[8L. 16/03/80]  Thank you very much for sending me the account of the History group meeting.   We were both very interested in reading it. In fact I have read it three or four times.   I was always interested to hear anything of old times in Cropredy.

I was apprenticed under the apprenticeship scheme that was mentioned.  I am enclosing my indentures for you to see. You can return them sometime.  You will see all the conditions attached.

“This Indenture witnesseth that WILLIAM COLIN SHIRLEY (of the age of fifteen years) son of William Albert Shirley of Cropredy in the county of Oxford  (with the consent of his said father) doth put himself apprentice to William Neal of Cropredy, carpenter and wheelwright, to learn his art and after him (after the manner of an apprentice) to serve from the first day of September [1921] until the full end and term of five years from thence next following to be fully completed and ended.  During which term the said apprentice his master faithfully shall serve:  He shall do no damage to his said master nor see it to be done to others but that he to his power shall let or forthwith give warning to his master of the same.  He shall not play at Cards, Dice, Tables or any other unlawful games whereby his said master may have any loss.  With his own goods or others during the said term without licence of his said master he shall neither buy nor sell.  He shall not haunt Taverns or Playhouses nor absent himself from his master’s services day or night unlawfully.  But in all things as a faithful apprentice he shall behave himself towards his master and all his during the said term.  He shall give a true and just account of his master’s goods, chattels and money committed to his charge or which shall come to his hands whenever required to do so by his said master,

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AND the said William Neal in consideration of the premises and the sum of TEN POUNDS of lawful money of Great Britain to him in hand paid at or before the execution of these presents by the President and Fellows of Trinity College, Oxford, being the Trustees of the Charity Fund left by the will of the Reverend Edward Bathurst B.D., sometime Rector of Chipping Warden and Vicar of Cropredy, and also in consideration of the further sum of TEN POUNDS to be paid to him in case the said apprentice should be in his service at the expiration of two and a half years from the said date, shall teach and instruct by the best means he can the said apprentice in the art of a carpenter and wheelwright which he useth or shall cause him to be taught and instructed.  And the said William Neal shall pay to the said William Colin Shirley the sum of:

8/-   a week for the first twelve months commencing 1^st September 1921

9/-   a week for the first twelve months commencing 1^st September 1922

10/- a week for the first twelve months commencing 1^st September 1923

12/- a week for the first twelve months commencing 1^st September 1924

14/- a week for the first twelve months commencing 1^st September 1925.

AND for the true performance of all the said covenants and agreements each of the said parties bindeth himself unto the other by these presents.

IN WITNESS whereof the parties above named to these INDENTURES have set their hands and seals this nineteenth day of September in the twelfth year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord George by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, and in the year of our Lord One Thousand Nine Hundred and Twenty One. (Apprentice Indentures repeat old rules. See ch.10 p133 in TheTown of Cropredy1570-1640 Keegan.A.P.).

I think at one time apprentices had to live in with their employer as in Lambert’s time they slept up in the attics at the Woodyard.  There was at least one other village in the scheme as well as Cropredy and Chipping Warden, but I don’t know what villages or villages they were (The other two villages were Hothorpe & Garsington. Bathurst charity established 1668.Organised by Trinity College, Oxford).  The year I was apprenticed it was not Cropredy’s turn, but the village whose turn it was had no boy for it.  The Vicar of Cropredy at that time, the Rev. Barr (Rev. Barr M.A. (c1852-1944) Vicar of Cropredy from c1917 to 1929. Grave 250a because his wife Charlotte Rebecca Barr was buried in Cropredy 1924 aged 72) came to my parents and asked if they would take it.  I remember him saying there was a boy waiting for it in the next village.

 I was amused at Mr Bradley’s remarks about Mr Lambert (History Meeting 15 Jan 1980. William James Lambert (1861-1947) owner of Woodyard,  Book  5, but living at the Wharf  when Tom Bradley worked for him.) and his wages. I remember once while I was apprenticed Mr Lambert brought a wagon to be repaired, among the repairs was a new front board. All the wagons then had the farmer’s name in big letters on the front, so this had to have the name put on.  Usually they had a sign writer from Banbury to do it.  Someone suggested I should write it and Mr Lambert said, “Perhaps you would like to do it free of charge for a bit of practice.”  I don’t expect he got it free of charge because I was paid for it.  I remember I did it in old English lettering.

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Only a year or two before I left Cropredy Mr Jack King (The Kings lived in West part of Clifford Lambert’s Home Farm next to the Village Hall) asked me to make a model wagon for Mr Clifford Lambert and he brought me a book of Mr Lambert’s to work from.  It was Farm Wagons of England and Wales. By Arnold James, published in 1969 at £6.50.  It was a limited edition of 1,800.  There were coloured illustrations of the wagons of the different counties and the one of the Oxfordshire wagon was the very wagon I put the name on.  I recognised my sign writing at once.  I wonder if Clifford still has the wagon?  At one time it was in the hovel opposite the Brasenose.

[9L. 27/12/80]  About the Woodyard. (Book 5: The Wheelwright’s Apprentice A & L Pettifer).  When I first remember it was Sumner and Neal.  They did building and undertaking as well as wheelwrighting.  The carts and wagons etc were brought to the yard for repair.  They also made wooden pumps for wells.  Mr Sumner retired and it was just Mr Neal when I started there, his son had a building business at Retford.  I was only there between one or two years when Mr Neal died.  His son kept it on for another year and then Mr Sumner and son (Connie’s father Frank) took it on again.  At that time there was only my uncle John Shirley and myself there.  Mr Sumner himself died soon after.  In Frank Sumner’s time there was my uncle, Henry Busby (Arthur Pettifer’s uncle by marriage), Sid Watts and myself.  Of course I was very much the junior.  Sid Watts was a Wardington man but I think he lived at Williamscote at that time, he afterwards moved to Chacombe.  He was a very nice man, he had spent some years in Australia.  I used to like to hear him talking about it.

There used to be a sawpit in the yard.  I have done some pit sawing, not a great lot, but enough.  I was always bottom sawyer.  You can imagine the work there was sawing big trees up into 2”, 3” and 4” planks and if it was into ¾” or 1” boards even more so.  The trees were marked out with a line dipped in soot and water, it was held in position at both ends and pulled tight then lifted up in the middle and let slap down on the tree, it left a black line all along.  That was done on both sides of the tree for a guide for the top and bottom sawyer. 

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They used to tell a tale of a man and boy (not me) that was sawing a tree up.  The man said “This saw goes bad, boy, are you in line?”  The boy said “Yes” a pause then “Not in the one I started in though!”  I never heard the man’s comments.

You asked if I ever did any tree felling.  I never did much, but I well remember the first time.  It would be about 1926.  The Council straightened the Cropredy to Claydon Road a bit, opposite the gate going down to Annismore bridge. (Annismoor Field is crossed by the old road to Boddington (now a bridle-path) down to the Oxford Canal bridge just south of Oathill Farm).  There was a big elm on the corner, and Mr Sumner where I worked at the time, bought it.  Mr Sumner, my uncle John Shirley and I went to fall it one afternoon.  We didn’t go until afternoon.  I don’t remember what time of year it was but I know it got dark early.  We used to work till 4.30pm.  We got the tree down at 4.30 straight across the road.  Luckily there was not much traffic, very few cars in those days.  All that came along were two bicycles, two brothers named Wyatt from Claydon, on their way home from work.  I remember they stopped for a bit and gave us a hand.  It was 8 o’clock before we had the road clear.  That was my first experience of tree felling, not a very good start.

[13L. 13/12/83]  Things didn’t go any better when we went to bring the tree back to the yard.  At that time Cropredy Lawn Farm and Lambert’s Barn were all one and belonged to the Co-op.(Banbury Industrial Co-operative Society Ltd, farmers. Cropredy Lawn. Directories 1924 & 1928). Mr Sumner’s brother-in-law was wagoner there (H.Dunn) and he came with the horses to load the tree on the timber carriage.  They used to put skids on top of the wheels and have chains from the timber carriage under the tree and back over the carriage and attached to the horses, as the horses pulled the tree rolled up the skids onto the carriage.  We got the tree onto the carriage but the horses wouldn’t stop and it went right over and off the other side. 

We had another try and got it onto the carriage but then it was too far forward we couldn’t get the horses in the shafts.  We had to borrow Mr Cherry’s (Thomas Cherry & Sons Builders, Painters, Decorators and Contractors T.N.9 (tel.no.9)) timber carriage and draw it alongside and transfer it to that.  I don’t know how they got on sawing it up as I left and went to work in Banbury.

Photo 13:

         Co-op Society, Cropredy Lawn Farm’s wagon.

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During the war we cut some oak trees down in the spinneys in the Big Ground ( I think Colin is referring to Great Middle Field’s north hedge. Field once crossed by a lane running between Broadimoor bridge and Prescote’s Upper Cherwell bridge. The lane is now a bridle path up to Wardington on the old route), they were taken to Over’s timber merchants at Byfield to be sawn up and we put some open hovels up at Upper and Lower Prescote with the timber.

[9L. 27/12/80]  There were blacksmiths in the village as far back as I can remember.  One blacksmiths shop was on the Green, where the bungalow next to Constone is.  Another in what is Bott’s (Bott’s Coal yard south of the Williamscote Road. Monkeytree House old smithy now taken into house 2001) coal yard and one by your house, but I can’t remember that in use.  [10L. 19/01/81]  I don’t remember any blacksmith working at the shop in front of your house.  I always understood the building was the blacksmith’s shop.  I can remember an oak post standing in the ground on the left hand side of the doorway and being told that the blacksmith used to have a vice on it.  I have heard people talk of farrier Borton who used to live there. 

[9L. 27/12/80]  There was an old blacksmith named George King.(For George King see Book 2 page 56. John Shirley used to assist George to ring changes and play pieces on the handbells).  I can just remember him as an old man.  He used to pull teeth too.  His son once showed me his instrument.  It was about 7” or 8” long as far as I can remember with a T handle at one end and a kind of hook on a pin at the other.  I will draw it if I can.

He must have put the hook part round the tooth and twisted it out.  I should think the cure was worse than the disease.

When Sumner and Neals were in business they employed quite a number of men.  My uncle John Shirley worked in the Woodyard all his life.  When I first started there, there was a carpenter named Ernest Allitt ( Ernest Frederick Allitt (1876-1947 G.34 at Gt.B.) Prize at school 1884. A carpenter whom. Sarah Ann (1873-1959). 6 sons 2 daug. Musical family) from Great Bourton there.  I afterwards worked with him for years at Cherry’s.  He was an excellent craftsman, and he and I got on well together.  His son Reg still lives at Bourton.  There was also an old wheelwright from Wardington named Harry Lines.

When Sumner and Neals were in business they had the blacksmith’s shop on the Green and a big barn that stood where the bungalows and the grocers shop are now.  The blacksmith’s name was Robinson.  He lived at Bourton.  When Sumners took over again they did not have the buildings on the Green, the blacksmith was on his own.(See Book 5).

[3L. 28/01/76]  Perhaps when George King’s family no longer played the handbells the church had their own set.  I am sorry I can’t tell you where the handbells came from, but I think I must have known at one time.  Mr Norman Smith (Norman Smith (1903-1961) Builder in Cropredy, Holmleigh , Round Bottom. Married Gertrude Godson in 1928. Father of Gordon. Norman son of Robert, son of Alfred, son of Robert who started the business in 1850. In 1928 Smith Bros. 1939 Smith & Sons, Builders) used to be in charge of the ringers at the time they got them about 1927.  We were working together in Banbury then and he got me to write Cropredy Church Handbells on the box they were in.  It was a light grained box I remember.  I am sure he would have told me at the time where they came from but I forget now. 

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[16L. 23/03/84]  You ask if there was a handout from the builders at Christmas.  The only one I ever got from a builder was 5/- from the one in London when I was on bomb damage.  Far from getting any handouts we were worse off at Christmas as we often closed down for a week and until holiday pay was made compulsory we got no wages for that week. 

[11L. 31/05/81]  There is one bit in Roland Cherry’s book [Life of an Oxfordshire Countryman 1981](page 24) not quite right.  I had to go to London on bomb damage but I didn’t make any furniture for the boss.  I was at work at his house for a few days but that was all.  I was out on bomb damage too, and for sometime I and another man from Tysoe were in the shop making doors for houses that had been damaged, and the council were taking over and putting people into who had been bombed out.

Also on page 20 Roland refers to working on a wine cellar and the butler had orders to watch them closely.  I was the one working in the wine cellar at Wardington Manor.  The cook, Mr Cherry refers to was a Miss Kerr, she came from Lochinver that is quite a bit further north than we are here.  I got on well with her, I expect because she knew I was half Scots.  I remember she was very indignant with the butler watching me.  She knew what he was.  He would be drunk a lot of the time the family were away.

I don’t know who made the bier, it was about ever since I can remember.  The wheels are not the original ones, they had wire spokes and sometimes with a heavy coffin and on a rough ground they would buckle.  I remember the present wheels being fitted.  My uncle, John Shirley fitted them on.  I think it was in Mr Sumner’s time.  They sent it away somewhere for the wheels.  They were not made at the yard.

[12L. 28/07/82]  I knew John French quite well, but I never heard of any brothers or sisters.  When I started work at Neal and son he worked there and when I started at Cherrys he was there.  He was a very nice man, very little and bent.  We used to like to get him to tell us about the time he was summoned for swearing at the policeman, it was something over some cattle on the road.  At that time (before I could remember) John lived at Upper Prescote (then two houses).  The policeman took the summons up to John.  It seems you can make them read it to you.  John waited till the policeman started back across the fields and he thought he was just within hearing then he shouted at him to come back and read it to him.

The day he had to go to court his wife asked how much he wanted, he said he better have plenty as it was a serious offence.  She gave him £2, a lot in those days.  I forget whether it was 5/- or 10/- he was fined.  He used to chuckle and say, “They tell me Tom Cooknell (Life of an Oxfordshire Countryman by Roland Cherry 1981) brought me home.”  So you can guess how the rest of the money was spent.

[4L .2/03/76]  I will start on the Gardners.  To start with the Jennings are not related to the Gardners, they only bought the house (2 Red Lion Street), when Eddie Gardner gave up the business and sold it (See Book 5 p119 for details of family).  I remember both Mrs Gardners but I don’t know who they were.  I know Mrs Charlie Gardner had relatives in Somerset, but I don’t know if she came from there.  Eddie Gardner had one daughter Yvonne and when he retired they moved to Leamington.  The daughter died some years ago.  Charlie Gardner lived where the Post Office is now and had one daughter Florence.  She is a widow, Mrs Sewell, and lives in Warwick.  She is a friend of my sister’s.

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When I first remember Gardners had the field where the Council houses by the Chapel are.  Their stables etc were by the wall close to Mr Gough’s house.(Mr Gough lived at Charles Cottage, Chapel Green).  I think there was still a shed there when we left.  At that time the hedge followed the path round from Mr Gough’s to where it finishes now at Mr Fred Smith’s (Mr F.Smith at Waller Cottage, Chapel Green opposite Home Farm).  From there to the top of Red Lion Street was a stone wall.

[18L. 24/06/84]  About the Chapel Green Council Houses I don’t remember hearing who they were intended for.  The same type of houses were built in several villages around at that time.  Cropredy, Mollington, Bourton, Wardington, and I think Bloxham.  There was a lot of opposition to them being built on Chapel Green.  At that time it was a field with a wall and hedge around.  I can remember there was a protest meeting about it.  I wasn’t at it, but remember hearing that one man at it (no names) said if they started to build he would pull down at night what was built in the day.  When they were actually built his own family were involved in it.  I think it was a firm “Henry Boot” that had the contract, but they sublet then to other firms.

Photo 14:

L. to R. Albert Shirley, mason.  Will (Bill) Day, trainee.  Will (Wag) French, labourer.  George Bates, carpenter.  Mr Davis, plasterer.  Ben Townsend, labourer.  Bert Turrell, carpenter.  Mr Lamb, plasterer.  Building the Chapel Green Houses.

[23L. 19/06/85]  I did some work at the Red Lion.  I remember finding part of a prayer book under some steps going from one bedroom to another.  From what there was of it I thought it was of George 3^rd reign.  I showed it to Mr Edwards the vicar we had then and he took it.