Commentary on the Pearson family and on life at Glasshouse Farm

These recollections are from John Iveson who now lives in Perth in Western Australia. He lived in the Wensley, Glasshouse Farm and Lordsmoor Farm areas from 1935 to 1956 when he married and emigrated in 1960. In this narrative, ‘Mum’ relates of course to his mother Florence Iveson (née Morphet) and ‘Ma and Pa Pearson’ relate to William and Violet Pearson of Glasshouse Farm.

1: The Pearsons of Barden and Glasshouse Farm

George Pearson (1838–1904) of Hudswell married Ann Ingram (1845–1924) of Tunstall. In 1881 George, with his family, was farm bailiff at Castle Farm in Middleham. In 1891 we find the family at Newfound England farm on Barden Moor. (This is interesting because we have George, son of George and Ann of Newfound England, baptised in 1871). Their son Thomas Pearson (1868–1940) married Elizabeth Anne Woodward (1868–1939) and they came to live at Prospect House in Barden. In 1914, Thomas and his family emigrated to Australia, returning home to Barden in 1922. When they emigrated, their daughter Annie (a Leyburn dressmaker) and her husband Ralph Jackson moved from Harmby to live at Prospect House. Thomas (1865–1940) had a son Thomas (born 1900 in Barden). When the family returned from Australia in 1922, they stayed with their daughter Annie and her husband Ralph at Prospect House. Thomas (born 1900) married Louisa Hutchinson and they lived at Mullane Cottage in Barden from 1931 to 1941.

The Hauxwell/Glasshouse Farm branch of the Pearsons are also descendents of George (1838–1904) and Ann Pearson and of William Edward Pearson (1867–1951) who married Violet Annie Stead in 1909. Edward apparently met Violet when she was a maid at Hauxwell Hall – he was a forestry worker on the Estate. They lived first in Hauxwell and took over the tenancy of Glasshouse Farm around 1935. Their seven children George Ingram (1912), Stanley (1913), William Edward (1915–1988), Ernest (1917), Phyllis (1919), Raymond (1922) and Arthur (1924) were all born at Hauxwell and lived at Glasshouse. They all attended Hauxwell School and appear in the school photographs in the Barden Biography.

The Glasshouse Pearson sons worked on the farm and on other farms at Barden, Garriston, Newfound England, Ayrlow Banks near Hunton, and Coverham Abbey Farm in Coverdale, and Newton le Willows. I (John Iveson) lived at Glasshouse Farm and attended Hauxwell School and Barden Chapel (1943–1945).

2: The Pearson Barden/Hauxwell, Wensley and Iveson (Coverdale) connection

Florence Morphet of Wensley married John Joseph Iveson in 1930. John was a joiner draughtsman and Methodist preacher from Carlton in Coverdale. He had preached at Barden Chapel during his services to Methodism and was known by many of the local farming families. He was drowned in a tragic swimming accident at Middleham in 1934 and their son, John, was born a few months after his death. Florence met Ernest Pearson (born 1917) when he worked for John’s uncle William Suttill at Coverham Abbey Farm. Florence and her son John (aged 4 years) first visited Glasshouse Farm in 1939, on the day the 1939–45 war started. Ernest and Florence married at Wensley that same year. Ernest cycled from Wensley each day to work at the Ordnance Department at Catterick Camp before active war service 1940–1945. According to John his step-father Ernest was “a wonderfully kindly person – qualities shared by all the Pearson family and descendants”.

Ernest joined the Enniskillen Fusiliers and was on active service in Madagascar (against the ‘Vichy French’), India, Egypt, Sicily, Italy, where he was wounded, and Malta. He returned home in 1945. His only complaint about the war was that his leg wound spoilt his dancing with his wife Florence!

Florence and John had moved to Glasshouse Farm in 1942–44 to help Ma and Pa Pearson (William and Violet Annie) and sons manage the 200 acres area. Phyllis, the daughter, had married Harold Blackburn and moved away. Ma and Pa, and all the Pearson brothers made Florence and John feel at home and apart from his Dad Ernest, John suddenly had four extra uncles, Aunty Phyllis and Uncle Harold (Blackburn)! Each of the sons was involved in war service and the Home Guard.

After the war Ernest and Florence, with John, lived briefly in Wensley and then they moved to Lordsmoor Farm, Bedale. John’s brother Michael Ernest Pearson was born at Wensley and his sister Barbara Jane Pearson at Lordsmoor.

3: Glasshouse Farm

The farm occupies a position midway between the paths extending from Barden and Garriston to Hauxwell. The farm covers 200 acres bordering on Barden Moor, Harland Knowle Farm, Barden Lane and Hauxwell Hall.

In the 1940s there was no electricity and cooking was done by a large farmhouse range and hot water from the boiler. The wash house was included in the large stone flagged kitchen next to the dairy, granary building, stables, coal house and two closets. One closet was supposedly kept for visitors and only reached by an obstacle course from the house! The cow byre, piggery, barn, stackyard, hay sheds, sheep fold, dipping pen and dog kennels were separate in the fold (field) along with the clothes line some 50 yards from the house.

A feature of the farm was Burnetts Wood (felled for pit props during the war), Park Field, the rabbit warren (close to Barden Moor), the small pine plantation, and the orchard near the house. There were badgers, foxes, rabbits, hares, corncrakes and flowers in the woods and hedgerows.

Some 20 cows, Friesians and Ayrshires were milked by hand – and pigs, hens, calves, horses, sheep, dogs and cats created a typical farm menagerie. Fields were marked by fences, hedges and dry stone walls. Cold water was on tap for the house and farm buildings. Baking, washing, ironing and house cleaning were daily chores and everyone was always busy. The brothers Ted, Arthur, Raymond and Stan all rode bikes to the various places for shopping, visits and entertainment. Listening to the BBC news and programs such as ITMA [It’s That Man Again] were compulsory in the evenings round the large table and fire. Hams and sides of bacon – and clothes drying – hung from the ceiling. Piano playing and singing occurred usually before or after chapel or church. All the brothers seemed to be involved in helping Ma and Pa (Violet and William) in all kinds of jobs, not necessarily connected with the farm. They always had birthday and Christmas presents made for Florence and John. As John said “They made model ships for me (to bring dad home – and they did!) as well as teaching me to ride a bike, milk cows, grow vegetables in my own bit of garden – and keep a large number of pet rabbits which eventually went to Richmond market and sold at 6d each!”

Stan used to take Ma Pearson, Florence and John to Richmond market in his Vauxhall car and occasionally to Bedale and Leyburn. The brothers also made a sledge and a snow plough for use in Winter so we could get out.

During the war, the ‘Dig for Victory’ national plan to help the food shortage went into action. A tractor (Fordson) was collected from Constable Burton station and driven on wooden road wheels attachments over the spade lugs used in ploughing and on wet land. Small metal studs replaced the steel lugs for haytime, harvest and general farm work. They were busy times, ploughing new pastures to grow potatoes, turnips, wheat, barley, oats and clover. I (John) remember Pa Pearson telling me that you could get two good crops of clover in one year and it “raked up well”. I rode hundreds of miles on the tractor during work in the fields and often walked in front to check for rocks that might damage the two, and later three, furrow ploughs. Black-headed gulls appeared as if by magic to follow the plough. There was preparation for sowing by disk plough, harrows and the seed drill. Stan used a hand-held riddle to sow areas affected by wireworm.

Hay fields and the ripened corn fields were opened out by scythe at the edges to avoid wastage and hand bound and stooked – a very uncomfortable job with barley horns! Sheaves from the binder were stooked in rows and later collected for the stack yard. Stan took great pride in his stacks and thatching with the heads inwards to keep dry. Threshing days were hard work but always exciting with a large steam engine and belt driving the thresher. Dust was everywhere with rats running from the bottom of emptied stacks and grain in sacks to store loose in the granary with its new floor to take the extra weight. There were four corn stacks for threshing in the yard.

Hay making was by traditional methods, cutting, turning, dashing, winrowing, sweeping and making haycocks and pykes in the fields before leading to the hay barn and sheds. We used to rush home from school to help and neighbours from other farms helped and joined in the lunches and tea – before cow milking time! We took a horse to collect a pyke bogey from the station. It was painted red and yellow and the horse bolted on seeing this new contraption. It eventually backed into the shafts and we rode on the bogey with its small metal wheels back to Glasshouse. The pykes were hand-winched on to the cart for transport. Horses were shod at the blacksmiths at Hunton and I can remember riding the cart horses with Stan and Ted down to the blacksmiths and helping with the bellows.

Turnip hoeing (thinning out) was by hand and we used the plough to ‘hoe up’ rows of potatoes. There was weeding, thistle stubbing, cutting nettles, layering hedges, fencing and repairing dry stone walls and working in the house garden and orchard. Sheep were sheared by hand and they had to be put through the sheep dip and hand milking of some 20 Friesian cows twice a day.

Ma Pearson and my Mum made beds, cooked, washed, ironed, stitched and mended clothes and socks. They also found time for knitting and bringing eats and drinks to the fields. Mum also did voluntary work at the Hauxwell Hall Convalescent Army Hospital where we met Mrs Bailey. We walked for shopping at Mrs Woods shop at Hauxwell and to Constable Burton to catch the gas-driven bus for Leyburn and sometimes Bedale. We also walked across the fields on Sunday to Barden Chapel and had ‘after service’ tea at the Pounders. How the adults found time for all the activities we will never know. They also always seemed cheerful and after Chapel we often walked up to Barden Moor with Pa Pearson and the dogs to check on the sheep.

Somehow there was time to feed hens, collect eggs and wash them for market at Richmond, feed pigs, calves, pet lambs, snare rabbits, mend fences, collect firewood, empty closets, wash, bake and garden, make beds and do the ironing – without electricity.

Milk in large churns delivered by cart were taken each day to the collection point at Barden Lane Farm and there was always a bit of friendly chatting with the Storeys and sometimes a cup of tea. Turnips for the cows were chopped by hand machine. We used to eat fresh turnips while feeding the cows and even tried cow cake with treacle – yuk! It was my job to hold the cows tails during milking and I often went home covered in ‘offerings’ from skitty cows feeding on green pasture! Stan and I both got into trouble for these events. Milk was taken in buckets and sometimes a back pack down the path some 100 yards to the house dairy using a yoke carrying two buckets and wooden pads on the milk to stop splashing. We used to put fire ash on the path in winter to avoid slipping. The dairy was always clean and we used to help label the milk churns.

Hay was cut in the barn with a large hay knife sharpened on a hand driven stone wheel and placed on the hay racks for cows, calves and horses. Mucking out occurred twice a day and the huge pile after winter was spread on the fields by hand – muck spreading was very unpopular with Mum and Ma Pearson and sometimes we had our tea at a separate table before washing in the sink or the large tin bath, sometimes with cold water and a scrubbing stone!

There was a huge potato pie in the field as a result of the ‘Dig for Victory Campaign’. The Ministry of Agriculture never arrived to collect them and the potatoes were eventually used for pig swill. We used to put small potatoes on springy willow sticks and launch them huge distances down the field placing spikes to mark the length of the throw. Michael Brown my friend and school mate from Barden was the champion spud thrower. So much for the Dig for Victory effort! In our imaginative way we thought that the spud throwing, catapult stones, and Stan in the Home Guard with his helmet and farm shotgun were more than a match for the Germans! We used to watch the search lights and bombing from the edge of Barden Moor and watch the tanks and trucks go along the concrete tank road on to the Moor for exercises. We walked to Hauxwell School carrying our gas masks – those who had them! There is a story that a talkative pupil had to wear his gas mask for the whole day to shut him up!

Helpers on the farm included a young man evacuee who nailed up all the gates, including those used by people walking to Hauxwell, to keep the horses in after they escaped. He also learned to plough but insisted on starting in the middle of the field and going round in ever increasing circles – much to Stan and Pa Pearson’s amusement, and a new method of using the disk plough and harrows!

All the various activities at Glasshouse Farm were repeated at other farms in the area and there was a great sense of community which was helped by Chapel attendance, lusty singing and a few fire and brimstone sermons!

Ferrets were used at the rabbit warren and often required digging out. Foxes occasionally took hens and pullets and a badger killed all the hens in one hen house after entering at night – by digging underneath. There was farm milk, cream and occasionally home-made butter – and, of course, Yorkshire Pud!

We used to take eggs and occasionally fresh scones and milk to Hauxwell Hall hospital and some of the mobile soldier patients walked to Hauxwell to Mrs Wood’s shop near school.

We also used to collect ripe hips [rose hips] from near Hauxwell Hall for juicing as a source of vitamin C. They were delivered to the school and sent off by the teachers Miss Henderson and Miss Laing to help the war effort.

We are related through marriage (mother’s sister Aunty Elsie) to the Browns of Studdah Farm and to my friend and schoolmate Michael Brown who still lives in Hauxwell. We had great times with Roma and Sheila Tighe from Barden, the Nelson’s from Garriston, the Reads from Harland Knowle and other school friends. My grandmother at Wensley (maiden name Pearson) and many others in the villages of Harmby and Caldbergh in Coverdale were also Pearsons, however I am not aware of a direct family link. Mother told me that somehow we were related to the Fosters at Garriston and we were great friends with Beatrice, George, Alice and Florrie when they moved to Beulah House in Wensley. I remember Marjorie Trotter (who married Uncle Ted Pearson) visiting Glasshouse from Hunton and I once walked all the way to the pictures at Catterick Camp and back with them. It was a moon lit night and I can remember owls hooting and corncrakes ‘craking’ in the fields. Soldiers and army vehicles were everywhere and in the distance search lights lit up the sky. We arrived home after midnight.

Dad (Ernest Pearson) also told me some stories of what he did as a young man with his brothers and his sister Phyllis when they attended Hauxwell School. He sang in the choir at Hauxwell Church, pumped the organ and together with his brothers helped to keep the churchyard tidy and helped occasionally digging graves! These were extra to his farm duties. He drove a pony cart at the age of 15 to meet the bus at Constable Burton and took passengers to Hunton and Hauxwell. Buses were later driven by gas during the war and I can remember we all got out when reaching Harmby Hill to help the bus get to the top by reducing the load! They used to go to Christmas parties held by the Daltons at Hauxwell Hall and dances at Barden and Hauxwell.

4: Hauxwell School and Barden Chapel

All the Pearson brothers and sister Phyllis appear in the school photographs in the Barden Biography – also Malcolm Pearson (son of Ted and Marjorie), and Jean Blackburn (daughter of Phyllis and Harold). My cousins Tom and Beryl Suttill from Coverham Abbey Farm also appear in the 1954 photo of a Methodist Youth Guild Outing (p 70). I was also active in the Methodist Youth Guild after returning to Wensley from Glasshouse Farm around 1946–47 together with Alice Foster of Beulah House and the Harkers of Westfield farm, Wensley. We gave concerts at Wensley, Askrigg, Horse House, Muker and Bellerby Chapels. Somewhat reluctantly I lead the prayers, read from the bible and recited a poem entitled “Forgive yourself”. Joe Harker played the organ and sisters Ella, Marjorie, Jean and Joyce sung. We were going to Barden Chapel but went to Bellerby I think because it was bigger. The Chapels were always full and money from the collections went to help various charities.

On the first Sunday we moved to Glasshouse Farm, Mum and I walked across the fields to attend chapel and enrol for Sunday School at Barden. The chapel was always well attended and there are good memories of Harvest Festivals, Anniversaries and Christmas services and carol singing. I remember the seats were hard at first but we forgot about that after the singing and prayers. There was always a prayer for local members of the services and God willing their safe return. The local preachers often “shouted to God” during the sermons and Mum told me it was because God was sometimes “a long way off and a bit deaf”! I suspect the real reason was connected with tired farmers, the occasional snore and shouts of “God Bless Him” – from the congregation. One lively preacher who used to move rapidly from side to side in the pulpit fell down the steps and disappeared briefly while continuing the sermon! He also thumped the bible much to Mum’s disgust! We went for cups of tea after the service to Pounders. Everyone was very friendly and chatted together after the service. Mum was friendly with William and Edith Hird and we had tea and home made ice cream with them when they moved to Londonderry and attended Exelby Chapel.

We moved to Lordsmoor Farm near Bedale after Dad returned from the war. I met Mary Palphramand and we later married during RAF service. To follow my career we moved to Buckinghamshire before emigrating to Australia 1960.

It was great walking across the fields to Barden Chapel and Hauxwell School and I soon made friends with Michael Brown, Sheila and Roma Tighe, the Reads and the Nelsons. We all walked across the fields after meeting in front of Glasshouse Farm gate near the orchard. The different seasons changed our surroundings, the Spring flowers, Summer holidays, Autumn with games among the leaves , Bonfire Night, collecting holly and mistletoe and sledging and snow balling.

There were games of conkers, marbles under the tree in the school yard, ladybird and grasshopper races and many other activities organised by the wonderful teachers Miss Henderson and Miss Laing. On Friday afternoons the teachers read to both classes from a book called “The Little Grey Man” by B.B. – the adventures of the last gnomes in Britain – Dodder, Sneezewort, Baldmoney, and Cloudberry – I still enjoy reading my copy purchased “war economy edition” in 1946 by Dad and Mum. There was also plenty of singing with one song called “The Jolly Waggoner” a special favourite. There was a prayer at assembly and the school brought together children from Barden, Glasshouse, Garriston and Hunton. I remember thinking (at the age of 9) that the Tighe, Nelson, Read and Trotter girls were “smashing” and it was a sad day when we returned to Wensley. I remember we all tried to show the girls how tough we were when the school dentist came with his “foot operated pedal drill”. He used to “operate” at Mrs Wood’s so our howls of pain could not be heard at school!

On the way to school we collected apples from the Glasshouse Orchard, made dams in the streams, climbed trees, tried milking cows in the field for drinks, played conkers, wrote love messages on fence rails, and played a most unusual games involving cow claps. When the cows were fed on a new pasture, cows claps were almost liquid and we played a game by stamping our feet (boots and Wellingtons) in the droppings – you were disqualified if you moved out of range and also very unpopular when you got home! As punishment you had to take a cold bath before sitting down to tea.

We used to walk to Barden to play with Mike Brown, Roma and Sheila. We tried to get the girls to play in the bracken in the wood above Barden and in various barns and sheds with limited success and often they declined our many thinly veiled invitations!

We used to check rabbit snares to limit any suffering of animals and slide down the steep path which crossed Hauxwell Ghyll just before the school. We also played tag and “catchings” with an old tennis ball and swapped food remaining in our satchels on return from school. I occasionally went to the Read’s farm and enjoyed playing with Herbert and Molly in their special tree house. I remember rushing home from school to help Pa Pearson and Stan when heifers were calving and piglets were being born. We always seemed to have baby chickens in “Kelly lamp” incubators or boxes in front of the fire.

There was a great sense of pleasure in the games and the chores we did – all to the credit of the family, friends, chapel and school activities. As I recall these childhood memories in a farming community my later interest in Biology and Bacteriology may have its beginnings – in Pa standing with me at the gate while a stallion performed its male duties. Subsequently when the foal arrived I was convinced that calves came from father horses and mother cows – an innocent thought later put right when we acquired a farm bull!

At Easter time we used to collect gorse and other flowers for decorating Easter Eggs and took them to school before rolling and eating them. We also collected pussy willow for school and chapel in Lent, I think, also holly at Christmas time and a tree with the traditional hanging of stockings and special treats of Yuletide loaf, Christmas cake, turkey and Christmas Pud! We used to go out to ensure a happy Christmas for the wounded servicemen at Hauxwell Hall.

All the Pearson brothers were eventually involved in some kind of war service, Army, Air Force and Navy. Stan, who ran the farm with Pa Pearson, was an active member of the Home Guard and I remember him cleaning his rifle with “four by two”, polishing buttons and wearing his tin helmet. Dad came home on leave only once in the five years and I recall his magnificent Army cap with black tails, red and white squares and, he said it, the largest cap badge in the British Army!

There were swans and ducks on the lake at Hauxwell Hall and we used to collect sticks of bamboo which grew nearby. I wanted to go fishing for minnows but Mum said that the lake was full of leeches which could pull ducks under water and eat them! Stan had a long thick bamboo pole with a pointed iron tip. Arthur told me it was a “jumping stick” and he demonstrated his skill with it by leaping over the fence and the ditch. I tried a more modest attempt to jump the clothes line full of clothes at its lowest point only to land on the line which broke and deposited all the clothes in the dirt. My punishment was to help wash all the dirty clothes, turn the handle of the mangle and fold the sheets – as well as a “clip over the ear”.

Ted, Arthur and Raymond always got smartly dressed after milking on Saturday and went off to their various “entertainments”. Mum and Ma Pearson used to carefully iron their shirts and collars with irons heated on a Primus stove or on the fire when we ran out of paraffin. We also had candles when the paraffin lamps were not available – milking on dark winter nights was by the light of stable lamps. I used to help clean shoes and dubbin boots. Ma baked bread twice a week and together with Mum made wonderful rabbit pies, apple pies, gooseberry pie, scones and teacake. There was roast beef and Yorkshire Pudding sometimes roast lamb, rice and bread pudding on Sundays. Everyone had their own seat at the farm table for all meals. Pa Pearson and Ma told me that one Sunday during a thunderstorm, lightening had struck the window area and a knife on the table causing it to fly across the room and stick into the solid wall on the other side! As a precaution we always placed cutlery under the tablecloth during thunderstorms and drew the curtains. During bad storms, Mum and I went and hid under the stairs.

The farmhouse kitchen and dairy had a stone flagged floor and in the evenings we used to make “curly rugs” from old clothes and materials. All cooking was on the fire “range” and hot water came from the fire boiler. On rainy days clothes were dried inside on clothes horses or on racks from the ceiling which could be raised and lowered by ropes and pulleys. One heavy load crashed down and some clothes were scorched in the fire. I also remember how hot the hay used to get in the barn – it was smelly but great to lie in.

There was a large vegetable garden, terrace and orchard on the south facing side of the house and Pa gave me my own bit of ground to dig, manure, weed and grow a few potatoes, peas, beans and carrots. There was a hedgehog’s nest in the garden and Pa showed me the young ones all pink with soft spines. In Spring there was thrush, blackbird, bluetit, wren, and sparrows nesting in or around the garden with swallows nesting under the rooves of the farm buildings. We used to watch the pigeons in their loft and huge flocks of starlings landing in the trees near Hauxwell Hall. Plovers nested in ploughed fields and pheasants and partridges in the woods and hedgerows. There were blackberries, goosegobs, and rasp bushes in the garden.

Dad (Ernest) told me they had one of the first wirelesses in Hauxwell around 1920 and during the 1939 – 45 war the wireless was kept going by regular trips with accumulators for charging at Mrs woods in Hauxwell. I can remember rushing back so we could catch the 6 o’clock news and ITMA [It’s That Man Again]. We also collected newspapers and letters from Mrs Woods and did some shopping in her new Nissen hut near the school. Mum often played the piano in the front sitting room at Glasshouse Farm her music lit by two candles on the front of the piano and we used to sing popular songs and favourite hymns. Sadly photographs of life at Glasshouse have been lost – but not the memories and in 1969 I had the pleasure of re-visiting Glasshouse and having tea with Frank and Bessie Foster. The old grindstone, sheep hay racks, dipping trough and somewhat older apple trees were still there.

During another winter visit in the 80s we met a Mrs Bailey (I think it was) with a black Labrador dog near the farm gate at the Hall. We talked in the snow for ages and I shall never forget the dog chewing the end of her favourite stick. The snow plough (I think the one that Stan made) was still in use! In earlier winters there were good natured snowball fights with Michael Brown, Roma, Sheila, Molly, Herbert, Pat and Olive Nelson on the way to school. Crossing Hauxwell Ghyll was quite a challenge and there was sledging down the hill at Hauxwell and Barden Lane.

Around this time the pigs got into the coalhouse and farm kitchen while we were at market – what a mess! Killing pigs was always a drama helping at 8 years old and I note that Mr Westwood, senior, butcher from Leyburn and father of Gerald, (married my cousin Margaret Iveson, a wonderful chapel singer and school mate at Yorebridge Grammar), improved farmer’s ways of killing pigs at Barden and throughout the Dales in his spare time. You never forget the taste of pig crackling and salty bacon hanging from the sides of bacon on the ceiling hooks. When Dad worked at Coverham Abbey farm they knew the hams had cured when they fell on the floor of the attic after the rats had gnawed through the rope! Occasionally maggots fell out and I remember sticky fly paper everywhere – no chemical sprays.

Traps to catch mice were everywhere and the window box seats were always filled with squeaks and scratchings at night. The cats used to wait till the traps were sprung and then take them outside to play with. We had rabbits feet on string to keep the cats (and ourselves) amused! I remember visits to the family at the old mill house in Hauxwell and the old Spanish chestnut tree in the corner. We took a shortcut through the church yard when we walked to catch the bus at Constable Burton and Mum used to show me the names of families she knew now resting in peace. Swallows nested everywhere after returning from their migration from Africa to avoid the northern winter. To see the first swallow and cuckoo was a sign of good luck – and I must confess to anger when new Dales dwellers tie balloons on the spoutings to prevent them nesting or their droppings on the new car.

5: The Wensley Connection

George Foster, brother of Richard Foster from Garriston married Beatrice (Beattie) and moved to Beulah House, Wensley, where he had a small farm. Ma and Pa Foster and their two girls Florrie and Alice (Barden Biography, p 36) were all active in the Methodist chapel at Victoria House (where I was born) in Wensley. The steps up to the chapel were on the opposite side of the cobbled yard at our house and I used to watch the chapel people arrive and depart, Sometimes they invited soldiers into Victoria House and Mum played the organ or piano for a singsong and cups of tea. The soldiers were given eggs to take home on weekend passes. Florrie and Alice Foster spent their school holidays at Garriston and Florrie married William Farquarson Christie, a soldier in the Tank Corps from Edinburgh. Willie and Alice visited us in Perth, Western Australia during visits to Australia.

Tom Morphet my grandfather married a Pearson girl from Wensley and lived at Victoria House. There were various Aunt and Uncle Pearsons living at Wensley, West Witton, Harmby and Caldbergh in Coverdale, but not as yet connected to the Barden Pearsons. (There is also Aunty Burnett (Pearson) and Uncle Fred Burnett at Caldbergh in Coverdale).

Beatrice and George Foster opened a small tea house in Wensley after the war to cater for visitors, cyclists and soldiers, much to Grandad’s disgust. He was a local preacher, farmer, and self-appointed leader of the Methodist Wensley Flock. During one service at Wensley which I attended he announced during the sermon that God had told him there were sinners in the village “at a particular house usually at weekends” and they were not to be welcomed or offered tea or sustenance”. You could see that Beatrice and George were annoyed by this reference to their tea service and following the sermon when Tom announced the last hymn she got up, closed the organ lid, and made for the door. Tom shouted from the pulpit “How dare you leave the house of God before the final hymn and prayer” – to which Beatrice replied, as quick as a flash, that God was leaving with her and He was also fed up with the sermon and suggestion that they were sinners! On hearing this, all the congregation left and the tea rooms were never mentioned again!

Florrie and I played tennis at Wensley vicarage and following the disappearance of strawberries from the Rectory garden, Canon V.C.A Fitzhugh came to see Granddad saying that God had told him they were pinched after Sunday School by Methodists! I know for certain that two Church of England members pinched them and was very proud of Mum and Grandad who said that God had different messages for different denominations and had told them it was the C of E lot!

A final chapel story was told by Mr Harrison a local preacher who preached at Wensley during the war after a bomb had caused his farmhouse roof to collapse. He told the congregation that God had told him and his good wife to go downstairs before the bomb fell! His wife had a different story – “It were nowt to do wi’ God – he got up to go to the toilet and I thowt it were a gud idea to mak a cup o’ tea in t’ kitchen”.

It is truly sad that so many church and chapel meeting places are now closed and TV, cars and other distractions are preferred at the expense of the country lifestyle of former years. We still laugh at the “Holy walk out from chapel” – and are reminded once again that God moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform!

George Pearson and Ann Ingram of Hudswell and later of Newfound England had several children. Among them, William Edward Pearson became ‘head’ of the ‘Glasshouse Farm’ Pearsons. Note that in the following chart, John Iveson is the son of John Joseph Iveson who died before his son was born. His wife Florence subsequently married Ernest Pearson. So John Iveson is the half brother of Michael and Barbara.

Page last modified: 13 February 2010, 16:46