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mc_english_kent02_b_part2

Recording date1975
Speaker age85
Speaker sexm
Text genrepersonal narrative
Extended corpusno
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And I couldn't find one of these mole traps. I knowed I'd put it there overnight. Old Brian come along there, he says, Hello, I says in--, he said, What're you looking about for? Well I put a mole trap up here, I says, And I And he says, where did you put it? I said, Just here somewheres, I says, In a run -- There were runs all over the And him and me looked all around, for this mole trap, and we couldn't find it, you And I went down the -- Father went down The George that night, and he says eh, Did you lose a mole trap this morning? I says, He says, Well, Brian Connor's just sold it to a chap down the pub for He He, he found it. He said he picked it up and put it in his That's the sort of chap he was. But I liked him, he was oh, a very likeable He was about four year older than I was, I expect. Too fly for me, wadn't he [INTERVIEWER] Too fly for me, [INTERVIEWER] He found the mole trap and he pi-- picked it up and popped it in his [INTERVIEWER] About four years. [INTERVIEWER] Hhm. [INTERVIEWER] Ah, when Ooh, that would be when I [INTERVIEWER] Advertise, they used to advertise for'em. They used to make moleskin dresses, didn't Were coats for women. No, no. You could get a penny for a rabbit skin, and then the old gypsies used to come round and collect them; I don't know what they done with If it wasn't shot, if it was a shot, you only got ha'penny, if it was snared, you get a penny. You tell by the skin, you look inside, see the shot marks in it, you And you, you were, used to get fifteen shillings for a fox I st--, I'd catch a fox in a hare wire; we used to set some snares up for hares, you know -- proper make them, I used And I went down there one morning, was a fox in this net -- this And I eh I went to him; ah, tap him on the head, and Ooh, when I went up to him, he flew at Oh I said If that's how you feel I said We 'll both argue about that so I stepped back a bit n shot him I'd got mi gun; always carried a gun. So, I messed the skin up. It wadn't no good then, 'cause I was close to him, you see, blowed the -- a great hole in Catched a deer in a snare one day. I went down there, as I told you, about how I always trained gun And I got a beautiful Labrador dog with All of a sudden he stopped short and his bristles went up and he growled, and I heard some crashing, I went in there, I'd got an old deer, in a hare snare, and his horns were caught in the snare, and his head was as-- fixed right back to his neck, you see. Didn't want to shoot him. He was in a right old state. I, I got mi knife out, and he stood and looked at the old dog, and I rushed in at him, and catched hold of one front leg and one back leg and snatched him up on his back and down on him, and cut mi And my father, oh, he did give me a dressing Well, I said, I didn't want to waste a cartridge on him, I said, He was tied up. He said, If he'd've cut you with his claw, he said, He'd have ripped your guts out. He'd had your inside out, he said. I didn't know that. 'Course, they d--, they strike and they're so sharp, their claws are, he says, It would Ah, I had got away with that, didn't [INTERVIEWER] Oh, sold that to butcher. That wadn't no trouble. Father come and fetched him in the cart and we took him down to butcher, and he dressed him and, oh I think he give me about fifteen bob or a pound for it. [INTERVIEWER] No, that wadn't poaching. 'Cause they was, we was allowed to get'em on your own land, you see. No, but not allowed to go in the wood to shoot'em. Still, it wouldn't have mattered as well, the old keeper wouldn't'a' said naught if I had. [INTERVIEWER] Well, we was ehh, we took the, this shop off a man named Paul Pinter That was down in the corner, down the corner of the village. It's a nice house now, they've made of And he went bankrupt, and Mother, she started the shop up herself, and applied for the post office and got Now, that was, that was the heart of the job, at the post, 'cause I think they paid her a pound a week. See? That was a lot of money them days. But, of course, there was a lot of writing that was all had to be, and you had to be there when the postman called, nine o'clock in the morning, five o'clock at night, and then we had to distribute the -- Mother had to go round the, eh -- take the letters out, mind you, round No, the gi--, my sister done it. I think she was allowed five shillings a week for do that, my [INTERVIEWER] Hhm? No, oh no' She said I wadn't much help. She said, I-- You eat more sweets than I do And Father, he used to go in and get his f-- 'baccer out of the shop then; he wouldn't, he didn't pay for it But I always paid for mi cigarettes; I used to smoke. Funny thing, I, I had a chap, I'd gotten a cigarette case what was given to me when I was -- first started smoking cigarettes -- when I Silver cigarette case, my sister give; my sisters clubbed together and bought it It got mi name and address printed inside, and it went away last week. A friend of mine, see a-- antique bloke, see it, and he says, I'd like my dad to see that, he says, and he took it away I'd have showed it to you. [INTERVIEWER] Got my name and address, Post Office and all, I don't know what it's worth. Solid silver, it weighed four ounces. What's it worth? About eight quid? Two pound a ounce, innit? And what it's worth with being antique, God only knows. My sisters gave it to me when I was sixteen. I started smoking ci-- cigarettes: Players were a penny a packet for five; Woodbines were a penny a packet for five. Players got every -- five cigarettes, and five holders, stuck in one another like So, you stick your cigarette in the f-- cigarette, in the funnel and smoke it, you see. And they was a penny. Now what are they today? I don't ever smoke'em, do you? I don't like bought, I always made my Always made mi own fags. I smoked a pipe for a long time; I still smoke a pipe now -- about once in, once Somebody comes along with a load of 'baccer, I pipe anything in front now went in this, indoors, in the holder and anybody comes along got a bit of Sometimes I put a cigar end in; I always smoked cigars, you see, latter part o' time, the last five years. Them small cigars. And if I get a big'un, I'd put the end in the pipe. pipe I like a cigar. I had a standing order up the shop here for Used to have four packets a week. But I don't now; I can't -- cost too Well, the doctor told me, I left off just like that, you know. Didn't make no fuss. Some of'em made a hell of a fuss leaving off. Can't leave off, they say. But you can, you know, if your mind, make your mind up, can't you [INTERVIEWER] Hhm. I Oh, I think it's a mug's game. Although I always smoked. I started smoking when I was at We'd buy a packet of Woodbines, two of us; put a penny together, ha'penny Then when -- got out of sight and had a Di-- didn't dare let governor see No. No. No, my father was a heavy smoker. He always smoked a pipe. No, he never made no fuss at all; not when I'd started, when I was younger, about fourteen or fifteen I was smoking cigarettes. No. Never seen a woman smoke, only in the hop [INTERVIEWER] See, those -- London women come down Here's the thing. Every farm in -- this -- East Kent, of about a hundred acres, had got a You know, and they used to -- the old women used to come down from London, and live in hopper huts, as we used to And when we were boys, and when we were only very small, we had to go out with Mother hop picking, and we had a basket, and we fi-- picked that basket, and then we could go We had to pick a basket each, about, about a bushel. Well, a bushel -- we had -- three of us, we was and we used to have to I think you used to have seven pence a bushel for picking hops. That was ohh this field in front here was all hops I can remember that [INTERVIEWER] Yes, there was me and -- Mother used to take a bin -- what they called And eh, then you, they'd allot you so big a p-- quantity as the children you'd got, they'd let you s-- see, and if you're a bigger family, they had a bigger piece, and soon as you got your old basket full, that old five bushel, they come round and chucked this five bushel in a bag, took it away, and they'd give you a chit, piece of paper, say we've took one away, see, My mother used to, we used to fill about three a day. Oh, it was fifteen bob a week, you know. Five days a week. Saturdays we didn't go Then they used to fetch'em and take'em down to the We have sold, Father did sell the breweries barley once; he'd grow a bit of barley. My father could mow, you know. Six shillings an acre, he had, for mowing; he took six acres of barley to mow and he took six shillings an acre. That was 'fore he went to Molash, when we's down 'n the other place. When we's down at the old first cottage. That was the price, mowing barley, six shillings an acre. And he could ow--, he could mow a acre a day. Then we had to take it out; he used to mow it into the corn, see; that used to stand up against the corn, then you used to go along with your foot like that and take armful, lay it in a bond; he used to twist'em, with a straw, as he went back with his scythe, lay'em down, Mother used to nhn take'em out and, and eh, lay'em in the barn, and bind'em, and then we boys used to [INTERVIEWER] Lay In And 'course we were doing it for a neighbour; he done it for a neighbour. He did grow a little bit of barley out there and then he didn't reckon much of it. Brewery, we always had a barrel of beer in the house. We We had a nine gallon barrel of beer in the house -- always, my And the, the old dealer boys come along; he give'em a Us old boys would be drinking beer, too. I got boozed one day, when I was, me and my brother. We got as drunk as pigs. We got in the kitchen window, when Father and Mother was out, and we tried some And we emptied the bottle. When they When they come home, we were A So that didn't do much good, did That ain't taking it all down, is [INTERVIEWER] Good God! [INTERVIEWER] Oh eh, no. No, the, women didn't, only in seasonal work like, hop picking, cherry picking, apple picking and they used to go -- don't think the women used to Stone picking they used to go; picking stones up for making the roads; they used to pay shilling a yard. My father paid shilling a yard, and my wife picked the How's that? She knowed what 't is to work. She went pulling sugar beet in the war. That's what gave her hands -- arthritis in her hands, in the last [INTERVIEWER] Hhm. No, she just, she She helped my, my mother, see. She used to go in-- indoors and help my mother, 'cause we lived next door, They lived in the, two cottage were made into the farmhouse. 'fore we went there. And eh, then the cottage we let to old Veer's I told you, two shillings a And when I got married, he moved, and I went in the cottage, and I lived in there until I went to Throwley. In nineteen twenty-six, when the General Strike was And that was a roughhouse. <<on>Coo> I'd got about a hundred pound in the bank, when I went there. And I'd got about thr-- thr-- two hundred pounds' worth of stock, you know, horses And the first year I lost the hundred pound; I hadn't And next year I just hadn't And the next year, I was nearly broke. That was first three years. And I went to the bank, and eh told him that I was afraid to write a cheque, and he said, You carry on, he said, Write your cheques, he says, As you always That was in nineteen twenty-six, He says, You don't worry about anything else, says, You're doing alright. 'T was a good manager; he knew me; he'd been up to see me; he seen the He knew all the -- Well, they kne-- the farms -- the bank managers them days, in the agricultural, knew as much about a farm as the farmer did, He'd been up and seen how was I doing mi job, And eh.
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