Arthur Randell
A Magdalen Fenman
Magdalen pupils have been finding out about the village of Wiggenhall St Mary Magdalen by reading the memoirs of Arthur Randell using two of his books, Fenland Memories and Sixty Years a Fenman.
Magdalen Rd Station, Watlington, where Arthur worked as a porter in the 1920’s.
Arthur Redvers Randell, son of Ted and Sally Randell, was born in Magdalen in 1901. He attended Magdalen school from the age of 4 until he was 12 years old when he started work as a mole-catcher with his father. When WW1 broke out he started work for a fruit and vegetable grower before leaving to work as a porter at Magdalen Rd Station when he was 16 years old.
Fenland Memories and Sixty Years a Fenman describe life growing up in Magdalen in the early 1900’s. As well as using the books to look at what life would have been like, we plan to try and correlate stories and characters from the books with the Magdalen school log books. Any findings will be published on this page.
Coaling
Entries in the Magdalen school log books frequently describe high levels of absenteeism as pupils were made to go “Coaling” instead of turning up for school. Arthur Randell tells us about this in his book Sixty Years a Fenman. He describes a spot just outside Magdalen know as “Coaling Shore Corner”. At certain times of year a sand bank would stretch two thirds of the way across the river. This would be dug and raked by the locals who would usually extract enough coal to last the winter. Teams of 9 or 10 women would go out digging and an older woman, Mrs Dardy Plaice, would carry the coal back in her boat, making a profit of 1d per bag.