Will’s World: The soundtrack of my farming childhood

Make hay while the sun shines, they say. And for the past few weeks, on and off, I’ve been doing just that.

What marvellous weather we’ve had for it; I hope everyone’s filled their barns with the lovely, sweet-smelling stuff.

Is there a more evocative aroma in farming than freshly made hay? Sitting in my air-conditioned cab as I comfortably baled away while listening to Test Match Special, my mind began to drift back to this time in years long gone.

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Fonz memories

It’s no exaggeration to say that the sound of my childhood was the distinctive rattling, click-clacking hum of a Lister bale elevator, powered by a Briggs and Stratton engine made in Milwaukee.

I remember this detail well because it seemed impossibly glamorous at the time, being where the classic sitcom Happy Days was set.

Perhaps The Fonz even put it together, I remember wondering. Admittedly, there wasn’t much to fire a boy’s imagination in 1980s Wrexham.

I must have put tens of thousands of bales on that elevator over the years, starting with unloading trailers at an age that’s almost unthinkable now, before graduating, as I got into my teenage years, to the far more responsible job of taking them off and stacking them in the Dutch barn.

There were many times when I’d be putting the last few into place, and the roof would be too hot to touch.

We’d climb down the wooden slats of the elevator, soak the dust off ourselves with cold water from a hosepipe, and my little sister would arrive with plastic bottles full of lager shandy – bliss!

Ten minutes later, and feeling refreshed, it’d be on to the next bay of the barn, the whole family working together to get the job done.

Then in the evenings, often we’d head over to my granddad’s place to help him and my uncle get their hay in as well.

In those early days I’d often be on the trailer in the field doing my best to keep up while giants of men would fling bales up to me with pikells.

There was a steady stream of laughter and leg-pulling, and being by far the youngest one there I was always fair game.

Granddad loved that time of year, and I always associate it with him. I remember when he was well into his 80s and the two of us walking across a field together towards an empty trailer. “Come on, race ya!” he suddenly exclaimed, and sprinted off before jumping onto the trailer ahead of me.

He was a great man in every sense of the word, and I was so very fortunate to have him in my life.

Community effort

There always seemed to be a team of people around for haymaking back then.

It wasn’t only family and those of us who made our living from farming, but locals from the village would come to help after they’d finished work, too. Everyone would muck in.

There’d be cheese sandwiches, cups of tea, and Mr Kipling French Fancies for everyone when we finished for the night, only to start all over again the next morning.

Thinking about all this, working on my own in my cab, I began to wonder if we’ve lost something in farming that we’ll never get back.

Technology, comfort, and efficiency are all very well, but when so many of us are suffering from loneliness, isolation and lack of community, is it all worth the price? Maybe, maybe not.

Perhaps they were the real happy days after all.