Andy Parsons – My History

I was born at Chipping Norton War Memorial hospital in the winter of 1968 and then later baptized at Radford, near Enstone in the tiny Catholic Church; my father is David Thomas Parsons (Born in Fulwell) and my mother being Christina Shaw (Born in Chilton nr Didcot and brought up by her Gran at the Litchfield Arms in Enstone). I am one of four children, two older sisters, Diane and Hazel and a younger brother Peter. My Godmother is Mary Randall (John Parsons's sister). We were brought up in Church Enstone and all went to Enstone primary school and then on to Chipping Norton Secondary School. My father worked as a farm labourer on Fulwell farm (Near Ditchley), then owned by a Welsh businessman Taffy Hughes. Nearly all of our neighbours in Church Enstone worked on the same farm. When Mr Hughes sold the farm it was taken over by Sir David Wills of Sandford in 1979/80 and they cut the labour force from 13 men down to just 3. I remember as children tagging along with my father at the weekend whilst he worked and seeing the Race Horses owned by Mr Hughes and watching butter being made the traditional way at Sandford St. Martin. I also recall Mr Davies, the old farm manager, and the old labourers Mr Twig, Mr Pratley and Mr Sheffield.

So our lives changed and we moved to Fulwell, where my father was made farm manager and the house contents were taken on the back of a trailer to the top house called Hillcrest surrounded by ancient barns and buildings. My Grandparents had lived in Fulwell for years and we used to visit on a Sunday to chat and play cards, now we were just a few hundred feet away! I then changed schools...

Chipping Norton School was a strange place and it was a confusing time really. Unlike Enstone primary there were quite a few distractions and I found it difficult to learn sometimes – I guess this is fairly normal in the transition between Schools – There were Gypsies, the Barton boys and the Chippy crew – Us Enstone lads were only seven or eight in number in a school of 1200. We still managed to have a lot of laughs though and some of the teachers were excellent. I especially enjoyed English, History, Geography, Rural Education and PE.

I left school just before I was 16 and went to work on Fulwell Farm with my Father as manager, Mick Jones and David Breeze as labourers. In the winters I worked in the Forestry with Harold Wakefield as head forester in amongst a team of about eight. Farming was very hard work and I had a great variety of jobs – The one thing you learn most is Common sense and Fulwell Farm really was run as a farm with people that cared about both the land and its wildlife. I was very lucky to have such good examples as bosses and although I may not have thought it at the time, it taught me a great deal about life and respect for rural life.

After three years I needed to move on as I felt a little isolated – I needed to get out and see the world a little as I felt as though I was missing out. I needed to find a job to teach me how to deal with people, so where else should I work but in a busy Oxford Pub. There I stayed for a year and a half before finding a job in an Oxford based Large Print Book Store as head warehouseman, where I stayed for six years.

In 1995 I went to work for a large software company in Banbury as head of Technical Support for 2 years. After this I was IT Coordinator for Chipping Norton School for a year and a half and now run a Computer Services Company in North Yorkshire.

I now live in North Yorkshire and have been here for over two years and look after almost all the locals’ computers! It is a great job and I get to see a great variety of people in the heart of the countryside.

In May 2000 I decided that I needed to find out much more about my families past. It nagged me that I did not know my ancestor’s names and what they did…so it began, the family history project! I still have lots more to add and to say and it may be that I need to set up other sites to cover the new information that folk send in. There is so much we need to learn from our elders, how can we improve our future if we do not learn from the past?

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all that have helped with information and stories along the way – Please enjoy the rest of the website.

Andy Parsons – September 2002.