Vicar Bad-Mouthing Farmers In 1818.

This letter is from one Wiltshire vicar to another, concerning their local situations. It is addressed to The Revd Henry Wake, Over Wallop, Near Salisbury, and has only two postal markings:

The Vicar is not a happy bunny as can be seen by this remark

"The farmers are now become the most oppressive and insolent class of the community."

You can read the whole letter on our website (no adverts) at

-/letters/Victorian/mere.html

There are heaps more of these old letters, many with interesting contents dealing with the ordinary people of the time, on the

Letters from the Past
section at

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Why not take \the time machine to look at life a couple of hundred years or more ago.

Enjoy.



Ron and Eunice.

Ron, it must be genetic. Those Wiltshire farmers are still a grumpy bunch 200 years later. Whenever I'm visiting there I routinely encounter unmaintained footpaths, broken stiles, unexplained diversions of public right of way, or even simply ploughing across a public footpath. Git orf moi laaand!

Tim,
Thanks for reading.
I must admit I have a sneaking sympathy for farmers generally.
This is because, not only do they have to suffer with the weather and low prices etc. they also have to put up with people like me!
That is 'scrumpers'. I used to do a fair bit of scrumping on my local farm in Maidstone when I was a kid and though what I took was very little, I wasn't the only one doing it. <grin>
Apples, pears, plums, damsons were all grist to my mill. Getting caught ended up with a wallop and threats of 'action'. Happy days!
Ron

Damsons are getting increasingly hard to get hold of these days, and most people end up giving the other fruit away. My parents live in Aylesbury Vale and there are plums galore in the hedgerows, damsons too if you know where to look. This used to be the main region for supplying London with these fruits. Kent was more apples, pears, cob-nuts, etc. Happy days indeed.