"Love is all we have . . . .

"Love is all we have.  The only way that each can help the other."  --Euripides

Joan Shelton (Momma) said of her dad,
      "My dad, Albert Edward Strutt, was born in November, 1887 in Oxton, a village near Nottingham.  The Strutt name is one of the oldest in the village.  My dad's family lived in a 3-story Georgian type house that belonged to the village squire.  It was one of three behind the local pub, The Green Dragon, which still stands in Oxton today.
     My granddad was the head gardener at the manor house; when Dad left school, he was taken to work there in the garden alongside his dad.  There was no industry in the village so most lads worked the land.  Dad stayed at the Sherbrooke home, Oxton Hall, until he rebelled.
     It was the custom in those days that if any member of the squire's family passed by the workers, the workers were compelled to stand, doff their caps, and wait for the person to move past.  Dad got the idea that the squire's three young daughters were 'passing by' a bit too often, so at some point he refused to stand and doff his hat.  He was reported to the squire and let go.  His dad later apprenticed him to the local blacksmith, and that became his trade for life.

Oxton Hall, where Albert Strutt stared working in the garden alongside his dad

     Dad was one of 9 children; one sister died when she was 12.  She ate the skin of a baked potato, chocked on it, and died.  So we were never allowed to eat potato skins.
     My dad always kept himself so smart and clean.  I felt proud to be seen with him.  He polished his shoes, shaved, and wore a tie and trilby hat (a soft felt hat with a narrow brim and an indented crown) when out in public.
     Dad was a hard worker.  During the first world war he was sent to the Digby pit mine in the countryside to shoe the pit ponies, which, poor things, lived underground.  They were used to haul the tubs of coal to the shaft where the tubs were then lifted to the surface.  No mechanization in those days.  He worked there for most of the war years, keeping the machinery running and shoeing the pit ponies, working underground sometimes and other times at the surface.
     He was an avid gardener and kept the family in vegetables and flowers throughout the years.  He always smoked a pipe, and even now I can close my eyes and smell the sweet scent of tobacco on his clothes."        
                                                                                                --Joan Shelton

Digby pit mine

A pit pony

Bit of history:  'In shaft mines, ponies were normally stabled underground and fed hay and maize, coming to the surface only during the colliery’s annual holiday.  Typically, they would work an eight-hour shift each day, during which they might haul 30 tons of coal in tubs on the underground narrow gauge railway. 

     Recollections differ on how well the ponies were cared for in earlier years, but it should be remembered that they represented a capital asset to the mine, and that the best work could be obtained from animals that were in good condition."

The Green Dragon Public House in Oxton.  Dadda grew up behind this pub in a Georgian style home owned by the local squire.  The pub is still there.  Sadly, the house is not.