Tag Archives: Great War

The Poppy Fields

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On the way back from Scarborough on Friday we passed a couple of fields full of poppies. They may have been growing organic grain, or they may just have forgotten to spray. I don’t suppose it matters in the end, because it was the poppies, not the husbandry system that I was interested in.

I’ve been looking for some good shots of poppies for a month or so now, since deciding on the Big Autumn Project. From that you may deduce that we are going to be doing something on poppies.

Did you know that  poppy seed can lay dormant for over 50 years? Some people go as far as to claim 80 or 90 years and it’s recently become popular to suggest they may be able to lay dormant for 100 years. I can believe that; there isn’t a lot of difference between 80, 90 and 100 years. Of course, the figure of 100 years lines up nicely with the centenary of the Great War, and this may have more to do with the 100 year figure than any botanical fact.

Despite this suspicion it’s interesting to think that poppies may be germinating now that were laid down as seeds whilst the war was still on.

Anyway, here are some photographs. The light was just going and the wind was getting up, so they aren’t brilliant, but at least the Big Autumn Project will have some photographs to support it. Julia has promised to do a bit of messing about with the photos – they won’t look sharper but they will end up looking brighter.

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One hundred years ago

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Friday 1st July 2016.

I’m sure that there will be enough written about the first day of the Battle of the Somme without me adding to it, but I can’t resist the temptation.

Sorry about the departure from normal content – I’ll get back to that soon.

Joseph Victor Plumb isn’t a famous name in military history. I first came across him on our local war memorial when we moved to a village near Peterborough. In the days before you could press a computer button and be given reams of information I read the local papers in the library to find out more about the names on the memorial (I was a very strange child). It seems that on 1st July Private Plumb stood in reserve with the rest of the 6th Northamptons and had a narrow escaped when a bullet holed his steel helmet. Having survived death by an inch he should have been saved for better things but instead, in the attack on Trones Wood 14 days later he qualified to have his name carved on a memorial.

Harry Carus worked for a grocer, and was a Sunday school teacher in his spare time when he joined up. He landed in France on 28th November 1915 and seems to have been quite a useful soldier because he was a Corporal by 1916. On 1st July he had 102 days to live.

The pictures show him with the lady referred to as “the late Ellenor Carus” by the Commonwealth War Graves details. She died of in the TB hospital at Lancaster in 1920. This sort of thing wasn’t uncommon as many widows did not live long after their husbands. The eldest of the three sisters is my grandmother. There is a bit more to the story than I’m telling here but this isn’t one of those books about miserable childhoods, and anyway, it could have been worse.

If you look at the memorial scroll sent by the government you will see that there is a line that says “Let those who come after see to it that his name be not forgotten”.

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This is ironic when you see they have misspelt his name.

 

 

Scarecrows and free tea

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It’s been a scarecrow day today, with advice (and stockinette) from Shipshape Arts we’re going to be turning out some professional looking scarecrows this year.

All my ideas have been shelved on the grounds of good taste, though I still say that the 100th anniversary of the Great War and the presence of a barbed wire fence in the display area is a sign that we should push the boundaries a little. Julia says no. Bea from Shipshape says no and my sister, my own flesh and blood, agrees with them. Typical!

Otherwise things are a bit slow – we have promises of three more large and twenty or thirty spoon-size scarecrows, meaning we are currently down on large and slightly up on the small ones. Everybody seems to be so busy this year they don’t seem to be able to fit scarecrow-building into the plan.

That’s where my readers come in – I need your photo entries for the competition. If you have children, or nephews and nieces, or can persuade a teacher or youth group leader to submit a few it would be great.

Details are here. We had a meeting yesterday and I have confirmation that the winning school or group and the winning individual (or maybe more than one) will be able to adopt a tree in our new woodland. True, the “trees” are mere sticks at the moment, but they have potential. They come with full information about the tree and the farm so it can be quite educational. As you may have seen from earlier posts we are measuring trees regularly so if you win we will measure yours every year and tell you what size it is.

If you want to sidestep the competition process we can provide you with an adopted tree and a certificate for £20 – all proceeds going towards the cost of maintaining the woodland.

If yopu do win one, or if you pass over £20, I will even offer to make you a free cup of Lapsang Screveton if you visit, providing my tea bushes are still producing. If not you’ll have to put up with mint tea (freshly picked) or maybe PG Tips.

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Chocolate Mint

Peaceful Sunday Afternoon

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It sounds like it should be a song from the 60s but it’s just a description of what I’m now experiencing. With just the sound of poultry and sheep in the background it’s very relaxing. Even the occassional outbreak of raucous guimeafowlery can’t break the mood.

If you’d asked me for a title half an hour ago, while I was still engaged in moving watering cans, I wouldn’t have been so mellow. I would probably have muttered something terse in the beginning, but by the time of the twentieth something quite rude would probably have resulted. Not only would I have been trudging along with my 20th can of water, I’d also have been annoyed by the snails attacking my horseradish, various degrees of sun shrivelled foliage and the fact that I have forgotten my card reader.

So, despite having photographs I am unable to load them onto the computer. The antique machine here in the farm office doesn’t have a card slot (though neither does mine at home, to be fair) so after forgetting the card reader I am powerless. I did try taking photos with my phone but it’s a new and mysterious phone, and I can’t find out where it hides the images after I take them.

It was also a society for young men before the Great War, as I recall. I don’t, of course, recall the 1913, but I do remember my grandmother telling me that her father had been a Sunday School teacher and member of a group called Peaceful Sunday Afternoon. I have a book of his somewhere at home, concealed in several thousand other assorted books, with a PSA book plate. I have never been able to find anything about them on the internet, which is strange when you think what is documented on there.

Ah well, I will leave it there. I’m off to visit Number two son in Sheffield when Julia finishes work, so probably won’t have time to load photos tonight. Sorry about that but it will probably have to remain a pictureless blog post.