Before this blinking rationing came in, that is in the old days, there were two shops in the village. My husband’s mother and father used to keep a dairy, and we had a general store. Our name was Green too, and you could always hear people saying they were going to Oily Greens or else Milky Greens; that’s how they used to tell us apart.
But the capers we have to get up to looking after people’s rations these days! What with points and coupons and books of this, that and the other. Half of them still don’t understand what it’s about, you know, not even after all this time. Specially the Old-Age Pensioners, poor things, they come in with about two points left in their ration books and say they’ll have a tin of this and a tin of the other and, well, honestly they don’t seem to know what you’re talking about when you tell them they can’t have it. I do feel sorry for them, specially them that live by themselves.
Of course, before the war when times were a bit hard it was just as much trouble really, only in a different way. There wasn’t the money about at all in those days. I’ve had little kiddies come into the shop on a Saturday and ask for a piece of string to tie up their mother’s pudding with for Saturday’s dinner, they couldn’t afford it, honest! And I used to keep all my string during the week to give out to them on Saturdays, and now there’s plenty of string but no pudding!
One of the queerest customers I ever did have, though, was an old lady of over seventy. Dear old soul she was, and she’s dead now. I don’t suppose she’d mind me telling you. She used to come in once a week for her pension, you see, for years she came. And she wore twelve petticoats. All her money was kept in a silver box wrapped up in a strip of antimacassar and tucked away in a pocket in one of these petticoats. Well, I always had to get this box out, put the money in it and put it back under her petticoats. And what a game! Twelve of ‘em she had, and every week we had this little performance behind the counter. She had two hundred pounds in that box. Anyway in the end she handed the box over to me altogether and asked me to keep it.
*Mrs Betty Green, broadcast on Country Magazine, August 1 1943, BBC Home Service, reproduced from F. Dillon ed. (1950) Country Magazine: Book of the BBC Programme, pp72-73, Odhams. Mrs Green, nee Talbot, was the wife of Bill Green, son of Herbert and Alice Green.
Dylan Thomas: We are at The Fleece in the old Oxfordshire market town of Witney – seven people from the valley of the Windrush and myself –eight, counting our landlord Mr Walker, who has all my sympathy. We’ve turned his pub upside down...I’ll start the introductions at the village I live in – South Leigh – and work upstream...I don’t know quite what to call you, Steve – cowman....barman?
I’m a proper farm worker, Mr Thomas, you ought to know that – trouble is you only see me night time when I’m behind the bar.
Mr. Steve Claridge – of Ivy Farm, Southleigh – combined farm and pub in the good old style...tell us how you came to be a barman. [Ivy Farm aka the Mason Arms was run by Albert Hopkins]
I’m not a barman – only except after evening milking. I’m a farm worker as I told you before. I'm a farm worker because I like it. There ain’t nothing in this world I’d rather do. When I was a boy I used to work in my school holidays, for five weeks from morning till night. On a farm. Leading horses, weeding, mud-scraping, any sort of job a boy could do. Fifeteen shillings for the whole five weeks, that’s what I used to get. And I been at it ever since. I worked in a house once for a bit but I kept on at our Mum till she just had to let me get out on a farm again, and there I stayed.
You’ve been at Ivy Farm a good bit, I know.
Twenty-one years I’ve worked for this guvnor alone – and to me there’s two sights in the world really worth seeing. That’s a proper built and thatched rick and a well ploughed furrow. And two things I like doing better than anything else – working with two good horses or milking a damn good cow. Believe you me, Mr Thomas, if you get a bit of grub and you like your work, all you need is a laugh now and again and – well, that’s all you need. And a glass of beer sometimes.
That’s all I want – sometimes...
But mind you, this ‘ere tinned grub from America won’t do you much good. Now I killed a pig last week and that’s the stuff – home-cured bacon. But you younger people don’t like that I know – you’d rather have the smoked stuff out o’ shops.
I like home cured bacon.
Town folk don’t like it, you know – not the real fat bacon.
Mr Lander asks: Are you short of labour, like everyone else?
We’ve got a few Germans and we get along all right. But the youngsters, they won’t work on the farm today, no matter what.
Mr Johnston says: I think I could get plenty of ‘em, if only I could offer them houses.
Well, you can’t blame ‘em, can you?
*February 8 1948 The Windrush Valley A BBC Country Magazine broadcast from The Fleece in Witney, with Dylan Thomas as the compere, with thanks to the BBC Written Archives Centre, Reading.
Well, I’ve met up with a man who used to be the milkman here in South Leigh, Mr Harry Moody...did you actually have any cows at all?
Oh, yes, I had about eighteen at one time.
I suppose when you first started you went round with a bucket and pail.
I did have a bucket and pail but then I started bottling me own, had a little stamp, I could put the tops on and all. It was rather nice because you met all the people in the village. It was really excellent.
And at that time there was quite a famous person living in the village...
Yes, Dylan Thomas. I know I went there one day and he said “What do you bring me milk for, Harry...I’d rather have a bottle of beer anytime for my breakfast, than milk.”
What was he doing in the village?
He was trying to write. He’d been on the verge of being great. He thought he’d get the silence here but he couldn’t settle down and he went off to Wales in the end. I went to his farewell party...
Did everyone in the village know Dylan Thomas?
Oh, everyone knew Dylan, yes, oh yes, he used to be a regular down at our local pub here.
*John Simpson with Harry Moody, December 2 1973, courtesy of BBC Radio Oxford www.bbc.co.uk/radiooxford)