Memory #7: Life on the Farm

Looking back, Granny and Grandad’s farm was an amazing place to grow up on. We must have visited, staying for a short period in 1978 and then for a longer six month period in 1981 when Tan House was our home base because I have have a number of memories from both of those periods that have, years later, been rolled into one.

One of my earliest memories or half-memories was from 1978 when Rupert, a bold two-year old toddler waded into the duck pond which was freezing cold and covered in disgusting slimy weed. Apparently when Mum spotted him from the kitchen window and gave a great shout, running as fast as she could to the pond, he looked back, grinned and carried on doggy paddling into the centre of the pond. Mum had to jump in and grab him by his clothes and pull him out he was moving so fast.

I was much more afraid than he was of all the farm animals. Granny & Grandad kept cows that were three times my size and when milking time came or when the cows returned from from the milking shed to the field, I was terrified. Rupert on the other hand used to wander in amongst them pulling their tails.

Then there were the pigs. Granny, with her unusual sense of humour, named all the sows after her female relatives or friends. Hence there was a Sophie, a Melloney (Mum’s name), a Jan and a Jane (my aunties) and numerous others. If she had a particularly bad-tempered sow, she would name it after a cranky relative! There was only one male pig and he was called Albert, after one of the Royal Family. He was enough to service the 10 or so sows on the farm.

There were several pig pens and sheds on the farm. Some were inside wooden doors but there was another low-lying pig-stye where we used to watch (from a safe distance) as Granny cleaned them out and hosed them down, sometimes with the pigs still in them. I stayed safely on the other side of the bars just in case there was a pig hiding in a dark corner, ready to charge out and knock me over.

Then there were the ’special pig pens’ - one for farrowing pigs and the other with a pig which housed a sow called Hilda. Hilda was the bane of my four year old life and later my little seven year old legs shook like jelly in anticipation that she might still be there. Hilda was a vicious pig. A mean and nasty specimen who could smell you coming a mile off. Her pig pen was located just by the narrow path to the back door of the Farmhouse. No matter how hard I tried to creep as quietly as I possibly could past her pen, she would smell fear and start to rattle and bang on the corrugated tin that blocked her exit as if she would leap over it and attack whoever was on the other side.

The other heart-wrenching pig-gauntlet was the narrow passage past the two dimly-lit farrowing stalls which had to be passed in order to get to the ladder leading up to the Grange and Hay-Bale Heaven. Sometimes the stalls would be empty, at other times only one placid occupant and still others the sound of little feet disturbing straw would provoke aggressive grunting. Rupert and I would creep past, sneaking a peek at the row of pink and white piglets suckling and climb the ladder as quietly as we possibly could.

One sad little picture I have is of Granny wheeling a wheelbarrow full of dirty straw and manure having cleaned out one of the farrowing styes. Laid across the top was a perfect little piglet, purely pink with long white hairs all over its body. Its mother was a ‘roller’ and had the reputation of rolling on her piglets shortly after they were born. Farming forces you to face things you would rather avoid.

The Grange was magical though. One storey up, completely dark and unlit except for a huge opening for lorry drivers to throw haybales straight in and with sheer drop to the floor, I am amazed that our parents allowed us up there at all. One day when a lorry came to deliver bales, two year old Rupert, the same doggy-paddling pond-exploring two year old, was spotted standing on the very edge of the Grange. Granny stood at the bottom ready to catch him should he decide to play superman while Dad rushed up the ladder round the back to grab our adventurer.

Three years later in 1981 when we were back home, Dad made us a castle from the hay-bales up there and we played for hours in the Grange, exploring all its nooks and crannies and chasing the cats who came up to stay warm. I’m pretty sure that was the afternoon, in one dark corner of the Grange, my foot went through the floor and I had to be pulled out.

That winter, for Guy Fawkes Day, Granny and Grandad had the biggest bonfire we had ever seen and we experienced a guy and fireworks and sparklers for the first time. Those and sweetie cigarettes (whoever invented those was insane) made a strong impression.

Dad was telling me that he remembers a dinner party where Granny and Grandad Nigel were entertaining guests with pre-dinner drinks, a black-tie event. Martinis had just been served up when Granny remembered that the pigs hadn’t been fed. So off goes Grandad, puts a boilersuit on over his dinner jacket, feeds the pigs and then comes back in, calm and as unconcerned as you please, strips off his boiler suit and picks up where he left off with his martini and conversation. A classic!

I was shocked to find out in my teens that Grandad wasn’t our Grandad by birth but Granny’s second husband. He was always Grandad to me and has a very affectionate spot reserved for him in my heart.