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Large tracts of England, especially in the North and West are typified, not by villages, but by dispersed settlements. In such areas, the decision to use localities in the postal address is crucial. This can be illustrated by reference to Upper Teesdale in County Durham. Here the Postcode Address File (PAF) ties in 68 isolated farms and dwellings to the 'locality' of 'Forest in Teesdale'. The dwellings are scattered over an area stretching almost 6km from east to west and 3km from north to south. The 'locality' name 'Harwood' refers to 20 isolated delivery points stretching more than 3km from east to west and almost 8km from north to south.
The 'Old' Forest in Teesdale Post Office, known formerly as West Moor Riggs, was where the Redfearn family lived from 1789 to 1979.
The photo shows Mrs Alice Redfearn with four of her children about 1906. Mrs Alice Redfearn started the Post Office in her front parlour in 1898. * Prior to this the mail was left at the Forest School for people to pick up. In 1900 a telephone line was installed for them to receive telegrams and by 1934 the 39-line Telephone Exchange was installed. The family were on call 24 hours a day to manage it. The Forest Exchange was one of the last in Britain to be automated in 1967 after being continually operated by the two sisters, Alice and Dorothy.
[* "Don't tell anybody - the Regulator might want us to Forest School as a 'Safe Drop' again!"]
Mr George Redfearn - Postman (on the right) in 1920.
Could it be his son Robert on the left ? - unfortunately not according to Roberts son (14/04/2008) - just checkout his stature on horseback!
November 3, 1962.
Miss Dorothy (Dolly) and Miss Alice (Ailie) Redfearn in the Forest in Teesdale Post Office.
Miss Dolly Redfearn - Postwoman (1940's).
Ailie and Dolly both received the B.E.M. for long, devoted and meritorious service to the Air Ministry for sending in weather reports every 12 hours, every day for 42 years. (1960s)
Mrs Alice Redfearn was known as
"The oldest hello girl in the country".
Post Van at Bowron Corner - near Langdon Beck.
[EGU 85]
1914-18 Triptych - Forest in Teesdale Primary School.
Tom Ireland working in all weathers.
I'm pretty certain that this is EGU 85 (11976), known to be a Barnard Castle van new in 9/37. It was a Duple bodied Morris Minor 35cf. mailvan. Can I use this one as well in our magazine, please?
Christopher Hogan,
Hon. Secretary Post Office Vehicle Club.
Miss Dorothy Redfearn (Dolly) receiving the mail from Selwyn Smedley at Forest in Teesdale Post Office in February 1954.
The above details extracted from John Robinson's book 'The Death and Life of a Dales Community'.
More details can be found on the North East Memorials Project Website: www.newmp.org.uk
To the Memory
of
the old scholars of Forest School
who sacrificed their lives in the
Great War
and also those that fought in the same
"They have fought the good fight
righteously in the cavse of
hvmanity that
honovr might live”
Mr Robert Redfearn (on the left), receiving the B.E.M. for long and devoted service to the Post Office.
Mr Robert Redfearn B.E.M., finishing his last postal round, after walking some 160,000 miles, while delivering the letters. He retired in 1963.
Robert Redfern, Back Row [5].
Fred Barron delivering mail 'Up-Teesdale' in the snow during the winter of 1953 / 54.
Ray Goodson 1954 on the road outside the Youth Hostel at Langdon Beck.
Fred Barron 1954 on the road outside the Youth Hostel at Langdon Beck.
(Thanks to Mrs Barron for pointing out the mistake.)
Selwyn Smedley 1954 on the road outside the Youth Hostel at Langdon Beck.
Fred Barron, Ray Goodson and Selwyn Smedley worked in a 'section' of three delivering Forest and Harwood in Teesdale from 1950 to 1962 approx.
Mrs Marion Barron writes:-
... 'Freddie' Barron, as he was known up the dale. It's not [the picture] a very clear one, but does show the extent of snow that was quite common up there in the winters. He is standing by the van, and, one of the farmers up Teesdale, is standing behind, but we can't make out who it is. [Can you ?]
Alice and Dorothy Redfearn B.E.M.
John North: 'Hello Ailie and Hello Dolly'
From the Northern Echo, first published Thursday 10th April 2003.
The two Teesdale telephone operators who never became engaged...
FOR 32 years at the tiny telephone exchange in Forest-in-Teesdale, it was either Hello from her or Hello from her. Dorothy and Ailie Redfearn served the 39 subscribers between them. For 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, they always answered the call.
Their mother, another Alice, had been hailed nationally as Britain's oldest Hello girl. How great might the fuss have been, how trumpeted the personal appearance by Louis Armstrong, had the media realised that across the scattered farmsteads of Upper Teesdale, Dorothy Redfearn was known universally as Dolly? ['Hello Dolly' was a hit record by Louis Armstrong]
The sisters have long seemed among the most fascinating characters in the recent history of County Durham - stalwart church workers, too, and for 42 years invaluable RAF ground crew.
Now they are permanently to be remembered, thanks to research by Roger Redfearn, their nephew.
"What they did just wouldn't have been possible if they hadn't been two maiden ladies," says Roger, now in Barnard Castle but in 1948 the first Forest lad ever to go to Bishop Auckland Grammar School.
"Ten past seven taxi to Middleton, train to Bishop Auckland, surprising how few days we missed because of the weather," he recalls.
So didn't his Aunt Ailie and Aunt Dolly ever think of marriage, or at least become engaged, as a telephone operator might suppose? "Oh, they were both asked," says Roger, and laughs in the cheery manner of a man who's saying nowt else.
The Redfearns had arrived in Teesdale in the 1750s, one of 13 families who came with the lead mining company from Derbyshire to work the harsh fells around Langdon Beck.
Alice Redfearn began her postal service in 1898 from the front parlour of West Moor Riggs Farm. Two years later it became the only place in the area to have a new fangled telephone.
"It was mainly for telegrams," says Roger. "It was no good writing to say someone had died, because letters could take a week and they'd be buried."
The manual telephone exchange went on line in 1934, manned continuously by Dolly and Ailie until STD - which hitherto may have meant "Send the doctor" - initially arrived at the end of 1966.
A bit like those old fashioned weather clocks, Ailie - Mary Alice - would rise at 5.30am, Dolly would turn in at 1am. In the small hours, a bell would sound clangorously in their bedrooms.
"They knew everything and everyone," says their nephew. Eventually, however, they could rest easy.
Where once Forest-in-Teesdale would check the time by the grandfather clock in the Redfearns' front parlour, now they dialled TIM. Where once they'd ring to ask Dolly's sponge cake recipe, now there was a talking cook book.
The future was in an automated exchange a quarter of a mile down the road, and the sisters had seen it. "It looks like a garage," said Ailie. Their switchboard ended up in Beamish Museum.
Since 1937 they'd also provided scientifically detailed weather reports, up to 12 times a day, to RAF Leeming - having first convinced the man from the Ministry that girls who left the village school at 14 were up to the job.
In the war the information was regarded as top secret, and was treated no less confidentially thereafter. For their devotion to duty, both were awarded the British Empire Medal.
Robert, their father, had earlier received the BEM - "on behalf of the family" - after walking 160,000 miles as a postman.
Both were Methodist local preachers around the little Ebenezer chapel up the road, and for "Methodist" read Primitive Methodist. "Not Wesleyan, by God no," says Roger. "My mother thought the Wesleyans were nearly as bad as that church lot."
Dolly and Ailie also ran the post office and had a 21 acre small holding, rejoiced when mains electricity arrived in 1964 - "they bought deep freezers, the lot" - regarded the cattle as pets and had numerous tortoiseshell cats. Ailie was the seamstress, Dolly the knitter.
When finally they retired from RAF service in 1979, the sisters moved to Staindrop where Dorothy died, aged 74, in December 1980 and Ailie, who was 85, in January 1987. They'd have gone to Middleton, had not Dolly believed that the only good thing about Middleton-in-Teesdale was the road out.
Roger Redfearn's researches, which included a week among family roots in Derbyshire, will form part of an ambitious exhibition of Upper Teesdale life to be opened above the former Middleton Co-op in the summer.
The family also plans to give the BEMs to the community; the Redfearns deserved a medal.
In 1922, the medal was divided into the Medal of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for GALLANTRY (known as the Empire Gallantry Medal (EGM)) and the Medal of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for Meritorious Service (BEM.). The EGM. was superceded by the George Cross in September 1940.
The BEM. continued to be awarded for meritorious service after 1940 but also for gallantry. A military and civilian divisions continued.
Bars:
Awarded for additional acts of gallantry (silver laurelled bar). After 1957, a silver emblem of two oak leaves was awarded with the medal when it was awarded for gallantry. The oak leaves would also be worn on the ribbon in undress. In undress, the recipient of the bar wears a rosette.
Obverse:
Britannia seated with the sun to her right. Legend around the edge reads - "FOR GOD AND THE EMPIRE" and in the exergue (below) is the inscription - "FOR MERITORIOUS SERVICE".
The EGM - had "FOR GALLANTRY" in exergue.
Description: Circular, 1.42 inches, silver. A thin medal.
Reverse: Royal Cypher surmounted by a crown with the words: "INSTITUTED BY KING GEORGE V" within a border of four heraldic lions.
Mounting: A straight clasp attached to the medal by laurel leaves.
Ribbon: 1917-37 1 1/16"; Purple (Military had a central thin Red stripe.)
1937 - 0n 1 1/4"; Rose Pink edged with thin Pearl Grey stripes. The Military medal has an additional central thin grey stripe.
These two pics, of Barnard Castle's all new Ford Ranger 4x4 LG08 HNM, were taken by Chris Hogan, Hon Sec, Post Office Vehicle Club, on August 12, 2008.
The mail for Upper Teesdale will get through in all weathers!
