Margaret Day Part 2
Margaret Day Transcription 1, Part 2
Images: Margaret Day, copyright reserved. For any rights requests, please contact the New Forest Heritage Centre in the first instance.
Margaret Day CH2 Duration: 6:40
CB: Great. Ah. Tell me about this one, then. (MD007)
Margaret: This is Terry; myself; my son-in-law, [information witheld] –
CB: Yeah. So [information witheld]’s right, on the far right –
Margaret: [information witheld], [information witheld] and [information witheld], our grandchildren, feeding the pigs in the wood.
CB: This is up in the wood where – the other photograph, we saw him walking back from.
Margaret: That’s right, yes. And strawing up their houses for the week.
CB: Okay, and how many pigs did you have?
Margaret: We had three sows and one boar.
CB: Okay, and did you use that for your own meat? Or did you send them to market? What did you –
Margaret: Yes we did. We ate some of them and other friends had some of them; mostly they went to people we know.
CB: Brilliant.
Margaret: We knew absolutely nothing about pigs; and we were very successful with them. We never cut their teeth off, or castrated them and lost very few; and didn’t know that you had to put bars in to stop them laying on them –
CB: Oh, of course, yeah, the sows lay on the piglets –
Margaret: We were so lucky, we knew nothing about them and people kept saying to us “Perhaps the best thing to do was NOT to know anything about them” because we were very lucky indeed.
CB: That’s lovely. Ah. So tell me about this. (MD008)
Margaret: This is [information witheld] and my two grandsons, [information witheld] and [information witheld] –
CB: So it’s [information witheld] on the left –
Margaret: That is [information witheld].
CB: Oh, [information witheld]’s on the left and [information witheld] on the right
Margaret: And [information witheld] is wearing one of [information witheld] old t-shirts.
CB: (laughs) Down to his knees! Again, looks like they’re out on the farmyard –
Margaret: They’re out on the farm helping with the chores.
CB: So [information witheld] came here a lot then, he –
Margaret: From the age of approximately ten or eleven, he came every evening from school.
CB: Oh, did he?
Margaret: And helped us feed the calves on his bicycle.
CB: Brilliant.
Margaret: And that is how he got really interested.
CB: Yeah, ‘cos he’s got quite a few cattle now, hasn’t he.
Margaret: He has. And he used to come and help us rear up the calves. And out of interest of his own he would turn up and help us. And one day, we said to him.”You can feed that little black heifer calf, [information witheld]” and he said “Right” and we said “And that one’s yours!”
CB: Oh!
Margaret: He said, “To keep?” and we said: “Yes!”
CB: Aah…
Margaret: And he went home, and whilst he was eating his tea, he said to his parents, “I’ve been given a black heifer calf to keep all of my own!”
CB: Oh, I bet he was over the moon!
Margaret: He was, and he’s still got her to this day.
CB: Has he?
Margaret: Fourteen, I think. Approximately thirteen or fourteen by now. Could be even a little bit more.
CB: Wow. Now, I like this one. (MD009) Back to your pigs. You liked your pigs, didn’t you.?
Margaret: Well.
CB: No? (laughs)
Margaret: I’m sure I did…
CB: Yeah –
Margaret: And they liked me, because I always had the bucket of food.
CB: Food, yeah. Did you turn then out in the forest for pannage?
Margaret: No.
CB: No. They stayed home; they were your home pigs.
Margaret: Yes.
CB: Now… (MD010)
Margaret: These are our friends, [information witheld], and they’re enjoying a bacon sandwich in Terry’s shed on New Year’s morning; where we had all gathered for every year for about ten years, round his log-burning fire –
CB: Lovely –
Margaret: And a nice cup of tea or coffee.
CB: So it was in the morning? Everyone dressed up…
Margaret: Yes, ten o’clock. Everyone came in whatever they were wearing.
CB: Yeah; done their animals and came to see you.
Margaret: That’s right. And they all came in.
CB: And how many used to come d’you think?
Margaret: Well, to start with it was about eighteen people; but last year it was more like (laughing) forty-five.
CB: Really.
Margaret: Yes.
CB: Wow.
Margaret: And it was Terry’s Christmas party.
CB: Terry’s Christmas Party. So when do you think this was taken? This wasn’t very long ago, was it?
Margaret: No, it wasn’t. It could have been taken – say, the last couple of years. (2014)
CB: Yeah. Yeah, okay. On to number eleven. (MD011) Ah, these are the cooks –
Margaret: [information witheld] and my friend [information witheld] frying the eggs for our family and friends –
CB: For that party –
Margaret: Yes, that’s right.
CB: Oh, I see –
Margaret: Yeah. Last year.
CB: So you had yourself set up out there; looks like you’ve got some cooker tops…
Margaret: We did. And frying pans.
CB: Did you cook everyone breakfast, is that what –
Margaret: Yes, we had bacon eggs and sausage, in a roll, with tea and coffee and a big tin of biscuits and a big tin of sweets and –
CB: What a lovely way to celebrate the New Year.
Margaret: Yes, that’s right.
CB: Yes, that’s really nice, I like that. (MD012) Ah, hard work.
Margaret: This is Terry with [information witheld] and [information witheld], our two grandchildren cleaning the yard after the animals have gone back out onto the forest. They came in to eat every morning at half past six and at approximately one o’clock we opened the gates and they went back to sit up on the common and then we cleaned the yard every day and put out new bales of silage ready for tomorrow morning. Our forest ponies are in the background and we used to let them out half-an-hour after the cows so nobody had a fight.
CB: What I forgot to ask you at the beginning – what was your prefix for the ponies?
Margaret: North Hollow.
CB: North Hollow, and what was your brand?
Margaret: Um – TD.
CB: TD. Right, okay, lovely.