Suffolk Horse Society File: Tom Walne Interviewer: Peter Webb. Recorded 20.11.13
WALNE Tom
Introduction for the recording and the transcript.
This recording is part of the oral history project carried out by the Suffolk Horse Society in 2013 with advice from Cambridge Community Heritage, and a generous grant from the Heritage Lotteries Fund.
In the recording you will hear the voices of Tom and Sandy Walne describing their memories of the Suffolk Punch heavy horse.
Tom is a retired agricultural worker, horseman and Suffolk Punch breeder
The recording was made by Peter Webb, a member of the Suffolk Horse Society.
The date of the recording was 20th November 2013 and it was carried out at his home in Ipswich.
The duration of the recording is about 48 minutes.
Tom Walne ZOOMOO25
Peter I'm here this evening, in Ipswich, to talk to Tom Walne, and Sandy Hewitt. both very experienced Suffolk horse people. And Sandy, thank you very much for inviting me to your house, appreciate that, and all these telephone calls I've made. Thank you Tom for letting us come in.
Tom You're very welcome. I'm sorry we couldn't fix it up when you first rung up.
Peter That's doesn't matter.
Tom That's a different story though.
Peter Would it be possible, Tom, just to ask how old you are, or is that a rude question?
Tom In four weeks time I shall be 80.
Peter Okay. And I won't ask you Sandy. Okay, I'm... No no no./
Sandy That's alright.
Peter /No no, I won't do that my darling.
Sandy I'm 66, I ain't... I'm quite pleased that I'm 66.
Peter The reason we've.../
Tom /To put a bit of spirit into it, at dinner we got three trophies, and I said that me and my horse were 100. And afterwards Nigel Oakley, you know how humorous he is, he said... Course the people on our table told me... he said, 'I told them, course the horse is only 2'.
Peter [laughs] Alright. Okay, sorry.
Tom I was born in 1933, 20th of December, at Low Farm, Westerfield. At that time the farm was being farmed by a Mr. Poole, who also owned... also farmed Butley Abbey, Whitecross Farm Tunstall, Low Farm Westerfield, Ackenham Hall, and was part of the family who owned an estate, Lawford Hall, near Manningtree.
Peter Yeah, I know that, yeah.
Tom My father was living at Butley with his older brother, and was working for Mr. Poole, and his job was the farm Wagoner. He drove a pair of horses through a double shaft wagon, and he travelled from Butley to the various farms, like the farm lorry do today. My mother, who was in service at Bromswell Cherry Tree, which was owned by the Carter's, who were... who people would know recently as being haulage people, but they were haulage people them days but with horses and tumbrels. My mother was in service there, and that's how my father and mother met. They married and come to Low Farm, Westerfield, and lived in the farmhouse. Mother run the vegetable side, for stuff to go to Covent Garden, and father did the farming in general. It carried on, and Poole still had the cows at Akenham, two herds of cows. And as well as doing what was at Low Farm father used to go and milk at Akenham when they needed someone. And right from a little tot he used to take me on the seat on his bike to go to the farm, and I used to get me drink of milk straight out the cow, straight into my mouth. As I grew up the... We had horses... A Mr. Hart took over Low Farm, and father stayed with Mr. Hart, and we had three horses, and a standard Fordson tractor. But because Mr. Hart had had other farms, he got three Horsemen. He'd lost his land at Greenwich in Ipswich for the housing estate, and he had a man called Bert Andrews, who lived in Ipswich down... somewhere down where the cattle market was. He had... he also had Brewery Farm, Westerfield, and the Horseman there was Harry Davey, a lovely little man, who used to say regular, 'You've got to eat a peck of dirt before you die'. And another man, Bob Ward. Bob Ward was a breeches and buskins man, and he drove the tractor. Right. Eventually Bob left, and went to Lesley Miller's father's, at Pettistree Hall to look after their Suffolks, and that's where he was 'til Mr. Miller died, and they parted up.
Peter Was that after the Second World War? This, the Fordson tractor, would that be just after the Second World War?
Tom That was after the Second World War, when he was there. Course in the 50's, while I was in the army... We're jumping forward a bit now. But in the 50's, when I was in the army/
Sandy Lesley was at The Sutton.
Tom /I remember going out to see... bike out... 'Cos Bob Ward's son and me were mates, as kids, and I used to bike out to Sutton to see him. And I did that as well when I was in the army.
Peter Right.
Tom So I was actually brought up with horses. I don't know how old I was, but I used to ride Trace Horse, as a youngster. That's not very clever, 'cos the... once... the horses them days were working all the time, and once you'd gone to the muck hill once they'd very nearly go on their own. But I used to ride Trace Horse up, used to relieve a man. I've also... can remember as a littlun sitting on the potato spinner with two horses pulling it. Bob Ward was one end of the field picking up taters, Bert Andrews t'other end of the field picking up taters, and I could take you to that particular field now, that's farmed by the Partridge family. And they used to turn the horses round, and put them in the next row and say, 'Giddy up', and I sat down and held the rein. Nothing clever about it at all, but I done it. And all through the war I took the horses to the blacksmith's. They used to stick me on a horse in the yard at Westerfield. At the beginning we used to go to Tuddenham blacksmith's, so I could go up the fields, cross Westerfield, cross the fields again, out onto Moss Lane to the blacksmith's. He'd take me off, shoe the horse, put me back on, and send me home. When the old boy there shot himself, in the Home Guard, he... I don't know, the blacksmith shot himself, we then had to go to Rushmere. And I remember where the prefabs are at Rushmere now. I saw my first combine ever working, on that field where the prefabs are. And we used to go the Rufus Cracknell, the blacksmith's up at Rushmere.
Peter So roughly what year is this now, with the first combine? Roughly what year was that?
Tom I would think still in the war. I'm not exactly sure./
Peter Yes, that era. Yes, okay.
Tom /In the war. In the wartime, if we're getting off horses a bit, we were next... the farmhouse was a small meadow away from Westerfield school, and the school had a shelter, and we spent lots and lots of time sleeping in the shelter in the school. Going there at night with all our gear, coming out in the morning when we finished. Although we had a Anderson shelter in the garden. And we, all through the war father had a... they had an old single cylinder engine that used to heat up with a blow lamp to get going, that driv (drove) a shaft right through the barn, which driv various equipment; the chaff cutter in the loft, a mill downstairs, and a grinder, and then a great chopper, and a saw bench that father made out of a old beet cutter frame. And in the wartime, that engine used to be going sometimes all night. 'Cos all the local people who kept a few pigs would say, 'Can we have a bag of meal, George? Can we have some meal? Can we have this?', and that's how we went on. Them up... As I say, Bert Andrews was the Horseman, George Davey was his sort of second man, and then Bob driv the tractor. But then when Bob left the tractor Curly Thoroughgood took over. They used to tell me stories, that had... 'cos mother was out in the vegetables, she used to take me out in the pram and that. But when I got so I could toddle about the blokes used to go off hedging then, and ditching, in the winter time, and they used to take a... pull a bundle of straw to take out to light a fire, and that with, and they said many a time I've curled up in the bundle of straw and slept while they've been at work. That's just how it went on. The last horse on the farm was still there during the war. During my army time. 'Cos I've got a picture somewhere with me with that... that was a black sort of a Shire cross, a Percheron cross. On the meadow in my army uniform. So that was somewhere between '52 and '55.
Peter So you're telling us stories of the change over from the horse, gradually to the tractor, aren't you?
Tom Yeah.
Peter But those early days then, you didn't just leave the horses behind forever, did you?
Tom No.
Peter Since then you've got involved with the Suffolks especially, haven't you?
Tom Yeah. I... How it come... And I met Sandy, she'd always had ponies to hunt, and when I met Sandy she'd got a... she had a horse that she stabled at Rushmere. I hadn't never had no riding lessons, but I used to ride a little pony, and the carthorses as a boy. And Sandy went on holiday, and left me to look after this horse at Rushmere. That was just across the road from the Rushmere Heath. So I started off by leading this horse out every day, and then I thought this is silly, why don't I sit on it. Well, the first... I would lead it across to ride, and I think I fell off about three times before I got on. But anyhow, that led on and on, and then we got so handy with hunting. And we bought a thoroughbred horse off an old boy called Tony... what was it?
Sandy Gower.
Tom Tony Gower, up at Rushmere way, at Kesgrave. And so I started hunting. Well in... I think I've got this right. That's... The mare come after that, didn't she?
Sandy Snoddy.
Tom Snoddy. A friend of mine had a little smallholding at... out there towards Claydon, and he was running this smallholding with a little... with this nice Cob called Snoddy. And when he decided he was going to stop going out we bought the cart, the horse, the cart and the harness. Is that right? Off of him. So I got this Cob. And then...
Sandy That was a tumbrel, weren't it?
Tom That was a tumbrel, yeah. That was an army tumbrel, which has since rotted away and gone. So then we... and I was hunting, and so we got friendly with Tony Harvey, and he'd got a collection of Gypsy wagons, and he... we used to take our old Cob, and put it into one of his wagons, or into one of his carts, and do things. And then we went to a sale, we got... I don’t know how many horses we had got down, three or four, and we were in at the... at Broadacres at Westerfield, where we were keeping the horses. And we went to a sale to buy another horse, and we bought... Sandy bought that Cob up there. Tucker. And the under-bidder for that was Roger Mackman from Swilland, Newton Hall.
Peter Right.
Tom Roger Theobald. So since Sandy was working for [?Roger] years ago, they were friends obviously... well, we're all friendly. And so Roge] said if she'd had had that it was going in the riding school, so Sandy said, 'Well you can have it'. Is this right? Am I right?
Sandy No. What she said is, what had I bought it for, and I said, 'For you to go hunting on'. And that was July time, and she said, 'Well, would there be any chance of her borrowing it?' So Tucker went to live at Newton Hall from the July, and he came back home to us in the October.
Tom Yeah.
Sandy So we could go hunting. Yeah.
Peter And what year was this, roughly? Again, roughly what year that would have...
Sandy That would have been 70's./
Tom Been mid 70's.
Sandy /Mid 70's, '75, '76, something like that.
Tom So then we got... we got three horses that we could put harness on. So we used to go out with him, and Snoddy, and go out on these Gypsy weekends. Well then about 1979, Sandy bought a Shire. Shire, called...
Sandy Yeah, he came from Roger, didn't he?
Tom Yeah, Sam.
Sandy Samson.
Tom Samson.
Sandy Yeah.
Tom And at the same time Tony, as I say, had broke... Tony Harvey broke that horse to work for us, to drive, and then we bought the... Sandy bought the Shire. And so we were... I mean up... he was ever so quiet, 'cos we had young lads that used to come and mess about with us. And we had the young lad, they would have been about, I don't know, 11 or 12, would John be?
Sandy Yes.
Tom And he'd put a set of harness on that Shire, and go off through the village with him, wouldn't he?
Sandy Yeah.
Tom And anyhow, Tony had arranged for this trip to Appleby. And I don't know... but then Tony, as you probably know, used to drink a bit. We owe a lot of our pleasure, and our horse knowledge to Tony, but he did drink occasionally. And so I had been known to get him out of a muddle. And he'd got this trip all arranged, and about six weeks before he was going to go Sheila, his wife, said was there any chance I could go to Appleby with him. And I said, 'Well no, there's reasons for that. A, I don't want to share a wagon with Tony, and B, I can't afford to'. His six weeks away, his pigs were getting fat, but my hands weren't earning nothing. Anyhow, that went on a bit. And then we come to an arrangement, thanks to my friend there, you know, finance. But I took another wagon, with Snoddy. And when we turned up at Tony's in the morning, we were going to start off... He had a real nice old man working for him, who was a real old Horseman, called Jack Steel, and he come out in the courtyard, and I can't remember his exact words, but that was something like, 'You take that old mare all that way you'll kill her'.
Peter Right.
Tom But she'd got the mare really really fit. She'd ridd (ridden) her and driv (driven) her, and got her really fit.
Sandy That's when I learnt to drive a horse.
Peter Right, yes.
Sandy For his trip up to Appleby, 'cos I started off riding her, and because the time of year I couldn't clip her, so my legs were getting ever so wet, 'cos she was getting hot. So then I graduated to putting the harness on, and long reining her, and we'd got a breaking cart that hadn't got a seat on it, so I walked behind her. Then I had a piece of ply wood on the breaking cart, and I used to sit on it, and then I graduated to putting her in the cart, and driving. Yes, she was very fit. And one day I was driving her... And this is 1980, so the traffic was a lot different. But I used to drive her up past the fire station on Colchester Road, and go round the block, and come back down Humberdoucy Lane. And I went over the kennels, and Jimmy Wickham said to me, 'That must have been you Sandy', he said, 'Somebody come to see me today, and they said 'You'll never guess, I just seen a girl driving a horse along the bypass''. But that was just how you could do it. But that mare was just so quiet. She was a... You needed to know what you were doing to handle her, but she was so good at what she done. And when he was on his trip to Appleby we've got Cinefilm of her in the middle of three lanes of traffic.