Voices of Akenfield

by Ronald Blythe

  I am a man on my own. I am not interfered with much. I am on the plough and that is where I keep. I am alone nearly all my work time but I can’t say that I feel lonely. Not ever, not at all. People say, ‘There’s Derek, by himself up on that great old field, turning round, going back… he’s lonely. He must be lonely!’ Not at all – and what is ‘lonely’? I am watching the whole time, you see. I might have more than a hundred birds in my wake. It is surprisingly interesting. The gulls are with me. But now and then it’s nice to see a face and have a chat. Somebody will come past and speak, and that is good. It makes a break. After all, I’m a man and not a bird! But, honestly, if I knew that I was lonely, I’d pack it up tomorrow.

  [… ]

  Duncan Campbell · aged sixty‐six · sheep‐farmer

  A lot of us Scots came to Suffolk between the wars. Things have changed mightily since then; they were tough times. My wife and I have been here for forty‐two years. Before this I was a sheep‐farmer on the borders of Scotland. My father had a lot of sheep in the Border country. The flocks are very big there. They roam at their own sweet will, as they do in Wales. The hills are where the great art of shepherding is practised, where a man has to work subtly to get the best out of his sheep. They have to ‘go over the ground’, you see. They like to lie on the driest part of the grazing, which is on the mountain top. So the shepherd has to incline them out all the afternoon and evening in such a way that they reach the top at night. Then, at daybreak, they will leave the tops and gradually drift low into the valleys until they reach the stream. And so they go over all the pasture all the time, over all the hill and valley in one day. And that is the art of good shepherding, to work them gently, to let them go nicely out and in daily. The shepherd will go to his flock in the afternoon, moving straight along the valley to set them out. If there are any slow sheep, he will put his dog round them and gradually they will all slowly walk the little paths they have made on the mountain, one after another, grazing higher and higher, until they reach the top – and sleep. It is a lonely life – my word, it is! A shepherd spends nearly all his life quite alone.

  Very few Suffolk farmers keep big flocks now. There were many more sheep when I first arrived. There have been great reductions in East Suffolk, the numbers have gone down by many thousands. It isn’t because they are unprofitable but maybe because other animals are easier to farm and offer a better return. One of the reasons why I haven’t got so many sheep on my farm is that I am growing sprouts, peas, beans and other things for the frozen food factory. It is these new green crops which have made the wonderful change in the farming round this village. Before these came along, I used to go in for ley farming, taking my leys round the farm, ploughing up after they had been grazed by sheep and cattle every three–four years, and then catching the fertility. I can assure you that, compared with these deep‐freeze crops, there isn’t a finer way of keeping a farm in a high state of fertility than taking the leys round. It seems right. You feel that you are doing things the way they should be done and it makes you glad and satisfied. It surprises me that some people who do not get good root crops don’t practise ley farming more. I know hundreds of farmers who would benefit from having a couple of hundred breeding ewes on their land. This present continual serial cropping won’t, in the long run, prove so beneficial as a flock of sheep going over the ground every little while. The artificial fertilizers can never give what a flock can give.

  The farm was in poor condition when we came here. There was a lot of grass on it, so that was a help. But they had made hay off the same bits of pasture so often – continually hay, hay, hay, imagine that! – that at last they couldn’t have got more than a ton per acre. Well, that won’t pay, you know. I make very little hay and I’ll tell you why. Because you can buy nice hay at £8 10s. a ton. Now if the most you can grow is two tons – why waste the time or run the risk of losing it because of bad weather for £17? We only make hay when it has been a growing year. This was a growing year and we cut acres of beautiful hay.

  I missed the mountains when I first came to Suffolk – I still do. My wife and I, we missed the hills and the weir‐running streams. I shall always remember these four lines:

  Says old Tom, ‘Give me a Border burn

  That can’t run without a turn,

  And with its bonny babbles

  Fills the glens among our native hills…’

  They were written by J. B. Selkirk. They make me homesick. I remember saying them for the first time when I was a young man and standing in a Suffolk field which was being ploughed with horses by an old man wearing a long black coat with tail buttons, a bowler hat and carrying an umbrella! I shall be homesick here, I thought – and I have been. That old ploughman, he was a grand old man. So good.

  We have farm students now. Just one at a time, and just for a year’s practical work before they go to the agricultural college. We don’t mind what trouble we have to go to to teach them farming ways, so long as they make use of all we tell them later on. But some get tired of it and go into something else. It is disappointing when this happens. They are usually boys aged about sixteen. We don’t take them into our house; they have to find lodgings in the village. We give them a turn with cows, then tractors, reaping, sugar‐beeting, everything as it comes along. The older men sometimes resent the student. If they do it is because he is putting on airs and being too clever. He has forgotten how much the older men know – such wonderful things. Students should watch their step, keep their eyes open and their mouths shut. I give them a reference when their year’s ‘practical’ is up. And they have to make a statement of all that they have done during the year, what the acreage of the farm is and what happens on it, the date when they started the harvest and what machines were used. Many of these young men get depressed because they can never see any way of getting a farm of their own. They are so dear now. But it was hard for us, too. We young men from Scotland had to struggle along carrying an agricultural ruin on our backs. It is a wonder that any of us can stand upright! I tell the students that farming is three‐quarters practical and a quarter theory. And that a farmer must be able to do every job himself before he orders another man to do it. I have the sons of quite well‐to‐do people as students. I tell them, ‘Irrespective of your position, you must be taught to work.’

  I am really a shepherd. I could work a dog before I left school. My father would let me have the old ones which were finished for the hills and I would teach them and learn from them. Therefore I got into the art of handling dogs when I was a child, and I’ve never been without them all my life. And my dogs have always been the Border collie sheep dogs. They are with me in Suffolk and I have trained scores for all the East Anglian farmers, but they come from my homeland. The best of them were registered on both sides of the Border in the nineteenth century and eventually the National Sheep Dog Society, with its own studbook, was founded. They are the best sheep dogs in the world. They say that there are sheep dogs in Wales, but I’ve never seen a Welsh sheep dog.

  A really trained‐for‐trial‐work sheep dog costs between £1–£300 – as much as that! But it will be as valuable as a man on the farm, have no doubt about it. They will even collect cattle if you will let them. I have become an authority on these wonderful animals and have judged the English National Trials on two occasions.

  My method is this where training is concerned. I select a puppy from intelligent parents – I am not interested in the puppy if his parents aren’t good workers. I feed the puppy well and give him cod liver oil once a week. Then comes the hard part. He loves you now and is all over you the minute you show up, kisses and everything. But he has to learn to stay away from you and it is against his whole nature. You start by getting him to stay still at five yards, then you walk a little farther – ‘Now, Ben, sit down – sit!’ You are taking the frolic out of him and putting the confidence in. After much effort on both your parts he begins to become a sensible dog, instead of jumping and running to no purpose. Once you
have taught him stillness you’re getting somewhere. When you come to work on the sheep and you can stop them (high short whistle) and make them absolutely still from a distance, then you are getting somewhere. You can stop ’em and start ’em. You have made great progress.

  I might work on a dog once or twice a day for a month and after this, when we get to the sheep, the principle is to get the dog to go to the other side of the flock. And to get there he must go in such a way as not to disturb the sheep. So if the sheep are in the twelve o’clock position, the dog must start getting to the other side of them from the nine o’clock position. Then he must come round in a curve. Now, how are you going to teach it to do all that? Well, my method is to start the dog off with five sheep placed about fifty yards in front of me. I walk half‐way to the sheep leaving the dog motionless. I then ask him to come round. Naturally, he comes straight, so I step out towards him as he’s rushing past and shout, ‘Git out – Git out, Ben!’ and before he knows where he is he’s running to the side. Then I whistle him to sit down. He should be about ten–twenty yards off at the side of the sheep by now. And then I start to give him his come‐on whistle, or I say, ‘Come on up, Ben.’ But I don’t let him do this right away. I stop and start him a number of times. It is a game now and Ben is enjoying it. There is no dog so anxious to work and to please his master as a Border collie. Well now, he’s gone round the back of the sheep and bringing them towards you. You mustn’t teach him too much at once. He must do nothing more than this for a fortnight – just to run out keeping a nice circle line and bringing a handful of sheep up to you quietly. Then you teach him flanking, running to the right or to the left. If the sheep try to escape to the right you must have a command to make the dog come round and head them off. A short double high whistle means ‘come to my right’ and one long low whistle means ‘come to my left’. You have to give him encouragement and lots of kindness after each command. And all the time he must be quiet and gentle with the sheep – never to worry them, you understand. And there is another important thing. When you have given a command and the dog begins to respond, never add another command until he has completed the first one. And don’t repeat the command. So long as he’s doing what you have asked, don’t say anything. Never shake his confidence in any way.

  You need to understand sheep; they are very special animals. Down‐bred sheep are very placid and those which come from the hills are timid and wild. Their fright is infectious, it fills the air. It is some old habit which makes them keep together and if there weren’t dogs to manage them I don’t know what we would all do. I’ve often said that the British sheep industry would suffer to the extent of a thirty per cent loss if it weren’t for the collies. They are the brightest dogs in the world – and all due to the National Sheep Dog Society.

  Sheep have to be maintained in a splendid condition, once they begin to go down there is no pulling them up. You have no end of trouble with them if you let them go down. You must understand how to flush them and make them thrive, so that they bring you a good crop of lambs. And how to winter and summer them. And all the time you must do the job as economically as possible, and yet still present them in nice condition at lambing time.

  Some East Anglian farmers have no use for sheep at all; others are sheep‐minded. They know the value of them on the farm and just wouldn’t be without them. Sheep keep a farm in a high state of fertility and also provide a tidy little income. Double purpose creatures, they are.

  There is an important sale in Bury St Edmunds during the third week of August and last year I had to come home from holiday in order to get my sheep to it. I had 130 sheep and I took them all. And why? Well, the year before the Queen sent a flock of sheep from Sandringham to this sale – which deals with between 13–14,000 animals altogether – and I saw her get the highest prize. She had sent shearing ewes – ewes which are ready to go to the ram as soon as you get them home and which will lamb in the spring – and they made a lovely pen. Now, I told myself, I would like to beat the Queen. By jove, I looked about and bought a very nice pen of ewe lambs, brought them home, brought them up, took them to the Bury sale the next year and – what do you think? I got the highest price. But only just. I beat Her Majesty by five shillings!

  A chap comes up after the sale and says, ‘How did you manage it?’ Well now, I says quite simply, ‘I kept them clear of worms – dosed them in the autumn and again in the spring. I cleared every parasite right out. Then I dosed them for such things as pulpy kidney. I injected them – the scientists have done a tremendous lot for agriculture, make no doubt of it! Things are incredibly better since I started farming years ago – and then I fed these lambs all the winter as economically as I could with sugar‐beet pulp, and on the fields before the grass faded and the goodness went out of it. I was never too late or too early with the different cares they needed. I was being a good shepherd. That is how I managed it.’

  There is more in the business than making money, you know. I always wanted to be a farmer. I was quite sure. It is a great life. You must praise the land as well as take from it. And order it. There’s a field out there – now what have I done to that? I’ve put humus and nitrogen on it, and now the cows will graze it. I’ll fold it twice over and then I’ll plough it up, then sow these hand‐picked beans. I took over five tons an acre off it this year – two crops in twelve months! The beans go to Birdseye to be frozen. I am growing eight acres of sprouts for Birdseye. Thirty‐two boxes of them left the farm yesterday, and thirty‐two the day before. I kept a pedigree herd of cows on only forty‐two acres of grass. I add fertilizer to the good natural humus in the grass and freshen it all up with irrigation. The rule with land is to give – then you can take.

  The days are better now but people refuse to believe it. I felt quite angry at a meeting in Ipswich the other day. A man got up and read a paper called ‘The Countryside through the eyes of the Urban Dweller’ – and how he criticized us! Taking down hedges! Putting up ugly buildings! It was awful. We just ignored him. But one man did get up and answer him. He said, ‘In spite of all you say, we have still got hedges and the land is fertile, and there is no more beautiful sight than fertile land.’ The farmers are thought to lack feelings. I have sometimes accidentally put my big foot on a skylark’s nest, eggs and all. It is damn awful – it is you know! ‘Clumsy fool brute! Brute!’ I tell myself. But it is done. Robbie Burns once ploughed‐in a mountain daisy and wrote:

  Wee modest crimson‐tipped flower

  I’ve met you in an evil hour

  For I must crush among the stone

  Thy slender stem. To spare thee now

  Is past my power – thou bonny gem!

  Have you seen the townspeople in the spring‐time, driving out to the lanes and woods, and tearing up the flowers? It is a shocking sight.

  William Russ · aged sixty‐one · gravedigger

  I started digging graves when I was twelve years old and before I left school. I began by helping an old man and by the time I was thirteen I could do the job as well as I can now. I dug graves before my voice broke – there now! People would look down into the hole and see a child. The work didn’t upset me; I took it in my stride. Right from a little boy – if Mother was alive she’d be able to tell you – I used to bury guinea‐pigs, rabbits, all sorts of things. I had about fifty rabbits and when one died I would make a coffin for it, get my choir surplice from the church vestry and read the Burial Service over it. So burying has been in my blood from a child. I never wanted to do anything else; graves are my vocation.

  I’ve been at the church, official‐like, since 1918. I was the legal sexton when I was thirteen and I’ve buried damn‐near the whole of the old village, everyone of them. I remember the first grave I dug. It was for a man named Hayman. I’ve got all my burials down since the day I started, men, women and children.

  So far as funerals are concerned, we’ve gone from one extreme to the other. Bodies used to be kept in the house for twelve days. Everyone kept the bo
dy at home for as long as they could then; they didn’t care to part with it, you see. Now they can’t get it out quick enough. They didn’t like hurrying about anything when I was young, particularly about death. They were afraid that the corpse might still be alive – that was the real reason for hanging on to it. People have a post‐mortem now and it’s all settled in a minute, but there’s no doubt that years ago there were a rare lot of folk who got buried alive. When a sick man passed on the doctor was told, but he never came to look at the corpse. He just wrote out the death certificate. People always made a point of leaving an instruction in their wills to have a vein cut. Just to be on the safe side.

  There was an old man near Framlingham, old Micah Hibble, he was laid out for dead three times. The last time he was actually in his coffin and waiting for the funeral to begin. When I asked, ‘Anymore for a last look before he’s screwed down?’ there was the usual nuisance pushing his way through the mourners and saying, ‘Yes, I do!’ Trust somebody to get you fiddling about and making the funeral late. The bell was going, so you know how late it was. Anyway, when this man looked in the coffin he saw that Micah had moved. Well do you know, he recovered! And what’s more, he is supposed to have written a book about what he saw, although I’ve never set eyes on it. He reckoned he saw Heaven and Hell but he wouldn’t say what he saw in Hell; he thought it would be too much for Framlingham. He lived for years after this.