*Dictated in January 1977*

How old were you when you started work?

I was twelve.  I had to start.  I lost my father before I was twelve years old, and I had to start work, and in them days there was no help from nobody.  The only thing as my mother could get was Parish Relief, and that was for one.

How many were you?

There was four of us, four boys, and the oldest boy went in the Army - then there was three of us.  I had to start work when I were twelve, the hard way.

Up in the mornin' at six o'clock, back at five, if you were lucky. All the summertime, you was out the house at six o'clock, you was back in the house at ten.  Ten at night when we was haymaking and harvest, and all as we got if we done any overtime were tuppence ha'penny an hour - all we got.  And I never knowed what it was to have half a day off.  And when I started courtin', I've come in from where I lived to Banbury Fair.  I had to milk the cows before I come, and come in with my wife, and we'd got a pound in our pocket, that's what we come with.

Did you have to walk?

No, we catched the train at the station, that brought us into Banbury.  Got a return ticket - I don't know what the price was, not much - and we had this pound between us, and I took.....we took some money back out of that pound....and that was Banbury Fair.

And what did they start you at - what wage did you get at twelve?

They give you about...now, what did they?  Five, six, seven bob.  Seven bob a week, a bob a day.  They wouldn't give you much, you see, not when you was twelve...and they expected you to do as much as a man...used to go and milk eight cows each at the end of the day, I've pulled out forty gallons of milk, every day, Saturday and Sunday, with my hands.  Then I've had to turn round, I've 'ad me breakfast (come back home and had me breakfast), go back again and help my brother with feeding the calves and all that, and then when that were done, that were about ten o'clock, in the Spring of the year time, they sent me out in the fields stone picking; I had to take me dinner with me, and I've come back again at half-past two, three o'clock for I've got to milk those eight cows again at night, and help feed calves again afore we went home at five o'clock if we were lucky - if we was lucky.

How long did you stay in this first job?

Oh, seven or eight year, till I got round the corner a bit.  The first job as I took away from 'ome, I went to Leafield - to work for a gentleman - well, a gentleman - work for a farmer there.  He'd got a thousand five hundred acres, he got twenty-eight horses, an' I used to be milking there an' I was sat under the first cow at half past five in the mornin'.

Did you have to fetch them (the cows) in, or did somebody else do that?

No, they were fetched in for when we got there.  You put...yer milking smock and that...an' you got yer stool, an' you sat down and you were ready to milk directly after half past five - an' when you went in the cow 'ouse, he was stood in the cow 'ouse with his watch in 'is 'and, to turn you in, an' if you were two minutes late he told you - now then, that's as true as I sit 'ere.  I 'ad that for twelve months, and that was the coldest year ...well....many...now you date that back....my boy's forty eight, my eldest one - he were twelve months old - that's forty seven years ago.

About nineteen-thirty, about thirty-one - an' that was the coldest time.  There was only one place as we could get some water, an' that was at a busted pipe down the field, where it fed from the water into this ball-tap, an' that bust down the pipe, an' we could only get some water there.  We went down wi' milk churns, filled the churns, an' when we got back up to the farm they were froze solid in the churns.  And the birds used to fly through the air an' drop down dead - yes, that's the truth, that is.

So, now you've got a taste of what Henry's life was like - and the tall stories he used to tell!  The money he talks about was pre-decimalization, when there had been 12 pence in a shilling and 20 shillings (240 pence) in a pound. After decimalization there were 100 "New Pence" in a pound.  There's a link at the bottom of this page that will help you understand the British monetary system, but I can tell you that the 'bob' he talks about getting per day is slang for a 'shilling' - which is the new five pence The current Dollar/ Pound exchange rate is $1.90= 1 pound).  That's five pence a day for what was sometimes an 16 hour day or bloody hard graft - when he talks about "stone picking" he means literally going into the fields and picking up the stones so they wouldn't dent and chip the plow blade when it was time to plow and seed. 

In tomorrow's installment he talks about how he's a master hedge cutter and faggot bundler. (as with everything else, faggot means something totally different in England)