Myth becomes Reality

A couple of days ago on Fathers' Day, I mentioned my granddad, Fred Dawe. He was born into a long line of farmers and, at the time my Mum was born, he and wife Joan - along with his parents and his uncle and aunt - ran Tinnell Farm near Saltash in Cornwall. During the war, and being in a reserved occupation, he was part of the local Home guard. The Dawe family also took responsibility for three brothers evacuated from London - Les, Ern and Vic Cummings - who would spend 12 years living on the farm as their parents had died back in London.

The Dawes of Tinnell Farm: Back (LtoR) Joan Dawe (my grandmother), Brian Dawe (Uncle), Fred Dawe (grandfather), Meg Dawe (my mum), Bertha Crabb & Arnold Crabb (great aunt and uncle). Front (LtoR) Mr and Mrs H W Dawe (great grandfather and grandmother), Jean Crabb (1st Cousin once removed). 

By the time I was born my grandparents lived in a large town house in Saltash with a creepy attic and an amazing basement 'area' where my brothers and I would rummage through boxes of old Eagle comics when we visited. 

Grandad Fred had left the world of farming and his day job was driving a lorry around local farms collecting full milk churns to take to the dairy - I even went out on the rounds with him a few times.

So how did he own this big house, I wondered? And why wasn't he a farmer any more? 

The story I was told was that he'd invented some kind of muckspreader and sold the patent to an agricultural machinery company. That had provided enough cash to retire from farming, buy a nice house and be set for life. The reason he now collected milk churns was that he'd got bored - he went back to work, even though he didn't need the money, because he couldn't stand being idle. And he chose churn collecting as it kept him close to his old friends in the farming community. But then, he also told me that he had shot down a German bomber when one flew over the farm, and that a Spitfire had once landed in the farm fields. So I took his stories with a pinch of salt. 

But then ... 

One of the lads who had been evacuated to the farm during the war wrote a memoir in the early 2000s and sent my Mum a copy. I got to read it recently and, amazingly, Vic's memoirs back up my grandad's stories. 

In the book, he recalls seeing my grandad firing at the German bomber and he writes that they later heard that a bomber had crashed into the sea off Devonport. Could my grandad's boast have been true? 

It also transpires that the Spitfire story was true too. A Spitfire really did land on the farm after developing engine trouble and, to this day, Tinnel Farm is listed as having a private airstrip. 

And then there was this page and photo ...

'Fred Dawe, known as my 'Uncle Fred' lived in the lower cottages with his wife Joan. He was a great character and was also a sporting man, although his leisure time activities were more of a country nature. This included shooting and hunting and several other activities which perhaps the local landowners might not have approved of and certainly the salmon fishing authorities would have frowned upon to say the least if only they had only known! 

He was one of the most happy and contented men that I have known, and never more so than when he had "bagged' a pheasant with his trusty .22 rifle. He was a crack shot and very rarely missed his target. I don't think I ever heard him speak badly of anyone, or do anything to hurt anyone in the whole of my life and he was a man that a boy could safely try to emulate if he wished to become a better person - not withstanding his anti-establishment activities. 

He also invented things, and one of the things he built for the farm was a "Dung Spreader". This was made from the back axle of a small car. A rotating platform was built onto the prop shaft universal joint and the axle was then inverted and pulled behind a trailer. The platform rotated and spread the manure evenly over the ground. The photograph shows the actual spreader that he built and a very effective piece of equipment it was, saving both time and great deal of hard work.'

It seems I did my grandad a disservice.

What an extraordinary man he was. And having the kind of grandfather, and father, that I had probably goes some way to explaining the sort of man I am today.