Sains Farm, Great Totham and the French Family
​By Jane Chapman

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​Neal and Kate French (otherwise known as Ned or Neddy, and Kit) lived at Sains Farm from the early 1900s. They apparently had a large mortgage on the property and worked hard to help make ends meet. Neal was born in Tolleshunt Knights to William French and Sarah Pudney, the eighth of 14 children, including Arthur. Arthur and his wife Maud had two girls called Elsie and Grace and a son called Sidney. Neither of the girls married, continuing to live with their father at the large house called Ashwells in Earls Colne after their mother died. Their family had moved here after a life spent farming at Bohuns Hall at Tollesbury.  Neal and his brother Arthur were obviously very close – Neal and family went to visit Arthur for lunch on alternate Sundays and Arthur visited Neal and family the other. There was a tennis court at Bohuns Hall,
 
Arthur and family had a very social life and there were frequent gatherings for tennis etc. in the summer. Kit was the seventh of nine children, born to John Runnicles and Mary Ann Harriss in Layer Marney. Neal and Kit had two sons, Fred and Will. Fred is buried in Great Totham churchyard, an easy walk from the farm across the fields, and my mother thinks he died of scarlet fever when he was a schoolboy. He was a very bright child and much loved by his parents, so it must have been a great loss to them.

Sains Farm, Great Totham and the French Family
​By Jane Chapman        continued

Playing around freely, my sister and I explored all the barns and admired the old horse halters hanging up where they had been left when last used years ago. The old cart sheds were still there, along the lane beside the little pond which can be seen in the pictures. Various old pieces of carts and equipment were there, including a tractor – I can still remember the smell of the fuel, and climbing up on to the old metal seat to pretend to drive it.
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The barns smelled of corn and sacks. Once we found a cat with kittens, but after telling the Frenches excitedly of our find, my mother warned us not to tell them again – the kittens would probably be drowned because they did not want too many cats around the farm. It was a vision that stayed with me. Opposite the back door, beyond the shed where they kept their dogs, were hen houses. To the right as you came out of the back door was the water pump – a novelty to a child, but hard work for those who had to use it for fresh water. There was an outside toilet down the end of the garden where the house faced the farm track, but there was a more modern one down the blue and white tiled corridor which went from outside the kitchen to the front of the house.

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