A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 65 Consideration of Outside Agencies.
Continued from GOM 64 in the taproom of the Green Dragon Inn at Bearthwaite.

~Wasps~

In the taproom, Dave said, “Well now we’re all settled again I’ll start the ball rolling, Lads, by asking a question that we could do with having an answer to some time before August. Does any one know of a sure fire way to keep wasps away from a late summer or autumn barbecue? Because I saw a good solution on my phone. Spread some jam on a small child, though I reckon that’s a waste of good jam and just giving the child a jam sandwich would do the trick.

“Now whilst I leave you to your thoughts concerning wasps, I saw a Puke Pieeater Star Wars film referred to on Youtube the other day. It was referred to as Star Wars 101. I didn’t get it to start with because I thought it meant Star Wars film number 101 because there a bin that many o’ ’em that folk are sick wearied and tired o’ ’em. Seemingly it meant 101 as in an introduction to Star Wars.” Dave’s reference to Luke Skywalker as Puke Pieeater caused a ripple of amusement, but many considered he had a point because so many successful films and books seemed to have an endless succession of boringly so so sequels, prequels, sidequels, frontquels, backquels and any other kinds of quels any of the greedy movers and shakers in the movie and publishing industries could come up with. So many that a lot of folk had indeed become bored by the entire business and ignored anything to do with such like. Many of the men there remembered that years before Dave had said, “Twilight and Harry Potter aren’t two series of books any more. They’ve become entire merchandising industries, like so much else, and most of it is just pure unadulterated shite purely designed to take money from the gullible. I ask you what the fuck is Star Wars bubble gum all about other than ripping off small kids and their mums who are desperate to keep the kids well enough under control so that they can get on with the shopping?”

~The Supper Menu~

“What’s for supper, Love?” Alf asked Brigitte as she pulled pints for him to deliver on a large tray to the elderly men sitting in the corner of the taproom under the image of Shai Hulud on the mural that covered the entire ceiling and four walls of the room down to the wainscotting which was a hundred and twenty centimetres [4 feet] above the floor (1) while Peter her brother was collecting money. The taproom quietened to a total silence in order to hear Brigitte’s reply.

“Coney and mushroom pies with a shortcrust base and a flaky pastry top. The coney was raised by Auntie Rhona and her sisters Aunties Lacey and Dinah and came to us ready prepared, but not boned, courtesy of Uncle Vincent and his ladies as work in the back of the shop with Auntie Rosie. The mushrooms came up from London in dire need of using. Mum and Auntie Veronica made the pastries and Violet and I put the pies together. I can’t guarantee the pies are totally boneless, but they’ll be nearly so. I may have missed a few of the smaller bones. Coney ribs can be gey small. The pies are accompanied by minted new potatoes. It’s the first time we’ve been able to obtain any of Auntie Sally’s new tatie variety, Sally’s Salad Solanum, and there weren’t enough, so we used some Rocket to make up the quantity. The Rocket, which is a globally grown first early, was field grown outside the valley by Bearthwaite farmers using cloche protection. Sally’s Salad Solanum is of course a recently bred local mid season variety with seed still in short supply and to obtain any this early in the year these were grown under a poly tunnel at the allotments. We cooked them separately because the Sally’s tek a few more minutes to cook than the Rocket.

“For vegetables, the mint is spearmint from the allotments and there’s this year’s early carrot Golfball and early turnip also called Golfball from the allotments too. I know they are both heritage varieties long grown here, but there may be other carrots and turnips with the same names out yonder. There’s last years locally grown petit pois Little Marvel which are just about all gone now. They were originally a commercial variety but folk here have been saving their own seed for about a century, and the cultivar grown here, according to our allotmenteers, will have adapted to our conditions and effectively be our own cultivar now, though they still call it Little Marvel. Auntie Christine says she’s no more of them frozen and has just a few dozen pressure canned, litre bottles of them left though she has hundreds of two hundred litre drums of dried, main crop peas of three different varieties left. And of course there are silos full of dried carlins(2) and soya beans in and outside the valley. According to Uncle Johnto the first of this year’s Little Marvel won’t be ready for picking for nearly a month unless the weather warms up considerably, though there’s a chance of some of the mange tout pea [US snap and snow pea] being ready a fortnight before that.

“There’s no gravy, but there is cream of duck and mushroom sauce because that’s what Auntie Christine has and the price was right because the mushrooms, like the ones in the pies, were free from the London market and just about to turn. There were a couple of tons [2000Kg, 4480 pounds] of them, so they sliced the best of them to freeze and blitzed the rest and creamed them for bottling(3) as sauce. A lot went into one or two litre bottles, but a lot went into five and ten litre bottles too [1 litre = 1¾ UK pints or 1 US quart]. As usual all the dairy products involved came from the Peabody dairy at Woodend Farm. The duck is a tale in its own right if you’re interested?” Seeing the nods of encouragement and hearing a few murmured instructions to tell the tale Brigitte continued. “The duck came from Mitchel Armstrong as married Elleanor Peabody. He raises ducks and geese and he’d had an enquiry about a huge order for duck legs from some freezer company away down south, Birmingham way I think. He turned it down because the price offered was a joke and without at the least a similar sized order for the crowns he said it’d be too much work butching the carcasses and then having to look to move the rest on without legs, pardon the poor joke but Mitchel actually said that, and probably it wouldn’t be possible to find a buyer prepared to pay a half way decent price.

“Elleanor reckoned the company was trying to put one over on them. Seems Mitchel telt the company that his contact with a Chinese company in London would buy all the duck he currently had available and was prepared to accept them entire, plucked, gutted and chilled as long as they were transported in a waggon chiller box unit and were heading in the direction of one or two degrees Celsius as they made their way south. ‘Easy work for halfway decent money,’ was what he said before adding, ‘If your offer is not at least that good and covers all my labour costs I’m not interested.’ We all know the quality of his poultry which are properly fed, housed and looked after with as much access to the wild ponds in his woodland as they want. Which is of course why outsiders are interested in them, but they only want to pay the same price as they pay for lesser quality birds, a lot of which are imported from outside Europe with dubious, if not worse, feed and rearing regimes. Many have preventative drugs added as a routine additive to their feed which make them not allowable to go into the UK human food chain, and there are serious penalties involved if you get caught doing so. Mind at least no matter what the government decide regards Trump’s sanctions and tariffs at least we won’t be eating chlorinated poultry here. Elleanor telt me Mitchell reckons if their food hygiene standards were high enough in the processing plants they wouldn’t need to dip them in what is a dilute bleach solution.

“Some of our waggon drivers collecting vegetables the market traders wanted rid off were telling the tale at the London fruit and vegetable market over a mug of tea, and one of the men there said he knew someone as would be interested as would offer a sensible price as long as the birds were top quality, because that was the kind of market he selt into, really high quality hotels, restaurantes and the like. Contact details were exchanged, and a few days later when our drivers went down to collect fruit and vegetables they took a sample of half a dozen duck down in a polystyrene cold storage box and a good deal for both sides was struck within forty-eight hours for legs and crowns. The company as had been originally interested in the legs came back to Mitchel with a better but still inadequate offer. It was Elleanor as answered the call and she telt the bloke where to go and what to do when he got there. I’m not going to repeat what she said, but I can only assume it would be terribly painful for a man.” At that there was considerable laughter around the room because Elleanor was every bit as feisty as Veronica, her mum, and a bit of spicy, if not to say Anglo Saxon, language from either of them was no surprise.

Once the laughter had faded Brigitte continued, “Elleanor added that the entire batch of duck had already bin selt and not to bother getting in touch again. Once the duck portions arrived with the folk down south as had bought them they rang up and said they were delighted with the quality and enquired about goose portions and any other single portion sized poultry portions as would suit the up market restaurantes they selt to. Mitchel said it was possible at similar prices, but naturally some would be priced subject to availability which in the case of game would purely depend on what he had to pay. They said they understood and that that wouldn’t be a problem, so it looks like Mitchel has found a decent wholesale buyer. He’s negotiating concerning Guinea fowl, peafowl and quail, all of which he breeds, and he’s planning on setting up a dovecote because even if he can’t sell pigeons or doves out yonder Uncle Vincent has said he’ll be able to give him a decent price and Auntie Christine has said she’ll be able to sell them bottled. He’s also discussing the availability of small lots of wood pigeon, pheasant, partridge and other game. They obviously want the meat properly chilled, but don’t wish to buy owt that has been frozen because some of their customers market themselves as having no dealings wi’ frozen food. I presume some of their puddings must be exceptions.

“Mitchel has telt them the folk that drive to the fruit and vegetable market can deliver, but unless the buyer collects from the waggons at the market the price may well become unrealistic for them. They considered collecting themselves from the waggons to be an excellent arrangement no matter how small a delivery were because it would all average out in the end. However, sending the legs and crowns south left him with a load of partial carcasses and bits, and of course all the giblets. Auntie Christine took the lot. She had the duck wings bottled whole on the bone in one litre jars with a stick of celery, a carrot and a small onion and processed the rest. The duck bits and the mushrooms conveniently arrived together at the Auld Bobbin Mill. Some of the meat went into sauces, some made soup, and the bones made stock before being composted at the allotments. The giblets were all used to make pâté to Auntie Rosie’s family receipt and that was done by lasses that normally work in the back of the butchers shop with her that were helping out.

“It was a rushed job and needed a lot of extra pairs of hands in a hurry. The majority of them worked over night and many with kids organised shared babysitting to help out. As usual most of the lasses that helped out to do the processing took at least some of their pay in jars of produce of all sorts. Christine was going to put the bottles of duck products on the website, but so much was selt from the visitor centre shop it wasn’t worth the effort and other than the sauce it’s virtually all gone now. The duck wings with the vegetables looked so good in the jars that the visitors watching the kitchen staff working through the plate glass observation window were wanting to buy some before anyone had had the time time to put the jars through the labelling machine. Auntie Christine wasn’t prepared to tek a chance on the law by selling unlabelled goods to outsiders, so she explained to the customers that they would have to wait because selling unlabelled food was illegal and would likely cause them serious trouble with the food standards agency and its officers.

“The problem was that they didn’t have any labels, so Iris as is one of Uncle Alf’s granddaughters designed a plain black and white one that fulfilled all the legal requirements and had our logo on it. She did it on the spot and explained why it was the way it was. She’s fifteen and does ICT at school and knows how to use the design package that Auntie Elin set up to programme the labeller, which was a bit lucky really. To avoid any complaints, Auntie Helen O’Shaughnessy escorted the customers to where they could queue up at the labeller outlet and tek their jars to the till to pay which worked, or at least it caused considerable excitement and there were no complaints. The folk that work down there said it was a good idea that they’ll do again if the need arises. Teken all together that’s why you’re having coney and mushroom pie with the rather unlikely combination of cream of duck and mushroom sauce. We’re telling all the ladies in the bestside that there are a lot of jars of sauce left which makes the base for an excellent soup, so tell the rest of your womenfolk too. Auntie Christine and Uncle Jeremy as has the Granary restaurante both considered it to be too good to sell as a commodity and that it would be far better to sell it as soup in the visitor centre and the Granary restaurantes where we’d make considerably more from it.”

“What about the pudding, Brigitte Love?” asked Vincent.

“Bramble and apple pie, Uncle Vincent. Locally collected wild bramble, collected by the children and bottled last back end.(4) There is probably an equal amount of bottled, cultivated bramble from the allotments from that thornless variety that they bred from Black Butte in the mix. The one that produces tasty, monster sized fruits which you can pick without needing a visit to A&E(5) afterwards. The apples are a mixture of varieties including the wild crab apples from the hedges, both the red and the green and the Golden Hornet yellow ones planted all over the spot as ornamentals that we make jelly with. All are grown locally, but the domestic varieties of eating and cooking apple that we used are from last year’s early season windfalls that Auntie Christine’s staff prepare, chop and cook down to a pulp before sieving it using that huge vibrating sieve. The sieved pulp is bottled and pressure canned without adding any sweetener in case it is needed for savoury sauces. That way it can be appropriately sweetened when it’s used with the liquid they make from the sugar beet that was grown by our farmers outside the valley. As usual what apple as didn’t go through the sieve was turned into pork and bacon by the children as keep pigs. Nominally our traditional receipt calls for two parts of brambles to every one of apple, but there must have been a mistake made somewhere and there was a five litre bottle of wild bilberry in the mix too instead of one of bramble, so we just used it as though it were bramble because we were rushed and didn’t have the time to sort the matter out any other way.”

Vincent, the village slaughterman and butcher known as Vince the Mince, [Mince is the UK word used to refer to what is ground meat in the US] laught and said, “I know we’ve only bin feeding the sieved apple left overs to the pigs for a few year, but it is a traditional thing to do, if you just regard it as a variation on serving suckling pig with an apple in its mouth. Sorry for the interruption, Lass. Carry on.”

Brigitte smiled and continued, “As with the savoury pies, Mum and Auntie Veronica made the pastries and Violet and I put the pies together. As usual all the pastry ingredients were locally grown and milled or came from the Peabody dairy. The salt has been bought in. It’s actually cheaper for us to have Chance’s staff buy culinary quality salt off the internet by the ton in two kilo plastic bags on pallets than buying rock salt straight from the source in Cheshire like the Highways Authority does for gritting the roads with in winter. There is both thick, barely pourable cream and custard available. Both available in one gallon jugs for in here. The jugs are somewhat smaller, and less heavy, in the bestside. As I said all dairy products are Peabody’s, the flour is from Auntie Alice at the Mill who is also now milling dried stone fruit stones for us from which we prepare the flavouring known as almond extract. Till we manage to grow our own vanilla from my vanilla orchid plants at Uncle Johnto’s hothouses, we are replacing vanilla essence with the almond essence extracted with pure alcohol from milled stone fruit stones. In particular this applies to our custard which is traditionally flavoured with vanilla. This is our first offering so opinions are required as to its acceptability. However, as I said there is cream available. It’ll be at least an hour before we start serving supper, so I need to be in the kitchen. Dad the brown ale barrel will need changing soon.”

“I’ll change the barrel,” Peter said. “I’m going down there for Mum to fetch her some brandy for the bestside anyway.”

~Argement~

After taking a pull on his freshly filled pint, an outsider who was a familiar face indicated a desire to speak. “I’m Argement Aledraper and I live in an isolated cottage between Jericho and Edderside. For them as don’t know a draper is actually just someone who sells somat,(6) so at some time I reckon we must have had a landlord or maybe a brewer in the family. Mind, years ago landlords were all brewers. Despite the tiny nature of the local roads, many of which are single track lonnings with passing places, the verges and the hedges are gradually being destroyed, all due to massive tractors and waggons far too big for them. The entire area is being constantly degraded as a result of the damage, the ongoing loss of the standard trees in the hedges, which reduce in number with every storm, and the damage done to the road metalling by the monstrously sized vehicles which have rendered the lonnings into a series of potholes which are now starting to be connected to each other for most of the time. The intervals between when the highways lads come round and fill the potholes in seem to be getting longer and they only fill the worst of them these days. I suspect they’re under orders to do that and that that’s to avoid the Council being prosecuted for damage to vehicles.”

Joe who worked as an independent highways contractor to the Highways Authority via Beebell said, “You hit that nail square on the head, Argement Lad. The Bearthwaite lads and I don’t do that kind of work, but we do resurfacing for the Highways and know the lads that do the potholes well. Owt less than four inch [100mm] deep they’re telt to ignore, because less than that a court won’t accept as causing damage to a car unless it’s being driven far to fast for rural roads. There’re only half as many lads doing the job as there were ten year ago and every time one leaves or retires he’s not replaced, so they’ve more work to do than is possible. They work five days a week, but as the damage becomes progressively worse obviously the time interval between ’em seeing to any given stretch o’ road or lonning increases, and no matter what the Council won’t pay them overtime rate over the weekends, so they won’t work Saturdays or Sundays. You can’t blame ’em, Lad, because without the justification of extra coin at overtime rates which is at least time and a half on Saturdays and double time on Sundays their missuses will rear up on ’em if they’re not at home at the weekend to spend time with the kids. Who would you really rather upset, your boss or her indoors?”

Argement nodded and said, “Aye. I’ve no argument with you about that, Joe. It’s twenty year at least since I had a serious turn up with Fiona, and with a bit of luck I’ll be dead before the next one.” There were chuckles of sympathy all round the room before Argement continued. “There are width and size restrictions on most of the lonnings which are ignored and unenforced. I’ve seen police cars back up to let vehicles pass that were twice as wide as was legal and do nowt about it. As I said from time to time the local authority fill the worst of the potholes in, but they soon return because the vehicles are so heavy that their tyres force the tarmac to be lifted and broken up due to the hydraulic pressure exerted by the rain water under their treads. There are places where the roads have taken out four feet of ground, including the dyke breasts,(7) on both sides of what was a tiny narrow lonning. I’ve heard that in other places folk who only burn logs, old wood and pallets for fuel are dumping their ashes complete with all the nails from the pallets on the ground at the sides of the lonnings at considerable distances away from where they live. Maybe that’s wishful thinking, then again maybe it’s true, but I wouldn’t wish to get a flat tyre in one of those vehicles, and even less have to pay for someone to come out to put me back on the road again.”

“Aye,” said Alf, “and those tyres cost a not so small fortune. Cheer up, Lad, Ásfríðr Lillqvist,(8) our MP(9) who’s a gey feisty Bearthwaite lass, has those drivers in her sights because she reckons they’re damaging our visitor industry. A lot of Cumbrian folks’ incomes depend on the picturesque image of the area. Think on it she was right when she said that we live off sheep and scenery. If you reckon it up a huge number of folk earn a living directly from the visitors and even more indirectly from them, and she reckons any that damage that image should have to pay for the damage. There used to be a saying to do with pollution that in her mind applies that went ‘the polluter pays’, so maybe she’ll nail the bastards. When our lads, Joe and his crews, as tarmac roads resurface a road or a lonning whether it runs between our land or no since tarmac is expensive without written instructions from the Highways bosses they will only lay tarmac as wide as the road actually should be. Think on it doesn’t matter a bugger what we think, but money talks.

“Auld records exist, and we have copies of them all, for not just the county of Cumbria as was, that tell them just how wide that is and in most cases that’s six foot not two metres which is six point eight inch narrower, which over many a mile is a considerable cost saving. The Highways bosses aren’t prepared to sign a document that instructs the crews to break the law and lay the tarmac any wider because that would render them legally liable when our legal department put them in the dock with a private prosecution, and trust me, Lad, without doubt they would do so. So the new tarmac is always exactly what it should be and no more which is not how it’s bin done for more than half a century. The crews will also be installing motion sensitive video cameras soon and if any get caught driving ower large vehicles on the new road they shall end up in court. If they end up in front of one of our magistrates they’ll have to pay. If they don’t the vehicle will be impounded. It will all tek time, and doubtless there’ll be endless appeals, but things are afoot.

“What isn’t widely known though none are mekin a secret of it is that on land we own at the sides of the lonnings the gutters(10) are being properly maintained, cleared out every year wi’ a track laying, back actor machine [US back hoe] wi’ a ditching bucket(11) and our farmers are running a mole plough alongside the metalling in the interests of drainage. It won’t be long before some of those enormous waggons and tractors will have to pay a fortune to be extricated from the lonning sides if not extracted from the gutters. It won’t tek long after that afore waggon drivers are telt by their bosses to stay the fuck away from rural shortcuts. Farmers and agricultural contractors as end up in that situation will be pulled up short when their insurance premiums go through the roof, and wi’ every man, woman and child on the look out for ’em wi’ a mobile phone te tek footage of ’em driving wi’ out insurance the problem will gradually disappear. Local lads as have to move big equipment around will talk to us about it, and solutions will be arrived at. If necessary they’ll do the damage and we’ll repair it. If there is no other way that’s an entirely different case from some idiot using rural lonnings as rat runs(12) just because they’re selfish, bone idle bastards.”

There was a murmur of approval around the room at Alf’s words and Arran Peabody a local farmer of the huge Peabody family added, “We operate some really big agricultural equipment for Bearthwaite folk and as a contractor for Beebell. We also do the training of any as want to learn to use it, mostly it belongs to Beebell, but the Auld Un has always insisted that whether outside the valley or no we chose our routes with that sort of issue in mind. Some roads we can avoid altogether by using land as we own. That’s not always possible, but we do the best we can. There are one of two spots where the turns were too tight for really big tackle, so the dyke breasts(13) were rebuilt and planted farther back from the road and the much wider grass verges, now available to enable the big kit to turn, is grazed or hay made.” The locals nodded, for Arran was referring to Auld Alan his great grandfather, who despite being nearly a hundred years old was as sharp as a tack and not someone any would willingly cross. He was notorious for his combative care of the environment and years ago had refused to allow his family to use a barn because a pair of peregrines had used it for nesting and he was unwilling to risk disturbing them.

His system of values had been taken on board by all of his long tailed family with their mothers’ milk, for it had been a major part of the Bearthwaite folks’ view of their world for centuries before his birth. They didn’t see it as a restriction, so much as a valid way of looking after not just their livelihood and way of life but those of their descendants too. Auld Alan was a highly respected man locally who was considered to be a responsible community leader as regards environmental issues and care for the land they stewarded and husbanded. He had many a time been heard to say, “I reckon the indigenous folks of North America had it right when they said to the white man, ‘How can a man own a mountain, a river or the land? It is just there.’ The shame of it was that the white man didn’t understand that then and his understanding is no better today.” Yes it was true that legally the Peabodys owned considerable acreage of land, but they husbanded it and managed it on behalf of not just their huge family but their entire community too. It was generally accepted that the Peabody model of land stewardship was the model that had been taken on board by Beebell who legally owned many millions of acres. But as had been said often by many, ‘Beebell simply represents and presents to outsiders the consensus of the Bearthwaite folk on any number of matters.’ The most significant Bearthwaite folk who managed the food supplies for their folk, virtually all of who were women, were respected and listened to by all other Bearthwaite folk. They all listened to and took on board all new ideas, especially any that were likely likely to produce new food ideas and any that would produce food from where there was none before. Folk well knew that disparaging ideas that created food would result in their rapid loss of status or even their expulsion from the folk, which was not something any member of Bearthwaite society was prepared to risk.

~The Electric Man~

A vaguely familiar face said, “I’m Gregory. Would it be okay if I telt a short tale?”

It was Pete who replied saying, “Aye, Lad, that’s what we’re all here for. A fresh voice is always welcome. Just hang on a moment, and one of the lads will pour you a glass of something to fettle your vocal cords.”

At that Silvester, Alf’s son, could be seen pouring a glass of some innocuous looking lemon yellow coloured beverage and pushing it towards Gregory. Sylvester said, “Better go easy with that, Gregory. We reckon it’s at least eighty per cent by volume and it has a bite gey stranger(14) than the local tackle made just down the lonning.”

Gregory took a mouthful, shook his shoulders and said, “Aye, that’s fair powerful chemic. Anyway, to the tale. This bloke pulled up in his white van at my spot and asked, ‘Is it you that rang about a pole?’ which I hadn’t bin expecting because it was just a plain white van he was in, not one wi’ electricity company logos or owt else pented(15) on the sides or rear.

“ ‘Nay, Lad,’ said I. ‘Ukrainians maybe. Poles no, they all live out Carlisle way.’ They’d sent him out to investigate a live electricity supply pole. He didn’t know why or even exactly where it was. He didn’t have a name, an address or even a post code. Just East Marsh End. There’s no such place unless you count anywhere local that isn’t West Marsh End, which is a place, as being East Marsh End. In any case the post code he’d tried his satnav with was in Hell Burn, at least a mile and a half away from Marsh End. I telt him I was expecting a visit any time now from some of his lads to trim some trees near my overhead electric supply, but I’d been waiting for a hell of a long time. I wasn’t bothered I said because if the trees disrupted my supply the supply company would have to sort it within forty-eight hours or pay me compensation. When he asked how long I’d been waiting I replied, ‘Going on three year.’ He nodded in understanding implying that would be par for the course. We talked about telepoles(16) as well as leccipoles(17) and I said I’d a telepole on my land that was leaning badly over the highway that ran through my property.

“I telt him I wasn’t bothered if it fell because if it blocked the road I’d firewood it with a chainsaw as a public service. No local would be bothered since I would have kept the road open and since it was at least ten year since British Telecom had looked at the pole by the time they sent some one to look at it, if they ever did, the poor bugger would have no idea where to look and all evidence of its existence would have long rotted or gone up my flue. Telepoles burn gey well due to the creosote preservative they are pressure treated with, which they soak up like hell, because before the creosote is introduced into the tank they are subject to a vacuum for a few hours first. I said I’d telt British Telecom to bugger off going on twenty years since because the service was shite and way too dear. He agreed and said there are thousands of telepoles just rotting that are never inspected any more because there isn’t a single customer using the line they carry and in any case Telecom don’t have the men any more to do the inspections. Those ex customers too voted with their feet and their cash and now use a satellite or a cable service.”

Bertie said, “There there must be thousands of telepoles within just a few miles of the Bearthwaite Lonning Ends that have suffered the same fate, Lad, and as time goes on more of them are falling, rotted away at the base. Every winter when the wind blows some o’ ’em hit the deck. Our rangers as keep an eye on what’s going on around us outside the valley do daily patrols and let Rigg and his lads as deal wi’ wood at the Auld Quarry know whenever there’s a pole to be collected whether it’s on our land or no. They collect ’em gey sharpish before some other bugger does, for as you said they do burn gey well even when rotted away to hell and full o’ watter. They have an implement that goes on the front end of that bloody great tractor of theirs as can lift a stump completely out of the ground, even if it’s rotted off a few feet down, which means they collect the entire pole. Usually they just cut ’em in three or four lengths and throw ’em on a trailer to be fully cut up by their lads as deal wi’ wood in the Auld Quarry building. Mind, it’ll not be many more years afore there won’t be any left within a distance close enough to be worth collecting. They do the same wi’ the trees that the wind puts on the road and they won’t be available for much longer than the telepoles. Though on all land that Beebell owns, alongside any lonning or road, replacement trees a bin planted as soon as the solicitatoruses(18) closed the deals on the land. Those trees will not be available for timber in our lifetimes, but they shall be available to Bearthwaite folk in generations to come, and that is all that our generation can do.”

~Supper in the Bestside~

Elle said, “I enjoyed that. Thank you. Brigitte, how do you make that almond essence?”

“It’s not difficult, Auntie Elle. I learnt most of how to do it from Youtube. To make vanilla essence yourself you split the pods and steep them in vodka, or an other spirit of your choice, and then the rest is just time. With almond essence there is the problem of the shells around the kernels. You can use any stone fruit, it doesn’t have to be almonds, for it’s virtually the same things that are in all of them, they seem to be called aldehydes. Industrially a lot of so called almond essence is made from apricot kernels. I talked to Auntie Alice about it and she said she could not only crack the shells for me but mill the kernels too which would make it easier to extract the essence. She telt me that to do a decent job of it the stones would have to be dried out thoroughly first. Auntie Christine kept all the stones from all the various stoned fruit that she bottled last year for me regardless of what they were. Auntie Alice dried them for a couple of months on shelves over her bread ovens before she milled the lot, stones and kernels. I ended up with two fifty kilo sacks of what looked like a slightly off white flour that smelt strongly of almonds.

“I used pure alcohol from Uncle Jean-Claude at the distillery to extract the essence with. I swapped him one of the sacks of the powder for the spirit and he plans on experimenting to make an Amaretto style liqueur with it, and promised me a case of bottles in return. I had some good stuff after a month. I just poured the essence off the solids and bottled it. That was quicker than they did it on Youtube which took a few months. I think that was due to it being easier to extract the essence from a powder rather than from kernels roughly crushed with a rolling pin or a meat mallet. Uncle Græme said the spirit I was using was at least two and a half times as strong as the cheap vodka most of them used on Youtube and doubtless that helped to speed the extraction process up too. I think I may have used a bit too much essence in the custard, because the taste is very concentrated. I’ll try using less next time. The residue I’m going to use in some biscuits for bar snacks. My idea is to use the ginger nuts receipt and mix in the residue with some blitzed up hazel nuts too. It may take few attempts to have it as good as it can be, but I’m sure I’ll manage to make it at least acceptable first time around.”

~Supper in the Taproom~

“I reckon that was a fair tasty and substantial supper, Lads. Alf, as the local virtuoso as regards taste buds what do you reckon?”

“Well, Dave, I agree with you. I’m probably one of the few of us as has etten(19) Sally’s new variety of spuds before, but they are better for not being forced to grow out of season. Those were damned good, but weren’t quite as good as what I’ve tasted before which were planted outside at the normal time o’ planting for a mid season tatie. The coney and mushroom pie was well up to standard and the other vegetables were as expected, but we’ve grown them all for longer than I’ve bin alive, so you’d expect that by now we’d have growing ’em down to a tee. The sauce was amazingly tasty. Coney and duck together doesn’t sound like a likely combination, but it was excellent. That both were cooked wi’ the mushrooms maybe blended the tastes together, but I wouldn’t swear to it. The apple and bramble pie was excellent. It’s kind of hard to mind years back what it was like before the lasses at the mill started to process the windfalls. When I was a kid we used to earn a few pennies collecting ’em for the pigs. Nowadays the kids still collect ’em along wi’ the crab apples too for a bit o’ coin, but Christine’s lasses produce a tasty purée with the mix that gets used for all sorts.

“The bramble tastes different these days too. That’s due to not just being hedge fruit but a blend of hedge fruit and the domesticated cultivars that are grown all over the spot, not just at the allotments any more. The brambles taste good, but then they always did. As to whether they taste better or not I’ve not a clue. I could taste the bilberries in the pie and fair play to the lasses they used what they had immediately available when under a bit o’ pressure. They didn’t improve the taste but they didn’t detract from it either. It’s not something I’d recommend doing deliberately because there’re better things to do wi’ ’em. The major thing for me about the entire meal was changing from using a vanilla extract in the custard to an almond extract. It’s a pleasant enough taste if somewhat unexpected, but doubtless we’ll get used to it. Most folk aren’t aware that almond essence can be made from the kernels of just about any stone fruit, for it’s virtually the same stuff that the alcohol extracts from the kernels. Brigitte made the change because quality vanilla essence is expensive, as are vanilla pods to make it yourself from. For me I reckon she could use a bit less of the almond essence, so the taste is not quite as in your face. Like as what you said, Dave, I reckon that was a fair tasty and substantial supper.

~A Færie Tale~

Dave said, “Now we’ve had supper and we and the dogs are all settled down again, Lads, I thought I’d restart us off with something a little out of the usual. It’s a Færie tale, one o’ mine. We haven’t had yan telt in here for a good while, so I thought perhaps we should all appreciate a bit of a change. Whilst I shouldn’t call it an adult tale in the modern sense o’ the word it’s definitely only for older bairns, or at least kids who are old enough to understand about sex, pregnancy and the LGBT+, or you’ll get bogged down in too many explanations for the tale to be worth the telling. I’ve already recorded it and given Jill the librarienne a hardcopy and an audio copy, so if you want to tell it or play it to the grandkids, you can get a copy of either from her. Pass that bottle of chemic over, Alf, if you will please.” After topping up his glass with a clear but viscous liquid that seemed to opalesce, Dave drank it and refilled his glass before asking, “Okay, Lads? You ready?” Seeing the nods Dave began.

~The Black Færie~

“Yance ower(20) there was a young Færie named Gwenhwyfar(21) who was puzzled about the world she lived in and she was seeking enlightenment from her grandmother about the Færie Queen who had ruled over the lands of Færie for hundreds of millennia. That she was a many generations removed descendant of the Queen had increased her inquisitiveness concerning the matter. Gwenhwyfar was a mere two hundred and thirty-two years old, so young that she was a number of long centuries away from reaching her full adult size. Her grandmother who was gey puzzled about how to explain what she considered to be involved and complex matters said, ‘Oh dear! Where to begin, Child? The problem is most of us are woefully ignorant concerning the world of humans and little better concerning the world of Færie. In order to answer your questions concerning our ancestress the Queen I shall have to tell you much to enlighten your ignorance, so you shall have to be patient, Granddaughter.

“Too, there is much ignorance and perhaps surprisingly virtually no inquisitiveness amongst us concerning our origins. I am told that one of the first questions of significance every human child asks concerns where they came from. I am not aware any Færie child has ever asked that, and most adult Færies don’t consider the matter either. Mayhap I am being a little unfair, for humans are born in more or less equal numbers of males and females whereas with us it is very different. Humans mate when they are old enough, which is usually a matter of being physically large enough and physically mature enough to become pregnant, and the females sometimes become pregnant and bear young as a result, but not always. Human females become big bellied when pregnant with what is by our standards a very large young human, and it is obvious to all that they are with child. With us pregnancy is never visibly obvious not even as we give birth. Mating is an ongoing thing with them that is happening all the time. Do you understand about human mating and its consequences, Gwenhwyfar?’

“ ‘Oh yes, Grandmother. It’s just like it is with other animals, and just like other animals they will often undergo numerous mating events in a short period of time.’

“ ‘Do you know how it is with us?’

“ ‘No. I never thought about it.’

“ ‘Have you ever seen a man Færie?’

“ ‘No. I didn’t even know there was such a thing. I thought we were all female.’

“ ‘I knew that would be your answer, and therein lies the problem, but think about it, Child. Why would there be such a thing as a female Færie if there were no such thing as a male Færie? We would all be just Færies. Yes?’

“ ‘I suppose so, Grandmother.’

“ ‘There are male Færies, but they are very rare. Unlike humans when we mate we always become pregnant, every time, and mating is always a single event unlike as you said it is with humans. The pregnancy usually commences in a suspended state and can remain so for centuries, possibly millennia, and no one knows why the young Færie starts to develop when she does. Once in perhaps a millennium one of those baby Færies born is a male. I am many tens of millennia old and I have only ever seen four males, and I mated once with each. That is why I have three daughters and I have been pregnant for going on seven and a half centuries now with my fourth child. You are the only child of my youngest child. Who knows maybe the child in my womb will be a male. It is possible I shall give birth for the fourth time this year, then again it may be millennia or even more before I do. Your mother and I were both impregnated by the same male at the same cèilidh, yet you were born over two centuries ago and I am still pregnant. Neither I nor any other knows when a Færie will give birth till immediately before the event, and nor do we know what initiates the process. Males are very powerfully motivated to mate and their presence and scent alone makes we females ready, willing and driven to mate too. A pregnant female has no interest in mating and is of no interest to a male, though a male will mate with many thousands of unimpregnated females before he loses interest and disappears.’

“ ‘Where do they go?’

“ ‘No one knows. They start to become more interested in the woods and the glens than they are in mating. Their effect on females fades and they just wander off. Some think they fade and die, but none truly knows. May hap the enchantresses at Greenstrath know, but if they do they have always been silent concerning the matter. What is known is that by the time a male leaves he has left his contribution to the next generation of the Færie safely in the wombs of the thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of females he mated with over the years and a tiny few of those many thousands of pregnant wombs will contain males who will eventually in their turn maintain the Færie. All newly born males are taken to Greenstrath for the enchantresses to rear, but it is not known how long it takes before a male is ready to mate. There have always been rumours that males are trained to mate virtually from birth by the enchantresses who are all thus constantly pregnant, but none know if that be true. I have often wondered if the reason our pregnancies are suspended is so that males can mate with and impregnate females immediately right from their births.

“That way a young female can be impregnated when the opportunity is there and subsequently grow to become physically big enough to support her pregnancy. A new born Færie child is relatively considerably smaller compared with her mother than a human new born compared with hers. Yet despite that, I have seen more than one of us of less than a month old as driven to mate as her just recovered mother, and mating had the same sweet reward at the end for both of them. Even at birth we are sufficiently developed sexually to be able to mate satisfactorily. It has always puzzled me why our new born are so aware and intellectually, emotionally and, other than size, physically developed whereas humans take years from birth to develop to that degree. In particular it will take a newborn human female at least a dozen years to become developed sufficiently physically to be able to mate without suffering physical damage and usually three or four more years than that before they are developed enough sexually to become pregnant. I suspect the ignorance about ourselves is due to the rarity of males and our complete lack of interest in mating unless in the presence of a male, for unlike humans we have no interest in mating activity with ourselves, nor even with another female.’

“ ‘I have heard of that, Grandmother, but I don’t see the point of it since it can’t result in young.’

“ ‘Just accept that humans have very different drives and motivations from the ones we do. They enjoy mating activity for its own sake. They are often driven by their desires which is why I suspect they tend to be erratic and irrational from time to time.’ She flushed and admitted, ‘I can understand that, for I was not at my most clear nor level headed when in the presence of a male. All I could think about was the ecstasy of being taken and the satisfaction and contentment that would overcome me once I became pregnant. Even immediately before my first mating that was all I could think about. How I knew about the ecstasy of being taken and the satisfaction and contentment that would come with pregnancy when I had no experience of either I have no idea, yet it is the same for all of us, and once you catcht the scent of your first male you will know about both too before you experience either.’

“ ‘What does this have to do with the Færie Queen, Grandmother?’

“ ‘Perhaps everything and perhaps nothing, but it is as well that not all of your age are in complete ignorance of such matters till you meet a male, at which point you’ll certainly not be thinking about anything other than mating. Once you have mated and are pregnant you will have no further interest in mating till your child is born. Then of course in the presence of a male you will yet again be thinking of nothing else. It is the way we are.’

~Raphael~

“ ‘A long time ago, a very long time before I was born, a male was born who was named Raphael. Raphael was even for a male Færie very different. Færies as you know are all fairer skinned than any human. Most of us have bright red hair and even brighter green or occasionally violet eyes, though a sizeable minority of us have golden blonde hair with bright blue eyes. We average about three feet tall with gossamer wings that one can read through and are very slender and slight of build. I suppose that is necessary to enable us to fly. There are no Færies with brunette hair or anything other than pure white skin and all have transparent wings. That is except one. Raphael was that exception. He was impossibly tall for a Færie, well over four feet, was black skinned, with black eyes and hair. Even his gossamer wings were a solid impenetrable black. He was of a slightly more substantial build than the rest of us and had he been any more so I suspect he would have been unable to fly. Like all of us, males and females both, he was pretty with high cheek bones and lips that drove many a female Færie mad with desire. His scent was capable of overwhelming an entire Færie cèilidh(22) of over two hundred females for days, and every time he’d mated with every non gravid female there before leaving them all in child. It became a matter of record that he’d impregnated over twelve hundred females at one particularly well attended mid summer cèilidh, a dozen of them newborns delivered up to him by their mothers so that he could impregnate them both. It is also known that none of his offspring looked at all like him. They all were typical members of the Færie, pale skinned with red or blonde hair and green, violet or blue eyes.

“ ‘However, all was not well with Raphael. He said he felt driven to mate against his will by the scent of females and their libidinous behaviour as they presented themselves to be taken in his presence. None understood him, for all of us, male and female alike, had always been driven by their urges in the presence of each other. Though mating is a rare event in our lives it is an entirely natural thing for us and the way the world of Færie is maintained. Raphael became more and more unhappy, but unable to deny his urges in the presence of females and unable to escape them due to his incredibly heightened sensitivity, he was far more sensitive than any male before him to the whereabouts of any non gravid female within hundreds of miles, which forced him to seek them out and impregnate them, he had to suffer his terrible malaise till after many millennia he began to naturally be more interested in the woods and glens than in mating. Unusually he did not wander off. He went to Greenstrath the capital to seek the enchantresses and those who maintain what the humans in their ignorance refer to as magic. It was assumed initially that he was embarrassed by his appearance and that he wanted to look like a typical Færie and he was considered to be vain and unworthy of help. However, the senior enchantress Siobhan took pity on him and said she would solve his problems if he would mate one last time, with herself. He agreed and in their ensuing conversation she told him that she was aware of his child within her womb and that he had more than fulfilled his side of the bargain, for he had given her a male child. That is one of the hallmarks of a senior enchantress, that they are aware of the sex of a child in their womb from the moment of its conception. It was clear to her that his appearance was not of concern to him, so she asked him what it was that she could help him with.

“ ‘Raphael explained as best as he could. His anguish at not being able to understand his problems, never mind to articulate them, was apparent to Siobhan who was moved by his plight beyond words. In her pity and care for one she considered to be an exemplary member of the Færie she wrought the powerful enchantments that did what was necessary to ease and change Raphael’s mind and body. Somehow in the process his mind was expanded vastly beyond the capabilities of any enchantress known to Færie history, though his height and colouration remained the same. It was later concluded that the capacity of his mind must have lain dormant, a latent ability just awaiting the right circumstances to manifest itself. The most powerful enchantress at the capital is always the one named the Færie Queen. To be a male Færie is no bad thing, but Raphael’s problems were then resolved, for unlike Raphael le Noir, Færie Queen Raphaella la Noire is not a Fairy. As to whether all lived happily ever after it’s hard to say, but Raphaella, our ancestress, is still the Færie Queen.’ ”

“Christ almighty, Dave, I reckon that’s definitely only for older bairns, and even so by the time they’re ready for that they’ll be almost too old for bedtime stories. You ever tell that one afore? Dave, maybe a long times back because it seems I recognise bits of it. I particularly remember the different ways you pronounced Færie and Fairy because I mind(23) we discussed it at the time.” A number of other older local were nodding in agreement with Phil at recognising parts of the tale.

“Aye, it ’ould be twenty-odd year since, but it was a lot shorter and far less interesting then. At least it was to me. I’ve put a deal o’ work into it since then. As for telling it to kids, I not sure that it’s only suitable older bairns. All o’ my granchilder(24) have heard and enjoyed it, and even after they repeated it to Lucy to ask her some questions I didn’t get any grief from her. As for the rest of what you said about by the time they’re ready for the tale they’ll be almost too old for bedtime stories. I don’t agree, Phil, because kids are never too old for stories. You and dozens of us from here and men from outside too, some of who travel considerable distances of a Saturday to get here just for the tales, are still listening to ’em every Saturday evening aren’t we? Too, a goodly number of us, Bearthwaite men and others alike, enjoy telling tales of every imaginable type don’t we? Tales don’t have to be bedtime stories do they? And think on, sagasay(25) has bin around a gey lang time, and what’s that if not stories?”

At that the nods and murmurs of agreement went around the room with various added comments and of course the usual bottles of spirituous liquors required for topping glasses up with for several minutes. Auld Joey, a long since retired shepherd who always sat in a chair next to the front fireplace with Jasper his equally agèd and long retired dog at his feet with his nose on the fender, mumbled something that none of the outsiders could make out a single word of. Those who were aware that the shepherds and dry stone wallers spoke an old language they and Bearthwaite folk referred to as High Fell assumed that Joey was speaking in it. In fact he’d been speaking in the Cumbrian dialect of English that even the locals who didn’t understand High Fell had no trouble understanding. Dave later explained that Joey had said he’d enjoyed listening to folk sagasay for well ower ninety years and it was still as entertaining as it had bin all those years ago when he’d bin barely as tall as Jasper.

Joey was well known for relating tales of events that had occurred up on the fjäll tops in his shepherding days. Most were tales of events from long ago and many referred to folk long dead. They weren’t all to do with shepherding, many were of events and tales previously related around a fire shared with the drystun wallers, who were working up there at the time, in the evenings after their meal. In Bearthwaite such tales were not considered to be the boring reminiscences of an auld man long past his sell by date, as they often were in other places. Rather relating the events of the lives of those long gone was considered to be the paying of respect to folk whose lives had often enabled those still alive to be so. That ever since he had started to relate such tales, which was many decades ago, Joey had been translated for those who couldn’t understand him, regardless of whether he spoke in English or High Fell was just regarded by Bearthwaite folk as part of their culture that outsiders could either accept or drink somewhere else.

~Wonder, Cash & Hope~

That was considered to be an appropriate time for a break in the proceedings. So after pint glasses had been washed and replenished, the dogs let out and the back door closed once they had all returned to jostle for the best positions for their noses on the hearth fenders in front of the open fires, a number of the men, not all local men it must be said, dealt with the hard liquor and the children’s Christmas party collection fund box which all outsiders contributed to, voluntarily of course to meet the legal requirements of the outsider regulations, and the expectations of the local men too, the men in the taproom looked around for what was going to happen next. Peter, Pete the landlord’s grandson, announced, “There’re pork scratchings, and roast salted mixed local nuts available for those who fancy a snack. The ladies in the kitchens have packed them up in paper bags. They say they are fed up with silly little bags and refuse to do metric, so the snacks are only available in one pound bags. That’s about four hundred and fifty grammes and a bag will do four men for a goodly while. I’ve a box full of scratchings and one of mixed nuts, so if you sort out what you want we’ll deal with it and fetch more if required. There’s a tin on the left hand side of the bar for the money, so we’d be obliged if you deal with that yourselves. If the tin runs short on change tell someone as can mek the damned till drawer open to give you some. We’re having a bit of a problem with it at the moment. It’s tekin a trip to Uncle Bertie’s hospital ward for poorly tills on Monday.”

Most of the outsiders were regulars and were not surprised that they were trusted to pay for what they required. They also knew that if it were ever discovered they had not paid they would never be served again at the Green Dragon which was not something they even considered taking a chance on. They were decent, honest men many of who had considered themselves extremely lucky to have found an inn that matched all the things that they considered to be important in their lives and they were grateful that their honesty was respected without question. The newer outsiders were surprised by the trust they’d been given, but recognised that it was a way of life they had long desired and had believed to have disappeared generations ago in their world even though most were Cumbrians. The set of rules that governed everyone’s behaviour in the Green Dragon taproom was an amazing discovery that made them happy to realise that such folk in at least one such environment still existed. If anything they would be even harder on any new outsiders that took advantage of Bearthwaite trust than any resident of Bearthwaite would be, for they were more than grateful for the way they were regarded by the men of Bearthwaite, and they opined that any who broke what they regarded as a sacred trust deserved the ultimate punishment.

The ultimate punishment would have been described by others as shunning, banishment, or in Bearthwaite terms, ‘They have nowt in common wi’ us and we need nowt to do wi’ ’em,’ which was more than acceptable to them, for they were more than happy to be considered to be a member of what they considered to be a select and superior society that would protect they and theirs should the need arise. As Eino, an elderly man whose nearest centre of population was Whitehaven and who’d been a high fell shepherd for sixty-odd years, said, “I don’t understand all of the Bearthwaite way of life, but as a high fell shepherd who has nay problem wi’ understanding Bearthwaite shepherds I truly wish to, for I reckon it’s how all our ancestors lived and as such I have a need to understand the Bearthwaite High Fell way o’ life. For sure I wish that folk who at least understand the struggles we and our womenfolk have endured to feed our bairns determine how we live. The arsehole, absentee landowners from down south and the politicians from London, a place that means nowt to any of us, have abused us and teken the profits of our minerals and our sheep for years. To an extent they’re still doing so, but they need reminding of their uselessness to provide owt to feed their own. Think on it, what have they ever given us, apart from rules that took food awah(26) from our own.”

After going on a quarter of an hour of debate concerning Eino’s views, when the tale telling resumed Dave was saying, “I mind years ago when the UK economy was in the shite yet again a joke went round. Look at the States. They’ve got Johny Cash, Stevie Wonder and Bob Hope. We’re totally in the shite with no cash and it’s no wonder we’ve got no bloody hope. I was looking at the US economy some time before their recent election and all the wonder they had was way past its sell by date and the cash and the hope had long gone. One presidential candidate seemed to be well on the road to full blown dementia and we now know he had to bow out, and the other was a psychotic fantasist who still believes the more often he repeats his bullshit the truer it becomes, and I reckon that idiot who tried to assassinate his right ear handed the election to him on a plate. Mind, even though we know he won all his opposition are in their fifties and the media focus has moved to his mental faculties. Still at least when the new UK Labour government introduces VAT(27) on private education it won’t affect us because the BEE is free to our kids and twenty percent of nowt is still nowt.”

“Well, Dave,” Sasha said, “I was listening to some American bloke on radio four the other day and he reckoned that the Democrats handed Trump the election on a plate because the electorate preferred Trump’s brand of fantasy to theirs. Harris et al. focussed their campaign on what they would do for ethnic minorities, the LGBT, women, religious groups, the disabled and all other unfortunates. Trump just asked, ‘Are you better off now than you were four years ago?’ This political pundit said that folk of all kinds voted for Trump. He said that a black, lesbian, disabled Jewess was more interested in being able to pay her rent and feed her kids than she was in any so called improvements to her status and rights which most employers would ignore and be able to work around anyway. He reckoned that Trump simply knew what was important to folk and that the Democrats were way more out of touch with reality than him. If that’s true the US really is in the shit. I know I telt you about him last week, or maybe the week before, but the lad seems to be becoming a power in the US media. Not that he’ll mek any difference to owt that matters.”

Dave added, “Maybe he won’t, but I reckon Trump may. I watched a clip on Youtube of a lass from California who’d cancelled a family holiday to Europe due to a potential backlash of anti US feeling as a result of the recent Trump, Vance and Zelensky meeting. I read an article that called Trump a vulgar, threatening, ignorant, snarling, arrogant bully. That’s as may be but the only difference between what the US has in power and what we have is our leadership has no power, and his lack of understanding of the global economy and the effects of trade tariffs beggars belief.”

Pete said, “Ah well maybe yon pundit’s right and the Yanks had as little choice to vote for as the Brits. I watched a clip of a woman from Boston who had what we’d call a travel agents having hundreds of cancellations to Europe for this coming summer because of feared anti US sentiment. How that will pan out economically god alone knows.”

~Al From Alaska~

A stranger who was maybe in his early forties who’d never been seen before and had thus so far been silent said quietly, “I’m Al, a generations born and bred Alaskan from Anchorage. I’m an oilman and I came over here on business and took a couple of weeks owed vacation while I was here. I met some one called Rick Winstanley on a platform in the North Sea who recommended I visit here over the weekend.”

Alf smiled and said, “Henrik is one of my sons, Lad. Pete, if Henrik recommended he came here pull him a drink on my slate. My apologies for interrupting your tale, Lad.”

Al not sure how to respond smiled and continued, “Pretty much Alaskans vote republican. I wouldn’t vote democrat last time, but I couldn’t bring myself to help put Trump back in the White House either, so I didn’t vote. I can’t say I disagree with what was said about him a moment ago, but it troubles me that Europeans or anybody else would think that we are all like him. I’ve never done much travelling in other states, and what I have done is to other oil fields where the folks are no different from any other oilmen, sober on the job and they drink too much when away from it to make up for it. The people I know in Alaska are pretty much like me, family people just trying to get by. A goodly number like me are part native, my wife is pure bred native and there aren’t many like her around any more. When we retire we’re leaving the city, at three hundred thousand people it’s getting to be crowded. Some think we’re crazy, but they’ve become too much like regular city folks. We’ll get by, and that’s all I’ve ever asked of life.”

There were nods of understanding from all around the room. Sasha said with a grin, “I’m near enough a neighbour of yours from across the water in Siberia. You’re right, all any decent human being needs is enough to get by. Whilst you’re here try this, but be careful. It’s a local distillate that we only sell to outside at a considerably reduced alcohol content. This is the real thing.”

~Dave~

“Moving on though, Lads, why does it tek four menopausal women to change a light bulb?”

“Hang on, Dave. I know the answer to that one because you’ve telt it before. Because it just does right?”

“Nay, Lad, that’s how many witches on broomsticks(28) it teks.”

“So what’s the answer then?”

“Because it’s Thursday, Frank.”

“That meks nay sense, Lad, and anyway it’s Saturday.”

“Exactly.” Dave had done it again.

~Pate Pâté~

“So what have you bin adoing that’s causing all the excitement down at the Auld Bobbin Mill, Vincent?”

“Nowt to do wi’ me, Stan. It’s Rosie as started it. Francis knocked down a hare wi’ his van ower Cockermouth way and he give it to Rosie.” Vincent seeing the puzzled faces on some of the newer outsiders’ faces added, “Rosie is my auld lass and Francis is her aulder brother. As she always does she give the skin to Eric. Every now and again he gives her a pair of slippers, shoes or boots in return. She always does a proper job o’ the skinning and that includes skinning out the head and tail leaving just the feet wi’ the skin for Eric. He sells so called lucky coney’s(29) feet key rings in the visitor center. They didn’t bring a great deal o’ luck to the coneys did they, but Eric says they sell well. As always she kept all the giblets and the blood to one side and washed the guts out for small sausage skins because some of the younger kids like thin sausages to go in a long soft bun like a hotdog. Alice meks the buns for Lucy at the shop. Rosie boils ’em up ready for the kids to put in a bun. Her and Lucy give ’em away to kids as run errands for ’em, so they’re happy, the kids are happy and their errands get done. The four legs she put in the fridge and she put the head and neck along wi’ the tail and the lower portion of the spine including the sacrum, that’s the pelvis to them as don’t know, to the giblets.

“The remainder, which is most of the body including the big blocks of meat downside o’ the spine she put in the fridge wi’ the legs for the Sunday dinner when the family come around. The blood, head, neck, tail pieces and giblets, minus the gall bladder out of the liver because that’s a bitter as buggery, she put in a big wrought iron casserole dish wi’ some chopped up onions, a carrot, some celery, some spuds and some traditional English herbs. Mostly rubbed sage(30) I think for hare, but I know it’s thyme she uses for coney. She seasoned it wi’ salt, pepper corns and the dried herbs all blitzed up to a powder in her spice grinder. It’s a bit like a Lancashire Lobby but made wi’ hare in the stead a lamb. She does the same wi’ coneys from time to time. She’s bin adoing it for years. Her mum and her gran did too, probably goes back donkeys’ years. She has it to a boil in her casserole pan which is a bloody great heavy, wrought iron thing that’s at least a hunert and fifty year auld maybe twice that.

“Her gran give it to her when we got wed. Her gran said her gran give it to her when she got wed and it wasn’t new when she was given it by Rosie’s great great granddad who’d bought it for her from the pack pony men as a wedding present for when they set up home together. I’m amazed Rosie can still pick it up. I’ve always meant to weigh the thing, but never got around to it. Some folk call ’em Dutch ovens. She leaves it in the hot and dying oven over night, so it probably cooks for the equivalent of four hours in a medium hot oven. She always puts plenty o’ watter(31) to it, so as it doesn’t dry up on her. Day after, afore she relights the fire under the stove, she teks her casserole pan out and fishes out all the giblets and the head and tail pieces. What ever’s left is a damn fine meal. It tastes meaty due to the blood and whatever cooked out of the giblets. She does something similar wi’ poultry giblets too, and there’s a hell of a lot o’ meat on a turkey neck, and it meks a damned fine oxtail stew too.

“Any roads back to the hare. The giblets, that’s the heart, kidneys, lungs, liver, brain, tongue and various glands, she blitzes with just enough liquid out of the pan so the gadget can blend it up. To that she mixes in all the meat that she picks off from the head, neck and tail pieces. She seasons it again and lines a pâté loaf mould wi’ fatty, streaky bacon. She fills the mould up wi’ the mixture, covers it wi’ more o’ the bacon and folds the bacon hanging over the sides o’ the mould over the top and sticks it in the oven for half an hour to cook the bacon, so that the top of the pâté is covered in a thin layer o’ bacon fat. She lets it cool and then puts it in the fridge to go solid wi’ the cold. It meks a damned fine pâté as eats gey well on some of Alice’s crusty cottage loaf bread. What created all the fuss was she was tekin the pâté out of the fridge to release it from the mould onto a plate when Veronica turned up to order some steak and kidney for a Saturday evening steak and kidney pudding supper. That what we had last week. The lasses were all having a cup of tea and catching up on gossip in the kitchen. They got to talking and Veronica tried the lobby and the pâté. She took a sample of both for Jeremy Cauldbeck as has The Granary Restaurante to try. Seems Jeremy was well impressed, which fair took Rosie aback because we all know as Jeremy is a top of the line cook known all round the globe and Rosie just considered it to be a receipt from the days o’ poverty.

“That was how they dealt wi’ all Mitchel’s duck giblets. The giblets and the necks, including the heads, went to mek pâté. The rest was used as Brigitte telt you about. I didn’t know, but apparently all the coney heads that the cooks and preservers at the Auld Bobbin Mill dealt with went to the dogs or the pigs. Now they’re mekin Coney Lobby and Pate Pâté and selling it on line and in the visitor centre restaurante. They’re advertising ’em as containing genuine Bearthwaite coney head meat and giblets and all the minging bits most outsider folk don’t wish to think about never mind talk about. The list of ingredients on the labels is printed in big letters including naming all the minging bits. Their next idea is to use all the giblets not just from Mitchel’s ducks, but from all his other poultry and game too the same way. The surprising thing is it’s walking off the shelves so fast that I’m going to have to have far more fatty bacon med ready for ’em. The comments in the visitors’ book are mekin loads o’ folk want to try the lobby and the pâté too. Seems there’re any number of folk out there that hanker for the tastes of the auld days. Those so called good auld days that in reality were owt but good, but folk forget the calt, the hunger and the unnecessary deaths and just remember the good times. Some folk call it nostalgia. I reckon folk just want to forget things that were too painful at the time.”

Vincent shrugged his shoulders in perplexity and continued, “When the pea harvest came in last year Christine had all the green pay swadds(32) frozzen,(33) and there was many a ton ’o ’em. Despite sacks ’o ’em stacked up to the ceiling there were that many it med(34) finding owt else in some ’o the freezer rooms a pain in the arse. She said at the time she was certain that eventually someone would come up with an idea of what to do wi’ them and in the mean time we’d just suffer it. She said she’d heard of folk mekin wine wi’ ’em. Eventually Jeremy reckoned that if they were boilt up gently for an hour or twa, whizzed up wi’ that monster of a machine as Bertie’s lads mekked that they call a food processor and then the soft stuff was washed off the fibres in her big mechanical sieve that the fibres would all stay in the sieve and a decent soup could be made with what went through. He’s worked up a receipt and it’s being served in The Granary Restaurante and the visitor centre restaurante too. Christine’s lasses have canned and bottled a few thousand litres of it which eventually used up all the swadds. Jeremy has reserved a supply to keep his restaurante going till the warmer weather and this year’s supply o’ pay swads become available and the rest like the other stuff is walking off the shelves over the internet. The comments in the visitors’ book are having loads o’ folk eating in the restaurante there order the soup too. They’ve used the auld name we use for it Cream of Pay Swadd Soup.”

~The NHS and the BMA~

“So, Sun, how did the hearing go? You don’t look too depressed.” As Dave asked every man of Bearthwaite looked at him to find out what had happened because the matter had been ongoing for months.

Pete said, “Tell us the full tale, Lad. Stan, pour Sun something to go wi’ his pint, something for his nerves and his vocal cords.”

“A glass of a decent single malt, Sun? There’re a few good yans, and some at cask strength too.”

Sun grinned and replied, “No thanks, Stan, but I’ll take a decent glassful of Gustav’s poison if I may?”

There were any number of local men who said, “Good lad, Sun,” as he expressed a desire for Cyanobacta the locally produced distillate, which was also of a cask strength, though only as sold in the Green Dragon. Cyanobacta as supplied to outside the village was only sold at forty percent alcohol by volume.

Sun started by taking a goodly pull on his glass and saying, “For those who don’t know I’m one of the GPs(35) at the Bearthwaite Medical Centre. For over twelve months now we’ve been being pressured by the NHS(36) to do as they tell us. Which in our opinion is neither cost effective nor in the best interests of our patients. They threatened to seek to revoke the licences of myself and Abby the other GP here because we were writing prescriptions for what they wouldn’t prescribe and then we were charging them for those drugs. They couldn’t have us struck off the BMA(37) register for malpractice, so we published all the correspondence between us, the NHS and the BMA and telt them to go ahead because all they could accuse us of was acting in the best interests of our patients rather than following their more expensive and less efficacious procedures that we claimed from time to time clearly violated the primary rule of Do No Harm. We claimed that we were actually saving money for the NHS and had the evidence to back that up. Had we only charged them for the drugs they were prepared to pay for, but had bought them via the NHS at the price the NHS was paying for them our bill would have been over twice what it was.

“They wanted the hearing to be heard by a panel of NHS and BMA senior staff, but Annalísa challenged that and insisted that since part of our case accused the NHS of inefficiency that potentially cost lives and they wanted us to collude with that and the BMA were becoming involved in matters that were not within their remit, which indicated collusion between the two of them, the case should be heard by a panel of persons independent from both the NHS and the BMA. Both the NHS and the BMA refused, so she appealed to the high court and won the appeal. Adalheidis represented us at the independent hearing and called Murray to present evidence that proved that the cost per patient per year at the Bearthwaite Medical Centre was thirty-seven percent lower than the average cost per patient per year for the rest of the NHS GP practices in the UK and the medications we prescribed were far more efficacious and cheaper than what the NHS were sanctioning GPs to prescribe because unlike the NHS the pharmacists at the Bearthwaite Medical Centre were not paying heavily over the odds for less efficacious drugs, drugs purchased via the NHS, but were purchasing more efficacious drugs at truly competitive rates directly from reputable manufacturers on the international markets.

“In many cases the manufactures Lennox our pharmacist dealt with directly were the manufacturers of the drugs the various purchasers for the NHS were purchasing from. Often via three or more intermediaries who each added a minimum of twenty percent to the price, some were doubling the price. The bottom line was we used better, cheaper drugs than what the NHS allowed other doctors to prescribe, and Lennox’s testimony proved that the NHS were wasting vast amounts of taxpayers’ money. Murray presented evidence that the average age of Bearthwaite patients being significantly higher than the national average age in comparable areas indicated two things, first medical care was better at Bearthwaite than elsewhere because our patients were living longer than elsewhere and second since areas with higher proportions of the elderly usually cost significantly more per patient to provide care for the Bearthwaite Medical Practice was clearly better at patient and medication management than practices elsewhere, and that included us using the drugs that they were refusing to pay for. We won our case and the panel recommended that the NHS looked into their buying processes and rebuked the BMA saying that they should only be involved in matters of professional competence, and since our issues with the NHS were none of their concern and there was no question of our professional competence being anything other than of the highest level the panel couldn’t see how they had become involved.

“We doubt that will be the end of the matter, so Adalheidis and Annalísa have set Clerkwell to seeking out evidence of NHS incompetence ready for the next time they try to manipulate us. He’s also looking into the private lives of senior NHS administrators with a view to getting rid of those who are causing us most problems because it’s his belief none of them will prove to be squeaky clean. He reckons they’re gunning for us because our competence will eventually highlight their malpractice if nothing worse. We’re playing dirty. But they started it and we have warned them. He’s telt us he’s looking into the BMA too, but when asked what he was investigating he wouldn’t tell us saying we needed plausible deniability. I know he’s long said that finding out who’s sleeping with whom is always a good place to start, but I suspect he’s on to something that stinks of corruption, possibly even abuse, though that’s just speculation with no evidence to support it, but I reckon whatever it is he’s best left alone to ferret it all out and build a case himself. When it’s ready for the lasses to use in court he’ll doubtless provide them with a complete case with all the tees crossed and all the eyes dotted. He is never in the spotlight, but without doubt he is one of Bearthwaite’s most valuable assets. I shudder to think that we nearly didn’t give him a job.”

~Effects of Covid~

Ivan picked up, “I can’t say that the shite you’re getting from the medical bosses surprises me. I reckon they selt us all out. The entire NHS selt us out. I live near Penrith and I don’t trust my GP any more or any other bugger that works at the local health centre. They’re all just thugs and bullies now. Seems to me that Covid gave them all the excuse they needed to act like god or more like Hitler. As soon as you manage to find another decent doctor for here I’m hoping that my name is high enough up the waiting list to be teken on as a patient. I’m forty and I can count on the fingers of one hand how often I’ve seen a GP since I left school. When I want to see one I need it bad and I don’t expect to have to explain why to a bloody school leaver over the phone. You look at all the media. The NHS is pushing as much stuff as was done by doctors off onto pharmacists as they can and it bothers me. I know that at the Bearthwaite Medical centre jabs are given by the nurses, midwives and the workload is spread out amongst all the folk involved so as to provide a better service and to avoid overworking any of the staff.

“I heard you’ve going on fifty folk including the local vet involved in doing the flue jabs. I also heard that the entire medical centre staff and all others doing the jabs were properly trained by your folk as already had a lot of experience at the job. Folk outside of here have all heard that too, which they reckon is a proper way of going on. Folk trust what’s done here because they believe it’s all done for the best of reasons: maintaining and improving high quality patient care. I just can’t help but believe that what’s going on in the NHS is driven primarily by cost not by considerations of best practice, and that is a receipt that will only lead ultimately to yet another disaster. The last time all I wanted was a flu jab, but I telt the young lass that I thought I’d got a dose of the clap. She’d no idea what I meant and syphilis didn’t mean any more to her. It was only when I said I’d caught a sexually transmitted disease from some dirty, skanky, cut priced whooer(38) down country that she caught on and gave me an appointment immediately for in three weeks time. A couple o’ days later I found out I could get the jab at the pharmacy just by walking in, so I had it there and didn’t bother to cancel the appointment with the GP because he probably needs the rest.”

When the roars of laughter quietened Stan laught again and said, “I like your style, Ivan Lad, though that’s the sort of tale I’d expect to hear from Dave.”

Brian a well known outsider from not far away said, “I’m seventy five next time around and although I’m in good health my HGV licence has to be renewed every three years. The problem is even though they let you get the medical done by any UK registered GP if DVLA(39) Swansea don’t get the medical report back within a month of telling you they want it you have to go through months of hoops to get your licence back during which time you have no license. I don’t drive one of the big yans(40) any more, but I do drive a Landrover with a sixteen foot [5m] three axle trailer for money. It helps the pension out, and renewing my class one heavy goods vehicle licence is the easiest way to be able to legally do that because every copper in the land knows you can drive any commercial vehicle with a class one entitlement and most have never come across the lower levels of licenses because so few folk have them. What a fuck up and run around my GP’s office folk gave me. The best they said they could do was an appointment in six weeks time and I’d have to pay the three hundred quid up front which was pointless. I reregistered with another surgery and the quack saw me within three days and charged me a hundred and fifty.”

Sun asked, “So where are you registered now, Brian?”

“Cauldbeck. They have a decent reputation and I found them easy to deal with, and I live within their catchment area, so it’s all okay from their point of view.”

“They provide a good service there, though I should say that these days it’s one of the few places that does. If you register with us and take one of our school children studying for a class one licence with you for work experience from time to time we’ll do the medical for free whenever required.”

“Will you accept my missus Dorothy as a patient as well? I should tell you her health isn’t as good as mine. I heard you do the women’s stuff here. She’d not be happy about that. Is there any chance she could see the lass you work with for that sort o’ stuff?”

“Sure. No problem. Tell her to just say she’d prefer to see a woman. Most of the routine gynae work is done by the nurses, and at the moment they are all women, though of course that may change. I only do the work that requires a doctor. That’s because I’ve been here a lot longer than Abbey and the women got used to me. They didn’t like the idea of change. Originally we were going to have Abbey do the gynae and I was going to do the diabetic medicine, but the women and especially the girls who I’d been looking after since they’d been born weren’t happy about that at all. So Abbey takes the regular diabetic clinic and I take the regular gynae clinic, as always with a female chaperone in the consulting room, usually Mum in the case of girls. The only difference is if Dorothy wants to see Abbey she can’t just turn up like at the clinic she’ll have to make an appointment, but it’ll only be a week at most, usually it’s two or three days.”

“Thanks, Sun. I’ll talk to her about it.”

~Medical Advances~

Sun said, “Given what we’ve just been talking about, I should find it exceedingly embarrassing to be a GP these days in many places elsewhere because Ivan and Brian were both right when they said after Covid the quality of the medical service supplied in most parts of the UK has gone down dramatically. I believe it has regressed a century. The ‘Doctor will see you now’ attitude adopted by some elderly harridan of a receptionist, who systematically treated patients like children or lesser beings, of the nineteen thirties has become the new norm elsewhere in the UK these days. Why? It’s the same reason as they treated patients that way a century ago, because they can get away with it. Thank god it’s different here. I trained to be a doctor, to help folk in trouble, not to be a bloody tyrant and to add to their problems. I know that I am merely one element of a care system that looks after our folk here. Yes I’m an important element of our care system, but no more so than any number of others. If a patient wants to see Abbey not me that’s fine. If they want to see me not Abbey that’s fine too. We’re here to provide a service not to dictate to folk about how they should conduct their lives and part of that service includes the fact that their mental well being is important.

“Folk, especially as they age, need many aspects of care. The system of care we operate here, where all practitioners of care whatever their discipline, be it medical, dental, social or whatever, are all under the same umbrella is superior to any I have ever encountered elsewhere. That many of our folk, without any official care qualifications, are major components of that system is a tribute to Bearthwaite society. We do not need outsider qualifications to value our folk, for we are more than capable to assess the value of our folk to our society ourselves. That’s why we have no lonely, cold or hungry elderly folk. However, as our social and political influence increases in land area, and much more so in population, the number of folk like Ivan wishful to register with the Bearthwaite medical practice is going through the roof. So much so that other medical centres and dental practices are having to close due to a lack of patients that renders them financially non viable. That we have never considered the economic aspects of a surgery in considering whether to maintain its presence or not is something that, despite our informing the NHS of that, hasn’t made any difference to their closures.

“That we treat all our patients with the respect they are entitled to and our receptionists are just that, receptionists who treat our clientele as they should be treated without asking invasive questions that only a medically qualified person, who is subject to legally binding privacy agreements with severe penalties for breaking such confidence, is entitled to ask, is bringing in clients by the hundreds, maybe even by the thousands now. Our waiting lists if printed on paper would look like toilet rolls. That a breach of confidentiality by any of our personnel in whatever position would result in immediate expulsion from being one of the Bearthwaite folk is well known. The handful of incidents where that has happened, all of which related to outsiders we allowed to continue in their previous positions after we took over a failed and closed NHS outside practice, have resulted in a public trust the NHS can’t even dream of having. One of the things that makes the Bearthwaite Medical Centre so attractive is that it provides an integrated care, including dental care.

“Particularly of interest to the elderly is that it includes specialist foot care which their need for increases as they age. We have made the decision to turn none away seeking to register with us. However, honesty compels us to inform applicants that till we acquire more suitable staff there may be some time interval before they can be seen unless it is an emergency. Folk are understanding, and are aware that if they say they have an emergency when clearly they knew it was not we shall refuse to offer treatment and moreover refuse to accept them on our patient list or strike them off if they are already on it. We can do that because legally we are a private practice and therefore not legally obliged to accept anyone, nor are we legally obliged to retain any on our books if we do not wish to. We’ve been challenged by the NHS a couple of times concerning folk we’d removed from our patient list, but their recent emphasis on NHS practices being able to do that in the face of verbal or physical abuse ended the matter, because they can’t have it both ways. Seriously worried patients who didn’t have as serious a condition as they had feared are a different matter. We alleviate their fears and offer appropriate advice and treatment. If appropriate we offer counselling with folk of an appropriate knowledge base.

“We have a need for many more GPs, and all other medical personnel too, but after our current staff have gone over the applicants’ paperwork for suitable qualifications, Murray and Chance, who is gradually taking over the task from Murray, then interview the appropriately qualified folk with a view to ascertaining who will be acceptable as Bearthwaite folk. Elle is grooming my daughter Tasha to eventually take over her rôle. Similar mechanisms are now in place for all other medical personnel including receptionists. The way things are going it would appear that we shall have the entire population of what was Cumbria on our books within ten maybe twenty years. Those we’ve refused to accept on our books are mostly moving south to Lancaster or east to Newcastle, but they aren’t finding life easy in either spot as our influence is increasing there too. What I find interesting is the number of enquiries we are receiving from other, usually though not entirely rural area practices for a couple have been inner city practices, as to what they can do to use our practice as a model to base a better system of care for their patients on. Currently when we take over a failed practice be it of whatever type, dental, medical, podiatric, whatever, we are always subject to Area Health Authority pressure to retain their staff. We always refuse point blank because if the staff had been any good it is our contention the practice would not have failed. Naturally, there will be some exceptions, so we allow all to apply for interview on the same terms as any other candidate.”

Chance indicated a desire to speak and added, “Our political advances, the increased influence of the Bearthwaite Medical Service and the aid we’re contributing to housing, employment, education, and many other aspects of life to other parts of what was once part of the old Cumbria are all persuading folk that the Bearthwaite way of life is in fact the Cumbrian way of life and we are becoming to be seen to be the guardians of their ancestors’ way of life. Many of them still see us as a bunch of interbreds, but some of them are also beginning to recognise that if we are then their not too distant forbearers must a bin too. Even the folk from the county who don’t really trust us trust us a damn sight more than they trust folk from south of Preston which is what, at most ninety mile? As for folk from London and politicians from down there most of our neighbours within sixty mile or so would rather enter into a contract with the Earl of Hell hiself. Local opinion on him is that at least he’s an honest rogue probably because that’s the way most o’ ’em see ’emsels.

“I reckon we’ve finally managed to tap into not just our ancestry, but that of our neighbours too. The fact that even in the decaying coastal towns most of the folk are realising that in order to access the way of life we enjoy, which they want, they have to bring their idiots to heel and mek them work for a living the same as the rest of us bodes well for our future, and by that I mean the future of all of Cumbrians including the ex Lancastrians from the Furness peninsula and the ex Yorkshire folk up in the north east of the county. Things are looking up. If you have doubts concerning that I suggest you check the internet where the evidence can be readily found. Serious criminals from out west,(41) mostly those who analysts would say were beyond hope of turning around a bin(42) disappearing for months. Our internal sources tell us that Cumbria police have not been expending many man hours looking into the matter being grateful for the resulting down turn in criminality. It is their belief that most have gone south to Manchester and the Midlands rather than north to Glasgow or east to Newcastle.

“That of course is damned good news from our point of view because most of us reckon given enough time we can reach some sort of accord with other northerners which includes the Jocks(43) and the Geordies,(44) because they hold mostly similar attitudes to southerners that we hold. Let the scum join the scum because whatever they claim Mancunians(45) and Scousers(46) ain’t northerners. They come from half way up the UK which meks ’em from the midlands at best if not southerners. For certain few o’ ’em have the values of a northerner. The southerners may think o’ us up here as barbarians, but if they spent a Saturday night out on the town in Manchester and then another up here in Carlisle they’d soon enough change their minds as to where to find the real barbarians. I should add that a slowly but ever increasing proportion of senior officers in Cumbria police are Bearthwaite folk. Most ain’t from the valley, so ain’t seen as Bearthwaite folk which of course is definitely advantageous from our point of view. It is expected that within a few years, a decade and a half at most, the Chief constable will be Detective Inspector June Winmarleigh, one of ours even if she is a Penrith Lass.”

~The Wing Mirror~

Bill said, “Before we leave the subject of the NHS altogether, Lads, I’d like to tell you about my wing mirror.” None had any idea what a wing mirror had to do with the NHS, but they settled down to find out. “An idiot driving a white van, typical bloody white van man,(47) wasn’t paying attention and he drifted over the centre line and clipped my wing mirror with his and brock(48) the glass up. He also knocked the bracket on the back of the glass out of its retaining clips. Problem is you can’t get it back with the glass in place. The glass is held in by double sided sticky tape that’s like double sided duct tape on steroids. If you could return the bracket back into its clips with the brock glass in place it would be a piece of cake to sort the matter. Order a new glass and stick it down onto the shattered one. But you have to get the old glass out to get to the clips, then sort the clips and finally stick the new glass on the back plate with the double sided sticky tape the new glass arrives with. It’s a pain in the arse of a job, so I haven’t got round to it despite the glass having arrived in a padded envelope at least a fortnight since.

“Changing the subject completely for a minute. The NHS a bin wasting yet more money by sending her indoors a letter telling her that they will be sending her a bowel cancer screening kit in a few days. For them as don’t know you poke a small glass tube into a piece of your shite, drop the tube into a slightly bigger tube, seal the bigger tube which goes into a pre addressed and prepaid envelope that seals tighter than a bull’s arse in fly season and send the lot off to a pathology lab somewhere. The envelope has, Handle With Care Bio Hazard, written all over it. Who’d have thought my shite was that fucking dangerous. Mind, the way the bastards wind me up sometimes I have been tempted to send ’em a box with a big fuck off entire turd in it for testing. Eventually they send you the all clear or another kit. Fuck knows what they do if the test shews up positive. No doubt they’ll send me a letter telling me that they’ll be sending me a kit too. They send us one every year and mine always arrives a month after hers. And we always get a letter telling us that the kit will be arriving. God alone knows how much money all those letters waste because you get them every year once you’ve turned sixty which is a whooer of a lot of letters. I really don’t understand the necessity of the first letter when they could just send the kit and save a fortune.

“Now bringing it all back together lads. Maybe a week after we’d dropped her sample off in the post she shewed me a letter and said, ‘Your bowel screening kit has arrived. I’ll put it in the bathroom for you.’ Neither of us thought owt of it that the letter hadn’t arrived first. So the next time I went for a shite I took the contents out of the opened envelope. Those envelopes are made from a thick, really tough, white plastic and are a bastard to open without a knife or scissors, so I assumed Elsie had cut it open for me. Now I’d left the envelope with the mirror in it on the window sill near the front door and I must admit the envelope the bowel screening kit arrives in and the one with the mirror glass in it were the same size and both were white, heavy duty, tough, heat sealed, cross linked, polyethylene, pre addressed envelopes with pre franked postage instead of postage stamps on. She’d seen the envelope on the window sill and assumed it was my screening kit. I took it back to the kitchen and said, ‘I do know where my arsehole is, Elsie Love. I don’t need a mirror to take a shite, unless of course by your reckoning I should be practising synchronised shitting on the mirror. That was a few days ago, but we’re still breaking out into chuckles over it days later, and doubtless the letter advising that the kit will be arriving will be in the post some time.”

As the laughter faded Alf said, “Oh for fuck’s sake, Bill, synchronised shitting using a mirror is something else I’d expect from Dave. Have a glass, Lad. I’ll come round tomorrow before lunch to fit that mirror for you. I made some tools up to do the job wi’ out tekin the old glass out a few years since.” Alf was still chuckling after finishing his pint.

“What’s cross linked mean, Bill? I’ve always wondered why those envelopes are so tough. We deliver hundreds of them every day and as long as they’ve bin heat sealed properly there’s no way they can be opened wi’ out a knife or scissors.” Luke had lived in Bearthwaite for over 30 years and still drove for Parcel Force.

“I’ll try to give you a thumbnail of what’s going on, Luke, but it’ll be a pretty crude explanation. In ordinary polyethylene, or polythene as most folk call it, if you could see the molecules they’d look like great long strands, like a plate of spaghetti. And you can tear the stuff if its not too thick. As you tear it the molecules slide apart and separate and go to each side of the tear. That’s a gey simple explanation but it’ll do. Okay? Now there are chemicals and treatments you can apply to the stuff to mek it reactive at various sites along the spaghetti strands and the strands form links with each other. The links cross from one strand to others, hence the name cross links. The stuff is said to be cross linked. That’s what vulcanisation does to rubber. To tear the stuff you’d have to break across the strands and the cross links which requires a massive amount more force than just separating the strands. Technically there are no more molecules there because the entire envelope, like a vulcanised tyre, is one giant molecule and you were trying to tear it apart. That is an even simpler explanation that ain’t exactly true but it’s close enough to understand what the difference is.”

~So How’s the Cat?~

“Talking of getting auld and of shite too, Arthur, how’s your cat these days? Did those pheromone gadgets work?”

“At first I thought not, Frank. However, he’s started to improve, but it’s bin slow. I suppose it’s daft to expect that like o’ tackle to work fast. But aye he’s a lot better and still improving. He’s looking after hisel a lot better too these days. Till a twelvemonth back he was a gey smart looking beast wi’ a tidy lookin coat. Then he went downbank to a scruffy looking beast you’d wouldn’t suspect had the best standard o’ living in the house. Now he’s a tidy looking little bugger again, and is using litter trays rather than gang(49) out. Carice has put some extra trays out for him and he is using ’em. Bottom line is, Lads, like the rest of us the newness has worn off him and he’s not ower keen on gang out in shite weather for owt ne’er mind for a shite.

Frank said, “Talking of the newness wearing off, Lads. Aggie was complaining the other day about brown age spots on her arms. Over the previous weekend she’d been messing about in the garden and had complained about cleg(50) bites. I telt her better age spots than cleg bites which you can get at any age and at least unlike some poor bastards she’d lasted long enough to get ’em.”

“So what was Aggie’s response to that Frank?”

“Okay, okay. You can start laughing at me now. It was a gey stupid thing to have said. I knew that before it was out of my mouth, but it was too late to stop it by then.”

“You’ve not answered the question, Frank.”

“Show you the bruises if you like?” By the time the laughing at Frank had stopped a couple of the men had bought him a drink in recompense for giving them the free entertainment at his own expense. None of them would willingly upset Aggie and they all knew it was rare that Frank considered doing it. Like a lot of them without doubt he was the man in his household and Aggie knew that too and she wouldn’t have wanted it any other way, but also like a lot of them he considered the house to be the domain of the womenfolk and he liked it that way and rarely didn’t do as he was told in Aggie’s domain. Successful Bearthwaite couples all had unique relationships, but they had a lot in common too all of which derived from the unique culture that they shared.

~Sick of That Bloody Rain~

“For any as don’t know I’m Danny Salkeld. My missus Lily is sister to Stan’s missus Julie. We live at Silloth. I have to say I’m damned glad all that heavy rain has stopped because I was bloody sick of it. I went shopping wi’ Lily last week. We’d just got on to Criffel Street which runs along the front and the green when the heavens opened. First stop was the bottle bank which wasn’t too bad because I’d only the one bag of bottles and jars to dump. I telt her to stay in the truck. I got wet, but it wasn’t too bad. Second stop was the charity shop to drop some women’s magazines off. I parked no more than thirty yards [30m] away, which was lucky because usually you can’t get anywhere near that close. The shop was shut, but they lock the inner door and leave the outer door unlocked so folk donating stuff can drop it off in the hallway. It was raining on the way to drop the three bags of magazines off, badly enough to carry all three bags at yance(51) so I only had to make one trip, but not too badly.

“As soon as I left the hallway and had shut the front door behind me the bloody deluge arrived. By the time I got back to my truck I was piss wet through to the skin. By the time I’d driven to the coöp on Solway street, which is what? Less than quarter of a mile [½ km], the rain had stopped and the sun was shining. Hard to believe, but it actually felt warm. Still, you know how it works, if I’d stayed in the car it would have pissed it down all day. Good to say we weren’t in the coöp for ower lang, and when we arrived home I stripped off in the kitchen to chuck all my clothes in the washing machine. I swear there were two pints of water in the puddle on the kitchen flooring. Mind after Lily had provided me with a decent dram of Talisker in front of a roaring front room fire, a bath towel and some dry clothes, in that order, not daft my missus, she’d mopped it up for me. She’d stayed in the car whilst I got wet which I’d telt her to do because there was no point in both of us getting soaked and she was grateful.”

~Postal Voting~

Solomon said, “I’m Solomon and I’m here with my missus Sally. We’re from Birmingham. I come for the fishing and Sally comes for the peace and quiet. We received a letter after the election from the returning officer’s office telling us that our postal votes hadn’t bin counted because there was an irregularity in the information provided. I rang them up to find out why. It took an hour to find out that on the voter registration forms you fill in, which have your date of birth and signature on, they said our dates of birth hadn’t been correct and they suspected we’d switched ’em and they blamed us. The way postal voting works is you put your cross against the candidate you want to vote for on the ballot paper and put it in the smaller envelope and seal it. One envelope is marked A and the other B, but I can’t remember which one is which. You then write your date of birth and sign the voter registration paper and put that and the ballot paper envelope into the larger envelope, seal it and stick it in the post. Now I filled mine in and Sally filled hers in and we both know our birthdays. I sent new information off to the returning officer’s office so that we’re okay for next time, because it had to have bin their cock up not ours, but they’ll never admit it. When I’d asked what was on the voter registration papers that we’d sent in they said that as always they’d been destroyed after the votes had been counted and the election was over. I put in an official complaint to the returning officer explaining why. My view which I stated was that that was tantamount to destroying evidence of their malpractice, but I’ve had no reply, so I sent a copy of my complaint to the Electoral Commission,(52) but I’m still awaiting a reply from them.”

Alf said, “If I were you I wouldn’t be holding my breath awaiting a reply. They’re all crooks feeding at the same trough, Solomon Lad.”

“I’m sure you’re right, Alf. Not that it made any odds, because we’d both written, ‘This is a spoilt ballot and I’m not voting for any of these incompetent thieves.’ Nowt can come of it or they’re admitting the ballot wasn’t secret aren’t they?”

~Batteries, Locks and Solar Panels~

Doug Irving, who had told a small tale once a long while back,(53) indicated he’d something to say. After the necessary beverages and toxins in shot glasses had been distributed he started. “This was early December last year I suppose. I’ve been having trouble in winter starting my Landrover for a few years. In the past it’s always been due to a cell gone down in the battery. Thing is I’ve had four replacement batteries under warrantee. My garage had no problem replacing them, but the lad there reckoned that modern batteries just can’t cope with the extremely low mileage I do in a year now that I’ve retired. He looked it up on his MOT records and one year I did less than five hundred miles, typically I do less than a thousand. I asked what could I do or where could I get a battery that would cope. He reckoned there were no such batteries available any more and that the parasitic systems that run on modern vehicles would soon pull a battery down in the winter cold if it wasn’t used. Parasitic stuff are all the things that work even when the ignition is off. Clocks, security stuff and things like that. Apparently there are loads of things like that on modern vehicles. He said that it probably took twenty minutes running to replace what a cold start took out of a battery and me running Enid to the local Coöp and back every ten days or so wasn’t doing it.

“So I asked how long would I have to run the engine for say every three or four days to keep it charged. He was bothered by the cost of the fuel. I said nowt, but that kind of money I have and don’t mind spending, but I can’t be doing wi’ having to use a toad(54) to jump start the car whenever I want to go somewhere. It was quicker starting my first car using the cranking handle(55) when I was a kid. He suggested that I used a small solar panel on the dashboard plugged into the cigarette lighter to trickle charge the battery. I telt him to order me one and arrange the auto electrician he uses to call at my spot to do the job. Ten days later the job was done. Only problem was the cigarette lighter in my Rover isn’t live unless the ignition is on so the lad hot wired it by piggy backing(56) a connection from a non ignition key dependent fuseway so it was live all the time. At which point I thought the whole matter sorted. After a few days the damn thing wouldn’t even hold charge overnight. At first I thought it was the battery, but a few days later I was supposed to be taking the truck in for its annual MOT and service, where they were going to check it all out, but by that time the locking system wouldn’t work, neither the fob nor the key in the lock would lock it, so I wasn’t prepared to go anywhere if one of us couldn’t stay in the truck.

“Enid wanted me to take her shopping in Wigton with a stop off at the Lidl supermarket when I took the truck in. As always I’d arranged for a courtesy car for whilst the garage had the truck, so that was no problem. I telt her that we’d use the courtesy car for doing the shopping. The truck wouldn’t start, not even with the toad. Not a frigging flicker of life. I put a meter on the battery. Instead of reading thirteen point two volts it was reading three point six which isn’t even full voltage for two out of the six cells. I found it hard to believe the battery was that knackered. I checked the output from my toad on both twelve and twenty-four volt settings and it was fine. So I rang the garage. The lass on the phone there is bloody good at her job and wrote down all that I said was wrong for the boss to read. He was out on a recovery and she telt me after that he was going home for his lunch and she’d let him know as soon as he walked through the door. After lunch she rang me to say that he was on his way to me driving my courtesy car and he’d probably sort my truck for me, but things would get sorted one way or another.

“After messing with it for a few minutes he telt me that there was a component above the roof lining that communicated with the electronic key fobs and it wasn’t receiving the signal from either of my fobs both of which were working, so the entire ignition electrics were immobilised, but the parasitic systems would still be drawing power and could easily have pulled the battery voltage down to less than four volts and that there probably wasn’t owt wrong with my battery. I bought the truck off him a few years before and he’d used it as his personal vehicle for a few years. He asked for the owner’s manual which was with all the other paperwork in the glovebox. It seems that there is a complicated way to activate the electrics using the key, but it needs a code. It works like opening a safe, put the key in the driver’s door lock and so many turns to the left then to the right, left again and finally right again. He was hoping he’d written the code down in the users handbook. There was a code there but he recognised it as the radio’s code.

“At that point he rang the major Landrover dealership in Carlisle to track down the key code for him. Fifteen minutes later he received a call back with the code which he wrote down in the users manual. Then he inserted the key in the driver’s door to use the code to find that the lock had dropped off inside the door and the key didn’t do anything which explained why I hadn’t been able to lock it with the key. He asked me when was the last time I’d used the key to open the door and I said other than the other day when the fob failed to lock the truck probably never since like everyone else these days I just used the fob. I left him cursing and telt Enid that a mug o’ tea and a pasty apiece would be a really good and well appreciated idea. By the time I went outside again he’d stripped the roof lining half off and a goodly deal of interior trim and linings too. To get to that component was a pig of a job. Eventually he had the bloody thing in his hand. It wasn’t the size of a box of cigarettes. He ordered one to be telt he’d have it the following morning. He said that once the new one was fitted they’d be able to tek my truck in for the MOT and service and fix all the rest, the lock and the interior trim.

“I telt him that was fine but I’d promised to tek Enid shopping and I didn’t fancy the grief if I didn’t. So he drove us back to the garage and I took the car and went to a dozen shops then Lidl and finally the Coöp with Enid. I hadn’t bin aware that it was to be her major pre Christmas shop. Over a thousand quid later it was pitch black as we left the Coöp with a tiny car filled to the roof with just about everything you could imagine. I didn’t even know what half of it was. It took over an hour, two mugs of tea and a goodly amount of single malt to put it all away, but that was okay because the whisky had mellowed me a bit and all day I’d never had a word of complaint out of Enid. That’s what I call a decent result for a bloke who’s been under some serious pressure that could have had even more serious domestic consequences. Not daft my missus, a proper decent sized steak from Harrison’s butchers wi’ chips, mixed fresh vegetables and gravy for my evening meal, another glass o’ chemic and an early Christmas pudding with white sauce flamed off wi’ some brandy and I was a happy little bunny at the end of what could have been a frigging nightmare of a day.”

“So what about your truck then, Doug?”

“Lunchtime the following day a young apprentice and one of the top mechanics turned up with the gadget for in the roof space, Alf. They fitted it and she fired up immediately with a tickle from a toad. The mechanic drove my truck and the apprentice their van back to the garage. I must admit that I was gobsmacked to be rung up three days later to be telt it was all fixed. I’d bin expecting it to be a fortnight or even longer of a job. The door lock fixed, the new gadget fitted in the roof space, the interior linings and trim reinstated, MOT and service done. Not only that, the auto electrician had redone the solar panel wiring and instead of a piggy back connection like it had been done first time around he’d used a spare fuseway that had been used for an in cab traffic camera system at one time. God alone knows what it will all cost me. I know the bit that goes above the roof lining was about ninety quid a twelvemonth back, but the boss, a top mechanic and an apprentice came to my spot which is sixteen mile from the garage and will all have to be paid for. However, my truck works and Enid didn’t give me any grief, so I’ll just cope with the bill when it arrives.”

~Chipboard Pellets~

Barney said, “I’ve a tale to tell if that’s okay?” Barney Tait was a decades long regular who’d moved to Bearthwaite with his wife Helen when he’d retired.

Alf pushed a bottle of some evil looking green sludge towards him and said, “Before you mek a start try this, Barney Lad. If it don’t kill you it’ll fettle your vocal cords for a month.”

After taking a goodly mouthful Barney asked, “What the hell is this stuff? Tastes a bit like Pernod on steroids.”

Sasha replied, “It’s some relative of Pernod, but twice the strength and a fraction of the price. I managed to get hold of a few two hundred litre barrels of it. Peter and some of his classmates bottled it for me earlier in the week. I’m not certain where it’s made, but the rumour said it’s Romanian.”

Barney nodded in acknowledgement and finished his glass which Alf promptly refilled as Barney started. “I’m going back maybe twenty or twenty-five years. We lived out in the sticks and were looking to spend serious money on solid fuel fires with back boilers. You know the score, space heating, central heating and hot water. A full system needed installing because the house still relied on all the old open solid fuel fires in the bedrooms. I went to a spot north of Carlisle on the road into Scotland with her indoors. I asked what I considered to be pertinent questions concerning a system that burnt crushed chipboard compacted into pellets that were continuously fed into the combustion chamber via an agitated hopper system. I was fucked off by the man who I discovered was the manager if not the owner. “I have other customers to serve and don’t have the time to waste on this kind of conversation.” I’d been prepared to spend twenty grand or more, which was a whooer of a lot of money back then for a central heating system, but after that Helen said, ‘Come on, Love, let’s go. I know you won’t spend money here after his arrogance and bad manners and for sure I won’t let you. Take me for a decent lunch somewhere and I’ll buy you a bottle of cask Laphroaig to settle your bad temper.’ She does love me and more to the point she understands me.”

Alf grinned and said, “You married a gem there, Barney. So what did you do about solid fuel heating then?”

“We spent fifty grand with folk who were polite, interested in what we wanted, and much more to the point answered all my questions without ridiculing the stupidity of some of them. The fifty grand was an all in price and the boss said no matter what happened the price was fixed as the contract specified. He said that he expected to make eight grand if the job took four weeks as he anticipated. If it took longer he would make less, if it was done in less time he would make more. He explained why some of my assumptions weren’t correct, and was more than happy to educate me. He admitted, ‘I wish all our customers were as intelligent as you, Sir. Mostly you understand the issues involved, but the ones you don’t understand are because your education is in electrical engineering, rather than what our trade requires. From our point of view you are the perfect customer. You have the money required for what you wish us to accomplish. Mostly you understand what we need to do and why it costs what it does and what you don’t understand all you wish is to have it explained to you. Once we explain you understand and are fine with that. From the point of view of the lads who do the work all that is irrelevant. Their goodwill is due to the lunches and pints of tea that your missus provides.’ They spent three weeks on the job and never booked any overtime despite working till eight and nine some evenings. The system was still working beautifully when we sold up to move here and the lads who installed it are still servicing and maintaining it.”

Alf remarked, “I know of the spot north of Carlisle you went to and you got lucky. I’ve heard nowt good about the spot, and that pelleted chipboard system is a disaster, because to get enough heat out of it you have to spend a bloody fortune on fuel and it won’t run on owt else.”

~Flat Earthers~

“You read in the papers about those crazy bastards that still believe the Earth is Flat, Stan? Doesn’t seem to matter what you offer as evidence they say it’s all fake.”

Dave chipped in, “Come on, Lad, those conspiracy theorists must be seriously thick(57) to believe that. The Earth’s obviously not flat, Pete. If it were, cats would a pushed everything including us over the edge millennia ago, though I reckon you’ve bin over the edge since we were at primary school.”

Dave’s response, though accepted as no less as completely ridiculous as the flat Earthers’ stance was naytheless considered to be a totally relatable to response. Many had cats that would have behaved entirely in accord with Dave’s response. The laughter took a few minutes to subside, during which time Dave and Bertie had filled dozens of pint glasses with ale of various descriptions whilst Silvester and Bill topped up a similar number of shot glasses [190ml, 6⅓ fluid ounces] with chemic of various degrees of toxicity, and numerous members of the Grumpy Old Men’s Society had taken coin for the till and the children’s Christmas party collection. When all had had glasses of both sizes filled and returned from the gents to take their seats ready for the next tale Pete looked around and said, “I reckon that’s it for the tale telling lads. Unless any has a tale yet to tell?”

Dave said, “Well I’ve a wee short that I came across the other night on my phone. A husband and wife were out supermarket shopping. As they went round she was spotting special offers and making a point of telling him how careful she was being with the money. When he put a pack of twelve cans of beer into the trolley she asked him what he was doing. He said they were on special offer at only ten pounds. She telt him to put them back because they couldn’t afford them. Later she put a jar of face cream that cost twelve pounds into the trolley. ‘What are you doing,’ he asked. ‘It’s my face cream,’ she replied saying, ‘It makes me look beautiful.’ He retorted ‘So do twelve cans of beer and they’re two quid cheaper.’ ”

There were any number of the men glanced to behind the bar to see if Gladys or Harriet were there before they started laughing. When the laughter quietened Pete said, “I’ll wipe the tables, if the rest of you sort the chemic and the dominoes out and put a reasonable amount of nuts and the like out somewhere handy ready for serious battling. I’ve lost badly for a few weeks now, so, Alf, I’d appreciate it if you partnered me, so I stand a chance of beating the fuck out of Sasha and Stan.”

~After Time~

The usual eight were sitting in the bestside after all else had left for home or for their rooms upstairs. Sasha and Elle, Pete and Gladys, Gustave and Harriet and their children Peter and Brigitte were drinking tea and merely considering what needed to be said if anything. The worst winter known about since the last ice age was well behind them. For Bearthwaite it hadn’t been too bad and it had made clear what little remained to be done in advance every year to deal with another like it, though most of those conversations had taken place months ago and little remained to be done in future years. The Bearthwaite property team were still buying property and land and the Bearthwaite politicians were still using the ease of life that Bearthwaite folk had enjoyed during the last winter to their advantage and extending their influence in all directions. Their most powerful persuader was the way the Bearthwaite Medical Practice was taking over failing parts of the NHS in many places.

Arathane Cartwright and his specialised Street Rangers were still collecting abused and neglected waifs and strays from the streets of Britain and there were still Bearthwaite folk awaiting children to adopt. The Bearthwaite Rangers were still recruiting though few were aware of just how many folk they could put under arms at virtually no notice. There was still a gradual but constant haemorrhage of criminals out of the area of Bearthwaite’s influence because it was a very risky area to operate in. Being caught committing criminal acts often meant a flogging being administered by silent and masked individuals. All knew it was not being done by folk from the Bearthwaite valley, but all knew the Bearthwaite code was spreading and if they wanted to live better lives they had to take on board the Bearthwaite code and deal with their lowlifes themselves. They were all beginning to recognise the truth that none would do it for them, not even Bearthwaite folk who insisted that they take responsibility for what was after all their society. The police and other authorities had been useless at maintaining law and order for decades. No criminal was ever prepared to risk a flogging twice, so they changed their way of life or left the area. It was whispered to be the crime drain in the same way folk referred to the brain drain of a lifetime before. It was not a quick process but it quick enough to be reflected noticeably in the crime statistics in a remarkably short period of time.

Interestingly there was a similar haemorrhage of left wing social do gooders and similar types from the county because it wasn’t an environment that felt safe to them. For decades they’d used the law and the courts to dictate and force their values and way of life on to others and it had worked for them. Now the police were significantly less helpful and the courts even less so. Such folk were far more likely to be seriously beaten up by masked and hooded silent men in the dark than they were to achieve their desires by manipulation of the legal process and the police again were not helpful. They were beginning to understand that they and their belief system were simply not welcome amongst a very different society that was increasingly more than prepared to do something about the situation. Their identities were known to thousands and after facial recognition software became virtually universally available in the county they found any number of folk refusing to serve them or indeed deal with them in any way. They had become the despised underdogs and they didn’t like it.

Their attempts to throttle freedom of speech had often brought them immediate and painful consequences, and any number of them were arrested for breaches of the peace when they’d attempted to disrupt what had been peaceful public and in some cases private assemblies of folk whose views they did not agree with. They’d been charged and usually found guilty of any number of petty crimes by magistrates who were cracking down hard on public affray crimes. Heavy fines and short gaol sentences for repeat offenders convinced many of them that there were easier places than Cumbria to be a public nuisance. Their views as to what should and shouldn’t go on or be taught in classrooms were reviled and not welcome. Local colleges were finding that if they didn’t refuse to tell such folk to go away and mind their own business their traditional sources of locally provided funding simply dried up. The woke, as they were known, had never provided any funding and those who did now insisted that the colleges abandoned their old political agendas and returned to the values of the folk providing the money. Several unwilling establishments had had to close as a result. Those that had closed were rapidly taken over by different management who streamlined the courses offered into ones that offered employment prospects to those who successfully completed them.

Peter said, “The UK military have expressed interest in the ring train technology, but are insisting on total knowledge and total control with all future work to be done by their staff in their labs. I said no. They tried to force me into it. I repeated no. Eventually they tried to negotiate and I still said no. I telt them that if they try to take the work by any kind of manipulation or force they will find nothing to take, and if they get nasty I’ll just publish it all on the internet for all and any to use. I’m still considering whether that may be the best way to proceed anyway. That way I won’t be a target. They know that it is all set up ready to be put out there and they know if they take me into custody that that will trigger instant publication.”

“You reckon that’s wise?” Sasha asked.

“I reckon. I’ll still make a lot of money out of it, but not out of weaponising it. If all the militaries have the same theory and technology it changes nothing. The existing balanced stand off remains. Too, I don’t have to put it all out there. They won’t know what only I know and I’ll claim it’s all out there and I’ve stopped doing any further work for the moment. I won’t stop of course, but all my notes will be pre uploaded ready for putting out there just to watch my back. Every now and again I’ll drip feed something extra out there, something that they almost certainly will have been able to work out for themselves.

26803 words including footnotes

1 See GOM 61.
2 Carlins are variously known as carlins, carlin peas, pigeon peas, grey peas, black peas, black badgers, brown badgers, maple peas and a plethora of other names. They are widely eaten these days across most of northern England. Carlin Sunday is the fifth Sunday in Lent, also known as Passion Sunday and it was traditional particularly in North East England to eat carlin peas on this day. Widely used as a substitute for puy lentils, other whole lentils or chickpeas. Chickpeas are also known as garbanzo beans.
3 Bottling is a UK term that refers to canning either pressure or water bath method. Bottles are a synonym for jars. A generic tern is provided by the Kilner® jar which is used for any Mason jar like US Bell® and Kerr® jars.
4 Back end, of the year. Autumn, fall.
5 A&E, Accident and Emergency, the casualty department of a major hospital. US ER, Emergency room.
6 Sumat, contracted some what, dialectal something.
7 Dyke breasts, hedge banks.
8 Ásfríðr Lillqvist, pronounced Oh s free thr, th as in then, lilk vist. IPA aʊsfri:ðr lilkvɪst.
9 MP, Member of Parliament.
10 Gutters, dialectal drainage ditches.
11 Ditching bucket, a wide bucket with drainage holes in it used the clear the bottoms of ditches.
12 Rat run, a short cut or easier route that is not intended for use by mainstream traffic. Usually associated with urban road usage. Rat running usually refers to the practice by motorists of using residential side streets or any unintended short cut such as a parking lot, delivery service lane or cemetery road instead of the intended main road in urban or suburban areas. Here it refers to the use of width restricted rural routes by big vehicles that are expressly prohibited from using the route.
13 Dyke breasts, the elevated banks on which the dykes, hedges, are planted. Compare with breastwork, a temporary fortification, often an earthwork thrown up to breast or shoulder height to provide protection to defenders firing over it from a standing position.
14 Stranger, dialectal stronger.
15 Pented, dialectal painted.
16 Telepoles, vernacular for poles that carry telephone wires.
17 Leccipoles, pronounced lekkipoles, vernacular for poles that carry electricity supply wires.
18 Bertie should have said solicitrices, but he is referring to Adalheidis and Annalísa. Solicitatoruses is a locally coined portmanteau word implying a combination of solicitrices and large carnivorous dinosaurs as in tyrannosauruses.
19 Etten, dialectal eaten.
20 Yance ower, once over, in the past. Widely used in Cumbria at the beginning of bedtime stories where it is equivalent to once upon a time.
21 Gwenhwyfar, Welsh version of Guinevere. Pronunciation Gwen hoo ee var, IPA: /ɡwɛnˈhʊɨ̯var/.
22 Cèilidh, the usage here means a social gathering with music, dance and story telling.
23 To mind, to call to mind, to remember. The verb to mind is widely used in various northern UK dialects.
24 Granchilder, old form of grandchildren. Childer is a very old plural of child still in use in some rural parts of northern England and Scotland.
25 Sagasay,the art of the verbatim saying of saga, many of which are over a millennium old.
26 Awah, dialectal away from.
27 VAT, value added tax. A UK tax of 20% levied on virtually all goods and services. Those in business can reclaim what they have paid on bought in goods and services and have to pay the tax on what they sell. It is a disliked tax because the paperwork is onerous and has to been done by every VAT registered business. There are heavy penalties for not doing it correctly or submitting a VAT return late.
28 A witch on a broomstick is a Bearthwaite expression used by men to indicate a woman exhibiting hormonal behaviours.
29 Coney, adult rabbit, strictly rabbits are young coneys as kittens are young cats.
30 Rubbed sage is a seasoning powder made by rubbing whole dried sage leaves, usually through a course sieve or strainer, which causes them to disintegrate and form a light, fluffy powder with mild sage flavour. Unlike ground sage which is crushed without rubbing, rubbed sage is powder from the leaves only, not the stem.
31 Watter, dialectal water. Pronounced with a short hard ay as in past. IPA watər.
32 Pay swadd, dialectal pea pod. Possibly derived from what swaddles, wraps or surrounds the peas.
33 Frozzen, dialectal frozen. Pronounced with a short hard oh as in frost. IPA frɐzɛn.
34 Med, dialectal made.
35 GP, General Practitioner, a family doctor.
36 NHS, the National Health Service.
37 BMA, British Medical Association. The professional association and registered trade union for doctors in the United Kingdom.
38 Whooer, dialectal whore.
39 DVLA, Driver Vehicle Licensing Authority. The UK central organisation based in Swansea, Wales.
40 Big yans, big ones, an artic or eighteen wheeler.
41 Out west in most of Cumbria refers to the once bustling industrial coastal towns of Maryport, Workington and Whitehaven, all of which are now run down centres of unemployment with some would claim almost inner city levels of crime.
42 A bin, dialectal have been.
43 Jocks, folk from Scotland as a race though it often refers to Scottish men. In UK English the word never has anything to do with sport.
44 Geordies, folk from the north east, Newcastle upon Tyne and its environs.
45 Mancunians, folk from Manchester and its environs. They are referred to as Manks by some which is pejorative and possibly derived from manky, a British English slang word meaning used to describe an object that is unpleasantly dirty or filthy, usually because it is old or has been used a lot. The word is also used to mean worthless, rotten, gone bad, or in bad taste.
46 Scousers, folk from Liverpool and its environs.
47 White Van Man, a relatively recently coined UK pejorative expression originally referring to the archetypal inconsiderate drivers of delivery vans which tend to be white. The expression has become so widely used that it now refers to being inconsiderate generally, not just behind a steering wheel.
48 Brock, dialectal broke or broken.
49 Gang, also Gain pronounced gar + in, dialectal forms of going.
50 Cleg, Haematopota pluvialis, the common horse fly or the notch-horned cleg fly, or simply the cleg in northern England, Scotland and northern parts of Ireland, is a species belonging to the family Tabanidae subfamily Tabaninae. The name is also used for other gadflies a collective term for flies that bite horses, cattle and other mammals including humans. A secondary use is to refer to an irritating person as a cleg.
51 Yance, dialectal once.
52 In the UK, the Electoral Commission is the national election commission, created in 2001 as a result of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. It is an independent agency that regulates party and election finance and sets standards for how elections should be run.
53 See GOM 38.
54 Toad, a generic term for an auxiliary battery. Often used as a term for a starter charger battery though an internet search seems to indicate that there are no hard and fast rules to the usage. The term seems to be becoming somewhat more restricted to rechargeable lithium batteries recently.
55 Early motor cars were started by hand cranking the engine to turn it over till it fired after which it continued to run. Many motor cars and commercial vehicles came with the facility as a back up. The facility was abandoned somewhere in the nineteen sixties.
56 Piggy backing, in this context it means using a connector that turn a single terminal into a double.
57 Thick, stupid in UK English. As thick as two short planks is a widely used expression.