A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 43 The Beck, The Wedding and The Limned Letter
Felicity and Geordie had moved into one of the recently vacated detached houses between the green and the metalled road up to the reservoir. Their wedding was a low key affair in the church. However, their reception was a much welcomed huge party in the Green Dragon dance hall at a time of year when not much was happening and the break from the boredom was appreciated. Much to Felicity’s amazement and Geordie’s delight Felicity was pregnant within a month of her wedding. Sun the Bearthwaite doctor was concerned because as he put it, “If ever I saw a woman who was engineered with anything other than pregnancy in mind you are she, Felicity. We shall have to take great care of you. I want you at the Cumberland Infirmary(1) long before there is any chance of you going into labour. I know you could turn me into mince meat, but this is what I do, and I’m good at it, so don’t fight me on this one please. If you need reassuring that I’m right talk to Susanna the midwife and the other nurses.”
“Okay, Sun. I’m not going to get upset because you’re telling me the truth as you see it, even if I don’t like it. I believe you. I’m just the one with the loaded uterus here, you’re the expert on how it works. What are the chances of me giving birth to a healthy baby and living to tell the tale? And don’t sugar coat it or try to bullshit me. I know you can’t see the future. But what’s your honest opinion?”
Sun was no fool and there were many patients who asked for the truth when in reality if it were bad news it was the last thing they wanted, but he knew Felicity was not one of them. “If you give birth at the infirmary, I’d say there’s less than a fifty fifty chance the gynae and obstetrics experts there will go along with a vaginal delivery as opposed to a Caesarian section. If you have a section the experience will be no different from that of any other woman delivering that way. If you opt for a vaginal delivery and they agree to go with that you will suffer some damage that can be repaired by suturing. It will probably be worse that that suffered by most women, and they may end up having to section you anyway. There is no way they will suggest a vaginal delivery, and they will only buy into it if you insist and they consider it will not threaten your or the baby’s life. However, I see no reason no matter what happens that you should not have a healthy baby as long as we have you there in plenty of time.”
Felicity took some time to think and then asked, “I know you are a man, but I need help here. If you were you in my place what would you do?”
Sun was quiet but positive and said, “I’d opt for a Caesarian section. You’d be back on your feet sooner and have no vaginal damage requiring repair, likely no pelvic floor loosening potentially leading to degree of loss of bladder control as you age. There are claims in the literature of women who’ve had children via a section have a better love life due to remaining tighter, but there is not enough evidence available for that to be any more than a claim at present. These days after a section there would be no problem having another if you decided to, which could be problematic if you opted for a vaginal birth or if the Caesarian were done as an emergency procedure rather than as a planned one. I’m sorry if a vaginal delivery was what you really wanted, Felicity, but you are just not built for it. I don’t even need to examine you to know that is the case. Any doctor, midwife, or indeed anyone else who was familiar with pregnancy and childbirth could tell you that just by looking at you fully clothed. I’d forget about all the possible and claimed benefits were I in your shoes and only be interested in the issue of safety.”
“No need to be sorry, Sun. I just wanted it all laid out for me to consider. I hadn’t considered having another, but it’s not an altogether silly idea. Thank you for your honesty, and I’ll be taking your advice. Caesarian section it is.”
“You have no idea how many medical personnel are going to be relieved to hear you say that. Me most of all.”
As Felicity left she thought, “Well, that’s that decision made, and I don’t doubt I’ve just avoided a major row with Geordie. I wonder if he wants to keep practising to be ready for making baby number two?”
Peter travelled down to London by train with Gustav his dad to meet with Doctor Tenby the transgender specialist. Harriet his mum and Brigitte his sister had decided to stay at Bearthwaite, and all four of them had been happy with the arrangement. It wasn’t till the receptionist had shewn them in to Dr Tenby’s consulting room that Gustav noticed Peter betraying any signs of apprehension. It was the first time Gustav had seen him reach for anyone’s hand. “It’ll be okay, Peter. I’ll be here all the time.”
Dr Tenby was a small, elderly woman with silver hair and a pleasant and welcoming smile which relaxed Gustav though it did little for Peter’s nervousness. She chatted with Peter in an attempt to help him relax, but seeing it wasn’t working she said, “Perhaps on this first visit, Peter we had better just get it over with. When you come to see me again it will be easier, for it will not be a completely unfamiliar experience. I have looked at your blood results and puberty is not on your horizon yet, so you have no need of any medications, but I shall wish to have blood test results every three months which I have informed Dr Wing of, okay?”
Peter spoke for the first time, “Dr Wing said you were one of his teachers and that you were a nice lady.”
Dr Tenby laught and said, “I hope he still thinks I am a nice lady. You are lucky to have him as your GP,(2) for he is a very talented young man.”
“He said you would do a quick physical examination all over and give me a really long and tough grilling about being a boy. He said when you have finished you’ll know what goes on in my head better than I do. I said that I thought that was okay because I’d just be glad someone understood what went on in my head because I didn’t. I still don’t. What are you going to do first?”
“If you agree, the examination to get it out of the way. Once it’s over I suspect you will relax a bit more. Are you bothered by your father being here?”
“Of course not. He’s my dad, and I’m a boy. Why should I be bothered? I want him here.”
“That’s fine. I just wanted to be sure you are as comfortable about everything as is possible. Would you please go behind the screen and undress completely. Call me when you are ready. Normally I would have my receptionist nearby sitting where she can’t see anything, but knows what is going on. Though not a legal requirement it is a sensible precaution that protects both of us. The patient from abuse, and me from malicious accusations. However, with your father present that is unnecessary. I’ll remind you of what I told you in my letter. The consultation is being video recorded so I can write up my notes from the video. Your examination will only be recorded by audio the camera will not be able to capture any images of either of us. Okay?”
Peter nodded and said, Okay.” He let go of Gustav’s hand and did as he’d been requested, but to Dr Tenby’s surprise he said, “Dad, come here please. Dr Tenby, I’m ready.” Gustav shrugged his shoulders at Dr Tenby and went behind the screen to find Peter sitting on the edge of the examination couch holding his hand out. Dr Tenby followed him, if she had any surprise at seeing a naked, eleven year old, biological female holding his father’s hand she kept it to herself. It was a thorough examination that included Peter’s genitalia. Despite Dr Tenby’s clear and frank explanations of exactly what she was going to do and why Peter found the experience with the speculum traumatic, but it was soon all over, and Peter was left to dress.
“I’ll never have to do that again, Peter. If you have GRS in the future your surgeon will have to examine you internally to find out exactly what he or she has to work with, but that can’t happen till you are at least eighteen. I’m sure you found that distressing because it will have challenged how you see yourself as a boy. Yes?”
Gustav was amazed at how easily Dr Tenby drew Peter into a conversation about himself, his feelings about his body, his history going back as far back as he could remember, before he was even aware that there were differences between girls and boys that went beyond the clothes they wore. Gustav almost smiled as he thought this is what she has done for a living for a long time, so it should be easy for her. The abuse Peter and his sister had suffered was explored and an hour and a quarter later the doctor asked, ‘Is there anything else you think I should know?’
At first Peter shook his head, then he said, ‘Only maybe about Violet. She’s fourteen and likes me a lot. I like her a lot too. We both like doing stuff at the Model Railway club. I’m more into modelling the viaduct across the Solway, but she’s into modelling the station, the convalescent home and the airfield. She’s nice.”
“So is it just your shared enjoyment in the Model Railway club that makes you friends?”
Peter was quiet for a long time before finally saying, “No. She’s a girl and I’m a boy and that matters…it matters to both of us.” He shrugged and said, “I’m only eleven. You can’t expect me to have worked all that sort of stuff out yet.”
Dr Tenby smiled and said, “No I can’t can I? Not when that is the sort of thing some adults never manage to work out. How does you being trans affect Violet?”
There was no hesitation from Peter this time, “It doesn’t. She says I’m obviously a boy with a medical issue that will get fixed in a few years. I don’t know why she likes me when there are loads of older boys who like her, but that’s just another thing I haven’t worked out yet.”
As the appointment drew to a close, Dr Tenby said “I know you will think I am stating the obvious, Peter, but you are a trans boy. I shall want to see you in six months, sooner if your hormone levels elevate. I shall type up my notes for Dr Wing and send your parents a copy. It is not critical, but I would like to meet your mum and sister some time. Now that wasn’t too bad was it?”
“No, but I didn’t like that spectrum thing.”
Dr Tenby smiled and said, “No woman does, and I should imagine it is much much worse for a trans boy or man.” As she stood up she said, “You have an amazing relationship with your son, Herr Meltzer. A relationship that many of my younger patients could only dream about having.” She escorted them to the door and shook hands with them as they said goodbye.
“You hungry, Son?”
“I didn’t think I would be, but I am. That gadget was gross, Dad.”
“I don’t doubt it. Will a steak with all the trimmings make life any better? because I really do not wish to poison myself with train food.”
“Yeah. Much better. I wonder if I can have some button mushrooms with mine. How long have we got till the train leaves?”
“Long enough to eat a steak and have a bottle of beer without rushing. The beer they sell from the pumps down here is nothing like what you’re used to at home. I won’t touch it, but a bottle of Guinness will be okay. I saw a steak house with decided possibilities as we walked here. Maybe a quarter of a mile, just around the corner. Before we eat you’d better ring your mum. She and your sister will be on tenterhooks waiting to hear from you.”
“Okay, and thanks, Dad. Love you loads.”
Gustav was keenly aware that his son must have felt under extreme stress to have said that and knew that the best response was an emotionally minimal one that had to be honest and meaningful. It took a few seconds for him to come up with, “Nay bother, Son, it’s what dads are for, it goes with the job,” which he realised from Peter’s reaction was the perfect response.
Properly speaking Bearthwaite Beck had its source on the fells to the west of the top of the centuries old pack pony trail where after a fifteen hundred foot climb it emerged from the ravine that led up from the valley floor onto the fells above the head of the Bearthwaite valley. The water collected on many square miles of the rocky terrain which funnelled it together to cascade down the precipitous ravine over the rocks that were no longer a thouroughfare for intrepid men and over burdened ponies but a leisure activity that adventurous visitors scrambled up in waterproofs during the summer months following the route laid out in great detail in Tommy Dowerson’s Wainwright(3) style guide book. The beck also collected water from numerous springs at the ravine sides on its descent and it never truly ran dry. At the bottom of the ravine the beck ran on downhill dropping only slightly on its way to pass Pant Pedwar, where it watered the farm’s livestock and their grazing. From there it slowly dropped about two hundred feet before its débouchément at the reservoir.
Before the creation of the reservoir there had long been a much smaller dam there that had enhanced the size of the small natural water to form the millpond that had fed the millrace to power the flour mill. Many centuries later at the time of the creation of the reservoir a further race had been constructed to power the bobbin mill that was at a lower elevation than the flour mill. After the creation of the reservoir the primary rights to the water retained by the estate that owned the bobbin mill ensured there had always been enough water available to power the flour mill too, for the water after turning the flour mill works continued down to assist powering the bobbin mill. The water outlet from the bobbin mill had been at too low an elevation for the water board, as it was then, to use, but when the bobbin mill closed the water board took the water the bobbin mill had used directly from the reservoir, and there had not always been sufficient water left to power the flour mill. The resulting court case had prevented any from taking so much water that the flour mill, which was known to have been in operation for going on five centuries and possibly well more than double that, could no longer operate, but the water company had channelled the outlet from the flour mill into their pipe system instead of allowing what was an insignificant proportion of the entire flow to make its way into the lower reach of Bearthwaite Beck.
In the days before the reservoir the water taken by the flour mill millrace had been an insignificant fraction of the water coming into the millpond most of which had continued undisturbed via the millpond overflow sluices to keep the lower reach of Bearthwaite Beck full and the Bearthwaite Lonning more or less flooded all year round. Originally Bearthwaite Beck was a continuous flow of water from the top of the fells down to The Rise, barely affected by the millpond and the flour mill. Even the reservoir and the working bobbin mill had not dissected the beck into the two separate watercourses it was now considered to be. Most folk nowadays, even locals, thought of Bearthwaite Beck in terms of its lower reach only. The beck’s upper reach above the reservoir was no longer considered most of the time to be part of the same watercourse. For years the reservoir sluices had been set to spill any overflow into the lower reach of the beck, but there had rarely been any overflow due to the water taken by the utility company, and most of the year the lower beck reach had been dry. In turn that had meant the Calva Marsh had not been a marsh for most of the year for going on two centuries. The effect that had had on the wildlife there, both flora and fauna, had been catastrophic, but because it had taken place so long ago few were truly aware of its severity. Those few were all Bearthwaite folk who retained the folk wisdom and knowledge of their environs that had been passed down to them by their elders when they’d been but bairns.(4)
Outsiders saw the beck as a drainage ditch, but locals had a nostalgic fondness for the beck and had always felt its loss keenly. That the loss had been passed down through the generations did not diminish its impact on those who missed it, for it was a rural Cumbrian’s expectation that a valley in the fells had a body of water(5) and flowing water of some description. It had long been that the residents of Eskdale felt cheated for being a major Cumbrian valley with no body of water. The Bearthwaite valley had the reservoir, referred to by locals as Bearthwaite Water. To them the reservoir referred to the dam and its workings and not the water. Like Thirlmere, Bearthwaite Water may have been mostly man made, but it was naytheless a water. They also had Bearthwaite Beck, which though it went underground at The Rise seeping through the fractured igneous rock to reëmerge welling up in the marsh almost but not quite outside the edge of the Bearthwaite estate it still counted as flowing water, but they believed it should have water in it every day of the year for the water to enable that was available, and they had long resented that the utility company had taken every drop of water they could squeeze out of the valley to supply outsiders who lived over a hundred miles to the south which had deprived the locals of their heritage for so long. What added insult to injury was the poor state of repair of the network of pipes operated by the utility company. The pipework was in such a poor condition that a large proportion of the water taken from Bearthwaite, and everywhere else, never reached its intended destination and just soaked away into the ground, and despite public and official criticism of that the utility company were believed to just be paying lip service to the official criticisms with their statements that they were improving things as fast as possible. It was widely believed that as long as their shareholders were kept quiet with massive dividend payments the company had no intentions of diverting any of those profits into providing a better service by making the water supply more resilient under condition of drought. It was said by environmental groups the company behaved as though they believed climate change to be a myth.
The watershed of Bearthwaite Beck was huge for such a small watercourse. The entire valley was going on for fifteen miles long and the width of the valley as measured from the peaks of the fells on both its sides that divided the Bearthwaite Beck watershed from its adjacent watersheds was going on for thirty-five miles. The area of the watershed was usually given as approximately six hundred square miles. When it rained even lightly a huge volume of water eventually made its way into the beck at the valley bottom flooding it and the road too unless the water was pumped away. Twice in living memory, thrice if one took account of the memory of recently deceased Davy Parker who had died at the age of a hundred and three, the flood water had topped The Rise that ran right across the valley just inside its entrance and flooded the main road where the Bearthwaite Lonning Ends joined it rendering the main road impassable. The village was at a significantly higher elevation than the top of The Rise so had never been threatened with flooding.
The reservoir had long supplied a small quantity of water to the waste water treatment plant and also to the sewage works. The water treatment plant took in the village’s gray water(6) and treated it via bacterially active filtration beds. Once treated it was used as irrigation water by local farms and the allotments site. The sewage works had always settled the black water(7) it was fed with from the lavatories of the village via the sewers before dewatering reduced its volume to a sewage sludge which the utility company had taken away untreated in bulk tankers, to where none knew and locals had never asked. The water removed as a result of settling and dewatering had been passed through bacterially active filtration beds too, but the process had not been very efficient and had still left potentially dangerous pathogens in the water. Even so it had been periodically dumped in to the beck diluted by a much larger volume of clean water from the reservoir by the utilities company, but even that had not enabled the beck to flow. Now under the management of BBEL rather than the utility company the water was subject to a much more rigorous and efficient bio treatment before being pumped into the slurry tanks on Alan Peabody’s dairy farm to be used along with the liquid cow manure as fertiliser applied by direct injection into the ground. The remaining sewage sludge was now processed by a newly installed oxygenating, maceration composting process that rendered the sludge harmless. It too was then used as fertiliser on local farms applied by direct injection using the village’s recently acquired, huge, agricultural equipment operated by Alan Peabody’s farm workers.
As a result of Chance and Emily’s research and Adalheidis’ machinations it had been decided to shut off the water supply to the utility company and fight it all out in the courts. Adalheidis telt the board of BBEL that the utility company had no right to the water and they knew it, but that they would base their case on the fact that the water was needed elsewhere. Her argument in court was based on the premise, ‘So if one person takes what is someone else’s property without permission that is theft, but if tens or even hundreds of thousands of them take what is someone else’s property without permission that is okay? Well it’s not and further more it’s a ridiculous argument of no legal or moral merit whatsoever. I suggest you try taking ten thousand shoplifters to Tesco and see where that argument gets you in court. The water from the Bearthwaite reservoir, also known as Bearthwaite Water, is incontestably my client’s and not yours to take, and now as per the terms of their contract, a contract that is still in force even though the organisation it was signed by has changed hands several times since then, they are exercising their primacy rights to it, all of it. You are still legally bound by that contract. These days potable water is a valuable commodity, it is necessary in the diet of nearly every organism and vital for health and well being. It is food. Tesco and their like retail it in bottles in their beverages sections. If you like my client is prepared to sell it to you by the litre in PET(8) bottles. Your argument that the water is needed by the folk of the conurbations a long way to the south of Bearthwaite has merit and is doubtless true, but it is irrelevant, for their need does not legitimise your theft of what belongs to my client, and it is your responsibility, not my client’s, to legally meet their need.”
During the time the argument was being fought out in the courts, the utility company had tried to access the reservoir in order to reëstablish the connection to their pipework by force, but their employees had been prevented by over a thousand determined Bearthwaite residents who had called for the police. Seemingly the residents all had difficulty with walking which doubtless explained the stout walking sticks all were using. Sergeant Michael Graham, the senior police officer, who was Bearthwaite born and bred, had telt the utility company’s employees that if they didn’t leave they would be arrested for breach of the peace and trespass, and likely anything else the Bearthwaite solicitors could find to throw at them too. He advised them not to return and to allow their bosses to pursue the matter in the courts. After that it had been decided to remove a section of the utility company’s pipework so that even if they did manage to have folk acting on their behalf access the reservoir without any’s awareness, possibly by descending the pack pony trail ravine it had been suggested, it would avail them nothing. The twenty meter [66 feet] lengths of pipes had been removed and stored in the quarry, and the utilities company had been informed off the record that should they attempt another illegal, clandestine reconnection the pipework would be destroyed in several places using demolition explosives. Explosives the utility company management knew were a routine part of a demolition and site clearance business that operated out of Bearthwaite quarry. They also knew there were several Bearthwaite men who were adept in the controlled use of explosives. It hadn’t been explicitly mentioned but it was obvious to the utility company management that the reservoir dam itself was at risk if they tried to reconnect to the water supply without the consent of BBEL. It was a threat that was taken seriously.
Whilst the legal wrangling with the utility company had been going on the sluices had been opened to fill the beck via the fish hatchery. Once full it had been a surprise to all involved to discover that the amount of water required to keep the beck full was negligible due to its low rate of water loss through the quarter of a mile of barely fissured and fractured granite that comprised The Rise at its far end. As many had said with joy, ‘The beck’s back and back for good. Maybe the eels will return.’
In total from its source to its end the beck ran for maybe fifteen miles, perhaps a bit more. It was a mile or more from the far reaches of its headwaters high on the fells to Pant Pedwar, a further four to the reservoir, another two to the village and eight to where it percolated out of the valley through the fissured and fractured granite of The Rise. Bearthwaite Beck disappeared into the ground on the village side of The Rise(9) that trapped flood waters in the valley to emerge on the other side of The Rise into Calva Marsh(10) that didn’t have any running surface water till it formed Calva Beck.(11) Bearthwaite Beck only percolated slowly through the fissures in the rock that formed The Rise, which was why the valley was subject to flooding and it took so long for the water level to drop once the rain had ceased. The pumps put flood water over The Rise and onto the marsh ultimately draining into Calva Beck that started its run on Bearthwaite land some distance short of Bearthwaite Lonning Ends. Calva Beck and several other becks and gills(12) formed the river Calva(13) a mile or so past Bearthwaite Lonning Ends from where it ran into Calvamere(14) which was also used for a water supply by the utility company.
Over the past twenty years there had been objections to the pumps delivering water onto Calva Marsh that had been taken to court on three occasions, but they’d all been rejected. The first court case was rejected on the grounds that the water was merely being taken from one part of the Bearthwaite estate to be allowed to soak into the ground a very short distance away on another part of the estate. The second was rejected because it was argued successfully that the pumping had been going on for centuries using wind powered pumps situate at the top of The Rise and that was for sufficiently long before the first objection had been lodged that the ancient law of custom and usage applied which had legalised the practice. The third was rejected because it had not been demonstrated that the practice was damaging to any further down stream, nor that it was in any way detrimental to the environment. More recently with the past few years’ scarcity of rainfall and the falling levels of water in all natural and artificial water bodies the practice of effectively topping up Calvamere when the rain flooded the road was regarded by the utility company as something they and their customers benefited from and since they didn’t have to pay for it they were now happy about it. A few Bearthwaite folk had noticed that the Calva Marsh seemed to have recovered somewhat as a result of the pumping.
However, because they had in the past caused trouble for Bearthwaite by taking the matter of the pumping to court on three occasions Adalheidis was not of a mind to let the situation lie just because it was now legally sanctioned and it suited the utility company. Adalheidis was riding a high after having argued the utility company into the ground concerning giving up their water rights from the Bearthwaite reservoir and all else they had been involved with in the Bearthwaite valley. Her attitude as she explained to Murray, Chance and Emily was simple, “We beat them badly in the courts over the primacy of our right to the water. They hadn’t expected us to have historic records from scientifically accredited laboratories of the water quality they were dumping into the beck from the sewage works, nor that we would have costings and expert opinions of what the water quality would be after we installed a modern sewage plant which would not require us to bulk tank the sludge away. The authorities’ demand for information concerning what had been done with the sewage sludge they bulk tanked away has hurt them, for I have requested a copy under the Freedom of Information Act and included a copy in the information I submitted to the courts for their consideration. so whilst they’re still licking their wounds and feeling vulnerable I want to kick them where it hurts most whilst they aren’t organised enough to fight back. That way I reckon we’ll get a relatively quick win because their legal team is demoralised and frightened of me. I don’t want to give them time to get a new legal team up to speed. If we force the issue now they’ll have to use their existing team who will be frightened of being beaten again. There’s no way they can be an effective presence in court in that frame of mind. It’s very satisfying to beat a really sharp team of lawyers, but I have to say I’d far rather face a bunch that are running scared and whipped before they even start.
“I reckon if we petition the court with our intent regards Bearthwaite Water and include our actual water quality numbers of what goes into the beck as soon as they are available, rather than the lab’s projections, along with some thinly veiled hints that we’re going to try to take some of their other water extraction rights off them too, starting with Calvamere on the grounds that the pumping makes it our water, all mixed with as much barely associated nonsense as we can find going back to early Victorian times when a lot of the reservoirs were sanctioned in parliament, that will involve their legal team in endless research trying to find precedents to stave us off with, and they will just keep going with their existing team. I’ve no intention of turning that petition into a court case because it’s unwinnable, would cost us a fortune to pursue, and we don’t really wish to be bothered by ownership of the water anyway, but it will prevent them bringing in a new team which is my aim. Given the long range forecasts of less rain, water shortages, hosepipe bans and even in some parts stand pipes in the streets with supplies to individual properties and businesses shut off,(15) they are going to be in an increasingly difficult position with time. It may take us a twelvemonth to get them to the point where they need our water badly enough to make the concessions I’m after, and the farmers tell me that Auld Alan Peabodys says that sooner or later we’ll get a lot more rain than they bargained for or can cope with. That’s all the petition is about, burning time waiting for the weather to do my job for me without them putting a fresh team together. The most critical time is right now. Every day that passes makes it more dangerous for them to bring in a new team that will take months to get up to speed, and that makes it less likely that they will.
“However when the water starts topping The Rise the utility company will be getting the entire supply of precipitation from the Bearthwaite valley watershed into Calvamere without having to pay money for it, which doubtless to start with as the water level rises in the seriously depleted Calvamere will make them happy and they’ll treat us with disdain. Auld Alan Peabody, who even at ninety-odd is still as sharp as a tack, said that after the drought will come more water than any know what to do with. He added the worse the drought the more water we’ll get, for the evaporated water we haven’t received yet as rain will all still be up there in the sky somewhere and eventually the winds will settle down to their usual patterns, if only for a while, and when they blow that air bourne water this way the fells will cool the clouds and cause them to dump the lot in short order as rain. He said that history and the science bears him out and to check the records. I did, and if the trend is true we’ll be grateful that The Rise will be keeping water out of the valley rather than cursing it for keeping it in. Auld Alan said that at this time of year it’ll probably take six weeks from shutting off their supply of piped water to the water topping The Rise, and it’ll happen a lot faster than that if the drought breaks, maybe a matter of days.
“However, after their elation at what they’ll initially see as winning, it won’t take long before they’ll be getting grief from all over, the County Council, the Highways department, the Environment Agency and the public, but that will all pale into insignificance compared with what they’ll get from the media who are already seeing this as a David and Goliath issue. The price they’ll have to pay in opprobrium in the media will be more than they will be able to bear.
“I imagine they’ll hold out for somewhere between six and twelve months after that. The worst case scenario for us is that they try to legally take the water by means of a CPO(16) which they have to apply to the courts for and that will take time. Of course we will fight it which will take more time. However, at the first sign of any move in that direction Saul and his crew of wreckers are going to open the reservoir sluices to drain it safely and demolish the reservoir dam with explosives. They have enough on hand and have already placed the charges so it can be done with only a few hours notice. This is not a nice game we are playing and I am playing it for keeps. I intend to win no matter what. Since we own the reservoir dam and its workings we can’t be prosecuted for criminal damage, and after all, we don’t need Bearthwaite Water to be the size it is. A tarn17 sized water like the original millpond will serve all our needs, including keeping all happy that we still have a water, and once the water level has stabilized and all excess water has gone over The Rise the pumps will only have to cope with what they cope with at present which is only as much precipitation as falls as it falls.
Murray asked, “How are you going to get the information for the petition? It’ll take you months and you need it now.”
“That’s why I started researching the matter a twelvemonth or more ago and why I prepared the petition months ago and lodged it with the courts as soon as we established that our water rights still had the primacy they had when the contract was drawn up. I can add any extra material to the petition as it becomes available. A lot of what I needed has been discovered by chance, if you’ll pardon the pun, Chance. It goes back a long time, and a lot of it is gey ambiguous which will be well helpful to our cause. As soon as that hits their desks they’ll be frantic and none of them will be thinking straight. I reckon if they don’t put a fresh team together by the end of this month they never will, so I’m keeping the pressure on them to prevent them doing so. I’m paying a few of our bigger and tougher menfolk to take photographs in the vicinity of the utility company’s other sites in Cumbria whilst carrying surveying equipment. They are restricting themselves to public rights of way where they have a right to be. They are enjoying the job and I suspect they would probably do it for free, but from the complaints it’s obviously keeping the utility company gey twitchy. I’m constantly harassing the utility company’s legal team by writing to them asking for information concerning their other activities, and I’ll keep doing it. I don’t care if they keep refusing to provide that information, but it’s scaring the crap out of them wondering why I want it, and every refusal or silence is another opportunity for me to ask for it again, and ultimately demanding it via a Freedom of Information Act request with out me having to invent some other nonsense to ask for. The truth is I don’t want the information. I just want them distracted and focussing on the wrong issues. They are most worried about us going for the water they extract from Calvamere on the grounds that it is our water that comes from Calva Marsh on our property, so I’m trying to keep them focussed on that.”
As they heard her out Murray remarked to Chance and Emily, “She’s a monster with a taste for blood, but that’s no bad thing because she’s our monster.” Murray had no idea how good his words made Adalheidis feel, for after a lifetime of abuse she felt she had come home. Home, a place where she was respected, needed and loved too. Home was where she lived and was loved by Matt. She knew most folk were wrong about her husband, for Matt was not a stupid man who only came into his own with a bricklayer’s trowel in his left hand, for which his three brothers who were all right handed made fun of him. He was just very shy which made him inarticulate and reluctant to say anything other than about his trade in the presence of others. When they were on their own, his awe at having been able to win her, for she was clever and pretty, kept him shy, and he still didn’t say much, but he was a very loving and caring man who was becoming less silent with her as time went on. Thinking about that left hand of his made her smile, for it more than made up for his inabilities with words, and for certain he loved her more than any, never mind himself, could say, for when not longer after they had become couple an outsider had shouted hate speech at her for being trans it had taken all three of his brothers and several other friends to drag him off the unconscious man in order to prevent Matt from killing him.
Numerous witnesses had seen and heard what had happened and he had dropped the assault charge when his solicitor had pointed out that since he had threwn the first punch after witnessed hate speech if it went to court there was a real chance that he would go to gaol and Matt would receive no more than a caution. His solicitor advised him that his best bet was to drop the charge in exchange for Matt doing likewise, and then to stay away from Bearthwaite. That was the end of the matter, but it made Adalheidis love Matt the more, for he was the first who had ever protected her against the bigots. It also made Matt’s neighbours, men and women, respect him more, for a man who wouldn’t battle for his wife and kids was no man at all in their eyes. That not long afterwards Matt had finally raised the issue of adoption and registering with NCSG had made her married life perfect in her eyes.
Adalheidis eventually forced the utility company into acknowledging in writing that BBEL had a legal right to continue the pumping when and only when it suited BBEL by threatening to discontinue the practice. She was ignored for six months whilst their legal team and researchers wasted their time digging into old records concerning the other sites they extracted water from. Six months during which the flood water was left where it lay on the road to gradually seep away under ground so slowly that it could not be usefully recovered by the utility company. Six dry months during which the water level in Calvamere dropped to the point where the utility company were forbidden to extract further water by the Environment agency(18) on the grounds that if any further water were extracted it would adversely affect the flora and fauna of Calvamere and its environs. It was inconvenient for Bearthwaite residents who had to use the boat to cross the flood on a daily basis, but Alf had parked the village bus on the far side of the flood, and numerous folk left their vehicles there too which though it made the situation inconvenient it was manageable. All were solidly behind Adalheidis who made sure the residents of Bearthwaite were kept notified of every step in the intricate legal dance she was performing with those who were now considered to be the enemy. Most considered the situation to be amusing entertainment and a guaranteed source of enduring gossip.
As predicted by Auld Alan Peabody, after fourteen months of extremely dry weather, circumstances changed dramatically. Far away the huge volume, only to be measured in possibly millions of cubic miles, of the warm air that carried vast quantities of moisture, had been hovering overlong over the ocean for months, acquiring yet more moisture evaporated by the sun as it tarried, its absence causing the drought in the places where it had been expected long since. Finally it had been influenced to move as the now traditionally expected wind patterns stabilised and reasserted themselves to move the moisture saturated warm air barely perceptibly at first but with even less perceptible, yet positive for all that, acceleration eventually resulting in frighteningly noticeable ever increasing wind speeds in its usual direction of travel. Normally the warm air mass was gradually forced upwards over the hills of Wales, the north west of England and western Scotland cooling it. Once cooled and unable to hold its water load it normally lost its heavy water burden slowly over time only to dissipate to repeat the endless cycle so familiar to geography pupils at school.
This time it was different and things progressed much more rapidly. To the west of the Bearthwaite valley the fast moving and cooling moist air sank dramatically over the fells causing it to cool even more. On the fell tops the clouds were cold soaking wet and reduced visibility down to nil. It was to be a more significant event than the one that washed away the road bridge in Workington effectively cutting two parts of the town off from each other.(19) The now cold air was no longer able to contain the moisture and the heavens opened to deluge the county. The air’s water burden that fell on the Bearthwaite fell tops was delivered up to the ravine that led into the valley turning it into a completely unpassable force.(20). The rain cascaded off the Flat Top fells and the Needles fells rendering Bearthwaite Lonning unpassable for days at a time. Alf had said, “We can get the boat to the Rise, but what’s the point? The main road road is flooded, so there’s no going anywhere if we get there.” The previously super saturated clouds discharged their fourteen month precipitation debt in six weeks of non stop heavy rain, more than a typical year’s precipitation in six weeks, and even in a typical year most of the county received a lot of rain, it was what the north west of England was known for. On numerous occasions over a foot [300mm] of rain was recorded in just a few hours. A recently coined Bearthwaite joke had been that the Cullen family of vampires(21) would feel right at home in Cumbria.
As she’d predicted, at first the utility company thought their problems were over and they were openly dismissive and contemptuous of Adalheidis believing they had outlasted the feisty tranny(22) from the valley of the interbreds,(23) and no more negotiations would be necessary. They considered that they had won. That view didn’t last for long. Their problems were only just beginning. Adalheidis had received better advice from her neighbours, many of who like Auld Alan Peabody readily admitted that they were undoubtedly unlettered rustics, but they understood their immediate environment and its climate far better than the meteorologists who advised the utility company. The meteorologists were without doubt better equipped to advise them of the bigger picture, but the utility company’s most acute problems weren’t caused by the bigger picture they were caused by the media pictures of the floods that resulted from what happened over and within the Bearthwaite valley watershed.
Within days of the long hoped for rain, there’d been considerable pressure on the utility company to settle with BBEL from various bodies at several levels of significance, for once the water level in the valley had reached the top of The Rise every drop of water that fell within the Bearthwaite valley watershed pushed a drop of water over The Rise, and it didn’t stop raining gey hard for weeks. The main road had become inundated and had to be closed for months due to flooding. Even after the water had receded it took weeks to clear the road of enough mud and flood debris to make it usable. That had been a major headache to the local authorities and had been a matter of no concern at all to the residents of Bearthwaite. The drought had been a nightmare for the utility company, but the rain had become much worse. Their only solution was to settle with BBEL and buy the water piped direct from Bearthwaite Water which would prevent it running further down the valley, over The Rise and causing havoc on the main road which they were pilloried for in the media. As a result the utility company’s share price had plunged in free fall to its lowest ever price and there seemed to be no end in sight to that. They desperately hoped that by settling their share price would bounce back to something like what it had been before. Fortunately, they considered for a short while, their shares were trading well and eventually that did restore enough stock market confidence for the share price to start rising but the rate at which it rose was gey slow.
They should have looked more deeply into why their shares which had fallen in value so rapidly had selt so readily, but they just assumed it was the work of big institutional buyers, like pension fund managers, looking for a bargain and some ready money when the shares bounced back up to their former price. Their belief that institutional buyers were so confident that the share price would bounce gave them considerable confidence in their short term future. Unfortunately for the utility company directors the institutional buyers had no such confidence and had decided the future of the share price was too uncertain to risk buying and had dumped their shares onto the market and taken huge losses though as they watched the shares plummet in value further they considered things could have been a lot worse. Those shares had been snapped up on behalf of Sasha Vetrov as they bottomed out using hundreds of proxies and they were all under the control of Murray the Bearthwaite accountant who master minded their financial dealings, and Murray had a very different agendum from that of the utilities company. He was not particularly interested in making a profit from the shares and was definitely not their friend as they soon found out.
The drought followed by the floods and Murray’s activities eventually gave Adalheidis the leverage to prevail against the utility company. Their advisers said the likely hood of another similar drought and flood too with in the next decade was high and given the way the climate was changing those freak weather conditions were likely to become a frequent event rather than a freak one off. The utility company had other problems too elsewhere, but the Bearthwaite situation was the one that garnered the most media attention. The public loved it, for yet again David was seen to be toppling Goliath. At a top level meeting it had been realised the situation was not going to go away and if they wished to remain in the water supply business it was necessary to come to terms with Adalheidis in the short term and rethink their entire business with regard to changing weather conditions in the medium rather than the long term.
That Murray was wielding the block of shares he controlled as a weapon to vote against everything they proposed was worrying. Sooner or later they realised he would cause management decisions to be voted down. His block of shares was not huge but it was significant, for eventually when other share holders didn’t bother to vote on matters they were not interested in Murray’s shares would tip the balance. They were devastated when they realised he was acting on behalf of the Bearthwaite residents and that someone was still buying up their shares for him as fast as they came on the market. That many folk were still unloading their shares and accepting whatever they could get for them was bad enough, but what made it worse was they didn’t have enough liquidity to buy them back themselves and the stockbrokers all knew the only folk who would buy them were not going to be fleeced. The lack of demand essentially meant that those who would buy the shares set the price, for they were the only buyers in the market and would not bid against each other. By the time the stockbrokers realised that there was only one buyer who was using many proxies there were few shares left to be sold, for the unknown buyer had bought them all and was still in the market for the few remaining shares at the rock bottom price which was all they could command. It had been realised that under conditions of drought they would be desperate for whatever water they could acquire from the Bearthwaite valley whether that be indirectly via Calvamere as a result of the flooding or pumping over The Rise, or piped directly from Bearthwaite Water, and they needed to direct a considerable proportion of future profits not into shareholder dividends but into infrastructure investment, mostly their pipe network, before they were forced to by the authorities.
The utilities company were in a hard place and hurting, and as shareholders began to realise the dividends of the future were not going to be anywhere near as high as they were used to, and possibly zero, they made the situation worse by dumping their shares too. All of which provided Murray and Adalheidis with ever increasing leverage as their proxies bought up those dumped shares. The whisper, unknown to any outsider put about by Adalheidis, on the stock exchange was that despite the presence of persons willing to buy the shares there would be no quick money to be made from them, for they were ultimately ending up in the hands of an unknown organisation with vast liquidity seeking to buy at rock bottom prices with a view to holding the shares for decades if necessary. How long was that was a frequently asked question. The whisper on that was after the utility company, or whoever bought them out, had invested billions in a new supply network by which time the share price would soar and dividends be far more than ever before. None on the stock exchange, ever looking for a quick profit, considered such a long term project to be of interest, nor even safe. Murray and his team, however, were looking into at what point would it be a good investment for Bearthwaite to buy out the utilities company and how much would they be prepared to pay.
The utility company’s first move was to acknowledge in writing the practice of pumping was not only legal as defined by the courts but beneficial too, and the practice was approved of by themselves in perpetuity as and when BBEL considered it to be desirable. It had taken Adalheidis much longer than she had anticipated to bring the utility company to their knees over what had been a tiny and almost insignificant proportion of the water they extracted nation wide, but in the end she got more out of them than she had anticipated. They had agreed in writing they would never to take the matter to court again because they didn’t have the right to influence never mind determine what BBEL did with water it owned on land it owned. The agreement was a part of a new contract drawn up concerning selling to the utility company, directly from the reservoir, any water not needed in the valley. The contract made it clear that there was no guarantee to supply any water at all, it merely fixed the price of any water supplied during the next two years. Every two years that price would be subject to review. The contract specified that the reservoir and the pipework that lay within the Bearthwaite estate was now owned by and would be maintained and managed by BBEL. The pipework that lay outside the Bearthwaite estate was the responsibility of the utility company. There was thus no need for the utility company’s employees ever to enter the valley.
The BBEL board had decided that since Sasha had said he wasn’t interested in selling the shares he held directly and via proxies, and since Bearthwaite was better off having the shares to use as a sword of Damocles to hold over the utility company’s head, rather than having the money they would not sell them. Sasha had said he’d instructed his agents to keep buying shares up as and when they were available, for eventually after the company’s water pipe network was brought up to date the price would not just return to its previous value but soar to reflect what the company would then be worth. As a throw away remark he’d said he wasn’t bothered whether that was in his lifetime or not, and he’d asked Murray to keep his staff looking into buying out the utility company’s UK operations.
Ultimately a fringe benefit of the permanently flooded lonning for such an extended period of time was the five families of outsiders the village had been anxious to see leave finally did so.
It had been decided at a community meeting in the Community Hall that it was desirable to maintain Bearthwaite Beck with reservoir run off by adjusting the sluices such that it was permanently full as it had been two centuries before, for it made virtually no difference to the situation when the road flooded and Bearthwaite folk were eager to reëstablish their inheritance. That was later seen to be a fortuitous desire for it further stabilised the road edge because the cattail and the phragmites reed roots held the beck edge together better when there was water in the beck which meant less road maintenance was required. As a result of that all agreed that it was sensible to look to the practices of the forbearers for chances were there had been good reason for them. The use of pointed oak spiles to assist in the making of the harbour at Silloth on Solway that had been referred to in John Ostle’s(24) journal had been looked into and it had extended the ‘soft engineering’ approach that had been used to stabilise the banks of Bearthwaite Beck with willow and alder.
Pointed live willow spiles two to three inches in diameter were driven into the bank edges. Much thinner willow wands had been woven between the spiles and the space behind them had been backfilled with a mixture of roughly crushed masonry hardcore and soil for the willow to take root into and thus stabilise the banks. It was said that if you threw a piece of willow on the ground it would take root. Certainly many were familiar with willow branches and trunk sections being put to one side till someone had time to process them for firewood taking root so securely in a matter of months they had to be up rooted with a tractor. Spiling was hardly new it had been done for centuries at least, but at Bearthwaite it had never been done as effectively, and it now held the banks and the road edge better than they had ever been held which cut down on the requirement for road maintenance considerably. Planting alders at the top of the beck sides had assisted before and it was decided to extend that with thousands of locally raised alder trees.
Madeleine had asked for and been given permission to seed the beck with carp, for it was reasoned should they be detrimental to the beck and the road the beck could be pumped dry and the carp removed which would be a good way to harvest them when required if the experiment were to be successful. To the surprise of all, the water cresses that the beck had been said to be home to long beyond living memory had returned during the prolonged flood and Madeleine’s carp were seen to enjoy the somewhat spicy herbage which also provided fresh and nutritious greens for folk early in the year. Water fowl normally seen on the reservoir in small numbers were seen in much larger numbers on the beck. It was assumed the shallower, muddier water provided better feed. Several mallard hens had nested at the beck edge that first spring and the odd heron was seen there presumably fishing for smaller carp and some of the smaller fish of many different species seeded there from the hatchery. Otters had been seen from time to time at the beck and the village pond but their depredations on the fish were clearly not of significance and the eco visitors loved them.
The beck became a haven for wildlife. Spawn of frogs, toads and newts, locally known as efts, had been seen. Like many rural dwellers whose lives had not been affected by urbanisation and who had not lost touch with the world of their ancestors most Bearthwaite folk were exceedingly knowledgable about the countryside they inhabited. All knew that frog spawn was laid in clumps in shallower water and was usually the earliest in the year to be laid. Frog tadpoles were black and tended to stick together in a writhing mass when they first hatched. As the tadpoles developed, they became a mottled brown and didn’t shoal. Immature frogs grew their back legs first. Toad spawn was laid in long strings, usually wrapped around vegetation in slightly deeper water than frog spawn was to be found in. Toad tadpoles remained jet black and they often shoaled. Like frogs they grew their back legs first. Eft eggs were laid individually and wrapped in submerged plant leaves. The larvae which were locally called tadpoles too had a frill of gills behind their heads. Unlike frogs and toads they grew their front legs first. Locals telt their children that the way to tell the spawn apart was to remember, ‘Lumps, Strings and Dots’, though the more creative used the more modern expression, ‘Free(3) for frogs, twa(2) for toads and en(1) for efts’. The three, two and one referred to the dimensions of the spawns. It was a silly rhyme derived from nonsense, dialect and Scandinavian respectively but it enabled young children to laugh and learn faster.
When they hatched tadpoles, along with sticklebacks and minnows, shoaled by the thousands though the bottom feeding loaches known to be there were rarely to be seen. Otters took advantage of the opportunities in complete safety, for their presence as a tourist attraction was far more valuable to Bearthwaite than the fish and bird eggs that they took. The beck banks became covered in flowers of many types increasing in diversity every year as the visiting wildfowl left the seed and plant containing mud on their feet to geminate and take root in the banks. The glittering double crosses that were dragonflies and damselflies were hard to miss. The beck became a haven for not just local photographers and wildlife enthusiasts but for others from far away too, for the wildlife there had never been bothered and so was not worried by the presence of folk which year on year made for progressively easier observation and photography without the limitations a hide imposed. Further up the valley badgers could be seen if one waited till the day started to gloam and foxes though they didn’t seem to live in the valley were frequent visitors for a coney. Stoats and weasels were not common anywhere near the village but there were number of them that made a living from the rats and water voles that used the beck. The best chance of seeing them was on the bank on the left hand side of the road, the side opposite to the Beck, when driving in to Bearthwaite.
Molehills were to be seen by the hundred, mostly on farmland, but it was a rare event to see a mole. Hares too were a rare sight, and mostly to be seen if at all on the slopes leading up to the fells and on the fells themselves. Owls could be heard every night but rarely seen at all clearly. Barn owls as their name suggested were to be found in most barns of the valley farms as evidenced by the pellets containing the bones of their recent meals that they regurgitated on to the ground under where they perched. However, one barn owl was a daylight hunter having learnt that vehicles driving on Bearthwaite Lonning put the small game to be found in the lonning verges to flight and thus were an easily spotted meal for the sharp eyed predator. This particular owl, which was nearly white in colour and so easy to see, flew level with the slow moving vehicles till it was seen to dive for its prey. It was fortunate for the owl that the vehicles using Bearthwaite Lonning had to travel at a speed it could keep up with due to its rough and potholed, unmetalled surface. Many a resident had been accompanied by the owl a mere few feet away from their vehicle for a mile or more. Tawny owls and little owls were occasionally seen round the quarry in the gloam, presumably the vermin to be found there attracted them. Long eared owls and short eared owls were known to visit the forested and grassy upper valley respectively, but it was not known if they nested in the valley. There were no deer in the valley, for which those who understood such matters were grateful for they were very destructive, especially to young trees for they ate the bark, and once ring barked25 the trees died. Vince the Mince, the Bearthwaite slaughterman and butcher opined the best place for Bambi was in a sausage or a venison and brown ale pie.
The wildlife that had been attracted as a result of the reëstablishment of Bearthwaite Beck was a boon to the Bearthwaite tourist industry, for wet, cold and tired, yet deeply satisfied, bird and wildlife watchers appreciated the comforts offered by the Green Dragon and wanted souvenirs to take home as reminders of the rewarding experiences they had enjoyed in the valley. Tommy Dowerson as he later expressed it in an insane moment of inspiration, insane he explained because if he had known how much work it would involve him in he’d not have bothered, though none believed him, created a series of Bearthwaite wild life guides. His aim was to ensure that collectively they would eventually contain every creature and plant to be found in and around the valley, with pictures and information on the subjects and the sites where they were most likely to be seen. The stroke of genius was the spaces for visitors to paste their pictures and add their details of where, when and how they they had the sighting. He hit the jackpot when he created, with the help of many Bearthwaite folk, the fungi, algae, lichen, mosses, ferns, liverworts and invertebrate guides complete with microscope photographs, for it created a whole new type of eco tourist quite distinct from the birdwatchers, many of who said there was nothing like it offered anywhere else. At two hundred and fifty pounds, [$335] for the entire series it was not cheap, but every page was in a resealable weatherproof plastic envelope, and he’d been telt many a time ‘Coming here is a cheap holiday. There’re are interesting things to do and see that I’ve never considered before, and enough help from the guide books and persons here to make a good start for a complete novice. I’ll be back later in the year to see if I can add to my sightings.’ That Tommy was prepared to pay for copies of what he did not himself have, to include in future printings, added spice to the adventure for many folk. Because he printed the material himself as folk wanted it what they bought was always right up to date, and he replaced any page for free that had been revised since he’d printed the copy the tourist had bought.
Once the old bobbin mill’s water wheel had been restored to a working condition it was used to drive a generator which provided the electricity to power the Bearthwaite street lighting and some of the community buildings rather than the old line shafting(26) which had transmitted power to the various machines in the bobbin mill. The attractions that the millwheel and Phil and Lucy Levens’s flour mill offered brought a different kinds of visitors, industrial revolution history fans and pre industrial revolution buffs too. The Peabody teenagers bred shire horses, and had two teams of horses to practise old style farming with. They competed at local shews in ploughing contests and the like, and brought heavy horse fans from hundreds of miles when they realised that after a little tuition they could enjoy driving or working a team for no charge other than providing a little care for the horses, which was regarded as an integral part of the experience. That the Peabody womenfolk would recover the investment on behalf of their grandchildren and children via the excellent value for money, home made snacks and cream teas they provided was considered to be, often literally, the icing on what was a thoroughly enjoyable cake. The posters in the light and airy conservatory they used as a restaurante proclaimed as much as possible of what they cooked with was locally produced, even the cereals for the flours they used were locally grown and stone ground at the mill. Details of everything they served were there, complete with photographs.
As all knew when you were on holiday you expected to, and indeed would enjoy to, spend a little more money than when at home, and a cream tea was hardly a major extravagance when you could enjoy it in peace whilst your well supervised children were enjoying bottle feeding and petting Alan’s calves and lambs before settling down to a glass of milk from Alan’s herd of pure bred Dairy Shorthorns which he proudly explained to any who would listen were original population animals and were a critically endangered breed. He was contemptuous of the hugely prevalent black and white Holstein-Friesian types that he described as ‘udders on legs’ or if there were no children near as ‘bags on legs’. The Holstein-Friesian types made up around eighty percent of the UK herd and produced huge volumes of poor quality milk as compared with what he described as a proper dairy breed that produced what a growing child needed that was of superior taste too. The delicious and crisp biscuits [cookies] of various kinds that the womenfolk provided the children to enjoy with their glasses of milk were they said far better than anything their mums could buy in the shops. The large ginger bread men and women biscuits that had sweeties [candies] for eyes, nose, mouth and buttons were especially popular. Naturally the Peabody womenfolk made sure that the gingerbread men and women had the same number of sweeties to avoid any squabbling amongst their young customers.
The Peabody womenfolk’s turnover of cream scones was huge in the summer. Most were still warm from the oven when served with lashings of clotted cream produced from the milk of Alan’s small herd of Jerseys. Too the strawberry jam they were filled to over flowing with was made and bottled by Christine from strawberries grown on the allotments. Her technique produced a thick jam that was just about able to stick the succulent pieces of halved and whole strawberries together. In the winter the nature of the tourist demand changed and traditional Cumbrian cheese scones, made with in house produced cheese, filled with crispy streaky bacon or other cooked meats and any of a wide selection of relishes and pickles all produced by local livestock farmers and Christine and her staff in the old bobbin mill became the order of the day, along with an all day service of a full English or Scottish fried breakfast. A pot of tea or coffee with toast and jam or marmalade as required whilst you waited for the rest of your breakfast to cook made for happy customers. Lemon, and other citrus fruit, curd was popular with toast too and a large poster explained the differences between Lemon curd and Lemon cheese.
Samantha and Gee had become parents as a result of a peculiarly similar yet different situation to that of Harriet and Gustav. Initially they fostered the pair of ten year old fraternal twins who originated in Ulverston at the south end of Cumbria, the part of Cumbria that prior to the county reorganisations of Her Majesty’s Local Government Act 1972(27) that came into force in nineteen seventy-four had been the northern part of Lancashire.(28) Janine was a trans girl and had been despised and emotionally abused so badly by her family and neighbours and at school too that the emotional trauma had closed her down into a withdrawn catatonic like condition. Abuse had never been suspected because like Michaela her sister she was a quiet child at home and school and her school hadn’t bothered to help a child who in their opinion was clearly a dysfunctional pervert. Her school teachers hadn’t bullied her, but they had ignored her and ignored others who did bully her. Too she had never been physically abused, so there was no visible evidence of abuse. The girls’ escape from their life of torment was due to a particularly observant, and caring, policeman who was the loving father of a family of six, four of his own and two of his second wife’s. Both he and his wife had been left with their children by previous spouses who’d decided the grass was greener elsewhere.
Janine had been discovered with her sister sitting silent and unmoving on a park bench after school was long over by the policeman. He’d heard her sister begging her to say something and to get up because they had to go home. It had been cold and damp and the pair had been inadequately dressed which was what had attracted his attention first. He’d called for an ambulance and the doctors after a few minutes conversation with Michaela had instituted temporary protection proceedings. Neither of the girls ever went home again. What had shocked the case workers most had been their parents’ indifference. After a month in the hospital Janine had been willing to talk and her tale had resulted in her being permanently taken into care by the authorities along with Michaela. The social workers considered it fortunate that they had no other siblings.
Because the girls’ refusal to be separated had been seen to be so important to them that the Social workers realised if they were separated it could potentially lead to two suicides they were looking for foster parents who would take both of the girls with adoption ultimately in mind. The children had been lucky, the Social workers dealing with their case were open minded, but they were only too aware of the realities they had to work with. Though they had managed to find a temporary solution that kept the girls together they thought it unlikely that any one local to them would be prepared to adopt a pair of ten year old twin girls one of who was trans. They’d tried, but as they’d suspected would be the case had had no luck. As with Gustav and Harriet’s case the NCSG organisation’s database had provided Gee and Samantha as appropriate parents immediately. Ulverston was eighty miles south of Bearthwaite, a journey that could be comfortably done by car in an hour and a half.
Janine and Michaela were nervous at first but soon came to accept that their new foster parents loved them and all they wished in return was the love of their children. They’d been surprised to be asked if they wished separate rooms or would they prefer to share a larger bedroom. They were happy to realise they were accepted as a pair of sisters and chose to share a room. The girls found if difficult to behave differently from the way they had before which was to say nothing and to keep as low a profile as possible to avoid the shouting and abuse which Michaela had been subject to too. The abuse that Michaela had experienced, though neither as frequent nor as bad as that suffered by Janine had naytheless been something none of any age, least of all a child, should have to suffer. Even going shopping with Samantha for clothes in Carlisle had only gone so far to alleviate their nervousness in the presence of adults. Eventually NCSG had the girls’ biological parents sign the release forms and their adoption was official and over within twenty-four hours. It was Michaela who’d said to Janine, “We’re the Shaw girls now, Michaela Georgina Shaw and Janine Samantha Shaw. I’ve just realised we’re not foster kids any more. I wonder how long it will be before school has the records altered. I’m going to find Mum to ask.” Janine who was thinking about how long it would be before the records said she was a girl just nodded. When Michaela returned she said with satisfaction, “Mum says it’s been done. Dad said they’ve got you down as a girl. Yea, Sis.” The girls hugged and kissed each other both grateful that the hell they’d lived through before was over.”
It was their school friends at the Bearthwaite primary school who ultimately resolved their problems when they all said words similar to those of Ally who’d said, “You live here, your parents are Bearthwaite folk, so you are too. Any medical problems you have, Janine, can be sorted when you are older, but in the meanwhile you are a Bearthwaite girl, a pretty Bearthwaite girl who has a more feminine idea of what it is to be a girl than most of us including me. We all know your mum is trans, for she has always been upfront about that. Your dad is regarded as a significant rôle model for the boys here by the boys as well as by all the men too, for like your mum he’s a really good welder and farmer too. Their activities provide employment and respect for many men, and their families benefit from that. And it’s obvious that like your mum he loves you to bits. You don’t need to try to hide away from any, for none here is going to shout at you, nor call you names. Definitely none here is ever going to hit you.”
Ally was small, under developed and, apart from by the bullies at her old school, a normally overlooked ten year old girl whose mum Bella had moved to Bearthwaite some months before as a result of seeing the advertisement for a dental nurse or someone willing to train as such. Bella was good with people and had been working as a doctors’ receptionist. In the past she had worked in a moderate sized pharmacy. She wished to leave Carlisle for Ally’s sake and thought she may have had a chance, so she applied for the job. To her surprise she’d been the only applicant interviewed, though several folk had applied, and she’d been considered by Tony and Beth to be perfect. To her even greater surprise it wasn’t long before Bella, a divorced mum, had married Saul, a Bearthwaite born and reared demolition and site clearance contractor. Ally, who couldn’t remember her father who’d left her mother, for a teenager her mum had described as a bimbo with an over inflated bosom, not long after her birth, was far happier at Bearthwaite than she’d ever been and had rapidly become Saul’s pride and joy. When her parents’ had sounded her out concerning having younger siblings she’d been thrilled.
Ally had said to Janine, “Life wasn’t too good for me before moving here, nothing like as bad as yours but bad enough. I’ve was accused of not being a proper girl by the idiots and bullies at my old school in Carlisle because I’m so small and still flat chested. Being clever and wearing specs didn’t help much either. Mum says she was the same till she started to become a woman, but she was nearly fourteen before the boob færie decided to pay her a visit. She reckons eventually I’ll have a bosom like hers, which will be cool, and the idiots are just childish. She telt me in the meantime I should do what she did: stick falsies in my bra. None of the kids here have ever given me a hard time. William knows I use chicken fillets and doesn’t seem to mind me being flat chested. He kissed me behind the boat shed at the Valentine’s day bonfire party and asked me to be his girlfriend and I said yes, cos he’s really nice and I like him a lot. There are lots of trans girls and women too here. Peter, who is the son of Auntie Harriet and Uncle Gustav who with her parents Auntie Gladys and Uncle Pete own the Green Dragon, is a trans boy. He’s nice and is friends with Violet. I reckon they’ll end up going out with each other soon. Whatever you are all are cool with it here, so if I were you I’d get some falsies off Ebay and stop worrying because you’ll be okay. Ask your mum to help with Ebay, for she’ll understand for sure. Even if we have to go to Whiteport Academy next year because year seven hasn’t opened here yet just ignore the idiots at school because without doubt we’ll have boobs and a bum like all the other girls before too long, even if yours do come as a result of artificial hormones. For sure the other Bearthwaite kids won’t let any of the other kids hurt us.
“I’ve seen loads of boys looking at you, Janine, but Finn looks at you differently. Like all the kids he knows you’re trans, but I recognise that look. It’s the look a boy only gives a girl when he really likes her a lot. He’s a year older than us and in year seven, good looking and reasonably clever too, so maybe life is looking up for you too. Kissing a boy is nice. It’s kind of difficult to describe, so you should try it for yourself sometime. I’m pretty certain that Finn would be more than up for it.” Janine had been taken aback, but interested. It wasn’t long before Ally and William, Janine and Finn and Michaela and Theo were usually to be seen together as three couples holding hands. As for kissing boys, Ally had been right, for the other two girls enjoyed it too and both agreed it was kind of difficult to describe.
Emily said at a community meeting in the church, “The wives of some of our menfolk who’ve worked in the north east have been to see me. They and their menfolk have relatives and friends amongst some of the Northumbrian independent coal miners who operate drift mines. Life has been difficult for the miners since the recent legislation that prevents them from selling bituminous coal in England. Most of their product was selt this side of the border and they are having difficulty finding markets in Scotland, for they are competing with small scale Scottish coal miners who don’t have the transport cost that they do. The women wondered if there were anything we could do to help and in the process acquire cheaper fuel for them. Apparently the legally permitted, smokeless, processed coal pebbles are going on for thirty pounds a fifty kilo a bag [$40 for 110 pounds] and they burn worryingly rapidly with no better a heat output than the old coal which was less than half that price. I asked Murray to negotiate on their behalf with the miners on a price if we agree to buy and transport their entire output.
“Murray has spoken with Harry who has said he and his mate Jake would be willing to bulk transport coal loose or bagged to the quarry for us via the ownership of a yard Jake and his business partner Angus rent in Scotland and after that it’s up to us what we do with it. The coal doesn’t have to be taken to Jakes yard in Scotland. Murray said it would be best not to involve Geoff at all because he’s a licenced solid fuel merchant whereas Harry and Jake are general hauliers with no involvement in nor responsibility for what their customers do with what they haul for them. Murray added that both Harry and Jake carry coal and solid fuel regularly on behalf of Angus but it would be best if they have no further involvement with the coal after tipping in the quarry other than possibly having some delivered by van to their houses in small quantities as they need it. They are willing to take payment for their costs in coal so it never appears on paper. Murray reckons we do more than our share of environmental protection as compared with the average member of the UK public, and the new legislation disproportionately affects rural dwellers, cos none in the towns use the stuff. His view was to hell with the law, for we are living a life that is far more in line with the ideas on which the law is based than any others. He worked it out that the trees we have planted and are continuing to plant sequester far more carbon than what we put in to the air as a result of our combined usage of coal, gas, kerosene and diesel by many times. He said at the highest international level carbon sequestration calculations and negotiations are conducted by balancing all the pluses and minuses, and we are well in credit on that basis. He said that it’s not our fault that the rest of the nation is greedy and hell bent on self destruction. Bearthwaite lore is what we need to adhere to not English law, for in the end it will enable our survival with a decent standard of living when others fail and fall into poverty.
“I agreed with him and pointed out that once the coal is in the quarry who is to say how long it has been there, for there is no requirement in Scotland to keep track of who buys or sells the stuff. Adalheidis said she can set it up so that BBEL owns part of the big heap of coal and Angus the rest, but who’s to say which bit of the heap belongs to whom. So part of the coal and the wood in the building at the quarry too will belong to BBEL which means folk will be using fuel that already belongs to them. It’s not a crime in England to burn it only to sell it. I reckon eventually we’re all going to have to give up burning coal and the pebbles and just use wood, for reasons of cost if nowt else. It’ll be a few years, but the trees we’ve planted in the valley to coppice and pollard for fuel are producing more every year that goes by and there’s no transport cost to use that. We’re still planting more and there will eventually be some firewood from the willows and alders at the beck edges for Edward telt me that once established the willow and alders there will need managed by coppicing too. Eventually what we grow and the wood the demolition crews bring here will be enough. There’s a cost to transporting the demolition timber, but the men have been paid for the demolition and to transport everything away. Too they can reuse a lot of what they remove to the quarry. I imagine that the miners will eventually have to either find another way to earn a living or accept a pittance for the coal from CPL(29) who make the smokeless pebbles and dominate the solid fuel market which would enable them to squeeze the miners on price, but at least if we buy from them it will provide a breathing space in which they can organise their future. I opine we’d be wise to offer some of them a future as Bearthwaite folk.”
Emily had rarely spoken at meetings in the Community Centre or the church, but her words had hit hard and had been accepted by all who had heard her and many others too, for many had been assisted to make their money go further as a result of her activities. The consensus of opinion was ‘She’s a gey(30) clever Bearthwaite lass, and we need to tek(31) heed on what she’s saying. We also need to mek(32) sure we keep our mouths tight shut when any other than Bearthwaite folk are around. Better yet only talk about fuel when we have to.’
Emily continued, “The first deliveries of loose coal to the quarry were yesterday and Harry and Jake have been shuttling between the mines and the quarry to clear the miners’ stockpile ever since. Jake’s yard has been a scrap yard and coal depot for decades and it sells coal perfectly legally. Jake is talking about buying a bulk tipper waggon. That way they can fill it with a lot more coal in Northumbria run across country to the quarry and tip what currently takes two and a half trips. On paper the coal will have been selt to Jake’s mate Angus in Scotland who will, again on paper, be using the quarry to store his surplus coal that he is buying now because it is available and cheap. Legally there is no need to separately record how much of Angus’ coal goes to Scotland and how much goes to the quarry. The trick there is what goes to the quarry will not have changed hands, so no record of a sale is required. Murray has already paid for the bulk of the coal, using cash and via Angus’ bank account which is a Glasgow(33) bank, to alleviate some real hardship for the miners’ wives and families.
“The result is we have a lot of friends over in the north east willing to supply us at a wholesale price who can if required honestly state that they selt all the coal to Angus. Angus lives up there and has been managing the yard for years. Over here in the quarry, some of the men have been filling fifty kilo bags with a fifty fifty mix of coal and smokeless, which will burn longer and better, ready for a delivery all round the village at the weekend along with bags of cut wood and kindling. Once the stockpile of coal over in Northumbria has been shifted, Harry says the bulk waggon will have plenty of work to justify its cost and it will be gey useful for clearing demolition sites for the men involved in that, so it will be a familiar sight to the authorities running into and out of Bearthwaite Lonning.
“Chance is working on a price, but suspects some where round eighteen pounds a bag [$22 for 110 pounds] for the fifty fifty mix, which will of course decrease as the proportion of coal increases, hopefully down to twelve pounds [$15] for pure coal. He was seriously upset to realise that some of our older residents felt they had to economise on fuel in the calter weather because they were worried about having enough money to feed themselves. I won’t repeat the language he used, but Murray said he was fair impressed by Chance’s command of Anglo Saxon.(34) Chance is going to work out a price for a mixed fuel supply we can all pay per month to ensure the old folk know no matter how calt it gets they will have enough heat and enough food. Vincent, Dave, Phil and Alf have been talking to every one who produces and handles food to try to arrive at a similar mechanism, so the old folk have total security that if they stay warm they will eat well too. Vincent is talking to the medical and nursing folk as to what would provide a far better than minimal diet. We all know Vincent has been giving away a lot of stuff to folk who have needed it for years, but Chance has said perhaps it’s time that all of us who wish to be considered to be proper Bearthwaite folk put our money where our mouths are and we put our hands in our pockets to support what ever the venture ultimately comes up with. The general opinion of the women is he is right and Stephanie was exceedingly clever when she chose a man who few else would have chosen.”
The acrimonious dispute with the utility company over the rights to the water from Bearthwaite Water was over. Adalheidis had given the utility company the hiding of a lifetime in the courts and made them extremely unpopular with the general UK populace who’d closely followed media coverage of the David and Goliath like confrontation with interest, and being British they had naturally backed the underdog. The utility company had come away from the courts bloodied and appearing to be extremely foolish. However, having won on all counts Adalheidis was not so much minded to be generous, it was more that she no longer had anything to prove and it was easier dealing with the company that she was extracting a considerable amount of money from if things were at least kept polite. The utility company’s representatives, however, could not force themselves to be polite to her, so she handed the whole matter over to Murray and Chance to deal with. If they had considered Adalheidis to be a nightmare Murray was even worse and Chance, who had arrived at Bearthwaite as a nervous and barely trained accountant was now a man in his prime at the top of his game who politely but insistently took the company for every penny BBEL was entitled to extract from them. Too late they’d realised they’d have been far better off dealing with Adalheidis who being a solicitor rather than an accountant was not as exacting regards payments.
That Bearthwaite was still buying up their shares and had no intention for the foreseeable future of selling them was a deeply disturbing reality the directors of the utility company realised they would just have to accept, and that regular negotiations with BBEL would probably become part of their future reality too. It was not so much a hostile take over(35) on the part of BBEL, as BBEL having a remorseless presence with its own agendum taking a seat on their board, and there was no poison pill(36) that would deter them, for they had no intention of trying to take over or even to run the utility company, but they could and would make it impossible for the directors to function if their views were not taken into account. The directors had finally learnt that every action of theirs would have a price, and some were more than they were prepared to pay. Murray had said to the board of BBEL that the board of the utility company were finally taking their first hesitant steps towards becoming adults, but like all toddlers they had a gey long way to go before they could run. Meanwhile, as the directors of Beebell were all aware, Chance was looking into taking over the entire UK operation of the utilities company. It had been agreed by the Beebell directorate there would not be a power struggle with the utility company directors for control, it would either be a complete buy out that replaced the entire utility company’s board or nothing. If nothing the utility company’s board would have to live with Beebell breathing down their necks for all the foreseeable future.
Saturday evening had rolled around and Pete was anticipating a packed taproom due to the dry, mild spell the village was experiencing. Elsewhere the county had suffered torrential rain, but to the relief of all who lived there the storm had bypassed the Bearthwaite valley. The matter of the water rights, now resolved, which had provided endless argument and debate for months at Bearthwaite would be unlikely to provide much in the way of conversation in the taproom and Pete as he set up glasses and bottles ready for the arrival of his customers and friends was wondering what they would replace it with. However, the water had proven to be not totally exhausted as a topic of conversation, for once all had been served and looked around for someone to make a start on the proceedings it had been raised almost immediately.
After draining his pint, and making a start on the second one that Pete always provided him with, for Alf had always maintained that his first pint merely took the dust off his throat and the edge off his thirst, which considering he was an eighth of an inch short of seven feet tall in his stockinged feet and of a massive build was entirely explicable, Alf started the tales with reminiscences going back almost a couple of centuries. All the locals were aware that once Bearthwaite Beck had been allowed to run full all the time eels had been seen in it. Alf remarked, “I reckon we’ll see eels by the thousand in the beck at the back end.(37) My granddad, Granddad Winstanley that was, went to school with Davy Parker as we not long since buried. They were mates, and he telt me they’d see eels from time to time any time of the year in the beck when it had water in it when they were kids, but he minded his great great granddad, who lived as long as Davy, telling him when he was maybe six that he minded before the reservoir was made the beck was always full of water, and it teemed with eels at the back end when they were migrating across the land. Most he said came down from the tarns up on the fells, across the marshes and down into the beck where they rested up before going over The Rise on their way to the Calva Beck and then the river Eden which gave them passage to the sea, via the Solway though he admitted to having no idea how nor why they got into the tarns which were mostly landlocked with no becks in nor out of ’em. He said they were an important food source for the impoverished villagers usually eaten with taties and the cresses and reed roots that grew at the beck edges. He telt my granddad that in those days there was a windmill on The Rise that pumped water out of the beck onto the marsh to make the road passable. I wondered if it would be sensible to put a modern wind powered pump there again because that would save on fuel for the diesel pumps.
“Anyway, I mind him also telling me they used to take young rooks before they fledged from the rookery in the woods at the valley head. They went into rook pie which he said was more like a stew with a cobbler crust on it. I suppose that ’ud be like Gladys’ pigeon pie, which is what brought it all back to my mind for that what’s on for supper the night. When times were hard they had it with dumplings in it as well as taties and the cobbler crust too. I mind asking my granddad how could you tell the difference between a rook and a crow if you weren’t near the rookery. His answer still meks me laugh. ‘If you see a rook on its own it’s a crow, and if you see a load of crows together they’re rooks, and if one of ’em is a girt,(38) big bugger it’s a raven.’ I mind him telling me that the raven that sometimes was in the valley probably ranged all the way up across the border into Campbeltown in Scotland and down as far south as Lancaster. May be the one we see is a grandson of that one, for I know they can live up to forty years and mate for life occupying a fixed territory. He knew a gey load about wildlife.” Many of the outsiders were amazed that Alf could recount the words spoken about events that had happened probably over two centuries ago, for most could barely mind what their grandparents had said nor how they had lived, and any further back than that was a closed book to them.
Bertrond said, “I’ve a short tale to tell, Lads. I’ve been wanting to have a load of scrap away to Moss Bay Metals in Workington for a few years now. I’ve had the trailer, which is a fourteen footer Ifor Williams twin axle job, loaded for months, but it needed some work doing to it which I finally got around to doing a week since. I ordered a new jockey wheel, jockey wheel locking handle, emergency brake pull on cable and a new electrics socket and a box of assorted blade fuses for the Land Rover and in three days they’d all arrived, which I considered amazing because they all came from different places. Installing the new jockey wheel and locking handle was a piece of cake. Jack up the trailer drawbar wind the handle off the top of the jockey wheel. Unscrew the locking handle and the jockey wheel dropped out. For once reassembly really was a straight reversal of the above procedure.”
There was a lot of laughter at that, for many were familiar with the phrase so beloved of the Haines vehicle do it yourself maintenance manuals, and all had suffered when they’d discovered reassembly wasn’t as easy as it had been suggested. Bertrond continued, “The emergency brake cable was not so easy because I couldn’t find the old one nor where the new one should be fastened to because I couldn’t see. The ground was piss wet through so I went for a rubber mat to lie on. I use an old one that was out of the boot [US trunk] of a vehicle I owned so long ago I can’t mind what it was now. Once I could see it was obvious. The old cable which was high tensile steel had rotted right through leaving just a couple of inches connected to the lower end of the trailer brake lever. God alone knows where the rest of it went. Getting the old one off was a nightmare because it was gey tight for working space to get at it. I cut its retaining clip partway through with a four and a half inch [110mm] angle grinder with a slitting disk in it, but I couldn’t get the disk in to cut any more, and I couldn’t break what was left off. It was just too hard and too strong.”
Alf said, “I’m not surprised. Those things are made from just about as high a quality steel as money can buy, Lad.”
Bertrond continued, “After twenty minutes I had it off. All praise to the mighty Dremel tool. But it takes time. Surprisingly fitting the new clip wasn’t too bad, and it didn’t cost me any knuckles either. Putting the new electrics connector onto the trailer went okay. I’d downloaded a diagram to determine which of the seven different coloured wires went where. I do know, but I don’t rely on my memory any more because that’s a stupid thing to do and just begging for trouble at my age.”
Alf grinned and said, “Know what you mean, Bertrond. I’ve got a massive poster that tells me what goes where high up on the workshop wall that I can see from everywhere even when I’m lying on the floor as a just in case. Did that sort your electrics then?”
“Did it hell as like, Alf. Most were okay but the left rear cluster wasn’t up for having it, none of the lights in it worked, so I assumed it was most likely a dodgy earth connection, but first I had to tek the lens off the light cluster. I ended up drilling the screws out and removing the bits left in the back plate with a pair of mole grips. That took me half an hour. It’s not a job you want to rush because those plastic lenses shatter as soon as you just look at ’em. The earth connection was okay, so I needed to mek the connections to the bulbs good. The bulbs were a pig to get out even with WD40. I polished the rust off the bulb end connectors and the inside of the bulb holders with the Dremel fitted with a wire brush. Still no joy. I pulled the spring connectors towards the bulb end connectors and cleaned them too, and hallelujah I had lights, but I blew a couple of fuses when checking things out. Replacing the fuses was the hardest part of the job.
“I knew on my Land Rover there was a box of fuses under the bonnet [US hood] and a box under the steering column. Not surprising really since they’re more or less back to back on either side of the bulkhead. The ones in the engine compartment are easier to get at so I looked there first. No joy, nothing there for the brakes, tail lights or indicators, but I did find a blown forty amp fuse which explained why the heater windscreen blower hadn’t worked for a while, so I replaced it, and lo I had a windscreen that I could blow hot air on. Next I looked at the fuses under the dashboard. What a friggin’ nightmare. Even if you push the driver’s seat right back and use a decent torch you can see bugger all, and unlike the fuses under the bonnet there’s nothing there to tell you which fuse is for what. Well I guess even I can have a good day once in a while. I minded that the hand book was in the glove box and I found all I needed in there. After an hour buggering about trying to get the blade fuses in because they have to be offered up in exactly the right orientation which isn’t easy to achieve because your hand holding the fuse installing tool gets in the way so you can see even less than before. Good job I’d started on the trailer as soon as it was light enough to see outside, because it was gloaming good and proper by the time I’d finished. Still the job’s done and all I have to do now is check the tyres and have the scrap away. But I’m in no hurry. I’ve been thinking about it for a few years, so another couple of months won’t make any difference.”
Alf said, “I was listening to some self styled member of the upper middle classes who was a doctor on the radio the other day. This arrogant piece of shite was trying to create a distinction between the like of himself and the like of blokes like me who work with our hands. Fair bloody contemptuous of what he referred to as the working classes he was. I thought about ringing in like the program suggested, but I couldn’t bring myself to engage with a piece of shite like him, so I didn’t bother. However, I’m having my say here. I reckon any one who has to work is working class, and I don’t give a tuppenny(39) fuck what they do for a living because the chances are if they had enough money they wouldn’t work. That’s the difference between the wealthy and those who work. The wealthy and the rest of us, the working class. The wealthy have seven day weekends, which gives them three and a half times more free time than the working class. Three and half times as much time in which to do what they enjoy. At the end of it they’ll have lived for three and a half times as long the rest of us. I truly don’t begrudge them their good fortune. I envy them, but I don’t begrudge them anything. It’s pretentious bastards like that quack I can’t stand. Still if I had enough money not to have to work I’d have to find something to do and I actually enjoy messing about in my workshop, so maybe I’d actually work from choice. The vexed question is would I then be a member of the working class or not?”
Pete said, “Now I remember why I consider myself to be a mate of Alf’s. Most of the time he’s just our resident mechanical genius, but every now and again he comes out with something so deep it hurts my brain. However, Alf, I can answer your question for you. You are working class, and even if you had all the money in the world you’d still be working class because you want to be. It’s something you’re proud of, and good luck to you, Lad.”
Into the silence that followed Sasha quietly said, “And Pete reckons he’s not over bright. He’s a bigger bull shitter than me, and I made a bloody good living out of it for forty years.”
The laughter took some time to quieten down, but by the time it did Eric, Arnie and Bertie had pulled the required pints, Stan had taken the money and Pete had washed the glasses. There was a line of shot glasses on the bar, Gustav had put a couple of dozen bottles of assorted spirituous liquors of varying corrosive properties and even more variable toxicity where they could be conveniently accessed and Bertie had put the children’s Christmas party collection box handy for outsiders to throw their two pounds into when they took a drop of the rare stuff, as the distillates were referred to.
Tommy, who along with Sarah his wife had the Bearthwaite Post Office asked, “Everything all right at home, Alf?”
“Sure. Why.”
“Well I delivered a black limned(40) letter(41) to your house a couple of days ago. Not bad news I hope.”
“Aye well no such letter is ever good news. A lad I knew from Threlkeld called Alex Bowsprit died and left me the entire contents of his workshop. Alex was a draper and haberdasher by trade and he had a shop in Kendal for years. He was a hobby model engineer with a decently equipped small workshop. The letter was from the solicitors dealing with his estate. I’ll tek a few lads with me to help empty his workshop. I plan on setting it all up in the mill as a workshop for Jeremy and his model railway crew. The kids could do with some decent tools. Alex was a decent lad and I reckon he’d have been chuffed to bits to know where his kit was going. I’ll miss him, for he was good to have a craic with. I’ll mek sure Nancy his missus gets a good price for the stuff and check that she’s going to be okay because both her lads moved away south years ago and she had no lasses. If I can, I’ll persuade her to move here. A small terraced house near the old allotments would do her just fine and there’re still a few available. BBEL can buy her old place which would give her a decent nest egg that would generate enough interest to provide a top up to her pension. Ellen and Nancy get on, and Nancy would be in her early eighties now, and that’s no age to be on your own.”
A number of the outsiders in the taproom were surprised by what Alf had said and wondered why on Earth he would pay for what he had been left and then give it away, and even more why he would go to so much trouble for the widow of an acquaintance. The local men weren’t surprised at Alf’s behaviour at all, for it was what they’d have done in similar circumstances. It was what they deemed to be right and proper behaviour. It was a part of what made them Bearthwaite folk.
Supper time, Gentlemen,” Veronica announced. “So let’s have the tables cleared. It’ll be no more than ten minutes. Pigeon pie cooked to Gladys’ recipe by Harriet and Brigitte. The cobbler crust has shallots and black pepper in it. The pigeons were shot by Livvy, Gerry’s granddaughter, on Alan Peabody’s spot and over on the new allotments. The men there had been suffering from them recently. Alf has had the lads paying her for shooting them, so that their vegetables can grow in peace.”
“Aye she’s a fair canny one is that lass. Never shoots till she’s got the range just right and the pigeons are close enough together so she can take a few with a single shot. I’ve never seen any take out six with a four ten(42) before, a twelve bore aye, but I always thought of a four ten as virtually a toy, but not in her hands it isn’t.” Alf was shaking his head in surprise after telling the tale. “She packs her own cartridges and telt me she prefers ’em with a bit more but smaller shot and bit less powder than ones she can buy. She reckons she gets a better kill rate that way. I wouldn’t know. I just use standard cartridges in my twelve bore.”
Veronica said, “That’s as may be, Alf, but Billy her dad dropped off four of those blue, fifty kilo [112 pound] Nitram®(43) fertiliser sacks stuffed full with pigeons here yesterday. I didn’t count them but there must be well over a hundred, maybe going on twice that. I don’t know what Harriet paid for ’em, but they’re all fair plump and should be good eating. I reckon Alf and his allotment mates are getting their vegetables back. We skinned them rather than plucking them, it’s a lot less trouble and a lot faster. You’ll need a basin or two for the bones. Fermented red cabbage to Gustav’s mum’s sauerkraut recipe to go with it. If any wants some of Christine’s lasses’ pickled beetroot I’ll bring some.”
“Now your belly’s full of that excellent supper are you going to tell us how you got to be limping, Edward?”
Edward, who was a local forester and sawyer, grimaced and said, “All my own fault, Stan. I wasn’t wearing proper work boots because I’d left them by the fire to dry out on the Friday evening and forgot to pack my bag with them for work the following Monday. We were on Whinlatter(44) slabbing some oak at two inches thick on the Wood-Mizer. That’s a mobile sawmill that uses a band saw to cut the wood to them as doesn’t know. A twenty-four foot long three and a half foot wide slab fell a foot and a half edge on across my toes. I took some pain killers and ibuprofen and carried on. It happened mid afternoon, and when I got home at just gone half five it was gey sore. My shoe was full of blood, and I could only wash my foot in the bath. There was no way I could touch it. Thankfully it was only my big toe it had affected, but it looked gey bad. I rang up Sun for an appointment, but when I telt him what I’d done he said I was to stay put and he’d be round in twenty minutes with some painkillers. I’m still tekin the tablets that Sun gave me, and putting the drops on too. He said the drops are some modern kind of synthetic cocaine that you get for your eyes to be examined when you get a welding flash(45) and dentists use the same stuff too. The nail dropped off a couple of days later, so at least I’m not catching it on my sock when I get dressed or undressed for bed. It happens. Even with the tablets and the drops it still hurts, but that Żubrówka(46) of Sasha’s helps considerable, so I’ll tek another glass, Erik, please. Mek it a goodly measure, Lad, if you would please. I’m in serious and urgent need of it, though I have to admit I’m considerably better fixed after eating. I think I’ll just let my belt out a couple of notches.” At that there was considerable laughter and Erik just pushed the bottle over towards Edward to help himself to.
“You got owt to mek us laugh, Dave?”
“Nothing of my own, Pat. However, I’ve something I got off the internet the other day. You’ll appreciate it being a paddy.”
“Well let’s hear it then, Lad.”
“Okay. An Irish business man was walking down the aisle of a plane that was about to fly from Dublin to New York looking for his seat. When he sat down to his amazement he was sitting next to the Pope. Now being a good Catholic he was desperately hoping the Holy Father would engage him in conversation, which he considered would be the privilege of a lifetime, but he wasn’t prepared to impose himself by speaking first. He was discouraged when the Holy Father took out a newspaper, but when he opened the paper at the crossword puzzle his mood turned to joy, for he was a regular puzzler and was good at it. Maybe he pondered he will ask me for help. But it seemed the Holy Father was good at them too, for his pencil was flying over the squares and filling them in rapidly. The business man was disappointed when he saw that the puzzle was completed with every square filled in. However, eventually The Pontiff turned to him and asked slowly, ‘Are you any good at crossword puzzles. I have completed the puzzle, but I’m sure I have a problem.’ ‘I do a lot of them, and I like to think I am reasonably good at them,’ the delighted businessman replied. ‘Oh good, perhaps you can help. I’m looking for a four letter word. The clue is female and I have blank you en tee, ?UNT. Any ideas?’
“ ‘Oh holy Mary mother of God, and sweet gentle Jesus help me in my time of need,’ the businessman prayed silently desperately hoping against hope for something better to say than that he had no idea, and he certainly had no intention of telling the Holy Father the word that had instantly occurred to him. ‘Of all the predicaments to be in at the most significant meeting of my entire life. This must surely be a work of Satan. Lord, you know I’ve never tried to even think of myself as comparable to your saints, and like us all I am a sinner who has given in to temptation, but I’ve never deliberately been a bad man, and I have tried hard never to hurt any one. I am a charitable man and my business ethics are of the best. I admit, Lord, some of that was me trying buy off a guilty conscience, but that I have confessed to. Help me I pray to help the Holy Father keep his thoughts pure. Amen.’
Then, in what he considered could only have been a gift from God answering his prayer, divine inspiration struck him and he replied, ‘It’s an ay you require as in AUNT, your Holiness.’ ‘Thank you very much, My Son,’ the Holy Father said. ‘Would you by any chance happen to have such a thing as an eraser?’ ”
At that the taproom erupted and Pete said, “Dave, I don’t know how you do it. Even when you admit to using someone else’s material you make it yours.”
“I’ve just minded another tale to do with aircraft too. I don’t know when or where I first came across this one, but it was many years ago. It concerns a trans Atlantic flight going from Heathrow to New York and then on to Washington. An attractive but argumentative woman had sat down in a business class seat towards the front of the aircraft when her own seat was at the back in the economy class area. In turn the cabin crew had all spoken to her to no avail. The woman had elaborately coiffed blonde hair and was immaculately and tastefully made up with a very expensive handbag. [US purse]. She was well dressed in clothes and jewellery that suggested she could have easily afforded to travel first class. Eventually the head stewardess said, ‘She says she won’t move to travel in a seat that’s so close to the lavatory. The seat she is occupying isn’t required till we take on passengers at New York, so it’s either ignore it or let the captain decide what to do. It’s either deal with her now or in New York. I’ll inform the captain.’ Once informed the captain took a look at the passengers and spotted the woman immediately. ‘I’ll have a word with her. It’ll be no problem. I’ve got this.’ The Captain spoke to the woman quietly for less than a minute and to the surprise of the cabin staff the woman turned a dazzling smile on to the captain and went to sit in her allocated seat. ‘What did you say to her, Sir?’ a young steward asked in awe. ‘I told you I’ve got this. I’ve years of experience at this sort of thing. My wife’s a blonde too. I told her the front part of the plane wasn’t going to Washington.’ ”
The laughter took a while to fade and a number of men whose wives were blondes were still chuckling when they were on their way out going home.
In between chatting of village affairs generally Madeleine remarked to the womenfolk in the lounge, “We are doing exceedingly well as a result of controlling all our own water. The wildlife is generating a considerable income for a very large number of folk and the money does work its way around, and it will get better every year. All we need to put some icing on our cake is a pair of ospreys to take up residence here, possibly nesting in the trees at the cliff edge at the back of the valley, and to regard the reservoir, the village pond and the beck as their personal hunting ground and we’ve arrived. The offspring of the Bassenthwaite ospreys are extending their range over the county and over the border too. I wouldn’t begrudge them a single fish, after all we can replace them from the hatchery fast enough.” It was to prove prophetic but of course it is in the very nature of prophecy that none knew that then.
Harry said, “Kathleen telt me a good one the other day. Seems a mate of hers went into her local coöp and saw some belly pork slices with orange stickers on them. The stickers indicate stuff that’s reduced in price, usually because of damaged packaging or it’s near the sell by date. She picked one up to look at it and was surprised to see the reduced price was ten pound fifty four which was damned dear for three slices of belly pork, even if they were gey thick. Usually the reduced price is half the original price and as time goes on they keep halving the price till something either sells or they have to bin it, but they usually are prepared to give it away before having to pay for it to be taken away. That would have put the original price at twenty one pound eight pence. She looked at the original price and it was five pound twenty seven. Some one had doubled the price not halved it. The price should have been two pound sixty- three or sixty-four. She telt the manager who she knew well and he sorted it. She bought both the packs at the reduced price, but wondered how the mistake could have been made. Her old man figured it out. Seems the reduced price label printers have a keyboard similar to a calculator. You enter the original price and then either divide by two or multiply by point five. Seems someone divided by point five which would double the price. Bloody wonderful thing technology when it works, but it has to have a decent operator or everything goes to bagwash.(47)
“I reckon bloody computers are more trouble than they’re worth, Harry. Bring back Bob Cratchit(48) I say.” He produced a penknife from his pocket and said, “These were named penknives because folk sharpened quills used for writing with with them. I’m tooled up if it ever happens, and my sister Agatha keeps geese and peafowl.” There were gales of laughter at Alf’s cynical remark which referred back to the days of quill pens.
Vincent asked, “How’s that pup of Livvy’s coming along, Tony? One of the kids telt me Meg had whelped a fortnight since. You got one in mind for her yet? I’m interested because I can always use the meat she brings in, and owt that helps her to fetch me more meat helps all of us.”
“They’ve just opened their eyes, Vincent, but I reckon I know which it’s going to be. In amongst ’em there’s a scrawny looking, long leggèd bitch that’s a real mixer.(49) Puts up a hell of fight when Meg lies down and the bar is open. Long before her eyes were open she’d push all the others out of her way to get fed. It’s a good litter, eight pups, three dogs and five bitches. All of ’em shew promise, but that’s the one I’m putting my money on. I reckon put to right dog, I’d consider mating her back to her sire, she’ll threw gey good pups. I’ve not allowed myself to even consider a name for her because I thought Livvy would like to do that. Gerry, send her round to my spot to have a look see. If she names it at least I won’t have to keep calling it yon, feisty, wee bitch. I reckon she’s worth a good few hundred quid, but if you put her back to her sire and eventually give me a quality dog pup out of her of my choice she’s yours. I’ll happily pay the stud fees, for that’s the kind of asset we need to keep here and I’m prepared to pay long money for that. At least I know Livvy will work her as she should be worked and get everything out of her that’s in her to get. What do you say, Gerry?”
Without saying a word, Gerry put his hand out, and he and Tony shook hands on the deal witnessed by dozens of Bearthwaite men. There could be no going back on it, but neither would ever consider it, for in Bearthwaite a man’s word was his bond, and any who went back on that, be they man or woman, would be no longer be considered to be Bearthwaite folk; it just didn’t happen. Gerry wasn’t bothered, he’d have cheerfully paid whatever Tony had asked for, he’d expected five hundred quid [$650]. He’d never admit it, but Livvy was the apple of his eye, his favourite grandchild, probably he thought because from being a toddler she’d been her own person and she was as straight as a die. No matter what she’d done she’d never lied about it and took her punishment without complaint. He’d started with a grudging admiration of her, but had come to respect her long before she went to school. He considered the deal offered by Tony to be a good one that suited them both, and as Tony had said quality bloodstock would remain in the valley, which was something he considered all residents should consider to be of value to all Bearthwaite folk. Livvy he knew would be thrilled, and though she was not a demonstrative child and wasn’t over keen on personal contact he reckoned he’d get a kiss from her out of the deal which was worth a great deal to him from his exceedingly unusual granddaughter. Unlike his daughter Suzie he’d never thought of using the term unnatural in connection with Olivia, for to him she was entirely natural, for Livvy that was. He had recently started listening for tales of Nicky, and watching out for him too. He’d no intention of interfering with the budding relationship, for Livvy had a right to choose for herself, and make her own mistakes too, but he was interested in any boy whom Livvy was interested in.
Gee said, “Talking of lurchers reminds me, the other morning from my kitchen window I saw a bloody girt hare just sitting on its haunches having a wash in front of my truck. I’ve no idea how long it had been there but it was twenty minutes before it loped off down the lonning. The week before Sam said she’d seen a big one round the back of the house. Since I’ve lived here I’ve seen one occasionally up on the fell, usually in the bracken, but I’ve never seen one down here in the valley bottom before. Phil the Mill who lives at least four miles down the valley from us reckoned he’d seen the same one a dozen times or more down there. I suspect it’s a jack50 from the size of it, and I don’t know if it’s breeding down here, but I suggest we leave it alone. It’s worth more to us as something for the visitors to photograph than it is as jugged hare.”
Gustav held his hand up indicating a desire to speak, “We’ve had the first spirit run approved by the tax folk. It looks like we’ll have provisionally selt it all by the middle of next week. Jean-Claude one of our stillhouse masters is of the opinion that it’s an eminently saleable rubbish of no virtue whatsoever. Mind he says that of most vodkas. However, it can always be flavoured, and we’re keeping some back for Pete and some to experiment with. All our respected tasters agree with him. On a different note, Jean-Claude and Græme, our other stillhouse master, have long wished to develop a quality spirit to be selt at forty percent and cask strength say fifty-one or -two percent, that somehow has something unique to Bearthwaite about it. They do not wish to compete with whisky or brandy, but to create something unique to Bearthwaite. They considered many options, but decided to try distilling a brew using water that contained the exceedingly toxic cyanobacteria, that’s the blue green bacteria or maybe it’s algae that bloom from time to time on Bearthwaite Water. If sucessful they telt me they can raise the whatever the bloom thing is they need artificially in the distillery under bright lights. Apparently it’s a standard technique using huge clear plastic tubes surrounded by appropriate lighting. There’s a shellfish hatchery in the old gravel works at the southern end of Walney Island the other side of Barrow in Furness that’s in the nature reserve that raises what the young shellfish feed on that way. Jean-Claude and Græme’s experiments have reached the point where they need the opinions of Joe public, and that’s us. I have a five gallon drum of their first small scale run for you to try. I guarantee it has been analysed and it will not kill you, thought it may have psychedelic effects. However, you try it, for free I emphasise, at your own risk. Should you feel morally obliged to put the usual consideration in the children’s Christmas party box I’d be very grateful and think the better of you. And I’m having the first glass.” The sound of two pound and pound coins hitting each other and the bottom of the metal box wasn’t deafening but it was loud and the noise continued for the best part of a minute.
Fifteen minutes later, all were agreed the distillery had a winner, for the liquor was definitely tailored for a male palate, a man’s drink, with a unique rather biting taste without the sweetness they associated with liqueurs favoured by most women. That a saleable sweetened liqueur could be produced from it none doubted, but it was considered to be worth producing as it was. Gustav had what he needed and Græme would tell Jean-Claude that as soon as possible they were to set things in train to produce a full scale batch in the morning. “Is that it, Lads? Dominoes?
“No,” said Alf. “I heard from a mate the other day that getting aholt on(51) propane is difficult these days. You have to order it weeks in advance. The problem seems to be not the gas itself but a shortage of bottles, [cylinders] especially the larger ones. Forty-seven kilo [103.4 pounds] bottles are scarcer than rocking horse shite at the moment. God alone knows why. I’ve telt Murray and he said he’d make it clear to the suppliers that when he next orders a waggon load he’d only part with as many empties as they delivered full ones. I suggest we all keep our eyes open for gas bottles regardless of size or who they belong to. If we round enough up Murray can maybe strike a deal with the owners to fill them up at a wholesale price. It’s funny, but years ago I knew a bloke whose missus upped and left him with his twelve year old lad. He’d had enough of the UK then, god alone knows what he’d make of it now. That must have been fifty-five year since. Him and the lad started building an ocean going stainless steel hulled boat on the tidal banks of the Mersey somewhere near Warrington. Latchford way I think, but I could be wrong. As soon as the decking was watertight he handed his rent book back in to the Council and they lived on the boat. They were doing night school at the local tech, navigation and owt else that would be useful to them. The bloke, and I can’t for the life of me mind his name, worked part time and spent the rest of his life boat building, and all his cash went on stuff for the boat. He telt me that when the tide was in gas bottles would be brought in some times a few, sometimes a couple of hundred. He reckoned they were washed away from caravan [US trailer] sites. He and the boy rounded ’em up with a dinghy and selt ’em back to the gas companies. It makes me wonder where all the bottles have gone now.”
“What happened to him, Alf?”
“I went down to where he was building his boat to see him about something, Pat, and the boat wasn’t there. He’d always said as soon as the boat was seaworthy he’d be off. I knew a few lads who knew him too, but he’d never said anything about being ready to leave to any of ’em. One of them telt me the pair of ’em were bothered if it got about just before they planned on leaving Social Services would take the boy off him. They were probably right about that and I reckon wise to just bugger off on the quiet. Dominoes? Partner me, Pat?”
When the company had left, the usual after time meeting took place in the best side. Elle started by saying, “There is little of import now the water matters are resolved. I believe all matters to do with the school that can be dealt with have been dealt with. Perhaps most importantly the issues associated with the control of the Dragon are settled to the satisfaction of all concerned. Delia’s lover Deedee has been sentenced to thirty-two years for drug and people trafficking, so much for the liberal values of the woke brigade, so it will be at least sixteen years before she can be even considered for parole. I think we can safely say that the matter is at an end because I heard she’s still a heavy user so with a bit of luck she’ll overdose like Delia before then. Let’s hope life quietens down a bit. I suggest we go home, Sasha.”
Pete and Gladys went upstairs and as usual checked on Gloria before going to their suite.
Gustav locked the front doors and said, “I need a good nights sleep. We’ve delivery men here at six in what? Just over five hours.”
“Mmm,” said Harriet in response. “But at least you don’t have draymen arriving with beer at that time of day any more. You make a hot drink, Love, and I’ll look in on the kids before retiring. I know all the books say parenting is a twenty-four seven every day of the year task, but they don’t mention the guilt that goes with it. I know I couldn’t sleep if one of us hadn’t checked them before we went to bed.” Gustav said nothing knowing if Harriet awoke in the middle of the night, for any reason at all, she checked on the children again. He wasn’t as worried for them, but then he reasoned he wasn’t a mum either.
Madeleine’s vision and wish did happen but it was to be a couple of years into the future before the Bearthwaite valley acquired its resident ospreys. A future that provided Adalheidis with her next major battle: the fight against RSPB.(52) RSPB regarded all rare species of birds to be their sole domain, particularly raptors. Their court battle to control what was done or not done with the Bearthwaite Ospreys was a farce. Their representatives had been refused access to the Bearthwaite Lonning and had been escorted away by the Police and threatened with gaol by a local magistrate should they attempt to trespass again. Their drone, seeking footage of the Ospreys, was shot down by Gerry’s granddaughter Olivia with the ten gauge shotgun she used for geese. Though her gun was a double barrelled version, as was expected of her, she’d only used the one cartridge to down it. Olivia had grown up considerably from the days when she’d used a four ten. However, before it had been shot down it had recorded and transmitted footage of two pairs of what were obviously breeding pairs of peregrines and a pair of breeding goshawks in the valley which had more than enough small game to support them all.
That had enraged RSPB even further, for they considered that control of such rare and perhaps more to the point prestigious raptors was theirs by right. When they found out that a pair of peregrines had nested for years in one of Alan Peabody’s barns they became nearly incandescent with rage. Their court case achieved them nothing for they were accusing Alan of illegally keeping raptors. His defence was to deny their claim. “I don’t keep the peregrines,” he’d said. “I merely own the barn they choose to nest in. When I realised they were there I left them alone, for interfering with them would have been against the law, but more to the point it would have been stupid, and I could always use another barn for I have seven. My younger grandkids always leave a bit of meat out for the birds, usually a coney, which they have always taken and it probably enables them to raise their entire brood. With some birds like pheasant and partridge the hen lays the entire clutch before starting to incubate them and they all hatch at more or less at the same time. With raptors the hen starts to incubate them as they are laid so if she lays three eggs at a few day intervals when the last one hatches they are different ages and different sizes. In times of food shortage the youngest can’t compete for food and dies, if it’s a bad year only the first to hatch survives, if it’s a really bad year none of them do, so my grandchildren ensure they all survive every year. The birds are not tame, and none have ever tried to domesticate them.
“With all due respect your honour, RSPB are talking shite. They are a charity not a government department and so have no rights to access the Bearthwaite valley which in its entirety is under private ownership including the lonning in and the land around it. There is no right of way anywhere in the valley and I’m including the lonning and the old pack pony trail. We are entitled to allow passage or deny it as it suits us, and we are denying it to RSPB who have less rights to access to my farm land and even less to control my grandchildren. They claim they need to inspect the valley to check that the law is being complied with. As I understand it the law says a man is innocent till proven guilty. Their stance is based on the arrogant assumption that I am breaking the law which is usurping the rights of the courts who are the only institution that can determine my guilt. The police have quite properly not applied for a warrant to check whether I have murdered someone, for there is no evidence to suggest that I have. Where did RSPB acquire the monstrous hubris to assume that they have special privileges that the police don’t have? As a law abiding farmer whose family have for generations untold been the custodians and guardians of the Bearthwaite valley and have had the respect of my neighbours for as long, respect earnt from those neighbours many of who have been rural country dwellers for untold generations too. I bitterly resent some fresh faced city boy with the ink still wet on his degree which is probably worthless telling me that he knows more about how the environment I was born on and have live in ever since should be managed. In all probability I would feel the same way about his professors, for when my ancestors settled in the Bearthwaite valley they lived in perfect harmony with the wolves that lived there then.”
Alan was reprimanded, but without heat, from the bench for his ripe language and insinuations of incompetence, by a smiling magistrate, but the point had been made. Needless to say RSPB lost the case and had to pay for Alan’s legal expenses which they soon realised were exceedingly expensive, for Adalheidis was yet again out for blood. A tiny part of her fees would enable Alan to build another barn so the peregrines could use the one of their choice without it affecting his activities nor his livelihood, but most off her fees would enable the few remaining houses in the valley that didn’t have solar panels on them to provide hot water to be brought into line with the rest that did. It would also pay for the ground source heat pump planned to extract heat for the village not from under ground but from the bottom of Bearthwaite Water. But all that was unknown to the folk of Bearthwaite and in their future, and whilst times the present had to be dealt with first.
1. Cumberland Infirmary, the main hospital in Carlisle.
2. GP, General Practitioner, a family doctor.
3. Alfred Wainwright, the one name above all others who has become associated with walking in the Lake District. His seven-volume Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells, first published in 1955–66, has become the definitive fell walkers guidebook.
4. Bairns, long established northern English and Scottish word for young children.
5. A body of water, of the sixteen major bodies of water in the Lake District of Cumbria only Bassenthwaite Lake is named a lake. Four are meres, to wit, Windermere, Buttermere, Thirlmere and Grasmere. Eleven are waters, to wit, Esthwaite Water, Coniston Water, Wast Water, Ennerdale Water, Loweswater, Crummock Water, Derwent Water, Ullswater, Haweswater, Rydal Water and Elter Water. The spellings given are the most commonly used but some like Wastwater have alternatives where the two words are conjoined and the upper case W is replaced by a lower case w.
6. Grey water or sullage, [US gray water] refers to domestic wastewater generated in households or office buildings from sources without fecal contamination, i.e. all sources except for the wastewater from lavatories. Sources of grey water include sinks, showers, baths, washing machines and dishwashers.
7. Black water, waste water containing faeces and urine, to dispose of this efficiently and safely it needs to be dewatered and aerobically composted.
8. PET, Polyethylene terephthalate. A plastic widely used for producing bottles to sell beverages and water in.
9. Rise, in this context rising ground. The word usually implies that the ground level drops after a short while. Outside the Cumbrian coastal town of Maryport, there is an hamlet called Risehow that is slightly elevated above its surroundings. A howe is a tumulus or barrow.
10. Calva Marsh only exists for the purposes of GOMT.
11. Calva Beck only exists for the purposes of GOMT.
12. A gill in this context is a watercourse of the same size range as a beck. Originally the term referred to the ravine that some becks ran in, but the two terms have become more or less interchangeable. Gill is pronounced with a hard g as in get [IPA gil] as opposed to the fluid measure gill which is pronounced with a soft g as in jill, [IPA dʒil].
13. The river Calva only exists for the purposes of GOMT.
14. Calvamere only exists for the purposes of GOMT.
15. The shutting off of domestic water supplies and the use of standpipes is a practice used in the UK during periods of extreme drought. It was widespread in the long, hot dry summer of 1976 which necessitated the Drought Act 1976.
16. CPO, Compulsory Purchase Order, a legally forced sale used when land is required by the authorities for major redevelopments or infrastructure projects.
17. Tarn. A tarn, or corrie loch, is a mountain lake, pond or pool, formed in a cirque excavated by a glacier. A moraine may form a natural dam below a tarn.
18. The Environment Agency is a no departmental public body, established in 1996 and sponsored by the United Kingdom government’s Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with responsibilities relating to the protection and enhancement of the environment in England (and until 2013 also Wales). Based in Bristol, the Environment Agency is responsible for flood management, regulating land and water pollution, and conservation.
19. In the twenty-four hours before Friday 20 November 2009, rainfall of over 300mm (12 in) was recorded in Cumbria. Flooding along the Borrowdale and Derwent Valley meant that some areas were up to 2.4m (8 feet) deep in water. The surge of water off the fells of the Lake District which flowed into Workington down the River Derwent washed away a road bridge and a footbridge. PC Bill Barker was killed when Northside Bridge collapsed. Other bridges damaged were Miser’s bridge, Calva bridge, Navvies bridge and Dock bridge.
20. Force, this is an ancient use of the word. Used as a noun in this sense it means a powerful waterfall. There are any number of such forces in northern England that are popular tourist destinations. Examples would be Aira Force and Force Jumb.
21. The Cullen family, a family of vampires from Twilight by Stephenie Meyer that live in Forks Washington which is in the Pacific north west of the USA. They live there because it is the wettest place in the States and almost permanently overcast. According to the book, the lack of sunshine makes hiding in open view much easier for them.
22.Feisty tranny, pejorative reference to Adalheidis being trans.
23. Interbreds, pejorative reference to the widely held belief in the county that the isolated folk of Bearthwaite have been involved in consanguineous relationships to the point of incest for centuries.
24. John Ostle of Silloth, Cumberland (1828-1890) kept a journal 1855 - 1866 in which he recorded the happenings, both momentous and mundane of a Quaker farmer's life. He noted a lot of incidents obtained from the local press.
25. Ring barked, the state of having the bark completely removed around the tree which stops nutrients and water flowing both up and down the tree.
26. A line shaft is a power driven rotating shaft for power transmission that was used extensively from the Industrial Revolution until the early 20th century. Prior to the widespread use of electric motors small enough to be connected directly to each piece of machinery, line shafting was used to distribute power from a large central power source to machinery throughout a workshop or an industrial complex. The central power source could be a water wheel, turbine, windmill, animal power or a steam engine. Power was distributed from the shaft to the machinery by a system of belts, pulleys and gears collectively known as millwork.
27. HM Local Government Act 1972 came into force on the first of April 1974.
28. Lancashire had been the only county in the country divided by water and Morecambe Bay had separated the bulk of the county in the south, which had contained the county town of Lancaster, from what had been known as Little Lancashire Over the Water to the north. Without crossing the water to travel from one part of the county to the other one had to go via the county of Westmorland which too, along with Cumberland, was subsumed into Cumbria.
29. CPL handles around 50% of all solid fuel sold in the UK, and has a 75% market share in the retail sector.
30. Gey, very.
31. Tek, take.
32. Mek, make.
33. Glasgow is in Scotland, not England. Scotland’s legal system is different from that of England and Wales.
34. Anglo Saxon, crude or profane. The expression used in this sense derives from after the Norman conquest of England in 1066 by William I. The language of the conquerors was Norman French, that of the conquered was Anglo Saxon which existed in many variants. Norman French was the language of the masters and Anglo Saxon rapidly became deemed to be inferior, then lower class and ultimately coarse and crude. The process took centuries, but many words that today are considered to be outrageously unacceptable in polite society, especially those having any connection to sex or genitals, were at one time perfectly acceptable words in normal every day Anglo Saxon usage.
35. A hostile takeover is where a company tries to acquire a controlling shareholding in another company without the permission of its board.
36. A poison pill plan is one way a company can defend against a hostile takeover. As the name suggests, a poison pill aims to deter the potential acquirer from pursuing your company.
37. The back end, refers to the end of the year as winter is approaching.
38. Girt, great.
39. Tuppeny, two penny.
40. Limned, the word is usually associated with descriptive literary matters where it means to give a representation or account of in words as in, ‘He limned the scene of that violent electrical storm so perfectly I felt that I was there watching it myself’. Synonyms for limned are delineated, depicted, described, drew, imaged and painted. There is also an older usage that is still in use in northern England in various places where it means edged or bordered. The word is rarely used other than in the context in which it is used here. See footnote immediately below this one.
41. Letters arriving with an envelope limned in black were much more widely at one time delivered to announce the death of someone. The practice is still in use by solicitors and less often by others though the areas where that occurs today are somewhat restricted. Elsewhere letters or envelopes limned or edged in black were known as mourning stationery or mourning paper.
42. Four ten, a small calibre shotgun. A 0.410 inch bore shotgun loaded with shot shells is well suited for small game hunting and pest control.
43. Nitram®, the UK’s leading Ammonium Nitrate fertiliser brand.
44. Whinlatter is England’s only true mountain forest. The small fell is set within the Lake District, a World Heritage Site. Whinlatter has superb views across Bassenthwaite Lake, Derwentwater and the picturesque town of Keswick.
45. Welder’s flash is another name for photokeratitis, a painful eye condition that can happen when unprotected eyes are exposed to ultraviolet (UV) rays. Welder’s flash refers to this condition when it is caused by UV rays from a welding torch.
46. Żubrówka bison grass vodka is a distillate flavoured with a grass from the woodlands of Poland near the Belarus border that is found where the country’s endangered Bison population live. The modern ‘safer’ version is flavoured to taste like the original. Sasha’s is the genuine article and illegal in the US and most of Europe.
47. Goes to bagwash, breaks down, fails, messes up. Originally the expression meant unfinished. A bagwash was a shop that took in white laundry only. It was the fore runner of the launderette. Customers put their whites to be washed into a bag which was supplied by the bagwash shop, which were washed by the shop in its bag and returned to the customer still in the same bag while still damp. The items had to be dried and ironed at home because they were ‘unfinished’ washing. The bagwash was popular and open every day for customers to use whenever they chose. It was the beginning of the end for the traditional weekly wash on Mondays.
There is an old song about the days of the week that amongst others contained the lines,
Monday is washing day
Tuesday is soup
Wednesday is roast beef
Thursday is shepherds pie
Friday is fish
Saturday is pay day
Sunday is church
48. Bob Cratchit is a fictional character in the Charles Dickens 1843 novel A Christmas Carol. The abused, underpaid clerk of Ebenezer Scrooge, Cratchit has come to symbolize the poor working conditions, especially long working hours and low pay, endured by many working class people in the early Victorian era.
49. Mixer, fighter, scrapper.
50. Jack, in this context a male hare.
51. Getting aholt on, getting a hold of, obtaining.
52. RSPB, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. In 2021/22 the RSPB had revenue of £157 million, 2,200 employees, 10,500 volunteers and 1.1 million members (including 195,000 youth members), making it one of the world’s largest wildlife conservation organisations. The RSPB has many local groups and maintains 222 nature reserves. It should also be noted that RSPB has been accused of being an institutional bully and there is a view that no charity should be allowed to have so much land, money and power, and that they should be taken over by the government. It is doubtful that would change anything, for all governments are the biggest bullies of those they govern and they hate competition.
Comments
Interesting compilation
Geography, economics, legal, nature, and local history. I am always impressed by the episodes.
Nigh on ...
24,000 words of pure delight that took me two evenings to digest. So much covered of both recent and current events coupled with some delving into village history and a peer into future events with the arrival of the ospreys and the battle with the RSPB attempts to access the private Bearthwaite Valley.
Eolwaen, you write these GOMTs so well that it feels as though I'm reading the Bearthwaite Village Diary/History and I can almost taste that nutty brown ale.
Thank you so very much for the time and care that you invest in the details of. this series.
Brit