Peter Parker's Memories
From Peter Parker, CBE
The webhistory is a great initiative.
Viv Killeen, who has already contributed, is my sister. She has told you about our mother, Eva Parker (nee Lawrence) but the following may be of interest. From around the late 1930’s the Lawrence family lived in the end terrace house next to the pub (The Volunteer?), having previously lived at Upton. Charles Lawrence, Mum’s father, was a general farm labourer and over the course of the farming year undertook all the necessary tasks, eg milking, ploughing, harvesting, hedging and ditching etc. Grandad told me that he started as a 7 year old with the task of scaring the crows away from the newly seeded fields. He served throughout the First World War after he was conscripted to care for the horses that pulled the guns and wagons etc. He was in Flanders and saw the results of the German gas attacks. He occupied a regular seat in the pub for many years and enjoyed a glass or three of cider.
I spent several holidays with my grandparents in the 1940’s. I remember my grandmother (Kate - nee Cornelius) cooking at the oven heated by the open fire in the living room, fetching water from the communal well (they had no running water, no electricity supply and no gas in those days). Lighting was by oil lamps and there was only the open fires for heating. Hot water bottles - the pottery kind - were essential in winter, and the windows would be frozen over on the inside in the morning so you could play noughts and crosses on them (does anyone still play that now!?).
The “en suite” consisted of a chamber pot and a jug of cold water that you poured into a large china bowl to wash your face in the morning. The chamber pot was essential because the toilet was in an unlighted hut at the bottom of the garden, inside which there was a varnished plank with three holes of different sizes for users to sit upon (presumably at some time in the past this may have been a communal activity!?).
Grandad used to take me to work with him sometimes and I have clear memories of riding on the enormous heavy horse, my little legs spread out wide and holding onto its main for dear life, as we went up to the field where it was destined to pull the plough that day. I also remember sharing his bread and cheese at lunchtime, but not his cider! He kept chicken and geese and grew most of their vegetables in his back garden. I remember one of my female cousins refusing to eat her share of a goose that we had for Christmas there because she felt she had befriended it over the months when it was being fattened up. I had no such scruples!
As a girl and young woman Mum was very active in the Girls’ Friendly Society and the Church, becoming a Sunday School teacher. She married Frank Parker from Axminster, a well known amateur footballer (he played for Yeovil and Somerset) and after a spell in Barnstaple they moved to Yeovil where I was her firstborn in 1937. Christopher followed in 1944 and Julie in 1947. Vivienne was a very pleasant surprise in 1955 after we had moved to Bristol.
Mum’s sister Rose married Fred Ash, and her sister Edith married Reg Male, both common names in Seavington I believe. The Ash’s moved to Taunton, but the Males lived in Seavington in a house opposite the road leading down to the school and church. Uncle Reg was also a farm worker; Uncle Fred was a carpenter and during the Second World War he was conscripted to London during the Blitz to repair buildings damaged by German bombs.
Mum had two other brothers. Uncle Ed went into farming and moved away, eventually running a farm himself. Uncle Arthur married and moved to Taunton like Fred. He served in the Army in the Second War and was much affected by the terrible sights he saw in Germany during the latter stages and immediately after hostilities ended.
I have attached a few photos in case they may be of interest. One shows the Lawrence family in late 1914 or early1915, probably taken to send to Charles who was fighting in France for King and country at the time. From the left they are Edith, Edward, Kate holding Eva, Arthur and Rose. Another shows Eva with her parents circa 1930, and the third shows her wedding party in 1933, taken at the Rectory. The report of the wedding is also enclosed but may not be very legible now.
Yours sincerely,
Peter Parker, CBE