Mr. Thomas Edwin Voges, of Chilsworthy, who died recently in the H.D.D. Hospital, had a close link with Bradworthy. He was a member of the Over-60 Club, as also was his wife Muriel, to whom sincere sympathy is extended in her sad loss. Tom and Muriel made many friends in this village and were much esteemed. Mr. Voges was in the Royal Air Force in the 1939-45 War. Member of a bomber crew he was aboard a plane damaged and on fire and sustained severe injuries, being left with scars of burning on his face and hands. He was a member of Holsworthy branch of the Royal British Legion and regularly attended its meetings before overtaken by illness. Members of the Legion were bearers at the funeral service, held at Chilsworthy Methodist Church.
By personal calls, letters and telephone I have a number of contacts with visitors from overseas and other areas of this country in recent weeks. Two very interesting visitors were the Rev. Ronald Hooper and his daughter Esther from Saskatchewan. He had written previously to say he remembered me when I attended a Harris Reunion in Saskatchewan several years ago and it was he who conducted the Sunday service. He called me "cousin" as Canadians and Americans ore inclined to do even if you are remotely related. In this case my great-great-great-grandfather, Thomas Harris appears to be one of the same family as Mr. Hooper's Harris ancestor who emigrated in the 1840s.. However we did have a pleasant meeting and I was able to give him some information about the old Bible Christians to which denomination his forefathers belonged.
Largely because of the name I was interested in meeting Mr. Allan Trothan. He admitted that he considered his name should be Trathan, but his father or grandfather told him that when he arrived in Canada, the authorities registered him with an "0" in the name and said that was the correct spelling. The Trathens were a Woolsery family and he was pleased when I looked up in an 1857 Directory the Trathens who lived at Duerdon Farm in that parish. At present this surname seems to be more rare than mine. I could find no Trathens in the business or residential sections of the telephone book, but an owner of an engineering firm at Bideford.
Do you get tired of hearing the word 'Millennium' - 'by the Millennium ...for the Millennium ...at the Millennium' ? I prefer now to speak of "the year 2000". The other evening I was standing on Broad Hill where the children have played for a thousand years and the old Bradworthians stacked their wood ready for the winter. Yes a thousand years ago - the first Millennium and Bradworthy had even then been established for about three hundred years. I wonder if Bradry folk then made such a fuss about the Millennium. What was the situation Nationally? Ethelred the Second had been King of England for 27 years, ever since he was ten years old. He was nicknamed the Unready, because he was unable to cope with the marauding Danes; yet two years after the Millennium he did pull up his socks and massacre hundreds of Danes. There might still have been some fear of Danes here in Bradworthy and the surrounding villages, as older folk must have heard their grandfathers speak of Danish invasion of the Taw and Torridge estuaries, even landing and burning and destroying homes, until defeated in battle by the defending Saxons. It could happen again.
We will assume that the Saxons, themselves the invaders, fighting farmers, three centuries before had by this time integrated with the Britons and all got along tolerably well together. The Saxons during the long years they were fighting their way westward had become Christians before they reached Devon, so there was probably a small timber church, perhaps standing where our church is today. Saints festivals were being celebrated and other customary high days with dancing and vigorous jollification. Imagine the village with its ramshackle one-storey hovels, wood smoke rising from holes in the roofs of some, if they had no chimneys, pigs runting and geese waddling round on the grassy "towne-place".' It is the Eve of the first Millennium. The ploughman has set free his oxen to graze, the village tradesmen have ceased their activities. I cannot believe the first thousand years came and went without some celebration. On that Eve I can fancy reeve, villein and serf gathering at the Church house, probably on the site of the present Inn, consuming a few jugs of mead and enjoying the rough gaiety typical of the times and next day, Church service- over, continue the merrymaking.