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??My Grandfather would tell me many stories about his youth and would always remind us the family had lived in Ardington for 350 years. ??He was interviewed for the North Berks Herald after he had been retired for many years and there was a photo of him and a small article written about how he started work at the age of 10 as a plumber.
Apart from the years he was away from the village, as a private in the Royal Berks reg during the First World War, he worked for the estate.?? He was the second son of George and Louisa Prior and was born at No 43 Townsend, one of five children: Allan, Wilfred, Arthur, and Francis a daughter. There was another son who died quite young but I haven???t been able to find any trace of him.
Allen eventually ended up living in Hermitage east of Newbury. ??I only met him once.??He was the very opposite of Granddad as he couldn???t have been taller than 5 ft 6 inches.
Arthur married and as far as I know ended up in the West Country running a chicken farm.
Francis, the only daughter, married a Mark Curtain and lived in Wantage. He worked at Our Ladies Convent. They were both tall and she looked like my Grandfather. I know that she had three daughters – Louise , Irene and?? Gwenith who died very young and is buried in Challow churchyard.
Another addition to the family was a very small boy that was called Earnest Lewis entered in the census of 1881 as a boarder. He lived with the family until he was about 24 and then having bought a bicycle he road to London to spend many hours at Somerset House to try and find out who he was.?? He never managed to find out but worked as another plumber
As to the other Priors I have no idea how many children they had,
Wilfred married the girl next door, Annie Elizabeth Williams. Her parents were?? Jane and George.?? He died and the family emigrated to Canada.?? Granddad refused to join them ???
Married, they first lived at Lockinge in one of the first cottages on the left as you enter the village, and there they had several children, my mother being the eldest.???? She told me she first started school in the Lockinge school at the top of the village street.??
I suppose because Granddad worked in the estate yard in the village of Ardington they moved into the cottage opposite the one he had been born in No 43. ??By then his mother Louisa had been widowed, and was living with his sister Francis and the second son of Earnest, Victor Lewis.???? He stayed with them while he was at school and only returned to London once he was old enough.
Wilfred and Annie had seven children in all.
- Winifred married, Wilfred son of Earnest Lewis 1929.
- Dorothy emigrated to Canada age 12???? to join the Williams family.
- Edith married Wilfred Faithful of Shaw, Newbury.
- Arthur emigrated to Canada age 10.????????????????????????????????????
- Kathleen married Charles Lewer from Reading and they lived in Carversham for the rest of their lives.
Wilfred was called up at the start of World War 1 and served at the front, almost being killed when he stopped a bullet but saved by a metal mirror in his top left hand pocket.??He was injured and sent to Ireland to recover.?? He was there for about 6 months.??There was photo of him, standing with a group of nurses dressed in a royal blue uniform, kept among the family photos.
He came home after the war and his family was enlarged.?? While he was away my grandmother had to manage as best as she could and life was very hard.?? At the front of the house was a large wheat field.?? Every year the family would have to glean whatever ears of wheat could be picked up after the field was cut. It would be taken to the mill, threshed and fed the family in bread for a year.
Two children were born after he came home.
- Wilfred married twice died in Peppard, Reading?? in 1948.
- Iris married Alec Kimber from East Hendred in Ardington church 1952.
Granddad lived in the cottage No 46, until he was taken to live with his daughter Kathleen in Reading at the age of 90, and started work at the age of 10 (both of my grandfathers did) and learnt to be a plumbers for the estate.
He would tell us children stories of what life was like.?? It was very simple, the only amusement to be had was in the reading rooms next to the church.
The vicar gave his time several times of the week to help the boys with their education. Wilfred always wrote with a most beautiful copy and I can see him now writing to Arthur and taking what seemed like hours.?? In the front of the house was a very deep well.?? All the water we had come from it and he told me that he had helped dig it out.?? With my Gt Grandmother living opposite there was a close relationship between them and it was a big family when all together.
Wilf as he was called had to walk many miles to the job he was working on.?? I can see him now every night getting his bag of tools ready and a carrier bag of American Oil Cloth for his lunch, containing two bottles of cold black tea unsweetened along with hunks of bread no butter (during the war there wasn???t any) but accompanied with great lumps of pig fat wrapped in a piece of last weeks margarine paper.
It wasn???t until after the war transport was laid on to drop him off at the place of work. Until then he had to walk, starting very early, to get to his place of work by eight o???clock.?? The area he covered was anywhere from Drayton in the north to East and West Isley, Farnbourgh way up on the downs.?? He had to carry his tools on his back
He was a big strong man, tall with a moustache and had the bluest of eyes, and a good head of hair. A very keen gardener, he worked two allotments on the Puddle Dock lane.??During the war the household consisted of six of us with my mother and the three of us children plus Iris.?? Annie died in 1936
I can never remember us being short of the essential foods. All the vegetables we needed were grown either on the allotment or in the garden.?? Apples, loganberries, and strawberries grew at our feet.?? Not a scrap of wasted soil to be seen.?? Of course we had no running water, gas or electricity and the toilet was at the bottom of the garden. Granddad would get up at the crack of dawn to empty the pan and was never seen doing it.
He had been retired many years when it had been discovered there was no record of where the pipes had been laid on the whole of the estate. Wilf was asked by the estate office if he would go around the whole estate with an architect in order that a record be made of exactly where the pipes had been laid.?? They picked him up and drove him everywhere to do this and he was employed for six months.
He was a wonderful man, and I hold him in great esteem.?? He gave my mother a home when the war started, and looked after three small children when it was needed.?? He was always there and even lent me enough money to buy my first babies pram. Goodness only knows how he ever managed to save any money, I???ll never know.
He died in Feb 1971 and was the last of the Priors to be buried in Ardington Churchyard, alongside my Grandmother.
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