OH dear, it would appear that Chas Stent of Bream has a disposal problem.

I could advise him to go up the road to St James' churchyard. The old folk up there, if they could talk, would give him some tips. Unfortunately he wouldn't understand the language of Bream a hundred years ago so perhaps I, as a local yokel, can help by explaining how it was 70 years ago or so, before our present day bloated local council existed.

Let's start at basics.

Bodies were carried on the shoulders of strong hardy miners from all parts of the village for burial at the church, teams changing on the way. They passed our house at the Maypole on the way. In the 40s you could count the car owners in the vicarage on one hand.

All human excrement from the little house at the top of the garden was buried in the garden. You had to remember where last week's was buried!

We were posh, we had a holding tank. Every evening our father would come home off the night shift at the pit and before going to bed he would dig a hole about 8ft by 4ft and 3ft deep. The next morning he would use a crowbar to slide a stone 6ins thick, 6ft x 6ft wide off the tank. The human waste was then bucketed into the hole, covered with lime and the hole filled with soil. A couple of weeks later broad beans were planted over the area.

The men of Bream, nearly all miners, coal and iron ore, were keen gardeners, with big families to feed. They had to be fed, so they set about upgrading the soil. They added ash from their fires which broke down the clay plus soot from their chimneys and leaf mould from the woods, and household waste – if they didn't have a pig or poultry to break it down and supply meat and eggs in the process.

By the 1940s our neighbour at the Maypole, who kept a pig or two, and his predecessor, had built up such a depth of soil by added pig manure and straw that it stood about 8 inches to a foot above the path and had to be regularly shovelled off. He had a good garden.

The people of Bream formed a horticultural society some 150 years ago and the Bream Flower Show is still going to this day.

The church magazines of the 1800s list the prize winners and I?am proud to say my great grandfather was featured regularly amongst the winners for beans, roots and flowers. I suppose having 14 children drove him on!

Ash from a local fire was used to create paths, OK until the frosts arrived, and when they melted you were left with a sticky mess. With clothes lines hung between oak trees, ash was put down to level up an uneven surface, it was also put in the fowls pen, along with the dried egg shells, for the hens to scratch over.

Oh for yesteryear when as children we often visited the Harry Holes at the Tuffs where the locals disposed of unwanted things. We were looking for pram wheels and wood to make a trolly or perhaps a tyre for a bowler. Sometimes all we found was a dead hen or cat, food for Reynard; perhaps sometimes the prize was an unbroken egg. Then you had to persuade some fool to break it whilst you stood well back. A bad egg can make you feel quite ill, cruel!

Spring arrived in Bream and all over the Forest when not only did lambs arrive, but outside the back gates of houses backing onto the Forest you would find a scattering of cabbage and Brussels sprout stumps eagerly attacked by sheep and pigs and poultry.

– C R Miles, Bream.