The Branscombe Project

Branscombe, A Tale of Three Pubs

By John Torrance & Barbara Farquharson

Long histories and vivid memories of The Masons Arms, The Fountain Head, and The Three Horseshoes.

 An Idyllic Childhood In Troubled Times

 by Geoff Squire

illustrated by Maisie Rowe

Geoff’s father was the village school master in Branscombe and, during the war, was fully occupied with looking after not only the village school children but fifty bewildered evacuees.  Geoff, aged five when the war broke out, and a little later his brother Kingsley, had the freedom to roam the countryside. At first they stayed close to the school house, then, as they grew older, explored further and further afield. Geoff has a remarkable ability to remember not just where they went and what they did, but what it felt like. He also remembers the vague anxiety that hung over the adults, and his own acute anxiety when, clutching a few pennies and farthings, he was sent to fetch bread from Mr Collier at the Old Bakery.

In writing these pieces Geoff acknowledged the way his feeling for the landscape fed his passion for geography and laid the foundation for his later career as lecturer at Reading University.