1956 Onwards

A Memory of Caio.

Jennifer and I started our married life in South Wales in a little village called Caio, at that time all Welsh speaking. You may have gathered from my writings I was recalled back into the army for the campaign that was called The Suez Crisis which meant losing my job so when I got out I had to find a job to help keep my new wife in a state she was accustomed. I realized very much earlier that she was having to come down in the world if she was to marry me but thought I might be able to meet her some where around half way provided I had a job. I was only capable of manual work and my in-laws found this very hard to except as manual work were rather dirty words to them, and as far as they were concerned their only daughter could do far better for herself. I had to agree with them but she seemed to think I was the one so that was that. Anyway Anthony Eden was not going to help things by declaring war against Egypt. So this is what I was doing scouring the whole of Britain for work. Petrol was on the ration which meant jobs were hard to come by. Married for just a few months, spending most of that time away from my bride, I ended up in Caio some 200 miles from home with a pregnant wife.

Life was hard in Wales. We did have a house that went with the job which was with the Forestry Commission. The house cost 17/6d a week rent, and rates of £16 per year made a big hole in my £7/1s a week wages, especially when our son David made an appearance on the 10th of May 1957. This might be a good time to say we were married on the 7th of August of the previous year, some 9 months and 2 days before he made his entrance. Believe me when I say that 2 days made all the difference to Jennifer’s parents whose life must have been torn apart, firstly losing their daughter to a person like me and now their first grandchild living some 200 miles away. It has taken me up to now writing this to realize what they were going though. It was exactly the same with me and my eldest daughter Ann, she married a man much older than she was and I knew she could have done better for herself, the only difference was she found out two children later and I have ended up with 2 very nice grandsons thanks to that man.

As I said, life was hard working for the Commission out in Wales. [Have you seen those hills?]. The only way to get about in those days was Shank’s Pony and this meant having several miles walk before and after work, my job a lot of the time involved using the one and only chain saw in our gang and in those days chain saws were much heavier than they are today. I remember being told I had no reason to complain as I was getting 6s a week more than anyone else for that privilege. I did notice they were not queuing for the job even so.

Wales seemed 100 years behind the times in those days; many of the villagers had never been out of Carmarthenshire, they spoke a language that only a Welsh-man could understand and it seemed only about 10% of those could speak it. Ok they seemed friendly enough, they seemed genuinely interested in us foreigners, they had no idea where we came from or indeed why we were there. Why were we there? There was I, a man of the world! 12 months ago I was in a part of the world they hardly knew existed. Korea, Hong Kong, Egypt, hardly up to my neck in muck and bullets but I was there, now look, there I was, cap in hand scratching a living and if truth was known taking a job that was probably created for these mountain men I think that was the time I told myself this was not the place to prove my worth to my in-laws or to my son either if it comes to that. For 18 months I went to work at 7.30 in the morning, earned my £7/1s a week. Plus of course my 6 shillings when I had to operate that blasted chain saw, came home to my dear wife and son at 5pm [Pump o’r gloch] that was the only Welsh I learned in all that time. Strangely it was a very happy time in my life and I am sure it was for Jennifer too. We had one another, then our first born; at last Jennifer did not have to tear herself in two, one half for her parents and one half for me. Jennifer has never been the type to fall out with anyone and was capable of bottling her feeling but I am sure that has ever been good for her so to be at peace with everyone including herself was good and I am sure stood us in good stead for the rest of our life. On regular occasions her parents would come and visit that was fine, they got to know their grandson as well see their dear daughter, even tolerate her husband! I suppose but never really had giving up the idea that one day they would get their daughter back and away from me. [Fair enough]. It seemed funny one would have thought they might have known their daughter enough to know that was never going to happen, they had made her far too loyal.

Caio today is quite a different place, we love it now, as I was saying living there when we did we were happy, going back now is great not that we know it now most people are different very few Welsh speaking people. Our next door neighbour but one still lives there. Gina Jones used to be a real Welsh lass rearing 4 children in the real Welsh way. Today she is still Welsh, a very modern Welsh woman, tending and loving her grandchildren and at the same time spending her holidays abroad in far more exotic places I have ever known and has even been known to even go scuba diving in the Red Sea. While in Caio she runs her own B & B and does it well she now owns her own cottage thanks to the Forestry Commission moving out, lets us stop there on the cheap, the view from our bedroom window over looks a huge plantations planted on the side of a hill which I was partly responsible for planting nearly 50 years ago.

Caio no longer has a general store in fact any shop at all. It still has gold mine, a pub, and instead of serving beer in an enamel jug, has modern pumps but sell more food than they do beer and is quite an unpleasant sort of place. In our day very few people used the pub, some would call at the back door with their jugs and drink at home. Some how they tended to think God would not see them there and as long as they didn’t do it when they should be at chapel it would be alright.

August of 1968 we found ourselves moving away from Wales. I had managed to get myself a job at Stansted Park at Rowlands Castle. My uncle Jack Etherington had worked there for many years so you could say “It’s not what you know it’s who you know”. Anyway bright and early one Tuesday morning Jennifer and David loaded theirselves in her father's car for one more time and I loaded myself in the back of a rather old and battered snub nosed Bedford the firm had sent out to transport our bits and pieces back to the south of England to join a team of 10 or so woodmen.

This was a good move not only for my sake as I would go up a little a cog or two in the eyes of my in-laws, at least I thought it would. We had a niceish cottage our next door neighbour spoke English. It was not long before Jennifer found she was pregnant once again this was nice as she had rather a nasty miscarriage before we left Wales which unset her, I was not practice enough to give her much sympathy and didn’t realize what reactions a miscarriage has on a woman and couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about, and for a long time Jennifer would talk about it and couldn’t help wondering what that baby would have looked like if she had gone her full time, but have not mentioned for many years until we were talking about our move from Wales just the other day and talking about the move she said “It was just after she lost that baby”.

I was happy at Stansted, although a lot of the time I worked on my own but it was so nice when from time to time I had to work with my uncle. Both Jack and his wife aunt Clarie had always been my favourite people, as Clarie was my dads sister and Jack my mother’s young brother. Yes life was good and the arrival of our second son Brian seemed the icing to the cake. Brian was born at home up in the front bedroom of course I was not allowed to be there men were not suppose to know how things like that worked. I must say thinking about it now how strange everything was in those days; us men’s responsibility seemed to stop after conception apart being responsible for the hot water. We didn’t have to do any panting or pushing, we weren’t even expect to do any hand holding and as for seeing ones wife in the state of undress that was taboo.

Was out family now complete? We were certainly happy with our lot. We had no money worries; we were not rich but quite satisfied with what we did have and always lived within our means thanks to Jennifer’s management skills. However it was not too long before Jessa was pining for perhaps a sister for our two sons. I must admit it did sound nice but how could we be sure it would be a girl? It seemed as if we would never know one way or another try as we did nothing happened. We waited over 3 years for Ann, she made her appearance on the 5th of August 1963 about the same time as Brian between 12 and 1pm. Jennifer walks upstairs one minute and reappears with a bouncing baby the next. [Shelling peas come to mind].

That was definitely the lot, two boys, and a girl for me. She was going to grow into a beautiful blond woman, the apple of her daddy’s eye. And she did.

The year was 1963. Boxing Day, it started to snow, little did we know how long it was going on for and what affect it was going to have with our life. The cottage was cold freezing cold, the water froze in the pipes and with an extra child in the house room was at a premium. We had a Rayburn to cook on, when it worked the vilest black tar like gung ran down inside the chimney which smelt to high heaven. That coupled with trying to bathe three small children in front of an open fire in the sitting room made us wonder whether we were in the right job and the right place. The decision we made was difficult, the job was good I earned good money and generally speaking got on well with the people I worked with. David had started school and with our family complete it took a lot of thought to make the decision that we made. That time some 5 years after the Suez crisis jobs and houses were more plentiful so it was decided I would apply for another job. Scouring the situations vacant column of the West Sussex Gazette I came up with a job which I knew I would not get. It was for head woodmen on an estate in Hampshire. I was not experience enough to get a job like that. One interview at our home with an Agent and a seemingly old man Sir Alwyne Pelly, the job was mine. Well to a 30 year old 70 years was old it’s quite young now!!

March 1964 found us at Preshaw Estate still snow lying on the ground from Boxing Day the year before. Preshaw, like Stansted had been cut off for several weeks and relied on tractors and snow ploughs in bringing food and water in. Preshaw being a smaller estate meant there was a much more of a family atmosphere from the top down. Sir Alwyne was at the helm and knew all his crew. Lord Bessborough the owner of Stansted knew none of his men and although I worked there for 5 years he had no idea who I was. On the other hand Sir Alwyne Pelly not only knew us all would try and visit all his employees some where at their work every day. A marvellous man. I had an awful lot of respect for Sir Alwyne. [Father too many] and he had an awful lot of respect for his staff.

If I had been happy at Stansted we were very happy at that time at Preshaw. I had 3 to 4 men working with me and I was given responsibility for the wood there. The boss would not make any decision regarding the woods without consulting me. This went on for several years until he decided he had got to old and thought he would hand the whole thing over to his son John, I suppose it had to come but Preshaw was never the same again and never will be.

Late 1968. Low and behold Julie was born. Where she came from god alone knows to say it was a surprise was an under statement and to quote an old member of the estate who told us she was our bonus. And I am not being unkind but to call Julie a bonus “Well”. The first seven or so years was fine a little spoiled I would think but fine. Then it all started to happen and was the start of the worse time of our life. I suppose it was not too good for Julie either if it comes to that and was the start of a long drawn out drama which lasted for many years and to certain extent is still going onto this day. Julie’s kidneys packed up and has had a couple of transplant to date. I am not going to dwell on this only to say Julie was married in 1993, she was married in the same chapel as she was christened in 1969 on Preshaw Estate.

John Pelly never really had his heart in the place he had come back from Rhodesia [Zimbabwe] where he had a so called tobacco plantation. I think he was in partnership with some woman or other and was in trouble right from the word go. Anyway he came back from there with his wife Hazel and daughter Margaret in the mid to late 1960s and after a little training in agriculture school came and took over the day to day running of the farm to start with, then the so called running of the whole estate. Within a year or so the managing was taken over by an estate agent. Estate agents are in the business to make money for them selves; this one was no exemption the only trouble was they made nothing for Preshaw in fact they robbed the boss left right and centre and ended up persuading him to sell half the estate.

By the late 1980s John had had enough and handed what was left of the place over to his nephew, luckily for me I carried on as his gardener as the woods had been run down and robbed so much there was no need for forestry workers and as I was getting near to retirement I thought that was my best bet. Something I hadn’t banked on was the boss dying 4 years before my 65th birthday and me having to work for yet another Pelly. One [Sir] Richard. Wife. Claire & 3 sons. I first met Richard as a very young teenager. I didn’t like him then and I knew we were not going to get on. We didn’t and the high light of that time was getting put out of my cottage in 1997, the same cottage we had moved into some 34 years before.

My wife Jennifer and I were allocated a council bungalow on my retirement and we live here in Bishops Waltham and hope to be here until our time is up. Our 4 children are all living within 20 or so miles from us and see them on a pretty regular basis. We both enjoy reasonable health and manage a few holidays abroad from time to time. The rest of my time is taken up with family history and a spot of gardening.

If I should die tomorrow I can say I have enjoyed my life. Neither Jennifer or I have done anything very spectacular, some would even say we have been boring, compared with some they would be right. That’s ok.

That’s your lot.

2010

Since I wrote [That’s your lot] time has moved on we have in fact been living here for 13 years. The main happening I suppose was losing our eldest son David in May of 2009. David died of a heart attack driving in London, this of course was a terrible shock to all of us and nearly 18 months on it’s still hurts and we miss him terribly.

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