Sometimes, like last year, the corn would be ripe by the end of July. Then came weeks of hard work and sweating to gather all the corn. Usually Slim's job was to help "bagging off." This meant standing in the farmyard by the big double doors into the "granary" filling sacks with grain from the back of trailers. It was hot, dusty work hooking the sacks over the spikes on either side of the shoots, and letting the grain escape into them like so many buckets of sand, while the dust slowly rose up and choked him. Then came "barrowing". With the help of a small pair of wheels he carried the 14 stone bags of corn through to where "old" Ned was stacking them. Dust covered him from head to foot to mix with his sweat to form an irritating coarse caking over his skin. If he was lucky he would go to the field and help to stack bales. This was great fun, chasing the baler over the fields in the back of a landrover. Stopping to stack bales then jumping into the back of the moving landrover. But after a few days his hands began to ache. Red marks appeared and each bale hurt more and more. One day, with the help of Ned and a young lad from the village they stacked nearly 2,000 bales! And, as Slim said to his father that night, felt like it an' all!" "It b It was hard work during the day, but at night came the best part of all. Each night when work had stopped for the day, all the farm-hands and he, and his family sat down for the evening meal. Over the huge helpings of beef and potatoes they swapped stories about fishing and discussed the day's work. At 9 o'clock Slim went upstairs. First he had a long bath, lying in the water, letting it sooth his aches and remove his itchings. It was then he felt best. He had worked hard all day and really helped his father: now he could relax. Drying himself slowly Slim usually sang to himself. It sounded awful, but just so long as he was happy, he didn't care. Lying in bed between the clean, white sheets Slim thought of fields of wheat and hot summers as he quickly fell asleep. Tired, worn-out, weather-beaten, coarse and still fairly grimy but very happy and satisfied. C.T.A. (IIIrd Form)
OLD PETERITE NEWS The Old Peterite Club's 82nd Annual General Meeting was held at the School on 14th July. D. W. Grice, R. D. Harding, C. H. Lewis, F. N. Newdick, D. T . Rumfitt and E. Sheriff were elected to serve on the General Committee. There was a lengthy discussion about the Regional Dinners, and several suggestions were made. There was general agreement that mixed functions should be arranged either to replace or in addition to the usual all-male dinners. The meeting passed a proposal that limited funds, at the discretion of
the Committee, should be made available to help Old Peterite teams participating in national competitions. 52
