Alfred '

WOP
AN OBITUARY
~
ALFRED WILLIAM GARNHAM

1906-1994

Wop was born in 1906 at Wortham, Suffolk, near the Post Office. An outdoor loving and independent child, he disliked book learning, and often played truant from school - and, if his stories are to be believed, often got his own back on the teachers! He was however a keen observer of nature and wild things, and delighted in the outdoor life. His Nature Study and Gardening school book survives, and is finely illustrated, recording the local names and locations for birds and wild flowers, many of which are now rare in East Anglia.

In 1919 he left school early at 13 to work as 'boy' for King, Lord Playfair's gamekeeper, in Redgrave Park. King had recognised his talents and asked Lord Playfair to secure his early release from school.

Wop, c.1912

Young Alfred, c.1912

Photo: Diss Museum

Wop, 1950's

At the back door of The Kennels, 1950's

Photo: Diss Museum

Living at Long Green, Wortham, Wop went on to become a keeper proper, a job which he kept through the 1920's and '30's. It was at this time that his fellow keeper Cornell was murdered by a poacher in Stubbings Wood, Botesdale; Wop helped track the suspect, and although the man was later tried and acquitted, Wop was always convinced of his guilt. Ironically he was later put in charge of the man, who had been given an under-keeper's job despite (or perhaps because of) his local reputation.

Wop deliberately cultivated a shadowy persona, assisted by his ready supply of macabre stories, growling voice and twisted claw-like thumb. During the Second World War he served as a rat catcher for the 'WarAg' Department, taking great pride in skillful administration of the doses of 'rock arsenic', and covering a hundred square miles on foot going from farm to farm. Some of his heaviest jobs were at the American Hospital and Italian P.0.W. camp in Redgrave Park. He later worked as a jobbing thatcher, doing the corn ricks for local farmers.

He returned to gamekeeping around 1950, working for the Wilson family on the Redgrave Estate and living at The Kennels, a picturesque Georgian cottage beside Redgrave Lake. He lived with Betty Squirrel, who had originally come to Redgrave during the War in the Women's Land Army. Her homemade wines - particularly wheat - were locally famous, and powerful. Wop's other companion was Clementine, a Canadian Goose, which followed him around the woods and fields as he worked!

Wop retired from keeping in the early 1970's, to Broomhills Hill Lane, Rickinghall. Betty died a little time afterwards, in 1977, and now that he too is gone his impish sense of humour and endless supply of stories will be greatly missed. He was someone who took great pleasure in the countryside and in human company; as he said in an interview recorded for Diss Museum: "I know the ground, I know the people; and that go a long way, don't it?"

Tim Holt-Wilson, 1995

A tape recorded interview with Wop recorded in 1994 is available from Diss Museum (c/o 12 Market Hill, Diss, Norfolk IP22 3JZ, England; tel: 01379-650618).