A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 45 Teachers and Tofu
Recently the weather had been reasonably warm at Bearthwaite though the constant forty miles an hour wind gusting to sixty or seventy miles per hour down the valley from the valley head at its west end had made being outside unpleasant and dangerous for younger children and the elderly for nearly a month. According to the shepherds the wind was gusting at well over a hundred miles an hour up on the fell tops, so they’d brought the sheep down to avoid them being blown away over the cliffs. Shepherds spent most of their lives up on the fells with only their dogs for company, and understandably to Bearthwaite folk Vinny had said, “I can stand losing a few yows,(1) but I’m not risking any of my dogs.”
Despite being early summer the light had varied from bright warm sunshine that made folk sken(2) and reach for sun glasses, or be grateful they wore glasses with reactolite(3) lenses, to overcast days with poor visibility dark enough to trigger the sensors to keep the street lighting on all day and have people leaving the lights on all day in their houses. What ever the situation had been regards the light the precipitation had been unpredictable, the wind squally and the weather had been given to sudden cloud bursts of heavy wind driven rain, sleet and on a few occasions painful to be caught out in hail which had rendered life miserable. The heavens had been just as likely to open in eye watering sunshine as in the gloom most associated with the far end of the year. The lonning into Bearthwaite had been impassable due to flooding any number of times, usually at most for a few hours, but it had made planning difficult for those who needed access to ‘out there’, as the rest of the world outside the Bearthwaite valley was usually referred to. Most of the men and the few women who worked outside had been dressed in Souwesters with Mae Wests,(4) just in case, for what had seemed to be forever. Mothers had been snapping at their fractious children who complained constantly that they wanted to go outside to play with their friends.
It was Stephanie who resolved the matter of the complaining children by taking over the entire Community Hall for her play group children and inviting mothers with children of any age to join her for community child minding, tea, scones and chat. Women from all over the village had converged on the Community Hall, some with children in tow, some without, but many took ingredients and the necessary impedimenta for a major baking session with them to use in the kitchens in the Hall. Some of the older girls joined the women baking in the kitchens and some supervised groups of boisterous younger children who were just as happy to play inside as out now they had their friends to play with. Felicity, the ex military combat instructor and soon to be the Bearthwaite School head of all sporting activities, with a dozen supporting adults took any who ere interested to the school gymnasium and assembly hall for martial arts and ballroom dancing practice. All in all life became considerably better for everyone, women, girls, boys and men too after that, for the men no long needed to justifiably walk on eggshells around their exhausted womenfolk who as a result of Stephanie’s ideas were nowhere near as tired as they had been of yore. It had been decided that in the event of long term poor weather in future that was how the younger children would be dealt with. It had also been decided that community cooking as well as baking would be undertaken, so that women didn’t have to cook an evening meal when they took their children home and that would enable meals for the elderly to be cooked too.
On the following Saturday, the weather was still poor, and though still squally the wind had backed off a little to thirty miles per hour with gust of up to forty-five. When folk started arriving at the Green Dragon the rain had stopped though most had set off in a down pour. As usual men escorted their womenfolk to the front door to enter the best side and left after having seen them enter to walk around the back heading for the taproom where Pete had rows of full pint glasses on the bar awaiting their arrival. The open fires were stacked high with logs throwing out enough heat to make the dogs, whose noses were lined up on the fenders, look as if they were smoking due to the steam rising from their shaken but not yet dried coats. There was a decidedly doggy aroma on the air and the still full bowls of kibble had been untouched in favour of the fireside warmth.
As the men were still draining their first or possibly their second pint of what they referred to as Bearthwaite Brown Bevy: the nut brown ale brewed at Gustav’s brewery just a couple of minutes away from the inn, the women in the room had already settled and Elle was talking and being attentively listened to by a large group of women most of who were locals. “It doesn’t even bear thinking about that if we hadn’t supported her Stephanie could have left to find a life and a living elsewhere does it?” There was no response for Elle had exposed what all realised was a potential village vulnerability that had to be addressed. In the taproom Dave had stated, “Every man in the village owes Stephanie a heavy debt, for as a result of her activities she has enabled conjugal bliss to be restored.” Yes he was intelligently and humorously addressing a sensitive matter that none would be prepared to discuss, but all the locals knew he was being serious concerning a marital matter of serious import, and after a little thought all knew he was correct.
Within a couple of days Elle’s words had reached the entire village population, and there wasn’t a soul in Bearthwaite who disagreed, and all understood what Elle hadn’t said. They must all ensure that such risks must be avoided in future, for their greatest and most valuable resource was themselves, and Stephanie was a valued and important woman of Bearthwaite.
Despite the weather Livvy and Nicky had spent a lot of time on the lower fells with her ferrets and her lurcher puppy Legs who despite her lack of age had an astonishing turn of speed and a goodly number of coneys to her credit. Tony whose bitch Meg had whelped Legs was delighted when he’d heard that, and in the taproom of the Dragon he’d opened the tale telling by saying, “I telt you I knew right from the start that feisty, skinny, leggy, little bitch was a cracker and I knew Livvy would work her right. I saw her and that lad of Vincent’s out on the bracken halfway down the lonning a few days ago with the pup and doubtless her ferrets too. Pissing down sideways due to the wind it was, but they were holding hands, kissing and laughing at the pup’s antics. Give her time to have her first season unmated, so she’s full grown before her first litter, Gerry, and I reckon if we keep putting her back to her sire within three litters we’ll get a stud dog out of her that will sire a Bearthwaite strain of lurchers that will be the envy of the county.”
Vincent telt the men, “I’ve had going on a dozen coneys off her that she said that lurcher pup of hers had taken. Legs she calls it because of its speed.” He paused for a drink and added, “Years ago I heard a tale that to lur was a Romany verb that meant to steal. Lurchers were used for poaching, so a lurcher was a stealer or a thief of meat that the upper classes had legal ownership of. Their lurcher dogs were rough coated, rough looking cross bred dogs that were bred for speed and their ability to kill for meat, to bring the families of their owners a meal. Their looks were irrelevant and they didn’t look anything like the elegant, sleek, fast racing dogs the aristocracy raced against each other and coursed for money, so they were disparagingly written off as useless which kept their owners safe from over close scrutiny. The tale I was telt said that for generations the best lurcher bitches when on heat were deliberately tied up where the fastest pure bred dogs of the aristocracy would be sure to be diverted for long enough to have them in pup. That may or may not be true, but it sounds exactly like the sort of thing my ancestors would have done to feed their children, for it is what we would do today, and we are their children, even though it may be at several generations removed. Most of us are agreed the so called upper classes of those days were an arrogant set of folks who deserved whatever ill fortune befell them and that the politicians of today are without doubt their heirs.”
Alf smiled and said, “Yeah well, talking about the lying bastards that some folk call politicians. I read some bullshit the other day that I think came from the BBC, but it could have been from some other bunch of owt but responsible purveyors of so called balanced news. It started by saying as a statement beyond question that pensions were now a real big problem to the treasury because they represented forty-two percent of all social benefits. That is a malicious lie of the most insidious kind. Pensions are not a social benefit because folk have had no choice all their working lives but to pay National Insurance contributions in order to pay for their state pensions. For their entire working lives they’ve paid it out of their wages, twelve percent is the current rate for the majority of the population, and that’s on top of income tax deductions, both enforcedly stopped at source by their employers mind, with no ability to opt out of it. If you’re a high earner that drops to two per cent on all you earn over nine hundred and sixty-seven quid a week. I don’t know any bugger who earns that much. The Government bullshit as described on their official website is that you pay it to and I quote ‘protect your national insurance record’. For the record that is what determines your pension.
“Originally, the NI contribution was to pay for the NHS and your pension. Now both are grossly underfunded and our pensions are the worst in Europe. The total the government takes in NI contributions could easily pay for the NHS and our pensions many times over. I know we all return spoilt ballot papers here, but on my next voting slip I’m going to write, ‘I care enough to vote, but not for any of these thieving, lying cunts. This is a deliberate, spoilt ballot.’ That way if there’s a recount there can be no doubt my vote can’t be given to anyone, and there’s not a thing they can do to me because if they try that will prove we don’t have a secret ballot in the UK and then they’re fucked. Having said that, yon billionaire Asian prime minister(5) of ours ended up painting(6) himself into a corner promising to keep the triple lock(7) on pension increases so as not to lose pensioner votes, but if you keep a close eye on the media it seems the robbing, lying weasel is now talking about means testing the old folks’ winter fuel payment(8) to pay for it. If they had a decent pension folks wouldn’t need a bloody winter fuel allowance. Even if he back tracks on that he’ll find a way to claw the money back off us some how. Pensions are not a social benefit! The reality is they are a piss poor return on a forced investment. I reckon the only bloke who ever went into parliament with honourable intentions was Guy Fawkes.(9)
“Stan, pull a couple of pints for Alf. Denis Lad, pour him a goodly measure of chemic. Best use a gill glass,(10) for I reckon that would be advisable to reduce his blood pressure.”
Alf grinned and said, “I’ll tek the drink, Lads, but now I’ve got that of my chest I feel a lot calmer already.
When all had settled down and were looking around to see where the entertainment was coming from next, Saul announced, “I’ve been having a bit of a costly do on the domestic front recently, Lad’s. So this series of linked events is going to take some time to have telt. First the fridge went down. I only discovered that because milk didn’t seem to be keeping. I really took notice when I bought a four pint bottle when I was at work with a sell by date a week away and it had gone off the day after I bought it. I prefer Peabody’s milk, but I’d forgotten to pick any up from Lucy at the store and I wanted some for my and the lad’s tea for bait time. Normally we’d use the entire bottle, but half of the lads were on another job, so I took what was left home and put it in the fridge. Belle said she’d cook with it. The following day when I found it had turned I just thought it was a dodgy bottle of milk, so I emptied it out on the compost heap and took the bottle back to the shop in Wigton. I’m well known there so after one sniff they replaced with it no fuss.
“The following day some soup in the fridge was not quite right. It was at that point where though it wasn’t bubbling I could tell it was going to be within hours. I turned the fridge to its coldest setting and left a max min thermometer from the greenhouse in it. When I checked both read room temperature. The folk in the shop where I bought the milk were gobsmacked when I explained about it being my fridge and not their milk that had been the problem and I insisted on paying for the replacement they’d given me, they said it wasn’t necessary. Well to me it was. I telt them if they wouldn’t take the money for the till then to put it in their poor box.(11) I don’t like any thinking I’m a cheat or a thief even if it’s only me thinking it. Actually especially if it’s me thinking it.” There were some surprised looks on the faces of outsiders who clearly didn’t understand Saul’s point of view. There were no surprised looks on the faces of the local men because they’d all have done the same.
“So it was on to Ebay playing hunt the larder fridge that evening. Like most of us we’ve enough freezer capacity so we didn’t want a fridge with a freezer unit.” Seeing some puzzled faces Saul expanded on that, “We’ve a huge chest freezer and two large uprights. We need that order of capability ready for when the floods cut us of in poor weather which can be for as long as six weeks at a time. That long is not a frequent occurrence though it was much longer than that when Bearthwaite was at odds with the utilities company over the reservoir as I’m sure most are aware from the media. However, the old fridge was a high performance model regards insulation and low electricity consumption and about one forty-five centimetres high [57 inches]. After a couple of hours I managed to find a similar performance model regards insulation and low electricity consumption. As required it was a larder fridge and supplied by folk I knew had a decent reputation for service. The only major difference between it and what it was replacing was it was one seventy-eight centimetres tall [70 inches].
“The glass shelves out of the old fridge would fit the new one, so Belle could have as many extra shelves as she wanted. She’s always complained that fridges don’t provide enough shelves even though the mechanisms to slot them into are there. In the past I’ve often had to provide her with a couple of plywood shelves which being opaque are not ideal. I don’t like the idea of using clear plastic for extra shelves as I don’t know if the cold will embrittle them. At three hundred and sixty four quid I could have bought a smaller, lower performance model that would have done the job for less than half that, but despite it being designed for built in kitchen units and we were using it as a free standing fridge Belle was more than happy with it, so I can live with the price. The best thing is she can’t reach the back of the top shelf without a hop up to stand on, so it’s an ideal place to keep beer.”
The chuckles were from every man in the taproom, be they local or outsider, for all knew money was a very small price to pay for domestic harmony, and the idea of hiding beer from their wives was an amusing thought. “All right, Lads, let’s have some glasses washed and refilled before Saul continues.” As he spoke Bertie was reaching for some glasses to take to the bar.
After all had settled, Saul continued, “I don’t know how it happened, but the glass in the living room solid fuel stove door cracked and dropped out.” The ouches and grimaces of pain were audible and visible, for all the locals knew what that entailed in terms of cost. “I couldn’t find anything on Ebay, which I subsequently discovered was due to my stupidity using the wrong search terms, so I went on to Yahoo which is the search engine I prefer. I ordered a replacement glass for fifty-four quid. The site didn’t seem to take the order, so like an idiot I tried again. Whilst I waited for the replacement glass I bodged up a repair with fire cement to put the three pieces of glass back in so we could use the stove. Before I finally replaced the glass I’d had to repair the broken piece three times. However, after a fortnight, no glass had arrived and I couldn’t mind who I’d ordered it from other than that their user name was ‘World of Glass’. When you order stuff via Ebay all details of the vendor are available, but I’d forgotten I needed to keep a record because it’s rare that I don’t use Ebay. I looked up World of Glass and discovered it’s the name of the glass museum in St Helens where Pilkingtons the inventor of the float glass process in the fifties and a major player globally in glass is based. The Pilkingtons glass museum and the St Helens Council museum combined resources and exhibits recently to produce a major display to shew off the history of glass and of the town, which was essentially made by the glass industry, in a brand new custom designed building. That was interesting but not helpful.
“I received a phone call from some one who left a message asking me to call them about my order for glass. They didn’t say who they were nor did they leave a phone number. Helpful. After three or four days I finally started to shew some signs of intelligence. I’d paid via Paypal, so I went into my Paypal account to find I’d screwed up and ordered two pieces of quartz glass, but most importantly I found a phone number for Safety Glass Replacements of Newcastle under Lyme. I rang them up and after a bit of talking at cross purposes we were finally getting somewhere. The lad I spoke to hadn’t dealt with my order and he said he was the only one there, so I reckon they must have been quite a small outfit, but he said it had been picked up that I’d ordered twice within ten minutes and they wanted to know if that had been a mistake. I said it was and he said, ‘No bother I’ll refund the money to wherever it came from’. Two days later I had my glass and three after that the refund was in my Paypal account.
“The glass came by courier and the packaging was the best I’ve ever come across. The glass was cradled all around in expanded polythene foam blocks with slots to take it and the blocks were hot glued down in between two of the most ridged pieces of quarter inch plywood I’ve come across. That was wrapped in bubble wrap that was hot glued down to the plywood and the whole encased in a rigid corrugated cardboard box that had interlocking sides that were hot glued together too. That was wrapped in yet more bubble wrap hot glued down and encased in the final rigid corrugated cardboard box that also had interlocking sides that were yet again hot glued down. All of which was inside one of those plastic bags that are so tough there is no way you can get into them without a decent pair of scissors or a sharp knife. The bag had been heat sealed to close it three times. It took me twenty minutes to get the glass out.
“I’d thought that reglazing the fire door was going to be a nightmare, especially since one corner was generously covered in set fire cement which also covered a screw and the clip it held in position. Well, you can’t win ’em all, but you can’t lose ’em all either. Less than fifteen minutes to do the entire job, take the old glass out, remove the four screws and clips, clean off the set fire cement, damp down the sealing string that the glass goes up against to soften it to allow the glass to settle properly without any stress, reinstall the glass retaining clips and their screws and clean up the mess to Belle’s satisfaction if not her standards of cleaning. I’ve kept the old glass because being quartz oxy will melt it easily and I fancy having a go at repairing it. I’ll let you know how that goes because hundreds of us here use stoves like mine and a tenner repair is better than the price of a new glass.” That latest piece of information was clearly of interest to many and a hum of quiet conversation ensued.
“That it, Saul?” Pete asked. “Shall I pass some chemic around?”
“Aye to the chemic, Pete, but I haven’t even started on the microwave, the leaking dishwasher and washer and the cooker yet.” It was a few minutes before Saul could continue. “There was a hell of a flash inside the microwave one night when I turned it on to nuc something, a pasty I think, and it started to arc constantly. I turned it off and started looking inside. The microwaves are generated by a thing called a cavity magnetron, God alone knows how that works, but they enter the oven space through the wave guides which are covered with a sheet of mica to stop food getting into the electrical bits. Mica is a natural crystalline mineral and mica crystals can easily be split into extremely thin sheets. The mica in ours was dirty with what looked like soot, probably cremated food spatter, so I took it out and washed it in the sink with a light brush and some washing up liquid. I didn’t want to put it back wet because I thought the microwaves may turn any water that had penetrated in between the layers of mica to steam and explosively destroy it, so I left it on a radiator for an hour or so before replacing it. That worked a treat, but it was cracked so I ordered a new one off Ebay. At pennies over two quid and less than five minutes to fit that has got to be one of the cheapest and easiest domestic fixes ever. I’ll just read you what wiki says about magnetrons, ‘The cavity magnetron is a high power vacuum tube used in early radar systems and currently in microwave ovens and in linear particle accelerators. A cavity magnetron generates microwaves using the interaction of a stream of electrons with a magnetic field, whilst moving past a series of cavity resonators, which are small, open cavities in a metal block.’ There was shed load more but after reading that I was no wiser and losing the will to live, but I thought you should know.”
Saul was grinning as he said that and Sasha pushed a half gallon whisky bottle towards him that contained a dark oily looking liquid that definitely wasn’t whisky, smiled and said absolutely straight faced, “No need, Saul, I already knew that.” There were roars of laughter from local men which most outsiders didn’t understand the reason for because they knew next to nothing about Sasha other than that he was the semi official chairman of the Grumpy Old Men’s Society because he was said to be the best story teller and he’d started the story telling years ago.
“Okay, Sasha, one to you. Anyway the next thing to happen was I arrived home after work one day to find the floods. The kitchen was ankle deep in water and Belle was in floods of tears. Now, Lads, as any long married man of sense and experience knows and will tell you less experienced blokes there are priorities that have to be taken into account when facing multiple issues that require damage limitation actions when one of those issues is the lady of the house. So I reached out to turn the kettle on, settled Belle and telt her to go and get dressed up and I’d take her out to dinner. Whilst she was doing that I’d make us a pot of tea. That neatly turned a domestic crisis into what was merely a domestic disaster.” There were nods of agreement and understanding going all around the room. “Now knowing I don’t take anywhere near as long to make myself presentable and ready for going out on the arm(12) as Belle takes to get ready I reckoned I’d plenty of time to fix whatever was wrong. I doubted it was either the dishwasher or the washing machine and suspected the one and a half inch [38mm] waste pipe had come adrift at the elbow where it goes out through the kitchen wall to the drain outside. Once I’d pulled the dishwasher away from the wall I could see I was right. The elbow is an rubber O ring reusable compression fitting so a fifteen minute fix even cheaper than the microwave resulted. I even had time to mop the water off the floor, have a shower and still be ready before Belle. Now I’ll give good women their due they really do know how to shew gratitude when it matters in a way that we can all appreciate and when we arrived home after a very enjoyable meal and some dancing before Belle dragged me off to bed she went to fetch a surprise for me: a bottle of cask strength Laphroaig that she said she’d been saving for an appropriate occasion. It’s true what they say, Lads, every cloud does have a silver lining. Pass that hostage rum around again some one please.” Saul was really hitting what was understood but best not spoken of explicitly as could be be seen from the nods and smiles all around the room.
It was maybe ten minutes before all was ready for Saul to recommence for many had gone to the gents and some of the men had taken the opportunity to wash and refill glasses.
“Now we come to the serious coin,(13) Lads, the cooker. Our old cooker was a halogen hob with a top oven that doubled as a grill and a bottom oven that was more or less like any other electric oven. Maybe two possibly three months ago one side of the grill died when I was doing some toast for breakfast. It worked intermittently for a while, but I knew it’s days were numbered and it certainly wasn’t worth attempting a repair. I’d mentioned it to Belle and she said that no doubt I’d get around to doing something about it when I was ready or when I was forced into it. Talk about prophecy. Early one evening Belle asked me to put the potatoes she’d peeled on the hob. The back left ring is a twin ring. Together they are two point three kilowatts. The other three are single rings. The front right is one point eight kilowatts and the other two are one point two kilowatts. I was going to put the spuds on the back left because Belle would put the vegetables in a couple of steamers on top of them after maybe ten minutes and it needs the power to cook whatever is in the top steamer. Belle was standing beside me as I turned it on. What a fucking bang. There was a big flash from behind the cooker too and Belle had already gone by the time I’d turned round.
A little investigation revealed it was only the back left ring that was out, but the cooker was definitely fucked beyond economic recovery. We’d had it fifteen years or so and it was second hand when I bought it at a farm estate sale for a fiver [7 or 8 USD]. I’d been the only bidder. Funny thing was whatever had happened hadn’t tripped the breaker. I wasn’t sure whether that should have worried me or not, but when I tested the breaker it was fine. You’ve got to hand it to Belle, the lass was right. That evening I was looking for a cooker because I’d been forced into it. I can put up with her when she’s being a smart arse, and I can put up with her when she’s right, but I hate it when she’s being a smart arse and right. As an aside, I’ll offer a piece of advice to some of you younger married blokes. In the event of marital strife as soon as you realise you’re right back down immediately. Life’s quieter that way and whatever the original issue it’ll be resolved far faster, and remember this, we’re talking about the lady you sleep with right? Anyway, back to the cooker. I can’t be doing with going round Curry’s and spots like that looking for domestic appliances, the staff wind me up, it writes off an entire day and there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to find what you want anyway which means you risk buying something you don’t really want just to get the whole miserable process over and done with. Any roads, since Cury’s and all the other major domestic appliance vendors all sell direct from their warehouses on Ebay there’s no point in leaving the house, so it was back to Ebay again.
“Halogen hobs have been yesterday’s technology for decade and a half. The only ones I saw on Ebay were second hand which reminded me to click the new only tab. We’ve got the money and I was hoping this cooker, which would be our first brand new one, was going to be our last. After a couple of hours on both Ebay and the internet doing a bit of research it came down to two which I’d put in my basket. I’d decided against individual solid cast hobs because Belle hated them because she said they were impossible to keep even looking clean. In my Ebay basket were a ceramic hob at three hundred less a quid and an induction hob at six fifty less a quid. At that point expert opinion was required and the first thing Belle asked was ‘What’s the difference? What do I get for my extra three fifty?’
“Like I said I’d done my homework because somehow I just knew it would get down to that. I explained about halogens being unsupported any more, though they are still relatively popular in the US apparently, and how I had written off solid cast hobs because she hated them. I telt her, ‘That leaves ceramic hobs and induction hobs. Both like halogen hobs have a ceramic glass top. The so called ceramic hobs have an electric heater element under the glass and heat travels up through the glass and into the pan. They are slower to heat up and cool down than induction hobs and the glass gets hot in the process. Induction hobs have electromagnetic mechanisms below the glass and electromagnetic waves pass through the glass without heating it and they heat the pan directly. They are extremely fast both heating and cooling though of course heat in the pan contents remains there. Pans have to have an iron content, they can’t be used with aluminium or glass pans. To test if a pan will work use a magnet, if it sticks to the pan it will be okay.’ Predictably, next up Belle asked, ‘Will my Le Creuset pans work?’ ‘No problem,’ I said, ‘They’re made of cast iron.’
“Now you all know I cook from time to time, mostly far eastern, Asian and Chinese food of various cuisines. I enjoy it because I’m good at it, and I’m good at it because I enjoy it, but like a deal of men who cook for fun I’d be a disaster if I had to cook under the pressure that most women cook under. Limited time, resources and money. You know what I mean, typically for example they’ve got to finish ironing the kids clothes for school the following week, get the old man’s overalls in the wash, try to do a bit of house work and then and only then can they start preparing a meal for starving kids who will be home from school in less than an hour and a tired, hungry husband who’s done his days graft and gets home an hour or so after the kids. They just have to make do with the ingredients that are in the house because there’s no time to go out for something. If they’re lucky they can send one of the kids to the shop or to Vincent for some meat, maybe. On top of that they budget for at least a week’s meals at a time and most of them are permanently having to juggle spending money on clothes for the kids or on food. When I cook I’ve had time to think about it, it’s after all just a hobby for me. I’ve got all the ingredients for whatever I want to do ready in advance and I’ve got all the equipment I could possibly dream of because I’ve bought it over the years. I reckon it’s a lot cheaper than playing golf, so the cost doesn’t enter into it. I’ve enough time, resources and money. Belle enjoys my cooking, but I constantly tell her not to compare herself with me because if I were given forty minutes to have a meal on the table using only what was in the house at the time for a horde of starving kids like ours and a bad tempered, tired husband like hers who’s just had a bad twelve hour day because three men didn’t turn up for work we’d all starve, yet she does just that regularly.
“So it was a shock when she asked, ‘Your shroud got any pockets? Mine hasn’t.(14) You’ve always wanted an induction hob. The hell with it. I’ll use a male argument on you, Love. Three hundred and fifty for marital harmony, cheap at twice the price. Just order it. So I did. It came almost as well packaged as the fire glass and took me even longer to get out of the packaging, and then my nightmares started. Cookers these days don’t come with a connection cable. I disconnected the cable from the old cooker which turned into a pig of a job, and since the cooker was scrap I ended up ripping the back out of it to get at the terminals. At that point Belle insisted on washing the cable because it was greasy. I wasn’t going to argue the toss because as she said that she gave me a glass three-quarters full of malt with instructions to sit in front of the fire in the front room and enjoy it. That was the point at which I realised I needed to calm down a bit, so as the cable dried off on the rug in front of the front room fire, which was a relatively fast process because the new glass was still completely clear and soot free, I drank my whisky and the next one that Belle poured me too. It took me over an hour to connect three wires to the new cooker. Thinking back perhaps it’s as well I’d taken a glass. Interestingly there were options for a two forty volt single phase supply and a four forty volt three phase supply.
“Trouble was the spaces in the terminal blocks to put the wires in weren’t large enough for the minimum sized wiring necessary for an appliance that could draw the current that that beast can. The earth was easy enough, the other two were a nightmare because you can’t see what you’re doing due to your hand trying to put the wires in being in the way of the hand holding the screwdriver, and you’re working upside down too. Too, the clamping screws are central in the holes the wires go in. I managed it by taking the entire connection assembly out, splitting the multi strand wires so as to pass half on each side of the screws and then tightening them up. Then I had to refit the entire connection assembly. I did a far better job than I’d feared would be possible, but like I said it took time. When the wall behind the cooker is plastered I’ll solder some terminals on to the wires that are solid with a U shaped end designed to bypass a central clamp screw. I’ve ordered some.
“I suppose I’m a glutton for punishment, but a couple of years ago I’d decided that when I did install a new cooker I’d use a new cooker connection box on the wall and do away with the manky looking thing we were using, which typically had a switch for the cooker supply and another for the integrated thirteen amp plug. The plug switch was definitely dodgy so the socket hadn’t been used for years. As a result I’d bought a new cooker connection box and a new back box to go with it ages before and put them in the cupboard at the side of the cooker. Somewhere in the recent past I’d demolished the old wall behind the cooker which was disintegrating and built a new block wall. The new wall also had a damp proof course which the old one didn’t. It had been the rising damp that had caused its demise. The new back box couldn’t be mounted directly on to the block wall without butching(15) it to allow the heavy gauge feed and load cables access to the connections. I wasn’t prepared to do that, so I made a wooden pattress and machined out entry for the cables and trepanned a hole in the centre to allow access to the electrical box terminals, which will do till the wall is plastered when the pattress can be used for firewood since the cables will be embedded in the plaster. The pattress with the cables passing through it was screwed into wall plugs in the wall. Doing that involved, a one ten volt transformer box, my Spitt SDS(16) drill and a seven millimetre SDS masonry drill bit. Then the wall plugs are tapped into the holes ready to take the screws. It all takes time and all of that kit I’d had to carry from my workshop and the one ten box is damned heavy. Once upon a time I’d have just picked it up along with the rest of the tackle, these days I use a wheel barrow. Then the wires in the cables were connected to the terminals in the electrical box which was then screwed to the pattress and closed up. Another two hours gone.
“It’s the only cooker I’ve ever heard of that has to be chained to the wall. No kidding! There are two chains bolted to the rear frame, one at each side about six inches down from the top. Two expanding bolts are provided to drill holes for and sink into the wall. They have hooks on for the chains. The book of words says they are to prevent the cooker from over tilting itself forwards. I did wonder about not bothering, but if there’s say a big turkey or goose in the top oven at Christmas time and you pull the shelf its tray is on out to the max to look at it or baste it or whatever though the shelves are designed so they can’t come out by accident I could see that may tilt the entire cooker forward on to its face which would be bloody dangerous if you were in front of it. All that hot fat could give you a nasty case of A&E.(17) I’d already been for a one ten box, my Spitt SDS drill and a selection of different sized carbide tipped masonry drill bits to fasten the pattress to wall so I was tooled up to do the job which was a lot quicker to do than putting all the tools away.
“All I had to do next was learn how to use it from the decidedly inadequate instruction leaflet, so that I could explain it to Belle. I wrote down the feedback I left on it and I’ll read it out, ‘A very good cooker that was seriously let down by inattention to detail. The point at which it accepts the electrical supply is tragic. It took an over an hour to connect three wires. The space available was inadequate to readily accept the minimum sized wiring required by an appliance of this type. The manual describes itself as ‘detailed instructions for the use of electric free standing cooker’, which cooker? The cooker probably had been improved over the years but the manual was for the original version.’
“I surmised that about the manual because it said there is a padlock symbol on the front panel to lock out the panel so as to prevent accidental use by children. It also shewed a photo of the front panel with the padlock symbol which is not there on my cooker.
“The grill in the top oven has two settings, on and off. It’s intended for browning joints of meat and not cooking bacon or toast. It will do both, but it is slow to warm up and then needs watching like a hawk to prevent it cremating your toast. However, the really tricky thing proved to be turning the hob on in the first place. It took me over an hour to do that and I was almost convinced the hob didn’t work and it was going to have to be a return under warrantee job, and I’d been stupid enough to burn all the packaging. Trusting soul ain’t I? The manual stated that to use a ring you first had to power up the hob by touching a horizontal bar in a circle symbol, which is not the conventional on symbol, which was nowhere to be seen. Eventually I realised the symbol was on the ceramic top, it was tiny, maybe a centimetre across [⅜ inch] and dark and thus hard to see against the black background of the hob. Once the symbol is touched the knobs turn and operate the rings in the usual manner. When done touch the symbol and the hob is inactive again. Eventually all became clear, but though I really like the beast it’s a hell of a steep learning curve to use it well. For example to cook rice on the old halogen hob I put a measure of rice with two and a half measures of water in a pan. I brought it to the boil for two minutes before turning the hob off covering the pan with kitchen foil to make a seal when I put the lid on and left it for between half an hour and three-quarters of an hour. In that time all the water was absorbed and the rice was perfect. All thanks to Madhur Jaffrey’s book. For those who’ve never heard of her she’s a well known actress and Indian food cookery writer of about ninety, but she’s still going strong.
“We also have a top of the range Rayburn in the big kitchen which won’t do rice that way either. The reason it worked on the halogen hob was the residual heat in the ceramic glass. On the induction hob there is no heat in the ceramic other than the little that is passed downwards by conduction from the pan. On the Rayburn the heavy cast iron top is always very hot so you’d burn the rice if you left the pan on that. Talk about from the sublime to the ridiculous. To add insult to injury my favourite pan to cook rice in is not quite flat on its base so is useless on the Rayburn. It’s a copper bottomed stainless steel pan, so I expected it to work on the induction hob, ha! No such luck. It’s non magnetic stainless, some stainless pans are magnetic and work, some aren’t and don’t. It ain’t and don’t. The other thing about the induction rings that took time for me to realise is they work like electric ovens. Unlike other types of electric hob rings that operate in an analogue fashion where as you turn the control knob they receive gradually more power which gradually increases the heat output in step they are digital. By which I mean at any given instant they are either on at full power or off. Control is by a mark space mechanism. In an electric oven you set the thermostat to a desired temperature. When on the oven is heating at full power. Control is achieved because at a few degrees above the set temperature the oven turns off which then starts to cool. At a few degrees below the set temperature the power is turned on again. The on off cycle is managed by means of thermostats. The larger the fraction of the time the power is on the hotter the oven temperature averages at. Our induction hobs seem to work similarly. I suspect they are either on at full power or off. I say that because a pan’s contents alternate between boiling and not, and the higher the control knob is set to the larger proportion of the time they are boiling. I don’t know how control is achieved, but I suspect a timer device or possibly a thermostat below the glass top. This would explain why even on a relatively low setting the pan contents can stick to the pan and burn. The burning is possible because for short periods of time the pan is subject to full power. It takes a lot of getting used to and in general I think it’s true to say when in doubt turn the hob down.
“Like I said, Lads, it been a hell of stressful, and costly do on the domestic scene recently, but if any wants some tuition on induction hobs, so they don’t need to learn the hard way like I had to let me know. Too if any wants a quartz fire glass fettling let me know.”
“Bring that glass down to my spot, Saul, I’ve got some oddments of quartz glass we can have a practice on before working on yours and I’d like to have a go at that myself. If it works it could be a right handy thing for folks to save a bob(18) or two.”
“Thanks, Alf, I’ll do that. You okay tomorrow afternoon? because I’ll be at work till gone half eight everyday next week and won’t be home till quarter past nine if I’m lucky. We’re demolishing some terraces of houses down Siddick way. We negotiated a gey good deal for us, but part of the deal is the job has to be done gey quick. Too, Matt’s lads need the bricks, so we’ve taken on a dozen extra lads on a temporary basis and it’s a minimum of twelve hour shifts for us till further notice.”
“Aye, that’ll be fine.”
Stan looked around and asked, “You mind those three young, outsider blokes who were obviously bothered by the reaction in here to Bertie’s lad sorting out that thug at the academy at Whiteport as was bullying Gustav’s kids? That’s a goodly while back, but they’ve never been back have they?”
Sasha replied saying, “There’s no loss there, Stan. Some outsiders just naturally have no balls, and can’t cope with reality. Not good dad material. No good as a rôle model for their lads and even less good as a protective dad who looks after his lasses. Definitely not the kind of bloke our lasses are interested in as husband material. And not the kind of drinking company we need either.”
Dave had added, “Sasha’s right, but he forgot to add that gutless bastards of that sort all sit down to piss. Which is fine and only to be expected in a decent lass, but it’s hardly a sign of character in a bloke is it?” The laughter had taken a while to dissipate.
“What’s for supper the night, Harriet?”
“Auntie Veronica’s fish pie with sliced green runner beans and parsley sauce, Uncle Gerry. The pie’s made with fish that we mostly bought local. Mostly it’s cheap but tasty cod out of the Solway from the Maryport fishermen. The small amount of Scottish smoked salmon in it was fish that the local town shops couldn’t sell probably due to a lack of flavour, but Veronica thought it was acceptable for fish pie, so she bought the lot gey cheap off the wholesaler who had about half a ton of it left on his hands and was asking silly money for it. Auntie offered ten percent of his asking price, and walked away saying if he was prepared to sell at her price to give her a call, but her offer was it, not a penny more and it would decrease by one percent every day as the fish quality deteriorated. She added that in five days she wouldn’t be interested, but if he paid her six hundred she would take it away for compost. He did the deal before she left. Another wholesaler heard about Veronica buying it and tried to sell her a load of Norwegian salmon, but you’d have to insane to buy Norwegian farmed salmon never mind eat it. The Norwegian government have advised pregnant women not to eat it at all and the rest of the population to eat it no more than a limited number of times a year. There are reports (19) that it’s the most toxic food on the planet due to the chemicals they dose the fish with and what’s in their feed. Auntie Veronica’s response was, as she put it, ‘A touch spicy.’ ” It took a while for the laughter to die down as most could imagine that what Veronica referred to as a touch spicy in reality translated into classic Anglo Saxon abuse.(20) “He also tried to sell her some Alaskan smoked salmon, but she reckoned it had no flavour compared with what she could buy from Scotland and it wasn’t cheap enough to bother with, so she offered him half his asking price and when he refused she said, ‘Fine, but no thank you, not at that price’ and walked away. She said he was upset to near greeting,(21) but not upset enough to accept her offer. She reckons he’ll be getting back to her some time in the next week so he can stare at her cleavage again. She telt the ladies she’s going to wear a really low cut top for the meeting and offer to buy at half of what she offered to pay last time. She’s not really bothered one way or the other about the fish, but said only Alan gets away with looking at her like that for free and he’s not trying to sell her smoked salmon and greasy, illegitimate pigs like the wholesaler have to decide what it is they really want. To make a sale or stare at her boobs because either way the price has to be paid.”
There were roars of laughter around the taproom, although many outsiders did not fully appreciate the humour of the situation in the way the local men did, none of who believed for a second Veronica had referred to the wholesaler as a greasy illegitimate pig, sleazy bastard yes, greasy illegitimate pig, no. Veronica was a feisty and generously endowed lady who drove hard bargains with outsiders, yet just like every other Bearthwaite lass and woman she regarded marital fidelity as far more than just staying in her own bed. Years before she’d married Alan Peabody, a widower with four children and they’d had another four subsequently. She was Alan’s wife, he was her man and that was the far end of it. In Bearthwaite lechery and serious flirting was not considered to be proper behaviour for women nor men. Yes the banter between men and women took place, Sasha was constantly teasing Gladys with salacious under tones and she played along, but all knew there was nothing in it and he regarded her in the light of a daughter.
“Finally, there’s a small amount of caviar in the pie. It’s in jars from a fish called black capelin that Auntie Veronica thinks she’s seen in Sainsbury or one of the other major super markets. She said that it has not a huge amount of taste, but it’s gey salty. Sainsbury, or whoever, presumably couldn’t turn it over fast enough to want it on their shelves or in their warehouses, so probably returned it to the supplier. Uncle Murray took the lot, a few hundred tons of jars, off the hands of who we presume is the supermarket supplier for nowt. It seemed the storage cost was hurting them and they were glad to be rid of it for nowt as long as Uncle Murray had it shifted within twenty-four hours. All he paid for was our delivery costs to Uncle Harry and Jake. Uncle Charlie and Jake’s mate Turk took turns driving with Uncle Harry and Jake so the two waggons were working twenty-four hours a day and none of them went over their permitted hours. It took them more than twenty-four hours, going on a day and a half, but the warehouse manager wasn’t bothered because he could see it disappearing fast and knew he’d have the space it occupied back soon. It’s mostly stored in the mill with Auntie Christine. As a result Auntie Veronica has created an excellent tasting meal that is so cheap it’ll keep supper prices gey low for a sixmonth. The allotments have seemingly produced a bumper crop of green beans this year and Auntie Christine’s staff are canning them on an almost daily basis. When I asked her if she’d any peas for tonight’s supper she suggested using green beans instead. I agreed and she had them delivered processed and sliced but raw. All we had to do here was steam them.”
“Damn fine supper that, Veronica. Those taties on the top that were crushed rather than mashed gave it an excellent texture when it was finished off in the hot oven. The parsley in with the fish and the parsley sauce was gey tasty. If you run short of the cod, let me know because I’ve a lot of Madeleine’s carp and a goodly amount of pike too in the freezer, both ready filleted, and Christine has a lot more carp fillets in her freezers.”
“Thanks, Vincent. We’ll be okay for the next fish pie supper with the Maryport cod in our own freezers, but after that we’ll use what you have on hand. That caviar will last us a goodly long time and Dave has some in the shop if any one wants to try it. He worked out the cost of the transport per jar and it’s only a few pennies. He’s asking ten pence a jar, but I reckon that’s only so he can give it away to any who’s struggling a bit. The parsley wasn’t the curled type. It was a flat leaved variety from Johnto. It’s flavourful.”
“Who grew the beans, Alf?”
“None in particular, Charlie, or may be all of us. We have two full plots given over to runner beans and grow eight different types including two of our own heritage varieties, one of which has white flowers and beans. We call it Davy’s Bean because Davy Parker’s family had been growing it for centuries. We grow ‘em up sixteen by eight foot sheets of the six inch mesh reinforcing steel that’s used in concrete floors supported by four inch hardwood posts that the lads harvested from the woods at the top of the valley assisted by guy ropes like a tent. Dave is taking what ever he can sell in the shop but Harriet was right when she said the crop is huge this year. Christine must have teken several tons [a ton is 1000Kg, or 2240 pounds] already this year and there’s probably the same to come again, and then there will be the ones we leave to dry in the pods to harvest as dried beans. A few of which we’ll keep for next years seed. It’s been a gey queer year for beans and peas. There was no sign of the flowers producing beans on any of them or the broad beans [fava bean] either till mid July. There were plenty of flowers mind just no beans. Normally we nip the broad bean tips out when the plants reach a yard [1m, 36 inches] high and the six or eight inch tips are selt as a popular vegetable by Lucy in the shop. This year we didn’t dare pinch ’em out because the lower flowers shrivelled and died with out setting beans, so we left the plants to produce flowers higher up the stems hoping for a later crop.
“It’s been a bloody nightmare because the broad bean plants did eventually set a decent crop but the heavy pods grew at the top of plants that were five going on six foot tall by then. The first wind that blew knocked the plants flat and they’re now growing all over the place. Harvesting will be no fun, so we’ll pay some of the kids to help. The peas and mange tout peas were just the same as regards failure to set pods till late, but we at least have a decent bean harvest at the end of it but the peas are dying back now and the crop was poor on all varieties, so you’d better get used to eating green beans where you’d normally expect peas. We do have another lot of peas coming along but they won’t be producing any decent amount for probably six weeks, and an early autumn frost will play havoc with the pea crop. Changing the subject, we decided last back end not to grow soya bean at the allotments this year and the Peabodys are growing five acres for us along with their usual ten of a different variety that they grow for animal feed. We’ve always grown a bit of soya, for the women like to use ’em as a vegetable to use like dried green peas in pease pudding,(22) but this year we’re growing a lot more so Christine can use the extra to produce tofu and they’ll be harvested by Alan’s combine harvester. He’s keeping the haulm for cattle feed and said he’d do the job for nowt seeing as how it’ll be feeding folk and his missus Veronica is interested in mekin(23) it. We’ll provide him with the cost of the fuel for the combine and tractors involved.”
“What the frig’s tofu, Alf?”
“Soya bean curd, Barry. It’s a massively produced food in China, Japan and Korea, and spots like that in the far east. I first had it in a take away meal from Carlisle. Ellen brought it back when she’d been shopping with the lasses on the bus. There’s a Chinese restaurante called the Golden Phenix the lasses go to that does takeaway meals in boxes for any number of folk you want. The more you buy the cheaper per head it becomes, and the more side dishes he threws in as part of the deal. The lasses used to ring in a bulk order a few days before they went shopping, collect it on their return to Bearthwaite and share it out when they got home. They’ve been dealing with him so long that these days they don’t even tell the bloke what they want included, just how many they want it for, and he makes the order up with as wide a variety of stuff as he can provide. Some of it isn’t even on his menu. He writes on the boxes what each dish is, so we know what we’re eating. That way we get a few surprises. I suppose it’s a bit of meal time excitement, the kids certainly think so. He’s a decent bloke and is always generous, I suspect because he knows he’ll be paid in cash. Mind I don’t suppose it’s every day he gets a phone order for a banquet for six hundred and a few days warning, so he can sort it out without panicking knowing that as long as it’s cooked it’s okay to be cold from his chiller units because the lasses will have to warm it all up when they get home anyway. Tofu’s okay. I’m telt it is a bit bland on its own, but it takes up flavour from almost owt else gey easy. The first time I tried it it was in a duck dish and it definitely tasted of duck. I’ve had a prawn one too that was definitely prawnish. It’s supposed to be full of nutrients and easy to digest. It’s good for growing kids and the elderly who have trouble eating due to their teeth, because its soft. Elle and some of the nurses telt me that. Any roads the top and the bottom of it is Christine has always wanted to try mekin it and the bloke at the Chinese restaurante in Carlisle telt her he’ll buy 50Kg, [110 pounds] a week if it’s available. Sun telt her it would be a healthy thing to have available. It’s widely available everywhere back in Hong Kong and seemingly it was easy to buy down south, but he misses it up here. The lads at the allotment were up for it because it’s no graft(24) to them if Alan sows and harvests it for them, and Alan was happy to grow ’em for us in return for the haulm. Surely you must have had some of the Chinese banquet tackle in a box? I know Beatrice goes shopping with Ellen because she’s said so.”
“Aye, I’ve just never had any of that tofu stuff. I’ll ask her to get me some next time the lasses go to Carlisle.”
“So what do they do with the soya beans to make this tofu, Alf?”
“I don’t know a lot about it, Stan, but seemingly you soak ’em overnight to go soft and whizz ’em up to produce a mix of what looks like thin milk and gunk. The gunk looked vaguely like dessicated coconut on the Youtube clips I watched. Separate the milk off the gunk using cheese cloth and then warm the milk up and coagulate curds off it just like mekin cheese using a variety of stuff. Seemingly gypsum will do the trick and I think that’s just plaster, but I could be talking shite. The gunk that is strained off can be cooked with in all sorts of stuff according to Christine, and the whey off the curds can be used too. The Peabody dairy womenfolk are interested because they have all the equipment to mek cheese which is a similar process. Christine has ordered some wooden moulds and the few extra bits she needs from Gilespie the cabinet maker. It seems you can use just about any pulse to mek the stuff, though to me some of what I saw on Youtube looked more like mekin pease pudding than mekin cheese, and the product looked like pease pudding too. If it’s a success, and from what I saw on Youtube it didn’t seem difficult, they are going to branch out a bit next year. Alan says that if the beans are dried properly they keep for months, at least as long as cereal grains in a silo with an air blower he said, and when there is less milk available over the winter the dairy could mek tofu in stead of cheese from time to time because Christine says she knows how to store it so it will keep for over a twelvemonth, though like cheese it changes a bit as it ages. Seemingly owt you can mek from proper milk you can mek from soya milk. Alan’s lads are interested in it as a method of diversifying the farm’s activities and mekin our locally produced food supply more resilient against outside influences.”
“Well bugger me! I agree with their thinking, but I never thought I’d see the day oriental food was being produced in Bearthwaite on a semi commercial scale. And as for getting a lecture on how to do it from Alf of all folk, I need a glass of chemic to prop me up.” The ripple of laughter that went around the taproom became much louder as Barry finished talking. Most of the men clearly agreed that oriental food being produced in bulk at Bearthwaite was a surprise.
Eric asked, “I hear you’ve got us some more medical folk and teachers, Murray. What’s happening there?”
“You all know Jimmy the solicitor who works at Carlisle who’s pretty regular here of a Saturday evening. After his first wife died he remarried a couple of years later and Hayley his wife is a lot younger than he is. He’s decided to take early retirement at fifty-eight, and Hayley rang me up to see if we still wanted secondary school teachers. She teaches chemistry and is sick of the abuse from the kids where she teaches, sick of Carlisle and it’s lawlessness, and wants out. The way she put it was that there’s nowt to keep them in Carlisle now. I put her on to Jane who tells me we now have an excellent A’ level chemistry teacher who is prepared to teach all sciences and maths to the lower school too if required. Jimmy is happy to work part time with Adalheidis and Matt Levins is shewing them round tomorrow with a view to finding them somewhere to live. This is an excellent result because we’ve all known and liked them both for a few years. I only found out about Jimmy working part time here a couple of hours ago from Adalheidis on the phone.
“We are definitely getting there as regards the extra teaching staff we need. What else can you tell us, Murray?” Sasha asked reaching for a bottle of Talisker malt whisky, a relatively innocuous and ladylike beverage compared with the men’s usual liquors. He poured himself a generous glass and passed the bottle on. Bertie reached round for the case and put another couple of bottles on the table. For a couple of minutes all that could be heard was the clink of coins hitting the ones already in the children’s Christmas party collection fund box. At two quid a glass money was definitely being lost on the price of the Talisker, but none were bothered because it would more than be made up for by the two pounds taken for liquors the revenue knew nothing about that only cost pennies for a glass.
Eventually Murray resumed, “Jennifer, or Jenny as she prefers to be called, is a fully qualified prescribing optician with amazing academic credentials, but unfortunately for her her sense of right and wrong wouldn’t allow her to feed her patients bullshit to make them part with more money than necessary. She had serious issues with her erstwhile employers who are a national chain of high street opticians, and was under serious pressure for a long time before they manipulated her into handing her notice in. She is a thirty-two year old military widow with four kids and in serious need of a job. She telt me she could go for constructive dismissal and would win, but with no job she wasn’t prepared to put her kids through what that would entail. I’ve asked Adalheidis to look into that on her behalf. The non combatants army dependents pension, which was all the army coughed up, isn’t enough to keep body and soul together for herself and her family down at Aldershot. I imagine the money will go further here.
“She took her kids on holiday to her sister’s guest house in Windermere when the business was quiet. She hadn’t see our advertisement, but luckily for us she met Diane as was Diane Graham, Hetty and Billy Graham’s lass, in Windermere who telt her about us. By the bye it seems Diane and her old man plan on coming home permanently maybe later in the year, but more likely next Easter after the last of her four kids gets wed. Jenny rang me and emailed her CV. [résumé] She came to see me and I offered her the job subject to our usual terms and conditions. She’s seriously short of money and desperately worried about her children. I offered her a rent free house for a twelvemonth and a decent salary to get her on her feet again. Said we’d buy all her stock and equipment as is usual for us and all she needed to do was to find herself a technician who could do whatever fitting and fettling of lenses and frames was required.
“She choked on asking for a fifty quid advance out of her first month’s salary, so she could buy some clothes for her kids. I gave her a grand and said to consider it to be part of her resettlement allowance. She’d been living in furnished married quarters that she has to vacate at the end of the month, so she’s leaving her children with her sister and going back to Aldershot to pack and send the stuff directly here by carrier. I reckon I did well for us. She’s pretty and from what she said her kids are a credit to her. I can’t see her remaining single for long. She was born and grew up in Kendal and said she’d be gey glad to get back up here again. She also said she has a technician in mind, a spinster called Yvonne. She’s in her fifties who reading between the lines is plain, but our kind of folk. Who knows maybe two marriages in the offing. It might be an idea to make some of the single men aware of them especially the two with kids. Ellis works with your brother Hal, Matt. Have a word will you?” Matt just nodded.
“However, for Jenny it was the usual kind of bullshit you’d expect from the system. Her old man died in service with the army, but not actually in action and they don’t care enough to do right by his widow and kids. Callous bastards are trying to wriggle out of what Adalheidis telt me they know full well they are obliged to pay her. Whatever, their loss is our gain, and the poor, slippery bastards don’t realise that Adalheidis is on their case now. Adalheidis telt me yesterday that the constructive dismissal is an open and shut case because Jenny kept copies of all emails, letters, texts, and phone calls and that she doesn’t need any more evidence to force the opticians to a generous out of court settlement so as to avoid it hitting the tabloids, so it looks like Jenny will do all right out of it. Adalheidis is also in touch with the military to see what she can do regards getting Jenny’s war widows pension paid out quickly seeing as her old man died deployed abroad in to a war zone. She said no promises it will be sorted quickly, but she’s hopeful to have it done and dusted within a twelvemonth because the rules say Jenny is entitled to the same war pension as dependents of support staff deployed to a war zone who don’t actually serve in combat and the longer it goes on for the more they’ll have to pay her. I was amazed by how much she knows about the military. I know it’s been said before but Adalheidis is a truly lovely lass, who turns into a complete monster when she’s in solicitor mode. It really is hard to get your head round the fact that she’s actually the same person.”
“Hang on a moment, Murray. I can see empty glasses including yours, so I’ll just pull a few before you continue.” Pete went behind the bar and as he pulled pints Bertie washed glasses and Stan took the money.
Murray took a goodly pull on his pint and resumed, “Thanks for that, Pete. Back to new folk. A couple of months back I advertised for a part time chiropodist to take some of the pressure off Sun and the nurses. We kept the advertisement running and it was only a few days ago that we had any response. A lass called Mackenzie rang me up and because she only lives in Brampton I asked her to come across to see me. We agreed on the following morning. She’s twenty-three, single, drop dead gorgeous, blonde and bubbly. She gives the initial impression of being a blonde airhead, but though blonde she’s owt but an airhead. She’s sharp, very sharp and completely pissed of with men. I reckon that’s because all she’s ever met are beer swilling gob shites only after one thing and has probably had a series of bad experiences with blokes who can’t be described as men. Right now it’s obvious she wants to move on past whatever has happened to her in the past, and she wants to live an adult life in safety. I reckon a major attraction to her of Bearthwaite is the way we live and she’s obviously heard a lot about us here, and as I said she wants to be safe.” He paused and unexpectedly added, “I like the lass and intend to introduce her to Madeleine. It’ll do both of them some good.” The outsider men in the taproom had no idea that Madeleine was Murray’s wife, and they’d lost their youngest child and only daughter five years before to cancer at the age of thirty-one. Madeleine had never truly recovered from the loss. The local men knew why Murray had said what he had and realised that he must more than like Mackenzie. They said nothing, but Arnie pushed a rum bottle towards him.
After nodding in appreciation to Arnie Murray filled his glass, half emptied it, refilled it and passed the bottle on to Josh before continuing, “However, we’d been talking for no more than ten minutes when I realised I was in way over my head, but I’d already made my mind up about her by then. She’s our kind of folk, and was desperate to be seen as such, so I rang for Adalheidis or Emily to take over. A part time chiropodist I could manage, but one who intends to spend the rest of her working time as a ladies’ manicurist and was trying desperately hard to convince me she can do the job, just forget it. My secondary sex characteristics just don’t meet the requirements necessary to understand the differences between acrylic and gel nails. Adalheidis spent the next two days giggling and laughing at me. Anyway she offered Mackenzie our usual deal and a flat and said the Bearthwaite womenfolk would be very appreciative and booked an appointment to boot. Despite the dim view she currently has of men, neither Adalheidis nor I can see Mackenzie being single for long either. Adalheidis also believes that Mackenzie had an abusive rather than a supportive family and said that Mackenzie may not realise it but she is looking for a bloke and a family too. How the hell women work that sort of thing out beats me, but I know they can and I just go with it. I’ve only just found out from Sun just how much foot care our old folk need, so maybe I should see if Mackenzie will do more than part time, or maybe we need to see if one or two of our older school kids fancy working as her assistant. If it comes to it we’ll have to keep running the advertisement to find someone else too because we need to ease up the pressure on Sun and his nursing team. At the moment they have only been keeping on top of things because our retired nurses have been putting in considerable time to help out.
“Changing the subject a little bit and taking a view to our long term future. Gerry telt me ages back that Olivia wants to be a veterinary surgeon, and she’s certainly clever enough and dedicated enough. She’s well into animals and been giving some of the shepherds a hand with the lambing for a few years, and they all think highly of her. That brings forward the acquisition of another person we need. A vet. If Livvy wants to get a place to study veterinary science at Glasgow university, which she says is what she intends to aim for, she’ll have to have experience of voluntary work with a practising vet, or they’ll not even consider her for a place no matter how good her exam results, and the experience she will be able to acquire without a vet will be deemed inadequate. We need a vet anyway, but we don’t have enough work here for a full time vet, and it would be almost impossible for a vet based here to work outside the valley in poor weather.
“For sure there is not enough work here to attract a youngster with ambition. That leaves us looking for someone happy to work part time, probably someone retired or looking to retire shortly. We need a vet who has done both farm and small animal work. We’d offer the usual arrangements, to set him or her up with whatever were necessary via Beebell. It won’t be cheap, but the benefits would recover all costs in not too long a space of time. Alex Peabody was telling me how much it costs to get a vet out here and it’s frightening. He’s had to shoot more than one cow that was having issues calving when the road was flooded, and said he’s prepared to contribute over and above a typical share of costs if we can get a vet here and that all the other valley farmers would too. He added that some knowledge and experience of bees, fish and coneys would be useful and suggested I had that put in the advertisement. He also suggested that Livvy doing voluntary work with whomever we decide on is written into the contract. That way if he or she tries to avoid it we can get rid and try again. Emily is working on the advertisement, and we aim to put it out next week and just keep running it till we get a satisfactory result. We haven’t completely made our minds up where to place it, but are discussing the alternative media too. Adalheidis is drafting out a contract.”
“Livvy is not only as sharp as a tack, she’s got nous(25) too,” added Harry. “When I was teaching science during Covid, I decided to do some practical stuff with the nine, ten and eleven year olds, so I could teach some theory to the older kids readying for their GCSEs. She was nine then, but only just. I had three microscopes, a binocular microscope and a load of other stuff too, so I set the lot up as different experiments for them, and they worked their way round them over six weeks. Amongst other things I had the kid’s looking at their own blood and at plant tissues after preparing and staining their own slides. After explaining how to prepare an onion slide I provided them with onions to prepare their slides from. She was up and running long before any of the others. When I asked her how she’d prepared a slide so quickly she smiled and said she didn’t believe in doing owt unnecessary. You know the slippery, transparent layers between onion shells?” A number nodded their heads. “Well so did she. They are called epidermal layers and are just one cell thick and she used that, so no tricky onion slicing with a razor blade to obtain a thin enough sample and no damaged cells causing problems. That’s perceptive and applying what she knows to a different situation which is almost a definition of intelligence. She’s got what it takes. Talking of equipment we need an astronomical telescope for the kids to go star gazing too. I reckon we could set up a small observatory on the top of the bobbin mill for them cheap enough, but I’ll get back to you on that one, Murray. Sorry for the interruption.”
“Nay, Lad, you did right. That’s the sort of thing we need to know. However, as for teachers, after a ten minute session with me, Elle or whoever on our school management group is available, to determine whether they are potential Bearthwaite folk, I’m for letting our existing teachers, the ones that are available, both new and ones that have been teaching here for a while, interview their potential colleagues. I reckon their judgements as to the interviewees ability to teach and get on with our kids will be better than that of most of the school expansion management group because though we’ve all taught kids only a few of us are teacher by profession. Too, we could do with a handful more teachers across the different subject areas to give us a bit more timetabling flexibility, and we’d rather have a good teacher teaching the wrong subject than a poor teacher teaching the right subject, but we’re okay for September as of now if only just. Two of the recent appointees are pregnant and single, one of them already has two kids. She discovered her old man was playing away a week before finding out she was expecting. The other one’s old man lit out as soon as he found out about the baby. They will have delivered by Christmas, and obviously will need to be accommodated in whatever way necessary to cope with their babies, their lives and their work. I suspect Stephanie’s crèche staff will be able to provide most of what they will need. Too, we have a further eight or nine married or marriageable young women who could be starting their families in the next couple of years, so I’ve suggested we over staff to cover for potential maternity leaves and any illness and compassionate reasons. We can afford it, and Elle agrees it is better to be over staffed rather than under staffed since supply teachers are not really an option for us, and though we could cover the gaps ourselves that too is anything but a counsel of perfection.”
Stan was having a go at one of his favourite targets: the NHS.(26) “Let’s get it perfectly clear right from the word go, Sun and his medical team is exempt from everything I have to say. Julie and I heard that the flue vaccine was available, we went down to the surgery and were jabbed by Karen with no problems. I found out a few days later Sun, the nurses and the midwives had done everyone in the village, regardless of age inside of a week. I know he managed to lay his hands on that much vaccine by not even bothering with the NHS because he said it just gave him a headache. Instead he bought ten thousand doses at commercial rates off the international market, and when he’d done everyone who lives here and all our friends he offered what was left to anyone one who wanted it free of charge, so there was none wasted. That’s how it ought to be right? However, that’s not how it works in most places. Julie was telt by one of the midwives that it’s cheap enough the way Sun bought it and he wanted the entire village protected and wasn’t prepared to waste any left over. She said due to stupidity the NHS are paying through the nose for the vaccine and are trying to cut costs by restricting its availability to just certain groups of folk. She added that if they used their buying power to negotiate a realistic price they could jab the entire country for less than what they are currently paying to jab just a tiny fraction of the population.
“Julie’s sister Lily and Danny her old man telt us it’s all a bit of a joke at their end out west. They both received an invitation to go for a flue jab through the post. Lily received a text asking Danny to go for the jab at the quacks. She hadn’t been invited. Now mind Lily is seventy-two and Danny is seventy. They decided to have them at the local pharmacy because Danny won’t go to the surgery. When they went shopping on the Tuesday they popped into the pharmacy to book an appointment. They were telt five and five fifteen on Friday. When they turned up they were telt there was no vaccine available and to come in the day after. When they went on the Saturday, guess what? There was no vaccine available and it was suggested they try the following Monday. On the way home Danny spotted a twenty foot wide five foot high banner on the local library fence exhorting folk to get the flue jab. Now I’m not saying Danny is a cynic, but he telt me that he was still laughing at that when he arrived home fifteen minutes later. That afternoon Lily received another text inviting Danny for a jab, but not her. Danny’s view was if the pharmacy can’t get their hands on the vaccine the surgery will be in the same boat. Lily rang the pharmacy on the Monday to avoid wasting more time and was informed the vaccine was in. Now Danny may or may not be a cynic, but he is suspicious of officialdom and given what he’s telt me about the surgery he used to go to he has good reason. Many of you know him as he’s been here for a drink on a Saturday many a time and he fits in right well here. At the pharmacy he asked the lass, who hasn’t been there more than a month or two and I know he neither likes nor trusts her, ‘Exactly who is doing the jabs?’ She telt him the pharmacist and the manager, and started to tell him who they were and the training they’d had. Lily telt Julie Danny was gey short with her and he’d said, “I know them both. That’s okay. I just didn’t want some half arsed idiot who’d jabbed an orange once with water to be sticking a needle in me.’ The lass was offended, but there wasn’t much she could do or say about it as Danny hadn’t said owt that was out of order. Lily telt Julie it was pointless her having a go a Danny because she knew he’d just tell her he didn’t give a fuck. They got jabbed by the pharmacist, which they both said was completely painless though they both had sore arms due to the stuff for a few days. All was okay eventually, but what a bloody performance.”
“What was that about oranges, Stan?”
“I don’t know if they still do it that way, Alf, but years ago that was what they started nurses off on when learning how to do injections.”
“I’ll tell you another crazy thing Danny telt me. You not allowed by law to collect a prescription even if it’s already been made up and you’ve had a text to collect it if the pharmacist isn’t on the premises. Some days at their spot they don’t have a pharmacist at all because all they do there is exist on a series of locums. That’s a temporary bloke or lass that doesn’t actually have a job there, Alf. They haven’t had a proper pharmacist for years. It makes sense because I know Tommy can’t pick up the prescriptions for the village unless the pharmacist is there. He’s had to wait a few times till the pharmacist got back from picking up his lunch from the bakers next door. Which is daft if you think about because he picks up hundreds of prescriptions at a time in big boxes. Anyway, even if the pharmacist is out the back taking a leak it’s fine for you to be given a prescription that you’re just collecting for someone else by a college kid who just works there on Saturdays and doesn’t know you or the person for who the prescription is for from Adam, because the pharmacist is on the premises. I don’t know if the kid has to be eighteen, like they do to serve you a pint. Probably not because the law and the NHS always go for anything that maximises stupidity and inconsistency.”
“Pete, for Christ’s sake get Stan a glass of something seriously poisonous before he has a seizure.”
“I’m on it, Alf.”
Alf started by saying, “Lads, we need to be keeping a close eye on Colin McFirth. He’s getting frail and needs our support. I know he will resent that, but at my spot last Saturday we were talking about Dr D G Hessayon’s treatise on soil types. He fell asleep on me mid flow concerning his sandy soil and the problems it presented. Yes, I know it happens to all of us from time to time as we age, but I reckon he needs to talk to Dr Wing for a complete reëvaluation of his medications and his lifestyle before we lose him for no good reason. For more than seventy years his contributions to our ability to feed ourselves on the allotments have kept many of our old folk and children alive. We all owe him whatever we can contribute to his health. I owe him that, as do all Bearthwaite men.” Many of the local men were startled by Alf’s unexpected announcement. However, all on considering the matter realised that he was not only correct but he was challenging their right to be considered as a man of Bearthwaite, a matter none were prepared to ignore. A few more seconds of reflection made them realise that Alf was far more in tune with Bearthwaite reality than they. It was a shock to consider that Alf, who most regarded as not over bright, was so aware of what mattered and what did not.
Many were considerably taken aback when Sasha said, “Thank you, Alf, for saying what I was going to say at some point. I was wondering how how to present it, but I have to admit you put it far better, if much blunter, than I would have been able to. Colin has indeed been a major contributor to life as we all experience it here, especially when times were hard. That he always avoided being in the limelight probably tells you more about him than anything else. Alf is correct. We all owe him, and now it is payback time. Yes he finished school at the age of eleven. Yes he married young and has fathered fourteen children, yet after all these years he is still happily married to Elsa. I suggest you look at the lives of his children. All are successful in our terms, and all are well thought of, their children and grandchildren too. Do you think that was just an accident? Just pure chance? He has quietly been a role model for all Bearthwaite men his entire life and now as Alf has said it is time for us to repay our debts.”
It was unusual for Vincent, the Bearthwaite slaughterman and butcher, known locally to adults and children alike as Vince the Mince to speak at length, but he was clearly about to. “I’m angry about things I’ve been interested in from outside. I’ve been thinking about some of the stuff I’ve enjoyed watching on Youtube. To any with a minimum of knowledge and the barest of brains some of what I initially thought well of and have enjoyed, and still do, to my embarrassment, has to be a complete misrepresentation at best or even a complete bullshit at worst. Specifically I’m thinking about a channel from Vietnam, by a bloke who gives his name as Duong. The channel purports to be by a bloke from a peasant background who’d had a hard life, but had learnt from it. First, no illiterate peasant could have the knowledge of STEM matters he displays. I’m not over bright, but I’m not thick either. I’m reasonably well educated, and I have learnt a lot from Alf, Sasha and many more of you, yet still I can’t hold a candle to the supposed intelligence of this guy Duong. Second, I’d like to know who is recording and editing the amazingly high quality video supposedly taken in the backwoods of a bloke who purportedly lives and works completely on his own when his wife and kids aren’t there because they live in the local town with her mother most of the time. It is my opinion that none could have all the knowledge of human history and technology that he implies he rediscovered. Don’t get me wrong, Lads, I enjoy watching his channel enormously, but it is not what it purports to be. If from that you conclude I watch bullshit, okay you’re right, but at least I admit it. He has to have had an enormous amount of help behind the scenes that is financially supporting him, presumably for their own reasons. Since he has over two million supporters there must be some heavy advertising money involved.
“The internet is the mother and father of all lies and liars too. I am not an intellectual, all know I’m a slaughterman and a butcher, but I’m clever enough to recognise this guy is entertaining but not for real. I am descended from Bearthwaite folk for more generations than any can mind. I am proud of that, for it means I do not lie and I will not lie, and I mean I will not, not I shall not, lie, for though ill educated at least I’m educated enough to know the difference there. It also means when I discover I have been lied to it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Yes, I am angry, but I have the right to be. I like to be able to accept things as they appear to be. Why should I not? I have no so called political agenda. The ethnic and woke I don’t even bother to take notice of and why should I? They spend their lives upsetting other folk and I spend mine working to make life better for my family and community, and all my community know that.
“Those woke folk are of no value to me and should the gods say I had to decide upon their fate my decision would be death. Should any ever challenge my choice on the grounds of moral responsibility and ask would I be prepared to take their deaths upon myself, my answer is yes I would kill them myself, why should I not, after all I am a slaughterman, and a pig is a pig is a pig, and over the decades I’ve slaughtered thousand of ’em and it’s not exactly a difficult thing to do. I admit I should rather it not come to that. However, if it ever comes about that society descends into chaos, and it’s definitely heading in that direction, then each and every one of us will have to decide where we stand with regard to the useless bastards who can contribute nowt to our society. That will be a decision each and every one of you will have to make for yourselves. However, for myself I’ll be more than happy to slaughter the bastards and butch them for my neighbours to eat the good cuts and use the rest for sausage. More to the point my grandsons, who are my successors, are of the same opinion.
“As a community those of us who live here drove that kind of folk out of Bearthwaite and took steps to ensure none of their like could ever live here again, for their standards of integrity and morality were unacceptable to us. They tried to manipulate us, so in return we systematically made their lives here unendurable and bought them out. There are none of them left here now. Covid was not of our creation, but created by outsiders and it matters not to Bearthwaite folk whether they are from China or Carlisle, they’re all outsiders. When Covid became a real threat to us we closed ranks and took a defensive stance against outsiders. We finally realised outside had over the years infiltrated us more than we had been aware of, so we turned the clock back here centuries in many regards and we’re keeping it that way. Those of you who are outsiders, it is up to you to make your own minds up and to take your own stances on such matters. You may not need to now. It may not even happen in your lifetimes, but sooner or later it will happen. I have stated our position and it is non negotiable. We are Bearthwaite folk and our values and decisions are based on that and nowt else. We are moving into our future by holding to that which matters from our past.”
There was a silence that many found embarrassing after Vincent’s words. Local men were not embarrassed, for they all agreed with him, but many wondered why he had chosen to say what he had on this particular day.
“Well, Lads, after those rather heavy, but informative and insightful words of Vincent’s I’ll lighten the tone a bit. Tonight I’m going to teach you all about marriage and sex. As the local lads know I’m now living with Valerie and have taken on her kids. For those of you who don’t know she was one of the lasses whose husbands lit out when Covid landed, but he was an outsider, so that’s no shame to us. I reckon he was one of those blokes Vincent was going on about with an unacceptable sense of integrity and morality, or may hap I should say a lack of any sense of integrity and morality. However, be that as it may, as a result I am now in the fortunate position of having a decent lass to wife and a family. Her ex, as far as I can tell, has the clothes he’s standing up in. Valerie hasn’t said much about her marriage to him, and I’m certainly never going to press her to, but I don’t reckon he could ever have been much good as a husband or a dad because after I moved in it took the kids less than forty-eight hours to start calling me Dad. Now you need to listen carefully to the rest of what I’ve got to say because it’s important.”
There was already considerable amusement in the air and the men in the taproom were anticipating a good laugh. They couldn’t predict what was coming, but naytheless they knew it would be funny. Edward was a thirty-five year old Bearthwaite born and bred forester, sawyer and a divorcee whose wife, an outsider, had disappeared a few years before. Edward didn’t usually say much, but he had always said he was grateful they’d had no kids. However, he could tell a tale and when he did it was usually amusing.
“We’ve the four kids now and are working on a fifth. Valerie has telt the lasses that she wants another four and I don’t have a problem with that. We’re getting wed in the outsiders’ eyes as soon as Valerie’s divorce is finalised, but in Bearthwaite terms we’re wed. Vaughn our youngest is six and Val telt me that the other night he solemnly asked his mum, ‘Did you know, Mum, that when you marry Dad he has to put his penis in your virginia?’ ” The choking on beer and the laughter took a goodly while to fade enough for conversation to resume. Eventually Edward said, “So there you have it, Lads. That’s what you have to do when you get married, put your penis in her virginia no less. Bit of an eye opener that isn’t it? It’s almost enough to put you off the idea of marriage altogether. Marriage and sex as seen through the eyes of a six year old lad who doubtless in the fulness of time will earn how to pronounce virginia correctly. Now after that shocking body blow, I’m sure you are all in as much need of another pint as I am. I’ll start pulling ’em, Pete, if some of you deal with the coin and the glasses.”
“D’ye(27) mind those Fire Cracker air dried salami available from yon butcher in Spatri?(28) His surname was Shaw, Barry I think but I could be wrong. He had a spot in Silloth before moving to Wigton and then to Spatri where he is now on that small industrial estate off Park Road. I mind well the salami though. Maybe six inch long and half an inch in diameter. Well I thought those buggers could blow you mouth off with the chilli in ’em. They were only available from him because he made ’em.
“However, I was shopping with Julie in the Spar shop in Silloth a couple of weeks since and she found some sausages with reduced labels on ’em. Four different kinds, all produced by Graham Eyes Quality Butchers according to the label. I looked ’em up on the internet and they have eight shops, all in the north, and seem to be a fair sized outfit connected with Spar somehow. I picked up one of each kind for her. I don’t know, maybe a pound in each I reckoned at the time, but the reduced labels covered most of the information. At one ninety-nine a pound Julie said they were decent value. They went into the freezer and a couple of days later she asked me to get one out and defrost it for her in the microwave. She still can’t use the defrost function. I asked her which one she wanted and she telt me the tomato sausage that were coiled and looked like thin Cumberland sausage. I did as asked and we had microwaved spud, baked beans and sausage. It’s not exactly cordon bleu, but it’s a meal I enjoy, comfort food from childhood I reckon, though the spuds were always baked in the range when Mum did it.
“We both thought the sausage were tomato sausage from the colour and just about every local butcher meks and sells those. Tasty, but frig me, Lads, it took an hour for my mouth to cool down. The colour was due to chilli not tomato. They made those Fire Crackers taste like blancmange. Two meals and a supper we had out of ’em. I like spicy food, but I couldn’t eat any more than that at one go. A few days later we were in Silloth again visiting Julie’s sister Lily and as usual Julie does all three food shops, Spar, the Coöp and Jay Bees. In Spar there was just the one packet of reduced sausage and it was the hot buggers. The reduced label was in a different spot, and I could see there was five hundred grammes in the pack, like I said a pound near enough, and they are called Dragon Slayer. Christ almighty they got that right, though one of the kids referred to ’em Dryan Slaggers.”
Amid much laughter Dave said, “I take it you left well alone this time, Stan‽”
“Are you kidding, Dave? I put them in the basket gey quick before some other bugger had away with ’em. Good gear. If you get out that way I suggest you lay your hands on some. Damned tasty, but I’ll have some lager out of the fridge with ’em next time.”
“Is that it then, Lads? Any more for any more or is it time to get the dominoes out?” Pete waited a minute before continuing. “Okay dominoes it is. Give me a minute to wipe the tables down. Whilst I do can some of you do the honours behind the bar and if we’re running short of chemic will some one fetch some up. I took delivery of a couple of pallets of mixed stuff sent by Adio this week, but I haven’t opened them yet so there may be some surprises in store for us. Some of you owe me some money, but we’ll discuss it when it’s more convenient.”
At their usual after closing time meeting Sasha asked, “Is there much we need to discuss? Things seem to be going well. Murray is happy with events and says the school is ready to go in September and all he is looking for now is over staffing to give us more flexibility. He admitted to me yesterday his biggest challenge is finding us a vet. I telt him to advertise wherever he thinks there is the remotest chance of success for as long as it takes and I’ll happily pick up the bill. We need that lass of Gerry’s studying veterinary science and whatever we can do to ensure she does has got to be done.”
Harriet said, “Adalheidis telt me she has all in hand that needs to be undertaken from a legal point of view, and if Jimmy is joining her even one day or a half a day a week things are definitely looking up. She telt me he was well known as a top of the trees family law and divorce solicitor so those lasses that are joining us and have been dropped in it by scumbag ex husbands are going to get the best deals available. Even the unmarried ones will get the best child support possible.”
Gladys added, “The Lucy, Alice and Rosie matchmaking agency will be working overtime for a while. They’re determined to pair up the single lasses coming to join us with our single men especially all the one who were hurt by outsiders and even more so Ellis and Finley because their kids need mums.”
Pete asked, “Is that it then? It’s been a long day and I’m ready for my bed. If I don’t see you for breakfast here I’ll meet you and Clarence at the brewery tomorrow at nine, Gustav.”
Elle pushed Sasha towards the door and said, “Home, Love.”
The recent warm but exceedingly windy and wet weather had blown over nearly a month ago and been replaced by clear skies and sunshine. It was calm and dry and all at Bearthwaite were glad that the parties and the wedding were to be so favoured. Hundreds of folk had been making the necessary preparations that had to be left till as late as possible and the excitement in the air was almost palpable. The atmosphere was more like that of a carnival than a wedding and that suited every one including the young couple. Alf’s colossal bouncy castle that had been put together from the parts of seven that he’d acquired had been on the village green for nearly a week and hundreds of children had been testing it for the same length of time. Any number of busy parents and older siblings had been grateful, for it only required a few of them to mind the younger children which meant most could get on with the party preparations secure in the knowledge they knew where their children were and that they were safe being minded by responsible folk. That the younger children never seemed to tire of the activity did seem surprising, but it was a welcome surprise. Most of the children wolfed their breakfasts in their haste to go to the green, were reluctant to break for lunch and recalcitrant when they’d had to go home in the evening.
The night before their wedding Harriet had aid to Gustav, “You know, Love, I’ve just realised our wedding will have been a process rather than be an event.” Seeing that Gustav was looking puzzled she continued, “For any number of unavoidable reasons it’s been, what? well over a year in the planning.”
“Nearer two,” Gustav answered.
“Yes, and all that time it’s been becoming more involved and been involving more and more folk. In the mean while half a dozen couples at least have married. Some with no fuss at all, but most with the ceremony in the church here and a major reception in the Dragon.”
Gustav smiled and said, “As Dad would say anything for a good bash. Does it bother you, Harriet? That it’s taken so long to prepare I mean. Are you nervous about tomorrow?”
“No and no. I suppose it’s every girl’s dream to have what will amount to a færie tale wedding even if it is something that only lasts a day, yet I’ve been lucky enough to have mine last for months. Brigitte telt me that she’s never been so excited about anything in her life before. I don’t think I could say I’m excited about it. It’s more like a deep sense of satisfaction that I feel especially about all the hurdles, perhaps that’s not the right word but I can’t think of a better one, that have been surmounted on the way. Mum having Gloria and expecting another little girl, we adopting the children, and all the changes that have occurred at Bearthwaite that are being celebrated too. It wasn’t exactly nice to hear that Austol(29) Nancarrow had been killed in custody by another prisoner, but Peter said Brigitte was just relieved that she wouldn’t have to go to court to give evidence against him, though their mother was still alive.” Austell Nancarrow was Peter and Brigitte’s biological father
“He telt me that too. When I asked him how he felt about it he shrugged his shoulders and telt me ‘I’d made my mind up ages ago I was going to do whatever it took to see he was gaoled for a long time to keep other children safe. I wanted some justice, or maybe I mean vengeance, for what he’d done to us and I can’t say I’m bothered whether it came from a judge or in gaol the way it did. This is half of a perfect outcome and now he’s behind us. At least this way he’s all over and I reckon long before we are asked to appear as witnesses against our mother we’ll hear that she’s dead too. Either someone will kill her in gaol or she’ll die from an overdose inside. I know drugs are readily available in every gaol in the country. We’ll be fine. We’re just waiting to hear she’s dead too. It won’t be long. You and Mum don’t need to worry about either of us.’ The lack of emotion in his voice was chilling, but I reckon he was right. They’ll be fine. They’ll need to cry sometime, but not till it’s all over, and they have enough sense to come to us when the need arises. I doubt if either of them will ever talk about it to anyone else other than us, Violet and Ron. I can’t see Peter talking to his trans shrink about it no matter how much pressure is put on him. I’ve already made it clear to him if that happens we find another shrink. Okay?”
“Aye well I suppose I’ll have to be okay about it because there’s nothing we can do about it other than accept their right to view things the way they do and offer whatever support we can. I was mighty pleased I never got involved with shrinks, and I’m just pleased so many things have been so well resolved recently. The utilities company no longer have any say here, and we’ve finally got rid of all our unpleasant neighbours. All sorts of enterprises are now flourishing, and there’re even more in the pipeline, if you’ll forgive me the expression given our recent problems concerning the utilities company over the water. Expanding the school intake to include children up to eighteen is completely prepared for September, and I don’t doubt it will be hugely successful especially for the less academically inclined, and now we have enough staff of the right sort to offer a wide range of trade apprenticeships. Too we’ll be keeping the boys here, not just because the girls have employment opportunities here, but because they have too. Elle says even most of the school leavers going to university in October now have the intention of returning here if they can manage a to find a job such that they can live here.”
Harriet smiled before saying, “And according to local rumour I’m going to be marrying the local super hero tomorrow. The man who boosted our economy by opening a brewery providing scores of jobs and then never looked back as his business empire expanded into a distillery and farming hundreds of acres, and as he did so made sure most of the money stayed local.” Gustav looked embarrassed, but Harriet kissed him and said, “That’s how you are seen, Love, truly. Violet says it’s ironic that Britain’s and Germany’s politicians took us to war against each other twice in the last century, yet ordinary British folk and ordinary German folk can coexist so easily to each others’ mutual benefit. Folk listen to her on such matters because she knows so much about the war and its effects on ordinary folk like us. She also says that you may have been German once, but now you aren’t. She says you aren’t English and never will be, but you’ve been a Bearthwaite man for a long time and are one of us. She’s a clever lass, and I for one am really glad that she and Peter are a couple. You ready for the party tonight?”
Gustav nodded, and much happier to be discussing safer matters said, “Yes, but before that I’ll be going up to the reservoir with Dad, Peter and a dozen or more men and boys in a few hours to open the sluices. Once we know most of the outside guests are here we’ll flood the road and Bertie with his lads are going to take the boat down to the flood to collect any late comers. Peter is going to open the first sluice probably at about seven o’clock.”
“Why?” asked Harriet in astonishment.
“It was decided last Saturday in the tap room that we’ll shut out any unwanted folk including all the media, but it’s mostly so that the under eighteens can enjoy a drink too if they wish one without any officious interference from outsiders. Sergeant Graham was there and he said that he was of the belief it was a wise thing to do, for though it was completely legal for under eighteens to enjoy a glass with a meal when their parents and Dad as the landlord were okay with it it would be best to avoid having to argue about afterwards. As all are aware Dave’s amusing declaration of the day as Bearthwaite Independence Day has caught on, and the men decided that it should be a private matter. Pat, Eli and I don’t know how many others will be spending the day armed with video cameras, but there will be a full record of everything going on. You’ll see a few of them at the party tonight.”
The party Gustav was referring to was taking place in every large space in the village, and all had already been supplied with food and drink of every conceivable description in large quantities. The couple would be doing the rounds over the evening as indeed had many others decided they would do too. Harriet and Gustav had both strenuously resisted the idea of hen and stag parties, for such were not to their taste, and the pre wedding party had been their solution to the pressure. That the wedding reception would essentially be a rerun of the pre wedding party was not something that any in the village had been concerned by. The party was supposed to start at maybe six in the early evening, but in reality had been going for several hours by then. Peter had opened the first sluice at twenty to seven when Pete had a text to say most who mattered had arrived, but there would be folk taking it in turns to man the boat for any late comers till ten. When Gustav and the others had returned from the reservoir Harriet and Gustav danced, ate, and drank their way around the village several times that evening before finally retiring to bed at just after one in the morning. At various places the party continued all through the night.
The wedding of Harriet and Gustav was anything but typical. Harriet had three bride’s maids, Brigitte, her daughter, Gladys her mum and Elle who was effectively her granny. Gustav had three best men, Peter his son, Pete his dad and Sasha who was effectively his granddad. In addition Sasha was going to walk Harriet down the aisle, and Pete was going to give her away. It had taken a little bit of working out to do it all so all rôles would be fulfilled, but it had been proven to be possible. Harriet and Gustav hadn’t been happy with the idea of importing an outside clergyman or a registrar to conduct the ceremony at the Bearthwaite church, so they’d legally married the week before at the registry office in Carlisle with Brigitte, Gladys, Elle, Peter, Pete and Sasha as witnesses. Murray who was regarded as the unofficial Mayor of Bearthwaite had agreed to conduct the wedding ceremony in the Bearthwaite church. The couple had agreed that the event at the registry office did not make them feel married, so decided it didn’t count, and they were looking forward to finally being married after what had seemed to be an interminably long wait in their own church. As demanded by Bearthwaite custom Harriet was in white. In Bearthwaite even girls nine months pregnant married in white, and there’d been a couple who’d had abridged ceremonies in order to give birth in one of the side rooms of the church itself. The bride’s maids wore green and looked very glamorous. Brigitte admitted that she felt very grown up wearing what was by no means her first proper grown up frock, but it was the first she’d ever worn at a proper grown up frock event. “Does that make sense, Mum?” she asked Harriet at one of their fittings.
“Of course it does, Love. It’s not just enough to have the frock, you have to have somewhere to go in it to imbue yourself with a sense of the occasion. That would make perfect sense to any woman. Just don’t expect your dad and your brother, or any other man for that matter, to understand.”
Typically for Bearthwaite the wedding planning was a shambles, well at the very least it certainly did not go according to plan. Whilst Gustav, with Peter, Pete and Murray waited for the traditionally late bride, her maids and Sasha the crowd was gathering outside the church. By the time Harriet arrived there were nearly four thousand folk there all wanting to be as much a part of her nuptials as possible. A seriously upset Harriet whispered to Sasha, “I can’t do this to all my friends and neighbours. Would you get everybody in the church out here please? and ask Murray to conduct the ceremony out here.”
Sasha whispered, “That’s my girl, Love. You wait here. It’ll all be sorted in a minute or two. It was near enough a quarter of an hour before the crowd heard the words they’d been expecting: ‘Dearly belovèd….”
Murray’s words were of the traditional form, but with all religious references removed and replaced by words that had meaning to Bearthwaite folk. Most present would have noticed and resented the original form of words, yet few were aware of Murray’s changes till long after the ceremony was over. Murray afterwards admitted, “That went better than I thought it would. I spent a goodly while creating a form of words based on the traditional Church of England service that would be relevant and meaningful to not just Harriet and Gustav but to all Bearthwaite folk too, and I was sure I’d screw it up.” What he didn’t know was that would become the Bearthwaite norm: marry in the registry office for the law, and then hold the ceremony that mattered in the Bearthwaite church. For a long time it would be he who conducted the ceremonies and his words would soon become the only acceptable ones for a Bearthwaite wedding.
The parties lasted for a further two days.
Eventually life returned to whatever passed as normal at Bearthwaite. Hay making came and went. The school year came to an end, and folks were looking forwards to meeting their new neighbours who now their teaching contracts elsewhere were at an end could settle in at the village and prepare for the new school year in September which would be almost as new an experience for the established Bearthwaite teachers as for them, for the secondary pupils had always attended Whiteport Academy before. All the children who’d attended Whiteport Academy knew their school lives were about to become much less tense, for as a distinct minority who spoke identifiably differently from the other pupils they’d had to band together to prevent bullying of their younger members and unwanted sexual attentions from disconcerting the girls. They’d had many friends who weren’t from Bearthwaite, but those friends had joined them, for they always stuck together in large groups. They were regarded by some as aloof and snobbish, and by all as cliquey which was true, but it had been forced upon them. In future they knew they would be able to just be themselves. Older Bearthwaite children were awaiting their examination results, some to join the new sixth form at Bearthwaite and some to leave for Universities all over the country and some abroad. Bearthwaite pupils were unusual for Cumbrians in that they had no fears leaving Bearthwaite far behind them, for they knew they would be returning and they relished the challenges their immediate futures offered. Many of the Bearthwaite youngsters had no desire to continue with academic study and were happy to be starting their apprenticeships in a week or two. Most of the adults were looking towards the harvest season which was not so far away. Life was good, and it offered more possibilities than it ever had before.
A number of the Bearthwaite adults were deeply involved in driving the juggernaut that was their search for decreased reliance on the outside world forward as far and as fast as possible. It may have seemed strange to some, but the man at the wheel of that juggernaut was Alf. The man whose teachers had given up on as a waste of time when he was boy.
1 Yows, dialectal ewes, female sheep.
2 Sken, squint.
3 Light Adaptive Transitions, LATs, and photochomic lenses, also known as reactolite lenses, automatically adjust from clear to dark according to the outside lighting conditions. They are activated by UV light.
4 Souwesters, extreme wet weather over clothes comprising a pair of trousers, a cape or jacket and a wide hat often referred to as a Mae West. They were the normal clothing for deep water sea fishermen.
5 Billionaire Asian Prime minister, Alf is referring to Rishi Sunak.
6 Penting, dialectal painting.
7 The triple lock. The coalition government introduced a triple lock guarantee for pensions in 2010. The measure ensures the state pension rises each year in line with which measure is highest from 2.5%, or average wage growth between May and July (compared with the three months in the previous year), or inflation using the consumer prices index measure in the year to September (which was 10.1% in 2023). Many said the government would lose to much credibility if they allowed pensions descending into poverty at the rate current at the time and the triple lock was seen as the cheapest way for the government to be seen to be dealing with the matter.
8 Winter Fuel Allowance, Winter Fuel Payment is an annual tax-free payment for households that include someone born on or before 25 September 1957 (for 2023-24). It's designed to help you cover your heating costs in winter. If you were born on or before 25 September 1957, you could get up to £600 to help with your bills in winter this year. The exact amount depends on your age and whether other people in your household also qualify. In fact most folk get less than half of £600, £200 seems to be typical.
9 Guy Fawkes, a Catholic opposer of the government who was betrayed by his co-conspirators to blow parliament up. His death was hideous, but despite England remaining protestant he remains to this day a nation hero celebrated with an annual day, Bonfire night, the 5th of November.
10 A gill in this context is half a UK pint, 10fl oz, 284ml.
11 Poor box, charity collection box.
12 To be out on the arm is to be escorting ones wife or girlfriend. It implies shaved and dressed up.
13 Coin, money.
14 Shroud, the traditional cloth used to wrap the dead for burial. The implication here is since a shroud has no need of pockets you can’t take your money with you after death, so you may as well spend it before then. The expression ‘Shrouds don’t have pockets’ is an ages old one.
15 Butching, dialectal butchering.
16 SDS, The initials SDS stands for Slotted Drive System or Slotted Drive Shaft. It is a mechanism which enables positive drill bit location whilst allowing the drill to move in the chuck whilst under power. It is particularly effective in hammer drills.
17 A&E, Accident and Emergency, equivalent of ER, Emergency Room, in the US. Also referred to as Casualty.
18 A bob, slang for a shilling. In pre decimal currency a shilling was what became five new pence 7 or 8 US cents.
19 In 2019, the Swedish magazine Filter announced its investigative report on Norwegian farmed salmon like this: “Ninety-seven per cent of the salmon we eat in Sweden is farmed and from Norway. Farmed salmon are fed food that contains heavy metals and toxins. Tens of thousands of tonnes of pesticides are used to combat diseases and pests. In addition, the fish farms themselves kill shellfish and cause eutrophication.”
There is also a horrifying Youtube investigative video on the subject.
20 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.
21 Greeting, The full expression is 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.
22 Pease pudding, also known as pease porridge, is a savoury pudding dish made of boiled legumes, typically split yellow peas, with water, salt and spices, and often cooked with a bacon or ham joint. A common dish in the north east of England, it is consumed to a lesser extent in the rest of Britain, as well as in other regions worldwide.
23 Meckin, dialectal making.
24 Graft, hard work.
25 Nous, in colloquial British English nous often denotes perception or good sense, which is the meaning here.
26 NHS, National Health Service.
27 D’ye, dialectal do you.
28 Spatri, local usage for the small town of Aspatria.
29 Austol, pronounced Os tal is a rare but traditional Cornish boy’s name.
Comments
'kin 'ell
that were a long un!
not 'ad pease puddin' fer a while, much as ah lek it. Mebbe sumat t'mek this autumn along wi' bacon an' onion puddin' - serve wi' mash an thick grevy, food ut gods!
Madeline Anafrid Bell
I'm better now!
Seemed like forever since the last chapter, and I was getting to wonder if it was all done. This was a good one to read. Lots going on, good humor and dialogue.
Hoping for more in the near future.
A Bit Hard
On the NHS. True, all large organisations have bureaucratic problems, but many of the problems here are caused by the continual efforts of right-wing governments to limit the reach of the NHS and systematically starve it of much-needed funds. They would do away with it if they dared, but know they would lose power if they tried, so they have to wear a false smile and continue to provide medical services to the undeserving poor.
With that proviso I always enjoy these stories. Who would predict that fixing household goods could be so entertaining?
P.S. Even after living in East Asia for over 30 years I can't stand tofu (bean curd).
I came late to this party ....
... As there has been 6 months between GOMT 44 and 45 and I was under the mistaken belief that you had concluded the OGM series Eolwaen. I see that you have published up to Tale 47.
I'm delighted to be able to continue reading this wonderful series of life in an idyllic community that works together to improve their collective living environment.
Brit in France