Beating

Beating

During the winter months the Squire used to throw shooting parties for his friends, and the school boys used to be allowed time off from school to go beating, by beating I mean walking through the woods beating the bushes with sticks to drive out the game. We boys would assemble at a prearranged time and place in the morning together with some of the estate men, and a game-keeper, who would get us organised into a line at the edge of the wood , when everybody was ready a signal was given, we then proceeded to walk through the woods driving the game before us over the guns, who were waiting on the other side of the wood. By lunch time  we were all getting tired and hungry after walking through the woods all morning. Lunch would be taken at a keepers cottage in the woods, where we would be served with large lumps of bread and cheese, washed down with horns of good ale poured from stoneware bottles. After lunch we were again organised into lines, and proceeded to walk through the woods, as we did in the morning, driving the game before us. Shooting finished about half past four in the afternoon when it started to get dark, the game was then loaded onto the game cart and taken to the game larder, the head keeper would then pay the beaters and tell them they could go home, and the time and place to meet next morning, you had usually two or three miles to walk home, where you arrived very tired but happy, after a good day out in the fresh air in the woods. These shooting parties usually lasted two or three days, and we were always very sorry when they were over, they were very happy days for us boys.  

In the woods

When there was no beating I used to spend a day or two in the woods with the woodmen. This I really enjoyed, my Mum would cut me a large lump of bread, some cheese and some rashers of home cured bacon, put them in a bag and off I would go to the woods, to find the woodmen. They would be busy tree planting or felling timber, they used to build a log cabin, the roof was thatched with bracken, to have their meals in, and as protection from inclement weather. My job was to collect firewood and to get a good fire going ready for mealtime, the fire was made on the ground in the shape of a pyramid, when mealtime came we would sit round the fire, after first making a toasting fork out of a stick split at the end, we would then proceed to frizzle our bacon and toast our cheese. I also enjoyed watching the timber haulier at work, he had a wonderful team of horses, great big powerful beasts, it was marvellous to see how the horses behaved to his word of command, some years later I married his daughter Nancy to whom I have been married over forty years.