A tour of a pre-war English village

[@sarkybugger5009]

I stayed on a small farm in France in the mid-70s, and they were still using horses for the majority of the work. Ploughing, sowing, and harvesting. I _was_ that teenager stacking sheaves of wheat. Hot work. The village ran as a co-operative, and shared a single tractor and combine between about a dozen mixed farms.

[@rickderwitsch]

Thanks for sharing the film. I know we tend to make the past romantic , yet you look at the film and can't help but feel that looks like a pretty nice life.

[@hmhmoinsdk]

the film was meant to make it look like a pretty nice life

[@neilbucknell9564]

The work was hard, monotonous and had to be undertaken in all weathers. Wages (regulated) were low. People had already been leaving the land, and this continued and accelerated. I suggest you might read Richard Jefferies' essay "One of Our New Voters" for a better idea, albeit that this dates from the late 19th century.

[@outoftownr3906]

Homes were often damp & infested with rodents & bugs.No central heating blah blah blah

[@Abbale]

Fascinating footage. Amazing to see the lost architecture.

[@honeybeesforsale]

Farming life then was hard work. Generally done for someone else and low wages. Pulling up a shaking the soil off sugar beet! I lived in the countryside on a farm for the first 14 years of my life and except for the middle of the summer it was an uncomfortable place to live - cold, muddy, and wet in the winter. My father drove a tractor and as a boy I worked on the bailing machine and the potato picking machine. The potato picking machine was new. A few years before the potatoes were all picked up from the ground by hand - a back breaking unpleasant job. Today farming can still be a lonely life and I'm sure that the wages of farm workers are still far too low - but the machinery is space age as compared to the early sixties. But I will never forget the day my dad took me to see the brand new Massey Ferguson the farmer had bought that he was going to drive - or the time he let me drive it and use use the independent brake.

[@piccalillipit9211]

*THE AVERAGE HOUSE* in my sister's North Yorkshire village is about £750k - thats the problem with villages today.

[@rachulus5897]

People are also not encouraged to look out for each other. Knowing your neighbour in the past meant you could help each other through sickness, or with childcare and with work. Now everyone is out for themselves and an overly friendly neighbour is looked down on

[@MarKeMu125]

​@@rachulus5897 welcome to neoliberalism?

[@piccalillipit9211]

@@rachulus5897 This is a true story - I live in a village called "Ellerton" in North Yorkshire. I needed an ambulance but my battery was dead on my phone. I asked a neighbour to call one for me. She said "NO" and slammed the door in my face. Some kids on the street called one for me, I was suffering from pancreatitis. I now live in a "commi block" in the city of Burgas Bulgaria, Ive never felt more like I live in a proper village than here, my neighbours are the nicest people you could ever meet. They would carry me on their backs to the hospital if I needed it. 86 families in this block, I know every one of them and their kids. I could never return to the UK, I would be so lonely.

[@casparAG]

yes, because of the rise in remote working, people who would normally be working and living in cities, and earning more than those who work in rurual settings, are able to live in the countryside and still do their high paying job. And farmers are forced to either live further away from their farm, or try and get a job that comes with housing.

[@piccalillipit9211]

@@casparAG Well it is not just that - they were £400k before remote working was a thing. But I agree that has contributed.

[@ginojaco]

Nothing can stay the same and it's crazy to expect it to. But it's utter madness not, for the sake of change, to keep the best. 👍

[@piccalillipit9211]

*HEARTBREAKINGLY BEAUTIFUL*

[@tonyfulton9966]

The indigenous people of this country seek solace in the countryside, offering as it does a sense of what Britain used to be like before mass uncontrolled immigration. Alas, more villages and rural towns are growing to accommodate this flight from urban centres and the green belt is diminishing rapidly. Broken Britain.

[@rchas1023]

The demography of villages also changed. Families were broken up from deaths during the war. This effect was more severe from WWI than WWII.

[@paulthompson8467]

Brilliant video thanks for sharing 👍

[@rileygrayson1597]

I have a lovely scrapbook about the village in from called Hickling. We used to have a windmill and travelling straw men would come thrash the hay. We had a canal with trade, we had 8 pubs. Now all we have is one pub that's dimly lit. Sad bloody times indeed

[@LudvigIndestrucable]

In my old village, someone bought up an old cottage, spent a small fortune adding glass and steel till it looks nothing like anything in the village. They complained to the parish council that the cricket team were taking up too much of the village green.

[@user-br1gb6qt1k]

That's typical. They move in for the quaint village life, then complain till they've changed everything, for which they'd moved for initially Complain about the farms, the smells, the noisy livestock, as you say the traditional village entertainments, not every suggestion is an improvement. Most villages wouldn't exist without the estates or the farms that initially gave employment, attracting the early residents

[@Abbale]

@@user-br1gb6qt1kthey want their takeaways next

[@surf12fd]

The Lowland Villages are Kersey and Lavenham in Suffolk, Kersey has barely changed !

[@georgeniceguy3934]

very insightful as always, great job whoever you are

[@caparaorc]

Great! Thanks for sharing

[@andrewjones-productions]

The film states that the times change and the industries with them. We tend to look nostalgically at agriculture and rural communities and because of it, rather negatively too. However, if we look closer, many farms have diversified and have farm shops. These shops employ local people to staff them and because of the high price of machinery these days, much of the work is done by contractors. Hay, haylage, silage, harvesting, shearing etc. Not every farm of course and it very much depends on what kind of farm and its size. The days of the small-holding are largely gone. My father's farm is far too small to sustain a living and I can promise you that no one will ever farm it again in its current form. It will sadly, eventually be bought up by another farm and added to it or by a city dweller who wants a large plot of land to be a hobby farmer or keep their horses on. There will be less farm ownership, but each farm will be larger and more diversified. Agriculture isn't going anywhere, but it will change as it has changed throughout the centuries. In fact, farms must change and be larger businesses to counter the current one-sided price fixing by supermarkets. This must change and waiting for governments to do anything about it is a waste of time.

[@CindyKison]

Social history is very interesting. This was a time capsule of a bygone era. Every one worked, no obesity was seen, people walked a lot more as well. And did I see kids working in the fields? That’s a novelty today. In the Amish society, it’s not much different as what is shown in this film. I enjoyed watching. Thanks for posting it.

[@ThyCorylus]

Akenfield by the Venerable Ronald Blythe. Mandatory reading for students of the English countryside.

[@waynejones750]

Great film.

[@user-du9bv5ud9c]

A lovely romantic view of England but there’s nothing wrong with that. When I moved to a village near Loughborough 50 years ago things had moved on a bit from this but it was still very homely and everyone knew and cared for each other. Sadly its gone downhill since with incomers who bring very different values but yet claim to want to live in a country village.

[@srantoniomatos]

We often forget that the last 50 years were the best ever to mankind. More people live better then ever in history. Something is lost. Probablbly its still a neutral change. Existencially we are still lost and hunger. But...mosts things are just better now. Even in small agriculture vilages. Probably, mostly in this ones.

[@MarKeMu125]

Technologically yes, but I think a lot of community has been lost. People used to work together more often, rather than a single person with a machine.

[@srantoniomatos]

@@MarKeMu125 yes...we are becomming just individuals, disconnected with familily, town & land traditions, nature and its cycles... just plots of energy serving the capitalist machine, subjects of state- corporations system. But...also more people living better then ever. As someone that "returned to the land" in the last decade, and that like family/land structures, its kind of sad to see it desapearing, but i like to live this way as a choice, a lifestyle choice, not because im locked to it by traditions made with tick layers of poverty and ignorance. The old days were tuff, hard, degrading.

[@piccalillipit9211]

@@srantoniomatos Modern medicine is unequivocally astonishing and absolutely GOOD. Im not so sure about the rest of it. "The old days were tuff, hard, degrading." Sure they were tough and hard - but degrading - any more than working a zero hour contract and living in a shared apartment cos the rent is £1,800 a month...??? Have a kid with ADHD make nails for horse shoes all-day you will probably find they dont have ADHD.

[@mamotalemankoe3775]

Another thing to consider is income inequality has been at its lowest in all of human civilization during the timefame you described. That period was an abberation, an "error" in a history of insane inequality, but it seems that time is ending as inequality returns to the average of human civilized history sadly.

[@tisFrancesfault]

Its a very narrow view of the the agri-world at the time. where I live, the pit was probably (rather certainly) more important than the field for the villages. My grandfather would work the pit during the down times. we, as far as I can tell, did not do spring crop (winter barley and wheat being the main crop). It also is before the huge rise in farmer relative self sufficiency, and know how.

[@pdsnpsnldlqnop3330]

Quality film. I missed what the village name is, and I would love to go there on Google maps, just to see lots of tarted up houses with SUVs blocking every street, with a High Street consisting of the usual nonsense we have today, maybe a Poundland Express at best.

[@phil2hoots]

Lavenham Suffolk. Very pretty village which is still very pretty though not much connected with agriculture any more.

[@pdsnpsnldlqnop3330]

@@phil2hoots Thank you. I missed that during my first viewing somehow. As predicted, the natives have become heavily car dependent and their glorified mobility scooters line the sides of every street like giant metal slugs, or metal barriers to protect their gentrified investments. I am not seeing any community there, just gentrification and keeping up with the Jones. Sort of place David Cameron would live in really.

[@tisFrancesfault]

@@pdsnpsnldlqnop3330 tbh thats weird take...

[@Jablicek]

@@pdsnpsnldlqnop3330 It's very touristy because it's very pretty.

[@surf12fd]

Kersey in Suffolk is also shown, it has hardly changed !

[@rideholme7351]

Wheat is still stacked like that in our local fields, before being used for thatching

[@casparAG]

i enjoy these, what would your thoughts on government funded/suplemented salarys for farm workers. i feel a full time farm worker should be making no less than £30,000 a year

[@alastairwilliams9550]

What’s with drinking from the boot. This is the second video I’ve watched of yours where they are drinking from the glass boot. I thought that was just a joke from the movie ‘beerfest’

[@MarKeMu125]

Might be the pubs best glass wear and they want to show them off lol

[@johnfowler4820]

Will the tractor opperators ever be able to buy a house in that village again?

[@bevbond6152]

There are very few tractor drivers left. Enormous machines owned by huge big business, operated by G.P.S systems are the norm. Very shortly there will be no need for any drivers.

[@andrewjones-productions]

Yes and they do. With the size of tractors and implements and their subsequent high cost, interestingly enough, there are are now a new breed of tractor drivers and farmhands. These are called contractors. Some of these contractors have developed successful businesses and they are more than capable of buying a house or two or three houses in a village, town or even a city. I point you towards the KZbin channel 'Grassmen' to see some of these contractors with differing levels of success. This might change again as we go forward and farmers buying and owning more of their own equipment, but for the time being, contractors are still with us.

[@malkomalkavian]

What's that at 10.28?

[@MarKeMu125]

Spooky!

[@piccalillipit9211]

Its a form of Sheela-na-gigs

[@GronFarmCo-gs4wz]

Sheeps!

[@adrianbew9641]

Villages and towns with few cars is englands future, net zero and unaffordable insurance will make cars a thing of the past for many and villages and towns will have to survive going back to local bakers ,butchers and food shops jobs will eminate from ai and local trades.

[@johnfowler4820]

I hope so. I was born in a village like that and all the generations before me. I long to return to the country but it's the safe haven of tax avoiding millionaires now

[@Russellbristow]

Our village is so poor we cant’t afford a colour licence! So we still live in black and white!

[@stefankotz2242]

Me: what is he talking about "aristocrats. That must be a very british thing, not relevant anywhere else". Also me: looks up "land ownership by fromer aristocrats in Germany" (my country)

[@stefankotz2242]

Its fucked they dont formally exist yet they own sooo much

[@formxshape]

If everything had stayed as it were then, could humans not be more happy? Progress, growth, technological growth, GDP growth, Debt Growth... why do we allow these ideas to destroy the heaven upon which we have already created.

[@LawEire2B]

REALLY cute ewe 😜