My parents, Frederick (Fred) and Evelyn Evans, my brother Terence (Terry) and I lived in Granary Cottages, Darsham until about 1958. We were the first tenants to live in that house. My father, Frederick Bertie, was born in Yoxford in 1913, my mother Evelyn Maud Alexander, in Darsham in 1920.
My father was never interested in buying his own house. Mum had tried to persuade him to buy a cottage in Little Street, Yoxford which had not met its reserve price at auction, and which later was offered to them by the agent but Dad would not be persuaded. He thought its condition was just too bad. I expect it is now a delightful cottage! When the tenancy of The Griffin Inn became vacant in about 1958, Mum tried to persuade Dad to take it on. He thought that they could not afford it, with the purchasing of stock and fixtures and fittings. However, Mum took matters into her own hands and approached the brewery which was Morgans of Norwich. The outcome was that they could have the tenancy providing they could provide three references. Of course they could, obtaining those of Sir Arthur Penn from Sternfield, Sir Gervaise Blois of Cockfield Hall and Captain Hadley of Darsham House, all of whom knew my parents well as my father worked as a bricklayer for Reade’s builders of Aldeburgh, specialists in historic buildings.
Five years of very hard work followed with Dad continuing to work for Reade’s full-time as a bricklayer during the day and helping in the pub evenings and weekends. I believe he enjoyed this time as The Griffin had always been his local and many of the customers were his friends. During this time he restored the derelict Bowling Green (formerly belonging to The Three Tuns Inn, which burned down in 1925) and many evenings and weekends in the summer were spent playing bowls. It is believed the bowling green was handed over to the village and that is probably when Yoxford Bowls Club was formed. (A villager remembers her father telling her he watched his grandfather playing bowls there circa 1927).
Dad was good at all sports and played bowls for Suffolk, reaching Runner-up in the All-England Men’s Singles Finals at Skegness one year. Bowls in Yoxford was played at The Rookery before the Green at The Griffin was restored. (See footnote)
Fred, Terry, Evelyn outside front of The Griffin c1959.
I was at school doing my ‘A’ Levels for the first two years but used to help out with cleaning, washing up, sorting bottles etc. when I had time. After that I was away at University, coming home only for holidays.
When we first moved into The Griffin there was no bathroom and we had to revert to bringing in the zinc bath to the kitchen and heating up the water in an electric boiler. There was actually a brick-built copper in the kitchen but I do not think we ever used it. It needed a fire to be lit beneath it. Very soon, however, the brewers did some alterations, putting a bathroom into one of the nine bedrooms, installing a hot-water cylinder with immersion heater and removing the old brick copper. There was no central heating and all the main heating was by coal fire.
The Inn at that time was a very interesting property. It had two flights of stairs – one from the Bar, behind a door and one from the passageway in our living quarters, also behind a door. The stairs from the Bar were very useful when my mother started doing bed and breakfast.
The living quarters of the house, at the west end, nearest to Magnolia House were very old. There was a passageway through the centre of this part of the house leading from the Bar to a door at the west end. This door had at one time been the main door of The Griffin and in days gone by the main road had passed it. There were the remains of what looked like a Coat of Arms in the plaster above this door. Leading from this passageway were various rooms as well as a flight of stairs. There was a large pantry with a brick floor at the west end of the property, beside this old outside door. It had a window in the side and wide shelves on which we kept all our spare crockery, and non-perishable goods, eggs, vegetables and sacks of potatoes on the brick floor. The ancient back door was below ground level and there were two or three steps leading up from it to the garden. Also at this west end, on the other side of the passageway was our living room with a window facing out in the direction of Magnolia House next door. The kitchen, which jutted out to the back of the property, with tiled sloping roof, was a later addition. Also in our private part of the house was the front room with French doors facing out to a little fenced lawn and the main street. When my mother later did bed and breakfast this room was used. My piano was also in here and this is the room in which I sometimes did my homework. Next to this front room was a small area which we called the ‘snug’ with its own door to the front of the house. It was really just a passageway from the front to the rest of the house. It had a door into our passageway and a hatchway into the Bar. Here the youngsters of the village were allowed to meet. It was an alcohol-free zone but they could buy soft drinks, crisps etc. from the Bar.
The passage from the ancient west end door lead to the area behind the Bar. A door lead from here to the room we called the ‘Domino Room’, which had a large window facing out to the back. (Looking at a present-day photograph of the back of the Griffin, this window seems to be obscured by a flat-roofed extension, which might be a kitchen. The old kitchen that we had would not have been suitable for producing restaurant meals.) The Domino Room had a large polished oak table in the middle with chairs around. (All of our wooden chairs and tables were wiped and polished every day with proper furniture polish. Everything gleamed.) The open fire in this room was always the first to be lit and this is where the regular male customers would sit to chat, play cards or of course, dominos. The pub was closed in the afternoons so I would come into this room when I came home from school to drink tea and relax. It was very cosy. After we left The Griffin, the table and chairs in this room were removed and a juke-box was put in instead. What a shame!
Janise aged 18, c1959 outside the Domino Room window.
The main Bar was at the front, to the right of the front door. Here another fire was lit. To the left of the fire was the dart board. I would also practise darts on occasions when I came home from school. There was a cellar, reached by a door in the back passageway of the pub. This was quite large and ambling and in the past had been much bigger but had been either filled in or blocked off. We used the cellar for the bottled stock. I did not go down there very much. Of course it was kept locked. Beer came in barrels which were kept in one of the stables. They had to be rolled over to the Bar and set up and tapped. There was no pumped beer. Drips of beer would be caught and I would sometimes use it to rinse my hair. Our dog, Judy, also liked to drink it.
To the left of the main front door was another large room with a Bar. This part of The Griffin was much more recent. We did not use this room much. If we knew that a lot of people would be in then the fire would be lit, and someone manned the Bar. I never plucked up the courage to do this but I was very good at washing the glasses. I am not sure whether my brother helped in the Bar as he was younger than me. Otherwise there was only my mother and my father and sometimes a local girl, Dinah came in to help. In the summer it was a bit different. There might be a bowls match or there might be a coach with people on a mystery outing. Coach drivers always knew they would be welcome.
Upstairs there were nine bedrooms when we moved in. I remember after one was turned into a bathroom, the window, like most of the bedrooms, I think was leaded. The bathroom window had some panes which were like bottle-glass. The builders wanted to change that window but my mother would not let them.
My bedroom was the one with the window over the front door. I remember our labrador collie Judy one day climbing out of my window and standing on the roof of the porch. She thought she could escape that way! It was a frightening few moments before we could get her back. Another room led from my bedroom. It was above the Bar. It was not furnished except for a table and chair and I kept all my spare belongings and books in there. During the summer, while studying for exams, I would sit in there facing the window and looking down the street towards the Church. I would be able to see who was about in the village. My parents and brother had rooms in the old part of the house. There were two quite large bedrooms in the newer part which were kept for guests and could also be reached from the stairs leading up from the Bar. These rooms were already furnished when we moved in and both had very ornate Victorian dressing-tables and wash-stands with decorative bowls, jugs, etc. Before we could have guests we had to have a bathroom. There was no en suite in those days. My bedroom also had a wonderful Victorian dressing-table and I wished we had taken it with us when we moved. All of this furniture which we inherited, we left behind when we moved out.
In the centre of the house, upstairs, was a space as big as a room but it could only be used as a corridor or landing to access all the bedrooms. It was quite dark. I had a weird experience one evening. My mother was in the Bar, my brother was out and my father was taking part in a bowls match. I went upstairs to my room, switched on the light and crossed this landing room. While in my room, I heard footsteps walk across this landing (lino no carpet) and I heard the light being switched off. I knew Mum was the only one at home. The stairs from the Bar were locked and in any case Mum would be able to see from the Bar if anyone went up either stairs, She said that she had not been upstairs but she came up with me and we searched the whole of upstairs but there was no one there! I never solved that mystery but I can never forget it.
Once we were established Mum decided to try her hand at Bed and Breakfast. This was quite successful and we had as many visitors as Mum could cope with on her own and some of them returned. Mum had been in service in London when she first left school and so knew how everything should be done. I have never had a breakfast in a hotel or elsewhere as good as those she produced. Mum never did any pub meals.
At Christmas-time, I would help with making dozens of mince pies and sausage rolls which were given out in the Bar on Christmas morning and Boxing Day. Pubs were open on Christmas mornings in those days until about 2 pm and then closed for the rest of the day. We would have our Christmas lunch later in the afternoon. I remember on one occasion we got as far as the pudding, but there was no cream or brandy butter. They had been forgotten. Maybe we had no custard powder either but I did not care for custard anyway. One of us, probably me, suggested the Advocaat in the Bar used for making Snowballs. It looked like custard. What would it taste like? So we tried it. It was most delicious and has been a tradition in our extended family ever since! I always make sure that we have a bottle at Christmas.
We had a cat, Sooty who would usually be outside at night but she sometimes came in during the night. To do this she would jump onto the garden wall at the back of the house,
walk along it towards the front, jump on to the roof of the French doors and in at the bedroom window if it was open. Sometimes she would bring in an offering of a dead mouse which she would take to my parents’ room and dump on the floor and then meow to attract their attention. This was not encouraged. I remember, one night, my brother was sleeping in the room with the open window. There was some cat disturbance outside and Sooty rushed through the window, over my brother’s bed and another cat followed!
After five years, Dad and Mum were very tired with running a pub and Dad also working as a bricklayer. Mum needed to get up early in the morning to get him off to work. While the pub was shut during the afternoons, she would do some shopping and prepare an evening meal which we would eat before the pub opened. They were usually late getting to bed. Some customers were difficult to remove at the end of the evening! They had done quite well at The Griffin with two incomes and when Mum heard that the house nearly opposite, called Merivale was for sale, she approached the owner, a farmer in the village. At the time Merivale was let to American Service personnel. As it happened, the house was not actually for sale but the owner said he would sell it. A deal was done and my parents bought their first house. The Americans moved on. We had Merivale for some time while we still lived at The Griffin and if any of us felt like doing something different we would go over and start stripping wallpaper!
Janise Turner (nee Evans). January 2021
(NB Fred Evans was the brother of Robert Thomas Evans, killed WWII. See his story in the War folders in St Peter’s Church.)
Footnote In 1995/6 the Brewery claimed the bowling green and later built a house on it, known as The Old Bowling Green. The Bowls Club tried to fight but had to move off the land. They were able to rent a piece of farmland next to the Cricket pitch. Planning permission was given to construct a new green there in 1996/7. This was done by mostly volunteers andt was opened in 1999. In 2015 the land was put up for sale, the Club having first refusal and they were able to raise the funds to purchase it in 2016. There are currently around 30 members.