Back in the old days before combine harvesters came in, harvest time was much more labour intensive. All the crops were loaded by hand on to horse-drawn carts and taken to the stack yard, where an array of often beautifully crafted stacks would be built, and thatched.
It was a very busy time of the year for the thatchers, who would work from six in the morning till nine at night for several weeks until all the stacks were safely protected from the rain. After the last stack was finished, my old boss was paid the overtime due to him. He remembered that one year it was just enough to buy himself a new pair of work boots!
One year, before handing over payment for thatching his stacks, a farmer named Mr Cutting said to Jim; "That made me sweat to write your cheque this year." Jim quickly replied; "Med me sweat fust!"
There are lots of cottages built in old stack yards called Pyghtle Cottage as pyghtle, pronounced pie-cle is an old Anglo Saxon word meaning a small plot of land.
