You are in [Themes] [Reminiscences] [Oral History - Audio Archives] [Oliver Brown with Fred Bailey and Betty McCubbin, 1986]


Oliver Brown lived for most of his life in Hungerford Newtown. For over 50 years he worked as groom for the Pinckney family at Hidden Cottage. This interview was made in 1986, and includes Fred Bailey and Mrs Betty McCubbin (nee Pinckney) talking with Oliver Brown.

This is Part 1 of 7:
- Introduction
- To Newtown in 1908
- Upbringing in Shefford and Newtown
- Selling faggots
- School life
- Stable boy at Lovelocks
- Strapper (groom) at Woolley Park, then Midgham

This is Part 2 of 7:
- Caring for 11 horses at Woolley Park
- At Bucklebury for Mr Arthur Warwick Sutton
- Wimbledon
- Learning to drive (a Mercedes!)
- Sacked from work - returned to Newtown
- World War I - in the Infantry at Passchendale
- Local roads

This is Part 3 of 7:
- Life in Newtown
- Sgt Wheeler (policeman)
- Carrier - Teddy Sharp(?)

This is Part 4 of 7:
- Stanbrook family
- Teddy Dixon
- A life with horses
- Hughes family, Old Hayward Farm
- 1925 - starting work at Hidden Cottage
- Vet or doctor?!
- By special train to hunt in the Vale

This is Part 5 of 7:
- Betty McCubbin: Buying horses at Tattersall's in London
- Letting the horses go to the First World War
- Memorials to two murdered policemen, 1876
- PC Palmer
- Winkworth family
- The four staff at Hidden Cottage, George Harrison

This is Part 6 of 7:
- Married in 1921
- The opening of the M4 motorway 1971
- Shopping in Hungerford in the pony-cart
- Mr Fishook - ostler at The Three Swans
- Coping with ice and snow

This is Part 7 of 7:
- Fred Bailey - moved from London 1969
- Miss Dane Gale(?)
- "Old Webby" the poacher
- The Gale Trust
- The King family - farmers