Date of interview: Monday 24 February 2014
Interviewer: Frances Brock
Transcribed by: Susie Wildey
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The following names occur one or more times. To find occurrences of one of them, press Ctrl+F (Windows)/Command+F (Mac), type the name you want into the Search box which appears, and click the Down arrow or Next button.
Clement, Craggs, Ellerby, Eric, Estil, Fairburn, Fletcher, Gibson, Goodrick, Goodwill, Hammond, Hirst, Hope, Hornsey, Hutchinson, Kay, Kirby, Leefe, Marnie, Miller, Mullunger, Rhodes, Roper, Skelton, Sturt, Worsley
The following places occur one or more times. To find occurrences of one of them, press Ctrl+F (Windows)/Command+F (Mac), type the place name you want into the Search box which appears, and click Down arrow or Next button.
Burniston, Cairngorms, Castle Howard, Church House, Cobwebs, Edinburgh, Ganthorpe, Gate Farm, Green Gables, Greystones, Hovingham, Hovingham Hall, Lake District, London, Low Gaterley, Main Street, Malton, Marr, Mausoleum, Middlesborough, Moor Monkton, Newcastle, North Back Lane, Old Police House, Old Wells, Palace, Pinfold Hill, Plump, Red House, Rose Villa, Scackleton, Scarborough, Scotland, Sheriff Hutton, Silverstones, South Back Lane, St John’s, St Peter’s, Stores Lane, Terrington, Water Tower, Welburn, Willow Corner, York
John, is John Goodrick your full name?
No I'm John Charles Goodrick.
Oh very good.
And I was born in December 1951.
And what were your Mum and Dad's names?
Me Dad was William Henry and he was born in the village and so were all his predecessors going back as far as records can go, pre 1600 for all lived in Terrington.
Was this ancestor research that you did as a family or did you just know all this?
Well I mean we were always told, while I was growing up I was always told that, you know, the Goodricks had always lived here and when other people have searched in the family trees at some stage they end up coming to Terrington, because there were about 4 Goodrick families in the village at certain times. So it’s pretty much ingrained in, and I don’t know what pre-1600 I don’t know, certainly there were quite a few families of Goodricks in the village then. They were, well at least my part of the family were always joiners, they always worked with wood.
So your Mum, did she come from Terrington?
No, she was Doris Miller, and she came from a local farming family. She grew up in Low Gaterley Farm, which is the farm with the Mausoleum in on the Castle Howard estate and she then moved to Gate Farm at Ganthorpe and she got married from Gate Farm at Ganthorpe. She came into Terrington, she came to church, I think she even was involved with the Sunday school a little bit, and she also played tennis in the village. So that’s how me Dad got to know her.
So where did you grow up in Terrington? Where was your family home?
(Laughs!) I was born in Rose Villa which I now live in as well. Me Dad I think he was born in Rose Villa or he certainly grew up in Rose Villa. I think his Mum and Dad, my grandparents lived somewhere up on the left-hand side of the village, quite where I don’t know.
Did you know your grandparents as you grew up?
I was still a baby when my Grandma died and my Grandad had already died.
Right.
So I didn’t, I was still alive, no, my Grandma and Grandad Miller were still alive but I think I would be only 3 or 4 when they died, so I don’t really remember them, but if I look at a picture I sometimes think you know I do, but I don’t think I really remember them, no.
So are you youngest, oldest?
I’m the only son.
But you have a sister?
No.
Only child? Very precious.
Only one. Oh yes.
And did your parents marry quite young? Were they, any idea?
Without working it out I don’t think they were particularly young, no.
So living in the house with you, was just your parents, there was nobody else was there?
No, well when I was born there was Grandma Goodrick lived in the house because it was her home as well, but I think I would be only one or two when she died, so I can’t remember.
And growing up here, well you’ve got quite a big garden at the back here, did your Mum and Dad grow their own food?
It was an enormous vegetable garden, the building at the top there used to be the old Village Hall prior to the Village Hall at the top of the village. It used to be a school and then it became a Village Hall and the garden went right up to the edge of the Village Hall, and it was just a massive vegetable garden, so it was, we grew a lot of produce, and on the right hand side was a big orchard, and they also had pigs, geese, hens, ducks.
So they actually produced more food than just for your family, presumably?
Used to sell some produce, but we were very self-sufficient and also because me Mum was from a farming family she was very used to skinning rabbits, skinning hares, and pheasants, so there was always a lot of game in the pantry. We used to have a big pantry and it was just always full of, there was always pheasants, or a rabbit hanging up or something. So very self-sufficient.
And when you were growing up, I mean, children today tend to have their likes and dislikes about food which are more often expressed, were you a child who was told you know "eat up as it’s good for you", anything that’s put in front of you or …..?
It was never acceptable to leave food, it just didn’t happen.
No,
So I’ve always eaten everything and anything because although, I was never forced to eat anything it was just, a lot of work had gone into producing the meal and everybody we all just enjoyed the food, so.
And would you have had that main meal of the day in the lunchtime or in the evening?
We had it, when me Dad wasn’t away working, we always had a hot lunch or dinner at lunchtime.
And you all sat down together and that was family time?
And we sat down, yeah, and me Dad’s workshop was just across the road, so when his lunch was ready me mother used to put a duster in the window and he could see that there was a bright duster in the window and he knew his lunch was ready, and that was how they communicated before mobile phones, that your lunch is ready or if there was a telephone call the same duster would appear in the window – there’s been a telephone call, you have to come across and answer it.
So was his workshop where the shop now is, or ….?
It’s more to the left, where Green Gables is, well Green Gables was built where his workshop was. It was a big workshop and it had a saw pit and on the old maps of Terrington there’s a saw pit marked on the Marr which is where they used to cut large timbers, so that one man was below the ground and one was above and they had the long saws, so there was a pit specially for laying the tree trunks across and they used to cut it up.
And do you call that area where the shop is now The Marr? (Spells M A R R?)
The Marr, yes, yes.
And what does that mean?
No idea. There was 2 horse troughs, there’s a spring in the middle of the Marr, there used to be a pond somewhere on the Marr, which is often mentioned in the history of Terrington, but it’s spring fed and there was 2 horse, metal horse troughs, at the side of the Marr, which as a little boy I remember spending hours playing in, damming it, because it just kept continually flowing over the top of the troughs, so it was great fun playing in it.
And you were allowed to visit your Dad’s workshop? Did you go and help him?
Yes, yeah I used to really enjoy going in there, he had about 4 men working for him when I was growing up and I used to really enjoy going in the workshop and because there was always windows or doors or some furniture being repaired and he was also the local undertaker so there was nearly …. quite often a coffin being made and they were fine pieces of furniture. They were all made out of oak and all hand-made, and in the winter it was really cosy because there’s a pot-bellied log burning stove or timber burning stove in the workshop, so it was always really warm in there, and he used to have pots with tar melting on it, which gave off a strong smell and they used to line the inside of the coffins with the tar to make them waterproof.
Oh right.
And I was always very intrigued by how this big block of hard tar suddenly became a flowing liquid and was just poured out round the inside, so we had …. I used to enjoy going there, just enjoyed the smell of the wood shavings and just …
And presumably he, sort of, encouraged you, showed you how to use tools and let you have a go, did he?
Well, once I was in my early teens, he didn’t really regard school holidays as acceptable.
They were work time?
It was a waste of time, so I just used to have to work, I enjoyed doing it, but I used to work for him from really quite a young age. So I probably served my apprenticeship and more,
Child labour?
By the time I left college I was quite well trained, I’d probably done 1½ apprenticeships I would think in the holidays.
And the 4 men you mentioned he employed, were they local men?
They were, there was Harold Hammond, who lived in one of the cottages on The Marr, there was someone called Arthur … oh I don’t know …. Harold Hammond, there was someone called John Sturt (?), he was the apprentice, so he was the young lad that got all the jobs (laughs!) that nobody else wanted to do, I just can’t remember …. there was a Mr Kirby and I think actually I wrote it down somewhere what the other one was called …. (looks in a note book) Arthur Kay, so there was 4 people worked in the workshop or on site, he did quite a lot of work for farmers. There was a period of time where Dutch barns suddenly became in great demand, so he used to build Dutch barns on site, so there would always be a couple of men away working on site somewhere, and he also worked with George and Sam Goodwill, who were the local builders so that they built lots of houses in and around the area and work on Castle Howard estate and so our next door neighbours were our joint builders and joiners.
Right.
So we had Sam Goodwill living next door and then we had the Hopes living this way and the Hopes had the coach, the buses.
Oh right, yes. And did they have children too? Were they involved?
Yes, Sam had Martin, Nigel (who runs the Lavender farm) and an elder sister called Pauline who lives up in Newcastle. And Martin was the same age as me so we just played every day together during the holidays and then after school.
So you went to, what we would now call infant school/junior school with them?
I went to the C of E school for 2 years and then I left …. when I was 7 I left there and went to prep school, a boarding prep school, and then I went to public school so my education was only for 2 years up here.
Right, and where did you go away to school?
I went to Red House, it was a prep school, Moor Monkton, which is about the same size as Terrington Hall. Me Mum and Dad wanted me to go to the Hall school but Peter Clements, at the time, was a very strict boarding school only and although they said "Well we’d be quite happy for him to board", he said "Oh, but it’s far too near for him to be a proper boarder, he would always be running home if things got rough" so I wasn’t allowed to go to the Hall school because I lived too near.
But Martin carried on at this school, presumably?
Actually, no he left and went to Scarborough College.
Right.
So he was educated that way.
So what age were you when you went to Red House?
I was 7, going on 8.
Did you find that …. you really missed Terrington, your friends here, at that stage?
It was quite traumatic for a 7 year old, only child, who’d been a bit spoilt to suddenly end up as a boarder, but I very quickly settled in, because it was only a small school, there was only about 50 pupils, so …
Do you know what your parents’ motivation was, for that decision?
They were very keen on education, and I wasn’t encouraged to … (laughs!) although I’m the first one who hasn’t become a joiner, I wasn’t encouraged to be a joiner, I don’t think it was being a joiner that worried me Dad, he was, he did a lot of work for the farming community and the cash flow in the farming way of life is often dictated by the next harvest or when they sell some cattle or whatever it is, so he’d often go almost a year without being paid!
Right, yes.
And it made life really difficult at ….. and he hated going to ask someone "Could you pay this bill, you’ve had it over a year?", he hated that and on a Sunday sometimes he would get dressed up and we’d say "Where are you going?" and he said "I’m going to visit a list of people who haven’t paid their bills" and he said "If I go on a Sunday I know that they’ll be at home, and I’ll be able to catch them" but he hated doing that and he said "he didn’t want me to have to go chasing money" like he had to sometimes just to … because his cash flow just dried up if he didn’t get paid and he said "sometimes I feel like a bit of a money lender, I’ve waited almost a year", but he didn’t blame the farmers because they hadn’t the money until they got paid for the harvest, but he didn’t want, particularly want me to go through that and thought if I had a, what he thought was, a good education then I’d have the opportunity to do something else.
And presumably as you grew up you were able to see that advantage for yourself, though at 7 it was a very painful thing?
Yeah, but I’ve always loved working with wood, and now I mean, I do wood turning as a hobby and things like that, so it’s really in me to work with my hands and after 10 years of teaching and thinking gosh I don’t want to do this for the rest of my life, I then thought I really wish I’d stayed in the business, you know and sort of stood me ground a bit and done that. But I’ve no regrets about being a teacher, I enjoyed being a teacher for 10 years but I didn’t want to do until I was 65.
Your heart’s in the wood?
I just enjoyed working with my hands.
Yes, so when you moved off and left Terrington to go to the boarding school you came back for the long holidays and this was a period which where you worked in your father’s workshop during the holidays still?
Yes, not when I was obviously 7 or 8, but when I became certainly 12 or 13 it got to the stage where he, he couldn’t see how someone could just do nothing for a month, or 6 weeks in the summer. He was completely addicted to work, I don’t think, I don’t think he had a holiday until he retired, he didn’t take ….
So you never had a family holiday?
No, we never went away as a family. Me mother took me away because she felt I was missing out and never going anywhere and she took me to Scotland or the Lake District for a few days, but he never felt he had the time to leave the business. And he was just, he worked very long days, he worked 6 days a week and then when he’d finished work, he would come and work in the garden, he had bees, as well as all the other animals and the garden was enormous and he would get up very early in the morning and do couple of hours gardening before he started work and then work late at night, it was just his way of life, that’s how he was brought up to work very hard.
So for you, as a small child, let’s think about those couple of years, go back to before you left Terrington school, when you were based here and you had your best friend living next door, what did you get up to outside school hours? What were you two lads up to? Apart from damming horse troughs (laughs!)
(Laughs!) We were always outside.
Right.
I mean I used to go out the door and me mother used to say "Where are you going?" and she said "you’d always just say 'out'" and I would not come back till the next meal time, because that’s what we did, we just played round the local woods and the fields, up at the top there was the water tower, which had trees growing round it which was great for climbing and it was interesting underneath the water tower, and ..
Whereabouts was that then?
It was errmmm, just out of the way at the top of the village, ermmm, it’s called … has been called Pinfold Hill, there used to be a pinfold, where the sign is at, coming into the village, the stone sign there used to be a pin for keeping sheep that we lost there, and just a little bit further into the village on the, above the grass bank, which is quite steep, I think there’s a seat there now, there was a big water tower.
Yeah, right. On the big bend….
It was before mains water was pressurised so it was pumped up to the water tower to give pressure, a head of pressure in the village.
I’ve often wondered where Pinfold was, that we didn’t have one, because most villages do have a cottage called that.
We used to have one, it’s always been, I mean if you ask the older people in the village they would call it Pinfold Hill, because that’s what it was.
And was it usually you two lads?
Yes, but there were others.
Others that joined in?
I’ve just found my old school photograph, there was a group of us about the same age, there’s Malcolm Walker.
Oh yes. (laughs)
I think I know them all and funnily enough they all now, except for – that was a Dutch lad who lived in Church House, I think his name was Neil Raids – and he lived at Scackleton, the rest of them live in or around the area, and certainly within 20 miles of the village, some in Malton.
It’s not obvious which one's you?
Sorry it’s that one. (points to photo)
Ah that’s why, because you’ve got blond hair!
I had very blond hair, there.
Oh yes, curly blond hair, how lovely!
Now it’s very dark, or sort of well grey.
So was your Mum blond or your Dad?
No, not particularly, no.
Because in this picture you must be about 7 or 8, presumably?
I would have been …. errr, well obviously 5 or 6.
Oh 5 or 6, right.
That’s my first year at Terrington and that’s my second year and then I left after that. So ….
And who’s this lady, who is she – is she your teacher, was she?
I can’t really remember, Mrs Fletcher was the Headmistress and this lady ran the infants and that’s the juniors and that’s Mrs Fletcher.
How did you feel about the school here, did you enjoy it? Was it fun?
Yeah, as much as little boys enjoy school, it was OK, I wasn’t greatly enthusiastic about education at that time. I mean I remember we had, the things I remember about school, I was only there for 2 years is that we used to have gardens where the school car park is now, and we used to spend half a day a week in these gardens in our own little plots and I quite enjoyed that, and we had nature walks, and pressing flowers and things like that which I quite enjoyed. I remember we had PE out on the yard on rush mats and that was fine, but we didn’t do proper, as I would call, proper sport, because there were basically two ladies that really weren’t into ….
Kicking a football.
They weren’t into anything to do with boys’ sports. I remember part of the PE lesson was hula hoops but there was nothing very masculine about it all (laughs!) and there was skipping for the girls, that was about it. Anyway I didn’t dislike school I just wasn’t …
How about hand-writing, did you learn, did you have lessons on slates, or did you use books or?
No I think we used pencil and paper, I don’t remember slates, no, that was a bit before my time.
Well I only say that because I had slates?
Did you? Oh well there you go.
And what type of clothes did you wear when you were, I can see from there (the photograph) you were wearing a jumper, was that a hand knitted jumper?
Yes, there was a lot of knitting went on in the house. My Mum did a lot of knitting, a lot of sewing, a lot of darning, so that there’s …
I can see some nice Fairisle here and smocking…
I would think most of it will have been hand-made at that time, there wouldn’t have been a lot of people with bought clothes, that would have been very posh.
But there’s no school uniform, but there is a sort of an informal uniform isn’t there going on?
Yeah, but there wasn’t any rules about what you could wear to school, you just …
Wore what you had?
… went relatively smart but that was it.
And was it short trousers until you were … what age?
I don’t know that it was particularly, I’m just …
Right!
… but I think you’re probably right, yes, yes, yes there’s all bare knees in the picture, yes.
I was thinking because all the little girls have got short socks on!
They have, they look very smart. But then it was photograph day so people would have got dressed up for that, that wouldn’t have been their normal school attire maybe.
And what time, can you remember anything at all about the length of the school day, was it from …
I used to remember coming home for me lunch, there were school dinners, but people who lived close and especially the infants, most of them, just came home but Mum didn’t come and collect you or take you to school, you just ran home. You ran home and had a quick lunch and then ran back to school, so there were no Mums at the school gates like we have now, and no …. I was going to say no cars, but I can’t remember people arriving at the school gates in cars at all, there was certainly no car park or anything like that. So it was all ….
They were all within walking distance?
They were all within walking distance. Everybody on the photograph there, except for the Hutchinsons – that’s Joy Hutchinson, they lived at Ganthorpe, but everyone else lived in the village except that chap there lived at Scackleton. So everybody else except for the Hutchinsons lived within the village.
Right, and I see in this one you’ve got about 26 people in the whole school there?
Yeah that would be about right, that’s the kind of numbers we …
What today we would consider far too small?
Yes,
So you must have felt pretty safe as a group, in a sense that you would know….
Everybody knew everybody. There was very little traffic about, so it was a very safe place to grow up.
How did that affect discipline within the school environment? Were you naughty?
(Laughs!) I mean I read that on the list of possible questions and it said discipline and I thought there wasn’t really any discipline that we ever noticed because people didn’t misbehave. There wasn’t enough children there to cause a disruption or if one was disruptive you know one stern word and that was more than sufficient. And I don’t remember discipline at home, I mean, I do remember being threatened with being sent to bed, during the day, and that would have been the most horrendous punishment for me, who wanted to be up and out and playing Cowboys and Indians outside or whatever it might be, to be sent to bed would be horrific! If I’d threatened one of my sons with being sent to bed they would have said "yes!" and gone to bed for the day quite happily! (Laughs!) So times have changed, eh?
So you don’t remember Mum and Dad ever giving you a smack at all?
No, no.
You must have been a very well behaved little boy?
Well I think perhaps being the only child you could make a complete fool of yourself if you misbehaved because you would be just .. just looking silly.
Well quite yes. No audience.
Yeah, exactly. I mean law and order within the village was (laughs!) there just wasn’t any wrong doing because we had a policeman living in the village and he lived in, which is now the house that’s now called The Old Police House, next door to Cobwebs, and he lived there and he just walked round the village in his uniform and he was here all the time. So there …
So he had a rather boring job?
He would have loved someone to do something wrong, but I don’t think other than a little bit of poaching occasionally, and people didn’t dare do anything wrong because he was, he knew everyone really well and he would often pop into me Dad’s workshop and just be around all the time, so there wasn’t a lot of crime, which was very reassuring because we all felt very safe in that environment because we had a resident policeman.
And did you have a doctor’s at that point too?
Errmmm, not in the village, no.
So when you were poorly what happened?
There was a doctor, we were with the Dr Roper who was at Welburn, and there was a Dr Gibson who was at Hovingham, so there were 2 doctors fairly close by. Dr Gibson had a surgery in the village, but only once a week.
Right. So do you remember things like, I mean, you maybe don’t, but children getting sort of … did everybody get chicken pox at the same time?
We all caught whooping cough which was really nasty and we all went to a party, a birthday party, and virtually all of us a week or so later, developed really nasty whooping cough and that is a nasty illness.
It’s a serious illness?
It is, yeah. So yes we did catch all.
And there would have been anti-biotics obviously then, so don’t know whether that would work with whooping cough?
I don’t know, I think we all whooped and coughed for a long time afterwards, and even now people remember "Do you remember when you had whooping cough?" We were all really quite poorly with it.
Can you remember any particular incidents that happened in the village that stick in, you obviously remember that very clearly, anything else that sticks in your memory clearly?
No, I can’t remember any massive incident that caused a great fuss.
I only ask that question because some of the older members remember clearly a couple of incidents involving a young child’s death, and the plane crashes and things but they were obviously before your time, so you didn’t hear those referred to.
I heard about the little boy being run over.
Yeah.
Because he was run over just outside Marnie’s house, but I think that was before my time and he was the tailors, the tailor that lived …. he was called Leefe, and they were the tailors that had the tailor's shop just below the pub.
Right.
And he ran down the lane, and he crossed the road in front of something. But I don’t remember that and I don’t remember the tailor’s shop so it must have been just a bit before my time.
And nobody else got in any serious scrapes while you were a youngster here, so that’s good?
Not that I remember.
So thinking about the shops then, when you were growing up here what shops can you remember?
There was Rhodes' shop at the top of the village which was a general store, a good place for sweets! Then there was the Co-operative store which was opposite Gerry Bradshaw’s, up the grass bank that was a Co-op, and we always referred to the snicket that goes up the side of that as "Stores Lane" because it was next to the Co-operative stores.
So was the co-operative stores Colin Stonor’s house?
Yes, that’s exactly where it was, yeah.
Right, and the shop at the top of the village where was, which one was that then?
The top left hand side … ermmm
At the top of The Plump, the one with the garage?
It’s the one with the garage, the big one, which was the shop window.
Right.
So that’s why it looks as it does.
Yes,
So that was Rhodes’ shop, that one.
And that was like a general shop? As well as your sweets and things?
That was a general shop, yeah but it was good for sweets. Then the Co- operative was general co-op where you got your ‘divi’ and that was run by somebody called … gone again…. no, can’t remember, it’ll come to me (laughs!) And then further down at Old Wells was the Post Office, which was a very large house for a Post Office.
Old Wells, golly me!
Mr Goldsmith ran the Post Office from there, and we went in through the front doors, which were double doors and there was a very large dark, oak, counter on the right-hand side and that’s the Post Office.
Presumably that wasn’t built as the Post Office, it was adapted from an older house?
No, no, the original Post Office was the little cottage at the end of here (showing a photograph) there, and and that’s the …
Oh yes, what’s now part of your house – yes! Gosh.
That was the first Post Office and I assume that the second Post Office then was Old Wells.
This is a lovely black and white photograph with a horse and pony and cart in front of the small single storey building and to the right we can see Nigel Goodwill’s house with a door and an entrance where there is none now!
Yes that was obviously more than one cottage, it was two cottages.
But the grass and the banks outside the houses are as they are today, that’s …
Yes, except they were not cut as lawns, they were …
Ah, rough were they?
They were cut as hay I remember, being, I think we called them haycocks, ermmm the village had its own what they called a road man, or a length man, who did all the roads and all the ditches and the hedges, I think he did them like a mile one way out of the village and a mile the other and there was another length man who did the next bit. And he was responsible for scything the parts of the village that people didn’t keep as, nobody kept it as manicured lawns, but some people did keep ‘em a little bit tidier, the verges, but most of it grew to quite tall grass and was cut as hay, and there was these haycocks which then, well we all just gathered for our own use. I mean I kept rabbits so I kept, I bagged up and collected my bits and everybody else, it all disappeared, people just collected their own bits, but it kept it relatively tidy.
And how many rabbits did you keep?
I didn’t have massives of rabbits, but I had rabbits, we had cats, I had pigeons, so …
Homing pigeons?
Yes, well they were fan tailed pigeons and I enjoyed keeping those and breeding them, but I think they weren’t too popular with the neighbours, because they used to go onto other people’s …. (laughs!) we could put up with the damage they did in our garden, but other people weren’t so pleased with them. (laughs!)
How many did you have?
I can’t remember now. Maybe 10 or something like that, not massive, but enough to do damage to a vegetable garden.
To somebody else’s vegetables, yes. So we’ve got down as far as the Post Office, were there any other shops further down the village?
There was no shops further down, but there was the butcher’s shop which is where Greystones is now, and that was a slaughterhouse and a salt house. Greystones was called the salt house and Silverstones, the little cottage in the yard, was the slaughterhouse, and there was a gate across the yard and I remember, maybe once a fortnight, there would be sheep and pigs driven into the yard and I, as a little boy, would go and stand on the gate and watch and there was all kind of carnage and butchery going on and scrubbing of pigs’ carcases and what have you going on in the yard, and it was free entertainment as far as I was concerned (laughing!) but imagine now it would be viewed with great horror to the shooting of pigs and chopping them up.
And that presumably meant that when it came to the table you knew exactly what you were eating and why and what had happened to it?
Yes, I was never shocked or surprised by what went on in the slaughterhouse.
And you didn’t think that meat came in plastic – you knew what it was?
No, I went to watch where it started as a little lamb. And there was the public house which was run by Eddie Ellerby, and I’ve just remembered the chap who ran the Co-op he was called Bill Fairburn, and Eddie Ellerby ran the public house, and there was the cricket field up the top of the North Back Lane where Peter Barker’s house is now, his garden.
South Back Lane?
Sorry, South Back Lane was the cricket field. And on a summer’s night we used to go and watch the village cricket and as a big treat we would go down to the pub and there was a little serving hatch in a passageway, and you could get a packet of crisps, and it was the crisps with the blue bag, with salt in.
With salt in, yeah.
So that was good fun, and that was a treat. And then there was the tennis courts up in the North Back Lane, so as little lads we would go and watch the tennis if there was a tennis match on, so there was a little bit of entertainment in the village. I mean we had no television, we had a wireless which was very crackly and full of interference, but that was the only entertainment we had in the house.
Right, yes. So of an evening what would you do together as a family, say in the winter evenings when you can’t go out?
I mean I had toys as a little boy, not a lot of toys, but I remember having a farmyard and a fort with soldiers, I remember having lead soldiers. So I played with toys and read books and things but there was not a lot to do on a night. The only heating we had was the open fire, well the range, but we also had a massive fire, with having a (laughs!) joinery business there’s always heaps of offcuts of wood, so we always had an enormous fire, but once you got away from the fire the house was really cold, and in the winter it used to freeze up on the inside of the glass, there was no heating upstairs whatsoever. But that was the norm, we just accepted that Jack Frost had been painting on the windows and that was what it was, but during the winter when me Mum had done the washing she always used to, if it was wet outside, dry it round the fire and that was awful because the sitting room was full of steaming clothes and the only way you get warm was to sit between the clothes horse and the fire. I hated it when it was a wet wash day!
What about baths and toilets – were they outside?
There was a privvy outside somewhere there, there was a wooden hut.
Straight outside the back windows now?
Yes it would have been really nice. (laughs!)
Was it one holer or a….?
Yes it was a one holer from what I … it isn’t something that sticks too well in my memory but I do remember yes, it was a one holer.
Do you remember when your parents got an inside toilet then?
It would have been late ‘50’s/early ‘60’s I would think we had an inside toilet and a bathroom put in, I mean, me Dad was doing it in everyone else’s house round and about us as people, basically there wasn’t sewerage system in the village, but they started to build septic tanks for houses and as soon as they started to do that then houses within the village started to have inside water toilets. And it was quite a job to build a septic tank because they were, they dug a big hole in the grass verge outside and they were made of very strong concrete chamber and we had one just behind the notice board, well it’s still there now it’s never been destroyed, it’s just covered with grass, just behind the notice board off the Main Street, we shared one with the Goodwills next door, and it was a big job for the builders because they were a major construction, very strongly built. When I had this house refurbished the builder said "Would you like us to take off the top of the septic tank, so that the bank would be more uniform slope?". "Oh yeah," I said "that’s a good idea", and half an hour later they came back and they said "You can forget that, this is absolutely rock hard concrete" they said "It would take us about a week to take that off!" So I said just forget it, leave it as it is.
Hang on to it, a useful bunker?
(Laughs!) Or perhaps not, well it’s obviously been bypassed now, but as people started to have septic tanks then toilets came inside, it would be late ‘50’s I think early ‘60’s.
And when you were again, sort of, pre-secondary school age did you have inside running water then, or did you have wells, because there were pumps down the village street?
There was a well outside the front of the house, I’ve got a photograph of it somewhere. That’s not a very good …. there it is. Right outside the front is the pump and so the wooden pump outside the front of the house and there must be a spring line up the front of the houses in the Main Street because lots of them had pumps.
Both sides didn’t they?
Yes, yes,
And that’s what your Mum used to use for the water in the house when you were little?
We had a tap at the back of the house that I remember.
I can see here the rough grass that you talked about, as well, in front of the buildings.
Yeah well it was worse than that, we had geese running around on the … that’s a photograph from the front of the house ….
(Laughs!) oh how lovely!
… and you can see a whole flock of geese and there’s a cockerel in the Main Street there, and little cottages where the shop is now, and a whole terrace of cottages up the Main Street. I think that my great grandparents lived in the little cottage, terrace of cottages going up higher up on the left-hand side.
That’s interesting, the little extra footpath there isn’t there? Going off the bank by the pub.
Yes, yeah.
So whose geese were these? Anybody’s?
Well I presumed that they were Marnie’s parents, which were called Estils, he was also a butcher was Marnie’s dad, but I’m sure she’ll tell you about that and they had a butcher’s shop up North Back Lane, so there was 2 butchers, yeah.
Two butchers in the village, gosh! Did you ever see fish?
Fish fish?
Fish fish, as in fresh fish?
Yes, there was a fish van used to come round from Scarborough selling fish once a week, so yes we did have fish occasionally. He used to come round to the door.
And you’d have had … Marnie had a herd didn’t she that used to come in for.
They had a small dairy herd that used to walk up and down the village, hence (laughs!) there wasn’t a great encouragement to keep the front of your house in a manicured lawn, and they used to keep them in the fields down the bottom of the village on the way to Willow Corner, so they walked up and down to be milked.
And the Old Dairy on North Back Lane, was that really an old dairy there?
It was certainly where Eric, his cow sheds were on the front of that and the milk lorry used to come to the back to collect the milk.
And you mentioned sheep and pigs, where were they kept, were they kept in individual people’s …
We had outbuildings up there that had pigs in, and we had a hen house at the top of the garden and smaller huts for the geese. I remember we had quite a lot of pigs at one time just where the greenhouse is now.
Right. So when you had a bath was it, it wasn’t in the old iron thing in front of the range, was it?
Unfortunately I can’t remember it but I do remember a tin bath hanging outside on the wall, but I don’t actually remember going in it, so I’ve obviously completely blanked that out of my … but yes that’s, there was a tin bath in front of the fire, yeah.
When it came to bed-time, you’re saying, I mean, like most of us you didn’t have heating upstairs. Can you remember anything about your bedroom, about your bed, what it was like? What was your bedroom like, did you have toys up there, or books or …?
No, not particularly.
No, it was just the place you went to sleep.
It was regarded just a place to go and sleep. I didn’t go and play in my bedroom or that just wasn’t done. There was just a bed in it and a chair for keeping clothes on.
And was it pyjamas or night-shirts, when you were little?
I think it was pyjamas, yes I am certain it was, I don’t remember night- shirts. I remember me Dad wearing a night-shirt but I didn’t, I never progressed to that. I bypassed that!
And do you remember the types of, this is a delicate subject, but did you wear vests and things like that when you were little, all the time, all year round?
Oh definitely, yes. You had a thick winter vest and a thinner summer vest. Children are much tougher now, they don’t wear vests at all.
I know, well I suppose the houses are warmer for a start aren’t they?
Yes, but yes we used to wear plenty of clothes.
So when you were away for a large portion of your young life from 7 onwards, you weren’t actually in the village you were making new friends, meeting new ideas, how did you feel that impacted on your view of your home when you came back, did you find it made you see Terrington differently, your parents differently? Or did you just wish you were here, or just accept it?
No, I always thought coming home was very special, but I used to, during the holidays I was in the Scouts in Hovingham, so during the summer holidays I would go to the Scout Camp and expeditions, the Hovingham troop was run by Steve Skelton, who was the local plumber, dad of Jonathan Skelton who’s the car mechanic at Sheriff Hutton, and he ran the Scouts and so that became part of my holiday life when I wasn’t’ working (laughter!). It was acceptable to go on a Scout camp, that was part of my education I think, treated as a reasonable thing to be doing. But no, I just regarded coming home as special but I sort of had friendships with people from school, so we went off, I used to call them like a walking holiday during summer, only when I was about 14 I went up to the Cairngorms with a friend from school and we camped in the mountains, and thinking about that now I would never have let my children go off camping at 14 with just 2 of them, and with no mobile phone or whatever, and I said to my Mum one day "So why did you let me do that?" She said "We didn’t want to stop you doing anything that we thought was, you know, good and exciting" but she said "We worried every day you were away!" I don’t remember telephoning home or anything you know, I just went, I think she got me to York station and then we got, met my friend at York station and then we went off up into Scotland and we just went with a tent on our backs and we just went up into the Cairngorms.
And they’re not trivial are they?
It was a great adventure, and we absolutely loved it, then on the way back we stopped off in Edinburgh and spent a couple of nights in Edinburgh and we were only about 14 at the time. Errrmmm ….. and, you know, I perhaps should have rung home occasionally when we were up there just to say I was still alive (laughing!), but they were very good they didn’t ever, you know, say no, no we don’t think that’s really appropriate. I was never allowed a motorbike, I think that was the only, you know, no-go area, that was always regarded …
Because of the danger?
Far too dangerous to have a motor-bike. I did once suggest "How about a scooter?", and that was no.
So how old were you when you learnt to drive? Were you quite a bit older?
Ermm ….. well I actually passed me test when I was 21 I think, but I did do a lot of driving prior to that, but I never got round to taking me test, so. I learnt as soon as I was 17, but I never, it was always, you know, it was always school holidays or term time so I thought just before I went to College I really ought to pass me test, so …
So when did you finally leave school, Red House school?
I left Red House when I would be 13, and then I went to St Peter’s in York 13 to 18 and then I went to St John’s in York to learn how to be a teacher. I’m not quite sure that was quite right but anyway (laughter!) I don’t think there was much over the 3 years I don’t remember too much about how to be a teacher, it was more this is what you should teach, actually learning how to do it.
It’s more on the job isn’t it?
Yes.
How did your parents react, did you come home one day and say I’m thinking of going to St John’s and learning to teach, or …? How was that decision made?
Well I absolutely loved sport at school and so I was, sort of, looking at something that I could do that I really enjoyed doing and I enjoyed coaching the sport at school, with the house system in public school there was a lot of emphasis on teams and competition, and I really enjoyed that, so it was almost a natural progression to become a PE teacher. And they were just very supportive of everything I did.
And were there any of your closer friends or any of your friends who stayed at the village school here, and didn’t go anywhere else to school and left school earlier, or did all of your … sounds like Martin certainly didn’t, he went on?
Ermmm …..I think there was only Martin and meself that went away to school out of that group.
Did you keep up a friendship with any of the others?
Yes, but obviously I didn’t have day to day contact with them, so I would only occasionally see them in the holidays, so I kept quite a close friendship with Martin because he was on the same holidays as me, but the others it became more difficult to have things in common with, but funnily enough in latter years I became more friendly with, sort of, regained friendship with people like Malcolm and Janet Craggs, which …. and I still, I mean Joy Mullunger from the bottom of the village, so there’s still a lot of people from that group that I run into.
Yeah, and you’ve known them all your life, but not necessarily as well at any one section of your life?
No, but we still all have in common that we started school together.
Yeah, do you think that growing up for the children in Terrington now is better or worse than when you were growing up here?
It was a very safe environment when I grew up and now mums are much more concerned about things that might happen, so they walk them to school and they certainly won’t allow them to run wild round the countryside like we did, you know, because there’s too many dangers and too many dangers on farms now. I mean we just walked round the fields and the woods.
So it’s largely things like cars and the bigger industrial tractors and things that would, you would see as being the main dangers to the children now?
Yes, very much so, yes.
Because in some ways would you say the environment here is as safe as it was when you were growing up, in the sense that we still all tend to know who’s who, and what’s what and a stranger would be spotted?
I would think so, but people knew everyone else probably better than they do, I mean I knew "everybody" and where they lived and they knew me.
And they knew where you lived, yes?
From the moment I was born they knew who I was, so wherever I was round the village someone would have seen or knew that I was in and around that area. So without knowing you were really very well protected, whereas now we don’t know everybody that lives in the village now because they come and go and change, people never, it was very rare that anybody ever moved house.
Right!
So a new person into a house was a big thing and now people come and go much more regularly so we don’t know everybody.
It’s interesting, because my impression had been that one or two of the families had moved around quite a bit within the village?
Within the village, yes, but not …
But not out of the village, back in, and out, I see yes.
Yes, within the village a bit of moving.
And were you sorry that you had to move away to find work, or would you have liked to have stayed in the village, do you think?
No, no, I was ready, I wanted a bit more of a challenge I think, I wanted to go and teach in a big school somewhere, so no it was a natural progression to look to move.
And when did you come back?
Errmmm … 1984 I came back, so I taught for about 12 years.
And at that stage your children were secondary school age, were they?
No, no they were just little. One was pre-school and the other had …. we lived in Scarborough and he’d done about a year at school in Burniston, so they went to the village school. But then they went to the Hall school and then they went to St Peter’s as well, so …
There was a nice sense of continuity there for you?
Yes, I took them back to St Peter’s as pupils and met with teachers that still remembered me (laughs!) when I was a pupil, which was a bit embarrassing, but …
Thinking this isn’t really part of our remit in the Terrington Oral History project, but were there any particular teachers that stood out for you anywhere – in Red house, or St Peter’s or …?
Not as great role models I don’t think. (laughter!)
No. (laughter!)
No!
OK. One of the other questions that we were discussing and wanted us to think about won’t have directly affected you at all, of course it was the Second World War and its impact on Terrington and the children at the time, but probably like me your parents did live through it, even though they were teenagers.
Me Dad was in the Home Guard …
Right!
In the village as were, there was quite a big troop, about 30 of them I think. They used to have weekly get-togethers in the old Village Hall, sat over the fire.
And you know this because he talked to you?
Yes, yeah.
Right.
And they also actually underneath the Water Tower was an enclosed room with a door, concrete walls all the way round, which they used as part of their patrol so that was their lookout, underneath the Water Tower, I think. They did a lot of training evidently I think the Vicar at the time was supposed to be in charge of them, and there is pictures of them with machine guns and things, so they obviously had some kind of equipment.
But as far as when you were growing up was there any evidence you can remember left of the impact on the War and your parents, or …?
Well, not very much. I remember that there was a … down at the bottom of the village just going out on the right there was a Camp that was made for the Land Army girls, brick buildings where they were housed, and my Mum was in charge of the evacuees during the War, which you know, that had a big impact on her. She became the Evacuee Officer for the area and she’d got landed with about 20 children from Middlesborough I think, and she had to house them in the village, and she had "In all honesty people really didn’t want them", because there wasn’t a lot of food to go round, everybody was very busy trying to look after themselves and to get children almost put on you, she said some were better than others, but it wasn’t an easy job to do, and if they were unhappy she had to try and find them a different home. And living on the farm I think they ended up with either 3 or 4 themselves, because she felt that she could look after them better there than put them into a home where they weren’t quite as welcome as they might have been. I think there was a little bit of we’ve got to look after ourselves first at the time and then it wasn’t an easy job to do, try and keep them all happy and also when she was working on the farm she said they had Prisoner of War soldiers working on the farm, helping them run the farm and she said that was a little bit scary really. Because the propaganda was so much, you know, the Germans are not to be trusted and then suddenly you had …
Here you are, have one!
You had two that were working on the farm with you and she’d said, as a young girl she felt really quite, at times, quite vulnerable with these 2 Germans that didn’t speak hardly any English at all, but were living on, not living on the farm, they were in Malton Prisoner of War Camp, but they came out every day to work on the farm. So yeah they had memories about that, and I think they had a mentality of ‘make do and mend’ because of growing up during the War. There was never any waste, everything had to be used to the ‘nth degree.
Little bits of string all carefully kept.
Yes everything was kept, yeah.
When you got fed up with a pair of shoes or clothes or whatever, was that a kind of subject of friction because they would think they were perfectly good, what do you mean you’re bored, you’d like a new one.
Well, I do remember that when I threw things out, even when I was a teenager, or when I no longer wanted to wear a pair of trainers I would occasionally see me Dad wearing them to garden in, or something, he was going to get the last bit, they weren’t going in the bin ‘til they were completely worn out!
I should imagine the same ethos was in the food that you ate in that there would have been little wasted?
There wasn’t, yeah, everything. I mean if we ... we always had a big Sunday dinner, but if we had a chicken then it was used up during the week and it ended up in a chicken stew, you know, everything was used to the ‘nth degree, there was no waste. And if milk went off it became cheese, you know it was made into cheese and brought up on a farm my Mum was into making butter and things like that, it was just ….
And did you ever help with these jobs, do you know how to make butter?
No, I would never be trusted with something as technical as that. (laughs!) I was never encouraged to bake or cook at home, because I wouldn’t do it to her exacting standards.
Exacting standards. Ah right, so it wasn’t specifically a gender role that … it’s just that you wouldn’t have been good enough?
I wouldn’t have been good enough, I would’ve wasted food.
And can you cook now?
Not very well, no (laughter!) Not very well, or very much.
So what were you allowed to do around the house, did you have any, as a child, you know, were you asked you keep your bedroom tidy, could you clean that room there, or …?
I don’t remember cleaning much in the house, I remember doing jobs outside, errmmm, to do with the hens and things like that, or gardening, or cutting the grass, things like that. So I did jobs outside, I don’t think I was ever trusted really with cleaning.
Well, when I first came in, you were talking to me about this really interesting old document. Shall we talk about that again for the record, because although it’s not specifically about your childhood it’s fascinating.
Well as I said my ancestors have always been joiners and when I was looking through old photographs I came across the Indenture Apprenticeship Certificate for my grandfather, who was Henry John Goodrick and it’s dated June 1881 and it was the 5 year contract basically into apprenticeship which he entered and it states that during the time he should not enter into matrimony, he must not enter or ‘haunt’ it says public houses, he should not play cards, or play dice, or any other gambling, and he should not gain any monetary value from any products he makes during the 5 years of his apprenticeship. But his Master who is named as one of the workers in my great grandfather’s business has to feed and house him over the 5 years, I don’t think he would actually have done that, but it was part of the contract. And he hasn’t to divulge any of the secrets of the trade to anyone else that he learns. Official Secrecy Act, and he was to be a wheelwright and a joiner and when we eventually packed up all the last of the joinery business there were circular tressles which were for putting the spokes into the hub of cartwheels, which was quite interesting, I would’ve liked to have saved one but unfortunately they were very worm-eaten. But it would have been an interesting talking point to have in the house.
Wouldn’t it, and is this photograph of your grandfather?
That’s my great-grandfather.
Oh right!
Ermm … that’s George Goodrick, that’s my great-grandfather, a fine chap with a pipe and a trilby.
Is that a trilby is it, oh right
And of course now he’s my grandson’s great, great, great grand-father, so that’s …. an interesting one.
A very smart gentleman wearing a very fine waistcoat and jacket and trousers. And I notice you’ve got a few more photos here that we haven’t talked about John, what’s that one?
Well that’s just a photograph of the day trip to Scarborough. They used to have an annual outing to Scarborough and horse and carts and all the village went off and they went to Welburn Station and from there they got the train to Scarborough for the day. But that’s of particular interest to me because it’s got my grandfather’s workshop in the background.
Oh I see, yes.
That little building there which is now Green Gables garage used to be a little school, where, this was pre-schools in the village, the lady who ran it charged the children a penny a day, or the parents a penny a day, to learn to read and write and that was before the first school which was in the North Back Lane.
So this is from the ‘20’s is it looking at the dresses of the ladies?
I don’t know I should imagine very early …
That annual trip to Scarborough presumably had stopped long before you were a child?
No, no, we still had the annual trip to Scarborough. I went on the annual trip to Scarborough, on Hope’s buses, they had about 3 or 4 buses on, the whole village went, the children all got half a crown to spend when they were there.
How was that half a crown come by?
Must have been fund-raising throughout the year of some kind, whether it was whist drives or something like that, to raise enough money to pay for the coaches and enough for the children all to have half a crown to spend when we got there, and I’ve got several pictures of me playing – digging on Scarborough beach. It was a good day out, everybody would …
And what did you use your half a crown for?
I can’t really remember, I mean there were amusements and I think they probably went on that.
They might have featured – candy floss and ice cream possibly.
I think yes.
And did literally everybody go?
The village was completely deserted yeah. I don’t ever remember me Dad ever going, but I think everybody else went.
That’s extraordinary isn’t it, the idea of a village emptying in that way?
It was really very good.
When did that stop?
I don’t know, I can’t remember. That’s an interesting question, I don’t know. I seem to think it was held during the summer term, because when I went away to school it wasn’t during the school holidays, I think it was one day during the term.
And I wonder when it began?
Horse and cart days to Welburn Station.
Because often they were a thing where you had a big estate that employed a lot of workers, it was the sort of Downton Abbey thing, the works holiday. What’s the photograph of the church with all these little …
That’s Harvest Festival when I was, it’s the school, I’m somewhere in there, when I was an infant at the school visiting the church just to see it all decorated out for harvest.
Did you ever go to services in the church?
Yes, Sunday was a big Sunday lunch and church service and that was every Sunday. So yes, but as I said there wasn’t anything special for children, I mean I went because I was dragged along with me Mum and Dad, but there wasn’t anything particularly for children and there certainly wasn’t children’s services of any kind, so it was just a tradition, that’s what you did on a Sunday – you went to church. Me Dad was very faithful, he went … if there was 2 services a day he would go 2, and if there was 3 he would go 3. He was very faithful.
And did your parents ever talk to you about their faith?
A little bit, ermmm …… me Mum lost the faith in latter years but me Dad was, you know, very faithful. My Mum once said to him "Why …. how come you’re so, you know ….?" He said "I think you’ve got to hang on to something, you know".
And that’s what I’ll hang onto …?
There’s an after life somewhere. And it was very important to him, it really was.
And why do you think your Mum lost that? Was there something specific?
Yes, she had cancer and then I think she you know, didn’t feel that she was getting the right answers at the right time, I don’t think. But actually, you know, she lived about another 20 years after she had cancer, so maybe she didn’t know it. (laughs!)
So there was no form of Sunday school for the children at the time?
I don’t think there was when I was little, there was when I was got past it – Neville Hornsey’s sister, Flora, ran the Sunday school, but I was, or I thought I was too old to go there. I was past drawing and writing and …
Was, presumably at the time when you were at school, you had school assemblies and sang hymns and things at school still or …?
Phew, possibly but I actually don’t remember.
Not even St Peter’s with their fine chapel?
Oh yes I’m sorry I’m trying to remember.
Yes, I see, yes, so you came across it there, but not necessarily here?
I can’t remember too much going on at the village school, there may well have been interest but it didn’t register.
It didn’t register, no you were very wrong then weren’t you?
Oh goodness me, yes St Peter’s was very keen.
Oh was it – 3 times on a Sunday? Yeah Gosh.
You’d have to ask Dennis Hirst about it?
Did he teach you?
He didn’t actually teach me, but I went away on one of his ski-ing trips, but I was never actually in his French group, so he never, we never fell out.
Were you not keen on French?
No! (laughter!) No it was just as well I was never in his group. (laughter) We might have fallen out, he was a very strict teacher.
Was he? Oh right.
Extremely strict.
Mind you, people can have a reputation outside, you know, from people who are not in their classroom that actually the children who have been in their class might say actually they’re not that bad, but you think he earned that one?
I think he’d be very proud of it. What did he once describe himself as the silent assassin. (lots of laughter from both)
That’s another picture.
That was just when I was digging through old photographs, that’s an old picture of the church.
Very fine gas, oil lamps aren’t they?
That’s the oil lamps, yeah. Me Dad used to light the coke boiler in the church on a Friday night, obviously before the oil central heating, so he used to go up late on a Friday night and get it going so that it was really warm for all the Sunday services. He did a lot of little jobs for the church – he used to wind the clock for years. I used to go with on a Sunday after Evensong and wind the clock.
That means climbing up that ladder?
Certainly up the stairs, yeah.
Oh right, I’ve never done that!
It was one of his many jobs at the church.
What about being a teenager lad in a place like Terrington, during your holiday times. I would imagine during the term times you didn’t have time for such things, but did girls feature in Terrington, or were they hard to come by?
The sort of entertainment I had as a teenager when I was, during the holidays, we used to go on the picture bus, Hope’s bus did a trip to Malton to the Palace. I think the bus back was about 10:30 and quite often the film hadn’t finished, so you had to leave 10 minutes early to get the bus, so often we never actually saw the end of the film, but yes that was one of the social outlets for a teenager in Terrington at the time.
Well Helen was saying that the work on the, now I forget which area it was that they were working on, sorry, but most of the women who’ve come to Terrington came from outside, that’s how new genetic material came to the village, was it?
Fresh blood.
That’s right yes, you didn’t tend to find your wives and girlfriends in the village.
That’s probably true, I mean me Mum came from Ganthorpe, my Grandma was in service for the Worsleys at Hovingham Hall, so that’s how my Grandad got to know her and that was, and she came from London. She was sent away into service when she was very young, as young girls were then, and when we were tidying out through all their affairs when we cleared the house, found letters from my Grandma’s Mum, so my great Grandma, she was in service in London and they worked for some Admiral and she brought a really, oh it was a tear jerking letter about how we miss your footsteps on the stairs and your happy face and all this, and I don’t think that she would ever be given enough time off to go back to visit them in London, because my great Grandma was in service as well, the chances of her getting time off to come and visit her daughter in service in Yorkshire pretty remote. And it was an interesting letter, it was the fact they worked for an Admiral in London but they had a summer residence, somewhere like Bournemouth or somewhere there, so she was on about packing up the house and moving to the summer residence on the coast. It’s completely different world, but she was obviously missing her daughter greatly and I would imagine she would have only been, maybe, 12 or 13 when she was sent away. I think if you wanted to go into service or, you probably didn’t have a lot of choice, you know, if you were in service your children almost automatically ended up going into service and if there wasn’t work in that household, then you had to find another house that would take you, so that’s my Grandma. So I ended up with relatives in London and Taunton and places like that, my aunt and what have you worked for Lady Sidmouth, so she was in service as well, so that sort of part of my family were …… So I ended up with cousins, or half cousins, in my case in London, which was very strange sort of growing up and living in Terrington and having this little branch of a satellite family that were Londoner’s which was ….
And how aware were you when you grew up, say under the age of 20, up here of cousins and the wider family you belonged to, did you see anything of them?
The two cousins who were, all my Dad’s cousins which were in London, actually came up as evacuees and lived during the War with me Dad and his Mum and Dad. So they actually spent about 5 years here, so they often came back to visit them, because I mean my grandparents were their Mum and Dad for 5 years, so there was a lot of … they did come back very regularly, because they went to school here, they were friendly with other people in the village.
But they were your parents’ generation, weren’t they?
Yes they were, but they still kept coming back, even as I grew up so I was very aware that …
And did they have children of your generation?
They did, but I never really got to know them because they obviously had their own friends and what have you in London, so they didn’t come back, it was the 2 lads and their wives that came back for holidays, back up here, but they didn’t. Occasionally I remember the families coming but they didn’t really have anything in common, they didn’t understand that their Dads had been living up here during the War.
So you were saying that you’re an only child, was your Dad an only child too?
He was, yes, yeah.
Oh right, and Grandad?
No, I think, they had an uncle, he had a brother.
And do you know what happened to that brother? Did you ever hear tell of him or?
Yeah, he ….. I was gonna say he was called John, but I’m not sure that he was called John. There were certainly plenty of Johns in the family, but he was a joiner, and he worked in the business, that’s what you did. Goodricks were joiners.
And your Mum, did she come from a big family?
She was one of 6, she had twins, twin brothers, Thomas and William. William is David Miller’s Dad, what was David Miller’s Dad at Ganthorpe. She had a brother called Harry, who is Peter Miller’s, down the bottom of the village, his Dad, so …..
So you’ve got a lot of relatives still around in the area?
Freda was me Mum’s sister and she was Peter and Geoff’s Mum – Peter and Geoff Goodwill's Mum. So … people haven’t moved far.
No, no they haven’t have they? So there’s quite a number of Goodwill families round and about that are or aren’t related but of the Goodricks I think you’re the only Goodricks aren’t you now, in this …
Yes.
Do you know what the name Goodrick means, does it mean something to do with joining?
No, I don’t think so. I’ve no idea what its origin is, no.
Oh, it would be interesting to look that one up.
Yeah, I mean there’s lots of different spellings of it, I mean there’s the John Goodrick who was the blind astronomer who found the first black hole or something very strange. There’s a plaque near York Minster.
Right.
Hence Goodrick College in York University. I don’t think he was a joiner, if he was blind he wouldn’t be able. Quite how we was an astronomer and blind I don’t know. (laughs!) I think he was deaf and dumb as well, he had massive handicaps but he was very renowned astronomer.
That’s pretty amazing. I foolishly didn’t think to bring a watch with me John, so I have no idea whether I’ve asked you to talk for hours.
I’ve no idea. It’s five to 3.
It’s five to 3! Possibly we should stop now then, if you feel you have …
I think we’ve covered most.
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This page last updated: 21st December 2021