English harvest 1938

[JP1]

 

[Devil's advocate]

Did it ever rain & how did they keep the effing rats out.

 

[Spud]

Great film, thank you for sharing

 

[PSQ]

how did they keep the effing rats out.

They didn’t. When threshing the stooks they would wear ‘Nicky tams’, chords or straps tied around the bottom of the trouser legs to stop the rats running up the nether regions.
Then when they got into the last of the stook they’d put nets round the base and send in the terrier’s for a bit of sport.

 

[Flatlander]

I can remember my dad telling stories about the times he travelled with a thrashing set to different farms. He said at the beginning of the season the stooks were as the came off the field in one piece but towards spring they used a wide fork with tines close together to feed the chewed up stools into the thrasher. He would laugh and say you couldn’t get white bread after Christmas because of all the rat sh1t.

 

[egbert]

All I can see is work. Work work work, with thousands upon thousands of men employed doing it.

Compare that to now, when a similar sized crew would be harvesting and carting hundreds...maybe thousands of acres.