Every BBC Historical Farm Series:
Alex, cuddling a lamb: “this is what farming is all about, you need to be connected to the land, it can be hard work but it’s worth it, it was how we lived for thousands of years…
Peter, knee deep in coal: “this is the orphan mangling machine — I need to be very careful as I shovel coal into it for the next 15 hours, but orphan mangling was such an important part of the British economy back then”
Ruth, vibrating with excitement: “women’s labor went unacknowledged but it was absolutely essential to running every household and business and nothing would have been able to run without it. Today we’re going to make strawberry jam, it’s going to be quite nice :) and it made up 2/3s of the actual monetary income of households in this period, while farming was for subsistence”
Professor Ronald Hutton, materializing out of thin air: “it’s spring, which means in this part of England — East Middle Shirelandiawalhamton — we have to tie sausages to our fingers and dance through the streets singing ‘tra-lee-la-lee-lay!’ Historically, this practice was accompanied by heavy drinking, and though it was banned by the Puritans, it never really went away.”
