Memorable Encounters by John Nott

Author:John Nott [Nott, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781526751164
Google: 1biTwgEACAAJ
Amazon: B07NJ2YTCC
Goodreads: 46027206
Publisher: Pen & Sword Discovery
Published: 2018-01-15T11:10:37+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Billy Collins

Cornish farmer

When my wife and I first bought our farm, Trewinnard, in Cornwall in 1975, we were surrounded by small farmers. A minority, perhaps, were tenants of the three big landlords in the area: the St Aubyns of St Michael’s Mount, the Bolithos of Trengwainton near Penzance and Lord Falmouth of Tregothnan near Truro. But the greater number were single family-owned holdings of around fifty acres. Our neighbour Billy Collins assists us on our farm today. The son of a local farmer himself, he appears to me inseparable from the land; in this essay I therefore afford myself the luxury of combining the subject of farming in Cornwall – close to my heart – with a salute to a notable individual who has devoted all his life to that occupation and who has been successful in rapidly changing times.

Billy’s grandfather was a gardener at St Michael’s Mount, and when he told Lord St Levan (St Aubyn) of his wish to farm, his generous and paternalistic employer give him twelve acres of land overlooking Mount’s Bay. He worked on the roads to supplement his income and was given access to a quarry, where he took responsibility for blasting road stone.

When Billy’s father took over in 1956 he was farming fifty-two acres, and Billy followed his father after leaving school. I first met them when they purchased an old combine harvester and supplemented their income by harvesting crops on neighbouring farms, including ours. The grain was only used as cattle feed for the twelve farmers in Marazion parish, all of whom are now gone.

Slowly, over the years, Billy purchased extra land and rented more where he could. Back in 1968 they had twenty cows and were growing twenty acres of cauliflower, which all went to local shops via wholesale markets. This market gardening was made possible by the frost-free land overlooking Mount’s Bay – and they avoided the disease of brassicas called club root by dressing the land regularly with seaweed from the adjoining beach, and sand.

Billy made an interesting observation when he told me that seaweed is in poor supply today. He speculated as to whether this was due to pollution of the seabed by chemicals following the nearby Torrey Canyon oil tanker disaster of 1967, or more likely from the absence of sewage in the sea following the establishment of sewage farms on land.

Today he is farming around 500 acres, which includes our farm of around 180 acres, and he is combining up to 700 acres with two modern combine harvesters for neighbouring farmers. As a former businessman, I am appalled when I visit his farmyard and see what must amount to over £1 million worth of tractors, harvesters, cold stores and equipment! The farm is entirely a family enterprise; there is no outside labour apart from the six piecework labourers from Eastern Europe who work in the fields on vegetables.

The enterprise has been successful partly because we are blessed with good early land, earlier than the rest of the country, and because of a good rotation of crops.

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