Sarah
Hawkins Genealogy Site
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Somerset County Herald Saturday 11 Jun 1960
Page 7 Column 5 & 6
HAMBRIDGE JUBILEE
Mr. and Mrs. Herbert LANGFORD, The Bungalow, Hambridge, who celebrated their golden wedding yesterday (Friday).
'Hard Work and Cider' is Recipe for Long Life!
THE recipe for long life is 'hard work and plenty of Somerset farmhouse cider', according to a 79-year-old Hambridge man, Mr. Herbert LANGFORD, The Bungalow. Mr. LANGFORD and his wife today (Friday) celebrated their golden wedding. They were married at Newnham, Glos.
Mr. LANGFORD, a native of Curry Rivel and a son of the late Mr. and Mrs. Henry LANGFORD, is one of a family of ten, of whom five brothers and a sister are still alive.
Leaving school when he was ten he started his career as a farmer's boy, but, living as he did in the centre of the willow industry, he shortly after changed over to this trade, which he followed off and on for thirty years in the employ of the late Henry COATE & Son, willow merchants, Red Hill Farm, Curry Rivel.
During the depression he temporarily gave up his job and spent four years coalmining in South Wales. It was in Wales that he met his wife, who was at the time in domestic service as a lady's companion.
Two years after his marriagge <sic> Mr. LANGFORD decided to try his luck in Canada. He succeeded in finding a job, but his wife, who had a horror of the sea, refused to join him and he returned home again in 1914, taking up his old job where he left off.
During the 1914-18 War he joined the 7th Cheshires as an infantryman and served in Palestine and France. On demobilization he started up in the willow-growing trade on his own account, and after a few years had built up a very successful and flourishing business.
Today, nearing his 80th birthday, he is still engaged in this trade and only recently carried out the cutting of a four-acre bed of withies.
Talking of the changes in the industry in his time, he said that although mechanization had been introduced in one or two of the processes, he was sure the willow trade would still require special craftsmen for many years to come. When he was a young man the rate for cutting 20 bolts of withies was 1s 9d to 2s. Today it is 25s or even more.
Sons Abroad
Mrs. LANGFORD, who was 80 last week, is a native of Westbury-on-Severn. Of her family of five sisters and five brothers her 86-year-old sister Esther in London is the only other member of the family still surviving.
Mr. and Mrs. LANGFORD are well known in Curry Rivel, where they spent most of their married life. They moved to Hambridge about eight years ago. They have two sons, Albert in New York State and Sidney in Ontario, and three married daughters – Patricia in Shaftesbury, Dorothy in Stourton and Peggy in Hambridge. There are also three grandchildren.
Mr. LANGFORD made two trips to Canada and the States in 1948 and 1954 to visit his sons and brother Charlie.
In their younger days both
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took an active interest in various organizations. Mr. LANGFORD was a member of the Curry Rivel Lodge of Buffaloes and belongs to the local branch of the British Legion. Mrs. LANGFORD was formerly in the Mothers' Union and the Women's Institute. Owing to Mrs. LANGFORD's recent illness today's celebration will be a quiet one spent among the family.
<NOTES: Herbert Marwood Stenson LANGFORD son of Henry William LANGFORD or STENSON and Elizabeth Ann Richards or Annie BAKER, married Patience Mary LINTERN and Ellen
Ellen, married Herbert Marwood Stenson LANGFORD>