The Memory Be Green

An Oral History of a Devon Village

Within living memory village life has changed beyond recognition. Yet the old ways have not disappeared completely for they survive in the memories of our older neighbours. In this book men and women born early in the twentieth century recall a vanished way of life: a time when large families kept a pig to supplement a simple diet; every drop of water was carried from the village pump; the whole village turned out to help with the hay harvest; when everyone knew, and was often related to, everyone else and life was as slow and steady as the horse which pulled the plough.