I’m delighted that my recent Readers’ Memories article to ‘The Countryman’ has been published in the July 2022 issue of the magazine. I hope you enjoy reading it, and please feel free to comment!
I enjoyed reading ‘The beat generation’ in Paul Jackson’s Do you remember’ May issue of The Countryman. The life of a village ‘bobby’ reminded me of my grampy who became a special constable during the second world war.
My grandparents were dairy farmers at the time and lived in Edgcott, a small village in Buckinghamshire. I feel rather proud of him for doing this at a time when he would have been juggling the impacts and constraints of the war on farming and family life. In fact, he carried on being a special constable until he retired in 1972, with the rank of Special Sergeant.
One of my elderly mother’s favorite memories is of the evening of the Great Train Robbery in 1963 when they had a telephone call from the local Police Station saying he was needed urgently to help with the search, at the time he was in the middle of milking their large diary heard of British Friesians!
On a related topic, during their farming years my grandparents helped with the rehabilitation of offenders at the local prison. They would have several men working at the farm during busy periods, like the harvest. Apparently, one day some years later they bumped into one of those men and he thanked them for changing his life, explaining that he had so enjoyed working on their farm that after his release from prison he pursued a career in farming and eventually had a farm of his own.
I remember my grampy as a quiet, unassuming man, but with a wonderful sense of humor and zest for life. A ‘special’ man who loved helping and caring for people as well as animals and the natural world. I only wish I had known him more.