INTERVIEW
involved in the Combined Cadet Force, and
soon became Battery Sergeant Major,
“I loved the drilling, the soldiering, and I
was a first class shot. I then became Head
boy of King James School and left at the age
of 17.”
days at Portsmouth station they always kept
a train heated because of all the troops, so I
slept on this train. A policeman would
come and call you in the morning for the
mail boat going back to the Island at four
o’clock in the morning. I walked back home
from Newport Station, slept for the day and
then got some money and went back to
Blandford that night”.
On leaving school, David went to work for a
year in his father’s business, which had
been running for three generations on the
Island. His father who was a cattle dealer,
farmer and knackerman, used to pick up
dead cattle to feed the pigs. However, when
the war started there was a large demand
for the best meat from the shot cows and
horses they had previously collected to be
used for pet food.
During his National Service, David's father
summoned David back home one weekend
to ask him if he wanted Somerton (the farm
where he still lives) to live and work from.
If David hadn’t wanted it, his father had
received an offer on the farm, and he was
going t