Dorothea (known as Dorothy or ‘Doff’) Turner was born in Springfields (next to the Church, now the Miller’s House) on 24 May 1904. According to the 1911 and 1921 census returns, she lived there with her father Sidney (then the village blacksmith, later a dairy farmer), her mother Miriam and her brother Samuel, one year her senior, who farmed at Moss’s Farm. By the time of the 1939 register (the only other record we have), Dorothy’s mother Miriam was 64 and described as ‘incapacitated’; the household at this time also included the housekeeper Winnie Turner (no relation), born 4 May 1904.
As the photograph suggests, Doff was a young woman with a difference. Some of those still in the village who remember her say that she was intelligent, gifted and independent – qualities which were less at a premium in a pre-war rural village than they are today. She played the organ (in the Methodist chapel) and the harp and also wrote poetry. A collection of her poems was published under the title A Bunch of Thoughts. The poems are intelligent, thoughtful and, in the main, deeply religious. Here is an example, entitled Selah.
It was a word oft used in ancient times,
On scroll of parchment dotted ‘twixt the lines
On scroll of parchment dotted ‘twixt the lines
How oft did David place it in a Psalm
Ald lo! it added greatly to the charm.
Selah! what does it mean? Think on these things,
Obey the word for lo! it blessing brings.
‘Tis placed ‘neath verses that give wond’rous light
To those who pause to think them out aright.
Then pause a while, to God’s word give thy mind,
For therein wilt thou goodly council find.
Think first, – then when acquainted with the fact
Express thy knowledge gained – go forth and act.
Doff also had a reputation for being ‘rude’ and others who remember her do so with less fondness, particularly in her later life. As she grew older, she would often be seen muttering and talking to herself. Margaret Drane says that Winnie, the housekeeper, never got on with Doff and had a lot to do with her being sent to Fulbourn mental hospital, which cannot have been a pleasant experience in those days. She recalls that Ronald Haylock, who was a magistrate, was reluctantly persuaded to certify her but had to bow to family pressure. He said it was the hardest thing he had ever had to do.
Dorothea Turner died in 1979: one can only wonder what she might have become had she lived in a different time.
The motorbike and side car combination in the photo, taken at Springfields, is apparently a Clyno. This is likely to be the one that Brian Gypps remembers as being owned by Mr Gray, who lived opposite Springfields. He was known by the children as ‘Toffee Apple Joe’ because he sold “yummy” toffee apples – from the sidecar!
This village wedding report is from the Essex Chronicle of 19 June 1931, when Dorothy was 27.
The bride’s brother referred to, Mr W. Reader, was Bill Reader (husband of Daphne) from Howe Lane, who was a lay reader at St. Andrew’s during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Incidentally, Bill’s grandmother was Harriet Coote of Church Farm.