The King and the Cotswold Shepherd

Ninety years ago on Christmas Day 1934, King George V was at Sandringham House preparing to make his broadcast to Britain and the Empire. Just before three o’clock his message was introduced not by a BBC announcer or the director-general Sir John Reith, but by a Cotswold shepherd by the name of Walton Handy.

The King had delivered his first Christmas Day message in 1932 in a broadcast heard not just in the UK on the National and Regional Programmes but around the world on the recently opened Empire Service (now the World Service). That Royal Message to the Empire was preceded by an hour of ‘greetings to and from British citizens wherever they may be’ in a feature called All the World Over. This format was repeated in 1933 in a programme titled Absent Friends, with listeners advised that ‘this broadcast will be considerably more interesting if they have an atlas ready before it begins.’ 

For Christmas Day 1935 producer Lawrence Gilliam devised Empire Exchange. But there was a radical departure from the previous round-ups  in which items from overseas were from ‘anonymous broadcasting or Government officials’, This time ‘the sound pictures or informal messages’ were from ‘ordinary individuals or commentaries describing events actually in progress at the time of the broadcast’.

The Ilmington locals that took part in the Christmas Day broadcast.
Walton Handy is pictured with his shepherd's crook and dog Sam.
Standing beside him is Spenser Flower.
(Credit: Ilmington Images)

For Empire Exchange the programme started at 1.55 with the bells of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, followed by bells from Bombay, Wellington, Ottawa, Armagh and then St Paul’s. At 2.00 after the Big Ben chimes there was the technical challenge of link-ups starting with Mr A Patterson, a superintendent of the milk supply in Wellington, New Zealand followed by Canada, Australia, India, some Chelsea pensioners, Ireland, South Africa, Glasgow, Southern Rhodesia and Liverpool. After a final port of call, to a Xhosa settlement in South Africa, attention swung to ‘a quiet village in the heart of England – to the Manor House of Ilmington, Warwickshire.

What was to happen next was previewed in the local Stratford-upon-Avon Herald (21 December 1934):

A great compliment has been paid to Ilmington—and Warwickshire—by reason of the fact that the village is to take part in the Empire broadcast on Christmas Day. It is the only English place to be so honoured in a broadcast which the BBC estimate will be heard by several hundred million people. The Ilmington programme is intended to provide a peaceful English background for the King's speech after the necessarily disjointed items from the various parts of the Empire. The arrangements have been entrusted to Mr. Spenser Flower, who, as our readers will recollect, scored an undoubted success on the occasion of Ilmington’s first broadcast in the early part of the year. The broadcast from Ilmington will open with some introductory remarks and messages to the Empire, after which an old Christmas carol will be sung. Mr. Spenser Flower will then introduce an old shepherd (Mr. Walton Handy), who will speak. Then will come an old harvest song, after which Ilmington, representing the Empire, will send a loyal message to the King. The King will then speak, and immediately afterwards Ilmington will sing the first three lines of an Empire National Anthem, which will be taken up in turn (three lines each) by Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, &c., the finale being sung by a full choir in London. This is a wonderful technical feat which must be a source of great worry to the BBC engineers responsible for the timing. The Ilmington broadcast will occupy only six or seven minutes. Special lines have been laid and apparatus installed at the Old Tithe Barn at Ilmington Manor, from which the broadcast will be given.

Sure enough, just before 3pm Walton Handy’s voice was heard across the Empire as he proclaimed “in the name of Ilmington, Merry Christmas to you all. And in the name of the Empire, God bless our gracious King”’ The King’s broadcast followed immediately without a further announcement.

Major Spenser Flower (a member of the Stratford-based Flowers brewing family) was the Squire of Ilmington Manor. Writing to the Stratford-upon-Avon Herald he seemed well pleased with the day’s events:

May I ask you to extend to me the courtesy of your columns to express my gratitude to everyone of my Christmas Day Empire Broadcasting party for the wonderful help they gave me in a not too easy undertaking. To get simplicity into a programme is not necessarily simple. I could not have made a success of this item in the Empire broadcast without a good deal of rehearsal and the loyal co-operation of the party. Of many kind and congratulatory messages I have received is one from the London BBC, in which they ask me to convey ‘their heartfelt thanks to all for a truly magnificent programme.’ I have received a telegram from as far away as New Zealand, where we were apparently very clearly heard. Mr. Walton Handy has rightly and deservedly received widespread notice, and I am deeply grateful to him; but the minor members of the party, viz., the bell-ringers and the carol singers, also contributed to the success of the programme. The following are their names :— Mrs. Bessie Faulkner, Miss Gwennie Smith, Mrs. Bennett, Mrs. Freeman, Mrs. Robotham, Mr. George Hands, Mr. Venables, Mr. Cook, Mr. Cook, Jr., Mr. Boswell, and Mr. Mayo. The actual arrangements were a little nerve racking, as, owing to the Empire programme running late, cuts had to be made up to the last moment, including a complete carol.— Yours, &c.,

Why was Ilmington chosen by the BBC for that Empire Exchange? As that first newspaper article says this wasn’t the first broadcast from the village that year, so it is possible that the technical issues of broadcasting from that location and the availability of the Manor House were addressed in that earlier transmission. It also seems likely that Flower himself may have been influential in negotiating the return visit. Aside from his brewing interests he was an amateur actor, public speaker, Rotarian, president of the local Conservative Association, governor of the Stratford-upon-Avon Memorial Theatre, an electrical engineer and member of the I.E.E.   

Sam Bennett pictured in the Radio Times
for the Ilmington Meets the Microphone 
programme

That earlier broadcast was Ilmington Meets the Microphone heard on the Midland Regional Programme on 2 June. It was part of a series intended to give a glimpse into the life of villagers in various parts of the country. Acting as compère was the Squire himself Spenser Flower with ‘local colour’ provided by villagers. Those locals included Samuel Bennett – who performed in his attire of smock, bells, ribbon-trimmed hat and white breeches – who’s ‘fiddling, singing or recounting numerous anecdotes...provided rare entertainment”. There was singing from the duet of Mrs Bennett and Mrs Faulkner and the Terry family of hand-bell ringers.

The Radio Times billing set the scene: 

The village of Ilmington lies to the west of the Stratford-Oxford main road. Ilmington is in Warwickshire. An attempt was recently made to have it transferred from Warwickshire to Gloucestershire. The story goes that at the height of the controversy, a resident was asked which he preferred, and plumped for Warwickshire ' because it's so mortal cold on top of they Glahstersheer hills '. It has an interesting old church, and fine old manor-house. Simon de Montfort , who was killed at the Battle of Evesham, lived there; several of the de Montforts were Rectors. The manor-house is now the residence of Mr. Spenser Flower, who compères this village feature. Inhabitants will describe the life of the village, and the talk will be broken up with music and snatches of song.

Back to that 1934 Christmas Day transmission, for behind the picture of bucolic charm trouble was brewing (no pun intended). What the above reports don’t mention is that the handover to the King was originally supposed to have been performed by the village’s oldest inhabitant, 95 year old Richard Long. But, as the Daily Express reported three days after the broadcast, Long had been dropped because his photograph had appeared in the newspaper before Christmas (see article above). Spenser Flower is quoted as saying that the ban was imposed on the instructions of the BBC ‘as an undertaking was said to have been given on behalf of the villagers that no detail of the broadcast would be divulged.’ However, the BBC stated that Mr Long had been unable to broadcast as he was ‘bed-ridden’. There was further village unrest as Sam Bennett, already something of a local celebrity and described in the report as the local ‘fruiterer, bramble merchant and fiddler’ [Note 1] was also excluded and wrote to Flower “It was my broadcasting party, and you threw me out”, to which the Squire replied “If you want a fight, I can fight too”. There are no reports of aggro on the village green so presumably some kind of peace was restored.   

Walton Handy and Sam pictured in 1940

There is, however, a heart-warming postscript to this story. In his Christmas Day message Walton Handy had mentioned his brother Josh who’d emigrated to New Zealand in 1907. He asked that if his brother happened to be listening to write to him as he’d not heard from him for many years and had lost his address.  By the following February Walton had that letter from Josh in Papakura, Auckland. The Daily News reported: “We were sitting round the radio,” wrote Josh, “as we knew Ilmington was going to broadcast, but never dreamed it was you. When you began I said to my wife, ‘That’s our Walt,’ but she ridiculed me. As you went on it proved I was right. To hear you 12,000 miles away gave me the biggest thrill of my life.”

The story doesn’t end there. On Christmas Day 1939 Laurence Gilliam was yet again charged with producing the pre-Royal message programme The Empire’s Greeting and billed in the Radio Times under Christmas in the British Isles is ‘a Shepherd in the Cotswolds’. Yes, it’s our old friend Walton Handy who yet again took the honour of greeting the King, this time George VI. Such was Walton’s fame that theatre impresario George Black offered him an engagement to appear at a London music hall, an invitation that he declined. Walton Handy died in January 1951 aged 81.

The story of the 1934 broadcast from Ilmington was told in a 2020 drama Voices Out of the Air produced by the Stratford-based Run Home Productions and broadcast on BBC CWR on 23 December 2020. Written by Mark Carey it tells the story through the eyes of a young radio engineer and some of the scenes were recorded at Ilmington Manor and St Mary’s Church. You can read about this drama on Run Home website and hear the full recording here.

Note 1: Supposedly his notepaper was headed ‘Badger Killer and Bramble Merchant’. His expertise in folk music and dance meant he was already well known not just in the UK but also in the States. In 1928 he accepted an invitation from Henry Ford, no less, to visit the USA. Bennett was also a parish councillor.

Note 2: There were three BBC broadcasts from Ilmington in 1934. With the equipment already in place for the Christmas Day programme The Burford-based Westhall Singers were on air from the Tithe Barn at the Manor House for part of Carol Contrasts on the Midland Regional service on Christmas Eve.    

Note 3: Richard Long died in October 1935 aged 97. Spenser Flower died just a week after the declaration of World War II on 12 September 1939, He was 62. Sam Bennett enjoyed considerable success as a fiddle player even appearing on In Town Tonight. He died in February 1951 aged 86. A programme about his life was broadcast in the Midland region on 15 February 1952. Ilmington Manor remains in the Flower family and the gardens are regularly open to the public. The bells of St Mary’s church can be heard on BBC Sounds if you search under Bells on Sunday.