People At Scrag Oak

A Memory of Scrag Oak.

I remember working at weekends and school holidays at Scrag Oak. I was still at school and worked there for about two years. The house and farm was owned by Mr George Edward-Jones (the spelling may be wrong). The one full time employee was Bill Bull. Bill and I built several pigsties that were still in existence the last time that I visited there. I remember working in the winter of 1962-1963. I used to travel to the farm on some old skis and was one of the few people that could make it through the huge snowdrifts. I can clearly recall the difficulty of providing fresh water for the pigs, chickens and bullocks that we kept there. One day we attached a brand new hose to a tap and turned the water on; the water froze solid before it reached the end of the hose pipe. I forget the exact temperatures reached, but the max/min thermometer reached negative figures on several occasions. You may not think that this was cold but we were in degrees Fahrenheit in those days.
Bill Bull used to tell me about the local people and how he filled in the entrance to the old iron mine in Snape wood because he thought that it was dangerous. He also used to talk of a secret tunnel from Scrag Oak to Wenbans just across the valley. I looked but never found any signs of it. I remember sitting in the meal shed at break times and him telling me all sorts of interesting stories about the locals and local history. I learned some local words from Bill, like 'brishing' which means using a swap and also the name for a tool that was like a swap but had a handle about three feet long and was called a 'slasher'.
I remember clearing grass around the edge of the lawn at the front of the house and finding a big old tree stump (by sticking the end of my swap in it!). When I mentioned it to Mr Edward-Jones he said that he thought that this was the remains of the original Scrag Oak and that this was a tree that was used to hang (scrag) people.
Then I remember the days and evenings haymaking. Working with Bill Bull to load the trailers as high as we could and sometimes riding on the top making sure that the telephone wires cleared the load. Happy days!

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