Down on the Farm - Peter Taylor Retires
MAY HAS been a busy month but has been marked in particular by a special/happy/sad occasion! Peter Taylor, who has worked on this farm all his life retired and we commemorated the event in style.
Pete, who moved to Swaffham Prior when he was five and lived initially with his family in a cottage (which is no longer there) opposite the Chapel in the High Street, and attended the village school to the age of 15, started with Charles Woollard in 1955. Pete's dad worked for Woollard, who lived in the Manor House down Lower End, as a stockman with about 60-70 beef cattle. Woollard employed ten men back then and farmed approximately 700 to 800 acres in Prior, growing cereals and sugar beet. He had some barns at the Manor house, where he owned the land, and then further barns at Cadenham and Adventurers Farm on the land that he tenanted.
Starting as a general farm worker and doing odd jobs, Pete already knew the ropes, having worked at weekends with his dad from the age of 11. At 16 he moved quickly onto tractor work on a grey "Fergie" with hard metal seat and no cab - a far cry from what he has become more used to!
In 1959 Woollard sold his land to Usher Smith and John Norris took over the
tenanted land that belongs to Henry Hurrell at Newton. Norris, who had come
down from Wisbech, took on all Woollard's employees and Pete carried on his
tractor work without a break in employment. At this time Pete used to enjoy
ploughing and worked a regular 46-hour week that included Saturdays. At harvest
time he would cut corn and cart the sheaves to the barns until 9pm - no extra
harvest labour was taken on.
As he got older Pete was responsible for all the corn drilling and spraying with everyone having his own special jobs, unlike today where you have to be proficient at almost everything. He particularly remembers riddling potatoes up at Swan Lake from January though to the end of March and having to chop sugar beet by hand, but when I asked him what was the physically most demanding job back then without all the modern equipment that we have now, he joked that it had all been easy - because he was younger!
In 1990 Norris retired and the farm was taken back into hand by Mr. Hurrell who then employed James as his manager at Swaffham Prior. Newton Farms was to be kept as a separate business at this stage. All Norris's employees were made redundant and James took Pete on to continue on the farm. His knowledge of the fields, the land, the croppings etc were to prove invaluable to James in the early months. We arrived just before harvest with not even a yard broom, purchased a tractor, and everything else was borrowed from the farm at Newton, which meant a lot of chasing backwards and forwards between the two farms. Pete just took this all in his stride, although he admits now that in the beginning he did miss the friends that he had worked with for so long.
In the last 15 years Pete considers that the biggest changes have been the
increase in the size of machinery, which has meant being able to drill a
hundred acres when on a good day when he started he was lucky to do 25, and the
amount of paperwork! He reckons he's lucky not to have to get involved in
the latter!! He derives a huge sense of satisfaction from cultivation work but
says that it is harvest time that is the best as you "reap what you
sow" and can see the culmination of the year's hard work and effort.
Pete loves the outdoor life and says he couldn't bear to be "shut up". Even as a child he never imagined not following in his father's footsteps into farming and at the age of 15 as all his mates went off to work on the land he says that there was never any question in his mind of doing anything else.
Now, as we all know, behind every good man there is an even more remarkable woman! Carol moved to the village when her parents took over The Cock public house, which was on the corner of Cage Hill and the High Street. She lived there for four years and even when she moved with her family to Sawston she kept in touch with the friends that she had made. When she and Pete got married they moved into the house that they have lived in for 42 years on Cage Hill. Carol remembers with some irony how she had come from a lovely bungalow with "all mod cons" (loo, washing machine etc) to a mid terrace property with a standpipe outside on the corner for running water and a bucket up the garden with two planks of wood on top for a toilet.
The well outside the back of the house was only used by the people in the end house and wash days, which with a young family as they were to have in the coming years was every other day, meant endless buckets of water from the standpipe. This was made even more difficult when it froze in bad weather. It was with great relief that piped water and sewerage pipes were installed in 1968.
Considering the pros and cons of a life in farming, Carol maintains that Pete's happiness was always far more important than anything else. She admits that there were times when it was very difficult when the children were little, particularly at harvest, but the benefits far outweighed this as Pete has always been able to do a job that he loves doing: "Pete was a happy man in his work which meant he was happy at home and this rubs off on everyone".
Pete is looking forward to being able to spend more time away in his caravan with Carol and enjoying his grandchildren, although he says he is far too young to retire and can't wait to get back to us to help out with this year's harvest!
To celebrate his retirement Henry Hurrell and all Pete's colleagues and their partners joined him and Carol at a celebratory meal at the Red Lion where he was presented with a beautiful carriage clock from Mr. Hurrell and vouchers to spend on accessories for their caravan. Pete and Carol said they were both overwhelmed by everyone's generosity and kindness and that they had thoroughly enjoyed the evening. They bought, amongst other things, a wheel clamp, new skylight, rubber hammer(!) and a butter dish.
Our best wishes go to them both for a very happy retirement.