Michael Turner

To some who come to Warnham, perhaps to see Shelley's birthplace, the most interesting thing will be Michael Turner's fiddle in the vestry. This is his story.

Born a few years after Shelley, he might have answered Yes to the poet's question:

 

And did you once see Shelley plain, And did he stop and speak to you?

for they were little boys together in this place and must have passed each other. Shelley was born in the great house in the fields; Michael was a farmer's son and apprenticed to a cobbler. He was spoken of as a very lively boy, pert and smart, and very careful about his appearance.

On Sundays in his smock frock, breeches, and garters he was the dandy of the village. Everybody liked him, and he grew up to be parish clerk and sexton and leader of the choir.

He was in great demand at village feasts, and at the big houses round about when there were village dances, for he could play the fiddle like a master and could sing a comic song with anybody.

At the church he would sit in the roodloft leading his choir, and though he had but five pounds a year for all his offices he lived soberly worked well, and was so beloved in Warnham that when old age came to him after 50 years as clerk and sexton the village found him a house and kept him till he died.

Then they laid him under the soft green carpet of this churchyard, and the master of Warnham Court wrote these lines for him and engraved them on the stone:

 

His duty done, beneath this stone Old Michael lies at rest; His rustic rig, his song, his, jig, Were ever of the best.

With nodding head the choir he led, That none should start too soon; The second, too, he sang full true, His viol played the tune.

And when at last his age had passed One hundred less eleven, With faithful cling to fiddle string He sang himself to heaven.'

 

The fiddle in the vestry is his, and he died with it in his hands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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