Water rates: 20p a year, unmetered!

• Frank Farr

Eighty-eight–year-old Frank Farr is a familiar face in East Budleigh. Apart from 1939-45, when he was in the army, he has lived and worked in the village all his life. Over the years, Frank has jotted down memories of what village life was like during the past century, and over the coming months he will be writing about his recollections for your Journal

We had two slaughterhouses in East Budleigh. One still stands and has been converted into a small bungalow.
The butcher there was Tom Spurways. The other was Bob Drake, situated at the top of Pound Lane.

To this day, the field where it once stood is known as Slaughter House Field. The slaughter was done by a pole axe or a humane killer, which was a type of revolver.

People who kept their own pigs would get Tom or Bob to kill them. You had to have a copper of water boiling to scrape the hair off after it had been killed. It was then strung up and cut down the middle when cold.

There was very little waste. The head was made into brawn, the guts cleaned off in the village brook to make chittlings.

Pigs weren’t killed until they were 10-14 stone in weight. Some of the meat was given to the neighbours, who also kept pigs.

This would be returned when the neighbour had fresh pork so most people had fresh and salt pork and fresh bacon.

Many also kept chickens, ducks and geese for Christmas. Goose fat was put on thick brown paper and placed on your chest to keep the cold out – an old fashioned remedy.

Before taps were invented you had two options. You either lived beside water or you would dig a well. I can remember over 30 wells in the village. The late Rt Hon Mark Rolle gave the village its water supply by taps. There were 10 in the village.
If you wanted water taken into your house you went to the clerk of the parish council, the late Dapper Knight.

It would cost a guinea (£1.05) to tap the main and (53p) to take it into your home.
The late Harty Harris would come along to do the job with his pick and skiviet – a narrow shovel about nine inches wide.

The water was free but if you had it taken into your home it cost four shillings (20p) a year.

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