All This and No Milk – A tale of Life in the Holbeach Marshes 1933-35
Eli HagueBorn in Stalybridge in 1913 Eli Hague worked in the area as an errand boy and then machine-shop apprentice until made redundant in the early 1930s. With little chance of employment in the ‘Great Depression’ he decided to walk to the fens of South Lincolnshire, to his uncle’s. He recalled a remark made that there was always employment on the farms in Lincolnshire for anyone not afraid of hard work. Although not at all work-shy he found at the outset the sheer physical labour of farm work tested him to the limit. When, after two years, he finally left farming and headed inland – it was as a fitter, stronger and perhaps healthier man. Some sixty years on he still has fond memories of those significant years.