Tolpuddle Martyrs

Farming Today This Week takes a look at the changing lives and conditions of agricultural workers through the centuries. Felicity Evans visits the Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival in Dorset, and learns about the early trade unions and the fate of the martyrs who were sentenced to seven years transportation after swearing a secret oath of membership. She also meets a retired farm worker who spent more than fifty years on the same farm, and two new recruits just starting out on their careers in agriculture. How have lives, working conditions, and attitudes to unions changed down the generations?

Presented by Felicity Evans and produced by Emma Campbell.