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Article: A traveling reed comber.(The machine shed)
- Article from:
- Countryside & Small Stock Journal
- Article date:
- March 1, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Countryside Publications Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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At 70 years of age, David Hurford is the last of his breed. A farmer all his life, he is now the only traveling reed comber in East Devon, England.
He moved to his farmhouse when he was three months old. Nestling in the Devon countryside, it overlooks some of the 360 acres he farms with his son. Apart from nine years on a farm in Sidmouth when he first married, he has always lived here. An eight bedroom house when David was young, it has now been split into a pair of houses with father David and son Julian living side by side.
"Leaving school in 1949, I first learned about combers and combing from a local farmer, Freddy Elliott of Newton Poppleford. He ...