Nostalgia, how far back can you remember ?

[Derrick Hughes]

60ts was the start of things to come , Cubicles, Silage Firtilizer in Plastic bags Nitro Chalk , Pipeline Milking , Tractors with a decent gearbox and a bit of power , the glory days of farming

 

[Retired Red]

Don’t know if this is nostalgia but l can still feel that hand clutch lever thumping into my back as the plough hit a stone while a passenger on a cropmaster as yongster

 

[som farmer]

uncle had a plane into put fert on some steep slopes, either side of a valley, a claim for causing the thatch to rot, 4 days after putting it on, from an old git, who lived in a thatched cottage, desperately needing new thatch, and a visit from the 'aviation authority' for prolonged low level flight, fert didn't increase production, so never repeated, but another attempted claim, for the thatch, and a letter from the aviation authority, the same time, the following year.

 

[DeeGee]

Mucking cattle sheds out with a Gripe, sweeping cobwebs down, then white-washing walls. Cutting dyke/hedge breasts with a sickle, hoeing turnips,

Stuking bales (knots to the bottom on the outside) cleaning out ditches...........

Interesting that you put knots on the outside, we always stooked with knots at the bottom on the inside: not saying we were right mind you; I think the main thing was always to have the knots at the bottom so that the ‘cuts’ faced downward to shed any rain.
Happy days? No, stooking bales was a real pain in the neck, double handling bales for nothing really.

What convinced me to stop doing it was working for a big neighbouring farmer who always said that ‘if it’s fit to bale it’s fit to carry’. Thousands of bales were always carried straight in to the sheds with never any problems.

 

[Old Boar]

And every year, everyone would say as the last bale was tossed up "thats the one we were looking for". Then wondering where the tea was, as I was always the one on the stack trying to fit one more bale in with the curve of the roof. With hayfever.

Then tea, welsh cakes and gossip. Milking was always late.

 

[Derrick Hughes]

And every year, everyone would say as the last bale was tossed up "thats the one we were looking for". Then wondering where the tea was, as I was always the one on the stack trying to fit one more bale in with the curve of the roof. With hayfever.

Then tea, welsh cakes and gossip. Milking was always late.

Next doors bales always weighed like lead. He never once got it right , funny he always sat on the tractor as well

 

[MF-ANDY]

Steering a 35 and trailer down beet rows while dad and grandad gleaned or sitting behind dad on 780 tool box and working unload lever while grandad stood on trailer bagging off.
Early number plates.
135. JVE 405 F. supplied by F A Standen.
135. PCF 866 H supplied by F J Nunn.
135. TCE 539 K supplied by F A Standen.
135. HER 620 N supplied by Thurlow Nunn
565. REB 57 S supplied by F A Standen

 

[betweenthelines]

NDR 682 neighbour's brand new FE 35 (Grey & Gold)
TCO ??? Dad's brand new 4 cylinder MF35 which he traded for a s/h MF65, UCO 398 (biggest tractor in the parish) after a couple of years

 

[little_p]

I can remember coming home from school and 'Billy Bull' (Hereford) not being there. Apparently no amount of crying was going to bring him back from where the lorry had taken him. A few days later 'Charlie' (the Charolais) arrived.
Charlie was so much bigger than Billy that he even needed his own pen in the 'new' barn. Bloody Frenchman, why he couldn't stay outside all winter long like Billy did, I'll never know.

Apparently Charlie's offspring paid for our first family holiday (Butlins, Barry Island), so I suppose he wasn't that bad after all.

 

[Still Farming]

As far back as, to the day I lent you a £10 !

 

[LAMBCHOPS]

I give talks on family farming history/ droving and have many tales as family kept detailed diaries over the past 100 yrs.
I will throw one tale in here that is about 100 yrs old. My Great Grandfather was a sheep dealer starting in the late 1890s and by the 1920s had 8 sons and 5 daughters. Moving from the droving of sheep which has countless tales he started to use the railways as a mode of transport. He would load the sheep onto the train carraiges and they would be taken to the local fair sometimes 500 or more sending a few men/sons on with them and he would catch a later train and arrive to do the selling . Having several youngsters around there was always a chatter about getting a car, but my Grandfather would have none of it -- the new fangled thing was only a fad. Anyway one day he sent the sheep on but his later train never arrived and he missed the Fair and was extremely annoyed. Two days later there appeared on the yard one spanking new car delivered . My Grandfather being one of the oldest was tasked to drive no test and off they both went into the hills of Mid Wales to buy some sheep. On the way the car got stuck as roads were only tracks . What to do -- a shepherd appeared out of the mist on his horse and they asked him could he help get the car back on the road. Without saying a word the shepherd dismounted went to the back of the car and picked it up and put it back on the track, remounted and went on his way without saying a word!! Probably never seen a car before!! Transportation has played a big part in Farming History.

 

[Treecreeper]

Tying in cattle by the neck for winter ( why was the kicker always just inside the door?)with just a Tilley lamp for lighting. Carrying them buckets of mangold's or turnips chopped on a guillotine. I don't miss lining up the T20 to the belt driven crusher. Carting flatpole cabbage to the ewes on frosty mornings strangely I don't remember the lambing. Father insisting on sowing grass seed with the seed fiddle not wanting to do it with the Teagle spinner owing to its tendancy to stripe if not driven with care and finally father mysteriously disappearing just before bed time to shut the fuel off on the generator only to charge back in from the outhouse and up the stairs before the lights died.

 

[flowerpot]

I can remember seeing the cart horses going up and down the orchard between the trees of my friend's fruit farm. We helped load the boxes of fruit onto flatbed lorries and her father would take us to market when he took loads of daffodils in a little trailer.
The men would eat in the stables - no coming into the house in those days - and I well remember one of them saying that it was "time for a bit of bait." Don't hear that very often now!

In winter 1962/63 we were going sledging but there was a bit snowdrift in way, so I opened the Land Rover door to get out and disappeared from sight into a huge snowdrift, aged about 10.

My introduction to married life as a farmer was beet hoeing, which even then was rare! And unloading sacks of fertiliser from a lorry.

 

[Av Gorritt]

Anybody remember making silage and adding molasses?

I do ! And a stinking morass it made when it seeped out of the silo bottom . Also a very unpleasant sticky job when we had to tread it down to consolidate the silage .

 

[bumkin]

I think you will find the correct answer to be "find as many children as you can to sit on the bonnet".

that was ok if the bonnet catch worked if not when it stopped the bonet went up and the front weight (said child)slid off

 

[bumkin]

Sometimes driving the hedge trimmer can seem tedious but when you remember the time that all the farm hedges were cut by hand with hedge knives and all the thorns raked up and burnt, driving the hedge trimmer is a doddle.
I even remember father and uncle scything out all the hedge bottoms. I don’t remember it, but apparently they used to scythe a breed all the way round corn fields to open them up for the binder.

when i was a kid i was taught how to make a sheaf and tie it with th stalks not string dad would cut the road around the field with a scythe and i would make the sheaves and lean them on the hedge out of the way of the binder i was happy to do it just to help dad

 

[Agrivator]

Early non farming memories- Paraffin lamps and candles, old man not to hot on lighting fire in front room, more often than not used diesel and ‘drawer it up’ with a sheet of newspaper which sometimes caught light.

On Saturday’s we went to local village to grandparents, and change over ‘accumulator ‘ at the general hardware store, leaving one and bringing the other one home.

Anyone else remember accumulator’s ???

Anyone else remember accumulator’s. And Dick Barton!! And a gill of ''Lethimated'' spirits to light the tilley lamp.

 

[David.]

Thankfully, I never hoed/ singled mangolds, it was still a thing when I was a boy, but gone by the time I was old enough. Can remember chap who worked here spending several days most years at pulling muckleweed (fat hen) from kale.
If accumulators were like a glass battery, I can remember maternal grandfather changing them down at Napton Crossroads garage. I guess if you had electric to power a charger, you didn't need the accumulator.
I can also remember him having an engine house, where a Lister engine that drove the milking vacuum pump, and a generator set lived.
There was also a meal house, where a flat-belt driven hammer mill lived, but that was not ever used that I remember.

 

[MF-ANDY]

Anyone else remember accumulator’s. And Dick Barton!! And a gill of ''Lethimated'' spirits to light the tilley lamp.

I can remember dad lighting tilley lamps during the 3 day week and power cuts. Clamping the meth soaked mantle warmer around the stem and then pumping up the pressure in the tank.
Grandad never had mains electric. Just a lister "startomatic" generator in a little shed in the farm yard.

 

[Aspiring Peasants]

Who knows how to steer a Fergie TEF when too many churns (kits) of milk in the rear box lifted the front wheels off the ground?

With the side brakes