Sound recordings

Here are oral history recordings relating to Stanhoe. Most of them were made by current and past residents of the village and collected by Stanhoe Archive.

BBC Village Voice 1986

(52 minutes, © BBC Radio Norfolk 1986)

Wally Webb

In 1986, BBC Radio Norfolk visited Stanhoe for its Village Voice programme. Presenter Wally Webb (photo) spoke to many Stanhoe residents.

The programme is reproduced on stanhoe.org by kind permission of BBC Radio Norfolk, which retains the copyright. The recording was taken from a cassette tape, so the quality is less than perfect.

Eddie Barber (1935–2018)

(1 minute, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2008)

Eddie Barber

Eddie and Jean Barber used to run Stanhoe’s shop and Post Office. In this short clip, Eddie explains that he almost turned the job down after discovering that there seemed to be only two or three family names in Stanhoe – and few house names or numbers.

(2 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2008)

Eddie describes his post round.

(1 minute, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2008)

The post round had its excitements. Here Eddie describes how an elderly resident needed help.

(4 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2008)

Eddie remembers local landowner Roddy Ralli.

Joyce Rowe

(5 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2008)

Joyce Rowe

Mrs Joyce Rowe, born Joyce Smith in 1926, describes coming to Stanhoe in 1940 when her father became landlord of the Crown.

(6 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2008)

Joyce goes on to talk about the family's land at the Crown public house, working for neighbouring farmer Mr Brown, and joining the Land Army.

Derek Scales

(7 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2008)

Derek Scales

Derek Scales, born in Stanhoe in 1948, talks about childhood amusements, school, village cinema, trains at the station, and work on the farm.

(3 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2008)

Derek explains what life was like at the Norfolk Hero pub in the 1950s and 60s.

(23 seconds, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2008)

Derek talks about the annual November 5 bonfire near the pond in the 1950s.

(13 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2008)

Margaret Ayres (1936–2018)

Margaret Ayres was born Margaret Taylor in Terrington St John in 1936. In this conversation with Rosemary Brown she describes how she came to Stanhoe in 1951 when her parents bought the Post Office, life at the Post Office and shop, and how she married the boy next door.

Jean Barber

(8 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2008)

Jean Barber

Jean Barber was born in 1935 at Outwell. She came to Stanhoe in 1964 with her husband Eddie to run the Post Office stores, which also sold petrol. Among their customers for petrol were the Queen Mother and the Duchess of Kent.

Rosemary Brown

(7 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2008)

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Rosemary Brown explains the complicated genealogy of the Ayres family.

(1 minute, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2008)

Rosemary relates Doreen Ayres’s stories of getting water from the Pit and the well.

Eva Blackburn (1923–2012)

(40 seconds, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2008)

Eva Blackburn

Mrs Eva Blackburn, born Eva Rowe in 1923, describes how as a small child she came on a cart to Church Farm, Stanhoe.

(35 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2008)

Stanhoe in the early 1930s: Church Farm; Eva’s memories of farm work, especially involving horses; the carpenter’s and blacksmith’s shops; lorries and cars; childhood games; doctors and district nurses.

(27 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2008)

Stanhoe school, outings, Sunday School, Hospital Sunday, pubs and other village entertainments.

(2 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2008)

Eva remembers how mains water did not reach Stanhoe until 1948, and electricity not until 1952.

(25 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2008)

Col. and Mrs Seymour of Barwick House; the dairy and milk deliveries; organising a household staff of 30; hunt balls and London society; walking to work; trains to school; buses; Mr Wright the carrier; old folk’s outings; the coming of mains water (1948) and electricity (1952); hazards of cooking on an oil stove; bathrooms and other amenities in the early 1960s.

Ronnie Newell (1920–2011)

(24 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2009)

Ronnie Newell was born in 1920 and lived in Stanhoe all his life. Here he talks about his life as a farm worker, sports, Scouting and the Home Guard.

(3 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2009)

Ronnie tells how Charlie Seaman rescued the gunner of an aircraft that crashed in the grounds of Stanhoe Hall, and other hazards of life in Stanhoe during the Second World War.

Ann Adeney

(6 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2010)

Ann Adeney (née Wright) was born in Stanhoe in 1940 and lived here until 1957. The daughter of a strong Methodist family, she talks about the Hunstanton and Docking Methodist Circuit in the 1950s, and the Methodist Chapel in Stanhoe.

(6 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2010)

Stanhoe School in the 1940s and 1950s; Mrs “Kitty” Wake and Miss Pike. The terrible winter of 1947–1948, and writing messages in the snow for German prisoners of war.

Dennis Ford

(8 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2009)

Dennis Ford was born in Leicester in 1935. In 1965 he came from north Lincolnshire to Stanhoe to be headmaster of the village school – and discovered big problems in the relationship between village and school.

(12 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2009)

40 years on the Parish Council: shaking up a feudal organisation; a battle over land ownership; rural attitudes to trees; the restoration of the cross; how the proposal to amalgamate Stanhoe and Barwick Parish Councils disappeared into a bureaucratic black hole on John Prescott’s desk; dog problems; and the Bircham Road footpath project, first proposed in 1972 and moribund ever since.

Gillian Beckett (1935–2016)

(23 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2009)

Gillian Beckett (née Tuck) was a knowledgeable botanist and local historian, and a key member of the WI. Gillian was born in Bromley, Kent, in 1935. She came to Stanhoe with her parents in 1948. Here she describes adjusting to rural life, the pantomimes of 1948 and 1949, and the coming of mains water and electricity in the early 1950s.

(10 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2009)

Winter weather: Stanhoe cut off by heavy snow in 1947 and periodically through the 1950s and 1960s. The great flood of 1953, when Gillian could lean on the wind and the sea roared like a train.

(20 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2009)

Peace and quiet in Stanhoe in the 1950s. The quiet of Norfolk and the dark skies. A huge variety of bird life in the hedgerows. Stanhoe’s four cars. Trains and buses. Three village shops and a Post Office. Deliveries of paraffin, fish and meat. The simplicity of banking and bills. The decline of village self-sufficiency.

Iris Ireson

(16 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2009)

Iris Ireson was born in Syderstone in 1937 and has lived in Stanhoe for most of her married life. For 32 years she was closely connected with the village Sports and Social Club. Here she tells Rosemary Brown about the club’s foundation in 1977 and the successes of the 1980s and 1990s, including the extension of the Reading Room in 1981. The Sports and Social Club closed in February 2010.

Ivy Scales

(14 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2010)

Ivy Scales was born in Stanhoe in 1937. Here she remembers a wartime childhood in Stanhoe, including a plane crash, GIs in transit and Italian prisoners of war.

(6 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2010)

Life at the Norfolk Hero – including the ghost – after the Scales family took over the pub in 1955.

(2 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2010)

Playing near the ruins of St Peter’s chapel in the field by Cross Lane.

Jenny Sparks

(10 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2009)

Station Farm is a very special place: the only remaining small farm in the area, and a haven for wildlife. Jenny Sparks describes how she and her late husband Michael came to Station Farm in 1981 and set about turning back the past.

Ken Foskett (1920–2009)

(22 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2009)

Ken Foskett was born in Ipswich in 1920. From 1984 until his death in 2009 he lived in Stanhoe with his wife Joan. Here he talks about local history, one of his many interests. Ken’s collection of old photographs was an important source for Stanhoe Archive, and he made what may well be unique copies of medieval charters whose originals were later lost.

Noel Linge (c1929–2018)

(14 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2010)

Noel Linge talks about his great-grandfather John Linge, a prominent Stanhoe character. John Linge was born in 1842 and lived in Stanhoe from 1880 to his death in 1924. From 1880 to 1911 he and his wife Anne ran the Crown Inn as well as farming the land attached to the pub. He was Parish Overseer and a member of the Parish Council from its foundation in 1884 until his death.

Olga Ransom (1937–2015)

(10 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2009)

Olga Ransom was born in 1937 and lived in Stanhoe all her life. Here she talks to Rosemary about her husband Tom’s agricultural engineering business, her father Reggie Chilvers who was church organist for 53 years, and her grandmother Annie Steward.

Penny Snape

(21 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2009)

Penny Snape was born Penny Birch in 1946. Here she speaks about coming to Stanhoe with her parents and two brothers in 1952, school, and village social functions. She tells how her father, Cecil Birch, organised a fund-raising drive to rescue the Reading Room when it was in financial difficulties and threatened with closure.

Roddy Rowe

(20 minutes, recording by Rosemary Brown, © Stanhoe Archive 2010)

Roddy Rowe was born in 1958 and has lived in Stanhoe for most of his life. Here he describes his apprenticeship in his father’s joinery, building and wheelwright business, and the making of the village sign in 1976. A stint as a photographer took him to New Zealand, where he built what was at the time the world’s largest aquarium tunnel. He followed this with further aquarium work in Australia and the UK, before returning to Stanhoe in 1988 to take over the family business. Roddy then talks about Stanhoe School and childhood pursuits including fishing in the Pit.

Wendy Eckersley

Wendy Eckersley was born Wendy Seaman at Barwick. Here she talks about her father, Dick Seaman, who lived in Stanhoe all his life and was known for his skill with horses.

Stephen Ireson

Stephen Ireson was born in Stanhoe in 1962. There have been Iresons in Stanhoe since the 18th century; here Stephen tells how Chapel Yard was home to several generations of the family, and describes village life including school, football, the Youth Club and Sunday School.

Photos of Chapel Yard (opens in a new window).

Stephen left school at 16 and immediately joined the army. For a lad who had never been out of Norfolk before, this was something of a culture shock. His 12 years in the Royal Anglian Regiment included two years in Northern Ireland as well as tours of Germany, Belize and Gibraltar.

John Ireson (1954–2019)

John Ireson was born in 1954 and worked on farms in Stanhoe all his life, first for the Rallis at Stanhoe Farms and since 1976 for the Harrolds at Barwick Hall Farm. Here he explains how farming has changed during his lifetime, with a relentless increase in machinery sizes that allows half a dozen men to carry out work that might previously have taken 30.

Doreen Cox (1924–c2017)

Doreen Cox was born Doreen Ayres in Stanhoe in 1924. In this short recording she describes how after starting her working life looking after the Tidd children she graduated to farm jobs, including a spell in the Women’s Land Army where she worked with German prisoners of war. After the war she looked after the Symington children at High Barn until her marriage.

Ellen Finch (1922–2022)

Ellen Finch was born in Snettisham in 1922 and came to Stanhoe in the mid-1960s when her husband worked for Major Ralli as farm secretary at Ivy Farm. She talks about farm work in the 1960s and her lively 21st birthday party when she was stationed at RAF Bircham Newton during the war. Ellen then explains how she grew up in the licensed trade in Snettisham and Hunstanton, and how she came to work in the officer’s mess at Bircham Newton and ran the bar at RAF Docking. Wartime memories include packing up the personal belongings of flyers who did not return, hazards of the blackout, and being driven over an unexploded bomb.

Betty Holmes (1931–2020)

Betty Holmes was born in County Durham in 1931. In 1960 she came to Stanhoe with her family to take over the grocery shop, which was one of three shops in Stanhoe at the time. In conversation with Rosemary Brown, Betty talks about life behind the counter.

Douglas Hurn

Douglas Hurn was born in Stanhoe in 1948. He talks about Stanhoe school, farm work for Mr Symington at High Barn, gangs of village women picking carrots, the youth club, the car accident which injured his mother, Red Cross training run by Mrs Symington, bonfire night, the two village shops, the Post Office, and Tom Curson’s cobbler’s shop.

Ray Birch

Ray Birch and his twin brother Mick were born in Suffolk in 1940 and came to Stanhoe in 1952. In this extended conversation with Rosemary Brown, Ray – who has inherited his father Cecil Birch’s storytelling skills – tells of his 11 years in Stanhoe working for Mr Sanderson at Barwick, for the Calvers at Station Farm, and finally for Major Ralli in Stanhoe.

Many of Ray’s anecdotes are about farming mishaps. They include a tragedy with a boar pig; the death of Harcourt Calver following an accident in 1957; Dick Seaman and the bull; how Reg Hinton died after touching an electricity cable; and Jack Walker’s suicide at Barwick Hall Farm.

Lighter moments include dancing lessons in the Reading Room, the time Fred Rayner threatened the dustmen with a shotgun, and how the 60-year-old Sid Trundle carried 18 stone (114 kg) of wheat plus two men.

Roland Axman

Roland Axman was born in Docking in 1932, but his grandparents, Mr and Mrs Arthur Margetson, lived in Stanhoe. Here he talks about the Margetson family and their cottage (later Mrs Blackburn’s); coppers, tin baths, net curtains and geraniums; gardening; unusual plum and apple trees; cricket and football; sawing firewood; joining Wagg’s as a baker’s roundsman in 1946; night soil and bin collections introduced; new council houses in Station Road, and other new buildings; sale of the Hall; gardening at home and at work; dripping and cheese; the working man’s midday meal; village shops; a close community; Mr Bloy’s taxi; cycling to work and social events; inter-farm sporting competitions in the 1940s; Mr Axman’s maternal grandmother moves back to Stanhoe in 1943, from relative comfort in Fakenham to buckets of water and paraffin lamps in Stanhoe; population changes after the war.

Mark Roche

Mark Roche was born in Douglas, Lanark, Scotland in 1943. In 1978 he came to Stanhoe to live at the Old Rectory. Here he tells Rosemary Brown about the history of the house, its architecture, and how it has served the Roche family as a happy home for more than 30 years.

Ian Holmes

Ian tells of the people and the hard work behind Stanhoe Football Club from its formation at the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977 to its closure at the end of 2007. Although the club enjoyed modest success in the league, perhaps its main achievement was as a social activity. Many members of the original team played through almost the entire history of the club, often with their sons as well.

What equipment did we use?

▼ Click here for more information

All the Stanhoe Archive recordings here were made using an Audio Technica ATM10a omnidirectional condenser microphone and a Marantz PMD660 digital recorder to produce 48 kHz mono WAV files.

The original WAV files were edited losslessly using Fission and then converted to MP3 at 64 kbps.