In 1941 at the age of 4, I was told that we were moving to Norfolk and we were going to live in the country. I remember quite clearly the van and two men packing all the furniture into it and only leaving my old cot mattress and another old one on the floor. Mum, Dad and I slept the night and early the next morning we said "Good bye" to the Gorings and set off to Norfolk, with my father on the motor cycle and mother and me in the side car, leaving behind the 2 mattresses.
"This is Horningtoft" I was told as we turned the corner at the church and then we drew up at one of the cottages on the left hand side of the road to Whissonsett. The van arrived shortly after us and the furniture was moved in. What a contrast from the lovely new house we had in London with its bathroom, flush toilet and electricity. This cottage had none of these and the toilet was down the garden and the well from which we would be getting our water was about 300 yards away. I do not think it worried me much as I was just 5 years of age at the time, but looking back it must have been a terrible change for my mother and father. Years later I was to learn that the move to Norfolk was for the benefit of father’s health as it was considered that the Norfolk bracing air would be better for his lungs. No doubt they were right as he lived into his 70's.
My mother's sister Hester had by then married Lester Rivett a farmer and they lived in The Beeches, (This was later changed to Malthouse) which was a farm also in Horningtoft and no doubt this was the reason why we settled in this part of Norfolk. In my early years, my mother would take me to The Beeches most weekends. She would take me on the seat on the back of her cycle.
The first purchase my father made was a second hand Austin 7 with a canvas roof and it was in this that my father used to take me to Summerhill School at Fakenham and collect me in the afternoon. Fakenham was about 5 miles from Horningtoft. One afternoon I came home to find a pile of timber in the garden and my father told me he was going to make a chicken house and erect it in a gravel pit halfway between Horningtoft and Whissonsett. Each afternoon I arrived home there were further sections either in the making or already made. The final day came when my father borrowed a horse and wagon from my Uncle Lester and the sections were taken to the gravel pit. The gravel pit had a winding roadway around the side of the pit where the gravel had been carted out before it was left disused. Down the roadway we went and when we were nearly at the bottom, my father stopped and thought this would be the right place to build the house.
Over the days he had been making the sections he had also been busy with an incubator which he had bought from Fakenham Market and was in the garden shed. It had an oil lamp and held 150 eggs which every day my father used to turn and also check to see that the humidity was correct. This he said was very important as the chickens in the eggs must not have too high a humidity or they would drown in their shells, or if it was too dry would not hatch out at all. Going past the shed to the toilet one morning I heard the first cheeps and forgetting what I was going to do, ran indoors to tell my father. He came out and we looked through the glass in the front of the incubator and there were the first chickens running about. This was the beginning of my father's poultry business.
There was no water in the gravel pit and my father made a 2 wheel cart and put a 40 gallon tank on it. We used to fill it from a pond near Horningtoft Church and with dad in the shafts and mother and I behind pushing, we used to take it over half a mile to the gravel pit. It was just a shade uphill and we used to stop from time to time to catch our breath and then it was hold tight as we tried to hold the cart from going down the gravel pit roadway too fast. This we did for about 2 years.
My father purchased Brancaster house which was a farmhouse with some outbuildings and 4 acres of land and again this was a complete change for me. The entrance to the house and buildings was via Thumb Lane and the house stood back from the road. The previous people had used it as a dairy farm and the cows could get right up to the house and there was mud everywhere.
This time we had our own well, instead of a communal one which served 5 houses when we lived in the cottage. The first thing dad decided to do was to take the old wooden top off of the well and concrete it over and put in a semi-rotary pump in the kitchen. "We must clean the well out before we cover it up" he said and dad set about putting up three poles over the well and with a bucket attached to a rope which went over the pulley at the top of the tripod, started taking out the mud etc. that had collected in the well.
Out came pails and grappling irons which had been used to try to get pails out that had fallen in, also a cycle wheel and to top the lot the skeleton of a sheep. "I am nearly at the bottom" dad said "And if you look over the side you can see the wooden ring that the well diggers used to lower the brickwork when they made the well." As he was doing a final clean with his shovel there was a sudden spurt and water started flowing in right fast. "Quick" he shouted, "in with the ladder before I get too wet." We were not quite fast enough as the water rushed in and it was over the top of the rubber boots he was wearing. As he came squelching up the ladder I thought I was in for a rebuff for not being quick enough, but as he got out of the well on to terrafirma he looked down the well and smiles radiated all over his face with satisfaction saying "It is going to be a good well once again" and it was.
The next time my father went to Fakenham he came home with the pump and some piping and before nightfall it was in place and after priming the pump we had water flowing into the sink in the kitchen. This was our first start in modernising Brancaster House.
It was a regular weekly thing for my father to go to Colin Beck's auction on the meadow at Fakenham and one day he came back with a second-hand bath. It was not an enamel one, but solid zinc and this was fitted in the kitchen. He made a wooden hinged top over it to be used as a table when not in use and it had at one end a coal fired open boiler and at the other end the semi rotary pump. Those days we used to only bath once a week and that was Friday evenings, when the boiler would be lit and when the water was boiling, some of it would be ladled into the bath and then cold water was pumped into the bath to arrive at the right temperature. That was modernization no 2. The third thing was an indoor Elsan toilet.
By now the chicken house had been moved from the gravel pit and re-erected in the field in front of Brancaster House and another 2 more had been made. More second-hand incubators had been bought and dad had also been taking lessons from a Japanese person on the art of sexing chickens at birth. This was a great advancement as he did not have to rear the cockerels. He only wanted the females and then he was able to sell the cockerels to people who wanted to fatten them.
I do not know if it was for the chickens benefit or for us mere mortals, but one day R. Randell's van from North Walsham was in the yard when I came home from school and two men were installing a 50 volt DC lighting plant with storage batteries in one of the outhouses. They started it up and light shone for the first time by electricity in the sheds of Brancaster House.
Yards of lead coated wire were the next purchases and junction boxes etc. and when dad got home he said "Let's start getting the wiring into our house." The chickens had been having electricity for some time as dad said they must have artificial light to make the daylight hours the same "else they will go off the lay." He was right and it made a lot of difference to the amount of eggs each hen laid in a year.
Soon we had electricity all over the house and as the plant was rather small we had to be very careful and only have 15 and 25 watt bulbs. The engine was placed in an outhouse near Kenneth Hammond's house and dad felt that it was only right and proper for them to also have electricity and he ran a set of wires to their living room and fitted them up with a 25 watt bulb. Today we would think a 25 watt bulb to be pretty useless, but in those days it was a great advancement to the oil lamps.
I left the preparatory School at Fakenham and started at Whissonsett and to get there and back under my own steam my father brought me a new red cycle and I used to cycle up the meadow and then along the Horningtoft Church road to Whissonsett which was about 1 mile away. In the little bag attached to the seat was a puncture outfit and tyre levers, which I was itching to use and hoped that I would get a puncture. No such luck and then the idea came to me, 'If I stood a pin up in front of the wheel and pushed the cycle forward I might get one.'
This I did in the outhouse near the gate and with a hiss the tyre went flat. With expert precision I laid out the tyre levers and the puncture outfit and then the trouble started, as much as I tried I could not get the tyre off the rim. What was I going to do? I need not worry for who should come into the shed but dad, “What are you doing?" he said in a loud voice with a little displeasing air. I told him I had picked a pin up in the tyre and got a puncture. "No you didn't" he said "You poked the pin in yourself." After a sharp rebuff he mended the puncture for me and from that day to this I have never wanted a puncture.
Dad insisted that I cycled home from school each day for dinner and not take a cold packed one with me like the other children who had to walk to school from Horningtoft. One winter we had rather a frosty week with a chilling wind and dad agreed I could take a potato to bake like the other children and stay at school all day until the weather improved.
Mr. Hayes the headmaster kindly used to allow the pupils who stayed at school for dinner to bring potatoes during the winter months. They carved their initials on these which were baked in the hearth of the large fire that used to heat his classroom.
One day Mr. Hayes told the 'Potato Monitor' to be certain that the potatoes were well pricked as he did not want any exploding. One of the boys' ears pricked up and when he got home he asked his mother why this would happen.
Later that week Mr. Hayes was having a little difficulty in getting his class to absorb his teaching and he went to the cupboard behind his desk and out came the long cane. I do not recall him hardly using it and the threat was enough. He would curve it and let the end come cracking down on the desk and, as if this was not enough to make us jump, it was followed by a loud bang from the fireplace and the ashes scattered across the hearth. A sharp reprimand was duly given by Mr. Hayes to the potato monitor and, as usual his anger abated and he told her to go to his house and get another potato to replace the one that had exploded.
When it came to lunch time, we all gathered around to get our potatoes and to see whose it was that had made the loud bang. We all collected our potatoes and there still on the hearth, was the one that had been collected from Mr. Hayes's house. Someone must have deliberately put another potato in the hearth. Who was it? Nobody owned up and we all looked at each other, thinking "Was it you?" - I kept a poker face throughout. The next week the thaw had set in and I went back to going home for dinner.
Boys will be boys and as much as I do not remember who thought up the idea, I was one of the four who did the dirty deed.
Whissonsett School was set back about twenty yards from the road and in those days the playground was divided into two. One was used by the boys and the other by the infants and the girls. Behind the school there was a small playground and at the end stood a block of toilets divided into two extended both playgrounds. It was possible to get behind the toilets from the boys side via a low gate. Naturally they were not flush toilets and each toilet had a low door at the rear giving access to the sump below which was emptied once a year by the farmer who had the field behind the school. During the summer these doors were left open to ventilate the toilets.
The plan was hatched. During break time Mrs. Johnson (one of the teachers) would pay her call of nature and at this time the one of us who was to stand guard was to give the down. I would open the door to the rear of the toilets and the one of us who drew the short straw would rush in and caress Mrs, Johnson’s posterior with a bouquet of stinging nettles, which we had in readiness. I remember the one who was to do the dirty deed asking how he should know which seat Mrs. Johnson was sitting on, and to get a reply that Mrs. Johnson would be the only one who would fill the whole opening of the seat.
The signal was given, I opened the gate, in rushed the one with the bouquet and looking under the seats, he suddenly thrust the bouquet upon someone’s posterior. There was a shout from within and we rushed into the playground and mixed with the other boys playing cricket.
Out came Mr. Hayes in his brown plus fours, as red as a turkey cock, “Don’t any of you move” he bellowed out, and went to the back of the school to see if anybody was there.
During the afternoon Poppy Buck had to be sent home as she could not sit still and after school, us four got together to see what went wrong. Poor Poppy had become the victim by mistake.
The Beeches was always full of visitors most weekends. Either it was Uncle Tom Chamberlain and Peter, Uncle Arthur and John, Uncle Big Jimmy with Little Jimmy, to mention a few. As for Christmas time the house was full. Auntie Hester always made a special thing about it each year and planning started at the January sales, where she always purchased her crackers for the next Christmas. Auntie Hester had both her mother and her mother-in-law living with her. Aunt Kate as I called her (Uncle Lester's mother) had her own room and one Christmas, David and I looked in amazement when Auntie Hester opened a door in the room and we saw that behind it packed to the ceiling were presents for everybody.
One present that still remains in my mind was a machine gun - David and I both had one. It shot round pellets and these we fired at our lead soldiers. After we had run out of pellets we used to collect them up and share them out again.
Easter was another time when there were big gatherings at the Beeches. Generally it was Big Jimmy with his wife and their two children that came to stay. Little Jimmy was a lot older than David and I. He did not fit in very well with the way we wanted to play. I remember clearly when we opened our Easter eggs that some of them were made of milk chocolate and some were made of dark chocolate. Jimmy said he would only eat milk chocolate and if I liked I could cycle down to the shop in the village and buy him milk chocolate eggs to replace the dark ones I could have them. He gave me the money to buy them with and I naturally went and got the milk ones.
One Easter Auntie Hester gave me the biggest one I have ever had and said if I did not open it before Whit Sunday, she would give me five shillings. As much as five shillings was a lot of money in those days, I gave into temptation and ate half of it and she gave me half a crown.
Another time David and I were taken to see a display by fire brigades from all over England. There was even one from France. The display was in the afternoon and there was another one in the evening after it was dark when the big front of a house made of wood was set alight.
Another attraction at the event was a display by the Watts Naval School boys. They did the same kind of task as the gun display that is shown at the Royal Tournament each year. The only difference was that the gun etc. used by the boys was smaller. David and I were getting ice creams when we heard the announcement of the start of the display. We squeezed our way through the crowd and sat and saw it from a good position. Just as it had finished I felt a tug on the back of my collar, it was Auntie Hester who had been looking everywhere to find us. Did we get a good talking to, as Auntie Hester, besides being worried where we were, had as a result of looking for us missed the boy's display.
One of the presents Beryl had one year was a nurse’s outfit. David played the role of doctor, Beryl the nurse and I always had to play the part of the patient. Once I was laying flat on my stomach, without any clothes on with a burst football bladder over my behind, when Auntie Hester came. "What are you doing?" she asked. David explained that he was treating me for a boil on my behind. A smile came over Auntie Hester's face and she said "I do not think the patient needs to take so many clothes off."
During the summer holidays I used to spend a lot of time at the Beeches helping to get the corn in. There were no tractors in those days and horses were used to do everything. David used to ride on the back of the horse that was pulling the waggon while it was being filled and it was my job to see that the horse that worked the elevator kept going. This poor horse had to go round and round to work the chains that took the sheaves onto the stack.
David and I spent a lot of time with the flock of sheep which Uncle Lester kept on the farm. Once a year a man came to the farm with a horse drawn tumbrel which had a large tank built inside it. A big hole was dug in the ground and the cart lowered into it. It was then filled with water and some yellow stuff mixed with it. We had to wait until the local policeman arrived, then we would round up the sheep and they were totally immersed in the liquid, one at a time. This was to stop them being fly blown, as the flies laid eggs in their fleeces.
One memory that has flown back to me is perhaps more concerning Uncle Lester rather than David although he was involved. Each morning Uncle Lester would get up nice and early and help Harry Lister with the milking and set the other men on the farm to their tasks for the day. After this he would come indoors and have his breakfast.
Then came the daily ritual, he would take The Eastern Daily Press and go to the toilet (this was down the garden, as there were not any flush indoor toilets in those days) where he would sit with the door wide open and I always felt, read the paper from cover to cover before leaving. One day David wanted to go and he went after his mother as his father would not get off the seat. Out came Auntie Hester, with the look of anger on her face, telling Uncle Lester to get off the seat as David wanted to use it. I do not think she really was angry; it was one of her expressions.
One of her expressions of anger was on her face as she came out of the Beeches one Sunday afternoon. David and I were playing cricket, taking it in turns to bowl and bat, when on the scene came Uncle Lester. Taking the bat from David he said "I will show you a few good strokes." David and I took it in turns to bowl to him and he blocked them with a straight bat, then I bowled a ball and Uncle Lester forgot where he was and made a mighty swipe. Yes! It went right through one of the windows in the front of the house. Out came Auntie Hester and before she could say anything, Uncle Lester had piped up "Don't worry I will go straight away and get George Drew to put a new pane of glass in the window."
One of the luxuries I enjoyed while being with David was ice cream. Auntie Hester had a machine in which she made it. That was very advanced in those days as there was not any electricity and therefore no means of making ice for the machine. I think she used to have it delivered from the milk company at North Elmham.
The Whissonsett Horticultural Society decided to build its own tent to erect on the Rectory field instead of hiring one and it was agreed at a meeting of the members to build it themselves in the evenings as they had a lot of talent within their society.
All the wood was delivered to Brancaster House and the members used to arrive every evening after work to make the framework, which was joined together with metal brackets made my Mr. Bayfield who, besides being a member, was the local blacksmith at Whissonsett. After the framework was completed, the measurements were taken and strong canvas sheets were purchased to cover the roof and the sides. It was a great success and was erected each year for several years to come and was always packed full with flowers and vegetables.
I thoroughly enjoyed the shows, where there were sideshows and also events in the main ring. For us youngsters there were the sprints, long races and also the sack and egg and spoon races. Mr. Hayes saw after these and then the adults had their fun with the cycle race and the other usual races.
The summer before the unrest in Palestine, I remember walking behind Mr. Jack Hammond's son, Robby, as he went around the show ground with his friend in their regimental dress uniforms. They looked towers of magnificence, but unfortunately this was the last time I was to see him alive as shortly afterwards he was killed in action.
Jack Hammond was the biggest man I have ever seen and he had made for himself a special cycle to accommodate his long legs, which had two crossbars. He used to manage The Hall at Whissonsett and due to his knowledge of animals was also the local vet. He and his wife were great friends of my parents and after we had the telephone installed my father dialled their number and when they answered he played a record on our gramophone. It was not a song, it was a story and as it was playing my parents held their hands over their mouths to try and suppress the laughter, when we heard Mrs. Hammond say to her husband "There is someone on the line talking away to himself."
With the field in front of the house now covered with poultry pens, my father bought another field of 4 acres the other side of the Horningtoft to Whissonsett road. On this he built 6 more free range houses and as the electric lighting had been such a success by increasing egg production he moved the 50 volt plant to light these houses and purchased a 110 volt DC plant with batteries from a farmer who was now fortunate enough to have mains electricity connected to his farm and installed it at Brancaster House.
Having the extra field it meant a lot of hard work carting the water to the extra houses and dad bought an old Austin 7 for 5 which he cut the top off and fixed a 40 gallon tank behind the seat and we used to drive around the houses filling up their water tanks and at the same time carting the corn and meal for the poultry. I was allowed to drive on the fields, but was not allowed to drive on the road between the two fields. At a later date dad had a well sunk in the second field to supply water to those houses.
With the 110 volt plant we were able to fix a motor to a water pump and with a tank in the roof of Brancaster house have running water. The next thing was out with the copper and in with a boiler and a hot water tank, then we could have a bath when we liked as over the zinc bath were now 2 taps.
Dad said "One of these days we must build a bathroom with a flush toilet and take the bath out of the kitchen".
In those days the wirelesses were powered by a 100 volt battery and an accumulator. The battery used to last several weeks and the accumulator had to be charged each week. Our new 110 volt electric light plant had 55 x 2 volt batteries wired in series and one Sunday morning Dad said "Shall we run 2 wires across 50 of the cells and wire them to the wireless?" This we did and it worked as normal, then came the bright idea of running 2 more wires from 1 cell and replacing the accumulator and this was what we did.
We ran from the battery shed full of enthusiasm to the sitting room indoors to turn on the wireless. What did we see when we got there? The room was full of smoke as we had left the wireless running when we disconnected the accumulator. Unfortunately the electricity did not flow via the one cell and give 2 volts which was the way we wanted it to. Instead it went the other way around and sent 108 volts to the 2 volt terminal in the wireless causing the wireless to burst into flames!
Horningtoft had 2 small village ponds. One was between the Chapel and the village shop run by Miss Blythe and her sister Nelly and from this pond farmers used to take water for their cattle by backing their water carts into the pond and filling them up with buckets. The other was in Thumb Lane, halfway between Brancaster House and the Chapel and this had a steep side and was seldom used.
You are probably wondering what this has to do with my cousin David who lived at the Beeches, Well! It is like this; David did not go to the local school like I did as he was sent to a boarding school and I only used to see him when he came home at holidays. On these occasions I would go on a Friday evening and spend the weekend with him and to get to his house, which was about half a mile away, I had to go past the two ponds.
Generally either my mother or my father would cycle beside me, but on this particular Friday, after putting my pyjamas and toothbrush in a paper bag and tying them to the carrier over the rear wheel of my cycle I set off on my own. I had heard my parents say during the past week that a Joe someone had been knocking people off of their cycles as he passed them by and as I got nearly to the pond in Thumb lane, I thought I saw him coming towards me. The next thing I remember was floundering in water in the pond, holding on to my little red cycle, when I was taken hold of by the collar of my coat and hauled out of the water.
I was soaked from head to toe and left a trail of water as the man walked me home. "What ever has happened to you?" enquired my mother, looking down at me. The man replied "I was cycling towards him and he suddenly turned left and ran into the pond." My mother thanked him and it was off with the wet clothes a bath and on with some clean clothes. As I was getting dressed I told my mother I thought it was the Joe they had been talking about and I was afraid he would knock me off my cycle.
With clean pyjamas and tooth brush on the carrier I set off again to go to the Beeches, only this time my mother came with me. When we arrived at Auntie Hester's house, my mother told her about the event and they both smiled and hearing it from someone else it did have a ring of humour about it.
Auntie Hester's house was a place of luxury, as she had everything including an ice cream making machine. This came in handy when at one of the holidays I was told that David was going to have his tonsils taken out. When the day arrived the doctor came to his house, together with a nurse and after a sheet was placed over the kitchen table, David was dressed in his pyjamas and given some of that awful smelling gas through a rubber mask while laying on the table and out came the tonsils.
After he was feeling a little better I went and spent the day playing with him and every now and then he would go into the kitchen and see Gladys the maid for a spoon of ice cream to help heal and soothe his throat. When I arrived home and told my father about David having this ice cream, my father said "When I had mined out I was given bread that had been toasted extra long to clean my throat, not ice cream." I was thankful that my tonsils did not have to be taken out as it would have been toast for me as we did not have an ice cream making machine.
I felt rather lost when Uncle Lester sold The Beeches and moved to Tittleshall. It was the start of David and I drifting apart. The only memories I have regarding David while he lived at Cokesford was 1.after he had started playing golf and we used to drive off the lawn over the ha-ha onto the meadow beyond. 2. Collecting walnuts from the tree at the end of the meadow and pickling them in tubs in the old dairy. 3. Finally the time we walked one weekend over some concrete that George Drew had laid the day previously, leaving a row of footmarks.
At the gravel pits between Horningtoft and Whissonsett was a lane off the road which was known to us all as Makin's Lane and about 100 yards down this lane was a farm and there live 3 brothers whose surname was Makins. There was Dick, Jeremiah known as Banker and also Peg leg. Peg leg had travelled a lot and lost his leg while working in mining overseas. They were all very friendly people.
One day as I was going home from school I saw as I approached the gravel pits Jeremiah talking to a lady. Jeremiah always wanted to have a chat with everybody, even the children.
When level with Jeremiah I got off my bicycle and said "Hallo Jeremiah." Much to my surprise Jeremiah replied in a gruff voice "Can't you see I am talking to a lady - be off with you." Off I went and after going 20 or 30 yards I thought, I wonder why Jeremiah did not want to speak. Curiosity got the better of me and I ran my cycle into the bank and after going through the hedge I walked back in the ditch out of sight of Jeremiah. When I got level I heard Jeremiah say "Too much, I will not pay 1 shilling and a pint for a woman, you can have 1 shilling or a pint, not both." Jeremiah started to walk away then he turned and looked back saying "What is your answer?" The lady replied "A shilling and a pint or nothing." "No" said Jeremiah and he continued on his way.
Later that evening as I was having my tea with mum and dad I looked at my father and asked "Is it possible to buy a woman?" My father replied "I don't know what you mean." "Well it is like this Daddy" I said, not wishing to say that I had been listening to Jeremiah talking to the lady while I hid in the hedge as I knew my father would be angry, "As I was cycling past Jeremiah talking to a lady near the gravel pits I heard him say 'A shilling and a pint is too much to pay for a woman." As my mother and father exchanged glances with each other with a smile on their faces, my father said "I would forget it if I were you, as you have no doubt only heard some of the conversation and got it completely wrong." I left the table after tea feeling even more puzzled as I was certain I had heard it correctly. Years later I recalled this memory and was then old enough to know the meaning of it.
After feeding the chickens and collecting the eggs we used to spend Christmas Day with Aunty Hester and Uncle Lester at the Beeches. Their house was a hive of industry in the weeks up to Christmas as they prepared all the food etc. for the large party they had each year. The house would be full to bursting as the whole family congregated, coming from as far away as Hitchin in Hertfordshire, Norwich and the surrounding villages. All my cousins would be there Beryl and David who lived there and Peter, Julia, Jimmy, John, Margaret to mention a few as well as the Uncles and Aunts. One non family member was also there and he was Carl Cory a great friend of their family. We would all sit on the floor as a cupboard was opened and the presents fell out, it was a magnificent sight.
The dining room table would be extended and we would all sit around it and after filling ourselves with the glorious food the youngsters used to go to one room and play with their toys while the ladies went into another room and the men to play cards throughout the night until the sun rose the next morning.
On Boxing Day Auntie Hester used to either take us to see the Foxhounds at Raynham Hall or to go for a walk at Sandringham and it was on one of these occasions that I wandered away from the party and walked down one of the roads on my own and who should I see coming towards me, none other than a man with a little beard and a girl on each of his hands, who were dressed in what I can only call lovely party dresses. As he got nearer I recognised who he was and as he got almost level with me, he turned towards me and I raised my cap to him. He stopped and asked me "What do like best about school"? I replied "Sums". After a few more questions they went on their way and I ran back to my Aunt. I was completely out of puff when I blurted out that I had been talking to King George the fifth, who was out for a walk with his grandchildren, Elizabeth and Margaret. As I looked at the girls, I thought to myself 'If I were to marry one of them I would pick Elizabeth, but I would have to have Margaret as Elizabeth was older than me. At first my Aunt did not believe me, when I told her who I had seen, but I think she did in the end.
Besides the cow herd Uncle Lester kept at the Beeches, he also had a flock of sheep and during the various holidays and weekends I used to help Mr. Frost the shepherd with his flock.
Just as winter was turning into spring each year a big straw yard was built with straw pens roofed with straw around the outside, in preparation for the lambing season. It was always hoped that winter had gone and spring was just around the corner, but many a year it was not the case and the young lambs came into a frosty and snowy world.
Once the lambs started to arrive it was a twenty four hour vigil as ewes seemed to require a lot of attention with their lambing. Even in the dark you soon realised when you were getting close to the lambing yard as the strong smell of disinfectant drifted up the nostrils.
There were the happy times watching an ewe with her twins suckling and frolicking about and unfortunately there were also the sad times, when the mother ewe died at a lambing and her lamb was made an orphan and also when the mother ewe would keep on licking and trying to put life into her lamb that had been born dead. If the two unfortunate occurrences should happen at the same time, the shepherd would skin the dead lamb and tie it over the orphaned one and try to get the living mother to accept the unfortunate orphaned lamb. In most cases it worked, but there were the occasions when we had to rear the orphaned lambs by hand, using a bottle and milk from the cow herd. The bottle fed lambs became very friendly and it was a little sad as they gradually changed their feeding habits towards grass etc. and romped away with the main flock. You could generally tell them, even years later, by the way they talked to you with their eyes.
One weekend at the end of spring, I was staying with David, and Uncle Lester said that he and Mr. Frost wanted some help with the sheep and told us to put on our overalls and then went on to say "What you are going to see today you must keep to yourselves and do not under any circumstance mention it in this house." What was it going to be we wondered as he asked Auntie Hester for a carving knife and proceed to sharpen it on steel?
A five gallon drum of iodine and two small bottles were collect from the barn and put into the cart and off we went to the meadow where the sheep were grazing.
Using the dogs Mr. Frost rounded up the flock into a large pen (this had been made earlier in the week) which had a chute at the end just wide enough for the sheep to move down in a single file. At the end of the chute was a small gate which went into a smallish pen and in the middle of the pen was a table. "Now" said Uncle Lester "We only want the boy sheep." "You can let the girls go free, but do not miss any of the boys."
We were soon to learn what the carving knife was for, and also the chromium plated tongs which appeared out of Uncle Lester's pocket. They were like a pair of scissors, except they did not cut and at the end they were turned in a curve and these two jaws opened and shut when operated by the finger and thumb.
"Come on" said Uncle Lester as we caught the first male lamb "Turn him upside down on the table." This David and I did and it was held in place by Mr. Frost, while Uncle Lester picked up the knife and performed an operation on the lamb. It seemed very horrific to me at my tended age in life. The stage by stage actions by my uncle remained vivid in my memory to this day.
I felt the blood leaving my cheeks and I thought I was going to pass out, when there was a loud shout from Uncle Lester "Come on Thomas, get the next one. We have not got all day." I came to my senses, but I could not help remembering the bleating of the lambs as suffered their ordeal. You no doubt think this very barbaric and no doubt it was, but you must remember it was nearly sixty years ago. Thankfully, today this necessary operation is carried out in a humane manner.
We were back again helping with the sheep during the summer and this time it was dipping them. It all started with our local policeman knocking at the door while we were having breakfast and after he took his helmet off, he came in and had a cup of tea.
This time all the sheep were rounded up into a large pen and at the end there was the chute and dug into the ground was a large tank, which was full of a yellow liquid. All day long the policeman stood and witnessed the complete dipping of the sheep. The sheep had to swim the length of the tank and while doing so, Mr. Frost with a shaft with a forked end, totally immersed them in the liquid. As they ran to freedom they used to shake the liquid all over the place.
Strangely, over the years I was never to witness the shearing of the sheep, which was carried out by travelling shearers. No doubt this was done in normal working hours during school time.
My cousin Richard regularly spent a week's holiday with my parents each year and he was more a friend to them than a cousin to me as he was nearer their age group than mine.
One summer evening he arrived after tea on a Friday and said to my father "Herbert what are we going to do this year?" My father replied "I thought we might build the new bathroom." It was all systems go and they did not wait for the morning. After getting into overalls we took the tiles off of the single storey kitchen which was at the back of the house and laid them in a safe place to be put back on when the walls had been extended. Down came the ceiling and the roofing spars and it was then dark and the kitchen open to all the elements. "What about my lino?" said mother when she came to see how we were getting on. "That will be alright" said dad looking down at the floor which was covered with reed and plaster where the ceiling had fallen together with the roofing spars. This was not to be the case when we cleaned up the mess; the lino had a lot of dimples and scratches. Thankfully the bath was still working and we bathed in the moonlight.
Next day was hot and dry, as was the rest of the week when the sun shone every day as we worked on raising the walls and then putting back the roof. It was my job to keep them supplied with bricks and as the weather was so hot dad insisted that I soak the bricks in water, as he said this stopped the bricks drawing all the energy out of the cement. A doorway was cut through the outside second floor level into a passageway upstairs and in the end we had a bathroom upstairs. Soon after, the septic tank was dug and a flush toilet was installed. My word we were getting really modern now!
At another of Richard's visits 2 more bedrooms were built on the rear of Brancaster House, one of which I was to have. In the meantime I used the small bedroom next to the stairs and my bed was close up to one of the walls.
My bed was one of the old types with a head and foot made of round piping and filled in with other smaller round pipes joined together with cast iron joints. The high headboard of the bed had been sawn off at the mattress level and used as the foot of the bed and the smaller foot end was used as the headboard making it look much more modern. The black painted ironwork was painted green to match the paintwork of the room.
One night I awoke and as I was turning over and looking at the wall, there to my surprise, was a beautiful young lady with dark hair, dressed in a full length blue dress. She seemed to be suspended on the wall, between my bed and the ceiling, looking down at me with a slight pleasing smile. She then faded out of vision.
Had this been a dream, or was it the first ghost I was to see? Little did I know at that time, the vision would remain vividly in my mind for the remainder of my life?
My next bedroom was called the long room, which was built on the north side of the house. It was very cold in the depth of winter and many a time I awoke to find there was ice on the top of my glass of water standing on the bedside cabinet.
One spring Sunday afternoon Freddy Kerrison, who lived with his mother and father and two sisters in a cottage near Ivy Farm, and I were walking past the Chapel which stood at the junction of Thumb Lane and as we passed a well kept vegetable garden in which stood a derelict house, we decided to have a look around the garden.
As we were walking between the blackcurrant bushes we heard a loud voice shouting "I can see you! It is no good you hiding behind the bush, I will blast you and the bush, off the face of this earth". There was an almighty roar of a 12 bore gun as we dived through the hedge into the ditch beside the road and the pellets whizzed over our heads. We picked ourselves up and looking through the hedge saw a short elderly man flat on his back with the gun pointing up into the air. Thankfully he was so intoxicated from the liquid refreshments that he had previously drunk at the Bell Inn that his aim was not good and the recoil of the gun had knocked him completely off his feet. That was my first recollection of Mr. Frost, alias "Spider".
Spider lived under 4 sheets of galvanised corrugated iron, suspended on pieces of wood that had been cut out of the hedgerow, but to him this was his home.
His sister, Mrs. Farmer, was a very smart intellectual lady and lived in the second house up Dodmans Lane with her daughter named Minnie.
As the local council would no longer allow him to live any longer in his "Home", my father went to a farm auction and a very robust black tarred shepherd's hut was purchased. When Spider brought this back to Horningtoft he positioned it on the side of Dodmans Lane and later it was moved to the top of the meadow in front of Brancaster House.
When my father needed some help Spider came and did some fencing etc. This continued for some time and it became a regular occurrence for Spider to come into my parents' kitchen and have a hot meal at mid day. In the kitchen was a small green painted cabinet which had an enamel top and 3 draws down one side. It was here that he had his meals and in the top drawer was kept the cutlery that he used. Even after his demise the drawer was always known as Spider's drawer.
Spider used to work on a fairly regular basis for my father, except when he had some money in his pocket and then he would be either at the Bell Inn, or with the door of his shepherds hut closed and suffering from the effects of his visits to the Bell.
I used to see a lot of him as I cycled to school at Whissonsett via the meadow. On the way home I used to call in and he would make a cup of tea on the iron stove that heated the hut as well as being used for frying etc.
Spider always smoked a clay pipe which he used to buy from Miss Blyth's store and to make it more comfortable he used to wind cotton thread around the shank at the end which he put in his mouth. As the shank got shortened by breakage he would rewind the mouthpiece.
As soon as the baby chickens were big enough to go outside my father used to house them on the 4 acre meadow between his house (Brancaster House) and Spider's hut. The youngest chickens were always put outside my father's house and older ones would gradually move up the meadow until they were right near where Spider's hut stood.
One summer my father was very proud of his nearly point of lay pullets that were at the top of the meadow and when the crows started to feed from the pullet's feeders, my father asked Spider if he would shoot a crow and hang it up to frighten them from landing.
On a lovely Saturday morning, it was agreed that Spider and I would get up early and hide behind one of the arks and Spider would shoot a crow when they landed. One landed in range, Spider put his 12 bore gun to his shoulder and taking aim fired the gun. I looked across to the crow and saw it flap its wings and fly away and then we gazed in horror. To our amazement 3 of the prize pullets lay dead on the ground Naturally, my father had heard the shot and at breakfast time asked me if we had shot a crow. I managed to reply we had not been successful and would be trying again another day. All passed over without anything coming to light.
As the years rolled by Spider's working days came to an end, but he used to regularly walk down the meadow and have his dinner for several years. The visits became less frequent and we always looked up the meadow to see if smoke was coming out of the chimney of his hut.
Smoke was missing 2 days running and a visit was made to his hut but he could not be raised. He had peacefully passed away sitting in his chair near his stove.
As Spider had no dependants he was, I believe, buried by the parish and one sunny morning a hearse drawn by a black horse arrived at the top of the field. I watched from the sitting room window of Brancaster house as the 2 men took the coffin out of the hearse and laying it on the ground, went into the shepherds hut and came out bearing Spider and laid him in the coffin.
The hearse being pulled by the black horse with its head held in a dignified manner turned left out of the gate towards Horningtoft Church and went in an elegant sombre manner along the road, gradually out of my eye sight. That was my last recollection of Spider.
Whissonsett School was divided into 3 classrooms, one used by Mr Hayes who taught the 10 to 14 year old children another by Mrs. Johnson who taught the 7 to 9's leaving Mrs Hayes to teach the infants in her classroom. The boys in Mr. Hayes's class had woodwork once a week and at the same time the girls had needlework, but unfortunately there was no permanent room for the girls to have cookery lessons. Once each year for a period of 2 weeks the boys were separated from the girls and they were taught by Mr. Hayes and Mrs Johnson in Mr. Hayes's classroom while the girls had cookery in Mrs. Johnson's classroom.
The three classrooms were heated by a large open coal fire in each room and the first thing that happened each year was that Barrett the builders in New Road arrived to brick up the fire place in Mrs Johnson's classroom and install a coal fired range for the girls to use. The girls arrived with their hats and aprons which they had made in needlework over the previous weeks and with pride and a little giggle here and there showed us all their efforts at the end of each day. Each year a photographer would call and take a photograph of the class with the cookery teacher and Mr. Hayes. The other 'person' who somehow got into all the school photographs was Mr. Hayes's dog Ruff. In my photo album I have a copy of the year of 1938.
Nineteen thirty eight was a special year for Whissonsett School, for this was the year it was decided to move all children at the age of 11 to another school. It was normal for all the children to take an examination at the age of 10 and those passing would move to the Fakenham Grammar School while those failing stayed at Whissonsett until they were 14 years of age.
We all received a leaflet to take to our parents on which was a slip on the bottom to be returned if we wanted the Education Committee to supply us with a cycle, as it had been decided after the summer break of 1939, all children would leave Whissonsett and would either go to Fakenham Grammar School or to Litcham Secondary Modern School. Litcham was like Fakenham some 5 miles or so away and in those days there were not enough buses to take children to and fro.
In the middle of one of the morning sessions, two people arrived with several cycles and those over 10 years of age were given a cycle to try for size and this was noted on our forms. Also at the same time we were fitted for oilskin capes and leggings which were going to be supplied.
As the day got nearer we had a collection for a parting present for Mr. Hayes and there was enough money for me to get my father to buy a packet of 20 Players cigarettes. These were wrapped in tight cellophane and I made a small cut on one side and slipped the penny and the halfpenny that was over inside.
On the 4th of August 1938 at about 4pm. when I was helping my father to nail the floor boards down on a new battery house he was making, Dr. Puddy put his head out of the bedroom window and said "Tell your father he has got a daughter." She was christened Olive Elizabeth. My mother had suffered with arthritis for some time and as this was getting worse dad arranged for Mrs. Bird, who originally came for only 4 weeks at the time of the confinement, to stay on a permanent basis.
With all the talk of war on the wireless and in the papers I was full of excitement and after reading that everyone should have an aid raid shelter, I asked dad if I could start digging one. "Providing you fill the hole up again, if you get fed up with digging, it is O.K. by me" he replied.
I think he thought I would soon get fed up, as the spot he said I could make the dugout was well into the field away from the house. Dad always said "One boy, a good boy, 2 boys, half boys, 3 boys, no darn good, and as a result I was only ever allowed to have one friend to play at a time.
Ray Betts was a friend of mine and by a strange coincidence he lived with his parents in the cottage that we lived in before moving to Brancaster House. It was a lovely hot summer and we used to come home from school and get on with our dugout, which we felt must be big enough to live in for several days, just in case the bombing was continual. Therefore it was decided it would be 10 feet square. To start with it was a case of digging and throwing the soil to the outside and when we were too deep to do this we had to think again. I remembered how dad had cleaned out the well and I asked him if he would put up the poles and pulleys he had used to clean out the well - this he did.
With renewed interest Ray and I took it in turns filling the bucket and turning the crank to hoist the bucket to the top and emptying it. We dug the hole to a depth of about 6 feet and then all the panic was over, Mr. Chamberlain had secured peace with the Germans. Some weeks later my father was busy digging an air raid shelter under the floor in the kitchen with an emergency exit out into the garden on the west side of the house. It was made of a concrete floor, sides and a 6" concrete top reinforced with steel rods and a trapdoor to go through before going down the ladder.
I started at the Fakenham Grammar School in my new school uniform having ridden there on my cycle and as I went up the driveway to the classrooms I was confronted by some older boy who took great pleasure in throwing me bodily in the holly bush and kicking my new cap along the dusty pathway.
The first year's intake was divided into 2 classes. I was in 1B and on the way home I met Billy Falkenbridge who was in 1A cycling home to Colkirk. We talked and agreed that I would call at his house the next morning and then we would go to school together; this was the start of a good friendship.
To find after playing football there were communal showers, which the teacher insisted we all took, was an unusual experience for me as I had been virtually an only child and enjoyed privacy. The first time I made a proper spectacle of myself and went under the shower with my towel around me covering up my lower parts. This was the worst thing I could have done for all the boys stood and laughed at me and thankfully Billy came to my assistance and lent me his towel to dry myself.
My life was suddenly to be completely changed with the outbreak of war and we used to listen to the radio and plot the advancement of the German forces. My father had purchased from his London paper a map of Europe, which showed the marvellous fortified defensive line the French had against the Germans. "It will hold them" said dad "And we will soon be advancing into their territory and plotting the movement with the flags that were supplied with the map." It was not to be and each day we had to move our flags back and further back, until the map came off the wall in disgust.
By this time my father had increased his flock of laying hens from the 98 he put in the house in the gravel pit to over 4000 and now there was a shortage of food to feed, not just the animals but also us humans. Dad had been given instructions that he would only be given enough food coupons to feed 2000 hens.
Ivy Farm came up for sale and this dad purchased. There he used to spread the poultry manure and this gave larger crops than normal. When the crops were thrashed a few sacks of corn were not declared and he was able to keep a few more hens than his allocation.
A second-hand Fordson tractor was purchased complete with a plough, from Southgates of Fakenham and I used to spend a lot of my spare time working the land, again I was not allowed on the roads.
There was a small cow shed at Ivy Farm and this was soon filled with cows dad purchased from other farms and I soon helped him with the milking in the morning as well as in the afternoon when I got back from school.
When the call came out for people in Britain to join together to protect themselves in the event of an invasion by the Germans, dad who was the local Rural District Councillor, took over the responsibility of distributing all the gas masks from his house and also a bundle of arm bands were left with him with the letters LDV meaning Local Defence Volunteers. A get together was arranged for the next Sunday and a roster was agreed for the men of the village to make all night vigils in case German troops were landed by parachutes.
The next week dad was busy making a lookout post on top of one of his two-storey poultry houses and immediately it was finished it was manned each night. The ones off duty used to stay in what was my play room which had a quarter size billiard table and a train layout on the floor. I do not think they slept much and most nights played snooker or with the train set.
An army lorry arrived and a sergeant carried a box which he gave to my father saying "Here are 24 Molotov cocktails, which should be buried in the garden and in the event of an invasion by the Germans the more mature children should go up to the tanks and put one through any slit and burn the tanks out." They remained in the garden even after dad took charge of the ARP and became an instructor, advising the wardens in the locality about air raids etc. The LDV was disbanded and the Home Guard replaced it under the charge of Mr. Allen at the Manor.
A complete school was evacuated from London and they used to have the school at Fakenham in the afternoons and do homework in the Church Hall in the mornings and we used to have the school in the morning and the hall in the afternoon. You would have thought this would have brought total disruption, but this was not the case. We were used to taking our books etc. from classroom to classroom and the arrangements went so smoothly that one would think it was planned from the start. The schooling was kept totally separate and this also included the sports arrangements.
Mrs. Allen was in charge of the evacuees when they were sent to Horningtoft. Just as it was getting dark one afternoon several mothers and their children arrived in a state of shock and they seemed totally lost and bewildered. Unfortunately most of them went back to London before giving it a chance and only a few remained. My mother found out that one of the ladies had arrived without wearing any knickers and gave her a pair of hers. A few minutes later the recipient was cutting a slit through the middle of the crotch. My mother said in a disapproving voice "What are you doing?" to which she got a reply "If you want me to wear them, I will, but I am not going to take them down each time I have the call of nature."
"The government is bound to ration petrol any day now" said the fuel driver when he delivered a further supply of paraffin for the incubators, and then went on to say "I can let you have 50 gallons of petrol if you want it?" My father gave this some thought and we hunted around for some 5 and 10 gallon cans and the petrol was put into these. After the driver had gone dad asked "Where shall we store it?" "I know" he went on - "That dugout you started to make, it will be far enough away from the house and being underground it will be cool and safe there." We lowered the cans into the bottom and then covered them up with just sufficient soil so that they could not be seen and with a few old roofing sheets thrown on top, we thought they would be safe. "Now not a word to anybody, this is just between you and me." said dad and during the war the petrol was used to supplement our rations now and then and there was only one 5 gallon can that was wasted as it had rusted through before we used the petrol.
As so many men had been called up into the armed forces, strong lads like me were given work permits, which allowed us to be away from school so many days per year and what with the milking of the cows in the mornings my education suffered and my days at the Fakenham Grammar School ended and I returned to Whissonsett School.
I was never much of a sportsman, but I thoroughly enjoyed carpentry and also the time we spent on the school allotments. These were divided into raised beds and we each had our own bed to grow crops which were sold to raise money to buy cricket bats, footballs etc. In the summer we used to play cricket and the girls played stool ball and during the winter we played football and they played netball. It was always on a Friday afternoon and held on the Rectors meadow where the village team used to play on a Saturday. Mr. Stratton lived in the keeper’s cottage at the entrance to the Rectory and in his spare time he used to maintain the pitches.
When the weather was bad Mr. Hayes used to read to us an adventure story and the one that stuck in my mind is 'Java Ho' but he always seemed to stop at some exciting part and we had to wait for another rainy Friday afternoon to hear a further instalment.
I continued spending my life milking the cows in the mornings and then to school and back to the cow shed again, also all my spare time at weekends on the farm. I looked forward to the day when I could leave school and be a full time working man, but when it came to saying good bye on the last day, tears flowed down my cheeks as I cycled home from school for the last time. Waiting for me at home was a present from dad of a pair of rubber boots, 2 boiler suits and a set of oilskin clothing to start me off in my first steps to making my living. Naturally it was taken for granted that I would work on my father's farm and this I did. Dad showed me a letter he received from his brother in law when he started working for him, in which he had stated 'There is no such thing as relationship in business.' and dad insisted on the same terms, never wanting a favour or giving one in working hours. If it was 9 shillings and eleven pence halfpenny it was not 10 shillings and vice versa.
There was the need for more men in the Home Guard and as I was the oldest youngster not already recruited, I was fitted up with a uniform, rifle, bayonet and gas mask. I started taking my part in the lookout roster and at the weekends given training in the use of a rifle on the range at Cockley Cley. The rifle had a big kick and needed to be held tight against the shoulder as I lay semi-prone in the firing trench. My shooting was about average, which was more than one could say about the person shooting on my left. When the scorers announced the position of his hits on the target, it was a big zero. Across came the army sergeant and asked him which target he was shooting at and the reply he got was "What targets, I cannot see any - I am short sighted." With this he had his rifle taken away and was fitted up with a Sten gun which although automatic, would not travel so far.
I was to hear about this chap at a later date and the story went something like this: - In his village they had a lookout post on top of the guard room and he was resting at the time in the guard room when the local Major looked in unexpected and he jumped to attention hitting the but of his Sten gun on the floor. This activated the automatic and he unloaded 24 rounds straight through the ceiling into the lookout post the chap was then transferred to wireless duty.
Those fortunate enough like me to live in the country were not short of food as it was possible to shoot a wild rabbit, or a pheasant, now and then. Mum and dad used to make some farm house butter each week and this was also used to barter for tobacco and other things that were in short supply. The thing we were short of most was sugar and strange as it may seem a grocer in Fakenham had some sugar which was in store when war started. He was unable to sell it as it was stored in the back of his shop in the Market Place and, with the policeman constantly on duty in the Square; it was not possible to get it out without being caught.
In those days sugar was supplied to the shops in strong fine woven hessian 1 cwt. bags and these were prominently marked with 'British Sugar Corporation' in big blue lettering on each sack. The grocer was quite agreeable to a deal of farm house butter over a period of weeks, in exchange for a hundredweight of sugar. The only thing was how we were going to get it out. There was no trouble in getting the car into Fakenham as we had a petrol allowance to go there once a week on business and it was just a case of getting the sugar into the car without being noticed. We could not draw up outside the shop as the policeman would surely notice and we would be charged.
Another plan had to be devised and it was this: - I would park the car in the Square as normal and then take the bag of sugar across my shoulders with the wording showing for all to see and walk down the alleyway from the storeroom at the back of the shop into the street and past the policeman on duty to our car. As I passed the policeman he spoke and I wondered if the game was up. Not so, for he said "I bet you wish that you had got sugar in that bag." In as unconcerned voice as possible I replied "You bet I do" and then went to the car and put the sugar in the boot. After doing other shopping dad and I returned home.
The first harvest after I left school was quite a memorable one as dad had fixed a draw bar onto a binder which was normally pulled by horses and connected it our tractor. I spent most of my time driving the tractor and cutting the corn and after we had stacked all the sheaves of corn I was back on the tractor from dawn to dusk cultivating the fields. To supplement our income dad used to allow me to do work with the tractor and cultivator for other farmers and most of the time I could move from field to field without going on the road. It was always a pleasure when it was possible to go from one field to another without going on the road as it was necessary to put big metal bands over the spikes on the wheels when doing so. A nice order came up outside Colkirk beside the Dereham and Fakenham main road and as it looked as though I would be finishing the fields during the afternoon and dad was going to Norwich that day, he said "Now be careful when you have finished the cultivating and are putting on the road bands as they are very heavy. As I am away you can drive slowly along the main road for the mile or so and then come down Dodmans Lane." "If a policeman should see you, get off the seat and pretend to be tightening up the road bands." Thankfully the policeman did not patrol the road that day on his cycle and I was safely inside Dodmans Lane without being caught.
I was busy that autumn putting up the electric fence around the boundary of the field at the back of Brancaster House, when Richard paid dad a visit accompanied by a young lady called Johnnie. They were both in naval uniforms, Richard in the British one and Johnnie in the Canadian one. She was a nursing officer and they had met while serving at a naval base near Lowestoft.
When Richard suggested to dad that I was due for a holiday and perhaps he would let me go and stay a week with Auntie Olive, my ears really pricked up, as I always enjoyed staying with Auntie Olive, Uncle Tommy and their children Margaret and Beven. They lived at The Mallards in Galley Lane Barnet, which was a poultry farm like we had in Norfolk, but was also an egg packing station. It was to be a change going around other farms collecting eggs and then helping with grading and packing them.
He suggested that I went with him and Johnnie by train from Hempton station on the outskirts of Fakenham and I would return all on my own. I had never been on a train in my life and the thought of this made me very excited. Dad thought for a minute and then said to Richard "If he finishes putting in the posts for the electric fence before you leave for London, he can go." Mother Nature was not at all kind to me, as I had only one day to complete the fence before Richard was due to go to London and when I awoke it was raining hard and did so all the day long. Nevertheless, I completed the job in my oil skins and was off to London the following day.
Dad decided to expand the cow herd and to accommodate them it was necessary to build a new cow house. This was almost finished when we were suddenly confronted by an army officer who told dad that he was commandeering one of our meadows as they were training with Brengun carriers. These vehicles were track laying and moved quite fast, that was until one of their tracks flew off and then the soldiers had to await assistance to get them on again. Part of the new cow shed was used as the officer’s mess and at one end the cook prepared the meals for them. Other ranks had to have theirs in the field and also sleep with their vehicles.
During one night they took off their camouflage nets and were away and we were able to use the new cow shed. This was a lot more comfortable to milk the cows in, as instead of large openings, this one did in fact have windows. During the snowy winter weather we used to turn the cows out for a little exercise while we cleaned the cow shed out and then let them come inside out of the cold, which stopped the milk yield from falling as much as it used to in the old shed. It seemed strange milking in electric light in the new shed, as we had brought a pair of wires to Ivy Farm from Brancaster House and put bulbs in the barn and cow shed. Prior to this we had lanterns that we made ourselves out of wood which housed rechargeable wireless batteries and stood at the rear of the cows.
You remember Carl Cory who used to go to Auntie Hester’s house for Christmas? Well, he had a herd of pedigree Friesian cattle and dad purchased a bull from him to improve our herd. To us it was a lot of money, but dad felt it was a good investment if we had several heifer calves to rear and bring into our herd.
After working in the fields one day I went home to help with the milking and the cows and the bull were grazing in the field at Brancaster House. Mother said "Dad has gone to get the cows off of the pasture." With this I went into the sitting room and looked out of the window across the pasture and in horror shouted to mother "Come quickly." There was dad being chased around one of the chicken houses by the bull. He could not have heard him stop for as dad ran past the back of the house and got to the other corner, there was the bull coming around the other way and they met head on. Thankfully there was a rain water tank at that corner and dad stood on this and then leapt on to the roof of the chicken house. There he was marooned until the bull had quietened down and we got it back to the cow shed. The next day a bull mask was purchased from Fakenham and put on the bull's head. It stopped him from seeing you if he gave chase and it was possible to slip to one side and let him charge past. He could not see straight ahead when he charged and had to lift his head to see where you were. After a while he quietened down and lived in peace for several years.
The farming year always started on Michaelmas Day and this year Uncle Lester moved from his farm in Horningtoft and took a larger one in Tittleshall. This was called Cokesford. It had a larger house and the house and gardens were railed off from the farm premises and also had an in and out drive. The side of the house facing the road looked over the drive and across a large horse pond and the other side looked across a croquet lawn and then there was an un-obstructed view over pasture land. Christmas that year was an even grander occasion.
Auntie Hester had a new maid called Joan and after all the presents were given out and the wrapping paper cleared up, Auntie Hester came to me and said "What have you done with Joan's present?" "Where have you hidden it?" I was taken completely by surprise and asked "What was it?" to which I received the reply "You know a pair of silk knickers." "No honest auntie, I do not know anything about it." I replied. "Where had all the wrapping paper gone?" she asked. To which I replied "David and I took it all into the dairy, to be burnt tomorrow." "You had best go and look through the paper to see if they are there." said Auntie Hester.
This I did and there mixed up with the papers for burning were the pair of silk knickers. I took them to Auntie Hester and told her where I had found them. She looked at me in disbelief and I felt that she still was of the opinion that I had hidden them. Honestly I did not and they must have been cleared up accidentally.
A few years later Dr. Knappet and Joan were married.
Talking about Dr. Knappet, one day Mrs. Bird asked me if I would mind cycling with her to the surgery at Litcham. Naturally I agreed and one evening we set out on our cycles. Me on my little red cycle and Mabel on her ladies cycle with a box in her wicker basket fixed to the handle bars.
In those days there was no appointment system and it was on a first come, first served basis. From the road you had to climb several stairs and then enter into the waiting room and on the right hand side was the doorway to the consulting room and there was a half door on the other side, from which we got our medicines etc.
There was a 2 tier system and those people who were on 'The Panel' had their medicines in clear bottles, like we have today and those who were not had theirs in poorer quality green bottles.
We sat down beside each other and Mrs. Bird had the box on her lap. As fast as people went into the consulting room, others came in and the two benches were always full.
If the doctor was talking quietly, nothing could be heard, but if he slightly raised his voice, all eyes looked up in the waiting room. The time came for Mrs. Bird to go in, all was quiet and then we all heard “I do not want to see the truss; I have seen dozens of them." What I wanted to see was that it was fitting satisfactorily. Go into the next room and put it on and then I will come in."
The people waiting smiled and giggled and after a while Mrs. Bird came out and their faces were as straight as ever, not a smile in sight. After we went out of the door, which had a glass top half, I turned to close it and I noticed they were all smiles again.
Dad went to London for a long weekend to see his sisters and I was left in charge and as usual there were poultry on the meadow near the house and these had to be shut up every evening. It was after tea when dad arrived home and we listened to all the news and suddenly we looked up and saw that it was getting dark. "How have the chickens been since I have been away?" inquired dad, to which I replied "Everything has been O K." "I will come with you to shut them in, if you like?" said dad and off we went. We had not got 100 yards up the field when we stopped in horror for there on the ground were dead chickens laying everywhere. A fox had got into one of the pens and had not just taken one or two to eat; it had slain the chickens just for the fun of it. There were 230 nearly full grown chickens in that pen and when we counted them in the morning there were 12 alive, 217 dead and 1 missing!
It was my sixteenth birthday in December of the following year and as it was permissible to drive tractors on the road at the age of sixteen, I could not wait for it to arrive. In the September, just as the sugar beet season started, my father said to me "Why don't you apply for a driving license, bringing forward your birthday to September and if it is granted you can then take the sugar beet to the station?" This I did and apparently the licensing office did not at that time make a check on your date of birth. My word I really felt like a dog’s dinner as I drove the tractor to and from Fakenham station. I do not remember to this day how I got the date of birth changed to the correct one, but it is now correct.
The Kerrisons moved out of their house just before the war started into one of the new council houses that had been built on one of the fields, known as The Common. George Neil, a man living on his own moved in and his greatest love in life was his horses. He had spent many a year as a team man and my first recollection of him was when he lived in a cottage between Church House and Grange Farm. He lodged with the Colman family and worked at Horningtoft Manor.
His mind was so engrossed with horses that he awoke and found himself in a field, in almost total darkness, with his hands on the shafts of a plough being drawn by two horses. He had been sleep walking and had apparently, dressed, ridden his cycle over a mile and a half, harnessed his pair of horses and taken them to a field over a half a mile away, connected the traces to the plough and started ploughing. By the amount of land that he had turned over he had been ploughing for nearly an hour.
Everybody in the area had their bicycles repaired at Reggie Vincent's cycle shop, which was next to the Bell Inn. Reggie worked at Dereham during the day time and spent most of his evenings and weekends at the shop repairing cycles. It was quite the done thing to leave the cycle there and then to pop into the Bell Inn for a pint or two.
One Sunday afternoon I was walking towards the Chapel as George came cycling towards me in, to say the least, an unstable manner. After he dismounted and gathered his foothold, he shouted "Tommy Beven, come here!" I went towards him and he pointed to a new tyre that had been fitted to the front wheel of his cycle and in a loud slurred voice said "Look at that tyre! Highway robbery! Reggie should be locked up for selling it to me." I looked at the tyre, it looked quite normal to me and then I looked at George. "Can't you see!" he went on pointing to the tread of the tyre "You can see the tube right through the cover of the tyre." Off walked George to his cottage and flopped on to the settee and fell asleep.
As much as George was kind and patient with his horses, he did not have a lot of time for other things and on one occasion his kettle went flying out of the door and as it landed on the ground outside, he shouted to it "If you don't want to boil, out you go Mr. Kettle." He then went indoors and the next thing that came flying through and crashing to the ground was his teapot and as this broke into pieces he told the teapot "If the kettle will not boil you are no good to me" and off he went to feed his horses.
George was certainly an unusual character.
On my seventeenth birthday my father let me drive the car out of the garage and through the village to the main Dereham to Fakenham road. I stopped at the Hurdle Inn and turned left towards Fakenham and when we arrived at the Colkirk turn, I turned around and drove home. After parking the car in the garage, my father said "You are fit to drive" and that was my total tuition. From then onwards I was allowed to drive the car when it was necessary for business purposes.
The following Christmas I had a Bull Mastiff puppy for Christmas and I made a new kennel for it with a long overhead wire from the kennel to a post in the meadow, so that she could have plenty of exercise while I was at work. The puppy grew strong and big on the offal mother cooked for it and I used to have a lot of fun as I took it around the farm.
In the spring uncle Lester said he knew of a friend of his who wanted a tractor driver to work on a farm in Wellingham. After a phone call, it was agreed that I would go for an interview the following Tuesday and if I was successful Auntie Minnie who also lived in Tittleshall, agreed to find some lodgings for me in the village.
Hall Farm Wellingham, was a total contrast to our little farm at Horningtoft, where there were only two men besides my father and myself as there were twenty people working there. I knocked at the farmhouse door and when one of the maids came to the door, I asked to see Mr. Hall. He was looking for a number three tractor driver and also wanted the person to be able to drive a motor car when required. "Could I drive a car" He enquired. "Yes, I replied and showed him my driving licence which enabled me to drive, not only tractors, but cars, steam engines and track laying vehicles. "Can you milk?" was the next question, to which I replied "I have been milking since I was ten years old." "Right" he said "You can start next week on a month's trial." "Thank you very much" I said and I then cycled home to Horningtoft.
Mother was insistent that before I left home (although I was only going 5 miles away) that we went into Fakenham and have a studio photograph taken of her together with Olive and myself. This was done and I still have the photograph and what a sorrowful trio we look. More like waifs and strays than mother and children.
Auntie Minnie had found me temporary lodgings for a month while I was on trial at the farm and these were with a smallholder and his wife on the outskirts of Tittleshall. It was like going back to the early days in Horningtoft as their cottage did not have any electricity or water laid on and it was back to the oil lamps, kettles heating water on the fire and the toilet down the garden. I was soon to learn that I was being seen after by the most considerate lady and her husband anybody could wish for and I was sorry to leave them when the month was up.
I had always been good at getting up in the mornings and it was no hardship to have breakfast, cycle three miles and be there by 7am. We would all line up in the yard and be told what we were to do that day and then the head team man would leave first, followed by the second team man and then the rest of us in order of length of service.
At the end of the third week, Auntie Minnie told me that there was a family who lived in the council houses, who were looking for another lodger. They had a three bedroom house and two Dr. Barnardos boys used one bedroom and as their youngest son was now in the Navy, there was a spare bedroom which they wanted filled with a lodger. After work one evening I went and knocked at their door and Mr. Graver answered and after I told him who I was he let me in. I went into the kitchen and then he opened the living room door and as I went in I saw a lady with her dress off and without her false teeth in sucking an orange. It was his wife Mrs. Graver and he told her who I was and she went off at him with hammer and tongs for bringing me in without giving her time to put her dress on and put her teeth in. "If he is going to live here, he might as well get used to it, as you always take your dress off and take your teeth out when you eat an orange." piped up Mr. Graver.
The council house was much newer than the cottage, but unfortunately it did not have electricity or water laid on. Soon I was to learn the terms of the lodgings:-
1. You will not be late home.
2. You will take your turn in getting two buckets of water from the well this was some 100 yards away.
3. You will wash and shave at the wash bench in the yard and not use the washstand in the bedroom.
4. You will pay your rent on a Friday one week in advance.
5. Mr. Graver is the local Methodist preacher and as he is agent for the Union, you will have to join.
It sounded terrible to me, but as I had to get out of my temporary lodgings I had no other choice than to say I would like to come and live with them. I duly moved in at the end of my month's trial, when it was confirmed that my job was permanent. I was about half a mile nearer to my work from these lodgings than I was with the temporary ones, which was an advantage.
One morning I awoke to the noise of stones being thrown against my bedroom window and when I looked out I saw it was one of the lads from the farm and after I opened the window he told me I was wanted at the farm as one of the cowmen had been taken ill. I dressed and left a note on the table letting the Gravers know why I had been called out.
It was about 3.15 am when I arrived at the farm and the head cowman told me they were in middle of changing over from hand milking into machine milking and they always did the cows that had to be milked by hand first. The cow shed was in two parts and I was told to start at the first cow around the corner and work towards the far end. Hardly had I sat down, when, swishing past my face was the cow's leg and back it came in a circle knocking me clean off of my milking stool into the gutter. As I collected myself, I saw two laughing faces peaking around the corner with grins all over them and one said "Oh! I forgot to tell you that cow has the habit of kicking, sorry we did not tell you in time." "Like hell you are." I replied.
One day when I returned to my lodgings, I could not see the Dr. Barnardo boys and after going through the front room and the doorway to the staircase, I heard a commotion and there were the boys collecting something off of the floor. They looked very guilty and I asked "What are you up to?" The reply came in a pleading voice "Don't tell her will you?" "She sent us in here as we were making too much noise." "We were fed up being in here and crept back into the front room and got her gall stones, to play marbles with." I could hardly stop myself laughing. What would Mrs. Graver say if she knew? It was the first thing she used to send the boys to get when she had visitors to show them off and say what she had gone through before she had the operation.
Mrs. Graver was a very outspoken person and I remember one day Dr. Knappett (who was also a Methodist preacher) coming to the door, which was answered by one of the boys as Mr. Graver was smoking his pipe with Mrs. Graver and I in the living room. "You are wanted at the door." said one of the boys to Mr. Graver then as he got nearer the door saw it was Dr. Knappett and stopped in his tracks. Taking his pipe out of his mouth and holding it behind him he proceeded towards Dr. Knappett. Mrs. Graver who was hard of hearing had seen what he had done and shouted out "You hypocrite, putting your pipe behind your back to let him think you do not smoke on Sundays." After he returned there was a little shouting match, but it was like water off a ducks back to Mrs. Graver.
The food we had at breakfast time and also the large meal we had in the evenings were very good. There was plenty of it and it was good wholesome home cooking. It was the duty of the boys to do the potatoes and also the vegetables after they got home from school. As to the packed lunches I took to work, they can only be described as terrible as it was paste sandwiches every day. Naturally these were made the evening before and by mid day they were well and truly curling at the edges. "You can't eat them." used to be the cry from other men working there as they passed me something out of their lunch boxes and the news soon filtered around the farm. I was working in the yard one dinner time and a message was sent to me from Mrs. Hall 'Would I go to the kitchen and see her.' This I did and she gave me a boiled ducks egg for my dinner and this happened for many a time to come.
One lovely Saturday afternoon, I went for a walk among the gorse bushes which stood some six feet high, on Tittleshall common and strangely what should I see, but a girl lying full length on the grass denuded of clothing. I did not know what to do, whether to turn back, or to speak, when she saw me and was not as embarrassed as I was. She said she felt like sunbathing in the nude and thought nobody would come past and hoped I would keep it to myself.
This I did and she was the first mature female body my eyes had set upon and it gave me immense pleasure to see her slender body with rounding bosoms and glistening pubic hair and also to remember. I used to see the girl about the village most days and as I approached her, my mind always went back to that meeting. It must have shown on my face as one day as we approached each other in the street, she said "I know what you are thinking about Thomas Beven."
As I arrived at the farm gates one morning, I was met by the foreman, to be told to go straight to the farmhouse as Mr. Hall was ill in bed and he wanted to see me. I knocked on the kitchen door and heard Mrs. Hall tell me to come in. After entering the kitchen she told me to go up to Mr. Hall's bedroom as he wanted to see me.
There he was lying in bed, feeling very sorry for himself and huddling under the eiderdown. "I have got the flu." he said in a pathetic voice "and I can't get out of bed to move the wardrobe so as to set the mirror to see how they are getting on cleaning out the cow yard." Everybody had been busy that week turning their hands to filling the carts or carting it away to a heap in one of the fields. "A little to the left - that's too much, that's better, now move the dressing table mirror a little to the right.
Stop! - that will do, now go and tell them what you have done and they will know that I am keeping an eye on them, even if I am in bed." I conveyed the massage and his ears must have been burning at the replies I got.
It happened to be the day Mr. Hall used to go to the bank at Fakenham to get the money for the week's wages and we all wondered what was going to happen as we had not seen Mrs. Hall go out in the car. After dinner I received a message that I was to wash and tidy myself up as I was required to go out in the car.
This I did and reported to the farmhouse, only to find that it was me, who was to go to Fakenham to get the money and I was not to use the best car and only use the farm runabout. While I was there I was to go to Boots and get a thermometer as Mr. Hall could not find one and he was certain that he had a high temperature. Off I went, with just enough time to get the money before Barclays closed and then I went to Boots and bought a thermometer.
Upon arriving back I took the money up to Mr. Hall's bedroom and as I was about to hand it over, he croaked out "Give me the thermometer." Where was it? I remember buying it and laying it on the car floor and thereafter I never thought any more about it as I was more concerned about the money I was carrying. "It must be in the car." I replied. "Well go and get it." he bellowed in a stronger voice "I must have a dangerous temperature." Back to the car I went and could not find it anywhere. Perhaps it had fallen out through one of the holes in the floor as there were some rust holes. "I am sorry it looks as if I have lost it." I said to Mr. Hall. "It looks as if you have lost it! Well, you had best go back and get another one." Dare I pluck up enough courage to tell him that the shops will be shut before I get back to Fakenham? I did and was told "That is your problem,” you will have to get the manager back and open up for you."
Off I went and as I got into the Square at Fakenham, I saw all the shops were shut. What was I to do? I got out of the car and there in the window of Boots, was the home address of the manager, who could be contacted in emergencies. Off in the car I went to his home address and knocked on the door and a lady answered. I told her I had an emergency and she asked me in to their sitting room where the manager was resting in an arm chair with his feet up on a stool and a cup of tea in his hand. I related the story to him and he replied "That's no emergency; I am not turning out for that." Lady luck was on my side and his wife said "Come on dear, can't you see the trouble the poor lads in?" With this he got out of his chair and I took him back to the shop and he got me another thermometer. Before setting off to Wellingham I thanked him and took him back to his house. "Take care of it this time sonny." he said as I drove away.
Yes, I got it safe and sound back to Wellingham and up into the master's bedroom I went with it. "You had best stop and read it for me." he said in a pathetic voice and into his mouth went the thermometer and I had to time two minutes. When this was up I took the thermometer to the light and saw to my surprise it was at the normal temperature point. I swore under my breath - what was I going to say. "Come on tell me the worst - I want to know" he said. "It's" and before I could say anymore he interrupted "It's what?" "Its normal sir" I answered. "Rubbish!" he bellowed out, "Give it to me and I will keep it in a little longer, this time." "Turn the bedside lamp on and I will read it myself this time" he said before putting it back into his mouth. When he took it out of his mouth and looked at it, he shouted "Blasted thing reads normal." "It must be faulty." Then in a fit of temper he threw it against the bedroom wall smashing it and told me to go home.
The next day he was downstairs, although still feeling very sorry for himself and their two children were annoying him. After lunch I was told to 'Clean up in readiness to go out in the car', I wonder what it will be this time I thought to myself. "You can use the best car and take the Nursemaid and the children to the pictures at Fakenham." said Mrs. Hall "Here is enough money for the four of you and mind what you are up to."
Every other Sunday I used to go back to Horningtoft and see mum and Olive and sometimes dad used to let me take mother and Olive in his car to see Auntie Hester for Sunday tea. On one of these occasions we were driving home along the Tittleshall to Fakenham road when I saw an aircraft flying low across the field from the direction of Raynham aerodrome. It was an English one and then suddenly it started machine gunning the fields and it was in a direct path to where we were on the road.
I braked and reversed as fast as I could and we then jumped out of the car and into the ditch for safety. The plane showered the tree with bullets as it went overhead. What were they doing? I was to find out later in the week, when the news got around, that one of our aircraft had been captured and the Germans had used it to follow our boys returning home and, as they approached Raynham aerodrome, the landing lights were put on and the aircraft dropped a bomb on the end of one of the hangars before the ground staff realized that it was the enemy.
It was on another Sunday afternoon that mother suggested I might like to take the 12 bore gun up Dodsmans Lane and have a shoot. It was a nice afternoon and as I looked into the Eleven Acres, I heard talking from the other side of a straw stack that stood just inside the field. I crept around to the sunny side and as I peeped around the corner, I saw a bare bottom sunning itself and underneath this male was his sweetheart; they were enjoying the pleasures of each others bodies. What should I do? Should I creep away or walk round as if I did not know they were there and embarrass them? Then a wicket smile came to my face, as I thought 'How about firing the gun off' and this I did. There were screams of alarm as they hurried to compose themselves
May the 8th. was a public holiday as "Victory in Europe" had been proclaimed. I was friendly with Molly at the time and we cycled to see her sister who lived near Watton and spent the evening around a massive bonfire, singing and eating until late into the evening.
The next day, when we returned to Tittleshall, we noticed that several stacks of straw had been burnt down to the ground and who should be standing at the gate of my lodgings, but the local policeman with his cycle. "Where were you last night?" he enquired. Thankfully I had an alibi and the culprit was never discovered, although it was suspected that it was carried out by people who had spent the evening celebrating at the local public houses.
Although it was only a matter of thirteen weeks before we were celebrating "Victory over Japan" it seemed a long while coming as we expected it to finish within days of the European victory, but this was not to be so and the Japanese held out to the end. Harvest was in full swing at that time and we only had a small celebration as it was necessary to spend the fine weather getting in the crops.
A steam engine and thrashing machine visited the farm and for the first three days I was working on the top of the thrasher cutting the bonds that the binder had put around the sheaves. It was a real dusty job and when the engine driver did not turn up on the fourth day I was glad of a break, but Mr. Hall was not at all pleased. "We do not want to waste another day" he said as he came towards me and then went on "Show me your driving licence, I think it stated you are allowed to drive one on the road." "Yes, it did say I could, but that was not to say I had the ability to drive one" I told Mr. Hall. "You can manage" he said "There is nothing to it" and before I knew where I was, I was driving the engine and trailing behind the thrasher and the elevator.
I did not go very fast and it was easier driving up the hill to the site where there was an army searchlight, than it was going down the other side to the village. Through the farm yard and across the meadow to The Highlands and we were thrashing wheat the following morning.
There was a crop grown on that farm that I had never come across before or since. It was flax. Actually it is a variety of linseed and is grown for the fibres in its stalk, which once taken out of the stalks is a lovely soft material. To get the longest lengths possible it is pulled up by its roots and tied into bundles, which were then taken to the King's estate at Sandringham to be processed. It was a long dirty job to harvest the fifty acres, as the machine which was driven by the power take-off from the tractor pulling it, only pulled up a width of two feet at a time.
I think it was King George the fifth who started the Flax growing in East Anglia and he had research carried out on his estate into growing longer and better varieties of Flax. After harvesting the crop it was stored in large Dutch barns at Sandringham and processed at a later date. Unfortunately a few years later the whole operation was closed down due mainly to farmers not making full use of the arrangements.
Mr Graver had a friend, who lived in the Fens, call and see him and arrived on an Ariel Square four 1000cc motorcycle. To me it was a lovely machine and with such power I was told it could easily do over 100 miles per hour, or as they say "a ton up." He offered to give me a ride, but if I wanted to go over 100 miles per hour, I would have to go into the Fens where there was a nice straight road. Naturally I wanted to do 'a ton up', who wouldn't. Off we went to Kings Lynn and then on a straight road as we gathered speed, I looked over his shoulder and saw the needle gradually rise to 105 MPH, before he throttled back. It certainly was a thrill and whetted my appetite to own a motor cycle.
From that day forward I looked through the secondhand motor cycle column in the E.D.P. and after about a week I saw advertised a BSA 350cc ex dispatch riders motor cycle for sale at Watton for £50. I telephoned the advertiser and it was agreed that I would call and see it the following Saturday and take it for a ride. When the time came I felt rather nervous, as I had never driven a motor cycle and I told the person selling it and asked if he would take me for a ride. "Nothing to it" he said and suggested that I drove and he rode on the pillion.
If he was agreeable to ride on the pillion with someone driving who had never ridden before there could not be much attached to it and off we went. Everything went well while we were on the straight and it was only when we came to a corner that disaster struck. I tried to turn the handlebar like a steering wheel of a car and there was no response, it still kept going in a straight line. The County Council had removed the hedge and replaced it with posts and wires, which I saw and ducked under the wire as I careered into the ploughed field.
The bike stalled and fell to the ground and, as I picked myself up and looked back to where I came through the fence, I saw my pillion passenger suspended over the wires as he had failed to see them. He must have been keen to sell the bike as he did not complain and told me how important it was to lean when taking a corner and not just try to turn the handlebar. I became the proud owner of this ex ministry bike in camouflage colouring.
Nobody could have been more kind to me than Auntie Hester while I was away from home as she had me to lunch every Sunday. I used to arrive during the morning and have a hot bath in their bathroom.
This was real luxury from what would have been the case if I had to bathe at the Gravers. Firstly, the water there would have to be carried from the well and heated in the copper and placed in the tin bath in the shed at the back of the house. Lastly, I would have had to bail the water out of the bath and cart it away. It was quite a contrast to the luxury of their bathroom with plenty of hot water on tap.
It was only in the coldest weather that the tin bath was taken into the kitchen for use. We used to strip to the waist outside and give ourselves a good washing down, but in those days it was normal only to bath once a week. Bearing in mind the type of work that was carried out on farms, it is no wonder that someone would say "Phew! It’s about time you had your bath."
Living in one of the cottages on the farm at Wellingham were four Italian prisoners of war and they were more or less free to move about as they liked, other than visiting the local pubic houses. One of them used to help in the kitchen at the farm and also did all the cooking for the other three who worked on the farm.
The farmhouse at Wellingham was the only house to have hot and cold running water and the rest of the villagers had to draw their water from wells. One other place that had oceans of hot water was the washing up room in the dairy, where there was more than was needed to wash up the milking things and the boiler also raised steam to sterilize the equipment.
Every Friday night the Italians used to go into the washroom and bathe in the big galvanized tanks that the dairy equipment was washed up in. One Thursday evening I was working late. It was dark as I went through the farmyard and I saw that there was a light on in the washing up room. Thinking someone had left it on I went to the door and found that it was locked and then tried to look through the window, which was above eye level and to do this I had to stand on tip toes. Holding the window sill with both hands I was about to pull myself up, when I got a tap on the back and the person behind me said "What do you think you are up to Peeping Tom?" My legs went limp and I nearly fell to the ground with fright and turning around I saw it was one of the cowmen standing behind me.
"What do you mean Peeping Tom" I asked and he replied "You know." "No I don't" I responded quickly and he went on "Yes you do, everyone knows that my daughter has a bath in there every Thursday with her mother." "Honestly, I did not know." I bellowed back. "Well! I will let you off this time, but don't let me catch you around here on a Thursday night again" he replied. At this I got on my cycle and cycled out of the yard muttering to myself 'Miserable old beggar.'
I had always carted the water at thrashing time in one of the old types. It was really just a large tank on three iron wheels and two doors on the top to stop the water splashing out. I always backed the water cart into the pond and filled it with a bucket.
The new one had only two wheels which were pneumatics and the tank had a hand pump and a length of hose to fill it with. I was told 'Not to back it into the pond, but to fill it on level ground.' This I did until my arms ached using the pump and on top of that it was a lot slower than filling it by bucket.
Being out of sight of anybody, I backed the new cart into the pond and started to fill it by bucket and rope while standing on the cart. This was a lot faster than the pump. All of a sudden something moved and I fell full length into the pond. I splashed and spluttered as I got to my feet and there to my horror was the water cart up on its end and poor old Ginger in the shafts high in the air with his legs flailing about like a windmill. I dived into the water to open the tap to let the water out of the cart and it seemed an eternity before sufficient water ran out to enable poor old Ginger to settle down on terrafirma.
Then I had to start all over again filling the water cart using the pump. Naturally I was very late getting to the thrashing engine and when the men saw me in the distant there were shouts galore "Hurry up. We have run out of water" They hadn't really, it was their breakfast time. When I got closer the shouts changed to hilarious laughter as they saw I was looking like a drowned rat. "What have you fallen in - boy?" said the Head Team man. I was not going to tell him the truth, so I replied "Yes I did, putting that hose into the pond. Give me the old cart any time." I was ribbed for many days to come.
As the winter drew nearer I spent most of my time either taking sacks of corn to the millers at Fakenham or vegetables to the railway stations for transporting to London. We had no lights on the tractors or trailers in those days and I used to start off from the farm at the slightest glimmer of day breaking and would stop outside Fakenham waiting for the lighting up period to finish before venturing into town.
The local policemen used to stay up late to see that the public houses were closed on time and as a result they were never early starters so there was no fear of seeing them early in the mornings. In those days you were allowed to pull one laden trailer or two empty ones and each morning I used to start off in the dark with two laden trailers and then disconnect one on Hempton Green, wait until it was light enough to go into Fakenham, unload and then go back to Hempton Green and pick up the other laden trailer and take this into the town to be unloaded and then take the two empty trailers back to the farm to be loaded up again for the next morning.
I only had two calamities, one was as I turned out on the minor road from Wellingham on to the main road to Fakenham while towing two laden trailers and, much to my surprise, the road was a sheet of ice and the whole lot swung around in the road and ended up facing opposite to the way I wanted to go.
Getting off the tractor I found out how slippery the road was as I ended up flat on my back, dropping the torch I was using to find my way along the road. Disconnecting one of the trailers I then turned it around and after doing the same to the other trailer I connected them together and proceeded a little slower towards Fakenham.
The other time I was taking a trailer of Turnips to Dunham station and around a corner came a lorry and there was an almighty bang as the lorry hit the hub cap on the trailer knocking it completely off. The lorry did not stop, but I had seen his number plate and had made a note of his number. This I told Mr. Hall when I returned, who as usual when things went wrong, turned red in the face and in a loud voice said "Phone PC Clarke and get him over here right away."
I phoned PC Clarke and later that day he cycled into the yard and must have been seen by Mr. Hall as he came out of the farmhouse storming "They must pay." PC Clarke looked around the trailer and then asked "Have you got a tape measure Mr. Hall?" I was sent to get one and then holding one end on the hub cap on the nearside wheel, PC Clarke looked at the measurement at the point where the broken part ended.
With a dry smile on his face he said to Mr. Hall "It looks as if the lorry driver has done you a good turn Mr. Hall." Mr. Hall looked more furious than ever and then PC CLarke spoke again "If I had stopped Thomas on the road before the hub cap was knocked off, I would have had to take legal action against you as the trailer is now only just inside the legal width allowed for trailers."
At this Mr. Hall stumped off and from that day to this I have always called PC Clarke behind his back 'Hub cap Clarke.'
My eighteenth birthday was drawing near when I was contacted by my father who stated that I would come back and live at home. He also said he wanted me back on the farm and this time I would not be working for him but would be equal partners in the farm. It was a big decision for me to make as I had got on very well working for Mr. & Mrs. Hall and they paid me a lot above normal wages. I always felt I would be made farm manager when I had matured a bit and the present one retired. Mr. Hall said "You should go back" and this I did. It was nice to be back home again with my mother and my sister.
The whole family spent Christmas with Auntie Hester that year and as usual it was a grand success, enjoyed by all and sundry.
One evening I had been to Fakenham and when I returned I went indoors and mother saw me standing there head to foot covered with mud. "What ever has happened to you!" she exclaimed. I had to tell her, I was coming home along the main road and at the turning to Horningtoft where the old coach house stood, I had forgotten to lean as I turned the corner and had gone completely over the hedge and landed in the ploughed field. My word it was hard work getting the motor cycle back on to the road and thankfully it started and I had ridden home. "Get yourself cleaned up. You and your motor cycle will be the death of me" she replied.
A week or so later I was to arrive home soaked to the skin, looking like a drowned rat, with blood all down the right hand side of my face. This time it was dad who saw me coming in and said "What have you been up to this time?" "Well, dad" I replied "It was like this, I was coming down the village street and where the Chapel stands in the middle of the fork in the road, I did not lean enough and ran into the Chapel fence cutting my face on the hawthorn hedge and then carried on to the other side of the road and went through the hedge and landed full wallop in the middle of the horse pit."
Thankfully there was only about 4 feet of water at the time and I was able to pull the motor cycle out and push it home, as this time it would not start. I got myself cleaned up and then went into the shed and dismantled the motor cycle, drying it thoroughly. It started first time and I went for a ride before going to bed.
About this time I was going out with a girl who lived in the Fens and she was due to spend the weekend at our house. Earlier in the week I felt that I did not want to see her anymore and rather than tell her to her face, I decided to send her a letter calling things off. Friday afternoon the telephone rang and it was her phoning me to tell me the time she wanted picking up at Fakenham bus terminal. She sounded normal and had no doubt not received the letter and I went and picked her up at the agreed time with my motor cycle.
The irony of the whole thing was, at the previous weekend in the pictures I had put my hand on her knee and slipped it along the inside of her leg to find she was wearing virtually down to her knees long old fashioned knickers. This turned me off completely and I decided then to call it off. What a pity I did not pluck up courage and tell her the weekend previous and then this incident would not have happened.
"That motor cycle must go" said dad and went on to say, "Before you end up in a box." The following day I bought my first car, a 1932 Morris 8 two seater with a fold down canvas hood, Registration No. VG 5316. Little did I know by the time I was 65 I would have parted with so much money to obtain the following list of cars for our own use or as gifts to the children and dad.
The day to day responsibility of keeping the roads in good repair was held by Lengthmen, each having his own patch. This was started much earlier when piles of stones were dropped here and there along the side of the roads and all the people who were out of work had to report to the Lengthman and he would issue him with a sledge hammer and tell him where to go and crush the stones and place them in the potholes in the tracks. The roads were not used much in those days and then mostly by horse and cart so it was quite common to see grass growing up the middle of the lesser used roads.
I remember as a child the first tarring machine coming into the area and it all started by steam lorries dropping piles of sand along both sides of the roads. Along went the tarring machine which was also driven by steam and following behind was a big gang of men who spread the sand, covering up the hot tar that came out of the tarring machine. This was a vast improvement as the roads were not so bumpy for me to cycle along.
Snow was always a problem in country areas in those days as there was not the heavy machinery to deal with it like there is today and it was quite common to be cut off from Fakenham and Dereham for several days and sometimes weeks.
When there was a small fall of snow the Lengthman would go to Mr. Hammond's farm in the village, where the County Council kept the horse drawn snow plough and Kenny Hammond would harness two horses to the plough and off they would go straight out of the village to clear the roads which were more important than ours. By nightfall they were generally back in the village clearing our roads. Another fall overnight and out they would go again.
The worst thing was when the wind blew, as it filled the main Fakenham to Dereham road sometimes to a depth of over six feet. It was on these occasions that the Lengthman would go round the farms to get men to dig the snow off of the roads and throw it over the hedge. Some years it was an endless task as we would perhaps clear 200 yards towards Fakenham when it became dark and then we found that the wind had filled the road up again and it was back to square one.
There were of course gangs starting out from each village and when we could see a gang getting nearer to us we seemed to work harder and hope to meet them before nightfall. The horse drawn snow ploughs were later to be drawn by tractors and the one in our village was transferred to Church Farm where Mr. Billy Baker farmed. This was, I suppose, better than when it was pulled by horses, but nevertheless was not a great success. Success only came when the council fitted them to the front of their lorries.
It did not worry us being cut off and each day one of us would set off with a sledge to the bakery in Whissonsett and get enough bread for the entire village and the same applied to meat from the butcher. Milk and eggs we had plenty of and as we did not have enough churns to hold the milk in, many times it was poured down the drain.
My sister Olive was away as a weekly boarder at a school at Dereham and when snow fell towards one weekend, it looked as if she would have to stay there and not come home that weekend. The roads were blocked in several places and I thought I would try and see if I could get there with a tractor and bring her home. Dereham is 9 miles from Horningtoft and in those days the top speed of agriculture tractors was five miles per. hour. "Should do it in four hours" I said and I got ready to go. "As you are passing through Gressenhall" dad said "You might as well take the dirty washing to the Steam Laundry and collect the clean linen." Feeling rather disgruntled at dad's demand I set off.
My word it was cold and in those days tractors didn't have cabs and one had to take the full blast of the elements. One hour and a half had gone by and I then found the last two miles into Dereham were impassable even by tractor. I left it there and walked across the fields into Dereham and collected Olive and how she trundled back to the tractor. Thankfully the tractor started and I tucked Olive on the back axle of the tractor and as snug as possible against the rear wheel mudguard and home we went. I do not remember how long it took and all I can remember was being thankful we made it home, before we froze to death.
It was a constant job thawing pipes and water tanks for the cattle and we hoped these frosty spells would not last long as the cattle used to get stomach upsets with too much frozen food. The blockage in the roads were cleared and a spell of frosty weather prevailed keeping the roads covered with snow which had by then compacted hard making them like skating rinks.
It was when the thaws set in that the problems started, as the drainage ditches were blocked solid with snow and ice, stopping the water from flowing away. On several occasions I have seen the water get within one foot of the door of the cottages at Ivy Farm, but thankfully never rise those extra inches and run into them.
The roofs in the older barns and houses did not have felt under the tiles, some had lathe and plaster which the rats and birds had pulled apart. This caused ingress of water when the winter flakes started with sleet which used to blow under the tiles and when it thawed it soaked through the ceilings and in some cases they fell down causing a terrible mess. We soon learned the necessity of re-felting the cottages and the farm buildings at Ivy Farm and bit by bit these were tackled during the summer time when we had a few hours to spare.
After each thaw it was also necessary to walk the drains starting with the Main Drain to get them flowing as soon as possible and then we would work up the drains that flowed into it. Finally when the water level had dropped we would check the land drains which flowed into the ditches to see that these were collecting the water underground and taking it into the ditches. Where the land was flooded we would dig channels to help the water flow off of the land. This work enabled us to get our spring crops in as much as a week or two earlier, due to the land drying out that much quicker.
Once a week I would have an evening out at the Samson and Hercules in Norwich, one Friday night I entered the Samson and thought to myself 'What was I going to do? I wanted to pick up a nice girl and here on two occasions before I had picked up the wrong one. Next time I was going to take it more slowly.' I scanned around the tables and there at one of them were three girls and I thought I would try my luck. I went across and asked one of them for a dance, which she accepted and while dancing I found out that her name was Irene and her other two companions were Betty and Heather. We danced a couple more times during the evening and I curbed my desires to ask if I could take her home.
When entering the Samson the following week. Who should be standing on the steps none other than Irene and Betty, waiting for Heather to turn up? When I saw them inside I asked Irene for a dance and little did I know that she would be helping me to mould my life from there on.
Work was just a necessity in the spring of 1947, as my thoughts were mainly with the Samson and Hercules and that lass Irene. Saturdays could not come around fast enough. With Whitsun approaching I thought I would ask Irene if we could spend one of the days over the weekend together and it was agreed that I would call at her house and take her out for the day. The sun shone that morning and the hood was down on the car when I arrived at her house in Thorpe Road Norwich, which was just past Thorpe station, on the left hand side.
Where should we go? I had already clocked up 22 miles getting to her place. I do not recall anything at all about us eating that day, although we must have done. I remember glowing with pride as we headed for Cromer, with her beside me and this continued as we went along the coast road to Wells and then returned to Norwich via Fakenham. It had been a great day and I felt very lonely as I put the hood up on my journey home. I was missing the warmth of her sitting beside me and, what with the evening cooling, I felt quite cold. On arriving home I noticed I had travelled 125 miles.
That night as I lay in bed thinking about the lovely day, I suddenly had an almighty shock. What had I done? I had blown a whole month’s petrol allowance in one day. How was I going to get to see her next Saturday? Panic set in - this was terrible.
Although the war was over there was still food rationing, but there had been a slight improvement regarding petrol supplies and ration books were given to people owning cars to enable them to buy petrol for pleasure use. This allowance gave motorists enough petrol to drive about 120 miles per. month.
There were two types of petrol, one for essential use and one for private use and the only difference was that the one for essential use was coloured red and for private use was colourless. Inspectors stopped cars at random to check that they were not using essential petrol in cars which were only supposed to be used for pleasure. I was told that they could detect the slightest amount that had been put into a private car. The carburettors on the vehicles that were for essential use had a constant red hue around them and the first thing the inspectors did was to raise the bonnet of the car and look there. If they thought that essential petrol had illegally been used they used to take a sample out of the petrol tank.
I remember being offered some petrol coupons one Saturday while I was in Fakenham, by an old school pal whose father had a taxi business and it was to him I went and did a swop for five gallons of petrol in exchange for some farmhouse butter. Good old butter came in handy once again.
As spring turned into summer our love for each other increased and we were spending more and more time together. We used to write to each other mid week and had the occasional phone call.
Irene was and still is a good swimmer and I just could not swim, in fact I did not like even getting my feet wet. It was nothing for her to swim across Salhouse Broad and back, a total contrast to me who could not survive once I was out of my depth. "I will try and swim" I said to myself and when I heard that it was possible to have swimming lessons at Wymondham, I went and had a word with the instructor, who agreed to give me a trial starting on the next Tuesday.
After changing into a new pair of swimming trunks I had bought the previous Saturday, I walked along the side of the bath to the place where the instructor was standing. He harnessed a strap around my chest and this was attached to a line which was connected to a long strong pole. I was like a fish on a fishing line. He told me how to use my arms and legs, also about the breathing and into the water I went at the shallow end.
Once I was in the water up to my chest he told me to start swimming and he would take the weight of my body and see that I did not go under. It was Marvellous, I really felt that I was swimming and after a few lessons, he said to me as I was at the deep end "You are swimming without me holding you up." This was a fatal remark to make as I then sank to the bottom and he had to haul me out coughing and spluttering. I tried and tried again, but to no avail, as every time he told me I was swimming on my own I sank. "Sorry" he said "I cannot help you anymore, you can swim and it is now up to you."
Irene had made arrangements to go and see a pen friend in Holland before she met me and the thought of being separated from her while she was there was unbearable. I know what I will do, I thought to myself, I will go to Brighton and as soon as I get there I will enrol in a set of swimming lessons and surprise her when she gets back. I knew I would never be able to swim across Salhouse Broad, but I might just be able to swim across the swimming pool at Wymondham which could not be more that 12 to 15 feet.
Miah was naturally very pleased to see me and the next morning I went to the Corporation Swimming Pool and enrolled for a set of lessons each morning during the week I was staying there. These lessons were not individual like the ones at Wymondham and we were all lined up against the side of the bath and the instructor told us to blow up and put on the arm bands. These would keep us afloat and we would do the strokes he told us to do. On the third day, just as I was about to set off across the pool, he said that he wanted to adjust my arm bands.
When I was in the middle of the pool he shouted "Thomas! You have been across the pool twice without any air in the arm bands, you can swim." Fatal! Again I sank to the bottom and he had to dive in fully clothed to rescue me. I did learn to do a few strokes providing I was in water that had a depth that I could stand up in.
My word, it was nice to see Irene back again.
The farm house at Ivy Farm had been turned into two farm cottages by building two extra rooms on each end, one up and one down. Number one became empty and the thoughts went through our minds, 'Should we re-decorate it and make it our first home.' It did have one tap over the sink in the kitchen and there was a supply of 110 volt electricity from the plant at Brancaster House.
Over the weekends we worked together cleaning and tidying it up and thought at a later date we could turn one of the bedrooms into a bathroom and also put in a flush toilet. In the meantime we would have to make do with the Elsan which was outside.
We applied for our coupons which would entitle us to buy some new utility furniture and there was just enough to buy a bed with bed linen etc. Whenever there was a sale of second-hand furniture we went and bought all the bare necessities that were needed to furnish our humble abode with about £100. Naturally there was no fridge or washing machine or for that matter Television had not got as far as Norfolk in those days.
There was a coal fired copper in the kitchen; a coal fired black range in the living room and an open fire in the front room. Nobody, in those days in the country used their front rooms except on Sundays and high days. We did not fancy sitting against that black range where it was not possible to see the fire and agreed that we would use the entire house.
It would be my twentieth birthday on the sixth of December 1947 and I did not think mum and dad would object to us getting married after that date. They had taken to Irene like a duck to water and she would then be nineteen as her birthday was in the September. We planned for a wedding on the thirteenth of December.
Over one weekend we told mum and dad that we would like to get married and that we thought of the first Saturday after my birthday. This received a welcome reply and then I went and saw Irene's parents to ask if I could have their daughter's hand in marriage. "Were we certain?" we were asked. "Yes" we replied so their consent was given and it was all systems go.
Our marvellous government then stepped in and withdrew the private petrol allowance. What day should they withdraw it? None other than Sunday the seventh of December, which meant we would not be able to go to Norwich for a wedding if we held it on the thirteenth as planned. The date was brought forward one week and that was how I always remember my wedding anniversary, even if I forget to buy a card for that lass of mine.
We had our set of talks with the Parson and the Banns were read in Horningtoft church as well as in the church in Norwich. It was quite a thrill for us to hear them being read.
On the sixth of December 1947, Miah travelled from Brighton to London and then Richard brought her to Horningtoft by car, arriving about lunch time.
In the morning dad and I had been into Fakenham to get a few odds and ends for the farm and one of the shops we went to was The Fakenham Hardware Stores. The manager there was a Mr. Long and when I told him I wanted a new handle for the bedroom in the cow shed, he asked "Is that to keep your future wife under control?" I replied with a smile.
We left for Norwich in good time and had to spend several minutes in the car before going into the church and almost dead on time the organist broke into tune as Irene and her father arrived and walked up the aisle. I side stepped and when she was next to me we continued up to the altar steps and there we stood, expecting the Parson to come out of one of the doors.
Nothing happened and the organist played another tune, still no Parson and another tune. The Verger brought us chairs to sit on and about half an hour later the Parson arrived, all puffing and blowing. He told us that he was sorry he was late but he had to stay with one of his parishioners until she departed this earth.
By the time we had finished the service and came out of the church it was dark and the photographer had gone home. As a result, there were no wedding photographs. We all went to Thorpe Road and later in the evening we went to Brancaster House and had another meal with mum, dad, Olive, Miah and Richard.
The strain was too much for me after harvesting sugar beet all the previous week and I had not only a head ache, but also a very painful back. What a, how do you do? We looked at the clock and at each other and when we saw it was ten o'clock we put on our coats and walked up the lane to our abode. It was rather cold, but after we got into bed we soon warmed up and forgot the aches and pains. The night was short as I had to get up the next morning at 5.45am to go milking so as to have the milk cooled and ready for collection by the lorry which came from Elmham dairies at 8am. By quarter to nine we were together again having our first breakfast of porridge and bacon and eggs.
There was no honeymoon as I could not get anyone to milk the cows and dad did not feel like doing the milking now I was a partner in the farm. It was to be at my annual holiday in the summer that we had our belated honeymoon in London and Brighton.
During the winter months we used to sit by the open wood fire and listen to the wireless. About nine o'clock Irene would make us a bowl of soup, made from a Symingtons powder block, which was either Tomato or Ox Tail. One evening I felt the clock was going rather slowly and thought it would be rather lovable to caress my mate on the rug beside the open fire and little did I know at that time what a disaster it would be. With the scorching heat from the open fire on one thigh and the perishing cold draught from the door on the other thigh, the two extreme temperatures were too contrasting and it fully dampened the romantic atmosphere.
Just before harvest we had our delayed honeymoon and set off for Brighton and got as far as Morden and spent the night with dad's uncle Septimus and Aunt Gertrude. Uncle Sept. had very large eyebrows and after we had tea he raised them and said "I do not suppose you two object to sleeping in a single bed, as all the others are being used." We were quite happy and asked if we could make a stop on the way back to break the journey. That sounds rather pathetic these days, wanting to make a break overnight, but you must remember this was only my second time I had driven out of Norfolk. We had a lovely time in Brighton and even if our honeymoon was delayed it turned out to be an enjoyable week.
We purchased a crossbred puppy which we called Susie, who in future laid fully stretched out in front of the fire as close as she could, enjoying the heat and gave us pleading glances with her eyes when it was time for her to go outside and curl up in her cosy kennel filled full of straw. In the mornings when I went past her kennel all I could see was the tip of her nose poking out of the doorway.
The first afternoon we took Susie to show her to mum and dad, Irene picked her up as we got towards the gate to their house and as we turned into the drive there was a loud Woff, Woff, and lumbering down the drive came Dotto, dad's Dalmatian. After entering the garden, my father said "Put her on the ground and they will soon get to know each other."
Dotto being a fully grown Dalmatian had such long legs and Susie being only 8 weeks old had such short ones and as Dotto kept running away from her and then thundering backwards and forwards so fast, Susie could not keep up with her. While running down the path I shouted "Look out!!" but it was too late and there was a loud plop as Susie fell into the garden pond. I caught hold of her at the back of the neck, lifting her out of the water. She was dripping everywhere, when Irene came with a towel and gave her a good rubbing down and as she was still shivering, (more I think with fright than being cold and wet) we took her into the house and laid her in front of the fire until she was dry once again. As the months went by the two dogs became good friends and used to romp and play around the garden together, but other than when desirous for a drink, Susie used to give the pond a wide berth.
After Susie had got past her puppy stage she used to ride all day with me on the tractor while I was ploughing the fields and cultivating them. Some times she would have a hunt along the hedgerows and then she would be missing when it was time to go home and I would have to hunt for her. She was not much trouble to find as she had generally found a rabbit's burrow and was digging like mad to make the hole bigger so as to be able to get into it. She would be covered in dust and her appealing eyes would be encased with soil as I told her she had to come home. I think she thought I was terrible when I did not help her to dig and insisted that we go home. The next day she would jump off the tractor and straight back to the burrow and start again.
Shortly after moving into No.1, Ron Futter and his wife Dot, together with their son Royston moved into next door and besides working together the two families became good friends. Dot Futter or Mrs. Ron as she was called was a nurse before she was married and as soon as Royston was old enough to go to school she returned to part time nursing.
The farming went on as normal and then there was good news on the home front. We learned that there would be an addition to our family about April 1950. In those days there were the good old fashioned midwives who used to go around the villages on a cycle and the nearest one to us lived in North Elmham, some five miles away. At the first birth it was the recognised thing to have a doctor present and thereafter it was up to the midwife to call the doctor if she needed help.
The eventual day arrived and the nurse called and after examining Irene, left to go on her rounds as she thought it would be some time before the birth would take place. After finishing her round she returned, agreeing to stop with Irene until the baby arrived. I sat downstairs and in the bedroom above I heard the nurse walking about, who, like most nurses, was rather heavy on her feet.
It was terrible sitting there, hearing the sounds above and not knowing what was going on and then I heard the sound of the door latch of the bedroom door and the nurse shouted down the stairs "You can go and phone Dr. Knappet as the baby will be here before he has time to get here from Litcham." "Shall I tell him that" I replied. "Of course not, I have left it as long as I can so that I can do the birthing, how I like it, on my own."
I did not have a telephone in those days and I went to Dad's house and phoned the doctor. Upon my return I heard the crying of a baby upstairs. It was a boy, to be named Christopher Maurice and the date was the eighteenth of April 1950. Some twenty minutes later Dr Knappet arrived and I heard the nurse say to him "Sorry doctor, it came rather fast in the end." To which he replied "Strange, this has happened quite a lot lately." While the nurse washed Christopher she starting singing "Oh! What a lovely bunch of coconuts." Whether Christopher's head being, to say the least, rather short of hair, brought this to her mind or not I do not know, but she kept it up every time she called to bathe him over the next few days.
Susie who had been with me downstairs and had heard the new noise pricked up her ears and the following day when the stairs door was left open she flew up to see her mistress and after expressing her affection to her, looked in the cot and then laid herself down on the bed between Irene and the cot with Christopher in it. Perhaps she felt a little jealous at first, but Susie being Susie, soon realised that the three of us now had a baby. We thought it would have been nice to have had twins and then the two of them would grow up together and go through life with a strong bond towards each other. As this did not materialize we did the next best thing.
There is a saying things go in three's. Whether there is any truth in it I very much doubt, but we did have three little upsets while living at Ivy Farm. The first was due to me putting a wet coat too close to the boiler pipe in the kitchen to dry out over night. We went to spend that evening with mum and dad and upon returning I opened the back door and immediately the coat burst into flames. The second was when the primus stove exploded and all the potatoes and sprouts were stuck to the kitchen ceiling and the third was when we were drying a pile of nappies too near the fire in the front room over night and they caught alight.
A four bedroom house called High House came on the market with a meadow which was situated between two meadows of Ivy Farm. When this came up for auction at Dereham my father attended the sale and it was purchased. What should we do about the house? Dad thought Irene and I should have it. Although he had said that the house needed a lot doing to it, we had quite a shock when we took the keys and had a look around ourselves. The place was filthy, having been neglected for many years by the old people who had lived there for as long as I could remember and apparently many years before.
The kitchen had a massive old black range with its own copper built into one side to heat the water which had to be filled by a bucket from a well in the adjoining field. The ceiling was nearly the same colour and as we walked into the pantry, which was some six feet by ten feet, a rat scurried across the floor and made its departure through a hole in the window sill.
Everywhere was rather damp and as we opened the door to the staircase we found that due to dry rot, the stair case had broken in half on one side and we had to be careful how we went up the stairs close to the good side.
We had by this time put in a boiler and turned the third bedroom into a bathroom, making our little abode at Ivy Farm very cosy and a palace compared to High House although there was no comparison as far as size was concerned.
"You really should move into High House" said dad and as much as we did not feel like starting again with a dilapidated house, we set to and carried the 110 volt electricity lines up to High House.
I bought a book on plumbing and then designed a full central heating system for the ground floor of the house and also the bathroom upstairs. No heating in the bedroom, 'No body needs heating in the bedroom -It's not good for you,' was the idea in those days. Out with the old range and in with a coal fired boiler to heat the water for the bathroom etc. and the radiators. This time there were two flush toilets, one in the bathroom and one downstairs. Naturally, I again made a septic tank and laid all the glazed piping from the house to it and also the tail drains which carried the excess water away.
It was just before harvest that year that we moved our humble effects on a wheel barrow from No1. Ivy Farm to High House.
When the winds of the winter came, we were sitting down in the evening and suddenly Irene looked at me and I looked at her, for to our amazement the carpet was rising up and down on the floor. The wind was blowing through the ventilators in the walls under the floor and was coming through the joints between the boards, lifting the carpet up in the air at times nine inches high. The next weekend it was, out with everything in the room and we set too and filled the cracks with old newspapers mixed with wood glue - another problem conquered.
We did not have wall to wall carpeting in those days and in the two main rooms we had carpets with a foot width of lino around the sides. One morning just after breakfast we heard a scurrying noise in the cupboard under the stairs. When we went to investigate and opened the door a mole ran out. It had burrowed under the foundations of the house and came to the surface in the cavity under the floor and then into the cupboard through the wooden floor where dry rot had taken its toll.
The coal fired boiler was a menace as it roared itself out on windy nights, making the water too hot and then there was a cold fire in the morning when heat was needed for the radiators. I built a wall flame paraffin heating unit from spare parts purchased from a boiler manufacturer and this I built into the coal fired boiler, converting it to oil. This really did give us a reliable system.
High House was to be our home for the next eighteen years.
In the spring of 1951 our No.2 child was on the way and this time the nurse had a car, which was a good thing as she lived even further away from Horningtoft. By this time we had a telephone installed in High House and the bed downstairs in readiness.
Irene thought the baby was about to start arriving and she telephoned the nurse, who was not at all pleased as her car had broken down and was away at a garage for repair. "If you want me, you will have to come and get me" she said and it was agreed that I would collect her. "Hope it is not a false alarm" she said before putting down the phone. After Irene put down the phone she repeated "I hope it is not a false alarm, as she does not sound terribly nice." "I will be all right while you go and fetch her" she continued and off I went.
When I picked the nurse up, I put her bag in the back of the car and all the way back to High House I received an earful of moans and groans and when we got home I took her bag indoors and there sitting on the bed was Irene who blurted out "Thankfully you are back, I cannot wait any longer." and with this she flopped on the bed and the nurse shouted to me "Out" and she was just in time to catch Graham Howard as he plopped out. The date was the thirtieth of May 1951.
Irene must have had her hands full seeing after the two of them, but it was a great pleasure seeing them growing up together and playing in the garden.
Cows can breed all the year around and left to their own desires they have a tendency to calf mostly in the spring time. This was not conducive to either heavy milk yields or milk at the time of the year when prices were at their highest.
The greatest demand for milk was during the winter months and as a consequence the dairies paid the highest prices at that time of the year. With regards to yields, if they calved in the spring, as nature no doubt intended, when there was always a flush of grass; the yields were at their peak when the calf was born. Unfortunately this soon tailed off as during the summer months the grass dried up as did their milk. When we started feeding them with green crops in the autumn the yield did not return and their overall milk production was rather disappointing.
Left to their own natural desires they would mate when they were much too small and this would stunt their growth and they would not turn into good cows. By now, we had mated our herd so that the majority calved in late September each year and we tried to get them all in calf so as to finish calving by the end of December. Naturally, nature does not let you do everything you want to do and there were always the stragglers who calved in the spring time.
There was nothing the cows appreciated more than a natural calving and the best thing to do for those that had already calved once were to let them do it their way.
There was a big covered yard about twenty Yards Square attached to the cow shed and the cows could go in and out as much as they liked during the nights. It always had a deep bed of clean straw and in the winter months they were nearly always lying in there when I went to do the morning milking. Strangely enough I do not ever recall a cow having her calf there as being given their freedom, they always went to the far end of the field and according to which way the wind was blowing, they would have their calves on the leeward side of a hedge. More calves were born overnight than at any time of the day.
The first thing I used to do each morning was to have a roll call. When there was one missing it more than likely meant that one had calved and across the meadow I would have to go. Sometimes the calves took some finding as their mothers were lying comfortably against the hedgerow and the calf would be sheltering deep inside the hedge itself. I would go on my knees and put my head between the calf’s legs and getting hold of its front legs with one hand and its rear legs with the other, I would carry them on my shoulders, with its mother following behind. I remember to this day how cold and damp their umbilical cords used to feel as they dangled against my neck on a cold and frosty morning.
We were in need of another cow to replace one that had got too old and was not in calf and I saw in the local paper that the Queen was having a sale of some surplus dairy cattle. I went to the auction and purchased a Shorthorn cow, in calf for the third time. No doubt everybody who purchased cows from the auction named theirs like I did mine, Elizabeth. She was a friendly cow like most of them are and she soon fitted into the herd after of course, they had sorted the pecking order with a series of head butting etc.
Many a time I would have a cow calve over night and she would be with the other cows and who should be missing, but Elizabeth. Elizabeth always had to have a go after the calf was born and frighten its mother away and take charge of the calf as if it was her own. Naturally I used to unite the mother and its calf. I put them in one of the boxes about fifteen feet square in which we used to put the cows with the calves for the first week or so and then the calves would be taken away and fed on cow’s milk from a bucket. I started them off by letting them suck my finger and then by putting their noses in the milk. After a few sniffs of milk up their nostrils and a little spluttering they soon learnt to suck with their mouths on the surface of the milk.
If a cow had already had one calf and it was, say, the second calving and it was not going too well or there were complications, I was able to soothe their troubled minds by putting my arms around their necks and rubbing my hands over their soft coats as their pleading eyes looked at me. After gaining their confidence, which did not take much doing as we had been friends for a few years, I used to help them with the calving and as this progressed they used to lift their heads, from time to time and look towards me at the rear to see if their offspring had arrived.
Normally the front feet arrive first and then the nose pokes itself out and if it keeps coming smoothly after the whole head has arrived, the rest of the body follows easily. The worse thing was when the calf had big shoulders and it got stuck after the head was out and before the shoulders appeared.
Other complications were when the front feet came and the head was tucked backwards, or for that matter breach births, where there was no trouble in the calving except it was necessary to give the calf a swift exit and then clean its nostrils, otherwise it did not strike into life. I have given the kiss of life to more calves that I can remember.
Sad to say some cows died while calving due to me not being there when they needed me and some never did walk again as they had been paralysed in their backs, due to the prolonged time taken to calve.
As soon as a calf was born it was imperative that the cow should be on her feet and taking notice of the calf and cleaning it up. I would make noises like a calf and if this did not work, I used to get Susie to come into the area where the calving took place and this soon brought the cow to life and Susie being chased away.
Once it was me as well and in the haste to climb over the wall, via a drinking trough, I slipped and plunged into the water. The cow stopped suddenly and looked at me with surprise. Attention was always needed when the young cows had their first calves as these were not so easy to handle. They were very nervous and had not got to the stage where they had confidence in me.
Horns were always a lot of trouble as they were constantly cutting each other. We decided to de-bud the calves when they were a few weeks old and get ourselves a horn free herd. When we had a majority of polled cows, our local veterinary surgeon came and after giving the ones with horns an anaesthetic, their horns were sawn off at the base of their skulls.
Life was not to be the same again. The cows were a lot more peaceful and as much as they arrived at their pecking order, now there was no damage done to themselves anymore with the horns. It was most amusing to see one of the cows whose horns had been removed, judging the correct distance to dig its horns into another cow to find her head fly past and nothing happen. A cow cannot smile, but you should have seen the look in its eyes as it tried again and again. Cows, will be cows and as hard as you may try to keep them in the pastures, they will occasionally get out, about once a year. One of these times they got into Mr and Mrs. Jefferies's garden. The Jefferies were keen gardeners as you would expect the cows to want the best. They had trodden all over the garden and eaten the greens here and there as they went.
The Jefferies unfortunately that night went to bed and had not checked to see if their garden gate was shut and the cows entered through it.
Naturally I was very sorry and during the day spent a lot of time tidying up their garden. It was raspberry picking time and after I had finished Mr. Jefferies gave me a wicker basket of raspberries as he felt a little responsible as he had left the gate open that night.
Things never go wrong one at a time and on the way home the basket fell off the trailer on to the road and the trailer wheel ran over it. You never saw such a mess in your life. The basket was flat and the raspberries were squashed into puree, being filtered between the wicker of his basket, pips and all.
It would not have mattered, if it had not been that basket. He had gone to great lengths to tell me its history, when giving me the basket full of raspberries. Irene came to the rescue as usual and washed and washed it, until there was no sign of raspberry juice anywhere. The body of the basket, looked more or less as normal, but the handle was damaged beyond repair and the only thing we could do was to bind it with nice strong cord.
"Hells! Bells! and Furbelows!" I said to myself as I took the basket back the next morning. "Why did they have to give me that basket?" Mr. Jefferies saw me coming up his drive and came to meet me. "You need not have made a special journey to bring the basket back" he said as he approached me "But it is nice of you." Then he saw his basket, his face fell and his wrath was greater than when the cows got into his garden. "Why couldn't you have taken more care of it, knowing how precious the basket is to me." he said as he took it from me and turned around and went back to his house. I felt terrible.
Whatever are those people doing walking across the field from Whissonsett to Horningtoft, we asked ourselves? The next day they came across the field to Ivy farm and out of curiosity I went and asked them what they were up to? "We are surveying the best way to bring high voltage cables from Whissonsett and where we are going to put the transformers." "Do you think they ever will bring mains to Horningtoft?" I enquired. "Yes, one of these days" came the reply.
It was not long before a Mr Rant from Cromer called to see if we would have mains electricity and if so how much electricity we would be using. Yes, we would be glad to have it and agreed if it came that it would be connected to the Ivy Farm premises, Brancaster House, High House and the three cottages at Ivy Farm. It would be nice not to have the constant maintenance of the lighting plant and also to have an electric cooker, instead of having to cook on Calor gas. The mains came the following year and what a relief it was to have power at the touch of a button.
We were now able to carry out our plans to put in a milking parlour to milk the cows in and demolish the cow sheds. This was not possible before as we could not have put in the milking parlour we wanted to, without a refrigerator to cool the milk and our lighting plant just could not take even another small electric motor.
The plant I designed was a 'Direct to Churn' one and the first in Norfolk and was first exhibited at the Royal Norfolk Show before being delivered and installed. This saved a lot of carrying of milk as it went straight into the churns that were supplied by the dairies. After they were full the churns were immersed in chilled water up to their necks, while the water was agitated in the tank to get the milk down to the required temperature. The afternoon's milk was kept in the tank overnight, keeping it lovely and cool.
Gone were the petrol engine that used to drive the milking machines and the one that used to cut up the roots for the cows and grind the corn for them to eat in the winter months. It was not long before all the grinding of feed for the poultry and the cows was done on the cheap night rate by using automatic starting and stopping controls on the motors. What advancement?
At the Norfolk Show, I think it was 1952, dad saw a stand where a Television set was working. Yes, it had come to parts of Norfolk, all the way from London. "Do you think I will be able to pick it up at Horningtoft" he enquired. "We can only try" was the reply and it was agreed that the following week a test would be carried out. "You fully realise, it will not work every night, only when the weather conditions are favourable" he was told.
A one hundred foot mast with an aerial on top was laid out on the meadow outside Brancaster House and after the guy ropes had been attached, the mast was erected and the aerial was positioned facing London. Cables were taken from the mast into the house and then the set was unpacked and we saw the first glimpses on the screen. You could hardly tell what it was and the sound kept fading at the same time as the picture. "It will be better after dark and you might even get it three to five nights each week" we were told as they were getting in their van to go back to Norwich.
About a week later Mr Godfrey called to see how it was going and dad said he was fairly satisfied, bearing in mind it was a new innovation, but he did not like the idea of having to keep on getting up and down to adjust the set. With this the controls were taken off of the set and long cables were made from the set to dad's chair and after the controls were fixed to a piece of wood, dad could now fiddle to his hearts content.
Some months later, the signal was strengthened from London and to our amazement we could see for the first time that the people on the screen had teeth and we had a picture of some sort every night. On foggy nights it really was marvellous.
Looking through the Eastern Daily Press I saw a TV set and aerial for sale for £50. I phoned the number quoted and spoke to the person who was trying to sell it. "Why was he selling it" I asked, to which I got the reply "There is nothing wrong with the set. It is just a case of the signal not being strong enough for it to work where I live. A purchase was made and now that the signal had been increased in strength from London it was not necessary for us to have a tall mast and the aerial was fixed on a fifteen foot pole on the front room chimney. After purchasing a signal booster, we had an even better picture.
Living in the country in those days you neither locked your door when going out or for that matter at night, neither did you bother to draw the curtains unless it was in the mid winter to keep the warmth in. Our lounge had windows on the south and also the north side and we positioned the set beside the south facing window. One evening as were watching the TV we had a feeling that we were being watched. Turning around, who should we see, with his face right up against the window but Jeremiah Makins. He had walked across our lawn and was peering in with amazement. Next evening he was there again as he was passing by on his way to the Bell public house for the evening and continued to do so, from time to time over the years to come.
Our No. 3 child was on the way and we wondered as the weeks went by, what would it be, would it be another boy or would we have a girl this time? Our suspense was over when Anona Denise arrived on the seventeenth of June 1954.
We had a constant problem with the well at High House, even after we had cleaned out the refuse and dug it to its original depth. It was only meant to supply the house with water taken by the bucketful and not for a piped supply to the house with a bath and a flush toilet. Once the summer months were here it ran dry and I had to cart the water from Ivy Farm in a tank and connect the tank to the pump, replenishing the supply when it was empty. The time came when the supply for Ivy Farm and the three cottages was threatening to dry up and I had a well bored to a depth of 140 feet and a pressure tank installed beside the pump so it was now possible to pipe the water from there to High House and all our problems were solved.
Mains water came to the village many years later and High House was then connected to that supply.
Ever since we were married it was a regular thing for Irene's maiden aunts Millie and Emma to come and spend either the Sunday with us or the weekend, several times each year. They were the two most marvellous people I have ever met and they sacrificed their whole life to help others. They never wasted anything and had the knack of making something out of nothing. As the seasons rolled by, we would go with them to collect various wild fruits from the hedgerows, for making jam, wine etc.
Crab Apples were one of their favourites and each year they came and collected them from the hedges around the fields to take back to Norwich to make jam. One Saturday after they had been picking some crab apples the previous weekend, we called in to have tea with them in Norwich and were greeted with even greater smiles than usual.
Hardly had we got in the door than they were bubbling to tell us something and it was not many seconds before out it came. "You should have seen the surprise on the faces of the people riding on the bus we took back to Norwich last Sunday after seeing you." "The driver had to stop in a hurry and Millie and I were sitting at the back" said Emma and then went on to say "Our bag of crab apples fell over and they were all strewn from the back to the front of the bus, right the whole length of the aisle." "The driver did not look too pleased, but the other people on the bus helped us to pick them up and had smiles all round."
Emma was tall and thin and Millie was shorter and a little on the plump side. Emma liked cycling and many a time I heard her and Irene reminiscing about how they had cycled from Norwich to Wells to get bags of cockles to take these back to Norwich where Emma would give most of them away.
It was no surprise after Christopher and Graham cycled past the house on a tandem that Emma should want a ride. Christopher and Graham had made it out of two old cycles they had got from the gravel pits where all the rubbish from the neighbouring villages was dumped. This gravel pit I am talking about is the one dad started his poultry business in and was about half a mile from Brancaster House and in those days the rubbish was just shot over the edge and left to settle. Not like today when it is covered up, at least once a week, if not daily.
Country life revolved in those days around wild life and the need to kill them to control them from getting out of hand and also for food.
"I am losing a lot of poultry meal from No3" said dad "and, I do not think it is by a two legged variety as the house is locked up as usual. It would take a very small boy to get through the holes in the front where the chickens go up and down. Can you and Ron have a look one evening after dark and see what you can find out?"
Ron and I liked ratting and we would take our torches, together with our sticks, which were short lengths of broken pitch fork shafts and of course Susie always came along. I had a couple of calamities while ratting.
The first was copying my father who I had seen getting hold of a rat's tail as it ran along the edge of the roof and with a quick swing he banged it's head on the wall killing it instantly. I saw a rat's tail hanging over a wall and got hold of it and pulled it hard swinging it so as to keep its head away from me, but to my surprise the rat ran away and all I was left with was a pulpy mass of skin and flesh in my hand as the rat's tail skinned.
The other one was a little more alarming and that was one evening when Ron and I were out looking for rats and one ran up the right leg of my trousers. I dropped the torch, which went out and in the darkness; I clasped my hands around the top of my leg, just in time to stop the rat getting into the trunk part of my trousers and getting trapped below my belt. I had awful thoughts of it venting its teeth on my private parts, as I shouted in fear "Ron!! I have got a rat up my trousers leg." Shaking my leg violently the rat fell out and the only damage was a mass of scratches made by the rat's claws as it tried to get away. To make matters worse, we did not get the rat and it ran away to safety. When I got home it was a good soaking for the leg in Dettol.
Our highlight day was the night we went to look at No 3. and I have never seen anything like it in all my life. The first thing we did was to close the two doors by which the chickens used to enter and leave the house and then unlocked the door where we would normally go through. Shining our torches into the poultry house and what did we see, nothing but the floor completely covered with rats. In fear we stood, not knowing what to do and all of a sudden Susie jumped into the house and started having a go at the rats. "They will kill her" Ron said and this remark was enough to spur us on as we pushed past each other to get into the house and shut the door keeping the rats inside.
It was not a case of hitting at a particular rat; it was a case of hitting at heaps of rats as they clambered into the corners of the shed. Howls came from Susie as several rats attacked her and we went to her assistance, only to find that the rats were ganging up against us as they stood on their hind feet defying us and ready to pounce.
Gradually we won the battle and we did not stop until every one was dead. Susie, who normally had a lovely silky black coat, was just about standing, looking all tattered and torn where she had been bitten. She was covered in blood, both from herself and from the rats she had killed. Her tongue was hanging out as I picked her up and she rested her head on my shoulder, still puffing and panting all the way home. We cleaned her up the best we could and then put her to bed in her kennel, trusting time would help to heal her body.
The next morning as I went to do the milking I saw her nose peeking out of the straw but she did not spring out like she normally would do and I had to give her an encouraging call to get her to move. She staggered out, walking with a wobbly, stiff legged motion and I bent down and picking her up put her back into her kennel to rest.
When we went to clear the rats up after doing the milking, we found no less than 385, which we were never to repeat again. A few days later Susie was back to her usual self once again, except for a few scabs which took some time to clear.
The news soon got around the village about our conquest and then it came to light that a villager had seen an army of rats marching across the fields from the gravel pits in the direction of dad's poultry farm. He said it was a black mass about 3 to 4 feet wide and about 15 to 20 feet long, as they jumped and ran across the field.
Other vermin were very useful, but it was surprising the amount of destruction a warren of rabbits can do, they can destroy whole fields by eating their way across them, some as large as 20 to 30 acres. Rabbits were always enjoyed by country folk and many hundred were sent to London by train as farmers battled endlessly, trying to keep them under control. They never succeeded and it was not until the myxomatosis disease spread across the country that farmers were able to relax their efforts to control them.
The hare was another menace as they targeted the root crops. Not just to eat their fill, but to deliberately cut the roots off at ground level just for the fun of it. They would start on a row of sugar beet or mangolds and go along the row for many yards doing their destruction. Hares were OK to eat now and then, although a lot of country people would not eat them as they had rather dark meat and were full of blood and rather messy to prepare for cooking.
Pigeons were a seasonal menace and would sit on the top of the sheaves of corn and eat the grain, as it stood in the fields waiting to dry enough to stack. Rabbits, you could make money out of, but not pigeons as the cartridges cost more than you could get from the sale of them. It was rather nice when you blasted off the shotgun and saw two or even four fall to the ground and that tells you the amount there were about in those days.
The other times of the year when they did untold damage was when the kale and sprout crops were coming through the ground and later in the winter time when the crops were fit to harvest. We used to make hides in the hedgerows and some days sit and wait and wait for them to come and they never did. That was until we gave up and went home perished with cold and then out of nowhere, down would come the flocks. It was always the duty of one of them to fly around and keep guard and the best way to get a good bag was to get in your hide before sunrise. You would then see their scout fly over the field as dawn broke and off into the horizon and back they would come in force. The noise of the gun only made them fly up in the air and then they would settle down again and we could have another blast. The best bag in one day was nearly 200 and the worst was nil.
I always had two pet cows and they were Tiny a Jersey and Elizabeth the Shorthorn I bought from the Queen. These two were to be joined by a third, when we had an unfortunate accident.
Friesian cows produce a lot of milk and at times their butter fats are on the low side and there is a tendency for the milk to be rejected when tested at the dairies. When this happened the dairy used to send a Mr. David Case to investigate in case the farmer concerned was adding water to his milk. As we were getting greater yields from our Friesian cows due to our breeding policy, we decided to buy two Ayrshire cows, which were due to calf for the first time, to insure that our milk was up to standard.
A Mr. Butterworth from Rudham was a well known breeder of Ayrshires and it was to him I went to buy these animals. They settled in well and one calved and was no trouble at all but after the other one had calved and her calf had been taken away she went a little wild. I was driving her, with the rest of the cows, to a pasture near the council houses when she took fright and jumped into a ditch. She clambered out and then I noticed that she was not putting any weight on one of her front legs and it was swinging in the breeze. Yes, it was broken between the shoulder joint and the knee. I went back to the farm and brought the trailer and got her safely back to the farm and put her in one of the loose boxes, tying her up in the normal manner, near the feeding manger with a strap around her neck.
A telephone call was made to the Vet. and after he arrived he examined the cow's leg. It was a clean break and he thought it would be very difficult to keep the cow restrained enough for the bone to heal and it was his opinion that the cow should be put down. My father felt it was worth a try and the Vet. plastered the leg from just below the shoulder to the hoof.
We then fixed a five barred gate so that it restricted her movements and rested the leg as much as possible. I had to milk her by hand as she could not walk across the yard and be milked in the new parlour and this was how she became extra friendly cow No. 3.
We always used to leave the door to the loose box open during the day time and after about seven weeks; I walked into the box to find that she was not there. Looking across the pasture I saw she was grazing away and walking as if nothing was the matter.
She must have caught sight of me out of the corner of her eye, as she suddenly lifted her head and started running towards me. 'Stop for goodness sake' I though to myself as I ran towards her 'Before you undo all the good that has been done.' When we met she rubbed her nose against me and we walked slowly towards the loose box where I put the leather collar around her neck again. The leg seemed strong enough and in one piece as we set about taking the plaster which had started to crumble off the leg. Yes, it was satisfactory and she lived for many years to come, giving milk of good quality and also plenty of it.
I was to be the next one to break my leg and that was done as easy as A B C (absolute, bloody, carelessness). One Sunday morning I was sawing up some logs for the fire, using a tractor which was driving a saw bench. After I had finished, I was too impatient to wait for the saw to come to a stop and with my left leg I tried to push the belt off of the pulley. There was a crocodile clip joining the two ends of the belt and the pin in the middle had worked itself out and as it came against my rubber boot it caught in the sole and up in the air I went and into the pulley went my left leg. It went off with an almighty bang and it was to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital I had to go, where they found out that I had broken my tibia - this time it was me who was in plaster from the thigh to the toes.
That was a sheer waste of a few months of my life, but there was a funny incident while I was still in plaster. Irene was going to deliver leaflets around the houses in the village and I thought I would go with her. To save her coming walking back to the car, I thought I would move the car along the road to where she was. I lay down on the bench seat and using the clutch with one hand I steered the car with the other and what should happen, nothing other than, one of the front wheels fell off of the car.
I was full of euphoria when I was told on one of the visits to the hospital, that I could go and have my plaster off. Having been in plaster for several weeks, I thought it would be a relief not to have that weight to carry around. Oh dear, was I in for a shock. The pain to my muscles was excruciating and worse than I had experienced since breaking it. Trying to stretch the muscles and get the knee moving again, took longer than the time I was in plaster. By bending my left leg a little I was now able to ride my cycle with my good one, letting my left leg hang free. It really was nice to get around once again, enabling me to cycle down the road to the farm and also to see mum and dad at Brancaster House.
Mum and dad always had a cup of tea and a cake or biscuit each day at eleven o'clock and after joining them one morning, I left to cycle home and completely forgot about my left leg not yet having its full movement. On the cycle I got, in the normal manner by putting my left leg on the pedal and cocking my right leg over the seat, I started to peddle. Only one half turn of the crank did I manage before I felt myself being catapulted over the handlebars. My left leg had very little movement at that time and not bending as it normally would when cycling and with me holding on to the handlebar there was nothing I could do but shoot over the bars on to the road. I got up, thankfully none the worse for wear other than a scratch or two on the face. It always seemed to be my poor old face that got knocked about, one way or the other.
Having installed the milking parlour, we were saving a lot of time and the only thing that was antiquated was the steam raising boiler. This used coal to heat the water and was a constant bind lighting the fire each morning. In an ex government sale was a brand new pressurised paraffin stove, which looked as if it could be installed inside the grate of the boiler and if it worked would be a lot more efficient. This I purchased.
Taking out the old fire bars, I fitted the burner inside, with the paraffin tank well away from the boiler. All ready for the inauguration 'fire up' the methylated spirit was poured into the receptacle under the burner to heat it up before turning on the paraffin. It looked nice and warm as I let the paraffin flow into the burner and it struck into life.
Whether it was a drop of dirt or an air bubble in the pipeline, I do not know but the flame suddenly stopped. Hearing the fuel vaporising, I struck a match to re-light it and there was an almighty roar and flames came out of the firebox, going right across my face and engulfing my eyebrows. Thankfully I was, as usual, wearing a tam-o-shanter; otherwise my hair would have gone as well.
Going into the dairy I looked at myself and my face look as if I had been down a coal mine. It was very painful as I washed the dirt off of my face and there underneath was a mass of red vertical stripes up my face, where the jets of flames had scorched it. "You had best put that burner on the scrap heap, before you blow yourself up" said dad, and this I did.
As I was having a cold drink and a couple of biscuits one morning before going to milk the cows, there was a knock at the door. The door never being locked, I shouted "Come in the door is open." Who should it be, none other than Kenny Hammond who lived next door to dad, looking not at all well. "I was wondering" he said in a faint voice "If you could take me out after breakfast? I have had some bad news during the night. My boy Tommy has been killed at work and they want me to go to the police station at Dereham and identify his body and also go to Norwich and register the death." I did not know where to look or how to comfort him, he looked totally lost. Naturally, I agreed to take him about 9.30am and this I did.
Firstly, we went to the police station and I offered to identify Tommy, but Kenny insisted on doing it himself. It seemed ages waiting for him to come out and when he did he looked totally shattered.
We had gone some five miles towards Norwich before he spoke and then he told me about the unfortunate accident. Tommy was on night shift and in thick fog was driving a lorry and, as he could not see through the window screen, he had been driving with his head out of the cab window. Unfortunately, he collided with the side of a wall and his body was pulled through the window and squashed between the wall and the lorry before the lorry came to rest.
"Please come in with me" he said when we got to the Registrars. I sat beside Kenny as the registrar filled in the details and then looking at Kenny he said "Good God, he must have been in a mess." I thought this was terrible, being so heartless to a father in distress.
When we got back to Kenny's cottage the sun was shining and his wife came out to welcome him back. Her first words were "How was his face?" Kenny replied "There was not a scratch on his face anywhere" and he looked straight at me. I knew I had to keep that secret as long as she was alive. "Thank goodness" she said "I could not bear to think of his face being damaged."
On my way back to High House I remembered the day Tommy was born and how Kenny told dad and me on the road outside his house that he had another son. "What are you going to call him?" dad enquired and Kenny said "Thomas." To which my father went on to say "Tommy is a nice name" and from there onwards he was always known as Tommy. However dad could say such a thing, I do not know, when he constantly told other people that my name was Thomas, not Tommy or Tom, but Thomas.
I had another sad and sorrowful occasion while living at High House. Ivy Farm being a smallish farm of 134 acres there was no employer/employee relationship as there would be on larger farms.
Ron Futter who moved into next door to us (when we lived at No 1 Ivy Farm Cottages) with his wife (who we always called Mrs. Ron) and their son Royston became close family friends. With us having a hot water system and bath etc. and them without one at that time, they used to spend an evening once a week with us and use ours. We used to help each other with our car repairs and we were more like two brothers than employer and employee.
In the spring of the year before Christopher was born, Dad, Ron and I built a beach hut in sections in the barn and this was taken to Wells and erected on the beach there. The following Sunday it was duly named 'PHOTIB' after the first initials of my mother, father, Olive, myself, Irene and of course, the B for Beven.
After we had done all work that was necessary with the cows and poultry on a Sunday morning, we would all go and spend the day at Wells. It was quite a large gathering as there would be, mum and dad, Olive and generally a friend, Ron, Mrs. Ron and Royston also Irene and myself. We certainly had some good times together.
A few years later, Mrs. Ron wanted to take a full time position as a District Nurse in Dereham and as there was a house provided with the job, they moved there. Unfortunately this meant that Ron had to stop working at Ivy farm as he could not continue carrying out his duties living so far away.
Mrs. Ron's next position was outside Dereham and as there was no house with this one, they bought a house in Brisley. It was about a mile or so away from our farm.
When my father was in need of someone at Brancaster House he contacted Ron and he started working back with us again. It was not quite the same as I spent most of my time at Ivy Farm and he spent his at Brancaster House, but we came across each other most days.
It never worried Ron what time he left off and often stayed late to finish a job, except at lunch time when you could set your watch by the time he went home at noon to have lunch with his wife, who by then had finished her morning round. She would then do her afternoon round when Ron had returned to work at one o'clock.
I had nearly finished lunch one day when the telephone rang and on picking up the receiver, I found it was dad, by his voice I knew something dreadful had happened. "I saw Ron's motor cycle still in the yard and when I went up the poultry field to see why he had not gone home, I found him lying on the ground dead" said dad. I was shattered and did not know what to say. Dad went on "I have phoned Dr. Earle and he is now on his way." I put the phone down and cycled down the road to Brancaster House.
Just as I went into the yard, Dr. Earle and dad were returning from the poultry field. "Terrible thing" said Dr. Earle as I approached him.
I was suddenly distracted as a cycle came into the yard and who should it be, but Ron's son Royston. The thought was running through my mind 'Who is going to tell him, poor boy" when Dr. Earle said to me "Thomas go and tell Royston, that Ron has been delayed and he should go home."
I walked across to Royston and told him. He said "Mother thought I should come and see what was the matter as she was sure something dreadful had happened" and he turned his cycle around and rode out of the yard.
Dr. Earle agreed to call in and see Mrs. Ron and break the sad news to her on his way home. I went indoors with dad and we talked over the timing of the events that morning. All of us had seen Ron that morning at 11 o'clock, he was all right then and dad had seen him drive the tractor and trailer into the poultry field to clean up the poultry droppings. This he always did once a week, when the poultry free range arks were moved on to clean sites. When dad found him, he still had a shovel in one hand and must have died suddenly.
I answered the telephone and it was Dr. Earle who said he had told Mrs. Ron and she would like to see Ron before the police took him away to Norwich for a post-mortem. She wanted me to pick her up and take her to see Ron.
Dad and I went up the field and took a tarpaulin to cover up the poultry manure where Ron had fallen and also a blanket to cover him up with. I then went to collect her and when she turned the key in her door and came down the path towards me, we looked at each other and did not know what to say. It was only after we were in the car and not looking at each other we found we were able to speak.
I took her arm as we went across the field as I could see it was a terrible strain for her and then she knelt on the tarpaulin and drew back the blanket and said "Oh Ron!"
Pulling the blanket further down his body, she let out a cry of exclamation "What is he doing in that awful jacket? I have not seen it in years." I told her how Ron always wore this old jacket when he was cleaning out the poultry and changed before going home. "We can't let him go away in that awful thing" she said, and went on, “We must put his other one on. Will you lend me a hand?"
I went and got his other jacket and between the two of us we did just manage it and while taking off his old one his watch fell to the ground. Picking it up Mrs. Ron put it in her pocket and took it home with her.
It was well past 4 o’clock when the mortuary van and the police turned up and I took them to where Ron lay. The police sergeant uncovered Ron and the van driver opened the rear doors of the van and pulled out the largest coffin I had ever seen. It was really a metal box with a lid the shape of a coffin and the inside was lined with rubber, to enable it to be washed out many times and also big enough to hold the largest person.
"Right" said the policeman "I shall want you to witness the contents of his pockets" and went on to list these as he went through Ron's pockets.
Pushing up his left sleeve the policeman, turned to me and said "Note there is no watch on his wrist." and went on "By the white mark on his wrist he normally wears one. Have you seen it?" I told him what Mrs. Ron had requested and how she had the watch. Did I get an earful? Surely I knew that nothing should be touched. I then had to make a statement and sign it.
With Ron's love for Horningtoft, Mrs. Ron arranged for him to be interned in Horningtoft Churchyard and she went to live in Dereham where she did, and still does, help other people needing help and care.
During the winter month at the end of 1956 and the beginning of 1957 I spent my spare time designing a grain installation and worked hard in the spring and summer of 1957 installing it. We did have mains electricity, but it was only 230 volts and there was a limited supply, which had to be borne in mind when designing the installation. I wanted something that was as automatic as possible and, bearing this in mind, I devised a wiring system that would allow two eight horse power motors to work off one set of starter switches via a change over switch. The drier held six tons of grain in two three ton containers. Using motors for dual purposes, the corn was dried, cleaned and then conveyed to the storage silos, without any supervision.
An article was written in one of the trade magazines about my efforts and to top the lot, the Great Britain Institute of Electrical Engineers had their annual outing at my farm to see the installation. Members came from all over the country. It was indeed an honour.
I was always inventing something or other, a plough to fix on the side of a tractor, to enable me to plough just that little bit nearer the hedge. A couple of mangold harvesters, these were good. Mangolds were always harvested by hand in the autumn and put in clamps, covered up with straw, a coating of soil and then they were taken out when required during the winter.
The first harvester was pulled behind a tractor and driven by the power take off. As mangolds grow on top of the soil and not in the ground like sugar beet, they had to be handled a lot more delicately. It was not so easy to cut the tops off, as their size varied so much. It was also important that they were handled more carefully, so as not to bruise them. It used to load them straight into the trailer, but its main downfall was keeping it in a straight line.
I used it for two seasons and then made mark two. This was mounted direct on the back of the tractor and again it was driven from the tractor's power take off and really did go well.
Cutting kale in all weathers during the winter months was a wet and miserable task, it was this I had a go at next. After cutting the kale in the fields and carting it to the barn, it had to be put through a cutter to chop it up, into about half inch lengths, to be carried in bushel size wicker baskets into the mangers for the cows to eat.
How was the best and easiest way to get the standing kale in the field into the mangers? If I used a machine to cut the kale and cut it up into short lengths in the fields, at the same time loading it into a trailer, I could take it direct into the cow yard and put it in the cow’s mangers.
I tried with an old rusty silage blower, which I bought at a farm auction and the idea was feasible. I then bought a new silage blower, which was tractor mounted and modified this to cut kale and blow it into the trailer behind the tractor. Before going along the road back to the farm I would drop the cutting part, which stuck out of the side and 'Home James' it, would be. Lids were fitted to the mangers and it was possible to fill them up when I was ready and then the cows could have their feed when they had all been milked.
The harvest of 1957 was a drawn out affair and the last of the straw was safely stored away on the morning of Saturday the 21st. of September at precisely 11am. I remember the time clearly. I looked at my watch as the last bale of straw was hoisted into the Dutch barn as I did not want to be late for the festive occasion that was going to take place that afternoon. It was to be the occasion when my sister would change her name from Beven and take the name of Mrs. Kenneth Tuck. The service was held in Horningtoft church and then we all travelled to Dereham for the reception.
Olive and Kenneth started their married life living with Kenneth’s mother in the Tuck family farm in Brisley and at a later date moved to Horningtoft, firstly living in No2 Ivy Farm and then in Langmoor cottage, before taking over the Beven family home (Brancaster House) after the demise of my parents in 1973.
I bought an old broken down Ford van, with the engine in pieces for £5 and it was one of the best investments I have ever made. It was worth its weight in gold, as it gave Christopher and Graham knowledge they would not have had, except for this purchase.
By this time I had bought the disused Methodist chapel that was situated in the heater corner. Some of you youngsters might wonder how the naming of heater corners, came about. Well! Early irons used to have a triangular shaped lump of iron, which used to be placed right in an open fire to heat and then it was put inside a casing with a handle and used to iron clothes. It was after these heaters that corners in Norfolk of a similar shape became known as heater corners.
As the chapel was just across the road to Ivy Farm I had turned it into a workshop. This I fitted out with oxy acetylene and electric welding equipment, together with air compressing, paint spraying and the other usual workshop equipment. An inspection pit was dug and was concreted and as the water table was higher than the level of the bottom of the pit in winter months, it used to have water in it during that part of the year. Fortunately, I had sunk a two gallon can in one corner of the pit and it could be pumped dry when it was needed during those months.
After towing the van home, we pushed it into the workshop and from there on the "Boys" spent all their spare time, either pulling it to pieces or putting it together again. Yes, they got it to go and around the meadow it was to be raced. Engineering, cars and racing were planted in their blood and were to mould their lives, as they constantly worked on the van.
When Christopher was almost seventeen it was time to get him on the road as a motorist. There being a lot more cars on the road than in my time, it was important that he had correct tuition on how to drive. My knowledge was only by experience and Irene and I gave him as a birthday present a set of driving lessons. I had an Austin 1800 at that time and not wishing to have any embarrassing moments with it and the thoughts that it would not take many weeks before Christopher would be driving himself, I went to Fakenham and purchased a black Ford Popular registration WPW 343 for £50.
Terrible as it may seem now, I used to sit in the front and Irene and the three children in the back of that little car and off we would go to let him have some experience of driving before taking his test. With all his knowledge of cars etcetera Christopher passed first time, what else would you expect?
That spring of 1967 was also to be quite an experience for me and it all started so innocently one sunny morning as I was looking up the field at Brancaster house. To my amazement a car stopped and after a man got out he vaulted over the hedge and wire netting, caught six 'point of lay' pullets and after mounting the fence again, took off in the car with them. I was dumb founded.
Not meaning to let them get away with it. I got on my cycle and cycled up the road to High House and after starting my car I took chase. I was able to see that they had gone straight over at the cross road at the church and were heading for the main Dereham, Fakenham road. Fortunately I was able to see them turn left towards Fakenham and when I had also turned left, I saw their car again in the distance turning right towards Gatley. My car being far superior to theirs and my thoughts of getting them, I made the distance between the two cars smaller as time went by.
I was right up behind them when we got to the next village and I continued sounding the car horn, hoping to get them to stop, as it was my intention to make a citizen's arrest. One of the three occupants of the car looked out of the back and then threw a Corona bottle at my car. I moved over to the right and the bottle went sailing across the road on to the grass verge. Keeping up close to them I saw the man in the back doing something, what it was I was not sure, but I was soon to find out. He was assembling a twelve bore gun and this he put out of the side window and as his driver swerved to the right he blasted at me. My reactions were fast and thankfully the shots went down the side of the car and not into the front, hitting the radiator.
Determined to keep on following them, I continued behind them into the countryside and then they turned into a dead end. I followed and stopped in a position so that they could not get out. I was properly stumped. What should I do now? The only good thing I had achieved was, I had now seen the three of them and I would be able to recognise them again. Out of their car suddenly jumped a man with the gun and whether it was in fright or determination, I do not know, but I stayed my ground and did not drive away.
In those days there was no central locking of the doors in cars and as I had only opened the driving side door, I pushed the catch down, making myself feel a lot more secure. He came across and banged on the window with his fist, shouting "What are you going to do now?" There was nothing I could do other than let them out as we were in the middle of nowhere and this I did. After they drove off, I decided to follow them again and this time at a reasonable distance. It was not long before they pulled on to the side of the road, stopped and pointed the gun out of the window. I had to give in and put my foot down hard on the accelerator and went past as fast as I could. Only to hear over the roar of the engine a loud bang as they fired another shot at me. Their judgement was not good and they missed my car completely.
I decided to go straight to Fakenham police station and report the matter and after travelling about a mile along the road, who should I see, none other than the local Bobby cycling towards me. I stopped and told him what had happened and he replied "Go straight to Fakenham and report it, I will take chase and see if I can get them." As I cranked up the window I nearly burst out laughing at the thoughts of him chasing them in their car, armed with his truncheon held high, especially, as he was grossly over weight.
After I had made my statement at the police station, I went home. That night was to be a complete sleepless one, as I listened to every car that came past, thinking that at any minute something would be hurled through my bedroom window as they vented their revenge on me.
Little did I know that road blocks had been set up and as I had been able to tell the police the type of car, its registration Number and a good description of the three occupants, they were now under lock and key in Dereham police station?
Next morning after I had done the milking, I was at home having breakfast, when the telephone rang and it was the police at Dereham, wanting me to come to the station and have a look at three men they had arrested during the previous night.
After I arrived at the police station I was taken down to the cells and told not to say a word and look through the peep holes into three cells and let them know what I saw, after we returned to the office. Yes, they were the three all right and when I went into the yard at the back of the police station, there was their car. Little did I know at the time I made the chase that they were wanted for other robberies throughout Norfolk and two of them were a ruthless pair.
Dereham Magistrates Court was the next thing and the abuse I had thrown at me by one of them made me feel I was the villain. He said he was going to get even with me one day.
The case finally came up at the Quarter Sessions in Norwich, where Mr. Robert Ives the chairman, gave me a formal congratulation for my "commendable bravery" in pursuing the three men in their car, I glowed with pride. When announcing the sentences, Mr. Ives gave the corrupt pair, two years for stealing the chickens, three years for other offences and six months for firing a shotgun at me. I felt terrible, to think the theft of stealing six chickens, warranted a jail sentence of two years and an offence of shooting at a member of the public only six months. Jointly it was no doubt fair as the six months was to run consecutively.
By now Graham had followed Christopher from the Fakenham Secondary School to the Technical College at Kings Lynn. They were weekly boarders and as Christopher had passed his driving test they used to take the car with them, instead of taking the bus there and back as they had done in the past.
When Graham was seventeen, I offered him a set of driving lessons as a birthday present, like Christopher had the previous year. "I think I will take the test first, if you don't mind" he replied and this he did on his birthday and passed. Their No.2 car was purchased and they looked very proud in their Mini as they drove down the road.
Over the past few years, I had been very busy converting the building at Ivy farm from being used for cows to pigs. Dad always said that it was necessary to have cows, as they brought in regular monthly cheques to live off and pay the wages bill. This I could never understand, because, supposing all your money came in one month, you could eke it out over the next twelve months. Dad had no financial interest in the farm for several years and Irene and I were joint partners, although we still traded under the partnership name of H. S. Beven and Son.
Cows were a very personal thing and as much as they were milked by machine they did not like being milked by anyone except me. We decided that we would have a half-day off each week and this would alternate between Saturday and Sunday. It really was very nice and we thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon off, even if we spent it indoors by the fire when it was cold and windy outside.
It was impossible to live off of the arable acreage of the farm and it needed something else to be able to survive. Pigs, I thought would be the answer and then I could have complete weekends off and they would keep on fattening and my revenue would not drop.
I already had the grain drying and storage facilities, also the automatic milling and mixing plant. The question was which type of fattening should I go into, pork, bacon or heavy hog production. Pork and bacon needed daily restricted feeding, whereas heavy hogs need add lib. Bulk feeders could be filled up before the weekend and left for two to three days. Yes, it's heavy hogs for me.
No 3 Ivy Farm Cottage was now empty as Olive had taken over the poultry farm from dad and she did not want the cottage for a worker. It was here that I started the pig enterprise, by turning the two rooms downstairs into farrowing pens.
The type of pig I wanted for fattening, was a cross bred animal and it had to have certain criteria: The breeding sows needed mothering ability. The pigs for slaughter needed leanness and fast growth potential. The Wessex had good mothering ability, the Landrace was a good lean animal and the Large White, was a good robust pig with good growth potential.
The die was cast, I would buy Wessex, a black breed with a white saddle, which would be mated with a Landrace boar and then I would raise the females and, at the appropriate time, mate these with a Large White boar.
The sows were housed outside on part of one of the pastures and I made huts for them live in. To this day they are made the same and can be seen around the fields in Norfolk, where farmers now practice an outdoor system.
It was always my intention to take the sows into the farrowing pens in the old No3, but on many occasions they used to beat me to it and farrow in the huts that were nice and cosy. You can imagine what you like, but the sows used to move these huts around and whether it was to get the doorway facing away from the wind or not, I do not know.
I used to alternate the use of the farrowing pens, between the ex living room and the ex sitting room and with a good clean, it kept the bugs at bay. Railing off about three feet along one side, I made an area heated by infra-red lamps, where the young pigs could sleep in safety from being laid upon by their mothers.
One problem was that some sows will kill their young, if they get too close to their mouths, as they lay there in agony. So fitted movable partitions in the farrowing pens, which gave the sows as wide a pen as possible without giving them enough room to turn around in. At their rear end I also put one of the infra-red lamps to warm the piglets as they came into the world and by having the room in darkness, except for the lamps in the crèche area and at the rear of the sows, the piglets were attracted to the light during pigging and left their mother alone. It was a vast improvement and the survival rate went up by leaps and bounds.
In those days piglets were kept with their mothers until they were eight weeks of age and I started with this. I soon found out that there must be a better way of rearing piglets than this system, as it had several disadvantages. The piglets were in their natural way rather vicious and with their two mini eye teeth used to bite, not only their brothers and sisters as they fought for a pecking order at the milk bar, but also did damage to their mother as well.
Piglets are born short of iron and need an injection of iron within the first week of their life and I started taking the tops off of the eye teeth at the same time as I did the injections and this stopped the gashes the piglets used to inflict on each other.
The male pigs had to be castrated and, thankfully, it was not like years gone by as there were now sprays available to anaesthetise the area before making the incisions. Again old ideas of doing this at six weeks were not really a suitable time. Sows sometimes come on season on the third day after farrowing, again at three weeks and also at six weeks. Finally they come on season three days after the piglets are weaned and thereafter at three weekly cycles. There is a tendency for the piglets to experience digestive upsets for about two days each time.
I decided to try a new routine which was to give the injection, cut the teeth and, at the same time, castrate the males at about the sixth day after being born. The only technique I had to master was the castration of the males, when the testicles were only about five eighths of an inch long, as opposed to some inch or more in length at six weeks. "You will never do it" everyone told me. This was not the case and, though doubtless the incision was in proportion in both cases, the incision in the younger pig was naturally smaller and there was less risk of infection. The mortality rate was far less without the awful experience when castrating a highly strung litter at six weeks, when I have known as many as four of them to drop dead with heart failure.
Fattening pens were the next necessity and I decided to convert a row of loose boxes for this use. The first thing I did was to put in an insulated floor as the pigs were to be housed in a straw free environment and there was to be a movable partition with a bulk feeder attached so as to enlarge the area as the pigs grew. The ceilings were also insulated with four inches of glass fibre. Making holes through the wall to the outside, I then made a channel about three feet wide, the whole length of the four boxes and at the end dug a septic tank some eight feet deep to hold the slurry. In this dunging channel I connected a water supply which had a ball, controlled by a flap that the pigs used to push when they wanted some water.
With food available in the living part and water also available twenty four hours a day, they had a contented life. Most of the time the pigs kept themselves in a clean condition, except when the weather was too hot and then they would lay in the channel. It was to get their skins damp as this is the only way a pig can cool itself. They neither perspired nor have the ability to pant like a dog to cool themselves. Yes, this trial worked well and the pigs fattened faster in these well designed pens.
A contract had been agreed with Walls and when the pigs were at the weight required by them they were taken by cattle float to Old Oak Lane in London. Two days later a cheque was on the doormat. Now I had to decide, if I was going to keep the cows, or change completely over to pigs. With the thought of having at least one day off each week, or perhaps a complete weekend off say, every other weekend, I decided pigs were for me.
It was one of those jobs that was very enjoyable at the start and then grew rather monotonous as time went by. I think it took over forty gallons to get round once. The end product was always very good and pleasing to the eye, not to mention the way it must have preserved the wood as the houses which I thought would have a ten year life are today still looking sound after some 27 or 28 years.
The farm would never be big enough to provide a living for both myself and the boys and what with their bent towards engineering and their desire to go to University; I felt my days were numbered at Ivy Farm.
When they came home one weekend I got the two boys together and asked them how they would feel, if they came home one weekend and I told them I was going to sell up and see how green the grass was on the other side of the fence. "Don't blame you dad" came the reply "You and mother should have some holidays like other people do."
Within twenty four hours of announcing that I was going to sell up, I had two companies contact me, wondering if I would like to join them. One happened to be Walls. They wanted a financial administration manager for their pig research programme and this I accepted. I was to start with them in September 1969.
The farm was sold in several lots, a large block of arable land to the Bernard Matthews Turkey empire, another block to Strangroom Brothers of Whissonsett and the pig farm and the pigs was sold as a going concern to Philip Richardson. Phillip started farming there; straight from university and now lives in the Wymondham area.
It was a big decision to take and after looking at houses in Hertfordshire, Irene and I purchased 27 Longdean Park, Hemel Hempstead. This was a new development with privately maintained roads and verges. The plots were divided into more or less acre sizes and the person building on the plot had to build a house of a different design, to any other on the estate. It was a spacious development, but at first it was to seem to me to be rather claustrophobic after the expanse of country life in Norfolk.
Mum and dad had gone off on holiday just before I left so that they would not be there when I went away to Hemel and as I walked about the farm over the last few days my thoughts travelled back over my life there and various little things started flowing through my mind.
Thankfully my bank balance had been in the black now for a few years and we had enjoyed a life, not quite as austere as it had been in the first few years of married life. Irene was always making clothes for the boys out of parts of old ones and had a knitting machine on which she made jumpers etc. for other people to supplement our income.
I would do anything to earn an extra bob or two which varied from once digging a grave for George Drew, the local builder near the church. The person who normally dug them for him was laid up with the flu and off I went with spade and shovel. "I like them nice and tidy" said George as he gave me a template of the exact size of the coffin. In those days the undertaker would measure the body and then all coffins were made to measure, not like today, where they are the same as suits, ready made in factories.
"Just big enough for it to slip in nicely. Not too big mind you, or for that matter too tight, as I don't want it to get stuck" were my final instructions. I have never been so glad when I got to the depth required for the grave; it was real hard work - never again.
We were Clerks to the Parish Councils of Horningtoft and Brisley also we did the Electoral Register for both parishes.
Then there was the time when television started to be transmitted from Norwich when I changed several people’s aerials. The first thing was to take down the big London aerials which were over eight feet across, and cut the antenna down and also to change it from being able to receive a vertical signal to one that would receive a horizontal signal and then erecting them facing the Norwich transmitter.
The final day was here; the furniture was packed and collected by Whites, to be delivered to Hemel the following morning. High House was empty and I turned the key for the last time. It was sad saying 'Good Bye' and the tears were still rolling down my cheeks as I went through Whissonsett.
Little did I know as I went out of Norfolk that Thomas was not to be Thomas any more?
