Harry Robbins

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Summary

Based on the interview conducted on 3 April 2006

Born in 1917 at Rudge End Farm, Harry Robbins grew up on a 180-acre mixed farm in Fownhope parish. His father, originally a Hereford solicitor, had turned to farming for health reasons, while his mother came from a farming family in Much Marcle. In those days, farms reared store cattle for market rather than fattening them, and milk was produced on a small scale. Harry recalled his mother separating cream by hand and making butter every Monday — “washing and butter day” — alongside keeping chickens and eggs for the household.

Educated first at home by a governess, Harry later attended Hereford High School, cycling seven and a half miles each way when the weather allowed. A keen rugby player, he stayed on an extra term simply to finish the season. Although brought up to farm, he admitted he never truly loved it. At the first opportunity he joined the RAF, serving as a specialist turret engineer during the Second World War. He spent time in Italy and Egypt, later reflecting that he had “seen half the world at George’s expense.”

After the war he returned to Fownhope, married Gertrude Davies – who was born and lived with her 7 siblings at Tump Cottage – at the parish church, and eventually took over the farm. Mechanisation transformed his working life: tractors, combines and modern machinery replaced much manual labour, and he built up what he considered one of the best-equipped farms in the parish.

Harry also played a key role in local heritage. His father helped instigate the Tom Spring memorial, and Harry himself built the stonework on the site believed to be Spring’s birthplace. He remembered the large crowd gathered for its unveiling.

Looking back, Harry described a life not always easy, but full and satisfying — rooted in parish, family and change across nearly nine decades in Fownhope.