In the early 1930’s, backed by the owner of the Standard Check Book Company, he started a weekly newspaper, “The North Somerset Independent”, printed and published in Frome with himself as editor. It lasted just a year and a half, but these were the worst days of the Depression, and a newspaper, like a football club, is ever a toy for very rich men. Later in the 1930’s, after his wife’s tragically early death, he moved into the quarrying and cement business, founding the Mendip Stone and Concrete Company. Although it failed to make his fortune, the business continued into the War before he sold it, himself remaining as the manager. Significantly, papers show that at this time he still had managed to hang on to the Crossway, which he leased to a man who finally drowned himself in the lake at Mells Park!
In March 1945 he speculated in a letter that he soon would have to leave the concrete company, “I may soon be looking up another business to be nearly successful in.” “To be nearly successful,” it might have been his epitaph, but cometh the hour, cometh the man, and real financial success finally blessed Will Jones, after forty years of sporadically successful endeavour, in a most unlikely form – scrap! When the War ended in 1945, there was a desperate shortage of building materials, which hampered old and new businesses alike as they attempted to return to peacetime normality. Where there was plenty of roofing, windows, and galvanised iron was in the army camps, many of which had been redundant since D-Day in 1944. Will Jones had a lorry and he had a workforce, and they were soon at work, dismantling and reclaiming material from the old military bases. In a superb moment of irony, he acquired the site of Newbury pit, closed since 1927, from which his father had been locked out fifty years previously, to store his goods. My own father was one of his customers. He bought a Nissen hut, which stood in the yard of our butter packing factory at Hallatrow for sixty years, with the unpainted metal interior still as bright as the day it was erected.
With the profits Will Jones went back into the concrete business in a period very different from the 1930’s. The blitzed cities of Britain were being rebuilt, and concrete blocks were big business. He invested in a German machine which moved up and down the old pit yard laying blocks like eggs. He developed a process in which a paste of crushed Bath stone, salvaged from the bomb sites of the city, faced the blocks. These proved enormously popular and gave the new company its name, Reconstructed Bath Stone. It remained a prosperous business until after his death, but a building slump, joined with increasing statutory regulation of production, brought about the sale of the business in the mid 1970’s.
Like some of the characters in his books, Will Jones was never backwards in coming forwards with an opinion. In the circumstances it was inevitable that he should become a public man, and by the end of his life he had accumulated a long list of public offices, in local politics, the church, and football even. A cause celebre of the Great War in Coleford was the eccentric behaviour of the Reverend John Henry Evans, who had become vicar in June 1914. In February 1916 the national daily, the “Morning Post”, and the “John Bull” magazine, reported that Evans, stung by a perceived whispering campaign in the parish that the clergy were “cowards and shirkers,” announced that he had been a talented boxer in his youth and was “ready to put on gloves with any of these unknown persons if they will reveal their identity in public.” Evans obviously thought that it was his parishioners who were ducking military service as he also offered to work the shifts of any miner, with a dependent like a “widowed mother”, who joined up, and Evans would pay the wages earned to that dependent – as long as it did not interfere with “clerical duties”. Presumably no one embarrassed the vicar by taking him up on his dotty and impractical offer. Will Jones, however, who one suspects spent more than a little time browsing through all the newspapers and magazines on his counter at the Crossway, immediately took up the metaphorical cudgels, if not the vicar’s boxing gloves, on behalf of the village by writing to “John Bull” himself. He pointed out that 85 of the total population of Coleford of 1,291 had already joined up. “All the others are working in the coalmines here and risking their lives daily for that which is necessary to the nation for carrying on the war.” A local concert had raised £15 for Belgium. The vicar had suggested that the money should be given to him, and in return he would take in Belgian refugees at the vicarage. Will Jones reported with relish to “John Bull” that the unfortunate Belgians, a stationmaster and his family, were obliged to use the servants’ entrance, that supper consisted of an onion each with bread and cocoa, and that their lavatory was in the garden with the floor in standing water. Despite a welcome bath at the Crossway, the Belgian family “cleared out as soon as possible,” and relief money raised then went straight to “Belgian headquarters.” Will Jones so disliked the Reverend Evans that he had resigned from his beloved church choir in November 1915 after twenty four years service. His letter of resignation was written with such feeling that, when he signed his name, the pen went straight through the paper. The Evans story, and much more, may be found in “A Good Foundation”, an excellent history of Coleford church by Valerie Bonham and Julie Dexter, published by Church Window Books.
In March 1945 he speculated in a letter that he soon would have to leave the concrete company, “I may soon be looking up another business to be nearly successful in.” “To be nearly successful,” it might have been his epitaph, but cometh the hour, cometh the man, and real financial success finally blessed Will Jones, after forty years of sporadically successful endeavour, in a most unlikely form – scrap! When the War ended in 1945, there was a desperate shortage of building materials, which hampered old and new businesses alike as they attempted to return to peacetime normality. Where there was plenty of roofing, windows, and galvanised iron was in the army camps, many of which had been redundant since D-Day in 1944. Will Jones had a lorry and he had a workforce, and they were soon at work, dismantling and reclaiming material from the old military bases. In a superb moment of irony, he acquired the site of Newbury pit, closed since 1927, from which his father had been locked out fifty years previously, to store his goods. My own father was one of his customers. He bought a Nissen hut, which stood in the yard of our butter packing factory at Hallatrow for sixty years, with the unpainted metal interior still as bright as the day it was erected.
With the profits Will Jones went back into the concrete business in a period very different from the 1930’s. The blitzed cities of Britain were being rebuilt, and concrete blocks were big business. He invested in a German machine which moved up and down the old pit yard laying blocks like eggs. He developed a process in which a paste of crushed Bath stone, salvaged from the bomb sites of the city, faced the blocks. These proved enormously popular and gave the new company its name, Reconstructed Bath Stone. It remained a prosperous business until after his death, but a building slump, joined with increasing statutory regulation of production, brought about the sale of the business in the mid 1970’s.
Like some of the characters in his books, Will Jones was never backwards in coming forwards with an opinion. In the circumstances it was inevitable that he should become a public man, and by the end of his life he had accumulated a long list of public offices, in local politics, the church, and football even. A cause celebre of the Great War in Coleford was the eccentric behaviour of the Reverend John Henry Evans, who had become vicar in June 1914. In February 1916 the national daily, the “Morning Post”, and the “John Bull” magazine, reported that Evans, stung by a perceived whispering campaign in the parish that the clergy were “cowards and shirkers,” announced that he had been a talented boxer in his youth and was “ready to put on gloves with any of these unknown persons if they will reveal their identity in public.” Evans obviously thought that it was his parishioners who were ducking military service as he also offered to work the shifts of any miner, with a dependent like a “widowed mother”, who joined up, and Evans would pay the wages earned to that dependent – as long as it did not interfere with “clerical duties”. Presumably no one embarrassed the vicar by taking him up on his dotty and impractical offer. Will Jones, however, who one suspects spent more than a little time browsing through all the newspapers and magazines on his counter at the Crossway, immediately took up the metaphorical cudgels, if not the vicar’s boxing gloves, on behalf of the village by writing to “John Bull” himself. He pointed out that 85 of the total population of Coleford of 1,291 had already joined up. “All the others are working in the coalmines here and risking their lives daily for that which is necessary to the nation for carrying on the war.” A local concert had raised £15 for Belgium. The vicar had suggested that the money should be given to him, and in return he would take in Belgian refugees at the vicarage. Will Jones reported with relish to “John Bull” that the unfortunate Belgians, a stationmaster and his family, were obliged to use the servants’ entrance, that supper consisted of an onion each with bread and cocoa, and that their lavatory was in the garden with the floor in standing water. Despite a welcome bath at the Crossway, the Belgian family “cleared out as soon as possible,” and relief money raised then went straight to “Belgian headquarters.” Will Jones so disliked the Reverend Evans that he had resigned from his beloved church choir in November 1915 after twenty four years service. His letter of resignation was written with such feeling that, when he signed his name, the pen went straight through the paper. The Evans story, and much more, may be found in “A Good Foundation”, an excellent history of Coleford church by Valerie Bonham and Julie Dexter, published by Church Window Books.
Still choirmaster in the 1950's
It was not the last time that Will Jones would appear in the pages of “John Bull”. By 1928 he had become a member of Frome Rural Council and, with unemployment rising, the magazine reported his scheme for public works, in which a local council would recruit a gang of unemployed workers from a labour exchange for road works, receive the workers’ dole money from the exchange, and then top it up from council funds to make a proper wage. “John Bull” was fully in favour of the Jones scheme, but it brought down on his head the accusation that the unemployed, because previously they had contributed to a national insurance scheme, were being expected to earn their money twice.
Chairman of Frome District Council
Despite the privations of his early life, like many self-made men he was profoundly conservative with a small “c” in his politics, but without losing sight of the needs of those less fortunate and less motivated than himself. In wartime correspondence with his son, Dick, he claimed, “My sympathies are with the workers and I can only hope the Coalition will be continued until ranks of the Socialists have become more amenable to disciplined action.” Aneurin Bevan and Manny Shinwell were the Labour activists which he loathed most. He saw supporters of the Labour party as concerned only with selfish party interest.. Writing on the 1945 General Election he commented, “the Tory party is not what I want them to be,” foreseeing if it won, “strikes all over the country.” Even so he worshipped Churchill, and for years a little novelty statue of the great man, which once had smoked real, miniature cigars, stood on a table in his house. “I must perforce remain an onlooker rather than a player in this game where ankle-rapping and fouling is its most distinguishing feature,” was his final judgment on politics.
He was instinctively toff-proof. He relished a wartime comedian’s opening gag when faced by two rows of officers, two of NCOs, and finally the other ranks, “Officers, sergeants, and gentlemen!” He was as suspicious of local worthies as he was of politicians. “My experience of doctors, parsons, solicitors, and the professional classes generally makes the contact with the labourer in the local a sort of recuperative treatment for my faith in human nature.” It didn’t stop him from mixing easily with all classes in his dedication to public service. Will Jones went on to become Chairman of Frome Rural District Council from 1940-1946, Chairman of Frome National Savings Association, a member of Frome Board of Guardians and Public Assistance, of the Town and County Planning Association, and Commander of the Norton-Radstock Divisional Special Constabulary. During the Second War he recorded a visit to the workhouse in Frome, “Yesterday I was shown over the Frome Union where 208 patients are cared for. The latter term is correct for they are much better off than thousands of their class outside. All wards and bed-dormitories scrupulously clean, all rooms steam heated, and food of really good quality and quantity. The master knows every patient and is very kind. I believe the Workhouse Infirmary at Temple Cloud is on similar lines. From Frome I went to the Hill family opposite the Anchor with six blankets I had been able to get for them. They have eleven children and the father and mother are mentally deficient. It was most depressing after the clean wholesome wards of the Frome home. There was a sickening smell, the kids were all filthy, mucky food on a table bare of any covering. We inspected the place some months ago and frightened the parents into keeping it cleaner but it has evidently reverted to the dirt lice and fleas etc we found on the previous occasion.”
He was instinctively toff-proof. He relished a wartime comedian’s opening gag when faced by two rows of officers, two of NCOs, and finally the other ranks, “Officers, sergeants, and gentlemen!” He was as suspicious of local worthies as he was of politicians. “My experience of doctors, parsons, solicitors, and the professional classes generally makes the contact with the labourer in the local a sort of recuperative treatment for my faith in human nature.” It didn’t stop him from mixing easily with all classes in his dedication to public service. Will Jones went on to become Chairman of Frome Rural District Council from 1940-1946, Chairman of Frome National Savings Association, a member of Frome Board of Guardians and Public Assistance, of the Town and County Planning Association, and Commander of the Norton-Radstock Divisional Special Constabulary. During the Second War he recorded a visit to the workhouse in Frome, “Yesterday I was shown over the Frome Union where 208 patients are cared for. The latter term is correct for they are much better off than thousands of their class outside. All wards and bed-dormitories scrupulously clean, all rooms steam heated, and food of really good quality and quantity. The master knows every patient and is very kind. I believe the Workhouse Infirmary at Temple Cloud is on similar lines. From Frome I went to the Hill family opposite the Anchor with six blankets I had been able to get for them. They have eleven children and the father and mother are mentally deficient. It was most depressing after the clean wholesome wards of the Frome home. There was a sickening smell, the kids were all filthy, mucky food on a table bare of any covering. We inspected the place some months ago and frightened the parents into keeping it cleaner but it has evidently reverted to the dirt lice and fleas etc we found on the previous occasion.”
Coleford football team of the early 1900's
One hopes that his responsibilities in local football administration were more pleasurable. He was chairman of the Senior Football League for many years, and was made an Honorary Life Member of the Somerset Football Association for his services to the game. Certainly the meetings of the Somerset FA were lively affairs to judge from a report of one which he chaired in February 1947. He adjudicated on an incident in a game between Shelton Mallet and Langford Rovers at Winscombe when spectators invaded the pitch and one “struck the referee a violent blow in the face, felling him to the ground, and causing the match to be abandoned after 80 minutes.” In another game “supporters of the Henstridge Club came on the ground and interfered with a game and pelted him (the referee) with mud and orange peel. It was also alleged that lady football fans ruffled the referee’s hair.” Henstridge replied in its defence that orange peel was thrown by only one small boy, “who was in the happy position of being the possessor of such a luxury.” Significantly in those grim days of food rationing he only chucked the peel and not the fruit itself.
In 1939 Will Jones had left Coleford to live at “The Firs” in the nearby village of Leigh upon Mendip, which was much closer to his concrete business, although he continued to own the “Crossway”, an indication of his satisfactory financial position of the time. In the early 1950’s, with his business interests back at Newbury, he built himself a new house on the edge of Coleford, at the side of the lane which leads down to Vobster. You might be forgiven for thinking that a dialect writer, given the opportunity of building a house reflecting his own tastes and aspirations, would have come up with some vernacular folly, all thatch and inglenooks. It is one of the contradictions of his character that Will Jones built an aggressively modern house in his own blocks with a flat roof. The house turns it back on the road and the village, and faces south with a stunning view over open countryside from a terrace which runs the length of the building. The view is even better from an eyrie in the roof, in which he intended to write in retirement, and which led out on to a balcony.
In 1939 Will Jones had left Coleford to live at “The Firs” in the nearby village of Leigh upon Mendip, which was much closer to his concrete business, although he continued to own the “Crossway”, an indication of his satisfactory financial position of the time. In the early 1950’s, with his business interests back at Newbury, he built himself a new house on the edge of Coleford, at the side of the lane which leads down to Vobster. You might be forgiven for thinking that a dialect writer, given the opportunity of building a house reflecting his own tastes and aspirations, would have come up with some vernacular folly, all thatch and inglenooks. It is one of the contradictions of his character that Will Jones built an aggressively modern house in his own blocks with a flat roof. The house turns it back on the road and the village, and faces south with a stunning view over open countryside from a terrace which runs the length of the building. The view is even better from an eyrie in the roof, in which he intended to write in retirement, and which led out on to a balcony.
Mendip Ho!
Will Jones had always been a progressive in all sorts of ways. He was one of the first in the village to own a car, remaining a driver of rare incompetence and a lifelong danger to man and beast. “Mendip Ho!”, his new house, boasted an American refrigerator and electric washing machine when they were almost unknown in English homes. He loved television, or perhaps more accurately he loved fiddling with it. In the days when the signal from the Wenvoe aerial was capricious to say the least, he had a pouffe permanently stationed next to the set so that he could twiddle with the tuning, to the exasperation of everyone else watching. The bathroom boasted a shower, which he took cold every morning. A health fanatic, he was much given to deep breathing in the morning in front of open windows and other exercises. When we sorted through the house after his death, we found an ancient stiff cardboard sheet titled “Swedish Naval Exercises” of photos of a gentleman, with a huge moustache and dressed in a pair of trunks, illustrating all sorts of actions once known as “physical jerks”. He ate yoghurt when no one else knew what it was, and in his late seventies took himself off to a health farm. The experience put him in hospital for a week.
On the terrace at Mendip Ho! Sally & Charlie Blanning (standing), Will Jones, Gwen Blanning, Jack James, and Dick Jones (sitting)
Towards the end of his life he prepared a reprint in paperback of all his books. These in particular are still in circulation and, together with some of the original editions from the 1920’s and 1930’s, can be found on internet book sites like Abebooks and Alibris as well as on Amazon.
Her sister, Emily Maud James but always known as “Jack”, completed an innocent ménage a trois at Crossway House from the beginning of the marriage. Mabel ran the drapery and Jack ran the house. Will meanwhile on his side had a newsagent’s, tobacconist’s, photographer’s, and even a barber’s shop, as the following handbill proudly announced in 1912.
