A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 64 Looking to the Future

~Back to the Crystal Ball~

It was haymaking season again when Ancient Alan had said to Joel, “This ain’t going to get any better in your life time, Lad. Nor probably for a many more lifetimes after that. It’s going to keep getting worse and increasingly less predictable too. Think on it, in less than a couple of handfuls of years we’ve had three real hellers, yan(1) scorcher and twa(2) freezers, yet there was nowt similar about the twa freezers at all. All we can do is be prepared for owt. And think on as the weather gets worse so will the civil disturbances. We’re only still here because we look after oursels. There’re not as many out there bleating that somebody should a done something as there may a bin because by not looking after ’emsels a many on ’em are deed.(3) Still, Chance and that team of his will just keep abuying what we may need whenever it’s cheap and we’ll be okay. As we all know it’s absolutely pointless expecting any other bugger to do owt for us. For one they don’t know owt that would enable them to help us, and that’s local and central government both.

“Mostly though despite their political rhetoric they just don’t give a toss about what happens to the rest of the nation. As long as they’ve got their snouts in the trough that the public are forced into filling wi’ coin that enables them to live the life of Riley spending a fortune on the golf course and the odd weekend away aploughing their secretaries’ fields they just don’t give a damn. But I reckon the day will come when Joe Public won’t be putting owt into the trough because he won’t have owt for ’em to tek off him to put in. Thousands of the suits(4) will be out of a job and they don’t know how to do owt else than thieve with a government licence.(5) Happen by then our political types will be all that’s between us and them. The only way to protect oursels will be if they get the rest of what was Cumbria on our side. The southerners ’ll think twice afore going for us all. Fact is Cumbria could manage if it sorted itself out. We don’t need the south and they do need us, because what agriculture they have is mostly vast monocultures, cereals in the east and dairy in the west. Parts of the country produce vegetables, including sugar beet so at least they be able to have sugar on their cornflakes and milk, but whatever, cereals, milk, vegetables they are all totally reliant on bag muck(6) to produce ’em and they have a hell of a sewage disposal problem all ower and a similar cow shite disposal problem in the west of the country.

“Most of the nation’s farmers shafted their soils decades ago and the farther south you go the worse it gets. There was no top soil left in some spots afore I was born. Most of their top soil has bin blown away by the wind because there was no humus nor owt else in it to hold it together. They’re growing in an essentially inert subsoil medium fertilised courtesy of ICI(7) and the like. Five will get you ten few of ’em know much else, or how to farm any other road. We are still practising mixed farming and grow all of what we need and most of what we want, and we can actually do wi’ out what we can’t grow, and in any case,” Alan grinned, “I don’t like pineapple. Sure a few of us use some bag muck, but it’s getting ridiculously dearer every year, so the folk as do use it are using less every year. If push came to shove they could actually do wi’out it altogether wi’ no loss o’ crop. All they’d have to do is plan things a bit better. It wouldn’t involve any more work. They’d just have to put a slightly heavier dose of shite to the soil when muck spreading.

“There’re are a few of our farmers that still need to go back to their grandfathers understanding of the land and start to see shite as a valuable resource as what nourishes the soil and not as an inconvenience produced by their ower wintering cattle that they have to dispose of prior to using what they see as the real crop, feed granules from out o’ bags. Bag muck was purely invented by folk wi’ no understanding o’ and even less o’ a relationship wi’ the land as a way to tek money out o’ already desperately poor farmers’ pockets. We’ll always be able to find enough shite for what ever the soil needs because there’s always the sewage from the towns. When the water authority suits become desperate enough they’ll process it properly, so as we’ll tek the problem off their hands, and trust me, Lad, they will get that desperate. They’re not far from it now. Most of us just use farm yard shite as well as having ærobically composted sewage injected into the soil, so I reckon it won’t be long before none of us buy in bag muck, and for sure we don’t have a sewage disposal problem in the valley because along with all our shite not only do we use all our own sewage more or less where it’s produced we’re being paid to use sewage from elsewhere by folk who have no idea what to do with it.

“Tell you something as ’ould mek me laugh if it didn’t mek me want to greet like a bloody Christmas card,(8) Lad. Sheep are rightly called walking shite carts right? That’s because sheep shite in small bits as rain can get underneath and sheep shit doesn’t prevent any grass from growing, so you don’t need a muck cart to spread sheep shit because they do the job for you just by walking about grazing. Cattle are different. They drop shite as semi liquid piles as spreads out as cow pats which prevent the grass under ’em from growing. A cow pat prevents the grass under it from growing for a goodly while afore the rain breaks it up enough to allow the grass roots under it to grow grass again. Decades ago I read an article in the Farmers weekly about some boffin from an agricultural college who studied cow shit as it fell onto the fields. He measured the cow pats to find their average size and studied how long it took for the rain to break ’em up enough to allow grass to grow back again.

“As a result of his measurements and record keeping, he worked out an average figure for how much grass production was lost due a single cow shitting in a field if it were there for a day. So given the number of beasts and for how long they were in a particular field he worked out how much grass you lost. I don’t suppose he had any idea what his work would be used for, but that was the beginning of the agricultural indoor milk industry where cows were kept indoors every day of the year and the fields became outdoor factories producing grass to feed cows indoors wi’ no loss due to cows inconveniently shitting on the grass. I reckon if your profit margins are that tight as you have to do that you’re in the wrang(9) business. Daftest thing about it is the stupid bastards still have to get rid of the cow shit some how, and it’s far less work letting cows shit outside in a field than it is mucking out a cow house. Too, a milking parlour produces enough slurry that has to be pumped into a lagoon and later spread on the fields using a sludge gupper wi’ out adding to it.

“What I’m saying is way down country they don’t produce a varied enough food supply to meet folks’ needs and we do. Too, in the east of the country where they more or less only grow cereals they desperately need shite for the land as their bag muck bills are rising way faster than their profits. Hundreds of miles away in the west of the country where they grow bugger all except grass to feed dairy cattle there’s a bloody great surplus of shite which they’ve no idea what to do with. It’s not an economic proposition to ship it out east and it’s a major health hazard unless they do some thing with it. As regards food, up here even in the towns out west(10) here there’s still a goodly number of blokes as have an allotment and keep a few hens. And think on how many lads out that way have a pigeon loft. Racing pigeons eat every bit as well as woodies(11) and not every one they raise can be a winner. However, we need our political types to protect our Rangers when they protect the rest of us. They need to be accepted as a legitimate military and law enforcement force doing a legitimate job not as a mercenary militia, which a course them being in the Terries(12) meks just perfect.”

Joel grinned and asked, “Talking of sewage, have you spoken to Murray in the last two days, Alan?”

Alan shook his head and said, “No. Why?”

“You’ve bin tekin ærobically composted sewage from spots round Carlisle and your lads inject it wherever it’ll do some good for what? Nearer ten than five years now?” Alan nodded in agreement. “Well some other local sewage works, so I suppose ultimately that boils down to the same water authority as we already tek treated sewage from, want Murray to sign to accepting some from elsewhere too for the same price that he’s getting from the Carlisle works.” Alan looked puzzled because he obviously couldn’t see the problem. With all the extra farmland recently purchased by Beebell, most of which was in seriously poor condition, they could handle as much treated sewage as Cumbria could supply never mind a few local sewage works. Everyone involved in the sewage industry knew that unless there was solid evidence that sewage had been ærobically composted Bearthwaite wouldn’t touch it and there had to be an independent outside agency doing regular testing before any negotiations would be entertained by Murray and any who worked in his department. “The thing is none of these folk have adequate modern ærobic composting facilities and they are expecting us to contribute significantly to their cost.”

Alan snorted and said, “You’ve nay need to tell me what Murray’s reply to that was, Lad. I imagine it was something along the lines of, ‘It’s your shite. You clean it up.’ ”

“That was part of it but he also said it wasn’t his problem if they started drowning in it and doubtless the Environment Agency would fine them heavily if they dumped any more into the Solway as they used to do with it all years ago. He also pointed out that now the Environment Agency had twenty-four seven monitoring equipment on their outfalls into the Solway they would be aware as soon as they dumped raw sewage into the water and the fines would like as not be hitting them by the start of business the following day. He added that if they repeatedly offended the Environment Agency had the power to revoke their water extraction licence from else where and he was going to have Chance have a chat with them to make sure they were aware that if they ever were to be looking for a new licence holder we were interested in a combined water supply and sewage disposal package and naturally as long as negotiations were concluded to our environmental folk and our legal team’s complete satisfaction we should shoulder the entire cost of all and any new ærobically composting sewage works. He telt me it would all be tax deductible and there were government grants available for installing new state of the art sewage disposal works. And naturally they would be built, installed, commissioned and maintained by Bearthwaite lads all working for Beebell.”

Alan still laughing said, “Canny bugger ain’t he, and he’s trained up Chance to be just as nasty. Mind from the tales I’ve heard I reckon neither on ’em are anywhere near as bad as those two lasses as work wi’ Jimmy and Cooper.” Joel knew that Alan was referring to Adalheidis and Annalísa of the Bearthwaite legal team and smiled because he knew Alan was right. “Now listen, Joel, and listen hard. Every morning when I wake up, at my age it’s a bonus, because one morning I won’t. I’ve ordered and organised all the records I’ve kept since I was a lad. You know how my system works, and my entire family knows that I’ve left them to you officially in my will because you’re the only bugger that they’re any real use to, but I want them to be in your possession before I go. That’s so no officious bastard from the government can say they are a national resource and lay claim to ’em. Jill Levens’ lasses at the library have the entire collection at the moment and they are copying the lot. They’ll return the originals to you and send us both a paper copy.

“Mine my family can hand over to the suits if they come investigating with a high court order. A digital copy will be available on the library database. I don’t know how much the suits know about my written records or even if they know owt, but we have to work on the assumption that they have detailed information about exactly what I am likely to have. After all, I’ve never made a secret of my interest in weather and every farmer and half the county, if not more, keeps an ear open for my predictions, so the suits could have heard about me from dozens of sources. You just mek damned certain the originals are well hid somewhere because they belong to us. The suits can have a copy, paper and digital, but the originals are ours. Talk to Harwell Stevison, the head ranger, he’ll know where to put them so they are safe. I suggest you work with the paper copy the library lasses will send you or even the digital version and deny all knowledge of the originals. Better still if you demand that they return them to to you because they’re yours. Okay? I’m not being morbid, Lad. Just brutally realistic.” Joel just nodded, for it was all that was necessary.

~The Death of Edward McCuillin~

Much to the disgust and anger of the McCuillin family when Edward McCuillin died of old age in his sleep on the fourteenth of October Lucy and Roberts were looked after exactly as Edward had desired by the Beebell(13) legal team who had ensured that every last detail of Edward’s wishes had been observed to the letter, and, if the truth had ever come to light, Beebell, in the interests of what they had considered to be morally right, had gone considerably further than what they considered to be the minimal terms set out on paper. The McCuillin family considered it to be outrageous that a pair of mere servants had been left anything at all in his will. Their arrogance was such that the idea that Edward had actually like Lucy and Roberts and cordially disliked all of his family never occurred to them, and in any event had it done so they would have considered it to be irrelevant. Due to some harassment from the family trying to bully them into handing over some of their paperwork, mostly share certificates that Edward had given them as Christmas presents over their decades of service that somehow the family had recently become aware of, Annalísa had suggested to the couple that it may be advisable that she retained the paperwork in the capacity of their solicitrix. They were concerned as to the cost, but when she had assured them that her fees had already been covered as part of the arrangement with Edward who had been very concerned that they were be looked after they happily agreed to the arrangement. When Annalísa had tried to discuss the matter of the harassment with the police they had claimed they were unable to do anything to prevent it. Annalísa had then suggested the pair move to Bearthwaite where they would be more than welcome and completely free of the McCuillins, who despite Lucy and Roberts having long officially retired were abusing the couple by forcing them to function as a pair of servants. They were elderly and both becoming frail, and without Edward’s protection they didn’t fair well living in the McCuillin Great House, which his will had specified they were entitled to do for the rest of their lives. Their problem was that the McCuillin family could get at them and abuse them there.

~Legal Problems for the Law~

The Beebell directorate on their legal department’s advice had made no fuss when the police had said they could do nothing to prevent the harassment of the elderly couple by the McCuillin family, for as a consequence that would enable Beebell to deliver a salutary object lesson that the police force had long been in need of. Murray had told the police that in return the police would get no help from Bearthwaite till the directorate reckoned the debt had been paid in the eyes of the Bearthwaite folk of the valley and beyond. That started by denying them access to the car park that was on land owned by Beebell, it was the beginning of the valley but on the outside of The Rise at the Bearthwaite Lonning Ends. The police had long been permitted to use the car park as a convenience for their patrol vehicles. That was a major blow for the officers who actually policed the area as opposed to worked in offices because the road that ran past the Lonning End was narrow with no parking places on it for several miles in either direction from the Bearthwaite Lonning Ends.

The police were aware that the car park was watched via several concealed CCTV cameras, and that at least one of them was capable of accurately determining the speed of cars going past, for on a number of occasions in the past they had been provided with video evidence from them. They were also aware that Bearthwaite’s legal team wouldn’t hesitate to prosecute them should they now use the land after having been expressly denied permission to so do, not only in writing, but in an open letter to the media too. That it was now widely known that there would no longer be a police presence on the main road the police knew would be the cause of many road traffic accidents caused by speeding vehicles and some undoubtedly would result in fatalities. As a result they had tried to emotionally blackmail Bearthwaite into reversing the decision. They were bluntly told it was they that had caused the issue by refusing to implement the law, and that the land belonged to Bearthwaite and they were not entitled to go there. Furthermore it was added since there would be no deaths of Bearthwaite folk involved Bearthwaite folk didn’t care what happened because they would have clear consciences.

Though the chief constable had been more than seriously concerned by that, her senior management had laughed, not least because of the chief constable imminent retirement. However, when their first request for aid, they’d wanted information concerning gangsters involved in drugs, guns and people trafficking, folk they knew were relatives of regular visitors to the Bearthwaite valley, was turned down they had stopped laughing. They had been aghast when Adalheidis told them that Bearthwaite’s non coöperation would last for five years from the date and time that they had refused to implement the law on behalf of Lucy and Roberts. That, Adalheidis had explained, was the penalty that the Bearthwaite Þing(14) had sentenced them to for their refusal to intervene in the illegal victimisation of a pair of frail and elderly folk who were under the protection of the Bearthwaite code. Adalheidis had further explained that she was acting on the instructions of the Beebell Þing in drawing their line in the sand deliberately to teach the police a lesson. That lesson being that every action had consequences.

The police had had to look up the meaning of a Þing, and few of them had any understanding of what they’d discovered, and they had no idea who made up the Bearthwaite Þing. That Bearthwaite folk always used Þ, the letter thorn, in the word they found to be not just bizarre but disturbing too. Those few had been taken aback to realise that Bearthwaite folk considered themselves to have a legal and governmental system separate from that of the rest of the UK and it was a system at least a millennium old, possibly a millennium and a half. It was a shock to realise that they were dealing with folk who ruled themselves in the same way that the Vikings had done over a thousand years before, certainly in various parts of Cumbria and probably in the Bearthwaite valley too. It was slowly becoming recognised both inside and outside the valley that Bearthwaite folk were slowly but surely reverting more and more to the social practices of their ancestors because they considered that to be a better way to govern their lives and protect themselves from the actions of the folk they referred to as the outsiders which included the police.

Eventually the police were stunned to realise that the Bearthwaite population could enforce that simply because their leaders, who were chosen not by election, but by, from what they could make out to be, a woolly, hazy, consensus, acclaim mechanism not at all understood by any outsider, not just themselves, knew that their entire population accepted their authority simply because that population had given it to them and that their entire population knew any who did not so accept that authority would be no longer considered to be Bearthwaite folk and would have to leave. That the police had no idea who those leaders were because it was obvious they were not necessarily the persons who spoke on behalf of Bearthwaite, some of who were just teenagers, was even more disturbing to them. Too, Bearthwaite had deep and widespread financial influence across most of what had been Cumbria and much else of Northern England and southern Scotland because of their trading links, and their political influence over the same regions, already strong, was growing stronger by the day. The implacable Bearthwaite ethos that explicitly stated that every action had consequences had come home to roost to all outsiders including the authorities.

When he’d been asked, Sergeant Michael Graham, who was Bearthwaite born and bred of a centuries, if not a millennium, old Bearthwaite family, had point blank refused to intercede on his employers’ behalf because as he had patiently explained he was not prepared to waste his breath on something he neither had the power nor the authority to challenge, for he was not a lawspeaker, and in any case he simply did not have that much influence in Bearthwaite politics. A lawspeaker was something else his employers had to look up and again in the main they failed to understand the significance of. Moreover, he said he was not prepared to run counter to a decision made by the assembled folks of Bearthwaite at a public meeting, a Þing. He didn’t inform his superiors that he had been in favour of the decision and had contributed to it. When it had been pointed out that one solution was to take some of the valley’s residents in for questioning his superiors had been taken aback by his amused chuckle and unnerved by the smile on his face that did not reach his eyes when he’d said, “Aye, you could certainly do that.” That he did not warn them of any possible consequences or say that they would probably regret so doing gave them cause to hesitate and eventually to abandon the idea. To the more intelligent senior officers his smile had looked positively menacing and it had been obvious that if presented with a direct conflict of interest between his employers and his folk he would simply resign with no regrets whatsoever for to him there could be no possible conflict of interest.

~Augusta and Michael Retire~

Six months after that Augusta Winmarleigh(15) the chief constable had retired and it was more than a shock to the rest of the police force when she and Frederick her husband, a retired anæsthetist who grew oriental vegetables in his spare time, had sold up in Carlisle, where they had lived for years, and had been welcomed to live at Bearthwaite. Frederick had been a welcome if infrequent drinker in the taproom of the Green Dragon for his entire life and had distant family blood connections with folk who had lived in the valley for generations. He had immediately joined the allotmenteers as a grower of speciality vegetables many of which he had saved his own seed for for decades. That Augusta’s views and understanding of human nature had always been respected by the Bearthwaite directorate, the lawspeakers, senior members of the force had never been aware of. That she was no longer in place bad(16) not well for the police in times to come unless they appointed someone of her like. That they didn’t caused them serious embarrassment from time to time and gave the Bearthwaite legal team equally serious amusement at the police’s ineptitude which provided them with no real opposition in the courts.

The constabulary had started to avoid dealing with Bearthwaite whenever they could because on all of the rare handful of occasions when something had reached court they had lost and looked not just inept but unaware of the law and so professionally stupid too. Put simply, Bearthwaite citizens were not guilty of any crimes they could ever be prosecuted for and their legal team was far better than the constabulary’s. Too, whenever the constabulary in their hubris broke the law by howsoever miniscule an amount and it affected Bearthwaite folk the Bearthwaite legal team could be guaranteed to remind them of the law in court, and there were an ever increasing number of Bearthwaite folk on the local benches of magistrates. To some it almost seemed that the courts expected the police to present flawed or biased cases and that as a result they had half way lost before they began. As a result even when reasonably certain they had a good case to take to court the police backed down rather than face the possibility of yet another humiliating hammering in the media for another fortnight.

Looking to the future there were any number if young adults from the Bearthwaite community in the legal professions with their eyes set on becoming judges, and the police senior management were aware that unlike other such legal professionals who had to fight their own way up, which included providing a living for themselves and their families whilst they did so, Bearthwaite legal professionals were funded and totally supported by their community which meant their advancement was enabled considerably faster that that of their competitors. A small number of outsiders managed to find a degree of funding via scholarships that helped, but every member of the Bearthwaite community involved in tertiary or post graduate education was fully funded and only had to focus on their studies. It was understandable yet at the same time totally inexplicable to outsiders that Bearthwaite functioned thus. That the entire folk of Bearthwaite functioned as a community that perceived the future of their children and their children too depended on how well they acted as a community was something that no outsider could understand no matter how often they had had it explained to them.

Though at first sight that was a self contradiction it was not, for to date any and all outsiders, regardless of their age, who could understand that had quickly decided that they would rather become Bearthwaite folk than remain an outsider and of course they were recognised as such and welcomed, so it was indeed something that no outsider could understand. Greed and desire for power over others was an almost universal unwritten law that seemed to determine the behaviour of most if not all outsiders. Bearthwaite folk recognised this and yet they didn’t understand it, for it made no sense to them. Their desire was to live well, which meant enough food of a reasonable variety, good clothes which with enough fuel to remain warm meant they lived comfortably. Some entertainment and to be able to take a pleasure out of their lives was more than enough to make their lives acceptable. However, what was of more significance to all of them, for which they would all have willingly given up all of their well being, was that their children and their children would live the lives that they themselves had desired. Bearthwaite produced a disproportionately high proportion of high educated young adults, all of who knew what their society had done to give them that education and all of who considered it right and proper that in return they should study hard in order to repay that debt someday even if the only way they could so do was by in turn investing in the next generation.

Augusta Winmarleigh’s input into the Bearthwaite directorate concerning the way the police upper management conducted their affairs had been more than welcomed by the folk who recognised her as one of themselves, and it had provided the legal team with insights that informed their dealings with the police force much to Bearthwaite’s advantage. The more insightful senior members of the police force were dreading sergeant Michael Graham’s approaching retirement. Michael was a Bearthwaite born and bred officer who had returned to Bearthwaite to live a few years before, but more to the point he’d dealt with all Bearthwaite matters without fuss for the force for years. Too, he was a widely respected man on many of the difficult crime riddled estates [US hoods] that fell within the area of the force. Places where he was happy to go on his own in uniform for a chat or to play illegal street football with the boys or make a fool of himself playing hopscotch with a group of little girls there. “Just try to keep the noise down and not to upset anyone,” was his often repeated advice. “When I was your age I found the offer to go to the shop for folk every now and again kept things friendly and it is something to do,” was something the kids found to be helpful.

He was always welcomed and provided with a mug of tea and a couple of biscuits or a sandwich. His solution to a complaint that little girls were illegally playing two ball up against a house gable end had become a local legend and was typical of the man. He’d suggested that the girls found other gable ends and never played on the same house wall twice in a row. Better still, he’d suggested, why don’t you ask the residents when they’ll be out and it won’t matter to them. He’d accompanied the girls to the house where the resident who had complained lived and knocked on the door. He’d explained his suggestion, and the old lady had promptly thanked him and provided a mug of tea. He was a kindly and generous man and often gave money for flowers when folk he knew had lost someone close. If he was there on business it was amicably resolved and he’d be assured that the problematic youths would be dealt with. These were areas other police officers usually avoided. When they went there they usually went in mob handed in full riot gear.

Once he retired all matters concerning such estates would become much more difficult, for he was unique and the force had no replacement for him. Any issues concerning Bearthwaite would become far more difficult, for the entire valley including the access lonning was private property where the police, along with all other officialdom, had been told long ago they had no permission to enter, and they would have to justify to a magistrate the need for a warrant without which they would be liable to prosecution for criminal trespass. It was public knowledge that the police were expressly forbidden from accessing any part of the Bearthwaite estate including the car park at the Lonning Ends. The entire Bearthwaite valley was still what it had always been a private estate. Too, they were aware that the Bearthwaite solicitors wouldn’t hesitate to prosecute. The matter of obtaining a warrant was becoming more and more fraught with difficulty because the number of local magistrates who were Bearthwaite folk was increasing every year, and the number who were well disposed towards Bearthwaite folk even more so. It was widely known and talked of that, “Bearthwaite folk are gey different and often hard to understand, but if you treat them with respect and deal honest and straight with them they will do the same with you.”

~Lucy and James Move to Bearthwaite~

Lucy and Roberts, now referred to as James, his given name, had initially been reluctant to accept Annalísa’s offer to live at Bearthwaite because despite the abuse and ill treatment they received from the McCuillin family at least living where they’d worked for decades didn’t cost them anything and despite Edward McCuillin’s will they were not wealthy. Neither had ever married, had children, nor had any surviving family they could go to for support in their age. Realising that, Annalísa had told them that if Bearthwaite didn’t provide them with the safety and freedom from harassment that free housing at Bearthwaite and whatever support they needed in their age provided that that would be breaking faith with Edward McCuillin and the spirit of her agreement with him, even if they had complied with the terms of what had been written down. She explained that she and Edward had understood and liked each other and that had created a personal bond of trust beyond that which was committed to paper. She told them that she refused to diminish herself in her own eyes by breaking faith with that bond of trust. Trust of that order she explained to the pair went beyond death, for it was absolute. The sǫgur(17) said that that had been the way of her ancestors for all historically recorded time. That she had always believed that that was so was one of the major reasons why she had become a member of the Bearthwaite folk, for to all Bearthwaite folk it was something that was a part of their very being.

Because they were used to each other the elderly couple decided to share a small two bedroomed terraced house at the village end of Allotments Row which was conveniently located near to the village centre where the post office, general store and other facilities were located. The platonic and formally appropriate relationship that they’d maintained for decades changed and developed once away from the McCuillin Great House into something much more personal and to the surprise of none after fifteen months they were married in Bearthwaite church by Chance. The celebration of their marriage was regarded as an opportunity for a party that the entire Bearthwaite community became involved in. However, all Bearthwaite folk had long regarded them as a couple because the children all referred to them as Granny Lucy Storyteller and Granddad James Storyteller as a result of the help they gave the staff at the BEE(18) with the little ones. It wasn’t long before storyteller became accepted as a similar word to sagasayer. That they had acquired that as an appended soubriquet seemed appropriate, and both were deeply happy at being considered to be family by hundreds of children and hence their older relatives too which was something neither had experienced for decades.

~Daphne and Stephen~

After the arson attack which had burnt Daphne and Stephen’s house and her huge, ex barn workshop to the ground they’d lived at the Green Dragon for three weeks whilst looking for new accommodation and workshop facilities. Daphne had started to settle down and recover from the shock of being deliberately burnt out of her home quickly at Bearthwaite, for there she felt totally safe. Pete had been right when he’d told Stephen that the support of women who cared was what she had needed. Daphne had told Murray that she didn’t need facilities the size of what she’d lost because the barn had always been more than she’d required and she’d always intended to take on less work as she approached retirement. Daphne had said she would honour all her existing commitments but had refused to take on any new commissions till such time as she had reëstablished her new workshop studio facilities. She intended to take on far fewer commissions, and only take on work she was personally interested in.

Over twelve months before the Jarvis sisters had been scheduled to repaint and generally renovate the BEE buildings as soon as possible. The work was to be done as a low priority job when they had available time in between their other work on Bearthwaite dwellings and hadn’t been progressing at all quickly. Daphne had asked Faye Jarvis to provide paint, equipment and protective sheets and clothing so that some of the children could repaint some of the walls in neutral colours for her to cover with murals that she would effect with children’s help during their art lessons. Her idea for the murals was whatever it took to make the rooms look larger. Some of the classrooms had walls covered with scenes of children working at school desks as an extension of the existing classroom. Science laboratories had scenes derived from commercial laboratories which not only made the labs look larger they appeared to be far more sophisticated than what one would expect to find in a school. It was hugely popular with children of all ages many of who were regularly involved in painting the huge numbers of grain silos around the valley such that they blended in as opposed to looking like galvanised eyesores blighting the pastoral landscape. As soon as a new silo was erected it was spray painted match the sky so that the scenes below blended the farm scenery and the landscape into the background with no abrupt break at the skyline.

Daphne’s insurance company had started to become difficult, till that was the full force of the Bearthwaite legal machine became apparent as it flexed its muscles. Bearthwaite’s team had the comprehensive records and photographs from the fireproof safe that had survived the arson attack and it was soon obvious that Daphne and Stephen would be able to replace what they had lost. Once the insurance company had been made aware that their business practices and financial affairs were being investigated they paid out in full with no further issues after being given a verbal assurance that payment in full would resolve their concerns, though Clerkwell James the Bearthwaite legal researcher continued looking into their affairs because as he put it, “I already know most of what has been going on so I may as well bring matters to a conclusion and document every last detail of their shady dealings both business and personal. After all you never know when the information may prove to be useful.” As a result of his investigations tentative, tantalising clues had emerged as to the possible identities of the folk who had arranged for Daphne and Stephen’s house and barn to be burnt down. Adalheidis had advised him to keep discreetly digging for information and to keep what he discovered very close to his chest. She’d said she would arrange for the information to be made available to the appropriate folk. She passed it all on to Sasha who’d merely thanked her and said he knew what to do with it.

Matthew Levens had found the couple a large three bedroomed terraced house that they liked in Pastures View, and they’d moved in just before Christmas complete with their replacement for their three piece suite which had a four seater settee rather than a three seater and four rather than two chairs. Stephen had wanted the five piece suite so as to be able to display all eight of the fictional antelope heads that comprised the fabric collection.(19) A studio workshop had proved to be a little more problematic, but eventually the restoration of a large four storey building that had originally been part of the Auld Bobbin Mill complex had finally been concluded and the building had become available. Daphne, Elin and the workshops and artistic teams that supported the Model Railway Society decided to share the entire building which provided significantly more food storage space for Christine’s staff at the Auld Bobbin Mill. Space that was becoming badly needed as Bearthwaite’s population increased. They all started to take up residence in their new facilities at the beginning of February, but it had taken five weeks before all their tools and equipment had been moved in and finally organised. It took a while, but eventually all agreed that the mutual support that their various skills offered was an extremely successful arrangement and highly desirable. It wasn’t long before many of them were reaping the rewards that learning the beginnings of each others’ skills provided.

~Salamander Vivaria~

When the waggon had arrived it was carrying not ready cut to size seventy-five millimetre [3 inch] thick polymer laminated glass sheets as Alf had originally envisaged, but ready cut to size one hundred millimetre [4 inch] thick sheets. Alf’s supplier hadn’t had enough seventy-five millimetre glass in stock and had said he didn’t know when he would get it, but he was certain it wouldn’t be for at least three months. He offered the one hundred millimetre for the same money and admitted he wasn’t making much on it, but he wasn’t losing money on it at that price. He also said that he really didn’t wish to lose a good customer like Alf whom he had dealt with with no problems for decades. Alf suggested they went for half way between the two prices and that the sheets were cut so as to provide the same internal volume as the original seventy-five millimetre glass had been intended to have provided and both of them were happy enough to enthusiastically shake hands on the deal. The vivaria had internal dimensions of six metres [20ft] by one point five metres [5 ft] and were a metre high [3feet]. Their tops were like the bases with silicone glued lifting points replacing the skids and had aligning pieces to ensure that they locked inside the sides and couldn’t be pushed off sideways. Alf had been told the glass was approximately two and a half thousand kilos per cubic meter, which meant that a square metre of the one hundred millimetre thick material has a mass of approximately two hundred and fifty kilos [40 stones, 550 pounds]. There were internal gusset plates and strengthening braces, to prevent excessive flexing when it was lifted by the score. Cradling the vivaria floors from underneath were two large universal rolled steel joists that ran the six metre length under the floors and several one point five metre long lighter RSJ sections welded under them to provide integral skids to enable the forks of a heavy duty stacker truck(20) access to underneath so as to lift a completed vivarium. The steel work weighed in at about five hundred kilos [1100 pounds].

Alf’s supplier had lent him a vacuum operated device that had two dozen large suction cups to pick glass up with. The suction device could be handled by any number of machines or hoists, even the forks on a fork lift truck or a tractor front bucket could be used, but Alf had Tony Dearden use the back actor [US back hoe] of a mini digger which made handling the glass a straight forward process for Tony, who though usually a JCB(21) operator worked as an operator of excavation machines of any size. Alf had recently brought the mini digger back from the grave after Jim a mate of his who owned a scrap yard in a local town had offered it to him in exchange for the contents of the various scrap metal skips that he left around Bearthwaite for the residents to fill with whatever ferrous metal they considered to be of no potential use to any of them. The scrap hadn’t quite covered the price of the almost derelict digger, but neither Jim nor Alf were bothered, for sooner or later the skips would provide enough scrap to complete the deal.

The glass pieces were glued together with a transparent silicone compound that had been delivered in five litre [8·8 Imp pints, 10·6 US pints] pails, like the ones emulsion paint [US latex paint] was sold in. The silicone compound was manufactured in the Ukraine and came with no instructions. However, the pails were covered with Cyrillic writing that Sasha had no trouble providing Alf with a translation of. Alf said that the silicone was an industrial grade of a higher quality than was usually available in DIY stores with a phenomenal grab strength that made gluing the vivaria together a straight forward procedure, as was ensuring all the pieces were assembled square to each other. He’d added that it was sensible to wear engineers’ nitrile rubber gloves when handling the silicone as the stuff was difficult to get off your skin because in his words ‘it sticks like shit to a blanket.’ It was possible to use MEK,(22) acetone or isopropyl alcohol, or even a commercial silicone remover as a solvent to wash your hands with after removing most of the silicone with a rag, but Alf wasn’t any keener on getting any of those on his skin than he was getting the silicone on his hands in the first place.

It took about a week to put a vivarium together including all the strengthening pieces and the skids. Each vivarium was estimated to be as close to eleven and a half tons [11500Kg, 25300 pounds] as made no odds, and the tops weighed in at a shade over two point six tons [2635Kg, 6000 pounds]. Alf reckoned at that weight without an appropriate fork lift or chain hoist the tops were immovable and needed no more security to keep them in place than their own weight and the internal aligning pieces. There was a mechanism for feeding and adding water should either be necessary that did not enable anyone to push anything in to the vivarium with a view to removing anything. The vivaria had been lifted and moved around using a huge fork lift truck well up to the task that Bertie had acquired as part of a deal where he’d insisted on cash or goods to the value thereof at the point of sale. Bertie had covered the forks with sleeves made of a soft but firm rubber compound to protect the glass. The lids had been lifted, moved, set down and relifted back into place several times just to test that all worked as it should. It was subsequently discovered that the weight of the stiffening steelwork of the lids had been over looked and weighbridge paperwork determined that the vivaria were a touch over twelve tons. That couldn't all have been due to the extra steel and it was put down to inaccuracies in estimating the gusset plates and the strengthening pieces.

Eventually in mid May John Finkel and his teams of conservation folk had established the components, that together would make up the required environment, in the vivaria. Mosses, ferns, liverworts, many other species of damp loving plants, a number of fungi too and some rotting tree materials and decaying vegetation, mostly collected from the Calva Marsh, all topped off with a wide selection of live invertebrate snacks that a hungry salamander would enjoy sneaking up on and munching. All was left to settle down for a couple of weeks before the salamander hunters went up the Needles Fells to Soft Moss Green from the eastern approach with lots of light weight, extreme gear so as to be able to the navigate around the edge of the eastern sinkhole safely. It certainly wouldn’t have been safe or indeed possible without their rigid, inflatable walkways and other gear. Even with their specialist equipment, whilst skirting the eastern sinkhole was possible, given the weather and the ground conditions, doing so around the larger western sinkhole would they suspected probably not have been.

John’s intention was to collect twenty salamanders, ten for each vivarium. The only information available that could possibly be of any help was on the Alpine salamanders of Alpine Europe which may or may not have been entirely germane to the Bearthwaite salamanders. The literature said that neither sex of Alpine salamander moved far from their home territory but females tended to wander less than males. The literature also said that females tended to hide more, so they wanted to take half moving around and half hiding so as to possibly optimise their chances of getting close to a fifty fifty sex mix, but John realised it would mostly be guesswork and down to a considerable amount of chance. His team also collected water and floating green pond sludge, mostly algae, from the sinkhole, invertebrates of as many species as they came across and the same with the various plants they found. They were up there for just over nine hours having collected everything they had wished to including the twenty salamanders, ten hiding and ten moving around. All, flora and fauna, were individually placed in labelled specimen boxes with ventilated lids.

It had taken most of what had been a very long day including all of the just over sixteen hours of daylight. The team had started well before dawn which was a few minutes after five by collecting their ready prepared equipment from the visitor centre. They had walked up the Needles Fells heavily loaded with equipment despite it being lightweight in nature. Before deploying their equipment John insisted they broke for a second breakfast and a mug of tea because he didn’t like the idea of trying to work round the sinkhole when they were tired from the trek up. After eating they set up their equipment where they wished to be working. Their collection activities were the least part of their long day taking just over eight hours not including their half hour lunch break and the time it had taken them to set up and pack up their equipment. After retrieving and repacking their equipment they shared their remaining tea from the vacuum flasks and ate the last of their snacks on their return to the vivaria. Although tired after a long, strenuous day, the walk down was a lot easier than the walk up had been. As they entered the visitor centre not long after quarter past nine the light was just beginning to gloam. It was a weary team of specimen hunters who sat down in the visitor centre restaurante to an evening meal and another mug of tea to watch a different group of folk provide their samples and the salamanders with a new home. There were a few visitors still there and they were fascinated as they watched the salamanders scuttle away to get under cover as fast as they could.

Thorbjörn Sveinsson of the tree nursery folk had had the conservation folk provided with some bonsai Scots pines and juniper for the vivarium intended for the visitor center and had said, “If they start to grow too large send ’em back to us for dealing with and we’ll replace ’em with some suitable sized ones. As soon as they are available we’ll provide you with some bonsai yew trees and some bonsai stunted whins too if you’re interested. You may wish some appropriate sized limestun(23) rocks to set the trees off, but we’ll provide you with a selection or you can have a ratch through our pile yoursels. We have several tons in a pile down at the Auld Quarry site that the bonsai folk use to go with the specimens that they sell to outside. Most of it comes from the Needles Fells after being brought down by rain weathering and wind. Usually the road maintenance lads collect it with the track layer and a trailer from the base of the fell slopes where it gets stopped from reaching the lonning by the softer bogland. They dump it at their pile at the Auld Quarry site ready to crush it to use as binder for the masonry, demolition crush they fettle the lonnings wi’, but we ratch through it for any attractive looking pieces from time to time. It’s always well weathered and looks the part to sell for serious coin, so it should look good in that tank alongside your beasties.”

The vivarium heading for Professor Schmidt’s laboratory in Switzerland had been easily loaded, cushioned to ensure its safety and secured immobile inside a forty foot shipping container. That was the one that provided the weight data. UK customs officials were awaiting it to provide the necessary customs seals and paperwork at the channel tunnel and Swiss customs would be awaiting it to open the seals and see the vivarium safely ensconced in it’s new university home. Jake and Charlie who drove the waggon to Switzerland said everyone had been very helpful and the Swiss customs officials had been fascinated by the bright orange marked black creatures. Originally Turk had been going to go with Jake, but unfortunately he had gone down with a bad case of shingles despite having been inoculated against it. When they returned Jake had said that they had been stopped several times by the local police who clearly were not familiar with the customs paperwork for importing foreign animals and plants intended for academic study. Charlie being able to speak German, albeit of the Bavarian variety, had made their interactions with the police much easier than they both suspected they could have been.

The Swiss vivarium had only been been established with flora and fauna native to Bearthwaite and its immediate environs, that being no farther away than the Calva Marshes at the valley entrance. However, the vivarium destined for the Bearthwaite visitor centre had also been provided with established mycelia of two species of bioluminescent fungi to be found in Cumbria, to wit: the Rosy bonnet(24) and the Yellowleg bonnet.(25) Both were usually visible to the dark accustomed naked human eye. Although the fungi mycelia were already established they had not as yet produced any fruiting bodies.(26) Too, some carnivorous plants had been planted in order to add interest for the visitors. Cumbria is home to several native carnivorous plants, including aquatic bladderworts, butterworts, and sundews, and a wide selection had been provided. Although definitely not native some Venus fly traps and a number of smaller varieties of pitcher plants had been planted up in the vivarium too purely for visitor appeal. It was planned that if the attractants inside the feed aperture did not attract enough flies into the vivarium to add some fly blown meat every now and again so as to provide sufficient live food for the plants to entertain the visitors, though doubtless the salamanders would snack on the flies too. That it was intended to use meat that green bottle flies(27) had laid eggs on was a source of great satisfaction to the shepherds, for the species was a major cause of fly strike(28) on sheep. “Serve the nasty bastard things right,” said Harmon who’d been a shepherd for going on forty years. “There’s no way the buggers can get out of that tank you said, Alf. Is that guaranteed?” As Alf nodded Harmon had a vicious grin on his face. “And the beasties will eat the damned things as well as the plants, John?” John Finkel nodded, “Excellent! Bloody excellent!”

As Harmon walked away grinning, John smiled and said, “It don’t tek much to mek some folk happy does it, Alf?”

“Maybe not, John, but a sheep with a bad case of strike is a sorry sight to behold, so I can understand where Harmon is coming from.”

Manœuvring the vivarium into the visitor centre had proven to be a nightmare. There just hadn’t been enough turning space to put it into the allocated position. Pat with his delightfully Irish turn of phrase eventually put into words what all had feared to say in case it had proved to be the only solution. “Well, Lads, it looks like we’re going to have to knock the wall. I suggest we go for some tools and tell Matt Levens he’s a bit of a bricking job breaking out in the visitor centre. I reckon that’ll upset him a bit seeing as he built it not that long since, so I suggest we get him down here so he can decide what we have to knock and buy him few scoops(29) at the first opportunity.” Matt had taken one look at the job and decided not to replace the brick work as it had originally been built because with a little alteration the vivarium would be well and truly bricked in which was an easy way to arrange greatly added security. As Pat had said, “It’ll be a gey competent bunch of lads that can get that bugger out of there without mekin enough racket to wake the dead.”

It was all done within forty-eight hours including installing the over head hoist for lifting the top off should it ever prove to be necessary. The hoist could only be powered up from an unmarked switch that was in a panel of dozens all equally unmarked that all needed a security key to operate and another to access the panel. Much to the joy of the many visitors at no point had it proven necessary to close the visitor centre, for all the seriously heavy work that required folk to be kept at a distance had been done overnight. During the day, whilst the team of workers had a rest and a pint mug of tea, as usual accompanied by a few Furness sausage(30) sausage rolls and some rather more traditional Cumbrian cheese scones, visitors had been allowed to approach the vivarium to view such salamanders as were visible and take photographs and video of what all agreed were remarkably photogenic animals. The Rheged Productions news team were the grateful recipients of the national zoological scoop of all zoological media scoops when they did their twenty-five minute piece on what were now commonly known as the Bearthwaite salamander. They had been grateful to have been provided with a heavily edited copy of the original drone footage taken up on Needles Fell of the Soft Moss Green area shewing the bright orange marked Bearthwaite salamanders on a sunny day in their native habitat, though all portions of the footage that would enable any to identify the exact location had been redacted and some footage of the bright yellow marked European Alpine salamanders had been included. To Harmon’s delight the salamanders had no issues with regarding the greenbottles as a tasty food source, however, it soon became apparent that their preferred food source were any of the several species of woodlice that were also known as slaters or pill bugs by some of the visitors.

John Finkle had been asked by numerous Bearthwaite residents as to whether it would prove to be worthwhile to build some more of the huge vivaria using say twenty-five or eighteen millimetre aquarium glass for some of the rarer amphibians to be found in and around the valley with a view to providing protected breeding environments for animals to be subsequently released back into the wild from. John had considered the matter saying that they would need to obtain a licence, or possibly several licences, to do so legally, since a major reason for creating the vivaria would be their public display for the visitors which would of course provide a major proportion of the funding required for the vivaria. He’d also said that he couldn’t see that there would be any problem obtaining the required licences given the amount of new scientific information that their academic collaborators were discovering and publishing. The issue for him was whether it was worth doing given the explosion in the wildlife populations on the fell tops, the fell sides and the marshes(31) as well as the valley itself. He recounted his discoveries concerning the explosions of the amphibian, reptile and rare flower populations over the last few years on the Calva Marshes and on some of the fell land. The Calva Marshes were now owned in their entirety along with the farm land that encircled them by Beebell. John ended by saying that it would be best if he asked university friends who had the appropriate knowledge to consider the matter. In the end it had been concluded that it would be a very fast way to spend significant amounts of money for little reward since the flora and fauna under the protection of the Bearthwaite community were doing very well indeed without such aid and the visitors had no problems obtaining photographs with a little patience of even the rarest of species.

~Lucy’s Tale~

It was the last Saturday in May, and officially summer began on the first of June. The weather was cool and dry, and mothers were relieved that their children could play outside in safety and older sisters were relieved that the youngsters would possibly not require a bath when they returned home to eat, for like as not they would have to supervise the bathing of their younger siblings. It was a pleasant enough evening for the time of the year and the bestside of the Green Dragon Inn was crowded with local women and any number of outsiders too. A few were new faces, but the majority were women who were well known.

Elle asked, “How’s life these days, Lucy? Still enjoying being married and living here?”

Lucy smiled and replied, “Both are very different, Elle, from how I, well we both, lived before moving here. It takes some getting used to that folk regard telling children stories and babysitting as highly regarded skills and are deserving of being paid for. I’m not complaining because with our pensions and the extra money coming in for the first time in our lives we feel wealthy. I certainly never expected that I would ever feel that way, and I’m sure if I asked him James would say the same. Edward always treated us well, but certainly never as equals, so moving here and being regarded as the equal of every other resident rather than as a servant was more of a shock than a surprise. Life is good. I enjoy being a wife, something I never thought I would be able to aspire to. I enjoy being called Granny by hundreds of children of all ages who insist on carrying my shopping back home for me and I enjoy having my own home to look after. Bearthwaite is a very old fashioned place which suits us both. I don’t wish to wear trousers and I don’t feel demeaned by being expected to have James’ evening meal ready for him, for that’s how women in my peer group before I went into domestic service happily expected to live. It’s nice when men open doors for me, and James cares for me in that way too. I feel valued, treasured even. Yes. I enjoy everything about living here. For the first time in my life I actually know what it is to feel like being a woman and I love it.”

“Aye well, Lass, I reckon you fitted in well. I was born here and like a lot of other lasses who were too, I’d say there’s no difference between the way we all live and act and the way you do. Though I’m looking forward to you telling us about the first time when you put James in his spot simply because he’s a man. It’ll have to be done sooner or later, or he’ll mek you life a misery simply because he’s a man. They’re all the same, Lass, even the best of ’em.” The laughter at Aggie’s words took a while to totally fade, but as soon as it did she started in on Zvi.

~Crop Rotation~

Aggie laughingly asked an obviously pregnant Zvi, “So now you’ve another little lass well on the way and you and Alasdair are looking for a bigger spot to set up home in, what decided you to become a farmer too like your auld man?” Alasdair was a part time teacher of agriculture at the BEE and a part time farmer on his family’s eighteen acre holding that rotated their entire crop every year on a seven year cycle, this year they were currently growing broccoli. Last year it had been their fallow year and they’d grown mixed species clover enriched hay from a locally made up seed mixture that didn’t yield a particularly high tonnage per acre. However, it had a high feed value, put a lot of nutrients back into the soil as a result of the nitrogen fixing bacteria in the nodules on the clover roots and it was grown for Greg Armstrong to make high quality forage nuts with for local dairy cattle. Bearthwaite dairy farmers only kept long established breeds of cattle that produced exceedingly high quality milk, all of which was only sold to members of the Bearthwaite community and used within the valley to produce high value added milk products some of which were sold to outside the valley community.

However, in order to produce milk of that quality the cows had to be fed with the kind of feed that was no longer grown elsewhere. Most cattle feed elsewhere was grown for tonnage per acre with no regard for quality. Dairy cows fed on such were also fed additive feeds in just sufficient quantity to ensure that the milk just met the minimum legal quality requirements. That had been done in the Bearthwaite valley too for a few years till wiser counsels prevailed. Mostly the advice was from folk like Hamilton the vet, who’d relatively recently decided to live and practice in the valley with Diane his Bearthwaite born and bred wife. The thing that had amazed local farmers had been that growing the quality feed their ancestors had grown for centuries reduced the tonnage of grass and herbage that had to be handled and in turn that had reduced the work involved. That had produced a lower volume of a far superior milk from the traditional dairy breeds that they had returned to, though some of the valley’s farmers, like the Peabodys, had never changed their herds over to the black and white beasts(32) known as ‘black and white bags on legs’.(33)

The residents of the Bearthwaite community were a traditional rural folk with skills and knowledge that reached back generations. After generations of exploitation, they finally came into their own again when back in the middle nineteen eighties the residents bought the valley and its immediate surroundings. However, the biggest single change to the Bearthwaite dairy industry had been the reinstatement of the Peabody dairy which hadn’t seen service as a dairy for decades. It had started small, yet rapidly expanded employing dozens, many of who were mothers with young families working part time and minding each others children part time. With some modern agricultural and business advice from some of their recently acquired neighbours, the local folk had the skills and the knowledge to turn that quality milk into products that sold for vastly higher profits. Eventually the dairy had bought all the milk produced in the valley and by Bearthwaite community farmers outside the valley too. The huge corporate dairy the local farmers had been exploited by for generations had lost them all as suppliers. That had revolutionised the dairying industry in the Bearthwaite community. All working in Bearthwaite dairying no matter in what capacity now made a far better living from it with far less work involved than they had ever known. An extra source of income was derived from the visitors, for the entire dairying operation was open to the public, some admittedly behind huge glass window panels. Many of those visitors enjoyed other seasonal farming activities too and enjoyed spending money in the farm restaurante which employed large numbers of locals.

The production of not just butter, cheese and cream but saleable buttermilk, for which there was now a demand that vastly outstripped the supply, and the relatively recent product: yoghurt, had proven to be extremely lucrative. Too, whilst not a dairy product, tofu employed similar processes and skills as cheese production and had been a hugely successful new endeavour employing large numbers of locals. The soya beans were locally grown and the dairy sold large quantities of various styles and grades of tofu to many ethnic business concerns all over the country. The Wood End Farm Dairy logo was a familiar one to all local shippers who collected vacuum packed and bubble wrapped twenty-five kilo blocks from the dairy seven days a week. Beebell, with the goodwill of the Peabodys, took over the dairy business on paper in order to minimise the money taken out of the valley by the government’s taxes. Keeping the money local was a phrase constantly used by the Bearthwaite folk. Many laught when Auld Allan had telt them that the Coöperative Wholesale Society and the Coöperative Retail Society, which were at their zenith of success in the last century, had started as huge bottlers and distributors of milk and at that time had huge bottling plants and distribution centres in every town in the nation. In those days milk was rarely seen in larger retail establishments for everyone had it delivered to their doorstep, usually by the Coöp electric delivery milk floats as they were known, though some local deliveries were undertaken by horse and cart.

Alastair’s coöperative operated a crop rotation schedule with six other similar sized farms. Each year they would decide exactly who would be growing what the following year. Last year the growers of brassicas had grown large, pale white cabbage, the year before someone had grown Brussels sprouts and the year before that it had been cauliflowers. Next year would be a selection of catch crop lettuces and other fast growing salad crops followed by oriental brassicas which were all late season plants, for they bolted to seed if planted too early in the year. They farmed as a coöperative within the greater Bearthwaite coöperative and utilised their combined resources, including manpower, to best effect. Their children all attended the BEE, but in addition the adults educated their children outside the BEE by giving them opportunities to sample all of their different activities. The intention was that the children would either find something that suited them, or that they would decide farming was not for them and that they should seek elsewhere for a career.

As a consequence all the families involved enjoyed a remarkably high quality of life and standard of living too and all the folk involved regarded all others involved as members of their extended family. The children felt no pressure and should they wish to try something outside the family activities they all knew all they had to do was say so and something would be arranged for them. A group of four of the children, tweens rather than teens, none of them blood siblings though it wouldn’t have been far from the truth to say that they were unaware of that most of the time, had decided that they wished to try small scale livestock keeping. None were particularly interested in pigs or sheep, and poultry and coneys had little appeal. They already had six hives of bees and had their minds set upon beef cattle. They wanted to obtain eight Hereford bullocks [US steers] to raise for beef, so they went to talk to Elleanor Peabody. Elleanor said she would look into the matter for them. A few days later Elleanor said that it wasn’t possible to buy local Hereford bullocks at a sensible price, but her great granddad had said he could acquire ten Hereford heifers all between ten and twelve months old for them.

The seller was elderly and wished to retire. His only son wasn’t interested in farming and his two daughters were married and lived abroad. Beebell was buying the farm with everything on it and had needed someone interested in the livestock. The Peabodys were taking the stock because they had the space for it, more to solve the problem for Beebell immediately than because they had any particular desire for the animals. Auld Alan had said that since they’d had the initiative to go looking for stock for themselves they could have the heifers for nowt if they were interested, which folk said was typical of the ancient farmer. The beasts were reasonable quality, pure bred stock and in his opinion best used for breeding rather eating, but if they took them that would be their decision to make. If they decided to breed, bulling them would be no problem, just ring the AI(34) lass up at the appropriate time and she’d inseminate them with semen from a quality Hereford bull. The children decided that they fancied a having a go at breeding their own beef and had asked Chance if he could provide them with a small bit of land so that they wouldn’t be placing a burden on their parents’ land resources.

Chance had said, “There is nothing I know of close enough to where you live to be a sensible proposition for you since none of you are old enough to drive yet and I know you don’t wish to be beholden to your parents. However, I do have an idea, and I shall get back to you within a few days.” It was six days later when Chance caught them coming out of afternoon lessons at the BEE. “I’ve managed to trade twenty-two pretty good acres next to some of one of your parents’ land for forty-five of slightly poorer land on the other side of the farm where I obtained the twenty-two from. Gervin Maxwell and a couple of his fencing gangs are making sure all the fencing and gates are in decent fettle so you at least start right. If you need a bit more grazing that can be arranged. Jonti who has swapped the land said he likes to see kids getting on and if you need any help all you have to do is ask. If you don’t like to feel obligated his wife Selina said you could pay them back with a few hours of your time.” The children were expressing their gratitude when Chance said, “No. It’s I that am grateful. You dealt with forty-five acres for me, but I have a lot more land to find someone to take off my hands because I want to see it under good management as soon as possible. If by any chance you come across someone who wants seven hundred and odd acres of low fell roughish grazing more suitable for sheep or highland cattle than anything else do let me know won’t you.”

Maira, the elder of the two girls, asked, “Have you spoken to Zain Turnbull, Uncle Chance? He wants to raise dairy goats with Effa as is going to be marrying Uncle Joshua Dunne, and lower fell land would make it easier to bring them in for milking. He’s struggling a bit at the moment getting enough grazing now his nannies all have kids and he’s grazing the flock wherever he can find a bit of grass. I don’t know how much grazing he wants but he might take some of it.”

There were any number of mini organisational setups like Zvi and Alastair’s within the Bearthwaite community, both inside and outside the valley. There were three such coöperatives where folk farming inside the valley coöperated with Bearthwaite folk living and farming outside the valley. One of them was a coöperative of nine small farms outside the valley and one within it.

~Zvi~

Zvi was a good mathematics teacher, but like many Bearthwaite professionals she believed that there was more to life than just one endeavour. Alasdair was a part time farmer and the idea attracted her, but she’d wanted to add something to their relationship, their farm and the coöperative too. Her determination to so do had been strengthened by the children’s foray into raising Hereford cattle to breed their own beef. After all she’d reasoned if the children can do something as significant as that surely I can do something. Zvi took Aggie’s somewhat teasing question literally and answered her seriously, “It’s difficult to explain, Aggie, even to myself. I love teaching and especially I love teaching mathematics. The look of surprise and pleasure on children’s faces when the penny finally drops and they realise they understand what is going on is so rewarding it’s impossible to describe. But I suppose I started to think about other things when I discovered I had a baby to love and to care for. It made me realise that there was more to life than teaching mathematics. I’d never been too good at choosing men and I’d dropped myself in it twice with abusive losers both of who I initially thought were family man material. Then I came here and I met Alasdair. I was exceedingly cautious to start with because this time I wasn’t just risking me there was Jilly to consider too. Funny thing that, before I thought I knew my men were okay, with Alasdair I knew that I knew I was onto a winner. God knows what the difference was, but I knew. That was months ago.”

Nodding sagely Aggie said, “Aye, Lass, any lass as has a good un knows exactly what you’re saying, Zvi, and none of us ’ll be able to explain it any better than you. My Frank, like all men, can be the most vexatious creature you can imagine, but he’s always been a good husband, dad and granddad, and I couldn’t explain why either.” There were any number of nodding women and murmurs of assent going round the room.”

Zvi continued, “Once I decided that Alasdair and I were on, and I reckon that was more Jilly’s decision than mine, for like a lot of the girls here she’s a proper daddy’s girl, I decided that since he was happy part time teaching and part time farming I probably would be too and it would give us shared interests and commitments. Maybe that makes no sense to anyone else, but it made sense to me back then and it still does. The problem was I’d no idea what I wanted to do and I didn’t know anything about growing stuff on any scale never mind farming. Way back for some weeks Alasdair and the others had been talking with Arabella Young and her family, who the previous season had started farming a twenty two acre piece of Bearthwaite land outside the valley that had originally been a nine acre plot that Beebell had bought because it linked two larger pieces of Bearthwaite land, some of which had become part of the Young family’s twenty-two acre holding, most of the rest being a dairy farm. The talks were being held with a view to creating a more diversified eight year cycle including what Arabella’s family had grown this year which was oil seed rape as a feed stock for the Bearthwaite valley’s bio diesel fuel producers.

“By the time Alasdair and I had settled down, agreement had been reached with Arabella and her family and since most of their land was in serious need of improvement they had reached a deal with Beebell and the Peabodys to inject the land with bio digested sewage sludge and subsequently till the land and sow the following crop for them. They’d done that the year before just before the rape was sown, but the land needed more and rape is a hungry crop. Because of the state of their land the rotation orders have been changed a bit so they can have the fallow year next and we’re going to be growing potatoes, Picasso I think, with a single row of Sally’s Salad Solanum. The salad potatoes are all destined for seed tubers since the allotment folk are still breeding the variety up in quantity to be able to plant a full field crop. Alf and the other potato growers all agree that it’ll be another three years before they have enough seed tubers to do that, but they’ll provide a small quantity for eating too. The coöperative had initially decided that we would grow winter sown barley on the land next time around and Alan Peabody had said he’d inject the sludge for free in return for managing the barley for the usual Bearthwaite price, but someone else is growing the barley now. Alan is injecting sludge on a few of our holdings later in the year. In return we’re going to graze some of his Jerseys, his in calf heifers and young cattle, on the fallow fields. It is a satisfactory deal all round and Phil at the Mill had already said he’d negotiated with Beebell and they would be more than happy to buy the barley which was to be stored in one of his silos. Too, the Peabodys were happy to buy and bale the rape seed haulm(35) which made for useful animal bedding due to its absorbency and Grant said in the unlikely event of there being any left over it could always be selt as fire fuel either for the bakery ovens or to be processed into brash blocks with other fine waste.

“Arabella told me that she is a daughter of a centuries old Bearthwaite family and a widow of two years and she’d left the valley to start again where the memories of her late husband would not be so upsetting. She said she’d been surprised to find that despite being forty-four she’d been of great interest to a number of farming men outside the valley, but she’d made it widely known to Bearthwaite folk that she believed they weren’t looking to become Bearthwaite men, but just looking to get a foot under her table as a way into Bearthwaite and the better living they considered it would afford them. She said she was no more interested in them than they were in her and, though she intended to remarry, she was only interested in finding a Bearthwaite man or at least a man who’d become one, and she opined that under no circumstances could any of her wishing to be suitors from outside ever become a Bearthwaite man. She told me and said no confidence was required that twenty-nine year old Dougal Woodrington, whom she described as an honest, ambitious, hard working farm worker, who had always said that eventually he would be farming on behalf of himself and the family he wished to have, had told her point blank that he was interested in her and he hoped his lack of years would not encourage her to reject him. He’d added that he’d spoken to Murray concerning a piece of land of maybe sixty acres but was awaiting his response.

“I, like many of us, have seen her holding hands with him in here at the back which is traditionally only inhabited by courting couples, and since then I’ve seen the pair of them together all over the place doing things connected with the land and just enjoying themselves too. I’d never have guessed she was forty-four because she looks ten years younger than that, but I wish her joy and success. I talked to Arabella about my problem and she advised me to just go for whatever I thought would make me happy. She said taking chances was just a part of life and if I wished to be well thought of it would be a good idea to try something different, something that if possible made all of Bearthwaite folk’s life better. It was clear she was thinking about the chances she was taking with Dougal. She also said as long as Alasdair supported me the rest didn’t matter. Her final piece of advice was to find another small piece of land to do whatever my idea was on, because my family’s eighteen acres was a smaller steading than the other families’, so if I enlarged the family’s holding no matter what I did on it would have to be seen as okay. That would have been back in late February or early March.

“I decided to talk to Murray and told him of my ideas or perhaps lack of them. He knew of nothing regarding a piece of land, but said he knew whom to talk to on my behalf. Adalheidis had said that one of the smaller pieces of land that Annalísa had recently recovered all the reserved rights upon whilst not contiguous with Arabella and Dougal’s twenty two acres was only a quarter mile or so away from it and the sixty-seven aces of land between the two plots would doubtless be up for sale within a few years. The Smedleys who owned that sixty-seven acres had been difficult with Beebell farmers some years ago, but now Beebell owned most of the land adjacent to theirs and had, unlike the previous owners, closed off all access to the Beebell land, for the Smedleys to go anywhere added a tedious ten miles to their journey, and local suppliers were surcharging them for the extra mileage involved. The five acre plot of two fields had originally been bought to enable an access between two other pieces of land, but that was no longer necessary as recent purchase of a much larger piece of land provided a far better farm track connection. Murray telt me should I decide to pay the rent on it which was in truth just enough to cover Beebell’s paperwork on it my family would then have twenty-three acres which was more in line with our partners. I said I wanted the land and Murray allocated it to our use there and then.

~Asparagus~

Zvi continued her tale of her extended family’s recent activities, “Sarah and Earnie Battersthwaite, some elderly neighbours of Arabella’s, had grown three acres of asparagus nearby for years and said it would be an ideal crop on the new land. They were prepared to sell all of their plants which were mature and would split to provide enough crowns, as the plants are known, for the entire five acres. They wished to retire to near Garstang in Lancashire where family lived and being able to sell their asparagus plants would put them a little nearer to retirement, though they were both in receipt of their state pensions. Other than a small amount grown by the allotmenteers asparagus is not available in any quantity to Bearthwaite residents and like many folk I’m fond of what is an expensive luxury vegetable if bought in from outside. Asparagus is a perennial plant that lives for twenty to thirty years though some say it can remain productive for a half century. It requires weeding and feeding and cutting down in the autumn [US fall] before being covered with a weed suppressant mulch of some sort. Other than harvesting it is a trouble free crop requiring good drainage. I discussed the matter with Alasdair first and he said it was a good idea and the family and the coöperative would be supportive. Maeve Alasdair’s elder sister said the five acres was a plot of land that Beebell had originally intended to have the tree nursery folk plant with willow for coppicing for firewood, but it had proved to be too dry due to a sandy soil that drained freely for willow to thrive but she reckoned that would probably suit asparagus which requires good drainage to prevent the roots from rotting.

“Out of the blue Sarah asked Alasdair and me if we would be interested in buying their twelve acre holding as well as the cottage, collectively known as Sandysyke. She said they were looking for a buyer, but had had none even enquire as of then. Alasdair said that we were interested in the land, but not the cottage, though we knew someone who definitely would be. He explained that we were from Bearthwaite and Murray or Chance, our senior accountants, or Annalísa or Adalheidis, our solicitrices, would be getting in touch with them the following day. Ernie Sarah’s husband was honest and said some of the asparagus had been growing in the same place for over thirty years and it would be best if we lifted, split and replanted the asparagus crowns in fresh ground, for that would rejuvenate them though it would mean a delay before we had a decent crop to sell. I asked if one of our farmers assisted us to cultivate and fertilise the ground ready before we replanted the crowns how long would it take to obtain any kind of a crop at all? I was told that even though the original crowns were between twenty-five and thirty-two years old if we split them and planted them in freshly worked and fertilised ground, it would be like planting new plants. Earnie said, that the experts said you could only harvest a few spears three years from sowing seed, but his and Sarah’s experience suggested that if the up rooting, splitting and planting were done with care, for the roots could be brittle, we could take one spear per plant next May without hurting the plants.

“The rest we would need to leave to grow into a green plant that would put energy into the roots to help them recover from the disturbance. Maybe three spears per plant or four from a strong plant the following year would be possible. In years after that, we could harvest what we wished from mid April till late June. He said to harvest maybe an inch and a half below the ground with a sharp knife when the spears are between six and eight inches tall [150-200mm], though they always aimed to harvest them at six inches tall because they had found that the bottoms of the spears hadn’t become tough if they caught them when a bit younger. Once you stop harvesting the plants grow into seven or even eight foot tall feathery triffids(36), his word not mine, and they start taking in energy from the sun to feed the root system. Once they start to go yellow or even brown Earnie advised us to cut them back to less than six inches from the ground because they’d not be doing much if any photosynthesising once they are no longer green and that would prevent the wind from rocking the plant stems and damaging the roots. He also believed that cutting them down focused the roots into putting their energy into the new shoots ready for the following year rather than sending anything up stems that were no longer there.

“He said the stems and dried foliage make useful bedding and he’d had his baled by a local contractor who was happy to do small rectangular bales on small acreages for a reasonable price. Earnie said he used it for bedding a couple of cross bred beef calves on. That local contractor was Wood End Contracting which is the Peabodys who do a fair bit of small scale contracting work out that way. It was originally Ancient Alan’s idea as it trains up the younger family members on equipment that isn’t too big. I know they mow and bale the grass verges for all sorts of folk and that they have a mini rectangular baler and a mini round baler that Bertie’s crew fitted with wrapping features too for those sorts of jobs. Young Allen told me once mostly they do those kinds of jobs in return for the bales because most folk just want the verges clearing and often there’s little grass just weeds involved, but their highland cattle, Eleanor’s bison, and Marigold Armstrong’s goats were more than happy to overwinter on such feed if they round baled and wrapped it for haylage or if they managed to get it dry if they rectangular baled it as hay. Sarah said that last year the tractor and baler were operated by a lass called Aileen who looked like she was still at school. Aileen is in one of my mathematics classes for STEM students who don’t actually study mathematics but need some A’ Level maths to assist with their other subjects. She’s in her second year of A’ levels in one of Alasdair’s agriculture classes. All her core subjects are agricultural classes, but she studies a few related subsidiary subjects too. One of yours isn’t she, Veronica?”

Veronica nodded and said, “Aye. She’s number seven out of my eight. My youngest lass. She’s teken up wi’ Tyler Greenwood, that hearing aid technician doing a degree at Leeds. At eighteen he’s a year her elder, and he’s a nice lad, but she can be at least as stubborn as any else in the family, so he’s maybe in for a hard time till he learns how to handle her, but he’s a bright lad and it’s obvious he’s getting there. I hope he does, so we can all leave her to him. Grandfather says there’s nowt to fash ower because he may not be as bright or as forceful as Aileen, but he’s well and truly a proper man and he’ll handle her with no trouble. To be honest I’ve no idea what he meant, but like owt else he says he’ll doubtless be right. With a bit of luck she’ll settle down once she’s expecting.” There were nodding heads at that for Auld Allan was rarely wrong because he always maintained that he’d discovered decades ago that if he wasn’t certain it was best to keep his mouth shut. All the Bearthwaite women were used to Veronica saying she had eight children, for her it was her family reality and despite her only having given birth to the younger four it was the expected Bearthwaite reality too. Veronica was eighteen when she had married the then twenty-six year old Younger Alan Peabody. Alan had not long been widowered and was still hurting himself whilst he’d been struggling with his four young traumatised children whose mother Enid had recently died.

Veronica had been a natural mother and in her and her children’s eyes from the moment she’d entered their orbit she’d been their mum. Not for a second had she ever been regarded by any involved as their step mother. In her husband’s grandfather’s eyes, even then Auld Alan had been the family patriarch, she was a major asset to the family. The entire Bearthwaite community was aware that her first major disagreement with her husband had been over a misunderstanding where Alan had blamed Groa his eldest for something that had been an unavoidable accident and no fault of hers. The argument had been terminated by Veronica screaming at him, “Don’t you dare ever treat one of my kids like that again, Alan, or I’ll make you suffer in ways you don’t even have nightmares about. Yet!” It had taken his grandfather to calm the incident which he’d done by pointing out to Alan that whatever the rights and wrongs of the incident at least he’d acquired his kids a mother who would go to war against all and any on their behalf. Veronica had eventually calmed down and backed off, but things had remained frosty between them till he’d apologised to Groa in front of the entire family at dinner. The tale went that Veronica had kissed him and said, “Thank you,” and matters had returned to normal.

After the laughter, because all the local women knew that stubbornness was an inborn Peabody trait and though not a Peabody born Veronica was not without her share of it, Zvi continued, “Most modern varieties of asparagus are advertised as all male hybrid varieties which are described as better plants. That means better for farmers out to produce and sell tonnage because male spears are larger in diameter and they also produce a greater weight of crop per acre, but for any who wish to raise some of their own plants from seed they are not the best. Sarah said that they preferred to eat male spears and they sold all the female spears and kept some of the best male ones back for neighbours, friends and family. Sarah also said she’d no idea what variety their plants were but said it was definitely not an all male one. In general it’s the female plants that produce the red berries. I looked it up on the internet and unless you wish to grow some new different plants from seed you should have cut the plants back before the seeds in the pods are mature enough to be viable.

“Some of the plants Sarah said they’d grown from seed just for the fun of doing it. She said that most of the spears freeze well but there are always the odd few that go soft. The internet said that both male and female asparagus plants produce tiny, attractive flowers, however, it is primarily the female plant which makes the small, red, berry like seed pods. The bright red berries growing on female, and occasionally male, asparagus plants are actually tiny seed pods containing a number of seeds. Seed pods develop from flowers, appearing first as tiny, green clusters, and then turning into into attractive, cherry red seed pods. That’s why if you buy first year asparagus as plug plants there’re are anything up to eight plants in a plug because it’s a whole seed pod the growers plant in the plugs. Interestingly, male asparagus plants sometimes produce berries on hermaphroditic flowers. Seeds inside those male produced pods are seventy-five percent more likely to produce male offspring, including super male plants which result in all male hybrids, the most productive garden vegetable cultivars. I fancy growing some from my own seed. But off female plants as well as males to see what happens.”

Elle asked, “So where are you up to now with the asparagus and the cottage, Zvi?”

“Six weeks after us meeting them, Sarah and Earnie moved south to Garstang. They took a couple of dozen plants with them to grow enough asparagus for themselves and family, though both admitted they weren’t sorry to be leaving all the work involved in producing a field crop behind them. The coöperative harvested the crop this year and we bought it to save Sarah and Earnie the trouble of the sale. It’s a good crop because there’s not much else requiring attention when it is ready for harvest. Too, it is harvested over a considerable time period which helps a lot. The wholesaler whom Ernie and Sarah had dealt with offered a pittance for the crop, but I’ll not sully your ears with where Alasdair told him to go and what to do once he got there. He contacted Christine and Lucy at the shop and they said it would be okay to deliver whatever we produced be that howsoever much and none would get wasted. Most of it went to Christine to process and store, and that was where the recent Saturday supper asparagus in here came from. I think Lucy supplied every one of our womenfolk in and outside the valley with enough for at least three family meals apiece. How on Earth she remembers how many adults and how many kids are in each family is beyond me. Jeremy at the Granary took a hundred kilos [100Kg, 220 pounds]. He said he could take that much every fortnight till it was gone. A lot went into Christine’s cool store, but she froze even more. Next year she plans on bottling a lot of it, both whole and as cream of asparagus soup.”

~Cordon Bleu~

Christine added, “Patience, like Silvester her old man, recently retired from the Devon and Cornwall police force. She decided she wanted to learn Cordon Bleu cooking. You want to take that from here, Patience? With regard to the asparagus I mean.”

Patience nodded and said, “I’m following an on line course which is okay, but on its own it is seriously lacking. As a result I looked for some practical experience with anyone who could help. I’m working with Veronica who has long been Cordon Bleu qualified and cooks here, Jeremy from the Granary restaurante who has no official qualifications at all but is a cook, he refuses to be called a chef because he isn’t French, of world renown, and I am currently spending a lot of time with Christine’s staff because they cook food of Cordon Bleu quality on a commercial scale which I reckon to be astonishing. The huge quantity of asparagus that is coming in has provided us all with opportunities to create some wonderful dishes with what is after all a luxury vegetable. We’ve bottled and canned huge quantities of a number of soups based on asparagus as well as the spears in various brines and other liquids. We’ve started freezing asparagus under various conditions to see what works best. I’m looking forward to seeing what we can do with the Jerusalem and the globe artichokes that will be being grown for the first time on a field scale by Zvi and the members of her coöperative. I think that’s all I can say. Christine? Zvi?”

~Renovations~

Christine indicated she’d finished and for Zvi to resume. “Regards the building right now the Jarvis lasses are waiting for the Levens’ brothers’ builders to finish all building work inside Sandysyke cottage so they can get on with the painting and decorating before the spot is refurnished. The entire cottage was shelled, even the plaster was knocked off to be replaced with modern stuff, and Matthew said it will all take somewhere between another fortnight and three weeks depending on delivery dates and that Alf had been giving suppliers hell over the phone. It seems that one of the insulation suppliers tried to push the delivery date back six weeks and Alf said fine but he’d be looking elsewhere and if he found a supplier who could deliver sooner he’d go with them and not pay for what was already late. Apparently he is entitled to do that because our legal folk wrote it into the contract. The insulation stuff is made in Poland and Alf is talking to the manufacturers with a view to some of our waggons going over to collect it rather than having third party contractors from over here transporting it.” What Zvi was not aware of was the waggons would also be collecting some hundreds of twenty-five litre drums of mortar plasticiser some of which would actually contain Żubrówka Bison Grass vodka.

“The UK supplier said they wouldn’t do business like that and Alf said fine and cancelled the order then and there and put the phone down on them. He hasn’t thrashed out all the details yet, but has six of our waggons already on their way to Poland whilst the manufacturers work out a price for him because they don’t want to lose an order that big. Seems they don’t have all the necessary information to offer a definitive price yet, but Alf isn’t worried because he says they are decent folk to deal with. The manufacturers have said the stuff will be ready to load when Turk and the others get to Gdansk because they’ve got workers happy to do overtime on shifts and Alf and they are convinced a price satisfactory to both sides will be arrived at even if it takes till half the stuff is already over here. It’ll be a huge order because Alf wants a lot of the stuff for other work in progress too, and has said it doesn’t matter if we buy too much as long as we don’t leave ourselves short. To that end when they reach the end of the order the last waggon will be fully loaded regardless of how much is actually required.

“Matthew has employed some extra men creating some space and making timber racks for storing it on under cover at the Auld Quarry site. Edward and his men are thinning out some of our forestry and cutting the better thinnings down to make the racks with. They were going to do that next year and after getting what proper building timber out of it that they could they had planned on having the rest of it cut up for fuel wood, but Edward said this was a far better use of it because a much greater proportion of the wood would be usefully used, even it if were waney edged which would leave far less waste to cut for fuel. He added that in the end it’ll all be used as fuel so none will be wasted. I think that waney edged means that it doesn’t matter if there is a lot of bark on the stuff they’ll make the racks with. I didn’t ask. Turk has said if possible he’ll hire some drivers over there to bring stuff over here too and Murray has set up a mechanism so that Turk can part pay them in Euros without having to carry too much money. After raising the cottage up to have two proper storeys instead of the bedrooms being half missing due to the slope of the roof, it was rewired, replumbed, replastered and reroofed. There isn’t a piece of original timber left in the building because there was a lot of rot and woodworm in it, and all the new wood has been treated against both. New damp proof floors and a damp proof course in the walls were also installed and a big two storey extension was build on out at the back where the new kitchen will be complete with a custom built stove that will do the heating and hot water too. The old wood from the house has bin saved and it will be the first fuel into the stove.

“As to the land, the Peabodys first injected digested sewage sludge, ploughed and tilled the entire holding other than the asparagus field. They set up a special plough to make the trenches the crowns needed for replanting into and then set the plough up differently to lift the asparagus crowns without damaging them. A couple of dozen of us sorted, split and planted them by hand and Aileen used an implement on the back of a tractor to level the soil over the crowns before spreading manure slurry over the field. I was told it would be better for the crowns than spreading farm yard manure and they would do it again in maybe six weeks later. There had been enough crowns to plant eight acres of asparagus. The old asparagus field was first injected with digested sewage sludge and then it was deep ploughed. They then heavily fertilised it with with fym, that’s farmyard manure for the uninitiated, though Alasdair and most of the men call it something else that begins with cow, so as to put some slow to compost organic matter into it which the straw will provide. A month later they covered the field with manure slurry. The slurry is spread from a big tanker on a trailer they called a sludge gupper. That comes out of one of those huge tanks they call slurry lagoons. It’s just pure cow manure that is liquefied when they hose down the milking parlours. I’m sure I must have smelt worse, but I truly can’t remember when. Next year after the asparagus plants are cut down ready for the winter we’ll be covering them with the hop waste from the brewery as a mulch. It’s ideal for the job and the brewery always struggle to have it all away. It doesn’t make particularly good compost in the pits down at the allotments. Alf said they’d always taken it before, but if we wanted it he and his mates would be more than happy if we could take it all. Clarence, Gustav’s master brewer is as delighted by that as are we.

“My family have taken on the twelve acre holding as well as the five acres of land and had extensive discussions as to exactly what to do with it with our partners in the coöperative that would yield us reasonable rewards without excessive time demands because amongst us we’ve heavy commitments to family due to literally dozens of younger children many of who have been adopted after being rescued off the streets and brought here by Arathane and his rangers. Too, many of us have part time jobs elsewhere. As the children grow up things will become easier. Eventually the three acres that had grown asparagus was put down to field beans which will improved the soil and give it a rest after at least twenty five years of intensive cultivation. After talking to Christine regarding what she and her folk could prepare and preserve the remaining six acres were put down to three acres of globe artichoke and three of Jerusalem artichoke Fuseau which is bigger than most varieties and unlike most it’s smooth not knobbly which makes it easier to prepare. That’s what Patience was referring to earlier. Alex Peabody said he can deal with the Jerusalem artichokes the same as potatoes.

“He going to save some of the best tubers to replant, but even though they intend to inject sewage sludge after each harvest before planting the saved tubers after five years they’ll need to be planted on a different site because they are heavy feeders and by then the ground will need a rest. He said it would be okay to grow other things there but not the artichokes. We’ll try to give it a year or two of fallow first before growing something else. The decisions were based around the idea of the entire seventeen acres put down to vegetables requiring not too much labour. The three acres we’re growing field beans on are for the foreseeable future going to be put down to fallow crops and legumes to improve the soil and at the same time provide the wherewithal to pay for any tractor cultivation required and the Peabodys are happy with that arrangement because two of our adults are learning tractoring skills and have agreed to pay for what we require done with their time tractor operating wherever it's needed. Alex has said he’ll keep an eye open for appropriate seed for us and deal with whatever needs to be done. Six full time members of the coöperative, three couples with young families, are going to live at the cottage and look after the seventeen acres and assist on Arabella and Dougal’s twenty two acres. If not needed there they are going to assist wherever they can. All in all it’s worked out rather well. Now it’s just a question of waiting for all this water to dry up a bit.”

~Effa~

Aggie asked Susanna the Bearthwaite senior midwife, “I’m not asking for gossip about young Effa, Susanna, but I do want to find out if there’s owt we can do for the lass. She seems a decent lass and she’s one of us now, so it’s only right we do owt and all we can to help after what she’s bin through. She seems to be a long ways along, so when’s the bairn due? I’d like to knit a bonnet and a pair o’ bootees for the wee thing, but do I knit ’em in blue or pink.” There was a murmuring of agreement that went round the bestside from all the Bearthwaite women.

Susanna obviously choosing her words with care so as not to breach any patient confidentiality said, “Her daily gang rape over many years by her father and his brothers is a matter that is generally known and has been widely reported in the media. The police say they are dealing with the matter, though there is little they can do since the men have refused to provide statements, even statements denying any wrong doing, and Effa has refused to testify against them and has refused to give blood for a DNA test on herself or to allow anything to be legally taken from her or her baby when it is born for DNA or any other purposes. Her father is known to have said she is obviously a slut and in a properly run country would already have been stoned to death. However, he appears to have been given some sound legal advice, for has made no threats against Effa and has broken no laws that he could be prosecuted for, not even inciting any to violence. We have heard that the police believe that Effa has refused to give testimony or evidence because she is afraid for her life and that of her bairn too. She is sixteen and has the legal right to take that stance and she has made that public. Struan and Maeve who will be her legal parents once the adoption goes through and who are currently her legal guardians have telt Jimmy that whatever Effa decides they shall support her one hundred percent. Effa has decided to have her little lass here, and it’s due in the first week of November, her due date is down as the fifth, bonfire night. However, even if a DNA sample were taken at the birth in a hospital that proved statutory rape it would be inadmissible as legal evidence in a court or anywhere else because it would have been taken against her express permission and so would be theft.”

“How did she get to end up here, Susanna?”

“Pure chance really, Aggie. Once she was big enough to be shewing and was obviously pregnant her local Social Services were informed by the school that she was under the age of consent and pregnant and then their investigation turned up the rumours about what she was suffering at home. The school created an opportunity for Social Services and the police to speak to her on her own at school. The only place Social Services had where they could house her was an abused wives and kids’ refuge. After the women and children that we took in from such spots Arathane has had some of the lasses in his teams regularly visit them looking for potential Bearthwaite folk, though in Effa’s case as soon as the staff there had talked to her the spot rang to ask him to sent a couple of lasses down to talk to her. She came back to Bearthwaite with Vada and Ebra and has settled in well with Struan and Maeve and is comfortable with their other children who are all younger than she and excited that their elder sister is going to have a baby and then they will be aunties and uncles. She has said now that she has a safe and secure home she just wishes to be left alone by the authorities. When a pair of social workers rang up to tell Struan they would be coming to their house to interview Effa he telt them he’d refuse to admit them and have them prosecuted if they entered the valley. Since he and Maeve became her legal guardians Social Services no longer had the right to access her without a specific court order which they would have to provide a justification for. That justification would have to provide reasonable evidence of abuse in progress or about to take place.

“After that it took Maeve a couple of hours to calm Effa down because she was terrified the social workers would arrive with the police and a court order to take her away. It was Michael Graham in uniform who convinced her that that couldn’t happen. Jimmy has informed both the local Social Services and the local police both informally and in writing by recorded delivery that if they pursue the matter he will take them to court for harassment of a vulnerable minor who has the legal right to take the stance that she has done and whose peace of mind they are currently upsetting to the point where she is needing counselling merely to cope with their actions which is outrageous because she no longer needs counselling to cope with past events. Germain has said that she will instruct all of her staff that if any of them contact Effa in any way they will be out of a job.” Susanna saw the looks of puzzlement on some of the outsider women’s faces and added, “Jimmy, James Claverton I should say is the Bearthwaite family solicitor and he is known to be one of the best. He’s Hayley over there’s auld man. Germain Cameron is the director of our local Social Services. She is married to a local man and lives here. She has long been one of us.

“Michael Graham has been the local police sergeant for years and he’s a Bearthwaite man born and bred who moved away for work but now lives back here. Mavis, his wife, has never admitted to it, but we all reckon she forced him into it. He has said that the police have officially backed off. He’s about to retire from the police and has agreed to teach law and order as seen from a police perspective as an upper school option with Silvester who is currently planning the teaching materials. The idea behind that was that the more we know about the system the better off our entire community will be. Silvester is one of Ellen’s who, as has bin said, recently retired from the force down country and retired with his better half Patience over there to live here. However, Jimmy has heard from other sources the police are upset because it would have been an open and shut case and made them look good. Jimmy pointed that out to the police in his letter and said from his point of view they were acting purely in their own selfish interests and not that of his client whose interests as a UK citizen they were appointed and paid to serve. Augusta Winmarleigh the recently retired chief constable of Cumbria Constabulary has just moved here and is someone we get on well with so doubtless even if she had said nowt that will have reined in any overly enthusiastic members of the force. Augusta’s auld man Frederick is related to a number of folk here and he grows oriental fruit and vegetables which has made a lot of the men happy to see him move here.

“Cooper Bell, our recently acquired KC(37) who came to us when he met and married Annabelle Routledge, became involved and once the police became aware of who he was and of his reputation they were scared witless. Jimmy actually used a similar word ladies that I’m not prepared to use in here. The police said from their point of view the matter was at an end, although if Effa changed her mind all it would take would be a phone call for them to proceed, for the case couldn’t be closed till after it went to court. The Bearthwaite legal department are now an even more seriously formidable team and with our accountancy team, whom they work closely with, Monica and Angélique the patents lasses and our amazingly talented legal researcher Clerkwell James I reckon we have little to fear from outsiders in the courts. From my and Grayson’s point of view, he’s our educational psychologist, the most significant matter concerning Effa’s well being is that Gladys managed to persuade her to attend classes at the BEE, and she will be sitting her GCSE(38) examinations in the summer with little interruption in her education.

“Gladys has taken over her care from that point of view, and has persuaded her to assist at the mother and baby unit to get some practice in which we all regard as a very good idea because she not only learns about looking after babies she interacts with mums and grans of all ages who unlike many outsiders think none the worse of her for being a young unmarried mum. She also persuaded her to attend the antenatal class. Effa was reluctant to go at first, so Gladys went with her and Effa is now enjoying being a pregnant mum to be along with a couple of dozen others not much older than she. I’m Susanna our senior midwife, and myself and Jill the librarienne who dreamt up and oversees the upper school community care courses at the BEE have put a special community care course together for her which credits her for her attendance at the ante natal classes. Jill reckons it’ll be a good course for any of our young mothers to be still at school, every year there are two or three, and once their babies are born they’ll be credited for attending the mother and baby unit instead which is overseen by Karen McAlpine our senior nurse. So that’s all looking good.”

The local women all knew that Gladys, though technically the landlady of The Green Dragon Inn and a mother of two young children, had long since handed over her side of the running of the inn to her oldest daughter Harriet and Harriet’s two teenage twins, Brigitte and Peter, though Peter worked mostly with Gustav their dad and Pete their granddad. Gladys had a first class honours degree in psychology which in no way explained her deep and profound understanding of human problems. She’d had no easy early life herself, married late by the standards of her culture to Pete a man twenty years her elder, and had never regretted that for an instant. It was her bitter early life experiences, her multiple miscarriages and what she had learnt from them that had triggered her interest in psychology. Even she was not aware that her degree was the least of her qualifications and abilities. For years she had assisted with the problems of damaged incomers especially those of school age, and that was long before Grayson Smith, the Bearthwaite educational psychologist, had arrived with his specialised knowledge of what school children required. Grayson had always admitted that Gladys had a special touch that he lacked. “She has lived where I have only studied,” he’d remarked more than a few times.

“Effa’s fun at school,” Zella, who was a sixteen year old year eleven pupil,(39) said. “She’s no genius, but she’s clever, especially at maths and science. She’s got a well wicked sense of humour and can really knock cocky lads back into their spot.(40) She’s looking forward to being a mum, but I reckon that’s because Uncle Joshua has asked her to marry him, which will provide her and her bairn with a home and security of their own. So she won’t be an unmarried mum for ower lang(41) if at all. Mind it’s obvious to us all that she is completely in love with him despite his age, and he can’t tek his eyes off her. Talk about love conquers all. They’re looking at bigger houses behind the green because they want to adopt some young kids from off the streets too. Uncle Joshua’s a member of a farming coöperative and Effa telt us that her family were small scale farmers before they came to England. She telt us that she’s planning on staying on at the BEE after GCSEs to study agricultural subjects.

“She wants to keep dairy goats. When she found out that Marigold Armstrong keeps a few dairy goats and the Peabody dairy makes yoghurt with the milk and that Arran Peabody said he can’t get enough goat milk to anywhere near meet demand she was made up. When she found out that Zain Turnbull keeps dairy goats too and when he leaves school he intends to graze hundreds up on the fells like the shepherds do with the sheep she went to talk to him and now the pair of them plan on working together. Uncle Harmon who is helping Zain train his dogs has said it will be better for them to work together and he’ll help. Zain is a fair bit younger than us but he goes out with Erikka who is a couple of years older than him and he acts like he’s a lot older than his age. He and his dogs spend time up on the fells with Harmon and his dogs and he does some of his lessons on line using his laptop up on the tops. None have ever done that before but he says the signal is gey good up there and some of the wallers’ apprentices are doing the same now. He wants to leave school after taking his GCSEs and borrow enough money to buy enough quality nannies to make up a proper sized flock. By then Effa will have done her A’ level courses. I don’t know what the proper name for what she wants to do is, but I suppose it’ll be general livestock specialising in milch goats, capriculture if there is such a thing.

“Zain has had a dozen and a half nannies and a billy for over a year now. That billy goat of his is gey friendly, but wow does it stink. Most of his nannies have kids already and the others are only days away from kidding, a couple of weeks at most he reckons. At the moment he’s grazing the goats down the sides of the lonning into Bearthwaite which the coppicers and the hedgers and ditchers say is mekin their lives easier. When they want somewhere clearing before they deal wi’ it they tell Zain and pay him with the rough hay they clear as they work which they are all happy with. There’s talk that Chance wants him to take on a huge area of low fell land which Erikka says he wants to do because it’ll make taking them down for milking easier than having them graze the tops. There’s talk of them building a small milking parlour there because Uncle Harmon reckons if they milk some milch ewes too that will easily justify the cost. Zain and Effa get on well, and she wants to be involved in the milking whilst she’s still studying, so I reckon they’ll mek it work. She’s already looking into the economics of raising billy kids for meat.

“The biggest market seems to be for halal meat, but neither of them are happy about the slaughter methods used and none of the halal slaughter houses they’ve come across have good reputations for animal welfare. Uncle Vincent heard about that and has said that any as they want to sell he’ll be happy to buy as goat is no stranger than bison and from time to time he’s always selt it. His slaughtering is totally humane, so they are happy about that. Uncle Vincent says Bearthwaite housewives aren’t like outsiders because to them meat is meat and if the price is right they’ll mek tasty food with it. Auntie Christine has been talking about using billy goat meat in some of her wild game type soups. Who knows billy goat head soup and billy brain broth may become best sellers on the website.” There were some shocked faces, all belonging to outsider women, at the to them brutal seeming views of Zella who was just a young girl in their eyes. They too were learning that much about Bearthwaite culture was not quite what it seemed. Christine was just smiling.

“I telt you Effa has a wicked sense of humour, well a load of advertisements these days are using regional accents and there’s an advertisement for Müller light yoghurt that’s promoting it as having vitamins D and B6 in it now. It’s on the telly and Youtube too. Thing is the woman on it speaks with a strong Manchester accent and she pronounces vitamins as viaminz that’s like vi a minz(42) with no t and all hard short vowels. Effa wants to create advertisements using accents from round here for our goat yoghurt to use on radio Cumbria to start with, so she’s been writing scripts and recording Bearthwaite folk with strong accents reading them. She says we can use them as voice overs when we get adverts made for the telly. The kids as do media studies are going to create the ads in the video studios at school. Her adverts say that there are no added vitamins to Bearthwaite Valley goat yoghurt because it doesn’t need them to be added because the minimal processing it has means all the goodness that was in the milk are still in the yoghurt.

“The best one so far is Granddad Joey the retired shepherd. He thought it was a really funny idea and she’s several recordings of him doing the adverts that she wrote. I doubt if any other than a local would know he was speaking English, and he’s done them all in High Fell(43) too. It’s brilliant. She’s telt him she’s going to make him a video superstar which he thinks is hilarious. Her idea is that once folk get used to the advertisements they’ll know that it’s for the Bearthwaite Valley goat yoghurt and they won’t need to understand Granddad Joey so which language he’s speaking. Her other aim is to mek folk realise that we have a valid culture and a unique sound and we are proud of it as they should be of theirs. The Peabodys are interested in expanding her ideas to all their dairy products and Uncle Grant wants to do one of their tofu with oriental accents mixed with Uncle Auld Alan’s Cumbrian or High Fell which Uncle Sun thinks is so funny he’s offered to do a Hong Kong accent. Too, our political folk have said they’ll back her to the hilt. Uncle Joshua thinks the whole idea is mental. ‘Clever but so mental it may just work,’ was how he put it.”

Joshua was thirty-nine, twenty-three years older than Effa. He was a widower who had lost his much younger wife to cancer. Francine had been twenty-four when she had died four months pregnant. Joshua had been some time getting over the deaths of her and their much wanted son. The local women had been surprised that he had fallen for a child bride, though most had agreed with Elle when she had observed that Effa being pregnant perhaps made it less surprising than it would otherwise have been. However, Bearthwaite men did not even hold opinions on such matters never mind become involved in them, unless of course they were instructed that they needed to take action by their womenfolk. Bearthwaite women considered it was only the business of the couple and as long as it was entirely consensual, at which point they would involve their menfolk were it not, none else had a right to an opinion. Most thought it was a good solution to Effa’s and Joshua’s problems. That the schoolgirls thought so too clinched the matter, for as Aggie said days later, “The lasses know what is right for their own. Trust me, if they thought for a second that there was owt out of order we’d a known about it weeks ago.”

That Joshua was a farmer, though mostly interested in crops rather than livestock, and thus the couple had shared interests was considered to be a good thing and most of the women there considered the proposed arrangement between Effa and Zain, who were of similar ages, would be beneficial to both of them. It was known that Erikka and Effa were friends too. It was known that Joshua wanted to marry Effa before her baby was born so that she was not the mother of a child born out of wedlock, and he freely admitted that he wanted his name on the baby’s birth certificate. Effa had been somewhat reluctant at first, but it was subsequently known that she had agreed and preparations for the wedding were in train. What wasn’t known to any other than the couple themselves was just how much Joshua had enabled Effa to recover from her traumatic past. Joshua had been shocked when Effa had set about seducing him, but she’d said, “At least when you make love to me that’s what it will be: an act of love that I want and not a vicious brutalisation, and it’s not as if you can get me pregnant is it?” She’d said the last with a decided twinkle in her eye.

Joshua had been careful and satisfied both their desires before saying, “No, I can’t get you pregnant, but that will only be true for another couple of months or so, so we need to to be married as soon as it is possible. I’ll have a word with Chance if you speak to your parents.”

to be continued in the taproom of the Green Dragon Inn Bearthwaite.

24421 words including footnotes

1 Yan, dialectal one.
2 Twa, dialectal two.
3 Deed, dialectal dead. A many on ’em are deed, many of them are dead.
4 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.
5 Some, mostly inner city, members of the criminal fraternity have long used the verb to tax as a synonym for the verb to steal. The usage is becoming more widespread.
6 Bag muck, artificial fertilizer.
7 ICI, Imperial Chemicals Industries, was a major producer of artificial fertilizers.
8 A Christmas card is a greeting card. Greeting is a dialectal verb meaning crying. Hence the somewhat elliptical expression greeting like a Christmas card.
9 Wrang, dialectal wrong.
10 Out west, a phrase used by Cumbrians to refer to the coastal strip. The port towns of Whitehaven, Workington and Maryport are often what is meant. Whiteport is an imaginary town out west created for the purposes of the GOM.
11 Woodies, wood pigeons.
12 The Terries, the territorial army. The UK’s volunteer reserve military who train with the regular army.
13 See GOM 60.
14 Þing or Thing, also known as a folkmoot, assembly, tribal Council, and by other terms too, was a governing assembly in early Germanic society, made up of the free people of the community presided over by a lawspeaker. Things took place at regular intervals, usually at prominent places that were accessible by travel. They provided legislative functions, as well as being social events and opportunities for trade. Also þing, ting, or ding at various times and places.
15 An imaginary personage created for the purpose of GOM.
16 Bad an older alternative form of boded or bade.
17 Sǫgur, the plural of saga.
18 The BEE, the Bearthwaite Educational Establishment, the school.
19 See GOM 63.
20 Stacker truck, a fork lift truck.
21 JCB, a popular back actor and shovel machine in the UK. Back hoe, US.
22 MEK, Methyl Ethyl Ketone, is similar in nature to acetone (di Methyl Ketone) but MEK is industrially produced in huge quantities and is much cheaper.
23 Limestun, dialectal limestone, see sandstun and drystun elsewhere.
24 The Rosy bonnet, Mycena rosea.
25 The Yellowleg bonnet, Mycena epipterygia.
26 The fruiting bodies of fungi are what most refer to as the mushrooms or toadstools. In most fungi, filamentous hyphae are the main mode of vegetative growth, and collectively they are called a mycelium.
27 Green bottle flies, the common green bottle fly (Lucilia sericata) is a blowfly found in most areas of the world and is the most well known of the numerous green bottle fly species. Its body is 10–14 mm (0·39–0·55 in) in length – slightly larger than a house fly. It has brilliant, metallic, blue-green or golden colouration with black markings.
28 Fly strike, in sheep is a condition where parasitic flies lay eggs on soiled wool or open wounds. After hatching, the maggots bury themselves in the sheep’s wool and eventually under the sheep's skin, feeding off their flesh. Once the larvae develop, flies continue to deposit eggs on to new or already infected sheep, starting the infection process over again. Sheep display symptoms such as agitation, loss of appetite, odour and matted wool, many of which further encourage the attraction of flies. Fly strike can be lethal for sheep due to ammonia poisoning. Green bottles are a major cause of fly strike.
29 Scoops, as in scoops of ale. To buy a few pints.
30 Furness sausage, see GOM 56.
31 See GOM 54.
32 Black and white beasts. A pejorative reference to cows of Friesian or Holstein ancestry that make up 85% of the UK herd that produce vast quantities of low quality milk.
33 Bags on legs, a pejorative reference meaning udders on legs. The implication being that such cows are no more than milk producing machines, the hidden meaning is that the milk is of poor quality.
34 AI, Artificial Insemination.
35 Oil seed rape haulm, what ever is left over after a rape seed crop has been taken by a combine harvester. A useful absorbent bedding material that burns well too.
36 The triffid is a fictional tall, mobile, carnivorous plant species, created by John Wyndham in his 1951 novel The Day of the Triffids, which has since been adapted for film and television.
37 KC, King’s Counsel, a high ranking barrister. QC, Queen’s Counsel, a high ranking barrister. On the death of HM Elizabeth II and King Charles III becoming king the Crown Office advised that the title QC changed to KC with immediate effect. The change was automatic, so there were no new Letters Patent.
38 GCSE, General Certificate of Secondary Education. Examinations usually taken by 15/16 year olds in the UK.
39 Year eleven, 15-16 year old. The last year of compulsory UK education.
40 Knock cocky lads back into their spot, put cocky boys in their place.
41 Ower lang, dialectal over long.
42 Viaminz, vitamins. Pronounced vi + a + minz, vi as in video, a as in add, IPA vɪamɪnz.
43 High Fell, a language more akin to old Norse than modern English spoken by the shepherds and drystone wallers of Bearthwaite.