In January, I learned to plough with two horses, Dolly and Prince. I had not expected that I would ever do this, because Mr. Pick was very particular about the appearance of his ploughed fields. He couldn’t do with a crooked furrow, or with what was known as a 'pig-trough' near the end of a furrow. So it was with some surprise and trepidation that I found myself taking the heavy iron handles of the plough, with also a leading string from Prince's bit in my left hand and one from Dolly's in my right hand.
Mr. Pick went round with me for a while, and helped me as we turned on the headland. But after a while he went back to the stackyard. So now I was actually ploughing, as I had often wished I could.
The most difficult part was the starting in at the beginning of a new furrow. It was not difficult to keep the horses and plough going in a straight line up the field, for there was always the last furrow as a guide, and one of the horses would walk up this and never waver out of it, except that as they neared the end they always tried to turn too early, and had to be held in until their noses almost touched the hedge! Otherwise the last bit would not have been ploughed.
When the headland was reached, I had to put all my weight on the plough handles, so the ploughshare would come out of the ground and be pulled along the surface as we turned. At the same time I had to pull the appropriate leading string to turn the horses, and then the other one to straighten them up along the headland. Then the same process in reverse, to get us back into the next furrow so that the plough went back into the ground on a level with the last furrow.
It was very tricky, and once we turned too quickly and the whole plough went over onto its side. I had quite a job to get it up again, as it was very heavy. But I managed better as time went on, and swung round more easily with practice. I learned the exact spot at which to shout 'Gee, Prince,' to get us where we wanted to be. ('Gee,' by the way, is horse-language for 'turn right.')
Twice during the morning Dolly got her foot over the traces which ran from her harness to the plough, and I had to stop, leave the plough, and go and lift her big foot over the chain. She didn't mind in the least.
I liked to watch the coulter as it cut a clean edge to the furrow, and the lovely curve of the soil as it turned over. The plough, so heavy and ungainly on the headland, seemed to spring into life as it sped down the field.
Wagtails and gulls were quick to take advantage of the newly-turned soil, and followed close behind. They were chiefly black-headed gulls in their winter plumage, with a few herring gulls.
In February we pulled and bagged the parsnips, which was another cold job.
In February too, I chain-harrowed the home meadow, driving Dolly up and down as she pulled the wide harrows, leaving the meadow looking very smart, with wide stripes, light and dark, like a newly-mown lawn. A lovely job, except for the various sheds, hen-houses, wood piles, props and clothes posts, and the pump, between which we had to weave our way.
In early March we bagged the last of the carrots from the pie, having bagged sixteen tons from the one acre.
By this time, spring had really arrived. Hazel catkins had danced in the hedges for almost a month, the partridges had paired off in February, the chaffinch was singing his spring song, and the wheat was in green lines up the field.
And then we were into April of 1943, and swallows and willow warblers had returned, and I celebrated the anniversary of the day I came to the farm by creosoting the outside of the scullery and the meal-shed, and then mowing down large patched of nettles with the scythe.
Later in the month, Mr. Pick drilled the barley, and I followed behind, making sure that none of the tubes down which the seeds fell got blocked up. This crop matures quickly, and would be ripe in twelve to fourteen weeks. The oats had been sown in March, and the wheat, of course, last autumn, but still the barley would ripen first. The decision as to when to sow any kind of seed is quite a tricky one, but judging by his crops Mr. Pick was very good at it. He told me that if the seeds are sown too early, they are likely to get damaged by the weather. If sown too late, they are attacked by pests when they are still too small to withstand it. So it is essential to choose the right time.
The following day, Mr. Pick drilled a field of carrots, and I harrowed all the rows. If we had only known it, we might have saved ourselves the trouble. They came up beautifully until they were about half an inch high. Then one night a gale sprang up. It was the worst gale I have ever seen, and it blew for two days. It thrashed through the branches of the trees, and lashed the surface of the pond to waves. It whistled through holes in doors and window-frames, and blew sand into the house until everything was thickly coated. The roof of the fold swayed ominously.
I tried setting potatoes in the field across the lane, and it blew a large basketful of Arran Consul sets from the middle of the field, lifting it completely off the ground and landing it in the hedges. I had to give that job up.
When we looked at the field of young parsnips, the rows were empty - the wind had blown the plants clean out of the ground. The carrot field was the same. There were only occasional tiny plants and seeds, whirring round, held by a tiny root strand, but soon to be ripped out and blown away. Mr. Pick had never known anything like it before.
I looked at the empty field, thinking of the loss of all that expensive carrot seed, and the loss of all the time and effort put into it.
A woman came down the lane. She stopped, and looked across the field. 'Wasn't the gale awful?' she said, 'But I always feel that a strong wind does so much good. Doesn't it clean up the fields nicely?' I was so astounded that I made no answer at all, but I could cheerfully have knocked her down!
I did another job which was new to me in April, when I had a go at sowing neurite of potash by hand from a hopper. This took quite some doing. With the hopper slung round my neck I found the only way to spread the potash evenly was to get into a slow, regular rhythm, left foot forward, right arm out to spread a handful, right foot forward, left arm out. It needed a lot of concentration to keep it up, and start in again correctly when I turned at the ends of the rows.
During that year, whenever there was time, I used to enjoy helping to bath young Sam, and playing with him. Every now and then in the evenings, I played Ludo, etc., with Christine, or went through one if the recitations she was learning, or something of that kind. She was good at reciting, and was always busy with something, knitting, sewing, etc. Sam walked at ten months, and the first word I heard him say was 'Bang.'
In May that year there were keen frosts, which did a lot of damage to the fruit trees. I remember how Mr. Pick had said that this could happen. One foggy day in March he had told me of a country saying 'Fogs in March, frosts in May.' On the second foggy day he said, 'Just you see, Mary, we shall have two frosts next May.' And so we did.
Whenever there was a halo round the moon, he would say if it was a long way off that we should have rain very soon, and if it was close to the moo it would rain a bit later. 'Near burr, far rain; Far bur, near Rain.'
When the moon was on its back, with the points upwards, he would say, 'The moon on its back holds water.' And somehow it usually did what he said it would do!
One day Mr. Pick and I took Bubbles to visit Mr. Thompson's bull. I really did feel an old-stager then, for a calf at whose birth I had been would shortly be having a calf herself.
That afternoon I spent in doing what was know as 'looking corn.' I worked my way through the corn fields, cutting out thistles, etc. At teatime Mr. Pick brought in two rabbits he had shot, and Mrs. Pick and I dressed one each. This was my first attempt at skinning a rabbit.
In October my brother Phil arrived back in England, and I had a very enjoyable day when he and Maud came to see me.
And so the time passed with routine jobs.
The following February we got a new horse. Tony was his name, and he could be somewhat difficult at times. A man called Tom Cowling came to clip him, and I held Tony's head and turned the handle which worked the clippers, while Tom did the clipping. We had some exciting times with Tony. To begin with, we had to give him some medicine. To do this, Mr. Pick put a rope round his jaw, and over a beam in the stable, and I had to hang on to this to keep his head up so that he could swallow. He reared onto his hind legs and lashed out with his front ones, while I held the rope and managed to keep just out of reach. Mr. Pick had the worst job, putting in the medicine and making sure he swallowed it!
Tony was very excitable at times, and at first he refused to back at all. When he had settled down a bit he did improve, but to make him go back it was always necessary to hold him by the nose-band and push, when he would arch his back, gnash his teeth noisily, spread his feet all over the place, and finally go back. This made getting him between the shafts of a cart a very difficult procedure for one person, but he did gradually get better at it, or else I got used to it and it didn't bother me so much.
One day when we were getting a cart-load of lime, Mr. Pick and I were shovelling it into the cart, and a small lump of it bounced over the front of the cart and touched Tony's back as it fell to the ground. He bolted. Mr. Pick gave chase, and at one time he was almost under the wheel. But he finally brought him to a halt. The front boards of the cart were all splintered by the pounding of Tony's iron-shod hooves.
Later I spread the lime in the field, ('scaling lime' it is called) and remembered a remark made by my nephew, Peter, the year before. He had come to the farm with his mother who was staying while Mrs. Pick was in the Maternity Home. He saw me doing this job, and went back to the farm and said 'Mummy, Auntie Mary is whitewashing a field.'
That summer I helped Mr. Pick to drive Jimmy and Curly up to the butcher's slaughter house. I didn't enjoy that very much, for by that time I was rather fond of them.
June 6th of that year was D-Day, when our men invaded France. We heard the news on the wireless, which was working well just then (which could not always be said of it, especially when something important was happening!) I hoes sugar beet all that day, and at tea time I met Mr. Clarke from the farm up the lane. He was coming to see me, to tell me that me brother Frank had just rung him to give me the news that I had a niece born that day - Joan Margaret was to be her name. I was thrilled with the news, and altogether it was an exciting day.
Two days later we were over-run with Polish soldiers. They were having a day of exercises and manoeuvres. I got quite a shock to begin with, as I went down the lane and a soldier suddenly popped up out of the ditch, his gun aimed straight at me! However he was as surprised as I was, and he grinned and saluted, and then aimed the gun fiercely at an imaginary enemy in the stackyard across the lane.
From then on it got more and more humourous, for heads were popping up everywhere, from behind hedges, round hay-stacks, round tree trunks, and even from clumps of bullrushes near the ponds. That day I went up a long ladder to cut a creeper which grew over the fold roof, and I had a good view across the fields, where heads were appearing and disappearing in all directions!
Harvest time came round, but this year it was a bad one. Day after day it rained, and the corn stood in stooks and got wetter and wetter. We fitted in many jobs while waiting for the fine weather.
We spent one rather messy day emptying the tank under the fold by means of tins and buckets, then, finding that the drain was blocked we finally had to break a way down to it through the concrete floor of the pig sty. I got quite good at using a chisel and hammer by the time the job was done.
Another day I cleaned and oiled all the harness in the stable, and then concreted the bottom of a large old tub, painted it with tar, and set it up to catch rain-water at the corner of the buildings.
I remember about this time seeing a joke in 'The Land Girl' which I appreciated very much. It was a series of sketches showing the great variety of jobs in farm work. It showed about fifteen different jobs, such as hoeing, pulling turnips, topping beet, setting potatoes, etc., and in every one of them the Land Girl was in exactly the same position - bent nearly double! The majority of jobs did seem to be done in that position, as I now fully realised, having a lot of trouble with my back for some time past.
In September Mr. Pick got a potato spinner, a new, brightly painted machine which whirled the potatoes out onto the top of the soil. He harnessed Prince to it, and all went well. One day, however, he put Tony into it. As soon as they set off, Tony reared up, and bolted. Mr. Pick followed him, and I dashed to Prince and held his head, in case he should feel like joining in. Round the field went Tony at really full speed, with the new spinner careering along behind him and swaying dangerously from side to side. Through a gap in the hedge he dashed, and round the next field, then headed for the gate. It was a heavy gate, and was closed and fastened. I expected that that would bring him to a halt. But he charged the middle of the gate, broke it into two halves, and went straight through, finishing on his knees in the lane. Here Mr. Pick overtook him, and all was well, with no real damage done except tot eh gate.
When the sugar beet was ready for pulling, we had a very interesting hour or so watching (in an adjoining field) a demonstration of a mechanical beet lifter, newly arrived from America. It was a huge machine, and it pulled and topped the beet, working slowly up the field. Perhaps, I thought, (with a vision of our fields of beet just ready to begin) if it were about fifty years hence I wouldn’t have had to do anything with sugar beet except cart it away!
When we had pulled the turnips, a farmer from some miles away brought his sheep to feed on the tops. I helped put up an electric fence around them, and in the days that followed they ate their way steadily through all the turnip tops. They needed no other food, and all we had to do was to check up occasionally to make sure they were all right. That was the sum total of my experience with sheep!