This post is the first of many “Voices of Exmoor” to come. Several years ago, Birdie Johnson went around Exmoor to record the oral history which is so much in danger of getting lost forever. The clips are available at the Somerset Archives as well as in Birdie’s book, “Reflections”.
Hope Bourne talked for the archive sitting in the shade of a hedge on Withypool Common, looking across to Ferny Ball. She lived in a remote caravan there, above the river Barle, for over 20 years. Getting up at 5am she’d do the farmer’s stock, write her journal, and then go for a 20 mile walk with her sketch pad, mapless, guided by an inner compass.
She followed the hunt on foot, shot and fished, never washed up, and ate 1lb of meat a day. Which, she says, is why she didn’t feel the cold. She believes that hunting and farming are the backbone of Exmoor.
With no money, she turned to journalism, writing a column for the local paper and several books which she illustrated herself. She sent her first book, written in pencil, to Anthony Dent. He returned it neatly typed and visited in person shortly afterwards.
Recording made: 2001
Length of recording: 2 hrs 7 mins (To read a summary of the contents of the oral history recordings click CD1 or CD2. )
Hope Bourne, who died on August 22 aged 91, was an author who celebrated life on Exmoor, where she lived for more than 60 years; her knowledge of this beautiful corner of England – of its flora and fauna and its traditional communities – was encyclopedic, and was gained by submission to a lifestyle which few in the 20th century would have dared even to contemplate.
Obiturary in THE TELEGRAPH, 27 August 2010
For more than two decades – between 1970 and the early 1990s – Hope Bourne lived in isolation in an old, leaking caravan in the ruins of a farm at Ferny Ball above Sherdon Water, about four miles from Withypool. To her, untamed nature was not just something she desired, it was also a means of testing human resilience and ingenuity.
At Ferny Ball she kept bantams. A small but wiry figure, she was often seen in pursuit of wood pigeon, deer, rabbit or hare, wielding her American-made .22 rifle or 12-bore shotgun – “What one didn’t get, t’other did,” she would say. To feed herself, as well as shooting for the pot, she fished and grew vegetables. She ate 1lb of meat a day (some of which was none too fresh) and drank from a stream.
Her caravan was 14ft long and 6ft wide, providing only one room which was festooned with the skins, antlers and hooves of animals she had slaughtered and gutted herself. At the centre was a wood-burning stove. She converted two of the three bunks into bookshelves and slept in the third.
Hope Bourne’s eating equipment was equally rudimentary. She had three mugs (one for tea, one for coffee, one for water or lemonade), and ate her enormous breakfast of meat and vegetables straight from the frying pan. There was thus no need to wash up.
Earlier Hope Bourne had lived on Exmoor in several remote and primitive cottages. There too she had lived off the land. Throughout her life she earned a small amount of money by helping farming friends, tending their stock and helping out during the lambing season. Her income was usually about £100 a year, of which she saved nearly half, claiming to live on £5 a month, most of which went on cartridges.
Although she chose geographical isolation, Hope Bourne had many friends, claiming to send out 100 Christmas cards each year. When out and about on the moor she would call in at the farms, and her visits were reciprocated by the local community. Neighbours, even though they lived miles away, would always come and help her if she was in need.
She spent 30 Christmases at Broomstreet Farm, the home of her oldest friend on Exmoor, Mary Richards. In the 1950s she enjoyed a year on a sheep station in New South Wales, and in the 1970s she spent three months with friends in Canada.
Hope Bourne taught herself to paint and draw. She also kept a diary, using this a resource to write her first book. She sent the manuscript (handwritten in pencil) to the publisher Anthony Dent, who returned it neatly typed and shortly afterwards visited her in person in Devon. The book, Living on Exmoor, published in 1963, is a month-by-month chronicle of her life and activities, illustrated by her own pen and ink drawings.
Exmoor 4 all 