Researching my book about George Ewart Evans took me to Abercynon, where he was born, and Blaxhall where he wrote Ask the Fellows who Cut the Hay the book for which he is best remembered. I met his biographer Gareth Williams and visited the shop that once had belonged to his father William, and behind which as a nine year old Evans had milked the family’s cow after his older brother had been called up to go to the Western Front.
On the front of the shop, is a blue plaque, reminding all that pass that this is where Evans was born. There is another blue plaque on the house he lived in at Needham Market, the small town he moved to in 1956 when his wife Florence was appointed headmistress of the local primary school. (In 1961 I was a pupil at that school, so came to know Mrs Evans).
But it was when Florence was headmistress of Blaxhall’s village school and the family lived in the adjoining schoolhouse, that a conversation over the garden fence with neighbour Robert Savage led Evans to become an oral historian. Robert Savage was a recently retired shepherd, and had tended the sheep at Grove Farm, as had his father, grandfather and great grandfather before him. Ask the Fellows who Cut the Hay was the result of conversations Evans had with many Blaxhall folk. First published in 1956, the book remains in print today.
That school closed in 1976 and became a Youth Hostel. At some point, board was put up in the hostel, commemorating the Evans link with Blaxhall, but the Youth Hostel has been sold and the site likely to be developed with houses. Few in the village remember that this board exists, and so with Blaxhall’s churchwarden and parish council, I’m raising funds to erect a blue plaque on the village hall, to remind all who visit of Blaxhall’s connection with Evans. It will be unveiled on 6th April, by Daphne Gant, a granddaughter of Robert Savage, who remembers when the Evans family lived in the village.
To make an event of the unveiling, there will also be a screening of both A Writer’s Suffolk the BBC film Evans wrote and narrated in 1980, and Here’s a Health to the Barley Mow which was filmed in the village pub in 1955 and captures Blaxhall’s rich folk singing tradition. To complete the afternoon, I will be in conversation with Blaxhall’s newly installed vicar Rob Leverett about my book, Where are the Fellows who Cut the Hay which by then will be newly published. After the plaque has been funded, and the film projectionist paid, all money raised will go to the Blaxhall Community Tower Appeal, which will fund repairs to the 14th century village church tower.
Recognising that not all who contribute towards the cost of the blue plaque can be in Blaxhall for the unveiling on 6thApril, the village will be putting together a booklet to mark the day, within which everyone’s name will be listed.Here’s a link to the Crowdfunder page: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/blaxhall-blue-plaque-to-george-ewart-evans
