Over the past months I have noticed an absence of the once very common house-sparrow (Passer Domesticus).  Is it because they have been robbed of their cottage-thatch nesting and roosting sites?  Even where thatch occurs it is now well covered with wire netting and ricks and other old farmyard places have gone. Not only did we have the common house sparrows, but we had colonies of tree sparrows, which usually took over old apple trees adjoining the farm buildings.  I haven't seen one of their untidy nests for years.  My bird book says they are more timid than the house sparrow.

From early childhood I seem to remember house sparrows around the house and garden. They were waiting each morning for my mother to shake the breakfast table cloth outside. I don't think that simple task is seen nowadays. Then they followed my father down the garden with the pigs' breakfast and the hens' corn. As soon as such duties were completed, the sparrows managed to get through the large mesh of the wire-netting, but what panic ensued if they were caught eating the hens' corn. They simply couldn't get back through the wire mesh quickly enough.

The cornfield provided them with corn-on-the-straw.  Whole flocks would fly out when disturbed.  The threshing of the corn, sacking it, and moving it around left much food about. The modern corn-growing farmer has set up his processing buildings with a high degree of hygiene, so that there hardly seems to be a grain of wheat laying around.

Again I repeat "Where have all the sparrows gone?" Throughout the past centuries sparrows have been hounded and hunted, for they certainly ate a lot of corn. Enemy No.1 was the householder in whose thatch the sparrow started life. They, likely as not, kept ferrets (as we did) and they were mostly fed on sparrows, which were shot by a pellet from an air-gun, which was always handy.

In those days sparrows were looked upon as a pest, resulting in a serious attempt to get rid of them.  Throughout the Grafton estate, as well as all other estates, so named "SPARROW CLUBS" were formed.  Farmers and the Duke of Grafton made donations to the Club.  A Secretary/Treasurer was appointed for each village, being chosen at the annual Court Leet. The result of all this was that every sparrow had a price on its head. After dark a group of men and boys went out equipped with a large net, similar to a strawberry bed net. This was attached to two long poles, so that when erected it looked like a large banner. The attackers approached any building covered with ivy. The net was placed against the ivy, and the surprised sparrows which were roosting there, were caught in the netting, duly extracted and killed. In season, nests were robbed of their eggs, and if the young were there, they were likewise collected. Young birds were called bolshins or variants of this.  The resulting haul was then taken to the Sparrow Club Treasurer, who would pay out per head of sparrow and egg. The payment would be shared between the hunters and was a regular source of beer money.

From the Blisworth Vestry Meeting (the forerunner of Parish Councils) of March 1888, the minutes reveal that the price for adult sparrows was fixed at sixpence per dozen if taken between Michaelmas Day and Lady Day, but only threepence if taken between Lady Day and Michaelmas. Eggs were paid for at threepence a dozen and the same for the newly born bolshins. Seemingly, prices varied at different times of the year.

At one time, the Sparrow Club Secretary/Treasurer was the Church Sexton and Clockmaker - Mr Whitlock.  He, like many cottagers, also kept a pig or pigs. I was told by his nephew that his uncle's pigs were the thinnest in the village, for they were only fed on sparrows and water!  In bad winters sparrows, and also blackbirds, were netted, skinned, and their breast fillets were cut away and made into Sparrow or Blackbird Pie. Sparrow Clubs seem to have come to an end after World War One.