COVER STORY Robin Mills met Maurice Barnes in Symondsbury
© Maurice Barnes Photograph by Robin Mills
’I
was born in the village, on a farm at Miles Cross, just up the hill and down over. November 4th 1927. After the First World War ended, Father was living in a chicken shed on Eype Down. He had been able to save up enough money during the war when he had been a prisoner of the Germans by selling his tobacco and drink rations to the other prisoners. He didn’t smoke or drink himself. With the money he rented the field and bought the shed and a cow. He also worked at Crepe Farm where he met my mother. Her father was also working there and they met whilst she was taking him his lunch. They then had to save up for seven years before they could afford to get married. The bed I was born on is still in the Old Rectory here in the village. All four brass knobs are still on it. I went to school here in Symondsbury, and I can remember Father saying to me as I went to school, passing where they were milking the cows beside the road: “Nine more years to go to school”. I passed for Grammar School when I was 11, and Father said, “You ain’t going there, you’ve got to work”.
Tel. 01308 423031 The Marshwood Vale Magazine April 2022 3
