Dartmoor National Park Authority

Garth was born in Ashburton and spent much of his time as a child helping at his uncle's farm. When he left school his first job was at the Eagle Dairy in Ashburton where they milked the cows twice a day in the yard behind the shop and delivered milk around the village.

“…and it was dipped out then, in those days, they had a pint dipper, and you dipped it out into people’s jugs, they’d bring their own jug like, you know, and some was delivered round here in cans, I used to deliver it up to Lower Roborough, the terrace is still there, and I used to take a can up there, perhaps about eight o’clock in the morning, after I’d finished me milking, take a can of milk up there and deliver it, half pints to some people and pints to others and quarts to others, like, you know.”

“Pigs were fed twice a day, unless they were out at what they call mass at the, towards the end of the year, when acorns on oak trees are droppin’ and chestnuts, beechnuts, that’s what they call mass and you’d put the pigs out in the woods and they’d look after their selves and of course eventually they would make a nest and have their little ones…and when you went to fetch ‘em like see, you never saw such lovely little pigs in all your life, they would go like little... ohh like whippets they’d be everywhere. But they was healthy, healthy as could be you see, and you would bring ‘em back down and put ‘em in the houses and then the pigs would stay in and the sows would go out to give ‘em a rest like see and they’d come in twice a day to feed their little ones…”