A Pastoral inheritance

I am reading James Rebanks 'English Pastoral'.   It is absolutely beautiful - his way with words is superb.   I have just read the introduction 'The Plough and the Gulls' twice because his turn of phrase brings every single paragraph to life in front of your eyes.  He writes of being a child and sitting on the tractor with his grandfather(on adjustable spanners, a wrench and a socket set) so that his 'backside aches'.   And he speaks of his grandfather ploughing the field and the plough being followed by gulls 'rising and falling in hungry tumbling waves'.  And of the rooks, further back,marching across the field.  He speaks of being a boy and living through the last days of an ancient farming way of life.  To keep furrows straight his grandfather uses two landmarks - an old Scots pine and a gap in the wall on a distant hill.  His grandfather tells him of a young ploughman he knew who used a white speck as his distant sightline for the first furrow.   It turned out as a very crooked first furrow because the white speck turned out to be a grazing white cow! 

And of course it brought to mind my own entry into upland farming - late, at the age of sixty when after being widowed I eventually remarried 'my' dear farmer and came into a farming family of my farmer and his father 'Bert' who was already in his eighties but was active all day.

There was a milking herd of Holstein cows and the farm was on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales.   Reading James Rebanks brought it all back as though yesterday.

Father and son, farming together - with no next generation to pass it on to as many farmers married so late.   Like so many other farms in these small holdings the young lads had no time to go 'courting' and mostly remained batchelors (three in our lane alone).   Milking twice and day and looking after heifers, cows and calves, caring for upland sheep down from the fells in Winter (we had sheep from the same upland farmer every year) - they came in October and stayed until the weather was right for them to return in Spring to their uplands with their lambs.  These were hefted sheep and knew their place so now it was time for the ewes to teach their lambs their skills.

All grassland( most ofit had been ploughed to grow food I believe during the war) there was plenty to do - fencing, hedging, stone walling, feeding the grass, moving the cows regularly and keeping them to their share with electric fencing, cleaning out the becks every year, calving, silaging, haymaking - always plenty to do.

My father in law - already into his  eighties - was slowing down but always out on the land whatever the weather.   But I wanted to work too while I was just about 'young' enough to do my part.

I read up about calves and knew that the 'old fashioned' method of bucket-feeding was wrong.  Calves in a milking herd are removed from their Mums once they have got that first feed colostrum but the calves stomachs are not fully 'working' when they are very young so they need their heads back so that the milk got into the correct stomach.  So I went out and bought bottles and  and asked my father in law if I could please take over the calves (there was no hesitation - he knew I wanted to be part of the farm and he gave in gracefully.  I asked if he minded me changing the way of feeding and he said - 'you're in charge now - you do what you want!  There were often half a dozen to feed twice or sometimes three times a day and I loved it.

The next step was to take down walls which made separate pens and let the calves all mingle together - even that was accepted without comment.

And so I began to learn.

We weathered foot and mouth and never went back into milking after losing our herd.  And quite quickly things began to change.   Just as they have done over the years in all industries.   Small farms were sold as the generations had no-one to follow on.   And they were almost always bought by local farmers who wished to 'get bigger'.   And so the small farms began to dwindle and the bigger and bigger farms began to sprout enormous machines to plough, to silage - everyting got bigger, more expensive, contracted out.   We had our silage done by farmers from a much bigger enterprise - all we did ourselves was to collect the wrapped bales and  stack them ready for winter feed when the cattle were in.  The contractor came in and cut the hedges and cleared the 'rubbish' - we stacked in and burnt it.   And so it went on.

When my dear farmer died six years ago with a glioblastoma (a very aggressive brain tumour) our farm 'disappeared' as it was divided up between two separatefarms.

All in the cause of 'progress'.  Less men needed to work the land, just as less men needed in industry as machinery developed.   My Dad worked in Ruston and Hornsby in Lincoln - the largest employer in the city-  for fifty years but now the whole factory complex has disappeared.   The siren would sound at five o'clock and hundreds of men would pour out on their bikes- I don't know what stands on the site now.

Our fields are ours no longer, their names have disappeared.  Progress moves everything on.   No village shops now - plenty of supermarkets who will deliver your order (Tesco bring my computer-ordered wishes to my door).   The whole fabric of our world has changed - just as it always will continue to change.  

We had one 'hedge bottom' thick with cowslips and another where there were dozens of orchids and a corner where fritillaries grew - I guess they have all disappeared now.   The farmer and his Dad knew where they were and deliberately 'missed' those bits when they spread fertiliser.

Progress always comes at a price doesn't it?Luckily memories live until I die and I, like all of us, will enjoy looking back and remembering.

See you tomorrow.  Have a good day.

***   Must tell - I have just walked along the path in front of my bungalow and a fully fledged baby blackbird stood in the middle of my lawn calling for reinforcements as I passed.   Both Mum and Dad, who must feel I am 'safe' flew up and stood guard and all three stood and watched me.  I felt very priviledged.