Z1205/146

Male. Farmer. b. 25.02.1920 SIDE A (00 mins)Mother died giving birth to him. Born and raised in Wilstead on a smallholding. Father remarried and moved to Little Church Farm. In 1949, moved to Village Farm where he's lived eve since. Self-contained village: 5 shops, including store and Post Office. Horse and cart deliveries of groceries. Paraffin for lamps. Tin church in neighbouring hamlet of Littleworth served by the vicar of All Saints Church, Wilstead. (05 mins)Vicarage used for Mothers Union and other meetings. Local church restored in 1930s, after death-watch beetle was found. He didn't like what was done. Recalls a meeting of some locals who objected to what was proposed. But it went ahead and put him off attending the church any more. (10 mins)Wilstead brick yard, Hebbs', Dane Lane. Clay dug by hand. Produced slot bricks, used in many local buildings. Closed down in 1920s (?). Ponds in the area show where clay was dug. Key people who "ran" the village. Schoolchildren given two weeks extra off to help bring in the harvest after summer holidays, when it was wet. Hand-milked 2 cows before school from when he was 9 yrs old. Their small farm had 12-14 cows, some other cattle and pigs. Collected water from a well, morning and evening. (15 mins)Collected eggs from the hens. Plucked and cleaned hens when killed and rabbits. Went shooting as soon as a teenager. Thousands of rabbits around. Netted rabbits at dusk. Lived on rabbit stew. The impact of myxomatosis in killing the rabbit population off. (20 mins)Organic versus industrialised food production. Wartime emphasis on increasing food production. Unequal international trade in food. Paternal grandfather was the baker at Elstow. Father rented 5 acres of land in Elstow, after the First World War, to start a farm business. Child stayed with maternal grandparents in Bedford until 5. (25 mins)Maternal grandmother was an elegant Victorian lady who was an excellent cook. One aunt, a sister of his father, was still alive aged 99. Uncle Oswald us to cycle from Elstow to Lidlington to play the organ. Recalls his schoolteachers and the school football team. Introduction of school bussing. Elstow May Day. (30 mins)Infants school had one large class of 30 - 40 children. They moved at 7 years to the Church Road School (2 classes) and at 11 to Elstow School. Left at 14 years. There was an exam you could take to go to grammar schools in Bedford, but only if your parents could afford to pay the fees. (32 mins)End of Side A SIDE B (00 mins)Assisting the fox hunters in wintertime, by absconding from school, as children, and opening gates to fields, for a tip. When you got into trouble at school, and got the cane (corporal punishment), you got into trouble at home. After he left school, he worked full-time on the farm. Distributed milk, cleaned the pigs out everyday, fed the animals. Got a driving licence at 17 and another job as a lorry driver. Took motor engineering night classes in Bedford. During the war, he was drafted to the Ordnance Corps as a mechanic. After the war, he joined his father on the Village Farm. 05 mins)Mixed farm. Didn't have a holiday until after he got married and his wife insisted - a week between hay time and harvest. Took up bowling in latter years. Wartime experiences. (10 mins)Losing friends from the village in the war. Lack of self-discipline in the populous after the war. Lower standards of public behaviour. (15 mins)Changes in village life. Once knew everybody in the village; now he knows very few. Mains water piped to the village after the war. Village shops declined and supermarkets took over. More comfortable lifestyles. When he started farm work, it was horses and steam power. Then from binders to combined harvester and from petrol tractors to diesel ones. Vast changes in one lifetime. Handwork to mechanisation on farms. Outline of seasonal work. He remembers when, as a boy, Duck End Farm had 14 working teams of horses, needing 14 men, then a dozen or so boys. Even on his own farm, they used to have 4 or 5 workers plus seasonal labour. Now only his son works the farm. (20 mins)Threshing from 7 to 5, having done all the animal work, milking and feeding before that. Moving 2 ¼ cwt. (hundredweight) sacks (now illegal). At 5 doing all the animal work. Some brick workers, locally, used to also work on farms when not sleeping or at the brickworks. After decline of brick works, many men moved to work in Luton for Vauxhall motor factory. (25 mins)Old methods of crop rotation. Clover fields. Haymaking. EU (European Union) regulations on agriculture. Institutions that held the village together - British Legion, Women's Institute, sports club. (30 mins)Brief experience of Home Guard (local defence volunteers), early in the war, before he was conscripted to the army. Night patrols and parades in village. (32 mins)End of Side B END OF INTERVIEW. Original Interview 60 mins.

1 July 2002

From: 1915 To: 2002

item

Vauxhall,
London Brick Company,
Marston Valley Brickworks

farmer, Wilstead Village Farm, post office employee, CHURCH, Mothers' Union, child labour, CELEBRATIONS AND COMMEMORATIONS FESTIVALS, water supply, eggs, rabbits, animal cruelty, veterinary medicine, cook, organist, football, fox hunting, punishment, lorry driver, World War Two, holidays, behavioural difficulties, Wilstead Duck End Farm, horses, threshing, brick worker, Women's Institutes, general sport, Wilstead, Littleworth, ELSTOW, LIDLINGTON, LUTON