Erie Wastie helped his elderly father to run leys Farm in Cumnor during and after the war. It was a relatively small farm of 60 acres and its fields lay on Whitley leys, affording extensive views over Stanton Harcourt and the Thames valley.
Farming in the 1930s had been difficult owing to the continuing recession in agriculture in this country. 'Import cheap foodstuffs to feed the masses' was the Government's policy. The war began to change all that. The supply of foreign foodstuffs depended on the vulnerable Atlantic convoys getting through and people realised that we had to produce as much of our own food as possible. Rationing was introduced to control demand.
When the war started, only 20 out of the 30 best acres on Leys Farm were under the plough. The lower fields were left to rough grazing, as were the lowest fields near the river which Arthur Wastie had had to sell in the 1930s and which were now owned by Erie Aiden of Long Leys cottage.
'We had a tractor in the early days but my father had to sell it. We were relying on two or three working horses - they drew the plough, the binder and the cart. When the call came to put more land to arable and increase crop production, we needed a tractor and a plough to go with it. We could hire one from White's in Appleton but we soon decided to buy. We were assisted by a 'ploughing-up' subsidy. We kept one of the horses'.
'There was a shortage of tractors, of course. Many were re-conditioned. Frank Webb was working for Curtis and Horne's then and he came with a Fordson. My father said he didn't want rubber tyres, which pleased them as tyres were in short supply too. He preferred iron wheels but we had to get Harry Print to help design some wheel covers to fit when we wanted to go on the roads'.
The lower fields were ploughed, and Eric Alden ploughed his. It was the usual crops: wheat first, some oats, barley, beans. Farmers were not allowed to leave fields fallow. It was the same for every farm. Boycott Franklin at Swinford ploughed up the Blacklands on the side of Wytharn Hill. John Gee turned back from market gardening to crop production and didn't grow chrysanths again till 1946.
'Casual labour became vital, even on a small farm. Percy Harris helped us one or two days a week. He also helped in our vegetable garden; he was Mr.Thomas's gardener at Leys House. When it came to a task like threshing, where you needed three or four men- one on the engine, one on the drum, one on the bailer, local farmers helped each other. Les Giles would come over from Harry Webb's farm and 1 went over to help him. If you hired a baler, machine from Dinnings at Dry Sandfbrd,-- they sent their own man with it'.
'If we had no immediate use for the straw after threshing, we made a rick in the field. No thatch on it. We cut up the rick later as we needed it. If we wanted the straw more or less straightaway to feed cattle or pigs, or cover the mangles, we baled it. But then we had to cover the bales. The wheat went into the barn but not for long as we sold it to Blake Bros. at Ock Street, Abingdon or Harris & Matthews of Bridge Street who had storage in parts of the Old Gaol there'.
There were problems when it came to labour-intensive activities like harvesting. There were no combines then. Casual labour was vital. 'One year we had 20 to 30 Land Girls in to set up the shocks. Well, a lot of the shocks fell down soon after they were put up !'
'Corn-cutting was the time for shooting rabbits -there were so many before the days of myxomatosis. One day 1 saw my father shoot 78 rabbits from 80 shots without moving from the same spot. We sold rabbits at the farm door for a shilling but game generally (pheasants, partridge, pigeons as well as rabbits) was bought by Richards the butcher in Oxford Covered Market'.
'There was a chap called Sam Tack who would buy anything. He had a sparkle in his eye, full of mischief. He sometimes went fox-shooting with us - though cartidges were rationed. He'd buy scrap iron and lead. He also bought the poultry we had for sale; they were 'table birds'. Today they're all egg-machines'.
There was still a rich variety of wildlife. Corncrakes appeared at harvest-time -the last one was seen in 1947.
A few pigs were kept at Leys Farm, fed on skimmed milk, ground barley, and 'mash' bought from Westbury's and Blake's in Abingdon. The pigs would be sold to Coterill's in Abingdon. Like cottagers, the family was allowed to keep one pig a year for themselves. 'We'd share pig joints with Harry Webb: he had a leg joint from our pig and we had one when his pig was killed'.
'We kept poultry - table birds and layers. We had to sell the eggs to a packing station, Painter's at Appleton. We sent them, once a fortnight, in wooden boxes with cardboard slots (no plastic or processed cardboard in those days). Eggs were normally ls a dozen in summer and 3s in winter but we got 3s 6d all year round from the packing station, even though some might be a fortnight old'.
'We had no combine-harvester till 1950. Machinery was much less reliable then. We used sulphate of ammonia as fertiliser but there were no sprays, no pesticides. We reckoned to get between 18 and 20 cwts of wheat per acre, about a ton for barley. We had to be efficient because the Government appointed an Agricultural Committee in each district (ours was based at Reading) to inspect farms regularly to make sure they were efficient. If they weren't, the farmer was turned off the land, whether he was tenant or owner, and someone else put in to do a better job. Farms were classified and we rated an '8', which was fair enough. Several farmers in the area were turned out of their farms and one or two decisions caused a lot of ill feeling'.
Leys Farm had no dairy cattle. George Hicks at Upper Whitley and 'Bertie Buck' at Pond Farm both had a small herd and ran a milk round in the village. Joe Couling, who moved from Chawley to a High Street bungalow, took milk into a dairy at the back of his property. Beaumont at Valley Farm in Farmoor reckoned to milk his herd three times a day and sent his milk away. Howse at Elms Farm, Botley, ran a large commercial dairy.
Life was not easy but at least most country people could rely on a garden or allotment to complement the rations. 'We grew a lot of potatoes in the garden and in the fields. Percy Harris and Mary Costar came in to help lift them. There were vegetables for the family table; surplus apples were sold at the door, though most older properties had some fruit trees in those days. Unlike some farms outside the village, we had mains water, and when an electricity supply was offered in 1935 my parents had lights and a socket put in downstairs - we used paraffin lamps upstairs. Eric Alden at Long Leys had to take water from the mains we had in our yard. Percy Harris's cottage at 38 Leys Road had no piped water and drew from the well behind no.40'.
The evidence of war was always close at hand : shortages, the news on the radio. Even the alighting of geese in local fields was attributed to their being driven here by bombing in the North. Sometimes the action was closer. 'One day in 1940 1 was ploughing the top field when 1 heard bumps and, turning, I saw German aircraft bombing Stanton Harcourt airfield, which was still being built. A number of workmen were killed there. 1 stopped the tractor and was ready to jump underneath'.
'One evening 1 was shooting with Harry Webb at Ratshole on his farm when we heard loud machine-gun fire. A German plane was being attacked and it was reckoned to be a reconnaissance plane taking photos for the Coventry raid the next night. But the worst occasion, 1 was in my room and heard a bang - 1 looked out and two Whitley bombers had collided over Stanton Harcourt. The whole sky was filled with burning material'.
'Signposts were taken down during the war. As a result one military convoy turned down Leys Road. There was an awful jam and they had to turn round one by one. Some people said 'no wonder we're losing the war'. On another occasion about 20 new tanks with Rolls Royce engines parked down the Long Leys. They had technicians with them. A sergeant came to the farm asking for eggs. 1 think the crews slept round our straw rick and some under the corn covers. 1 know they churned up the roadside ditch which we'd just cleared on the orders of the Agricultural Committee!'
Farming carried on at much the same pace after the war, while food shortages actually got worse because the Government was trying to export food to earn foreign currency and improve the balance of trade. The significant increases in production, however, with more effective machinery, new seed varieties, pesticides and herbicides, didn't come till the 1950s.
(Eric Wastie, talking to John Hanson 1996)