Part 2.

So now my brother in law Jim was Farm Manager to the Belton Estate owned by Lord Brownlow. (Edward Cust)
Things were no different workwise as he had been in charge more or less from the day he started. It did mean though that they had to move into the village where the Farm House was situated. Next door lived the Canon of Grantham retired I should say, living in the samehouse was the Archbishop of Canterbury's Sister. The front door of the Farmhouse was at right angle to the next door.
It was something of a surprise when one day Jim noticed the Archbishop of Canterbury was next door. It appeared that he occasionally came up to the village to visit his Sister. He came incognito and had, as far as anybody could tell, no police protection. By the way. His name was I think Ronald Runcie. He was the Archbishop who performed the wedding ceremony at the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
One day my Sister and Jim were out in the back garden, the Archbishop was there and started a shortish conversation, stating how nice the roses were looking and the runner beans looked nice. Jim gave him some runner beans. When they went back indoors, my Mother who was staying there stated she had no intention of meeting him.
A couple of mornings later. my Mother in her dressing gown went to the front door to get the milk in, Youv'e guessed it as she was about to pick the milk up the next door opened. Archbishop was about to do the same, get the milk. He looked up to see my Mother. just said,"Good morning" My Mother replied and he then remarked, "Lovely day isn't it?" My Mother said yes and hurriedly closed the door. She then realised that she had been seen by the Archbishop of Canterbury in her dressing gown.
I was invited to Christmas every year and it was our job, Jim and I to feed the cattle, they did not take them into the sheds until early January. It was good, I enjoyed riding on the rear of a tractor, then on the trailer, slinging out lots of hay for the cattle to feed on. In January they were bought into the sheds for calving. The herd size was about 120. Every bull calf was castrated. They just put a ring round it's testicles and they rotted off. When the bullocks were about 18 months old, they were sold for slaughter. The female calves were kept. All they were interested was getting the herd larger, it was just a store cattle herd. If a calf died, Jim would milk the heifer and of course use it. I found out also, that for every calf born a subsidy of £100 was paid. I do not know if this was for bull calfs too.
I was there regular during the winter months and enjoyed most of it although it was hard work.
Now this incident happened during the spring when I had started to work so was not going over to see them.
According to them this is what happened. There was a a firm from Scandinavia, I think from Sweden, but not sure. Anyway they were over here testing the land to see if there was any oil available underground. They had been in this country for several months and around Lord Brownlow's grounds was to be the last check. According to Jim, they laid a long cable then fired a sort of charge and then the results were checked by computer. Remember the sensitive area? Well when the saw all these vehicles with foreign number plates phoned the Grantham Police and asked them to investigate. They duly did so and immediately noticed that the special tax discs that allowed them to stay in this country had run out. They were due to leave the country within the next week to go to the Carribean. This was postponed
The Police immediately impounded all of the vehicles. This included the managers cars as well as the trucks, about 8 vehicles in all. They were told to put them in the Farm yard and Jim was instructed to make sure the gate was locked. The outcome of it all was the firm had to pay all of the Road Tax Licence and also fines. The total was in excess of £2500. This was about 1984. They eventually left for the Carribean about 3 weeks late.
Back to more mundane matters tomorrow.