Alfred Hall MBE

FARM LIFE ON FIELD AND FELL depicts rural life in Cumbria before the Second World War and is illustrated with more than 40 black and white photographs. The author has a vivid memory and a thorough understanding of farming and rural life. He was an agricultural journalist, farmed near Carlisle in Cumbria and wrote for a variety of publications on rural topics. This is a fascinating glimpse of yesterday's farm life.

About the author:

Alfred Hall MBE founded the World Ploughing Organisation and was its general secretary for 40 years. He founded and was general secretary of the British Ploughing Association (1951-1972) and subsequently the Society of Ploughmen in 1973. From 1932 to 1939 he was secretary of the Cumberland Canine Association and secretary of Workington and District Agricultural Society (1945-1951). Born in 1914, he farmed in Cumberland and travelled world-wide; for 25 years he was a freelance radio and television broadcaster and writer on rural topics, including weekly newspaper farm feature articles. He worked on the production of country life films for the cinema featuring Border Collie sheepdogs, and was an early member of the Guild of Agricultural Journalists. He was a member of the Land Settlement Association committee for small stock allotments, a rural district councillor (1946-1958), member of the National FarmersÕ Union County Committee, grammar school and secondary school governor, local school manager and Rotarian. He married Dr Jilly I Krause (who died in 1989) and has two daughters and two grandchildren.

In 1953 he was made an honourary citizen of the Iroquois Six Nations Indians in the Mohawk tribe on the Canadian Grand River Reserve with the name 'Rahgahratwas' meaning the Ploughman. He was also named honourary All-American Ploughman in USA, in 1988, for contribution to better land use and conservation, and in Zimbabwe he was awarded the 1983 Silver Medal for practical aid to tillage research. In the 1997 New Years Honours List he was awarded the MBE and in the same year he was awarded the Blamire Trust Medal for services to Cumberland Agriculture. He is honourary life vice-president of the Society of Ploughmen and honourary life vice-president of the Welsh Ploughing Association (Cymdeithas Aredig Cymru).

Sadly Alfred Hall passed away on 18 August 2011 in his 98th year. He will be sadly missed.

REVIEW

'Alfred Hall has ploughed his way around the world, sowing sound advice and reaping friendship. Now aged 92, Alfred's farming expertise has benefited people in many countries, for which he has won countless awards and admirers...

'Alfred started his farming life at Seaton, near Workington. At the age of 30 he began a parallel broadcasting career with a report about sheepdogs for the BBC. He worked on a freelance basis for the BBC and Granada for 25 years, reporting on rural life and farming...

'In this attractive book of short stories and essays he paints a picture of farming life as he has known it... His book is a manual of old farming practice, full of life and incident, and good, rich, agricultural humour, in the best sense of the term...

'He helped to found the World Ploughing Organisation and was its general secretary for more than 40 years. In 1960 he and his wife Dr Jilly Krause left Seaton and moved to Loweswater... Since his retirement he has written three books... and was awarded the MBE in 1997. Cumberland News, Feb. 2007.

A reader from Tasmania wrote: 'Just a few lines to let you know that I have been able to obtain a copy of your recent book. What a delight it was to read. I only wish Mother and Dad could have been here to read it also. Reading it – it became rather special to me – as in a very quiet way you mention your Father, Mother and Joe – all people I knew and remembered with affection.
'I have had a most enjoyable read – the Cumbrian words which Dad and Mother would use periodically and the ways of farming that Dad would describe to me, when he was a young lad growing up at Hayton (Aspatria), all have been unlocked from my memory box and it has made me realize I still have a little bit of Cumberland in my roots.'

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