THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — these Findon Chronicles are created by Valerie Martin and contain scenes from her home village of Findon,
West Sussex, U.K.    Everyday stories about real people.

LET'S PUT "GREAT" BACK INTO THE FINDON SHEEP FAIR OF 2010

Copyright Valerie Martin 2009

The Harris Fair arrived on the Green on the Monday before the 2010 Sheep Fair on 11th September 2010.   Fred Harris told me on my way back across the Green that the Findon Sheep Fair always had a certain foreboding for him.   This all went back to his childhood days..... the Findon Sheep Fair was the last event on the calendar and after then it was BACK TO SCHOOL for the Harris brothers.

The weather always plays an important part so we were hoping for a dry day .... not like the disastrous one in the 1980s when a cattle truck overturned in the mud at the top of Nepcote Green and the sheep were killed.   Unfortunately, this was not to be the case and it turned out to be dull and dreary with a touch of drizzle.......

        In the Ring 2010.

  The curls 2010.

The horns 2010.

The dancing sheep 2010.... whether they really dance or not, I've never waited to see!

The hog roast 2010.

  Celebrity caught on camera.

 The moustache.

Let's pretend you are wandering through the Sheep Fair on a lovely sunny Saturday and one of the old shepherds clad in traditional smock (sadly no longer seen) comes unsteadily across to you,   He asks in a Sussex drawl if you will mind his sheep while he goes over to the Beer Tent for another lemonade (it is thirsty work looking after sheep).     You have always been quite fond of sheep and they look a docile bunch standing with bits of grass hanging out of their mouths....so you willingly accept and feel quite proud of being selected for the job.... click on the link to find out more about your task while he is gone..... he's sure not to be long.....

Have you ever stopped to think what the Sheep Fairs of years ago were like?   I will now transport you back some 70 years to Septembers of the past.....

For 1938 click on http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=20696

For the event of 1939 .....  http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=24763

The Sheep Fair was affected by the war years.   The regional Commission for the War Office telegraphed that the venue was too close to the coast. During the dark days of the war, Nepcote Green was considered to be a prime risk for bombing.

Word spread like wildfire around the Harris family's fun fair and to the other stall holders. Another site was swiftly sought from Alfred Pankhurst, the landlord of "The Tabby Cat" at West Grinstead, for the use of two fields adjoining his public house. The area was conveniently close to the railway line and station, (at that time operational), and there were plenty of quiet meadows for laying up the farmers' flocks before and after the Fair.

The Fairground equipment and wattles on Nepcote Green were promptly transported to West Grinstead. Nearly everything went on trailers drawn by traction engines belonging to the Harris family.   As a result of a "ploughing up policy" ordered by the Agricultural Committee, many flocks of sheep were dispersed that year. It resulted in a record entry of 17,000 ewes and lambs and 340 rams during West Grinstead's first year of housing the Findon sheep Fair. (it was still named the Findon Sheep Fair in spite of the new location).

On the 19th September 1947, the Findon Sheep Fair eventually returned to its birthplace after an exile of seven years and took up its slot as the late summer event on Nepcote Green.

In July 2010 I heard from David Johnston in Petworth with some interesting sketches.....    "Sussex Shepherds....Paper cuttings, possibly from the WSG - c. 1975 - bit of a scruffy mess, but still interesting.   All best, David".

I thought they were absolutely brilliant and I tidied them up and put them on a webpage along with the text for all to see.  Below are some brilliant sketches of personalities of the past (shepherds etc.) that visitors to the Findon Sheep Fair may have encountered in bygone days ........

CLICK TO ENLARGE ALL IMAGES

"Another interesting shepherd was Nelson Coppard, who was born in Poynings in 1863.   He told me that as a shepherd boy he earned 2s. 6d. a week until he was promoted shepherd, when the wages were 12s. a week, plus 1s. 6d. for his dog's keep.   When I knew him he was working at Pangdean Farm near Clayton Mills;  he retired shortly afterwards.   I still have three fossilized sea urchins, which are known as "shepherd's crowns" which he had found in the chalk of the Downs".

"My favourite shepherd was Walter Wooler, the oldest shepherd in East Sussex at that time, born in 1856.   He lived in Pyecombe, not far from the forge where crooks were made.   Walter Wooler had a sweet, gentle face, clean shaven except for a little beard under his chin and sidewhiskers.   After he died, Barclay Wills, the author, brought me one of Mr. Wooler's canister bells, which he had said he would like me to have.   I still have this bell and use it to summon my family to meals.   In his younger days he wore a round frock, or smock, but when I knew him he wore ancient corduroys and an old tweed jacket and carried an enormous shepherd's umbrella.    He carried his dinner in a satchel over his shoulder".

"George Humphrey of Sompting was another wonderful character.   I remember sketching him with a newborn lamb in his arms.   He too had an outsize umbrella between four and five feet across.   One day I met him by Sompting Church and he showed me some ruins behind the building.   "That were done in the war" he said, and as I expressed surprise and said I didn't know there had been any bombs in Sompting, he explained "'Twas when Cromwell brought his men".

"Another fine shepherd was old Mr. Chant of Angmering Village.   (His cottage in the High Street is still called "Chant's Cottage").   I first met him at Findon Sheep Fair in 1934 and made an appointment to visit him in his home, where he awaited me in his best black suit and a hard hat, of the type traditionally worn by the earlier shepherds.   I remember he had a very beautiful open hearth in his parlour which took up almost the whole length of the wall".

"Charles Mitchell, aged 85.   The Pyecombe crookmaker, George Mitchell, was like a very lively small gnome.   When I had completed his portrait he said, "Wal, my wife wouldn't reckernise that!"   A little disappointed, I asked why not, "'Cos she'm bin dead this twenty year!" and he danced up and down, delighted with his little joke.

He was then 90 years old, and had really retired from the smithy, having handed over to his two sons, but he spent three days forging me a beautiful Pyecombe hook for a present - the last one he ever made - which is one of my favourite possessions.   (Incidentally, the Pyecombe crook is always known as a Hook, although those forged at Kingston-by-Lewes and Falmer are called Crooks).

I also have a very lovely and much used crook, probably very old, which was given me recently by Mrs Joy Grant, whose husband was a great collector of Sussex relics of the past.

Forty-one years later, in September last year, I visited Findon Great Fair again.   I missed my old friends, and there were some changes.   In the old days shepherds wore babby jackets, fleecy over-coats and corduroys or gaiters.   Now many wear white overall coats and some of the younger men brightly coloured jerseys and jeans.   At Findon last September there were many shepherds from as far away as the North of England, Scotland and Wales, each carrying his local type of crook.   I saw a fine horn crook from Swaledale and several wide Scottish crooks made from rams horn".

"The ages of these three shepherds sketched at Findon in 1934 totalled 242 years.   It was said that they had attended Findon Great Fair for as long as they cared to remember".

"10.30 a.m.The auctioneer at the Lamb Sale".

"Findon Sheep Fair in 1975".

      "Shepherds in 1975".

Who executed these sketches?    The artist's name was at first unknown but a potential candidate came to my attention from in the form of John Stepney in Findon.... always a  reliable Findon source for information.  He thought that Phoebe Somers executed sketches of shepherds and was in the Worthing area around 1977.  There was no guarantee that she did these.... but it was quite probable and I left it at that.   I had a feeling that the artist was one of the fairer sex because in the text she says that she uses a sheep bell to summon her family to meals..... and men did not cook meals in those days.

On Sheep Fair Day 2010 I received an email from Barry Homewood in Ringmer confirming this......"Hello Valerie, I discovered your Findon website some time ago, and although I live in Ringmer, I often visit the site to fuel my interest in the old Sussex shepherds, amongst other things.

The reason for my email is that I recognise the sketches of shepherds on your site, as the work of Phoebe Somers, as they are in the same style as her character studies in her book "A Time There Was" (1993).

I also recognised them as studies in The Sussex County Magazines 1932-1933 under the headings of "Sussex Types".   However these are signed Juliet Somers.
I found that Phoebe and Juliet were sisters. I would guess that Phoebe used her sister's earlier portraits for her sketches.

Thank you for providing such a brilliant web site, even for those who are not 'Findonians'!

Regards, Barry H."

TO CONTINUE WITH THE FINDON SHEPHERDING THEME....... WOOLLY JUMPERS....John Greves writes about North End Farm....

"One Summer in the late 50's two shepherds left taking their dogs with them ..... after being exposed to some horrific new chemicals which scabbed them all over.

Left an Ag Student and myself to look over something like 600 sheep twice a day .... on foot no dog.

We did have to resort to some pretty unconventional ways of controlling sheep.

Next Summer it was umpteen thousand Turkeys ..... suicidal lot.

Other Summers .... bale sledging .... not many can claim to have passed within 10 foot of every flint on North Farm.

Not sure I would have liked to have done shepherding in the Winter or lambing .... tough job ... especially with big sheep".


 

MORE FROM JOHN GREVES ...."Shepherding was a hard life ...... no clever kit in those days.

Back in the 50's ...... Suffolks and Border Leicesters were the mainstay of the North Farm flock .... big brutes .... considerably heavier than the blokes handling them.

Casting one on its back for foot-rotting, dagging and drenching in a muddy pen was a serious business .... soft rubber boot no protection against the full weight of a cloven foot. Glad they don't bite.

Rams live up to their name .... never to get caught between solid bone and a hard place.

Takes some guts for a 15 kg dog to turn a whole flock of these 100 kg woolly jobs.

Quite striking to see our own domestic collie moving through sheep and cattle down in Dorset .... half cousin to the farmers own dogs".

Rather amazingly, John appeared to be the only one with shepherding experience left amongst us.     And yes, I've always thought it a good job that sheep don't bite!

I can merely boast at the age of ten-years, helping to collect sheep from railway trucks at Maidstone East Station in Kent...... and driving them back (armed with stout stick) over the railway footbridge on the River Medway and onwards and upwards to Buckland Farm.     I did this with my young chum, Dorothy Harris who lived in a dwelling next to the farm, Little Buckland Farm Cottage.  OS ref: TQ 750 745.    She lived in this fascinating old place which dated from the 14th century.    It had a stone floor and was steeply pitched with a crown post roof.

Anyhow, when Dorothy and I arrived at the farm, one sheep was discovered to be missing on arrival at the field.....

"Oh God.... it wasn't my fault, mister".

Trudged back..... found the ewe tied up in brambles in scrubby hedgerow in a path beside the railway line..... and was quickly extracted by Sid Burnham the shepherd.    (I was sure I saw him once more at the Findon Sheep Fair soon after I had moved here!)

Continue to read about the Findon Sheep Flair 2011

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