FIFTY YEARS AS A BLACKSMITH Memories of a Different World as recalled by a Bude Septuagenarian Seventy-three-year-old Mr. Fred Staddon, from his smithy on the lower wharf of Bude Canal, has watched a changing world through the eyes of a philosopher. A very different world it was back in 1910 when he went to work in the blacksmiths shop of the late Mr. Jim Rowe before taking a lone hand in 1913. For these were the days of sail: of the Ceres (the first boat to have motors fitted), the Jessie and the Agnes and scores of their type, plying their trade between Liverpool, Swansea, Newport and Wicklow and sailing into the port of Bude with precious cargoes of coal and manure. Mr. Staddon has seen as many as seven or eight of these fussy little coasters moored up at one time while the port reverberated with activity and knots of leather-skinned seamen gathered outside his shop retailing the news of the day. Sometimes when stormbound, and until motor power came in, the vessels would lie at their moorings for weeks. But most times it was a short stay, ended just as soon as their holds were filled with the golden grain of the Cornish harvest. At that time, a tiny railway ran from the beach to the wharf, a horse drawn conveyance bringing sand for ballast for the ships travelling empty down channel. Mooring swivels and shackles for huge wooden buoys were the order of the day for Mr. Staddon. He wrought all the iron work in 1920 for the inner lock gates. He acted as ships smith. He carried out the many commitments for the towns two wheelwrights and he made many of the harrows and ploughs and door hangings ordered by farmers. Then there were the horses. Milk-cart ponies, coaching horses, posting horses, cart horses. Mr. Staddon shod the lot and loved every moment he was in the forge, and still does. He is tough enough to have survived fifty years of it and his cheerful eye and mind makes him fit for many more.To-day the waters of the canal curl lazily along its banks and when it is not being used as a pleasure pond for boating its heart is silent. There is still plenty of work for Mr. Staddon, but the emphasis has changed. Now he is repairing the things he once made and there is a demand from local garages for such oddments as motor springs, he can also turn his hand to such commercial ventures as lucky horseshoes, made from copper, and door knockers made of steel horse-shoes. Mr. Staddon, a Week St. Mary man, whose father, the late Mr. John Staddon kept the Old Tree Inn there, left school at eleven and still works five days a week in his forge. If he has any leisure, he uses it up on the Bude golf-course - his three sons and a grandson complete three generations of a keen golfing family - in his garden, and in another of his great interests, the showing of cage-birds. With his Yorkshire canaries which he has bred since he was 13, he has won championships at Bristol and Bideford and several other places.
Posted on: Sat, 12 Apr 2014 08:08:47 +0000
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