HOLCOMBE JOTTINGS

Produced by Bryan Weston & published by Holcombe Residents Association

 Winter 2007

Found – after 71 years  

In July 1936, my husband travelled with his school for 2 weeks holiday in Dawlish. When we eventually came to live here in Holcombe, we spent time trying to find the farm on which they camped – to no avail.

Having bought Bryan Weston’s book “Captured in Time”, I was reading, with great interest historic facts of our village. Reaching page 111, I read “in 1936, the Battersea Central School for Boys held a school camp on a Court Farm field”.

Excitedly I called Harry “I have found your Dawlish farm. We can see it from our bedroom window”. Harry had told many stories about his holiday in Dawlish at the age of 15 and now we were living in the lane he had walked 71 years ago. He says it is rather like coming home. His family came from the West Country and his great-great grandmother’s name was Tamar Sparks.

From Vicky Sparks, Fordens Lane

A village of flowers

Those of a certain age will recall when the BBC offered only two radio channels. The introduction to one programme called “In Town Tonight” consisted of the sounds of a busy city, including the “Violets, lovely violets” cry of a street flower-seller. For Holcombe listeners, this must have had a particular resonance.

Only around the end of the 19^th century did violets become personal and home decorative objects and in demand. Grown and sold in the district for many years, the first consignment of 90 “Princess of Wales ” violets was sent to by rail to Covent Garden in 1891 - in corset boxes. Growing in the area increased before World War One. But during that War the violet fields were dug up and vegetables planted instead: many valuable strains were lost. After that war and, with increasing demand, violet growing spread rapidly. A 1936 newspaper commented on the “amazing progress in the last few years” and “the most exclusive shops vie to secure the choicest flowers; only inferior qualities reach the streets, to be sold in their millions to girls on their evening out. One of the biggest growing centres is Holcombe, as farmers whose interests were purely agricultural are now almost exclusively violet growers, farming sometimes becoming a sideline. With the climate and ground favouring the district, it is small wonder that Holcombe prides itself on the quality of its violets. At the height of the season, every little farmhouse in Holcombe is packed with flowers. The ladies of the house are busy all day sorting, tying-up and packing. Men bring more in continually. They must pick in all weathers. The market must be served”.  

Diversification was clearly as important to farmers then as now though violet growing was not confined to farmers. Smallholders and back gardens in Holcombe were used too. The best commercial violet, with long stems considered perfect for bunching, was the “Princess of Wales” variety. The newspaper article said about bunching - “One inferior bloom in thirty-six is regarded as sufficient to reduce the grower, in the ruthless eyes of Covent Garden, from the Grade One level (which means sales to exclusive shops) to “street” level. The larger, finer blooms are usually tied loosely, the better to exhibit their quality, and those not quite so good in smaller, tighter bunches, where their mass of compact colour can be made to produce a very rich effect”.”. About 150 acres of violets were grown in the Dawlish area between the wars producing “great waves of perfume on the breeze” during the flowering season. After flowering all the plants were ripped up, and the ground prepared for another planting.

One former resident recalled that “at one time, everyone in the area grew violets, every little farmhouse and shed was packed with flowers and the ladies were busy all day sorting, tying up and packing. I can remember that my Auntie had built the first bungalow, ‘Aotearoa’, between Fordens and Hall Lanes. She grew violets and anemones there since she had so much land. From about the age of twelve, I used to go there to help with the bunching of the flowers – nearly everyone did bunching in those days – and the packing of the bunches into big wooden boxes (two dozen each box) surrounded by very fine, soft tissue paper. We used to wheel the boxes on trolleys down to Dawlish Station, piling the boxes on stands on the platform. We had no lights on the roads then, or on the trolley, though we had a torch. There were no footpaths on the main road - or in the village come to that. Thankfully, there was very little traffic. For our work, we received six pence per week (2½ p), which was slave labour

really. But we enjoyed it and six pence went a long way in those days”.  

Another former resident remembers that her father and mother grew violets, anemones and sweet peas in season, though tulips and other flowers were tried from time to time. “All the seeds came from Suttons (then in Reading ). All the flowers were grown in the open and were at the mercy of the elements. We all helped when flowers were ready to be picked. Mother did all the bunching of flowers that we grew and the packing of them in wooden boxes. Somehow, she found time to do this as well as running the home and making most of our clothes etc. Formerly a talented and artistic milliner in Windsor until her marriage, her artistic talents were very useful in the packing process. When the lids came off the boxes in the early hours in Covent Garden, the presentation of the flowers was important in catching the eye of buyers The boxes of flowers were collected by railway vans and sent from Dawlish Station overnight to Covent Garden in London. The railways were then an important part of life and provided a thoroughly dependable service”.

 There were several growers on a larger scale in Holcombe, not just of violets. These included Frank Milford (father of the late Joan Bartlett) who had a large smallholding and Joseph Baulkwill of Court Farm. His daughter recalls “I think my parents had quite a good life, particularly when they started to grow flowers - violets and anemones. Father used to show the anemones - as far away as Truro and Plymouth - as well as sell them. I used to go with him sometimes. He had a "bible" on flower growing which even illustrated the length of stem. He was very particular about the standard of the flowers he sold. These were sent to Covent Garden and his boxes of flowers were sold unopened since the letters "J.O.B." on the boxes was reckoned to be a guarantee of quality. I was not allowed to

His son, Peter, remembers that quite a few villagers made a good living growing and selling flowers, and others found paid employment from the industry. “Most smaller growers in the village had to till their land by hand fork: we were able to use a horse drawn plough as we needed to have them for general farm work. We employed 3 ladies to do the bunching whilst up to 4 men were in the fields picking the blooms. So that the boxed flowers could be on sale in Covent Garden by 5am the next morning, most growers took their boxes to Dawlish Station so that they could be put on the 6.30pm express to Paddington. Unlike today, the trains were late very rarely. With so many boxes of flowers stacked on the platform, the station was well known for the overpowering scent they gave off.  After the War, only a few violet growers continued due to changes in fashion and anemones, wallflowers and polyanthus took their place. I continued to grow anemones finally growing them in a field off Strawberry Lane until 1986 just after I had retired”.  

Today, there are no fields of scented violets or other flowers to delight the eye and nose in Holcombe. Violets are no longer in fashion or demand. In fact, there is only one nursery in Devon specializing in violets.

It’s a dog’s life  

I was stretched out in my garden a while ago, enjoying the sun and the peace, when a sheet of paper fell off a table and landed on me. On examination, I found it was the Holcombe Jottings that my Mum had read. I could hardly believe it when I saw this picture of my friend Bella from next door. What’s she been up to I thought? Having read what was written I decided – right, anything she can do I can do too.

Oh, by the way I am Oscar, a Bouvier de Flandres, although some fool thought I was an Airedale the other day.

Because I’ve not been too well lately I have been content to chat with Bella and our other neighbour, Nellie, in the garden. I don’t mean barking at each other – I mean dog talk that humans can’t understand.

It seems you know all about Bella being a Lurcher so I think I should introduce Nellie because she is our oldest Club Member and she is a Lakeland Terrier cross.

Whilst we three are all completely different in breed and size, there are similarities in colour. I must say, as the youngest and biggest, and the brightest one of the bunch, I am the one who is in charge. I wouldn’t tell the two girls that though, especially Bella who always likes to have the last word.

This writing is more tiring than I thought so I’ll just have a lie down and dream a little about the three of us pretending to be Musketeers, running about all over the place enjoying ourselves.

Carol and Gerry Chambers

 A joke from my Swedish friends

A farmer was tending his sheep in the pasture. Suddenly a brand new BMW appears

on the road. A man in a Dolce & Gabbana suit and Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie leans his head out of the open window and shouts to the farmer:

“If I can tell you how many sheep you have got here, can I take one of them with me?”

 The farmer looked at the man and said “That’s okay with me.”

The man drives his BMW up to the farmer, takes out and opens a Dell Notebook computer. With the help of Nokia’s latest 3G-telephone he connects to a NASA site on the Internet. With GPS he gets the exact position and connects it to a NASA satellite which scans the area with a high resolution camera. After a while he opens the digital picture which he got by e-mail, imports the picture to Adobe Photoshop, fixes it and sends it to an Image Processing Facility in Hamburg. In a few seconds he gets a new reply which says: Picture and data stored.

Then he logs to a powerful database and connects an Excel document with hundreds of advanced formulas. After that he sends all data with e-mail to a powerful computer in America and in a moment he gets a response. Then he writes a 150-page 4-coloured report on his minimal HP colour Laser Jet printer and, throwing a glance at the last page, says to the farmer “You have got exactly 1586 animals”.

“That’s right”, the farmer says, “You can take one of the sheep”.

He watches the man, walking around to choose one of the sheep. He chooses one, which he, with much trouble, pushes into the boot of the BMW.

Then the farmer says: “You there. If I can tell your profession, can I get my sheep back?”  The man thinks for a moment and then he says: “That’s okay”.

“You are a business consultant”, the farmer says. The man replies “That is correct. How did you know?”  

“No problem. You came here without being asked. You charge me for something that I already knew and answer a question I never asked you. And finally you have no knowledge at all how this business works. So please, will you be kind enough to give me my sheepdog back……..!.”

Bryan Weston (with thanks to Barbro and Kjell Bolina)

The internet era comes to Holcombe?

The Residents Association is looking to build its own web site.  The main purpose would be to bring together information about the various activities that go on in the village, such as details of all the clubs and societies, and the events held at the village hall.  There is no intention to replace the existing means of communication e.g. village notice board, posters etc., but to complement them.  The web site would also include links to other web sites that might be of interest to residents, and back copies of journals such as Holcombe Jottings.  There might also be a few photos of the village to make the site more interesting to people who stumble across it!  If you have any suggestions on what might also be included in the web site, please contact Andy Watson at andy.watson@tesco.net  or telephone 888072.

Andy Watson