I have just dug out an old picture I took over our common, soon after we built our house in 1955. I needed a bit of fresh air today so out of interest I walked roughly to the same spot to take the same view. Look at the difference! The common is reverting.
Here is the old photo: -
And here is the one taken today. You can see the old Wellingtonia is still there but it seems to have lost its top. I can see the gable end of the chapel on the bottom left (but even that is changed because there was a fire and now you see brickwork instead of white paint.
Of course in those days we had animals on the common. We bought a donkey "Susie", partly for the children and partly to nibble off the thistles and quick seedlings that soon grew up on the common. Here she is with our three boys sitting on her in 1964
Susie had four foals over the years we had her. Please note Phil, that we called them Seamus, Sean, Bridget and Siobhan
. We had an Irish plumber at the time called Seamus and he was pleased as punch because he thought we had named the donkey after him
The father was a jack donkey called Jacko belonging to the local market gardener. Susie and Jacko used to call to each other over a distance of about 1/4 mile, and you know what?
.
Seamus was born almost on Christmas day, very seasonal, and this little woolly thing, three days old came indoors when we had our Christmas party. I telephoned the wife of the the market gardener to tell her the news. She was terribly on the defensive, I thought she thought I was going to file a paternity suit
I eventually thought perhaps I should suggest a stud fee and her reply was "What? Just for Jacko having his little bit of fun!!"
Here he is with our little Tom and another one about four years later of Siobhan. Definitely a family likeness (Seamus and Siobhan, I mean, not Tom
)
Later we had two horses, not finely bred, Welsh Cobs which were fine on the common and I used to have early morning rides before going to work. One, called Cedar we only had a couple of years but Sabrina (we didn't choose the name) we had for 25 years. Here she is outside our gate: -
I can't resist posting two more, one of me in the snow and one of Anthea in a lane near us with the autumnal tints.
I am sorry, this seems to have turned into the reminiscences of an old man when I meant to be talking about the natural reversion of commons. What it comes down to is commons need animals to keep the seedlings from growing. The common was almost like a bowling green outside our house after grazing by Sabrina in particular (We do have commoner's rights of grazing over the common, only 15 other properties have that !).
I hope my little ramblings will interest some of you. Perhaps someone else will provide some more serious thoughts on common reversion.
Eric H.
