LONG WITTENHAM CHURCH GRAVEYARD JULY 25TH 2005

My grandmother 'Daisy' Didcock and step-grandfather Aubrey Didcock's grave.

Matthew and Toby Reisz - grandsons of A.E. Coppard

My grandparent's garden now turned into suburban garden.

The outside toilet and chicken run and allotment long gone...

The following photo as it was just after my grandparents evicted by St.John's College and rehoused so it could be sold after living there since 1938!

The cottage next door still in condition I remember my grandparent's house
i.e. dirt floor and of cruck ( medieval) construction.

CHURCH FARM BARNS

The next door barn where I watched my grandfather and father fill grain sacks

now a specialist carpentry workshop...at least not a house.
following picture as a working barn mid 1980's

THE PLOUGH INN. LONG WITTENHAM

Landlady in 1930's one Annie Chambers who famous for her 'Rook Suppers'
formerly a slaughterhouse and dairy.

Robert Gibbings describes (see below)Coppard singing in the front bar
(bottom left window below) and I have had the pleasure of singing in
that bar once or twice there still a weekly folk club there)

"A nice man, Coppard," said Harry(Chambers).
"I liked to see him come into the bar.
He wasn't young then, must have been getting on for fifty, but he'd have
the football boots on and he'd be talking about the Saturday game as
if the Houses of Parliament depended on it."
"I remember him buying a new pair when he was sixty," I said,
"and swearing he'd wear them out."
"And when he heard anyone tell a good story he'd begin to twist that
long black forelock of his - he remember that habit he had?
And then he'd get the boys singing. Folk-songs he liked.
He'd sing them himself, picked up from all over the place.
Augustus John brought that from Ireland, he'd say, or somebody
else heard that in Suffolk. But Billy Boy was his favourite.
'Where have you been all the day, my Billy Boy?'
and finishing up with his Nancy tickling his fancy.
Yes he went to live in Suffolk after."

from R.Gibbings 'Till I End My Song' written at Footbridge Cottage

which is the white building directly behind the Cross below
(photo taken from opposite The Plough)

Gibbings moved into this house in 1955 and stayed there until 1958
when he died. It was chosen as next door to the thatched cottage
'May Tree Cottage' where he would visit Coppard and family from 1927 to 1932.

Footbridge Cottage

R. GIBBINGS 1955 - 1958

May Tree Cottage

A.E. COPPARD 1927 -1932

WITTENHAM CLUMPS AND DAY'S LOCK, LITTLE WITTENHAM

The Clumps are a local landmark and were drawn and painted by the artist Paul Nash.

DAY'S LOCK

In Gay Taylor's rather hysterical autobiography she describes
the incident where she threw herself ( pregnant ) off this bridge
( a new iron bridge has replaced the original wooden bridge)
and Coppard dived in and saved her although the child was
subsequently lost. The affair had been prompted by the bed-ridden
owner of The Golden Cockerel Press.
Coppard was at this time living in a wooden hut in Henley.
The final picture shows the Conservancy House as was ( built 1924)
the incident occurring in 1926.