Margaret and I arrived at Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse, to meet up with some very old friends of Margaret, Pat and David, who were exhibiting some veteran farm machinery. David is a retired engineer and he spends a lot of time restoring and renovating these elderly machines, and they have a lot of fun touring and exhibiting them.
Today at Gressenhall there was a forties display with many people dressed in authentic clothing and many different forces uniforms from British Home Guard to USA troops with many military vehicles.
We entered the workhouse grounds and we were suddenly surrounded by military vehicles with men in uniform looking after them. These were original jeeps, lorries, tanks and many vintage cars. This gave us a wonderful flavour of the wartime and the forties events to come. We caught sight of the famous Winston Churchill, lookalike chatting to someone next to a vintage car. There were several stalls selling forties memorabilia along the field as we walked through and we made a mental note to visit these at some point during the day.
We entered the workhouse grounds and we were suddenly surrounded by military vehicles with men in uniform looking after them. These were original jeeps, lorries, tanks and many vintage cars. This gave us a wonderful flavour of the wartime and the forties events to come. We caught sight of the famous Winston Churchill, lookalike chatting to someone next to a vintage car. There were several stalls selling forties memorabilia along the field as we walked through and we made a mental note to visit these at some point during the day.
We crossed a main road and entered the workhouse farm where we hoped to find David and Pat. There was a very interesting wartime Girl-guides camp, and two ladies were busy cooking and preparing the evening meal for the young guides. The guides were marching up and down the camp-site. Margaret was very interested in this as she was a girl-guide when she was at school. Margaret spent some time chatting to the ladies and re-living old times.
We passed a couple of very friendly goats chewing the grass in a field and one goat with very long horns put his head on the fence in a wonderful friendly gesture. In the next field there was an army encampment and soldiers in uniform were marching up and down.
We finally found Pat and Dave in a barn with their machines set up and noisily working well. There was a vintage flour making machine, the corn was fed into the top and plain flour was deposited from the other end. Dave had also brought an apple press, a machine that converts whole apples into juice.
We sat down and enjoyed a packed lunch with Pat and Dave, Margaret had prepared some sandwiches and we had crisps and chocolate bars, washed down with some tea provided by Pat.
We sat down and enjoyed a packed lunch with Pat and Dave, Margaret had prepared some sandwiches and we had crisps and chocolate bars, washed down with some tea provided by Pat.
After lunch we passed by the farmhouse cottage and garden on our way to a marquee where there was a performance of wartime songs and music, by a wonderful group of musicians called "Timescape". We have enjoyed their music before and I have several small videos of them singing the wonderful wartime songs. We sat through a couple of wartime Churchill speeches delivered by the lookalike who didn't quite sound right, but the words were stirringly authentic.
We then passed through the cottage garden again on our way to the village green where we found some people doing some wartime dances in classic forties costume.
We then visited Dave and Pat in their barn and spent some time with them before making our way to have a good look around the cottage garden and the orchard.
We enjoyed seeing and photographing some of the many wonderful farm animals and the display of farming implements.
We enjoyed seeing and photographing some of the many wonderful farm animals and the display of farming implements.
We stopped and chatted with a man who was dressed in the rough working clothes of a shepherd and he was demonstrating how it felt to live in a shepherds house, which was little more than a shed on wheels.
We then went to watch a display of shire horses ploughing a field using an authentic iron plough. It was fascinating to see the ploughman driving the shire horses from one end of the field to the other, leaving perfectly straight furrows. This is not an easy task as sometimes the horses can get very unruly and refuse to take part.
We wandered around the farm admiring the animals and the quite sophisticated way the farming was carried out in days gone by.
There was a wonderful vintage car displayed in one of the barns, a highly polished well looked-after vintage car that is frequently driven in rallies. We spent some time chatting to the proud exhibitor before dropping by to visit Pat and Dave again to say goodbye.
There was a wonderful vintage car displayed in one of the barns, a highly polished well looked-after vintage car that is frequently driven in rallies. We spent some time chatting to the proud exhibitor before dropping by to visit Pat and Dave again to say goodbye.
We wandered back through the exhibits, and found some more people in uniform dancing and having fun around the American vehicles. This has been a very interesting wonderfully informative day.
We then made our way to the car park and collected our car and made our way home.