Marston News
LOOK
IN
THE
WHAT’S
INSIDE FOOTSTEPS
OF ALFRED
WILLIAMS
Produced by South Marston C of E School to mark their Alfred Williams Learn to Learn Day, November 2010
THE MRS NEW
CONNECTION
– see page 3
Our day of activities about the
famous South Marston writer
November 1, 2010 was a
very special day at
South Marston C of E
School because we had
a Learn to Learn Day
about Alfred Williams.
MRS LOWE’S
VIEW
– see page 7
FAMOUS SOUTH
MARSTON PLACES
– see page 8
Alfred was a famous
writer and poet who went to
this school more than 100
years ago.
He wrote lots of poetry
and a book called Life in a
Railway Factory, which was
all about what it was like
to work in the GWR factory
in Swindon.
Staff and pupils dressed
up in Victorian costumes
during the day, and we had
visits from Graham Carter
and John Forster from the
Alfred Williams Heritage
Society, and Chris Park
who told us about the folk
songs Alfred collected, and
sang us a song.
See inside for more
information about some of
the things we got up to on
our great Alfred Williams
Day.
2
Marston News
November 2010
Class 4 pupils became reporters for a day
And now over to
our news team...
Five members of Class 4
really did follow in the
footsteps of Alfred
Williams when they became
reporters for a day during
the Alfred Williams Learn
to Learn Day.
Some of Alfred’s work was
published in local newspapers
before they were turned into
books, so hopefully this will be
the first step to more South
Marston pupils becoming great
writers!
Graham Carter, who is from
the Alfred Williams Heritage
Society but is also a freelance
journalist, helped the team,
pictured right, which was made
u p o f : C a t h e r i n e B o w d i d g e,
E l i j a h N e w t o n, C h a r l o t t e
M a r n e r, J e s s i c a H a r v e y a n d
S a p p h i r e J a c k s o n - Y o x a l l.
The team spent their day
gathering stories, interviewing
school VIPs, such as Mrs Lowe,
Mrs New and one of our
visitors, Chris Park, and they
also took lots of photographs.
They visited all the
classrooms to see what activities
all the pupils were up to, and
then came back to write the
stories.
Graham Carter said he was
very impressed with the team’s
workrate.
“It takes a lot of hard work to
be able to produce a newspaper
in a short time, and all the
reporters were brilliant at not
only writing the stories, but
writing them very quickly.
“I think Alfred Williams
would be very proud of them
and happy to think that they
are published writers, just like
him.
“They were especially good at
thinking up questions for the
interviews, which is much
harder than people think.”
This newspaper is being sold
to other pupils, but also to
other people in South Marston
and Swindon, too.
November 2010
Marston News
3
Mrs New reveals her
special connections
with Alfred Williams
She was born in a
famous cottage in
South Marston
We know someone who
was born in Alfred
Williams’s third home.
It is Rosemary New
(that’s Mrs New to
pupils!), who is a teaching
assistant at South Marston
C of E School.
She was born in Dryden
Cottage in the 1950s, and
the cottage is still in
South Marston today.
Why do you think that
Dryden Cottage is
important? It’s because
Alfred Williams lived
there, and most of the
famous books and poems
he wrote were actually
written in Dryden Cottage.
Mrs New (pictured,
right, in her Victorian
costume on Alfred
Williams Day) also came
to our school when she
was a little girl.
The school has changed,
but when Mrs New went to
it, it was almost the same
as when Alfred Williams
went here.
It looked the same as in
the old picture that we
saw, and when she first
came to the school, the
boys and the girls played
This is a picture of Dryden Cottage in South
Marston, where Mrs New was born and where
Alfred Williams did nearly all his writing.
It was one of the places that classes visited
on our Alfred Williams Day. To find out
about some other places in South Marston
with Alfred Williams connections, see the
back page.
in different playgrounds.
At playtime, the girls
would play skipping,
hopscotch and marbles,
and the boys played
football.
The girls never played
football.
In those days, PE was
very different. There were
no sports, just hoops to
use and an outdoor
climbing frame to climb
on.
Mrs New didn’t realise
that she lived in the house
of a famous person until
she was a teenager.
Then she got to hear
about Alfred Williams
and read the book he
wrote about South
Marston, called A
Wiltshire Village.
She said: “I think he was
a really nice man and a
clever man. He was very
passionate about the
things he wrote about.”
Her favourite subjects
were art and maths.
Her teacher’s names
were Mrs Burnett, Mrs
McDonald and Miss
Ellison, who was the
headmistress, which is an
old-fashioned name for
headteacher.
4
Marston News
November 2010
Pupils try farming and factories
Class 1 have been
finding out what it
is like to be farmers.
They had to harvest
the crops and sew
the seeds, and they
were building a giant
haystack.
They were looking
after the horses and
they put food in the
wheelbarrow.
They were also
pretending to work
in a factory –
melting the metal
and hammer rivets,
just like Alfred did
when he worked for
the GWR in Swindon.
Class 3 have been
making models and
collages of Alfred’s
houses.
They also learned
the names of the
houses as well.
See the back page
for more information
about the houses
where Alfred lived
in South Marston.
Class 4
get all
steamed
up for
Alfred!
Class 4 were really
busy with the Alfred
Williams Learn to
Learn Day.
They were busy writing
for a 15-minute
performance that they
were going to do for the
Alfred Williams Heritage
Festival at the Steam
Museum on November 12.
They will be performing,
singing and a little bit of
speaking.
They were doing it for
children and adults to
remember him, so they
had to keep them
entertained.
Alfred was known as an
ordinary boy. This is
because he lived in the
village. He was also known
as the ‘Hammerman Poet’.
Maya O’Sullivan, Chloe
Fuell, Harry Bailey-Young
and Jake Olive wrote
something about life on a
farm. Sam Lewis and
Thomas Powell wrote about
working for the GWR.
Emily Bowdidge and
James Reid studied his
early life, while Emily
Vareth, Lily Sansum,
Scarlett Paine, Guy
Drayton, Ania MorrisonClarke, Ethan Hatharell,
William Watch and Sarena
Neighbour learned about
school in Alfred’s day.
James Grimwood,
William Stoneham, and
Kevin Neil looked at
Victorian toys and games,
while Catherine Gullen
and Kai Lewis learned a
song.
November 2010
Marston News
5
A day in pictures
6
Marston News
November 2010
Cristina Newton and John
Forster of the Alfred Williams
Heritage Society, who helped
Class 2 make their artistic poem,
based on one written
by Alfred
In My Garden
garden arch,
To-day, within my
e clustering round
From the woodbin
n down flew,
A dainty little wre
g the ground.
n
o
l
a
d
e
And tripp
stranger came
Nearer the pretty
y pride,
a
With pert and s uc
upon the seat,
d
e
p
p
o
h
Then nimbly
side.
And waited by my
transfixed Quiet I sat like one
nge and new a
r
t
s
The sight was
my inmost heart
And wondered in
n would do.
What next the wre
pert and trim Awhile it stood, so
oft and slow s
e
m
a
My breath c
head aside,
Now held its little
nd fro;
And bobbed it to a
p it flew,
Then in a second u
tspread,
u
o
s
g
n
i
Its little w
ne in the roof
i
b
d
o
o
w
e
h
t
Beneath
my head.
And perched upon
aloud with joy
I could have cried
ght,
To feel its tiny wei
ained,
m
e
r
I
e
u
t
a
t
s
a
e
But lik
at.
e
s
e
And still upon th
stranger went,
Then off the little
it flew,
And straight away
e elm-tree tops,
And out toward th
st the blue.
a
Like a speck ag in
hat long I felt,
And now I know, w
and wild,
With pain so sweet
,
e
m in her thought
That nature holds
her child.
And claims me for
Poetry in
motion!
Class 2 have also been very
hard at work.
By that we mean they have
been learning about Victorian
schools.
Mrs Newton kindly came in
to teach poetry and art to a
certain group of children. They
took one of Alfred’s poems,
called In My Garden, which is
about a little bird and a garden.
He wrote the poem in 1911 (99
years ago!) when he was living at
Dryden Cottage, so the garden in
the poem is in South Marston.
They gave the children lines of
the poem, which they have written
and illustrated in a very artistic
way, and their lines built up into
the whole poem.
The poem will be sung by South
Marston pupils at Steam.
November 2010
Marston News
7
Folk songs and craft
taught by Chris Park
Chris Park came to our
school on the Alfred
Williams Day, to play
folk music.
It was the kind of music
they used to play before
electricity and things like
iPods.
Alfred Williams cycled
around the area to collect
the words of lots of songs
that weren’t written down.
If he hadn’t written the
words down, they would be
forgotten and we wouldn’t
know about them.
Chris, who is from Acorn
Education, sang some of
the songs that Alfred
wrote down. He said:
“Alfred was an amazing
man and a creative man,
and I have never been to
his school before, so it is
quite exciting for me.
“Some of the school is
the same as it would have
been then, like the hall.”
He also brought along
some old-fashioned
beehives to show us in the
hall, called skeps.
Chris Park sings a song in front of a picture of
Alfred Williams, above, and shows some pupils an
old-fashioned beehive called a skep, right.
‘Alfred set a good example’
Mrs Lowe thinks Alfred Williams is an
interesting man because he didn’t sit
back and instead used his talents.
She didn’t know Alfred existed until
the Alfred Williams Heritage Society
came to school.
Now she thinks he is important
because he was a local person who was
very ambitious, which means he wanted
to achieve a lot of things in his life.
Mrs Lowe said: “It is very good to
know him and remember him, because
he is our history. It is amazing to
think that he came to this school.”
Left: Catherine and Elijah interview
Mrs Lowe (wearing her Victorian
costume) in her office.
8
Marston News
November 2010
Pupils’ tour of famous
South Marston places
Pupils from the school visited
the places where Alfred
Williams once lived in South
Marston.
Cambria Cottage. He was born
here in 1877, but only lived here
until 1883.
South Marston School. He went
here until about 1888, when he
was 11 years old.
Cambria Cottage and Rose Cottage
have plaques on the outside that tell
visitors that he lived there.
Sadly, it is very difficult to see
Ranikhet, the cottage that he and his
wife Mary built themselves, using
stones from an old cottage and one
of the disused locks on the canal
near South Marston.
Rose Cottage. He moved here in
1883 and lived there until he
married his wife, Mary.
Ranikhet. He built this himself
and moved in in 1921. He also
died here, in 1930.
Dryden Cottage (on the left). He
lived here with Mary from 1903
and wrote most of his books here.
Find out more about the life and works of Alfred Williams at www.alfredwilliams.org.uk