INTERVIEW
Seaview High Street
Shoot on the Oglander Estate, but is now
shoot captain for the smaller Kern Shoot.
Apart from that, he is a passionate
gardener – an interest that comes directly
from his father, who was a prize-winning
horticulturalist.
Will gardens and runs an allotment, and
his greatest love in the flower world is
sweet peas, for which he has won prizes.
Another passion is for wildlife, which
he indulges at a piece of land he owns at
Knighton Gorge, and which he leaves to
the nurture of wild flowers, rare orchids
and snakes.
Much as he’s steeped in Island history,
Will also enjoys spending time on the
mainland, and the north of England in
particular.
The link is his wife Mary, about whom
he jokes: “She came to the Island from
Durham in 1974 and got captured, never
went back!”
Not surprisingly, on their trips north, Will
has searched out all the best museums
and he rates Beamish as among the best,
with its recreated Victorian town – a real
haven for a builder.
Of course there’s nowhere quite like
home, and particularly when the fabric of
your family is woven into the bricks and
cobbles of a village.
It seems though that Will is likely to
be the last of the direct-line Caws in
Seaview: he has four daughters, and his
brother Jim, for many years owner of the
seventh generation Caws village shoe
shop (formerly bootmakers), retired and
moved to Ryde a couple of years ago.
“I have a great admiration for what they did,
bringing all those boats through at a time
when there were no lights in the Solent – it
must have been quite hairy.”
Will with former yachtswoman Clare Francis
Will is pleased that at least some of the
old boot making equipment went into
the Brading Waxworks museum for safekeeping and posterity.
“Seaview is very much a second-homer
place these days. If your parents die
here, you tend to sell the property and
it gets bought up quickly… not that I’m
complaining. As a builder I’ve done well
from it”.
www.visitilife.com
June/July 2016_MASTER .indd 39
39
14/06/2016 01:48