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As I was turning out some shelves in the storeroom the other day, I came across one of my father’s farm diaries dated 1906. The principal entries in it were the weekly wages paid to the farm labourers, but it also contained many notes as to cropping, stock, payments for shearing, threshing, and other entries connected with the working of the farm according to the season of the year.

For instance, in March there was a record of the number of lambs tailed, the payments made to the head shepherd, and also those to the tailer for his gruesome services. Later on in June came the piecework prices per acre for hoeing the various roots, and in August I found that Tom Scullard had mowed round one hundred and eighty acres of corn for one penny per acre. In these days it seems a lot to do for fifteen shillings, but I can remember Tom Scullard, and am sure that he would have been mortally offended if any other man had been detailed for the job, as he counted it as one of his privileges.

In the same month there was the curious entry of ‘Hiling’. This referred to stocking the sheaves of corn. I am not quite certain in my mind as to whether it should have been spelt ‘Aisleing’, likening the rows of stocks to the aisles of a church, or whether ‘Isleing’ would have been more correct, as each stook is a separate isle of about ten sheaves. Possibly my father’s spelling was entirely phonetic; anyway, it doesn’t matter now, and it evidently served the purpose in those days, for I found that in that particular week six men had drawn eighteen shillings each on the ‘Hiling’. Some weeks later I read that the balance coming to the men on the ‘Hiling’ was thirty-six shillings, which was paid to one, Charles Bailey; his faded signature sprawls right across the page.

I can remember him quite well: a short, thickset peasant, with a hatchet face. He was called Lawyer Charlie by his mates, as he always had charge of the financial side of their collective jobs. When the price of a piece of hoeing had to be settled, he was always the spokesman, and his great word in these discussions was ‘feasible’. Apparently to single turnips at six shillings per acre was feasible, but the suggestion to do mangolds at anything less than seven shillings per acre always brought the retort: ‘No, zur, bain’t feasible.’ Poor old Charlie is dead now. In my early days he was a good craftsman at all farm work, scrupulously honest, and he had a personal pride in the farm and everything and everybody connected with it. He was a chapel preacher on Sundays, and was greatly exercised in his mind because my father played cards. He would reprimand him for this deadly sin in the middle of a discussion on farming matters, and then switch back to the business in hand very abruptly. I heard him once say to my father: ‘Devil’s picture books, they be. You be headin’ fur eternal damnation, zur. What did Christ say? Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Now about thic main carriage in Big Maid....’

On looking through the list of names I found that quite a large proportion were not entered by their correct names, but by nicknames. ‘Shiner’ was one; his name was Frederick Strong. How or why he shone I cannot remember, but in that year he appears to have received a regular weekly wage of thirteen shillings plus his cottage, so he must have been a stockman of sorts.

Dick Turpin was another name on the pay-roll. This was a Thomas Trowbridge, who used to sing a song about Dick Turpin at the harvest suppers in the big barn. I have never heard it anywhere else; the last verse went something like this:

I am the last of Turpin’s gang

And I am sure I shall be hanged

Here’s fifty pound before I die

To gie Jack Ketch fur hanging I

Tibby Hi Ho Turpin Hero

Tibby Hi Ho Turpin Ho.

Dick Turpin was a jolly old boy, an ex-shepherd who had become a day labourer, and helped with the flock at busy times. He found some of the piecework, especially hoeing, rather hard, as he had not been accustomed to it all his life. But he was always cheerful; and I was sorry on turning over the pages of the book to the date of the Michaelmas settlings, to find this sinister entry: ‘Received back from Dick Turpin five and sixpence overdrawn on hoeing.’ Poor old Dick must have struck some bad pieces that summer, for I found that most of the hoers had a pound or two to come, and that Lawyer Charlie had four pounds eleven shillings and sixpence to his credit. But Dick was never a good hoer, and as he liked his pipe and glass I expect he had drawn more heavily than the others. Lawyer Charlie was a dour teetotaller, and non-smoker, and as a boy I was a bit afraid of him, but I loved old Dick and wish he hadn’t had to pay back that five and sixpence.

But what a number of names there were in those days; carters, shepherds, dairymen, labourers, a foreman, a groom gardener, and boys and lads innumerable. Boys were rarely accorded the dignity of name in that pay-roll, as usually their fathers worked on the farm and drew the wages for the family. A man named Musselwhite had three sons working regularly. He was a head carter, and the entries went like this—Musselwhite 14s., —— 9s., —— 7s. 6d., and —— 5s. In the harvest a boy still at school came to work, leading horses, and I saw that he was down as—Punch 2s. 6d. He was a very diminutive cherubic child with an uncanny knack with horses. To see him bring a load of sheaves hauled by two horses at length, into a stackyard through a gateway, was to realize that there is a special Providence watching over children and dumb animals. He was rather a favourite of my father’s, hence the entry ‘Punch’; an ordinary boy would have been just ——.

On comparing that list of names with my present wages book in 1931, I find that the farm is now employing about 25 per cent to 30 per cent of the number of men. One or two of the younger men in that 1906 wage list are still with me on this same farm, but most of the old hands are dead and gone. Yet the perusing of that old diary brings back to my mind quite clearly memories of those days of my boyhood, and I cannot help thinking what a contrast the farm presents to-day, both in its appearance and personnel, as compared to a quarter century ago.

Whether that period may be truthfully described as the bad old days or as the good old days, I do not know. However, I have lived through that twenty-five years of farming, and possibly my reminiscences will show how the change occurred. If the present state of things be considered a bad one for this England of ours, perhaps someone will suggest a remedy. Why it took place I do not know; I only know that it happened. Therefore, in the words of Kipling, I will let a plain statement suffice, and leave you to draw your own conclusions.