Listed simply as H Ayriss on the Thiepval Memorial, Private Ayriss has become one of the forgotten men of World War One. A Tiger in my Family is a podcast that follows the life of Herbert Ayriss. From leaving school at 12 until his death in 1916 aged only 19
Track List
Pete Morton – Courage Love & Grace
Trudbol Barbershop Quartet – In the Good old Summertime
A.L Lloyd – A Farmer a Servant
Ernest Gray – Stand your Post (Excerpt)
Robert Falcon - Tis a Story that will live Forever (Excerpt)
Marie Lloyd – A little bit of what you fancy does you good
Penny Allen - We Don't Want To Lose You (But We Think You Ought To Go)
The Scottish Pals Singers - Fred Karnos Army
The Défense Academy Military Wife’s Choir – Pack up your troubles
Bob Michel – Send me away with a smile
Toby Spence – Keep the Home Fires Burning
Courtland & Jeffries – Goodbye-ee
Chumbawamba – Hanging on the Old Barb Wire
John Mealing & the Fitzrova Chorus – No, We’ll Never Tell Them
The Scottish Pals Singers - If the Sergeant Steals Your Rum
Listen to the show
Broadcasts on Exile FM
The first Sunday of the month 16:00 to 17:00
(Repeated on Wednesdays, 20:30-21:30 UK time.)
About the podcast
The podcast describes various aspects of his life, that he may have experienced and entertainment trends of the time.
Leaving school to work on a farm
By 1899 school leaving age was raised to 12 years of age.
The teacher sat at a specially high desk which had its own high chair, so that she could look out over the whole of the class. I say 'she' because girls and boys were taught separately, the boys by men teachers and we girls by women teachers. All the women teachers were spinsters. Marriage was regarded as a full-time commitment; so when a woman teacher married, she had to give up teaching. All that changed during the war when women had to take on the jobs of the men who were overseas fighting at the front.
There was a coal fire in each classroom in winter. All the fireplaces had to be cleaned, which was a job of the caretaker. Every winter evening he would also have to fill each coal scuttle with coal and firewood. Old exercise books were used for paper
The Balfour Education Act of 1902 abolished school boards and put education in the hands of local authorities. I have been unable to establish whether this meant that Board Schools were also abolished.
Family members
He was the son of John H. Ayriss a Farm Labourer, born 1863 in Southern, Oxfordshire and his wife Sarah E., born 1873 in Great Glen, Leicestershire. Herbert was a Domestic Gardeners Assistant and was born in 1898 in Cosby, Leicestershire, his siblings were Leonard, born 1896, Emily E., born 1899, Louisa M., born 1903 and Maggie E., born 1903, all his siblings were born in Cosby, Leicestershire. In April 1911 the family home was at Cosby, Leicestershire.
Cosby is a village in the county of Leicestershire. The post enclosure revolution in farming resulted in Cosby becoming a more industrial village with framework knitting followed by boot and shoe manufacture dominating the 19th and early 20th centuries. During this period the population of the village more than doubled from 555 in 1801 to 1351 in 1901.
Herbert and his family live on ‘The Nook’ which was the village centre at the time. The Nook was the main intersection of the village and comprised of two roads with a brook running between them. At one end was the Bulls Head Pub and the other a 17th century farm building known as Cosby House
The Ayriss family have a long history of working in agriculture and horticulture but where eventually forced away. The tragic image of a people forcibly driven from the land into factories by 'enclosure' from the late 18th century is an enduring one. The most powerful early proponents of this view were J L and Barbara Hammond who wrote in The Village Labourer, 1911:
Before enclosure the cottager was a labourer with land, after enclosure he was a labourer without land ... families that had lived for centuries in their dales or on their small farms and commons were driven before the torrent.
Landless, the agricultural labourers who remained were powerless to prevent exploitation and were therefore forced to work for long hours for meagre, irregular wages. Herbert's father John was an agricultural labourer and brother Leonard was a farm Horseman. As a young teenager Herbert worked as a gardeners assistant and then as a bakers assistant.
Close to where the family lived was The Bulls Head Pub. It was purchased by Everards in 1902 and has remained in their tenanted estate since then.
Listen to the podcast for a description of what the pub meant to the community in the early 1900s. As well as a description of Pub Songs and Disaster Tribute Songs
There was little to do at the turn of the 1900s in Cosby, during his younger years he had a brother and three sisters to play He and Leonard would have been very familiar with the surrounding countryside and knew the best places for a rope swing and the best trees to climb. with but as he became a young man . local Cricket matches were popular, are a weekend visit to watch the Football at Leicester Fosse F.C at the newly opened Filbert Street Stadium
If money was short (which it invariably was) Skittles and other pub games at the rear of the Bulls Head, careful with the beer because the landlord would have known John and Sarah, his mum and dad. In the early part of the twentieth century, there was a strong temperance movement in Leicestershire and heavy drinking was frowned upon. However, drinking age in the would be determined by maturity and at the discretion of the landlord, obviously small children would not have been served but a mature lad with enough money could easily get a pint of brown and mild"
Also in town there would be The Pavilion Theatre, The Gaiety Palace of Varieties and the newly opened De Montfort Hall,
It would be in halls like this that the call to arms would be converted to song. Your King and Country Want You" was a British popular song, with both words and music by Paul Rubins. It was published in 1914, at the start of the first world war, by It was written as a "Woman's Recruiting Song" to be sung with the intention of persuading men to volunteer to fight in the War. The profits from its sale were to be given to the Queen Marys Work for Women Fund" Many singers of the day would be encouraged to use the song in their repertoire
On the 12th of October 1915 Herbert and brother Leonard enlisted with The Royal Leicestershire Regiment (The Tigers).
Listen to the podcast to follow Herbert's story from here
Broadcasts on Exile FM
The first Sunday of the month 16:00 to 17:00
(Repeated on Wednesdays, 20:30-21:30 UK time.)