Interview with Duncan Dewar (and his wife Imelda) by Richard Tusson, March 2008

Well, Duncan, Have you always farmed?

Pretty well, yes. I had a place at London University to study veterinary science and then it was a complicated story really. At that time of day the War Agricultural Executive Committee had great powers and my great uncle was getting old and getting past it and they were looking for another person to run the show so I was just of an age to do it. I’d had a couple of years in the army and I came in to do it.

What date was that?

Well yes, I think we started legally on Candlemas Day 1953. Yes, but I’d been working on it just before then, 1952, just a little bit.

So you were doing that in 1953, when did you come here?

I was farming it, I was commuting from Balborough at that time when my father farmed. I came to live her e in ’58.

So you came to live here in 1958?

Yes.

And is the acreage, I noticed on the sheet on the wall, it says it was for sale in...

1898.

1898 and it was 206 acres, is it still...

220

It’s 220, so it’s slightly bigger.

Yes. I think in Tom Beastall’s book it was set down Limestone Hill Farm at 100 acres.

Did you know Tom?

Yes, I knew him well.

Oh right, he was quite a character I believe.

Yes, yes.

And has the type of farming changed in the time that you’ve been here?

Yes, because people have gone largely out of livestock.

Yes. Really there’s no money in it.

No, well there hasn’t been in arable farming either... we’ve been screwed to the floor for the past 10 y ears. When I first came here there were... uncle Thomas h ad quite a lot of cattle, he alway s kept a good bull, he h ad a Lincoln r ed, which was a nasty piece of work. (Laughter) There were lots of family farms then yes, about 20 in Tickhill yes, I mean so many have gone. There was Arnold... um… Tom Ludlum’s little place in Sunderland Street; Jim Matthews, underneath the motorway bridge, that’s all gone, new cottages.

Oh yes, yes

Bill Chambler had a few fields down the lane here, and that’s...

Yes.

And then there were odd fields. A man called Stan Place farmed one, er, then Jimmy Morrell farmed it for a spell. It was strange, a young man came down the lane on e day , he said “I’m on the funny errand - I’m looking for a field, I don’t know where it is, it belongs to my mother.” So I don’t know what that was all about...

(laughter).

And the quarry field across here which Fletcher farmed for many years, that was church land.

Oh was it, the local church? St Mary’s?

No, no. John Hattersley who worked for me told me it belonged to the vicar of Blacktoft wherever that might be.

Oh, no I don’t (laughter). It could be somewhere on the moon.!

Because my father bought some land at Mastin Moor near where he farmed and it belonged to St. John’s College, Cambridge.

Oh, that’s amazing, yes. So how and when, you don’t really know. And you say it was dairy and you had this bull and how many cattle were there?

Oh, er, uhm.

You can’t remember?

No I can’t exactly, but I remember in those days there was a lot of tuberculosis about.

Was there?

Yes.

So did that affect the milk?

It would do, yes, prior to the first world war.

Yes, that’s right.

Because I remember when I had only just come here and there was old cow coughing over a door and a cattle dealer... and great uncle Thomas said “We ought to get rid of that” and I said “Yes.” And I got a cattle dealer I knew to come, who was in Balborough near my father, and the cow coughed straight into his face when he looked at her. He says ”Oh yes she’s got it all right.” So he says “How much do you want for the old cow mister?” and Uncle Tom very diffidently says – “Well, is she worth a fiver?” (laughter}. And the dealer said “She’s worth 6.”

Oh, all right!

And John Hattersley was standing by, his jaw dropped and he said “I’ve never known that, a dealer paying more money than the fella asked for it”

(Laughter) oh amazing ....

And she’d go off to be made into pet food.

Yes, yes, so is that... what about things like vets and looking after the...?

Yes, well now.

Was he a local vet?

Yes he was. Now,... I had Pickin from Dinnington simply because I knew him and he’d been father’s and later I went on to Billy Fox, who came shooting a time or two. I got to know him and I liked him. Mr Pickin had a Scottish vet and an Irish one called Fitzpatrick then in the partnership . I always remember Fitzpatrick, we were testing some cows for TB, the annual test you know. And this one was being a little bit awkward and wouldn’t... it was kicking, and anyway , Fitzpatrick was finished and he said “Just keep under the cushion a little bit longer.” So I did, I thought he had some other test he wanted to do, and he gave it a good whack across the nose with his fist. He said “there, that’s for being awkward.”

(Laughter)

And did you have anything else other than cows? Did you have sheep or...?

No...

Or pigs, or chickens, or...?

I kept pigs at one time, yes. Quite a bit.

That was initially, when you started up...

Yes.

...or were they here.....

No, no

There was nothing here at all really apart from the land?

That’s right.

And did you have any dogs to help you, or...?

(Big sigh)

Can you remember?

No, there were no dogs on the place here, no. I brought my dogs over from Balborough.

So you had dogs here?

Yes, yes.

And what did you use them for, just...

Guard dogs mostly. And they could drive cattle, they were quite good really.

And did they have names?

There was Susan, a little Welsh sheep dog and.., oh gosh it’s years ago. I lost 2 or 3... this road was always very dangerous.

Yes, yes, it is a problem isn’t it.

I lost good dogs on the road.

Yes, I was going to say how old are the buildings? But I can see, the list on the...

Well, well you’ve noticed. These farms with the brick... there were... a lot of building was done at the time of the Napoleonic wars.

Oh yes

When wheat growing was prospering and wheat was fetching the equivalent of £800 a ton today so it elevated the farmers into a species of mock gentle-folk. The labourers were ground down into real serfs after the enclosures... a bit of common land taken off them.

What about things like water and gas?

Well water yes....

And electricity?

Well, there was no electricity, obviously, they had paraffin lamps and candles. And I remember my father, about 1954 or so, broaching the subject of electricity and the great aunt said “Oh no, I’m not fussy about that at all. No matter how careful y ou are, you’re sure to get electrocuted, no I don’t think so.”

(laughter)

Anyway, when she died I did get it put in for old Uncle Thomas. He was initially very reluctant but he then got to like it. Water - now then there’s a water tank outside somewhere buried. There was a pump there to water the cattle. The cellar had - outside there under a grating, there’s a soft water tank which collected the rain water. A big lead pipe ran through the cellar to stone sink in what was the big kitchen... one of the old-fashioned big pump s.

...old pumps, yes, to pump it up, yes.

Then they went quite modern after that, they piped spring water up from the back of the mill with this lovely... there was a pump house there with this lovely Victorian ram – you know – it would pump the water up to a huge header tank under the buildings and that fed the house here, and the cattle yard, and also those 2 cottages down the hill that belonged to the farm at that time.

Oh I see, yes. So it must have generated quite a lot of pressure really?

Yes, it was quite good, Erm, the thing was, the washers on this pump kept going and Uncle Thomas, he was very thrifty , he wouldn’t er, he wouldn’t buy new washers; he used to cut up strips of inner tube and sew them together and of course they didn’t last too long and there was no water.

Was they originally made of leather, the washers? Probably would be...

I think they must have been, yes.

...what they used to use in the shoes, yeah... What about gas? Did you have any?

No.

You didn’t have gas. So when were these things put in?

I had electricity put in in about the mid fifties.

The mid fifties, so not long really after you came?

No, and the Council had tried for years to condemn the water supply saying it was unfit for human consumption and actually it made the most beautiful cup of tea I’ve ever tasted. It was lovely, yes, it was a little spring that bubbled up. Er, a field called the Vicar’s Well Close. A little stone-like chamber and this lovely clear water bubbled up. This field, it carried a payment called Skinner’s Dole and according to Stan Lane, who used to keep the records, it was... he said it had been paid every years since 1612 which is as far back as the parish records go.

Oh right, 16... oh that’s a long time.

Yes. So this payment was paid every Candlemas Day . It was one pound, six and eightpence (£1.6s.8d). A pound to the rector and six shillings and eightpence to the poor of the village, so they got their priorities right didn’t they ?

Oh right (laughter)

And when I went to p ay it one time h e said well it was too much of a chore and an expense to collect this little payment and would I redeem it and p ay it out for a lump sum, which I d id. It seems a pity really , a bit of history disappearing like that, but there you are.

What about... now we talked about the supplies, water, electric, gas; erm did you use horses for... originally for working on the fields.

Yes, I just came into the fag end of horses and workhorses at Woodhouse Lane for a bit. And here they had some good horses. Now Uncle Thomas, he loved horses, that was his thing. He used to breed Clydesdales.

Oh, they’re the big things aren’t they?

The big ....yes.

And what sort of height are they 17 or???

17, 18 hands, yes, big, big horses. And of course, when I came here, erm, I was under a little bit of pressure from the committee to pull the farm up to scratch and I hadn’t time to mess about with horses, and if caused grievous offence; I remember one day I was under the cow-shed out there; I was cutting down the long pole that they pulled the old reaper with and making a shorter thing to fit a tractor drive, and Uncle Thomas was there leaning on his stick and he was so cross, really vexed and he said ”Horses always have done it.” And I said, ”Yes, well I’m afraid I can’t do with that.” And the old cattleman who fetched the cow I told you about, he said something about these horses, cos he had... I think he had an idea of buying them for horsemeat and some good horses there, and old George who was the farm-hand, said “Yes they’re good horses, we only want somebody to drive them” looking very meaningfully at me. (laughter)

Horses, yes they were, it was a shame, but you just couldn’t do it.

Yes, and where did you...... you kept them on the farm?

Well, I kept them on for a spell because old Uncle Thomas Crowder was here. At that time I didn’t own the farm, it belonged to an aunt of mine who was also a niece of Uncle Thomas and he... now what happened ....she said ~ ”Uncle Tom’s a fixture as long as he cares to stay, you understand that?” and I said “yes.” And, my father, who was a very peaceable sort of a man said, “You know, horses are the badge of an old farmer, you can’t really sell them from under his nose like that, you’ll have to leave them.” So of course I had to provide grazing for them.

For the horses, yes, yes.

He kept them like pet rabbits really, and I could see this little bent old man walking amongst these huge animals, picking up their hooves and looking at them and they’d stay perfectly still and let him.

Amazing isn’t it?

Yes, when they would have walked over me.

Yeah (laughter). What sort of equipment did you have, or did you sort of ask people to come in and do whatever you ......?

No, because I brought tackle over from ....

Oh from this farm...

From this farm, yes. Tractor and plough to start with. The man I had wasn’t too familiar with tractors; he’d alway s used horses, and I can see him now ploughing across the field and hurtling into the hedge – crash! I used to hold my head – “you haven’t turned in time!”

(Laughter)

But he soon got used to it.

But he soon got used to it – once you’ve been through the hedge a few times ....

Yeah. I think, you know, looking... the greatest influence on farming has been the advent of the internal combustion engine, because up to the beginning of the last century, farming had hardly changed from Roman times.

That’s probably true isn’t it.

There’s still the same hand tools and animal power. The golden age of the horse roughly would be from 1740 to 1840, because prior to that oxen were ploughing. In fact I’ve ploughed...

Even in this...?

Yes, well I’ve ploughed up an ox shoe here; you see this sort of half horseshoe, you think it’s a broken horseshoe, it’s not, it’s an ox shoe; slightly thinner.

So they’re similar, but not...

Not quite the same. And then from 17 ... 1840 onwards steam power was beginning to make an impact. That’s one thing, old Great Uncle Thomas, he had a steam engine...

Oh right, yeah, yeah...

A Foster I think it was.

A Vosper?

A Foster, that was the make of it.

They used to use paraffin didn’t they at one time?

Oh aye, kerosene in the tractors, I mean that top picture up there, that’s a steam engine drivin g an old thrashing drum and that was on father’s farm. That would be the late ‘20s or early ‘30s I guess.

Yes, yes.

And you see, things hadn’t altered much, the bottom one is about the mid ‘50s and that’s on this farm here.

Female voice – don’t forget to talk about the age of the house.

Oh, the age of the house, that’s right. It started life as a little 2 up and 2 down, the stone part which I take is about 17th century , and then it was added on to as they prospered and wheat growing prospered.

I, many years ago came across an engine and that worked off paraffin and it was a farm engine and it was like.... It had a ......

Stationary engine.

...a stationary engine and it had a flick magneto....

That’s right.

...so as it was going, if got too fast it would flick out and the spark wouldn’t happen and it would carry on ...and then it would cut back in...

Sort of a governor.

Yes, that’s right, but I think they were paraffin. That’s right. Well, I mean, the tractors I started with were paraffin.

Were they?

You started them up on petrol until the manifold got warm and they called it, this paraffin, they called it TVO, tractor vaporising oil. And in the end it got warm, you could switch it .... you had a separate little tank for petrol and then you’d switch over on to the paraffin and ....

And away you’d go ...yeah, oh right.

The old standard Fordsons were that. I started off with them.

How many people were working here apart from yourself?

I think there was Great Uncle Thomas and old George, his brother-in- law. There’d been quite a big family of them but they ’d gradually died off..... there were just the two of them I think. And they did get a little bit of contract work in from time to time.

Yes, when it was necessary, yes. Things like hedgerows and stuff like that, were they taken out, or left, or...

In the ‘50s?

That’s right, when they started taking out... making the fields much bigger.

That’s right. Well it wasn’t suitable for making us tackle the tiny little field we had. I mean, I knocked a few out and of course here, there were 2 or 3 little fields I’d bought which were in the middle of mine and I took the hedges out there and made a nice box of it. But a lot of this was done for a reason; there were different types of soil over the hedge and this sort of thing, I mean I heard John Longdon say down at Willingley , he’d pulled a hedge out and on e soil was quite light and the other was heavyish. That’s...

Amazing isn’t it.

It had been done for a reason.

Yes, yes. Because it’s called Limestone Hill, and obviously it is limestone?

Not all of it.

Not all of it? Just some of it?

Yes. On the top here it’s good quality limestone, most of it. There’s 30 acres of rather light and brassy stuff. Down towards Maltby it’s heavy red clay.

Is that probably from the water being washed from the limestone... into the valley?

I don’t know. You see there’s a field called The Irish Close on here. Irish? The Irish Close, and I always wondered about the derivation of the name. But you see, the old milldam, I asked Tom Beastall and he said the only explanation he could think of was that there was a camp of Irish navigators there who were employ ed to dig out the mill dam, because I found, I found old Irish pennies and halfpennies dating from time – the early 1800s

Female voice – And you found a Bronze Age ....

Yes, we found a Bronze Age axe, yes.

Oh right.

Female voice - And Roman coins

Roman coins yes, and hammered silver medieval coins.

Female voice – and the Bronze Age axe has been verified at 3000 years old.

3000? It’s going back a long time isn’t it, yes yes.

Female voice - Your father had cannon balls from ....

Cannon balls, yes I have.

Oh Cannon balls?

Female voice – from the siege of Tickhill Castle.

Oh that was Cromwell and his men wasn’t it?

That’s right. John Littleburn and Henry Ireton..... (laughter) troublemakers!

I’ve mentioned pumps and wells and ...... er, did they have footpaths and the like?

No.

Not across your land at all?

No, none at all, no...

So you don’t have any problems with...?

No. See they ’re try ing to op en these out now aren’t they ?

I believe so yes...

Going back to about 1790 something, but there are none, none at all, not ancient, not modern. None at all.

Well, I’ve gone through the question I’ve got on here. Are there any things that, you know, you can think of that er...?

No. I’m glad there’s no more thrashing machine work to do – it’s a dirty , choking, dusty job. I was quite happy to .... I remember my father say ing “Well we’ve done so well, you know, the old traditional way , I don’t think combining’s going to catch on” and all this. I said – oh yes – (laughter). Anyway “how are you going to dry the corn?” He was clever was Dad, he should have been an engineer. He’d made his own coke fired dryer which he dried corn with, with a fan to blow the hot air into the drying bins, and that worked. In fact, I had one here; I made a platform under a cart shed and I had a coke furnace and a fan to blow the hot air underneath and that worked quite well when we first started combining for a couple of years, until we decided to put in a proper continuous flow dryer.

And when you took in your crops, did you have barns to keep the stuff in?

Yeah. There were some stacks, the old traditionally outdoor-made stacks. I can’t just put my hand on them... I had photographs of them. That was the stuff that was far away from home we’d stack in the field. We’d take the thrashing machine to it of course.

Were they called... I’m going back now... stooks?

Stooks, they called the set-up stooking.

That’s right. I did that as a lad.

You had to set it up so that the noonday sun shone on both sides of the stook at once.

Oh I was never aware of that.

Oh yes. When I first started setting these sheaves up , this old man who was with me said. “there’s a chap here don’t know where sun rises and sun sets.”

(laughter)

“Turn in round.” I had no idea.

No, well I say, I’d not ...er until you’ve just to ld me. And then when it was dried out, you all used to bale it did you?

Well, you’d thrash it and then... we didn’t do much baling early on, they had a straw tyer which they were put through the bottle, so they called them loggings. It was good stuff for making potato clamps. You see, the days before you stored potatoes inside you made a potato pie or a clamp in the field and if it was properly made, it would withstand the hardest frost. An indoor store that’s not too well run is not as good as that. I was taught by a master, a farmer who came from Selby , to do that and he was very thorough and got on to me quite a lot, but I could make a good job of it because in the winter of ’63, which was really hard and the water pipe was frozen under the yard here, er my potatoes were quite safe, they were untouched. What you did, you’d put them in straw ....you made a nice pyramid to start with, and then you’d put your straw on very carefully and then a few spits of soil, bands on it and then later on when you’d finished the potato harvest you come and put 6 inches of soil on the top of the straw and then on top of that you would put the top of the potato plant that have dried off or any loose straw and that helped quite a lot. The man who taught me how to make the potato clamp , he said “that helps you” he said, “that’ll turn a lot of frost” and it did. And then, of course, come the spring when the weather’s warming up you could come and sort them in the field.

Did you.... what about things like carrots and that ... did you grow ...?

We never grew those, no.

So what were the main crops? You did potatoes......

Yep , potatoes, wheat and barley and oats in those days. For horse and cattle.

So what proportion of your land was taken over by that type of thing

Well, when I first came here, Great Uncle Thomas said you need 40 acres of pasture on a farm this size and another 40 acres of temporary grass, clover for hay , and then you need so much for turnips. It wasn’t leaving an awful lot for cash crops was it.

No, not really. But you changed that?

Yes. I can remember him getting on to me once when I ploughed some of the old pastures up , that’s where the cannon balls turned up , running down to the mill. And he was there thump ing his stick on the floor, and he said “It’s like ploughing yer doorstep up.”

(laughter) It was so hard ....

Well no, it was coming so near to the house.

Oh I see!! Oh sorry!

He didn’t want that at all. It must have come very hard for him really .... oh I can’t think of any thing ...

Well, if there’s anything else that you can think of.

Yeah, as I said, the War regs had a lot of power in these committees. In fact, a man wrote a book not too long ago called “Little Hitlers on the Farms” about the unjust cases of dis-possession that happened, chiefly in the eastern counties. These committees were made up of auctioneers, farmers who had failed in every district, and people like that. They ’d come round and tell you what you should and shouldn’t do. Cos I remember Uncle Thomas wanted a new roof, before I ...... several years before I took over. He wanted some new tin sheets for the cattle yard, he wanted a new roof on. And they said ...... they asked him a lot of stupid questions – “do you keep a bull?” and things like that – he had no idea what that was for. And then in the end the fella put his pen down and said “don’t you think you’d better let me have the place?” And he said “no, I’ve not done with it yet.” But I think they had one of their cronies lined up to take it over, which they could do at that time.

Female voice: I suppose the biggest change for you is Tickhill was very rural when you came and things were geared towards the rural and the farming community, whereas now ......

...it’s different isn’t it ..... it’s a bit like a dormitory town in a way isn’t it?

Yes it is, in many respects.

And I suppose you know most of the people who live there, would you?

I knew a lot of them, yes.

Did you know, on Sunderland Street there’s a farm, now what’s it called ... Nora, don’t know her ... her parents had a farm on Sunderland Street, near the pub there... although don’t know what the surname is.

Clarkson? No? There was Ludlum I know and Matthews.

It may have been Ludlum, yeah. It was near the pub, is it the Scarbrough Arms?

Yes, that’s right, yes.

Opposite there they built a bungalow...

Yes, that’s right. Well that was her parents ... I think they’ve, er, I think she told me that her family had been in the area for about 400 years.

Yes, that’s the one. I mean this place has been in the family almost a hundred years now.

I know your name’s Duncan, it’s Dewar, is it from Scottish ancestry?

Yes it is. Well it goes back... My great- grandfather came fro m near Edinburgh. His father .... Oh it’s a long time .... My grandfather was born in 1867 in the worst p art of Sheffield as he proudly used to tell me; Tenter Street. His grandfather was a mercenary soldier in the service of the East India Comp any before the Mutiny , when gentlemen didn’t go to ... you see .... It was rough and ready sorts, and he went as a young lad and he rose to colon el and h e married an Indian, which wasn’t done. It wasn’t done at all for a European and her people disowned her, they didn’t like it either. And, so, I’ve got a portrait of the offspring of that union, an oil painting. He was a picture framer and an artist; he’d done some work for an artist who couldn’t p ay him so he painted this portrait instead. My cousin does quite a bit of research and he said that this lass was quite well connected, a princess in fact, but whether she was Hindu or Muslim I don’t know.

Female Voice: Then your grandfather was mayor.

Yes, in Rotherham. Reginald Dewar. He was may or in Rotherham, yes, grandfather. He was one of the old school, a real old gentleman. I can see him now sitting at the head of the table, when I was about 15, say ing “Tell me, are you working for what is known as the School Certificate?” (laughter)

Female Voice: and how far the Dewars go back.

The Dewars go back... Well they’ve traced them as far back as the battle of Flodden.

Which is when, about 14...

Oh dear we’re going back into the reign of Henry VIII aren’t we? When he’d gone of to France adventuring and left his wife Catherine of Aragon to look after things. And the Scots had took their chance when his back was turned to invade England. So one of our people was killed then apparently. What he was I’ve no idea. He could have been a sheep stealer for all I know. Doesn’t do to delve too deeply.

No, it doesn’t, that’s very true.

That’s as far back as we’ve traced the family.

Somebody else mentioned a mill or a paper mill...... There was a paper mill down here. This stream at the bottom is called Paper Mill Dyke and there were the remains of an old mill down there which was destroyed when they put the rail-way in. We’ve got an old mill dam..... that has always been known as Wrigglesworth Dam. The old people, I mean Roy Taylor will remember that because he’s referred to it as that. The old folks always called it Wrigglesworth Dam after the last miller that was down there.

And it was used for grinding...?

Grinding corn, yes. Well Tom Beastall said it wasn’t shown on the map of 1793 but it was quite clearly shown on a map 10 years later.

Female Voice: it’s got the date in the stone... it did have.

Well, when I first came here .... going up the stairs, I remember, it had the date of the Battle of Trafalgar cut into the plaster, some patriotic ..... 1805, but that’s fallen away now. Yeah, that’s when that was built.

Female Voice: that’s in a state of disrepair and we haven’t got the money to do it up, but all the workings are still there.

It’s still there, the flour dresser is in Cusworth Hall museum.

Did they use a stone, like a grit stone with a groove...?

Yes, that’s right, yes. The middle post is still there with those cog wheels ... the water wheel...

Yes, they’re wooden cogs aren’t they?

Some of them are wooden some are cast iron.

Female voice: but it’s all standing, but it’s dangerous now for anyone to go in there, sadly, but we can’t...

......do anything about it no. Well it’s a shame ......

Female Voice: it’s a shame that nobody wants to come and preserve it.

The Council made an attempt to put rates on it y ears ago. This man came and h e said, you know, I said “It’s a ruin” and I showed it him and h e said “Yes I see, would you be willing to pay £1 a year rates?” I said “No, I would not!” Because that has a habit of growing.

That’s right, as they do. You know you were talking about this pump that pumped water – how was that driven? By the ...can you remember?

I don’t know the mechanics of it, it was driven ....

Was it driven by the water itself?

...... the water itself, a ram, and you could hear it going (sound effect – thwack) like that, you know. Yes it was a remarkable piece of Victorian engineering really . It kept them going for years and years. I said, it was lovely spring water but the Council wouldn’t have it, the Council said it was unfit for human consumption. Cos they came one time and said to Uncle Thomas “Can you assure us that you are not using this water” and he said “Yes, I can categorically assure you I’m not using the water from which you took the sample.” He said to me “that’s long gone isn’t it.”

(Laughter)

Also, there was always a bone of contention with Sandbeck about the stream, because I remember a letter coming to Uncle Thomas saying that the tenant of Carr House Farm; that was Mr Clayton at the time; is complaining of serious damage to the crops caused by the water being held up in the stream here and it needs clearing out. So, he went down one day , did Uncle Thomas and these 2 men were poking about and they said this wasn’t on, he would have to clean it out, and he said “I always thought that this dyke was jointly owned.” And they said “Oh no, it isn’t jointly owned, it’s your dyke and your responsibility .” And he said “Well, if that is so, keep your water out of it.”

(Laughter)

So... there’s no answer to that. When I first came here, the then agent of Sandbeck telephoned me and said would I care to go down to the office to discuss general topics. And I said no, I said, “You know where I live if you’ve anything to say.” Because I knew what he was talking ..... what he wanted ..... it was the dyke again. So they decided nothing more could be done.