for tidying and inspecting the play area and attending to the village skips was accepted. Mr Wood reported that people were still misusing the skips. Those provided recently were of an unsuitable type, and the previous type had been requested. Mr Timms reported that the large carousel in the play area had been completely broken down in August, apparently by a number of big boys swinging on it at once.

Mr Jelf and Mr Couldrey had attended a meeting to consider proposals for a new Code of Conduct for councillors, which would extend to parish councillors the requirement to complete a declaration of interests. Details had also been received of a review of electoral arrangements in Oxfordshire and of proposals for the introduction of cabinet style government at the County Council.

HOOK NORTON REMEMBERED - The Old School

I have always considered my fifteen-year stay in Hook Norton as a very busy, happy and rewarding period of my life. I took up my first teaching post after the war at Hook Norton C of E all-age School to teach Art and Woodwork in September 1947. The school catered for all village children aged 5 to 14 and senior children from some surrounding villages aged 11 to 14 ( the leaving age went up to 15 in 1947 ). The old Church School was housed in the Victorian building now used as the Library but it was not big enough to accommodate all the children and other rooms had to be found in the village. I taught Art in the club room at the Sun Inn.

Some time after the First World War Mr Frank Coppage (a great village character) had acquired an ex-army wooden hut and erected it on the strip of land between the Memorial Hall and the lane leading from Sibford Road to Down End. This hut had been used for some time as a Practical Subjects base for the school. It had been built on stilts because of the sloping site, a wooden floor installed and the whole divided into two parts. The front part, nearest the road was the woodwork room and the rear part was the cookery room. Miss Margaret Morse taught cookery to the senior girls in the rear room while I taught woodwork to the senior boys in the front half. The conditions were extremely primitive. There was no water supply or sewage system in the village at that time and our toilet facilities were an arrangement of buckets in lean-tos at the rear. The wooden floor was not tongued and grooved and the draughts between the boards had to be experienced to be believed. Each room was heated by a coke-burning Tortoise stove. The timber store was situated in the space beneath the cookery room accessed through a small door at the rear (one had to crawl in on hands and knees). One often found planks of wood covered with dried batter or gravy, which had been spilled by the cookery class and found its way between the floor boards to the space below. Water had to be brought by bucket from the Memorial Hall next door.

As practical-subjects teachers we were expected to keep all equipment in clean and serviceable condition and were allowed thirty minutes each day for this purpose. The thirty minutes was from 9 to 9-30 while the main school was receiving its Religious Instruction (obligatory in a Church school). Even this had its in-built difficulties. The main school was a quarter of a mile away and classes had to be collected and often Miss Morse had to flex her muscles and turn the hand-powered grindstone while I reground plane and chisel blades. Equipment was often in short supply and we had to improvise or borrow. On one occasion Miss Morse, wishing to demonstrate the making and icing of a large cake, borrowed a cake tin from the bakery opposite but when she returned it, all clean and sparkling, the owners complained saying that cake tins must never be washed. With good will and co-operation a working formula evolved and at the end of each day Mrs Bolton arrived to sweep and clean and make all ready for the next day.

Just after 12 noon each day a crocodile of about a hundred children arrived at the Memorial Hall next door because the hall was used to prepare and serve school dinners. This exceptional feat was performed by Mrs Sharpe, as chief cook par excellence, and her staff who cooked nearly a hundred dinners on a bank of oil stoves in the back kitchen.

For the first two months I cycled daily the nine miles from my native Bodicote to and from Hook Norton during which time I got to know my fellow teachers. The ones I recall most vividly were:-

Arthur George Miller, Head Teacher, who trained in Birmingham, moved to Bodicote in the early 1930s, married Edith, had two sons, the first born on Jubilee Day (6th May 1935) and was therefore called George, moved to Hook Norton in 1939 and lived in the traditional head teachers house in Bourne Lane.

Miss Weston, Infants Teacher, daughter of the local blacksmith.

Miss Stratford, Infants Teacher also daughter of a local family.

Miss Annie Cross, Juniors, another local family member.

Miss Blanche Sharpe, a very efficient senior teacher who came from the Ipswich area of Suffolk and whose father was overseer of potato production for the Min. of Ag. in the Suffolk area.

Miss Terry Keith, Games and P.E, from Jersey.

Miss Margaret Morse, Cookery and Housecraft, from Cardiff.

Mrs Bertha Collins, Senior and Needlework, born in Dorset as Bertha Virgin, came to Hook Norton in the late 1920’s, married Jack Collins, a local farmer, had no children, lived in a house in Sibford Road next to Hicks’ builders yard. Used to ride to school on an ancient bicycle which it was rumoured she brought with her when she first came to Hook Norton.

The school was cleaned by a staff of women headed by the caretaker who lived in the small house attached to the school. He had a small machine, a large cylinder of CO₂ gas and a collection of bottles and supplied the pupils with drinks of fizzy orange squash at playtimes at one penny (old money) each.

As it was a Church of England school the religious teachings were overseen by the Vicar of St. Peter’s, The Reverend Nind.

Pay-day arrived on the last Friday in the month and the system then was that a cheque for all the staff’s pay was received by the Head and he would change it for cash at Barclays bank, held every Friday in Mrs Painter’s dining room at Wistaria House, and pay each staff member their dues. The starting pay for a teacher in 1939 was £168 a year. In 1943 a £40 war bonus was added and from this 5% was automatically deducted towards a retirement pension. So my first month’s pay was the annual £208, divided by twelve, £17-6s-8d, less 5%, total due £16-9s-4d, (£16.47p). This was set to increase by £12 a year for twelve years to a maximum of £352 less the 5%, but of course events and inflation changed the pattern. Ah Happy Days.

The climbing plant is now often spelt wisteria but Mrs Painter was quite correct in calling her house Wistaria House because the plant was named after an American, Casper Wistar, who first introduced it. (RHS)

Geoff Walton

PEACE IN HOOK NORTON

Extract from the diary of Miss Lilian Geear when she was 15 years old in 1918.

(Submitted by Mr D C Geear.)

November 10th. Sunday. Amy and I went for a walk this morning. Did not go out this afternoon or evening.

November 11th. Monday. Today has been a joyfully happy day. This morning as we were having our lunch before we started for Hook Norton we heard a hooter going. Auntie Nora and Amy went out of doors and exclaimed "They are all going" so we raced out of doors to hear the excitement. Hooters were going everywhere and they sounded very weird. We concluded it was because the Armistice had been signed and the fighting had ceased. On our way to the station we saw heaps of people waving flags and flags were flying from windows and everybody was awfully excited. We went on top to the station and saw about 200 school children, boys and girls, they poured out of the school shouting and singing and waving flags and making a noise generally. There were crowds of people walking about and talking. It was lovely. Everybody everywhere was excited. Here at Hook Norton the boys are shouting and best of all the church bells are ringing and they sound beautiful, but they make me feel rather sad because of all the sorrow and sadness in the world.

November 12th. Tuesday. Had no letters today. When we saw the paper this morning we saw written in large letters "PEACE". The word we have been longing and looking for for 4 years. Everybody is so happy and shouting and cheering. Helped mother wash this morning. Did nothing much afternoon. Started a book yesterday "Brown face and White" by Clive Holland. Auntie, mother, father and I played "Whist" this evening. Grandma is in bed because she isn't very well.

ELIZABETH (BETTY) COPPAGE

Although Bet was born in Wales, from an early age she lived with her maternal grandparents, Mr and Mrs Frank Coppage, at the Green, Hook Norton. Thus ‘Hooky’ always had a very special place in her heart - as it did for the rest of the Coppage clan - and still does!

Burdened as she was with a disability - and spending some time in hospital - she nevertheless entered into all village activities and always had an insatiable thirst for knowledge - hence her love for books.

During the war she was based in Devon making use of her secretarial skills and on returning to Hook Norton picked up the threads of family and village life. She became secretary to Lincoln Austin and thus very involved in the Shipston-on-Stour branch of the Farmers Union of which she was secretary.

She was also made legal guardian to me and my sister as our parents were living abroad - so The Green became our home too.

Always independent, Bet learned to drive, got a car and was up and away around the countryside! Perhaps her greatest pleasure though was in owning a dog - it always had to be a Corgi - maybe partly because of her Welsh roots, but also perhaps, being a staunch Loyalist, of the ‘Royal’ connection!

I know it was a wrench for Bet to leave Hook Norton and for a few years she lived in Bloxham - again making new friends and keeping in touch with the old - but circumstances forced removal to a flat in Weston-Super-Mare. The telephone kept her in touch with all her family and friends - plus receiving the Village Newsletter and the Church Magazine. She made several trips to Hook Norton - commenting on the various changes.

After Bet’s death it was our cousin Jocelyn (Jo) Coppage who suggested that the family send donations to the Hook Norton Library in Bet’s memory. Jo told me that Bet was incensed when she heard that the Library might have to be closed down through lack of funding. I must just mention on a personal note - that I too am concerned that the Library should continue to flourish, because one of my great delights as a child at The Green was the fact that the then Library was in the house next door - run by Bess Heath! I wonder who remembers that?

As to choice of books - because Bet’s interests were so varied and wide-ranging it would probably be a case of “anything goes” - fiction and non-fiction. She was the sort of person that if she read something in the newspaper, saw a programme on TV or heard a talk on the radio - and wanted more - she, in the early years would borrow books from the library to enquire further. In her later years she bought books - but there were always books.

Ann Coppage.

TRAITORS/TRADER’S FORD

You pays your money and you takes your choice. Rob Bartlett, brought up near Traitors Ford, is convinced that it is Traitors’ Ford. His father passed on this belief to him and he cites the existence of the local Gallows Hill and Hangman’s Wood to support his view. Others believe that the Ford was a stopping place on the Old Salt Road coming from the North, hence Trader’s Ford. I have been sent a photocopy, by a gentleman in Ironstone Hollow,* of part of a publication: Highways and Byways in Oxford and the Cotswolds by Herbert Evans and published in 1924, Mr Evans writes:... ‘.I follow its course down to Traitor’s Ford, and surely if ever there was a name suggestive of an antique story this is one. But I have been quite unable to hear of any story connecting any traitor with the spot, nor does anyone appear to be able to give an explanation of the name. Can it have any connection with the treachery of the Whispering Knights to which we shall come directly? The only legend connected with the place that I could pick up was told me by the landlord of the Unicorn at Great Rollright. The great bell, he said, which now hangs in Brailes Tower, was dug up there. Perhaps this story arose from the fact that when the bell was being taken away to be recast, I know not how many years ago, the conveyance broke down on Gallows Hill and the bell lay by the wayside for a long time before it was removed.’

I am sorry that I have temporarily mislaid your name. ED

FROM THE PAST

When I was looking through the archives of the Local History Group I found a cutting from the Oxford Mail of 28th June 1956. It was about a petition which was raised in Hook Norton to protest against the closing of a local tite. In that cutting it also mentioned a Joseph Dumbleton who had been appointed Hook Norton’s Town Crier “54 years ago”. Does anyone remember the occasion or are they able to throw any light on the Town Crier situation. Barbara Hicks, Newsletter Box in Post Office

LOCAL HISTORY GROUP

Unaltered by improving hands since it was founded in 1437 by Alice Chaucer, the Ewelme (meaning ‘spring’, hence the famous watercress beds) Church of St Mary, was the destination of our local History Group’s summer outing. And what a find. The present erudite and humorous Rector took us round this architectural gem, full of carvings and wall-paintings, explained the John of Gaunt connection and examined with us the magnificently bedecked alabaster tomb of Alice, wife of the Earl of Suffolk, granddaughter of Geoffrey Chaucer. Her skeletal cadaver, for all those who could lie down to peep, is below the tomb. The medieval almshouses and the school built by the de la Poles also retain their original purpose. St Mary's was left alone by Henry VIII during the period of the dissolution of the monasteries, maybe because he courted two of his wives there and liked to wash his feet in the pool. It also escaped the ravages of Cromwell’s soldiering because a Ewelme resident was a prominent Parliamentarian!! And its been left alone ever since. We had a happy, sunny Saturday. PS. If you go, do look at the font.

At the first meeting of the Group this year we listened to an illustrated talk by Mike Hallam on ‘One Man’s View of Oxfordshire’ which was a delightful evening to start the season. Christine Bloxham talks on ‘Folklore of Oxford’s Archaeological Sites’ on October 3rd and on November 7th Brigadier Ricketts talks on ‘The Civil War in the Midlands’ both at 7.30pm in the Visitor Centre at The Brewery, where the Group’s meetings take place each month. Everyone is welcome. A small charge is made to non-members to cover refreshments.

Sheila Terry

MILLENNIUM BOOK

If you would were present at the Giant Photoshoot at the Brewery last September and would like your name added to the list which the Local History Group is compiling, please send them to Yvonne Higgins via the Newsletter Box in the Post Office. The Group hopes to have all the names in the book available eventually for publication.

HOOK NORTON CRICKET

The high note with which Hook Norton Cricket started the season was sustained right to the end and we won 17 of our 18 league games - this meant winning the league convincingly and promotion to the First Division next year.

The ‘Old School’ of Tim Lunel, Simon Richards and Kenny Smith were joined by Martin Brock who made a definitive impact and these four, the mainstay of our batting had averages ranging from 35 to over 50. This meant that invariably the team made a very good start in most matches. Our batsmen scored 28 fifties - our opponents 11.

On the bowling side Kenny Smith was the leading wicket taker (42) closely followed by Tim Maule who had a marvellous first season. Apart from taking 39 wickets (24 clean bowled) his fielding and catching were outstanding. His opening spell gave little away which made the opposition’s task of getting a big score doubly difficult. Another newcomer, Rod McCourt, did an excellent job as wicket keeper. All this meant we scored over 200 on ten occasions whereas our opponents did so only twice. Altogether a fantastic team effort from the whole squad.

The team spirit has been high throughout the season and they are looking forward to next season - it has been a long time since Hook Norton was in the OCA First Division.

The Annual General Meeting will be at the Sports and Social Club on October 15 at 8pm and the Annual Dinner will be at Brailes Golf Club on November 11th. All supporters are welcome and we particularly hope that the parents of the Juniors will be able to attend this year - tickets through Kenny Smith (730707).

Junior Cricket had a most enjoyable season and we were delighted with the response from children who wished to join the Club. By the end of the season 65 boys and girls aged 5 - 13 were registered. We received a great deal of help from everyone and many of these helpers will improve their coaching skills by attending coaching courses organised by the English Cricket Board in the winter. It was encouraging to see the improvement in the abilities of the children as the season progressed.

Details of indoor coaching and net practice at Sibford School on Sunday evenings will be given in the next Newsletter. Our principal Coaches are Steve Belcher, Simon Richards, Paul White and Duncan Collins.

The Club would like to express their grateful thanks to our sponsors - Pear Tree Inn, Mr & Mrs E.L.Williams, Simon Richards, Allen Bruton, Richard Knight - Plumbing & Heating, Paul Souch - Builder, Keith Willis - KMS Litho and Tom & Gloria Williams.

Colin Scarrett (737524)