THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — www.findonvillage.com  created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.

THE REMINDER IN THE COFFIN

Copyright Valerie Martin 2004

Originally published in Along the Furlong in July 2004

I think the best-known shepherd from near Findon was Michael Blann of Patching. He was born in Beeding in the year 1843 and was the fifth child to be born of Mary and Edmund who was a sawyer by trade.    Michael went out to work at the tender age of nine and earned for himself the princely sum of 3s.6d. each week. 

It was later in 1853, I understand that Michael had his very first trip to the Great Findon Sheep Fair.  It was held in September as usual and the flower studded downland was sprinkled with white slowly moving sheep and the pleasing sound of their bells could be heard far and wide.  The young Michael's duties included caring for the flock at the end of Nepcote Green while their old shepherd organised the wattle pens he had been allocated for the day.

Shepherds of days gone by seem to have had an ageless quality — albeit appearing forever old. Always brown faced as if carved from a windswept hillside, framed with white whiskers.  All shepherds as a matter of course appeared to grow shaggy eyebrows and had deep-set dimmed eyes, and were always lame into the bargain. Crippled with stiffness and rheumatism due to their work, they held themselves up with the aid of a crook. Their uniform was a long dark cloak — a caped shepherd’s coat of a bygone age to keep out the bone-chilling wind. This encompassed their thin frames from head to foot, floating and flapping around in all unkind weathers. A hat, disreputable with time, always perched uncertainly on sparse greying hair. They may have appeared to merely stand all day long on the hillside, but the fact is they were working.

No doubt, the elderly shepherd on that busy Sheep Fair Day in 1853 welcomed the aid of a young ten-year-old lad. Near to where the boy contained his flock all those autumns ago, there stood a large turnspit with sizzling pork in the process of roasting crisply. The joints of pig had been split and strung on giant hooks that journeyed on a never ending motion round and round again above the blazing embers. The boy smelt the succulence of the cooking meat floating on the air. The menu for visitors was in no doubt in 1853.

Nepcote Green accommodated a mixed assemblage all day long, a carnival of colour, and a riot of excitement. Would-be eager buyers mingled with browsers that special day of the year. The visiting gypsies, who never failed to put in an appearance, did a brisk trade in fortune telling as usual. Sheep were prodded and pulled and flocks exchanged hands.

After a hard day, it was time to head for home and Michael's short legs struggled to keep up with the old shepherd’s longer strides, aching with effort and enjoyment of the day after his first experience of the Findon Sheep Fair.

In later life Michael Blann enjoyed music and as he travelled around Findon and other sheep fairs, he gathered a good many songs and his repertoire gradually increased.   As well as being a versatile singer he could turn his hand to many instruments and in 1865 he started writing down his favourite songs in a notebook.   During his shepherding days he carried a tin whistle pipe and the melodious notes echoed far and wide over the downland while he was minding his flock.    It was not long before he was performing at village concerts and harvest suppers. In his later years Michael moved to Meadow Cottage in nearby Patching (still working as a shepherd) and died at there on 10th February 1934 at the grand age of 91.

Shepherds, as keepers of their flock, conscientiously cared for their sheep for seven days a week and for such devotion received a meagre wage.  Being a stout-hearted breed they were out all year on the hills and they had very little opportunity of attending church services.  Few villagers would have elected to work on Christmas Day — and fewer still to work on every one of the other three hundred and sixty-four days each year.  But this was the lot of the stoical shepherds.

This is a traditional wheeled hut that was the home of our familiar downland shepherds at lambing time and easily transported from site to site during the spring months as the occasion arose. 

After a hard day's work it must have been a homely sight with smoke puffing from the chimney.

Here is a shepherd's sheepfold.  This method of keeping the creatures on the downland remained unchanged for centuries and was constructed of hazel, a commodity easily obtained from the nearby woodlands.

It is said that there was a certain ritual adhered to when shepherds departed from this world.  To jog the Almighty’s memory that they even existed, a custom was employed that was meant to excuse their absence from church.  A reminder was placed on a dead shepherd's chest before his coffin lid was finally sealed prior to burial — a clipping of sheep's wool.  It was a gentle reminder that the body had been so hard at work all year and every year caring for his flock, that he had no opportunity to attend church.

Continue if you would like to read The Great Fair of 1906.

THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — www.findonvillage.com is a continually growing record created by Valerie Martin exclusively for documenting life in Findon.