This photograph was taken of the Lane family outside their home, the Old Forge as it is now, about 1921. George Lane lived there until the 1950s when after the death of his wife he went to live with his daughter Gladys at Elmfield, Honiton, where she worked as housekeeper to the Dunning family (Solicitor in the High Street). (Now Honiton Registry Office).

I think the young man to the left is Reg Driver, who was born out of wedlock (not accepted very well in those days) to a friend of my grandmother’s who asked them to bring him up. The story was that Reg had to be placed into the Work House for a few hours and then a small amount of money was paid to the Lane family for bringing him up as part of their family. Reg later lived in the cottage next door to the church with his wife and maintained the hedges in the surrounding roads.

Back to the photograph! Next to Reg is Harry Lane and holding his hand is William Lane (my late father) who was born in 1919 the baby of the family. George Lane is next, he was born in Stockland and was buried in Dunkeswell in 1957. Outside the front door is Alice Lane, she was born in Birmingham and George and Alice met while working in Hampton, Middlesex, where they married and next to her is Rosa Lane and then May Lane.

George Lane was the blacksmith for Dunkeswell and if I remember right my late father said you had to have a carpenter where there was a blacksmith and my grandfather helped the carpenter to raise money to join him in Dunkeswell, I think his surname was also Lane but he wasn’t related.

All of the Lanes visited Dunkeswell often in later life while holidaying in Devon as they had fond memories of growing up there. The children left Dunkeswell to look for work. They all stayed very close as brothers and sisters even though they lived so far apart. They never lost their Devon accents either. My father used to tell me tales of walking the horses back to their owners after they had been fitted with new shoes. (We still have two of my grandfather’s account books from the 1950s, which lists names of local people, the job he did for them and how much he charged them). Harry was a blacksmith in Stockland and was then asked to go and work for Axminster carpet factory where they gave him his own workshop and he and his wife lived in Axminster until they died in early 1970s and they are buried in Dalwood, a village they both loved.

Susan Shaw 2005