LOCAL TALK BACK April 2014

APRIL 2014 ISSUE 439
LOCAL
TALK BACK
Hinnegar Lodge between Little Badminton and Didmarton. Called
Stratford’s Lodge in this photo and Kenegar on another postcard. This
house burnt down and was replaced with two houses turned to face the
narrow lane. The road on the left takes you to Didmarton and straight
ahead to Sopworth and Sherston
A MONTHLY MAGAZINE WITH NEWS, VIEWS AND REPORTS
FOR THE RESIDENTS OF ACTON TURVILLE, BADMINTON & LITTLE BADMINTON

We were sorry to hear of the death of Badminton resident Sheila Fry.
Sheila has lived in Badminton for 42 years working at Badminton House and The Cottage.
She was a very busy member of the community over the years, raising money for charities
and at one time running the Badminton Youth Club.
Our Condolences to her daughter Tracy, family and friends.
Defibrillators for Badminton & Acton Turville
The South West Ambulance Trust has given defibrillators to the villages of Badminton, Acton
Turville and Hawkesbury Upton.
Defibrillators can save lives when someone is having a cardiac arrest especially in rural
areas, where we are further from the main hospital and ambulance response times are
longer. The machines are easy to use and training is given.
Ideally, for easy access, the machine needs to be fitted to an outside wall in a cabinet and
connected to an electrical supply. The cabinets are not supplied and some fund-raising will
have to be done (about £1000 per cabinet).
Hawkesbury Upton has started fund-raising for its cabinet and is holding an information
session on the 26 th April 2014 -11.00 am to 3.00 pm.
Drop in for coffee or soup (or both) and find out what it is involved.
The Ambulance Trust is also attending the Hawkesbury Parish Annual Assembly on 22 April
at 7.30pm in the Methodist Hall, Back Street, Hawkesbury Upton. Come along and get
inspired for your fund-raising.
If you would like to help – please get in touch with Iris Penney 01454 218264/Wayne Rees
01454 218212/Tim Nichollls 01454 219402
For further information – Give me a ring Sue Hope 01454 238673

APRIL 2014 LOCAL TALKBACK ISSUE 439_________
EDITORIAL
What an interesting photograph on this month’s cover. Probably
because most parts of our villages haven’t changed much since the old
photos were taken, whereas Hinnegar Lodge corner has changed
considerably. We understand the old thatch cottage burned down and
some people still call it ‘burnt down lodge’. In its place are a pair of
semis turned to face the Sopworth lane, which looks more like a farm
track than a road. What a co-incidence that Janice Walker (Gentry), who lives in one of the
Hinnegar cottages should send us copies of some of her mother’s old photographs this week.
Thank you for that Janice, we will be printing them in future Talkbacks when we can find out
more names of the people in the photos. If anyone has old photos of the area we would appreciate
copies, via email, or on short loan so that we can scan and copy them for future use in LTB or just
to keep an archive of local history pictures together.
Cerney House Snowdrop gardens was advertised in the last Talkback and was
well worth the visit. At North Cerney, between Cirencester and Cheltenham, it is
a secret garden hidden away in a Cotswold valley high above the river Churn.
There is a walled kitchen garden, picturesque little corners with gazebo,
sculptures, paths and steps, woodland and 40 acres of parkland. Much of it
covered in snowdrops and hellebores. The snowdrops will be followed by
daffodils and bluebells but the tulip time in April and May should be spectacular
with 10,000 tulips around every part of the garden. There is often a Tulip Festival there. It is
open every day and entrance is £5.
As you can read elsewhere the local villages of Badminton, Acton Turville and Hawkesbury
Upton are being given defibrillators to be stored somewhere accessible in each village. They are
to be fitted in outside cabinets which cost about £1,000 and need to be funded locally. The Fox
and Hounds at Acton Turville are starting off their fundraising for this by holding a Spring
Charity Ball on Friday 23 rd May. There will be live bands, a disco, hot and cold buffet.
Also in May, on 17 th and 18 th , is the Castle Combe Steam Rally which is always an
interesting event. This year they will have ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ Wall of
Death, Sheep dog demonstrations and the Royal Navy Portsmouth Area Field Gun
Display. Let’s hope for some good weather.
If you like Italian food and have already visited The Taste of Italy at The Fox, Hawkesbury, you
can now buy a range of authentic Italian foods in the Hawkesbury Shop. For example: Savoury
and sweet biscotti, handmade Italian regional cheeses, olive oil, Italian coffee, Pizza flour, fresh
pasta, homemade salami, antipasti and much more.
We did ask in the last two Talkbacks for someone to write their own letter for the editorial in the
May issue, which will need to be done in only three weeks time. As yet no one has come forward
which is a disappointment because we do need some more input from Talkback readers. It is not
always easy to write or organise articles every month because we don’t have a committee of
people like they have in other local magazines. We also don’t want to see the Talkback finish
especially when it celebrates 40 years next year. So come on you shy people, see what you can do
to help keep the Talkback for those who do enjoy reading it.
Wishing you all a very Happy Easter
Sally Smith, Sandra Broomsgrove and Yvonne Nettles
Send articles to Liz, c/o The Estate Office, Badminton, South Glos, GL9 1DD, or ring Liz (mornings
only) on 01454 218379 e-mail lizbarnesbpc@googlemail.com
DATE FOR ARTICLES FOR MAY ISSUE WILL BE 20 TH APRIL

MY ROYAL CONNECTIONS
By Phyllis Salmon (nee Brown) autobiography written 1989
This is about her childhood in Badminton from 1926
PART 8
Following Father’s death Mother was left with 10 children, three of
them under school age, the baby not quite a year old. There were five
going to school. I was 13 and leaving school at Christmas. There were two older boys age
15 and 17. I always thought it wonderful that Mother was able to bring the family up and
keep us all together. She was still young at 39. She was not very big and not all that strong
but she was very firm with us and stood no nonsense, carrying on where Father left off.
The year ended filled with sadness. Christmas came, and Mother made the usual
preparations, and the children had their stockings filled, but there was no Father Christmas to
visit them. There was no family allowance in those days and Mother had 36 shillings
(£1.80), that was 10 shillings for herself, 5 shillings (25p) for the eldest at school and 3
shillings (15p) for each of the others. The oldest boy got 10 shillings (50p) a week from
work, and the other 5 shillings (25p). That was our total income. Mother had to find a little
pocket money for us all. A letter came for Father the morning he died telling him when he
would have had to go to his new job. I left school in December and a new era started for me.
The things that stand out in my memory most at Badminton as a child were first
singing and dancing before Her Majesty Queen Mary in our school concert, leaving class to
see the wonderful sight of the airship in the sky, but most of all the wonderful Christmas
parties the Duke and Duchess gave us at their home, with the magnificent tree, and presents
every year.
Our departure from Badminton to Acton Turville
The New Year came and I no longer had to go to school. If Mother had the chance of
a few hours work she would go out and do it. When the cook at the Dower House was ill or
on holiday they came for Mother to do the cooking. She was a very good cook and it came in
useful in later years. My brother Jim was still working on the estate but only temporarily and
after Father’s death he was still looking for a job with a house. Then towards the end of
summer he was excited as his friend had got him a job at the same place where he worked. It
was for a jobbing gardener, and there was a house to go with it, at Acton Turville. Mother
went to see the Duchess to give notice and to thank her for her kindness. Before we moved
Mother went to the new house and redecorated it. It was a three bedroom house, three
storeys, with a range and a washboiler in one corner, a large pantry, and another under the
stairs, with a window. There were two bedrooms on the first landing, then up another flight
of stairs was what we called the attic, which was one very large room. But the house was not
as big or as nice as the one at Badminton. The other disappointment was that the toilet was
not a flush one and we had to empty it every week down a disused well at the bottom of the
garden where all our rubbish went.
In the village was a grocer’s shop that sold everything, a sub post office, a garage, a
public house, a sub bank, and the most exciting thing of all, the railway station where Mother
used to send us to fetch coal in the trucks that the boys made from old boxes and two pram
wheels.

Mother would much rather us go to the station for the coal for they always gave us more for
our money. The coal was usually delivered by one of the farmers who were the coal
merchants, and they called at all the villages for miles around. They had two wagons drawn
by two horses. They started work at seven and sometimes didn’t finish until quite late, and
that was for six days every week.
There was also an undertaker who was related to the people at the grocers. We had a
church, not very big, but friendly, and I preferred to go there than to the one at Badminton,
for there you felt so lost in the pews for they were so high. We called them horse boxes. At
Acton Turville the pews were only three feet high and it was interesting to see what people
were wearing and who was in church. The school was in the centre of the village and the
children up to the age of nine attended there, the older ones having to walk the mile to
Badminton. They had to stay to dinner and there were no meals supplied, so they had to take
sandwiches, and some Eiffel Tower lemonade crystals to make their drink. In the winter time
it was cocoa and sugar mixed together, and teacher would make the cocoa for them.
There was also a well in the middle of the village, and it gave the village some
character. It was covered over for safety, naturally there were tales about it and what had
been put down there. At one time someone had been stealing in the village and the evidence
was found in the well, so really it was never as secure as we all thought. In the old days it
supplied the village with water. There were 40 cottages, three farms, a small holding, and
four houses belonging to the gentry, and a lodging house. I had not been in the village long
when I got myself a job, it was at the small holding, with a family of nine children. I went at
eight o’clock in the morning until two in the afternoon. The older children went to a private
school and then on to grammar school if they passed to go there, the younger ones to the
village school. When I arrived at eight they were at breakfast or rushing around getting
ready. My first job was to clean nine pairs of shoes, then they all went to school except the
youngest, a lovely little boy of four years. The master went to his work on their farm, he had
been up and done the milking long before I got there. Then the Mrs and I cleared the
breakfast away and washed up together, we then made all the beds. It was quite a large house
with four bedrooms and a bathroom, a large sitting room and a dining room, a kitchen and a
laundry. We did all the work together and we got on fine, she treated me as one of the family
while I was there. I had my dinner with them and I never ate so well before. She was a good
cook and mother and a good farmer’s wife. My wages were five shillings a week, I gave it to
Mother and she gave me sixpence back for my pocket money. Many an afternoon I would
take the little boy for a walk. I would take him home and collect our young ones who were
not at school, and we would all go together. We would end the walk at his house and I would
hand him back to his mother. I stayed with them until my sister Edith left school the year
after me. I was with them until Christmas and had my Christmas dinner there, the first away
from home. I had a grand time and was sorry to be leaving but Mother wanted me out to
service. The family was growing up and she needed the room. There was a job going at a
mansion house four miles from home, it was Dodington House, the home of Sir Christopher
Codrington. They wanted a kitchen maid so I was sent off for an interview. I had to go to
the Dower House and was shown into the drawing room and interviewed by Lady
Codrington. She remarked on my smallness but I told her I had been working daily with a
large family so she gave me a try for a month. They were moving into the big house and
everything was new as they had just had it modernised. It was arranged that my sister Edith
would work for the people I was leaving

The first thing I had to do was get myself a bike. The man who lived in the house
adjoining our garden repaired and sold bikes so I ordered one which cost me £6. I had to pay
ten shillings (50p) down and pay one shilling a week, or more if I could afford it. Mother
paid the ten shillings for I had no money of my own. Mother had to get me rigged out for my
new job. I had to have three white aprons and caps, and dresses in deep blue, also two course
aprons made of hessian. Mother packed my bag which was made of the same sort of rush
that they make mats and baskets of, it was held together with a leather strap. Before it was
given to me it was used for a cot for all her babies when first born. I shall never forget how
Mother rigged me out, she made me wear corsets with steels in them. I had to have them to
hold my stockings up with the suspenders. I had black and white elastic garters and I still
kept them. I wasn’t trusting to the suspenders. Apart from my vests and petticoats there
were three pairs of blue bloomers to take with me.
TO BE CONTINUED...
The Luncheon Club
On the menu on March 12th was a choose of 2 main
courses of Roast or Scampi followed by Apple pie or
Lardy pie all were delicious.
After lunch we entertained ourselves with a game of
Play Your Cards Right not as easy to win as you might
expect but really good fun.
We are always happy to see new people and this month we welcomed 3 new members.
We will again on April 9th. The entertainment will be singer Rob Cook.
For more information ring Sally on 01454 218510.
JUBILEE ROOM, BADMINTON
HALL
7.30-9.30pm every other Tuesday
throughout the winter and spring
March 1 st viewing of curtain and upholstery fabrics for sale.
15 th & 29 th April – normal meetings to do own crafts.
We are an informal group where we have the space for everyone to do their own craft –
cardmaking, lacemaking, scrapbooking, beading, quilling, doll-making, knitting, crochet etc. –
share ideas and get inspiration.
No membership fees, just £2 on the night - 7.30 – 9.30pm
We also arrange professional demonstrations and will go out on visits of interest.
Ring for information : Yvonne ( 01454) 218267 L/BADMINTON – Heather 218617 BADMINTON -
Helen 218792 ACTON TURVILLE