December 2009 - Posts
At one time cattle were always driven to market; some times miles away in the local town, and nearly every house or cottage had a garden gate that could be shut as the cattle were herded by.
Then from the market they were herded again to the slaughter house (although there was often a slaughter house adjoining the sale yards) or out to whoever had purchased them if they were stores.
Father recalled the time when he was driving a few bullocks into market, and whilst walking down a side street in town, one bullock saw an open shop door, it decided to hop up the step and went into a shop. Being only a very small shop there was nowhere to turn round as the counter formed a passage where the customers stood. The old lady behind the county screamed with astonishment as the beast filled her shop, the bullock struggled to turn round to make an escape, in doing so it pushed the counter and all things behind it across and up to the goods on display along the back wall. This trapped the shop keeper; the bullock did what came natural and lifted its tail and plastered the counter and wall with muck then hopped out to continue its walk to market.
In our village there were seven herds of cows that all travelled and walked out to distant pastures each day and back for evening milking. The small holding with about twelve cows crossed the path of four herds, first he would if not careful he would travel along a hundred yards of road that the Yews farm cows walked, then pass across the path of the Green Farm yard where there cows emerged, then past Church Farm where both herds walk to the same lane, then at the ford those two herds crossed the path of Village Farm herd. Three herds walked down the same cow lane branching off into there respective fields. The two herds at the other end of the village crossed paths and were walking the same two hundred yard stretch of road, but in opposite directions, so a regular time for turning the cows out was most important.
For some reason the Church Farm cows were very late on being brought in for evening milking, and met with the smallholding cows coming out in the opposite direction down a narrow stretch of road near the ford. Forty two cows heading south and twelve cows heading north.
At the ford there is a narrow brick foot path bridge for pedestrians to cross, and the majority of cows preferred to go over the bridge as the bottom of the ford is very stony and hard on their feet. The forty cows (heading towards the church, Church Farm.)got strung out into a single line or as near as cows do, so the herd of twelve cows were walked steadily through in being tapped gently to remind then which direction they supposed to go and after about five minuets both herd continued on their way not having "lost" any to the other herd.
In the next village a farmer there always went to Ireland to purchase fifty or more store bullocks each spring, these came over on the ferry to Holly Head where they were loaded onto railway wagons.
Cattle wagon on the railway were couple next to the steam locomotive, the wagons being loose coupled they sprung and slapped the buffer as the brakes were applied and when power was put on to start pulling. This ricocheted down the length of the train, the smoothest ride was next to the engine.
His cattle were unloaded at the station yard in the village until it was closed by Dr, Beeching, (The government minister in charge of reforming the railways at that time, he cut off many branch lines and closed many local stations) then they had to unload further down the line at the station in town.
From there they were walked about six miles back to his farm, by this time they were tired and hungry from the journey, so could be seen snatching grass as they passed through our village stopping for five minuets at the ford to water them.
So cattle droving did happen in England, but in a quite minuscule way compared to cattle drives over the pond.
Cattle on the Railway Line.
1960 The trains were nearly all pulled by diesels a few goods trains were still steam. Two trains had already stopped from north and two from south, everyone stuck their heads out of the carriage windows to see what had halted there journey. The cattle were recovered from the opposite embankment between the four locomotives.
One morning while milking cows, a phone call came from railway man,
It was the Bridgeford signal box, reported cattle onto line had ran,
He put his signals onto caution, don't worry drivers on "visual", will run
We race off down the Moor Lane, to cattle grazing in the morning sun.
Two trains they had already halted, and two more rolling to a stop,
They left a gap through which to drive, cattle back to embankment top,
Four *lengthsmen helped and a driver, and hundreds of people watched,
Three express trains and one commuter, why their journey scotched.
The cattle hopped cross four main lines, and back into the field,
Embankment fire had burned a post; rail fell down a gap revealed,
We thanked the drivers and local men, for their quick advance,
Fast line trains do speed at seventy, cattle wouldn't stand a chance.
*Lengthsmen; railway workers, looked after length of track, usually 3-4 miles per group of six
I must say that this is a very busy stretch of line,and is the main London to Scotland main line, the Royal Scot(1950's) steamed past at full speed very day at about three o'clock and back to return to London in the early hours of the morning . Many of the steam express trains were pulled by named engines.
(Of the parallels between the railways and the church) Both had there heyday in the mid-nineteenth century, both own a great deal of Gothic-style architecture which is expensive to maintain, both are regularly assailed by critics, and both are firmly convinced that they are the best means of getting man to his ultimate destination
Reverend W. Awdry (1911-1997)
The lights are up, turkey bought, and the cards are coming in,
Holly round the mantle shelf, decorations hung within,
For all the children presents now, dunt know where to start,
Buying now on line you can, money from ya card impart,
Each passing year they got older, laptop n' all gizmos' need,
Computer games and telephones, with built in camera plead,
Be glad now when its come and gone, good food good cheer n all,
Its just another day in life, as out of bed I crawl,
Stock to look and count and feed, all me life the same,
Exiting for the kids so young, for me excitements' getting tame,
So its from the misses and me, all round the world relayed,
We wish you Happy Christmas, and a Happy new decade.
Owd Fred & Eileen
In the early 1950's we had one of the foggiest days I can remember, it was still air with a complete blanket of fog across the whole country. In them days and particularly in November/ December time, heating and cooking in the houses and cottages was all done with coal, and from what I remember in our small village all the fires lit in a morning around the same time with a plume of dark smoke emitting from every chimney pot.
On this one morning, (though it lasted from the day before for three days) with no wind and thick fog, it kept the smoke down, it hung around all day and the next main stoking of the fires was around four o'clock, and another intense belching of smoke came from the chimneys.
This produced what was termed smog, and replicated in towns and cities all over the country, with factories and power stations adding to the situation.In London they were holding the Smithfield Fat Stock Show and two or three head of cattle died from the breathing in the polluted London air.
On this particular day we went to school on the local service bus, it crept and almost felt its way along the five miles to the school. Around lunch time the powers that be realised the fog/smog was not going to lift, and sent all us kids home from school. However the fog was so thick all the busses had been taken off the road and it was left for us to walk home.
As the school was situated on the opposite side of town to our village, we had to walk through the town centre. The main street is about forty feet wide including the footpaths either side, and when half way across the road (or if we had stopped in the centre of the road) you could not see any kerb or buildings, just thick smog.
There were six or seven of us, and in order to keep together and not get lost, we kept on talking and shouting to each other.It was only because we were familiar with the road that we found our way home, following the different land marks such as gates and hedges, foot paths and buildings, farms and cottages. It was even too dangerous to cycle. The roads closed down to all traffic, nothing moved at all.
That smog that year was the turning point when the government started to bring in the smokeless fuels that could be burnt in open fires, and in stoves for cooking, within a few years all built up areas and towns became smokeless. Now we only seem to get at most a thick mist, the fog of old used to come in like a blanket, in most hollows in the roads you would hit a thick wall of fog, shoot through it, and out the other side still going the same speed, then having more cars on the roads they began to pile up at high speed in multiple crashes the worst ones on the early motorways.
Most trains stopped running, the London Scotland main line runs through our farm, and the signal man, in foggy situations had a lengths man on call, with a button in the signal box and a wire to a bell in the mans bedroom to be able to call for assistance. On instruction from the signal man detonators were placed on the line (in pairs in case one failed) to tell the steam engine driver all clear, no detonator they had to stop. The railway line follows the land close to the river and fog always seemed to start in those low areas, so the railway signals were the first things hidden from the loco drivers.
In our present climate, where it seems we have global warming, I think it has something to do with the vast amount of oil and gas being extracted from the ground and burnt. Only sixty years ago I remember waking up in the morning with frost and ice on the inside of our bedroom window, and in the same house now where we used to burnt around three ton of coal a year plus logs, now it is heated with fourteen hundred gallon of heating oil.
With that sort of turn around in heating replicated in every house and offices in the land, heat is dispersed, or should I say leaked from doors and windows no matter how well insulated, to affect the country as a whole. Then there is the traffic on the roads probably increased a hundred fold, all contributing to the general rise in temperature
In cars we have windscreen heaters to keep them from misting up, and the heat given off around houses must have the same effect on the fog that we might otherwise have.
No wonder that our country has a rise in average temperatures, given the density of the population, and the amount of fuel burnt, out in Kansas USA it's the other way round, with lower than normal seasonal temperatures.
So who says its not man made.
Mothers Tea Cosy
Mother had a tea cosy, to keep the tea pot warm,
Used it for other things, that's not quite the norm,
It was all home knit, out of thick unravelled wool,
From warn out jumper unpicked, so curly was the wool.
On cold days she would ware it, outside in a storm,
Already warm and hot, from keeping tea pot warm,
Feeding hens or getting coal in, always pulled it on,
Hair stuck out the holes, where handle n spout were from.
Countryman
When the goose honks high, fair weather; when the goose honks low foul weather.
Proverb quotes
Each stall holds a pair of cows, left and right they learn,
Once they know their own side, one word n' they discern,
The Cow Stall gave way gradually to the cow cubicle starting around 1960, when the milking parlour changed milking for ever.
In the village each of the nine farms had a dairy herd, ranging from eleven cows on the small holding up to just over fifty cows one the larger farms. All the cows were tied up by the neck in stalls, and every cow knew its own place in the byre. The stalls were arranged in pairs with a left and a right hand tie up, the cows got used to which side to stand, it was almost impossible to persuade a cow to stand on a different side once trained to its particular side. If a cow was bought in from another herd, we always had a few single stalls at the end of the different sheds where we could tie up on either side, to accommodate and match the left or right hand cows.
In the early days, in winter cows were let out for exercise after morning milking, often to brows the kale that was cut and put out on an old turf near to the buildings. While out the stalls could be cleaned and bedded and the muck wheel barrowed out to the midden.
Hay which was loose (no bales) was put into every stall for them to come back in to, and later in the 1960's sugar beet pulp first became popular that was put into every trough from a feed barrow a bucket full per cow.
We still have a small shed that has three double cow stalls, the stalls are oak planks nailed to oak upright and two staves the same thickness forward to the front of the stall. The floor of each stall is bricks, back to a concrete kerb at the back edge of the stall, and a blue brick manger at the front. The treadle water bowl for each pair was clearly added to this set up, in more recent years. Originally cattle were looses out for water to a large trough in the middle of the yard fed by gravity from a spring in the wood up the back fields.
There is a loft above with holes in the floor where hay was stored and stuffed down into the feed passage in front of the stalls (Fodder bing as we called it locally). Another addition to the shed was the vacuum pipe along above the cows for the milking machine when they first came in.
The Cow Chain
At one time cows were all tied up, in stalls to milk and feed,
Each one knew its own place, not much room indeed,
When young they didn't like it, but soon learned where to go,
Twice every day it was for them, walking too and fro.
Out to daytime pastures, to distant fields to graze,
Back again for milking on long fine summer days,
Walk into their own shed, and finding their own stall,
Standing there to be chained, got to chain them all.
Each stall holds a pair of cows, left and right they learn,
Once they know their own side, one word n' they discern,
"Come over" spoken to them, they know your coming through,
The pair will part, n' chain them up, n' stand their cud to chew.
A scoop of corn while milking, then wait till milked the lot,
Loosed off the chains they wander, out to pasture we allot,
Clean the sheds and clean the stalls, till milking comes again,
To tie them up you always need, good strong shiny chain.
Countryman
Right now there is only two herds of cows in the village, and just about the same number of cows as what there was when there was nine herds. And where there would be around fifteen people involved in milking; it is only one man per herd (two herds) who do the milking now.
It is not necessarily those lands which are most fertile or most favoured in climate that seem to me the happiest, but those in which a long struggle of adaption between man and his environment has brought out the best quality in both.
T S Elliot (1888 - 1965)