KEN BAKER

CATALOGUE

RECORDING

SUMMARY

BORN: Winsford, Somerset, 1907

LIVED: Winsford, Dulverton, Minehead

RECORDING MADE: 2001

RECORDING LENGTH: 4 hours 3 minutes

Ken Baker was a boy at the time of World War 1 and remembers horses training on Winsford Hill. Soldiers rode through the village blowing their trumpets and Mr. Dicker, the schoolmaster, read the war news to them every morning. With his father away in the Royal Engineers, he learnt to milk a cow, crying because the bucket was too heavy.

After school he had a variety of jobs as gardener/chauffeur/butler, driving once from Torquay to Stroud to collect some flowers for a boss who had three cars and 11 houses. He loved waiting on tables.

He was a transport driver in the war, ferrying bombs and petrol down the line. Back in Minehead he worked for the council for 24 years and then for Derek Merson at the Metropole Garage. He was fit years ago, he says, and roamed the hills, running for miles following the hunt. He finally retired at 90. His Morris Traveller, 34 years old, has 77,000 miles on the clock.

Ken Baker died in March 2003.

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

Photograph by Mark J. Rattenbury