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• TUESDAY MARKET
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By Alan Smith
A Survey of Cattle-marketing Activity Centred on King's Lynn, and the Part Played in it by Livestock Carriers Based in the Surrounding Districts CATTLE marketing has, during the past 30 years, altered greatly under physical, economic and political influences. Today it is carried on by commercial enterprise largely within a framework sponsored by the State to achieve a degree of rationalization. Work of this kind centred upon King's Lynn cattle market may be typical of the general picture, and reveals how livestock hauliers have adapted themselves to the changing pattern.
Before the development of mechanical road transport, cattle were mainly driven on foot to any one of many small country markets. Most rural railway stations had cattle pens, and perhaps three-quarters of the stock brought into the bigger town markets was rail-borne. The larger buyers naturally tended to visit the town markets and as mechanical road transport grew, farmers made use of it to send their animals to these centres, where they were better assured of gaining higher prices than in the small local markets.
The small markets died out, and by 1939 about 1,000 head of cattle passed through King's Lynn every market day during the first half of the year, and about 600 during the latter. Approximately three-quarters of the animals were brought in by road. War-time price control of fat stock (cattle fol slaughter), which has continued to the present time, a first resulted in a fall in the cattle population, and late in a decline in the importance of markets such a: King's Lynn. A standard price schedule eliminate( bargaining for the best profit, and it has become con venient merely for the farmer to send his fat stock tc the nearest market.
Consequently, the number of cattle dealt with a King's Lynn is now about half that handled before tht war, whilst markets such as Wisbech, Watton anc Burnham have gained the business that King's Lynn ha! lost. Practically all livestock movement is now don( by road.
In the west Norfolk area there has been a 75 per cent drop in the sheep population over recent years. Effect! of the February floods will be felt during the sheep sale of next autumn and those of beef around Christmas because of the drowning of thousands of animals. Th( penetration of salt, up to some 20 tons to the acre to a depth of 12-15 ft., along 28 miles of coast inland tc about two miles, will have even more serious long-term consequences. Unforseeable outbreaks of foot-andmouth disease and swine fever also depress market activity and deplete the traffic available to the haulier.
Trading in store cattle (young beasts sold for fattening) is not subject to price control and is carried on as before the war.
There are three store-cattle auctioneers at King's Lynn. Farmers arrange for transport to market, where store cattle are auctioned in the normal way, and buyers hire vehicles to take the animals to their pastures. Because of the standing of King's Lynn, store cattle come in for auction from a wider area than the fat stock, which is mainly drawn from the north-western corner of the county. In this district, some 18 operators with a total strength of approximately 50 vehicles run regularly to King's Lynn on a Tuesday, except for special store-cattle sales held on other days of the week during the spring and autumn.
A week before the market day, farmers notify the district chairman of auctioneers • of the number and kinds of fat stock that they intend to send, Mr. Paul Hawkins, managing director of Charles Hawkins and the West Norfolk Farmers' Auction Co., Ltd., is responsible in King's Lynn and he in turn collates the details and sends them to the Ministry of Food at High Wycombe.
The Ministry's function is then to advise the district chairman of the numbers of animals which have to be sent to the various slaughterhouses. This information is passed on to the collecting-centre foreman, usually a cattle haulier himself, who, receiving nominal payment for his services from the Meat Transport Organization, Ltd., allots the outgoing traffic to various operators.
A haulier usually has by Friday a rough indication of what he will have to carry into market on the following Tuesday. Each has his own recognized customers within his locality and there is little encroachment by one operator upon the preserves of another—a happy state of affairs which is encouraged by existing availability of traffic and has even given rise to suggestions about establishing pooled transport arrangements to eliminate waste mileage. Through the work of the Road Haulage Association, there is no marked variation in rates between different operators.
Although farmers prefer transport to arrive about 8-9 a.m. to collect the animals, haulage work may sometimes have to start about 5 a.m. Vehicles may make some three or four collection trips, and by the late morning all the fat stock is in the market for grading and the store cattle for auction sale. Animals are identified by numbered tickets stuck on their backs.
Grading is done after the beasts are weighed. Three graders, one representing farmers, another the butchers and a third the auctioneers, assess the quality of each animal (super-special, special, A plus, A, A minus, and so on down to C) and appropriate scissor-cut marks are made in the hair on the flank. The grade and the weight decide the price which the Ministry will pay, but if a farmer is dissatisfied with the grading given to his animals, he is free to withdraw them. This sometimes occurs, and there is thus return traffic to the farms.
While grading and auctioning are in progress, vehicles stand by on the lorry park and are cleaned. The corporation provides washing facilities, one of their workers being paid 6d. for every lorry that he hoses out after the used straw has been raked on to a heap. Much capital has, however, been spent by Mr. Hawkins' concern to improve market facilities. They have, for instance, built a large roof over the pens for store cattle.
Rain can wash the tickets off the animals' backs and this sometimes leads to difficulties in identification. With fat stock bearing grading marks, the problem is not so acute.
By the late afternoon, buyers of store cattle can make their outward transport arrangements, and the collecting-centre foreman can allocate fat-stock traffic. At King's Lynn this position is held by Mr. Albert Dent, of Hilgay, himself a haulier, with nine Bedford, Dennis, Leyland and MorrisCommercial livestock vehicles. Foremen are elected by their fellow operators for an indefinite tenure of office.
At first sight, their position seems invidious. However, the centre foreman is a man chosen for his character, his competitiors are also his personal friends, and he strives to fulfil his function with complete fairness.
The outward transport to the slaughterhouses and bacon factories is paid for by the M.T.O.L. according to a scale in which various kinds of animal are given a number of units. A bull, for example, has 44 units, a sow 22 and a calf four. The total of units aggregated by a vehicle lca can readily be computed, and the rate. discovered b cross-reference to the mileage figure in the publishe schedules. Although one or two hauliers volunteere to tell me that the M.T.O.L. rates were not generota the payments did not seem to irk others.
Fat stock is carried away to slaughterhouses in mot of the main towns in the eastern counties, whilst som loads are taken to London and distant provincial desti nations, the railways participating to a small extent i this long-distance work. The pattern of the outwar traffic is again different from that existing before th war, when butchers werefrec to select, purchase an kill their own beasts. Operators then had to carry man part-loads, or make a number of deliveries on a roun, trip. Haulage is now possibly more economic, as fu loads can be taken to big centralized abattoirs, althoug the Ministry's allocations of fat stock to variou destinations sometimes appear to the livestock carrier to be more bureaucratic than economic.
Should free selection be granted again to the butcher who have at present to accept what they are sent, it i unlikely that the character of the traffic from markt will alter. Centralized abattoirs were established fo hygienic reasons, and the State will probably also wis to retain a measure of control over the marketing o meat, which in its present form is certainly less open t adverse criticism than that of other essentia commodities, for example, fruit and vegetables.
Experience tells in cattle haulage, and a driver whi can handle livestock is a valued man. All the operator to whom I spoke stressed this point and not merely ou of self-congratulation. Most of the hauliers have bee in the livestock business since the pre-motor era. Only . , a few deal exclusively with cattle and the vehicles are predominantly of the lift-container type, which can be turned to general haulage when required.
Two depots at Swaffham and Wells of the West Norfolk Group of British Road Services operate livestock vehicles, there being three Albions and two Vulcans at .Swaffham and two Bedfords at Wells, Most ..of the containers were made at the Wells depot,. some of them being detachable by 'driving the vehicle between two sloping ramps. Livestock traffic is largely the concern of Mr. W. J. -Nelson, cattle foreman at Swaffham, who is also collectingcentre foreman of Dereham market.
Mr. Nelson's brother, Mr. B. J. Nelson, is a partner in the Terrington St. John haulage firm of Messrs. Mason and Nelson. They run eight vehicles of Austin, Bedford, Diamond-T and Dodge manufacture, one of the Bedfords of 1937 vintage being driven by Mr_ B. J. Nelson's 17-year-old son David. The firm's first motor vehicles were Chevrolets, acquired in 1931. Having a substantial total of customers on their books, they are exclusively devoted to cattle haulage, and take advantage of the slacker summer grazing and crop-harvest seasons to perform vehicle repair and painting work. Mr. B. J. Nelson is collecting-centre foreman at Wisbech and March markets.
The operator who claims to be the first to use a motor vehicle in King's Lynn market is Mr. A. Darkins, of Stoke Ferry, who bought a Ford Model-T in 1923. Collecting-centre foreman at Watton, Mr. Darkins now has five Morris-Commercial vehicles and is one of the few hauliers who occasionally carry pigs direct from the local farms to the bacon factories. An individual feature of the bodywork of his vehicles is the diagonal steelstrip bracing on the sides. Most hauliers' floats are locally built, but there are several bodies of wellknown makes.
Mr. C. H. Coe, of Lower Farm, Bircham, is-an operator with a preference for Commer vehicles, which he has operated since 1919. He now has a Superpoise 5-tonner and two smart underfloor
engined 7-tonners engaged on livestock work. One of the heavier machines has run 124,000 miles without having had the cylinder head removed.
Oil-engirted vehicles are few among livestock hauliers, but the fuel economy of his Thornycroft Sturdy 6-tonner is greatly appreciated by Mr. F. G. Benham, of Barton Betidish. An owner-driver, Mr. Benham obtains 18 m.p.g. with his vehicle, compared with .9 mpg. with petrol-engined lorries,which he ran before he bought the Sturdy four years ago. The vehicle has a Jennings detachable container and Mr. Bellham derives about half his income from cattle transport, which, when slack, is compensated by increased activity in crop harvests.
Traffic to and from King's Lynn forms only a part of these operators' work, for the Tuesday market there is but one in a series of others throughout the area. Burnham has a market on Monday, Walton and Bury St. Edmunds on Wednesday, Fakenham on Thursday, Dereham on Friday and Norwich on Saturday. All markets deal in fat stock, but only the bigger centres attract store cattle to their auctidns. Working to such a programme calls for nearly full-time effort and the consideration of a holiday involves careful thought about how long a period away from business can be spared.