Harriet and Gladys her mum were chatting whilst they waxed and polished the tables in the best side. “I took some meat from Uncle Vincent over to Auntie Hannah earlier on, Mum. She’s a bit under the weather with a bad cold. Auntie Karen was packing up her stethoscope and about to leave when I got there, but she stayed for a cup of tea when Hannah asked me to put the kettle on. She said Hannah’s chest was ‘a bit rattly, but nothing to worry about’. She was doing her rounds of the elderly checking they were all okay and not in need of anything, cos the cold that’s doing the rounds is giving some enough grief to require medication. She telt me she’s got boxes of free cough medicine in the boot of her car that the village contingency fund paid for. I’d never heard of that, but when we left I gave her a tenner [$13] to put into the fund. How old is Hannah, Mum? I know she’s turned eighty, but how long ago was that? I didn’t want to ask her or Auntie Karen.”

“She turned eighty-eight not long since. Not that you’d suspect it, Love, for she’s still as lively as she was twenty years since. I was surprised that you took to her because not many folk of your age do. She’s a bit too blunt for most to cope with, even though most of them liked her when they were kids.”

“When I first met her I thought she was awesome. She was a bit of a shock, cos somehow I didn’t expect someone as small as her to be so forceful a character. Almost everything about her seems to contradict something else about her. She’s tiny and as substantial as a cobweb. There’s no way she’s six stone [38Kg, 84 pounds] wringing wet through, and yet she always seems to be the biggest person in the room. She has absolutely no curves, yet, despite her physique and her age, she exudes femininity from every pore. I knew she was well over eighty, and not much over that in centimetres, I know that’s an exaggeration, Mum, but there is no way she’s four foot ten [145cm]. She’s still as sharp as a tack with a lively and often viciously satirical sense of humour. Highly intelligent, she’s entertaining in a way that commanded my attention right from when I first met her, yet she gave no sense of condescension, despite her implicit refusal to dumb down her conversation and its vocabulary for anyone.

“I’ve known who she was almost since I came to live here, five maybe six years back. Someone telt me she’s lived on the far side of the village from the Dragon for over twenty years, but I was eventually introduced to her at Auntie Elle’s house. Within ten minutes of meeting her, she declared she was straight as a die, and it was clear she meant in more ways than one.

“A couple of summers ago during the warm weather, Hannah, Julie, Christine, Elle and I went to The Wheatsheaf for lunch before a round of golf at Serethwaite golf course which I didn’t realise was nowhere near Serethwaite and is only fifteen miles away from here. The others had all been members for years, but I played as a guest. I only got round to joining last March though I knew you play more or less once a month. Because you were a member there and at Silloth too, I just assumed Dad would be too.”

“I bet that was a bit of a shock when you spoke to your dad about golf.” Gladys had a knowing smile on her face.

“Yeah! Not half. I rapidly realised Dad’s views about golf don’t bear repeating in polite company, but he made it clear he had no issues with you and I playing as long as we didn’t try to persuade him to and I quote, ‘Waste my bloody time knocking my balls into a tiny hole in public on a bleak windswept patch of close mown grass’. That was probably the politest thing he said about golf, so I’ve not raised the subject again.

“I was surprised that Hannah wasn’t phased at all by me being trans. It was clearly a matter of complete indifference to her. Most Bearthwaite folk didn’t have an issue with me being trans, but typically I know they were puzzled and struggled to get their heads round it when they first found out. I realised that without doubt Hannah was completely accepting of all exactly as they chose to present themselves, yet that first time I played golf with her as we walked she cautioned me about men. ‘They don’t last two minutes, Harriet Love,’ she declared. ‘I’ve a friend over Keswick way who’s buried three husbands and the fourth is on his way out with prostate cancer, and she’s nearer sixty than seventy. I still enjoy a bit of company for a frolic after a drink, not as often as I used to mind, but I’ve no use for a man under my feet as a household fixture or fitting. No, Girl, a good man is like a good malt, to be savoured and enjoyed in the evening and an exceptionally good one well into the early hours, but I reckon I’d be in serious trouble if I ever found myself enjoying either with breakfast. Gustav’s a decent man, but if you’re still of a mind to get hitched to him look after him, or Lawton will be taking him away early in a wooden overcoat with brass handles.’ ”

Gladys laughed and said, “That sounds like a Hannahism if ever I heard one. I can hear her saying it now.”

“Yeah, I reckon of all the folk I have ever met, she is one of the few with a truly clear view of the world. She’s very similar in many ways to Uncle Sasha. Cynical? Perhaps, that depends on your view point. Caring? May be, again dependent on your view point. From what I’ve heard and from what she’s telt me I reckon that she continues to live a life that has always, through no fault of hers, been difficult the best way she has been able. Her freely offered advice, only given when I’d telt her it would be welcome, has helped me enormously, more so than Uncle Sasha’s advice because she is a woman. I am grateful to know she considers herself to be my friend, for it is a rare friendship that spans an age gap of six decades. Too, I suppose Uncle Sasha and Auntie Elle are different because to them you, Dad and I are family, Gustav too now.”

It was Saturday evening and as always the members of The Grumpy Old Men’s Society were meeting in the taproom of The Green Dragon at Bearthwaite. Also in attendance was a goodly number of outsiders, many of whom had been regular attenders for years. There were also a couple of new faces. As the last few pints were pulled and the men sat down many were looking around to see who would start the proceedings with the first tale of the evening.

Stan indicated he’d start the ball rolling and said, “Julie was on the phone to her sister Lily last night. Lily lives a couple of mile outside Silloth. Her old man, Danny, works at Carr’s flour mill by the dock there. Lily went shopping a couple of days ago and when she shops local she shops in the Spar shop on Solway Street. It’d come up on her phone that the Spar shops up and down the country had an IT issue, seemingly they’d had their main server hacked, though I do wonder why the bastards mounted a cyber attack on Spar rather than one of the big four supermarket chains. Though I imagine Spar would be a more vulnerable target than say Tesco. Anyway, none of the Spar shops could accept card payments. I know they haven’t accepted cheques for years, come to that the Coöp don’t either. I suspect there’s hardly anywhere left that does. Anyway according to her phone Spar shops were open and selling stuff, but it had to be paid for in cash. She only wanted a few bits and pieces and had enough cash on hand, but the woman in the Spar said they were shut completely, so she went to the Coöp. Spar’s system was down for just short of twenty-four hours.

“Now as I understand it all Spar shops are independent traders with a cross nation coöperative buying agreement to keep costs down. My question is, what the fuck is going on when a shop full of foodstuffs won’t sell to folk with cash? Makes you wonder what they lost in sales. I heard later from Geoff when he delivered some coal that the Spar shops that did sell goods for cash had to write down using pen and paper every item they selt so that when the system came on line again every item could be entered onto it manually, but a lot of spots were unwilling to do that, so they closed instead. It seems whatever a shop sells the computer at their central depot orders to be picked from the warehouse for their next supply load. No information as to what they’ve selt means no resupply. Telling you it’s bat shit crazy! Even if they have to provide the data to the centralised resupply system you’d think they’d have some sort of stand alone scanning system that could record and upload the data later. Christ! A bloody smart phone hooked up to a ten quid [$15] scanner could be programmed to do it. Nation’s fucked till it gets real.”

Dave who ran the village general store with his wife added, “That’s why Lucy and I never joined any of the buyers’ coöperatives, Stan. They’re too restrictive. Most wouldn’t allow the likes of us to source stuff from any where other than through them. I don’t know if it’s the same these days, but I always reckoned, even before the internet and smart phones, someone with a telephone and their wits about them could always buy stuff at a decent price. We’ve always got a good idea of how much of what we’ve on hand, and if something is out of season and too expensive to buy in we simply don’t order it. We’d rather buy what’s in season from the allotment [US community gardens] lads who let us know well in advance what they are about to harvest, and as all residents know we have a sign in the shop of what’s nearly ready, so folk can plan their shopping and cooking. Sure bigger shops than ours, and that means small town sized shops, cos we supply what three, three and a half thousand folk? probably need an IT based mechanism to keep track of it, but Pat says that can be done for bugger all money. He’s sorting that out for us at the moment, cos our turnover has dramatically increased due to Covid. He reckons if I give him a ton [£100, $150] he’ll have a nights drinking out of the profit, but that’s the way Pat usually calculates things.”

There was a lot of laughter at that because they all knew Pat, who was unashamedly nodding his head in agreement, well. Dave continued, “We all know if you buy it right you can always sell it right. Bearthwaite is a good place to trade, cos nobody here is greedy, we trust each other and deals take little time to reach. I buy virtually all my fruit and vegetables, excepting tropical stuff like bananas and oranges, from local folk, and at the moment folk here would rather go without than I order in a load from outside which exposes us all to greater Covid risk, which is fine with me, cos the apples and other fruit grown locally that are in cool store and preserved will keep us going till the early rhubarb is available next year. I’ve never bought milk from anyone except Peabody. He gets a far better price from me than the dairies and creameries will give him. I get cheap milk and pass that on to the village.

“This Covid business has not been an unmitigated disaster for us here. We not being in a buyer’s coöperative means virtually no delivery vans coming into the village and I was in a position to buy stuff locally. I can sell everything the allotment lads can produce and give them and my customers a good deal whilst at the same time making a respectable but not unreasonable margin on it for Lucy and me to live on, and all the produce is fresher and untreated with anything. It has to be healthier to eat. All gluts of stuff like the soft fruit I freeze and sell frozen, or the women pressure can and process it into pies and the like That’s nothing new we’ve been doing that for years. What is new is stuff like surplus lettuce there is no market for is no longer wasted. The allotment lads take it to Vince to put through his sausage meat chopper. I go down to help him, and some of it we freeze and give away as frozen vegetable soup stock material, though most of it goes into the bone stock based soup the lasses are producing to distribute to any in need. Same with stuff I buy from Phil the mill and Alice. Fact is, the more middle men there are between the producer and the consumer the dearer stuff gets, and the Covid situation has made us all think about mechanisms to minimise those extra costs for purely safety reasons. As a result we’re all saving a fortune. We should have been doing business this way decades ago, cos it’s how it had to be done a century gone.”

“Aye, you’re absolutely right, Dave,” Vincent the village slaughterman and butcher said. “I can always sell locally sourced meat cheaper than meat from a slaughter sale. No auctioneers’ fees to pay, and no transport costs. It’s better quality meat too. I agree that Covid has had some definite upsides to it. A lot of local farmers are raising more stock just to sell locally and that means via me. I can always give them a better price that what they’d actually receive from an auction sale after paying all the costs involved. We need to keep being creative and flexible. The bone stock based soup the womenfolk are making takes a fair amount of finely minced offal, trimmings and the like. I could prepare it for sale, but it takes time, and I rather give it away, for it’s quicker to deal with and it’s keeping the wolf from the door for a lot of folk.

“A lot of those pies you were on about the womenfolk making are made at my spot. In return the lasses make my meat pies and the like for me. Alf made a pastry press for me a while back, and the lasses can knock out shells and lids for steamed steak puddings and pies with it by the hundred in no time at all. I get virtually free labour, the lasses get to use commercial equipment to make their stuff with for nowt to sell to you and me. You get to buy cheap pies, the allotment lads get a price for all their fruit with none being wasted and the village women end up buying cheap food. It’s a winner for everyone. Like you I make a good and reasonable living from the way we trade and can give local housewives a better deal than they’d get anywhere else and they don’t have to waste a day going shopping.

“Talking of creativity and flexibility. Young Alex Peabody’s talking about building a small dairy and creamery unit on the farm to produce butter, cream, cheese and yoghurt. He reckons it won’t cost too much to set up and it’ll provide jobs for a couple of lasses. His dad’s not entirely on board, but has said he’ll support the venture because if it takes off they’ll be making a hell of a lot more money than they do at the moment from selling milk for peanuts to the big buyers.”

Bill said, “Ain’t that the bloody truth. Milk is the cheapest liquid for sale in any shop. Hell, it’s cheaper than bottled water for God’s sake. How the hell is that even possible? I’ve always believed that farmers should be paid more for it, and that we’ve been courting a national disaster with the dairy farmers for decades. If they don’t get a better deal I reckon when the current generation of farmers retire or die an awful lot of their kids are just going to say, ‘Fuck it’ and sell up. They’ve watched their mums and dads, and grandparents too in many cases, get up in the middle of the bloody night and work till late of an evening seven days a week every day of the year because they don’t earn enough to pay for relief milkers to give them a break. The grandkids tell me loads of their schoolfriends have said there’s no way they’ll be taking the farm over. They'd rather get a job outside the area that has reasonable hours and pays decent wages. It must already be happening because some of the supermarkets are having to import whole milk from Europe because they can’t source all they need from within the UK.”

There were a lot of faces clearly in agreement with Bill’s point of view. Even most of the outsiders had rural backgrounds and were familiar with the situation, but none had anything to add, for Bill had said it all. Vince carried on, “Alan’s got a good idea. A small milk processing unit would be good for the village, and even if it only ever has two employees that’s well worth having, though I can’t see a viable unit only employing two. Milk’s cheap, but doing something with it to produce milk products ups its price considerably. The trade term for that is value added. Once Alan starts, we need to make sure he doesn’t fail. Once a week, I supply meat to a couple of dozen of small village shops in the area, mostly bacon and sausages. They all sell milk and dairy products. I’ll let them know about Alan’s plans. In addition if we are prepared to collect anything that goes over its sell by date they’ll be less reluctant to buy, for they won’t ever have a disposal problem which occasionally they do at the moment. All of the local pig farmers would be glad to take any such. You could do worse than seeing if they’ll buy flour, oats and the like off you, Phil. Maybe you and Dave could work together to produce muesli.” Phil and Alice his wife owned and operated the Bearthwaite water mill. “If we got the total order together we could deliver the lot with my van and do a supermarket collection for any who wanted on the return trip. Maybe orders could be left at the Post Office, and once a week we sort the entire village order out, phone it through and collect the following day. What do you reckon, Tommy? Could you organise that if we paid you for your time?”

Tommy who ran the Bearthwaite Post Office with his wife Sarah, smiled and replied, “No problem, Vincent. Best thing is to type up and print off the list of what folk want the first time. Then they can tick off what they want on subsequent orders and leave it or drop it in later. Don’t print too many and just add items as they are ordered for the first time. Easy. It’ll not take two ticks, certainly nothing I’d need paying for. If you deliver the entire order to my loading bay at the back I’ll unload it and get some kids to sort out the individual orders and deliver them. If we put a few quid their way the matter is done and dusted, and folk as can afford it will tip the kids anyway. We can charge for the service same as I do for picking up the village prescriptions. Ten pence a pop or a fiver a year. That’s way cheaper than going shopping and it will pay the kids.”

Vince nodded and carried on, “If we phone the supermarket in advance they’ll pick it all off the shelves and box it up for free as long as the order is more than fifty quid. [£50, $75] It’s what they do for their free local home delivery service. They won’t deliver here because we’re too far out, but if we collect I can’t see there being an issue, and they’ll probably use the idea as advertising material, but use my van because there’s no need for all of us to waste the diesel, and I’d be returning anyway. It’s only an extra few miles and doubtless Rosie will have placed an order too. On a related but different topic, I think we need a central list of all our contacts available for all of us take advantage of. I know the lasses enjoy shopping, but I don’t reckon that includes buying the groceries and household stuff. Rosie says she’d rather go and get what she can from Lucy where she can enjoy a bit of a chat and a cup of tea too. She’s always said that away from here she most enjoys shopping for stuff that’s a complete surprise. That’s stuff she has no idea at the time she actually wants. I become irritated by that, but I can’t complain because that’s what she buys to make events like Christmas special. Fact is no matter how much it irritates me at the time, ultimately it makes my life a hell of a lot better.”

“Aye, I completely agree with that. Ellen’s no different from Rosie nor probably the rest of the womenfolk too,” said Alf, “But, moving on a bit as a result of what Ellen has said, I’ve been thinking about what any number of folk have said recently about doing as much for ourselves as possible. It’s obvious we can’t possibly provide everything we want and then sell it here, so some supermarket and town shopping is necessary. Now Vince seems to have solved the supermarket issue, but I’ve been thinking about buying a second hand double decker bus. Now if everyone as can chip in chips in it won’t cost that much per household. We could have someone with brains work out what it costs to run, including a day’s wage for whoever drives it. There’re any number of lads here who could drive one, but maybe it’s an idea to send a few of the younger women or blokes on a PSV(1) driving course and absorb the costs into the bus. We could run it at cost plus a little bit to cover unexpected maintenance. The price to go to say Workington, Carlisle or anywhere else would not be like a bus ticket because that means it would be subject to every last detail of PSV regulations. The way to do it would be register the bus as a community resource owned by the Bearthwaite Residents Company like the library and the sports facilities on the green are. Since the way the lawyers set it up means everyone who lives here is legally a part owner of the company they’d be riding on their own vehicle and merely be contributing their obligatory share of its upkeep, not buying a ticket. I’ll maintain it and MoT(2) it for the same rate as I charge anyone for servicing their car. I don’t know how the idea will be received, but I think it’s definitely worth considering since a bus trip for a hundred lasses will cost a sight less than a hundred folk paying for a hundred individual car trips. Ellen said most women enjoy shopping more if they’re doing it with a few of the girls. What do you think, Lads?”

Sasha replied, “I think it’s a excellent idea, and it needs putting to the womenfolk as soon as possible, Alf, but where the hell did you come up with all that legalese from?”

“I remembered what that lawyer bloke from Maryport who did all the paperwork said at the village meeting when we discussed the various ways it could be done. He said the best way to set it up was the way it was eventually. I remember he said that the down side was every adult had to contribute to the green upkeep and the library maintenance. Remember?” There were nods and murmurs of agreement. “Someone asked him whether that included the pensioners, the out of work and the handicapped and disabled. I mind him saying the law was what it was, and it specified every adult with no exceptions had to be recorded as contributing their share from they day they turned eighteen till the day they breathed their last. Sasha asked him if others could contribute on their behalf, and his reply was crystal clear. He said the law required a record to be kept and that had to have the appropriate sum recorded against every adult’s name. It was obvious what he meant, but could not legally say, so those of us who can have been paying for those who can’t from the beginning. When he checked the records that Jill in the library keeps he said everything was in order. Every adult had been recorded as paying their share and that was what the law required. Seems to me the law doesn’t give a stuff what actually happens as long as the paperwork is tidy.”

Harriet was down behind the bar doing something and before she stood up and could be seen her voice came up from behind the bar, “I’ll talk about it to Mum first, Uncle Alf, but she’ll want to talk about it tonight in the room. I think it’s a brilliant idea. Every shopping trip will be like like an outing, and we’ll enjoy that. However, I came to see if anyone wanted a pint pulling. Uncle Vincent, you’ll have to wait a few minutes for Guinness because Gustav is changing the barrel.”

“I’ll have a pint of Bearthwaite Brown instead, please, Harriet Lass. And a packet of those home toasted and salted sweet chestnuts too, if there’re any left.”

“No problem, Uncle Vincent. There’re probably enough left to last the month out, but Aggie said that if she can buy some wholesale at a decent price she’ll buy a load because they sell better than cashew nuts and are only a third of the price.” A dozen and a half of the men said they’d like to buy some of the chestnuts too.

As he munched a couple Stan said, “Aggie did really well with these, Frank.”

“Aye, but it was a gang of kids including the bad lads, that I have to admit are mostly my grandsons, who inspired the idea, Stan. A gang of a dozen and a half or so of the kids had collected going on two hundredweight [224 pounds] of wild chestnuts from all over the valley to eat, and they wanted to know how they could eat ’em without having to shell and then take the skin off ’em. Shelling ’em’s not too bad, but that skin is really difficult to get off and even a small piece left on makes a mouthful as bitter as hell. Two of my granddaughters asked their Gran to help. They’re a pair of clever lasses that I guess just about make up for the trouble some their brothers and male cousins cause. Aggie pricked the chestnuts to stop them exploding and then boilt ’em up for a while. After that the shell and skin came off real easy. The kids didn’t think much to the taste, so she dipped ’em in peanut oil, tossed ’em in salt and put ’em in the oven for ten minutes.

“The kids ate a goodly few, but they soon lost interest. However, Aggie thought they were tasty and something men’s palates would enjoy seeing as how ten times as many nuts are selt in the tap as in the best side, and most selt in the best side are bought by men, so she bought the lot off the kids for a fair price as compared with the supermarkets and tried some here. They’re selling well, and like Harriet said, as long as the Dragon can buy some at a halfway decent price she’ll order a load of ’em. Seems most come from Spain and if you order by the quarter ton [250Kg, 560 pounds] over the internet they’re not too expensive. Gladys, Harriet and Aggie are all for the idea since it will be something unique to the Dragon to promote the village, and they reckon it’s another thing to help bring in trade during the summer. Eventually I suppose they’ll catch on, but most places will buy in commercially prepared ones, whereas Aggie reckons the home prepared ones without preservatives and the like will always be a selling point.”

Tommy, who with his wife Sarah, ran the Bearthwaite post office said, “It’s our belief that we need a slightly more formal mechanism to represent all of us. We’ve never had a Parish Council here but even if an application to elect one is turned down by the powers that be there’s nowt to stop us forming one anyway. It just won’t have official status, but at least we’ll have a better mechanism than how we do it at present in the Dragon. Mind we could still meet in the Dragon ballroom. If the meetings were documented, provided the subject under discussion were something we’d all be prepared to have documented,” Tommy looked around to see most nodding in agreement for there were some things it would be better officialdom remained unaware of, “all could know how the village was thinking and add their opinions more easily too. That would make sure that all Bearthwaite folk had their opinions represented. I’ve no idea how to set it up, but I’m sure someone must know how to do it.”

Sasha said, “It’s a good idea, Tommy. I know a few folk who’d probably be interested in talking about the idea with you. I’ll tell them to get in touch with you.”

Alf said, “I was watching the news last night. Yet again Border Farce(3) have been a complete joke regarding all those bloody so called refugees coming over the channel from France in rubber dingies. I don’t know why we pay the bastards since they serve no useful purpose. Despite all the bullshit and propaganda all they seem to do is serve as a mechanism to assist economic migrants to invade the UK. They say they’re refugee women and kids coming in, but most are adult men and the first thing most of them ask for is a bloody razor. And as for them being toothless babies, some are toothless all right in the same way as my dad was once he’d turned seventy. It’s not a bloody dummy(4) they need it’s fucking dentures. God knows I’m no racist bigot, but I’m sick of being treated like an idiot by the powers that be. How was it Sasha put it – being treated like a mushroom – kept in the dark and fed bullshit. What concerns me is the government are talking about telling communities they have to accept them in large numbers and forcing the issue. I don’t want large numbers of incomers of any kind, wherever they come form, here. Our community would be at risk of being diluted to the point of extinction.”

“Fuck me! Did that really come out of Alf’s mouth, Lads?” Stan asked in amazement.

Simon who rarely said much indicated he wanted to speak. Simon was usually referred to as Black Simon because he was the village blacksmith rather than because he was very dark skinned and originally from Jamaica. “Alf like all folk from here is no racist, and I agree with him. Such an influx could indeed overwhelm our culture, but it couldn’t happen here. It couldn’t happen because there are no local authority owned properties here. All housing stock here is privately owned. Even should it happen as a result of new government legislation they wouldn’t stay here long. I read about some so called refugees being located on one of the Hebridean islands maybe eighteen months since. The locals gave them an opportunity to integrate, but the incomers insisted the locals changed their customs to suit their culture. Like we would do, the locals answered with a shoulder to shoulder consolidated response. They stopped their children playing or talking to the incomer children, which wasn’t difficult because the local language was Gaelic, and the incomer kids had been telt not to speak English. The primary school only had one teacher who had too much to do to even try to communicate with the incomer kids. The shop wouldn’t serve the incomers, none would rent a building to be used as a mosque. The entire native population refused to engage with the incomers in any way. The locals’ view was if the incomers wished to retain their apartness, fine. There is no law that says anyone has to do business with anyone else. The result was the incomers were gone inside three weeks. So there’s nothing to worry about, Alf.”

“Anyone seen Alf’s latest sign in his workshop?” Asked Stan. There was head shaking going on all round the room. “Well, I reckon he’s stuffed if Ellen catches sight of it. Though it has to be said it’s not exactly one of the usual top shelf girly pics you find in workshops. It’s a rather discreet cartoon depicting a feminine looking nut and a masculine looking bolt. The speech balloon from the nut says, ‘Oh no, not without a washer!’ I reckon it’s entirely in keeping with Alf’s character.”

It took a minute or two for the laughter to fade when Vincent the local slaughterman and butcher said, “Talking of signs. Last time I was in Edinburgh, which would be maybe six months since, I saw a sign outside a butcher’s shop that read, ‘Every day thousands of innocent plants are killed by vegetarians. Help stop this senseless slaughter. Eat Meat.’ I wouldn’t mind having one made for the shop.”

When the laughter quietened, Pete said, “Have one of your grandkids paint you one, Vince. Don’t worry about any spelling mistakes. Folk’ll think it funnier when they find out it was painted by a child, and it’ll cost you nowt other than a bar of chocolate.” There were nods of approval at Pete’s idea. “Something similar was a batch of adverts put on the TV this week by Tesco trying to get folk to wear a mask in their stores. Loads of so called facts and figures to back up their viewpoint, but the punch line on all of them was ‘Just wear a mask.’ I considered it to be part of the usual nonsense put out to make the idiots try to stay safe. My view was let the idiots die, the sooner the better. Like anyone with any sense I always wear a mask going into anywhere outside of Bearthwaite and I only leave the village when it’s unavoidable. However, what makes the tale interesting was Gladys’ take on it. She reckoned that the idiots should just calm down, cos all Tesco was asking them to do was just to wear a mask. She reckoned it was no big deal, and in fact it was incredibly liberating. She said, ‘If Tesco say so it must now be official. You can now leave the house having left you bra, knickers and teeth at home wearing your birthday suit to go shopping, and as long as you have your mask on you’ll be fine.’ I telt her, in her shoes I shouldn’t even consider it till the weather improved a bit.” There were tears of laughter on some of the men’s faces as they considered the usually robust and cynical land lady’s remarks.

Charlie laught and said, “If someone telt me she’d done it just to test her theory I have to say I wouldn’t dismiss the tale completely out of hand immediately, Pete.”

“For Christ’s sake don’t even suggest the idea to her, Charlie. I’m already regretting telling her to wait for better weather. Now if someone will stoke the fires and let the dogs out that want a run I’ll pull a few pints, Lads.”

Harriet came in to top up the dogs’ water and kibble from the two pails she was carrying in time to hear her dad’s request. “I’ll let the dogs out, Dad, as soon as I’ve topped their bowls up. It’s not too cold, so I’ll leave the back door ajar so they can get back in. As soon as they return will someone go and close it please.”

Pete said, “I’ll do it, Love. Thanks. What’s on the menu tonight, Love?”

“Spaghetti, with venison meatballs in Bolognaise sauce. Veronica wants to try a few new dishes. Uncle Vincent made the meatballs.”

As eyes turned towards Vincent he shrugged and said, “The venison came off the A69 courtesy of Harry’s mate Jake. He hit one and found the other nearby on Tuesday. Not a lot of damage to either. I butched them, and he took his money in meat. He’s very partial to my Cumberland sausage, and I threw in one of my small home cured hams as part of the deal. It was a good deal for both of us. The best cuts of the venison had gone and I’d given the offal away to those who’d be glad of a bit before I closed the shop that day, but the trimmings and a good bit of poorer meat was left. I knew it wouldn’t cook well as it was because like a lot of game it was very lean. I’d originally been intending to use it with some extra fat in meat pies, but when Rosie took Veronica’s order for the week she telt me Veronica wanted meatballs for tonight’s supper. I rang her to ask if venison meatballs would be okay, and she said that would be okay as long as she could have at least five kilos. I said I’d make it up to that with other meat and that was that. I minced the trimmings and some fatty pork to help it cook properly, but there was over seven and a half kilos by the time I’d done. Veronica said she’d use it even if she had to freeze some.”

Vincent looked at Harriet and she said, “There was none left, Uncle Vincent. If some one finds out how many want to eat supper and lets me know I’ll know how much spaghetti to cook. You’d better count Uncle Alf and Bertie as two each.”

Alf smiled but said, “Bertie may, but I don’t eat twice as much, Lass.”

Pete laught and said, “Agreed. It’s nearer three times as much,” to much general laughter.

“Talking of food,” began Stan, “Julie and I spent the evening at her sister’s near Silloth last week. We had a drink in the Golf Hotel, but decided not to eat there and had pie, peas and chips [US fries] back at Julie’s. Davy and I peeled the spuds and the lasses did the rest. The pies were Holland’s peppered steak pies that Julie explained she’d bought by mistake when buying Holland’s steak and kidney puddings. Davy is fond of steak puddings so she usually buys six packets at a time that contain four in a packet. The packaging is a heavy duty plastic bag and mostly dark green. She shewed us the packages from the pies and the puddings and they looked very alike. She reckoned someone must have changed their mind and put the pies back in the wrong place in the freezer. All that sort of stuff she buys from Iceland in Carlisle. She just counted out six packages and one of them was clearly the pies. Now don’t get me wrong I love all Holland’s products, especially their steak and kidney puddings. They are a producer of top quality food items and those pies tasted excellent, but they should have been labelled steaked pepper pies. Jesus, were they hot. Tasty, but God alone knows how much pepper they contained. Davy hit the nail right on the head when he said he was glad there was only the one packet of them and we’d just seen them off. He went for four bottles of lager from the fridge and Julie just went for the glasses. Take my advice, Lads, unless you enjoy Vindaloo(5) for breakfast give them a miss, and be careful when shopping with your missus.

“Staying with food, Lads,” said Gerry, “One of my ex work colleagues telt me a tale he over heard when shopping at a Morrison’s supermarket a while back with his missus. The speakers were a young mother and her little girl of about five. She also had a young baby who contributed nothing to the conversation. The conversation went as follows, the girl said, ‘I don’t want to eat meat any more, Mummy.’ The mother calmly and reasonably said, ‘Okay, but why is that, Love?’ The reply was ‘I don’t think animals like being put in the oven, Mummy.’ The mother nodded and said, ‘That’s probably true, but it’s Friday today, Love, so what would you like to eat instead of fish?’ Her daughter replied with great dignity as though talking to someone who was clearly not in full possession of her faculties, ‘Mummy, fish are not animals!’ Out of the mouths of sucklings and babes.” Many of the men were smiling. Most had reared children and had grandchildren and knowing that children operated a logic of their own could relate entirely to the tale.

“Food is it? I’ve a one from long before I moved here. I can’t recall where Hazel and I were living at the time, but it was probably outside of Penrith somewhere. We lived in four or five different places round the town over the several years we were there. I really like Cumberland sausage and Hazel usually bought a five pound deal from the local butcher every few months. It was a generations old firm that had a really good reputation that we both considered was entirely deserved. Hazel decided to cook what she refers to as sausage thing. It’s a casserole with tinned Italian tomatoes, onion, potatoes a touch of chilli and sausages cut into inch lengths. I like it. In a reorganisation of the freezers we’d found all sorts that we’d forgotten we even had bought. There were a lot of different sausages including three one pound bags of the Cumberland. Hazel used two different one pound packs of sausage that looked like they came from the coöp and one of the bags of Cumberland. I was really looking forward to my dinner that night. The casserole as a whole was excellent, but the Cumberland sausage tasted disgusting. The other sausage was okay but the Cumberland tasted of rancid fat. It took me a while to work it out. It was our fault, not the butcher’s. There was a big sign in his shop that clearly stated, ‘We use no artificial additives of any kind including preservatives, colourings and flavourings in any of our products.’ There’s the answer. The coöp sausage contained who knows what in the way of anti-oxidants, other preservatives, and other stuff too, the ingredients list is seriously long, but the Cumberland didn’t and again who knows how long they’d been lurking at the bottom of our freezer.”

Vincent nodded and said, “I don’t use artificial additives either. They cost money, and I’d rather not tamper with what is perfectly good food that doesn’t need them. I advise folk not to freeze sausage or any fatty meat for more than three months. If the fat turns on a joint at least you can cut it off, but sausage, haggis, faggots, pies and the like can only be threwn out or fed to pigs once they’ve gone.”

“You mind I telt a tale a while back about when I was courting Siobhan and we went to the fair.” A number of Pat’s listeners were nodding at the recollection. “That was the time I bought the hare from one of the lads in the tap. We’d not long been at the fair and only been on a couple of rides. I’d spent a fiver to win a two quid teddy bear for Siobhan on one of the stalls. She’s still got it, reckons it’s the best present I ever gave her. There’s no understanding women at all is there? Still they’re wearing the kit,(6) so maybe it all pans out in the end.” There were smiles all round at that. His audience were mostly long married men who understood the dynamics of maintaining long term relationships with the necessary degree of marital and domestic harmony. “We’d both had a burger early on, both with onions, mustard and ketchup. I’d played safe and checked the mustard was mild because a few years before I’d nearly blown my mouth apart when the hot dog I’d liberally dosed with what I’d assumed to be a mild French or German variety of mustard had proven to be English. Gunpowder the French call it. Closer inspection of the label on the bottle had shewed the stuff to be Coleman’s finest. The ketchup seemed a bit thin, and it tasted awful. I reckon they’d thinned it down, maybe to get the last out of the bottle, with pure vinegar. Still all was not lost, we wiped it off with a couple of the paper towels and after that the burgers were quite edible. We came across a couple of lads threwing their guts up a bit later, and I asked if they were okay. It was far too early for them to be pissed. One of them managed to mutter, ‘For fuck’s sake don’t touch the hot dogs, Mate. The ketchup’s lethal.”

After that it was time for refreshing glasses, visits to the gents and checking how much time they’d had before supper. Harriet telt them, “Fifteen minutes, Gentlemen, possibly twenty, but no more than that. Mum’s organising it for the room now.”

Pete asked, “Anyone got a quick one to fill in with?”

Sasha replied, “A super short. Elle and I were watching a film the other night. Part of it was about a wedding. When it reached the bit where the bride tosses her bouquet over her shoulder, I said to Elle, ‘That’s a good custom that. We don’t do that at home, but at my funeral you could take a bunch off the coffin and throw it into the crowd to see who’s next.’ That was the point at which she hit me and said that I could spoil anything.” There were roars of laughter at that, but it hadn’t used up any significant amount of time.

Sasha asked, “You doing anything interesting at the moment Alf?”

“Not particularly. Only thing of interest is Mark wants to make a couple of shavehorses. A shavehorse is a bench on legs that has a foot operated clamp to hold a work piece still while you work on it typically with a drawknife or a spokeshave. He wants ’em made so they can be pulled apart easily, so they pack up tidy in his van taking up the minimum amount of space, and reassembled on site as easily. To do that he wants the tenons on the leg tops to be a tapered fit in the mortises in the bench, so they can be pulled out. He’s okay about turning the tenons on the legs, but wants me to make a tool for creating the tapered mortises. He shewed me a Youtube clip where a bloke made his own scraper to do the job. It’s obvious, but as I’ve said before all clever ideas are. The channel is called The Homestead Craftsman. He’s American, from the south I think given his accent and quite young, but skilled and clever. He drilled the holes through the bench at angles, so that the legs splay out for stability. The initial holes were drilled one inch in diameter with a brace and bit which was big enough to insert the tapered scraper so as to shape the mortises. Mark wants me to make the scraper like the one on the Youtube clip. The bloke on Youtube used a keyhole saw blade that he’d filed the teeth off. The blade had an acceptable taper to it, and then he sharpened it like a cabinet scraper by forming a burr on its edges with a burnisher, which is just a length of round hard steel maybe six millimetres [¼ inch] in diameter. He turned a piece of hardwood to the same taper as the scraper blade and slit the hardwood down the middle to accommodate the blade. The trick is to get the slit so when the blade bottoms out the edges protrude just enough to cut and form the taper. To make sure he didn’t cut too far he finished the cut with a Japanese handsaw constantly checking the fit. The hardwood has a hole drilled through the top to insert a tee bar type handle to turn it with. His handle looked like a piece of a dark wooden branch, but I’ll use some oak dowel. It’s clever. There’s a jig he made that has a scraped tapered hole through it. He cut it in half to provide a template for the leg tenons. I’ll make one for Mark. The shavehorse I saw on Youtube had four legs, but Mark wants them with three legs, so they won’t rock no matter how uneven the surface it’s sitting on is.”

“Start making room on the tables please, Gentlemen. I’ll bring your cutlery first. A knife, a fork and a spoon. The adventurous can wrap the pasta round your fork with its end in a spoon to stop it falling off. If you want to play safe you can cut it into shorter lengths. Mum and I used some old sheets to make big napkins with. It was hemming them that took the time and that’s why Veronica hasn’t cooked spaghetti as soon as she wanted to. We’ll dish up on the bar and there’s a large bowl of grated Parmesan cheese for any that want some. I’ll be back in a moment.” With that Harriet disappeared to return with a pile of napkins and the cutlery on a small trolley. A couple of minutes later a pair of cauldrons appeared, along with a huge bowl of the grated cheese with a spoon stuck in it, a serving ladle for the meatballs and sauce and a strange looking implement to serve the pasta with. It looked like a deep serving spoon but with half a dozen bits sticking out at the sides with which to capture the spaghetti. Clearly many were familiar with eating spaghetti, but a few were not, or not for long anyway.

“By hell that was tasty, Lass. Never thought that I’d be eating that in a taproom. Make sure Veronica is aware it was appreciated will you?”

“No problem, Uncle Phil. If you’ll pass the plates over I’ll load them onto the trolley and wipe the tables down.”

“Did you know that’s what we were going to be eating, Pete?”

“No, Alf. The girls don’t appreciate me sticking my nose into what they consider to be none of my business. Like most of us I just go for a quiet life and eat what I’m given.”

“Amen to that. At least I know I’ll never get offered Prawn Craptail here,” said Alf to general agreement. His pejorative reference to Prawn Cocktail was a view they more or less all agreed with.

“Before we start, Pete, let’s have a few bottles of the rare stuff out. I fancy some of the hostage rum and some of Græme’s offerings.”

“I’ll get some, Sasha. Any one else want something?”

“I fancy a drop of Sasha’s grappa, but I’ll help you bring it all up.”

“Right you are, Alf, thanks.”

With pints on the table, the kid’s Christmas Party collection box passed round for charitable donations and shot glasses filled with their poison of choice the men were looking round to see what was up next. Nothing seemed to be forthcoming, so Pete asked, “Sasha, it doesn’t look good. It’s early for dominoes. Any chance you can find something for us to listen to?”

“I can tell a short one or two involving my cats, but I haven’t got a lot to offer. Like a few of us in here my cats are ageing. I’ve lost a couple recently as many of you know, but the others are not pulling their weight. I think they’ve decided to retire from the vermin annihilation business. Fair enough at their age I suppose. What really pisses me off is their blatant conmanship. A couple of weeks ago we discovered we’d got mice upstairs, and Elle observed one of the cats watching as a cocky mouse ran across the front room and started to eat from the cats’ food bowls. She went ballistic. She’s not bothered by mice, but I’ve never called any of the cats a fraction of the names she did, and of course they completely ignored her. Result? I bought some traps off Ebay. I considered what to bait them with. Cheese is traditional, but a bloke I knew years ago swore by chocolate. However, after some thought I decided no, I’ll give the little bastards what they like: cat food.

“Well that worked. I nailed six in a week. I placed the trap where I’d seen them run. At the back of the cooker. I didn’t know there was a gap behind the wall units big enough for a mouse to use, but it’s said if a pencil can go down a hole so can a mouse. The first one I found on the hearth rug in the living room complete with a trap decorating its neck. One of the cat’s had found it and brought it in for presentation, as they always used to do with what they’d caught themselves, and the damned animal was expecting to praised and petted for a bloody mouse I’d had to catch my self. That’s just taking audacity to new heights. Now, they’ve not completely retired. The next mouse I found was in the living room again, but the buggers had obviously been playing toss the mouse. After one of them has caught and broken a mouse they get pissed off because it won’t play their favourite game any more, so they make it move by flicking it up into the air, so they can chase after it till they lose it, usually under the furniture. Elle checks every couple of days to avoid smells and flies. This time they somehow managed to lose it just under the edge of the hearth rug. How do I know? I know because I trod on it and it burst. You wouldn’t believe how high up a wall an exploding mouse can reach. I cremated the remains on the living room fire and washed the wall.

“The most exciting thing to happen recently, well exciting from the cats’ point of view was when a bat flew into the kitchen. I don’t know how much money’s worth of glass ware and crockery they smashed as heedless of anything other than the bat they ploughed their ways across the table, the work surfaces and everything else that would enable them to jump higher regardless of where they would land. Elle wasn’t fit to speak to for ten days. Why I ask is it always my fault? And why when they are nice to her are they her cats, but when they trash the spot ownership of them instantly transfers to me?

“One more episode. We’ve had a stray coming in through the cat flap and ours don’t get on with it. Neither of us have ever laid eyes on it, but it comes in to eat. I’ve heard ours squaring up to it in the middle of the night. Fighting cats get bloody noisy for a while before they actually set to. I always go and disturb them because cats can inflict some pretty horrific injuries on each other. I noticed one of ours was obviously not well. Just sleeping and not taking any interest in any thing. He’s usually very affectionate, but he was not his usual self. I notice something on the side of his head and investigated. It was dried pus. Cat bites always get infected. So I reckoned he’d been bitten. He’s a gentle lad, and you can do pretty much anything with him, unlike his brother who won’t put up with much at all. I’ve an electric clipper, so I clipped the fur off the side of his face and I could see the four puncture marks of a full on bite. The skin seemed puffy so with some damp kitchen towel I cleaned off the dried stuff in the puncture wounds and squeezed. A huge amount of pus came out, so I cleaned him up. I’d got a tube of antibiotic in the fridge that I’d had from the vet ages before for the same cat’s eyes when he had an infection. It was well out of date but I reckoned it was better than nothing and worth a try. He was better the day after, not well but better. The day after that he was back to his normal self, but it took a couple of months before his fur grew back where I’d shaved it off. Top my glass up, Bill, please. You’ve got the grappa.”

“Anyone for anything else before we have the dominoes out?” Asked Pete.

“I can tell a super short,” A stranger who none had ever seen before said with a little hesitation in his voice. Seeing only encouragement he said, “I’m Pierre, I was born and still live in Carlisle, but my mum is French. I’m a salesman for an engineering company, so I get around a fair bit. I like stories because an oral tradition is important and someone told me about this spot ages ago. I’ve been meaning to come for a drink here on a Saturday for a couple of months, but work sent me up into the Highlands for weeks. My patch includes the Highlands and Islands, Cumbria, Northumbria and the Isle of Man. A few years ago I was at a five day conference in Hamburg. It was an international conference and there were folk there from all over the globe, mostly men, but a few women too. I was having a drink in the bar one evening mid week with a group whose companies produced similar products to mine. There was an American woman in the group, and at first I thought she was just trying a bit too hard. It’s understandable, it’s tough for a woman in what is an essentially male business and there are a lot of male chauvinist pigs in my line of work. So to help her out a bit I asked her if she was flying straight back to the States after the conference. She said she had some holidays owing and was planning on doing a bit of sight seeing. She said she was catching a ferry to the Isle of Man and she particularly wanted to see Snaffle.

I didn’t acknowledge her mispronunciation and we carried on chatting. She gradually came over as an overbearing, arrogant woman rather than one struggling for recognition in a male world. By that point I really didn’t like her and was looking for a tactful way to leave. She asked me very condescendingly had I ever visited the states. I told her that I was spending some time there with my wife in the summer and we both wished to visit Yosemite National Park. However, I deliberately mispronounced it Yos-see-might, purely to see how she would respond. As quick as a knife she was at my throat for my ignorance. I just smiled and said, ‘I know it should be pronounced Yo-sem-i-tee, though most Americans seem to pronounce it Yo-sem-i-dee. It is only your bad manners that enable to tell you that the mountain you referred to as Snaffle is actually pronounced Snaefell. That’s snae as in sleigh and surely the letter a followed by the letter e in the word should have at least told you Snaffle wasn’t correct. Good evening. I am going to seek politer company elsewhere.’ I don’t have a downer on Americans nor indeed anyone else, but I hate bad manners.”

“Interesting tale, Pierre. We could all do with a great deal more tolerance and good manners. That makes life easier for everyone. Now I reckon it’s time to freshen up glasses and get the dominoes out. Partner me, Lad?" asked Stan.

1 PSV, public service vehicle.
2 MoT, refers to Ministry of Transport annual test certificate of road worthiness. Only mechanics that have the relevant certificates may grant an ‘MoT’ on any vehicle.
3 Border Farce, commonly used pejorative term for Border Force. Border Force is a law-enforcement command within the Home Office, responsible for frontline border control operations at air, sea and rail ports in the United Kingdom.
4 Dummy, baby pacifier.
5 Vindaloo, a particularly hot style of curry. One to work your way up to over time.
6 The lasses are wearing the kit, an expression used by northern UK 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.