The man plowing here is my grand father, Eric Garner. I was having dinner with my Auntie Marjory after Christmas back in 2004 and asked here where the old crumpled photo of Eric that used to be in Eric’s kitchen cabinets was. She said that she had it and produced it with others in a matter of minutes.
Eric was a ‘Waggoner’, which means he worked on the farm with the horses all the time, plowing, carting etc. Unfortunately he died in 1980 so he never saw me farming. He farmed all his life working on the Leicester City Farms. He was not called up in the second world war because farming was a reserved occupation. Only just last year someone my Mum knows started telling us stories about Eric. She was in the ‘Girls Land Army’ during the second world war and told us how hard Eric made them work and how much fun it was. Many young girls worked on farms taking the place of farm hands that were called up to the army.
Our sons, Andrew and Eric are very pleased with these photos.
