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Elizabeth
Bryans |
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Elizabeth
was born in 1944 at High Elm Farm, Willoughby on the Wolds, which has
been her home ever since. Her family has farmed there since the 17th Century
and she herself has been sheep farming there since 1980.
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| At the
time of enclosure: The Bryans land was the first enclosed in the village.
It forms a rough horseshoe shape behind the farmhouse with Bryans Lane,
the bridle path, going straight through the centre. During that award -
the way that the land was allocated - it did seem to me that the ancestors
had an enormous mileage of hawthorn hedge to plant to create the boundaries
- double, of course, when you count that they had to come down both sides
of the bridle path. But that was when it was first enclosed after the feudal
system. …Lots of family names have been used during different generations. When I went to the archive office to look at the record of the Parliamentary Act of the 1799 Enclose Award, I was quite surprised to find my own name at the top of one page. That Elizabeth Bryans had owned quite a bit of land in the village, although some of it was down towards Widmerpool. …I can't exactly remember from the archive record, but I do have maps that had both the field names on that I'm still using today. Those kinds of things were handed down through the generations. |
Elder sister Margaret |
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Father & Grandmother
outside High Elm Farm |
…It
[the house] was described - for the boundary along the roadside - as passing
by the ancient farmstead. But I believe at that stage it would only be
this part of the house that was there. It was before the frontage was
built.
…I've got some wonderful old records. I found a cash book that was around about the time of the Enclosure Award. In there, there were all sorts of local references to land being rented out and land being rented in, and all the lovely seasonal things that happened. There was even the sort of feeling of deja vu when I realised that some of the records were doing the sort of things that I was now doing personally two hundred years on. People to sit with my terminally ill parents, whilst I was doing other things, and then as the time went on, we had records of things like paying the solicitor to prove the will and this sort of thing, so quite interesting. …All of those essential everyday records were there, the wages and the things that they did. One other lovely record was the fact that enormous amounts of hawthorn plants were bought to do the boundaries, and it really surprised me that it was quite an expensive commodity in those days. And although I can't remember the sort of numbers that it bought, there were recordings of amounts like forty-two and forty-five pounds a time, just to buy the quickthorn to plant the boundaries. |
| Mixed
farming: I think that our pastureland has a very good reputation and
it's very good for livestock. But essentially everyone during my childhood,
and I think historically too, had very mixed enterprises. So they had both
livestock and arable, because they tended to be very self-sufficient. The
grain that they grew was fed back to the animals during the wintertime.
When the threshing machines came to take the grain from the sheaves of corn,
the straw was used as bedding, much as it is today, but obviously in a very
different format. …The granary is still there above one of the cow sheds and next to the barn and it [the grain]was stored there and brought down to be used as the seasons went on. …I think there were times in good harvest that that happened [grain was sold], or you helped your neighbours out. And I think probably people - because we had a mill when I was little - people sometimes brought their things here to be milled, to save them going to other people, to do those distances. ...Father had a little bit of everything, really - whether it was poultry, pigs. They suckled the calves and they did the milk. They produced beef; we had duck; you name it, it was here - sort of thing. Everybody did. And I think, even after the war, he carried on growing quite a lot of the kind of root crops that actually were not that suitable to the soil. But we did carry on with those sort of things for quite a while. And then, when we were trying to get him to reduce his workload, as he became older, he put it all down to grass and it still is. |
Father Samuel feeding |
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Lincoln Red cattle |
Milk:
We drank it ourselves, which was quite amusing since it was non-pasteurised.
But what was really funny - when I was quite small in our primary school,
only our workman's daughter and my two sisters didn't need the TB jab
because we had built up our own resistance - so that was quite good for
a laugh. It went down to London actually. In the early days it was collected
here and went by rail from Upper Broughton station. But in my time we
had this trolley that took the churns down to the roadside every morning,
and it was collected, and it went into the Nottingham dairies to be processed.
…My grandmother made Stilton cheese here. And I found some wonderful old records of prizes being taken at various of the national fairs, the London fairs - for the best twenty Stilton cheeses. That was a lot of cheeses to have in prime condition for one event. And there were others. I think there was one at Darlington. Mainly the ones that I have are from 1892, or thereabouts, through to the turn of the century. But since my great grandmother remarried a man called Baker, they tend to be in his name rather than the Bryans name. But my father's mother made Stilton cheese here. And she was so in tune with what she was doing that she could say to father some mornings, "When did you move the cows into Second Town End?" - or wherever it was - because she knew, from the way the cheese had turned out the day before, which field he was grazing. They were very intuitive about these things. …Post-war my mother used to make butter and cream. And I've still got those things in the attic, and a fiddle drill and all those sorts of things. But it was very hard work. We gave up milking in the end because we hadn't had mains water until the middle 60s. So it was very difficult for us to keep up with the new rules and regulations and so that's when we came out of milk. |
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Killing
the pig: The four pigsties are still out there. And it was quite a
kind of family affair. Different people from the village came. And sometimes
one of my aunts came as well. And originally it became cured in the cellars.
And my mother rubbed in saltpetre. I think it was quite a concoction,
but I don't remember exactly that recipe. But I do know that saltpetre
was involved. And then it stayed there for a little while. Then there
was a wooden cratch on this ceiling where it cured. And then things like
the hams and the sides of bacon got wrapped in muslin and they hung on
the attic wall. And then they were just brought down, as and when we needed
it, throughout the year. But at the time the pig was killed, we were all
involved. My sisters and I used to run round the village with a plate
of pigs fry, for those people who we felt deserved it. And we hand raised
the pork pies. And we made sausages and all those sorts of things.
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Piglets |
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Family in the garden
at |
Preserving:
My aunt had one [a canning machine], my auntie Jinny Brooks in Widmerpool,
Mummy's eldest sister. And she used to come here. And Mummy would go to
the wholesale market and buy trays of tomatoes and peaches and this sort
of thing. And this was besides doing all the bottling in the kilner jars
- all of those things we still did. I can remember when it was harvest
time - for whatever. …There were two pear trees that are still on
the house walls. And they were clever really. Father remembered those
trees going in; he thought he was four or five years old. And the one
on this side is a small granular texture pear with a little rosy cheek;
and it is ready three or four weeks before the one on the end of the house.
That is a very large mellow juicy pear. So they had continuity of crop.
And because pears don't keep well, we bottled a lot of them. But on the
days that they were picked, just slightly under-ripe, because falling
onto a tarmac yard didn't do them any good, we used to carry them up to
the attic. And they were laid out on paper. And then Mummy would go on
a daily basis and pick the ones that were ready to eat or to be preserved.
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Village
population and amenities: I do know a lot of them [village people],
but there [are] an awful lot that I don't know, and they are they true
commuters. They are hardly in the village except to sleep and sadly their
children are away at school and this sort of thing as well. It's not as
it was in that respect. We all went down to the primary school and then
moved on. But that doesn't happen the same, although we are still lucky,
the school is still open. But it is one of the few things. The original
bakehouse has gone. But we do have a lovely Italian chappie called Nick.
He comes every morning to part of the old bakehouse and he bakes bread
- comes at three o'clock in the morning. So we can still get fresh bread.
But even the village shop and Post Office closed just over a year ago,
which is very sad. I think we all miss that. There's no focal point to
meet people the same. And just having to go out of the village for these
things is quite sad. I can remember that the services as such - my mother
always marvelled that we had a collection for the dustbins, because I
think historically they'd had to dig big holes in the ground and the like
to be rid of rubbish. So she thought this was excellent that it was collected.
But she used to do a weekly grocery order to the village shop at the crossroads.
And Mr Wheatcroft delivered it himself. And the sugar came in these large
blue paper bags. And the tub butter, he had wrapped - the weights that
you wanted, this kind of thing. And the baker came three times a week,
I think. The butcher still calls twice a week if you want [him] to. …And
he still did that obviously. And then there was a fishmonger came once
a week. And really my mother would go to market with father to do shopping.
But essentially all your needs were catered for. There was a fruit and
vegetable supplier and he brought a lorry twice a week. He was called
Marson and he came from Upper Broughton in those days. I think that Mr
Warden still comes to the village from Keyworth, but I'm never very sure
what days. But it was quite different then, pre-supermarkets certainly.
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Visitors watch family
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Father Samuel at bottom of courtyard |
Sheep:
He [my father] was good with his sheep. I don't remember the same particularly
happening for the cows or the beef breeds. But he used to take breeding
sheep that were a year old, but hadn't been bred with before, to Melton
market. And he often came home - or always seemed to come home with the
prizes. And those sheep - we do it now - and they're talking about the
miles that cattle, livestock generally, are transported - but all of my
life, father's breeding stock came down from the Lake District. And when
I was a small child they came down by train to Widmerpool station. And
on those mornings - he always tried that they should be delivered at weekends
- so that half of the village went down, and we walked the sheep home
from Widmerpool station here. And I can remember thinking back, that when
the threshing machine was due for some reason, those large hessian sacks
were delivered to Widmerpool station. And we had to go and pick them up
there ready for the threshing men to come. And one sheep dog came to Widmerpool
station with his muzzle on, years ago.
…They were mainly North of England Country - mules really, which is a crossbred. It can be a variation, but I think that they are either Swaledale ewes or the Scottish Black Face with a Blue Face Leicester ram. And they are fairly prolific. And having come from higher land, they tend - when they come down to the lowland - to do very well. And they milk very well. And they tend to be relatively easy, as sheep go, to look after |
| Buildings in the crewyard: They are still all there. They've all got these lovely names: the Bull Hovel, which obviously was where the bull was. There's Bottom Right. And then there was a single standing of cowsheds where the milking was done. I think there's space for eight in there. And then there's a stable where the horses were. They were loose boxes as well as standings, for I suppose when they foaled. Then there was the Double Hovel, the other side of the archway, which goes out onto the farmland, and that had space for twelve cows. And then there was a loose box underneath the granary after the barn, and four pig sties coming back this side to the house. |
Father Samuel |
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Cattle
feed: It was virtually self-sufficient. The hay was got loose. And they
had these incredible knives that they cut the hay in blocks, and brought
it down. And so that was the forage in the winter when they were in. And
they grew wheat and barley and beans and peas. And so they had a fairly
balance diet. But it was ground back in the barn through the mill and mixed.
They bought some things in. I can remember there was a lovely concentrate
that had linseed, whole seeds, in. And we used to save them to see if we
could grow them. But I wasn't successful with that. Then it was flaked maize
- I'm sure - that looked like cornflakes. It was called Cositos, and yes
I can remember that. There were large slabs of cake that came in. And we
had a machine that broke it into pieces. We used to have to stand and wind
this handle to it - slotted on - and then came out the other end - in cubes
for the cattle. …And we had a mangle chopper. That got put into the feed. I've done lots of that as well. And pumping water was the other thing - because there was a pump - and it's still in the yard, with the stone trough. And you stood for hours at feeding time for these buckets of water to be taken round to the things in the yard. |
| Sheep
farming: I'd got the sheep here, and we were committed to the lambing
in the spring. I just carried on. And I still bought the sheep from Skipton
- which I didn't lamb, but I lambed different numbers. I suppose the most
I did was a hundred and seventy five - just before the quotas came in. Then
after father died - although we'd tried to get him to reduce numbers - we
were gradually building them back. And I suppose I lambed just over a hundred
- just under a hundred - something like that. But last autumn, sadly, I
made the decision to sell my breeding girls. And it broke my heart. But
for goodness sake - now that the foot and mouth has come - it's almost a
relief - because that is such a big disaster still on going - not good! …I used to take a days holiday to drive into Skipton and sat by him [father] all day - over the years. And he would be saying, what do you think to these. And because - I think it's a quite a sad - still, almost like fashion - that in this area people like a well marked face - it has to have some light as well as dark markings - where elsewhere, they might want very light faced mules or perhaps much more dark face without the markings. And so I used to be sitting there trying to decide. They had fourteen thousand sheep to be sold in a day. And so you couldn't possibly have seen them all before the auction started. And they were coming in all day. So the first time you saw them was when they were coming in - in batches of twenty or thirty - into the ring. And he'll say, "What do you think to these?" And I remember saying, "There's three lame, hang out there," and "I wouldn't bid for those," or, "too dark in the face - too light in the face" - or whatever it was. And he used to buy - round about two hundred and fifty in those days. And I don't go myself now. And sometimes I worry about it because I've had some less than good quality sheep sent down. But I do use a dealer up there - who is very fair. But of course no one else sees sheep with your eyes, do they? So the ones I have at the minute are good quality. But I don't know what to do with them. Whether I will - I have them just to keep the orchards and the bridle path and various paddocks tidy. But I don't know what I will do - in that there will be a number of people like me who bought in the old system or who will have breeding sheep available for other people to breed with this time. But I don't know where I can get my replacements. Whether I end up lambing them and then selling them out as double theaves next autumn - I'm still on this debate. But I've got - I should think by the end of the next six weeks - I've got to decide it and go ahead with that. |
Father Samuel with
Haymaking: horse
& rake, |
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Father Samuel driving a tractor |
Farm Assurance Scheme: I think that more and more in the open livestock market -and I went to Melton Mowbray with finished lambs and sometimes store lambs - that the buyers - the wholesale buyers - in the recent years were groomed by the people that they were buying for - that they only wanted farm assured stock. And unfortunately there are far too many farm assured schemes around. But the largest one is the FABBL, which is Farm Assured British Beef and Lamb, and I'm a member of that. And you have to pay seventy-five pounds per annum to be inspected. And really that is such close scrutiny to both the livestock and your systems. Your locked medicine cupboard's inspected and anything out of code is confiscated. Have you scrubbed your water troughs out recently? You know really the consumer ought to have a lot of confidence in the product - when she knows the levels at which we do operate. But, of cours, there are always the few - mainly older farmers. And, of course, there are a lot of old farmers who are not in the system |
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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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