Farming

Church Hill Farm (dated 1778) and cottages, Main Street, Frolesworth.

Interviewer: What did the people in Frolesworth do then, were they farmers?

Mr Ball: Oh, it was all farms. Our farm was one of the estate and the estate was broke up in about ’22 or ’23 after a big timber fall on the estate.

Interviewer: So, did your parents own the farm?

Mr Ball: No, not then, not ‘til after the timber fall. The estate was split up, and well, everybody that was tenant bought their farm. Oh, and we were restricted until the war come along, the First World War, on what fields we ploughed.

Interviewer: Why was that?

Mr Ball: I don’t know, whether the landlord didn’t want these fields ploughed up. One of the fields that we ploughed up had growed such a crop of mushrooms that I was able to sell at 6d (2p) a pound all over Hinckley.

Interviewer: Is that when you were a boy you were selling mushrooms?

Mr Ball: Oh, I used to have to go with my grandmother every week selling butter and eggs round Hinckley. My grandmother used to take the dairy produce into town every week and bring the bread and meat and so forth, ‘cos they lived at Claybrooke Lodge which was about two miles away. She used to cut the buttons off my shirts, because they were linen buttons, old fashioned linen buttons, and put pearl buttons on and then my mother couldn’t put them through the mangle.

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