50602. Marjorie Joan Turberfield
Newsletter of the Haskell Family Society
Volume 9, No. 4, December 2000Memories by Marjorie Joan Collier
My grandfather was Thomas Henry Haskell, born in Wimborne St. Giles, in Dorset on the 16th of October 1839. He was originally a seaman, but as he had a weak chest, the doctor suggested it would be better if he were to do an outdoor job on the land.
In those days people seemed sometimes to have to go great distances to get work, and he eventually landed up in Thornbury, near Bromyard in the county of Herefordshire. I suppose I am right in saying he was some kind of a farm labourer, earning twelve and six pence a week.
Whilst he was there, he met and married Sarah Ann Walters and they had eleven children. One died in infancy and one in his teens.
My own mother was the youngest girl, born on December 22nd 1884. She met and married my father, Frederick Henry Turberfield, in 1916 when he was in the army. They often used to laugh and talk about it, because when he'd been home once on leave, he caught German measles, took it back and the whole platoon caught it. It prevented them from going out to Salonica, which was a centre of operations at the time. Goodness knows what might have happened if he'd gone there! This story might have a very different ending.
Whilst my father was in the army, my mother found a small cottage, in a lane, with about five other houses, nurseries, etc. It was a gated road at either end. Now that lane is the main road between Worcester and Malvern. I can remember its being tarmacadamed and we could no longer play with our spinning-tops along it. My mother often said that she used to need to beg and pray the coalman to bring coal along there. No electricity in those days! That didn't come till I was in my teens. Oil lamps were the only means of lighting. That small lane now has houses and shops and garages etc, along its entire length, on both sides of the road.
Life was very hard in my young days. Money was scarce and one was lucky to have a job. When my father was demobbed, he got a job with the City Corporation and worked at the sewage works opposite our cottage as a gardener, where he remained all his working life. My mother made all our clothes and most of her own. My father had an allotment and we were never short of fresh vegetables, fruits, apples, plums, etc. We had no holidays away from home. My father and mother's only break was on bank holidays, when he had a day off, and we all used to go on the train to Bromyard to see various relations, or to Knightwick and climb the hill there.
It all sounds excessively hard and dreary. But it wasn't! Looking back, I realize what a lot young people of today miss. When people called unexpectedly, Mother and Dad were overjoyed to see them! Now-a-days one almost has to make an appointment to see other people!
As I think of relations, Uncle Harry, mother's youngest brother, was groundsman for a long time with a large school at Bredenbury, four miles outside Bromyard. We used to go there - that was a wonderful day! Walking through the meadows, I can remember one day stooping and picking up a dozing rabbit, asleep in the midday sun.
Then there was Uncle Bill, the oldest. He lived on the Bromyard Downs and you used to see all kinds of wildlife out there-hares, kestrels, etc.
Uncle Charlie lived further afield, at Tamworth. He was a driver on the Midland red buses, and we rarely saw him, although I am still in touch with one of his sons, Lawrence Haskell.
Of course, in those days we walked. No cars, few country buses, and few trains. We would take a train to Bromyard and walk the rest of the way to Bredenbury, catching the train back from a small halt at Rowden Mill, about three miles away from Bredenbury.
I remember Uncle Harry used to make home made wine, which he insisted on us sampling as soon as we arrived. I also remember my mother saying once, as we trekked from Bromyard station, "I'm not having any more of Harry's wine!" She used to be tipsy and unable to eat her dinner sometimes.
Then there were the trips to Thornbury to see the graves, my grandfather and grandmother. I remember the same old parson was there, once, when we went. He took us in to tea and talked of the old times. Once we managed, as it was market day, to get a country bus to Thornbury and we were regaled with the doings of some of the old chaps who had been to the market. One old chap Mother remembered, (his name was Joe Hirons, I think) was telling the whole busload that he'd bought "a coupla geese and four ton of aye" (which we gathered was 'four tons of hay'), and all the other people we had to listen to, telling what they had bought at the market.
My mother, who incidentally was named Sarah Jane, had a much older sister, Polly (Mary Anne) and she married late in life, a man called Rushgrove, and she lived at Kingsland, which is just outside Leominster, not far from Bromyard. We used to go there occasionally and that was great fun. It was a lovely village. They lived to be quite elderly. And I can well remember one day, when they were both confined to bed, coming home from work one Saturday at lunchtime and saying to my mother, "I think if we hurry we can catch the train to Bromyard and get a bus to Leominster and see Aunt Polly if you'd like to go." And she said yes, she would, and we started off, which was all very well. We got there quite safely on the train and bus, and walked about four miles to the village of Kingsland.
When we came to go back, my uncle said "If you walk outside here and along the lane a little way, a country bus, the Primrose bus, will pick you up and take you into Leominster and you can get the bus home from there."
Well, we got out on the road, and we walked and we walked and we walked, and I well remember at some point my mother said, "I'll have to sit down for a little while." So we sat down by the side of the country road and I can still hear the village clock chiming nine o'clock! And I thought, "What are we going to do?" And at about that moment, a man on a tractor came along, and he asked, "Where are you ladies trying to get?" And we said, " Well, we want to get to Leominster eventually," and he said, "Hop inside and I'll take you." He took us and dropped us right by the bus stop and the bus was waiting there and we got on it.
I can remember walking along our road, Bromwich Road, as the cathredral clock struck twelve, and my father coming to meet us. He'd been down to the station three times and he was worried to death, and he said, "Where ever have you people been?" They were supposed to be going on holiday on the following Saturday, down to Cornwall, and he said, "You'd better cancel that holiday. This has absolutely upset me. I shan't be able to go." Needless-to-say, they did go and all was well. Afterwards, when I asked my mother whether she was worried while we were so lost, she said, "It didn't worry me. I knew I was safe with you." What a responsibility!
I always felt very sorry that I never knew my grandfather and my grandmother. My mother said she was quite sure I would have loved them. And I think I should. Lawrence bears a very striking resemblance to my grandfather and I think my mother is very much like her mother to look at. But they both died, my grandfather in the February and my grandmother in April of the year I was born, 1919. I was born in September.
In addition to everything else, my parents kept hens, for their eggs mainly, as my father would never kill anything. I've inherited this trait from him, I imagine. I well remember my mother saying, "Couldn't we have that old pullet for Sunday dinner, Freddie?" and my father saying, "Leave her another week." And so it went on, and they died a natural death. They became pets and my brother and I even had names for them.
Talking of pets, I think we had everything. "Dodge" was a cross-bred, smooth-haired terrier. She was there always, until I was about seventeen, when she died. We were all terribly upset. She was part of the family. Then there were goldfish, hamsters, white mice, even newts and tadpoles kept in a large bowl in the garden. All these in addition, of course, to budgerigars which my father kept, and numerous cats. Whenever any poor creature came to the door wanting a home, I'm afraid it found one. My mother used to say it was the "home of the good shepherd."
I suppose, due to the isolation of our cottage until the road was laid when I was about eight, I was quite a lonely child. My father had a brother Tom, who lived about a mile and a half away, in St John's. When we all had flu in an epidemic in 1926, he came and lit fires, etc, for us. We all camped out in one bedroom, and Mother said when she was getting better and went downstairs, she had to chip ice from the sink, it was such a harsh winter. Amazing that we all survived. One thing that stands out in my mind was eating sausages around the table in the bedroom when we were convalescing. It was great fun then.
Later on, one or two houses began to appear and I made friends with a girl, Connie Williams. We have been friends ever since. I met her first at the infants' school when I was five and she now lives in Australia, and we are all still in touch at eighty-one. When I was eleven, I won a scholarship to the local grammar school and she was there, too. We've been through a lot together.
When I was in grammar school, I met another girl who was to become a life-long friend. Before my marriage, we used to go on all sorts of holidays together, youth hosteling quite a lot. I could tell lots of amusing anecdotes, but that is all another story. She died a few years ago, but I still smile when I think of some of the things we shared.
It seems, looking back, that life in those days was so much smoother. People were helpful. I never remember my mother being in a flap, or my father. They had so little, but they had so much. They were contented with their lot. If anything, this is perhaps a characteristic of the Haskells. It certainly was on my father's side of the family. They took every day as it came. They really did take no thought for the morrow. I suppose this was the root of their contentment. I have a little of it, but I could never compete with my Haskell or Turberfield relations.
_____
Newsletter of the International Haskell Family Society
Volume 14, No. 1, March 2005Marjorie was born on 13th of September 1919 in a cottage in Bromwich Road, Worcester, England, the only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Henry Turberfield. She attended St. John's School, winning a scholarship at age 11 to Worcester Grammar School for Girls. There she belonged to St. Clement's Girls Fellowship, making friends, some of whom she kept all her life.
Her first job on leaving school was as secretary to the Worcester Church architect, afterwards working for many years as executive secretary to Major Lomas, Architect to Worcester County Council. It was a job she loved. She loved her garden and knew all the Latin names of the plants her father had taught her as a child.
She married Reginald ("Reg") Collier in 1966 at St. Clements Church. She was a talented needlewoman, knitting her own clothes and embroidering the lovely pictures that adorned the walls of her bungalow.
She loved all animals, especially cats, and was upset when she could no longer look after her lovely cat, Sophie, but managed to find her a good home. The birds in her garden were a daily pleasure to her. She had two pigeons who visited her garden; she called them Percy and Pamela. Marjorie was a member of the Haskell Family Society tracing her family tree back many centuries and making new friends, who remained until her death.
Although she lived all her life in Worcester, she spent many holidays in France, speaking fluent French. She would have loved to have lived there as she grew older, but unfortunately, because of the worsening of her arthritis, it was not possible.
She passed away peaceably in her sleep on 29th November 2004. Her husband and all close relatives had predeceased her.
Tribute by Mrs. Angela Bell
Newsletter of the Haskell Family Society
Volume 12, No. 1, March 2003Doris May Haskell, of Bilton, Rugby, England, born 24 April 1923, died 12 November 2002, age 79, after a long battle with cancer.
Survivors include her loving husband, Lawrence, daughter Patricia, sons Leslie and Stephen, and cousin IHFS member Mrs. Marjorie Collier of Worcester.