Mason Family History

Chapter 01 - Searching for my Ancestors - The Masons of Derbyshire

I want to tell you how I traced my family in my family in the Duffield area of Derbyshire. I had always loved history in all shapes and forms. At nine years old I was making drop line family trees of our Royal Family although I didn't know that's what you called them. I listened avidly when my mother and grandmother talked of their relations but like everybody else I didn't start serious tracing until they were both dead. What a lot I could have asked them.

One story my mother told was about her early married life. She was at a party and all the ladies present were called Mrs Mason. She went on to tell me that my grandfather had been one of 17 children born to his father in the course of three marriages, and that was only the legitimate ones. My own father had lots of uncles and male cousins many of whom rejoiced in the name of Mason. In fact the youngest of his uncles was actually my father's junior if only by a few months. My mother herself had been brought up in Wirksworth and loved the town but her parents hailed from the Yorkshire port of Goole. These Yorkshire relatives have not been impossible to trace. Many finding aids exist for the amateur genealogist. Chief among these aids are the Mormon index or I G I which can be perused at L S L Derby and the St Catherine's Index which can be seen at Matlock L S L. The Mormons have photographed parish registers from all over the world and compiled vast indexes broken down into counties and then in to surnames. Of course thousands of our ancestors are not on the index and there are mistakes on it but it is still of inestimable value. The St Catherine's Index contains the births, marriages and deaths from all over the country since the beginning of civil registration in 1837. However it is still advisable to begin with Derbyshire relatives if you live in the county of Derbyshire.

I had plenty to work on when I began to study the Masons seriously in 1991. My father had been born at Mercaston Hall Farm near Mugginton in 1909. His parents had been tenant farmers of the Chandos Poles and loved the place. Opposite the hall is the Daffy Field where wild daffodils still grow. My thrifty grandmother would sit by the gate in spring collecting money from Derby visitors who picked their own. Now the Hall does Bed and Breakfast and my husband and I went to stay. The present owner took us all round this ancient building, parts of which date back to the 13th century. He even showed us the attics were cannon balls from the Civil War had been found. We slept in what had been the men servants room. I saw the front bedroom in which my father was born and I have since tried to piece together something of what their life was like there. I have been greatly aided in this by the fact that my uncle decided about а year ago to write the story of his long and adventurous life.

My uncle describes how when he was born, he was the survivor of a pair of twins. Sadly his sister did not survive. Photographs in my possession show him dressed in skirts at almost the age of three. He is convinced that his mother would have preferred a girl. As all the farm grounds could be seen from the farmhouse he and my father had the run of the farm as small children. They had no proper toys and never needed any. They played at farms using stones as pretend animals. They rode on the pigs backs. They wore red hats so they could be found easily. At early ages they were given jobs to do. Wem recalls how he was sent into Mugginton one day on the back of a carthorse called Jewel who needed shoeing. He was swept off by an over-hanging branch but scrambled on again and completed his mission. My father cut his head severely when he pulled down the shafts of a cart. It was an emergency rush by pony and trap to the D R I. Other medical emergencies were dealt with by a doctor who was summoned from Ashbourne. Someone rode to the doctor's house on Bob, a pony kept for purposes like this and the doctor came as quickly as possible in his pony and trap. I have the Bill of Sale for Mercaston. All the equipment and animals are mentioned and lastly the horses by name. Bob is described as being good in all gears and able to pass all traffic. Perhaps he could in 1922. I have a letter my father sent home to home to the farm from Wirksworth Grammar School where he boarded in his teens.

My grandparents and their three young sons came to Flaxholme Farm which to their delight bordered the River Derwent. My father left Wirksworth Grammar School because at the age of twelve he could take the place of a man on the farm. He and his brothers learned to milk the cows and each had their own lambs to care for. One day my uncle had to tackle two fighting bulls and he separated them with the help of a dog and a stick. The young Masons were trained to take things like this in their strides. They began delivering milk along Flaxholme, first with a bucket in the hand, then carrier bicycles and then the dizzy heights of a churn in a pony and trap. This was the basis of my father's milk business for the rest of his working life. During the Second World War his routine would be something like this. On H G duty on duty on the Chevin until the early hours. Back home in time to wake up when the G P O rang an alarm call, hand milking, loading carts for the land-girls, delivering, bottle washing and filling, more milking and collecting farm bottled milk from other farms. Certainly a full life. Wem went on to be an accountant but did farm chores before work and in holidays. He tells an amusing story of how one holiday he and an uncle could not agree on how to stack a rick with sheaves of corn. The uncle stacked it his way and Wem had the satisfaction of seeing that the whole thing had fallen down as he went past on the train on his way to catch ship for an assignment in Nigeria.

My grandfather John Bernard Mason had а sunny nature and as a small child I loved him dearly. He was born at Broadholme, Belper and was his father's eighth child. I found it very touching to find him as а small baby on the 1881 census. This was the first time I found any of my family of a public document and I was very excited. He was farming with his brother George at Bradley Pastures when he met my grandmother who lived with her family in nearby Kniveton. Family legend has it that they kept in touch by waving handkerchiefs from their bedroom windows. Considering the distance involved, I think they must have waved tablecloths. I know they corresponded by postcard as I have one in my possession. They were married in Kniveton in March 1909. My grandmother chose a grey wedding outfit and her sister, the bridesmaid, a navy blue one. I expect she had something blue on the wedding dress somewhere. Years later at the age of 77 she crawled up inside mine to position a blue bow. After their wedding they lived at Mercaston Hall Farm, Flaxholme Farm and later retired to Burley Hill, Allestree.

Chapter 02 - My Parents and Myself

I was born on February 4th 1937 and christened Margaret Kathleen Mary. Kathleen was after my aunt who is also my godmother. Mary, my paternal grandfather assured us, was a name given to all Mason girls and this study certainly proves that. Margaret was purely and simply my mother's favourite name. Flaxholme Dairy on the A6 between Flaxholme Farm and Flaxholme Garage was my home until marriage. The house had what my mother described as "the best view on Flaxholme". At the front we had an uninterrupted view of Burley Hill, Quarndon and a farm called Burley Meadows, farmed in the 1930's and 1940's by my father's cousin, Joseph Rose.

At the back we looked out on the L M S railway line (with yellow signal box), Eaton Bank and the Peckwash Mill chimney. Flaxholme Farm with its fields stretching behind us, beyond the railway to the River Derwent, was owned by my grandparents, John Bernard Mason and his wife Emily nee Oakden. They had bought it in 1922 and retired from farming in 1935 to live at Stoneycroft, a house they had built for them on Burley Hill.

My father, John Bernard Mason Jnr. had come to Flaxholme Farm in 1922 with his parents and two brothers, William Eric Mason (my parents always called him W E M) and Thomas Bowmer Mason. My father was born at Mercaston Hall Farm on December 23rd 1909. He attended Mugginton School and Wirksworth Grammar School. In 1923, he left school to help his parents on the farm. From then until his marriage in 1935, I have been given to understand, he received his keep and pocket money. In 1935, his parents had a house built for him and his bride, Phyllis Ethel Porter. They gave them many items of furniture for their new home, including an antique circular table. It was my mother's opinion that my father had "earned every brick of the house twice over".

On his marriage my father decided to leave farming and start a milk delivery business. Milk delivering had been done by brother Wem, who with a horse and cart containing a churn of milk, went along Flaxholme. Housewives came out with jugs. These were filled by pint measure. I still treasure this measure and other items used on the farm in the 1930's. My father purchased a van, was taught to drive by Archie Mitchell of Flaxholme Motors, (no driving tests then) and set up in business. I understand from my mother that she and dad made ice cream which contained real cream and broken eggs. It was very popular.

Next door to the Dairy was Flaxholme Farm, occupied from 1935 onwards by Bert and Gwen Bowman. They had married about the same time as my parents and the four were firm friends. Sadly they had no children of their own. Gwen was a generous hostess, caring for her own mother, Bert's uncle and many other friend and relatives. She became godmother to my younger brother and we always called her mother, "Granny Coxon". My parent's new house was a great contrast to Flaxholme Farm. L think the Bowmans were still using an outside privy until the 1950's.

I was two years old when the Second World War started. We were very aware of the siren as it was placed on the front of the D C C depot just opposite Flaxholme Dairy. A single iron bedstead was brought downstairs and placed under the stairs. My mother and I slept there and I hung my stocking up there in December 1940.

Dad was now tenant of a small farm owned by the Weston family of Duffield. He kept about twenty cows which he milked virtually single handed night and morning. The milk was brought to Flaxholme Dairy, sieved, cooled and bottled on the premises. As I grew older my favourite job was topping i.e. pushing the cardboard tops into the wide necks of the full bottles. The bottles were washed and sterilised by local women and the milk was delivered in carts pulled by our two horses, Tex and Peg, and driven by our two land girls, Copey (Mrs Edna Cope) and Clarkie (Miss Mavis Clark). Dad must have received a petrol allowance as I remember he ran a van throughout the war and delivered milk to all the streets around Duffield Road, Derby. Milk proprietors were allotted areas during the war and delivered to every house in a road.

Dad was in the Home Guard and spent many nights in exercises on the Chevin. As we had no air-raid shelter, he must have braved it out and slept upstairs when he returned. What with early milking, delivering and fire-watching, he was probably ready for an uninterrupted sleep.

My brother John Edmund Porter Mason was born on 29th April 1941 at the Queen Mary Nursing Home in Derby. Mum told me about the Barrage balloons at Five Lamps. Barrage balloons featured in many children's books at that time. The one in my book was a very friendly object which was fed from the ground with pink liquid in tubes. John was given the names Edmund Porter in honour of our maternal grandfather, Charles Edmund Porter, always known as Pop to his daughters and grandchildren. Pop had never had a son and he sent a card welcoming a "cricketer" at last. John was the name of countless Mason boys as this study will prove.

The war years did not affect our immediate foursome in any dramatic way. We soon got used to the tape on the windows to prevent flying glass and the fact that all our curtains had to be lined with black-out material to prevent our showing a light at night. The worst accident was sustained by John when at the age of four he dashed through the bottle washing area and was the target for a bucket of boiling water which should have been poured onto the dirty milk bottles. He was badly scalded and I returned from school to find Dr Collins in attendance. She was the lady doctor who served us well whilst Dr Gordon Morrison was serving overseas. John was treated with Gentian Violet ointment which we were told was used on our wounded soldiers. It must have been strong stuff because the violet stain never came out of our sheets.

I remember a bomb falling across the A6 in one of Joseph Rose's fields and being allowed to sit up in the middle of the night and eat chocolate biscuits. This was a rare treat. I remember my aunt Kath telephoning us on the night Coventry was bombed and describing a hot looking glow over the Derby sky to the south. She was on duty over night with Pop, at the County Offices in St. Mary's Gate where they both worked.

Food was never scarce. Living at a dairy there was always plenty of milk about. We kept hens and stored the eggs in waterglass. Dad and his parent were excellent gardeners as ex-farmers are, so fruit and vegetables were plentiful. Dad had a gun as befits a members of the Home Guard and often killed a rabbit. If my grandmother were visiting and she saw a pigeon, she would urge him to "get your gun, Bernie", but I don't remember his ever shooting one.

A side of bacon hung over our stairs for what seemed like years. It went quite green but still Dad cut off chunks and fried them. No way could I have eaten that, had I been starving. Nor did I enjoy a wartime Christmas pudding containing seemingly enormous amounts of grated carrot. Rather better was the Christmas chicken although I'm sure it must have been an old boiling fowl.

Toys were scarce, I still had my old panda, retained from pre-war days. Everybody loved these cuddly animals and there were lots of books and toys based on them. I think London Zoo acquired its first panda in the 1930's. Christmas 1943 or was it 1944, saw John and I being given home-made toys. Mine was a doll, the body made from an old stocking and dressed by Gwen Bowman's sister. I called her Susie-Jane and loved her dearly. John received a wooden train made by joiner, Danny Marshall at the D C C depot. Its nailed on wheels soon came off when the two of us sat on it. In later war years, I always looked forward to receiving an Enid Blyton book, but these were very expensive costing seven shillings and sixpence.

Living on a farm during the war was superb. Owing to double summer time the days seemed endless. We romped in the hay with our evacuee friends. Dad seemed glad to have the hay tossed about and we travelled from field to field on the hay cart. My father was allocated the steep sides of Castle Hill in Duffield and he cut them with a scythe. We rolled the hay down the steep hillside, over the railings into Avenue Road and it was then collected onto the hay-cart. The grain harvest was equally enjoyable. We watched the threshing machine hired from John Bridges. The little farmyard was dusty as the grain poured into the sacks. The men seemed to stand on top of the machine with pitch forks forking the sheaves from the high sided cart. Vast canvas belts connected the threshing machine to the tractor which supplied the power to drive it. We must have gone to bed very late indeed, as I think it was light until after ten p.m. and the weather seemed perfect on those long summer days.

School for John and myself was in Duffield. I started at Easter 1942, carrying my Mickey Mouse gas-mask in a cardboard box over my shoulder. I paid the fare of one penny. saying "a penny one please" as I travelled from Flaxholme to Duffield. Big girls looked after the younger children. They stayed at Duffield Girls' and Infants' until they were 14 years old and seemed like adults to us five year olds. I remember our filing down into the air-raid shelter, outside the Infants' School, when the siren went, donning our pink rubber gas masks. The Mickey Mouse idea was to make the masks seem more friendly but I still found mine horribly claustrophobic as I put my chin in first. We sat on long forms and sang songs after we had taken our masks off. When the All Clear went we filed out thankfully.

We always had a holiday in October for potato picking and we were encouraged to pick rose-hips and take them to school (so good for Vitamin C). Many of our lessons were geared towards the war effort and we were taught to knit socks on four needles at about the age of nine.

Chapter 03 - Second World War Memories

Well it's 1995, fifty years since 1945 and that means I'm even more dotty than usual about the Second World War. Not, I hasten to add, about the political implications, oh no I couldn't care less about what they were fighting about. What intrigues me are the things like; what we ate, what we wore, what we did. I'm into collecting memories so look out you over fifties because I might grab you and demand to know yours. I collected my neighbour, Christine's at the weekend. She was a child in Dresden in the 1940s and had a lot to tell me. When I've finished tonight, you'll all think, I can remember loads more than that. To those people I say, "Invite me round with my note book".

As well as memories I collect memorabilia or as the National Curriculum says "artefacts". These are all my artefacts. It is my ambition to own my own mangle. I think mangles speak so eloquently of how technology has changed in 50 years. Its almost impossible to explain a mangle to a small child. From wooden rollers to automatic washer, you know what I mean. My husband is a bit of a spoil sport. When we go round car boot sales and old furniture actions I can tell he doesn't want me to find one. How mean can you get!! Well enough of that.

Climb aboard a time machine for a trip back in time. If you are under 50, climb on carefully. This is uncharted territory for you so fasten your seat belt tightly. I don't want anybody to feel travel sick. We are in the classroom of a village school not a million miles from here and I am wrestling with a problem or two. I can either reduce £6 11s 8d to farthings or express 7s 84d as a decimal of a pound and neither problem appeals to me in the least. I look around the walls for inspiration. There's the world map with a lot of pink areas including Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa and Canada. In the 1940s we still had a sizeable Empire. I feel so proud and patriotic inside on seeing that, I have to stop myself from jumping up, saluting and shouting "God save the King". From another wall St Francis surrounded by cuddly animals holds my gaze for a moment or two. Then my eye alights on my teacher's ruler. I felt it across my palm yesterday for spelling "quarral with an "el" at the end or is it the other way round. I pick up my pen and dip the nib into the inkwell at the head of my desk. I begin to write carefully because making blots is a caneable offence. In the next room I hear the heavy tread of our headmistress as she steps down from the platform on which her desk stands. A large cane lives permanently on that desk and we are all very frightened of it being used on us. Every week children who are late get their names put in the Late Book. If you are late three times in a week you get the cane on Friday, three strokes on each hand. Only last week a girl lost a bar of chocolate. She told the teacher. Well chocolate's on points, isn't it? The girl who stole it, hid it up her elasticated knicker leg. We were all searched. When the thief was found, she was caned by the big lady with a big desk on a big platform on whose big desk lies a very thick cane. The other girl got her chocolate back but I don't think she fancied eating it.

Suddenly relief comes in the sound of the siren. There is no arguing with this, we all pick up the cardboard boxes which hang constantly over our chair backs and head for the door. The door is protected by a brick "blast" wall. We love to play ball games against this wall as it is so smooth. We head as instructed for the air raid shelter in the school garden. We file down and sit on benches round the shelter walls and are told to put on our gas masks. This is not my gas mask, mine was a Mickey Mouse. This one belongs to Denis Litchfield. He's got his own stirrup pump and National Dried Milk Tin but he hasn't got a mangle. This is the part I dislike even more than Arithmetic. There is something very claustrophobic about that rubber around your face but our teacher instructs us to "put our chins in first" and we don't argue. By now the shelter door has been closed and we sit there listening for the sound of aircraft over head. The thought, "Is it one of ours?" runs continually through our minds. We are all getting very good at recognising what aeroplanes look and sound like. Many children have books like this. After a while we are allowed to take our masks off and our teachers lead us in hymn singing. "Fight the good fight", "Onward Christian Soldiers" and "Oh God our help in ages past" are among our repertoire...We sing "Oh worship the King" do you know I always thought it mean George VI. Sometimes if we are down for a long time a teacher will read us a chapter from the latest Enid Blyton (7s 6d in hardback from our local newsagent) but we all listen eagerly for the All Clear and are thankful to get out when the time comes.

School in the 1940s was different in other ways. I did not know that 108 evacuees had descended on Duffield from S E Essex. I did not know that the big girls went to the Fire Station to learn to operate a stirrup pump and fill sand bags. I did know we all learned to knit at a very early age. Our first efforts were cap scarves which were sent to the soldiers I think. We could all knit woolly socks on 4 needles at the age of nine and the instructions for turning a heel were written on the blackboard and it was an important class lesson. I think they were encouraging us to knit socks for our soldier relatives. We were also taught to darn. My mum liked the fact that once a week we were required to take a pair of socks to darn. That was very important in those days of "Make do and mend". Mum's mending basket was always piled high with our woolly socks and her lisle stockings.

We also did a lot of chanting such things as 3 feet one yard, 5 yards one rod, pole or perch. That was one of my favourites. It made me think of parrots on perches in zoos. From there my thoughts would turn to pandas in zoos and pandas in general. For many years I had loved a toy panda and had lots of books about them. The panda was a kind of 1930s cult object in the way Ninja Turtles are today.

Home time came and clutching my bus fare of one old penny I ran down King Street, my gas mask bumping against my side to catch the bus. No school dinners until 1945. It was a good job we knew where we were going because vehicles were not allowed to display their destinations and there were no signposts anywhere. "A penny one please" took me the mile or so to my home in Flaxholme. The bus had darkened windows, painted blue I think and there were lots of very interesting things to read round the walls. "Is you journey really necessary?, "Be like Dad keep Mum", and "Careless talk costs lives" were there for all to see. "Coughs and sneezes spread diseases, catch them in your handkerchief",was another one. Handkerchiefs were considered an important part of keeping the nation healthy. We always had to show we had one as we lined up at school. But "Spitting Penalty £20" made the most impression on me. I was scared I might do it without thinking and £20 was more than most people earned in a month in those days.

Arriving home the taped windows and blackout linings on the curtains seemed quite normal. We all had worn lino on the floors, mud brown paint work and that horrible dark brown varnished paper called Lincrusta up to hand height on our halls and staircases. Our living room was distempered in a yellowy colour and then stippled in red. Very attractive we thought. However it was a bit spoiled by the laden fly paper suspended from the ceiling. There were 2 electric sockets, one upstairs on the landing and one downstairs in the hall. The downstairs electrical point always held the 2 pin plug for the wireless which was constantly tuned to the Light Programme. My father chose a constant diet of comedy rather than the "heavy documentaries". We never knew what was happening at the Front but we knew an awful lot about the doings of Tommy Handley, Richard Murdoch and Arthur Askey. We even went to see these celebrities when they came to Derby, trundling down in the milk van, seated on upturned crates. We knew all the signature tunes and went around singing;
It's Monday night at 8 o'clock, Oh can't you hear the chimes. They're telling you to take an easy chair. To settle by the fireside pick up your Radio Times for Monday night at 8 is on the air.
And "We, three in Happidrome, working for the B B C, Ramsbottom and Enoch and me.
We, three we may sound daft, just a set of twerps are we, Ramsbottom and Enoch and me.

Housework was primitive by today's standards. When we got home for dinner on Mondays Mum would be at the mangling stage. Pulling special glass buttons to the side of the rollers and guiding the garment through required two hands, so she occasionally let me turn the wheel. I was allowed to mangle garments with rubber, linen or tin buttons myself. Later in the day when she ironed she would always spit on the iron to see if it was hot enough. Little balls of saliva bounced off the surface!! Fires were of the open variety and if we got home and Mum was drawing the fire we knew it was toast for dinner. She would be holding a sheet of newspaper over the opening. "Oh, she would say, they've got Margaret Lockwood at the Odeon this week" but before she could tell us more the newspaper burst into flames. The Odeon was one of about 20 cinemas in Derby where we delighted in the antics of Lassie and agonised with Scarlett in "Gone with the Wind". To get back to the fire, the quality of the toast, depended greatly on the state of the fire. Quite often it was just smoky bread, but we were young and hungry.

Food in those days was different to say the least. Everyone was encouraged to "Dig for Victory" and our potatoes, carrots, apples, pears etc. came from the garden and our eggs from the poultry run. We never saw a banana or an orange but what you don't know about you don't miss. We had plenty of salted runner beans and bottled pears. Being a farmer, my father always had a large side of bacon hanging over our stairs. It always seemed to be covered in a kind of green mould but nevertheless he carved chunks off and seemed to eat them with relish. The sight and smell of those fatty pieces was enough to put me off bacon for life. About the middle of November my father would nominate an old fowl to provide our Christmas dinner and if it didn't drop dead before Christmas Eve he would kill and dress it. Then my mother would boil it and boil it and boil it so that at Christmas we could have "chicken" .In those days you only had chicken on Christmas Day, not twice a week from Morrison's like we do now. Hens were kept to provide eggs for as long as possible. We also had Christmas Pudding full of grated carrot. "It's very good for you", my mum would say, "carrots are what they give pilots so they can see in the dark". It made me quite sick and the grated carrot looked even less attractive second time round. We were always saying a rhyme about potatoes.
Those who have the will to win, cook potatoes in their skin,
For they know the sight of peelings, deeply hurts Lord Woolton's feelings.
I don't remember ever having potatoes in their skins. My mother said "You wouldn't eat them if I did them". But we certainly didn't waste them, they were boiled up over the stove and provided mash for the hens. I remember the smell of this mash wasn't very pleasant. My father shot lots of rabbits and one day when my gran was with us a fat pigeon appeared at the back door. "Quick get your gun, Bernie", she called to my father but I think that one got away.

Keeping our selves neat and tidy in those days was quite an effort. My mother put up her hair every night in metal curlers like this one and I got the curling tongues over the gas stove treatment. We wore our clothes until they dropped to pieces and then it was time to cut the material into clips to make into rugs. The backing material for the rug was a Hessian sack. It had begun life as a sack of poultry feed. We unpicked the stitching, flattened and washed it. Bright coloured material was much coveted and if you had a friend with a worn out red coat you might arrange to swap it for two worn out navy skirts. Competent children were trusted to cut the material into clips and adults pegged the rugs using special tools. My neighbour, Agnes remembers unpicking flour bags and making them into soft nappies to use for her baby born in 1941. We were delighted when we could buy a parachute to unpick for underclothes. "You can get it without coupons", my mum would say. Over the road lived a dressmaker, you could not put a foot on her floor without stepping on loads of pins. She always spoke to you through a mouthful of them too. One day my mum had a new dress. It was a major event. We all came round to Johnson's farm in Moor Lane, Little Eaton and exchanged our empty bottles (wide-necked ones in which you put cardboard tops, so good for making pom-poms) for some full of his farm bottled milk. Full bottles were not quite as noisy as empty ones when you sat on your crate. Then we went to Miss Fox's house at 189, Alfreton Road. In one of the front rooms of this double fronted house she had a kind of shop. The dress purchased was in tasteful shades of patriotic red, white and blue and needless to say she wore it until it was threadbare. Young boys wore short trousers until well into their teens. It saved a lot of material. I remember a friend saying to my brother when he eventually had long trousers, "Did it hurt when you dropped, Mason?"

This brother of mine was our only family casualty. One day he ran through the milk bottle washing area just as one of our land girls was throwing a bucket of boiling water from the steriliser over some dirty bottles. He was badly scalded and treated with Gentian Violet ointment. "It's what they use on wounded soldiers", our lady doctor told us. It didn't do the sheets much good however. The bright purple stain lasted for ever.

It wasn't all doom and gloom in my childhood. Double summer time meant it didn't seem to get dark until 10 o'clock and the weather seemed glorious. Hay making was our favourite. We tossed it, rolled in it and made endless dens it. All with my father's full approval. He was allocated the steep sides of Castle Hill in Duffield and he cut the grass with a scythe. We children then rolled it down the hill, over the fence and helped load it on to the steep sided hay cart. It was lovely riding home on the top. Dad had farmed with his parents from leaving school at 12 years old. He started his milk business in the 30s using a bucket and measure. He progressed to a handcart and then to a pony and trap. My father was quite often out on the Chevin at night with the Home Guard. I never knew what he did up there but he always took his gun. He was always home in time to go to bed so that he could be awakened when his G P O alarm call came at 6 o'clock. Then he was off milking at 6, out delivering milk by day aided by our land girls with 2 horses and carts, then bottle washing and filling.before milking again at night. Evenings were spent blissfully dozing in the armchair, to the sound of the Light Programme.

Toys were rather scarce in War Time but it didn't spoil our fun. Quite early in the conflict I remember hanging up our stockings on our bed under the stairs. Here you were thought to be safe from flying glass. I received a doll its body made from an old stocking and my brother received a wooden train made by a man at the D C C depot. One year I asked for a torch. I think my Mum thought it was for walking along in the Blackout. I knew I was being naughty because my idea was to read in bed under the sheets. Toys tended to be second hand and in this way we received a desk a neighbour had out grown. Our best toy however, was the Anderson shelter in our poultry run. It was never used for sheltering, we kept poultry food in it. This shelter was our little house and dressed up in old blackout curtains we spent many a happy hour playing Kings and Queens there. At 8 years old I would have loved a cycle in my size but none were being made. My father put huge blocks of wood on the pedals of an adult cycle and I coped quite happily.

Here are some happy memories from those years to round the whole thing off. The first concerns a night when we had all been awakened by the siren on the D C C building across the road. Sitting in our living room round a cosy open fire, we listened to the planes overhead. They must have been very near because we heard a loud explosion when a bomb fell in a neighbouring field, belonging to Joseph Rose of Burley Meadows. I do not remember anybody being in the least bit scared or there being any suggestion that we should go to a shelter. I do remember that we had chocolate biscuits to eat and it was the greatest treat imaginable. The feeling of security in home and family on that occasion has stayed with me to this day.

The second memory dates from just after the war. We all listened on the wireless until it was time for my father to go and milk the cows. It was very exciting. At the end, my mother sent me post haste to the cow-shed. There was my father hand milking the cows. As he worked steam rose from the animals backs and sweat ran down his face. I opened the door of the cowshed, "Dad, Dad", I called, "Derby County's won the Cup". Those cows didn't know the reason for the increased enthusiasm of his milking.

I spent V E Day in May 1945 at a street party. When darkness fell we adjourned to the neighbouring garden of a Mr McArthur. "Off to General McArthur's for a bonfire",joked one of the organisers, naming a well known personality of that time. I fell asleep to the sound of a gramophone playing the Military Two Step for the adults to dance to. It was the end of a perfect day and nearly the end of 6 years of war. The world was never to be the same again.

Chapter 04 - The Memories of William Eric Mason

The best place to start a life story is obviously at the beginning which in my case was at Mercaston Hall, in the County of Derby on the 20th September 1911, time of day not known. I was the second son and should have had a twin sister but she did not survive and I have always had the feeling that my mother would have preferred things to have been the other way round. She did her best to cover up my lack of consideration by dressing me in girl's clothes until it was time for me for me to go to school.

My parents were both of both of farming stock and there were a considerable number of members of the family actively engaged in farming throughout the County. The only known member of the family to have adventured into another occupation at that stage was an uncle who had trained as a doctor and established a practice in Lanarkshire.

The farm attached to the Hall was of considerable size for that part of the country and the land stretched up gently sloping hillsides on all sides from the farmhouse.

Of the cradle days I remember very little except a visit from a doctor when I was apparently ill in bed and I did my best to hide from him. On another occasion I was running down a passage when I hit my mouth on an earthenware bowl carried by Fanny Gadsby who was our housemaid. I am sure I did a lot of crying and I remember that poor Fanny got stormed at for allowing the little accident to happen when it must surely have been my fault.

The farm was run very much on a free range basis and there were horses, cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry everywhere. The poultry consisted of geese, ducks, turkeys, hens, pigeons, bantams and guinea-fowl. Cats were numerous and there were always one or two farm dogs around in addition to the one which lived in the house. The processes of reproduction were obviously all around so much so that we never gave it a thought and in our play it was invariably farming. To do this we set out our fields on a grassy bank in an orchard at the back of the house. For animals and birds we used a collection of stones of assorted sizes to represent male and female and offspring. To increase our flocks we mounted a male stone on a female one and in the fullness of time the female stone had a number of little ones around her. I do not remember that we ever had a bought toy but we got on quite well with our pretend toys and animals. I remember my father telling us that when he was a boy he had brain fever and that his only toy as he lay in bed was a piece of board and a pencil which he continuously rolled down it.

By reason of the fact that most of the land could be surveyed from the farm we were never restricted in our movements and could range at will over the whole of the grassland but we were advised not to go on the arable land because we would get dirty. For the most part we followed the pigs and whenever possible sneaked a ride on their backs.

My mother had equipped us with red knitted woolly hats and claimed that she could always find us by our hats if not by the pigs since we were never far apart.

I only remember one occasion when any of the animals appeared to offer a threat. My brother and I were walking with our father when a young bull detached itself from a herd of young stock and came up to a few yards of us and started pawing the ground. My father told us to stay back and he stepped up to the bull and hit it smartly across the head whereupon it returned to the herd.

My brother was a year and nine months older than I and so he was the first to report to school which was a Church of England school in the village of Mugginton, a walk of approximately a mile from our farm. I suppose that while he was at school I just made a nuisance of myself round the house and with the farm workers. There was always someone near at hand to pester. In addition to my parents there were three men who lived in the Hall and another who came daily. He was the most important of the team with the title of waggoner. His function was to look after the horses which were the principal source of power and transport on the farm.

In the house were Fanny, a daily help and generally either one or two aunts, sisters of my mother named Sarah and May. Auntie May was very good at amusing children with hand shadow displays on the wall and with a fund of short stories and pieces of verse. She had been cook-housekeeper to the Arkwright family and had travelled quite a lot with them and she entertained us with incidents arising from these outings. When she came to live with us, she was suffering with rheumatic arthritis and while not able to do much physical work, she could keep the children out of the way.

I joined my brother at school when I was five, and when I was six years old the family was increased by the arrival of a further brother to be named Thomas Bowmer. To assist the arrival a nurse Eley became resident with us for a period. I can still remember the doctor being called for on the night of my brother's arrival except that at the time I did not know what all the fuss was about.

To call the doctor from Mercaston was a major operation since there were neither telephones nor mechanical transport and the only option available was for someone to go in person on either horseback or using horse and trap. We had a horse called Bob who was my father's choice by either method. The distance between Mercaston and Ashbourne was about ten miles and that was the distance my father had to ride to reach our doctor. The doctor had then to get out his pony and gig and drive the ten miles to reach the patient. The chances of survival in an emergency must have been a bit remote. I presume that the nurse Eley who came to stay with the family was a midwife and so the situation was fairly well covered.

The only Great War memories I have were an aeroplane crash in a field near to Mugginton Church, an airship passing over and also a balloon which was trailing a rope. I was with the men in the fields on this occasion and a man in the balloon basket called to the men asking where they were. Our man Jack Johnson replied "You are up in a balloon! The other war sight was a Zeppelin which did a circuit over Derby and dropped some bombs.

At age ten or eleven my elder brother Bernard left Mugginton School and went to Wirksworth Grammar School as a boarder. He had to be togged out in Eton suit and altogether looked a smart little fellow. That left me a little bit on my own except for the new brother who was not yet much use as a playmate. At some stage when my elder brother did not appear to have been away very long he turned up at home again having been put on the train at Wirksworth and travelled from there to Hazelwood. This was our local station, a matter of three miles away and from there he had walked. He had been sent home suffering from I think diphtheria but it might have been scarlet fever, whichever it was he had to go into isolation.

In either 1920 or 1921 we left Mercaston Hall, my father having bought another farm in the nearby village of Bowbridge. This was very exciting as far as we boys were concerned. The new house had a large garden overgrown with rhododendrons and sloping down to a wood containing two fish ponds. However a long stay was not to be since a garage proprietor from Derby had been attracted by the property and visited us many times before persuading my father to sell to him. I believe he made comfortable profit on the deal.

In place of Bowbridge he bought a farm at a place called Flaxholme on the outskirts of a village called Duffield. The most attractive feature of this farm as far as my brother and myself were concerned was that one boundary of the land was as stretch of the River Derwent some five hundred yards long.

Shortly after moving to Flaxholme I was sent to Wirksworth Grammar School as a boarder which did not come particularly hard because my brother was already there. The Headmaster was a Reverend Hanson-Bay and he and his wife Celia did their best to rub the rough edges off us and apply a bit of polish. Mrs Bay in particular instructed us in a wide range of general knowledge subjects not found in normal school and which I have been thankful for many times during my career.

At the age of thirteen I suffered a major setback. I had just had my thirteenth birthday and on September 26th had very severe pains in my chest during the night. This was the start of many weeks in bed with pneumonia and pleurisy. The treatment was rough and consisted of a succession of applications of a black liquid, I think possibly iodine and mustard plasters. My skin was blistered and peeled off many times during those weeks. I am sure that death came very near at times with music and exploding light. Anyway I was destined to survive. The turning point appeared to come with a visit from a cruel gentleman who advised me I might feel a slight prick. Whilst my father and the doctor held me down, he inserted tube in my back and pumped out a lot fluid. Apparently the doctor and the specialist had bets as to whether they were going to find fluid or an abscess and I suppose I was lucky that the fluid won. I got better with a collapsed lung and a suspect heart and of course I lost a lot of school. Mrs Bay welcomed me back like a long lost son.

After this episode I was not allowed to take part in games and I became a day pupil travelling by train from Duffield Station, delivered in the morning and collected in the evening. After a while I was considered strong enough to walk the distance from home to the station. Bit by bit I got back to normality and at first secretly and later openly took part in school games of football and cricket. I never really caught up with my age group in school work but when School Certificate time came I got a fair number of passes and moved on to the Higher School concentrating on maths, physics and chemistry with history, geography and French. I completed two terms of the course and then left school to become an apprentice cabinet maker. Working with wood was my favourite occupation and the subject which I had enjoyed most at school. I was with them for some time but the extravagance in wages payments proved to be more than the firm could stand and about four months after I joined them they went bankrupt. I, together with the rest of the work force was sacked. It was not a total disaster for my family since it was harvest time and there was plenty of work to do on the farm.

My father had been ill off and on since 1927 and could only make a limited contribution but he made it clear to me that there was no future on the farm because he would not be able to produce sufficient capital to set up more than one son and that must inevitably be my brother Bernard. I had a leaning towards chemistry and pharmacy and sent off many job applications but the nearest I came was to reach the short list for an apprenticeship with a chemist and herbalist. I also got on the waiting list for a job at Lloyd's Bank. My application was sent in on the instigation of the Manager of the Branch which had held my father's account for all his working life. I have never told how far up the list I progressed nor have I had returned the documentation which I submitted in support of my application. My ultimate choice of accountant rose out of a chance meeting with an old school friend. He had a copy of Croppers Book-keeping and Accounts and explained that he was working in the Treasurer's Department of the Derbyshire County Council and was studying to become a member of Municipal Accountants. I looked into the outlets in this field and discovered that there were several bodies of professional accountants, the admission to which was by study and by service under articles with a firm. My father remembered that a certain Joe Nutt had prepared Annual Statements of "Ins and Outs" for his father. Our family solicitor effected an introduction to the original Joe's son, also a Joe and on 13th May 1930, I joined the firm's staff in Derby for a trial of six months at the wage of a £1 a week. At the end of the six months the question of service under articles would be considered. It was an arrangement biased very much in favour of the firm but it was more or less a Hobson's Choice situation. At the end of the six months they found me acceptable and I had nothing to object to in the work and conditions. The procedure for entry into Articles took longer than might have been expected. The first requirement was exemption from the ruling body's preliminary examination obtained on production of evidence of having passed certain examinations. It was February of the following year that the documents were completed and I started the requisite five years service under Articles to Mr Horne. The firm's accountancy staff consisted of a managing clerk and one other salaried clerk and five articled clerks. The working day was from 9am to 6pm with one and a half hours break for lunch and from 9 o'clock to 1 o'clock on Saturdays. That was a total of 41 hours per week in addition to which the correspondence course which the students had to embark on required a minimum of 15 hours a week study time. Disregarding the time spent in travelling the day was fully taken up without the addition of the time I had to spend in helping my brother run the farm which was not inconsiderable. I never heard of my brother having a set wage and I think in fact that he only received money to buy clothes and if he was going out. My father did however have certain piece work rates of pay in which I participated, For instance hoeing crops, hedge cutting or laying was priced by the yard, sheep shearing was priced at sixpence per fleece and muck spreading at one penny per ruck. All other activities were covered by board and lodging.

Our day began at 5am with milking by hand and for me continued until 8am on week days when I washed and changed and cycled into Derby for my next start.

After a year or so I persuaded my father to let me start a milk round for which there was an obvious need since we already had a few customers buying milk at the door. The door to door delivery expanded very quickly and whereas at first I joined in the milking before starting out there came a time when I had to be on my way with the first few gallons of milk which came through the cooler. It was very much better for me in that it was clean occupation and the exercise itself was quite enjoyable. As is usual in farming animals do not always choose the most convenient times to give birth and when such an event was expected among the cows my brother and I would take it in turns to sit up. With sheep lambing one of us had to patrol the flock at intervals throughout the night and assist where necessary. At this period the flock were restricted to a small field of about three acres but it was still quite an area to cover and to make sure that you had seen them all by the light of a hurricane lamp. My brother and I always had a vested interest in the sheep in that we had one or two of our own and it was vital that we did not lose our lamb.

By and large it was a hard and exacting life which did not allow for much recreation but I do not think that we particularly resented it or thought that we were hard done to. On reflection I think there was one occasion on which my father put a person at peril. He had a pedigree bull named Owlscott Prince which was normally kept in an enclosure but somehow he had escaped. The first we knew about it was a visit from the local policeman to say that two bulls were fighting in a neighbour's field and he thought that one of them must be ours. Myself and father were in the farmyard and he turned to me and said, "You had better fetch ours in" as if it was the most easy thing in the world to do. How this simple task was to be accomplished I had no idea at the time but I armed myself with a stick and loosed the farm dog and sallied forth. Sure enough in the field were two fighting bulls, both similar in appearance but one I recognised as ours. The main road ran along the side of the field and the policeman had by now joined a line of a considerable number of spectators. Both bulls were head down with horns locked and I approached our bull from the rear. I sent the dog in at their heads and at the same time I dashed in myself and caught our bull by the tail and struck him soundly across the back. The front and rear attack was enough to make him forget his enemy and to break off the engagement and head for the gap in the hedge that he had broken out through. Hanging on to his tail and wielding my stick I gave him every encouragement to keep going. Fortunately the other bull did not follow or the outcome might have been different.

In 1934 my brother decided that he did not want to become a farmer and it was too late for me to change course. My milk delivery was becoming more than I could manage in the three hours or so available in the morning. I had graduated up from legs to carrier bicycle and from there to handcart and on to pony and float. There was clearly room for expansion and so my brother took over the dairy business and my father retired from farming. I think we were all pleased to see the end.

My father had built for my brother a house with provision for the dairy business on part of the farm land and for himself and my mother a detached house on a building site about a mile away. This house also provided accommodation for myself and my younger brother who had turned out to be academically gifted and was away doing a Classics course at Cambridge.

Meanwhile my career course was progressing slowly and would now be easier with the end of the farming commitment. I had got rid of one stage of the accountancy examinations and had completed three and a half years of my Articles and had one further examination to take. Two of the Articled clerks who were there when I started had finished their courses and passed on and their places had been taken by two beginners. Joe Nutt's son, also a student but rarely working with the accounting staff that I worked with, passed the final examination having been trying every year from 1926 onwards and had been admitted as a junior partner. This development had not been very well received by my principal but we gathered that the position had been forced upon him. During the summers of 1932, 33 and 34, I had not worked in Derby but had worked instead in a branch office in the nearby town of Ripley under the patronage of the branch manager. He was a colourful character named Fred Buller. The work was small and messy but I did benefit financially in that I received a travelling allowance but continued to use my bike. In 1936 my Articles came to an end and my pay was increased to three pounds a week and I passed the final examination to become a fully qualified accountant. My principal advised me that I should start looking for employment elsewhere in order to make room for a new articled clerk. This I realised was bound to happen and in my case I had other ambitions. Two of the firm's clients offered me positions, quoting salaries which were attractive compared with my previous state of penury but my desires aimed at an escape from Derby into a new and more varied world. This I achieved in the following year with the parting words of my principal Mr Horne that if I came back in a few year's time having gained more experience and felt ready to settle down, there might be a job and a partnership available to me. Ten years later this was precisely how it turned out.

Extra story from Wem. 1930s. He had been building a stack of hay with a farm labourer. They argued about how to do it and the labourer won. Next day Wem caught a train in Derby, bound for Liverpool & abroad. As the train passed Flaxholme Farm, he saw to his glee the stack had completely collapsed.

Chapter 05 - My Grandfather, John Barnard Mason and his Family

My paternal grandfather, John Bernard Mason was born on January 10th 1880 at Broadholme Farm, Belper. His parents were William John Mason (1833-1912) and his second wife Mary Mason nee Goodwin (1842-1892). Grandpa was the eighth child of his parents and the first one to be born at Belper. He went to school in Belper. I believe the school to have been in Bridge Street and the headmaster to have been Mr Vale. Charles Willot's book Belper and its people, published in 1891 has a list of prize winners in Art, J. B. Mason is among them.

All of Grandpa s brothers and sisters are listed in the family bible which my cousin Anthony Mason allowed me to copy. The bible entries are written by William John who even records the time of day when each of his children was born. William J. (1869-1870), Mary Elizabeth born June 10th 1870, Thomas Bowmer born December 29th 1871, William born May 27th 1873, Annie Goodwin born November 8th 1874, John George born May 16th 1876 and Louisa Helen born February 28th 1878, all first saw the light of day at Hillside Farm Hazelwood.

On March 25th 1879 William John, Mary and their children moved to Broadholme where Grandpa and two further children, Joseph Horace (1881 -1882) and Ada Alice July 26th 1883 were born. I found the family on the 1881 census, the older children being described as scholars. Although no proper address is given I believe this farm to be on the A6, backing on to the River Derwent. The farm seems to have had fields on both sides of the river.

Sometime between 1883 and 1891, William John moved his family again. He had purchased Ednaston Hal1 a large farm near Brailsford. I found them there on the 1891 census. Thomas aged 19 years and William aged 17 years are described as agricultural assistants. Later William was to attend a Scottish university and become a doctor. Annie aged 16 years is a domestic assistant. It was whilst the family were at Ednaston that they were visited by Laura Johnson (1877-1970) who went on to become Dame Laura Knight R.A. In her autobiography "The magic of a line" she describes her enjoyment of time spent with her Derbyshire cousins. She was actually second cousin to my grandfather and his brothers and sisters, the relationship being through the Bates family. The mother of Mary Mason nee Goodwin had been Elizabeth Bates and the grandfather of Laura had been Elizabeth's brother, Stephen Bates.

On 24th April 1892 my grandfather's mother died. In words of the family bible, Mary Mason aged 49 years, their poor mother, died with all her children round her. May she rest in peace until the Great Resurrection day. William John found another wife, whom he married on 20th February 1895. She was Lydia Milward (1870-1954). We have a delightful photograph of William John and family taken before the ceremony. Grandpa had six step brothers and sisters from this marriage.

Prior to 1909 my grandfather and his brother George were farming at Bradley Pastures, a large farm on the Belper-Ashbourne road. It was whilst he was there that my grandfather met his future wife. She was Emily Annie Hurd Oakden (1883-1961) whose parents farmed at Agnes Meadow, Kniveton. It is reported that my grandparents used to wave to each other out of their respective farm windows but considering the distance involved I think they must have waved pillow cases rather than handkerchiefs. They certainly communicated by post card, I have one in my possession and the postage was one halfpenny. They were married at Kniveton Church on 10th March 1909. The best Man was George Mason (bridegroom's brother) and the bride was given away by her brother Horace Oakden. The honeymoon was spent in London, after which the couple took up the tenancy of Mercaston Hall Farm. Our family bible is inscribed John Bernard Mason a gift from his affectionate father on his going to Mercaston, March 25th 1909.

Mercaston Hall dated from about 1580 although it was probably built on the site of a Manor house owned by the Knivetons, a family of Derbyshire baronets. In records of the deportation of Mary Queen of Scots to Tutbury, Mercaston Hall is mentioned. Cannon balls have been found embedded in the walls, probably the result of a skirmish when the owner, a Kniveton helped in the defence of Tutbury for the Royalists. The Kniveton family beggared themselves during the Civil War, and were forced to sell to the Poles of Radbourne in 1655. It was occupied by Sir German Pole for some years after which it was tenanted as a farm. My grandparents were tenants of the Chandos-Poles.

Mercaston Hall was a large farm requiring indoor and outdoor servants to run it. When my husband and I visited it recently we slept in the Men s room. The present owners Mr and Mrs Haddon showed us an old plan with this title on it. My father John Bernard Mason Jnr. was born in one of the front bedrooms on 23rd December 1909. I have been given to understand that he was a weakly baby and was christened immediately, the Rev Randle Feilden, Vicar of Mugginton acting as godfather. My uncle William Eric Mason was born at Mercaston on 20th September 1911. He was a twin but his sister did not survive. Both boys attended Mugginton School, running up two or three fields to get there. Afterwards they went on to Wirksworth Grammar School where they were Mason tertius and Mason quartus, two older cousins being primus and secundus.

One dramatic event occurred when my father pulled at a leather strap hanging from the shafts of a cart, which was resting back on its wheels. The shafts fell forward and some of the attached metalwork cut his head badly. It was a quick gallop to the Infirmary in Derby and he bore the scars all his life. On other occasions of illness someone would be sent on a pony to summon an Ashbourne doctor.

My grandfather was excused from joining the Volunteers during 1914 1918 war. I have the newspaper report of Ashbourne Rural Tribunal granting him and his waggoner F.W. Nash (18) conditional exemption. In July 1917 Thomas Bowmer Mason, my grandparents third son was born. I have seen in Mugginton Parish Registers that his christening was attended by his uncle, another Thomas Bowmer Mason and his wife Ethel nee Wilkinson.

My uncle Wem, William Eric Mason remembers his parents as being very work orientated. The boys were encouraged to do jobs around the house and farm from an early age. They were taught to milk docile cows like Grouser being used for beginners. They were sent on horseback to the blacksmith in Mugginton when the horse needed shoeing. On one occasion Wem aged nine was mounted on Jewel when an overhanging sycamore branch swept him to the ground. He scrambled on again and all was well.

Grandpa was possessed of a ready wit. Whenever a certain young man delivered goods to Mercaston Hall he would be greeted with the following rhyme :-
Here comes Frankie Grey with a load of a cake
I'll pull his little ears off and make his belly ache.

In 1921 my grandparents decided to leave Mercaston. I have the Bill of Sale dated March 16th 1922 which gives details of the 91 cows being sold. Examples of the entries are: Crossbred British Friesian, newly calved 3rd calf, Red and white newly calved heifer and Roan eighteen months old bull. The none horses are listed. Mettle is a Brown Shire filly rising 5 years old. She is described as quiet and a good worked in all gears. Brisk, Flower and Jewel all have their pedigrees noted and are all good quiet workers. A cream coloured pony is described as quiet to ride and drive and passes all traffic. My uncle tells me that he was called Bob and was used to fetch the doctor from Ashbourne. Several carts, harvest wagons, milk floats and gigs are listed as are implements such as scythes, picks, crowbars, sheep shears and hay knives. All these would be useful before the days of mechanisation. Two petrol engines were mentioned and I gather that these were stationary ones.

My grandparents purchased Flaxholme Farm, Duffield for £3,300 and I have the Bill of Sale of March 30th 1922.This was a much smaller farm, only 37 beasts and 2 horses are mentioned. This farm on the A6 had fields stretching back to the L.M.S. railway line and beyond to the River Derwent.The railway line had four tracks which carried trains to Sheffield and Manchester from the south. Directly behind the farm was a yellow manual signal box. Cows were often grazed in the meadow by the River Derwent. To fetch these up for milking you had to go along a sheltered lane by the railway embankment. It's an Overcoat warmer in that lane, my grandfather always said. The riverside meadow was always a delightful sight when the buttercups were out and the river itself was always interesting. There were shady trees, sandy beaches, a weir with remnants of ironwork and stone tables which had once helped to support a branch of the railway line built by the Tempest family of Little Eaton. This line has once run over a river bridge from Peckwash Mill to the main line.

My grandparents farmed at Flaxholme Farm until 1935 when they retired to Burley Hill. It was during their retirement that I knew them. My grandfather had a sunny nature and as a small child I loved him dearly and enjoyed his company greatly. My grandmother Emily or Emmie as Grandpa called her, was more serious, a very hard working lady. Sadly she was severely deaf from middle age. Of her ancestry, Life and character, much more in the next chapter.

In their retirement Gran and Grandpa kept poultry and maintained an excellent garden. Shopping was in Derby and travel was by bus. I often accompanied them. Here's your ticket duck said the conductress one day. Do I look like a duck ?, whispered my grandfather to me.

My grandparent's second son William Eric Mason obtained a position as accountant to Messrs Cassleton, Elliott and Co. of London. The year was 1938 and he dangled me a small babe, on his knee the night before he set off. He set sail on the steamer Apapa bound for the Gold Coast and Nigeria where he was engaged carrying out audits. In 1939 he received telegram telling him to proceed at once to the Cameroons and take charge of enemy property. He had been recommended for this responsibility by his boss who said Not only is he a very good accountant but his family are landowners in Derbyshire. On arriving he found big plantations producing bananas, palm oil, coffee, rubber, tea and cocoa, all run by Germans using a native labour force of thousands. Wem and his entourage landed and with a bit of Union Jack waving, he informed them that he was the custodian of enemy property and had come to take charge. Relations continued cordially until the Germans were shipped off to internment.

On another occasion he was asked to investigate whether 30 cows could supply dairy produce for the whole of Nigeria. He wrote home to his farmer parents for advice.

Wem was still working in Lagos in 1940 when he came home for his wedding to Miss Patricia Kirby. It made him smile when he overheard a conversation on a bus whilst in Derby. Captain Kirby's daughter is marrying a man from Nigeria. Reply, Oh is he a darkie ?

After the war he settled down in Derbyshire and enjoyed life with his wife and daughter, Ann, born August 1941. Ann now has four grown up children. Sally the eldest is a barrister, David flies jets and Robert has just graduated. Rachel is like her mother Ann and excels at singing and dancing. They delight many audiences at local operatic performances. Wem's second wife Helen and Ann organised a very successful 80th birthday party for him recently.

Chapter 06 - My Grandmother and her Kniveton relatives

My father's mother, Emily Annie Hurd Oakden was born on 1st of April 1883. Despite the date, she was no fool. She was the youngest of the family. Her parents, Joseph and Martha Oakden nee Hurd, already had three older daughters, Sabra, born 1874, Mabel, born 1875 and Edith, born 1879 and a son Horace, born 1877. The family lived at Agnes Meadow, Kniveton and her father described himself as a farmer on the 1891 census.

Joseph Oakden's parents were Simon Oakden and Lydia nee Barton. I found Lydia and her eight Barton brothers and sisters baptised at Hognaston but living, farming and lime burning at Agnes Meadow in 1841, 1851, 1861 and 1871. The parent Bartons, Joseph and Lydia Snr were alive in 1841 with rounded ages of 75 and 60 years. In 1851, eldest son Joseph Barton, aged 40 years was a farmer of 27 acres and a lime burner. He was assisted at Agnes Meadow by unmarried brother, Edward, unmarried sisters, Sabrah Barton aged 38 and Matilda Barton aged 34 years. Mother Lydia Snr was still alive, aged 73 and giving her birthplace as Bradley. By 1861 Joseph Barton was 50 years old, still unmarried and living with spinster sisters, Emma (56), Sabrah (48), Matilda (44) and bachelor brother, Edward (46). The 1871 census showed a similar picture. Joseph Barton was still head of the family and living at Agnes Meadow with him were brother Edward (52), sister Sabrah (54) and widowed older sister Elizabeth Mandeville aged 62 years.

Of the nine Bartons, Lydia (1807-1875) seemed to be the only one to marry and have children. I suspect that with the deaths of his parents, Lydia nee Barton and Simon Oakden (an agricultural labourer in 1841, 1851 and 1861) and the deaths of the unmarried Barton uncles and aunts in the 1870s and 1880s, Joseph Oakden inherited Agnes Meadow through his mother. It must have happened after 1871 when he was still an agricultural labourer of 31 living with his parents, Simon and Lydia Oakden and after 1881 when he was married to Martha Hurd, but still describing himself as a farm labourer. At any rate he was certainly at Agnes Meadow with his wife, Martha and his young family in 1891.

The Hurds, my grandmother's maternal relatives were a well established Kniveton family. They were there from the time church registers began. In 1715 John Hurd made a will leaving money for the founding of a school in Kniveton. He specified the materials to be used in the building and left money for the schoolmaster's wages. Coals were to be provided and the schoolmaster must be responsible for the repair of the windows. Children of the name Hurd were to attend school free. All this was to be the responsibility of the Churchwardens and Overseer of the Poor.

Another John Hurd (1755-1787) who was described as a gent, erected a prominent memorial in Kniveton Church. It reads "Influenced by a principle of gratitude to perpetuate the memory of his relation and benefactor GREENWOOD HOLMES late of Agnes Meadow in this parish, Gent, who departed this life 14th day of June AD 1777 in the 31st year of his age, this memorial was erected by his nephew John Hurd who succeeded to his estate and was son of Edward Hurd by Ann his wife and sister to the above Greenwood Holmes. Both these John Hurds were ancestors of my grandmother, Emily Oakden.

My grandmother, Emily's maternal grandfather was Robert Hurd born 1808 who married Martha Ginnis in 1837. This Robert seemed to have been a bit of a wanderer. His first three children, all girls namely Catherine (b 1837), Mary (b 1839) and Martha (b 1841) were baptised at Kniveton. The family were missing from the 1841 Kniveton census and the 1851 Kniveton census although Robert's daughter Jane born at Fenny Bentley in 1845 was there with her grandparents, John and Hannah Hurd nee Blore. Robert's family were residing in Fenny Bentley in 1843 (birth of Ann), 1845 (birth of Jane) and 1847 (birth of Robert Jnr). Then they apparently moved to Hulme, Lancs and were living there when son John was born in 1851. They were in Middlesex for the births of Lucy Annie (1854), Hannah (1856), Thomas W (1858) and Henry E Hurd (1860). The family were back in Kniveton in 1871 when Robert Hurd aged 63 was listed as a farmer of 46 acres. Wife Martha nee Ginnis was there also aged 55 and seven offspring ranging in age from Martha at 29 to Henry at 11 years old.

When I found the Hurd family on the very useful pedigrees of T E Ince, a Wirksworth lawyer probably made around the 1850s, I learned that branches of the family were resident in the Treeton area of Yorkshire. There was also mentioned, a William Hurd of London. Perhaps Robert Hurd took advantage of this connection when he moved south around 1854. My grandmother, Emily always insisted that her mother's family, the Hurds came from London. In view of the fact that her mother Martha spent most of her teens and twenties there, probably with Hurd relatives, it is not surprising that she said this. I wonder if there is any connection with former Conservative minister, Douglas Hurd or with a "Hurd" boy that my uncle taught at Sevenoaks school.

When John Hurd, yeoman (1777-1862) made his will in 1851, he did not mention Robert who was his proven eldest son. I suppose this was because Robert was out of sight and out of mind in the London area. John Hurd mentioned daughters, Sarah, Lydia, Hannah and Jane. Son William born 1811 was an executor along with Sarah Hurd's husband Robert Wigley. John Hurd's wife Hannah nee Blore had died of cancer in 1846. I have her death certificate.

To return to my grandmother and her siblings, the only one I met was her sister Edith born 1879 and a twice widowed lady in her sixties when I met her in the 1940s at her home, "Spring Lodge" Derby Road, Allestree. I never met my grandmother's eldest sister, Sabra Barton Oakden (1874-1945), but I feel confident in assuming that she was called after her great aunt, Sabrah Barton (1811-1880) Sabra Jnr married a cousin John Oakden (1870-1942) and sadly, they had no children. They farmed at Millington Green, Biggin-by-Hulland and I have visited their graves in Hulland Churchyard.

Elizabeth Mabel Oakden, (1876 -1929), my grandmother's second sister never married. I think she worked as cook-housekeeper for the Arkwright family of Wirksworth and probably travelled with them. William Eric Mason in his autobiography referred to "Auntie May" as part of his childhood at Mercaston Hall Farm. She sounds as though she was not in good health, having arthritis but made herself useful in her younger sister Emily's household entertaining her young nephews. Wem said she was very good at shadow puppets on the wall.

Of my grandmother's brother, Edward Horace Oakden (1877-1940s) I only know from a newspaper cutting that he was best man at my grandmother's wedding to John Bernard Mason on March 10th 1909 and that he married Alice Jane Wilson and had a daughter, Ethel Ida Oakden. Their names are in my grandmother's birthday book.

Edith Mary Oakden, the sister nearest in age to my grandmother, married firstly Frank Melland who died in 1912. Their daughter Bessie Melland was born in 1905. Edith secondly married William Smith Adams in 1915. They farmed in Allestree. There were two children of this marriage, John Charles Adams and Mary Hurd Adams. John Adams was very artistic and family members have examples of his work. He died in Pastures Hospital in the 1990s. Bessie, a practical lady cared for her younger sister Mary, who was not strong mentally. They lived together in Duffield in the 1970s and 1980s.

I know very little about my grandmother, Emily's childhood at Agnes Meadow, Kniveton. The first family story about her, concerns the time she was courting my grandfather, John Bernard Mason Snr. He was in partnership with his brother, George Mason, at Bradley Pastures Farm on the main Belper-Ashbourne road. Apparently it was possible to signal by waving something from Bradley Pastures' window to Agnes Meadow down in the nearby valley. There are lovely lanes between the two farms where they must have met. I have a postcard sent to Emily from JBM around this time. They married in 1909 and took the tenancy of Mercaston Hall Farm.

My grandmother, Emily, was in charge of the large house in which there were men and women servants in occupation. Her two eldest sons, John Bernard and William Eric were born there in 1909 and 1911. William Eric was a twin but the girl died. A midwife came to reside with the family near the time of the confinements. They were a long way from any doctors, Derby being about 7 miles and Ashbourne the same. Doctors were summoned by someone riding to their homes on horseback, rather long-winded in an emergency. Family photos show the little boys, Bernard and Eric with maidservants. Emily and Bernard Snr worked hard to succeed in farming. I gather they were keen to make money and were thrifty and careful. Emily sold farm produced butter on Ashbourne Market. She sat by the gateway into a "Daffy Field" opposite the Hall and charged visitors who came from Derby in the daffodil season a certain amount of money to pick daffodils. Farm work to earn a living was probably a greater priority than care of the young boys. Wem has told me he was very disappointed when his mother had not got time to make a costume for him to appear as Mustard Seed in a Wirksworth Grammar School production of a Midsummer Night's Dream.

The youngsters amused themselves around the farm at Mercaston. When toddlers, their mother, Emily dressed them in red hats so they could be seen more easily. They followed the pigs, often riding on their backs, and played farms with sticks and stones. Early schooling was at Mugginton, followed by boarding at Wirksworth Grammar School. Another brother was born in 1917. He was Thomas Bowmer Mason. The boys had jobs around the farm, learning to milk docile cows and riding horses to Mugginton to be shod. In later years My grandmother often told me the story of how the young Bernie pulled at leather throngs on a cart and pulled the shafts on to his head, causing a severe laceration. It was a quick trip by pony and trap to the DRI and he bore the scars all his life.

In 1922 Bernard and Emily had saved enough to buy a farm of their own and they purchased Flaxholme Farm, Duffield. Bernard Jnr, now 13 years old, left Wirksworth Grammar School and worked on the farm. One of its attractions was a field along side the river Derwent where the boys loved to bathe. Family legend has it that my grandmother, Emily gave birth to twin boys at Flaxholme but they died at birth. Profits from the farm were invested in property by my grandparents. They owned two houses along the main A6 at Flaxholme and two down Allestree Lane. One of these Allestree houses was called "Portrois" which my parents told me meant for three (sons). On my father, Bernard Jnr's marriage, in 1935, his parents decided to retire from farming. They had a detached house, "Stonycroft", built on Burley Hill and this is where I knew them from 1937 onwards.

I was privileged to be the first girl in my grandparent's immediate family and they treated me as special. When I could walk up Burley Hill on my own I went to tea. The bread and butter was so thin it fell apart and I loved the tea set with crinoline ladies on. I have it to this day. There were special things I could play with, a brass kettle with a container underneath for spirit was one. There were small coffee cups which I thought were for dolls. There was a child sized chair with a beaded seat and a box of games which came out at Christmas. It had hearts, spades etc as motifs. By this time Gran as I called her was extremely deaf and probably had been from middle age. She used a bakelite ear trumpet but conversation was difficult. When she had been visiting us at Flaxholme my mother and I would walk back up the hill with her. She seemed to hear better when traffic was passing. I wonder if she had tinnitus. I know she sent off for hearing aids seen in newspaper adverts but they were never satisfactory. My grandfather was a delight to me. I loved his sunny nature and probably saw a softer side of him than his sons did. Parties at Christmas were never complete unless he sang "I saw the old homestead." I really thought he had composed it himself, particularly the bit that went "I listened with joy as I did when a boy to the sound of the old village bells.

World War Two saw my grandparents keeping poultry and growing vegetables at their home. It didn't need a war to make them do these things. It was second nature to them to dig and provide home grown produce. My grandmother loved her garden. She and my mother would go round discussing the progress of each plant. I am amused to say that they both got a lot of pleasure from breaking a twig off a plant in the garden of a stately home opened to the public. They were delighted if it flourished as it had cost them nothing. Thrift was second nature and money very important to my grandparents. On one never forgotten occasion my father's bank statement was sent to his father by mistake. After all they were both called John Bernard Mason. Dad was in the "red" and his parents saw "red." If I had a new book by Enid Blyton, I would be warned to say it was for Christmas if my Gran asked.

Eric or Wem as we called him, had trained in accountancy and gone to work in Nigeria around 1938. He had an adventurous war, including being shipwrecked. Bowmer, my grandparent's youngest son left Cambridge University and went into the military police in Malaya. He was there when the Japanese took Singapore and was interned in Changi Camp. News of him was hard to come by and my grandmother followed the progress of the war with great anxiety. There were maps of the Far East on the living room wall. My father, a home bird, was working nearly round the clock with a dairy business and small farm. Great was the rejoicing in the Mason family when Bowmer came home in 1946, and went into schoolmastering. In 1948 my mother gave birth to Philip, my younger brother. John, My nearer brother and I stayed at Burley Hill with our grandparents. Gran cooked treacle sponge for dinner. Eating it was heaven. We also had "ash". I was much older when I realised it was "hash." ZZT ????

In 1954 my grandfather became ill with cancer of, I think, the stomach. He went to see a consultant but it must have been too far advanced for treatment. My grandmother nursed hum at home. My mother, Phyllis spent many nights with them in his last year and a neighbouring nurse, Mrs Humber was very helpful. In his last weeks son Bowmer and his wife Beryl nee Maskell came to stay. Beryl, a trained nurse was indispensable. I saw him the night before he died in August 1955. The next day I took up my first teaching appointment in Derby.

There was never any thought of Gran living alone. Years before she had labelled ornaments etc with the initials of a son and now she divided her home up. Both Bernard and Bowmer built rooms on to their homes in Flaxholme and Sevenoaks for her and she divided her time between them and their families. When she was at Flaxholme she was required to answer the door if we were all out. She would advance an ear trumpet first to the amusement of some but she did not want to miss a sale and would sit where she could see the door. She went to shop in "Derby", my grandparents never said "Darby." Often she brought the wrong item of clothing because she could not hear what the shop assistant said. When I had been shopping she always said, "Did you have good markets?" This harked back to her days selling farm produce I am sure. Still very money conscious she was always looking out for the rents from her properties including the house lived in by the Hargraves family of Allestree Lane.

Gran was in Sevenoaks in the summer of 1961 when I was planning my wedding. She had to be fetched by train and my brother Philip and I travelled down to fetch her. I know it wasn't a Friday. She never travelled on Friday, it was unlucky. She chose her outfit with care. A dress and grey coat with matching grey stockings were purchased. I was touched to find she had saved a small trunk of things from her home on Burley Hill for me. It was labelled "Miss Mason" and included many embroidered items, cushion covers, scales, kitchen ware etc. The embroidered items she had worked since retiring. I still use the blue velvet cushion covers and a settee back embroidered with a decorative tree. I treasure the teaset with crinoline ladies and the coffee cups I used as a child. Bowmer and Beryl at Sevenoaks have the beaded chair and the leather buffet and a chiming clock which always remind me of Gran. I now have the blue Wedgewood jug with the label, J B Mason which she put on in 1955.

The day before my wedding she crawled up inside my dress and fixed on a blue bow. I was touched by this. Two months later, in the October of 1961 she suffered a stroke at my parents home, lay in a coma for several days and died never having regained consciousness. I think about her every time I look at my hands and wrists. My arms seem to be two inches longer than anyone else's, and they are her arms to a T. She must have had long legs too, she was much taller than I am. She worked hard and got a lot of satisfaction from it. I do too. She once said that she couldn't play. I don't think I can either. I think she would have approved of the family history. The scrapbooks she kept from the 1900s have been invaluable to me. I shall never forget Emily Annie Hurd Mason nee Oakden.

Chapter 07 - William John Mason and his relatives

My great grand-father William John Mason, was born at Broadholme Farm Belper on 4th May 1833. His father was William Warne Mason (1800-1881) and his mother was Mary Bowmer (1805-1866). William had a sister Annie, two years his senior and three brothers, Thomas, John and George. I found the family on the 1841 census. They sound fairly well-to-do, employing two agricultural labourers and three teenage female servants, all of whom live at the farm. The 1851 census describes Broadholme Farm as having 150 acres.

William John would have known his Mason grandparents very well indeed. John and Ann Mason farmed at Broadholme and I'm sure were still at the farm until the 1830's. They were certainly there in 1829, according to Glover's Directory of Derbyshire. By 1846 (Bagshaw's Directory) they had retired, leaving the farm in charge of William John's father, William Warne Mason. Bagshaw's Directory has John Mason Esq. living on Matlock Road, Belper. In fact John Mason lived there until his death in 1855 and Ann Mason until her death in 1847. From them William John would certainly have heard stories of how the Mason family moved to Broadholme from Mercaston in the 1760's.

His Bowmer grandparents from Barn Close Farm, Fritchley, he would have known less well. In fact his mother Mary nee Bowmer, lost her father, Thomas in 1836 when William John was three and her mother Sarah in 1854. However family ties with the Bowmer family must have been very strong. William John's sister Annie went on to marry Isaac Bowmer and his younger brother, John actually married a second cousin, another Mary Bowmer. John Bowmer (1800-1866) of Barn Close Farm did not marry and appears to be closely connected with his sister Mary's family. This John Bowmer is described as a friend when he witnesses John Mason's will in 1855.

Two of William John's aunts, Sarah and Mary, were married to Tempest brothers, William and John. Sarah and William Tempest lived at Burley House, Duffield and John and Mary Tempest lived at Flaxholme House, Duffield. Sarah had eight children and I'm sure William John must have seen his Tempest cousins frequently. I am sure also that the young Masons from Broadholme were acquainted with the Strutt family of Belper. The Unitarian Chapel in Field Row, Belper was built by the Strutts in 1788 and John and Ann Mason (William John's grandparents) lie in an ornately railinged tomb in the Unitarian Churchyard. I think it is likely that William John and his brothers and sister were christened here. William Warne Mason certainly was. Their baptisms do not appear on the records of other Belper or Duffield churches. Duffield Unitarian records for this period have been lost.

In 1853 when aged 20 years, William John left Broadholme. His father, William Warne Mason passed the family bible on to him and inscribed the following words,
'William J. Mason, a gift from his father on leaving Broadholme, Feb 13th 1853. He moved to Hazelwood, I believe to Hillside Farm, which his grandfather John Mason had purchased in 1838. John Mason also owned Grove Farm, Hazelwood. He had purchased that in 1840. William John is on the 1861 census for Hazelwood. He is 27 years old and his sister Annie is house-keeping for him. Three resident servants are employed.

On April 22nd 1865, William John married a Hazelwood girl, Catherine Ford who was 19 years old at the time. A year later to the day she died along with her unborn child. She was buried in Hazelwood Churchyard. William John records her burial in the family bible. He had engraved on the tomb, Behold I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes' and these words can still be read clearly today.

On 11th June 1868, William John married again. His bride was another Hazelwood girl. Mary Goodwin was 8 years his junior. Family rumour has it that he never loved her as much as Catherine. Poor Mary who bore him ten children was always second best. I have the marriage certificate of the wedding at Duffield Church. One witness was William John's cousin, Thomas Merry. Thomas was the son of William John's aunt Mary, who after the early death of her first husband, John Tempest in 1838, had married in 1845, John Merry, a farmer from Chaddesden. The other witness was Mary Goodwin's cousin, Charlotte Bates. Charlotte was the widow of Mary Goodwin's cousin, Stephen Bates and was to become grandmother of Laura Knight nee Johnson (1877-1970). Mary Goodwin and Laura's mother Charlotte Johnson nee Bates were cousins. More about Mary Goodwin's relations in the next chapter.

Seven children were born to William John and Mary at Hillside Farm, Hazelwood. Their names and dates and times of birth are in the Family Bible and I have detailed them in the chapter about my grandfather, John Bernard Mason. On March 25th 1879, William John recorded, 'Leave Hazelwood and go to Broadholme Farm with Mary'. William Warne Mason had been farming there, assisted by daughter Annie and her husband, Isaac Bowmer, since the deaths of his wife and two sons, Thomas and George, in the 1860's. He (William Warne) must have decided the time had come to retire. He was in fact 79 years old and his will, made on 17th March 1879 stated that he was living at Temple Grove, Derby.

Sometime before 1891, William John purchased Ednaston Hall Farm, Brailsford and moved there with his large family, whose ages now ranged from 8 years old to 19 years old. The census of 1891 gives details of the Masons and their four resident servants. Mary Elizabeth is not on the list. She was married by this time.

This is probably a good place to give details of the lives and careers of William John's older children. Mary Elizabeth Mason born 1870 and always called Maimie in my hearing, was greatly loved by her younger brothers and sisters. She had married Arthur Rose and they farmed at Alkmonton. Their family was Joseph Rose, born 1890, Willie Rose and Mary Rose. Joseph Rose farmed at Burley Meadows, Duffield, and was married to Beatrice Woolley, a member of an old established Codnor family. Their children, Fred and Mary, married Joy Russell and Richard Fletcher, respectively and are still in farming. Mary Fletcher nee Rose, is well-known locally as an Amber Valley Councillor and authoress. She has traced the Rose, traced the Rose, Woolley and Fletcher families back through many generations. Mary and Richard have a daughter, Rosemary, and two grand-daughters, Jacqueline and Isobel. Jacqueline is a Building Society Manager and Isobel is a doctor. Willie Rose, Maimie's second son, married Gwen Sherwood and they emigrated to South Africa. One of their four children, Paul Rose, is an artist. Mary Rose, Maimie's daughter, contracted rheumatic fever when she was young. She later suffered from Bright's disease. I can remember being taken to see her at Burley Meadows in the 1940's. I was saddened by the fact that she was always in bed. Her husband, Rupert Bowmer, died before her, killed by a Trent 'bus in the blackout.

In 1862 William John Mason had bought some property in Hazelwood, known as the Martin fields. He had Bradshaw House built there in 1878 and in 1908 Maimie became the owner of it. She was living there in 1931 with her second husband, Francis Mellor, when Herbert Swift published his book about Hazelwood. As they grew older, Maimie and Frank lived along Flaxholme. Frank helped my father on his farm and delivered milk by horse and cart. They were among the first people we knew to have a small television. Lawrence Thompson mentions Maimie in a book he wrote in the fifties. He says he found her sitting indomitably before her television set. She was worrying about who had to clear away all the things Richard Hearne (Mr Pastry) had smashed.

William John's eldest surviving son was Thomas Bowmer Mason born 1871. He farmed at Hillside Farm, Hazelwood from 1894 to 1930 when he retired. He had married Ethel Ellen Elizabeth Wilkinson, the daughter of John Wilkinson, auctioneer and valuer of Duffield. Sadly they had no children of their own, but had a special relationship with Thomas's young step-brother Arthur Mason born 1897. He spent a lot of time with them at Hillside Farm. On their retirement Thomas and Ethel had 'The Beeches a substantial double- fronted house built on Cumberhills Road Duffield. Thomas died in 1937 and Ethel in 1965.

The medical tendencies of Isobel Parkes, great-great grand-daughter of William John Mason, through his daughter Maimie, may have been inherited from his second surviving son. He was William Mason (1873-1935). In 1891 he was still at home at Ednaston Hall but by 1900, he had taken up his position as physician at Biggar in Scotland. He remained there until his death in 1935. Between 1891 and 1900 he had earned the degrees L.R.C.P. and L.R.C.S. at I am assuming, a Scottish university. I have a well-drawn badge of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders, drawn by William's son another William in 1919. I quote in full the obituary from a Biggar, Lanarkshire newspaper of October 1935. It says so much of the man's character as does his tombstone in Biggar Churchyard.

'In the early hours of Thursday morning Dr. William Mason, passed away after a prolonged and painful illness. For almost a year he had suffered increasingly, yet with splendid courage and endurance he faced life to the end, fighting a good fight. Dr Mason was not only a of wide sympathies, he was a brilliant scholar, highly esteemed and admired. He was an efficient surgeon as well an exceptional physician, whose merits attracted patients from far and near sometimes from across the Border. In thirty five years Dr. Mason had won his way into the hearts of many a Biggar family. Always at hand in time of anxiety or need, he was more than doctor. He was guide, philosopher and friend. We who have known him will best remember him as when in our travail or anxiety we have looked deep into his tranquil eyes, seeing there the masterful understanding and confident composure of a real healer; or as we have seen him enter a sick room, his very presence a comfort and strength for fevered sufferer or anxious friends alike. It seems strange to think that no longer on entering many a home shall we hear the thankfully spoken words: The Doctor's been, and see in the face of some suffering friend the reflected strength and confidence of our beloved doctor, for if ever a doctor was loved by his patients, that doctor was Dr. Mason. Unfailing friend of all in pain or need, he served his people devotedly with head and hand and heart.

Now he who has been the good physician to so many, healing and saving, has himself, found the healing of the Greatest of Physicians. May His support and succour remain with Mrs Mason and family in their hour of sorrow'.

The headstone reads 'Erected to the memory of Doctor William Mason L.R.C.P. L.R.C.S. of Glengorm, Biggar who died on 24th Oct. 1935, by patients and friends in recognition of 35 years of skilful, loyal and affectionate service.

William was married to Annie G. Rocks and their son and daughter were William and Maimie. I met the younger William in the 1950's before he married and emigrated to Australia.

Annie Goodwin Mason was William John's second daughter. She was born in 1874 and she married Samuel Burton of Cockshutt Hill Farm, Quarndon. They had nine children, two boys and seven girls. There is an excellent word picture of Annie and Sam's life on the farm in the 1920's in Laurence Thompson's book, 'Portrait of England, so again I quote.
`I remember staying with them at their farm not ten miles from Derby. The farm well had been condemned as infected. We fetched water pail by pail from a spring a quarter of a mile away, and I can still recall my first delighted discovery of water boatmen. My aunt, less delighted, boiled all the water before she would let us drink it. The boiling was done on a huge, coal-eating grate with an oven for cooking. She boiled her washing in a copper in the wash-house, and I believe she did all her own baking.

There was trap, known as a tub, to take the children to school, and they were responsible for looking after the pony, sturdy little Wilhelmina, themselves. There were nine children, the labourers lived in and ate in the kitchen, my Uncle Sam carved a patriarchal joint and my Aunt Angie presided over mountains of vegetables. A trip to Derby was an expedition and everybody went to bed by candle-light soon after dark, partly because they had they had to be up at first light, but partly because there was nothing else to do. I know now that my uncle, like all farmers, was having a bad time, that not many years later he had a stroke from overwork and worry that eventually killed him. The family broke up. One of the boys is dead, the other, unable to get a farm in Derby, has taken a hill-farm in Yorkshire so remote that he has difficulty in keeping labour. One of the girls died in a motor-smash in Rhodesia, another went to India as a nurse and married a civil engineer, a third is married to a solicitor in Huddersfield, a fourth to a university don in Cape Town. Only one of the girls is left in farming, and in space she has moved only a mile or two from the old farm. In time she has moved a century.

In his book Laurence Thompson then goes to describe the life of Mavis Burton who married Ted Lawton and lived with their five children at a farm in Ednaston. Cecily Burton also married a farmer, Reg Sheldon, and they lived with their son John at Botany Farm, Quarndon, until Reg`s untimely death in 1949. Alice Burton, known as 'Lal' was killed in an accident at the age of 24. My mother described her as a delightful and talented person. Eva Burton married Harold Cotton and they lived at Hazelwood. My husband worked with their son, Alan Cotton, who was a development engineer at Rolls Royce, Derby. It was at the Cotton`s home in Hazelwood that I met Aunt Angie (William John's second daughter). She was then a very old lady and living with another daughter in Huddersfield.

John George Mason (1876-1955) was the third surviving son of William John Mason and Mary Mason nee Goodwin. In 1900 he and my grandfather were farming together at Bradley Pastures, near Ashbourne. Later George married Annie Melland of Atlow Wynn and Hunt Bridge, Matlock. She was a member of a well connected Derbyshire family, one member of whom, had traced the Mellands back to Youlgreave in 1622. On the Melland family tree appears the name of Henry Herbert Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith and Prime Minister from 1908 to 1916. George and Annie had three sons, Sydney, Richard and Fred, and one daughter, Mary. George and his family had been farming at Spath Farm, Sutton on the Hill near Longford for 35 years when George died in 1955.

Louisa Helen Mason was William John Mason`s third daughter and was born in 1878. She trained to be a nurse and it was during this time that she wrote the following amusing rhyme in my grandmother's autograph book. 'When patients come to I, I physics, bleeds and sweats 'em. And if they choose to die What's that to I. I lets 'em.

In 1900 she married Harold Edward Robinson, a master butcher. The marriage was not a happy one. They lived apart for a while and in 1903 he went to America. Lou was granted a decree nisi and the custody of the two children of the marriage. It was whilst she was nursing in London that she nursed and later married Alexander M. Thompson (1861-1948). He was a political journalist who became well acquainted with Winston Churchill. I quote now from an article my cousin Mary Fletcher wrote about Alex. 'Winston Churchill offered him the job of dealing with labour at the Ministry of Munitions. At the end of the war, Churchill wrote Thompson a letter saying I cannot allow you to leave the Ministry without thanking you for the ready and patriotic aid you gave me in a critical moment in the labour situation, and for your great assistance when you accompanied me on a tour of the munition centre'.

On a lighter note, Thompson wrote a famous play `The Arcadians` in conjunction with Robert Courtneidge (father of Cicily) and Mark Ambient. Other plays were 'The Blue Moon`, `Tom Jones' and 'The Bohemians`. Phyllis Dare and Zena Dare, of show business fame, were Alex Thompson`s daughters from his first marriage. A son, Laurence, was born during the marriage of Auntie Lou and Alex. He followed his father into journalism and wrote several books including Portrait of England published in 1952 from which I have quoted extensively. Louisa Helen Thompson nee Mason died in London in 1958. I am glad that I met her just the once in my father's plough field during a visit to Derbyshire in the 1940's.

Of Wm John's remaining family from his marriage to Mary Goodwin there are 3 offspring I have not mentioned. These are my grandfather John Bernard Mason born 1880 whose story is told in Vol 1 of the Mason Family, Joseph Horace Mason who died as a baby and Ada Alice Mason born 1883. Ada married Joseph Twigge who farmed at Atlow and later ran a 2nd hand book stall in Derby Market Hall. Ada's marriage produced 3 children, Dorothy (Dot), Cecily (Sue) and Geoff but her marriage was an unhappy one. I spoke to Pat Taylor, who told me how her mother Dot quarrelled with father Joe and ran away to the Pastures Hospital begging them to take her in and train her as a nurse. Ada came to Flaxholme a lot. I remember her as a small fur coated figure. Her legacy from the Mason wealth was streets of houses including Bloom St behind the Regal Cinema and she had to pay to have them pulled down.

Mary Mason, nee Goodwin the mother of this large illustrious family died at Ednaston Hall Farm in 1892.