There was nothing that I enjoyed more when I was a boy than going to work on a nearby farm. I say 'work', but sometimes, looking back down the tunnel of time, I wonder whether what I saw as helping out was perhaps more of a hindrance to the farmer. Perhaps with the benefit of hindsight I can see that I was as much tolerated as anything, and probably because of my keenness to be involved!
Whatever the answer may be --- and does it really matter now, anyway? --- it's a period of my life that I look back on with great fondness. I enjoyed the whole of the farming year and, like many a small boy raised in the British countryside, thought that I would be a farmer when I grew up. Although I never fulfilled this ambition, I certainly drew closer to the land as my life progressed, whether it was in the amount of time that I subsequently spent connected with farming, the market gardening that I did for a while in Rhodesia, or the construction of several gardens during the course of my lifetime. Even when I became more and more involved in the Lay Ministry in Wales, the great majority of chapels and churches where I ministered were populated by farming folk. I was able to empathise with their problems because of my own background, and this helped to make my ministry more meaningful. So I see that here, once again, God was preparing me for the task that he had planned for me, even when I was a small boy.
Persistently, throughout my ministry, I have found that knowledge gained throughout my life, whether through relationships, situations relating to my own health matters, has all been able to be put to good use. It all serves to make me realise just how wonderful God is, and the way that He plans things for us so that we are best equipped to serve His purposes.
So, to return to small boys and farming, what was the best time of the year? Well, I suppose that there were things about every Season that I recall with pleasure. In the Spring I enjoyed the new life that declared itself abundantly; in the Autumn I loved the colours of the trees with all the autumn golds and russets that abounded in wood and hedgerow; in Winter there is little that can beat the tracery of a hoar frost as you take a brisk walk across the fields; but for me the best time of all was in the Summer. No doubt my memories of Summers on the farm are coloured to a degree by the long school holidays, periods which always seem longer when you are young because they represent a greater percentage of your life in relation to the years that you've lived.
Summer was always a particularly busy time in the farming calendar. It was the time when you saw the fruits of your labours in a tangible way, although, in the sweat of a hot summer day, perched atop of a hay-cart stacking the hay safely around you, or on the ground beneath forking the hay up to the labourer on the cart, that was possibly not the thought that was uppermost in your mind. It was hard work, make no mistake about it, very hard work! Not only was it hard but it was dirty because the dust that swirled around as you worked, mixed together with hayseed, clung to your sweat-riven skin, the fragments getting into everywhere possible that could make you feel uncomfortable. Despite this, there was no better way to spend the days than this. The camaraderie of your fellow-workers, the dignity of the carthorses, the breaking off for a brief respite when you enjoyed your lunch ---or 'bit of bait' as it was referred to --- the home-made cider to slake your parched throat and relieve the thirst, all these contributed to mark these days in your memory for ever.
True, as the years since those days make them more and more distant, so the memory can make them seem rosier than they perhaps were. Nevertheless, I wouldn't have wished for a different childhood when I think back to those times, certainly as far as they were concerned, and I'm thankful that I now have the memories to bring out into the light of day now and then and bring a little sunshine back into my day.
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