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mc_english_kent02_b_part1

Recording date1975
Speaker age85
Speaker sexm
Text genrepersonal narrative
Extended corpusno
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[INTERVIEWER] When [INTERVIEWER] How Mo-- turn I was four when I come, we come to one cottage, the first move from Sittingbourne. Then we was there six years, as I was ten, when I went to the other house, in Molash. There was only acre of ground of that, and Father were, hadn't got room to move, you know; he was buying a lot of cobs, and you couldn't turn four or five in one meadow. And then Butcher's farm on the opposite side of the road, that's all, come for let. And Father went down to see the agent -- Miller his name was, Bobby Miller -- and eh, And then we took three acres off Lord -- off Sir Wayne Bolton and eh, we And that's what we finished up with. And we bought three cottages, and the other land, and they put eleven acres on it; there were twenty-s--, no, nine acres; there was twenty-six, they fixed us up the thirty-one; now there, there was three acres, nothing to do with it -- twenty-six and nine, Oh, then there was sh-- It It was thirt-- thirty-one altogether; that was including the Oh, no, then we bought two acres of orchard, off Adam, what, back here, lives back here, so as we could get from one field our house to another field without going up the main That's why we bought that. [INTERVIEWER] Well, we used, we used to use our own corn, we used to grow oats, and Father used to keep'em for his And hay and that, that's all. He wouldn't sell anything. He told me, advised me, when I took a farm, Whatever you do, let all your corn walk away! You understand that? Feed it on the farm. Don't sell it. Feed it on the farm -- Well, you can't do it on a two-hundred acre farm, But, of course, he'd never dreamt of having a two-hundred acre farm. He told me I was mad when I took sixty. He come and looked at it -- and I had it three year That was in nineteen He was just very ill, he was. He used to drive an old pony up till he died, pretty near. And he give me the pony and told me to have him killed when I done wi' him. I had him killed the next week. He was too old 't [INTERVIEWER] Hhm? Yes. Oh, yes, we used to turn them Yeah Make hay, and then used to keep a couple of good horses and no bearing as what they were. Never had two s--, the same horses together long, because they was always selling one of'em, see, and then buying another one. Sometimes he hadn't only got one; sometimes he'd got four. I've been bit all over, with the horses. I had, I carried the marks on mi shoulder for six weeks where a horse fixed me right across the shoulder. I've had marks there where a horse bit me there -- no, that eye, it Oh, I've been bitten all over. Never was kicked. I always looked out and give'em plenty of room for the for the [INTERVIEWER] Do [INTERVIEWER] Well, he got That's all mattered, wasn't And see, Mother got a good job in the post office, she was, got a good She was a bit religious, my mother was. She used to take the children to Sunday School, and arrange outings for the parson; she was very fond of the I was in the choir, I told you. My father wadn't religious at all; but he was straight. That's all the religion he was. Too straight to be horse dealer, to get a good living [INTERVIEWER] You want to be a little twisty, you Never tell them the truth, horse dealers didn't, but my father used to tell them the truth; he wouldn't send a horse to a man if it wadn't He wouldn't send a horse to a man if he knew it didn't suit him. He used to send them down to Old Let him do that job But they got on; we got on well with horses. Used to always keep a lot of pigs. You always used to keep quite a lot of pigs. A few sheep. My neighbour, he used to come and help me when I doing the If I had any trouble, I only had to go down Adam's; it was just about -- ooh, He used to come up here, and he'd come over and help me, 'cause I didn't know nothing about taking a lamb out of a ewe, did Not at my age. [INTERVIEWER] What Lambs? My father used to bring them up, and take'em In the olden days, going back now to when we first came to Molash, when I was, from four to ten, our neighbour used to go to Ashford with two sheep, in the back of his cart, every Tuesday, to pay, to get money to pay his men, and live on -- two sheep. About a fiver, the two used to He's lucky if he got six. So, that shows what you paid your men. I had sixteen shillings a week, when I got married in nineteen And mi father's cottage, and that was two bob a week -- we'd let the cottage two bob a week, and we had to give the man a week's notice, to get out, so that I could go in when we got married -- well, we give him a month's notice, Veer his name was, old Gregory Veer, he used to He used to work odd, you know, when we was harvesting or anything, when we wanted a little help, setting wurzel out. Well, I couldn't do that. Setting wurzel out. You used to drill your wurzel, and they used to come up, perhaps as thick as that. See? You'd get ten in a foot. Well, you only wanted one in a foot. So the other nine had to be chopped out, didn't I used to give a man six bob an acre, to go and set your wurzel out. We used to call it setting the wurzel out. I got my old hoe out there yesterday. I told my son, if he -- my grandson, I said, If they want you to settin' the wurzel out -- 'course, I never thought -- I said, Don't forget I got a hoe pur-- made purpose with corners, sharp corners See? And eh, he says, Well, we don't set none out. 'Course they got automatic drills now that put one in where it's wanted, every foot, see. My son's got electric drill. That's what he puts his swedes in with -- this Them dropped dead. They would only be about that high. They'd They'd wither up in a Well, you can -- with the I had it made, cost thirteen pound, in nineteen I sold it three years ago for five shillings. And we've kept it all that time. Used it right up till we thought, till I give up, and this -- James bought this That cost thirteen quid -- Tetts-made, it was made to order. I was the first one to have a three, three-row That put in three rows; the old ones always put in two -- Tetts' been in Faversham ever since I can remember. And I went down there, and I said to this chap, the manager, I says, This blooming thing, I says, I got a three, I got a shim, what we used to clean'em up between the rows -- does three I said, With that two row thing, I says, It's harder this; sometimes you get one close, then your sh-- plate takes the row out, you see. I said, You, can't you build me one, I said, With three rows? Yeah, Can if you like. And they cost me thirteen quid. And they built it. In nineteen Yeah. And I s--, we used it up to -- oh, well we used it all the time we was there -- eight years -- that were the first year I was over there, I said, I'll never I bought a new corn drill, and eh, my old man what was bankrupt, he was going out the farm, he says, First man who'll want to borrow that, he says, That's next Well, I says, He won't borrow it, 'cause I shan't lend it to him. And since ever we started putting grey peas in -- that's the first thing you put in on a farm -- grey Don't grow'em now. Up come Paulson: Lend us your drill, I want to put my grey peas in. And I was, No, I shan't lend it He says, You're a tidy neighbour! That was the first year, I said, Well, I that'll want doing repairing, I says, In about three years' time, who's going to do it, you? Oh, I don't know. Well, I said, You can have it. I said, But it'll cost you shilling an acre. See? And then that'll outdo the repairs, won't Hhm, You know, I don't want it, he So he never come borrowed anything else off me. That's how laddie I've been. Eh, just ordinary peas like the peas today, only they were grey peas that we used to feed the sheep Finest thing in the world for little pigs. Wean Wean -- eh, you know, up to Always used to grow a bit of grey [INTERVIEWER] Hhm? No, he didn't. Only had a bit of oats. No, he just growed oats for his horses, see. <<bc>> [INTERVIEWER] Old miller used to come round with old horse and cart, and a bag of sharps, seven bob. Or middlings, they call'em now, don't they; we used to call'em Barley meal, that was about eight bob, hundredweight, already ground Always used to grow mangel for the old sows; these wurzel, you know what a mangel-wurzel is, he used to give them to the old The sheep. Horses, ooh, they love them, horses do. Oh, they do love them. If you, we've had, I've gone in and the old horses got used to having one; we give them one a day, see -- just for a And if they hear you chuck one up in the manger, the others holler like hell. You know <<id>> they want the Hhm. Go [INTERVIEWER] Hhm. Ooh, we never had I don't think there was, I don't think I can ever remember swine We never had it. Let me think there. There was a case in Boughton I don't know whether that was swine fever or whether it It was closed, we went along there one day and the police told us we got to go some other way, 'cause there was something, I think, I don't know, or it may have been swine I don't know. They, they eh, if you had anything the matter with the pig, eh, you had to notify the ministry, you know. And eh, we'd got an old [INTERVIEWER] When is Oh, this is going back now, when I, when I, I was at I was seventeen then. And this sow was queer, and she got purple spots on her, come out on her skin. So, we got hold of the police, and they notified the ministry. Mhm, a bloke come up, said, Well, he said, We shall have to shoot He says, Then I can open her and find out what's the matter with her, see. So he says, You gonna shoot her? I'd, You gonna shoot her? He says, No, he says, You shoot her. So I went in and got mi gun. Still got the same gun; that's going back some, innit? And eh, no, this ain't; that's wrong. That was the second year's war; this side but that gun is from first year's war is what I'm talking about -- You know, he went in the chicken house whilst I shot <<pr>> I looked around, thought where's he gone to, and he come crawling out house I shot her right in the forehead. And eh, oh, he took her organs out of her, you know, and he says, You can do what you like with the rest, he says, I should advise you to bury He says, I'll give you an order to buy a -- a bushel of You bury her six foot deep, and cover her with a bushel of lime, he says. I think he give us four and six, to do that, and buy the lime. That was four pence, I think that the lime, that wadn't very dear. And there was a chap next door to us, he was a runagate He-- he, well, a runagate chap was a chap 'as got a living anyhow, as long as he got a bob or two, he was landed, So, Father fetched Brian Connor up, and says, Bury that old sow He says, How much you gonna give me? Father says, Five bob. He says, Alright, I'll do it. He says, You got to go down six foot, and then chuck that bushel of lime on her. He says, Alright. So, he was out in there, digging this hole, to put this old sow in, you know. And he was a chap, stood about six foot, you know. Ha He was down in the hole, we could just see the top of his head, when we went round the corner, and he peeped over the top, says, Ain't this deep enough, Edward? Yes, Father says, Put her in Then he stood up; and it come up about here; he was squatted down in the hole. Oh, I laughed for to've died. And Father said, No, he says, You got to go deeper than that. No, he said, You said, Put her in there, he said, In she goes. She never was put down more than three foot. [INTERVIEWER] He Oh he was a real 'un Yeah. I used to have to go mole-catching on our farm; we used to have a lot of moles on our And I set these traps up, and they used to give us, s-- skin a mole, and they used to give us threepence a skin, you know. You, when you got a dozen, and dried them, send'em up to London to a firm, and they gave us threepence a s--, three bob a dozen, for these moleskins. Used to cost tuppence for carriage
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