This Tape Was Sent to Me by My Brother JOHN in 1989 with a Christmas Message

(This tape was sent to me by my brother JOHN in 1989 with a Christmas message)

UNCLE ALF TALKING TO BROTHER JOHN - JULY 1968

JOHN.Well uncle, are you going to tell us about yourself.

UNCLEMy dad was born at Asterby and my mother came from Spilsby. Her surname was Goodwin. They lived at Ranby. I was born at Birches, Ranby, and so were Charlie and Nellie, my eldest sister. Fred was born near Ranby School. Nellie died at 34.

I started at Ranby School when I was five and left when I was eleven. I started work, 78 hours per week for 2/9d,(14p), Monday morning until Sunday dinner time. tending the beast on the roadside.

After a year I left home and went to Sutby ??? nearRanby and worked on a farm there. Got up at 4 o’clock in the morning to deal with the horses and then plough. The horse knocked me over because I wasn’t a very big chap.

JOHN How long did you stickthat ?

UNCLE Two years and then I was at home for two years before I went game-keeping at Stenigot. Then I went down to Pembrokeshire in Wales. I was down there for two years and then I joined the Police Force. But I didn’t like it and packed it up after a year.

Then I went up to Scotland game-keeping, just outside Perth. I was there a couple of years and then went to Australia.

JOHN How old were you when you went to Australia.

UNCLEI was 22. It was grand out there, best country in the world. I landed in Sydney with 12/6d in my pocket and didn’t know a soul. I got a job 300 miles up country building a big dam across the Murrumbidgeeriver. I stopped there until Christmas time, had a fortnight’s holiday. We went down to Sydney and spent out, We then went up to Queensland to Mount Morgan goldmine. I worked there for two years and from there went up to Mackay cane cutting and working in the sugar mill. When that was over I went into the backlocks about a thousand miles out..

I was on a sheep station there. It was about 70 miles long and 40 wide. I was repairing windmills for a start. Used to do a bit of boundary riding. It was a rough life out there. You never had any meat to eat but mutton, year in and year out. Never saw a bed, slept on the ground every night. It was 124 in the shade out in the back country. They gave me a good horse.

JOHN What made you come back then ?

UNCLE I joined up. Me and another chap went 900 miles to enlist and they turned us down. I didn’t go back to the sheep station any more. I had had enough of eating mutton. I went back to the mining district. Then they came looking for men to join the army tunnelling corps. So I joined and worked underground on the front line in France. Not digging coal. We put mines to blow up the trenches. We put the mines under Hill 60. and I was there when they blew it up.

Information extracted from a website.

The tunnellers placed their charges - 45,700 pounds of ammonal plus 7,800 pounds of guncotton making a total of 53,500 pounds, under Hill 60 and 70,000 pounds of ammonal under the Caterpillar - and moved on to the next phase, that of protecting their tunnels from German counter-mining. The Hill 60 mine would have to lie in wait for ten months before it was detonated, and the caterpillar mine, eight months. On the day, both mines exploded correctly and on time. Immediately afterwards British troops stormed the hill and captured it. It remained in British hands until the German advance of 1918.

JOHN Did you know dad was out there ?

UNCLEYes I met him out there

JOHN Where did you meet him ?

UNCLE Well I wrote home and told them to get a candle and point it and write on the letter they sent to me, and if you warm it it comes out and you can see where you was. He was only two miles away from where I was. That’s how I found him out there. He was in the machine gun corps.

JOHN After the war – what did you do then ?

UNCLE I went back to Australia and worked down the coal mines. I came back to England in 1921. I worked on the Silver Queen buses with Fred at first. The driver’s seat was all open at the front (no windscreen)

JOHN Was that when you got into buses with father ?

UNCLE Aye

JOHN Were you both in it or what happened ?

UNCLE Well we was for a start, then Fred got in with Kemp

JOHN It got bigger then, it grew. You said you had a bus ?

UNCLE Well we had two buses me and Fred had and then I kept on working my own bus and Fred went in with Kemp you see.

JOHN The in the end you went to work for him.

UNCLE Yes, I was with the buses for 29 years until I was 71. Then they were supposed to sack them when they got to 65. There was a new manager and he stood off all those who were over 65. Some of them had been there longer than me.

JOHN Why didn’t Wrights get on the Grimsby run

UNCLE They couldn’t, they wouldn’t license any more (Road licensing act 1931 ?) They did try. It was one of the best runs there was.

JOHN They never did break into the area north of Louth.

UNCLE No, they wouldn’t grant any more licences.

JOHN Geoff was here last Monday and he said “Get UNCLE Alf to tell you about his beer making.

UNCLE Yes, we used to make five gallons at a time. It was when we were at Welton. I can’t remember much about it now

JOHN He said something about flooding a cellar.

UNCLE Oh yes, I put double strength in it and it burst the barrel and we lost all the beer.

JOHN Were you allowed to make it then It’s only recently that you have been allowed to make it again.

UNCLE Yes, We used to buy the ingredients from the chemist’s shop.

JOHN What were you doing at Welton

UNCLE Gamekeeping.

JOHN What do you know about hunting. Did you ever fix it ?

UNCLE Yes, we used to get an aniseed rag and run a trail across country, get a horse and drag this aniseed rag on a long string and we would tell the huntsman where he would find a fox and run a trail to it. I remember we was doing it once and we had a fox about five miles further on and he came up with his aniseed trail and I left the fox and cleared off. O course it wasn’t long before they killed it.

JOHN Did you ever breed them or catch them?

UNCLE We used to dig them out and we had six in a wire cage at Welton

JOHN Did they know about it ?

UNCLE No, , but after two or three times the aniseed clogged up the dogs noses and they was no good for the rest of the day. They found out after the third time.

JOHN What did you do then ?

UNCLE Well we used to dig them out and make sure there was one.