BRIAN WINDSOR

CATALOGUE

RECORDING

SUMMARY

BORN: Dulverton, Somerset, 1929

LIVED: Dulverton, Lynton

RECORDING MADE: 2001

RECORDING LENGTH: 3 hours 39 minutes

Brian Windsor began working in his father's butchers shop when he was still at school. With wartime rationing things were tough. They augmented their meat quota with venison and rabbit and his father started selling fish, an encyclopedia open on the counter to help him identify it. Later, Brian drove the van, delivering orders within a 20 mile radius, from half a pound of liver to 40 ribs of beef. And in the winter of 1947, when the world froze and the roads were impassable, he walked to Withypool for three weeks dragging a sledge.

Then he married Jenny and moved to Lynmouth, where her family had a shop, cafe and guest house. They ran the business together, taking over Medways butchers in Lynton as well. They were too busy for any social life, he says. He was a magistrate for 22 years and is a voluntary driver for the Lyn Valley Bus, taking visitors on mystery tours of Exmoor.

Brian Windsor died in August 2011.

Note: The summary of this recording is in outline only.

Photograph by Mark J. Rattenbury