Bob Derham has been a close friend of mine for too many years.  We first met in Cyprus when it was my Winter base for cruising the Med. and have kept in touch ever since.  He will be embarrassed by me describing him as one of life’s gentlemen.  It’s great to have Bob’s occasional Post but when you read this, his first, you will get an excellent idea of how this person views the world.  By the way, here is a picture of Bob’s office! (And more details for aviation buffs!) PH.

A chance to pause awhile and reflect.

We are lucky enough to live in a special part of England in the county of Hampshire, in a part called the New Forest which used to be the hunting ground of William the Conqueror. Our village is called Woodgreen, and as part of the forest, Cows, Ponies, and Pigs are free to roam, kept within the forest confines by cattle grids. Our house is one of several which are thatched and surround the common, in the middle of which is a cricket pitch.

The house is over 400 years old, and at one stage was lived in by a Mrs C F Alexander, the lady who wrote the words to many of the well know hymns and carols, such as All Things Bright and Beautiful, O Little town of Bethlehem, Once in Royal David’s City and There is a green hill far away.

As part of an on going project to improve the house we recently took the plaster off the walls of the sitting room and repaired the cob walls which are a mixture of mud, straw and dung.   We took down the old lathe and

plaster ceiling to expose the beams which we had sand blasted, and the inglenook fire place was cleaned up to house a new wood burning stove, and new French doors were fitted looking out to the garden.Ah yes the garden ! Down at the bottom of most gardens is an area where people put their odds and ends. Little corners suitable for keeping rotting vegetables, or grass cuttings, from a period long before recycling where we now have to put all the packaging we acquire from today’s purchases to send off in plastic sacks.

The chance to have a shed for bicycles and garden equipment would be a great help in order to free up the old wood garage that could be used as a work shop. So to work ! In this corner of the garden the level of soil was very high, but of excellent quality, ideal for the plants, or in our case to landscape the garden where I have put in an above ground swimming pool for the children.

I got a skip in and started sifting the soil and was amazed by the things I started to find. There was a lot of broken glass, including the base of a very old wine glass, little medicine bottles made from clay and glazed. A broken tea pot lid, and  pottery, just small samples from an age gone by. Who were these people who had used these items in the past? There were very large lumps of coal which had obviously come straight from a seam. It was very dark and black.  Maybe I could remember something like this from a time when I used to visit my Grandmother.

There were large pieces of rusting metal. One far too big to identify, it was like a club.  I came across the jawbone of an animal, a dog I think. Who’s dog ? What was it’s name?  Did it sleep in the same place as our dogs do today ?

Then there were beautiful pieces of porcelain, and bone china. Who used these original items? Was it Mrs Alexander? Did people used to come round for afternoon tea? Was the tea service a wedding present ?  What were the neighbours like?  How did they dress?  Was the button I found from a smart tunic, or work clothes such as I was wearing?

Slightly different is the privet hedge, which is now a source of food for the stick insects that our children keep, but our neighbour just came round with some runner beans, and we might soon be keeping chickens here so will be able to take them eggs in return.

Perhaps nothing much has changed in our village life.  Perhaps one day somebody from another generation will find the spanner that my son has lost somewhere in the garden, or the funny shaped key that we can’t find, and wonder what we were like?

The house is called Mulberry Cottage and in the front garden is a 400 year old mulberry tree.  It is not native to England, but was apparently brought back by the Crusaders, the leaves being the food of the silk worms. Today we are about to pick the fruit.  Just who are all those people who have eaten from this tree?

Echoes from a rural past!

By Bob Derham

• History