FARMS AND FARMERS

1950s THE FENS ARE INTO FULL FARMING NOW

Horses had been used for years in the fens on farms, but slowly tractors started to take over the job, and by the 60s more tractors than horses were doing the farm work, by the 70s very few horses were left to do farm work.

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Charlie Barnes -- Arthur Hodson

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Charlie Barnes - Fred Brown Harold Hodson - Harold Youngs Frank Harrison

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A Binder pulled by a International tractor, this tractor was the first tractor in the fen to have a P.T.O. (power take off) used to power the binder. On the tractor and binder are Mr Ike Day and Mr Arthur Hodson.

A cart with seed potatoes trays at planting time and a horse pulled sprayer.

Florrie Feltwell. (Centre) Email me if you know any of the names.
John Gallaway and others.
To the right L C Fletcher a local farmer who specialized in celery and Carrots at Poppylot loads celery onto train to go to the markets.

Now all the land is being farmed around Southery and slowly the first class agricultural land started to disappear, mainly through winds blowing and rain washing soil into the drainage channels and being pumped into the rivers. Also as crops like potatoes, sugar beet and carrots are harvested soil leaves the fields with them. The soil at Brandon Creek has already started to become mainly clay with poor drainage. Within the next 50 years large areas of the Southery Fens will become poor class agricultural land.

With disastrous floods once again in February 1953 it was apparent that the existing fen drainage system needed extending.

Smack Everitt covering up potatoes 1948.
Jack Barrett. Click on pic for full size view.
Joe Scrimshaw and Stan Brundle.
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Tractor 1959

Eric Hodson and Brunie Fincham

Tony Hodson -- Gordon (Tom) Savage
Joyce Everitt and Bob Porter celery lifting in Southery fen.

Dokey time in the fens around 10.30 to 11.30 a.m.

RIGHT Dockey time for the workers lifting Celery on Mr H. Bowers farm.
LEFT Smack Everitt and Verdon Fincham farm labourers at dokey time in the fens.
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Potato planting and potato picking by hand.


Mr Cotley

Bob Porter. Glad Bird. Joyce Everitt. Rita Feltwell. Pummy Buckenham.


ABOVE: Mr Harry Gott a small farmer at Brandon Creek talking to Mr H Harley. RIGHT: Mr David Harley on a International B250 tractor.

A tractor ploughing at Brandon Creek, it shows our black, flat fen and the start of modern farming using bigger and more powerful machine's.
Sugar Beet drilling, only a few years earlier than this farmers were using 4 and 5 row drills, then the manufacturers started to make bigger drills, like this one which is 2, 7 row drills joined together with a frame making a 14 row drill.

FARMING TODAY in the year 2001

Once most of the people in Southery worked and got a living from the farms in the Fens, now only a handful of them work on the land with most of the land belonging to large companies using large machines to farm the land.

IAN HODSON with the 270 hp Tractor he drives.

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