Records Service Harvesting the Past Project Updates Archive www.worcestershire.gov.uk/records Records Service Harvesting The Past - Update - June 2009 By Julia Letts, Oral History Producer If you haven’t yet heard about ‘Harvesting the Past’, then read on. In May we launched this unique recording project at the Chantry High School. Our aim is to record the memories of lots of older people in the community, especially their experiences of growing up and farming in the 30s, 40s and 50s. These recordings will be saved for posterity at the Worcestershire Record Office. But they will also be used by a local playwright, John Townsend, to create a community play which will be staged at the Chantry next April. The cast of the Chantry School with their headteacher Steve Jowett at the launch of Harvesting The Past We are now well into the recording phase of the project, and over the past few weeks, I have had the privilege of meeting some extraordinary people from Martley, Clifton and the Teme Valley, many of them in their 90s but with clear and vivid memories. Amongst many other things I have learnt how to make ‘proper’ hay ricks, how to find a curlew’s nest, how to hunt for eels, pick hops, balance at the top of a 30 foot ladder, harness a cart horse, salt a pig, and make butter in an old sweet jar. Farmer feeding a foal c1950s www.worcestershire.gov.uk/records Records Service One lady, born in 1919, told me how as a young girl she used to ride to Worcester to collect cows or horses from the train, and then herd or lead them back to the farm through the city streets and country lanes. Another, born the same year, remembers finishing her day’s work in the fields pulling beat and then cycling 10 miles – two to a bike - to dances in the nearest village hall. Bert Bradley Bert Bradley, currently Chairman of Clifton’s Parish Council, recalled his school days in Martley. The class room had high windows so you couldn’t see who was coming into the village, but you could tell who it was by the sound of their vehicle. The most welcoming sound was that of the Elderado man. “He came from Worcester with the icecream box on his bike, and he would try to get to Martley at lunch time or when you were coming out of school. I think he had a uniform and a peak cap. To keep the ice cream cool... he had a block of solid ice with something in there. You could put a little bit of this stuff on your hand but if you left it, it would burn, not like a burn mark but like a nicotine mark – the stuff that they used to keep the thing cold.” Bert also remembers the circus coming to Martley and rushing to the field by the Crown to get first glimpse of the animals. The elephants, he recalls, gorged themselves on apples from the surrounding orchards. These few examples are just the tip of the iceberg. I have recorded about 20 hours of material so far, and am still looking for more. If you know of anyone who really ought to be recorded, or you yourself have memories stretching back to the 30s, 40s or 50s, then please get in touch. We would particularly like to hear from anyone who was a midwife or district nurse in the area, anyone who sang or played in a band touring the village halls, anyone who was a prisoner of war and stayed on, or anyone who worked for an agricultural committee during the war. www.worcestershire.gov.uk/records Records Service Harvesting The Past - Update - July 2009 By Julia Letts, Project Coordinator. If you have been following the progress of this project, I’m pleased to report that June has been a very busy month. I have had the privilege of interviewing more than a dozen fascinating people, four of whom were in their nineties and whose memories stretched back as far as the 1920s and in one case, the First World War. It has given me a real insight into the communities and farms around Martley and the Teme Valley, how the Estates operated before they were broken up, the plight of tenant farmers in the late twenties and early thirties, and how everything changed with the coming of the Second World War. “I think farming has become quite a lonely occupation” says David Powell, who still lives in a bungalow on the farm in Rochford where he grew up. “When I was going to school, there were sixteen men working at the Bank Farm - I often wonder what the heck my father put them to do! They all had different roles... one gentlemen, more or less all he did for 11 months of the year was hedge trimming by hand. He had a straight arm – he’d got a shell in his arm – but boy, his hedge bill would cut. The Bank Farm was noted for its good hedges because he kept them small and nice. He was an exceptional man”. As more and more of the labour force went off to war, and the demands for food production got greater, farmers relied on help from the Women’s Land Army and the German and Italian Prisoners of War, based at camps and hostels in Clifton and Tenbury. David Powell befriended a young German man called Reinhold Mullecker who cycled out to the Powell’s farm every day from Tenbury. David has vivid memories of Reinhold fearlessly scaling the perry trees and digging holes by hand for the hop poles. David still treasures the violin and toys that Reinhold carved him in the 1940s, and all these years later, the two of them are still in touch. David Powell with the violin and toy made for him in 1946 by POW Reinhold Mullecker The war also brought Gladys Hoskins to this area. She became a land girl in 1942. Based in Tenbury, she walked and later cycled to farms all over the area, doing everything from mucking out pig sheds, to cabbage planting and fruit picking. www.worcestershire.gov.uk/records Records Service “I remember one day we were doing beans. Golly, that was a filthy job. We were stooking these beans and we were filthy black. Suddenly a man’s face peered over the hedge and he said ‘Would any of you girls like a cup of tea?’ – there was a little cottage we didn’t know down in the hollow. Oh yes we would! He said ‘You’ll have to come over one at a time’ and he put a ladder against the hedge! Their names were Mr and Mrs Smith and we made friends with them.” Gladys Hoskins in her Women’s Land Army uniform in 1942 This is something that has come across in all of the interviews I’ve done to date: the friendships formed, the camaraderie and sense of community. I met one lady from the Black Country, Sheila Smith, on the farm in Shelsey Beauchamp where she and her family had come every year at hop picking time. “It was absolutely beautiful here. I was a babby in arms when I first came, and as time ran on, I took notice of things and remember more. I was 21 when I finished. We never wanted to go back home, never at all.” Sheila still visits every year and once took a coach party of former pickers back to Church House Farm. Whilst I am still collecting all this information, and continuing to interview people all over the area, ‘Harvesting the Past’ is about to embark on its next stage. In early July I’ll be going into the Chantry High School to teach a group of students how to use recording equipment and make their own interviews. The following week it’ll be their turn to do the interviewing. We will be inviting a number of local people along who are willing to be quizzed by the pupils. www.worcestershire.gov.uk/records Records Service Harvesting the Past - Update - August 2009 By Julia Letts - Project Coordinator As the autumn approaches, we are moving into the second stage of this exciting project in West Worcestershire. Many thanks to those of you who have been reading these updates - your support and wonderful contributions have been most welcome. I would now like to appeal to even more people so please read on... there are lots of ways you can get involved. The aim of this project is to create an archive of farming and countryside stories for the Worcestershire Record Office, and to create a community play based on people’s memories and experiences. I have now completed 20 interviews, and have recorded about 50 hours of material. It has been a privilege to drive around such a beautiful area interviewing such welcoming and knowledgeable people, five of whom were well over 90. * The next stage of the project is to share some of their amazing stories with the rest of the community and wider county. All the recordings have now been transcribed, each running to between 30 and 60 pages of A4! These transcripts have now been delivered to the project’s playwright, local man John Townsend. During August and early September he will be turning the many stories into a 90 minute play for the Chantry High School. When the term restarts in September, the Head of Drama there, Sue Rickman, will start to audition and cast parts in the play.