Threshin (thrashing) corn what mth ?

[yod dropper]

From 'All our working lives' (1986). Len Sharman from Leiston who said he was neither very big nor very strong said that at 55 he carried 135 of these 18 stone sacks of wheat in a days work at troshin time and he went home very tired.

[yod dropper]

Mother said it could depend on when the machine came round and that it did also get done in the winter.

[Walker570]

OUCH!!!!!!!  This talk of 2cwt Railways sacks brings on twitches in my sciatica region.  I remember the threshing team arriving, initiall around 1945/6 with a steam engine to drive the drum and big old baler which bound those bales with wire or the batten machine which produced oat straw in long battens ready for thatching..  I was too smal,then to actually get involved other than running back and forth with jugs of tea for the crew.  I was also in short trousers so didn't need to tie string around my long trousers to stop the rats taking refuge.  Evetually in th 50s I was big and stron enough to shoulder those big thick railways sacks and they had to be carried about 80yrds down the bank from the thrashing yard and then up eight steps to the granary and tipped there ready to be ground for cattle food.   Most of our thrashing was done just after Christmas and it used to facinate me because the team from Hentons at Hopwas used to travel back and forth each day on bikes with lamps lit with carbide gas.

The thrashing machine and baler would be winched in by the old steam engine from the lane 150yrds away and lined up.   In the early years my job was picking up the dead rats killed by our two corgis.  The sides of the ricks would have runways along them and it was great fun with a Caty and torch at night, taking pot shots at them.

Memories  memories memories

Edited January 27, 2020 by Walker570

[marsh man]

25 minutes ago, Walker570 said:

OUCH!!!!!!!  This talk of 2cwt Railways sacks brings on twitches in my sciatica region.  I remember the threshing team arriving, initiall around 1945/6 with a steam engine to drive the drum and big old baler which bound those bales with wire or the batten machine which produced oat straw in long battens ready for thatching..  I was too smal,then to actually get involved other than running back and forth with jugs of tea for the crew.  I was also in short trousers so didn't need to tie string around my long trousers to stop the rats taking refuge.  Evetually in th 50s I was big and stron enough to shoulder those big thick railways sacks and they had to be carried about 80yrds down the bank from the thrashing yard and then up eight steps to the granary and tipped there ready to be ground for cattle food.   Most of our thrashing was done just after Christmas and it used to facinate me because the team from Hentons at Hopwas used to travel back and forth each day on bikes with lamps lit with carbide gas.

The thrashing machine and baler would be winched in by the old steam engine from the lane 150yrds away and lined up.   In the early years my job was picking up the dead rats killed by our two corgis.  The sides of the ricks would have runways along them and it was great fun with a Caty and torch at night, taking pot shots at them.

Memories  memories memories

You cannot really imagine the changes a person have have seen in farming throughout his life , no doubt some of our older members can just about remember the heavy horses doing most of the work , then moving on to the first tractors , combines , beet harvesters and so on .

THANKS for letting us know what life was like back in your day on the farm . 

 

[Walker570]

Our horse Punch was the most gentle animal. Whilst my grandfather got him ready for work i would scamble between his feet and not once did he step on me. I would then get thrown up onto is back and my legs wouldn't straddle him, so I just hung on to the hames/collar best I could whilst my grandfather guided him up the rows of mangles with the scuffle taking out any weeds.  This was back in the years just after the war..45 to 47.  ...47 I got my first air rifle and nothing was safe within the 220 acres of our own farm and the 180acres of my uncles next door.  I would have the job of grinding the corn and putting out enough chaff and chopped mangles to mix with this grain and then a couple of buckets full of mollasses mixed with hot water poured over and then mixed on the mixing house floor with a large shovel, bagged up and carried into the milking sheds and fed to the cows.   Highlight of a summers evening was to be allowed to stay up and direct the torch so my grandfather could shoot the rats feeding on the remnants in the cowshed with special rice  loaded 12 gauge cartridges to prevent breaking the roof tiles.   Then we almost always had snow in winter and I had freedom to use our workshop and built some super dooper sledges and as our farm had some steep hillsides all the kids in the neighbourhood used to compete as to who could build the best, the fastest etc. and because one hill ran down to a disued railway line we could actually get a three to four hundred yard run if enough speed was built up down the hill.........  memories memories ... I still have the scar down one finger where the steel runner I had fitted sliced my finger open on a jump......wonder why it is I can remember back then vividly but struggle to remember todays date ?

 

That sledge run is now covered in concrete and tarmac and a big housing estate.

Edited January 27, 2020 by Walker570

[oldypigeonpopper]

23 minutes ago, Walker570 said:

Our horse Punch was the most gentle animal. Whilst my grandfather got him ready for work i would scamble between his feet and not once did he step on me. I would then get thrown up onto is back and my legs wouldn't straddle him, so I just hung on to the hames/collar best I could whilst my grandfather guided him up the rows of mangles with the scuffle taking out any weeds.  This was back in the years just after the war..45 to 47.  ...47 I got my first air rifle and nothing was safe within the 220 acres of our own farm and the 180acres of my uncles next door.  I would have the job of grinding the corn and putting out enough chaff and chopped mangles to mix with this grain and then a couple of buckets full of mollasses mixed with hot water poured over and then mixed on the mixing house floor with a large shovel, bagged up and carried into the milking sheds and fed to the cows.   Highlight of a summers evening was to be allowed to stay up and direct the torch so my grandfather could shoot the rats feeding on the remnants in the cowshed with special rice  loaded 12 gauge cartridges to prevent breaking the roof tiles.   Then we almost always had snow in winter and I had freedom to use our workshop and built some super dooper sledges and as our farm had some steep hillsides all the kids in the neighbourhood used to compete as to who could build the best, the fastest etc. and because one hill ran down to a disued railway line we could actually get a three to four hundred yard run if enough speed was built up down the hill.........  memories memories ... I still have the scar down one finger where the steel runner I had fitted sliced my finger open on a jump......wonder why it is I can remember back then vividly but struggle to remember todays date ?

 

That sledge run is now covered in concrete and tarmac and a big housing estate.

hello, on the hill in our village we use to sledge down in an old car bonnet, if you were unlucky to stop it went through the farmers fence at the bottom so we just bailed out the 63 winter you could not get to the hill !!!!!!!

Edited January 27, 2020 by oldypigeonpopper

[Walker570]

63 winter I broke all records for falling off a Lambretta scooter. The roads around Sutton Coldfield stayed icy through to April.

[islandgun]

On 26/01/2020 at 19:28, marsh man said:

When I was younger I could manage a bag of cement on my shoulder that came in the cwt bags ( 8 stone in old money ) , now they are in 25 kilo bag which is roughly half the weight of the old bags , this was done because of E U regulations , or so I was told , what they would think of men lifting bags of grain weighing 16 stone ( 2 cwt ) I shudder to think , 

 

I remember in my teens just out of school, having a 2cwt sack of beans put on my back off a lorry, i  took a few steps and got lower and lower as my knees bent..😄

only remember one field of stooks and that  was in the fifties

[marsh man]

31 minutes ago, islandgun said:

I remember in my teens just out of school, having a 2cwt sack of beans put on my back off a lorry, i  took a few steps and got lower and lower as my knees bent..😄

only remember one field of stooks and that  was in the fifties

Some of the early fields of Peas we went on were lifted and the loose Peas were put on a flat lorry and carted off to Birds Eye to be shelled , the lorries were mainly old coal carting lorries as they were quiet doing the Summer months as not many people bought coal at that time of the year , us included .

When the Pea viners were first introduced , the waste storks were put on pallets on the field to dry out and no doubt used for cattle food , moving on several years I have seen them use the baler to bale the Pea stubble up and use that at a later date to feed the livestock , the Bean stubble was also baled up but that was used for the farmers solid fuel boiler .

[Centrepin]

On 26/01/2020 at 17:47, ditchman said:

do you remember the eleptical fag called "passing cloud".....

I don't despite racking my meagre brain. I asked a friend and he said it was all Parky rough round here or Players No 6 or Navy cut.

But.....he sent me this picture

 

I also remember vaguely someone smoking Wills wiffs🤔

Edited January 31, 2020 by Centrepin

[oldypigeonpopper]

4 minutes ago, Centrepin said:

I don't despite racking my meagre brain. I asked a friend and he said it was all Parky rough round here or Players No 6 or Navy cut.

But.....he sent me this picture

 

I also remember vaguely someone smoking Wills wiffs🤔

hello, was there some called Craven A

On 27/01/2020 at 20:18, islandgun said:

I remember in my teens just out of school, having a 2cwt sack of beans put on my back off a lorry, i  took a few steps and got lower and lower as my knees bent..😄

only remember one field of stooks and that  was in the fifties

hello, we use to play hide and seek in the Stooks

[ditchman]

21 minutes ago, Centrepin said:

I don't despite racking my meagre brain. I asked a friend and he said it was all Parky rough round here or Players No 6 or Navy cut.

But.....he sent me this picture

 

I also remember vaguely someone smoking Wills wiffs🤔

the puff of our choice was no 6 or soveriegn or cadets........

 

there was also Black&White.....bloody woodbines  ugh........used to get them from skool....(that was after i was thrown out of private skool for fighting...and going walk a bout)...so they sent me to the local secondary modern....

[old'un]

53 minutes ago, ditchman said:

the puff of our choice was no 6 or soveriegn or cadets........

 

there was also Black&White.....bloody woodbines  ugh........used to get them from skool....(that was after i was thrown out of private skool for fighting...and going walk a bout)...so they sent me to the local secondary modern....

Five park drive when I started smoking, mind you the tuck shop near the school would sell you one in a paper bag if you were a bit hard-up.

 

[Centrepin]

[Walker570]

We had one 12 acre field (a big field back then) which we called The Game Cock field because it ran up against the Game Cock pub.  When I was stooking corn sheaves we could nip across the road and get a bottle of Tizer or Dandelion and Burdock to slake our thirst.  Used to wear a pair of old socks pulled up our arms to stop the sheaves chaffing our arms.

 

Ok  question, when stooking sheaves which side would you put the knot ?  Inside or outside.   Very important because done wrong all the corn heads would be exposed to the elements.

[Blackpowder]

8 hours ago, Centrepin said:

I don't despite racking my meagre brain. I asked a friend and he said it was all Parky rough round here or Players No 6 or Navy cut.

But.....he sent me this picture

 

I also remember vaguely someone smoking Wills wiffs🤔

Can you remember a craze around 1950 on collecting cigarette packets?

Blackpowder

 

[Centrepin]

3 hours ago, Blackpowder said:

Can you remember a craze around 1950 on collecting cigarette packets?

Blackpowder

 

I remember collecting the cards that came in the packets for free and paying for a book to stick them in. I think it was about 2d. Which was a fortune when I only got 3d a week spending money. I still have several.

[Diver One]

At the age of 63 I have to,occasionally keep my hand in doing domestic electric work . Mind numbingly  boring BUt if the Data Comms work is a bit thin then it helps pay the mortgage ( if they can afford me )

always finding fag packets under the floor like those above. Best is when I find a folded fag packet packing out a switch box and It has my Gradads signature on it from when he started the family Sparking business in 1946!

best under floor find was a WWII Lancaster  Bomber Bathtub Bakelite Morse Code key

 

Edited January 31, 2020 by Diver One