Z1205/233

Male. Farmer for London Brick Company. b. 01.01.1936 SIDE A (00 mins)Born in Romford, Essex. Mother came from near Chelmsford and worked in domestic service in the local manor house. Father from Boreham, Essex, and became a gardener at the manor house. "Hanging" game prior to cooking. (05 mins)Family photographs. Maternal grandfather was a coal merchant with a horse and cart. Maternal grandmother died early, when he was small. Paternal grandfather lived to 96. Paternal grandmother died aged 106. (10 mins)Summer holidays spent on farms. (15 mins)Father worked on the land all his life. Worked on farms. Joined Bedfordia Plant. Interviewee had one younger brother. (20 mins)At the end of the Second World War, Father became a farm contractor. During the war, Mother took in members of the armed forces as a billet. Canadians, Belgians and English. He was evacuated, aged 9. to Stockton on Tees for the last 12 months of the war, on his own. His family home backed on to Liverpool Street railway line which was attacked most nights by enemy planes. Spent most nights in their own Anderson air raid shelter. (25 mins)4 bunks (2 each side) and one at the end, to sleep 5. Doodle-bug (B31) bombs. When he was evacuated, his brother refused to go and stayed with Mother. He had his gas mask with him and a name and address label on him. He felt like a parcel. He was billeted with a Seventh Day Adventist minister. (30 mins)He hated being taken to their church services and required to take part by reading lessons and singing. He ran away and hid. He wasn't ill-treated and he was able to play with their two children but he was a bit of a rebel. (32 mins)End of Side A SIDE B (00 mins)Wrote regularly to his Mother. She went up to see him once. He had acquired a broad Geordie accent which his brother couldn't understand. The minister had returned from being a missionary in the Gold Coast just before the war. His children were in their mid-teens and he was a junior. His Father worked with cattle and was in the Home Guard. (05 mins)His Father moved to work at a large estate belonging to Rab Butler, Chancellor of the Exchequer (under Macmillan's Conservative government). Later his Father moved to be Foreman for Bovril on their farm outside Ampthill. Despite his Father's advice of "you don't want to go on the land, boy", that's what he wanted to do. He worked in farms in his spare time, when a schoolboy. Was briefly a "grease monkey" for a local coach garage. (10 mins)Worked there for one year. Then moved to a job at Bovril farms with his brother. Farm had show cattle on it. Showed at agricultural shows all round the country. Bedfordshire had its own county show, held near the river on the fields adjacent to Cardington Road (where the Pyramid leisure centre now is ). All the big seed merchants were there and all firms associated with agriculture, plus cattle, sheep, pigs. (15 mins)The farm had some of the best Aberdeen Angus beef cattle. (20 mins)Preparing cattle for showing. Wintering indoors. (25 mins)Farming for London Brick Company. (32 mins)End of Side B CONTINUED ON CS233C2 SIDE A (00 mins)Lived in London Brick Co. house. Married in 1959 in Millbrook Church. The art of investigating potential new farming jobs and areas. Tide cottages. (05 mins)No Bovril cattle ever went into the Bovril product. These beef stock came from Argentina. The Aberdeen Angus cattle were for "show" purposes. Bovril factory was situated where Hunting Engineering factory now is. The firm moved out of London during the Second World War. (10 mins)Dreadful smell of Bovril plant. He was paid £7.1s. (£7.05p) per hour, above the average agricultural rate, at Bovril in the late 1950s. Farming in the Vale during the height of brick production. (15 mins)Smelly fumes from brickwork chimneys. Debatable effect on animals. (20 mins)London Brick Estates work. (25 mins)Conventions and aesthetics of ploughing. Move towards cultivating instead of straight ploughing. (30 mins)Devalued farm skills. (32 mins)End of Side A SIDEB (00 mins)Limeade Farm where Millbrook Proving Ground was established. Extensive landscaping of woods and fields to create automobile testing course. A number of jobs created as a result. (05 mins)Infill landscape. Reflection on changes in his lifetime. (10 mins)Regret at developments in agriculture. Damage to local "Devil's Toenails" stone, subject of local myth regarding the Devil taking the tower from the Church at Marsworth, being frightened by children, dropping the tower (which is separate from the church), running across fields, jumping a ditch and stubbing his toe. The lost toenail is the stone. (15 mins)End of Side B.END OF INTERVIEW Original Interview 100 mins

1 July 2003

From: 1930 To: 2003

item

London Brick Company,
McMillan,
Bovril

brick worker, farmer, servant, gardener, coal merchant, horses, World War Two, Canadians, Belgians, army, evacuees, air raid shelters, Seventh Day Adventist, Home Guard, agricultural shows, pollution, wages/conditions, chimneys, landfill, myths, Romford, Chelmsford, Essex, AMPTHILL, Bedford Cardington Road, MILLBROOK, Argentina, MARSTON MORETAINE