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Feeding the Hungry: Maesmawr Hall, Welshpool

The piglets, pigs and chicks seen here on the farm at Maesmawr Hall, Welshpool, prove without a shadow of a doubt that food is life!

School programme and Educational film 1961 8 mins Silent

From the collection of:

Logo for National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales

Overview

Feeding frenzies at Maesmawr Hall, Welshpool. Piglets scramble to suckle from the sow and then sleep the sleep of the well-fed and wonderfully content; mature pigs almost climb the bars of their sties so eager are they to get near the bucket of oncoming food, and newly-hatched chicks arrive in boxes via a Lea-Francis 14hp Estate car and peck away at the meal provided in their new quarters. At an Oswestry stud, a young stallion, well-fed and frisky, is shown off.

Ion Trant was born and brought up on Dovea Farm, Tipperary, Ireland. He went on to study agriculture in Canada and then moved to Wales to work at the Welsh Plant Breeding Station, Aberystwyth, where he met his future wife, Janet Owen of Maesmawr Hall, Welshpool, both of them working on developing improved grasses for upland farms with George Stapledon. The Trants farmed at Maesmawr Hall and the adjoining farm Cefn Du, and Esgairdraenllwyn at Llaithddu, Llandrindod, where Janet bred Welsh Black cattle crossed with Herefords. Ion created/filmed the "Country Close-Up" series for children (BBC - 1956-62), using footage of his own 3 for the programmes. He subsequently obtained work as a freelance cameraman.