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My childhood - 1870-80

But I must go back a little in my history. At the age of 5 or 6 I was sent to the village school. The mistress Miss Knibb was a good teacher of Scripture, and I learnt a great deal of Bible History under her tuition. At the age of 9 I was sent to school at Banwell, to Mr H.J. Stockbridge. (Mr Stockbridge carried on his school till he was over 85 years old. He died about 1931.) Another Locking boy went at the same time (John Taylor, died March 29, 1877) and we used to walk together every morning, carrying with us our midday meal.

I was not a very robust boy. I had had pneumonia when a month old, and was throughout my boyhood subject to colds and what my mother called "delicate on the chest." Learning was easy to me, and I was blest with a very retentive memory, and it has been a matter of lifelong regret that I was not sent to a better school. I left school altogether in June 1878 being then only a little over 13 years of age.


I read everything I could get hold of, and my father, who read nothing but the local newspaper on Saturdays, never understood my love of books. I got books from the Y.M.C.A Library in Weston. I did not take kindly to the farming life, which was a grief to him, I think; but at the same time, I worked on the farm from the time I left school until I went away from home in 1887. My father allowed me to sell apples from the orchard. I picked them and sold them in Weston. I also had some cattle to graze on his land at Crollum (??). My prospects were very good indeed if I could have reconciled myself to a farmer's life. But God had other plans for me.

As I grew towards manhood, a very strong bond of affection drew my father and me together. He loved to have me as a companion in his walks around the farm and in his drives, and we became real "chums".

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