Daisy and the Donkey - adventures in nature

There is a lane just outside Camborne that walk along almost weekly, all year round.  In autumn, the nettles protrude and stiffen outwards in to the lane, as the trees turn golden; in winter, the reward for facing the cold winds is the beauty of icy reflections in the tractor furrows, where daffodils were collected in the spring.

Germander Speedwell

Now, towards mid-May, is the time when the hedgerows take centre-stage, flowers springing lacily and determinedly from the flailed edges – this year more plentiful than ever, after the heavy rain earlier in the year.  White bells, bluebells, hot-pink Campions, fresh green nettles, and budding beech trees blend together to create a riot of colours in infinite permutations along the road. Tiny purple flowers, fringed with white, cluster in sunny spots, and I vow to look them up later… Such a voyage of exploration.

My appreciation of these roadside attractions was recently reignited when I re-read a book I first came across in a local book-exchange box several years ago.   ‘Travels in a Donkey Trap’ by Daisy Baker is, as the title suggests, a record of journeys propelled by a donkey, but the wonder of this slim paperback lies hidden within its pages – rather like the hedgerows that Daisy and her donkey pass in the lanes of North Devon.  Daisy’s travels – and writing - took place in the early-to-mid 1970s, when Daisy was in the eighth decade of her life. Decreased mobility had kept her confined to house and garden for several years, and the acquisition and arrival of a donkey cart allowed her freedom to roam further from home again, and enjoy the delights of her rural setting.  In this book and its sequel – unassumingly titled ‘More

Travels in a Donkey Trap’ - Daisy excels in capturing the thrill she feels at being able to go out in to nature and experience the changing of the seasons, along the lanes and through her local wood. A few contemporary anecdotes are woven in to her story, creating a vivid sense of rural life in 1970s Devon, but mainly Daisy’s focus is given to detailed observations of the world around her, and recounting stories from the earlier part of her life from the first decades of the 1900s.

I was so enchanted by Daisy's reminiscences, and the insights she shares in to her own perspective of the world, that I found myself wanting to know more. Using information that Daisy gives in her books as a starting-point, I’ve done some genealogy research using publicly-available information, to fill-out the details of a long life, well-lived. 

Born in Shoreditch, London on the 27th January 1894, Daisy was the eldest child of Charles and Ellen (nee Hathway) Crockett. Both Daisy’s parents were from the south east of England: Charles was probably born in Greenwich in 1868, and Ellen Mary was born in Church Road, Islington, London, in 1871. Charles appears on the 1891 census working as a servant in a household on the High Street of Shoreditch, so perhaps it was in this area that he met his future bride; though Ellen was raised in Islington for at around the first ten years or so of her life, the 1891 Census shows she had moved, with her family, to Shoreditch. At this time she was working as a Clerk at a newspaper office, an elder sister was also a clerk, and one of her younger brothers was a clerk in a law office, suggesting that the family were academically able. 

In September 1891, Ellen Mary Hathway married Charles Crockett at St Luke’s church in Homerton, Hackney. Some time after Daisy was born in 1894, the family must have moved away from central London; Daisy’s younger brother, Victor, was born in late 1898 in the rural village of

Hartley Whitney, in Hampshire. Perhaps Daisy’s father needed to move often for work, as soon after the birth of Victor, Daisy started school in Redhill, Surrey, in 1899, and by the time of the 1901 census, the family are living in Edenbridge – 14 miles to the east of Redhill.  Here, records show Daisy attending the British School from 1903, entering in the 3rd Standard and progressing through successive classes until she leaves school at the age of 13, having reached the final class, Standard 7. 

In this period, Daisy’s father worked for the Anglo-American oil company as a ‘foreman driver’ – driving, in this sense, being in charge of a horse-driven tanker that made deliveries of lamp oil. An internet search threw up an example of what his delivery vehicle may have looked like (see right). In her first book, Daisy fondly recalls the close working relationship her father had with his two horses; perhaps the horses moved with them when the family relocated to Dorking between 1907-09.

It may be that the unusually cold & wet weather in June/July 1909(1) was a contributing factor to Charles developing a bad case of pneumonia that summer. He was taken to the cottage hospital at the southern edge of the town in early August, but tragically, his condition worsened quickly, and he died at the hospital just two

weeks after being admitted(2).   A contemporary article in the Dorking and Leatherhead Advertiser(2) describes how a townsman – perhaps a co-worker of Charles' – gathered a collection to help Daisy’s family, raising a total of around £300 in today’s money - equivalent to 12 days of wages at the time. At the time of their father's death, Daisy was 15 and a half, and Victor was 11. 

Anglo-American made arrangements for Victor, to enter a children’s home – probably Chase Farm Schools, Enfield, north London - and gave him a promise of employment with their company when he was old enough.  Their mother went in to service as a housekeeper in Fulham, London, so as to be near enough to visit Victor regularly, and Daisy found a position as a ‘between maid’ for two unmarried daughters of Bishop Otter in Haywards Heath, Sussex.   But further unhappiness was to follow: Daisy describes how her brother became ill whilst at the children’s home, and died just one day after his 12th birthday, in September 1910.  Such difficult times.

With such upheaval in the family, Daisy’s mother, Ellen, must have been hopeful that things would improve – and they did.   Ellen probably met Charles Baker, a manual worker, while working in Fulham: he was 15 years her senior, and had also been widowed in 1909 when the mother of his 6 children, Elizabeth, died – the youngest of whom was only 8 years old at the time.  Ellen and Charles Baker wed on 5th February 1911 at St James’ church, Fulham, on Moore Park Road - very close to where they were then living. I’ve found no evidence that any children were born to the couple, but Daisy moved soon after their wedding to work nearby (in Kensington), and the children from Charles’ first marriage – by then aged between 22 and 11 years old - were also close by, living at Tadema Road, Chelsea, just a 15-minute walk away.

It must have been when Daisy moved to work in Kensington that she became acquainted with the children from Charles’ first marriage.   An affection developed between her and Fred, who was born in 1897 and their parents gave permission for the couple to spend a week together at the seaside – staying in separate guest houses – before Fred left to serve as a soldier in the First World War(3). Their time together is described beautifully by Daisy, but sadly this was the first and last holiday for the couple: Fred was killed in action around 1917.  After the war, Daisy grew fond of his older brother, Bill (born in 1896), who had enlisted as a sailor prior to 1914, and who remained in the Navy until 1926.  Daisy and Bill married in Chelsea in 1921. and their only child Freda, was born in the same district three years later.

Charles Baker – the father of Bill, married to Daisy’s mother – either died during World War One, or just after it: at the time of the 1921 census, Daisy's mother, Ellen, is living with Daisy in Chelsea, at Onslow Dwellings, SW3, and after their marriage, Bill lived with them there, too. The family was joined by Daisy and Bill's only child, Freda, born in 1924, and they all later moved to  Dartford, Kent, where all four of them were living in 1939. 

Information for the next couple of decades of Daisy’s life is sparse, as she does not reflect much on this period in her books.  It sees likely that her mother, Ellen, passed away in December 1955 in Dartford, and at some time after this, Daisy and Freda moved west to Cornwall.  Freda wed George Eric Downton (known as Eric) in Launceston in 1968, when she was 44 years old, and it must have been soon after this that the three of them moved to north Devon, to the bungalow known as Withycott. It was here that the family were joined by the donkey who gives Daisy the opportunity to widen her horizons in the later years of her life, and the endearing and enduring record of her travels in the donkey cart. 

The first of Daisy’s books was published in 1974, and garnered – understandably – very enthusiastic reviews; her second book came out in 1976.  Daisy passed away, in north Devon, in 1977, just two weeks before her 83rd birthday (4) – had she lived longer, perhaps other publications may have been forthcoming! But I feel that we are fortunate that she recorded so many of her memories and contemplations, and found a route to publish them, so that they are accessible to us today.  Society has changed a lot in the last 50 years; not only are communities frequently less cohesive than they were, burgeoning commercialism means that our value-set has changed, and the simple pleasures of nature observation that Daisy excels at, are no longer so commonly indulged.

In tandem with the decline of our nature-awareness, the species that provoke such appreciation from Daisy – owls, woodpeckers and other farmland and woodland birds – are themselves declining at a rapid rate.  Government data(5) suggests that numbers of some farmland birds – including starlings and tree sparrows – have reduced over 80% since 1970, and greenfinches and kestrels – both mentioned by Daisy in her books – have declined by 69% and 54%, respectively. Figures for overall bird populations are strongly masked by a large increase in wintering water-birds, and large increases in numbers of a handful of species (including jackdaws and long-tailed tits), while the majority of native species dependant on specific woodland or farmland habitats are in sharp decline.  A decrease in area of lowland grassland of almost 50% between 1930 and 1984 (6) is perhaps indicative of how landscape change, and rising human pressure on the landscape, is decreasing the space – and the connectivity of that space – for nature to thrive and revive.

In his 2014 book, Feral (7), George Monbiot draws attention to the Shifting Baseline Syndrome – the struggle for humans to see beyond the horizon of their own childhoods when it comes to re-imagining how nature was, and how it could be.  Though not that far in the distant past, Daisy Baker’s considered contemplations of the bountiful nature that she enjoyed in the latter years of her life in north Devon can give us pause for thought about what we are in the process of loosing forever.   It is possible that our children will not know the richness that has been lost – and the sense of wholeness that Daisy describes when we feel we are a part of nature.   

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Copies of Daisy's books can be found through online second-hand book sellers. If you live in Cornwall and feel inspired to stroke a donkey, I can recommend the Flicka Foundation in Penryn (near Falmouth)!

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References

(1) https://premium.weatherweb.net/weather-in-history-1900-to-1949-ad/

(2)              Dorking and Leatherhead Advertiser – Saturday 4th September, 1909. Page 5. 

(3)              More Travels in a Donkey Trap – Daisy Baker. Published: 1976.

(4)              With thanks to D Bleasdale (Clerk to the Civil Parish of Morthoe) and B Brown (Churchwarden Emeritus at Morthoe Parish Church, & Parochial Church Councillor) for accessing paper copies of burial details on my behalf

(5) National statistics. Wild bird populations in the UK, 1970 to 2022. Updated 7 November 2023.

(6)             The changing extent and conservation interest of lowland grasslands in England Wales: A review of grassland surveys 1930 - 1984. Fuller, R M. 1987 Biological Conservation. Vol. 40, Issue 4, pp. 281-300

(7)  Feral: rewilding the land, sea and human life. George Monbiot. Pub. 2014, Penguin.