My sister and I never called my Aunt 'Evelyn'. She was known to us as Ha-ha, apparently because when my sister was young, Evelyn would take her on her shoulders and walk up and down repeating Ha-ha, Ha-ha, Ha-ha. I remember, as I grew older, feeling faintly embarrassed addressing her this way in company. Ha-ha looked after a shed-full of hens and did the cooking on her Aga. From time to time she would post clotted cream to us and this would arrive at our home in Exeter in a cocoa tin sealed with a circle of bread.
All the fields at Treleigh had names though I have forgotten most of them. I do remember Pump field, the largest, rising gently to the east above the house, with a pump of fresh water that I never remember running dry. Above the field, a lane ran between Townlake and Tuelldown. If you turned left at the gate from Pump field and walked for a hundred yards, you came to another lane leading off to the right. Completely overgrown with brambles, weeds and grass it was known as Maggie Burleigh lane. My mother told me that many years ago, Maggie Burleigh had walked down the lane one dark night, climbed a tree and hung herself. I don't remember my mother divulging, or whether she knew, what triggered Maggie's desperate and final act. Perhaps she didn't know. But none of the locals dared use the lane again.
Where Fred hated driving, Ha-ha loved it. I remember her driving us around the fields in an open-topped Standard Eight. Later she graduated to an elegant Triumph Dolomite, then an Austin Healey Sprite and later to a magnificent maroon MG saloon which she garaged in an old stable with a mud floor. Her driving terrified the family, especially my uncle. When she drove into Tavistock on market day, she always left the key in the ignition claiming to believe that if the car were stolen this would indicate that the thief's need were greater than hers. None of her cars was ever taken. Like her brother, Ha-ha never married. She also entered into a long engagement, in her case with the son of a Crediton butcher. I have no idea why this romance ended.
My uncle and aunt attended Hampt Chapel across the Tamar at the top of a steep hill above the old mining village of Luckett. Hampt Chapel was a Plymouth Brethren assembly. The Brethren had no ministers and the style of their Sunday morning services was unusual. Traditionally the men only prayed, or announced a hymn, or read from the Scriptures making a few comments as they felt moved and guided by the Spirit. At Hampt Chapel, there were only two men who attended regularly - my Uncle Fred and a Mr Diamond who lived with his wife in a few rooms at the back of the chapel. Since my Uncle Fred and Mr Diamond never spoke in public, except very occasionally to announce a favourite hymn, the chapel depended on visiting men from Plymouth - authentic Plymouth Brethren.
(Picture: Hampt Chapel today)
Actually, looking back, I don't think Uncle Fred was ever truly happy with Brethrenism or nonconformity in general. He once told me proudly, with something of a wicked twinkle in his good eye, that he had been blessed by the pope in St Peter's Square. The few religious books which lined his shelves were by Anglican bishops.
On our family visits to Hampt, the situation was eased slightly as my own father would do his best to make contributions to the worship. But my main childhood memory of the Chapel is of its musty smell, the strips of faded red carpet on the pews, and the sound of the slow tick of the clock on the wall during long periods of silence. Still, when I hear the sound of an ancient and ponderous timepiece, my mind races back to that little place of worship above Luckett.
I suppose the Chapel's chief claim to fame in Steer family history is that it was here that my father met my mother. Although my father was born not far from Treleigh, in Tavistock, he grew up in Crediton. His best friend was the butcher's son, Edwin, who courted my aunt. My father used to claim that he saved Edwin from drowning in a Dartmoor pool, but I never heard Edwin's version of the event. Curiously, today, my own son is a close friend of Edwin's grandson. It may be because of the connection with Edwin that some time in the 1930s my father was invited to preach at Hampt where my mother played the organ.
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