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NUMBER .4. THAMES BARGE ROOKARD
On the basis that where's there's muck there's money, for this episode in the history of the Rookards of Essex, I'd like to tell you about that old sea dog - Captain Horatio William Rookard, or as he was known about the Taverns of old Maldon, Peg leg Bill. This on account of his having lost his left leg under a farm cart after falling down dead drunk in the middle of Maldon high street late one evening This would normally have been quite safe, had it not been for the fact that the driver of the cart was on a bet, attempting to gain the round Maldon speed record for cart and horse. Needless to say he lost the record, as did Horatio his leg, which was latter stuffed and mounted in a local pub as a sort of late eightieth century road safety warning to others. But being deficient in the leg department did not prevent him from becoming a local millionaire, as a leading light in the then flourishing straw trade. It had all started you see when Peg Leg Bill obtained an old Thames Sailing Barge and a captains cap, the result of a game of cards. Wondering what to do with it, he was for the first time in his life struck with a truly brilliant idea. You see at this time up in London, before the invention of the motor car, all transport was by various forms of Horse and carriage, of which the largest number were those forerunners of today's Taxis, the famous Hansom cabs. Now all these horses needed a nice warm stable to rest up in, and as was natural they tended to make a bit of a mess. Well to be honest not just in their stables. Indeed one Parliamentary report of 1859 suggested that if something were not done about it, the streets of London would be knee deep in the stuff by 1900. Well something was done, Peg Leg Rookard started his famous and legendary Essex Stable Straw company, which for a small fee, would transport fine quality Essex Straw up Thames by his Barge - now renamed the Gladys and for an extra fee collect and bring back all the soiled straw from the stables. How could they refuse? Within a few years he had a whole fleet working this trade. For what my Ancestor forgot to tell them up in London was how he got his fresh straw and what happened to the soiled stuff when he got it back. It was a simple arrangement, for having grown all that grain; the Farmers around Essex had a problem. What to do with the straw they had left over, for whilst some could be put to good use, there was still fields full of the stuff doing nothing. Well the answer came in the shape of Peg Leg, who for a small fee offered to collect it from them. Again how could they refuse? As for the soiled straw he brought back, he found a ready market for this as well, as before the days of fertiliser Horse soiled straw was the ideal stuff to lay down in those fields earmarked for grain growing.. It was not until the coming of the motorcar that the rot set in, and the Essex Stable Straw Company went out of business, by which time Peg Leg Bill Rookard had long retired with his profits to a life of luxury in the red light district of Frinton. But that's another story.
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