Malting Farm was not just our home, but was a fully working farm. There were other people who made the place function. The actual house, built in 1764 (how do I know? We had the ground plan of the original house framed and on the wall of my father's office, as well as being quite clearly marked on one of the down-pipes of the guttering.) My father employed several men, and during the summer months there were extra hands, usually during the harvest. My mother had to run the house, a large Georgian red-brick building. Two ladies came in to assist with cleaning, Mrs Freemantle, whose husband, Bob was the ploughman and tractor driver. They lived in a cottage which was behind the main house. I imagine at one time it must have been joined to the farm house. Bob was an avid gardener and had a plot behind the main garden. He grew vegetables. If you went near his beloved garden without his permission, woe betide you. He had a short temper. I don't think the other men on the farm liked him much.
Mrs Freemantle was a lovely lady. If Mum and Dad went away on there own (which wasn't very often, but when they did it was usually to sail at Brightlingsea.) she would come in to make sure we had meals and generally look after the house. We often went to stay with my grandparents, who lived at Mill Farm, abut two or three miles from Cardington Village.
The other lady who came in to clean the house was Mrs Jacques, who lived in the first house coming into the village from Bedford. Her husband worked as a farm labourer, but not in the village. The two ladies were great friends, as far as I know. I presume they were. I recall an incident when my mother had to lay off Mrs Jaques (I don't know why or what it was about.) But during one of the many village fetes or bazaars which were held during the year to raise money for the church, she had a stand-up row in public at one of these events. It was really embarrassing and I don't know how my mother managed to deal with it. I think it was the fact that it was so public which made it so embarrassing. I don't think Mrs Jacques ever came back to work at Malting Farm. I am fairly sure my mother didn't get rid of her as a worker because Mrs Jacques was very good at her job. When I think what a large house Malting Farm house it it was obvious that you would need extra people to help run it, particularly cleaning and the fact that there were seven of us as a family when I lived there.
Miss Fuller, who I've mentioned in an earlier post, came in every Wednesday to do mending (those were the days when people had their clothes mended, such as socks darned, trousers turned up, you mention it, clothes were expected to last longer when repaired. I suppose it was a hang-over from the War when there was the culture of 'Make Do And Mend,' which carried on into the 1950s and beyond with austerity. Perhaps it aught to come back today, although I suppose we have recycling.) She had come in from our neighbour's, the Porter's, and eventually came to look after my youngest brother Andrew, who was a baby at the beginning of the 1960s. She lived in a cottage which was immediately next to the garden of Malting Farm, but later moved to a cottage on the Green in the centre of Cardington Village.
Doug Pattle was stockman, meaning he was responsible for looking after the cattle. We had what was called a 'house cow' which was milked and the milk used by the household. This milk was 'raw' not pasteurised, although each year all the cattle on the farm were tested for T.B. I have to say 'raw' milk takes so much better than pasteurised, which took a lot of getting used to when we eventually had to have our milk delivered. The milk was taken to the dairy in the house and put in, how can I describe them any other way- flat pans, and left to stand and the cream scammed off for our use. Definitely great to have an almost limitless supply of such fine, tasty cream as well as full-fat milk for cooking, in tea and coffee and other drinks. As a child we had no choice but had to eat porridge for breakfast. Doug Pattle also drove us to school in Bedford. Some mornings my dad would take us, but on others Porter's pigman, Geoff Caves, took us. He used to look after their pigs at their farm in Cople as well as in a unit they had in Cardington. I remember the old car they used to ferry us into Bedford. I think it was a Rover of some kind. It always smelt of gone-off milk because I think he carried buckets of milk about in the car and it must have slopped over. The smell was unpleasant and sort of rank. I imagine the milk was used to feed the pigs. Strange how such things stick in your mind when you're a child. Smells particularly have a strong ability to bring back memories.
There were several other men who worked on the farm. Bert Gadsby, who was ancient when I remember him. He must have been well past retirement age at the time I'm thinking of. A Mr Huckle. Don't remember his Christian name. But when you were a child everyone was 'Mr' or 'Mrs' and you weren't supposed to call adults by their Christian names. I still don't know Miss Fuller's Christian name. I know it sounds strange now, but that was the sort of respect your had for your 'elders and betters.' Or Mrs Fremantle or Mrs Jacques Christian names.
There were also a set of ladies how appeared at certain times of the year, who came from Bedford. My father would go and pick them up and take them home in the Land Rover. They used to come to work in the Brussel sprout seed-bed (or whatever it was called) My father grew Brussels on the farm and the seed bed was a fairly small plot where the Brussels seeds were set and then, when it came to planting, they had to be hand-pulled and sorted, the poorest quality rejected and then taken to the field to be planted using a machine which was connected to a tractor and which was operated by several people sitting on he back and hand-planting the Brussel plants. Quite a difficult job, considering the plants had to be set at the correct distance from each other and whilst the machine was moving. I don't think I could have done the job as I think I would have suffered from motion sickness. My father produced Brussels which were a good deal larger than those you find in a supermarket today. It seems that the modern housewife wants Brussels which are probably a quarter of the size of those my father grew. They were picked in the autumn and winter months by men out in the fields, in all weathers, cold, rain, fog, bitter cold. Bent double. I think their hands much have turned to ice. I don't know how much they were paid, what their hourly rate was. These Brussels were bagged up and sent by lorry to Covent Garden. The farm dealt with a company called Bennet and Hawes and they came each evening for the day's load. They might have come daily or weekly, I don't know thinking about it now.
The same happened with potatoes. They would have been set from seed potatoes on a similar machine to the one used for Brussels. Potatoes need a lot of water and there was an irrigation system which was a set of aluminium pipes stretching across the fields and linked to a pump which was set up in the brook which ran through the farm. These irrigation pipes had to be moved at regular intervals and we had to help with this job.
Then there was the grain harvest, during the months of July and August. I was usually a tractor driver (probably my first experience of driving any sort of vehicle.) corn-cart, driving along side the confine harvester when it was still moving and when the cart was level with the augur which came out of the side of the combine, the corn was loaded into the cart behind the tractor (moving along in tandem with the moving combine. Not an easy job.) and the corn was loaded into the cart and then taken off to the drier unit at the bottom of Hill Foot outside Cardington or to Jordan's silo at Mile Road in Bedford. Or it was stored in a barn in Malting Farm in a pit and then lifted up via augur into a contraption devised by my father who was very adept at constructing such things. Probably taken somewhere to be milled into flour for making bread or whatever.
I may have more to write about on this subject, so look out for a further blog post.
Mrs Freemantle was a lovely lady. If Mum and Dad went away on there own (which wasn't very often, but when they did it was usually to sail at Brightlingsea.) she would come in to make sure we had meals and generally look after the house. We often went to stay with my grandparents, who lived at Mill Farm, abut two or three miles from Cardington Village.
The other lady who came in to clean the house was Mrs Jacques, who lived in the first house coming into the village from Bedford. Her husband worked as a farm labourer, but not in the village. The two ladies were great friends, as far as I know. I presume they were. I recall an incident when my mother had to lay off Mrs Jaques (I don't know why or what it was about.) But during one of the many village fetes or bazaars which were held during the year to raise money for the church, she had a stand-up row in public at one of these events. It was really embarrassing and I don't know how my mother managed to deal with it. I think it was the fact that it was so public which made it so embarrassing. I don't think Mrs Jacques ever came back to work at Malting Farm. I am fairly sure my mother didn't get rid of her as a worker because Mrs Jacques was very good at her job. When I think what a large house Malting Farm house it it was obvious that you would need extra people to help run it, particularly cleaning and the fact that there were seven of us as a family when I lived there.
Miss Fuller, who I've mentioned in an earlier post, came in every Wednesday to do mending (those were the days when people had their clothes mended, such as socks darned, trousers turned up, you mention it, clothes were expected to last longer when repaired. I suppose it was a hang-over from the War when there was the culture of 'Make Do And Mend,' which carried on into the 1950s and beyond with austerity. Perhaps it aught to come back today, although I suppose we have recycling.) She had come in from our neighbour's, the Porter's, and eventually came to look after my youngest brother Andrew, who was a baby at the beginning of the 1960s. She lived in a cottage which was immediately next to the garden of Malting Farm, but later moved to a cottage on the Green in the centre of Cardington Village.
Doug Pattle was stockman, meaning he was responsible for looking after the cattle. We had what was called a 'house cow' which was milked and the milk used by the household. This milk was 'raw' not pasteurised, although each year all the cattle on the farm were tested for T.B. I have to say 'raw' milk takes so much better than pasteurised, which took a lot of getting used to when we eventually had to have our milk delivered. The milk was taken to the dairy in the house and put in, how can I describe them any other way- flat pans, and left to stand and the cream scammed off for our use. Definitely great to have an almost limitless supply of such fine, tasty cream as well as full-fat milk for cooking, in tea and coffee and other drinks. As a child we had no choice but had to eat porridge for breakfast. Doug Pattle also drove us to school in Bedford. Some mornings my dad would take us, but on others Porter's pigman, Geoff Caves, took us. He used to look after their pigs at their farm in Cople as well as in a unit they had in Cardington. I remember the old car they used to ferry us into Bedford. I think it was a Rover of some kind. It always smelt of gone-off milk because I think he carried buckets of milk about in the car and it must have slopped over. The smell was unpleasant and sort of rank. I imagine the milk was used to feed the pigs. Strange how such things stick in your mind when you're a child. Smells particularly have a strong ability to bring back memories.
There were several other men who worked on the farm. Bert Gadsby, who was ancient when I remember him. He must have been well past retirement age at the time I'm thinking of. A Mr Huckle. Don't remember his Christian name. But when you were a child everyone was 'Mr' or 'Mrs' and you weren't supposed to call adults by their Christian names. I still don't know Miss Fuller's Christian name. I know it sounds strange now, but that was the sort of respect your had for your 'elders and betters.' Or Mrs Fremantle or Mrs Jacques Christian names.
There were also a set of ladies how appeared at certain times of the year, who came from Bedford. My father would go and pick them up and take them home in the Land Rover. They used to come to work in the Brussel sprout seed-bed (or whatever it was called) My father grew Brussels on the farm and the seed bed was a fairly small plot where the Brussels seeds were set and then, when it came to planting, they had to be hand-pulled and sorted, the poorest quality rejected and then taken to the field to be planted using a machine which was connected to a tractor and which was operated by several people sitting on he back and hand-planting the Brussel plants. Quite a difficult job, considering the plants had to be set at the correct distance from each other and whilst the machine was moving. I don't think I could have done the job as I think I would have suffered from motion sickness. My father produced Brussels which were a good deal larger than those you find in a supermarket today. It seems that the modern housewife wants Brussels which are probably a quarter of the size of those my father grew. They were picked in the autumn and winter months by men out in the fields, in all weathers, cold, rain, fog, bitter cold. Bent double. I think their hands much have turned to ice. I don't know how much they were paid, what their hourly rate was. These Brussels were bagged up and sent by lorry to Covent Garden. The farm dealt with a company called Bennet and Hawes and they came each evening for the day's load. They might have come daily or weekly, I don't know thinking about it now.
The same happened with potatoes. They would have been set from seed potatoes on a similar machine to the one used for Brussels. Potatoes need a lot of water and there was an irrigation system which was a set of aluminium pipes stretching across the fields and linked to a pump which was set up in the brook which ran through the farm. These irrigation pipes had to be moved at regular intervals and we had to help with this job.
Then there was the grain harvest, during the months of July and August. I was usually a tractor driver (probably my first experience of driving any sort of vehicle.) corn-cart, driving along side the confine harvester when it was still moving and when the cart was level with the augur which came out of the side of the combine, the corn was loaded into the cart behind the tractor (moving along in tandem with the moving combine. Not an easy job.) and the corn was loaded into the cart and then taken off to the drier unit at the bottom of Hill Foot outside Cardington or to Jordan's silo at Mile Road in Bedford. Or it was stored in a barn in Malting Farm in a pit and then lifted up via augur into a contraption devised by my father who was very adept at constructing such things. Probably taken somewhere to be milled into flour for making bread or whatever.
I may have more to write about on this subject, so look out for a further blog post.
No comments:
Post a Comment