A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 62 Hello Dad
It was the evening of the last Saturday in November, the thirtieth. It was the last day of autumn [US fall], for tradition had it that the first day of winter was the following day, Sunday, when it would be the first of December. There had been some bitterly cold weather earlier in the month and a storm that had produced fifty mile an hour [80kmph] winds in the county but much stronger, including hundred mile per hour [160kmph] gusts, elsewhere resulting in serious flooding and storm damage in many parts of the country, including a dozen deaths. Joel had said that the maximum wind speed in the Bearthwaite valley as recorded by his weather station on the village green had been forty to forty-five miles per hour [64-72kmph], and that that had only been for a few hours in the small hours one morning. There had been rain, but no flooding, on the lonning into the valley, and the weather was currently rather mild for the time of year, not having dropped below twelve [53·6℉] at noon, nor five [41℉] at night, for going on for a week with more or less flat calm for the last week too. Certainly wind speeds had not exceeded five miles per hour [8kmph] in that time As expected given the mild weather the Green Dragon Inn was serving a large number of locals though the number of outsiders seemed fewer than usual, probably due to storm and flood damage elsewhere rather than fear that the valley was inaccessible, for the condition of the lonning was regularly updated on the Green Dragon Inn website. Sunset was at eleven minutes to four and at it’s earliest it would be at seventeen minutes to four on the twelfth of December which was nine days before the solstice by which date the evenings would have been drawing out by a couple of minutes. Sunrise would be at its latest on the twenty-eighth of the month at eight thirty-six, nine days after what was locally referred to as the sun return rather than the solstice, a term that had been in use for over a millennium.
All of the over two hundred huge industrial freezers that Murray had bought brand new as a job lot, along with all the stock and parts on hand too, from the official liquidator winding up the bankrupt company that had made them, because Alf said the negotiated price was right, had been distributed and installed around the village into what were considered to be their permanent homes. Many more freezer rooms had been build, mostly using four inch [100mm] thick interlocking insulated panels, again bought by Murray, though on Alf’s advice, as a job lot some years before again from a company that had gone bankrupt. The liquidator had remarked to Murray that had the company known of their interest maybe they wouldn’t have gone bankrupt. Murray had replied, “Yes they would, because there was no way I’d have been prepared to pay a fraction of the price they were asking. I’m in no hurry to buy and sooner or later someone would have gone to the wall and a liquidator would have accepted what I was prepared to pay. They’d have probably stayed in business if instead of being greedy they’d offered them for sale at a reasonable price in the first place. They were fools and we have never been.”
The panels which were dense polyurethane foam clad on both sides with thin stainless steel sheet were a lot heavier than they looked. At ten feet [3.05m] long and either two or four feet [610 or 120mm] wide it took two strong men to manhandle the narrower ones, but there were hundreds of such men available and they were rapidly assembled and finished with extra foam, stainless steel sheet and silicone sealant as required by Wellesley and his team of sheet metal workers and fabricators. Warren and his team of refrigeration technicians had fitted the cooling equipment, gassed them up(1) and set them to the required temperatures almost as soon as they had been assembled. After leaving them for twenty-four hours for the refrigerant to stabilise they’d been turned on and had cooled rapidly. Another twelve hours and folk had started filling them. To those waiting to use the meat store rooms it had seemed to take forever, but for the children involved the excitement had evaporated all too quickly. All sheep, venison, carp and every other kind of frozen and chilled food that Bearthwaite was storing had finally been organised and one only had to look at a computer screen or a smart phone to find out exactly what was exactly where.
Christine who ran the preservation kitchens in the Auld Bobbin Mill said to the women and girls in the best side, “All this organisation of Gretchen’s will be the death of me. I’m not sure I can handle all the calm and the lack of panic that accompanies not having to undertake a three day search in order to process say a big batch of mutton stew to make some inroad into what had seemed to be an endless supply of neck of mutton and lamb. It’s positively unnerving actually knowing where it all is. However, I am truly grateful that Gretchen is managing it all because I just wouldn’t have the time, or if I’m honest the organisational skills either.”
“Aye I know what you mean, Lass,” Rosie said. “My lasses must have made I don’t know how many tons of haggis, black pudding, white pudding,(2) pressed meats of various kinds, sausage of a dozen kinds and lord knows what else, to use up offal, tripe, heads, feet, tails and whatever other bits Vincent wanted used up, but now it’s all been made and thanks to Gretchen it is not only in storage, we know where every last bit of it all is, and any can just look it up to get a hold of what they need. Again thanks to the lass, I do know that between your staff and mine we used going on for a quarter ton [250Kg, 560 pounds] of black pepper corns and maybe a hundred weight [55Kg, 112 pounds] of dried chiles. The allotments folk are growing more chiles next year and the peppercorns are already ordered. Next, we’re back onto mekin bone stock, for some reason there seems to have been a bit of a backlog of bones building up. My auld man started cutting bones up this afternoon. Knowing Vincent he’ll be at it all day tomorrow to give us a bit of a head start in the back of the shop on Monday. He sent a pile of kids round every dwelling in the valley including having a few contacting all the farms by phone too to collect up any of those half gallon plastic bottles we put bone stock soup into. He’s got a fancy gadget the workshops lads made him that washes and scrubs the insides of ’em. It meks a hell of a mess, puts watter everywhere, so doubtless a dozen young lads will enjoy themselves in the yard and if he gives them a few quid apiece they’ll love it. Tragedy of it is they’ll never grow out of it, because for sure Vincent hasn’t.”
The women were still laughing when Nancy a regular outsider asked, “How come there was so much sheep meat that needed to be dealt with? I get the impression that wasn’t normal.”
A lot of the Bearthwaite women looked around to see who would answer. As the looks converged upon her it was Elle who eventually replied, “Nearly two years since, we bought a huge tract of land that runs alongside the southern side of the Bearthwaite valley. It’s the fell and forested land you can see up on your left as you drive in along the lonning. Farmers whose land had bordered what we bought had been illegally grazing the land for many years, possibly generations. The previous owners had not been bothered because they had used it as a shooting estate and didn’t care about the sheep. If some of their clients decided to shoot a dozen or more sheep to keep their eyes in they didn’t care because they weren’t their sheep and they’d no right to be there. When our folk inspected what we’d just bought they found many hundreds of sheep remains in all stages of decomposition, from recently shot carcasses to weather bleached skeletons with bullet holes through their skulls that had gone through their brains and out of the other side that had been there for a century if not two.
“We were bothered that the sheep were there because we had, and still have, very long term plans for the land, plans extending over many generations. We intended to reforest most of it with local native hardwood trees with the intention of rewilding it to what it was a thousand years since. We had our shepherds use their dogs to drive the sheep off the land as we fenced the last of it. It took thirty going on thirty-five miles of expensive stainless steel fencing and many months of work. Huge numbers of us including thousands of our children helped to plant the trees. For the children it counted towards their practical work at school for their environmental studies courses. Even for the children who were not old enough for such courses it was banked in reserve for their future. What is referred to elsewhere as paying it forward. Whenever we had spare time we helped for it was a project that was a vision of the future of Bearthwaite folk and our descendants. We considered that to be a solution although there were rumours that our problems were anything but at an end. That turned out to be truer than we had considered possible. The local farmers broke the fences down and drove their sheep back onto our grass. That is theft and is taken seriously here because grazing sheep is the major industry in these parts, and the sheep ate all our young trees. Our adults were angry, but our children were traumatised by that, and that we considered to be unforgivable. By upsetting our little ones to that extent those local farmers had crossed a line none was prepared to forgive. In the eyes of our clever folk they had declared war and if war was what they desired that was what we would give them.
“Our legal ladies, the menfolk as a joke call them the solicitatoruses rather than solicitrices or solicitrixes, discovered old laws that said once we had informed any straying animals’ owners and given them a reasonable amount of time to recover their animals we could recover our losses by any other practical means. By recorded delivery we informed every local farmer within twenty miles of the situation and asked them to remove any sheep of theirs that had strayed onto our land. A month and a day later, which the old laws defined as a reasonable period of time, we’d had no response from any of them, so the shepherds and their dogs started rounding up the sheep. They took them down to Vincent’s slaughter yard where scores of men slaughtered them for the meat and whatever else we could use. It took five and a half weeks in all. None outside the valley was aware it was happening because none can see into the valley from land that isn’t ours, and for sure none of the Bearthwaite folk had any intention of letting them know.
Although it had never been done, the only way to access the tops to move sheep would have been via the small roads that are on the other side of the fells from the valley. Since no sheep transporter waggons had been seen on any of those roads it was assumed that the sheep were still there, although because the far side of our land up there is heavy coniferous forest it was impossible to know for sure. Later in the year when the sheep’s owners went to fetch their sheep back because presumably they thought the grazing would have been just about exhausted by then the fences had been repaired and were being patrolled by our rangers armed with shotguns. By then there wasn’t a trace of green on the fell and there were no sheep there either. The meat and everything else was distributed round the village and every freezer and freezer room here, and a lot of freezer rooms had to be put together in a hurry just to cope, was full to the gunnels for a very long time. We’ve only just got ourselves organised from it.”
“Didn’t the farmers object or take it to court?”
“As I said, every farmer for miles had been informed by recorded delivery that there were sheep that didn’t belong to us eating our grass. They were politely requested to remove any sheep that they owned or we would have to extract payment for the loss of the grazing. None attempted to remove any sheep and we heard that they assumed we would send them an invoice which they wouldn’t pay. We didn’t, for the law said we could recover our losses. It didn’t say how we had to do that. It left it up to us to do by any practical means. We recovered our losses in sheep. As I said the fences were repaired and then patrolled, so the local farmers couldn’t access the fell to see what was there in the lower elevation sections to where there is no direct line of sight from the outside. The Needles Fell tops are visible from a number of spots on the other side of the valley but only the tops. Due to the steepness of the valley the lower slopes and the valley bottom are not visible from over there. No one from round here is going to go to court to say anything if it means admitting to stealing grazing. They’d have had a gaol sentence handed down under any and every magistrate on the local bench and under any other within a hundred miles. No, we recovered our stolen grazing and that was that.”
“How many sheep were involved?”
“At the final reckoning the men estimated somewhere between ten and twelve thousand. The work was so intensive for so long that none had bothered to count them, for it’s no easy task to control a dozen or more dogs. They’d been too focussed on the job at hand to worry concerning exactly how many were in a flock of sheep they were driving down off the tops on very uncertain trails. After all they wanted every last sheep to end up in Vincent’s slaughter yard and none to be falling over cliff edges to just rot on unreachable ledges. We are not a wasteful folk. The shepherds had all of their children able to whistle and control their dogs helping and they all agreed as a result not a single sheep was lost.”
“What‽ Wasn’t twelve thousand sheep a bit excessive? What happened then?”
“Excessive? May be, but every blade of grass and all other greenery was gone and none knew if any of it would ever return. The shepherds said grazing there had always been poor and sparce, but going on for forty thousand acres of it was cropped clear down to the earth. The ground was brown everywhere as if a fire had burnt all vegetation off. Even the whins(3) had been reduced to bundles of dead looking sticks. It was impossible to estimate our losses, so we played safe and took all the sheep in exchange for all the grazing and the cost of replacing all the young trees. Most of the farmers whose sheep we slaughtered went bankrupt and we bought their farms at bankruptcy prices, plus a bit more than any else was prepared to pay, though there were few local farmers with the wherewithal to offer any price be it howsoever low. Many were having to use the same liquidator, so in a number instances we put job lot offers in on a so much per acre basis often for a few farms at a time sight unseen.(4) The liquidators were so glad to have found a buyer that covered all their clients losses and debts that they just said yes because it is their legal obligation to recover as much as they can in order to cover as much of the losses and debts as they can and usually it isn’t possible to cover anywhere near all of them and they end up in the unfortunate position of having to decide how to distribute what monies they could recover. They knew they wouldn’t find offers as good as ours and if we were messed about we would drop the offers because that’s what we always do. That we would drop any subsequent offer to a figure that wouldn’t cover the losses and debts they knew and since they would then be legally liable for the difference having already turned down a viable offer they accepted our first offers, which offered no surplus to be paid to the farmers going bankrupt, immediately. Those farmers that didn’t go bankrupt immediately eventually sold up and again we bought them out. At the end of it, all we lost was just a lot of bad neighbours.
“The shepherds with their dogs just kept bringing the sheep down off the fells to Vincent’s slaughter yard. Vincent and the slaughtermen just kept slaughtering and training the next generation of slaughterers, young women as well as men. The rest of us including the children just kept processing and preserving the meat and all the rest of the carcasses too, including the wool covered hides which were frozen till we had time to work out what to do with them. We’d completely covered our backs by staying scrupulously within the law, so there was nothing any could do about it. Enough time has gone by to ensure all the sheep are harvested, so it’s too late for any to do anything about it and nobody, shepherds nor slaughterers, actually bothered to count the sheep. Too, no magistrate would accept the word of a sharp farmer known for decades to have been a less than fair, if not to say a dishonest, dealer as to how many sheep he had lost. We decided to let the tale out a while back because it will make folk think twice before they try to put anything unpleasant over on us. The farmers who lost their sheep were all well known for sharp dealing and none of them were respected locally never mind liked, so no other had any sympathy for them. All our decent neighbours were glad to see the back of them, and the overwhelming majority of local magistrates are not just decent folk but sheep farmers too. Those who are not are not going to upset the rest of the bench. We deal straight with straight dealing folk. We deal hard and harshly with folk who try to cheat us. The truth is it pays to have good relationships with your neighbours who are decent folk and Bearthwaite folk do. I’ll have another please, Harriet, and a basket of bar nibbles to pass around too please.”
Lucy who had the village store asked, “They say confession is good for the soul, so what is it you two have bin surreptitiously skulking about doing these last few weeks?” The question was aimed at Christine who ran the preservation kitchens in the Auld Bobbin Mill and Jane who was a professor of chemistry over in the north east of the country and a long time local mother.
Christine laught and replied, “It’s all Harriet’s fault really. She started it all off with her wanting to grow carob trees so we didn’t have to buy in cocoa from outside.”
Harriet came into the room at that point with a large basket of bar nibbles from the kitchen and laughing she asked, “I heard my name mentioned, so just what is it that I’m guilty of this time?”
Christine replied, “Our work on the carob pod seeds to produce locust bean gum.”
Harriet laught again and said, “Well I don’t like seeing owt go to waste, and the pair of you picked the idea up quickly enough. Too, I wanted to write it all up as part of my masters degree.”
Christine nodded and continued, “Locust bean gum is known by many names, but it is an EU accepted food stabiliser with the code E410. It’s no relation to the African locust bean tree, nor to the shotgun of that designation, honest. All we knew initially was that it was made from the beans found in carob tree pods. Harriet had bought some carob pods complete with the beans, or maybe they’re seeds, earlier in the year and had started growing the trees from them for the pods to produce cocoa substitute, and we knew it was said that the trees were prolific pod producers by the time they reached maybe six years old, prolific as in tonnage, [a ton is 1000Kg or 2240 pounds], so that made it sensible to look into the matter because food stabilisers ain’t cheap and mostly we do without due to cost, but if we could produce our own on that sort of scale that would be a different matter. It proved to be impossible to obtain information, other than that of the most general sort with no details, concerning the processing of carob seeds to produce locust bean gum. We found out that once the pods and seeds or beans were separated, it was the pods that Harriet wanted to make cocoa substitute from, the beans needed to have their skins and the germ removed to leave the bulk which is the endosperm or the food store that nourishes the baby tree till it grows enough roots and then leaves to be able to feed itself. The germ is the bit that grows into the new plant. The germ is tiny compared with the endosperm and the skin is super thin but attached to the endosperm gey tight.
“The internet says commercially the skin is either eaten off the beans using sulphuric acid which also separates the germ from the endosperm or the beans are heat trett in a rotary oven which also removes the much more fragile germ along with the skin. In either case the more robust endosperm is separated from the germ and skin bits by sieving, prior to milling to produce locust bean gum flour, but no details could be found regarding acid strength, temperatures, times or owt else. There were also references to a process that dissolved the milled endosperm flour in hot water. In order for the flour to dissolve the water had to be above eighty five degrees [185℉]. The gum could then be precipitated with alcohol. The articles suggested it wasn’t a much used process due to cost, but that it produced a gey clear, light and pure product. We’ve got a distillery here, so I spoke to Jane first to see what she thought about the process because there were too many things that were referred to that made no sense to me and it seemed to my ignorant and ill informed mind that some of the steps could maybe just be missed out. Jane you want to take it from here for a bit?”
“Aye. I’m a professor of chemistry over on the east coast. This sort of thing isn’t my area of expertise, but it did seem to me that Christine was possibly right about leaving some of the steps out, because I couldn’t see why they were done either. The cost of the dissolving and precipitation process didn’t seem to matter from our point of view. We had access to cheap, pure enough alcohol, from Gustav, Harriet’s dad, and the cost of any drying and milling would come out of a Beebell account because we were doing something on behalf on the entire Bearthwaite population. So after not too much thought I devised a series of experiments to be followed that could be altered as each result came in taking us nearer to our goal. What we wanted were experiments with the carob seeds that would use simple familiar processes that only used cheap and readily available locally produced reagents and equipment. That was our goal. The most significant simplification to all we’d read was what Christine had pointed out, notably why does one need to remove the skin or the germ from the endosperm if it is going to be dissolved into the hot water when presumably neither skin nor germ dissolve and can therefore be filtered off. Too, if they do dissolve and can’t be filtered off, why does it matter since the bulk of the seed is the endosperm, so presumably the stabiliser would still work.
“Harriet had ordered a few twenty-five kilo sacks of Carob bean pods for herself to play with for the cocoa substitute, and she gave Christine the beans to play with. The first step was to dry the entire pods so the pods separated easily from the beans and so the beans, endosperm, skin and germ were dry enough so that they wouldn’t clog Phil’s millstones. The expert there is Greg Armstrong because he already does it with runner beans and broad beans, so we left that to him. With the pods and the seeds dried and separated, Phil milled the carob pods to flour for Harriet and the seeds to flour for us. Both milled easily and Phil produced a fine flour from the seeds that was easy for us to work with. We boiled up a twenty-five litre [5½ gallon, 7 US gal] pan with twelve and a half litres of water in it. We kept adding kilo lots of flour till it stopped dissolving at which point we added another few litres of boiling water which dissolved the excess flour. The remains, which were the seed skin and the germ that didn’t dissolve, were filtered off by pouring the hot solution through a super fine sieve and we were surprised by how much we filtered off. I was bothered wondering if industry didn’t do it that way because some residual content in the skin or the germ that did dissolve a bit would mess up the precipitation process or taste disgusting. I did some calculations, you could call them guesstimates if you like but they were better than nothing, and I reckoned the amount of sludge we filtered off was about right and there could only be a tiny amount of impurities in solution. Still the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The engineering folk are building a continuous centrifuge for us that will remove the last traces of owt that hasn’t dissolved. We sent the sludge to Greg Armstrong still damp for mixing into livestock feed pellets intended for pigs. He said he’d no idea what its nutritional value was, but the local kids’ pigs were happy enough to eat feed nuts containing it and he was happy to take the stuff in exchange for drying and separating the pods from the seeds.
“Everything we’d done had been done on a small scale, but all the processes had been chosen for their abilities to be easy to be scaled up, for there would probably be tons of the seeds available once the carob trees reached maturity. The engineers said they could easily build us a plant to handle tonnage using stainless steel sheet and all we had to do was ask. We were not in a hurry so we left the filtered endosperm solution outside to cool overnight. The seed endosperm, which was what produced the locust bean gum, started to significantly dissolve in hot water once it was above sixty degrees [140℉] but the closer the water was to boiling the more it dissolved and it did so quickly. The internet suggested eighty-five degrees [185℉], but we’ll go with boiling. The following morning we could see a large quantity of locust bean gum had precipitated out of the water as it had been allowed to cool naturally overnight. Græme Scott, one of the still masters lent us equipment to chill the solution down to near enough freezing. Aided by some ninety-five point six percent by volume ethyl alcohol(5) provided by the Græme we allowed the chilled solution to drop as much gum out as possible.
“The gum was filtered off and the alcohol was redistilled from the water for reüse by the distillery folk. It proved to be a far less difficult process than it had been feared would be the case, and most of my oh so careful plans had been a complete waste of time. Christine had essentially had it in a nutshell. You take your beans, dry them, mill them, dissolve them in hot water, filter off the residue for pig feed, chill the water, add cold alcohol and keep chilling, filter off the gum, dry it, remill it and recover the alcohol to use again. That’s it. From my point of view an interesting problem. We weighed the gum and when that was added to the weight of what we sent to Greg more than a hundred percent of the weight of the beans was accounted for due to the sludge being damp. Christine?”
“Now we know how to do it I daresay plenty of folk will be looking forward to us being able to grow our own cocoa substitute and the Peabody dairy workers and my staff in the kitchens at the Auld Bobbin Mill have any number of experiments in mind that involve using the locust bean gum, but all our experiments so far indicate that the gum produced by our method works and it works well with no discernable taste. I reckon we’ll all owe Harriet considerable thanks when all is done. Grant Peabody wants to try some in his tofu to improve the texture. Any locust bean gum surplus to requirements we’ll either sell or freeze. If the worst came to the worst we’d send it to Greg for mixing into feed nuts. Harriet?”
“Aye, the carob powder is fine as a substitute for cocoa. You need maybe half as much again for the same amount of taste, but it’s looking good for when we have a crop of our own. It’ll be a significant money saving. Once we’re producing in bulk, we’ll sell some at cost to Lucy and Dave’s store and the delivery vans can sell it too.”
“I heard you received rather more family than you asked for, Laila. How’s it going?”
“I wish I knew, Elle. I’d got between four and eight children in mind, but it wasn’t that I couldn’t choose rather that I couldn’t turn any down. Wellesley just waited. He knew what was going to happen, but typically of a man he said nothing to make it any easier for me. As soon as I said to Jess from NCSG that I’d take all fourteen he just smiled with that infuriating smile all men wear when they know that you know that they knew what was going to happen. Did I say that right or were there too many knows in there. Anyway you know what I mean. I do actually know everyone’s name now, but most of them are reluctant to call me Mum, though calling Wellesley Dad doesn’t seem to be such a big deal. I really am glad the older ones, especially the girls, help with the little ones. It’s all still a bit of a shock to all of us. It’s hard having to hear their tales of being hungry and cold and worse of being hit and hurt. Grayson the psychologist said they need to be able to talk about their past in order to put it behind them, but like I said it’s hard to listen to. Some of them just can’t get used to being able to eat when they are hungry, and I still have to tell them at meal times that they may eat what’s in front of them.
“Abbey says they are all malnourished and should be drinking a pint of full fat milk a day each, and eating as much fresh fruit and vegetables as I can persuade them to eat, which is fine, and like for every other parent here during the week the milk is delivered for us to the school, like it uest to be everywhere in the country before Thatcher the milk snatcher(6) did away with free school milk. At the weekend I keep it in the fridge and some of them regard the fridge as a safe that is there to lock up the valuables and that they not allowed to open it. I won’t get milk out of the fridge for them any more. I make them take it in turns to fetch the milk whilst another fetches the biscuits [US cookies]. It seems to be working because I’ve turned it into an obligatory task which somehow makes it easier for them. I think some of the older ones believe it’s all just a trick to make them feel worse when they eventually get dumped back onto the streets in Belfast. Grayson says that’s normal and to be expected, but it will wear off given time. He says the older the child the longer it will take. The older boys enjoy spending time with Wellesley and his friends down at the workshops and the older girls love helping in the kitchen. It worried me at first that the younger ones didn’t seem to know how to play, but that seems to have resolved itself as a result of them being dragged off to the playground on the village green by a load of kids their own ages that they met at school. To answer your question, Elle, I suppose the answer is as well as could be expected for all of us.”
In the taproom Stan asked, “How’s the HGV(7) training going, Harry?”
“Excellently, Stan, We’ve twenty-odd adults with recently acquired licences all doing the odd run to keep in practice and clock up hours. Many enjoy a longer run doing a two up with another driver. The cost is irrelevant and it meks for happier drivers doing what can be a miserably lonely job. The kids love it and were a great help driving the waggons on the farms during the harvest when they were loading up wi’ stuff to be teken elsewhere. It saved having an adult doing it. Most of those kids can reverse an artic(8) with a forty foot trailer round tight bends into a space with just a few inch spare on each side right up to and just kissing the rubber buffer on a loading bay. They can do the same wi’ a wagon and drag(9) too. Some of ’em will be coming up old enough to take the test soon, but I don’t have any worries. It was a damned good idea including the training as a lesson option for the older school kids. You can hear ’em testing each other on the theory in between lessons. What surprised most of us, was not only the number of straight A achieving kids that elected to do it, but over all it’s about fifty fifty lads and lasses which is good, but as I said surprising. Then again maybe it shouldn’t a bin a surprise and that was just auld values reasserting themselves. Whatever. If lasses want to learn to handle a big yan(10) we’re all glad enough to teach ’em and even gladder to let ’em help out for some coin(11) once they can do the job.”
Dave was itching to speak and many wondered what was coming. When it arrived it was more than a shock, for he was defending Diane Abbott a Labour Party politician he was known to loth. “Tell you there’s no hope for the Labour Party. They suspended Diane Abbott’s membership pending investigations into what some considered to be racist remarks and writings. She wrote a letter to the Observer responding to a piece in the Guardian, god alone knows why she didn’t write to the Guardian. The piece questioned the view that ‘racism only affects people of colour’. She stated, ‘Irish, Jewish and Traveller people undoubtedly experience prejudice which is similar to racism.’ She also stated. ‘It is true that many types of white people with points of difference, such as redheads, can experience this prejudice, but they are not all their lives subject to racism. In pre-civil rights America, Irish people, Jewish people and Travellers were not required to sit at the back of the bus. In apartheid South Africa, these groups were allowed to vote, and at the height of slavery, there were no white seeming people manacled on the slave ships.’ Now most of you know I loth the woman. I regard her as the most despicable politician we have at the moment, but the silly bitch then started grovelling and uttering abject apologies for her supposedly completely unacceptable remarks. Opprobrium was being heaped upon her head from all directions. From folk who were supposed to be her friends as well as from her enemies. But despite my personal revulsion for the woman, every word of what she said was the literal truth even if from my point of view it was all irrelevant to any contemporary topic worthy of discussion. If the Labour Party considers what she’d said to be despicable and scandalous, and many other similar words had been used, like I said there’s no bloody hope for them.
“From my point of view slavery, like the holocaust, was an appalling act that went on for years, but it occurred all over world and not just to black folk. They were stains, blots on the human copy book for which there is no excuse nor from which there is any escape, but it was committed by one section of one group of folk on one section of another group of folk. Who could claim that over all history there is a single group of folk who have had totally clean hands regarding committing obscenities and atrocities on any other group of folk. Who could really claim all black folk have totally clean hands? if you must, just look up Zulu history, or even that the Jews over their entire history do? and perhaps more to the point in terms of modern history that all Israelis have totally clean hands? Try reading a quality newspaper. Again much more to the point in terms of those two particularly dark pieces of human history, when both were taking place, my ancestors and more recent forbearers were being raped, hanged and starved to death by the Gershambes who owned this valley, and much more besides then, so slavery and the holocaust have fuck all to do with me.
“Aye, as recent as it was, during the holocaust dozens of our auld folk and children here were dying every winter from lack of food and from the cold. Many of us lost family members and neighbours every winter in those days, and I bitterly resent any suggestion that any of my money including my taxes should be used as reparation for acts that were committed by wealthy folk who were acting no better here than they were elsewhere when we were dying from starvation and hypothermia. Many of us here, including me, are aware of an ancestor hanged for poaching a coney to feed starving kids or being guilty of hiding a pretty daughter that some so called upper class bastard wanted to rape and then discard, but I no more than any other here see my life in terms of those events, so I suggest the likes of Diane Abbott grow up before they become guilty of genocide by killing the rest of us off using terminal boredom as the final solution. If there’re any here who disagree with me, fine. You’re entitled to hold an opinion and even should you wish to, to tell us about it. Like every other bugger here, I’ll even listen to you even if I do think you’re talking shite. Here we are all certainly guilty of defending the right to free speech, so you are not entitled to disagree with me for holding my views. To disagree with my views yes, to disagree with me for holding them no.
“That’s all I was doing. I was defending Diane Abbott’s right to hold her views, and I disagree with any who attacks her right to hold them. That’s called having free speech, and it means you have to defend someone’s right to express an opinion no matter how lothsome you believe that person to be or how lothsome you consider their views to be. I thought it was obvious that they were going to let her stand as a Labour candidate in the election in the end because she had a high profile and was too popular with her electorate to risk her standing as an independent and unlike Jeremy Corbyn,(12) who was equally popular with his constituents, she wasn’t off the left edge of the party heading into the regions of Trotsky and the like. Now we’re reading and hearing in the media about Smarmer(13) and his gang receiving bloody expensive gifts from wealthy Labour supporters being perfectly legal and he insists that there’s no reason to give them back or pay for them because its not illegal to accept them.
“I accept that because that’s what the law says, but when you accept those sorts of things and then hit some of the poorest members of our society by taking their winter fuel allowance off them saying it’s hard times and we all have to cut back there’s something seriously adrift there with your moral compass and you deserve all the shit that the public heap on your head. I accept that that doesn’t make them crooks, but despite their claims to commanding the moral high ground it does make them just like every other self seeking politician from anywhere in the world over all history, and as Bronn in Game of Thrones said ‘There’s no cure for being a cunt.’ Just in case there’re any of you who think that I’m being holier than thou in my views, even Bearthwaite can’t claim to have clean hands regarding oppression of folk. To our shame it’s nay so long since our bigotry and intolerance caused a decent lass, one of our own, to die from a broken heart and endless persecution. Her auld man, a decent Bearthwaite man committed suicide rather than face the relentless vitriol, and their lass who was a trans lass which was what started it all left for many years. I’m glad to say that she returned when she heard that our views had been changed. Mostly I suspect due to Sasha’s influence. She is now a farmer and a mother here and I am grateful that she is of a forgiving nature.”
Gee added, “That’s my missus Dave’s talking about and I’m gey glad he said what he did, but that’s no reason for complacency. The sort of attitudes that create all of the social climates that allow those sorts of behaviours to survive and even prevail are insidious and can creep up on you unawares. At the moment we’re facing all sorts of threats from outside, some physical some not, and that’s going to get worse. We have the right to defend ourselves from them all, but proportionately. That could mean if attacked badly enough it would be morally acceptable to kill, but mostly it would not. We need to be careful lest we become worse than those aggressors, for that is not an example any of us should be setting for our children. We need to constantly be considering what kind of a society we wish to be and it will change with time. Mostly I reckon we have it right, but like I said there is no room for complacency. We have a very old form of democracy here in the valley, certainly it goes back over a millennium, but it will become harder to implement as our influence increases in the county.”
“I reckon Gee had it in a nutshell, Lads. Get him a goodly glass of chemic because that must have hurt his head. For sure it would have hurt mine. What do you reckon, Sasha?”
Sasha only responded to Alf when the laughter had quietened and the glasses were refilled. “I agree, Alf. As our community grows outside the valley undoubtedly we’ll have to modify our decision making processes. I think this is the time to remind us all of a few hard facts. Unpleasant folk have died here in the last half century. Most obviously died due to their own hubris and stupidity and because we refused to help them, which I like the rest of us consider to be defensible and morally acceptable. I’ll expand on that for the benefit of the outsiders present. Most of those deaths occurred up on the fell tops in appalling weather. Those folk had been advised against going up there and had ignored the advice. They had chosen to ignore our folk who knew what they were talking about and our folk had refused to risk widowing and orphaning their dependents by going up there looking for them. The wind up there can pick a big heavy man up and drop him a mile away and several hundred feet lower, and after that the chances are he’ll be dead. Many of the bodies were found on the tops dead from exposure, three have never been found. However, a few instances were not so clear cut and active killing, possibly even murder as defined by the law outside our community, could have been the cause of death, though that was never a verdict returned by any crowner.(14) They preferred to hand down an open verdict. It is possible that those events, if not accidents, were undertaken by Bearthwaite citizens as act of beneficence on behalf of us all. Obviously they would never have spoken a word concerning the matter, but I should hasten to add that such acts should be a matter of the last resort.
Colin an outsider who had been a regular attender for years asked, “You think some of those incidents were murder, Sasha‽”
“I deliberately refrain from thinking about that, Colin. All I am saying is that killing someone should be a matter of the last resort. I am a Siberian Russian and doubtless my views concerning killing are much more liberal than yours.”
“That’s enough,” Pete said. “Sasha has made his views clear. I like the other Bearthwaite men here are grateful for his words, but enough has been said on the subject. Sasha, you want to say owt else. I thought you had something to say about the media coverage of the election?”
“Thanks, Pete. One of the things that pisses me off concerning the recent election, is when media reporters, including any number who work for the BBC,(15) reported that someone or some organisation including the Tory Party regards the election conceded defeat. One doesn’t concede defeat one concedes victory when one loses. To concede means to admit or agree that something is true after first denying or resisting it, or to surrender or yield. Folk who earn their living by using the language should at least be able to use it with precision. I spent decades of my life learning to use English of the highest quality when for me it was merely yet another a foreign language, and I refuse to respect folk like that for whom English is their native tongue. It bodes ill for education out there where kids are taught by folk who are considerably less well educated than the Oxbridge(16) graduates working for the BBC who speak totally inferior and inaccurate English. I was mightily happy when I heard that our teachers at the BEE started a discussion forum for teachers and any one else who wished to join in too focussing on quality English. I always read the minutes. Who’s for a pint?”
Once the organisation of supplying all with drink and everything that went with that had been accomplished Harry asked, “How’s the fibre optics going for you, Pat?”
“To be honest you can’t see any improvement, Harry. The kids that I’m training were bitterly disappointed when their instruments proved that it made little perceptible difference to computer performance as seen from a typical Bearthwaite end user’s point of view since all computer actions were already way faster than human reaction time on a keyboard. However, Saul tells me it provided a lot of employment for some of his demolition lads ploughing and digging slit trenches, and a few are working all over the country for the installation company. Most are working on a two months away one month at home contract which suits them if not their women folks. However, they only seem to do it till they get wed when the boot goes in and they have to come home, but we always seem to have another unwed lad to take their place.”
Harry laughed, but said, “It’s fair enough o’ the lasses to insist on having their auld man at home especially if they’re full o’ arms and legs(17) or dealing with his kids. More so if it’s both. If they are prepared to wed a lad and let him into their bed it’s only reasonable they should expect him to be around to help rear what after all is as much his family as hers, and it meks nay odds if he took up wi’ her when she already had the kids. We all know the score, when a bloke teks up wi’ a lass her kids become his as much as hers because that’s how being family works. If a bloke won’t tek heed o’ a lass under such conditions he’s got nowt to complain of if she ditches him in favour of a bloke that will look after her kids. The brass(18) is nowt to do wi’ it, for, for sure all o’ ’em ’ould rather have their auld man at home to keep ’em warm o’ a night wi’ less coin than have him working away whilst they gazed at and counted ower a pile o’ brass that they’ve nay need of. After all it does nowt te keep their kids, especially their lads, in order, and as we all know kids, lasses and lads both, need their dad as much as they need their mum to grow up right. Our womenfolk all appreciate the coin their man can earn, but it’s a goodly way down on their list o’ what matters. Their lads need a man to teach ’em properly how to be a man and their lasses need a dad to practice being a young woman on in safety.”
There was a loud murmur and many interjections expressing agreement from all over the taproom with Harry, for he’d stated what the Bearthwaite men knew was their womenfolk’s view on the matter of their men. Few of them could have expressed it as well, nor as concisely as he’d done, but all knew he’d stated the truth of it in a nutshell. The fathers there reckoned he’d said how it was for sure, but the fathers who’d taken on kids they’d not fathered themselves knew he’d said how it was for them too and were grateful that there was one of themselves who appreciated their situation and were even more grateful that there was one of themselves who could put into words their situation such that their peers could understand. It was rare that any expressed such situations from a male point of view. The Bearthwaite womenfolk’s view of loving and rearing children that they hadn’t given birth to was well appreciated amongst the Bearthwaite womenfolk, and to a lesser extent the Bearthwaite menfolk too, and was regarded as just part of being a woman, but for many of the Bearthwaite menfolk such situations were difficult to talk about and as such a source of potential deep embarrassment.
All that was well understood by most Bearthwaite men in the taproom, only some of the younger men, and a few of the boys were puzzled. The outsiders were not even aware that there was an issue that posed a puzzle, for in their world even after remarriage another bloke’s kids were his problem not theirs. Harry’s rarely expressed male view was not really a surprise to the Bearthwaite men, but it had made many of them consider that being prepared to take on the abused and neglected children in need of care, love and a home that Arathane and his rangers brought back to the valley from lives on the streets all over the British Isles as their own was something that with or without a wife they would be well advised to consider as decent act. That it would be a step towards their perceived regard as mature adults of their society was not even considered by them. Many realised fatherhood with or without a wife was something they considered, without understanding why, they wished. That fatherhood would make them far more attractive to women, whom some of them had never managed to interest, was to most completely inexplicable, but it would not be long before such men not only had children but a wife and a mother for those children too.
It was maybe just past nine o’clock when the tall well built man walked into the taproom from the rear of the building. He had a slight limp and used a light cane which though he used it effortlessly he obviously needed. His hair was entirely silver speckled gray and he was close shaven with no trace of a blue chin and looked to be somewhere between his middle fifties and middle sixties, though Sasha reckoned he could be ten years either side of that. Being the landlord Pete, as he always did, went to greet and shake hands with the newcomer. “Welcome to the taproom of the Green Dragon. I’m Pete Maxwell the landlord. I can thoroughly recommend a glass(19) of Bearthwaite Brown. It’s brewed just down the road on my son’s premises, or perhaps something lighter? An IPA perhaps? It’s brewed there too.”
Every man in the taproom was listening and watching as the man shook Pete’s hand and and in a tenor voice replied, “The brown sounds good. I’m Silvester Winstanley.”
Pete went behind the bar as the man nodded at a pump to confirm his desire for a glass of brown. As Pete pulled the pint the man put a tenner on the bar whilst Pete pulled a dozen or more pints, mostly brown ale. The many local men’s eyes on the man were puzzled, for he was not known to them yet he had an elusive familiarity. He’d spoken with a mild southern accent, south western if anything they recognised, but he clearly understood the local dialect much of which was usually incomprehensible to folk from as far south as he sounded to be. Too, whilst not a particularly common name Winstanley was not a rare one in the area which could perhaps explain his familiarity with the local dialect.
“You here for long?” Pete asked passing the stranger his change.
“I don’t know.”
Pete tried again, “On your own?”
“No. Patience my wife is next door with the women.” Few southerners understood the old fashioned northern Saturday evening custom of women drinking in the bestside whilst their menfolk drank in the taproom, so it was a surprise that this man clearly did. It was also noted that like all locals he’d not used the front door to the taproom. Silvester drank half his pint, but he seemed reluctant to talk, and to the surprise of the other men he’d offered no comment on the huge painting of the dragon around and above them, which was more or less a universal response of first timers to the taproom, so he was left to keep company at the bar with the other half of his glass. Eventually he drained his glass, put it on the bar without indicating he required another and walked to the far end of the room where all the elderly men always sat. He made eye contact with Alf. Every local in the room was stunned when he nervously said, “Hello, Dad. I’m sorry it’s been such a long time.”
Much to the surprise of all the local men and Silvester too Alf mildly said, “Me too, Son. Does your Mum know you’re here yet?”
Speaking much more calmly than before Silvester replied, “I don’t think so. Patience said she’d leave it all to me. I’ve a lot to say, but not here. The only important thing to me that needs said right now is that I did go to Cilly’s funeral. I was there with those outsiders that she’d worked with, but I wasn’t recognised by any and I didn’t let on to anyone I was there. I stayed with Granny Dahlman.”
The outsiders hadn’t realised that aught of importance had been said, and most of the Bearthwaite men in the taproom thought Alf hadn’t reacted to that, but the few who knew him well had noticed the easing of the tension in his shoulders. As a result they were glad that a decades old issue for him had just been resolved. Alf asked, “Where you staying the night?”
“I thought I’d book a room here.”
“Don’t be daft, Son. The pair of you stay with your mum and me. Stan, two glasses of Cyanobacta and a pair of pints please on my slate(20) whilst we go into the best side to introduce my daughter in law to her mum.”
Stan nodded and said, “I’ll start pulling pints for us all if someone deals with the coin and washes a few glasses. Dave, deal with some chemic if you would, Lad. I’ll tek a glass o’ Adio’s rum please.” As soon as the two men left the taproom the murmuring started, but the only word the outsiders could make out was Sylvia which made no sense to any of them.
Silvester followed Alf who went to the table where Ellen was sitting and said, “Your mum will appreciate a kiss, Silvester Lad.”
As Silvester reached for Ellen she said in shocked tones, “Sylv…estor, you’re back!” As her son kissed her cheek her tears fell, but she said, “I know your dad will tek you away to the tap, but please return to talk to me.”
Alf looked around and upon seeing several women he’d never laid eyes on before he fixed on a tall, slender, well dressed lass sitting uneasily with three local women. I presume you are my daughter, Patience?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“Just luck I guess, Lass. They’re staying with us, Love. Now there’s plenty of time for talk later, but we’ve a couple of glasses apiece in need of attention. Come on, Lad, this is no place for a bloke on a Saturday night. Folk ’ll start talking about us, and it’ll be supper time soon.”
After the two men had gone it was teary Ellen who said, “That was a shock. I didn’t expect Alf to be so accepting. I don’t understand how that came to be.”
Aggie said, “Aye. There’s only one thing would have kept him so calm, Lass. Your lad must have gone to Cecilia’s funeral. Think on there were some outsider men there from her work. I reckon Silvester must a bin amongst ’em. Did he attend the funeral, Patience?”
“He told me he did, but that was before we met. He’s never been willing to talk about it. He was seriously upset by the loss of his sister and it was clear that they were close.”
Ellen nodded and said, “They were gey close. How did he get to be using that stick, Love.”
“A drunken holiday maker stuck a knife in his knee. That was why he retired early on a medically enhanced full pension. I was relieved because the job was getting scarier every week that went by.”
“You were in the police too?”
“Yes. I was in the motorway traffic section. I’m a bit older than Silvester and when he retired I’d only six months to go, so I did the six months and retired. I could have done another five years, but enough was enough, and I retired in good health on a full pension which wouldn’t have been significantly more even if I’d done the full extra five years. Neither of us are anywhere near state pension age, but two full police pensions are more than enough for our needs.”
In the taproom, Brigitte announced, “Before I’m asked. Your supper is doing and will be ready in half an hour. It’s all in the warming ovens whilst we sort the pudding out. Except that is for the gravy which is simmering on the hob. I’ll be back in a minute with your cruets if you clear some space please. I’ll give you the details then.”
Dave laughed and said, “Simmering on the Hobb‽ That’s ower(21) the border in Northumberland ain’t it? Small spot no more than six hundred folk live there.”
Tommy Dowerson said, “Nah. You got that one mixed up, Dave. That’s Gravy on the Hobb you’re going on about ower in Northumberland. The Hobb river over there is nay mere than a beck. Simmering on the Hobb is on the outskirts of Ross on Wye away down country, Herefordshire way. Ross has about eleven thousand folk and t’other spot has maybe four. Just on the other side of Ross from Simmering is Custard on the Hobb where the custard boreholes are which strictly puts it into Wales. The Hobb is a big tributary, mostly in Wales, of the Wye which eventually runs into the Severn Estuary. There’re some odd town names down that way like Builth Wells and Symonds Yat. I only know because I did a postmasters’ course in Hereford a few years back.” There was just enough truth in Dave’s and Tommy’s ridiculous statements to cause some confusion in the newer outsiders, but considerable hilarity amongst the locals and regular attenders from outside. Inventing silly, often profanely coarse, place names and equally ridiculous personal names vaguely connected to the satirical comedies of Monty Python,(22) The Goons(23) and Much Binding in the Marsh(24) was an ongoing game they played often at each others’ expense. Their recently invented favourites were the villages of Shaver on the Motte, Hard on the Rod and Whacking on the Edge, the last of which came about as a result of a discussion concerning killing flies with a fly swatter. For some reason he wouldn’t explain Fluff in the Hinge was considered to be particularly amusing by Alf. They men had decided that there was a recent dearth of inappropriate personal names and they would have to try harder, but so far John Thomas(25) Driver and Jack Hammer were the best they had managed. They were currently working on a first name better than Percy to go with O’Toole.
When Brigitte returned Vincent asked, “How’s your hand now, Pet?” (26).
“It’s fine, Uncle Vincent. Thanks for asking. Uncle Sun said that because he’d got to it so quickly he’d been able to do a really good job on it. Most doctors would have used five or six stitches, eight at most. Uncle Sun used over two dozen using my own hair and a super fine needle to sew with. I don’t know how it works, but he sprayed the cut with something that numbed almost my entire hand and I never felt the stitching at all. I reckon I was really lucky. The hair just dissolved and you can barely see a scar now. See.” At that Brigitte shewed her hand to any who wished to see.
Dave said, “I reckon he’s not a bad bastard at all for a pill roller. For sure he knows his trade better than any I’ve ever come across before. I reckon we’re damned lucky to have him.”
A number of men who’d been hurt, mostly at work, agreed and Edward a local forester who’d hurt one of his feet badly some while before (27) said, “He certainly knows how to mek it so that you can at least handle the pain without losing it.”
Once it seemed that topic of conversation had run its course Harried said, “Gentlemen as promised I now have the time to give you the details of your supper. Oven cooked rib of sheep cooked on a grid over a tray to allow the excess fat to render out into the tray, that’s breasts of lamb and mutton cut between the ribs, so I’m sure you know where that came from, with Jeremy’s barbecue sauce warmed in bowls to dip the meat in. You’ll have plates for the rib bones and cartilage. Please use them because rib bones are not good for dogs because they splinter which will mek Hamilton the vet gey unhappy with you. We’ll sort the cartilage out which will feed the pigs later. As usual with finger food napkins and finger bowls of warm water will be provided, so please ensure there is enough room available on the tables for the bowls. The asparagus and long carrots will be served with melted butter in jugs placed just in front of the fire to keep it melted but behind the fire guards to keep it safe from the dogs. We’ve no idea what the asparagus are because they were from the farm that Beebell bought for Zvi, Alasdair and their coöperative, but Uncle Alf says they taste typically Dutch, so he reckons they’re probably one of Gijnlim’s ancestors that unlike Gijnlim isn’t an all male variety which is why some of the spears are finger thick, and others are a lot thinner. The thinner ones are from the female plants and the thicker spears are from the male plants.
“Sarah and Earnie who selt the farm said most asparagus is too tender to bottle well as it tends to go gey soft, but these froze so well that Christine is going to have her staff try bottling some the way some US cooks do next year. Only a few went soft due to the freezing and she had her folk use them in a cream of asparagus soup for the visitor centre restaurante. They say a half hour cooking period in the pressure canner is enough as long as all other procedures are adhered to. A number of the ladies expressed a preference for Hollandaise sauce rather than melted butter, so that is available too. Before any asks Hollandaise sauce is thick like a mayonnaise but based on butter rather than olive oil or any of the nut or cheaper vegetable oils available these days. If it’s a success Christine has said she’ll try other oils, so suggestions are more than welcome. I’ll bring some in for you to try and more will be available if desired, though we suspect most of you will say ‘To hell with the fancy foreign muck. What’s wrong wi’ top class Bearthwaite butter,’ but you’ll have the choice.
“The carrots are Long Autumn Exhibition which is a Bearthwaite heritage variety grown here for going on two centuries for shew. Uncle Alf telt me there’s a commercial variety with the same name, but these are our own. I’m telt in gey hard days gone by the prizes they won saved many a Bearthwaite body from starvation and our allotmenteers keep growing them not just because they are good and tasty carrots, but out of a sense of gratitude and debt to them too. The exhibitors can have them reach above four foot [1·2m] long when they grow them in specially prepared pots. These days our legal ladies have insisted that since we pay Council tax for a waste removal service that the council do not provide we’re entitled to have the wheelie bins that all else in the county receive whether we have our waste taken away or no. The Council refused saying we had no need of them, but the court decision said need or no we were paying for them, so they either had to provide us with four apiece the same as every other Council tax payer in our area was provided with or offer us a substantial reduction in our Council tax.
“At that they changed their minds gey quick, at which point we were delivered thousands of them, which are all used as gey deep growing pots. When the allotment folk telt the delivery drivers just to drop them all off in the one spot at the allotments and not to bother assembling them the drivers and their mates were so grateful they didn’t have to deliver to each dwelling and assemble them they just cleared their waggons and sent for four more waggons to be on the safe side that we’d received what we were entitled to. Uncle Johnto reckons we received at least twenty-five percent more than we should have done, but telt me they are not going to bother to count them. The allotment folk and a pile of kids spent an entire day drilling drainage holes in the bottom of them. Some of the exhibitors have another two foot of pot added on the top to get six foot [2m] deep pots for growing just a single carrot in. They had the idea from a Welsh exhibition grower from Anglesey called Medwyn Williams who uses wheelie bins. He has his own seed company these days that sells exhibition varieties according to Uncle Johnto.
“Murray said that since most folk here are on Council tax relief due to having an income below the threshold, so don’t pay any, in one way it would have made more sense to reduce our Council tax bills because it would have cost them next to nowt. Adalheidis and Annalísa opined that reducing our Council tax due to non provision of a service would set a precedent and the Council were probably afraid that that doing that would cause an avalanche of reduction applications throughout the county that the precedent would give them no grounds to reject. Many folk in the county have nay need of the four or even more(28) wheelie bins they have been provided with, but our offer of a fiver apiece to borrow one for the long term and we’ll collect cash on receipt has brought us thousands more. The Council are gey upset about it but there’s nowt they can do without solid evidence of a crime being committed which they haven’t got and aren’t going to get because no crime is being committed. After all who’s to say a bin in Bearthwaite where their binmen are not allowed to go is other than one we were allotted, and in any event renting or borrowing a bin is not a crime.
“Most of our carrot growers grow Long Autumn Exhibition to harvest in bulk some few weeks after the harvest of the early smaller carrots at a foot and a half [45cm] long, for they are gey tasty at that size. Iðunn and her glass blowers produce ten litre [2 gal, 10 US quarts] jars for bottling their like. They are a tapering conical carrot, so when half are canned upside down and half right way up a goodly load can be packed in a ten litre jar which meks life gey easy for those of us as have to serve ’em. Your baked potatoes as always are Picasso, again wi’ with melted butter, though this time herbed with parsley and hedgeherb(29) from the allotments and what the children collected. Your pudding is an experiment. We’ve seen on the internet any number of puddings similar to rice pudding based on different starchy bases. Sago, Tapioca and any number of different pastas, so we decided to do a bit of experimenting. Tonight’s pudding is based on a plump grained, mild wheat with ten percent rye for taste. As usual, we’ve added some local dried fruit including glacé citrus fruit peel. The butter and milk are from the Peabody dairy shorthorns and the sweetening is due to sugar syrup from local grown beet that you’ve had in rice pudding a few times before. There is honey and a few different fruit preserves to go with it. We like it, but want opinions as to how it could be improved.
It was Pete who started talking about the supper. “Well I have to say, Alf, those sheep ribs were abso bloody lutely excellent and Jeremy’s barbecue sauce was without doubt up to the ladies’ usual standard. The asparagus was delicious as was the carrot. That sauce was okay, but I suspect the effort that went into mekin it was wasted, certainly it was on me. It was every bit as good as melted butter wi’ a bit o’ extra salt, but nay better and I’d just as soon have butter and allow the kitchen lasses to save the effort. The baked spuds were excellent as Picasso always are. I enjoyed the parsley and herbs in the butter. Apart from the rye which does impart a different but enjoyable taste I couldn’t tell the pudding from the usual one made with rice. Sure it looks different, darker, but that’ll be mostly due to the rye, but other than the rye it doesn’t taste different to me. Of course made without rye may be it does taste different, but there’s only one way to find out and that’s by mekin it without rye. Having said that I’m well up for trying it. As usual the fruit preserves and honey were delicious, though I wouldn’t mind something wi’ a little less sweetener in it.”
Alf nodded and said, “Nowt to argue about with you there, Pete, and a sauce like as is used with meat would go okay with the pudding. I reckon the redcurrant or lingon sauce they serve wi’ venison would work a treat, or even one of the sharp crab apple sauces made wi’ a hedge fruit, haw, sloe, rowan or hips. They’d all work.” All that was subject to a round of murmured and grunted agreements and the discussion concerning supper being over the conversation moved on.
In the best side Elle said, “I love these sheep ribs cooked this way and it has to be one of the easiest ways of dealing with breasts of lamb and mutton I know of, and all the fat and drippings can be separated with some boiling water. The drippings can be used as stock and the fat in savoury pastry. I enjoyed the asparagus too much to bother with the carrots, delicious though they be. Even with only eating half a potato, any carrot would definitely have over faced me. A beautiful supper, Veronica, but far too much for me.” Any number of the women agreed before Elle continued, “I haven’t eaten Hollandaise sauce in years and that was superb. You were right to provide napkins and finger bowls. Goodness knows what children would have made of it. It’ll probably be best to cook it as an outside barbecue meal for them or you’d have a crowd of upset mums wanting your blood. That pudding was tasty but a little too strong due to the rye for me. I’d like to try it with no rye at all and then perhaps with a lesser amount of rye in it. Too, it was very sweet. I know you’re all still getting used to cooking with our own sugar syrup rather than bought in granulated sugar, so that’s not a criticism just an observation. All in all a very fine supper and I’d like to express my gratitude to you, Veronica, and all your assistants too. Thank you.” The other women there thought Elle had expressed their opinions well too, and by the time all the supper ware had been cleared the women had moved on to other topics of conversation.
After supper a number of the women, locals and outsiders alike, were complaining about bra shopping and bra sizing. Della Armstrong, a slender looking local farmer, said, “It’s ridiculous, because a given cup size is different on every bra size. That means to get the right fit you get into the nightmare of all that so called sister sizing. Go up a bra size and down a cup size, or go down a bra size and up a cup size, and the sister sizes theory says the three bras all have cups that are the same size and all three should fit. All ridiculously complicated, which wouldn’t be too bad if it actually worked. I’m nominally a thirty-four B, so according to the theory a thirty-two C or a thirty-six A will both fit. Usually I can’t find anything of any of the three sizes to fit till I’ve tried on dozens. In practice given ten bras all supposed to be the same size they’re all different. What it says on the label in any of them is actually meaningless, so it’s almost pointless any of them having a size on the label.”
Nicola, a generously proportioned outsider in her early thirties said, “I saw an advert on the internet that promised to get you the best fitting bra ever. It concluded with, ‘Bra problems? No problem. We’ve got your back!’ I can’t always fit into a forty-four G, and I’d much rather they had my front.” There was considerable laughter at that.
Veronica who wasn’t without a bosom said, “Two months since I spent all day trailing round Carlisle trying on bras with all four of my lasses and a couple of their cousins. What a waste of time. All the lasses managed to find something. I suspect it’s easier for slimmer and younger lasses, than it is for more mature lasses when everything is heading south. When they laught at me I telt them to just wait till they were my age and had fed a few bairns. I ended up coming home with nowt, so I’ll have to be doing it all over again trying elsewhere some time soon, probably Glasgow. I won’t buy bras off the internet because it’s even worse than shopping for them. You never know what you’re going to get off the internet. You can buy one of a given size that’s got enough room left over to fit a load of washing in as well and another that’s supposed to be the same size that you wouldn’t have been able to get into when you were twelve. I swear the manufacturers just do it to give you headaches and make you spend more money.
“Bra’s ain’t cheap, and I’m sure we all have at least one stuck at the back of a drawer that we don’t wear because it didn’t fit when it was new and it was too much hassle to tek it back, and that’s a gey easy way to go wasting a lot of money. I suppose we all should be grateful for the lasses that manage the previously worn clothing supplies in the Auld Bobbin Mill. At least giving stuff to them to distribute means the money’s not wasted, and it’s a reasonable way to keep kids that are growing like weeds in clothes that keep ’em decent. I swear when my lads hit their teenage growth spurt they were shewing an extra inch of leg below their trousers every month for nigh on to two years. I used to buy trousers that were way too long and separate the bottom foot of the side seams to turn them up on the inside so I could let them out as the lads grew. I didn’t mind the cost of feeding them, but it was a nightmare preparing enough food at meal times. At least two loaves of bread would disappear whilst they waited for mealtimes to come around. If I sent a couple of them to the mill for a dozen loaves at best only ten would arrive home because they’d have eaten the others whilst they were still warm on the way back. On days when most of the family were eating breakfast together six dozen eggs and a flitch(30) of bacon along side of two stone [12¾Kg, 28pounds ] of sausage just evaporated in less than a quarter of an hour, and gallons of milk just disappeared. We still keep milk in a twelve gallon stainless steel churn in the pantry because it hasn’t a hope of lasting long enough to go off. After a Sunday dinner there was just about enough left on the carcass of a ten kilo [twenty-two pound] turkey to mek a soup with, mind it’s just the same now. The lasses weren’t quite as bad as the lads, but once they started blossoming they went through clothes at a pretty alarming rate too. I swear some of them were visibly widening at the hips by the week for a while.”
After the chuckling ended, Jane said, “Aye well, Veronica, you’d the eight of them, four of each gey close together which along with all their cousins too doubtless made it seem worse, but there’re plenty of Bearthwaite mums in the same boat. At least at the farm you’ve a goodly number of women in the same house to provide aid when it all gets a bit much. But going back to this business about the totally erratic way bras are sized. It’s because going back to when bras were first produced every manufacturer had their own way of sizing them. As the industry grew from the nineteen thirties on they made some concessions to each other, but there never has been an accepted industry standard way of sizing bras. And that’s just in the UK. Just about every country in the world sizes bras differently, which is weird because most bras are manufactured in China or the far east these days. If China adopted a unified approach to bra sizing the problem would be solved, and it would be easy enough to do given a totally straightforward approach.”
“So what do you suggest, Jane?” asked an intrigued Aggie.
“From a manufacturers point of view bras have only two size variables, band size and cup size right? One is a length and the other a volume. You can forget any issues concerning imperial or metric because you can have both on the labels. The band size is easy to standardise. Just measure your chest around the ribcage immediately below your boobs. A lot of manufacturers specify that now, but by no means all do it that way and it’s not even half of them who do. The major issue is cup size which is boob size which is a volume. Most manufacturers base cup sizing on the difference between the chest measurement and what they refer to as the measurement around the fullest bust measurement. That is not a volume and for anyone affected by gravity at all, which is most of us who are out of our teens, even when wearing a bra that is a comfortable and good fit the fullest bust measurement is not an easy measure to determine. Without wearing a comfortable and good fitting bra it’s almost impossible even for someone else to measure it for you. However, bras could be specified in terms of band size and cup volume, again in cubic centimetres or cubic inches, both on the label. That way for example a 36/46 bra would have a thirty-six inch chest size and the forty-six refers to the cup volume in cubic inches. The label would also say 90/750 where ninety is the chest size in centimetres and seven fifty refers to the cup volume in cubic centimetres. So a 32/46 would have the same size cups as say a 42/46. I would have the equivalence of imperial and metric sizes to be a direct conversion which is as near as makes no odds one inch equals two point five centimetres. Currently the equivalent of a 36 UK bra is an 80 EU bra not a 90 due to the different ways they are sized. That is ridiculous because 36 inches is 90 centimetres not 80.”
“How would you know what size to buy without going for a fitting?”
“Either you go shopping and check your cup size in the shops or you could do it at home with a set of fabric cups, Alice. If you were able to buy a set of them each a different size it would be easy to measure yourself. Doubtless some one would produce a Youtube video shewing you how to make a set. Most of us have slightly different sized boobs. A few of us have a full cup difference and most of us change over the month. However, at the time of the month when you are fullest, just measure your chest just under your boobs and then find the cup that fits. In my case the tape measure would read about forty inches. So I’d find the cup that comfortably fits the larger breast, in my case that’s currently an E. According to the internet, average forty E bras have a cup volume of seventy two cubic inches which is eleven twenty-five cubic centimetres.(31) So I’d buy 40/72 bras or 100/1125 in metric which would probably be rounded off to a 100/1100. Currently the equivalent of a UK 40 is an EU 90, but 40 inches is 100 centimetres, and an EU 100 is the equivalent of a UK 44. Which at least is consistently ridiculous because ten centimetres is four inches. Like I do now I’d use an appropriate sized chicken fillet in the smaller side for the look of it, see?”
Jane stood up and indeed her bosom did look matched and none could tell which side had the chicken fillet. “The whole process should be far more aggravation free than bra shopping currently is. And just the idea of looking for a bra when accompanied by a husband is a complete no no. That’s my idea of hell, all that foot tapping and checking the time every few minute makes you want to cry and go home. With proper sizing the whole process would be easy, measure your chest, get your cups out, if you’ll pardon the phrase, identify your bigger boob, find a cup that’s too big and one that’s too small, check the one in between is right and you know what you’ll be shopping for. Then all you would need to do is find something in the style you’re after that you like the look of that you knew in advance would be at least a half way decent fit. I’m not saying every bra of that size would be a perfect fit, but at least you wouldn’t be wasting hours of your time trying on bras that were supposed to fit and were nothing like right. We could even make money here manufacturing and selling the fabric measuring cups. What was that phrase that those weird Zanussi adverts used years ago in the eighties to suggest their appliances came from a more developed technology in outer space somewhere? ‘The appliance of science.’ That’s what my idea is about. We’ve known how to measure just about owt for millennia, so why should boobs be so difficult? After all fifty percent of the population have them and that’s a lot of women wasting an awful lot of time looking for something that fits.”
Ellen chuckled and said, “My Alf measures stuff all the time, but I reckon he’d prefer to use what he calls the BSH. The British Standard Handful. Mind he does have big hands.” When the laughter settled Ellen asked, “What would you call these fabric cups if they were made here, Jane? Because I wouldn’t mind sewing some up if there were a few shillings(32) in it.”
“When you use them the process is, this one’s too big, this one’s too small and this one’s just right. There’s only one appropriate and obvious name. Goldilocks.”(33)
Amidst the chuckling Aggie said, “From Goldilocks and the three bears to Goldilocks and the perfect pair. I think after that I’ll try a glass of mother’s ruin.”(34)
As the men in the taproom settled down again Black Simon after almost draining his freshly filled glass asked, “Well they’ve put Trump in as president for a second time. I know what I think about that, but what has any else got to say?”
Alf replied, “Ye all knaw,(35) I said a lang time since that if they elected him again it would serve them right. He’s off his head and I reckon once he gets the wind under his tail he could mek Hitler look like a bloody social do gooder. Truth is, I don’t give a monkey’s what happens ower there because despite having a lot of good mates regarding engineering and growing stuff in the States and Canada too they will reap the rewards of their own wisdom and stupidity and it’s nowt to do wi’ me. Any civilised society would have assassinated the criminal bastard a long time ower. Not mind that the electorate had a decent candidate to vote for.”
“That’s a bit extreme, Alf,” a stranger said.”
“There’s nowt extreme about wanting to top(36) a convicted criminal lunatic intent on marginalising at best or executing at worst any who simply disagrees with his sociopathic view of himself. It seems to me that that’s all he’s interested in and the American people don’t matter a toss to him. Fact is if I were a Yank I’d contribute to a fund to pay a global level assassin to to take the idiot out. I’m not prepared to discuss the matter. If you don’t agree, fair enough. I’m happy enough to concede you have the right to hold that opinion, but if you aren’t happy to concede me the same right I’m willing to discuss the matter wi’ my fists out at the back.” The matter died then and there. Despite his age none of the outsiders were prepared to risk being beaten to a pulp by him.
Dave as always the master manipulator of mood in the taproom when things were getting tense said, “I read that Trump is seeking to hire several hundred UK doctors’ receptionists at a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. His intention is to put them at the border with Mexico. Seems he’s bin overheard to say, ‘They’ve no chance of getting in then.’ ” The laughter at that calmed the atmosphere considerably. All knew that getting past an NHS(37) doctor’s receptionist to actually be given an appointment virtually required an act of god.
Sasha sighed, and said, “Trump, Putin and Xi Jinping, the three most powerful men on the planet are all psychos. We need to watch our backs because I don’t reckon Smarmer or Badenough(38) are any better.”
In the taproom, an outsider said, “I’m Jason, and the talk of supper earlier on made me just remember something I’ve not thought about for decades. It’s only a snippet about me when I was a kid which just goes to show you how careful you have to be when telling kids anything. Years ago, Mum and Dad were moving house. Ours had bin selt but we couldn’t move in to the one we were buying for a few weeks, so we lived in some weird flat in Leeds near Dad’s new job where meals were provided. I’d a bin five at the time, maybe four. There was this lift thing [elevator] that ran on ropes. It was about a two foot cube, just big enough for some stacked food trays, and hot meals were delivered to the tenants from the kitchen in the basement in it on trays. I remember it had a bell to tell you when food was being delivered. Dad said it was called a dumb waiter. For years I believed the meals were loaded by a bloke who couldn’t speak and wore a waiters uniform in the kitchens.”
Quentin, a regular visitor from outside said, “ I was with Sue my missus in our local Spar shop early one evening maybe a week and a half ago. I came across a woven polyprope(39) bag that had bin slashed open on the end of an aisle. It was a twenty-five kilo [55 pound] bag of potatoes and from the heft of it it was full. There was no label, nor price tag, nor owt else on the bag at all which was probably why it had been ripped open. Probably a member of staff, had ripped it open to find out what was in it. It contained gey big this year’s new potatoes, Cyprus I reckoned from the red colour of the traces of soil on ’em. We weren’t needing spuds, but I fancied ’em, especially if the price were right, so I went looking for a member of staff. I found a lass who I knew had worked there for a while and explained the score and offered her six and a half quid prepared to haggle a bit. She knew nowt about them and said the manageress had gone off shift at two so she’d ring her at home. She went into the back. I could hear her half of the conversation and work out half of the rest from where I was near the frozen food freezers.
“She explained in detail what I’d said, including my offer which was not too unreasonable for a twenty-five kilo bag of decent spuds. The manageress had said they’d been delivered by accident and nobody knew who by and she’d work out what to do with them the day after. The bag had been ripped open so chances are whoever delivered them would want paying for them because they wouldn’t tek ’em back with a damaged bag. That would mean they’d have to find a set of scales because they don’t sell owt loose there, price ’em up and then find a shelf to sell ’em off, or tek six and a half quid off me and I’d have teken the problem out of the shop on my back. Tell you shops are all mental these days, and the staff just don’t seem to realise what the hell a job in retail is all about. One, if it’s fresh sell it at the going price if you can. Two, if it’s perishable sell it cheap to make way for the next lot coming in soon. Three, if it’s close to going off give it away to avoid having to pay for getting rid. It’s not difficult to get your head round.”
Alf said, “You got all that bang on, Quentin Lad. You sound like you’ve got some experience, then again maybe you just got your head on the right way round, which is getting rare these days.”
“The only experience I’ve got, Alf, is I used to work for Jerry a greengrocer on a market stall on Saturdays when I was a school lad. Every week I saw him knock a quarter off at lunch time, half off a half one, three-quarters off at half two and start giving stuff away away at twenty past going on half past three when the lasses wi’ out of work men and a pile of kids started shewing up. He knew the faces and if one of those lasses was a bit early they got his usual price because he knew they’d be back week after week to help him clear his stall. Stuff like spring greens, [US collards] in the afternoon he’d put as many bundles in a bag as it would tek and charge for one. Lasses who had kids with ’em he’d give the kids an apple apiece whether they needed shifting or no. But he never went home with owt that wouldn’t keep till Monday market, and he never had to pay to get rid of owt, and the same lasses kept coming back every week. One of ’em always came with her auld man just as Jerry was starting to pack up. Her auld man took owt as Jerry wanted gone, mostly for compost on his allotment, though Jerry always put some fair decent stuff to it. He always said he did better than most fresh fruit and veg lads because he knew his merchandise, his customers and how to play the game.
Colin a well known outsider said, “Spar shops are a bit weird. My local one sells pies. They don’t mek ’em, but I don’t know who does. I only buy ’em reduced when they’re maybe a quid fifteen which by my reckonings ain’t cheap but it’s okay. Their potato and butter or potato and meat ain’t exactly the best pies I’ve ever tasted, but they’re okay. When I go in, usually because I’ve only got a few bottles of chemic left and am after buying some more, I always look and if the price is right I clear ’em out of whatever they’ve got with a half price label on it. I buy ’em because it saves her indoors(40) a bit of effort and I’m not exactly a fussy eater. I’ll eat owt if it teks my hunger away and I’m glad of it if it’s halfway decent. And if it’s not much good it’ll at least be edible wi’ a tin o’ cheap beans along side of it.”
Amidst the laughter Alf said, “Well spoken, Colin Lad, you’re a lad after my own heart.”
All were surprised when Quentin grinned and said, “That was only the first half of the tale. Two days ago we were back in the Spar shop. Those bloody spuds were like a wobbly tooth when I was a kid. I just couldn’t leave it alone. There was a older lass I there that I vaguely knew to talk to. She was always helpful and pleasant, unlike some of the bits of kids that work in there, so I asked her about the spuds. I telt her what had happened and that I had to ask what had happened to them. She said, “We’re still falling over them in the back corridor.” She knew they’d been delivered in error and said there was a different manager on duty. She asked me if I would like her to mention it to him. Naturally I said I would. She was gone what seemed a long time but eventually came back with a bloke in his middle thirties who looked at the bag and saw it had been slashed open. He didn’t say so, but it was obvious he wanted rid. He hefted the bag and said, ‘There’s probably the equivalent of three of our normal sized bags in there. If I charge you for whatever three bags cost will that be okay?’ I just said it would be fine and he returned to his office leaving me with the lass. Like I said it was a twenty-five kilo [56 pound] bag. He obviously wasn’t too good at weighing up weights, if you’ll pardon the pun, and he didn’t know the prices of what he was selling. The ones I wanted were this years prime quality Cyprus potatoes with gey thin skins, far better than the last years ones being selt after being washed in their usual bags. Their normal bags were two and a half kilos [5½ pounds] which would tek ten not three to be the equivalent of the bag I wanted.
“The lass said there were two different types both in the same two and a half kilo bags and she’d charge me for three of whichever was the cheaper of the two. One was two pounds fifty and the other was two eighty, but both were last years spuds and had been washed. So I got me twenty-five kilos of first class spuds for seven fifty. Not long before I’d paid nearly nine quid for a twenty-five kilo bag of last years Wilja at Harrison’s in Wigton. As I said they were last years, had obviously been stored dirty in a clamp and then in a warehouse. Spuds keep better stored wi’ the soil on rather than washed. There were a bit shrivelled, probably from the warehouse storage, and the taste wasn’t as good as what you’d expect from Wilja which are a decent variety. They had dark soil on them and were a bugger to clean or peel. Sue soaked ’em in the sink over night for the following day. That way they took up some water and the skins plumped up a bit. She said they were easier to scrub and then peel that way, but it didn’t do owt for the taste. The Cyprus she didn’t bother peeling, she just washed ’em and we ate the skin too. First class taste and you didn’t notice the skin it was so thin. The lass in Spar was worried they were too dear, but I said the price was fine. She was gey glad to see the back of ’em because she’d tripped on the bag and near broke her neck a few days before. Seems she’d telt the manager who was the previous manageress’ boss that she was going to let it ride, but if one of the younger staff got hurt falling over the bag they’d definitely be looking for industrial injuries compensation. Whatever, I got what I wanted at a good price. Sue was amazed, but like as I telt her, ‘If you don’t ask, you don’t get.’ ”
“Is that it, Lads? Time for some serious chemic supping and dominoes?” Pete looked around and then asked his grandson, “Partner me, Peter? I’ll wipe the tables down if the rest of you sort the rest.”
Alf asked Silvester, “You play, Son?”
“I know the principles, Dad. But it’s not played in the south west much, or at least it wasn’t where I went. I haven’t played for years.”
“Time to learn properly then, Lad. Let’s see what we can do. Glass o’ chemic to be going on wi’?”
“Aye please.” Sylvester’s use of aye rather than yes was noticed by all the local men who realised he was back for good.
As usual the eight who regarded themselves as family were sitting drinking tea in the bestside after all others had left. Sasha started their discussion by saying, “I suppose the most significant event recently was the invasion. Has any discovered what they were after yet?”
Pete replied, “Harwell said they were just scum on a looting expedition. Their rifles were poor quality and they had bugger all ammunition. Their uniforms were poor quality army surplus and the rest of their gear was fake. He’s glad they came because it will keep the kids alert and it shews that our defences are working so far. The team from Darkfell scrambled gey rapidly and they sorted that van out in seconds rather than minutes. It used to worry me that we had some of our folk living outside the valley, but at least it prevents us being bottled up here under siege conditions. Bearthwaite folk as live outside can provide a means of dealing with invaders on the far side of The Rise, and inside folk can provide folk as live outside with reinforcements. What bothers me is if our outsiders are attacked when the lonning is flooded. Harwell already has a water cannon and large water tank fitted on the Bearthwaite Queen(41) and on the Skimmer Rise(42) and a cannon equipped tanker truck is available from one of our farms outside. He is considering where we can hide a large arms cache outside the valley for inside reinforcements to use if necessary. I’m not bothered any more as I’m sure they’ll come up with something. The van was registered to an address in Scumsville, some estate [hood] out Kendal way. We debated about asking the council to remove it, but Bertie and some of his staff want to strip the foam out to find out what’s in it. Seemingly Jane Wright has something that will breakdown and dissolve the foam. They’re on with that the now.”
Gustav asked, “Does anyone know what is likely to happen to those media folk that caused us all those problems? I know the case hasn’t been heard yet and some of the police are gey upset that their search warrant application was turned down. Is this going to create bad relationships with the police?”
Elle replied, “Michael thinks not. It seems someone gey senior, possibly even the chief constable herself, was annoyed that the search warrant was even applied for. The word is that it was considered to bring the force into disrepute. Most of the force take the view that the media got what was coming to them and they’d rather fall out with the media than with us who are also well thought of by the military. They know if the current social unrest gets worse, and despite most leave being cancelled they are currently already seriously undermanned, there will be military on the streets and that probably means the TA will be called out. That means at least some of Harwell’s staff will be out there armed and providing them with extra manpower. The media only ever make their lives harder and we are helpful and law abiding folk who have well reared and behaved children. Despite us having had issues with the force from time to time, the bobby on the beat(43) reckons all we’ve done is defend our rights when they’ve been under threat from over officious middle ranking coppers whom none of them got on with. They see us as being on their side. The video evidence is that the media folk started a brawl and that the disguised folk who sorted them out were said to be unidentifiable is considered to be irrelevant since most were sorted out by readily recognisable women and children. They know that at least some of us must have been able to identify them, but approved of our folk who claimed not to have seen any of them in order to protect them which they consider to be decent folk protecting decent folk from unprovoked assault.
“Rather than going for assault type charges, the prosecution are going to proceed on the basis of drunk and disorderly behaviour in a public house because they know they can make it stick. So it’ll be a heavy fine and bound over to keep the peace for twelve months in all probability. There is no evidence concerning their equipment nor their vehicles, so there is none to charge with criminal damage. Our six magistrates on the local bench have all recused themselves, but reckon that others on the bench will decide the equipment was damaged as a result of the media folks own stupidity and criminal behaviour. As to the burnt out vehicles, they were taken away by local vehicle recovery teams to the police pound and subject to stringent investigations. The police and fire brigade investigators said that there was no evidence that an accelerant like petrol [US gasoline] had been used, so it was possible that one had gone up and set the others off because they were parked gey close together. Unfortunately the lonning was flooded, so a fire engine could not access the village to extinguish the cars, so they just had to burn out leaving virtually no evidence of any sort. The fire brigade also added that without express permission they would never use the lonning. And naturally our fire fighters refused to use our fire engine.”
Gladys looked around to see if any had anything to add to the media folk incident. Seeing that was it she changed the subject to say, “I think none were more surprised by Silvester’s return than Ellen and Alf. I do believe Silvester and Patience will settle here. I hope so for their family’s sake. I’ll ask Michael to have a word with them. Maybe it’ll come better from another police officer. Changing the subject, you went round to Laila’s the other day and haven’t said owt about it, Harriet. We know she’s doing okay with her tribe, but how’s things going on with the other kids from Belfast? Did Arathane say owt when you were chatting with him?”
“They brought thirty-seven back, not all children. Their ages ranged from not quite four to twenty-three. Laila has the not quite four year old and his four older siblings. A number of them have suffered abuse from parents, the so called care system and from the clergy. Jym is settling down to investigating a major child abuse case. Grayson says all shew a degree of psychological damage as well as the physical damage attested to by Sun and Abbey, but in all cases it has dramatically lessened in a matter of days. Arathane believes that there must be more children out there, so he is going back next week taking mostly the same folk with him. I guess the answer is the kids are doing as well as we could expect which is a lot better than living on the streets. Grayson looked tired, Mum. Maybe he’d appreciate some more help.”
Gladys nodded and said, “I’ll speak to him.”
Brigitte said, “Before any asks, Ron and I and Jane and Gretchen went to the visitor centre to look at the salamanders in that vivarium. That glass tank that Uncle Alf made is some piece of work. Eleven tons the plaque says it weighs. The beasties are cute too. There were maybe thirty folk there, mostly young couples like us just spending time together, but as soon as they saw Jane and Gretchen they avoided us, so the entire plan is working so far. We don’t reckon that Jane needs to be seen more than once a week because the whispers do the trick.”
Peter added, “I wish I knew how long this triple thing has to go on for. I call it that because, one trans male, two fake female, three pretend lesbian. All it needs is the lesbian pretending to be Peter and I’ll have gone full circle and can just be me again. Anyway, the model railway is moving forward steadily and that small TV company that did the dragons report are coming to do one on the animated scenery. They know they can’t film the ring train because it isn’t finished and we don’t want them filming owt that’s less than perfect. They think there’re a lot of interesting things happening here that will keep them in work for a good while. They heard about Auntie Zvi and her asparagus and wanted to do a short piece on that till they heard about the coöperative she and Uncle Alasdair are part of. Now they want to do a full length piece on the entire coöperative with a view to reporting on any other land we acquire too. I doubt Uncle Murray and the heavy crew of accountants and solicitrices will be too happy about that, but that’s not my problem. They also want to do a piece on Ancient Alan and his life and Woodend Farm. The Cumberland pigs and the Furness sausage they reckon will be another full article.”
Sasha said, “You’re right about the heavy crew not being happy about too much information about our future land acquisitions leaking out because they are preparing for a major shopping session. We all know Ancient Alan has predicted an an even worse winter than the last bad one. Between them he and Joel said the experience of the last bad winter provided them with as much as they need to work out when something similar was going to happen. Alan was saying Yakutsk itself was going to see below minus a hundred [-148℉] this time and he reckoned north east Scotland may reach minus fifty [-58℉] with Bearthwaite reaching minus forty-five [-49℉]. That would put a lot of farmers out of business. Feed will be dear and land will be cheap. Murray telt me we have plenty of feed and even more money.”
Back at home, as Alf, Silvester and Patience sat down and Ellen poured their tea, Ellen said, “I’d like to know about the last forty years. I know I’m not entitled to pry, but I’m your mum and it’s what mums do, so I can’t help it. I’d like to know about your life too, Patience Love.”
Silvester said, “You start, Patience, whilst I get my head together.”
“There’s nothing to tell really. My entire family are a bunch of thieves and no goods. I left home at fourteen and a charity that helped kids like me got me a room and enough money to eat and be able to stay at school. I joined the police force at sixteen as a cadet, and studied a criminology and law degree with the OU [Open University], probably to prove to myself I wasn’t like the rest of my family. They’d have thought better of me if I’d messed about at school, got caught shoplifting regularly and pregnant at fourteen with no idea who the father was. I’ve never laid eyes on any of them since I left home. I did well with the police starting like everyone has to at the bottom. I eventually ended up with the high speed traffic unit and I spent a lot of my time on the M5 motorway. I had a few boyfriends over the years but none of them ever went anywhere. So I tried a few girlfriends and that didn’t work either. It’s iffy having a relationship with someone not in the police and almost as bad having a relationship with another copper.(44) Truth was I didn’t really care. I reckon I’d given up on relationships when I met Silvester who was a senior motorcyclist the same rank as I was, and that was different, but I’d no idea why. We were talking about it one evening probably about three months after we met when he told me he was trans. Like I said the relationship was different, but him being trans didn’t make a difference other than perhaps that it maybe made things work between us. That would be over twenty-five years ago. We celebrated our silver wedding anniversary earlier this year.
“I knew he wanted to go home, but he said this place would be difficult for him and it was better to just forget it. Then those two letters arrived and he was torn. In the end I said we had to give it a try and if things were bad they couldn’t be any worse than his early days in the force that he’d told me about. Now here we are. Isn’t that right,Love?” At that she kissed Sylvester’s cheek and smiled. She continued to say, “I know what I did for a living was sensible and necessary, but it’s hard being hated by every other police officer as well as the public. Traffic police are not popular even with other coppers. Then when that drunken holiday maker stuck a knife in Silvester’s knee and he had to take a medical early retirement I knew it was time to reëvaluate my own plans. Once I’d decided I wanted to get out I was relieved because the job was getting scarier every week that went by. I’m a bit older than Silvester and when he retired I had six months to go. I did my remaining six months and retired. Neither of us are anywhere near state pension age, but two full police pensions are more than enough for our needs. I’d had enough and wanted to live somewhere where I was just accepted as a woman, not as a police woman and certainly not as a female high speed traffic cop. We’re looking for a home away from the south west. If it could be here I’m okay with that, but Silvester will take some convincing.”
“Where are you from originally, Patience?”
“Berwick upon Tweed,(45) my maiden name is Dixon.(46) Granddad said the family had lived there for centuries, even before the days of the reivers(47) and that we originated in what is now Kirkcudbrightshire(48) in Scotland. So I’m no child of a talcum knackered southern jessie(49) which was what you were elliptically asking wasn’t it.” Patricia clearly not offended was smiling.
Alf grinned sheepishly and replied, “Aye. I suppose I was, Lass. I see you’ve not lost the northern bluntness. What about you, Lad? Just for the record I’d rather have my son living here and drinking in the Dragon wi’ me than my daughter living hundreds of miles away and never seeing her again. I’ve lived wi’ that for ower lang enough already. What’s gone is watter under the bridge, Lad, but I would like to know an outline of what happened to you.”
“Okay, but it’s a long tale and it’s been a long day for us, so that’s all it will be an outline. First, I’ve had dealings with Old Lewissa as is now Granny Dahlman, on and off since I left. Contact became easier for me once she moved to Darkfell Cottage. She was kind to me when I was little and it turned out she’d always known I wasn’t really a lass. How she knew I’ve no idea. I doubt if she knows either, so maybe what the other kids said when I was a kid too was right and she really is a witch with special powers, though I suspect they said that on account of her cat because totally black cats were unknown round here then. All the other black cats hereabouts had at least a splash of white on them somewhere. That the other kids said she was a witch was something she found to be really amusing. She still has a totally black cat, she’s had a few over the years. I don’t know where she gets them from, but they have all been called Puss, or at least I’ve never heard her refer to any of them differently.
“I joined the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary as soon as I left here. I interviewed as a man and told them that I was trans. They weren’t happy about it, but it would have seriously compromised their legal position if they’d turned me down for no valid reason and at the time they were undermanned which may or may not have had something to do with them accepting me. I am certain they tried to make me fail the initial training, but I wiped the floor with their self defence instructors and knocked spots off their motorcycle instructors. At that point it seemed that the legal folk said after my performances if they turned me down they’d have to pay so much compensation that I’d probably never have to work again. I asked for and was given a deferred entry so I could go abroad for some surgery and get a couple of courses under my belt before joining. I deliberately chose to work a long way away from here because Bearthwaite wasn’t a good spot for folk like me in those days and I didn’t want some loudmouth outing me in public when I was on duty.”
“Aye well, I mind even when you were a little lass you could fight well enough to hold your own against much bigger lads, and for sure you were a tearaway on those motorbikes you raced and scrambled up on the fells.” Alf smiled at the memories.
“Like Patience said, all start at the bottom, but it wasn’t long before folk forgot I was trans. Folk move on as they get promoted, new recruits never got to know and as I got promoted fewer and fewer folk knew and those that did know were either so senior that a breach of confidentiality of that order would cost them their jobs or they didn’t want to admit they were being constantly out performed by someone they considered to be a lass. Too, times moved on and it mattered less and less every year that went by. Mostly the pubic just don’t care any more. I kept in touch with Mum mostly by writing, but occasionally I’d ring withholding my number, mostly just because I wanted to hear her voice because I missed her, and you too, Dad. There were times when I’d have given anything to be taking a bollocking from you just to hear you shouting at me. But I knew that wasn’t ever going to happen because you and personal stuff on phones don’t mix. When Zoom came along it was good seeing Mum too, but it was a bit of a bitch practising make up. Thank god I’d got Patience by then.
“When Mum told me about Cilly I was gutted all over again because Old Lewissa had already told me. I knew none would recognise me dressed as a bloke, because the hormones had done a number on me. Sure I was never going to be as big as the bigger men in the family but I did bulk up a lot and I always was tall with a big frame to hang all those muscles on that spending time in the gym had given me. I went to the funeral and stood with a load of strangers who from their talk were outsiders who had worked with Cilly. I stayed at Old Lewissa’s that night and left for my flat in Exeter the following morning. I completely gave up on motorbikes when I left the force. I’m too old now and they’re too dangerous amongst modern traffic once your reactions start to slow down, and my leg doesn’t help. There’s little else to say about Patience and me because she said it all, or at any rate all I can think of. I’m sorry about the lies I told you about Sem. He never existed and was just someone I invented to protect myself from accidental discovery. Like Patience I’d tried for relationships with both girls and boys but none had lasted long. Most didn’t make it to a second date.
“I know you said things had changed here, but I remembered the bigotry, hatred and abuse that Linda and Robert Graham suffered because their lad Samuel turned out to be Samantha, and she got all that and a load more shit even worse. I heard Linda died from what Auntie Lewissa told me was a broken heart and then Robert committed suicide just after Samantha left. I don’t mind getting into a fight, but I wasn’t going to bother myself over that. What for? Even if I’d knocked every one of the idiots into next week so what? I’d still be leaving, possibly be in trouble with the law, so I’d have no job and probably broken knuckles to shew for it. No thanks. Far better to stay away. Auntie Lewissa said things were getting better here, but she couldn’t tell me exactly how, just that none were cold or hungry any more and the housing was a lot better. She also said there was a doctor and a dentist and a load of other medical folk and jobs for any who wanted one and that some kind of community organisation had bought up all the land and the Bearthwaite Water too. But she always was a bit not quite in the same world as the rest of us, and by the time she was getting on she wasn’t always making much sense. When she said Samantha had come home, was married to a decent bloke and had two young lasses from Ulverston who were tearaways and one of them had been a lad that made me wonder if the place really had changed, yet even after I read your second letter, Mum, I wouldn’t have come to visit if Patience hadn’t pushed me into it. Like she said, so here we are.”
“Alf walked over to a cupboard and retrieved four glasses and a bottle of high quality thirty year old Armagnac saying, “Don’t worry, Love, I’ll replace it.” He poured four generous measures and then after looking at the bottle emptied it into the glasses before placing it on its side. “First, like I said, we want you home. Both of you. Obviously I read your mum’s letters. I typed ’em because your mum’s not too good with a keyboard. I’m not saying I am, but I’m a bit better than she is. There was nowt in ’em that wasn’t true. Folk you went to school with are still asking after you. Auld Aggie had it all reckoned that you were a lad a few weeks since. The lasses talked about it one Saturday evening in the bestside of the Dragon, and it was Aggie who telt your mum to write the second letter. The lasses, many of who weren’t even born when you left all agreed with her because you are one of us, so how as(50) you dress and call yoursel. The word will have bin texted all round an hour or more ago that you’re a lad and are back. There’ll be god alone knows how many lads wilful to shek(51) your hand and lasses wilful to give you a kiss. Things have changed far more than Granny Dahlman will a bin able to tell you, and it’ll tek you a goodly while to catch up.”
Alf took a mighty taste of his Armagnac and poured what had collected in the bottle into his glass, “Not bad tackle this, Love. About fifty-five quid a bottle ain’t it? Whatever, I’ll get Pete to lay his hands on a case of a dozen for you. Second, you ain’t the only Bearthwaite lad, who started off as a lass. There must be half a dozen of you, but those are their tales to tell, for most don’t shout it around. However, one of them who doesn’t give a toss so who knows about it is that young lad as was pulling pints the night. He’s Peter, as was twin sister to Brigitte the lass that filled the dogs dishes and served supper with their mum, Harriet. Harriet adopted the pair of ’em from a hell down Mousehole way in Cornwall, your territory that ain’t it? Harriet was Bert’s son and he tret her so bad she lived on the streets of Manchester for a couple of years before she had the sense to contact Pete. Bert was Pete’s oldest brother, doubtless your remember that bastard.” Alf looked at Ellen and said, “And I ain’t apologising for the language, Love. Gladys who used to be a barmaid for Daniel, you’ll remember him, bought the Dragon after he died and she married Pete despite him being twenty years her elder. She’s always maintained that was because he was after her body not the inn. She always was a feisty lass and had a way wi’ words. She’s got a first in psychology that she did just by way of a hobby. Sorry, I was getting distracted a bit there. Gladys and Pete had a bad do with with their lass Delia and she ended up dead from an overdose in a bed at the Dragon after returning home just to cause trouble.”
Silvester interrupted and said, “I heard all about that, Dad, from Auntie Lewissa, and she sent me the local papers that had articles about it too.”
Alf nodded and said, “Well there’s nay need to go over that again is there. Any road long before that Gladys and Pete had adopted Harriet and Gladys had had Gloria. They were getting a bit worried about Harriet finding someone to mek her happy when Gustav, he’s Bavarian, walked through the door because he’d misunderstood a taxi driver from Maryport. No surprises there!(52) The two of them were seemingly interested in each other, but their relationship was gaan(53) nowhere till a drunken fool laid hands on Harriet in the Dragon when she was working. Gustav asked him and his mates to leave. The bloke was abusively insulting and took a swing at Gustav who wi’ a single punch put out his lights for the best part of an hour. It wasn’t a nice incident, but it put Harriet’s hand in Gustav’s. They have recently adopted another pair of six week old little lasses going by the names of Solveig and Þórfríðr. Gustav is the lad who owns and started the brewery and the distillery. He owns a large acreage of land too that the Peabodys farm cereals and hops on for his staff to turn into ale. They grow a load of sugar beet for him on his land too. God alone knows how many hundreds o’ folk work for him now, but he’ a decent bloke and as Pete gets older he’s gradually tekin the running of the Dragon over. Stephen whose missus Daphne painted the taproom is a massive bloke who usually wears a frock on a night out. They’re usually in the Dragon of a Saturday. I don’t know why they weren’t the night.
“Third, you’ve probably heard of Annalísa Þórsdóttir in the media. The lass who has translated all the new to the world yet ancient High Fell sǫgur from the shepherds’ and wallers’ tales. What you probably haven’t heard is she is one of us. A half Icelandic half Norwegian totally Bearthwaite solicitrix and saga translator that the fell shepherds and high wallers believe can walk on watter. She wed Bruce Younghusband, a Bearthwaite man, and they’re rearing kids from off the streets. There’s bin a lot about that in the media too recently. The kids here at the BEE, that’s the Bearthwaite Educational Establishment, are all learning High Fell now and our politicians, I’m sure you’ve heard about them in the media, are using that to gey successfully beat seven shades of it out of the establishment two party system liars, tossers and assorted crooks. The BEE enables our kids to achieve results second to none in the nation. Our local politicians are well on their way to taking total control of the entire auld Cumbria, which was Cumberland and Westmorland wi’ Furness as was in Lancashire and a bit of the West Riding(54) of Yorkshire too. Their intention is to have the entire area reëstablished as one unitary county authority with total control of itself which includes the special legislation that governs the Lake District National Park. Even the folk of the coastal towns, which have become little more than urban, working class ghettos where there’s nay work, relics of a bygone industrial wealth that came and went leaving little for ordinary folks’ long term benefits, are listening. The Tory Party(55) has never offered them owt and for a long time the Labour Party has only offered empty promises which time after time the folk as dwell there have seen broken. We promise them nowt other than the rewards of their own endeavours and the view from the street polls is ‘at least we know they can’t be lying to us.’ Criminality is slowly but steadily gaan down there as the residents are mekin their kids behave and dealing out a form of natural justice to the villains there.
“Finally, since you left, initially we got gey lucky with a few folk who came to live here. Notably Sasha Vetrov and his wife Elle. I’ll tell you what I know of his history another day. He is an internationally famous mathematician who as a result of his brains is probably a zillionaire(56) by now. Almost as a hobby he manages the investments for Beebell, the Bearthwaite coöperative, and we’ve a lot of money too, almost as much as Sasha. Money means nowt to him and he is a really good mate of mine. He has poured millions into Bearthwaite because it’s where he and his wife Elle wish to live and they wish their neighbours to be happy. Too, they regard Gladys and Pete who run the Green Dragon as their kids mostly because initially they didn’t want it to change as they enjoy the social environment there and Sasha said years ago that he’d go to war if a corporate brewery had tried to buy the spot. There’s no need for that now because he put the money up for the renovation and all the extensions and holds the mortgages, though they’re in the process of being transferred into Beebell’s trusteeship. What will tell you more about him than owt else is he restored his tumbled down ruined farmhouse himself and he brought his land back from nowt but weeds, whins and bracken trash using his own ideas and his own money. He is the most highly respected of Bearthwaite residents and Elle as a result of her input is no less highly regarded. They set up the initial Bearthwaite coöperative ventures that are now all incorporated into what is known as Beebell in order to buy up outsiders we wanted gone. Perhaps of most significance to you is it was Sasha who telt Pete to bring Harriet up from Manchester and adopt her as his daughter. I reckon that will do for the night, because there’s nay mere drink and tomorrow will do for the rest. I’m gey glad you’re home, Son.”
25676 words including footnotes
1 Gassed them up, term referring to filling a refrigeration system with the refrigerant gas.
2 White pudding, oatmeal pudding or mealy pudding in Scotland is a meat dish popular in the British Isles. White pudding is broadly similar to black pudding, but does not include blood. Modern recipes consist of suet or fat, oatmeal or barley, breadcrumbs and in some cases pork and pork liver, filled into a natural or cellulose sausage casing. Many modern receipts contain significant amounts of leek. Receipts in previous centuries included a wider range of ingredients.
3 Whin, gorse, Ulex europaeus, and other species too. An exceedingly prickly shrub.
4 Sight unseen, a phrase that means the land had not even been looked at before the offer was made.
5 95.6% BV Ethanol This is the highest concentration of ethanol you can get by distillation because 95.6% ethanol is an azeotrope, which means the vapour phase has the same ethanol to water ratio as the liquid phase.
6 Free school milk was a hugely contentious issue in the 1970s. ‘Thatcher the Milk Snatcher’ was commonly heard after she as the Secretary of State for Education at the time authorised the end to free school milk for children over seven in 1971. The Conservative government of the time was looking for ways to cut spending, so that they were able to honour the tax pledges they had made during the 1970 election.
7 HGV, Heavy Goods, Vehice.
8 Artic, articulated vehicle, eighteen wheeler with a fifth wheel coupling to the trailer.
9 Waggon and drag, a rigid waggon with a trailer.
10 To handle a big yan, literally to handle a big one, here the meaning is to drive an artic, an eighteen wheeler.
11 Coin, money.
12 Smarmer, a pejorative reference to Sir Keir Rodney Starmer the UK prime minister.
13 BBC, British Broadcasting Corporation, Britain’s state funded broadcaster.
14 Crowner, archaic usage of the modern word coroner. Also a medical examiner.
15 Oxbridge, Oxford and Cambridge the two highest regarded, academically and socially, universities in the UK.
16 Full o’ arms and legs. Full of arms and legs, a vernacular expression for being pregnant. It is only used by men.
17 Brass, dialectal money.
18 A glass in this context implies a pint, a 20 UK fluid ounce pint. 1¼ US pints.
19 On my slate, on my account. Such things historically were recorded upon a slate.
20 Beck, brook or stream.
21 Ower, dialectal over.
22 Look up Biggus Dickus in The Life of Brian on Youtube.
23 Look up Warrington Minge on Youtube. An old actors story by Peter Sellers.
24 Much Binding in the Marsh was a comedy show broadcast from 1944 to 1950 and 1951 to 1954 by BBC Radio and in 1950–1951 by Radio Luxembourg. The shew drew on the name of a real RAF station at Moreton in the Marsh, Gloucestershire, along with the word binding, Air Force slang for grumbling or complaining. It was pictured as a desolate, decrepit aerodrome with a single hangar, a solitary aeroplane, Cabbage White Mark II, that never got off the ground and crude outdoor ablutions.
25 In some parts of the UK John Thomas is a euphemism for penis.
26 See GOM 61.
27 See GOM 43.
28 Many councils in the UK provide four wheelie bins as well as plastic boxes and black bin liners for residents to separate their refuse into. Typically the four large bins are for general household waste, compostable garden waste, cardboard and paper, and the fourth for metals, recyclable plastics and glass, though many provide containers to separate them. There have been complaints recently that some councils are being ridiculous in providing each household with nine wheelie bins.
29 Hedgeherb, a mixture of tasty wild plants that varies according to availability and the time of year.
30 A side of bacon is referred to as a flitch.
31 29 72 x 2·5^3 = 1125. 72 x 2·53 = 1125. There are 2·5 cubed (2·5 x 2·5 x 2·5) cubic centimetres in a cubic inch which is 15·625.
32 Shillings a pre decimal unit of currency equivalent to 5p, 7 US cents.
33 Goldilocks and the three bears is a 19th Century children’s færie tale concerning a young, naive, blonde haired girl named Goldilocks who lost in the forest discovers an empty cottage inhabited by Daddy Bear, Mummy Bear and Baby Bear. The story makes extensive use of the literary rule of three, featuring three chairs of differing sizes, three bowls of porridge of differing temperatures and three beds of differing firmnesses. There are also three sequences of the bears discovering in turn that someone has been sitting in their chairs, eating from their porridge, and finally, lying in their beds, at which point the climax of Goldilocks being discovered occurs. This follows three earlier sequences of Goldilocks trying the chairs, the bowls of porridge and the beds successively, each time finding the third just right. In each case the first is wrong in one way, the second wrong in the opposite way, and only the third, in the middle, is just right.
34 Mother’s ruin, gin.
35 Knaw, dialectal know. Not often used.
36 Top, dialectal kill.
37 NHS, the National Health Service.
38 Smarmer or Badenough, pejorative references to Keir Starmer current UK prime minister (Labour party ) and Kemi Badenoch current leader of the opposition (Conservative party).
39 Polyprope, polypropylene.
40 Her indoors, a man’s wife.
41 The Bearthwaite Queen is the large covered boat used to cross the flood water on the lonning, see GOM 37.
42 The Skimmer Rise is the large Bearthwaite hovercraft, see GOM 47.
43 Bobby on the beat. Robert Peel was the UK prime minister who started the police force. Bobbies became a term used to this day for police officers because Bobby is a nickname for Robert.
44 Copper, a police officer. The most likely explanation is that it comes from the verb to cop meaning to seize, capture, or snatch, dating from just over a century earlier.
45 Berwick-upon-Tweed, sometimes known as Berwick-on-Tweed or simply Berwick, is a town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, 2½ miles [4km] south of the Anglo-Scottish border, and the northernmost town in England.
46 Dixon is one the surnames associated with the border reivers.
47 The border reivers were lawless raiders along the Anglo Scottish border from the late 13th century to the beginning of the 17th century. They included both Scottish and English persons, and they raided the entire border country without regard to their victims’ nationality.
48 Kirkcudbrightshire, pronunciation kur coo bree shuh (IPA kɜ:rˈku:briʃər) or the County of Kirkcudbright or the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright is one of the historic counties of Scotland, covering an area in the south-west of the country.
49 Talcum knackered southern jessies. A commonly used pejorative expression of contempt used in northern England to describe southerners. Talcum knackered refers to talcum powder on the testicles, a derisory assumption of effeminacy. The word jessie is also used as a noun to refer to an effeminate male.
50 So how as, dialectal no matter how.
51 Shek, dialectal shake.
52 The Maryport dialect is very strong and even many other Cumbrians can’t understand it.
53 Gaan, pronounced gar in, also gaar n, dialectal going. Also used is gang, as in Outgang road in Aspatria, the road that is going out of town.
54 The subdivision of Yorkshire into three ridings or thirds (Old Norse: Þriðungr) is of Scandinavian origin. Yorkshire was originally, pre 1974 county reorganisation, the largest county in England and was administratively divided into three ridings, East, West and North. It is only since then that South Yorkshire has existed as a concept.
55 Tory Party, long used name for the Conservative part.
56 Zillionaire, an imaginary word implying fabulously wealthy.
Comments
I'm always amazed with the chapters
I't's almost as good as being there (minus the chemic).
I'm Not Getting...
...Sasha's point about "conceding defeat". Conceding that someone else has won is conceding that you've been defeated.
I'd always found the whole concept sort of strange; every once in a while a candidate who concedes after eighty percent of the vote has been counted comes back to win, and the concession is considered irrelevant, as it should be. (Not accepting an election result is, of course, an entirely different issue.)
Eric
(Four- to six-foot long carrots sound like the punchline to a joke, but I haven't come up with anything better than "how do you trap a 20-foot tall rabbit"?)