Recollections of Barwick 2 Back to the Main Historical Society page
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Recollections of Barwick


PART 2. THE FARMING LIFE.

Barwicker No13 March 1989


During our first harvest at Barwick tragedy came in the death of "Captain", our chestnut Shire horse. I remember it so well because I, alone, was with him at the end. We were in the middle of harvesting work in a field some distance from the farm when the horse showed symptoms of colic so I was instructed to take him home and on no account allow him to lie down, The "vet." was in Leeds so that kind of help would not come quickly. For hours I led that great horse the length of the yard and stock-yard and back, more times than I know, always keeping him on the move, his huge body dark with sweat from the pain until, suddenly, he collapsed sideways and was dead at once. In those days the knacker-man paid £1.0.0 for a dead horse. A suitable cart-horse, "trained in all gears", replacement would cost £30.0.0. or more and may be difficult to find at short notice.

Captain was such an exceptional horse that we never did find a "full" replacement for him. He was so large, powerful, good-natured and continued to pull when other horses had given up. I remember an occasion when we used him to apply tension to the wire before: stapling to the fencing posts. He pulled so hard that the barbed wire began to diminish in gauge, stretching like a strand of old- fashioned toffee.

A replacement was found and in a very short time he escaped death in a most extraordinary incident. He was a handsome bay gelding with a large white "blaze" on the face and white "socks", obtained for us by Fred Reed, from Thomas Adamson, farmer and horse dealer of Stanks. "Prince", as we named him, had probably been used in general haulage for he preferred the ring of his hooves on the hard highway to the soft going of fields. However we soon got used to him and he adapted very well to become a valuable farm horse.

We were hauling corn to the farm from one of the more distant fields when it happened. Prince was in the shafts of a heavily laden cart with a trace horse in front, when the wheels began to bite into a soft area of stubble. He was not used to this unyielding load and, in straining, lifted his forefeet together from the ground. This altered the balance of the load and almost immediately the cart tipped backwards with the shafts pointing to the sky and the horse, caught by the collar now tightly under his throat, with his forelegs off the ground. It was a very difficult situation.

What added to the difficulty, and was partly to blame for the tip-up, was the design of the cart's harvest accessories. It was the best cart in the village and, beside the usual "shelvings", it had a large upright frame fore and aft which prevented horizontal movement of the load. As usual the load was also secured by ropes. It was obviously impossible to remove the load quickly enough as the horse was strangling but, after a frantic few minutes our hired man, Fred Haw, managed to knock out the "slot-pin" which allowed the shafts to drop and the animal back onto four feet.

That was the first I heard a horse scream in terror. It was a chilling, desperate sound which I long remembered.

It was commonly said that a horse was the most difficult thing to buy as good looks were no guarantee. At a sale my father took a chance on a 7 year old bay mare described in the catalogue as "16.3 hands: quiet in all gears". She was quite run down and emaciated so went for the modest price of 9 ¾ guineas. All through the summer she grazed and lazed in the fields until her coat was glossy over a well-fleshed frame. Quiet in all gears she may have been, she did not object to wearing a harness or being yoked, but she turned out to be worst jibber I ever saw. Quite suddenly she would switch to reverse in a most unstoppable way, whether in a field or on the highway, which could be very dangerous behaviour. On one occasion she had gone a half-mile or so from the farm when, on Potterton Lane hill, she started to back, causing the wagon to "jack-knife" and, pinning my father, who was sitting at the front corner, by the legs and, in danger of being crushed. There was time only for one action. I gave the mare a swift jab in the buttock with a pitchfork which, most fortunately, was lying near to hand. That was enough! She changed direction and injury was averted.

There could only be a sad outcome to her career and the "final straw" came during her last appearance in harness. She was tried yoked, with three other horses, in pairs, to the self-binder harvester and caused chaos by suddenly backing down a slope. In the melee of equine limbs and hooves the mare received a knock which caused the loss of an eye so she was sold as soon as the wound healed.

We were close neighbours of the Reed family and that was literally so because only a stone wall separated their yard from our. stock-yard. Fred, senior, had a pleasant, sometimes "dry" sense of humour and enjoyed a chat with us. I recall him well: slight of build, no doubt "wiry" in his earlier years, the kind of moustache which is fashionable today, his well-worn "pork-pie" hat and waistcoat attire. He was an interesting raconteur with amusing nick-names for many local people and I wish I could remember some of the tales he told us. One remark I do remember. Just as he came into the yard one day he had a short coughing attack and said to me, in his comical way, "Hey Billy, I don't think I sh'll allus live!" He died within a year of that comment. I also remember one of those nick-names; a certain local business man he called "Self and Henry" because that was how he lived: one half for himself and the other for Henry (also himself).


Arthur Prince, father of William, harvesting oats off Aberford Road, with the Church in the background.
Riding postillion is Fred Maw, the hired man.

Alfred Reed - commonly known as "Bill" - was about 2 years my senior and our first common interest was tame rabbits. With the co-operation of his Chinchilla buck and our does we produced lots of litters . At one time we - including my two younger brothers - had 28 rabbits comprising Angora, Chinchilla, Dutch and English breeds. Bill I best remember for his wealth of curly, blond-auburn hair and fresh, pink, country complexion.

The Reeds and the Princes got along very well together but their dogs did not. The neighbours had a large Airedale terrier which could not tolerate the sight of our yard dog, a handsome smooth-haired black, tan and white cross-bred of about the same weight, and whenever they met there was a battle. As the Airedale was there first we finally exchanged ours for another sheep-dog.

And after all the years those places of my youth still come so vividly to mind. The stock-yard with its Dutch barns, scene of countless harvests and threshing days, extending between the orchards of Reeds on one side and Perkins on the other, to a paddock which has now been obliterated by an estate of houses. It may be of passing interest to some of those new freeholders to know that once, when we let permission to "Proctor's Travelling Circus", piebald and skewbald horses had run rings over the foundations of these houses.

In harvest and threshing times a stackyard could be a dangerous place, especially when hearing was "blurred" by the noise of steam-driven machinery. The case of Rusby, a well-known worker on threshing sets in the Barwick area, was an example of breaking the rules. In attempting, by the "easy way", to put the drive onto the fly-wheel whilst the traction engine was "ticking over", he had an arm torn off. He not only survived the accident but later resumed working with the same threshing set. He learned to control the corn spouts, tie up the mouths of the sacks and carry the grain, usually up a flight of stairs into the granary, with one arm.

In those days medical help was usually very remote from the farm and few people were trained in "first aid". Such was the case with Rusby (I never knew his first name) but I was told by someone who was there, on foot and by public transport and accompanied by a friend who carried the arm, he went directly to Leeds Infirmary. That one could call a miracle but, knowing Rusby as a tough countryman that he was, I have never doubted the truth of it. Rusby's favourite spare-time activity continued to be shooting rabbits and wood pigeons with a double-barrelled 12 bore shotgun.

I remember another threshing day incident. A threshing machine required two men on top: the "feeder" who ran the cornstalks through his hands into the "mouth" and the "band-cutter" who cut the binder-twine of every individual sheaf as it was pitch-forked from the stack. The feeder stood in a little "well" so that he was lower than the band-cutter who stood to his left or right according to the position of the cornstack. Having to handle a sheaf every few seconds required great care and precise coo- per~tion between these two workers. To allow the sheaf to go into the machine without spreading the flow of stalks would cause a noisy "bump" reaction and an angry shout from the owner of the threshing set.

The feeder was employed by the threshing contactor as he was always second man on the footplate when the traction engine travelled the highway. He had lunch in the farmhouse with the contractor and the farmer's family as well as having the easiest job on the set. Tbe other workers were casually hired by the farmer according to his needs.

I have often worked as band-cutter alongside Jack Casson on Jos. Armitage's threshing set and found complete co-operation in work and most entertaining comment above the hum of the machinery. Jack was so intelligent, so much "Yorkshire" and so sharp with witty comment as to remind me of "Last of the Summer Wine". But once he did a very silly thing. We had finished threshing for the day and Jack was clearing the top of the machine of straw and he put the tines of the pitchfork into the feeder mouth. The engine was still running at working revolutions so, with a report like cannon-shot, the head of the fork was snapped off and devoured by the drum while the shattered ash handle was hurled for dozens of yards up the stockyard, I was more fortunate than poor Rusby but so near to being killed when the splintered haft missed me by inches.

An amusing incident comes to mind. I was in Leeds one day and saw Jack Casson cross the road from the Bus Station. He saw me and called a greeting as we passed, when suddenly, from beneath his jacket collar, appeared a mouse which leapt to the pavement much to the apprehension of all the ladies nearby. The hard pavements of Vicar Lane must have come as a rude shock after its home in some distant, warm corn-stack.

We had 110 acres of land, of which about 70 acres were arable, and a typical threshing day team was as follows.

A: the engine man, who was usually the owner of the set; he controlled the running of the steam engine.
B: the Feeder (second man).
C: The Band-cutter.
D: 2 Corn carriers.
E: 2 men who forked the sheaves onto the machine.
F: 1 or 2 men at the "Tier End" who moved the "bats" of threshed straw to a stack.
G: 1 or 2 men who stacked the bats.
H: the Chaff and Pulse carrier.

Between times someone had the responsibility for barrowing coal to the engine and topping up the water tank. The bats were singly tied, round bundles, about 3 or 4 times the weight of a corn sheaf, which were ejected automatically by the tier (from the verb "to tie" and pronounced accordingly>. The tierman's job was the most unpopular because in many cases it was by far the hardest and the workman was constantly in the flow of dust and organic debris which was fanned out of the machine. At the end of the day it was usual for him to look like a coal-miner and to have a dry, filthy lining on the back of the throat Many lung complaints must surely have arisen from this work.

Chaff was raked from under the thresher onto a large square of hessian and carried by gathering together the four corners, It and the "pulse" (threshed corn heads), which was carried the same way, was only used for pig and poultry bedding. The best long unbroken wheat straw was saved for thatching; the poorer for bedding horses and cattle. Oat straw was always used as winter cattle fodder but that of barley only fit for pigs' bedding. Barley straw was said to make animals lousy. Whenever lice appeared along the ridge of a pig's back we would pour a trickle of linseed oil among them thus annointed the lice would gorge themselves to death.

In those times I also learned about one of the most uncomfortable forms of transport. By law there had to be two persons on the footplate of one of those steam threshing engines when the set was moving on the highway and Jos. Armitage asked if I would act as second man on the journey back to Scholes on an occasion when Casson was not available. I did so and found the combination. of steam power and massive iron-cleated wheels on hard road, created a vibration which seemed to joggle every bone in the body. It was obviously a mode of travel one had to get used to as I could feel the effects in my joints for days.

When threshing operations got down to the last remnants of the corn stack there was the opportunity for man. dog and cat to seek vengeance on the community of vermin which had multiplied in warmth and prosperity. For all the enthusiasm of the dogs and the stabbing tines of the pitch forks the rats were usually too numerous to be wiped out and many found refuge in the adjacent unthatched stacks. The most efficient rat-slayers were the terriers brought along by the villagers who always appeared at the time of the kill. Some horses were terrified of steam engines, especially when they were on the move, and encountering a threshing set on the highway could lead to an awkward sometimes dangerous experience. I remember an occasion in my school days when I was with father, in the milk-float, with "Punch", a half-legged bay gelding, who sometimes took a turn on the arable cultivation, in the shafts. We were on a quiet, country road, and suddenly the horse pricked up its ears, detecting the sound of an approaching traction engine sooner than we did. Knowing Punch's horror of steam engines I steeled myself for the passing. The horse became more and more reluctant to go forward and finally started to rear, buck and kick in a manner likely to overturn the float and our cargo of forty gallons of milk into the gutter. When the engine passed, Punch gave a last, bounding kick and set off at a mad gallop - on three legs - away from the object' of terror. In the final kick he had hooked a rear leg over the shaft and, in that manner, galloped another half mile or more before being pulled up and set back on four hooves.

In the early 1930's Barwick had another threshing contractor in Mr Clayton of Syke House Farm who, in the season, travelled Shire stallions. He gave up farming and moved to carry on his other business from a bleak, open site at Whinmoor where he had a few acres with the homestead. When he last called on us at Church Farm I held the stallion while he went indoors with my father. I remember that horse so well because I still have a snapshot of him and because of what befell him. He was a typical bay Shire with a white face and feet, 17.2 hands high, who had sired a foal to one of our mares. I cannot remember his name, but it will be recorded in the archives of the Shire Horse Society at Peterborough.

Mr Clayton had another Shire stallion, a black named "Airedale King Cole" who was slightly taller than the bay. He too was a magnificent specimen and I remember how sleek and glossy he always looked when he travelled through Barwick. Whether by chance or design those two great horses were allowed into the same field and what happened could be described as the "Second Battle of Whinmoor". Mr Clayton who lived alone, was probably the only witness of that fight between two entire horses each weighing a ton or more. It must have been horrific and, at the end, the bay was dead.

Another stallion also travelled the area but I do not remember his owner. He was a race horse named "Royal Crusader", the son of the famous sire "Gay Crusader", and probably his mares were mostly hunters or other riding stock. Some farmers did, however, pair heavy farm mares with bloodstock and, in that way, many a sharp, what we called "half-legged," draught horse was bred.

The stack yard was not always the scene of hard work. It had its lighter moments and one view I well remember. Next door to the Reeds lived Mr Woodhead, retired tailor, and his wife, and their "privy" was inside Reed's yard some 30 yards from their cottage door. And that little earth closet had the valuable amenity of twin-seats. So one harvest day from the corn-stack we were building, looking directly into Reed's yard, we saw Mr and Mrs Woodhead sitting side by side with the privy door wide open. A sort of privy counsel?

WILLIAM PRINCE

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