Status Updates From Corduroy

“ I looked well upon that great circle of crossed clasped hands – father, mother, sons, daughters, sons’ sons, and daughters’ daughters – for it seemed to me that it had remained unbroken longer than Fate usually allows, and soon somebody must fall out, and, times being what they were, I might never again see such a family thus gathered in their home.”🥹

“I remarked that it was a very happy reunion. ‘Yes…I am glad I have lived to see this day, and my boys all alive and well, what with the war and all, and their children too.’ ‘It must be almost a record,’ I suggested. ‘Indeed, I thank God for the mercies He has bestowed on me,’ said the old man... Towards midnight we sang ‘Auld Lang Syne.’”

“ I bought Darky and Dewdrop for forty-seven and forty-five guineas respectively. The auctioneer remembered my name from the things I had bought earlier in the sale. ‘Mr Bell, isn’t it? Yes.’ It was a recognition of me as member of the agricultural community, a farmer; no longer a youth looking at farming. Had I not received a circular that morning addressed to Mr Bell, Farmer, Benfield St George…?”

“…we met the late occupier of the farm who was retiring on his war-time gains, and was pleased to make a lavish gesture of the occasion by providing luncheon in the barn for the chief farmers of the neighbourhood who should attend the sale…It was a usual thing to provide a barn luncheon in the old days of agriculture, as it was also, at a sale of stock, for the owner to distribute glasses of port round the ring.”

“I went with Mr Colville to a sale of farming stock near by, whose owner had the reputation of keeping the best…The farm was a large one, and there were many lots, so the sale had been fixed for eleven o’clock, which meant eleven-thirty, the equivalent of punctuality for a farm sale.”

“I was to take possession on October the eleventh, Michaelmas Day, which was the usual date on which farms changed hands…Everywhere vans and lorries stacked with furniture went to and fro, for foremen, stockmen, milkmen, horsekeepers, often moved with their masters. The evening of that day saw many settling into new homes, for better or worse. It was already October, so I made haste to procure implements and horses.”

“October; and the signs of October again in the land; ladders in orchards, sheep and fowls on stubbles; new thatch; notices of farm sales plastered upon walls; the first scattering of leaves; and the spirit of ocean in the trees. I went through the ceremony of valuation on my farm, an auctioneer acting between the outgoing tenant and me.”

“…as I lay on my back rocked gently in the warm September sea, and gazed at the hotels, piers, promenade, and all the characteristics of that town built for those who did not live in it…I could not banish a feeling of strangeness that the vale of Benfield, with its timeless scenes, should be less than an hour by car from here.”

“…we came into the main road between the coast resort we were making for and London. An immediate change was apparent. The farm cart, the occasional cattle, the rustic with his pails from the well, and such-like, that had been our only encounters, were here lost in the traffic of fast cars to and fro. Here were hatless heads, flannels, bare legs, flying scarves.”

“I was pleased to find that I now knew not the least, but the least but one, in Benfield about agriculture. I was able to smile with Mr Colville over a stranger’s ignorance; it was a great moment. The question was just the kind that I had asked at first.”

“In a few days the frost gave, and, though the sky still lowered, the rain held off. Nature was no longer silent, but birds added song to the workaday stirrings of the early mornings. Then, at the end of the month, there came a day of full sun… Young foliage peeped; water was bright as a blade, and, ruffled by flashing-white ducks, seemed cool, not cold. This was spring’s ambassador.”

During a period of persistent rain I came to realise the extent of the farm-worker’s wardrobe. Since his clothes are never thrown away until actually worn to shreds, and since the clothes of his forefathers were made to last, many a cottage has an interesting store laid away, usually in an old chest. When the need arises they are brought forth.”

“I returned home to London, to a world of narrow sky and no darkness, to find the old life half strange already. My brown Sunday boots, in which I motor-cycled home, once again seemed uncouth there, and I was asked to change them, as they would ruin the carpets…I noticed most keenly the brilliance of electric light after oil lamps, and the absence of anything worn, or uneven, or overgrown.”

“Gifts flowed in from the outer world, and Benfield gave in return. Rabbits and game lay on the counter, tied and labelled. On Boxing Day the bell-ringers went round and serenaded the chief houses with chimes on the handbells, and wished the people good cheer, for which they were invited to drink with them to the coming year, and favourable sun and shower upon the fields to harvest.”

“…as the hatter was making out the bill, Mr Colville said, ‘Five per cent discount for cash, remember. That’s worth a bob or two.’..He deducted the five per cent…In later days I came to know that hatter quite well, and remarked upon the farmer’s shopping methods. ‘…when a farmer comes into the shop we put a few shillings on to the price of things, just to give him the pleasure of knocking it off.’”

“As we were passing an auctioneer’s office, Mr Colville pointed out to me a man who looked like a beggar or mendicant. ‘He’s as rich as he can be.’ We paused as the man entered the office. ‘I bet he’s bought two or three hundred pounds’ worth of cattle.’ Through the open door I saw him taking wad after wad of notes from an inner pocket. ‘He never writes a cheque; he can’t sign his name,’ said Mr Colville.”

“Bob showed me the action of the flail, and I attempted it, and cracked myself on the skull, as he said I would. The swingel, or swinging end, performs antics of its own in the hands of a beginner, bounding back at him and behaving more like an enemy than an ally. It would have made an excellent weapon, and I wondered if the rabble used it in the French Revolution along with the other implements of agriculture.”

“I have groaned at Mr Colville’s tap on my door, and lain pleading with myself for a minute more of bed… I have looked to the south-west on desolate afternoons and thought of London there, and the warm, bright rooms I had left…and asked myself why on earth I was standing here miles away, alone in fields.”

“Although the younger folk preferred modern box-shaped houses of brick and slate, and despised antiquity, the older people had often an extreme affection for the plaster cottage in which they had lived for many years… Often I have seen a single curtained window in a cottage half in ruins. An old woman would be hanging on there in the last habitable room of her crumbling home…”

“ But anyone in Suffolk who is not engaged in farming, and appears to exist on private means, is designed ‘gentleman’. If a farmer retires, his friends say, half ironically, ‘So and so’s giving up this Michaelmas; he’s going to be a gentleman.’ There is only one work – that of the fields; and anyone not actively engaged in this, if he lives in the country, is considered independent, and therefore rich.”

“Dancing, hockey-playing on Saturdays, shooting, and hunting – these were the pastimes of a young farmer of substance in the winter. In the summer, Mr Colville used to go to the seaside every week-end after working hard all the week. Altogether it had been a great life in his agile days, the fearless days before the war, he told me.”