Mr. Rufus Morley

Mr Rufus Morley was an elderly gentleman. Not a tall man, but solidly built. His short-cropped hair was as pure as the driven snow. His rather ruddy complexion contrasted strikingly with his hair and short stubby silver beard.
He owned a house at the bottom of Synwell Lane. Along side the house was a large building constructed from corrugated tin, it was almost the size of a barn. Inside he stored his second hand furniture, which he sold locally. This was usually to people that were just starting out in married life. A very lucrative market, especially just after the war. He also sold many household items such as, framed pictures, mirrors, companion sets, dining chairs, crockery, carpets, almost any item that you could want if you were trying to furnish a home. As many had too after the war.
Mr Morley's property was opposite the old 'Ram Inn'. This inn is the oldest building in Wotton-under Edge, known to have existed in 1350. The building was once church property, and it is suggested that the builders of the Parish Church were housed there during construction work. It was for a time a Priest's house before becoming a public house until 1968. Recently there have been claims of ghostly appearances, which have attracted much media attention.
Rufus Morley always wore a pinstriped shirt without a collar. His trousers were of a navy blue pin stripe, with a matching waistcoat. From the pocket of which hung a silver chain supporting a silver cased pocket watch. This he checked with nervous regularity if he was waiting for someone, or if he was going out. Checking his watch was always followed by a loud tut then a deep sigh.
On Sundays he wore a collar and tie and a bowler hat. The style of clothing was the same, except on a Sunday when he wore a brown pin striped suit and matching boots.
Mr Morley's boots were always immaculately polished and shiny. In fact if you stood close enough to him you could catch your reflection in them.
Mr Morley was a jovial sort of man. He always had a witty word and a smile for everyone.
Even we, as children, encountered some of his wit. Especially when we took our baskets of blackberries to him to be weighed. Some of our baskets were far from full - we usually ate more than we put in the basket. His witticism would be, with a broad grin,
"If you put many more in there my boy you'll damage my scales".
A thunderous roar of laughter would follow this, from him.
I suspect that the few pennies we were given were more out of sympathy rather than for our blackberry picking efforts. Some of these pennies were spent at 'Burford's Store', on Synwell Green, where we purchased OXO cubes - two for one old penny - which we would eat raw.
Rufus Morley had a younger brother, Harry, who kept a hardware store in Long Street. Outside of this store, above the door, hung a huge copper kettle with Harry Morley's name and nature of business painted on it, in black letters. The façade of the shop consisted of two large plate glass windows. In the middle of which was a large glass panelled door at the top of four concrete steps. The inside of the shop was an Alladin's cave for the do it yourself enthusiast. The two front windows were crammed full of home and garden products, from garden spades, forks, trowels, shears, and rolls of wire mesh, galvanised buckets and watering cans. There were rolls of string, bundles of bamboo canes of various lengths. A section of wooden fence made up the rear of these windows, with a small gate in the middle for easy access to the items on display.
Inside the shop many items were displayed on shelves others were standing around the walls of the store. In front of the counter, which ran the length of the store,
Were boxes of screws and nails of various sizes and threads. These could be purchased by the pound or by whatever amounts you needed - from half a dozen or just one or two. The counter was piled high with items from a box of candles, firelighters, and many cleaning aids. Even the ceiling of the store was festooned in goods that could not be displayed any other way. Hurricane lamps hung from the ceiling as did rolls of linoleum, rakes, hoes, bisoms, enamel buckets and bowls, kettles of varying sizes and even a few brown tea pots. Throughout the whole store was a smell of paraffin and linseed oil.
I well remember one of our blackberry expeditions. About eight of us, accompanied by a couple of our elders, had set out one bright and sunny morning, once the dew on the ground had dried up. If we had tried to pick the berries with the dew on them they would have turned mouldy by the time we had returned home.
As the older ones - among them Jill and Delia Gibbs - chatted busily among themselves, we children would run on ahead, up Blackwards Hill, chasing and shouting at each other in games of tag. A Cotswold dry stone wall ran up the right hand side of the hill. Several times on our journey to the top of this hill we would attempt to scale this rather high wall but without success. The results of our efforts were scraped and bloody kneecaps, even this would not stop our boisterousness. At the top of the hill, and away to the left were lush green fields. Around the perimeter of each field was a low dry stone wall, and along these walls grew large blackberry bushes as far as the eye could see in each direction. These fields also contained an abundance of rabbits and hares. Several rabbits could be seen at the entrance to their burrows, between the bushes, sunning themselves in the morning sunshine. Although they sat there looking alert with ears pricked and noses twitching, they seemed oblivious to our presence and activities. Many of these rabbits would supply tasty meals for many families in and around Wotton, especially just after the war, and before the ending of rationing. The Gough residence being no exception.
After picking blackberries for a couple of hours, eating more than I put in the basket, I experienced a sudden and terrible humming noise in my ears. This was both uncomfortable and extremely painful. With the noise and the pain all I wanted to do was to lie down somewhere quietly. This I did, by using my blackberry stained sleeveless pullover as a pillow and lying down among the clusters of thistles that swayed to and fro on a gentle autumn breeze, on a grassy bank which ran around the perimeter of the field. Doing this eased the pain somewhat, but the humming continued. Not only was the noise unbearable, but I was consumed with nausea.
After a while one of my lady companions - Jill Gibbs I think it was, noticed my predicament and came to me to ask what the problem was. I explained, as best I could, how I was feeling. At first I said that I was all right and to just leave me alone. Having someone fussing over me was the last thing I needed at that moment, however good his or her intentions.
Jill Gibbs was a very good friend of ours and the family. She lived about four doors away from us in Cotswold Gardens, with her parents and two brothers and one sister. They were Terry, Peter and Delia. Jill wasn't very tall, she had mousy coloured hair that just reached her shoulders. Her complexion was fair. Her eyes were pale green behind her light brown spectacles. Whenever Jill was out with us she always had a length of grass in her mouth and she would chew on the end of it for hours.
One of the other ladies in our group offered to take me home.
"No, please, just let me lay here for a while, I'll be ok in a little while", I pleaded.
I didn't want to spoil the day for the rest of them.
"If you don't feel any better in a little while one of us will take you home" another one offered.
As they continued with their picking I lay quietly on the bank, taking the occasional drink, of lukewarm water from a lemonade bottle that one of my companions had left for me.
When they moved into the next field I forced myself, rather shakily to my feet and staggered along with them. In between waiting for them too move across the fields I managed to get some short snatches of sleep, between the pain and the noise, from my ear.
Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, we started to make our way home, in the evening sunshine. Mum and Dad were told what had happened and it was decided that Dad would take me to see Doctor Dawes, the family doctor, at his surgery the next morning. We were too late for the evening surgery.
Doctor Dawes was not at his morning surgery - he had been called out on an emergency - so we had to see Doctor Adamson.
Doctor Adamson was a younger man than Doctor Dawes. He was slightly taller than our doctor, with jet-black wavy hair and green eyes. Doctor Adamson was the more smartly dressed of the two doctors. Choosing mainly charcoal grey suits and white shirts with dark blue ties. On his rounds he usually sported a black trilby hat tilted to the right. Both doctors were greatly respected men in their profession. Doctor Dawes was the more outgoing of the two. Whereas Doctor Adamson seemed the more reserved.
Doctor Dawes was a very down to earth character. He would often be seen in one of the local hostelries, chatting and sharing a draught of ale with the regulars. He was a rather thickset man with grey receding hair and wore his horn-rimmed spectacles on the end of his nose. His complexion was a ruddy one. He invariably wore a brown tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows and leather trims around the cuffs. Below his jacket he wore a matching waistcoat, a pale green shirt and a matching tie, he also wore grey flannel trousers with turn ups. He smoked like the proverbial trooper.
In the doctor's surgery, which was at the end of Culverhay Road, the next morning Doctor Adanson gave me a thorough medical examination. His fingers were cold, as was the end of his stethoscope. I remained lying on the surgery couch while dad and the doctor discussed my condition. I could not hear clearly what was being said, only the sound of muffled voices and shadows on the surgery walls.
I was diagnosed as having a rather nasty ear infection. This was interfering with my sense of balance. That is why all I wanted to do out in the fields was to lie down. I was prescribed eardrops and advised to rest in bed for two or three days. I was spoilt rotten during my convalescence, by mum, with plenty of support from both grans - Gough and Bye. Each was trying to outdo the other in their bids to nurse me. Within the week I was back to feeling my normal self.
Although we continued with our blackberry picking during the summer and early autumn, selling what we collected to Mr Morley, we never got rich out of the venture. Nor had we planned to.
On our return home from blackberry picking we then proceeded down Synwell Lane, to Mr Morley's store at the bottom. Each of us tried to guess what weight we had in our baskets and how much we were likely to receive for our troubles.
As we toddled off down Synwell Lane one evening, to sell our wares, after a hard day picking we came upon a crowd gathered at the bottom of the lane near Mr Morleys warehouse and yard. As we drew nearer we spotted an ambulance - blue light flashing - in the middle of the road and a police car parked across the front of it. As we neared we could hear people in the crowd talking of an accident. There were many people crowding around the scene, as though it was some side-show. Houses momentarily deserted. Children tugging at mothers dresses, wanting to know what had happened and why? These questions were answered, irritably, with 'shut up', 'stand still', or 'you wait 'til I get you home my lad'. Apparently a motor cyclist had driven down the lane from Synwell and taken the corner to fast, slithered across the road and collided with the side wall of Mr Morleys house which was next door to his yard and stood on the corner close to the bend in the road.
When we eventually got to the front of the crowd we saw someone being placed in the ambulance on a stretcher and was covered by a red blanket. The motor cycle was still in the road, badly smashed the force of the impact had bent the forks of the cycle so badly that they had ruptured the petrol tank, there was petrol leaking all over the road. Near the stricken motor cycle blood mingled with the petrol as it ran in the gutter towards the drain. Crash helmets were not compulsory in those days, we were later told that the rider, a foreign gentleman, had died on the way to hospital from severe head injuries sustained in the accident. I was sick to the stomach from what I had seen and it took me quite a while to stop thinking about the incident. We took our blackberries back home that day. Mum made some blackberry and apple pies, and the remainder were made into jam. During the winter months this went down a treat, on hot slices of toast for tea.
I can remember, on more than one occasion, coming off of my bicycle as I rode down towards that accident spot from the town after going up to Frank Davies' paper shop, in Long Street, for dads morning paper ('The Daily Mirror'). Fortunately, I always came away with nothing more than a few cuts and bruises.
'The Daily Mirror' in those days cost one and a halfpennies (3p). On the cartoon page my favourite character was 'Garth', equivalent to 'Rambo' today I guess. Dad's favourite was 'Jane', I think it was all to do with spies or some such thing. She was rather curvy, I suppose that's why Dad liked her.

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