Jean Wemyss-Gorman Life at the Vicarage and connections to Hatherleigh

I’m talking to Jean Weems-Gorman and we’re talking by a video link because I’m in Hatherleigh and Jean lives in, I think, Sussex, is that right?

 

West Sussex.

 

Yes, so it’s a long way away. Can you tell me how you are connected to Hatherleigh? I think your grandfather was a vicar here?

 

Yes, from I think 1928 to 1947, it was 18 years anyway.

 

And your mother’s name, which is, she was your grandfather, so your mother’s name is Ruth and she had a sister called Mary.

 

Yes.

 

And I think there were some twins, twin brothers? Twin brothers, Jack and Jock. And were they older or younger?

 

The youngest of the family.

 

The younger brothers. And you probably remember your grandparents a little bit. What sort of people were they?

 

What sort of people do you remember?

 

Well, my grandfather came across as a rather stern, he was a Victorian gentleman and certainly a strict father, especially as far as the twins were concerned, this sort of stiff upper lip sort of thing, as a result of which they were both tearaways, rather tearaways. And I think his sternness actually disguised a gentler side of his nature. And he and my grandmother were devoted to each other, but she knew not to disagree with him.

 

But she was his mainstay and a true partner in his ministry and really such a loving, warm person, very serene, which was a good thing.

 

So they were quite a contrast.

 

They were quite a contrast to each other. Yes, well, that was it. They complemented each other so well and she endeared herself to everybody.

 

She was lovely.

 

And you visited them as a young girl?

 

Yes, but only up till the age of seven, because they moved away when they came to live with us, where we were in Weston-super-Mare when I was seven. So all my memories go back to very early childhood.

 

And so you were, well, you would have been, they were here then when you were a young girl. And would you have stayed at the Vicarage? Did you go for holidays?

 

Yes, we went for holidays, yes.

 

And do you have siblings? Did you?

 

Yes, I went with my brother and sister who were born out in China and not my younger brother, because he was, no, he would have been, yes, I think he would have come as well. But, you know, we were very small, so my memories are rather hazy. Certainly there.

 

Do you remember anything about the old Vicarage itself? What, you know, what it looked like and what sort of place it was?

 

It was not like it looks today, but it was a big solid building, rather grey and obviously not run down, but it, they hadn’t enough money to, being in the clergy, they hadn’t enough money to refurbish it or anything like that. But inside, it was just a lovely, warm, homely place. And that’s what I, I remember the orchard to the left of it.

 

And would that be, would that be downhill of the house or? Because the Vicarage is set on a sort of slope, isn’t it? Was the orchard downhill of the Vicarage?

 

It was round to the left of the Vicarage. And then there was the wide sweeping, still is, this wide sweeping drive, which is a memory for some reason that goes back in the grass round about. So, yeah, there’s probably, one thing I do remember was there was something called the rat’s hole.

 

And this was a hole we’d made in the, in the hedge between us and the next door neighbour, who were Mr and Mrs Berg. He was a dentist. And I think they must have been very good friends of my parents, my grandparents.

 

And I can remember distinctly going, scrambling through this hole to go to tea with the lovely Berg’s next door. And I’m sure they did the same thing. But that is a memory I’ve got.

 

I wonder if it’s still there.

 

I wonder. It was called Oslo, the house.

 

Still is. It still is, yes. And you would have been in Hatherleigh on Sunday. So what can you tell me about a Sunday in Hatherleigh with your grandfather as the Vicar?

 

Yes, strict Sabbath observance, which required us obviously to go to church. I can’t remember really how many times. And then there was a rigid authority.

 

We were not to play games. The only games we could play were Sunday games. I’m not quite sure what that meant.

 

I can’t forget now. And we weren’t even allowed to do knitting. But of course, at the time, I didn’t think anything of it.

 

I just felt a bit sort of, I did what my grandparents told me. And that actually was handed over to my own parents. And that was the sort of background that I had.

 

Of course, it sort of spilled over to the next generation, although became a bit more flexible as the years went on. I did start knitting when I was old enough to make up my own mind.

 

And your grandmother, it sounds as if she played a key part in the ministry as well, I mean, with her side of work. From what you’re saying, she must have been rather a lovely person and popular, and I’m sure she would have been a good organiser of groups and things. Yes.

 

I think one could say that her main thing was she just supported my grandfather in every single way. It was like a shared ministry. But she did have ladies’ women’s meetings in the house and in the vicarage.

 

And it was like an open house. And yeah, I think that was probably the main thing that she was there to support him.

 

They were here together for, I think, 18 years, you told me.

 

Yes, I think it was that.

 

And you said that the vicarage itself, that your grandparents were in the clergy, they didn’t have lots of money. What was the community of Hatherleigh like? Do you remember?

 

Was it a sort of very agricultural and not very prosperous?

 

I think I was too young to take that on board. But I do remember my mother, in some letters we’ll talk about later, but I do remember her mentioning a lady who’d died, leaving a child. And my mother said something about, I do hope the aunt, whatever, will be able to care for the child.

 

And I hope she’ll be able to make ends meet. So clearly, there were people who were not poor. But then on the other hand, you’d get the richer side of the community, as things are today.

 

Yes.

 

So one of the main reasons we’re talking, one of the reasons we’ve actually found out about you, Jean, is because of your amazing mother, Ruth, who was obviously one of the daughters of Reverend and Mrs Rossiter. And in the 1920s, she was already working in the parish with her sister, Mary, running a Sunday school for 16-year-old boys. Is that right?

 

Right.

 

Yes. And then came a big change. What was the change?

 

What did your mother decide to do?

 

Well, she went to, she went out to China with my father. Well, actually, they weren’t, they were just engaged at the moment. But they went out to China.

 

And as an engaged couple, they married out there and had their first two children there. In fact, I wouldn’t say she took any big part in the, in the work of the parish. But I think she and her sister together, they did run that.

 

But part of the time, my mother was actually training to go to go out to be a missionary training college. But most of the time was spent in Hatherleigh.

 

Did she go away to a training college?

 

Yes, she went to Bristol. To Bristol. Yeah.

 

And so that you said they went out. So they went out as an engaged couple.

 

Yes.

 

And how long were they in China?

 

They were, they went out in 1931. And they came back seven years later. And all that time, my mother was only in her 20s.

 

And which is incredible when I read what she actually, the experiences she went through.

 

And you know about her experiences, because she sent regular letters home.

 

Yes.

 

And isn’t it amazing that they still exist? Well, yes. Yes.

 

And so, you know, can you tell me about the letters and how, how they came into your possession?

 

Well, obviously, my grandparents must have kept them. All those letters must have arrived in Hatherleigh Vicarage. They must have kept them.

 

And then they were, my mother must have taken them again when her parents died. And then my sister had them after my mother died. And I knew they were there.

 

But I suppose about four years ago, I said to my sister, I really must try and transcribe those letters. And so I brought them home and I started and it took about 14 months with the help of COVID. And yeah, I started.

 

Well, actually, there were several, a lot of letters from my father as well, not nearly as many as my mother. And so I did the two lots together and then drafted them in together into chronological order and so not duplicating. So, but as far as my mother was concerned, all those letters were kept by her parents and been in the family ever since.

 

And what sort of things did these letters record? You obviously have now transcribed all the letters and you published them in a book. And it’s fascinating to read because, I mean, I’ve read it.

 

She wrote very, very vividly, didn’t she? She was a very fine observer. Whereas your father was more matter of fact somehow.

 

But she noticed things and it’s very colourful, her writing. And she mentioned Hatherleigh quite a lot in her letters, didn’t she?

 

Yes, absolutely. She never questioned her calling, but she was very homesick for Hatherleigh. To begin with, when I looked at the letters, I thought, oh dear, I better not put this in.

 

You can’t put in that. She’s supposed to be a missionary. She’s not supposed to be homesick.

 

And the more I read it, the more homesick I realised she had been. But she was always, she was a very resilient and bubbly person, always looking on the bright side of things. And she just kept going.

 

But letters from home were an absolute lifeline for her. And I wish, I read recently that she wrote to her parents to say that she was terribly sorry, but she was going to have to get rid of their letters because there were just too many of them. And because she was having to evacuate and go all over the place, she didn’t want them to get into the hands of the Chinese and imagine them pasted up on their walls as wallpaper, their letters.

 

So regretfully, she had to throw those away, which meant that we’ve only got one side, her writing to her parents and not their responses. And they would have been so revealing that I should think they must have suffered agonies reading those letters.

 

Well, it was a very, very turbulent time in China, wasn’t it?

 

Yes. Very, very. Yes.

 

And then when they were dealing with all sorts of problems like warring lords and also their own health.

 

Yes, that’s right. Health and warlords. There were three or four lots of wars going on, the warlords, the small local divisions, the civil war between the communists and the Chinese National Party, and then the Sino-Japanese War, the second.

 

So really, there was wartime all around them the whole time. Yes, but as I say, my mother was really very, very nostalgic for Hatherleigh. And letters and parcels were an absolute lifeline.

 

And my mother was absolutely thrilled when a parcel arrived with all its wonderful surprises and treats and everything so full of home, that’s what she said, delicious things like delicious Christmas puddings arriving weeks late with a dead but what must have been a lovely piece of holly from the garden. And the pressed snowdrops and wild daffodils and primroses, the sprig of hazel catkins, the wee pot of homemade strawberry jam and apples from their own orchard, the real Devonshire wheat which made her imagine fields of grain and the beautiful cardigan, which her mother just had to hug because her mother had done it for her. And all the gifts that must have been bought in Hatherleigh and handled by the hands of her mother in the vicarage. And she says, I’m happy, very happy here, but sometimes longing for you all and dear Hatherleigh with its freedom and lovely rambles with the dog, and the wind and the wellingtons makes me feel a little homesick. And then I think of my calling. So that’s what she was writing about home.

 

And then she’d be caught up in idyllic memories of the countryside. And imagine how lovely Hatherleigh was looking in the spring and in the summer and autumn. And the hedges and cowslips growing and the wonderful roses and foxgloves and wild roses and dog-daisies, honeysuckle and all the things in the June glory.

 

And the wanderings by the river. And that’s where my father and she became engaged. So they especially, they had special memories for her.

 

And then she, I think she was quite nostalgic for some events, wasn’t she? There was a, I think she wrote home about New Year.

 

Yes, she did. She, this was her first New Year when she particularly wrote about it. And she was hoping they all had a very happy New Year.

 

And she remembered that when they were having breakfast on New Year’s Day, that she’d be picturing them in the church and seeing in the New Year with the bells peeling out. And then I loved her description of one Sunday afternoon. She said that, and I’ll read this to you because this is what she says.

 

As I write, it’s 2.30 on Sunday afternoon. So about 6.30 p.m. at home. And I’m visualising the scene at Hatherleigh Vicarage as the day is about to get going. Mary, that’s her sister, will soon be up lighting the stove and making tea for dad before he goes off to early communion. Doris, now I think Doris must have been the help they had in the house. I have no idea who she is anymore about her.

 

But Doris will arrive and open the shutters, light the fires and lay the table for breakfast. And Dan, you will all come just as we were having high tea.

 

That’s brilliant, isn’t it? That’s lovely. It’s so, it’s so, it makes it such a real picture.

 

She must have been, I mean, as her wedding day approached in 1935, I think. 33, that was, yes. That must have been a very, well, it was quite a difficult time for her emotionally, I imagine, because, you know, she was far away from home and her family.

 

Absolutely, yes. I remember she sent home, asking her mother to send some butterix patterns so that she could make her own wedding dress. But they must be for 1933, you know, only the most up-to-date modern, which she would then make, a modern wedding dress she’d then make.

 

But, yeah, she said she was beginning to think a lot about her wedding preparations and how she was wishing her father could marry them, and that they were all going to be there because, and how she felt so much the need of her dear mother to do all the things that most girls’ mothers do at such a time. Yeah, it’s quite emotional reading that.

 

Yes, but I think there was a special celebration, wasn’t there, here in Hatherleigh for them?

 

Yes, apparently they had some sort of celebration at which a peal of bells were rung and ices were sold, which must have been quite something in those days. Yes.

 

And so Ruth’s letters also show that through her mother, that’s your grandmother, she was involving the parishioners of Hatherleigh a little bit in her own missionary work.

 

Well, yes, she knew that my grandmother had a knitting group in her house, and I remember hearing about these knitting groups, asked if her mother could get her knitting group to make some lovely coloured scarves and bottle caps for the Chinese children. And these were sent to her, out to China, all knitted by this group of friends, and the children were absolutely delighted. And another thing about these groups that met in the vicarage, my grandfather would, my grandmother, rather, sorry, would serve tea, and then she’d squeeze out the tea leaves to use next time.

 

Well, that in a way speaks of how poor they were. Thrift, I think, was a word that would go with that, yes.

 

And I think there’s a, I mean, I found it a very touching story about this young blind boy, a young beggar.

 

Yes, he was a young lad. I think there were lots of blind beggar boys, children, but he was only eight when he was turned out of home and landed up on the mission station and lived not in, they couldn’t take him in, because there were so many children in this position that they would have been absolutely inundated. But he was allowed to live in a shed.

 

I think it was probably the cow shed, I’m not quite sure, but there. And he really became very much loved by the missionaries and the Chinese people there. And they just wanted to find somewhere much more suitable, somewhere he could be properly looked after and trained for the future, particularly as my parents were going to be leaving, coming on furlough a bit later on.

 

And so they wanted to make proper plans. So they wrote to my grandmother and she wrote to see if she could, if anyone, if they could help in Hatherleigh, because the mission they were with was a faith mission and they never appealed for funds. So there couldn’t be a general sort of appeal for funds.

 

But my mother could write to her mother and she wrote to the parishioners and friends. This is one of the letters that’s there, telling them about this child and asking whether they would be prepared to make any donations, which they did very generously. And I know my mother was delighted that they should be so generous and helpful.

 

It was a wonderful encouragement to them.

 

It must have made a kind of link for them with home, mustn’t it, to feel that they were being supported at home?

 

Yes, absolutely. Yes, it was wonderful.

 

I know that the bells were remembered with particular affection by your mother. I mean, she seems to mention them a lot of times. Can we talk about the bells?

 

There are several references, aren’t there?

 

Yes, there are, yes. The last time was in 1938, just before the family set off. It was a very dangerous journey they had to do from their mission station in Sichuan and to the coast, and she conjures up pictures of their homecoming.

 

And she says, oh, my dear ones, it would be wonderful to see you and how thrilling it would be if there were a peal of bells to welcome us. And I can only think that her mother must have said that there might be.

 

And, yes. And I mean, I’m just imagining what, I mean, your grandparents must have known they were coming home and how they must have worried about this journey home.

 

Yes, and my mother would say things like, but please, she’d tell them how awful things were happening. And then in the next paragraph, oh, please don’t worry about us. We’re perfectly all right.

 

We’re in the hands of God. But that was the basic thing of it. They did have that basic trust.

 

And so, of course, to their grandparents.

 

Getting back to that peal of bells, we’ll get back to it a bit later. But in the middle of that, I’d like to talk about these ladies called the Churchwoods, the sisters who lived, well, I think it’s in a, I know the house myself. I think it’s just opposite the Vicarage.

 

It was called Elm House or something. There’s something to do with Elm. So can we talk about those sisters?

 

I think your mother wrote about them once, didn’t she? Or did they write to her?

 

I discovered a letter that one of the Miss Churchwoods had written to my mother. She’d heard that she was hoping to become a missionary and was interested. And she offered to pay all the fees for the missionary training course.

 

The one in Bristol? The one in Bristol, yes. But she had the letter from one of these sisters.

 

But at the same time, the other one had exactly the same idea. And this came from a legacy they’d had from their brother who died. So that was wonderful.

 

Well, it’s interesting because they funded her missionary work or her missionary studies, but they also funded, we know from other research, the recasting of the bells in 1929. And they paid for a new clock. And that was also in memory of their late brother.

 

And I think you found a letter from Erroween, her name was, Churchwood, with your mother’s belongings. And I think she said something like, we’re going to try and restore melody to the old Hatherleigh bells.

 

I think they were quite excruciatingly, a bit dire.

 

I think they were. I mean, they’d had numerous recastings and none of them had actually matched the last one. So I think that was the problem.

 

So they were quite key figures, these two old ladies, weren’t they?

 

Absolutely. And the letter that I was talking about, which spoke to my mother offering to pay her fees, I only found that about a week ago when I was looking into this interview a bit more.

 

Well, it has been an amazing little journey, hasn’t it? Through all of these letters. So can we return to the present day and recent past?

 

Because we’re now talking about you still doing some research and still things keep emerging. When you were transcribing your mother’s letters, did it kind of rekindle memories and emotions for you?

 

Well, it did, because they were always instilled within me from an early age. My mother used to love talking about it, Hatherleigh. So I’ve always thought of Hatherleigh as being a very magical place. And yes, this transcribing her letters has rekindled memories of those very early childhood visits to my grandparents. But now in a special, fresh light because of knowing what a very special place it was to my mother. And as I think I said before, the memories I have were very hazy, because I was only seven when my grandparents left.

 

But I remember the sort of things I do remember are granny making bread and walking down with me into the town to the baker to buy a little paper cone of yeast. I don’t know if you remember those, probably not. And then I remember seeing my first snake walking to the church on that path that goes to the church.

 

And I remember taking the pig’s will up to the collection point bin at the top of the lane. I can still smell that. And the milk churns were next door to it on a raised wooden platform waiting for collection.

 

I can remember the cattle market and Passaford, which has always been one of my favourite places in my memory. I’ve always got a vivid memory of Passaford. And I remember walking down there with my uncle just after the war, it must have been, and him hiding a bottle of pop in the hedge for a picnic.

 

And we’re walking along and he said, oh, just have a look in here. And there was a bottle of pop in the hedge. So that was a memory.

 

And I know that you have a particular affection for the bells, because I suppose you would have had them as a child. But I think your mother’s recollections will have sort of renewed this, won’t they? Because they’re obviously special to her too.

 

Yes, absolutely. And I think reading about them did remind me so much. And it’s, it’s, I remember so much that evocative sound that they had had. And recently, when I was, just after I’d done the book, I think, I was searching around in the Hatherleigh websites, and I found one of your, the bell ringers website, and on it was a recording of the bells. And it really was quite uncanny because it just suddenly, it made my spine tingle really, because it just brought back that sound, such a distinctive sound.