The Clerk in the Country

Tuesday 14th April 2020
100 years ago: the aftermath

Despite being restricted to the speed of a horse or bicycle to escape the floods, no injuries to residents of affected villages were reported and “happily as far as stock is concerned they were got away without any serious loss being inflicted”. Unfortunately, poultry and rabbits “fared worse” and crops in the fields were devastated. “Suffice it to say that the loss sustained by the various farmers must be in the bulk simply colossal, and will arouse that practical sympathy from neighbours and public alike which will to some extent enable them to bear their trial with stoicism and equanimity.”

Of one farmer, Mr Allen, the Selby Times reported that “the whole of his land was pitiable in the extreme”. Eleven weeks later Mr Allen’s name appeared in the newspaper again after he had “lost two valuable horses which had been suffering from a complaint due, it is conjectured, through eating grass which had been under the recent flood water. Three other horses are similarly affected”. He attended a meeting in early 1919 at which farmers reported their difficulty in obtaining the compensation promised by government: “where potatoes were destroyed by flood, and those potatoes had been planted to help the nation in the matter of food difficulties, any loss incurred by planting them would be paid for”. Mr Allan had put in a claim for 24 tons but received payment for only 15 tons.

He was probably still struggling with the effects of the flood in November of that year when he was summoned for the offence of failing to provide a swine movement licence within the specified time for a pig which had arrived on his farm. Devotees of Beatrix Potter will be aware of the importance of a pig licence (The Tale of Pigling Bland, published in 1913) and the danger of getting them mixed up with a receipt for 2½ oz conversation sweeties at three farthings. Like Pigling Bland, Mr Allen had dealings with a policeman. In a letter of apology to the court, he explained that he was “away from home when the pig came, and for fully two days he was unaware that it was on the premises”. It is to be hoped that someone was aware of the pig and it was not obliged to “sleep on the rug” and eat its supper “discreetly”.