C2—Lancastw Fanning, Satnrday, MaylO, 19t0
Annette Gross spends six months gathering lifetime of memories
PLUMSTEADVILLE Just one year ago Annette
Gross embarked upon a six-month trip which gave her a
lifetime of memories and a solid introduction to the way of
life of families in other countries.
Annette was an International 4-H Youth Exchange
delegate from Bucks County and she traveled to the
United Kingdom on a program which took her to 18
families in the countries of Scotland, Wales, England and
Northern Ireland. She lives at Plumsteadville with her
parents, Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Gross.
“I am so happy now that I went to the United Kingdom.
They have such an organized program. Being an IF YE is
a terrific way to see a country and learn to understand the
people. It allows you to live with them and do as they do,”
she said.
One of the most common barriers to communication in
another country was not there since people in the United
Kingdom speak, naturally, English. This allowed for
pretty good communication between Annette and her'
hosts, but it didn’t mean that she missed all the fun of
speaking another language. “It was interesting,” she
recalls. “Their terms are so different. They also talk
quickly and you really had to listen. There were so many
different expressions. ’ ’ -
As far as understanding her, Annette said, “They didn’t
have much problem when I talked slow.” She also pointed
out that in the United Kingdom you can travel small
distances and see large differences in language. She said,
“Within 10 miles the accent changes.”
In the United Kingdom, her stay was organized by the
Young Farmers Clubs, which she characterizes as being
“a big social club.” Members of Young Farmers are rural
youth between 14-26 years old. She adds, “They are very
active members. They hold competitions, sports events,
and educational programs. Often they meet once a week,
except they do not meet formally from May through
September because of farm wor’:. If you’re a young
farmer, that is your social life. That is your circle of
friends and it keeps you busy. ’ ’
Annette said the dubs are most active in the winter, but
she partidpated in many activities during her stay there.
She explained, “We were lucky enough to arrive in time
for the National Young Farmers conference, with 5,000
young farmers. We spent three days there.” After that,
she said she often met group members in her travels
around the countries. There were three other American
girls as IFYEs to the United Kingdom.
Annette bails from a dairy farm in Bucks County where
she is very much at home milking cows. She spent 10
years as a 4-H member there, including being a teen
leader, and participating in sewing, baking, dairy cow and
dairy goat projects.
She said thai English farms are generally “mixed
farms with sheep, beef, and some dairy.” She visited a lot
of sheep farms and ate a lot of lamb while there. In
England farms average about 200 acres, and this dairy
fanner’s daughter 'lsited two dairy farmers who had
Britian Friesian covs. Annette said these dairy animals
are more compact than dairy animals in the United
States.
On a good farm the average might be about 17,000
Annette shows sister Amy the routes she
traveled during her tour as an IFYE. Gasoline was
expensive there, she noted, priced at 2.50 for an
Imperial gallon.
BY SALLY BAIR
Staff Correspondent
Annette' is engrossed
in the travel and
souvenir brochures she
accumulated during her
six-month trip to the
United Kingdom. She
brought home along with
the printed material, a
lifetime of memories.
pounds of milk, but on average farms milk production
ranged about 12,000 pounds. She said she was surprised at
the number of milking parlors in use in England, often
with as few as 40 cows.
In the dairy industry she said, “There were not as many
pedigreed herds, and commercial dairy herds were
common.”
The countryside was often rolling hills which reminded
her of her home in Southeastern Pennsylvania, but she
said one distinction between fields in the United Kingdom
and those in Bucks County are hedgerows. “Hedgerows
mark all fields, and they are basically designed to keep
the sheep in. In Wales there are stone walls along the
fields.”
She characterized Welsh farms as somewhat smaller
than English farms, and said that the more mountainous
areas lend themselves to keeping sheep. “Wales is very
rugged, with some parts really barren and some green,”
she said, adding that farming there is more difficult and
machinery is smaller than in other countries she visited.
Slate mines were a big industry in Wales.
She found in Wales that all people could speak both
Welsh and English. Store signs and road signs are in
Welsh, and m her families, only Welsh was spoken in
conversation among themselves at the table.
In Scotland, which is known for its sheep, she visited the
county of Ayr, the home of Ayrshire cattle. She stayed on
a farm, however, which had pedigreed Herefords.
Annette visited Northern Ireland, and said, “I wasn’t
afraid while I was there. The people are brought up with
td/offis
the violence and they get used to it.” She learned more
about the political situation there, and explained that 95
percent of the Northern Irish are protestants who are very
strongly attached to British Rule. She also noted that the
Irish Republican Army wants to bring down anything that
represents the government. She stayed in a family in
which her host father had been a policeman for 31 years. A
pleasant aspect of her visit was the “fine Irish
hospitality.”
The United Kingdom faces similiar problems with its
agriculture to those m Pennsylvania. She said that the
United Kingdom is losing 40,000 acres each year to
housing and industry. Therefore, there are a lot of
government farm programs channeling money to far
mers. In some cases government grants are available for
as much as 40 percent of the cost of constructing
buildings. There are grants which encourage them to keep
farming, and in Wales, farmers can get paid for
reclaiming fields. There are also “hillside grants” for the
number of sheep kept on the hillsides.
While the countries she visited were further north than
Pennsylvania, the Gulf Stream has a moderating effect
upon the weather, Annette explained. “They don’t have
•*'' the long hot period we do. They could plow in January and
seed at the end of February.” They average only about 24
inches of rainfall yearly despite then reputation for
having rainy weather. Annette said, “There are un
predictable showers, but there is never much rain at a
tune.” She said hay is often baled while still damp and left
outside to dry further.
Ireland, known as the Emerald Island, gets more
frequent rams.
Annette said she found her hosts to be “pretty well in
formed about the United States. They are interested in
knowing how we do things and to learn how they are
different.” She said her host families were qiuch like her
real family in their lifestyle, although she found that
young people hved at home longer than in this country.
She found the cost of living higher, with incomes lower
than in this country. Clothing is much more expensive and
food is 1% tunes as expensive as here. An interesting
aspect of food shopping for the rural farm wife is the
A
•* s ‘VVs.
Seated outside her Bucks County home, Annette
Gross displays a souvenir kilt she purchased on
her trip to Scotland.
widespread home delivery of milk and other commodities,
far into the countryside. There is a mobile grocer, a
butcher, a baker and even a “fish and chips” man, An
nette explained.
Gasoline is very expensive there, costing $2.50 for an
Imperial gallon. She said, “They think we should have to
pay more for our gas.”
Meals were plentiful and frequent she found. Breakfast
was a large meal of bacon, eggs and sausage, and at 10:30
a.m. there would be tea with currant loaf, thinly sliced in
Wales and thickly sliced in England.
The noon meal was a large one, consisting sometimes of
roast beef, yorkshire pudding and potatoes. Many people
had their own greenhouses and grew their own small
tomatoes, but Annette found that salads are not on the
menu out of season as they might be here. She said food
was often served on the dinner plate, with only vegetables
being passed later for seconds.
There is another tea at 4:00 p.m. She pointed out that tea
is always brewed, and milk is added to the cup before the
tea is put in. Scones, shortbread or biscuits might be
served in the afternoon.
Desserts might be a pudding or other sweet, but morfe
than likely it would be served with cream, according to
Annette. “Basically they serve a lot of the same foods, but
it was prepared differently,” she stated. She enjoyed
cooking some American-style meals for her hosts. '
A surprise for her was to leam of their loyalty to the
Royal Family. “I was really surprised that they thought
so much of the Queen. They think that their Royal Family
is the envy of most of the world.”
She was there during the elections, and she said most
people were happy with having Margaret Thatcher
elected prune minister. “The fact that she was a woman
was not important. She was a conservative, and they were
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