Gallery: What did harvest look like in the 50s, 60s and 70s?

29th July 2024

With this year’s harvest underway, with the help of increasingly large and impressive machinery, we take a trip down memory lane, to the harvests of decades gone by.

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Stella van der Gucht from Suffolk shared photographs from harvests in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s taken by Derry Caston (1918-1993). — *^{Harvest photos taken by Derry Caston in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s.}*

Offering Farmers Guide readers a piece of history, Suffolk woman Stella Van Der Gucht has shared photographs from harvests in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s.

They were taken by her late father, Derry Caston (1918-1993), and will no doubt be nostalgic for those who remember those days or got involved with harvests as children.

Stella said: “Derry first farmed at Gothic Farm Heveningham, where he met and married Kate.

“They bought Church Farm in Somersham in 1950, which his family still runs.

“Those were very happy, hard-working early days, which he photographed as he farmed.”

Harvest customs

The word ‘harvest’ originates from the Anglo-Saxon word for autumn, ‘haerfest’.

According to The Countryside Charity, ‘Hollaing Largesse’ was one of many customs and traditions connected with harvest.

If a stranger passed a field in East Anglia where people were harvesting, the reapers would form a circle and shout, ‘Holla Lar! Holla Lar! Holla Lar-Jess!’

The stranger would then be expected to make a donation to them to help pay for their harvest supper.

In other parts of the country, farmers saved the final handful of corn stalks, which was then woven into a ‘corn dolly’.

This represented the spirit of the corn and was kept until the following spring to ensure a good harvest next year. In Hampshire, this is a Kern Baby and in Devon a Kirn Babby.

A variety of regional dollies include the Cambridgeshire Handbell, Durham Chandelier and Worcester Crown.

The Countryside Charity added that harvest time often involved special feasts or dishes. Bread loaves were baked into the shape of a wheatsheaf, and on Lammas Day (1st August), bread baked with freshly picked corn was taken into the local church to be blessed.

Those who had helped bring in the crops were also invited to harvest suppers, to say thank you and celebrate a successful growing year.