Gerald Down

Gerald was born at Slocomslade, one of the hill farms above Brendon. His grandfather was the parish road mender; his father the groom at Oare Manor. He attended Brendon school, and his first job on leaving was as full-time rabbit trapper traveling from farm to farm on the trapping circuit with Bert French. He was then a farm labourer at Tippacott before becoming stockman at Simonsbath Barton and then Wellshead, two farms on the Fortescue estate in the centre of Exmoor. Gerald married Eileen Hobbs and had four children, Carol, Richard, Janet and Mandy. His passion has always been the choosing, preparing and showing of prize Exmoor Horn sheep.

Gerald Down’s chapter includes the following topics and many more:

• father going to war and then becoming groom at Oare Manor
• teaching colonel Jackson who’d lost both his legs to ride again
• picking whortleberries and selling them at Watersmeet and county gate
• cutting turf (peat) on the common
• taking cocoa up to the common with a sock on the bottle to keep it warm
• beetroot sandwiches
• turf fires in the council houses in Brendon
• rabbit trapping – ferreting, poaching, netting and lamping
• working as stockman at Simonsbath Barton
• sheep bells on Exmoor, dances and the local bands
• the Exmoor Forest hotel
• five shillings in Dick Jones’ will –
• Sante Lafuente cutting turf and Abe Antel the Hoar Oak shepherd
• cast as Ratty in the film ‘The Land Girls’
• working at Wellshead
• dogs and driving