|
 | |  | |
John White recalls childhood memories living in Kent.
At 9 years old Dad thought it was time I learned to drive the truck. So after finishing at Acrise School I would run home, dump my books, homework and all, and off with Dad in the truck.
At that time there were only a few tractors on the farms, and one horse could only pull a six to eight foot set of chain harrows. With the truck we could pull a nine foot set of chain harrows and a nine foot Cambridge roller with a long draw bar (about 14 ft long) on it in tandem.
It was my job to drive the truck pulling these two implements round and round the paddocks each spring, preparing the meadows for hay. This had to be done, as there were a lot of moles and they left little humps of dirt every six to eight feet where they tunneled underground and pushed up the soil.
These molehills are very hard on hay mowers so by chain harrowing and rolling the meadows you save the cost of mower repairs.
I would cover three to four acres an hour on good flat going provided I didn't overlap too much, so I gradually got to know where to drive to cover the maximum acreage and not miss any ground.
Corners were a bit difficult to start with but at 3d per acre for driving I soon learned the most economical way to cove all the ground in the shortest time. This proved a good education later in life when I started contracting.
In harvest time I used to drive the truck while the men pitched the hay or corn sheaves on to the deck and then carted the load to the stack. I sometimes started after lunch (playing hooky from school) and didn't get home until 10.00 or 10.30 at night, which didn't do much for my education!
In winter time when there was snow on the ground I never went to school as Dad said I was more help to him on the truck and that was what he had in mind for me anyway.
Sometimes I would not attend school for six or seven weeks in the winter depending on how long the snow lay on the ground. Sometimes we had to walk across paddocks for about a mile to the farm where we were supposed to pick up milk, and get the farmer to harness up the horse and cart, and then get back up to where we could get with the truck and meet Dad later on.
We would leave home at 6.30 in the morning and sometimes it would be 7 o'clock at night before we got home for tea.
| |  | |  |
To add a comment you must first login or join for free, up in the top left corner.
|
|
