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An Arbury Story of Farming Folk - Part 2

Please click on the image for a readable view, and download if required.

Part two of the 1987 Cambridge Weekly News series, written by Andy Brett, one of our blog contributors, way back then!

What was the Pumpkin Trick? Rumours mounted after an archaeological dig at Arbury Camp in the early 1900s that Arbury Road was haunted. Was it really Ancient Britons and Romans? Or did The Pumpkin Trick have anything to do with it?

Here's our trusty old map of Arbury revealing some of the locations featured in this week's instalment.

                               
This photograph of Henry and an Addenbrooke's nurse was taken by Ralph Lord, photographer, of Market Street, Cambridge. The nurse had inscribed it: 'To Mrs Brett, from her boy's friend.'

12 September, 1908 - the future site of the Manor School/ North Cambridge Academy, the Park Meadow at Manor Farm, was the location for Walter and Louisa's wedding photograph, taken by the well-known photographic firm, Starr and Rignall, of Cambridge and Ely. Many years later, as a pupil at the Manor School, Andy recalls that the window of the lab in which his human biology lessons took place looked directly out at the wedding group photograph setting. 'It seemed strange,' he laughs. 'After all, human biology is all about the wonders of the human body and reproduction, the generations, etc, and here I was, in a modern school, staring out at a family photograph site of several generations ago - and, being the school playing field and with the boundary of the old Manor Farmhouse garden still visible, it was recognisable as the same site!'

Andy's old classroom at the Manor School, taken from near the site of the 1908 wedding photo.

Questions, questions...

What was the Scissor Trick - and why did it involve railway tracks? 

How did Walter and Louisa spend their wedding night? 

And, when diphtheria struck down two of the Brett children, could Yorkshire Pudding perform a miracle?

All shall be revealed by reading Part Two of An Arbury Story Of Farming Folk!



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