My Biography

My name is Gary and I was born and bred in the Forest of Dean. I was born into a farming family and memories of my youth are of the vast open spaces and that is why I enjoy walking in the woods and countryside so much, and with the latest technology, I am able to snap scenes I enjoy so much. I enjoy photography and  also  painting - again being able to capture the scenes, in oil

I was born on a farm in the country side of the Forest of Dean.

The farm belonged to my grandparents and I lived there with my parents and my elder brother and aunty and uncle. My grandmother was very stern and a true business woman and in today's terms I would describe her as reminding me very much of Queen Victoria.

Some of my earliest memories from my early childhood are of my mother scrubbing the flag stone floors and of there always being a smell of cooking wafting around the farmhouse. There was a big Aga cooker in the kitchen and all the family cooking was done on this. As we were a large family and it was towards the end of the war years and food was rationed, we were reliant upon our own produce. A lot of home baking took place. Bread was baked and we made our own butter and cheese.

I went missing quite a lot; my family always found me with the cows in the fields. One day I was missing for quite a time, they found me in a scurry hole hanging by my jumper. I had lots of time off school especially at harvesting time. My mother told me about the prisoners of war who used to work on the farm and one of them was named Rudolph.

It was a large farmhouse and had a long entrance drive. There were two big circular stones on top of the entrance walls of the drive and the drive was lined on either side with fir trees. My father used to tell me and my elder brother ghost stories about men on horseback coming up the driveway. Apparently it was well known locally that the farmhouse and the surrounding area was haunted. My father frightened us with his stories.

When we got up in the morning and looked out of the windows, I can remember hundreds of rabbits running around in the surrounding fields. Rabbit was very often on the menu for our tea!

I can remember one year it snowed heavily, it was to the tops of the hedgerows. My father took me for a walk in the snow and I remember seeing cars stranded with snow level with the top of the roofs, the snow was that deep.

When the war was on the German aircraft dropped a bomb in a field close to the farmhouse, it never exploded and the Army came and took it away and disposed of it. All the family had ration books and this is where the rabbits came in useful.

On the farm we had cows, sheep, pigs and chickens. At milking time I tasted the milk fresh from the cows, it was very warm and creamy. Occasionally my cousin used to come and stay with us and we got up to all sorts of boyish mischief around the farm. One time we were very naughty and we played with matches in the barn. We struck a match in the straw bales and set fire to the barn and all the machinery and livestock in the barn had to be removed. Fire engines from all around the area had to come and put out the fire. It was a much talked about thing in the family and village for many a long time to come. Until this day I know it was not me who struck the match!

W e had a wooden threshing machine for use at harvest time, which used to be kept in a paddock near the farmhouse. All the corn was cut and brought on trailers to the threshing machine where it was forked into the machine, threshed to remove the corn which was then bagged up and taken to be stored in the granary.

I went to the local village school. The village had several shops, a shoe shop, butchers shop, a grocery shop and there was also a garage. Within the village was also an ancient Castle surrounded by a moat and opposite was the Parish Church. The farm was roughly 2 miles from the village and my parents and my brother would walk to the village for a drink at the local pub. On the way to the village I can always remember the wild flowers in the hedgerows, especially the primroses, the scent always stayed in my memory and to this day everytime I smell primroses it takes me straight back to my childhood years. My father had a small lorry and one day when he was taking me to school in it I was playing about with the door lever, the door opened and I fell out, hitting my head on the road. I had to be taken to the local hospital and have my head stitched.

To be continued ...... Please look in again.