Gillian Bulmer (1935 - 2021)

Early in 2022, the Society was informed of the death in May 2021 of Gillian Bulmer, a long-term member since the late 1970s, who was a frequent attendee at our annual conferences. Many regular delegates to our conferences will remember Gillian as a rather enigmatic figure, quietly spoken and quite reserved in company, yet with a deep and passionate interest in apples, orchards and cider-making. As her surname suggests, this knowledge stemmed, in part, from being a scion of the famous Bulmer family of cider-makers in Herefordshire, something to which she rarely referred. The Bulmer family had played a crucial role in the scientific development of cider. In the 1880s, using apples from the orchard at his father’s rectory and an old stone press on the farm next door, Percy Bulmer began to make cider. His elder brother Fred turned down the offer of a post as tutor to the children of the King of Siam to join Percy. It was Fred’s friend, Dr Herbert Durham, who, sometime after 1905, isolated a wild yeast to create the first pure cider yeast culture. This ensured that fermentations were consistent, making this notoriously tricky rural production more stable. This was the start of commercial cider-making.

Sarah Blowen, a member of the Society, remembers her conversations with Gillian at conferences. Diffident when talking about herself, Gillian transformed into an animated and incredibly knowledgeable source of detailed and fascinating ‘folk’ information when talking about the life of Herefordshire rural communities. These included the Traveller families who arrived to harvest the apple crops every year and for whom she had great respect. She had closely observed their ways and was a veritable mine of first-hand regional and rural ethnographic lore. But what Gillian never discussed with Society members is her fascinating earlier life, which has only become apparent while researching this short obituary.

As a child living in Little Breinton, to the west of Hereford, Gillian suffered from epilepsy for around a decade until the right blend of medication was found for her. After this she attended Moulton Agricultural College in 1956/57, then went to British Columbia for 2 years to work on ranches, fruit-picking and in charitable organizations, as well as undertaking further college study there. Upon returning to the UK, Gillian trained as a nurse at hospitals in Hereford and London between 1962 and 1966 and then travelled again to Mexico and Canada for a year before working for the International Voluntary Service in Sicily following an earthquake there in 1968. After another year of study in Hereford Technical College, Gillian nursed in the local eye hospital between 1970 and 1972, and then settled in Little Breinton where she worked in the family orchards.

Never happier than when walking in these orchards, selecting and naming rare varieties for display, Gillian became an ambassador for their preservation; an aim she accomplished by the formation of The Gillian Bulmer Charitable Trust (The Pippin Trust) in 1992. Not only were new orchards established on the Trust’s land in the following years, comprising 150 heritage varieties, but the Trust also provided financial assistance to many individuals and local good causes, particularly those involved with trees, sustainability, the countryside and education. Now incorporated into the Hereford Cider Museum Trust, her legacy of promoting cider apples, orchards and the county of Herefordshire continues.

Gillian was instrumental in setting up the Museum of Cider in 1981, even helping to paint display settings just before it opened. A trustee from 1997, Gillian was a ‘keystone’ of the charity: her wealth of knowledge of cider history and rural traditions is behind much of the collection. From selling the museum’s cider brandy at early events to setting up displays of heritage cider fruit every autumn, Gillian was deeply committed and the museum was a source of great enjoyment for her. Gillian was quietly generous in her lifetime, giving Drover’s Wood to the Woodland Trust and important antiquarian books to the museum. She left her orchards and a serious sum of money to the Museum of Cider and the trustees of her will are working with the Woodland Trust to plant a forest to be held by them in her name.

In addition to her interest in the Society for Folk Life Studies, Gillian was a member of around 20 other organizations concerned with agriculture, ecology, music, local history, building preservation and epilepsy. She had a lifelong passion for conservation of the countryside and the environment and became a passionate campaigner for many issues as well as taking action herself. Eight years before her death she stopped using oil for her home heating and later changed to an electric car.

Whilst she was modest about her considerable achievements, she knew her subject matter and would be staunch in encouraging people to get their facts right. It was more important to her to protect landscape and history than to promote herself. Gillian had the respect of orchardists, cider makers, naturalists and museum curators in Herefordshire and far beyond.

Acknowledgments

I would like to express particular thanks for assistance to Robin Hill, and Elizabeth Pimblett, current Director of the Hereford Museum of Cider.