Life on a farm in Ennerdale

This is a good picture looking over the rooftops of the hamlet which contained our farm. It wasn't always as sunny as this of course but in the right conditions the whole valley looks really beautiful. I read a little while ago that Ennerdale Water, which you can just see, had impressed President Bill Clinton so much that he proposed to Hilary there while visiting in 1973.

The lambing season was always something I looked forward to and often it coincided with the Easter school holidays. There were always some lambs which for one reason or another needed to be bottle fed and here, aged about ten I guess, I'm with a boy from the next farm feeding three hungry looking swaledale lambs.

Pet lambs remain cute for a only a short time. By the time they reach this size they become a nuisance. This one, named Lucy after Lucille Ball, used to barge around looking for something to eat, here helping herself to chicken feed, and even pushed into the house in search of biscuits and salt and vinegar crisps! (to which she had been introduced by me)

This picture might have been taken before I was born, I'm not sure, but exchange the 1940's Fordson Tractor for a 1950's Fordson Tractor and it could have been taken any summer from 1960 to 1980. Each year we grew a couple of fields of oats and harvested them with a wonderful contraption called a binder. It had previously been drawn by horses but was now adapted for the tractor and it cut the corn and wrapped it into sheaves tied with twine. They were stood, eight at a time, in "stooks" for a week or more before being laid out again individually to be dried.

The above picture was taken on the farm near Frizington before the family moved to Ennerdale in 1965. The binder in the picture finally broke down in 1973 after 50 or more years' service and a 25 year old replacement was found at the bargain price of £25.

This shows the sheaves being loaded onto a trailer on a rather steep field which had been reclaimed from bracken earlier in the year. I've got the easy job - moving the tractor on a few yards every now and then. Harvesting and haytiming were often a bit of a social event and I'd take along some of my friends to help and enjoy the fun although on this occasion it just seems to be me, my Dad and Uncle Sam.

Here I am in 1976, long haired, slim and tanned helping my dad build a stack out of sheaves of oats. We didn't always get them built properly and quite often there'd be wooden props behind to prevent them falling down. On at least one occasion one collapsed while still being built and took my Dad crashing down with it!! Such calamities were not unusual and we all laughed heartily.

And here are the finished articles - or at least similar ones maybe from a different year. Having long since disappeared from the countryside generally, the stacks were a something of a curiosity and attracted a great deal of attention from passing tourists.

I too had calamities - none greater than one morning returning some milk cows to their pasture. Generally a herd of cows coming in for milking, or going back out afterwards, are quite co-operative. After all, on both occasions they are going where they want to be, so a ten year old can usually manage them OK. If however they were panicked for some reason, or if they had it in their minds to go somewhere else that morning or evening – I’d be in trouble. On the morning in question, I got up and ran outside just in time to be given the job of returning a dozen or so cows to a field known as “t’ fell field”. I set off quite happily along the lonning and out onto the road, accompanied by Jack, the dog, who expertly ran ahead to make sure the cows turned left towards the fell field which was no more than a hundred yards or so away. They’d been there overnight and so my uncle had left the gate open – I was confident that they’d simply walk in, I’d close the gate and go home for my breakfast. (Breakfast was always eaten immediately after milking while we listened to Jack De Manio on "Today" - honestly, I'm not making this up!). Our neighbour though had put a spanner in the works – his cows had had to pass the fell field gate when he brought them in for milking and, fearful that they’d go through it instead of heading for home, he’d closed the gate and forgotten to open it again after they’d passed.

The cows arrived at the closed gate, stood looking puzzled for a moment, and then started pushing and shoving each other up against it. At this point, being less than five foot tall at the time, I couldn’t see what the problem was, and started shouting encouragement while poking the cows at the back of the herd with my stick. This was all the prodding they needed to move back out into the road and set off along it. The cows began to run. They ran, and I ran after them. The faster I ran, the faster they ran. Jack had long since gone home and I was on my own. They ran past one field on the left, past another gate on the right and on and on and on and on until they were well past any of our fields. By now my common sense had deserted me and I failed to do what I should have, that is, stand still until they had come to a halt and then walk calmly past them. Instead I ran ever faster, trying to overtake them, trying to outrun them but in the process just making matters worse. Then ran on, some of them mooing in a way that sounded like a plea for help – they were probably wondering where I was taking them and wishing somebody responsible would come and take them back to a field they knew. To me, though, it seemed they were trying to escape and I had to get them back, I was in charge and I had to get them back to the fell field without having to go home for help, and thus admit failure. Eventually though, I stood in the middle of the road, gasping, and clutching my sides, which had been afflicted by an athlete’s “stitch”, and prepared to accept defeat and go home and announce that I had “lost the cows”. Then, as I was about to turn and go, a saviour came in the shape of the Royal Mail. A little Red Morris 1000 van driven by our regular postman appeared and turned the cows round. They, and I, walked gently back to the fell field, they walked meekly in and I closed the gate. By now I had been away for nearly half an hour and my Dad was on his way to find me – I confessed what had happened, we both cursed the neighbour and went home for breakfast.

Although these sort of calamities happened often one way or another, and I always felt a bit scared to admit I’d messed up, I was never criticised or told off for them. The worst that was likely to happen was that my misfortune would be laughed at, my lack of sense scoffed at and outlandish theories about what would have happened, for example had the postman not turned up, would be expounded. Before breakfast was over we’d no doubt all be laughing at what had happened and there’d be one more story to tell. Looking back, I’m sure they all got as much fun out of watching me learn to do things, and make mistakes, as I had myself.