Old Denaby Affray – Midnight Orchard Raid

July 1926

Mexborough and Swinton Times, July 16, 1926

Old Denaby Affray
Midnight Orchard Raid

A running fight between a farmer, his son, and a friend against a dozen orchard raiders, took place on Tuesday at midnight.

The farmer was Mr. W. Scott, of Ivy farm, old Denaby, who, when interviewed by a “Times” reporter, gave a graphic account of the affair.

“About midnight,” he said, “my daughter shouted to us and told us that some men were in the garden, shaking the trees. One of them called out, ‘I’ve got a pocket of Goose berries.’

My son, Cyril, ran out of the house and the men began to run away. In the garden Cyril caught one of them, and he started to fight. Cyril got a blow in the eye but he knocked his man down and kept him there. The captives then shouted, ‘come on, he’s got me,’ and about 10 men came back. When they saw myself and a friend running towards them, and with whips, they began to run away and we gave chase. Then we had a running fight for some hundreds of yards. I lamed myself jumping over a six-foot wall.

The men try to stone us, but luckily for us there were not many stones, and we did not give them much chance to get any. We gave them a good thrashing, which was much better than trying to prosecute them.”

Mr Scott said that it was a usual practice for men to get at his apples.  They did not get much this time but did considerable damage to his potatoes.