(Continued)
In those days cottages and houses did not have mains water but relied largely on wells. The summer of 1921 was an exceptionally dry one and water had to be carted long distances for people and for livestock. There was no mains drainage and no electricity. Thurlow depended on two shops ­ the present one and one near the turning to Temple End. There were two pubs in Great Thurlow and two in Little Thurlow. Haverhill was the town for other shops. Papers were delivered by Mr. Gardner, the man who ran the bookstall at Haverhill Station. He used to walk from Haverhill to deliver them. He lived in Thurlow.

Of course football and cricket were played, the latter on the grass field to the south of the Hall. I recall Bob Rowlings saying that he had seen a batsman hit a ball clean over the wall! He was fond of pulling people's legs, particularly children's.

The Estate in those days had its own timber yard and sawmill. Mr. Paxman was the head woodman. Not much planting was carried out between the wars but the sawmill and certainly the carpenter's shop were busy. There was also the Estate maintenance staff, who did all the repairs to the many houses, cottages and buildings. The carpenter's shop was headed by a man called Mr. Womack.

The war changed the scene because food grown at home was vital to the nation in the war effort. On my rides with my father I remember seeing steam-ploughing and mole-draining. One steam engine was at one end of a field and another one was at the other and pulling a plough or a mole drainer between them. It was an excellent way of dealing with the heavy clay before the arrival of the crawler tractor. The use of steam engines was carried on for threshing the corn from stacks before the arrival of the combine harvester. Rats were a problem in the stacks and steps had to be taken to kill them at threshing time. And in the early fifties I recall hearing Jim Cook referring to "sheening", an expression he used for machining or threshing corn. Also, I recall that in about 1950 on a stack at Little Thurlow Park there was a huntsman (Charlie Field), a retired game keeper (Jim Cook) and a sculptor (Lis Frink), all working at the same time.