A Ryedale farm has probably the oldest worker of any in Yorkshire in Frank Hill who despite being a nonagenarian is still at work each day!

For Frank has been working on Ryedale farms for some 76 years and is still active on Chester Bosomworth's Charity Farm near Thornton-le-Dale.

Ruddy-faced Frank, looking far younger than his 90 years, recalls how he worked with teams of Clydesdale horses, sometimes in pairs and threes for ploughing.

"But for cutting the corn with a binder we had four - two at the back and two at the front," said Frank. In many cases, the giant horses became close company for him working in the field.

When he left school at 14, Frank lived at Snowdrop Farm, since renamed Topbridge, just a stone's throw from Charity Farm.

"We had to walk two and half miles each way over the fields to school each day to Thornton-le-Dale," he added.

Later, he moved with his family to Home Farm, East Heslerton, where he began to work with horses and develop a skill which was to last for many years until the arrival of the tractor.

He recalls how each Martinmas Day farm hands would be hired and always hoped they would find "a good meat house" - where food was good and plentiful!

The working day would start at 7am with a break at dinner time, and another for tea, before finally returning to the farm with the horses at 7.30pm in the summer months. Often, it would be later at harvest time. "Some of the farms had up to 14 horses."

Frank worked at Heslerton Grange Farm and Home Farm before he returned to Thornton-le-Dale at Fir Tree farm.

Today, he is still in action each day at Charity Farm.

"Farming was hard work in those days but we didn't think anything about it. "

Now he spends much of his time helping in the garden and feeding the cattle at Charity Farm.

Recently, Mr Bosomworth presented him with a gold watch to mark his long service.

Updated: 10:42 Thursday, December 13, 2001