My origins lie in Herefordshire and I have always looked on the village of my birth, Tarrington, as my 'home' wherever I have lived. They are about to bury a 'Time Capsule' there this coming week and I submitted the following two pages for inclusion.

THE JOHN EDWARDS FAMILY IN TARRINGTON

John Edwards (my grandfather) was born in Woolhope in 1865 and he moved with his father another John Edwards (1847-1930) and his wife Frances Anne (nee Goode) to Croft Cottage, Aldersend Road prior to April, 1901.

My father George (16th May 1909-18th April 1997) was born at 13 Pear Tree Cottage where both of the above mentioned Johns were living together with George’s mother Edith Mary (nee Bright). I was born in that same room on 22nd February 1945.

My mother Iris Miriam Sloman was born in the garrison town of Aldershot in 1912 and because her father’s military postings she and her two younger siblings were left in the care of their mother. Due to a lack of care all three were fostered out to the ‘The Goode Family’ on Common Hill, Fownhope. I visited there as a child and found this to be a typical abode with only basic amenities. I know that my mother suffered as a consequence of her treatment in childhood and she would have left school at the age of 14 years with an education that had been diminished by absence away from the class room due to illness. I think that love would have been in short supply with a father only able to visit occasionally but I knew that she had a loving and supportive younger sister. Only having received some education she was put into service at Breinton and then she was employed by ‘The Miss Lloyds’ at Tarrington Court. On April 7th 1934 she took the short walk across the orchard to the cottage after attending her wedding to my father in Tarrington Church.

She entered a very basic cottage that had only two men as occupants where any comfort would have been minimal and there she put her ‘home-making’ skills to work. She succeeded for I was born into a moderately comfortable home that was full of love and care. It was basic. There was one shiny brass tap in the corner of the kitchen and a black-leaded range in the living room. This was soon replaced by a fireplace and cooking was done with paraffin burners. The food was always good and we ate well but we could never afford any excess. Farm labourers’ wages were poor with these being supplemented only by seasonal hop and fruit picking.

I can remember frost on the inside of the windows and a ruddy face from sitting round the open fire but with a draught on the back of my neck. Bath time was a simple but quick affair in a galvanised tin bath with kettles of boiling water being the only source of heat. The toilet was the common earth closet at the end of the garden in the same brick building as the ‘pigs’ cotts’. Cool in summer, draughty in winter but good for the environment as sewage treatment consume s energy. Nothing was wasted in those days as the human waste was added to the kitchen garden every couple of years or so, in the autumn, which seems to account for the fact that garden soil is black and no longer exhibits the red Herefordshire Sandstone colour. This garden provided almost all of our vegetables and the front garden was well attended to for every season of the year. It was a riot of colour. Even poor people have pride and they prided themselves with their gardens. That was the way it was then.

Electricity came to the home, in 1950 to replace the paraffin lamps and now we had light at the flick of a switch!

My grandfather, my mother always said, was good to her and this must have made up for the previous years of her life. I remember him too and when he died on 18th October 1953 it was a sad place to be. Phil Wargent and Geoff Smith (Maurice’s uncle) came to the cottage with a clapper which had sheared off one of his beloved bells, to show my ill grandfather. They all went upstairs with it and I think that was his last conscious thought on this earth. A broken clapper brought to show him and a true countryman’s life came to an end.



The 1847 John was one of the founder members of the Herefordshire Dioscesan Guild of Bell Ringers and taught his sons how to ring. He lies in a formerly unmarked grave just below the tower in a place that was pointed out to me by my father. In 2009 I placed a stone to commemorate his life, his wife’s life and my parents’ lives who were both cremated.

My grandfather is now part of that history and a photograph of him is in the vestry at Tarrington to commemorate the peal of 1913. ‘Clavis Campanogia’ or Key to the Art of Bell-Ringing was bought in 1886 by John Edwards (born 1847) from Richard W Hooper and is in the possession of Mary Lewis –a descendent of my grandfather’s brother Charles- and whose husband was awarded the MBE for his service to the community and campanology. This book was published in 1788 and was given to the bell ringers of Fownhope by John Rudhall in 1794.

Mary was also an accomplished bell ringer and rang in an all women peal to commemorate the refurbishment of the Five Sisters Window in York Minister. She also possesses the set of hand-bells that my grandfather once owned. The interest in ringing did not extend to my father and sadly will end with Mary. There are many others that are still prepared to toll the bells and keep tradition alive


My childhood was pure freedom for once I was old enough to get out of the gate I had acres of beautiful countryside to play in. We were surrounded by orchards with all the blossom, fruit and wildlife to go with it. Economics intervened and by the mid 1960’s twenty of my lovely orchards had disappeared. Tarrington Court I came to know well for on its pond I made rafts from a piece of cowl from the hop kilns, we dammed the stream and climbed the yew tree in the centre of the lawn. We played in the attic which was once my mother’s bedroom when she was in service there. I came to know every field on The Leys Farm but not with the same knowledge that my father had for he worked every one on that 1920’s American Case tractor. He baled the first bale in the parish-other than in a rickyard-and cut the first corn with a combine harvester. I can remember threshing machines, binders cutting corn into sheaves, milk being delivered in a churn from a horse drawn cart and whooping cough and polio. Also whist drives in village halls, church fetes and seaside trips.
I can also remember those that are not with us like Tony Smith who died of ‘lock-jaw’ when only seven and whose tiny remains are in the new churchyard along with others I knew. I still go back to say hullo and to remember. I can fondly say thank you, Tarrington, for giving me life with some excellent memories that I do fall back on.