Many years ago,more than I care to remember I was a little tacker on a North Devon farm in a little village called East Knowstone.The next village,a mile away...Knowstone,was known as "town" because it had a pub,church,chapel and a village shop.
I called my farm THE FARMHOUSE TREE because it was as old as an oak tree and the rooms and outbuildings were the branches.No electricity.No mains drainage.No mains water.Water pumped up in back kitchen from a spring in Higher Orchard field,crystal clear and ice-cold.Brought to the farmhouse tree through hundreds of yards of lead pipe,laid in the early part of the 1900s.
I lived in my farmhouse tree with my mum,dad,aged maiden aunt and two imaginary friends Jim and Derek.And of course the shire horse Charlie,the power behind the farm.I had a great life in a time which has stayed with me ever since and which I now attempt to recapture in my writing for the local paper the WESTERN MORNING NEWS which covers the whole of the South West of England.TOBE CONTINUED.....
I've loved Dave's wonderful articles about his early life since he started sending them to me.
ReplyDeleteThey are a picture of an almost vanished world.
But here's the thing, that world is not only still relevant, it also feeds a hunger that you might not realise you have until you start reading. They are lore from a simpler, and dare I say it, better time.
Read and enjoy, and then give thanks for Dave's incredible memory.