Sound Recordings, Bedfordshire
Details
Type of record: Archive
Title: Sound Recordings, Bedfordshire
Classmark: LAVC/SRE/A752r
Creator(s): Shaw, David H
Site Location(s): Subject - Riseley, Bedfordshire, England, United Kingdom( 52.2521, -0.47928 ); Subject - Keysoe, Bedfordshire, England, United Kingdom( 52.2516, -0.42478 ); Subject - Bolnhurst, Bedfordshire, England, United Kingdom( 52.2172, -0.40898 ); Subject - Little Staughton, Bedfordshire, England, United Kingdom( 52.2507, -0.38217 )
Date(s): 1960-1961
Size and medium: 1 x 14.73cm open reel spool; Duration: 123' 37".
Persistent link: https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/414803
Collection group(s): Leeds Archive of Vernacular Culture
Description
Oscar Croot and Mrs. Oscar Croot, recorded in Riseley in 1960; Mr. Croot describes making leaded windows - transporting and fitting, geographical area covered, costs and estimates of work; describes the process of casting lead for lead roofs; modern process of milling lead; silver in lead; lead supply and the recasting of old church roofs; mending water pumps and pipes; making solder; types of solder, refining and use of tin; heating solder; local brick yards; family leadworking business; also painting and decorating; own work situation; learning through observation; conversation re. the tape recording; lead lights and use of linseed oil in leadwork; discussion of the collector giving a talk to a local Darby and Joan club. [Tr. 1]
Walter Bull and Mrs. Walter Bull, recorded in Keysoe in 1961; talk of bark-peeling (oak), the tools used and pay per weight; the decline of the forest in the area, lost to agriculture and the aerodrome; the Hartop family and their farms/farming; timber waggons, pulled by horses; family and the village; local crops and changes in modern times; sheepfarming locally; informant's farm work; recollects gangs of mowers travelling to London and Lincolnshire; farm labourers' pay and working days; threshing with a flail; making a flail; using a scythe; children's work on the farm (harvest, stone picking, mole catching); the weather; modern farming - tractors, fertilizers, crop systems, subsidies, yields; Bedfordshire drill; modern drilling. [Tr. 2]
Bert Wagstaff, recorded in Little Staughton in 1961; talks about threshing - equipment, (steam) engine; the threshing season, crops threshed, storage of equipment, distances travelled to find work; portable threshing machine - maintenance, repairs and moving over soft ground; qualities of threshed crops (corn) - also clover and barley; decline of steam engines in threshing around the outbreak of World War Two; the rise of the tractor; talks of other threshers and men he has worked with; lacemaking in the village - mother taught at lace school (in addition to attending day school); lacemaking materials and equipment; working by candlelight/lamplight; local story of a tunnel linking the Manor House and the church; storms of 1906 and 1900, and the damage caused in the village; plane catching roof of village chapel in 1944; murder of local lady by farmworker; stories relating to John Bunyan and the area; the village and changes (size, population, church and chapel, pubs, new houses). [Tr. 3]
Charles Fensome, recorded in Bolnhurst in 1961; talks about sheep shearing; travelling for (contract) work; paid per score of sheep; describes the shearing process; the family shearing business; sheep shearing prizes; local breeds; decline in sheepfarming since World War Two; the shearing season; shearing machinery and kit; sheep dipping; foster lambs; terms for sheep according to their age; sheep husbandry; shepherds and shepherding; the village and changes (size/population, parish boundaries); informant's farm (location); local soil; crops. [Tr. 4]
Tape 7. [7 of 8].
Access and usage
Reproduction
Access
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Physical and technical conditions
9.5cm/sec. All recordings made on the right-hand track. Low recording levels. Adjusted on AC copy.
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