Glorious early colour footage of English farming before mechanisation; you get a sense of how many people still worked in the fields during harvest time less than a century ago. 'English Harvest', 1938 www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcyz... - ThreadSky

guyshrubsole.bsky.social • 76 days ago

Glorious early colour footage of English farming before mechanisation; you get a sense of how many people still worked in the fields during harvest time less than a century ago.

'English Harvest', 1938

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcyzAIkMwrg&ab_channel=BFI

Comments

merrimanlyon.bsky.social•76 days ago

A chap who had an allotment next to us said “I remember your father using the first tractor in the village”. That certainly shows how things have changed in living memory!!

davehaterofracism.bsky.social•75 days ago

I was working in a stone yard in the 90s and an old guy came in , he said he used to bring stone down to the yard there from the quarry with a horse and cart

merrimanlyon.bsky.social•74 days ago

As it had been done for hundreds of years before no doubt.

jimdixonwriter.bsky.social•75 days ago

Land enclosure started 17th C reaching peak in Georgian days, encouraged by writers like Arthur Young & bold aristocracy who sat in their legislature passing enclosure acts, peaking c. Napoleonic wars, vast areas of England enclosed. Why do we have a Georgian land ownership structure today?

jimdixonwriter.bsky.social•75 days ago

Probably til early 19th Century much countryside would have been open to access, albeit tiny demand, really only when keepers & game expanded that people were barred from much land. Hunting forests historically closed, much other land open. Why do we need Edwardian policies for access now?

jimdixonwriter.bsky.social•75 days ago

20 Century writers like Trevelyan, John Dower & Daniel Hall believed land should be nationalised and urban families re-settled into small holdings, boosting employment & food production, easing unemployment. Radical countryside thinking is not new, neither is official inertia. Keep battling!

guyshrubsole.bsky.social•75 days ago

Indeed & thanks! Be good to meet up at last in 2025! Merry Christmas:)

jimdixonwriter.bsky.social•75 days ago

A large & mobile population. Alison Uttley writes about the Irish men who came to her Derbyshire farm for harvest. Huge communities upsticked from London for the fruit and hop picking, over 1000 men women and children in some hop farms alone. Over 1m farm workers. A very different countryside.

davehaterofracism.bsky.social•75 days ago

my mum and her sister who were born in the 1920s used to go hop picking

sarahdeere-jones.bsky.social•76 days ago

And not just in the fields....
https://youtu.be/AaRqMNZW5WA?si=miGFo6x5JZaY9vFn

southsaxon.bsky.social•65 days ago

Also a vision of the future!

lisbet.bsky.social•75 days ago

Love the waistcoats and all the horses too

handstitched.bsky.social•76 days ago

@jeffanddonkeys.bsky.social

jeffanddonkeys.bsky.social•76 days ago

🙏

drgeoffsmith.bsky.social•75 days ago

Nice one, Guy. It must have been hard work, but it feels like it is working with the landscape rather than extracting something from it. Also, as a recent scythe owner, it was great to see one in farming practice. Cheers.

davehaterofracism.bsky.social•75 days ago

He looked like his back was too bent to me - yes I have used one.

drgeoffsmith.bsky.social•75 days ago

I thought the same.

treaty73.bsky.social•75 days ago

Romanticising back breaking work .. I know it partly from childhood harvesting hay old school in 60s 70s ... interminable toil and hay dust in barns .. good riddance to those days I say .... many who long for this never experienced it ..

guyshrubsole.bsky.social•75 days ago

Having scythed a bit I definitely don’t long for it, but it’s great old footage, and unusual to see colour film of agriculture from the 1930s

davehaterofracism.bsky.social•75 days ago

from the starting credits it looks like the company made the film at least partly to show off their ability to film in colour

bellafurie.bsky.social•75 days ago

Particularly appreciate the 1938 farmhand's hipster workwear of wool breeches with braces, shirt, and waistcoat, and the wives bringing the meal in frock and heels.

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