Unite and unite and let us all unite, For summer is a-coming today, And whither we are going we will all unite, In the merry morning of May
It’s nearly May 1st, and this year we were planning to welcome the coming of summer in Padstow. This joyous celebration of May Day is renowned for the prancing of hobby horses, attended by costumed followers and garlanded musicians, processing through the streets of Padstow the whole day long. In normal times, the town is decked with greenery and flowers, and thronged with visitors, all keen to embrace the spectacle. We were two in the crowd a few years ago, but sadly we can’t return this year as the festival has been cancelled due to the coronavirus. So let me re-create something of the wonderful occasion we experienced, and perhaps we’ll all be inspired to find our own personal ways of welcoming the May this year. You’ll find a link to the famous song at the end of the post.
The Old ‘Oss
There are different ways of honouring May Day in the British Isles, including crowning a May Queen, but the Padstow May Day ceremony is focused on the hobby horses. There are two chief ‘osses in the town – the ‘original’ Old Oss, whose team wear red ribbons, and The Blue Ribbon ‘Oss, who was created, so it is said, by a Temperance organisation concerned about the free-drinking of the other team. Each ‘Obby ‘Oss consists of a round frame which is covered in a kind of black oilskin cloth that hangs down around the perimeter. A freakish horse’s head sticks through the top, with snapping jaws. The man inside the horse swings and dips and prances along the street, encouraged by another character, the ‘Teaser’. Their aim is to capture a young woman under the flapping black skirt of the horse, and thereby impregnate her – symbolically! – with the spirit of summer fertility. Drums beat with a rhythm sometimes steady, sometimes frenzied.
Girls and young women were the traditional prey of the hobby horse – but in practice only those old enough to join in willingly are trapped under the ‘oss’s tent!
Everyone joins in the May Day songs which sometimes pause for the slow, solemn interlude:
O! where is St. George, O!, where is he O, He is out in his long boat on the salt sea O. Up flies the kite and down tails the lark O. Aunt Ursula Birdhood she had an old ewe And she died in her own Park O.
Who is Ursula Birdwood? No one knows, although there are some intriguing suggestions, such as: ‘Aunt Ursula Birdhood was a disguised reference to St. Mary – a safe way for the Cornish recusant Catholics to “hail Mary” without getting caught’, as was posted on the genealogy forum Roots Web.
On and on go the processions throughout the day – up to the higher part of the town and a quick parade through the Metropole Hotel where no doubt a welcome pint speeds the troupe on its way – over to Prideaux Place, the stately house of Padstow – and round back down to the harbour side. The red team and the blue team weave their time-honoured routes.
The ‘Oss approaches Prideaux Place
The drum beat becomes a kind of constant throbbing heartbeat of the town. It will carry on resonating through you for days afterwards. As one who dislikes loud music or rock music, I found this particular beat magnetic and mesmerising. It seemed to harness and maintain the energy. Certainly this is a real community event, despite the huge numbers of visitors – some of those visitors are exiles of Padstow, who may return from the far corners of the world to spend this one special day in their home town. And although yes, the drink flows, drunkenness is not encouraged. a young woman berating her boyfriend on the street for getting drunk. ‘This is May Day!’ she said. ‘You just don’t do that.’ There is still an element of the sacred in this ritual.
Are we red team or blue team? Old Oss or Blue Ribbon Oss? One of each seems safest!
And we experienced something of this hushed reverence the evening before. A friend of ours, a veteran of Padstow May day for decades, called us over just before closing time at the Golden Lion. ‘Just wait here,’ he said, ‘until everyone’s come out. Then we’ll go night singing.’ This lovely custom consisted of about a dozen of us heading through quiet streets to sing the May Song – albeit gently – under the windows of certain houses. People came to bedroom windows to listen, and sometimes trays of drinks and ginger fairings were brought out to refresh us. The atmosphere was magical.
Gathering for the night singing in the town on May Eve
One day I hope we’ll return to Padstow for May Day. This year though, we’ve had to give up our room at a guest house, reserved many months in advance, and live on our memories.
The Old ‘Oss team of musicians approaching the Metropole Hotel, perhaps in the hope of a quick pint
Listen to the May Day song
Related books by Cherry Gilchrist:
Russian Magic: Living Folk Traditions of an Enchanted Landscapeis a study of seasonal customs, including the Russian equivalents of British May Day – Maslnitsa and the Feast of Ivan Kupala.
The Circle of Nine includes a description and interpretation of Padstow May Day in the chapter ‘The Queen of the Earth’.
Having acquired White Lead, do the work of women, that is: COOK
An emblem from Michael Maier’s book ‘Atlanta Fugiens‘, 1617. The reference to cooking being ‘women’s work’ should probably be taken symbolically – however, women did play a strong role historically in alchemy.
‘Do you cook supper sometimes? If so, you’re an alchemist.’ This usually produces a response of surprised delight, when I open a talk on alchemy this way. Many people are drawn to old alchemical imagery, as the psychologist Carl Jung pointed out, but the process and practice of alchemy through history can seem very obscure and mysterious. The aim of my first book on alchemy, Alchemy: The Great Work was to clarify its history and significance, and it has been in print now in one form or another for over thirty years. My second book Everyday Alchemy took a different approach and asked the question: how we can ‘make gold’ in our own lives? For this, I took a sequence of alchemical emblems from Michael Maier’s book Atlanta Fugiens, published in 1617, and suggested ways in which we can use alchemical knowledge to enrich and transform our personal experience. Cookery turned out to be a very useful way of doing this!
Like alchemy, it is both art and science – it requires attention and ingenuity, as well as knowledge and skill. Cookery is magical, creative and indeed unpredictable process as it endeavours to turn raw ingredients into an appealing and attractive finished dish. Who, after all, hasn’t lamented a culinary failure, or rejoiced over a stylish and delicious success?
So what I’ll do here is to weave some pictures into edited extracts from the book, along with an easy and delicious recipe to finish. In the current days of lockdown in Britain, many more people have turned to baking. It’s comforting and creative, and although there’s a shortage of some ingredients, you may often find that you have what you need in the cupboard if you pick a recipe that’s not too complex.
Cherry in the kitchen – the apron gives a fair idea of some favourite dishes!An alchemist’s ‘kitchen’ at Prague Castle
From Chapter Three of Everyday Alchemy
Cooking – Is it really Alchemy?
Strangely enough, cooking is a very good way to appreciate how alchemy works. It is one of the best examples of transformation that we have in everyday life. But it is not just a mechanical process – remember that no alchemy is complete without conscious participation. We need to give it attention, even when the work is repetitive. This way, the transformation can proceed at every level, not just in the saucepan.
But what is transformation itself? The word comes up again and again in alchemy, so I need to take a deep breath and try to penetrate its meaning. Here is an example; it is simple, and comes from the humble kitchen, but it is true alchemy.
A few weeks ago, I decided to make some bramble jelly. It was late summer, and the days were sunny and mellow. There is a patch of wild blackberries just over my garden wall, and I picked and ate them practically every day, often just stewing them up with apples. Then I wanted to do something different, to keep the flavour of summer berries in my store cupboard through the cold months of winter ahead. I followed the recipe by cooking the blackberries in water, then straining them overnight through a canvas jelly bag. The slow drip resulted in a litre or so of a clear, dark liquid, to which I added sugar and then boiled it up. The temperature of the heat is crucial; first it must be gentle, to dissolve the sugar without burning it, and then brought up so that it is high enough to reach the ‘setting point’, the temperature at which the jelly will set. Some jellies and jams will be ready in a few minutes, while others take up to three quarters of an hour. Recipes are only a guide: the cook must be very watchful, because it’s impossible to predict exactly how long it will take.
Quince jelly, made with fruit from our garden. The jelly is being left to set before sealing the jars
You must also pour it into warmed glass jars before it sets completely. If the jars are not warmed, they may crack. If the jelly is taken off the stove too soon, you’ll have a runny mixture, and if you leave it too long it will become too rubbery and the flavour will alter. Fortunately, in my case the result was a translucent jelly, of a beautiful dark ruby colour. The pots stand in my cupboard; the berry has been transformed into a new substance, but the jelly nevertheless retains the beauty of the blackberry, and the delicacy and tang of its taste. And this jelly can be kept for months, unlike the berry that rots so quickly on the bush.
Bramble jelly became my triumph of domestic alchemy, the ‘gold’ achieved from three simple ingredients – berries, water and sugar – and transformed through the agency of fire. The jelly contains the essence of blackberry. The berry has lost its original form, but through this sacrifice, its essence is released and is embodied in a new and purer form. In alchemy, the death of the ‘body’ must occur, which then liberates the soul and spirit; these in turn find a home in a new ‘glorified’ body.
It is extraordinary to think that the humble blackberry and jelly making can be seen in such mystical terms, but true transformation has taken place. Transformation is a change of state, a process by which the whole person or substance is changed.
A modern version of ‘cooking the trout’ mentioned in the emblem above – although such instructions were usually deeply symbolic, rather than literal. In fact I think this was a sea bream we were about to eat here.
True cookery is a creative process. Cooking transforms the ingredients, whereas food fixing, or assembling, on the other hand, simply combines them into – let’s say – a tuna mayo sandwich, or a prettily presented raw salad. With cooking, there is always an element of risk that something will go wrong – the mayonnaise will curdle or the cake sag. Science may say that results can be replicated if you start with exactly the same ingredients and work in exactly the same conditions. But when is this ever possible? Who can fully predict the final taste of wine that is being made? The variables, such as the weather conditions, the state of the soil and so on, can be assessed to some extent. But perhaps there is more to it than that. After all, no one grape is ever exactly the same as any other grape. No two people are identical. The very fact of existing at a different meeting point of time and space creates differences between people, plants, or raw materials. And this is not perceived as a simple causal effect, but is tied into the alchemical view that the cosmos itself has a conscious life.
‘This whole Cosmos…is full of Life. And there is nothing therein, through all Eternity, neither of the whole nor of its parts, which doth not live. For not a single thing that is, or has been, or shall be in this Cosmos, is dead.’
The Divine Pymander of Hermes Trismegistus
( From Chapter Three of Everyday Alchemy)
A home-made loaf – bread is surely one of the greatest examples of how raw ingredients are transformed through cookery.
So, get to it, and enjoy your cooking forays! Here is an easy and super-delicious recipe from the Queen of Baking, Mary Berry, along with some notes I’ve made when cooking this. It’s comforting and simple. Remember – cooking is flexible and even though we might need to start off with exact recipes, there’s often scope for improvising. Bara Brith is a kind of Welsh tea-bread. But there are many versions of this recipe across the British Isles– in Ireland it’s known as Barm Brack. Bringing this even closer to alchemy, you might like to try an Irish Halloween Barm Brack, ‘complete with ring for love and a coin for wealth’. https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/food-and-drink/recipes/the-perfect-traditional-irish-barmbrack-1.2842588.The essential part of the process for all these recipes seems to be soaking the dried fruit in tea for a few hours beforehand, or overnight. But the Irish twist in this recipe is to add a drop or two of whisky!
Here’s our Bara Brith, made according to the recipe below. I’m afraid it’s being eaten up rather quickly!
From ‘Mary Berry’s Baking Bible’
With notes by Cherry Gilchrist
Bara Brith (Speckled bread)
175g (6 oz) currants
175 g (6 oz) sultanas (Fruit could be varied – cranberries and raisins should work too)
225 g (8 oz) light muscovado sugar (Dark should be fine)
300 ml ( ½ pt) strong hot tea
275 g (10oz) self-raising flour (or add baking powder – soda in the USA – if you only have plain flour. I calculate this at scant 2 tsp)
1 large egg, beaten
(Option to add a little spice – eg 1 tsp mixed spice, or 2 tsp cinnamon and/or a little powdered ginger)
Measure the fruit and sugar into a bowl, pour over the hot tea, cover and leave overnight. (If you make a big enough pot, this will give you an excuse to sit down with a strong cuppa afterwards.)
Pre-heat the oven to 150 degrees C/ Fan 130C. Lightly grease a 900 g (2lb) loaf tin then line the base with baking parchment
Stir the flour and egg into the fruit mixture, mix thoroughly, then turn into the prepared tin and level the surface.
Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 1 ½ hours or until well risen and firm to the touch. (Don’t skimp on the timing. It will be moist whatever you do, just about, but if it comes out too early it may be ‘sad’ and a little heavy in the middle). A skewer inserted into the centre should come out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes then turn out, peel off the parchment and finish cooling on a wire rack. Serve sliced and buttered.
Related books by Cherry Gilchrist:
Alchemy: The Great Work (also published as The Elements of Alchemy and Explore Alchemy) This is a concise and accessible history of alchemy, and explains how alchemists attempted the process of transforming base matter into gold.
Everyday Alchemy(also published as The Alchemist’s Path) is a personal guide to using the process of alchemical change in everyday life.It is currently out of print, but used copies are normally available from internet sellers like Amazon or Abe Books. We hope to organise a reprint and/or e-book edition in due course.
The first of a series of walks through my home town of Topsham
Topsham and the River Exe
I live in the tidal town of Topsham in Devon. It’s an ancient trading port on the River Exe, lying in a strategic position between the open sea at Exmouth some five miles away, and the city of Exeter further inland. When the tide is in, the widest stretch of water you can see downriver is about one mile across. At low tide, it’s little more than a channel winding through vast acres of mud.
During the lockdown, I’ve been taking a daily walk around a two mile circuit, past the quayside, up the Strand where the merchants once lived, along the narrow riverside path known as the Goat Walk, around by the bird reserve at Bowling Green Marsh, then back down historic Monmouth St and home via the town centre. At this quiet hour of the very early morning, in the springtime, it has been a truly magical experience.
Let me confess something. I love passing on what I know, and what I have discovered. I also love local history and have read and studied enough to become one of the Town Guides, one of a team offering public walks throughout the summer months. Sadly, we can’t do so this year because of the pandemic. But perhaps on this blog I can show you a few walks around the town, and the stories that go with them.
This is the first therefore in a series of posts dedicated to Topsham, the town and its history. The photos will mostly come from my morning walks, but I’ll pick a few that I’ve taken previously, to fill in any gaps.
‘Topsham-on-the-Mud’ is the town’s nickname, although the mud can be very beautiful too, in its own way. Mud football matches were once held here, and you can even see a Blue Peter video about it.
The Topsham ferry plies a summer and weekend trade to take walkers and cyclists across the river, to follow the path up to the pub Turf locks. In living memory, though, it was still a key means of transport for nurses to get over to Exminster for their shifts at the mental hospital there, and for Exminster residents to come to work in Topsham.
The stretch of river where the ferry crosses, and the Lock Keeper’s cottage on the other side. A canal runs parallel to the river here.Presentation of a commemorative carving to Mike, the retiring Ferryman. It used to be a paid post but is now run by volunteers.
Many ships were built in Topsham over the centuries, and there’s still one boatyard left today, run by the appositely named Trout family. The old hull of the ship is said to be a relic, abandoned after the boat builder died tragically.
The abandoned boat
The Lighter Inn was once the Customs House on the quayside. Nowadays it’s a popular pub with plenty of outside tables, a good vantage point for watching morris-dancing displays, music bands and other outdoor festivals over the summer months. To one side is an aged Thames barge, of the kind that used to sail upriver to Topsham. It’s now being lovingly – and very slowly! – restored.
Sailors came to and from Topsham from countries across the globe, especially Holland, Spain, and Portugal – at some periods, you could apparently hear more Portuguese than English spoken in the town! From the end of the 17th century, Topsham fishermen sailed to Newfoundland, where they had a summer colony. They fished for cod, salted it, and often came home via the Mediterranean to sell it en route. Rewards could be high, but the risks were great.
Morris outside The Lighter, and a close-up of The King’s Beam, a rare example of this old Customs weighing device.
The Strand is worthy of a future post, when we walk this way again, but for now I’ll just point out the beautiful merchants’ houses dating from the 17th and 18th centuries. The Dutch-style gables were inspired by their frequent trips to Holland, and plenty of narrow Dutch-made bricks were used in the buildings. The town Museum is housed here in a merchant’s house.
When you reach the end of the Strand, you can be faced with either an eternity of water or a huge expanse of mud – the town is nicknamed ‘Topsham-on-the-Mud’. Where does water end and sky begin? Alternatively, how could a boat possibly still navigate the channel at low tide? The answer is: only until a certain point in the ebbing tide. The other town ferry which runs up to Turf Locks has a very strict timetable, and if you miss your boat back from the pub there, you could be in for several more rounds before it returns. Turf pub was where sea captains used to wait up until the tide was right for them to put to sea, and it’s said that upstairs, you can still see the graffiti which they idly scratched into the 18th century windowpanes.
High tide on the river. Where does the water end and the sky begin? The sea is a distant line on the horizon, with Exmouth on the left. The river is a mile across at its widest point.
For a while, we rented a flat along the Strand, and amused ourselves on summer evenings listening to the screech of brakes as visiting drivers suddenly realised that they were approaching a dead end, leading straight into the river!
Some road users only see how the road ends rather late…
Pedestrians have it a little easier, since there is a narrow path, built up the side of the river in 1911. It’s a useful route, since you can get around to the other side of the town this way. Previously, there was only a path along the shore at low tide. However, rather than being grateful for the new walkway, the locals complained it was ‘only wide enough for a bleddy goat’. Hence it’s known today as The Goat Walk. It’s still the scene of contested space as joggers try to overtake pedestrians, and cyclists defy the ban to ride down there. But it’s now a much-loved feature of the town.
The Goat Walk, famous for its narrowness. If you’re on the path itself, care is needed as it’s a perilous drop into mud or water below. At low tide, as here, you can walk along the shore.
Bowling Green Marsh is now a Nature Reserve, with a renowned and popular bird hide. In winter you can see large flocks of avocets (very elegant, like small black and white flamingos), hundreds of curlews and godwits, Brent geese, redshanks, wigeon and teal. Rarities appear, such as a spoonbill or a long-billed dowitcher. Little snipe like furry humbugs hide in the long grass; herons stalk the water, rows of egrets stand and contemplate life, and sometimes a marsh harrier or even a migrating osprey visits. This wonderful reserve has been created out of old marshland which lies along the banks of the River Clyst, which flows to meet the Exe at the top of the Goat Walk. Previously, it plainly had something to do with bowling, and definitely once contained the local football pitch. Less amusingly, it was also a hunting ground for those shooting ducks and wildfowl.
Some of the pools at the Bowling Green Nature reserve, awakening in the early morning light.
The lane is bursting with song from the smaller birds – wrens, a chiff chaff, robins, doves and pigeons, a magpie, tits of all kinds, with percussion supplied by a woodpecker industriously pecking away at an old oak tree every morning. It’s time to go home for breakfast.
On this website, you’ll see decorative images acting as headers for the pages, which change as you revisit the site. What are they? Take a closer look, and you’ll see that they are embroideries. They are taken from a group of textiles known as ‘suzani’, mostly made in and around Uzbekistan.
Suzani were originally embroidered by nomads from countries in and around Uzbekistan, and used as bed covers, wrapping cloths and even as prayer mats. All their textiles and soft furnishings had to be easy to roll up and transport, which didn’t deter the nomads of Central Asia from making them as beautiful as possible, whether as weavings, felt applique or embroideries, as we have here. The word ‘suzan’ comes from the Persian, meaning ‘needle’.
In more settled modern communities, suzani are made now as hangings or bedspreads, as part of the bride’s dowry. Museums and palaces in Uzbekistan have beautiful examples of these, and you can buy a newly-made one if you’re lucky, as I was, though maybe not as exquisite as the antique pieces. (My cat Cassie believes it was brought back especially for her.)
Cassie on the coverlet – Homage to Mr Pussy and Schrodinger of Spitalfields Life. See links below.
Most suzani are made out of cotton, which is a major crop in Uzbekistan. The motifs are mostly stars, fruits, leaves and flowers, and each has its own symbolic meaning, such as fertility, happiness and wealth. Even a snake can bring good fortune to the newly-married couple as a protector, the guide at Tashkent Museum told us. Solar images may be symbols passed down from the ancient Zoroastrian religion, where the sun stands for truth and wisdom.
On my journeys down the Silk Road, I caught wonderful glimpses of crafts like these, which whetted my curiosity to learn more about them and their history. And also the temptation to buy – my luggage was bulging after each trip! I plan to write about a few more of these Silk Road treasures as the blog develops.
And in the meantime, you can read an excellent short article on Suzani on the art dealers Christie’s website here .
If you enjoy seeing cats on coverlets, I recommend reading about the Gentle Author’s cats at the renowned Spitalfields Life website – see blogs about the inimitable Mr Pussy and his successor Shrodinger.
The historic village of Hemyock, in the Blackdown Hills
I was idly browsing the online newspaper archive one evening, looking for entries about my respectable great-grandmother, Mary Masey Walker and her staunchly Baptist family from the Devon village of Hemyock. They may have been pious, but they were also entrepreneurs. Mary’s mother Catherine had begun making butter, and soon expanded the business into a sizeable and successful dairy. Becoming ultra-respectable and prosperous, they then moved over the Blackdown Hills into the nearby town of Wellington, becoming pillars of the community there. The last thing I was expecting was scandal – until I hit upon a startling court case from 1869 headed:
Walker versus Salter – An action for seduction
The defendant, one Edwin Masey Walker (and as it happens, my 2 x great uncle), was accused of deflowering a young girl called Jane Salter, getting her pregnant, trying to persuade her to have an abortion, and eventually abandoning her. Jane had kept the baby, and now her own mother was suing Edwin for ‘loss of her daughter’s services’.
I’m probably the first member of the family since that generation to come across these newspaper reports – I’m sure that it was swiftly hushed up after the event. There are several accounts of the two trials, delivering the sordid details with gleeful relish. Edwin was the son of Catherine nee Masey and Thomas Walker. Both the Maseys and the Walkers had been in Hemyock since at least as early as the 17th century, two of prominent and close-knit tribes of the village.
Hemyock lying at the foot of the Blackdown Hills; dairy herds do well in this area
At the time of the scandal, the dairy was doing well. My formidable 2 x gt grandmother Catherine had twelve children, and she and her husband roped many of them in to help out both with the dairy and their local shop. Catherine’s reputation lived on after her; according to family memory, certain visiting reps would always try to make an appointment to visit on a day when she was not in charge! The dairy certainly took off as a business, and Catherine and Thomas decided to expand it by moving to Wellington. Here they also acquired a comfortable new brick-built villa, something now more suited to dairy owners, the Walkers of Wellington. And Edwin was told to change his ideas – his father had found a new candidate for him to marry, someone more suitable than a country cousin such as Jane.
The formidable Catherine Walker, nee Masey, who sales representatives feared to deal with.
But Jane Salter, back in the village of Hemyock, now wrote to him Edwin to tell him she was pregnant. The statements read out in court declared that not only had he reneged on his promise to marry her, but he had instead committed the unpardonable sin of offering her money to go to Sidmouth for an abortion. (From the tone of the report, it seems that in those days, Sidmouth had a reputation as the Devonian den of vice.) And at that point, Mrs Salter decided to bring the whole matter to court.
‘Up the Steps’ – probably a former shop run by the Walker family in Hemyock
Now the counter accusations flared up. Edwin had primed his defence, Mr Prideaux QC, to interrogate Mrs Salter about the nature of the house she kept in Hemyock. Was it not, in fact, a bawdy house? Was young Jane no better than she ought to be, coming from such a home? He had a witness: John Pursey, confirmed that he and another friend had had sexual relations many times with both Jane and her sister Sarah – and while the girls slept in one bed. Was Jane then really an innocent deflowered maiden? According to Pursey, she shared her favours generously around the neighbourhood.
The judge hovered, almost ready to throw the case out, but Mr Collins, Mrs Salter’s attorney, leapt heatedly to Jane’s defence, and protested that the ‘abominable insinuations’ would be refuted by the ‘minister of the parish’ who would testify to the family’s ‘irreproachable characters’. If this was the Baptist minister, then the temperature was getting hot indeed, with Edwin’s family also prominent in Baptist circles. The Baptist Church abhorred any sex outside marriage at the time; people were often excluded from the church for less.
And so the jury found in favour of Mrs Salter, with Edwin ordered to pay £50 damages, just over £2000 by today’s values.
Wellington High Street, a grander place to live than Hemyock for the ambitious Walker familyThe solid villa in Waterloo Road which Thomas and Catherine Walker moved to
But that was not the end of the matter. John Pursey was brought back to court on Wed August 3rd, 1870, accused of perjury. The ‘friend’, Robert Wright, who said he had slept with both girls, hastened to back off from his testimony. John now maintained that he had plainly fallen into a kind of trance, and that he had found himself by the girls’ bedside one day with no idea of how he had got there. Of one thing he was no sure – there had been no intimacy. Edith Salter likewise denied that her house ‘was frequented by young men who played cards and drank to a late hour.’ The colourful accusations were hurled backwards and forwards in court that day, which finally resulted in a bemused verdict by the jury that ‘there was a doubt in the case’, and so Pursey was released.
After I’d investigated this scandal, I was contacted by two new descendants. One was descended from Edwin’s legitimate heirs – his father Thomas Walker had indeed persuaded Edwin to marry into a better family – and the other was the grandson of the illegitimate daughter with Jane Salter. Jane had defiantly named her daughter Emily Masey Walker Salter, and sadly, my new contact confirmed that Emily had carried a sense of betrayal and resentment all her life. Both of these men, who didn’t know each other, were curious to know anything I could tell them about their ancestor Edwin. I pondered this – one of the ethical dilemmas of family history can be whether to tell the whole truth. My solution was this: to both of them I replied that I could certainly do so, but I should warn them that nobody came out of this very well. Did they still want me to go ahead? Oh yes, they each replied enthusiastically – please dish the dirt!
A rather faded but telling photo of Edwin Masey Walker – note the rather flashy tie pin. The census reveals that he was born with a club foot.
There was some rough justice, as Edwin didn’t make a success of his life. He became a failed and bankrupt businessman several times over, and his socially desirable marriage ended in separation. Meanwhile, others in the family prospered. Two other sons, Clifford and Eustace Walker took over the dairy business and became pillars of society. Eustace served as a Justice of the Peace and Portreeve of Wellington, while Clifford built a classy mansion known as the Gables, where the cream of the town gathered for tennis parties on the lawn. They died well-established and wealthy, and the dairy was not forgotten even after various take-overs and its final demolition in the 1980s. ‘Walkers Gate’, a small development of executive-style houses, is built on the site. I think formidable Catherine would have approved.
The housing development standing on the site of the old Walker’s Dairy, run very successfully by Eustace and Clifford Walker, Edwin’s brothersThe dairy as it used to be in its closing days of business. It was the principal employer in the town. The Walker family had sold it on some decades beforehand.A more flattering newspaper story than the reports of Edwin’s court case
As for my great grandmother Mary, family memory relates that she resented acting as a nursemaid to her six younger brothers and sisters, and was only too pleased to an offer of marriage from the Rev David Owen. Great-grandfather David arrived in his first pastorate in Hemyock as a newly-qualified Baptist Minister from mid-Wales. The story also relates how he found the Devon mindset too closed for his liking, (he was a highly-educated scholar of Hebrew and Greek, even though he came from humble beginnings), which is why he whisked his bride off to a new life in Ohio, USA. They returned later to England, but never a word was breathed about the scandal of the wicked great uncle Edwin.
In the 1980s, I used to live on Exmoor and would drive over to Wellington to buy feed for my horse and chickens. The dairy was still operating then as a sizeable factory, and under a different name. I had no idea that it had a family connection. Since then, I’ve moved away, and then back again to Exeter, from where I’ve explored Hemyock and Wellington more thoroughly, seeking out the family stories. What has struck me is the comparative remoteness of Hemyock as a historic but quiet village, reached by a maze of lanes, whereas Wellington has what must once have been Victorian sophistication, and was well-connected to places further afield. Although there are only five miles between them, they are two different worlds. I have pity for the girl that Edwin abandoned, but am also proud of the 2 x great grandmother who set the scene for family success. Family history can certainly be a cause of conflicting emotions.
Moving over the hill, from Hemyock to Wellington, certainly brought about a new era of family life for the Walker family, but was also the cause of a scandal long hidden out of sight.
If you’re interested in viewing another blog which focuses on discovering lost ancestors, try:
Cherry's Cache 