Sid talks about his life on farms working with horses before, during and after the Second World War. He missed the life with them when mechanisation came in and he needed to drive a tractor. I left school when I was 14. I was only a little old tot. I lived in the council houses […]

Irene recalls her time in a bible factory, driving a tractor and working for Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Married to a sailor My husband was at sea most of his life. He joined the Navy when he was fifteen and was on a training ship. His father was in the Navy, grandfather in the Navy, […]

Kevin’s grandfather worked as a warrener in the battle area, his father at Lynford Hall which was used by American servicemen, and he himself for the Lands Branch in Forestry, looking after the grounds, forestry, rivers, churches, boundary fences and military camps of the area. After a brief interlude working in the Thermos factory, he […]

In 1957 Doug’s family were living in a tied cottage on a farm in Lincolnshire. Agricultural labour was a reserved occupation and labourers did not have to go into the forces. Farm work was poorly paid and families were reliant on the farmer. Doug worked on the farm until the farmer made many of his […]

Peter grew up on the Norfolk coast at Brancaster. After studying agriculture and horticulture, in the early 1960s he joined Sheringham and Overman’s agricultural seed merchants firm in Fakenham as a bookkeeper. He describes changes in the seed business which diversified from supplying local farmers, who themselves grew herbage seed, to include one of the […]

David and his twin brother John began working on the farm in 1936, at the age of 14. It was a hard life but a good one. Early days Our first job, when we left school in 1936, was at the Murton Webbs in Knettishall carting sugarbeet. We biked eleven mile out, eleven mile home […]

John and his twin brother David began working on the land at the age of 14 in 1936 and carried on until the late 1980s. My first job, in 1936, was at Murton Webb’s in Knettishall in Suffolk. We biked the way from Kilverstone to Knettishall which was eleven mile, and eleven mile home and […]

David’s family were tenants at Old Hall in Colney. In farming those days there was a good social life. He was on farms, and then travelled around with the Ministry of Agriculture. I came to Colney on October 11th 1936 when my family gave up Manor Farm Kirby Bedon where I was born and we […]

Ralph worked on the farm where his father was a foreman as a cowman. He talks of the American servicemen from Seething airfield while he lived at Thwaite. I was born in 1933, the son of an agricultural worker. We were living at Thwaite St Mary near Ditchingham in the 40s. My father was a […]