Looking back at pictures of my first farm 1960 185

 Some old picture of where I first started farming in 1960

Parts of the old farmhouse date back getting on for 300 years, the gable end front is part of the original house being half timbered. 

Judging by the pitch of the roof it would have been thatched 

This was the modern double sided cowshed that you could only dream of back in the 1950's  when this was built, it tied up 26 cows, see the same shed on the right of the top picture

The store shed and loft where feed for the cattle was stored,  dairy corn and other straight  feeds like beet pulp flaked maize and barley for rolling went, and below was where the mangle's  hay bales and straw for bedding was put through each day from the hay barn

A general view through the farm gate looking between the house and cow shed, at the far end of the yard we had erected a new cubicle shed to hold 64 cows, which makes this picture  1970. 

On the bank in the distance is the wheelwrights workshop, and the small holding that his brother ran 

An early aerial picture 1970,  farm house on the left,  with new cubicle shed  top left,  the cow  shed that held 26 tied up is just to the right of the house and just above that roof you can see the new milking parlour  where we milked 64 cows.

The hay baler is on the yard in the centre and on the right you can just see the old warn out Martin Markham flail forage harvester with its blue spout  

Bottom right in the picture is the needles of the top of the church tower, and the new house was built on the site of the old thatched house, see picture below

Another 1940's picture of the back of the farmyard taken from the fields, on the right is the new white roof the the double cowshed, the old thatched  cottages in the centre below the tower of St Chads church

An older picture still of the thatches two cottages probably 1930 , the south side of the church covered in ivy,  there is more about these cottages in the storey "Green Farm Cottages" written and put on a few weeks ago.

Smithy Lane Cottages 1948 184

Smithy Lane Cottages, now demolished, were situated halfway along the village on the south side of the road, these were occupied by three families, at the far end out of the picture is the front door is the cottage that John Lowe with his wife and family. The main front door with the porch Jim Doughty and his wife Vera  and at this end Bill Ecclestone and his wife , (thats Mrs Ecclestone in the picture at her front wicket) they lived in the smaller section attached to this end of the main house, it can be seen in the lower picture on the right. I understood that Bill was the thatcher, he got too old and unsteady to repair the thatch on the old estate cottages and no one left with enough skills to do that kind of roof repairs. 

To add to the problem of thatching, combines were just coming in and the wheat crop had to be left standing another two weeks to get fully ripe, by this time the straw was brittle and broke up going through the drum of the combine head first. When cut with a binder there was some green and life still in the stem/straw, and harvested long so to speak, then later in the winter it was fed into the threshing drum parallel with the rotation of the drum the straw coming out still long.  

As time went on new varieties of wheat were bred with shorter straw and higher yielding of grain. Now some fields of wheat are grown for its straw here and there for the thatching industry, such as there is, harvested in the old traditional way.

These were taken down to make way for the second lot of twenty houses and four bungalows, two of which sit on the site of these old cottages. The cellar to the middle one reached out from under the house almost to the edge of the road, it took almost half the rubble from the house to fill in the cellar

Bill Ecclestone with his dog standing looking back at who is taking the picture, his cottage is on the right. The over hanging branches of the oak tree on the right was sawn down by two men and a cross cut saw, the old stump is still there, rotting away with some flowers now planted in it. Again that was sawn down to make way for the new houses, the hedge and hedge bank excavated out to make a road way in to a cul de sac, Bramall Close.  

Two Green Farm Cottages 183

This was a pair of cottages butting right up to the churchyard fence, in fact the one facing the church had its front wicket opening into the churchyard and a footpath through the grave stones to the lych gate, and that was the main way to and from that house. (see the bottom picture).

The second house faced away from the church and over looked the Church Farm rickyard and was lived in by a very old lady who's husband had died some years ago. She was loosing her eye sight and also going deaf, she had always fetched her milk from the farm. It got to a stage where it was not safe for her to be walking out, so we would take her milk across the road to her. The house had no mod com's the loo being in the small brick and tiled toilet bottom right in the picture, and only one cold water tap over the sink in the scullery. Prior to 1952 water had to be fetched from the village green pump opposite the school.

 When old Mrs B died, the house was never used again, the same as with the other thatched houses, it wanted re-thatching, the thatch had started to rot around the chimney. In the bedroom above the living room with its wide inglenook fire place was the main wide chimney part of which was faced with wattle and daub and a part timber frame, this collect the smoke from the wide inglenook below. The cast iron range that all these old house had was framed in bricks and a brick main chimney, a long oak beam formed the inglenook.   

When it was pulled down it revealed some old ships timbers that formed the main frame of the house, they were old very hard black oak, when cut with a chain saw, sparks came off the blade. Holes and joints were carved into the timber where they had been fitted together in a ship, now they were used  in a house they were assembled bottom up, inverted and reached up to beneath the ridge of the roof.

The stairs to these old house were formed around a central pole, the steps doing a half turn round it to reach the bedroom above which was little more than a hole in the floor of the bedroom with a hand rail, the second bedroom was accessed through the first.  

Two Green Farm Cottages.

The cottage on the right had only one bedroom window, a front door and window below that and a small scullery window on the far side

The same pair of cottages, the one facing the church had a wicket from its front door through the church yard and out the lych  gate

The second cottage facing the church had two rooms downstairs, a fire place in each, hence the chimney at the end if the house and two bedrooms. This is a much older picture than the top one, the houses appears in very good condition, and looking at the old grave stones in the picture, you can see exactly where the old front wicket used to be and the position of the houses themselves prior to being demolished. The new house built on that site was positioned some thirty feet further away from the church fence.

These old houses disappeared around the time the new Council houses were built, mains water had already been brought in and a new sewage system to cater for the new houses.

Wents Wood Cottage 182

Another of the old cottage from the past

Wents Wood Cottage was situated out of the village very close to the perimeter runway of the old war time Seighford airfield, so close in fact that a disabled Wellington Bomber came into land, landing on the grass up the centre of the airfield. It skidded across the perimeter track across the garden of the cottage and stopped with its nose cone along side of the bedroom window and main wing up to its gable end .

 It was said that the old lady who lived there popped her head out of the bedroom window and asked the pilots if they were okay, only to be told by them to get out of the house now, as the whole lot could have gone up in flames, but as it happened it did not catch fire, and was towed back onto the airfield the following day.

Wents Wood Cottage

Like most of the old cottages around here the ceilings were very low, the bedroom window in the picture was only a few inches off of the bedroom floor. As you entered the front door it was only a shallow step into the house, the main thing I remembered about it was the grandfather clock just through the door on the right, it was taller than the rooms ceiling so a hole had been  made up into the bedroom above between the beams to allow the clock to stand upright.

As you see in the picture this house has a relatively shallow pitched roof, suggesting that it had been built from new as a tiled roofed house, some houses in the village, the Holly Bush pub for example has a very high pitched tiled roof, the angle used for a thatched the roof .

This picture was taken towards the end of its useful life, as its occupant became older so the vegetation started to over whelm the garden, and later the woodland eventually engulfed the empty house. the useful tiles and bricks that could be reclaimed were taken until the house was totally demolished.

 No other house was built on the site and is now just woodland.

Woodman's Cottage (picture mid 1930's) 181

This cottage was situated half way between the Village Farm house and the Beeches Farm house on the Beeches side of the road.  

As with all the cottages, they were allotted to the different craftsmen, or if the cottage was "tied" cottage to one of the farms it was always a farm cottage. 

 In this case it was the Woodman's cottage, the woodman being employed by the estate to look after the many different woods and coppices around the estate. From planting to felling, cutting up trees into suitable lengths to cleft posts and rails for fencing, and doing the maintenance to all estate fences . 

Woodman's Cottage

The picture looks a bit too tall and narrow, but you get what it looked like. In the picture is Aurther Lawson the last woodman to live here along with his son and daughter plus the dog, in fact he had three children.
His son became a railway engine driver, when the railways were still in steam and towards the end of his career went onto diesel loco's. His older daughter lived and work at home as they had lost their mother, working part time in the house at the Beeches Farm, her husband Bill also worked full time at the Beeches Farm.
After Aurther retired in the late 1950's the family moved into one of the new council houses opposite the village shop and after a few more years the cottage was pulled down and the site cleared and amalgamated into the adjacent fields. There is almost no trace of where this house had been other than a post in the fence and hedge.
I remember one day there was an almighty scramble for a long ladder, a pan of fat had been accidentally spilt on the fire, causing the chimney to catch fire with sparks coming out of the chimney and landing on the thatch.  It almost met its demise that day, but a long thatching ladder kept at the Beeches was hastily put up the roof and sparks quelled.
The place where the thatch seemed to give way first on these old houses was around the chimneys and once they started to leak in the rot got deeper into the thatch until the whole lump of rotten straw sank into the house.
 As I said before about other old thatched houses, the estate man who "did" the thatching around the village cottages had become too old and died and no one else had the skills to repair them, the only man who attempted top repair the thatch in the 1930's was the wheelwrights son Jim Clark. Many of them wanted a complete stripping and re-thatching, and that never got done. The new council houses were too big a draw on the village population for them to want to live back in the dark ages in these old thatches cottages.

A new sewage system was put in through the middle of the village just before the new councils houses went up and that ended the "bucket and chuck it" down the garden toilets that all the old houses had.

Cobblers Cottage 180

Cobblers Cottage

This cottage was demolished around the mid 1950's, and when I was going to school 1940's  it was still the cobbler Bill Emery who lived there on his own. As you went through the front door into his living room, then turned left into his work room, it was the left widow on the front of the house.

 In the corner by the window was a huge pile of old worn out boots and shoes, as you would see a pile of old horse shoes outside the blacksmiths shop. he sat in front of his window working with his last, and a pile of new and part used hides. his tools on the table under the window. When work horses were used about the farms, it would be making and repairing harnesses. 

This was a two up two down house with a fire place under the chimney you see, it had a scullery out back with a boiler (often called a copper) and toilet down the garden. 

After the cobbler died, an elderly couple moved in with their two unmarried sons, both of whom worked, one Green Farm as a cowman, and the other Village Farm as a wagoner, later he became the tractor driver.

No one wanted these old houses back  in the 50's as  the only value to them was the land they stood on, so became building plots. The thatch was starting to rot away and leaked around the chimney and ridge, and no one in the village at that time had the skills to re-thatch them, the chap who was the thatcher had long since died.

 As the new Council houses were built so the occupant of these old properties were move in,  first it was ten new houses the a few years later another twenty four were built, and by that time all the very old cottages were being pulled down and new houses sprouting up in their places. 

Old houses mended, Cost little less than new before they're ended.

Colley Cibber  (1671 - 1757).

Pump Cottages Seighford, demolished 1952 179

This is the first of quite a few of the old houses demolished with pictures of how they looked at the time and in most cases who lived in them. 

This pair of cottages were tied houses to one of the farms in the village, all belonging to the estate, they are/were half timbered and thatched, with very low doors and ceilings. They had two up and two down, you had to walk through the first bedroom to get to the second one.

The big double chimneys half way along the roof were from the inglenook fire places with an open small cast iron range in both houses, the other chimneys were from the rooms at each end of the houses, (see bottom picture) 

This is the village pump situated between the shop and the houses  you see above, the picture is dated around 1890.

Its two cottages with the left end to the road with the one front door above or just to the right of the little girls head. The division of the two houses is between the two bedroom windows and identical cottage off picture to the right 

The same pump, maybe turned round a bit, this was taken in 1948 when the mains water was piped into the village and this was the last time the pump was ever used. All the wells were automatically condemned and filled in (that is except for ours at the farm which is still usable).

The two women on each side were the last occupants of these two old houses, as within a few years 10 new council houses were built in the field behind the hedge in the picture . The car on the road is parked opposite the village shop

This is the back of those same cottages, this gable end is up to the pavement on the roadside, they only had one tap put into each house over the old kitchen sink. Water was heated over the fire in a big Kettle. The toilets were down the garden, the small tile roof at the far end of the houses,( bucket and chuck it type). Electricity was put into all the house in the village around 1940.

The Cast Iron Range 

In years gone by, when cooking was done 

Burnt coal and logs, with pots upon,

The cast iron range, came into use,

House and cottage, all black and spruce.

Blazing fire, reaching up and back,

To chimney hood , all sooty and black,

 Had two ovens, with big black knobs,

To cook for the family, and bake the cobs.

Kettle on a hook, swung over the fire,

Always on the boil, till tea we desire,

Pots on the side, to boil the taters,

Pan on the trivet, fry bacon for the platters

A toasting fork, to toast stale bread,

Hung on a nail, in the homestead,

Nothing was wasted, all was used up,

Meat boiled off bones, made broth to sup.

For years and years, ranges were used,

Then lectric came in, and every one enthused,

Cooked with a switch, on the wall turned on,

Off it went cold, heat from the range be gone.

Owd Fred

Good old Seighford 178

Good old Seighford

It’s a job to know where to start, as the village and its occupants from years gone by are in the St Chads Churchyard, every time you walk through the grave stones you find yet another family name and of a trade’s men farmer or farm workers and all their families.

Up until the 1940’s we were almost self sufficient as a community.

The wheelwright made all the gates built all the farm carts wheel barrows and feed troughs and was also the undertaker.

The blacksmith as well as shoeing all the horses in the area repaired the machinery most of which was horse drawn, hooping wooden wheels with the wheelwright, right down to making iron work in the old fire places trivets, chimney cranes and the like.

In The estate yard there was a handyman come builder come Thatcher who, a man who could do he plumbing, most of that was lead pipe, the galvanized iron pipes were only just coming in.

The village shop carried most of the basic necessities like salt sugar flour and also the Post Office, and also sold paraffin for the oil lamps in the houses and cottages, and for the tilly lamps used to carry outside and in the farm buildings.  

 The School. Children walked in from as far as two miles away in all directions, from the surrounding hamlets. The head teacher at one time was also the tax collector and would put pressure on the children when money was due.

The Pub. Beer was brought up from the cellar on big jugs, and the customers would sit at a scrubbed wooden table with all sorts of oddment chairs. It would be all local people who walked or came on a bicycles.

There was also a Cobbler who made and repaired boots and shoes, as well as repaired horse harness, and all things leather.

There was six farms actually in the village, the land and fields belonging to them spread out in all directions, although on the area of peat land on the east side of the estate, everyone had a portion, so it fragmented all the farms. There would be around fourteen farm workers all in tied cottages, cottages that went with the job, and as tractors came in the number of workers reduced, milking machines again reduced the labour force, old cottages went into disrepair and were eventually pulled down to form a building site for new house’s.

The Landlord lived in the “big” house on the bank just out of the village, rent was paid to him on rent days “Lady Day”, and “Michaelmas day” at the Holly Bush pub. When you had paid the rent to the agent, you were then invited to have a drink at the bar on him. I was told by my father that in his early days on the estate they all went to a hotel in town to pay their rent, and stayed for a slap-up meal.  It was a change of estate agent that change that to the pub in the village.

The Village Farm Cottages

  

Each farm worker had a cottage, went with work they did,

Work was hard worked long hours, to earn an honest quid

Dug the garden to grow the food, all to feed the kids,

Milk and logs they came free, with the work they did.

Men left the land to get more money, cottages left empty,

Thatch it rotted let rain in, knocked them down for safety,

Tiled roof ones they lasted longer, ventuly they succumb,

Rubble for field gateways, a new building plot become.

  

Owd Fred

The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village.

Marshall McLuhan (1911 - 1980)

Tracks Across Fields 177

    On the old American cowboy films that I like watching, they always seem to have an Indian tracker, to follow the hoof prints from which they seem to know, how many horses, which direction they are going and how long ago they passed that way, and even if one horse is carrying two people.

 My self watching these movies I always notice the horses themselves, how they move, the "gait" , or if one is lame, and always wonder how all the bullets only seem to hit the riders and rarely ever the horse.  How when a rider is shot and the horses head is brought round sharply, it falls to the ground without ever being hurt. 

The cattle stampede for miles and miles, when in fact they tire after only half a mile, then slow down, and when moving a large herd you could not expect them to do any more than three miles per hour. As in every herd there are always leaders, as long as they are pointed in the right direction the others follow by instinct.

Just a few of our April born calves picture taken end of September

This is our "leader", she is a Simmental cross Frisian cow, the cross bred suckler cow has a tendency to produce more milk than the pure bred beef breed. Her Hereford calf  as you see came out a  pale red colour. I have always noted the width of her muzzle, almost as wide as her eyes.   

The wagons used in films when they are in a wagon train, how rusty and dull the iron hooped wheels are, from my own experience of iron tyred wagons used at harvest time they are bright and shiny metal, but then I am only being picky, the film wagon trains perhaps will only do a few hundred yards while shooting takes place then parked up to continue going rusty again.

Back at home here in the middle of the UK I have become a tracker, just by default. If an odd one of the cattle get out of their field and onto the road, the first thing they do in a strange place is to lift their tail and let go some droppings as they walk, and from that and the hoof prints on the grass or in the mud you can see whitch way they went and what size of animal you are looking for, or if more than one how many. In our case if an animal gets out its either just one , who maybe in season, or if more than one, it most likely all of then get out on the herd instinct they seem to possess. 

Its the same with tyre marks that have recently driven out of our yard, in wet weather its fresh wet marks down a drying road or its dusty tryes marking the road, I can tell if some one has driven up my yard and how long ago and can recognize the tyre prints of most of my friends and neighbours vehicles and tractors.

In the fresh snow its the easiest first thing in a morning, all the small animals and bird that burrow and roost all looking in vein for food.           

                                                             Tracks Across Fields

                        

Tracks across the fields, and tracks off down the lanes,

In the snow in the mud, fresh tracks still it rains,

Paws, feet, hooves n’ boots, wheels with grippe tyres,

Big and small, heavy and light, not long then they expire.

Every print has a tale to tell, on who has crossed your path,

See the direction that they went, and if they’re causing wrath,

Follow to see where they go, and if they came back that way,

Intruders can see, up to no good, or if they’re out to play.

All the prints tell a tale, the pattern they leave behind,

The claws on paws and the gait of the stride aligned,

There’s webbed feet and long toes, belong to who knows,

And there’s birds that land, and take off like the crows.

There’s cows and there’s calves, and horses with shoes,

See how many have passed, that way from the clues,

Tyres leave prints be it bikes or cars, tractors and all,

Speeding and skidding, or getting stuck when they stall.

You can read every where, who’s has been up that way,

Prints and tracks tell a tale all every day,

You may be alone, but someone’s been up there,

A crossing of tracks in the lane be aware.

Owd Fred

One who walks in another's tracks leaves no footprints.

Proverb.

A Good Old Way of Life 176

Yes I am going to miss my old way of life, but age holds the key, and there are now a lot of things that I am not any longer able to do, like running, or riding a bike (the owd knees are no longer flexible enough). Some things I can still do but others tell me I am not safe doing it, the main one being, driving on the motorway, or sorting cattle at close quarters, or going off down the fields for a half day (on the tractor) without my phone. If I go down or fall down is more likely I have great difficulty getting back up, mainly because the new knee joints I had fitted twelve years ago, they will only bend to 45 degrees and the muscles in me legs and arms and hands are not as strong as they used to be.

Thank goodness I still have all me marbles, well I think I have, others may have a different opinion, but  this last twelve months I had an almighty panic to get all my blogs into print. I felt that if others could see I was slipping a bit in the direction, (of loosing me marbles), of which I an not aware, I had better get a shift on. 

So now this last few months my blogs are now nearly all in print in my book called "The Longest Furrow" in four volumes, a fifth is on the way and will contain the blogs written more. They can be purchased or just looked at here http://goo.gl/38ewkb

I think I have already mentioned in an earlier blog about the house we will be moving to, comparing the size of bathrooms as the present one as a fifteen seater bathroom, and where were moving to as a one seater bathroom I do exaggerate a tad, but you get the drift.  It will have closer fitting doors and windows, no drafts, central heating with a fuel oil tank not much bigger than that on a decent sized combine. Of course that same fuel has got to keep my old Fordson E27N in fuel as well, it run on TVO (tractor vaporizing oil ) but now the nearest thing is the house heating oil. That tractor is only used at ploughing matches and the occasional tractor road run.

 

So yes things will have to change, I will not miss going out to feed cattle on a cold and wet wintry morning, but I will miss turning hay in the summer and other jobs done from the tractor seat, I have no doubt I have some neighbours  who would want the odd hours help, but whether my advise would carry any weight is another matter.  Yes in anticipation, I think I could get used to it eventually, and continue writing these blogs, marbles allowing.

A Good Old Way of Life

There are the wise and the old, and the young who want to learn,

There’s the hard working not so olds, their fortunes try to earn,

Farming’s got a grip on them, they know no other way,

Come hail or rain or sunshine, it’s just another day,

From early in the morning, till after dark at night,

For crops and stock their caring, they are their delight.

Working hard day by day, in a green and pleasant land,

Don’t have time to stand and stare, have a good look around,

Take in the beauty of where they work, the fields the trees and lanes,

All the years of care and sweat, well out weighs the pains.

It’s just a good old way of life, their families there to rear,

Health and hope and happiness, the harvest brings good cheer.

Owd Fred

I’ve got a Little Breakdown, 175

Even though I have all but retired, there always seems to be something standing by in my workshop waiting to be repaired or modified.

Right now its the cattle crush, in one of the locations where its used it has to be maneuvered into position with the lifting tractor lifting it from the end. The lifting loops cater for lifting it from the side, both sides, and I wanted a lifting loop from one end, initially we used a short piece of chain for this job, but found it a nuisance when on my own changing from one side to the end.

So I found a piece of round steel and bent it "bucket handle" style and welded it to some angle iron that fitted to the upper frame of the crush, this stays up and prominent and you just fish the front fork of the tractor to hook onto it without having ta leave the tractor seat. 

Well, this loop broke the last time we used it, the steel I had used was from an old iron railing, it must have been hundreds of years old and had found its way into my scrap ruck, as thing do, if ya know what I mean.

It was of very poor low quality steel, and fabricated into iron fencing, the sort used around the school next door, and this school fencing was all fetched down when the school (next door) was modernized. 

Don't know how old the school is, may be hundred and fifty years or so, so this bit of steel broke, ya could see the grain in the cross section that it was not as sound as the modern stuff of today. Result is, its back in the scrap ruck.

I have now found a newer suitable loop of metal to weld back on, so that's the next job after the Christmas break. 

If it can be repaired by a blacksmith, the chances are that I can do it, big ommer and nails mon, that's me. Electric's and anything electrical is a big no no, apart from the surface wiring of an extension to a light in the workshop or a three pin socket, basic stuff like that.  A three way switch, and electric motors I leave them to the bloke who know about such stuff.

This describes my workshop down to a tee. 

I've got a Little Breakdown,

I’ve got a little breakdown and its needs attention now,

Take it to the workshop, to bodge it up somehow,

Need to clear the work bench, with scrap its piled high,

Things that needed mending, I failed but had a try.

Spanners come in sets, they’re spread all round about,

The very one your wanting, one you conner do without,

Spend all morning searching, and you end up with a wrench,

Round the corner off the nut, then find its on the bench.

The metals rusty, flaking off, got it to weld somehow,

Clean the edge and got some gaps, must be done right now,

Spitter spatter stop and start, resembles pigeon siht,

Grind it off and fill the holes, and hope it wunna split.

Drill bits with the edge knocked off, the saw it that hit a nail,

Hammer’s got a headache, and it needs a brand new stale,

Screwdriver hit with hammer, when the chisel conna find,

And the spirit level lost a bubble, ta guess work I’m resigned.

Have a dam good clear up, and throw the rubbish out,

Then look for where you’ve chucked it, that little bit of spout,

Ventualy it all comes back, n’ builds up on the floor,

Praps a bigger workshop, cus I conna shut the door.

I’m really tidy in my mind, but sometimes I forget,

When I’m in a hurry, and black clouds and rain a threat,

Job is done, tools chucked in, the workshop miss the bench,

It happens all the while, but I stick with a big old wrench.

Owd Fred

A man too busy to take care of his health is like a mechanic too busy to take care of his tools.

Spanish proverb.

Happy Christmas to all who read this (2013) 174

Ya should see him now he's got a good sun tan and sweating cobs in the oven, this will be our last Christmas at the farm, and thought I would take a few pictures to share with you. We have always lived in one farm house or another, and it will be a shock to our systems to move to a "normal house".

Like I have said before the bathrooms I have been used to, (this is how we judge the size of big houses) you could if seated , sit fifteen folks, the house were moving to has seating for only ONE, and they call that a normal house, OH how will we cope.

I thought I'd give the turkey a good send off , da ya think it looks happy and comfortable, it spent its last few hours in the sauna and in control of the television

Its now 11am on Christmas morning 2013 and I have been forces to open the oven door a touch to ease the heat on the recumbent who is now getting what I would call hot. You see its an old coal or log fired Rayburn, and its well revved up, there's no knob to turn it down, so the oven door is left ajar.

Next job to do, after its rested for an hour, will be to sharpen up the owd carving knife, 

Anyone for Lunch.

Happy Christmas Owd Fred and the Misses 

Mend make do makeshift. 173

Money had been very tight for my parents in their early days in farming, and they knew how to run a tight ship, nothing was ever spent if it did not need to be spent. When new ideas and inventions came out, they would shy away from it for as long as ten years, until it had been tried and tested and proven. The drum mowers came out and we persuaded him pretty quickly to get up to date on that one, and a baler was soon taken up as well, but it did take some to get him to agree that that's the way to go.

This was my father before he got his Standard Fordson tractor

There had always got to be a guaranteed return, and this habit never left them in all the years of their life, whether it be the first fertilizers ever purchased onto the farm (nitro-chalk, basic slag, Humber fish muck) or whether it be knitting wool for knitting all our socks gloves and jumpers, which eventually became working garments and were darned and repaired many times before they were too holey to repair.

Thrift was the by word then, and we seem to have lost that word from the modern day vocabulary, it's become a throwaway society now, nothing is repaired, if it don't work chuck it, and get a new one.

Mend make do makeshift.

Nothing wasted nothing chucked, all make do and mend,

Thrift is what they called it, right up to the end,

Never lost the habit, brought up all me life,

To repair and keep it working saves a lot of strife.

Father hit some hard times, and came through not too bad,

Looked after all of what he’d got, through happy times and sad,

Money tight and barter things, that’s the way to go,

Coal exchanged fa half a pig, a railway engine drive know.

Bodge it up and weld it, or a big hammer and nails repair,

It'll last anther couple a years, father had the flare,

It's not allowed to ware out, till new idea is born,

Combine buggered the binder, n bright new paint adorn.

Move with the times, that's what were told, latest ideas must get,

But tell the old man, he's going deaf, you'll get ya sen into debt,

Tried and tested it must be, new ideas are not fa us,

Let someone else tek the risk, and save us all the fuss. 

Owd Fred

A saying that father had was --- "Ware the old buggers out fost", but then when we came along it was "Flog the young"

Put it down to experience 172

I know it looks like I'm an old moana, but it is a bit disappointing to realize you cannot do what you used to do only a few years ago. Put it down to experience, well this experience is not going to get any better with time, in fact it can only get woss. 

Lifes Time Clock You Cannot Beat

You wonder where the time, and all the years have gone,

They pass so quickly now, going one by one,

Season’s sequence come in turn, no control have we,

Wind and rain and sunshine, day and night decree.

Snow and frost in winter, new start for New Year,

Spring and summer showers, and then the sun appear,

Autumn fruits and berries, for the birds to eat,

Repeat with little change, life’s time clock cannot beat.

Owd Fred

Suppose it gives you more time to look back on the things you wished you had done, and just had not the time to do, at one time you would start something and rush head long into it hell for leather, but right now the only thing I can get stuck into is writing, and that's slow, which is probably just as well as me thinkin is just about the same speed.

We are lucky in UK in that we do not get the extremes of weather like we hear of in many other parts of the world, as its weather that controls most of what we do as farmers. My old mother used to "do" the weather for us all of her life, I wrote this story about it a years or so ago  http://yewsfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/weather-forcast-by-owd-freds-mother.html

Father, he was a truly handy man, there were not many jobs that he would not tackle, and when he did a job it was made to last, strong smart and professional lookin, the only thing that he was absolute rubbish at was welding.  He bought an oxy acetylene gas welder with the pipes gauges and bottles, it was before the electric welders got popular, he had seen the blacksmith welding and decided to buy a set and try for himself. It looked easy, but there is a fine balance to be struck between heat and cookin holes into the metal ya trying to weld, and applying the rod metal at the right time to produce an even weld. He had had no tuition and did not weld often enough to become proficient so, he did not improve with age.

Wood work was his favorite pastime in retirement, and in his garage/workshop he gathered any old useful timber he could find about and stored it in the roof members of his garage plus some more back at the farm. The oak was always the "heart of oak" he said the wood worm eventually get into the sap wood which is softer, ash and yew was also gathered as and when he came across it.

This is the clock he made for me. 

Never had to use a walking stick

 up to now, but i Got plenty 

standing by

From this timber he made four grandfather clocks, one for each of us four lads, four kitchen tables, a large welsh dresser, stools, wooden farmyards for the kids and also got into wood turning. These were made over twenty years of retirement, towards the end we had to stop him using his circular saw and a planing machine as he was getting to unsteady on his feet. 

But he did enjoy his retirement, the only thing was he did worry if anything went wrong on any of the farms that we lads were working at. He always told us that we had got to learn from our own mistakes , though he could not help trying to guide us from making them in the first place. I have no doubt that he had had his fair share over his lifetime farming.        

I remember Fathers Plumbing

In the house at the Beeches, when we first moved in,

No hot tap for water, only a cold tap from the tank within,

This was pumped up from the well, that’s also in the house,

Opening a valve on pipe, sent water for cattle’s thirst to douse.

First thing he did was fit back boiler, to the kitchen range,

With pair of pipes flow and return, to cylinder exchange,

The pipes they were of one inch, galvanised iron pipe,

Threaded to make the joints, fittings screwed up tight.

Under floor boards to the bathroom, to the cylinder,

Pipes to bath and basin, this it made him ponder,

Also to the back kitchen, where we washed our hands,

And mother did the washing up, at deep sink where she stands.

Fired up and tested with water getting hot,

Lasted years and years till pipes with lime scale blocked,

Eventually replaced with copper, and new oil boiler applied,

Big enough to take some rad’s, old house inside it dried.

Owd Fred

Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.
---Unknown.

Merry Christmas card 171

Merry Christmas

The lights are up, turkey bought, and the cards are coming in,

Holly round the mantle shelf, decorations hung within,

For all the children presents now, dunt know where to start,

Buying now on line you can, money from ya card impart,

Each passing year they got older, laptop n’ all gizmos’ need,

Computer games and telephones, with built in camera plead,

Be glad now when its come and gone, good food good cheer n all,

Its just another day in life, as out of bed I crawl,

Stock to look and count and feed, all me life the same,

Exiting for the kids so young, for me excitements’ getting tame,

So its from the misses and me, to all around the world,

Wishing you Happy Christmas, and Happy New Year unfurled.

Owd Fred & Eileen

Thinking back, school dinners, teeth and choppers 170

After sitting quietly for half an hour, thinking back over the years of how things have evolved and change just in my life time. Sitting here typing this blog on a computer would not have been thought of (by me) just a few years back, and being able to send stories and tales around the world on the "nett" its beyond belief.

I look back on how mother coped with all the work in the farm house with all six of us to sit down for every meal every day, I know we did start school meals when they were first came in,  25 pence a  five day week , that's 10p in new money (UK) for the week.

Our house and farm in the village, on the left is the village school, we are looking
 across the village green and on the right used to be Green Farm.

And no we have not had any snow yet this is an older photograph

The meat for all the school meals in our county was purchased by the Fatstock Marketing board, who tendered the lowest price for the job. And the man who went round the farms working for them was an uncle of ours, (this is how we knew) he was looking at and purchasing all the old worn out or spent out old breeding bulls for miles around, that was how they kept the price so low. You had to have good teeth ta chew that meat.
N' talking about teeth, every now and then at school they had a "knitt nurse" call to see who had got lice in their hair and also a dentist called and plonked a dentists chair in the middle of the main hall, the kids would all line up outside the door and in turn go and sit in that chair. Some kids had front teeth missing, some had rotten teeth and the teeth they did pull we mainly "milk teeth" so not too hard a job.
 My teeth were okay, nowt wrong with then, the next time I went into a dentists chair was over fifty years later when I had to have two new replacement knee joints, the surgeon said I had got to go and see if I had got a rotten tooth, as a rotten tooth could make the metal in me knee reject, and if it rejected I would loose my leg.
All tough talking made me find a dentist, the dentist found nowt wrong with me teeth and asked how often have you cleaned ya teeth. Never in me life have I had a tooth brush, and now I go for a checkup at the dentist every six months, so I do clean them now twice a year just before going to see them.

  Me teef  are looking better

Me teef  are looking better , and I brush them every day,

New electric toof brush, and some paste that looks like clay,

Me misses getting onto me, n’ the dentist gives a hint,

Break a habit of a lifetime, to brush me teef I dint.

Mornings are so busy, after breakfast rush right out,

Then think I anna brushed me teef, n’ rules I mustna flout,

But then I conna turn right round, cattle got to feed,

N’ I’ll do in the morning, n’ I’ll brush them till they bleed.

Conna see the point of it, once a week enough fa me,

Twice a year is what om used to, n’ the dentists got the key,

To count them every visit, and to scrape then there’s no need,

Cuz  I eat an apple every day, and my mum she (set that creed,)  (did breast feed.)

Please don’t put the pressure on, om not feelin very well,

The verbal and advice okay, but too much I will rebel,

So to the dentist I have a message, count me teef and clean,

N’ chat about the weather, n’ what ever else in-between.

Owd Fred

A teacher in the "big school" in town, who you could never for get, was the wood work teacher, we all called him Bulldog Lees and he had got a real bad temper, and very little patience, particularly with anyone who was not very practical. I describe him here in a poem best 

 We Had a Woodwork Teacher  (1950 ish)

We had a woodwork teacher, we called him Bulldog Leese,

Had stern face and bad temper, no one dare to tease,

If he could not get class attention, throw a chisel hard,

Hit the back wall cupboard, like a dagger stuck and jarred.

All the class it stood and quivered dare not cross his path,

The respect was thrust upon you, dare not stir his wrath,

No one liked his lessons, even those who could push a plane,

Perfection in this man and all his tools, but he was a bloody pain.

Owd Fred

Talking of tools father was very particular with any sharp tools he had and would not let us chop sticks with his bill hook, well not the one he did his hedge laying with, his axe and bill hook, his chisels and planes and saws were all put in slots on wracks nailed on the wall in front of his bench and that protected the blades.  Other tools were not so cosseted just being chucked onto the bench in a heap along with off cuts of metal and timber, he was always in a hurry when summat had got to be repaired. When he retired things were a lot different, he converted half of his garage into a workshop, and kept it very tidy, he always blamed us lads for making a mess in the workshop at the farm, I recon he may have had a point there. 

One only needs two tools in life; WD-40 to make things go, and Duct tape to make them stop.

G. Weilacher