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George Spenceley recalls his memories of training to be a farmer in Yorkshire in the 1940's.
The village of Thornton Watlass, near the farm I worked on, was a friendly place. It had a triangular cricket pitch in the centre with a large mature oak tree on the lower side with a road running around the perimeter.
I started going into the village for a chat with the other teenagers and joined the football team run by the school headmaster. Me, with my two left feet!
We competed against the other local village teams. I enjoyed it and we had a good time. We were rubbish as far as scoring goals and usually got beaten ten or twelve goals to nil. If the opposition had one leg tied behind their back they would have still won but having said that it made a good break on a Saturday afternoon.
Apart from playing football I became friendly with a young girl from the village called Margaret. She was a nice girl, still going to school fifteen years of age.
She would often come along with her sister and wait at the farm gate until I'd finished work, then usually we'd take a slow walk around the green, just chatting about our families and the usual silly things.
On a Saturday night half a dozen of us would go to the pictures in a friends car, I would take Margaret and we'd enjoy the film in Bedale, followed by a fish and chip shop for supper before setting of back.
Margaret and I were driven to the crossroads on the lower side of Watlass as it was then just a short walk up the hill to the white council cottages where she lived.
On other occasions Fred would take me with him shooting game or rabbits. He said he'd like a ferret and I knew where I could get one as my Uncle Dick kept a ferret on his allotment to keep away the rats.
Now ferrets or polecats as they're sometimes called, can be very dangerous especially if treated cruelly, it's said that if they bite your finger they either cannot or will not let go unless you choke them off.
Uncle Dick's ferret was very tame, he called it Ferdinand. 'Here George' he once said 'I'll show you how tame he is' and bending he put the ferret at the bottom of his trouser leg, 'go on Ferdinand show him' he said winking at me, 'this is my party trick'.
The large cream coloured ferret set off on its journey up the inside of his trouser leg, you could see it moving around his waist so he unfastened his belt and it eventually emerged up the back of his neck.
'Here you can have him for a pound' he said. 'I've won many a pound with a bet in the pub doing that'. I was glad he let me have it but laughed and said, 'I wont be doing any tricks with it, have you a box I could have to carry it back to the farm', he shook his head. 'No, but I have a canvas bag, he'll be alright in there'.
I explained that I had to go back on the United bus, and wondered if it would be alright to take him. 'Of course it will' he replied.
I took him at his word but all the way back Ferdinand made such a noise scratching on the canvas bag, trying to get out that all the other passengers kept looking up at the parcel shelf wondering what it was all
about.
Many times I've wondered what would have happened if the ferret had got out, I sold it to Fred for £2 and made a 100% profit.
George Spenceley, 2002
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