CHAPTER 12
Expansion
John was keen to move to the farm at Asselby and the day came when he needed to move his own bed which he had decided to take with him. Des, a good friend of his, would help him to flit. I packed them up enough food for a week and off they went taking Andrew along for the ride. They hadn't thought that Andrew would have to go to school the following day so that night they all returned and had supper with Leslie and me.
It was a hectic time for me trying to keep two homes going. Most days Leslie had to go to Asselby to work and I would usually go three days to cook and clean. It was 'all hands on deck' as Andrew and John Dalby were roped in to help work the land.
Initially we had cattle in the fold-yard but it wasn't long before we started to build up our stock of pigs and soon had some good big litters. Mr Barker who had just retired and moved from the farm came back to work with the pigs. We sold the cattle at Cliffe, and filled all those buildings, and built pig pens in the fold-yard for the growing number of animals. Leslie and Mr Barker took over this side of the farming. By this time we had bought a lorry and began to sell Rolled Barley and Oats which John would deliver to our customers. John would collect wet and Pressed Pulp from the Beet Factory which was a popular cheap food for cattle and sold well.
Margaret and her father-in-law started a vegetable garden at Asselby but this wasn't such a good idea as John wasn't much of a gardener and it would be left for everyone or anyone else to do.
At the beginning of 1965 I was excitedly waiting for both Margaret and Gerry to have their second babies hoping that perhaps this time I would have a granddaughter but it wasn't to be. Margaret had a little boy called Stuart in January and a month later Gerry gave birth to Mark.
The haulage business was expanding and it was clear that we needed some clerical back-up so John and I went to Acomb to buy a second-hand type-writer, unfortunately none of us were able to type.
Andrew, who was still at school, made some publicity cards which we distributed. We also publicised our business in The Yorkshire Post.
One Sunday afternoon Leslie and I were reading the papers when I spotted an advert in The Farmers Weekly for a Lot of Hay. We tendered for it and was successful so after that we kept our eyes open for further adverts. It wasn't long before we secured another good contract from the B.O.C.M. for large amounts of straw. They were to open a factory which was to manufacture Straw Pellets. We were to supply 1000 tons made up in conventional bales. This was an awful lot of bales which meant that a new baler had to be bought.
Tom, Gerry and family were to move to Kenya. Tom had signed a two year contract. Andrew went for a six week holiday with them when he was only thirteen years old. Margaret and Colin put him on the plane at Heathrow and as it was near Christmas they took Neil and Stuart to see the lights and shops in London.
Leslie was working very hard. He had got a small mill where he rolled corn and made nuts from a recipe which he had put together consisting of Barley, Pulp Dust and a dash of Cod-Liver Oil. Our straw customers were then persuaded to buy them for their cattle.
Nothing very exciting happened at this time and it was good that we all enjoyed hard work. John would be up very early in the morning to get to the Beet Factory for 4 o'clock where he would queue for Pressed Pulp. One morning he got a shock to find that Whitkirk Produce Company had waited all night.
Andrew was about ready to leave school. Leslie and I would have liked him to have stayed on a bit longer but John was very persuasive and used to getting his own way. Besides that, Andrew did enjoy farm work especially working on and with the tractors. After a year working at home he went on a day-release certificated course at the Agricultural College at Bishop Burton. He had so enjoyed this that he paid to have an extra two week's tuition.
Andrew, now sixteen, had started spending a lot of time with friends in Hemingborough, making jig-saws amongst other things. One day a young girl rang up asking for him so I guessed he had now got a girl-friend. I didn't know her but had known her mum and dad as I had lived in the same village as a girl. Her mum had tragically died when only young. When Andrew took another holiday in Kenya we thought that the courtship would end as they were both very young, but it didn't and they were eventually to get married.
John had always had lots of girl-friends but in August of 1965 he met Judy and got engaged that same month. He always did things in a hurry and in August the following year they were married.
We had two weddings within five months as Joan was to marry John Richard on January 5th 1967. Joan moved into a flat in Harrogate and later that same year, on October 8th she had her first baby, Richard, another grandson for us. John and Judy were to follow suit when on November 26th David was born. Another two boys to add to the list of grandsons.
Joan and John Richard moved into a little bungalow soon after Richard was born. John, at this time was working for I.C.I., but it wasn't long before they moved again when he was offered a job in Long Eaton for Derby-Nyla. By this time Joan was having her second baby. The bungalow was sold but the house in Long Eaton hadn't been finished so Joan stayed with John's mum until the baby, Andy, was born on March 7th 1969 at Fulford and then moved with her young family to Long Eaton. The family kept increasing rapidly and it wasn't long before John and Judy had another baby boy, Edward. Still I was waiting for our first granddaughter. All these boys meant lots of mischief and Edward was full of pranks although a very loveable child. As soon as he did anything wrong he would run off and hide.
It seemed as if we would never have the granddaughter I longed for when Joan had her third little boy called Peter. We now had nine grandsons.
These years were very busy for us and time passed quickly. Andrew and Adele decided to get married in 1975 so Leslie and I had to think about a house. We felt that it would be nice to build a bungalow for ourselves so that Andrew and Adele could live in the old farmhouse. We had terrible trouble getting planning permission to build the bungalow in the field right next to the farmhouse. There would be no objections if we chose to build a house. Eventually it was passed on condition that we landscaped it in such a way that it would fit in with the surrounding area. Leslie grew Conifer trees from seed which were planted from the roadside right up to the bungalow. There was a Tarmac roundabout surrounding a Rose-Bed and lawn at one side with bushes and trees at the other. I wasn't very happy at leaving the farmhouse but Leslie loved his bungalow.
We moved into the bungalow in October 1974 and Andrew and Adele began modernising the old farmhouse. Adele's father was a painter and decorator so he helped them quite a lot. Andrew and Adele were married on March 1st 1975. Adele continued working at The National Westminster Bank. We didn't have to wait too long before they came across with the exciting news that they were to have a baby. But it wasn't to be and sadly Adele miscarried. After a while she returned to her job at The National Westminster Bank in Selby. It was a sad time for us all but we worked our way through it. They were only very young, Andrew not being twenty-one yet. Adele was always very good at organising and preparing for parties being an extremely good cook. For Andrew's twenty-first the Village Hall at Osgodby was booked along with a band and everyone had a good time. A week later Christmas was upon us followed by another year, 1976.
By this time Tom and Gerry were living in Canada and Leslie and I talked about going over for a holiday. We went to get our passports on my sixtieth birthday, February 13th 1976. We were to be away for the last week in May and the first two in August which meant that Leslie's birthday would be celebrated whilst we were there. Tom made a barbeque with charcoal which we had collected from the woods but it didn't burn too well. Gerry had to finish the cooking off in the oven, but it was good fun. Gerry had made her Dad a pint mug for his birthday. Tom had a boat and he took us all out in it to do some fishing.
The holiday was everything we could have wished for, lots of fishing and sight-seeing, we even went to see Niagara Falls.
Whilst we were away Adele had a very hectic time what with her own job, doing her housework and the office work as well.
The holiday had done us good and Leslie continued to enjoy working on his new garden.
In the May of 1977 he was working hard wheeling barrow loads of soil for the new Rose Bed. One evening he came in feeling very poorly and went to bed which was something unheard of for Leslie. I called the doctor who advised that he had in fact had a stroke. I was devastated on learning this and the suddenness of it all had left me ill prepared for what was to follow.
