Memory Lane. As a young teenager and coming from a maritime family anything agricultural was a total mystery.
What do cows do? And why do hens lay eggs? But I had two good mentors Derek Fellows and Hubert Hall and even at a young age Derek helped out at Glebe Farm, Fretherne. Now the farm was a funny set up as two Miss Phipps’s lived at the farmhouse but did none of the farm work except make the richest of farmhouse butter using two wooden butter hands which produced a decorated round of butter covered in a diamond grid pattern. The farm was run by Douglas Phipps who live next door at Bibury House. Doug was a “Gentleman Farmer” who always wore a smart shirt, breeches, a cravat and a waistcoat. Now working farmers DO NOT wear a cravat. But Doug had the considerable ability of getting everbody else to do the work and Derek and Hubert were two of the main fall guys. I was told that Wednesday they would have a day thrashing…”what’s… thrashing?”…. come along you will find it exciting. Wednesday came and I made for Glebe Farm and from my current memory what confronted me was directly out of a picture book farmyard jigsaw scene of the 1950’s. even down to the geese running about!
In the yard centre stage was Ken Jones Thrashing Machine resplendent In bright pink, shaking to a regular beat of the belt driven mechanism. Helpers were on top of the machine, by the sides of it, in front of it and everywhere. Powering this spectacular event was Ken’s Massey Harris Tractor with its flat pulley drive feeding the umbilical cord of power to the Thrasher. A green Field Marshal Tractor added it’s signature bump bump sound to the orchestra. At the other end was a Lister Elevator where cut wheat sheaves were being untied, separated and placed carefully on the tines to get hoisted to the top of the thrasher. Once here the shaking began and continued and continued for the rest of the day. Somewhere underneath a man was tying up full bags of wheat and professionally sewing them together. Another was throwing the spent straw into heaps while another moved the heaps even further away. Ken Jones orchestrated the whole event lubricating, greasing and honing every moving component. Doug Phipps stood gracefully by and looked on smiling happily and put another pinch of snuff on the back of his hand and snorted, he had everyone working so well. There were rats and rats and rats but no one took any notice there was too much to do to bother with them. It was a day to remember.