Youth Movements, Citizenship and the English Countryside by Sian Edwards

Author:Sian Edwards
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

Therefore, young people took on an important and paradoxical role in the future of rural society. On the one hand, they were seen as the cause of its decline, deserting their agricultural heritage for the benefits of urban living. On the other, they could (with the right training) be responsible for its survival.

It was the opinion of many at this time that rural youth needed to be trained in the virtues of rural, particularly agricultural, living and prepared for their role in the farming business. It was hoped that by doing so early on, the lure of the towns could be counteracted. As Mr W.E Brumfield of the East Riding of Yorkshire National Farmers Union (NFU) wrote in a July 1937 issue of Farmer and Stockbreeder ; ‘Men have been driven into the towns, and once they leave the land they very rarely come back. … There is only one remedy: catch ’em young and keep them.’55 This was certainly the view of the YFC organization, which aimed to instil in the youth of the countryside an enthusiasm for and proficiency in the agricultural trade through a programme of lectures, debates and demonstrations, as well as socials and sports events, hoping that this would stop the progress of the drift from the land . In doing so, the clubs were providing an education and preparation for expectations and duties of citizenship, which, for rural boys, was directly linked to their future role in agriculture and in rural community life. The activities provided by the clubs were dual in nature. They provided both an educational arena for future farmers and, as we have seen, a recreational aspect for socialization.

The educational strand of the movement was imperative in preparing boys for their future role in agriculture. Boys were given lectures and demonstrations in many things, including stock-rearing, including calf-, sheep- and pig-rearing, as well as lectures on crops, fertilizers and farm business management. Members were encouraged to take pride and care in these activities and were often given their own ‘charges’, for example, a calf, pig or plot of land, to rear or cultivate on their own.56 They would then be encouraged to show their progress at local, and sometimes national, agricultural shows and enter their animals into competitions. The movement, therefore, was encouraging them to take pride in their work and in the agricultural industry by introducing them to others with the same interests.

As well as encouraging an interest in the agricultural trade, the movement also hoped to improve the standard and overall efficiency of farming, and framed this through a discourse of modernization.57 As a delegate from America told the YFC conference in London in 1930, ‘we do not need more farmers, but we want better farming, and the way to secure this is to catch the future farmers when they are young and teach them to be better farmers than their fathers.’58 Activities such as livestock-rearing were hugely important to this, teaching boys how to rear good-quality animals. A

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