Roadless 90 DVD
For all those customers who have pre-ordered the ‘Roadless 90′ DVD – the post production is now complete and we are shipping all the orders, so please expect your DVDs in the next week. If you haven’t got a copy yet you can order ‘Roadless 90‘ online today. Thank you for your patience, and interest in our DVDs.
When I first saw the archive material that later became ‘Fenland Farming 55′, my first reaction was ‘That’s my childhood!’. As the son of a small farmer on the Lincolnshire Fens I could remember most of the machines, animals and farming practices to be seen.
The author ready to fetch swill from Folkingham airfield for his father's pigs
Those same memories all came flooding back when I set out to write ‘Memories of Lincolnshire Farming’. The idea was to write about the changes in farming methods and machines over the past 100 years. I took it as roughly the working lives of my grandfather and father – Grandpa came back from the Boer War in Sough Africa in about 1903 to work with his father, and my Dad decided to give up keeping sheep shortly before his death in 2005.
Not surprisingly I couldn’t cover the whole spectrum of farming in this pre-eminent farming county just through my family’s memories, but I did have the invaluable resource of the family memories of many of the listeners and contributors to ‘Lincolnshire farming’ on BBC Radio Lincolnshire, who shared their stories and their pictures with me. From the reaction I am getting from readers, it seems to have set a lot more memories flowing – I may have to have a Vol II just to keep up with the stories!
Alan Stennett
You can buy Alan’s new book ‘Memories of Lincolnshire Farming’ from our online catalogue.
New to our website this year is Jewellery by Lincolnshire designer, Victoria.
Making jewellery has been a hobby of hers for several years – in fact it’s become an obsession! She loves all the different sorts of beads and the amazing colours they come in, so now the hobby is turning serious and Primetime Videos have incorporated some of her more popular designs in to our new ‘Crafts’ section.
Big chunky beaded necklaces are very fashionable at the moment and are proving very popular, so why not take a look and see if you can spot a potential Christmas present.
Victoria also stages jewellery parties around Lincolnshire. If you think some of your family or friends would like to attend a jewellery evening then please contact Victoria and she’d be happy to discuss organising one for you. Beads are the new tupperware!
Steve White of Primetime Media has been producing a series of health awareness videos in conjunction with the Lincolnshire NHS. The latest features the excellent service provided by Secondary School Nurses across the county.
If you have any video needs please contact us for advice.
Primetime Video has one of the largest collection of Tractor DVDs on the internet. If you’re not sure what gift to get the enthusiast in your life then visit our Farming DVDs page, or take a look at our 2009 catalogue with all our newest offers in.
The 2009 catalogue is being posted to all our customers right now. If you would like to be added to our database then please email us.
When you receive your catalogue, you can visit our interactive online catalogue and order the items from the corresponding pages. It’s quick and easy and payments are made instantly and securely using PayPal.
There are a lot of new items this year, with lots of great Christmas ideas, so do make sure you get your hands on one!
primetimevideo.co.uk has bundled together some of it’s best selling DVDs, covering aviation, archive and farming themes. Visit our DVD Special Offers page for more information.
LAND OF TRADITION
DVD Documentary, Colour, 16:9 widescreen aspect
59 minutes, Price £15.95
This is the story of some of the farming traditions passed down by rural communities surrounding the Norfolk town of King’s Lynn. Using archive film, photographs and dramatised sequences this DVD follows the lives of those who attempted to make a living from the land.
Traditional skills and crafts featured in this programme include wildfowling, the gathering of reeds for thatching, the making of wicker objects and rugs and the digging of peat for fuel. Women would sell butter they had churned or cider they had brewed at the local markets. Poachers supplemented their family’s meals by trapping game, risking severe punishment if caught. Also featured are the blacksmith and the miller whose skills underpinned the rural communities.
Pioneering businesses, such as the canners Beaulahs and Lin-Can, provided employment for local families. Archive film of the full canning process in the 1960s is featured. The factory’s fieldsman is seen making the necessary quality checks on the carrots and strawberries before they were harvested and transported to the factory. It was a precision operation with every effort made to ensure the produce was canned at its freshest.
Many other rural traditions were enjoyed by the men and women. As the fen land froze over, workers would put on skates and compete for prizes by racing each other on the ice. The seasons of the year were marked and celebrated with events like Plough Monday and the harvest festival, which signified the end of the agricultural year.
For out more about this DVD or buy online now at Primetime Video
MUD, DYKES & DRAGLINES
DVD Documentary, Colour, 16:9 widescreen aspect
57 minutes, Price £15.95 + P&P
Some of the finest farmland in Britain was once under water, or so wet that it was useless for most kinds of farming. Over the centuries, ways have been found to turn those bogs, fens and salt-marshes into good productive land. This DVD programme uses archive film taken in Lincolnshire, working demonstrations and preserved machinery, to show some of the ways that this was done.
Prisoners are seen at work building earth walls to reclaim land from the sea; a technique – and a labour force! – that has been used since the 1700s, or even earlier.
Vintage machinery, Ruston-Bucyrus and Priestman dragline excavators and their hydraulic successors, dig and clear dykes and drains. A pair of steam ploughing engines can also be seen hauling a drag across drains to clear them of mud and silt. Steam was also an important power source for the pumping engines that drew the water up off the land and into embanked waterways that led it away to the sea. Steam, diesel and electric pumps are all featured in film going back to pumping station building and modification in the 1940s and 50s.
Man-power would always have been a key feature of land drainage work, and this production includes demonstrations and explanations of tools such as sloughs, ritters, foot irons and tile hooks when under-draining fields.
Drainage is revealed to be a fascinating process, without which the world would have been a hungrier place.
European Air Services provide Aircraft Charter to business and private clientele operating twin engine aircraft out of Lincolnshire and across Europe. If you would like to know more about their services please visit their site.
For information about our web design services please contact Joanna White of Primetime Media.
