A TRIP TO AUSTRALIA 



is a poor place without cash, and to enable us to 

 reach home an appeal to the banker was made for 

 yet more funds. This I admit was rather an 

 extravagant start on which to begin married life, 

 but then one hopes to get married only once in a 

 lifetime, and so why not make a good job of it ? 



In 1909 my father took a trip to Canada. I 

 remember on his return we were dealing with a 

 very troublesome harvest. This worried him much, 

 and the family's great loss came the following 

 November when he died at the age of sixty-seven. 



However well started in life one may be, at the 

 death of a father, when the time comes to remove 

 the prop, a feeling of isolation creeps in for a time, 

 which is only natural, and in my case it was real 

 loss. My father and I had worked out together 

 many business schemes, and his good judgment had 

 warded off many a jar which might otherwise have 

 come my way had his foresight not barred the road. 



I can remember the late Francis Walker, our 

 neighbour at Chiseldon, coming to me in Swin- 

 don Market and paying him this compliment : 

 " Charles," he said, " you have lost your father, 

 and I am truly sorry, but you have the satisfaction 

 of knowing that he was a man who brushed away 

 difficulties with a real vigour, as some of our warriors 

 did of old." That truth certainly filled me with 

 courage to carry on the management of the Badbury 

 Farm in conjunction with brother Walter, who had 

 luckily just finished a couple of years experience in 

 Canada. Walter unfortunately was not too strong 

 on his chest, and left in 191 1 to start his career in 



35 



