Wartime Spud Ucking.

Potato Harvest 1942.

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Better known known to the boys at Cookham Rise Secondary Modern School as "Spud Ucking". Or if you lived in Scotland it was also known as "Tattie Outing". In my previous Blog on Westwood Green being a field of potatoes in 1942. Also the field to the left of White Ladyes Lane going up from the Maidenhead road was all in potatoes. We boys worked in what was known as drifts. A measured space between two sticks. After we had picked up the potatoes that the machine had spun out, a horse draging a small harrow behind would uncover any potatoes that were still covered up. I can remember farmer Jack Gardener saying as he walked up and down the field, "Up behind the harrow boys, up behind the harrow". Jack was the son of the late Sir. Ernest Gardener MP, who served one term as member of parliament for the Windsor Division of Berkshire. They were owners of both "The Mount" and "Lower Mount" farms at that time. The picture was sent to me, but I think it was some place other than Cookham, but it does show what it was like. We did this for two years, then they switched to using Prisoners of War to do the job.