The ‘Stories’ section of this website records the personal narratives of descendants of the Hartland Brittons. Their stories flesh out the dry bones of documentary, DNA or cemetery research, and enliven family memories.
Oral history developed as part of a trend to democratise history – which, more often than not, had focussed on leaders, politicians and the rich and powerful. In contrast, oral history is about personal and collective memories. It’s about everyday life, which is important in family histories simply because everyday life happens in families. Our stories reveal how we went about living, as in Audrey and Joyce’s account on this website about the five years they lived at their grandparent’s house – Alice and Daniel Britton, of East Yarde Farm.
Everyone had to chip in to maintain such a large household. Mum and Auntie Elsie did the laundry and the cleaning. This was hard labour. There were no vacuum cleaners, so any carpets that needed cleaning were taken outside and beaten. On wash days three tin baths were lined-up on one of the long forms (a backless bench on which we normally sat at the kitchen table) in the kitchen. One tub was for washing, one for rinsing and one to blue (a blue substance was put in the water for white items). Any item that needed to be boiled would be put into a large boiler over the open fire. When this was completed the clean clothes had to be carried and hung out in a field close to the house. There were no ironing boards so ironing was done by putting a thick cloth on one end of the kitchen table. Flat irons were heated by the open fire. When hot enough, a shield was clipped over the base of the iron to prevent the clothes from being marked with smoke or soot stains.
Oral history fills in the gaps, and tells the everyday tales of people whose lives have not been recorded in history books – oftentimes women. I thought about this as I updated the Marland Cemetery Map for this website. As I worked on the map, I spotted the grave of John and Nora. This got me to thinking, because Nora is my step-great-grandmother. I know little about her, or my natural great-grandmother, Elizabeth (née Squire). All I know about Elizabeth is that she married in 1878, and died in 1890, reportedly of appendicitis. She is buried at Frithelstock and she had two daughters, Alice (my grandmother), and Ada. That’s about all I know. So, hopefully, the stories section of this website fills in some of the gaps in our knowledge of family history before it’s too late to find out.
The everyday story of Devonshire cooking is told on this website by the women who learned to cook from their Devonshire mothers and grandmothers. For example, in their story, Audrey and Joyce’s spoke of their dislike of Lamb’s Tail Pie:
Joyce “Well you should have tried the lambs’ tail pie which we had to eat when we lived with Grandma and Granddad. I hated it.
Audrey “Yes, it was gristly. Fortunately, that came around only once a year when the lambs were having their tails docked”.
If lamb’s tail pie was bad, I wonder what we would all make of my grandad’s predilection for the badger sandwiches he ate at the Black Horse Inn, in Torrington, on market days. I’m told that they tasted like pork and that the meat was probably smoked to improve the taste.
Not much has been said on this website about Devon’s favourite drink – cider. But oral history can fill-in the blanks. Daniel and Alice’s youngest son, Roy Britton, particularly liked Sheppy’s cider. Roy went with his son, Colin, to Sheppy’s Farm to buy the cider from large barrels. If it was too dry, Mr Sheppy stirred-in the sucrose he kept in his pocket. Roy’s grandson, Dan, and his wife, Rachel, had Sheppy’s at their wedding in honour of Roy. I only know these stories because people have told me about them. They are part of the oral history of Hartland Brittons.
Whether or not these stories are worth telling, or add any value to historical understanding, is a matter for debate. A friend of mine told me she wouldn’t give me two cents to find out about her grandfather, but I like storytelling and enjoyed hearing about John, who was the only one of the four emigrant Britton brothers to make a return visit to Devon from Manitoba, Canada. Apparently, he got off the boat from Canada in a full-length polar bear coat. He must have looked like royalty, but did you know that Hartland did host actual royalty? The Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, visited Hartland Abbey. He was temporarily exiled from his homeland after Mussolini’s invasion during World War II – and thus the Lion of Judah was reduced to opening fêtes at £5 a time, a service he performed at Hartland. Apparently, Rastafarians still go on a pilgrimage to the chair he sat on. This is displayed in the church. It seems a Mrs A. Britton was one of the ladies who served tea and cakes to the Lion of Judah. I like to think that they were scones served the Devonshire way.
And then there’s the oral history intimating that some of the Brittons were ship wreckers and smugglers, and those of us who have the dark looks and olive skin characteristic of many Hartland Brittons have been told that we may carry Portuguese DNA. Do we? The DNA research article on this website suggests that this is the case, but the genetic link is much older than can be accounted for by more recent oral history stories. This is an important outcome of Hartland Britton stories: They give rise to ideas for future research.
