大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by volunteer from The Chepstow Society on behalf of George Lane and has been added to the site with his permission. George Lane fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

GEORGE LANE

Agricultural

I worked on anything on agricultural side I did you know, Sam did the same like. In the horse days there was one tractor on the place. You know it was pitch hay by the pikefork, no balers, no mechanical things that or go and hoe between the swedes and the mangolds. It was all handwork in those days. We had horses and a mowing machine, and a horse rake to rake it up, and then there were balers which would go up and pick up the rows

I used to walk into Chepstow Market; I walked in many times and drove animals to the market from here if there was no transport. If they didn鈥檛 sell we would drive them back again. Good old days! it wasn鈥檛 very often that they were brought back. We never had much food there, we had food before we went like. If we were walking we might get a bit hungry, but mid day you would go to a pub and have a bit of bread and cheese. And either have a mild drink, weak beer or a lemonade or a cup of tea if you wanted it.

The War Ag would come and tell you, ask you, what you were going to plant. They would have so many acres stipulated for you to plant. So many acres of wheat or something else for sheep or pigs or cattle, like swedes or mangolds. They did they come and check that you did it, that you planted so many acres of wheat or something.

That鈥檚 another thing my mother used to do, was make butter, and then we did eat so much and sell so much. There was always some for sale along with the rabbits I caught. We did sell mostly to private shops in Chepstow,there wasn鈥檛 much demand outside of Chepstow.

There were ploughing matches like but I didn鈥檛 enter because I wanted something I could hurry over. Not creep along behind two horses and a plough or anything like that. Tractors were only just coming into view like. Just being used by some farmers - big farmers. Mostly we kept 4 or 5 horses like. You had to have a team to work. That鈥檚 two to plough or harrow. That鈥檚 what I used to have most of the time was a team of horses chain-harrowing or cultivating, a couple of horses. I never got on the tractors until after the war finished when I bought my own like.

Didn鈥檛 take much feeding, not really because they grazed the fields and helped the grass. They had hay like, they would have a bit of corn, oats or something which we used to grind up for them to make it edible for them.
As a rule we grew our own corn, one year when every crop failed the corn crops there was nothing on them like. I remember then there was a demand in the stores in getting what you wanted, hope for the best, especially if you had pigs because you would grind a little meal left for them.

Voluntary Services

I was in the Home Guard, we used to march and parade and present arms.
We used to go on parade you know, various places. Gaerllwydd or Shirenewton in the playing fields or on the roads like say Devauden or somewhere like that; depending on what was on. We used to be equipped, but the privates never had the munitions. It was one man, the head in the community in the Home Guard, he was the controller of all the weapons. We would have a rifle to carry about you know, but no bullets, It would only be in a state of war that they would be used, so I never shot anybody

Wartime Defences

You know where Pant-y-cosyn is? they had these decoys there for Dinham, I never saw it lit no, but you could hear alarms.

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