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VILLAGE PERSONALITIES
Tom Watchorn of Hickling in the Belvoir Country, by "IDLER". From Harby News issue 4.
The subject of this sketch could not claim to be anything but an ordinary man, but he was a true countryman who always had to battle with fearsome Physical odds, and lived a life of usefulness in the Vale of Belvoir, and for most of it on the Grantham Canal which served the numerous villages through-out the thirty-three miles of its meanderings. The old waterway, constructed about 1793, passed through lovely country and some of the finest dairy pastures in England. Its early usefulness was to convey crops and other products wanted in the large towns, and to bring back coals, iron, timber, bricks and manufactured goods wanted on the land, and these dictates were, no doubt, influenced by the requirements of Belvoir Castle, residence of the Dukes of Rutland. There was a light railway (which can still be traced) for the purpose from Bottesford wharf.
Alas this abandonment is followed by closure and silting up of the canal itself, about which much is now appearing in the Press with prevention suggestions, but with little hope we fear. The maintenance costs would be appalling, for whatever use might be made of the canal, who could, and would, bear the expenditure.
Anglers are perhaps making the greatest outcry about canals being closed, and it was for fishing that Tom Watchorn was best known, and almost universally known to thousands of anglers all over the country. Born just over the Nottinghamshire border at Harby, in very early life he suffered from a paralysed leg, getting about on crutches, which gave him the not inappropriate sobriquet "Crutchy" by which he was always known, and perhaps mere particularly to the children of the villages. He was remarkably active with the disability, and could do almost anything that others more favoured physically could do. He had some early apprenticeship to tailoring, which served him well in his modest and often poor circumstances. The latter did appeal to a band of anglers who visited Hickling often, and they subscribed to buy Tom a boat off the Trent, which served him so well for very many years, and almost to the end of his life.
Before we forget, let us record that this latter happening showed up the true character of the man, for in declining years, and with very limited means, he willingly chose the "big house" at Bingham, where he passed out comfortably and uncomplainingly well on towards the allotted span. He would not have had it otherwise. I had spent many a week's holiday with him, fishing from the boat, visiting a dozen villages over twenty miles and more off the old cut. With a box of groceries, etc. sent by carrier from Nottingham, we would set sail from Hickling Basin on Saturday morning for the week, living the truly primitive life, and knew no time or trouble.
The craft with marvelous ingenuity possessed everything, lockers fore and aft, seats boxed in solid, and other contrivances revealed bedding, complete changes of clothing and boots for Sunday best, tools for woodworking, boot repairing, tailoring, and other requirements. You could have haircut and shaving, teeth drawn, and balm for all ills prepared from nature's wayside products.
Tom was medico for all sorts of people and things in the villages where he called; he would mend cycles, china, watches and clocks, write letters, and in fact was never at a loss for making a little money which was sorely needed. At holiday times he toured the boat hire, for which he was well known to parents and children with their pence.
He led a clean and good life, and with his natural disability and limited resources, could overcome almost any difficulty. He was never away from those villages, except for one day a year, when he made pilgrimage to the Nottingham Goose Fair, and to see the only one relative he ever knew. He respected Sunday, bathed in the canal, shaved and put on his Sunday clothes, complete with gold guard, and he had a four-course dinner fit for a king, and in this I often shared.
In extreme cold and snow, he had a hut ashore in The Plough yard at Hickling, very snug, and with his poor legs curled in like a hedgehog was always safe, and slept soundly. It was a good life of contentment making the best of circum stances, with no rent or rates or ravings. Who can deny.
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© 2000 Harby Limited, All rights reserved.
Revised: October 03, 2001
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