Will’s World: A handful of harvest dust, a lifetime of memories

When I’m 102 years old, huddled by the fire on a cold winter’s evening, a large whisky gripped in fingers gnarled from a lifetime of farming, no longer able to get around much and conscious that I don’t have much time left in this life, I wonder what memories my mind will wander to.

There’ll be the big ones, I suppose. The moments in my life that are so special that I can’t help smiling when I think of them, even fleetingly.

Christmas mornings as a child on the farm, when we’d all pull together to get everything done outside before rushing in to open presents and get ready for the family arriving for lunch.

See also: Photo of the Week – “all to play for” as wheat harvest begins

Golden afternoons spent in beer gardens with my best mates at Harper Adams, when we had no responsibilities and the main concern was where the next good time was coming from.

Far too many laughs and adventures to count with the present Mrs Evans, not to mention the indescribably joyous and life-changing days when our numerous daughters were born.

All the days out, holidays and experiences we’ve shared together since then, as they’ve turned from dirty-faced, playful toddlers into the bright and capable young women they’re rapidly becoming.

Off the bat

Perhaps the one that gives me the most joy of all is being in the sparse crowd at Edgbaston on that rainy day in 2008 to witness Freddie Flintoff’s electric bowling spell to Jacques Kallis. I can still see that off-stump spinning through the air even now.

OK, perhaps that one isn’t quite up there with the births of my daughters, but it’s a close call (hi girls, if you’re reading this).

But I suspect that many of my memories will be of harvest, as it’s such an evocative time of year.

As I’m writing I can hear my neighbour’s combine humming away in the distance, and I can’t imagine that I’ll ever hear this sound without being transported back to my youth, when even a glimpse of one of these mighty machines in our fields was enough to make me jump up and down with excitement.

If you’re wondering why I’m not out combining myself, it’s because we had a front-wheel puncture earlier today.

But because nostalgia’s such a seductive liar, I won’t recall this, or the fact that it’s going to cost well over £1,000 for a new tyre. 

Instead, when I close my eyes, I’ll only remember the good times, and the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of this time of year.

Golden days

I’ll hear the rattle of the grain augur taking barley up to the grain bins from the 6t Griffiths trailers – which seemed huge to me as a child – and feel the itch from the dust as I shovel the last of it through the chute.

I’ll feel the hot sun on my skinny back and shoulders, and my grandfather’s rough, callused hand dwarfing mine as we walk across a stubble field to see my old man baling small bales of straw with the Jones Superstar.

I’ll see my mother driving the Massey Ferguson 290, easing off the clutch gently as my sister and I stack bales on the trailer behind her, up to eight layers high, laughing to ourselves mischievously at one of our many in-jokes, and competitively comparing the blisters on our fingers.

I can taste fish and chips and lager shandy drunk from plastic bottles as we all sit on a picnic blanket in the field and reflect on a good day’s work done.

That’s what harvest memories are made of.