I don’t remember when Wocko came to Knebworth. He joined us as a woodman sometime in the early 1970s, one of a team of five. He would say he could make anything out of riven timber except a decent living. There are no full-time foresters now. But Wocko has always been here, keeping the Knebworth Park deer, the fences, the spirit of our beautiful countryside alive in our increasingly city-influenced community. Whether you know him from summer shows in his straw hat, weaving willow or hornbeam into sheep hurdles; or playing his accordion or ukulele in the Lytton Arms, for the Morris Dancers or as part of the legendary Nup End Mountain Men; or singing cheeky songs at the Estate Christmas Party or as Master of Ceremonies at Music Hall evenings at the Village Hall; or telling wonderful stories at the Cricket Club bar, or to me and my children on Sunday afternoon walks to explore hidden corners of the Knebworth Woods… Wocko has become part of the wood of this community of Old Knebworth. But all things come to pass, and this month Wocko and his lovely wife Jan retire to Market Rasen in Lincolnshire. He would say that this split is along the grain as opposed to sawn, but a wonderful man is thus riven from us. We say goodbye with love and great gratitude for all that he has left us, not least the familiar echo that will forever be heard in the halls of Old Knebworth, “Sing along in the chorus, folks!”
Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com