7. The Stockman Word and Music by Godfrey Yeomans
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Godfrey Yeoman’s song[1] reflects the traditional methods of raising cattle – especially those bred for show - followed at Calverton Manor Farm[2] for generations. Richard Fountaine inherited the farm and ran it for nearly 50 years, until 2006; Eric West, a farm worker there for much of that time, was born in one of his Manor Farm cottages: ‘My father worked for Richard’s grandfather as a Stockman.’
The Stockman’s work was crucial to the farm’s business, tending to the health - and therefore the meat value at market – of carefully nurtured cattle stock. As Richard says: ‘Farming was so different in those days. Calverton Manor has always basically been a stock farm, but certainly a mixed farm. You’d produce grain for the livestock, some for sale, and then you got the straw for feed and bedding. That was the old traditional way… ‘When I got into the business in ’58 at Stony, there was a market at Bletchley, Bedford, Olney and Banbury - the biggest in the Midlands which ran two or three days a week. And we’d always go to Northampton’s ‘fat stock’ on a Wednesday and ‘store stock’ on a Saturday - the farmer takes his ‘store stock’ to market and another farmer buys them on to finish them. Some farms are better at fattening, ready to sell to the butcher… ‘You’d be working with the Hereford and the Beef Shorthorn and the old native traditional British breeds – like Angus. Then the continental invasion came like the Belgian Blue… ‘100 years ago when things were not pushed and it was more down to nature, your cattle were fed on just hay and straw and grass and they weren’t given the grain, so they produced a smaller calf and things were more natural, easier to manage, but with your new Belgian Blue and continental bulls things are a bit more difficult and prone to problems.’ Much of the Stockman’s work was geared to preparing it for show, as Eric West recalls: ‘Some animals are bred for showing. Put Belgian Blues onto these cows and you get a good calf out – with muscles. I’ve helped prepare cows for showing… You’d wash it all over with a drop of Fairy Liquid, rinse it all off and comb it up. We took it to Bletchley, when it used to have a cattle market and I had First Prize there. I’ve still got the rosette upstairs.’ Richard’s memories include the hours of work needed to get the preparation right : ‘If you go to a show, you enter your best animal to try and win the class: you’ve got to have the breeding, the feeding and the preparation right to get it all clean and its coat clipped. If you go to the top shows in the country, they have a hair trim and shampoo and then they’re blown dry! When you produce the top animal, you’ll get a premium on it because the ‘killing-out percentage’ is better - you’ll get more for your stock. I’ve always been interested in producing and showing cattle at Christmas. You’ve got to have a beast that is quiet and will walk and stand being handled by a judge. It takes hours of work and preparation to get a beast ready for a top show.’ Richard Fountaine Eric provides a telling epitaph to the Stockman’s role: ‘The show animal does get slaughtered, but you’re brought up for that sort of thing - you’re killing it for eating and that’s it. Bred for what it’s meant for.’ Eric West [1] The song can be found on: The Stockman | The Living Archive Band (bandcamp.com) [2] Both the book Calverton Manor Farm, Milton Keynes… a century of memories and the radio ballad DVD The Horse and the Tractor have further reminiscences about farm life as well as including those of Dick Webb and Bet Jones. Calverton Manor Farm – the Songs is a 2015 CD of the songs they inspired. See www.livingarchive.org.uk |
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