This is an authentic first-hand account of life as a sixteen-year-old farm pupil in the early 1930s. In Suffolk, as elsewhere, the tractor had not yet displaced the horse, farms were full of labourers and the working day was long and hard.
Hugh Barrett 'lived in', received five shillings a week and learned to plough, build a stack, hoe beet and grind the pig food. His accounts of rabbits, rats and plagues of fleas are, like all the book, factually accurate and told with humour.
Early to Rise has been in print almost continuously since 1967. It has now been joined by a sequel, A Good Living, in which Hugh describes his mixed fortunes managing a wide range of farms during wartime.
"Hugh Barrett's delightful autobiography has remained to myself and to many East Anglians one of the most truthful and unflinching views of our countryside." - Ronald Blythe