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Kath's interesting memories.

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Kath's interesting memories.

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Memories of life on a Yorkshire Wolds Farm

Interesting Memories

by the late
Kathleen Corner

I have many memories of life on a Yorkshire Wolds Farm in the 1930's. It was a very organised life.
My father farmed about 315 acres of farm for 15 years.
At first I was at school, but on reaching 14 years old I left school and helped my mother in the farm house. We had no Foreman's house, so the farm men lived in our house and we did all the cooking for them.

The year began at Martinmas (Nov 23rd) this was the day the men were paid for their years work, and if asked to work another year they bargained for the amount they will work for. They had about a fortnights holiday, when great festivities took place, the market towns had their hirings when everyone merged. Driffield would be packed, the streets one mass of people, everyone greeting friends, lots who only met once a year.
The pubs and shops did a roaring trade, the men would buy their clothes etc. for the year and a few luxuries they couldn't afford any other time.
There would be roundabouts and sideshows, great flirtings with the lads and lassies. It was also a popular time for marriages for to get a house a man had to find a job on a farm with a tyde cottage to it, which went with it.

After Martinmas we would be getting ready for Christmas. Usually we would kill a pig, with all the cooking and mincing of pork for pies, and fat for rendering for lard and the scraps that were eaten with meat they were quite tasty, when all the fat was out of them. Nothing was wasted, the sides and hams were put onto the pantry floor, salt was rubbed into them and they were left for about a fortnight or three weeks then taken up out of the salt and hung up to the kitchen ceiling rafters to dry. They were left there and pieces cut off as we wanted to cook it.

The Christmas puddings, cake, mincemeat and spice bread was made usually whilst the men were on martinmas holiday.
We had to pluck the geese and ducks for Christmas, some of them went to market live, but others had to be plucked and dressed, some for our own use others for sale.
My father always bought a huge cock turkey (between 20 and 30 lbs) for Christmas dinner, but we would have geese, cockerels or ducks for most of the week, right up to the New Year.
We did lots and lots of cooking and feasting, but didn't have present giving like we do today, when we were young we hung a stocking up on Christmas eve, it would be filled with an orange, an apple, some nuts with maybe some pencils, crayons or such and a book or a small doll.
It wasn't until after the middle thirties that we exchanged gifts, I think it began in the towns before this, but not on the scale it does today.
January and February were ordinary months for work with a few threshing days and usually another pig killing to be seen to.

On threshing day a great steam engine with a threshing machine and elevator in tow would trundle into the stack yard.
When the three men with it had got the threshing machine set in place near a corn stack, they would come into the farm house for a meal, then the next day along with some extra threshing men, who followed it round from farm to farm they would, set on and thresh the stack, two men dealing with the corn which was caught in huge sacks. Two men dealing with the straw, two or three men would put the sheave on to the thresher and one man would cut the strings on the sheaves and one man feed the sheaves into the thresher. Two men would carry the chaff away from under the thresher, usually a young boy would lead water and coal to the steam engine and the driver would keep it stoked up to keep the steam up to turn the thresher.

At mid morning we had to take out a bucket of tea and a basket of food and mugs for the men and again in mid afternoon.
We had to feed the three main threshing men along with our own men for the three main meals of the day. We had between 10 and 15 days like this during the winter.
March we would have chickens to rear, it would also be lambing time when we would often be called on to help feed orphaned lambs with milk from a bottle with a teat on the end.
Spring cleaning was a very busy time when the house was cleaned from top to bottom, every room was turned out and everything that could be was washed, we had a lot of distempered walls and ceilings when you swept the dust down the distemper used to sweep down as well in clouds of dust, this all had to be cleaned up before you could re distemper, I wish the modern emulsions had been invented then., it would have saved some hard work.

In May we washed all the blankets off the beds.

Kath never finished this for reasons unknown.


Copyright © 2018 Pauline Hinson
(Pauline is Kathleen's Daughter).
Kathleen was born in 1918
and died in 2008.