Where Are These Workers In 2025?

[Klenchblaize]

K

 

[Basil H]

Thanks for posting. The scenes of Lynn's Tuesday Market, and Wisbech bridge before the 1978 flood damage, really took me back. It is however, a bit "cosy" as there were and still are areas of considerable deprivation in places such as Wisbech and Boston.

 

[Mr Tree]

Fenlanders are a different breed to the rest of the country, probably the last area of GB to be (conquered?), swamp dwelling hardcore folk with a long history, the Romans left them alone, so did the Normans. If you went into them swamps, the chances are you didn't come out alive. Probably applies now, ever wondered where those illegal immigrants end up, working the fields for some very nasty gangmasters, 40 or 50 people sleeping on the floors of a terraced house, charged rent, passports taken away, charged for transport to & from the fields, where they are being exploited as modern day slaves. A friend of mine (Mark Thomas,) tried to do an expose for a TV series he was doing, he was run out of town, March or Wisbech I believe, & was unable to complete it. Lithuanian Albanian & Rumanian rule the roost there now. But...
An amazing landscape, & HUGE big skies, you drive for miles without seeing habitation, it has a peculiar charm. The soil there used to be called Black Gold, but the big blows took a lot of it away, wind borne erosion on a massive massive scale!

 

[Basil H]

The black fen soils are found well inland, and are derived from peat. Nearer the Wash coast the soils are heavier silts (cousins to clay). Peter Scott in his first book calls it The Brown Land. Locally called strong soil as it was hard to manage although still pretty fertile. In the days of horses and little Fergusons it was ploughed when possible and then hopefully exposed to the weather to form a soft "frost-mould" which could be pulled down into a seed-bed. Like the Wash itself it's a big empty unforgiving place with a charm of its own.

 

[Klenchblaize]

Thanks for posting. The scenes of Lynn's Tuesday Market, and Wisbech bridge before the 1978 flood damage, really took me back. It is however, a bit "cosy" as there were and still are areas of considerable deprivation in places such as Wisbech and Boston.

Do you recall the 1947 flood?

K

 

[Basil H]

Before my time but a relative who lived at Tholomas Drove had the flood level marked on his cottage wall. It was nearly four feet up as I recall.

 

[shakey jake]

If wisbech flooded now, it woulf do thousands of pounds of improvements.
Growing up in the fens, its a bleak place on a good day

 

[Basil H]

Some strange things have been done to the place such as destroying the Octagon Chapel and filling in the link to the canal system. Spalding is a town in a similar situation but has been developed in a different manner.

 

[Mungo]

If wisbech flooded now, it woulf do thousands of pounds of improvements.
Growing up in the fens, its a bleak place on a good day

My wife worked in Holbeach for a while. Grim, grim area. ‘Wisbekistan’…

 

[Basil H]

If you want to see more of the fishing/fowling traditions of the fen country, find "A man between three rivers" on youtube, which celebrates Ernie James who died just 20 years ago at 99 - the very last of the "fen tigers".

 

[Flash G 74]

Fenlanders are a different breed to the rest of the country, probably the last area of GB to be (conquered?), swamp dwelling hardcore folk with a long history, the Romans left them alone, so did the Normans. If you went into them swamps, the chances are you didn't come out alive. Probably applies now, ever wondered where those illegal immigrants end up, working the fields for some very nasty gangmasters, 40 or 50 people sleeping on the floors of a terraced house, charged rent, passports taken away, charged for transport to & from the fields, where they are being exploited as modern day slaves. A friend of mine (Mark Thomas,) tried to do an expose for a TV series he was doing, he was run out of town, March or Wisbech I believe, & was unable to complete it. Lithuanian Albanian & Rumanian rule the roost there now. But...
An amazing landscape, & HUGE big skies, you drive for miles without seeing habitation, it has a peculiar charm. The soil there used to be called Black Gold, but the big blows took a lot of it away, wind borne erosion on a massive massive scale!

Hello, Similar to the Chinese Cockle Pickers in Morecambe Bay and the Gangmasters, 1 was Chinese, Although this had a very different ending

 

[Mr Tree]

If you want to see more of the fishing/fowling traditions of the fen country, find "A man between three rivers" on youtube, which celebrates Ernie James who died just 20 years ago at 99 - the very last of the "fen tigers".

I think your forgetting Dave "Boy" Green. Who Harry Carpenter called a threshing machine with no reverse gear.!

 

[Klenchblaize]

If you want to see more of the fishing/fowling traditions of the fen country, find "A man between three rivers" on youtube, which celebrates Ernie James who died just 20 years ago at 99 - the very last of the "fen tigers".

Watched again for the 5th time in as many years last night!

Brings a tear to my eye each time and for reasons other than nostalgia.

K

 

[Basil H]

Ernie was a real gentleman. I was lucky enough to see a little of him and others of that generation such as Josh Scott of Welney and Russell Lawson of Sutton Bridge.