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The Outgang Ostles
Thomas
(1874-1953)
Thomas was the youngest child of John Ostle whose Journal is featured on this site. His elder brother
John was 11 years his senior. His father died when he was 16. Before he was 21, Thomas had a row
with John and walked out. After a spell of farm service, he went to 'serve his time' with a local
mason. He often recounted the fact that he walked to work every day, starting at 6am worked until
dark and then walked home; all for two shillings per week!
His first wife, Ann Margaret Osborne was a schoolteacher; they had one daughter, Annie. Ann died
in 1904, probably in childbirth. At this time, Thomas was farming at Wolsty but, after his wife's
death, he found it impossible to carry on there and moved to Aspatria with the intention of becoming an
auctioneer.
In the first decade of the twentieth century, Aspatria boasted a weekly produce market held on the
Market Square. Thomas always said the first thing he ever sold was a sack of potatoes and, after
knocking them down, an onlooker was heard to say "thou'll have to do better than that, Thomas". He
did do better and, after a year or so decided to start a Cattle Mart. At first this was again in the Market
Square but soon he was able, with his brother John, to finance the building of a proper mart a short
distance away at the point where King Street enters Market Square.
In 1911, he married for the second time to Hannah Edmondson. He must have known Hannah for
years. She was the daughter of William Edmondson of Mawbray a Bacon Curer who, with the help of
his other daughters, also ran the village post office. They were all members of the Wesleyan
Methodist Chapel at Mawbray and he and William were both on the committee for Mawbray
Schoolroom.
Tom and Hannah on holiday
Hannah was five years younger than Thomas. He took her back to Aspatria where he had purchased
"The Outgang" a large house, only a two minute walk from his Cattle Mart. Their two sons were both
born there, William in 1916 and Joseph in 1920.
The Outgang
The Auction Mart prospered and was important enough by the outbreak of war in 1914 to ensure that
Thomas was exempt from military service. However, all was not well between Thomas and his
brother John. Thomas always maintained that, when John sold his farm stock through the auction, he
always took the money out but never paid when he bought anything. John's point of view may have
been very different but, eventually, there was a serious rift between the brothers and they severed their
connection with each other. This split lasted all their lives and the two parts of the family only began
speaking to each other again in the 1950's when John's son, Tommy, visited his Uncle Thomas at
Aspatria when he became bedridden following a stroke.
After the first World War, he bought an Army "arms dump" at Dalston, near Carlisle. During the
dismantling, a rope slipped and a girder fell, narrowly missing one of the workmen. Thomas ran,
pushed him out of the way and was caught a glancing blow on the top of the head by the girder. He
was lucky not to have been killed. He had to have his hair shaved off to dress the wound. It never
grew back and he was left with an indentation in the top of his skull ever after.
In the early 1920's he stood for and was elected to the Aspatria Parish Council, he continued to serve
on this body until well into the 1930's. All his life he was a committed Christian, a pillar of the
Wesleyan Chapel and a Local Preacher.
Thomas' notes for a sermon. His text is "consider the lillies..."
Matthew 6.xxviii
Click here for enlarged version
In the 1930's it was decided the chapel was too small and new
premises should be sought. The only suitable building in the town was the 'Market Hall' which was no
longer used as such. The trouble was the Wesleyans had no money. Thomas came to their rescue and
said he would buy the Market Hall and they could repay him over a period of time.
This was agreed and he went ahead a bought the building. At the next meeting of the Chapel Stewards,
it was disclosed by one member that it was possible to obtain a grant from the J. Arthur Rank Trust
provided that they built a new chapel. After a stormy meeting, this idea was carried and Thomas was
left with a Market Hall on his hands. Of course after this "dirty trick" he left the Wesleyans and
worshiped at the Congregational Church not rejoining the Wesleyan's until years later, when the people
involved had all died.
In fact, the acquisition of the Market Hall was a blessing in disguise. It enabled him to add Furniture
Sales to his Auctioneering work and he let the hall for other local activities such as band practices,
political meetings, flower shows and Roller Skating organised by Charlie Over, the local Cinema
proprietor.
In 1928 his sister Sarah died. She had lived at Mawbray Yard and owned Mawbray Cote, a farm on the
coast road near Beckfoot and two other houses in Mawbray Yard. She left the farm to Thomas but also
willed that he pay legacies to various nieces and nephews. This made the farm almost worthless at
the outset and it took many years to recoup the cash outlay involved. During the 1930's, despite
difficult times, he managed to pay for the private education of both his sons at the Friends' School,
Brookfield, Wigton; William attended from 1928 to 1931 and Joseph between 1933 and 1936.
Thomas was always very kind-hearted, always willing to help people down on their luck and very
caring of old friends. Three of these were the Nichols, two sisters and a brother who lived at
Wheyrigg, a house just south of Abbeytown on the Wigton road. He often visited them, always taking
a gift of baking or logs. On her death in 1931 the last sister left all her estate to Thomas. This
consisted of the house at Wheyrigg, a Farm at Whinclose and a smallholding at Seaville. The will was
contested by a relative but Thomas won the case although the costs were such that he was forced to sell
the house at Wheyrigg to cover them.
The 'Carlisle Journal' reports the case
He now owned two farms, a smallholding, The Outgang, the Market Hall and a Cattle Mart. In the
early 1930's he sold the Cattle Mart to Hope's who owned the mart at Wigton which, by this time, had
superseded Aspatria as the main local market town. He continued to go to Wigton every Tuesday and
sometimes on Thursdays too to help Hope's with the clerking on their busy days. Although Hopes
continued to work Aspatria each Wednesday, it gradually lost custom and eventually closed down in
the 1950's.
In the late 1930's Thomas added an extension to the old dairy at The Outgang and turned this into a
second house. It was bought by his brother-in-law, William Hastings, who lived there with his wife
Sarah, Hanna's sister. Uncle Willie and Aunt Sarah then really became part of the Ostle family for the
next twenty-five years.
At the outbreak of the Second World War, he was already 65 and, although very active in business had
given up all his church offices and council duties and was content to employ his workmen, keep his
farms in good repair and help the war effort in any way he could. He was also an Income Tax
Commissioner at a time when a substantial land-holding was a requirement for the office.
When Thomas had purchased The Outgang the deal had included quite a lot of farmland. After the
war, the local council wanted to build council houses. Thomas sold most of this land to them and it
became the St Mungo's Park housing estate. He also sold the Market Hall which became Aspatria's
Labour Exchange and now held his furniture sales in the old farm barn at The Outgang. The local
joiner and blacksmith, who had his premises in the yard behind The Outgang, went bankrupt just at the
same time and Thomas bought his business.
Under his careful management, he pulled the business round and installed machinery making it into a
proper sawmill. He bought plantations, cut down the trees, sawed and seasoned the wood to produce
farm carts, gates, rails and fences, in fact all the things needed by the local farmers. He also had one
man permanently employed in making wooden soles for the miners' clogs. This was a very skilled job
and, due to the large mining community in the district, was quite profitable for a number of years.
Thomas' wife Hannah had a half-sister, May Bell. May's husband, Ben Bell, was considered a bit of a
waster by the rest of the family. On one occasion, he left May and went to live with another women
for a time. May now ran the Mawbray Post Office and Grocery Store and had fallen into financial
difficulties. Thomas loaned her some money which she was never able to repay. In order to make
restitution she handed over to Hannah a smallholding of 11 acres near Beckfoot known as Solway
View which had been left to her by her father.
This was now another property for Thomas to 'Keep-up'. He did all the work on the farms himself
using the men from the Sawmill business. The balance sheets for many years did not show much profit
as he never booked any expenses out to himself. His skills as a mason were used to the full especially
dry stone walling at which he was an expert. In fact, on his 70th birthday he was re-building a wall at
'The Cote'. Part of this property was a stretch of seashore from Dubmill point to Mawbray Yard. On
one part of this was a sand and gravel pit, let to Peter Greggains of Maryport, which provided a nice
regular income. During the excavation of this mound a Roman observation point was discovered.
Thomas' daughter, Annie, married James (Jim) Bland of Aspatria. Annie's stepmother, Hannah, firmly
opposed the match but the wedding had to go ahead as Annie was already pregnant with a daughter
(Mary). Thomas never disclosed what he thought of this. Annie left The Outgang and was not
welcomed there for some years but Thomas must have visited her in secret and helped her financially.
Thomas with some of his family in the garden of The Outgang in 1950.
Back row (l. to r.): Sybil (daughter-in-law), Hannah (wife), Sarah Hastings (Hannah's sister) and William Hastings (Sarah's husband) who lived next door.
Front Row: Sheila Anne (grand-daughter),Thomas himself, Joseph Peter (grandson, now your website manager)
Behind the Camera: Joseph (younger son)
In 1950 he suffered a stroke and remained bed-ridden until his death on June 3rd 1953, the day on
which Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in Westminster Abbey. He was buried in the church yard at St
Kentigern's, Aspatria. In his will he left a thousand pounds to Annie, his properties at Whinclose and
Seaville to his eldest son William and The Outgang and Mawbray Cote to Joseph. For probate purposes
these properties were valued at: The Outgang £3,650, Whinclose £5,250, Marsh Stints
£1,600, Seaville £525, Mawbray Cote £2,850.
Hannah chose a text for Thomas' Death Notice: "Called, Chosen, Faithful". This would have been a
perfect epitaph for both of them. Their absolute Christian faith was the most important fact in both
their lives. They were devoted members of the North Road Methodist chapel in Aspatria to which
Hanna presented a new pulpit cloth in memory of Tom.
Joseph Ostle, © MM.
Thomas' second wife, Hannah
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The Family of Thomas and Ann
ANNIE
Married James Bland
The Family of Thomas and Hannah
WILLIAM EDMONDSON (1916-1998)
Married Mary Walker (1918-1997) on February 8, 1941 at Mawbray Methodist
Chapel
JOSEPH (1920-
Married Sybil Naylor-Whalley on January 23, 1941 at St Peter’s Church,
Bromsgrove
My R.A.F. Years
By Joseph Ostle.
Almost the whole of my five years in the R.A.F. were in 80
Wing, with its headquarters at Radlet, north of London and out-stations in the
countryside near industrial towns. Its
objective was to interfere with the Germans’ use of radio waves in any
form.
A complete account can be found
in the book "Most Secret War" by R.V. Jones.
|
Joe in 1940 at the Hagley outstation near
Birmingham | |
80 Wing was born when it was discovered that the German
aircraft used radio beams to locate their target.
The system was to lay a beam between 35 to 45Mc/s onto the
target. The sounds heard on the beam by the German pilot were in two parts, one
radiating dots and the other dashes both on the same frequency. In the centre
of the two beams there was a continuous note. However, the Germans flew on the
dot-edge and we transmitted dashes to
mask them. Next were three beams on 65 to 75Mc/s which crossed the main beam at
right-angles. Beam One indicated "getting near the target", Beam Two "very
near" and Beam Three "Target, drop bombs".
Of course, to jam all this a great number of transmitters
were required. These were in very short
supply but Winston Churchill thought it was important enough to give orders for
transmitters to be unloaded from ships which were taking them overseas. Our
operations continued throughout the war and were successful apart from the
terrible air raid on Coventry in 1940 when the cathedral was destroyed. Some of
the blame was put on our station at Kenilworth. A week or two later, I was sent
down to sort things out. The sergeant in charge there was not a lot of good, he
seemed more interested in finishing the novel he was writing at the time. I
managed to sort things out fairly successfully.
We had listening stations, mainly on hilltops, which found
the correct frequencies to use and monitored our cover. The Germans also had fixed stations on the
continent which were used by aircraft when lost, to take bearings and find their position. We interfered with these
by picking up the signal at the listening stations and re-transmitting it. This meant that the German signal was used as
the source and whatever they did was
repeated in the jamming signal and, however hard they tried, they could never
prove we were interfering with the original.
When a pilot realised that he was lost, he usually got frantic and asked
the ground station to take a bearing for him. This, of course, we also
re-transmitted so he was again given a false position. This was one of the
reasons why Ireland was bombed.
In 1944, the Germans started to use the V1 pilotless
flying bomb. The offical RAF picture below shows a Spitfire
tailing one of them. At first it was thought that they were radio-controlled
but, when their remains were investigated, it was found they contained a length of copper wire, so it was assumed
the bomb had a transmitter and bearings were taken on this. We investigated
this at Ditchling where I was in charge.
We found the signal from the transmitter sounded just like the bomb’s engine. However, when the engine cut
out, which it had been programmed to do, the noise stopped and only a pure note
was heard. The Germans took a bearing on this to see where it had dropped. We,
of course, used the previous system to re-transmit the signal. The big snag was
there was so little time to tune a transmitter, so we had three or four transmitters to cover the band
used and push the signal into the appropriate one. By this means, we managed to move many of these "buzz-bombs" out
into the Thames estuary.
The Post Office made us a transmitter which would send as
many signals as were fed into it on whatever frequency. We had just taken
delivery of this when the Germans became very suspicious and sent six bombs,
all with transmitters, all at the same time.
We dealt with the lot and the Germans were convinced that their bearings
were true.
The big problem was that the transmission from the Flying
Bomb was very short and this made it difficult to train new people in what they
were listening for so we borrowed a wire recorder from the Americans. This had been made by the Armour Research Foundation
– part of the meat packing company. If
the wire broke the only way to repair it was to tie a knot in it and anneal it
with a cigarette. It was just a little
thing but, oh boy, it was great.
One day Flt. Lt. Jeffries, a senior officer in the
wing, phoned and asked me to take the recorder to Eastbourne and show them how
to work it. After this I walked outside with Jeffries just as a buzz bomb came
over. The site was on top of Beachy Head, high up. The buzz bomb was pretty
low. You could feel the heat from the rocket engine as it passed. The noise was
deafening. After it passed Jeffries said: "Would you like to come down here in
charge of this lot?" "What?" I said, "with those things?" "Oh, you needn’t
worry," he said "They never stop here!" They didn’t and within a fortnight I was
at Eastbourne.
From time to time I did quite a lot of jobs for Wing
Commander Hignet who was the top man, except for the Group Captain. One day he
called me and told me there was a
German station causing a lot of trouble with our marker beams. The station was
either in Holland or the Channel Islands. He asked me to go down to Devon with the equipment and find a true bearing. I
went and found it was in the Channel Islands.
When I phoned HQ to tell them, the duty officer said that
Wing Cmdr had left a message saying he had forgotten it was Christmas Eve and
that he would like me to take the van and go home for Christmas. I pointed out
that I lived in Carlisle. “It’s a bit far that” said the officer. So I just went back to my billet in
Eastbourne for Christmas. Years later I learned that the station in the Channel
Islands had been bombed on Christmas morning and completely destroyed so at
least I did something right.
Next came the V-2 rocket.
This was investigated by our station at Eastbourne, and again I was in
charge. We soon realised there was
nothing we could do as radio control
was not involved. After this I was sent
to Holland-on-Sea and was put in charge of the search for airborne radar. We never found anything as, by this time,
raids were few and far between and, shortly afterwards, the war ended.
