The others had settled down and the last to join them was John who brought his pint back from the bar and sat down. From the stony look on his face he was not a happy man. “You’ll never guess what my old bitch has done?”

“Whoa steady on there, John! Margaret might have upset you, but there’s no call for that sort of talk,” said Stan in tones of reproof.

“Are you bloody daft, Stan? I’m talking about this old bitch here, Jess. There’s no way I’d ever say anything about the wife that might get back to her. I’ve got to sleep sometime.” There was a notable easing of shoulders around the taproom and Gladys’ face lost the tightened look of disapproval. “She’s fourteen isn’t she, so when she started peeing blood Margaret and I thought the worst. I took her to the vets and they kept her in over night. Old Sherlock told me they’d had a sample and sent it off to the lab, but she seemed fine. I took her home and she seemed ok but was still peeing blood. Like hell as like she was.

“Bloody animal’s always been a thief with unusual tastes. Licked half a pound of butter away she thieved out the shopping when she was a pup. Margaret wondered where it had gone till she found the wrapper. Bloody animal has always thieved carrots, potatoes and anything else she could get to eat. Only dog I’ve ever known that could roll her lips back to take raspberries off the plant without the central core. You wouldn’t think it of a Staffordshire bull terrier would you? I’ve never been able to take her down the allotment with me, because I’d have no friends left inside of a week. I caught her steeling beetroot. The colour’s been going straight through her.”

When the laughter died down, Sasha said, “Well that’s good, isn’t it? Jess is ok. What are you upset about?”

“I found the cause of it by catching her in the act thieving a beetroot out of the sack in the pantry. Three days later the Sherlock calls to tell me it’s due to some bloody vegetable dyestuff with a name a yard long. Said the most likely source was beetroot, but he couldn’t see how a dog could get that in it’s system and presented me with a bill for sixty-eight quid for something I’d found out for myself.”

It took a lot longer for the laughter to die down this time and mysteriously John had a couple of full glasses in front of him as opposed to everyone else’s one to ease his financial pain, and someone had tipped a bag of crisps [US chips] out for Jess.

“Got another letter from my girlfriend in Preston today, Lads,” Sasha announced.

“Go on then, let’s hear it,” said Eric.

“Well there’s this lass in Preston keeps writing to me. Every month or so. Elle calls her my other woman. Goes by the name of Jane Jeffers. She’s been writing to me for years. God knows how old she is now, though come to think of it she probably doesn’t actually exist. She’ll just be a name they use to intimidate folk with. I’ve got a stack of letters from her that must be six inches high now. She’s head of the TV licensing enforcement division or so the letters say, but it’s just one of those script font signatures on the bottom of the letter. I don’t believe it’s a photocopy of a woman’s handwriting. No woman writes like that, then again only a monster could do a job like that with the letters they send out, so maybe it is her writing.

“The letters are always addressed to ‘The Legal Occupier’, and are intimidating to anyone who doesn’t have their wits about them. Very threatening in tone. Some arrive in a bright red envelope with ‘Urgent Action Required’ on them. You open one up and it tells you what you need a license for. You know watching TV on a computer and all that other equipment you can do it on if you know how. I know I could on my laptop if I wanted to, but I’ve never tried because I’ve got better things to do. It goes on and on about what will happen if you are breaking the law, tells you about the penalties, taking you to court and the huge fines they will impose. Google ‘Jane Jeffers TV licensing’, tell you she must be one bad person. No lady would put her name to letters like those.

“They say that since I haven’t responded to their previous letters they have been forced to open a case against me. They’ve been saying that for twenty years now. They also say that inspectors are in my post code area now, which is good since there’re only three other farms besides mine use that postcode. Sometimes the letters say ‘WILL YOU BE IN AT 10:30 ON NOVEMBER THE 23rd?’ or at some other time on some nearby date, and say an inspector may, notice may not will, call on that date or some other date. It usually concludes by telling you how to stop the investigation, pay the money or ring them up to explain why you don’t need to have a license. They have three standard letters and they seem to go round sending each one out in turn. I just add them to the pile. No one ever comes round.”

“How come you don’t ring them up to say you don’t have a TV, Sasha?” asked Eric

“Why the hell should I? And besides not long ago I read in the Mail—”

“Thought you said you didn’t read papers.”

“No, Alf. I said I didn’t buy them. I get all Colin’s old ones to light the fire with. Elle reads them and points out things I may be interested in. Happens three or four times a year. Anyway, this bloke wrote in saying more or less what I’m telling you, and he’d rung them up to tell them he didn’t have a TV because he was blind, registered blind mind you, lived on his own and didn’t need a licence anyway because he was eighty-two which was seven years past the point where he no longer had to have a licence, but they still kept sending him the letters. There are loads on the internet about it” (1)

“I read that letter in The Mail too now you mention it, Sasha. Six months ago maybe,” said Gerry.

“It’ll all be done by computer. Nobody actually sees the letters. In the beast there will be a list of every address in the UK and if they haven’t had the money off you they assume you are guilty of a crime. On both sides of the border UK law says a man is assumed innocent till proven guilty in a court of law. I don’t go round trying to prove I’m not an illegal arms trader in nuclear weapons or doing illegal abortions. You any idea why not, Eric?”

“You don’t do those thing. Do you?”

“Exactly. If I’m to be found guilty of those things it’s up to the authorities to find evidence that will satisfy a court sufficiently for it to find me guilty. I don’t have to do anything till then. There is an illegal presumption of guilt on their part. Stuff them. Easy enough to send a TV detector van round, do they? No.”

“Some would say you’re being deliberately unhelpful, Sasha,” said Geoff.

“I am, but then unlike them I’m neither a civil servant nor paid to be helpful thus I’m under no obligation to be helpful. Those damned letters have probably killed endless old folk from heart attacks. I read the other week in the paper that the enforcement is outsourced to Capita now and to justify the contract they have to recover money. I take the stance I do on behalf of all the folk who can’t because either they’re not bright enough or they’re too frail.”

“That sounds like arrogance, Sasha,” said Pete.

“Not at all. Someone who is arrogant thinks they are better than others. I know I am. It’s not the same thing at all.”

When the laughter subsided, Pete asked, “What would you do if one came to you house, Sasha?”

“Nothing why should I? They’d need adequate evidence to suggest they’ll get a successful prosecution to secure a warrant from a magistrate, which they won’t have. If I don’t feel like it I don’t even answer the door even if someone can see I’m in. There’s no law says I have to open my door or answer questions to anybody on my door step or indeed anywhere else. I ask questions. Like, who are you? Why are you here? Prove it. If they can’t, and I don’t know if their ID is the real thing, so I always assume that it’s fake, I tell them I’m ringing the police because I believe they are scammers and operating in my area. As they are protesting I pick up the camera from the window sill and take a photo for the police who I always ring and give a photo to. Nobody gets in my house unless I want them to. It happens a few time a year.”

Eric asked, “What if they tried to force their way in, Sasha?”

Stan had tears in his eyes as he laughed and said, “Sasha has a seven pound splitting axe just inside the door that he uses for firewood on his yard, and is there anyone here who doesn’t believe he’d use it?”

Denis said, “I’ve seen him use far more than a seven pound splitting maul on someone, more than once.”

“Don’t they ever ring you up, Sasha? I read in the paper they do that to arrange a time to come round.”

“I wouldn’t know, Gerry. I have an answer phone. If you don’t tell me who you are or what you want no one picks it up. That filters out cold callers and folk I don’t want to talk to. Those kinds of calls are made by an auto dialler that only switches you to a human when you answer the phone. The auto dialler disconnects the call as soon as it realises the response is from an answer phone. We get a dozen calls a week like that. Everyone who knows us knows all they have to do is say who they are and we’ll pick the phone up.”

“I’ve seen both of them waiting by the phone when it’s ringing and then ignoring it,” said Stan in corroboration.

“And I’ve watched him shout, ‘Bugger off’ through the letter box at Carol Singers at Christmas time,” said Denis. “Tell you. Sasha really does know how to upset people.”

While every one was staring at him and laughing, Sasha poured himself a whisky.

“Sasha, you’re Russian right?”

“I was last time I checked, Geoff. I reckon I must be because when I go back it only takes me two hours to pass through customs and immigration, not the usual half a day for foreigners. Why?”

Why do you drink malt not vodka? Vodka’s a lot cheaper.”

“Because I like vodka a lot more than malt.”

“Ok. I’ll buy it. Listen up, Lads. Sasha’s about to expound more of the universe according to Vetrov. Go on, Sasha.”

“We’ve never actually formalised an explanation of why Russians drink the way we do, but I met an Australian a good few years ago who had a perfect explanation. Why are you out drinking tonight, Geoff?”

“Well for the company, the craic, and it passes a few hours. Makes a mark in the week. You need that when you’ve retired.”

“Right. It’s a social thing, so you drink pint’s at a social pace. You may not be ok to drive, but walking home is no problem, and as long as you remember to collect Karen’s fish from the chip shop when you get your chips, if you’re on a promise you can deliver right?”

“I’ve said it before, Sasha Vetrov, and I’ll doubtless say it again, you are a dirty old man who takes everything as low as it can get.”

“Quiet, Gladys. I’m making a point here.”

“Yes, I guess,” replied Geoff. “But what’s the point you’re making.”

“Most Jocks don’t drink like fish, you may be a nation of drinkers with a goodly share of alkies but most of you aren’t. Most these days take water with whisky and last the night out. Yes?”

“Yes. That describe most of us, well everybody that I know.”

“Ok. So when I drink malt I drink it like most Scots do, sensibly. If I drank vodka I’d drink it like a Russian and Ashley, that Ossie I was talking about, put it this way, and it fits a lot of Russians, not just working class Russians. An Ossie works bloody hard all week, usually under pretty rough conditions for bosses who treats him like an animal. When he gets his pay and goes out on the town he wants to forget the week as fast as he can and get it all over with. That was the phrase Ashley used ‘I want to get it all over with as fast as I can.’ That’s why I don’t drink Vodka. That and all you can get over here is gnat’s piss. Thirty-seven and a half percent. I ask you, what kind of dishwater is that? Elle buys me a bottle of eighty percent Polish spirit every now and again. She and some of my distant female cousins write to each other and she gets them to send a bottle of fire water that makes Pat’s Poteen look safe over every now and again for me.”

“That legal, Sasha?”

“What do you think?”

Stan interrupted so as to avoid Sasha having to explain further. He’d known Sasha a lot longer than the others, except Denis, and knew if he had his back to wall Sasha would lie, but he didn’t like it. “I’ll tell you a couple of tales about, Sasha,” said Stan. “I’m no story teller, so don’t expect too much, and as far as I’m aware this is the truth as it happened.”

“Just wait till he gets into it, Lads,” said Sasha, “The new truth has a way of gripping you by the bits that hurt once you’ve got an audience of more than two.”

“You all know when Sasha moved here I was out of work and he wanted someone to help sort his place out. What? Twenty years since, Sasha?”

“Hm, no twenty-two I think.”

“Well the quick one first. Inspector cat. He had a cat, a wee black thing, called it Magic after the chocolates. Black Magic chocolates, Alf, by Nestlé I think. Nosy, into everything. He called it the clerk of works, the inspector. I was at the top of a ladder knocking a spike into a wall to fasten a rope to. The spike was like a twelve inch cold chisel and I was using a four pound mash hammer. All of a sudden I felt something land on my right shoulder. I nearly shit myself because I was fifteen feet up and I thought I was going down the quick way.

“It was the cat. She just wanted to see what I was doing. Nose just a few inches of the end of the spike I was hitting. Crazy. I finished putting the spike in, climbed down the ladder, still with the cat on my shoulder mind, till I reached the ground. The cat died, eighteen she was, last year but she lives on. There’re her foot prints in the sand and cement screed on the concrete floor in his downstairs en suite bathroom. It was a tricky job. To get the levels down to the floor drain we had to finish at the window, so we’d taken the window out. We worked our way back to the window and climbed out. For the last bit Sasha leant in through the window to float it off, and I held onto his legs.

“We’d just done and the cat jumped through the window into the middle of the room and shot out through the door into the bedroom. Damn me in less than a minute she was back with us looking through the window opening as if wondering what the hell had happened.”

“What did you do about the footprints, Sasha,” asked Gerry.

Stan answered, “Sasha said, ‘The hell with it. Film stars do it in Hollywood.’ So they’re still there.”

“Another time we were taking a wall out in between his living room and kitchen. That place of his is five, six hundred years old and built of beach cobbles, some of them you’d only get three to the ton, [750 pounds, 330Kg]. Why never mind how the hell they put them there I’ll never know. They only had horses and men in those days, but men were cheaper than good hunting dogs, so I suppose it didn’t matter how many died on the job. This wall was nearer four feet thick than three. We were taking it out cobble by cobble from upstairs. Up to then there was nothing heavier than a hundred weight, [112 pounds, 50Kg].

“We got the wall down to the down stairs ceilings and supported the timbers in the ceilings of the rooms on either side with seven by fours supported on Acrow jacks before continuing down stairs. There was a door way going through the wall just inside the outer wall of the house, so we removed the door and door casings and started taking the wall out from that side. We did it that way because we could see there were some big and heavy cobbles in the wall and some massive sandstone slabs too. The idea was we’d angle the wall down to the doorway and slid the big stuff down on top of the remaining wall to ground level.

“Good plan till we came across the slab that was at least half a ton, [1120 pounds, 500Kg] at the end of the wall furthest away from the doorway about eight feet off the floor. Once it started moving there was no stopping it, and the seven by fours were in its path. Oh yes it went down the top of the wall all right. That was when I invented the new sport of wall boarding. I was on the top of the slab. There was an almighty bang as the seven by fours sheared off, two ceilings came down and the dust was so thick I couldn’t see Sasha and his face was less than a foot from mine at the bottom of the wall.

“I counted my arms and legs first, then my fingers. I was amazed they were all there. We turned round and the plaster lath ceilings had turned into dust and kindling and the entire wall was down. It was just a pile of cobbles and broken lime plaster on the floor. A lot of the dust was from the clay dobbing in the wall, that’s where they just used clay years ago instead of mortar. Eventually it dries out and the wall falls down. Probably the building was used for cattle originally. A lot were only built with a fifty year life span in mind. If the authorities had known that they’d have slapped a preservation order on the place. Sasha made damn sure he’d ripped out every dobbing wall in the place over the following three months. Talk about crazy. When the dust cleared enough Sasha just said, ‘Nice one. That’s half a day’s work done in a couple of minutes. Elle, any chance of a coffee?’ Elle’s as bad as him. Tell you I can understand why they get on. She came in took a look round and all she said was, ‘I hope you’re going to clean that up before I’m expected to vacuum in here.’ But she brought the coffees.”

Sasha looked round and said, “I think that’s us for tales tonight. Pass the dominoes over, John, please.

An allotment or allotment garden (UK), or a community garden (US), is a plot of land made available for individual, non-commercial gardening or growing food plants. In the UK a full allotment plot is 10 square rods, a rod is five and a half yards, which is a sixteenth of an acre or 302.5 square yards (approximately 250 m²), though half plots are some times available, a nominal fee is usually payable but in the UK local authorities have the obligation to make land available for the purpose.

An Acrow jack or Acrow prop is a particular widely used make of jack post. It is a steel post used in the construction trades for temporary support of ceilings, walls and trenches. They are designed to be able to mechanically telescope as one tube slides inside the other to about twice their shortest length in order to span a wide variety of spaces. Most examples like the ones made by Acrow use removable pins for coarse adjustment and a jack screw for fine adjustments, but many variations exist.

1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXcLqvFjMhE