robin press
WWI to today and HORACE’S story
During WWI Harry and Ada Marr at Barton were extremely kind to colonials of all kinds, some no doubt encountered by Muriel nursing the wounded. Because of Alec, several Australians were befriended, amongst them Harold Ferguson, who later was made prisoner of war. When released he reappeared at Barton, claiming to have been a friend of a Yorkshire boy called Spedding, who had died whilst a prisoner. Ada feeling that the Spedding family should have news of their son`s last days, wrote to them in Dewsbury, where they were well known. Tom Spedding came down to see Ferguson. At the time Ray Abbott was a farm pupil at Barton, having been invalided from the Navy, Horace was at home, and he was invited to go home with Ray to Grange Hill, where father Abbott had a milk distribution business, for a week-end. Ray`s sister Margery was invited back to Barton. She came in father`s car with her sister Eileen, who fell sick, and also had to stay for the week-end. Tom Spedding fell in love with Eileen and Horace with Margery. Ada is said to have ‘intended’ Tom for Muriel. Tom Spedding did not believe the tale which Ferguson told that he was owed money by his brother when he died, however it seems probable that Tom paid the debt. Ferguson wrote to Muriel for years after his return to the South Seas, and I collected the stamps from his letters.
On 2nd October 1920 Horace married Margery, and took over the Barton Farm which was rented from King`s College. His father, mother and Muriel retired to 77 Hartington Grove, Cambridge, a house with a history as the original home of a small research hospital. Tom Spedding married Eileen on 26th October 1922.
In 1921 Horace, filling his car with petrol from a tin (the normal manner of the time), raised his head suddenly catching an eye on the shaft of a cart. He lost the eye and ever afterwards wore an artificial one. I was never sure at which to look. His partial blindness seemed not to hinder him from driving or hunting of which he was especially fond, keeping a horse for many years and employing a groom, whom my mother thought he should not afford! Horace was a most gregarious character with a perpetual twinkle in his good eye (and the other too I believe), was chairman of the local National Farmers Union and a keen Special Constable.
Horace, tiring of the heavy land at Manor Farm, thought dairying would be more profitable, and in the 1920s moved to the next village, Haslingfield where he built up a prize winning herd of milk producing cows on another College owned farm, Springhall. I think this belonged to Queen`s College. King`s owned Barton and Christ`s College owned Malton. So close to Cambridge perhaps this College wealth is not very surprising, but I was intrigued to find that a Hague farm near Pontefract belonged to Lincoln College, Oxford.
(This is an appropriate point at which again to refer, with little comment, to the newspaper cutting of Jo Marr`s letter to The Yorkshire Evening Post in 1935, which had arisen because a certain family claimed to farm 2000 acres. He said ‘my twin brother is farming in Ontario, and has 2 farms, one mainly growing tobacco and the other a mixed farm. Another brother has a sheep ranch of 8000 acres in New South Wales, and another (i.e. Horace) a 650 (Horace`s son Alan says it was actually 360) acre farm near Cambridge. He has taken the gold medal for milk yield for Cambridgeshire for 2 years from descendants of my father`s cows’).
Ada Marr died of diabetes in 1928. Insulin had been isolated in 1922, presumably too late to be of great benefit to her.
Harry Marr went to market in a pony trap drawn by Creamy, which I remember in the Lion Yard in Cambridge. My father never owned a car. With no responsibilities I bought my first, a Wolesley Hornet, a 6 cylinder open sports car for £40, second hand but in good condition, in 1936.
I went to Cranwell in 1934, learnt to fly in piston engine aircraft (jet engines were not even first tested until 1941). In 1937, as the lightest pilot in my squadron, I was sent to learn to fly autogyros, which the RAF were testing to assess their suitability for Army-co-operation duty. It never occurred to me that they would be superceeded by helicopters, an alternative line of development, or that these would become the invaluable machines now in universal use. A Sikorski helicopter was made available for me to fly for trials at Porton in 1949.
The War affected my generation in many ways, not least in providing wives and husbands. Alan Marr, Margo, Harry, Janet Malloy and I all come into this category. The others have been mentioned elsewhere, but as this story is at least partly for use by my own family, even though our Marr/Green element is now reduced to a small fraction, I shall insert my twig here. I met a WAAF (Women`s Auxiliary Air Force) Officer, a recently qualified architect, Christina Hindshaw, and she married me in 1941. Our son Martin, born in 1944, trained as a doctor of medicine, and was on the staff of Yale Medical School for a time and is now a consultant endocrinologist in London, married to Angela Lewis, a midwife, health visitor and nurse. They have 5 sons. Our daughter Alison, born in 1946, has experienced farming, nursing, teaching and is happily married to an architect. They have two daughters.
During the War I crossed the Atlantic twice in the Queens. As a family we used the same vessels when posted to the USA in 1949, and when returning from there in 1953. In 1950 I flew back by BOAC on a visit to England, for commercial aircraft were finally able to cross the Ocean. After the War the Cunard Company operated the 2 Queens, Mary and Elizabeth across the Atlantic most profitably for a decade. In his book Geoffrey Marr tells the gradual decline of the Transatlantic Liner trade in the 60s and of his attempts to get the Cunard Board to face the facts of air travel, the demands of the public for greater comfort, and that the future of their liners lay in the pleasure-cruise field.
After WWII Horace was able to buy Springfield Farm as a sitting tenant, so was able to sell with ‘vacant possession’ at an enhanced figure. He spent some time searching for another farm, finally settling for 300 acres of very heavy land at Leycourt Farm, Great Gransden near Sandy, in Bedfordshire. I think he sold Springhall before the land was wanted for the Mullard Radio Observatory and the adjacent railway line removed, so another owner may have reaped the benefit of selling lucratively on that account.
Horace ran Leycourt for some years with his son Alan (born 9th March 1923), back from the Army service in the Royal Armoured Corps, before finally letting him take over. Alan took after his father in involving himself with local affairs, as school governor and a keen supporter of the National Farmers Union, serving as vice chairman of the local branch and on several committees. Horace died on 23rd October 1971, his wife Margery in 1987. Alan`s son Philip had not wished to farm, preferring to become a teacher, so in 1988, Alan, the last in this line of farmers, sold the farm to enjoy retirement with his wife Margaret Cavanagh (another ex nurse). They married in Barton on 21st November 1945. In addition to Philip they have a daughter Susan.
Horace`s daughter Jean (born 30th September 1926) married John Ling in July 1952 and they still farm near Great Gransden. They have 2 children Valerie and David.
