A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 63 Ever Colder
Unlike the last bad winter, now referred to by the media as the Heller of all Hellers, usually in block capitals, this coming winter had not been preceded by an Indian summer, although up and down and all across the entire British Isles the haymaking(1) season had produced a spectacularly heavy, high quality crop which had been easy to make and lead in(2) due to an absence of late season rain and bone dry, stiff, cool even if verging on cold, drying winds that had made responsible parents only allow their younger offspring out of the house in the company of their older siblings. Bearthwaite youngsters didn’t mind for if they became bored they could always spend the time giggling at their older siblings trying to pretend they weren’t sneaking kisses, or even more, with their amorous interests. The youngsters never said anything about it to the adults, for they’d realised long ago that the adults already knew all about such behaviour. Bearthwaite parents were happy to admit that they had been much that way themselves at that age and embarrassed any youngsters they considered to be telling tales out of school(3) by making them squirm concerning their crushes and undoubted future behaviours.
At Bearthwaite there were many small fields and a lot of woodland that was left untouched due to the shelter it provided livestock. All the hedges had standard trees at regular intervals left for just that purpose, for a tree provided shelter for up to five times its height from the wind, but the trees were a mixed blessing in most years. However, this summer the wind and the lack of rain meant all such fields had been baled bone dry and led in as hay. The grass grown on most of the smaller fields edged by woodlands or surrounded by hedges with standard trees in them had since the advent of haylage(4) producing machinery becoming available to agricultural contractors, about forty years ago, usually been wilted and dried as much as possible, by both machine and folk with hay forks, before the arrival of a spell(5) of rain of sufficient duration to spoil the crop. Typically then still somewhat green and heavy the grass had been baled and finally plastic wrapped as haylage. Even larger fields that bordered woodland had usually had the grass crop down the edge of the field alongside the woodland wrapped as haylage. Likewise many larger fields had their outer edges that were protected from the wind by the trees in the hedges wrapped. Given a choice, hay was made rather than haylage because ton for ton by dry weight, despite its somewhat lower nutritional value, it was a much cheaper product to make and in the early days of haylage production plastic wrapping was a very expensive insurance policy to ensure the survival of farming families, and the cost involved left little over to live on. In those years many Bearthwaite farmers and their families when possible worked elsewhere outside the valley for enough money to feed them all.
Bearthwaite, being in the north west of England, was in what was considered to be a high rainfall area.(6) Initially, in the middle nineteen eighties, haylage was only produced because the extra effort involved in drying the grass to make hay, which didn’t always pay off, for in the past hay crops had regularly been lost to rot caused by repeated rain and drying cycles, was a worse proposition than working elsewhere to pay the contractors to bale and wrap the haylage, which then at least enabled them to raise enough stock to just about eke out a living and to survive. Eventually by the middle nineties as haylage making became more commonplace throughout the UK second hand equipment appeared on the market and the Bearthwaite farmers managed to coöperatively buy their own second hand haylage baling, wrapping and handling equipment and they worked the entire valley haylage crop as a communal endeavour. Their earliest equipment had been considered to be beyond repair having been through a farm implement shed fire and was bought for little more than scrap metal price. However, Jim Winstanley, Alf’s father, though not the mechanical genius his son would prove to be was a highly talented man, and between them the father and son enabled the first Bearthwaite haylage equipment to arise like a phœnix from the ashes of the building that had been considered to be its funeral pyre. Bearthwaite folk had always looked after each other, but that was the beginnings of what decades later would with aid evolve to eventually become Beebell, the Bearthwaite economic coöperative.
None of the Bearthwaite farmers had ever made clamped silage. Historically that was because there was a large, initial capital and labour cost involved in building silage clamps where the product would be produced and there was a heavy investment in equipment that would cut the grass fine enough to ferment into a quality feed product and then transport it to the clamps. Too, the additives(7) used to ensure an environment of appropriate pH(8) in the silage to ensure proper fermentation and others to ensure no spoilage were expensive. In the days when the locals neither owned the land they farmed nor had secure tenancies on it Bearthwaite farmers were unwilling to invest their time and what little money they had into building silage clamps that the Gershambes, their landlord, could profiteer from by the simple expedient of making them homeless and renting the land and farmhouses to other tenants who would be prepared to pay higher rents due to the availability of the clamps. In the days of the Gershambes, the residents had made hay when possible and facing hunger watched it rot in the fields when not. Once legislation came in giving the residents secure tenancies producing clamped silage was debated again, but it was considered to be too labour, equipment and additive intensive, in other words it was not considered to be economically worthwhile and it was too great a risk for a community barely getting by as it was to take.
Most Bearthwaite folk had always earnt their living at least part time from the agricultural activities within the valley, and by the arrival of their secured tenancies they were living much better as a result of a number of improvements in their lives, most of which were to do with better communal coöperation rather than improvements in farming practices. It was at that time that some new folk, outsiders, moved to the Bearthwaite valley to live. Some, those who enjoyed living at Bearthwaite who helped their neighbours towards a higher standard of living, were welcomed and rapidly became considered to be locals. Others, however, considered the locals to be a lesser form of life and didn’t seem to like anything about the valley. The locals wondered why they had moved to Bearthwaite and it would prove to be a few decades before the problems they represented were finally dealt with. The Challacombes had bought the estate when the last direct descendant of the Gershambes had died in nineteen sixty-four. During the time when the Challacombes had owned the valley little had changed other than the outsiders moving to the valley. The biggest single change was when with Sasha Vetrov’s help the residents of Bearthwaite bought the estate from the Challacombe family on what at the time was a unique type of mortgage starting in nineteen eighty-four. It would be many decades before Bearthwaite residents learnt that Sasha had stood as a guarantor for the entire loan.
It was a few years after the purchase of the Bearthwaite valley by the valley’s residents that haylage making became at all common place in the UK and agricultural contractors with the appropriate equipment made it a just about viable concern for Bearthwaite farmers who then focussed their attention on making haylage when necessary but hay whenever they could. Clamped silage making was considered yet again, but again was dismissed for many of the same reasons it had been dismissed before. Ancient Alan Peabody, who wasn’t even remotely auld in those days never mind ancient, had summed it up when he’d said, “Sillage mekin in a clamp is for folk who squeeze every last drop of profit out of the land and what grows on it and out of their stock too. It systematically impoverishes the soil because it puts nowt back into it other than bag muck(9) chemicals that eventually leach out into the beck and that does harm to all that lives in it, plants and animals both. The work involved meks a man auld before his time and just puts coin(10) in the pockets of the bag muck manufacturers. The stinking liquid, leachate they call it, as runs out of clamped silage and gets into watter courses is even deadlier to all as lives in the watter than the surplus bag muck.
“We’ve never lived like that and I don’t want to. I’m a farmer, not a bloody wage slave working for an outdoor grass factory. I have a family that I want to have time enough left ower from working to enjoy spending some time wi’ ’em. Kids need a dad as well as a mum, lasses as well as lads. Presumably one o’ the reasons folks get wed is to rear kids and if you’re not prepared to do a proper job on it why did you bother? Too, if a man doesn’t spend any time wi’ his missus what the hell did he marry her for because it ’ould a bin a sight cheaper te gang te(11) Carlisle, Maryport, Workington or Whitehaven and renting a woman from one o’ the pubs. Gods alone knows there’re enough o’ ’em at cheap enough prices. If you’re a bit choosy and prepared to pay a bit more you could always try Keswick, Cockermouth or even Penrith where you’d find a better class o’ whooer.(12) Mind, in times gone by there’s many a Bearthwaite man as went to one o’ those spots and found hisel a likely younger lass and brought her back to rear a family wi’. Not all whooers are sluts, many on ’em are just desperate, may be dumped by some arsehole and left wi’ kids te feed or even full o’ arms and legs(13) as well. Decent women ’ll do owt to put food in their kids bellies. I learnt a long time since not to judge folk because you never get to find out all the circumstances. And think on, the gods alone know how many o’ us are alive because one of our female ancestors earnt a few shillings(14) to feed her kids wi’ from time to time from the pack pony men down at the Dragon.
“Even when we had nowt we had enough to share with those who had even less. Thanks to Sasha and others, and to those of us who listened to ’em and heeded their advice too, we’re doing a sight better than just okay and better things are in sight too. We all enjoy watching the changing of the seasons and being a part of the wildlife we live wi’. Why should we wish to change that? Let’s put our efforts into maintaining and improving what we have, what we now own. The dwellings, the buildings and stock shelters, the hedges, the fields, the fjälls and the drystun walls, are all in need of a fair fettling. Let’s do the things that mek our lives better, and I suggest we start wi’ whatever improves life most first. The last of the Gershambes deed(15) in sixty-four and the loss o’ that bloodline was a positive improvement to human genetics. Now we’ve bought the Challacombes out and we own our own spots, so let’s mek damned certain we never lose ’em. Sasha’s right the most important thing we need to do is work out how to get rid of the city fools who want to turn this spot into where they came from.”
The fields surrounded by woodlands suffered from shadows that fell on to the grass for significant portions of the day and the trees prevented the wind from drying the grass as effectively as it did elsewhere, fields that due to the lack of direct sun and wind in days of yore usually took a lot more time and effort to dry sufficiently well to make hay that didn’t mould, often the cycle of partially dried grass being rained on yet again rotted the grass before it ever became dry enough to lead in as hay. Even in better than usual years the outer edges of such fields had long been made as haylage and only the grass in the field centres where there was more sun and wind to dry the grass was hay made. However, many of Bearthwaite’s smaller fields were so small that even the grass in their centres hadn’t been hay made for decades. There were many Bearthwaite folk of retirement age who couldn’t remember back to when such grass had last been led in as hay. The early season rain, which had arrived in just the right amount when the grass was growing most vigorously due to an extended period of warmth and sunshine, had produced a country wide, bountiful crop of high quality hay that had then seen no rain from a week before being mowed dry and green to fall onto bone dry ground. The cut grass and the hay it became hadn’t even had a heavy overnight dew on it resulting in the hay being made very rapidly, prior to being baled and led in to wherever it was intended to be stored safely under cover. The super abundance of fresh hay despite its high quality had naturally depressed prices which some folk who grew hay but didn’t keep livestock were complaining about.
Young Alan Peabody had once explained in the Green Dragon, “Those folk as are complaining about the hay prices mek their best money in years of poor harvest by mekin sure of a small semi decent crop, even if they bale it as hay too soon for safety or wrap it as haylage.(16) They don’t care about the quality and would rather have to deal with a low tonnage crop that sells for ridiculously high prices due to scarcity. It’s more cash for less work. Many of them have huge air blower fans connected to the PTO(17) of a big tractor to dry the hay in their hay sheds and keep it cool enough so it doesn’t set afire. Wrapped haylage bales they leave in the fields where the machine dropped ’em till a buyer appears. After that the bales are some one else’s problem, but in the meantime the heat of the fermenting grass keeps dissipating into the air. It teks may be three weeks and then they start cooling. Only then do they stack ’em up all together in the fields ready for convenient loading.” Many hay growers had produced far more than they could safely store in the dry to await the colder weather when prices always went up, so huge quantities were sold straight off the fields which were dry enough to support the weight of loaded waggons and their trailers, and even the few waggons that became stuck were easy enough to pull off the fields on to solid ground with a big tractor.
As a result Murray’s team of Bearthwaite feedstuffs buyers had been kept busy working mostly within a couple of hundred miles of the valley, but also from within twice that distance, buying up vast quantities of cheap but high quality hay directly off the fields which had been loaded straight onto forty foot artic [18 wheeler] trailers for delivery to barns at Bearthwaite and its surroundings. Because the quality and the price had been right so much had been bought that some had been stored in the huge open sided building in the Auld Quarry and the last few loads had had to be stacked on pallets under waggon sheets on dry spots in the fields. From the back end of August the air had stayed bone dry and had become gradually colder, and colder, and ever colder, and then just by way of a change it became even colder whilst the breeze had dropped to a flat calm in time for the equinox barbecue party on the village green, on the twenty-second of September this time rather than the twenty-third(18) as occurred from time to time.
Ever the seekers of doom and gloom, it hadn’t taken long before the media had started hyping up concerns about water shortages in the south of the country. On becoming aware of the media’s latest panic offering Bearthwaite folk shrugged their shoulders because in their view some things, including media generated water scarcity scares, never changed and for sure Bearthwaite wouldn’t run short of water. Yet again, there was media speculation concerning the renationalisation of the water companies whose major shareholders were companies that were based abroad. However, that was considered to be just the media rehashing old tales rather than news, for as news it was decades rather than years old. Every time in the last half century there had been the slightest hint of a shortage in the water supply falling from the sky they had reminded the public that a significant proportion of the water supply pipework was Victorian engineering, and a huge proportion of the water that entered those pipes was lost to massive leaks before it arrived at it’s supposed destinations.
The Victorian pipework was cast iron which was inherently brittle and there were huge stretches of it with enormous fractures, some of it was damaged to the point of just not being there any more and the water ran out of a damaged pipe then into huge cavity in the ground from where much of it was lost before a much reduced volume of the water reëntered the damaged pipe again. Years before, Alf had telt a tale in the taproom of the Green Dragon concerning the poor quality of some of those cast pipes. He had seen on more than one occasion pipes which were cast with the the two semi circular halves out of alignment by anything up to three-quarters of an inch [18mm] and believed that given how little continuous metal there was holding the two pipe halves together it was no surprise that they were even more easily damaged than the nature of the material they were made from would suggest. Abroad, in the main folk didn’t understand the UK situation, for approximately two thirds of the UK water supply derived from surface water, to wit rainwater from lakes, rivers and reservoirs. Unlike many other countries, which obtained most of their water from ground water in aquifers, the UK only obtained about a third of its water from such sources.
All that had been known to all for over half a century and it had been suggested decades before that some of the Victorian, cast iron pipework had been damaged by German bombs during the blitz(1) in the second world war [1939-1945] and never repaired. The water companies repeatedly made assertions that they were constantly increasing the amount of money they were spending on repairing and replacing their infrastructure and their network of piping. What cast the veracity of the water companies’ statements into doubt was that their dividends paid out to shareholders, which were published by those who followed the stock markets, had increased in ever ascending spirals since the privatisation of the regional water supply companies in nineteen eighty-nine. Most folk considered the water companies were just lying, for the situation regarding the water supply was no better now than it was decades before, and it only seemed to take a couple of dryer months than usual to create panic and authority advice to conserve water and threaten that if water was not conserved there would be hosepipe bans.
Most folk believed that there was a very real likelihood in the near future of household water supplies being shut off and of them seeing the standpipes in the streets again. Only some could remember that happening in the drought year of nineteen seventy-six, but even teenagers knew it had happened and had watched old news reel footage of folk queuing up in the streets with buckets to take water home in. The joke from the seventy-six drought of saving water by bathing with a friend was known to all other than the youngest of children. The UK population considered all utility companies to be a bunch of thieves who had stolen what had been public property with the collusion of the even bigger thieves: politicians. From time to time they were considered to be murderers when folk died whose deaths they were blamed for whether justifyably or not. Recently, yet again, the media had reported that a new analysis from the Citizens Advice Bureau had suggested that energy infrastructure companies had pocketed nearly four billion pounds in excess profits over the past four years as British families had suffered from escalating energy bills in the cost of living crisis. Nobody had been surprised.
Ancient Alan had shaken his head and said to Joel, “This calm is bad, Joel Lad, gey bad.” At Bearthwaite, by the first of October the frost had a serious grip on the land, barely releasing it for at most two or three hours around noon to enable the surface to thaw, though the frozen ground a scant quarter inch below the surface remained frozen. The only brightness provided by the month had been the bountiful harvest which had been gathered in dry and quickly. Again the quantities available had depressed prices and Murray’s buyers, grateful for the huge number of massive grain silos erected locally in the last handful of years, had been busy buying vast tonnages of combined(20) grains, pulses and seeds straight off the fields into large artic trailers and huge bulk tanker trailers for transport to the silos of Bearthwaite and its surroundings. By mid October even at noon there was no longer any reprieve from the winter’s icy grip. The days somehow seemed colder once the clocks had gone back on the last Sunday of October though by November it was still warming up a bit at noon, all the way up to minus ten [14℉]. Well wrapped up, the children enjoyed their Guy Fawkes day bonfire party on the village green on the fifth, but the adults were concerned, for this was a winter the like of which they’d no experience, nor had any heard nor read of such, and a very close eye was being kept on the elderly and all the children not just the youngest.
By the beginning of November some of the girls at the BEE(21) had said they weren’t prepared to go outside at playtime between lessons because it was now far too cold for their legs. The boys were fine because they wore heavy fleece lined trousers with a pair of heavy leather boots with a pair of thick woollen boot socks over a thinner pair of woollen socks, but the girls only had woolly tights to wear under their skirts, and even when they wore ankle length, heavy, woollen skirts they complained that their legs were still too cold when they went outside. Like the adults, in the colder weather, both girls and boys wore locally made lambswool underwear and slightly heavier blouses and shirts of the same material. Modern polymer made thermal clothing was looked down upon because unlike wool it was not warm when wet. Two or three layers of relatively thinner woollen pullovers and a tightly woven wind and waterproof over coat, or a fur equivalent, worn with similarly made gloves and hats completed their clothing. The way they all dressed in the cold was based on the concept of many light layers which trapped insulating air between them and it worked. However, a pair of woolly tights under a long, heavy, woollen skirts failed to provide enough layers and didn’t trap the necessary static, thin layers of air required for adequate insulation of their legs.
Marzia said to a group of girls in her class, “My family originated from the mountains in Pakistan and Afghanistan where it can be really cold and windy. I was born there, though I don’t remember anything before being in England. Mum has some photographs that shew women and girls wearing dresses like tunics that go to just below the knees or mid calf and are worn over what kind of looks like trews rather than trousers. Mum said they were lined with a kind of locally made felt that was really warm. I wonder if we would be allowed to wear something like that with socks like the lads wear and boots too. Mum bought Jamila and me some ankle length, lambswool, thermal knickers to wear over the usual ones and they do keep us a bit warmer, but are a long way from keeping us warm enough. If we could wear a tunic dress and a pair of trews over the long knickers I reckon we’d actually be warm enough to go outside at playtime. I know Bearthwaite folk want us to be like Bearthwaite folk in every way and I totally agree with that. But this wouldn’t be us wanting to be different it would be us wanting to be warm and they do look feminine in the photos, and after all nobody objected to some of the women wearing saris, and Katie and her mum look brilliant in theirs when they’re dressed up for a special event. Who do you think we should ask for permission, Lara?”
Lara, a Bearthwaite lass of many generations, thought a minute and said, “None. If we ask for permission we’ll be telt no, however, if a load of Bearthwaite lasses, of both Asian and Bearthwaite extraction and from anywhere else too, all go to school one day wearing the same sort of thing we’ll be fine. Eric meks winter boots for women and lasses as well as for men and lads, so if we wore a size bigger than usual with a pair of those thick woollen boot socks, that any number of women knit, over a pair of thinner ordinary socks we’d have feet as warm as toast. Valerie already dyes some wool pink for all sorts of things. I’ve a pink woolly cardigan, and loads of pink wool is used to knit babby(22) lasses’ clothes and clothes for little lasses too. If our boot socks and trews were pink none could say we looked as if we were dressed like lads could they. I’ll ask Auntie Ellen Winstanley to knit some for us and I’ll mek some trews myself at the clothes mekin after school class I attend on Tuesdays. You should come too, Marzia, it’s fun, and there’re loads of lasses of our age go. We’ll only want to wear stuff like that during the cold because we won’t want to swelter in the warm, but by the winter after it’ll be normal. You never know some of the adults may decide it’s a good idea too. Actually I’ve just remembered I saw Granny Elle in the last bad winter wearing a set of furs just like that, a fur tunic over fur trousers, and no matter what she wears she always looks really elegant, and I’m sure I was telt that Tasha said she had some clothes like that too. It’ll be fine. We just need to sort out some clothes for at least two dozen of us then all wear them for the first time on the same day. I’ll find someone able to make up the tunic dresses from coney fur. There must be a number of women who’d be happy to do it.”
Lara had been correct, for none remarked on it other than to say what a good idea it was. Within a fortnight hundreds of girls and women were similarly attired, and other pastel coloured socks and trews were soon to be seen as well as pink. However, day by day still the flat calm became incrementally but progressively slightly colder with no indication of precipitation of any sort about to happen. Neither Auld Alan nor the Meteorological Office said any was on the way in the foreseeable future, though Bearthwaite folk were more inclined to trust Alan than the Met Office. However, by the last week of the month there were few pastel socks or indeed socks of any colour to be seen outside the BEE buildings in between lessons, for the boys as well as the girls had decided that they’d rather breathe the much warmer, if less fresh, air that the dining hall and the gymnasium offered rather than the frigid, lung searing, fresh stuff that was available outside. Fresh acquired a new meaning amongst the girls, as in bitterly cold and grossly unpleasant. Lara had declared, “I’ll put up with it when I have to walk home, but not at lesson breaks because even breathing through a scarf by the time my lungs are warm enough to start learning the lesson is half way over, and I’m not clever enough to learn an hour’s work in half the time. The air in the lads’ changing room may stink of sweaty lads but at least it’s not fresh.” When challenged as to how she knew that she smirked and replied, “That’s for me to know and the rest of you to wonder about.” The boys’ reasoning was somewhat different, for though the cold was not as significant a factor to them, most of them had some sort of special relationship with one of the girls, and those who didn’t were working on it. After all, if the girls were inside there was little point in them going outside.
It was the last Saturday of November and though not packed the Green Dragon Inn at Bearthwaite had a typical number of local men and women and a moderate number of outsiders enjoying the company despite the cold, for at least the roads were dry and black ice free, for the highway authority, salt gritter crews had been keeping on top of even the minor roads enabling folk to drive, albeit with considerable care and at much reduced speed. Though from the number of vehicles to be seen needing recovery from off the edges of the highways not all drivers had had the sense to drive appropriately for the conditions. It had been a good night for the men in the taproom, Dave had been on top form telling a number of shaggy dog stories.(23) He’d also telt several shorts just for the laughs that he’d come across the outlines of on his phone, although being Dave he’d embellished and modified them to better suit his audience. He’d telt some of the shaggy dog stories before, but true to form he’d had the time to improve them since his last rendition and the men who’d heard the previous versions enjoyed them every bit as much as the time before.
Dave had eventually telt them that a mate of his who was eighty turned and lived at Siddick over Workington way had rung him up for a chat. “One of the things he said made me laugh, and I reckon it bears repeating. We were talking about folk we knew who’d deed. ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘After you hit sixty folk start disappearing, but once you reach your early seventies they start dropping like flies. Yance ower the clothes we wore to funerals were kept at the back of the wardrobe, now they’re right at the front.’ I reckon that’s definitely another sign of age along wi’ being asked if you want a carrier bag at the pharmacy when you collect your repeat prescription.” There was a lot of chuckling at that especially from the many auld men there who were long turned eighty. Sasha too had been on top form, though that evening his tales had tended to be at the expense of national and local politicians. Bureaucrats and suits(24) of all descriptions had been fair game too. As was often the case most of Sasha’s tales had a wicked twist right at the end that required several minutes for the roars of laughter to fade before someone else could take a turn. That was perfectly acceptable since it provided time for glasses to be washed and refilled, superannuated bladders to be drained and the dogs to be allowed five or ten minutes outside for a visit to the field behind the car park.
The local tales had virtually all been concerning dealing with the cold and keeping folk safe, especially making sure the infirm and the auld folk were kept warm and fed. Keeping them warm was seen as the men’s responsibility by the womenfolk of Bearthwaite who ensured all were well fed even if as were often the case the food had to be cooked as a community endeavour. Though distribution of fuel and fire maintenance was overseen by the adult men, it was mostly teenage lads who actually delivered fuel to those few elderly who had little fuel storage space, though any number of extra, easily accessible in all weathers fuel stores had been built over recent years to facilitate the matter. Too, the teens visited several times a day to ensure that the fires were burning properly and were appropriately stoked. For the lads it was not a chore, it was a major step towards their acceptance of being on their way to achieve manhood and younger lads were keen to aid their older brothers, cousins and friends. In the same way it was teenage lasses that popped in to check all was okay with the auld bodies. They made a pot of tea, stopped for a chat to find out what their elders needed and wanted and checked that their phones were in good order to summon help if required. It was the female route to adult womanhood and they were more than happy to follow it as were their younger sisters and their friends who accompanied them.
Ethan, Flynn and Trent Peabody, young brothers of now ten, were planning on taking it in turns to stoke the fires in the tap room and Trent had started first. “Use the gloves, Trent Lad,” said Alf. “Those oak rootstock pieces burn gey hot once they get going, but they’re hard to get going wi’ out some serious heat under ’em. Best to put a few brash blocks(25) under ’em to send ’em on their way. Thing is that batch o’ brash block had the gunk out of the used engine oil centrifuges mixed in afore they were extruded. They burn well, but are gey filthy and your hands ’ll tek some washing. Get that shite on your clothes and it’ll never come out. So if you want to stay out o’ bother wi’ your mum either use the gloves or the tongs. When you’ve done have a drink on my slate,(26) Lad. Your brothers too.”
“Thanks, Uncle Alf. I’m grateful for the glass, but―”
“Let me guess, even more for the advice about your mum right?”
Trent grinned and said, “Spot on.”
Grant, the three lads’ dad, smiled and said, “That was damned good advice, Alf. Jym can go on about a tiny spot o’ dirt for weeks, and my lads seem to attract muck the way magnets do iron filings. I can’t say it bothers me any, for I and my brothers were just the same. We still are according to the womenfolk, but Jym is no different from any other mum. Best to try for a quiet life lads.”
Stephen as usual had been gorgeously attired in what he’d explained was a new, velvet gown in a deep, lush British racing green that he was wearing for the first time. When asked what it was made from, he’d replied, “Commercial Crusht Velvet curtain fabric like as what they use in theatres.” The local men had insisted that he telt the tale as to how he’d come across the fabric and why he’d decided to have a frock made from it. “I’d been after a velvet gown for some time, going on five years at least, but I hadn’t been certain exactly what I wanted. Daph saw a really tall, middle aged model wearing a velvet gown in an up market women’s magazine that she has a subscription to. When she shewed it to me I knew it had possibilities. That would have been maybe eighteen months back. I was too busy to do anything about it for going on a year because she was doing a lot more work in the States than usual. She doesn’t like travelling, but she reckoned the money involved would enable her to retire a goodly bit earlier. I didn’t disagree though neither of us like going to the States albeit for different reason.
“Managing her safety and security over there was as always a bloody nightmare, but at least I have a licence to carry a gun in the states which we usually find ourselves in, and a good relationship with senior members of the law enforcement in various places. The law is slightly different in every state and such matters especially for foreigners are complicated, but a few phone calls before we travel usually sorts things out.” Seeing puzzled faces he added, “In most states a licence to carry a gun means it is up to you whether the gun is visible or concealed. In some states the licences are different and you need a specific licence to openly carry a gun and it requires a different licence to carry a concealed weapon. Americans refer to an open carry meaning your weapon is visible, in your hand even, whereas a concealed carry means your gun is concealed, under your jacket, in a pocket, a hidden holster or a woman’s handbag. It all seems pretty crazy over here where it is illegal to even handle never mind posses a hand gun, but that how it is over there. I am no expert and like I said it’s complicated, so often a few phone calls are the sensible way to go. Eventually, that was all over and once we were home we did bugger all for a month just to recover. Daph suggested we went to Leeds to visit a fabric warehouse she’d found on line, but despite spending over an hour looking at swatches of dress making velvets we hadn’t seen anything that made either of us want to spend money.
“Daph’s been taking about buying a new three piece suite for ages but hadn’t seen anything that she liked, so she suggested we went for coffee and something to eat and then looked at the household fabrics and maybe have our old suite recovered. The warehouse was big enough to have its own small restaurante. My steak and ale pie with chips and mixed vegetables was drowned in an excellent gravy and the entire meal was first class. Daph only had a cake with a cup of tea and she said the cake was excellent. Pity the same couldn’t be said of my coffee. Still for what we had the price was very reasonable. We returned to play hunt the fabric this time with a view to recovering the suite. Whilst we were wandering about, we’d separated. I was looking at leather fabrics and to be honest I liked the look and feel of the synthetic stuff better than any of the genuine leather because they looked real enough yet weren’t as cold to the touch. I’d been wondering what Daph ’ould say to a faux African animal look when she came looking for me almost too excited to speak. She dragged me over to where there were dozens of curtain fabrics hanging fifteen maybe twenty foot down from rings over poles. Most looked more suitable for theatres than houses, but she took me over to look at the crusht velvet ones and said that one of the deep colours would suit me and me being the build I am the weight would be nothing for me to bother about.
“I did like the idea and they draped fabulously. I suggested the deep ruby red because I already had some accessories and jewellery that would go with it, but she said the green suited me better and we could go shopping for accessories and jewellery to match. As usual she got all her own way and she bought the jewellery I’m wearing for an early birthday present. The frock cost a fortune and Daph still won’t tell me what she paid for the jewellery, but I bought the handbag from a market stall in Preston for a fiver less a penny, so I have some kind of an excuse for blowing the money. As for the suite we had it recovered in some sort of faux stripy antelope looking fabric. There were actually two complementary fabrics. The stripy looking one and the other had a selection of antelope heads intended for the backs of the chairs and the settee. The bloke there said it was one of a number of recently available fabrics that were designed using the best feature of several animals, but the animal as portrayed on the fabric intended for the chair backs didn’t actually exist, but we both liked it, so what the hell. The only problem was that the set was of eight different antelope heads and we had to choose five and reject three. The firm that Daph used to recover the suite knew all about the warehouse. They took our suite away and left one for us to use in the meantime. All they needed then was the fabric identification numbers and the entire job was done within two weeks.
“I gave my dressmaker a copy of the magazine and asked her to visit the warehouse and order what ever she needed. I had the gown made with the modifications I desired which were mostly non inclusion of the frilly and fancy bits that I considered to render it somewhat tarty.” The Bearthwaite men’s interest was genuine, for though none of them understood Stephen’s need to dress the way he did they all accepted it and respected him as one of themselves, for he could drink, and perhaps tellingly his lifelong work in security and personal protection had provided him with dozens of entertaining tales which he had a natural talent for relating. Though his behaviour and attitudes were totally masculine, all considered he and his attire and accessories always looked elegant and tasteful, nothing like the over the top drag queens. A couple of other cross dressers who visited from time to time had started to emulate his more restrained style and as a result they had become better regarded. Perhaps more to the point they had realised that they did actually look a lot better by whatever yardstick they could be measured. What had long puzzled the local men was Stephen’s total acceptance by their womenfolk, who without doubt treated him as a man, but it was as a man many of them asked for style and fashion advice from.
A couple of new outsiders had been clearly put out by the friendly acceptance by the local men, especially by Pete the landlord, of a cross dresser who could sink pints and sup their locally produced potent spirit with the best of them. Their inability to cope with the Bearthwaite men’s acceptance of Stephen as opposed to their expectation that the men should beat the hell out of him was obvious. Bertie, as well as many others, had nodded to Pete indicating that he considered there was a possibility of violence in the offing. That all the local men were prepared to take up arms in defence of their friend was obvious to all of any perception. However, Pete didn’t think physical violence was likely and suspected that at the first opportunity the two would leave because they were clearly aware that they were heavily out numbered. When the next break in the proceedings had occurred the men had left and that was that. Bertie had remarked, “I’m glad they left wi’ out any trouble, Stephen. Don’t get me wrong, I know you could a taken ’em both out wi’ nae bother, but it would a bin a shame to have that frock get damaged. Best they just buggered off wi’ nae body put out by ’em, and at least the supper won’t be wasted on their like.”
Pete added, “I reckon they were well pissed off because after eight or so pints o’ brown Stephen could handle more than a glass o’ Cyanobacta and they clearly couldn’t. Fuckin jealousy from a pair of talcum knackered amateur drinkers I reckon was their problem. They had all sort o’ stupid ideas about a bloke in a frock. Good job they weren’t here for Burns night when half o’ the men here who wear the kilts when it matters to them would have ripped their throats out. The Jocks(27) in frocks don’t exactly give a damn. However, what the fuck. They won’t be returning will they?” Since Pete was a kilt wearing Maxwell the local men smiled at his reference to Jocks in frocks and a goodly number decided to wear the kilts on Saturday evenings for the foreseeable future. A number of other local men decided to seek advice regards wearing the kilts as a matter of solidarity with their friends and neighbours. There were a number of Bearthwaite women who wove cloth, two of who exclusively wove tartan. Isla Ogilvie was originally from South Uist, one of the islands of the Western Isles, and had long been a creator of tartans for folk who desired a Scottish connection, folk from all over the world who mostly had no connection with the clans at all, but it made good money. She was happy to consider local families as genuine clan folk and with a little family research the matter was soon in hand. The official clan tartan registry had not originally been prepared to accept a lot of her work, but when going on forty thousand folk, which was a larger number than many clans could claim, accepted her work they had little choice. They either accepted her designs or they would become marginalised as an archaic irrelevance. They’d accepted her work.
Uilleam McSvensen had been a drystone waller since boyhood. He’d struggled at school and hadn’t bothered going since the age of probably about ten, though he had always claimed that he couldn’t remember the exact age at which he’d decided a life up on the fells building and repairing walls was infinitely better than attending school. By no means stupid, he was bilingual and had the vast memory required of a Bearthwaite recognised sagasayer, most of who were wallers or shepherds. However, he’d just never been interested in most of what the school, which was a local authority school outside the valley, for in those days Bearthwaite didn’t have its own educational facilities, had insisted he needed to learn in order to have a successful life. He hadn’t talked about it for years, but a major reason he’d abandoned school was the fatuous remarks that had constantly been levelled about his surname. The Scottish Mc coupled with the Scandinavian Sven and its sen rather than son ending was considered risible by many at school including his teachers. That such names though not prevalent were by no means in the least uncommon in the Bearthwaite valley community didn’t make any difference because of the way Bearthwaite residents were in the main regarded by the rest of the county. He’d once asked why it was considered to be so funny and had been told it was like a Paki(28) who lived in Scotland being called McPatel. It was to be years before he understood the significance of the remark. The rest of his neighbours were regarded as unintelligent interbreds and he was perceived as just one of them with a stupid name to boot.
He was now in his middle fifties and had going on for six dozen apprentices ranging from nearly ready for becoming master wallers in their own right who did a lot of assisting and instructing for him, to Christopher the youngest who was almost fourteen and had been with him for three days which with his new home he considered to be a huge improvement on living on the streets in Edinburgh. A goodly few of the apprentices were Bearthwaite born and bred, but the majority like Christopher were from the streets of Britain which they’d run away to because it was a lesser hell than the one they’d escaped from, though a significant number had been abandoned and it had been their only option. The children had been found by Arathane and his dedicated team of rangers who relentlessly scoured the streets of the British Isles looking for the discarded and the reviled in order to offer them a home and a future. Both families and futures could be arranged at Bearthwaite with families, especially siblings which had been found to matter a lot to such children, ready to accept them, and appropriate employment, training and education available for all, both lads and lasses.
At Bearthwaite, appropriate meant just that and it did not always meet the requirements of the law, but it did suit the children involved and allowed them to progress as far as they desired at a pace that they were happy with, and it was a Bearthwaite maxim that what the law didn’t know about it didn’t worry about. Most of the children that came to Bearthwaite with the rangers eventually became legitimately there with family court approval, however, some were not and none outside the valley was aware of their new whereabouts and circumstances. There were varied reasons for keeping their presences unknown to officialdom and Christopher was one of those children, the children that Bearthwaite children thought of as the hidden ones. Quite separate from Uilleam’s enormous intake of apprentices Uilleam and Iðunn had long since adopted twelve children from the streets and Iðunn made little distinction if any between the children that were legally hers and Uilleam’s apprentices. She fed them all at home from time to time and had Aggie and her staff at the Green Dragon put up bait(29) for them all every day.
Uilleam was a big man, not as big as Alf and Bertie who were two hundred and fourteen centimetres [7 foot] tall, but naytheless a big wide heavily built man who stood at over two metres [6 foot 7] tall. With his long blond hair every centimetre of him looked like one of his Viking ancestors. The outsiders in the taproom who’d not met him before were astonished when he drained his pint and stood to move to the bar to have it refilled. Some were old enough to have watched the movie ‘The Vikings’ starring Kirk Douglas(30) over half a century before and more than one of them considered the actor at a mere hundred and seventy-five centimetres [5 foot 9] tall looked nowhere near as much the part of a Viking prince as Uilleam. Most new men to the taproom were surprised when they found out how his name was spelt and most couldn’t distinguish the subtle difference in pronunciation between Uilleam and William. Without doubt Uilleam’s genetics reached back a long, long way in time, as time was measured in the valley, indeed much further back than the days in which his surname had taken shape. A High Fell speaker from childhood, that he could sagasay in both High Fell and in instant translation to the English of the Cumbrian flavour made him a popular entertainer, though he was an infrequent attender on Saturday evenings. When he sat down and indicated a desire to speak many locals and not a few regular outsider attenders were looking forward to hearing what he had to say.
“Sorry, Lads, it’s not saga that I was planning on saying the night, though of course if you like I can say one later.” There were nods and expressions of approval of that all the way around the room. “Okay, I’ll say something after supper. That’ll gi’ me a bit o’ time to decide upon which one. It’ll be one of the newer ones that Annalísa has recently translated properly from one of the other High Fell dialects down Penrith way because I could do with the practise if that’s all right wi’ ye?” Again there were nods and expressions of approval of that all the way around the room. “Fill me a glass of chemic please, Peter. I’m not fashed(31) what it is. I just want something to tek the edge off my bad temper. It’s about walling that I want say. A complaint really, well a bit of a bitch about idiot, outsider waggon drivers, one in particular. I wouldn’t entertain doing the job if it weren’t for a Bearthwaite lad as is in desperate straights to keep his beasts in. We’ve rigged a temporary sheep netting and barbed wire fence on loose posts for the now, but that’ll only keep dairy cattle in and Beck and his partners need the field soon for beef stores,(32) and you’ll all know what bastards they are for escaping from anywhere as is not completely beast proof.
“The walls on that new spot of his and all the farms thereabouts aren’t drystun.(33) They’re all made o’ beach cobbles wi’ a few brick bats(34) threwn in and you can’t lay ’em wi’ no compo.(35) It’ll be a bastard of a job and god alone knows how long it’ll tek. There’s a quarter mile of it if not more. The only good thing about it is we don’t have to prepare the founds(36) and most of the stone is already there, even if the compo will need knocking off. The young uns won’t like it, but still it’ll be a good thing for ’em to learn how to do. We’re starting a week a Monday to mek a better job of the temporary fencing. We plan on heating pointed inch [25mm] diameter steel rods up wi’ bottled air and biogas(37) to drive into the ground to fasten the wooden fence posts to because there’s nay chance of driving four inch wooden posts in and about the same of digging ’em in. If the stone were drystun we’d stand some chance, maybe, of laying it, but to be honest even then I’d rather leave it till we get a thaw. Laying cobble wi’ compo is totally impossible till the thaw. Beck, I’ll let you tek it from here, Lad. You saw it all happen.”
Beck, one of Alf and Ellen’s son in laws, had moved out of the valley with Crystal his wife and those of their children still at home who worked the farm too three years ago. Beck like his wife was a member of a generations old Bearthwaite family, but his family had been small scale farmers which was why the couple along with the other members of their farming coöperative had moved to a few miles outside the valley when the land became available. They now farmed on a much larger scale on recently acquired Bearthwaite land, and lived together in a vastly enlarged farm house that had originally been a house, hay barn and beast housing complex all brick built at the same time. Beck said “Earlier this week some idiot wi’ a waggon took out a small section of wall on the bend near our spot where the lonning starts to narrow, maybe six or seven hundred quids’ worth o’ damage, though we’d probably a fettled the wall oursels wi’ a bit o’ help from our lads wi’ out mekin any fuss ower the matter.
“Now any wi’ a ha’p’orth(38) o’ sense would a backed up to a side lonning to back into and turn round to find another route, or even better yet teken notice o’ the width restriction and not used the lonning(39) in the first place, but not this clever bastard. I was watching from three fields away and couldn’t believe my eyes when he stopped after backing up a bit and then he went for’ards again speeding up to gain momentum and took out maybe a quarter mile o’ walling on his left hand side wi’ the corner of his bumper [US fender]. There’s nae way that lonning is wide enough for a waggon o’ any size ne’er mind something the size of an artic [18 wheeler]. His bumper took the top four and a half foot o’ wall out and he must a bin doing about thirty mile an hour because those big fuck off granite copings(40) as weigh owt between fifty and a hundred kilos [8-16 stone, 112-224 pounds] were flying about like road chippings just after the tar and chippings lads from the highways’ contractors a bin round fettling the rural road surfaces. Here, have a look. One of the kids took this and sent it to me.” Beck passed his phone around.
The next five minutes were quiet other than sharply indrawn breaths and the odd comment that all boiled down to ‘Fuck me! What a dick head!’ or something equivalent.
When Beck saw his phone had been returned to in front of him he resumed. “Later that evening, the copper that came to the house telt me she and her mate had found him easy enough because he’d not gone more than a couple o’ mile from the lonning end before they catcht up wi’ him. Seemingly his front bumper had bin knocked back far enough to have eventually rived a bloody great hole in his nearside front tyre. Through the sidewall she said which means his bumper must a took a considerable twatting.(41) Presumably he’d got that far because it took that long for the bumper to wear its way through the tyre. Apparently there were nigh to a hundred folk, mostly kids, as had it all on their phones and had rung for plod.(42) Some of the kids had seen the waggon farther up the lonning and knowing what was likely going to happen they even caught the initial wall damage and then him backing up to tek a run at it on camera. Drystun walling labour charges are a hundred and fifty to two hundred quid per square metre, occasionally a bit more, depending on how easy the stone lays, plus the cost of and delivery charges for any extra stone required. So that’s at least a hundred quid a running foot. Using beach cobbles wi’ compo could well work out at twice that much because it’s gey slow work. I’m no waller, though like a lot of farmers I’ve done a bit of repair work, but it must be thirty year or more since I last did any work wi’ cobble and I didn’t enjoy it at all.
“The extra stone will be required because every time you touch stone to use it, even cobbles though I suspect they’ll not be as bad as most stuff, it gets smaller and you lose some. I’ve never heard of stone growing and getting bigger, and the brick bats in that wall, which were gey soft brick to start wi’, probably made at a long gone brick works before Vicky was a twinkle in Edward’s eye,(43) have already brock up into useless bits. Probably twa(44) centuries of rain and frost had got into ’em, and crumbled ’em in situ before the waggon knocked ’em into dust. I reckon that’ll work out at round a quarter of a million quid his insurers will be forking out just for reinstating the wall. The copper said that they impounded the waggon and had it recovered to their vehicle pound on a low loader because even if the bumper were to be pulled for’ards and a fresh tyre fitted it still wouldn’t be safe to be on the road, so like as not the chassis on his waggon will be twisted to buggery and that’ll mek it an insurance write off. Mind, it’ll like as not be shipped to Pakistan and be back on the road in a few weeks. It’s bloody amazing what those lads can do with vehicles that a bin totalled and written off in the west.”
Mitchel Armstrong, a young local farmer who’d married Elleanor one of the Peabody girls and who raised several thousand ducks and geese every year for both the table and for eggs said, “Surely walling don’t cost that much, not even using cobble, Uncle Beck. Elleanor’s dad had sixteen hundred metres [5258 feet] of brand new drystun walling done three or four year since so as Elleanor’s bison and Highland cattle and his Aberdeen Angus beasts had another large, rough grazing enclosure on the lower fell side, so as they didn’t need to be grazing pasture good enough for his Jerseys and shorthorns to produce quality milk from. I know Elleanor’s brothers and I took out maybe twelve hundred metres [3940 feet] of auld wall and we recovered all the stone from that and had Tony here dig out the big stones as was used for the founds and the new trench to relay ’em into with his JCB and Elleanor’s brothers delivered all the stone to the site for James Ellery and his gang to relay, but surely that couldn’t a made that much difference to the price. Dad telt me what he’d paid for the new stone, but in the end the entire job only worked out at a fraction of o’ the kind of coin per running foot that you’ve just bin talking.”
Beck looked at and nodded to Uilleam to answer. Uilleam replied,“You’re thinking Bearthwaite prices, Mitchel. It really does cost that much outside o’ the Bearthwaite community, and even more down country,(45) and for sure no insurance company will be charged our prices, Lad. Chance ’ll mek sure they pay the going outsider rate. From my point of view, if we’ve got to work wi’ friggin beach cobbles and compo I damned well want my lads paid an appropriate price for the job, so it’ll be priced by the square metre not by the hour, and we’ll work out the price per square metre based on how fast experienced wallers like myself and James can lay it. For sure Beck was right about it being possibly twice the price of drystun, because some one has to batch up the compo which has to be paid for and although sand is still a reasonable price from Armstrong’s quarry at Aldoth cement ain’t cheap and it all comes in from one of Lafarge’s spots in France these days. It’ll tek a gey lang time even wi’ all of us working on the job. From time to time we’ll not be able to have all of us on it because there’ll be emergency repairs to do elsewhere as have to be done immediately. Only then can we all work on the cobble. Owt as gets knocked down along side a big road has to tek priority. The only decent thing about the entire job is most of the material is already on site and delivering owt else will be easy because the job’s alongside of a metalled lonning.”
Elliot, a well recognised outsider who lived in the rural community of Dacre not far from Penrith asked “So what’s the price for a conventional drystun wall to Bearthwaite folk?”
Uilleam answered, “It’s gey hard to say, Elliot Lad. I’m not being coy or trying to avoid answering the question, but like a lot else at Bearthwaite it doesn’t work like it does outside dealing with non Bearthwaite folk. I’ve never heard of a waller’s missus buying meat and most o’ what we get paid is in favours. Our kids will be given the piglets they raise, our missuses will get given meat, game, fruit and vegetables. Those ain’t free, but part of a gey complicated payment mechanism. However, one thing’s for sure we won’t have to pay any taxes because we don’t earn enough. When we reinstate that cobble wall the insurance company will have to pay Beebell, not us because it’s Beebell property. Beebell will pay us an appropriate Bearthwaite price for doing the job as contractors and the rest o’ the insurance money will probably be used to buy more land which some o’ the next generation can farm. Beebell is a limited liability company incorporated under the coöperative companies’ legislation which sinks most of its profits into land, property and equipment. That means it’s taxation liability is near enough to nil too. I have no idea how that all works, but the taxmen know that it is completely kosher. God alone knows they tried hard enough to prove it isn’t, in court a couple of times, but they left court wi’ bloody noses. They scrutinise all our tax records gey carefully, but our accountants are better at using the laws that the taxmen helped to draft than they are.”
“You can’t get paid for everything like that though! And what about paying for other things that you need?”
“Nay, that true enough in one sense, but if say Alf does a job for me fettling a tractor, he’ll maybe get paid in meat by someone as owes one the wallers, not necessarily me. If he has the meat delivered to Vincent’s butchers shop, Ellen Alf’s missus won’t be paying for owt she has off Vincent for a gey long time. It’s complicated, so we leave it all to Chance’s lads and lasses as do the accounts. Somehow it seems to work out right. At any road the bills get paid and we live well enough to keep any reasonable folk happy.”
“What’s for supper, Pete?”
“Tatie pot, Alf. Wi’ red cabbage sauerkraut med to Gustav’s mum’s receipt that includes a bit o’ sour apple. That’s followed by Bearthwaite Pudding. Gladys just telt me it’ll be half an hour going on three quarters before it’s on the tables, so there’s plenty of time for another couple of pints or three in your case.”
In the bestside the ladies had started with their usual opening topics, births, deaths, and marriages, though emergent relationships were discussed too. Ellen wondered aloud, “I can’t help but wonder just how many babies are we going to be talking about being born beginning nine months after the cold weather started?”
Aggie snorted in amusement as she gave a not entirely unexpected response, “A lot, Ellen Lass, probably even more than that. There’s not a lot else to do for some of the youngsters, and trust me they’ll find somewhere warm enough te tek their knickers off. Kids always can, at least Frank and I always could at that age. I know the world has changed somewhat considerable since then, but I doubt if that’s changed any at all. And for sure you and Alf were nay different. Was it two or three birthdays Silvester had had whilst you two were waiting for Alf to turn sixteen so you could get wed?”
Aggie was known for being blunt and usually correct too. Without a blush it was a smiling Ellen who nodded and replied, “Three. He was born just after Alf turned thirteen when I was nearly seventeen.” All the local women, and a fair few outsiders too, knew that Silvester had been born Silvia, but the matter wasn’t referred to because it wasn’t germane to the topic under consideration.
Rosie added, “It’s just as well youngsters are all like that because it does give you fond memories to look back on when you reach our age. Despite his legs, Vincent was a fair young bull back then. Still that’s what every maiden heifer prays for ain’t it?” Vincent had suffered from polio as a child and had needed to use two sticks to walk ever since, though his walking had always remained poor and he couldn’t walk at all far. The laughter at Rosie’s implication that the polio had only affected Vincent’s legs, the nodding of heads with secretive smiles on their faces amongst the older women and the blushes of the younger ones took a while to fade.
Aggie smiled and continued, “Look on the bright side, Ellen, at least we’ve the weddings to look forward to in the warmer weather, and the bairns to hold. And let’s be grateful that unlike a lot of other spots we’ll be happy talking about bairns being born into the world and not being sad about auld folk adying afore their time and leaving the world due to the calt and lack o’ food. Talking o’ food what’s on for supper, Veronica? I know it’ll be something warming, but Harriet was still deciding exactly what to cook the last time I bumped into her to speak of it earlier this morning. That I admit surprised me, for usually she knows at least a week in advance.”
“She decided that we’d do something totally traditional in order to keep making inroads into all the sheep in the freezers, but even after looking up on the system what we’d got and where it was being stored she wanted to know what Jeremy, Christine and the other cooks in the village would prefer she used. They all decided that tatie pot would be ideal. Christine you know more about it than I do, so you want to take it from here?”
Most of the local women were somewhat surprised for it was unusual for Christine, who ran the preservation kitchens and their associated stores in the Auld Bobbin Mill, to have anything to do with suppers at the Green Dragon. Christine said, “We decided to cook a huge batch of tatie pot. Enough for any in the village who wanted some, not just the auld bodies we usually cook for. It would have been daft not to cook for supper at the Dragon at the same time, so we decided to fill the pressure pan up using it just as a big pressure cooker rather than as a pressure canning or bottling unit and all left over we’d bottle later either for Lucy to sell at the store or to put on our shelves. The sheep meat is considered to be Beebell property, so we all own it. When I said for Lucy to sell she’ll be charging just enough to cover the bottling costs, but no more, so it’ll only be pennies. I didn’t round up all the makings myself, so I’m not too sure how much shoulder of mutton we used, but I know we saw the last of the neck off.
“We used serious amounts of potatoes and mixed roots and maybe a half ton [500Kg, 1100 pounds] of black pudding. Some of you are looking surprised ladies, but Bearthwaite tatie pot does tend to lean a bit heavy on the black pudding. We used sausage type black pudding still in the casings rather than slabs sliced off what had been cooked in oven trays so as to prevent the black pudding from disintegrating, because when stirring the pan you can’t help but be somewhat vigorous with those huge stirrers that look like oars wi’ holes in. Other than that it was absolutely traditional with the traditional Bearthwaite herbs and seasonings. Five full pressure cooker batches were made, and the pan holds twelve hundred litres which is just short of two hundred and seventy-five gallons [333 US gal]. Rosie came down with all of Vincent’s raw bones to add to our cooked ones to over see the making of a bone broth once we’d dealt with the last of the tatie pot, which saved us washing the pan out till after she’d done. Doubtless there was a bit of tatie pot went into the broth, but doing it that way the bones were all seen off too. They’ve since been turned into bone meal for the allotment folk to use some time.
“We made around six thousand litres of tatie pot and there are thousands of litre jars on the shelves and a goodly number of the bigger ten litre [2 gallon, 10 US quarts] jars(46) too for community cooking. We had five of our one hundred litre [45 Imp gal, 55 US gal] stainless steel drums of it delivered here. Any left over is intended to provide breakfasts and packed lunches for the men who eat here first thing. Since that would be so cheap, Harriet suggested we cook Bearthwaite Pudding(47) for pudding. Both dishes are warming and excellent in this weather. The pudding was all made up to the new receipt used a few times already and assembled in my kitchens. Enough of the completed, uncooked, deep trays were sent here for cooking in the Dragon’s kitchen. We’ve been experimenting with new receipts for Christmas Pudding for a couple of months to take advantage of our own dried fruits and candied peels using the new sweetener we make from the sugar beets. We’ve had them tasted by numerous folk including Ellen’s Alf and reckon we have a winner at about a third of the price it used to cost us to make. We’re cooking up huge quantities of Christmas Pudding the now, so it can age with a bit of spirits ready for the day. Since it was so popular last year we’re planning on using Adio’s Hostage Jamaica rum again. Rosie you got anything to add about the bone broth?”
“Aye we started with the intention of making a single batch of it, but even diluted fifty fifty with watter it’s still fair substantial for a broth and it has a full and meaty taste. There were so many bones they filled the pan three-quarters full, so we cooked them under pressure for an hour, after which we let the pan cool down overnight. The following morning we took the bones out to drain, before stripping everything off them. The marrow bones we cut on the saw and had the marrow out for the broth. The allotment folk collected them to be ground on their machine for fertiliser. Two twenty-five kilo [25Kg, 4 stone, 56 pounds] bags of rough barley that Alice gave us went in followed by any amount of vegetables. Two waggon loads of fruit and vegetables had arrived from London and it saved a deal of work being able to dump some of it, after washing and chopping, straight into the pan. There were all sorts of vegetables went in including any number of exotic tropical vegetables that must have been intended for ethnic retailing establishments somewhere.
“Having said that most of them, especially the yam and gourd types, were actually pretty tasteless, though some of the leafy vegetables and the peculiar looking peas or beans, I’m not sure which they were, were not just tasty but strongly flavourful. There were some beans that were about seventy-five centimetres [30 inches] long called yard long beans that were delicious, but as is the case according to Murphy’s law there was only a small box of them. The broth was so substantial after cooking that we drained half the liquid off into drums and then took out half the solids into drums too. We filled the pan with watter and brought it to the boil before allowing it to cool enough to pour via funnels into those two and a half litre [½ gal, 5 US pints] plastic containers. Then we rinsed the contents of the drums into the pan filled it with watter and did it all over again. If that pan holds twelve hundred litres you’d expect to get four hundred and eighty containers out of a batch. We got just over a thousand out of two batches, so maybe the pan is more than twelve hundred litres or the containers are a bit less than two and a half.”
Abby Hetherington, an outsider but a long time Saturday evening visitor with her husband Gerald, said, “Christine talking of Christmas pudding reminds me of something. I had to laugh at a phone call I had from Clara my sister in law. My youngest brother John works down country somewhere near Bolton Greater Manchester and they have a ten year old lad and a little lass only just turned six. Ethan doesn’t believe in Father Christmas any more, but Rowan despite being a very bright wee thing still does, so Clara took her to see him at one of the local supermarkets. Father Christmas sat her on his knee and after chatting for a couple of minutes asked her, ‘So what would you like for Christmas, Rowan?’ As quick as a whip Rowan replied, ‘Well you should already know. I’ve written you a letter. Didn’t you read it?’ Clara said that she and a few other mums were in pain trying hard not to laugh because it was such a serious matter to Rowan.”
The chuckles took a while to fade, but Aggie summed up the feeling when she said, “It does make you smile, but they lose that innocence all too rapidly, especially out yonder. Childhood should be precious, it’s over all too soon. We don’t do the Christmas thing here like outsiders do, but that’s no reason to spoil it for little ones.” Aggie continued, “I was glad to see the lasses came up with those tunic dresses and lined trews. It’s never bin this calt outside before and they couldn’t have gone out at playtime dressed the way they were, and kids need fresh air, or they get ower feisty and gey hard to handle. Even the gey little ones were kitted out in proper clothes just like their older sisters that were warm enough for the weather. I know they’re not going out at playtime any more and you can tell, like I said they’re ower feisty and becoming harder to handle, but at least they’re safe walking to and from school now. We should a thought on it last bad winter specially seeing as Elle was kitted out like that wi’ furs, and Tasha has been wearing similar clothes in the cold since she arrived here.”
Aggie laughed at a though and said, “The young lasses are not the only ones trying to stay warm by wearing thermal undies and lined trews. I heard that all the lasses as knit socks are being rushed off their feet and the after school clothes mekin classes are having to use bigger rooms and more volunteers to help the kids there’s so much demand. Too, some of the lads are learning to seam fur from Eric and other folk who do it for a living.” She chuckled and continued, “I know at my size I can hardly be said to need a padded bra, but I seen some pretty looking, floral patterned ones on Ebay and took a chance. Tell you you what, Lasses, they are really warm, especially where you need it, and my Frank has had to stop saying he’ll hang his hat up on my bosom since I started wearing ’em. A bit dear at fifteen quid bar the penny, but I don’t regret paying it. I bought just the one to start wi’, but I ordered another pair as soon as I realised how warm it was. I’ll put an email round telling you what to search for. They go up to about size sixty wi’ cups that look to be the size of calf feeding pails.(48) Mind, I’ve no idea what that would be under Jane’s new sizing scheme.”(49)
Jane, a very clever woman who was a professor of chemistry over in the north east, laughed and replied, “A size sixty with calf pail cups would be a 60/300 or in metric a 150/5000, which I have to say does sound fairly impressive. After that I’ll have another brandy if I may please, Brigitte. I’ll try that German one your mum likes(50) this time please, and could you pass over another couple of baskets of the bar snacks please. One of the ginger and one of the cinnamon too please.”
Abby asked, “Tell me again how that works, Jane.”
“It’s my idea of how all bra sizing could be rationalised, so none has to waste hours if not days of her time playing guess the bra that will actually fit. I doubt that it will ever happen, but for what it’s worth, you determine the bra size by measuring for the chest band just under your bosom in either inches or centimetres, as some manufacturers instruct. The cup size is simply a volume in cubic inches or in cubic centimetres which are to all intents and purposes the same as millilitres. You can determine that by using a specially made set of fabric cups. Find one that’s not big enough and one that’s too big and the one in between is what you want. I called it the Goldilocks method for obvious reasons.”
“That,” said Alf, “well and truly hit the spot. You can’t beat a bit of tattie pot when the weather isn’t playing nice. And that Bearthwaite Pudding was a bit different, but by no means inferior. I’m all for it because if it’s cheaper to mek it means we can have a bit more of it.”
When the laughter faded Beck, one of Alf’s son in laws said, “What Dad really means is he can have a bit more of it, but I don’t mind as long as it means I can have a bit more too.”
Stan said, “I’ve just remembered something I saw the other day that made me laugh and I thought would amuse you. Julie and I went to her sister Lily’s spot in Silloth last week. Lily’s auld man Danny and I were planning on nipping out for a few scoops,(51) but we had to tek the lasses shopping to the coöp first because neither would drive in the cold. We all went in to the shop and I wandered about and ended up looking at the cheese. I picked up a plastic wrapped piece of soft, German, blue. Out of idle curiosity I wondered what was in it and read the label. It seemed a bit relevant to this weather. It said, ‘Not suitable for freezing and pregnant women.’ First I thought does that mean it’s okay for pregnant men. After all if you say pregnant you’d think there was no need to specify women wouldn’t you. Then I realised that it actually said as long as the pregnant women weren’t freezing it would be okay. Now I get daft thoughts sometimes. I blame it on being in the same class at school as Dave. Any road after a few pints I started wondering at just what point does it become not suitable for pregnant women. Lukewarm pregnant women are presumably okay, but what about cool pregnant women, or chilled pregnant women, or even cold pregnant women. I’m still wondering.”
After the laughter stopped at the ridiculousness of it all, Dave said, “I reckon that was the beer giving you daft thoughts because if you had any brains at all, Stan, you know it was irrelevant. You’ve nay use for any on ’em, cold, chilled, cool or lukewarm. Smoking hot, now that’s a whole different story, but I wouldn’t tell Julie though. Best stick to blue Stilton.”(52) The laughter took long enough for the usual break required for washing and filling glasses to take place.
Arthur Watson, a long time regular and probably in his middle seventies. said, “This is medical sort of, if veterinary counts. It’s to do wi’ my auld cat Fluff. He’s only bin licking the gravy and the jelly off the meat out of tinned cat food a while. At first we thought he was just getting picky in his auld age. He’s sixteen turned now. Her indoors started mashing his food to make him eat the chunks and buying dog food every now and again because there was more gravy in the tin which he ate willingly. His breath started to smell, but it wasn’t all the time. Eventually I realised it was that sweet stench of corruption and I suspected he’d an abscess in his mouth. The on off nature of the smell matched the behaviour of an abscess. When it ruptured he stank. Once the pressure released it would close and the smell was no longer there, till it refilled and ruptured again, and so on. I’d bin pondering what to do about it for a couple of days when one day there was blood, fresh, bright red, arterial blood, all over both of his front legs, which would have been white but for the seventy-five percent blood coverage, and he was batting at the right side of his face with his paw.
“I realised it was probably due to a rotten tooth with an infection and the tooth was hanging on but he was trying to get rid of it. I considered getting a holt on him and seeing if I could help him get shot of it, which would a bin a tricky bit o’ work because he’s a feisty little bugger and despite his age he wouldn’t have had a problem biting or scratching me down to the bone. I reckon the little bugger’s psychic too because unusually there was no way he’d was up for letting me anywhere near him. He didn’t seem to be in any pain, so I was reluctant to take him to the vet, for it was twenty mile away and as I said he’s auld, sixteen turned, and both of us could do wi’ out the stress. We used to have a vet three mile away, but it closed during Covid. The money had nowt to do with it. I thought about calling a vet out, but I didn’t believe there was owt one could do at our spot. Mostly I was reluctant because I believed the arterial blood indicated the problem was probably over all bar the healing. He’d stopped batting at his mouth the day after, so I reckoned his tooth was gone. Looking back I reckon I was right, but I didn’t feel good about it at the time. Mind I’d have felt a damn sight less good if the stress had given him a heart attack going to the vets. Clarice said one could tell he was my cat complete with rotten teeth because I’ve had to have a few out recently. Now the smell has completely gone and he’s back to eating normally again. He’s fine. Well, at any rate he’s as fine as any bugger of our age is.”
Arthur continued, “Still on cats, Lads. Cats are like us, as they age they get more health issues and like us again one issue feeds into the next and some o’ ’em start to lose the plot too. No sooner had the mouth issue bin sorted he started pulling his fur out. It was everywhere, and he was biting at it and doing a bit of scratching. I should a bin on it quicker than I was, but I’m getting aulder too. Clarice said she’d checked him over but he didn’t have any fleas or owt like that, and like an idiot I believed her. I say that because I knew her eyesight had never bin any good and at seventy-four even wi’ her varifocals on it’s bollixed. By that time he was doing a lot of scratching at himself. I checked a couple of veterinary sites and was thinking in terms of cat scabies(53) which are a mite. The sites all said it was rare, but we do get visited by other cats and it is highly contagious. I don’t reckon our visitors are feral, just wanderers because they look to be in good condition. Eventually I checked him over, but to start wi’ I couldn’t find any obvious signs of ticks, fleas, lice or mites. I kept looking, fortunately for a mostly black cat he has some sizeable areas of white on him where I found some black bits.
“That’s typical signs of fleas rather than owt else which was a relief because mites means a visit to the vets because all you can get over the internet looks to be quack stuff. You know what I mean, it’s guaranteed to be totally organic, natural, holistic, essential oils, etc., etc., etc., which usually means it’s a bullshit remedy designed to take money off you and it’ll do bugger all for your cat. So I ordered some topical Spot On stuff that treats fleas, ticks and lice, but unfortunately not mites, from a reputable source, six treatments for twelve quid. Delivery four days. Trouble was I couldn’t bear to watch the poor bastard suffer by that stage. Not for four days. Our local pharmacy is a Well pharmacy, a huge group that is ultimately owned by some Indian outfit, or at least it was once, and they sell a few pet remedies. Three pipettes of what I’d bought off the net cost me twenty-six quid. A fair profit is fine but that’s outright robbery, but what can you do. I bit the bullet, paid the money and treated the cat. You squirt a tiny amount of liquid onto the skin at the base of the neck where they can’t get to it and that’s that. I’ve tret him weekly for a month now which whilst its higher than the recommended monthly treatment is well within the safe limit if you read the destructions that come with the stuff. The scratching and biting out chunks of fur lessened immediately and stopped completely within a week, but I reckoned he got a bad dose of whatever the little bastards were, so I played safe and tret him weekly for four weeks. I catcht scabies off some dirty bastard at school, must be sixty-five years ago, and it was that bad I still remember it like it were yesterday.
“However, the auld bugger has started pissing in my workshop which is attached to the house and the big kitchen. I had to clean up some cat shit from under my workbench one day. He has permanent access to outside via a cat flap and he has litter trays which he’s used for years in bad weather. All that is typical tom cat territory marking behaviour. Thing is he was neutered years ago as a kitten by the cat’s protection folk we got him from. Clarice looked it up on the net and said experts reckoned it was related to the stress of fur pulling associated with fleas and the like. She also found that queen cats wi’ kittens put out a pheromone(54) that destresses kittens and it works on cats of all ages. We can’t smell it, but it’s a well known remedy for stress pissing and shitting too. Ebay sells gadgets that plug into a mains electric socket. The gadgets accept a bottle of something that contains the pheromone. The gadgets act as diffusers and a six quid bottle of the stuff lasts a month. I decided to try it because there’re any number of folk that say it works and I couldn’t find any that said it didn’t. Thing is it’s six quid a bottle from China but the delivery date is the middle of next whenever, and the next day delivery of the same stuff from the UK or Poland puts it at going on fifty quid a bottle. Clarice telt me to order it from China and that in the mean while she’d keep using the mop. I’ll let you know how it goes when it arrives.” At that drained his pint and reached for the second one he’d wisely ordered at the same time as his first thus indicating he’d finished.
Pete waited till the men had finished filling up shot glasses before filling his own and asking, “ No pressure, Lad, but are you up for saga saying now, Uilleam?”
“Aye. It’s not a long one and as far as Annalísa can work out it only goes back maybe five hundred years. It tells the tale of a medium sized community to the north east of here somewhere near to where modern Bewcastle is located. The community was constantly being raided and harassed by a particular group of reivers and the saga tells of how they led them all into a trap and slaughtered the entire band. Now you outsiders who are not familiar with sagasay, please do not interrupt me to ask questions. Write them on a piece of paper for someone else to reply to in the same way. Sagasay is essentially a mnemonic art, which is to say a sagasayer has a highly trained memory that utilises the last group of words to trigger the next group. If the flow of the chain of key words and ideas is interrupted the entire saga may be beyond recall other than by starting from the beginning again, and the saga I am about to say is a new one that I have not yet completely mastered, so a lack of interruption is particularly important to me tonight. Pete?”
“Aye,” said Pete, “once Uilleam has started total silence is required till he indicates he has finished. If you break that rule you will be asked to leave and not to return. This is a hugely significant part of what makes us Bearthwaite folk, of our unique culture and heritage. Uilleam is by no means our only sagasayer, but he is one of our most widely accomplished ones. He is a man whose repertoire is immense, so please respect him and our culture. Since this is a new saga to the Bearthwaite men here silence is especially important. As Uilleam said you may use pen and paper. I’ve already made both available on the bar. Actually, Son, will you distribute them in advance please?”
Pete asked the question of Peter his grandson who merely nodded and said, “Yes, Granddad.”
Uilleam’s saga took just under twenty-six minutes to say in Cumbrian flavoured English and there were few questions written down. The taproom was so quiet that Harriet came almost into the taproom bar from behind the connecting best side bar to check that all was all right. She realised what was happening before entering and left quietly. On entering the best side she saw the questioning looks and said, “Uilleam is saying a saga,” which explained all to the locals and some of the outsiders too. The explanations to the rest took several minutes.
After Uilleam had finished there was a respectful half a minute’s silence before Sasha asked, “How did you do, Uilleam?”
“Pretty well really, Sasha. Thanks for asking. I nearly lost my thread a couple of times, but I recovered in time. Another couple of times and I’ll have it up to standard. I’ll spend some time with our shepherds which will sort me out.”
“Thanks, Uilleam. I am much obliged. You could say that one to some of the older pupils at the BEE if you want to get the practice in.” Pete grinned and added, “It’s a bit rough for the little ones in places though. Now the rest of you, is that it?” he asked. “Are we getting the dominoes out now?”
“Aye,” said Alf, “but I’ll just nip into the cellar for some more chemic. We seem to be running a touch short. Any got any particular preferences, or shall I just fetch a few cases of mixed whatever I can find?” None replied so Alf said, “Mixed it is.”
“We’ll give you a hand, Uncle Alf,” Peter said indicating a couple of his friends. By the time they returned the dominoes were out and Alf indicated to one of Peter’s friends to partner him. A couple of the older men indicated Peter and his other friend should partner them and battle commenced.
“Is there owt of significance to discuss?” asked Pete of the other seven folks regarded as family drinking tea in the best side.
Sasha replied, “Not so much I think. The cold is keeping all the outsider idiots indoors and I think even the most rabid and fanatical know that trying to make their way into the valley undetected is a sure fire way to become dead from the cold very quickly. The CCTV cameras as well as being recorded are now being monitored twenty-four seven by the rangers and their teenage volunteers. It’s no longer as arduous a task as it used to be due to the motion sensors incorporated into the system and the rangers have been out there, so that the watchers can check that the system works. The local politicians are far too busy defending themselves from the general public’s accusations of ineptitude concerning all the preparations and precautions that they didn’t make and take concerning the weather to be giving us a hard time, all assisted by the excellent job some of our folk are doing fomenting the criticism and discord. Some via actual conversations in pubs, supermarkets and the like and others via social media. As Harwell has repeatedly said, ‘The best way to get them off our backs is to get on theirs.’ As to what any of them will do once the weather warms up god alone knows. We’ll have to work out how we handle events as they happen, or at best as we hear anything via the grapevine.”
Harriet added, “All the folk I know and all the ears out there that Arathane’s folk know are saying that all seems quiet and there has been no mention of Bearthwaite. Not even in the really fundamental Islamic communities that we offended by accepting their abused womenfolk from the women’s refuges have had anything to say for some time. Harwell has said that the police are aware that some of their hottest under the collar young men have disappeared and that for all we know there could be any number of them frozen solid up on the tops. Observers in the police helicopter haven’t spotted anything, and the police aren’t prepared to send anyone up there to find out. The local mountain rescue has said that they only risk their lives when they know someone is up there, and Harwell has said he ain’t sending any of his rangers up there just to find out that folk he’d prefer dead actually are dead. He also telt the police that even once his folk resumed their boundary patrols they wouldn’t bring folk, who were only up there to cause problems for his folk, down off the fell. Seemingly the police were upset that he was making a judgement call as to such a person’s motives. His response to that was that it was our land and his folk were there to ensure our security, not to carry bodies down whether they were yet dead or not. That we would leave folk up there to finish dying apparently ended the conversation. Harwell reckons they are finally beginning to understand where we are coming from.”
Elle and Gladys looked at each other and Elle said, “Everything here that could have been done has been done as we have discussed before and there have been no major issues. No minor ones either come to that. Gladys?”
“Nothing really. I’m still helping Grayson with folk, mostly kids, struggling to come to terms with the trauma of what they’ve been through, but all the serious problems have already been dealt with. What remains is just persuading folk with little sense of self worth that they truly are valuable to us, but we are getting there.”
Gustav shrugged and said, “There’s not much as can be done on or with the land in this weather, so some of the farmers are chafing a bit, or maybe I should have said at the bit, but none, not even the most isolated, are short of fuel or food. Mostly they are delivering food to stock, keeping water supplies flowing and my folk supplied with the requirements of brewing and malting. We’re not worried we’ll run out of ale or spirits, which seemed to be their major worry. We’re having both delivered to any who wants it and the reckoning can get sorted out as and when appropriate.”
Brigitte said, “The lasses are having no trouble keeping all the elderly up to date with the gossip and making sure they are visited at least a couple of times a day though occasionally we have to keep contact by phone for second and third contacts. It’s not much different from usual.”
Peter added, “When we go round and check the fires are still keeping folk warm and there is enough fuel to keep them going we sometimes put the kettle on and brew a pot of tea if the lasses haven’t been round by then. Joe and the other men who usually work on the roads and Saul and his demolition crew are mostly now distributing firewood from the Auld Quarry building. They have recently taken to leaving trailers loaded with sacks at convenient places for us to collect them from to deliver on sledges which is an improvement, but as Brigitte said it’s actually not much different from usual. It’s just a lot colder, so we wrap up more.”
Elle said, “Since it must be about two o’clock and we’re staying the night here. I’m off to bed, but I’ll look in on the little ones before I do. Sasha you can do what you want, but you look like you’ve had enough to drink already, so I recommend bed.”
“Yes, Dear.” At that there was laughter as all made their way upstairs.
It had been nearly one in the morning when Daphne and Stephen’s taxi arrived to take them home. Usually they stayed overnight at the Dragon, but Daphne had a meeting concerning a major project the following morning. She didn’t like meetings on Sundays, creating in her studio was different, but it was important, so rather than forego their Saturday evening pleasure at the Green Dragon they used a taxi. They saw the fire from miles away and as they approached they realised it was their house and Daphne’s workshop complex that was ablaze. On arrival Stephen gave the cab driver a hundred pounds in twenties and said, “That’s yours right now, but we’ll need a ride to somewhere eventually and I’ll pay you on top for that as and when. If you need more money tell me, just don’t go. Okay?” The driver nodded and said for that kind of money he’d wait forever and he’d leave the engine running for the heater and get some shut eye in the car. The police wanted to interview them immediately, but Stephen refused and said without their solicitor present they were saying nothing to anyone about anything.
The senior police officer tried to insist, using all the usual police bull shit of if you’ve nothing to hide you don’t need a solicitor. Steven told him their entire interaction had been recorded, both video and audio, and doubtless Adalheidis and Annalísa would be interested to know that the officer had tried to bully and intimidate him after he’d made it crystal clear that without legal representation he was saying nothing, as was his legal right. Once the officer heard Adalheidis’ name he realised the couple had a connection of some sort with Bearthwaite and he backed off immediately. Officers who fell foul of the Bearthwaite legal representatives had always regretted it, and the Chief Constable was known to be sympathetic to the law abiding folk of the valley community. The fire chief told them that there would be nothing left of the buildings to salvage by daylight and gave it as his opinion that it was a professional arsonist who had set the fire rather than an amateur. He was adamant that there was no possibility of it being accidental though more details would doubtless become available once the department’s investigation team examined the site in daylight.
Daphne said to Stephen, “It looks like we may well be moving to Bearthwaite to live, Love. I’m okay with that if you are. There’s nothing to keep us here now is there? At least we’ll be safe there where all our friends are. Too, you can dress how you like twenty-four seven there with no concerns about anything. Look on the bright side, other than our jewellery which will be fine in the safe we have a lot of shopping to do. And the receipts for everything are in the safe too. The new for old insurance policy that cost us so much extra money will pay for it all.”
Stephen nodded and gently took his handbag back from Daphne who’d looked after it whilst he dealt with the police to retrieve his phone. A tired voice answered him. “Hello, this is Pete Maxwell the landlord of the Green Dragon Inn at Bearthwaite. How can I help you.”
“Pete, it’s Stephen. Daphne and I have not long arrived home and we’ve been burnt out. The fire chief says it’s a professional arson job and there will be nothing left when they’ve finished damping it all down. The senior police officer clearly thinks that even if I had nothing to do with it I deserve it because of the way I’m dressed and I don’t want to go anywhere else dressed like this. We’ve refused to be interviewed without legal representation. He didn’t like it, but backed off when I mentioned Adalheidis’ name. It’ll be nearly an hour, maybe nearer to four than half three before we can get to you, but may we please have a room? For a month to start with please.”
“Oh shit! Of course you can, Stephen. I’ll have a suite ready by the time you arrive. I’ll arrange for something to eat too. You okay, Lad? How’s Daphne?”
“I’m okay. It’s a shock, but nothing that will seriously bother me. If you’re different like me you kind of get used to it. You don’t like it, but you can handle it, and being in the line of work I’m in you do get to see the grimmer side of life from time to time. I don’t reckon this is anything to do with me being a cross dresser or with that pair of bigots in the taproom earlier last night. I think it’s probably political and to do with Daph’s work. More than likely as a result of things that happened and were said when we were last in the States. We’ve a top of the line fireproof safe for all our valuables and documentation, including our new for old insurance policy. Our jewellery and the receipts for everything both of us have ever bought are in it, so we’ll survive. The fire chief said the investigators would be informed of its whereabouts and would recover it on our behalf. Daph’s holding herself together well, but I can tell she’s seriously upset. I don’t think she ever considered anyone would go this far. She’s talking about moving to Bearthwaite to live. That may be the shock talking, but I doubt it because she was right when she said there was nothing left to keep us here and all our friends are at Bearthwaite. She also mentioned feeling safe there. I’ll want to talk to Adalheidis or Annalísa sometime because the police want to interview us and I want one of the Bearthwaite legal team there to look after our interests, but that can wait. I kept the cab here, so I’ll tell the police where we’ll be staying, and we’ll be on our way.”
“It sounds like your missus needs women, Stephen. This is beyond our ability to sort out. I’ll let Gladys know what’s going on. We’ll see you in a bit, Lad. A full English(55) okay? Because it’ll be already set out ready for cooking for the early breakfasts.”
“Thanks, Pete. A full English sounds wonderful right now. Haggis rather than black pudding for me if possible please. I suspect Daph will only want a piece of toast and a cup of tea. We’re much obliged.”
Whilst the rest of the country’s population, and especially the media, were giving the politicians a seriously hard time about what they hadn’t done in preparation for the weather the Bearthwaite community ignored the outside. The bulk of the nation’s populace were complaining about the cold and panicking about the ability of the nation’s heavy transport fleet to keep food supplies on supermarket shelves, the state of the roads and their ability to drive to the supermarkets and whether the electricity would be being rationed. The truth was that they hadn’t enough warm clothes or enough food in the house and more to the point they couldn’t cook and had relied for years on short shelf life ready prepared meals. Bearthwaite having sorted out all such problems long since was keeping an eye open on the sky awaiting the snow. Firewood was being consumed at a rate never seen before, but none was worried because there was enough ready processed and dried to last years not just the winter no matter how much the cold demanded and no matter how long it lasted. Bearthwaite folk were still awaiting the snow when November rolled over into December and the temperature was still slipping lower towards minus thirty [-22℉].
By mid December it was no longer warming up at noon and as far as Alan and Joel could tell minute by minute if not second by second it was becoming colder regardless of whether it was day or night. The pair too were concerned, but not in the way most other Bearthwaite adults were. Others were concerned by the inexorable journey that had no small deviations on its route down into the cold, but Alan and Joel were much more concerned with the destination rather than the journey. Alan had pondered, “I wonder just how bloody cold it is going to get, Lad. At least when there’s some wind it creates friction in the air which warms it up a bit. Even a breeze helps, and there’re another couple o’ months to go before the year is usually at its coldest. I said it before and I’ll say it again. This calm is bad, gey bad.” And still day by day the flat calm air became colder. The media pundits were constantly comparing the winter with those of the little ice age, generally accepted as extending from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, though some experts preferred an alternative time span from about thirteen hundred to about eighteen fifty. Auld Alan maintained that the comparisons were pointless because there were no absolute day by day minimum historical temperatures available, only seasonal average temperatures. Though indirectly acquired data he admitted they were derived from the effects they had had on various aspects of the environment that he considered to be totally reliable. However, as he pointed out it kept the idiots happy without actually telling them anything.
As had become normal in recent decades Bearthwaite had become ever more ready for the winter with every passing year as experience and new ideas had increased the population’s ability to better their way of life even under the most extreme of circumstances. Virtually all fruit and vegetables had been harvested in good condition. The late apples, all traditional, sharp, cooking varieties, for all the eating apples and dual purpose apples had been gathered somewhat earlier that usual, had been gathered frozen solid, but they’d been allowed to thaw, roughly crushed, cooked, sieved and bottled, so not lost. The material remaining in the huge, mechanical, vibrating sieve that was located in Christine’s preservation kitchens in the Auld Bobbin Mill, along with all spent grains from the local brewing and distilling operations, had been fed to the appreciative Bearthwaite pigs, most of which had subsequently taken up residence in various deep freeze facilities around the valley. The remaining non breeding stock would shortly be joining them or would be preserved in a number of traditional ways, mostly involving brines of various descriptions, courtesy of Vince the Mince’s assistants. The brewery’s spent hops were bitter and not even the pigs would eat them, but they made for good mulch to suppress allotment weeds and provided good protection on top of more delicate plants whose foliage died off over winter.
Much to the surprise of many Bearthwaite folk the supermarkets and shops continued to satisfy the ridiculous public demand for perfect looking fruit and vegetables, most of which were ridiculous prices having been being flown in from halfway round the globe due to European shortages, and the Bearthwaite waggon drivers were thus still supplied with large tonnages of fruit and vegetables that the London wholesale market folk considered to be at risk of spoilage and didn’t wish to have to pay for being taken away. It wasn’t unknown for some of the market folk to ring Harry or one of the other drivers to say they had more than usual that needed clearing. The Bearthwaite drivers could usually arrange for at least a part load going somewhere part way south, often it was a major tofu delivery from the Peabody dairy that usually had three or four drops. Dropping part lads in several places was regarded as a pain by the drivers, but as Harry had said, “Better that than going south empty, Lads.” Often the wholesalers could find something for the Bearthwaite drivers to deliver to them or contacts of theirs at an appropriate price. There had been more than a few occasions when empty waggons had gone south purely to collect food, though the market men always made it worth their while by donating large quantities of saleable fruit and vegetables nowhere near their sell by date. Two forty foot trailers was now their usual haul of fruit and vegetables, but three was never a surprise and on one occasion four, two of them heading south empty, had made the trip, all to return fully loaded one with half a load of potatoes in excellent condition given as a thank you by several of the market men. Many at Bearthwaite shook their heads at the stupidity of it, for the less than visually perfect or that with a short shelf life could have been sold profitably as decent food if the folk down there had been intelligent enough to adjust their prices appropriately, and as Christine had said, “Even wi’ no experience it’s easy enough to look on Youtube to find out what you can do wi’ cheap stuff.”
Aggie not unexpectedly had been a bit blunter and said, “Stupid folk like that deserve to starve. It’s not difficult to learn how to cook simple, plain, decent tasting meals, like as Christine says, from the internet. They’d do better doing that than messing about wi’ tiktok and other similar such rubbish. That social media nonsense. If they want a bit of a chat it ‘oud be better if they popped next door to put the kettle on and check their neighbours were okay. It’s their kids I feel sorry for, so maybe some of the ones that were chucked out on to the street and ended up being fetched here by Arathane and his Street Rangers are the lucky ones. Still their parents’ loss is our gain, for once they settle down none of ’em have bin any worse than mine and they all turned out all right eventually.” There was a round of laughter at that because all knew that some of Aggie’s lads had been in the words of Frank their dad, ‘They were a pain in the arse to rear till the reality of adulthood and having to deal with their own kids had knocked some sense into them. They all became decent adults though and I’m proud of ’em all.’ However, none said aught to outsiders considering the matter of wasted food, but they did assist Christine’s preservation kitchen workers in the Auld Bobbin Mill to deal with it all so that none was wasted.
Some of the hardier vegetable crops were still standing frozen solid, but the likes of brassicas, especially Brussels sprouts and kail, were gathered as required till the cooks and preservers of the Auld Bobbin Mill were ready to process them in bulk when hundreds of folk went out to cut the plants off at just above ground level for dealing with inside in the warm. Tough brassica stems were allowed to defrost prior to roller crushing into much appreciated feed for livestock. Some of the roots would be trapped frozen solid in the ground till the spring thaw arrived, but that was regarded as fine, for all knew the frost tenderised and sweetened the coarser roots, and it was particularly beneficial for fodder beet(56) and swedes.(57) Extra livestock feed had been bought in, as in years before, from all over the country and smaller quantities were still arriving. In all huge quantities were available, well over a twelvemonth’s supply. Clarence the master brewer had remarked to Gustav with a chuckle, “With all that barley available at least we won’t be in any danger of running out of ale will we?” Most importantly all livestock had been brought down from off the tops and the steeper higher level pastures to where they could be fed and watered no matter how much snow arrived. Fuel had for a number of years been distributed not so much ready for winter months in advance but as soon as space became available. The last hard winter had taught many lessons, so there were many things that didn’t have to be done in the cold because since then they’d been done earlier in the year when the weather had been kinder. Water supplies were now much better insulated, so that tiny warming mechanisms were all that were necessary to keep it flowing.
By the Saturday evening of the solstice party on the Village Green on the twenty-first there had still been no snow and the temperature was down to minus thirty-seven [-34·6℉]. As usual the food had been organised by Jeremy whose restaurante, The Auld Granary, had provided much that was available. The bulk of the food, however, was as always provided by Christine’s staff at the Auld Bobbin Mill, though a significant amount had been provided by hundreds of Bearthwaite women. The tons of large Picasso potatoes, the best available for baking, had been baked in the spuddie bakers, converted oil drums designed to be placed in the bonfires on the Green, were slathered in butter which their fluffy floury nature absorbed huge quantities of, and many satisfied folk, adults as well as children, could be seen with satisfied smiles as well as butter on the faces. As in the hard winter before the men were drinking far more spirits and far less ale than usual and the ladies retired to the best side of the Green dragon to imbibe punch.
The Green Dragon was packed with folk before, during and after the party, but many only tarried there long enough for a quick drink and to warm up a bit before returning to the exuberant activities outside, especially the dancing of which the young could never have too much. The hot toddy that was served outside in huge earthenware bowls was always consumed quickly for it didn’t remain hot for very long. Mulled wine had never been particularly popular at Bearthwaite, but the eight percent alcohol strong ale brewed to a Belgium Trappist monastery style recipe that was a recent offering from Clarence the Bearthwaite brewery’s brew master was a winner when given the mulling treatment with a red hot length of steel, a piece of rebar originally intended for reinforcing concrete, straight from one of the bonfires. All agreed that despite the temperature a good time had been had by all. It was ten degrees [18℉] colder in north east Scotland, and the temperature was still dropping there too. Christmas, even as perceived by the children, was always a bit of a lesser event at Bearthwaite and though Hogmanay was celebrated, this year it was very much a muted affair compared with usual which didn’t really bother any because the solstice was seen as the major event that signified the end of one year and the beginning of the next.
Bit by tiny bit each day was still becoming incrementally colder than the day before. Sasha had laught and said to Liam, another retired mathematician, that the temperature had been behaving like a strictly decreasing function of time since the beginning of December. He’d been overheard and when he was asked what that meant he’d said, “Not only has the temperature become colder all the time it has never even stayed at the same temperature. Joel’s weather station records shew that that has been true since around the beginning of December. There is a more complicated definition, but it only boils down to what I just said.” The nights were still as clear as a bell with the sky covered with stars and the aurora visible for most of most nights. During the flat calm days with azure blue skies without a trace of cloud, high or low, there was a sense of nervous anticipation amongst the Bearthwaite populace. That continued till the middle of January when Allan and Joel agreed they’d have heavy snow within seventy two hours.
However, the Meteorological Office had said the snow would arrive in ten to twelve days and it wouldn’t be heavy enough to be a problem other than on high ground in Scotland and northern England. Joel and Alan were listening to the radio together when they heard that and they had gazed at each other with incredulity writ large upon their faces. Alan had said, “I don’t know where they get their information from, Lad, but I can smell the stuff coming.”
As Joel poured them a large whiskey apiece from a bottle of peated twelve year old Connemara he’d acquired a few cases of via friend who had a typical Irishman’s innate objection to paying tax on liquor, he added to Alan’s remark by saying, “Aye, and even if you couldn’t smell it the way the folk are behaving would tip you off to a massive change in the weather coming in the next two or three days. When you’re ready, Alan, we may as well finish this one off.” Alan just grinned because it wasn’t a hour since Joel had opened the bottle and he had another lined up ready for opening.
On the seventeenth of January folk awoke to a barely moving, whisper of a breeze that once daylight arrived at just before eight thirty, could be seen to have brought in a few wispy clouds high in the sky. Not long after dawn the breeze picked up a little. Though it was still only moving the air at a handful of miles per hour it brought in a lot more clouds of a more substantial nature, though they were still high in the sky. Within half an hour the incoming wall of Siberian arctic air that the now stronger wind had brought had closed down the eastern UK and dramatically reduced the temperature at Bearthwaite to minus forty-six point four [-51·52℉] with a considerable chill factor. The cloud cover moving in was much more substantial and considerably lower, so much so that in places the fell tops and everything above two hundred metres [650 feet] had completely disappeared, though a lot of the cloud was considerably lower than that. The visibility ceiling kept louring(58) and it wasn’t long before aerial footage taken by a weather plane from above the valley shewed it to be an isolated gash in what appeared to be endless cloud cover that hid the rest of the world and the odd patches of clear sky were rapidly shrinking in size. Within a few more minutes the gash had disappeared and the sky was completely overcast.
At eleven minutes to ten the by then heavy and completely unbroken cover of cloud had started to deliver up its burden of snow. The snow fall was heavy and had become more so by the minute. By lunchtime going on a couple of feet [60cm] of snow had fallen on low ground and the wildly swirling wind had stiffened considerably. The combination had reduced visibility to nil. The wind quickly became sufficiently powerful so that despite the snow’s density it was lifting it back off the ground and driving what had been mobile fluid drifts into deep, solid masses in sheltered places. None had any idea what was going on up on the fjäll tops, but all knew that conditions up there would be much worse than what they were experiencing in the valley. By one in the afternoon the bulk of the UK’s road network was impassable, there wasn’t a train running in Britain and all civilian æroports were closed. On the news channels there was regular video footage taken from military æroplanes flying above the cloud and they shewed nothing over most of the country other than what looked like balls of cotton wool rather than clouds. Even the Scilly Isles and the Channel Islands could not be seen due to what the Meteorological Office said would probably prove to be a once in a life time snow cloud cover event. Auld Alan and Joel thought that that was one of the most amusing weather predictions they had ever heard and that it was comparable with the famous Michael Fish forecast(59) in the autumn [fall] of nineteen eighty-seven. Cornwall, where untruthfully legend had it that it never snowed, like Devon was covered with snow and sheep were in dire straits on the moors with all ground approaches unpassable. Till the snowfall at least eased the military said that helicopter relief feeding flights were not something they were even considering.
Alan and Joel had been a little out because the previous bad winter whilst cold had followed a completely different pattern from the current one. This time once the snow had started to fall it fell heavily immediately. According to the Meteorological Office going on for two metres [6½ feet] of it fell on the fells within twenty-four hours. How they determined that was anyone’s guess because the cloud cover was still total. Thereafter, at Bearthwaite the snowfall was lighter, but more or less constant for the next four weeks, with winds that reduced visibility to often less than a couple of feet [60cm], but the damage over the entire country had been done by those first two hours of snowfall that had blocked roads and much else. However, most Bearthwaite folk didn’t need to be able to see, for there was nowhere to go. All around the valley ropes suspended three feet [1m] off the concrete hard snow surface rather than the ground enabled folk to negotiate their way around when visibility was poor, even when it was a complete whiteout, though most folk didn’t use them, for they stayed at home. Only the medical folk and the others who had the need for face to face meetings, like the teenagers who ensured the elderly and the infirm were okay, used the ropes, the rest used a phone and whatever was needed, mostly food, was delivered by folk who were more than able to cope with the conditions. Bearthwaite and it’s outlying citizenry were okay, for the snow made little difference other than that fractious, bored children became more of a nightmare than usual. Fortunately Stephanie, yet again, with some more out of the box thinking had dreampt up more community based childminding ideas, many via zoom and other internet connections. Story tellers were in great demand, but fortunately Bearthwaite had them by the hundreds.
The plans that had long been laid were put into operation at Bearthwaite and its outside the valley community areas whilst folk living in gridlocked towns and cities with streets and roads completely filled with snow just suffered and worried, though most of continental Europe seemed to be doing okay, and northern Europeans just shrugged their shoulders. After all it was just winter and they had one every year. After its precipitate drop on the seventeenth of January the temperature resumed its slow descent. Bearthwaite’s movers and shakers had long since organised the Burns night supper on the twenty-fifth. The haggis, neeps and tatties were cooked by Christine’s staff at the Auld Bobbin Mill and delivered by hundreds of older teens working in gangs to those who’d expressed a preference to eat at home. Other elderly and any who needed help were assisted to the Community Hall, the Green Dragon or friends’ dwellings where they were sharing the event. It was a huge undertaking that worked like clockwork effected by all who could help in any way. To quote Auld Alan, “Nay bugger should have to forego such an event just because of a bit of inclement weather, and it’s a lot more fun drinking whisky wi’ friends than on your own. We’re having a houseful at Wood End and they’re all stopping at least the night. I’m looking forward to tekin a drink or twa with the lads.” All knew that referred to his great great grandsons for Jym their mother had resignedly telt her friends that she’d finally learnt how to pick her battles and she’d realised that Veronica, her mother in law, was correct when she’d said that that one was unwinnable.
Not entirely surprisingly the temperature at Bearthwaite bottomed out at two twenty-seven on the morning of February the fifth, which records said was usually the coldest day of the year. Joel Williams’ weather station on the village green had recorded the minimum to be minus fifty-one point six [-60·88℉], whilst an hour later in north east Scotland a temperature of minus fifty-five point zero [-67℉] had been recorded, though just a few kilometres outside Yakutsk in Siberia on the first of February it had reached minus a hundred and two point two [-151·96℉] which was the coldest temperature ever recorded anywhere on the planet. For the next three weeks the temperature hovered just above its minimum, but the wind dropped to a flat calm again and it stayed a flat calm. At Bearthwaite visibility was perfect and deliveries of food, fuel and most other things were done by the teams of teens using sledges during daylight hours. The teens enjoyed it simply because it was different and the shifting of lesson times to the early evening so as to take advantage of the daylight for tasks that had the greatest need of it was a little different, but not greatly so, for it was done every year.
Then, yet again, midway through the last week of February the weather broke from its usual patterns and started to warm rapidly. The sun actually felt warm and the last traces of the dirty, blackened snow crusts were gone from the road verges by the middle of March. Bearthwaite heaved a huge sigh of relief at the thaw despite the huge volumes of water that cascaded down off the fells, as temporary forces(60) in many places, and ultimately over The Rise(61) to where the main road and Calva Marsh were flooded for six weeks till the middle of April. The clear up job to open the road and render it usable took another two weeks, by which time it was May Day.(62) Two weeks during which Beebell made a lot of money out of the county authorities as a result of the Bearthwaite road contractors and farmers clearing the road and even more for them removing the debris which they tipped and spread onto Bearthwaite land. The debris was mostly nutrient rich fine material that fertilised Bearthwaite fields and growing areas. The rest was either trees which were left to dry out on the Bearthwaite Lonning Ends car park before being cut and split to provide fuel or rocks, the larger of which were used to reinforce the banks of the lower reach of the Bearthwaite Beck whilst the rest were crushed for aggregate used for numerous purposes. As Noah one of the contractors said, “The winter itself gave us a decent holiday, and we did damned well out of the subsequent clean up.”
Whilst the Bearthwaite land buying team watched the media and kept in touch with estate agents a number of nearby farmers quit and sold up. The land for sale included, much to the surprise of Murray’s team of land purchasers, a couple of huge farms operated by industrial farming concerns and the Smedleys’ sixty-seven acres that lay partially between Arabella and Dougal’s twenty two acres and Zvi and Alasdair’s five acre plot of two small fields. Purchase of the Smedley place had made Sandysyke contiguous with the bulk of the coöperative’s local outside the valley holdings and when Dougal took over the Smedley land as a dairying operation it was considered to be a gift by Murray’s team of land managers. As a result of the weather the market, like much of the land, was flooded and land prices were seriously depressed. Beebell staff spent the next six months buying up many tens of thousands of acres at rock bottom prices and analysing how they could improve things ready for when the next bad winter came, which most were certain would be within the next decade at most. Meanwhile, much of the rest of the nation cried because their houses were flooded due to the melting snow and zero rather than inadequate preparation. The flooded out constantly bleated, “They should have done something.” Just who the they were was anyone’s guess and Bearthwaite folk had no sympathy, for it was their belief that they should have done something for themselves.
27286 words including footnotes
1 Haymaking. Hay is made from grass, a widespread UK rural usage.
2 Lead in and led in, a widely used rural UK usage going back to horse drawn cart days referring to bringing in a harvest from the fields back to the farm or elsewhere for storage. The horse was often led by a worker walking alongside the loaded waggon. The term is still in use though the horses have long been replaced by tractors and waggons. The word led has recently been increasingly incorrectly written as lead though depending upon the tense the words may be pronounced the same. Two correct examples, the boss wants me to lead in hay this afternoon, pronounced leed as in bleed, (IPA lɪ:d), and I led hay in yesterday, pronounced led as in bled, (IPA lɛd).
3 Telling tales out of school, to betray confidences. It was originally said only of children, apparently children who let drop at home things they had heard from schoolmates in the nature of gossip or happenings within a family. Now it applies to anyone who reveals confidences (usually not very weighty) he has received, or is aware of.
4 Haylage is a 40-60% moisture content hay that is preserved by fermentation. It is easier to make than dry hay. Baleage, silage, and haylage are names for the same basic product: ensiled grass. It doesn’t matter whether the grass is going to be ensiled in large quantities in silage pits, also known as clamps, or as individually plastic wrapped bales the process is the same. Usually (in a normal year) the grass is baled when much greener than hay. There is a lot more to it than that, but this provides a reasonable outline. Silage, also sillage. Since the verb is to ensile or to ensilage I chose to use the single l form, but it is optional.
5 Spell, in this usage a duration.
6 The UK Meteorological Office data says that areas near to where Bearthwaite is postulated to lie receive in excess of 2000mm, 80 inches, of precipitation per year. However, the annual precipitation for different parts of Cumbria is very variable, especially from east to west.
7 Many additives are used to encourage lactic acid production and many mineral acids have been used to inhibit spoilage fermentation.
8 pH, negative logarithm to the base ten of the hydrogen ion concentration. A measure of acidity. The scale ranges from slightly lest than zero (extremely acid) to slightly more than fourteen (extremely basic). Seven is approximately neutral. The exact details are more complex, but this is a good first approximation without taking temperature or any thing else into consideration.
9 Bag muck, artificial fertilizer.
10 Coin, money.
11 Gang te, dialectal going to.
12 Whooer, dialectal whore. Pronounced who + er. IPA hu:ə:.
13 Full o’ arms and legs. Full of arms and legs, a vernacular expression for being pregnant. It is only used by men.
14 Shilling, a unit of pre decimal currency. A shilling was 5 pence, say 7 US cents, though it was worth considerably more in those days.
15 Deed, dialectal died or dead.
16 Grass, all grass, contains significant proportions of water even as hay. It ferments as it further dries producing heat, which can cause the hay to become hot enough to catch fire. Old hay barns going back to when hay was led in and stored loose had circular ventilation holes often two feet in diameter built into the brickwork to allow the heat and moisture to escape. Hay baled too green can become excessively hot, which is a further fire risk. However, huge air fans can be used to blow cold air through such bales once stored to prevent them over heating. Grass baled green as haylage and then plastic wrapped becomes very hot very quickly. Such bales are left out in the field to cool till the fermentation is over. The process is considered to take three weeks. The plastic wrap protects them from any rain.
17 PTO, Power Take Off. A shaft powered by the tractor engine designed to run other equipment, here a fan.
18 In the northern hemisphere the autumnal equinox can fall on the 21st, 22nd, 23rd or the 24th of September, though the 21st and the 24th are rare. The non perfect regularity of the movement of the bodies within the solar system accounts for some of this, but the leap day of the 29th of February every fourth year due to the Earth’s year being approximately 365·25 days has a considerable effect too.
19 The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the UK for eight months from 7 September 1940 to 11 May 1941 during the Second World War.
20 Combined, as in harvested by combine harvester.
21 BEE, Bearthwaite Educational Establishment.
22 Babby, dialectal baby. Pronounced with a short hard a as in babble. IPA babi.
23 In its original sense, a shaggy dog story or yarn is an extremely long winded anecdote characterized by extensive narration of typically irrelevant incidents and terminated by an anticlimax. In other words, it is a long story that is intended to be amusing and that has an intentionally silly or meaningless ending. Shaggy dog stories play upon the audience's preconceptions of joke telling. The audience listens to the story with certain expectations, which are either simply not met or met in some entirely unexpected manner. Most of Dave’s are of the latter kind.
24 Suits, a slang term, white collar workers or persons wearing a suit, especially, a business executives or bureaucrats. It is usually at least mildly pejorative and derisory and is used by folk who do not identify themselves as such.
25 Brash blocks, are produced from sawdust and fine chipped wood and other organic materials from a variety of sources all mixt with a binder, see GOM 46, and compressed to produce a solid fuel briquette approximately four inches [100mm] in diameter and of variable lengths which is determined by the way they break off as they exit the extruder tube.
26 On my slate, on my account. Such matters were historically written on a slate.
27 In UK English a Jock is a Scotsman. The term has nothing to do with sport. Jocks in frocks is term often used humorously by Scotsmen about themselves when wearing the kilts.
28 A shortened version of Pakistanis. The usage is usually offensively pejorative.
29 Bait colloquial usage for a working man’s meal when at work.
30 The Vikings was released in 1958.
31 Fashed, dialectal bothered.
32 Store cattle are those that aren’t quite ready for slaughter, so may be around 15 to 18 months old. The big store sales are in the autumn. These cattle will be “stored” over the winter on a forage diet to keep them growing but not laying down fat then “finished” off grass the following summer.
33 Drystun, Cumbrian pronunciation of drystone. Sandstone is pronounced sandstun.
34 Brick bats, usually refers to half a brick, also used for more generally a broken brick. Also used is the term a quarter bat which is as the name suggests a quarter of a brick.
35 Compo, composition. A widely used term for the mortar used to lay brick with. It may be made of lime and sand, cement and sand or a mixture of the two.
36 Founds, foundations.
37 A mixture of compressed air either from a cylinder or a compressor and bottled biogas. A commonly used engineering heat source by the Bearthwaite technicians. See GOM 58 for more details.
38 A ha’p’orth, very old usage over most of the UK that is still in use by older folk. A half penny’s worth.
39 Lonning, dialectal lane.
40 Copings, the coping stones. The top row of stones. Walls are usually laid as two separate sides and infilled with smaller stones. Every so often through stones that go from one side of the wall to the other are laid to bind the wall together. Like the through stones, coping stones are the full width of the wall to bind the wall together. They are laid on edge as an aid to shed rain. Typically such walls have a width of about seventy centimetres (28 inches ) at the base, dependent upon their height, and are usually half of their base width at the top. The slope is referred to as the batter and is equal on both sides. This is applicable to both drystone walls and cobble walls with minor differences. Too, practice varies from area to area.
41 Twatting, in this context the present participle is used as a gerund, a noun, meaning a punch, a hit. The implication is a serious blow. The word is similarly used as in, ‘Give it a good twatting with a hammer. That’ll make it move.’
42 Plod, pejorative term for police. Mr. Plod was a fictional bumbling police officer in the Noddy series of children’s books by Enid Blyton.
43 Vicky, Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (the fourth son of King George III), and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld.
44 Twa, dialectal two.
45 Down country, to the south. Just how far south down country is depends on who you talk to and the exact context.
46 See GOM 59.
47 Bearthwaite Pudding, a highly luxurious Bread and Butter pudding. See GOM 54.
48 A typical calf feeding pail in the UK is half a standard two gallon pail in volume. 5 litres or 10 US pints.
49 See GOM 62. Bras quoted in chest size in inches then cup volume in cubic inches. Also in cm then cubic centimetres.
50 The reference is to Asbach.
51 Scoops, as in beer. A few pints.
52 Stilton is an English cheese, produced in two varieties: blue, which has Penicillium roqueforti added to generate a characteristic smell and taste, and white, which does not. Both have been granted the status of a protected designation of origin (PDO) by the European Commission, requiring that only such cheese produced in the three counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire may be called Stilton. The cheese takes its name from the village of Stilton, now in Cambridgeshire, where it has long been sold, but cannot be made because it is not in one of the three permitted counties. Amusingly, Stichelton is an English blue cheese virtually identical to Blue Stilton and produced in the area, but it uses unpasteurised milk that Stilton used to use prior to the milk health scare of the nineteen eighties which was when the majority of producers started to use pasteurised milk. Because they were still using pasteurised milk when it acquired its PDO status in nineteen ninety-six Stichelton cannot legally be called Stilton, hence the name change. The PDO is still in effect in the EU and the UK despite Brexit.
53 Cat scabies is a very painful, itchy, and contagious disease caused by the Notoedres cati mite. Most scabies mites are species specific though they can affect other species from time to time.
54 A pheromone is a secreted or excreted chemical factor that triggers a social response in members of the same species. Pheromones are chemicals capable of acting like hormones outside the body of the secreting individual, to affect the behaviour of the receiving individuals.
55 A full breakfast or fry up is a substantial cooked breakfast meal often served in Great Britain and Ireland. Depending on the region, it may also be referred to as a full English, a full Irish, full Scottish, full Welsh or Ulster fry. The typical ingredients are bacon, sausages, eggs, black pudding or haggis, tomatoes, mushrooms and fried bread or toast and the meal is often served with tea. Baked beans, hash browns, and coffee (in place of tea) are common contemporary but non traditional inclusions.
56 Fodder beet, mangels, mangel worzels. A productive, large root that is eaten by humans and also fed to livestock.
57 Swedes, Swedish turnips, turnips, neeps, rutabaga depending on your whereabouts.
58 Louring, dialectal lowering, considered to be archaic by most folk who have ever heard the word. The word is unknown in most of the country.
59 A few hours before the Great Storm of 1987 broke, on 15 October 1987, weatherman Michael Fish said during a televised weather forecast: “Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she heard there was a hurricane on the way. Well, if you’re watching, don’t worry, there isn’t!” The storm was the worst to hit South East England for three centuries, causing record damage and killing 19 people. Technically Michael had been correct for the storm just failed to meet the criteria to be a hurricane.
60 Force, this is an ancient use of the word. Used as a noun in this sense a force is a powerful waterfall. There are any number of such permanent forces in northern England that are popular tourist destinations. Examples would be Aira Force and Force Jumb.
61 The Rise is the granite sill running across the Bearthwaite valley that prevents flood waters from escaping. It is about eight miles from Bearthwaite village and a mile from the main road.
62 May Day, the first of May.
If you liked this post, you can leave a comment and/or a kudos!
Click the Thumbs Up! button below to leave the author a kudos:
And please, remember to comment, too! Thanks.
