Many thanks to Sally Reckert, Richmondshire Museum who has passed on the following stories about 'bringing the drinkins' out to people working in the fields at harvest time. If you have any memories of your own that we can add here, email us marking your email for the attention of the Hay Time Festival co-ordinator.
"How well I remember hay time and harvest time from mid 40's to mid 50's. I certainly often took the drinks out to the field workers in an enamelled can with spout and carrying handle.I think it might have been cocoa in the mornings ( mid morning ) with scones and gingerbread - as this was always served at morning 'drinking time ' in our house.
The afternoon can would be tea - again as the usual afternoon tea time in the house. I expect that food would be jam sandwiches at this time .The drink would be hot leaving the house but sometimes there was a good 10 minutes walk so it would not be so hot on arrival in the field - but the air temperatures always seemed to be warm on these work days so the can of liquid was probably a good drinking temperature. I remember that we used to buy lemonade and dandelion and burdock form the village shop and this was sometimes available in the field.
The 'drinking time' corresponded with the normal 'breaks ' in the farm working day. By the way I lived in Cumbria and not in the Yorkshire Dales."
"One interviewee remembers the farmer's wife rolling across the fields in her car, opening the boot to reveal baked goods, particularly rock cakes, these were for potato picking week and the elevenses (Skeeby, lower Swaledale) and tea was always in the field with sweet goods - cakes, fruit pies and of course rock cakes and tea in thermos, interviewee was seven (she's 44 now) her father a farm hand and she had picked up potatoes all day, after that she preferred helping the farmer's wife hand out the goods. The villagers who supplied the labour always went home for the main meals. When she was 14 she had to supply her own sandwiches (working for another farmer) and it always rained.
Somebody else mentioned that the break was called 'dockins' because those who were paid had their wages docked for the duration of the break.
Beetroot sandwiches and potato pies, apple pies were remembered by several people."
Hear more hay time memories by visiting the My Yorkshire website, a joint digital storytelling project partnering museums, libraries and archives.
Stories you can listen to include hay making in the Dales, baling in Swaledale and memories of the winter of 1947. Pupils at Wensleydale School interviewed local people with help from the Dales Countryside Museum as part of the school's 'History Revisited: Back to the 50's' project, a Comenius Partnership Project funded by the British Council. The My Yorkshire project is funded by Renaissance Yorkshire.
