COVER STORY Robin Mills met Peter Hardwill in Blackdown, West Dorset
© Peter Hardwill Photograph by Robin Mills
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y grandparents and father moved here to Hurst Farm in the early ‘30s following farming for 10 years at a small farm at Trull near Taunton. In his early twenties my father enjoyed life near Taunton; Grandfather said “he would leave a field of hay to go and watch Somerset play cricket”. Hurst must have been about 100 acres which they rented from the Doble family. Father joined the local skittles team and went to village hall dances where he met my mother Sybil Bugler, from Bettiscombe. They married in ’42 and I arrived in ’43. I have two younger sisters; Alice was born 14 months after me, and Evelyn arrived in 1948. My first memory as a child on the farm was the ’47/’48 winter. Everything was completely manual of course, loose hay made into ricks and fed to the cows which were tied up in a cowstall. The hard weather made extra work keeping the cattle fed and watered, and I can remember helping my grandfather on the farm from a very young age. My father said I was allowed to drive the tractor when I was big enough to push down the combined clutch and brake pedal on the Standard Fordson and clip it in place, which I managed at
Tel. 01308 423031 The Marshwood Vale Magazine October 2021 3
