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

TOM RUSBRIDGE'S NEPCOTE

Copyright Valerie Martin 2001.

Originally printed in Along the Furlong, September 2001.

In January 2001 Kevin Rusbridge, who lives in Burgess Hill, West Sussex, contacted me to ask if I had ever come across the name of his great-grandfather, Tom Rusbridge.

In fact, Tom Rusbridge lived in a cottage literally a stone's throw from where I live. I will take you into the lost world of Tom Rusbridge. 

Young Tom was born on Saturday 12th July 1856, at West Firle where the Rusbridge family had lived for many generations. 

He started employment at the early age of seven and worked at a farm near Bosham in West Sussex. The date was 20th March 1863 and thick snow lay on the ground.  When he was young, shepherds and farmers still wore hard felt hats with flat crowns.  The shepherds painted theirs, mostly grey, and when they were completed they were shiny and kept out the rain.

The Rusbridge family knew an old shepherd, Ned Ansell, who was about to retire.  He donated to Tom's father his leggings etc. but said that Tom was to have his crook and sheep bells as soon as he was a shepherd.  The bells were, therefore used by Tom's father, but when he grew up and took a shepherd's job, they were passed over to him.  

Tom was very proud of this old Pyecombe crook.  Unfortunately, one day he loaned it to his brother to replace a broken one and never saw it again.   His brother apparently threw it at a rabbit under a hedge;  it jerked off the stick, and in spite of every effort, was never recovered.   

Tom subsequently moved to Wick Farm at Ditchling where his shepherding took him to Ditchling Beacon.  When he moved to Mary Farm in Falmer his job was taken by Henry Rewell.  He always wore a smock (normally a short one) and corduroy trousers and gaiters, and "false tongues" on his boots.

Tom then made another move to Hill Barn Farm at Southwick before his last shepherding job at Findon Park Farm prior to retirement. When he moved to Findon he lived in a cottage on the east side of the lane in Nepcote, now the left-hand portion of the property known as The White Cottage.  His neighbours were Margaret and John Ockenden in the right-hand side of the property, then known as Montana.  Without a doubt, Tom walked a direct route over Nepcote Green and up on to the downland to his place of work.

Tom Rusbridge was one of the dying breed of shepherds constantly shadowed by their shaggy dogs.  He worked seven days a week and for such devotion he received a meagre wage, supplemented by poaching the odd rabbit or hare.  To the uninitiated, it may have appeared that he stood idle and lonely with crook in hand for long hours on the hilltop.  This was not the case, as many necessary tasks had to be tackled that no one witnessed — such as tailing, cutting, shearing, dipping, trimming and, of course, lambing each Spring.  It was a lonely life with many days and nights spent trudging the hillside at lambing-time.  His sole shelter being a shallow hole dug into a bank, cunningly guarded by furze bushes and lined with dried ferns and straw.  His greatest enemy was the weather, and next were the foxes which killed the young lambs.  It was a life of real hardship.

In those far off days, Tom could be readily identified around rural Findon. He wore his smock, a peculiar shaped hat and trousers strapped round his knees.

Like his fellow shepherd Michael Blann of Patching, Tom was also a musician and a good singer. He taught Grace, his youngest daughter, to play the melodeon. This was a wind instrument with a keyboard, the bellows being moved by means of pedals worked by Grace's feet.  It could be called a small reed organ or a kind of accordion.

On the eve of Findon Sheep Fair on Nepcote Green, the local shepherds made an annual pilgrimage. Their names reel off the tongue like a roll call. There was Nelson Coppard from Pangdean Farm near the Jack and Jill Windmills at Clayton; the well-known figure of Walter Wooler from the downland hills near Pyecombe; the aforementioned Michael Blann; George Humphrey from the Sompting hillside; Charles Trigwell over from the Shoreham Downs; Dick Flint, another Findon shepherd and, of course, many others.

They ambled down Nepcote with their dogs at heel, (collies or crossbreeds with definitely a dash of collie), weather beaten, ruddy and worn with wind and sun, dressed in grey earthy colours.  These men of few words would all meet up at Tom’s small cottage.  They were patched, worn and weather stained but Tom's door was readily opened —

"How be yer t'day, Michael?"

"I'm bravely thankee, Tom".

"Will yer come and have a bit o' sup?"

The old comrades would stand around Grace in the small room while she played her melodeon. They joined in to lustily sing old Sussex lyrics as dusk turned to autumnal darkness on those far off September evenings of yesteryear.  Anyone passing down Nepcote would have seen their shadows playing on the cottage walls, magnified in size and appearing to jig like Disney dwarfs.

With lowered voices they recalled the awful shepherding winters of past years.  They related stories of encounters with cunning poachers on dark moonless nights.  All the while their glasses chinked, drained and were refilled again.

I do not think they would have minded me saying that they enjoyed their quantities of liquid refreshments as they exchanged shepherding tales well into the night.  The room would have been filled with bursts of guffaws and tobacco smoke as the men of the hills slouched lower in their seats enjoying Tom's hospitality in preparation for Sheep Fair day.  The occupants of the neighbouring cottages in Nepcote did not expect to get much peace on the eve of the annual event.

At last the shepherds drank themselves into a stupor and rested in readiness for the big day at Findon Fair when they would meet up with more old friends the following day.

Tom is perhaps best remembered by the photographs depicting him wearing "false tongues". These were large thick leather tongues fastened above the laces on his boots to keep the dew and rain at bay and are now exhibited in the Worthing Museum.  Tom's actual boots seem to have mysteriously disappeared from the collection presented to the museum Barclay Wills and only the "tongues" remain. 

Tom had retired from shepherding when Barclay Wills initially won his friendship in the 1920s.  The two became firm chums and Barclay often called in at Tom's cottage.

Tom was compelled to retire in the 1920s because he was crippled and stiff with painful rheumatism.  Some days he still helped his son, Arthur, with the lambs and among his beloved sights and sounds, his rheumatics were half forgotten.   To see the dog working and hear the lambs bleating, were good medicine.  He suffered greatly and died in 1932 and is buried in an unmarked grave in St. John the Baptist churchyard in Findon within sight of the Downs that he loved.  His grave is tucked away in the peaceful churchyard among the dignified old tombstones — just as he had always been tucked away on the Downs with his sheep.

Tom also had two sons.  There may have been others but I have not come across them.  The first I have discovered was Arthur who became a shepherd at Sheepcombe, the photograph was taken in the late 1920s and shows him carrying his crook, huge protective umbrella and wearing an more modern example of a shepherd's smock.  Tom's set of sheep bells were passed down to Arthur.

Secondly, I have found Thomas William who was born on 1st April 1908 and died on 24th July, 1986.  It was his youngest child, Valerie, who became Kevin's mother.

Continue if you would like to read about the Sheep Fair of the 1920s in Yesteryear's Sheep Fair.

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