Tractor heritage, news and features

Waste not, want not...

I don’t imagine that she’s a vintage tractor owner, but she’s certainly someone who has done a lot to make those in Parliament aware of the frequently overlooked needs and rights of country folk. Of course not everyone will agree with her views on hunting, but I don’t think anyone can deny that she’s someone with a good old, no nonsense, ‘tough as old boots’ attitude. Hers is the sort of character that made Britain Great, I think. She doesn’t believe in whinging, she doesn’t believe in waste, and she doesn’t believe that people living in cities should be telling people in the countryside how to live. In her book ‘How to Live a Greener Life’ she takes a completely common sense view of green issues – suggesting for instance that we wear more woolly jumpers (made of British wool of course) instead of turning up the central heating, and that we clean our kitchen surfaces with vinegar rather than buying some highly packaged, expensive chemical cocktail to do the same job. 

I imagine that Clarissa Dickson Wright would be the sort of person who would make frequent use of sayings like ‘Waste not want not’ – beliefs which are no doubt second nature to a certain generation who haven’t grown up in the wasteful society that we now live in. Of course using vinegar and lemon juice to clean things is nothing new, but ideas like that are having to be sold to us as new, because it is often the case that these old ways haven’t been passed down and have become lost knowledge.

My late father used to talk a great deal about the old people he knew when he was a child, and from him I’d learn about the ways some people did things before his time. I recall him telling me about a man up the lane who never bought this new fangled stuff called ‘toothpaste’ instead he would get his toothbrush, and reach up the chimney with it and pick up a good scoop of soot. Then he’d clean his teeth with that, giving his mouth a good rinse out afterwards of course. On reflection that might be one tradition better left where it is. He also told me about how the old Welsh ladies would polish up their slate doorsteps with a handful of dock leaves. The juice in the plants would give the slate a good black colour, and I suppose at the same time you would be getting rid of a few weeds from around your doorstep too.

My dad couldn’t be described as green, but he certainly hated waste. He was always making things, and one thing he used to make was his own ‘creosote substitute’. He’d mix old used engine oil with a splash of red diesel and paint that on any wood posts and fences we had, and even on exposed bits of metal too. He couldn’t bear the thought of any wood being unprotected outside, and was known even to paint the bottoms of fence posts with this mixture before putting them in the ground. Judging by the amount of dead plants that surrounded these fences this stuff was just as harmful as the real thing, but of course it was virtually free, which made it much better than the real thing!

When I bought my first tractor I was living near Aberdaron in West Wales. I wanted an open fronted shed to put it in, so I bought some used tin sheets and some untreated larch poles from a nearby woodland, as that was the cheapest way to get myself a shed. I got the four uprights in the ground, but I needed help with the roof timbers. With my father’s words ringing in my ears I had painted each post and pole with copious amounts of old engine oil, in the hope that this would make the wood last. I’d even gone to the trouble of painting each slightly rusty corrugated iron sheet with the gloopy black mixture, that’s how keen I was. When my friend arrived to help me get the roof timbers in place he was not a bit impressed to find himself totally covered in ‘country creosote’, as were all the tools, the step ladder, etc, etc. These days I try to wait until we have actually finished building something before I get the tin of old oil out.

If you know any old country ways (good or bad!) that you’d like to pass on why not contact the magazine?