Some weekends – usually Saturdays we would get farm jobs – other Saturdays none. I think we used to earn a pound for a full day, which was great in 1955. The work could be anything on the farm. I remember quiet distinctly cleaning out chicken coups and then creosoting them inside and out to prevent diseases attacking the chicken, general painting and herding the remaining two cows in for milking at the end of the day. I don’t think we ever aspired to actually milking the cows. But I do remember having to assist the farmer to tie down the legs of a rather belligerent cow before milking. There were usually two of us teenagers who worked on a Saturday. The hard working lads stuck it out long term, the rest gave it away! But I suppose in those days you could say it was a good spirited public gesture on the part of the farmer to give young teenagers a leg up so to speak. Looking back the transition from city life to rural life had seemed easy. But I had had a trial run so to speak. I had an elderly cousin and her husband who had also moved from Liverpool a year or eighteen months early then we. I had had the privilege of spending school holidays with them and using Uncle Bob’s bike to explore Weaverham. Once we moved I was already on familiar ground.
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