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People

Name
Dunkerton, Leonard (b.1888)
Introduction
This recording was made in 1973. Leonard Stanley Dunkerton was born in 1888 and farmed in Baltonsborough near Glastonbury. Apart from a short time away from the village to learn how to make cheese, Leonard spent all his life in Baltonsborough; milking the cows by hand in all weathers, making Cheddar cheese, and producing cider.
Milking team, Butleigh c.1910. Milking team, Butleigh c.1910.
Sound File
Listen to Leonard Dunkerton - 1.04MB Duration 3:16 min.
Transcript

LD: I've been here fifty-three years. I was born in next door and I've been here farming ever since.  Of course I went to school, and the same school here in the village, and after that got old enough started farming, milked a few cows and gradually worked the dairy up. Old Doll, we had to go in and out, shoe horses and that when we was home. There was three brothers and four sisters. I'm the last, the youngest of twelve. And of course farming in those days you know isn't like today, farming was a pleasure today, than it was years ago, we used to have to work. Twelve, fifteen hours a day we used to work, ploughing, mangold hoeing, all sorts, hay-making, milked twenty-two or twenty-three cows, I and the wife and a girl we used to have in the house.

 

Of course we made cheese here too, for, what, twenty-two or three years. Cheese in those days isn't like today; we used to make the big cheese. May cheese, that was the month, we had to sell that, because it was what they call hay cheese, it was no colour but the rest of the five months, we had to store in the cheese room and keep till the end of the season, and of course then the dealer would come, and he'd sample all of them and what were good, we'd have a deal, that cheese was going under the factory in Wells.

Copyright Information
Copyright. This recording was made by Ann Heeley in November 1973. Photograph ©SRLM. For access to full interview please contact the Somerset Heritage Centre.