'I drank rainwater laced with sticklebacks as a Fenland child'

A self-confessed "Fen Tiger" has described how his 1930s Fenland childhood involved collecting rainwater to drink and mostly living off the land.

Don Bradshaw, 96, grew up in a farming family and spent his formative years in the village of Manea, Cambridgeshire, before later moving to nearby March.

He said he left school being unable to read and write as his father needed him to carry out chores on the farm, where he recalled making homemade ketchup by treading in a bath tub full of field mushrooms with bare feet to extract the juice.

"We are a breed that is dying out, growing up in the fen," he said, adding it was "quite a tough life".

A Fen Tiger is a historical nickname given to protesters opposed to the marsh drainage schemes of the 16th and 17th Centuries.

Bradshaw, who later became a director of a vegetable production company and retired aged 60, said: "We collected rainwater in a big metal tank, in the summertime, when it got low you'd see sticklebacks and rust at the bottom - but we still had to drink it."

Bradshaw also remembered drinking water from nearby dykes and ditches.

"We boiled it up first and let it settle to clear all the sediment, but it did us good, we never had any illness," he added.

Mushrooms and pork fat were a staple in the Bradshaw family home in the 1930s.

"Mother used to collect field mushrooms and put them in a 6ft (2m) long galvanised tin bath to let them ferment.

"Aged about four, I had to take my shoes and socks off and tread them down to get all the juice out", he said.

Bradshaw said a Sunday morning treat would be fried sausages with lashings of mushroom ketchup, which his feet had helped to make.

"My mother won £3 in a butter-making competition at the Peterborough show in 1933 and I still have her butter clappers that originally belonged to my grandmother," he said.

Bradshaw added that his mother died when he was six years old, and he had to "fend for himself" as his father was constantly working to keep the farm running.

Bradshaw is a self-confessed "old Fen Tiger", adding: "We are a breed that is dying out, growing up in the fen, you do tend to talk a bit lazily, and don't pronounce words as you should.

"Although we have invented some words and phrases - my favourite is 'docky' [which means packed lunch]."

Bradshaw believed the word originated from when farm labourers were docked wages for taking a 30-minute lunch break.

"Most older people who live in Fenland seem to know the word, newcomers are completely baffled and look at you strangely if you mention 'docky'," he added.

Do you have a story suggestion for Cambridgeshire? Contact us below.

Follow Cambridgeshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.