Below Newspaper article unknown source Friday, July 15, 1977

During the war people dug for victory. But Charlie Brown still digs for pleasure.

Mr Brown, of Low Street, Haxey, is 70. He digs the 2,600 square yards of garden behind his home single-handed.

This is nearly half an acre and six perches, or for those not too familiar with linear measurement, it is half the size of a football pitch.

Charlie revels in work, as a former farm worker he does not work as he used to, but to maintain his garden like he does requires that extra grit which is in-bred in a man of the soil.

In his garden, not far from the Kings’s Arms, he grows all the usual vegetables. Just now he has a wonderful crop of red beet and radishes with broad beans and peas very nearly ready. His other crops, to be harvested later in the year, are also in fine condition.

Charlie Brown is an amiable man of good yeoman stock and unmistakingly a man who loves the countryside and the agricultural way of life.

But for all that, he is not convinced the right methods are employed in the industry today.

As we sat on the side of a wooden cold-frame at the top of his garden, he said "I treat my garden like I would a field. I just turn over the top and leave it to let the frost get in."

"And another thing," he said with conviction, "I don’t believe in ‘em.

"You find carrots that have been sprayed with paraffin, still have the taste about ‘em."

He does not believe, either, that the new chemical sprays do not have a detrimental effect on people’s health.

Hard Life

Charlie reflected on his life. "By gum, it was hard, but I enjoyed every minute of it. They were good days. I liked th’owd hosses."

There was no need to doubt his word: one could sense that he had gained a tremendous amount of pleasure from his work.

Born at North Wheatley, he worked on the land as a lad, and it was not long before he was in farm service with his day beginning at 5.30 a.m.

He gave a wry laugh when he said: "You got your dinner of taties, cabbage and gravy on your plate and when that had gone, they slapped your rice pudding on t’ same plate. Then finished off with a pint of cold water."

Carrying corn was another aspect of his life. He carried 16 and 18 stone bags of corn with his day starting at 6.15 in the morning and finished at 5.30 at night.

His wage about this time varied from 3s 3d a day to £25 a year.

Charlie came to this area from Barnby Dun to work for Mr. Joe Cooper, then for Brown’s at Langholme. He spent the last 20 years of his working life with Mr Douglas Horberry.

When he started work he was paid 9d a day and asked for double. The boss said: "If that many pennies were stacked on top of one another they’d be as big as you." Charlie said he he didn’t care and he eventually got the 18d.

He has always driven horses-four in a wagon, four in harrows, threes in ploughs and binders. He has drilled 15 acres of corn with a 15-coulter corn-drill, scuffled four acres of potatoes a day and ploughed an acre a day with a 9in furrow plough.

A droll, rural character, Charlie says he would work into the evening with his horses, then by four o’clock in the morning the boss would be shouting him up again. He yoked his horses at 5.30 and was out to work by six o’clock.

Asked if he minded the change from horses to tractors, he said: " Not all that much. But I tell you one thing, when you worked with hosses you could hear t’ cuckoo singing. You can’t with a tractor." He shook his head and repeated: "I did like my hosses."

His garden is not his whole life. He even finds time to work in the garden of Mr Jim Burrell and also helps with various errands for his friend, Mr Peter Fotheringham.

What does Charlie do with the produce in his garden? He sells some and gives some away.

Will he continue with his digging? It looks as if he will, but admitted he was having a rotavator "rigged up"...And who can blame him?.