This film is part of Free

Seasonal deliveries: hay on a sleigh and milk from Ma

There’s hay for horses in Welshpool snow, and more is used in springtime round chilly lambs, when mothers’ milk is flowing for the new-borns.

School programme and Educational film 1960 9 mins Silent

From the collection of:

Logo for National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales

Overview

How fine the trees of Maesmawr Hall, Welshpool, look under a fall of snow. But the Trant children who live on the farm know the animals need particular attention in such weather - they deliver hay by sleigh to the ponies. Once spring arrives, the hay keeps triplet lambs warm as one is fed by bottle, the others suckling whilst the ewe savours a post-birth swede. Calves have arrived and imbibe the white stuff from the cows with gusto. Sheepdog pups wonder where their milk’s got to.

Ion Trant, brought up on Dovea Farm in Tipperary, Ireland, felt strongly that there was an emerging gulf between town and country and welcomed school visits to his farm. He also devised, filmed, edited and scripted the BBC's "Country Close-Up" series for children (1956-62), often featuring his own three. As a result, he was offered work as a freelance cameraman on the BBC's weekly farming programme and he also ventured further afield, travelling as cameraman with sports commentator Max Robertson to the West Indies and with George Cansdale, field naturalist and ex-Superintendent of London Zoo, to Palestine and Israel.