As September starts, autumn appears with a change in the leaf colour but so does the need for firewood. I came across an anonymous poem called
The Firewood Rhyme, which will help you to choose your wood for the fire:
Logs to Burn, Logs to burn, Logs to burn,
Logs to save the coal a turn,
Here's a word to make you wise,
When you hear the woodman's cries.
Never heed his usual tale,
That he has good logs for sale,
But read these lines and really learn,
The proper kind of logs to burn.
Oak logs will warm you well,
If they're old and dry.
Larch logs of pine will smell,
But the sparks will fly.
Beech logs for Christmas time,
Yew logs heat well.
"Scotch" logs it is a crime,
For anyone to sell.
Birch logs will burn too fast,
Chestnut scarce at all.
Hawthorn logs are good to last,
If you cut them in the fall.
Holly logs will burn like wax,
You should burn them green,
Elm logs like smouldering flax,
No flame to be seen.
Pear logs and apple logs,
They will scent your room,
Cherry logs across the dogs,
Smell like flowers in bloom
But ash logs, all smooth and grey,
Burn them green or old;
Buy up all that come your way,
They're worth their weight in gold.
Can anyone tell me, if this rhyme is true?
Whilst we are trying to remember things - does the surname Carey mean anything to anyone reading this. I cam across an obituary from The Whatlington News, typed on a typewriter by Mrs. Betty Petty, about Mrs. Alice Carey. She lived in the house next to the railway bridge on the Whatlington Road to Battle. She arrived in Whatlington as a bride to Mr. Cyril Carey in 1935. She lived there until 1983 when she moved to Hollington, in Hastings, to be closer to her family. She was described in the obituary as:
"a plump, cheerful person...was interested in what was going on in the village including in the past the Bonfire Society and the Football Club. She and Cyril were two of the founders of the Children Christmas Party Committee, and years later on, Barry, was to become chairman. Alice, a keen and generous supporter of local events, was a loss to the village when she moved. She gave a trophy to be competed for annually by the children, in memory of her husband, a former Parish Councillor. Sadly, like so much else in the village, this now seems a thing of the past. We offer our deepest sympathy to her sons Barry, who lives in Hollington, and Carl who emigrated to Australia and joined the Flying Ambulance Service, and to her grandchildren. Like the trophy, characters like Alice Carey no longer appear on the scene and we are all the poorer for their loss."
I remember both Mr. and Mrs. Carey, although I was quite young at the time. Cyril Carey used to work on the potato harvester during the early autumn and did some gardening at Vinehall Farm as well as other places, I am sure, but maybe you will be able to tell me better. He also worked in the
gypsum mines at
Mountfield, as did many others. Can anyone tell me who also worked in the mines from the village?
