Threshing Day

Threshing day at Cowgate in the 1920s. John Ostle's friends and neighbours
have arrived to help.

Threshing day was quite an occasion.  On that day neighbours joined forces and each farm provided one or two men to help. 

A thresher driven by a coal-fired steam engine went from farm to farm.  The thresher and engine arrived very early in the morning so the owner could get it fired up and running before the helpers arrived.  The farmer provided the coal. The steam engine kept the thresher going non-stop and there was noise, dust and activity everywhere.

The most exciting and frightening time was when mice and rats began escaping from the bottom of the stack and the dogs were trying to catch them as well as the men trying to stamp on them or using their pitch forks.  There was always a lot of yelling and shouting.

Threshing day meant a busy day for the farmer’s wife and her helpers, having to provide food – ten o’clocks, dinner of perhaps tatie pot and rice pudding and sandwiches and cake for tea, for twelve or fourteen hungry men.

 

One or two men forked sheaves from the stack of corn to another man on the thresher, who then passed it to the man feeding the sheaves into the thresher.  This man cut the string, which was tied around the sheaf.  His knife was tied with string to his wrist to stop him dropping it into the machine.  The loose straw was tied into large bottles and the chaff machine was blown down loose onto the ground – a very dusty operation.

The men on the ground manhandled the corn coming through the thresher into twelve stone sacks, which were taken to the granary on sack barrows, often up steps.

From 'Plain People'
Holme St Cuthbert History Group, 2004.