The Great War had ended two years ago but many families were still grieving their losses in East Hall. The winding lane from Keeper’s Cottage to Knight’s Farm was in full blossom with buckthorn and crab apple. In the gentle spring sunshine, wild grasses and meadow flowers were bursting out of the verges with new growth. Birds of all sizes darted across the track in front of her and the only sounds in the air were their love songs. It was April 23rd, her birthday, and she had been told by her mother to go and thank Mrs Knight, the farmer’s wife, for the smart new pair of school shoes she had given her as a present. They were a bit big right now but with some scrunched up newspaper in the toes, no one would ever notice. She had always felt a bit special with her dad and mum being in service at the Bury. Most of her neighbours had been in service in some way
or other and items from the Bury were often passed on to children of estate workers as the Bowes Lyon children grew out of them. The Knight family were no exception. Mrs Knight had noticed how bright and inquisitive Lorna was. Her mum, Ada, had already taught her the letters of the alphabet and she always wanted to read the books and newspapers when playing with the Knight children. On the day her baby brother John had been born, they had decided that she would be in the early class to start at Whitwell school that Easter and Lorna remembered her teacher saying “Lorna! What a beautiful name. Have you heard of Lorna Doone?” “Yes Miss,” she had replied, proudly, “It’s a book by R.D.Blackmore and I was named after Lorna Doone and my brother was named after John Ridd”. “How romantic!” Her teacher had remarked. “You must learn to read that book.” Lorna needed no encouragement. That’s why she so badly wanted to learn to read. She wanted to know who the person was that she had been named after.
Lorna was a beautiful and popular child with a kind sweet nature. She loved animals and so did John, so looking after the family pet was first responsibility at home before helping Frank with checking the pheasants eggs in the game hatchery and collecting the hens’ and ducks’ eggs as well as feeding them. When Frank mixed the chicken meal, Lorna and John both helped and thus learned the craft of the gamekeeper in the same way Frank had learned it from William, his father, the head gamekeeper before him and as William had learned it from his own father, George. When Lorna asked questions about why he mixed the flakes and millings, Frank explained the reasons for the different nutrition the birds needed to be healthy. It was always fun when Frank had visitors, since he knew so many people due to his travels with his work for His Lordship. Lorna knew she must be polite and wait to be spoken to by adults rather than just shouting out. That didn’t mean she was shy, though. She spoke with confidence to her father’s friends like Archie Barker in this photo. It was easy if she was alone with Frank or her mum Ada because she could ask without fear of interrupting the grown-ups’ conversation. It was even more fun when Uncle Horace, Ada’s brother, visited from Hampshire. He always had tall tales to tell, since he was a sailor often away on his ship and in different countries far away. She especially liked his tale about the ship’s cat.
As her years at Whitwell school passed by, Lorna excelled and made her parents even more proud of her. She had to spend most of her time helping her mum at home or looking after John when they weren’t at school. Lorna would help John to read and sometimes they would try to read the newspaper like they saw the adults doing. Soon she would be able to read that book by R.D.Blackmore she had seen in Mr Jackson’s house when they had all visited one afternoon in spring when she was about eight. Ada had said it would be a long drive in the car, so they would have to leave early. It was Lorna’s birthday again, St George’s Day, so Frank had the day off. He had washed and polished the family Morgan car so that it gleamed and sparkled. Lorna dressed in her best woollen coat and the cloche hat Ada had knitted for her using the pattern in “Woman’s Weekly” magazine. Lorna had learned to knit and had made the scarf to match. She felt very grown up. She had the job of carrying the special book Frank wanted to show Mr Jackson. She sat in the back seat next to John who had the hamper with the brace of rabbits wrapped in newspaper for Mr and Mrs Jackson. They were living in their new bungalow home which they had built in Bedfordshire when Mr Jackson had sold up his large cattle farm in Hertfordshire in order to retire in some style. It was a long drive but not many people had cars on the road.
As it was a nice day, Frank decided to fold back the open top of the car before they set off. Lorna and John played I-Spy as the car sped through the Hertfordshire villages and then Bedfordshire ones on their way to a place called Biggleswade, then Sandy and finally Tempsford, where the car had to go over some hump-backed bridges. Frank said it was the River Ivel as he pointed out an old mill on their left. There was a row of terraced cottages and a triangular green where the road went in two different directions. Frank pointed out a pound for stray animals on the left as he swung the car to the right hand fork in the road and passed a massive red-bricked gabled farm house with great wooden barns in front of them. There were open fields behind hedgerows on both sides of the road and a more modern farmhouse on the right, with a row of tiled cottages on the opposite side of the road. They passed another whitewashed brick farmhouse on the right, finally the road swung round a bend to the right where a long thatched cottage end-on to the road came into view and Frank turned the car sharply right up a long drive lined by poplar trees. As he drew the car to a halt, Lorna could see a smart new bungalow with a double garage and barn attached to it. Mr Jackson came out of his office to greet them. He was a big important looking man who always dressed in a tweed three piece suit with shirt and tie as if he was going to church.
“Hello Frank”, he said. “You all look a picture in that there splendid vehicle. I’ve got my camera in the office here. Let me get it and take a picture of you all before you get out of it!” With that, he set up a tripod in a good viewpoint and put his head under a black cloth before squeezing something like a rubber ball on the end of a long thin rubber tube. “I’ll let you have a copy of it when I get it developed,” he said. Lorna and John were no strangers to cameras as they lived in a part of the countryside where quite a few well-to do people had them and there were studios in nearby Hitchin where you could get a picture taken on a special occasion.
“Say hello to Mr Jackson,” said Ada as she got out of the passenger seat and shepherded the two children out of the car and onto the driveway facing the old man. He smiled at Lorna and she smiled back. “Good Afternoon Mr Jackson,” she said politely and held out the parcel with the big book she was carrying. “Dad wanted you to look at his book,” she said. “Well well, ‘The Keeper’s Book’,” he said, looking at the illustrated cover. “The Earl said it would be a good manual to read and use as a reference book with all the latest on the game laws,” explained Frank. He followed Mr Jackson into the office talking about the price of poultry feed as Ada took the children along a garden path on the left flanked by shrubs leading to the front porch of the bungalow. She knocked the big iron knocker on the heavy wooden door and lifted the latch. “Hello,” she called out loudly and heard a voice from within calling back and the sound of a piano. Mrs Jackson, a neat and dainty figure, was playing the walnut veneered upright piano in the front room. She broke off and got up to welcome them. “I’m suffering with rheumatism in my fingers,” she complained to Ada. “We were admiring your flower garden, especially the rhododendron bushes” said Ada and they all went back outside to walk out on the lawn to see the long borders where Mrs Jackson had been planting out her seeds and rooted cuttings.
Lorna liked Mr and Mrs Jackson. They were a bit like grandparents to her. They had no children of their own and so tended to regard Frank as the son they never had. “With all the changes since the War ended, will either of these youngsters go into service with his lordship?” asked Mr Jackson as he and Frank came across to join them all on the lawn.
“ I hope so,” said Frank in his Hertfordshire drawl. “I’m doing my best to teach Lorna how to look after the chickens, ducks and pheasants, and she helps in the garden too. John likes coming beating with us and he loves being with the dogs.”
“That’s the way, glad to hear it. When she’s old enough she can come and help us out here! I’m not getting any younger,” he laughed. She remembered that day well but not until years later did the importance of those words sink in.
By the time Lorna was nine, a baby sister, Zena, had been born. Lots of things were happening in the country that were in the headlines. There was something called a General Strike and people were worrying about pay and prices.
Lorna had to do a lot of housework now as Zena was coming up to two so her mum’s hands were full.
One of her jobs was to sweep out the living room and kitchen and take out the rugs into the garden to hang them on the line and beat them with a carpet beater made of woven bamboo cane curled round in a fancy design. On the table by the window was a letter. Her dad had been writing to the Earl as he often did. She casually pulled out a drawer and noticed a little white box with “Buckingham Palace 26th April 1923” in gold letters embossed on the top. She carefully opened the box and peeled back the layers of paper inside to reveal a small piece of wedding cake. It was a few years old now and no one had eaten it yet. She was hungry but she knew better than even to think of eating the cake. Quickly she put it back and looked at the card that had been under the box. In gold printed letters it read:
Marriage of HRH The Duke of York with the Lady Elizabeth Bowes Lyon
Viewing of the wedding presents
BUCKINGHAM PALACE
Tuesday 24th April 1923
3 to 3.30 p.m.
Underneath, in someone’s handwriting in ink “Mr and Mrs Mattin” was written on a line in a space provided.
Lorna wondered who had written her parents’ names on the line. Was it Her Ladyship? It was nice handwriting but not the same as the Lady Elizabeth Lyon’s writing which Lorna knew well from letters sent to her dad at the back of the drawer. She closed the drawer, finished dusting and ran off to help her mum with preparing lunch.
It was in the back of her mind that her teacher had said she would soon be doing Junior Cambridge exams. The Duchess of York’s baby, Elizabeth, had just celebrated her first birthday and everyone on the Estate was excited about the pictures which were in all the papers. Maybe they would make another visit soon.
Lorna’s dad, Frank, often organised shooting parties for the Duke of York (who was known then as Albert), when visiting the duchess’s father, the Earl of Strathmore on his estate The Bury, where Frank was head gamekeeper. Although Frank had been head gamekeeper on the Estate since 1913, when his father William (head gamekeeper before him) had been found dead of consumption in a railway carriage on the Hitchin to London railway line, it was only recently that he had obtained the latest edition of “The Keeper’s Book” by Sir Peter Jeffrey Mackie Bart. The book was on the table where Frank had his letter writing pens and shooting register. She loved the painting of the heather moorland with the two dogs and the keeper in his tweed jacket and plus fours that was pasted on the cover. It must be like that up in Scotland where the Earl had sent Granny Mattin with Frank’s sister “Daisy” and Brother Hubert after Grandad William had died. She was needed in service up at Glamis in the Great War and his brother and sister needed to go to school near her up there where she could keep an eye on them. Lorna had never seen any of them but she knew about them. She opened the book carefully and read what she saw on the front page:
INTRODUCTION
“Land and sport are the chief objects of attack by the Communists and Socialists. This explains what to some people may appear an irrelevant intrusion into the domain of sport by this introduction”
There were some difficult words there that she had not seen before and could not really understand but she read on:
“The war has thrown civilisation back fifty years at least. During its continuance, from the pulpit and recruiting platform, we were told that ‘Britain had found its soul’and that with victory we would come into a new world ——‘A place for heroes to live in,’ with many other pleasing platitudes more or less sincere. We are now able to judge how far these forecasts have come true.
Few realise that only by hard work, thrift, and self-discipline can such ideals be brought into the region of fact, and that to practise these virtues is to erect the best monument to the memory of those who gave their lives for their country. This may to some extent explain the discontent and unrest which now exist among certain classes who expected to come into a ready made paradise where, without work or effort, they would bask in eternal sunshine and eat, drink and be merry. The sooner these people are disillusioned the better.
We have experienced a wave of crime higher than before the war, and marked often by a brutality and callousness towards human life not hitherto characteristic of our country, and by a lowering of the standard of morals amongst certain classes of society. Propaganda from abroad has accentuated this state of affairs, especially among the uneducated, by destroying their faith in Christianity as a preparation for upsetting civilisation, and for the pillage of the industrious, the hard-working and the thrifty by the lazy and disgruntled ne’er-do-wells, who, influenced by paid agitators, have joined the Red Flag revolutionaries. The Communist Sunday-schools are at work in the meantime undermining the faith and beliefs of the children. Yet Christianity is the bulwark between civilisation and barbarism. This is why Socialists attack religion. It is therefore the duty of all sane, level-headed, law-abiding persons to set an example, and to support those institutions and agencies which uphold the foundations on which the ancient fabric of society has been built.”
Lorna’s head was beginning to hurt by all these big long new words that she didn’t understand. She would have a lot to look up in the dictionary to find out what they meant. She could read very well but if you didn’t hear people around you using those words all the time then you couldn’t know what they meant.
It was the summer of 1930 and Lorna was 14. She had passed her junior Cambridge exams at Whitwell Primary school and could have gone to grammar school if she had been allowed to take up the place. Mrs Jackson had given her the Lorna Doone Book for her birthday that year when they went over to visit. “I told her she’ll feel out of place if she goes there,” said Frank. “The minute she goes to collect the books given to people whose parents can’t afford to pay for them, the children whose parents buy them all their own books, tease them and make their lives a misery.”
“Would you like to go to Grammar School, Lorna?” asked Mrs Jackson. “Yes Mrs Jackson,” said Lorna. Mr Jackson had seen the dilemma facing Frank and tried to rescue him. “I didn’t go to grammar school myself, Lorna. Some people are made to sit at desks and other people are made for an outdoor life. I made a good living as a cattle farmer. You see all those shiny cups on the sideboard there? I won all those for best cattle at the farmers’ shows and cattle paid for the land and everything you see in this house.” Lorna looked up at the huge engraved silver cups and then around the richly furnished room. She really admired him and what he had achieved and was ready to soak up any advice he would offer. “ I think you are an outdoor type of person who wants to be a farmer like me. If you keep learning from the Knights on the farm near you and from your dad with his poultry and game, then one day you might be able to be like me and Mrs Jackson on a farm of your own.”
It kept going round in her head… having a farm of her own……but it would have been nice to be allowed to go to the Grammar school all the same. She wondered what would it be like there. At Sunday school she had friends who were going there. One was called Hugh. He said he would be going regardless of what she had been told. He was a boy, though. She was a girl and would have to obey her father if he thought she was needed to help at home. She was now, more than ever, since Mrs Jackson was becoming very unwell and so Frank was sending Ada to live in as a housekeeper in Bedfordshire at the Jackson’s bungalow while he stayed on at the Bury in Hertfordshire. Lorna had finished primary school and she would now have to look after the children in place of her mum. That summer was her last few weeks of freedom to read for pleasure, so whenever she had some quiet time on her own, she read that book Mrs Jackson had given her from cover to cover. So that was who Lorna Doone was. Now she knew. Somewhere deep inside there was a part of her that wanted to be rescued from Doone Valley by a secret admirer, but another part of her was down to earth, realistic and practical. Which part would win?
Times were very difficult for everyone in the next few years. There had been a terrible financial crash on Wall Street in America and lots of people were losing money on the stock exchange. There had been a lot of bankruptcies and Lorna knew how expensive things were as she had to do the family shopping, cooking and make do and mend as if she were a grown up. She had overheard her dad talking with Harry Knight about Communists and there was someone in Germany called Hitler who was causing problems so people were beginning to worry about whether there would be peace or another war in Europe. Lorna knew that she wasn’t the only child in the family and that going to grammar school would put a strain on the family budget, so she accepted her duty as stand-in parent for her siblings. Now that her mum Ada was living away, she helped Frank with the poultry rearing when Zena and John were at school and with the rabbit control on Knights farm at harvest time.
Hugh often met up with her in the village when she was getting the groceries and they would chat about what they had been doing since she had left school.
“You’re very pretty” he would say to her and she would blush. One day they were alone in the lane and sat down to chat under the shade of an oak tree. He put his arm around her and told her she was his Maid Marian. “When I leave school and get a job I want to marry you,” he said. Lorna really liked him. He was kind and good looking and she couldn’t get him out of her mind until the next time she saw him. Sometimes he would be waiting at the post office or by the church and would wait till she was passing back towards home. Then he would walk with her part of the way and manage to find a quiet stile or gateway when no one else was around, to put his arm round her and give her a gentle kiss to say goodbye. It was 1932 and she was sixteen. She felt the thrill of first love and had a sweetheart to dream about for the future.
“Where have you been, Lorna? Dad’s looking for you everywhere and he’s flaming mad,” said John when she got back at Keepers cottage.
Lorna was embarrassed and scared that she would be in trouble for not being at home when she was supposed to be. “Where’s dad now?” she asked, colouring up. “He’s out the back checking the chickens have got water ‘cos its a hot day.”
Lorna ran out to the poultry pens picking up a tin bucket as she passed the water pump. As she came to the coop Frank was just emerging with a face like thunder. She almost collided with the pen door, gasping for breath, and caught his look without him needing to say a word. She was honest about it. “I was a bit late back with the shopping because I got talking with Hugh Ebbs on the way back from the village. I was just going to get this filled up but I see you’ve already done it,” she said, panting. “Hugh Ebbs?” he yelled in anger. “ You deserve a good hiding for gallivanting with good-for-nothing boys on the roadside. Next thing I know you’ll be in the family way and bring disgrace on the family. “No dad, we were just talking about what it’s like at grammar school and I didn’t know how long I’d been out.”
“I tell you, young boys are only after one thing these days, and as soon as they get it they are off telling the same stories to another stupid young girl who takes their fancy.”
“He’s a nice boy, dad. He wouldn’t do anything like that.”
“Well if he’s a nice boy, then he’ll leave you alone and come back and find you when he is old enough to support you properly and when you are old enough to know what a nice boy really is. You’ve got responsibilities and I’ve got a very important job to do to pay all the bills. I can’t have you off courting boys when I’ve got your brother and sister need looking after and meals cooking as well as all the animals to look after. I forbid you from ever seeing him again.”
Tears welled up in Lorna’s eyes. She knew how important her role was and she knew that she had let her dad down badly but she did not quite know how much her life was going to change in the next few weeks. She said she was sorry and went about her chores but in the back of her mind was a burning sense of unfairness about being banned from seeing and talking to Hugh again. He had promised to marry her when he was old enough and well qualified enough to get a job. His dad didn’t lock him up at home and choose his friends for him so why should she be treated any differently by her own dad? It wasn’t as if she was a lawless girl like some of the girls who lived in Whitwell or Langley. She wished and wished that she could get away and see Hugh and tell hime what had happened and all that night, she dreamed of him and how he made her feel when she was with him.
Next morning was when the shock came. Frank bundled them all in the car and took off for Bedfordshire. He said that Mrs Jackson had been taken very ill and he was arranging for the family to rent a house in the main part of the village to be near to the Jacksons and that Lorna would be there to help Mr Jackson with his stock and field around the bungalow now he was finding some of the jobs a bit too much for him. As soon as Frank could get released from his job at the Bury, then he would come to live in the village with the rest of the family but in the mean time Lorna was to be in charge of the other two while they went to their new primary school in their new village. Lorna was heartbroken. She really never would see Hugh again. She did not have any address for him and she would be living miles away from East Hall. She sat in silent shock for the entire journey. The only compensation she had to look forward to was that she would be seeing her mum again and, she hoped, some understanding from another woman’s point of view. Frank booked them into the Three Horseshoes Inn on the market place near the church. A village shop was right opposite the church and the voluntary church primary school a short walk along the high street on the way to the Bungalow. Lorna would be able to walk Zena and John to the school on her way down to the bungalow and once she was there, she would stay there all day until it was time to collect the children and take them back to their lodgings at night. There were distractions in the village over the next few weeks as she met friendly people in the village shop, on her way down the high street and at church on Sundays, but how her heart ached at nights for months. There was always a fair in the village fairground owned by Mr Maries next to the Three Horseshoes every summer and Zena and Lorna entered the fancy dress competition. Zena dressed up as a gypsy with one of Mr Maries’s cart-horses as a prop. Lorna made her own costume as Maid Marian in green felt which Mr Jackson had bought for her on one of his trips down to London on the railway. She was still living in her dream and had no eyes for any of the boys in the village she now found herself in. She went searching for Hugh in her dreams. She felt sure he must be wondering what had happened to her. Maybe someone would tell him. Surely he would understand and one day he would come and find her.
Years came and went and Mrs Jackson sadly died. Frank had rented Prospect House, a house for the family to live together on the way up the Hill overlooking the brick hill yard. Now Mr Jackson was on his own, He not only needed Ada as his live-in housekeeper but also Frank to farm his smallholding for him, care for all the animals and carry out his business with seed merchants, tradesmen, lawyers and the like. Lorna was depended on to help Frank with the farm work by day, and housework and cooking back in Prospect House at nights. Lorna was twenty one when war broke out in Europe, she was now old enough to make her own decisions to leave home but by now who knows where Hugh was. He must have been called up to go to war. She dared not think about him. Perhaps he would be killed. She had become strong and wiser now but everyone was suffering from the uncertainty of it all. Mr Jackson had passed away and Frank had inherited his entire estate. Now more than ever they all had to stay in the village and farm to help feed the nation. In the next five years the world and society would change out of all recognition and another generation would be grieving the losses of their young men as well as coping with billeted troops, orphans and sanatoriums for the wounded, refugees, evacuees and displaced people, an influx of overseas soldiers billeted in many places and a generation of independent minded capable women who realised they no longer needed to depend on men for their future security. Would Lorna find her Hugh again or would her heart forever remain with him buried in some unknown grave?
This story is to celebrate the women of the second Elizabethan age who sacrificed their personal lives in service to their family especially when they had no choice in the matter because of family circumstances and war. Without Lorna and the women of her generation, my own generation and those who come after us would not have had the moral example that stable society is founded on and been unable to build our own futures despite the choices we were able to make for better or for worse.
If any descendants of Hugh Ebbs, born in Hertfordshire in the time before or during the Great War (or family members if he never had any children of his own) ever read this piece, I would be interested to hear from them by comment on this page.
sapodilla press 