George 'Pop' Maynard

George ‘Pop’ Maynard: was born in Smallfield, Surrey, on Old Christmas Day, 6th January, 1872.  In childhood he moved with the family to the next village, Copthorne, on the Surrey and Sussex border, and lived there for most of the rest of his long life - but worked over a wide area of those counties and in Kent.  He died at the age of 90 years on November 29th, 1962.

He was skilled in many rural crafts; woodcutting, harvesting, flawing (bark stripping), bark hatching (dressing the bark ready for the tanner), barrel-stave making, hop picking and poaching.  He was also - famously - a player of games; shove ha’penny, quoits, darts and marbles.  When, in 1948, his team won the marbles tournament at Tilsley Green on Good Friday, he was interviewed by the BBC, and was subsequently seen on TV on several occasions at this annual event.

Singing was part of family life and George learnt many songs from his father, brothers and neighbours.  He once paid a mate 6d to teach him The Rusty Highwayman while they were out in the field hoeing.  Despite having had little education he was literate and so was able to learn more songs from the penny ballad sheets (broadsides) hawked around the villages in those days.

He appeared on the BBC Radio As I Roved Out series, and sang Polly on the Shore on the EP Four Sussex Singers (Collector LEB 7), 1961.  Two BBC LPs of his songs, recorded by Peter Kennedy in 1956, reside in the EFDSS’ Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, and eight of these, plus seven recorded by Paul Carter and Ken Stubbs in 1962, appeared on Pop’s only commercial album Ye Subjects of England (Topic 12TS86), 1976.

--RodStradling 17:43, 26 March 2007 (BST)