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 Home About the Throwleigh Archive Project History of the Throwleigh Archive Planning the future for the Throwleigh Archive Some interesting snippets from interviews Church and Chapel The book "Throwleigh - pictures and memories from a Dartmoor parish" |
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"We used to have a cider press, and you got this here thing and you had to put straw on here, and fold it in, a layer of apples and another lot of straw, and another lot of apples, before you get up to the top. And then, you go around here and press all the juice out of it – and that would go in the trough, that would. And the other stuff, you might fill it up again, and you’d get more cider out, the second time – screw it down again… And after that they used to put it under any orchard, and the pheasants used to like that – the pips in the apples, they used to like that. You’d see the pheasants there!"
"The thing used to be, to look after the yard work – milking and pigs and poultry and that sort of thing – and have the meals on time for when the men came in, so that they could sit down and have it before they had to start again – be ready and look after them, and not keep them waiting about – no. We were brought up not to neglect the job – you know, to have it ready for them."
"You’ve got to put something on the ground, first - wood or something - else it would get all wet, wouldn’t it? – going on the bare grass… Then you put the sheaves just around, one sheave and then the next, around and around – when you get to the end, and then you start the next one… You could do a square one – we used to make round ones."
"See, the threshing machine used to come round, and go to different farms around. One used to help the other. Because you’d want about twelve men, doing reed combing. It takes twelve men. Some would be on the corn ricks, some would be pitching the corn to the thresher, wouldn’t they? To keep that going… You’d be trusted to look after the straw that comes down, and then there’s somebody else to look after the corn. You’d hang up the bags of corn behind the thresher- the grain – and as soon as it comes down you’d have to undo that one and put on another one, quick – another sack. Some would be good, some would be seconds, and the third not very good. The first is good corn, fit for seed. Then the next one would be, too. Then the next one wouldn’t be quite so good, you’d have to get that cleaned again, before you could sell it. Cleaned – get all the weeds out of it…You’d get weeds and all sorts of things."