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Joan
Antcliff |
| Joan was born in 1924 and comes from County Durham. She comes from farming stock. At the end of the war, she married John Antcliffe in 1946, and shortly afterwards they came to live at Wysall. Joan worked at Windyridge Poultry Farm, Thorpe-in-the-Glebe. After emigrating to farm in Australia, they returned to a smallholding at Ivy Cottage, Stanton-on-the-Wolds. The cottage is situated opposite the drive up to Hill Farm. |
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Free range White
Leghorns |
Working
on a poultry farm: We both took part in an ex service scheme for retraining
after we came out of the service. I went into poultry farming and my husband
went into horticulture and I was taken to work with Eric Egglestone to
get the basic training, the practical side of it: rearing stock; being
taught how to operate the large incubators; the stock from the time it
was hatched right through till it was sold as point of lay; the old breeds,
Rhode Island Reds, Leghorns, crossed; good strong healthy stock, run on
fields so that they grew strong legs and strong bodies, reared in the
open, a joy to behold, all gone.
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| Most of the - a lot of the - food was grown locally. And then there were corn merchants - local corn merchants. We also had something which we laughingly called the 'pudding', which was the waste material from the canteens, which was sterilised by the council and then delivered, steaming hot and this was mixed with the ground meal and fed to the growing stock. This was to counteract the foul pest, which we believe came in during the war when the smallholders went to the camps and collected the waste from the kitchens. This was not sterilised and I was led to believe that was where the foul pest came from. |
Free range Brown
Leghorns |
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Food
store and |
There was a brook. The freerange: when the corn had been cut, the growing stock was in large arks - sheds. These were pulled out on to the fields by the tractor. And the stock was allowed to glean the fields. This made them very strong. And there was a brook, which provided water for them. They were not fed until their crops were not properly full at night. They needed to be full because otherwise they smother each other. The weight of food in their crop acts as a spacing mechanism. It keeps them apart and then they don't smother each other. But you check them at night to make sure that they had adequate food in the daytime. And once the gleaning was coming to an end, then they were fed corn. But they grew strong and their legs were bright gold with scratching about on the fields.The farms were very friendly and family farms. So therefore if one had something the other one needed or produced for the other one. I think farming in those days was very much like that. It was very independent and self-sufficient. And farms worked one with the other. |
| Keeping a pig: We were allowed to keep two pigs. We kept two pigs. We didn't have any bacon ration. We had a chit for food. So we reared two pigs, with the help of some of that gorgeous ' pudding'. And one pig went to the bacon factory and the other went down to the village to be killed by the local butcher - killed and cured: Mr Trafford - had taken the cure properly. The lard was kept in a very big dish and the pies were raised and baked at Watsons and brought when they were ready. The offal: the liver and the pieces from the pig, were all cut up and delivered and shared out in the village. So that every time a pig was killed, the liver and the heart and all the bits and pieces that we used, were shared out again. So we'd no refrigeration. So nothing was wasted. [The plate was returned] dirty. That always amused me. I was going to wash it and I was stopped. The pig won't take the cure if the plate is washed. I never could work that out. We didn't raise them [pork pies]. Watsons Bakery did them and put them in the oven after the bread came out. And then the baker's van would deliver them when they were ready. | |
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Village life: Always lots of cows about. They had to work out which time somebody's cows came in and which time somebody else's cows came in or there'd be a traffic jam in the middle of the street. There was a good general dealer's shop, Post Office, everything, your rations, Wellington boots, hammers, nails, screws, you say it, the village shop had it. And if he didn't have it, he'd get it by the next day if he possibly could; if it was available. When we first went it was well water; we had to carry the water from the well… There was a well - a good well with an electric pump which pumped the water up into a header tank until we got mains water in; would it be 1947/l948 somewhere there. And then we went onto mains water. The house water from the cottage was from a well by the church, which always amused me as the churchyard was six foot higher than the footpath and the well was lower than the footpath, but nevertheless we were all very healthy… I stored my water. I bought a second hand washing machine - hand washing machine - and I used to keep it scrupulously clean and fill that with water and it had a little tap on it you see. I was very … The drinking water was kept in a good jug. But for washing - we had to do the washing - we had to carry the water. There was a washhouse at the end of the three cottages, which we shared. And the tin baths hung on the wall. There was a raised stone platform in there and a coal copper. We drew water for one another. And the copper would be lit at night by the woman in the end house. She had two sons working on farms. She'd come from Coventry. Her husband had been a fireman and he was killed in the Coventry raids. I don't quite know - perhaps the boys got work on the farm and that's where she got the house and why she came to live there. But she was a Coventry woman and she'd keep the copper boiling so that we could have hot baths when we came from work. And you just used the washhouse for a bathhouse. And when you'd finished you emptied your water and you knocked on the door and said, "It's free." We had one toilet for three cottages at the bottom of the yard - bottom of the garden - which was an earth toilet. There was no sewerage. |
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| Rhode Island Reds: I started in a very small way with some poultry from Joan Ireson because I knew her. She had a poultry farm at Stanton - on Stanton Lane. She, like Eric Egglestone, was an accredited poultry farmer, accredited breeder. They had to be accredited breeder. I don't know whether they still are; the stocks not the same. She had Rhode Island Reds and Sussex, if I remember rightly. I had some of her Rhodies on point of lay. I remember they went off their legs and I was having trouble. And I rang the Ministry of Agriculture as it was then at Cha;font Drive. And they arrived within two hours complete with overalls and Wellington boots and all the things that they had in case of infection. And they went round onto the field and examined the stock and said, "No, there was no infection; it is a problem, but it's not infection because of them coming; it's a stress problem." And he had three trainees with him. And they stood at the top of the field and looked at these gorgeous Rhode Island Reds with all their glint of green in their feathers, in the sunlight, and he said, "Stand and look at them," this was in 1961, he said "because you're not going to see another flock of Rhode Island Reds running free like this." And it was true; it was 'go to work on an egg' and put everything in batteries. |
Ivy
Cottage |
| Hill Farm, Stanton: There's the taxi service in the old farmhouse now - the buildings of the old, in the square of the buildings of the farmhouse. It's so different. You went over to the square yard and there'd be stock and horses, but no longer. As all these farms as I grew up with, the small farms with their square yard; and their stock with their head over the fence, over the doors; and the deep litter for the winter in the yard; the stock brought in to be sheltered for the winter; and the cats laid about and the collies laid on the brick yard. | |
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Published by Sandra Ford August 2001 Email: sandrafordwolds@yahoo.co.uk
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Full
transcripts and audio recordings of the interviews are available
through the Nottinghamshire County Libraries and the Nottingham City Libraries. |
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