High Ham and Somerset – Page 14 – For the fainthearted . . .

Broken biscuit days

There would have been smiles that it was now possible to buy boxes of broken biscuits; smiles that such a product was labelled in such bright letters; smiles that something that had once been a treat for poorer families was now marketable.

One of the sources of smiles among them was telling of a grumpy shopkeeper they had known, who never failed to rise to the provocative bait of mischievous schoolboys. “Do you have any broken biscuits?” they would ask him.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Well, fix them,” they would shout, …

A long history of arrivals

High Ham Village Hall, not the biggest of buildings, was packed this evening for a talk by Robert Croft, the county archaeologist, on recent archaeology in the county. There was something reassuring in counting over a hundred people at the sort of event which some people might have assumed belonged to a bygone age. Public lectures in village halls were the stuff of the times before television, times long before computers and smartphones and the panoply of electronic devices to be found in many homes.

Robert Croft’s survey of the …

The summer lands

It is Somerset Day. It is the fourth annual county-wide celebration of what Somerset means to its people. The county flag, a red wyvern on a yellow background is much in evidence. The date was chosen because it marks the anniversary of the victory of King Alfred over the Danes. It is said that it was on 11th May 878 that Alfred’s Saxon forces were victorious, leading to the baptism of the Danish King Guthrun at Aller and the talks that resulted in the Peace of Wedmore. The historicity of …

Evening conversations

One evening in a distant late summer, there had been the sound of voices in the still air. Walking up the steep hill climbed by Long Street, the light of a candle illuminated the faces of four people sat around a table. Two couples sat in conversation, their exchanges punctuated by bursts of laughter. Empty plates and a bottle of wine sat on the table, a meal had been shared in the warmth of the latter days of August.

It seemed a picture of perfect contentment. To someone growing up …

Counting the generations

“We called at Freda’s daughter’s house. Do you remember Freda?”

“Of course, she was Mother’s second cousin. Her father and Grandad were cousins. Freda’s daughter would be our third cousin.”

“Isn’t that all a bit remote?”

“No more remote than Barack Obama claiming to be Irish!”

Counting out generations was a reminder of a four-page leaflet telling of Harriett Crossman. Among Harriett’s great-great-great-great grandchildren was my grandfather, Alec Henry George Crossman, which means that my generation are great-times six grandchildren of Harriett, a generation closer than President Obama is to …

Statistical outliers

The April edition of the Langport Leveller includes data from the Office of National Statistics on life expectancy. Tables showing the electoral wards with the highest ten and the lowest ten life expectancies in the county reveal an unexpected disparity. In the Mendip village of Beckington, where people live some of the longest lives in the country, the life expectancy is 95.6 years. Twenty-five miles away, in the Saint Benedict’s area of Glastonbury, people might expect to live only 76.1 years. The Saint Benedict’s figure is the 24th lowest in …