Born on ‘the Marsh’ in 1931, 90-year-old Jim remained always in the same cottage, not only observing the people and places of the changing times, but also proving to be a gifted raconteur and mimic.

Described at his funeral in St Michael and All Angels Church in Lyonshall as a ‘true countryman’, shaped and inspired by the rural landscape he loved, Jim’s recollections offered a window on to a way of life long gone.

Before his time, the family home had been a shop with a bell to summon the proprietor. He was told that faggots – bundles of firewood – were much sought after by customers. He knew only too well Holmes Marsh’s Mission Room, demolished last year to make way for new housing, where successive Lyonshall rectors regularly held services.

Jim provided a fascinating insight into the way of life he remembered, and in later years he was a familiar sight with his hand carved stick and deerstalker hat. He recalled times when a death on the Marsh required the attentions of the local undertaker who would collect the body with his pony and cart, using the same conveyance to deliver milk from his cows around the village.

Jim recalled ongoing competition between Lyonshall’s two pubs – the former Maidenhead inn and the Royal George (closed for the past nine years). Jim favoured the former pub, and talked about times when customers brought their pets along: dogs, at least two foxes and a badger.

At the local school, Jim and his friends watched columns of Bren Gun Carriers driving past on their way to the American army base and hospital at Hergest near Kington. A favourite pastime on the way home from school was to call in at a cider mill at the Royal George for a small sample, and at another cider mill opposite the old village shop.

In 1953 when police were searching for missing bus driver Derek Saville, Jim was among volunteers from the Maidenhead pub to help in the search. The case was to become one of Herefordshire’s great unsolved murder mysteries and officers from Scotland Yard joined the hunt. Jim believed he may have discovered the true story in an overheard conversation in a local public bar. That plausible explanation, though, has gone with him.