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Andrew Elsden - stories, tales , rural and social and business issues past and present as I see them.
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BRING BACK AMY SEDARIS -LAUNDRY EXPERT
If there is one advert I miss at the moment from TV it is the Lenor advert with the hearty, chirpy greeting, “Hi! I’m Amy Sedaris,...
Feb 12, 20223 min read
From My Rechabite Grandmother to Fit Bits
I remember my grandmother, Alice Parrish as a fierce old lady. In my childhood she lived with my grandfather in an Agricultural tied...
Feb 3, 20224 min read
THE NEW DOG
This story was told to me at a pub in Norfolk: A wildfowler took his new dog onto the marsh for the first time. He sat down in a creek...
Dec 19, 20212 min read
IT COULD ONLY HAPPEN WITH RELOADS
This is a story from an old Spalding wildfowler recounted in the 1960’s, a time when many wildfowlers loaded their own shotgun shells :...
Dec 18, 20211 min read
Not a Partridge in a Pear Tree.
FRENCH PARTRIDGE LAYING IN A TEAL’S NEST The following curious circumstance was remarked in the summer of 1871, by a gentleman, who, as a...
Dec 17, 20211 min read
A Day on the Marsh
(Or never trust a stranger if he lets you buy the Ale) There I sat quietly drinking my ale When this fellow Wells started spinning the...
Dec 16, 20212 min read
A Norfolk Game Stall December 1890
W Durrant’s Game Stall 8th December 1890 This game stall in Yarmouth market in 1890 was recorded to have the following dead birds for...
Dec 16, 20211 min read
Rural Policing of Yesteryear
Lincolnshire has long been blighted with rural crime. Going back as far as 1793 Arthur Young commented on sheep thefts near Crowland:...
Nov 4, 20216 min read
Two Halloween Ghost Stories from the Fens
As Halloween approaches I thought I would share a couple of ghost stories. Although the first is from my childhood I do believe I have...
Oct 29, 20213 min read
Warnings from the past of the dangers of wildfowling
1st September saw the start of the wildfowling season. It is possibly one of the purest and most challenging forms of field sport still...
Sep 3, 20216 min read
Archaeology and the importance of knowing which way a cow stands to have a piss.
Many years ago a family of farming brothers in Cambridgeshire had the opportunity to cash in on their land by having it developed for...
Jul 12, 20212 min read
A Tale of Kenzie Thorpe the Wild Goose Man of Sutton Bridge
Any one that enquires about wildfowling in The Wash will soon hear of the name Kenzie. MacKenzie Thorpe was a poacher, wildfowler, marsh...
Jul 10, 20217 min read
A Campney Carol – a Lincolnshire Christmas Ghost Story.
On the edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds in deepest darkest Lincolnshire is a little known village called Campney Hollow. It is a pleasant...
Jul 9, 202121 min read
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