Beating the Bounds 1924 history and tragedy - Historians?

Ray Marshall

👍 2 Sat 27 Jan, 15:33 The text is from The Charlbury Chronicle SHE SAID: ‘THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR WHAT YOU DID’ HE SAID: ‘I JUST DID WHAT HAD TO BE DONE’ Champagne corks popped on Sunday, June 27th when a long-awaited meeting was arranged in Charlbury in front of Central TV cameras between Patricia Stockman and Ewart Taylor (left). Readers may have been following the story of the Beating the Bounds Tragedy in 1924 which resulted in the drowning of three young people. On that day a young Patricia Stockman (née Olive Postle) was in the punt which overturned when crossing the Evenlode and by a stroke of great good fortune she was pulled unconscious from the water by 16 year-old Boy Scout Ewart Taylor who was later awarded the Scout VC and the medal of the Humane Society for his bravery Seventy-five years later the saver and the saved met again. It was a particularly emotional meeting for 85-year-old Patricia Stockman who felt Ewart had given her the gift of seventy-five years of life, marriage and family, and had long wanted to thank the man who had made it all possible. On Ewart Taylor’s side there was less emotion - he modestly rebutted any · suggestion that he was a hero and said he merely did what had to be done. Now 91 years old he was accompanied by his daughter Clare, who said that she and her brother had never known of this act of bravery until quite recently.Over the years - Patricia and her husband Roy, who now live in Sussex, had tried to find out about Ewart Taylor’s medal through the Boy Scouts Association, but to no avail. It was not until her story appeared in the March edition of The Charlbury Chronicle, that we were able to trace Ewart through his sister Kathleen who now lives in Enstone House. We learned that 91 year old Ewart was alive and well and living with his daughter at Steventon near Abingdon. In May the story, written by Walcot resident Dr Rob Stepney, was featured in the Oxford Times and the Oxford Mail who gave it extensive coverage (but failed to acknowledge that the Charlbury Chronicle was the source of their story). Oxford Times reporter Reg Little was present at the reunion of Patricia and Ewart and his report was featured in a full-page spread in the Oxford Times on July 2nd 1999, and this time some reference was made to the Charlbury Chronicle. Central TV’s reporter Ken Goodwin and his cameraman Steve did a lot of interviews, shooting over half an hour’s footage of the day’s proceedings. The meeting actually took place at the editor’s house in Hundley Way and everyone then adjourned to the meadows beside the Evenlode for pictures to be taken as near as possible to the original spot. Finally a visit was made to the cemetery where flowers were laid on the grave of the three young people who lost their lives in 1924. Ken and Steve eventually left for their Abingdon studio faced with the task of reducing the day’s story to a mere two-minute slot which appeared on Central TV’s newscasts throughout the following day. As the reporter so eloquently concluded his televised piece ‘but for the bravery of Ewart Taylor there could well have been four names on the gravestone instead of three’.

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