THE McHARDY FAMILY OF NORTH LOOE
Cefn, Reigate Road, Ewell
Introduction
This is the tale of a smallholding and the people who lived and worked on it. Smallholdings are variously described in dictionaries etc, but in this instance we are talking about a small family farm, primarily a market garden, with livestock. Cefn, off Reigate Road, Ewell was under the stewardship of the McHardy family for several decades. Some time ago Colin John McHardy lent a batch of snapshots to Bourne Hall Museum and we reproduce some of them below, together with a liberal helping of his comments.
Roots
The family originally came from Forres, near Inverness. Colin McHardy (Senior, born 1901) and David McHardy (Senior, born 1912) were brothers. There were six more siblings, two of them being Helen (‘Auntie Neil’) and Ann (‘Auntie Nancy’). Life was tough in north-east Scotland, where only Colin had a job, working in a corn-grinding mill, and he had to support the whole family. Eventually they migrated to England and took on the Cefn smallholding.
Cefn
This first photo was taken c.1932, the McHardys just having taken up residence.
Helen (Auntie Neil), David and Ann (Auntie Nancy) outside Cefn c.1932
Cefn did not come ready-made as a viable smallholding. Colin John tells us: ‘Prior to my father (David Senior) taking over the tenancy of the smallholding, Cefn had been a bramble- strewn chicken ranch and third-rate apple, pear, plum, cherry, greengage and crab apple orchard operated by a Mr Robinson. However, I must admit that the greengages were delicious and the crab apples made superb jelly’.
I’m not entirely clear which McHardys lived permanently at Cefn at any particular moment, but we won’t go too far wrong if we say Colin Senior, David Senior (and, eventually, his wife Barbara and their three children – Margaret, David Charles and Colin John), Auntie Neil and Auntie Nancy. Others flitted in and out for varying periods of time.
Colin Senior (front, feeding a piglet), David Senior (waving) and
an unknown woman, probably late 1930s.
During WW2 the McHardys had German prisoners of war to help with the work. This was quite common on farms and smallholdings, since there was a chronic shortage of able-bodied labour, and food-production had to be maximised. These chaps look happy enough to be out of the firing line.
German POWs at Cefn, WW2 era
‘Overspill accommodation’ on the Cefn premises
Colin Junior said of the above photo, ‘Squalid workers’ living accommodation – you can get away with appalling housing when it’s your relatives. This close-boarded timber-clad hovel was used for living accommodation until the 1960s, when Auntie Neil accidentally burned the place down by setting fire to a tea towel left carelessly dangling over the calor gas stove in the kitchen area seen at right hand side of photo. When Uncle John (McHardy) and Auntie Cathie were in residence (1948-58), this large shed was used as a function room for traditional Scottish Halloween parties complete with apple-bobbing, popping balloons and, depending on which of the clan was in town, accompanied by old-time Scottish violin and accordion music.’
In fact, the shed was multi-functional. One partitioned section of it was used to store petrol, oil and diesel for the tractors – until Auntie Neil burned it down.
Aftermath of the shed fire
If you’re wondering what they grew on the smallholding (apart from chickens, pigs, rabbits, geese and suchlike), here are some pictures.
David McHardy with cloches at Cefn, early 1950s
Colin said, ‘Cloches – thousands of the (expletives deleted)! Believe me, if you had to move the damn things on and off the most pampered crops in Surrey every day, you’d feel pretty vindictive towards them too’. The cloches pictured were in the front field adjoining the Reigate Road and covered early lettuces and chrysanthemums.
The herbaceous border at Cefn, early 1970s
Colin’s comment on the above photo was ‘Triffids infiltrate Cefn’s famous herbaceous border. Dahlias were grown for a short time as an experimental cut flower crop – very labour-intensive and too popular with Ewell’s slugs’.
Lettuces
‘More rows of crops – light green lettuce leaves, acres of them, all lovingly hand-thinned, hoed and slavishly watered with a half-inch hosepipe.’
Chrysanthemums
‘A boy’s worst nightmare! Rows and rows and rows and rows of tar-potted and bamboo-staked chrysanthemums. Making sure I’d watered these thirsty monsters right up to the top of the pot was my “favourite” after-school job – how a young Colin John McHardy prayed for rain.’
Greenhouse tomatoes ripening under the Surrey sun
‘Pater made a point of bragging to anyone gullible enogh to listen about his half acre of glass (mainly 60 foot long Dutch light-frame constructions). Honestly, the way he carried on you’d think we owned Crystal Palace or the Palm House at Kew!’
I’ve mentioned overspill accommodation and here is some more.
Outside Auntie Neil’s caravan at Cefn, 1960
L to R: Colin John, David Charles and Margaret
‘Sunday 5.00pm would have seen us taking afternoon tea in the caravan with Auntie Neil – usually extra-runny scrambled eggs or porridge of a similarly slippery consistency. As there was no electricity supply connected to the caravan, in winter this sloppy ooze would be consumed under the hissing glare of an unpredictable paraffin Tilley Lamp. As we toasted our chapped knees in front of the caravan’s puny coke-fuelled stove, extracts from either A Tale of Two Cities, Treasure Island or The Scarlet Pimpernel would then be read out aloud by Auntie Neil in a manner befitting a wailing 19th century poet.’
Lest you think that it was always sunny at Cefn, here is pause for thought.
Cefn, 1950s
I am including this next one for the information-packed comment, rather than the picture itself.
‘Big Bertha hits Ewell. Mother’s Aunt Bertha from Canada visits Cefn in the early 1960s. I never realised before how shapelessly baggy clothing was before the advent of the scowling, pimply teenage delinquent with his menacing elasticated winklepicker boots, his chewing gum and his fashionable Beatle moptop. Left to right: David McHardy, Colin McHardy in cubs’ regulation summer camp uniform, Big Bertha, Margaret McHardy. N.B. We are standing on the main driveway to Cefn from North Looe Lane, practically opposite the car reversing spur and the large Dutch frame where my mother kept her cactus collection. Was this a premonition of the adverse effects of global warming before it became a popular concept – otherwise, why keep a cactus collection on a smallholding? Behind us are the runner bean wires (ex-GPO telephone wire which could be bought on metal drums by the mile). The line of cordon trees in the immediate background are Conference pears and the higher trees are part of a smaller orchard where pigs could roam free – within reason.’
Colin Senior died on 13 November 1975, leaving David and Barbara in charge of Cefn. Colin John had by then married and started a family with his wife Kathleen.
Colin and Kathleen with (invisible) baby 1971,
but if she’s actually in the pram it will be their eldest child, Emma
David and Barbara at Cefn, probably late 1970s
There is no doubt that Colin the Younger gives lashings of local flavour with his captions.
‘Margaret McHardy and her new Raleigh 3-speed bicycle. Margaret is wearing a rather fetching late-1950s blue check Lintons Lane County Secondary school uniform – a social club I later frequented, but my brother went to that rather snobby Glyn “yes, we speak Latin” Grammar School. You must realise the sole function of secondary modern schools and their 11-plus failures within was to churn out unquestioning cannon fodder for the ex-Glyn Grammar officers to boss around during the predicted World War 3 that never came – thank god! Margaret is standing in front of the McHardys’ second-hand, navy blue Austin fruit and veg delivery van –previously owned by a major London clearing bank. It replaced a petrol-guzzling ex-army soft-top troop carrier, drab olive green in colour. The army lorry’s saving grace was its flip-open escape hatch in the cab roof, whereby boys could play at being machine-gunning, grenade-throwing commandos all day long. Friday was devoted to delivering spuds, cabbages, swedes, canned peas, boiled beetroot, strawberries, peaches, rhubarb and other seasonally available organic roughage and vitamins door-to-door around the households of Epsom: Links Road, Squirrels Way, Jacksons Close, Downs Road, Burgh Heath Road, Downs Avenue, St. Martins Avenue, Christchurch Mount etc. Saturday morning deliveries would take in the Drift Bridge, Epsom Downs and Nork area. As a boy, I’d get ten bob for helping on a Friday and five bob for helping on Saturday morning. Riches beyond belief!’
Like many exposed rural enterprises, the Cefn smallholding took a big hit during the Great Storm of October 1987 – it was an extratropical cyclone, to give it its proper description. This is what happened at Cefn.
David Senior died in 1995 and Barbara then moved to Felixstowe; she died in the winter of 2005/06.
Researched and written by Linda Jackson 2021
All images and most captions kindly provided by Colin John McHardy ©