On our recent adventure into Essex and Suffolk, we loved this village sign for Tollesbury depicting the horse-powered ploughman (2 horses.... deux cheveaux?) but also, top right, a "stackie" barge. Stackies were Thames sailing barges employed in the agricultural sector, bringing hay for horses up to London (all horse-drawn transport in those days, of course) and bringing back the horses' waste products for spreading on the fields.
Most farms near the sea or near to the many creeks and inlets of Essex and Suffolk would have had wharves or "hards" (hard standing at low tide) from which to load barges and unload the horse muck from London. London bound the hold of the barge would be loaded with something heavy like mangolds, but then an entire haystack would be built on the decks, stacked half way up the main mast. The Mate would then have to sit on top and shout instructions to the skipper down at the back about where to steer, as he couldn't see round the hay stack.
For Dad another weekend of weekend cover at work, and another dose of sleep deprivation, not only covering the emergencies across both days, but also in from 0100 to 0800 to nurse-maid a computer outage while some electrical work goes on. Just have to catch up on sleep afterwards, Dad.
Deefski
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