Family notes for Samuel Rodney 'Roddy' BODDINGTON and Katharine Mary 'Katy' ADKINS Roddy was told by Henry Adkins that he could not marry Katharine unless he had £200 to his name! He applied some creative accounting and they were married. Katharine prepared a huge list of relatives and friends to be invited to the wedding but her father said it would be too expensive and that she should reduce the list to key people. Katharine refused saying if she couldn't invite them all she wouldn't invite any. So her father said, in that case we won't invite any - and they didn't. Only Roddy, Katharine and the witnesses attended the wedding at Hatton Church. Marriage witnesses were Katharine's sister, Nan Adkins, and close friend Eileen Fisher. This lack of sociability didn't stop them getting a few wedding presents. Roddy's brother and sister-in-law, Peter and Marion, gave them a set of glasses, table glasses, wine glasses, and liquor glasses, probably 18 glasses in total. I later discovered that these cost, in 1937, 10/6 - that's ten shillings and six pence, 52½p in decimal money. Though some have been broken in the 85 years since, the remainder are in my dining room sideboard and occasionally brought out for their proper use! [95]
Notes for Samuel Rodney 'Roddy' BODDINGTON Prior to c.1937 he worked for Avery Scales as a salesman. He lived or lodged at 70 Ampthill Road, Aigburth Vale, Liverpool, so I assume that Merseyside was his sales area. From c.1937 he was a farmer 1) c.1937-Nov 1945 Mistletoe Farm, Five Ways, Hatton, Warwickshire, UK; 2) Nov 1945-1975 Barnmoor Farm, Claverdon, Warwickshire UK.
Always known as Roddy, he was a very successful farmer, beginning with pigs and
chickens (eggs) on a smallholding at Mistletoe Farm, Five Ways, Hatton, Warwickshire
UK and then dairying and chickens (eggs) at Barnmoor Farm, a 40 acre farm at Kington
Lane, Claverdon, Warwickshire UK from 1945. His dairying success was followed by the
development of a large broiler (chicken fattening) unit of 36,000 birds which was
also very successful. The farm was for ten years an ICI demonstrator farm - ICI
provided advice on, particularly, the use of fertilisers in exchange for copious
record keeping, regular open evenings to show other farmers what could be done, and
£500pa, a substantial sum in the 1950s. This scheme proved to be extremely
worthwhile and the farm's output rose significantly - twice the number of dairy
cows, each producing more than twice the usual amount of milk. He made regular
appearances on a late night farming programme on BBC TV. ICI also made, in 1955/56,
a film about the farm called Milk and Money from Forty Acres. His reputation
for growing fantastic quantities of grass was widely known! His success was
rewarded by his appointment as farm manager at Claverdon Hall Farm, owned by Sir
Ivan Stedeford. Here he trained John 'Jack' Masters who later went on to farm for
himself. A history of life
at Barnmoor Farm. [95]
He was a Claverdon Parish councillor and a Stratford-upon-Avon District councillor for many years. He provided charitable support for the WRVS at Hatton mental hospital. [95]
During WWII he was in a reserved occupation (agriculture) and so joined the Hatton Home Guard. He and his colleagues kept watch from the top of a water tower, a sectional rectangular steel tank mounted on a frame about 50 feet in the air. This is no longer extant but was located among the buildings at Shrewley Farm, Shrewley, Warwickshire. He recalled standing up there in 1941 and watching, from about 10 miles distant, the German bombers destroying the city of Coventry. In the Home Guard he learned how to use a rifle and before war's end he was issued with a .22 rifle which he kept at home. He retained this (quite legally!) for many years after the war and attended shooting practice on Sunday mornings about once per month at a range off the country lanes north of Hatton. He was a very good shot - I recall on one occasion he spotted a fox crossing one of the fields on the farm; he opened the bedroom window and shot it dead with a single round from a distance of about 300 yards. [95]
Notes for Katharine Mary 'Katy' ADKINS At around the age of 21 she was sent away from home to live with the Townsends, parents of her step-mother, in Cheadle, Staffs. For how long we are not sure. It is said that she was disruptive at home due to a breakdown in her relationship with her step mother after the marriage to her father. She was a member of Claverdon tennis club and competed in the annual knockout competition for almost 50 years, winning it on countless occasions, often with playing partner Hubert Adams. Her final appearance was in her late 70s! The club made her Life President. In her last years she suffered from dementia but the one thing she remembered clearly was that she was 'the President'. You may imagine that this caused some difficulties in the care home when she demanded the respect befitting the office! Her poor brother, who was in the same home, was required to follow one step behind her on entry to the dining room for lunch and tea! [95]
Sources 95. | Personal information, Tim Boddington (STB, Webmaster) |
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