Sampford Arundel Memories of the Fox family 1925-1951
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| Beatrice | Gerald |
| I n 1925, the Gerald Fox family moved from Wellington to Easterland, a beautiful country house in the Parish of Sampford Arundel.
Gerald and Bee had one daughter and four sons, and after a time Gerald Fox became a church warden at Sampford Arundel Church. Occasionally, when the vicar`s sermons were too long and tedious, Gerald used to look at his watch and then say quietly to the vicar in the pulpit "Don't you think you have spoken for long enough this morning?" Beatrice unfortunately suffered very badly with arthritis in her later years, and so she used to keep bees - the sting was supposed to be good for that condition - and she used to tend them wearing a hat over which hung swathes of netting. Whether she ever got stung is anybody`s guess! The family had a chauffeur, Mr C W Woodbury, known as "George" and Mabel Cornish the nanny amongst other staff. 
Most summers at Easterland there was a fete in the grounds. In 1929, 600 people came to one in aid of the District
Nursing Association and of the Sampford Arundel Church Bells Fund.
Taken in the late 30`s or 1940, the little girl I am sure is Patricia Fox my cousin with her mother Mary sitting directly behind. The lady in the straw hat looks like Mabel Cornish the nanny, the event was a ladies` cricket match. Someone may recognise some of the others. »» The Wellington Town Silver Band played on the lawn, there were boat trips on the lake, there were donkey rides, Aunt Sallys, Hidden Treasure Competitions, and all the fun of the fair. There was a great interest in a Push Ball Contest when a big ball, seven feet in diameter, had to be pushed over the line by ladies` teams and men`s teams. The ladies` competition was won by a team from St Catherine`s School and the men`s by the Wellington Rugby Club. This was a year after the Foxs` only daughter, Betty, had died at the age of 18 with meningitis.  She had been a pupil at St. Catherine`s School.
During the war Gerald and Bee Fox took in a number of evacuees and refugees.
The dining-room was turned into a bedroom for two mothers and their babies who probably came from London. They eventually decided it was too quiet in the country and returned home! Others were a family of an army officer «« The Fox Family about nine or ten years after Betty died, picture from late thirties or early forties who was away on active service. They had two sons. One evening the BBC made an announcement that Mrs Taunton`s brother who was serving in North Africa had been awarded the Victoria Cross. In 1940, a German plane dropped a 100 lb incendiary bomb at the bottom of the garden at Easterland just as Patricia, 
the eldest grandchild, was going to bed. The windows in the house were broken but fortunately they were covered with
sticky netting fabric to prevent flying glass and were also blacked out. Land mines were also dropped nearby which killed some cows.
The cellar had been set up as an air-raid shelter
Trying out the gas masks! »» with camp beds, tins of food, books and games, etc, but it was never used as such. There was also a tin box buried in the garden full of provisions such as a side of ham, etc. - just in case. Once a week on a Thursday during the war, Bee used to hold a "knitting party" in the billiards room where the ladies of the village gathered and knitted comforts for the Armed Forces and were sent home with skeins of blue wool to knit balaclava helmets and gloves for the men fighting at sea. As in all English villages, the men of Sampford Arundel not already in uniform enlisted in the Home Guard. 
They set up a firing range and carried out patrols and exercises. Easterland was the headquarters and Sergeant Barber,
the head gardener, was in charge. Mrs Fox kept a revolver and ammunition in a drawer of her dressing table.
«« The Sampford Arundel "Dad's Army! One night Mabel Cornish was called to "Come at once, as Mr Barber has had a dreadful accident". Bicycling back to his cottage at Easterland from the pub, he had a nasty fall. He had walked back with his face and tongue bleeding profusely. Mabel hurried to his cottage to administer first aid and then returned to the house to phone Dr. Harding. The doctor came out at once and put in many stitches with Mabel holding the light. A fete was held at Easterland for the Wellington Fund for the raising of money to contribute towards the purchase of Spitfires to combat the German Air Force. 
On Sundays when the family went to church, Bee always removed the rotor arm from the car and placed it in her handbag so
that if there were an invasion during the church service at
Grandfather and George Woodbury have been "shopping" during the war »» least the car was immobilized! In WWI Gerald Fox used to spend his nights as a hospital orderly and his days in keeping the business going and his money on the wounded and refugees. More Memories
[I am not sure whether these were two farms or
one farm with two names?]He had bought a horse called Kerry Blue before the war in 1931, and used to hunt with the Tiverton
Foxhounds and race in point-to-points.
«« Hubert, Farmer (unknown), and Cockerel! (we would like to know where this picture was taken, any offers?) When he was away with the Royal Navy the horse was stabled with friends who lived in the village, Captain Stephen Williams, a sportsman of the old school, and his energetic wife Maguerite. 
The spring was always beautiful at Easterland, the great trees in bud and the grass ablaze with daffodils and primroses. Marguerite Williams this picture is believed to have been taken in front of Sandfield House at Whiteball »» On the afternoon of April 19th 1932, fifty or more riders met there for a riding paper chase. A number of naval officers had driven from Portsmouth. Derek Heathcote-Amory, the Master of the Tiverton Foxhounds was there. Jim Lee the then head gardener, in his summer boater and with a beaming smile, handed round stirrup cups on a big tray. The hares laid a course up the hill towards Culmstock Beacon and then back over farmland to Sampford Farm and home.  There were 30 stiff jumps,
including a five barred gate, but there were no casualties. Afterwards most of the riders had tea at Easterland with boiled eggs.
Tea was poured out from a big urn.
«« The Riding Paper-chase After the race there was a party for a dance. During these years cricket matches were played in the field by the lake at Easterland and football matches in the a field at Sampford Farm. Both the Sampford Arundel Cricket Club and the Football Club were started at this time. For most of the next five years Hubert Fox served overseas but in the autumn of 1938, when war clouds were gathering, he was appointed First Lieutenant of HMS Whitehall, a destroyer based on Plymouth. One Saturday the ship`s football team came up in a bus to play Sampford Arundel. One member of the team was the worse for wear when the bus stopped at the village hall. Fortunately the bus arrived early and this man was secreted into the cloakroom without anyone noticing. George Woodbury looked in later in case there was trouble and he witnessed a Chief Petty Officer making sure with his fists that it would be some hours before consciousness was regained. In spite of this drama behind the scenes it was a splendid match, members of the visiting team received hospitality from all over the village, and a dance was held afterwards in the village hall. As the bus started for Plymouth at about 1 am a throng gathered outside the hall for fond farewells. As handkerchiefs were waved, a mysterious bundle was carried out of the cloakroom and deposited in the bus! After the war on retiring from the Navy Hubert, still with a lot to learn, started farming. 
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| Haymaking in the twenties, my father Peter is third from the left | "stooking", late summer, in the twenties or thirties |
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He bought some good foundation cows in Scotland and founded the Easterland Herd of Pedigree Ayrshires.
There was also a large
black sow that had piglets.
I have compiled this from Hubert Fox`s writings and from my cousin Patricia and other members of the family.
My share of Sampford Arundel is that I was christened here in the church from Easterland a year or two before the house
was sold. Members of my family are buried or remembered in the churchyard, the last being my parents.
When Gerald died in 1947, Bee and her son Hubert stayed on until 1951, then sold up and moved to the Quantocks. Hubert, Bee and Mabel Cornish eventually moved down to Holne in Devon so that Bee could be closer to her relatives in her old age... Hubert had written several books including "Marion Fox - Quaker", and "Quaker Homespun" which is the better known as it is about the early history of Fox Bros Wellington. he died at Buckfastleigh in 2000. Written by Sarah Smith, Grand-daughter of Gerald and Beatrice. March 2008
[Much of the above was taken from Hubert Fox`s privately printed book "Mabel Cornish - Tribute to a Nanny 1980". Other memories were from his niece Patricia and other members of the family. 
Easterland with "stooked" sheaves circa 1920/1930
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