# 13. Farming 1985/95

During the start of this decade things started to go wrong (for a better word) on Sheriffs Court Farm.  Tom Cully and Ron Fuller retired during the previous decade.  As we were still potatoes and onions, we needed a workforce of five.  Fred Kulzer’s second eldest daughter, Wendy (of Wendy’s Café) and Bob Francis became part of the workforce.

The thing that I remember most of this period, which at the time I could not understand why we were doing it, concerned the looking after the winter wheat after it had been planted.  This was at a time when most farms grew as much oil seed rape as they could, as it was a valuable crop.  Rape provides a huge breeding ground for slugs.  Wheat was always planted after rape, which meant that as soon as the wheat was planted the ground was rolled and a dose of slug pellets was applied to stop the slugs from eating the wheat as it germinated.  For two seasons in a row, we did not apply the pellets.  The result was devastating, some fields had only half a crop of wheat in them.  This had a knock-on effect in following years and in other crops as the slug population increased.

Fred Fuller (the farm owner) had three children – Richard, David and Rosemary.  Richard was destined to take on the running of the farm after Fred retired.  After he left school he went to Agricultural College at Wye, and for work experience he went to work for a contractor, Willy Clayson, plus doing some work on the farm.  At the end of his college years, Richard was due to take on the running of the farm.  Unfortunately, what Richard wanted to do on or with the farm, did not get the approval of the rest of the family and he walked away.

This meant that David had to take on the running of the farm with absolutely no practical experience.  After we had finished his first harvest and had to get the ground ready for the following year, David came to me and said: “you know what to do now, get on and do it, as I don’t”.

Fortunately, David has a very good head for figures and he had to eventually take some drastic measures to save the farm.  This included terminating Fred & Wendy Kulzer and Bob Francis employment, and selling the last tide cottage & some fifty acres of ground.

*Terry Marsh*

Originally published in the Monkton News (September 2025).