A Country Lass: The Memoirs of Joyce Abbey

By Joyce Abbey

Born in 1926 in a cottage on the Pepper Arden country estate in North Yorkshire, Joyce Badby’s quiet life as a country lass was shaken up by World War Two, when the idyllic village of Scorton where she grew up was taken over by an RAF base. As a teenager, Joyce worked as the village post lady and danced with airmen from America and Canada, before meeting Edgar Abbey, the only man she ever loved: Married on a snowy day in 1948, they were a dedicated couple, raising a family and working together at Goole Municipal Baths until their retirement. Globe-trotting and grandchildren followed, and Joyce looks back on a life full of changes, achievements, love and dedication.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781326777654

Book preview

A Country Lass: The Memoirs of Joyce Abbey

A Country Lass

The memoirs of

Joyce Abbey

Dedicated to my devoted husband Edgar

and my family and friends.

Copyright © 2016 by Joyce Abbey

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

Transcribed and edited by Anne Grange of Wild Rosemary Writing Services.

www.wildrosemarywritingservices.wordpress.com

Contents

Chapter 1: Before I was born

Chapter 2: Early Childhood

Chapter 3: Moving to Scorton

Chapter 4: Life goes on after Mam’s death

Chapter 5: War Breaks out in Scorton

Chapter 6: The End of the War

Chapter 7: Meeting Edgar

Chapter 8: Our Snowy Wedding

Chapter 9: Moving to Goole

Chapter 10: Starting a Family

Chapter 11: Family Holidays

Chapter 12: Working at Goole Baths

Chapter 13: Growing Up and Moving On

Chapter 14: Globe-Trotting

Chapter 15: New Generations

Chapter 16: Losing Edgar

Nana’s Poems

Research and references

Chapter 1: Before I was born

My parents, Florence and Albert Badby, married on the 17th November, 1913, at All Saints Church in East Cowton in North Yorkshire.

My dad worked with horses on the Pepper Arden estate nearby.

He served in the army in World War One. I’ve got a photograph of him in uniform, and you can tell by the crop he’s holding that he worked with horses during the war too.

He was in the East Surrey Regiment, in the Army Service Corps and we’ve found out that his rank was driver. That didn’t mean driving vehicles; he would have driven horse wagons with supplies of all kinds for the troops, essential, but really difficult work.

Dad was taken prisoner on 9th April 1918 at Armentières in France. He was a prisoner of war in German hands, in Dülmen Camp and was then moved to the Hameln. According to Red Cross records, he was there by 10th June 1918. He wouldn’t talk about what had happened to him, because people didn’t in those days. All we’ve got to go on are some photographs of him in uniform and the official paperwork, which we’ve still got.

The letter from the East Surrey Regiment Prisoners of War Committee dates from June 1918.

The letter to my mum from the East Surrey Regiment Prisoners of War Care Committee confirms that my dad was a prisoner of war and details the rations sent out to him: food, soap and cigarettes. The letter asks for contributions towards food parcels, and requests my dad’s measurements so that the Care Committee could send him extra clothes. The families of POWs were allowed to send letters, as long as they didn’t contain any information about the war.

He must have had a terrible time. But perhaps, if he hadn’t been taken prisoner, I wouldn’t be here to tell the tale either!

My mum’s maiden name was Florence Ellerton. She was born in 1890, to Richard George Ellerton (born in 1859), and Elizabeth Ellerton (born in 1860), in North Cowton in North Yorkshire.

On the 3rd November, 1890, my grandfather Richard died, and my grandmother took over from him to become the innkeeper of the pub in North Cowton, the Blacksmiths Arms.

My mother was an Ellerton. There were five children from that marriage: my mam, Florence, Aunty Alice, and Aunty Isabel Belle, who ran a nursing home in London. She used to come up to Huddersfield to see Aunty Alice, which were the only times that I ever met her.

They had two brothers who emigrated to Canada before the First World War: Christopher, who we always called Uncle Kitt, and Robert, Uncle Bob! Bob stayed in Canada.

Uncle Kitt married, and he came back to England, settling in East Cowton. They had four daughters. Two of them had straight ginger hair, and the other two were curly. They were beautiful girls. Alice (named after Aunty Alice), looked just like a film star. One of them worked and lived at the Scotch Corner Hotel, going up the A1 towards Darlington.

Uncle Kitt had a grocer’s shop in the village, and he also owned traction engines, steam engines that did the threshing on farms at harvest time. In the winter, they used to use the traction engines for sawing wood and selling logs.

My grandmother’s second family were Wades. My grandmother remarried in 1892, to John Thomas Wade (we called him Grandad Wade), and went on to have five more children: Mary, born in 1893, William (uncle Bill), born in 1894, Margaret (known to me as Madge), born in 1897, John Jack, born in 1889, and Edward Ted, in 1903.

The only grandparent I knew was Grandad Wade, who lived with Aunty Mary. I never knew any of the others. Unfortunately, Grandma Wade (Elizabeth), died on the 9th March 1903.

My dad wasn’t a local lad. He’d travelled up to the Pepper Arden estate near Scorton in North Yorkshire, with his brothers and sisters from Croughton in Oxfordshire for work.

Croughton is a tiny rural village, near the Blenheim estate. Croughton, by a strange coincidence, was to have a strategic RAF airfield on its doorstep, just like Scorton, the village where I grew up in North Yorkshire.

My family were all country people, going back generations. Sadly, I never met them. We only knew them by letter. They used to send us parcels at Christmas, but you can see by the photograph of them that they were very poor folks. They used to send Christmas cake and gloves and scarves and a few sweets every year. I’ve still got a postcard from them, saying that my grandmother hadn’t been very well, but that she was sending us a parcel.

Five brothers and sisters, including my father, came up to Yorkshire to look for work and to settle down. I can’t say for sure, but they must have had firm offers of work to travel so far, to another rural part of the country. There was a lot of farming work near Pepper Arden. I used to wonder how they’d travelled here – they must have come in a cattle truck!

Uncle George lived at Bedale, and he had quite a family. He used to cycle from Bedale to Scorton to come to visit us. Another of the brothers never married and settled in Darlington.

One of dad’s sisters, Aunty Rhoda, lived near Laxton. She’d had a boy, Percy, out of wedlock, and she brought him up here with her and married a local chap, Sidney Laking, who was a marvellous fellow. He could put himself to anything. But I remember that she didn’t have a lot about her. She looked like my grandmother on that side of the family, little and fat.

My dad and my grandad both worked on the huge Pepper Arden estate. It was owned by the Chermside and Gatty families at the time that I knew it. I never met the owner, Lady Chermside, but the family always put on a Christmas party for the local children, which I always attended.

Sadly, my mam had lost two children in infancy before I was born: Elizabeth, who was born in 1915 and Maurice, who was born in 1916. Both of them were less than a year old when they died.

I had four older brothers: Norman, born in 1914, Ray, born in 1920, Don, born in 1923, and Ken, born in 1925.

The invitation to my parents’ wedding, before the outbreak of WWI

Albert Badby in his WWI Army Uniform.

Albert Badby with his WWI regiment.

Albert is on the back row, second from the right.

Dad’s parents, George and Charlotte Jane, outside their cottage in Oxfordshire.

Chapter 2: Early Childhood

I was born to Florence and Albert Badby on the 30th August 1926. I lived with my mam and dad and my four older brothers in the weighbridge house that was part of the stable block of the Pepper Arden estate. Living there was a lot nicer than it looks on the outside.

My dad worked in the stables, and my grandad looked after the main drive, and he also made sure that the wrought iron gates were locked every night. Grandad Wade and my Aunty Mary lived in the lodge house, just next to the main gates. It was a beautiful little house.

I was always puzzled by the driveway that led to the big house. The middle of the drive was kept clear, but there were two rows of chippings at either side of the drive, and Grandad Wade had to keep them swept. Perhaps, in those days when people still had horse-drawn carriages, the chippings made it easier for the carriage to stop.

The grounds were wooded, with lots of different kinds of trees, and it was very rural. I don’t remember much about life at Pepper Arden. It must have been a beautiful place to live for a small child, with trees and fields all around. My mum kept chickens and we had a small vegetable garden. We must have grown flowers too, because there’s a photograph of me in the garden there in the spring as a small child, with primroses and snowdrops in my hands.

I remember walking across the fields to North Cowton to go to school when I was very little. There was a castle, which we had to skirt around, and the churchyard, and then we had to cross another main road to go into the village. I was only aged about five at the time! Don and Ken would take me.

Ken was only a year older than me, having been born in 1925, and Don was born in 1923, so he would have only been eight! My brother Dennis was born in 1930, and he was four years younger than me.

I remember eating