According to historian on the Fens, W H Wheeler,: ‘so wild a country naturally reared up a people as wild as the fen, and many of the Fenmen were as destitute of all the comforts and amenities of civilised life as their isolated huts could make them. Their occupation consisted in dairying and haymaking, looking after the beasts and sheep which grazed in the fen in summer; and in winter, gaining a living by fishing or fowling.’