Grace's Memories of Hay Making.
The following is a direct transcript
from some 30 pages of memories written by Nan.
The photograph is Grace Goode [Nan] taken in 1928 when she was 14 years of age. She's the girl on the left of the picture [the other girl is unknown] and they are both holding a hay rake:
"Of course, there were the light nights of Haymaking time, when we all had our jobs. All and sundry were 'set on' to get the hay in when dry. I had a school friend, Winnie McDonagh. She was as fat as I was thin but we we were inseparable, use to put 'Cocker' in the little trap and off to the Fox Inn at Higham for a stone jar of ale, bring it back, Mam would put it into bottles, and then we would take it round to the haymakers.
First Dad had to mow the fields, then the cut grass [Oh, you should have seen the wild flowers in it, daisies,buttercups,lady-smocks, cowslips,moon-daisies and little blue and pink periwinkles] had to be piled together for forking up to the carts. We had to take the spare heavy horse down to help the one in the cart to pull up the incline. Then my favoutite job was the horse-rake, sitting on a metal seat above this contraption, rake on the ground, Gee-up, and gather any grass left behind, lift a lever and leave a neat row of grass, down, and repeat until all the field was swept clear. And, Oh! those haymaking suppers, huge cheese dish, bread & beer, cocoa for us. Everybody dead tired but jolly."
from some 30 pages of memories written by Nan.The photograph is Grace Goode [Nan] taken in 1928 when she was 14 years of age. She's the girl on the left of the picture [the other girl is unknown] and they are both holding a hay rake:
"Of course, there were the light nights of Haymaking time, when we all had our jobs. All and sundry were 'set on' to get the hay in when dry. I had a school friend, Winnie McDonagh. She was as fat as I was thin but we we were inseparable, use to put 'Cocker' in the little trap and off to the Fox Inn at Higham for a stone jar of ale, bring it back, Mam would put it into bottles, and then we would take it round to the haymakers.
First Dad had to mow the fields, then the cut grass [Oh, you should have seen the wild flowers in it, daisies,buttercups,lady-smocks, cowslips,moon-daisies and little blue and pink periwinkles] had to be piled together for forking up to the carts. We had to take the spare heavy horse down to help the one in the cart to pull up the incline. Then my favoutite job was the horse-rake, sitting on a metal seat above this contraption, rake on the ground, Gee-up, and gather any grass left behind, lift a lever and leave a neat row of grass, down, and repeat until all the field was swept clear. And, Oh! those haymaking suppers, huge cheese dish, bread & beer, cocoa for us. Everybody dead tired but jolly."
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