Children at work

In the past children were encouraged to work by their parents, not just for pocket money, but to supplement their families income.

On this page and we explore four extracts from 'Growing up in Ditchling' by Doris Hill, which looks at the seasonal work children would undertake from making jams, growing and picking herbs, raising rabbits for fur and food, and investing in growing apple trees.

Visit 'A farmers boy' for memories on the hard life children often endured working on local farms.

You can also download Children at work, and its accompanying page, by clicking here (PDF format).

Getting the fruit for jams
We children had the task of picking the wild fruits in season - bullace (small wild plums), blackberries, eggasses (hawthorn berries), the heads of dandelions, rose-hips, elderflowers for champagne, and later the elderberries for wine.

We used to eat the tender shoots from the middle of new hawthorn leaves in spring. We called this 'bread and cheese'. But the best task was the picking of wild raspberries, for to gather these we had to roam the South Downs, as up there the canes grew in abundance.

We also had to take our turn at stirring the great pans. This was a very hot job, for we had a two-burner kitchen range. The jars had to be washed. These were not of glass as they are today, but of brown earthenware, holding either two or four pounds each.

Rex wrote the labels, to get out of having to don a large white apron which we wore when stirring the boiling jam. We made the covers by cutting grease-proof paper to size, usually by holding a pudding basin over the paper and drawing around it. These circles were dipped into skimmed milk, stretched tightly over the jars and tied with fine string.

Some of the ladies of the village would buy a jar, but most of it was packed into wooden crates and these would be collected by Carter-Paterson the carrier and taken to the various universities that were attended by the young gentlemen of the village. I always marvelled at the vast amount of preserves that they seemed to need each term.

Seasonal work
Although we did not receive any pocket money from our parents, we always seemed able to earn some. In the spring and early summer-time, we would collect herbs for the lady at the Blue House. One of the fields belonging to the Gospels Farm was named St. Luke, and as if living up to the physician for whom it was named, it always seemed to have a plenti­ful supply of herbs - agrimonies, coltsfoot, ground ivy, ground elder, dandelions, heads and roots - these would stain our hands brown.

The stinging nettles were the worst to pick, but we gathered them cheerfully and carried the sacks up to the Blue House, where the lady (I think Miss Sawyer) would sort the herbs, clean them and then package them and dispatch them to London . This field was lovely in June, with ox-eyed daisy intermingling with the dainty ragged robin. We also sold cut flowers and paid mother for seeds each year, keeping the rest for pocket money.

In autumn we would pick acorns for the farmers to feed their pigs. This practice stopped after the 1939-45 war, for acorns tended to make the flesh slightly dark in colour. Another thing we did in autumn was to get up early and run bare of foot through the dew-soaked grass to gather mushrooms. There was always someone in the village willing to buy them.

On one of our holidays from school, Rex thought it would be a good idea to gather watercress from the all drainage ponds that were in most fields. This we were to sell. At the first pond, he leant over too far and fell in head first. By the time we had pulled him out and dried his clothes in the sun, it was getting dark, so we crept home to a good hiding.

The Bunny Trade
My sister Joyce and I were fortunate in getting a Saturday job. Two spinster ladies bred Angora rab­bits. These they kept in two ex-army huts. The hutches were four deep down each side of the huts. There were similar hutches in a double row through the middle.

Our task was to clean out the hutches and put in clean litter. I disliked the job, but the pay was good - 6d a day for each of us. These ladies also taught us to card the wool that they collected each time they groomed the rabbits. Later they taught us to spin it, ready for them to weave.

I was sad when after a disastrous fire they left the village. This reminds me of a childhood curse we were in the habit of using: 'May all your rabbits die'. I wonder if this went back to the 'cony burrow' days, two or three centuries ago when rabbits were imported by the wealthy to breed and sell the fur.

Investing in an apple tree
Father persuaded us to invest some of our pocket money in an apple tree. Rex (canny creature) bought a dessert apple tree. We girls, on father's advice, bought a Bramley each. He assured us we would have a good return for our money. Those three trees are still in the garden, although the place no longer belongs to us.