This article written by Jackie Rickenberg was published in the Parish Magazine in February and March 2021
After our recent articles celebrating the works of various past illustrious male residents of Thursley, including an architect, a composer and an artist, it is high time we turned our attention to one of the most distinguished ladies that has had the pleasure of calling Thursley home. This month and next, we delve into the imaginary world of children’s author and naturalist, Monica Edwards. Part 1 is about her early life and how she arrived in Thursley. Part 2, next month, will be focusing on her career and latter years.
Monica Edwards (née Monica le Doux Newton; 8 November 1912 – 18 January 1998) was an children's writer of the mid-twentieth century, best known for her Romney Marsh and Punchbowl Farm series of children's novels.
She was born in Belper, Derbyshire, the third of four children born to the Reverend Harry and Beryl Newton. In 1927, when Monica was 15, the family moved to Rye Harbour in Romney Marsh, Sussex, where Harry Newton remained as vicar until 1936. Her formal education was fragmented and she spent a lot of her time on the Marsh, observing fishing boats, sheep shearing, sailing with fishermen and riding shepherd’s ponies. In later years she was able to use this experience to good effect when writing her “Marsh” and “Punchbowl Farm” books.
Among the people Monica met at about this time was Bill Edwards, a young man some ten years her senior. He lived principally in Rye, but spent most of his summers in a fishing hut on Camber Sands. Amongst other things, he and Monica shared a surprising interest in, and aptitude for, gymnastics! They appeared performing a balancing act in festivals in Hastings and Battle, and even appeared on picture postcards. Perhaps this was at the root of parental disapproval of the liaison. Certainly, there was a point at which her father forbade her to see Bill again until she was twenty-one. Monica accepted the dictum, but on her twenty first birthday, she returned to the precise spot on Camber Sands where she and Bill had parted, to find him waiting for him. Parental opposition was duly removed, and they married two days later. They remained married for over fifty years until Bill’s death in 1990. How wonderfully romantic!
By 1947, Bill and Monica were living in Send and now had two children, Shelley and Sean. Monica, by this point, had had a couple of books published and this allowed them to think about buying a larger family home. Various properties were looked at and rejected, and eventually Monica attended the auction of Pitlands Farm, Thursley, more in a spirit of idle curiosity than with any serious intent to buy. She put in a single bid, because the price seemed so pitiably low, and, to her astonishment, found that she had bought it! Thus, began the family’s life in Thursley.
This photograph, from the Estate of Monica Edwards, is a view of the farm before they moved there. It is very similar to that shown in Whittam's drawing below. When they arrived, the house had no electricity, no mains water, no sewage. Water was wound up from the well, a privy was placed at a discrete distance from the house and baths were taken courtesy of a friend. The house dates from 1332. The Edwards’ changed the name of the farm and many of you will recognise this early photo of it as Punchbowl Farm, at the top of Highfield Lane, now the home of the Scheffers family. In older Ordinance Survey maps, the farm still retains its original name.
Its location is shown in Geoffrey Whittam's illustration from Monica’s book, “Black Hunting Whip”.
Here the farm is being approached from the village down the sunken lane. Behind the farm is the barn and beyond, Barn Field rises to the left to meet the other sunken lane. This later picture, taken by Monica Edwards in 1953, shows the approach to the house from the farm gate (Bill is on the right). By this time the chimney on the right-hand part of the house, visible in the earlier photograph, had been dismantled by Bill. This was the kitchen chimney in the oldest part of the house and it was in a precarious state. For some years, until it was rebuilt, the smoke from the range exited through a pipe in the roof. Just visible in the end wall of the older wing, where a part of the house has long since fallen, is the window put in for the bathroom. The bathroom was created partly from chimney space and in part a 'Priest's Hole'.
From the Surrey Daily Advertiser, May 31st - June 1st, 1974
Anyone lucky enough to have read “The Unsought Farm” will be familiar with the absorbing story of how the Edwards family gradually renovated the house and land, and took to farming. It was in a terrible state when they bought it. The land was derelict and the house scarcely less so. Plainly, the land was not going to generate much income for some time to come, and this was the necessary spur to start Monica’s literary career. Her first two books, “Wish for a Pony “and “No Mistaking Corker”, were published before their arrival in Thursley. And so, for the next twenty-five years she continued to write steadily, publishing one, and sometimes, two books a year.
To be continued………….
Acknowledgements:
Thank you to V K Lindley for the account of Monica’s life in Thursley.
The Monica Edwards website http://www.monicaedwards.co.uk/
Sean Edwards, son and Thursley resident.
Monica Edwards at work at her desk in Punch Bowl Farm