Bartlett Contractors Ltd

I was farming with my father and brothers at Castleman’s Farm, Hinton St Mary in 1959 at the age of 17. We started an agricultural contracting business including hay, straw baling, forage harvesting, combining, ditching and drainage works when suddenly my father died and the family lost the tenancy of the farm which was then milking 130 Friesian dairy cows giving an average of 1,550 gallons of milk per cow, per year. My other brothers went in to different parts of agriculture. Tony my eldest brother went in to management of a dairy estate in Hampshire, Paul and Stephen took good tractor driving jobs for Hinton St Mary Farms, and I continued the agricultural contracting business we had set up with my father