1969: HARD LIFE of the FARM WORKERS | Man Alive | World of Work | BBC Archive

"It's back-breaking work, just one of the difficulties of living under conditions that have hardly changed since medieval times."

Most people have a view of life in the country that doesn't match reality. One farmworker in four earns less than £13 a week - the minimum wage is only £12.8s - while a peculiar wages permit system allows some farmers to have their workers' downgraded and pay them even less than this.

One-quarter of general farm workers with more than three children live below the official poverty level. Because of the 'tied' cottage system, some farm workers do not even have complete job security and freedom - if they lose their job they can lose their home, too. 35,000 men a year are getting out of farm work, leaving these conditions for jobs in the cities. The National Union of Agricultural Workers frequently has its hands tied and seems helpless, partly because it has so few members and partly because its members are so scattered.

Man Alive reports from the Old Crown Court, Dorchester, in which, 135 years ago, six men of the land who became known as the 'Tolpuddle Martyrs' were convicted for trying to organise a protest against farm workers' pay and conditions. Their sentence, then, was transportation to Australia, are farm workers still an oppressed minority a century and a half later?

Clip taken from Man Alive: Everyday Story of Country Folk, originally broadcast on BBC Two, 4 June, 1969.

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