Category: General Interest Articles

75 Years at Wrinstone Farm

Aubrey Rees of Wrinstone Farm first encountered Gerry Crump when he gave the young 12 year old a lift home from the Sheep Dog Trials at Brynhill Farm, Barry. Little did they realise then that within a few years Gerry would have embarked on a career at Wrinstone Farm – one that was to span an amazing 75 years!

Early 1945 saw Gerry and his brother Ted strolling in the direction of Wrinstone Farm one Sunday afternoon. Gerry had always wanted to work on a farm. He had heard from Mr Thomas of Tarrws Farm that there was a possibility of a job at Wrinstone Farm. He was delighted when Aubrey agreed to employ him and shortly after that day Gerry started work on the farm.

Aubrey Rees lived with his wife Hilda, daughter Eileen (5) and 2½ year old son, Gwyn. Gerry soon became part of this happy farming family, sharing in their happy times and sad times over the decades. In fact Gerry’s mother always referred to Hilda as his second mum.

During the 1950’s Aubrey invested in a dairy herd. By now Eileen was busy working on the farm and when Gwyn left school he eagerly joined in with the farm work. Some years later Gwyn’s youngest son, Gareth, was also delighted to leave school to become a farmer.

Milk was taken in churns to the end of the lane, where it was collected, until about 1970 when a tanker started coming to the farm to transport the milk to Britton’s Dairies.

There are many examples of Gerry’s dedicated service to the Rees family. One special example was when he trudged across the fields to work and back home again, every day for 6 or 7 weeks. This happened during the severe weather and sub-zero temperatures of 1963 when the lane to the farm was blocked with snow drifts for many weeks.

Over the years Gerry has seen many changes on the farm. Rubber wheeled, large powerful tractors have replaced a Ford Standard tractor with steel wheels working alongside 3 horses (Punch, Jewel and Violet). There has been great advancement in farm machinery and long summer evenings pitching small hay bales are a distant memory!

Cattle numbers have increased gradually since the

dairy herd was sold in 2010. However, some things remain unchanged. Wrinstone Farm has always had field potatoes, cattle, chickens, a flock of sheep and, of course, sheep dogs!

During his long working life Gerry has always had great respect for his employers and their farm. He has maintained machinery with great care and has looked after the animals as if they were his own. Gerry has strived continuously to achieve high standards in all aspects of farm work and has always made his employers feel proud to have him.

Great commitment was rewarded when a long service medal was presented to Gerry in 1987 at the Royal Welsh Show. And he earned an award at the Vale Show in 2010 for 65 years of Service to Agriculture.

Gerry has now decided to take a well-deserved rest from farm work, but he will surely be spending many happy hours in his garden and with his wife, Phyllis.

Undoubtedly readers will agree that this story is not only special and remarkable – it is unique. Sadly Gwyn passed away almost two years ago, having spent many happy hours working with Gerry. He would certainly be so proud to have been able to share these congratulations to Gerry, on such a wonderful achievement. How many people do you know who have worked for the same family for 75 years, covering 3 generations of that family?

A Real Boy’s Own Adventure

In the Second World War an English officer, Major Paddy Leigh Fermor, parachuted into Crete to capture the German officer commanding the occupying forces, General Heinrich Kreipe. The mission was a success and the general was marched over the mountains to a waiting British boat and taken back to the Allied HQ in Cairo.

This was real “Boy Own Adventure” stuff and I had read about that daring raid when I was young. Now some friends and I were looking for an excuse to hike a long and interesting route and ideally one with a narrative. So we read again “Ill met by Moonlight” the book about the abduction written by the other British officer involved, Captain Billy Moss.

The year was 2005 and our general idea was to follow the route taken by the captors. I wanted to ask the advice of Paddy who was then aged 90 and living in a house he had designed and built in Greece. It was rather more difficult getting hold of him than I expected. After some fruitless attempts, I contacted his publisher John Murray who suggested I contact Artemis Cooper, Paddy’s biographer, and she kindly gave me his telephone number in Greece. I couldn’t wait to see if he would reply and so I called that night and sure enough, the great man answered straight away. I explained that we were going to follow his footsteps across Crete and he seemed rather pleased and kindly offered to send me his original wartime maps.

Just days later the maps arrived in a plain brown envelope with Greek stamps. His landing place was marked with a small parachute and a boat was drawn on the coast where they departed with General Kreipe. This was enough to spur me on and in no time, I had assembled a group of friends and we flew to Crete. Although we went in the spring the days were hot as we walked across the arid slopes following closely the path taken by Paddy in 1944.

One morning we were deep in the countryside, walking along a rough unmade road when we heard a commotion ahead of us. As we approached we could make out singing in Greek and soon we came to a site where several families had come together to celebrate a religious feast day. They pressed us to join them and soon we had glasses of wine or ouzo thrust upon us. The children were chasing dogs as some men were roasting goats, split in two, and hung up on wooden stakes beside a massive open fire. The meat was going to take another hour or more to cook so we thanked them for their hospitality and walked on.

Later that day we arrived at the Anogia, the largest village in Crete and the scene of a dreadful massacre in August 1944 when, in retaliation for the killing of a German officer, a decree was issued by the German high command that every male in the village, and any male caught within a kilometre of the village, would be killed. In a matter of days, 117 men of the village were murdered and every house in the village was blown up or set on fire. When we walked into the village we paid our respects at the war memorial, listing the names of the dead, and sat in the square to relax and have a drink. We were soon introduced to the mayor of the village who insisted on buying us beers and, in turn, we told him about our walk and how we were inspired by Paddy Leigh Fermor. The mayor became very interested and knew all about Filidem, which was his Greek nickname. It occurred to me that Paddy would love a live update about our progress and in no time I called up Paddy on my mobile phone and, after explaining where we were, I gave the phone to the mayor whose face lit up as he realised he was talking to the man himself.

So our days continued, walking in the heat and in the afternoon looking for a place to spend the night. One particular day the four of us came across a high wire fence, built to keep goats out. It ran as far as the eye could see in both directions and was about six foot high. Surprisingly our small party had split up and I soon found that the others had somehow crossed it to the far side. But I could find no way over it or around it and the more I ran around trying the hotter and crosser I became. Finally, I saw a small gap at a post and, pulling the wire away, I managed to squeeze through. By now I was hot, sweaty and very fed up. I had no idea where the others were. So I walked on and came to a grove of cherry trees. There was a rusty pickup truck and its two occupants were up makeshift ladders collecting cherries. They had some black umbrellas upside down, hanging from the branches by the handle. Into these, they were lobbing ripe cherries. They asked me to help myself and so I lay down in the shade of a tree and dropped cool cherries into my mouth until my temper and temperature cooled down. Those were the juiciest and tastiest cherries in the whole world and I have never forgotten their flavour.

(Editor’s footnote)

“Ill met by Moonlight” is a quotation from “A Midsummer  Night’s Dream. When the book was  published in 1950, it was selected by W. Somerset Maugham as one of the best three books of that year writing,”more thrilling than any detective story I can remember, and written in a modest and most engaging manner”.

The Story Of A Steak Sandwich

It had been another long hot day in central Africa, and I was driving a fast RIB – a rigid inflatable boat – down the river Congo at full speed. We were flying across the water, but I was steering carefully between the floating clumps of water hyacinth as we headed downstream to the capital city of Kinshasa.

We had started early, and I had loaded extra cans of petrol on board as it was a long push from our campsite at the side of the river to reach Kinshasa, but the leader of our expedition needed to be there as soon as possible. There were three of us in the small boat and the floor was literally covered in petrol cans. The cool of the morning soon warmed by the inevitable sun and by mid-morning it was baking hot. The metal petrol cans were too hot to touch, but thankfully the Mercury outboard was pushing us along at about 30 knots, so the rushing air was keeping us reasonably cool.

The first few hours saw us speeding along the calm river. Waves or rapids would have slowed us down but here the river was running deep and the surface was flat. The banks here were jungle and the trees really came down into the water, I am not sure if they were all mangrove trees but there are three types of mangrove and we probably passed them all. It was the same on both sides of the river which in this area was a couple of hundred metres wide. We were making good time.

We drank from our water bottles as we didn’t really have time to stop and make a brew of tea. It would have taken too long to gather the wood to make the fire to boil the water. The problem with our water is that it came from the river and it was best to strain it in a muslin filter to take out the animal and vegetable matter that was present. There were about 20 grains of foreign matter in each litre of water. So we strained the water and then put it in our water bottles along with chlorination tablets to purify it and kill any germs. The good news was that the water was now palatable, but the bad news was that it was like drinking disinfectant. But we needed to drink in that heat to stay well.

Our eyes were always sweeping ahead, partly to avoid hitting an object in the river and partly to see if we could catch sight of any wildlife on the banks such as hippos or monkeys in the trees. At the same time, we would look for landmarks to try and pinpoint our position. About the time we felt we were nearing the city we began to see some high-rise buildings poking out on the horizon above the great moabi, iroko, ebony and mahogany trees that formed the jungle canopy.

After another thirty minutes, we came upon the long dirty brown wharves where wood, palm oil and vegetables were unloaded from the river barges. Then further on we saw the manicured bright green lawns of what turned out to be a smart yacht club, with many small and larger boats bobbing on their moorings. Above the lawns was a single storey clubhouse neatly painted and with bright flags flying from an impressively tall flagpole. This seemed to be a sensible place to tie up and find a vehicle to take us into the city and to the British Embassy who were expecting us.

It was about midday and we had been on the river for over four hours and I was starving. Breakfast had been a rotten plastic mug of tea and some dried biscuits and I was looking forward to grabbing a bite to eat wherever we could. Having secured the boat, we walked up to the Clubhouse and were rather conscious of our scruffy appearance in soiled and sweaty shirts and petrol stained cotton trousers below which were wet boots dripping with river water. We must have looked an odd and unusual sight to the kindly barman who stood on the veranda as we approached. He was a Congolese man of about forty who spoke fluent French and was dressed in smart dark trousers with a white jacket, white shirt and bow tie. I briefly explained who we were in my stumbling French as he ushered us through the doors of Kinshasa Yacht Club into the bar area. Coming in from the strong sunlight my eyes adjusted to take in the fine carpet and comfortable looking armchairs around us but more exciting was the bar promising cold drinks and possibly food? I asked, with some trepidation, if there was anything we could eat for lunch to which I heard the immortal reply “Would sir like a steak sandwich?”. As the barman called the order to the chef in the adjacent kitchen, he poured the first chilled larger into a frosted glass and I was at the gates of heaven. The succulent steak sandwich soon arrived – a tender piece of sirloin steak in a fresh baguette. It was delicious and how hard it was to eat slowly. In no time at all the glass was dry and the taxi was waiting to take us to the Embassy – the spell was broken.

Kindly contributed by a Wenvoe resident