Farming lessons at Rickety Bridge

I'm dipping into the my old files of Rickety Bridge history and they include one or two interviews. One I particularly enjoyed was the McNaughts who were then at Stoney Brook farm and doing rather well after their Rickety Bridge experience. When they bought Rickety Bridge, they were living and working in Grahamstown; Nigel as a doctor and Joy teaching at St Andrew's school.

They were both from Cape Town and on a visit to the Cape, Nigel found that Sanddrift/Rickety Bridge was for sale at an attractive price.

When Joy asked if they could afford it, Nigel told her that if they sold everything they had, borrowed from all their friends and took a mortgage they could just manage.

At first, Nigel’s father and mother moved on to the farm, Nigel’s father harvesting the fruit and sending it off to market. Unbeknown to them, pear sizes were critical and the price of grade 3, the smallest, didn’t cover the cost of sorting and instead of the expected cheque the McNaughts got a bill.
Undeterred, they stuck to the plan and learned more lessons about farming.

www.stonybrook.co.za

My research into Rickety Bridge and the state of the South African wine industry uncovered the unscrupulous dealings in all kinds of rot gut during the Napoleonic wars, which almost finished that industry when Napoleon was defeated and French wine became available in Britain. One must remember that soldiering often exposed soldiers to water of doubtful quality and, those who could afford it drank wine, even rot gut in preference to what could be scooped out of the open sewers that were rivers in those days. The result was that South African wine, quite deservedly gained a reputation fr being undrinkable except 'in extremis' and the farmers, like the Pepplers at what would become Rickety Bridge, were forced to turn turn to alternative crops - like milk and pork.
The picture is of the Rickety Bridge the winery is now named after.

www.sullatoberdalton.com/books

Included in the Hoogegelegen museum are some older farm implements, including a reaper that may have been horse drawn hanging on the wall.As I boy I remember it being a vicous looking machine which now and then cut the leg of a farm worker. The corn fell on the wooden platform, which was made up of slats and worked like a conveyor belt taking the cut corn to one side and leaving it in long rows.The horse equipment is intriguing, especially the piece meant to have two horses or oxen on one side and only one on the other.I'm afraid I don't know enough to explain how that worked. The scythe with the upper works I assume was meant to make sheaves as the reaper cut the corn.   

 www.sullatoberdalton.com/books

Irish tractor

During the war, with the farm labourers called up to the army, the government recruited girls for the Land Army to replace the men. When the girls got on to the normal tractor they pushed down on the accelerator, the tractor rreared up and fell over on top of them, killing several. The Irish came up with a solution - the white tractor in the picture. It has the rear bumper extended so that the tractor can only tip up so far. Strangely enough when the tractor reared up, the drivers grabbed the wheel and pushed even harder on the accelerator. When the bumper hit the ground it had a kind of whiplash effect and the driver went back, then forward and eased their foot on the accelerator. The tractor came down with a bone shaking bang but the driver was still in the driving seat.

www.sullatoberdalton.com/books