222 Porter Avenue, Seaside Heights, New Jersey 08751
Several years ago, thanks to some magazine articles, I was
contacted by a man in England. Over several years of correspondence
we have built up what I feel is a true friendship. We have never
met face to face, but I pray that we shall, yet we are on a first
name basis. If we ever meet there will be stories to tell ‘late
understand each other, as witness some of the tales he has told me;
and given permission for me to tell. Some are serious, some are
humerous, and all seem similar to the ones I hear from ‘old
timers’ here. Geroge, as I shall call him, was born about 1900
and began his career about the age of 12. The first of his
experiences which he has related to me is as follows:
‘During my four years apprenticeship, I was always the mate,
dreaming of the day when I too would drive one of those wonderful
engines. The 14-18 War shaved two years off my waiting years, for
most of the firms drivers racked into the Army. The dawn when I
heard the boss utter the magic words, ‘George, I want you to
take over old Jack’s set of threshing tackle,’ I was just
15. That’s all there was to it no period of learner driver. One
evening I was a fitters mate, next morning at 6:00 A.M. I was a man
in charge of a set of threshing tackle, two old men, and for the
first time in living history, my gang were twelve bobby dazzlers in
the newly created womens land army. I shall never forget their
arrival. They pedalled into the yard on bikes, chattering away like
a flock of sparrows…..’Whose gaffer (foreman) here’, and
it was some minutes before I could unglue my tongue from the roof
of my mouth where it became stuck, to say, ‘I am.’ Me, who
had never been in charge of anything before. Conversations were
hard to come by, but I did gather all 12 had left school last
autumn. They had all drifted into a firm which made all manner of
envelopes, this was in the midlands so their dialect needed a lot
of understanding. Then when the cry went up for girls to work on
the land, they volunteered as one. They spent a month at a training
school, learned to harness a horse, milk a cow and tar a barn, then
they were packed off down south into a large house commandeered by
the government as a hotel, and 12 hours later this gaggle of pretty
seventeen-year-olds stood before me, greener than grass.
‘What’s that,’ said one redhead, pointing to the
engine simmering away belted up to the thresher? Later that day
they found out. There were all the problems as you can imagine,
blistered hands, no first aid boxes then, sacks overflowing, chaff
shoot blocked up, belts off, no stop cries of ‘gaffer’ and,
of course, one of the pitchers fell off the stack. But they learned
fast, and for that matter so did I, not about threshing but the
strange way in which a female mind works. In about a month they had
worked themselves into a very efficient gang, and I was the envy of
all the lads of my own age. One of them used to steer my engine
around torturous country lanes just wide enough for the tackle and
in and out of gateways as though she had been doing it for the last
20 years. But they were terribly homesick. I was often comforting,
or trying to, some tearful lassie who needed a motherly touch not
the fumbling words of a green engine driver. But we made it.
‘Those war years were hectic. The first night as a threshing
engine driver, a bomb from an invading zeppelin missed the sleeping
van I and the two old men were sleeping in by 25 yards. My driving
career was almost ended before I got started.’ And now for
another letter:
‘Gee, what a lot we missed in those Victorian times. The
worst punishment a school teacher could inflict on any boy who
misbehaved in class, was to sit him next to a girl. He would loathe
her afterwards and cross the other side of the road if he saw her
approach. I often smile watching the kids here coming out of
school, what a lot of tiddlers they are. The top class at my school
held boys 5′ 10′ high, grown men by today’s standards,
who barring age could have gone straight into the police force, and
the girls were grown women at twelve, only the rigid mode of dress
forbid they be mistaken. So when I found myself in charge of that
threshing gang, although being a big chap, I was just 15 and a ?,
and green as grass in how a female mind works. I learned that in
due course. And the same went for the girls. They regarded me like
an ogre and were unapproachable. When on the first day, one of
them, despite my frequent warning of watching the end of their
pitch fork when raking out the cavil and poppy pots and docks from
under the machine, and close proximity to pulleys and belts in
those days, never guarded. The inevitable happened the result a
broken arm. When I went to investigate I was shooed away. The very
thought that I should see a bared shoulder was unthinkable. A week
later the girl on the stack got too close to the edge and toppled,
resulting in a broken collarbone. These girls were billeted three
miles in a big house commandeered by the government and in charge
of a haughty buxum woman of the nobility, who used to come and
visit me and my gang once every day, who watched over them like an
old hen.’
This will give you an impression what my set of threshing tackle
looked like in 1915. The engine is a 6 HP Fowler, the thresher is a
Foster. The living van and water cart are out of the picture, a
long train on our then narrow, winding country lanes. Note drivers
brake hung on the drum pully and the newly arrived straw tyer,
which causes more swearing than the weather. There was no driving
licenses then and the road tax was 5 shillings a year! Today it is
25 pounds. The farm yard here is stone rolled and very unusual.
They were mostly inches deep in mud churned up by cows brought in
twice a day for milking. Drivers wages, then 14 shillings a six day
week of 74 hours. Photo courtesy of George W. Eves, 30 Blaydon
View, Melbourne, St. Andrew, Dorset, England. Submitted by William
E. Hall.
I guess that is enough of the first experiences, so I will come
back to more of those in the future. Here is a different
subject.
‘Your mention of splitting wood by gunpowder was common
practice on the farm here in my steam days and in my boyhood. Any
tree which blew down on the farm, large by our standards, was split
by that method especially when a farm owned a portable, they burned
nothing but wood. The secret is knowing how much powder to use. I
grew up with the black stuff, for on Guy Fawkes Night, (note, our
Halloween) when fireworks were beyond mum’s slender purse, I
think I was just 10, dad got me a brass cannon 1’ bore with a
touchole at the breech end, mounted on a wooden block. I was given
a pound of gunpowder in a wooden box, showed how to pour it into
the barrel, wad it with some newspaper, put a match in a pen holder
in place of the pen nib, tie this to a long cane, retire to a safe
distance, light the match and carefully apply it to the touchole in
the cannon. The result an almighty bang, which set all the dogs
barking, the chickens cackling, the geese gobbling, the horse
neighing. I used to gather up the gun a bit smartish and beat a
hasty retreat before the irrate householders emerged intent on
retaliation. My mate and I went to another end of the village and
repeated the performance. A delicate sense of timing now entered
into our fun at this point. At first the gun on firing would recoil
yards and was difficult to find, so dad (he was always good for a
bit of fun), fixed a dog chain to the ‘gun carriage’ which
had a spring hook on the other end, and this I would clip to a
handy fence, garden gate or hedge thicket before firing. On firing,
I would gather the gun and dash for the nearest gap in the hedge or
garden gate and escape into the fields. The village policeman
alerted by the reports, would set out to find me, of course, he
knew I was the culprit, so it was like a glorious military manuever
dodging the enemy for a glorious two hours. Many a time I have gone
home and found him sitting indoors with my parents trying to look
stern but could not, and he would blow the gaff by saying to
me….’Go get those clothes off boy, you stink like
gunpowder.’ Oh happy days.’
‘Of course my training was very strict. Only on Guy Fawkes
Night was I given the gun and gunpowder, the rest of the year dad
kept that in his engines van, for in those times hot bearings in
threshing machines (wooden framed) were not unusual. When we mixed
up a mighty potent cure to combat this, being a mixture of tallow,
turkish umber, paint thinners, and of all things a teaspoonful of
gunpowder. Laughable in this day and age, but in my engine driving
days it worked like a charm and would cool a hot bearing in 15
minutes. The mix resembled thick brown treacle.’
Anybody ever hear of this? The next is in reply to some slides
which I sent to him:
‘How different to our early engines. My first set of plow
engines had no diffs (differential), just a driving pin on each
side. On straight roads, what few there were, you pushed both pins
in and cottered then, but when you came to a bend you would jump
down, pull out the cotter, as you kept going then at the right
moment he would shout right, then you would shut off steam and if
you and the mate were in time once the load was off the
transmission shafts, the driving pin could be pulled out a foot,
and you would open the regulator a bit smartish, especially if you
were on an incline. The pin pulled out would be the one on the
inside, of course, and the mate would walk along side just in case
the pin looked like coming out, then once in the straight again,
off steam, in pin, on steam again without losing way. The pin man
would replace the pin and rejoin you in the tender. Although this
pin business was irksome in wet and mud, it had a lot to commend
it, because however well the diff gearing was covered with sheet
steel guards, the mud found its way into the diff bevels and that,
combined with grease, oil, etc., wore out the teeth very quickly.
Unless these were replaced very promptly they wore sharp as razors,
and come the day when the tooth would fly off, unless you stopped
at once, the whole lot would follow suite. Replacing these out in
plowed fields in unkind weather did not endear differentials to me
or my boss result we stuck to pins to the very end. But a good mate
or steerman was essential with them.’
‘It appears that two years ago, a firm of heavy engineers
bought up a derelict engine works in the eastern county of Suffolk
where in years of yore the first traction engine built by William
Savage and was built in 1844. Well, in among the junk that had
accumulated since then, it came to clearing out the old machinery.
In the pattern loft they uncovered the patterns for the first
engine ever built there, and most of them in excellent condition.
Now the owner of the place is a keen preservationist, and he was
inspired to build a modern version of this old timer, and with the
aid of some of the long retired old employees who remembered these
engines talked about in there homes by their fathers who worked
there, this engine was built using the old patterns, but new
techniques. The boiler was welded, the gears and shafts modern
steels, but at Stourpaine last September this old timer was there
in all its glory, just as the original. Cast iron wheels, the
engine was steered like a ship, from a stand mounted on the front
carriage. Technically it was a masterpiece, it moved around the
grounds effortlessly, and was sold first day for 27,000 pounds.
That is how steam is viewed here today. I hear they have orders for
16 more which from a business view, was a bit of nifty
thinking.’
‘A Wallace Stevens 7 HP single cylinder in charge of a good
driver would thresh oats all day, 6 A.M. till 6 P.M. on four
hundredweight of coal, that was best Welsh smokeless, something
which I never managed to do, but I have done it on six cwt. That
was with a 4′ 6’ drum, and elevator. If you had a straw
chopper hitched on, that would need an extra two cwt. Some of the
farmers were proper ‘skin-flints’ and moaned all the time
about using too much coal (it then cost 1/11 cwt.) and would bring
in a cartload of wood logs to eke out the coal.’
‘Satisfied farmers and dead donkeys are few and far
between’ was an old country saying often heard spoken.’
‘Binder twine was used to tie up sheaves on the horse drawn
set binders they hoarded like gold. I know it is very expensive
now, but in those days, it was dirt cheap, not that you’d think
so. The man cutting bonds on top of the feeder was expected to hang
on to every bond he cut and tie them in bundles as much as you
could hold in your hand, which was then pitched in a heap by the
bags of corn. The poor so and so was always accused of letting too
many strings drop into the machine and at several places we went to
the farmer who would give him an extra shilling at the end of the
week. And they counted them believe me. A shilling bought much, j A
dinner at some wayside inn top of a cottage loaf; pint of cider;
half-pound of cheese; and a plate of mixed pickles then cost 4}4p.;
that’s old money, four and a half old style pennies, or an
ounce of tobacco two and a half pennies, a card of collar studs one
penny, a red and white drivers handkerchief 30′ square set you
back two pence in the village drapers.’
That is enough for now, and if you have any comments, please
write me. I answer all letters. If it is published and enough ask,
I will write more from his letters. If any one would care to write
to Mr. Eves, he would appreciate it. His address is: Mr. George W.
Eves, 30 Blaydon View, Milbourne, St. Andrew, Dorset, England.