Millennium Project
'BADGER' (George Henry Page) - DEDDINGTON’S LAST CATTLE DROVER
Badger’s story came to light during a talk to Deddington & District History Society about Oxfordshire Drovers. Badger was born in Deddington in 1869 and can be found in the 1901 census (click on image left),
along with his mother Sarah and younger brothers John and Frederick,
living on The Style (sic), the footpath between New Street and Goose
Green. He is described somewhat insensitively as ‘feeble minded’. He died in 1926.
The
story that follows was written by Jack, who lived in Souldern, as one
of 28 stories in his book ‘Linger-a-While’ following broadcasts on Radio
Oxford in 1982. It is reproduced here and on our History website by
kind permission of his daughter Anne and the editor of Souldern village website on which Badger’s other stories can be found
Rob Forsyth Editor
Jack Callow
Badger (George Page) was the last real drover in this area, he just drove cattle, no other work. My when it was a warm day you kept the windward side of Badger for a ½d (a ha’ penny) he would shed his coats, waistcoats, pullovers, jackets – all 9 or 10 or more! Badger carried his wardrobe on him, summer and winter, it kept the sun off and the cold out – so he said.
He walked miles with a good stick and his tin tea can, from farm to market, or market to farm, driving cattle – a short thick set man, always a smile and a cheery word. Oft times George the Badger drove cattle for my father. When he came to the farm to fetch or bring the cattle, he had a handout – a can of tea; bread and jam; bread and bacon; bread and cheese or cake and pudding. If it was morning and he was going to market, tea and bread and bacon and a few coppers, anything from 3d to 5d no more. If late morning it was half a loaf and a chunk of cheese and a bit of pudding – if it was a big bit of pudding he would throw the bread away and keep the cheese for a day when there was no work. It was easy to get a stale loaf from the Deddington bakers and he was a Deddington man by birth.
He lived in a farm shed, the
end of the lane that passed Doctor Turner’s house, Deddington*. If it was
late afternoon and Badger had driven cattle to market for someone and
then driven a herd of cattle back to our farm, it could be five or six
o’clock in the evening. His day would start at seven am. Often he had
walked forty miles or more, Badger would say:
“Once you got the
cattle going, after the first mile or two, it wasn’t so bad.” At the
start with the cattle that had never been off the farm, you had to go
back and across the road to get them going. They would turn back and
twist to go back home and into any hole in the hedge or an open gate,
they got through. You must keep them bunched up tight and be close up to
them. If they looked at a turning or a gate you hustle them along
giving then no chance.
In the evening Badger’s face would be red with exertion of the drive and he would welcome his can filled, his bread and jam and cake that he collected from the kitchen door. He never stood around, he would go away across a field or two, then sit down and have his food and ‘copper up’ as he called – counting his pennies. Then off to his home he would go, unless Dad had a drive for him the next day, or a neighbouring farmer, then Badger would kennel up in a shed or a barn*, if not under a hedge or a tree, ready for an early start the next morning.
I think Badger died in his sixties about 1926.
* Dr Turner lived on Goose Green for a while before moving to Featherton House on Chapel Square. The Style on which they were living in 1901 emerges on to it. Don Walker, whose memories have always been a valuable source for this website, remembers his father telling him that Badger also slept rough in a barn on Chapman’s Lane.The 1911 census has all 4 living as family but gives no address other than Deddington.