The Rural Voice, 1980-06, Page 5Hired men from a girl's point of view
BY Celia Chandler, 14, R.R.3, Wingham
When, in the fall of 1974 I first heard
that we were advertising for a hired man in
a British farming paper, I had mixed
feelings. My father had been managing our
200 acre dairy farm and milking 30-35
cattle twice daily for the previous 10 years
with the help of my 1 brother and three
sisters. They were one by one leaving
home and dad felt he needed help. Being
British himself and wanting to help young
Englishmen, this is where he advertised.
Now many of you young female readers
would probably jump at the chance of
having an eligible young man totally
unrelated living in for a period of time, but
believe me, it's no Low i of cherries!
When the replies first started rolling in
we sorted them into piles of definitely
outs', and maybes', The definitely outs'
were a group of men who had had little or
no farming experience and only wanted to
get out of England. 'Maybes' all received
replies and were given either the address
of my father's or mother's parents.
My grandparents live in England and
were happy to have the opportunity to meet
people as well as being convenient
interviewers. Finally we chose one out of
the original fifty replies. This man was
extremely English and called us colonia-
lists. He was also very quiet and most
difficult with whom to make conversation.
After eighteen months of work, he found
he preferred working with large machinery
and since we don't have any, he left to
work for a custom operator.
So our search for hired help commenced
again. We again advertised in England and
in the meantime we hired my brother to
help with the fall ploughing. To this
advertisement we received 125 answers
and after sorting and resorting we still had
two choices. Fnally dad flipped a coin. This
hired man, in my estimation, was a big
mistake! He constantly teased me and soon
began staying out late every night. After
five months, we were again minus help.
It was the middle of August and we were
desperately in need of an employee.
Dad, doing his bit for women's liberaton
and also making it difficult for me to call
this story Hired Men(from a school girl's.
point of view) decided to temporarily hire a
sixteen year old girl. Sherry and I got along
like sisters and she stayed for four months
We stayed without hglp for the winter and
in early spring hired a twenty -eight-year.
old University graduate. He was quiet but
very easy to get along with. Farming w:i�
definitely his 'thing' because in the fall, hi
quit to buy a farm of his own.
We survived without an employee until
the early spring when we hired a very
friendly, pleasant girl. We were very
happy with her and she fit in well with our
lifestyle. Mary -Ann however left in the
following August to work as a
Veterinarian's Receptionist.
After her departure,' we had great
difficulties in finding anyone satisfactory
and following one rather unfortunate
incident where a young short-term
employee seemed to think cows only had to
be milked ten times per week, (he didn't
want to work weekends) we settled on
rehiring my brother. He only stayed until
the fall work was completed and then we
carefully looked around for another
employee. It was not crucial that we have
help because dad can handle the winter
work alone. Mary -Anne came back to do
'weekend work' when she was asked.
In February of this year, we hired a high
school drop-out from Wyoming, Ontario.
He seems to be working out well and we all
hope he stays at least until the autumn
work is finished.
1 don't know whether we've had
extremely poor luck, or whether dad is not
a good employer but having eight different
people working on one tarm in a time span
of five years isn't a very good record. Let's
hope things start looking up and we can
find a permanent hired man. Is there such
a thing?
ROSE ANN MACHAN, 10
BLYTH PUBLIC SCHOOL
THE RURAL VOICE/JUNE 1980 PG. 3