Trouble at t’Millpond — Farmworkers in the Media

Abstract

The quote, believe it or not, is the introduction to a story about an industrial dispute: one of many thousands that must have appeared in the ‘top people’s paper’ during 1975. Why it appears different, and what is unexpected about this particular story, is its element of humour.

The Ripon district of the National Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers was worried about filling the empty spaces in the darts team. ‘What about the lads that work with you?’ the man in the corner asked. He shook his head: ‘They’ll have nowt to do with union. They say it’s no good.’ A little later the conversation turned to the pay increase for Woolworth’s salesgirls which gave them 50p more than farm labourers. ‘You should work in Woolworth’s,’ someone cracked to the woman present. ‘We should all work there,’ someone else said.

The Times