[Q] I thought that maybe we could just start briefly by talking about your family before you because I think the Jolls are an old Hennock family.

[A] Yes, they are. My great-grandfather is buried in the churchyard. He really lived at Higher Ashton, farming there, and they retired to Hennock and I am pretty sure he is buried in the churchyard.

[Q] Yes, I think Derek Baker did an inventory. So, he was a farmer.

[A] Yes, he was a farmer at George Teign and then my grandfather continued farming there until he retired at Kingskerswell and latterly Kingsteignton, and then when my grandfather retired, my father applied for the tenancy of Moorhouse and got it.

[Q] So what year did your father take on the tenancy?

[A] 1935

[Q] So was that the first tenancy of the farm?

[A] No, I think that there was there was someone before that. The Devon County Council I think probably after the First World War took on a lot of land. It used to be the Hawkmoor estate and they divided it up into three farms. There is Moorhouse at the top of Slade Hill, then Mixing Barn, and Slade Farm at the bottom.

[Q] So your dad, he got the tenancy in 1935?

[A] Yes, and he farmed there for 35 years. He retired in 1970. That's when I applied for the tenancy and got it, and I stayed there another 30 years.

[Q] And you were born in…..?

[A] 1939. So my family farmed at Moorhouse for 61 years.

[Q] Wow! So you were about 30 when you took on the tenancy.

[A] Yes.

[Q] And what did you do up until you took on the tenancy?

[A] I worked for my father. I always wanted to do farming, so I worked on the farm and gradually got the hang of it. I went to day release classes which were run by Bicton College where I did the City and Guilds stage one, stage two and stage three farm management course and got through all of that. I thought that if I had good qualifications, they were more likely to give me the tenancy, because I always wanted to take over the farm.

[Q] Right. So you were actually born in the farmhouse?

[A] Oh yes, I think so.

[Q] So do you have any brothers and sisters.

[A] Two sisters, one older, one younger.

[Q] And have they stayed on in Hennock?

[A] No, well, one did and the other wasn’t that far away. My older sister married John Cleeve who used to farm at Netton, the other side of the reservoirs. My younger sister, she married someone from Ashburton and she moved there.

[Q] So your elder sister lived for a long time at Netton. Is that still in Hennock parish?

[A] Yes, it is. She lived there until they retired in 1996 and then they moved on. They went to Crockernwell, between Exeter and Okehampton, for their retirement.

[Q] Right, so let's go back a bit. You're born in 1939 on the farm. What's your earliest memory?

[A] Probably starting school. I can't remember a lot before that. I went to Hennock School. They used to have school transport if you were over 2 miles from the school. Our farm was just under two miles. Everyone who lived at the reservoirs got transport but we didn't.

[Q] So they wouldn't stop and pick you up?

[A] Well, they had a carful. So my father used to take us halfway to Cherricombe Head and we walked from there. And then all the way back in the afternoon.

[Q] In all winds and weathers, I suppose.

[A] Oh yes, yes!

[Q] Can you remember the weather when you were at school?

[A] I can remember quite a bit of snow some years. Yes, 1947 was particularly bad.

[Q] Yes, my elder brother was born that year and I remember my mother always talked about that.

[A] ‘Yes, it was a bitterly cold winter, I remember.

[Q] So were there days when you couldn't get to school?

[A] I think they were, actually. Certainly, some of the snow falls were very heavy and we had days when we missed school.

[Q] And how was school?

[A] It was OK. There were three teachers. Mrs Cornish she taught the infants, the five to seven-year olds, and then there was Miss Stone, she taught the 7 to 9 year olds, and the headmaster Mr Gilbart taught the nine to elevens. But he suffered from TB quite badly and several of his children got it too. I remember one of the children died of TB, it was quite widespread in the family. We all had to go and have chest X-rays. Nowadays they would be horrified. They wouldn't let anyone teach with TB.

[Q] Were your parents worried about it?

[A] I don't think so. I think it was just the way it was in those days.

[Q] Can you remember your friends at school? Are any of them still in the village?

[A] I don't think they are, to be honest. They all moved to different areas. I can’t think of anyone who actually lived in Hennock after that.

[Q] And then when you graduated from the primary school you went to…..?

[A] Highweek Secondary Modern School for Boys. There was the boys school and the girls school.

[Q] And you had a uniform with a blazer and a cap or…..?

[A] No, not really, no. There was a very strict headmaster, I remember.

[Q] I hope you didn't have any beatings or anything like that.

[A] No, I didn't, but he certainly kept a very strict rule on everything, which was good really.

[Q] And all during childhood, did you always want to be a farmer? You never wanted to be an engine driver.

[A] No.

[Q] So can you remember the war at all, because you must have been five or six when it ended?

[A] Not really. I just remember we were all issued with gas masks which we had to practice putting on. That was probably before I started school.

[Q] And your dad, he continued as a farmer during the war, as a reserved occupation.

[A] Yes, right.

[Q] Did your family know people who went to the war?

[A] I don't think we were close with anyone who actually was called up for the war effort.

[Q] Because there are quite a lot of names on the War Memorial from the Second World War….

[A] As a family, we didn't know any of them, although I did vaguely know their names.

[Q] There weren’t any children at school who’d lost their parents or lost their father?

[A] I can't remember any.

[Q] Can you remember VE Day or VJ day?

[A] Not really, no. I don’t have much recollection of that.

[Q] So you left school at 15 and then you got your education as a farmer. And then at one stage, you romanced Janet your future wife. Was she a Hennock girl?

[A] No, no, she was from Moretonhampstead.

[Q] So how did you come to meet her then?

[A] Well, I had a friend who lived not terribly far away and he and his family used to go to the Baptist Church in Moretonhampstead, and they had a youth club for young people, so he said to me ‘Why don't you come to the youth club?’ So I started going to the youth club and that's where I met her. Her dad, he was actually on the buses, he was a bus conductor on Devon General – they used to have conductors in those days. And her mother used to run a shop in Moreton that sold milk and newspapers, that sort of thing.

[Q] So you met at the youth club - and then courting! Did you go to the cinema or what did you do?

[A] Oh, just travelling around various places. I can’t remember anything exceptionally interesting. When Janet left school, she worked at Yelverton.

[Q] So how did she get over there every day?

[A] She lodged there and came home at weekends. Every Sunday evening I used to drive her back to where she worked.

[Q] Did you have your own car.

[A] Oh, yes. It was a Standard Pick Up.

[Q] Had you already taken over the farm then?

[A] Oh no, I was working for my father still. We got married in 1963 and we didn't take over the farm until 1970, so a good seven years, and because the farmhouse was really big, we had one end of it, divided off and we lived there for seven years before we took over the whole place.

[Q] How did Janet take living with her in-laws?

[A] It was OK actually because we could be totally separate.

[Q] So she continued working at Yelverton?

[A] No, she worked at the Cottage Hospital in Bovey as a nursing auxiliary until our first child was born.

[Q] Right. And how many how many children did you have?

[A] Three boys.

[Q] That's like me and my brothers - we were three. I think at first my mother was shocked but then later on she only ever wanted boys. But Janet, did she wish for a girl?

[A] She would have quite liked a daughter, but I think she was quite happy with the boys really.

[Q] And so all the boys went to the Hennock primary school?

[A] And then on to Teign. David went on from there to Dyron’s to do a couple more years of studying…..

[Q] Like a sixth form college?

[A] Basically, yes.
Andrew went to Torquay Technical College and studied accounts and management. Now he works for a machinery dealer as workshop administrator. Simon went to Hennock and Teign, and then on to Bath University. He did four years there, studying computers.

[Q] And what was his career after that?

[A] Well, he got a job with a company called Oracle and worked there for a few years then he had the chance to move, so he went to RBS that is now NatWest….

[Q] But it was NatWest before wasn't it….

[A] Well, it was the Royal Bank of Scotland when he went there. Then there was a big fuss with the Royal Bank of Scotland so they slowly dropped the RBS name. He still works there and lives in Woking.

[Q] And David?

[A] When he finished at Dyron’s, he worked at Western Leyland DAF Trucks at Heathfield as assistant service manager there and he was there for several years. But he always had that urge to travel, he just loves travelling, so then he decided with his girlfriend to go to Australia to do 10 months as backpacker tourists – in Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand. So they did that for 10 months and then he was saying ‘I'm never going to come back’ and then eventually they came back. But they were only home for a month and were going out again. They absolutely loved it.

[Q] How did they get the money to do that?

[A] I don’t think it cost an awful lot. They were doing some subsidised trips in those days. I know you could go to Australia for £10. So they went again and got jobs. Paula was a qualified nurse so she could easily get work and David got a job with this company doing up parcels. It was sort of a distribution company. He carried on working there and after a while he was made logistics manager until the company was sold out to another company who weren't interested in the distribution business. So in the meantime, one of the people that he knew asked him if he would be interested in setting up another company if he came in as a sleeping partner. So that's what he did and that seemed to quite work for a few years and then his partner got MS quite badly and said to David I'm going to have to cut back on my business interests so do you want to find another partner? But David said ‘I'd love it to do it on my own’. So he went to see his bank manager and never looked back.

[Q] So he is successful…..but far from Hennock! Oh, just to come back to Hennock and talk a little bit about your farming life. I mean, one question is you've lived on the farm, you said, for 61 years. There must have been a lot of changes in farming over those years.

[A] Yes, there were. My parents did sort of traditional farming like most people did in those days, a few chickens, a few sheep, a few cows, just a bit of everything really…..

[Q] Did you have any arable there?

[A] Oh, potatoes, potatoes, always, yes. But they retired and then when I took over, I wasn’t so keen on the sheep and much preferred the dairy cows.

[Q] Any particular reason?

[A] I don't know. I just thought ‘I'm going to start working with the cows. They are more interesting.’ So we sold the sheep and increased the cow numbers. We continued to grow potatoes. My father used to sell them in the village and locally and we carried on with all that. We increased the potato area and we had a good market for them locally. Then we started supplying the local hospitals with potatoes because when Janet worked at the hospital as a nursing auxiliary, they were complaining about the potatoes. Janet suggested ours and we began supplying the hospital with potatoes and then we were asked if we could supply Moretonhampstead hospital as well, so we did that and then Hawkmoor hospital which was a specialist hospital mainly for TB patients. But when the cases of TB started to decline, they turned it into a low-grade mental hospital. Then we were asked if we could supply them as well. Of course, that was much bigger. Instead of one bag every couple of weeks, it was about 12 bags every week. And then they asked if we could also supply Teignmouth and Dawlish Hospitals with potatoes as well but we didn't deliver them, we only delivered the local ones. But we would deliver the orders to the local hospital and they were picked up in the laundry van and went off with the dirty sheets and pillowcases.

[Q] And how did you sell the milk?

[A] Well, it was in churns. The lorry came every day and we had a stand at the end of the lane by the road to put the churns on and then the lorry driver would take the full churns and leave the empty ones for the next day.

[Q] So right there on the top road?

[A] Yes. And then of course things moved on and bulk tanks came in. They did away with churns and then it was all picked up by the milk tanker.

[Q] So you had a big bulk tank in the dairy?

[A] Yes, we bought the big bulk tank and then I must say it was a load easier as we milked the cows and the milk went directly into the bulk tank. It had to be cooled with a refrigeration unit. They got very fussy about the temperature of milk: it had to be under 4° otherwise they wouldn't take it.

[Q] Right. Did you ever have any milk refused?

[A] We didn't have any refused but once or twice when we had a breakdown they wouldn't take it. They came back later in the day, actually when we got the refrigeration unit fixed, and they picked the milk up OK. The only time we had to throw away milk was when we had really bad snowfalls and there was no way that you could get to the main road…..

[Q] So what about in….’63, was it?

[A] That was before I took over. My father was still there then. The churn lorry couldn't get to us, so we had to take the milk down to Slade Cross.

[Q] How did you get it down there?

[A] With the tractor. But because of the filtration words being close by, they had to keep the road open, so Slade Hill was always cleared and gritted, so we could get down to the bottom there with the churns. We did that for weeks and weeks.

[Q] So what about tractors? I mean, when your father took over the farm, was he still using horses?

[A] Horses, yes, he had horses. Yes, I think he bought the first tractor in 1947, the little grey Ferguson which was a popular tractor in those days.

[Q] What later became Massey Ferguson….. And can you remember the horses on the farm?

[A] Only just, yes. I can't remember much about the horses. I didn't really have anything to do with them.

[Q] Did you know their names or feed them or anything?

[A] I think I probably used to feed them sometimes, but I was probably only eight or nine years old.

[Q] Typically, when you were a child, did you have jobs on the farm?

[A] Yes, I used to feed all the young calves when I came in from school, and I used to have to muck out the cows. During the winter months they came in and stayed inside virtually all the time. Yes, I did that from when I was about 13 years old.

[Q] Did you get pocket money for that?

[A] Oh, a little bit, just a little bit in those days.

[Q] But because you were interested in farming, you didn't mind doing it…

[A] No, I didn't.

[Q] What about your sisters? Did they have to help out too?

[A] They didn't really do anything outside on the farm but we used to take in visitors to do bed and breakfast and so the girls would help with that.

[Q] And did you and Janet carry on bed and breakfast?

[A] No, no.

[Q] So was the farm itself a good enough living in those days?

[A] Yes, if you worked hard and put in a lot of effort, you could make a reasonable living. And just before we took over the farm, Mr Archer who farmed at Warmhill, he did a milk round in the village and because we used to do a small milk round at the Reservoirs, we always delivered to the houses there, we had the chance to take on his round. So Janet jumped at the chance. She always loved doing things like that…

[Q] So she had a little truck?

[A] Right, well, we just had an estate car, a Ford Cortina.

[Q] And milk in bottles or…..?

[A] Yes. So Janet did that and she loved it. She was very sociable and loved meeting people and talking to people.

[Q] And what about school milk. Because we used to have 1/3 of a pint of milk.

[A] I think that stopped before we took over.

[Q] Under Mrs. Thatcher.

[A] I think so, yes. The only thing we did with the school was, they used to cook their own meals in the canteen for the children and we supplied them with vegetables and potatoes, right, but I don't think we ever supplied them with any milk.

[Q] And what about with getting together with other farmers because we know that farming can sometimes be a bit of a lonely life. Were there young farmers or other kinds of groupings that could bring you together?

[A] Yes, I used to belong to Christow Young Farmers. That was the nearest one, yes. I went there for several years and there was a hand who worked on the farm who went there as well but l I don't think they were anyone else from Hennock who went. Yes, that was a pretty good social activity really.

[Q] So, Harold, shall we have a tea break little tea break?

[A] All right!

* * * * *

[Q] Very good! So we haven't talked much yet about village life. I know that you were up on the farm a couple of miles away and like any farmer you were working 12 hours a day seven days a week. Did you have much chance during your working life to take part in village things?

[A] Not an awful lot. We used to come to Hennock church but I don't think there was so much going on in the village as there has been recently. I used to go to the Young Farmers Club over at Christow.

[Q] Did you go to church regularly when the children were small?

[A] Yes. Janet belonged to the Baptist Church at Moretonhampstead, so she remained faithful to that for a while. She didn't want to change from there so we went there for some years until Chris Solaris took over and then, oh boy! He had such a charm with people, he had true Christian beliefs. He used to come out to the farm and we got to know him quite well. So we started coming to the service and Janet decided she quite liked it. That was 30 years ago.

[Q] Can you remember when the Methodist Chapel was still working?

[A] Yes, it was the Sanderses, and Mr Archer at Warmhill, he used to go. Alan and Donald Sanders were twins, builders, and they kept it going but eventually I think gave up the building work and moved away from the village. Donald bought a farm. After that there just wasn't enough support.

[Q] You said you were confirmed in the church. Who was the vicar then?

[A] Reverend Lough, it was. He came, what, about 1954.

[Q] So you were quite old to be confirmed.

[A] I was about 15, I think. The Bishop of Exeter came to the confirmation service. For the confirmation classes we used to come to the Vicarage, going up those stairs to the vicar’s study. There were about nine or ten of us in the confirmation class.

[Q] That was just one year’s class?

[A] Well I don't know if he did it every year. To be honest probably every two years.

[Q] Can you remember those who were in the class who are still around?

[A] I can remember one or two in the class but we lost touch years ago.

[Q] How was Father Lough? How did you find him?

[A] Well, I always found him OK. He was quite a quiet personality. But the congregation, actually over the years, it went down and I think it was only about six people in church in his latter years. But then Father Lough died and it was about a year after that that Chris Solaris came. It would have been around ’92. And he sort of revitalised the church. He brought in everybody. Andy and Pam Marchant, they used to go to the Baptist Church in Chudleigh, and then they quite liked Chris and the way that he did the services and everything, so they changed and started coming to Hennock. And George and Roberta Fairleigh, they used to go to Rora House down in Liverton but they got to know Chris quite well and they started coming to Hennock Church.

[Q] I remember when we were first here in 2003, I think there used to be normally about 20 people in church.

[A] Yes, it's gone down a little bit now, around 12 to 13. But we used to get 25 to 30. We used to have the family service once a month which Dennis Hatt took…..

[Q] The military man?

[A] Yes, that's right. Yes, it was good and so some children would come, quite a few actually. The family service was very popular.

[Q] And did you have a choir then?

[A] No, no choir.

[Q] But when you first came there was a choir?

[A] Yes, there were about six people in it.

[Q] And can you remember the vicars before Father Lough?

[A] Yes, the Reverend Peacock, which is back in the 1940s it would've been, or the early 1950s. He moved on elsewhere and the Reverent Lough came in 1954. The Reverend Peacock had two adopted daughters, Primrose and Rachel. Mrs Peacock, she used to play the organ in the church. But they've all left the village. I think Primrose, she was in touch for quite a while and came back and visited. I never saw her then though. I think she's died now, I'm pretty sure. She used to send a letter every so often and I think it used to be put in the parish magazine, about her childhood memories of the village. Reproduced here - Ed.

[Q] I think several children of the Vicarage have been back here including Louis Mott’s daughter. I think he was the vicar during the First World War. He had a daughter called Elizabeth who was in the Tracy retirement home and there was a lady who lived at the other end of the village who worked there in the retirement home and she brought Sister Elizabeth as she was called. And then there was the son of one of the vicars in the 1930s who came and actually several descendants of the Reverend Hill who was vicar during the Napoleonic wars. That family have been quite frequent visitors.

[A] People do like to come back, yes, they do revisit where they grew up.

[Q] But Father Lough, he was quite high church, wasn't he? Did that put people off, do you think?

[A] A little bit. And he wasn't a great communicator with people. He was quite shy really, very quiet, whereas Chris Solaris was a complete opposite. He was capable of getting on with everybody.

[Q] One thing I didn't ask you about during your farming life is how you did you have holidays or was it just 24/7/365 days a year.

[A] Very few, just four weeks in 40 years.

[Q] Seriously? And what did you do in those four weeks.

[A] Hard to remember. We went Hayle in Cornwall for a week when the children were quite small, and we went to Croyde in North Devon. We went to Wales on our honeymoon, to Snowdonia.

[Q] So what did the boys do during their summer holidays?

[A] They always seemed to have lots on the go. They were quite happy, just given the freedom of the farm and doing what they wanted to do a lot of the time. I don't know that they went away an awful lot, But once they were able to get their own car, well, then they were all over the place. We used to do quite a bit of retailing because we had our milk round and we had all the potatoes to supply locally everywhere and you can't close that down, and to go away for a week, it took an awful lot of organising to get people who could keep it all going and it got to the point where you felt ‘Is it really worth it, if you enjoy what you do?’ I never had a craving for holidays really. I was quite happy doing what I was doing.

[Q] And what about your thoughts on farming today. We hear a lot from that lady Minette Waters…..

[A] She was always very vocal on the radio, yes…..

[Q] I should tell you that Isabelle and I are members of the National Farmers Union because we have insurance from the NFU, so we get the Farmer and Grower magazine and so on….. But I mean how do you think of farming today compared to farming in your youth.

[A] It's a totally different world really it is. I think when we took over in 1970 they were still prioritising growing food because after the Second World War, Britain wasn’t able to import very much food so there was a real shortage. I think the government policy from the late 1940s right up to 1980 probably was to maximise food production, so we were actually encouraged to grow more food, whereas now they don't want you to grow food. Now it’s all environmental and so many restrictions on what you can and can’t do. I think we farmed through probably the best period.

[Q] And then at retirement, were you able to sell the lease or it just reverted to the County Council?

[A] Well, we just had to give 12 months notice when we wanted to retire. So then we had to buy somewhere to live, and we ended up at Pitt Lodge. And because I just threw myself into the farming life and worked just ridiculous hours, everyone said Oh what on earth will you do when you leave the farm? I don’t know how you will manage. But actually I didn't find it a problem at all. I think at the end it all became a bit of a burden to keep it all going right and I think it got to the point where I thought it was time to stop. So I made the decision and I stuck to it. It was the right thing to do.

[Q] So did you plan for things to do in your retirement, you and Janet?

[A] Well it gave us more time so we could go around more often but things just fell into place quite quickly. I always enjoyed gardening and we had an acre of land so I could take care of that. I thought that I also needed to get a couple of little jobs to keep it all going as well. So there was a notice in a shop window saying Help wanted in the garden, would suit pensioner. So I went up to see this lady and took that job on which was, which was quite nice to get out and do a bit. Then the lady said ‘I've got a friend at Liverton who can't get anyone to do her garden. Would you be interested?’ So I took that one on and then the person at Chudleigh that I was working for said that her daughter lived down at Old Chard – it’s a tiny little hamlet on the back road to Teignmouth. She lived there and was selling the property and this barrister from London was buying it and she was just so organised. So this lady said to me this person who's buying my daughter’s property is looking for a gardener. Would you be interested, so I gave her my number. This lady came to see me and said ‘It's very overgrown and rundown. It's a huge amount of work to be done.’ So I said ‘OK when you actually get completion, I’ll come up and see you and anything I can't do, I'll tell you.’ So anyway I took it on and that was fantastic, it was just the right job for me, all things that I enjoyed doing. There was an awful lot of tidying up and reclamation. So I worked there for 18 years. It went really well and the lady was very pleased.

[Q] Then both you and Janet were involved in the church. I think you were both churchwardens.

[A] Yes. So, then I was churchwarden from 1997 until 2008 and then when I retired Janet took over, with Libby Marnham. But she only did it for a couple years because unfortunately she became ill.

[Q] So Harold we've been through a lot of your life. No doubt there are lots of other things we could talk about but I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions to finish off. One question is, in your life, what are the things that you're most proud of ?

[A] Oh gosh, it's probably when we won the farm management and conservation award with the Devon County Council. There were 166 farms in Devon and every year they used to hold this competition and to my amazement we actually won it.

[Q] Can I ask why you won it?

[A] I think it was conservation, bearing in mind how you farm and also the farm management, how you grew your crops, how you looked after your animals, generally just the condition of the farm and everything. The judges came around the farm and asked lots of questions…..

[Q] Did you go in for it every year?

[A] I have just got a feeling they didn't do it every year. I think that it was probably more like every five years. We got a cheque for £100.

[Q] Real money in those days!

[A] So we went to County Hall, where they ran it from, the Land Agent’s Department and they gave us a nice meal and then presented us with the cheque.

[Q] Well done! And then the last question, it's maybe hard to answer but what advice would you give to your younger self?

[A] Not work so hard, it really would be.

[Q] Then maybe you wouldn't have won the award if you didn't work so hard!

[A] I mean I enjoyed doing what I did but we did use to work ridiculous hours.

[Q] Very good thank you very much. That is really interesting. Now let’s talk about a little bit about next steps. And also when you get home if you think about other things that you'd like to have added, we can have another session. But I think this is very rich material.

[A] I just remembered something that changed in the village over the years. There used to be three farms in Hennock that have disappeared…..

[Q] Really, you mean they've been amalgamated with other farms?

[A] No, just disappeared. There was Longlands, and Lakes Farm next to Pat and Ann, and Lower Town by the school where Tony Trant used to farm…..

[Q] So all three farms on the steep slope there?

[A] Yes yes, it was all sort of individual forms there. Longlands got its name because the ground went from Chericombe Head right down almost to the Teign Valley. And Lakes Farm, where Bill Cann used to be, went up from a bit beyond Chericombe Head all the way down the hill from the top. I think quite a bit of the land at Lakes Farm where Bill Cann farmed - I think he died, I don't think he ever retired - I think a lot of the land went to Beadon Farm.

[Q] And then there was a fellow from Hazlewood who took some of the land up on this side, Flayn.

[A] I don't know who's farming that now, probably the Harveys. I think Michael Harvey used to rent quite a bit of that land because that's adjacent to his.

[Q] I guess that those farms were really too small to be viable.

[A] You wouldn’t be able to survive on it now.

[Q] How many acres did you have in your farm?

[A] 89. It was quite small as farms go yes, but my attitude was you always produced all you can off the farm and just buy in any extra feed that you might need to get through the winter rather than go out and take on more land and ending up not being able to manage it.

* * * * *

Later Harold reminisced about Hennock in the 1950s – seventy years ago! He mentioned the lively local retailers including two in Church Road. There was Mrs Gray who used to do the fish and chips; and Mrs Anderson who sold fruit and vegetables. Now, of course, we have to go into Bovey for practically everything except the good old Palk and the excellent Village Hall and all that they do, and the lively church which Harold still attends every Sunday.