My road to the Ministry was not an easy one; it was long and difficult. I served my first nine years in the Ministry in towns, and liked the life with its many opportunities of serving folk, yet when the call came to the country I did not turn it down for I was born a country boy.
Oxford has now sprawled into North Berkshire, which was my birthplace; it is no longer country. William Morris, later Lord Nuffield, not only changed Cowley but most of the environment of Oxford in all directions. I know the house where I was born 63 years ago; it is next to the Carpenters Arms just off the Oxford Witney road. We used to lie in bed and hear the horses galloping by with the Royal Mail bound for Oxford. No motor vans then, for William Morris was only just beginning and branching out from being a maker of motor cycles to become a Motor Car Engineer. Fame was to come later.
It was still the age of horses. In the fields two pulled the plough, unless heavy soil or an uphill slope meant teams of three or four. At Harvest three pulled the binder, one foremost or 'forest', and two behind; a boy rode the front one. I remember when I was riding foremost someone shot at rabbits (there used to be scores of rabbits in the centre of the field and men with guns and boys with sticks had cruel sport killing the poor frightened creatures). This shot scared a young colt and he bolted dragging the binder into the horse I rode. The horse died, the boy escaped. Fine people rode in carriages and pairs, Oxford undergraduates rode in flys from the station, all delivery was horse drawn. Farmers took their milk to Oxford station in traps. In 1916, when daylight saving was introduced one farmer at least did not co- operate; he kept his clock at the old time, sun time, God's time, and missed the milk trains to London; we boys were amused. Horses drew the Oxford trams. Life revolved around horses; they carried you to your wedding (unless you were poor and had to walk), they drew you to your grave, but did not carry the midwife to one's birth.
When I first saw the local midwife she rode a bike with a little black bag on the back. We were intrigued by the bag - could that be where babies came from? Before this there was a woman in the village who saw the beginning and the end of people; she acted as midwife and laid out the dead. I remember the last time, perhaps the only time, I rode in a horse cab, in 1916 when we followed my father's coffin down the familiar lane, to the little Norman Church at North Hinksey.
We knew every twist and turn, every stick and stone, in this lane. On weekdays we ran down the lane to School, carrying a little bag of lunch in bad weather to save doing the journey tvice. No School dinners then. On Sundays we often made the journey three times to Morning Service, to Sunday School, in preparation for which we learned the collect for the day, and Evensong. In the Churchyard lie my ancestors (I would like to know more about them) my parents and my children.
It is intriguing how our ancestors of this period came to meet. My Grand- parents, I am told, met at Abingdon Fair, although they lived about 10 miles apart and did not have either horse or bike, yet they carried on their courtship and married. I suppose the usual way of finding a husband was the practice of domestic service. This custom., which seemed harsh - sending a young girl of 11 out into the big world with her clothes in a tin box - was almost necessary. Wages were low, cottages small, families large; there was not room for growing boys and growing girls at home together so the poor girls had to get their feet under somebody-else's table, and fend for themselves.
They broadened their outlook, managed to stand on their own feet, saved a little money, soon matured and married early. Fifty years ago there was a country custom of carrying one's friends and neighbours to their graves. This was the last service one could render, the last token of respects affection and comradeship one could pay. I remember that many neighbours wanted to do this honour to my Father; it must have been a delicate problem for my Mother to choose the required number without hurting feelings or seeming ungracious.
We lived in Matthew Arnold's Scholar-Gipsy haunted countryside. My father was born in the village street which lacked its haunted mansion. The old twisted hollow tree of the Scroggs legend, the ferryboat, the swing gate, all are gone; the Fishes Inn remains. Sometimes on pleasant summer Sunday evenings the family would walk through the wheatfields to the other Hinksey, whose inn even in Arnold's time no longer bore Sibylla's name. Arnold disliked change. What would he think now his beloved fields have become thickly populated housing estates. They preserve his view near Boars Hill; they call the new secondary school 'Matthew Arnold School'. We knew Arnold's signal tree; it is an Oak not an Elm - Arnold, an inspector of Schools, should not have made such a mistake. The tree is trimmed like an Elm and looks on Ilsley Downs - we still have the downs, thank God. We called his tree the Umbrella Tree with the poet "Once Pass'd I blindfold here, at any hour".
My Father worked the little mill on the Seacourt Stream. A mill had been there for centuries. The original mill was burnt down by the Puritans in the Civil War. This was a one-man show; my Father ground the corn, set the dough, baked the bread and delivered it by horse around the local villages. His horse knew every call, knew when to woa, and when to gee up, knew the way home, but best of all knew his master, guide, companion and friend. They were a team of two. The partnership was broken in 1910 when the old King died and before the new one was crowned, the last loaf was baked, the mill was sold and so was Prince, but three times he left his new home and found his own way along 12 miles of strange roads to find his old master.
When I started school in 1909 we had 3 teachers. One came from Ireland, one from Wales, and one a local girl. The new Vicar was Welsh too, busy, energetic, popular. I met him in Devon 2 years ago, 48 years after he had left our village. We talked of old times and once familiar folk and the years just fell away. He died a few months back in 1967. I sometimes wonder what people in this parish may say 40 years on. The Welsh teacher's Father was Organist in a little Church in Wales. He died at his organ on the 22nd evening of the month. The last Psalm he played was "O God my heart is ready, my heart is ready". This made a great impression on one boy - even now, every time I read the Psalms on the 22nd Evening, I think of him. I have met sudden death many times since then, yet this one sticks; it is dated.
I loved our little school, every lesson, every minute. I remember the pictures on the wall, especially two little girls at prayer, "Now I lay me down to sleep, 1 pray the Lord my soul to keep; if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." Very simple, and yet somehow right; did not Our Saviour on the Cross pray "Father into thy hands I commend my spirit"? The maps too, with a generous sprinkling of red - red stood for British Empire on which the sun never set. We did not enjoy some of the exciting things they did in larger schools, but we had many compensations.
Although we lived in a horse-dominated age, we did see the odd car. Something else appeared too: we called them Flying Machines in 1909; one of these even flew from England to France, or was it the other way round? One came to grief in the fields above our School, where ladies played hockey - very daring: - I can smell the petrol now as I remember how we searched for souvenirs, fragments of this wonderful machine.
Most boys expected to work on the farms; some wanted to see the world, become soldiers or sailors, for this was the only way to travel. Some ambitious ones wanted to be engineers. One family even went to Queensland, Australia, which seemed worlds away. I wanted to be a Vicar, preach sermons, look after a Church. I used to play at taking services in the little wash-house at home, when Mother was not washing her own or other folk's laundry. 1 knew most of the prayers, psalms and hymns by heart; sometimes curious neighbours might listen outside. Maybe they thought me a little silly to play such games. Village boys did not become Parsons - it was like crying for the moon. Only rich men's sons could go to College and become Parsons. The Ministry was almost a closed shop. To be a Priest one must be educated, know Latin and Greek, the classics theology, subjects never beard of in the pre-1914 Village School. Sometimes, like Hardy's Jude, I climbed the hills- not the Berkshire Downs near Fawley , but Hinksey hills, to see the lights of Oxford, the University where Priests were trained.
My schooldays came to a premature end in 1917. The war was not going too well for us, food was short, most able-bodied men were at the front, so village boys of poor parents were allowed to leave school and work on the farms, if their education had progressed satisfactorily. I was sitting in lonely glory at the top of the School, my Father was dead, my Brother was breadwinner for five young children, there was no doubt about our need; we were poor. So at the end of the summer term before my 13th birthday I was pitched from School to farm.
I was terribly miserable. 1 wanted to stay at School, move on to Oxford High School if possible, then to University and the Priesthood. To leave school so early seemed to mean that the door to the Ministry was not just closed; it was locked, bolted, barred. Sometimes looking back 1 get a pang of conscience. Surely I should have been proud to be able to help my Brother. I did not see it that way but felt that life had dealt me a cruel blow. I left School on July 27th 1917 and started work next day, and worked without a holiday till 1 left the farm; not even Christmas Days or Sundays were free from work - animals must be fed. The Welfare State, with all its faults and abuses, has wrought tremendous good. Today there are very few poor. But to return to 1917, my first job was the crowning humiliation. If, like the Prodigal Son, I had been sent into the fields to feed pigs, it would not have been too bad; but I was sent to scare the birds from the ripening corn. They told me the job was important, German submarines were sinking our food ships, so every grain saved helped to win the war. How glad I was when all the corn was harvested. Never before or since has "All is safely gathered in" meant so much.
The next job after the harvest was nearly as bad, the potato picking. A balk plough turned the potatoes out on the ground and we had to pick them up. Later we had a rotary machine which spun them out. For gathering the spuds into buckets and then into sacks we received 3d a cwt. The ache in one's back was terrible - I can almost feel it now as I write. Yet there was one thrill about this job; it was piece work and one could earn a week's wages in a day, if the days were long enough, and the back strong enough, and there was a sister around to help. Cold tea tasted delicious, better than water, cider, pop. or almost any drink I have tasted since (Beer was, of course, out of the question: we were pledged in the little Chapel Band of Hope never to touch, taste or handle the stuff). Nectar, the drink of the gods, could not have tasted better than our cold tea.
I endured the farm till I was about 15 and free to work anywhere; 1 had not enjoyed it. There could have been a psychological reason for this, because some of the work must have been worthwhile. I must have been a miserable companion for Ted and Manny, both dead now, who tried to press home the worth of doing uncongenial jobs well. Did not the Good Book say "Whatsoever thine hand findeth to do, do it with thy might"? I used to say "You can't learn too many things; you never know what may come in useful". Manny, a regular churchman, said the discipline must surely make me a better parson when the time came. I think these two laughed at me for being so silly as to want to be a Priest.
The war was now over, wages were better, but I still hankered after College; my sights were set on Oxford and the Ministry. I moved from the farm to the local Works, where we did all sorts of jobs. There were traction engines, the forge, the wheelwright's shop, the carpenter's shop, the paint shop, the saw mill. I helped in them all, I mixed with all sorts of men, and picked up some knowledge of human nature. The chaps would speak of their drinking habits, whisper about their love life. They knew I went to Church, and I suppose they tried to shock me. From the Works I went to an Oxford shop. Here I served the famous, the great and the potentially great, but they were on one side of the counter and I was on the other. Over that counter I met Undergraduates who are now household names: Bishops, Members of Parliament, Authors, Poets, Actors, Professors. I hear them on the Radio, I see them on TV, and think I knew them 40 years ago when they were little more than teenagers and not always polite to those on the other side of the counter.
We also met the older generation, Robert Bridges, John Masefield, Cosmo
Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple of York. Like the writer
to the Hebrews time would fail to list them all, for most roads lead to Oxford
and, as the poet Gerald Gould wrote, "all discover, late or soon, their
golden Oxford afternoon". This was Mowbrays, High Street, later Pembroke
Street - then Cambridge Terrace.
(George King eventually found support and qualified as a priest, serving a
London parish during the Blitz. These notes were written by him c.1970)