The Cooknells of Cropredy Green.

By Mabel Durrant - Edited by Pamela Keegan

• CROPREDY HISTORY - 2 
• Copyright (c) Pamela Keegan 1991.
• First published December 1991.
• Reprinted November 1992.
• WWW August 1999.
• Originally produced and printed at Ty Gwyn.

Copyright ¢ Anne Pamela Keegan 1999.

Anne Pamela Keegan has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be acknowledged as editor and part Author of this work.

While she is happy for anyone to use this work for personal research, any commercial use or any use in future publications must first have written permission from the Author.

INTRODUCTION

Mrs Mabel Kate Durrant nee Cooknell was born on the l8th of July 1896, the fifth child of eight children. They lived in the rear cottage of two, whose gable end faced west, across the Green at Cropredy, Oxfordshire.

Cropredy was not a large village. It formed a trade center for the surrounding area. Banbury, the nearest market town, lies just over four miles to the south. The railway allowed easy access to Leamington, Coventry and Oxford, but to reach towns to the east, older forms of transport were needed. The station was often crowded on a Sunday evening, as visiting relatives departed for their new homes in the cities. Girls could, and did, take advantage of the trains to find work in London. Mabel left when 22, never to live here again. Like so many who departed, news about the village was always appreciated and visits home eagerly planned. Mrs Durrant's own memories were very vivid and constantly recalled, enabling her to write them down, although seventy years had passed.

It was entirely due to a misunderstanding, in 1983, that we can now benefit from her correspondence to me. Following the production, by her brother Edgar, of a Cooknell family tree, Mabel was astonished to find it incorrect in their dates of birth. At home in Phoenix town, Arizona, the family Bible had the birth dates written inside the cover by their Mother. Mabel had come over in June and been brought to Cropredy by her sister Gladys, and her brother-in-law Frank Auton. This was her first visit in 26 years and everywhere things had changed and now this! She promised Gladys she would write to me with the correct information. I had been responsible for Edgar's copy. The research for the Cooknell family had been thoroughly done by Mr Fred Cooknell of Sulgrave. My contribution was only to provide the baptisms and burial dates from the Registers, which caused the confusion. Mabel was soon happy with the explanation and being of a generous nature, was soon volunteering to help in any further enquiries.

In answer to my questions, letters began to pour across the Atlantic. "You will need a day or two off to peruse all this!" she joked, as a fat Fifteen page epistle arrived, to be closely followed by two more. Dispensing with all headings, Mabel shot into page one and continued, only squeezing a little about her present life in at the end. 

One letter asked, "Did I send this issue to you in a previous letter? It seems familiar to me, perhaps it is because I think it all out before I start to write, so maybe I have not repeated myself?" She hardly ever did.

If some dates appear incorrect, I have not changed them, except to add an alternative in the appendices. For the trip around the village, it must be mostly during her school years up to about 1910. One difficulty doing this is when people move from one cottage to another, as Mrs Legg appears to have done.

While Mrs Durrant was writing to me, I was visiting Mrs Gertrude Mold nee Pettifer, who was also born in 1896. They enjoyed hearing what the other had to say, but continued to firmly record their version. This actually achieved a great deal more, that otherwise would now be lost.

An example of this came in a letter, early in March 1984. It also brings out the different lines on which their books developed. Mabel wrote "I haven't seen her since I ran into her and one of her sisters in London. We happened to see each other on the street. I was a widow and Pamela was about two and a half. Gerty is around my age, I think two months my senior, and I believe she got a silver watch from the school for, Never Absent Never Late, for five years. That beat my bronze medal! But I was happy with that...Please remember me to her. We did not mix too much, only at school. It seems the Chapel children kept mostly to themselves and did not bother about Church goers too much. There used to be quite a lot of dissension between us at times, that was the way of life apparently. We used to go to a Chapel service at times, but I cannot recall a Chapel goer attending Church." This of course being before the first war. Regular joint services have been going on now, for years, in both buildings.

Letters and news from Cropredy, brought great pleasure to her. "We enjoyed reading Mr Roland Cherry's book and I got carried away, it was almost as though I were there, it brought back so many memories." Writing and receiving letters from her sister and brothers, and now nieces and nephews, has given rise to plenty of practise. Mabel has a long tradition of getting her thoughts and remembrances onto paper. After a while I asked for permission to put the letters together with a view to publication.

"You have my full permission to use any of the information I have given you, it is all true as I remember it. I would not attempt to write any of my memoirs for publication, so I will leave that"...to you. "I will stick to my crochet and knitting as they are my two pet hobbies." It has unfortunately been six years before an opportunity arose to do this.

The material from the letters has had to be arranged in order. Any later information was then threaded into the original. Some of the answers came from questions, sent to try and gain some insight into what living in Cropredy was like. How did a daughter of a conservative, Church of England, tradesman develop? Were Gertrude Pettifer's tales different, because she was brought up to attend the Methodist Church? Their reactions to certain subjects were quite different.

Not all Cooknells were church and trade. Many Pettifers did not belong to temperance groups. It is not possible to generalise for family groups. Rather better to let their storey stand and just enjoy the flow of Mabel's and Gertrude's tales. Yet differences will out. Mabel recalls her Mother's opinions very clearly. No doubt they were expressed in the privacy of the home, for she was taught to be always respectful to others. Religious and political views could not be hidden, however, in a village. Mabel recalls Cropredy only as her memory dictates. Gertrude did the same. Some will say they both have it all wrong. Each though is entitled to their memories faithfully reproduced. How dull if we all agreed. To discuss a point brings out something forgotten. To argue a little more about the subjects, involves us all.

Another topic I hoped to enlarge upon was the housing situation at the turn of the century. Mrs Cooknell is always spoken of with affection. A cheerful mother bringing up a happy family of five boys and three girls in a two bedroom cottage. One solution was to overspill into grandparents cottages, and fortunately the family were spaced out over nineteen years. Their cottage, one of a pair, had only just been rebuilt out of an old stone building, possibly once part of an older house. The cottages faced north and were double fronted. Each of the four rooms had a two light window, of which one opened. Something that did not happen in several cottages, even in the 1880's. Cooknell's chose the rear one. Why? For their new neighbour had two extra windows facing west over the Green, in the stone gable. The fronts are not exactly the same, as Thomas's had old Cropredy bricks with new window surrounds, but the other cottage had factory made bricks. The stairs ran straight up opposite the front door, leaving just room for a pantry with a small window under them. Mabel and her nephew Denis Hickman have described the living room. 

In 1897 the village had 85 cottages (two thirds of all the dwellings) only paying one shilling a week rent. The ten other cottages, some with a trade attached, paid up to six pounds per annum. The remaining properties paid more and were generally classed as houses. Thomas Cooknell senior paid one shilling in 1897, but when the coal business developed, his rates rose accordingly. Mabel's aunt Mary lived in a dearer cottage in Church Lane, and her Grandma Cooknell moved into Woodview later, which also paid higher rates. Did this influence the status of the tenants?

Harriett Cooknell had the advantage of a wash house and only had to share the toilet with the Pargeters. This was an accepted custom, but nonetheless could cause friction. In this instance both were very considerate neighbours and managed to get on well together. Other Cropredy cottages shared one toilet between four families, though by then the Health authorities were demanding one between two. In the High Street eight families had the inconvenience of having to share one wash house on a rota system. On the subject of trying to be a good neighbour, we were told that Thomas Cooknell spent some evenings with his friend and landlord Mr Amos at a Bourton Pub, and how, unlike some, he would creep back quietly, so as not to disturb the Pargeters, or Cherrys.

Bath night for the woman and girls, meant sending the men along to the thrift club at the Nose. Bathing in a bungalow bath was not favoured by Mabel, which is one of the reasons she gave for remaining away. Only a third of the properties enjoyed College water, and although it ran past their cottages, Mr Amos must have considered their shared well sufficient.

Mabel, and all but one of her brothers, left Cropredy. The majority of teenagers had always left the village. Yet since the 1870's the numbers who left had risen. Many emigrated in their twenties and the average age of those left behind was rising. Most were strong young men and women, but even the chesty were being moved up the hill, by Dr Bartlett, or to warmer climates. By 1911, 450,000 young adults left the country yearly. Several warned of the dangers of loosing Britain's future. At the start of the medicals for soldiers in 1914, it was found that 40% of those left, were unfit to serve. From 1871 Cropredy's population fell from 520 to 436 in 30 years. Bourton lost even more. Those who remained found business diminishing as the agricultural depression deepened. Several tradesmen expanded by starting a smallholding, especially if they already had to pasture their horse. The wives and children found themselves with extra responsibilities. Thomas Cooknell did later on have a cow, but by then the family had grown up. Like most villagers they kept a pig, which helped also to provide good growth on the allotment. Nearly everyone needed their plot down the Oxhey road, or next to the school. Half of these were kept by men with non agricultural jobs. The allotments played an important part in the economy of almost two thirds of the village.

Sometimes it is easier to gain information by listening, as I did with Mrs Gertrude Mold, Mr and Mrs Arthur and Lucy Pettifer and many others. Even then it can take several visits to cover many aspects of one subject. So many were never asked or listened to. Not because they had nothing to say. On the contrary, everyone has something of real value to add. No, the fact is that one person cannot cover more than a few households. It would also have been rude and presumptuous to try. A few visits and it was my gain entirely, for their talk of the past was something I had never experienced before. In the end it was a case of rationing the visits, so as not to take advantage of their generous natures. How they are missed. The same happened with the correspondence. Dare I write straight back? Something outside myself was forcing on the search. In return let us hope the pleasure and friendships that evolved were mutual. Whatever has been written or spoken to me, would of course have been forever lost, without the wholehearted enjoyment of some people in communicating to others. Especially those like Colin Shirley and Mabel Durrant, who loved to think and write about Cropredy. I hope we have not offended anyone.

In the Bakers and the Carriers Daughter a little background to Church Lane was given. In this book I have tried to do the same for the Green. The material has come from the Parish Chest, the Brasenose College muniments room, the Oxford Record Office, the Parish Council records and a Cropredy Grave survey. I would like to thank all those who so kindly helped in my enquiries and would also like to express my appreciation to all those who have entrusted their photographs to me, to allow copies to be taken from them. Pamela Keegan.1991. 

Pamela wrote to say that her mother Mabel Kate Durrant nee Cooknell died on the 30th of July 1994 aged 98. 

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