As far as I recall the Dunn family lived in Cawston for centuries.  At the present time there are no members of this family left in the village as they have migrated to other places in the vicinity and abroad.  The furthest I can go back is to what my grandfather (Cecil Dunn, 1895-1982) told me about his uncle, Richard Dunn, who managed three inns in the village from 1861-1883.

1.   Richard Dunn - Prince of Wales inn

      My grandfather’s uncle, Richard Dunn, was the proprietor of the Bell inn from 1861-1865, the King’s Head from 1865-     
      1869 and the Prince of Wales inn in the Prince of Wales Road (now Chapel Street) from 1869-1883. 

        I recall that my grandfather always emphasised that this uncle Richard, by profession a popular plumber and painter in 
       the vicinity, took over the Bell inn as he just wanted to try his luck at something different since the new Beer Act at that   
      time  had lifted restrictions on the sale of alcohol in an attempt to stimulate the local economy.  As a local ratepayer
      he obtained the necessary  licence to run a pub in Cawston.  I know nothing about his days at the Bell inn and King’s
      Head but I know for sure that when Richard Dunn took over the Prince of Wales inn it was his wife who had more
      involvement that he did. While Richard Dunn was running the Prince of Wales he was still working as a plumber and 
      painter around the village. 

The Prince of Wales was one of several inns in Cawston at that time and it was a popular meeting place providing a social function as well as a warm and comfortable environment.  My grandfather often emphasised that regularly getting drunk constituted one of the main pleasures of life in those days as it providing an escape from reality for many people in Cawston.  However, the pleasure had its price and often resulted in debt and the break-up of family life.  I recall my grandfather telling me about a few unfortunate cases, told to him by his uncle, that actually happened in Cawston. 

From my grandfather I know that the Prince of Wales had its own set of pewter and stoneware mugs and tankards.  The inn also had punch bowls, ladles and glasses where tots were drunk. 

Richard Dunn ran the Prince of Wales successfully despite hard competition in the village from the others who tried their luck at selling beer.  He was contented running this inn but could never become a ‘rich man’ due to the irregular income and high initial investment that literally took years to pay off.  To increase sales Richard Dunn and his wife decided later to offer light food.  I was also told that any food brought into the inn could be heated up in the kitchen of the Prince of Wales for a small fee. 

In a way, Richard Dunn as proprietor of three inns between 1861-1883 was partly responsible for the rise in the consumption of alcohol in the village that consequently increased drunkenness.  He told my grandfather about the fights outside in the street and in the market place after closing hours at weekends.  This happened, luckily, on an irregular basis.  He also told my grandfather that several wives disapproved of their husbands spending their evenings away from home in a public house and it was quite common for them to come to the pub and drag their spouses home in an inebriated state of mind. 

The sale of beers, wines or spirits required a license for the premises from the local magistrate. Licence conditions varied widely, and from what I remember local practice in Cawston up to the early1860’s required inns to close on Sundays.  This was then changed in the 1870’s to allow the pubs to open for short hours on Sundays.  I recall my grandfather telling me that in the 1870’s a large market fair took place in Cawston and during that weekend event the Prince of Wales was allowed to remain open all night. This was known as an “Occasional Licence” which was granted in those days inexceptional circumstances.

My grandfather also told me about the Salvation Army, an active campaigner against drink founded in 1865, who once campaigned outside the Prince of Wales in an attempt to stop people from drinking.  From what I was told they were only there once as they got frightened by the large number of inebriated men who insulted them. 

The name, Prince of Wales, showed the loyalty of the British nation to the son of Queen Victoria, Price of Wales, who acceded as King Edward VII in 1901.  So even in the later 19^th century in Cawston some of our nation's history was seen in this public-house sign.                              Related Link: Public Houses

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2.   The Dunn family in Cawston (1896 - 2007)

       When my grandparents lived at the Ratcatchers Row in the 20^th. century they lived in a world of making jam, bottling fruit,
     talking about farming and the weather, going on walks to see the peaceful fields around Cawston and had neighbours who
     really did care.  The lived at a time when farming in Cawston had a great influence on their lives and indeed on the life of
     the entire village.

      My grandfather, Cecil Dunn (1895-1982) was dedicated to the land all his life with the exception of the years 1914-1918
     when he served the British Army, spending some of these years in northern India.  During his lifetime he worked for farmers in and around Cawston and in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s owned the Bluebell Wood along the Norwich Road with his brother. A dispute between him and his brother resulted in them selling this small farm.  Those who still remember my grandfather will recall his Broad Norfolk speech.  All his life he used distinctive Norfolk vocabularly (cor blarst me, lend us a lug, fare y'well, don’t talk squit) which identified him as citizen of rural Norfolk. He belonged to the generation who in those days could only communicate using the broad Norfolk dialect.                       
Related Link: War Times Index
                                                                                                                            (Cecil Dunn was mostly seen smoking his pipe)

 

My grandfather had about 10 brothers and sisters, all born in one of the old red brick houses that belonged to the old Ratcatchers Row.  After he married my grandmother
Bessie from Oulton in the 1920’s he moved from his parent’s house to the house next door which was the closest house to the Ratcatchers Inn.  I do not remember much about my great grandparents as they both died a few years after my birth.  I do, however, remember the lovely traditional Norfolk shortcakes my great grandmother regularly baked.  I vividly remember the house with a copper in the kitchen that was always steaming and the garden that always seemed to be rather overgrown with weeds.  

                                                                  (Floral arrangements Cecil Dunn’s funeral in 1982)
 

Most of the brothers and sisters of my grandfather moved away from Cawston.  My great Aunt Bee (Etherington) went to London to marry and spent nearly all her life working in the social service sector in Buckingham Palace. My Great Aunt Ivy also moved to London.  Great Uncle Wilfried fell in love with Mrs Monsey’s daughter, Dolly, who lived along the Ratcatchers Row; they married and settled down at Costessey. 

          (Bee Etherington (nee Dunn) and her daughter Joan)

My grandmother Bessie Dunn, whom my grandfather married in the early 1920’s, died in 1969 at the age of 71.  When
my grandfather came back from the first World War he saw my grandmother scrubbing the steps of her mother’s house and said that he would like to marry her. And that is what happened.  She came from the small village of Oulton, some 3 miles north-west of Aylsham.  The gravestones of a few of her family can be seem around the church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Oulton village.  She also had about 10 brothers and sisters and I cannot recall their whereabouts.  She was a good old lady, kind, understanding and always had a shortcake and cup of tea ready for her visitors.  She can best be described as a person that knew how to cook in the good old Norfolk style.  Nearly everything she cooked and baked was home-made based on produce from the garden and local shops.  After a fall at the age of about 60 when she broke her leg she had problems with walking which deteriorated so much that in her last few years she was not mobile at all.  But still, she always had a pleasant smile on her face as she smoked her woodbine and enjoyed her cups of Brooke Bonds tea. 

     My grandmother and grandfather had three children, Reginald, Beryl and Barbara: 

Reginald, known as Reggie who was born in the late 1920’s.  He served in the marines. He met Tess from Manchester, was converted to a Roman catholic so that he could marry her (such were the laws in those days) and then lived for a while at Eastgate before moving to Buckinghamshire in 1954 and then to Bromley in Kent a few years later.  Reggie died in 2000. 
They had two children:  Lorraine, who married an Australian and migrated there some 30 years ago and Frank who lives with his wife and two children in Bromley, Kent.

 

          The second child was my mother Beryl born in 1930, married in 1937 and lived in one of Mill Cottages for about 25 years before moving to Jubilee Close. In 1998 she moved to a home for the care.
She was initially at Barton Turf, then Coltishall, Aylsham and North Walsham. She died on 4th May 2005 following a cancer operation. I am the oldest of my mother's two children an have lived in Germany since 1972.
Mervyn, my younger brother, married and moved to Marsham in the late1970's Later on he moved to Norwich and lives in  Aylsham. He has two daughters.

Floral arrangements at the funeral of Beryl Yaxley               and piece from the North Norfolk News on right

                      
                                                Barbara Barwick and Beryl Yaxley, sister, nee DUNN
 

Michael Yaxley, son of Beryl Yaxley

                                        
                                
                                   
                                                                 Mervyn Yaxley, son of Beryl Yaxley

                 
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3.  Aspects of the life of the Dunn Family in Cawston

Working Life There was no 40 hour working week when my grandfather was a young man. It was normal for him to work 6 days a week and up to 10 hours a day and even longer during the harvest. Farming was hard work, with long days and little money. Work and play revolved around the seasons. My grandfather always took his own self-made bag to work with him which was made ITom a piece of sack that has been carefully sewn at the seams. It was filled with jam sandwiches, home-made Norfolk shortcakes, that provided nourishment in times when money was short, and a glass bottle of hot tea. He would go to work on his old rusty bike. When he worked in the village he would often spend his lunch hour talking to the men outside Overton's shop on Cawston Market Place. On Fridays he would meet the men in Mrs. Stackwood's fish and chip shop. And when he had finished work he cycled back to the Ratcatchers Row where my grandmother had prepared a hot meal and pot of tea.

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Farming My grandfather was very knowledgeable about agriculture in and around Cawston. He knew almost everything there was to know about the land, the farmers and especially pig breeding, a subject on which he could give substantive advice to many farmers. He also saw major changes in agricultural life in Cawston, e.g. how sugar beet suddenly became a major crop in Cawston between World War I and World War II which was taken to the specially built sugar beet factory at Cantley He often talked about the sheep that grazed on the fields before World War I and which were increasingly replaced by dairy farming replaced between the two wars.

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My grandfather often talked about horse power and oxen that still reigned in Cawston when he was a boy. He experienced the years of the farming slump of the 1920's and 1930's when several fields in Cawston were not planted with crops at all. If I remember correctly, my grandfather was not impressed by the introduction of chemical fertilisers in the 1930's as he frequently suffered from a hand rash in those days that resulted from "all that unnatural chemical stuff" as he used to say. He was very knowledgeable about the tractors for ploughing, the combines for harvesting and the sprayers for applying chemicals that gradually emerged in Cawston during his lifetime and that have enabled the work on the land to be done by fewer and fewer people. He was also very direct at criticising the local farmers for making men redundant because of the introduction of more
advanced technology.

I remember him telling me how many hedges, mainly at Eastgate and Haveringland, were pulled down when combine harvesters were introduced. This avoided having to dismantle the combines in order to get them into the many small fields. He observed how the farm owners gained land by doing this and increased their own income which they did not always pass on to the local farmer workers.

Dead Pigs A common sight in Cawston between the two World Wars was to see men wheeling dead pigs to their homes on wheelbarrows. At irregular intervals the Dunn family would buy a pig £rom a farmer in Cawston and have it slaughtered. My grandfather would then bring it back to the Ratcatchers Row in a wheelbarrow and share it with his brother Fred, (married to May), who lived at Eastgate. My grandmother's task was then to make pork cheeses and dripping, the fat that was produced £rom the unusable parts of the pig. Her pork dripping was subsequently used as cooking fat and also eaten on bread or toast.

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Housekeeping In the first half of the 20th century it was a woman's job to keep the house tidy and do the cooking and that is exactly what my grandmother and all other housewives along the Ratcatchers Row did. I remember that my grandmother always seemed to be rubbing soap on the hinges of the doors in the house to prevent them from squeaking. When she was not attending to the doors she was cooking and baking. There was the Sunday joint that was delivered by the butcher on Saturdays. Ham and tongue were also eaten £requently, cut in almost see-through slices, as well as sandwiches with meat or fish paste. My grandparent's always had some tins of corned beef on the pantry floor as well as tins of pilchards, baked beans, tinned pears and peaches, condensed milk and on the higher selves there were always supplies of digestive and plain biscuits and cream crackers. This constituted the stable diet in those day.

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Outside the Dunn's home at the old    Ratcatchers Row.

Barbara and Fred holding their twin daughters,
Key and Kim in 1960.
 

  Barbara and Fred with their twin daughters in 2005








 

Gardening  Families in the first part of the 20^th. century in Cawston spent their time spare time doing very simple things.  The pursuits and interests during my grandparent’s life covered hunting, shooting, farming, gardening and equestrian interests.   He planted vegetables, fruit and flowers.  My grandfather’s interest in his garden was always an all-time high, due mainly to the need to feed the family with good and fresh food.  Unlike the next generation that has less knowledge of gardening and see the outside space as an extension of the indoor living area, gardening remained my grandfather’s main interest all his life.

I remember my grandfather telling me that World War II created a major food shortage and everyone was asked to grow as much food as possible for the nation.  He told me about the so-called ‘digging campaign’ which encouraged people to take on an allotment and to grow food, such as potatoes that could be stored for a long time.  He also told me that the men in Cawston dug up many lawns of neighbours to make space for growing vegetables.

Up to a certain age he could often be seen in the garden or on the road shooting at the birds that he maintained ate his fruit and vegetables.  I do not think he ever killed a bird but just wanted to frighten them away. For a while he also kept pigeons. 

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Cawston School  My grandfather and all of his three children were educated at the old Cawston school that closed in 1953.  I recall numerous conversations with my grandfather and mother about the old times there. My grandfather often spoke about the headmaster’s cane for the bad boys and the girls who were made to stand in the corner with their back to the class for an hour as means of punishment.  They talked about the old scratched wooden desks full of woodworm, the untidy classrooms, the slate boards that scratched when you wrote on them, the good and bad times with the teachers as well as the games they played on Norwich road as there were not many cars about in those days.  My mother always talked about how they lined up at school even on very cold winter days with the girls wearing pixie hats and suffering from chilblains.  I also learned from my mother that she and some of the other children were told off at school for finger sucking and nail biting.  Compared to today, education was very basis (reading, writing, spelling, history, geography) with a strong emphasis on behaviour. My grandfather and his children walked to school, in rain or sunshine, and spent the summers helping in the fields.

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British Legion  Like most men in Cawston my grandfather was an active member of the British Legion which he always supported, and not only on poppy day.  He was always very proud to wear his poppy for several weeks in the autumn and would ensure that this organisation caring for the needs of the ex-Service people, would never go unheard.

                                  Related Link:- British Legion

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Cawston Heath money  My grandfather disagreed with the councils decision taken in the early 1960’s to discontinue the payment of the Cawston Heath money to the parishioners of the parish.  As a public way of addressing this issue a couple of critical letters written by him on this subject were published in the Eastern Daily Press.  My grandfather loved Cawston heath and always described it as a very special place in the village, not only for shooting in those days but also as a habitat for wild life. 
                                                                                                 Related Links:- Cawston Heath
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Home Deliveries  My grandmother often said that she looked forward to the home deliveries as she spent most of the time in the house by herself.  The delivery persons in those days were like pigeons carrying local gossip from door to door and always seemed to have time for a friendly chat.  There was the early morning delivery of the Eastern Daily Press.  The postman and milkman came every day, the baker and butcher twice a week, the fishmonger from Cromer on Fridays, the ice cream man on Sundays, Pages from Aylsham on Saturdays and the grocery van from Reepham late at night on Fridays.  The choice of goods was not influenced by price as suppliers all charged the same.  Until the late 1950’s the coal merchant came from Haveringland every Saturday by horse and cart. Later on Mr. Easton from Eastgate took over the delivery of coal.  And then there was the Indian gentleman who came along the Ratcatchers Row with a large brown suit-case full of underwear and hankerchiefs constantly reminded his clients that he had a large family to feed.

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Difficult year (1920-1930)  I often heard conversations from my grandparents about the difficult years; the 1920’s and 1930’s, when no one had much money.  During the early 1920’s my grandmother used to do errands to earn some money e.g. domestic services like cleaning the steps or picking neighbour’s apples in the late summer.  These were times when you could rely on neighbours at the Ratcatchers Row to help each other through hard times, sickness, and accidents.  My grandparents always said that the neighbours were more friendly in those days.  If you were ill or needed something they would always come to see you.  I remember one autumn when my grandfather took some dry leaves from the hedgerow and rubbed them between his palms with a little tobacco and then put the mixture in his pipe for a smoke.  He told me that he and the other men in the village did this regularly in times of the depression when tobacco was short
.
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Health  I remember my grandfather telling me how he pulled out the tooth of his brother in the 1930s as he could not afford to go to the dentist.  His home remedy was to tie string to the tooth and tied the other end of the string to the door, and then slammed the door.  It actually worked.  I remember him telling me that the family cleaned their teeth with salt water.  I also recall being told that there were occasional scares when a contagious illness struck - such as scarlet fever or diptheria and everyone was warned to keep away from the home of those affected without much fuss.  In the early part of the century there were no National Health Service to provide antibiotics and penicillin.  Although the living conditions the Dunn family lived were clean, they were unhygienic up to the late 1950’s with outdoor closets, but it was remarkable what a strong and healthy family they remained. 
 
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Sunday Walks  The Sunday afternoon walk seemed to be obligatory for the Dunn family as far back as I can remember.  Both my mother and grandfather always talked about the walks to Haveringland, Brandiston and Booton. 
My grandfather’s favourite summer walk was to St. Peter’s church at Haveringland.  My grandfather often talkedabout and walked to see the hangars at Haveringland airfield.  The camp itself was situated partly on the airfield and partly in the park of Haveringland Hall.  After the withdrawal of the RAF from Haveringland 1947 the airfield was kept intact for another decade before it was sold.  Not far from the airfield were the high hedges covered with blackberries in the late summer.  Despite menaces like barbed wire, bulls, nettles, thorns and insects the entire family would go blackberry picking in August and September. 

As a child I particularly enjoyed the walk to St. Nicholas church at Brandiston with its squat round tower and hidden away behind trees and bushes.  The Sunday walks to Booton church from Eastgate took us past Booton clay pits where we often watched the men fishing.  They never seemed to catch any big fish; only small ones that they threw back into the water.  We then made our way to St. Michael and All Angels church at Booton which was always open to the public on Sundays.  At the old school in Booton, that was later converted to a house we turned back, went to the clay pits again to see if the men had caught any fish and then arrived back at the Ratcatchers Row for our 5 o’clock tea. 

Michael Yaxley    June 2007