Oxford has now sprawled into North Berkshire, which was my
birthplace; it is no longer country. William Morris, later Lord Nuffield, not
only changed Cowley but most of the environment of Oxford in all directions. I
know the house where I was born at the turn of the century; it is next to the
Carpenters Arms just off the Oxford to Witney road. We used to lie in bed and
hear the horses galloping by with the Royal Mail bound for Oxford. No motor vans
then, for William Morris was only just beginning and branching out from being a
maker of motor cycles to become a Motor Car Engineer. Fame was to come later.
It was still the age of horses. In the fields two pulled the plough, unless
heavy soil or an uphill slope meant teams of three or four. At Harvest three
pulled the binder, one foremost or 'forest', and two behind; a boy rode the
front one. I remember when I was riding foremost someone shot at rabbits (there
used to be scores of rabbits in the centre of the field and men with guns and
boys with sticks had cruel sport killing the poor frightened creatures). This
shot scared a young colt and he bolted dragging the binder into the horse I
rode. The horse died, the boy escaped. Fine people rode in carriages and pairs,
Oxford undergraduates rode in flys (one-horse, light carriages, usually hired)
from the station, all delivery was horse drawn. Farmers took their milk to
Oxford station in traps. In 1916, when daylight saving was introduced one farmer
at least did not co-operate; he kept his clock at the old time, sun time, God's
time, and missed the milk trains to London; we boys were amused. Horses drew the
Oxford trams. Life revolved around horses; they carried you to your wedding
(unless you were poor and had to walk), they drew you to your grave, but did not
carry the midwife to one's birth. When I first saw the local midwife she rode a
bike with a little black bag on the back. We were intrigued by the bag - could
that be where babies came from? Before this there was a woman in the village who
saw the beginning and the end of people; she acted as midwife and laid out the
dead.
On Sundays we often made the journey three times to Morning Service, to Sunday
School, in preparation for which we learned the collect for the day, and
Evensong.
It is intriguing how our ancestors of this period came to meet. My
grand-parents, I am told, met at Abingdon Fair, although they lived about 10
miles apart and did not have either horse or bike, yet they carried on their
courtship and married. I suppose the usual way of finding a husband was the
practice of domestic service. This custom, which seemed harsh - sending a young
girl of 11 out into the big world with her clothes in a tin box - was almost
necessary. Wages were low, cottages small, families large; there was not room
for growing boys and growing girls at home together so the poor girls had to get
their feet under somebody-else's table, and fend for themselves.
They broadened their outlook, managed to stand on their own feet, saved a little
money, soon matured and married early. Fifty years ago there was a country
custom of carrying one's friends and neighbours to their graves. This was the
last service one could render, the last token of respects affection and
comradeship one could pay. I remember that many neighbours wanted to do this
honour to my Father; it must have been a delicate problem for my Mother to
choose the required number without hurting feelings or seeming ungracious.
My Father worked the little mill on the Seacourt Stream. A mill had been there
for centuries. The original mill was burnt down by the Puritans in the Civil
War. This was a one-man show; my Father ground the corn, set the dough, baked
the bread and delivered it by horse around the local villages. His horse knew
every call, knew when to woa, and when to gee up, knew the way home, but best of
all knew his master, guide, companion and friend. They were a team of two. The
partnership was broken in 1910 when the old King died and before the new one was
crowned, the last loaf was baked, the mill was sold and so was Prince, the
horse, but three times he left his new home and found his own way along 12 miles
of strange roads to find his old master.
Although we lived in a horse-dominated age, we did see the odd car. Something
else appeared too: we called them Flying Machines in 1909; one of these even
flew from England to France, or was it the other way round? One came to grief in
the fields above our School, where ladies played hockey - very daring: - I can
smell the petrol now as I remember how we searched for souvenirs, fragments of
this wonderful machine.
My schooldays came to a premature end in 1917. The war was not going too well
for us, food was short, most able-bodied men were at the front, so village boys
of poor parents were allowed to leave school and work on the farms, if their
education had progressed satisfactorily. I was sitting in lonely glory at the
top of the School, my Father was dead, my Brother was breadwinner for five young
children, there was no doubt about our need; we were poor. So at the end of the
summer term before my 13th birthday I was pitched from School to farm. My first
job was the crowning humiliation. If, like the Prodigal Son, I had been sent
into the fields to feed pigs, it would not have been too bad; but I was sent to
scare the birds from the ripening corn. They told me the job was important,
German submarines were sinking our food ships, so every grain saved helped to
win the war. How glad I was when all the corn was harvested. Never before or
since has "All is safely gathered in" meant so much.
The next job after the harvest was nearly as bad, the potato picking. A balk
plough turned the potatoes out on the ground and we had to pick them up. Later
we had a rotary machine which spun them out. For gathering the spuds into
buckets and then into sacks we received 3d a cwt. The ache in one's back was
terrible - I can almost feel it now as I write. Yet there was one thrill about
this job; it was piece work and one could earn a week's wages in a day, if the
days were long enough, and the back strong enough, and there was a sister around
to help. Cold tea tasted delicious, better than water, cider, pop. or almost any
drink I have tasted since. Beer was, of course, out of the question: we were
pledged in the little Chapel Band of Hope never to touch, taste or handle the
stuff. Nectar, the drink of the gods, could not have tasted better than our cold
tea.
George King wrote down his memories in the 1960s. He overcame many early
disadvantages to take Holy Orders.