South Yorkshire Times, June 23rd 1933

Old Friends

A Jump Joke of the “Sixties”

The Survivors

Here is a picture that recalls a romantic incident of nearly 70 years ago. On a sunny morning in spring sometime in the sixties, a Jump man took his bride to Darfield, at that time the nearest church for the purposes. As ‘buses were not then dreamed of there was nothing for it but to walk. Arriving at the church leg-weary after the long tramp, the couple found that the clergyman who was to marry them had not arrived, and so bridegroom and bride entered a little whitewashed tavern near the church to rest and wait. Their marriage was to be something of a secret. They thought it would be jolly to be able to go back and proclaim to an astonished village that they were man and wife. They entered the low doorway of the inn to find another couple seated in one of the corners. They sat down and said nothing, but a few moments later discovered that this was another couple from Jump come to Darfield on the same errand. There was much laughing and joking among them, and eventually it was agreed they should all be married together.

A double wedding at that time was something of a sensation in Jump. Two of the quartet still live at Jump. They are Charles Oxley, 2, Fidelia Cottages, Jump; and Sarah Ann Evans, 71, Fields View, Cemetery Road, Jump.

In this picture Mr. Oxley and Mrs. Evans are seen on their way to fetch their old-age pensions. This weekly meeting at the post office is the outstanding event in their lives, and it is not often that they fail to improve the shining hour with some happy reminiscence.

Mr. Oxley was born at 41, Kitroyd, Jump. not 100 yards from where he now lives with his widowed niece, Mrs. Elizabeth Hodgson. At ten years of age he started work at Earl Fitzwilliam’s colliery and was employed underground until he attained the age of 70. He will be 92 next August and is the oldest person in the urban district of Wombwell. Mr. Oxley is remarkably fit. He eats heartily, and has a keen sense of humour. Ho walks six or seven miles every day, is only slightly “hard of hearing.” He takes much interest in life, keeps himself ‘au fait’ with the topics of the day by reading the newspapers.

Mrs. Evans, who was one of the couples first mentioned, was born at Staveley but has lived at Jump since she was she was 20. Widowed at that age, she began to practise as a midwife and has filled that occupation for 68 years. Her mother also was a midwife.

Three generations of Jump people have come into the world with Mrs. Evans’ assistance and she is still available when needed. having attended half a dozen cases this year. When Mrs. Evans was a young woman a midwife’s fee was half a crown and “missings,” but days of opulence came when the State authorised a charge of thirty shillings. There is little doubt that Mrs. Evans would be able to establish a claim to be the oldest practising midwife in the country.