Billy the Miller
This is a slightly shortened version of an item by Tom Walshe that recently appeared on the Old Buckenham Facebook page and is reproduced here for those many people are not on Facebook.
There’s been a lot said and written about Old Buckenham
windmill over its 206 year history. And
in its heyday a lot of well-known owners and industrious millers came and went. But one man’s name has stood the test of time and links the
mill of old with the present-day showpiece still in the throes of restoration.
Billy Goodrum, the final miller, is he. You won’t find too
much about him online but there are a few things that have got people talking
about Billy again since the mill reopened to visitors on some summer Sundays. You can see one of them on quiet display at the mill. It’s a
quirky old sack barrow with just a single handle, made (or adapted) for Billy after
he lost an arm to the mill machinery in 1921. Bruce Coverley was fascinated to
see it on a recent visit and took the attached photo.
Another is a poem that links Billy with the man whose family
firm almost certainly fashioned the barrow for him. The poem was penned by John Loveday, whose writings and
recollections from his own 98 years of life have revealed so much about the history
and characters of the village in which he grew up. John’s father, Tom Loveday, knew Billy and his father,
Jonathan Goodrum, well. And the Goodrums
would have done business with the Lovedays’ foundry and threshing machine operation
across the Green. Tom and Billy both died in 1970 and are buried close to each
other, which prompted John to write the verse titled “Under the Yew Tree”…
The man who
threshed the corn,
The man who
milled it,
Lie close
here.
The Yew tree
shadows both,
Is old:
Its roots
will not disturb
The man who
threshed the corn,
My father,
Tom,
Or Billy
with one arm,
The man who
milled it.
