9. Snowflake Words: Rod Hall & Kevin Adams; Music: Rod Hall
The Horse and the Tractor is a Living Archive MK radio ballad about living and working at a local farm, Calverton Manor in the middle of the 20th century – at a time when centuries-old farming traditions were still in place. Local resident Dick Webb recalls so many horse stories:
‘Dad was a Horseman. He wasn’t a groom because a groom is for race horses. A Horseman is in charge of the working horses. He had to get them early in the morning, feed them, get them all harnessed up for whoever was going to have them. He’d always have two for himself because he’d do the ploughing. The most horses I can remember here is eight. But over at Alderton Farm, where me Gramp was, they had more. It was a bigger farm. They were the very big cart horses. You had to learn how to use a plough, harrow[1], the drill - every machine was pulled by the horses. Dad didn’t get paid more for it. It’s just a job - horseman, cowman, shepherd. You didn’t get any extra.’ He remembers what tough work it was for man and horse, needing challenging preparation: ‘Dad used to break the horses - because when they’d never been used you got to ‘break’ them so you could use them. In the field by the big house there was always tree trunks of different sizes, and he’d take the horse and hook it on one of these big logs and make it work like hell until it nearly dropped. That was the way to learn it that it’s got to do the jobs and that he was in charge of it. But then he’d take it and feed it and brush it down.’ Even from the age of five, Dick was helping too - riding a pony and driving a cart: ‘When they was cutting the corn they’d have two big horses and the pony on the front. And it was our job to sit on the pony all day riding round. You’d sweat and it was horrible, riding - ‘cos you was the lead horse… ‘Quite a few times I went with Dad, with me driving the pony and cart - I was only five - Dad and the dog walking behind. We’d take these 20 cattle and drive them from Calverton… ‘The main A5 wasn’t very busy. We’d go up through Deanshanger, back up ‘The Pig and Whistle’, right up there to Whittlebury, round Silverstone. That was a day’s work. There was nowhere to stay there, so that’s why we had the pony and cart to ride back in. We’d go at about 6 o’clock in the morning and get back 4 or 5 o’clock.’ Rod Hall’s song Snowflake2 is an affectionate tribute to a farm horse - a fitting reminder of local people’s erstwhile dependence on their animals, as well as their worth and benefit. [1] harrow – ‘a heavy frame of timber or iron set with iron teeth which is dragged over ploughed land to break clods’ (OED) [2] Link to the Living Archive Band’s Calverton album: Snowflake | The Living Archive Band (bandcamp.com) with Marion Hill solo. The download on this web page features composer Kevin Adams as singer/ instrumentalist. |
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