Thank you very much for sending me news of Poynings.
I was indeed saddened to read of the death of Geoff Harris whom I remember well from his smoked salmon days, in fact he was one of my first contacts in the salmon business in 1975.
At the time I had left Poynings, settled in Paris and was a partner in a steel trading company. One of our clients, from the trading Company Balfour Guthrie, in Vancouver asked for contacts with salmon smokers so I put them in contact with Geoff Harris.
However, that year there was a lack of fish due to a fisherman’s strike, so Balfour didn’t contact him so he asked me to find him some salmon. That decided me to visit friends in Vancouver and whilst they were working I went out and met with the different fisheries with the result that one Company, Trans-Pacific Fish, gave me the agency for Europe. This developed into many deep friendships and successful years of selling salmon.
In the end I don’t think Geoff ever did buy salmon from me.
Please extend my sincere condolences to his family.
Thank you again
Best wishes
Eve Purdew
P.S. I was born and brought up in Toots Corner, Grange Farm Cottages and have many happy memories of Poynings
Update:
It’s interesting to see the turnover in a village over the years – when I was born in 1948 people had been living in Poynings for ever and I remember that the people who owned the shop were referred to as the ‘newcomers’ – even though they had lived in the village for over twelve years at the time. Everyone knew each other because of the close knit community, the cricket or the whist drives every Saturday in the original village hall. We’re all spread out throughout the world now but our roots are still in Poynings.
How many still live in the village from that time?
Best wishes
Eve Purdew
