Similarly, harvesting (in August) was traditionally a hectic and exhausting time for the farmer and all the families that relied upon the harvested produce for their winter survival.

[Geoffrey Goodson on harvesting methods]

[John Gresham on working on the farm]

When there was hard work to be done, even the children and the young lads were expected to help. The day was long and the work was physical. As a lad of 13, Mr Gresham remembers what farm work was really like in 1937….

The combine harvester was still quite a rare sight in the 1930's and so reaping the corn, binding the sheaves and threshing the corn still required a great deal of physical labour even where teams of horses were available….

	Reaping and binding by hand was gradually replaced by the tractor-drawn reaper / binder but on some farms the corn 'stooks' were still bound by hand…
[John Gresham on cutting the corn]	Copyright permission for this image pending

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