Caroline Stride, Transcript1, Part 5
Images: Caroline Page, copyright reserved. For any rights requests, please contact the New Forest Heritage Centre in the first instance.
Caroline Stride Trans 1 CH5 Duration: 6:17
(CS010)
Caroline: This was Ted Penny on a riding horse here. Sadly, I don’t know his name, I ought to; it’s looking back towards Brent Hill which is Minstead Manor on the horizon there and all of the boys would’ve been good horsemen because they turned their animals out on the Forest. They had the dairy cows running out from here at Blackwater; they had New Forest ponies dotted round, all round the Forest; so they had to jump on a horse whenever needs were to ride and get the cows in or round up some ponies that were needed for whatever reason, so they’re all very very adept at riding, and that’s one of Ted and he was – I’m not sure – he would have been in his twenties, early thirties there probably.
CB: Mm Mm. That’s lovely. Right. Number eleven. (CS011)
Caroline: Now this is a picture of my grandmother’s collection and her name was Kitty Snelgrove and Snelgrove, or her father Gerry Snelgrove, was Forestry Commission keeper who lived at Norley Wood in the time of the second – of the First World War, sorry, and out from Norley Wood cottage which was their home there were New Zealanders camped with er – for the First World War. And that was their camp, just out from them, so that’s all I know about the pictures but it is just, you know, it does document the involvement with the New Zealanders in the First World War.
CB: Mmm. Okay, number twelve. (CS012)
Caroline: This is again my grandmother’s, or granny’s collection, Granny Snelgrove’s collection, she was granny brown, actually, when she married but it was why I link back to Snelgrove is the fact it was before she was married living at Norley Wood Cottage, ‘cos he was the Forest Keeper there at the Cottage and you know, it must have been quite something for young girls, they lived there and they must’ve, you know, this must’ve been quite something for foreign, foreign soldiers to be camping sort of within a stone’s throw of the cottage. Mm. Yeah. So that’s good.
CB: And number thirteen (CS013)
Caroline: I think this just shows a well. With the amount of all the soldiers camping there at Norley Wood and that was their water system, I guess.
CB: Yeah. Okay. Number fourteen (CS014)
Caroline: Another one again of the New Zealanders at Norley Wood in the First World War. And I don’t know if they were involved in any forestry practice. Unfortunately, my granny didn’t say very much about the pictures as such but it’s good to have it as a record of what went on there at Norley Wood.
CB: Right, number fifteen (CS015)
Caroline: And this is another one of their work at Norley Wood and it looks to me, you know, they’re clearing quite a large area of timber.
CB: Why would they have done that?
Caroline: Not sure. Whether it went for the war effort in some way? I mean it didn’t look as though it was particularly good quality timber –
CB: No. It’s not very straight, is it?
Caroline: No.
CB: No. Okay. Right. Number sixteen (CS016)
Caroline: This must be one of the officers in the New Zealand army; I recognize him from one of the previous pictures so, again, it certainly was for the Norley Wood collection.
CB: Mmm. Okay. Number seventeen (CS017)
Caroline: Obviously they liked the little dogs; (Laughs) and birds as well, by the looks of things – so, yeah, fascinating.
(CS018)
Caroline: And again –
CB: And again with the dogs –
Caroline: It looks like they might’ve caught something – I hope they weren’t poaching! (Both laugh)
CB: Okay, number nineteen. (CS019) Ah.
Caroline: Now this one is one of the first pictures we have of the pony sale, or the Lyndhurst Fair at Swan Green. And this is sort of how they sold ponies, probably in Edwardian times. And the Penny family obviously featured very big in that sale or that fair. Now that is at Swan Green, up tight against the trees as you can see, and probably it looks as though it might’ve been a hot day and they were perhaps taking a bit of shade there; and we think that was… put the turn of the century – and I can see there’s a young Charlie Penny, his brother Bill –
CB: Hang on a sec, so Charlie Penny sort of centre –
Caroline: With his hat on, cocked to the side, rather jauntily put, and to his left was his brother Bill.
CB: Okay
Caroline: Yeah. And on another one of the pictures you can see his father, but there obviously wouldn’t have been any auctioneers
CB: (Indistinct)
Caroline: It would have been negotiating. There’d be a bit of bartering going on.