As part of my putative book I have themes, 80 years, good or bad. One is agriculture, and I have been digging through 50 years of articles. Loads of changes, and loads of ‘negatives’ which have modern parallels, only worse.

This picture was taken in 1968, the day before we had needed a boat. The river had burst its banks, rose 16 feet overnight. We were ruined, corn combined, luckily, but  straw in trees, potatoes rotted. We survived, charity from the borough for the worst sufferers, and suppliers who had faith in us and saw us through. Then came 1976 drought, escaped ruin again. All through this time I wrote articles, some moany, some funny. This one, from 1981, has modern day parallels, pestered by publicity. The heading will become obvious.

If Bowater Containers (a packaging company) did not give us a motto calendar every year I should be frequently stuck for the opening of an article. Come to think of it, might be simpler to buy the calendar and forgo the packaging, but cruel and counter productive. I was talking of taking the office with me, even in France, although no mobile phones. Even Prince Philip was heard to complain of ’Living above the shop’. Now many people work from home, they are spared the ‘rep’ who may no longer exist, but not being badgered by telephone publicity.

If you had a permanent manned office a diligent receptionist who combined the attributes of a Doberman and MI5 they can weed out unwanted visitors. Excessive diligence can leave the MD alone in his ivory tower, sending inter-office memos, feeling unloved and waiting for lunch. Recent Moodscopers have mentioned these individuals who try and stop you ever getting an appointment with the doctor or getting somebody who can, or will, attend to your complaint. I would have loved to have been a well off Victorian lady, spying an unwanted visitor from her drawing room window, could tell the butler that ‘Madame, even Lady X, was not at home’.

Both our farms were in a permanent stage of siege. We ordered most commodities yearly, but the reps felt duty bound to come round personally ‘just in case’. Ours came when I was feeding the baby, or at tea-time, they knew there was always a freshly baked fruit cake on the menu.

Salesmen had a Japanese attitude to sales, politeness first, then business. I combined both, loaded them in the Land Rover, then a rough ride round the farm, deterred some, but others got carried away by our range of bird-life, and came back for more. 

I felt like taking a pop star attitude, dark glasses, play hard to get, and install one way glass. A good deterrent is suggesting the rep assist with unloading a lorry load of hay, boxes, even bricks once. I finished the article thus: Meanwhile, I am in the market for quotations for drawbridges, three to start with. Boiling pitch will come later. What is your weapon against publicity? 

The Gardener

A Moodscope member