LivingHistoryoftheSouth Downs

Living histor y of the South Downs

Recorded memories from older residents by Chris Hare

The South Downs Generations Project, as part of the Friends of the South Downs, set out to record the history and folklore of the South Downs, and to work with schools, imparting this wonderful heritage to a new generation. One strand of our project was to conduct oral history interviews, talking with older people who had lived all their lives in the South Downs, about the changes they had seen, the events they had witnessed, and the people they had met and worked with. I was really pleased that our interviewees came from all backgrounds and had very different life experiences. For example, we interviewed Lord Egremont in his garden at Petworth House, and we interviewed David Johnston, who, as a child, was one of the last people, with his mother, to suffer the indignity of having to find shelter in a workhouse. We interviewed retired farm labourers and farmers, people who lived in towns and people who lived in villages. When I look back on it now. Christabel Barran lives in a remote medieval farmhouse which sits alone in a secluded valley and – for a moment – you might be forgiven for thinking that the twentieth and twenty-first centuries had never happened. She is happy and content and has tenants for company. Christabel inherited the farm from her parents, who in their turn had inherited from an aunt, who was both eccentric and fearless. One hundred years ago, this aunt befriended gypsies travelling through, when no one else would. In the late 1920s, these gypsies decided to settle down, but asked if they could leave their gypsy caravan at the farm. Christabel’s great-aunt agreed. They said they would come back every year to maintain their caravan, and so they did. When I asked Christabel when they stopped coming, she astonished me by telling me “Oh, they still come, every year.” How amazing is that? And, yes, the caravan is still there and resplendent in its original Victorian colours. Andrew Shaxson, at 71, our youngest interviewee, can still point to huge changes in rural and farming life since he was born. When he was a small boy, it was still usual for a South Downs farm to employ between 12 and 20 men, today only a handful are required. Indeed Andrew’s old farm is now run and managed by one man: technology and occasional contract workers fulfil the need. Even when sitting in the cab of the combine harvester, this one man can be working on his laptop, while an on-board computer system using Sat Nav Ploughing in Chanctonbury Ring ©West Sussex Record Office guides the huge machine up and down the field. Christopher Passmore, at 90 was our oldest interviewee. For his whole life he farmed the South Downs north of Sompting, as his father and grandfather had done before him. Let no one imagine that Christopher’s 90 years had dimmed his recollections. The old shepherds still held sway over farming life in the 1930s. These men had received hardly any formal education, yet, Christopher explained, they knew as much about animals, husbandry, and the weather, “as if they had been to university.” They were wise and patient, and content with their life. Christopher also remembered the singing of the old South Downs folk songs, particularly at the ‘Harvest Home’ supper that was kept up in most farms until the outbreak of war in 1939. He also remembered the broad country accents that were once spoken all across the South Downs, yet rarely heard now. However, those wishing to hear ‘True Sussex’ spoken, really must listen to our interview with John and Bernie Hills of Stedham. I really thought I had heard my last South Downs ‘burr’, but I was surprised and delighted to hear the brothers talk about their eventful life in the manner of the forefathers. The interviews, amongst other delights of South Downs Heritage, are all available to listen to at www.southdownsgenerations.org.uk Readers might also like to look at Chris’ own website, www.historypeople.co.uk