Metadata
WORK ID: NEFA 17048 (Master Record)
Title | Year | Date |
NEWSVIEW FARMERS DIARY: DAY IN THE LIFE OF A FARMERS WIFE | 1965 | 1965-01-01 |
Details
Original Format: 16mm Colour: Black & White Sound: Mute Duration: 4 min 37 sec Credits: Organisations: Tyne Tees Television Genre: TV News Subject: Rural Life Architecture |
Summary A Tyne Tees Television news feature about a day in the life of a farmer's wife, originally broadcast on 12 February 1965. The report shows her involved in a number of farm duties, cooking for the family, domestic life with the children and night's out at the local pub with her husband. The item was filmed in Weardale near to the small market town of Wolsingham. |
Description
A Tyne Tees Television news feature about a day in the life of a farmer's wife, originally broadcast on 12 February 1965. The report shows her involved in a number of farm duties, cooking for the family, domestic life with the children and night's out at the local pub with her husband. The item was filmed in Weardale near to the small market town of Wolsingham.
The report opens from an adjacent field showing a farmhouse in the middle distance. A panning shot follows from right to...
A Tyne Tees Television news feature about a day in the life of a farmer's wife, originally broadcast on 12 February 1965. The report shows her involved in a number of farm duties, cooking for the family, domestic life with the children and night's out at the local pub with her husband. The item was filmed in Weardale near to the small market town of Wolsingham.
The report opens from an adjacent field showing a farmhouse in the middle distance. A panning shot follows from right to left showing a large out-building. Inside a woman carrying a bucket walks through a doorway. She puts the bucket beneath a tap near the doorway and turns on the water. She mixes a white creamy liquid in the bucket. She then opens a nearby pen where there are some young calves. One of the calves feeds from the mixture in the bucket. The woman takes another bucket containing a similar mixture away. The film cuts to outdoors, and the woman now wearing an overcoat, walking towards a trough in a field. A small flock of sheep run towards the camera. They feed from the trough as the woman looks on. She then walks away carrying the bucket.
The film cuts to a small group of hens, and then to the hen house as one of the hens goes inside. Inside the hen house the woman collects eggs from nesting boxes. She leaves and closing the doors behind her and walks across the field towards the farmhouse.
Inside her husband and two young sons eat breakfast at a table next to a window. The woman fries bacon using a large Aga kitchen range. She carries a plate of bacon over to the table and gives it to her husband. The man and woman chat across the table as their children eat. The woman takes some ‘Weetabix’ out of a packet and puts it in the bowl in front of her.
The film then cuts to show the man loading milk churns into his Standard Vanguard station wagon. One of the young boys leaves the main door of the farmhouse and the woman watches him as he descends the steps. She waves goodbye as the boy gets into the station wagon.
The film cuts to the woman ‘mucking out’ in a cow byre. She pushes a wheelbarrow full of muck out of the byre and across the farmyard. She empties the barrow next to a high drystone wall, then walks off pulling the barrow behind her. The film cuts to the inside of another building where she removes her coat. She hangs it on the back of a door. She turns to a low metal sink where she washes some milking equipment in soapy water.
The film then cuts to the woman filling buckets with dry pellets. In another room she hangs the buckets from hooks attached to beams on the ceiling. The film cuts briefly to the head of a cow, then cuts again to the woman outside herding a flock of sheep through a gate into a field. She follows the herd carrying a stick. A sheepdog runs ahead of her chasing the flock. The flock continues on its way, keeping close to a stone wall.
Back in the farmhouse the woman and her husband sit at a bureau going through some paperwork.
The film cuts to an exterior view at night, showing a pub sign ‘The Black Bull Inn’. The entrance is lit by a small lantern which reads ‘Vaux’s Ales’. Another shot of the pubs name’ The Black Bull’ this time painted on a white wall.
Inside the busy pub, couples sit around small tables talking and drinking. A man serves drinks from a tray. The man and woman from the farm sit and talk to their friends. A small band plays, consisting of two saxophone players, and accordionist and a pianist. The woman and her husband join others on the busy dance floor. The large room or hall used for the dance is decorated for Christmas with a tree and some bunting suspended from the ceiling.
The film ends with a still shot of the farmhouse.
Context
A farmer’s wife is made of sturdy stuff. As dawn breaks on a frosty winter morning in Weardale, her working day begins at Baal Hill House Farm, dishing out breakfast to livestock and family. This mute newsreel footage for Tyne Tees Television reveals the role of women as tough but vital in the small farming communities of County Durham. Baal Hill farmhouse was a bastlehouse built in the late sixteenth century with a wide stairway leading to a well defended first floor doorway. The house is...
A farmer’s wife is made of sturdy stuff. As dawn breaks on a frosty winter morning in Weardale, her working day begins at Baal Hill House Farm, dishing out breakfast to livestock and family. This mute newsreel footage for Tyne Tees Television reveals the role of women as tough but vital in the small farming communities of County Durham. Baal Hill farmhouse was a bastlehouse built in the late sixteenth century with a wide stairway leading to a well defended first floor doorway. The house is described in the 1879 directory as 'an ancient peel-house, or fort, which served as a watch tower, and a shelter both for man and beast during the raids of the northern moss-troopers'.
References: http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/learningzone/lz/wolsingham.aspx |