HISTORY

Abbey Farm - the right way round Update 21/8/06: Ward Jones - now living in Frome, Somerset - writes: In relation to your photographs of Abbey Farm: I lived there for the first couple of years of my life (1950 on) with my parents Harold and Joan Jones. Not that I remember much about the experience! After that we moved to Bull Street. * * * A slight correction to our recent article about Gornal ex-pat's Peter Mudge's search for a picture of his old home (click here). In response to Peter's plea, both Ian Beach and Beryl Raybould kindly pointed out that there was a photo of Abbey Farm in Trevor Genge's "Sedgley & District" Volume 1 (see www.sedgleymanor.com/further_reading.html). The right way round! click photo to enlarge Ian sent a scan of it to us, and Beryl thought that there was therefore no need for her to do the same. However, when she saw the subsequent Yampy article, Beryl realised that her version was 'back to front' compared to Ian's. We are ashamed to admit that we suspected an inadvertent 'mirror flip' during Ian's scan (everything is upside down and back to front Down Under). But when we contacted Trevor Genge, he solved the mystery - and took the opportunity to appeal to Yampy readers for any interesting photographs for possible publication in one of his excellent pictorial records of the area: No problem with me regarding the Abbey Farm picture, but make sure that it is from the second edition of book 1 The publisher had it in reverse in the first edition. Thanks for the acknowledgement, there is still talk of reprinting 1 & 2 but bound together, but no definite news as yet. You could mention that I am still happy to receive photographs for a future book. They are still coming in steadily, and I haven't tried yet as I am waiting for details from the publisher in the new year of what they are expecting from me and when. Aerial removed - click photo to enlarge For those who possess Trevor's book, the original edition is dated 1995, while Beryl has the corrected 1997 reprint. We are grateful to Ian for sending us a revised scan - and he has even taken out the TV aerials so that the farm looks all ancient and rustic! If you have memories of this house, or perhaps other Gornal farms like Conqueror's, Straits, Hunt's Mill, Roberts Green and Coopers Bank, why not share them with us? Email Yampy at admin@yampy.co.uk. And if you have any photos for Trevor, send them to the same email address and we'll pass the details on.