CD2

(55 mins)
 

2/1

LEAVING SOUTH MOLTON SCHOOL / WORKING WITH FATHER / WAGE PACKETS / PAY AND BE PAID / WORKING ON THE FARM / AIR TRAINING CADETS / FIRST TRACTOR

He'd left school by the time the war ended. He'd gone from West Anstey school to South Molton, for a short time. It was the old school, which is now the junior school. He thinks it's just been closed because they've built a new school at South Molton. He doesn't think the old school [building] is in use at the moment. He must have been 15 when he left school, that was the school leaving age in those days. Fourteen for a long time, up to 15, 16.

He came home on the family farm with Father. They gradually accumulated a little more land. At that time he employed 2 men, JM would have been the third one. That was the general run of employment in agriculture in those areas. Getting back to the war, he can remember taking the wage packet out as a boy to one of the workers, called Percy Hill, of £1.10 shillings for a week's wages, a 6 day week, and always having to collect one shilling for him. The one shilling was the rent of his cottage, in the village there, Cherry Cottage. He never knows why he didn't deduct it from the pay. Percy always had the shilling tied up in a know in the corner of his red handkerchief. He'd take back the shilling to father. He supposes it was 'pay and be paid'. It was a saying in those days, everybody paid and would be paid, even if it was passing it in one hand and taking it back with the other.

Working on the farm was the natural thing to do in those days. You expected to come back in the family tradition. He had no real ambition to be anything else. He had belonged to the early version of the Air Training Cadets. If war had gone on and one had gone into the armed services his preference would have been the air force. But there was no real feeling but what he was going to come back with  his father on the farm. It wasn't until after he left school, 1946 he thinks, that his father bought his first tractor. Every activity up 'til then, the cutting the grass, the cutting the corn, the ploughing - they occasionally brought in a contractor in the latter part of the war to plough some fields - but generally it was still ploughed by a single furrow and a horse. [Back to top]
 

2/2

FARM STOCK / SELF-SUFFICIENCY / GROWING CORN / HARVESTING / THRASHING / MOBILE STEAM ENGINE / CONTRACTORS / GRINDING CORN / CORN MILL / MILLER'S FAMILY / MILL NOW / DRESSING THE STONES / ADVENT OF CONCENTRATED FEEDING STUFFS

The farm was mainly sheep and cattle. They never did any dairy. Everybody was self-sufficient in those days. It was really hardly known to go to the miller for very much. You'd grow your own corn and take it to the miller, who'd grind the corn locally, in the village. Most farmers grew a few acres of corn; wheat, barley, oats. Occasionally some peas. They would harvest them with horses and binders, or reapers, whatever was available, if they were fortunate enough to own the horse machinery. That would then be put into ricks on the farms and during the winter months the mobile steam engine and thrashing machine would travel the area. There used to be 2 from that area; a man called Singerton, from Rackenford, with his engine, JM can recall that one coming on the farm. Very treasured possessions they were, gleaming with their brass and paintwork. The farmer always had to get a supply of steam coal ready for the day's thrashing. His [Mr Singerton's] engine was called Dorothy, after his daughter. It was a great occasion to go and help him raise up steam in the morning, ready for the men to be there about 9 o'clock to start thrashing. That was the sequence of every farm.

The other firm was merchants, from Umberleigh, who were agricultural contractors. They had 2 or 3 steam engines. They came and thrashed the area during the winter months, from these ricks. It used to be quite a pleasurable occasion, to go with a stick and catch the rats that came out from under the stacks. Then the corn, in big two hundredweight sacks, took some heaving, a 2 man job. Then eventually, some fed them whole and used them as a whole grain. Some took them to the mill and had them ground into coarse or fine meal, for feeding. And a few gradually bought their own small barn engine driven mills and milled them on their farms. And that was perhaps the demise of the local corn mill, which was water driven in the village there.

The corn mill in the bottom of the village is still in existence. It will still actually function. The water wheel was renovated a few years ago. Sadly the family died out that owned the mill and the nephew lives there now and the mill's not in use. He can well remember the rumble of machinery working, grinding. The millstones are still there to this day. Let's hope that somewhere along the line they'll never get removed and will be preserved and perhaps restored for historical purposes if nothing else.

The family that owned it for years were called Harris. He was the miller. He was unmarried. His 2 sisters lived with him, and they weren't married. The person that lives there now on his own is one of the sons of another sister who married a person called Vellacott. And they had one son and that's the person who lives at the mill to this day. The mill's not in use. What will happen to it he doesn't know. He thinks it's a listed building, so perhaps it will get preserved. It must be one of the only mills around that has a total complement of every former bit of machinery; winches, millstones, it's even got its own chisels sharpening millstone there, for sharpening the chisels to dress (as they call them) dress the stones for milling. Apparently every now and again the millstones would wear uneven, so a person would come by train from Barnstaple to 'dress' the stones, to chip away some of the stone which had not worn to a flat level. Hence, if you look at millstones, if you see one stood up as a decorative piece these days, you see there's little tiny chips on one side of it, and that was to stop the grain from clogging, it had to be even. And that's what they call 'dressing'.

Two people worked there, but one of the sisters used to help in the mill. Herbie Harris, as he knew him, and his father used work 'til his death, but his father was never replaced. Then in later years the mill gradually started bringing in more concentrated feeding stuffs that came down by train to East Anstey station, and Harris used to have his little light lorry, 30 hundredweight lorry, and fetch the compound meal products and bring them back to the mill for re-sale. That was the early days of the big milling combines that you see today. [Back to top]
 

2/3

RETURNING TO OLD TRADITIONS / THE FARM PRACTICE NOW / HAYLAGE / SUPPLYING NEW LEISURE RIDERS LIVESTOCK FARMERS' INCREASED SELF-SUFFICIENCY

One of the things which he thinks is very interesting, is to see in the last few years that a lot of farmers have gone back to the old traditions, growing their own grain. They themselves, his sons, grow 120 acres/130 acres of corn and they've got nearly 200 beef cattle, of all sizes, and they lamb about 1000 ewes and their offspring. And they [the farm] buy no feeding stuff at all, except perhaps fishmeal or a small mineral complement to add to their home produced grain. Which has gone back to very much what his father used to do in a smaller scale in the '20s and '30s.

Hay for winter feeding, and straw, was the only product in the war years and his younger life, where silage has taken over, and silage clamps, and doesn't rely so much on the sunshine. Then the newer product, which is well known these days, is haylage, which is half way between what he calls silage and hay. Again, it can be baled quicker. And as it has got to be wrapped, haylage, to keep it airtight, it's more acceptable and easier to do with less labour and larger acreages. They are self-sufficient in that as well. They also sell quite a lot of haylage and hay to what is now a very lucrative market in the area, of pleasure horse owners, leisure riders, who have moved into the area and renovated the old redundant farmhouses, and smaller cottages which used to be farm workers' cottages. They have 2 or 3 acres and a couple of horses, for their hobby. Hence they are not able to produce their own fodder and it becomes a local market for those who have enough land and machinery to be able to produce some.

[BJ asks whether he would be typical of other farmers] Because they have enlarged a little, they are probably classed as a little more mechanised than some of the other farmers, but generally, yes, they farm in a very similar manner, but perhaps slightly larger scale, than the majority in the close locality. Although they are still comparatively small compared to 'up country' farmers.

The trend, especially in the last 2 or 3 years, has been for many other farmers to go into being a little more self-sufficient and not relying on the acquisition of outside feed. Except the dairy farmer. Those still very much rely on purchasing large quantities of compound feeds, that's cake, and mineral mix, from large suppliers. But the main livestock farmer is gradually drifting away from purchasing feeding stuff back to self-sufficiency. [BJ asks whether that means his reducing his stocking levels]. Yes, the stocking levels might not be on the increase as they were. A few years ago, the farmers would look and say, 'we've got 100 sheep, let's have 200 sheep,' and you'd double your profits. That's not so. So he thinks people are beginning to realise that to be a little more cost effective is more important than numbers. [Back to top]
 

2/4

MOTOR CARS / RAILWAY / MARKETS / CLOSURE OF RAILWAY / LAST TICKET / LEVEL CROSSING / DAMAGED HAYCART / SELF-SEEDED APPLE TREES

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The railway was the only form of getting away from the area for most people. His father was the first one to have a motor car in the area. When JM was talking of the Overland car in the early '30s, he was the only one to own a motor car in the parish. If you said there were half a dozen cars in West Anstey at the end of the war, in 1935, it would be about right. Now every household has 2 or 3. The railway's gone. The railway used to be the means of getting to South Molton, or Barnstaple. It would be looked at as essential. Now they've managed to live without it; they used to think they never could. On Thursdays, market day in South Molton, you'd see the railway platforms of East Anstey, Molland, and here at Yeo Mill Halt (there used to be a halt there), you'd see the platforms on Thursdays absolutely full of people waiting for the early morning trains to go to the South Molton market. There were about 6 trains each way, at various times, every day. How you managed in that era without them, he doesn't know. It was an occasion to go to South Molton on Thursday, market day. Today you jump in your motor car and you probably go to South Molton 2 or 3 times in a day, if you've got a bad memory and you forgot what you went for first time.

South Molton is the local market town for that area. [BJ asks if they went there rather than Bampton] Bampton had a railway connection, but you had to go to Dulverton and on to Morebath Junction, to change trains to go to Bampton. But Bampton was a market town. They'd all go to Bampton once a year, Bampton Fair day, the last Thursday in October, but not for normal market days. Dulverton had a market as well, on a very much smaller scale and he believes not weekly. South Molton was a weekly market.

The railway went in 1966, under the Beeching act. There was a great bitter fight over retaining the railway. No-one in that area wanted to see it go, although the event of the motor car had done away with the need and it was not used very greatly. Although there's a few families who still suffer greatly from the loss of the railway. It was still running at the end, several trains a day. He well recalls the last train. H's got the last ticket of the last train that ran on the railway. They said he wouldn't get it, but he did because he went on the train without a ticket and admitted to the guard half way to Taunton that he hadn't got a ticket. He was obliged to give him one and he's still got it, to this day. Everyone wanted to buy the last ticket, by going up to the ticket stations [office], but it was pretty well known to someone that used the railway originally that if you ran up the platform as the train was about to move out and leapt on without a ticket, as long as you confessed to the guard that you hadn't got a ticket before you got to the destination, you hadn't committed any offence and they were obliged to give you a ticket. The guard always carried a book of tickets. They weren't exactly the same looking as the one you bought at the box office, but it was the official Great Western Railway ticket. Or British Railway at the end.

He used the railway quite a lot over his life, in those early days. Being Yeo Mill Halt you naturally jumped on without a ticket anyway, and took your ticket at the next station. So he had discovered over the years that if you forgot at East Anstey, you could have it on the train. That's how he got the last ticket. He'll make sure it gets preserved, for long term history.

The railway ran right through the middle of the farm. There was a level crossing on it. He can remember a few instances. He remembers a load of hay falling, a wheel collapsing as they came across once and a load of hay breaking down on the line and having to get the horse out quickly. The 5 to 5 train was heard coming up, and he remembers old Bill Southwood, a chap working with JM's father, running down the railway and taking off his waistcoat and waving at the engine driver to stop, because there was a load of hay on the railway. He can well recall seeing the engine driver and fireman stopping the train and getting up and help remove the damaged cart off the track, so they could progress on the line. It's quite a vivid picture whenever he goes up on the railway today. The old railway's still there. They used it as a farm road, a nice hard road, to serve the farm fields. An access road to land which has been added to the farm. Which he doesn't think they would have been so easy without the redundant railway.

Although he still, and it's over 30 years now since it closed, he'll still drive a tractor, a quad bike, up to the level crossing, the gates are still there, and he still tends to stop and look both ways. You wonder why you're doing it. You do it sub-consciously because you've been doing it for so many years. You look over your shoulder to make sure no-one's watching you because you feel a bit of an idiot, but he supposes it's natural. It used to be a lovely sight, to see the steam engines coming up, and the passengers in the summer, going off down to the coast for their holidays, waving out of the windows. Just nearby, he supposes because they used to stop some of the trains at the halt, along beside the old railway track, 200-300 yards down, there's a lot of different apple trees growing, self-seeded ones. And the only thing he can think is that people stopped at the halt threw eaten apple cores out of the windows, and these trees started growing on the side of the banks, from those early beginnings of a pip from an apple. They bear fruit most years, different varieties. [Back to top]
 

2/5

BUYING STANDARD FORDSON TRACTOR, 1946 / PRICE RESTRICTIONS / ACE OF CLUBS / IRON WHEELS / PLOUGHING / BUYING NEW FERGUSON / REVOLUTIONISATION OF FARMING

He remembers in 1946 going to a farm sale at Bickham Farm, Oakford and there was a Standard Fordson tractor for sale, quite new. The man who was selling up, old Williams, had been suddenly taken ill and had to retire. His father went with the intention of buying the tractor. The price new was £175. There was a restriction that you couldn't give any more for the tractor. His father registered his interest at £175 - because you had to wait several months, he thinks a year, to get a new tractor at that time - and the auctioneer would take anyone interested in £175, the new price. He thinks there were 6 people who said they were interested. So the auctioneer would take out a pack of cards and he can remember his father standing beside him, hoping he was going to be the purchaser, having the ace of clubs and he was the only one with an ace, so he was the new owner of their first tractor. So often when he looks at the ace of clubs it brings back memories to this day. So that's how they decided on the fixed price acquisition of products which were quite scarce at the end of the war. No machine was allowed to make more than its new price. So however wealthy they were, they couldn't outbid any other person.

That was the first tractor, the old Standard Fordson. It was on spade lugs, he remembers. Big iron wheels, with big iron road bands. They were a nightmare. The year after, his father bought a pair of ex-bomber wheels. He doesn't know what make of bomber they were from, whether it was Lancasters or what, but these big rubber wheels and tyres were adapted by the centres, that they'd fit the hub of a Fordson tractor. He can't remember what price he gave for them. Because the spade lugs would dig up road, dig up the yards. They were all right actually on the land itself, but he soon put on a pair of rear rubbers and kept the iron wheels on the front.

That was their first tractor, and he can remember one of the early days of using it, of sitting driving a two furrow plough, ploughing, and you used to sit on an iron seat with no back on it, bumping up and down, or you'd stand up astride the footplates. That was the noisiest bit of equipment you could ever imagine, but it was still quite a thing from walking behind a horse.

And then, he thinks it was about 3 years later, he bought a small grey Ferguson, which had just been brought onto the market. The elevation of the little Ferguson tractor with its 3 point linkage, the little grey Fergie they call it. He thinks that one was £345 new. He can remember him buying it from the travel agent for Medland, Sanders & Twose, the firm at Tiverton. And he can remember the name of the man who delivered it, he was called Arthur Lazarus from Dulverton. He can remember that one arriving. That was really the piece of equipment of the year. It revolutionised farming in that area, because it wasn't any more than a year or so before there were several of them, 20 or so, in most farms in the area and the horse really did disappear then. Hence what we know today as the hydraulic lift and three point linkage, direct attached implements, that was the first bit of equipment that came in that really revolutionised farming in those areas. [Back to top]
 

2/6

RABBITING / SHOOTING PARTIES / NETTING RABBITS / VALUE OF RABBIT / POCKET MONEY / SELLING MOLE SKINS / BURRINGTON SHOOTING PARTY / / MAKING CIDER / HOME MADE WINE

Leisure activities were home made, a lot of them. Rarely would you think of going further than the next village for social life or entertainment. One of the things during the winter time, rabbits were by the thousand, and everyone had their shooting parties. And the family party afterward would be with all the neighbours, and a game of cards in the evening, and a huge supper provided by the ladies, before they all dispersed at 2 o'clock in the morning and all went home.

The predominant card game was nap. He supposed napoleon was it's proper name. It's a 5 card game. Always a bit of gambling that went with it, it was always threepenny or sixpenny nap that used to be played. You could never win or lose very much, it was to make it more exciting he supposes. Yes, this would be after a rabbiting party. It was nothing to have a day's rabbiting on the farm and shoot 100 rabbits or more, with a ferret. Every farmer had a couple of ferrets. There was always a bit of a competition over who could have the best ferret. He always remembers the little sods would bite fair if you didn't catch them right.

In his early days as a young man, and a child, he always had his own ferret. Because before you were old enough to use a shotgun you'd go rabbiting with nets. That's a cord net that you used to put over the holes and put the ferret in and when the rabbit came out you caught him in the net. That was always a Saturday afternoon entertainment [during the week], all the young lads used to get together and go netting the rabbits.

The rabbit was quite valuable in those days. A shilling was nearly equivalent to a week's cottagers rent. But because of the food aspect, the rabbit was always quite a valuable commodity. It was the way they got their pocket money. That and mole skins. They used to catch moles in the winter. Every young lad on the farms had a few mole traps, and caught the mole and skinned it and put it on the back of the barn door, and when he'd got 50 or 100 skins he'd send them off. He remembers there was a competition. There was 2 firms, one called Horace Friend. Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, used to put them in a parcel and send them to where they were used for clothes making, he supposes. You got paid pennies, but if you had a postal order arrive back for £5, you were quite rich for several months. There was great competition as to who would pay most, there was little in it he thinks. There was another firm called John Lee, which all the locals sent their mole skins to. Rabbit skins as well. The rabbits were consumed on the farms. If you skinned them and nailed them on a door they were quite valuable. He can't recall the exact pence they were - it was only pennies. The days before metrification, when it was 240 pennies in a pound. But it was always an activity which was a part of the pocket money.

Rabbiting was very much a local [activity] in the early days because you hadn't got a pony to go anywhere with. But just occasionally you'd get an invitation from further afield and you'd make some means of getting there, if it was on a pony or you'd go and be collected by pony and trap. He remembers they used to go Burrington for a day's rabbiting every winter, where his mother's brother lived. You'd go to Barnstaple on Friday by train, with his father, and they'd go from Barnstaple, market day. His mother's brother used to come in there. The earliest one he can recall is going in pony and trap from Barnstaple back to Burrington, for a day's rabbiting and a game of cards and coming back the next morning.

[BJ asks what would they drink in their social evenings] It was always the home made brews. Cider was the main thing, because every farm usually had a supply of cider. They used to make their cider there at Partridge Arms in the building across the road, which he mentioned earlier, called the skittle alley. There was a cider press in there. They used to make cider, and the neighbours who hadn't got a press would come in and make cider. They used to put it in barrels, hogsheads, 64 gallons they always call a hogshead. Some was good, some took some drinking, but there was always somebody for everything.

Home made wines in stone jars were another thing. Blackberry wine, parsnip wine. Anything you could think of. And everybody used to make their home made wines. It was a great competition really, who could make the best wines. It usually used to be the women of the family who were the wine makers. The men were the cider makers. But cider was the main drink. [Back to top]
 

2/7

HOME MADE WINE / RETURN OF OLD TRADITIONS / ORGANIC FOOD MARKET

The wine was potent stuff. He remembers when he was a child elderberry one was he one he was allowed to [drink] because it was noted as a cold cure; he thinks because it was so strong it used to put you to sleep and you forgot you'd got a cold. Yes, the women drank it as well, but it was mainly drunk in moderation because some of them were quite potent. The place you nearly always found the wine was in the cupboard under the stairs. In nearly every household that was naturally where the wine store was.

It was made in those earthenware jars mainly. Some of it was made in big earthenware bowls. There wasn't much bottling in those days; you had to be careful putting it in a glass bottle, because if it hadn't finished fermenting properly it would blow the bottle to pieces. The earthenware jars, that you still see in antique shops, were much stronger. They'd nearly always make [at least] a gallon of wine, because that was the usual size of the containers, although you'd find 2 gallon larger earthenware jars. Potato wine was one of the lethal drinks. If you had an Irish connection you always made potato wine. But elderberry was the predominant one because it was drunk for all purposes. As a cold cure and as a wine to drink normally. It was the early red wine of a natural country home made tradition.

Elderflower was a wine which he's heard of in later years but not so much in the longer past. The main old wines that used to be made in the '20s, 30s, are the elderberry, the blackberry, the dandelion and parsnip, are the ones which stick in his mind.

He doesn't suppose they added anything to it. It was the main method of fermentation. Sugar would be the main thing added, and the quality or quantity of sugar used is what used to eventually give the wine its strength. He still makes a small amount occasionally. When you made your wines you always spoke to the local baker, in his time, and he would bring you a bit of baker's yeast. In the early days you didn't buy little containers of wine makers' yeast. It was always a small amount of baker's yeast which helped ferment the wine. Of course you never used that with cider making, it was the fermentation process, you never put any additives with the farm cider.

You'd never drink the wine for 12 months, if you could help it. The longer you kept it the better it got, the clearer it became. It would have an adverse effect on you if you drunk it when it was too new. It was quite palatable when it was new, quite tasty, but it wasn't wine for at least a year. [BJ asks what's the longest he's kept it] He's got a bottle of rhubarb wine, which he hasn't opened and doesn't know on what occasion he means to open it, a bottle of rhubarb wine made by his mother, he doesn't know what year she would have dated it, it's on the bottle. She died nearly 30 years ago so it's nearly 30 years old. He doesn't know whether he ever dares try attempt it or not. That's the longest one he's ever kept.

He makes blackberry, elderberry, that's what he's most interested in making. But he didn't make any of those last year. He'd make a small quantity at a time, maybe a gallon. He thinks it's the novelty, trying to keep your younger generation interested in old traditions. Because he firmly believes those things will come back again, perhaps not as a necessity, but as an achievement. The modern world gets fed up with perhaps its [tails off], it's so easy to go and pick up the wage packet and go around to the wine store or the off licence and buy everything you want in this world. There's very little achievement in that and he thinks you'll see a great turn round in a few years, back to more traditional things. In fact it's very relevant now, that that's what's happening. Not just in wine making, but in many other things. Even the organic food market is becoming to get more and more appreciated. Not necessarily having to be organic; there's a vast difference in traditional production and factory production. [Back to top]
 

2/8

SELF-SUFFICIENCY / WEED CONTROL AND ORGANIC STATUS / ORGANIC PRODUCTION / FUTURE OF FARMING / REFORM OF COMMON AGRICULTURAL POLICY / SUBSIDIES / VALUE OF TRADITIONAL WAY OF LIFE / PAPERWORK / PROBLEMS FOR OLDER GENERATION / TRANSFORMATION OF COMPUTERS

[BJ asks if he's interested in going organic] The difficulty with organic is, on a size farm as theirs, it would be nearly impossible to grow your grain for self-sufficiency. Most of their products are organically produced anyway, because it's all produced from products grown of provided for on the farm. The weed control in your cereals, they find nearly impossible in that part of the country because of the high rainfall. Therefore if you use any form of weed control you would not in the present time be able to get organic status for that farm. Having said that, most of their products are organically produced lamb or beef, because of its home grown feed, with the slight reservation that that feed might have had some chemical use in weed control during the growth of it, but very very little. So therefore he has great feelings towards organic, or that method of production, but he can't see the modern person going out with a weeding iron - that's a piece of iron on the end of a stick - prodding the thistles, or cutting them off in the corn crops. Or going out and pulling the charlock, when all those weeds can be controlled by a small chemical application, and those can be achieved pre the crop being grown. There's a vast difference in spraying the crop, or prior to its seeding in the ground. He thinks that the rules regarding organic production will have to be reviewed or it won't take off  to the scale people are hoping. That's a prediction of his.

[BJ asks what he thinks the future of farming is] The traditional farmer, who's willing to face some changes, has a reasonable future. He was pleased to read a survey in one of the farming press that week which said that 80% of young people surveyed said they were going to follow in their father's footsteps in agriculture and farming. Which is quite high, in the present atmosphere in farming. Personally, he believes there is a future, but one'll have to be prepared to make some form of changes to the system in the last 50 years. Agricultural support he thinks will get shifted and changed. He sat there and predicted 6 years ago that the main reason [reform] that farming had to face in the future was the review of the common agricultural policy, which he thinks today shows that his prediction 6 years ago that it was going to be relevant shortly wasn't too far out of line at that time.

Yes, the support system of agriculture, broadly, is the subsidised system. Always open to argument, because no farmer can produce food without that assistance, unless the public are willing to pay twice as much for the food they enjoy. But he thinks you're going to see a review of the common agricultural policy, but you will see significant finance being put into the rural agricultural community because he can't see for many many years the public really wanting to pay the price for food that might put the farmer in the same salary category as some of their urban cousins. But [pauses], there is a way of life. [noises off from the kitchen]He was talking of wine making and old traditions. He believes a lot of people are beginning to see money isn't the every thing in the world as long as you've got enough. It's the way of life that does count, and there numerous people, especially in these rural communities, who are beginning to appreciate that.

The paperwork is a nightmare. He used to go into their little farm office and look at the computer gazing at him, absolutely bewildered with what was in it. He's told he ought to learn how to use it. I can be shown today how to operate it and has forgotten by tomorrow. No, he thinks he'll leave that to the younger generation. But it is the thing of the future. His eldest son is the main one who uses the computerised system. It amazes JM that he sits down and sends in a registration of a dozen beef animals to Bristol, the new DEFRA, or MAFF as they knew it, he sits there and waits seconds and it comes back on the screen that it's been accepted and registered. What's going to happen to the postman, what's going to happen in the long term he doesn't know. It's utterly amazing. Just imagine his old grandfather seeing a letter coming out of a piece of equipment on the end of a wire.

The paperwork is nearly a full time job in these days. He expects there are people in other industries who do a day's work and it would be no more than what his son has to do in the office on top of his normal day's farming activities. Sadly, some farmers can't cope with that side of it. An example is JM's eldest son. He went to West Buckland School, went from West Buckland to London University, he is a qualified person, has quite a few letters behind his name. As a hobby he helps other farmers in the close proximity with that form of activity, more or less as a sideline, but it's something which a lot of them can't do, although more and more of the younger generation are different.

[BJ asks what happens if somebody can't do it] There are, he takes it, mobile business secretaries running around which will take on doing farm business paperwork - other than accounts he's talking of - just the paperwork regarding animal welfare registrations, and assistance and subsidy grants and forms. As he says, just in the close locality there, he can think of half a dozen local farmers, all over 60, but still in the business and likely to be, a lot of them never retire and just carry on and their sons ultimately take over from them the traditions of the past. But the old person doesn't understand this modern paperwork and systems and has to seek someone to help him. And even if he's got a successor in a younger person, he's only just realised he's got to learn the modernised system of accounting and paperwork.

He thinks that most younger farmers now, the schools are teaching the operation of the computer system. It will be easier for the next school leavers than it would have been in an era of the last 10 years when perhaps they didn't realise the transformation was going to be so great. He believes there is a future in farming providing the farmer is willing to adapt himself a little. And perhaps the adaptation will go back in time as much as looking to more modern affairs. [Back to top]