When we left Castle Head, life seemed a bit unknown. I am almost sure we studied the National Farmers Union <NFU> magazine for advertisements of what we could do.
I expected family to come to the rescue temporarily and give us somewhere to stay. However, quite soon we came across an advertisement for a Share Farmer.
This was quite a new concept.
The landowner _ in this case Colonel Drake— put an advertisement in the NFU magazine —for someone to come and run the farm he had at Musbury.
Share farming was quite a new concept at that time. This meant the landowner putting in an amount of money or land for farming and the applicant putting in a sum of money or agreeing to pay for labour. In our case, we WERE THE LABOUR.
It was so exciting. Colonel Drake lived in the main house but there was another house—a bungalow— called Strap Southern where we lived. It had a large garden where we grew fruit and vegetables and some flowers. It was about two fields away from the main house and we could walk there in about 5-10 minutes.
On one side of Strap Southern lived a lady called Mrs Angel who we got on very well with. The other side were two ladies who were not too friendly and kept themselves a bit aloof
We only had Vicci living with us at that time. The other members of the family were away at boarding school whose fees were paid by various trusts which I had discovered by madly researching various sources. However the local Grammar School, Colyton was highly regarded so Vicci went there, She had to go by bus and I remember shouting out loudly, the bus is coming and she would fly out and run madly down the hill. Luckily the bus driver would wait for her to blow his horn for some time.
Vicci stayed at Colyton Grammar School to complete her A levels.
She then went on a world tour with Judith Sandford.
She had to phone me once a week (on a Sunday} to tell me she was still alive. After Vicci’s gap year, she went to Reading University to do a film and drama degree.
Muck spreading at Musbury.
One other thing I remember about Musbury was that a farmer called Laurence Little drove down Main Street in Musbury with his muck-spreading machine switched on and sprayed the walls of the houses, including those of the pub with cow dung. I think I helped him to scrub the cow dung off, but it remains a vivid memory for me of life in Musbury.