Fantastic day

[pinkheather]

The other day i met an old farmer i used to work to as a boy he must be well into his 90s, we were taking about the old days and i told him i had a horse he said he would like to see it. So today i had nothing on and i went to pick him up and took him to see my horse. I could see it in his eyes he really missed the old days. Old John started his working life working with heavy horses on the farm and when i was a boy of around 9 or 10 my father sent me up to John to help on his small farm during the school holidays and he set me to work spreading dung off a box cart with an old Clydesdale as a job. We got talking and John told me about his early life, he was a Gaelic speaker as was my Mum and he told me about how he was belted and humiliated by the English teachers for speaking in his native language as was my Mum this bullying went well into the 1960s and although i was not abused we were made fun of by teachers for speaking in the Dialect [not Gaelic] of the area. He went on to speak about the work and how hard it was to make a living back then and it made me understand how much better things are for people now, school kids are encouraged to speak the mother tongue work is not nearly as physical [probably why we are all fatter] and in general we have a fairly easy time. However, he did say that a lot of people had short lives as their bodies were wracked with physicality of it all back then. It made me think that how many men and women could cope with all that now, especially the woman all the bairns they bore then helping in the fields my Mum had 7 my Granny had 13 and my other Gran had 11, no wonder they looked old and knackered at 50 it gave me food for thought and in all reality i have absolutely no cause for complaint about my lot in life. PS when i say English teachers i didnt mean English as a nationality i meant teachers who taught English just in case you thought i was wanting to fight Bannockburn all over again.

 

[Gimp]

I have alot of time for older people, I find it fascinating listening to the old days stories.

I remember taking my grandfather up to see my ShireX, He worked them when he was a nipper on the farm. He really opened up when he was at the yard and told me all sorts of fascinatnig stories as we leaned over the paddock fence. Was a lovely moment I will never forget.

Incidently Martin Clunes is on TV tonight at 8pm ( not sure if its a repeat) but its about him bringing on his 2 young heavy horses a bit of history about them, and him learning to drive!

 

[squidsin]

Wow, those are a lot of kids your grandfolks had! I sort of wish I'd been around at a time when horses were genuine working animals - not least because I thoroughly disapprove of a lot of the modern environmentally destructive farming methods - but I think it's easy to look back at bygone times with rose-tinted glasses. Yes, the country was more beautiful and unexplored and exciting but on the other hand life was harder and generally shorter. And then there was the war....really hope I never have to live through one of those!

 

[eml]

I had my first rides as a child sitting sideways on my grandparents working horses coming back from the fields!

Scottish farming grandparents on my Mothers side had 9 children only 5 of which made it to adulthood, on my fathers side English grandfather was a bank clerk, their nine children all survived to adulthood.

I loved hearing my grandfather talk about work on the farm and am making a trip later this year to see where they lived while the youngest of his children is still able to show me .

 

[Trewsers]

I love hearing about the past from older folk. My own Dad is 86 and his father was a miner and it never ceases to both humble and fascinate me how they lived and worked. My OH's grandparents were farmers and MIL remembers the working horses - and remembers when they did the baling by hand - everybody pitched in late into the summers evenings....
I agree - I think we are definitely all fatter because we do less and when you think about how hard our ancestors worked it all adds up. My grand dad who was a miner had a 4 mile walk each way to the pit and as they had no phone in winter often struggled through the snow to get there only to be turned away cos it was closed. How harsh a life he lived. None of his 7 children went down the pit - all went into the army during the 2nd war and luckily all came back - my Dad was right at the end of it.
We are lucky these days aren't we?

 

[Jane&Ziggy]

Gosh, lovely story, what a nice thing to take your old friend to see a horse.

That made me think of one of James Herriott's stories, about the man who was a farm worker made good who had two ancient (think nearly 40) carthorses quietly retired on his land, lovely old beasts who loved him and still played, and when the vet came to them to do their teeth he let slip "They were two slaves when I were a slave".

Us office worker types don't know what work is.