# 1. Getting Started

For those of you who read my bits on my childhood memories, you will know that from an early age I had a very keen interest in farming. My father was at least a third-generation farm worker and one of my mother’s brothers and her father also worked on the land. My father didn't want any of us, three brothers and a sister, to become farm workers. I left school and went straight into the Army which I left in 1976 and by the end of the year I was working for Fred Fuller at Sheriffs Court Farm at Minster and stayed there until I retired in November 2018.

In 1976 farming was just starting to go through massive changes. As with the coming of tractors in the first half of the twentieth century. The country had joined the Common Market (European Union) a couple of years earlier. I can remember that farmers were not all that keen on becoming part of the EU, but soon realised that, financially, there were a lot of benefits to be had in subsidies for what they produced.

By 1990 huge changes would be seen on most of the local farms. These changes would be seen in many forms. Two-wheel drive tractors were replaced by four-wheel drive, and their engine size would double or treble. Combine harvesters would also double in size and become far more reliable. Potato harvesters would replace hand picking. The dairy herds and flocks of sheep would go. The turkey production at Monkton Court Farm would cease. The cherry orchard and the hop gardens at Baxters Farms would be grubbed out.

The main effect these changes had, was on the number of people employed on farms. In most cases with male workers, when one retired, they were no longer replaced and with the women their work came to an abrupt end.

One other thing that came into being at this time was that just not anybody could get a job on the farm. With machinery being more sophisticated, and methods of production advancing in leaps and bounds.

From the end of the 1970's hardly any of the local farms took on school leavers. All the Saturday jobs disappeared. By 2010 the average age of a farm worker was 57yrs. When my generation started to retire there was nobody locally to replace us.

Next Month: Sheriffs Court Farm.

*Terry Marsh*

Originally published in the Monkton News (September 2024).