A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 40 Bearthwaite Acquires New Bearthwaite Folk
This contains an edited version of ‘A DISTURBING SCENE’ first posted on 2019/09/10
The recent cold snap taking the temperature down to minus twelve Celsius [10℉] had been replaced by a wet, warm, fine rain that soaked one down to the skin without being aware of it till it was too late. The high winds were dangerous to children and the infirm, but the footing was good now all the ice had finally melted. Younger children unable to go outside to play were bored and fractious and many a Bearthwaite parent was grateful there were Stephanie’s early years centre and the play group for them to attend during the day. Stephanie had two full time assistants and many adults gave up a few hours to assist at one or the other enabling them both to operate seven days a week. The availability of seven day a week child care was considered well worth contributing towards the cost of, despite which many parents were grateful when bedtime came around. Under such conditions Bearthwaite mothers hosted others’ children for the night along with their own, so some of them could have some much needed respite. It was no sinecure being a Bearthwaite granny, auntie, nor indeed a responsible older female sibling. Boys were generally not considered reliable enough to mind young children for extended periods of time. That was not an inflexible, nor a sexist stance, for some boys were but most weren’t. The general female view was that most teenage boys couldn’t remember how fast they could move when they were younger and potential Houdinis,(1) nor get it into their heads just how far bored children could move in just a few seconds, and bored children always knew when the eyes minding them were not paying attention.
There’d been a considerable amount of gossip concerning the new arrivals to Bearthwaite. Few had yet met with the village’s solicitor, for Adalheidis was shy, but the rumour machine had reliably linked her with Matt Levins, a local bricklayer who worked with his three brothers, which was regarded with approval by most, for it meant it looked like she would be putting roots down in Bearthwaite. It was, however, regarded with a degree of envy and resentment by some of the young men, for Matt had been seen with a proprietary arm around her and being kissed by her too before most had even had an opportunity to meet her. That she was pretty, clever, pleasant and helpful was widely known. It was said she could sing like an angel and had been persuaded to perform at the next concert to be given in the community hall. That was considered important by the villagers; that she was trans was not. Over the last couple of decades things had indeed changed. When Matt first met Adalheidis he knew who she was and had been a little intimidated by her educational achievements, but bowled over by her looks he’d forced himself into talking to her. Matt had not had much luck with girls at school, nor women thereafter, but she’d been easy to talk to and had seemed interested in him. He’d been initially intrigued by and subsequently captivated by her dry, but completely realistic sense of humour about herself which didn’t contain a drop of self pity. Laughing she’d telt him, “I think my færie godmother must have been trans too and reckoned if it were good enough for her it would have to be good enough for me as well.” When they had become on more intimate terms she’d telt him, “Most girls get to kiss a lot of frogs before they find their prince. Every one knows that some frogs are deadly to even touch, so all girls looking for their prince are taking chances, so I must have been lucky to have hit pay dirt on my first attempt.”
“What, I’m the first to ever kiss you‽”
“Yeah. None were ever interest in me before. I reckon they were scared that they may enjoy it and turn gay or worse. You know like it were catching or something.”
Matt had shaken his head in bewilderment and said, “I don’t get that. I think you’re every blokes dream. To begin with I thought you were out of my league because you were so pretty. And clever too. I didn’t really think you’d even entertain going out for a drink with me. I’m just a brickie. I know as brickies go I’m one of the best, but I’ve never had any pretensions to being clever. Even my brothers laugh at me.” Rather than face public scrutiny to start with they’d gone for a drink at a village pub some fifteen miles from Bearthwaite. “So why did you say yes?”
“Well the first reason is obvious. You actually asked me. That was a first, well, it was a first with no strings and expectations from blokes who thought I’d be grateful as hell and let them do whatever they wanted with me. ‘I don’t normally do blokes, but I’ll make an exception for you,’ was one of the politer things said by blokes of their like. I’ve done a lot of self defence and martial arts and I tend to react badly to that sort of thing. I thought you were nice, nervous, but nice. Probably a more relevant question would be why did I wish to go out with you the second and subsequent times. To which there are a lot of answers. Unlike the blokes who were just after a quick lay who couldn’t be bothered to even try to get my name right, you did and were bothered in case you hadn’t pronounced it properly. You tret me right from the very beginning. You made it clear you were interested in me without being in any way pushy. That you clearly didn’t know where to put your eyes for safety I thought was sweet. When talking you always talk to my eyes which is nice, though I enjoy you looking at the rest of me too. You’re big and easy on the eye and you make me feel petite which is really nice for a girl of my height. You paid for our drinks, but gave me some modern dignity and freedom when I insisted on paying for the cab home. I liked that. When you kissed me goodnight after our first date I didn’t have to fight you off because you weren’t all over me like a rash. I’d been telt Bearthwaite folk weren’t bothered about LGBT issues, but meeting a bloke who knew I’d been born a boy, but was still interested in me was not something I’d even considered.” She’d chuckled a wicked sounding chuckle before saying, “I hope you realise that what you are currently enjoying cost me a hell of a sight more than most folks’ cars, but please don’t stop because it was worth every penny!”
When Tony and Beth had visited Bearthwaite to look at available housing they’d liked the recently refurbished terraced houses on Allotments Row, some of which were double fronted as a result of one of the smaller houses being combined with the house next door to create a decent sized family dwelling. Matt Levins who was shewing them around had telt them with a laugh, “They didn’t use plans in the days when these houses were built. I reckon when the brickie felt he’d laid enough bricks across the front he just turned at right angles to lay the party wall between the two houses. I don’t think they could count bricks too well either for I doubt if any two of the two hundred or so houses in the four streets here are the same size, and some of them only have two bedrooms while most have three. There’re even a few on the terrace ends that have four. Some of the ones that were two houses have five. If you tell Elle Vetrov you want this one it’ll be yours. If when your surgery is ready you want to live somewhere more convenient just let her know, and she’ll sort something out for you.” That was that. They moved house three days later having had all their possessions moved for them by members of the Bearthwaite Shift It Team which they were laughingly telt comprised whichever folk happened to be available.
Tony and Beth, who were both dentists, had already been well known to and liked by numerous villagers, men and women, before they moved. They were now making themselves more widely known around the village. They were said to be good neighbours and even women who’d not met Beth were aware that she was three going on four months and still suffered a little from morning sickness. A dentist in the village was regarded as a definite improvement, for suffering from toothache when access to outside was not easy and involved a trip by boat due to the floods was neither a quick nor a pleasant matter to resolve.
The day after they’d moved in, Murray visited them to ask if they would like him to handle the sale of their old house and their business, which he assured them would be free of charge. “Estate agent [US realtor] is just another synonym for thief,” he said laughing. “However, what I really came to talk about is your request for me to arrange a bridging loan for you to purchase new equipment. I shall if you insist, but I’ll arrange it via the Bearthwaite Village Community Ownership Company at zero interest. My question is since you will be using it on behalf of the residents do you really wish to own that equipment, or would it be okay for the Bearthwaite Village Community Ownership Company to buy and own it?”
“We’d rent the equipment?” Tony asked.
“No. You’d use and operate it. The medical centre operates that way. This way every adult in the village including you two owns a small share of what is very expensive equipment. If that’s what you’d prefer just make sure you buy us the best available and let me and my two colleagues worry about the cost. We’re the village accountants and that’s what we’re paid to do.”
Chance was already well known around the village, for most had attended his wedding and the subsequent reception, and many mothers had fed at least one of his three children or had theirs fed by his Bearthwaite born and bred wife Stephanie. Their children were polite and helpful and the entire family was well thought of. That Chance was making the village’s finances simpler and worked long hours to do so had him almost as well thought of as that he assisted at the after school ballet classes. That his son, Luke who was four, attended the ballet lessons as well as his older sisters, Grace and Erin, had encouraged a number of other younger boys to do so too which was considered to be a good thing. Stephanie had been correct in that Grace and Erin derived considerable status for having a dad cool enough to assisted at ballet.
When it was being discussed that it was a shame it was only the youngest boys who were learning ballet since their older brothers were in need of something to use up their energies too Bertie had said, “I can quite see why a lot of lads, especially older lads, don’t want to do ballet. I know mine aren’t interested. However, there’re a lot of parents here who enjoy ballroom dancing. Just think on the number of couples dancing in the dance hall at the Dragon or the Community Centre whenever there’s something going on there. I reckon a lot of the older lasses would be interested in learning and where the girls go the lads ’ll follow. I know my lads ’d buy into it if the lasses do. I’m not that good a dancer and I don’t reckon I know enough to teach it, but I’m willing to help. There must be someone here good enough to be able to teach it. It’ll give the kids something to do instead of wearing their parents, especially their mums, down into the ground because they haven’t been able to run around outside and burn some energy off. The older, more responsible kids will keep the younger ones in line which’ll give the adults a break. We also need to see if we can find someone who could teach karate or judo or something similar.” There had been no luck so far finding a marshal arts teacher, but the ballroom dancing lessons were seen as a very positive result of Chance’s marriage to Stephanie.
The old granary was already under development, and all were looking forward to the opening of Jeremy’s new restaurante which was logically enough to be called ‘The Granary’. All the old equipment, grain augers, the huge mechanical sieves and the like had been cleaned and polished with beeswax and were ready to be used as items with which to provide the restaurante with an appropriately themed ambiance. Some of the larger pieces of equipment were to be used as screens between tables to provide diners with a degree of privacy and the windows were hung with lined curtains that utilised the hessian sacks that long ago had been used to hold two hundredweights [100Kg, 224 pound] of grain. The logos and the writing on the sacks faced inside so they were visible to diners. The curtains had eventually been custom made by any number of the village women who’d been shocked to discover that Lizzie was looking for a company to make the curtains. “It’s a good thing that none were prepared to make ’em up from the sacks like you wanted, Lizzie, for that would’ve seriously upset any number of the women here.” Gladys had explained, “That’s just not how things are done here. All the curtains and upholstery in the Dragon were made by women who live here. We had fun doing it and it gave us an excuse for throwing a party when it was all finished. The most it’ll cost you is a free meal for all involved. I’ll put the word out and get back to you when I know owt.”
Jeremy had been asked if he would take charge of the cooking at future barbecue celebration events on the green. He’d agreed and all was being prepared for the Valentine’s day celebration. Vincent the village slaughterman and butcher said he’d have the carcasses for the spits in cold store by the weekend, and the allotment growers and Christine the pressure canner had telt Jeremy what would be available for the event. He had already had Christine make up and can a hundred litres [22 imperial gallons, 28 US gallons] of his barbecue sauce recipe in two litre jars [3½ imperial pints 2 US quarts] and was working on the menu. Alf and the other allotment holders had earmarked tractor trailer loads of Picasso potatoes for baking for which that variety was particularly suitable, for they were large, fluffy and absorbed copious quantities of butter. The oven for baking the potatoes was a mobile, wood fired contraption that Alf had created from forty-five gallon oil drums and some bits of scrap including an old twin axle trailer.
Jeremy and Lizzie had been assisted to move into a recently refurbished semi detached house behind the village green by the Bearthwaite Shift It Team. Elle had insisted they chose a house suitable for not just themselves but for their future family too. “There’s no point in you having to move twice is there?” She said not expecting an answer. Their new neighbours had been quick to tell them the previous owners had finally in desperation accepted a realistic price for the house and left three months before leaving the house in such a shocking state of disrepair that the Levins brothers had had to send in a team of building tradesmen before the Jarvis girls could go in to redecorate. The now immaculate garden they had been telt was a far cry from the neglected jungle the previous residents had presided over thanks mostly to the folk who worked the allotments. The neighbours had also informed the couple how glad they had been to see them go, and that they were even happier to see the couple move in. One neighbour had said, “They made life difficult for us for the entire five years they were here. I think they believed we were just country bumpkins who they could tell how to behave and manipulate, but they soon learnt the hard way. Still, with you here now that’s one less property in the ownership of outsiders. There aren’t many left that we need to buy out now.”
Lizzie asked , “Learnt the hard way? How?”
“The shops wouldn’t serve them. Other than official post office goods and services which it is illegal to refuse to anyone they got nothing from anyone here. No one would have any dealings with them. We didn’t even have to tell our kids not to play with theirs, for theirs were obnoxious spoilt brats that ours didn’t want anything to do with. We own the primary school site and building, and it is a private school, not a Local Education Authority financed and controlled school, so they had to take their kids elsewhere and that’s a tedious business from here, and an impossible one when the road is flooded. Too they had no schooling during the lockdown which made no difference to our kids as we have enough clever folk here to teach even the A’ level kids ourselves. It had been made very clear to them that if they or their kids were ill they were on their own, for our resources are not available to folk we neither like nor get on with. One of the kids was rushed to hospital with acute appendicitis when they were at her mother’s down south somewhere. I reckon them realising that the kid could have died if that had happened here when the road was flooded unless the air ambulance got here in time was what eventually made them just give up and leave. Good riddance to bad rubbish was how most of us saw that. Talking of which the Council doesn’t empty the bins here, and the men who deal with the matter here wouldn’t, so they had to take it all to a civic amenity site somewhere themselves. Still, on a more pleasant matter, you’ll come round for supper tonight will you? Say quarter to eight? There’ll be a dozen or so of us at least. Most of them will be eager to meet a new neighbour who will actually be a neighbour not a pain. Elle said you were interested in babysitting to get a bit of practice before you have a family of your own, Lizzie. That will make you exceeding popular round here, and of course put a lot of women in your debt ready for when you need a babysitter.”
“How can I possibly repay you all for doing all that you’ve done for us?” Lizzy asked.
Amarie replied, “Easy. Throw a barbecue party in the garden some time. We’ll all help and the lasses’ll all bring food. I’ll have my Dan organise the equipment and the drink. He’ll be more than happy to do that with his mates and doubtless they’ll have a drink with Pete and Gustav whilst they’re doing it. I’ll ask Stephanie to organise some of us to keep an eye on the little ones. She’ll know who can ride shotgun on a crowd of ’em best. Folk ’ll all be glad to celebrate having decent new neighbours.”
Now she had moved to Bearthwaite Lizzie wanted a family, and it seemed every woman in the village already knew that, but she was worried that she may have trouble conceiving due to her age. “Easily dealt with, My dear,” Susanna the midwife telt her. “I’ll give you a diet sheet and a leaflet with a list of websites on it that’ll help, but in the meanwhile keep trying. I’ll put you in contact with Harriet and Samantha who can advise you about going on the list to adopt. Even if you don’t bear all of your children yourself that way you will at least have a family, and of course if you adopt a couple of older children you’ll have caught up on a bit of lost time.” As a result of those contacts Lizzie decided she was going to take Susanna’s advice and keep trying, but she too would like to adopt unwanted trans children, who would in all likelihood be in their teens according to Sam and Harriet, which was widely talked about by the village women, but only because it was seen as a sign that their assessment of her as a proper and decent woman by their standards was correct. Bearthwaite women, and their menfolk too, didn’t really understand how a child could be unwanted or considered bad for what was a personal characteristic outside their control. In general, views on being trans, or indeed being any part of the LGBT+, had not always been so accepting in Bearthwaite, but the last two decades had brought great changes which the entire population recognised they had all benefited from.
It had been decided by the committee of the Bearthwaite Property Developments Company that the old bobbin mill, which nearly a century ago had ceased producing wooden bobbins from ancient local coppiced woodlands for the Lancashire textile industry, mostly for spinning and threading, and had been slowly but inexorably deteriorating ever since, was to be completely refurbished since now most of the space in it had been spoken for. Mark and Mason, the Lightfoot brothers, were already working on the minor repairs that the slate roof required to render the building water tight. The Bearthwaite Village Community Ownership Company had owned the site and the building for twelve years and it had recently become an almost perfect solution to many of their pressing problems rather than the previously deteriorating asset they were reluctant to commit the funds to in case there were no use for the enormous building. They were convinced what few problems remained with the mill would soon be ironed out. Jacqueline, the architect, had already drawn up an outline for local discussion and suggestions and was now working on more detailed ideas. Her brief from Elle had been simple, “You know what we want, but we want to be able to do as much of the work using the local workforce as possible. As much money as possible has to remain in Bearthwaite, even if the cost is higher.” Jacqueline had always enjoyed working with the folk her cousin Godfrey and other relatives had chosen to live amongst, who he said had a different way of seeing and living life, but this was the first time she had realised just how different they were.
Intrigued, she started to spend more time at Bearthwaite than she really needed to for her work on the mill and the various other buildings she was involved with. It was when she was looking at some of the houses on Pastures View that she met the three Jarvis girls who were doing all the painting and decorating of the four parallel rows of terraced houses. Her life changed dramatically when she met Noëlle Jarvis and the two started seeing each other regularly. Within a month they were a couple and Jacqueline had plans to move to Bearthwaite.
Gustav had not had to consider guileful ways for Bearthwaite to acquire the architect of their choice, but as his dad, Pete, had said, “You can’t win ’em all, Son, but you can’t lose ’em all either. You have to get lucky once in a while, and, think on, the architect’s fees stay local too this way.”
The gossip machine had always been puzzled as to why Noëlle had remained unmarried. She was twenty-six, pretty and as one of the Jarvis girls who worked together was moderately wealthy. She’d been pursued at school by any number of boys and later by several young men with serious intentions, but she’d never allowed things to proceed any further than half a dozen dates. The rumour was she was still a virgin. Naturally enough her sisters, Diana and Faye, refused to discuss the matter and folk soon stopped asking, for due to their constant interactions with men in the building trades the girls could be forcefully blunt in their responses to invasions of privacy. If pressed they became positively Anglo Saxon(2) in their responses. When Jacqueline and Noëlle announced they were moving in together all became clear. The gossip was plentiful for a few days and somewhat bitter amongst the young men who had now lost all hope of not just Adalheidis but Noëlle and Jacqueline too. That two pretty young women were as several put it ‘batting for the other side’ was a severe blow to not just their egos but their sense of fairness too. When the matter had been discussed in the taproom of the Green Dragon Pete had said, “That they still think that way proves they have a deal of growing up to do before they become of any serious interest to lasses ready to settle down and start a family.” It had been universally agreed that Pete had hit the nail fair and square on the head.
The ground floor [US 1st floor] of the old mill was to be used entirely for food preservation and storage, cool, cold and frozen. Christine had agreed to have her entire canning operation moved there, for it had been decided it would be far more convenient to have the canning taking place close to where the jars would be stored. The extra space available meant she could expand her operations which benefited the village by providing employment and by enabling more food to be grown locally and preserved for all year round availability. In the stead of having the like of potatoes and apples stored in barns all over the valley there would now be central temperature and humidity controlled storage specific to each item to be stored. It would also be vermin proof. In addition it was considered desirable that there be enough facility for much more meat storage than Vincent had behind his shop, so that he could take advantage of any opportunities for buying livestock at bargain prices at local slaughter marts.(3) In the past he’d had to pass up such opportunities for lack of available meat storage space. When he could buy cheaply he passed his savings on when he selt the meat and the committee wished to take advantage of the opportunities extra storage would give the folk of Bearthwaite. As Alan Peabody had said, “If Vincent can store more meat I and the other local farmers may as well raise more. In the end we get a better price from him, because we’re not having to pay transport and auctioneers’ costs and he prefers buying local because it’s cheaper and it’s better meat too which is appreciated by Bearthwaite housewives. Too, more money stays local which benefits us all.”
Vincent looked thoughtful and said, “I know a couple of gamekeepers in the Highlands who manage expensive shooting estates. Periodically they have to have a cull to keep the deer healthy and prevent over browsing. They have always had trouble disposing of the carcasses, for no one wants entire deer carcasses. Folk prefer their venison on polystyrene trays covered with cling film [Saran wrap]. They don’t want the legal hassle of butching the meat to sell on into the human food chain. They used to give the carcasses to the kennels for the fox hounds, but with fox hunting being banned they struggle to get rid of the carcasses these days. They’ve been digging big holes with a JCB and burying them for some time now. If we sent a waggon up there to collect ‘em I reckon I could have the lot for nowt. There’re enough lads here who could help me to gralloch and skin ‘em, and now we have somewhere to store the meat I reckon I’ve a few phone calls to make.”
It had been decided that the first floor [US 2nd floor] of the mill was to be used to provide offices for the administration of the Bearthwaite Property Developments Company and the Bearthwaite Village Community Ownership Company which Chance was working hard to amalgamate into one company. His proposal was that the new company would simply be called Bearthwaite Business Enterprises Limited. He wished the company to be registered as a limited liability company subject to the coöperative ventures regulations, and he and Adalheidis were spending a lot of time on the exact articles of incorporation to ensure they were exactly what was required without having to have subsequent alterations which could be a tedious and expensive procedure. One of the problems was since each adult in the village was a member of the coöp it was desirable that they had to sell their one pound membership on moving away back to the coöp or to one of the other members which would prevent the few outsiders who lived in the village from passing their vote on to someone outside the village or worse retaining it to cause problems in the future. Too, any new folk moving in to the village had to be able to be made members of the coöp without having to undergo the process required by a new share issue. It could be done, there were precedents, but it was complex and it took time.
The medical centre and all associated with it was moving into space on the first floor too, which included the proposed dental surgery and a number of other clinics too. That left the old medical centre area free for the play group and early years learning group to move into from their currently rather inadequate quarters in the school and library areas of the same building as the community centre. There was enough space available for a dozen or so women with babies ranging from newborn to a couple of years old to start a baby care centre available to all and any mothers who needed the facility for whatever reason. The first floor of the mill was to be the home to all professional activities for the village. There would be some space left over for a while, but it was felt that once they had the space available it would soon be put to good use, for there would be the incentive to ensure that it was. It wasn’t long before Jacqueline had office space pencilled in and that was one less office that needed an occupant. As she’d explained to Noëlle, “Most of what I do I do on line and the rest I can as well do from Bearthwaite as anywhere else in the county.”
The Bearthwaite Model Railway Society started by Jeremy Caldbeck would soon be occupying the second floor [US 3rd floor]. There would be workshop facilities of all kinds there for the enthusiasts and Alf had said he would find some small machine shop tools for them, at the least a lathe and a milling machine, and he could provide training to use them. The entire floor would be part of their backdrop and discussions were already underway concerning what would be done in what order and what their ultimate ambitions would be, though it had already been decided that the layout would be modelling aspects of Cumbrian railways both pre and post Beeching,(4) and both pre and post the demise of steam. Jeremy was particularly interested in modelling the Solway Junction Railway which included a viaduct of over a mile in length [1.1 miles, 1.8km](5) over the Solway Firth and the railway and docks of Silloth on Solway. Many of the children were more interested in modelling the docks and the Solway than the railways and were already dividing the tasks as to who would do what.
The lift engineers were overhauling and servicing both lifts in order to enable furniture and the like to be taken to their appropriate places. Many of the older children were already involved in cleaning the second floor [US 3rd floor] of the old mill ready for when the painting could begin. The video and photography activities of the children that Pat supervised would be moving in to the second floor too with a view to assisting the modellers with such things as photographic backdrops and scenery.
As yet none had come up with any ideas for the mill basement and the 3rd floor [US 4th floor] which was the uppermost floor of the building and had wonderful three hundred and sixty degree views of the entire valley.
It was known to all that Bearthwaite was advertising for a family doctor. It was not widely known where it had been decided to place that advertisement. Logically enough the advertisement had been placed in medical journals and national media, but it had also been placed in niche LGBT+ media too so as to maximise the chances of finding an appropriate candidate. As Pete had put it when arguing that advertising in the LGBT+ media was a sensible use of their money, “We don’t give a damn about things like that and there are sure to be quacks out there being given a hard time for such matters. A decent doc that few others treat with respect provides us with a golden opportunity to offer a mutually advantageous exchange. The doc gets decent neighbours and we get a decent doc. Win win.” It had been deemed pointless to advertise in the local press. The advertisement read, ‘Fully qualified and BMA(6) registered GP(7) required for an exceedingly isolated Cumbrian community of several thousand persons. No consideration shall be given to race, religion, nor sexuality. We are a non religious community and no proselytisation will be welcome, but your beliefs and personal identity matters are just that. Personal. Salary to be negotiated due to housing and surgery being provided.’
The only otherwise viable candidate had asked would there be opportunity to establish a mosque and Murray had immediately and politely started to close the conversation down telling the man he would get back to him. Bearthwaite had no interest in any who wished to change it’s culture in any way be it howsoever small. The only other interest shewn for several weeks had been from elderly doctors looking for a place to retire within a year or two. Murray who’d done the interviewing had not been impressed by any of them. He’d said to Sasha, “All of them were out of date pill rollers and baby catchers looking for a cheap place to retire and I doubt if any of ’em would have accepted our views concerning identity matters. I know you want the matter resolved as soon as possible, Sasha, but they were definitely not what we’re seeking, so I’m sorry, but I wasn’t prepared to risk importing any bigotry. I reckon we’ll just have to keep looking and hope we find someone soon.”
Sasha had said in response, “No need to apologise, Murray. I left the matter to you because I believe out of all of us you are the one who will make the best decision. You’re right about my desire for haste which is why I didn’t wish to interview. I possibly would accept a less than good candidate. You can’t find what’s not there. I’m sure we’ll find a good GP eventually. Pete was right about where to place the advertisements, so there’s little else we can do till an appropriate person approaches us.”
Wing Tan Sun was twenty-eight and from Hong Kong, On production of his qualifications he admitted to being a political persona non grata in Hong Kong to the mainland Chinese authorities due to his political beliefs and activities. He was a highly qualified doctor who had qualified at a major London hospital, but he had been unable to find work other than as a locum. When pressed, he finally admitted that his difficulties were not due to being Chinese but to being gay. When telt Bearthwaite was looking for a good GP not a conformist to outside societal norms he asked, “I have been living with Eli, my partner for three years, and we wish to marry. Eli is from Hackney in London, twenty-five and an artist. We don’t wish to make any hasty decisions lest we move to somewhere where we would not be welcome. I’m sorry if this makes things difficult for you, but the truth is I don’t care. We are as we are and are trying to find a life that at least accepts that even if it doesn’t approve of it. Is it likely to be here?”
Murray said, “We advertised for a GP, not for a heterosexual, white, English GP. To do so would of course be illegal on several counts, but even had we we been allowed to word our advertisement thus we would not have done so. Bearthwaite does not care what you are with regard to those matters. What it cares about is how you live and how well you treat not just your patients but your neighbours too. We can provide you with every up to date piece of equipment and software you could desire. We are about to do so with our dentists who are new residents here. Unlike in many other communities you will not have to waste your time talking to lonely old persons, for we have no such. Bearthwaite is different from outside places, and our elders have many folk of all ages to talk to every day who will ensure all their needs are met. We can provide you and Eli with living accommodation and you with a surgery. We can even organise a wedding for you at our church if you so wish. I can assure you there would be hundreds of approving, welcoming folk in the church, for as I said we are not like outsiders.” The conversation continued and Wing Tan Sun eventually came to the belief that taking the job at Bearthwaite was a sensible and desirable move. Murray asked, “What exactly does your fiancé do for a living? We could maybe help him to find good employment.”
Amazed that Murray had so casually and naturally referred to Eli as his fiancé Sun had answered, “He manipulates images using sophisticated software to produce material mostly used by persons involved in advertising, though some of what he does is involved with three dee printing and laser cutting. He is not really happy doing the advertising work, but it helps to pay the rent on our extremely expensive flat in London, and working as a locum I haven’t been earning much recently.”
“Would he, do you think, be happy doing something similar for our recently formed Bearthwaite Model Railway Society? I am telt by Pat who currently does what he can for and with the children that they are desperate for that kind of skill set to produce material for their huge layout. The Society has only just formed and is mainly seen as an activity to interest the children when the weather is poor.” Murray chuckled before continuing, “Perhaps not surprisingly a lot of those children are big boys with children and grandchildren. They are in the process of renovating their new home. It is over a thousand square metres and in our old disused mill which is ultimately where you surgery would be, though on a different floor. That floor is still in the hands of the architect and the builders.”
“I can’t see that he would be interested in trains, but the challenge that activity would offer would be irresistible to him, but what about the pay? We can’t live on my salary alone.”
“Don’t worry about the pay, Sun. If the pair of you fit here the pay will be more than you could dream of.”
Sun was more than impressed that Murray had realised that his given name was Sun not Wing, his family name, for few westerners were aware of oriental conventions. He thought hard and long, he could think quickly due to his intelligence, before deciding that Bearthwaite was worth taking a chance on. It was unusual for him to make a decision of anything like that magnitude without prolonged discussion with Eli, but he didn’t wish to lose the opportunity to someone else. “Yes, I accept, but at the first hint of homophobia, we’ll be out of here, and to hell with the money and the conditions. It’s bad enough in the anonymity of a city. In a place this size it would be a worse hell than I could probably imagine.”
Murray smiled and said, “Not going to happen, my friend. I have already rejected more than half a dozen inadequate candidates some because it seemed to me they were not good at their job, but most because I perceived them to be folks intolerant of what they would probably have referred to as identity issues, which are not issues to us merely an atypical senses of identity. To us atypical does not equate with inferior nor undesirable. I’m not going to tell you how many of the LGBT+ we have living here, but you and Eli between you don’t have enough fingers and toes to count them. Many don’t come from here, but decided to live here because it’s safe and nobody cares concerning such. We only care about how they are as folk and how they get on with their neighbours. It’s what we call being Bearthwaite folk, a good neighbour. You treat others well and do your best to help out when someone else’s life hits the fan, then in turn you’ll be helped because that’s what Bearthwaite folk do. You want in?”
Sun realised the gravity of the so simple question and replied, “Yes. Yes I do. Is that it?”
“Aye, Lad. It’s that simple and it boils down to do you wish to be one of us or not. To many we’re a strange breed, but to us there’s nowt strange about it. You help your neighbours when they’re in need and you’re one of us, or you don’t. In which case you can bugger off and be a pain in the arse somewhere else because you’re not welcome here. You don’t have to like a neighbour who’s in trouble, but you do have to help him because when your life goes belly up he’ll help you no matter how much he dislikes you.”
“I, no we because I know Eli will agree, wish to be Bearthwaite folk. Thank you.”
Harriet was crying as she said, “Davy Parker has been looking badly(8) for a while now, and he had another stroke last night, Mum. Simon took him to the Cumberland Infirmary at going on midnight in the village ambulance with Vera looking after him. It’s not looking good because he’d not regained consciousness at lunchtime today. Folk as know about it reckon he’s poorly sick wi’ a shawl on(9) and isn’t long for this world. Vera used to work with a couple of the nurses on his ward who were prepared to tell her it like it really was. They reckon he probably won’t regain consciousness and is going to go within forty-eight hours. Granny seems to be tecking(10) it better than our lasses thought she would. She telt Aggie that after being married to Davy for eighty-five years it was obvious one of them was going to go soon and after his first stroke she felt it in her watter(11) that Davy was going to go before her. I knew she passed her century nearly a year since, but hadn’t realised she married when she was sixteen and Davy was scarce turned eighteen.
“He’s a hundred and three just turned and Granny’s hundred and first birthday is on the ninth of next month. Elle has telt Casper Lawton(12) to be prepared, and to have a traditional Bearthwaite ash wood coffin ready for him. The allotment lads are gutted, but have said that for more than his entire working life Davy was one of them and they’re ready to dig the grave at a moment’s notice. Nobody has died since I came to live here, Mum, and though I didn’t know Davy at all well I know Granny well. She’s always been a kind woman who made life easier for me especially in the beginning when few here understood about being trans. I don’t think she did either, but Sam Graham telt me Granny didn’t care about that sort of thing. Like Aggie she just took me as I was and tret(13) me as the Bearthwaite lass I was so desperate to be tecken(14) as. I’m not sure how I feel about Davy, but I’m trashed for Granny because I know she’s loved him since they went to school together. I don’t know how I’m going to face her any more, but I do know I’m going to make sure she never goes short of owt.”
“That, Harriet Love, is all any decent person can ever do. Granny understands how that works for Bearthwaite folk and will accept that without embarrassment. When she was able she was a good neighbour to the entire village. She delivered many of us into the world and laid many of us out when we left it. Casper and his dad Cecil were glad of her help especially with folk who weren’t too happy about a man laying out their womenfolk. He won’t talk about it, but she laid both Vincent’s parents out long after having delivered him which is why he’ll never see her go short of owt he can supply. Now it’s time for us to repay what she did for us, despite many of those she helped being long gone. All her life she’s been a perfect rôle model for Bearthwaite girls and women of all ages, and I don’t doubt she will continue to be so even as a grieving widow. When I first took up with your dad there was a fair bit of disapproval because he was so much older than I was. She fought our corner saying it was nobody else’s business. Bearthwaite became a kinder place because she has always been who and what she is. If you cry when you meet her next, that will be okay, for she will understand. She likes a small glass of Windjammer Jamaica rum from time to time, so I suggest you go to see her and leave a bottle. She’ll appreciate it all the more coming from a lass of your age rather than an older woman. There is no need to say anything regards it. She’ll understand.”
Harriet smiled, a bleak smile, kissed her mum and said, “Thanks, Mum,” before leaving to collect a bottle of Windjammer.
Alf made Elle’s tables using his entire supply of iroko. He’d decided that no two tables should be the same to avoid the tables having even a hint of anything institutional about them. Forty-two of the tables were about twelve and a half feet long [3.8m] but they varied by as much as a foot [30cm] in either direction. One table was just over twenty feet [6.2m] long because he’d refused to cut it down, but it was the only one anywhere near that length. The shorter pieces he’d turned into nineteen tables varying between four [1.2m] and six feet [1.8m] in length. He’d managed to find some suitable, dark coloured, recycled mahogany to make repairs with and to make the smaller pieces of iroko produce appropriately sized tables.
Alf went to see Edward the local forester and sawyer concerning making a table top from local beech to the same dimensions as his largest piece of iroko. Several huge beeches had been felled and harvested after a storm twelve years before. Edward had exactly what he wanted and when he heard what Alf wanted it for he’d grinned and said, “Just teck(15) it, Alf Lad. It’s the best use for it I could imagine. It’s the best piece I’ve got, and I’m glad to think it’ll stay here where it started growing from a nut when what, our great great granddads were boys? Or maybe it was when their great great grandads were boys? I’m happy to give it away as my contribution to the project. If you like I could give my mate over Caldbeck way a bell for some ebony and holly for the inlay. He’ll want paying for the ebony because he’ll have had to pay long money for it, but he’ll give you the holly because it’s local. I imagine the ebony will need plenty of steam to bend it, but I know it can be done because I saw a piece like that when I was a lad just out of my time (16) at a furniture auction in Lancaster.”
Alf finished the beech table top to the same dimensions, just over six metres by just over a metre [20 foot by 40 forty inches], as his longest iroko piece. He routed out the beech in a cursive copperplate scrip which had been a time consuming task, for the width of the channel constantly changed and he’d had to make a template for the router guide bush to follow first. Using the nearly black ebony and the pure white holly he inlaid at both ends of the table top in letters two and a half inches tall and half an inch wide in places, ‘The Elle Vetrov Bearthwaite Collection’ In all he’d produced two hundred and sixty-eight metres [881 feet] of essentially iroko table top.
With the exception of the beech table and it’s fraternal iroko twin, whose legs were deliberately identical, the legs were all different. The long beech and iroko table tops were each supported by three huge turned and carved pillars made by glueing pieces of hundred millimetre [4 inch] square oak together. The turned pillars were four hundred millimetres [16 inches] in diameter at their widest and they terminated at the top with a one hundred millimetre [4 inch] wide and deep recess across their centres that accepted the four by four oak members that spanned almost the full width of the table top. The upper three members supported the table top across their entire lengths and were tapered towards their extremities to avoid looking clumsy. The pillars terminated at their lower ends six inches [15cm] off the floor with two mortices each and the six highly carved lower leg members distributed the load onto the floor.
Many of the smallest tables were supported by a single turned central oak pillar in a similar way to their largest two brethren but they accepted three tenons at the top to support their tops and the three leg pieces tenoned into their lower ends were all carved differently. Some of the middled sized tables of about six to eight feet in length had two such pillar arrangements, but all like their larger and smaller cousins, had uniquely carved leg members.
Alf had decided not to have conventional legs at the edges braced by stretchers and an H stretcher on the grounds that they would be to vulnerable to breakage from folks’ feet and had decided that making more substantial central legs from oak was a better solution. The tops were all highly polished, unembellished iroko, barring the odd piece of indistinguishable, colour matched mahogany, but the legs were all oak, all different in design and all carved differently. The only thing they had in common was the staining which complemented the iroko. Every table was an impressive work of art, as a collection they were overwhelming. Alf had had some help with the initial stages of wood preparation and the finishing, but the artistic genius that had created them had all been his and his alone.
Elle insisted on paying an extra fifty thousand pounds. Alf who’d enjoyed making the tables had been embarrassed, and Elle suggested if that be the case that he should considered how the money would be best employed on his behalf for Bearthwaite. Alf’s reply had been immediate, “Some CNC(17) machine tools for Bertie and his apprentices. That will give them a wider skill set if they ever choose to take on any work outside the village and be useful if they stay here too.”
Elle had nodded and said, “I’ll speak to him about it.”
Some of the cheap wine bought by Jean-Claude had been sweet and he had decided that after the distillation had removed the alcohol it would be worth brewing the residual sugar out and then stilling the resultant brew. “It will have stabilisers in it that will inhibit yeast, but I can deal with that easily. The men won’t object to the overtime pay if I ask them to put the extra hours in, Gustav, and the sugars in it will produce more than enough spirit to make it worth while. Interestingly, last Saturday in the Dragon Græme Scott asked if he could have a thousand litres of the still residue in an IBC(18) for him to experiment with. We didn’t have time to talk, so I don’t know the nature of his experiments. I said I would talk to you about it. Do you know what his intentions are? And do I give him what he asked for?”
“This is decidedly Bearthwaite business, and to go no further, Jean-Claude, okay?”
“But of course. In my line of work much occurs that is how you say clandestine, but I am French, and we are more relaxed about such matters than the British, who are a little uptight about all matters concerning alcohol. You are German, so I am sure you understand.”
Gustav nodded and said, “Græme is a talented and intelligent man and he is interested in all aspects of zymurgy,(19) including distillation. From previous conversation with him I know he has long wished to do what I am sure he wishes to use the liquid for. I suggest you give him a full IBC, after all it is merely a dilute sugar solution containing a lot of impurities and as such of no direct interest to HMRC.20 I suggest you talk to him, for he could be very helpful to you. In essence I suspect he wishes to take that dilute sugar solution and do what he described to me as a crude and very atypical cryoscopic distillation on it to dramatically reduce its volume. I imagine he’ll reduce it enough to produce a feed that after brewing will rapidly produce a ten percent alcohol result, maybe eight percent due to the impurities. I don’t know and probably he doesn’t know either, but he will. That way the volume to be stilled is dramatically less, saving money and time.”
“But cryoscopic distillation is done on gas mixtures to separate them when liquid at very cold temperatures. It’s how they separate air into its component gasses. What has that process to do with alcohol production?”
“I know and so does he. His idea is to chill the liquid till it starts to freeze. I’m sure you know what happens then.”
“Ice forms on the liquid.” Gustav could see understanding on Jean-Claude’s face. “Yes. The ice is formed from pure water, and if it is removed you are concentrating all other liquids and solutes(21) in the remaining solution. It is a method used by peasants all over the world in cold climates to produce strong drink simply by leaving the brew outside for the weather to freeze. It is not safe because all the methanol, higher alcohols and fusil oils that brewing always produces as well as ethanol are left behind and they are toxic in large quantities. However, if you concentrate the sugars by removing ice, brew the sugars completely out and then use a conventional distillation process the methanol comes over first and you can remove it and the higher alcohols and fusil oils are left in the still after the ethanol has stilled over. Ingenious, simple and elegant, very ingenious. I’ll talk to him. That could be a process we could well make use of, and there is a ready market for the toxic by products as feed stock for other processes. I wonder if there is someone here who could use them to produce something that would sell for more as a value added product. I’ll make enquiries, Gustav. If Græme wishes laboratory space here we could easily accommodate him in the brewery. I’ll speak to Clarence concerning accommodating his experiments here. If he needs assistance may I assign one of the distillery workers to him?”
Gustav nodded and said, “Help him in any way possible. His ideas may provide us with additional sources of income and enable us to employ more staff.” The two were both smiling as they parted, but Gustav was wondering if Græme and his wife would be interested in moving to Bearthwaite.
To the children of Bearthwaite the Solstice, Christmas and the New Year celebrations were barely a memory, and at a month past the Solstice the nights were slowly but noticeably drawing out. They were looking forward to the Valentine’s day bonfire and barbecue on the green, for which the long range weather forecast was cold but calm and dry. Yet again it was Saturday evening and Pete, Gladys, Harriet, Gustav and their staff had all in readiness for the Grumpy old men in the taproom and their womenfolk in the best side. Though all knew there was the possibility of some bitter winter weather still in front of them they expected a good turn out in the Green Dragon that night because yet again the weather had recently changed. It was cool not cold and there was little wind and no rain. There were only a few men few in the taproom, but it was still early and there were only Sal Bill’s elderly Jack Russel bitch and Jem, Saul’s border collie dog pup in the taproom as yet.
Bill and Saul were leaning on the bar halfway down their first pint when Bill asked, “You got anything that will bind the crush together on the road, Saul? Plasterboard or ashes. We’ve got plenty of crush on hand, but with no binder all the fines wash out and it’s only a matter of time before the heavier stuff disappears too.
“Not at the moment, Bill. Gerry asked me the same question a couple of days ago. How bad is it? I’ve not been that way for a week.”
“Nothing deeper than six inch [15cm] at the moment. All at the far end in the dip where the road floods first, but give it a fortnight or a cloudburst and the potholes will be a foot deep [30cm].
“You’ve already taken all the stuff we had at the quarry with limestone fines and plaster in it. We’ve a big job coming up that will yield maybe a few hundred tons [x 1000 for Kg, x 2240 for pounds] of plasterboard [US drywall] and a couple of thousand [2000 tonnes, 4480000 pounds] of old lime mortar, but it’s not for six weeks, so we definitely can’t help till then. Your best bet is to ask one of the Levins brothers what their lads are ripping out of the old terraces(22) and wherever else they’re working. I know the old lime plaster off the walls of the terraces hasn’t been taken out to the quarry yet. It may even be still on the walls. If you get desperate see if you can get that bumped up in priority, at least for long enough for you to have what you need for the road. Alternatively see if you can find some more men to do it for you. How much do you need?”
“Maybe five ton.” [5000Kg, 11 200 pounds]
“Not a lot. Shouldn’t be a problem. Ask around tonight to see if you can put a few more men to your regular crew.”
Brian, an outsider who’d just arrived and was waiting to be served, asked, “Why are you concerned about holes in the road. Can’t you just ring the council or the highways, Bill?”
“No. We own the road. It’s a private road on private property, so we have to maintain it. Gerry and I manage it. He worked for the highways for most of his life and I did twenty-five years with McAlpines mostly on the motorways. Ashes, old plaster or plasterboard bind the demolition crush that we fill the potholes with together. Most of the time Saul and his mates who work as demolition and clearance contractors keep our gang of lads going in materials, and we get rid of a powerful load of waste stuff for them. It’s a year round job because the rain and the wind take stuff away, and you’d be amazed how much disappears on the tyres of outbound vehicles.
Pete who was behind the bar served Brian and then started pulling pints because a dozen and a half dogs had just entered from the back door eager to find the bowls of kibble and food scraps that had been awaiting them. He pushed some glasses towards the three men saying, “Sort out the money when someone comes in who’ll do it for me whilst I’m busy.”
“I’ll do that for you, Pete,” Bill said walking round to the other side of the bar.
When Mason Lightfoot came in his left hand was seen to be heavily bandaged. “What happened to you, Mason?” Alf asked with concern as he came out of the cellar with a case of hostage rum.(23)
“I went round to see a mate in Maryport about giving Mark and myself a hand with a plumbing job, and without warning his dog ripped my hand open. Bit of a thick(24) dog really as I was carrying a thirty inch Stilson(25) in my other hand. Result one dead dog and I’ve one less mate, but mates like that I can do without. And he not only hasn’t got a dog any more he hasn’t any work either. We used to employ him for maybe eight months a year, but Mark point blank refuses to have owt to do with him any more and I’m not arguing with him. We went to senior school with him which is why we gave him the work, but I’d rather we employed someone from here. The doc said it was pointless trying to stitch it, but she gave me a couple of jabs and a course of antibiotic pills just in case. It’s nothing a few bevies(26) and glasses of chemic won’t put right. Don’t fash yoursel(27) about it, Alf.”
Pete said, “Vicious dogs want killing, or better still their owners do. I went round to see my brother Bert at his scrapyard over Newcastle way oh maybe fifteen years ago. I was working over that way at the time and I can’t mind what it was I went to see him for. He had a really big Alsatian dog [aka German Shepherd] chained up to a kennel in the yard. Dirty, neglected, abused thing it was. Truth was I felt sorry for the dog. Whenever anyone came into the yard it would fly out to the end of its chain frothing at the mouth and barking like it was demented. I suppose in a way the poor bugger was. They used to feed it by pushing a bowl towards it with a broom. Murphy’s law was at work that day, for both the dog and myself. When it flew out of its kennel at me the rusty old chain parted as a link snapped and it kept coming. From six foot it launched itself at my throat. I’ve never been bothered by savage dogs. I’d dealt with a few over the years, and a couple of them were Rottweilers way bigger and heavier than that Alsatian. A dog in the air has no purchase on anything, so I stepped to one side grabbed hold of it and snapped its back over my knee. A boot to the head and that was one more dead dog. Bert said I owed him a dog, and I telt him to go and fuck spiders. Folk like him shouldn’t be allowed to keep a dog. I reckon in the beginning there are only a few bad dogs, but there’re a hell of a lot of bad dog owners that make even more dogs bad.”
“So that’s what happened to Frodo. I was telt he died in his sleep. Dad didn’t know it, but he’d been okay with me since he was a puppy and when Dad was looking to give me a good hiding I used to hide in his kennel. I’m glad I found out, Dad. It’s not your fault. His life was as bad as mine, but at least like him I escaped in the end.”
Harriet was crying as she left and Pete said, “You’d better go after her, Gustav. I’m sorry, Son. I didn’t know she was there.” As he looked about him seeing a sea of puzzled looks on the faces of the outsiders Pete enlightened them a little. “Harriet was my brother Bert’s child who he tret more badly than I’m prepared to explain. She ran away to Manchester before she left school and lived on the streets, she’d have only been fourteen. Eventually she contacted me, and I brought her here and adopted her. Bert was scum even as a kid, and it was all downbank(28) from there. He is not welcome in Bearthwaite.”
Vincent added, “Folk were getting ready to make him leave because he was so unpleasant and disliked. He didn’t want to go, but if he hadn’t left my Uncle Vincent who I was named after would have killed him for trying to rape one of my cousins who was a lass of fourteen at the time. It was Jim Alf’s dad who stopped him. The scars on Bert’s face are what Jim gave him with a piece of steel reinforcing bar and his steelies.(29) My dad had to stop my uncle from killing Bert to prevent him doing time for it. Dad telt him to leave it to others who’d make him wish he’d died which was what happened. The only thinking Bert ever did was with his fists and his balls. Pete was being over kind to the bastard calling him scum, and saying folk like him shouldn’t be allowed to keep a dog. I reckon folk like him shouldn’t be allowed to breath, but even a place like Bearthwaite produces the odd bad apple. The trick is to get rid of ’em before they turn any of the others bad. I’ll try a glass of the Clarence’s latest batch of brown please, Pete.” The outsiders who knew Vincent were surprised at what they considered to be his atypically unforgiving and violent attitude. The locals who knew him well weren’t.
Clayton who’d been a regular attender on Saturday evenings for over three years indicated he wish to speak and Sasha said, “It’s all yours, Clayton, it’s about time you had a free supper.”
Clayton immediately said, “All this talk in the media of a financial crisis hitting ordinary folk, and mortgages going through the roof is really winding me up. You’d think it was new and had never happened before. Interest rates went up to sixteen per cent in some cases way back, what thirty-odd years since? Lenders at the time wouldn’t see sense and foreclosed on loads of folk resulting in homeless folk on the social(30) and marriages breaking up. The burden on the state went through the roof in a self perpetuating spiral and the lenders owned hundreds of thousands of properties worth nowt because the scum went into the empty houses to rip all the copper plumbing out to weigh it in for scrap. The banks would have been better off accepting what folk could pay and forgetting the rest, at least that way they’d have had folk living in the houses as de facto security and the properties would have had some value. But they don’t learn anything due to their greed and I dare say it’s going to happen all over again. It certainly looks that way.
“I was a builder before I retired and Nancy and I got gey lucky. She’s was a nurse, and we wanted to buy a big old vicarage down Manchester way to turn it into a nursing home, but the Church of England got greedy over price and messed us about for eighteen months. That gave us time to realise mortgages interest rates were going to go through the roof and we were better off out of it. Six months later the vicarage had been torched by vandals and the church had the land and nowt else. By that time we’d have been bankrupt due to interest rates if the sale had gone through. I laid off my men before the wages bill broke me and streamlined my business to ensure I always got paid. Having always paid heavily into pension funds I retired at fifty five and moved up here. I reckon most of this so called financial crisis could be avoided if the government behaved responsibly and I mean politicians of all flavours, and, and it’s a big and mind, folk stopped spending money they don’t have on stuff they can’t afford and don’t actually need.”
Alf said, “I read years ago that the average adult in the UK has over twenty thousand quids worth of debt over and above the mortgage. That’s the mortgage and going on fifty grand of debt for a couple. That’s a lot of money, and I imagine it’ll be a lot more now.”
Stan nodded his head and said, “Clayton had it right when he said folk are spending money they don’t have on stuff they can’t afford and don’t need, but God help the country if the bubble bursts and the banks and their like need it repaying. I’m for a pint, Lads. Any one else?”
When the drink had been organised and bags of the in house produced pork scratchings,(31) salted nuts and crisps [US chips] had been passed around Morgan indicated he had something to say. Morgan had lived at Bearthwaite for fifteen years. Though a regular attender on Saturday evenings at the Green Dragon he was a quiet man who didn’t usually say much. He’d worked as an engineer of some sort, retired at sixty with ill health as a recent widower and subsequently moved to the village. He was a well liked but reserved man who it was recognised still mourned his wife. It was a surprise to all when he started talking for little was known about his past other than that he originated in the Highlands which was obvious from his voice. “I went to boarding school in the deep south, and I mind going back home to the highlands with Mum for Christmas. I’m going back to when the M6 motorway stopped at the A50 just south of Warrington, so that puts it before nineteen sixty-three when the Thelwall viaduct opened. I guess it would be nineteen sixty. We were driving on the A6 going uphill after the deep dip before Shap. It would have been maybe eleven at night. It was pitch black and we were in a slowly moving line of traffic with numerous heavy goods vehicles in the line too. We were behind a wagon with steel sides when I saw its tail gate shift. Tons of what subsequently turned out to be industrial glass marbles about an inch in diameter for gas cooling towers dropped out of the back and hit the road. They all bounced and went straight over Mum’s six cylinder Ford Zephyr. Not a mark on it, many vehicles behind us weren’t so lucky. It was maybe minus five Celsius[23℉] with a nasty east wind blowing heavy sleet, not a night to lose a windscreen. In the headlamps the marbles had looked like hail or heavy sleety rain. It was impossible to tell what was sleet and what was glass. There were tons of the marbles everywhere. The road was closed and eventually the police and the clean up crew arrived who were just shovelling the marbles onto the verge to reopen the road as soon as possible. Mum asked one of the clean up crew if she could have some marbles, ‘I’m a teacher and I want them to help the children learn to count’, she’d explained. ‘No problem, Love,’ the man said as he proceeded to shovel marbles into her boot [US trunk]. She had to stop him. The car had a huge boot and he’d put a couple of hundredweight [100Kg, 224 pounds] in already. I don’t recall what happened after that.
“Another time Mum was taking me back to school and the same Zephyr kept losing all power. It would go fifty miles or so and then the engine would fade. We’d wait twenty minutes and it would go another fifty miles. That happened all the way to school. I was supposed to be back for eight, but it was gone three in the morning when we got there. It took the Ford dealership ages to solve the problem, but seemingly some of that model were fitted with an extra fuel filter in the tank and when the fuel tank was less than half full it could block if it sucked up crud from the bottom of the tank. The stuff would gradually fall back to the bottom and all would be well till it happened again. Apparently the solution recommended by Ford was to remove the filter.
“I know exactly when the next thing I remember took place. It was the thirteenth of September nineteen seventy-one. I was a post graduate engineering student at Imperial College in London hitch hiking north on the M6 going home. I’d have been twenty-four. The fog had come down in the night, it was hard to tell when in the dark. I’d got as far as Knutsford services. It was about eight thirty am. I went into the transport cafe looking for a driver going at least as far as Glasgow and preferably right up. I bought breakfast for a driver going to the Fort [Fort William] who had offered me a lift. That was when the coppers came in and one announced, ‘M6 is shut lads. Major pile up on the viaduct. Anybody got any first aid skills willing to help? If you are go with my mate.’
“Knutsford services is about eight miles south of Thelwall viaduct. In those days the viaduct carried three lanes of traffic north and three lanes south with no hard shoulders for access. Now that bridge has a hard shoulder and carries only four lanes of traffic, but they’re all for north bound traffic. A parallel bridge for south bound traffic opened in 1995 some time. Both halves of the modern viaduct are just short of a mile long and go over the Manchester ship canal and the river Mersey which is tidal at that point.
“Three of us were taken to the edge of the viaduct in a police transit bus. What a sight! The motorway was blocked by dozens of vehicles, I later found out it was two hundred. Visibility even with the emergency mercury lights was very poor because they were so far away. The screams! If I live to be a hundred I shall never forget the sights, sounds and smells. We were given rapid training in use of morphine and given a bag of preloaded hypodermics. Interestingly I’ve never read about that nor met anyone who knew about it. I can only assume that that sort of thing is handled at a very high level and a blanket silence is maintained, though it has to be said I was never told to keep my mouth shut, and I don’t know if any of the others were either because I never saw them again.
“At one point I saw some bits of bodies. The carnage was appalling. I had to climb over and through the wreckage. Ambulances couldn’t get any where near, but more paramedics and doctors had started to arrive. Dawn was normally at about eight, but it was difficult to tell due to the fog whether it was day or night. The nightmare was made worse by the poor visibility, but still I can’t forget what I saw and experienced. I was there for twenty odd hours, the fog for two days, but it was a week before the M6 reopened.
“It was later determined that at about eight more than two hundred cars, trucks and tankers piled up, five vehicles burst into flames, ten people were killed and seventy injured. It was the worst accident ever recorded on British roads. There may have been worse since. I don’t know and I don’t wish to.
“I’m in my mid seventies now. I haven’t had a nightmare about it for decades, but I still wake with the cold sweats in the middle of the night. I’d had a wait of nearly an hour for a ride at the Blue Boar Watford Gap Services, the ride that took me to Knutsford. If I’d managed to catch the waggon driver who drove off before I could catch his attention, the one whose waggon came from Glasgow, those body parts I saw could have been mine.”
Alf said, “I mind the incident. It made a strong impression on me at the time. I can’t imagine the effect it had on someone who witnessed it, for the TV coverage was horrific.” There were a number of others who remembered the incident too, again from the media reports, and again all agreed with Alf concerning the effects it would have had on someone who had witnessed events.
There was what seemed to be a long silence before Arthur who was an outsider and a regular attender said, “I mind an eventful journey too coming back from Somerset over the Severn bridge to south Wales. Not horrific like the previous tale, but scary all the same. Carice wasn’t due for two weeks, but I ended up delivering my third daughter over the front seats of an A40 with my elder two looking on from the back. Fortunately we were back on the Welsh side of the bridge. The weather was grim and it was dark with virtually no traffic going past in either direction. A couple of hours later we were home and I called for a midwife the following morning when Carice allowed me to. I paid ten pounds for that A40 complete with a twelve month MOT(32) in nineteen seventy-six, so that was July seventy-seven.”
Josh nodded and said, “Scary is the right word, Arthur, but owt to do with women is scary when it comes right down to it. I was going into Wigton for some wall plugs and other bits and pieces last week and before I left Diane telt me to buy four onions. She said Lucy didn’t have any on hand and Dave had said it would be a couple of days before the allotment lads resupplied him. There were none in any of the shops I passed and I didn’t wish to go into one of the super markets. Then I remembered Harrison’s butchers selt onions, carrots and spuds(33) so I called in for the onions. When I reached home Diane went ballistic. I couldn’t see a problem, for there were four onions in the bag and that was what she’d asked for. Okay they were big, but an onion is an onion is an onion right? Seems I’d bought just over five kilo’s of onion which she considered to be over the top.”
Alf said, “Onions that size were probably allotment grewn for shew. Those would have been the ones that were undersize or not perfect. Onion exhibitors regularly grow ‘em to fifteen pounds [7Kg].(34) Farmed onions don’t usually get anywhere near that size. Diane had possibly never seen onions that big before, Lad. Thing is, with any woman you’d probably have got away with it a couple of days earlier or a couple of days later.”
Josh grimaced and said, “Aye, you’re right, Alf. If you get the wrong time of the month you’re deep in it if you don’t do as you’re telt, but you’re just as deep in if you do, and even deeper in it if you say ‘Yes, Dear,’ and she hears you say it.”
Stan said, “That’s how it is, Josh Lad. It’s hard being a bloke. We all know we can’t live with ’em, but they’re wearing the kit,(35) so we can’t live without ’em, and there’s nowt we can do about it. If you think PMS(36) is bad, just wait till she hits the change.(37) Then you’ll know what suffering is all about. However, the hardest thing any of us have to do is trying to get our son’s to understand what they’re facing, and the truth of it is we mostly fail miserably. They have to go through it knowing nowt because at their age they’re convinced they know it all and won’t listen. So they go through what we did, but eventually after they’ve suffered more than a bit they come to realise their dad knew what he was talking about, and then you can have a decent relationship with ’em. Of course just like us they swear they’ll wise their sons up, and just like us they’ll fail for exactly the same reasons.” Stan was clearly warming up and those who knew him well paid close attention to what they were now convinced was a shaggy dog tale in the making.
“That’s the real difference between men and women. Girls listen to their mums and take it all on board; they’re members of the sisterhood from birth and puberty makes no difference at all to that. Little girls can manipulate blokes, especially their dads, with no effort at all. They can do it without even being aware of it and take in the ability at the breast with their mother’s milk. Puberty gives ’em the wherewithal that turns ’em into fully kitted out women who are even more dangerous to blokes than little girls. The moment females enter the fray they deploy WMD which takes warfare in the battle of the sexes to another level altogether. It’s completely impossible for a bloke to concentrate sufficiently to put together a reasoned argument in the face of a pair of primed ICBMs pointed straight at him. Weapons of Mass Distraction leave every bloke on the planet totally screwed, if you’ll pardon the expression. Just in case you didn’t know ICBM is an initialism formed from Inherently Coupled Ballistic Mammaries. Ballistic means something that moves subject only to the force of gravity. I’ll add that it makes no odds as to the mega-tonnage, nor the delivery system, for the result is always the same: total annihilation. Though it has to be said that women using the modern front loader delivery system can deploy their the ICBMs more rapidly than using conventional systems. Under battle conditions in the field, or anywhere else where women require maximum immediate impact, the stunning shock effect of the truly ballistic nature of a pair of ICBMs upon a bloke as they act under gravity alone no longer supported by their delivery system is utterly and totally devastating. After that women deploy their most dangerous weapons which rapidly overwhelm and neutralise everything a bloke can bring to bear on the situation, leaving him weakened and unable to continue. Spent our cause is well and truly shafted, if you’ll pardon the implication. By the time a bloke has recovered his resources the matter is over and it’s pointless to continue battling.”
It took several minutes for the laughter to subside enough for Stan to continue during which time glasses were replenished. Before he did he sighed and said, “However, it’s completely different with lads. Before puberty they have no idea what you’re talking about. I mind one of my lads who’d have been twelve or so at the time referring to a bloke wearing gey fancy coloured jeans maybe fifteen yards [15m, 45 feet] in front of us when we were out in Keswick. I telt him it was a girl not a bloke. When the lass turned round and he saw the rather pronounced headlamps, that’s another name for ICBMs, Lads, he asked in total surprise as if I were psychic, ‘How did you know, Dad?’ He clearly had no idea that women’s backsides were very different from blokes’ never having had the urge to study the matter’. That lass was a superb example of womanhood from both the front and the rear view. The bounce I could see from the front was mesmerising and the view from behind was truly splendid, for her hips were twice as wide as her shoulders and occupied three times the space when you took the sway into account, and my lad hadn’t even noticed, however six months later it was a completely different story. After puberty lads spend the next two or three decades trying to get back to where they spent their first nine months. They listen to no one and most don’t become men till they hit twenty-five if their dads are lucky. It takes others up to another ten years, and some just never make it. Sure there is a small number that are different, what would you say, Lads? Two per cent? Perhaps one? Or maybe less than that?”
There was considerable agreement with Stan when he’d suggested less than one per cent, and Sasha said, “It goes with the balls. Testosterone is what makes a man, and I’m talking about a decent man not a sub human animal like Pete’s brother Bert, be able to cope with the grief that life threws at him and still be able to provide for and look after his family. It’s a heavy price to pay, but think on, the alternative is feeling like death every month, and most women will admit they hate the way they treat their men at that time and are grateful for their tolerance. Then there is going through pregnancy, which many women say morning sickness takes all the joy out of the first three or four months of, and though they enjoy it till the end, it is a really frightening experience for them at that point. You may think your balls dictate your life, but pardon the pun that’s pure bollocks. Women’s every waking moment is influenced by, if not dictated by, their ovaries. Those of us with any sense, women and men both, accept the limitations our hormones impose on us, do our best to ignore what we can’t change and enjoy being what we are. I’d suggest we are all, men and women, grateful that we aren’t trans because that to me would be the ultimate challenge and possibly hell. If you don’t believe me I suggest you consider what your next act would be if you had to live as a woman.” At that there was a profound silence amongst both locals and residents. The locals already knew about and accepted Sasha’s intellectual insights concerning folk, but for many of the outsiders what he had challenged them with was a shock they had difficulty coming to terms with though they knew it was unarguable.
Even had Sasha known that he could be heard by Gladys and Harriet it wouldn’t have affected what he said. Harriet smiled at her mum and said, “Sasha is special isn’t he, Mum?” Gladys nodded and Harriet added, “It’s not always easy being trans even when folk leave you alone, but a trans friend in Manchester telt me that easy or difficult it was the path of least resistance, and if it weren’t maybe you weren’t fully trans, but were somewhere else on the spectrum. Either way she said following the path of least resistance regardless of what others said or did was what would probably make you happiest.”
“You believe that, Love?”
“I don’t know, but I do believe she had a point. It seems to works for me with Gustav, but I wouldn’t be prepared to say it were true for everyone. I think we all have to work out who and what we are for ourselves whether we are cis, trans or anything else.”
“What we drinking, Lads?” asked Pete to break the tension in the taproom. “I suggest we try Clarence’s new IPA.(38) Gustav’s just put a barrel on and he said earlier on it beats the daylights out of any Bavarian lager which is quite a complement from a bloke whose mum and three brothers own and manage a large Bavarian ale house in which he worked for most of his life. Bertie has brought up a fair selection of the rare stuff. It’s all labelled and behind the bar. Have a look and see what tickles your fancy. The usual terms apply. The kids’ Christmas party collection box is now virtually empty and in need of refilling for this year. It’s just in front of Sasha and I’m sure you’ll all do the right thing.” As Pete finished speaking there was loud thump as a bird flew into and bounced off the lunette fanlight above the rarely used front door to the taproom.
Alf opened the door and returned holding a pair of small birds. “It’s a sparrow hawk,” Alf said. The sparrowhawk had a dead starling grasped tightly in it claws. “It’s just stunned and needs a bit of warmth to recover. Raptors kill with their talons feet first, so I reckon the starling took the brunt of the shock of what was probably a thirty-five mile an hour impact. I saw a Youtube clip a while back that said most birds can usually escape from attacking sparrowhawks which have a killing speed of thirty-five miles an hour. It was going on about why virtually no birds get killed by traffic in towns, but the number jumps up dramatically once the traffic speed reaches thirty-five. It said hawks take out the slow and the stupid birds, so the rest that live to breed have evolved to avoid anything that attacks at thirty-five or below including vehicles. I’ll put it on my coat on the radiator in the back corridor and leave the back door open. It’ll be okay within twenty minutes and fly off, probably taking the starling with it. Alf had been correct and when a few of the men had gone to the gents’ which was off the back corridor they said upon their return it had gone and the starling too. The outsiders had always been amazed at the Bearthwaite residents’ understanding of and inter relationships with the wildlife and environment around them. For a few it hardened their resolve to move to the village, though they were aware they would have to be acceptable to live there.
Ahti was a furniture restorer who mostly worked as a luthier making and repairing musical instruments made of wood, violins and guitars in the main. He’d lived in Bearthwaite for more than thirty years. His tale was known to all the locals, but Pete had persuaded him to tell it for all. “I’m Ahti. I was born near Preston from first generation Estonian immigrants who’d managed to escape the Soviet occupation and annexation. I lived near Keswick for a long time My parents both died from what was called Norwalk in those days, but it’s what we call Noro virus now. I was married to an English girl called Rosemary from Carlisle when it hit me and I wasn’t aware of it. I mind that night when I didn’t feel right. I went to the lavatory, we had an en suite, and then I went back to bed. The bed was full of shite and Rosemary was covered in it. To say the least I was not well, but I didn’t feel too bad. Rosemary was a nurse so wasn’t as horrified by it as I was. We cleaned up, showered and made a bed up in the spare bedroom. Despite my guts turning inside out on me at no point had I felt seriously unwell. The following day we went shopping for a new mattress and bedding. The old stuff I dumped at the town civic amenity site, that’s bureaucratic double talk for the dump. We were okay for a week, but Rosemary picked up the virus from work. I suppose it was inevitable, she was a nurse at the Carlisle hospital. She had it much worse than me. I had to pick her up to put her in the bath, bathe her, lift her out and put her to bed. I woke up a few days later and she was cold beside me. She’d died peacefully smiling in her sleep for which I am still grateful, but I had to sell up and move. I couldn’t stay there where we’d been so happy. It was pure fluke I ended up moving here more than thirty years ago, but I’m glad I did. Is there any schnapps available, Pete? I could do with a goodly glass after that.”
“Aye, Ahti, There’s some home made from northern Sweden. I don’t know exactly, but it’ll be about sixty percent [UK 105 proof, US 120 proof]. I’ll fetch a couple of bottles.”
Gustav said, “It’s okay, Dad, I’ll get it and I’ll get some more of what ever’s behind the bar as well.”
Bill asked, “Give me a bit of hush, Lads, please. We’ve a bit of a problem with the road. The potholes are six inch deep and unless we get aholt on39 something to bind the crush with like plasterboard or old lime there’s no point in filling ’em because the crush will just wash out. It we don’t do something soon the holes’ll be a foot deep and only tractors will be able to use the road. Saul says they haven’t got anything suitable, but there is a load of old plaster in the terraces that either has to be loaded or has yet to come off the walls. We need about five ton of plaster. I need some more lads to load it or if it’s still on the walls to knock it off and load it. Ask about will you?” There was a murmuring in the tap room and a few of the locals said they and their sons would help.
“What’s for supper, Harriet Pet?”
“Lanky Lobby, Uncle Geoff. Properly it should called Lancashire Lobby. I saw it on Youtube and the woman making it called it Lanky Lobby. It’s a Lancastrian version of our Cumberland Tatie Pot, but with no black pudding and different herbs. I liked the idea. It contains what you’d expect, taties, carrots, onions, and stewing steak, but with pepper and sage added. I included the green onion tops that I froze when I used the white bits for other things. They came from all sorts of alliums, not just onions and leeks. They were all provided by Uncle Alf and his mates. They wanted used(40) up, so I took the opportunity. There’re dill flavoured mixed fermented pickles, vinegar pickled beetroot and buttered granary bread to go with the lobby. Pudding is laced cherry tart with custard. Before you ask the cherry tart is made with a short crust pastry base, Christine’s canned cherries and topped with a lattice of flaky pastry, and it’ll be at least twenty minutes before I put anything on the tables.”
“That was serious ballast,” Alf remarked concerning the supper as he reached for his glass. He drained the three-quarter full tankard and seeing Pete was still eating said, “I’ll pull a few, Lads, if someone will deal with the coin.”(41)
“I’ll do that, Alf,” Geoff said as he stood with his empty glass in his hand.
The beer had been dealt with when Harriet came in pushing her trolley to collect plates “Okay, Gentlemen? Do I do it again? Or do I stick to tatie pot?”
“That was excellent, Love,” Bill telt her. “You do whatever suits at the time for me.” There was a round of agreement round the taproom as plates were passed towards Harriet.
“I’ll be back with your pie in a couple of minutes. Someone let the dogs out please.”
After the cherry pie had been eaten and the dishes removed Stan asked, “Phil, I heard your lad Matt is keeping company with Adalheidis Maxwell. How did that come about?”
“Buggered if I know, Stan. Matt’s always been a quiet lad who kept things to himself and even Alice hasn’t been able to find out owt. Well, not yet any roads. Even his brothers say they don’t know owt. I can see why he’s interested in her. She’s almost as tall as him, pretty and slender enough to be a model. She talks decidedly upper class, and she sings like a nightingale. What puzzles me is what she sees in Matt. She’s well clever, whilst even with a lot of help from his older brothers he only just managed to get through school with enough certificates to get taken on as an apprentice. Okay, I know he’s a damned good brickie and my four lads have always made seriously good money because once out of their time they started working together. Hal reckons working that way they make twice as much as they could on their own. Matt’s one of my lads and I think the world of all of ’em, but even I’m not blinkered enough by that to think that in any way he could be considered to be a good catch for a good looking lass who’s reckoned to be a first class solicitor. She could have taken her pick of every available lad here and probably elsewhere too.” Phil shrugged and added, “But there’s nowt so queer as folk, and I never could see why Alice took up with me. Still, she’s thirty-three, ten years older than Matt, so you’d expect her to know her own mind by now even if he doesn’t.”
In serious tones Pete chipped in, “A ten year age difference is nowt, Phil. At least it’s not to folk as look deeper than just superficial things.” All the locals knew Pete was twenty years older than Gladys, and considered that he maybe had a point seeing as they’d celebrated their twenty-first wedding anniversary in the Dragon and all had been invited.
Harriet said quietly as she removed empty glasses, “Dad’s right. Matt’s kind and doesn’t care that she’s trans which a lot of men outside would hurt her for when they found out, so it’s not true to say she could take her pick of them. As for all the available ones here, I can easily see what she sees in him rather than anyone else. He may not be the brains of Britain, but he’ll make some lucky girl a good and loving husband, and I imagine Adalheidis recognises that and wants to make sure it’s her. Sam Graham telt me Adalheidis had a life that was awful as a young girl at home and at school. Her mum was okay about her, but her dad knocked her about a lot. Her siblings and the kids at school were even worse. Seemingly sixth form college and university were little better. Sam said she be surprised if she hadn’t tried to take her own life several times to make the pain of abuse and rejection go away and that her moving to here was probably the best thing that had ever happened to her. It’s not so surprising that when she sees an opportunity for someone decent and caring in her life that she wants him so badly that she’s prepared to take chances and overlook an awful lot to establish a relationship with him. I was the same.” Harriet smiled at Gustav and put her hand on his shoulder. “In the end, money, looks and brains don’t matter much to girls who’ve got any sense because they’re looking for someone who will respect them enough to treat them right both in public and in private and who will be a good father to their kids. As long as they have that and enough to get by on anything else is a bonus. Then again maybe she just wants a toyboy.”
There was no reply to what Harriet had said, not even a chuckle at what all had recognised was her attempt to lighten the atmosphere with her last humorous threw away remark, but many of the men in the taproom looked at each other with thoughtful looks on their faces, for Harriet had succinctly summed up the Bearthwaite unwritten and rarely spoken of female view of marriage.
None responded to Harriet’s words for some time and after she had left for the best side when conversation did resume it was subdued. George, who was an ex squaddie(42) said, “I can accept it’s different for single blokes and women too, though that’s no justification for putting it about like a coney, but once you settle down a whole new set of rules comes into play. If I’d even considered Christine had been unfaithful I’d have emigrated and left her with the kids that could have been any blokes’ to fend for, but that should cut two ways and a family man, whether married or no, who plays away deserves stringing up. All the bullshit others in my unit came up with about a man having needs are just that, bullshit. I didn’t need to even consider the fine I’d have been hit with if I’d reported to the M.O.(43) with a dose of the clap from some skanky whore. Just the idea of going where God alone how many miles of men had gone over the years was enough. They used to reckon the average, raddled, middle aged whore near the base worked her way through a mile of prick every three years, and the younger ones possibly every year, and that was just the back alley standing up jobs. Nah, no thanks. I was never that desperate even when I was a lad long before I joined the mob.(44) Thumbelina Palm and her four gorgeous sisters(45) have always been a lot safer. Harriet was right, respect is definitely the key concept here, Lads. Matt’s a good lad and I wish him luck and joy. Let’s just hope life keeps the pair of them local, we need folks like both of them.”
George had put it crudely, but his sentiments were understood and agreed with by all the Bearthwaite men in the taproom.
Sasha said, “I think you’re right about relationships, George, and we mustn’t allow outside forces to affect that aspect of our lives, but things change, some for the better, some not. All we have to do is to try to keep the best of the old and to keep up with changes that improve our lives which is not always easy and sometimes not even possible. Moving away from relationships, something that changed for the worse recently was when Lidl replaced their own brand blended malt which was called Queen Margot with something called Balmuir. Queen Margot had been voted the best tasting blended scotch in independent blind trials for years. I used to buy it by the case, twelve one litre bottles. Balmuir tastes awful, so I don’t buy whisky there any more. I complained, but as I expected it made no difference. However, one thing that I reckon that has been a change for the better is LED lights. I bought a site light on a stand a few months ago off the internet which is a really good piece of kit at thirty-five quid [$40]. Unlike my old one which got damned hot and the incandescent bulb filaments were so fragile you only had to look at them and the bulb was dead this new one runs cool and bright on next to no electricity and it’s amazingly robust.”
Pete added, “I burnt myself on my old one many a time, but I bought a couple of hand held ones in the factory shop in Wigton a couple of weeks ago. Powered by three AA batteries they chuck out so much light you can’t look at them, and they have a hook and a pair of neodymium super magnets on to mount them with. Fifteen quid [$20] apiece. A definite improvement on what I used before.”
Alf took a deep pull on his pint and said, “Aye but sometimes all is not what it seems. I bought a belt in Marks and Spencers a few years ago that was labelled Genuine leather. At twenty quid [$25] it wasn’t cheap. Genuine leather my arse. It was a lamination with a half a mil [0.020 inches] of leather on each side and three mil [⅛ inch] of some brittle shite in the middle that delaminated after a twelve month. I know that anything labelled ‘Real leather’ is some polymeric crap from the far east. That was why decades ago it was made illegal to sell owt in this country labelled ‘Genuine leather’ that was anything else, and that hide symbol was made illegal to use on owt that wasn’t genuine leather. I checked and that belt was not illegal, but it wasn’t what it purported to be either. In my book that’s fraud and the hell with what the law says. I expected better from M&S.
“I’ll give you a different type of example. I read and looked up on the internet about radiator valves that could self adjust to balance a central heating system automatically over a few hours. It seemed like a really good idea. Balancing a system is tedious and can take days to do properly, so I tried to buy some, but nobody stocked them. Most suppliers had never heard of the valves and none had heard of the purported manufacturer. As far as I can tell they’ve never been available, so maybe they’re just a figment of some marketing man’s imagination. Makes you wonder what kind of a scam somebody was running. Similar sort of thing was the KwikGripper. I was a well designed superior nail and screw puller that I saw a clip of on Youtube years ago. The clip implied they were immediately available, I wanted one but when I tried to track one down it seemed they had never gone into production.” Alf shrugged his shoulder and continued, “Really bad changes are when good stuff just disappears, Sasha. What happened to Chambourcy yoghurt and Dunster Farm cottage cheese? Morning Coffee biscuits and Vienna wafer chocolate triangles are just nostalgic memories of childhood now. Lots of stuff is lost to constant change, some like those for no good reason.
“Some losses are inevitable. Who even makes typewriters or floppy disks these days? It would be pointless. A similar type of change is when things change so fast you wonder why you bothered even being interested. For a while I used old catering deep fryer fat to make bio diesel. I even converted some of my static plant to running on a straight chip pan fat diesel blend. All of which became pointless within a handful of years as major fuel producers started selling diesel with anything up to twenty per cent bio diesel in it. Adding any more would be risking an engine.”
“So what do you do with the chip pan(46) fat now, Alf? I know you still collect it.”
“Heating fuel, Phil. Unlike using it for road vehicle fuel there’re no complications with the tax man and it’s a damned sight easier to to do with virtually no maintenance required. Most of the fuel that heats the bread ovens at your spot is recycled chip pan fat and the rest is old engine oil that I’ve cleaned up with a centrifuge. The residue from the centrifuge I mix with sawdust, compress it into bricks and use for fuel in the workshop heating system. There’s a pre heater in your both of your fuel tanks now so the ovens can burn whatever cheap fuel is available. When Pat shewed Alice how to operate it all ages ago she was amazed at how easy it was. She turns the electric element on first thing and as soon as the fat is warm enough to flow easily the burner kicks in. The control system Pat put together turns off the electricity and diverts some of the heat to keep the fat hot enough to run the ovens. When she and the lasses have finished baking all she has to do is turn it all off at the main switch.”
Sasha said, “Talking of baking I was in a bakery the other lunch time looking for a couple of meat pies for my bait.(47) The woman in front of me was buying bread and I heard her say ‘I shouldn’t but I’ll have one of those cream cakes too. I only need to walk past a pie or a cake shop and sniff the air and I put on a kilo [2⅕ pounds].’ I telt her, ‘It’s said that the road to hell is flanked on both sides with shops selling cream cakes.’ She laught and said, ‘Sounds like a fun place to be.’ ”
Tommy said, “That puts me in mind of something that happened in the Wigton Spar shop the other day with Sarah. We were squeezing past this old woman in one of the narrow aisles when she turned round to Sarah and said, ‘You could do with losing a bit of weight.’ Now I know my old girl’s a substantial lass, but I thought that was going a bit far. Sarah said to me she was so gobsmacked she couldn’t be bothered to get angry about it. Apparently the old biddy had exchanged a couple of sentences with her a few minutes before at the far end of the store. I looked at the old girl with her basket which contained bugger all, and what there was was all essentials, six eggs, a small loaf and a pint of milk, and said to Sarah, ‘She looks gey lonely and short of a bob or two.(48) She probably thought she was a friend of yours after having exchanged a few words. She certainly didn’t sound as if she were being deliberately unpleasant.’ Sarah nodded and said I was probably right. One of the lasses as works in the shop has been friends with Sarah for years and when we reached the till to pay Sarah telt her about it. She was was outraged, which I thought was funnier than the incident itself. That’s how feuds start, folk taking offence at nowt. On the way out I dropped a tenner [$14] in the old girl’s bag when she wasn’t looking.” There were numerous nods of approval though none said anything.
Dave said, “Talking of weight loss. You mind that old advert for Malteasers,(49) ‘The sweet with the less fattening centre.’ ”
“Aye I mind it, Dave.”
“It was a lie, Pete, because the sweet with the less fattening centre was a polo mint.” There was a ripple of laughter at that for polo mints were like a ring with no centre.
Pete said, “I mind they used to push sweets gey hard at kids in those days. Milky Way chocolate bars were pushed as, ‘The sweet you can eat between meals without losing your appetite,’ and all those ads targeted kids. They’re not allowed to do that now which has to be a change for the better.”
Alf said, “I can’t mind where I was, but a few years ago a woman in a pie shop nearly took badly with a heart attack when I asked for a steak pie in a buttered balm cake.”(50) Reflectively Alf added, “Working lads eat pies in buttered stotties(51) over in the north east which is a substantial bite of bait.”
Charlie said, “I mind when I was a lot younger, after a night out on the town we’d all go down to the Hoggie Waggon at Bridge Foot in Warrington. He was parked up on the bus station and would be there selling burgers and hot dogs till gone four in the morning. A hoggie was a full unsliced loaf with six or eight frankfurter sausages in it. Onions and sauces too. You had to be a big lad to eat a full one. Most of us had a half a one each. I mind us going down there one time with half a dozen nurses from the local nurses home we’d met when we were dancing. We were in the mini bus I was using for wheels at the time. The lasses bought a French One, that was a thin two foot loaf with a few sausages and the trimmings in it, amongst then and we went back to their place for coffee and to eat. We were eating till six before we all crashed out.”
A stranger added, “I’m Gerald. Talking of pie and pasty shops. I mind shopping with Abby in Workington. Like a lot of blokes, shopping saps my will to live, so I nipped into Gregg’s for a steak bake(52) to pick me up a bit. When I rejoined my missus outside on the pavement [US side walk] two old women near us nearly died laughing when after taking a bite I said to Abby, ‘I think somebody’s nicked the filling out of my pasty!”
“Aye. I know what you mean, Gerald,” said Dave. “The history of the amazing shrinking Gregg’s pasty is complex and distressing. They used to be semi circular, then they went rectangular. That was understandable, less pastry wastage and easier to make, but they did get smaller overall as a result of the change. At that point they were about twice as long as they were wide, but they started getting shorter over the years. Now the damned things are no wider and near enough square, and they definitely don’t taste as good as they used to. I reckon they’re half the size they used to be and they’re going on for two quid a throw. What’s that, Alf, a nicker(53) a mouthful?” There was a lot of laughter at that, but Alf just nodded glumly. He wasn’t in the least bothered by Dave making fun of him eating a steak bake in two bites, but the evil truth in the tale of the shrinking pasty upset him. Dave finished with, “They ain’t cheap, but I reckon Harrison’s pork pies are still a decent sized, tasty bit of bait.”
Another stranger said, “I’m Brian and I came to live in Cumbria maybe forty years ago from Leigh in Lancashire. A spot where good pies abounded. Coan’s was a small bake house with maybe three shops and their pies were to die for, but according to my sister in law who still lives there they went to the wall decades ago. Then there was Wee Jock’s pies and cream cakes. He was about four foot ten, spoke broad Glaswegian, so you only understood one word in ten that he said and his bake house was at the bus stop I waited at to go to work. He started baking at four thirty six days a week and the smell just pulled you in. The pies were exquisite and his blackcurrant and apple turnovers and cream horns contained no air at all. Most spots just put a bit of fruit and cream where you could see it. His were filled right from the bottom to the top. Round there folk from Wigan are called pie eaters, but I reckoned Leigh folk ate as many pies as the Wigginers. I mind shops selling plate pies maybe ten or twelve inches across and poor folk, and there were plenty of them there then, would buy one for dinner for a family of six or more. Most of all I recall Yates and Greer’s pork pies, but like Coan’s and Wee Jock’s they’ve disappeared too. I think it’s safe to say that a decent pork pie is now extinct unless you make your own. On a trip to Cumbria when we still lived down there I mind saying to the wife when I bought a pork pie in Kendal, ‘Christ Almighty, Dorothy, this pie is dryer than an undertaker’s [mortician’s] eyes at a funeral, Love.’ But still I’ve no regrets about moving to Cumbria. Where I used to live is like a war zone now, and finding this spot was a real piece of luck.”
Dave continued the pie tales with, “I had a similar experience in a bar at Imperial College in London. We were working down there and I bought a pie from a pie warmer you could have killed someone with. God alone knows how long it had had been desiccating in that pie warmer. There were softer beach cobbles, and the enamel on my teeth was spalling off on it. I ended up leaving it because I couldn’t break into to it, and they don’t serve gravy or mushy peas with pies that far south. Southerners have no understanding of the trauma a northerner suffers from encountering a bad pie, and gravy or peas at least renders hard pastry crust soft enough to be edible even if not tasty. Tell you there was more moisture in a bucket of Gobi desert sand or Tutankhamen’s mummy than in that pie.”
Paul said, “Well whilst we’re on about food many of you know I lived in Worcestershire when I was a lad, mostly near Malvern. For a while I lived near Kidderminster and went to the local grammar school, King Charles the first it was. I mind we had blue blazers and caps, but I wasn’t there long enough to have either. I got friendly with a lad called Nigel in my class whose dad was a partner in a nearby pork butchers shop. Edwards pork butchers shop Kidderminster it was. My mate’s dad was Frank Cavendish and his partner was a Mr. Larkin who was elderly and about to retire. Every lunchtime we went to the shop to help for a few coppers. We’d plug the pork pies with cracks in the crust with dough, so they could be filled with jelly. When the jelly set the dough was removed. We helped to make sausages too. His dad’s sausages were so highly regarded the local coöp couldn’t sell their own and bought sausages from the shop. The only other thing I remember about that time was at a mobile food van on the banks of the river Severn at Stourport one weekend. Birmingham was so far from the sea folk from there used to go to Stourport on Severn at weekends because the river was safe there and had wide sandy beaches with a massive wide flood plain maybe ten foot above the river that extended for miles up river. Down stream of the bridge on the far side of the town the sandstone cliffs were hollowed out into a series of adjoining caves that were great for kids to explore and play in and around in perfect safety. There were always crowds of folk there of a weekend with decent weather and a lot of the food vans were run by Brummies which is what folk from Birmingham were called. Brummie(54) is a pretty strong accent or at least it was to me. I asked the man on a hot food van for a pasty and he asked me if I wanted a Cornish or a Chisalean. I played it safe because I didn’t know where Chisalea was and opted for a Cornish pasty. It was a while before I realised chisalean was the way the man pronounced cheese and onion.”
A stranger who said his name was Colin said, “I got threwn out of a McDonalds years ago for asking, ‘Don’t you have anything that contains meat?’ ”
Phil said, “I don’t see why. That seems a perfectly reasonable question to me even if you were being a bit stupid, Colin. You should have known the answer was no.” When the laughter died down Phil continued. “Carrying on with the food theme, though a bit different. When I was a kid I liked Mum’s gooseberry jam with sausages, and her marmalade with bacon. Folk thought I was a crackpot, but years later I discovered posh folk had cranberry or lingon sauce with game and redcurrant jelly with goose or duck, and I reckoned maybe I wasn’t so strange after all. Apple sauce with pork is normal over all of Europe though I don’t know about elsewhere.”
“Don’t worry your head about it, Phil. I still like buttering two slices of bread and spreading tomato ketchup on one of them. Them I smash up a packet of prawn craptail crisps(55) before opening them and pour the smasht bits onto the other slice. Squash the two slices of bread together and it’s a decent snack. I do it with others crisps too, cheese and onion are okay with mayonnaise and beef are okay with brown sauce, but prawn craptail, which aren’t fit to eat any other way because they’re pure chemicals, are my favourites.”
“You’re still eating ’em, Luke?”
“Sure. Hazel insists on buying those multi packs of crisps which always contain two packets of the dreaded prawn, but she won’t eat ’em. So if I have to eat ’em I’ll eat ’em the way I like, and I’ve telt her she doesn’t have to watch if it makes her feel nauseous. If I were you I’d have Alice buy you a jar of gooseberry jam and some marmalade. Christine makes both and Lucy and Dave sell ’em in half litre Kilner jars.” [One US pint Mason jars]
Dave said, “Aye we’ve always got both in stock. If we’re on with food, Lads. I was way down south years ago maybe in my teens living with a load of lads in caravans [US trailers] on the building site where we worked because it was cheap digs.(56) It was a bit grim to start with because none of us could cook. I mind making a stew with some shin beef one night and that meat was the toughest stuff I’ve ever had between my teeth. I suggested the only way to eat it was to cut it up gey(57) fine and just swallow it, but one of the lads recommended we went to the off licence for a few crates of beer and just let it simmer whilst we played cards for an hour or two with a few bevvies.(58) It seemed like a good idea. After an hour of playing brag we switched to poker and one of the lads asked how we would know when it was ready. ‘Easy,’ said I, ‘Just keep stirring it with that stainless steel spoon and when the spoon dissolves it’s ready’ ” Amidst the laughter Dave said, “I’ll continue when I’ve another pint and a glass of something stronger in front of me.”
After visits to the gents and replenishing beer glasses, bottles of corrosive spirituous liquors along with the kids ‘Christmas party collection box were passed round before Dave resumed. “Eventually a lad arrived on the job who could cook. We always chipped in for food stuffs, and one day after work he sent some of us out to buy some stuff for our dinner that night. I went to the green grocers for some spuds, carrots, onions and a couple of cabbages. In front of me in the queue was an old woman who spoke like she’d a bushel(59) box of plums in her mouth.(60) You know that RP(61) English the southerners all went on about at the time calling it the Queen’s English. Well this old dame points to the spuds and asks the grocer, ‘Do you have sex?’ The old bloke serving replied absolutely deadpan, ‘Not as often as I used to, Madam, but is there something I can help you with?”
When the roars of laughter subsided, Alf said, “You’ll have to explain that to me, Dave.”
Gustav admitted, “Me too.”
“In the RP English of the time, a cat was pronounced a ket, and sacks would be pronounced sex. She was asking if he selt potatoes in sacks.”
Sasha added, “A few years ago I was looking on the internet for lists of examples of IPA pronunciations. The IPA is the International Phonetic Alphabet. It’s a method of spelling words as they are pronounced. One of its functions is to help folk pronounce words in foreign languages. It has more symbols than standard alphabets have letters, but every symbol is always pronounced in the same way and never any different. Of relevance to this tale is one of those symbols. It’s a curly letter e, [Ꜫ] it’s like the Greek lowercase epsilon. I found a list of all the IPA symbols and examples of words using them in English. I found a similar list in Russian. Problem was they didn’t match up, and they are supposed to. So I found a few more lists in various languages that I can read, and the English list was the odd one out. The relevant example it gave was cat but it was pronounced ket. It was some time before I realised that was how RP English pronounced the word decades before and the list I had was years out of date. The IPA is a helpful tool, but it’s not foolproof.
Stan asked, “Is that tale true, Dave?”
Very blandly with a barely perceptible shrug of his shoulders Dave replied, “Almost,” to much laughter.
Daniel said, “I’ll tell a tale many of you will know bits of, but I suspect few will be familiar with it all. Basically it’s the tale of my life. If you don’t wish to hear it, say so, for I won’t be offended. It’s neither exciting nor of any particular importance. It’s certainly not funny nor even amusing.”
Sasha replied, “Tell your tale, Daniel. It doesn’t have to be exciting, important, funny or amusing to be of interest.”
“I was born here at number seven Demesne Lane which is now half of a decent sized house back of the old allotments. Bearthwaite was really poor in those days, most folk here struggled to keep body and soul together, so my parents moved away for work and better opportunities when I was eleven. They found work and had money, not a lot, but they didn’t have to worry about where our next meal was coming from nor about us being evicted by some absentee landlord’s minions any more, but my life became hell. I tried desperately hard to fit in and to be cool with the other kids at school and round where we lived, but some how I never succeeded. The music they listened to was just noise to me and in truth it did no more for me than anything else they thought hip and cool did. The red and blue jeans I’d bought to try to fit in just got me called a garden gnome. It was years later when I realised that if one of the cool kids had worn them they would have been envied. It wasn’t the jeans that were despised it was me because I didn’t understand how they thought. I was just a country kid from Nowheresville out in the sticks. I was laught at for telling the truth and refusing to go shop lifting with them. The few skills I had were worthless to them, and they beat me up for being a lying, mental, fantasising pervert with a bestiality fetish for cows tits when I telt them I was able to milk cows because they knew milk was made at the coöp factory on the other side of town. I was beaten up so badly for that I was in hospital for over a fortnight. My life was just a bag of shite from the moment I awoke to the moment I fell asleep.
“Eventually I left school and became interested in girls, but I didn’t last long with any of them. I had a half decent job in the local foundry and did night school mechanic’s classes, but it wasn’t long before I realised I was just a lad the girls despised, but because I had a bit more money than the other lads near my age they feigned interest. Deep down I knew the girls were just using me, but I was proud and didn’t want to admit it, not even to myself. That I could afford to run my truck because I could maintain it myself didn’t seem to mean anything to any of them, girls or boys, because it wasn’t a Porsche, even though they all had to use public transport because they couldn’t afford a vehicle of any kind. Eventually, when I was pushing thirty after two failed marriages and god knows how many failed relationships, with fortunately no kids, I came to realise they were all nothing but superficial irrelevance, incapable of owt and their opinions weren’t worth listening to never mind courting, which realisation was a huge relief.
“I left the city and came home to my grandparents in Bearthwaite where at least life was real and it was okay to take heed of the words of elder folk who had been through the mill of life before. Before I’d been back here twenty-four hours I’d realised I was a child of Bearthwaite and proud of it. Even then I knew I didn’t wish to live anywhere else and would prefer to settle here with a Bearthwaite lass. If that was not possible I reckoned I could settle for a lass that would be happy to make her home and family here, but that was my bottom line: I lived here with my family. For a couple of years I worked on the allotments with Granddad whilst I put a small foundry together. As a lot of you know I met Eleanor who’d never lived anywhere else. We married here and had six kids. I’ve made at least part of my living here as a foundry man since I returned, and all of it for many years now. I see a lot of folk about me tonight who helped me set up that first foundry when I just cast articles in green sand using easy to cast low melting point alloys like ally and shit metal.(62) Eventually, I expanded and started to cast in brass and then in both iron and steel, though there’s little money in small scale casting in iron and steel, and I only do so occasionally as a favour for Alf these days. I’ve done alright for myself and my family.
“Mum and Dad thought I was crazy for returning here. I thought they were crazy for not returning. Sure they had a bit of money, but they worked over long hours, were lonely and had no friends. They died together by their own hands and it was never discovered why, for they left no note. There were only Bearthwaite folk who went to their funerals. That may have been because I had them buried here where they belonged, but I doubt it, for at no point did any from out there, other than the police investigating their deaths, speak to me of them. The police interviewed hundreds of folk in connection with their deaths, so many of their neighbours and folk who worked with them too knew about what had happened. Most said they couldn’t recall ever having spoken to either of them. Such as it was, I inherited it all, and to me those few hundred quid seemed little to shew for the lives of two folks who’d spent decades with none else to talk to. I know they claimed they were happy, maybe they were, but I couldn’t see it when I stood greeting like Christmas card(63) at the sides of their graves and I can’t see it now.
“Mostly these days I’m casting fireside companion sets(64) in brass, usually replicas from sixty or more years ago. Simon makes the tools for me. I’m selling a lot of sets on Ebay that look like a traditionally dressed Dutch girl and boy. Also popular is one of a Dutch sailing barge with drop down leeboard(65) stabilisers. All three were originally available in vitreous enamelled cast iron, but most were selt as plain cast iron. They were very popular years ago and have been making a comeback going at anything up to a hundred quid each on Ebay, though a bit of ratching can get them for sixty-five for the girl boy pair including packing and postage.
“I’ve always been happy since I returned here. It’s my home, a place where we all help each other. I don’t have a lot of money, but I’ve never been a poor man. I help my neighbours who have always in turn helped me when I needed it. Like all of us, I squash the few food tins [cans] we use and use a magnet to extract the nails from the fire ashes after burning demolition timber firewood to threw in the community scrap skip [US dumpster] that when full gets weighed in for the money to help those of us that need it most. For fun I restore, collect and sell wood working planes, auger bits and antique tin openers too. As a hobby it more than pays for itself.”
Alf interrupted to say, “I’ve never met any one before who can recut or accurately replace the snail(66) on an auger bit before. The precision that requires is amazing. Daniel has fettled any number of my tools over the years.”
“It’s amazing what you can do with oxy(67) using a hypodermic needle as a jet, a Dremel tool, and a binocular microscope, Alf. My life is relatively simple, and I accept it for what it is, and I don’t appreciate folk trying to make it otherwise. When I was in Carlisle not long ago there were a load of folk on the streets asking daft questions for a questionnaire concerning opinions about what’s going on in the Crimea. I can see why it matters to Sasha, and that’s fair enough, but I’m not a Siberian Russian. Since then I’ve become sick of the same daft questions popping up every time I want to use my laptop. What do I think about Ukraine and Russia? Truth is I don’t give much of a bugger about what happens in Brampton, which is what? Thirty-five miles away at most, and I certainly don’t give any of a bugger about what happens east of the Northumberland coast which is barely double that. Some folk would say I’m a parochial, ignorant peasant. I dare say I am a peasant, but I’m neither parochial nor ignorant. The truth is I am aware of my limitations and what I can actually have any effect on. Putin doesn’t give a damn about what Biden or Xi Jinping thinks, so he certainly isn’t bothered about what I think. Eventually they’ll all go to hell on a hand cart of their own making without any help from me, so why should I care or even have an opinion on their activities.
“All I want to do is enable me and mine to survive, to eat and stay warm and happy. Everything else is all so much nonsense. If death rains down from the sky we die, and there’s nothing I can do about it, so let’s live as well as we can till it does. I enjoy my work and what I do in my free time. I’m a bloke, and I enjoy being warm, good food, a family life and a drink in the Dragon on Saturdays. I know I have what some consider to be very outdated and chauvinistic views, but I truly believe them to be appropriate for decent couples living a decent life. Maybe I’m lucky because so does Eleanor. I’m happy to work long and hard to provide for my family and community, and to enable my family to provide what I enjoy. The rest of what the media endlessly goes on about, especially all that sexism nonsense, is completely irrelevant to my family life, and Eleanor would be seriously upset if I thought any other way. She is proud to be Mrs Daniel Armstrong, and like most of your womenfolk considers being addressed as Mrs Eleanor Armstrong to be a none too subtle insult or just ignorance from outsiders who don’t know any better because that doesn’t acknowledge her marriage lines.(68) The implication to her is they are accusing her of being an unmarried mother with six illegitimate kids and she doesn’t like being referred to as a slut with a tribe of bastards be it howsoever indirectly. Putting it bluntly, Lads, a decent meal, followed by putting my kids to bed, telling them a bedtime story, and afterwards enjoying a glass with my missus before making love to fall asleep and wake up to a decent breakfast then going to work again is all I have ever asked of life, and bollocks to the Crimea.”
Simon, after pouring himself a goodly measure of hostage rum and passing the bottle on said, “I’m with Daniel on that, but I reckon a lot of folk see life in a very distorted way. Particularly those whose ethnicity is not European English. I think most of those non white folk complaining about the way folk of their culture are treated just don’t get it. Those of us who are British as a result of our upbringing and subsequent culture are sick wearied and tired of outsiders insisting we have to change. All my neighbours know I was born in Jamaica, but from the age of ten I grew up here in Bearthwaite and more to the point I’m a Bearthwaite lad who’s never lived anywhere else since, and I can’t mind being treated as owt else. The little I remember about the first ten years of my life I’d rather be able to forget, and for me my only reality is Bearthwaite. It’s where I have been happy and where I belong, so I’m not having anyone from anywhere else telling me how I have to react to white Europeans being involved in the slave trade and that reparations are due. When I ran away from a violent black family that regularly beat me to almost the point of death by pure chance I ended up in Bearthwaite with a white family who tret(69) me right and for the first time in my life I was lucky. Thomson took me in as his son and apprentice and hid me from the authorities who’d have taken me into care or given me back to my family to be abused some more, and doubtless sooner or later I’d have died from that. Folk here knew what was going on and helped him to keep me safe. He didn’t even consider it relevant that my skin was black. I married his youngest daughter, Gillian, a white Bearthwaite lass whose family had been Bearthwaite folk for generations untelt. Thomson was so grateful he didn’t have to get up as early to fire the forge he left it all to me. Gillian’s family didn’t want nor have a use for the forge and didn’t want Bearthwaite to be without a blacksmith, so they were happy about that.
“I’ve never been tret by my neighbours with anything other than respect as the man who was the local blacksmith. My kids are just Bearthwaite kids like all the others. I get called Black Simon, but that’s just the same as Phil gets called Phil the Mill and Vincent gets called Vince the Mince. The kids think it’s short for Blacksmith Simon, and to them it is. I’m a black blacksmith living in a place where being black is no more significant than being tall, but where being a good blacksmith and a good neighbour matters. Most of this rubbish about racism that’s bandied about is just that, rubbish. I reckon all those southerners who live their lives enjoying being victims of being black or wearing a turbine(70) round their heads need to engage in real British life and make something of it in stead of feeling sorry for themselves as a result of their total inadequacies to face and embrace life of any kind and British life where they live in particular. Nobody asked them to come here, and if they want to live here they need to accept they are now British and that is the major factor of their culture. The rest is just peripheral. Sure it matters to individuals which part of the country they’re from, and it matters to them whether they are of protestant or Catholic descent, but it’s not worth fighting over. The Northern Irish lunatics of both persuasions need to grow up. I once heard that every generation of ’em was more brainless than the one before due to the kids with any sense at all leaving for more enlightened places. The way it was put was ‘There has been a haemorrhaging of intelligence out of Northern Ireland for generations’. The fact is in the UK religion is history and if they can’t consign Islam or whatever else they are burdened with to history, why did they come here? If they want to fight about it, far better they go somewhere where it’s a fighting matter. The middle east somewhere maybe?” Simon could not possibly be accused of racism, at least not as regards skin colour, but all knew he didn’t consider himself to be English, nor even a Cumberland lad, but he was in his mind, and, as others considered him to be too, beyond doubt a Bearthwaite man and a UK citizen, and in his mind, and, in the minds of all his neighbours too, nowt else was of any significance, for he was a good blacksmith and a good neighbour.
“What choice have they got if they don’t want to do that, Simon?”
Simon was unusually for him profane in his answer. “I suggest they shut the fuck up and go back home because sure as hell we neither need nor want ’em here.”
To defuse the situation Pete said, “I’ll have a glass of that purple poison Alf acquired from somewhere in the middle east where I’m pretty certain alcohol is illegal.” There was a lot of laughter at that and even more when he added, “So let’s be grateful it is and they sell it to folk like us for pennies.” The subsequent laughter had the effect he’d intended.
Vincent said, “Just by way of a change I think I’ll try something legal. You got any decent London gin behind the bar, Pete?”
“Several. Bristol gins too. Gordon’s okay? It’s your usual.”
“Aye, but a goodly glass to see Davy off in style with.” Pete just nodded and put a quarter of a bottle [187½ml, 6⅔fl oz] in a glass for him. Vincent took a goodly pull on his gin and said, “Davy’s funeral was the grimmest event I’ve attended for a long time. I knew him when he was in his prime. He was a quiet and generous soul, and I’ll miss him till I go. Davy was our oldest neighbour and now Granny is. I doubt she’ll last long now Davy is gone, for she’s done her ton,(71) so what’s to stay for? As their wedding vows proclaimed, through sickness and health they lived for each other as a married couple should and now she’s on her own. As I said, I’ll miss him, but I can’t even begin to imagine the loss Drusilla will be having to deal with.” Many took a few seconds to realise that Drusilla was Granny Parker, for she’d only been referred to as Granny for decades. In Bearthwaite when one referred to Granny without further identifier or qualifier all knew you were referring to Granny Parker. Vincent’s words reached deeply into the souls of the Bearthwaite men, and there was a silence after them that lasted for what seemed to be a very long time.
Eventually, Sasha the master of moments raised his glass, which was full of a spirituous liquor of an oily, greenish appearance to say, “Let us drink to our neighbour and friend Davy, may he rest in peace, and to Granny too for the peace she gave him when he was with us.”
Pete proposed the toast in quiet clear tones. “To Davy and to Granny.” All drained their glasses and Pete said, “After you with that bottle please, Sasha.”
There was a few minutes of quiet chat after Pete’s toast during which Gustav pulled pints and some took the opportunity to visit the gents. The mood returned to its usual conviviality when Harriet came into the taproom with her pails of water and kibble to top up the dogs dishes.
Dave had an angry look on his face when he said, “Sorry, but I want to have a bit of a rant, Lads. I’m sick of listening to and reading the words of the totally illiterate who are bastardising my language. I left school at fifteen and I accept I’m neither well educated nor the best at English, but I do try and I always have. Why do the idiots insist on using verbs instead of nouns? Fails instead of failures, picks instead of choices and likes instead of things you like. Too, gonna and wanna are not words, it’s going to and want to, and why do they write a lot as one word? It’s illiterate and certainly not English. There is a similar word with two ells that means to give or apportion, but I doubt if they are aware of it. They make me look like a professor of English literature by comparison. I won’t deal with such ignorant bastards, and if they don’t like that all they have to do is wait till I’m dead when it won’t matter any more. Well not to me it won’t.”
“Well one of two things will happen, Dave, either it’ll continue with no end, humanity becomes subhuman and it’s the end of us, or those who care about such things reject the herd and their media connections. If it’s the latter humanity divides into two. That being the case the whole world divides like Bearthwaite and the outside. We survive well and the rest take their chance and probably don’t. In the meanwhile I suggest you have another pint and a glass of chemic too to settle your nerves and lower your blood pressure.”
“That’s not a bad idea, but it’s a hell of a bleak view of our future, Sasha.”
“Do you have a better vision?”
“No, I suspect you’re right, and that’s what scares the hell out of me. Still I suppose those folks’ butchery of the language is no worse than Lucy referring to pastage and poking.(72) I’ll settle myself over that with a glass of chemic, so maybe you have the sensible way to cope with the illiterates.”
Euan McIvor was a popular local farmer who’d just turned seventy. He was an irregular Saturday evening attender at the Dragon, but had telt a tale or two over the years. Euan indicated he’d something to say and Sasha telt him to make a start. “I recently deregistered for VAT(73) because when I decided to retire I rented all the land out to Alan Peabody. So now I have income from the rent which is nowt to do with the VAT. I filled in all the VAT returns except the last one, but I wrote to HMRC(74) explaining that I had nothing to pay but I couldn’t log on to their site to fill in the return because I was no longer registered, and I quoted their de-registration number. I thought all was okay till two months later I received a letter telling me I had to login to my VAT payment site to fill in the last return because they couldn’t do it for me. I’ve never had a payment site ID because I’ve never had any VAT to pay, and since I’m no longer registered I shan’t be able to get one. I’ve always been a net VAT claimant because everything I’ve bought I’ve reclaimed the VAT on and since I’ve only ever produced and selt hay and haylage which is livestock feed and VAT exempt I’ve never had owt to pay. I believe folk like me are kept in a special file for closer than usual scrutiny.
“I’ll just ignore it till they write back. They’ll get sick of it eventually and at the worst they’ll take me to court to recover nothing where they’ll be laught at since they will have known for years there was nothing to recover. The reason I’m telling this tale is it makes me wonder how many lads there are out there who could contribute to the British economy due to their trade skills, but who just don’t bother because of all the internet nonsense they’d have to learn to deal with the authorities. A load of them are damned good at what they do, but IT is completely beyond them and having to be ripped off by some thief otherwise known as an accountant sticks in their throat, so they either work for some big company that employs in house accountants to avoid them paying much in tax and contributes bugger all to the economy and just do what they have to to earn a crust or they don’t bother and take the social security handouts. Tell you, Lads, Whitehall needs to wake up to reality, but I can’t see it happening in my lifetime. Result is for those of us Bearthwaite folk who can actually do owt we get paid in goods and services and pay nothing in taxes because HMRC doesn’t even know what we’re dealing in exists, and I can live with that. Let the talcum knackered southern jessies(75) tax each other to death.”
Dave said, “Another pint and a glass and then I’ve something that will take us up to dominoes, Lads.” After all had been dealt with and the dogs barking at the back had been let in Dave said, “Alf I mind you saying your dad bought a box of plumbing fittings that contained a gross(76) and you’ve only ever seen them selt by the hundred. When we went metric dozens became tens and the gross died to be replaced by the hundred, but there never was a corresponding reduction in price. When vendors bothered to say owt they claimed stuff had gone up in price but selling in smaller quantities enabled them to keep the price for a box the same, which was all bloody lies. It was just a way to rip us all off for an extra sixteen and two thirds of a percent. Well I had a daft idea. Just imagine that instead of twelve a dozen had been nine and a gross nine nines which is eighty one. I’d put money on it we’d still be buying stuff by the dozen and the gross. The only reason we went metric on that was because it suited big business. It boiled down to them being greedy bastards. The only time it didn’t work was with eggs. The foreign owned discount stores like Aldi, and Lidl, and Netto too when they existed over here, tried palming eggs off us in fives, that’s how they’re selt on the continent. The British housewife wouldn’t have it. She may have shopped in Aldi, Lidl or Netto but she wouldn’t buy her eggs in fives there. Result, the discount stores soon caught on and resumed selling eggs by the half dozen or the dozen in the UK. The womenfolk won their war against decimalisation and we went down with all hands. Now tell me they are the weaker sex.”
Amidst the laughter, Pete was heard to say, “Round up the empties, Lads. I’ll pull pints if someone will wash glasses and someone take the money. Bertie, fetch some more of the rare stuff from the cellar will you please, and the rest of you can sort the dominoes out. I’ll fetch a damp cloth to wipe the tables with before you set up.”
The after closing discussion had now become a weekly event. Sasha and Elle, Pete and Gladys and Gustav and Harriet were chatting in the best side mulling over the week’s events. “Well,” Pete said, “I’ll admit I didn’t think we’d be having that many new folk in such a short space of time, but we’ve done well with all the men. Chance, Jeremy, Tony, Sun and Eli are all positive assets to Bearthwaite and all are well liked by the men. Eli brought his personal portfolio to shew us. That man is a genius with any type of art be it manually or digitally produced. He’s decidedly feminine in his character and was clearly thrilled to be working with kids. I reckon the kids will love him and be more than happy to learn what he can teach them. He telt us he’d always avoided kids because of fears of being accused of being a pædophile. I don’t know if he’s a feminine gay man or a trans woman, but I do recognise someone who loves kids and is no danger to them when I see one. He’s happy to be here and to be tret with respect for just being himself.”
Harriet added, “Lizzie and Beth are nice. Both want a family and Lizzie is looking into adoption as well as trying to have one herself. Beth’s first is due in the summer. Lizzie says she’ll happily train any girl or boy who wishes to learn silver service waiting on, and any adult too. I said if there were a lot of them I’d help too, and they can work in the restaurante here for practice. Jacqueline and Adalheidis are both well liked and I think we are lucky they decided to live here. Both are highly intelligent and once they become used to the place I suspect they’ll both play a much more active rôle in managing the village. Folk like them will need the challenge and mental stimulation which can’t help but benefit everyone. I’m telt that some of the younger men are a bit upset that both of them and Noëlle too are now spoken for, but I heard that Dad said they need to grow up a bit before any lass will take them seriously, and I agree.” She looked at Pete, shrugged her shoulders in dismissal of the matter, and with a serious look on her face said, “If Eli is trans he needs to know soon that that’s okay here. I’ll talk to Samantha, Stephanie and Jane about it.”
Gustav said, “All we need are a structural engineer, an optician and a chiropodist now, and I wondered if Græme Scott and his family would be interested in moving here. He’d be a real asset, and Faith his wife is a primary school teacher who would be more than welcome.”
Harriet laught and said, “You are never satisfied are you, Love? You want it all.”
“Why not aim for the top?” Gustav replied reasonably. “It seems to have worked so far. Bertie says we need a martial arts teacher of some sort for the kids, so let’s hope for one of those too. Elle, how are the building works coming along?”
“Some hold ups due to problems sourcing materials, but Alf is dealing with that. He’s complaining about the time he’s having to spend on the telephone and the internet, but Ellen and Bertie both say he’s not as tired as he was. Murray too is not as tired as he was since Chance took up most of his work load and Emily says she’s glad to be able to spend more time at home. The children have cleaned the second floor of the mill and washed everything down so well you could eat off the floor. The Jarvis girls are going to provide them with paint, brushes and everything else they’ll need and the children have said when all is done they’ll start on the first floor and then do the ground floor, the basement and the third floor too. Sasha telt them he’d pay them, but they want the money to buy things for their layout and insisted Jeremy be given it to buy trains and things. He’s spending time with them going over catalogues and on the internet so they can decide what they want first. Maybe Eli and Jeremy could give them some direction as regards the painting. Hal Levins says some of his crew of electricians will be going over and completely upgrading the electrics in the mill starting Thursday or more likely Friday next week. They’ve finished on the terraces, but still have the Granary and maybe twenty other properties to deal with. We’re doing well. There are any number of terraced houses available now and I’m telt a lot of the younger folk are no longer talking about leaving. We’re keeping many who were going to seek employment elsewhere as a result of jobs being available here.
“I telt you a long time ago the secret is to keep the girls here. They don’t wish to be too far away from their mums and families, but wish some independence and employment. Many are happy to keep studying and just work part time. And as we know if we keep the girls, we keep the boys. Christine has four lasses working part time with her and once she moves into the mill she wants another two which is already sorted out. All six of them have boyfriends in the village so that’s six lads we’re hanging on to too. Alf is buying her Kilner jars, well Mason jars I should say, direct from the States by the container load at a fraction of the price he can obtain them for over here. As a result of the public meetings held during and after Covid every self employed person has taken on apprentices and more workers. Of course we lose kids to higher education, but we’ve made sure they all know there is work and housing to return to.
“My next major project is the Bearthwaite secondary school classes and I want our school to be a single organisation from play group age to eighteen. We can do it with the folk we have here. Even A’ level(77) students suffered no break in their education due to Covid. We’d need some more teachers, but not many, and Frances reckons three or four and we’d be able to offer a wide choice of subjects. We don’t need to follow any other education model because Bearthwaite school is a private school, so we do it the Bearthwaite way, and use whatever skills and knowledge base we have, for there’s no law that says a teacher has to have a government recognised teaching qualification. We even have enough knowledge here to teach all STEM(78) subjects to A’ level. We may have to use a dozen different folk to teach a particular subject due to the specialised nature of their education, but that’s what we did during Covid, so we can do it again whilst we look for teachers. Alf taught some fragments of the A’ level physics and biology syllabi and was good at it. I wonder if Eli would be prepared to be our art teacher. I’m sure we could justify a full time teaching contract if we regarded his work with the children on the railway layout as evening classes. Mmm, I’ll mention the matter to him, for he possesses the width of skills that a really good art teacher needs to teach children from toddlers to A’ Level pupils.
“When I spoke to Frances about the matter she posed the question, why do we have to have a head teacher? We don’t for the primary school. The Ownership Company committee serves as a board of governors which has control, so we could just continue with that. When we set up the primary school the Local Education Authority pointed out that there had to be a headteacher because legally there had to be someone with over all responsibility. Murray telt them that was not true. He was the chairman of the Ownership Company committee at the time, so he had overall responsibility in the eyes of the law, so legally he served as the headteacher. They telt him he was not a teacher, but he’d done his homework and pointed out that there were dozens of Cumbria Education Authority employed head teachers who did not teach, but functioned purely as administrators, a job for which they had no qualifications. He provided details of their names and schools and what they actually did. He pointed out he would be doing no less teaching than they would and gave them the details of his administrative qualifications. The LEA solicitors had no choice but to back off when he telt them he was sure a court would see it his way. Murray has said he’d he happy to teach parts of A’ level business studies, economics and accountancy if required.
“The LEA has tried to make life difficult for us at every turn since then, but unlike them we don’t have to employ monkeys because we don’t pay peanuts. We have intelligent, experienced experts who in the main work for free on our behalfs because they are Bearthwaite folk. Frances also pointed out that it’s not as if we’ll have discipline problems that require a head teacher to deal with them is it, or at least we’ll have nothing nothing a quiet chat with a parent can’t deal with. As usual if anyone has any ideas let me know.”
Sasha asked, “Is that it? May I go home now for a last glass before bed?”
Elle laught and said, “He takes that last glass and the bottle too to bed with him. His bedside cabinet would make quite a respectably stocked bar.
1 Houdini, Harry Houdini was a Hungarian-American escape artist, magic man, and stunt performer, noted for his escape acts.
2 Anglo Saxon, crude or profane. The expression used in this sense derives from after the Norman conquest of England in 1066 by William I. The language of the conquerors was Norman French, that of the conquered was Anglo Saxon which existed in many variants. Norman French was the language of the masters and Anglo Saxon rapidly became deemed to be inferior, then lower class and ultimately coarse and crude. The process took centuries, but many words that today are considered to be outrageously unacceptable in polite society, especially those having any connection to sex or genitals, were at one time perfectly acceptable words in normal every day Anglo Saxon usage.
3 Slaughter mart, slaughter market, an auction of animals that have to be slaughtered after sale. Distinct from a livestock sale where tighter regulations apply due to the higher possibilities of transmitting diseases round the country.
4 Richard Beeching closed 2,363 railway stations in the UK and 5,000 miles (8,000 km) of railway line in 1963, 55% of stations and 30% of route miles, to stop the vast losses the railways were incurring on behalf of the tax payer. Beeching was a much vilified man for doing so, and still is, but he was in a hard place. The motorway network was expanding and there was a lot of money to be made from road transport by influential folk who wanted the railways closed down as competitors. Beeching was made a Lord for his work.
5 The Solway Junction Railway provided a shortened link between the iron ore mines of Cumberland England and the iron works in Lanarkshire and Ayrshire Scotland over the Solway Firth. It had opened on the 13th of September 1869 and was closed on the 27th of April 1921.
6 BMA, British Medical Association.
7 GP, General Practitioner, a family doctor.
8 Badly used thus is vernacular for ill.
9 Poorly sick wi’ a shawl on, dialectal expression for one working their way to the point of death. The expression goes ‘There’s sick, poorly sick and poorly sick wi’ a shawl on,’ indicating increasing degrees of illness.
10 Tecking, dialectal taking.
11 In her watter, in her water, an expression indicating an intuitive deeply held belief.
12 Casper Lawton, the Bearthwaite undertaker [US mortician].
13 Tret, vernacular treated.
14 Tecken, dialectal taken.
15 Teck, dialectal take.
16 Just out of my time, refers to just having served his time as an apprentice.
17 CNC, computer numerically controlled.
18 IBC, An Intermediate Bulk Container.
19 Zymurgy, a branch of applied chemistry that deals with fermentation processes, as in wine making or beer brewing. The word is often used to include all aspects of alcohol distillation too.
20 HMRC, Her Majesty’s Custom and Revenue.
21 Solute, the minor component in a solution, dissolved in the solvent, in this case the sugar is under discussion.
22 Terraces, terraced houses.
23 Hostage rum, illegally distilled Caribbean rum. A term used amongst smugglers in the Caribbean islands.
24 Thick, in UK usage the word means stupid, unintelligent.
25 Stilson, a make of pipe wrench. The term is used generically in the UK to refer to pipe wrenches in general.
26 Bevies, beers.
27 Fash yoursel, worry yourself.
28 Downbank, down hill. A deteriorating situation.
29 Steelies, steel toe capped work boots.
30 The social, Social Security.
31 Pork scratchings, cooked and salted pork rind.
32MOT, Ministry Of Transport test certificate of road worthiness. A legal requirement that lasts for twelve months.
33 Spuds, potatoes.
34 The heaviest onion weighs 8.5 kg (18 lb 11.84 oz) and was grown by Tony Glover (UK). It was weighed at the Harrogate Autumn flower show in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, UK, on 12 September 2014. Tony Glover has been growing onions for years and finally achieved the world record.
35 Wearing the kit is a men’s vernacular reference to women’s bodies not their clothes.
36 PMS, Pre Menstrual Syndrome.
37 The change, menopause.
38 IPA, India Pale Ale.
39 To get aholt on, to get hold of, to obtain or purchase
40 The use of a past participle in this way rather than a present participle is a widespread and common place practice in Cumbrian English in many parts of Cumbria.
41 The coin, the money.
42 Squaddie, member of the armed forces, usually refers to the army.
43 M.O., Medical Officer.
44 The mob, reference to the armed forces.
45 Thumbelina and her four gorgeous sisters, a reference to the thumb and four fingers, i.e. masturbation.
46 Chip pan, a pan for deep frying potato chips [US French fries].
47 Bait, also baggin, a working man’s mid shift meal.
48 Short of a bob or two, short of money. A bob was a shilling [5 pence, 7 cents] in pre decimal UK currency.
49 Malteasers, a sweet [candy] with a honeycomb centre coated with chocolate.
50 A balm cake is a soft, round, flattish bread roll from North West England, traditionally leavened with barm. Balm is an old term for yeast.
51 A stottie cake or stotty is a doughy type of bread that originated in north east England. It is a flat and round loaf, usually about 30 centimetres (12 inches) in diameter and 4 centimetres (1½ inches) deep, with an indent in the middle produced by the baker, traditionally using his thumb.
52 Steak bake, a steak pasty made with flaky pastry.
53 A nicker, a pound [$1.20].
54 Brummie, often used to refer to the Birmingham accent as here, or even to folk from Birmingham, as in she’s a Brummie. More widely used as an adjective indicating a connection to Birmingham.
55 Prawn craptail crisps, a common UK derisory reference to prawn cocktail flavoured crisps which do seem to be completely artificially flavoured. Crisps, are chips in the US. Prawn is usually called shrimp in the US.
56 Digs, temporary accommodation for someone working away from home.
57 Gey, very.
58 Bevies, beers. To be out on the bevy is a weekend activity for young men.
59 A bushel is 8 imperial gallons, or 2,219.36 inches3, 36,375.31 cm3, 36.4 litres, 10 US gallons.
60 To speak with a plum in one’s mouth is to sound RP. A distinct southern accent in English that all BBC, British Broadcasting Corporation the state radio and television service, announcers used at one time. See below.
61 RP, Received Pronunciation English, often referred to as the Queen’s / King’s English or Oxford English is the accent traditionally regarded by some, all southerners, as the standard for British English. There has been a lot of acrimony concerning that for over a century. Many educated northerners regard the concept of good English being defined as RP as insultingly patronising and bigoted. It is true to say that many less well educated northerners simply don’t understand RP speakers.
62 Shit metal, also pot metal or monkey metal is an alloy of low-melting point metals that is used to make inexpensive castings quickly and easily.
63 Greeting like a Christmas card, crying badly. Greeting is vernacular for crying and this common expression derives from a play on the fact that a Christmas card is a greetings card.
64 A Companion set is a group of fire tools that are neatly organised on an accompanying stand. They are both functional and a feature piece of fireplaces. Traditionally a companion set would consist of a poker, brush, shovel and either log or coal tongs.
65 Leeboard, a form of pivoting keel used by a sailing boats largely and very often in lieu of a fixed keel. Typically mounted in pairs on each side of a hull, leeboards function much like a centreboard, allowing shallow draft craft to ply waters fixed keel boats cannot. Only the leeward side leeboard is used at any time, as it submerges when the boat heels under the force of the wind.
66 Snail, the pointed screw threaded leading portion on an auger bit that pulls it into the wood. The thread has to be precisely positioned with respect to the cutting edges of the bit. That is easily achieved from new because the entire bit is manufactured from a single piece of steel. It is a lot more difficult if the snail is being replaced, and most would write the bit off.
67 Oxy, oxy-acetylene welding equipment.
68 Marriage lines, wedding certificate. In the UK, the property of the bride. It is her proof she is married and her children are legitimate. In the event of her widowhood it gives her respectability. The term is old fashioned but still widely used by women.
69 Tret, dialectal treated.
70 Turbine, a derisory reference to a turban that is widely used in the UK usually by white folk.
71 Done her ton, in this usage a ton is a hundred, and Vincent is saying she has reached a hundred years old.
72 Pastage and poking, p&p, postage and packing, a spoonerism.
73 VAT, value added tax. A UK tax of 20% levied on virtually all goods. Those in business can reclaim what they have paid on bought in goods and services and have to pay the tax on what they sell. It is a disliked tax because the paperwork is onerous and has to been done by every VAT registered business. There are heavy penalties for not doing it correctly or submitting a VAT return late.
74 HMRC, His Majesties Revenue and Customs. The tax man.
75 Talcum knackered southern jessies. A commonly used pejorative expression of contempt used in northern England to describe southerners. Talcum knackered refers to talcum powder on the testicles, a derisory assumption of effeminacy. The word jessie is also used as a noun to refer to an effeminate male.
76 A gross, a dozen dozens, 144.
77 A’ level, Advanced level. The qualification that follow on from official school leaving age in the UK. Usually taken in three or four subjects and examined at the age of eighteen,
78 STEM, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
Comments
I think I need to sell up and move house...
...if they would have me anyway! Sounds like the perfect place to live.
Alison
by eck
that were a long un!
Madeline Anafrid Bell
Can't have too much
of a good thing. Bearthwaite sounds like heaven on earth and we should all go there
Lots to read, but well worth the time
The footnotes are longer than a lot of other folk’s chapters.
Oh, the humanity!
It's communism!! ;-) The government owns everything the worker owns nothing!
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Yet another ...
Long and detailed GOMT again and such a joy to read. A community co-op in which every resident is a shareholder and benevolence abounds. As others have said, I would move there but I suspect that I would not be able to make much of a contribution except common sense, but they have sufficient already!
Brit