Richard “Dick” Biggs

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Summary

Based on an interview recorded on 15 August 2006 with Denzil Biggs, remembering his father and grandfather.

Richard “Dick” Biggs’ life ran straight through the heart of Woolhope and Fownhope.

His father, William Langslow Biggs, was a Shropshire-born farm bailiff who became a tenant farmer at Nupend Farm, Fownhope, with his wife Annie and their eight children. The family spread out as farmers, a railwayman and a missionary in Africa – but the youngest, Richard, rooted himself here.

Born in 1895, he grew up at Bent Orchard, Woolhope, on a hop farm. Tall at an early age, he left Woolhope School at 13, too much of a handful for the headmaster. Church soon claimed him: choirboy at eight, founder member of the first Woolhope Scout troop in 1908 and an enthusiastic bellringer whose name, and those of his brothers, still circles the Woolhope belfry.

After the family moved to Nupend Farm, Richard married Helena from Mount Pleasant in 1920. They lived first at Wylo, then from 1929 at Lechmere Ley, where he took on a 30-acre smallholding. Life there was varied: milking cows, rearing pigs, poultry and ducks for market, growing vegetables, keeping bees and making cider. Helena cycled produce – and the odd rabbit – to Hereford Market; Richard acted as ghillie on the Wye, gaffing salmon for paying anglers.

Faith and service ran through everything. He rang at Fownhope and Holme Lacy, kept the church clock wound, served as churchwarden, parish councillor and helped raise funds for the Memorial Hall. A First World War artillery signaller, he later helped found the British Legion branch and joined the Royal Observer Corps in the Second World War. For 25 years he sang with the Three Choirs Festival and was honoured for 60 years of church music.

Big, firm but fair, “Mr Biggs” was widely respected – a practical man whose work and service helped shape village life for decades.