I’ve been on a roll with old photos recently, and as this period of my life was about the only time I could ever be described as even remotely cute, I thought I’d post this picture of a chubby thighed me in around 1951

Taken on a farm, tucked underneath the Downs near Wiston in Sussex, where my Uncle Mike worked as the cowman, it’s shows a time when farming methods had hardly changed, other than the introduction of mechanical reapers and threshers and tractors supplanting horses, since medieval times

It’s a lovely childhood memory picture, but importantly  it also anchors me personally in that great sweep of history, as it shows the very end of an era. Within just a couple of years, combine harvester and balers had confined that scene to ancient history, as I’m standing beside what was very probably some of the last ‘stooking’ of corn in Sussex.

Oh, and I’m also sorry if all sounds, well, a bit Laurie Lee as well.