Many of my fellow boarders at Probus School were farmers sons. They came from all over the county; from the windblown north to the gentle south and their farms varied in crop and herd depending on climate and soil. I think these two ‘observations’ will paint a picture of the life we expected to lead when we were allowed to leave school and begin our farming life. The Labour government of 2025 has made it very hard indeed for farmers to leave their farms to their progeny. This may help when trying to understand how small and medium farmers feel about that.
In the aftermath of WWII, Cornish farmers sons expected to leave school at the age of 15 and to await the time when they inherited the family farm. Until they did so they hoped to grow stronger and wiser as they milked the cows, picked, bunched, boxed and dispatched flowers to Covent Garden market, mended the dry stone walls, drove the tractor at hay making, thatched the ricks, peep-shot rabbits for food, learned the price of bull calves in Truro market, caught moles and cured their skins for sale, ate egg and bacon tart, set fire to gorse in the right season, played Rugby, caught Congar eels in the tidal creeks in old car tires, scorned English folk and, perhaps, donned the canvas jacket and engaged in Cornish wrestling.
They would learn to plough and watch the masters of that art compete at the annual ploughing matches and listen to the critical talk between watching farmers with their hazel stick in hand and dogs at heel. They would know about ferrets and how to set them to hunt in rabbit warrens with nets over the holes and the terrier on a lead should a rabbit escape. They would deftly catch and kill a rabbit, slit its abdomen and remove the gut and take the carcass home to skin and hang in the cold larder for the women to cook.
Eventually they would inherit the farm and have a roll of pound notes in their pockets on market day to do a deal and to pay the auctioneer and be a man of substance in their village.
Who would he marry? Would she be church or chapel for that counted in Cornwall?
If he was very lucky, he would land a neighbouring farmer’s daughter who would learn to command his farmhouse kitchen and preside over the big Cornish range with a kettle on the hob and her aged and incontinent mother-in-law in her chair close by. Over her head would be the laden laundry rack and behind her the scrubbed kitchen table.
She will preserve fruit in season, work the butter churn and weald the butter pats. She would know how to use the jam kettle, and the clotted cream bowel. In her care would be the sides of salty bacon, the legs of ham, the keeper apples, the cider barrel, and the kitchen garden. She would keep the hens and know how to pluck and cook them and feed the family at breakfast and at the big midday meal. She and her women folk would fill the great metal tub and light the fire below it to heat the water to do the laundry.
At lambing time, in the warm kitchen, there would always be a kettle on the boil from sunrise until late at night. Whisky and hot water always ready to restore the shepherding men back from the flock with their backsides against the warm Cornish range and their boots at the back door.
Each week she would blacken the Cornish range and polish the brass. She would fill the lamps with paraffin and trim the wicks and fill the hot water bottles against the winter’s cold. She would keep the farm ledger and the cash box, darn the socks in her spare time, and pay the tradesmen.
She would forgive him when he was drunk, fill his bed with joy and give birth to his children at home. Farms would flourish with good wives in the house.
DON'T KILL ME NOW 