Things were back to being unrestricted as far as public gatherings were concerned and the Green Dragon tap room was so full that Saturday evening that chairs had been taken from the dance hall. The benches for six were seating eight and all were happy to be there. All the regular members of the Grumpy Old Men’s Society were in attendance along with a much larger than had been usual contingent of men from all over the county who because they’d not been able to go out to enjoy a drink in good company for some time had taken advantage of the recent relaxations in the Covid regulations. It was widely accepted that despite issues in some of the rural surgeries concerning vaccine supply Covid was probably on the wane since all who’d wanted the vaccine had already had their first jab, but one never knew, and they were taking no chances on being locked in their houses again without having had at least one good night out.

Dave had announced to all in the tap room that he’d heard of a good reason to have faith in the Pfizer vaccine. “I was reminded that Pfizer make Viagra. The bloke that telt me that was well turned eighty, and he also said, ‘It stands to reason if they can raise the dead then surely saving the living isn’t even a minor miracle.’ ” Gladys was not really surprised that the Grumpy Old Men considered that to be hilarious despite their advanced ages, for every one of them was a brutal realist who accepted age just as they accepted all else they had to deal with. It had never been spoken of openly, but all knew the younger men of Bearthwaite regarded them all as rôle models of the highest order regarding how a man should live his life and be prepared for its end.

The lounge was so packed with womenfolk that Gladys had opened up the doors to the dance hall to accommodate them all and had her friends taking it in turns to serve behind the bar. Pete was doing the same in the tap though he was better off for staff since all of the old men could pull pints. Earlier Gladys had said to the old men of the village, “With this crowd you’d better make it good, Gentlemen. Most of the outsiders are only here for the tales and their ladies are going to be seriously disappointed if they don’t enjoy themselves and I’m not just talking about the men whilst they’re here. I’m talking about the ladies when they get their men home too.” Gladys had made no attempt to be quiet and the outsiders had all heard her. It took a few minutes for the laughter to die down which gave Pete, Stan and Paul a bit of time to get all the men a drink. For a while they didn’t serve any one they just kept pulling pints and putting them on the bar for Frank to take the money for.

When all had a drink in front of them and it went quiet, Geoff indicated he’d take the first turn telling a tale. “My granddad, Dad’s dad went through every major battle in the First World War. The only time he got hurt was when cut himself peeling taties(1) for the cookhouse, and he was only doing that as an alternative to jankers.(2) He telt me they’d been strafed by machine gun fire a number of times when the men on each side of him were shot dead and he must have been between bullets. He never said much about the war, but I do remember him telling me about the friendly football match he played against the German team on Christmas day 1914 near Ploegsteert Wood in Belgium. It was years before I remembered that he not mentioned who’d won the game, and I reckoned that was because he’d considered it to be of no import. It had been playing the game that had mattered because he and the others on both sides had enjoyed it as a respite from the hell of day to day living. He telt me that unofficial temporary truce taught him that the German soldiers were no different from the British soldiers and under other conditions they could have been friends. Like the British, they were farm workers, factory workers, husbands, fathers, just ordinary men who had no hatred for anybody, and certainly not for the men they were shooting at the day before. He telt me all the men he met said they just wanted to go home. The unofficial truce enraged the high command of both sides and eventually the troops on both sides were all telt any repetition would result in summary execution. They were back to shooting at each other the day after. I mind it well when he quietly telt me if the troops on both sides had had any sense they’d have shot their officers and gone home. Eventually the war ended and granddad was one of the few who returned home. I learned years afterwards how he was different, socially, politically and philosophically different when he returned.

“My grandparents were poor, but good managers with the little they had. Granddad kept a pair of goats for milk. They grazed the road verges which was illegal and punishable by a gaol sentence, but he was clever and got away with it for his entire life. Any number of his mates did like wise and they all contributed to the upkeep of the area billy at stud. Like a lot of men he grew vegetables in the verges too. Granddad used to buy slack which was just coal dust from a local mine. Most folk bought nutty slack which was a cheap fuel consisting of slack and and small lumps of coal which were called nuts. Unlike other solid fuel it wasn’t rationed during the period after the Second World War, but Grandad had always bought pure slack which was cheaper. He used to dump it in a huge bunker, he had three bunkers behind the house, and soak it down with water. He’d leave it exposed to the rain for a few months and then put the bunker cover on it to dry it out. When it had dried out it was one big lump that was easy to cut slices off with a spade. It burnt just the same as coal but was half the price. Granny used to sieve the ashes from the fire of the day before so that any traces of unburnt coal or wood were salvaged. She always added some clinkers to the mix because though they didn’t burn they prevented heat from going up the chimney by absorbing it and then reradiating it into the room. I mind my mum telling when I was just a bairn about granny getting her new range-cooker. It had a fire with a swing over hook for a kettle or cauldron, but the flue gasses heated the two ovens at the side of it. Granny was regarded as a woman of fortune and prestige too as a result of that range-cooker. Before that she’d cooked chips [US fries] in a pan of lard on the fire.

“Granny was a shirt maker by trade, but she made kilts at home from tartan woven on a hand loom by her sister, Auntie Beatrice, which helped the finances a lot. She had a treadle operated Singer sewing machine and I mind when my dad converted it to electric with a small motor. Kilts always have been expensive, and many a man couldn’t afford one, most of the men I knew when I was a child had inherited theirs. But all the men and the boys too had to be wearing one if they expected to be fed at Granny’s house on a Sunday, even the toddlers too. I mind my youngest brother Graeme wearing one when he was still in nappies [US diapers] and so young Mum was still nursing him. Mind I recall Mum saying it made changing nappies much easier. She also telt me that young English boys were usually dressed in dresses for the same reason. It seems boys and girls were historically dressed the same till the boys were ‘breeched’ which meant put into breeches and given over from the women’s care, that of the distaff side, into the care of the men, the spear side. Sunday dinner at Granny’s was a six course meal that took a couple of hours. The meal started with a substantial vegetable and barley soup with a lot of taties or dumplings in it, nobody had ever heard of pasta and rice was only ever used in rice pudding in those days. Then came the Yorkshire pudding and gravy followed by a meat dish always using the cheapest of cuts with vegetables and a lot more taties, then a pudding usually steamed and made with flour and suet, and after that Yorkshire puddings again, but this time with home made berry and sweet carrot jam with white sauce to finish. To finish there was was home made cheese, butter and bread. The cheese and the butter were from the goats and granny made bread of a dozen or more kinds.”

The audience were looking around to see who was going to follow Geoff when Tommy laught and said, “I’ll take it from here, Lads. It’s not a long tale, and not of any significance, but it may amuse us a bit. The other day the grandkids were playing in the big cardboard box the new Rayburn range-cooker came in. The Rayburn was twelve grand and a grand for having it fitted. I’d have probably have used the box for compost, but Sarah did right when she insisted we kept it for the kids when they stopt over of a weekend. It’s been a boat, a submarine, a spaceship, a house, and Lord above knows what else besides. I’d not had much of a childhood, but I happened to mention to Sarah that it didn’t seem to cost much to keep kids amused. She telt me when she and her sister were little they used to have cat races. They’d put a bit of milk in two saucers and see who could lap it up the fastest. Another game they played when it was raining too heavily to play outside was jumping over books. They opened the books out a bit and put them on the floor tent shaped in a circuit to make a track and ran round jumping over them pretending to be horses. I guess kids given any opportunity just play with whatever they’ve got. They don’t need expensive toys because the most important thing in their lives is their imagination.”

One of the outsiders who looked to be in his middle thirties who none of the regulars could recall ever having seen before said in a French accent, “On days when it is raining our children take Janice’s large pan that she uses to make jam in out from under the sink. She keeps the clothes pegs [US clothes pins] in it and the pan and the pegs will keep them amused for hours. Janice’s parents live not far away from us and her father has a workshop. He makes furniture and has a lathe. His offcuts keep them more entertained than any shop bought children’s blocks and bricks, and I think their irregularity is a far more educational experience than any shop bought toy could give them.”

Alf nodded and said, “My grandkids are just the same, and it costs nowt. What’s your name, Son? And where do you hail from? Introduce yourself. You’ve telt a tale, albeit short, but we should know who you are. And a bit about you.”

The man looked surprised at Alf’s interest in him but replied, “I’m Jean-Claude LeMessurier. I was born in Clermont-Ferrand in France. I came over here to study medicine. But I met Janice at medical school and so I remained.”

“I’m Denis, Jean-Claude. Once a boy starts keeping his brains in his trousers it’s all over, Lad. It’s the same the whole world over. Unfortunately for men we’re all doomed and in the same boat. It’s how we are, and since the lasses are wearing the kit(3) we’re all buggered by it.” There was a great deal of laughter at Denis’ remark.

After a few seconds to process Denis’ remark Jean-Claude said, “Well, I think I understand what you meant, Denis. We’re both doctors living and practising in Lancaster. Janice is a surgeon at the hospital, but I’m a psychiatrist and I do a bit of work with marriage counsellors. I suspect you have the truth of it. How would you say it, ‘Folk are folk?’ ”

There was a great deal of laughter at that, and Stan said, “Without doubt you understand the way things are, Lad, and if you ever decide to live here you’ll fit in just fine.”

Sasha asked, “Anyone listen to the news last night? Tell you, the world is full of lunatics living in a past that hasn’t existed for centuries. At one time most of world was ruled by petty little men whose concept of a kingdom, and even an empire, wasn’t much further across than the distance they could walk, or ride a horse if they had horses, from their capital in about a day. Everybody from further afield was an enemy and they lived in a constant state of war with them which wasn’t particularly important when all they had were spears, knives, swords and bows. Sure there was the Roman empire and the Muslims got as far as Portugal and Spain, there were a few others too, but in the main for most of recorded history kingdoms were tiny. Then the Soviets in the USSR and the white man in Africa put a lid on their petty rivalries and ruled them with an iron fist in a steel glove. By the time when the white man was forced out of Africa and the USSR collapsed, modern weapons and transport had been invented, but the societies still had a mediaeval concept of social organisation When the lid was removed the local rivalries and hostilities resumed with modern weapons and transport systems, and they went back to being at war with the folks who lived half an hour away by truck just down the road. The result was mass warfare and genocide. Rwanda and Bosnia and Herzegovina are but two recent examples. In the US where there never had been a lid, the gangs, sects and other organisations, which are ruled by the modern equivalent of mediaeval warlords, have been in a state of permanent civil war since the founding fathers declared independence.

Tommy said, “If some one’ll get em in I’ll tell the tale of how Sarah and I came to be where we’re at now.”

“I’m on it,” said Gustav causing a smile from the members of the Grumpy Old Men at his use of the vernacular. “I’ll even pull em if some one will pass em round.”

Pete said, “I’ll help you, Gustav, if Frank or some else’ll take the money?”

“Nay bother, Lad,” said Frank. It was ten minutes before the matter was concluded.

“Sarah and I took over the Bearthwaite Post Office over thirty years ago at a time when local post offices were closing all over the country. We’d been wed maybe five years and looking for a future before having a family. Both of us were still only twenty-four, but Sarah was pressing me because her biological clock was ticking and she was afraid she was getting to be too old to be starting a family. She’d five younger sisters with nigh to two dozen kids amongst them. I was from Cockermouth and Sarah from Embleton. We both danced Scottish country dancing and we met at the Cockermouth Society’s annual dance which was held at Embleton village hall that year. I can’t say it was love at first sight, but it wasn’t far from it. Within a month we knew and had telt each other our futures were together. We were reasonably educated and moderately intelligent and were looking for a future not too far away from where we’d grown up and understood the culture. We’d heard of the problems rural areas were having retaining their primary schools and post offices, the loss of either leading to the death of a place which we knew was a serious problem in Cumbria. There was nothing we were interested in nor qualified to do anything about concerning schools, but post offices seemed promising. We did the post office managers course and looked about us for an opportunity. It wasn’t long before we were made aware that the Bearthwaite Post Office was about to close permanently, so we looked into it and decided to go for it. Most considered it to be a brave venture with virtually no chance of success, but we had dreams and ideas that would eventually be followed all over the country.

“As well as a letter and parcel collection and delivery service we decided to extend that to manage everything from post cards to heavy items on pallets. It was only a matter of reaching agreement with the Carlisle depot of Yodel the courier. It wasn’t long before we had agreements with just about every courier in the country which competition reduced the prices our customers had to pay. The ATM we had installed in the post office, courtesy of First Direct a telephone banking service which was and still is owned by HSBC, was one of the first in Cumbria, and guaranteed that customers came in to the post office, often buying other things too. Our subsequent foray into offering banking services was a huge success. None had ever heard of a post office where one could deposit both cheques and cash and cash cheques too, no matter which bank one’s account was with.

“It was simple, initially we printed off deposit slips, we took the money or the cheque and sent the money to the customer’s account at their bank. They could have done it themselves, but we handled all the paper work, and we were prepared to pay cash on the spot for a cheque for a minimal fee. Folk here are honest and the few bad cheques we have lost money on were not the fault of our neighbours who presented them. Most post offices in the country now offer it as a post office service, but we still offer it as a private service because not only is that cheaper for the customer we make more money out of it ourselves. Obviously we are taking the risk ourselves on a cheque, but we have never regretted offering the service and have no intention of changing the way we do business. Eventually we had two secure ATMs in the the back of the building out of public sight. None were bothered that they didn’t front onto the street because none has a need of immediate money here. There’s nowhere to spend it and in any case if you’re local and want something here and don’t have the money all will tell you, ‘Pay me when you see me next.’

“We selt gifts for the tourists, most locally produced. That was the mechanism for many locals to sell home made jams, honey, woven goods, leather work and much more. We selt nowt that we considered to be tat that one could buy in any tourist attraction anywhere in the country. We selt a wide selection of cards and opened a small café, that had wireless internet facilities. As well as my guide to the pack pony trail leading out of the valley head we selt a comprehensive set of maps for not just the lake district but the entire county too as well as all of Wainwright’s walking guides. We’ve done well here, and consider ourselves to be an important part of Bearthwaite. We’ve no intention of dying anywhere else and we’ve a plot picked out in the churchyard ready for the event.”

“I think it was about twelve years ago when Sarah came up with the idea us collecting the prescription drugs from the pharmacy in town. We asked around and found out which pharmacy most folks used. We contacted the pharmacy about the idea. They weren’t keen on it till we telt them we had the post office and it was to be a service offered to help keep the post office open. Now they pack the entire delivery into a box that we just collect. It’s faster for them because whenever they make up a prescription for anyone who lives here they drop into the box, rather than having to find the appropriate pigeon hole for it on their shelves. We decided that ten pence per collection or five pounds a year would make a small but significant addition to our income and save folk at least a fiver in fuel. It wasn’t long before everyone in the village started using the same pharmacy for the convenience of not having to collect their drugs themselves. Obviously if it’s an emergency folk still have to collect their own drugs. As you know you can collect your own stuff, but most of it just gets delivered with the mail. We talk about the price from time to time, but can’t see a reason to increase prices in the foreseeable future.

There was a long silence eventually broken by Stan who said, “Both of you are Bearthwaite folk to the core, Tommy Lad, which has nowt to do with being here for generations. Those of us who are born and bred here for generations are grateful you came. We’ve still got a post office and a lot more too thanks to you and your lass. That was an impressive and important tale. I knew about what you telt, but it was good to hear about the risks you took to make it all happen which I, and no doubt every other local, was completely unaware of. We’ll all make sure that is appreciated by all who benefit from what you did. If you ever need support for a new venture, Lad, tell us here and we’ll make sure you get the help you need.” There was a lot of agreement from the local men and even the outsiders clearly considered it a tale well worth the listening to.

Harry added, “If you like I can write a program for you that will customise any greetings card you have for any relation or even friend as long as you have the card to print it out on. The post office desk top will handle that with no problem.” Bearthwaite though a society with its roots in the past was still moving forward into the twenty first century.

After Tommy’s tale there was some general conversation whilst glasses were filled and necessary visits to the gents took place. Vince the Mince had decided to take the story tellers up on their offer to collect him and Rosie in a car of a Saturday evening and take them home from the Dragon afterwards because they wanted them with them. Sasha explained, “We need you here, Vincent. The supplies for the village are pretty much being run from here.” Sasha laught and continued, “The two chambers of the Bearthwaite Council meet on Saturday evenings at the Green Dragon. Here in the tap and next door in the lounge. Everyone knows it’s here decisions are made that affect us all, and if they have something to say all they have to do is come for a drink and they’ll be listened to. Just for the record I’ve got more than enough intelligence not to say which is the first and which is the second chamber.” There a lot of nervous laughter at that as both Gladys and Harriet were listening from behind the bar. “You’re managing virtually the entire meat supply for the village, Vincent, and we need to be kept up to date regards food and other supplies by you, Dave, Phil and Alf. The farmers and Alf’s mates at the allotments not so much because most of their input is coming through the four of you. The girls next door likewise need keeping abreast of things by your womenfolk, because Rosie, Lucie, Alice and Ellen know what’s going on and they know who needs help. I hope you’ll pardon the expression keeping abreast of things, Lads.”

There was a goodly amount of laughter at that as the four men’s wives referred to were all generously proportioned ladies and were definitely wearing the kit. “I want us to have plenty of warning if there’s any chance that we need to be importing anything, so we have time to track it down and arrange a delivery before matters become critical. Sure things have eased a little recently, but who knows what the future holds, and I believe we need to look after ourselves and not place much too much trust in outside agencies and none at all in politicians.” There was general murmur of agreement from all not just locals at that.

Phil chipped in to say, “Alice and some of the lasses have decided to put the old bake house back into operation and bake bread at the mill, so folk don’t have to bake their own unless they want to. It used to be fired with faggots(4) of bramble and hedge prunings bought from the hedgers and ditchers and the Lowther and Standish estates years ago. I’d appreciate it if you could sort out a better firing arrangement, Alf. Maybe using kero?”

Alf nodded and said, “No problem, Phil. I know where there’s a simple burner that would be up to the job that I could probably get you for nowt if Arnie knew what it were going to be used for. It may need a bit of fettling but that’s no big deal. I know where there’s an old adjustable bread slicing machine that I could pick up for twenty or thirty quid if you’re interested? Like I said it’s old but that just means it’s solid engineering. I’ve no idea if it works, but if it doesn’t I’ll offer a fiver and go from there. No matter what’s up with it I’ll be able to sort it for you even if I have to make some parts. No charge, Lad. We need this sort of stuff.” Alf was regarded as a practical genius but his views on this caused a serious reëvaluation of his intellectual powers by his friends.

Phil replied, “Aye, the lasses will appreciate that, so just get aholt(5) on it, Alf, bugger the price. I’ll order a pallet of plastic bread bags off eBay.” Phil turned to Vince and said, “Now, Vincent, it’s good craic in here of a Saturday eve. So sit you down, Lad, and get the weight off your feet while I get your pint. Any chance you’ve got owt you want to tell us? We could do with something a bit different.”

“Guinness please, Phil. As to tales, being a slaughterman and butcher isn’t the most glamorous of jobs, but it does have a funny side sometimes. I’ve got a lot of young lasses helping their mums, Rosie and the lasses out at the back with making sausage, mince, pies and broth. Jessica, one of Gerry’s granddaughters, is one of them. She’s been helping her mum Suzie make haggis,(6) faggots(7) and other tackle from lights(8) and using up all the offal. They’d been making up a batch of brawn that day.(9) The other day there were a dozen or more women in the shop shopping, so I was a bit pressed. I shouted back for a bit of help to weigh out pound packets of minced beef and stewing steak cubes which are popular, but I’d run out of ready weighed. Don’t bother telling me, I know to comply with the law we should be selling stuff in metric, but I don’t see why I should have to spend going on a thousand quid for a modern set of electronic scales when the ones my great great grandparents used work just fine. I’ve got a set of metric weights that I can use on the scales, but only youngsters ask for stuff in Kilos or grammes. Most folk old enough to have kids ask for stuff in pounds and ounces, so if I get asked for a pound of mince that’s what I weigh out. My scales and weights are checked every year by trading standards, who don’t give a damn whether I use metric or imperial as long as what they check is accurate because that’s all that’s in their remit, so I know I’m dealing plumb.(10) I’ve a calculator at the side of the scales for anything that needs it, but I’m fair handy at reckoning.(11)

“Jessica came out front, and I shewed her how to use the scales. It’s easy enough even for a kid who’s been completely educated in metric, and she’s bright and willing to learn. She’s fifteen and there’s nowt to it for a bright lass like her of her age. You put the one pound weight on one side and fill the pan on the other side up till it balances. To weigh something you just keep putting weights on till the two sides balance starting with the big ones first and gradually getting closer with smaller and smaller weights. She was coping well, so when more folk came into the shop I telt her to serve Granny Parker whilst I was chopping off some pork chops for Elle. Now Granny Parker is not the wealthiest of folk, and Davie can’t work since his stroke, so she shops carefully and if she can she buys stuff by number rather than by weight which I thought would be easy for Jessica. Granny ordered five beef chipolatas,(12) two for her and three for her old man.

“Jessica weighed them correctly and used the calculator on her phone to work out the price. She was likewise fine when Granny ordered seven rashers of smoked back bacon, three for her and four for Davie. She invariably orders the same things, and I usually throw in a couple of kidneys, a bit of liver or something where I’d prefer the space rather than the product that she can use for a meal, so I said to Jessica, ‘Put a couple of pig’s tails, a trotter and a quarter(13) of brawn to Granny Parker’s order, Jess Love. The tails and trotters are at the front on the right hand side in the window and there’s a slab of brawn at the back here with a big steak knife at the side of it. Cut a slice off two inch thick, that’s five centimetres, Love, and cut it into four. Wrap up one of them for Granny. There’s no charge, and get her half a gallon of broth from the back too please. Bring a few of them when you’ve time because we’ve run out in here.’ The containers are actually two and a half litres, [5½ US pints] not half gallons, but that’s what everybody calls em. Kathlene was in the shop with a couple of her older grandkids and she sent them to the back to fetch a couple of dozen half gallons of broth for us. Again Jessica was fine. However she was completely floored when Granny asked her for a yard and a half of Cumberland sausage(14) because she’d no idea what a yard was. A lot of folk buy Cumberland by length, so I’ve marked off two yards on the counter at foot intervals. I telt her a metre was a yard plus the width of one of her hands just in case someone asks for Cumberland in metric and that my Cumberland, which is thicker than most, is about two pounds to the yard or a kilo to the metre as a rough reckoning. To start with she typed something into her phone, but it wasn’t long before she wasn't using it. She’s doing so well I’ve offered her a job in the shop for the Covid duration and she was chuffed to bits. With her in the shop Rosie can manage the lasses at the back full time without having to help me. It’s all worked out rather well really.”

Alf laught and said, “Like most kids and adults too these days, she’d be completely buggered by how allotments are measured because most are normally ten rods, poles or perches, which are all the same. Mostly poles is the term used. The measure goes back to Anglo-Saxon times. Ten poles is an area of three hundred and two and a half square yards. A pole is an area five and a half yards square which is a quarter chain square. A chain is twenty-two yards and is the traditional length of a cricket pitch. I think a plot is a bit more than 250(15) square metres, but I don’t do metric unless it’s engineering, so I’m not certain about that. I tell folk as ask a plot is about the same size as a double tennis court.(16) There’s ten chains to the furlong, and an acre is a chain by a furlong which is twenty-two yards by two hundred and twenty yards. That’s four-eight-four-oh square yards which gives exactly sixteen plots to the acre. There’s eight furlongs to the mile so there’s six hundred and forty acres in a square mile which is exactly ten thousand two hundred and forty plots.”

“Bloody hell, Lads, I never thought I’d hear stuff like that coming out of Alf’s mouth. I’m glad I was here to hear it because I’d never have believed it elsewise.” Stan like many of the others was shaking his head in wonder.

Alf, a bit defensively said, “I know I’m not clever, but I know about engineering and I know about growing stuff. You all know my original two plots were my dad’s, so I’ve been doing it for over sixty years. You do pick up a bit in sixty-odd years.”

When Harriet was pulling the last round of pints before supper she announced, “Seeing as Uncle Patrick has just turned seventy-five I thought I’d cook boilt bacon, potatoes and cow cabbage(17) with parsley sauce for supper tonight. Uncle Vincent gave me the ham, gammon and bacon joint ends and Uncle Alf brought the vegetables from the allotments. Dad’s put some bottles of Uncle Patrick’s poteen behind the bar, and a fresh barrel of Guinness on, so you can have a completely Irish supper. Pass me those empty glasses will you, Uncle David, please.” Any number of the visitors asked for a glass of poteen and as usual they all put a couple of pound coins in the children’s Christmas party collection box as a gesture of good will. As Pete had oft explained it was not in exchange for a glass of any of the old men’s private supplies because that would have meant it was a transaction, and as such an illegal sale of a distillate not sanctioned to be selt. The old men gave the visitors a drink from their private supply, and the visitors made a charitable donation, which was the expected and approved response.

Sasha was back telling tales again. “I said I’d tell you about putting in my new septic tank. We had two lavatories when we moved into the house. One in a small freezing cold downstairs bathroom at the back of the house which we rarely used and the other in the gable end en-suite bathroom. We hadn’t been there long when the one at the back of the house stopped working. I took the lavatory off its soil pipe to find out the soil pipe went straight down for about four and a half feet through the concrete floor. There was no chance of effecting any improvement easily, so I gave up on it. The other lavatory outlet went through the wall and into a modern plastic soil pipe which I traced back to the old septic tank right at the back of the property. It was no more than a brick box with no base that had an overflow into the beck which formed the boundary of my property. When I bought the place the septic tank had two concrete covers in place maybe two inches thick and five foot by two and a half. The third cover was broken in several pieces and in the beck. The reinforcing in the concrete was nothing more than chain link fencing. In other words there wasn’t any effective reinforcing steel in it. Where the third cover should have been there were a few old railway sleepers that had mostly rotted through.

“I dragged the broken pieces out of the beck and cast up the complete new top in four five foot by two foot pieces three inches thick with half inch steel reinforcing mesh in them. I had the heat out of the sleepers and used the old concrete to fill holes in the road. After twelve months the soil pipe blocked. I had two sets of drain rods to clear it with, that’s twenty metres of rod, but I reckoned it was a thirty-five metre run, so I bought two more sets of rods. Messing with that length of drainage rod is a pain in the arse, so after clearing the blockage I dragged the entire length of rod out and left it in one of the fields next to the fence. Over the next three years the soil pipe blocked a further three or four times, so I was glad the rods were still connected.

“Up till then the soil pipe was way down on my list of priorities, but eventually it worked its way to the top. I uncovered the plastic soil pipe, all thirty five metres of it to discover it terminated in a hole knocked into a Victorian glazed earthenware sewer pipe. No proper connection there, just pushed into a hole and a slate threwn on top with a load of edges for toilet paper to catch on and cause a build up leading to a blockage. Things were becoming clearer because the glazed pipe which was three and a half feet down was in a straight line to the back of the house where the rear bathroom lavatory sewer would probably run. I took the plastic pipe out of the glazed one and after putting a four and a half inch core drill into the septic tank eighteen inches down I lifted the plastic pipe to a more appropriate depth and extended it with proper fittings to pass through the septic tank wall and mortared it in to the tank.

“Fast forward three months and I was removing the cobble back wall of the house and all the floor in the small bathroom prior to rebuilding the wall and laying a new floor with a plastic membrane and some insulation under it. Running along the entire back wall of the house was a tarmacadam path maybe three foot wide which had to come up. Under it I found an inspection chamber for the bathroom soil pipe which was completely solid. Since the bath room was going to end up as a kitchen I dug out the inspection chamber because the footing would be going there’. I dug the old concrete floor out and all of the old glazed pipe too and thereafter we had no problems with the soil pipes.

“However, the environment agency were becoming difficult in various parts of the county concerning old septic tank discharges into water courses. I decided I needed to replace the septic tank with a modern biodigester type. I got lucky, there was a place on the far side of Carlisle that was selling up. They didn’t have a twelve person septic tank, but they did have a twenty-four person one and a load of collared six metre pipes and a couple of boxes of fittings. I cleaned them out for the princely sum of nine hundred quid.

“The only place the new tank could go was in my field on the other side of the lonning.(18) It was huge and I got young Tony Dearden to dig out for it with his big track laying back actor machine. The width of the hole he ended up digging to get the depth was colossal because the land was so soft and the sides kept caving in. We got down to about eleven feet with four or five to go when we hit the water table. At that point he was digging out sand and beach cobbles. He managed to dig it out deep enough but we couldn’t force the bottle shaped tank down to the bottom of the hole. Those tanks look like a flat bottomed sphere, mine was twelve foot in diameter, with what appears to be a conning tower like on a submarine stuck on top. Tony rang for a mate who had a sludge gupper(19) and we filled it with water to sink it. Tony backfilled the hole around it to keep it down and it was pumped out.

“Then all I needed to do was put a pipe under the lonning and I didn’t fancy all the fuss digging a trench across it would cause. There were still city folk dwelling here then, and most of them had nothing better to do than complain about anything they could think of to all and sundry including the authorities. I connected a two inch water pump via some flexible plastic pipe to a thirty foot piece of inch galvanised water pipe, slid it down a six metre piece of soil pipe and jetted a hole five foot under the lonning pushing the soil pipe in as the hole opened up in front of it and pushed the spoil backwards with the water down the soil pipe. I got piss wet through, but the job was easily done in well under ten minutes. A couple of fancy adjustable soil pipe connectors which were a fiver apiece [US $7] and I was connected up to the septic tank. A lot of digging on the house side of the lonning to lay almost sixty metres of soil pipe, another adjustable connector and I disconnected the original soil pipe and joined to my new pipe run. The outlet from the new septic tank went into several tons of clean brick hardcore, which it ran through for twenty metres before joining the beck. I covered the hardcore with porous geotextile fabric, back filled that with the topsoil, and I’ve never had any trouble since. When the fields at the back of the house flooded, which they always do when we get heavy rain, I used a submersible slurry trash pump to pump out the old septic tank with a long length of flexible outlet pipe on it to put the sewage in to the middle of the field and left it running over the weekend. As fast as it was macerating and pumping out the sewage clean water was entering the tank which had a foot of flood water over the top of it. When the fields drained away there was no evidence of sewage, the tank was full of clean water and I got Tony to bring his mini digger to remove the masonry and back fill it with soil.

“Funny thing. A couple of years later I was talking to Old Cole who had one of the semi-detached houses three-quarters of a mile behind me. I must be going back a bit because he’s been dead over twenty years now. Before he moved here he used to live at Causeway Head outside of Silloth, and the beck that runs past his old spot is tidal. He had a hole dug for a new septic tank, but had a brickie build it out of concrete blocks. Like at my place a lot of the ground there is rotten clay or silt and it quivers like a blancmange when the tide is in. They threw some old corrugated roofing sheets into the bottom of the hole to keep the dry mix concrete clean, and the brickie got two thirds of the block work done before it was time to knock off for the day. When they came back the day after obviously the tide had come in and it had turned the entire structure round by thirty or more degrees. Cole had said, ‘Sod it. If we back fill round it it won’t move any more. If we keep building like it is we’ll just connect the pipes to where ever is convenient.”

Dave said he’d a tale to tell of folk he knew that for once was the truth, and it was a short one that would round out the evening’s tales and take them up to dominoes time. No one believed him that it would be a true story, but none were bothered as his tales were entertaining. “I mind many a year ago of a bloke going by the name of Terry. Without doubt he was a male chauvinist pig. I’d have called him a male chauvinist wild boar if anything, or more likely a male chauvinist boor. I can’t say I liked him, but I knew and liked Diane his wife and had never understood why she’d taken up with him never mind married him. They ran a landscaping business and she telt me this tale. One day she said to Terry, ‘This turfing job we’ve got at the Lowsher’s Lane distillery site is not going to meet the dead line and we’ll loose money on it if we don’t complete on time.’ Terry said, ‘Come on, Love, you’re not stupid. Put more men on the job and you’ll get the result you want.’

Alf asked, “Was that Diane as was Diane Graham, Billy’s and Hetty’s lass as used to live on Glebe street that I went to school with?”

“Aye. She left Bearthwaite decades ago, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she returns eventually. This spot does that. Anyhow a couple of months later, Diane said, ‘Terry, the job at the ICI plant at Nantwich is behind time so badly it’s going to cost us serious money.’ Again she was telt by Terry, ‘Don’t be silly, put more men on the job and you’ll get the result you want in a satisfactory time frame.’

“Despite the cost of hiring more men, when ever things were not going to plan that seemed to be Terry’s only solution to the more and more frequent occurrences of jobs being behind time. They divorced not long after that. Diane walked away from Terry and the company which went into liquidation after a few months. Diane started up a new company and now running all aspects of the business herself instead of Terry managing site work and she just doing the office work she made a lot more money without having to pay an excessive workforce payroll.

“I met up with Diane a couple of years after she’d gone on her own, and she telt me, ‘I found out after we’d separated that Terry had been drinking on the job and the workforce were taking advantage of it and not doing any work. I didn’t know that at the time, but I knew there could be no good reason why jobs were taking so long. What I did know was Terry was doing nothing at home except drink. Every night he’d crash out in an arm chair unable to make it upstairs. Eventually I telt him, “‘That’s it, Terry, our marriage is over and the company is going that way too, so you can keep the firm because it’s worth next to nothing now. I’m out. I’ll collect my share of the house when the building society forecloses on the mortgage. You haven’t been in our bed in months, and unlike you, for me beer is no substitute. You know I want a family, but the job is running seriously behind time, so I’ve decided to adopt your generic solution and put more men on the job to get the result I want in a satisfactory time frame.’”

Gladys had a smile on her face as the men in the taproom were laughing. She knew they were decent men with a respect for all and that included women, but it always pleased her when they evidenced that.

Dave continued, “I’ve no idea if Diane meant it literally in terms of men, but she was living with a man a few weeks later and wed to him before the year was out. Her first child, a daughter, was born six months after the wedding. I’m not saying she put more men on the job, but for sure she put one more on the job. She’s still married to him, and she’s had four kids. Her eldest daughter was married a few years since, and Lucy was more than happy to be her Maid of Honour at the wedding.”

It was a chuckling group of men who started setting up for domino battle, with another pint and a drop of the hard stuff to go with it of course.

1 Taties, potatoes.
2 Jankers, in the British Armed Services ‘jankers’ or Restrictions of Privileges is an official punishment for a minor breach of discipline.
3 The lasses are wearing the kit, an expression used by north
ern men that doesn’t refer to ‘kit’ as in clothes, which is the usual usage. It refers to the female body, as in the women are wearing, or walking about with, the parts that men are interested in.
4 Faggot: A bundle of sticks, twigs or small branches of trees bound together for use as fuel. This is a very old use of the word and often faggots were selt at local markets by hedgers and ditchers.
5 Get aholt on it, get hold of it or in this context buy it.
6 Haggis is a traditional Scottish dish. It is a savoury dish containing sheep's pluck (heart, liver, and lungs), minced [US ground] with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally was cooked encased in the animal’s stomach though now usually cooked in an artificial casing instead. The main spice used is pepper.
7 Faggots, this time another old usage of the word referring to meatballs made from minced off-cuts and offal, especially pork (traditionally pig’s heart, liver, and fatty belly meat or bacon) together with herbs for flavouring and sometimes added bread crumbs. It is a traditional dish in the UK. Faggots are also known as ducks in various parts of the UK, often as savoury ducks. They often contain chopped liver and lungs and are wrapped in an outer wrapper of caul fat.
8 Lights, lungs.
9 Brawn, a soft charcuterie product made from the meat on pigs’ heads. The hairs are singed off, the heads washed and then lightly brined for a few days. Finally the heads are boiled with herbs, spices and salt till the meat drops off the bones. The resulting meat, skin and other material is picked over to remove the bones and any other unwanted material before being finely chopped, finish seasoned and placed into bowls with the hot cooking liquid which sets to a firm tasty gel. In some areas colourful pickles like carrots are arranged on the bottom of the bowl for the look of the product. The solid brawl is turned out of the bowl and sliced for sale.
10 Dealing plumb, trading honestly.
11 Fair handy at reckoning, good at mental arithmetic.
12 Chipolatas, usually a thin, small sausage. Chipolatas can be a high meat content quality product, but the term has also been used to sell sausage like products which contain less than the legally mandated meat content in a product that is sold as sausage, 32% for a generic sausage and 42% for a named meat sausage like pork sausages. The minimum permitted percentages vary from one kind of meat to another in the UK.
13 A quarter, a quarter pound, four ounces.
14 Cumberland sausage is normally sold as it comes out of the sausage making machine rather than being formed into discrete sausages in links like other sausages. Even supermarkets sell it as a length, usually coiled on a polystyrene [styrofoam] tray covered with Cling film [Saran wrap].
15 Ten poles is ca. 252.5 square metres.
16 A Tennis court is thirty-nine feet each side of the net, seventy eight feet or twenty-six yards in all, and in width a doubles court is thirty-six feet or twelve yards. (A singles court is twenty-seven feet wide] That gives an area of three hundred and twelve square yards for a doubles court. [Two hundred and thirty-four square yards for a singles.]
17 Cow cabbage, a large solid pale variety, widely grown for feeding stock as well as for human consumption. Often they are not harvested for stock. The field of cabbages is strip grazed using an electric fence, hence the name.
18 Lonning, lane.
19 Sludge gupper, an agricultural slurry tanker.