Purbeck Memories

 
At the Beginning

Where do I begin? At my beginning would be a good start I suppose...

I saw my first sight of the outside world - the interior view of the front seat of a Mini Cooper van that had been hurriedly parked in the driveway at Everest Maternity Hospital, Swanage, in the May of 1961. Which was lucky for me considering Mum went into labour in the ladies 'powder room' of the Cock and Bottle at Morden, where Mum and Dad had gone for a meet up with Mum’s siblings and her parents. Mum thought it was the Scrumpy that had given her belly ache, but her eldest sisters - Lena who was a Nursing Sister, who trained at Portsmouth, the other, Helen, who became a Psychiatric Nurse at Herrison and Forston Clinic - knew straight away that Mum was in the advanced stages of labour. Mum ought to have known, as she’d had my brother two years earlier.

Auntie Helen took care of my brother, whilst Dad drove Mum into Swanage, parked up and ran into the reception. My Aunt Helen Legg (nee Ford) had already phoned ahead to let them know that Mum was on her way. Sister Felton and her team grabbed a gurney, but I was almost out, and more than ready to draw in some of that wonderful Purbeck air. They managed to get Mum into the reception area and drew a screen across, and there I was. Dad said he was not allowed to watch, but he was there on the other side of the screen. He nicknamed me ‘Minnie Mouse’ because when I first cried, I sounded like Minnie Mouse giggling, and because I’d been partially born in the front seat of his beloved Mini Cooper. A few years down the line he occasionally called me ‘Monkey Face’. He never explained exactly why that was, but I can guess.

On the day that this little ‘Worthling’ Belinda had arrived on this Earth, two skulls had been discovered on top of the soil/spoils heap (excess soil from grave digging along with grass cuttings and fallen leaves, old flowers and wreaths etc.). The excess soil heap was kept for replenishing any of the older graves that had sunk down a bit, and it was rare to see a grave with heaped up raised soil above the ground. Graves were levelled out with the back of a spade; the excess soil placed against the North wall at the top of the churchyard, and often covered by a corrugated iron sheet or two. As soon as the flowers and wreaths on the graves had begun to rot, they were usually then put on the heap and burned if dry enough, and any bits of wire and ribbon were generally taken away and put out for the dustcart in one of the village bins.

Back then the spoil-heap was situated virtually on top of the grave of the ‘Unknown Sailors’ of the SS Treveal at Worth Church Yard, known locally as ‘The Bone Yard’, but if it became too much of a heap, it would be dealt with, and usually the soil was dispersed discreetly onto the various graves that needed a bit of filling in. At other times the soil was taken away altogether by one of the grave diggers.  

The grave diggers were nearly always men from the village, or from the Worth and Acton quarries. The men that I recall seeing digging the graves, or assisting each other were Jack Corben, Bob Harris, Nelson Burt, Sheppy Lock, Percy Wallace, Charlie Hatchard, Ray Newman and Gus Smith. Sometimes other men stood around watching, puffing on their tobacco pipes and yarning away. It was like an open-air men’s club, men popping by to gaze at the grave digger’s progress, offering a hand or a bit of advice, or having a quiet joke. Some of the men seemed to be forever looking over their shoulders, as though waiting for somebody to sneak up on them and to give them a push.

Before my time, some of the men that I had heard stories about and their time as grave diggers were George Bugler, Herbie Hooper (actual registered surname Tomes - his widowed mother married again), Jack Corben, Walt and Bill Welsh, George and Mont Hooper and another Herbie somebody or other.

Talking of Herbie, and of Hooper, they were spoken about and referred to as “Yer Be” and “Yoo’per” or “Yu’per” and there was a greeting reserved for another Herbert that went, “Yer be Yerbie” (yer be = here’s). Anyone with the name of Hubert were “You Bert” as in Hubert Beavis. For many years I actually thought that it was polite if you greeted a person by saying, “Hello you…” So I’d be down Chapmans Pool with my Dad and saying “Hello You Bert,” “Hello you Uncle Percy,” (Wallace) “Hello you Bob,” (Harris) “Hello You Nigel,” (Harris) “Hello you Charlie,” (Hatchard) “Hello you vicar,” (Rev Harry Lloyd) and if I didn’t know their name, it was just plain “Hello you.”

It started when Hubert Beavis was about to return to Chapmans Pool after a long absence, and when I witnessed my dad watching with excitement as Hubert and Percy Wallace wove their way along the pathway which led from the old birdhouse and along the cliffside path, which then led to the path on the slope that led directly down to and in-line with the boat capstones. Back then there were two such wooden capstones, and when Hubert arrived, he and Dad almost embraced, but instead they shook hands at the last moment. Dad said “ello Hubert” with his Purbeck accent - it was “ello You Bert,” and Bob Harris said Hubert’s name in a similar fashion, “You Bert.”

The following week or maybe a couple of weeks after that, Hubert visited again with the same greeting - “Hello you Bert.” His name was Bert as far as I was able to work out. I said, "Hello you… Bert,” I turned to Percy Wallace, “Hello you Uncle Perce,” to Mr Candy, “Hello you Mr Candy,” and then turned to Ilay Cooper, “Hello you Oiler.” As far as I was concerned ‘Oiler’ was his nickname, and I assumed that it was he who had put all of the tar on the rocks. There was a lot of tar around back then, I think partially due to a Russian ship and another ship colliding somewhere off of Studland/Poole Harbour in the late 1950s. Poor Oiler would be particularly upset to learn that I had assumed that he was the oiler/tarring-man of the rocks at Chapmans Pool, especially given that he often rescued and cleaned up the seabirds that had been affected by oil slicks and tar.

Dad gave me a funny look, “What, why are you being silly, don’t say hello like that?”

“Well, you do it!”

“No I don’t, what are you carpin' on about.”

“You said it when you said hello to that man there!”

“What man?”

“That man, Bert!”

Oh, my goodness, it’s a good job that the men all had a sense of humour. Charlie Hatchard was actually extra kind to me. I almost cried when it finally dawned on me that it was the accent, and not a traditional term for greeting someone in a friendly manner, and as I’d also greeted quite a few other villagers in that way, I felt very embarrassed, foolish and ashamed. I still greet people that way when I’m not thinking about it and not standing on ceremony, but if I do, it’s usually a mark of my affection for an old friend or one of my children, or a duck, chicken, goose, gull, rook, cat, dog, cow, sheep, rabbit, donkey, horse etc. that I've happen to come across and am pleased to see.

I had been told that traditionally, people who lived and worked in specific regions of the Parish, e.g. Dunshay, Afflington, Eastington Worth Manor, Weston and Renscombe, were buried close to others that they lived and worked with, so the graveyard was like a map of the village's tithings and farms. But when looking at the Memorials from the mid to late 19th century onwards, it didn’t quite map out- family members did generally get buried near to their loved ones.

There were a few occasions when the gravediggers came across old, ‘not within living memory’ burials that they didn’t know were there. In the 1970s, Gus Smith, now I’m sorry that I have to say it like this about when Gus stepped in for, or ‘filled in’ on behalf of the usual grave digger of that time which was Ray Newman, who was also the Landlord of the Square and Compass by then. I think Gus may have done a few grave digging jobs at Crack Lane, Langton too.

Poor Gus came across an old burial when he was digging, and to him it appeared that the wood of the coffin had only just begun to rot, and when he stood on it, unknowingly, his feet went through, and he’d stood on a deceased woman; her hair colouring implied that she was not elderly when she’d passed away. She was more than six feet under, and it had been presumed at a later date, after a very informal inquiry, that there’d been an intention for her widowed husband to join her when his time was up, and that theory was due to the depth of the burial. Gus was pretty shaken up, he reckoned that he had never jumped out of such a deep hole so fast. He went to tell Ray, and no doubt had a few pints, or shots of liquor to calm his nerves.

A grave digger was not meant to leave his post without placing some planks over the gaping hole, and often using the corrugated iron sheets that were also used for shoring up the sides of the grave. As the digger dug deeper, and after covering with the planks, which were also used for shoring up the sides of the grave, then roping it off, and placing a couple of lamps either end (the lamps were usually checked in the evening and had to be lit just before sunset by one of the village men, or by the gravedigger himself), it was only then safe to leave the freshly dug grave unattended. But Gus in the state he was in, hadn’t done so before hopping over the wall and running across the field at the top end of the graveyard to the pub.

Ray informed John Pushman and Ted Dunckley and also Smith’s undertakers. Ray was volunteered as the person to go down into the grave to search for a nameplate. There wasn’t one that he could find, but the coffin was made of good quality wood, probably oak and wasn’t lined with lead, or zinc. Ray mentioned when relaying back the story to my parents, that he didn’t look too hard though. It wasn’t unusual for this sort of thing to happen, but normally there were not many signs of there being an old burial, and in several conversations that I’ve had with various folk of Worth and Langton over the years, most burials were not 6ft under, but some were 7ft to 8ft; “Room on Top” for a few more as one woman put it.

It was decided that it was a very old burial and that there was no choice other than to cover over the previous burial with soil, and to continue with all other proceedings. Ray Newman was really unhappy about that. Ray had a soft and sentimental side to him, despite his hobby as a taxidermist and had deep respect for the dead and the dying.
 

 Skulls on the Spoils Heap

John Pushman had already made a map of burials that he knew of and added to it when necessary. I think this was even before the 100-year law coming in. It wasn’t just Worth that was running out of burial plots, it was happening all over Purbeck and the country in general. At this point, it appears that there were more cremations occurring. Cremation Internments were usually and traditionally of those who had passed away abroad, or up North. Fortunately, Mr John Strange gave some of his land to the church for the extension of the graveyard, but it’s a bit of a Free-for-all. There seems to have been a few folk who don’t have connections to Worth, apart from visiting and then thinking it will be a nice spot to finish up at, who have ‘moved in’. I imagine it’s been a bit like The Gold Rush; people booking their plot and staking their claim as quickly as possible before someone else jumps in there ahead of them.

A resident of Worth Parish had passed away on the same day that I was born. She had been expected to pass away. I don’t know why that was, but I do know that Percy Wallace was very respectful towards her. She wasn’t originally from Purbeck, but was born a Lancashire lass, and had made her mark on the hearts of many around here by being particularly kind and generous toward sickly children and their families. She also helped with arranging foster families and adoptions, was also involved with the WW2 evacuee children, and was acquainted with Edwin Crabtree and his wider family. I think he was also originally from Lancashire.

The woman apparently didn’t have two ha’pennies to rub together, but she always put others before herself according to Dora Wallace. The woman's first husband had served in the Navy in WW1 and had crossed paths like ships passing in the night so to speak, with Percy Wallace when Percy and he were in the Navy in WW1. This man had transferred to the RAF by the end of the War. He and the woman I’m talking about, the Lancashire lass, had married before the outbreak of WW1, and after the War in about 1922, oh yes, I remember now, they had an older daughter who was born in about 1914/15 and a new-born son.

They travelled to America; it seems her husband travelled there first, and she travelled to be with him at some point afterwards I think during 1923. She travelled there with both of their children, but something went wrong and in 1924, she returned to their marital home which was in Scotland at that time, but without him or her children. I’ve discovered that her son, by the time that he was an adult, was a resident of New York and later had served during WW2. He named her under her 2nd marriage name when claiming (early 1950s) a USA based compensation for parents of US Military who had served during WW2. And her daughter crops up in the Gloucester U.K. registers in her adulthood.

Somehow the woman ended up in Purbeck by 1939, I think working at Sunnybank, and helping with looking after children. At some point she married, or was the common-law wife of Mr Holden, but by the time that she had passed away, she had reverted to her first married name. She was a bit of a mystery to me for a while and of course I had to go in search of more information and tie up the loose ends of the snippets that I'd learned about this woman that Dora Wallace had told me about. Her first husband was still alive in New York when she passed away, and he had eventually re-married, (his old housemaid/housekeeper of New York).

I do know a bit more about her and there’s information that is too sensitive to share, as it involves quite a few families in Purbeck, although ones that were as equally thoughtful and generous as this woman was. I have to say though, there were a few who didn’t like her because she was an ‘outsider’, yet, she seems to have been highly respected and accepted by most of the local community around Worth and Langton. I won’t go any further into that one, other than to say, some of the people who are around my parents age would already know about the finer details and the wider story, but no more needs to be said by me.

Church Warden Percy Wallace went up to the Church Yard to have a look at a possible burial plot for the woman’s grave. He didn’t notice the skulls on the spoils-heap; it was another resident who was tidying a family grave who’d spotted them. There had been a burial around six weeks beforehand and several people had already placed dead flowers onto the heap from a few burials earlier in the year and from the year before, and nobody had apparently seen any skulls up until then. When they were spotted, Percy was sent into a bit of a spin.

When Percy heard about my birth, he was apparently sent into one of his ‘worrisome wobbles.’ What if I was a sickly child and needed a swift baptism? The recently discovered skulls had been placed temporarily into a cardboard box, and locked in a cupboard in the vestry, awaiting the coroner to give the go-ahead for their re-internment. Percy, ever superstitious, didn’t like the thought of me being baptised while they were there in the church. Back then the font was situated just inside the Church’s door (West side), the mirror alleged to have been from the wreck of the Halsewell was quite low down on the wall on the East side of the doorway. The font is now nearer to the vestry and the mirror is now securely attached above the door.

Percy and the other Church Warden, John Pushman, spent a lot of time attempting to backtrack on some of the more recent burials and trying to work out where the skulls had come from. Their efforts were futile; there had been several long periods where there’d been no burials, then quite a few on the lead up to the discovery of the skulls, which I was told was on the day of my birth. Also, there were some periods where there had been heavy rainfall, so they couldn’t really be certain about how long the skulls had been there. It could have been months, it could have been years, it could have been just a few days or hours. It had not been noted until after Nelson Burt had begun to sort out the old spoil-heap in preparation to add more excess soil for an older burial and not quite into the process of digging the new grave when the skulls were eventually noticed by a woman who was visiting a family member’s grave.

I think it was Doll Hancock, or Aunt Doll (of 2 London Row) as she was known by everyone in the village, who had spotted the skulls, and this was apparently before Nelson Burt had even begun to dig the grave for the deceased woman that I have mentioned.The relatively new Vicar, Harry James Lloyd had assigned John Pushman and Percy Wallace the task of looking at a small area where they could bury the skulls; they ended up being re-buried close to the little Boiler House that used to be situated immediately to the West of the back door (according to the parish register).

At one stage, other people who had heard about the discovery of the skulls, thought that maybe the skulls had been leftovers from the SS Treveal disaster (Jan 1920), because it wasn’t just two unknown sailors in there, in their grave. It was dismembered limbs, arms, legs, feet, which I was told about by one woman who was the daughter of one of the men who assisted with the ‘clearing up down at Chapmans Pool’. This had gone on for quite some time afterwards.

After the survivors had gone home, and the drowned had all been buried in one mass grave, then brought out again and claimed by their relatives, they were transported back to their places of origin. Then the grave was used properly for one body that was washed ashore about a month later, and another that was found floating in the bay several weeks later. It was Sid Lander and a member of the Marsh family who found the body floating near Pier Bottom and St Adhelm's Head. Other 'items' were buried in the grave over the following weeks. 

Some of the ‘old gossips’ reckoned that the skulls had not come from the Church Yard in the first place and had been taken there from another place. A lot of people said it was people who had been renting out Dunshay Manor and that they were allegedly practising witchcraft. Others thought that it was just teenagers playing a joke. In reality, I think if you look at the size of the original graveyard, and then take a look at the burial registers, and how many folk had been buried there over the centuries in that relatively tiny grave-yard, then they probably had been dug up during a period between 1959-61 at Worth. Or if teenagers were involved, there had been some ancient burials discovered in I think, the Kings Road area of Swanage, near to that era of the discovery of the skulls at Worth (I hope that makes sense).

Dad often told the tale of when he drove through the village not long after I was born, he recalled that Percy ran into the road from the pond and flagged him down. “Percy was flapping his arms like a scarecrow in the gusty wind.” He enquired after my health, and according to Dora, Percy’s wife, she told me years later, Percy was so relieved that I was a healthy child, that he cheered up that day, and the next morning the coroner gave the go ahead for the skulls to be buried in the Church Yard. Percy needn’t have panicked; I wasn’t christened until many months later in the December of that same year. I’m surprised that I was a healthy child though, considering that dose of rough farm- brewed Scrumpy that I’d had before popping out to face the world. Have you ever tried rough scrumpy? It’s blinking horrible; stagnant ditch water and rancid, rotting apples. It’s no wonder I decided that it was time to get out of there!