NOSTALGIA: it’s like a comfort blanket to snuggle into, to wrap oneself in happy memories of the past. But was it always good back then? The French writer Marcel Proust was probably more accurate when he noted: “Remembrance of things past is not necessarily remembrance of things as they were.”
Take right now, harvest time. It oozes with nostalgia. Mention the day of the threshing and eyes grow misty with memories of apple-ripe autumn days,
the rattle and rhythmic hum of the threshing machine, straw spewing out, corn cascading into fattening bags, children tumbling in the feathery chaff. That’s not quite as I remember it.
Growing up, I dreaded the morning the thresher backed into our haggard. Most of the harvesting jobs I could handle: pitch-forking sheaves; dragging away the bulging bags; building stacks of the corn-spent straw. My great fear was being picked to cut the bands, the twisted straw ties used to bind the oats or barley. When the sheaves were lobbed onto the flat top of the thresher, one man swiftly sliced the bands with a knife as sharp as a scalpel, and alongside him another fed the loose stalks of corn into the churning, yawning innards of the machine.
Cutting the bands demanded speed and accuracy. A mistimed knife slash and you could forget about playing the piano for a living. So when the job was about to be allocated, I would make my move. This was the era of the TV series The Fugitive, telling the story of Dr Richard Kimble, wrongly convicted for the murder of his wife, who escapes while being transported to his execution and is pursued across America by a police lieutenant. He spent a lot of time ducking for cover into doorways, always escaping just as the wail of police sirens grew louder.
I was good at slipping into my Kimble persona. Quietly I detached myself from the main body of men, sauntered along, kicking the tyres on the machine, did a few shifty sidesteps, and was safely out of view on the other side of the thresher. For a few years it worked. Alas, as with Dr Kimble, one day there was nowhere to hide. That September morning I was ducking towards the blind side when the shout came: “Hey, young fella, come back here — you’re cutting the bands today.”
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Soon I was kneeling on top of the machine, holding the stubby-handled knife, its blade sharpened to razor thinness. The first sheaf of oats plonked unannounced. I gripped the band and slashed awkwardly through it. Stalks of corn burst open and spread wide. The next few hours were a blur of images, sheaves thudding down, corn splashing open and then being gobbled up by the machine. Some hours later the machine belched and was silent. I had survived, fingers intact. Right then I vowed never to fear another threshing day.
A year later, I was Kimble again.
The big threshing machines are now silent, replaced by combine harvesters. Most of them have rusted away in hay sheds or in briar-choked corners of fields. Sometimes, as I stand in a farm museum admiring one restored to its former glory, the old unease seeps back. I still throw the odd nervous Fugitive-like glance, fearful even now of a leathery hand on my shoulder and the dreaded words: “Climb up there — you’re cutting the bands today.”