Dear Sar,
Thank-ye kindly for printing my email last month and I will try an have a wud along with-ya agin when I can.
The month (October) started suffin wet & it were a job on the garden with it bein so dawby. The Missus she get suffin savige if I start a dragen mud indoors so now I ha’a leave my old boots in the shud.
The rain ha made it wet for them a getten the old sugar beet orf but they tell me they arnt in no hurry as them old beet are a still a’growin & with them big machines on them floatin tyres they can clear 30 to 40 acres a day what ever the weather. Thas different from when I started a werkin on the land. three on us with 2 trailers and a single row harvester ha a scrap about to clear an acre a day.; When I went to a Farmin College in 1960 they were still a teachin us how to knock & top beet by hand & we ha’a take a test a doing it. You were given a bit’o beet 4 rows acrors by 2 chain(44yds) long. You ha’a pull em ood beet out’a the ground, knock the soil orf & lay em in rows, then come along with yar beet hook,cut the tops orf & hull the beet inta little heaps ready to be forked onto a cart. I remember I got 20 out’a 20 for style. I reckon that was cos I was left handed & the master who was a markin us was right handed &he dint know if I was a doin the job right or not.
The other day I drawed up to the malenium green with my Grandson, my hart han’t them old trees & bushes shot up, some on em look as if they want trimmen out abit , I hope there are some youngans in the village who can do this as it int any good a leavin nature to itself, yer got to give her a hand how an agin. Thas like when a new vica who found his new chuch yard with roses a growin round the chuch door & the grass all mown short said to the verger “what beauty God can create in his acre”. Huh said the verger, yew oughter seen what that were like afore I come, and th’Almighty had it on his own.
Well I must close now cos jack frost a left his calling card this week an I want to get some ‘o my tender plants in’t the greenhouse afor he call agin.
Fare ye well & do you keep a troshin.
The Boy Tom
Tag: 2010
Missing Month
Missing Month
Dear Sar
That were very nice to read whot you said in the NPN about us whot speak proper Norfolk. there arnt s’ meny on us about now for several reasons. When I went to school in the 1950s there wer a lot on us whot spoke Norfolk cos our fathers warked on the land. Now acors the farms are bigger with huge fields & they dont want s’meny men to drive them gret old tractors. A lot of folks have moved into the county from away & hent been here long enough to lean Norfolk. Our children go away to finish their education, one o’our boys he went to Hull University for 3 years & when he drawed back hom he was a usin sum Yorkshire wuds, he ha hed them knocked out of him now cos he werk in a big office up the city.
My Missus is a Norridge mawther & she talk different, althouth we hev a been ploughin the same furrow for the last 40 odd years she still say things to me I dont understand, although I dosnt tell her.
If you & your missus ar a hevin trouble with some of our wuds I reckon there are still one or two on us in the village who could help you out.
I must close now cos as the weather is fair I want to tricolate my old shud up afor winter set in.
Fare ye well t’gether & do you keep a troshin,
The Boy Tom
(A Carbrooke resident)