Brooksby Hall Agricultural College, Leicestershire,England

A Memory of Nantgwynant.

Like Gwilym Evans I was enlisted into HM Forces in 1944, along with my twin brother. We were born in May 1926. Served with RASC as drivers first in Wiltshire, England, driving 3 ton vehicles, then in Italy and Egypt where we took over a tank-transporter Coy. We were demobbed in October 1947. Cannot now recall exactly when I went to Brooksby, late 1949 /early 1950?

I went through the Government scheme where one was required to have worked on a farm for 12 months first to become eligible to attend Brooksby. My first job when I left school as a 14 year old was on a farm, where I had worked as a schoolboy just for the love of it, so I was happy to get back into farming.

The course at Brooksby was described as being "a course in scientific farming" !

Currently I am in the process of writing my autobiography, but am struggling with my memory and have been using "Google" in an attempt to re-acquaint myself with some of the facts of the past. That is how I came to be aware of this site while in the process of trying to make contact with Gwilym Evans. I am hoping it may turn out he was at Brooksby at the same time as myself. He may remember better than I, the 'Matron' - whose iron we would borrow occasionally if going out to meet someone but needed to iron a shirt or necktie first !

Gwilym may have been there when on a particular occasion a group of us students went into Leicester together and got up to some pranks. Nothing nasty, just fun things. One of the group would suddenly stop walking, and point up to the sky as though showing the rest of us something. We would all look up and another would point up pretending they too had seen whatever it was. Before many minutes had gone by other pedestrians were scouring the sky. Nothing there really, except sky!

If indeed Gwilym was with us at the time, he could not fail to remember when I said I could get an audience to listen to me in the street why I talked a load of rubbish. I was challenged to do so ! And I'm always up for a challenge. At that time there was at the junction of Charles Street and London Road, Leicester, a small derelict patch of land with, fortunately, a mound of earth in the corner. I took up my position on the raised mound, telling the lads,"When I look over to you Ted, pause for a moment and give you a nod, start clapping, everyone else join in". Then I started addressing everyone. I spoke about religion, trade unions, politics and farming, mixing one thing with another in a completely senseless way, pausing and nodding to Ted occasionally to generate applause. Soon passers-by were joining in, standing listening to my drivel and then, almost unbelievably, applauding too!

My 'performance' that afternoon in Leicester earned me five pints of best bitter a few nights later when a group of us visited "The Bell Inn" in the nearby village of Syston. I can scarcely manage two pints these days without begining to feel tipsy!

Well, any ex-'Brooksbyites' of my era, if you enjoyed reading my memories what about yours please, any more of you out there?