In his personal view of English farming from 1937 to 1949, Hugh Barrett takes us back to the assortment of farms with which he was involved from his late teens. Managing pig units, arable enterprises and horticultural ventures, he encountered gentlemen farmers, land settlement smallholders, wartime profiteers and refugees, until he came to Appleacre Farm in West Suffolk.
There with fourteen men and two boys, rooted in the traditions of horse-drawn farming, he found himself using for the first time combines and weedkillers; agriculture was changing for ever.
Hugh Barrett’s thoughtful, sometimes romantic account is rich with the details of the people he met and the way he farmed, a long-awaited sequel to Early to Rise which dealt with his days as a farm pupil.
"Remarkably authentic throughout. An illuminating read combining earthiness with vision" - Ronald Blythe