Fenland Seed Seller

GM

Well I suppose the only contact that that I sort of have with this and I suppose it’s a lifelong one, both my as far as I’m concerned and also my father... because I suppose we should start at the beginning, it was my grandfather, another Monty Maule, he was a solicitor in Huntingdon, lived in Godmanchester, and they and the-the that and many many more generations before then as far as I know er they might have come down her shooting er before him er but I can only go back to my Grandfather. What my father told me, when my grandfather died in 1921... and that was him [shows photograph] that was Monty Maule, and that photograph was taken in 1898, which was the year he was married. My father said they were very very country, they were very country and particularly field sports. In those days the old fashioned you know muzzle loading, well not quite muzzle loading actually I think cartridges had just kind of been invented, they came down here to shoot wildfowl er basically a few pheasants and I’m not quite sure... my my my grandfather had shooting rights down here on what was then called Jackson’s fen. But I do remember my father saying that only a part of it was Jackson’s Fen, I don’t know who Jackson was, it obviously goes back a hell of a long way, somebody might have researched who Jackson was, have you heard of it being called Jackson’s Fen?

AB

lots of stories about Jackson who used to live up where the bungalow was

GM

well obviously you would know a lot more about it than I would know, all I know is it was called Jackson’s Fen, but it wasn’t the whole length of it, it was a part of it, and I can’t remember, my father would tell me Jackson’s Fen was here and but I can’t remember quite remember all that they would come they would come down here from Godmanchester in a pony and trap which was my my grandfather, my father, and my uncle who died in the 30s but I never knew him. But they they were they were very into field sports, any sort of field sport. And they would come down here in a pony and trap which was quite a long way from Godmanchester. And they I do remember him saying they always had a flagon of whisky...which cost half a crown and er if they got wet my grandfather used to pour whisky into their boots, [laughs] if it was cold it was cold now what good that did I’ve no idea I mean my father said he just sort of chucked it about, sometimes he drank it and sometimes he did something else with it [laughs] but that I just remember him saying that you know and they would spend the whole day down here but they er they wouldn’t you know they would be shooting er mainly wildfowl and a few pheasants, always a lot of woodcock, so that that then went on until I my grandfather died in 1921, ah now what year did did did Rothschild take this over?

AB

1910

GM

Right...right so...therefore...my father...must have been very young then, because he was born in 1899, that’s him [shows photo] again with dogs of course, that’s my grand that’s Monty Maule and that’s Ted Maule... that was taken probably late 30s or early 40s, so 1910 I thought it was later than that I must admit, so they must have been very young when they came down here because obviously after 1910 presumably they might not have shot down here? I don’t know

ES

Possibly not, I wouldn’t have thought

AB

I have a feeling

GM

They might have done until about the First World War

AB

No I think when Rothschild came here it was partly as a shooting reserve

GM

Right

AB

He planted quite a few trees now I’m in I’m interested to know whether you know... what was it like here in that period so up till round about

GM

A lot of reed.

AB

A lot of reed.

GM

Yes, the reason I know that is because er it’s a great pity in fact because I think it’s been lost now, but I can remember a very big chest full of old photographs and one of the photographs was of a very old man with a with a stick and father said now that is that’s old Poulter. P-O-U-L-T-E-R. And he was the last of the true fenmen. Now Poulter lived almost where we are now, Poulter’s cottage he always said er well that was where... when we came down here very occasionally and the last time I came here is probably 40 years ago he would say well Poulter’s cottage was on the Raveley drain. And I just presume it degenerated. But he would have that photograph would have been about the same period as this about 1890s I would say and he was a very old man. And the reason he said he was the last true fenman was because erm he lived totally on the fen he drank the water out of the Raveley drain, and of course got a fen ague which I gather was a form of malaria as the type of mosquito? Sorry I’m a bit vague about this but you know it’s like you when you’re young you listen to this stuff that comes from various you know from the older generation and you you you take some of it in but you don’t ask enough question so now I wish I’d asked my father a lot more questions about all these things you see [laughs] when I fall off my perch you’ll say the same thing but yeah you know so I just sort of picked up what father told me but he didn’t go into any huge detail but I do know that he he lived by as a reed-cutter... so there was a there was a lot of reed which would have been used for thatching and he would load the reed onto a barge, take it up to the Raveley drain, on the Raveley drain, up to... now I thought it was Raveley station, now I’d question whether there perhaps was a Raveley station because it would go on trains and he would it would be picked up somewhere I think probably in the Raveley drain

ES

Right... because the train went through Ramsey St Mary’s, I’m not sure, it is on, I have a map with the old train lines on it, 1950s but the trainline from Peterborough is on it

GM

Right, so it may well have gone to Ramsey St Mary’s

[discussion about railways while looking at maps, only partly audible]

ES

Right and the railway from Holme went through and certainly stopped at Ramsey St Mary’s

GM

Right

ES

Before going into where the station hotel is in Ramsey

[more discussion while looking at maps]

AB

It says closed in the 50s now I heard it was... running later than that yes says closed

GM

You see there were... there were er erm lines lines erm linking farms because I remember subsequently and I’ll get to that my father ran a shoot on the the other side of the fen which is now farmed by the [] and that was farmed by the Shepperson family... Sir Ernest Shepperson was in the war and he got knighted during the war now my father was very friendly with the Sheppersons, he died just after the war and ah Lady Shepperson used to erm let my father run the shooting

ES

Where was that?

GM

This was this was... on the other running parallel to the Raveley drain on the other side of the reserve is is Wheatley’s drain erm and the other side of Wheatley’s drain was the Shepperson’s farm, they were big farmers about a 1000 acres. It’s now farmed by the []... so if you walk straight through here, you hit the Raveley drain, if you go on over the Raveley drain you’re into Manor Farm, Manor Farm, Woodwalton, Manor Farm, Woodwalton

AB

Sorry Wheatley’s drain

M

Wheatley’s drain

AB

Wheatley’s drain is partly filled in now.

GM

I noticed that.

I drove through there not that long ago erm because I do a little business with the [] which is which is, what’s his name, very nice guy, runs the farm

AB

[]

GM

[], [], yeah. And er and we used to come down father until until when he died actually which was about 19 he died 1976 they only had one shoot after he died because it was it was actually being rented by by Abbots Ripton Estates because the the er Lady Shepperson was... erm... son-in-law who was running the farm... er he died in his 40s erm of an asthma attack in 1963 which put the whole estate into because they had a farm here at Woodwalton here, a farm at Upwood, where they lived Lady Shepperson lives in Upwood house, a big house in Upwood village and they had a big about 7 or 800 acres of Benwick and we used to shoot it alternately, we’d shoot Benwick one week and Woodwalton the next and there was a railway line, I could remember very well indeed there was a railway line ran right through the middle of the Benwick farm to collect sugar beet now that wouldn’t be on this map

RI

Was it a narrow gauge railway or was it

GM

No, no, it was full, normal, well ha I can’t swear it wasn’t narrow gauge but I don’t see why would have been because I I can just remember the sort of the old trucks that they used to load the sugar beet on, they went up eventually to March and thus that’s why March had these vast sidings because of all the agricultural produce including sugar beet was marshalled at at at March so eventually it would have found its way to March but there was a single track line that ran through that estate, so it doesn’t mean just because there isn’t a there isn’t on here, it doesn’t mean there wasn’t one of these branch lines which ran from certain farms, I would think though that possibly because there because Sir Ernest Shepperson was in the war ag [laughs] he might have got a railway line stuck through his line that not very many people did, but that’s the sort of thing that did happen, it wouldn’t be on here. But anyway, old, back to Old Poulter, he was basically a reed cutter, he earned his reeding from cutting the reeds, so he lived off the fen, he put it onto a barge and he would have taken it down the Raveley drain one way or the other and to wherever it could be loaded on to a railway line er and... he... erm... now I don’t know when he died, but he obviously must have had a family so I would have thought that somewhere in the local Ramsey Heights records must be a record with the Poulter family. I don’t know whether he had a wife, or children, he was always referred to Oh that’s Old Poulter, he’s the last of the true fenman. He drank the water, he would have lived from the fish in the Raveley drain and the wildfowl and he earned his living cutting reeds. Now somebody else will come along and say ohhh, he wasn’t the last of the true true fenman it was somebody else in the next fen or something, you know, Holme Fen or something like that, but to my father, that’s what he was, and its a great pity I haven’t still got a photograph, I’ve no idea what happened to it, he moved 2 or 3 times so I last saw it which was while my father was alive to certainly 30 years ago and it probably got lost when he moved somewhere. But anyway, he existed and he had a cottage on the Raveley drain and it might be historically...it might just be worthwhile looking in the local church records it might be in Ramsey Heights.

ES

Well the records are all Ramsey St Mary’s there wasn’t a church there was just the chapel in Ramsey Heights and all the records in Ramsey St Mary’s [inaudible]

GM

So he was obviously the local character and and he was erm this is why we still had a picture of him it was early into the 60s

ES

He would have been alive in the 60s?

GM

No, no no we had a photo and er so I don’t know how it, I might come across it one day but I did have a quick look last night actually, and I know I hadn’t seen it for years. But he was always the character, I would have thought that he would have died well before the first world war, in fact he might have even been dead by the turn of the century because the photograph was I would have said in the 1890s not far off... [Some discussion about the photograph quality]

ES

So when you were...when you came to shooting with your father

GM

Yes

ES

Did you, you didn’t obviously come into the reserve, you came to the other...

GM

No

ES

That land was part

GM

Well that’s not totally true, because what would have happened was that when when my grandfather and my father came down here before the First World War, they would have come down here, they would have come from from Godmanchester to Upwood and down this road and probably came over into the Fen probably around where this bridge is, because they used to come down by Poulter’s cottage which would have been somewhere along here. I don’t know whether there are any old maps of this area to to to see where the dwellings were or... 120 years ago but somewhere along this drain was Poulter’s cottage, I notice there’s an old house standing in the middle of the field there, no I don’t think that would have been it because our father said he was actually on the Raveley drain

AB

Up the way there there was one called [] was born in...

GM

Which []?

AB

Hm?

GM

Which []? Because there were two []s

AB

It was []. It was [] he would have been... he was here in the 1920s then his son [] was here until 1978.

GM

Right. I always understood my father knew both of them and I thought there was old [], old [] and young [].

AB

No I think it was Old [].

GM

It was [] was it, well I’ve probably got that wrong. But certainly my father knew both of them very well because erm er when I came down here last the 70s my father my father would ring [] and we’d go and just drop in and have a word with him before we came down here because it wasn’t you know it wasn’t sort of open to public in the same way as it is today and er and I knew and and my father knew his father the first [] well I knew it begins with G and I’m dyslexic so [laughs]

AB

Did you know [], his wife? She still lives on the lane**?

GM

Well my father would have done, my father would have done but I don’t you see I just came down here and I probably never met him more than about a handful of times it was only when we came down here father would speak to him and we’d just sort of stand there like a lemon listening you know and er we’d come on down here, but I didn’t really know them... but erm so yeah I know that there there are generations of [] who have been been wardens on this fen. So [] is []’s son

AB

[]

GM

Oh [], sorry, [], []’s son, right, yeah... so didn’t we how many so was [] so was he the first?

AB

I think when Charles Rothschild came here he brought his keeper with him, [], and [] was watcher under [] for a while, then [] took over, then [] took over from [] 1954 I think, and was warden here until 78. And [] has worked here for 34 years now and his two sons they worked they used to work [becomes inaudible]

GM

My father used to ring up [] quite a lot, because when when he shot... at at Manor Farm er there was always the first drive which took in quite a lot of land and father would ring up ,[] to say we’re shooting on Saturday so with one drive we’ll actually lie the guns in the fen so I have I have shot in in the reserve up until the mid 70s erm what we used to do we used to drive drive the birds, there were a lot of Partridges then, and and usually they would be they would be French or I have seen English in the 50s the the the English had a desperate time in the early 60s, part of it was because not, not the shooting it was all really because of the change in the agricultural practice and er... pesticides... and its all well documented that dreadful time... and that sort of thing and erm that erm... but we used to drive them off the land and lie behind the bank in the reserve so although we were shooting we weren’t shooting birds that were in the reserve, we were shooting birds that had been driven off the off the land onto the so father had his relationship with [] where he would ring up and say you know is that alright, we’d like to lie in the reserve but if you’d rather we didn’t you know but erm and er that’s the sort of relationship they had.

ES

And was your father a solicitor for Rothschild?

GM

No, he wasn’t. Ah my grandfather, my grandfather was a he was the last of the line of solicitors we go back generations of solicitors in Huntingdon, it was Maule and sons for donkeys years until my er my er grandfather Monty and his brother Percy ran the business erm... and my father came out of the First World War erm and he when he went into the first world war having just left school. And er and he said his father said to him, right so you want to come you want to come into the business you so and [laughs] not bloody likely and he was much too much of a countryman to have sat in a solicitors office, in fact my grandfather Monty Maule er spent most of his life shooting, I’ve got his game books going into well back into the 1880s and he shot 4 days a week and his brother Percy looked after the office with a clerk and all the rest of it and and my grandfather er went out and socialised and got the business, he was a very well known man in Huntingdonshire Monty Maule, I’ve got his obituary in the Huntingdonshire post 1921, and he takes up the whole of the back page...the whole of the back page is about his obituary and he went out and networked the old fashioned, he was networking you know 110 years ago, and and shot all over the place and he shot in Norway, he shot [???] which is Ptarmigan in no not Ptarmigan, Capercaillie, and he fished and shot all over Scotland and a and over in Norfolk because the the MP for Huntingdon was Cator, C-A-T-O-R, and er... before the First World War... probably just after and they got a big estate on Bastwick in Norfolk, on the Broads... and so my grandfather would go over there... God knows how he got there, he would have gone on trains and he used to go and shoot in Bastwick with with with Cator who was the local MP because he he in fact was very involved with the local Conservatives, and this is really all part of the business so he...

ES

So what was his relationship with Rothschild?

GM

Well I don’t, I don’t really know, I wish I did and I of course never asked the question but I’d as far as I’m aware his connection with was was partly by being a local naturalist and game fieldsports and knowing the fen he would have been probably came here with I think my family coming down here for 150 years or not 150 years but 150 years ago because his father Edward Maule, he was a very keen shooting man, so the connection goes back a long way, so I can only guess that it was may probably as somebody who knew the fen exceptionally well, had shot down here and and had been had an interest in fenland fauna and flora and all the rest of it but also, perhaps, as a solicitor. Although I would have thought Rothschild would have had his own solicitors in London, so I can only guess that the connection was probably just the local, a he was a local man a local naturalist as it were who would have... knew Rothschild for that reason. But I don’t know how well they knew each other.

ES

Er I think you have some questions don’t you Alan about what you remember of of the place, is it?

AB

[inaudible]

ES

Could you come in a bit

AB

You talked about your grandfather’s game books now it’d be interesting to know... if the late 1890s if they were shooting all year, what they were shooting

GM

Right well I’ll have a look, I didn’t think of that and I’m sorry I er I was a bit rushed with one thing and another [inaudible] and I didn’t actually get his game books out. I I think that most of the most of the entries in his gamebooks are mostly sort of more organised shoots, and when they came down here it would have been very much rough shooting. I will look, but certainly my father who shot, who didn’t shoot the fen but in later years sort of in, out became a tea planter, he went out after the First World War, because he didn’t want to be a solicitor, so he got a job with the Bombay [???] Tea Company when he went went to plant tea in India and then became ill and came home in about 1929 erm went onto the stockmarket just in time for the Wall Street crash. He was like that, his timing was brilliant in life. He was born just in time for the First World War and all the rest of it, and then he comes back goes on the stock market just in time for the Wall Street crash. Then after, he shot all over Huntingdonshire my father and I have got his a lot of his records, I don’t think all of them, and some of those would be would be Woodwalton but not the Fen so it would be it would be Manor Farm. Which so... which is my experience, when I can remember shooting over on Manor Farm just the other side of Wheatley’s drain until my father died, then they packed up the shooting then, that was 76, so I can remember that from the 50s.

ES

What sort of things were you shooting at?

GM

Well I think that people didn’t shoot anything apart from gamebirds, obviously we shot a certain amount of mallard because there were two ponds on Manor Farm and still are and they would be flighted, er one of the I suppose vaguely interesting things was we always had quite a few woodcock, particularly in a little wood that doesn’t exist anymore but erm between Wheatley’s drain, Wheatley’s drain ran between the reserve and a small five acre wood which for some reason was left there erm... er and... w that that always held a lot of pheasants and quite a lot of woodcock, particularly if the reserve was flooded, but woodcock don’t actually like it when there’s too much water and so they would come out of the reserve and go into this little five acre wood which we called the Fen bit.Now that, that small wood, that was on some some really deep peatland, all that land just over there certainly in the 50s and 60s was some of the deepest peat almost anywhere, because it hadn’t been reclaimed that long and in fact I know that the er be before my time that the Fen bit had another wood further over that’s actually almost nearly out of the fen toward er Heapney[??] Grange er its its Goodley’s Halt[??] there runs er parallel to to Wheatley’s but er sort of 5 fields away and er there was a wood which ran from the fen bit to Goodley’s Halt, the whole length, er and then the was Papworth’s the other side of the boundary...erm and we used to we used to put guns there on on the Papworth’s. Because they they would just ring up and say is it all right if we put guns because that wood both of those woods are on the boundary the Fen bit and Goodley’s Halt. And that peat it it was very very high organic peat. And I’ve done a study for years I’ve been I’ve been involved with erm studying wheat growing on on black land and all the problems involved with it erm and em that would be dreadful wheat land. And as I said to the person who I met over at Greg Bliss’s[??] you know its interesting that er er all that land was erm reclaimed a lot of it I think a lot of it I think I think probably those woods were pulled up during the war and just left the five acre fen bit. And then when Ian Spotarth[?] died, who was the son in law of Lady Shepperson who was managing the farm when he died... Lady Shepperson let it to Lavenham Fen Farms, alright, Abbot Ripton estates and Lord Dee rented that farm but we continued to shoot it... and she came until a lot of pressure from Lord Dee to pull that wood up and she resisted it for years and my father always used to say "oh dear, you know it's the best pheasant drive we’ve got" and all the rest of it, was very important in those days [laughs], and of course when when the fen when the fen reserve what we called the fen reserve was flooded... then we always good a lot of woodcock out of that wood because it was just slightly better drained so it was more to their liking. I won’t shoot woodcock, I don’t shoot a great deal actually, but I won’t shoot woodcock now because I’m not over happy about it, but in those days it was the thing to try and shoot a right and left woodcock which is now I suppose but they do it they do it in Norfolk where they get a thousand woodcock. I do remember one day we shot 12 woodcock and that was when the reserve was flooded and that would be a lot for this area but not if you’re over near the coast in Norfolk. But really what I remember was what it was like over the other side of the reserve and to a certain degree in the reserve February March time they used to have very organised pigeon shoots where to keep to try and keep the pigeon numbers down they would, an area would organise one or two guns in each wood for a number of weekends and I can remember those days we were allowed to shoot pigeons in the reserve. And I remember father, I would probably have been about 6 or 7, standing in in amongst the trees, the silver birch trees in the reserve shooting a lot of pigeon because he was a very good shot. And you know he would sort of get right and left because there were a lot of pigeons about that night. He probably shot 50, 70 pigeons in the evening over like two hours. But I don’t remember much happening after that so either nobody would organise it or or it it wasn’t thought of as the thing to do to have somebody shooting at all in the reserve. But it certainly happened up until about 1960

AB

They still do it around the edges actually

GM

Do they? Yeah... But in terms of what we shot, there was nothing terribly exciting, certainly in the 50s and 60s but I will look through my father’s game book, but as far as my father would say... mainly they shot wildfowl and and and the odd pheasant. They didn’t have big bags, I mean it really was pot shooting, really, very rough just because they enjoyed coming down here in the fen and just having a day out, as far as my grandfather was concerned he was having a day out with his boy and the probably shoot more than about a dozen of anything. But I will look through my grandfather’s game books and see if there is everything... But they shot all over the place I you know I think the impression I got was the only really put entries into his game book when he would have been shooting on some of the big shoots, where he would have gone a lot was Holme Fen because because my grandfather was very friendly with Fielden, we called him Fielden

ES

Oh right, the squire

GM

Now they were exceptionally friendly which apparently was quite unusual because not a lot of people would get on with him

ES

No, I’ve heard that, yes

GM

He was a funny old boy, the only photograph I’ve seen of him is in the pub at Holme with they er at the Admiral Wells and there was a cricket photograph, and I think it’s about 1930, obviously a very very old man with a great big moustache and if you wanted a photograph of Fielden he would he would there was one of him but I haven’t got one but I know that that he took over other people told me this that Fielden bought that estate, I suppose somewhere again about the 1890s he came through he was he was an industrialist and he made a lot of money

and he came through on the train and it and and he saw all this woodland and though "oh well that would be a fantastic shoot." It was up for sale and he bought the village. He bought the whole village including Holmewood House and my father I think did a lot of his his local solicitors

ES

Your grandfather

GM

My grandfather would have done his work for him... yeah although that’s not [inaudible] because I mean they were very friendly, to the point where when my grandfather was married in 18 about that year about 1898, it can’t be much after that because my father was born in 1899...he gave my father, my grandparents two French Ormolou clocks... which I understand are quite valuable, we still have those. And I know that for a fact so and he also gave him the key to his wine cellar. Which we don’t still have [laughter] Unfortunately as far as I’m concerned that would be far better than these two damn clocks but he yeah... so

AB

Do you have any information on what Holme Fen was like then in those days

GM

You see my father wouldn’t have shot there.

So he wouldn’t have been able to relay anything but on all I do know but I’m very interested in the history of Whittlesey mere and all the rest of it and I think ... I understand where the woodland is... was actually the edge of the mere which would have been reed... And that where Gregg’s farm is Engine farm would have been much more sort of into the sort of middle of Whittlesey Mere. And I’ve often I’ve got erm I’ve got 4 very old maps of Huntingdon shire going back to 16something with Whittlesey Mere, Ugg Mere, Ramsey Mere on it, on them, I’ve got 4 going 16something is the oldest. And 17 there’s 2 in the 1800s... Erm... And erm I I can’t... Cause because I do a lot of work in that area I try and work out exactly where Whittlesey Mere was, and I can’t quite work it, I can’t quite tell by the maps because these very very old maps are so vague... Where where it started and where it finished, and I suppose the answer was it didn’t really it sort of there was there was there was

ES

It sort of petered out

GM

There was reed and and and all sort of of bed and they it was like an inland sea... and the other

ES

But it was quite shallow

GM

And the other thing... well I don’t I yeah I think it was and you see it’s quite interesting on Gregg’s Farm which can’t be far off the middle of the Whittlesey Mere erm he’s got what we called roddons... Do you know what a Roddon is... well it was the old river beds, the silt. And you see from a farming point of view you get this black land... which is which is peat, and then you get the rodden is silt. And you’ll get this hill... and that’s really different land, it behaves as far as crops are... as far as crops are concerned it behaves completely differently to the peat. But originally of course the the that that was the old river bed so they would have been lower than the land. But of course with agriculture and peat shrinks and silt doesn’t. And so now they’re hills... ah but Gregg has got some very deep peat there well its you see 1851 isn’t that long ago really... 150 160 years ago so he’s still got very deep peat there. He’s also got these quite big areas of silt because there were lots of areas ran into... and backwaters and things, many many tributaries of the Ouse and the Nene would have run into, or out of I suppose, Whittlesey Mere.

The other thing which might quite interesting interesting to you from a fish point of view... Is that erm... I have what was believed to be the the largest mounted Burbot... Do you know what a Burbot is?

AB

I thought you were going to say you had a Whittlesey Pike for a minute [laughter]... Because somebody’s found that

GM

Well how do you tell, I mean how do you know this Pike is from Whittlesey Mere.

AB

Because it says [laughter]

GM

Well yeah... well the Burbot was...it’s now believed to be extinct. It’s a member of the cod family. It’s head is a little bit like a cod, it’s got these tendrils? Like a cod does or a Gudgeon. And its got an eel’s backs so a very long dorcal and pectoral fin... which is just like an an eel. Well yeah... well the the Burbot was... it’s now believed to be extinct. It’s a member of the cod family. It’s head is a little bit like a cod, it’s got these tendrils? Like a cod does or a Gudgeon. Erm... and its got an eel’s backs so a very long dorcal and pectoral fin... which is just like an an eel. Long tail, with like a small cod’s head. Erm... and... that was only peculiar to Whittlesey mere, the Nene and the Ouse, I believe. Somebody might come along and say oh no because somebody’s caught one in the Trent or something but um that it was believed to be very much a fish that was that was local to Whittlesey mere, not very many of them about. But originally it was on the continent, I think, there are a because the Ouse and the Nene were tributaries of the Rhine when Britain was joined to the continent. I believe, now this is what I’ve been told by people who are far cleverer than me, and that that that the Burbot was a fish that was peculiar to the Rhine, and therefore a very very ancient fish because it goes back to that period. That’s why it’s only... if I understand it, only the Nene and the Ouse and Whittlesey Mere because they thrived in Whittlesey mere being an eel but not eel family but like an eel, they were bottom feeders. And my grandfather lives in Godmanchester and his his garden , which was considerable backed, onto the River Ouse which was nearly half way between it, was the last house in Godmanchester on your way to Huntingdon. Still there, riverside, big Georgian house stands just back if you’ve got Godmanchester on your left hand side and the garden runs back to the River Ouse, and those days they used to fish night lines because they were into the whole shooting and fishing, it was the whole way of life really they didn’t do much else. And [laughs] nearly true actually. And they would they would put a night line [coughs] to catch big eels because eels run and night and there was gravel, most of the River Ouse is gravel, old gravel pits along rivers and eels clean themselves on gravel at night. And you net, you put a you put a the bait onto these hooks and you set these appeared at intervals across the river, and then you tied it to the opposite bank, and early next morning you would go and it was because, you know I’ve done it, because when we lived at at when I was a boy we lived at Hemmingford Grey with the Ouse same thing the Ouse at the bottom of the garden and we used to do the same thing until about 1960 when it was banned or could have been 55 somewhere around there. Probably rightly so and because the next morning and he caught the Burbot on the nightline around about 1905 around about that period. And I’ve just had it done up actually

ES

He caught that at Godmanchester

GM

And he caught that at Godmanchester, but that was the fish that was peculiar to Whittlesey mere, so when Whittlesey mere was drain all it left the Burbot in the Nene and the Ouse and now whether I suppose when it’s been drained they probably ran up the side streams that ran into the Ouse and the Nene. Very very rare and I now thing that last there has been one I think caught in the late 60s, but they’re believed to be extinct in Britain anyway. The one we’ve got is thought to be the largest mounted, it’s not that big it’s about 2 pound and I had it done up recently so that that fish was very much peculiar to this area, Whittlesey mere in particular. There would have been Burbot I would have thought in Raveley drain... I would have thought in those days.

Now the other thing I was going to ask you ah that that I could remember one of the reasons why the the the Woodwalton or Jackson’s Fen was bought by Rothschild as a nature reserve was because it was thought to be the last or one of the very very few er places that grew a certain type of dock. That the er the something copper butterfly

AB

Large copper

GM

Large copper Butterfly, which was actually a moth

AB

No, it’s a butterfly

GM

It is a butterfly is it? Right erm er I I... that again my father I guess being half right and not totally right. But it that still the case, is it, is this dock still growing and is the butterfly still flying?

AB

No, I mean, yes and no, I mean that was one of the famous stories of this reserve because the Large Copper became extinct in 1870 s oon after they’d drained Whittlesey Mere, Whittlesey Mere was one of the last two places it was found, I think the last place was Bottisham Fen and Rothschild and his friend Captain Purefoy... reintroduced tried to, they discovered in I think 1915 there was another Large Copper in Holland, a sub-species, not the English race but a sub-species. So they introduced it to Ireland... where I think Rothschild had land, they tried to at Holme Fen, they introduced it here in 1927

GM

That would be where my father is talking about here

AB

Right. And it was a breeder here for 70 years until the mid 90s. I think we used to have a breeding house here we used to breed them now, but it just never it never took off for for various reasons

GM

You were forcing it and it didn’t take to it [laughs]

AB

Yeah, basically

GM

But what was this dock then, this special kind of dock

AB

The Great Water Dock, which is normal, I mean it grows all over the place in in the yes its

GM

It’s common here but not necessarily in other places

AB

Erm yeeah no you get it on the Nene and on places, it’s not an uncommon plant, the problem was genetic really because the brought three dozen, so they became genetically inbred because there was too much scrub and not enough open ground. I mean huge amounts of money, I mean Gordon Mason used to get tea chests every year of docks which they’d go out and plant and he used to dig holes [inaudible] But you know it was partly the isolation of us

GM

You need a little bit of encouragement that it’s actually taking off, you know, that it’s actually increasing in numbers, if you you’re having to force it all the time

AB

Oh they did it, they did what they thought prior to these days we would what’s happening now is you know you’d want to investigate as they are what exactly are its requirements, what does it need and then go looking for those conditions. They thought oh this looks alright, we’ll chuck it out here and see what happens... But yeah that’s that’s very much one of the driving forces

[49.35-54.41: Some introduction of []'s Son [], who is studying at [], discussion of possibility of placement with []]

GM

But interesting the Great Copper, I wonder what happened to that because it was one of the things here, but in my father’s eyes here

ES

Do you remember seeing the Great Copper Fly?

GM

No, no I don’t, no I. Do you, do you really?

AB

Yeah, I probably saw the last one. Well I say I saw the last one, somebody actually came and released 3 of them last year, so people are still breeding it in their breeding houses, I mean we we sent the population to a butterfly house at Stratford... they are around and there has been a scheme in the broads there’s been a lot of quite a lot of work going on to save them up there but yeah... Can I just ask you one thing which is very much always in our mind, the bungalow, the Rothschild bungalow, do you have any knowledge memories of how that used to be used or

GM

No. Because we well, now I... erm... eh... it was... I I used to come down here with father and we used to sort of go in it look at it and I remember dad saying of course your grandfather had a bit to do with it, well what he had to do with it I don’t know, I think because he was again the local guy who just knew the area very well

AB

Do you remember when it was anything about the interior?

GM

No, still we didn’t... well, I presume it’s the same as it is now.

AB

Right... no, because before I came they were in their wisdom they were going to knock the place down so they sold off most of the furniture...

GM

What a... I mean a few things on the walls... you see we’re going back 40 years, I’ve rotted a few brain cells since then [laughter]

AB

Well, sometimes long term memory’s very

GM

Well I can remember... I can remember as I say it must be 40 years the last time I... no I haven’t no... in hindsight I wish I had but it was just my father knew it since when it was erected, of course he would have remembered that ...It was just a place on stilts with a thatched roof, and it was all vaguely interesting at the time but like all these things you wish you’d asked more questions, taken photographs and all the rest of it [inaudible]... I didn’t really properly see the significance at the time. And I assumed that it was just this now just the same as it was then in terms of the building itself, not what was in it.

AB

The building’s the same, yeah, yeah

GM

I’ve been in a lot of cricket pavilions that were similar. The old the the the the panelled walls the erm not the overlap but the tongue and groove, the old tongue and groove with a sort of a varnish a very thick varnish on it... thatched roof

ES

You did go in it though, did you?

GM

Yeah

ES

What were you going in it for? Just to... just to look, not to not for a meal or a

GM

No my father and I, we came down here to because we were interested, I think father thought that he ought to take me down to you know

where he spent a lot of his childhood walking in the fen and shooting the fen but also its an interesting building, built by the Lord Rothschild, and we went in it just because it was an interesting building. But we didn’t have, for no purpose whatsoever apart from being nosy

ES

Yes... so was it, would it have been opened for you? Or?

GM

I can’t remember that sort of detail. I think it may well have been left open or my father would have got a key from Gordon Mason. But no I can’t remember that sort of detail

ES

And when I was talking to you on the phone, it was yesterday, you mentioned coming out of the reserve from the other side. What we would you have got down to

GM

Oh we would have, that’s something I can remember from the year dot until the late 70s. And I was I would come down here quite a lot, shooting with father or shoot shoot for all those years, apart from when I was at school of course, but we would come through Manor Farm, past Woodwalton church... down the hill, turn left by the very old thatched cottage there and then turn right into the farm through the farm gate, and then into Manor Farm, there was the old castle on the right, yeah, which is... the old castle mound is still there. Never have bothered to go into the history of that, that would be quite interesting. And into the farm buildings, and of course the old farm buildings and now the offices for the []. And they they knocked down all the old farm buildings at the back and built new. I think we could go through the farm buildings turn right, through the farm buildings and...the farm track then would have gone down to eventually going down to Goodley’s Halt, which is the wood on the far said which is the Grange side, and the wood that track would come to a dead end there, about half way down though you would go off to the right down to to Castle Hill Farm which there was a cottage there, it isn’t there anymore, but the old shed is still there, that’s quite interesting because that’s very old, and I think last time down there which wasn’t that long ago it still had the old it was a cattle shed that still had the old manger feeding trough and its wood an old shed. They’ve now, they actually scattered my father’s ashes there at the Castle Hill farm in 1976 and since then actually they’ve built a little wood there, it’s just on the other said there’s there’s a wood, couple of trees, quite tall now but that would have been in about 1980 I suppose that was all open, but there was a hedge, there’s one remaining hedge on the farm goes down, and there’s a couple of trees at the end of the hedge adjacent to the wood and I remember my father I wasn’t actually on the last shoot that father was in because I was I used to play a lot of rugby, and I was off playing Rugby on a Saturday and that Saturday I wasn’t shooting, but he shot a partridge over that tree, and that was probably the last one that he shot. Interesting there was talk wild partridges in the late 70s with partridges were not over plentiful, there are probably more about now actually

ES

They were wild, they

GM

They were wild

ES

They weren’t bred for the shoot

GM

No no father wouldn’t have bred he would he would do it all total wild shoot. We didn’t shoot an awful lot, we killed 40 50 pheasant in a day. They were all wild birds and they went anywhere and everything, and it was very dependent on what the conditions were in the reserve. Because that the reserve was home, they always flew towards the reserve, they never flew away from the reserve, so... pheasants were always flying back home, so they’d come out and feed, they’d come out of the reserve feed, we shot them before they got away [laughter] They were all wild birds

ES

Do you remember other birds?

GM

Well I’ve always been what one might call a keen ornithologist all my life, but not by way of being a twitcher, I don’t sort of rush about but I just take a passing interesting in what’s about. But there was there was some interesting wildfowl occasionally golden plover, but then I’d often see golden plover when its rough out on the coast. In fact I saw a flock of gold plover about a fortnight ago which is very odd, very early this year to see gold plover, it was definitely,

ES

Where was that?

GM

this was at er... Southeridge[??] just outside...just outside Downham Market, Norfolk and they were definitely and this was landed on a field of stubble, normal field actually it was peat stubble [inaudible] But I mean yeah golden plover

AB

Snipe?

GM

Yes always snipe, yes very much so, particularly along with along Wheatley’s Drain, the part where it leaves the reserve and goes towards... the the farm buildings, it goes actually past the farm buildings and disappears out towards the railway line. Yes definitely Snipe, Woodcock, Snipe, now I’m just trying to think specifically of things I might have seen and...off the top of my head I can’t remember, this is a long time ago

AB

Birds of prey?

GM

Birds of prey. Well funny enough I think there there there weren’t a lot of birds of prey about in those days, one thing I do remember is going going back to the er that time in the early 60s when they started to use erm a lot of pesticides erm there was the the really ubiquitous treatment for wheat bulb fly. And er called Aldrin. And it was, it was a a it it it did have some arsenic in it. And that was quite horrendous it was it was complete devestation, cause I remember walking into I think it was in Goodley’s Halt [????] one day pigeon shooting, and the whole of the bottom of the wood was littered with dead pigeons. Because obviously this had been drilled they’d picked it up, got, and of course foxes would die and they were picking up pigeons. Cats would die, they were picking up... so they in the in the food chain. And it was that was very quickly banned