EXTRACTS FROM A WYNNSTAY HUNTING DIARY IN VICTORIAN TIMES

September 1897. The opening cubbing meet of the hounds took place on Friday at Shavington, near Market Drayton. The field was a select, though not a numerous one. The first three hours were spent in Shavington Park but the proceedings were not of an especially exciting character, not from the scarcity of cubs but because of the scent which was very poor indeed, hounds at times being hardly able to run a yard. Hounds first of all investigated what is known as the 'Wall' plantation and after drawing a portion of the cover a cub was found and run out for the Snakes Wood where two others joined it but they all managed to get away.

Following this two others were started from another part of the wood without, however, doing any execution. Still another was met with here but the success was no greater although hounds bustled him about a good deal. A move was then made to the Big Wood, hounds speaking now and again but for the cause already named nothing was done. Information was now received that there was a fox in a tree in the wood and hounds were taken there. A man climbed the tree and dislodged Reynard who fell right in the mouths of the hounds and he was soon made a meal of. The sport afterwards improved and until 12 o'clock was continued in the Moat Cover, Lockley's Gorse, the Laurels, the Fatfarm Cover and Stokers Wood.

On Saturday the field was a small one and included Sir W Wynn, Colonel 'Rivers' Buckley, Mr Ivor, Mr de Havilland of Eaton and a few others. Ash Wood Cover was destitute of a cub and the osier beds were a failure so a trot was made through Ash to Mr Cottrell's (Ash Hall) turnips but although the entire field was gone over it was 'no go' and no better luck attended the extensive Brown Moss (the great resort for skating) and this was a surprise as the heather generally holds one or more. The Broad Oak Cover, a spinney close to the Colonel's house, was tried and in a jiff a cub was pushed out and a right good run he provided, past  Oak Cottage, over the road, then to the left of Mr Jonathan Cottrell's farmhouse and right away to Combermere Park but without entering the well known Cocked Hat Cover he ran on to the right of the wooden bridge out in the direction of Park View, short of which he was lost. Then at 11.50 Home.

The sport on Monday was a considerable improvement on the two previous days. The meeting place was Iscoyd Park, near Whitchurch, the seat of Captain Godsal and a large and fashionable field it was. There were three cubs in Wolvesacre Woods which they bustled right merrily and in the end killed one. Directly after a fine looking badger was laid low, not by hounds but with a blow of a stick! Matthews Wood on the Painters Green Mile was good for one who, after a brief scurry, was pulled down in the Sniggle Bogs. Immediately another was away from the Sniggles and ran out for Iscoyd Green where he was headed and made back to the Bogs; being in somewhat limited space of ground it was thought that he would soonbe accounted for but owing to the thick brush some little time elapsed before the hounds had him. A dirty looking customer he was too but hounds are not always 'over particular.'

Then to Iscoyd Big Wood and there was found directly a cub that having run to the far end came into the open but was soon back in cover and following half an hour's woodland hunting he was lost. Agden was the next order. The Leech Croft responded not but there was one in Mr Lowe's turnips, only to be lost however, the scent having deteriorated a great deal. A capital morning ended in Bubney Woods.

On Thursday morning the hounds met at Penley, which is some nine miles from Whitchurch and eight from Ruabon. The weather was delightful and a representative field included Sir Watkin, Colonel 'Rivers' Buckley and Mr Edward Peel and Co. The Penley Dingles were first investigated and here the hounds remained for fully two hours and a half and were rarely silent, there being an ample supply of cubs. The Dingles are very extensive but cannot easily be invaded by horsemen though there is pretty well room for hounds to work in. When hounds were drawn out the slain numbered five which must be accounted as 'good biz.'

The Cae Howell Wood about three quarters of a mile away on the other side of the road was next drawn and presently a cub went away and ran over a portion of Little Green Farm and then being headed dodged back to the Cover and was lost. Now to the Black Wood four or five cubs being soon on foot. They went in various directions and this caused hounds to divide and after running all over the country – as one gentleman said – hounds were stopped in the Caedrinions Cover soon after twelve and taken home.

On Friday the hounds met at eight o'clock at Sandford, seven miles from Market Drayton and five from Whitchurch. The weather was dull and exceedingly boisterous but the rain, which often threatened, kept off fairly well although there were occasional squalls. Lockley carried the horn, the Master not being out, and a somewhat small field of about 20 fashionable people and a few sporting farmers. Sandford Pool was first called upon but although it held a cub or two they provided little or no fun. In the Ashford Grange Cover there was also a brace and one went away unperceived whilst the other was soon lost. We had now a trot of some four miles to the Styche – only about a couple of miles from the Ginger Bread Town.

The Belt or Fox Cover as it is more commonly known was blank but there was one in Mr Robinson's (longalow) turnips which, having been knocked about a bit, was left, the scenting being anything but good. Matters were much more lively in the adjoining Rookery Cover, hounds proclaiming finds the moment they were put in and there was a constant 'yelp' for the greater part of an hour. One got clean away, making off in the direction of Moreton Say. One or two others ventured outside but so keen was the attention paid to them that they were soon brought back. The efforts of the hounds were eventually rewarded with a kill, the cub (he was only a small one) being brought outside the Cover.

There was said to be another in the Cover that had been run almost to a standstill but if that was the case he was allowed to recuperate. The next order was the Styche Big Wood on the opposite side of the road and here too were several youngsters, one soon quitting in and setting his mask for Cloverly and coming out at the bottom end ran along the field then made to the left of some cottages. There was every appearance that we were in for a real good run but we were doomed to disappointment for when near the little bridge over the road Lockley called the hounds off and a return was made to the wood without, however, anything further being done. Another jaunt of three miles to Cloverley Wood followed.

On Saturday the hounds met at Hinton, near Whitchurch, the residence of Mr R.P. Ethelston J.P. It was a delightful morning and a large field was present in the company of Sir W.W. Wynn. The first three quarters of an hour were spent at Barmere. Three cubs were on foot in the Cover and when one had gone away hounds bustled the others quite merrily but did not succeed in killing either of the two left, indicating that scent was none of the best. Proceeding now to Fenmans – more commonly known as Peel's Gorse, it was run through lightly but not a single note was heard from hounds.

We now went to Hinton for the purpose of drawing the Brick Kiln Cover. Here there were five cubs and in a few minutes one was pulled down whilst another went away at a good pace up to the Whitchurch Beeston road which he crossed and then made along to the left of Hinton Hall Farm and at the end of a good gallop and some nice jumping was lost between Terrick Hall and the cemetery. Harking back to Hinton the first cub was broken up and then we trotted on to the Cockshoots, a cover on the left of Bradeley Green Farm (Mr T Nunnerley's) and a fox was not long in getting.  He ran down the field and after a bit of a circle slipped into a drain near Mr Nunnerley's house. A terrier soon brought him out and having been given a fair amount of law he ran towards Mr R Nunnerley's of Wirswall but with a turn to the left crossed the road and raced over a portion of Mr Billington's land then down the bank near Quoisley Mere and after dodging about here a bit he swung round left handed and managed to escape near the main road, a cast or two failing to get on the line again. A small Cover near the Cockshoots was minus and when a second visit had been paid to Peels Gorse and there was again no response hounds were rather earlier than usual (12.30) ordered home.

Sir When I was a strapping  20 year old I realised that drinking an excessive amount of beer was likely to be bad for me in the long term.

I therefore resolved to limit my intake to two pints a day and I am proud to say that I've stuck to my resolution. I'm now up to April 20^t 2019.

Carden Arms Regular

IT COULD ONLY HAPPEN IN IRELAND......

The Ward Union hunts a "carted stag", meaning they release and recapture unharmed deer bred in captivity by themselves in the course of the day's hunting. They only hunt any one deer once a season and keep and breed the deer in a designated Deer Park. License for this has to be agreed by the Environment Minister John Gormley (Green Party Leader and TD for Dublin South East) but the licence issued to the Ward Union in December limited them laying a trail with a stag and capturing the stag before the hounds are released. The Ward Union challenged this completely unworkable amendment in the High Court which ordered that their traditional license should be restored, but not before National Hunt jockey Paul Carberry, was inspired to write an open letter to the Irish Minister for the Environment.

Dear Minister,

I am writing to you because all National Hunt jockeys are very concerned about your attempt to ban my hunt, the Ward Union. Every Friday in winter, I miss racing to hunt with the Ward Union. Why? I need to keep my eye in. Thanks to the wonderful generosity of north Dublin and Meath farmers, I get up on a race horse each Friday, November to February, and we're off, hounds out front. Way up ahead there's a wild Irish red deer stag, and he's out there jumping and towing us across huge hedges, cavernous drains, deep ditches and through the beautiful lush green Irish countryside.

So, when it comes to the Grand National and I am coming to Becher's Brook, I see the tension in the English jockey's shoulders. I sense his fear. He doesn't realise it, but he is holding his horse just a gnat's too tight and we're seven strides out, galloping, 40 miles an hour, to a deadly drop. Suddenly you are there. The moment of truth, and I know in my head, I know I jumped bigger following the stag the previous month. I kick on, I hear the brush of the top of the fence and we're heading down and down, and the horse lands, I adjust my balance and I feel his lungs fill, his head comes up and we are galloping on. Out of the corner of my goggles I see a flailing body, the English jockey is gone and I look around and there are just a few of us in contention now, Barry (Geraghty), Ruby (Walsh), and this year, coming on  behind me, is Puppy (Robert Power), all regulars hunting with the Ward Union.

Minister, I appreciate that you are on record as saying you dislike horse racing, but have you ever wondered why Ireland is to horse racing as Brazil is to soccer, or as New Zealand is to rugby? It is because we have hunting, because we have the likes of the Ward Union. How come all the big jump races are being won consistently by Irish jockeys? It all starts with brave kids hunting bold ponies. Hunting is what gives us our bottle. And now, Minister, acknowledging you have no reason based on animal welfare, you believe you have grounds not to renew our licence, because a wild Irish stag jumped into a school yard in Co Meath last January. I say, lucky children. From the safety of their classroom they saw the real thing, a real wild Irish stag.

But the city folk now living in Meath say their children "might" have been traumatised by the experience. Apparently, city life was much less traumatising for their kids, despite the joyriding on the estates and nightly terrorising of elderly neighbours, just for "sport", or the drug dealer on the corner. Better to stay indoors and watch driller-killer videos. The incident was seized upon by those who want to stop hunting, horse racing, live exports, beef farming, meat-eating, etc. They claim the stag is stressed and exhausted at the end of the run, but omit to say that, unharmed, it is returned to the reservation and is only ever hunted once a year. That one day's hunting for the stag is what keeps these almost extinct, original, indigenous Irish red deer wild.

Under your Department's stewardship of the deer in Phoenix Park, they are regularly hit by cars, and if it's at the weekend and they are in awful pain, I understand they are not put down until Monday, when the civil servants are back at work. Minister, when the Dail resumes on September 26, please read into the record of the Dail the numbers of deer your Department has culled around the country since 1996. The Ward Union doesn't kill any stags, but you are concerned that, on the one day a year a deer is hunted, it may be exhausted. For an animal, exhaustion and stress are different from pain and suffering.

With respect, Minister, I know animals, you don't. I ride horses, you ride a bike. Exhaustion is exhilarating, pain is debilitating -- don't mix them up. I can feel a horse going lame from the moment of its first twinge, but I also sense the sheer energy of a horse defying exhaustion, pricking its ears and racing on. Are the thousands of pigeons taken from Dublin every weekend to France and who fly, non-stop, 10 hours back to their lofts, not completely exhausted, and maybe a bit stressed, looking for home? Minister Gormley, are you going to ban pigeon racing? This is getting ridiculous.

Puppy went on to win this year's National on Silver Birch. And I remembered a day, two months earlier, when Gordon (Gordon Elliot, trainer of Silver Birch) was jumping beside me with the Ward Union on this very brave but small horse. In the pub afterwards, I asked where he got the horse. He told me: "We bought him in Doncaster, I am aiming him for the National." I turned, and probably laughed into my vodka and Red Bull. Silver Birch was a failed English steeplechaser. He, too, had got fed up, as I would if I didn't have my Fridays, and gone sour, running around in circles at race tracks. But Gordon took him back to Ireland, and by hunting him in open country with the Ward Union, the little horse recovered his zest for life. He remembered he was born to run, jump and chase, and now he was ready for the biggest chase in the world, the Grand National.

Minister, I know you don't look at horse racing but I am going to forward a video of this year's National and I want you to see that horse walking into the winner's enclosure at Aintree on his toes, ears pricked, his proud eye, and Gordon and Puppy being interviewed by the BBC and thanking the Ward Union, saying, in their great moment of victory, it was having a unique, fast hunt like the Ward Union that rehabilitated this great, now champion horse. Is that not the type of animal welfare we should be rewarding?

I don't understand city life, and they probably don't understand us in the country. But I do know why, when people visit a farmer's cottage near Garristown, he'll boast about his new hip, force his visitor to join him on a walk down to a big hedge, three fields in from the road. It is now a foot taller and a yard wider in summer, but he's not going to kill a good story. "You see that hedge, that's where Silver Birch, the Grand National Winner, jumped last January." Yes, that's why the vast majority of farmers open their farms so generously to hunts. They love being involved. Every farmer in Skryne, Co Meath, welcomes the hunt the week before Christmas, because they know, without fail, that before the legendary Micheal J Kinane flies to Dubai in January for the new season, he will be out hunting, just to keep his eye in. He'll be there jumping the ditches alongside the kids from the local pony club. For a farmer, for that day, his place becomes a Croke Park.

In the countryside, stag, fox, hare and hound, jockey, farmer, point-to-point, pony club, shooter, angler, hunter, fish, fur, flesh and feather are all magically, magnificently intertwined and interdependent. A move against the Ward Union by the Green Party will be seen clearly as a move against the entire countryside. Let's look at the facts. A stag jumped into an empty school yard. We deserve a serious reprimand. We should, through the licence process, be made to demonstrate all the precautions we have taken to reduce the risk of such occurrences. But, to be banned after 150 years, to put at risk the future conservation of a unique herd of wild Irish red deer, to bring about the end of a pack of unique stag hounds? Now that, is overkill. We should be given grants by your Department's heritage fund for maintaining our deer, not be subjected to a nonsensical ban.

Paul Carberry

National Hunt jockey, Ward Union Hunt Member

THE PLACE WHERE THE OLD HORSE DIED

In the hollow by the pollard, when the crop is tall and rank

Of the dock leaf and the nettle growing free,

Where the bramble and the brushwood straggle blindly o'er the bank,

And the pyat jerks and chatters on the tree.

There's a fence I never pass in the brushwood and the grass,

But for very shame I turn my head aside,

While the tears come thick and hot and my curse is on the spot -

'Tis the place where the old horse died.

There's his hoof upon the chimney, there's his hide upon the chair,

A better never bent him to the rein

Now, for all my love and care, I've an empty stall and bare;

I shall never ride my gallant horse again!

How he laid him out at speed, how he loved to have a lead,

How he snorted in his mettle and his pride!

Not a flyer of the Hunt was beside him in the front,

At the place where the old horse died.

Was he blown ? I hardly think it. Did he slip ? I cannot tell.

We had run for forty minutes in the vale,

He was reaching at his bridle; he was going strong and well,

And he never seemed to falter or to fail;

Though I sometimes fancy, too, that his daring spirit knew

The task beyond the compass of his stride,

Yet he faced it true and brave and dropped into his grave,

At the place where the old horse died.

I was up in half a minute, but he never seemed to stir,

Though I scored him with my rowels in the fall;

In this life he had not felt before the insult of the spur,                  

And I knew that it was over once for all.                                        

When motionless he lay, in his cheerless bed of clay,

Huddled up without an effort on his side ‑

'Twas a hard and bitter stroke, For his honest back was broke

At the place where the old horse died.

With a neigh so faint and feeble that it touched me like a groan,

“Farewell,” he seemed to murmur, “ere I die;”

Then set his teeth and stretched his limbs, and so I stood alone,

While the merry chase went heedless sweeping by.

Am I womanly and weak if the tear was on my cheek

For a brotherhood that death can thus divide ?

If sickened and amazed through a woeful mist I gazed

On the place where the old horse died ?

There are men both good and wise, who hold that in a future state,

Dumb creatures we have cherished here below,

Shall give us joyous greeting when we pass the golden gate;

Is it folly that I hope it may be so ?

For never man had friend more enduring to the end,

Truer mate in turn of time and tide.

Could I think we'd meet again

It would lighten half my pain

At the place where the old horse died..

G. J. WHYTE‑MELVILLE, 182 1‑1878.

LIFE AT THE OLD BEACHIN - THE CODDINGTON MILL AND THE COCK OF BARTON

Coddington Mill was owned by the Massey family and for many years run by Mr W. Lewis. After he retired it was taken over by  Chester Farmers and Mr Tom Goring came as Manager. The Mill was powered by water through a turbine - not the usual water wheel - and also had a large paraffin engine as standby in times of low water levels to power the large grinding mill and chain hoists used to lift sacks of grain to all levels of the mill.

Mr. Goring was a very jovial person and soon became known to all and sundry as Uncle Tom, he was the main salesman and visited all his customers once a fortnight to take orders and collect accounts. He was also a very keen gardener and along with Sam Smith of Barton Wells who worked in the mill an expert grower of show onions and runner beans and all manner of show vegetables.

Now we think these days the in thing is to go green and grow our own food, in Uncle Tom’s day everyone did and once a fortnight one of the mill wagons would go round Churton and Aldford with what the Mill staff called the widow’s rations - about fifty orders of poultry and pig food for nearly every household - it looked more like the deliveries from the local toffee shop, ranging from 28lbs. of Indian Corn to the odd half bag of pig fattener meal to mix with the vegetable peelings and kitchen scraps to be boiled up for the hens, ducks, geese, turkeys and pigs.

Some households kept a sow and reared their own pigs to sell to neighbours or to feed the family. This led to a constant stream of frisky sows wanting to visit the boar pig on the local farms like Old Beachin. This was the origin of the tale of the new man who came out from the town to live in the village and decided to buy himself a young sow. He asked the local farmer for advice on this procedure and was told if the pig was going round the paddock trying to get out, put her in the trailer and bring her to the boar, but he then wanted to know how to tell if everything had worked well? The farmer said in the morning if she was sleeping in the shade everything is o.k. but if she was still going round the paddock put her in the trailer and bring her back. This carried on for nearly a week then one morning he rang the farmer very confused as what to do next? The farmer asked is she sleeping in the shade? No, is she going round the paddocks? No, what’s she doing? Sitting in the trailer!

During his rounds Uncle Tom met many other gardeners who grew show vegetables including Walter Huxley of Churton - champion onion grower and expert hedge layer. Walter won every competition at hedge laying and had a large collection of cups, shields, polished axes and hedging hooks, and taught many of the expert hedge layers of today.

Although they had friendly rivalry with the vegetable growing they didn’t compete with each other but between them came up with a prize winning collection for their own preferred show. Uncle Tom had not been round on his usual day so I phoned in the order and when inquiring after his health he replied “I’m hearty fat and full of fun”. Next morning when the order was delivered the driver told us he had died that night, ‘Happy to the end’.

The next Jolly Miller was a young Ken Bennion who came with a young family and lived to see the end of the mill’s working life. By that time Chester Farmers had joined up with C.F.A. of Wardle and later became North West Farmers. Ken had worked for C.F.A. for many years at one time on the grass driers at Wardle and Harthill. During his time the Massey Estate at Coddington was purchased by the Grosvenor Family and the New Mill was built, the water mill was closed after the Foot and Mouth outbreak of 1967 and the rest is history.

THE COCK OF BARTON

The Cock was part of the Carden estate owned by Sir. John Leeche, and rented by Mr. Leslie Nicholas. Along with the pub went a small farm. This turned out to be a very good working relationship as the Pub supplied the Hall with drink and Sir John got through a bottle of gin a day. Every six months the agent presented Les with a bill for the rent in exchange for a bill from the pub for the drink, and it was a damn poor show if Les had to pay any money over. He usually ended up on the winning side.

Mother was very friendly with Mrs. Nic. and after 'do's' at Coddington I very often ended up at the Cock in the kitchen with a bottle of pop and a packet of crisps keeping their son Tony company listening to the wireless and later on to watch the telly; this was a great treat as we did not get the mains electricity till 1952 down the Beachin Lane. So from the age of 8 or 9 my education was added to by the various people who dropped in to the kitchen.

On one such visit I was in the kitchen when Mr. Tut Denson arrived in a jolly state complete with top hat and tails having spent most of the day at a very good wedding; he had been diverted into the kitchen to partake of as much coffee as they could get down him in order to enable him to head towards Aldford then via the Park to Poulton. Sitting there having removed his top and hat and with a pair of  white gloves in his top pocket, there appeared his nephew one Denson F. who takes the gloves out of his top pocket hits him on the head with them and says “Hello Uncle Tut you old Ba…. how are you going on?” This left me sitting there in amazement thinking I hadn’t got an uncle I dare to do that to!

I must add uncle Tut only had one good eye but his car knew the way home from the Cock and never failed to get him home. Indeed on one occasion we had had a fall of snow and going through the Park after you have gone over the Iron Bridge and up towards the Hall at Eaton there was a large conifer tree on the right hand side and a road on the left - the back way to Poulton. Next morning for all to see Tut’s tracks went off to the right round the fir tree then off back across the road and on home.

The various side roads through the Park had gates across at certain points and Mr. Bill Redfern, the Duke’s agent for the Halkyn Estate, told the tale of two car loads of farmers going through the Park with Tut as a passenger in the first car; he got out to open the gate and as the second car went through he raised his cap and bowed. After closing the gate he got back in the rear of the first car; Bill was in the second car and he said after a minute or two all hell was let lose with Tut’s arms and legs going in all directions - he said he looked like the Isle Of Man flag. They found out after when he had raised his cap he had trapped a wasp in it and pulled it down on his bald head.

Bill arrived at the Cock early one summers night when we were sitting on the front steps. The road in those days turned down in front of the pub and went round the village, out again and on to Clutton. He had some news for us - he said that Uncle Horace has bought another car a Morris Minor Shooting Brake and it had cost £250 if you lads play your cards right you will get a drink out of him, which was a bit of cheek - Uncle Horace wasn’t really mean he was just naturally careful with his money - so when he arrives in his new car at the foot of the steps and gets out Jim Humphries says “That’s a fine car Mr. L. - a car like that would cost a lot of money.” “ Ee do you think so lad?” “ O yes you wouldn’t buy a car like that under £300”  “Ee come inside lads and I’ll buy you all a drink.”

The routine at the pub was when Les had finished milking he came in complete with milking smock, went down the cellar and filled two large enamel jugs with bitter and one of mild and ran the pub while Mrs. Nic cooked the tea and fed the family. He was not very amused if he got a rush on and had to refill the jugs before Mrs. Nic returned to run the pub; he then had his tea, got changed and became the genial host for the rest of the evening although he never really took kindly to strangers and if any one dare to question the quality of the ale they were out on their ear.

We used to sit on the beer and pop crates behind the bar, Denson F. used to say you could play chess on your arse when you went home. One night we arrived to find a brand new gadget screwed to the back of the bar - a fancy bottle opener with a box under to catch the bottle tops, the first thing in recycling. Fernie soon realised what it was for and going along the lines of the button in the famous German Teddy Bears Ears he said they were being sent to the toy factories to make tin arse holes for teddy bears.

Fernie and his great friend Josh never stayed at the Cock long on a Friday night and as we all referred to Les as Dada Nicholas, he would say “Well Dada we will have to drink on carpets one night in the week” and they went down to the The Grosvenor at Aldford. When Les wasn’t listening he called him Poppa Copper Bottom - work it out for yourself. The locals used to drink and play dominoes in the snug, drink pint bottles of Wrexham Border Brown ale and would say “give us a bottle Mrs.” After a dusty days work at the Mill Sam Smith always started off with a pint of cider and a bottle   of Brown and when we asked him why he said “It was to let his guts know what was coming,” He told us one night his wife suffered from constipation but he said he never had any such complaint. You have heard of smoke signals well they could have communicated by the vibration on the solid wooden seats that went right round the snug. The domino wizard was Walter Wooley and if you asked him how he did so well. He would say “Always keep a 2 or two because they don’t add up to a lot and are easy to get rid of.”

With not having the electricity down Beachin Lane we had no tellies but then came another invention - Calor Gas. Everyone was talking about it and we managed to convince one local gent that you could buy a Calor gas telly and sent him off to the F.H. Burgess stand at the Cheshire Show on the Roodee to enquire about one. As he always said when asked how he was he replied “I’m alright it’s these other B’s….” and he called us a lot worse than that when he got back.

Another invention that came along was the electric fence unit. This appealed to the sense of humour of another great character, Mr. Jim Mullock, who saw its great potential, having a large front door with a big brass door knob and knowing most of the people who used the front door either wanted money or something for nothing. He joined the fencer to it sat back and laughed. But the local Bobby was not amused. Living the bachelor life at the time he put on a party at his home. The upstairs loo having an old Victorian wooden seat he had the bright idea of putting a nice brass nut and bolt through it with a wire down to the afore said fencer and giving the ladies time to get nicely settled then flicking the switch. Thankfully he later married a charming lady who did her utmost to bring out the best in him. But he got very upset when she decorated the kitchen because all the telephone numbers were penciled on the walls. Jim had fought a hard war with Mr. Hitler and needed some light entertainment. He had a large American car with two fuel tanks on it and with a bit of his engineering skill made it run on t.v.o. After a good night at the Cock returning home via the main road to Kinnerton via Eaton Park he managed to land it upside down on the Alford Lodge lawn.

Amongst the regulars were several couples who were only referred to by their Christian names; if you enquired about their surnames life became very complicated, lets just say they all went home and went to bed, but not always in that order. One such pair were a famous celery grower and his lady friend was a Corsetiere in a large Chester Store. They had a love hate relationship and used to fall out and call each other all sorts of things; he used to bring a paper with him and when he got to Sibbersfield Lane he would tip her out of the car and wait at the Farndon end reading the paper till she caught up by which time she had cooled off and he could make sense of her and continue on to the pub.

One night on the way home he mis-judged a bend in the road and ended upside down in a ditch, arriving at the pub the next time with  the car slightly redesigned - they were tough old buses in those days. About a week later he arrived in a new car and when asked about the old one, he replied  “Cars are temperamental things - they are built like women. When they have once been on their backs they are never the same again so never keep a car that’s been on it’s roof”. We wondered why he persisted with the woman he had!

The new car had one of the latest wireless aerials on the front wing and about a week later they had a set to in the pub when she marched out to tie a knot in it. Taking her out must have been very therapeutic, everyone said he and his wife never had a cross word she was glad to see the back of the old B... and he always came home happy. Another couple whenever they arrived at the pub He would ask what would you like to drink dear? After deep thought she would reply I think I will have a gin and tonic. By this time Mrs. Nic would have it poured out and have it ready as she started to pour it as soon as they came through the door.

Another regular was a local farmer by the name of Ed Mathews who had a very pronounced lisp like the little girl who thought “Thistle Down” meant raining very hard. When it was his turn to buy a round he took great pleasure in saying “something similar misses” which endeared everyone to him and still comes up when he is remembered to this day. Les was a great sportsman and loved racing and hare coursing, breeding and training Greyhounds for Lord Derby to compete in the Waterloo cup. Some people would have you believe he kept rare breeds of poultry but the only ones I ever saw were for egg laying though I must say the cocks were very colourful.

Disaster struck on the occasion when a consignment of Dutch bulbs were delivered to Sibbersfield Hall neatly packed in straw which the gardener bedded the pigs down with and they got foot and mouth disease. Some of the men who had been to slaughter the cattle called at the Cock after for a drink and the next thing we knew the cows at the pub had it too, they were just two isolated cases but the pub did not do much for trade for a week or two.

Another regular from Farndon said he looked forward to Armistice Sunday when he could have a lie in and make love to his wife in rhythm with the big drum on the church parade - if he had the bedroom window open he could hear it right through the village. When we asked him the following week how he had got on he said “It was a complete disaster, all was going well until they got under his bedroom window when they had to stop for the traffic and the silly B… Stopped belting the drum and started doing those damn silly twirling bits around his head with his drum sticks and by the time he got going again I didn’t know were the hell I was up to.” As you can see from the above a large part of my further education was obtained in the Cock of Barton and the daft tales go on and on.

THE WRAGGLE TAGGLE GIPSIES