General Chat

If you have Ag. Labs in your tree watch a programme on Channel 4 Sunday afternoon at 5.55pm. It's title is The Worst Rural Jobs in History. Might show some of the things our Ag. Labs. had to do at work! Liz

Well as 99.9% of my tree consists of ag labs then must watch it should be interesting Norah

Thanks Purple Can someone please nudge this nearer the time so I don't forget!? x lesley

please keep this up front to remind folk

I've got some ag labs and some farmers, should be interesting to watch

I only ever got the 'rosy' stories from my gran about visiting her father in the fields during harvest time. As a child you don't think about how hard that work would have been. At least I learned what a 'Bedfordshire Clanger' was! - a suet dumpling with meat in one end and jam in the other with a wadge of suet pastry in between. 'Invented' for these Ag. Labs and delivered to them at dinner time (midday) by wives, mothers or children. Must make a point of watching. Mags x

Thanks for that Liz will try and tape it.

Thanks Liz, that will be a good programme to get an insight into one branch of my tree, Ag. Labs. galore, pity I'm not a keen gardener like my parents were.....

thanks, will watch that !! What a lot of Ag.Labs...* Hello Nolls*

Looking at your Bedfordshire Clanger, Mags - didn't they do the same sort of things for the tin miners of Cornwall, with the Cornish Pasty - meat etc. in one end, and fruit filling in t'other end....

Thanks for this nudge Purple :-) I've just remembered a post that someone posted on here or tips about them a while back. I couldn't find the post but had copied the info: Ag Labs. Salt of the Earth! Found in Liverpool Family Historian June 02 Food For Thought- He must have been an Ag Lab 'Ask yourselves whether you know the gestation period for a sheep or a cow, and you can't read or write to make a note of it. The ag lab knew when the animal would calve by observing the position of the stars and work it out from that, or from the particular religious festivals being celebrated in church at the appropriate times. Reading and writing is one thing, but it wasn't necessary, numeracy however or a limited knowledge of it was essential so as to count his or his masters livestock and his own money and to tell the time. It was no good thinking that 7 o'clock came immediately after three bells had just struck on the church clock! There was no electricity, the lanes were bad and there was no health service. The Ag lab knew how to make his own rush lights to light his home, the shortest and driest route between 2 places and which herbs to pick as remedies for his families ailments. He knew his neighbours far better than we know ours. We isolate ourselves in our cars and in front of our television sets. He relied on neighbours with different skills from his, to help him out when the need arose. He was thrifty where we borrow on bits of plastic he and his family had to make ends meet regardless or with great shame go on the parish. Yes he could even forecast his local weatherby watching the reactions of wildlife and plants to changing conditions. He was far better at it than any of us from our centrally heated homes and offices. He knew how to thatch and how to get straight straw for thatching whereas we send for experts to fix a cracked slate. He was tough. He could walk for days behind a plough, pulled by a team of horses, and still walkmiles to church each sunday. A 20 mile walk laden with produce or purchases to and from market each week was also the norm for some. No fancily equipped gymnasium for him, yet he was fitter than today's health freaks who maybe should take a lesson or two from his ancestors. Can you use a sickle or scythe from dawn to dusk, in all weathers? Can you snare a rabbit for dinner or cut beanpoles from a hedge in a manner that will promote further growth? Can you mix your own whitewash, or train a dog to hunt or round up sheep for you? Come to that can you milk a cow or slaughter and butcher a sheep or pig? So called ag labs were no fools. they survived and very few of us would be here to read this if they hadn't! Leave your car at home and walk to work tomorrow, even if it is five miles, your ancestor did!'

sounds interesting. Will try to remember to watch it. Ann Glos

nudge

Hi Sally - I don't know about the Cornish pasty having a sweet filling one end but the plaited pastry was the 'handle' wasn't it? So that they could eat without getting what they were eating dirty. I expect there are many local variations on the same principle. The clanger was a suet dumpling often delivered in the cloth it was cooked in. One story I always remember from my Gran was of her friend, entrusted with a full plate of dinner, tied in a cloth, to take to her father. All was ok until she came to a stile and managed to spill the gravy down her front as she climbed over. Greeting from her father when she arrived in tears 'Wha's the matter gal? A yer pi**ed yerself?' - a VERY rude word when I was a child and I can see my Gran's red face at repeating it - which we demanded she did often! LOL Mags x

nudging this back up for those with ag.lab. ancestors...

sounds like it could be interesting!! xx

nudge for Tina ( ag labourer )

My tree is full of Ag Labs and coal miners - exciting !! Stella

Thanks for the story about the dinner Mags - I love the old stories. I was told the pasty one by a Cornishman, but no-one seems to know of this happening.....I am a bit gullible really....

n