George Polley’s life history, read by George Polley. Chapter six (4137b), 1937
Highlights in this oral history recording include:

0.00 Father not well so George takes on more responsibility in running business
Incident on tree felling at the Dell, Hart Hill Stanway
06.30 Disposal of traction engine for scrap 'Nellie Wallace'
8.30 Attempt to recover debt from tenant farmer who flees Canfields, Easthorpe
14.16 Bike to Essex Show
15.10 Workshops of Huttons at Birch destroyed by fire
15.45 Bike to Debenham to purchase a tractor and second trip to secure delivery
20.15 Electricity connected. Buys mains radio £10. Previously accumulator recharged by cycle shop near Prince of Wales
22.00 1938 – death of grandmother
23.30 re-telling of accident
26.35 From Moore’s bus by Easthorpe turning, sees dream and love of live – Janet Melrose. Steps to get to know her
29.40 Purchase of 1st car Ford 8 for £30. Annual insurance £4 10s.

This is GEP, coming up with page no 6. I think I have got around to the region of 1937. Ah, that was a year sticks in my mind. Because father had gone into hospital for a major operation. I had to take on quite a bit more responsibility for the running of the business then because although my uncle was equal partner with father in the business, he was a good worker and a good one for the steam and the thrashing but anything else, book keeping and that sort of thing, organisation I am afraid he didn’t come up to the mark very well so it fell on me to take on responsibility with mother and keep things running. He was in hospital in Colchester for about three weeks and then he was convalescent at a convalescent home in Clacton for another three to four weeks after that.

In the meantime we were busy as much as possible. We had a contract to fall some some trees at what is known as The Dell at the top of Hart Hill, Stanway. There's a swimming pool there now. This batch of trees, there was one particular one was leaning toward the house and for safety reasons, we took the tractor, one of the Saunderson tractors which had a winch on it like the traction engines had.

And my uncle and one of the workmen were doing the actual falling. So I was in charge of the tractor. We had a rope on to the top, well three quarters of the way up the tree as high as we could get it, and it was on a fair slope side of the hill. So luckily I was stand the tractor higher up the hill and so the rope pull was reasonably level and they was busy sawing away. And it was a hand cross cut saw in those days, we didn't possess such a thing as a chain saw. So it was a hand saw with the double-ended, one man each side pulling. Then the wedges were put in behind the saw to help lift the tree a bit and ease the blade, and when it gets nearly through to the previously cut wedge we, I had the call. I was on the tractor. I had the call to take the strain. So this I did. The tractor was well blocked, we’d got big blocks behind it. But I pulled the, took the strain and then I felt the tractor was beginning to ride up the blocks and I knew I had on as much as I dare have. I dipped the clutch and of course with no winch brake or anything of that nature immediately I dipped the clutch the tree took the weight and went back to its original position. And what little was left to be cut through the trunk at the bottom snapped shear. And I simply froze because if I’d have just started pulling again I might have helped it.

But it reeled round on the base of the trunk and it went over towards the house. Fortunately it didn't hit the house. Luckily or unluckily, I don't know which. It was lucky in a way, it was unlucky in other ways, there was an outside toilet with a dog kennel beside it. And of course the top of the tree, as it came down, I could see the top of the toilet slowly emerging through the branches. And the poor old dog was in its kennel but luckily no injuries. There was the odd scratch or two on the toilet framework but nothing to worry about, nobody was hurt. And we had a bit of a laugh afterwards but with machinery in those days there just wasn't the right equipment for the job. But we learn by these mistakes and I’m afraid at the age I was and hadn't had too much experience and that sort of thing. I am afraid I froze on the tractor. But all's well that ends well.

Later on that year Nelly Wallace, that was the engine that we bought in Terling way back, I suppose it must have been, I think I was about 10 years old. There had been a thrashing machine sale at Terling and father wanted another engine so he bought the Wallace and Stephens engine. Hence we called it Nelly Wallace after the singer of that day. But unfortunately that was 1937 was the year when we decided that was the end of the road for Nelly. And Harry Wilson, the chappie from the scrap iron dealers in Colchester, Wheelers of Colchester, he came out with his gas equipment and he cut the engine to pieces for scrap iron. So that was the end of number two Engine. The registration of that was NO1434. The Marshall that had been cut up previously, the registration of that was NO1647. And the old, no, that wasn’t the Marshall hadn’t been cut up then. It was the Aveling had previously been cut up the number was HK9939. The Marshall's turn came a little bit later. The old Ford Model T the registration was NO202. All Essex registrations.

About the middle of that year we had one of our thrashing customers, he had Canfields Farm at Easthorpe, part of the Sherwood Estate, he just disappeared. And with the bill for the previous year's thrashing still outstanding we thought it was time to try and trace where he was. All the clues that we got was that the furniture lorry that was seen there a couple of days before we were querying it, had got something Abbotts on the side of it. So we looked at the map and decided that our first move would be Stansted Abbotts.

So it was May the 3rd 1937 we decided that uncle and I would go out prepared to stay out for the week, and see what we could find. We set off on our bikes and headed for Stansted Abbotts via Bishops Stortford and out that area. We cycled on, we’d left home about half past 5 in the morning and around about 11 were in Stansted Abbotts and the road took us by the village school. The children were out to play at 11 o'clock. I suddenly noticed the two children of the family that we were looking for were in the playground. So I said to my uncle, "“Keep going, don't look now so they don't recognize us”. We went just by the school and when we could see that the children had gone back into class we went back again and just opposite the school, if I remember rightly, it was the Post Office and general shop. So of course we went into the Post Office. “Could they possibly help us, we were looking for an old friend and we were passing through just having a tour round for the week and we heard that he had moved into the area recently and we thought we would like to look him up”. Everything was quite innocent. Oh yes, and of course we got his address. Of course we did not search anymore and came straight back home. That was a round trip of 76 miles.

Father decided he would send the account with the solicitor’s backing. We had no response whatever from it so after about 3 months the solicitor said did they want to take it to the County Court. They said yes, they might as well. They did not like the principle of just going and disappearing. As they said, if they had come to them and explained the situation they might have to some terms where a little would have sufficed and they would have wished them luck. But it was the principle of it and eventually the case came to court in Hertford, the town court there. Mum and Dad went and the ex-customer naturally pleaded his poverty The judge or magistrate whichever it was., he decided that he should pay 5 shillings a month off the account. Well that was going to take quite a while to pay off. We didn't get anything for two years, no payments whatever, so I am afraid it was written off as a bad debt. The solicitor wanted to know whether we wanted to take him up again. But Dad said at the time “What is the point of spending good money to get bad. There is no point in it.” So that was another experience.

Another biking episode, I biked to the Essex Show, it was in Maldon that year. And we could bike in those days. We could bike anywhere and very often at the show there was a cycle park. We perhaps paid threepence or sixpence or whatever it might be. They just put a ticket on the bike and it was there when you went back, not like today where you have to chain everything up and lock it and whatnot but that was our mode of transport around then.

July of that year, the Huttons, the builders of Birch, their workshops went on fire. It was completely burnt out. It was a terrific blaze. But then of course they made, they bought ground the opposite side of the road and that is their establishment today on the Maldon Road at Birch.

Also in July of that year I biked to Debenham in Suffolk to have a look at a Saunderson, second hand Saunderson tractor, there. Father said for me to buy it if I thought it was worth buying so I bought it for £15 cash. And then arranged they they would actually deliver it. So the actual tractor was not going to be valued at much if they were going to deliver it from Debenham to Marks Tey inclusive in the £15 cash.

Again in August I went to Debenham to see what had happened because the firm hadn’t delivered the tractor as they promised. When I got there they said that the firm that were going to bring it were held up on the delivery of a new lorry that they were expecting but it had come through the day before and they were preparing it and we're hoping to load the tractor later that day. So hopefully it would be with us in the evening. I came back to Marks Tey, that was a total round of 66 miles. I left home at 9 in the morning and obviously spent a bit of time at Debenham and got home at 4pm. The lorry with the tractor on it passed me about three miles before I got home. He had been held up because as he was coming down the Swallow Hill, the short sharp hill as he dropped down into Copdock near Ipswich, he hadn't got the tractor roped too solid and as he came down the slope, realising there was a sharp bend as well he touched his brakes and of course the tractor hit the back of brand new lorry cab and pinned him against the steering wheel.

But luckily he managed to pull up at the bottom of the hill. Some of the local people in the village street saw what had happened and helped to release him. I am afraid the cab of the lorry had a few dents in it but luckily the driver wasn't hurt. He was shaken up. And it was left to me to drive the tractor off the lorry. I have a photograph of it as it was still on the lorry, father, myself and the lorry driver, we were just like preparing it ready for unloading. And I drove it off down the built-up ramp that we had made. The driver of the lorry, I can't see you take it off, he says, I must get in the lorry and I will make sure the hand brake is on. I will always remember that but just is another experience of our silly young days.

That particular year again we had electricity switched on at Ellesmere. That was in the September. So of course up till then our wireless had been run from the accumulator and the high-tension batteries. After we had got so that we were able to use a bigger radio rather than the cat’s whisker one. As we got the mains electricity, I had saved up a few pennies and so of course I went to Colchester Co-op and I bought a brand new all-mains radio set for 10 pounds and took it home. And said to Mum and Dad there you are, there is a present to the household. We haven't got to worry about taking the accumulators to be charged and wondering when the high-tension had got to be renewed because they were quite expensive. And the accumulators we had to take to the cycle works up near the Prince of Wales because that was who charged them for us at the time So that was another step forward and that was 1937.

And 1938 was when we lost one member of our family, my grandmother, that would be my mother's stepmother. She passed away and she was buried Marks Tey churchyard. The Essex Show that year was in Braintree, again a bicycle ride.

In July of that year we biked to another machinery sale, that was at Standon in Hertfordshire. There was six complete sets of thrashing tackle sold there. The engines made up to £110 each, the drums £120, and the baler, one baler only made £160 pounds That again from a bicycle point of view was a round trip of 70 miles but we thought nothing of it. We would do that 35 miles there, then have a day at the sale, and then bike home.

Father and, I we were thrashing that year out in the August-September time of that year. We were working at Layer Marney and coming home one evening we were coming through what was known as Blind Lane. That was a very narrow road across what is now the Birch airfield. Halfway through this lane was a really sharp S bend and as we were getting towards it we could hear a vehicle of some sort coming, sounded pretty fast from the other direction. So I dropped well back behind father as we were close in as we were getting pretty close to this S bend. All of a sudden this lorry suddenly appeared, came round the corner and the speed he was doing, and the narrowness of the road, he caught the edge of father's handlebar and his elbow and more or less knocked him off his bike. It didn't hurt him to any great extent but it tipped him over. And I pulled up obviously and I was able to get the name on the back of the lorry. It was a lorry belonging to a building firm in Tiptree. The lorry didn't stop, just carried on.

But father said that he thought that it was rather excessive speed coming through a Blind Lane like it was both by name and by nature. He reported it to the police. The police took it up and of course it was discovered that the driver of the lorry was driving without a current licence. He had been before the courts previously and been, had his licence suspended for a period of time and it was still in force. So I am afraid when it came to the court case he lost his licence, driving licence then, for 5 years. Obviously he lost his job as a lorry driver because five years without a driving licence no employer would take somebody on in that capacity.[This incident was also recorded for 1937]

1938, I was on Moore's bus one Saturday after lunch, suppose I was going through to see either my sister at Boreham or possibly going to Phyllis' at Billericay. We got to the top of the Easthorpe Road, and the bus pulled up and a tall farmer-looking chappie was getting off the bus. And there was a Morris car stood at the end of the Easthorpe Road and the sun roof was open and above this sun roof was what I thought a beautiful, glorious vision. And I thought, Georgie boy, you must explore this a little bit further. So through time I started cycling a little bit more through Easthorpe village and so forth. And I discovered that the gentleman that got off the bus was Mr Melrose of Scotties Farm, Easthorpe. And the car that was waiting at the end of Easthorpe Road was being driven by his son, James, and the vision with the head out of the sun roof was his daughter, Janet. Naturally Georgie boy was still interested and pals up with brother Jim and before too long was getting invited to tea and so forth. Naturally conversation with Jim, Mum and Dad and brother Andrew, but the attention was drawn to sister Janet. That as you by now realise was the start of quite a few years of Janet and myself, our life together and I never regret it from that day to this. A little bit more what happened as we go along because there was still a lot happening around that time.

We bought our first Ford 8 motor car from Willetts in Colchester, secondhand obviously. It was £30 plus £4 10s for insurance for the year. What a bargain! The registration of that was a AMY634. The mileage we done with that car was terrific. I hadn't got a car licence so obviously I had to put up L plates. I went for my test in December of that 1939 it must have been, no 1938, still 1938. Just as I started my test with the driver one of the plugs on the engine boiled up so it was.