Sound Recordings, Kent

Description

[Collector announcement]; Charles Joiner, recorded in Staple in December 1958; talks about storing apples in earth; first thatching job, aged fifteen/sixteen; describes thatch sewn onto barn roofs; his own farm and jobs/responsibilities; farm modernisation and the decline in the use of horses; horse and van transport; his first farm lorry; marriage; modern farming and the amalgamation of smaller farms; small farmers and the involvement of the State; describes building a rick; describes a flail, used for threshing; hay sweeps/reapers; first motor car and aeroplane seen; ploughs and ploughing (horses and modern machinery compared); farm mechanisation and tools/equipment; obsolescence of old farming equipment. [Tr. 3] William Bushell, recorded in Denton in January 1959. [This is the conclusion of an interview which starts on Track Two of this tape - see below.] Mr. Bushell talks about his working life in coal mines; war service in the Army; work as a trammer in Snowdown Colliery; pit ponies; miners' lamps; working conditions; miners' clogs; accidents and injuries; pit ponies; coal production; old mining practices; leaving the pit; threshing work; reapplying for a pit job, driving a steam waggon; petrol lorries; work at a fitting shop. [Tr. 4] [Collector announcement]; William Bushell, recorded in Denton in January 1959. [This is the start of the interview with Mr. Bushell, recorded on Track Two of the tape.] Mr. Bushell talks about working with a threshing machine; wet days and lost time, wages; summer work with a steam roller for Margate County Council; driving a (road) haulage engine; the commandeering of engines by the Army during the [second] war; making brick rubble roads for the Army; father's work as a waggoner; biographical details; family; selling straw at Canterbury market; Mr. Bushell's aunt. [Tr. 5] Mr. Bushell talks about hop gardens, tools and hop hills (potatoes to attract worms that would otherwise eat the hops); hop-growing and training shoots; hop-picking - wages and the tally man; hop-drying in oast houses, and the dry man; work on leaving school; apprenticeship with a Mr. Arthur, at an agricultural engineering works; working on adapting an American-made binder, to be driven by an engine rather than pulled by a horse; describes first attempt at using such a machine; describes the machine and how it worked, adjustments made after trials; describes and explains the working of a potato planter, invented by Mr. Arthur; trials of the machine, reaction of farmers and the sale of the patent; work on lawnmower maintenance; inspection of the adapted binder by the American firm ( Walter A. Woods) who made the original; leaving the engineering firm and considering job options; the opening of coal mines in Kent; the village of Snowdown before the colliery; describes his father's work in the fields; reference to work food (prodder); sinking the coal shaft at Snowdown; describes method of draining water from the mine; riding the hoppit into the pit. [Tr. 1]. Continues on Track One of the tape [AC Tr. 4 above].

Metadata

Identifier	fp4rkvdg
IRN	414860
Class Mark	LAVC/SRE/A809r
Level	Item
Type of Record	Archives - ISAD(G)
Peristent Link	http://prototype1.library.leeds.ac.uk/fp4rkvdg
Collection(s)	Leeds Archive of Vernacular Culture
Category	Archive
Parent Record	Audiotape Sound Recordings
Creator(s)	Barry, Michael V
Date	1958-1959
Size and Medium	1 x 12.7cm open reel spool, Duration: 109' 19".

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