John Attrill on Horses

In those days it was all horses, entirely horses and the custom was, you wanted four horses and two men for every 100 acres of arable so we had eight horses and funny enough I can remember all their names and where they stood.

I can’t remember what my wife asked me to buy when I went to the shop, but I can remember in the stables as they stood, there was Punch and Sharp and Duke and Dragon in the first stable. In the second stable there was Violet and Captain and Derby and Jewel and I’ve never forgotten that.

They were shires and in those days you had a brood mare to breed you replacements and it was an ongoing thing to update the horses. We had quite a lot of cows for those times.