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<<Home <<Site Map <<Photo Archiving Project >>BBC Radio Derby interview - August 2001 |
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BBC Radio Derby Interview Tuesday 7th August 2001 Please note that this interview was “live on-air” & therefore unedited. Transcribed by Helen Wilson THE PEOPLE
- John Holmes - BBC Radio Derby presenter
- Annie Delin - society member
- Betty Sneap - society member & local historian
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THE INTERVIEW (continued ... Page 2) |
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John: …absolutely superb. So what have you got there? I mean you’ve got, there’s Erm… What the Snowdrop Tea at the village. |
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Betty: Yes. |
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John: What’s the Snowdrop Tea? |
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Betty: Well the Snowdrop tea is a very old celebration; it goes back… I’ve got details of it for more than a hundred and twenty years, and it is in fact the anniversary celebration for the old Non-Conformist chapel which stood at the end of the village... that’s sadly gone. We’ve got a nice photograph of it there. But it was built during the seventeenth century… by the vicar at the time… and it… stayed in use on and off for quite a long time. It became eventually a Methodist chapel; one of the Methodist denominations or segments had it… and the Snowdrop tea was their anniversary celebrations and it was always held on Shrove Tuesday. And when the chapel went out of use it was continued, and we still have the Snowdrop tea on Shrove Tuesday in the village. |
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John: What a lovely custom. |
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Betty: Yes. |
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John: What a lovely name as well. It says here on this thing Pentrich old Non-Conformist chapel dating from the ejection of the vicar of Pentrich under the act of uniformity 1666. |
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Betty: That’s right it was the Reverend Porter. And Mmm… he was ejected from his living. And he was… he had to live outside the village… and shortly after the chapel was built it had to be closed down because of one of the religious acts that was passed, and he held all the services out at Luncroft Farm, which is just on the edge of the village really… out towards Oakerthorpe. |
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John: Your famous for your eccentric vicars aren’t you? |
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Betty: Oh [laughs]… we’ve had a lot of eccentric people in Pentrich… yes |
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Annie: We’ve got a picture of another one of our eccentrics here… he’s…somebody that a lot of people would have heard of… Yanky Walters. |
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Betty: Yes… Yes his name was Yanky Walters. He died in 1965 aged ninety-seven. He was an exponent of Esperanto, he was a vegetarian when vegetarianism was unheard of… and he was called Yanky because his parents took him out of the country, when he was a child to avoid being inoculated. His parents were vegetarian and humanitarian and all the rest of it… and they believed that he shouldn’t be inoculated so they took the children off to America, to avoid that… and he came back with an American accent and so he got the name Yanky Walters. |
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John: It’s funny that you mention vegetarianism. I remember meeting a vegetarian when I was, when I first started to broadcast, We’re only talking the last thirty years. Thinking… well, they don’t look ill. |
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Betty: No [Laughs] |
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John: Isn’t it strange that attitude we had… |
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Betty: Yes… yes. |
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John: …We expected them because they didn’t eat meat, to be, and yet of course, Mmm, we’re now finding that they’re healthier than people who eat meat nowadays. This actually is a lovely picture it’s outside the… it says “The health stores”. |
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Betty: Yes, that’s now… |
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John: That… That’s an old store isn’t it? |
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Betty: That’s 1920 that is. |
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John: A health Store in the 1920’s?… |
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Betty: A health store in 1920 in Pentrich. It’s now Cherry Cottage in Pentrich. If you come to Pentrich it’s the one with the post box in the end of the wall. Mmm, and he moved out of the village when he retired and then he came back again and he called his retirement home “Lasonavero” which means a healthy life. That cottage is still there. |
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John: Well he lived a healthy… what, ninety what was it? |
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Betty: Ninety-Seven. In 1958 when he was fast approaching ninety, he was advertising in the Ripley & Evening News to say that he would travel anywhere, within reasonable distance on a bicycle… to give informative talks on vegetarianism. [Laughs] |
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John: Really… What a man! |
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Betty: Yes he was. |
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John: This is a lovely picture this… because its got, that you can see the sun is shining, it’s on the… it’s a low sun, so it’s either done first thing in the morning or late at night. It would be first thing in the morning I guess, I don’t bet… I’m not sure how we’re looking…A lovely shadow of his peaked head against the wall. |
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Betty: Yes |
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John: Is he a postman? |
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Betty: He was a postman, yes ... and on… the child that you can see was in fact his son Francis… and it’s only two or three years since Francis died… and he continued the…vegetarian tradition. They didn’t have any children but his mother adopted a child from an orphanage in Liverpool and brought them up. |
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John: See when we’ve been talking for what? - Over five minutes now… and all I’ve looked at is three photographs. |
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Betty: I know. |
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John: It’s… |
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Betty: Yeah. |
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John: What’s the Wayside Café at Pentrich. They’ve got some fine… Topiary is that called? When you do that… when you clip chickens and things into hedges? |
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Betty: I don’t know… but Wayside Café was, or still is… at the junction of Asher Lane and… and the Main Road in Pentrich… and it was open until… Oh we’re just talking, the mid to late fifties and they used to have all sorts of teas there. It belonged to the Burgin family and when you read the papers… well before the war; they were having sumptuous Ham teas at Wayside café and then as the war came out they had Faith teas and then American teas when things were given… and it virtually dwindled as rationing took hold. [Laughs] But yes it was em… Wayside café, it’s no longer there as a café but it’s there as a very nice house. |
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John: Lovely garden to sit at… |
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Betty: Yes |
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John: …I assume people used to sit out in the summer there. |
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Betty: Yes |
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Annie: Yes the reasons… so hopefully it’s one of the reasons why people will remember coming to Pentrich… |
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John: Yes |
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Annie: …because walking to Pentrich and through Pentrich used to be… a Sunday occupation and particularly around that date, when… hopefully people would remember that they’d been to the café, that they’d sat in the gardens; you can see the Church from the gardens. It’s really the most picturesque part of the village, cos it’s the old centre. So one thing that we’re hoping for is not just pictures of the café but maybe pictures taken from the café or… in the gardens or in the fields around. |
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Interview Continues ... | >>Page 3 | |
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