The Spacious Days

"The Spacious Days" is an account of Michael Twists' early life, through the 20's and 30's, on an agricultural estate at Burnham in buckinghamshire, now largely buried beneath a sea of houses. It tells of my love of roaming the countryside, early invovement in farming, and unchildlike passion for cattle, particularly bulls and other livestock. The book recounts stories of pet foxes, "pet" stoats, not so friendly, a grey squirrel that became a household pet and a badger that thought it was a lap dog! At the time about which the book is written a three bedroomed cottage could be built for well under #300, beer cost 2d per pint and 6d (2 1/2p) was considered adqequate pocket money for the young. Rats were a serious menance to crops, but they had a monetary value, as did other pests, for they carried a "bounty". I supplemented by pocket money by catching rats at 2d per tail, whilst moles and queen wasps were worth 6d each. the book takes one back to the time when a farm labourer often worked 12 to 14 hours a day and did so through pride in his work, as well as a desire for extra money. There are tales of poachers and general villainy. The latter includes an account of an ingenious farm worker who developed a unique method of stealing rabbits from the harvest field. Days are recalled holidaying in North Devon in August and early September, where miles of beaches without a soul were to be seen and where large catches of prawns and, indeed, lobsters were easily caught when the tide was out. the scarcity of traffic was such that in one village through which I was regularly driven by my father in a bull-nosed Morris, an aged inhabitant could have his large armchair placed in the middle of the village street so as to be able to enjoy the morning sunshine! It was a time when a small estate such as at Burnham (about 1500 acres) provided employment for some 40 workers, with jobs for a further 20 in the "big" house and gardens. Today such a holding would, in total, employ no more than 5 or 6 people. The book tells of haymaking and harvesting, when horses were the main source of power, of country pursuits and a retriever being unable to do its job through being drunk on Drambuie! These and numerous other anecdotes, about real people and real places, provide an insight into days long gone - days before man had really made his mark on unbalancing nature and on the destruction of wildlife and the environment as a whole.

Table of Contents:
Of bulls and boundaries; tuppence a pint; early days with the gun; pin money; a spotted pig and garnet; pheasants and gundogs with a difference; hay and harvest; holidays; poachers and poaching; grass snakes and squirrels; threshing; the flock; opportunities; the end of an era.