CHAPTER 8 – July 2002
7th July – Sunday
It seems an age since an entry was made to this journal. However, this is not because life has been quiet in the present or that this time of year was quiet in the past. Rather the contrary is true. Life has been so busy that there has been no time to think of past or present.
We have spent five days with John's brother and wife, Jim and Ann, at their house near Ross-on-Wye and whilst there we went to a performance of Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor which was set in the ruins of Ludlow Castle. A couple of days later we went to the refurbished Ross-on-Wye theatre where we saw The Rocky Horror Show performed by the local operatic and dramatic society. We all enjoyed this lively and intimate performance. The theatre was full but that only meant sixty-eight were in the audience.
As a child our family never went to the theatre although I do remember acting in various school plays and enjoying the experience immensely. The only experience of going to a real theatre was when Mrs Jacques would take Dinah and me to a performance in York at the playhouse where Judi Dench learned and displayed her developing acting skills. We always had an ice-cream in a tub at the interval, eating the vanilla ice-cream with a small wooden spoon.
Whilst at Jim and Ann's we enjoyed their large garden with its many trees and large lawn which is a haven for the local wild-life. It reminded me of the freedom I used to have when I could wander out of the farmhouse and loose myself amongst the trees whilst enjoying hearing the different birds. The experience was one tinged with sadness that I no longer can walk outside and instantly loose myself amongst the trees.
The Wye Valley area is almost like a rural idyll with most of the farms being very tidy, unlike Tithe Farm which was always a bit messy and seemed to get more messy as the years passed by. We saw several tractors leading hay. Hay time always preceded the corn harvest proper falling in the weeks leading up to the long summer holiday. Once the hay was ready the busy farming season got under way with everyone working just as long as the weather remained fine. The only time when work was halted was each Sunday when Chapel took priority over everything else. Nowadays, Sunday is just another ordinary work day on most farms. Back then Sunday was sacrosanct.
Under the cartshed in the stackyard was kept the reaper and the big hay-rake which I would play on throughout the year. The reaper was a dangerous implement to tamper with consisting as it did of a very sharp blade against a jagged bit of metal. As this implement went along it was like a mechanical set of teeth a bit reminiscent of Jaws the big killer shark. I would sit on the hay-rake though for many an hour pretending I was hay-making. It was a large mechanical rake with a big metal seat with holes, attached to the back and sitting well up. Dad would sit on this seat and use a large lever attached to the mechanical rake. This implement was very simple and needed little maintenance. Along with the reaper it would be taken out of the cartshed and hitched to the Fergy tractor and very carefully driven to the hay field. I remember Jean and Minnie mainly following on with their pitch forks. This though was after the hay was cut. It was a solitary job for a driver who would cut the hay with the reaper hitched onto the tractor. Before the reaper began though my dad would take his scythe and cut a small piece at the edge of the field going just far enough in to see whether the hay was dry enough to be reaped. After the field was reaped the big hay rake would be driven along with dad dragging the spikes collecting the hay and then lifting the rake with the big lever leaving a mound of hay which Jean and Minnie would fork making a big hay cock. I would have a little hand rake or small pitch fork and drag the bits which had been missed and then add them to the larger hay cocks. If I was very lucky and all was going well dad would sometimes sit me on his knee and let me pull the big lever depositing a pile of hay ready for forking.
I remember hay time as being very hot and sticky as everyone worked in order to get the hay making finished before the weather turned wet. Granny plied everyone with cold and hot drinks and substantial sandwiches and cakes for drinkings.
On good years the hay making could be completed very quickly but there was always the urgency of getting the crop led back to the stackyard or stacked in the corner of the hay field if the crop was just down the back lane. If the weather forecast was good then the hay would be left for a few days to dry out as much as possible but if not the leading would be done as quickly as possible. Dad would toss up the hay onto the trailer where Minnie or Jean would load it. I would still be less than ten when I was expected to drive the tractor from cock to cock.
Although the hay season was during the school term we would still be involved after getting home in an afternoon and at the weekend. As we rushed in from school we would go round to Granny who would have the drinkings ready for us to take to the workers. There would be two large enamel jugs, one of tea and one of cocoa, plus a couple of bottles of cold drink, and lots of sandwiches and cakes. John and I would rush to get down to the field with the drinkings but there is a story of Gerry who, when small, took the drinkings to the farm workers on a very hot day. Instead of going straight to the field she took her clothes off and sat in a field having a picnic. It was no easy job to carry the basket of food and the various drinks and on the big working days it would take two of us to take the drinkings.
Later when Mam used to make up the drinkings she would send a couple of bottles of her home-made cider which tasted light and fizzy but was very potent. It did put everyone in a good frame of mind though.
This year the weather in June and so far in July has been very poor so that it isn't easy to bring to mind those hot, sticky hay-making days of fifty years ago, besides which the mechanism for reaping and gathering is totally different The big mechanical rake would be a museum item as would be the reaper. Farming is so totally different in this modern age that the generation gone would no longer be comfortable in the highly mechanised world of high-tech machinery.
13th July – Saturday
I was delighted to hear that Kelly had won a certificate and £15 of vouchers to take the family on a visit to a nature reserve. Primary school pupils in the Castle Donington area took part, on a voluntary basis, in a project to 'dig and plant' trees. Kelly had drawn pictures of apple trees at different times of the year. I could just imagine how proud Andy and Wendy must have been to go to the presentation of prizes at the East Midlands Airport.
When I was just about Kelly's age we had a very similar project to do at school but it was only pupils within the school that took part. Each week we had a Nature Study lesson and one particular term we were taken up to Cliffe Common and to the Woods where we were taught about trees and wild flowers. We went a few times and then had to write up a project about our findings. Back then it was unusual to do project work and it was something I found very difficult to do. I tried very hard and remember being upset that I knew so little and found it very difficult to put names to the different trees. For several weeks Dad would let me tag along with him and he did explain so many things about trees that I couldn't find in 'The Observer Book of Trees'. In the end I just threw down whatever I could and attempted to draw leaves and trees as best I could. Being frightened of Mr Wright, our bully of a headmaster, I dreaded the results of the project being given out in Assembly. Imagine my surprise when I won. To this day I can't believe how I could have done so well without having cheated and yet I hadn't. I had tried hard to get Dad to more or less do the project for me but he wouldn't help in that respect at all. I remember getting upset as I followed around after him thinking that I would never be any good at Nature Studies and that I should be ashamed of that considering I was a farmer's daughter. I suppose that throughout life I have always felt that the more I learned the more I had to learn and the less I knew.
I can only hope that Kelly will have gained confidence to go on and build on what she has learned whilst doing the project and not follow in the footsteps of her Gran who continues to feel that any success must be a mistake and that perhaps the good mark or first prize belonged to someone else.
15th July – Wednesday
It seems a very long time ago since I took the trouble to prepare and cook freshly picked peas. Frozen peas are always consistently good whereas podded peas can sometimes be a bit dry and past there best. However, writing the journal reminded me just how tasty freshly picked peas and freshly dug up potatoes could be.
Although Mam wasn't a good cook we all enjoyed the time when the new potatoes, peas and mint were in season. Coming alongside the busy time of the farming year I remember any friends who had been called in to help would come home after work to share in a basic meal of new potatoes cooked with lots of mint added, corned beef and fresh peas. Dad would make time to dig up just enough potatoes for the meal and I would pull some peas which Dad grew in his garden by the side of the lane just before the stackyard. I think that I ate as many peas whilst picking them as I took home. Whilst Mam prepared the potatoes by putting them in a bucket and sticking in a brush handle to give them a good stir, I would sit and pod the peas putting the peas in a pan full of water and the pods onto the fire shovel. The potatoes didn't need scraping as they were so new that the skins just fell off with a stir and a rub.
There is only one time in my childhood that I can recall that Dad ever smacked me. I didn't mind pulling peas or podding them as I could eat them as I went along. I even enjoyed eating whole those peas which were too small to pod. But of course, like all children, I would try to get away with anything which was like work. One evening after preparing the peas I just walked off leaving the shovel full of pods. Mam shouted me to go and throw them into the fold yard where the cattle would be sure to enjoy them. For some reason I refused to do it. Dad came home and told me to throw them away and I got cross and asked why John couldn't do it as I had done the rest. Dad was not well pleased. He tipped the pods off the shovel and smacked it across my bottom. It didn't hurt my bottom but it did hurt my pride. Everyone had just come home from work and saw it all. I then had to pick up all the pods and throw them away in the fold yard. I might answer Mam back but the one time I tried to do it with Dad I got my just desserts. After that he had but to give me a black look for me to know that I had to do as I was told. Today smacking is out of fashion and not allowed but I have to think that a smack judiciously given is worth more than any other punishment and does instill a discipline and respect for parents. If used injudiciously then it becomes harmful.
I loved the 'pea season'. John and I would walk down the various lanes looking out for ripe peas which we would pinch. I remember when Richard, Andy and Pete were young and staying with John on the farm during the school holidays. He suddenly stopped the car, got out and pulled enough heavily laden pea stalks for the boys to eat. They were astounded at his behaviour but it rather put him on their side. Brother John has always retained his talent for knowing how to relate with young children.
When we were little though, we had to be very careful not to get caught. The peas heralded the beginning of the scrumping season. Sandy Jacques always grew a lot of peas and somehow it seemed to be a way of continuing the ongoing feuds between the Jacques and Holman family. Well, as children we didn't see that we were doing a great deal wrong and that somehow if we hadn't have pinched peas and later in the season apples, pears and plums we would have been seen as lacking spirit.
The peas would be ready about now but I always hoped that there would be enough pea-pulling work available when the school holidays came round. Even as a small girl I could keep up with most of the women who went to pull peas for Mr Jacques. On a pea-pulling morning I would wait to see whether the women from the village would walk past our house carrying their baskets and stools. Somehow they felt that they could pull quicker with their own basket and I think they were probably right as the ones which were available at the field were a bit old and difficult to carry. As soon as I saw the women I would rush off to follow them. The money I earned was better than anything else. I would probably pull about three sacks full in a day and get 3/- for each sack. Of course this was before decimal coinage came in. In today's money I would therefore have earned the grand total of 45p. Of course that was a lot of money then and it would usually be saved for something special.
It was strange when I went to pick peas for Mr Jacques as I felt almost like one of their family, but on pea-pulling days I felt very much the inferior and could understand why the feud had persisted so long between our two families. Mr Jacques was a gentleman farmer who didn't do any work whereas our family were born and bred to the Protestant work ethic. If Dinah did come to see me in the field she wouldn't pull peas to earn money and so she would chat and put a few peas here and there into my basket. I was always glad to have someone to hold the sack open whilst I tipped in the full basket. The older women had no problem doing everything themselves but they were always kind and jolly with me.
Although I started the day with energy and vigour I remember how the time dragged by the end of the afternoon. I would go home wearily but still look forward to an evening meal of new potatoes, peas and corned beef. This was the only time of year when we would eat a cooked meal in the evening and I never tired of it.
26th July – Thursday
At times it can be difficult to discipline myself to write the journal for all sorts of reasons. This week my mind has been taken up with the ongoing health problems. The consultant neurologist told me on Tuesday that the MRI scan of my brain had shown up scattered white patches throughout my brain. After all this time we now know that something has been going on in my brain, causing a wide variety of symptoms. The neurologist couldn't tell whether the patches were the result of inflammation or blocked blood vessels, either way this news isn't good. However, it does seem a huge step forward in determining what has been going on for such a long time and hopefully when the various blood test results are through I can be given the appropriate medication. Since Tuesday, every time I get a head twinge I wonder what might be going on. The most probably answer right now might be anxiety.
Yesterday morning I received some old photographs from Minnie. They were tiny and probably taken by
Rowland, my Dad's brother, with his first camera. One of the photographs was taken just outside the front gate of Granny's house next to the garden bordering the wide green strip of lawn next to the road. Gladys, my Dad's sister, Granny, Pauline my cousin, myself and Jock the dog are just leaving to go to the local gymkhana which Dad would have been very busy preparing for. At the gymkhana, which was usually held in Wilson's field up near the top end of the village, there would be all sorts of competitions going on in the various tents, but best of all was the horse jumping in the main arena. Cliffe Gymkhana was supposed to be one of the best in the area but sadly it was discontinued when I was still very young.
I do remember Gerry being dressed as a fairy, carrying a wand, riding on her pony called Betty. Lots of things from an older and more traditional way of village life seemed to come to an end at about the time when my youngest brother Andrew was born. Perhaps when Dad withdrew from many activities he was not easily replaced.
Seeing the photograph, yesterday morning reminded me of the colourful Lupins which edged the strip of lawn. Granny was very proud of the display as she had every right to be. The neatly cut yellow privet hedge ran between the private garden belonging to the farmhouse and the road that ran by the house. Granny and Grandad worked hard to keep their gardens nice. A strip of garden ran along the hedge and then there was lawn right up to the road. I can't have been the first child to have enjoyed clasping the Lupin stems and pulling my hand upwards as the petals fell off, leaving a denuded green stalk. At first I would do just the odd flower but then, as an addict would, I could restrain no longer and went the whole garden along denuding every Lupin. I must have been told off, but I can't remember it. What I do remember is a sense of amusement behind the whole incident.
Tomorrow, would be the day we broke up for our long summer holidays of six weeks. Kelly and Amy have always broken up much earlier in July and by now are well and truly into their holiday mood.
26th July – Friday
End of term always came on the Friday just before August Bank Holiday which was the first weekend in August rather than the last as it is now.
Memories of walking home on the last day of the summer term still live vividly in my memory. I was always laden with so much rubbish including paintings taken of the classroom wall that I hardly wanted to take home for Mam and Dad to see. I was absolutely hopeless with a paintbrush or pencil and was very conscious of my miserable specimens as Gerry could draw and paint better than anyone else at school. There were always lots of partly filled exercise books and that was a real bonus as it meant that I would have some decent paper on which to write during the long school holidays. The used pages were usually very messy as in those days we used wooden pens with nibs on which we dipped into an inkwell on our desks. Even though we were supplied well with blotting paper I was always asking for new supplies. I would get ink on my hands, on the desk and blotched all over the exercise book on which I often accidentally would lean and get ink all the way up my arm. My worst anxiety though, was the envelope containing the 'School Report'. Of course we weren't supposed to open the envelopes but Dinah and I would compare the various entries. She always had excellent comments on her behaviour whereas it was completely the opposite for me. However, the terms used to be something along the lines of: 'Joan can be over exuberant at times', or 'Joan must learn to curb her enthusiasm and concentrate more'. However, the actual marks were always good so I never used to worry too much.
Now that the holidays had actually arrived I would be keen to have good weather so that the harvest could get started. Minnie, Jean and the other farm-hands would have taken the previous week off work to prepare themselves for the intensity to come in the following weeks. Dad would have been 'holding the fort' and preparing the old binder ready to start the harvest. August Bank Holiday was the time when the oats would be cut just so long as the weather stayed fine. Our holiday away, when we had one, would be taken on the last week of the school holidays when most of the harvest would have been safely gathered in.
Whereas Kelly and Amy are today excited about leaving for their seaside holiday, tomorrow fifty years ago I would have been excited at the beginning of harvest which was a time when I could change out of school frocks and into my working trousers.
29th July – Tuesday
The holiday-makers have been flocking to Woolacombe in this the peak of the holiday season. Fifity years ago, like them, we would have been hoping for some good hot, sunny weather so that the harvest could get under way.
Dad would have been anxiously watching the crop of oats ripening throughout July, turning slowly from green to light gold. The old binder would have been taken out of the cart-shed, oiled, loaded with hairy-jack band and made ready. His scythe would have been well sharpened. We did have a big round sharpening stone that stood just outside the engine house but I never actually saw him use that. He usually had a hand held stone which he rhythmically stroked up and down the blade, up one side and down the other. The big round stone outside the engine house was mounted in a stand with a handle attached to the centre. I would spend a long time turning the stone and often I would sit on the handle rocking back and forth.
The first job of all was to scythe a corner from the field going far enough in to check that it was dry enough to begin bindering and that the crop was ripe. Dad would take some grain, rub it in his rough hands and then blow away the chaff. If it separated easily then he would begin to reap the corn.
The binder was pulled along on the back of the tractor, dad sitting on the binder with a long pole. The corn was cut by the knives on the binder and then directed onto the sheeting covering the part of the binder running flat, a few inches from the earth, by a big wheel and dad guiding the corn so that it would be lying straight by the time it was mechanically tied into a sheaf of corn which would be dropped off onto the stubble which was left behind.
Minnie and Jean were adept at stooking but none of us escaped the job. Even before I could carry a sheaf under each arm I would be expected to carry a single one and place it at the end of a stook.
It was good to see Minnie and Jean lift up sheaves by their string, tucking first one and then another under each arm, carry them to where the stook was to be made and firmly put them in an inverted V with the grain to the top. Eventually I did learn how to do this but it wasn't many years before bindering stopped and the combine harvester took over. There would be five pairs of sheaves in a stook plus my individual one at the end. The stooks were laid out in lines so that it was easy to 'lead' them in.
Stooking was very hard work and even though we all wore long sleeves and trousers we still couldn't avoid scratching our arms and legs to pieces. It was also very hot work as it was usually done under a blazing hot sun. It would have been lovely to wear shorts and a light shirt but that would have been foolish.
We were always ready for the drinkings when they arrived. They would usually consist of cans of cocoa and tea, some cold drinks, cheese sandwiches and some of Granny's sweet cake.
These were very long days as every effort had to be made to reap, stook and lead the corn back to the farm before the weather changed. The stooks would usually be left for a couple of days to dry out thoroughly. If it did rain then the stooks would all have to be remade so that they could dry again. The sheaves would then weigh very heavy and it was no easy job.
The start of work in the morning often had to wait until the corn had dried off from the early dew as the cutting of the corn depended on the dryness of the crop. However, everyone expected to keep working as long as the light lasted in the evening.
Everyone worked. Those left at home would be busy making lots of food to send out to the fields and preparing large meals for when everyone arrived home hungry, dirty and tired out. Margaret, Gerry, John and I all went through the stage of being the one to fetch and carry the drinkings several times in the day.
When very young it wouldn't have occurred to me that school holidays were for playing. Even as children we were considered to be part of a working team. In some ways this was a wonderful childhood but it rather locked us all in to a Protestant work ethic which is very difficult to shake off later in life.
