The Grumpy Old Men’s Society were meeting as usual on a Saturday evening in the taproom of the Green Dragon Inn in the isolated village of Bearthwaite which was locally pronounced Burrthet. Sasha Vetrov, the unofficial chairman of the group, was an ex KGB officer from Siberia and a retired mathematician who had lived locally for years. Sasha was preparing to tell a tale which along with drinking and playing dominoes were the reasons the group existed. The inn was known throughout the county for the Saturday evening story telling and there was the usual crowd of locals, tourists, and men from other parts of the county, many of who had travelled considerable distances to be there, in attendance.

Pete the landlord announced, “Okay, let’s have a bit of hush. Off you go, Sasha.”

“Despite having been retired a year the alarm still goes off at six. I cursed and asked myself, ‘Where’s that bloody second button from the right gone to?’ Eventually, I hit the clock in the right place and peace was restored. A few minutes later I got up, brewed up and woke up, in that order.

“I had coffee, insulin and a double handful of pills for my first breakfast, and therein lies a tale. Bilateral carpel tunnel means I’ve got knackered hands that can’t grip small things, so blister packs of tablets are a nightmare. Years ago, I got sick to the back teeth of breaking tablets out of brittle blister packs still in a cocoon of plastic. I couldn’t get them out so I’d throw them into the fire and start again. It wasn’t my fault I used twice as many tablets as I needed. I wanted the tablets not the plastic; although I must have eaten so many thousands of tablet sized pieces of plastic or aluminium that I’m surprised I haven’t triggered Crohn’s disease or something worse which would’ve cost the tax payer even more.

“I’m a good citizen really, honest, and I try to do my bit for the National Health’s budget, but when I explained to the pharmacist what happened? I’ll tell you what happened, they gave me tablets in bottles. It’s a damned good job my grandchildren visit at weekends because I can’t open those bloody childproof plastic tops, so the six year olds open them for me, and I have the heat out of the tops. For you city dwellers with gas central heating that means I used them as mini logs in the solid fuel stove in the kitchen that heats the house and provides hot water.

“I really don’t mind getting old, but I swear I rattle when shaken due to the pills, and getting clapped out is a bore.

“But enough rambling and back to that morning, I was up at ten past six, I was walking badly, my right hip was hurting, but there’re things that had to be done. The cats are now completely out of control, all six want feeding and all want feeding right meow. That’s Parky Puss, Psyco Cat, Mammy Sal, The Marmalade Murderer, Special Needs and Thug. My cats’ names are dynamic and evolve with their behaviour. I fed the cats and dealt with their litter trays before cleaning out, laying and lighting the living room fire. Unlike the kitchen stove it doesn’t run 24/7. By then my legs had warmed up, and I was walking better. I suppose at least some of the pills must work. I mowed some grass for Elle to feed to the pigs and I checked their water was okay.

“Eventually it was time for my second breakfast, home raised and cured bacon, with our own tomatoes, grilled, with scraped, burnt toast. I eat a lot of burnt toast. It’s my fault, I have a short attention span, more coffee, purrfect. The Marmalade Murderer was sharpening his claws on my left leg to remind me they wanted their share. I always do too much bacon because the cats like it too, which serves the pig right for biting me once, it’s never done it since. I do a bit of writing, so I revised Olaf using notes I’d made in the middle of the night when I got up due to the vagaries of a superannuated bladder.

~o~O~o~

“I took the truck to the garage for MOT and service. The courtesy car tank was empty, it must have been running on the fumes, nothing ever changes. I got back home and worked on the extension. I’m building a new workshop on the end of the house because the one I currently use is too damned cold in winter and the new one will be heated. I started knocking out the apex of the gable end of pussy palace. Don’t ask! I cleared the rubble, and dressed off some blocks for re-use.

“I made lunch: potato salad and Coöp turkey slices. The home grown jersey royals, left over from dinner last night, with finely diced raw onion, mayonnaise, horseradish, salt and excessive amounts of ground black pepper were delicious. The turkey was dry and a taste free zone. I should have known better, it said free of E numbers, but it was reduced, in price I mean as well as in flavour.

~o~O~o~

“After lunch I was back to carrying blocks down a ladder from the demolition. Mid-afternoon Elle returned from shopping with cream cakes to go with the coffee. She asked me how it was going, and aching I remarked ‘This cramp in my neck to the left of my throat keeps coming back. It’s a pain in the arse!’

“Elle, who was still working as a nurse then, said, ‘I hope you’re joking!’

“I replied, ‘No, why? What does it mean?’

“Elle’s staccato words came out one at a time, ‘Heart. Give. Me. Your. Wrist.’ I did as I was telt. ‘I can’t feel a pulse!’

“I asked, ‘Does that mean I’m dead?’

“ ‘Shut up. This isn’t funny. I’ll get my watch and check it again.’ Elle went inside and returned with her upside down watch and after a minute or so said, ‘Not strong, thready, over a hundred and missing beats. Have you any pain?’

“It was hard, but I resisted the temptation to say ‘Only you,’ because I knew she’d hit me, and replied, ‘No, I’m fine.’

“Elle said, ‘I’m ringing the doctor, who will want to see you now.’ Elle is on first name terms with all the local quacks and I give up. I knew she’ll get an immediate appointment. ‘Get in the car.’ But I don’t give in that easily.

“ ‘I’m not going anywhere without clean knickers. The bastard might send me to the infirmary.’

“ ‘No he won’t.’ She sees the look on my face and says, ‘Anyway, you’re filthy, full of dust.’

“ ‘That’s no excuse for not having clean knickers, Granny wouldn’t have approved.’

“Elle gave in, ‘I’ll put clean clothes on the bed and be in the car.’

“I gave in, ‘Okay.’ No-one in their right mind crosses Elle which seeing as I’d been falling out with her regularly for forty-odd years probably tells you more about me than her.

~o~O~o~

“Fifteen minutes later I was being seen by my GP, a decent bloke who I get on with most of the time, probably my fault not his, and Elle was telling him the tale. He can’t help being young, mind you age is relative, so somebody out there doubtless considers him ancient. He asked me all the expected questions about chest pains and my diabetic stability. ‘How are your sugar levels?’

“ ‘Fine.’

“ ‘How often do you check them?’

“Nobody is important enough to me to lie to. ‘About twice a year when I have the HbA1c blood test, only I forget to come in for the test some times.’

“ ‘That’s what what I like, total honesty.’

“Elle chipped in, ‘That’s only because I’m here.’ I had expected Elle to say, ‘He’s cantankerous, but what you see is what you get.’ She usually does, but maybe she’d got something on her mind; still you can’t win them all.

“My pulse and blood pressure were okay by then, but he said there was still the odd missing beat. I was still laughing and joking; what’s the option when you’re ten years older than the age three grandparents died at and fifteen older than your mother when she died and they all died of heart problems, mostly angina. Don’t bother telling me you don’t die from angina. I already know, but it’s easer to say than acute myocardial infarction.

“I telt him that I’m older than they lived to be, and he remarked ‘Let’s try to keep it that way.’ Dry.

“I objected, ‘I know I have to die sometime but I haven’t had today’s whisky ration yet.’

“He laught, checked my blood sugar history on his computer and says, ‘God alone knows how you’re that stable.’

“I telt him, ‘That’s not what she says.’

“ ‘Yeah well, insanity doesn’t shew up on the blood test.’

“Like I said, he’s okay. I get on with him.

“He’s actually a good doc as pill rollers and baby catchers go, and he insisted, ‘We’ll do an ECG. The ECG machines are in the small examination rooms.’

“I shrugged my shoulders and said, ‘Okay. You can come too, after all this is all your fault. You brought me here.’ The last remark was addressed to Elle.

“What a performance. Ten sticky pads to get connected up to an ECG. There were only five with the machine and the doc told me the district nurse was using the other examination room, where the pads are kept, for that day’s gynae clinic. We wait till he can get them and eventually I’m hooked up, to be told, ‘The leads are numbered for doctors; we don’t do many of these, usually the nurses do them.’

“I said, ‘As a retired mathematician I like the numbers, but were I a quack I think I would prefer labels telling me where to put them.’

“ ‘Yeah me too. However, we work with what we have.’ Two minutes later. ‘Well, you’re not having a heart attack, but if any of the symptoms return get back to me, it could be angina.’

“Angina. Brilliant! All the family’s favourite killer.

“The snide ferret then remarked, ‘It’s good for you you don’t have hairy legs. There’ll not be much pain getting the pads off. I could let you take the pads off your chest yourself but I have to have some pleasure out of the job.’

“ ‘Bastard.’

“He calmly replied, ‘I know,’ as he rived the pads off my chest taking hairs and three layers of skin off.

“Elle handed me my shirt, and as I put it on I said, ‘I’ll get back to my demolition and barrow then.’

“ ‘I suggest you take it easy for the rest of the day.’

“Knowing Elle would give me a hard time if I don’t comply I just said ‘Okay.’

“On the way home Elle gave me a bollocking for calling him a quack, funny thing is she wasn’t in the least bothered by me calling him a bastard. There’s no understanding the woman at all.

“We got home at half three and the day was burnt toast as far as the gable end was concerned. Somehow my cold coffee and cream cake didn’t taste as I’d expected.

~o~O~o~

“The Marmalade Murderer, aka Boots, returned, from yet another expedition of wholesale slaughter. Boots is my wee red cat who thinks I’m his under-employed white servant, and he is a cat with a mission: death. If it moves it has to die. He’s broadly ecumenical in his predation, mice, rats, voles, moles, weasels, stoats, lizards, swallows, owls, bats, pheasants, pigeons, rabbits, lots of rabbits, and a general selection of birds of various species. You could say he’s a gourmand. He had a yeast infection in his ears at the time and needed ear drops, fifty quid’s worth of ear drops. I got to hold him, and Elle put the drops in. He’s only a wee cat, but he's a cantankerous bugger, and I could see bone at the bottom of one of the holes in the back of my right hand. Elle says he's my cat for sure. There were only four more days of drops, twice a day, to go. Ah well I considered, it’s only pain; if you can feel the pain at least you know you’re not dead yet. Who needs an ECG?

~o~O~o~

“I did a bit of demolition cleaning up, grass mowing, paperwork, jarred up the pickled red cabbage I was making, decanted six gallons of red wine and a gallon of whisky, and started up another six gallons of red. That batch of red was experimental, made with Lidl red grape juice on the lees of the previous batch. I’d had to calculate the sugar required. Actually it was guesstimation, not calculation, but it was interesting.

~o~O~o~

“How on earth I ever found the time to work I’ll never know, but it was all just another ordinary day in the retired life of yours truly, but there must be a tale to tell or a song to sing there somewhere, so I’ll type this up on the laptop in bed when drinking a well deserved very large single malt whisky, which I’ll keep topping up before I finish the glass, so I can truthfully tell Elle when she asks that I’ve only had the one.

“Old age isn’t all bad you know.

~o~O~o~

“Now I’m not quite as bring on death, it’ll be a laugh, as I try to make out, and I must admit to a little perplexity as to my GP’s thoughts that it could be angina. How would I know? When should I do something about it? At what point should I have GTN available. I have to say I’m bothered by the medical usage of the initialism GTN. Glyceryl-trinitate to the medical and nursing professions is TNG to me: trinitro-glycerine, an unstable high explosive with vaso-dilation properties. I grilled Elle on what she thought, and all I got was ‘I don’t know. You’ll have to ask your GP.’ Bloody helpful that.

“Now, I’m not that bothered about death you understand because I know I have to do it, but I’m a bit of a procrastinator, it’s just the way I am. Never put off doing till tomorrow what you can put off doing till the day after is the way I have lived since I first discovered time, when waiting for lunch as a hungry two year old. But eventually I had to agree with Elle and I went do see my GP. I had been looking forward to at least a squabble if not a confrontation, but I think I hadn’t realised how well he knew me. He’s been my GP for god alone knows how long. All he said was, ‘The sensible solution is that I write you up for GTN now. Do you know how to use it?’

“I admitted I had no idea, but said doubtless Elle would know, and he said, ‘Better if you know. If you get breathless. Stop, and sit down for a rest. If you are still breathless after three minutes, spray the GTN under your tongue twice. If it is no better after two minutes ring 999 for an ambulance and tell them you are having a heart attack. I’m going to refer you to the cardiac unit and they will probably want to put you on a treadmill to evaluate your heart function. That can be inconclusive, in which case they may want to perform an angiogram to find out conclusively what condition your heart and arteries are in.’

“I said ‘Okay,’ thinking, a treadmill, great! I’ll be sweating like a knackered pig looking like a pillock in front of young female nurses. If only I were twenty, no make that forty, years younger

“When I told Elle what he’d said her response was classic Elle, ‘The hell with the two minutes. If it’s not better almost instantly we ring for an ambulance, but the first responders will be here in minutes.’

“ ‘Yes, Dear.’

“I didn’t bother to ask what the hell a first responder was. After all a heart attack is like everything else in life, you either survive it or you don’t. If you do, great. If you don’t you won’t give a toss.

~o~O~o~

“I got my appointment to see the consultant cardiologist in three weeks time. Elle said, ‘It was lucky to get in so quickly,’ which didn’t make me feel fortunate at all. I couldn’t help it, I was thinking, what has my GP told him that I don’t know. Am I getting an early appointment because they think I won’t live long enough for later one? I knew I was being irrational and unreasonable, but to be honest I didn’t care how I appeared to be behaving to anyone, even Elle, and I said so. Elle said, ‘But you never have cared, you’re behaving perfectly normally.’ Sometimes I hate Elle.

~o~O~o~

“The appointment with the consultant was an NHS(1) disaster to start with and then it went seriously down hill. Elle had worked the night before, and, as I knew she would, she insisted she went too. The appointment was for two o’clock and because that’s the way she is Elle had had no sleep and was tired. We were on time, and managed to park the truck on the hospital car park. We were directed to the cardiology unit by the front reception.

“A big fat lass, women of that build that I like I usually think of and describe as attractively womanly, took my appointment letter off me, gave it a cursory glance before handing it back and tersely told us to take a seat and she would let someone know I was there. I am a patient man, sometimes, but by three o’clock every one who had been there when we arrived had been seen and long gone along with twenty or more others. I told Elle I was going for a coffee, and she said she would get it for me in case I was called. I told her I had to get it myself because my backside and legs needed the walk as they were completely numb from the wonderful plastic chair I had been sitting on for over an hour. I went for my coffee and returned at about quarter past three and finished the coffee sitting on the same chair as before.

“At half past three Elle was looking decidedly dangerous, and tired too, which makes her unpredictably dangerous. It’s why I married her, it’s the ultimate in extreme sport. I waited for her to reach boiling point and at twenty eight minutes to four, I know, I looked at the clock, she stood up and said, ‘This is ridiculous. I am going to find someone to give me an explanation.’ Poor someone.

“A nurse in a dark blue uniform went by. In arctic tones, Elle asked, ‘Excuse me. My husband’s appointment is for two and we were here at ten to two. He handed his appointment letter to someone on reception and we were told to take a seat and that the appropriate person would be told we were here. My husband has insulin treated diabetes and needs to eat soon. It is now well gone half three. Every one here when we arrived and many others too have been seen and gone. I would like an explanation please, or at least to see someone who can give me one.’

“The woman, who I could see had taken in Elle’s dark blue uniform, was equally polite, but her tone was warm not glacial. She was helpful too. ‘I am not on duty here, but I’ll do my best to help. May I see the letter please.’ I gave her the letter and she said, ‘You are not in the right place. You should be round the corner at the consultants clinic which is where I am on duty. If you come with me I’ll try to sort everything out for you.’ I could see Elle’s hackles going down at the woman’s pleasant and helpful manner. Pity really, Elle is something to see when under full sail at storm force ten, especially when she’s fighting my corner.

“We went no more than a matter of ten yards, round a corner, then another few yards and were invited to take a seat. The nurse went away and after a few minutes returned, ‘I’ve explained what has happened to Doctor Smith, and even though his clinic has finished he’ll see you in a few minutes after he has finished writing up his notes. Can I get you a coffee and something to eat? Do you need to check your blood sugar level?’

“What a difference twenty yards makes. Elle was almost human again. We had a coffee, and I some biscuits, and Elle told me the big fat lass had been taking a personal phone call when I went for a walk and coffee. I asked how did she know and she replied sourly, ‘I doubt if she habitually says to work colleagues “‘I’ll call at Sainsbury’s on the way home, Darling.’” ’

“I was weighed and measured for height, I wasn’t surprised my height was the same but that my weight was too did surprise me. I really must ask someone one day why they wanted groin swabs, then again perhaps not. All the staff at the consultants clinic were pleasant and helpful, and I had no reason to wish them ill, but just to be on the safe side I told them Elle had worked the previous night shift, had had no sleep and for some strange reason was concerned about my health. They already knew her cage had been rattled by the big fat lass, and they probably suspected what I knew, a complaint would be going in.

“Doctor Smith apologised and said, ‘I believe you have had a difficult time getting to see me. I have read your GP’s letter, but would you like to tell me your views on the matter?’

“I explained my family history and my concerns, and that although I had not smoked for over thirty years I had been a heavy smoker.

“ ‘You tick all the boxes for an at risk patient. Before I decide whether medication, or surgery is indicated I wish to know exactly what the situation is. The only sure way is for you to have an angiogram which I shall schedule for as soon as possible. I shall be doing the procedure myself. Is there anything you wish to know or ask?’

“I was seriously taken aback at the possibility of heart surgery. We chatted for a few minutes as he explained what the procedure involved and he asked me not to leave till the nurses had finished with me. The nurses told us they had finished with me, but usually they did the weight, height and swabs after Doctor Smith had seen a patient which would have been why he’d said what he did.

“That Elle had trouble on the way out finding out how to complain and who to send the complaint to boded ill for somebody or maybe some bodies. Still, the chips from the Chinese fish and chip shop near the hospital were extremely good.

~o~O~o~

“The procedure letter was a revelation. After explaining that the procedure would pass the tube into your heart via the wrist it then gave instructions to shave the pubic hair off both sides of the groin. Just in case you didn’t understand, there was a pair of diagrams of naked persons, one with breasts and a rather discrete cleft and the other with equally discrete penis and testicles, they were helpfully labelled female and male, and each label was with the correct diagram. I did wonder how many people were treated who needed that level of help, and suspected that the few who did in all probability couldn’t read anyway, so it wouldn’t have mattered if the labels were with the wrong diagram. The diagrams had circles around the groin areas and a picture of a razor and arrows indicating where to shave. It was a puzzle why I needed to shave my pubic hair for a procedure involving my wrist, but never mind.

~o~O~o~

“My appointment was for half past seven in the morning. I couldn’t eat for twelve hours before but I could drink as long as it had no milk in it. I drink single malt and black coffee, in roughly equal proportions, so I was okay there. I was not supposed to drive home after the procedure, so Elle went to drive me home, which was a bit unfortunate as she had had to work the night-shift the night before. This combination of Elle’s night shifts and my hospital appointments was getting to be a habit. She was knackered and I was pissed off by the whole business, but we set off for the hospital at seven.

“Unknown to either of us there was a strike of ancillary staff, including anaesthetists’ staff that day. Negotiating the pickets, I’d have been quite happy to mow them down the way I was feeling and I suspect it was obvious to them. At the main gates to the hospital, I drove past the fleeing pickets accompanied by their abuse to the hospital car park. Under appropriate circumstances I just love upsetting folk. I mind my own business and had no intention of trying to prevent them striking, but I demand the same respect which under those circumstances means only an idiot stands in front of a vehicle I'm driving. Needless to say we didn’t have the change required for the car park ticket machines; but Elle is a mistress at dealing with folk and she said, ‘Let’s go and talk to the man in the car park kiosk.’

“We did and she explained the situation and asked for change. We could see he took in her dark blue nurses frock indicating a senior nurse. He smiled and asked her, ‘Have you got a pound coin?’

“ ‘Yes.’

“ ‘Get a one pound ticket and that will be fine. You’re in the red truck?’

“ ‘Yes.’

“ ‘I’ll tell my mate who takes over at twelve and you’ll be fine.’

“Now Elle is not one to leave anything to chance, so she said, ‘I worked last night and I didn’t get the chance to eat my chocolate bar, here,’ she dived into her handbag, ‘you have it then it won’t be wasted.’

“The car park man smiled and said, ‘Thank you. Thank you very much.’ Elle asked him how to get to cardiology and and he gave her detailed instructions which were much better than the ones on the letter I had received, but then he told us he’d shew us the way and escorted us the quick way via security card operated doors to the heart centre.

“On handing in my letter, I was introduced to Sharon who said she was my nurse. Sharon who was possibly twenty, took us to my bed. Elle and I looked on in amusement as the curtains were drawn from one side to the other as like a child’s knock down toy they closed at one side to open at the other. Eventually Sharon managed to work out where the missing curtain had gone and in the dubious privacy of flimsy curtains which blew to leave a three foot gap every time a door opened, and the ward had a lot of doors, I had the opportunity to wear my NHS unisex paper knickers. I’m not sure who they were designed for, but even I, at near seventy than sixty, fell out of one side. I was seriously glad that I had not been given a pair to wear when I was younger and capable of being embarrassed by the thought of any woman still breathing.

“I do have an exaggerated sense of the ridiculous and after a young woman of certainly no more than forty-five had helped me to fasten my paper hospital gown at the back Elle on seeing the look on my face waited till she'd gone and said, ‘Stop it. I already need a wee.’

“Sharon had asked me what I preferred to be called; she was a little perplexed when I replied, ‘Anything you like as long as it is not before five am.’

“Elle spoils everything, and said, ‘He’s playing with you. Call him Sasha. If he doesn’t like you he’ll say so, and insist on being called Dr. Vetrov. If he really doesn’t like you he’ll insist on Professor Vetrov. If he hates you he’ll insist on Academician Vetrov which is what I call him when we’re having a row. Is that your natural hair colour? I need a chat with you after this.’

“Sharon said, ‘I’ll call you whatever you like. Are you a GP or do you work here?’

“I said, ‘Sharon, Elle is under stress and tired. She’s just worked a night shift. I’m a retired mathematician not a medic. Sasha is fine, and before you ask it’s a man’s name where I come from, but I’d be obliged if you find time to talk hair or she’ll give me a hard time later.’

“Sharon smiled, ‘I’m not good after a night shift either. Would you like a coffee? I’ll find the time to talk hair for a few minutes.’

“ ‘Good lass, I appreciate it. I’d like a black coffee please with no sugar. Elle drinks it white without sugar.’ Sharon smiled again and returned with the coffees. It’s no wonder the ancillary staff were on strike. I be on strike if I had to drink that stuff every day. It was obvious they were trying to cut down hospital waiting lists by poisoning patients, but at least it was wet. The detergent taste was a puzzle though, still it gave me something to think about, maybe by putting it in with the coffee the cups don’t need washing and can just be rinsed before being reused?

“Now I know that life is what you make of it and opportunities should be firmly seized with both hands, but after Sharon had gone there really was no need for Elle to play with the high tech bed controls. I told her to bugger off and find a loo before she killed me.

“The bloke in the bed to my right in the corner was wheeled away; he looked okay, so I didn’t think he was on his way to the morgue. The old man who was wheeled in to take his place was a character and and a half, if not two. He was, we subsequently discovered, seventy eight and extremely deaf. He too was in for an angiogram and was accompanied by his son who looked to be in his late fifties. Everything was on go slow due to the strike, and I was told it would probably be about eleven before I was taken for my angiogram.

“Elle had found a loo and managed to buy an Express newspaper with a cryptic crossword. It passed the time. Elle does cryptics regularly, she’s very good at them. I don’t understand them the way she does because I can’t be bothered with them, but my vocabulary is larger than hers so I often get asked things like, ‘Is there such a word as whatever?’ She’d filled in all bar two clues and I knew that a word that Elle had put in wasn’t correct, and what the other two were, but with Elle tired and already irate I wasn’t going to bring her wrath down upon my head, so I held my peace.

“Some bloke in his fifties was going round talking to folk in the beds, eventually he came to us. I didn’t like him because I didn’t want to talk to him and I considered it to be presumptuous to just sit down. He said he’d had the procedure last year and was a ward visitor. Presumably he couldn’t get on the list to visit psychos in prisons, so he inflicted himself on day patients. Elle asked him if he was any good at cryptic crosswords and he said he was an expert. At that point I wasn’t sure whether he was an illiterate taking the Mick or just an arrogant bastard.

“She passed him the paper over and he said he thought the word I thought incorrect should be what I had thought it to be, but he didn’t know the answers to the missing two which ran across it. I’ll let you decide, illiterate or arrogant? He gave her the paper back and chatted to her for a few minutes before leaving.

“ ‘Even by your standards you were damned bad mannered to him,’ Elle telt me.

“ ‘If I hadn’t been you’d have had to put up with him for another twenty minutes. Pass me the paper, Elle.’ I altered the crossword and filled in the other two remaining clues.

“ ‘You are infuriating. You knew those three all the time didn’t you?’

“ ‘Maybe, maybe not.’

“It was still not nine o’clock, and my attention span for the next month was exhausted. Elle was re-reading the paper in an effort to stay awake. I don’t read papers. I prefer to make my own lies up which I describe as creating the new truth, after all I am a writer, sort of. Sharon was back to check my blood sugar level, it was low but acceptable for me. She was worried and went for some glucose tablets and a sandwich, unspecified. The two slices of last week’s white bread were so thin I could read Elle’s paper through them and they had edges as sharp and hard as a Japanese throwing blade. I assumed there was a trace of some kind of spread on the bread somewhere and that the lack of evidence as to its presence was due to my eyesight. See, I can do kind. As to the thin curled up layer of off white stuff in the middle, which would have done Aladdin’s slippers proud, it would doubtless have been a criminal offence to refer to it as cheese.

“Elle told Sharon, ‘He won’t hypo out of sheer cantankerousness now.’ I thanked Sharon for the sandwich. I’m sure British Rail caters must have the sandwich making franchise at the hospital, and I had no intention of putting it anywhere near my mouth. Fortunately Sharon had to leave, and I was able to throw the shuriken sandwich at a seagull. I’ve always hated gulls. Had I managed to kill it doubtless the others would eat their late companion along with the sandwich. Rubbish tip fed seagull would no doubt be less dangerous to eat than the sandwich.

“A woman came to see me, she introduced her self as Doctor Someone or other who would be involved in the procedure, and she asked if I’d shaved my groin. I said yes, but I asked why was it necessary. She explained the preferred procedure passed the angiogram tube into the heart via the wrist, but in some people it was not possible so the groin was the site used. Ah, all becomes clear, as mud. After examining my wrists she said they were fine and they would use my left wrist.

“ ‘I’m left handed, can you not use the right one?’

“Doctor Someone or other was a little irritated by that, but obviously not with me, and asked, ‘Has no one asked you whether you are left handed because they should have done. It means we need to turn some of the equipment around so we always do all the left handers together. As far as I’m aware there is only you, but perhaps no one has been asked. I’ll have it checked.’

“ ‘No one asked me, and it wasn’t on the form I filled in.’

“She smiled and before leaving said, ‘I’ll have someone tell you at what time we think you’ll have the procedure when we know how many left and right handers we have.’

“I asked Elle, who’s left handed too, what she thought happened if one had hairy wrists, or one were left groined, but she wasn’t playing. She shrugged and went back to the Express. I was so bored by then I accepted another coffee from Sharon, and as I drank it I wondered what embalming fluid tasted like.

“The old guy in the corner had a similar visit, but from a Portuguese doctor. The doctor was a quietly spoken young man whose English was not good. It was obvious the old guy hadn’t heard him never mind understood him. ‘He’s very deaf,’ the son explained. The doctor explained the arteries in his wrists were narrow and they would be using his groin and asked if his groin had been shaved. My sight is poor these days, but my hearing is still better than the average ten year old.

“The old guy meanwhile was shouting in the way the deaf often do, ‘Eh? What did he say?’ The doctor repeated himself, not raising his voice at all, saying he would send a nurse to make sure all was in order for the procedure. ‘Eh? What did he say?’

“This happened once more and the son said, ‘I’ll explain it to him.’

“The old guy was clearly upset ‘Eh? What did he say?’

“The son, a much harassed man eventually managed to calm his dad and explained. A nurse came and drew the curtains. She left five minutes later, opening the curtains. The old guy was sitting on the edge of his bed agitated.

“ ‘You’ll be fine,’ I said to him. ‘Have you come far?’

“ ‘Chancy Tor,’ he shouted. ‘You know it?’

“ ‘Aye. I used to live at Seagrove. I went for physio at Stent Hill years ago.’

“ ‘What with Doctor Death? That’s what they called him you know.’ The son looked resigned as his dad shouted, ‘John, he knows Doctor Death. Where do you live now?’

“ ‘Bearthwaite. We have a holding and keep pigs.

“Elle, I and the old guy talked pigs, pig killing, bacon curing, other things we did on our holding and farming generally for the next hour which calmed him down and relieved his son immensely. The old man had worked the land, and I knew about working with horses from when I was a boy.

“Eventually I was taken away to what seemed to be a wide shallow cupboard with its entire front wall on sliding rollers. I was positioned on the table which occupied most of the cupboard with just enough space around it for the dozen or so technicians and doctors. The entire procedure was orchestrated by the consultant: Doctor Smith.

“As the cupboard door-wall closed the light disappeared and all was illuminated by the sickly green light of the various monitors. Doctor Smith when I first met him was dressed in a suit and he looked like a consultant. In the cupboard from hell he looked like an abattoir slaughterman in his overalls and white wellies. The hooded and cowled nightmare crew closed in on me, hooked me up to the monitors which were all over the ceiling and two walls.

“The ghoul on my right next to the sliding wall started messing about with my wrist and I was immediately overwhelmed by horrendous nausea, which subsequently lessened, but only a little. That was him slicing into the artery in my wrist and sliding the tube in which the angiogram equipment went down. The actual procedure itself I was unaware of. Maybe ten or twenty minutes later, it seemed like hours, Smith told me that my arteries and heart were in good condition and there was nothing to worry about. I was aware of the tube being removed, it hurt a bit but the nausea went. The door-wall slid away and daylight flooded in. I was wheel chaired back to the ward. Hell I was tired, but at least I was out of the tomb.

“When I was back on my bed, the old guy shouted, ‘What was it like?’ Much to Elle’s approval I lied through my teeth, by omission of course.

“ ‘I never felt the thing looking at my heart and arteries. He said I was in good shape.

“ ‘Well that’s good.’ He turned to his son, ‘He got a good report. He knows Doctor Death you know. He kills his own pigs too.’

“The only problem when the medics slit your wrist is when they’ve done they put a wrist band on you that exerts pressure on the cut. Then they pressurise the wrist band with compressed air. At regular intervals a nurse takes a measured amount of the air out of the wrist band with a graduated hypodermic syringe. Damned clever what? It would be for anyone who hasn’t got carpel tunnel problems. I spent the next two and a half hours with excruciating pins and needles in my right arm from the shoulder blade down to my finger tips. However, if they go in via your groin you get to wear a compressed air filled belt, I don’t even want to think about where you get the pins and needles from that. Maybe that’s why they take the groin swabs? Still my heart’s in good nick and I do know Doctor Death.

“Eventually the wrist strap was removed and the pain in my right arm left me, presumably to visit a more worthy recipient. We left the old guy with what reassurances we could, he still had to visit the crypt in the cupboard, and wished he and his son well. The old guy was still reassuring himself by telling his son ‘He got a good report. He knows Doctor Death you know. He kills his own pigs too.’

“I doubt if there was a soul on the cardiac unit that day who didn’t know that ‘I got a good report, I know Doctor Death and that I kill my own pigs too.’

“By the time we got out the car park was not only full, but littered with abandoned cars between the rows too. Hardly surprising really as the hospital staff pay for their spaces out of their salaries and those arriving to start work after ten can’t find a space, so they just abandon them anywhere with their season tickets visible and the car park franchise company can do nothing about it. I find anything that upsets any car park organisation amusing, parasites all. Elle took one look at the situation, she doesn’t do reverse and she doesn’t like driving my truck, and said, ‘I’ll never get it out. What do we do?’

“ ‘You get in the the passenger side and I’ll drive.’

“As we got in the truck Elle said, ‘You’re not supposed to drive. It might start your wound bleeding.’

“ ‘I know. I do lots of things I’m not supposed to, most of which I don’t trouble you with. If it makes you feel any better I promise I’ll only drive with my left hand. Now shut up, and let me concentrate on pushing that car out of my way. My left hand can do the gear lever and my knees the steering wheel.’

“Every now and again Elle does what I tell her. I just wish I could figure out how to make her do so a bit more often. Anyway I eased the truck up to the Volvo and gently pushed it three feet, and now able to do so, drove over a flower bed between two rows of cars as I left the car park. Piece of cake, although the Volvo driver would face the same situation I’d been in. I wondered if it would occur to him to push a vehicle out of his way. As I drove out through the gates onto the main road I was relieved to see the pickets had gone. It would have been difficult driving straight on the road at the speed I drove off it. Still, lucky pickets.

“As I drove us home, Elle started laughing and said, ‘You are mental, you know that don’t you?’

“ ‘I should. You and others aplenty keep telling me so.’

“ ‘You pushing that car and going over the flowers will be on CCTV you know?’

“ ‘One, I very carefully drove between the roses not over them, and two the hospital car park is not a public road and therefore not subject to highway regulations. In any case moving a car without damaging it is not an offence, nor can it be subject to an insurance claim, but I doubt if the Volvo driver will be aware his car has been moved, he’ll just assume the car on the other side has blocked him in, and frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn, cos ah’s gaan yam.’

“At which we both laughed. I knew Elle would appreciate both Brick Cutler’s words and those of Geordie Geoff. Brick Cutler is what I refer to the hero in Gone with the Wind as and Geordie Geoff was a thoroughly unsavoury character in a scurrilous, anti-establishment magazine I used to be given regularly in the days when I first met Elle.

“You didn’t seriously think I have ever paid for reading material did you?

“Yes. All in all not a bad day really, apart from that awful coffee I was given on the ward, but you get what you pay for so I suppose it was value for money. My only real regret was the Chinese was shut.

~o~O~o~

By this time the old man had an impressive line of glasses in front of him all of which had just appeared with out a word from him.

A man who was obviously a friend of his said, “ Comrad Sasha Vetrov, you are biggest bloody liar I have ever met, and though I don’t doubt that every word was literally true you surely do know how to spin a yarn. That was as good as the ones you tell about 'the old country', though I don't believe a word of those.”

1 NHS, National Health Service.

“We’d better make this a short session, Lads, because I’m supposed to be at home drinking with my other mates, Parky Puss, Magic Psycho Cat, Boots the Marmalade Murderer, Mammy Sal, Bibby Special Needs and Pixel the Thug. I’ve laid in the supplies, and they’ll be drinking double cream, and I, being an inferior sort of a cat, single malt. Highland Park if you must know, Frank. I’ve only managed to sneak out because Elle is out risking her life, if not her entrails. She’s on night duty at the nursing home down the road, and Norwalk, also known as Novo virus is doing the rounds. If I were you, Lads, I’d play it safe and finish with a whisky tonight and walk home on the other side of the road.

“Death is in the air and eight staff are off with it. A dozen or so have already died down south, but that’s southerners for you. Talcum knackered jessies all, no stamina. That’s why I need the malt, purely as an antiseptic to protect me from her return in the morning you understand because nurses carry everything. It’s all right for them because they’ve become immune to most bugs over the years. Gladys, fetch another round will you, Love? Alf’s paying.

“Will you listen to that racket? What do I mean? What do I bloody mean? The ice cream van, Stan. I can’t for the life of me understand how you can switch it off. Where I grew there was no such thing. The first one I can recall hearing was not long after I met Elle. I’d have been in my late twenties, and I asked her what the awful noise was. It’s a tasteless, mindlessly repetitive racket, three grades of quality below musak and what the kids refer to as elevator music.

“Which brings us nicely back to what you were going on about, George: Christmas. I loath it, and I can give Bah humbuggers lessons in Bah humbugging. I loath everything about it. Most especially I loath that it seems to start at Easter. It’s true. You can tell when it’s Christmas by the Easter eggs in the shops, and as for that awful music that you can’t escape from and nobody wants to listen too, the perpetrators of that should be dragged out and stoned in the street.

Bet you didn’t know I have some thing in common with Johanna Lumley did you. Keep it clean or keep it quiet, George! There are kids and women in the best room next door. Gladys, if George makes any more dirty remarks, hit him for me will you, Love, you’re nearer than me. Johanna and I are both members of the noise abatement society, and neither of us shop in any establishment that plays music. They’ll only get my money on my terms. I don’t need any one’s permission to spend it because it’ll spend anywhere.

I hated Christmas as a child because my sisters were given things. The old man didn’t believe in boys being spoilt, so I was given nothing, and usually went for a walk – all day. Even the prospect of Christmas dinner didn’t attract me enough to put up with all that hugging and kissing from people I only saw once a year who really didn’t give a damn which nauseated me. I still don’t like people touching me.

I have never bought a Christmas card or a present for anyone, nothing but a money making racket to extort money out of folk with more money than sense. Only all too many of them don’t actually have any money. They spend a fortune they don’t have buying stuff they don’t need, and half of what they buy the kid’s is broken before the new year. The pawnbrokers’ best month is January because the fools haven’t got enough to eat so they hock everything other fools gave them.

“At least I’ve got enough money to give Elle my credit card at the beginning of December, and tell her to get on with it. She knows she can do what she wants with it as long as she doesn’t burden me with explanations I don’t want to hear, and that she knows I won’t listen to anyway. What do mean Jeff, I’m taking a chance? Elle’s tighter than a bull’s backside at fly time. Years ago she had her own credit card, but she never used it. Not once. We reckoned it was just a liability, so she cut it up, told the bank not to replace it and has used mine ever since. I can count the number of times she’s used it in thirty or more years on the fingers of one hand. I get funny looks from the postman when he delivers lingerie catalogues addressed to me, but doubtless perplexity is good for his soul.

“I don’t want for anything, if I want something I just buy it whatever time of the year it is, Elle does too. Don’t be daft, Alf. I don’t want a yacht. I can’t swim. The best Christmas days that I can remember were when Elle was working, she’s working this year too. I drank single malt all day, and the cats as usual drank double cream.

“I hate turkey, it’s drier than an undertaker’s eyes at a funeral. Elle hates it too, that’s the real reason why she married me, so we eat steak, usually elk that I have sent to me by my cousin from Karelia. Heaven forfend that I should eat reindeer at Christmas. I’d be accused of Bambicide. Don’t talk nonsense, Alf, the meat import restrictions only apply to people, so just in case I have it addressed to Bootsie, the Marmalade Murderer, my wee red cat. He gets blamed for everything anyway.

“I like steak blue, so I introduce mine to the candle. What’s that Alf? You’re full of questions tonight. You ailing for something? Of course I light it! ‘Candle I’d like you to meet steak, steak I’d like you to meet candle.’ I do this twice so that my steak is cooked on both sides. The cats aren’t fussed about candles for their steak.

“When it’s time for pudding we all have what the kids refer to as squashed dead fly cake, which is Christmas pudding to you heathens, with more double cream. The cats always leave the pudding. Still I reckon they should have the option. Brilliant really, by the time Elle gets back from having enjoyed Christmas day with the residents, and all that secret Santa nonsense is over, we, cats and I, are all crashed out feeling fat having had a perfect day doing absolutely nothing.

“No TV in our house to intrude upon our delicate nerves. We, that’s Elle, cats and I, have a perfect family life, Elle and I get on just fine, each respectful of the other’s views. There’s nothing of any interest to say about Christmas. I reckon my tool merchant, Jonny Cash, name changed to protect the guilty, has the right idea. He’s a dib-dib-dobber, you’d call him a Jehova’s Witnesses, Stan, and they don’t do Christmas either. He usually digs his allotment over.

“Hogmanay? Now that’s a whole different story. I’ll finish this one and then I’ve got to go, Lads. Like I said, Elle’s working, so the cats’ll be waiting for someone to put more logs on the fire and open the cream, and there’s a bottle of Highland Park calling me.

All right, Lads, now the casuals have left, make a bit of room in the middle so everybody can hear. And somebody pass my glass up. I can’t talk with a dry throat, can I? And somebody throw a couple more logs on the fire.

Now I’m what? Let me think. No, you’re going soft in the head, Stan. I’m nowhere near eighty, not for two going on three years. Elle’s about two and a half years older than I am and she’s not eighty till next month, but don’t tell her I said that. Tonight’s offering is from my cab driving days. We were still struggling then. Lived in a rented place barely big enough to keep a ferret in, but it was dry and we managed to stay warm, but nothing was easy.

Yeah I know, but I’m talking about before you were even born, Eric. Nobody gave a damn then. Not that I’m sure they really do now.

The kids spent a lot of time after school and at weekends ratching round for wood and other stuff for the front room fire. Elle was a student nurse and I’d gone back to university. We were both still casualties of previous relationships and starting again. Between us we had eight kids, seven of them mine with three different mothers, so cash was tight.

I drove a cab seven nights a week and did all my studying during the day at weekend. If I had a choice I took the rural jobs that none of the other drivers wanted. I did that to take advantage of the road kill which kept the wolf from the door many a time. We lived on pheasant, rabbit, hare and even a deer a couple of times for years. Elle cleaned for the local vet two or three days a week and when she had time off did the odd shift serving in the local chip shop.

What’s that Alf? Nay, we didn’t have the cats then. Could barely afford for us to eat, never mind cats.

Both our families had turned their backs to us. I was a bit of a loner and was too busy to have time for any friends I might have made in those days. The only help we had was from other members of a single parent organisation Elle had joined a few years before I met her, they were mostly blokes single parenting. If you ever want to try tough, try that with daughters. Elle looked after their kids when they were working and they looked after ours when we both were. I know things were hard, but in the main they were happy times. We were warm, dry and ate, though the kids hated Mondays, cos Monday Lobby was leftovers from the last week threwn together and served with chips.

Now, early on the evening in question, I picked up a young looking, middle aged woman from the conference centre of a local motel. With the name from the office and the face I recognised her immediately as a deputy chief constable of a local police force, but said nothing. She wanted a forty mile ride which was worth a lot of money to me, but copper or not I told it had to be cash going that far and she agreed. She wanted to chat and eventually she turned the conversation to law and order.

After we had talked about the hazards of being a cabbie for five minutes or so she said, “You don’t seem to be the average taxi drive. Most don’t listen to Mozart and are not particularly articulate.” I can’t remember what the tape I had playing was, but it was Mozart and barely audible.

I know Geoff, and I still listen to classical music, I’ll be damned before I damage my hearing or sanity listen to the crap you listen to.

I told her, “I’m a mathematics PhD student, my wife is a student nurse and we have eight children between us, but we are just two folk trying to get by. If my views are better expressed than those of others that isn’t surprising, but I don’t claim they are any different from those who can’t articulate them as well as I.

Articulate means putting it all together in sentences, Geoff. It's the speaking equivalent of joined up writing. See, I told you that’s what listening to pop music does to you.

We talked, serious conversation that she led deep into law and order, and I saw she was stunned when I said, “I drive getting on for a hundred thousand miles a year, so it is not surprising I don’t like the police. I’ve had my taxi licence pulled by a copper when I was parked up for only having ten not twelve safety pins in my first aid box. I don’t think I’d ever opened it before from new. That cost me two days when I earnt nothing with which to feed my children. The joke there to me is that I carry a first aid box because the law says I have to, but I’ll never use it because I’m too concerned that if I did something wrong I’d be prosecuted and sued out of existence. Still I suppose a copper at the scene could use it and be sued instead.

“No doubt pulling my plate was in the interests of public safety, but I’d have preferred he’d gone and arrested a criminal. Still that might have been dangerous, eh? To me drivers are a sitting target for the average copper, who is a jobsworth I would sack and make do honest work. There’s the odd decent one, but they’re rare. I’d make them all live in the community they serve, then maybe they’d remember they serve the public who pays their wages.”

Yeah, yeah! I know Alf. Your granddaughter rides a motor cycle for plod down Devon way and I’m sure she’s a wonderful girl. She probably gives pennies to the poor too, but I’m talking generalisations here. I’m not having a go at Sylvia. Get him another pint to settle his nerves, Stan.

I continued and told her,“What is really frightening is that my great, great, great auntie Margaret who is a hundred and three doesn’t trust the police any more and she was reared to. The police at the very least have a serious image problem, for they are seen to have no interest in prosecuting the far too many criminals in their ranks. They will get no help from the general public till they put their own house in order. Robert Peel said they’d do the job by public consent, but those days seem to be long gone.” I could see she was taking all I had to say on board, but admit I thought it would make no difference at all.

Robert Peel was the prime minister who started the police, Alf. They used to be called Peelers.

At no time did I admit I knew who she was and as I found out many years later she had no suspicions that I knew. When she paid me, in cash as I had told her I wanted when she got in the cab, she said “Thank you. That was a most interesting conversation.”

My thoughts were not profound, after all, “Up yours you stupid plod bitch,” is hardly illuminating.

Years later, I read she had been passed over for promotion and had taken her case to a tribunal on the grounds of sex discrimination. I think she won her case, but I’m not sure.

~o~O~o~

Another round, Gladys, please. Good lad, Geoff. Put these on Geoff’s slate, Gladys.

~o~O~o~

Decades after our conversation, when I’d left lecturing and was doing a bit of teaching to fill in the time before I retired, I’d had to attend an in service training day. The were invented by a minster for education called Kenneth Baker, and were often referred to as Baker or B days. However they were often spelt by the irreverent as b i d e t s.

At this bash, which was held in an expensive suite of conference rooms at a local racecourse I had to listen to an ex-headteacher with the gift of the gab who had been knighted. He had been head of the biggest secondary school in the area where the deputy chief constable had worked. More nonsense from someone who thought he was a night club entertainer. Most of what he had say was about as useful to the average teacher as a packet of broken biscuits for dunking. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying he was lying. I’m sure it worked for him with his personality I could see that, but for any one else? No, forget it.

Course I’m sure, Alf. Could you bullshit for hours like I do about ordinary stuff that every body knows about and get a laugh and free drink? No of course not, but I can. That’s what I mean it’s about personality. I’m a bullshitter, you’re not.

Back to business. In an educational context he told the tale of a chief constable who had been picked up by a cab driver who had illuminated her as to the feelings of the populace at large. His point was that teachers too had an image problem. I recognised the events, barely, and at the halfway mark told him the real events and said, “I was the cab driver. She was not a chief constable then, but deputy chief constable based round the corner from your last school, and at the time I knew who she was.”

For all the difference I made I might as well have kept my mouth shut or talked about soap operas. He clearly wanted me to talk further, but I walked away because I wasn’t going to provide him with more money making entertainment. I attended the rest of the event but have no memory of it, so it couldn’t have been anything spectacular.

I can’t think of any else, Lads, so I think I’ll call it a night at that. What’s that Pete? Making compost with stuff that’s hard to rot? There’s a load of nonsense talked about that too. Forget it all. There’s only one thing worth knowing, Lad. If it’s organic bury it, preferably where it’s free draining so there’s a chance of a bit of air getting to it down the worm holes. I do it when I start a raised bed. I throw all the organic rubbish in a shallow trench, maybe six inches deep, including pallets and trees up to a foot in diameter and build the bed up around it. By the time the bed needs rebuilding the stuff will have rotted, and chances are you will too, cos it’ll take at least twenty years. Good night, Lads.

~o~O~o~

After the tale teller had gone, Alf asked, “How much of what Sasha tells us you reckon is true, Stan?”

“Who knows. Some of it I know is true or near enough. Over all these years, I’ve never caught him out telling an untruth. What he told Pete about compost is right enough. It’s called hügelkultur. It’s a German word meaning hill culture. They’ve been doing it for centuries. I read about it in Amateur Gardening magazine couple of years back. It's getting popular with the permaculture people.

“You’ve got to remember to him it’s just entertainment. We get entertained and he gets free drink. It’s a fair exchange, and beats the hell out of paying twenty quid for a lousy seat at somewhere like the Apollo. With Sasha, you’re right up close, can get a decent pint, not some watered down rubbish, and you can walk home without having to pay a fortune for a cab. I don’t doubt some of it is stretched to the limit and probably beyond. He says he never tells lies, but admits he never lets the facts get in the way of a good tale. He calls it creating the new truth. Face it, listening to Sasha in the tap room, with a good fire and a few decent bevies beats the hell out of whatever rubbish is on the idiots’ lantern. He doesn’t need free drink. He’s got more money than we’ll ever have, but he told me once he believes folk don’t value what they don’t have to pay for.”

“Idiots’ lantern?”

“It’s what Sasha calls television. He’s never had one. Always said by the time he’d enough money to afford one he’d lost interest. Elle tells it a bit differently, but it boils down to the same. She told me once he enjoys telling tales, and he’s told some of his tales so often she doesn’t think even he knows what actually happened any more. He makes up bedtime stories for his grand kids as he goes, and Elle reckons there’s no difference to him between telling the kids stories and telling us stories.

“Unlike him, she doesn’t say much, but I know he had a brutal childhood and a pretty poor time of it till he met her. She’s a nice lady and I’ve never met a couple who protect each other’s backs the way they do. He’s a clever bloke, used to be a university professor, but he’s done his share of hard graft like the rest of us. He’s not at all uppity, just don’t ever get to drinking shorts with him, cos he can sup it like it’s water. Stick with ale.

“I’ve known him for well over forty years, and he’s been a good friend. I owe him a goodly few favours. When he moved here and was doing the farm house up and sorting out the land, I’d been made redundant from the steel works six months before, and there was no work to be had. We got to talking when I was trimming my front dyke, and from that he employed me casual like when he needed a day’s labour.

“He knew I was still signing on, but he still paid a decent rate, cash in hand at the end of every day, and threw a midday meal in as well. He’s never said anything about it to any one and I know he does decent stuff for others too, but never says anything about it. I still put in the odd day at his place. It’s eighty-five acres and he doesn’t do much with it because he doesn’t have to. Most of it he rents to Peabody for grazing. He bought it for the privacy and the lack of neighbours, cos he is the neighbour from hell. His words not mine.

“Elle told me two of those seven kids of his were his sister’s. She died before she was thirty, and her ex-husband wouldn’t take the kids. While the rest of his family were still arguing about the kids and his sister’s money, he took em home and set adoption proceedings in motion. She told me he will lie, but prefers to tell things so he obscures the truth, deliberately misleading you. As she put it, ‘You do the lying to yourself.’

“I think he does it to protect folk. I know he was an officer in the KGB for a while, I’ve seen his ID and dress uniform including his ushankas, one red and the other black. You know the Russian fur hats with the ear flaps? I think the officers wore the red ones, and I’ve seen his badge too. He shewed me himself, but never said what he did. He wears a ushanka when the weather is cold and that fur coat he wears is real. God help him if the local conservationists and do gooders find that out!

“Anyway, what’s it matter how much truth is in what he tells you? What’s on the telly and in the papers is mostly lies, and at least with Sasha you get a laugh. I’m off for a bag of chips on the way home. You coming?”

“Aye. I’ve to pick up a fish for Ellen.”

“Well what’s it to be tonight, lads? Gladys, fetch my bottle of Highland Park over with my pint will you please? What? Of course I want a glass. I’ll put you over my knee, my girl, and smack your bottom for cheek if you’re not careful. Second thoughts I won’t because you might start to enjoy it. Stop it now, girl! You’re about to make a happy man very old. You’re not supposed to give the customers heart attacks it’s not good for trade.

“Of course I meant it, Alf. Gladys, give Alf a kiss as you pass him will you, Love? I think he’s feeling lonely while Ellen’s at the daughter’s. What is it she’s having, Alf, her third? Now what’s it to be, lads? A tale of the old country? Tales of long ago? Something recent? A long one or a couple of shorter tales? Ok Eric. Recent it is, but I’ll probably fit something else in too because what I have in mind is quite short.

“Let’s see. We’ll call this The Beech O’er the Beck. Now give over, Stan. I forgot you know what happened. I’ll try to keep the fabrications of the new truth to a minimum. You all recall that storm a couple of months ago, The first autumn storm on the first weekend in October it was? You do? Good! Well it blew one of our beech trees down, and it fell over the beck onto Willy Graham’s barbed wire fence and into his field. No, Alf. Willy Graham the farmer, Fatty’s lad, not Billy Graham the evangelist. Hell man you need to get out more and meet a few more people!

“It wasn’t a big tree, maybe fifteen inches in diameter at the base, but it was our responsibility, and in any case the firewood would come in handy. Now you all know I’m building an extension for a new workshop at the moment, so I could have done without this. However, I took a pair of loppers into the field and removed all the thin branches worth burning, leaving the brash on the ground. I threw the branches over the beck and lopped them into lengths suitable for the fire.

“I’ll get to the brash eventually, Alf. Stan, stop it. If you can’t behave yourself, sod off and play darts. Now, Elle barrowed the firewood away to the house. Because she won’t let me do anything on my own, Gerry. That’s so I can’t say I did it without being pulled up to say we did it. It’s how she is. Yeah well, wait till you’ve been married to Gwen as long as I have to Elle then you’ll know.

“Next, using a chain saw I cut the tree into logs leaving five foot on the root stock lying over the beck. I threw the logs over the beck for Elle to barrow away. I wrapped a strop, just call it a rope, Alf, round the remainder intending to pull it over to my side of the beck with my truck using a hundred metre length of nylon strapping to reach the road. It came over to my side all right but lodged behind a pine tree. Yeah I know Murphy’s Law.

“Now, despite having about six of them, wouldn’t you know it there was no gevlik to be found, before anybody asks a gevlik is a heavy, six foot crowbar, and I usually use a spring steel buck rake tine. The three foot pry bar I did find was of no use. In fact it was so useless I over balanced and went in the beck up to my thighs. Stop it, Stan. Now Elle can always be relied on to laugh herself silly when I do anything as stupid as that, and she didn’t disappoint me, but after fifty-odd years of marriage I didn’t expect her to. She was laughing so hard she took off running to the house for the lavatory before she wet herself.

“Eventually I used some brains and with a squelching of my toes I shortened the stump by a foot with the chainsaw so it no longer lodged behind the tree, and then pulled it onto my bank with the truck. I cut it up into sixteen inch lengths just leaving the root stock. I split the wide bits with an axe into pieces that would go into the fire, and called it a day.

“I’m getting there, Geoff, I’m getting there. Now Elle can laugh at me all she likes, but I’ve had a lot of practice at being a bloke, and hence have being infuriating to the fairer sex down to a fine art. And I don’t need you having a go as well, Gladys. I could have stayed at home and been abused. So I put my boots to dry in the bottom oven of the Aga much to Elle’s disgust and fury, see I told you so. I put my clothes in the washer, to her relief, which calmed her down a bit, and, went for a bath, to her great relief. When I emerged from the bath she was almost her usual barely unreasonable self. I reckoned that to be a draw. I can settle for a draw. For a bloke, I’m not overly competitive.

“Two days later, I manhandled the three hundredweight stump to rot down in the woodland garden and mended my neighbour’s barbed wire fence. I collected up the brash, which I told Alf I’d get to eventually, from the field and bagged all the sawdust before putting the brash through the chipper and spreading the chip on the woodland garden. Result, five hours work for four weeks of firewood, not a particularly good deal you may think, but consider the extras.

“An attractive garden feature for growing ferns on which will last two if not three decades before it rots down, and breaking down rootstocks for fire fuel is seriously hard work for very little reward. The embedded stones can do serious damage to any tools you use. I doubt if I’ll last that long as at going on for eighty I’m already starting to rot down.

“Four barrows of wood chippings to maintain the woodland garden soil where chip just breaks down to nothing very quickly. We created the woodland garden and it is our favourite part of our holding.

“Too, there was enough sawdust to keep the cats in litter for a fortnight, and we have six cats who each have their own litter tray for use in bad weather, and it’s bad at the moment, and finally no irate neighbour. We get on with Willy, but I like to make sure it stays that way.

“And most importantly, Lads, despite my involuntary dip in the beck Elle is not one in front. Right who’s getting them in? Good lad, Gerry. Loads of time left before last orders, so I’ll rest my throat before I carry on. Pass that whisky bottle here, Gerry, please”

“Don’t know how can drink the stuff, Sasha.”

“You don’t actually think I like it do you, Gerry? And you stop sniggering, Stan. I only drink it for medicinal reasons, Gerry. No, honest! Just think it through. There’s no salt in it. No sugar. No fat and no E numbers and added chemicals. It’s health food.” Sasha had spoken with a completely sincerely look on his face and it was a few seconds before his audience realised they’d just been had and the gales of laughter broke out.

“You’re bloody impossible, Sasha,” Gerry told him.

“I know. Elle says so, and she’d know.”

~o~O~o~

A number of the older men had decidedly superannuated bladders, and Sasha waited for their return from the gents and till all had another pint in front of them before resuming.

“Ok, Lads. Going back a bit with this one. At the time of this tale I’d have been in my early forties I reckon. I know I was still lecturing at the university in Manchester and I think I’d known that I’d had enough of folk en mass for a couple of years. Their behaviour as urbanites was to me unacceptably inhuman, I could cheerfully have slaughtered them by the million and slept well at night knowing I had done evolution and the planet a favour.

“I was born on the tundra of Siberia— It’s millions of acres of virtually uninhabited, windswept, barren, permanently frozen plain, George. Well that’s a close enough description to give you the right idea. There are a few folk live there, Alf. Like the rest of them my tribe was nomadic. Yeah, tribe! As in hunting and gathering. And nomadic means only staying in one place for a bit and then moving on. Yeah, like Gypsies. I grew up north of the Arctic circle in the Soviet Union, Finland and Norway. What? Not now. I could tell tales every night for a few years about how I ended up in the UK.

“At the time of these events we lived in Winton, a village near Eccles, in the city of Salford. you’d probably call it Manchester, but Salford is a city in its own right. It even has its own cathedral. Now Winton was just a bit different from the tundra. One’s a frozen desert the other’s a cultural desert. Never mind, Alf, another time ok? In those days Eccles was the place to go on a Saturday night, where, other than Belfast, statistically you had the best chance of being killed in the UK. Winton, when we moved in had been a delightful suburban neighbourhood, but quite quickly it had become a suburb of hell without the amenities. Only difference was in hell you had better neighbours. We lived next door to a screeching ginger orangutang with armpit hair to its knees and the male was worse.

“We decided to move to Cumbria and regularly booked weekends with friends of ours who had a guest house in Windermere, whilst we looked for somewhere to live and for jobs. In our early or mid forties, we were a bit fitter in those days, and we walked and enjoyed the lakes and the fells. One weekend we decided to take the ferry across Windermere, which maybe a hundred and fifty years before had been a ford back to way before Roman times. I don’t know when the ford was destroyed by dredging for the ferry but it was about 1870 when the steam ferry started business. After crossing we planned to walk up the old pack pony route that ran to Coniston and back round to the ferry to recross back to the car.

“It was sunny and a pleasant day, and there were surprisingly few midges and clegs— Clegs are gadflies, Eric. No? Just call ‘em biting, bloodsucking buggers that take a quarter of a pint of blood at a time and let it go at that. Anyway there were bugger all of the biting, flying things as we crossed on the ferry which surprised me as the damn things seem to like water almost a much as blood. We skirted the lake with its powerful speed boats, noisy bloody things, and sailing craft and it was to our right as we walked along the muddy path along its edge till we reached where the treacherously steep, somewhat overgrown pack pony track turned away to the left more or less at right angles to the lake edge and climbed up to the plateau above.

“We left the pack pony route at the top of the climb and turned left to walk through the forestry commission plantations of boringly similar spruce which had been cut back about fifty metres from each side of the bridleway to allow a wildlife corridor to flourish. We stopped regularly to watch some of the spectacular insect life notably the huge dragon flies. They look like iridescent, translucent, double crosses hovering in the sun. It’s hard to say how big they really are but they look to be about six inches long with an even bigger wingspan. I’ve looked them up, and the book I’ve got says the biggest in Britain only reach three inches long, it doesn’t give a wing span, but they do look bigger than that. Eventually we turned left off the bridleway and started to descend in an anticlockwise direction back on to the B5285 that the ferry is a part of.

“There were larch plantings on both sides of the road and about a mile from the ferry Elle said, ‘I need a wee.’ We walked into the larch on our left and came across a large erratic, must have been twelve feet across. Erratics, Alf? They’re lumps of rock that were frozen into the bottom of glaciers during the ice age. As the ice moved south they got ground away as they rolled around moving south with the ice and they ended up roundish. When the ice melted and the glaciers retreated as the climate got warmer they got left behind. I think they got called erratics because the rock they’re made of isn’t the same as everything around them. I wouldn’t swear to that though. Anyway, I told Elle to go behind the boulder and I’d keep watch. It seemed like a good idea.

“After a few seconds I heard Elle screaming, so I ran round pulling my knife as I went to see what the problem was. Yeah I know you’re not supposed to carry an eight inch fixed blade, Geoff. I do loads of things I’m not supposed to do, and don’t tell me you don’t. When I rounded the boulder the sight I saw was, to me at least, comical. Elle was frozen squatting in full flow with her hands occupied keeping her clothes out of the way. Her left hand was clutching her skirt which was hitched up round her waist with her elbow against the boulder to keep her balance. Her right hand was holding her knickers which were round her knees and she was screaming ‘It’s a bloody snake.’

“The fawny-pink slow-worm that had moved between her feet which she just baptised was moving as fast as it could away from her. It was a fair size, I’d say about a foot and a half maybe a bit longer and possibly as wide as my one of my fingers. I’d never seen one that pale a colour, but it's called leucistic, pale colour with normal eyes. If the eyes have no colour and are pink that's albino, but that's realy rare because they get eaten fairly quicky by predators who can spot them more easily. Slow-worms look like a small snake, Eric, but they’re actually a legless lizard. Best not to handle them because if you hold them by the tail it breaks off so they can escape, though it never grows back fully. They’re reputedly fairly common, but you rarely see them. I was pretty impressed, so naturally, with the sensitivity and sensibility of the boulder, I said, ‘Elle, it’s years since I saw one of those.’

“Now Elle’s a good and generous wife, and, completely misinterpreting my words, she indignantly replied biting off each and every word like it were a sentence in its own right with an emphasis on the word not, ‘That. Is. NOT. True.’ I could hear the capital letters. Despite my explanations I don’t think she has ever forgiven me for that remark. Women have damned long memories when it suits them. No. I’m not telling tales out of turn, Alf. Tell him, Stan.”

“It’s true, Alf. Elle told me that tale herself years ago. She doesn’t have Sasha’s way with words, but it was funnier somehow coming from her.”

“Denis! What the hell are you doing here?”

“Looking for you, Sasha. I’ve finally retired and I bought a place with a bit of land about twelve miles away.”

“Lads, I’d like you to meet Denis. I’ve known him let me see, must be over forty years. He’s another tale teller and if anything an even bigger liar than I am.

“I draw the line at that, Sasha. I can tell a tale or two, but nobody is a bigger liar than you. I certainly don’t qualify.” They laughed and Sasha’s drinking friends settled down to what promised to an unusually good night’s entertainment.

“How come you moved up here, Denis? I thought you were settled in that place near Shrewsbury. That’s in the deep south, Alf, you turn left at Carlisle and keep going for a couple of hundred miles. Don’t take any notice of Alf, Denis, He went to Lancaster once and it took him six months to recover from the culture shock of going that far south. Lancaster must be what, Lads, seventy miles? It’s Alf’s rôle to have the piss taken out of him. We buy him extra beer to compensate. That right, Alf.”

Alf grinned sheepishly and replied, “I’m not too clever, Denis. Sometimes I wonder why these boffins associate with me. Just keep it simple or I’ll interrupt till I do I understand. Because I won’t sit here all night not knowing what’s going on.”

“Bloody hell, Alf. That’s why we associate with you for the sheer shock value of hearing a word like associate come out of your mouth!”

Alf looked around grinning and said quietly, “Fuck of, Geoff.”

“I heard that, Alfred Winstanley!”

“Oh shit! Sorry, Gladys. I won’t do it again, well not tonight anyway.”

Denis grinned and continued, “So did I, think I was settled down there I mean. But the urban blight is spreading out of the towns faster than cancer. I went home one day to find Belinda crying. Now you know me, Sasha, I can cope with being reviled, forced into fights, even spat at, but I draw the line at being cried at by women.” Sasha was laughing at the look on his old friend’s face as he continued, “The old couple next door had been broken into and she’d had her smalls rifled through. Belinda said it’s like being violated. Well I don’t know about that, I haven’t done a great deal of violating recently, but I knew the writing was on the wall for staying there. Belinda would take some time to think it through, but I knew eventually I’d get an emotional ultimatum to move, or I’d be cried at at regular intervals till we did.”

“You need a glass, Denis. Gladys, a pint of bitter for my friend and pour him a glass out of my bottle too. This is clearly a medical emergency of some severity. I can understand all that, Denis, but how come you ended up here?”

“Pure fluke. I wanted somewhere where the cancer from the cities couldn’t reach till after I was safely dead, but Scotland and Ireland were out.”

Stan interrupted, “How so, Denis? Plenty of really rural places in both with no danger of urban blight for decades at least.”

“Belinda’s an Irish Catholic. Her family are still in Donegal, I’m from Unst, Shetland with a load of family in the western Isles and Oban. My grandfather was Norwegian. All hard line Presbyterian bigots and if anything worse than Belinda’s family. My great Uncle Charlie was a minister and in his eyes there was no such thing as marriage to a papist. So to the day he died he referred to my kids as the Johansen bastards. When I went to his funeral one of my cousins expressed surprise I was there and I told him I was just making sure the old bastard was really dead.” Gales of laughter resulted at that and the audience were now sure they were in for a good night. This friend of Sasha’s could certainly tell a tale too.

“I’ve been to Donegal and the Hebrides on holiday. Nobody even asked what religion I was. I don’t get it. Oh I’m Eric, Denis.”

“Well, Eric, I don’t doubt that for a second, but as a holiday maker you’re just a wallet and a credit card ripe for the plucking. Different rules apply to their own. Anyway I pored over an atlas of Britain and came up with Cumbria. I considered Northumberland but there’s something I don’t like about east coasters. I think that constant cold wind affects them all. From Dover up to Orkney they’re all the same, bitter, uncharitable, surly and suspicious. Mind, I wouldn’t want you think me an ungenerous bigot, there are exceptions and I’ve met them both.” At that there was a necessary break for laughter and the gents.

Five minutes later, Denis was going again, “Before spending any serious money, I bought a trashed place out west and did it up whilst looking around. Paid seven thousand cash for it and sold it for forty-five eighteen months, later. I probably made twenty-five thousand profit, so I could afford a better place than what I first thought.”

At the mention of twenty-five thousand pounds profit in a year and a half Alf nearly choked on his beer, before saying, “How the hell did you manage that?”

“It’s a long story. You really want to hear it?”

“That’s what they’re all here for, Denis. Long stories, well tall stories anyway. You keep em entertained and give us all a rest from Sasha’s lies. And I’ll keep you all going in beer. There’s sausage rolls on later round the other side, but I’ll fetch a tray in for you.”

“Gladys is without doubt the best barmaid this side of heaven itself, Denis, and you have to admit she looks the part with em resting on the bar like that.”

“Sasha, you’re nothing but a dirty old man. I’d tell Elle but she already knows.”

“Ease off on the old, Gladys. You keep going, Denis.”

“We’d started by looking in estate agents out west for a small holding and hadn’t had any luck. We’d been talking about putting our stuff into storage and renting whilst we kept looking. Belinda spotted a place through the window and drew it to my attention. We arranged to look at it. As soon as we pulled up outside the place I liked the setting. It was a middle terraced house on the inland side of the coast road facing the Solway. It was fifty feet above sea level and less than a hundred yards from the sea, but to be affected by coastal erosion the coastal railway and the road would have to be taken out first.

“Over the Solway I could see the Isle of Mann off to my left and Scotland off to my right. Turned out the cemetery off to our right on the other side of the road owned the field in front of the house and it could never be built on because it was reserved for graves when the cemetery was full and by the time that happened I’d be in it. The immediate area was nice, and I found out later it was having millions of EU regeneration money pumped into it.

“I could see while Belinda was already mentally turning her back on it I was hearing the sound of cash registers. The place was a just after the first world war substantially brick built shell in excellent condition. It just looked shabby. You could tell most of the nearby houses were in already private ownership. The area originally entirely local authority housing was going uphill. When the estate agent turned up and let us in it was pretty grim. They were selling it on behalf of the building society who’d repossessed it some three years earlier. In the mean time it had been heavily vandalised. The Velux window in the roof had been ripped off. Inside, some of the door casings were missing. The copper hot water cylinder and most of the pipe work had been stolen and though the central heating unit back boiler was still there the Baxi Bermuda gas fire that should have been in front of it was gone. The place had been subject to considerable DIY work by a completely ham fisted idiot, but I could see it had potential for some serious money to be made. Any one want another?”

“You shut your mouth, Denis. You’re telling the tale and the entertainer gets free drink.”

Sasha looked around him and Geoff said, “I’ll get em in, Sasha. Gladys, set em up, Girl, I’m in the chair.”

“We went back to the car and Belinda said, ‘You are not serious about that place, Denis. It’s a ruin.’ It took me a while to calm her down enough to listen, but I managed. I told her that though it backed up to a grim estate with a poor reputation the houses on the front were inaccessible from the estate behind, because behind the eight foot back wall of the house there was a service road with another eight foot back wall on the other side of it.”

“ ‘How long? How long have I got to live in a dump?” She’d come round to my way of thinking.”

“ ‘You’ve got to give six months notice to train your replacement right? It’ll be done long before that,’ I told her. Well I was right, but if only I’d known what I was in for. The following day I went for some cash and then to the estate agents. The lassie at the estate agent’s said, ‘You do realise you can’t get a mortgage on it, and we’d have to have proof you can afford to pay for it.”

“ ‘Yeah, fine,’ I said pulling out a wad, waving it under her nose saying ‘There’re three hundred and fifty proofs here all bearing the queen’s head, the signature of the governor of the bank of England promising to pay the bearer on demand the sum of twenty pounds, and I want a receipt for them signed by the manager and witnessed by another member of staff.’ I don’t think she could have seen that much cash before because she sounded kinda faint. Anyway after a fair bit of buggering about I got the place. Belinda was still down in Madeley, but I moved in mid August, ready to start my new job teaching on the first of September. That’s when I found out what I’d done.

“The weird thing was I rang the phone company and after taking my details they said I’d have a landline at the flick of a switch and they gave me the number. I went to B&Q for a phone. I couldn’t have been gone twenty minutes, because it was only just down the road. I plugged it in, and I had a working landline. If only everything else had been that simple.

“There was no electricity and the place had a card operated meter. There were also wires hanging down from from the ceilings and the walls and sticking up from the floors. The wiring was just the wires never having been connected to anything, you know after the electricians do a first fix. Obviously the gas was off because a three meter length of the copper gas pipe was missing from the supply line. The two lavatories flushed, but the water went nowhere except all over the floor. As you gathered the water supply was fine, and there was extra coming in via the hole in the roof where the Velux had been when it rained.

“I taped off the ring main wiring and went for a dozen ceiling roses and switches for the lighting before attempting to have the electricity connected. A neighbour told me I had to buy a card for the meter. I went for one, cost me a tenner, and put it in and still no joy. Now I’d never had any dealings with those kind of electric meters, initially I hadn’t even recognised it for what it was, but the neighbour shewed me this one was shewing three hundred and odd quid in the red, due to standing charges accumulating when the house was empty. It was no bloody wonder my tenner hadn’t done anything.

“I rang the supplier to say I wanted the meter replacing with a normal one to be told, ‘That is normal round there, Sir.’ ”

“I replied, ‘Well it’s not normal to me. I’ve never seen one before. I want a meter that just delivers electricity that gets paid for via a bank direct debit that I never even have to think about.’ ”

“ ‘They might want a credit check for that, sir.’ The tone was respectful as he asked, ‘What may I ask do you do for a living? And how are you paid?’ ”

“ ‘I’m a mathematician and I’ve just taken a job teaching at the local school, and I’ll be paid through the bank the same as every other civil servant.’ I was told that would be fine and an engineer would be round first thing the following Monday morning with my new meter.”

“There’s a lot of unemployment out there, Denis. Most of the meters, gas as well as electric are some kind of pay as you go. It’s actually a bloody expensive way to buy services because the admin costs are high. I read it’s twice the price to buy electric that way rather than by direct debit on a rolling contract.” Most of the audience were nodding in agreement with Stan.

“That first night after the various tradesmen had been in to weigh up the job. I slept on a camp bed with no electricity having waited till dark to take a pee outside. I’d considered peeing in the sink or the bath, till I realised they likely drained into the sewer too. It was a hot sultry August night in the middle of a heat wave and I was sleeping buck naked in the front room on, not in, a sleeping bag surrounded by my tools. Just as it was getting light I was awoken by a loud noise at the back. I stood up and reached for the first thing to hand, it was a seven pound sledge hammer. The lad who came in with the torch would have been sixteen or so.

“I’d silently moved behind the door after hearing the bang and when he entered he hadn’t seen me when the sledge hammer hit his shoulder with what I’m proud to admit was a brutal level of force. I heard the bones crunch rather than break. Screaming like a bloody bansidhe he was as he left clutching his shoulder. He wasn’t moving quickly, but much as I would have liked to hit him again it didn’t seem wise as I’d get away with once as self defence seeing as how he’d had a jimmy bar in his hand which must have had his finger prints all over it. As I stood at the shattered back door frame he’d jimmied open thinking more bloody expense with my balls swinging in the cooling breeze I shouted, ‘If ye come back, next time I’ll rip your bollocks off and make ye eat them.’ ”

“Why didn’t you chase after him, Denis?” Geoff asked jokingly as the others, including Gladys, were laughing fit to burst.

Denis didn’t hesitate in his reply and said with a straight face, “What with no bloody shoes on?” It was a few minutes before Denis could resume.

“Just before school started I was at the front of the house when an under grown wee runt riding a bike down the pavement stopped and asked me, ‘Hey, Marra, is it true you hit a marra with an axe?’ I’d already leaned that marra meant man and it was a local form of address. I smiled and said, ‘You could get into a lot of trouble for that it was only a sledge hammer.’ Apparently I became known as the psycho who teaches maths at the school. Tellingly I was never visited by any members of the local light fingered brigade again.”

“I’ve heard about you, Denis. I’ve a cousin lives out west. He told me you attacked three lads outside a supermarket before Christmas last year.”

“Not true, Geoff. Nearly, but not quite. I’d been shopping after school and had bought the drink. Sasha will tell you I like a drink.” There were grins all round as Denis had already proved that. “You know how dark it can be at half past four at that time of year. It was light when I went in, but I knew it wouldn’t be when I came out, so I’d parked my five oh five as close as I could to the supermarket doors underneath the big flood lights, so I could see what I was doing unloading the shopping. I’d just opened the boot and reached in to push all the tools out of the way so I could fit the shopping in. I’d got two trolleys full, one with just drink in it. I heard a voice behind me say, ‘We’ll take the drink, Marra.’ They got lucky. In the boot was a fourteen pound sledgehammer which was in my hands as I turned to say, ‘Not today you won’t, Lads.’ I put the loudmouth at sixteen and the other two at a couple of years younger. One of the younger one said, ‘Fucking hell, it’s the psycho from the school,’ and they fled. Apparently my reputation was enhanced just by living on the estate where I did. Normal people just didn’t live there.”

“You said they got lucky, Denis. What did you mean?”

“It’s like this, Stan. With the sledgehammer in my hands I felt confident and safe. They were no threat because I could have taken all three out in a few heartbeats. If I’d not had it in my hands I’d have felt insecure and would have attacked immediately and taken the older one out before he’d realised I’d turned round. They all start crying when as they’re going down I drop to my knees and start biting their thighs. The other two would have either run or been taken away with the older one in ambulances.”

“Fuck me. Is he for real, Sasha?”

“Oh yes. He’s for real all right, Stan, and I’ve seen him do much worse than that and walk away at odds of over ten to one.”

“I’m no worse than you, Sasha, and you were with me when that happened, and I didn’t see you holding back. But back to the tale. The engineer from the electricity board was ok. He even credited my account with not just my tenner but another ten quid too, for my trouble he said. Electric sorted.”

Gladys interrupted, “Ok, Gentlemen, I can see I’m going to have the door shut to the best room with this kind of language flying about. Just try to keep the volume down. Take a break now, Denis. I’ll get the sausage rolls.”

The men ate and the conversation was of a more more general nature for a while. Gladys cleared the plates away and replenished their glasses before Denis resumed after a three-quarter of an hour break.

“Gas was next, Yellow pages, find a gas fitter. He came round that evening. He seemed nervous, said he didn’t do work on the estate and had nearly turned the job down. The only thing that convinced him to risk it was the selection of polysylabic words I’d used. Oh, long words, Alf. He asked me what I did and I told him about my new job starting in September and he told me his daughter was in year eleven there. He replaced the pipe work that night, came round the following day with a new hot water cylinder, fitted it and told me the Baxi was on order and he’d have it fitted within two days. I offered to put the money up front but he said no it would be ok.

“The roofer came from Maryport. Now I’m pretty good with accents, but I had to ask for a few repeats, there.” There was a round of laughter at that. “He said three days work and three hundred quid plus whatever the Velux cost, but he couldn’t do the job till Monday the first of September, my first day at my new job. I gave him a key and my phone number and said I’d probably be home before five, but there were no guarantees.

“Wouldn’t you know it, the pretty wee redhead in the front row of my registration group turned out to be my gas fitter’s daughter and like her dad she was a lovely person. Rather differently the under grown wee runt I’d spoken on the front to was a refugee from a family of public minded citizens who spent a lot of their time assisting Her Majesty’s constabulary with their enquiries and he was in my year seven special needs class.

“I got home after my first day at work as the roofers were tidying up to be told, ‘I managed to get a couple more lad’s on the job, so it’s all done. We reset your ridge tiles, replaced a dozen or so slates and re-slated your porch putting in the extra row of slates, some amateur job that was, all of which you knew about. We also replaced the lead valley flashing on the right hand side valley at the front which was cracked beyond repair which you didn’t know about. Rather than buy the new wooden guttering which I originally thought you needed I managed to line yours with a black plastic gutter which you can’t see from the ground which saved a good bit. I don’t know what the Velux will cost because they haven’t worked out the trade price yet. They don’t make one that size any more, so I picked up the next size down framed it in and re-slated round it. I’ll let you have it for whatever it costs me. The job’s done and two hundred and forty will do it. I’ll send you the bill for the Velux ok?’ Not often a job comes in cheaper than quoted, so I gave him an extra thirty quid and told him to have a drink with his lads on me.

“But the best bit was the sewers. The neighbour had told me the previous owner had been into drugs. His marriage had folded and to make sure his wife got half off nothing he did a lot of the damage himself. I subsequently found all sorts of crap, including a lot of broken glass, in the floor space between up and downstairs so that figured. Apparently he’d smashed the sewers and filled the inspection chamber with rubbish, which explained why the lavatories didn’t work. I dug the inspection chamber out, it must have been two and a half feet down to the invert level, what that’s? the invert level is the level of the bottom of the inside of the pipe, but special bits that look like the bottom half of a pipe are used in inspection chambers. Even after cleaning out, the sewer still didn’t run.

“Yellow pages again. I rang UnBlock Cumbria to pressure jet the pipes out. The inspection chamber invert was maybe six inches down on the neighbour on one side which was the end of terrace house and the beginning of the sewer run, but it was a six feet down on the other side.

“To set the scene, I’d had a lad come round that day to fit the house with an alarm system and he was taking a break when the lads from UnBlock Cumbria came round. They weighed the job up and decided to start at the beginning of the sewer. They told me on the other side the four inch sewer dropped into a three foot main drain that ran about twelve feet down and it would be difficult to rod into half way down from that end. Ok so far, so good. They jetted out the first section which was solid due to the activities of the previous owner which was fine, but still didn’t give me a working sewer. Then they started on the other side.

“Somehow I just knew it was going to be grim when I saw the broken bamboo drain rod pieces coming back as the jet nozzle forced its way forward. When I heard the rumbling sound I started running away from the inspection chamber as fast as I could. The alarm guy was in front of me and I couldn’t keep up with him, he was a lanky six foot three and his hobby was fell running, but even he wasn’t fast enough. The pressure jet guys were wearing protective clothing. God alone knows what the pressure behind that couple of hundred gallons of shite was, but I do know it went fifty feet straight up out of the inspection chamber before coming down like an umbrella and covering everything in sight including the alarm guy and me. I suppose I should have been grateful when one of the jetting lads shouted, ‘That’s got it. It’s running clear now,’ but I wasn’t. I’d heard that dirty song rugby players sing, ‘The Shower of Shit over Shropshire’ years before, but I’ve lived through the shower of shit over Cumbria and trust me it was no bloody song.”

Yet again it was several minutes before Denis could continue “They told me the camera shewed the main sewer was unbroken so I had an upstairs lavatory but the branch pipe from the downstairs lavatory was completely collapsed, ‘It looks smashed to pieces’ the boss said. Clearly the neighbour knew what he was talking about. I subsequently replaced that with a length of modern poly pipe, but I was awful glad that day that I’d already repaired the shower.

“I was happy to move. The idiot who had the place before me was Cumbrian born and bred and they told me he had a Workington accent. Problem was his name was McCorquodale or something like that, any way it was mac something. I sound like what I am, a Scot from the north, and I was getting threatening phone calls to repay money. I think they linked his name and my voice, added two and two together and got five. I told the idiots that I wasn’t Garreth McCorquodale and had no idea where he was, but if they harrased me any more I’d send a couple of of my wife’s cousins who weren’t yet in the H blocks for terrorism round to visit. I doubt anything would have happened, but I’m not sorry to have left the place.”

“That wasn’t sensible was it? Suppose he’d called your bluff. Your missus isn’t really related to IRA terrorists is she?”

Sasha looked at Denis then back to Alf and said, “Best leave it there, Alf. Denis may or may not tell you that one some other time. He’ll have to know you a lot better and be confident you can keep your mouth shut before he goes there.”

“Thanks, Sasha. We moved from there to the small holding a couple of months ago. I’d no idea where you lived. I knew it was in this neck of the woods, but that’s an awful lot of ground to cover, Sasha. I put some enquiries out, but you seemed to have just dropped off the grid.”

“So how come you’re here starring at the weekly bullshit session?”

“Belinda went out to get her hair done this afternoon. She got to blathering with another lassie in the hairdresser’s, and, seeing as they were both going shopping at Tesco after, they had coffee together. This lassie Gwen mentioned her old man was going out to the pub tonight. She said it was the men’s story telling night and invited her round for a girls night in with some friends and a bottle of wine or two. Now I ask you, how many retired professional liars do you know called Sasha? She found out which pub and here I am. I only live twelve miles a way. Christ man it’s good to see you. I’d wondered if you were dead.”

“Nah. Mark Twain had the right of it when he said, ‘The report of my death was an exaggeration.’ But doubtless there’re plenty that wish I were, but I’ve no plans on dying yet, for there’re far to many people left for me to upset. When I go I’m being buried in my apple orchard. I’ve even selected the variety of apple I want planted over me so my personality can live on. I want a nice sour one to suit my style, and have chosen a cider apple called Tremlett’s Bitter.”

Amidst the laughter Gerry said, “I’m Gerry, Gwen’s old man.”

“So this is all your fault is it?”

“Aye, but it’s solved one problem for you, Denis.”

“What’s that then, Gerry?”

“You don’t have to find a decent local now. Welcome to the taproom of the Green Dragon, home from home and meeting place of the local branch of the Grumpy Old Men’s Society.”

The group was not quite quorate, so the chatter was of a general nature till two more members of the Green Dragon Grumpy Old Men’s Society arrived.

Nodding to Geoff and Stan as they collected a pint and sat down, Sasha asked, “You know what you were saying about keeping memories on a camera so you don’t forget stuff, Eric? Well I can prove that doesn’t always work. We had a decent digital camera, don’t bother asking for the spec cos I haven’t a clue. It was a decent one by the standards of the time, and I’d bought a huge memory to go with it. I’ve no idea now what I paid for either the camera or the memory.

“It had pictures of the farm house in all stages of renovation, demolition, i.e. with and without walls, roof, floors. Not all at once of course, Alf. I had pictures of the cats from being tiny balls of fluff to the psychopathic killers they became. The calves, lambs, piglets were on it and I had a picture or two of the full freezer when they had needed to be accommodated there. There were even a couple of pictures of myself and Elle. No, Alf, I only ever took pictures of the house, Elle took the rest.

“So far so good. Then Elle was invited to go with a friend to a Buckingham Palace garden party bash and wanted the camera. It was nowhere to be found. We turned every cupboard and drawer in the house out and put everything back. Nothing. No camera. We turned the house upside down not once but several times.

“A week before Elle left Cumbria for her friend’s home near Bolton to spend a few days there before they left for London I bought a new camera, but alas the photos on the original were considered to be well and truly lost.

“Now here’s the thing, Eric. The camera did turn up five or six years later. It was in a place we’d checked several times. Funny thing is when we looked at what was on it we’d no idea what some of the photo’s were of. There were views of inside the house I couldn’t even figure out which room they were in never mind what I was looking at, and there were folk neither of us could recall ever having seen before. So like I said even photos aren’t fool proof against memory failure because you have to remember what they’re photos of. It’s like putting a knot in your handkerchief to remind you of something, it’s bugger all use if you can’t remember what you’re supposed to remember. Like I told you all technology contains the seeds of its own failure. Now, who’s getting them in? Good lad, Eric.”

After a while Sasha resumed, “You know those idiots on the news that were causing all the trouble in Carlisle after Saturday’s match? Well I was watching the footage carefully on my laptop and in consequence I’ve developed a revolutionary new theory about intelligence.”

Stan looked around the table before saying, “How long is this going to take, Sasha. I want to know whether to get them in now or after you’ve finished first?”

Gladys shouted over, “I’ll keep an eye on things, Stan, and fetch them over when you’re ready for them. You’d better let Sasha get it of his chest. or he’ll give us all a hard time. Go on, Sasha, let’s hear the latest theory from our resident boffin of B.S.”

“Well it’s not difficult to understand. They were all wearing baseball caps, right?”

Alf replied, “Yes. I noticed that too. They looked like right idiots.”

“Ah but I suspect the significant thing that escaped your notice, Alf, was the correlation between their levels of stupidity and the positions of the peak of their cap.”

“Eh? Say that in English, Sasha.”

“I noticed that the ones wearing the caps with the peak to the front were behaving stupidly, but the ones wearing them with the peaks to the side were acting moronically, even more stupidly, Alf. However the ones with the peaks at the back were acting like complete cretins, that’s completely brainless imbeciles, Alf. You with me so far, Alf?”

“Yes, but where’s the theory about intelligence?”

“It’s obvious that the caps are are functioning as variable, adjustable that is, brain retarders. You take a perfectly normal fool. You’d have to be a fool to want to wear a hat like that right?”

There were grunts of agreement from the old men. None of them had ever worn such a thing and had no intention of ever doing so, though most had grandchildren who wore them.”

“Like I said you take a fool, put the cap on and the fool becomes stupid as well. If you rotate the peak backwards the stupid fool gets progressively stupider until when it’s pointing backwards you have an epsilon semi moron like in the film Brave New World. An idiot barely able to be useful for anything. If you keep rotating the peak back to the front I’m not sure if the loss of brain power is recoverable or not. More research on that is required. But the effects of the initial rotation of the peak from the front to the back are obvious.

Amidst the roars of laughter Gladys arrived with a tray of fresh pints to exchange for empties. “Sasha, one of these days someone is going do you a serious mischief for your tales. Have you even heard of PC?”

“Course I have. I may not be British, but even I know PC Plod was in Enid Blyton’s Noddy books for young kids long before personal computers were invented.” Sasha took a long pull on his pint and said, “That reminds me—”

“Here we go! Lies, bloody lies and tales by Sasha Vetrov!”

“Quiet, Gladys. You’re revealing more of your carefully concealed first class tertiary education than you did of your equally first class bosom when you leant over the table to hand me this glass just now. I’ll explain later, Alf. This short tale is true. As I’m sitting here I swear it to be absolutely true.”

“Where did that dirty old man Sasha go?”

Gladys’ question caused more hilarity, but Sasha eventually recommenced.

“I need to set the scene. Elle and I had been feeling sorry for ourselves. Cold, sneezes, coughs and sore throat, that kind of stuff. We had been planning on going out for dinner, but decided to give it a miss. Brave New World the film was on the box that night. It was a bit old, but we decided to watch that with a bottle of Lagavulin and a bucket of popcorn. Am I hell as like telling you what we got up to on the settee, Gerry.”

“You get to sound more like Denis every week, Sasha. I swear downright the pair of you are getting more like each other.”

“Bugger off, Gerry! Anyway before I was so unkindly interrupted by my colleague to my left. There’s a scene in the film where a genetically manipulated set of identical, quads I think but it could have been more, epsilon semi morons are pushing hand carts loaded with packages. In the film everyone’s intelligence is programmed before they are born, and alphas are at the top going down to epsilons at the bottom. Nah, don’t be daft, Geoff. Alf’s nowhere near an epsilon, a gamma or an upper delta maybe, but no way is he an epsilon. Alf, Geoff owes you a pint for talk like that. Now the epsilons in the film were dressed in heavy, black coats with hooded cowls and you couldn’t see their faces. They were wearing high boots and mindlessly swaying from side to side as they shuffled along pushing their carts.

“All of which meant nothing at the time. It was just a scene in the film. The day after, mind, the very next day, Elle and I went shopping in a supermarket that is now not there and is part of a bus station that no one other than junkies, vandals and vagrants use. That’s called progress. Still I suppose if they’re trashing and spray painting graffiti in the bus station they’re not upsetting decent folk, and it does give the homeless somewhere out of the rain to doss down. Back to the supermarket as was. Elle and I took a trolley each and separated. I hadn’t been in the place ten minutes and I was completely pole axed. I couldn’t believe my eyes, there coming towards me shuffling along pushing a trolley, swaying mindlessly from side to side and muttering was an epsilon semi moron complete with its face cowled by a hooded, black duffel coat and wearing Wellington boots.

“It was surreal. After I did a double take, I rushed between the aisles looking for Elle, she just had to see this. One look at her face when I found her, and I knew she’d already seen it and had been looking for me with the same intent. We went and looked again and collapsed laughing. It still cracks us up, but I’m afraid it’s one of those things where it wasn’t just that you had to have been there. You had to have watched the film the night before too to derive the full benefit.” Sasha got up and mimicked the swaying and pushing with a shuffling gait and muttering under his breath to much laughter.

“Like I said, someone will do you a serious mischief one of these days, Sasha Vetrov.” Gladys disappeared with a tray of empty glasses in her hands before returning with a tray of mince and onion pies. “Pass the plates and forks round, Geoff and I’ll dish up.” The pies were duly consumed and the tables cleared before being refilled with full glasses.

Before Sasha said anything he nodded to Denis who in response to an earlier question asked, “How did I get into teaching? It was a bloody con, Geoff, that’s how. I’d not long since retired from lecturing mathematics at the university. That by the bye was how I met Sasha. I didn’t need a job but a friend asked me to help out. He was struggling for staff to teach mathematics at his secondary school in Beirut Greater Manchester, he was the head. That was a while before we moved to Shropshire. So I said, ok, Colin I’ll give it a go part time. That was the thin end of the wedge.

“I’d taught evening class physics part time at an adult education centre for a few years. I got into that just for something different to do and I knew a bloke who taught physics there. I’d liked it so I carried on doing it. The adult education centre has a huge hairdressing, beauty therapy and access to nursing student body. Granada studios are just down the road and we had a large make up department specialising in make up for in front of the cameras too.

“I taught skin physics, and chemistry too, to about three hundred girls on twelve different courses every week. Teaching an all girls class is different. Teaching sciences to an all girls class is definitely different. You have to have a sense of humour and remember not to take their flirting seriously. They’re just practising, it’s what girls do when they feel secure enough. It’s actually the mark of a decent man, because they’ll only do it with blokes they regard as fully adult and safe, like their dads ought to be. Sadly in many cases blokes like me are infinitely safer to practice with than their dad. It scared the shit out of the male lecturers who hadn’t reared at least one daughter and got grandkids. The girls want the banter, but they have to know it’s just banter.

“Many of my colleagues in the make up department, who were virtually all women, and I worked together on the science the girls needed. I’d been amazed when I first looked into it just how much science there is that’s skin related. Fluid loss, body temperature control and UV sensitivity are the least of it. The list of stuff to cover is huge. It had never been timetabled as a topic on its own before because they’d never found anyone willing to teach it. So the problem was to select bits for a curriculum. For the two and three year courses the job was relatively easy, but it was hard deciding what to leave out for the one year courses.

“One of the things that made the whole thing work with the girls was the associated practical sessions which took place in one of their other classes taught by their usual lecturer. Messing about with different factor sun screens, how effective were different lip balms at combatting sore lips in winter? and the like. The practicals weren’t intended to be academic, just a reminder that what they did with me had real life applications, and that anything they applied to their skin could have negative effects which was why hairdressers did sensitivity tests if a client hadn’t used that product before.

“At the end of the summer term at the school we had an activity fortnight. Exams were over, there were no lessons and teachers found something that the kids in their form would enjoy for them to do. Now as you all know, I hate sport so I did a deal with my parallel form tutor, David, who was an ex-county cricket player and a games teacher. He took my boys for cricket and other sports and I took his girls as well as my own. I’d done a deal with Gillian a colleague in adult educational to teach my girls how to use make up and to make the best of themselves instead of looking like a tramp on the knock, in return for doing her examination invigilation.

“Many of the make up team, like Gillian who was a neighbour of ours, had lucrative private practices, so were set up for working away from the college using a van as a mobile make up workshop. Gillian and two colleagues brought in all sorts of things including some of her adverts in the local press and pictures from Granada studios which gave them total attention immediately from the girls. All I had to do was be there. After that my credibility with the girls in the entire school went through the roof. I think they thought I was on first name terms with soap opera stars, who I’d actually never heard of. It was probably the most successful thing I ever did as a teacher and the lip stick smudges on my face from the girls when I left proved the point.

“What’s that Geoff? One from my childhood. Give me a minute.” As soon as Denis returned from the gents he started before he’d even sat down properly. “Oh my bloody back!” Dad screamed as he hit the ground. He had lifted a suitcase into the boot of PT 872, the old black ford Prefect we called Peter that had been his dad’s, but twisted as he did so and pulled all the muscles down the left hand side of his back. He had already loaded LED 200, Mum’s pea green mark 1 Zephyr that her dad had given her when he bought a new mark 2 Zodiac. We called Mum’s car Lady and Granddad’s new one Zoë. It was summer, July 1960, and I was eleven, twelve in less than a month. We were going to Wales camping, parents, myself and three older sisters. But for a while there it had looked like it was off.

“Fortunately Mum, an ex SRN, had dad on the ground on his stomach, just where he had fallen on the driveway in front of the house, and mercilessly she walked up and down on his back for ten minutes, I can recall his screams as she did so as if it were yesterday, and our holiday was back on again. I have no memory of the journey, but thankfully I travelled with Mum. We duly arrived at the soaked swamp with the floating turf called a camp site somewhere near Abersoch in north Wales. We pitched tents in the mud and listened to Dad’s constant plaint of “Oh my bloody back,” for the entire time we were there. He was the only thing that could compete with the seagulls.

“It never stopped raining and eventually we gave it up after four days having sprouted gills. The only thing good or bad about the entire four days that I can remember was fishing for brown trout with a wrinkled old Welshman called Yanto who was delighted to learn that my politics were liberal with a capital L, which seems strange now after all I was only eleven. It was years before I realised that Yanto was a use name for Evan.

“Yanto was brilliant, and he seemed to be completely inured to the rain. I’m still not sure that he actually was aware that it was raining. Under Yanto’s experienced eyes, we caught, gutted and fried the trout we’d caught in lard. They were delicious, charred on the edges and dangerously hot. I can taste them and feel my burnt lips still. I travelled back to Scotland with Dad ‘Oh my bloody backing’ for over three hundred miles. I still don’t know why we went to Wales of all places. That is the last memory I have of spending any time at all with Dad. Mum divorced him shortly after. He was born in 1922, so he may be still alive, but probably not.

“Yanto was fascinating to me. He was a Welshman whose native tongue was what he described as North Walean. I found out years later when I had learnt to speak South Walean, which I found to be vaguely similar enough to Gaelic to help me learn it, that the speakers of the two variants of Welsh, North and South Walean use English to deal with each other at the marts, or at least they did at Aberystwyth when I was there. My family were and are Gaelic speakers and there was an elusive familiarity to Yanto’s speech when he was speaking to other locals, some words I understood but the grammar seemed odd. This is completely different from listening to Belinda’s family who are Gaeltacht speakers from Donegal. With them I understand enough of the grammar and can fill in most of the vocabulary if I try hard enough, but North Walean, like its other modern Celtic language counterpart Breton, is sufficiently different to elude me now just as it did then.

“I’ll have another and then it’s home time for me. I’m on a promise.”

There was a great deal of laughter at that, and Gladys said, “Aye, a mug of cocoa and a couple of digestive biscuits. If he’s lucky.”

Denis winked broadly and said, “If you came home with me, Gladys, we could have a threesome.”

There were roars of laughter as a bright red Gladys screamed, “Get out, Denis, before I take a broom to your back. You’re filthier than that bloody Cossack.”

As Gladys disappeared into the best room and Denis made his way to the door he heard Pete Gladys’ husband say, “That’s one to Denis, boys, because Sasha’s never managed to make Gladys blush. I didn’t know she could.”

Denis got everyone's attention by banging an empty pint pot on the bar, which Gladys promptly took off him to refill. “All right, Lads, listen up. After twisting his arm for no more than a twelve month, Sasha’s finally got Geoff to agree he’s been holding out on us. We’ve all heard bits about where he lived before, but tonight he’s the main course, and is giving us the whole tale. He’s naturally nervous never having had to lie, sorry, Sasha, create the new truth for so long before. Just make sure he doesn't runs out of ale and run dry and he’ll be fine. Geoff, our attention is all yours.”

Geoff looked like a coney caught in the headlights, but nearly draining his pint in one he pulled him self together and began. “Before I lived up here I lived down in Folkestone which was a bit of a culture shock for a laddie from Ullapool. Karen’s near to three years older than me, and we’d been living together for maybe six years. I was a trashed divorcee when I met Karen, got nothing because the courts had cleaned me out. No job, no money, just an education I couldn’t use because my head was in bits. I was living rough when Karen took me in, she does that with waifs and strays.

She lived in a rented council house. A single mother just shy of thirty she was when I moved in. She was a good Catholic girl who believed you couldn’t get pregnant the first time. Well you can, and it cost her her job as a student nurse, and when I met her she was living with a seven year old and on the rock and roll. That’s the dole, benefits, Alf. Not an over auspicious start. But it got better, I went back to university for more education, and she restarted qualifying for her nurse training.”

“How come she had to do that, Geoff? Why couldn’t she pick it up where she left off?”

“The entry qualifications had gone up, Eric, so they wouldn’t let her. She had to go to night school to get two more GCSEs before she could start. She took three to play safe and got three Bs. She’d already passed English language, English literature and French, and needed five, so she figured maths would be handy because it’s a basic qualification, human biology would be easy for her because she knew the stuff, so it would be like a refresher, and a mate of hers who’d done sociology the year before had told her any adult who’d read a paper once a week would find it a breeze. I bottled out on teaching her maths, cos we might as well have broken up then and there.” Geoff was looking more relaxed as his memory cast back in time.

“I made Karen go for her driving licence, again I refused to teach her for the same reasons I refused to teach her maths. I got her lessons with the local British School of Motoring and she passed second time around. She started her nurse training at Canterbury which was maybe fifteen miles away. I had to take her to work and pick her up to start with, but I found her a car and things became a lot easier for both of us. We were doing ok, had a bit of spare money and were thinking in terms of buying a house. Karen found it, a repossessed property a few miles away. It needed a bit doing to it, but I’m handy with tools, so it was just a question of finding the money. Now don’t laught, but it had been empty for over three years and the asking price was twenty four thousand.

“I offered twenty and we settled on twenty-one and a half. Scottish Amicable building society were prepared to lend us twenty thousand over twenty-five years, so all we had to do was find the fifteen hundred pound deposit. Karen and I reckoned we’d got just under three hundred. I filled the mortgage application forms in first and where it said ‘Value of any other debts’ I put nil. Then I took out a bank loan for the full fifteen hundred. I reckoned if I were going to go to jail for fraud I might as well go for fifteen hundred as twelve. I told Karen it was legal because I’d filled the mortgage application in before applying for the bank loan. You never know I might even have been right. I should have asked to borrow at least twice that.

“The mortgage went through, we got the house, and moved in. The idea of that much debt terrified both of us. I qualified and got an interview at Dungeness B. They’d asked me about my feelings concerning radioactivity, said of course it was higher there than elsewhere, but within safety limits and the job I was applying for meant if I got it I’d be wearing a badge at all times to monitor what I was exposed to. Christ, tell you lads, we’d been living off Karen’s wages, and everyone knows how highly student nurses are paid. We’d decided no more kids ages before, and I’d have worked in the bloody core for the money the job paid. I got the job and inflation went through the roof over the next couple of years. Karen qualified and got a job as a staff nurse where she’d trained in Canterbury, and as our salaries went up in line with inflation twenty grand soon became very small beer.”

Geoff took a pull on his now refilled glass and continued, “The whole business of that bloody house was weird from start to finish. The central heating system had been drained and wouldn’t fill. I determined where the blockage was and set out to replace the blocked pipework. I could see three twenty-two mil pipes side by side under the floor at the top of the stairs and needed to break into the cold water pipe. There was a cold, a hot and a gas feed to the boiler. I could see the three pipes side by side under the floor in the bathroom near the hot water cylinder, the cold water tank and the header tank for the central heating. Unfortunately the joints were soldered not compression fittings so the blow lamp came out.

“Cutting a long story short I set the glass resin bath on fire by breaking a joint open on the gas pipe. The gas pipe had been completely twisted around the other two. They were properly aligned when I finished the job before the new bath went in. Every damned job I ever did in that house was similar, undoing the work of some complete idiot.

“And the place was spooky too. Karen swears somebody stroked her backside when she was just about to get in the bath. Thinking it were me she told me to stop messing about, but there was nobody there. I was in the garage which I’d set up as a workshop. She said she never felt frightened, but never said whether she enjoyed the phantom feeler or not.” The laughter took a while to die down. Karen was a pretty forthright lady and even Gladys was trying to work out how Karen would have regarded the incident. “Another time she said she was out in the garden and saw a red haired man in the kitchen. She shouted to me to find out what was going on. I went in and there was no one there.

“A few days later we were talking to a neighbour who was telling us about the previous occupants. It seems the woman had married twice and her first husband had died there after drinking paraquat weed killer from a lemonade bottle in the garage when he was drunk. Karen asked what he looked like, and as we were told I watched her face pale. It was the red haired man she’d seen through the kitchen window.”

“You saying you believe in ghosts, Geoff?”

“You saying you’ve got the balls to tell Karen she’s delusional, Alf?”

“No, I see what you’re saying. Ellen scares me badly enough. Your missus is…, nah you carry on, Geoff.” Gladys, behind the bar, was smiling at Alf’s strategic withdrawal.

“The street was a cul de sac with a lollipop island at the bottom. There were early fifties council houses with alternating pairs of semi-detached with terraces of four round the island at the bottom. Higher up the road the houses were smaller and newer and all private. I was told there’d been older houses there but they’d been knocked down twenty years before and the new houses were all owner occupied. Most of the fifties houses were in private ownership too by then, due to Thatcher’s right to buy policy. We lived at the bottom on the right. The neighbours were a queer lot. There was a pair of elderly Jehova’s Witnesses who thought I’d been got at by someone they referred to as Nimrod. Whatever. Our house was a semi and the old couple of trainee corpses who lived next door were ok, but conversation was difficult as both were deaf and didn’t often wear their hearing aids. Their breakfast conversations must have been truly scintillating.

“Next to us was a terrace of four, now that was inhabited by a very strange lot. Next door was a couple in their fifties. Neither of them worked and both smoked like chimneys. She was red haired, short and fat, and on sunny days would sit in a deck chair out at the front in her mismatched gray bra and knickers with her skirt tucked up into her knickers like little girls used to do for gym at primary school, only they didn’t have foot long bright orange hair hanging down from their armpits. Her old man in contrast was six foot tall and skinny and an obsessive gardener. He always wore a green all in one overall with matching uniform cap that came from the local dairy which he’d never worked for.

“He dug a pond out for fish in his front garden and in doing so uncovered the gas main. Apparently someone rang the gas authority. Next thing I knew the ‘orange utang’ from next door was screaming for for all the neighbours to hear that she’s going to sort me out for blowing him in! She nearly knocked my front door in and started in on me before I’d opened it. I heard her out and said, “Is that it? Why the hell should I care what you do. I’m the only one in the entire street working and, unlike the rest of you, I haven’t got the time to mind anyone’s business but mine. I suggest you go home and hand in your notice for your job at the pub before I do blow you in to the social security and the tax man. I heard later the male died from lung cancer. No, Stan. I didn’t blow her but somebody did, and doubtless that was laid at my door.

“Next door to her was Dick the shit, then Mick the thief, then an old biddy who lived with her grandson we called Shoeshop because his name was Reebok. Ree-bloody-bok can you imagine it? Who would curse a baby with a name like that? Mind I’ve heard worse. The local paper did an interview with a single mum on a nearby estate who despite being told it was a sexually transmitted disease had insisted on naming her daughter Clamidia, because she liked it.”

The taproom broke down into gales of laughter at that point. Even Gladys had completely lost it and it took a lot to disturb the imperturbable calm of the quintessential barmaid. Stan said, “Your getting to be damned good at this damned fast, Geoff, but I’m not having that.”

Jerry said, “I’m sure I heard that on the radio in the car. Be a good few years ago though.” Eventually calm was restored and glasses refilled. Geoff resumed.

“Across the way was Pinhead who told me because the site of the houses had been a swamp that had been filled in with two hundred years of municipal rubbish the houses had all been built on special ‘basises’ - yes that not a mistake, lads, that’s what he said. Then there was Lady Wasp. I’d kept my bees in the garden for maybe five years then and no one had noticed. That day she came banging on my front door screaming there were millions of my bees in her bathroom. Ok, I’m not completely unreasonable, so I went to look. It could have been a swarm worth money to me.

“Two wasps, two bloody, poxy wasps, that’s what I saw. I came down and asked, “Did you actually see the bees yourself?” To be told when her six year old granddaughter told her about the bees she’d been too frightened to go up and look. I just walked away. She demanded to know what I was going to do about it. I told her, ‘Nothing. The wasps are your problem not mine. As for your fear, I have enough trouble dealing with my own neuroses yours are your responsibility.’ I had already opened the window and they’d flown out, but I didn’t tell her that.

“Long before we left, the house was immaculate. Karen had done a really good job with all the furnishings which I admit I’d been irritated by at the time, but I saw what she was getting at when it was done. We’d both been promoted a few times and had spare cash. We were thinking about moving because we didn’t like the neighbours as you probably gathered from the soubriquets I’d given them, and we wanted a house with a bit of land because we were getting more and more into growing our own. Then the offer of the job at Sellafield came up on a hell of a lot more money, and we were glad we hadn’t done anything about another house down there. Soubriquets are like nicknames, Alf.

“Life was difficult for a while. I’d had a month in which to accept or turn down the new job. No brainer. I accepted it and took two weeks holiday and the seven days they gave me to find a house up here.

“Like I said I worked at Dungeness B nuclear power station and came up here for a better job at Sellafield. My new job was likely to be a bit more travelling depending on where I managed to find a house, it was only 20 miles before, but the increase in salary would more than make up for it and I was within ten years of retirement when I moved. That is I was till the bastards at the department of works and pensions put the retirement age up and I had to do another year.” There were nods of commiserations, for a few of the men had fallen victim to the same event.

“Karen carried on working and I lived up here in a small bed and breakfast hotel that did evening meals too while I looked for a place to live. I found four for her to look at on her days off, and she agreed the one I like suited her too. The mortgage on the house in Folkestone was a joke by then, so we didn’t have to sell it to buy the place up here and we thought it would be easier to just pay the mortgages on both houses till we were settled.

“We put an offer in and after a bit of haggling it was settled and I lived in the bed and breakfast for three weeks while working here and then moved in. Karen worked her notice and was up here a fortnight later. She decided not to work for the NHS and went into the nursing home sector. She’d found a couple, Jane and John, who wanted to buy our old house but were going to rent the place first. Karen had worked with Jane, another qualified nurse, who’d agreed to let us store some of our stuff in the garage till we were ready to go down with a hired van and bring it back north. Seemed perfect. It was the beginning of a decade long nightmare.

“Gladys, another round, Love, and one for yourself. Give me the nod when you’re ready with the pasties and I’ll get Geoff to stop at an appropriate place.”

“Right you are, Denis.”

The look of disgust on Geoff’s face gave the audience to understand something unpleasant was coming. “I went to give John a hand moving his stuff. I had a van on hire anyway. He’d said no need to bother and I never thought anything of it. I was a bit taken aback by their place. The kitchen was a squalid disaster zone, looked like the cooker hadn’t been cleaned in months, but John made some excuse, and looking back the truth was I wanted to think well of them, and I forgot about it and never said anything to Karen. Everything went fine for maybe fifteen months, the rent was paid into the bank. Then the payments stopped. I tried ringing up but nobody answered the phone. Then there was no ring tone. I contacted the phone company and was told the phone had been cut off for non payment of bills.

“Karen wanted to know what we did next. ‘No choice,’ I said. ‘Go down there.’ Karen was a matron of a nursing home then, so time off was problematic, money wasn’t any more but time was. Eventually we managed to get a few days off together and promptly spent seven hours to do the four hundred miles to Folkestone. Nobody answered the door, and it was double locked, so my key didn’t work, but I was sure someone was in. So I said through the letterbox, “One way or another, I’m coming through this bloody door. You choose. Open it, or I’ll use a sledgehammer for a key.” The door opened. Fuck me! The stench pole axed me. I thought I could cope with almost anything, but what I’d walked onto defied belief. Jane was crying. Her grossly overweight twenty old year old daughter was dressed in a bra, thong, make up that had been applied days ago and nothing else, at tea time for Christ’s sake! She looked and stunk like a whore who never bothered to get dressed, or washed, so as to be ready for work at a moment’s notice. Maybe she only put the bra and thong on for our benefit, who knows. Karen went into the front room with Jane.

“I went through the house like a tornado. My house was a slum. It looked like a squat. There was bugger all furniture and no beds upstairs just mattresses on the floor and dirty clothes scattered everywhere, and it stank to high heaven. The kitchen was worse than the one she’d left. I was raging. The daughter followed me into the kitchen, said John had left her mum and she was upset. ‘Up-fucking-set. I’m upset. I’ve an eighty thousand pound investment here I worked damned hard for, and you bastards have trashed it and turned it into a fucking doss house.’ ”

“I got promises to start paying off the debt and I bought a fifteen pound hob from B&Q to replace the burnt out cooker and wired it up. I said if the money wasn’t with me in six weeks. I’d throw them out on the street. On the drive home Karen was gutted. I told her about the place they’d left and she couldn’t understand it. She told me, ‘Jane was a qualified nurse, always dressed well and certainly didn’t smell.’

“ ‘Yeah well, she stinks of booze now,’ I said. We never heard from them again. Six weeks later I rang an estate agent down there told him the score and asked him to look into it and get them out if they were still there.

“The estate agent rang me that evening, said the house was empty, filthy and the front door was wide open. He’d had a locksmith change the locks and I needed to get the place cleaned up before selling it. He said industrial cleaners would be necessary and they would charge about a thousand quid, and he would send me the new keys through the post. I intended to sell the place, so I told him to keep a key. I also said I had to go down with a van to collect the last of my stuff anyway, so I’d deal with the cleaning. Apparently Jane had told the neighbours they were leaving in six weeks. She seemed to think I’d given her six weeks during which she didn’t have to pay rent. I’ve often wondered if I’d helped John do a daytime flit from the previous place still owing rent.

“Ok, Geoff. Pasties, mate.” The group broke up for a bite to eat.

~o~O~o~

It was three-quarters of an hour later when having eaten, visited the back, and ensured a fresh supply of refreshment Geoff continued.

“I’d had a hand with some work at the new house from a local lad, Timmy. Timmy was five foot nothing, thinner than a whippet and stronger than a horse, so I asked him if he was interested in the cleaning and did he know anyone else. ‘Me, the wife and daughter will do it at the usual thirty-five each for the day. They’re not working either, so would appreciate cash too, Geoff.’ I’d always paid Timmy cash because he was out of work, no skin of my nose is it. Timmy would have been fifty-ish then. I knew Sheena his daughter was twenty-two because Karen and I went to her birthday party in the dance room at the Red Lion.

“I’ve no problem paying cash, Timmy, but it’ll be a bloody long day. It’s seven hours there in the car, seven back, and I’ve told you what we’re going to find. How’s a ton apiece sound? I’m not taking Karen. She thought the bitch was her friend.”

“Ok. Let me know when you want us, so we don’t have a bevy the night before.”

~o~O~o~

“We went down overnight in a seven and a half ton box van. It took eight not seven hours. We took sleeping bags and Timmy and I took a spell each behind the wheel while the others tried for a bit of shut eye in the back. The house was worse than it had been when I’d last seen it. There was all sorts of stuff left behind. Timmy asked what he could have, I told him, ‘All my stuff’s in the garage. Anything else is yours if you want it.’ ”

“When we were there I heard my name being called, but it was Dick the shit, so I ignored him. I did that three times before Timmy said, ‘There's a bloke shouting you, Geoff.’ ”

I couldn’t ignore him then. He started gabbling at me all sorts about my tenants and when they’d left. I knew all of the neighbours would have been in for a look round with the door being left open, and Mick the thief would have had anything of value. I was still mad as hell fire. I’m not the easiest of blokes to start with, and him fishing for juicy bits of information made me worse. So making sure all the other nosy bastards, who were trying to look like the reason they were out at the front had nothing to do with me being there, could hear I shouted, ‘I did nae fucking like ye when ah lived here and nothing’s changed.’ That shut him up, and made me feel better, but it was quarter of an hour before the others stopped laughing enough to be able to work.”

It was only five minutes before Geoff could get back to his tale.

“We decided to load the van with all the rubbish first and take it to the dump. The women had taken a load of cleaning gear down with them and said they’d start up stairs and threw the rubbish down. Timmy went up to clear rubbish and the next thing I heard was, ‘For fuck’s sake!’ He’d found a bin bag full of dirty knickers. That was the last bag any of us opened. We cleared the rubbish, took it to the tip and started loading the van. We’d done that by early evening, but the cleaning was only about three-quarters done.

“ ‘Up to you,’ I said. ‘I’ll get us all in at a bed and breakfast and we can finish tomorrow, or the four of us press on and do the cleaning. The electric lights work and I brought some spare one fifty watt bulbs. Your call.’ ”

“They all agreed we carried on and got the hell out. Timmy’s missus, Beryl, asked, ‘You two ok to drive if we carry on?’ We both nodded and said whoever wasn’t driving could sleep sitting up in the front. The back was full to the roof.

“On the way back Timmy said, ‘I’ll get free beer telling this tale for a bloody long time, Geoff, but you’re going to have to learn to speak your mind. That bloke’s face was a bloody picture when you fucked him off.’ ”

“When I got home I said to Karen, ‘Well that’s that. I saved three maybe four hundred quid, but I should have gone with the industrial cleaners.’ I don’t know how they’d done it, but the central heating system was bollixed and had to be replaced and half the house electrics were buggered. It wasn’t on for me to go down and do the work, so it cost a bloody fortune. I made money on the house but not as much as I should have done and it wasn’t easy money. They cost me twenty grand in the end. I’d have been thirty-two I think when we bought the place, and we were there for twelve years. When the place was finally sold we were relieved it was over.” There was braek at that as Gladys came round with a tray of pints and cleared the tables.

“Trouble was, was it hell as like over. It was only just beginning. Karen’s car insurance was up for renewal and she elected to pay it by standing order. That’s a credit agreement and she was turned down. I paid it up front, but looked into why it had happened. Turns out Jane had used Karen’s name to buy stuff from all over the place, catalogues and the like, and never paid for them. I got copies of the agreements, and Jane had used our old address, Karen’s name, the same place of work they used to work at, but her own birthday. The only way to clear Karen’s name was to report it as a crime to the police. Karen didn’t want to, but it was do that or pay Jane’s debts, all eighteen grand of them, or be prosecuted. Karen changed her mind. It took twelve months to get the folk owed money to back off and another four years to clear Karen’s credit rating with the credit rating agencies, Experian, Equifax and Callcredit. Still leaves a bad taste in my mouth thinking about it. My brother James had the right of it when he said, ‘I told you it was a bad idea going south. They’re different and you will regret it.’ ”

“Aye that’s true enough, Geoff.” Stan had spoken but the others were in agreement.

It was with a wicked grin that Geoff said, “He was talking about going to work in Glasgow which is what? A hundred and fifty north of here. But I’m damned glad to be here not down there.”

~o~O~o~

“What do you reckon, Sasha? Is he any good?” Eric asked.

“Hell yes, but inexperienced. He needs to learn to be a little more frugal with the truth and to drag out the interesting bits. But surely Geoff’s a teller of tales in the making. What say you, Denis?”

“I agree but he’s suffering from a terrible weakness like all of us.”

It was Tommy who asked, “What’s that then?”

But it was Gladys who answered with a self satisfied tone in her voice, “He’s frightened of Karen.”

~o~O~o~

It had been a relatively short session but a good one and the men returned to their usual evening’s activity, playing dominoes whilst attempting to drink the cellar dry, ably assisted of course by Gladys.

~o~O~o~

NOTES.

The Right to Buy was enshrined in Her Majesty’s Housing Act 1980. An act of Parliament giving tenants of local authority housing the right to buy the property at substantial discount. The discount became larger the longer they had lived in the property. Margaret Thatcher was the prime minister at the time.

A bevy, a serious drink.

The others had settled down and the last to join them was John who brought his pint back from the bar and sat down. From the stony look on his face he was not a happy man. “You’ll never guess what my old bitch has done?”

“Whoa steady on there, John! Margaret might have upset you, but there’s no call for that sort of talk,” said Stan in tones of reproof.

“Are you bloody daft, Stan? I’m talking about this old bitch here, Jess. There’s no way I’d ever say anything about the wife that might get back to her. I’ve got to sleep sometime.” There was a notable easing of shoulders around the taproom and Gladys’ face lost the tightened look of disapproval. “She’s fourteen isn’t she, so when she started peeing blood Margaret and I thought the worst. I took her to the vets and they kept her in over night. Old Sherlock told me they’d had a sample and sent it off to the lab, but she seemed fine. I took her home and she seemed ok but was still peeing blood. Like hell as like she was.

“Bloody animal’s always been a thief with unusual tastes. Licked half a pound of butter away she thieved out the shopping when she was a pup. Margaret wondered where it had gone till she found the wrapper. Bloody animal has always thieved carrots, potatoes and anything else she could get to eat. Only dog I’ve ever known that could roll her lips back to take raspberries off the plant without the central core. You wouldn’t think it of a Staffordshire bull terrier would you? I’ve never been able to take her down the allotment with me, because I’d have no friends left inside of a week. I caught her steeling beetroot. The colour’s been going straight through her.”

When the laughter died down, Sasha said, “Well that’s good, isn’t it? Jess is ok. What are you upset about?”

“I found the cause of it by catching her in the act thieving a beetroot out of the sack in the pantry. Three days later the Sherlock calls to tell me it’s due to some bloody vegetable dyestuff with a name a yard long. Said the most likely source was beetroot, but he couldn’t see how a dog could get that in it’s system and presented me with a bill for sixty-eight quid for something I’d found out for myself.”

It took a lot longer for the laughter to die down this time and mysteriously John had a couple of full glasses in front of him as opposed to everyone else’s one to ease his financial pain, and someone had tipped a bag of crisps [US chips] out for Jess.

~o~O~o~

“Got another letter from my girlfriend in Preston today, Lads,” Sasha announced.

“Go on then, let’s hear it,” said Eric.

“Well there’s this lass in Preston keeps writing to me. Every month or so. Elle calls her my other woman. Goes by the name of Jane Jeffers. She’s been writing to me for years. God knows how old she is now, though come to think of it she probably doesn’t actually exist. She’ll just be a name they use to intimidate folk with. I’ve got a stack of letters from her that must be six inches high now. She’s head of the TV licensing enforcement division or so the letters say, but it’s just one of those script font signatures on the bottom of the letter. I don’t believe it’s a photocopy of a woman’s handwriting. No woman writes like that, then again only a monster could do a job like that with the letters they send out, so maybe it is her writing.

“The letters are always addressed to ‘The Legal Occupier’, and are intimidating to anyone who doesn’t have their wits about them. Very threatening in tone. Some arrive in a bright red envelope with ‘Urgent Action Required’ on them. You open one up and it tells you what you need a license for. You know watching TV on a computer and all that other equipment you can do it on if you know how. I know I could on my laptop if I wanted to, but I’ve never tried because I’ve got better things to do. It goes on and on about what will happen if you are breaking the law, tells you about the penalties, taking you to court and the huge fines they will impose. Google ‘Jane Jeffers TV licensing’, tell you she must be one bad person. No lady would put her name to letters like those.

“They say that since I haven’t responded to their previous letters they have been forced to open a case against me. They’ve been saying that for twenty years now. They also say that inspectors are in my post code area now, which is good since there’re only three other farms besides mine use that postcode. Sometimes the letters say ‘WILL YOU BE IN AT 10:30 ON NOVEMBER THE 23rd?’ or at some other time on some nearby date, and say an inspector may, notice may not will, call on that date or some other date. It usually concludes by telling you how to stop the investigation, pay the money or ring them up to explain why you don’t need to have a license. They have three standard letters and they seem to go round sending each one out in turn. I just add them to the pile. No one ever comes round.”

“How come you don’t ring them up to say you don’t have a TV, Sasha?” asked Eric

“Why the hell should I? And besides not long ago I read in the Mail—”

“Thought you said you didn’t read papers.”

“No, Alf. I said I didn’t buy them. I get all Colin’s old ones to light the fire with. Elle reads them and points out things I may be interested in. Happens three or four times a year. Anyway, this bloke wrote in saying more or less what I’m telling you, and he’d rung them up to tell them he didn’t have a TV because he was blind, registered blind mind you, lived on his own and didn’t need a licence anyway because he was eighty-two which was seven years past the point where he no longer had to have a licence, but they still kept sending him the letters. There are loads on the internet about it” (1)

“I read that letter in The Mail too now you mention it, Sasha. Six months ago maybe,” said Gerry.

“It’ll all be done by computer. Nobody actually sees the letters. In the beast there will be a list of every address in the UK and if they haven’t had the money off you they assume you are guilty of a crime. On both sides of the border UK law says a man is assumed innocent till proven guilty in a court of law. I don’t go round trying to prove I’m not an illegal arms trader in nuclear weapons or doing illegal abortions. You any idea why not, Eric?”

“You don’t do those thing. Do you?”

“Exactly. If I’m to be found guilty of those things it’s up to the authorities to find evidence that will satisfy a court sufficiently for it to find me guilty. I don’t have to do anything till then. There is an illegal presumption of guilt on their part. Stuff them. Easy enough to send a TV detector van round, do they? No.”

“Some would say you’re being deliberately unhelpful, Sasha,” said Geoff.

“I am, but then unlike them I’m neither a civil servant nor paid to be helpful thus I’m under no obligation to be helpful. Those damned letters have probably killed endless old folk from heart attacks. I read the other week in the paper that the enforcement is outsourced to Capita now and to justify the contract they have to recover money. I take the stance I do on behalf of all the folk who can’t because either they’re not bright enough or they’re too frail.”

“That sounds like arrogance, Sasha,” said Pete.

“Not at all. Someone who is arrogant thinks they are better than others. I know I am. It’s not the same thing at all.”

When the laughter subsided, Pete asked, “What would you do if one came to you house, Sasha?”

“Nothing why should I? They’d need adequate evidence to suggest they’ll get a successful prosecution to secure a warrant from a magistrate, which they won’t have. If I don’t feel like it I don’t even answer the door even if someone can see I’m in. There’s no law says I have to open my door or answer questions to anybody on my door step or indeed anywhere else. I ask questions. Like, who are you? Why are you here? Prove it. If they can’t, and I don’t know if their ID is the real thing, so I always assume that it’s fake, I tell them I’m ringing the police because I believe they are scammers and operating in my area. As they are protesting I pick up the camera from the window sill and take a photo for the police who I always ring and give a photo to. Nobody gets in my house unless I want them to. It happens a few time a year.”

Eric asked, “What if they tried to force their way in, Sasha?”

Stan had tears in his eyes as he laughed and said, “Sasha has a seven pound splitting axe just inside the door that he uses for firewood on his yard, and is there anyone here who doesn’t believe he’d use it?”

Denis said, “I’ve seen him use far more than a seven pound splitting maul on someone, more than once.”

“Don’t they ever ring you up, Sasha? I read in the paper they do that to arrange a time to come round.”

“I wouldn’t know, Gerry. I have an answer phone. If you don’t tell me who you are or what you want no one picks it up. That filters out cold callers and folk I don’t want to talk to. Those kinds of calls are made by an auto dialler that only switches you to a human when you answer the phone. The auto dialler disconnects the call as soon as it realises the response is from an answer phone. We get a dozen calls a week like that. Everyone who knows us knows all they have to do is say who they are and we’ll pick the phone up.”

“I’ve seen both of them waiting by the phone when it’s ringing and then ignoring it,” said Stan in corroboration.

“And I’ve watched him shout, ‘Bugger off’ through the letter box at Carol Singers at Christmas time,” said Denis. “Tell you. Sasha really does know how to upset people.”

While every one was staring at him and laughing, Sasha poured himself a whisky.

“Sasha, you’re Russian right?”

“I was last time I checked, Geoff. I reckon I must be because when I go back it only takes me two hours to pass through customs and immigration, not the usual half a day for foreigners. Why?”

Why do you drink malt not vodka? Vodka’s a lot cheaper.”

“Because I like vodka a lot more than malt.”

“Ok. I’ll buy it. Listen up, Lads. Sasha’s about to expound more of the universe according to Vetrov. Go on, Sasha.”

“We’ve never actually formalised an explanation of why Russians drink the way we do, but I met an Australian a good few years ago who had a perfect explanation. Why are you out drinking tonight, Geoff?”

“Well for the company, the craic, and it passes a few hours. Makes a mark in the week. You need that when you’ve retired.”

“Right. It’s a social thing, so you drink pint’s at a social pace. You may not be ok to drive, but walking home is no problem, and as long as you remember to collect Karen’s fish from the chip shop when you get your chips, if you’re on a promise you can deliver right?”

“I’ve said it before, Sasha Vetrov, and I’ll doubtless say it again, you are a dirty old man who takes everything as low as it can get.”

“Quiet, Gladys. I’m making a point here.”

“Yes, I guess,” replied Geoff. “But what’s the point you’re making.”

“Most Jocks don’t drink like fish, you may be a nation of drinkers with a goodly share of alkies but most of you aren’t. Most these days take water with whisky and last the night out. Yes?”

“Yes. That describe most of us, well everybody that I know.”

“Ok. So when I drink malt I drink it like most Scots do, sensibly. If I drank vodka I’d drink it like a Russian and Ashley, that Ossie I was talking about, put it this way, and it fits a lot of Russians, not just working class Russians. An Ossie works bloody hard all week, usually under pretty rough conditions for bosses who treats him like an animal. When he gets his pay and goes out on the town he wants to forget the week as fast as he can and get it all over with. That was the phrase Ashley used ‘I want to get it all over with as fast as I can.’ That’s why I don’t drink Vodka. That and all you can get over here is gnat’s piss. Thirty-seven and a half percent. I ask you, what kind of dishwater is that? Elle buys me a bottle of eighty percent Polish spirit every now and again. She and some of my distant female cousins write to each other and she gets them to send a bottle of fire water that makes Pat’s Poteen look safe over every now and again for me.”

“That legal, Sasha?”

“What do you think?”

Stan interrupted so as to avoid Sasha having to explain further. He’d known Sasha a lot longer than the others, except Denis, and knew if he had his back to wall Sasha would lie, but he didn’t like it. “I’ll tell you a couple of tales about, Sasha,” said Stan. “I’m no story teller, so don’t expect too much, and as far as I’m aware this is the truth as it happened.”

“Just wait till he gets into it, Lads,” said Sasha, “The new truth has a way of gripping you by the bits that hurt once you’ve got an audience of more than two.”

“You all know when Sasha moved here I was out of work and he wanted someone to help sort his place out. What? Twenty years since, Sasha?”

“Hm, no twenty-two I think.”

“Well the quick one first. Inspector cat. He had a cat, a wee black thing, called it Magic after the chocolates. Black Magic chocolates, Alf, by Nestlé I think. Nosy, into everything. He called it the clerk of works, the inspector. I was at the top of a ladder knocking a spike into a wall to fasten a rope to. The spike was like a twelve inch cold chisel and I was using a four pound mash hammer. All of a sudden I felt something land on my right shoulder. I nearly shit myself because I was fifteen feet up and I thought I was going down the quick way.

“It was the cat. She just wanted to see what I was doing. Nose just a few inches of the end of the spike I was hitting. Crazy. I finished putting the spike in, climbed down the ladder, still with the cat on my shoulder mind, till I reached the ground. The cat died, eighteen she was, last year but she lives on. There’re her foot prints in the sand and cement screed on the concrete floor in his downstairs en suite bathroom. It was a tricky job. To get the levels down to the floor drain we had to finish at the window, so we’d taken the window out. We worked our way back to the window and climbed out. For the last bit Sasha leant in through the window to float it off, and I held onto his legs.

“We’d just done and the cat jumped through the window into the middle of the room and shot out through the door into the bedroom. Damn me in less than a minute she was back with us looking through the window opening as if wondering what the hell had happened.”

“What did you do about the footprints, Sasha,” asked Gerry.

Stan answered, “Sasha said, ‘The hell with it. Film stars do it in Hollywood.’ So they’re still there.”

“Another time we were taking a wall out in between his living room and kitchen. That place of his is five, six hundred years old and built of beach cobbles, some of them you’d only get three to the ton, [750 pounds, 330Kg]. Why never mind how the hell they put them there I’ll never know. They only had horses and men in those days, but men were cheaper than good hunting dogs, so I suppose it didn’t matter how many died on the job. This wall was nearer four feet thick than three. We were taking it out cobble by cobble from upstairs. Up to then there was nothing heavier than a hundred weight, [112 pounds, 50Kg].

“We got the wall down to the down stairs ceilings and supported the timbers in the ceilings of the rooms on either side with seven by fours supported on Acrow jacks before continuing down stairs. There was a door way going through the wall just inside the outer wall of the house, so we removed the door and door casings and started taking the wall out from that side. We did it that way because we could see there were some big and heavy cobbles in the wall and some massive sandstone slabs too. The idea was we’d angle the wall down to the doorway and slid the big stuff down on top of the remaining wall to ground level.

“Good plan till we came across the slab that was at least half a ton, [1120 pounds, 500Kg] at the end of the wall furthest away from the doorway about eight feet off the floor. Once it started moving there was no stopping it, and the seven by fours were in its path. Oh yes it went down the top of the wall all right. That was when I invented the new sport of wall boarding. I was on the top of the slab. There was an almighty bang as the seven by fours sheared off, two ceilings came down and the dust was so thick I couldn’t see Sasha and his face was less than a foot from mine at the bottom of the wall.

“I counted my arms and legs first, then my fingers. I was amazed they were all there. We turned round and the plaster lath ceilings had turned into dust and kindling and the entire wall was down. It was just a pile of cobbles and broken lime plaster on the floor. A lot of the dust was from the clay dobbing in the wall, that’s where they just used clay years ago instead of mortar. Eventually it dries out and the wall falls down. Probably the building was used for cattle originally. A lot were only built with a fifty year life span in mind. If the authorities had known that they’d have slapped a preservation order on the place. Sasha made damn sure he’d ripped out every dobbing wall in the place over the following three months. Talk about crazy. When the dust cleared enough Sasha just said, ‘Nice one. That’s half a day’s work done in a couple of minutes. Elle, any chance of a coffee?’ Elle’s as bad as him. Tell you I can understand why they get on. She came in took a look round and all she said was, ‘I hope you’re going to clean that up before I’m expected to vacuum in here.’ But she brought the coffees.”

Sasha looked round and said, “I think that’s us for tales tonight. Pass the dominoes over, John, please.

~o~O~o~

An allotment or allotment garden (UK), or a community garden (US), is a plot of land made available for individual, non-commercial gardening or growing food plants. In the UK a full allotment plot is 10 square rods, a rod is five and a half yards, which is a sixteenth of an acre or 302.5 square yards (approximately 250 m²), though half plots are some times available, a nominal fee is usually payable but in the UK local authorities have the obligation to make land available for the purpose.

An Acrow jack or Acrow prop is a particular widely used make of jack post. It is a steel post used in the construction trades for temporary support of ceilings, walls and trenches. They are designed to be able to mechanically telescope as one tube slides inside the other to about twice their shortest length in order to span a wide variety of spaces. Most examples like the ones made by Acrow use removable pins for coarse adjustment and a jack screw for fine adjustments, but many variations exist.

1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXcLqvFjMhE

It was teeming it down and blowing a hooley outside. The wind was pulling air up the chimney and through the logs on the open fire in the tap room of The Green Dragon so fast that Gladys had had to throttle the blast gate of the chimney, or the wood wouldn’t have lasted any time, and despite it only being a few degrees above freezing outside the room would have become uncomfortably hot. The weather forecast had said winds in excess of fifty miles an hour with sixty-five miles an hour gusts, and Gladys the barmaid, who was now the landlady and lived above the public rooms of The Dragon, was wondering how many of her usual crowd of the old men that formed the core of her Saturday night drinkers in the taproom would venture out for beer and stories.

The pub was now well known for the free entertainment provided by the Grumpy Old Men’s Society who met on Saturday evenings to swap yarns and tall stories, and they drew quite a crowd of drinkers. Usually their wives were to be found engaging in far more genteel conversation in the best room. As Elle, Sasha’s wife put it, “I’ve been listening to Sasha weave reality and fantasy into ‘the new truth’ as he puts it for most of my life. When I go out I find talking about our latest great grand children to be far more interesting.”

Despite initial appearances to outsiders, Gladys was very fond of the old men who were a kind and charitable bunch, even if they had reached the point in their lives where as Sacha put it, “You reach my age and time’s precious. I’m not wasting it being polite to idiots, so I just tell them to bugger off. These days I’m just covered in what the fuck, and I get bad attacks of it from time to time that cover everyone around me too.” However, she needn’t have worried, one by one, starting with her husband Pete who been working with Alf down at his workshop and went upstairs to shower and change, they arrived looking like drowned rats.

Eventually Sasha arrived and said, “Put my whisky bottle on the bar, Gladys, there’s a good lass. And a line of glasses for the lads. They’ll need it to warm up. No need to bother with it just tell them to help themselves. I’ll have a couple of fingers myself.” Sasha grinned as he held his hand up to shew her with his middle two fingers curled into his palm and his index and little fingers extended.

Thinking to put on over on Sasha, Gladys put a half pint glass [US readers that’s ten ounces not eight] on the bar and said, “That do?”

Sasha picked up the bottle and half filled the glass saying, “Better get another bottle, Love, and pour yourself one when it suits.”

Gladys shook her head, but went for another bottle. She’d join them in a drink later, but only after last orders had been called. Sasha drank single malt whisky, usually Highland Park, and had a couple of cases kept for him at the pub. Pete emerged, looking more the thing now, poured himself a far more moderate dose of Sasha’s medicine and said, “Cheers, Sasha. You two bring out the very best in each other you know. I’ve never managed to get Gladys that wound up.” He turned as half a dozen of his friends appeared, took off their dripping coats, hung them up with their hats and turned to the bar. “Sasha’s setting up a line of whisky glasses to take the chill off you lads. Denis throw a couple more logs on the fire and a shovel of coal to help them out will you? While you’re there I’ll pour your glass.”

After ten minutes of general chat they were just waiting for Gerry. He appeared after another couple of minutes looking decidedly unwell. “You don’t look too happy, Gerry. What’s up?”

“Went to the dentist. Bastard put me through hell and then took an hundred and fifty off me for doing it, Denis.”

“Here drink this. It’s out of Sasha’s bottle. It’ll make you feel better. It’s quality anaesthetic. But you’re dealing with that dentist entirely the wrong way, Gerry. Had a pretty bit of fluff in a white coat did he? A dental nurse to pass him his stuff?”

Gerry took a mouthful and said, “Thanks, Sasha, that hits the spot. Yeah, bit of a kid, Denis. Looked like she just left school. Why?”

Sasha refilled Gerry’s glass saying, “You look like you need it, Lad.”

Denis answered Gerry’s question. “It’s all part of the con, Mate. That ‘dental nurse’ has no qualifications at all. She’s only there to make you take the pain and be macho about it. You need to get that dentist telt. Just tell him in front of her, ‘She’s pretty enough, but it won’t work because if you hurt me I’ll cry anyway, and her being here won’t make any difference.’ Then you pull your ace out of the hole.”

“What do you mean, Denis?”

“Lean back in the chair, grab him by the nuts and say, ‘Now we’re not going to hurt each other are we?’ Tell you, Man, it works every time.”

By the time the laughter had died down George had got a round of pints in and the men were settling down for some serious entertainment. Sasha told Gladys to leave his bottle on the bar.

~o~O~o~

John asked, “I’ll have a go at a tale if that’s ok, Lads?”

John was usually a quiet bloke who said little, but all deferred to Sasha to answer. “Good lad, John. Where’s Jess?”

Jess was John’s dog and she usually accompanied him to the pub. “She put her nose out of the front door, turnt tail and hid under the stairs. Margaret said she’d got more sense than to go out in this. But what does she know? She’s next door knocking back brandy with the other lasses who all turnt out too, weather or no weather.” ‘The other lasses’, like the men had an average age nearer to seventy than to sixty, and, as the men all knew, would have had no intention of missing their Saturday night gossip session where after the latest on babies, whose granddaughter was pregnant with the latest addition and who was ill had been thoroughly discussed would return to their favourite topic: the ridiculous behaviour of their menfolk.

Sasha asked, “What you got for us then John?”

“I went down to Salford with George last week. He’d bought a seven burner gas range off ebay for Christine to use for canning and preserving in their back kitchen, so she didn’t have to use the Rayburn in the kitchen. That way she could leave stuff overnight in stead of having to clear up and put it all away when she wanted to cook a meal and then have to get it all out again the day after. He asked me to go with him because I lived there years ago and knew my way round. I even knew where Cobden Street was which was where this cooker was. He’d rung them up to say we were coming and all was in order. He wasn’t sure it would fit in the back of his Defender so we took that fourteen foot trailer of his.”

George smiled and said, “I’ve got racks for the saws, tools and stuff for tree felling in the back, so there’s not as much space as in most. Even if I took the tools out I wasn’t prepared to take all the racks out because they’re all bolted down. It costs more in diesel pulling the trailer, but what the hell.”

John continued, “Any of you guys ever sit in a Defender for two and a half hours? My arse was numb, tingling and in pain long before we got there. They aren’t seats in those damn things they’re bench pews with a thin bit of covering on top.”

Sasha grinned and asked, “Why do you think I drive a Discovery, not a Defender? All the benefits of a Landrover with comfort, power, torque, four by four off road capability, safe pulling ability and, note and, proper car seats and decent windscreen wipers not being the least of it. Take the seats out and the bodies off and my Disco is the same as George’s Defender. The price you pay is it’s not got quite as much room in the back which doesn’t bother me. The biggest load I carry in the back is Elle’s monthly supermarket shop. Anything else goes in the trailer.”

John picked up his tale,“Telling you if George ain’t got piles now he bloody soon will have. Anyway we made our way to the M6, and just kept going till Haydock, that’ll be just short of a hundred miles of motorway, and came off on the A580, the East Lancs. It goes straight into Manchester via Salford. That’s where my problems started. I knew exactly where Cobden Street was, but they’ve blocked off so many roads, made some one way, of course the wrong way for us, that even though I got us to within twenty yards of the place we covered another thirty miles before I found a way into it. I’d no idea where I was going or even where I was half the time there’s been that much redevelopment. In some places entire areas had been levelled and they’d just started again.”

George nodded and said, “I could see the Cobden Street street sign on the other side of a barrier that went straight across the road.”

“The place had changed a lot,” John said. “That area has always been poor and run down. Sort of place poverty stricken immigrants and students live in. When I lived down there the most recent batch of immigrants were Asians, mostly Pakistanis, but presumably they’d got on their feet and moved on. I didn’t see many students, but the latest residents were all African, and I mean African not Afro-Caribbean. I think I read a while back there’d been an influx from West Africa.

“But the place was just the same, watchers on every street corner providing lookouts for the dealers. Only difference now was they all had mobile phones. Folk just shimfing(1) past you acting dead nonch like,(2) like they’re not interested in you at all. You can feel the eyes everywhere. It’s always been like that. Some one told me before the Asians lived there it was a Jewish area but the dealers were there even then. Then of course the Jewish immigrants got on their feet and moved out, probably to Prestwich and Whitefield and the Asians moved in. It’s how it works in the big cities. We wanted number twenty-four, which should have put it on our right hand side.”

“How did you know that, John? You didn’t remember that did you?” Pete asked.

“No, but unless streets are very old, in which case all bets are off, as you go out of a town the odds are on the left and the evens on your right. In this case what few numbers there were were spray painted on the old factory doors. The place looked like it was derelict from the state of the buildings, but there was an obvious hive of activity going on there. George was shitting himself as we slowly drove past looking for twenty-four.”

George shrugged and said, “The last time I’d felt like I was in the cross hairs of a rifle sight I was in uniform in Northern Ireland, but I had a load of mates who could shoot back there. Scary. I didn’t like it at all.”

The men looked back at John who said, “I was used to it. Even in a place like that there are rules. Don’t do anything sudden or unexpected. Try to let the guys on the street corners with the mobile phones figure out, one you’re not anybody official like plod(3) and two why you’re there. If they know you're just two working lads delivering or picking something up nothing will happen to you. So when we pulled up I got out the of the Rover and walked up to one of the watchers and asked, “You know where number twenty-four is, Mate? I’m picking a cooker up to take back to Carlisle. It’s a spot that reconditions them.

“He pointed to a building and said, ‘It’s round the back, Mate. You’ll have to shout to get anybody’s attention.’ I thanked him and by the time I got back to the Rover he was on his mobile and most of the eyes had left us in particular and were just generally watchful. George didn’t look quite as shaky either. It took a while, but we finally found someone, but he didn’t speak English. The lads that worked there were talking in some language I didn’t recognise. I know it wasn’t Swahili. Like I said, probably West Africans because Swahili is widely spoken in East Africa in over a dozen countries. The boss did speak English. Interesting place. They had hundreds of spare parts for cookers of all makes and models, gas as well as electric, all salvaged out of old ones stacked up in piles all over the place.

“While we were there a white English woman in her late thirties came in and asked for a new grill pan for her cooker. The guy asked her for details of her cooker, disappeared and fetched three different ones back in less than a minute. She pointed to one and said, ‘That’s the one.’

“The guy said, ‘Two quid, Love. If it’s not right bring it back and I’ll swap it for another. Bring the broken one and I’ll know for sure what you need.’ These guys were fitting in just fine. There was over a dozen of them stripping stuff down and cleaning it before putting it with the others. There was a score or more electric cookers on test with various meters attached, and there was a bag of new gas jets on a workbench next to some flue emissions test gear to measure carbon monoxide and dioxide levels, some of which was testing gas cookers with all the burners lit. The test gear was expensive quality equipment, so I concluded they knew what they were doing.

“We identified the cooker George had paid for and fair play to the man(4) he made sure all the parts were with it and that everything was bubble and then shrink wrapped and safe from any potential transport damage. We were going to carry it to the trailer, but he shouted in his own language and two lads came with a bogey, lifted it on and took it to George’s trailer. We strapped it down and headed for home. I could see George was glad to get out of there.”

George admitted, “I couldn’t live like that. I could feel the potential violence all the time. Even when John had spoken to the guy on the corner it was still there. John had told me a couple of years before about a pub called The Penny Black not far away where you could buy hand guns on demand and an AK within forty-eight hours with as much ammo as you’d got cash for. Bloody right I was glad to get out of the place.”

“I asked George where he wanted to eat, cos I knew where there were a couple of Little Chefs that served Olympic Breakfast on the way out of the city on the A580. Seemed like a good idea to the pair of us, but the first was now a mobile phone shop and the second was burnt out. George was still shaken and wanted to get the hell away, so we decided to get ripped off and eat shite in a motorway fast food joint on the M6. Ain’t being ripped off and eating shite the fucking truth. We ended up eating all day breakfasts at Forton(5) services. I say breakfasts because we had two each and even that didn’t require the giblet expansion space(6) of two extra holes on the belt that a Little Chef Olympic breakfast needed.

“What a load of bullshit they sold. Who in their right mind wants to eat nut cutlets, quorn(7) drummers and other vegan obscenities. Why does veggie(8) crap need to masquerade as a piece of meat? Why can’t it look like a poxy nut or a bloody fungus? At least that way you’d know it was shite right at the outset. And I for one don’t want my food fat reduced. A full English breakfast is supposed to have extra grease and double cholesterol. Anyway, it was my turn to pay, and two breakfasts apiece which didn’t fill us gave me some shrapnel change out of forty-five quid. I had no issues about paying, it was just the luck of the draw and hell you got to eat, but were we glad to get back into civilisation again. We both agreed we should have pressed on and eaten at Tebay(9) on the tops. Sure it’s expensive there, but it’s no more so than Forton, and at least it’s proper food, not just packer that fools your belly into thinking you’ve had something to eat.”

“Time for the pies, Gentlemen. Mince and onion this week,” Gladys announced. “Someone pass the plates and cutlery out and I’ll fetch the tray and a pan of peas. Pete, fetch a jug of gravy from the kitchen will you please, Love.”

Half an hour later they’d eaten and cleared up.“Now that hit the spot, Gladys, thanks. Nice simple decent proper food.” The others agreed with John and Gladys smiled knowing most of them were not exactly what others would call adventurous eaters, though Sasha was reputed to eat almost anything.

“I’ve another if you like, Lads,” John said when they were looking at each other to see what was going to happen next. Sasha was always good for a tale in an emergency, but they knew he was encouraging them all to give it a try.

“Fair enough,” said Stan. “You’ve done alright so far, John, have at it.”

“You know I’ve helped George out with the odd tree job from time to time. This was year before last. Summer time it was.” John was a tree surgeon who had retired early due to arthritis.

“Easter,” said George. “If it’s the one overlooking the bypass.”

John nodded and continued, “That’s the one. The tree to come down should have been taken down before the new houses were built. I still think George was crazy for taking the job. From what we understood every other tree surgeon in the area had looked at it and walked away. George charged them double and added on a couple of hundred for me for the day. We earnt it. The tree was a beech may be four or five foot in diameter at the base, twisted in growth and had four main branches two foot in diameter each about thirty to forty foot up. The worst case scenario was two new bungalows being flattened if it fell wrongly and there was a fence under one of the branches. There was whore of a lot of weight in it and a lot had to come off before we even considered felling it.

George was up in that tree all morning taking weight off it. We had ropes and pulleys rigged all over the shop and were taking the little stuff, no more than a foot across out for hours. We had lunch and kept going. I must have dragged ton after ton of it out of our way. Finally we managed to rig a line on the big branch over the houses. There was nothing on it by then, just the branch was left, but like I said it was two foot in diameter. We took it off in two or three foot pieces each lowered to the ground on the rope. At that point we both reckoned it was fellable. George rigged a rope high up and we ran it through a couple of pulley blocks to get more mechanical advantage. The free end we had to his land rover winch to control its direction of fall and we had proper chocks on all four wheels.

“The plan was I operated the winch as George felled the tree. Idea was, as it came free the winch would pull it over away from the houses pivoting on the hinge as George did the cut. The notch cut ok. The wedge came away no problems. I took up the tension on the winch and George moved behind the tree to start the felling cut. Once the saw was in deep enough he drove home the wedges with a fourteen pound mell(10) and continued cutting. Then all holy hell broke loose. I said the tree had grown twisted, we didn’t realise the grain was spiralling about forty percent of the way round the tree. The twist wasn’t visible on the outside and we only found out when we logged it. [US bucking] The locked in stresses released by the felling cut must have been tremendous.

“Damned tree just ripped the hinge out and turned a quarter circle before it came down. I wasn’t near enough to get hurt, and George had got somewhere to run no matter what happened. The tree must have still been way out of balance which compensated for some of the twist. We got lucky, both unhurt and no damage to anything. It fell in between the houses and one branch ended up a couple of feet above the fence. It moved the Landrover thirty-odd feet. That winch had no chance of doing anything. We looked at each other, and I shrugged my shoulders and said, ‘You can’t lose them all either, but hell that was lucky.’ I think we both got the shakes a couple of hours later.

“It wasn’t due to lack of planning, skill or knowledge. It was the way the tree was which simply couldn’t have been anticipated, but lads have died under circumstances like that.

“Six months after that George asked me to go and look at a copper beech with him. It was five going on six feet across at the base with a foot deep, six inch wide, spiral split going up forty feet and over half way round you could get your whole arm in never mind your hand. There was a three foot branch over the ridge of the house which was a three hundred year old grade one listed building(11) and the tree had a TPO on it. The local authority had said nothing noticeable could be done to the tree.”

“What’s a TPO, John?”

“A tree preservation order, Alf. It means you can’t touch it without authorisation, and the so called competent authority, that’s some tosser from the council with a degree in squirrel pickling or some other equally dubious conservation skill, tells you exactly what you can and can’t do. They’ve got photos of every specimen tree with a TPO on it, so you can’t do anything they don’t sanction and get away with it. Tell you you there just isn’t enough money in the world to tempt me to sleep in that house, and I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. I walked round the tree once before saying to George, ‘You are fucking joking, Mate? There is no way you can do anything to that tree without risking taking the entire house out. No one in their right mind would climb into it, and even it you take that branch off in foot long pieces from a platform the released stresses could drop the entire tree on the house. Didn’t you learn anything from the other one? If you do the job, George, I ain’t doing it with you. The only safe way to do it involves a thousand ton crane and a twenty thousand pound bill.’ Luckily George agreed.”

“So what happened, John?”

“It’s still there, Gerry, and every storm we get could be the one that brings it down on the house because that’s what will do it one day for sure, if it’s not dealt with. Then the local authority won’t have the tree or the house, but the planners who deal with listed buildings and the environment or whatever they call themselves these days who deal with TPOs don’t talk to each other. Usual governmental nonsense.”

Stan looked at the clock and asked, “You did well, John, good craic. Dominoes, Lads? Gladys set em up please, Love. I’m paying.”

~o~O~o~

1 Shimfing, loafing, skulking but in open sight, especially of someone casing a situation so as to take dishonest advantage of it, or one actively engaged in dishonest activity like a lookout.
2 Acting dead nonch like, acting in a very nonchalant manner, but in reality being anything but disinterested.
3 Plod, pejorative term for police. Mr. Plod was a fictional bumbling police officer in the Noddy series of children’s books by Enid Blyton.
4 Fair play to the man, to give credit where it is due to the man.
5 Forton, a motorway services run by a large ‘restaurante’ chain.
6 Giblet expansion space, stomach room.
7 Quorn, a UK meat substitute product also sold in Europe. Quorn contains the mycoprotein derived from Fusarium venenatum a fungus grown by fermentation.
8 Veggie, vegetarian.
9 Tebay, a one of a kind locally owned and managed services serving local produce that is on the top of hills going from Lancshire into Cumbria. Tebay is in Cumbria and at about 1000 feet above sea level. It is noted for the quality of its food and service.
10 Mell, a maul or sledge hammer.
11 Listed building, a historically important building that may not be altered in any way without official approval. They are listed as grades one, two and three, with grade one being the most important.

The Grumpy Old Men’s Society was quorate but not quite ready to start for it was still a bit early. They were all still on their first pint and the talk was mostly about the freshly decorated taproom. The décor was the same as it had been years before when last decorated, but it had darkened over the years. Mostly the darkening happened years ago from tobacco smoke in the days when virtually everyone smoked. Despite the law, complainers about the few who still smoked were not made welcome in the taproom of The Green Dragon. Now hardly any one smoked and the heat exchanger air fans put what smoke there was straight outside without cooling the room any, so it was anticipated the décor would stay bright and light for much longer.

There was some discussion of Gladys’ and Pete’s recent anniversary party. They all knew Pete had married Gladys as a forty two year old divorcee when she was twenty-one, twenty one years ago, and they’d recently celebrated the fact with a huge party in the new dance hall that was part of the extension they’d built not so much onto The Green Dragon as into it. The architects’ brief had been that it must not be possible to tell what was new and what was original, which had increased the cost considerably. The couple considered it had been worth the extra money, for The Green Dragon still looked like the old fashioned rural pub it had always been.

Daniel the previous landlord and Gladys’ ex-boss had died at eighty-four a couple of years ago, and Gladys had continued to manage the pub whilst the paperwork was sorted out. Daniel had no family in the area, he’d come from Devon, and he’d left a sizeable bequest to Gladys who’d worked for him since leaving school at sixteen. A fortnight after the reading of the will, she’d been offered the pub at a knock down price for an instant rather than a quick sale by the estate’s solicitors. She’d been given twenty-four hours to decide whether she wanted the place or not. Gladys had been terrified at the idea of a mortgage that size, but Pete had telt her if she used the money Daniel had left her as the deposit it was all doable. She’d nodded and said, “That’s probably what Daniel left it me for, and it’s entirely in keeping with the crafty old sod not to have said so, and he probably put that twenty-four hour clause in too.” Gladys had been very fond of Daniel and at the time was still struggling to come to terms with losing him.

When Pete had talked to Sasha about it Sasha had said he’d lend them the rest as a private mortgage at a rate one percent less than anywhere else because he didn’t want some stranger coming in and ripping the place apart to bring it ‘up to date’, and in any case that was still a better return on his money than most places were offering. They turned it over to the solicitors and the deal was done on the condition that no one else knew Sasha had put the money up. It was two years since they’d bought the pub which was a free house,(1) so it could sell any type of beers, wines, and spirits bought from where ever they liked, though the poteen and various distillates from eastern Europe and Russia kept behind the bar were not for sale to the general public. They weren’t for sale at all, but rather the private possessions of some of the taproom clientele.

The pub had done well under Gladys and Pete’s ownership and the extension was started a year ago. The extension to the taproom was Gladys’ anniversary present to Pete and the dance hall his to her. The rest they said was a present to the Dragon. Sasha had been delighted to put the money up for the extension under the same conditions as before with the stipulation that when the tap room was extended it had to be in the same style as the existing room with another identical fireplace. There’d been no problem about that because the taproom, complete with its sawdust on the floor, brass foot rail at the bar, highly polished but no longer used spittoons and dogs welcome here policy, was a major attraction in an area where most of the pubs were tied houses(2) and the owing breweries had completely sanitised and modernised them, which had done away with their taprooms. Most such in the area were struggling for trade to cover their exorbitant running costs. Sasha said after modernisation they were ‘soulless chromium plated gin palaces’, which Elle said was giving his age away.

There was talk of some of the pubs in the area closing, or in brewery jargon ‘being mothballed till a more favourable economic climate emerged’. The newly extended Green Dragon was seriously hurting other licensed premises’ trade because it was where the locals went for a night out rather than the often nearer establishments. Local being anyone who lived within a dozen miles, and it drew like minded souls and kindred spirits from much farther afield. It was traditional in that local men drank in the taproom while their wives drank in the best room, known as the lounge or the room, except of course on Sundays when freshly shaved men dressed in their finest would be ‘out on the arm’ with their ladies in the plush carpeted lounge with it’s velvet curtains, gold tasselled tie backs and equally sumptuous interior décor. Gladys had wanted a really big room for wedding receptions and the like because the demand was there, and the extended lounge with its folding doors opening into the dance hall was perfect. Her own anniversary party held there was its first use and was the icing on her personal cake.

The newly built restaurante was popular with folk of all ages because it made no concessions to anything other than what folk wanted to eat, all suggestions were taken seriously, and the food was locally sourced where possible, superbly cooked and reasonably priced. Bar food was available to eat at the tables in the best room and the tap. All employees were local and the cooking was done by women and a couple of men with appropriate catering skills. They all had the ‘large family feeding without complaint certificate’, and most had no formal qualifications.

The Green Dragon was a local pub for local folk and there was a loyalty issue involved for the patrons that the large brewery establishments with their rapid management turnovers couldn’t tap into. Elle’s and Sasha’s diamond wedding was coming up and Gladys and Pete had decided they were going to threw the party of all parties, open to all just to see how many folk they could get in. Pete told Gladys he reckoned they would far exceed the fire limit, but what the hell. Gladys was already arranging staff to cook in one hour shifts, so all could enjoy the party. She was feeling smug now that the catering could be done entirely in house in the enlarged and modernised kitchens.

~o~O~o~

Pete started the evening’s proceedings by banging his tankard on the table and saying, “I’m going back to the days when Gladys and I were a lot more than friends but making our minds up about each other.”

“Stop being coy, Pete. You’re sounding like a teenage girl and it doesn’t suit you. Well it doesn’t if you’re going to tell em what I think you are. What Pete is trying to say, Gentlemen, is we were sleeping together, but I hadn’t moved in yet. That right, Love?”

“Yup. See, Lads, even when I try to be nice I get it threwn back in my face. It’s what happens when you take up with a bit of fluff young enough to be your daughter.”

“Oh, shut up, old man and tell the tale. And before you even think about it don’t ‘Yes Dear' me.”

“Yes Dear. It was a Sunday morning and Gladys had left the pub at three that morning. Danny wasn’t too well even then, and she was really managing the place not him long before it became official. I’d started work at six the previous morning and worked till gone midnight, so we slept in till about ten at my place on Glebe Street. Back of the old allotments it was. When we woke we were refreshed and a spent at least an hour on a matinée session before I went downstairs for coffee because we’d decided we were going to carry on till it was time to get up for lunch which we were planning on having at Oakhurst garden centre just outside Cockermouth. The food’s good and if the weather’s decent you can eat outside on that elevated balcony section that sticks out over the valley and into the tops of the trees. The birds and squirrels, red squirrels mind, are so tame some of them will take food from your hands. If you order soup the bread roll is home baked and arrives in the terracotta plant pot it was baked in, which is novel. When I went back upstairs, I was greeted by the ravishing sight of my belovèd’s naked backside as she peeped out between the curtains. I’d just put my hands on her when I was telt, ‘Stop it, Pete! Just look at this.’

“I looked out between the curtains to to see Fatty Johnson and Rolly Polly Tracy his missus, a pair of flag crackers(3) if ever I saw one. Fatty was huge. He only had a small frame, yet he was a big fat lad even when we were at school, but by then he was huge. Must have been thirty stone. [420 ponds, 190Kg] Now Rolly Polly Tracy was the female equivalent. She wore dresses that looked like marquees and when she moved her bosom looked like two little lads scrapping(4) in a sack. God know’s how but she’d had four or five kids, maybe even six, by then. No one I knew could remember ever having seen her pregnant, but hell she was that big you’d never have noticed.

"The car bonnet [US hood] was up and Fatty was leaning over peering in at the engine. There’s many a porn star would kill for a cleavage like that. As he leant over his trouser slid down a goodly bit and half his arse was demonstrating what a builder’s bum looked like on a bad day. I didn’t know whether to be impressed or revolted. It quite put me off the matter that my right hand had been dealing with which was a far more shapely backside than his. I turned Gladys round and asked, ‘How?’ You tell em what you replied, Gladys. It’ll be funnier coming from the horse’s mouth.”

Gladys smiled and said, “Why?” It took a moment for the penny to drop(5) that she was answering the question and not asking another and normal service was resumed after ten or so minutes

Gladys continued the tale, “Like Pete said we carried on having a good time and that was when I decided I was moving in for good and we’d get married. My family weren’t too keen on the idea because of our age difference, but all the blokes I’d been out with turned out to be idle scroungers who thought they’d get free drink because of my job, and at least Pete was working and wasn’t some male chauvinistic pig. Anyway I didn’t have to get married, but we thought it was a good idea because I’d discovered Pete wasn’t firing blanks. We’d been married eight months when Delia was born. My Pete’s a simple soul, all I needed to do to crack him up for months was say 'Why?' .”

Pete resumed, “I didn’t know Tracy other than to say good morning to, but Fatty was a decent bloke. Neither of them made it to fifty. Tracy died first, heart attack which didn’t surprise anyone. By the time Fatty died, heart attack again, three years later his kids were grown up, but I’ve never needed a reminder to watch my weight as I got older.”

Gladys was back with a tray of full pints. “I’ll fetch the others in a mo. You going to finish the tale Pete with our wedding?”

“I’d forgotten all about that. Oh Christ, I take that back, Love.” The others were laughing at the hole Pete had just dug himself into. “Yes. Well. I went to the registry office to give the three days notice, I think it was three days, and the two of us went down three days later. Gladys’ family had cut up rough about us, so we didn’t tell them, and I hadn’t had anything to do with mine for years. Of course it was organised, that was till we realised we needed a pair of witnesses. Fortunately there was another couple there giving their three days notice. They were a couple of quid shy of the fee so I gave it to them and asked them to be our witnesses. Job done. They were on public transport so I took them back to Allerthwaite after the wedding and that was that. I can’t remember their names and we never met them again.”

“Their names will be on my marriage lines,(6) Love, where they signed, but they were just two random met people who were handy at the time. I’d better check the puddings,(7) steak and mushroom with carlins(8) for a change this week.”

The chat was idle till Gladys reëmerged to say, ‘Ten minutes and supper will be ready. Another round, Gentlemen? Or are you making that one last?’

“Set em up again, Gladys Pet, I’m in the chair,”(9) Dave telt her.

There was quite a crowd in the now extended taproom listening to the craic(10) and it was a while before Gladys and a couple of helpers finished serving. Half an hour later the plates had been cleared and and they were ready to continue.

The men looked around as to who was going to continue when Alf nervously said. “I’ve got something I’d like to tell you. It’s not very long and not exciting though.”

“Good lad, Alf.” Stan said. Alf had always admitted he wasn’t over bright and was intimidated by Sasha’s brilliance, but the others wouldn’t have dreamt of excluding him. He was one of them, he worked with them, drank with them and lived locally. He was also a very good mechanic who had helped them out any number of times. They teased him because they knew it made him feel included, and even if what he had to say was poor they would hear him out with no hint of condemnation, and God help any foreigner(11) who tried.

“You know I don’t lend tools. When I was an apprentice there was a sign in the workshop that said, You can tell the mechanic who lends his tools by the number of new ones he has. I didn’t get it till someone explained the ones he lent didn’t get returned, so he had to buy new ones. There’s a new couple moved in over the way maybe twelve month or a bit more back, incomers from Manchester I think. She’s nice enough to talk to and pretty in a blousy, big girl sort of a way, but she’s a bit dim. I know, but if I think she’s dim then she really is, right? She’s maybe early twenties, got a couple of little girls not at school yet. Ellen says they call her Stacy, but I don’t know her old man’s name.

“I hadn’t met him then, but he came round when I was at work. Wanted Ellen to let him into my workshop so he could borrow some tools, didn’t say what. She thought he was a wrong un from the word go and refused. Joke is she wouldn’t have been able to get in anyway. You have to know how and she’s not strong enough to push the doors.”

Pete who often worked with Alf interrupted, “The locks and locking bars have to be undone in the right order. It’s like a Chinese puzzle. Alf designed it and it’s damned clever, and those doors are massively heavy.”

The others laught and Stan said, “Keep doing, Alf.”

Alf nodded and continued, “He pressed her and she telt him to go or she have some of my mates pay him a visit. After she telt me that, I checked the workshop and beefed up the security. There’s no windows and light comes in via some of those clear plastic sheets on the roof, but there’re sixteen by eight foot pieces of half inch steel reinforcing mesh with six inch squares, the stuff they put in concrete floors, underneath the sheets. I'd welded the pieces of reinforcing mesh together and it’s held in place by expansion bolts into the walls. The walls are cement block built and the door jambs and lintel are nine inch RSJs.(12) The doors are half inch steel plate welded onto a three inch angle iron frame to stiffen the plate up a bit.”

“How the hell did you improve on that, Alf?” Asked Gerry.

“I fabricated some hinges from half inch plate and welded them on both sides. The big door bars which slide locking the two doors together are already eighteen mil [three-quarter inch] bars and have recessed locks but I put new hinges and locks on the man door to the same standard as the big doors. I’d not long finished when the bloke came round. He wanted to borrow my oxy rig.(13) I reckon Ellen was right, scum if ever saw it. I laught at him and said, ‘Put a two thousand quid(14) deposit on it and you can borrow it for as long as you like.’ He said, ‘You’re joking.’ and I telt him he’d started it because that’s how much money’s worth he’d asked to borrow. He said he only wanted it for half an hour, so I said hire places did a minimum of half a day, call it fifty quid, or I’d do the job for a ton.(14) I telt him I didn’t lend tools to friends I’d known all my life and I hadn’t known him five minutes.

“He looked upset. He was maybe six foot two but I reckon I’d got two or three stone [28 or 42 pounds] on him so I wasn’t bothered. I didn’t like him, or I’d have offered to do it for him as a neighbour. I don’t mind doing someone a favour. A couple of winters ago a bloke knocked on the door when it was hammering it down hard enough to knock holes in the road. Asked if he could borrow a jack. Said he’d got a flat, but the jack wasn’t in his brother’s car. He had a spare and his missus was in the car. I telt him I wouldn’t lend him the jack, but I’d do the job for him. I know Ellen thinks I’m daft sometimes, but I’d hate to think nobody would help out if it were her in that car. I took the small trolley jack out of my Izuzu, the pick up, and changed his wheel. His missus looked like she was eight month at least. I got piss wet through doing the job, and he asked me what he owed me. I telt him to do someone a favour someday.

“Another time I saw a woman walking with a petrol can at the canal bridge. It was about two in the morning and raining hard too. I stopped and asked her where she needed to go. She’d been to the twenty-four hour petrol station and got a gallon and her car was four miles down the road. She was going home to Kendal. A gallon wouldn’t get her that far, so she was planning on driving back to the petrol station, filling up and then going home. I took her to the car telt her to put the gallon can, which she’d just bought with the petrol, in the boot [US trunk] and poured a jerry can into the car. That’s twenty litres [Five and a half US gallons] which was enough to get her home. I telt her to do someone a favour sometime. But that bloke from over the way I didn’t like so I just told him to bugger off.

“And Ellen was right about him being a wrong un. He was that bloke in the paper that beat his missus up so badly she was in hospital a month and he threatened the kids. He got locked up for three months and came home. Apparently some of the neighbours objected to what he’d done and didn’t think three months was enough. They dragged him round the back of the houses and gave him some hands on counselling. It was a fair pasting, so they say. I heard they telt him to disappear and never come back or he’d get worse next time. He took off and hasn’t been seen since.”

“I heard you were one of the lads giving him the hiding, Alf,” Pete whispered so no outsiders could hear him.

Alf smiled and whispered in return, “Not true. I held him down. I was the only one heavy enough to keep him still enough to make sure the others didn’t hurt him too badly.” Back in his normal voice Alf continued, “The lass has started divorce proceedings and is seeing James, Ellery’s lad. That’s Josh and Sally Ellery with the chip shop not Frank Graham’s missus Ellery the lass who has the hairdresser’s. James is a decent bloke. Does dry stone walling and is built like a truck. If that ex of hers come back he’ll regret mixing it with her new man for sure. Ellen says she’s pregnant and they’re just waiting for the divorce to be absolute to get wed. That’s it, Lads. Sorry it wasn’t much of a tale.”

Denis telt him, “Bollocks. Good one, Alf. It’s your round next but you telt the tale, so you don’t pay. I’ll get em in. Dominoes, Lads?”

Key to Word Usage

1 Free house not owned by a company that limits who they may buy from and what the may sell.
2 Tied house one owned by a company that limits who they may buy from and what the may sell.
3 Flag cracker, pejorative term usually, but not exclusively, applied to women. A grossly over weight person who is so heavy that she cracks the paving flags when she puts her feet down when walking. A Paving flag is usually two to two and a half inches thick and made from granite chip concrete.
4 Scrapping, fighting.
5 Penny to drop, old term from coin operated mechanism that did not function till the coin had dropped to the bottom, indicating thinking time. It took time to realise.
6 Marriage lines, wedding certificate. In the UK, the property of the bride.
7 Puddings, savoury suet pastry pudding, often steak and kidney, steak and onion or steak and mushroom. Without further description the default the is steak and kidney. A northern English dish.
8 Carlins, carlin peas are a small, hard brown pea known by many other names, such as; maple peas, pigeon peas, brown peas and black or grey badgers and were first recorded during Elizabethan times.
9 In the chair, paying, only used in connection with a round of drinks.
10 The craic or crack, a term for news, gossip, fun, entertainment, and enjoyable conversation.
11 Foreigner, outsider, someone not known to the locals.
12 RSJ, rolled steel joist. An I section steel girder.
13 Oxy rig, oxy-acetylene welding and cutting equipment, also known as a gas axe.
14 Quid, a pound in money.
15 Ton, a hundred.

The old men were settling down to another Saturday night of stories, drink and dominoes, but as yet no one had volunteered to do the tale telling. Sasha hadn’t arrived yet so they were hoping he’d come up with something, though he always had in the past, even on no notice at all. Recently Sasha had been trying to get them all to give it a try because he maintained everyone had a few good tales in them and putting a good spin on them was just down to practice and a sublime disregard for what others referred to as the truth.

As Sasha walked through the door, Gladys asked, “The usual, Sasha?”

“Please, Love, and leave a couple of bottles of that Bulgarian plum fire water on the bar. The lads can give that a try if they’ve a fancy.”

Pete appeared from the cellar and said, “I’ll get them, Love. Sasha dropped a couple of cases off with me the day before yesterday. I gave the stamps to the kids, Sasha. I presumed you didn’t want them?”

Pete was referring to the Bulgarian postage stamps and some of the local children who collected stamps. “No. You did right, Pete.”

“Looks like you’re telling the tales tonight, Sasha. No one else can think of anything. You ok with that?”

“No problem, Pete. Is everyone here?”

“Harry won’t be coming, He had to take a last minute waggon load of steel to Hull and won’t be back till late tomorrow, but other than him we’re all here.”

“Good. I’ll give it five or ten before I start. What’s for supper, Gladys?”

“Cornish pasties with soft chick peas and onion gravy.”

Gerry asked, “How do you get chick peas [aka garbanzo beans] to go soft? Cook em for a week?”

“No they’re the ones Aggie cans up in Kilner jars(1) in the pressure canner. She’s been doing a bit of experimenting. I don’t think she’s going to do any more because she says they taste like dried green peas out of the canner, but they’re three times the price. So, Gentlemen, if you agree with her it’ll be green peas in future, but if you say they’re worth doing I’ll have her do them again. Even at the price they are they’re cheap enough, and my belovèd likes them.”

~o~O~o~

“Right, Lads. Anyone remember Alec Graham? Died, oh let me see now, I’d say at least fifteen years ago. He lived on that unmetalled road behind the old cop shop.”

“Aye. I mind him well,” said Stan. “Big bloke, strong as an ox even in his seventies, but definitely not the sharpest tool in the box was he?”

“That’s him. Well before I met Stan he used to do a few odd jobs for me from time to time to help his pension out. I used to breed a few pigs in those days. I kept them in the fields with movable shelters to sleep in. Well a sow up and died on me, a big bugger, Three hundredweights I’d say. [336 pounds, 153Kg] Alec said he’d fetch her out of the field and dig a hole for her in the orchard with his son in law’s JCB(2) later or the day after.”

Alf was about to interrupt when Sasha said, “I know you’re not supposed to do that, Alf, but what the ministry of agriculture, or whatever name they go by these days, don’t know about won’t cost them any sleepless nights will it? We all know that there seems to a huge number of sheep that die just at the sight of the wall surrounding the fells." That caused some hillarity. The law on dead sheep was that any that died on a farm had to be legally disposed of by the collectors of 'fallen stock'. They could not be sold on ito the human food chain. It was expensive to have them collected by the men who were known as knackers because the carcasses would then have to be rendered which is an energy intensive process. However, animals (mostly sheep) that died on the open fells which was common land were simply left there. It was much cheaper for a farmer to throw a dead animal over the wall that surrounded the common land and just forget about it, which was why there was a disproportionately large number of sheep that 'died' right at the edge of the common land. "I just telt Alec to get on with it. Days gone by Phillips would have collected it for the hounds(3) and been glad of it but the bloody world’s gone soft. Too many damned squirrel picklers(4) about these days. We’d had a lot of rain, and the fields were saturated, so short of a track layer you’d bog any vehicle down to the axles. I just assumed he was going to drag it out. Christ he was strong enough.”

A number of the men who remembered Alec were nodding in agreement at that. “What I didn’t know was he’d threwn some food in to occupy the other pigs, run a fifty metre [55 yards] rope into the field and tied it to one of the sow’s back legs. The sow wasn’t in line with the gateway so he’d got the rope curving round the slam post(5) of the gate. He used my pick up to pull the sow to the post, man handled it into the middle of the gateway, backed up to the gateway, shortened up the rope and pulled it out. Them he’d gone for his lunch and the JCB.

“In the meantime I wanted some fuel from Davies’ and some stuff from the coöp for Elle. So I jumped in the pick up and went to the service station for fuel. When I got there I discovered I’d just dragged the damned pig two miles down a main road. Alec had had to shorten the rope to pull the pig out, so he could shut the gate before the others ran out of food and made a run for it through the open gate. The rope got wrapped round the back axle when he’d backed up, but the pig was so close to the back of the pick up I couldn’t see it in the wing mirrors or the interior mirror. My fault I know. I knew Alec was as thick as two short planks and I should have checked, but then I’d not be telling you this would I?”

“So that was you was it, Sasha. I heard about it but thought I was just being bull shitted. You know what it’s like when lads are having a drink.”

Gladys interrupted, “And if he doesn’t, I do, Stan.” There was a bit of laughter at that.

“What did you do then. You didn’t drag it back did you?”

“I thought about it, but I’d got away with it once and didn’t fancy my chances a second time. I telt you the beast was big. The damned rope was tight fast and it took a few minutes to undo it. Mean while the three lads in the garage came out to look and laugh, but not a one of the bastards helped me get that pig in the back of the pick up. God alone knows how I did it, but I picked up one end onto the tail gate and then got the other in. I think I only had the strength from the desperation.”

“Aye it’s funny just how strong you get under those sorts of conditions,” Gerry added.

“I went home dumped the pig and went somewhere else for my diesel. I’ve never been there again. That’s why I’ve a tank for white diesel(6) at home. That laugh cost them a lot more than it cost me. They used to do all my machinery repairs, but I started using Alf after that. Old man Davies asked me why not long after, and I telt him the tale. I added he needed to teach his son and those two mechanics of his that the boss is the bloke with the money because he doesn’t have to ask permission to spend it anywhere, and you only get one chance with me. On a different note. I’d dragged that pig a mile down my lonning [lane] and then eight to the main road and another two on the main road and never wore the skin through anywhere. Tough bastards pigs.”

“What did you say to Alec, Sasha?”

“Nothing. What was the point? I wasn’t going to change him was I? I just let him dig the hole and bury the thing.”

“It could only happen to you, Sasha!”

“Nah, that’s where I don’t agree with with you, Tommy. That sort of thing happens all the time somewhere to someone. You just don’t get to hear about it.”

“Another round please Gladys, and I’ll try some of Sasha’s Bulgarian dragon juice please.”

“Coming up, Tommy. Any one else for dragon juice, or have I to get Pete to bring a tray of shot glasses and the bottles?”

“Good idea, Lass, I’m on it,” replied Pete.

~o~O~o~

“Holy Mary mother of God!” gasped Pat as he downed the Bulgarian spirit which was stamped Plum Slivovitz over the label. “That makes Sean’s poteen seem positively refined and ladylike.”

The others seemed to be in agreement and Sasha asked, “I take it then if I get the offer of any more I accept?”

“God yes,” said Gerry. “Just not too often. I really don’t want to get used enough to it to say I like it. You got another tale, Sasha?”

“Aye. Now this one is something I heard about years ago, and read about in the paper. I don’t know how much truth there is in the original tale, you know the media, and some of the details I’ll have to recreate, so—”

“Basically it’s complete fantasy,” interrupted George with a laugh.

“Possibly though for sure the tale is based on a true series of events. This tale concerns a little old lady from somewhere in the deep south, that’s a few hundred miles south of Lancaster, Alf. Let’s call her Elsie, Elsie Carmichael. Elsie was eighty two and whilst it would be unfair to say her wheels weren’t all going in the same direction it was true that for a couple of decades the world had been changing faster than she could keep up with. The story only becomes funny due to the concatenation of two rather different situations.

“The first was that Elsie’s son Derek had moved to Californian where he had met a girl. He became a US citizen, married and had three children whom Elsie had never met. Elsie’ daughter Carol had met an Australian in London and they were married with two children. They lived in Sydney and again Elsie had never met them. Elsie was desperate to meet her grandchildren before she died.

“The second situation was due to the emergence of the ridiculous credit market of, what the eighties? I may have got that wrong but I don’t think so. The banks and credit card agencies were lending huge sums of money to anyone, with no checks on their earnings, what they had as securities and if there was any likelihood of them ever being able to pay the money back. The folk at the sharp end who dealt with the public were high pressure salesmen, many of who were on commission only salaries. They did cold calls on houses, telephone sales and collared folk at make shift stalls in shopping malls. There was no end to their inventiveness and creativity just to pressure folk into borrowing money, and most folk were happy enough to borrow it."

“We were getting letters all the time to borrow money back then, Sasha, Karen said it would be nice, but we’d never be able to pay it back. I wanted ten grand to finish the extension on the house and three companies said the minimum loan was twenty-five. I ended up on a credit black list for defaulting because I paid the money back early. Can you believe it?”

“Only to easily, Geoff. I heard all sorts of crazy things back then. Zero percent interest credit terms, transfer your loan to us when you take another and pay no interest for three years, now for the first time ever you can borrow enough to get completely out of debt, borrow enough from us to give yourself the Christmas you truly deserve, deals on cars, home extensions, holidays, you name it the bullshit was endless.”

“Yeah. I read that one about borrowing enough to get completely out of debt in one of the Sunday papers back then. I near died laughing. I read it out to Lucy and I thought she was going to wet herself laughing. You reckon people actually fell for that sort of stuff, Sasha?”

“I suppose they must have done, Dave, because they ran that one for well over two years. If it hadn’t worked they’d have tried something else. Back then, the mortgage companies were giving one hundred and thirty percent mortgages, to cover legal fees and moving expenses they said. They were lending up to eight times a couple’s joint income. The bubble that burst in the toxic mortgage scandal wasn’t even on the horizon then. The Fannie May and Freddie Mac sub prime mortgage disaster in the US was decades in the future.”

“What’s a sub prime mortgage?”

“It’s what you have, Alf, when a bank or building society lends money to someone to buy a house with when the person borrowing the money is someone no one in their right mind would lend a cent to and expect to ever see it back again. Prime in this context means good or best in terms of risk. So sub prime is a euphemism for a dodgy customer. A lot of the folk who borrowed money had already gone bankrupt or defaulted on loans, so there was no real excuse for lending them any more.”

“Nother round?” asked Eric. That was sorted out before Sasha resumed.

“Elsie was hounded by the money lenders. A vulnerable not quite with it little old lady on her own, she was the perfect target. They wore her down, so just to get rid of them she signed what ever was put in front of her. Mavis a friend of Elsie’s had telt her that her daughter had gone for a fortnight’s holiday in Spain for just thirty pounds. She’d got a special last minute deal Mavis had said. Elsie wondered just what it would cost her to see her grandchildren, and had incautiously mentioned it to one of the loan money pimps who had assured her it would be no problem at all.

“Elsie had pondered things for a few days before going to the travel agents to find out the cost. They rapidly realised she hadn’t a clue about cost, or how much money she had. They ran a credit check and were amazed to discover she was definitely good for what she wanted. Elsie said they could ring her bank to arrange the payment because she didn’t have a credit card or a chequebook. She actually had dozens of credit cards still in unopened envelopes on her bureau in the hall. They were stunned, for Elsie had in excess of two million pounds in her deposit account. They helped her to transfer money into a current account and acquire a business chequebook with two hundred cheques in it because she was going abroad for an extended period and made arrangements with their sister organisations in Australia and California for her to be able to access money via them and whatever help she needed too. There was a fee of course, but Elsie didn’t understand.

“They arranged it all, even a young lady to help Elsie pack. The taxi took her and her luggage to the QE2 in Southhampton where she had first a class suite to Australia. Elsie didn’t actually spend a lot of money on herself, but she enjoyed herself enormously, mostly with children who listened enthralled as she telt them stories. Fairy stories, stories of the world when she was a girl, all kinds of stories.

“She spent six months in Australia, and her daughter was amazed at how much her mum was worth. When she left she gave more or less half her money to her family, she was saving the other half for her son’s family. She contacted the travel agents and they arranged it all. She travelled first class by concord to the US and spend another six months with her son’s family doing more or less the same all over again. Again the travel agents arranged everything for her. She flew back to London Heathrow again first class by concord.

“Sounds like a typical nice granny, Sasha.”

“She was, Eric, but this is where it gets bizarre. Elsie was met at Heathrow by police officers with an arrest warrant and she was locked up. Elsie didn’t appreciate what was going on and the legal aid was young and inexperienced. An experienced bloke or woman would have had the whole business delayed for social and psychiatric reports. The court found her guilty of dozens of cases of fraud and concluded she was a hardened criminal. Elsie was sentenced to six months imprisonment, but to her surprise gaol was as nice as Australia and California. The ladies with the uniforms she thought were ever so nice, and they helped her to do anything she found difficult like stairs. The women in there shewed her their tattoos, and she was impressed, but said no thank you she thought she was a little old for one. The women treated her as everyone’s favourite granny and made sure that she took full advantage of all her privileges, like having her hair done.

“Elsie was in Holloway over Christmas and she loved it. Other than the year before in Australia she hadn’t enjoyed herself that much at Christmas for years The warders knew she was harmless, and because she exerted, all unbeknownst to herself, such a calming influence on many of they inmates she was rarely locked up. When she was she understood it was because senior officers were inspecting and they wouldn’t understand and usually she spent the time in someone else’s cell playing games or chatting. Elsie served four months and was let out early for good behaviour. She’d enjoyed her stay and was sorry to go and there were many tearful farewells as she was escorted round to say goodbye to all her new friends.

~o~O~o~

“Back at home, she telt Mavis of her adventure leaving her stay at Holloway, which to Elsie had just been the final part of her holiday, till last. Mavis was appalled and eventually as a result of her repeating the tale the papers heard about it. It was a sensation and someone came to talk to Elsie about it. They lodged an appeal to clear Elsie’s name and complained that the lenders were still terrifying Elsie to recover money which she no longer had. The appeal found her not guilty, overturned all previous findings and decreed the lenders not only had to stand the loss but severely criticised them for their disgraceful sharp practices and fined them too for being in breach of various laws concerning the lending of money..

“The judge's summing up said the lenders had brought it upon themselves and it was clear Mrs. Carmichael still didn’t really understand what had happened. The lenders smarted under the lash of criticism, and the heavy fines and compensation they were ordered to pay Elsie didn’t make them feel any better. The Judge ordered that a trust fund be set up to ensure Elsie remained comfortable. When asked if she had any particular requests she asked if it were possible for her to go back to Holloway to see the ladies there from time to time. The Judge asked that social services and the prison services, both of whom he had reports from, be contacted to help make the arrangements.”

“How much truth is in that, Sasha?”

“Well, I made the names up, Gladys, because I couldn’t remember them. But there was a not quite with it old lady in her eighties with a son and daughter abroad, but it could have been in Canada and South Africa. The story is basically what happened. The money was forced on her. She didn’t understand. She went on the QE2 and concord, gave the money away to her family and was jailed on her return. The lenders were criticised and fined at the appeal and ordered to pay compensation. Doubtless some thing similar happened many times.”

“Bastards should have been gaoled doing that to her.”

Gladys was clearly upset and Pete said, “Come on, Love. I’ll give you a hand with supper. Set the dominoes up lads. I’ll play with you, Geoff, ok?”

“Yeah. Fine, Pete.”

Notes on Word Usage

1. Kilner jar, UK make of mason jar. Even those made by Ball and Kerr are often referred to as Kilner jars in the UK.
2 JCB, a particular make of back hoe digging machine that is manufactured in and common in the UK. So much so that JCB is often used as a generic term for any make of machine.
3 Hounds, pack of fox hounds. Hunting foxes and all other mammals too with dogs was made illegal in England and Wales in 2004. A pack of hounds was one of the legal ways of dealing with fallen stock, but there are few such packs in existence any more.
4 Squirrel pickler, pejorative term for conservationists and their like. It comes from the concept of preserving squirrels by pickling them.
5 Slam post, the post a gate closes up against as opposed to the hinge post.
6 Road diesel in UK is white which has a high level of tax and may be used in vehicles on the public highway. A dye is used to make it diesel red which has a lower level of tax, and may only be used in static plant and agricultural vehicles. The dye is very easy to detect even if red was only used once a long time ago.

It was snowing, not heavily it was true, but it was a couple of degrees below freezing with a stiff wind, so the snow was sticking and blowing up against the front of the Green Dragon. Gladys had already opened up, and apart from the story tellers’ wives she expected few customers in the lounge for an hour or so. The old reprobates that inhabited the taproom were sure to be entering it via the side door in the next ten minutes or so after having escorted their womenfolk to the shelter of the porch outside the double doors at the front that led into the lounge, so she had glasses ready and a selection of bottles of suitably corrosive spirits on the bar for the men to take the chill off before they settled down to their usual pints. The bottles of spirits, that actually belonged to the old men, came from all over the world and most had paid no duty, nor would they be considered safe enough by the health authorities to be legally saleable. Sasha always said, “You only die once so you may as well enjoy it.”

For the ladies she had a large bowl of heated fruit punch freshened up with a couple of bottles of Lidl’s(1) cheap brandy. They’d had a tasting session months ago, and all had decided spending any more on brandy that was going to be poured into freshly squeezed orange juice flavoured with spices was foolishness.

Pete had filled the bunkers at the sides of the fires with logs earlier in the day and stacked the already lit open fires high to warm the room, the lounge was heated by central heating radiators. He was outside with a shovel and a barrow of gritty road salt, courtesy of the highways department though they were not aware of that, making sure that drinkers would not have their access to the bar interrupted by a trip to the hospital due to a broken neck of femur caused by a fall. Harry was a waggon [eighteen wheeler] driver and had recently been carrying road salt for delivery to various local authorities in the north. He’d dropped a couple of tons off at the Green Dragon and a dozen local men had built a bunker for it and shovelled it in out of the rain, so Pete had more than enough to see even the fiercest of winters through.

“Christ, that’s cold enough to freeze the bollocks off a brass monkey.” Gladys couldn’t see the speaker, but with that accent it could only be Sasha.

She ignored the language, but said, “I thought you Siberians were supposed to be the hardest men in the world when it came to cold, Sasha.”

“I’ve never been this old before, Love. I was ok years ago. Even wearing my furs I feel it these days.” Before removing his coat, Sasha reached for a bottle and started to pour a measure, but as he heard voices coming in he started filling several more.

“You want to be careful, Sasha. If the local conservationists find out those furs are real, they nail you a barn door.”

“Aye. Bloody squirrel picklers.(2) They need to find something better to spend their time on. What’s for supper tonight, Gladys.”

“I listened to the weather forecast this morning and it said after lunch the temperature was going to plummet below freezing for a fortnight and snow was coming, so I thought something warming and substantial would be appropriate. Aggie’s made steak and kidney pudding with green peas and kidney and onion gravy and she’s done some mashed potato too.”

“Bless the lass. If we weren’t both married I’d run off with her just for her cooking. One of those for me, Sasha?” Sasha handed Stan a glass and started handing the others a glass too. “What is it? Tastes a bit like Pernod only with twice the kick.”

“Not far off, Stan. It’s Raki, comes from Turkey. It’s like Greek ouzo, but a fair bit stronger. The turks usually add water or ice, but given the cold I thought it’d be ok as it is. Pour Pete a double he’ll need it messing about outside with that salt and a shovel. There's some absinthe, the green stuff, to try too if you’ve a mind. It’s only marginally toxic.”

The men were all laughing at that and started to remove, hats, gloves and overcoats.

~o~O~o~

Ten minutes later the men had all arrived and Gladys was providing the ladies with a second hot punch in the lounge. Coats, hats and gloves were hanging up over the radiator, and Pete was behind the bar pulling pints. When all were settled, Sasha started.

“It were as if it were meant to happen. You know Elle’s parents didn’t get on with me to start with. Well I’m going back to when things had got better. Her mum had realised pretty quickly that I was a decent bloke and she started to call round at the house from early on. Obviously she knew I was a different and a foreigner, and she knew I did a lot of our cooking. I only know how to cook stuff from home, and she knew it was just different not poison. She liked most of it even though I never told her what went into some of it.”

“How do you mean, Sasha?”

“I always collected wild vegetables to eat. Milk thistle and the like. They used to be eaten in this country too before folk got wealthy and started calling them weeds. Back home a lot of folk can only dream about being what folk over here call poor. I’ve always collected road kill. It’s just cheap meat and Vince the Mince(3) saves all sorts for me. Stuff other folk won’t eat or stuff he has to spend time on to sell, Breast of lamb, trotters, heads, shin beef and oxtail before some idiot celebrity chef told every one they were good to eat and the price went through the damned roof. Sweetbreads and other offal, he’d just sell to me cheap rather than having to do anything with them. I never told Elle’s mum she was eating sheep head pie just said it was mutton, that sort of thing.

“Elle’s dad came round eventually. I’ll maybe tell you about that some time, but this was not long after that. I’ve no idea where we were going or why, but we were quite a ways from home in the car. Bugger me, in the far distance I espied a pheasant come gliding over the hedge on my left and drop down dead into a lay by. I never heard the shot, but what’s a man to do? I pulled into the lay by, picked up my free meat that had clearly been ordained by a higher authority to be meant for me, threw it in the boot [US trunk] and continued on my way. The in laws were stunned. Elle was laughing fit to burst. Her dad asked, ‘What was that all about?’

“ ‘Dinner,’ I said. ‘A good sized this year’s cock pheasant. The season only opened, day before yesterday. Worth at least a tenner, and being this season’s it’ll be tender.’ I carried on driving listening to Elle explain I did that sort of thing all the time. Tell you they came round after the first mouthful that evening. Not their fault they were townsfolk.”

“Nother time Elle’s younger sister and her old man with their kids were staying with us and we were going out for a meal. She wanted to take something with her and asked if she could put it in the boot. I gave her the keys and thought nothing of it till I heard her scream. That’s when I realised I’d forgotten to take a completely flattened hare out of the boot. There was nothing on it we could eat, but it was protein for my pigs. I went out and telt her to stop screaming it was just a dead hare. I picked it up and threw it over the fence to the pigs. Thirty seconds later it was gone. My brother in law said he wished he’d the balls to do that to his missus. Takes all sorts you know.

“I think I can follow that, Sasha.”

“Go on then, Pat,” said Stan “I’ll get em in.”

“It was when I was courting, Siobhan. We’d been to the travelling fair on Belmont Road. Had a good time. I won a teddy bear for Siobhan on one of the stalls which pleased her more than anything I’d ever managed to do before. I’ve always said there’s no understanding any of them. After the fair closed down for the night we, like a lot of others, decided a drink or two in the Oakleaf, which was only a hundred yards from the fair ground, would be a good way to finish the night off. The room was packed, so I said, ‘The hell with it, Siobhan, it’s the tap or home. There was a damn good crowd in the tap. A good few of the wild boys from the estates were there with their running dogs, you know, lurchers. One of them had a hare, dead as a nail, but he was cracking on to some girls it was alive and a pet. Working it he made it look like it was drinking from his glass. Kept it going for maybe ten minutes or so before the girls started screaming. The only thing louder than the screams from the girls was the laughter from the lads.

“ ‘A couple of quid for puss?’(4) I asked.

“ ‘Done,’ ” he said and the hare was mine.

“Not longer after that someone produced a fiddil(5) and another two a pair of bodhráin(6) and the music started. The music and songs were all stuff I’d known all my life, so I joined in by singing and it was two before we left a still very much alive event.

“We had the hare for Sunday lunch.”

~o~O~o~

At that point Gladys announced supper. There were few strangers in the taproom, but all ordered supper and one said, “Hell, that hit the spot. I travelled forty-odd miles to get here, and the tales alone are worth it, but the supper is the icing on the cake. Is it still snowing?”

Gladys replied, "Aye heavier and according to the forecast likes as not it'll get worse."

"Have you a room for the night?"

"Aye, Lad," replied Pete, "But you may be wanting it for a few days."

"If that's the case, so be it."

The other outsiders looked at each other and ordered rooms too. One looking like a guilty schoolboy said, "I can hardly get shouted at for that. I'm sure she'd rather I returned late than not at all, and I did ask her if she wanted to come with me." Sasha gave the other old men a sly look and shrugged his shoulders.

~o~O~o~

After the obligatory visits to the gents and the ordering of more beer, faces looked round to see if any one was going to continue the tales, or if it was an early start to their games of dominoes.

Geoff coughed and said, “Seeing as we’re on about game and roadkill I’ve a tale to relate. I was driving to work down the coast road, but I had an interview for promotion, and I was up against two others. Now, I’ve only ever worn a suit once. I’ve never felt so ill at ease, and I didn’t get the job. Other than that I’ve always worn the kilts and I’ve always got the job, so I was dressed up to the nines in full regalia and feeling pretty confident. I was on that stretch of wide road with the woodland on your right as your going south when I saw it. A red deer stag. I had that green Izusu crew cab pick up in those days, the French import. There weren’t any crew cabs sold direct into the UK for a few years.

“Kilts or no bloody kilts that stag, half on the road and half on the verge, was a serious amount of meat. I drove past and and turned round half a mile farther on in the side road. I pulled past it half on the verge, reversed up, put the hazard lights on and took off my sporran and waistcoat. I took my knife out of the centre console. You never know it might have appreciated the mercy, but it was dead as a nail, so I put the knife back. It was a big bugger, possibly four hundred weight, [450 pounds 200 kg], as big as they come. I dropped the tailgate getting looks from every vehicle that passed, wearing the kilts didn’t help. There was no way I was getting a fortune’s worth of clothing messed up, so I’d a problem. I’m big and was damned strong in those days, but it was heavy and had four broken legs. I suspected the legs were broken by some idiot driving over them after it had been killed.

“I reckoned the only way was to swing it up. So I rolled my shirt sleeves up as far as they would go and grabbed it by a foreleg and a hind leg above the breaks. I swung it back and forth getting more momentum each time till I had it well off the ground when I just kept going round. Finally I flung it up on to the tailgate. It only just made it, but I rolled it over, pushed it back and shut the tailgate. I’d got blood on my hands and arms, but other than that I was fine. I always carry a twenty five litre camping container of water, so after washing my hands and arms I was feeling pretty pleased with my self, despite the looks from the slowing traffic. I had to go a mile down the road to turn round, but I made it to work on time. I had my interview at eleven, I was on form and fancied my chances, but they said I wouldn’t be told till just before I left work at five whether I’d got the job or not.

“At half two I got a phone call from personnel. The personnel offices looked out over the car park, but I thought they were ringing me to tell me I hadn’t got the job. ‘Mr. McAlpine, there appears to be a deer in the back of your pick up.’ Well I ask you what are you supposed to say to that? It’s a statement, not a question.

“Aye,” I said waiting for further response.

“Oh. That’s fine then,” the voice said and then the line went dead. I was told I’d got the job at quarter to five and I may as well leave early, so facing a big butchering job I went home. All in all it had been a bloody good day. When I got home, I went to change and told Karen to get the freezer bags and labelling kit out. There was nowhere I had big enough to butcher the beastie, so I decided to do it on the tailgate. I fetched a couple of clean buckets for the offal and all my butchering gear and gralloched the beastie just fine. I sorted the offal out and Karen took it away to wash and for me to process in the kitchen. I was about to skin the carcass when I realised I’d left my skinning knife in the kitchen. I went for it and when I came back the bloody carcass was moving.

“You mind that wee red tom cat of mine, well the wee bugger was scarce more than a kitten then and had jumped up and was inside the beastie. As I got nearer he stuck his head out. He was covered in blood and I swear downright the look on his face was saying, ‘Now this is what I call a moose.’ That’s a mouse to you, Alf. I tried to catch the cat but he was nae up for being catcht, nor for being chased away, so I had to put up with him. I skinned it and butchered it giving the wee bugger a mouthful every so often to keep him away from my knife till he couldn’t move. It was a hell of a piece of meat. Must have been a twelve month before we finished the last piece.”

“Gladys, another round please, Love. Now is it dominoes or has anybody else got a tale? Go on then Harry.”

“I’ve got a brief one, Stan. Not very interesting, but true enough. I used to drive down Kingside Hill on the road from Abbeytown to Silloth and back six days a week for a few years delivering bread. There must be at least one badger sett near there because there was a dead one on the road regularly, usually towards the bottom end of the hill. One evening, I was looking up German sausages on the internet when I came across Central European badger hams. Well I looked into it, and it seems they were pretty common food along with rooks, magpies, foxes and rats too for poor folk not that long ago in Britain. You have to make sure they’re cooked properly because they can carry parasites and TB but treat them like pork, especially wild boar, and they were supposed to taste ok. So the next one I came across I took home and gave it a try.”

“You being serious, Harry, or just working us? Badger, come on.”

“Do I sound like I’m joking, Frank? I salted the hams and made sausage with the rest. It was tastier than some ham and sausages I’ve been sold that were anything but cheap. That celebrity chef Clarissa Dickson Wright was saying in the Telegraph not long since that we should eat the badgers that the government has sanctioned culling in the drive against the spread of TB. I told you it was only a short one.”

“What’s it taste like, Harry?”

“If you weren’t told any different, a salted ham would be just another salted ham. They taste like pork ham. I stripped all the meat off the rest and chopped it fine rather than mincing it, like sausage used to be done years ago. That’s what the Polish recipe I found on the internet said to do. I followed the recipe and added chopped ramsons and chopped wilted young green nettles, and ground up toasted fennel, coriander and a bit of nutmeg, and a hell of a lot of salt. I thought they’d be too salty but it anything they could’ve stood a bit more. I like watching that award winning Scott Rea, the butcher from Worcester that does the Scottreaproject on youtube. His masterclass on sausage making is the business, so when in doubt I go with what he does. He says the secret is keeping everything ice cold when you make sausage, so the fat doesn’t render, and it works. Most folks’ videos are pretty poor. Especially if you can’t understand their language or their English isn’t too hot, so with Scott Rea’s video on venison sausage and the Polish one on badger sausage I did ok.”

Eric asked, “Would you do it again, Harry?”

“Damned right I will, but next time I’m going to use a bit more salt, a load of ground black pepper, more nutmeg and some cinnamon too. I’m going to put a bit aside to flavour with chile pepper and star anise. They were the best sausage I’ve tasted in a long time, but I don’t think that’s because they were badger. I think it’s because they were made like all sausages should be, but aren’t. Only sausage I’ve had in years that got close was Waberthwaite Cumberland sausage, but they’re made right and ain’t cheap. Quality costs, either you pay in money or you do it yourself and pay in time. That was what started me making sausage in the first place, now I do all sorts, but all take time, and some take money too. I’m waiting for a hare to try that, though I’m telt it’s like venison sausage. I want to try a French beef sausage recipe that contains dried fruit, raisins or sultanas. Partner you, Paul?”

“Aye. Set em up lads.” As the domino battles commenced in earnest, Pete restacked the fires with logs and the wind began to howl. Gladys was keeping an eye on the weather and listening to the local radio reports. Even if it became impossible for folk to get home it wouldn’t be the first time the clientele had had to spend the night, and there was enough food and fuel on the premises to last a twelve month. However, Pete was managing the taproom and she was missing out on gossip with the ladies. Whatever happened all would be well, those gentlemen intent on domino battle and telling even more even taller stories were a capable bunch, despite their ages.

1 Lidl, a German supermarket chain.
2 Squirrel pickler, pejorative term for conservationists and their like. It comes from the concept of preserving squirrels by pickling them.
3 Vince the Mince, the local butcher. Minced meat or mince is the UK term for ground meat.
4 Puss, a term used for a hare that goes back centuries if not millennia in parts of Britain.
5 Fiddil, violin.
6 Bodhráin, plural of bodhrán, an Irish frame drum played with a cipín or tipper.

Pete was behind the bar as Sasha entered the taproom and he greeted Sasha with, “Evening, Sasha. What do you know?”

Sasha could be a somewhat literal in his understanding of the vernacular and after a moment for thought he smiled and said, “Sky’s blue, water’s wet and women have secrets.” After laughing he added, “And the West Coast fish and chip shop is always being asked for steak puddings but unfortunately they don’t sell them.”

Pete had just finished pulling Sasha’s pint and as he pushed it over the bar he said, “Run that one past me again, Sasha.”

“When I first came to the UK I discovered steamed steak and kidney puddings were a northern dish, but they tended to be local to particular areas. Every chip shop in an area would sell them but fifteen miles away could be a steak and kidney pudding desert. Now we cook something similar at home, but with a mixture of meat and all offal not just kidney, and I’m rather partial to them. When Elle and I first came round this way looking for a property we tried a different place for lunch each time. Pubs, cafés, restaurantes and take aways, we tried them all. That day we stopped at the West Coast chip shop. Elle wanted fish and chips, [US fries] and I asked for a steak and kidney pudding with chips peas and gravy. Now Silloth on Solway has been a holiday resort since Victorian days. The town was deliberately planned and built with that in mind.

“There’re six major caravan [trailer] parks and who knows how many minor ones round there, so you’d expect the local traders to take advantage of whatever trade there is. Right? The woman in the chip shop kindly explained to me, ‘We’re always being asked for them, but unfortunately we don’t sell them.’ I settled for a steak pie, chips, peas and gravy, but when we left to eat our lunch in the car we just cracked up with laughter. After all, any rational person who had a chip shop and the slightest amount of business sense would sell what they were always being asked for. That was nearer thirty than twenty years ago, yet whenever we go anywhere and ask for something being telt,(1) ‘We don’t sell them,’ whatever it is we asked for, still cracks us up.”

By this time half a dozen of the old men had arrived and Sasha had to promise to tell the tale again when they’d all arrived.

~o~O~o~

Sasha retold his tale and moved on with another immediately. “When we moved in we inherited two old cats with the place. They were being fed by an old woman who walked that way with her border collies every day. We started feeding them and they were obviously glad enough to be in the warm of the house. At first we put them out at night, but they didn’t want to go and eventually they became house cats. We’d had them to the local vets and discovered they were already in their system. Smokey was previously known as Smokey and the one we called Tom was previously Sid. Tom was sixteen and Smokey an adult queen sixteen years before when they first encountered her. Smokey had been spayed but Tom was an entire who’d lost the sight in his right eye the year before in one of his battles. The eye was not properly healed. We had him neutered and his eye treated because at his age he wasn’t going to be winning many battles and the damage tom cats do to each other when fighting is awful. Tom’s eye healed properly and unlike Smokey who took everything and everyone on her terms Tom turned into a very affectionate old rogue. Due to their age neither were particularly active hunters and the place was over run with vermin, so come summer we decided since we had stock, and where there’s stock there’s feed and hence vermin, we needed reinforcements.

“I rang a number for what called itself The Cat’s Protection League. That was weird conversation. I telt the lass what the situation was and she said they’d got three semi feral queens that had all been spayed and had their inoculations and the two from one farm were black and white and the other from a different farm was black. ‘Brilliant,’ says I. ‘I’ll take all three.’

“She was taken aback by that and I had to explain I had a small holding and more than enough space. I needed a vermin control squad and they would be safe and looked after properly. She didn’t seem keen for me to have the third cat, but I insisted and said I’d shew her round the property if she liked and she would be able to see what I meant. Then she started asking me who lived at my place and I said just myself and my Elle. She said they could bring the cats round that evening and asked if Elle would be in. I said yes, but she was working that night and would be leaving at quarter to eight. She wasn’t happy at the idea that she’d be on her own with me but said she and a friend would deliver the cat’s. She nervously asked if I could cover their costs for the fuel as they’d be travelling over eighty miles in all and their budget wasn’t big and depended on donations. I said no problem and I’d give a donation to their funds as well. She said they’d be there before Elle left for work.

“My place isn’t easy to find and despite my very clear directions, which she’d written down, they got lost and it was nearly ten when they arrived. The women were in their middle to late thirties and clearly a couple, and nervous as hell. Heavens above knows what they thought I may do, but they probably met all kinds of weirdos. Anyway I shewed them what they could see as it was gloaming and asked if fifty quid would do. They were pole axed when they realised I meant fifty per cat and even more so when I gave them the money in cash not a cheque. They were doing something I approved of, and God knows what it cost to have the three cats spayed and given their injections. Even if they had a supportive vet working for free the drugs would have to be paid for. They gave me one of those record booklets for each of the cats with the details of their jabs in. I didn’t think the money was excessive, they certainly wouldn’t leave the country and retire in Barbados on it.

“In those days the property was nigh on a ruin with a none too clever roof over the top. We let them out of their travelling boxes in the only securable room in the house to get used to a new home, or so I thought. We couldn’t get anywhere near them, so we left their food just inside the door, the litter trays to the side and left them alone. I had to sign some piece of paper promising to treat them well and love them. I signed it. Idealists, but what can you do?

“I telt a couple of lads about them a few days later. I must admit I was still amused at their reaction to being on their own with a man, but maybe the lasses had reason to be afraid, and it’s certainly not for me to judge them or indeed anyone. They were well known locally and were described to me as the lesbian cats’ protection super heroes. Now I’m sorry but in my book there are no female heroes. I’m no ist of any normal description. I like to give everyone a fair crack of the whip. In my book, sexists, racists, homophobes, transists, intolerant bastards in general are all inadequate folk looking for someone to put down to make themselves feel better, though I admit to being an intolerantist so maybe I should exterminate myself after I’ve rendered them all down for bio diesel.

“I’m prepared to say that trans men are obviously capable of being heroes, but women and that includes trans women, no. It’s an affront to grammar: a solecism. Women are heroines, not bloody heroes. Yeah, I know I’m intolerant of poor grammar too, despite not being perfect myself. You can blame me being a pedant on age if you like, but the moment PC interferes with good grammar you can shove it where the sun doesn’t shine for me.

“The two black and white cats were either sisters from different litters or mother and daughter. They had all been given long silly names, but we renamed them. The black one became Lark, the larger black and white one Dink, due to a moment of nostalgia on the part of my good lady, and the small one Flash. On day three I went to feed them and only Flash was there. I was completely puzzled as to where the other two had gone, so working on the assumption the others had escaped to outside the house I decided to let Flash out too. Easier said than done. Of the three Flash was the most frightened of folk, and there was no way I could catch her or make her go the way necessary to get out of the house. I left the door open and put the food in the middle of the room. Flash was obviously eating, drinking and using the litter tray, so I didn’t worry, but I kept my eyes open outside for the others. I gradually moved the food nearer the door and eventually to outside the door next to the staircase. The staircase led to a now closable room in which I thought I could catch Flash to release her.

“Trouble was there was no way I could get to the door to close it before she could run back to the room upstairs she obviously considered to be a safe haven. I had to be able to close the door remotely. I had the food at the far side of the room from the door and stood a fourteen pound sledgehammer on the end of its shaft with a string tied to the head. I waited till Flash was eating and pulled the string. The hammer end fell against the door and closed it with sufficient force to engage the latch. That trick still makes Elle laugh. Once I got close to Flash she froze with no scratching or biting. I carried her outside and saw her run and hide in the overgrown garden.

“So far so good. Unfortunately that was when I discovered the other two had hidden in the floor space of the upstairs room which they had accessed via a missing floor board to the side of the hot water cylinder. Those two were nowhere near as timid as Flash, so I left the doors open and saw them head for the undergrowth Flash had gone into. We left food out for them. It was being eaten, but by what we weren’t sure. It was two days before we saw it was the three cats taking the food. It was a dry summer and, and it was another two days before I discovered they were hiding in the then dry culvert that ran under the road. We fed them, moving the food closer to the house and eventually to the back door.

“It wasn’t long before Lark and Dink were eating inside and happy to toast in front of the front room fire. Flash eventually came in with the others, but it was a couple of months before she became a fireside cat too. Semi feral to completely fireside in three months. Using the cat flap in the back door they went out hunting most nights and when we stoked the solid fuel stove in the morning the first task was the routine crematorium operation with the varied collection of rats, mice and other dead beasties they’d thoughtfully left in the kitchen for disposal. All five of those cats went to the great fireside in the sky years ago now, and even some of the next generation have joined them. I keep shoe boxes in a spare room that I keep that sort of thing in for cat coffins, and they’re all buried in the orchard.”

Sasha was obviously a little upset and lost in memories. He was known to be a generous man, but all knew his early life had made a hard man of him too, except where his cats were concerned.

Geoff said, “I tell the next one if some one gets a round in.”

“My shout,” said Bill nodding to Gladys behind the bar.

~o~O~o~

Once the beer was organised and the empties returned to the bar, Geoff started, “This is a tale I heard a few years ago, it was Linda the vet from Ashton that telt me. Now she’s a big lass and calls a spade a spade. She’s from the arse end of Glasgow. I like her because she’s bloody clever and has a wicked sense of humour. She’s into quizzes and is on the Red Lion’s team. Truth is she is the Red Lion’s team, and she doesn’t need the rest of them. She’s why they’ve won the league for the last six years on the belt end. She was called out one night to a coo(2) that had been calving for sixteen hours by Jerry Postlethwaite. Now we all know what a miserable tight wad he was, he’d a charged for friendship if’n he’d had any friends. I swear the few folk that turned up to his funeral were only there to check he was really deed.(3)

“Linda telt me, ‘I give him the bollocking of all fucking bollockings for leaving it so late to call a vet and that he was lucky the coo was nae(4) deed too. I telt him because he'd left it so late the chances of getting the calf oot(5) alive were next door to nil.’ ”

Alf interrupted and said, “I’ll bet the thought of the vet’s and the knacker’s(6) bill to pay and no calf to sell put the fear o’ God into his wallet.”

A ripple of laughter went round before Geoff resumed. “Jerry was too tight to have electric in any of the out buildings and Linda was working by the light of a Tilly lamp, one of those that works on pressurised paraffin and gives off more heat than light. Linda had only just put a hon(7) in the coo, and Jerry had was trying to see what she was doing. Linda telt me like as not Jerry was hoping to be able to do it himself next time and save the cost of a vet. Well she’d been working for a few minutes and Jerry asked how she was doing. She telt him she’d do better if he pulled the light away a bit because he was setting fire to the hairs on her arse.”

It took a few minutes for the roars of laughter to die down. They all knew Linda, and she was a well respected woman in the world of farm livestock veterinary medicine which was dominated by men. She was bigger than most men, as strong as an ox and a very feisty lady. It was exactly the sort of thing she would have said under the circumstances and they could hear her saying it in her almost unintelligible Glaswegian accent.

“The calf did nae make it and she ended up having to cut it up inside the coo to have it away. She telt Jerry it was his fault for having AI(8) semen from a Begium Blue bull used on a Holstein heifer in order to make more money off a bigger calf. He did nae deny it because she telt him said she’d been telt he had by Florrie the AI lass. Makes sense because Joseph Tarleton over Fairlees way has had his Belgium Blue bull slaughtered for meat. He telt me himself he’d never used it on heifers but his vets bills were too high due to problems caused by over big calves, and even the easy calvers in his milking herd had a hard time of it. He wouldn’t sell it on to give someone else the problems, so they ate the bugger. I saw the thing any number of times, and I’m no saying it was the biggest bull in the county, but it was the biggest one I’ve ever seen.”

“Aye. Joseph always was a decent bloke, but he paid long money for that bull, so it must have hurt his pocket,” remarked Stan.

“He telt me, it was in the way of an experiment, and if you couldn’t stand the loss you’d no business trying it, so doubtless it’s tax deductible and probably on the insurance too. He’s a canny old bugger.”

~o~O~o~

There was a bit of general conversation after that and Gladys said they may as well leave it a while as supper would be ready in ten minutes. “Aggie’s put a new supper on this evening. Cornish pasties and baked beans, Gentlemen. Though I have to tell you they can’t be legally sold as Cornish pasties because as far as I’m aware the Green Dragon is in Cumbria not Cornwall, though they were baked by Aggie this morning to a traditional Cornish recipe with onion, potato, swede [rutabaga] and local beef all seasoned with salt and pepper and in shortcrust pastry made with half butter and half beef dripping. She’d appreciate some feedback concerning the seasoning please.”

~o~O~o~

After supper had been cleared away, Gladys telt the pasties could stand a little more pepper, beer glasses refilled and everybody settled, Sasha picked up with another tale. “A few years back, maybe a month before Easter it would be, a car pulled up at my place and two blokes got out. I was ready for telling them whatever they’d seen it wasn’t for sale. It get a lot of unsavoury types offering to do all sorts of things, like clear the scrap or give me a joke price for one of the old vehicles that I keep for spares. One of them addressed me by name and explained who he was. I’d done business with his father in law a while back, so I asked him what I could do for him. He asked if I had any pigs for sale. The two guys were Polish and they wanted to buy a pig for Easter, seems it’s a tradition where they hale from to make hams and sausage for Easter.

“I explained about the law on slaughtering your own meaning only you could eat it. You couldn’t legally sell it on into the food chain. The one doing the talking looked around and asked, ‘It’s only for family and friends, but who would there be to know?’ My kind of folk. I agreed and we went to look at the three sows I’d got at killing weight. He pointed at a sow and asked, ‘That one. How much?’

“Without doubt he knew pigs, it was the best of the three. “Two hundred. I’ll kill it for you, but you do the rest at that that price,” I replied.

“ ‘My other friend is butcher,” the so far silent one said. ‘He kill. He do all time in Poland. Two hundred pounds for pig?’

“Two hundred yes. When?”

“ ‘Next Sunday morning. Ten ok?’

“Ten’s fine. See you Sunday.” We shook hands and they left.

~o~O~o~

“Now I’ve got a Brno nine mil humane killer I bought off the internet direct from the small arms factory in Czechoslovakia, so I got everything ready. The manufacturers guarantee it can knock an ox or a farm horse down, it’s got at least four times the shock power of a two-two stun gun, so a pig is nothing. I bought it with two hundred rounds and I’d got less than fifty left, so I’d killed over a hundred and fifty sheep and pigs with it and I’d only ever used one round per kill. The three came round on time on the Sunday. The third one spoke no English at all. He asked via the one whose father in law I’d done business with if I had anything he could work on to keep the carcase off the ground. I asked if a couple of pallets would do him. He said that would be excellent, so we went for them and put them behind the buildings where no one could see us. I shewed him the stun gun, but it was clear he didn’t want to use it. After a flurry of Polish his mate asked if he could borrow a hammer. ‘How heavy?’ I asked. The lad suggested five kilos, so I gave him a choice of a seven and a fourteen pound sledge. He hefted them both to get the feel of them and took the seven pounder over to the pallets.

“That lad surely knew how to handle a big pig. He slipped a loop on a rope round a back leg and I opened the gate to let them out of the field. He never pulled her anywhere, but he stood so she could only go forward. It took time, but he was patient with the sow. There was plenty of lush grass about so she eventually went behind the buildings to the pallets. I telt the boys about the law again and said, ‘If you pay me now, you are killing your own pig and that is completely legal.’ After translation, all three thought that was hilarious and the butcher said something which sounded familiar. I said, ‘Yes. I’ve done it before.’

“The usually silent one said in Russian, ‘You speak Russian?’

“I replied in Russian, ‘I’m from Siberia.’ They all spoke Russian to some extent so after that we had an enjoyable morning mostly telling lies and jokes.

“That butcher was good at it. One bat on the head with the sledge, and I’ve killed enough to know he hit it in exactly the right place, and the sow was down and the hammer hadn’t hit the ground before his knife went in its throat at just the right place and the pig bled out in a matter of seconds. I’ve seen it done as well many a time, but never better. That pig knew nothing, no stress, no pain, nothing, far better than at any abattoir. We used to kill horses and cattle in a similar fashion back home but with a two a half kilo lump hammer and a cold chisel in just one blow. Done by some one who knows what they’re doing and cares about the animal it’s as good as it gets in terms of animal welfare, just as good as with a hunting rifle, but without the expense in a place that has no money.”

“Why do you kill horses, Sasha?”

“Usually they were old farm horses and beginning to suffer. The meat was never wasted. It was all eaten, Stan.”

“What’s it taste like?”

George replied with a grin, “Like camel. I’ve eaten both when I was in the mob.(9) Tastes good, not like anything you find in a supermarket, but in a curry meat’s meat.”

“The lad asked for a bucket of warm water, which after I’d provided it he set to to dehair the pig. He used a propane blow lamp and something that looked like a cross between a pull type garden hoe and a paint scraper to take the singed hair and outer skin off. He’d nearly finished when he ran out of gas so I got him another cylinder. As he went he kept washing the charred hair and scrapings off. By the time he’d finished that carcass was completely bristleless and looked pristine which you don’t often see on a pig with black skin, mine were about fifty fifty black and white. What surprised me was the bits he didn’t want. He kept the head including the ears, but cut the last inch of the snout off. The tail he didn’t want. I just put everything he didn’t want that I could use in a bucket.

“Meanwhile one of his mates asked if he could borrow a spade to bury the guts. I laught and said throw them over the fence the pigs will deal with them which shocked them all. The butcher cut all the trotters off which went in my bucket. He gutted the pig and I had the lungs which didn’t surprise me, but when he held up the kidneys and asked, ‘You want?’ I was surprised. They were amazed at how little time it took the pigs to make the guts disappear, and asked me what I would do with the stuff in my bucket. ‘Eat them,’ surprised them. I could see they were thinking Russians will eat anything. You know how the English tell Irish jokes and Americans tell Polish jokes, well Poles tell Russian jokes, though I think they are actually the same jokes. I telt them in hard times we used to hunt Poles to eat, and though flavourless they did prevent starvation. Laughing all the while the butcher finally chopped the sow in half down the spine, and it had been a well spent couple of hours.

“When I went back in the house, Elle asked me which pig they’d had. ‘The one that ate your cauliflowers,’ I replied.

“Good. Serve the bloody thing right,” she said. She’d been trying to grow cauliflowers for years, but the slugs, cabbage white caterpillars and pigeons had meant she’d never managed to grow even a small one. That year she’d managed a dozen decent sized ones that were growing well. That pig escaped from the field, she watched it go straight to her cauliflowers and she couldn’t stop it eating the lot in less than a minute, by the time she’d found a stick to whack it with the cauliflowers were gone. She hated that pig. She’d have preferred to eat it herself, but was happy enough with the outcome.”

Stan laughing with the rest said, “Tell you lads, don’t ever upset Elle, she’s much worse than Sasha. I’ll get em in. Denis, I’ll partner you if you set em up.” Tales over they were set to finish the evening with the usual domino games.

Word Usage Key

1 Telt, told.
2 Coo, cow.
3 Deed, dead.
4 Nae, not.
5 Oot, Out.
6 Knackers, those who collect ‘fallen’ stock for rendering. They deal with animals that can’t be sold into the human food chain. They are in the main the only legal way open to most farmers to dispose of dead animals in the UK and they are expensive. There are other legal methods that are not widely available and there are of course illegal methods too.
7 Hon, hand.
8 AI, artificial insemination.
9 In the mob, in the armed forces, usually meaning the army.

It was Saturday night at the Green Dragon Bearthwaite, locally pronouced Burr-thet, where the taproom was home to the Grumpy Old Men’s Society story telling fraternity. The tales told were of all kinds, many amusing, many not, some merely old men recounting the events of their lives. Most had lived full lives and if the tales were a little enhanced for the benefit of the audience it helped to make the evening a little more interesting. A number of them were retired academics, but all had done their share of graft due to hardship, driving jobs, labouring and the like, and academic or manual worker they were all friends. The Green Dragon was in north Cumbria not far from the border with Scotland, but whilst perhaps half of the men were local born and bred the rest came from all over the British Isles except Sasha Vetrov, the unofficial chairman of the group and master raconteur who though he had lived locally for decades was born and grew up in Siberia and later northern Scandinavia.

The group existed to drink beer and occasionally stronger and even exotic liquors, tell stories and play dominoes. It had a reputation that had spread far and wide, and many men came considerable distances for the entertainment. Unlike ‘The World’s Biggest Liar Competition’ held at the southern end of the county every November at the Bridge Inn Santon Bridge, the tales were told at the Green Dragon all year round on Saturday evenings, and Johny 'Liar' Graham seven times world champion liar farmed Longcummercattiff which was close enough to drop in for a scoop(1) or two from time to time. Many brought their wives to enjoy the female equivalent in the best room. Gladys and Pete the landlady and landlord of the Dragon encouraged the group, it brought in trade. Pete was a member of the story tellers and Gladys admitted she enjoyed the gossip with the ladies.

The wives of most of the members were to be found in the best room indulging in gossip, considerably less alcohol than their husbands and more gossip instead of dominoes. The ladies’ supper usually included cream cakes which the men regarded as ok, but strictly for women. The environment was not misogynistic, but there was an old fashioned demarcation between the sexes which was constantly reinforced by the women as well as the men. Put briefly the carrying of umbrellas, flowers, except those grown for their wives to put in the church or selling, and half pint glasses was considered effeminate by the men and fetching in coal, paying for anything when out with their husbands and fuelling their own cars were considered to be demeaningly masculine by the women. They may well give their husbands a twenty pound note to pay with, but he handed the money over even if he gave them the change.

You were as likely to find one of the men wearing a frock, kilts excepted, as you were to find one of the women wearing trousers. The men were pretty open to accepting outsiders who came to live amongst them, but no woman who wore trousers would be acceptable to the ladies. They’d talk to them, but they could not be one of them till they became ‘respectably female’, i.e. stopped wearing trousers. There were no half pint glasses behind the bar of the taproom and if you ordered half a pint because you were driving it would be served in a pint glass.

~o~O~o~

The beer was on the table and the old men were settling down. It was a balmy early summer’s eve but not yet warm enough to be drinking outside. “What you got for us tonight, Sasha,” Bill asked.

“I thought I’d tell you about my cervix and my smear test,” replied Sasha imperturbably.

There was the sound of choking as beer went down the wrong way, and Stan said, “Go on. I’ll buy it. But it had better be good.”

Sasha took a deep draw on his glass and said, “That morning I went outside and collected the post from our mailbox. There was the usual rubbish which I welcomed, most of it I lit the fire with unopened. After all if it mattered they’d write again, but as long as it looked like a circular I’d burn it unopened. There was a letter from the Alinthwaite group medical centre which is where my doctor hangs out during the day. I thought nothing of it and left that one till after breakfast. Elle opened it and I thought she was losing it the way she was laughing. She couldn’t speak for laughing and handed me the letter. Now that was a brain teaser. Most official letters arrive addressed to Dr. or Prof. Vetrov which you could understand causing the mistake being made, but this one was addressed to Mr. Vetrov which was puzzling because it said it was more than five years since my last cervical smear test and was an invitation to have my smear test for which it gave me an appointment.”

“Well I know some folk don’t like you, Sasha, but that’s going a bit far wouldn’t you say?” retorted Stan.

“Did you go?” asked Denis.

“No, but I’ll admit I thought about playing stupid and going for a laugh. The reason I’m telling you is because I couldn’t work out why they would send that to someone they addressed as Mr., so they clearly knew was male. I know this may come as a shock to some of you, but I don’t have a cervix. And before anyone else says it, whilst Gladys is in the other room I’ll say it for you. I know I can be a cunt, but I still don’t have a cervix.” The laughter at that took a while to dissipate, but eventually Sasha continued. “Those letters aren’t handled by anyone, and are even folded and put in their envelopes so the name and address can be seen through the transparent window by a machine usually called a letter stuffer.

We’re all in a database and they interrogate it to create the mail merge that selects who to send the letters out to. First they select women only, then only those between sixty-five and twenty-five. If a woman is between twenty-five and fifty and it’s more than three years since her last test she gets a letter. If she’s fifty to sixty five and it’s more than five years since her last test she gets a letter. There are other rarer situations where a woman over sixty-five will get a letter, but that covers most of it. The first filter obviously is that you have to be female, which clearly I’d passed. So there I was between fifty and sixty-five, I was under sixty-five then, it was more than five years since my last smear test, and since I was clearly designated as female I got the letter like all the other women that met the criteria. Only of course I’m a bloke.

“So how does it work that you get to be Mr. and female, Sasha,” asked a clearly puzzled Alf.

It was a couple of months before I figured it out, Alf. Put simply it was due to a cock up, which is perhaps an overly apposite term in the circumstances. The interrogation of the data base doesn’t even look at whether you’re a Mr. a Miss or a Mrs. Think about it that’s in the box marked title, and it could contain Dr., Prof., Rev. or any number of other things that give no indication of your sex. The box it looks at is the one marked gender, which is actually nonsense because gender is a grammatical term to do with declining nouns, the box should be marked sex. In various European language there a males with a feminine gender for conjugation purposes and females with a male gender for conjugation purposes. English doesn’t decline nouns much apart from pronouns like he and she or her and him. There are the odd words that tell you what sex someone is like daughter, wife or actress as opposed to son, husband or actor, but in some other languages everything is either feminine of masculine even things like tables. Some languages give a third option of neuter, but some don’t.

Anyway I concluded I must be in the data base as F not M, so I rang the surgery. I asked the girl to call up my details and look at my sex. She said, ‘Oh, How did you know Professor Vetrov?’ I replied ‘The letter inviting me for a smear test was a bit of a give away.’ Tell you no computer is better than the moron that inputs the data.”

~o~O~o~

“Is that what were doing tonight, Lads? Telling tales about doctors, hospitals and the like. Because if it is I’ll give it a go when I’ve a pint in front of me.”

“Good lad, Harry,” said Pete. “I’ll get Alf’s round pulled in a jiffy. Stan, round those empties up will you?”

When the drinkers were settled Harry started by saying, “I can tell the hospital tale, or I can tell you how I came to be a teacher who never applied for a teaching job which leads in to the hospital tale. What do you want?”

“The whole deal, Harry. Start at the beginning,” insisted Sasha.

“Ok. I left school at eighteen with decent A’ levels in the sciences, but didn’t fancy university and all that bloody debt to pay off, so I served my time in a pattern makers shop for Allied Founders. That was a mistake because the whole industry was dying. Like the mills, mines and the steel works they were history by the time I was thirty. I was put out of collar(2) at twenty-five. I messed about with a few jobs, taxi driving, driving a delivery van, labouring, shelf stacking, but I was getting no where and earning bugger all. So I thought I’d do a degree with the Open University. At least I could apply for jobs that earnt more. I did a mathematics degree because I can do that. I got a first just before I was thirty. I’d still been doing all sorts of work, but I’d always been interested in sciences, and had always read whatever science stuff I could lay my hands on. I’d met and married Kathleen somewhere about then and she’d suggested teaching.

“You, a teacher, Harry! Christ that I’d give something to see,” said Gerry.

“I know. I couldn’t see myself teaching in a secondary school full of idiots not wanting to learn, but A’ level pupils and adult education didn’t seem too bad, so I got myself up to speed on the stuff kids needed for A’ level in all the sciences, mathematics and psychology and sociology for good measure. I didn’t have much to learn, most of what I already knew was way over the top of A’ level. I did a Further and Adult Education teacher’s City and Guilds certificate at the local tech on Thursdays because it was free, and I thought it was pretty easy. I was driving a cab at night then and we were getting by, but sometimes it was tight. After that I started on a Post Graduate Certificate of Education course with the OU too. They only offered a primary or a secondary PGCE but the secondary one qualified you to teach from eleven year olds to eighteen year olds, which included A’ level. Like the degree, the course was virtually free because of my lack of income.

“What about the practical stuff teaching in schools?” asked Gerry. “How was that?”

“Not good, Gerry. I finished the PGCE, but the teaching practices taught me that school teaching wasn’t for me. I’d have ended up strangling some of the little bastards, girls and boys alike. I got a bit of part time teaching at the college I got my City and Guilds at, but it didn’t generate much income. Kathleen suggested I put an advert in the local paper as a tutor. Within a matter of a couple of months I was tutoring four hours an evening at twenty-five quid an hour. A’ levels and top end of GCSE only. I was turning work away and didn’t have to tutor any idiots. By then I could get rid of any that were only there because their parents made them and replace them with kids that wanted to learn. Christ we’d never been as well off. I was earning far more than I would have done as a teacher.”

“And of course you declared it all to the taxman didn’t you?” Bill asked.

“Naturally I did, just like you would have done, Bill.” It took a few minutes for for the laughter to die down. “A woman rang me up said her son had missed a bit of school and she wanted a tutor to help him get a C. I said I didn’t do the D/C borderline, and rather patronisingly she asked if that was too advanced for me. I laughed and said I didn’t teach the innumerate or special needs and wouldn’t teach those trying for a B never mind a C. I told her to get back to me when her son was doing A’ level mathematics. She put the phone down on me. Another said she thought I was rather expensive and other people only charged ten pounds an hour. I asked her why she hadn’t used one of those, and she said they didn’t have any time. I told her when I didn’t have any time I only charged five pounds an hour.”

That caused so much laughter it was an ideal opportunity to get another round in.

“Most remarkable of all, a woman rang me up wanting a tutor for her six year old daughter. She was obviously educated and I gently told her I didn’t do primary. She said she knew that because I tutored one of her friend’s sons, but her daughter was exceptionally bright, and she said Naomi enjoyed watching ‘Tomorrow’s World’ with her dad. That was a program that reported on cutting edge science and technology. She explained her fifteen year old son wasn’t bright and had a tutor to help him get his GCSEs. Naomi had said she wanted a tutor too, and initially they’d thought it was just because she wanted what her brother had. Naomi persisted and had finally started negotiating. Her latest offer was could she have a tutor for her Christmas and birthday presents? At that point her dad had suggested giving me a ring.

“She said from what she’d heard about me Naomi would like me and would I please try it for an hour. She knew what I charged and that was fine. I was intrigued, a little girl who watched ‘Tomorrow’s World’ was not usual, so I agreed and went round. Her parents were both doctors, and the house was a large detached property set in extensive grounds, so money wasn’t an issue. I was shewn in and introduced to Naomi who promptly asked me, ‘Could phasers and light sabers exist?’ She was a ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Star Wars’ fan. I was aware her mum and dad had both listened in at some point in that first hour whilst we talked about the differences between science fiction and reality, and at the end of the hour her mother asked, ‘Will you take her?’

“What you just talked about Start trek for an hour, Harry?”

“Sort of. She was a very inquisitive little girl who obviously wanted someone to answer her questions. I got the impression her parents and her teachers couldn’t and she didn’t know any one who could. As a result she could be a bit of a handful sometimes. Her dad said she could be a little Madam, and she didn’t have any friends because she didn’t appear to have anything in common with other children. He told me even bribery didn’t work to make her behave because other than her computer, which she used for writing programs in BASIC on, and books she didn’t want anything.”

“Hell. What did you say to that?”

“I suggested buying her a Texas Instruments Voyage 200 graphics calculator with all the accessories.”

“You’re not for real, Harry, you know that?”

“Maybe, but she had a lot of fun with that calculator. Anyway when her Mum asked me if I’d take Naomi on I replied, ‘Certainly,’ and told her. ‘I’ve not had that much fun for a long time.’ The look of relief on Naomi’s parents’ faces was a picture. Naomi was one of only two truly gifted children I have ever met in my entire life and we are still in touch though she’s married with a family now. I’m not sure I can say I actually ever taught Naomi anything, I just shewed her how things were done and explained why they were done that way, but for the next twelve years, till she left for Cambridge, I spent an hour a week, answering questions, discussing things she’d read in the papers or seen on the television or was doing at school. We spent time on puzzles and I’d leave her things to learn or do. I shewed her elementary calculus when she was nine, purely because it was the easy way to solve a puzzle she was working on, and she taught herself the rest with a bit of help from me with integral calculus and her calculator.

“I was taken aback when Naomi said, ‘Tell me about periods.’ ‘Your mum would be better for that,’ I said. ‘After all she’s a woman and the kind of doctor that deals with that kind of thing.’ Her mum ran the local family planning clinic. ‘Yeah, but she’s my mum, and you explain things better.’ ‘Ok.’ said I. ‘Ask her if she has any leaflets at home we can look at will you.’ Naomi came back with a few different leaflets and we went through them. ‘I get all that,’ Naomi said, ‘but it doesn’t explain what makes the first one happen, the menarche.’ ‘No, it doesn’t, but that’s going to have to be for next time, which will give me the opportunity to check my facts. I still think you ought to talk to you mum because only silly people don’t use all the resources available to them. I’m a man and can give you facts, but your mum can tell you what it feels like and how it could affect you. You need both. Ok?’ ‘Ok.’ As I was leaving her mum paid me and said, ‘Thank you.’ ‘What for?’ I asked. ‘Naomi doesn’t talk to me much, she’s a daddy’s girl really. They spend a lot of time together programming her computer and playing with that calculator. When you tell her to talk to me, she does. She became much easier for me to get on with after you talked about yeast, beer and baking and suggested she ask if we could bake some bread. Gordon bought her a wine making kit and all the equipment she needed to go with it, result one very happy little girl. We spend time together in the kitchen now. I know she’ll talk to me now about becoming a woman, so thank you.’

“Some of the folk you’ve met are as strange as you, Harry.”

“Maybe Eric, but if you have a strange problem maybe it takes a strange person to fix it. I stopped advertising and when we moved to a bigger house where I had a room for tutoring, I stopped travelling to pupils’ houses. They came to me. Naomi thought my study-library-computer room was brilliant and it occupied us for months looking at my books, computer programs and all the rest of the stuff I had in there. Sometimes her mum would wait in with us for the hour if she wanted to go supermarket shopping afterwards because it wasn’t worth going home, and she was amazed at just how intelligent her daughter was. Sometimes her dad drove her to my place and he’d join in the conversation.”

“I was making a lot of money and the undergraduate resit candidates during the summer holidays paid even more. Funny thing, I kept my eye on the ads in the papers, I was the only one in the ads that did A’ level anything, and I was happy to teach three or even more subjects within the hour. But I noticed a new advert at eight pounds an hour when I was charging thirty. I knew I should have left it alone, but hell any teacher’s time has got to be worth more than that. I rang the number and it was a young woman’s voice that answered. I explained a teacher was worth more than that. She asked me if I was worried that her husband would take work away from me. I told her that I wasn’t interested in pupils at that level and turned down more than a dozen such every week. I said I’d keep her number and pass it on. I did along with all the others numbers I used to get rid of idiots on.”

“So for how long did you do that before you got a proper job, Harry?”

“I never did get a proper job, Alf. I’d made enough to retire at fifty-five though I carried on tutoring till I moved to where I live now, which was too far for folk to travel to, and I’d had enough by then anyway. This next part of my story is what links to the hospital theme and it’s from when I was still travelling to my pupil’s houses. I started with bad guts that reached serious pain levels when I was still cab driving which was a few years before we moved house. The usual stuff from the pharmacy made no difference. Most of the time I was fine, but when it hit me I was anything but. One night at the end of my shift, probably about half three in the morning, I was filling the cab up at one of the local twenty-four hour service stations. It hit me, and I was throwing up over the boot [US trunk] and halfway across the forecourt. I thought only babies did projectile vomiting. I was wrong. The lass in the pay kiosk clearly thought I was drunk.

“Another time I went with a mate who had a sailing boat anchored on Lake Windermere, somewhere near the middle. He had an inflatable to reach the boat and though the wind was little more than a breeze it was a good day for sailing. We sailed down to the south end of the lake where the train station and the café is and had a coffee and a bite to eat. Back on board we’d just cast off when it hit me. Fish will eat anything, but I was glad I’d never liked fish. Whisky George, his taxi call sign was Whisky, thought I was lakesick, well it can’t be called seasick can it. Till that point I’d not sought medical help. Oh the pride of youth, but enough was enough. The ultrasound shewed gallstones and I was put on a waiting list for a cholecystectomy. The pain got worse and more frequent. The ultra sound also shewed up something in my left kidney, which was possibly a tumour. I was ultra sounded for that at decreasingly frequent intervals over the next five years. There best guess was it was what they called a nexus, a collection of conective tissue that apparently just about every one has somewhere. I just happened to have one in my kidney. Even when they signed me off, they still didn't come right out and say it wasn't cancer. Probably too scared of being sued if they were wrong. Scared the hell out of both of us for a while though."

“I had my gall bladder out years ago, Harry. I wasn’t too bad with the pain, but I was told it can be just about the worst pain you can suffer.”

“Don’t know about that, George, but I do know it’s bad. My doctor put me on stronger and stronger painkillers. Eventually I was on a morphine derivative. He’d warned me I could get addicted. I told him I didn’t want the morphine I wanted an operation and I’d worry about any damned addiction later. The opiates didn’t stop the pain, they just reduced it to a point at which it was just about bearable. I was still driving the cab as well as tutoring. One of my pupils was a Pakistani girl who went to a good school, but wasn’t getting a fair crack of the whip just because she was a Pakistani girl. I tutored her in psychology, biology and mathematics, it was a popular A’ level combination with girls in those days. I ended up on the floor at her house one evening. Unbeknownst to me her father was a fund holder GP. [Family doctors who were given a budget and they determined what services they bought off the hospitals for their patients. That system was only in place between 1991 and 1997/8] Her mum made me a cup of tea and I explained to her dad my situation.

“ ‘If you were a patient of mine this would have been dealt with months ago,’ her dad told me. ‘What do I have to do?’ I asked. He went away and after a few minutes returned. He gave me a piece of paper and said, ‘See this man tomorrow at Bury General Hospital. Any time in the morning. He will be expecting you.’ My area health authority was Salford. Bury was a different one, but I thanked him and did as he’d told me. I was too ill to drive so I asked Whisky to take me to the hospital. The consultant examined me, had an ultrasound taken and asked, ‘Can you stop?’ ‘What now?’ I asked. ‘Yes. I want to operate early tomorrow because it’s the only available time slot I have for some time.’ ‘Yes but I need to tell my driver what’s going on.’ ”

“What just like that?” asked Pete.

“Yeah. Like I said he was a fund holder GP, and I think he was calling in a favour. I explained to Whisky and he said he’d tell Kathleen and have her pack a bag for me. I was operated on at six the following morning. It was eleven twenty-five when I came to. I was facing the ward clock and some one was messing with my arm. I discovered later it was a nurse taking my blood pressure. I was only awake for seconds and felt in great discomfort, but that horrendous stabbing pain had gone. I came to gone two and my abdomen was acutely uncomfortable. I couldn’t sit up. The nurse offered her hand and said, ‘You pull on my hand.’ I managed, and she said the gas my abdomen had been inflated with for the keyhole surgery was what was causing my discomfort, but it would be a lot better in twenty-four hours.

“The surgeon came round later and he apologised for the length of the main scar. I had four scars, one for his instruments, one for the light and I presume the other two were for the gas, or maybe it was two for lights and one for gas. Anyway, he said normally the main scar was was a quarter of an inch long but my gall bladder had ruptured and fused to my liver making it difficult and necessitating a longer incision. It was only half an inch long, and he was apologising! My father had had the same operation when I was maybe four and his scar was a foot long and looked like it had been stitched up with boot laces.”

“That’s what mine looks like,” said George.

“I was on an intra venous antibiotic drip because of the rupturing, and I was going to be kept in for an extra twenty-four hours. My father had been in hospital a month I think. That I thought was that. Whisky collected me and took me home and life carried on. The pain had gone and I wasn’t troubled by having been on opiates. My pupil collected three As at A’ level and her parents were deeply grateful, but not I suspect as grateful as I because the surgeon had told me had I not been operated on when I was within a week I would have been dead or an emergency admission on my collapse. In the case of the latter they would he said have had no choice but to open me up from top to bottom and I would have had a scar like my father’s. The irony of it was nearly two years later I received a letter from Hope hospital Salford informing me I had an appointment to be examined in about six weeks. Left to them I’d possibly have been dead.”

“It’s bloody amazing what they can do when they actually get off their arses and do it,” Denis said with nods of agreement from them all.

“I found out how small a world it is a long time later. Twenty odd years went by and I had moved to Cumbria. After another five I put one of my fingers into a circular saw and ended up being patched up in Carlisle infirmary by a doctor who looked vaguely familiar. ‘Is your name by any chance Khan?’ I asked. ‘Indeed, why?’ he asked. In return I asked, ‘Do you have a niece called Zamira?’ ‘Ah,’ he exclaimed, ‘You are Professor(3) Maywell. Colleagues, we must do an especially good job on our friend here. My family owes him a great debt. Zamira is now a surgeon, my friend, and married with four children. We must exchange addresses for I know she would like to write to you. She was upset when she lost contact when you moved.’

“Like I said it truly is a small world.”

~o~O~o~

“Supper in fifteen, Gentlemen, so carry on if it’s a quick one, but clear the tables please.”

“What’s on the menu, Gladys?”

“Venison and cabbage pie with potatoes, carrots and offal gravy. The venison is courtesy of Harry and his waggon on the A595, and Alf supplied the cabbage, potatoes and the carrots from his plot.”

Pete told the old men quietly, “Gladys said to tell you supper’s free to the regulars.”

~o~O~o~

“Hell that was tasty,” Sasha said. There were nods of agreement all round. “Pete, fetch a couple of bottles out of the cellar with a bit of kick will you? The plum Slivovizt I got last year would be good to follow that dinner with.”

“On my way, Sasha. Stan, get some shot glasses will you?”

~o~O~o~

After the obligatory visit to the back for the relief of their superannuated bladders the men settled down with a fresh pint and the Slivovizt. “So whose got a tale then?” asked Pete.

Only Geoff responded saying, “I can think of two, but I need time to remember it all.”

“Well that’s got us a start on next week,” Pete said. “But what about now?”

~o~O~o~

Eventually Sasha said, “I’ll pick it up. I’ve got one that’s more or less in keeping with the theme. It’s about the opticians, and a bit of a lecture first, but it’ll do. I’ve two eyes that see. The left one works perfectly and I’ve never come across anyone with night vision or peripheral vision as good as mine, but I’m red green colour blind as you all know. My right eye, is so bad my brain shuts down the signal from it half the time. It must reckon it’s better off without it. My right eye is very long sighted, and the back of it is severely astigmatic. Instead of being smooth its corrugated was how one optician described it to me.

“Sight’s a funny thing, you need two eyes to perceive depth. To have three dee vision your brain needs two slightly different views, one from each eye. But brains are clever, they create what’s missing from what’s there and they learn from experience. Even with no glasses on and putting my hand over my right eye I see a three dee image with my left eye which is impossible. How? It’s my brain creating it based on experience. That can be dangerous in some situations like with lathes or milling machines because the three dee image isn’t real, so things can be nearer than I think.”

“What happens if you put your hand over your left eye, Sasha?”

“My brain instantly accepts the signal from my right eye. My sight is blurry and I can’t make out much detail, but I can see to get around. I’m not sure I’d want to drive, but my brain must reckon a crap signal is better than no signal at all. You must have heard me refer to things like green grass and red letter boxes, yet you just accept it without thinking anything of it because because you do too and for you that’s normal. But if you stopped to think about it you’d remember I’ve no idea what that means. It’s just my brain using thousands of such references to appear to know what I’m talking about.”

“How do you mean, Sasha?”

“When I think about it, Alf, letter boxes and grass look the same to me, but I know one is red and the other is green because I’ve heard folk say so probably thousands of times, so I say so too. The other thing you have to realise is your eyes don’t see anything. They are the sensors for the part of the brain that processes sight. It’s the same with all your other sensors, your ears don’t hear, your nose doesn’t smell, your mouth doesn’t taste and your skin doesn’t feel. They are just the sensors providing input to the appropriate parts of the brain that process their input to give you a sense of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. How often have some of you been out in the dark walking home with me and said, ‘How the hell can you see where you’re going, Sasha?’ The straight answer is I can’t, but I’m used to using all my senses.

“My sense of touch tells me where the grass is in the middle of the lonning.(4) My sense of hearing can detect the slight differences in the echo of my feet from the hedges on either side, so I know which one is nearer. That’s why a National health hearing aid is no good. That’s exactly what you get from the National Health a middle of the road, one size fits all hearing aid. A hearing aid as in one hearing aid. To hear properly you need both ears functioning, because like it does with your eyes your brain will analyse the difference in the two signals. It will then tell you where the noise is coming from. Elle has a private bloke, and two top of the range hearing aids. Cost eight thousand quid for her first pair ten maybe twelve years back. The ones she has now are far more sophisticated and were only two and a half, but he reprograms them every year and visits whenever she needs him, all free as part of the service. And they’re so small as to be almost invisible. How many of you were aware she used hearing aids?”

They all shook their heads except Stan who said, “I knew, but only because I was at your place one day when she referred to them. I’ve never seen them.”

“Back to using all your senses. The wind on my face tells me which way I’m facing. My sense of smell tells me that the shit spread on the field yesterday is on my right or whatever. Those and dozens of other clues that most folk aren’t even aware of tell me a lot about my immediate surroundings. I grew up learning those things, most folk don’t. If I’m driving dozens of clues that others miss tell me about what is ahead. The institute of advanced motoring teaches those skills. What I’m saying is your brain does it all. There are dozens of experiments that have proved that over and over again.”

Geoff interrupted, “I had an uncle Hamish who went deaf. His sisters were always going on at him to get a hearing aid, but he was stubborn and tight with money. Eventually he got a hearing aid, but my auntie Morag discovered it was just a piece of wire over his ear and a two ounce tobacco tin in his shirt pocket. She went off the at deep end at Hamish. He claimed though it cost nothing it worked. She called him all sorts and scathingly asked how could it possibly work. She was stunned when he triumphantly said, ‘Folk see the wire and talk louder, just like you are doing the now.’ ”

After the laughter died down Sasha said, “A classic example of brain power. Getting back to the opticians. I’m rough on glasses, I always have been. Elle had varifocals years ago, but Christ they’re expensive. I made do with ready readers and one eye for years. I could go through half a dozen pairs a year. I’d sit on them, put them down and drop something on top of them, but mostly because I only used them for reading I was putting them down dozens of times a day and the lenses got scratched to the point of useless. However at less than a fiver each I didn’t care. Trouble was as my eyes got worse with age they weren’t powerful enough, so I was wearing two pairs to read. I used to twirl my specs round by an arm and break them that way too. Eventually Elle broke me of that habit, but by then I was struggling to see and to read. I came to the reluctant conclusion I had to bite the bullet and have varifocals and stop abusing my glasses.

“Elle had had her latest pair for over five years, needed new lenses and wanted new frames too. I did a bit of investigation and we decided to go to Specsavers in Workington. They do really good deals if you buy two pairs. Elle’s needs were for standard varifocal lenses in attractive frames, and she was happy with the two pairs of glasses she chose. I on the other hand didn’t care much about the frames as long as they were all one piece plastic, no separate nose pads or bits on the arms I could break. Sasha proof. The lenses on the other hand had to be up to my requirements or what was the point in spending all that money. I do a lot of reading of small print and looking at tiny circuits, so I wanted a wide field of view with high power for reading along with being able to see distance, and they had to at least partially correct the sight of my right eye well enough to give me genuine three dee sight. I’d been warned that varifocals took some getting used to when you first tried them and some folk couldn’t get on with them at all which is scary when you realise how much they cost.”

“Took me a few weeks to get used to my first pair, Sasha.”

“I was told it could take longer than that, Stan. My lenses were three times the cost of Elle’s. When we went to be fitted for them Elle’s were fine and she was happy. The girl that fitted mine asked me how they were. I read some tiny print at about five feet away and looked down the length of the shop, through the glass doors, across the road and read the signs over the windows of the shop across the road. I hadn’t been able to do either for years. Takes time to get used to them? Took me less than a second. I should have got them years ago. I do look after them now, but it’s easier because I only take them off when I go to bed, and I put them down with the arms open, so the lenses can’t get scratched, but four pairs of glasses cost me nine hundred quid, and mine were two-thirds of that, but like Elle’s hearing aids you can’t get those lenses on the National Health Service, which considering how much damned tax I’ve paid into it over the decades is a bloody scandal.”

“You up for carrying on next week, Geoff?”

“Aye, I’ll have remembered enough detail by then to tell a decent tale, Pete.”

“Right, so we’ll start with Geoff next week and anyone else who can dredge up a tale. Dominoes, Lads. Partner me, Stan?”

Word Usage Key

1 Scoop, vernacular term referring to a scoop of beer, a drink.
2 Put out of collar, reference is to a working horse having the head collar removed at the end of the day's work. To be made redundant.
3 Professor, the term here is being used as a term of respect for a well thought of teacher.
4 Lonning, lane.

Saturday night had rolled round again for the story tellers in the Green Dragon. The weather had taken a turn for the worse, and unlike the previous Saturday when it had been almost warm enough to be drinking outside on the rear veranda there was a biting east wind and Pete had lit both fires in the tap room after lunch and turned the central heating up in the best room a couple of degrees an hour ago. [2ºC ≈ 4ºF] The company was gradually arriving. Most were wearing heavy overcoats and cursing the weather. “Supposed to be summer damn it. I thought we’d be outside this week enjoying a barbecue supper,” said Dave.

Pete was cheerful as he said, “Aggie ordered all the stuff for a barbecue, but it’ll be cooked in the oven I’m afraid. Forecast predicts worse for the next two weeks. Still it’s a excuse to get some of Pat’s poteen(1) out to counteract the chill.”

“Did someone mention my name?” was heard from the hallway. The accent was Irish.

As Pat came in Pete said, “We were speculating whether it was cold enough to justify breaking out a couple of bottles of your poteen, Pat.”

“A damned fine idea, son. I wish I’d thought of it myself. Get them out, me boy, and the glasses too. It’s nowhere near cold enough to be drinking mountain dew(2) out of the bottle.”

By the time the company was all there there was a line of shot glasses on the bar filled with mountain dew and the men were ready for some entertainment. An outsider(3) who was a regular on Saturday night asked Pete, “May I try a glass?”

“Ask Pat, it’s his liquor,” replied Pete, “It’s not for sale.”

“Surely,” replied Pat. Put the price of a whiskey(4) in the kid’s Christmas party collection box. Pour your man a glass, Pete.”

“Well seeing as we said we’d pick up on the medical theme from last week I’ll give it a go,” said Paul after he’d threwn a couple of logs and a shovel of coal on one of the fires, before going to do the same on the other one. “You want me to go first, Geoff? Seeing as you’ve got a couple of tales.”

“No. Tell you what, I’ll start, Paul, then you give me a spell(5) and I’ll tell the second one after you.”

“Ok.”

~o~O~o~

“I’ll start with a short tale from when we lived Folkestone way and I worked at Dungeness B. There was a load of stuff in the media about the effects of long term use of the pill at that time. Karen had been on it for twelve years and decided that was long enough. She wasn’t sure that she’d never want another child and I had no views one way or the other so she decided to try an IUD. If she was happy about that I was happy too. I told her if she got pregnant I was happy for her to decide whether to have it or a termination. We’d agreed years before if there was anything wrong like Down syndrome she would terminate the pregnancy. If she didn’t she knew I would be gone, and I’d leave the country and her on her own to rear it. So Karen went to the quacks and had her IUD fitted. Now bear in mind this is all with hindsight which is perfect vision.

“A couple of years later she started with PID, a catch all term for Pelvic Inflammatory Disease that means something a woman gets in her lower abdomen that hurts and they haven’t got a clue what it is. She’d had God alone how many days off work with it and it was excruciatingly painful some of the time. Fortunately, her word not mine, as a nurse she was paid work or play.(6) A few years, maybe five or six, went by and she decided no more kids. I said that was ok with me. She decided to have the IUD removed and since she was older than me by a good bit she said it made sense for her to have her tubes tied not me to have a vasectomy. She explained she was sneaking up on menopause and if something happened to me she would be unlikely to be able to give another man children, but if something happened to her I would still be able to give another woman children. Again I just said ok.

“Now Karen had always had a metal allergy. She painted the studs of her jeans buttons with nail varnish or her skin broke down where the stud touched her. Likewise with the hooks and eyes on her bras, and she’d never managed to find earrings other than twenty-two karat gold ones that didn’t affect her ears. I’d played safe and bought her some twenty-four karat ones from an Indian colleague with jewellery connections back home years before. She’d been to see our family doctor and he’d booked her an appointment to have it done. That’s when it hit me. I remembered reading that the some of the clips or rings used in the procedure had a thin layer of copper on them and given Karen’s sensitivity to metal told her it would be stupid to have that done. She needed to check and insist on no metal clips or rings or not bother.

“Karen told our doctor what I’d said and he reared up on her questioning my knowledge as compared with his and said the amount of copper involved couldn’t possibly cause a problem and she was just making a fuss over nothing. I believe she told him her husband was clearly a far more intelligent man than he and certainly understood allergies and immunology better than he did. It was her body not his and we would he changing doctors immediately with a complaint going in about his ignorance and arrogance to the local area health authority. That was before she left slamming the doors behind her. When she arrived home still steaming mad and told me the tale the whole thing hit me and I cursed my stupidity that had caused her so much pain for so long. IUDs are metal coated, may hap only a few atoms thick, but it was almost certain that that had been the cause of her PID, and I’d known they were metal coated years before she had one fitted. Karen had already had hers removed and went on to have her fallopian tubes cut rather than clipped and she never suffered from PID again. Funny thing that bloody doctor’s name was Leech.”(7)

After Geoff had finished, Pete said, “Give it five, Paul. I’ll clear and wash the empties. Looks like we may need them. I’ll get a round in when I’ve done.”

“Ok.”

~o~O~o~

After they all settled down, Paul started by saying, “Going right back to the beginning, with the benefit of hindsight, Vera drove her car into the railings at work when going on a night shift. She didn’t know how it had happened, but she’d just not stopped at the end of the parking bay, and was shaken up by it. She couldn’t remember what had happened and the others at work had got her out of the car and said she wasn’t really all there. She stayed at work till her shift ended because she was frightened of what I’d say if she came home in the middle of the night. Silly bugger. The car was fine and a mate and I straightened out all the railings. I did a bit of cut and weld and the hundred year old railings were in better nick than before she pushed them over and that was the only vertical section of the hundred and twenty metres of railings. After a week or two we forgot all about it.

“Fast forward a year, Vera had started to suffer from vertigo and the pills were just about controlling it. Her niece was getting married and she caught the train because she didn’t fancy driving a hundred and fifty miles. I stayed at home, so I’m telling you what other people told me. The wedding went off ok, but at the reception she passed out with what appeared to be a fit. She hadn’t had more than a couple of glasses and it was nearly two in the morning. Fortunately she was caught and eased to the floor and there were three nurses within yards of her. At one point they were about to administer CPR. [Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation] The ambulance took her to the nearest casualty, Warrington Infirmary. She insisted no one rang me up, which Marie, my sister in law wasn’t happy about, but Vera is her elder sister by eight years and Marie usually does what Vera tells her. Vera was released at eight on Sunday morning after having had a battery of tests done, none of which shewed anything. They’d told her they would forward all the paperwork to our family doctor.

On Sunday afternoon the family went to the groom’s parents for another party with a late lunch. There was a marquee in case the weather was bad, but all was fine. That is till Vera passed out again and seemed to have a series of at least three fits. The local hospital was Wigan, but on being told she’d been at Warrington earlier the ambulance took her back there. Marie’s husband Nick rang me. I fed my stock early, packed a bag with clothes, shoes and all her spare tablets for Vera and set off for Maries’s house in the Land Rover. Nick was there and he said Marie was with Vera at Warrington. I grabbed a coffee and followed him to the hospital. We went in separate vehicles so I could stay and he could take Marie home who’d had virtually no sleep in two days.

It was early evening when I reached Vera’s bedside and she looked ok. Tired, but ok. Marie looked knackered and I told her to go and get some sleep. “I wet myself.” were the first words out of Vera’s mouth when we were on our own.

God knows what she expected me to say. I was just glad she was still alive. “Good job I brought some clothes then isn’t it,” I said. “I’ll see if you can have a shower, and put some fresh clothes on.”

The nurse wasn’t too happy, “She can’t shower on her own and we’re short staffed.”

“I’ll help her,” I said. The nurse didn’t seem happy with that. “Is it a women’s facility or can anyone use it?” I asked.

“Anyone. It’s a single shower.”

“I’ve been married to that woman for more than forty years. She’s had six kids she insists I fathered, and I doubt she’s up for making another in a hospital shower. So what’s the problem?”

The blushing nurse said, “It’ll be ok,” and hurried away after telling me where the shower was.

Vera had her shower and dressed. She was tired but mercifully the vertigo wasn’t bothering her, so she didn’t need any help either to shower or more to the point to stand. I tracked down a polythene bag for her other clothes. She’d no idea how long she would be kept there and she was hungry because they’d not let her eat earlier till she’d been seen by some doctor or other. A nurse said she could eat now, but there was no food available in the hospital. The kitchen staff had all gone home, the cafeteria was closed and all the shops too. Un-bloody-believable isn’t it, a major hospital that services in excess of a million folk with no food. I left and found a service station still open, it was on the point of closing, and bought some sandwiches and a pile of fruit juice cartons for Vera for later. I bought two carry out coffees that were still lukewarm when I got back. No one had any idea how long Vera was going to be in there, so she said that I may as well go home. Turns out she had an abnormal ECG, but no one knew any more than that about it.

It was nigh on two in the morning when I got home. I thought about throwing her clothes in the washer, but decided against it because if I washed them wrongly I’d get shouted at. I rang Vera when I got up at eight, but she knew nothing more than when I’d left, but she told me what cycle to wash her clothes on. I carried on as usual and rang a couple more times in the day, but still no change. Marie rang me at six that evening and said Nick had gone to pick Vera up from hospital. Apparently they’d not wanted to release her, but she’d insisted because she lived so far away and wanted to go home. They still had no idea what caused it, but gave her a prescription for anti-epileptic drugs just in case. I arrived at Marie’s at gone nine and it was half twelve when Vera and I got home.

Some wedding! However, the fun for us hadn’t even started. I informed the DVLA [Driver Vehicle Licensing Authority]. They said if a doctor hadn’t told Vera not to drive she was ok. Vera’s insurance company said if DVLA said she was ok to drive she was ok. We didn’t trust either of them to take the same view if anything happened, so Vera stopped driving. After three visits to a neurologist, all at different places and all about as far as you can get and still be in the county and Cumbria is a big county, nothing had been determined. By then Vera was on four different pills and one of them, Methotrexate, is a dangerously powerful chemotherapy drug also used for severe arthritis and for cancer treatment. Methotrexate can have profound side effects. The cardio man had an implanted heart monitoring loop recorder, which was about the size and shape of a packet of Wrigleys chewing gum, buried above her left breast, and she was told she’d be seeing him for at least three years. Bearing in mind she was also seeing the gynae folk concerning an ovarian cancer issue and a condition called lichen sclerosis, some one about her vertigo, the hearing specialists and the arthritis folk too, we were spending a lot of time at Carlisle infirmary. Vera joked when this is all over we’ll miss it, so maybe we’ll have to call in at A&E [ER] so we don’t get withdrawal symptoms. Then the cardio man said there were occasional irregularities in her heart rhythms. Like how I asked. He started to give me an explanation, but I interrupted and asked, “Are you saying the potassium sodium ion exchange after a neuron has fired isn’t reversing as quickly as it should, so it can’t carry the next pulse quickly enough to trigger the next heartbeat on time?”

“Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying. How do you know about that?”

“I read a lot and forget next to nothing. What causes it and is it treatable?”

“It’s called long QT and mostly it’s genetic, but I can’t say for sure. I’ll take some samples and send them off to the geneticists who’ll get back to you. Probably in three months.” I looked up long QT on the internet. It seems there are at least four different gene sites that can cause it but most cases were of the one kind and that one had been subject to a lot of investigation.

It was six months before we heard from the genetics people. An eighty mile round trip to visit Whitehaven hospital. Opened in the sixties it reminded me of an abandoned second world war army camp. And the visit was pointless. It could all have been sent in a letter. Yes, Vera had got long QT. It was the most common type and she could just drop dead from it if she stopped taking one of the pills. We figured it all out, it came to her via her dad and there were a number of her family it had probably killed when long QT hadn’t been ‘discovered’. Her sister was tested for it and she didn’t have it so her offspring and grandchildren didn’t need testing. None of ours have it, so it stops with Vera because her sister is her only sibling.

Eventually we got her off all the unnecessary pills including the Methotrexate and the loop recorder has been, to use the medical jargon, explanted. In three years it had never picked anything up. We haven’t been to the hospital for a couple of years now and we don’t miss it, but at least we’ve worked out what happened when Vera drove into the railings at work. If the heart isn’t triggered to beat, the brain runs short of oxygen and if short enough a blackout occurs. At the wedding it was the excitement, enjoyment and dancing that required more than usual oxygen, oxygen that wasn’t there. Somewhere in the middle of all that lot we both retired, so trips to the hospital weren’t the nightmare that they once had been and Vera has stopped driving. The whole bloody lot took over five years.

“What about the cancer and that other thing, Paul,” asked George.

“The ovarian cancer business was scary, they call it the silent killer, but it turned out to be a false alarm. Scared the hell out of us both for the best part of a year though. The lichen sclerosis cleared up with a course of steroid cream, but Vera’s still takes tablets and painkillers for the osteoarthritis and others for the vertigo. The hearing man calls once a year to reprogram her hearing aids. A bad few years, but that’s what happens when you get old. Still Vera reckons that one of the few good things about getting old is that most of the folk who know most of the really embarrassing things about you are dead. Gladys, another round, Love, please.”

“I’ll get these, Gladys,” said Alf.

~o~O~o~

I’ll tell the next one if you like, Geoff. I’ve just remembered something. It’ll give you a bit of time to remember the details. Or you take it now if you’re ready?”

“You go now, Sasha. Thanks. But I still don’t understand how you can just remember something and minutes later start telling the tale.”

“Lots of practice, Geoff, and remember I come from a folk who mostly couldn’t read and write when I was a kid, so story telling came naturally and of course not being able to write things down encourages a good memory.”

I used to live at Seagrove, before I moved to where I am now. It was Easter Sunday, but I’ve no idea what year. I did something to my neck, pulled a muscle or trapped a nerve, I’m not sure but the pain was wicked. Elle was staying well away from me because I can be dangerous under those conditions. I tend to react and say sorry afterwards.”

“You saying you’d have hit Elle, Sasha‽” Alf asked incredulously.

“No, but I’m not saying I wouldn’t.”

“Leave it, Alf,” cautioned Denis.

“The pain was so bad I was desperate. Despite it being Easter Sunday I rang the local casualty, [ER] but hell this is Cumbria, and all they had was one doctor on duty with a four hour queue in front of him. I got the yellow pages out and started ringing all the physio numbers, both of them. There was no reply from the first, but to my surprise the second answered and told me to come immediately. His place was at Stent Hill on the corner of the main street and Trumpet Road.”

“Is that that Doctor Death the old bloke knew when you went for the angiogram?”

“That’s the one, Stan. Hell what a road that was. You have a choice from where I lived thirty-five miles on decent roads or twelve on steep single track country lonnings(8) heavily used by eighteen wheelers and huge agricultural tractors. I was in a hurry and took the lonnings. Fortunately I met little traffic. I went weekly for a six month(9) and wasn’t always so lucky, but then I was never suffering that level of pain again. As I pulled up to park next to the huge corner building with a newly refurbished exterior and new slates on the roof, I saw a huge bloke hunched over going in. He looked like Quasimodo. It turned out Doctor Death did the physio for the local rugby league team, The Wath Brow Hornets. I got used to seeing doubled over big blokes coming in and saying, ‘I’m playing in four days, Doc, you got to get met sorted by them.’ I have to say whatever his nickname was he was bloody good. He told me he was originally a registered mental nurse, Elle says you can always spot them, and he’d done the physio training about twenty years back. He was a character all right, but like I said he knew what he was doing.

“He took me into an examination room and turned a machine on that was the size of a small freezer. It was on wheels and made a loud buzzing noise. I took my shirt off and he manipulated my neck. I was getting ready to kill the bastard when he said, “Ok. I can fix that.” He put some sticky pads on my back, arm and chest, and said, “I’ll turn it up to find what you can handle. Tell me as soon as it’s one more than you can take and I’ll turn it back one.” The sticky pads contained electrodes and my muscle were jumping all over the place. Five was just about tolerable, six had me jumping, so five it was. He set a timer for fifteen minutes and said, “Relax, lie back and I be back when the buzzer sounds. Shout if you want me.” For fifteen minutes I was pulsed at I suppose one second intervals by the big buzzing box via the pads which made my muscles twitch. After the first half a minute of the pulses the pain had dropped to a level that was easy to cope with. When the buzzer sounded, he came back fiddled with the box and said, “Another fifteen minutes.” This time it wasn’t a pulsing that made my muscles twitch but a constant low level buzzing that was much easier to cope with.

“He only charged me sixteen quid. I went back twice a week for a month and weekly thereafter but he dealt with my pain. Doctor Death or no we need more folk like that around. He’ll be long retired now, and I don’t know if anyone still runs the business. Nowadays that buzzing box of his has been replaced by a Tens machine the size of a mobile phone that you can buy off ebay for three eighty-nine from China.

~o~O~o~

Geoff waited for the tables to be cleared and fresh beer provide before starting on his second tale of the evening. “Karen had reacted badly to a bee sting, so I moved the hives I had in the garden to one of my out apiaries expecting that to solve the matter. However, her arm swelled up badly when she was stung by a wasp. Bee stings don’t bother me. Sure they hurt for a few seconds, but that’s it. I’ve only been stung by a wasp a few times in my life, but it hurts like hell for a couple of days. Even Anthisan cream, you can only get the spray in the UK by buying it on the internet from abroad these days, only dulls the pain to acceptable levels for twenty-four hours. Our GP [family doctor] referred Karen to an immunologist who took blood samples and instructed our GP to prescribe an EpiPen which is an injection which contains epinephrine. EpiPen is used to treat severe allergic reactions, anaphylaxis, to insect stings or bites, foods, drugs, and other allergens. I had to know how to use it in case Karen was not able too. Karen had to have the pen on her at all times. The pen has two doses in it. If the first one doesn’t produce results you twist the plunger and inject the second dose. They are different now, but that’s how it was then.

“Early the following year Karen was stung by a wasp and had less of a reaction than I would have done which puzzled us. Later that year when out walking she was bitten by three horseflies. A few days later when picking raspberries she was stung by a wasp on her forehead. Nothing happened for a couple of hours, then her face began to swell. I used the EpiPen, both doses, but by the time we arrived at casualty [US, ER] her head was the size of a pumpkin, her eyes were no longer visible and she was off her head rambling incoherently. Her skin was stretched so tight it looked like it would split. They rushed her away and I was told an hour later she had needed cardiac resuscitation and had nearly died, but was now stable and I could see her.

“Karen was in the hospital for two days. We went to see the immunologist which was when I remembered that both severe reactions to the wasp stings had been preceded by horsefly bites. He reckoned Karen had probably been sensitised to the wasp sting by the horsefly bites and asked that Karen had blood taken immediately if she was bitten by a horsefly again and that it be sent to him. Karen agreed, but we moved and she’s never been bitten by horseflies or stung by a wasp since, though she still carries a pair of EpiPens and has them replaced every two years.”

“Bad thing that anaphylaxis, Geoff. I was at school with a lad in the late sixties called Douggie McDonald who unknown to him ate a chocolate containing Brazil nuts. In seconds he couldn’t breath, and he was swelling up all over. His head went like a pumpkin too. He’d have died but for one of the older kids being a Saint John’s Ambulance trainee. He took a biro [ball point pen] pulled the middle bit out and pushed it through Douggie's throat into his wind pipe so he could breathe through the pen tube. Apparently it’s a trick they’re taught. The ambulance took Douggie away and he was in hospital for a week as I remember it. He’ll have that scar on his throat for the rest of his life, still it’s someting to talk about.” Frank shrugged and added, “But at least he’s still around to talk about it.”

~o~O~o~

Things went quiet as all considered Frank’s tale and how thin the line between life and death could be. The silence was broken by Gladys announcing, “Supper time, Gentlemen. It’s your barbecue, but, due to the change in the weather, cooked in the oven and served inside off a couple of kitchen trolleys. There’s chicken pieces, steak, sausages, bacon ribs, Aggie’s own burgers, corn on the cob and chips just for a change. You’ll need to have plenty of space on the tables because there’s melted butter for the corn and pinda saus for the meat. That’s Indonesian peanut sauce, Gentlemen, and for the philistines a jug of gravy. At a special request from Sasha there will be no salad.” There was laughter at Gladys’ last remark as despite salad never being on the supper menu all knew what Sasha thought of what he referred to as ‘bloody rabbit food’. “It’ll be on the tables in five minutes, so start piling the empties on the bar please.”

“I’ll deal with it, Love,” Pete said. “Stan, nip and get some salt and pepper would you please?”

After supper, which all had agreed was exceedingly tasty and even better value at two pounds, the tables were cleared and glasses refilled prior to resumption of the main business of the evening. It didn’t matter what was on the Saturday supper menu it always cost two pounds. Gladys said it all evened out in the end and she didn’t have to mess about with giving change that way. No one was volunteering anything, and it looked like Sasha was going to have to finish the evening’s tales off with one of his inexhaustible supply.

“Is that it then, Lads? Sasha finishes the tales and then it’s time for dominoes and a fresh pint?” asked Pete.

One of the regular outsiders, the one who’d had a glass of poteen, coughed and said, “Can any one tell a tale? I’ve got a couple of short ones to do with hospitals I could tell if I may. I’m Clive McNamara by the way.”

Sasha grinned and said, “Pull up a chair, Clive. Pete, fetch the man a drink. I’ll stand for it.”

Pete said, “Not this one you won’t. This one’s on the house. Guinness(10) isn’t it, Clive?”

“Please.”

After a minute Pete returned and said, “There you go.” Clive was elderly but looked to be in his early sixties rather than seventies like most of the Grumpy Old Men.

“I’m going back maybe forty years or perhaps a little less. My mate Dave Woolly rode a BSA 650 Super Rocket, which was actually a 646cc engine not a 650. Dave was a self employed sparks(11) and I was a self employed central heating engineer: a glorified plumber. We laboured for each other when work was scarce. I was suffering a shortage of work at the time and he’d wanted help putting in a bid for installing sanitary towel incinerators in the girls toilets at the local secondary school, which had been an all boys secondary modern school but was about to become a coeducational comprehensive. For those in need of explanation it’s simple, a boy’s only school for the bottom end became a mixed school for all abilities. The joke is we’d put the bid in a fortnight before and we’d been so cheap that Dave had been asked if there was a mistake. The next bid up had been thirty times ours, and we’d gone as high as we’d dared. We hastily cobbled a letter together explaining a zero was missing off the end. Eventually we won the job and learnt a lot about bidding for local authority contracts in the process, but after our discussions and Sunday lunch Dave left my house to post the letter.

As he pulled off a kid on a push bike rode in front of him. Dave wasn’t even doing five miles an hour, the bike went over and Dave hit the tarmac with his bike on top of him. The kid disappeared never to be seen again. Dave couldn’t ride because he’d hurt his elbow. He threatened me with death if I ever told anyone what had happened. I was riding an Ariel square four at the time and took him to the local hospital. The Xrays shewed he’d chipped a bit off his elbow. He was told pain killers and time would sort it out. Whilst Dave was in Xray I was waiting in the casualty waiting room when a bloke came in with what I can only describe as a completely flat and bloody face. The weather at the time was a bit windy, and it seems a garage door had been grabbed by the wind and hit him in the face. “It was only a bit of wind,” he kept saying. I had to laugh because it was only a bit of wind that brought the Cutty Sark clipper carrying tea from Shanghai to Britain in a hundred and seven days and carrying wool from Sidney to Brittany in sixty-seven. That’s that one. I said it was only short, and it’s not very interesting but I thought it funny at the time.

“Some folk will never understand the power of the elements, Clive. City folk are even worse than country folk. A nice little tale. What about the other one?” Stan asked.

Clive looked around at the smiling, encouraging faces and said, “My wife Claire and I were waiting in casualty. I’ve no idea why now because it must be twenty years ago at least, probably thirty. There was a harassed young mother with three kids in front of us and the oldest was playing up. Running around, screaming and jumping up and down on and off chairs and paying no heed to his mum at all. I could see she was on the verge of tears. Claire said to me, ‘Why doesn’t she smack that child? It’s no wonder kids are out of control these days.’

“I said, ‘Easy for you to say, Love. You’re a nurse. This is your kind of territory. You’re not intimidated being here. That young lass has gone to the front, given her name and address, and is probably terrified that if she disciplines that child in anyway she’ll have social workers knocking on her door taking her kids away.’

“I went up to the young mother and said, ‘I understand how you feel. Would you like me to calm him down for you?’ She did no more than nod. I picked the seven or eight year old up by the scruff of his coat collar and with his feet six inches off the floor said quietly but menacingly, ‘Your mum is a nice lady and loves you. I’m not nice, I’m not a lady and I certainly don’t love you. If you don’t calm down and be quiet I’ll smack your arse so hard you’ll not be able to sit down for a month and I’ll have blisters on my hand. There are ill people in here, some of them in pain and they don’t need you to cope with as well. Now be a good lad, sit down next to your mum and shut the fuck up. Ok?’ At that I pushed him down into the chair next to his mum. The thoroughly terrified little shit cowered next to his mum with barely a whimper.”

The laughter round the room took a couple of minutes to settle, but Alf said, “All lads need putting in their place from time to time by a bloke who’ll take no shit. I hate to even think what kind of a monster I’d have grown up into if my old man hadn’t kicked my arse from time to time. All lads are the same.”

Bill added glumly, “You’d be gaoled for that today, but that’s why so many young men are complete idiots. It’s not that they’re unemployed, they’re unemployable. Lasses are just as bad too now, but in a different way. I read a while back in the paper that adolescent male elephants are harassing other animals and have killed a few folk because all the big bulls who used to keep them in their place have been shot for their ivory. Sounds depressingly familiar doesn’t it. You did that laddie a favour, Clive. Though I doubt he’ll ever realise it.” There was a murmur of agreement before Clive continued.

“The mother said, ‘Thank you. His dad is not going to be happy about his behaviour. I appreciate the help, and it’ll give Josh a laugh.’ She turned to her son and said, ‘Say thank you to the gentleman, Paul. He’s just saved you a smack from your dad.’

“The kid did as he was told, and I returned to my seat and my gobsmacked wife. That’s it. Not much of a tale, but I’ve been wanting to tell someone about that for years.”

Pete said, “Good one, Clive. Well worth the beer. We could do with more tale tellers joining in. You play dominoes, Lad? I’ll partner you.”

~o~O~o~

After everyone had gone home Pete told Gladys about Clive and said, “We could do with a bit of advertising. A sign at the front saying something like The Green Dragon home to the Grumpy Old Men’s Society, tale tellers welcome.”

“Mmm, I work on it, Love. I’m sure Dave said his brother, or maybe it was his brother in law, did a bit of sign writing. I’ll ask Lucy.”

Word Usage Key.

1 Poteen, Irish moonshine with no duty paid on it.
2 Mountain Dew, familiar name for poteen.
3 Outsider, term for one who doesn’t live locally.
4 Whiskey, the correct spelling for Irish whiskey. Scotch is spelt whisky.
5 Spell, a rest in this contest.
6 Paid work or play, getting paid even when one is off sick. This is normal for public employees in the UK as long as one has a doctor’s sick note.
7 Leech, an old colloquial term for a doctor deriving from the medicinal application of leeches.
8 Lonnings, lanes.
9 A six month, a common old usage, compare with a fortnight (fourteen nights) and a senight (seven nights) the former in common usage all over Britain and the latter in parts of northern Britain.
10 Guinness, a dark Irish beer.
11 Sparks, electrician.

It was a quiet night in the Green Dragon and there were no outsiders in the taproom. A cool but not cold evening was unusual for the time of year, but the storm that had blown in was blowing fifty mile an hour winds with gusts of up to seventy-five mile an hour. It was dangerous to be out and most of the men in the taproom had arrived on their own. Their wives had stayed at home.

When all had a drink in front of them Denis said, “Pete, get a couple of bottles of that Tequila I brought back from Mexico out will you. We might as well enjoy the stuff on a night like this. I’ll tell the first one. Alf, a long time ago, when I first moved up here, I mentioned threatening some idiots who were trying to get money out of me because they thought I was the previous owner of my house. You mind that?”

“Aye. You said something about Belinda having cousins in the IRA, and Sasha told me to drop it when I asked about it.”

“Well seeing as there’re just us here and no outsiders I’ll tell you what I meant.”

“You sure about this, Denis?” Sasha asked.

“It’s ok, Sasha. It happened a long time ago and Belinda is ok about it now. The tale is really in two parts which only came together years later as a result of a perfectly unrelated conversation with Belinda’s cousin Kate. The first part of the tale goes back to when I was in my early teens. You all know I went to a public school called Repton near Derby, yes?” There were agreements all round as Denis had told numerous tales about his school days. “It would have been in sixty-seven or sixty-eight. There was a robbery of a stately home somewhere, I can’t recall where. There were several old masters stolen. Paintings worth huge amounts of money. The press was full of it. A while later the gang were rounded up and it turned out that the theft had been done by an IRA cell. The leader’s mistress was a high society girl who had provided the guy with all the information they’d needed to do the job. The only reason I remembered it all was because I went to school with her cousin. Most of the cell were members of a family, a father and his four sons. They lived on a farm in county Galway and based all their operations out of there. There was a joint operation with The RUC and the Gardai that levelled the farmhouse and buildings to the ground. There was nothing more than a few inches above ground level left. That was that. I wasn’t particularly interested and forgot all about the matter for over fifty years.

“Belinda as is obvious is Irish and keeps in regular contact with a large number of her relatives. Her family is like most folks’, full of the bizarre. Her granny had married three times. Her first husband died at the Somme. Her third husband died in a mining catastrophe, and she knew all her family from both those marriages. However, nothing was known about the second husband. It was not known how he had died nor anything about whether there had been any offspring of the marriage. It was known her granny was Irish and all three of her husbands had been Irish too. Belinda like her cousins kept in touch with the family that still lived in Ireland. Her cousin Kate was looking into the second marriage and Belinda was interested enough to keep in weekly contact by phone. Kate live near Dover. I warned them both that such investigations could prove to be traumatic, especially regarding Irish families, but they ignored me. Kate’s mother Katherine was still alive then, she was a hundred and three but in full possession of her faculties. She’d always refused to say anything on the matter but eventually gave Kate enough information to find out about their relatives.

“Kate tracked down the family. It seemed that their grandmother’s second husband had simply disappeared with his four young sons, and in order to feed her family their grandmother had registered him dead from an accident at work and bigamously married Belinda’s grandfather, the third husband. Katherine was a daughter of the first husband. Kate was on the phone to Belinda when I heard them talking. I recognised enough from their conversation to realise the family was the gang that the cousin of boy I went to school with had been involved with. Kate was amazed that I knew more of the matter than she, and I referred her to the newspaper articles of the day. It seemed Kate and Belinda had four cousins who had spent the best part of twenty years in the H blocks of the Maze prison for terrorism. I did warn them. Both are still shocked by the matter.”

“Are they in contact with their cousins, Denis?”

“No. They never attempted to make contact. Apparently Katherine was, but she died a couple of years later.”

"What happened to the second husband?"

"He was shot by the British army in some sort of a paramilitary operation years before Kate found out about their cousins."

There was a profound silence after that, and eventually Alf said, “I’ll tell you about what I remember of Old Cooper from when I was a boy.” Old Cooper had long been dead, but his reputation for parsimony and tight dealing still lived on. “Old Cooper rented a small farm, about thirty acres, from the local council. The council has been gone almost as long as he now, replaced by the new larger administrative units in seventy-six. I used to earn a few bob down at my Uncle Frank’s farm in those days. I’d have been in my early teens. The first thing my cousin Frank and I did every morning was go down to Cooper’s place to tow start his tractor because he wouldn’t buy a battery and it was bad manners to refuse to do it. He didn’t live there, and he used the farmhouse as a big chicken shed along with the dozen or more derelict cars on the place.

“Combine harvesters had been around for twenty years by then, but he had three old thrashing boxes on the place all made of wood. He had a fascinating philosophy regarding bills. He told me he didn’t pay them, because and I quote, ‘I don’t pay bills, big uns I can’t afford to pay and small uns I can’t be bothered with.’ He was a sitting tenant so couldn’t be evicted as long as he paid the rent, but as soon as he died the council bulldozed the house, set fire to the thrashing boxes, had the cars removed and sold the place to a developer who built a housing estate on the place. He was a pain to everyone, but probably a better neighbour than the bloody townies that live on the estate now. At least he never complained about cockerels crowing and being disturbed by lambs baaing. Bloody townies, if they don’t like it here they should go back to living in the towns. There’s one damned old woman used to walk past my place every morning and she put complaints in to the police, the council, and the RSPCA because she was frightened of my buff Orpington cockerel. Hens have wandered free on my spot for three hundred years I know about. That cockerel is so vicious that Ellen picks him up every night and carries him under her arm to put him to roost with the hens. Most days there were logs all over the road because she picked them off my wood pile to throw at the cockerel. She complained to me one day and got really upset when all I kept repeating was, ‘I’ve nothing to say to you.’ I think the silly cow thought she’d get me into a row so she could tell folk how I’d insulted her. Still it’s all resolved now.”

“How so, Alf?”

“She died. Like I said, resolved.”

Gladys announced, “Supper time, Gentlemen. Chicken and mushroom pies with sweetcorn in green coriander sauce and chips just for a change. Probably not buff Orpington though.”

After supper Eric asked Alf, “Your Uncle Frank was the poultry man out Long Resteth way wasn’t he?”

“That’s the bloke, but the farm is nearer to Upper Thremble than Long Resteth. My cousin Frank farms there now. Uncle Frank's been away many a year now, though Aunt Lilly lived to be nigh on a hundred. Uncle kept hens, Guinea fowl, ducks, geese, turkeys and raised rare birds for a few zoos too. My cousin still does. I went to school with my cousin Frank, he’s a couple of years up on me. We both earnt a good bit of money finish plucking when we were lads, especially at Christmas time. They have a team of women handling the plucking machines. The women drop the dead birds in a temperature controlled water bath to loosen the feathers for a couple of minutes then they’re put in a rotating drum with rubber fingers that take most of the feathers off. We used to pull out the wing and tail feathers that the drum machine didn’t remove. Some of them are so tight you have to use pliers to get them out. I’d been doing it for a couple of Christmases when Uncle Frank said the man that did the killing was ill and he asked my cousin if he was up for it. Frank turned green, but I said I’d do it. Uncle asked me if I’d ever done it before. I said no, but if I was shewn once it would be no problem, because I’d killed rabbits bred for meat.

“You drop the birds head first into a row of buckets with no bottoms in, knock em on the head with a bat to stun them and use a penknife to cut the artery in the neck. They bleed out into the trough below. The blood goes to a pharmaceuticals company, but I've no idea what they do with it. Frank said he'd heard it was something to do with artificial hormones, but he wasn't sure. After bleeding out, they're taken to the warm water tanks prior to plucking. It was easy money, far easier work than pulling tail feathers with pliers. I did it for a few years. I only stopped after I married Ellen and I needed the time to do my spot up.”

The men had the dominoes out after that and settled down to their game and Tequila.

As Sasha walked in to the Green Dragon with Stan he said, “You know what, Stan, I think I’ll try a Double Diamond just for the hell of it.”

Stan shrugged his shoulders and said, “OK, Sasha, but if your going for something different I’ll join you, but Double Diamond, no. It’s just a pale ale, and not that good in my opinion. I’ll have a Theakstone’s Old Peculier.(1) That’s an exceedingly good brown ale with a nutty taste. As to whether it’s worth the price I don’t know, but three bottles will fill a pint glass and I’ll give it a go.”

“Go on then, Stan, I’ll try that too. I only wanted something different. You reckon we’ll want another?”

“Aye, but take it slowly. It sneaks up on you.”

The weather was reasonable and the Grumpy Old Men were looking forward to a good night. There were a dozen and a half outsiders in the taproom. The regulars were hoping for something a bit different, but were happy to accept a tale from Sasha if that were all that was forthcoming. Pete was threwing coal on the fires and a few decent sized logs to follow before saying, “I’ve got a poxy tale that I’d rather leave till next week to give me time to work on it, but if there’s none going for it I suppose it’ll do.”

Charlie, a normally silent man who was always willing to pay for a round of drinks, to the surprise of all said, “I’ll tell the tale of me growing up and how I came to live here if anyone wants to hear it?”

“Good lad, Charlie,” Sasha said. “I’ll buy for you. Gladys a round please, and put it down to Charlie, but on my slate.”(2)

After the beer was passed around, John said, “Get a couple of those bottles of cactus juice I brought back from Mexico out would you please, Gladys.”

With a pint of their preferred ale and a tequila in front of them Charlie began. “I was born in what was southern Lancashire, but which after the Governmental fuck up of nineteen seventy-six is now supposed to be northern Cheshire. I’m proud of being a Lancastrian and will never accept that where I was born is in Cheshire, after all we did win.(3) I was born in a house fifty yards north of the Chat Moss railway bridge in the village of Glazebury, known locally as Buryloan, which means the lane where folk are buried. Glazebury is a ribbon village on the Leigh to Warrington road. For a long time it was so isolated that it had developed its own distinctive dialect, referred to as Buryloan too, which was not readily understood by foreigners, which meant anyone not from there.

“During the civil war and interregnum(4) when Cromwell’s head quarters were at the Bay Horse Inn in Warrington, where one can still get a pint, there were tunnels connecting local churches for the protection of the Catholics. My granddad was a brickie who went down them working when he was in his twenties. They were repairing them so they would be safe to use as a tourist attraction. In Cromwells' time there'd been an ongoing battle on the moss lasting months where thousands on both sides died. Chat Moss like other mosses of Lancashire is a peat bog, passable when dry and deadly when wet.

“For the last century or so there’s been huge quantities of salad stuff grown on the moss, mostly lettuce of dozens of varieties but radish, celery and beetroot too. The peat soil is black, absorbs sunlight and it’s warm enough to grow crops all year round. Depending on the variety they get from four to six plantings a year. What we call Cos lettuce are called Manchester lettuce in London and London lettuce round Glazebury because most goes down to the London wholesale markets. I don’t like them because to get them to grow they use a lot of nitrate fertiliser. They can be a yard high and they’re dark green and bitter as hell from the nitrate. Waggons transport it five days a week. The joke is if you buy a lettuce in Manchester, which is twelve maybe fifteen miles away, chances are it’s been down to London to be sold at one of Covent Garden, Brentford, Spitalfields or Stratford markets, and come back. But the highland beef sold in Glasgow goes under the hammer at Smithfield market in London and fish sold in fishing ports is auctioned at Billingsgate London.”

“Sounds about right, Charlie,” said Harry. “I’ve been carrying the same stuff both up and down the country for years. A lot of the time it’s never even been taken out of the container. Next time you’re on the Motorway take note of what’s going north. You’ll see the same stuff going south too. Still I’ve made a good living out of long distance [US over the road driving] and often been glad it never occurs to the pen pushers to make a few phone calls before the waggons set off. The down side is that haulage all has to be paid for, so stuff is dearer, but hell you can’t have it all.”

Charlie nodded and carried on. “Like a lot of lads, as a teen I went down with the waggons for a few quid to help the drivers unload. No pallets then, and a waggon carried fifteen hundred cardboard boxes with a dozen lettuce in each. Thank god the days of wire bound wooden bushel boxes were over before my time. When I was older I drove a waggon down there myself for one summer. All those old markets went years ago to be replaced by new Covent Garden. The old ones were all built for horses and carts and were a nightmare to get an eighteen wheeler round, so we used to leave in the afternoon to get there early evening when there were few waggons at the markets because if you weren’t out by midnight you’d still be there at six. Tachographs had been in use for a while and we always carried a few spare boxes to take back because loaded with perishables gave us an extra two hours to drive which meant we could do the return trip in one go.

Alf asked, “Was that legal, Charlie?”

“I’ve no idea but seeing as I wasn’t licenced to drive a big one I wasn’t fussed. Like all the others I learnt by driving wagons on fields at haymaking and harvest and manoeuvring them in farm yards. It was excellent training. I never had a lesson in my life, and once I was old enough to take the test I passed first time. We didn’t go down on Saturdays and Wednesdays because there were no markets on Sundays and Thursdays. We used to get given all sorts of stuff in sometimes huge quantities, stuff that wouldn’t keep to sell on Mondays and Fridays. I think every woman in Glazebury made wine, jam, jelly, chutney, pickles and the like with free fruit and veg. I got given half a ton of redcurrants once. I dropped them off at the village shop and told David there to give them away to any one who wanted some. He told me they’d gone in an hour. Devon, who drove his own waggon, often went down in convoy with me shewed me a really good Chinese take away just on the outside of the north circular. We often stopped there to eat on our way back. We’d bought our food from there often enough to be recognised by the staff. We used to eat together in one of the waggons. One day I gave them a crate of celery and a couple of boxes of apples. They knew we were waggon drivers, and after that we were invited to eat in the back and served a full meal. I kept giving them fruit and vegetables, and we never paid for meals there again.

“The moss provides a short cut from the A57 passing from Manchester to Warrington via Irlam and the A574 Warrington Road through Glazebury. To those who are sober and familiar with the moss it presents no problems, but it is potentially deadly if intoxicated after a night out, and folk still just disappear from time to time. As a reminder of the civil war a skeleton in antique armour was found chained to tree in the middle of the moss woodlands in late 60s. Weapons, armour and skeletons were still being found in moss fields when I was a child. They still are, and most local farms have a collection of muskets and swords. There were so many dead during the Civil war that bodies were burried where they were found in shallow graves, and the entire area was legally consecrated as a graveyard not long afterwards. During WWII there was an act of parliament obliging all landowners to plough and sow with food crops for the nation. There had to be a special act giving the moss fields and any around them the right to harrow seed in so as to avoid a plough bringing human remains to the surface.”

“I’ve heard of the place, Charlie. There was a TV program, maybe five years back, about a crane factory there.”

“That was Coles Cranes, Bill. It’s not there any more, but it was between Mum’s house and the railway. Like a lot of the local lads and men, I did my share of grave digging in the cemetery of the local church. When I lived there the vicar was a man who liked a glass. He was as pissed as rat when he married one of my sisters and left bits of the service out. But he was a decent sort and well thought of because he’d help anyone out no matter what their religion or even if they didn’t believe in anything. The grave plots were all family plots and could take six coffins, three deep and two side beside. The ground wasn’t moss, but it was next door to it, very soft and coffins moved in it. Over the years a few had disappeared altogether. When a grave was needed to be dug, the sexton took his sounding rod, which was just a fancy name for a ten foot length of half inch reinforcing steel usually put into concrete, and sounded the grave to see how deep the first coffin was down. As I said they weren’t all there so his records might not be correct.”

“How does a coffin disappear, Charlie?” Alf asked in perplexity.

“The blokes on the allotments [US community gardens] told me when there’d been a lot of rain the ground became like a really thick liquid and there were slow currents in it which would move the coffins. They wouldn’t have moved far even over a few decades, but you couldn’t tell in which direction they’d gone. The soil on the allotments was even more fluid and two or three feet down was constantly changing. They knew that from when they were double digging, which they did every few years to improve drainage and aeration. You’d know more about that than I would, Alf.”

Alf who had four highly productive allotment plots replied, “Yeah, that makes sense, Charlie.”

“Anyway, if it were a new grave the hole had to be eight feet deep, so that when full with six coffins the top of the topmost one was two feet down. That’s the legal requirement. That meant shuttering the sides with three-quarter inch shuttering ply and four by twos [US two by fours]. It was far too dangerous not to, and you always worked in at least pairs. One night the vicar came into the tap room of The Red Cat and said, ‘I’ve screwed up, Lads.’ Like I said he was a decent sort. ‘I’ve a funeral tomorrow, and I forgot to tell Bill about it.’ Old Bill was the sexton, organist and caretaker at the church. ‘So I’ve no grave to bury the poor soul in. I’ll make it worth your while if you dig it overnight. Bill says you’ve to go four feet down and he’s borrowed some site lights.’ A lad called Gerry said, ‘I’ll dig for you, Archy, but it’s a fucking evil night so you’d better chuck in a couple of bottles of ‘keep you warm’. How about the rest of you? Four feet down, if four of us go at it we’ll have it done before daylight.

“I and a couple of others said we’d dig. Archy, whose real name was Archibald, which was kind of appropriate for a vicar, said, ‘George, better make that four bottles of Johnny Walker for the lads.’ There was only the butcher’s shop between the pub and the church, and George, the landlord, said he’d leave the back door open for us so we could get a drink when we’d done. It was raining stair rods and blowing a howling gale that night. At about ten to eleven we donned white PVC coated Souwesters(5) and tied our hats down to the capes. We collected the gear from the church store and Bill shewed us where to dig. ‘There are four coffins down there and both the top two were buried nigh to fifty years since, so go easy lads.’ We knew what he meant. The coffins would be rotten, and believe me you do not want to have anything to do with a body that’s been buried for fifty years. The reality of it is nothing like forensic pathology TV shews would have you believe.”

Sasha said, “I’ve seen world war two mass graves exhumed to give the bodies a decent final resting place. That would have been in the nineties and it was grim. The smell of the bodies is appalling. There is a massive amount of science involving the dead. What the hell makes someone go into that line of work completely escapes me.”

Charlie nodded and continued. “It was a pretty straight forward job. The digging was easy as the soil had been dug before, and with four of us taking it in turns to dig and throw the soil up, and emptying the whisky bottles, we had near enough done the job by half three. Never for an instant did the rain let up and we were grateful for the cover that Bill had put over the hole. He’d always maintained it was legit, but seeing as it had Norweb written all over it, it clearly had belonged at one point to the north western electricity board. Given that we’d two old men in the village who’d worked for Norweb, we suspected it had been liberated in a good cause, and kept our opinions to ourselves. Fifteen minutes before we’d finished the cover lifted and blew aside. One of the lads dropped a fallen headstone on it to prevent it going any farther and we continued. That was when things started to get interesting.

“We’d got down to the coffin lid, and Rob was shovelling the loose soil off and threwing it up. Standing at the foot of the coffin as he lifted the soil all the weight was transferred to his feet and the lid started to rise at the head end as his feet went down. Rob, shovel and soil were out of the hole within a second. He was gibbering and shaking as he pointed to the hole. He’d have run had Ron not restrained him. As Ron, the most experienced of us, explained and Rob lowered the level in a bottle of whisky by what would have been an indecent amount under any other circumstances, Rob started to calm down. The three of us finished the job and left Rob working on emptying the bottle.”

The old men were laughing and shaking their heads. All were old enough to have been scared witless at least once in their lives and whilst it was amusing, not a one of them thought to criticise Charlie’s mate Rob.

“Then it got even better. Old Joe was seventy-three and the village drunk. I don’t think he’d been entirely sober for years, certainly not in my lifetime. Joe was lurching past the church on his way home as I came out of the hole, which was at the front of the cemetery next to the pavement [US sidewalk]. Like a lot of walls in the UK, the graveyard wall at the edge of the pavement was maybe eighteen inches tall and had been topped by iron work fixed into holes in the coping stones with molten lead, but the railings had been cut off at the beginning of world war two. The metal wasn’t critical to the war effort as the war office had said at the time. Years later it came out it had been done just to impress on the public that the war was going to hurt and Hitler had to be taken seriously. Never thinking about it, I shouted, ‘ All right, Joe?’ that being the standard greeting. Seeing me coming out of a grave wearing a white PVC trousers, cape and hat, Joe started running. I’m sure he hadn’t moved that fast in years. The four of us, Rob was feeling better having seen someone else scared shitless, were chuckling as we made our way to the pub. Much to our surprise, the fire was roaring in the taproom and Janie George’s wife appeared and said, ‘Get yourselves warmed up a bit, Gentlemen. Fifteen minutes, and breakfast will be on the table. Archy said to feed you a full English and he’d pay.’ That breakfast was one of the most welcome meals I’ve eaten in my entire life.”

“Another round, Lads?” asked Pete. All in agreement, Pete went behind the bar to start pulling pints, Denis stacked the fires, the rest of them cleared the empties from the tables, and Stan started washing them behind the bar. It was twenty minutes before Charlie resumed.

“The 1830 Manchester to Liverpool George Stevenson railway line, Mum said George was an umpteenth great grand uncle of ours through our father, ran over Chat Moss and was said to have been built on cotton. Many believed that to mean cotton bales were placed on the route and when they stopped sinking the track was laid over the top of them. The truth was much more prosaic. It was the money from the cotton trade that paid for the enterprise.

“When I was a child the trains stopped wherever someone put their hand out to draw the driver’s attention. The Chat Moss Inn at Glazebury was at the bridge where the line passed over the A574. The tiny back room was officially designated as the ticket office. The platform at the Chat Moss Halt was a mere fifteen yards long. We used to stop the first train in the morning at just before five and help load the milk churns at the farm platforms by the side of the track for a free ride into Liverpool. Twenty miles which took two and a half hours. We’d spend the day in Liverpool and get a free ride back. I only remember a couple of times going the other way into Manchester.”

“You could stop local trains in Cumbria like that before Beeching,”(6) Stan said.

“All the local buses had a notice in the driver’s cab that read ‘Beware Glazebury bridge! Only approach in the middle of the road.’ The bridge was a low arch and all the buses, which were blue Leigh corporation buses, had dented top corners at their fronts. The original railway bridge over the A574 built in 1828 was blown up in 1971 to be replaced by a more modern bridge with a rectangular profile. The new bridge had been prebuilt around the old one and the road had been dug out to give a greater height clearance. The dip had to have pumps to avoid flooding and when the pumps failed the village was isolated as in heavy rain the road flooded at Lately Common too, which was just south of the A580 East Lancashire Road. My mum’s house, on the far side of Coronation Avenue from the bridge, was the nearest house that was allowed to be occupied during the procedure. Mum made a good bit of money from the reporters and camera men who were hanging out of her bedroom windows at the time of the explosion. We were all considerably better off after she married one of the photographers, who I believe didn’t escape from her bedroom for some time after the bridge had gone, though he’d sent his photos off via a taxi ordered by Mum. David was a nice man and a brilliant step father to all six of us. The original cast iron plate that had been attached to the bridge that read Chat Moss Bridge was acquired by the Chat Moss Inn and still hangs over the bar in the tap room.

“None of us knew our dad. He’d disappeared before any of us could remember him. However, we had a lot of maternal family in the area, including great three uncles who farmed four farms as a collective business at Risley which was maybe eight miles south of Glazebury going towards Warrington. The farms were all off Silver Lane which was a left turn just before the Noggin pub on the way south. Silver Lane was a private road that led past the old salamander yard. Salamanders were a kind of clay brick that were often laid over underground electricity cables. They looked like a flat house in profile, a wide base, two short sides which went up at an angle to make a five sided profile. They had ‘Electricity’ sunk into the two ‘roof sides’. Past the brickyard, where Old Mike the tramp [US hobo] had been sleeping for years, were a dozen farms four of which were farmed together by my three uncles and their families. I have fragmented memories of the farms. Mick a dangerous, big, long coated, and permanently chained yard dog, Panda a big, leggy, friendly yard dog who was obviously black and white, turkeys that frightened me to death, and eggs with lion stamps on them. My Aunt Tilly and Uncle Jim and others whose names I can no longer remember. All that’s gone now, the farms and the brickyard. First the M6 motorway, then Warrington new town ate up the land. The little bit that remained of Silver Lane was blighted by travellers and fly tippers and eventually blocked off by the Council.

“But I mostly remember it as a young child when Walt the horseman slept over the stables. He came as a boy for work sixty or more years before when my uncle’s grandfather farmed the property, and he’d never left. He was treated by my relatives as one of the family and they ensured all other workers knew that. I regarded him as my uncle’s elder brother, and I think that was how the family regarded him too. Certainly he was involved in all decision making on the farm, for he was clever and his ideas made the farm more profitable. But at heart he was a horseman. Once I saw him shew Major, the huge Shire stallion, a leaning oak gate stoop,(7) after Major had a good look he led him away and backed him up to the stoop, slapped it with his hand and said, “There, Lad. There. A good kick mind.” Major kicked the stoop with a hind leg exactly where Walt had slapped it, which nearly brought it vertical. Walt inspected the stoop and said, “Again, Lad. Again.” That brought it vertical. Walt dropped a pile of rubble and brick bats(8) down the side of the stoop and the job was done.

“I remember when I was maybe four, being put on a cart pulled by Queenie, the eldest mare. The cart had quarter of a ton of oats in sacks and was going to the mill at Glazebury for the oats to be rolled. I felt so big taking Queenie to the mill all on my own. There was little traffic then, and though I didn’t know it Queenie had been taking oats to the mill for many more years than I’d been alive, and I couldn’t have made her go anywhere else. I was lifted down at the mill and given a glass of milk and a slice of pound cake(9) by the miller’s wife whilst the men took the sacks away to have the oats rolled, resacked and put back on the cart. Then we went back to the farm. I was a very happy child, and I realised years afterwards it does not take much to make a child happy, but it has to be real and it has to be caring. All the folk I knew in my childhood really cared, and it wasn’t because I was a child, it was because I was one of them, a human being. They cared equally for outsiders who moved in and became one of them by their commitment. Those who remained apart from the local community they despised, for why had they gone there if they didn’t wish to become one of them.

There were nods and sounds of agreement around the taproom, and Gladys said, “It’s called love, Charlie. Men are embarrassed by it, but women know it’s the only thing that matters to a child, boy or girl, and they need it to thrive.”

Perhaps surprisingly Sasha added, “As do men too, Gladys. Women understand it at the deepest level, for it is part of being a woman. Men may be uneasy about it, but we do know that it is the truth.” Gladys nodded at his expression of what few men could articulate, for she knew most women understood that about men, and the ones whose relationships lasted understood that like all women, who had limitations simply because they were women, men were no different. It was just that their limitations were different.

Charlie continued. “My mother’s parents lived at Risley a few miles down the road towards Warrington. Grandpa was a builder and had built several houses there in the days before Warrington new town absorbed it and the new road bypassed the village. His first house that I remember was on the corner of Landcut Lane, number 772, opposite Moss Lane. Landcut Lane ran through the fields and eventually passed the two big houses of my great aunts and back onto Warrington Road at the UKEA bad bends. He built a house behind 772 for the parents of a farmer who’d made millions from fast food establishments at Blackpool. I suspect both Landcut Lane and Moss Lane are both long gone now, but I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. Later when my grandmother couldn’t manage the big house that was 772, he built 740 further down the road which was known locally for its multi-coloured roof tiles. I’d helped him build both and learnt a lot from him doing so.

“Whilst I was a boy when my grandparents lived at Warrington Road, across the road was Risley Admiralty. The Admiralty was a wartime industrial estate that was colossal and dedicated to the war effort. Before marrying my father, my mother had worked there making instruments for Ferranti that would be fitted into aeroplanes fighting the war. By nineteen fifty ‘The Admiralty’ was desolate. In its heyday it had three train stations, and a regular, frequent and complex bus service. But when the war ended in 1945 it just stopped. The workforce was redeployed and it immediately started to decay. Built rapidly and and as cheaply as possible, by the time I knew it even the door and window frames were rotten. It was a good place for kids who weren’t bothered about where they should or shouldn’t be playing to have fun. Eventually it had rotted and fallen apart so badly it wasn’t fun any more. It's all part of the new town now.

“Then they built Risley remand centre, a place for those charged with serious crimes who were awaiting trial but had been refused bail. Trouble was security wasn’t too good. There were any number of escapees who simply got on the number 46 bus at the bus stop outside the place that was there for visitors. I’d have been in my middle teens when, seeking work during the summer holidays, I got the job with Security Providers. We were putting up a perimeter fence around the existing one at the remand centre. We put up slippery plastic walls with a five foot diameter circular top all the way around the place. Then we fastened Hescoil razor wire over the top of that. Tell you that stuff is evil. To install Hescoil we had to use cherry pickers and high lift platforms. As a result of that I could see the luxury that the prisoners, sorry remandees, lived in. Those walls were obviously to keep silly buggers like us that worked for a living out. I don’t know when but eventually it became a prison.”

“Ain’t that the fucking truth,” said Pat. “I once tried to find out how much I was paying in tax to keep those bastards in a lifestyle I could only aspire to for most of my life. And guess what? The figures were not available, though I don’t doubt some weasel of of a talcum knackered southern jessie knows the truth of it.”

Sasha laught and said, “Keep going, Charlie. You seem to have hit a nerve with Pat.”

“I was studying hard to get a place at a decent university to study mathematics, but most of my spare time I worked with my distant cousin Mick, who was Uncle Michael’s only child and going to inherit his farm down Farley Common a mile or so south of Mum’s house. I was the one with the brains, and I got us a contract baling shredded security paperwork from Risley atomic [UKAEEHQ, United Kingdom Atomic Energy Establishment Head Quarters] which we sold at Chelford mart mostly to pig farmers for bedding. Mick bid successfully on an old static baler that ran on TVO(10) at an auction which made us more money and we started baling pea haulm(11) from local farmers for which we sold for feed. We also baled bracken and the like from the moss farmers in the process of converting the last few tens of thousand acres of moss into agricultural land. We sold that for bedding which all in all made us a goodly bit of cash too.

“Working with Mick was fun, but I was studying all the while and had no intention of being a farmer. Eventually I went to Upsalla to study, and though I returned for family funerals I had no reason to return to Glazebury after Mick died in a motor accident. He’d never married, so hadn’t left any children I’d have felt a responsibility for, and I’d met Susanna by then. She did her nurse training at Alder Hey children’s hospital Liverpool, but she came from Maryport and that’s why we came here. All the folk I’ve ever come across since from anywhere near Warrington sound like they come from Liverpool. Unreasonable maybe, but I don’t like the thieving cunts, and I don’t give a shit what anyone thinks about that. Susanna went to a nurses’ meeting not long ago about stereotyping. The woman giving the talk, who was clearly a left wing liberal, said that it was unacceptable stereotyping to think that all scousers were thieves. Susanna stuck her hand up and said, ‘My husband doesn’t think all scousers are thieves. He knows they are. He’s worked with thousands of them and as far as I’m concerned he knows what he’s talking about. You obviously don’t.”

As Sasha poured more tequila there was a considerable amount of laughter at that, Susanna was a feisty lady who was as non PC as Charlie, but the consensus of opinion was that those from Liverpool, scousers, could not be trusted. As Bill said, “I worked on the motorway construction gangs for twenty-five years and the scousers were the only bastards who would steal off a workmate. The rest of us regarded the company as fair game, but a mate’s stuff was off limits.”

“That’s it lads,” Charlie said. “Or at any rate it’s all I can come up with right now.”

“Bloody good one, Charlie. Well worth waiting for,” said Stan to the agreement of the others. Another round and more tequila with the shuffling of the dominoes was the prelude to the end of another enjoyable evening.

Notes

1 Theakstone’s Old Peculier. Yes that’s how it’s spelt, and it was sold in bottles containing one third of an imperial pint which is 6⅔ fluid ounces. Though that’s probably gone metric now and about 190ml.
2 Slate, tab, credit account.
3 We did win. An elliptic reference to the War of the Roses (1455-1485) fought between the House of York whose emblem was a white rose and the House of Lancaster whose emblem was a red rose. The battle was for the crown and the Lancastrians won. It is still common for Lancastrians to make such comments and most of the rest of the population understand what they are referring to especially those from Yorkshire.
4 Interregnum, period between execution of James I (30/01/1649) and the return to the throne of Charles II (29/05/1660). Oliver Cromwell’s rise to power following the Civil War.
5 Souwesters, extreme wet weather over clothes comprising a pair of trousers, a cape or jacket and a wide hat often referred to as a Mae West. They were the normal clothing for deep water sea fishermen.
6 Richard Beeching closed 2,363 stations and 5,000 miles (8,000 km) of railway line in 1963, 55% of stations and 30% of route miles, to stop the vast losses the railways were incurring on behalf of the tax payer. Beeching was a much vilified man for doing so, and still is, but he was in a hard place. The motorway network was expanding and there was a lot of money to be made from road transport by influential folk who wanted the railways closed down as competitors. Beeching was made a Lord for his work.
7 Gate stoop, a gate post. The hinge stoop, from which the gate was hung, was much bigger and heavier than the slam stoop, which the gate locked or closed into.
8 Brick bats, broken bricks, a term often used for a half brick, hence the term ‘a quarter bat’ meaning a quarter of a brick.
9 Poundcake, a very old recipe. A pound each of flour, butter, egg and sugar, usually baked in loaf tins.
10 TVO, tractor vaporising oil, similar to paraffin. The engine was started using petrol and once hot switched over to TVO which was heated usually by the exhaust manifold to assist vaporisation.
11 Pea haulm, what ever is left over after a pea crop has been taken by a combine harvester. A nutritious bulk animal feed.

It was a fine warm early September Saturday evening and the Grumpy Old Men’s Society were drinking outside. The Green Dragon was serving a barbecue supper that eve and all were looking forward to it. Gladys, the landlady, was setting up for playing bowls with the ladies and Pete her husband was busy with the men ensuring all glasses were full. No one was drinking inside, for it was rare that the weather was so kind and it was far too good an eve to waste inside. As a result the bar service was a little haphazard, but no one was bothered.

“So what is it to be the night? asked Geoff. “If all else fails I’ve a couple of short ones about the police that’ll provide a laugh.”

“Do you spell police with two ells as well as pronounce it that way, Geoff?” asked Paul.

“Get stuffed, Paul.”

“Just asking, Geoff,” Paul replied laughing.

“Give Pete a minute or two to organise the bar staff and sit down and then you start, Geoff,” Sasha told him. “If we’re on police tales I’ve one and another about the Council too.”

By the time Pete sat down more than a few minutes had gone by and all were ready. “What kept you, Pete?” asked Alf.

“I locked the front door, so anybody arriving for a drink will have to come round the back and we’ll see them. No point in the bar staff missing out on the fun is there?”

All nodded, for it was typical of Pete to be that considerate, and they’d take it in turns to serve any visitors. Locals would serve themselves.

~o~O~o~

“You’ll all have heard about the robbery at the Spar shop in Wigton a few weeks ago?” There were nods all round. “Well I heard a few details about it the other day that weren’t in the paper. I went to the auction in Carlisle and got chatting to a few lads I’ve known for years. Apparently, the thieves backed a stolen JCB [back hoe machine] into the shop at the front straight off the main road at half past two in the morning. They trashed the entire shop getting to the ATM cash machine which was at the back. Must be sixty feet from the front window. They got the ATM out of the wall with the back actor [back hoe] and drove out the front right round the block to the car park at the back. It would have been easier to just keep going and exit via the back wall of the shop straight onto the car park, but obviously that didn’t occur to them. Best of it is their van was too small to fit the ATM in, so they abandoned it on the car park and left. I’ve no idea if they’ve been catcht(1) yet, but the laddie who gave me the tale said it was over four hours before the police arrived at the shop. The alarm goes off in the station so they knew about it, and there were several folk who had the entire incident on their phones. Christ man, I’m telling you, bloody useless all of them. It makes you wonder what the hell the council pay all that money we have to give them to the police for.”

“Ah but, Geoff,” interrupted Sasha smoothly, “You’re not taking all the relevant factors into consideration.”

“Go on, Sasha. I’ll buy it. Listen hard lads because I’m sure what Sasha’s going to tell us will be better than the tale.”

“Well first of all you know about the cuts in public spending which have resulted in serious demanning of the police force.”

“What the hell does that mean, Sasha?”

“Less money, fewer officers and local police stations closed, Alf. We haven’t had a local force for what, ten years?”

“Nearer fifteen. I get you you now.”

“Well. Lets be generous regards the call out time. The alarm no longer goes off in the station or if it does there’s none to hear it because the station is no longer in use. It goes to a local inbound relay centre from where it goes to the centre that puts the calls out to the appropriate police station. Someone once told me the send out centre is in Mumbai India. I’ve no idea if that’s true, but in this day and age it at least sounds credible. That all takes time because the call centre at Mumbai deals with tens of thousands of internet traders’ orders too. However, eventually they get the message back to the UK where the three officers on duty that night in Workington that are covering our half of the county, so that’s what eighty miles by eighty and serves a hundred and forty thousand folk, are having a cup of tea. Fair enough, like every one else they’re entitled to a tea break. So they finish their tea, saving a bit of response time by reading the printout as they do because they are conscientious lads. But now comes the biggest factor in the call out time. They take their cups to the sink and taped to the wall right next to it is a big sign that says Now Wash Your Cups, so since not washing their cups before leaving is a disciplinary matter, I ask you what are the poor bastards supposed to do?”

It took several minutes for the laughter to die down and Pete and Stan took the opportunity to refill glasses.

“Sasha, the thing that frightens me about you is your explanations of the world are just entirely too credible.”

“Well, Gerry, I’m sure there are events happening all the time all over world far more ridiculous than any I’ve ever imagined. You said you’d a couple of tales, Geoff. Give us the other one.”

~o~O~o~

“OK. Now you may not be aware of this but police officers go to special training classes to enable them to distinguish details on things that move at incredible speeds. I’m going back a few years when cross ply tyres were still as prevalent as radials. I had two radials and two cross plys on my Allegro because I couldn’t afford four new radials. I know that the radials were on the rear wheels and the cross plys on the front, which was legal, because I fitted them myself. I was flagged over by a copper on foot when I was doing forty miles an hour in a forty limit area. I expected to be accused of speeding because he was holding a vascar radar pistol. But no. He told me he’d seen that I had an illegal combination of tyres on my car. At this point he hadn’t even looked at my tyres. Well damn me when I looked the radials were on the front and the cross plys were on the back, which is illegal. He’d seen that at forty miles an hour from fifty yards, or so he said. I’d had to look damned hard standing next the the vehicle when it was stationary to tell, but I obviously hadn’t been on the training course. And I’m damned certain there was no chance I’d made a mistake.”

“What happened, Geoff? You get done for it?”

“No. A mate who was a mechanic wrote a letter saying he was working on the car for me and had had the wheels off, but I needed it back before he’d finished. He wasn’t aware of the two types of tyres and just put the two with the best treads on the drive wheels. If there’s any doubt they’ll not get a successful prosecution they’ll drop it, which they did.”

“You lied, Geoff?” asked Dave.

“Well they started it.”

“You any idea what was going on, Geoff? Because what that copper said about seeing the tyres weren’t right was bullshit. I’ve been messing with cars for a living all my life and sure as hell I can’t do that.”

“Put it this way, Alf. My Allegro was parked on spare land I owned that was out of sight of the house and just about anyone else too, so the tyres could have been swapped without me knowing. I’d just been a court witness concerning a hit and run incident. Without doubt the copper had been hit and the vehicle had driven off, but it couldn’t have been the poor bastard they nailed for it because he had an alibi, he was working with me at the time several miles away. He had the right make and model of car and it was the right colour too which was unlucky. I’d had a couple of visits from the police suggesting delicately that I may have been mistaken. I don’t know what was going on but I’ve often wondered.”

~o~O~o~

There was a silence and Tommy said, “I’ve never trusted the bastards since they pulled me, Sarah and Jane my sister in off the streets in Manchester. The three of us and my four girls were out on a day’s shopping. We were all staying with Jane who lived down that way. Sarah had been looking forward to it for weeks. I’d have been pretty recognisable because I was wearing a broad brimmed rainproof hat, same as the one I wear now, like a lot of blokes wear round here. We’d had lunch and were going to go into the Arndale shopping centre, so that puts it before 1996 when the IRA(2) blew it to bits. I think it was round about 1980, but I’m not sure. A van pulled up and they pushed us in the back with no explanations. The girls were all still in nappies, the twins were still two I think so that dates it to 1978 or 1979. The law separated me from the women and the kids and we were all searched. I kept demanding to know why were we there. I was given some bullshit about a dodgy credit card. I’d never earnt enough to be allowed a credit card, in those days the banks only issued them to high earners, so I said it couldn’t be any thing to do with Sarah or me. I was told it was to do with Jane. ‘Don’t be bloody stupid,” I told the man, “She’s a top fashion designer and probably earns twenty or thirty times what you do. Why the hell would she be messing with a stolen credit card.” They searched all our stuff including a bag of dirty nappies. They’d pulled us off the street just before one and threw us out six miles from the car at nearly seven. My solicitor said because we’d not made a big enough fuss, legally we were helping the police with their enquiries and although he’d put a complaint in on our behalf it would just be filed. I never got a reply, never mind an explanation or an apology. I’ll never help the bastards again, no matter what.”

~o~O~o~

Sasha said, “A young copper was rude to me once in a shop queue. [line] I pointed out his lack of manners and said there was no need to talk to me as if I were a criminal. He told me we were all criminals it was just that some of us hadn’t been caught yet. I told him that presumably that meant all police officers were on the take from organised crime and fabricated evidence as a routine part of their daily duties. He said, ‘Fuck you,’ so I said, ‘You’re almost but not quite pretty enough for me to consider it,’ which got a laugh from all thirty or so customers in the shop who were watching and listening. Stupid man really. I was well known in the area and well thought of and he was a stranger. When he got to the front the shop keeper said, ‘We don’t serve bent coppers. Do yourself a favour, lad, bugger off and don’t come back. We don’t like folk who insult our friends and neighbours.’ He was laught out of the shop.”

“Was that Jim Postletwaite’s general store?”

“Yes. Why, Bill?”

“Jim telt me that tale years ago, but I didn’t know it was you. Seeing as we’re telling tales about plod(3) I’ve a one that I’ve not thought about for years, but let’s get another glass. My tale will just fit nicely before supper, which I can see the ladies are sorting out.”

“I’ll start pulling pints lads if someone will take them outside for me,” Pete remarked.

Alf stood and said, “I’ll go and get some trays, Pete.”

~o~O~o~

It was ten minutes or so before the tale spinners and listeners reconvened to hear Bill.

“Most of you know I used to drive a clapped out Peugeot 505 before I started driving Izuzu pick ups. I had some work for a few years down Distington way and used to come back up the coast road to Silloth and drop a bit of firewood off at my sister’s, before coming home. I used to pick up pallets from the builders’ merchants in Workington. They were glad to see them gone because they put them in skips [dumpsters] to have taken away and it cost them a fortune, and you don’t get many pallets in a skip. I had a sixteen foot three axled trailer and a bloody great plasterboard pallet on the car roof. I used to fill the boot, [trunk] the back of the car and pile the trailer and the pallet on the roof to the sky. It looked like a heavy load, but most of it was air. That what it’s like loading pallets. That day I loaded up, roped and ratchet strapped it all down and set off. I picked up plod somewhere round Grasslot before Maryport and they followed me all the way up the coast. They could have have pulled me at any time in the ten or twelve miles they were following me. I went through Allonby and they finally flashed me to stop when I was well past Beckfoot and ready to turn right to go through Wolsty.

“It was the worst possible combination, a arrogant bloke of about thirty with a young trainee,” Bill looked over his shoulders to check where the ladies were and lowered his voice, “wearing a goody sized pair of chest ornaments. He walked all round the load pulling on ropes and straps but they were all as tight as lute strings. A bloody tyre kicker if ever I saw one. I said naught because I thought I was probably a bit over weight. Anyway the bastard made me go all the way back to the weighbridge at Workington dock. I nearly pissed myself laughing when I was three kilo’s [7 pounds] under, but for once I was bloody glad the fuel tank was nearly empty.

“ ‘What’s the gross train weight on this,’ he asked.”

“ ‘According to the VIN [vehicle identity number] plate under the bonnet [hood] three thousand five hundred kilos. I’ll pop the bonnet and you can see for yourself,’ I replied with malice in every syllable. ‘And I’m three kilo’s under. I’ve noted your number and a complaint will be going in. You’ve cost me a hour and a fiver in diesel.’ ”

“ After looking at the VIN plate the idiot said, ‘The load looked unsafe,’ ”

“ ‘I don’t give a toss what it looked like because that is not a matter for the law. It either was or it was not unsafe, and you tested the tie downs. If you believed it to be unsafe you know damned well you made a serious error of judgement telling me to drive back to Workington, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt in thinking you did not believe it to be unsafe, but I’m glad I’m not looking like a complete idiot in front of the young lady. Now is there any further harassment, or are you going to do the job I’m paying taxes for and let me get on my way?’ I left and did write a letter of complaint, but received no reply. I passed the matter to my MP [member of parliament] but all he got was a bullshitting whitewash letter in reply.”

Most of the men were shrugging their shoulders, for they’d all had similar experiences at some time. Sasha summed it up when he said, “They don’t get paid enough, so the police can only recruit idiots because no one with any brains will do the job for that little money, because they can earn far more elsewhere. You pay peanuts and all you get are monkeys. Anyway it’s supper time.”

Supper was, as Denis said, “Abso-bloody-lutely excellent,” and it was an hour later before the ladies resumed their bowling and the men got back to yarning.(4)

~o~O~o~

“Any more tales about plod, Lads?” Sasha asked. “I’ve not got any more about plod I can think of, but I’ve got one about the council that’s equally stupid, unless anyone else wants to have a go.”

There were no takers so Sasha started. “This is from when I was cab driving and my boy Alex was at university. It’s going back to the days of when the Poll Tax replaced Property Rates as local taxation. That was in March 1990 in England. They’d learnt nothing from the disaster in Scotland where Poll Tax had been introduced twelve months before. Poll Tax was an even bigger disaster in England than it had been in Scotland, and it was replaced by Council Tax in March 1991. It was only in existence for about twelve months in England, but Councils were still forlornly pursuing the several million who’d refused to pay it for years. Alex was a student living at home for a while before he went to university and lived there. Students and the out of work only paid twenty percent of the full amount. I reckoned we owed five months worth at twenty percent. I was going to pay it, but then I changed my cab for another vehicle. The plates taxis are legally obliged to have visibly displayed at the rear of the vehicle are not transferable from vehicle to vehicle because they have the vehicles details on them. You have to pay for them up front, and the money is refundable when they are handed back in to the common law section of the Council which is the department that licences taxis. I can’t remember how much money it was, but it was not insignificant. I handed my plate back in to be told I would receive the cheque in the post in about three months, but I had to pay for the new one then and there. I reckoned It should have been a straight swap, but it was that or no plate, so no cab, and no work equals no wages.

“Being as mad as hell fire about it I deducted the money the Council owed me for my plate from the money I owed them for Alex’s Poll Tax and sent them the difference. I received a letter from them telling me it didn’t work like that and unless I paid the Poll Tax bill in full within ten working days they would take me to court. I ignored the letter and a month later still hadn’t received a court summons. I did receive a telephone call from the Council Treasurer’s office. I explained their internal arrangements were none of my affair and if they wanted to pursue the matter it would have to be in court, but since the Council already had all the money I owed them I suspected they wouldn’t do that because no court would find me guilty of any crime. Unlike the millions who had refused to pay the Poll Tax which they knew they would never recover because the police were refusing to prosecute because they simply didn’t have the manpower I at least had paid. I was told they would be passing the matter over to their enforcement department.

“That was when the fun started. The first enforcer asked if I were Mr. Vetrov. I said I was Professor Vetrov. He started on about the Poll Tax and I told him the department that dealt with Poll Tax was closed and he’d have to ring back tomorrow between ten and three thirty before putting the phone down and leaving it off the hook. At ten thirty the following day the phone went again and this time I said that Miss A Vetrov dealt with Poll Tax, but unfortunately she was off ill. This went on for weeks. Miss Vetrov went on courses, was temporarily seconded to another department and finally she went on maternity leave. I only ever said to the Council’s employees what one of them had said to me, though I admit I used just about every lame excuse and put off that they had used.”

“What happened in the end, Sasha?”

“They gave up. They knew they had no case and that I knew it too. It just took them a long time for the penny to drop that I wasn’t playing by their rules because I didn’t have to.”

~o~O~o~

“May I tell a couple of short tales, Gentlemen? One’s about a Council, and the other’s about the police,” asked a youngish looking man with red hair. The regulars had seen him several times though he had never spoken to anyone before.

“Pete, fetch the lad a drink. What you on, Son?” asked Denis.

“Bitter please. I’m Anthony, Tony.”

“Ok, Tony. There you are one pint of bitter specially brewed to keep the vocal cords in perfect condition. When you’re ready off you go,” Pete told him.

“I’m a bee keeper. Have been since I was kid. I learnt it from my granddad. Like many a bee keeper I registered with the Council, and they’d ring me up from time to time to remove a swarm. Bee keepers don’t charge for the service. It’s been accepted for centuries that a swarm belongs to whoever takes it. I took a swarm out of the Council offices once. It was in a room that had been full of folk working on computers in the finance department. It was on a coat rack and really easy to take. I did the job in about ten minutes.

At the time of the tale, I’d have been twenty three, just married to Beth and we’d not long moved into our first house. There was a footbridge over the nearby beck that folk used as a shortcut to walk from the shops and pubs to get home to the estate of houses behind our house. The beck ran under the overhead M60, the Manchester Motorway ring road, in a culvert which was always getting blocked. The frequent blockages and the chips [fries] that folk threw over the railings onto the banks when they’d had enough on their way home from the pub after calling at the chippy(5) made it a paradise for rats, and there were some big buggers. When the rats ran out of chips to eat they scavenged further afield, and Beth had had enough when she saw one in the kitchen.

“Beth and I are dentists, and someone at work said, ‘Ring the Council. They have men that deal with rats.’ So I did. I was told that the new procedure was if I went to any rent office and paid eighty quid they would send someone within the month from me either paying cash or my cheque clearing. I said it was all right I’d live with the four legged rats from the beck, but the ones with two legs that work for the council would live to regret trying to steal eighty quid off me. Like most bee keepers I belonged to the local association and I told every one at the next meeting what had happened. We came to a conclusion as to how to deal with the matter. Not long after that the Council had a swarm to deal with and I got lucky. They rang me. I told the woman that when two hundred pounds had cleared in my account, details of which I was happy to provide, I would attend to the matter. She clearly didn’t understand, so I explained, ‘You want eighty quid for some blokes to come and sort the rats out that come from the beck near my house. I reckon I’m worth at least two hundred quid if a rat catcher is worth eighty and furthermore you insisted you had to have possession of the money before you would act which I entirely agree with. I’ve spoken to every bee keeper in the area and they’ll all give you the same tale.’

“ ‘But we need them moving now. They’re in the Council meeting chamber.’ I laught and said, ‘ So you need to pay cash up front don’t you. Either that or move them yourself.’ ‘You don’t understand,’ she said. ‘I understand only too well. You feel entitled to squeeze me for money, but consider it unreasonable for me to do the same to you. Oh yes I understand. I just don’t care. Try ringing someone else. You may get a discount price, say a hundred and eighty, but I want two hundred.’ ”

Tony seemed to have finished. Alf asked, “What happened after that, Tony?”

“Nothing. They wouldn’t pay, so the Council had to meet somewhere else, and forty-eight hours later the swarm had found a home and moved off. At the next meeting one of our members said it moved into an empty hive he’d left in the back of his pick up parked in the Council car park. He’d left the hive with some attractant and wax sheets in it. The following year the Council dropped the eighty pound fee and the local bee keepers resumed collecting swarms for free.”

“Did you collect any, Tony?” asked Stan.

“No. I got the hell away from Greater Manchester and moved up here. We live near Keswick now and opened our own surgery in the town when one of the local one man practices retired. Best thing we ever did, and my bees do better up here too.

“My second tale is much shorter and about when I brought my bees up here. It was late summer, back end of August, so the long days and the good weather meant the bees were working till late. They were all strong colonies, but I didn’t want to lose any bees, so I left it till half past eleven and they were all back in the hives before closing the hives up and loading my six hives onto the trailer. A couple of bee keepers I knew gave me a hand to load up, and after a coffee it was nearly one in the morning when I set off for Cumbria. I was driving a big Volvo, and the trailer was a small, nearly new, two axled job that I’d borrowed from another bee keeper. By the time I’d reached the M6 motorway the weather wasn’t good any more. It was one of those violent, electrical summer storms. At first I thought with the thunder and lightening it was just a cloud burst and wouldn’t last long. It was hammering it down fit to knock holes in the tarmac, but it didn’t let up. It just kept pouring it down. Visibility was poor, so I went up the M6 at about fifty. Fortunately the traffic was light. I turned off the M6 at junction 40 onto the A66 and headed for Workington. We were living in a rented property at Harrington, and I had organised a site for my hives with a local farmer. I noticed the police car parked high up on the bank at the Cockermouth sheep and wool centre on the far side of the traffic island. In my rear view mirror I saw them drive down on to the road and follow me, but thought nothing of it. It was still pouring down and must have been getting on for four in the morning. The police car’s flashing blue lights came on and I pulled up.

“The coppers had an appallingly aggressive attitude and one said they wanted to see what was in my boot [trunk] and in my trailer. I opened the boot and it was empty other than a white bee keeping suit and my smoker and other tools. I unclipped the flexible ties on the tarpaulin and let them look. One of the two banged on the first hive and I told him, “If I were you I wouldn’t do that.”

“His mate asked, ‘Are you threatening us?’ ”

“ ‘Far from it,’ I replied. ‘I’m trying to keep that idiot of a mate of yours alive.’ ”

“Just then his mate jumped back and asked, ‘What’s that noise?’ ”

“ ‘It’s the bees that you have just rattled by banging on their hive. The air is full of static due to the storm and they will be aggressive if they get out. They’re strong colonies, so there’re are possibly forty thousand in each hive. If you let them out you’ll both probably be dead in minutes, but I’ve built up immunity to bee stings over the years, so I should be ok. However, I don’t want to lose my bees, so leave them alone please. The hive entrances are closed with a piece of foam which it would be inadvisable to mess with.’ ”

“The bees in the hive he’d banged were roaring so loudly that I could hear them over the rain from ten feet away, and their noise and vibrations were setting the others off too. After half a minute I couldn’t hear the rain.”

“ ‘That doesn’t sound very safe,’ the idiot who’d banged on the hive said.”

“ ‘It’s the standard method of moving a few hives of bees, and it is perfectly safe if only folk who know what they are doing have any dealings with them. I’ve not long since moved up here and I’m taking them to Harrington where I have site for them.’ I shewed them my driving licence and they let me go. I left the trailer at their new home and drove home to get some sleep. When I awoke in the late afternoon the weather was sunny again, and I went to sort the bees out. The hives were quiet as I moved them to their stands and when I removed the foam closures it was business as usual. All I had to do to finish the job was return the trailer.

“Beth and I bought a house near Keswick a few months later with enough land to put the bees on, so I moved them in the early summer. Later that summer the bigger of those two coppers came into the surgery. He told the receptionist that he was in a lot of pain. ‘Hello, Officer, what can I do for you?’ I asked. From his swollen face he looked like he probably had an abscess. I saw recognition flood his face in the few seconds before he fled. I’m not sure what he thought I’d do to him, but clearly he was not a pleasant person, for he must have been thinking what he would have done had our situations been reversed. Still maybe he learnt something from the experience, but somehow I doubt it.”

~o~O~o~

“ Cracking good tale, Tony. I love it when the little guy wins for a change. It doesn’t happen anywhere near often enough. Ok, Lads, it’s a pleasant eve, so I’ll start pulling pints if you fetch the dominoes out.”

“Put these on my slate,(6) Pete,” Pat instructed. “If you play dominoes, Tony, I’ll partner you. And if there’s any food left over, Pete, I’ll have a mouthful or two.

“I heard that, Pat,” said Gladys. “There’s more than a mouthful or two, so if anyone else wants some just say so. I’d rather it were eaten than have to pack it away in the fridge.” Several said they’d have some, so Gladys said, “I’ll put it all on a couple of big serving plates and leave it on your tables for you. The ladies and I are going inside for a bit more warmth and a brandy or two. I’ll put a couple of logs on the fires in the taproom because you’ve only got another three-quarters of an hour of daylight and doubtless you’ll be playing till midnight.”

1 Catcht, dialectal caught.
2 IRA, the Irish Republican Army. A terrorist/resistance group, which depends on your politics, that operated after the partition of Ireland till the peace process was established. There are still splinter groups that have not accepted the peace.
3 Plod, pejorative term for the police. Mr. Plod was a fictional bumbling police officer in the Noddy series of children’s books by Enid Blyton.
4 Yarning, telling yarns. Yarns, tales.
5 Chippy, vernacular for a fish and chip shop. A take away establishment, most of which are open late at night when the pubs close to take advantage of the trade.
6 Slate, account, tab. Pat is saying he’ll pay for the round.

A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 19 Recent Events.

It was Saturday the 21st of December 2019 at the Green Dragon Bearthwaite. The pub like everywhere else was tricked out in decorations and ready for Christmas. The grumpy old men, glad to have escaped their forced involvement in the seasonal festive activities at their homes, had settled down anticipating a pleasant evening of yarns and drinking. But an unusually serious looking Sasha started by saying, “The signs are always there for those who actually see what’s there rather than what they want to see. My great great uncle Gregor was a metallurgist, but more than that he looked at the evidence and events in his day to day life too. He had a gift of seeing where we were, what folk were doing and where it would take the world. The world mind, not just his corner of it. He made predictions, and those that haven’t come to pass yet I’m confident will. When I was a child he told me of the modern state of ICT. Of course he had no idea how it would function, but he predicted almost instant communication and data transfer and handling on a scale that got him laught at at the time. Crazy Gregor, he’s off again with his fantasies they’d say, but here we are. Eventually he just kept his mouth shut, but he made a hell of a lot of money by acting on his predictions in the world’s stock markets, which would have resulted in a firing squad if the authorities had found out about it.

“Gregor used to talk to me. How he knew I’d keep my mouth shut I don’t know to this day, but he never told me I had to. When I was boy, six, certainly no more than seven, he’d made what I regard as his most significant prediction. In those days Lake Baikal was safe to drink and held a fifth of the world’s unfrozen fresh water. It was and may still be the largest lake in the world, but there are warnings against drinking it, for it is largely toxic today. Too, the Ural Sea was huge and a major source of fish. It was the fourth largest saline sea on the planet. Now it has mostly disappeared due to taking the rivers that fed it for irrigation purposes. There are big ships high and dry on land miles from the old shore lines. Gregor told me the day was coming when wars would be fought for potable water. Potable was the word he used. I remember because I’d never heard it before. Those wars have been going on for decades in various parts of the world, and the Colorado in the States has been running at ever decreasing levels for years. Potable means safe to drink, Alf.”

“He spoke to you in English? Sasha.”

“Always, Alf. It was safer because there were few where we lived who if they overheard him would understand. He taught me to speak English, and read and write in English too, and folk just thought our conversations were lessons. I suppose in many ways they were some of the most important lessons of my life.”

“Where’s all this going, Sasha? This isn’t just a tale of your childhood is it?”

“No it’s not, Stan. I learnt from my uncle to read events too. That bloody Chinese virus will be over here soon, and God alone knows how the government will deal with it. My guess is they’ll prevaricate, bugger about doing nothing that is, before they issue a restriction of movement order on the general public. The stock markets will crash and food will be difficult to get hold of, so I suggest you start buying enough food to last you at least twelve months. Household stuff too, soap, loo roll, matches, toothpaste, the works. Get some vermin proof containers, enough for a hundred weight of flour at least and dried yeast too for bread, and the same in dried beans or peas. Make sure your wife’s cupboards are fully stocked and your freezers are full. It’s not going to be funny, and you want to be fully stocked before the idiots strip the shelves in every shop and supermarket in the country. Phil says as long as he has grain he’ll keep the mill operating and keep enough flour back to ensure locals never run short. I’ve ordered an eighteen wheeler load of propane in 47kg [103 pound] bottles. We can store them in the boatshed. I’ve also ordered a a fifty thousand litre [13766 US gal] tanker of heating oil and we can park the tanker up on the spare ground outside Alf’s workshop. I suggest we build a barn over it. Alf knows how to get the oil out, but we need to make sure a good number of others do too, preferably some a good bit younger than us.”

Harry said, “Back when I was driving waggons I did six months driving for Allan Stobart Fuels and Lubricants. I packed it in after the first winter because it scared the crap out me driving something with so high a centre of gravity with fuel sloshing about on icy unsalted rural Cumbrian roads. I’ll train some lads up for us.”

“Good lad, Harry,” was said by a number of folk.

“How much rent is the tanker going to set you back, Sasha?” Asked Dennis.

“It isn’t. I bought it.”

“Christ above, you reckon it’s going to be that bad, Sasha?”

“No, Denis. It’ll be a sight worse. I’m looking to buy bulk red diesel [illegal to be used on the road because the tax is much less] and petrol too. Other than food I suggest you start spending bugger all and you forget about any further Christmas expenditure. Make sure you can cope with extended power cuts, worse than the usual at this time of year. I know you’ll all have fuel wood to see you till next back end ready dried for the cold, but get enough candles, generator fuel, coal, and gas cylinders laid in for a twelve month too, you know the score. John, George you need to order a load of spares in for your chainsaws, enough to last a twelve month. Now, before any one objects, I’m buying a load of computers with Skype or Zoom so we can all meet as usual, but over the internet. I’ll make sure everyone can use them next week and those of us that are computer literate can set the systems up in your homes and shew you how to use them. I’ll write up a set of instructions and I suggest we all buy a couple of bags of potatoes from Alf. Your best protection at the moment is avoid meeting people, so once we get the communication system stuff sorted I suggest we use it and avoid not just outsiders, but everyone we can, including each other till we can see our way a bit more clearly. Hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst.

“Dave has already agreed to start sourcing as much vegetables, eggs and milk locally, and he's ordered an eighteen wheeler load of toilet paper. If any one can provide some storage space he'd be much obliged. Alf you need to convince your mates on the allotment to start supplying him and we all need to convince our wives and everybody else to buy the supplies from Dave. We’ve been self reliant here for centuries not decades, but we need to increase our self reliance and decrease our dependence on outside supplies.

“You’ve known Sasha longer than anyone else, Denis. You reckon all this is for real?”

“I reckon we’d be idiots not to do what he says, Bill. If we don’t and he’s right, we’re stuffed. If we do and he’s wrong, we’ve just got a lot of food in the house. Sasha’s lived where food and other necessities were almost impossible to get a hold of, so I’m going to be doing what he says. I’ve listened to some of his so called crazy predictions before, and as far as I’m aware they all came to happen.”

Phil said, “I’ve already noticed a significant increase in the number of enquiries from firms that wouldn’t usually bother with a small mill like ours. Bastards seem to think they’d be doing us a favour by paying peanuts for a contract giving them our total out put for anything up to three years. So Sasha isn’t the only one thinking that way. However we’ll be fine for flour. I’ve bought all the grain of every description from all our local farms this year. Those new silos enabled me to store it. I haven’t paid for it all yet, so I’d appreciate a bit of support. If all the locals buy their flour from me or from Dave who gets it from me I’ll agree not sell any to outside bakeries. That’ll keep us okay for bread for years.” Phil shrugged indicating solidarity with the folk who lived in the area his ancestors had milled for for centuries. “I was already working on a new pair of stones, so I guess we’ll be okay there for a goodly time, and I've got two pairs of blanks I can form when ever it suits.

“How did you deal with the enquiries, Phil?”

Phil laught, a short, dry, brutal laugh, “I didn’t. I let Alice deal with them.” That caused significant laughter, for Alice who was a miller too also managed the business and was well known to have no time for the large concerns that had been trying to put the mill out of business since before she and Phil had been born.

“How long will it be you reckon before things get back to normal, Sasha?”

“Never, Pete, if by normal you mean like they are now. We’ll eventually get back to a normal, but it will be a completely different normality. Life will have changed. During the first world war a major social change took place that led to votes for women. It would have happened anyway because it was long overdue, but the war triggered it. Another major social change occurred during the second world war when women worked in factories doing work that previously had only been available to men. They knew they could operate machine tools, drive heavy vehicles and perform other tasks as well as men and were not prepared to go back to being the stay at home little wifey who managed home and children and did as she was told. Again the change was overdue and the war was just a trigger.

“When the war against this virus is over, and that’s what it will be, a war, who knows what changes will come in its wake. No one is admitting it yet and they’re all talking about containing it, but it’s too damned late. The incubation period is too long to contain it. By now there will be folk all over the world with it who don’t know yet. Too, it seems there are some folk with it who don’t get ill with it, so they’ll probably never know they’ve had it and passed it on to God know how many, dozens, scores, hundreds, maybe thousands even. It’ll be out of control now, and it’s being assisted to spread by the idiot politicians who only ever listen to scientists and other experts when it suits their political ambitions. I know I’ve got an axe to grind, but politicians are all educated in subjects I regard as complete bollocks which renders them unfit to govern the moment an understanding of reality is required.

“Of course no one educated in the stuff that makes the world go round would dream of going into politics. The only exceptions I know of are medics who went into politics, maybe their potential patients should be grateful. Politics, marketing, economics, psychology, sociology, philosophy, law, are examples of bollocks subjects, but there are dozens more. Politicians are basically innumerate and know bugger all that STEM(1) encompasses. Every STEM graduate knows a hell of a lot more of the bullshit subjects than the bullshitters do about STEM. I heard a minister of education say a few years ago that the government’s target was that eighty percent of all children should be above average.(2) It’s not hard, Alf. The average means the middle, so exactly fifty percent are above it all the time and exactly fifty percent are below it all the time. If kids learn more the average moves up to keep it in the middle. Okay?”

“Yeah. I get that. Why didn’t some one tell me that when I was at school?”

“They did, Alf, but as usual you weren’t listening.” Stan’s remark caused a ripple of laughter before Sasha resumed.

“What’s stem, Sasha?”

“STEM, is a term that takes the initials of science, technology, engineering and mathematics and is used for the stuff that’s supposed to be hard to learn. You’re involved, Alf. You understand about tolerances and can rebuild gearboxes and the like, and design equipment too. I guess it’s all the stuff that makes things happen.”

Alf nodded and said, “Funny thing you know, Sasha, when I was an apprentice doing day release at tech(3) there was a lecturer who said I was thick cos I couldn’t get my head round AC(4) electrical theory, but the idiot couldn’t repair the alternator on his BMW. I still laugh about that from time to time.”

“I’ve known a lot like that over the years, Alf. But back to the politicians. Natural phenomena are not subject to spin, they do what ever it is they do, and this one kills. So far only those with underlying health issues, or so we’re told, but there will be the young and healthy who are particularly susceptible to it who will die, just as there will be the elderly with all sorts of other health problems who will prove to be immune to it who won’t even feel ill. Anyone who says there will be a safe and tested treatment for it in much less than a year is bullshitting because that’s about how long it takes to develop a treatment for this kind of thing even when unlimited resources are threwn at the problem and the bureaucracy is cut down to nil, and remember Bubonic plague wiped out possibly two hundred million people, probably sixty percent of the Eurasian population at the time. That was called the Black Death.

“As for what will change. Folk will have to do a great deal more over the internet and the telephone, not just shopping. I suspect a large number of face to face interactions that various professional persons, like medical personnel, solicitors, bankers and folk I haven’t considered yet too, have always insisted their physical presence was absolutely vital for will be seen to be perfectly adequately managed over the phone, by Skype, Zoom and similar mechanisms. Having been managed that way for the duration they’ll continue to be so done after the dust has settled. Education will be conducted over the internet a great deal more. They’re having to do so now and the model already exists for distance learning. Many think, and I’m one of them, that the UK Open University is the best under graduate and graduate distance learning environment in the world, and you can get assistance with the fees, work while you study, and don’t get a load of student debt that some will never pay off before they retire. It is portable so if you move or take a couple of years or ten if you’re a woman and want a family, or you just want a year or so off there’s nothing lost.”

“Not saying you’re wrong, Sasha, but it is depressing and I think I’ll have some thing hard to go with my pint. Pull a round, Pete, I’ll get ’em in.(5) You got any of that Mountain Dew(6) left, Pat?”

“That I have. I’ll fetch a couple or maybe four bottles from the cellar.”

“I haven’t the heart for tales the night,” Denis said with a saddened look on his face, “So get the dominoes out as I’ve a feeling this may be our last session for some time.”

1 STEM, collective term for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
2 In the UK, unlike in the US, Average does not equate to Mean. It is a collective term for various measures of central tendency. Examples of which include Mean [US Average], Median, and Mode and various other more sophisticated measures. I refer you to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average. There is a rap taught by some teachers of mathematics in the UK, the MMMR rap which is NOT the MMM rap to be found on Youtube. It is used to teach Mean, Mode, Median and Range. Like Average, Range is not used in the UK in the way EXCEL uses it. Strictly Sasha should have used the term Median, but his point is still valid if one considers the concept.
3 Day release at tech, released by his employer when he was an apprentice to go to technical college on designated days to study.
4 AC, alternating current. The most widely used electrical system all over the world. Unlike DC, direct current, where the voltage and current remain steady, an AC supply usually follows a sine wave cyclically going from positive values to negative ones.
5 Get ’em in, pay for them. Indicates paying for a round of drinks.
6 Mountain Dew, poteen. Illicitly distilled Irish spirit.

Paul started the proceedings. “I was born and grew up in Dumfries but my stepdad had to move with his company to the midlands when I was thirteen I think. When this tale happened I was still at home with Mum and my stepfather. We lived in a little town called Malvern in Worcestershire, where the three counties shews are held. I’d have been no more than fifteen when I went down to London for a meeting with my bio dad. God alone knows why I’d agreed to it. All I could remember of him was the shouting, the hitting and the insults, and my step father whom I’d always called dad, and I still do, had been a proper and decent father to all of us. I think I’d caught a tube from Euston station to Green Park, but I could be wrong, for it was a long time ago. London and its folk perplexed me. They were all so busy and bad mannered.

“Anyway I was sitting down when a woman got on. She looked like she was at least eight months. I got up to offer her my seat when some fucking shit with a bowler hat, an umbrella, a briefcase and a paper under his arm sat down in my seat before I’d had time to say anything. To be honest I saw red and was prepared to pulp the bastard. But I got control of myself and merely grabbed him by the throat, lifted him out of the seat, threw him to the floor and said, ‘I apologise for the behaviour of this piece of selfish manure because I stood up to offer you my seat. Please have a seat, Mistress.’

“All the clones of the bloke in the carriage drew away from me. I was angry and shouted at them, ‘Where I come from we treat all women with respect and even more so when they are with child. I know you southerners consider anyone from north of Watford to be barbarians, but you talcum knackered southern jessies are nothing but uncivilised, selfish offal, and if you want to make something of it I’ll be happy to take the lot of you on. Go on. I may not be able to take you all out, but I’ll give you odds if you have a go a good couple of dozen of you will be eating hospital food for at least a week.’ The lass was blushing bright red, so I said to her, ‘I’m sorry if I embarrassed you, Mistress, but I won’t be taken advantage of, nor will I allow you to be either. I’m only here for the day, and to be honest I’ll never willingly go south of Lancaster again, for I’ve seen nothing but unkindness, insult and inconsideration here and I’ve only been here an hour.’ ”

“What happened when you met your dad, Paul?”

“I’ve no idea, Dave. I can’t remember anything about the meeting and I never saw him again. The incident on the tube is all that’s remained with me for decades.”

~o~O~o~

Harry said he’d got a couple of tales from when he lived in Monton near Eccles Greater Manchester. “I was still getting educated and had been driving the cab for an outfit called Dial-a-Cab that operated near Eccles, but the owner’s boyfriend was not a nice man, so after a couple of years of putting up with him I left to go and drive for a Salford firm. Well, that was bloody eye opener. On my first shift someone left a gun on my back seat. I took it down to the Salford main police station on the Crescent and they kept me for three hours, almost but not quite accusing me of being a frigging armed bank robber. When I left I telt them, ‘If any thing like this ever happens again I’ll just threw the damned thing in the river Irwell because helping you with you enquiries has cost me half a day’s income. Never again.’

“Back at the office we figured out an explanation. The lass I’d picked up from Salford shopping precinct lived with a really dangerous nutter who was out on bail. The lads reckoned he’d been planning a hold up and in an attempt to keep him out of trouble she’d got rid of his gun in my cab. They told me the cops had been on to them, but they’d given them a load of bullshit because they just didn’t want to be involved. They also told me never to go to the law about anything in future. If I’d got a problem just go back to the office and they’d deal with it. Eventually I realised that most of them knew all the bad guys and one had a brother who was a copper that used to come into the office to smoke weed after his shift on weekend nights with the rest.

“Two days later I was driving down a street called Guy Fawkes Street, the entire area had originally been Guy Fawkes’ estate and Ordsall Hall then a museum had originally been his manor house. Yes, Alf, I do mean the bloke who was hanged, drawn and quartered for trying to blow up parliament. Now going down Guy Fawkes street you went past Sunnyside Court which was an eighteen storey high rise block of flats. They were demolished years ago. I’m not sure when. Clear as day I saw a sofa coming out of a window about three-quarters of the way up. In the rear view mirror I saw it land in the middle of the street and turn into matchsticks. I was seriously wondering what the hell I’d done moving to a firm round there at that point. However, I was there for six years and never missed a shift working twelve, often eighteen, hours a day for seven days a week. We were struggling for cash and wanted to get out and buy a decent place, but we needed money to do it.

“A couple of months later I was asked if I would go in early at three in the afternoon because they were short of day drivers. I didn’t usually start till seven when the rush hour traffic was essentially over. I hated driving days because of one the traffic and two the day drivers. Day drivers are all nutters. I think that’s due to the stress of driving in heavy traffic. I said I’d do it. I’d been working for maybe three-quarters of an hour when I was telt to pick up someone called Janet from the Tip Top on Langworthy Road. I’d been up and down Langworthy road a couple of times and hadn’t spotted any shop called Tip Top. The radio operator had changed by this time and it was the usual night operator, ‘Seventeen,’ he called. ‘Where are you? Janet says she’s seen you twice and you were looking at the other side of the road.’ ‘I can’t see any Tip Top’ I said. All I could hear was laughing in the office. Turned out the lass that did the desk before him had a hearing issue and I should have been looking for the Chip Shop.

“In those days I drove a Cortina mark four. You’ve heard of Friday afternoon cars. Well that car was just the opposite. It was the fasted Cortina I’ve ever heard of, and at a ton fifteen it purred. I’d started early at four in the afternoon on Saturday. I’d worked all the way through till eight on Sunday morning and had made a hell of a lot of money. It would have going on for ten past eight and I was parked up at the top of the hill on Langworthy Road. I’d agreed to hang on till some day drivers arrived and was dozing. ‘Seventeen.’ ‘Read on,’ I replied. ‘Still no day drivers. You up for one more job? Pick up at Higher Broughton.’ I didn’t want it because I was exhausted, but if a desk man asks you to you cooperate because if you don’t all you’ll get is shit thereafter. ‘Go on,’ I replied. I went to the address and I thought the guy was taking the piss when he said, ‘London.’ He gave me two hundred and fifty quid off a roll and said, ‘ If it’s more than that, tell me and I’ll pay you. Just be quick about it. I went to a club last night and I’ve been shagging all night. I’m knackered, so I’ll crash out on the back seat. I’m a film director. I came up here for a meeting at Granada studios and I’ve a meeting at twelve that I can’t afford to miss.’

“Well that meant he wasn’t available to talk to me to keep me awake. My eyes were twitching all the way down. I woke him up as we got to where the M25 is now and when I dropped him off after looking at his watch he gave me another hundred and fifty. I went to a greasy spoon for some breakfast and headed back home. There were no cameras in those days and bugger all cops out on a Sunday and I flew it in both directions, eyes seriously twitching all the way. I was home at just gone half past twelve. One of the day drivers’ had a girlfriend who lived a few houses away from my house and he asked me where I’d been. He told the boys at work when he’d seen me parking up on my drive and they didn’t believe I’d been to London. Taking the time out for my breakfast I’d done over four hundred miles at an average of just over a hundred miles an hour. Thirty miles an hour above the speed limit.

“Apparently three day drivers turned up just after I’d been given the job and they’d tried to contact me to take the job off me, but I’d agreed to do one more and thinking it was a local run and not wanting to any more, even if there were no day drivers in, I’d turned my radio off. The day men were furious, but the desk man had simply said ‘Well you know what to do. Turn up for work on time. Seventeen is covering your arses. The customer said he wanted a cab immediately, or he’d ring somewhere else, so if Seventeen hadn’t stayed on you wouldn’t have had the job whatever.’ They asked what the job had been quoted at and were telt there was no quote. The customer had said, ‘I want a cab now with a fast driver. I’ve got cash on me and I’ll make it worth his while. The faster he gets me there the more worthwhile I’ll make it.’ I got some kip and was back at work for six that evening. There were some seriously sick day drivers when I telt them the job had been worth four hundred quid.”

~o~O~o~

“You look irritated, Alf. What’s up? Who’s been rattling your cage?”

“Bout ten this morning the ericaceous compost I’d ordered arrived at my sister Edith’s, Pete. Can you believe it? Seven hundred and fifty bloody kilos on a pallet [1650 pounds] was delivered by a wagon with nothing other than a pallet barrow to off load with. The wagon had a tail lift and dropped the pallet in the middle of the lonning (1) and the driver got back in his cab and drove off. Eighty bloody bags of the stuff and I had to start moving them off the tarmac before any came along because the lonning was blocked. I’d shifted maybe three-quarters of them and who came along but that misery guts Tom Waymouth. We’ve never got on for the same reasons none else gets on with him. His missus was driving, I don’t think he’s driven since his stroke, and I half expected him to get out and start a slanging match. I waved his missus to drive past on Edith’s verge and she did with the old bastard himself glaring at me all the while. I just smiled because I knew that was what would irritate him most. Another quarter of an hour and I had the stuff all shifted, but I’ve put a complaint into the folk who I bought it off. I know it’s not their fault because it came from down country and was probably trans shipped twice. I know the wagon that delivered it picked it up from a depot in Carlisle, but you never know they may just use another carrier or insist on a suitably equipped wagon on each delivery leg.”

“So what you going to do with it at Edith’s?”

“Nothing. I had it delivered there in case the road to here was flooded. I was going to go for it with Peabody’s tractor. He said I could use his John Deere, the one with the pallet forks. It was in my workshop at the time for some work on the hydraulics. But his lad Alan picked it up at lunchtime and said he’d bring the stuff back later in the afternoon for me, so it’s down at the allotments now, but I’m still annoyed about it.”

“Ne’er mind lad. A few scoops(2) will set you to rights.”

~o~O~o~

Charlie said, “I don’t know why but I was thinking about a relative of mine recently, and I’ll tell you about her if you like?”

Charlie didn’t say much as a rule and his only tale to date had been a good one which had been an extensive description of his childhood. Sasha said, “Go on then, Charlie, just hang on till we can all open a fresh bottle.” The men sorted their beer out and Charlie started.

“My mother’s cousin Marsha had been blinded as a child. She’d run up behind someone wearing bedroom slippers and hadn’t been heard. The someone, I was never telt who, but I know it was a relative, had been using a scythe and it took both her eyes out. Unlike most blind folk who are usually born blind and often have a degree of cognitive impairment Marsha was exceedingly bright and eventually obtained a first in librarianship specialising in Braille books from Oxford. She ended up working at the Bodleian library at Oxford university. She was a fair bit older than me, but we got on because she had a wicked sense of humour. I remember her telling my mum once from the front room that the chips [US fries] were done, she explained she could tell by the sound they made. I was always fascinated that she only had to hear a stranger’s footsteps once and no matter what they were wearing on their feet next time she came across them she’d know who it was.

“She telt me a story from when she was thirteen or maybe fourteen. There was only one grammar school for the blind in England in those days. It was way down south and they reckoned just to keep up with a sighted person a blind person had to be thirty IQ points brighter. Marsha was returning home from the grammar school at the end of term with a few friends who all lived in the north. She’d broken her leg and it was in a cast. She never telt me how she’d broken her leg. The train was full and so she and her friends were all in the corridor of the carriage sitting on their suitcases. Her leg was sticking out because in the cast there was nothing else she could do. Some bloke rushing down the corridor tripped over her leg and measured his length falling over on his face. ‘What’s the matter with you,’ he demanded clearly enraged. ‘It was obvious I was coming past. Are you blind?’ ‘Yes,’ replied Marsha. ‘All of us.’

“When I was younger, I read loads of books aloud into a tape recorder for Marsha. I was happy to do it. Marsha asked me if I minded her passing the tapes on to the Royal National Institute for the Blind, so they could copy them and distribute them. I said, ‘No problem.’ I’d read all of Dickens, all that Tolkien had published at that date and a load more. Eventually the RNIB started to treat me like I owed it to them and became very demanding. I telt them to piss off, and Marsha agreed after that that she’d not pass on anything I recorded for her. Tell you, you do something for free and folk always start to consider it to be worth nothing and treat you like shit. Marsha died years ago, but I still remember her with affection and was happy for her when at turned fifty after a series of operations she had a limited degree of sight restored to one eye.

“The only other thing I remember of those days vaguely to do with Marsha was my gran collecting silver paper for the organisation that bred and trained guide dogs. A lot of women collected it in those days. The organisation weighed it in as aluminium. I remember my gran separating the silver foil from the tissue it was with from my grandpa’s cigarette packets and washing milk bottle tops. Marsha never had a guide dog because she didn’t like dogs or any other animals come to that.”

Charlie added, “I’ve got a couple more if you like?”

“Go on, Lad.”

“My grandpa as lived at Risley had a static caravan [US trailer] we used to holiday in at Penmaenmawr in north Wales. I mind one year when my youngest sister was maybe a year old, still in nappies [US diapers] so I’d have been five and a half we went there in July. There’d been a really violent storm a few days before. We were on the beach when she started howling. Mum raced over and she’d got a really nasty rash on one of her legs. The local hospital said the beaches were covered with a nasty jelly fish called Portuguese Man of War that had been blown north in huge numbers by the storm. They added she was lucky because her nappy had protected her from even worse. Seems a baby could have been killed by one of the things.

“A few years later Grandpa sold his static caravan and joined the caravan club. He bought a big caravan he could tow so he and Gran could go to caravan club rallies at weekends. Not long after he bought his first touring caravan Mum and Dad and the five of us kids were going to have a fortnight’s holiday near Grange over Sands in his caravan. Grandpa was going to take the caravan to the caravan site and we were going to meet him there. One of my sisters was staying at Gran’s and she would be coming with them. Grandpa was supposed to meet us at two at the site which was at Flookburgh, but he didn’t arrive till gone four. He drove a Ford Zodiac and been travelling north on the M6 towing the Swift Sprite which was a large and light caravan. Later it was discovered that two large sheep transporters had been reported as racing each other and driving dangerously to the police. They passed Grandpa, who was driving at sixty miles per hour which was the speed limit for a car and caravan, one on each side of him. The turbulence turned the caravan onto its side still attached to his car and he ended up facing the wrong way on the motorway. My sister who was sitting in the middle of the bench seat between him and Grandma was trapped between them and none of them were hurt.

“Some lorries stopped, and one of the drivers stopped the motorway traffic whilst the others man handled the caravan back onto its wheels. Grandpa did a U turn on the motorway and continued on his way. As far as any was aware the police were completely unaware of the incident though both of the sheep transporter drivers were later arrested for dangerous driving. When grandpa arrived he told my parents what had happened and they looked inside the caravan for the first time since the incident. The inside was a mess with the contents all over the place. The lead acid battery that powered the lighting had leaked acid and the carpet had holes in it. You wouldn’t believe how much mess a dozen eggs and half a pound of loose tea can make, but eventually order was restored and Gran went to the site shop for some more eggs and tea. Grandpa couldn’t survive without regular fixes of tea and he didn’t hold with tea bags. I don’t remember much of the holiday other than that the site swimming pool was over warm and that the races on the nearby go cart racing track which had been laid out on the old world war two aerodrome that the site was a part of were exciting. Grandpa got a new caravan on his insurance, but his next one though as big was nearly twice as heavy as the Sprite.

“I suppose the most exciting thing that happened on that holiday was meeting Isla Gregory, she was from Whitley Bay, and she was nice. They weren’t my first kisses with a girl, but they were the first that got my hands inside a lass’s underclothes. I got a lot of teasing from Grandpa about her, but I’d have been horse whipped by her dad if he’d discovered what we’d got up to.

“My grandparents were a bit odd to some folk. I remember my grandpa sitting down to his evening meal and just staring at it. Eventually my gran said, ‘What’s the matter, Jock?’ ‘You’ve not stirred my tea,’ he replied. ‘I’m sorry, Love,’ said Gran immediately stirring his tea. Now before any says any thing Gran was as bad. She’d have frozen to death before bringing in a scuttle of coal from just outside the back door because that was men’s work.”

There were a number of sympathetic comments and Dave said, “My grandparents were the same. There was women’s work and there was men’s work and no overlap.”

“I used to go to work with Grandpa from time to time when I was kid. I mind one time we were building a new set of gate pillars at the entrance to Winwick Hospital which was once one of those huge Victorian mental hospitals. It’s a housing estate now I think. Anyway there was a gang of council brickies repairing the wall which ran all the way round the place. There were miles of it. One of the brickies came over to grandpa and asked if they could have a shovel of compo.(3) Grandpa said, ‘I’ll put a batch of sand and cement on for you. You can pay me back when you stuff arrives.’ ‘No,’ the bloke said. ‘A shovelful will keep us going all day.’ We were two days building those pillars, in Accrington stock brick, they were huge, I'd guess fifteen foot tall and three foot square and the cast iron gates that swung off them must have been well over a ton apiece. Going on for a thousand bricks in each pillar, and in that time the entire gang of five men hadn’t laid twenty bricks. I remember grandpa saying, ‘I’d rather you don’t end up in the building trade, Son, but if you do never employ anyone who has ever worked for the council, if they were any good they’d have worked elsewhere for twice the money.’

“Another funny thing I remember was when grandpa was building a house for someone. They’d specified it was to be built with black mortar. In those days that was not achieved using dye but by mixing soot into the batch. The house was halfway up when the customer changed his mind and said he wanted white mortar. He soon rechanged his mind when Grandpa telt him all the work above the damp proof course would have to be demolished and what it would all cost.

“Three years after that holiday at Flookburgh gran died at the age of fifty-one. Grandpa met Joan at a caravan club rally. She was thirty years younger than him and the head mistress of her own primary school near Chorley. They eventually married and I liked her.”

~o~O~o~

Dave said, “On a different note I’ve got one for you.” Dave was well known for telling shaggy dog stories so there was considerable interest in what he’d got to say. “A well dressed rabbit walked into an all day breakfast joint and ordered a cheese toastie. The waitress thought that a bit odd, a rabbit eating cheese, but after he’d finished and before he left he gave her a generous tip, so she shrugged it off. The following day the rabbit came in and ordered an egg and bacon toastie. ‘That’s queer,’ the same waitress thought, but again the rabbit left a generous tip. Every day for six weeks the rabbit ordered a toastie with his coffee, and every time he left a generous tip. The waitress had chatted a bit with her generous customer and had grown to like him. She’d even considered him to be handsome and rather fancied him, even if he was only five foot two, for he was always well dressed and groomed, he was well spoken and clearly wasn’t short of money. One day he came in and ordered a ham toastie and after he’d finished it he called her over and said, “I’ve been working hard today and I’m still hungry would you get me another toastie please? I fancy one with Danish blue cheese.”

“Certainly, Sir,” she replied. “Would you like me to refill your coffee too?”

“Please,” the rabbit replied.

She topped his coffee cup up and a few minutes later brought the Danish blue toastie. The rabbit took one bite and fell out of his chair gasping for breath. She asked him what was wrong and should she call an ambulance. “Too late,” the rabbit replied in his last few seconds. “I forgot the first rule of rabbitdom. I’m dying from mixing my toasties.” The roars of laughter took a while to quieten.

“Is that it?” asked Alf. “I don’t get it. Why are you all laughing?”

Sasha replied, “Mixing my toasties, is similar to myxomatosis, Alf. You get it now?”

Alf smiled and said, “Yeah. I get it now, but I still don’t get why you clever buggers bother with me.”

“Because you’re a bloody genius with our cars and other stuff that we can’t fix when they go wrong, Alf. None of us can be good at every thing,” Pete replied. Sasha smiled and nodded approval at Pete’s easing of Alf insecurities.

~o~O~o~

Pete said, “Things may just be looking up lads. When Gladys was cleaning out one of the rooms in the cellars which she wanted for wine storage she found the old world war two black out curtains. The curtains were more or less completely rotted away, but I thought the idea was a good one and I’ve ordered a complete set of heavy black lined curtains for the entire pub. Fuck the social distancing. There’s never loud music coming out of the place and only locals who are in our small contained bubble anyway will get in. If every one goes round the back and texts us we’ll let them in. As it is all deliveries to the village are almost by remote, stuff is dropped on the road and we take it in, so what the hell. I’d appreciate some help hanging the curtains. If you’d bring your tool box, Alf, and supervise the rest of us can labour for you.”

~o~O~o~

That was the beginning of the Bearthwaite covid rebellion. The village was extremely isolated and even under normal conditions had little contact with the outside world. All the local men with an allotment plot were supplying the village shop run by Dave and Lucy Wannup and the arrangement was so satisfactory for the allotmenteers, the Wannups and the locals that the decision to continue the arrangement even when and if the virus went away had been taken. The grocers had taken no deliveries of fresh food, vegetables and meat, eggs, milk, butter and cheese since the initial lock down, all had been produced locally and supplied to locals via the Wannups. That the meat inspectorate had not been informed was considered to be a matter of no relevance as ‘Vince the Mince’(4) the local butcher who had a licenced slaughterhouse behind the shop had forgotten more about meat hygiene and safety than any of the local meat inspectors, whom he describe as bits of kids with less hair on their chins than he had on his arse, would ever be likely to learn. Vince was enabled to focus on butchery because several of the local women had agreed to make his sausage, bacon and hams as well as baking his pork pies and the like in exchange for meat rather than money.

~o~O~o~

The blackout curtains were hung under Alf’s supervision. It took nearly a week because Alf was a fussy perfectionist and wanted no damage doing to the building, so he’d had to make a number of custom fittings in brass and there were a lot of windows in the Dragon, but eventually the job was finished and the Zoom meetings had only lasted for a month.

Sasha had said that he’d things in train to make the Green Dragon a free house for ever, but he’d not telt any more of the matter, which though irritating was considered to be entirely in keeping with the way he was, and was regarded as a fortunate truth of what was to happen.

1 Lonning, lane.
2 Scoops, scoops of beer, vernacular for beers.
3 Compo, vernacular for sand and cement or lime mortar used for laying bricks.
4 Mince or minced meat is the UK term for ground meat,

It was the first of the illegal meetings of the Grumpy Old Men’s Society. Alf’s work hanging the blackout curtains had been completely successful and there was not a glimmer of light to be seen from outside. The entire group of old men, and a lot of the Bearthwaite younger men too, had checked from every angle and from right up to the windows. Pete had asked Alf to start designing a set of shutters for outside the windows that could be locked and make the situation even more secure. “It’ll cost you, Pete,” Alf had said, “because they really need to be made from a decent quality hard wood to withstand the weather. Oak heartwood would be my choice.”

“Just sort it out, Alf, and when you know what you want order the wood and whatever else you need to do the job right,” Sasha told him. “Have the invoices sent to me and I’ll deal with all the paperwork for Pete.”

~o~O~o~

The men all took their pints back to the tables not quite sure who was going to tell what, but Denis started the conversation with, “It’s all bloody crazy at the moment. Belinda needed some physio and they contacted her by phone and had her doing it with the lass at the other end telling her what to do. If it’s that damned easy how come they haven’t been doing it that way for years? Another thing. We’ve always shopped for household stuff in bulk three or four times a year, but now the rationing would force us to go out every week if we weren’t getting everything from Dave and Lucy. We’d have been interacting with more folk in a month than we used to in a year. Still, I ordered loo roll and kitchen rolls off ebay and you should have seen the look on face of the guy who delivered them when I telt him what he’d just delivered. Two gross of each. It’s all nuts. The local vet’s closed and I had to go to Aspatria with Satan, the kids’ cat, so instead of going nine miles each way where I’d typically meet two folk, three at most, I had to travel twenty-odd miles each way to a very busy surgery and meet possibly a couple of dozen folk. The good thing is we don’t have to go again, but I don’t think the politicians have a clue what they are doing.”

~o~O~o~

“Yeah well, when talking about politicians and toilet paper just remember you can’t push a turd backwards, Denis. All you can do is reach for the roll, apply it appropriately and flush the shite away.”

Sasha said, “That was pretty profound albeit somewhat cynical, Stan, though I don’t disagree with your sentiments. You do of course realise that the problem is ultimately not covid but religion because that is what determines how folk react to everything including covid. Some regard it as an article of faith that covid is a hoax. Many folk consider the world is in a complete mess and that it’s all caused by religion. All religions revolve round what their followers consider to be absolute non-negotiable truths, what I call their I believe statements. They do not believe these as a result of logical discussion and thus can not as a result of logical discussion be persuaded to abandon them. The result is all discussion between those with different I believe statements is pointless.

“Even atheists are no better. Their I believe statement is simply they believe none of it, so it is pointless to try to come at them with questions like, ‘Ah but what if you’re wrong?’ because they cannot be persuaded to abandon their stance by logic or anything else. Truth is most don’t care what anybody else believes because they consider that clearly all others are idiots simply because they are doctrinally different, which is of course a classic believer’s stance that is possibly the only thing that all believers seem to hold in common.

“Most atheists believe that all should be allowed to believe as they choose and to behave as they choose given the proviso that everybody else has the same right, but the moment someone’s behaviour affects someone else it must be subject to control. Whose? Theirs of course because they are the only ones who know the real truth, everybody else’s truth is corrupt, again taken from classic religious doctrines of many flavours.

“Given those beliefs, major problems arises when adults inculcate their children in their own beliefs. Atheists believe that to be utterly abhorrent and immoral which of course is complete nonsense because how else will children learn what is socially acceptable behaviour if not by inculcation? And in any case atheists inculcate their children with their own views which by their own stance is hypocrisy of a high order. So it all boils down to this, everything is okay as long as it agrees with the views of the person considering the situation and everything else is not okay. This is of course the status quo, so in reality all is well with the world and there is actually no mess at all. I by the bye would be an atheist, but its a little too much like a religion for me.”

“Do you actually believe in anything, Sasha?”

“The inevitability of death and taxes, Alf. Yes I believe in death and taxes.”

~o~O~o~

“You done, Sasha?”

“Yes. What you got to tell us, George?”

“Not much really just something I saw the other day. It’s certainly not worth a beer. I had to go to Carlisle for an xray, so since I was going anyway Christine gave me a shopping list and said to call at Lidl on the way home. I saw some trimmed up celery stalks for sale. The bottom two inches had been cut off and the same at the top, they’d have been five or six inches long. I took me a while to work out what was going on. Only time I’ve ever seen em spelt ess ee double ell ee are why ess tee oh are kay ess. Sellery storks, kid you not. I don’t know if it were a marketing ploy or just plain stupidity.” There was considerable head shaking at that as they’d all had problems with what marketing men considered to be clever and even more problems with the absurdities of the texting generations.

~o~O~o~

“Another round gentlemen?” Pete asked.

There were nods of agreement and after the matter had been dealt with Harry said, “I’ve a couple of crazy memories from my taxi driving days if anyone’s interested. They’re all recollections to do with vehicle maintenance, but there’s not much to them.”

Alf responded instantly, “I’m interested.”

Stan said, “Go on then, Harry.”

“First of all I’ll say Ford Cortinas were pretty easy to work on, but taxiing wears everything out. For a start on average a cab carries nearer three people as opposed to one point one for a private car. Hinge pins, boot [US trunk] hinges, seats, you name it they all wear out, and some cabs are driven twenty-four seven by two or more drivers and cover over a million miles a year. Part of the suspension system on a Cortina are things called void bushes. A void bush comprises two steel tubes with vulcanised rubber between them. You can go through several sets a year. Some of them are only partially filled with rubber, they have voids, hence the name. Most cabbies who do their own maintenance don’t use them. They use the solid ones that are normally used on estate cars [US station wagons] because though they give a harder ride they last longer. When you get a second hand Cortina you intend to use as a cab it’s probably got the original void bushes in it and they will be a bastard to get out even with a puller. I never bothered to even try using a puller on a car new to me, I just burned em out with oxy.”

Alf agreed saying, “It’s the only way to do it if you don’t want to lose a couple of knuckles and cripple your hands for a fortnight.”

Harry continued, “If you’ve got any sense you spend a bit of time putting the new ones in. You clean up the hole the bush outer goes into with a file and emery cloth to remove all rust, crap and everything else and then grease it. You clean up the bush outer tube of any burrs with emery and file a lead on the front and back edges. You don’t need to do both edges, but if you do when you get back under the car and can’t see too well it doesn’t matter which way you round you put it in. Then you take a rattail file and do the same with the inner steel tube before greasing the bush. After installing the bush, which will go in easily, you file and clean the bolt that goes through the bush centre tube and grease that. I always ran a die down the bolt threads and a tap down the nuts to clean em up and greased them both too. The whole assembly is a piece of cake, but going to all that trouble means the next time you have to do the job it’s easy, you show the bush the puller and it jumps out in fear.

Alf nodded and said, “That’s the way to do a proper job. I’m glad it’s not just me that sees it that way.”

“Now when I was driving down there there were major road works on every road into the city of Manchester going in from our side. Most of us used Liverpool Street when we could but even that wasn’t easy. Sometimes you had to use Regent Road which had hundreds of four inch potholes, but the surfaces on the all the roads were appalling, and they hammered your suspension. I went to see Larry who had the scrapyard at Boysnope Wharf Irlam and got an extra pair of rear coil springs. I took em to Manchester Springs and telt them to stretch em an extra four inches. The technique is they soften them with heat, stretch them and finally reharden and temper them. I put the springs on in place of the others. I had to get a couple of extra coil spring compressors due to the longer length of the springs. It was a lot better, a much harder ride, but at least the roads weren’t shaking my cab to pieces. After a week I took the original springs to have them stretched by six inches. Now that was a hard ride, but with four passengers in it was far better on the roads into the city. It wasn’t long before all the lads with Cortinas were doing likewise.

“The brake shoe retaining mechanisms on the rear wheels used a stupid little clip that was always coming off leading to binding brakes. I had a couple of longer pins made so I could drill them, put a split pin through and throw the clips away. Problem solved.

“There was a weekend when I knew my clutch was going. I was hoping it would see me through till Sunday when I could put a new one in. I’d picked up the entire three part clutch kit and it was in the boot along with my toolbox. It lasted till about eleven on the Saturday night, and I managed to get back to the office where the kerb was about fifteen inches higher than the road. I got the driver’s side wheels on the kerb and changed the clutch in the dark with a torch. Now I’d already put a couple of clutches in that vehicle, and because I’d had them all off before and cleaned and greased them before putting them back, all the nuts and bolts came off easily. I knew exactly what I was doing and I did the job with the gearbox on my chest. I was back on the road not long after midnight ready for the punters coming out of the clubs. That’s it, Lads. I said I hadn’t got much.”

“Tell me about that brake mod again please, Harry,” asked Alf.

“You know the pin that holds the shoe assembly down? The one that looks like a stud with a flat five eighths wide head and a groove round the other end that the clip is supposed to lock into. It’d be maybe an inch long and the shank a quarter or maybe five sixteenths.” Alf nodded. “Turn another pin on the lathe a quarter of an inch longer without the grove. Drill through it through on the diameter at the end for the split pin. When you reinstall it put a washer on instead of the clip and then put the split pin through the hole.”

“Clever. That clip arrangement is still used on some cars. I’ll use that mod. Thanks, Harry.”

~o~O~o~

Alf continued saying, “I’ve got a bit to say about the allotments. [community gardens] You know the lads and I have decided to take over all the vacant plots to make it easier to supply Dave and Lucy?” There were nods all round because the matter had been raised before as part of the villagers’ strategy to keep covid out. “Well, Ellen wanted me to go organic. I’ve telt her if she wants to dig all the damned strangle weed up [bindweed, Calystegia sepium or Convolvulus arvensis] on those empty plots we’re recovering then she can get on with it, but if it’s up to me it’s Roundup or nowt, for I’m too old to do it any other way. Some of them haven’t been cultivated for twenty-odd years and are pretty badly infested with pernicious weeds. The scutch [Couch grass or twitch grass. Elymus repens] isn’t too bad and the rosebay willow herb [Chamaenerion angustifolium] can be dealt with but the strangle weed is a bastard. The roots are brittle as hell and the entire plant can regrow from the tiniest piece of root, bits so small you can’t even see them. When I was in my thirties I eliminated an small infestation of Japanese knotweed [Fallopia japonica or Polygonum cuspidatum] on what was then my new allotment plot by digging it out as fast as it appeared. It took me six years, and the infestation was less than eighteen inches across. I’m seventy-three and I haven’t got six years left to waste buggering about with noxious weeds, or the strength any more. Annual weeds are easy, mulch them over and they die. If you’ve nowt better you can use corrugated cardboard from old boxes as mulch, but perennials no. At my age glyphosphate is the way forward if I want to clear a patch of land of pernicious weeds to grow food.

“I bought some seeds from China last year off ebay which was a bad mistake I won’t be repeating. Most of the seeds were as described, but the tamarillo tree tomatoes turned out to be brassicas, the basil seeds produced carnations, the sweet peppers were marigolds and the cucumbers were courgettes [zucchini] and I hate the things. The mixed chile pepper seeds I was given grew like hell in the greenhouse. I’ll give Ellen her due she can grow chiles, it’s just a pity I can’t stand the heat. The free seeds all had names like Hot Wax and Ring of Fire, so I wasn’t prepared to even try anything she made using them. The lads and I are combining our seed orders this year. We’ve talked about doing it for years but stupidly never got round to it. That way will be cheaper since we won’t all have loads of part used seed packets. And we’ve decided to use some plots just for soft fruit because it’ll be easier to keep them weed free that way. The lasses helping Rosie make Vince’s pies have said they’ll make fruit pies too. Vince said to use his ovens because they can do the job in bulk that way. All he wants in return is the odd pie or two, and he said he’d sell some from the shop, but most could go to Dave’s. We should have the first of the early forced rhubarb harvested in a couple of weeks, so the lasses will have the first of the season’s fruit pies ready about then. I don’t know how the finances of it all will be worked out, but no doubt some one will sort it out.”

“If it’s a problem, Alf, let me know and I’ll get a few of us to look at it for you.”

“Thanks, Sasha, I was hoping you’d say something like that.”

~o~O~o~

Denis looked at the levels of beer in the glasses and said, “I want another. I’ll pull em, Pete. Any one for a taste of that schnapps I got from Germany two years since?” There were nods of agreement, and Denis said, “There’s a bottle behind the bar, but we’ll need another from the cellar so if someone goes for a couple of bottles whilst I pull pints I be much obliged. After that I’ve a couple of quirky odds and ends to tell.”

Phil said, “I’ll get the bottles, Denis.”

When all was done Denis started. “When I was teaching I used to regularly try to con the kids into believing nonsense, it was game we used to play and the kids used to try to work out if what I was telling them was a con or not.”

“Surely telling them nonsense must have confused them, Denis. How did they remember what was real and what wasn’t?”

“Actually, Pat, it was an amazingly successful teaching strategy. I reckoned that was because it made them think more deeply about the material because they were trying to catch me out too, so they remembered the details. I mind the time I telt a group physics students about how magnetism worked. How there were effectively little areas within a ferromagnetic material referred to as domains and within any given domain all the individual little magnetic fields were all in the same direction. In a lump of plain iron or steel the domains were oriented at random and cancelled each other out so the lump didn’t behave like a magnet. But if external forces were applied such as to cause a net aligning of the domain directions which remained after the external force was removed a magnet resulted. That’s how magnets are created, by using an applied electric field with its associated magnetic field which is at right angles to it. If the lump of plain iron or steel, it works with nickel and cobalt and certain alloys too as well as some more exotic materials, is placed in the electric field you have a magnet.

“That’s not exactly how it’s done nor exactly the explanation, but it’s close enough for an initial understanding of the situation. I carried on to say the piece of unmagnetised material can be mechanically shocked if one hits it hard enough to free the domains up enough to have some of them align a little bit with the Earth’s magnetic field and remain so aligned. That is what happens when a farrier hit steel horse shoes as long as the steel is below its transition temperature, for above that it is not magnetic. Blacksmiths use a magnet to check whether they can forge weld steel for it has to be at least above its transition temperature to form a successful forge weld. All true enough as far as it goes. I concluded by saying that if you see horses grazing in a field that’s why they all stand in a north south orientation, it’s due to the magnetisation of their shoes lining up with the Earth’s magnetic field. It took them a fortnight to tumble to having been had. They figured it out in the end because they said that even if what I had said were true the four shoes would have been oriented differently, and if you considered enough horses the net effect would have been completely randomised, so the horses would be facing in random directions. Now to work that out they’d have had to be thinking and talking about the matter. I do know at the end of the topic they had a damned good grasp of the material.

“However the best cons work the other way round. Tell them something that they are convinced is a con that is absolutely true. Like the Sardinian cheese sold with maggots in that can jump 150mm [six inches] which you have to be careful eating in case one of the little buggers hits you in the eye. Another such was telling them that Isaac Newton invented apples, gravity and the cat flap. They got the apples and gravity references easily enough but didn’t buy into the cat flap, but it’s true.

“Perhaps my best con was on Belinda. I telt her there was a song from the sixties with the lyrics ‘Lie down girl let me push it up push it up lie down.’ She absolutely refused to believe it. I kept that one going for thirty years. It was only when one of her mates said, ‘I remember that,’ that my ‘con’ was busted.”

“That can’t be true surely, Denis, can it?”

“As true as I’m here, Eric. Sung by a Jamaican lad with dread locks who went by the name of Max Romeo. It was called Wet Dream and released in 1968. Look it up on youtube. It’s there. There’s even a version with printed lyrics. I was telt by someone it was banned by the Big Black Cock, which was the first time I’d ever heard of that as an alternative name for the BBC [British Broadcasting Corporation, Britain’s state funded broadcaster], which of course guaranteed it had hit sales, same as ‘Je t’aime’ the nineteen sixty-seven song sung by Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg written for Brigitte Bardot. That reached number one in Britain probably because it was banned by the BBC. I checked both out because I knew I’d be telling the tale here some time and I wanted to make sure I’d got my facts straight because I’ve forgotten and misremembered an awful lot since the late sixties. That’s it. I said I’d just got a few quirky odds and ends.”

~o~O~o~

Stan added, “Well a little different, but still talking of silly media stuff. Mary Whitehouse, who was scurrilously referred to by many as Fairy Shitehouse, was the Christian founder of ‘The National Listeners’ and Viewers’ Association’ which was an organisation that set out to police TV and radio and ensure that everything on both were of a suitable moral content which in effect meant were in line with her Victorian prudery. She was pathologically homophobic and transphobic too. She of course said she merely wanted all immoral material off the air, but one man’s morality is another’s anathema.”

“What’s an athema, Stan?”

“It’s one word, Alf and it’s an anathema. It’s something that is considered to be totally wrong and offensive. Some described her as the extreme Christian founder. She was the woman who wanted the nineteen eighty-one film Montenegro banned because she claimed it depicted graphic details of anal sex! All I can say is she had better eyesight than me. It was on late at night with an explicit adult label, it was a red triangle and was on channel four I think. I don’t think it started till gone midnight. I watched it with Julie after a night out. I can only presume she was referring to a scene where two women were making love doggy style on their hands and knees next to each other and they were chatting to each other. Their respective men barely featured in the scene which was shot in its entirety head on facing the women, so it may well have been anal, but there was no way of knowing and certainly no way seeing. Still Mary was probably a missionary only woman, with the lights out at that, who considered anything else to be total filth. I must say I still feel sorry for her old man even though they died twenty years ago. The film was purportedly based on real events that happened in Sweden which if true makes it a tragedy of epic proportions.

“What upset me at the time was The Professionals, a cops and robbers TV series, that was on in the early evening the day before long before the watershed, the time before which explicit and violent stuff should not be screened because children will still be up. That week it shewed someone being blown in half with a sawn off double barrel shotgun. It was very realistic and I know which I’d rather my children saw. Sex at least is a natural act without which none of us would be here, the violence is not. Mary Whitehouse didn’t have a word to say about The Professionals. Screwed up priorities if you ask me.”

~o~O~o~

“Get em in, Pete, and while you’re at it put me down for the round after that. What’s for supper?”

“Right you are, Sasha. Mince [US ground meat] and onion pies, cow cabbage [a large solid, pale cabbage] and gravy was what Aggie was talking about this morning. Anyone want a glass of that akvavit that I got from Dennis to go with it?” There were murmurs of agreement and Pete said, “I’ll fetch a couple of bottles.”

After supper, Pete asked, “Any more for any more, or are we onto dominoes. I swear it’s feels to be so long since I played I suspect I’ve forgotten how.”

There were a lot of chuckles at that, and Sasha said, “We’re probably all in the same boat, Pete. I suggest unless someone has a burning tale to tell we get the dominoes out for a bit of practice. Before we do I had a thought last night. The way I live I’ve been almost self isolating for decades and I often have no idea what day of the week it is. It’s only Saturdays that enable me to realign with the calendar. When the clocks went forward earlier in the year, and this year it’ll be the same, millions of folk were late for their breakfast, not because they forgot to alter the clocks, but because as a result of lock down they’d no reason to get out of bed. I get up with the sun and go to bed long after it sets with a load of work I should have done going to the top of the following day’s list. How do folk have time to work? I suspect it’s not much different for any of us here, and I concluded that’s because our lives are real. City folks lived a life that covid has brought crashing down around them, yet it’s done little to alter our way of life at all.”

“You reckon us meeting here is okay, Sasha? I mean I’m really glad we are, but is it morally acceptable and even sensible?”

“Well, Gerry let me put it this way, and I’m not trying to manipulate things to provide excuses for breaking the law. If we’re criminals then so be it. However, in a way the entire village is a kind of bubble. We are much more isolated than most and are minimising the need for outside deliveries. When they do arrive we have the stuff dropped on the road and after the delivery truck has gone we carry the stuff in. How many of you have left the village since the first lock down? George went for an xray and shopping, both legally allowable. Denis took the cat to the vets, which was allowable. Alf went to his sisters in connection with his work. That allotment feeds his family, and now the rest of us too, again legally allowable. Young Peabody went gutter cleaning [clearing debris out of ditches] after the dykes(1) had been flailed and picked up Alf’s compost. There’s none from Bearthwaite doing anything that’s not necessary and allowable other than come to the Dragon and teaching the kids.

“The girls in the room are doubtless discussing childcare arrangements and other matters of mutual support not just for those of our age but for our entire community. We’re lucky to have Charlie’s missus Susanna living here because having a village midwife means the pregnant won’t need to go elsewhere to have their babies and they’re getting the care they need in the meanwhile. Contrary to the law, when the normal schools closed the girls set one up in the village hall, so at least our kids are getting a proper education. All the retired and working educators are teaching with help from a lot of other folk too, so our kids are missing out on nothing. Maybe when this is all over we’ll continue with that, but with a few modifications no doubt. The girls next door and we in here are in effect the Bearthwaite Council. We’ve had damn all help from outside, so we’re helping our community ourselves. If you’re asking should we feel guilty because we’re enjoying ourselves whilst we do it. The answer is hell no. I would argue that what we are doing is not just morally acceptable and sensible it’s necessary due to our unusual though not unique situation.

“Alf and the allotment lads and the local farmers are all doing things differently such that we can maximise our isolation. Others in the village are helping them to manage the extra work that entails. If you think about it we’ve turned the clock back at least two generations. Women are working in Peabody’s old dairy that hasn’t been used since his grandmother’s day making cheese, butter, cream and other dairy products. Though it’s unlikely his grandmother made yoghurt. Vince has at least a dozen helping Rosie in the back of the butcher’s shop and Phil and Alice have probably the same number helping out at the mill. That’s how it was a century ago and I suspect when this pandemic is over it’s how it will remain for a very long time because it is a more satisfactory arrangement and suits us all better. It makes you wonder how we allowed things to change in the first place. Sooner or later we’ll get the vaccines, but till then we help ourselves. Ask yourself this, if he knew about what we were doing, do you think Sergeant Graham would do anything about it?”

Pete answered for Gerry, “No. Definitely not. Michael would leave us alone. He may not live here any more but some of his family including his parents do, so he possibly does know and is deliberately looking the other way, so that his mum and dad are looked after as well as possible. Anyway Mavis would give him hell if he did anything, but Michael is clever and sensible, so I’d put money on it he’d consider what we are doing is necessary. Get the dominoes out, Lads.”

~o~O~o~

After all had gone home, Gladys said, “I heard what Gerry asked Sasha, Love. I was texting Mavis earlier. She was careful to text nothing incriminating, but it was obvious to me, though it wouldn’t have been to any else, she is sure Michael knows what we’re doing though he’s not said anything. I suspect he doesn’t actually know anything, but is certain it’s what we would be doing. He sent his love, and Mavis asked us to take care of his mum and dad. Mavis implied he’d been extremely cautious in what he’d said to her, and he’d merely remarked that if the road flooded it wouldn’t make any difference to our ability to survive if cut off from the outside because it happened so often. Mavis didn’t mention it, but I’m thinking she was implying that given all the rain we’ve had recently if we turn the pumps off and allow the road to flood we’ll be a lot safer from the law. If the men take the boat down to the flooded section we could use it to pick up any vital deliveries and the post, but I doubt there will be any deliveries other than the mail. If we need any lorry loads even as big as an eighteen wheeler load, which again I doubt, the pumps can clear the road in a few hours ready for it. We could take delivery here and after the lorry returned just turn the pumps off again. What do you think?”

“I’ll speak to Sasha about it.”

1 Dykes, hedges.

It was Saturday the second of January twenty-twenty-one and in the taproom of the Green Dragon the Grumpy Old Men’s Society was quorate and looking forward to the meeting which though illegal was behind black out curtains and away from all eyes and ears. Gladys had been wrong, there had been an eighteen wheeler delivery. The load had been the timber Alf ordered for the shutters on the Dragon. The pumps drained the flooded road prior to delivery and had been turned off afterwards to allow the road to flood again. A score of men had assisted Alf in his workshop to make the shutters and subsequently fit them to the building.

The village of Bearthwaite had been isolated and a law unto itself for centuries. It was in a valley at the end of an eight mile single track road with passing places that went nowhere other than the village. The road was subject to flooding and a mile and a half of it was in a deep depression often covered in four or five feet of water for anything up to six weeks at a time which meant the inhabitants of Bearthwaite were always provisioned against potential siege and extremely self reliant. Anything less than a foot of water was ignored. It also meant the community was exceedingly tightly knit and all looked after every member of the three thousand or so souls who lived in the village and it’s outlying farms and businesses. The pumps that could drain the flooded road were very expensive to run and were often turned off allowing the water to cover the road till it was inconvenient enough to require pumping away. The numerous unmetalled lonnings,(1) that led out of the village all degenerated into farm tracks. They went up into the hills and served numerous farms though they all terminated in the hills. The only lonning out of the village that could reasonably be referred to as a road was the metalled one that serviced the small Victorian reservoir at the valley head.

There was a millennia old pack pony trail leading out of the valley over Sasha Vetrov’s land and then through Alex Peabody’s farm yard. It had been in use for centuries before the Romans arrived in Britain. It went over a pass and dropped down on a circuitous route that eventually brought one out a few miles from Caldbeck. The trail ran up a steep and dangerous gully to the pass and hadn’t been used for it’s intended purpose for centuries. It was however extensively used in the summer by fell walkers seeking a slightly different experience from what the usual walks offered. The only guide book available for the route was a hand-written and -bound, photo copied one available from the author, Tommy Dowerson, who’d closely followed Alfred Wainwright’s style, though the sketches had been drawn by his wife Sarah from his photographs. The guide book was for sale in the post office of which Tommy and Sarah were the proprietors.

The centre of the village was the large village green which had a children’s playground, a football pitch and various other sporting facilities on it including a running track. Most visitors were surprised to see it also had a large boat shed. The road that circumscribed the green which had been laid and paid for by the villagers in nineteen eighty-three provided an easy turning facility for even modern eighteen wheelers with the longest of trailers. No outsider had been allowed to set foot in any building in the place since long before the first corona virus lock down. All deliveries had been dropped outside on the road and carried in by locals since then, but since the flooding of the road the only delivery had been Alf’s timber intended for the new shutters on the windows of the Green Dragon.

~o~O~o~

“You mind I’ve been having trouble with my teeth for a while?” Sasha asked not really expecting an answer.

“I recall you saying a year or so back you seemed to be spending a lot of time and money in the dentist’s chair having fillings and the bits of teeth that shattered off patched up,” Alf said. “I lost all mine as a lad playing rugby, falling off motor bikes and messing about with pit ponies. False teeth are bloody dear these days, but at least the bastards don’t hurt.”

There was a round of laughter at that as many of the old men had at least partial dentures.

“Well, some time back in the middle of November I woke up in bed and noticed I seemed to have lost my rear left hand side upper teeth. Or part of them. I’ve had two three tooth bridges, one on each side at the back of my top teeth for best part of fifty-five years. They were over a hundred quid each then which was a lot of money in those days, but I suppose I can’t complain that I didn’t get value for money. The hygienist has been telling me for years they were in bad shape because my gums had receded from them. It turned out she didn’t know the half of it. Initially I assumed I’d swallowed the bridge in my sleep, but I found it in bed when I got up. Half of the back tooth had snapped off and was stuck in the bridge and the cavity where the front tooth located was black and looked pretty minging.(2) The bits of the two teeth left in my mouth hurt my tongue but I couldn’t make myself leave them alone. Pour me me another glass of that anaesthetic, Stan. Anyone else want one?”

There was a dozen or more glasses pushed towards Stan who promptly pulled the cork and started filling them with the eighty percent Polish spirit that Sasha received regular supplies of from a contact who distilled it in a generations old illicit still deep in the backwoods not far from the Ukraine border. Pete stood up and said, “I’ll fetch another couple of bottles from the cellar for you, Sasha. Anybody want me to fetch anything else while I’m at it?”

“Fetch a couple of bottles of Mountain Dew too,” Pat replied. He was referring to the illicitly distilled Irish poteen he brought back when he visited Siobhan’s family in Donegal.

When all had a filled glass and another pint too Sasha resumed. “I rang my dentists. The bloke who owned the place died a couple of years ago on his motorbike in a road accident on the other side of the pond. I think I was only treated by him once. I’d had a tooth that broke up when my usual dentist was extracting it. There were bits left in and he booked me a surgical extraction with the boss, because he didn’t have the experience, or maybe it was the qualifications, to do a surgical extraction. Unfortunately the tooth abscessed. So after the antibiotics sorted the abscess out the boss man took it out. He and I talked old British motor bikes. After his death the surgery became part of a large chain of health care facilities. The Italian lad I used to see, well I think he was Italian, has since moved on, and I see a wee young lassie now. I don’t know, but late twenties to early thirties maybe, but any woman under the age of forty-five looks like a teenager to me these days.”

There was a round of laughter at that and Denis chipped in, “Aye, and just by looking at them they can all make a happy man very old.” For once Alf didn’t have to have the joke explained to him.

“It’s weird now. The door is locked and you have to knock. A space woman unlocks the door, hands you a mask and points to an automatic hand sanitiser dispenser. You do the necessary with the hand stuff which is like a foam and are pointed to a chair. Where there used to be a dozen chairs there are now three. Eventually you go upstairs to see the dentist. Now my dentist is a pretty lass, but I have to say the surgical mask, the welder’s face shield and the astronaut suit do little for her. It’s hardly a flattering outfit. Her name is Samantha, but she goes by the name of Sammi. I like her and her dental nurse too because they both instinctively understand the banter that has been natural to interactions between men and women of all ages since the beginnings of time. It means you don’t have to be scared shitless about some crazy feminist accusations of saying something inappropriate.”

“Aye, and it means life actually has some fun in it for all concerned. That’s why I was glad to retire,” said Denis. “For years I’d got on with teenagers of all ages in class, girls and boys and the banter was a major part of it. It helped them to learn and me to teach. It was a game we all knew the rules to and as the kids got older they learnt about that as just a part of life. A major benefit was the boys learnt how to relate to the girls in a natural and non chauvinistic way. The girls naturally enough didn’t need to learn how to deal with the boys, or if they did they learnt it at the breast. There was nothing in it, kids and teachers want to like each other, why wouldn’t they because it makes life pleasanter easier, but somehow it changed to the point where a harmless, innocent remark enjoyed by kids and teacher alike if overheard by some left wing, feminista idiot could cost you your job. It did cost a lot their jobs.”

Denis was clearly upset by specific memories rather than the general points he’d made, and Pete topped his glass up before passing the bottle round and indicating that Sasha was to continue.

“I was glad I took the bridge with me because she cut the bit that capped the front of the two teeth off it and glued it back and after taking off the sharp corners of what remained of the back tooth made me an appointment for two days later to extract it. Thing is I’ve been thinking about dentures or implants for a few years. I’ve even talked it over with Elle. She just said that it was not as if we hadn’t got the money, so if I wanted to do it just do it. She reminded me her first set of hearing aids had cost us eight grand and I’d had to persuade her it was okay.

“After the bridge dropped out, and it looked pretty gross, I thought that the other bridge would probably be not much different, so I started thinking about dentures or implants again. Problem is I’ve had serious gum disease for years. No matter how well I looked after my teeth I’d been fighting an uphill struggle against the diabetes. Even seeing the hygienist every three months at nearly fifty quid a pop hadn’t really made a difference. No reputable dentist would put implants into diseased gums, but I thought maybe I could use dentures till my gums healed which they would eventually without the tooth gum interface which is where the problem lies and then I could have implants. I talked it all over with Sammi and she said it was possible that I’d suffered so much bone loss that even with bone grafts there would not be enough bone for implants but the dentures would be okay no matter what. I’ve since thought that maybe implants are not a good idea because they could possibly just provide a different type of tooth gum interface.” Sasha shrugged and added, “But who knows.”

“Bone grafts, Sasha. What’s that about?”

“No idea, and I didn’t follow it up, Alf. She was of the opinion we were talking about two or three years before I’d even be in a position to think about implants and wanted to know what I wanted to do. I telt her if she wanted to solve some hard sums I was her man, but I was expecting her to tell me what to do because that was her trade not mine. Sammi reckoned I was probably right regarding the condition of the other bridge and if I were going for dentures have the top teeth out first because without the bridges I only had biting teeth in my upper set. All my upper chewing teeth were bridges. I could see where she was coming from and it made sense. I’d initially thought to have the bottom teeth out first because all the biting teeth were loose, one was wobbling to the point of being useless, and their top surfaces were more ground away than the lower surfaces of my upper biting teeth. They were all worn to the point where they had exposed dentine and I expected that to give me serious pain at some point in the future. Sammi reckoned if I went for lower dentures too to leave the back two teeth at the bottom so they could use them to hook a retaining wire round to stop the teeth moving which she said was a bigger problem with lower teeth than upper ones. I telt her to draw up a plan and we’d talk about it when I came in for her to extract the remains of the rear bridge tooth.”

“You going for a full set, Sasha?”

“I am now, but I didn’t know that then, Alf.”

“What’s it going to cost at the far end of it?”

“Just to get to where I’m using a full set of dentures without considering implants, the thick end of two and a half grand.”

“Christ above,” said John. “I know I’m going to be needing them sometime. I’d better start saving some pennies. What happened next, Sasha?”

“I went in for the extraction and Sammi gave me a list of dates for the various appointments I’d need though later she managed to cancel one and did the work in one of the other appointments. My teeth are big and I telt her that much bigger dentists than her had struggled to extract my teeth in the past. She said her other half was a dentist and she reckoned you were better off with a lass for an extraction because not having the raw strength of a man they had to make up with improved technique. I have to say she was damned good and I suspect right because there didn’t seem to be as much bruising as I had suffered from previous extractions. After the extraction she put some wadding in the hole and telt me to leave it in for an hour and to rinse my mouth with salt water after that. I knew that was not going to happen. A hundred yards away from the dentist’s is Gregg’s pie and pasty shop. Conveniently it’s on the way to where I’d parked the truck. Even more conveniently, outside is a waste bin for spitting dentist’s wadding into. I’d eaten my steak bake before I reached the truck and I rinsed my mouth with Highland Park which is a decent malt when I reached home. It’s far tastier and more efficacious than salt water though it does seem outrageous to use it for mouth wash at thirty five quid a bottle. Still I suppose medical anaesthetic probably costs a lot more than that.

“Funny, I suppose I’d been resisting the pain for years, but once I knew I was going to have away with it I couldn’t fight it the same. I don’t believe the pain was that much worse in so short a time period but it certainly felt like it was. I went in for the impressions to be taken. They use an alginate material which is derived from seaweed, but it feels, smells and tastes like a mix of papier mâché, wallpaper paste and window putty complete with linseed oil.

“The following day I lost a filling, it was in one of the two teeth that were supposed to be eventually acting as anchors for my potential lower denture, if of course I decided on that. It wasn’t causing any pain but was a heavily filled tooth that had already been repaired several times. I rang the surgery and the receptionist had a word with Sammi who’d said as long as it wasn’t hurting she’d sort it out on my next appointment. Two days later I shattered one of my upper biting teeth. It wasn’t causing me any pain and was due to come out in a few days, so I left it till then.

“The morning of my afternoon appointment for the extractions I was psyched up for it, I’d had little sleep, mostly due to pain, but certainly due to an element of apprehension as well. I’m no coward and I can take a lot more pain than most, so having decided on it I would see it through, but I wasn’t looking forward to it. Then the phone rang to tell me the appointment had been set back two days because my ‘work’ hadn’t yet been received from the lab. A reasonable translation of that is the denture plate had not yet been made. As you can imagine I was angry enough at that to kill some bastard, any bastard really, who crossed me, but there’s no point in wasted reactions, and by that I means reactions that can’t possibly effect any positive result. So I said ‘Sure that’s fine. I’ll be there.’ Over the next couple of days I drank two litres of high octane jungle juice. Sometimes it doesn’t take much alcohol to take you over the edge, but those two litres had done absolutely nothing, I was as sober as a man could be. I never use the expression as a judge because most are clearly pissed even when they are sober. I was on time for my appointment having left the truck in a one hour parking spot on the old bus station. Perhaps not the wisest of parking places, but what the hell, parking was difficult, it was a short walk which would possibly matter on the way back, and at worst it could only cost me fifty quid which as a fraction of the dentist’s bill was bugger all really.

“I brought Sammi up to speed regards the filling and the shattered tooth and most importantly the pain situation and why I considered it to be the way it was. I telt her I wanted the treatment plan extending to complete extraction including the two ‘anchor teeth’. I’d not been happy at the idea of leaving the two teeth because I saw them as potential infection reservoirs. She looked at the teeth and agreed with me. So there it was, all to be coming out. Top me up, Pete. Poteen this time if that’s okay, Pat?”

“Surely, Sasha, and this looks like a good time for a refill. Shall I do the honours behind the bar, Pete?”

“Aye. There are some clean glasses on top of the washer, Pat. Gladys will be serving supper in forty minutes, Sasha. If that’s not time enough to finish I suggest you break it at a convenient point. I’ll just round up the empties for Pat if you’ll pass them along, Lads.”

When all was readied Sasha resumed. “Like I said I can take more pain than most, but those injections took me to the edge. There’s not much to inject into in the roof of your mouth and there were tears in my eyes and I’d crushed the padding in the arms of the chair I was in by the time she finished. I had a few minutes rest before Sammi asked me if I was ready to continue with the injections into the gums on the outside of my teeth. There’s no good pain and I’m no bloody macho man and telt her I needed another couple of minutes. I didn’t care if the two of them were girls, pain has to be respected. It’s there for a reason. When I telt her to continue I’d thought it wouldn’t be as bad as the stuff I’d already had should numb it a bit. Not so, it was every bit as bad. I later reckoned it was a different set of nerves they were working on. She telt me she was going to start on the left with the remaining bridge tooth she’d glued back together a few days before and then work her way forward to the middle before starting at the back with the bridge on the other side and working her way forward again. It took her a while to remove the bridge tooth and she was good. I worked out the strategy, keep loosening it from various angles, don’t try to force anything and when it’s good and ready it’ll come out. It worked and I was glad she kept talking to me and the dental nurse because though it couldn’t be described as painful it certainly wasn’t pleasant and her voice gave me something to focus on other than my teeth. The other three teeth on the left came out, they took time, but were I suspect from her point of view easier than the first tooth she extracted.

“That was the point at which from my point of view it all went pear shaped. She was attempting to take both of the right hand side bridge teeth out together and it didn’t work. At one point I nearly suggested that she cut the bridge in half in situ and tackle em one at a time, but I didn’t. I don’t appreciate amateurs telling me how to do my craft and I respect that others probably won’t like it any more than I do. However, that was what she decided to do and I think she used up three carbide burrs doing it. Getting the rear bridge tooth out took a considerable amount of time and she said it was huge and severely infected. She struggled with the remaining teeth moving from one to the other at various angles as she moved her chair around behind me. With I think four teeth to go the anaesthetic had started to wear off and I couldn’t take it, so she gave me more. God knows how much I’d had, but it did the trick. She telt me the teeth sockets were all seriously infected, at which point my residual reservations concerning having them out disappeared because I reckoned I’d never have got the infection under control and all I would have looked forward to was more pain forever. At least the pain was now only going to be an acute pain not a chronic pain.”

“What do you mean, Sasha?”

“Bad, but only lasting a fixed amount of time, Alf, as opposed to perhaps not as bad but going on for ever.”

“Okay. I get it.”

“The teeth on the right were all big and she eventually telt me were so long they were embedded in my skull behind my nose. They were much bigger than my left hand side teeth. I telt her I’d tried to keep my head still but it had been difficult. She telt me I’d done well to which I’d said, ‘Elle always said I’ve a lot of neck.’

“The last half hour in the chair was spent by my dentist adjusting the upper plate to fit my mouth. Eventually it was over. I was so tired even the delicious smell coming from Gregg’s couldn’t temp me to fancy a steak bake. If I’d not been so tired I’d have sucked one to death, teeth or no damned teeth. Fortunately I’d had the presence of mind to go in early and call in at Lidl before my appointment. The Lidl supermarket chain sells Queen Margot their own proprietary blended scotch that has come number one in the Scottish retailers’ independent whisky taste tests for years now. More to the point, although I usually stick to single malts, I like the stuff and as pain killers go it’s very tasty, especially at fifteen quid a litre. I’d had the sense to realise that with Christmas coming up and me likely to be not fancying driving it would be a good idea to buy a couple of cases of litre bottles, so with twenty-four litres of cheap anaesthetic in the back after a three hour dental appointment I went home. Only good thing about the day was I didn’t get a parking ticket.

“I was on a regime of two co-codamol thirty / five hundreds and two ibuprofen two hundreds every six hours. The first a pain killer I was already on for unlimited use for my carpel tunnel and the second an anti inflammatory no longer prescribed by the NHS that I bought on the internet. However, the pain did not decrease, it increased. There was no chance of me putting the upper plate into my mouth the pain was too severe. As for a toothbrush, forget it. I presumed that the problem was bruising which given the size of my teeth, some had appeared to me to be nigh to two inches long though I had only had a brief glance at them, did not seem to be unreasonable. As a result I put up with it till it became clear to me it was infection not bruising that was the problem. That brief glance I’d had of my teeth had been a surprise, I’d expected them to be red with blood, but they’d appeared to be a yellowy orange which thinking about it afterwards was probably a mix of a bit of blood and a lot of pus.

“I rang the surgery and was given an appointment for the following day. My dentist agreed with me and gave me amoxillin, a penicillin, three tablets a day for seven days and telt me if I had serious problems to ring the surgery number and even over the Christmas period a message would get to her and she would ring me back. If need be she could arrange an emergency appointment. The worst I could imagine is maybe I’d need the amoxillin for another seven days which surely doesn’t need to spoil her Christmas, but God love the girl she’s doing her best. I’ve been on call twenty-four seven in the past, and that’s okay, but no one should have to work and be on call twenty-four seven for three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Any company that can’t or won’t arrange time sharing over family days has no right to exist. That was on the twenty-second.

“The penicillin did the trick and gradually the inflammation went down and the pain decreased. I don’t like taking any more pain killers than strictly necessary. I reckon if you take too many your body gets used to them and they become less effective. I want them to work when I need them so I’d been cutting back on them and I was okay. I took the last penicillin at seven one evening and when I woke up the following morning I was concerned the inflammation was coming back. When I woke up the day after I knew it was. It was inflammation due to infection not residual bruising. Don’t ask me how I could tell the difference because I can’t explain it, but I knew.

“I spent a little time wondering what to do but decided to ring the surgery. I didn’t know whether another course of penicillin would do anything since the first one had not entirely sorted the matter out, but I suspected it would because the first course had vanya(3) done the trick. My dentist was on holiday till the fourth of January and there were no other dentists on the premises, but the lass I spoke to said she’d ring the duty dentists’ at Denholm and get them to give me a bell. Someone rang me from Denholm who clearly wasn’t a dentist. She started talking about me going in to their surgery at Denholm or A&E Carlisle.” [US ER at nearest major hospital with an A&E, Accident and Emergency, department.]

“You’ve got to be joking, Sasha? Had she any bloody idea how far either place is from here?”

“Probably not, Bill. Anyway I telt her the pain I was in meant I probably wasn’t fit to drive that far and if I were stopped by the police they’d threw the book at me. Presumptuously and insensitively she asked why couldn’t my wife drive me, after all I may not have been married or more likely at my age I was a widower. I nearly lost it at that, yet I kept cool and merely said Elle didn’t drive. Yeah, I know she’s got a license, Lads, but she hasn’t been behind the wheel for going on ten years. I also telt her I know the coast road well and it’s dangerous at high tide in good weather which doesn’t include this time of year, so me going to Denholm wasn’t on. I asked if she could book an ambulance. I knew the cost of that and the paperwork too would back her off.

Then she started going on about me having to be seen by a dentist because they hadn’t got my records. I said to ring my dentists and I’d authorise it. The usual bullshit ensued. Can you bloody believe it? Two offices in the same company with incompatible computer systems. Actually it’s only too believable. In any case she said there were no dentists on site at my practice at the time and only a dentist could authorise it or even access the records. In addition I would have to sign my permission. She didn’t seem to know how all that could be dealt with in minutes over a computer. Christ, I’ve authorised payment of a quarter of a million quid several times by secure computer transfer before now, when the kids were buying houses. It’s fifteen year old technology. Anyway, she said she’d get back to my practice and see where we went from there. She said she’d get back to me.

Stan asked, “Why were they so bothered about the ambulance cost, Sasha. You’d have had to pay it.”

“Probably just bureaucratic officiousness. You know what some folk in those kind of jobs are like, given the tiniest trace of power they turn into a Hitler clone, the world’s full of em. Every one of them has the power to say no, if you actually want to achieve anything you need to find one of the really scarce folk who have the authority to say yes. That’s because saying no is always safe, saying yes can get you a serious arse kicking, so folk won’t do the job unless there’s a lot more money in it, and I don’t blame them.

“As regards what I’d have had to pay. No, it wouldn’t have cost me any thing, but she wouldn’t have known that. My health insurance policy means the company pays for any and every cost for me, Elle, and my children no matter how old any of us are. When I took it out the health insurance company were desperate for a regular source of income, and the further in advance you were prepared to pay for the better the deal they offered. I bought into the whole life long family package decades ago and though the initial payments were heavy in time they became derisory. Now we have virtually free private health care. Medical, dental, chiropody and a whole lot more. No matter who any of us get treated by I just pass all bills onto the umbrella insurance company that owns the health insurance company for payment or if I’ve already paid the bill I pass the receipt on for reimbursement. One of the girls had a double radical mastectomy due to breast cancer when she was thirty something. Private room in a private hospital and full breast reconstruction, the works all on the policy. Elle says they did that good a job you can’t tell she’s had anything done.

“Elle said, ‘It’s a decent road to Carlisle Infirmary, Sasha. Maybe if it comes to it we could do that?’ I asked, ‘And how long do you think we’d be there before I’m seen, four hours, ten, thirty, forty, half a bloody week? When you needed emergency treatment for your dislocated elbow it was thirty hours before anything was done because they wanted to do it in an operating theatre because of your heart condition and they hadn’t got one available. It was only sorted then because I lost it and asked Keith to pull some strings to get you sorted out.’ Keith has a private Harley Street practice. I added that I could have dimorph, [pharmaceutical quality heroin] delivered in less than two hours to combat the pain, and I knew how to use it. Elle said, ‘Okay, Love. Do what you need to just don’t tell me about it.’ Elle’s a lot brighter than most folk realise.”

“What you had a bloke up from London, Sasha?”

“No. I’ve known Keith for years and I knew he and Penelope were staying at one of his daughters in Keswick for a couple of weeks. The four of us had been going out to dinner the following week, it had been arranged months before, but lock down screwed that up. If I’d had any idea how long it would be before Elle got sorted I’d have rung a private hospital for an ambulance and had her treated there, but as they say hind sight is twenty twenty vision. I’d been telling my self before the phone call from Denholm, ‘Sasha you can do nice, so keep your temper, be nice. Be fucking nice. Be really fucking nice.’ Tell you it was hard, I don’t suffer fools gladly, and I was hurting and bad tempered. However, when the call was over, Elle said. ‘I’ll get you a bottle of Yuri’s vodka, Love. You deserve it. I know what that cost you.’ Yuri is a cousin of some sort and his vodka is a secret family receipt and damned expensive. He sends me a case from time to time in gratitude for past favours and I save it for special occasions. The last time we drank it was when he came over, Natalia his wife had died and he needed someone to get drunk with in the way that would put her to rest properly. He joined us one Saturday.”

“I remember that night, Sasha. It was a damned good night. I didn’t realise that it was his dead wife Yuri telt the tales of. I wish I’d known.” Denis had tears in his eyes as he spoke and many moist eyed nodded in agreement.

“That is our way. I suppose it is our version of what Pat would call a wake. The dead are spoken of as though still living for only that way may they be laid at peace. It is not a peace for the dead, but a peace for the living to reconcile the things they wish they had said and the resolutions they wish they had achieved. Yuri was glad to have been here and with you all, and has many times written of you and the comradeship he found here when he laid Natalia to rest, comradeship which because of his politics he would never have managed to achieve back home because some of what he telt you would have been dangerous to speak of at home. He’s always said that because of that night he was able to go home a whole man, and that was what enabled him to marry again three years later. I’ll bring some of his letters to read the relevant parts of for you if you wish?” There was a subdued murmur of assent and Sasha nodded in agreement before continuing.

“Now Elle’s not entirely crazy and she does have a delicate sense of the appropriate, so drinking Yuri’s vodka was not inappropriate. I was on my third or fourth glass when the phone call arrived. It was a bit difficult because I didn’t recognise the voice and erroneously I assumed it was someone from Denholm as I had been telt would be the case. However it all became clear when I asked ‘To whom am I talking and where are you?’ It was the newish lass from my practice whom I’d had little dealings with in the past. She telt me they’d rung up Sammi and explained the situation, and she’d said to issue some more antibiotics, the same as what I’d had. All I had to do was go in and pick them up. A twenty mile round trip on easy roads as opposed to a seventy or eighty mile round trip on nightmare roads. All very easy in the end. I’m not sure why Denholm had to be involved at all, still I suppose the company have protocols that the troops have to follow. I went in and asked for a glass of water to take the first one with when I was there.”

“How is it now, Sasha?”

“It still hurts like hell to blow my nose probably because there’ll be bloody great bruised holes in the bone behind it where there used to be teeth. I’m sick of frigging soup. To start with I had to sieve the croutons out of cup-a-soup, but it did get better. Obviously I can’t chew anything but I gradually reached the point where I could suck spaghetti or rice off a spoon. I had to try something because I was fading away from starvation. A tin of stewed steak with another of mushy peas in it and some instant mashed potato is a pretty grim meal really, but when you’re starving anything you can slurp becomes bloody wonderful. I’m working my way up to tonight’s steak puddings, mash and peas. The second set of antibiotics are working. The areas of inflammation are smaller and less severe, though there seem to be tiny hard areas that stick up. I suspect they’re where the anaesthetic needles went in, but who knows. I’m thinking about trying my teeth soon. I feel a lot better, Dave. Good enough to indulge in some serious anaesthetic quality control. Anyone fancy a drop of that absinthe I got from Czechoslovakia last year. It’s only marginally toxic, honestly.”

“I’ll get it,” said Geoff.

After the corked green liquid in unmarked bottles that came in via a very complicated route expressly designed to perplex the customs officials of just about every country in Europe had been poured, Gladys said, “Steak puddings, mash and peas in twenty minutes, Gentlemen. It’s mash not chips [US fries] on account of Sasha’s mouth, so don’t complain.”

“So what’s next at the dentist’s, Sasha?” asked Tommy.

“Impressions taken for my lower teeth on the twenty-eighth of January, and teeth out on February the eleventh. Not sure what the score is on the road, but we can always turn the pumps on so I can get my rover out. Turn em off as soon as I’m through. If I ring Elle on my way back someone can row across and then drive me home. I’ll leave the rover on the far side of the water. After that it’s just a question of using the boat and anyone can use the rover as required. This time I’m going to ask for antibiotics then and there when she takes the teeth out.”

“What if she says no?”

“I’ll get them from a friend who imports British manufactured drugs from abroad and pick em up from the post office drop box on the other side of the flood.”

“Is that legal, Sasha?”

“No, but as has already been said, ‘There’s no good pain.’ So who gives a damn.”

To prevent further discussion of the matter Pete said, “Okay, Lads, lets give Gladys a hand with supper.”

Unusually there was a desert after the steak puddings, Spotted Dick(4) and Vanilla Custard. “If the raisins are too much, Sasha, just leave them, but you should be able to manage the rest.”

Sasha knew Gladys was doing her best to help him and knew Elle must have had a word with her regards his mouth. That the two women both loved him in their different ways he knew, Elle was his wife and Gladys was the wife of Pete his close friend whom he regarded as a daughter, but he would never have embarrassed either Gladys or Pete by publicly acknowledging the matter. “Thanks, Gladys. Any chance of a flaming brandy sauce on the pudding?”

“Good idea, Cossack. I’ll get some organised for the ladies too.”

“Damned good idea, Sasha. What made you think of that?” Pete asked.

When he was sure none could hear other than Pete Sasha replied, “Gladys was a little embarrassed at being seen to care about me, so it was something I could say to distract attention away from that.”

“You’re a bloody decent bloke, Sasha. You know that?”

“Yes. But like your good lady I don’t like it widely mooted about. Life’s infinitely easier if folk think you’re a callous bastard.”

After supper there were no more tales and as usual the men played dominoes till it was time to go home.

Sasha waited till all the others had left and indicated he wanted a word with Pete. “This seems like a good time to tell you something else, Pete. Those mortgages I hold on the Green Dragon will be returning to you via the solicitors this month some time in order to have the paperwork started to arrange the eventual termination of the mortgages when they are deemed to be paid up in full which will I hope be long before the mortgage term is completed. The only condition is that you can’t sell the place till after I’m dead. I’m not going to hold you to it in writing, but I’d like it if you’d train Delia to take over or failing that you and your good lady either have a child or adopt one to inherit the place and rear the child to appreciate the value to the area of a decent inn.”

Pete’s face was a picture. A mix of shock, horror and pure joy. “I understand exactly what you mean, Sasha, but Delia isn’t interested. When she left for London it wasn’t an amicable parting and she accused her mum of being a doormat that I walked all over. Gladys didn’t even bother replying. Delia doesn’t know about the mortgages, but as she left she said the next time she’d be back would be for the reading of the will and she’d sell the place to the highest bidder. Despite trying we’ve never managed another after Delia.”

“So? What about adoption? I’m not going to leave my stake in the place to some mercenary bastard who’ll sell it to a brewery to turn it into a chromium plated gin palace that locals won’t patronise. Got any ideas? We need to have this sorted out and soon, Pete.”

Pete looked seriously uncomfortable, but steeling himself said, “I’ve an older brother, Bert, who’s fourteen up on me. He’s the eldest of the nine of us. I’m the youngest. To be honest, Sasha, he’s a complete bastard. He left here for the northeast when I was just a kid, maybe six or seven, and from all accounts all were glad to see him go. He owns a scrapyard, but he’s no better than a potter.(5) He’s a few daughters and sons by I think three different mothers who are little different from him. Their mothers didn’t stay with Bert long, talk was he knocked them about, and when they took off it seems they all left the kids with him. Most are still living at home working at the yard. However, his youngest left home as soon as he could because Bert treated him like shite and knocked him about pretty regularly. He’d only have been fourteen at the time. I lost touch with him for a couple of years and found out afterwards he’d been living rough on the streets. Daft bugger should have contacted me. I’d have taken him in. We keep in irregular contact by mail now. Alex is nineteen and living in Chorlton cum Hardy, Manchester right now. I’ve not seen him since he left home five years ago, but he always was a decent kid, not at all like any of the others, and what I know of him now I still like though he’s changed after leaving home. He could be a possibility. He’s certainly the only possibility in both my family and Gladys’.”

Sasha looked hard at Pete and said, “Stop bullshitting me, Pete, what’s the problem? And why would you keep in touch with just one of Bert’s kids? What’s different about Alex?”

“Bert’s other kids were just like him, chancers on the make constantly looking out for what they could gouge out of me because I was earning good money over there. I met them all when I was working over there and had digs(6) in Newcastle during the week. Alex wasn’t like that, and despite him being the youngest or may just because he was the youngest the others gave him a hard time. When Alex turned sixteen he needed help. He wrote to me explaining what had happened and asked me if there was anything I could do. He was working and all he wanted was a character reference to shew a landlord so he could put a roof over his head. He never asked for money, so I sent him the reference and a couple of hundred to give him a start.”

“And?” Asked Sasha in a tone of voice that demanded the truth and all of it. “And what do you mean by he changed after leaving home?”

“He says he’s trans and goes by the name of Harriet. I suspect that’s why Bert treated him so badly. He never was much of a lad and as a boy he was a natural victim just waiting to be picked on. When he told me he was trans it all kind of made sense. He seems to be doing all right. He says he doesn’t get bullied now he’s living as a girl and he is much happier. He’s waiting on doing silver service in a big hotel in Didsbury as a waitress.”

“Bollocks! You need to start understanding how these sorts of things work, Pete. Her name is Harriet, and your niece is a waitress. Start thinking Harriet, female, she, her, hers and all that goes with that, and just forget everything before that. There is no Alex. Get her up here. Is that going to cause any problems between you and Gladys? Or do I have to have a word with her, Pete?”

“No. Gladys knows about Alex and is sympathetic.” Pete paused and after a few seconds, during which Sasha could see Pete was making efforts to change his thinking, he continued “I think she’d have asked Harriet to come up here a while back, but she was bothered about how I would cope.”

“You’re supposed to be a man, so you’ll stiffen your spine, and behave, act and cope like a man. Which means if necessary you’ll tell those who cause Harriet problems to fuck off and drink somewhere else. Write to her, Pete. Get her up here to speak to me and we’ll go from there. Send her enough to cover the train fare and be generous.”

~o~O~o~

Later that night when Pete telt Gladys what Sasha had said she said, “Sasha is the most decent man I have ever met, and I’m including you, Pete, much as I love you. I suggest you do as he telt you. I would love a daughter. Much as it grieves me to say it Delia has decided to become no daughter of ours and since she wanted to find her own way in the world I suggest we leave her to find it, but the way she left and what she said mean we owe her nothing. All we are and all we own is tied up in the Green Dragon, but the Dragon has many stake holders who may not own a share in it but surely because of their support in hard times and the help they freely gave during the extension and refurbishment they are morally owed a say in its future. If Harriet sees it that way too then surely she has a right to inherit not just all our wealth but all our obligations to those who have supported us too. Get her up here and leave it to Sasha.”

~o~O~o~

It was over four weeks before Sasha could put his plate in his mouth and it needed fixative. Most of the bone bruising had subsided but the roof of his mouth was still swollen. Poligrip from Dave’s general groceries store was all that was easily available, so on the eighteenth of January he followed the instructions and decided he’d keep the plate in for an hour. It didn’t feel like it fit properly and he said to Elle “I’m sure these are some bugger else’s teeth.” After half an hour he couldn’t stand it any more and removed the plate. At which point he swore and retching at the taste and sensation of the Poligrip stuck to the roof of his mouth he dived for the kitchen sink expecting to be sick. Warm water wouldn’t remove the stuff so he dived into the bathroom and spent a painful five minutes scrubbing the roof of his mouth with a toothbrush and warm water which due to the soft condition of his gums was exceedingly painful. After brushing the plate clean of the Poligrip he returned to Elle and telt her that that was the worst experience he’d had for many years and he threw the tube of Poligrip into the fire. He searched on ebay for an alternative and was awaiting the delivery of a different brand described as tasting refreshingly minty from an ebay vendor. Tommy who with his wife Sarah ran the village post office went to the post office drop box on the far side of the flood every day after lunch to collect the mail and Sasha was expecting the new product to arrive within the week.

On the twenty-eighth Sasha went to the dentist’s. He told her of his experiences. Sasha explained, “That Copydex was the worst thing I’ve ever had in my mouth including the time I hit a dog turd with a strimmer [weed wacker] not wearing a face shield.”

“What do you mean Copydex?” Sammi asked him. “That’s a latex rubber solution glue isn’t it?”

He said, “I can’t remember what it’s called. You know that denture fixative?”

“You mean Poligrip?”

“Yeah that’s it.”

“But Poligrip and Copydex are nothing like each other.”

Sasha asked, “You ever tried tasting either?” Sasha continued explaining of his internet searches on ebay for something better. “I’m also considering trying a product that’s a sealant. It’s supposed to prevent food getting under the plate or lower denture but I decided to ask you about it first.”

“I’ve never heard of the product nor anything like it. Do you know anything more about it?”

“I came across it on a German site that offered maybe a couple of dozen denture and dental products. I’ll find out more.”

Sammi explained, “The reason your plate doesn’t fit is because other than at left hand side there is still considerable infection remaining.” That surprised Sasha because he had no serious pain for a couple of weeks. “The infection is causing inflammation which is preventing the plate from fitting properly.” She prescribed a six day course of Clindamycin which she referred to as a second level antibiotic.

Sasha said, “I’ve two bits of bone or tooth sticking down through my gums and they’re painful.”

After examining his gums again she said, “I believed they will remodel(7) with time, but I’m reluctant to numb the gums, cut in and remove them because of the infection, though I’d have been reluctant to do anything even had that not been present. I’ll alter your next appointment from the eleventh of February to the first of March and that will be a review.”

They agreed he should not to try the plate till at least the end of the antibiotic course and that his lower teeth would not be extracted till his upper jaw had healed completely. During the conversation he’d told her of his conversations with Denholm asking, “Why do I always get a YOPS(8) kid even if they do sound like they’re fifty?”

The speaking look the dentist exchanged with the nurse provoked a questioning look from Sasha and Sammi explained, “We pray that the on call surgery is Waynburn and not Denholm because they upset so many patients and are difficult to deal with.” Sasha concluded the appointment by telling her of his writing up of the tale and promised her a copy.

When he reached home Sasha read the leaflet out of the antibiotics box and told Elle, “This is the first time I’ve ever seen a warning concerning an antibiotic overdose. It says if you take too many to go to your doctor at once or go to the local casualty department. [ER] Tell you it seems like dodgy stuff. There are any number of possible rather unpleasant side effects, but at least I’m not pregnant nor breast feeding and unlikely to suffer from inflammation of my vagina.”

1 Lonning, lane.
2 Minging, disgusting.
3 Vanya, nearly or almost.
4 Spotted Dick, (also known as ‘Spotted Dog’ or ‘Railway Cake’) is a traditional British baked pudding, historically made with suet and dried fruit (usually Zante currants or raisins) and often served with custard. Zante currants are actually a Greek raisin.
5 Potter, a pejorative term of opprobrium used in the north of England. The word has connections to travelling folk and has implications of theft and sharp dealing.
6 Digs, English term for temporary accommodation. Often used in the context of working away from home.
7 Remodel, term used for the change in gums that takes place as they heal and change shape after an extraction. Here indicating the bone will be eventually be covered by the new gum growth.
8 YOPS, Youth Opportunities Programme, a UK government scheme for helping 16-18 year olds into employment. It ran from 1978 till 1983 when it was replaced by the Youth Training Scheme. Often such kids were not over bright and the term ‘a yops kid’ became a pejorative expression implying stupidity and unhelpfulness.

The Grumpy old men were back in the taproom of the Green Dragon Bearthwaite and ready for another session of tales, jokes, history, fantasy and outright fabrication. The weather was cold but not excessively so, and the fires were well stoked to provide warmth. There were rows of dogs with their noses on the fenders dozing in the warmth and Pete was pulling pints. He’d put a couple of whisky bottles labelled Farm Distilled Calvados from Normandy on the bar indicating it was there for any of the old men to drink should they be inclined to take the risk. He’d acquired a few five litre plastic containers of the corrosive spirit when on holiday four summers ago, and decanted it off the lees into empty spirits bottles.

When all were seated and ready Alf asked, “You said you’d tell us about the rebuilding of your place sometime, Sasha. I know we’ve heard bits and pieces of it, but I’d like a round tale of it. Any chance?”

Sasha nodded and said “Okay. Well I bought the place from that lad from Wigan who’d only lived in it a year or two before going back to live at his mum’s. Anderson his name was. He said he was a builder and maybe that was so, but he may have been okay with Edwardian and Victorian brick built properties, but he was completely out of his depth on a spot like mine which was at least four hundred years old and built with beach cobbles set on wetted down clay and straw mix. If you mind he swerved for that dog and killed some poor sod in the resultant head on crash. I gathered he was never the same after that and his missus left him. Like I said he went back to Wigan, but his wife stayed up here. She lived in one of the villages near Aspatria I was telt. But that’s all decades ago, and I only met the bloke once. That was the first time we looked the place over. The next time we looked at it his mate from Maryport shewed us round, and I did the deal with the owner over his mate’s mobile phone. I mind it well because the phone was one of the first ones available and it was the size of a house brick. Twenty five grand he was asking, I offered sixteen and we settled on seventeen and a half or eighteen and a half. I can’t mind which now. Elle would know. He’d been trying to sell for a couple of years after he moved out and nobody had even looked at the spot till we came along. The house was in terrible condition and deteriorating rapidly. The out buildings were even worse. I don’t think there was a fence on the place that was stock proof. Most of the wire was rotted through in places and on the ground and you could push a finger through most of the posts.

“What decided you to buy the place, Sasha? All the locals knew the house was falling to pieces. And most of the out buildings hadn’t had a roof since before I was born. I mind the house roof collapsing when I was still at school. It had had a series of tenants who’d not looked after it and we all expected a few decent storms would see it off. At that point it wouldn’t have been worth ten grand for the land because it hadn’t had anything done with it for over fifty years. My dad said it could have been over a hundred since it had seen a plough, because no one bothered even when the second world war farming orders were in place making farmers put everything under food production. and old Peabody, Alan’s granddad mind not his dad said it wasn’t worth the trouble of fencing it for the grazing because the fields had been taken over by whins (1) and there was bugger all grazing on the spot. Most thought the best thing was to let the buildings tumble down and recover the entire site as farm land with a dozer. It was a hell of a shock round here when you bought the place and had Alec Graham clear the old hedge and fence lines and put in new sheep netting and barbed wire fences not just round the boundary but round all the fields too. It was an even bigger shock when you cleared the whins in less than two years with that flock of over a hundred goats.”

“I bought the place, Stan, because of where it is. No neighbours. I knew I could sort it all out with minimal grief from locals and more importantly the planners and building control too. Funny about the land. After the goats had stripped all the whins back to thick stuff and some of it was four or five inches in diameter which I selt for a good price to artsy fartsy types I selt the goats and had Alec cut what was left of the whins down to the ground with a chain saw. I couldn’t see the point in ploughing it so Alec chain harrowed it for me to rip up what he could of the whin roots. Alan Peabody approached me with regard to renting the grazing. We agreed a price as long as it was only sheep not cattle, and on condition he took the sheep off long enough for me to chain harrow the land every year for the foreseeable future. Alec went round picking up all the whins the harrows had ripped out and painting the stumps of what remained with concentrated glyphosphate. I only wanted sheep on the land because they would eat any green whin as fast as it appeared whereas cattle would ignore it and allow it to recover. Five years later there was no whin anywhere, the grass was in good heart and I telt Alan he could graze cattle too if he wanted. He’d only have been in his twenties I think when I first met him, but it’s what now? Forty years later, and he still has the grazing and does all my fence and gate maintenance for me.”

“Aye. He’s always said you’ve done well out of each other over the years without having to pay any land agent their fee for handling the grass letting. And any farmer is always glad of a neighbour who’ll put straying animals back in a field regardless of whose stock go in whose field. And I know he’s always been happy to trade meat for work on your spot, which keeps Vince in work and happy. Still that’s in keeping with Bearthwaite isn’t? Negotiate a fair deal and don’t pay anything to third parties who do nowt. At least Vince kills and butches(2) your meat for a fair price and it’s hard graft(3) butching a beast.(4) I hate estate agents, they’re nowt short of parasites.” There were any number of men nodding in agreement with Stan’s remark.

“Anyway back to the house. Everything was painted in high intensity wood stain. I know that’s what it was because I found the tin. Everywhere inside the house was as dark as a the inside of a black velvet bag. The kitchen was so dark you could see bugger all. On the day we moved in Anderson’s dad was picking up the last of his stuff and loading it all onto a waggon. When he saw me take the forty watt light bulbs out and replace them with one fifties he said I was ruining the ambiance. Ambiance my arse. I knew the house was in bad fettle, but I wanted to see exactly how bad what I’d bought was. The first thing the light shewed up was the state of the ceiling in the kitchen. It was wooden planked with inch thick boards, and I reckoned that stain was all that was holding it together. That was the first inkling we had of the extent of the woodworm. Still I got a week’s burning out of the kitchen ceiling, planks and joists both. That was the beginning of the big burn which lasted years. The thing that puzzled us was the place was full of moths about three-quarters of an inch long. We couldn’t figure out where they were coming from, but every morning every surface in every room was covered in loads of them mostly dead.

“My roof was a disaster in waiting. A lot of it was made from centuries old second hand ship’s timbers probably sourced from the local ship breakers that closed over two hundred years since. Most ships were only built to last thirty to fifty years and there was probably a ship breaker in every port once. A lot of the timbers were wood wormed to hell and no longer structural. Eventually I replaced every piece of wood in the house with tanalith pressure treated timber. There was little active wood worm in the house when we bought it because there was bugger all left for them to eat, most had probably starved to death long since. Most of the wood in the house you could crush to powder between your fingers. There was a six by three soft wood strut under the ridge piece that had been installed maybe twenty or thirty years before, but it was crumbling and the weight from the ridge had pushed it down through the wormed floor boards below. As a result the ridge had collapsed.

“I welded a four by three RSJ(5) to an Acrow jack.(6) The entire thing was twenty-eight feet long with six foot of potential extension, long enough to reach from the concrete floor of the ground floor kitchen to the fallen ridge and then jack it back to where it should have been. I had to knock holes in both the kitchen ceiling and the bedroom ceiling above it to put it in place, mind that wasn’t difficult. I bolted an eight foot long six by three oak timber to the top of the Acrow and jacked the ridge back up again using the screw on the Acrow and a secondary Acrow on a pair of eight by four foot three-quarter inch sheets of shuttering ply to take the load on the upstairs floor whilst I adjusted the pin on the big Acrow up to get another bite on the job. For the last foot I wasn’t strong enough even with a six foot bar on the Acrow thread to turn it any more, so I took the weight off it onto the secondary Acrow, pulled the pin, dropped the Acrow and used a hydraulic jack to take it up four inches too high. Same as before took the weight on the other Acrow, removed the jack, screwed the main Acrow back up and when I let the weight back down the roof ridge settled to where I wanted it.

Alf grinned and said, “At the time there were a lot of folk who wondered how you’d put the roof ridge back.”

“Yeah well, Alf, it wasn’t difficult, but it took an entire day. Old Lawton who lived nearby was a retired carpenter. He said he was eighty-four at the time, and he telt me when he was a boy his dad had reroofed the building, but Wabberthwaite the owner, a man notorious as a niggard, had telt him to leave the original roof timbers on and just retimber over them which explained why there were two sets of rafters in the roof a foot apart. The owner had supplied second hand timbers to reroof with which my neighbour’s dad had telt him were wormed and only fit for fire wood then. Old Lawton also telt me he minded another time the woman of the house, whose name he could no longer mind, giving him a drink of water from the well when he’d have been maybe five one hot sunny day. Upstairs there were two bloody great A frames supporting the roof that were clearly made from ships’ timbers because they were made of of pitch pine and every piece tapered from one end to the other. In the end they made great logs and burnt damned hot. Only trouble was they were at head height and both of us acquired regular forehead bruises till I took them out.”

Phil added, “Cecil Lawton was the village undertaker till he died when his nephew Casper took over the business. Casper had been working with him for years and I think when Cecil’s hands got bad with the arthritis Casper took over making the coffins.”

“Aye that’s right, Phil,” said Alf. “I’ve been casting up brass coffin handles for Casper every now and again for years now. They get taken off before a coffin is buried and then reused, but they don’t last forever and I remelt up the old ones after a few uses. Sorry, Sasha. Keep going.”

“Eventually I used every piece of that roof, and every other piece of wood in the house along with the stands from Workington dog racing track, the wood from a local social club which was a wooden building and all the wood from that house a quarter of a mile away when Jonny Whiteson bought the place, demolished it and built a new house on the site. I had the heat out of the lot of them to warm my house and provide hot water as they went up the flue.

“Long before I reroofed, we’d only lived there a month or so, we had a serious storm, steady winds of over eighty miles an hour gusting at over a hundred and ten. We get all the winds funnelling off the Solway plain. They come straight through past Northern Ireland and bounce off Snaefell on the the Isle of Mann to hit our coast, and there’s nothing to slow the winds down between us and Greenland and Canada. Elle was at work, she worked nights in those days, and it would have been past ten in the evening. I was upstairs listening to the wind gusts pulsing and getting bothered. It’s the pulsing that’s the problem, it the timing is right, or maybe I mean wrong, each pulse pushes the roof a bit higher and eventually it fails. It’s called resonance and it’s what caused the destruction of the Tacoma Narrows bridge over Puget Sound in the state of Washington on November the seventh, nineteen forty. The film of it failing is on youtube. It’s like pushing a kid on a swing, you wait till the swing has just gone over the highest point before pushing and that builds up the amplitude of the swing.”

“How do you mean, Sasha?”

“What? It makes it go higher more easily, Alf. I admit I was bothered watching the roof lift up and down in time with the gusts. I was right under it when a few minutes later it went up and kept going. I lost a quarter of my roof, which at least saved me the trouble of removing it. I had planned on starting reroofing from the other end of the building in three months but started at the end with no roof immediately. The roof by the way ended up behind the house destroying some very expensive cast iron antique garden furniture which upset Elle, so I just replaced it. Elle happy, so issue solved. Another pint, Lads?”

“I’ll get em in, Sasha,” Phil said standing up. “You pull em, Pete, and I’ll fetch em over? And I’ll let those dogs out for run.”

After all had another pint Sasha resumed. “It was my plan to raise the height of the rooms which required the walls to be four feet higher at the back and the same height all round eventually. I wasn’t planning on bothering the local authorities about the matter, so I didn’t want the roof taking off till I’d built the walls up. First I took the cobble walls out and rebuilt them with footings and a damp proof course up to the original height. Then I jacked the roof up with a dozen one ton hydraulic car jacks and built the walls up as I went. Then I started replacing the roof which led to some amazing experiences. At one point we had six inches of snow in the upstairs bathroom and we were singing ‘raindrops keep falling on my head’ in the front room with a roaring fire and a glass in our hands watching the drops falling into the dozen or more buckets on the floor and the odd drops hitting our heads. Even Elle wasn’t bothered when she had enough to drink.”

“What you lived in the house the whole time?” Asked Eric.

“Certainly did. Where where did you think we lived?”

“I assumed you bought a big caravan [US trailer] whilst you did the building.”

“No. That house is eighty foot long and thirty-five front to back. Two rooms deep and five wide. It’s bigger than most terraces of five houses. And that’s not including the two storey attached workshop which is twenty-five foot square. Although originally the house was only two storey at the back it’s two storey at the front now too. When we worked on one section we lived in another.”

There were a number of the old men who’d moved into Bearthwaite since Sasha had finished his work on the house and though not much surprised by his and Elle’s somewhat different approach to house renovation they hadn’t been aware of the circumstances. Most were smiling in surprise.

“The whole experience of renovating the house was astonishing. We took out a colossal chimney stack in what we used as our living room, and I mean colossal, fifteen feet by six all cobbles. God alone knows why it was that big because it only serviced a small fire. It wasn’t even carrying two flues. In a cavity built into the stack we found a child’s shoe and a small bell. Both apparently traditional mediaeval things built into buildings, especially fireplaces, to avert daemonic influences. My research said it was only ever one shoe not a pair. I’ve still got the bell and the shoe.”

“What were they like, Sasha? And how old do you think they were?”

“Nowhere near as old as the back of the house, Bill, because the stack was build in the front part of the house which was probably about two hundred years old. The bell is about three inches tall and two across at the bottom. The shoe is, as you’d expect, all leather. It’s about four or five inches long, quite narrow so possibly a girl’s shoe. It has relatively high sides and looks to be half way between a shoe and a boot. Call round some time and have a look. If a few of you come round one evening we could make a night of it. I’ve a few sets of dominoes, and Elle will be happy to put a supper on. Tell the girls and let them and Elle organise it and have a gossip session too.”

The old men were all nodding and looking forward to what they knew would effectively be a week with two Saturdays in it.

“The house had no foundations. The walls were made by depositing a double row of beach cobbles most fifteen to eighteen inches in diameter straight onto the ground. They hadn’t even removed the sod. You could see it as a black layer just under the cobbles. The walls were built of slightly smaller beach cobbles on top of the double row and were about eighteen inches thick. There was the odd cobble much bigger than that. We came across one over three feet long about nine feet up in a gable end that was at least half a ton. [500Kg, 1120 pounds] How they got it up there over four hundred years ago baffles me. Why they did so rather than use it at ground level baffles me even more, for all they’d have had would have been men, horses and sheer legs with blocks and tackles. It would have been dangerous work, but still in those days they’d just have put more men on the job and men were cheap, far cheaper than horses or even a good dog. We found that the beach cobbles of which the walls were built had been set in wet clay mixed with straw, not mortar. Centuries later the clay had dried to dust and blown out. It was a technique referred to as clay dobbing or dabbing. Every time the wind blew there was a fine layer of clay dust coating everything in the house. The house was draughty and every time you wanted a cup or a plate you had to wash the dust off. Elle refused to do any further house work because it was pointless and gave me an ultimatum, ‘Sort it out, or I’ll just pile all the dirty dishes in the sink till we need them.’

“Rendering the walls would have been a nightmare. The cobbles meant the walls were anything but flat, and trying to put anything up on a wall made of cobbles is an even bigger nightmare. Even drilling them using SDS(7) masonry bits in a powerful industrial hammer drill is a long, difficult and tedious process. So bit by bit I knocked the walls down removed the cobbles, dug proper footings for a foundation and built new walls using cement blocks. A four and a half inch insulated block on the inside, that’s a block with two inches of insulation keyed to it, then a two and a half inch cavity and an outer skin of nine inch blocks. All together an eighteen inch cobble wall replaced by an eighteen inch modern cement block, insulated cavity wall with a damp proof course which the cobble wall didn’t have. Nowadays they don’t allow insulated block you have to use those sheets of insulation foam like Kingspan and Xtratherm, but then they don’t have eighteen inch walls like I do. I’ve done the insulation calculations and my walls are well better than current building regulations.”

Alf was nodding as he said, “Putting up a shelf on a cobble wall is a right bastard of a job.”

Sasha continued saying, “The footings were fun. All of the footings went down at least three feet to get to something solid enough to pour concrete onto, though even that wasn’t that good and required steel reinforcing mesh to be any good. On one corner of the house to get the footings down on to something even approaching solid we had to go down ten feet to dig out the silt. If you stood on the silt you started to sink into it. It was clear that at some time in the past the entire area had once been a beach on the edge of the Solway which was now maybe twenty miles away across the plain. All the footings were four feet wide to spread the loading for as I said none of the ground was much good but that corner was the worst. I shuttered the sides because it’s scary being in a hole that far down. Remind me some time and I’ll tell you about putting in the new septic tank which we went down fifteen feet for. I decided that the corner needed more than the usual reinforcing mesh because the concrete was coming up like a pair of staircases as it moved away from the corner. When Alec Graham and I had worked our way round the boundary hedges of the property we’d pulled out bicycle frames and bed frames amongst all sorts of other stuff in the hedges. The metal we’d just threwn in a heap waiting for me to find time to weigh it in at the scrap yard sometime. That didn’t happen. That corner was reinforced with anything I could lay my hands on from out of the hedges and a lot more besides. It was a good way of cleaning up the place and a cheap way of bringing the footings at that corner to the same level as the footings everywhere else, about three feet below ground level.”

“I like it. Bed frames, bikes and old fencing as reinforcing in concrete. I’ll give you this, Sasha, you’ve got style.”

“Thanks, Harry. At the back of the house there’d been a buttress supporting the wall, or at least that’s what it was supposed to be doing. To look at it was two and a half feet wide and five feet deep at its base sloping up to nothing at the eaves. The left over straw from the dobbing after the clay had blown out and the nesting material put there by the resident mice had caught fire at some time in ages past in the wall. The soot and blackened cobbles provided the evidence for that. That had compromised the stability of the wall, hence the buttress. Problem was the buttress was a four and a half inch single brick shell filled with rubble and probably completely useless. When the back wall came out so did the buttress. I reckon given that the bricks the buttress shell was made from were of a modern machine made type but of a size that hadn’t been used for years the buttress was probably built some time round nineteen hundred.

“There was a single storey five foot deep lean to extension out of the ground floor bedroom which was at the back of the house and led to an en suite bathroom at the front of the house. The lean to was corrugated, asbestos cement sheet roofed and the gable it went through was supported by an inadequately sized RSJ. I decided to extend the lean wall to to the front of the house and take both extension and lean to up to replace the existing gable end with a new gable five feet further out. I scaffolded and sheeted the entire gable and frontage so none could see what I was doing and in doing so extended the ensuite bathroom to be five feet wider. Someone later said, “I see you knocked the lean to down.” Folk see what they expect to see. Also behind the sheets I extended the existing kitchen eight feet to the side which squared the building off and enabled me to access the rest of the building from inside. That’s the bit that’s now the workshop. That required extra roof tiles. I used the new tiles along the front five rows and used older ones to roof over the kitchen ‘extension’. I got questions from the council because someone had telt them I’d moved the frontage five feet towards the road, but the photographs I’d taken proved that to be nonsense. It was not noticed that I’d squared the kitchen off because it looked right, like I said folk see what they expect to see. Funny thing, originally the bit of the workshop that’s farthest from the house must have been a separate building that wasn’t built quite parallel to the house. At some point the space between the two buildings had been incorporated into the structure and roofed over. That must have been before Cecil Lawton’s dad reroofed the spot because there was the double set of timbers on the roof. The extra space was seven foot wide at the back and ten and a half at the front which made for interesting building.”

Stan added, “I mind at the time folk saying Sasha had knocked that lean to down, but I never heard a whisper of anything else. I guess he’s right. Folk see what they expect to see, but he’s a crafty old bastard for playing on it.”

It wasn’t quite a smirk on Sasha’s face but it was perilously close to it as he continued. “The entire front of the house was a single storey extension built at least a couple of hundred years ago. The roof sloped up to the ridge, but it wasn’t in a straight line. There was a change in the angle where the front of the original building had been. The space above the kitchen which was at the front of the house was completely closed in. We went upstairs at the back of the house to break into it to discover there was an old timber door way complete with wooden latch that had been bricked in. It was maybe three foot wide and four high like a typical barn hay loft entry. That was how we knew the front was a later addition to the house because that doorway must have been on the outside of the building originally. The space inside above the kitchen which was five foot high at the original house side going down to nothing at the eaves was filled with old hessian sacks and paper potato sacks. The floor was wormed to hell and unsafe so I went in very carefully. My intention was to knock down all remaining wood and the sacks into the kitchen. When we’d removed the planked kitchen ceiling we’d found there was another ceiling or maybe that’s a floor eighteen inches above it. As soon as I touched the sacks one mystery was solved. That’s where the damned moths were coming from. Thousands flew up, there was a cloud of them. Still all the wood and sacks didn’t last a week in the solid fuel Rayburn cooker and we never saw one again.

“I knew where I was going with the entire development and so built the new chimney stack, six feet by four carrying two twelve inch flues to four feet higher than the new ridge would be. The chimney footings projected four feet all around the proposed new stack and were heavily steel reinforced and two feet thick. I built the stack with nine by nine inch solid concrete bocks and infilled with sulphur resisting cement concrete. I had two twelve inch internal diameter pipes which I laid the concrete around and gradually pulled them up as the chimney rose. Obviously the whole chimney had to be scaffolded as it went up. Any number of folk asked why was my chimney so high. Eventually as the front wall went up a bit at a time, jacking the roof and building the front wall below it the chimney ‘shrank’ in height as the roof was jacked up around it. I was telt several times, “I knew you’d have to reduce it.” However they were all incomers who’d had silly ideas about what rural life was like. As soon as they realised the floods cut them off from time to time and if they wanted the pumps on they’d have to pay for it they started moving out. None are left now. Only a few of the silly bastards had noticed the extra row of windows in the new storey upstairs front wall, and I telt them that they mustn’t have noticed the tiny windows, and that I’d built the new blockwork to accommodate decent sized windows to let a decent amount of light in. Like I said, folk see what they expect to see.”

“I thought you don’t tell lies, Sasha,” Alf said with a smile thinking he’d caught Sasha out.

“I don’t or at least I try not to. What I said was true. They hadn’t noticed the tiny windows because there weren’t any, and I had built the new blockwork to accommodate decent sized windows to let a decent amount of light in.” Alf and a number of the others were smiling at Sasha’s manipulation of the truth.

Stan said, “I got sick of those bastards, Sasha. Always complaining about something. Cockerels crowing, lambs bleating, shite on the road at muck spreading time and things changing. I telt one woman of course things were changing idiots like her were living here. They should have stayed where they were before. Still none will sell to any like them any more. If someone needs to sell we’ll all chip in till a couple from here or at least from a farming community wants to buy us out. It’s a decent investment and means we don’t have to put up with city shit heads.” There was a decided murmur of agreement with Stan.

Sasha who’d set up the mechanism for the locals to do that in order to help an elderly couple sell up to go to live with their daughter’s family and enable Denis to sell his small holding to move to into the old couples holding at Bearthwaite, which took nearly a twelve month, just nodded before continuing. “As I’d expected local building control eventually catcht up with me. Now that was a farce. The main man was too fat to climb a ladder, so the roof structure was inspected from the ground which gave me endless opportunities for bullshit. I said it had all been completed six years before which meant they couldn’t do anything because too much time had elapsed. Then they sent a young bloke. He was as thick as pig shit and I should know because I taught him A level mathematics, and becoming a building inspector hadn’t given him any more intelligence. I had a bit of grief from them over my new workshop, but it was nothing I couldn’t work round and the matter has been closed for years now.

“I must say I think the planners are all idiots with no sense of what looks right or attractive. One of their most common reasons for refusing planning permission is because they say the development will detract from civic amenity, in other words they think it will be ugly. That obscenity at Workington that the locals call Perry’s palace after the council leader when it was built has to be the ugliest building in the county. Allerdale House is its official name and it’s the council’s office block, though the planners and building control are no longer in there because the place was too small, or more likely they’ve taken on too many useless bastards the public shouldn’t have to be paying for. It’s true what’s been said many a time, doctors can bury their mistakes, but architects’ mistakes are a bit more permanent.”

~o~O~o~

After a round had been sorted out the men looked around and Eric who had just turned sixty started, “I telt you ages since I didn’t get on with Shauna’s parents in the beginning. It was none of my doing, her dad had heard some bullshit about me from a mate of his at work who didn’t even know me and he’d believed it. I just ignored it till young Jimmy came home crying one day. We’d done something together that he’d enjoyed and had wanted to tell his granddad about it. He used to sleep over at his grandparents’ place pretty often, they only lived half a mile away. His granddad had shut him up saying he didn’t want to hear anything about me. I had never even considered stopping Jimmy spending time with them and I didn’t them, but I was hopping mad. I telt Shauna to get her coat. I telt her, “We’re going to have a chat with your dad and if he doesn’t apologise to you I’m going to knock seven shades of shit out of him.”

“Ah knockt on, an as he answert the door I set, ‘Ye owe yer dochter an apology, an ifn she does nae get et ah’m gang te knock seven kints o shit oot o ye, and tha’ll be tha for e’er. Er ye se sma a mon tha ye’re willin te dae tha te the lassie ye shaer a bed wi, who a least has the sense te visit us an spen time wi the boy she loves? Ah’ll dae et te ye because ah care aboot ma lassie an ah’m feckin sick o ye upsettin a wee laddie who’s don nothin te deserve yur cuntish behaviour. Dinae tek et oot on hem, tek et oot on mey ifn ye’ve the balls te try et. He was no mah boy, but wey’ve decidet te be father and son because wey want te be. Ifn ye dinae tell mey reet the noo tha ye’ll no shut him op any mere when hey wants te tak aboot things hey’s enjoyt daeing wi his dad, and whether ye like et or no tha’s mey, ah’ll mek sure ye ne’er see hem agen te hurt hem. Noo what’s it te be? A feckin guid hidin an a dreich future wi your missus upset wi ye, or bey a mon an admit ye med a mistek, apologise te your dochter tha’s noo ma lassie, an at least try te bey civil aboot mey te your grandbairn. If ye chose the latter, ah’ll bey mon enoof te let bygones be bygones and nothin bat regards ye will e’er pass ma lips te the boy. Ah’ll gie ye twa minutes te make a decision. Mek the reet yan and ah’ll call ye dad, mek the wrong yan and ah’ll dae ma damndest te mek ye hurt for a month. Your twa minutes starts the noo.’ [This paragraph is at the bottom in plain English]

“I’d met Shauna down here when I was eighteen and never went back to live in Glasgow again. We were wed inside of twelve months. By then most of the time in those days I spoke near enough like the northern English, but when I was under stress I spoke like I was a Glaswegian with no experience of the south. It was a shock to Shauna that I not only threatened to sort her dad out but that I did so in the dialect that I did. I didn’t realise for years that my speech itself made her dad think I was a gangster from Glasgow.

“Years later I mind one evening when all had been fine with Shauna’s dad for a long time. My mother in law had died a couple of years before, but my father in law had never really come to terms with that. I think he was just passing time waiting to join her at the time. He was staying with us along with Cath, my sister in law and Mick, her husband for a week during the summer. Shauna and Cath had put Cath’s kids to bed and the adults were enjoying a drink and conversation. I’d opened a bottle of cask strength [60% by volume] Laphroaig and my father in law was decidedly worse for wear. As the alcohol loosened his inhibitions he started to apologise for his behaviour years before. As far as Shauna and I were concerned the matter was over, but I think he needed to make his peace with himself. He was a big Irishman, six three and well over fifteen stone, [over 210 pounds] and there was no way Mick and I could get him to bed upstairs, so I suggested putting him in Shauna’s and my bedroom. We used the en suite bedroom down stairs. The two of us helped him and got him standing by the bed, but he was gone even if standing. He had his back to the bed so I put my hand to his chest and pushed. He went backwards and keeled over. It looked like he was falling in slow motion, and Mick was still laughing when we joined the lasses. Dad had fallen across the king sized bed, and all we’d done was take his shoes off. When I got up the following day he hadn’t moved. He had a good sense of humour and I mind years before him telling me, ‘Take a good look at my missus, Son, because that’s what you’re buying. Don’t come crying to me in years to come when you realise you made a big mistake because you’ve been warned.’ I also mind one time he telt me ‘Everything gets harder as you grow older, Son, except the only thing that matters that is.’ I mind her shriek of shock, as my mother in law hit him and said, ‘Joseph!’ That I think was the only time I ever heard him called anything but Joe.”

~o~O~o~

Harry indicated he’d tell a tale. “You all know the bad bend on the road that runs through where I used to live before I came here. There are width restriction signs of six foot six at each end of the road and warnings about the bend. Maybe ten years ago a Polish waggon driver had wedged his waggon which was an eighteen wheeler with a sixty foot trailer on the bend between the barn and the wall. Usual bull shit, ‘The sat nav told me to do it.’ I don’t know how long he’d been driving, but he’d no idea how to reverse his rig. I telt him to get out and I’d do it. I hitched a chain to the arse end of his trailer by wrapping it round his rearmost axle and pulled it free with a tractor. I jumped in the cab before he could and backed the rig up from off the bend and back round the smaller bend. I should have backed it up and onto the main road because it took him over an hour to reverse three hundred metres on a straight road and he butchered the verges on both sides all the way. I was later telt that it took him half an hour to back the trailer on to the main road. Oversize waggons having to back up from the bend was becoming a commonplace event, but another Polish driver with a waggon the same size about a fortnight later was trying the same trick. I went out and telt him there was no way he’d get it round. He said he’d try it. I don’t have a word of Polish and he didn’t speak English, but he understood what I was saying when I telt him I was going to ring for the Police. He wasn’t as bad a driver as the other guy, but he wasn’t any good. It took him half an hour to get back on the main road. Those two trailers are the only two I’ve ever seen that long other than on the motorways. However we were getting so much damage done to the property especially the barn on the corner that had been there nigh on two hundred years by over size waggons that we decided to sell up and move. That’s why we came here.”

~o~O~o~

After Harry had finished Paul started. “I was halfway through my A’ levels and still living at Mum and Dad’s place in Malvern. That year I had a summer job chopping up trinitrotoluene, TNT. I’d have been seventeen. I was working for ICI somewhere in the midlands, I can’t mind where now. The stuff is the most widely used high explosive in the world both by commercial outfits like mines and quarries and the military too because it’s so stable. You can’t set it off by hitting it or by setting it on fire. The usual trick is they use a tiny quantity of something that’s so unstable you can set it off by thinking about it as a detonator. They used to use fulminates which are so unstable they used to say you could always tell a chemist who'd done early fulminate research by his missing fingers, and the fewer fingers he had the longer he'd been working on the stuff. I don’t know if they still use the stuff at all because most modern detonators are based on lead azide. The detonator sets off a small quantity of something a bit more stable but still pretty dodgy. That’s referred to as the primary gain, and it in turn sets off a larger quantity of something even more stable, the secondary gain which is what sets off the TNT. Sometimes there's only one gain not two. We worked in a stainless steel clad room which had a load of twelve inch holes in the floor. The TNT came in via a chute in big irregular chunks from the part of the site where it was made. The biggest pieces were maybe a couple of feet long and a foot thick, but most were no bigger than a foot in any direction.

“The stuff was vaguely pink, someone telt me that was due to impurities and that the pure stuff was pale yellow. It was a soft waxy solid like those firelighters you can buy. If you put a match to it it burns like a firelighter but it won’t explode. We chopped the stuff up with axes till the pieces were small enough to go down the holes in the floor and using a brush we swept all the small bits down the holes too. I never saw it but there were steam pipes round the pipes that the holes were connected to. The stuff melted as it went down and was completely liquid by the time it reached the bottom. I believe the liquid was poured into shell casings which were vibrated to make sure the pour was solid with no voids or bubbles in it. That was so the explosion was even and not more powerful on one side. Funny thing was when I went back to school my A level chemistry teacher didn’t believe me because he said TNT was a liquid. I telt him he was mixing it up with trinitroglycerine which is a liquid and far more unstable that TNT. The following lesson he admitted he’d been wrong and I was correct. Christ that tasted sweet. It’ll all be a fully automated process now I suppose with no summer jobs to be had for kids which is a shame really.”

~o~O~o~

Alf said, “I’ll tell a really short one. Am I glad I live out in the sticks with folk of sense. I weighed in a trailer of scrap at the scrapyard from Jacob’s place last week. Jacob is Ellen’s younger brother and he went with me. There were two lads that worked in the yard squaring up to each other because one was telling the other who was a stacker truck driver to move a pallet of old car batteries so I could back in for him to unload me with the magnetic grab. There was well more than enough room for me so I just backed up. The crazy thing was after I’d been unloaded and weighed off on the weigh bridge the two of them were back to squaring up again. Jacob and I left in a hurry before either of them thought to involve us in it. If that’s what living in a town does to you you can bloody well keep it for me.”

~o~O~o~

Denis said, “Talking of idiots, I mind reading somewhere a long time ago that in the early part of the twentieth century the US military funded a lot of work into IQ testing. They were interested in trying to match up recruits and what they had them doing and had concluded IQ was the single most reliable indicator. An interesting conclusion of the work was that any one with an IQ below eighty-three could not be trained for anything, no matter how much time was invested in them. In those days the US military was used as an educational and training tool for the many who’d had little schooling. For all I know it may still be. It was seen as of social benefit since on release from the military the veterans would have been trained in a trade they could feed themselves and a family with in civilian life. I always wondered what the truth of it was because my mate Jonas had a younger brother David who had Down syndrome and although I’d no idea what his IQ was I’d taught him to read and write. He went to a special school who’d telt his mum he’d never be able to read and write. David was into dinosaurs and collected the dinosaur cards that came in boxes of tea. I think they were Brooke Bond tea, but lots of tea companies packed collectable cards in those days. We used the cards instead of books. It was slow, but he learnt to read and write, and some of those beasties had long names. David was good with animals and went on to work full time for a local farmer who’d been employing him at weekends for years. Dobson, the farmer, telt me he was one of the few folk who could handle his bull and he did it easily because the bull was happy to follow him about like a dog. I know David used to collect sweet clover for the beast as a treat, but I’d seen him handle it with no clover and it wasn’t all cupboard love. I’ve read that the average IQ of Down affected individuals is about fifty, but it is widely variable and some with mosaic Down syndrome have IQs of round the hundred mark, which is said to be the average in the general population, but I still wonder about the truth of what was said about having an IQ of eighty-three or less.”

~o~O~o~

John indicated he’d carry on with a tale and said, “On a completely different subject, about fifty years ago I found a young little owl suffering from cold. That’s little owl as in the species Athene noctua, not as in referring to its size. I found it in a wood on the ground when out walking and it would have died if I’d left it. I decided to take it to the owl sanctuary that was out Awlsome way or maybe it was Redvale. I don’t remember any more. What a place that was. The first trick was getting past the half dozen swans patrolling the car park that seemed to be intent on keeping all visitors in their cars. I went into a barn and there were hundreds of owl of every species imaginable perched up on rails running round the building. I got there just in time to see an old woman dumping a box of what she later telt me were live day old male chicks from a local hatchery. They only wanted the female chicks to sell on to egg producing battery farms. In a matter of seconds those owls had swooped, were back on their perches enjoying a snack and there wasn’t a chick in sight on the ground.

“I explained why I was there and she said to bring the box into the house. Like I said that place was an eye opener. Every room in the house had perches high on the walls, looked like wooden curtain rails to me. Every perch was packed with owls. She must have had hundreds if not a few thousand. Everywhere was covered in bird shit. In the front room was a big cage maybe eight foot square and six foot high. It was covered in newspaper. There were two arm chairs in it, and it turned out that’s where she lived. The rest of the place was given over to the owls. She telt me most of the birds were eventually returned to the wild. I mind she had one that had only one wing and she said he lived with her permanently and was her favourite. A pet she called it. She was dressed in rags. I suspect she spent every cent she had on the birds. I handed over the minute fluffy ball of seriously bad attitude, little owls are notoriously bad tempered, and she went into paroxysms of delight. Under any other circumstances I’d have suspected her of having a spontaneous orgasm. I gave her a tenner for the funds and turned to go.

“That’s when I saw the girl. Somewhere between ten and twelve to look at but probably older because she looked underfed. She was dressed in what appeared to be a hessian flour sack with holes cut for the neck and arms with a piece of hay bale twine for a belt. That and wellies. There was a look of helplessness and hopelessness on her face that haunts me to this day. I wondered was she a daughter, a granddaughter or just a waif and stray taken in like the birds? I truly have no idea. I still wonder if I did right not informing social services, but I didn’t because everything I knew about them telt me they just made kids’ lives worse. I can’t help but wonder what happened to her and what she is doing now.”

~o~O~o~

Frank said, “A few years back I was at the steel yard collecting pallets. They ring me up every now and again to say there’s a worthwhile load for me. I get the firewood plus anything else they want taking away that is of use to me and they don’t have to pay for a skip to dump the pallets in. Pallets are mostly air and you don’t get many in a skip that costs you a hundred and fifty quid. I’d just loaded all the easy to cut up thick stuff into my fourteen foot trailer, the one with the cage sides front, sides and rear, when a bloke turned up in a saloon car. He objected to me taking all the good stuff and said I should let him have it and I should take the pallets. Now pallets are okay, but they are time consuming to cut up and you need to be damned careful or you’ll get seriously hurt, and they don’t last five minutes. You have to sit over the fire constantly loading it up. I said the firm had rung me up to collect the stuff, I did the job regularly and for me it was a sixty mile round trip. I added I was damned if I was giving him anything. There was nothing left that would fit in his car, so he disappeared muttering curses. The four foot skid which was three and a half inches square I was holding may have had something to do with him backing down. I used to think I could be obnoxious, but I don’t any more because there’re far worse than me out there.”

~o~O~o~

Tony and his wife Beth were regular Saturday night visitors. He and Beth were dentists who lived near Keswick. Beth always came with him and enjoyed herself in the best room. Tony was a bee keeper of many years experience having kept bees since childhood. “I once sold four hives of bees to a bloke in south Wales. I agreed to deliver them for a suitable price. I couldn’t borrow a trailer from anyone I knew who had one because they were all in use or awaiting repair. The bloke had paid me up front so I was committed. The best I could do was borrow my sister’s mini van. I’d kept bees a long time, but travelling two hundred and fifty miles over poor quality B roads with four strong colonies of clearly angry bees just behind you is not good for the nerves. I got them to where they were going. The last two miles were over a bumpy farm track and the bees were roaring. The bloke and I, and I can’t remember his name, offloaded them onto his prepared hive stands and I advised him to leave them till the following afternoon before he let them out. I like bees, but my return journey was far less stressful.”

~o~O~o~

“Supper in three minutes, Gentlemen,” Gladys announced. “Corned beef hash with Aggie’s own pickled red cabbage tonight. I’d appreciate it if you cleared the empty glasses away please.”

Half an hour later after supper had been cleared away Gladys said, “I’ve a bit of a tale that may amuse you if you want to hear it. If you do I’ll tell you why I’m telling you when I’ve done.”

Gladys rarely had much to say, but had in the past added to Pete’s tales, and she could tell a tale. Pete just looked at Sasha who said, “Have at it, Lass, you’re the Landlady, so you don’t need to ask permission ever.”

“Well, I was chatting with Veronica Peabody, Alan’s wife, the other day and she was telling me a couple of things from when they were courting. I’m not talking out of turn because I asked if I could tell you and all she did was laugh and say that since hundreds of folk had had the tales from her I could tell any I wanted to. It seems when she was a girl she wasn’t much of a hand at cooking. She wasn’t particularly interested and though her mum was a good cook she wasn’t a patient woman, and any woman will tell you when teaching kids to cook you need patience, and you need a lot of it. Her mum telt Alan one day long before they were wed that when she’d been ill and in bed with it she’d telt Veronica what to put in the pan to make a pan of lobby(8) for the family. A while later she smelt burning and asked Veronica how much water she’d put in the pan. ‘Water? You never telt me to put in any water, Mum,’ Veronica replied.”

There was a lot chuckling at that before Gladys continued, “Veronica went on to say that Alan telt his brother once, ‘I’m not saying she can’t cook, but she once managed to burn the ice on a block of frozen soup from out of the freezer.’ You know Enid Alan’s first wife died young. When Veronica met him she was eighteen and he’d four kids. Eventually she had another four. But the funniest thing she telt me was the first time she tried her hand at pastry making which wasn’t long after they’d wed, Alan’s six year old telt her, ‘This pastry tastes like sellotape(9) smells, Mum’ ” At that there was a lot of laughter. Gladys finished her tale by saying, “Young kids can be trusted to tell it like it is, thing is often you don’t like it. Strange thing is Veronica eventually became a Cordon Bleu chef at some fancy hotel in Lancaster or maybe it was Preston, so that’s maybe why she wasn’t bothered about me repeating the tales.

“The reason I’m telling you is Aggie is feeling her age, and five o’clock starts for breakfasts and half past nine suppers aren’t doing her any good. Veronica will be doing dinners and putting on suppers a couple of days a week from next week. I’ve telt her and Aggie to work out the details between then, so she may well be covering some Saturdays. Aggie says she’s a morning person so she’s happy to continue doing breakfasts and lunches. Veronica’s only doing the two days a week to start with so we can both see how it goes, but I’m hoping Veronica will take over doing dinners and suppers eventually, and I’m looking for someone to do relief cooking for both Aggie and Veronica to give them at least a couple of days a week off.”

Frank who was Aggie’s husband said, “Like the rest of us the newness has worn off Aggie and she gets tired, but she wouldn’t even think about cutting back her hours till Gladys found someone to cover for her. She saw it as dropping Gladys in it. She’s like an old plough horse, but I’d rather she didn’t drop between the shafts.”

The men all nodded, for that was entirely in keeping with Aggie’s character, and they were glad at the arrangements for her sake.

“Is that it?” asked Stan looking around for half a minute. “Okay, dominoes it is.

English version of Eric’s dialectal section of his tale

“I knocked on the door and as he answered the door I said, ‘You owe your daughter an apology, and if she doesn’t get it I’m going to knock seven kinds of shit out of you, and that will be that for ever. Are you so small a man that you’re willing to do that to the woman you share a bed with, who at least has the sense to visit us and spend time with the boy she loves? I’ll do it to you because I care about my lass and I’m fucking sick of you upsetting a young boy who’s done nothing to deserve your cuntish behaviour. Don’t take it out on him, take it out on me. He was not my boy, but we’ve decided to be father and son because we want to be. If ye don’t tell me right now that you’ll not shut him up any more when he wants to talk about things he’s enjoyed doing with his dad, and whether you like it or not that’s me, I’ll make sure you never see him again to hurt him. Now what’s it to be, a fucking good hiding and a bleak future with your wife upset with you, or be a man and admit you made a mistake, apologise to your lass that’s now my lass, and at least try to be civil about me to your grandson. If you chose the later, I’ll be man enough to let bygones be bygones and nothing bad regards you will pass my lips to the boy. I’ll give ye two minutes to make a decision. Make the right one and I’ll call you dad, make the wrong one and I’ll do my damndest to make you hurt for a month. Your two minutes starts now.’

1 Whins, gorse, Ulex europaeus, and othe species too.
2 Butches, butchers.
3 Graft, work.
4 A beast, specifically refers to cattle when used thusly by rural Cumbrians.
5 RSJ, rolled steel joist, a heavy steel H or I section girder.
6 Acrow, Acrow jack or Acrow prop, a specific make of adjustable support. A telescoping steel tube in a steel tube with four inch coarse adjustment using three-quarter inch steel pins going through holes in both tubes and fine adjustment using a quarter inch screw thread. The top and bottom have six inch square quarter inch thick steel plates with holes for nail or screw fastenings welded on. They can take a loading of 7KN [700 Kg or 1540 pounds.]
7 SDS, The initials SDS stands for Slotted Drive System or Slotted Drive Shaft. It is a mechanism which enables positive drill bit location whilst allowing the drill to move in the chuck whilst under power. It is particularly effective in hammer drills.
8 Lobby, a traditional stew with many regional variations. A dish born out of poverty, the heart of it is poor cuts of beef, onion, carrot and a lot of potatoes. The meat requires long slow cooking and the dish is finally seasoned usually with salt and pepper. Many modern recipes include other vegetable and herbs.
9 Sellotape is a British brand of transparent, polypropylene based, pressure sensitive adhesive tape. It is the leading brand in the UK. Like Scotch Tape in Canada and the US, Sellotape has long been a genericised term when referring to any brand of clear adhesive tape.

Within six months of her arrival Harriet had been completely accepted by the locals as Pete’s daughter rather than his niece. Gladys and Pete had been highly regarded for years and after it went around how badly Bert had treated Harriet when the couple adopted her, thanks to a casual word dropped here and there by Elle, they were even more highly thought of. The few who remembered Bert said he was an unlikeable young man with a bad temper and over ready to use his fists and that him abusing a child of his was only too credible. Bert had left Bearthwaite because his fists against those of dozens of decent men had resulted in a regular battering. He’d never won a fight because his temperament caused him to choose unwinnable odds, and in spite of being born of a centuries old Bearthwaite family he was not considered to be one of them. Vince the Mince,(1) the village butcher, summed up local opinion in a nut shell when he said, “For sure he won’t be made welcome if he tries to return here. Even as a kid he was a gey(2) ignorant(3) bastard that none liked.” None yet knew Harriet was trans and Sasha advised her to leave it like that for the time being.

Eventually when it did become common knowledge that Harriet was trans most already liked and thought well of her. All the women and girls of the village could see how close Gladys and Harriet had become, just like any other mother and daughter, for Harriet was completely feminine in her behaviour. That Sasha had said any who did not accept her were no friends of his had helped, but ultimately what had made the difference was Sasha telling Pete that if he felt making the situation regarding the mortgages on the Dragon public could help in any way then it was unkind to Harriet to keep the matter a secret. Gladys’ and Pete’s admission of their debts to Sasha concerning the Green Dragon and their opinion that all the folk of Bearthwaite owed him because elsewise the place would probably have become a clone of a chain brewery pub made all consider the matter with a greater degree of tolerance. When Gladys telt some of the ladies that Harriet was the next generation who was being trained to keep the Dragon a free house, those ladies put considerable pressure on their menfolk and reminded them why they preferred to drink in the Dragon rather than elsewhere. Even the men who lived outside Bearthwaite but drank in the Dragon considered the inconvenience of its isolated location to be a small matter as compared with its entire ethos and ambience, although it is doubtful that many had ever heard of either of those two words. That their wives raised no problems concerning an evening spent gossiping in the entirely feminine atmosphere of the Green Dragon’s best room whilst their husbands swapped lies, tall stories, jokes and reminiscences in the tap room meant the matter of Harriet was closed to further discussion.

~o~O~o~

“Harriet, have you the desire for GRS? And if so have you the ability to finance it?”

Harriet looked puzzled and embarrassed, but not willing to lie or prevaricate she replied, “Yes and no, Elle. Why?”

Elle pushed a piece of paper over to her and said, “Read it please.”

Harriet read it, but it had been prepared by a solicitor and was written in legal language that was unintelligible to her, so she asked, “Would you tell me in words I can understand what it means, Elle?”

“It says Sasha and I shall pay for any and all medical procedures you require and wish, whatever they be and what ever they cost, and we shall subsequently support you as though you were our granddaughter if in return if and when you eventually become the landlady of the Green Dragon you guarantee to keep its status as a free house and to only ever pass it on to one or more of your heirs, which obviously includes those by adoption, who will have to sign to agree to do likewise. This document means you and they can’t pass it on elsewise. It guarantees the independence of the Dragon in perpetuity. Though not in the document if you or your heirs are ever in need of finance I suggest you or they approach our heirs who will be willing to help.” That Sasha had set up the Green Dragon Trust Fund years ago specifically to do that Elle didn’t mention, though Gladys and Pete were aware of it.

Harriet stared into nowhere for a minute trying to understand why Sasha and Elle would be so generous for such a tenuous possibility of virtually no reward. Eventually she asked, “Sasha loves my stepmother doesn’t he?”

Elle didn’t take long to reply, “Your dad is like son to us, and no we don’t love your stepmother. We love your mother and the sooner you think of her as your mother and not your stepmother the happier your life and hers will become. I suggest you talk to your mum and dad about this.” Running her hand over Harriet’s hair Elle kissed her cheek and left as tears ran off Harriet’s face.

Harriet was still crying when Gladys found her. After Harriet had told her what Elle had said, Gladys explained, “I don’t know much about Elle’s early life. I don’t think any other than Sasha does, but for sure it wasn’t too good. I do know Sasha had a terrible early life. He’s incredibly intelligent and understands folk and life at a level few others can comprehend. Money and status mean nothing to him for he has huge amounts of money and even more status in every country in the world, yet he chooses to live here in a converted farmhouse which he converted himself and he lives just like the rest of us. I don’t actually believe there is such a person as Sasha or Elle because they are so close they function as one person. Listening to their banter most are tricked into believing they are just like any other married couple, but I believe that is a fiction they both work at to maintain. That they both usually use the word we rather than I is significant. You may think you’re talking to one of them, but I believe you are always talking to both of them. Sasha does, however, care about folk. His children are all clever, have well paying professions and have settled elsewhere. They don’t need their parents to look after them any more, so Elle and he look after Bearthwaite. He was the person who telt your dad to get you here, and I and your dad are glad he did. As you know your dad and I have a daughter named Delia, but she has turned her back on both of us. It was an acrimonious parting. I’m sad about that, but I accept it is her right. She seems to think she has a right to the Green Dragon when we are gone, but that is not so. We adopted you for many reasons, but to prevent her making your life difficult when we’re gone was one of them.

“Sasha owns more of the Dragon than your dad and I because he financed the original mortgage and the extension mortgage too. It’s a totally private affair. Sasha just wants the Dragon to be independent, a decent place for locals to socialise. As you already know the taproom revolves around the story tellers, the Grumpy Old Men’s Society as they refer to themselves. What you may not have realised is they are the major attraction of the place. Some of the men come from over a hundred miles away to listen and join in on Saturdays, and most bring their wives to enjoy the more feminine attractions of the room. Many couples book a room so they can enjoy Saturday evening to the full. The Dragon is unique and very old fashioned in that it panders to no modern views on gender. It has often in the media been accused of perpetuating gender stereotypes that elsewhere died out going on for a century ago, which is possibly true to an extent, but that is not just accepted by the clientele it is demanded by them, yet as you are aware in some ways the views of gender and sexuality it supports are ultra modern, for none of the clientele have ever treated you as aught other than the young woman you are. The Dragon is the way it is because the folk who pay to spend time here like it that way, and the upcoming generations of younger men and women are committed to making sure it stays that way. It’s not just the older men who keep a private supply of shady spirits in the cellar, many younger men, and not all of them are locals, do too. Even Sergeant Graham has a case of something. They’ll supply any outsider who asks with a glass, and the price is two pounds in the children’s Christmas party collection box. The place exists for locals, all locals, even the children. The taproom is a totally male environment and their womenfolk like it that way because it means they can enjoy themselves in the totally female atmosphere of the best side. A couple can go out together and both spend the Saturday evening doing what they enjoy most and return home in perfect harmony with each other. Sundays of course the men are shaved and spruced up escorting their wives in the room as tradition demands. Old fashioned maybe, but most of the ways folk think and behave go back to prehistoric times and haven’t significantly changed since, so I’d suggest it is actually right up to date. It is however absolutely up to date in that there is no tolerance of discriminatory behaviour here as I’m sure you have found out.”

“Yeah. I was talking to Gillian, black Simon’s wife, a week or so back. She said when he came to the UK as a boy from Jamaica he was used to a load of discrimination cos he’s black. When he got a job working at the village forge for Thomson, Gillian’s dad, he was amazed nobody cared. She telt me she virtually had to rape him to get him to take her seriously, cos he was so scared of what folk would do to him if he took up with a white girl. He was absolutely gobsmacked when Thomson said, ‘If your going to marry my daughter, that means you get up at six and I don’t have to be at work till eight. It’s your forge now, Son.’ At the wedding Thomson said, ‘If the boy can successfully forge weld two dissimilar metals, he surely knows how to weld a woman to his side.’ Thomson died over forty years since and they’re still together.”

“I know from my own experience too. I never expected to be so well treated. No one cares I’m trans, and Aggie said, ‘There’s an old saying that says, if it walks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck then it is unreasonable to call it any thing other than a duck. What I’m telling you, Harriet, is, if it’s got the breasts of a woman, swings its hips like a woman when it walks and behaves like one then sure as God made little apples it is a woman. You’ve got the breasts, the walk and the behaviour, Girl.’ She reckons the only bad reactions I’ve had here are from girls who envy my figure and boys who resent any boy I've ever shewn any interest in because they think they've had access to it. She said, ‘It’s all just jealousy, Lass. Ignore the idiots.’ That was just before she gave me a load of kitchen work to do. She made me feel better when she said, ‘That’s all women’s work, Lass. I’ll send a couple of others to help you. The time to start worrying is when someone expects you to do men's work.’ She has a weird way of looking at things, but I suspect she’s got the right of it.”

Gladys chuckled before adding, “That sounds just like Aggie. She telt me once that she was sure this place has been responsible for many an after thought baby conceived on a Saturday night or early Sunday morning because couples have been so in tune with each other after their night out, and it’s probable a good few were conceived on the premises. Other than on Sundays the only men you’ll find in the room will be in the alcove at the back where the courting couples sit.

“Any and all changes in the tap are carefully considered by your dad and the older village men before doing anything. When it was extended Sasha insisted the new bit had to be just the same as the old part, the extra fire, the décor, the foot rail, the solid teak bar top, the sawdust, the benches for the dogs to lie under, even the dogs’ bowls had to be like the original ones too, a studio potter out Allonby way made the new ones. He even had a few extra brass spittoons made just like the original ones even though they haven’t been used for decades. A lot of things were custom made, and they cost a fortune, but he cheerfully paid for it all without including it on the mortgage. He fired one firm of carpenters on the spot for shoddy workmanship on the skirting boards. They were using stained soft wood instead of hard wood like the originals. It took him a fortnight to find an old man who could do the job properly in hardwood. It’s all polished hardwood in there, skirtings,(4) wainscot, hand rails, picture rails, door casings, architraves, the lot.

“The solid mahogany doors to the taproom are four feet wide and weigh two and half hundred weight each. [20 stones, 127Kg, 280 pounds] The old exterior door was made of soft wood and had started to rot. Apparently the weather had got into the bottom of the door which hadn’t been painted. Alf said the original door would have been hardwood. Anyway it had to be replaced, and Alf made a set of new doors for the carpenters to fit. He refused to tell me what the wood had cost saying, ‘Ask Sasha, the timber yard sent him the bill.’ I do know Alf didn’t charge for making them. A lot of the work on the extension was done for free by locals, women as well as men. All the soft furnishings, the cushioning and the curtains in the lounge were made free of charge. It took us weeks, but at least we got exactly what we wanted. The extension was a project that involved all of Bearthwaite and a good few other folks too. All the custom tea towels and bar cloths with the green dragons in various stances woven in were woven by Beatrice’s daughters. She let them design them and weave them for practice. They both want to be hand loom weavers like Beatrice when they leave school. There are a lot of folk with a stake in the place. If you remind me some time I’ll get the photo albums out shewing the renovation and extensions as they proceeded.

“Anything we spend on the place Sasha knocks off the mortgage capital debt. The entire debt is to be written off on his death. If you continue to run the place like your dad and I do, for the benefit of the locals he’ll give it to you. However make no mistake, he’s cleverer than anyone either of us have ever met, and he’ll know if you are putting up a front and will sell it out from under your feet to someone who will run it the way your dad and I want it run. I don’t doubt he’ll have a dozen such folk in his eye right now. I know you may find it difficult to understand, but Elle and he both love you as a granddaughter.”

~o~O~o~

“Mum, I’ve been here ages now and I want to do more than chamber maiding, waitressing in the restaurante and pulling pints. Dad says there’s not much more for me to learn about the books and dealing with suppliers, and now the other girls know how to do silver service properly they can shew any new staff how to do it without me being there. I want to learn how to do everything that goes on here and the only thing of any significance I can think of that’s left is learning how to cook.”

“Okay, Harriet, I’ll ask Veronica to have you help her to put suppers on. That’s the best place to start. You serious about this? Because if you are you could be the relief I’ve been looking for. I want someone to be able to do two days of breakfasts and lunches for Aggie and a different two days of dinners and suppers for Veronica. At the moment I’m doing what I can, and I’m having to make arrangements for the rest on an ad hoc basis.”

“That would be great. I love living and working here. I want to be the landlady one day. I’m sorry if that seems presumptuous, but it’s what I want. The staff are all kind and they appreciate what I do. They accept me as I am and treat me as an inexperienced girl which is all I could ask for. Aggie is brilliant. We’re making short crust pastry together tomorrow, and she’s going to teach me how to make flaky pie crust sometime. I’ve not done much with Veronica yet, but she’s nice and shewed me how to make meringues and puff pastry cream cakes. I’m really sorry I didn’t live with Uncle Pete years ago. I didn’t get it then, but I can see now he always loved me no matter what I was. I was a child of his brother, and I think he liked me because I liked him, and even though when I was little he used to give me money for sweets whenever he saw me I never saw him as a source of easy money. Even though he and my father didn’t get on, and my brothers and sisters were always trying to scrounge off him he always had special time for me. I didn’t realise it at the time, but when I ran away from home I should have asked him for help. At least that way I’d have finished my schooling and not had to go to evening classes to pass my GCSEs.(5)

“I don’t care about owning the Dragon some day I just want to be the landlady. I love uncle Pete, and I’m glad he said to call him Dad after the adoption. I love you too. I enjoy being your daughter and it’s lovely when I hear people say, ‘She’s Harriet, Gladys and Pete’s lass. Gladys as has the Dragon at Bearthwaite’ to people who ask who I am. I never called my mother Mum, because she never was. I only know which one of my father’s women was my mother because it’s on my birth certificate. Sometimes there were two or three living there at the same time. You give me more affection every day than any of them ever did in all the time I was living at the scrapyard which wasn’t much because none stayed there long and I’m almost sure my mother was one of them that disappeared long before I went to school. What’s best is about living here with you and Dad is I don’t feel frightened any more. I used to be beaten up at least five times a week, usually by my father, but here I feel safe.”

Gladys had always liked Harriet, but that conversation had telt her that she had a right to love Harriet as her daughter which was something that had always caused her a little unease at the back of her mind because she didn’t consider it proper to usurp another woman’s rightful place in Harriet’s heart. That there was no such woman in Harriet’s heart she’d been unaware of, and now she knew she was the only mum Harriet had ever had, and it was right and proper for mums to love their children, she was much relived at the loss of her guilt. The bleakness in her heart didn’t go overnight, but it wasn’t long before she realised she was happier than she had been for a long time and that that was due to to the presence of Harriet, her daughter, in her life.

~o~O~o~

It wasn’t long before Harriet became the acknowledged heir to the Green Dragon and staff started to ask her for instructions just like they asked her parents. When she turned twenty-one Pete had her name added to the licensees on the board over the door which was a court ordered matter concerning the licence to sell alcohol. Harriet was still twenty-one when she went on holiday with Gladys to visit distant relatives in Australia and New Zealand. However they did not return immediately but took an additional couple of months for Harriet to have her GRS and her subsequent convalescence. When they finally returned Harriet looked little different from before, a pretty young woman half a year older. Harriet was seen to be pretty, feminine and wealthy and it was the wealthy that caused her problems, for she attracted young men by the dozen from all over the county and she was intelligent enough to realise had she not been a licensee of the Green Dragon a lot of those young men would not have been interested in her. Now there was a distinct down side to folk saying ‘She’s Harriet, Gladys and Pete’s lass. Gladys as has the Dragon at Bearthwaite.’

~o~O~o~

“How do I know it’s me and not the Dragon they are interested in, Mum?” Harriet asked Gladys in distress after a particularly painful incident.

“I had much the same problem years ago though I wasn’t as pretty as you, Love. I’m trying to remember what it was about your dad that convinced me he was interested in me and not free beer, nor just a tumble with what he has always described as a bit of fluff young enough to be his daughter. I suppose it was a lot of things. He was hard working, doing all right and had his own place. Those terraced two up two down houses on Glebe street aren’t much, but the one he lived in was his and fully paid for. He certainly didn’t need me to put a decent roof over his head, for he’d completely modernised it, and it was very comfortable in a blokeish kind of way. I was impressed by the bathroom and loo, very clean and centrally heated like the rest of the house. I’d not been living with him long when I telt him I wanted to do a degree in psychology with the Open University. There’s many a working man like your dad would have objected, but he said if I wanted to do it just to get on with it. I think he considered it to be a hobby just like any other. He was tolerant of the time it took up, and he was proud as punch when I got a first class honours degree. When we went out he preferred to take me out somewhere else, so a date wouldn’t be spoilt by me having to help out here, but if I telt him I needed to be available just in case because Daniel was short staffed that day he was okay about it.

“His friends were of all kinds and ages too and they all struck me as decent men. Most of them still drink in the tap and tell lies on Saturdays. They all treated women decently, even the ones who didn’t come from here, and God knows there are still enough men around who think women are there to be abused with impunity. That he was completely unbothered by our age difference in the presence of anyone made a difference too. My parents didn’t approve of him because of our age difference, but it didn’t bother him. He just said, ‘They’ll come round in the end,’ and he was right. What finally convinced me he was the man I wanted for a permanent relationship was something Alf said. I’d been having problems with my car and like most Bearthwaite folk I took it to Alf. I don’t know what he did, but he fixed it, and when I asked him what I owed him he said, ‘Don’t be daft, Lass, you’re Pete’s missus. He’d kill me if I took money off you for something that didn’t take me fifteen minutes.’ It wasn’t long after that before I realised that in the eyes of everyone I knew your dad and I were a couple, so I suppose I never actually decided on your dad it was decided for me, which I don’t imagine helps you much does it?”

Harriet smiled through her tears and said, “Oh I don’t know, Mum. It gives me a place to start. It certainly enables me to cut out most of the crowd, and I think I’ll just wait and see what happens. It worked for you.”

~o~
~o~O~o~
~o~

Gustav was a student who had just finished his degree at Glasgow university. He’d decided to spend two or three months travelling round the UK before returning to Bavaria. He was the youngest of four brothers whose mother owned a huge inn just outside München, Munich. Their father had died young a dozen years ago and the boys all worked at the inn with their mother. Each had in turn studied a university degree abroad and returned to their home and Gustav was planning on doing the same.

It was a complete accident that led Gustav to the Green Dragon which had not long opened to the general public after the relaxation of the latest round of Corona virus restrictions. He’d entered the plush best room from the front entrance, but had followed the pretty barmaid into the taproom and had ordered a drink. He’d sat down watching her fill the dogs’ bowls with water and kibble. His English was good and he followed with interest the story telling though the odd word or expression peculiar to the local dialect escaped him. The barmaid, aware of his interest in her, had been watching him for a quarter of an hour from behind the bar. Seeing the look of puzzlement on his face she’d entered the tap room and whispered, “Vanya means nearly or almost. Where are you from? And what’s your name?”

“München, Bayern, that’s Munich in Bavaria, Germany. I am Gustav and you?”

“Harriet.” She turned to speak to the men. “Dad, Uncle Sasha, Gustav is from Bavaria. He’s enjoying the stories, but there’s Cumbrian he doesn’t get, so explain as you go will you?”

Sasha winked at Harriet, and then there was a flurry of German from him and a brief reply from Gustav before Sasha smiled and said, “Sit over here, Lad, so I can explain without disturbing the tale.”

Harriet blushing asked, “Shall I collect empties and bring another round, Uncle Sasha?”

The men looked around and Stan replied saying, “Aye please, Lass. On my slate.(6) What you drinking, Son? Lager or local beer?”

“I’ll try what you are drinking please. Whom do I pay?”

“I’m buying. Don’t worry about it.”

There was another flurry of German from Sasha and as Gustav flushed he said, “Thank you.”

~o~O~o~

Dave resumed his collection of lies, jokes, anecdotes, reflections and humorous observations, “Now a lot of folk believe that chess was invented in India maybe sixteen hundred years back. I’m telling you despite what most folk believe that is a lie. It was invented not far from here. In Wukiton(7) to be precise.” There were huge grins all around as all could tell a major shaggy dog tale was in the making. Gustav was looking puzzled. “Chess is a game that was invented by teenage girls and boys thousands of years since. The boys only get to play when they are too old for lowpin’(8) yats(9) (10) which they indulge in till their hormones demand more productive activities, and they start to worry about the consequences of an ill judged attempt.” Seeing puzzled faces Dave explained, “It’s not an accident steeplechasers(11) are all geldings and mares. Stallions aren’t too keen on jumping over fences. They’re not stupid, and the risk of catching their wedding tackle on a fence puts em off the idea. But back to chess, boys have to learn to play, but lasses are born knowing all the moves and strategies. They do actually know all the rules, but they always cheat. The classic opening gambit to a game of chess is the girls catch the eye of a boy they like, squeal and then run away giggling, but not too quickly, and usually to somewhere that affords some privacy. If that move works the boys chess(12) em, hence the name of the game. Once in close contact the girl is said to be catcht,(13) though they never try to escape. The boys assume that it is their superiority that has resulted in them catching the lass. Which is of course nonsense, for the entire proceedings from the catching of the boy’s eye to his catching of the lass has been carefully planned and choreographed by her. The ensuing middle game can take some time. Once the end game is reacht(14) the boy is said to be well and truly catcht, or in check as some call it. That inevitably leads to checkmate which some refer to as marriage. However, mating invariably takes place before the marriage which often takes place at the point of a shotgun at the insistence of the girl’s dad, since by that time his daughter is usually full of arms and legs.(15) Despite the girls’ sacrificial moves and the boys’ apparent initial superiority there is no known case of a boy ever having won a game.” There were roars of laughter whilst Sasha explained the tale to Gustav.

Dave hadn’t finished and said, “Just the one more, Lads. In a far away land called Tieland, that’s spelt tee eye ee not tee aitch ay eye, [Tie not Thai] lived the Strings and the Ropes and there was considerable discord if not actual enmity between the two ethnic groups. In the main the Ropes were northerners and the Strings were southerners, so the situation was entirely natural and explicable. I’m not over fond of talcum knackered southern jessies(16) myself. Now Tieland had its equivalent of the Lake District which was in a northern part of the country inhabited in the main by Ropes. However, a lot of Strings went there for walking and the like, for the scenery like in our Lakeland is magnificent. On the day in question three rather posh and wealthy Strings had been fell(17) walking, and just listening to them speak would grate on any Rope’s nerves, not to mention teeth, for they had such strong southern accents. One reason why the Ropes disliked Strings was because Strings regarded their speech as accentless and considered the Ropes to be uncultured barbarians who couldn’t speak properly. It was a hot day and the walking had been strenuous. The three Strings were sweaty and dirty and looking forward to a pint in the Dragon Ghyll Hotel which was famous for the quality of its ale which was brewed on the premises. It was highly recommended in their guide book. What the guide book didn’t mention was the landlord of the Dragon was a particularly stringphobic Rope and hated them.

“The first String who was the tidiest looking of the three said, ‘I’ll go in and get the beer. You sit outside at one of the tables.’ When he reached the bar he said, ‘I’d like three pints of bitter please.’ The landlord looked him up and down and asked in terms of total contempt a question he could see and hear the answer to, ‘Are you a bloody String?’ ‘Well yes, but I’d like three pints of bitter please.’ The Landlord turned away and said, ‘We don’t serve your sort in here. Piss off.’ The String went outside and explained the situation. The second String said, ‘I’ll bet you rattled his cage. I should have gone in for the beer. I’ll be far more diplomatic than you.’ The second String went in and at the bar asked, ‘May I have three pints of bitter please, Landlord.’ The landlord looked him up and down and again asked, ‘Are you a bloody String?’ ‘Indeed,’ replied the String, ‘but I would be extremely grateful for three pints of bitter please.’ ‘I telt your mate we don’t serve your sort in here. Piss off.’ The String went out and explained how diplomatic he’d been but alas to no avail.

“The third string said, ‘Well, I may as well try, but I have an idea. I think I know how to answer the landlords first question.’ The String who was the sweatiest and scruffiest looking of the three had torn his right trouser leg from the ankle all the way up to the knee on a sharp rock and it was flapping in the breeze as he entered the bar. He asked, ‘May I have three pints of bitter please, Landlord?’ Again the landlord as with the previous two Strings looked him up and down and going red in the face at the condition of the String’s clothing in his bar he asked yet again, ‘Are you a bloody String?’ Without giving the landlord time to say anything else the String replied, ‘No. I’m afraid not, and I’d like three pints of bitter please.’

It took Sasha quite a while to explain the tale to the totally perplexed Gustav who though he was familiar with the word knot had never heard of the word frayed.

~o~O~o~

When the laughter quietened and all glasses had been suitably dealt with Pete asked, “So how do you come to be sitting in the taproom of the Green Dragon, Gustav? Tell us your tale and the beer is free. Supper too. That’s the rule for all. Story tellers don’t pay.”

At the look on Gustav’s face Dave explained, “This is the Grumpy Old Men’s Society. We are an organisation dedicated to the telling of stories which may contain anything from zero to one hundred percent truth. Truth or lies it makes no difference because it’s entertainment. We meet here on Saturday nights to tell tales, drink and play dominoes. Pete here and his good lady Gladys who’s behind you are the landlord and landlady. That pretty barmaid is their daughter Harriet and Sasha here is the chairman of the society because he’s the biggest bloody liar any of us have ever met.”

The laughter at that took a while to fade, but before Gustav started his tale Gladys asked, “If you want a room for the night I’ll organise it.”

“Yes please. I would like a room for the night. I didn’t mean to come here. It was a mistake. I’d been looking at the harbour and other attractions in Maryport. The taxi driver spoke with a strong accent and I don’t think we understood each other very well. I was going to Baurwent Sallis to watch the sailing races tomorrow.”

“I’ll arrange a room for you,” said Gladys before disappearing.

“Ah! I see,” said Sasha. “It’s not uncommon for anybody not to understand a strong Maryport accent, Gustav. For sure I don’t. This place is spelt Bear-thwaite, but locally it is pronounced Burr-thet. However, tell us about yourself, Gustav.”

“I am from a small town not far from Munich in Bavaria Germany. My father died when I was quite young, but my mother is well. I have three older brothers and my mother owns a very large inn that we all manage together. One at a time we all went abroad to study and travel a little before going back home to the inn. I am the last and I have just finished a three year degree at Glasgow University. Studying was difficult with the lock down restrictions, so now I’m taking advantage of the easing of the restrictions, and I am doing a little travelling for the next three months or so.”

“What did you study, Gustav,” asked Denis.

“Micro-biology.”

Denis smiled and said, “A proper subject, Lads, not some modern nonsense of a Mickey Mouse degree.”

Stan asked, “Why did you come in here, and not stay in the best room on the other side? Most outsiders, especially those of your age, don’t like the idea of open fires, dogs all over the place and sawdust on the floor.”

“At home in most small villages in the Alps there are many inns such as this though not as large as this one. There are to be found open fires, sheep and cattle dogs and sawdust so working men can drink with their muddy work boots on. It is a practical arrangement so men and dogs can get some thing to eat and a drink in the warm before having to go back to work.” Gustav flushed as he admitted, “I followed the barmaid in here and watched her feeding the dogs.”

Sasha winked and said, “At your age, Lad, I’d have done the same. What are your plans for the immediate future, say the next few days?”

“I don’t know. I just wanted to travel in Britain for a while before going home to what will eventually become a quarter share in the inn which while it is profitable and I’ll always be okay for money is not particularly interesting. In her last letter my mother told me that there was considerable excitement amongst the local girls that I would be returning home soon. I think she expects me to choose one to marry and settle down almost as soon as I arrive home. My brothers were all how you say it ‘ladies’ men’ before they married and became family men, but the idea has no appeal to me, for I have no wish to be considered by all the local girls as a prize piece of livestock to be paraded in front of them. I suspect maybe I am a romantic, for I’d like to meet a girl and settle down, but not like that, so maybe I’ll just keep travelling till I run out of money and then see if I can get a job over here, though that’s difficult after Brexit.”

Unknown to Gustav or any of the others a speaking glance was exchanged between Sasha and Pete. “You worked in your mother’s place for how long, Lad?” Pete asked with interest.

“Since from as far back as I can remember. Certainly from five collecting bottles and glasses why?”

“Could you fancy a job here till you sort out what you want to do. I could do with someone who has enough experience to not need every last detail explaining to them. Any differences you’d soon pick up. Harriet will shew you the ropes, explain things I mean, and you could still do a bit of touristing when it suited you. No need to worry about official permission, I’ll pay you cash and as far as anyone else is concerned you are a guest.”

It took Gustav a half or minute or so to process what Pete had said, but eventually he made sense of it and replied, “Thank you. I would like that.”

Gladys came in announcing, “Supper time, Gentlemen. Chicken and mushroom pies with sweetcorn in green coriander and fenugreek sauce and chips [US fries] just for a change. Veronica tells me she’s trying to broaden your horizons. Some one open the back door please. There’re a couple of dogs wanting out, and let them back in when they’ve done so they don’t scratch the paint work up. Alf is there any chance you could put a piece of metal across the bottom of the door to protect it?”

“Aye, Lass. I’ve enough stainless sheet left over from a paying job that’ll do both sides of the door nicely. I’ll measure it up tomorrow morning and do the job in the afternoon. If you give me a decent portion of chips I’ll do the job for nowt.”(18) There was a lot of laughter at that, for Alf was a grafter(19) and needed a lot of food to sustain his colossal frame. That Gladys would feed him appropriately all knew, including Alf, but it was something to have a laugh at that helped him to feel included in the group of men who were all much cleverer than he. Alf was a little insecure in the group and had never understood how much they all thought of him. Intelligent he was not, but with tools in his hands he was a genius and they all appreciated that. He was one of them.

Gustav had clearly enjoyed the evening. Intelligent, he’d been quick to pick up the art of playing dominoes, and had enjoyed a ten minute conversation with Harriet when she’d shewn him to his room.

~o~O~o~

“Sneaky. Damned sneaky, Pete.”

“Oh I don’t know, Sasha. You were thinking the same thing I was at the same time. They were obviously interested in each other, and if he does take up with Harriet at least we’ll know it’s not for her money. He seems a nice lad, and he understands about places like this, pubs with taprooms I mean.”

“What about Gladys, have you telt her you’ve offered him a job yet?”

“Not yet, but she’ll be relieved if anything. There’ve been far too many idle, useless outsiders sniffing round Harriet recently and the numbers seem to be growing. Gladys telt me I’d be needing a club to beat the tossers off soon, and I know it’s been upsetting Harriet. She’s been out with a dozen or more this last couple of years. Every last one of the bastards a complete no hoper who upset her. She wants a decent boy, which is understandable at her age, but she needs one on the edge of being a man, so that all the other useless bastards bugger off. I can tell Gustav is a decent lad who’ll become a man worth calling a man. Damned if I don’t lock her and Gustav up in an unheated bedroom with a single bed and one blanket.”

The pair of them started laughing at that, but Sasha reasonable as always said. “I agree with you about Gustav, but it’s not come to that yet, Pete, after all they’ve only just met. Leave things to Gladys for a while, but if it comes to it give me a shout and I’ll help you push ’em in that bedroom.”

~o~O~o~

“What you planning on having him do, Love?”

“Owt.(20) Nowt. It doesn’t matter does it, Love. I want to find out what he’ll do of his own choice. That way we’ll find out far more about him than by telling him what to do. Leave him and Harriet to their own devices. They’re already interested in each other, but at the moment that’s purely hormonal. You keep your eye on them. I’m sure you’ll know when it’s more than just hormones. If it works, good. If it doesn’t I’m not sure where we go from there, maybe we talk to friends and see what they’ve got in the way of appropriate younger male relatives.”

Gladys nodded, and Pete told her of his conversation with Sasha concerning unheated bedrooms which made her chuckle. “That bloody Cossak is much worse than you, Love, so I don’t doubt he’d handcuff the pair of them to the bed too. I’ll get Harriet to shew him how to pull pints tomorrow morning. You ready for bed, Love? I am, and you’ve got the draymen arriving tomorrow at six.

~o~O~o~

It was half five when Pete walked into the kitchen to see Aggie piling a fried breakfast onto Gustav’s plate. He was surprised to see Gustav had a double portion of black pudding on his plate.

Pete pointed to the black pudding and said, “You don’t have to eat that just to be polite, Gustav.”

“I like Blutwurst,” Gustav replied. “There are many kinds back home.”

Aggie was in every morning before first light cooking breakfasts for the forty or so farm workers who called in on their way to work to eat breakfast and collect the lunches she cooked and packed up for them. On the counter there was a long line of lunch boxes next to vacuum flasks with their tops off ready to be filled with tea and another shorter one ready for coffee for the men who worked up on the hills far from a farmhouse or any other source of boiling water. In days gone by they’d either drink cold water from a stream or boil up a kettle on a fire made with whatever was to hand that would burn which on the sheep grazed, closed cropped, sward of the fells often wasn’t much other than dried sheep dung. “Same for you, Pete?” She asked.

“Please, Aggie, but two eggs, no sausage and tea not coffee. What are you doing up, Gustav?”

“Harriet said you have men delivering beer in barrels at six o’clock. I can’t remember their special name, but I will help you. Okay?”

“Draymen deliver barrels of beer. A dray was the horse drawn cart beer barrels were delivered by years ago, but the name lived on long after the horses had become history. Thanks. The help will be welcome.” Pete considered that to be a good start. “What are you doing after that?”

“Harriet is going to shew me how to put beer into glasses with your pumps. Unless you wish me to do something else?”

“No. That’s a good idea. Get her to shew you how the glass washing machines work too.”

“Okay, but the one in the room we were in last night is a French model I understand. We use it at home. After lunch it is okay if I go for a run? I usually run five kilometres each day. I’ll be back ready to work in less than an hour.”

“Sure.”

~o~O~o~

“Wow, Mum. That was cold, but fun.”

Gladys was intrigued so asked “What have you been doing, Love?”

“Gustav likes to keep fit. Back home he used to go to a boxing club and use their gym too. Since coming over here he’s always run about three miles every day, and he asked me where there was to go. I suggested round the reservoir. It’s not much more than three miles and I said I’d go with him. There was ice on the edge of the water so we walked over the bridge. I thought it was too risky to run. I used to go to a women’s keep fit aerobics class in Manchester but haven’t done anything since I came here. I think I’ll make the time to run with him. I was thinking if the weather is really bad we could go a few times round the track on the green. I need to buy a warmer track suit. Mine’s only really warm enough up here in the summer. I should be able to get a decent one off Ebay.”

“You get on with him, Love?”

“So far yeah. I like him a lot because he isn’t pushy at all, Mum. He’s quiet and a bit shy, so I have to encourage him to talk. Mostly we’ve talked about the differences and similarities between the Dragon and his mum’s inn der Kupfer-Braukessel. I think I said that right. It means the Copper Brew Kettle because a long time ago the beer was brewed there. The place has been owned by his family for generations, and his surname is Meltzer which means maltster. He telt me he’s always wanted to brew beer like was done years ago at the inn, and all the equipment to do that is still there, but his brothers are against the idea, because they want to turn the brewery into more accommodation for tourists. His mum’s place is a bit bigger than the Dragon, but a lot of the trade is only seasonal tourist trade. His mum owns the place, but I think it’s got contracts with the breweries that make it a bit like a tied house.(21) It’s certainly not a free house(22) like we understand the term, cos he was really surprised when I telt him we could sell anything we wanted to. But mostly it’s pretty much the same as the Dragon.”

Gladys kept a close eye on the young couple and was happy to see they were becoming closer. A few days later when she asked Harriet about things between her and Gustav Harriet blushed and said, “He’s not at all like any of those others I went out with, and I like him a lot more than I liked any of them. Because I was thinking that if he asked me to go out with him I’d say yes I thought I ought to tell him I’m trans. When I did all he said was, ‘So?’ I can tell he doesn’t care and still likes me. It didn’t change anything at all.”

“Has he asked you for a date yet, Love?”

“No, but he will. I’m working on it, Mum. I telt you he’s shy. I can tell he’s thinking about asking me out, but he needs to find the courage to ask, so I’ll help him to find it. Remember I telt you I’d just wait and see what happened because it worked for you. Well, Gustav happened, and I’m hoping it’s going to work for me too.”

“Your dad thinks he’s a decent young man, and I like him, so at least you won’t have parental issues like we did. Go get him, Girl, before someone else does.” When the pair parted to pursue their various activities Gladys was chuckling and Harriet was giggling and happy to have acknowledged parental approval.

~o~O~o~

Gustav had been at the Dragon eleven days when four rowdy outsiders in their middle twenties drinking in the best room had been making suggestive remarks to Harriet which she had ignored. It was when one of them put his hands on her bottom whilst she was collecting glasses that Pete was about to do something about it. Gustav tapped Pete on the shoulder and asked, “May I deal with the matter?” Pete just nodded thinking it may take the young couple beyond their seeming impasse that Gladys had telt him was a result of Gustav’s shyness.

“I suggest you leave the young lady alone and find somewhere else to drink as of right now, sir, and I suggest your friends drink up too and leave with you.”

The man who’d been groping Harriet stood and sneeringly asked, “And if I don’t what are you going to do about it, you short arsed Kraut?” The man was a good six inches taller than Gustav but he was considerably overweight and had had too much to drink. Whereas Gustav carried no excess weight and was sober.

“Well, fighting in here will damage the furniture and I’m certainly not going out into the cold just to oblige a drunken fool like you, so….” At that the man threw a punch at Gustav who stepped to one side and pulled the man towards him so he spun round a little with the momentum of his punch. Gustav delivered a powerful punch to his right kidney and watched him collapse to the floor.

The three other men stood up, and Pete said to them, “I wouldn’t if I were you, Lads. If you try to make anything of it you’ll be facing odds of over ten to one and you’ll get hurt badly. I suggest you take Gustav’s advice, drink up and leave before the police arrive. The barmaid you’ve been insulting happens to be my daughter. I’ve a damned good memory for faces, so don’t bother coming back because you won’t be served. We neither need nor want your kind of trade. Your friend looks like he needs medical attention. I’ll see he gets it.” The three men took his advice and left. “Gustav, I’ll ring for the police and an ambulance. I want the police and he probably needs an ambulance. I’d be obliged if you calm Harriet down. Get her a brandy to settle her nerves. She likes Asbach with Coke. Give her a double in a tall glass and top it up with Coke. Take her to the back of the lounge till the police arrive. She’s seen too much violence in her life and is upset. I know you’ll be kind to her, and she needs a bit of kindness from someone her own age right now.”

Alf said, “I’ll escort these idiots to the car park to make sure they just get in their motors and leave. I can do with all the work I can get, but I don’t want avoidable work if it’s from any cars they damage in despite.” A few other men nodded in agreement and accompanied him. Alf was a huge bloke and the three men seeing him following them walked quickly to their car and left in a hurry.

There were any number of witnesses to the incident, both the man laying hands on Harriet and his threwing of the first punch. Many of the men clapped Gustav on the shoulder saying things like, “Well done, Lad,” “Good punch, Son” and “He had it coming.”

Harriet put her hand into Gustav’s and said, “Thank you, Gustav.” Gustav took Harriet and her brandy to the back of the room where the lighting was subdued for the benefit of courting couples, and stayed with her till the police arrived. Harriet was much calmer by then. Holding hands with Gustav had given her something much more important in her opinion to think about than the unpleasant event she’d just endured. She smiled as she realised she wouldn’t have minded if the hands on her bottom had been Gustav’s. Gustav asked if she was okay now, and she nodded and said, “Yes I’m fine. It was a bit of a shock, but I’m okay now.”

The police arrived first, and as Sergeant Graham walked in he said, “Evening, Pete. What’s the problem? Outline it for me, Lad. We’ll get the statements once we know what’s going on.”

“Okay, Michael. That tub of lad on the floor and his three friends had been making lewd and suggestive remarks to Harriet for maybe an hour which she’d ignored. After all she is a landlady and it goes with the territory. They were drinking heavily, and when she was collecting glasses he started groping her with both hands on her bottom. I was about to step in when Gustav here said he’d deal with it. He politely asked the man to leave Harriet alone and the four of them to drink up and leave. The fool that’s now on the floor stood up and asked ‘Or what you short arsed Kraut?’ before threwing a punch, which Gustav side stepped before punching him once. That’s it. I advised the other three to leave and not bother coming back. I telt them I’d see their mate got medical attention. Alf and a few of the lads escorted them to the car park. You probably passed them on the road in. I rang for you and an ambulance. He looks like he’ll need one.”

“He was making sexually suggestive remarks for an hour before he laid hands on Harriet and actually touched her?” There were dozens of voices in agreement. “And then he threw the first punch?” Again there were dozens of voices agreeing with that. “And this young man only hit him once?” Yet again dozens of voices confirmed that. “You want to press charges, Pete?”

“I don’t, but I can’t speak for Harriet.”

“Harriet?”

“No, Uncle Michael. Not unless he attempts to press charges against Gustav. In that case yes I do.” Michael was no relative of Pete, Gladys, nor Harriet, but Mavis his wife and Gladys had gone to school together and were close, so Auntie Mavis was married to Uncle Michael. It was a not unusual situation for rural folk in the area to refer to older adults who were family friends thus.

Michael turned to Gustav and asked, “You are?”

“Gustav Hans Meltzer. I come from Germany, but I live here now.”

“I’ve heard about you. You still helping Gladys and Pete and living at the Dragon?”

“Yes and yes.”

“Why did you want to deal with the matter instead of leaving it to Pete?”

Harriet replied for Gustav, “Why shouldn’t he have?” She turned to Gustav, kissed him and said to Michael, “I’d have been upset if he hadn’t been bothered wouldn’t I?”

“Well that just about wraps it up. A public house drunk and disorderly incident with no excessive use of force. A drunk laying hands on a bloke’s lass in front of him and her dad deserves what he gets, and there isn’t a magistrate in the county will see it any differently. That sounds like the ambulance outside. You checked out the fool’s ID, Constable George?”

“Yes. It’s all in his wallet including photo ID. I’ve written it all down, but if I can photocopy the originals it’ll make for a lot less work, Sergeant Graham.”

Michael nodded to the constable and asked, “You got somewhere we can take statements, Pete, to save a great deal of trouble for us all and enable everyone to enjoy the rest of their evening? It’s that, or everyone will have to go down to the station over the next couple of days.”

Gladys replied saying, “Use the office, Michael. I’ll clear enough desk space so you can both get on with it, and there’s a printer in there that can copy in colour. I know you won’t take a drink on duty, but I’ll fetch you a pot of tea.”

“Thanks, Gladys. That must be some punch Harriet’s boyfriend packs to have put that fool down for so long. Lucky girl. Mavis telt me about the problems Harriet has had with boys, but I suspect that one will sort them all out for her.” He looked around to see if there were any who could overhear him before adding, “I think Phil was interested,” he was referring to the constable, “but I wouldn’t want him as a son in law myself. A nice enough lad, but not the sharpest chisel in the set.”

“I suspect you’re right about Gustav, Michael. Harriet telt me he’s a member of a boxing club back home and takes keeping fit pretty seriously. I can’t say I’m surprised Mavis knew about Harriet’s problems. However, we haven’t seen you for a while. Have lunch with us one Sunday. Soon, Michael.”

Michael chuckled and said, “Aye, my missus seems to know about things before they happen. You’d be amazed how much time her gossip saves me. I’ll tell her to organise a Sunday lunch when I’m off duty. I’d better get these statements sorted. Thanks for the tea, Gladys. I’ll set it about that Gustav is staying here with his girl friend and just helping out a bit for something to do. There’s no need to mention working or being paid is there?”

“Thanks, Michael. We appreciate it.”

Eventually with documents copied the ambulance left for the hospital where it would be met by a police officer. The statements were all taken, and Michael said, “Unless that idiot tries to press charges against Gustav it’s done and dusted, Pete. If he does we’ll threw the book at him starting with sexual harassment, sexual assault and racially discriminatory remarks, but I suspect he’ll back off then. With the witness statements even a complete idiot of a solicitor would tell him if he doesn’t withdraw his charge in writing there is a distinct possibility a magistrate will make him do thirty days in a local lockup. More importantly, how is Harriet?”

“Gladys has taken her to bed. Gustav insisted he’ll do what’s left of her work and take her a cup of tea before he goes to bed. Between the two of them they’ll settle her.”

“What’s he like as a man, Pete? He seems quiet and difficult to get to know.”

“Gustav is quiet and difficult to get to know, but he’s a decent lad, Michael. His mum owns a big inn in Bavaria, and his three brothers run it with her. He was over here doing a science degree at Glasgow, and after a bit of touristing was expecting to return and join them till he met Harriet. He works hard and is always looking for something to do. Harriet said when she telt him she was trans all he said was, ‘So?’, which says he’s no bigot. They go out running together every day, and are training for the Cockermouth Spring half marathon. They certainly seem to make each other happy, and both are happy to work sixteen hour days as long as they’re working together. I’m not sure if that was their first kiss or not, but we’d be happy if he and Harriet eventually took over here. He has a good sense of humour, and can laugh at himself when his English lets him down. That he’s trying to get his head and tongue round Cumbrian means he gets on with the clientele great, both the best side and especially the tap. They like him, and knocking down that drunken fool for groping Harriet won’t have done him any harm in the eyes of the lads or the girls either. You know how it works here, lasses expect to be treated with respect and protected by the men, and the men have no time for any lad who doesn’t treat women right. Gustav acts older than he is. Not many lads of his age approve of an old fashioned tap room like ours, but he does because in his words, he’s used to that sort of an inn in the Alps. He tells a decent tale on a Saturday, mostly funny tales about drunken idiots at his mum’s place which our lads regard as good tales.”

Michael chuckled and said, “Aye well, it’s just occurred to me there’s only one thing lasses hate more than being groped by a bloke they don’t like.”

“Which is?”

“Not being touched by one they do like.”

Pete laught and said, “You’re possibly right, Michael. However, in the case of my lass, it’s early days yet, but we’re hopeful it will turn out well. It can’t be any worse than with Delia can it?”

“No, I suppose not, Pete. She was a silly girl getting drawn into that ultra-left-wing, feminist crowd, but I know that there was bugger all you could do about it. How’s Gladys about it now?”

“Pragmatic and a lot better, thank Christ, for having Harriet. Funny, but I think she’s closer to Harriet than she ever was to Delia. They do a lot more mum and daughter things together than she ever did with Delia.”

Michael nodded in acceptance of reality and said, “Well, we’ll be off. I suspect we’ll be here soon of a Sunday. Mavis will be wanting Gladys to fill her in on the details of your young uns.”(23)

~o~O~o~

“What do you make of that, Love?”

Gladys didn’t pretend not to understand what Pete was referring to. “So far, so good. At least it’s out in the open now. Having kissed him and held hands with him in the sight of the entire clientele she has staked her claim to him, and I know some else getting to him before she did was bothering her, and he seemed happy enough about it. The women all thought well of him for looking after Harriet, and consider they’ve both done well for themselves. It was obvious the men thought he did right. I hope it works out for both of them, and I’ll do all I can to help. I love Harriet, and I like and want to love Gustav. Come on Pete it’s bedtime and if you are up to it I shan’t protest at all. It’s not often I feel slut is even a halfway decent word, but I do feel a trifle sluttish.”

“Can’t say I’ve ever thought much about sluts, Love, but I have to say even more I have never looked a gift horse in the mouth, despite not having a clue what that expression refers to. Is it possible that bit of fisticuffs is getting you going, Love?” Pete asked with a leer on his face.

“If you take that fake leer off your face, the possibility of hitting you may excite me if you behave yourself. Come on, bedtime. What was that you said about taking off my lingerie when I was getting dressed this morning? I’ll let you do it now if you like?”

“I like.”

~o~O~o~

The following morning, as she had suspected she would, Gladys found Gustav asleep fully clothed lying on Harriet’s bed with his arms tightly wrapped around her. “Morning, Mum,” Harriet whispered with a beaming smile on her face. “We’ll be down for breakfast in fifteen.”

~o~O~o~

“I found them together in her room. He was still asleep fully clothed above the blankets, but Harriet said they’ll be down for breakfast in fifteen.”

“Can’t say as I’m surprised. We’d better sort them out a suite. They’re adults, so it’s not really any of our business is it?”

It was a delighted Harriet and a nervous Gustav who appeared for breakfast and Gladys said, “Your dad suggests you find a suite, Love. I suggest you look at the one next to ours because we can share the dining room, but it’s up to you. Gustav, you’re both adults, so you have no need to be worried. There are some things we’ll need to discuss with you at a later date, but for the moment just enjoy living.

~o~O~o~

Harriet and Gustav had been living together, both working at the Dragon, for fourteen months when they told her parents they were proposing to get married. “Excellent,” said Pete. “A great opportunity for a major bash. That’s a big party, Gustav.”

The following evening there was a major family discussion with Sasha and Elle present concerning the financial arrangements of the Green Dragon. It took Gustav a little time to understand what had been done though he couldn’t understand why Sasha had done it. Eventually he said, “My brothers wish to buy my share of The Copper Brew Kettle from me because they know I’m not going back to Bavaria to live. The inn owns a lot of farm land too which used to grow the barley for the beer at one time. They’ve offered me two million Euros which is I think about a million and a half British Pounds. It’s a very generous offer, and would I think be enough to pay for Harriet’s and my share in the business would it not?”

Sasha laught and said, “I remember the night you walked into the taproom. Pete and I had been worried about Harriet not finding a decent young man for some time even back then. We talked about you and Pete said, ‘Damned if I don’t lock the pair of them up in an unheated bedroom with a single bed and one blanket.’ I said if it came to it I’d help. You’re what we both wanted for Harriet. I’ll get us some lawyers to sort it all out, but I think this will sort the mortgages out permanently. I neither want nor need your money, so start thinking about what you can do with it. Maybe buy a local farm to grow and raise what you want for the kitchens. Buy one of the small local breweries, or better start one in Bearthwaite. Harriet says you always wanted to brew beer at home, so why not do it here? Grow the barley too. I don’t know, extend outside into a full blown beer garden, create somewhere for kids to play, convert a room next to your suite into a nursery, whatever. Invest it in the place so it creates jobs. You and Harriet are both well liked here, and would get all the help you need from the village. They’ll be happy to help you. I’ll speak to you tomorrow in German, so you understand better, Gustav.”

As they left Elle said, “Gustav, Sasha is for most a difficult man to understand. He likes you, and he approves of you. You don’t have to do anything for his continued approval other than be yourself. Pete is happy because you make Harriet happy, but if you want to make Harriet happier I suggest you look into adoption which will make Gladys happy too.” Elle kissed his cheek as a grandmother would before saying, “Goodnight.”

1 Mince or minced meat is the English expression for ground meat.
2 Gey, very.
3 Ignorant in this context means bad mannered and antisocial.
4 Skirtings, skirting boards, baseboards in the US.
5 GCSE, general certificate of secondary education. Usually taken in the UK by sixteen year olds in ten subjects.
6 On my slate. Stan is saying he’ll pay for the round. Years ago such reckoning was recorded literally on a slate.
7 Wukiton, (IPA Wʊkitᴧn), Workington in the Workington dialect.
8 Lowpin’, leaping or jumping.
9 Yats, gates.
10 Lowpin’ yats is a traditional activity followed by young boys much to the annoyance of those whose property they are trespassing on.
11 Steeplechase racing is where there are fences the horses have to jump over as opposed to flat racing where there are no fences.
12 Chase is pronounced chess in the Workington dialect.
13 Catcht, caught.
14 Reacht, reached.
15 Talcum knackered southern jessies. A commonly used pejorative expression of contempt used in northern England to describe southerners. Talcum knackered refers to talcum powder on the testicles, a derisory assumption of effeminacy. The word jessie is also used as a noun to refer to an effeminate male.
16 Full of arms and legs, a vernacular expression for being pregnant. It is only used by men.
17 Fell, the fells, northern usage for hill, the hills. In the Lake district of Cumbria it is the only word used to describe the terrain and ‘the fells’ and ‘fell walking’ are the expressions used even by southerners.
18 Nowt, nothing.
19 Graft, hard work. A grafter is a hard worker. In this usage the work has no connection to corruption.
20 Owt, anything.
21 A tied house is a pub owned by a brewery who control what it may and may not sell. The brewery appoints a manager.
22 A free house is a privately owned pub [public house] and may sell whatever the owner(s) wish. The landlord or landlady often owns the establishment.
23 Uns, ones.

Saturday evening had rolled round yet again and the Grumpy Old men’s Society were ready for another round of tales. There was always something new to talk about, and if there were a shortage of tales there was always the beer and dominoes to finish the night off with.

The men were settling down and not expecting any real surprises when Stan exclaimed, “Vincent! What are you doing here? I thought you only ever went out on the arm with Rosie of a Sunday drinking in the best side.” Vincent known to all as ‘Vince the Mince’(1) was the local slaughterman and butcher. He’d suffered from polio as a child and had difficulty walking. He couldn’t go any distance without his walking sticks. He’d entered the taproom from the corridor at the rear of the pub obviously having come in via the best side.

“Usually that’s how it is, Stan. I prefer a dram at home because I don’t have to walk back in the cold, but Rosie wanted some company, so here we are. Doubtless she’ll be worse for wear after she’s had a few brandies, so Francis is taking us home. He’s in the best side with Adelle keeping an eye on both of them. I thought I’d come in here for the craic. It’s said to be ninety(2) in here of a Saturday night.” Francis was Rosie’s elder brother and he and his wife Adelle lived at Bearthwaite. “We were both getting a little tired and had been working too hard, too late into the evenings. Rosie and the girls who’d been helping out at the back decided a few weeks ago that they were going to turn the clock back to their grandmothers’ day and use everything they could to feed the village, so there was less need to import stuff from outside. The first thing they did was get more help. There must be at least a hundred women involved and often forty of them are working together at the back. This damned lock down hasn’t been all bad you know.”

“Well, pull up a chair, Lad, and sit you down. I’ll get you a pint. Guinness?”

“Aye, please. The lasses decided to use all my bones for a substantial broth. Instead of sending them to the fertilizer makers who pay next to nothing for them, all the bones I had were boiled up. Every thing, beef, pork, lamb, even the venison that’s brought in as road kill from time to time. I’d been stockpiling them in a walk in freezer during the lock down, so there were a goodly few tons on them. The entire lot went to produce broth. When Phil heard what they were doing he gave them a few sacks of polished barley from the mill and the veg was free from the allotment lads who are going to burn the bones when the lasses have done with em and then crush em to use on their plots. There’re five Bearthwaite lasses with big families whose men used the lock down as an excuse to leave them. Spineless bastards not deserving being called men, but at least we’re not shamed by any of them being from here. Rosie thinks the lasses are better off losing them now whilst they’re young enough to find a decent bloke easily. Emily is already being courted by one of Alf’s grandsons. She’s four, and Bertram has two kids, and at least he’s a decent bloke who lives here. It’s two years since Eloise died, and Rosie said after grieving it was time for him to move on.”

Alf nodded and said, “Bertie is chuffed to bits to find a local lass to mother the twins and Ellen is doing her best to put em in the same bed. She telt me, ‘They need each other, and can worry about getting wed some time in the future.’ She didn’t say but I reckon she’s hoping he gets her full of arms and legs as soon as possible. Bertie’s a clever lad, but he’s decided he’d rather work with me here rather than earn more money elsewhere but have to spend hours a day travelling. No doubt Emily being here has a lot to do with that, but with my practical experience and his degree in mechanical engineering things are definitely looking up for not just the pair of us but the entire family.”

There were a lot of smiling and approving faces at that before Vince continued. “As a result of trying to help those five struggling young families the lasses decided to give the broth away to any and all starting with those with a lot of kids who have been struggling. I got six thousand two and a half litre plastic containers with wide necks as a job lot gey cheap, but I had to have them picked up from Kendal. Harry picked em up for me with his waggon on his way back from Birmingham, and the girls are using those for the broth. All the poultry bones were boiled up, goose, duck, chicken and wildfowl too, for chicken soup, there were even a few guinea fowl. I get the guinea fowl from Alan Peabody. Telling you, the girls had bone stripper’s wrist before they were done. I helped by cutting the big bones up on the bandsaw before they were boiled and then chopping vegetables all evening. We’ve my backlog of bones dealt with and we’ve got a system worked out now, so it’s not so much work any more. When Rosie said she wanted a night out with the lasses I agreed it was a good idea, and I’ve telt Gladys that all of the lasses who’ve helped Rosie are to be given whatever they want and to chalk it up to my slate.”

“I’ll deal with the reckoning, Vince, and I’ll knock a decent amount off as our contribution. That’s a good tale, Lad, so you get free beer and supper.” The rest of the regulars nodded in agreement with Pete.

~o~O~o~

Sasha went to throw some more logs on the fires and on his return said, “You mind I telt you about when Elle tripped in front of the fire and fell awkwardly on the fender which dislocated her elbow. I never did get round to telling you the whole tale. When I took her to A&E(3) at Carlisle she was on a bloody trolley in a corridor for thirty hours after having been seen by three teams of folk who all asked the same damned questions. They’d cut her blouse off to get at it and then xrayed her arm and knew what the problem was, but we were no nearer to getting her elbow sorted. I’d been up for over forty-eight hours. I was tired hadn’t eaten or taken my drugs for my diabetes and I was losing it because though they’d initially given her an injection of morphine it was wearing off and they wouldn’t give her more in case it interfered with the operating theatre drugs. I kept my temper, but rang Keith to see if there were anything he could do to help. After ringing Keith I went home to get some sleep. Keith finally managed to get her seen to in a couple of hours. It turned out the delay was because they wanted to sort her out in an operating theatre with all the equipment that would be there because of her heart condition. Only trouble is the rules say they can’t do that unless there’s a bed for her to go to on coming out of the operating theatre because the job was to be done under a general anaesthetic.

“That was what Keith had managed to do, make them find her a bed. Don’t ask me why, but apparently when they say they have no beds it’s never totally true, for they always have some few in reserve, for what purpose I don’t know. Maybe I’m being cynical, but it’s possibly done just so they can oblige visiting high profile consultants like Keith, who knows. Anyway Elle was there a few days. Another bloody NHS(4) shambles.

“On day one, they rang me at home to ask me to come in with her drugs, for God’s sake there’s a bloody pharmacy there, yet they ask a bloke who’s turned eighty to drive a round trip of nigh on eighty miles. There was no getting round it. I took the drugs in to be telt I’d have to go as it wasn’t visiting time. I said, ‘I’d like to speak to the ward sister please.” I telt her, “ I’m eighty-two and you’ve just requested I drive eighty miles to deliver a handful of pills when there’s a pharmacy down stairs. My wife is a retired nurse. She was a matron and knows exactly what drugs she takes and how much of each. Now I’m being telt to go because it’s not visiting time. Tell me do you expect me to do another eighty miles when it is visiting time? Because if you do I am going to create as much of a row over the matter as I can. I’ve already noted the names of the nurse who telt me to bring the pills in, the one who telt me to go and yours as well. Before you answer consider this. Is it really worth digging your heels in when in half an hour I’ll have left and the matter will be over.’ She said there were rules she had to follow. ‘Fine. Now I want to speak to the matron.’ She didn’t like that, but eventually the matron arrived and I telt her the same as I’d telt the ward sister adding, ‘I’ve been here arguing about the matter for more than half an hour already. If the ward sister had had any brains I’d have been gone ten minutes ago.’

“ ‘Your request is eminently reasonable, Professor Vetrov. There are things that have to done that would not be appropriate to do on a women’s ward with a male visitor here, but they can certainly wait half an hour. I’m sorry you have been troubled.’

“ ‘And that,’ I telt the ward sister, ‘is why she is a matron and you aren’t.’ I wondered how the matron had known I was a professor, but it turned out she’d been chatting with Elle about changes in practice since she’d retired, one matron to another, and Elle had mentioned it.

“Eventually I went to pick Elle up to take her home. I’d rung the ward to find out when it would be best and had been telt after lunch some time. Two was suggested so that the consultants’ rounds would have been done and any medications prescribed would have been dealt with. I turned up at two to find Elle dressed sitting on her bed with her bag packed. ‘We can’t go yet,’ she telt me. ‘I’ve seen the osteo consultant and he’s fine about everything, but the heart man has been delayed and I need a prescription from him. Then we need to go downstairs to the pharmacy for what ever it is and then we can go home.’ We were there till ten past four and someone needed that bed, but till the heart man signed Elle off the rules said it was hers just in case he wanted her back in it.

“Eventually a much harassed looking bloke in his mid thirties arrived apologising for being so late, but he pled he’d had a couple of emergencies to deal with. We got the prescription, he signed Elle off and as we were leaving I heard the ward sister saying on the phone that they finally had a bed free. Now Elle has a strange sense of humour and she said to me, ‘Emergencies are certainly good for that heart man. Did you see the scrotok he was packing.’ Naturally I was completely unaware of the issue. Now before you ask scrotok is a portmanteau word coined by Elle decades ago. It is a blend of scrotum and kapok, the former needing no explanation and the latter being the trade name of a kind of foam used to stuff cushions, pillows and toys. She coined the word the first time I took her to the ballet, Swan Lake in Moscow as I recall, and she said it was what the premier danseur had obviously packed the front of his tights with because in her opinion what was there couldn’t possibly be natural. She said it was the male equivalent of breast forms. She caused a riot with the folk I knew there mostly because she admitted that his scrotok was easy on the eye, but if she were wrong and it were real she’d really like to meet him. She doesn’t speak a word of Russian but she loses little in the translation. My friends were sorry to see her go.

“However back to the tale. Mind Elle’s arm was in a cast that held her elbow rigid, and we headed to the pharmacy where they weren’t happy with the prescription and insisted on getting hold of the heart man, because they thought the dosage was too high and there had been a mistake. After twenty-five minutes we left with the tablets. There had not been a mistake. By this time it was nearly five and Elle said, ‘I need a wee.’ So we went to the ground floor where the ladies’ is and I waited outside. After a couple of minutes Elle came out. I thought, ‘That was bloody quick.’ You all know what it’s like. Waiting for a woman in the ladies’ is usually a ten minute if not a twenty minute affair. I was not prepared for what came next. ‘You’ll have to come in with me. I can’t pull my knickers down with only one hand and I certainly won’t be able to pull them up again.’ I said, ‘You’ll have me arrested for sure one of these day, Elle’ ‘Well it’s either that or I wee on your truck seat,’ she replied. ‘There’s no one in there and the disabled loo has enough space for two of us.’ Christ, I never thought I’d see the day when I was hiding in a ladies lavatory in a hospital. So we went in and I pulled her knickers down. Elle had her wee and I pulled her knickers back up again. In the mean while we heard three or four women come in and after we thought they’d all gone Elle went out to check the coast was clear and beckoned me out just in time for a woman to exit one of the stalls and another to enter from the main access aisle of the hospital. Without a blush Elle telt them, ‘Sorry about this, but with my arm in a cast I needed my husband to pull my knickers down and then back up again.’ The woman who’d entered said, ‘Really! That’s disgusting. I’m going put a complaint in to someone.” As she left she spat, ‘Pervert,’ at me. The other woman who was washing her hands said, ‘Silly woman, but you’d better go, Dear.’ She smiled and added, ‘Sometimes the right thing to do goes against the usual expectations of behaviour.’ I smiled and said, ‘I wish she’d been right, but unfortunately I’m far to old to be a pervert any more.’ We all laught and left. As we got in my truck Elle said, ‘Well that wasn’t too bad was it?’ Like I said she’ll have me locked up one of these days.”

~o~O~o~

“Hold it there for a minute, Lads, whilst I get em in. Harriet, Love, any chance of a round?”

“Half a mo, Uncle Phil. I’ll just finish this order and be right with you.”

After all had been dealt with, Eric said, “Your tale in the ladies, Sasha, reminds me of something that happened years ago. We’d probably only been wed a year or two. It was hot summer’s day and we’d taken Shauna’s parents out for lunch at a big garden center that had a decent restaurante. When we got back to her mum’s place there was an ice cream van out side the house, so we all had a cornet. Like I said it was scorcher of a day and some of Shauna’s ice cream dripped onto her tee shirt, so she lifted it up to lick it off. She’s a bonnie lass and due to the heat hadn’t been wearing a bra, so her charms were displayed to perfection. Next thing I know is I’m hearing her mum say in a shocked voice, ‘Shauna!’ I could see Shauna blushing and I said, ‘Lovely view.’ On a slightly different note Shauna took her mum shopping one time and someone cut across her from a different traffic lane necessitating her to slam the brakes on. Now Shauna can swear like a trooper, but had never done so in front of either of her parents and when she said, ‘Fucking cunt,’ her mother was so taken aback she didn’t say a word. Shauna said, ‘Sorry about that, Mum. I’ve been picking up some really bad habits from Eric.’ I get blamed for everything, but apparently her mum didn’t reply to that either, but she did tell Shauna’s dad. Shaun said she felt like she was six again. What puzzled me was how her mum had become familiar enough with either word to be shocked by them. When I telt Shauna of my puzzlement I said, ‘All is not what it seems, least of all your mum.’ ”

~o~O~o~

Dave returned from the bar with a jug of water for the dogs’ bowls and said, “I’ve a short tale that may make you laugh or perhaps not.” Dave was well known for telling outrageous and unlikely shaggy dog tales and was as little affected by political correctness as Sasha. The old men settled as he took a pull on his pint before he started. “It was a bright, sunny, Spring day and God and Moses were sitting on a particularly comfortable cloud drinking ambrosia honey tea and nibbling angel cakes when God asked, “What’s the matter, Mo? You look kind of washed out, tired. Are you ailing for something? Got a cold coming on? Anything I can help with?”

“Nah. I’ve just been working for too long, too hard without a break. As soon as I think I’ve got the Israelis and the Palestinians talking to one another and it’s looking good, some Rabbi or Imam gets unhinged and flies off the handle and I’m back to square one. I need a holiday. I’m just going to have to let them get on with it while I recover because I’m no good to them as I am. I fancy a fortnight out in the Pleiades. It’s not expensive, the food’s not too heavy and the wine is very tolerable. No wars, nice climate, friendly folk and attractive, attentive waitresses. You did a first class job when you created the place. When did you last have a holiday, Gee?”

God shuddered and replied, “Don’t remind me. I was a lot younger then and still subject to whims and silly behaviour from time to time. It’d be a couple of thousand years ago. I went to Earth and took up with a pretty young thing going by the name of Mary. One thing led to another, you know how it goes, aural sex and she’s expecting. You think you’ve got it bad? The fuss that’s caused, billions slaughtered over the millennia. It’s still going on, and they’re all claiming to be doing it in my name. Your Arab Israeli conflict is just a tiny part of it. And as for that book they say I wrote, as if I’d come up with something so puerile, so illiterate and worst of all so inconsistent. Even now at my age my memory is better than that on a bad day. I’ve had to give up on the place. The way it’s going it’s not going to end till they’ve killed every last one of each other. At least when I have to start again it’ll just be the people I’ll have to create. I’ll need to do a bit of environment damage repair so I think I’ll imbue the next set of people with more respect for the planet.

“Telling you, no more holidays for me, Mo, just not worth the bother. I’ll stick to working. Like you I’m getting nowhere. They’ll have to sort it all out themselves on Earth. Till then I’m starting with a new project. I’m looking for a nice planet suitable for a six day creation, then again I may just take a few more days to make sure I do a better job than I did with Earth. You know, somewhere where I can create a decent climate, make food readily available, not that dissimilar from Earth, but this time there will be no, definitely no, snakes.”

When the laughter finished, Alf said, “I don’t get it, Dave. How did she get pregnant from oral sex? And what was going on?”

“It was aural sex not oral sex, Alf. Listen to the difference in the pronunciation. Aural is to do with the ear. According to the bible, which is the book that God was complaining about in my tale, Mary was visited by the angel Gabriel and told she was with child. There have always been stories around, probably started by folk having a dig at Catholics who maintain Mary was always a virgin, that the angel got her pregnant via her ear. That’s possibly because she was listening to him, but I don’t know. There’s another tale in the Gospel of James that says Mary was conceived similarly on Anne her mother too. Ne’er mind, Lad, it’s only funny if you know a bit about religion which as you know is a hobby of mine. There’re load of scriptures that never got included in the bible proper, some are in a bit usually found at the back of bibles called The Apocrypha which isn’t accepted by all. Some of them paint a somewhat different story from the official bible version of events or at least they add to it. The gospel of James and the rest of the chapters of the book of Esther were two of them. I don’t believe any of it, but I do find it interesting. Okay now?”

“Yeah, I guess it’s kind of funny, Dave, if you’re clever enough, but I preferred the tales about chess, the rabbit, and the Strings.”

~o~O~o~

Denis said, “I’ll tell you a short tale of when Belinda and I were looking for somewhere to move to. At the time we were considering somewhere in the Pendle forest area of Lancashire. The area was famous for the witch trials of sixteen twelve when twenty accused of witchcraft who came from Pendle village were tried. The area has had a dodgy reputation ever since. We’d looked at a few properties and decided to have lunch at The Pendle Inn in the heart of the area. Now I don’t frighten easily, but the bloke who appeared behind the bar was at least seven foot four, built like a brick built outhouse and he was seriously intimidating. He reminded me of Lurch from the Addams family, only bigger, much bigger. We were too late for lunch and so Belinda asked him what snacks were available. In a completely deadpan, expressionless voice that sounded hollow enough to have come from a sepulchre he replied, ‘Snacks are off.’ We left laughing, but our laughter had a tomb like quality to it too. We’ve been saying ‘Snacks are off’ for a laugh ever since.”

~o~O~o~

Denis turned to look at the dogs and said, “Geoff, from the looks of things that bitch of yours is coming into season. Best leave her at home for three weeks unless you want a litter of Springer cross god alone knows what pups.”

The men all looked at Geoff’s spaniel and the way the dogs were interested in her even though as yet she was certainly not interested in them. “Aye. Looks right you’re right, Denis. I’ve been planning on taking her to a bloke out Threlkeld way who’s got a quality Springer dog at stud that he does rough shooting with. I’ve heard the dog’s a good un with the gun, so I’d better ring him up to arrange a visit for Sprite in a fortnight, because I want a decent pup for working hedges.(5) Who ever’s up next, had better make it a short one then we can get another pint after without having to interrupt any one.

~o~O~o~

After Frank’s round had been distributed John said, “I’ve a moderate length tale that may take us to the next pint. For a while my life wasn’t much different from what Geoff went through. At the time I wasn’t in the best of states having been dumped by a duplicitous lass who’d taken me for every thing I’d got. I don’t know how I ended up here, but Margaret took me on even knowing I was living on the streets. She always did have a soft spot for waifs and strays. I can’t remember the number of dogs and cats over the years she’s rescued off the streets, fed back to health and rehomed. I guess I got lucky because I wasn’t rehomed. I wasn’t working, Hellfire at the time I was unemployable because my head was in bits. She helped me to become a human being again, God alone knows why she thought I was worth the effort. I think I eventually sorted myself out because I realised she’d had it worse than me. She’d been raised in a hard line Catholic family. Clever, she’d gone to a convent Grammar school and had had no sex education. At primary school first thing Monday mornings it had been, ‘Stand on your desk all those who didn’t go to Mass yesterday and not gone to confession.’ The class teacher listened to the reasons and decided whether they were valid or not. Margaret reckoned your whole family could have been wiped out and it wouldn’t have been an adequate reason for not going to Mass and you’d still have been punished. The other one they were telt was, ‘The children who go to the other schools are the spawn of Satan, have nothing to do with them or you will be punished.’

“She’d seriously believed she couldn’t get pregnant the first time, and had been traumatised to find out that that was not how it worked. She’d been treated badly by her parents and had had to accept it because she’d needed their help. She’d lived at her parents’ house till Becca was about three, then she got a two bedroom end of terrace council house maybe half a mile away from her folks’ place. Then I appeared and with her help I became a man again and once I was working with my financial input she’d become sufficiently independent of them to be able to demand her parents treated her with a degree of respect or she and her daughter would never bother with them again. In turn I telt all who belittled her to fuck off because I wasn’t having any disparage my woman. There was a local library van that used to stop near her house. I used the van and in there I remember some stupid old bitch telling me what a good man I was for taking on a fallen women. I fucked her off in good style as a hypocritical, sanctimonious first stone threwer that Jesus would have condemned to hell for a lack of humanity.

“The next bit of the tale is how I came to adopt Rebecca. The tale is pretty funny now the way Margaret tells it. Margaret had started her nurse training at a hospital twenty miles away from home and had had to live in for the first eighteen months. After that she shared a flat with four other lasses. That night was disco night at the Red Lion, the girls’ local pub. Three of the girls were on nights and Helen and Margaret who enjoyed dancing went out to enjoy themselves. The two girls were approached by two lads and they paired off, Margaret with Peter and Helen with his mate. Margaret only met Peter twice the first of which was when they went back to the flat and she freely admits she was overcome with lust for the first time. The second time they met was a couple of days later at his local pub the Cart and Horses in Dingow, and she described that as a date. Margaret says she’s no idea why she never met him again and speculated that he possibly never contacted her again because he thought she was an easy lay. She said years after, that at the time she was certain that she was pregnant which was why she had the pregnancy test so early.

“The first thing her mother said to her when she telt her she was pregnant was, ‘I knew it. I knew this would happen when you moved into that flat.’ When her old man found out she was pregnant he insisted they track down the lad. When asked what the lad’s surname was she admitted she didn’t know and her mum was horrified when she said, ‘Mum, you don’t bother about that sort of thing these days.’ So her cousin Graham was called upon he being the family member with the most brains. Margaret knew the lad was called Peter, came from Dingow and worked at a local soda pop factory. She’d been able to describe Peter and he being a ginger cut out most folk, so Graham suggested they went to the Cart and Horses in Dingow to see if he was in there. If not they could ask a few discreet questions. He got lucky, Peter wasn’t in the pub, but a couple of blokes knew the lad, Peter Alecost, and provided an address. Margarets’s parents made her write a letter to Peter and in it there was mention of maintenance for the baby.

“This is where it all went pear shaped. The address was incorrect. Margaret had put her flat as her address not her parents’ house and it was early evening when there was a knock on the house front door. The house was divided into two flats and the girls lived in the upstairs one. Helen one of the other girls went to answer it and came back nearly on her hands and knees going up the stairs she was laughing so hard. Struggling to get the words out she telt the others, ‘You’re not going to believe this. It could only happen to you.’ She was looking at Margaret. ‘There’s an old geezer downstairs saying you sent him a letter accusing him of being your baby’s dad. He must be seventy if he’s a day and his son is with him. His son must be fifty and is built like the Hulk.’ Eventually it was all sorted out and Margaret couldn’t apologise enough. She explained all that had happened and how they got his address. The good thing was the old man did know Peter Alecost and provided a correct address. He said he initially couldn’t make any sense of the letter which he’d opened at breakfast and when he saw the word maintenance he’d asked his wife if she’d fallen behind on the television payments.

“Margaret’s parents went round to see Peter, and fair play to the lad when the matter of maintenance was raised he said he was prepared to try living together and see how it went. Margaret couldn’t see any future in that and asked what his house was like. Her mum replied somewhat dryly, ‘It has seen better days.’

“Margaret had to pack in nursing though she went back to it years later and qualified. She applied to Social Security for single mothers allowance. The Social took Peter to court to try to force a maintenance payment out of him. Margaret claimed it had been her first sexual encounter, but he counter claimed he didn’t believe that because, ‘She didn’t bleed.’ Margaret was mortified by him saying that in open court, but said, ‘Tampons have been available for decades now.’ She must have been more convincing than he because the magistrates ordered a maintenance payment. Which he did pay irregularly and stopped paying altogether after a while, but that was of no concern to Margaret because she received her benefit as a book like a family allowance book. Each week she’d take the book to the post office and they’d remove the perforated page with that week’s date on it and pay her the money. The Social had the problem of getting the money out of Peter. Margaret didn’t know, but I suspect they had it taken directly from his employer who’d have had to deduct it from his wages before paying him.

“I’d been living with Margaret a couple of years and Rebecca would have been eight by then. She’d been calling me Daddy for a long time. Margaret and I decided to get married in order to facilitate my adoption of Becca. We had a quiet registry office wedding with no guests. Becca’s adoption was a tedious affair. They had to check with Peter that he was okay about it and that Becca would not be disadvantaged by it. If he’d had any money, he could reasonably cut her out of his will if I adopted her. He had no money, no resources and was I suspect glad to be rid of the whole matter as it would put an end to any deduction from earnings order imposed by Social Security and any attachment of earnings order imposed by the court on his wages.

“By that time Margaret was back nursing and no longer in receipt of single mothers benefit allowance, but she was being taxed on maintenance that she was not receiving. I suggested that being the case we applied to the court for the maintenance to be paid directly into a trustee account opened in Rebecca’s name that money couldn’t be taken out of till she was eighteen when the trust would be wound up and the money hers. That way Margaret wouldn’t be paying the tax and Rebecca wouldn’t be paying any either as it wouldn’t take her over the income tax threshold even if Peter paid it all in full every week. Social Services had no objection since they were no longer chasing Peter for the money and when Margaret asked would Peter be there at court they said there was no reason for him to be and they would have someone there to recommend the payment was changed to pay Rebecca. Sod’s law, I was working and Margaret went to court on her own. Peter was already in court when Margaret entered and she was gutted. It was the first time she’d seen him in years. He said nowt, but when she got home one of her neighbours came round and she scriked(6) for hours. When she was no longer upset by his being in court she laught and said, ‘Time hasn’t been very kind to him. He’s going bald and is wearing glasses that look the lenses came off bottle bottoms, and he’s not yet thirty.’ I later recovered all the excess tax Margaret had paid on the money she’d not received, but not a penny was ever paid into Becca’s account. I was happy about that because I considered the less involvement Becca had with the bloke Margaret had always referred to as the sperm donor the better.

“I said to the Social I wasn’t looking for any payments from anywhere regarding Rebecca whom I’d long considered to be my child and I certainly didn’t want any one else able to think they had any kind of parental rights or responsibilities in connection with her. Peter had never laid eye on her and as far as she was concerned I was Daddy. Rebecca was sitting on my lap when she asked the Social worker dealing with the case, ‘When will I be my Daddy’s little girl properly?’The answer to that one was three months later in a magistrates’ court, there were no family courts in those days. We were all stressed to hell once we received notice of the adoption hearing date which was a fortnight away. The hearing was in front of a bench of three magistrates. It was a joke really, the magistrates had the paper work in front of them which they’d clearly read in advance. The Social worker recommended they agreed to the adoption. The senior magistrate in the middle of the three, a woman who looked to be in her early fifties, said, ‘We all hope you will be very happy.’ She stamped the adoption order and handed it to the clerk to give to us and that was that. We weren’t in there three minutes. The truly crazy thing was not that I adopted Becca, but that in order for me to do so Margaret had to adopt her too. Legally we both adopted her, so Margaret had to adopt a child she’d given birth to. Now that I reckon is bizarre. I can’t say I’m surprised that Margaret got pregnant her first time because she can truly knock em out. By the time the adoption came through we’d another child and had another one on the way. We’d managed eight kids in seven years, and that’s not including Becca.”

~o~O~o~

Charlie said, “I can squeeze a short one in before the next round. I was still living at Mum’s house in Glazebury and I was going to Warrington. I was maybe eighteen and I’ve no idea why I was going to Warrington and even less why I got on the number forty-seven bus which took forty-five minutes longer than the forty-six bus to get there. The forty-seven went through Winwick and a dozen outlying villages and hamlets. In the middle of nowhere a young woman three seats away from me went into labour. She was going to Warrington Infirmary which unlike the forty-six the forty-seven went past and stopped at. No one was willing to help her, not even any of the women on the bus. Despite having delivered any number of lambs, calves, piglets and foals I was scared witless, but I couldn’t ignore her cries for help. I delivered her little girl on the back seat of the bus fifteen minutes before it reached the hospital. In those days there were no mobile phones and when the bus pulled in at A&E the driver raced into the hospital for help. I’m still in touch with Abigail and her daughter Charlotte whom I delivered, and I gave Charlotte away at her wedding twenty-odd years ago. Abigail never married and Charlotte and I consider each other to be daughter and father. Susanna considers Abigail to be a sister and Charlotte to be our eldest and was thrilled to be a grandma when Charlotte had a family. The only bad thing about it all is this damned lock down because Susanna won’t risk passing anything on to her grandchildren and so only has contact via Zoom which seriously upsets her.”

~o~O~o~

“I’ll get this round, Lads. I’ll even pull em too, Pete, if some of you line the empties up on the bar for me to put in the machine.”

“No bother. Thanks, Tommy. You just pull the pints and I’ll load the washer.” Pete was already on his feet reaching for empty glasses. “Better have just the one more tale before supper.”

When the beer was organised and the dogs sorted out with kibble and water, Alf said, “I don’t know if it’s very interesting but I’ve a short tale to tell.” With encouragement from the others he continued. “I arrived home from work one day and I couldn’t find Ellen. She was working nights so I expected her to be in bed. There was a note on the kitchen table saying, ‘I’ve gone to bed in the spare bedroom. There’s a weasel in our bedroom somewhere and the cats are going crazy in there. Sort it out, or I’m sleeping in the front spare bedroom till further notice.’ I went into our bedroom to see four cats surrounding the bedside cabinet on my side of the bed. I took the cats out and shut them in the front room. I tried to get the creature to leave the bedroom via the door, but all I managed to achieve was chase it round the bedroom. It stuck close to the walls behind the furniture and wouldn’t cross the open space to the door and was back under the bedside cabinet again. Having figured out how it was behaving I put barriers in place to force the weasel out of the bedroom into Ellen’s sitting room and out of the French windows.

“This time as soon as I lifted the cabinet it raced alongside the barriers out of the bedroom, across the sitting room and left the house via the French windows. It streaked across the flags outside the French windows and into the grass. I was amazed. The lawn grass was short, but as soon as it reached the grass it disappeared like I said into it not over it. God alone knows where it went, but it went. Ellen said one of the cats brought it into the house and was really upset when playing with it it escaped. A few days later we found a dead weasel in one of my shoes. It couldn’t have been the same one because it was darker and had more white on it. I said it was Ellen’s fault. She’d spoilt the cats’ fun and this time they’d made sure she couldn’t spoil it again. You know my mate Arthur the wildlife and ecology nutter?” There were a lot of mild agreements, most weren’t particularly fond of Arthur who was a bit too extreme for most of the brutal realists of Bearthwaite who referred to him as a squirrel pickler.(7) “I bagged the weasel and put it in the freezer, along with all the other beasties that I kept for him. He takes them and gives them to university types for their studies. God alone knows why because they don’t seem to think any better of him as a result, but that’s his problem not mine.”

~o~O~o~

“Supper is ready, Dad. Mum and I will be bringing it in as soon as she’s served the best side. I’ll go and help, but could you clear away the empties please?”

“What’s on the menu tonight, Harriet Love,” asked Stan.

“Steak and ale pie with flaky pastry top, carrots, chips [US fries] and gravy, Uncle Stan. The carrots and the potatoes came from Uncle Alf.” Harriet added nervously, “I made the pie with Auntie Veronica supervising.”

The old men and all the visitors too said supper was excellent especially the pie which made Harriet blush yet at the same time feel mightily relieved. Vince joked, “If you ever get fed up working for your dad I’ve got a job waiting for you making pies at my spot, Lass.”

Paul volunteered to buy the next round and Pete went to start pulling pints saying, “If anyone fancies a drop of something stronger to go with the beer, Lads, someone needs to fetch it up from the cellar because there’s next to nowt behind the bar.”

Sasha said, “I’ll fetch some of the Turkish raki and a bottle of what? Cactus juice, John?”

John who owned the tequila nodded and said, “Good idea, Sasha.”

“Aye and bring a bottle of Mountain Dew too,” said Pat referring to the poteen he acquired from relatives in Ireland.

~o~O~o~

When all had been dealt with Sasha asked, “I know this may seem a silly question, but what exactly is money? I know that most of you will think that to be a stupid question, but just listen to what I’ve got to say and then think about it. Economists use five definitions of money that I know about. For all I know there may be many more. Different countries use slightly different definitions of those five, but they are all broadly similar. The definitions all begin with an M for money and are numbered.

“M0 is the coins and notes in circulation and anything you can take into a bank and be paid on demand cash for. It also includes all money on deposit in banks that the banks have to hold cash for ready to pay out the entire amount on demand.

“M1 includes all of M0. It also includes, traveller’s checks, other check account deposits and some other types of not so instantly available deposits.
“M2 includes M1 and is different in different places, but essentially it also includes all savings and various other accounts up to the value of about a hundred thousand pounds each I think. It includes all money in circulation and money most likely to come into circulation in the near future. Two years seems to be a typical definition of the near future.
“M3 includes M2 as well as deposits not available for longer time periods, institutional money market funds, I think that’s stuff like pension funds but I could be wrong, short-term repurchase agreements, and larger liquid assets. That is effectively money that is less available, liquid is the term they use, money you have to give notice to get at is how I understand that.”
“What is a short-term repurchase agreement, Sasha?”
“I had to look that up, Stan. I’ll tell you what I found on a website called Investopedia. A repurchase agreement (repo) is a form of short-term borrowing for dealers in government securities. In the case of a repo, a dealer sells government securities to investors, usually on an overnight basis, and buys them back the following day at a slightly higher price. That small difference in price is the implicit overnight interest rate. Repos are typically used to raise short-term capital. There was a load more on the site, but most of it meant nothing to me.”
“How do you remember stuff like that, Sasha?”
“Same way you remember half of the contents of Machinery’s Handbook, Alf. I just do. And finally,
“M4 is M0 plus all bank accounts.
“Now I probably haven’t got all those definitions absolutely correct, but you get the idea. Even the folks who actually do know what they are talking about use lots of different definitions, and there are a few significant differences between M2 in the US and M2 in the EU. My point is all those definitions are neither useful nor meaningful to ordinary folks like us. But back to my original question just what is money? Alf, what do you reckon money is? What do you use it for?”

“I get the bit about cash, and what I’ve got in the bank. I suppose the premium bonds(8) count too. Before I retired I had pension funds that were worth money. As for what I use it for, obvious isn’t it? Spending, buying stuff.”

“That, Lads, is probably about as good a definition as any of us could have provided, but what about the money folk owe you, Alf. For work you’ve done, but not been paid for yet. What about the stuff you’ve bought, but you didn’t have to pay for with readies.(9) You do work for some folk in exchange for stuff they’ve got and you want, or even in exchange for them doing some work for you, right? We all do. Isn’t that money too?”

“You got me there, Sasha, because yeah I reckon that’s money too. Or at least it’s worth money.”

“You got that the wrong way round, Alf. What you want is not worth money. Money is worth the stuff you want. What about buying stuff on credit with money you haven’t got. In Alf’s words you’re buying stuff but with no money, but you can still buy the stuff. We’ve all done that at least once, it’s called the mortgage. Sure they’ll run a credit check on you and only lend you the money if you’re a good risk. Now take it one step further. I mind a time when I bought a truck off you, Alf, I’d had it for a month and not yet paid for it because you hadn’t worked out the total including all the extras you’d done on it for me. I must have owed you at least twelve grand. Then before I paid you I took some things to your workshop for repair and you did the work, some welding and a flat tyre as I recall. Why did you do the work for someone who owed you that much and took the stuff away after you’d fixed it without paying for that either? You didn’t even run a credit check on me.”

“Don’t be daft, Sasha. There was no need. Even if I’d known how to do a credit check on you I wouldn’t have bothered. I knew you were good for it, and I wasn’t bothered. I knew as soon as I’d worked out what it came to you’d pay me. The reason I hadn’t worked it out was because I was too busy. I only do the paperwork when I’ve nowt else to do.”

“So what you’re saying is my reputation was good?”

“Aye. That’s exactly what I’m saying. When I ring the builders merchants, the steel yard or any of the engineering factors for parts and place an order the stuff arrives the day after or maybe the day after that. I pay them at the end of the month via my account. They know I’m good for it.”

Sasha resumed, “There’re hundreds of folk round here and many more elsewhere I can do business over the phone with. I don’t have an account with them, but the deal is done over the phone, and ownership of whatever is transferred, or the service what ever it is will be provided. All done on a mutual understanding of our reputations and that is what in the end my understanding of money is. It’s your personal credit rating in other words your reputation. Reputation is a fragile thing and like money can’t be eaten or used for anything other than providing a medium of easy exchange and unlike twenty pound notes you can’t even wipe your backside with it. Though it has to be said these modern plastic banknotes would be pretty useless for even that.

“Aye,” added Denis, “and like money it’s powerful easy to get rid of and damned hard to acquire, and once lost it’s nigh on impossible to get back. If that’s it, Lads, get the dominoes out.”

1 Mince or minced meat is the English term for ground meat.
2 The craic, pronounced crack, refers to the laughter and banter that goes with having a good night out with friends. If the craic was ninety then it means it was exceptionally good and you were having the time of your life. Originally an Irish expression it has become commonplace in many parts of the UK, especially in the north. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAD1ikRD6V4. If the link doesn’t work youtube has Paddy Reilly and the Dubliners singing ‘The craic was ninety in the Isle of Mann’.
3 A&E, Accident and Emergency. ER in the US.
4 NHS, National Health Service.
5 Working hedges, Springer spaniels are excitable so not much used on a pheasant or grouse shoot. They are excellent for rough shooting working their way down field hedges to flush out game and retrieve it.
6 Scriked, cried, an old word still in use in northern England. To scrike, to cry.
7 Squirrel pickler, a term of derision for extreme conservationists. The term originates in the two senses of the word conserve. One the environmental sense, and two the making of jams, jellies, chutneys and pickles sense. Red squirrels, Sciurus vulgaris, are a protected, endangered species in the UK. The term is a play on the idea that such conservationists are so stupid that they would ‘conserve’ squirrels by pickling them.
8 UK premium bonds are bonds that you buy from the Government’s NS&I department (National Savings and Investment) and are really a sort of gamble. Every month, bond numbers are drawn at random by a machine called ERNIE (Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment) and various prizes (up to the value of £1 million) can be won. Your money is safe but when you cash your bonds in you only get the same value as when you bought them - i.e. you don’t get any interest.
9 Readies, refers to cash, notes and coins.

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

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

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

~o~O~o~

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

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

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

~o~O~o~

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~o~O~o~

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

~o~O~o~

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~o~O~o~

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~o~O~o~

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

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

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

~o~O~o~

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

~o~O~o~

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~o~O~o~

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was a cool enough evening to have the fires in the tap room of the Green Dragon well stoked. There were a dozen or so outsiders in but they were all regular Saturday attenders and well known to the locals. All had a pint in front of them and they were looking round to see who was going to start with the first tale.

“I thought I was the one getting old,” said Pete, “but Peggy has been down in the cellars after mice and must have got something on her coat she wanted off.” Peggy was the vagrant tortoise shell cat who a couple of years ago had moved in to the Green Dragon and refused to move out. She earned her food and vet’s bills too by eliminating the vermin in the cellars though fresh contingents came in each winter to avoid the cold outside. Pete had all her bills put down on the tax returns as a business expense. “She’s been chewing bits out of her coat for a couple of days now despite Gladys attempting to give her a brushing and combing. There’re patches of fur all over and Gladys is going mental about it. Earlier today she said she was sick, and I quote, ‘Of that damned cat purfulling everywhere. It wouldn’t be so bad if she’d do it in just one place.’ It took me a few seconds to work out that purfulling had nothing to do with purring and was actually pur fulling. Like I said, Lads, age is creeping up on my lass, though I admit to referring to Peggy as that cooking fat when I tripped over her on the cellar stairs.”

“Women are gey quaire cattle,(1) Pete. I mind I was out with one of my daughters in law shopping one day many a year since. It wasn’t long before Christmas and I was looking for something to buy Elsie. We were in a cheap spot called ‘Superdrug’ that selt(2) mostly household tackle because she was doing her weekly shop. At the front there was a basket of hot water bottle covers fashioned to look like various animals, and some of them were like gorillas. Now, Elsie has been into monkeys all her life, and I don’t need any smart arsed comments about that, Lads. So I bought one. I don’t know what it cost, but I do know it was gey(3) cheap. My daughter in law, and I can’t mind which one of the boys’ missuses it was, wrapped it up for me. Bugger me, Elsie called it James, and she maintains to this day it was the best present I ever bought her. She’s still got it, and the granddaughters play with it like a doll. Like I said, Women are gey quaire cattle.”

“Aren’t they just, Bill.” After casting his mind back to not long after the time Gladys moved in with him at his house on Glebe street Pete resumed. He could barely keep his face straight as he was telling the tale. “I mind Old Florrie McFearon as we lived next door to for a while. We lived in a terrace of four on Glebe Street and she and Bill her old man and we lived in the middle two. She was a queer looking auld biddy(4) wi just the one tooth in her head right at the front sticking out of her top jaw, out and for’ard. We got on okay with the pair of them. Like all good neighbours we didn’t live in each others’ pockets, but if we’d ever needed help we knew all we had to do was ask. Florrie and Bill have been away(5) many a year now, but I learnt a good few lessons from the pair of them. I’m not saying the party walls between the houses were thin, but I swear downright you could watch folk change their minds through the walls. The pair of them were round eighty, but they did enjoy themselves. Bill was pretty quiet, but hell fire even at that age Florrie was a screamer. The most important lesson I learnt from them was that you’re never too old to enjoy a bit of a tumble, even if it is with a bit of fluff young enough to be your daughter.”

Through the laughter Gladys could be heard saying from behind the bar in the lounge, “I’ll get you for that, Pete.”

“See what I mean, Lads? I’m on a promise already! And it’s nowhere near last orders yet. By the bye I ordered a couple of dozen sets of dominoes a few days ago. Some sixes, nines and twelves(6) too. I thought they’d be here for today, but they’re not.”

~o~O~o~

Charlie indicated that he would take up the telling of tales. “I used to drink in a pub at Lately Common called the Comfortable Gill. Johnny Giles was the landlord in those days and he was an ex coal miner. The place was decked out with pit paraphernalia, Davy lamps and Patterson lamps abounded. I mind one Sunday lunchtime I was having a couple of scoops(7) there in the lounge because none of the lads were in the tap. There had recently been a pit disaster in the news. I don’t think it was in Britain, but I’m no longer certain about that. We were talking about pit accidents. Leigh, a nearby town had had a dozen pits in the recent past and a lot more than that in days long past. Leigh had three parallel streets all about a mile long, and most of the men who lived there were colliers. I mind one was Gordon Street and another Glebe Street, but I don’t mind what the street between them was. I know that at one time there was said to never be a time where there weren’t dozens of houses with all the curtains drawn, which indicated a death in the family, usually from a pit accident. We were discussing pit accidents and there was talk of canaries and firedamp. Firedamp was a gas mostly composed of methane, released particularly by bituminous coal, which could cause an explosion. Canaries are more sensitive to firedamp gas than folk and they took them down the mines in cages. When one fell off it’s perch they knew it was time to get the hell out of there and keep going till the canary recovered.

“We talked about Johnny’s safety lamps which don’t pose an ignition risk because the flame is inside a copper gauze in the case of a Davy lamp, and in a Patterson lamp, which was a later development, inside twin copper gauzes. The flame won’t travel through the gauze. Johnny had a couple down off the wall and took a few apart to shew us how they’d developed over the years. Patterson lamps have an externally operated flint striker too, so if the flame went out you could safely relight it. We talked about the dangers of not just firedamp explosions, but those posed by organic dusts too, which of course includes coal dust. I telt(8) of my chemistry teacher sticking a glass tube into a jar of lycopodium powder, which is the dried spores of the club moss plant. The spores contain oil and the powder given the right conditions is explosive. My teacher scared us witless when he blew the powder through a Bunsen burner flame to produce a short lived fireball that made a hell of a noise. It was more like an explosion than a flame. I remarked any organic powder that fine was potentially deadly and that it was easy enough to find. Somewhere round a circular saw the super fines would accumulate, and the finest grades of baking flour were almost as good.

“I mind telling of an O’ Level chemistry textbook we used at school written by Liptrot and Pode with a picture in it of the outline of a man on the roof of a wine cork factory in Spain after a cork dust explosion. Thing was it wasn’t the outline of a man. He was still up there blasted flat onto the roof. I mind a man in the pub asking me, “So if a fine dust were blewn into say a fan it would be explosive?” He had an Irish accent and I was instantly on my guard and gave a non committal answer. The troubles in Ireland were bad at the time, and somehow I knew he was talking about the air intakes to Royal Ulster Constabulary police stations which had recently been in the news for having dynamite threwn in to them, and I was looking at an IRA(9) member if not a recruiter. Once you go that way the only way out is in a pine box. I took no further part in the discussion and left after a supposed visit to the gents.”

The tap went quiet waiting for someone to say something. Charlie interrupted the silence to say, “Me telling those tales has brought back a few more memories which if you’re willing I’ll recount?”

“Go for it, Charlie. Whatever, you know we’ll listen with interest, Lad. You’ve been more than okay so far.”

Charlie nodded with a little relief before starting. “My gran bought her meat from a Coöp butcher’s van that came round once a week. I can’t recall the butcher’s name, but when I was a few years short of secondary school he asked if I’d like to ride on the van with him. He did a kind of circular tour which could drop me off at the end of Landcut Lane where my grandparents lived when he’d done. Everything in those days was done in old units. Sixteen ounces to the pound, fourteen pounds to a stone and he used stones for the potatoes, onions and carrots that he selt as well as meat and eggs. I mind he selt postage stamps too. Twelve pennies to the shilling and twenty shillings to the pound.

“I loved the old money. Farthings with a wren on the back were a quarter of a penny, ha’pennies with Britannia or the golden hind on the back were half a penny. Pennies, some thin and black with Victoria’s head on them. Some were so thin there was hardly anything left of the queen’s head or whatever had been on the reverse side. I even saw some so thin and black you couldn’t tell the obverse side from the reverse side. Silver round three penny pieces that my gran used to hold her stockings up with when the original rubber on her suspenders perished. There were no tights in those days. Then there were the newer twelve sided bronze three penny pieces. Both the types of three penny pieces were called threppnies or thruppnies. After that came the silver coins, tizzies which were six penny pieces and shillings too. Florins, two shilling pieces and half crowns which were worth two and six or two and a half shillings. Crowns, five shilling pieces, were legal tender, but I never saw one in circulation. Mostly they were collected, the sort of stuff folk with money bought for their grandchildren. Victoria, Edward VII, George V, Edward VIII, George VI and Elizabeth II, they were all there, their heads on the coins, we had history in our hands, in our pockets. Nowadays kids have only ever seen coins with Lizzie's head on em, it's no wonder nowt's real to them any more.

"I never met any one who could do mental arithmetic as fast as Granny’s butcher. He could look at a long list of stuff, most including stuff weighed to the nearest sixth of an ounce at all sorts of prices per pound and reckon it in seconds. The reason he used sixths of an ounce was because three new pennies or six new ha’pennies weighed exactly an ounce. When I say new I mean the old currency that was used prior to decimalisation on February the fifteenth nineteen seventy-one, but recently minted coins with no wear on them to reduce their weight.

“Part of his tour was past my two great aunties’ houses on Lords Lane. They were two old widow women who lived in a pair of isolated semis both of whom had lost their husbands in the Great War. I’d heard them described many a time as batting for the other side, but they’d been dead many a year before I realised that referred to them being suspected of being lesbians. Looking back I don’t think that was true. They were just a pair of lonely sisters who’d managed to find a man when they were young and were too old to find another after they lost them to Flanders’ fields. There was so great a shortage of men after the war the competition for them was fierce and they were ten maybe fifteen years too old by then. They treated me wonderfully and it was years before I realised I was the nearest they’d ever come to having a child of their own. It’s enough to make a grown man weep.

“Time for another, Lads? I’ll get em in. What was that word you used about the sides of coins, Charlie, and what does it mean?”

“Effectively obverse refers to the heads side and the tails side is the reverse side, Alf.”

Gustav said, “I was going to ask that too.”

When all were supplied with another pint, Charlie continued. “I mind loads of bits and pieces about my Uncle Michael, and my cousin Mikey, none of them of any great significance, but taken together they paint a picture in my mind that has never faded. Like a lot of my family they were farmers and they were very alike and constantly at odds. I mind the pair of them shouting at each other across the farm yard, over something so trivial I can’t mind what it was now, ‘If you weren’t my son I wouldn’t employ you.’ ‘And if you weren’t my dad I wouldn’t work for you.’ They were both big powerfully built men, and I mind my Auntie Lily saying, ‘You can calm them both down, so please stop them from actually hurting each other, Charles.’

“Mikey was awful strong and he’d won the cricket ball threwing and the welly(10) threwing competitions at school sports day since the age of twelve. I saw him regularly pick up half a brick and threw it at a rat across the farm yard, maybe twenty yards, and kill it on impact. One day we couldn’t find a bottle jack which we wanted in order to mend a puncture on a tractor rear wheel. It was only a small tractor, but it was still impressive to see Mikey put his arms around the wheel and lift it up for me to slide a block under the axle. I didn’t realise it at the time but Uncle Michael would ask me to do things Mikey had refused point blank to do. Mikey was three years up on me and had a lot more sense than I did even if I were a lot cleverer than he. I mind my uncle getting me to lift a really heavy, cast iron, root chopping machine up on the lower links of a tractor, which took the tractor to just about the balance point of turning over on the back axle. Uncle Michael was swearing at me for being a useless coward when I dropped the hydraulics and put it back down. I telt him to get in the cab and do it his self, but if I were doing it I was going for some weights to put on the front end of the tractor because the experience had frightened me badly. Badly enough to tell him if he didn’t like it he could fuck off.

“That was the point at which Uncle Michael started to treat me like a man. I put quarter of a ton [560 pounds] of tractor weights on the front of the tractor and then the job was easy and safe. A few years later Uncle Michael had a stroke and he became much more difficult to deal with. He was a problem for Auntie Lily and her three girls, and Mikey avoided him. I didn’t. I gave him the usual treatment I’d given him for years by then: the same level of cantankerousness that he gave me. Maybe we were a pair of kindred souls, I don’t know, but we got on okay. I mind one day Archie the vicar had called and gone, the pair of them had drunk a glass of my uncle’s whisky and discussed Dickens, an author they both enjoyed. Uncle Michael had a complete collection of Dickens’ work. Little Dorrit was the subject of that day’s discussion as I recall. I’d always been a prolific reader, but I’d never made any secret of it to my uncle that I lothed(11) Dickens.

“Uncle Michael was giving my auntie a hard time after the vicar had left, so I telt him, ‘Stop being a pain in the arse, Uncle Michael. I’m going to give you a shave and take you out of the house to give everyone a break from your bad temper.’ Auntie Lily, and my cousins Mikey and Gemma with her husband David lived at the farmhouse then. Rosie and Alice had married and moved out a few years before. As he started to protest I telt him, ‘And don’t bother giving me any slaver(12) because you know I’ll ignore you.’ I used to shave Uncle Michael every ten days or so, usually to a load of complaints which were more because he felt obliged to complain than because he objected. After his shave I telt him, ‘At least you look human now, even if that is a lie. Now I’ll help you put on a clean shirt, because that one’s filthy. After that get your sticks and get to the Landrover. Don’t bother telling me you need help, because you don’t. I’ll help you get into it, but that’s all I’ll do for you.’ All the time my Auntie was trying not to smile and my cousins had left to avoid laughing.

“Uncle asked me, ‘Where we going?’ ‘Warrington to price a job. Just up your street you tight fisted old bugger.’ That gave him something to look forward to and calmed him down. Like I said maybe we were kindred souls. The job went fine and we got a decent price agreed on. On the way back the diesel light was flashing. I knew we’d not got enough in the tank to get home, but he was for pressing on home where there was a tank of diesel that was cheaper than buying it retail. ‘You’re pushing if we run out,’ I telt him. ‘I’m stopping at the garage at Risley for fuel.’ ‘That’s top price there,’ he protested. I responded with, ‘It’s twenty quid for a breakdown service or twelve miles to walk home if we run out. I’m good for walking that far. How about you?’ He grumbled all the way to the service station which was opposite the Nuclear Authority’s three buildings. Much to his annoyance I put five gallons in. I can’t remember what it cost, but typically he offered the woman half. I smiled and drove off. He said, ‘That was good, free diesel you should have filled up.’ I completely spoilt his day when I telt him I’d already paid her and he owed me the money.’

“I mind one time at the Harrow Inn in Culcheth. At the time I was bucking(13) a lass called Karin Hill, even her parents called her Bina though I don’t know why. Her mum was Francine as had the chip shop on Church Lane. Mikey had just started going out with a lass called Judith who was a cousin of his, and we’d agreed to meet the girls at the Harrow. We walked in to see Judith sitting on David Lowton’s knee. They were heavy petting. David was also a cousin of Mikey’s. Neither were my cousin, I was related to Mikey’s mum Lily not his dad Michael. I said, ‘Come on. Let’s go, Mikey.’ We were close, and I was the only one who ever called him Mikey, everyone else called him Mick or Mike. I thought he was going to twat(14) me one, but he was my best mate, not just my cousin, and he was gutted,(15) so despite the risk I tried again. ‘Let’s go, Mikey.’ I was very relieved not to wake up in hospital when he said ‘Aye. Lets go.’ We went to the Cherry Tree on Common Lane for a drink where big as he was I made sure he needed a taxi to get home. As far as I’m aware he never bothered with a woman again.

“Another time at the Harrow Inn, a Friday night it was, I had just ordered a round of drinks, eleven pints of bitter with a bottle of brown ale each and a pint of Guinness for Warren, when I accidentality knocked a lad next to me at the bar spilling no more than an eighth of an inch of his pint. ‘Sorry, Mate,’ I said. ‘Let me get you another to go with that one.’ But he wasn’t up for having it. He wanted trouble and started verbally working himself up to fighting fever. I recognised the signs, so before he was ready to fight I knocked him out by slamming his head on the bar. Unbeknownst to me he had four mates who started towards me. Unbeknownst to them I had eleven mates, and all holy hell broke loose. Mikey who had no problem with me taking on a couple of lads was seriously upset at four to one, so he ripped the juke box off the wall and threw it into the opposition. It only took one of them out, but it continued out of the window onto the car park facing Church Lane. I’ve telt you Mikey was a big strong lad and before taking the three remaining lads out he said menacingly, “Reet, Ah’ll a thee, an thee, an thee.”(16) They all followed the juke box. We couldn’t drink in the Harrow for years, not till the spot got a new landlord.

“I mind when we were kids going to the Cherry Tree where the off beer(17) was completely separate from the pub, just a kiosk set into the building, where completely illegally they’d sell anyone anything no matter how young you were. I also mind as a kid going to the youth club on Church Lane where Jimmy the DJ, a completely insecure man who could only relate to kids, regularly played ‘Speedy Gonzalez’.(18) The place was referred to as the Black Shacks, but its proper name was I believe the Black Huts.

“At the bottom of Church Lane was the Pack Horse Inn opposite the parish church. At lunchtime we’d sneak out of school to the Pack Horse because they’d sell us a single cigarette and a match. Too, they selt Players Weights which were a brand of untipped cigarettes where in most places twenty were whatever weight the pack was supposed to be, but every cigarette in the pack was a slightly different thickness. The Pack Horse had never selt them in packets and had continued selling them loose by weight. It also selt black twist, a pungent pipe tobacco that came as foot long sticks half an inch thick that had to be cut off finely with a knife and rubbed before smoking it, and a dozen or more varieties of snuff too. The Players Weights, the twist and the snuff were all selt by weight using a very sensitive set of tobacconist’s scales. The church was nearly a mile from the centre of the village then, but a few hundred years before it had been the centre of the hamlet. Years later I mind me, Mikey and who ever I was bucking at the time getting banned from the Chat Moss Inn at Glazebury. God alone knows why. Mikey was a peaceable sort unless someone threatened any he cared about at what he considered to be unreasonable odds. He’d let me fight my own way out of any number of situations he thought were fair enough. I was out on the arm, and who goes looking for a battle when they’ve got a lass with them?”

“I always thought of my mum’s dad as squeaky clean. Then at the age of thirteen I got a job working for Harold Fairclough. I’d lied about my age, I’d said I was fourteen. Fairclough’s was a medium sized road building concern. I’ll no doubt tell you lot of tales about working there, but this is about my grandpa. I knew they’d not believed me when I’d said I was fourteen, so I’d not understood why they gave me the job. A week or so later the general foreman who’d been at my interview asked me, ‘What’s your dad’s first name, Son? Your face seems familiar.’ ‘Gordon,’ I replied. ‘Never heard of him. What about your granddad?’ ‘John Thomas Edmund, but everyone calls him Jock,’ I replied. ‘Well I’ll be damned! I thought I recognised you when we interviewed you. That’s why I said I’d take you. We knew you weren’t fourteen from your National Insurance Number, but I don’t have a problem with any one who lies to get a job. At least it means they want a job badly enough to take chances to get it. Your granddad and I were apprentices together. I was an apprentice chippy(19) and he was an apprentice stone mason. So, you’re Jock’s grandson. How’s the old buzzard going on?’

“ ‘Grandpa’s doing fine,’ I replied. ‘He wound up his own firm, and he’s working out Grappenhall way at the moment for Harold Pett and looking forward to retiring in just over a year.’

“ ‘Aye me too. We were both born in August nineteen hundred. Pass him on my details and we’ll have a craic and get drunk together, Son. Christ, I mind the times when we were working together in the days of World War Two meat rationing when we’d go into Manchester or Liverpool before dawn with a handful of grain. We’d scatter it on one of the squares and wait for the birds to come down at first light. We’d have the net over hundreds of them in seconds. By nine o’clock they’d be pluckt and on the butchers’ counters marked up as fresh wood pigeon, even if they were starlings at half the size and half the price. Meat was meat in those days and no one gave a damn where it came from or what it was. The main thing was getting aholt on it(20) at all.’ The things I learnt about Grandpa from him were amazing, but at the end at least I knew my Grandpa was no different from those of my mates. I suppose kids always think their family is boring. It just that they hear the stuff that goes on the families of others, but have to wait to for years to hear all the scandals in their own family.

“We were building what years later would be referred to as the Sankey Way. It was at Great Sankey. Originally there was a huge housing estate of mostly derelict old back to back Victorian houses on the site. None had been lived in for years and they probably hadn’t been fit to live in when they were new. They were demolished by a couple of JCBs,(21) a dozer and a dragline machine referred to as a 10RB. There was a much bigger version called a 22RB, and a 1RB was a joke name for a man with a shovel. After the demolition rubble had been taken off site we commenced building the huge roundabout that would provide for easy access to and from the main roads and nearby Warrington town centre. I remember the site engineer, George, a goliath of a man. He was black as coal and said he was Nigerian. One time he had a couple of us follow him with a fourteen pound sledge hammer and a couple of steel pins with points on one end. The pins were about two and a half inches in diameter, like a scaffold tube but solid.

“George took his theodolite and a ranging rod and walked away from us to set up. After consulting his note book he determined where we should knock the first pin in. I knocked it down maybe six inches and that was it. The other lad who wasn’t much older than me had a go, and he got nowhere either. George was swearing at us as a pair of useless weak fools and he took a swing at it with the sledge. The sweat was pumping out of him, but the pin didn’t go in any further. I swear the pin was beginning to bend before he gave up on it. I later remembered that George had ordered a couple of waggons of concrete too many for the kerb races(22) round the island and he’d had a machine driver dig a hole for it to be dumped in. That pin must have had six foot of high quality concrete under it.

“We’d been telt that all utilities had been isolated on the site. Even at that age I wasn’t gullible enough to believe that. The machines on the job dug up live water pipes, live gas mains, running sewers and most spectacularly an electricity cable four inches thick that vaporised half the bucket on the back actor of the JCB. I mind the driver saying, “Am I glad the machine was on rubbers and not a track layer.” He meant it was a machine on tyres which are an insulator rather than a machine on metal tracks.

“I mind being sent shopping with a dumper to fetch chips, [US fries] pies and a whole host of other stuff. Eggs, bacon, sausages and stuff the Irishmen cooked with lard over a fire on their shovels after having scrubbed them clean with a brick under running water. I also went to fetch the papers from the newsagents which included a few top shelf magazines which was my first experience of looking at that sort of stuff. In the cabin where we ate was a Union notice about pay. I mind it said trades men were on six shillings and seven pennies an hour and labourers on six shillings and one penny an hour. I was on half pay, three shillings and half a penny an hour. There was only one bus an hour early in the morning that took me from Mum’s house in Glazebury to Warrington, I could either be at work half an hour early or half an hour late, and late wasn’t an option. We started work at seven. I was paid a bit extra to open the compound up and get the tea boiler on before anyone else started work. One day I arrived at work to be shouted at by an old woman who lived nearby because she said she’d been woken up in the middle of the night by us working. No matter what I said about no one working at night she wasn’t calming down any, and when the bosses arrived she had a go at them. Turned out some lads had turned up at about three with an eighteen wheeler low loader trailer, loaded up the dozer and nicked(23) it.

“At the far end of the site we were building a bridge over the Sankey Brook which was reputed to be the most heavily polluted waterway in Europe. I’d read in the paper it was so acidic it dissolved steel rivets on the barges that used its lower reaches. The lads working on that bridge had to wear respirators because of the fumes coming off the water and drew hazard money for that.

“A few years later I was working in the summer holidays on the M62 which crossed a corner of the Chat Moss peat bog. The section of the M62 that we were joining up with was the section at the Worsley interchange that eventually became part of the M60, the Manchester ring road, but I’m going back at least thirty years before that. I was still just a kid really and I did what I was telt. I worked in a gang whose ganger man was Sean. Sean was a pisshead,(24) but he was easy to work for. He’d work fifty hours a week in a suit, get pissed(25) in it over the weekend, sleep Mondays and a few Tuesdays too, and buy another suit for the following weekend. The spread, as the site was referred to, ran from the bridge at Holcroft Lane which was near Glazebrook down to the Worsley traffic interchange, maybe ten miles. There was a company bus that started out in Leigh that picked me up outside Mum’s at six thirty. I was nearly the last to be picked up. It was summertime so it didn’t get dark till late. The bus didn’t leave the site till seven thirty, so because the spread was in the middle of farm land if you didn’t have a car you worked the overtime whether you wanted to or not.

“One time we ran out of stuff to work with and were mostly just leaning on our shovels. Sean would keep an eye out for any traffic which meant someone from the office was approaching. ‘Okay, Boys, start to brush that gutter and look busy.’ We must have swept that tiny pile of dust twenty miles backwards and forwards before what we were waiting for arrived. Looking busy was the key to survival. Mostly what we were doing was installing the main drains which were spun concrete pipes twelve feet in diameter and they went thirty feet below the road surface. Each section was certainly no more than three feet long and they sealed against each other with massive black rubber O rings. They were lowered down into the trench by a crane and jockied into place by man power using big levers. Every so often a vertical pipe was set on the top of the drain run for a manhole so they could be inspected if necessary. Our section of the drain was finished quite quickly and after that the work became dangerous. The drain took water away from the Chat Moss which was like a huge sponge and I was telt it ended up in the Manchester Ship Canal, which seemed reasonable to me because there weren’t many waterways that could take the volume of water the drain carried when full.

“When it rained whatever water fell on the moss came out in that drain because the moss was holding all the water it could. If you poured a pint of water on the top a pint came out at the bottom. When it rained there was a roaring sound as the water came down the drain usually at full bore and you didn’t have much time to get out. The problem was the manhole rings had arrived with no steps in them so we had to put them in. There was always a bit of water in the drain so we wore wellington boots, goggles, a face mask and ear defenders and had a rope tied round our waist so we could be pulled up in an emergency. We drilled the two holes for each step with a one inch tungsten carbide drill bit in a rotary compressed air drill. The drill was virtually solid steel and very heavy. The only way you could use it was a man at the top took the weight of it on a rope tied to it. In the manhole it was loud, thick with dust and concrete bits from the drilling were constantly bouncing of your goggles. Once done the steps were pushed in the holes and mortared in. We drew hazard pay for doing the job.

“On one section of the job a housing estate on the outskirts of Irlam backed up to the spread. I was telt it was a suburb of hell without the amenities. The first thing we did on arriving at work was clear out the manhole tops from the bottom of the manholes. Three hundred weight of cast steel [336 pounds] each. We also had to retrieve some of the reducing plates from where ever the kids had dumped them the night before. The lowest section of the manholes were six feet in diameter then a reducing plate went on top of that with a thirty inch hole in it for the smaller rings to go on top of. Those plates were nine inches thick and weighed round a ton apiece [2500 pounds] I mind many a lad on the job saying we should put the bloody kids on the payroll.

“Most of the workforce were Irish, and they were a great bunch to work with. They always played a card game called Twenty-five in the cabin if we were rained off. I never met an Irish man who didn’t play it. They were a crazy set of lads, I mind a cow coming down the spread one time and I never asked where all the beef was coming from that we were eating for the best part of half a week. Great lads, but bad bastards to cross. They caught a scouser [someone from Liverpool] stealing from a lad’s coat pocket hanging up in the cabin. The lad wasn’t Irish, but that was a no no as far as the Paddies were concerned. That was where I was first made aware of the rule, ‘The company is fair game, but you never touch a working lad’s stuff.’ They took it in turns to beat the bejesus(26) out of him and he didn’t come to back work after that.

“I don’t know, certainly twenty years later, maybe even thirty I had a couple of young lads fitting some Marley vinyl flooring in our kitchen. You know how the craic goes, Lads. I was talking to the boys about working when I was their age, and one of them said, ‘You worked for my dad, Paddy Buckley, on the M62?’ ‘I certainly did, and his brother Michael too.’ I replied, ‘How’s the old bugger going on?’ ‘He’s been away ten going on eleven years now. Michael was his cousin not his brother, though I have always called him Uncle Michael,’ ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Son,’ I said. ‘Paddy was a hard man, but you knew exactly where you stood with him. I mind some idiot upsetting him and he threw him down a twenty foot culvert. Another time he chased some poor sod up the batter(27) in a Landrover. I can’t say I liked your dad, but for sure I respected him. He was too big a bloke not to. Having said that he made sure that the job met all the dead lines and we got all our bonuses. He didn't have a problem going head to head with the bosses to make sure we got the extra that had been agreed if we delivered ahead of time. I mind one time he telt the bosses that if they didn't pay for the three days we were ahead he'd tell the boys to do fuck all for three days since that would put us all square. Like I said he wasn't always a likeable bloke, but the boys on the 1RB were always a hundred percent behind him.’ ‘Aye. As a boy I didn't always like him, but I always knew where I stood with him’ he said with a grin. ‘For sure his hand was a heavy one and all my brothers would tell you the same, though he was as soft as butter on a sunny day in Mam’s hands.’

“The Warrington Unitarian Academy was founded in 1745 as a dissenting place of learning. It was at one time the only non Church of England establishment in the country and as such dons did not have to be ordained to lecture there. It was only operating for about thirty years. Due to much needed road widening at Bridgefoot near the bridge over the river Mersey which the Academy was in the way of it was decided to move the entire six hundred ton [1,344,000 pounds] grade two listed building nineteen meters [60 feet] in nineteen eighty-one. There had been a statue of Oliver Cromwell, who had lived in the building at one time, just outside the building since eighteen ninety-nine. The statue was removed for safe keeping and later replaced in front of the newly sited Academy. Warrington was a critical place because before the Runcorn bridge was built its bridge was the first available crossing point on the river Mersey on the way up river. The Bay Horse Inn at Warrington is said to have been Cromwell’s head quarters for a time. I mind as part of the road widening the approaches to the bridge had to be widened too. I read in the local paper the appeals from the Council for anyone who had ever worked putting utilities or services under the road surface to contact them with any details they could remember. There must have been hundreds of pipes, cables and wires in the bridge because it was the only way across the river for miles. The bridge was completed in nineteen fifteen and I think a lot of the records were either lost or maybe they were never recorded in the first place.

“The Mersey is tidal at Warrington and there used to be two huge factories on the banks. Lever brothers who made household stuff like washing machine powder and Thames Board who made paper, cardboard and boxes. I mind seeing four foot of pinkish foam on the river that I was telt came from Lever Brothers. I was telt it was corrosive because the board factory dumped waste acid in the river. If the tide was out mostly the stuff went down stream and it was fairly concentrated. If the tide were in the waste got diluted a lot more but a breeze would blow the foam over the embankment onto the street. I know all the buildings round there were clean at the bottom and the dirt only started a few of feet up. The stone work was eaten away where it was clean probably by the acid. There were few environmental controls in those days and most companies just paid the rather small fines treating them just as another operating cost. I recall reading in the Warrington Guardian, which was housed in the Unitarian Academy building for some time, that a seal that swam up the Mersey to Warrington had to be put out of its misery because of what the water had done to it.

“How come you remember all this stuff, Charlie? Dates and everything.”

“Mum was into local history, Dave. Grandpa originated from Oban but Gran was a Warrington lass, though she was three-quarters Scottish. I used to listen to Mum telling tales of the area for hours at a time and I always did have a good memory. I mind Mum said Warrington could have been a greater city than Manchester and Liverpool put together. It seems that there was a group of folk with money who ruled the area with an iron fist. She always referred to them as the Watch Committee, but I don’t know if that was an official thing or not. Over the years they’d stood in the way of and blocked all sorts of things because it wasn’t what they wanted. The first proposal for the Manchester ship canal was that it would end at Warrington, but they blocked it. The ship canal was then doubled in length and cost and terminated at Manchester. The monied folk who’d stood the cost of building the canal were bitter and were determined that Warrington would get no benefit out of the enterprise. If the docks had been at Warrington the money that poured into Manchester due to the docks in the heyday of the empire would have ended at Warrington like the ship canal. The new northern rail nexus at Crewe was built in eighteen thirty-seven, but originally Warrington was suggested as its site: blocked.

“Same again with Ringway airport at Manchester, originally Warrington was the proposed site: blocked. I don’t know when it was proposed to turn the long closed Warrington Academy into the nucleus of a full blown modern university. The building is only small, so I suspect the idea was a non starter unless the ideas was that the Academy would give some kind of of academic respectability and history to a university mostly elsewhere round the town. I’m not sure, but after being blocked I think the project was taken to the University College of North Staffordshire in nineteen sixty-two when it became the University of Keele. The site is at the village of Keele and was the Sneyd family residence and estate when the family were the local squires. The original family mansion is part of the university’s buildings. The M6 which is the western United Kingdom’s main north south transport road stopped just short of Warrington at the A50. Nowadays it runs all the way north to Glasgow. The problem was the building of the Thelwall viaduct which went over the River Mersey and the Manchester ship canal. I’ve heard that the problem was the watch committee didn’t want the bridge and it should have been open to traffic years before nineteen sixty-three when it finally opened. It’s just short of a mile long. Nowadays there are two bridges. The new one opened in nineteen ninety-five. The original bridge carries north bound traffic only now and the newer one southbound. It’s a lot safer than the original arrangement which had no hard shoulder on either side.

“I know a lot of what Mum telt me about Warrington’s Watch committee was widely believed to be true in the town, but much was deduction and conjecture because such folk don’t publicise their activities and the truth is hard to come at. Though what I’ve telt you was what she and a lot of others believed the facts will probably never be known, and there will certainly be many details where the reality of events are different from what is believed.”

“For someone as doesn’t usually say much, Charlie Lad, you have an awful lot of interesting things to talk about. Good tales, Lad.” The rest of the men were all nodding in agreement with Sasha.

“Beats me how you remember it all, Charlie,” said Alf said again.

Sasha looked at Alf and explained, “I’ve telt you before, Alf. It’s like you and the contents of Machinery’s handbook. It’s stuff he understands and is interested in. When it’s like that it’s hard to forget stuff. You can for example give the size of any letter drill to a tenth of a thou and a hundredth of a mil. Most folk think that’s weird, but like I said it’s what you understand and are interested in.”

~o~O~o~

Sasha said, “Just a small one, Lads. It looks like supper’s nearly ready. I’d been after a small masonry crusher for a few years, but I’d not been able to source one in the EU never mind the UK at any price. Rather than pay a fortune to have all the masonry from my rebuilding of the house taken away I decided far better to crush the stuff and use it on the yard, the garden paths and the road that runs round the back of my out buildings. I reckoned that if we crushed the rubbish like concrete first and laid it we could used the crushed brick, which was all red, on top and that would look decent enough. So I looked farther afield, India and China. India wasn’t that much cheaper than Europe. I later realised they were selling on Chinese products at highly marked up prices. I eventually contacted ‘Felicity Wang’. If you believe her first name was for real then good for you. She was happy to deal with me and said the crusher would be four hundred and eighty-five quid including shipping to my address, and as soon as they had the money they’d cast it up.

“I was disappointed because I was expecting one off the shelf and I thought making one would take forever, but three days later she sent me an email shewing my casting all build up and ready for shipping. It was three weeks on board the ship going to Felixstowe. Then the problems started. The crusher was locked up in a bonded ware house at Felixstowe docks and I couldn’t get it out without an IORI number, because I’d imported something from outside the EU. That is an acronym for Economic Operator Registration and Identification. I applied for one which took a fortnight. The joke was I am VAT registered and my EORI number was the same as my VAT number with the letters UK tacked in front of it. I was punitively charged for importing the crusher and for the bonded warehouse storage. Then I was charged VAT on the lot, although I did recover the VAT later.

“By the time I had that crusher back to my place it was a two thousand quid machine. It came with a five horse power three phase electric motor, but I had Alf mount it on a trailer and marry it to a twin Hatz diesel engine I bought from the military surplus auction at Honeypot Lane Grantham. Alf did a real good job on it including a soft start centrifugal clutch which meant even if there was something jammed in the jaws it would start. It’s very efficient and can crush beach cobbles even when it’s just ticking over. A two gallon tank of diesel seems to last for ever. All in all the crusher set me back three grand. On the plus side, I’ve put thousands of tons [millions of pounds] of masonry through that machine over the years, and it has saved me a fortune, not to mention the cost of road stone and other material I haven’t had to buy. I still don’t understand why one should be taxed on expensive stuff coming in from abroad. To me all tax is theft by a government made up of folk who have been thieving off the rest of us for thousands of years.

Tony who was a dentist from Keswick and a regular Saturday evening visitorwho had telt a few tales before said, “I imported a beeswax foundation sheet roller from China, Sasha, but I got a much better deal than you. The price of a foundation roller in the EU was going on for two grand, which at the time was serious money. My lass was called Katie Lo. She said the roller would be just shy of five hundred quid delivered to my house, She also said, if I were happy to accept a no warranty sale, she was happy to declare to the UK customs that what I wanted was a commercial sample of no retail value, which meant it would be subject to no UK import tax, nor any VAT [government Value Added Tax at 20%]. I was almost in love with the lass. Eventually it arrived and despite a small amount of hassle with the UK tax folk Katie proved to be correct: no tax.”

~o~O~o~

Supper was brought through by Gladys and Harriet and was Corned Beef Hash with Aggie’s pickled red cabbage and and Harriet’s home made sauerkraut. After half an hour or so and some time to acquire another pint, it was back to the tales.

~o~O~o~

The Grumpy Old Men knew who Jimmy was. He was a regular visitor on Saturday evenings, but so far had only listened. He looked to be in his early fifties or late forties and was a widower who’d remarried. Hayley his second wife looked to be in her early thirties or possibly even her late twenties and as usual she was in the lounge enjoying herself with the ladies. Jimmy was a solicitor and Hayley a secondary school teacher who taught chemistry. They lived in Carlisle where they both worked. Jimmy indicated he’d got a tale, and encouraged by Sasha he said, “As you can see I’m a small fat man. I was also a small fat kid and even at school I knew games and PE teachers only existed to torment and humiliate small fat kids. We had a games teacher, Jones he was called, who’d been capped playing prop for Wales.(28) He was a massive bloke. He enjoyed hurting kids. He’d be gaoled today for child abuse. I’m not a vindictive man, but I wasn’t sorry when I heard he’d died.

“I saw him many a time have a kid bending over at the far end of the gym and run at him the full length of the gym with the biggest gym shoe he could find, he’d whack the kid on the arse so hard with the shoe his feet would leave the ground. He always did it in front of the rest of the class to instil fear in us. And it worked we were all terrified of him. Mind that could also have been because we’d all been the kid bending over many a time too. I hated bullies and thugs then and I still do. I’ve never had a problem with corporal punishment per se, but the problem is it gave a licence to folk like Jones. It was never administered fairly and it was noticed by us all that he never hit any of the kids who were good at sport no matter what they did. I know some kids stopped going to school because of him and others were taken to other schools by their parents. The trouble was in those days every school had its Jones if not more than one.

My dad had me go to a different school to avoid Jones. At my new school I had another Welsh teacher by the name of Morgan, he taught geography as I recall or maybe it was history. He had a secondary rôle to do with the cross country running team and he supervised a lot of the field events in the summer term. I may have been small and fat but even then I had strong hands and arms. It was a bit of a rough school I went to and there were lots of fights. The other lads always said that in a fight with me, it was wise to box not wrestle because once I’d grabbed hold of someone it was all over because they’d never be able to make me let go of them. ‘Don’t let him lay hands on you.’ was the advice given to any new kids arriving at school. I mind one summer, I was thirteen that year, Morgan was supervising the shot put, but he made the mistake of giving me too small a shot for my age group which I said nothing about. In my defence I did suggest he move his car for safety. I mind him scoffing at me, ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Boy. My car is perfectly safe at that distance from here.’That was just before I put the shot through his passenger side front window. Ye gods that was satisfying.”

There was a lot of laughter at that and Bill said, “I love it when the little guy comes out on top it doesn’t happen near often enough. Good tales, Jimmy Lad.”

~o~O~o~

Denis volunteered to tell a tale. “When I was an undergrad I drove a cab at weekends to help the finances out a bit because Belinda wasn’t earning much as a student nurse and we all know how overpaid they are. For the best part of a couple of years I’d regularly picked up an elderly Irish man called Liam from a residential home on a Sunday and taken him to his daughter’s a few miles away for the afternoon and later dinner. Liam needed two sticks and a bit of help to walk, so I knew his daughter and son in law quite well from having helped him into and out of the house. Not quite as often I’d taken him home at maybe nine-thirty. Now mind I come from a hard line Presbyterian back ground and my missus is from a staunch Catholic family. Though neither of us give a stuff about religion we both understand what it does to some folk. I’m basically a republican at heart, even though some of my early acquaintances would put me up against a wall for that. I got to know the old man from Limerick well and we’d had pretty deep discussions concerning politics and religion. He knew I was married to a girl of Catholic extraction from Donegal, and he’d said many a time, ‘For a Protestant, you’re a very fair man, so you are, Driver. But perhaps you’re no more a Protestant than I am a Catholic these days.’

“One Sunday he telt me when he was a boy of six he’d seen the British army drag a priest out of his church and the officer shoot him through the head with his revolver on the church steps for refusing to reveal secrets he heard from suspected IRA terrorists in the confessional. It was obvious he’d been deeply affected by the incident and still was. I was saddened when I met his daughter in the town after not seeing Liam for a few months and she telt me he had died. She telt me, ‘I’ve been keeping an eye out for you because not long before he died Dad made me promise to give this to you.’ She opened her handbag [US purse] and extracted something. She handed me a point four-five-five inch revolver shell casing. I recognised it to be of the type used in British army officers’ Webley service revolvers. The same revolvers that were used in World War One and in Ireland at that time. It had been mounted in a clasp which had a key fob ring on it. ‘I don’t know where it’s from, but I know Dad had had it from long before I was born. He said you’d know what it was. He thought a lot of you and on his death bed he reminded me, “‘Make sure you give it to the taxi driver and tell him I said, ““You’re a very fair man, so you are.”” ”’ Do you know what it is?’

“ ‘Aye,’ I replied, ‘I know all about it. I’ve never laid eyes on it before, but I’ll tell ye what your father telt me.’ I telt her the tale which she’d never heard before. We were both crying as we hugged each other.” Denis put a hand into his jacket pocket and passed his truck keys round for all to examine the fob.

It was a quiet group who started arranging the dominoes. They were all decent men who had no time for bigotry of any persuasion, and a number of them had had problems resulting from religious intolerance. However the shadow cast over them by Denis’ tale soon passed and they settled down to domino battle where there was no quarter given nor expected.

1 Women are gey quaire cattle, women are very strange creatures.
2 Selt, sold.
3 Gey, very.
4Auld biddy, old woman.
5Been away, dead.
6 Domino sets are common in sets of 28 going up to double six, 55 going up to double nine and 91 going up to double twelve.
7 Scoops, beers.
8 Telt, told.
9 IRA, Irish Republican Army. A terrorist/resistance group, which depends on your politics, that operated after the partition of Ireland till the peace process was established. There are still splinter groups that have not accepted the peace.
10 Welly, wellington boot.
11 Lothed, archaic version of loathed only in use in parts of northern England and Scotland.
12 Slaver, pronounced slavver, in this context back chat or giving some one a hard time verbally.
13 Bucking, not what it sounds like. The word is old and doesn’t necessarily carry any carnal overtones. In today’s terms more nearly squiring or escorting. A buck was a term used in regency times for a young man of fashion
14 Twat, in this context the word is used as a verb meaning to punch or hit. The implication is a serious blow. The word is similarly used as in, ‘Give a good twatting with a hammer. That’ll make it move.’
15 Gutted, seriously upset.
16 ‘Reet, Ah’ll a thee, an thee an thee.’ Buryloan, [Glazebury], dialect for ‘Right, I’ll have you, and you, and you.’ meaning I’ll take the three of you out, as in knocking the three of you out.
17 Off beer, the department that selt alcohol for consumption off the premises. Licensing laws were different in those days and very different for consumption off rather than on the premises. So often the department that selt alcohol for consumption off the premises, the off licence or off beer in the local vernacular, was not part of the establishment and had its own door so one did not have to enter the pub where folk were drinking.
18 Speedy Gonzales is a 1961 David Dante alias David Hess song about Speedy Gonzales, the fastest mouse in all Mexico.
19 Chippie, carpenter or joiner.
20 Getting aholt on it, getting hold of it, buying it.
21 JCB, a particular make of back actor machine [US back hoe] with a big front bucket.
22 Kerb race, the heavy concrete footing that kerb stones at the edge of a road are bedded on.
23 Nicked, stolen.
24 Pisshead, a drunkard.
25 Pissed, drunk.
26 Bejesus, an Irish expression used as an intensifying word. Typical usages are to beat the bejesus out of someone and the scare the bejesus out of someone.
27 Batter, in this context the steep slopes of a cutting. The word as used by tradesmen in the UK refers to a slope. In a tapered factory chimney the bricks are said to be laid ‘on the batter’.
28 Capped playing prop for Wales. An internation rugby player. A player is said to be capped when they make an appearance at an international game. Props are usually the biggest and strongest members of the forwards and thus the entire team.

It was Saturday and the men in the taproom were getting ready for the next session of tall tales, reminiscences and the like. Over the last week an eighty-five inch TV screen had been installed high up on the back wall in the tap room. Under it was a sign that read, If you want to watch sport or a cinema film or any other kind of so called entertainment you are in the wrong place. Go somewhere else. It was signed Harriet Maxwell, on behalf of the management. An outsider who had been to the Saturday evening story telling a couple of times before asked Pete, “I’m Barney, and I’m inquisitive as to what function the TV serves. I’m not challenging the sign in any way. I like the atmosphere here and prefer to drink where there is no constant background racket from a TV none is actually watching. It’s the biggest single reason, other than the stories, why I come here, but what is the TV used for?”

Pete replied, “Sasha, you want to answer that? You paid for the thing.”

“Current affairs, elections, the budget. Occasionally Covid or other news. Stuff that has an impact on our lives. I said I’d pay for it, because I can afford it, but having it installed was a decision made by the Grumpy Old Men’s Society, and it took a few weeks before we came to a decision. There is another screen the same size in the best side and we had both installed with a state of the art sound system and computerised jukebox at the same time. Pat did the electrical fitting out and all the wiring, though mostly the system is wireless, Pat’s a retired electrician with an up to date knowledge of IT. We bought an old sixties jukebox for the look of it for Pat to install in the lounge, but it has a computer screen that you can use to either select anything that is resident on the system memory, or tell it to search the internet for something special. It has a slave system in the dance hall and is usually used from there to provide dance music. The ladies from Bearthwaite like soul music, which most of we men in here hate, and disco stuff from their younger years. That console over there gives we men the option to provide something in here that is different from what is playing elsewhere, and it is mostly classical music on option one, though it can search the internet too. Pat programmed the system to exclude the possibility of anyone selecting certain types of stuff and certain composers unless Gladys, Pete or Harriet provide an override. Alf did the actual physical installation and Pat the internal conversion wiring as well as all the programming.”

“What’s banned?”

“As far as I am aware only Wagner and Einaudi at the moment. We in here don’t like Wagner and the ladies don’t like Einaudi, but we may add more as we come across them. The system has only been installed a couple of weeks. Pat is still refining the programming to add more functionality. He’s working on a lot of European ethnic music at the moment. Pat, how’s that going?”

“I’ve listed a lot of Celtic and Nordic music of all types on option one and am awaiting feedback, Sasha. I’m going to offer an option two of less well liked, but still liked music, and the internet search will be option three. However, like I said all will depend on what folk tell me. There is no reason why the selections in the room should be the same as in here, so I’ll take that into account. I’ve already got it so that the most popular selections automatically rise higher up the listings. Effectively the system teaches itself. It’s going fine, and is an interesting challenge. I reckon Alf and I could make a lot of money selling the system. Alf and I are looking for old juke boxes to fettle and bring up to date. He’s done a really nice job on ours. He grafted a small laptop screen and keyboard into the device and the paint job is so good it looks like it’s had that front panel from new.”

Sasha added, “We’ve a Bechstein concert quality grand piano in the dance hall and a Bechstein upright in the room. Pat had them installed with full wifi pickup connections to the sound system. I’m not sure if I said that correctly, but there’s a facility for any live musicians to play via the sound system.”

Barney looked amazed and asked, “What the hell did all that cost?”

“Altogether? Maybe a hundred grand, maybe more, but you’d have to ask my bank for a better figure. Anyhow, who gives a damn? We got we what we decided we wanted, and that’s the ladies as well as we in here. I’m eighty-three I think, and I can’t take it with me, for there’re no pockets in shrouds, Lad. I can stand it, so I did.”

Barney looked at the faces around him that were all nodding in agreement with Sasha, and asked, “You seem to be a very wealthy bloke who lives a very ordinary life, Sasha. What the hell are you worth?”

“I’m not sure if I’m a billionaire yet or not, but since I can’t possibly spend it all before I die on anything that I actually want, and Elle is positively frugal, she doesn’t even have a credit card from choice, her choice not mine, it doesn’t matter does it? Elle and I after a difficult start to our lives live here because we like living here, so anything that we can do that makes life better for us and our friends we do. This place, the Green Dragon, is the heart and soul of Bearthwaite. Many of our neighbours only visit occasionally, but all visit from time to time and know that this is the place to come for their opinions to be heard and listened to, and the two aren’t the same. It has always seemed to me that money is only truly important to those who have none, so I want my neighbours to be able to make decisions free of the pressures that poverty enforces upon folk. I know that the folk of Bearthwaite agree with me, so we all help all our neighbours as much as we can. It is a fair return to those who have made Elle’s and my lives so much better. Quality of life can not be measured in terms of money. We are an exceedingly wealthy couple, not because of the money I have made in my life, but because of the decisions we have both made concerning our relationships with our neighbours here.”

~o~O~o~

There was a long silence after Sasha had spoken, and it seemed none were willing to break it. However, Stan eventually asked, “How did you go on at the dentist on Monday, Sasha?”

“Okay, Stan. It was okay. I’d tried my new upper false teeth the night before, and they fit a lot better, even though I didn’t use any fixative. I’m still a bit sore at the front, but Sammi confirmed what I thought. The infection had gone. The bone on the right she’d said the gums would remodel over was no longer painful but the bone at the left was still close to the gum surface and hurt a bit. She looked at it and said she still thought eventually the gums would cover the bone more deeply. I think the soreness in the middle of my upper jaw is due to me catching the upper gums with my bottom teeth when I wasn’t thinking about. Anyway I’m back in on the eighteenth to have the bottom teeth out. I asked if the likely hood of infection round my bottom teeth would be less as a result of the antibiotics I’d had for the top teeth. Sammi said she expected that to be so, but she’d give me some antibiotics to take away anyway. She took the impressions for the bottom denture and that hurt because she had to press the moulding material hard against my gums both lower and upper to ensure a good fit. It was the force against my upper left jaw that hurt because she was pressing against the as yet inadequately gum covered bone. I telt her for a wee lass she was a lot stronger than she looked.

“She explained that the interim plate and denture, especially the upper plate, didn’t fit as well as the final set would because room was left for the remodelling of the gums to take place which took months rather than weeks. As a result there wasn’t the vacuuming effect between the roof of my mouth and the plate which meant fixative was needed to keep the plate in place. I still haven’t tried the alternative to Poligrip, but I intend to soon. I was a bit on the stupid side because I forgot to ask her about the metallic taste everything seems to have these days. Everything tastes of metal, some things more than others and some days it’s worse than others. I looked it up on the internet and it can be caused by infection, Covid and a dozen other things, so I was no wiser after looking it up.”

~o~O~o~

“Matter of interest, Lads, how many of you have had a letter telling you you are in the next tranche of folk up for being vaccinated for Covid? Elle and I got our letters nearer five than four weeks since.” All of the men over fifty said they’d had a letter, but not been contacted about having the jab. Sasha said, “Aye as I thought. A couple of weeks since I started thinking there’d been a major screw up going on in the NHS(1) round here. Elle and I are both turned eighty. I’m considered to be in an at risk group because I need insulin and Elle is because of her heart condition and compromised immune system. As I understand it, and I doubt I’m talking shite, we should have been advised to be in the shielding population. That never happened, and Elle’s sister said there are folk of thirty being vaccinated round Manchester. Now don’t get me wrong, if there’s any vaccine left over I fully agree it should be given to anyone available of any age rather than being wasted, but it seems reasonable to suppose the situation is very different in a big city from what it is out here in the sticks. They live cheek by jowl like eggs in an egg carton and we have the benefit of isolation. The whole of Cumbria which is two thousand six hundred square miles has less than half a million folk. Greater Manchester has about three million folk packed into less than 500 square miles. We’re five and a half time bigger with a sixth of the population giving a population density ratio of thirty-three to one. However, I still believe there’s been a major screw up happening in our neck of the woods regarding vaccine supply.

“A couple of weeks ago I needed to go into town for a couple of things, so I went with Tommy when he picked up the village’s drugs from the pharmacy.” Sasha noticed puzzled looks on a number of outsiders’ faces so he explained, “Unless its an emergency when you’ll have to collect your own drugs, Tommy goes in to town every week for the entire population of Bearthwaite and collects the prescription drugs. It works because we all use the same pharmacy. Tommy and Sarah manage the Bearthwaite Post Office and we all collect our stuff from there at ten pence a pop, or a fiver a year, to cover his costs. If we've not collected it Tommy delivers it when he delivers the mail. It’s much cheaper for us and far more convenient. It also helps to make sure the post office remains open because it diversifies Tommy and Sarah’s income sources. However, back to the tale, there was a notice in the pharmacy saying don’t hassle the NHS about your Covid jab because they’ll get to you. A week later Elle said, ‘Bugger it, Sasha, this is ridiculous. Ring the surgery.’ I can’t say I didn’t agree, so I did. A pre-recorded message said if you’re ringing about your Covid jab we’ll get to you as soon as possible so please hang up, so I did. Now I’m thinking at what point do you start giving the system a hard time. Elle was a bit reluctant, but as you know my give a fuck got brock(1) permanently years ago. I’ve paid more taxes in the UK than the average hundred folk and I’m expecting something back in return. I’m sick of being treated like a mushroom.”

“How do you mean treated like a mushroom, Sasha?”

“Being kept in the dark and fed bullshit, Alf. I’ll ask about the village and see if any of us have been done, but I’m ringing the surgery come Monday.”

“What if they give you a bollocking for asking about your jabs, Sasha.”

“I won’t be ringing about our jabs. I’ll be putting in a complaint about their piss poor communication. They should have a message giving far more information regarding progress on vaccinations. Not unreasonably a lot of folk are worried. They’re supposed to be a medical centre and it wouldn’t take any effort on their part to tell us where they are up to regarding jabs. I’ll be writing the same complaint in a letter and sending it to the surgery and the Area Health Authority and I’ll tell the receptionist that too. I’ll also suggest that a spot as isolated as Bearthwaite would be an ideal candidate for sending one of the mobile units with a team of vaccinaters to. If they organise themselves properly everyone regardless of age could be done in a day. Problem solved. Far better to present them with a solution than a problem because it saves them having to think about it and most folk under those conditions will buy into the solution because they find thinking too hard even under normal conditions.

“I reckon we’re pretty safe here, but I was planning on living for a good few years more, and I’ll be gutted if Ellen died early on me because I reckon I’d run out of mugs and plates in a week. Whatever you advise I’ll go with it and do it too.”

“Like I said, Alf, I’m going to ring the surgery the coming Monday, and demand answers. My view is if there’s a good reason why things are delayed I don’t have a problem with that, but they should be treating us as adults and the pre-recorded message should be telling us why there is a problem, not treating us as kids and telling us to do as we’re telt like good little boys and girls and hang up. If they get upset about that I’ll be putting in a complaint to the Minister of Health concerning the arrogance and ineptitude of the Area Health Authority and in particular our surgery, and I’ll tell whoever I speak to that she needs to pass that on too. That’s not sexist by the way. We’ve only had one male receptionist at the surgery in twenty years, and he now owns and runs a medical practice the other side of the county, Brough or Kirkby Stephen way, with six doctors and a load of other health care professionals working for him.”

“Is that that small fella who looked about ten when he was nearly thirty. The one that worked as a receptionist at the quacks for a while before working in the pharmacy? Dirk I think his name was.”

“You’ve got the right bloke, Alf, but his name was Derek.”

Eric said, “My major issue with the NHS at the moment is that nothing other than Covid seems to be of any significance any more. There are folk with major issues like cancer not being treated which is outrageous. There may not be many of them, but I bet there are tens of thousands with piles or like me with attacks of bad guts who are completely ignored and not even put on a waiting list to be seen. I’ve felt poorly in my stomach for a few days now, so I don’t think I’ll bother with supper the night. I can cope with a few scoops, but solid food I don’t want to take the risk on because I just seem to be threwing it up again. I’m still expected to pay my taxes and I’d be put before a court if I didn’t, but what am I getting in return?”

Sasha said, “Bad guts? It’s like anything else, Eric. The best way to deal with something is if you can to ignore the authorities and deal with it yourself. The way to deal with bad guts where I come from is to take a carbon. You mind the old Beechams powders selt over here? Well you can buy carbon powders wrapped like that, folded up in a piece of paper almost anywhere on the continent. No. It’s not witchcraft, nor bullshit homeopathy. There is a real science behind it. Activated carbon is a damned expensive material widely used in all sorts of high tech chemistry. It adsorbs all sorts of stuff onto its super fine highly reactive surface area. It is microporous and a gram of the stuff can have more than three thousand square metres of surface area. Absorption is into something, whereas adsorption is onto the surface of something, Alf, okay? You don’t need super expensive high tech activated carbon to work on bad guts. Traditionally ground up charcoal was used and still is, and usually it works. It’s cheap and effective because what ever is causing your bad guts get stuck on to the surface of the carbon and is taken out with your shite.

“One of the things that surprised me when I came to the UK was that none had even heard of it. I make my own. If you want to try it call round tomorrow. You only need to take a level teaspoon at a time, so you don’t need much. If you want to make your own it’s easy enough. I use oak twigs as thick as my finger, rather than sawn timber because that may have been treated. Get a standard empty food can and fill it not too tightly with twigs you’ve debarked that are an inch shorter than the can is high. Fill it with sand right to the top, knocking the sand down to fill all the air spaces. Try to avoid sand that cats know about. Then put it in the fire for maybe an hour. Take it out and let it cool. The process is called destructive distillation. It drives all the water and volatiles out of the wood some of which are gaseous and flame off at the top of the can. Let the can cool and when you shake the can out you have charcoal. Pulverise it and you have a black powdered form of somewhat impure carbon, but it does the trick.

“Now, talking about tablets and the like, it seems to me we’ve got the world arse upwards. We all know plastic bottles and packaging are a global blight. My view is that any sensible government should tax the use of plastic packaging out of existence. The only justifiable use of plastic bottles is safety. So if anything is selt as a bathroom or more especially a shower product in a plastic container, which is reasonable, it should be returnable at a price that makes it worthwhile to return. A price that is such that kids will look for those containers. All containers should be returnable whatever they are made from and taxation should make it punitive for companies not to accept returns to recycle or even better refill. Firms that find ways to do so should be given tax breaks as a reward. Kids used to collect all they could and that is be how it should be.

Dave said, “I mind scavenging hedges for bottles as a kid. Most had three old pennies return on them, beer bottles and pop bottles were like that, but we thought we’d made a fortune if we found a cider bottle, because they had six old pennies return price on them.

~o~O~o~

Paul asked, “Ready for another, Lads? I’ll get em in.”

Denis said, “Before you do, Paul, just a thought, but hell am I glad I’m not teaching any more. Can you imagine what it’d be like teaching a bottom set of socially deranged fifteen or sixteen year old boys who have not been in school for eighteen months and resent the change? They’ve only been back in school a week and the tales I’m hearing from ex colleagues are a nightmare. The bloody do gooders will be regretting they got rid of all the old school Rottweilers now. That is of course if they even think about the mess they’ve made of things at all.”

Bill asked, “You reckon they’re capable of accepting that they could even possibly have made a mistake, Denis?”

Denis pondered the question for a few seconds before replying, “Probably not, Bill, but that’s their problem isn’t it. All the old bastards like me who could control the idiots are probably feeling as smug as I am at being out of it now.”

There was a goodly crowd in the tap and it was a while before everyone was served and things settled down again.

~o~O~o~

The old men went on to talk about their early experiences with girls and naturally enough that involved their first sexual encounters. Unusually they were being discreet since many were still married to the girl who they had their first such encounter with, and it was not considered proper to talk about such things in any detail when a woman they all knew was involved.

Alf had started the train of thought by saying, “As you all know, Ellen is my cousin. My dad’s dad was her mum’s dad. In the days when we were kids, when a kid went down with measles, mumps or the chicken pox it was normal for the women in a family to decide who was going to look after the kids so the others could get on with work, life, whatever. The kids were all packed off to usually an auntie’s or a granny’s house and put into one double bed. I mind we were all at Mum’s house with chicken pox. Seven of us in a bed, the four youngest at the top and the three older ones at the bottom. We’d all have been less than eight or nine. We were all bathed together too. I mind standing in a line freezing cold with no clothes on waiting to get in the bath two at a time, one at each end of the tin bath in front of the fire. Mum and Auntie Fiona were managing the process which was like an assembly line. I’d seen my sisters naked many a time on bath night by then, but that was the first time I’d seen my cousins with no clothes on. I’d have been six and Ellen nine and she was beginning to change into a woman and I admit even at that age I was interested. My sisters’ and other girl cousins’ chests looked just like those of us boys, but Ellen’s chest was beginning to blossom.”

“You dirty old bugger, Alf,” said Dave laughing.

“I may be now, Dave, but I certainly wasn’t old then. I was just a boy thinking about things boys think about, and I’ll put money on it if you’re honest you were no different, so leave it out.” The rest of the old men laughed at Alf’s protestations and defence of his interest in girls at that age.

“Years later she telt me that she’d looked down and noticed my interest, and that was when she decided she was going to marry me. She’d have been sixteen when we did anything about it. I was nigh to the size I am now and was getting chesst(3) by girls at school. Ellen said she felt she had to do something to stake her claim to me, and convince me I was hers. Lasses can be very convincing when they choose to be. Sylvia was born before Ellen was seventeen and we got wed on my sixteenth birthday. Can’t say I’ve ever regretted it. With a lass to come home to of a night time after work I wasn’t preoccupied by chessing lasses when I should have been thinking about my work. I reckon that was why I was reckoned to be such a good apprentice. Ellen says it settled us both down because when you know it’s there waiting for you at the end of the day you’ve nowt to worry about. I’ve always admitted I’ve never thought she was prettier than when she was going on for nine month. I reckon I was lucky, even luckier still when she telt me she reckoned she was lucky too to have a bloke that provided for and looked after her and the kids too so well. I don’t reckon there’s anything remarkable about a bloke that works hard to provide for his family when his missus is doing her damnedest to make sure he is glad to come home after his day’s work is over. So I reckon I did bloody well for myself.”

~o~O~o~

On realising Alf had finished Paul said, “I’d have been twelve. I was big lad, and it was with a mate’s mother. she’d have been early thirties and a bit neurotic. I went round looking for my mate, but he wasn’t there. His mum was all over me, and I wasn’t objecting. She was a good looking and well developed lass, not that I’d have been bothered if she’d been completely flat chested. I found out years later her old man had given her two kids and then not bothered with her because he was gay. His dad had a decent sized company and the story that went around was he’d telt him to never meet his boyfriend other than down country where the boyfriend came from. His dad expected him to get married and have a family so it all looked respectable, or he wouldn’t be inheriting anything. I was round there several times a week till my family left the area and moved up here. I never had any contact with her after that, but I reckon she’d have found a whole series of young lads to educate after that.”

~o~O~o~

Jonathon was an outsider. He was vaguely recognised, but he’d had never telt a tale before. “Haley was the first girl I had sex with, but to be honest afterwards I wondered what all the fuss was about. Yes, I enjoyed it, but it was no big deal. Neither of us knew what we were doing, we were both fourteen I think, and the relationship fizzled out from a mutual lack of interest that I later realised was a mutual embarrassment due to the fact that our expectations had not been met. The Earth hadn’t moved for either of us, and I suspect her opinion of oral sex was it was as bitterly disappointing as I had found it to be. Making love is a skill that like any other requires practice before proficiency is acquired. I moved away before achieving any proficiency and she dumped me. I have to say I was relieved.

~o~O~o~

Nathan’s family was from Bearthwaite and he was born there, but he’d spent all his early life elsewhere. He was in his early fifties and had returned to the village to settle down bringing Astrid with him only a few years ago. When he returned to Bearthwaite their children were teenagers and left the family home after just a few years. He said, “My first was Jannine. We went to college together and I think it fair to say we were genuinely in love. She was the best looking girl I have ever met in my life and that is still true to this day. Trouble was I was a bad lad. I drank too much, did more than my share of drugs and under the influence of either my mates said I’d ride a hot loaf or a barber’s shop floor if the hair had been left on it. However I was also a rural boy who knew what farming was all about, and Jannine’s family were wealthy farmers in Derbyshire. Her dad’s family were farming folk going back many generations. Her mum’s family were extremely wealthy tractor and industrial machine makers who considered she’d married below herself. Fact was her parents were deeply in love and I reckoned had always been. Even then I envied them. Jannine was her mother’s father’s only grandchild and she was going to inherit hundreds of millions. I did love Jannine, and her parents right from the outset thought I was okay. I’d been seeing Jannine for maybe half a year when there was a worrying spate of sheep rustling going on. Whole flocks were disappearing off the hills, obviously taken by folk who could handle highly trained dogs who could round up a flock into a sheep transporter in a short space of time. The police were helpless. I was as I said a bad lad. A few nights out on the hills, a dozen thunderflashes, two grenades and several hundred twelve bore cartridges later Jannine’s dad’s flocks on the hills were still his flock, and the rustlers left for easier pickings. Her dad said he was grateful, but he couldn’t help but be a little concerned that his daughter was involved with me. I just smiled and said that I’d never hurt her intentionally.

“That winter was a bad one, and there were power outages all over the country due to storm force winds breaking power lines heavy with ice. I was stopping at Jannine’s parents’ farm one weekend when the power went out. The emergency generator failed to start. Her dad was frantic, for there was nothing to power the milking plant. At five that morning we were eating breakfast, and he was speculating how many cows he was going to lose the milk from till their next calf. “If we start pulling tits now, none,” said I. “If you ring for the mechanic to fix the genny(4) immediately, or even organise a new genny, I’ll start milking. If need be, the two of us can finish milking, and then start at the beginning all over again. We should be able to milk two hundred cows enough to take the pressure off their udders twice in a day. We certainly don’t need to empty their bags(5) completely to avoid any problems, That’ll enable the mechanic to fix the genny, so we can milk with electricity in twenty-four hours.”

“You can hand milk?” Her dad asked incredulously.

“Aye, since I could walk, near enough, but we’ll both have damned sore wrists before we’re through.”

“I’ll ring for that engineer. There’re stainless pails aplenty in the old dairy. Jannine’ll shew you where.”

“After that I could do no wrong with any of her folk. We milked the entire herd once and were half way through the second milking when a new genny was back on line. Maybe I was a fool, but I don’t think so. I broke my promise to her dad, and broke up with Jannine because I was still a bad lad and if I’d stayed with her and we’d married I’d have hurt her even more in the end, and I loved her too much to do that. Two folk genuinely in love, but at the wrong time. If I’d met her a few years later we’d probably still be wed. She did marry, and he was a bastard to her. She’d three kids and left him absolutely heart broken at the failure of her marriage, but at least I never did that to her. I heard she met a decent bloke second time around and had another couple of kids. I didn’t join society till I was in my late thirties when I met and married Astrid in Berlin. Life is cruel.” Nathan looked sad, but he said, “You have to accept it is what it is. It could never have worked with Jannine then, now at least I hear she is happy and so am I. That’s as good as it could have been.”

~o~O~o~

Will was an outsider who was a regular Saturday evening attender. Like Nathan, he’d never telt a tale before, but he said, “Eve was three years older than I. I mind I lived eighty miles away from Mum’s and when I was telt she’d had a heart attack Eve, who’d never met my mum drove me to the hospital. I’d have been nigh on fifteen, Eve just nineteen. We’d slept together a few times and enjoyed it, but like Nathan I was a bad lad, and Eve though not over bright was very perceptive. She knew I wasn’t serious relationship material. Mum said we were ideal for each other and had made that clear to Eve. I did eventually propose to her, but she gently turned me down saying, ‘I’m sure that at some future date I’ll regret this, but no, Will. You are not ready for that kind of commitment, and I believe are offering because against your better judgement you think it is what you should do. Thank you. I feel honoured you asked, but I won’t do that to you because I know you would always be faithful to me and would eventually feel trapped, and I would come come to hate myself for doing that to you.’ Again two folk who genuinely cared for each other, but in the wrong time. Carolyne knows all about her and she has a past too which I can live with. I keep in touch with Eve still. We are both married with families, but I’m sure when we talk she hears the regret in my voice as I hear it in hers for what might have been.” Will went silent and all respected that, for in telling such a tale the audience recognised that a degree of catharsis had been obtained, and like all such experiences it hurt.

~o~O~o~

Tommy the post master said, “My first was Patricia, and though we never married she gave birth to my eldest, Anita. We’d agreed that two such fiery tempered individuals as ourselves should not marry nor even live together, for that would be a relationship doomed to failure. After leaving school I supported the pair of them to the best of my ability financially. By the time I was twenty I was earning good money and I made sure neither of them lacked for anything. I still got on with Patricia well and I still do. She was never unreasonable nor greedy, and if she asked for anything extra I knew it would be from need not greed, so I always did my best to meet that need. She always had a boyfriend, often a live in boyfriend in the apartment flat I helped her to pay for, but she always maintained she never wanted any more, and I know she was telling the truth. She has always been single. I’ve never made any secret of Patricia and Anita to any and it has cost me a few girlfriends, but any who couldn’t accept my past I always regarded myself as being better off without. Sarah, my wife, has always known about them, and right from the beginning approved of my financial support of them. Anita proved to be an unpleasant and grasping young girl and an even worse young woman. Patricia telt me never to give in to her demands for money and explained why she’d telt me that. I trusted Patricia’s judgement, so never complied with Anita’s demands, for I realised they were demands, not requests. She regarded herself as being entitled to access my finances and was angry I didn’t agree. Eventually she emigrated to Canada and neither Patricia nor I have heard from her since.”

~o~O~o~

There was a silence and Sasha filled it. “I mind I was nine when I first had sex if you can call it that. It was with my sister who was eight. We both enjoyed it, purely I think because sex was something we knew folk older than us did, and we weren’t supposed to be doing it. Looking back neither of us had a clue what we were doing nor what to expect that first time. We learnt a lot more before long. Long cold winter weather and near full dark twenty-four hours a day for months encourages siblings in the high arctic to experiment because there’s nothing else to do. It was normal, and the adults turned a blind eye to it because they knew they couldn’t prevent it, after all it was what they’d done, what their parents had done and what all our ancestors had done too for millennia. I suspect I fathered her first child a few years later, though she found a man soon after who was happy to be considered the baby’s father. Having a family is a source of prestige there no matter who their father or even mother too come to that is. If they are counted as yours, you are the father or the mother.”

“That’s incest, Sasha!” said a shocked Jimmy who was an outsider.

“Well that depends on where you are. Incest is a legal term. Alf married his cousin Ellen which not so long ago was illegal in Britain and classified as incest. It still is in a number of western countries. In the UK adopted children may not marry their adoptive parents, nor any former adoptive parents, even though there is no degree of consanguinity there. Consanguinity is a blood relationship, Alf. Incest as a term means nothing sensible, it just based on biblical bullshit and outdated legal systems. Just think about it. How the hell do you improve the quality of farming stock? I’ll tell you how. You breed the best to the best and the hell with it being mother son, or father daughter, or brother sister. Any reinforcement of bad traits you butcher and eat right?”

“Yeah, but you don’t eat people, Sasha!”

“You don’t need to, Jimmy. In the Egyptian Pharaonic dynasties the power descended through the female line so brother married sister for millennia, and there were no serious issues though it is highly probable that any baby with issues was killed immediately at birth as happened in the UK and the high arctic not so long ago. It is still happening in the high arctic where folk are so poor they cannot afford to support a non contributing member of society. Before you say anything, I suggest you do not criticise any who live under conditions you have no conception of. Folk who can only aspire to what you call poverty.” Sasha was clearly ready to go to war on his point of view and there was a resulting pregnant silence.

~o~O~o~

Ignoring the silence, Sasha continued. “Changing the subject, I had problems from the planners concerning the scaffolding at the front of my house. God knows who’d complained because there’re only a few vehicles a day go past my spot and most are agricultural and don’t give a damn. I contacted the Highways Authority and a bloke came round. A very reasonable bloke. He said he wasn’t prepared to argue over exactly where the highway ended and the land that was not part of the highway began. He suggested that since I wasn’t a registered scaffolder the best way to solve the issue was to render the matter safe. He telt me what I needed to do to make the issue a matter of no concern to the Highways Authority: red and white striped tape around the vertical scaffold poles and road cones half a meter out from the scaffolding. I asked if he was prepared to put that in writing and said certainly and that he would inform the planners of our agreement and send me a copy of the email he’d send to them. Problem solved. Eighteen months later I received a politely worded letter requesting a date when the scaffolding would be coming down. I’ve said it before when planners and the like are being polite they know they have no authority over the matter concerned, when they do have any they aren’t polite instead they threaten you, so I put the letter in the fire, and I’ve never heard about that matter since.

“Now the distance between the house and the road was six feet at one end of the house and twenty at the other. The problem was it was tarmacadam. I’d been telt a previous tenant of the house had two sons who worked for the council road maintenance and that was probably where the tarmac had come from because at one time it had been a grassed verge. I started to put soil next to the house over the tarmac and seeded it with sods and grass seed. Gradually over a few years I moved the verge back to the edge of the road. Eventually I’d reinstated it with sod and wild flowers and I got no more complaints because it looks right just like the rest of the lonning and the scaffolding was nowhere near the road. Like I keep saying Folk see what they expect to see.

“I had a grass verge thirty odd foot wide round one of my fields next to the road. The dyke(6) was nothing but briars,(7) whins,(8) and wild roses. In a hundred metre[300 feet] stretch there were only three hawthorns left. I cut the whole lot back to the ground and had young Tony Dearden level the dyke bank filling in the old and non functional gutter(9) with his machine. Stan and I replanted a hedge with twenty odd wild species in a triple row a meter away from the road. Again the planners started giving me grief, so I rang the Highways and spoke to the lad I’d dealt with before. I asked him to visit. When he did I asked him where did the highways’ land end. He said they didn’t own it, but merely had a right of way. The road he explained belonged to the two owners of the land at the sides of it. Since I owned the field on both sides of the road I owned the road from the middle to each side by virtue of the ownership of the land on each side. I asked what did the highways consider to be the right of way. He said a meter on each side of the road was traditionally part of the highway. I telt him since the road was tarmacadamed before metres were official in the UK surely he meant a yard not a metre. He conceded, and I asked if he’d put that in writing. He agreed and did.

“Irritated the planners then gave me grief about the barbed wire at the top of the fence saying it wasn’t safe for horses. I took loads of photos of barbed wire fences right at the edge of the road on local roads that had been there for decades and asked if they were going to require their removal too, or was that not going to be the case because three of them were on land belonging to councillors who belonged to the party that controlled the Council. The Council didn’t back off, till they were contacted by my MP(10), when they backed off for a few years. A mate of mine who’s into conservation type activities advised me to register the new hedge as a natural hedge that had been reinstated to its heritage condition using local species which came from my own land and tell them it was carrying the number of species that one would expect to see in a thousand year old hedge. I did and they were impressed and asked if they could come down and take photographs. I was delighted and so were they. The senior of the three, a woman in her fifties, said it was the most impressive and longest stretch of reinstated original hedge on her patch, which I understood to be the northern half the county, and it would have a preservation order on it as soon as she returned to her office. When the planners started to hassle me again I referred them to her, and they were stuffed. I spoke to the highways about the hedge and they said as long as it didn’t impinge over the road they were happy about it.

~o~O~o~

Frank said, “As you all know I dug a twenty-four by twelve foot fish pond for Aggie’s koi carp years ago. She never paid a great deal for any of them, but she did buy quality fish and some came from Japan as quite small fish by air freight. I suppose a few hundred quid for a mixed bag of quality fingerlings is a bit more than the price of goldfish, but what the hell it keeps her happy. These days there’s a complete net screen over a pergola that’s a couple of yards outside the pond all round. Alf built it for me, maybe fifteen years ago.”

“Nearer twenty, Frank.” Frank nodded at Alf’s correction and continued.

“Some of those fish are nigh to a yard long now and she has them all named and they’ll take food from your fingers.” Many nodded as they’d all fed Aggie’s fish. “Before I had Alf do a proper job of protecting the fish I had a net maybe a foot above the pond. Aggie had said she was sure there were less small fish than there had been. One morning I looked out of the kitchen window to see a heron bouncing up and down on the net. It looked to be fast in the net. I knew herons were protected, but anyway, heron nil rake stail one. Still all was not lost. I buried the heron at the bottom of a hole Aggie wanted dug for a new rose she’d bought, Blue Moon it was named. It has always produced a shedload of blooms every year. I didn’t like what I’d done, so I spoke to Alf about the pergola. Never had a problem with herons since.

~o~O~o~

Dave said, “On a lighter note, I knew a lass that during the war worked for the army in their offices down south somewhere. She was middle aged when I was maybe twenty and had had a couple of sherries too many when telling the tale about how she met her old man. He was Australian and quite high up in their army. I don’t mind what his rank was but it was high enough to put a fair few of the office girls’ hearts in a flutter. She was definitely interested in him and thought it may possibly be mutual. One day he came into the office and asked her, ‘May I borrow some of your Durex?’ She went bright red and replied, ‘I’m sorry, but I’m not that kind of a girl and I’d rather you didn’t speak to me again other than on office matters.’ Now in Australia Durex is Sellotape [Scotch tape in US], but in Britain it was the market leader in condoms, even back then. It wasn’t quick and not without embarrassment on both sides but eventually the situation was resolved, initially via a mutual friend and eventually with kisses, marriage and probably Durex too.

~o~O~o~

Eli said, “Where I live a couple of miles outside Silloth on Solway and not far from a couple of major caravan [US trailer] parks, we have always had a goodly number of walkers going past our holding. As a result of Covid that number has dramatically increased as they walk round the block, which is maybe five miles, to get some fresh air and exercise, completely legally I would add. However they send our dogs and cats mental who are not used to that many folk walking by. I joked to Ruth, my wife, the other day, ‘There’s a bloody couple with a puppy going past. Walking’s legal, but they aren’t walking they’re sauntering, and saunterers should be stopped. Sauntering should be a criminal offence. I want a police officer at each end of the lonning specifically to arrest saunterers. We need to blow them in or open a puppy saunterers soup kitchen for the idiots who don’t know how to keep house.’ The last was a remark to do with Ruth telling me some time before about all the younger women she worked with who’d telt her that they couldn’t afford to cook proper meals because food was so expensive, so they had to feed their family on ready meals and fast food. That had made us both laugh because ready meals and fast food are damned expensive compared with real food, if of course you know what to do with it, i.e. you can cook. The really funny thing about the whole tale is that when Ruth phoned her sister, who lives near Wigan, and telt her what I’d said her sister took it seriously and gave her the details of an app that enabled you to blow any Covid law breakers in to the police anonymously. We’re still laughing about that.”

~o~O~o~

Denis said, “I mind a time many a year since when we were living at Harrington just outside Workington. I was going out to the north east somewhere to pick up some tools I’d bought off ebay, though I’ve no idea where any more. It was a weekend when Belinda was still living down south and only up for the weekend, so she wanted to spend the time with me and went with me. I’ve no idea where it was, but we’d had a letter inviting us to a hotel somewhere over that way. There was a free dinner, but we had to agree to watch a timeshare selling presentation delivered by Frank Bough, who’d been a well known BBC TV, sports, current affairs and news anchor man at the time. He’d fallen from grace in 1988 for using drugs and call girls, though I wasn’t aware of that at the time and thought he was still okay. Fact is I still do. Using drugs and prostitutes doesn’t hurt anyone else and is hardly comparable with molesting kids. Belinda wasn’t sure but went along with it because she knew I just wanted a free dinner and a laugh at anyone stupid enough to think they could con me into parting with money for time. A building yes. A supposed right to a fortnight in a building some one else owned, I don’t bloody think so.

“We had the dinner and I must say I was impressed. The menu selection was excellent and the food was the same. The forty minute video presentation by Frank Bough was nothing more than bullshit, but looking back I suppose after having been fired by the BBC in 1988 he was taking whatever work he could get in 1998 and was trading on his previous squeaky clean reputation, after all we couldn’t be the only ones who didn’t know about his fall from grace, though I admit there are probably not that many households like ours without a TV who didn’t listen to the radio or read the papers. After the presentation we had a meeting with Nigel. Nigel seemed to be hyper and I reckoned he was on coke. No matter what he said I wouldn’t play. I simply said it seemed to me to be a scam to part folk from their money and I wasn’t that stupid. He was completely phased when to all the references to TV and the media he made I said I’d no fucking idea what he was talking about. When I admitted we didn’t have a TV, didn’t listen to the radio, read papers or watch films he almost had a breakdown. When he turned to Belinda and started to work on her I grabbed him by the throat and said, ‘You leave my wife alone or I’ll do you some serious damage that will hurt for a very long time. The invitation was for me, she’s just a casual observer and wants to go home. I’ve done time for violence and if I do some more it’ll not matter to either of us.

“You’ve done time for violence, Denis?” asked a shocked Alf.

“No, but what’s that got to do with anything? Nigel gave up on both of us, but asked us to listen to Philip who he said could give us different reasons for signing up to the time share. I knew all about timeshare scams, and I knew the reason they invited you to a place other than your home was because the law did not give you the right to change your mind like it did if you signed in your home, and this was high pressure sales technique. I have to say though Belinda was bored she knew I was enjoying myself and so was happy to be there with me. Philip was a cool low pressure guy whose technique was to appeal to greed. He started by telling me about how much money he was making make selling his fortnight in wherever to others, and it was easy to do. ‘But why the fuck would I want to go to the trouble of advertising?’ He explained I could allow the timeshare company to handle it for me for a small fee. I laughed in his face and said that would mean I had to trust them which was never going to happen. I further asked why would I wish to get involved in something so ridiculous and unprofitable when I could keep my money and earn vastly more by lending it behind the dateline.’ He’d no idea what I was talking about and I explained, ‘If you’ve enough money to interest dealers in the short term government securities rebuying market you can earn anything up to ten percent in less than twenty-four hours. I have enough money to do that. You are offering me nothing of interest. Thanks for the dinner, but that’s all. We’re going home. At that point, manic Nigel chipped in to say, ‘At least you have to admit it is a good deal.’ ‘No, I don’t have to admit to any such bullshit,’ I replied. ‘I think you’re nothing more than bloody conmen who belong behind bars, and if you keep snorting coke you’ll loose the septum in your nose and look like something out of a nightmare. Come on Belle, I’ve had my fun let’s go home.’ We left and on the way home Belle said, ‘It’s your birthday soon. Why don’t we make an investment in a thirty-six gallon cask of newly laid down malt? You birthday present is you get to choose which malt.’ ‘That’s a good idea. Laphroaig or Highland Park maybe both, Love.’ We went for both.”

1. NHS, National health Service.
2. Brock, broken.
3. Chesst, chased.
4. Genny, generator.
5. Bags, rural term for a cow’s udder.
6. Dyke or dike, a hedge or wall.
7. Briars, brambles, usually a variety of Rubus.
8. Whins any of the gorse family of shrubs, Ulex varieties.
9. Gutter, ditch.
10. MP, member of parliament.

The Grumpy Old Men’s Society that met on Saturday evenings in the tap room of the Green Dragon at Bearthwaite was quorate and for the folk of Bearthwaite, despite Covid, life had returned to normal, for most of the inhabitants of the isolated village had never had many dealings with the outside world for generations. The spring equinox was behind them and as anticipated and looked forward to the weather was getting warmer. The ladies had settled in the best side with glasses of brandy served by Harriet. Gladys had announced that supper would be chicken and mushroom pie with broccoli, chips [US fries] and gravy. “The only reason you’re getting chips is because Sasha said he’d manage them despite his mouth if there was plenty of gravy to soften them with, and Gustav has shewn the kitchen staff how to make sauerkraut from cow cabbage(1) which is available along with pickled beetroot and pickled red cabbage for any who so desire.” Sasha’s eyes lit up at the mention of sauerkraut.

“How’s it going with your teeth, Sasha?

“Good question, Alf. I’m having the bottom set out next week. That got delayed by the infection, so I’ll let you know when I know anything. However, I tried that alternative fixative for the top plate. The stuff I got of ebay that was described as fresh minty tasting denture fixative.”

“And?” asked Denis.

“I’d say the description was a bit over the top, but it was a hell of a sight better than that Poligrip. I’ll manage with it, so I suppose I’d better get some more ordered. Last time I was in the dentists on entry I was offered a face mask and the hand wash wash pointed out to me. I put the face mask on and when I went to see my dentist she said, ‘I see they’ve given you one of the pink masks. You know they’re only for special people, Sasha.’ I somewhat dryly said, ‘Aye, they’re called girls, Sammi.’ Now Sammi is pretty quick of off the mark and she asked, ‘So you agree girls are special.’ ‘Course they are,’ said I. “You’re wearing the kit.’(2) Now Sammi may be pretty quick but she does have a naïve side to her too and she asked, ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Ask your old man,’ I replied. The dental nurse was blushing bright red, but her voice was steady as she said, ‘I’ll explain later, Sammi.’ By that time Sammi had understood, and she was fair red too as laughing she said, ‘You’re a terrible man, Sasha.’ ‘Aye. I know. Elle says so regularly, and she’d know.’ Like I said, Sammi is okay.

“On the subject of health but back to Covid, Elle and I got another letter exactly the same as the one we’d had a month before saying we were up to be jabbed soon. How many of you have been contacted giving you an appointment?” All the old men indicated they had and Sasha said, “I thought as much. It seems that there wasn’t so much of a screw up in our neck of the woods, but the entire damned country had run out of vaccine, but to begin with none was prepared to admit it. They were trying to keep a lid on it and like I said last week treating us like mushrooms hoping that the next batch would be available before folk started rearing up on them. It didn’t work because the shortage lasted long enough to hit the media.

“Elle has a long time friend who’s a fair bit younger than she is who’s part of the vaccination task force. She’s a recently retired midwife and lives and works in Nottingham. The entire task force was laid off, along with others all over the country. When I rang the surgery here I telt(3) them what I telt you I would say, and they actually telt me what the situation was. My complaint was noted to be passed on to the powers that be, and a couple of days later Elle received a text to offer us both an appointment. The appointment is tomorrow, Sunday, at and I quote ‘Nine fifteen sharp’. I’m not sure if that is reminder to be prompt or supposed to be a reassuring indication of the state of their needles. Elle was telt to text back to say we would attend, or would not, or if we had arranged to have the jab elsewhere. Only trouble was the return text facility didn’t work, so I rang the surgery to tell them we would be attending.”

Stan said, “Aye, Julie had to ring the surgery too for the same reason.”

There was a general agreement as all said they or their wife had had to ring up because the return text facility offered didn’t work.

“Ah well,” said Sasha philosophically, “At least we know everything thing is back to normal, the NHS(4) is a complete bollix. Snafu eh?”(5) Who’s up for a tale? I’ve stuff, but if someone else would like to start feel free to so do.”

~o~O~o~

Denis said, “I’ll start. My gran was a clever woman. She was a grafter, a good provider and kept a house that was considerably more affluent than most would consider she had the money to maintain. However, she was neither educated nor informed. My father who was her eldest child was brilliant and won scholarships to go to grammar school and then to university studying metallurgy. She was proud of him and made him the clothes, including a pair of suits, he needed to be able to hold his head up in an environment that he had never had any experience of. I mind(6) him telling me of his embarrassment when as a young man he had said to a female undergraduate in his class who had said she didn’t understand something that he would learn her if she liked, and her total contempt when she said, ‘I think you mean you would teach me.’ That was the point at which he started to speak received pronunciation English.(7) In my entire life I only heard a trace of accent in his voice once, and that was at granddad’s funeral when he was gey(8) upset.

“I mind playing with my gran’s sewing pins one time. She was a seamstress and used expensive, thin, steel pins, not the cheaper more common, thicker, iron ones that were used by virtually all women in those days. I’d been playing with them with a magnet and some had become magnetised. Steel is harder to magnetise than iron, but by the same token it is harder to demagnetise too. She’d complained to my dad, ‘I don’t know what that bairn of yours has put on them, but I’ve even scrubbed them with Ajax powder and still they stick together.’ My father made a coil of some cheap wire wrapped around a cardboard toilet paper centre. He put the pins inside the tube of cardboard and connected the coil to the mains supply, much to my gran’s dismay, for there was no saying what electricity would do. The pins were demagnetised, which she considered to be a fluke and due to some special quality of the toilet roll centre.

“Dad was down to be a rear gunner in a Lancaster bomber in the war which gave him a life expectancy of three or four operations. However he was in the top nought point one percent of the nation’s intelligentsia and was considered to be too valuable to threw away. As a result he was in the ‘directed labour contingent’. Eventually he was assigned to the American Manhattan project, the nuclear bombs that forced Japan to concede. However, before that he was working for the UK in the steel industry. Steel was made and formed and then coated in grease to avoid rusting and deterioration in storage. When the steel was required it had to be degreased. Detergents had recently been made available, and they were much more powerful degreasants than soaps. Dad had managed to obtain a gallon of the super concentrated detergent and had given it to his mum. ‘A quarter of a tea spoon in a wash load, Mum. No more, that’s all you need,’ he’d said.

“Dad was a stubborn and cantankerous man and without doubt he was his mother’s son, a child of the Isles for sure. Gran knew fine no man knew anything about washing clothes, so she put a cupful of the detergent in the wash. Gran’s house was up on a slope and I was telt decades after that the foam from her wash ran out of her wash house at a yard high and on down hill for a quarter of a mile before the bubbles finally disappeared. Though proud of her son, Gran never accepted that Dad knew anything more than she about anything, and I mind well when I was maybe eleven or twelve her shouting at me saying that if there were no light bulb in a socket electricity would leak out if the switch was in the on position and it would cost money. I now know strictly she was correct, but it would be less than a penny a century. Having said all that, I loved my gran, because she loved all her grand children simply because we were hers, and God help any who had a bad word to say about any of us. That was how it was concerning family in those days.”

~o~O~o~

Charlie said, “Speaking of kin long away,(9) ye mind I telt that my mum had an Auntie Sisavek who kept pigs on Benbecula? During the war when meat was rationed there were gey tight regulations on animal feed and the selling of any kind of farm animal that provided meat. I was telt years after that if one of her sows had a litter of say fifteen, which wasn’t unusual for the pigs she kept, she’d declare twelve to the ministry and claim the feed for a sow with twelve piglets. Her neighbours would make up the difference in the feed required with slops and collected wild feed, and the ministry would control what happened to twelve piglets. If one or two died they’d be part of the twelve, even if they hadn’t actually died. The ‘invisible’ pigs had a boat ride to some other isle and lived their lives out on remote crofts that didn’t officially keep any livestock other than poultry. The best three and the dead ones would be raised on ministry sanctioned feed with the extra feed required provided by her neighbours and friends who would all have a share in the meat the extra piglets eventually provided. In the Isles there was never a shortage of meat, and all the men had a boat, so there was an abundance of unofficial fish too.

“I was telt years later the war made little difference to their day to day lives. I was also telt that the major impact it had on them was the loss of the young men who died in a war none in the Isles understood the point of. I know the loss of a Lancaster bomber crewed by a family of men from one Isle, which was not atypical, wiped out all the family men capable of fathering the next generation. Years later, I met an old man from Bavaria, and we telt each other similar tales. It seemed to me that whether your country won or lost the war the prices paid by ordinary working folk were exactly the same. We all lost, for we were the ones who paid the price not the politicians. That was why I decided to learn to speak German because German working men were nae different from me, and I’d always hated bullshit.”

“You speak German, Charlie‽”

“Yeah, kind of. I understand more than I speak, and the German I understand is from the south. Bavaria like, but yeah I kind of speak German. Gustav and I understand each other right fine.”

Gustav was nodding and said, “Charlie and I have no problems understanding each other. I understand him faster than I understand Sasha who speaks what I think of as Berlin German in an accent which is probably what you would call posh, upper class German. I appreciate Sasha came from nothing, but he is an extremely clever intellectual, whereas Charlie is an ordinary working man like me, so we understand each other better regardless of our accent or dialect.”

~o~O~o~

Seeing Charlie had finished, Dave said, “This is another wartime story, one of misadventure. Like the tale I telt last week, again I believe this to be a true story, though I know the misunderstanding has been a major scene in a movie. This took place at a fighter squadron base somewhere down south. A Canadian pilot seconded to a British spitfire squadron went by the name of Michael Hunt. It seems there was a senior officer looking for him who went to the office and asked for one of the girls to put out a request on the tannoy for Mike to report to the squadron office. It was a long time before the girl lived down putting out for all to hear, ‘Mike Hunt is wanted at the Squadron Office. Has anyone seen Mike Hunt?’

Phil asked, “That film, Dave, would that be ‘Porky’s’?”

“Yeah why?”

“Well, it wasn’t polite, but the look on that lass’ face when she realised what she’d said was the funniest scene in the entire film.”

~o~O~o~

Dave said, “Sticking with history, but going a bit further back, this tale is of a sailor named Amos from the last century, but really it is a tale that could be about any man. Marriage is a contract, and most men are prepared to pay almost anything for a good home which usually means decent regular meals and and an enjoyable time in bed and they don’t care about much else. Amos was no different, and he’d married a pretty young lass from Bristol. He came home after three months from his first voyage after his marriage having sent his wages back from every port his ship docked at and he was expecting the comforts of home. His wife didn’t provide a good meal and went to bed early after having said, ‘Not tonight, Dear. Maybe tomorrow.’ Amos merely said, ‘Okay, Dear.’ His next voyage was of six months and again after having sent his wages home at each port there was no good meal and no bedroom comforts. Again Amos said, ‘Okay, dear.’ His next voyage was of four months duration and after having reached home the same sequence of events occurred. When he went back to sea he left a married woman with no children and no income behind him.

“After that he sent no more money home and never went home again. Soon he was bigamously married to a little girl in a Polynesian port who was grateful for his money and treated him the way he wanted. She gave him eight children who loved their father and a home he was always glad to return to. When he retired from the sea he’d been a happily married man with a loving wife for over forty years. When he died his wife grieved for him till she died nearly ten years later. The tale doesn’t mention what happened to his first wife. The point of my tale is that mgtow is not a new phenomenon.”

“What’s migtow, Dave?”

“It’s spelt em, gee, tee, oh, double you, Alf, and it stands for ‘men going their own way’. If you take any notice of the media or watch Youtube, you’ll get the impression it’s a recent phenomenon. It’s a collective name for men who don’t bother with women, due to the way men have been treated by women, divorce courts and the like. My point is if you press men hard enough they just disappear and start again. It’s not new it’s what we’ve always done.”

~o~O~o~

Pete turned to a table of outsiders and asked, “Anybody fancy telling a tale? We always welcome a new voice.”

Gustav added, “I’ll pull a few pints first, Dad. It looks like we’re ready for them.”

After the beer had been distributed an elderly man said, “I’m Chester. I’ve been here a few times, and I have a few bits and pieces I’ve wanted to tell someone about for years, but this is the only place I know of where there’s any one willing to listen. They’re just a few recollections of days gone by, not really worth calling tales, and some of them are what my missus has telt me of when she was a girl, so those’re only second hand.”

Chester sounded nervous, so Sasha said, to Denis who was sitting near to the bar, “Fetch Chester a glass of tale tellers’ lubricant, Denis. Highland Park seems to be appropriate, don’t you reckon.”

“That it does, Sasha. That it does.” At the bar Denis poured a whiskey out of Sasha’s Highland Park bottle and said, “Get on the outside of that, Chester. It’s specially formulated to put the tale teller’s voice in fine fettle.”

Chester offered a two pound coin, but Sasha, “No need, Lad. The rule is tale tellers don’t pay. Just take Denis’ advice, and take your time.”

Chester smiled and drank the whisky before beginning. “I’ll start with a couple of bits from when I was a kid. I’m seventy-eight now, so I’m going back a bit. I was born in Wigan and we lived in a back to back,(10) one of two dozen that were trapped between the gas works and the railway station. Scoldsbridle Row it was called. A scold’s bridle was an iron device locked round the head of a gossip or unpleasant woman. It had a bit that went into their mouth that prevented them speaking. It was a humiliating punishment. As kids we used to sit on the kerb at the road side in summer and pop the tar bubbles that the sun produced on the road with a stick. They popped with a very satisfying sound as they released the characteristic tar smell. Many small streets and roads then were surfaced with gravel chippings laid on tar. By the standards of kids today it wouldn’t be entertainment, but we did it all day everyday when the sun was warm enough to make the road tar bubble. When dad was in work and had a bit of money he’d take the entire family to the Temperance bar on Railway Road. There there were fourteen of us, sixteen with Mum and Dad. We’d all sit at the round tables and drink hot Vimto(11) served in glasses. That was what we thought of as a proper family outing and we’d talk about it for weeks. Dad worked as a day labourer for the railways and I suppose was in work about three-quarters of the time. By the standards of some of our neighbours we were definitely not poor.

“We’d watch Mum and Gran washing on wash days and fetch and carry for them. I remember Gran getting up early to light the fire under the wash tub which was a huge cast iron thing set in masonry. She dealt with that whilst Mum nursed the baby. After we’d eaten our breakfast of porridge that had been cooked by the residual heat of the fire overnight we fetcht fire wood from the pile and water from the well. I remember eating a lot of porridge in those days. When the water was hot enough Mum and Gran took it in turns to wield the heavy copper bottomed posser which forced water through the clothes and washed out the dirt. We could afford soap flakes for the clothes and wash soda for the bed linens. Some clothes were rubbed on the wash board which was carved from wood, though years later Mum got one that was made out of thick glass. I remember Gran’s corsets were always washed on the washboard. As well as the wash tub we had a dolly tub which was a galvanised, corrugated barrel that after wringing out the soapy clothes Mum and Gran used to rinse them in clean water. That was why we were needed to keep fetching water from the well. Mum and Gran liked washing best when the sun was shining because the bleaching effect of the sunlight got white things whiter. Mostly my sisters pegged the washing out on the lines and we boys fetched fire wood and water.

“I mind when my eldest sister got married and moved three houses away. The women of the family still did their washing together and I couldn’t believe how many of those towelling nappies my sister’s baby went through in just a week and they were all washed by hand like everything else. I said we weren’t poor. Enid, the old woman that lived on the end of the row, used to come down after the wash had been done. She always said the same thing. ‘That’s a lovely drop of hot water you have there, Mary.’ Gran always said, ‘You can have it if you like, Enid.’ Enid was so poor she did her washing in the dirty water Mum and Gran had done the entire family’s wash in, and like I said there were a lot of us. Different days, different ways. Enid was truly grateful and Mum and Gran were glad to help. The day after wash day, Mum and Gran did the ironing with the irons that were heated on the fire. They had six of them, four on the fire heating and two in use. After heating they were wiped clean with a damp cloth prior to use. Another early start and late finish. My sisters always did the cooking when Mum and Gran were busy with the washing and ironing. We boys ran errands for coppers to help feed us all. We also chopped firewood sticks from broken packaging boxes the shops gave us that we sold for coppers too. The shops were glad to get rid of them.

“The women in the family did a lot of sewing and knitting. I remember them buying wool off the woman on the market in hanks, some called them skeins. They were big loops of wool maybe two foot in diameter but they were maybe three feet long when pushed together. They were made on a machine that wrapped the wool round a big, conical drum. I suppose it’s no surprise that it was called a hanking machine. When Mum or Gran or even the girls undid a knitted garment to recover the wool they had the boys wrap it up on a thing called a niddy-noddy or a skeiner. It was a two foot long centre stick with a foot long stick at each end at right angles to the centre stick. The two shorter sticks were also at right angles to each other and three of the four short stick ends had wooden balls on them to stop the wool slipping off. The fourth end didn’t, so when the skein was finished it could be easily slipped off the skeiner. After that the skein was washed and dried to remove the crimp from having been knitted, and it was ready for knitting into something else.

“We were fascinated watching Micky Crushing boil up beetroot. Micky was the local greengrocer and his shop was a converted house at the end of the next Street, Duckingfield street. That was originally the site of the field where women were punished by ducking in the local pond. Micky had an open wood fire in the middle of the shop with a cauldron the size of a wash copper above it hanging by its handle from a metal tripod. There were no safety elfs(12) around in those days. The cauldron was full of beetroot. He’d boil them for an hour or two and let the fire go out. The beetroot would be cold next day and the skins would just slip off with no effort leaving the beetroot ready for sale, but Micky’s hands and arms up to his elbows were bright red till the day he died.”

Sasha saw Chester was looking around at faces to see if things were okay. “Go on, Lad. You’re doing fine. Interesting stuff. Denis, a drop more lubricant for Chester if you would.”

“No problem, Sasha.” Denis poured another whisky into Chester’s glass and asked, “Any else for a short?” There was an almost universal agreement, so Denis said, “You hold it there for a minute or two whilst we get this sorted out, Chester.”

Gustav said, “It looks like we’re a bit light on spirits behind the bar, Denis. I’ll bring a selection up from the cellar.” Outsiders were already putting pound coins into the children’s Christmas party collection box in advance and Denis was pouring what was available. Gustav returned with two carrying cases with six bottles of exotic spirits in each.

Pete said, “That should hold us for the first half of tonight, Son. Pass them over I’ll put then behind the bar ready.”

“Okay, Dad.”

“You ready, Chester?” asked Sasha.

Chester nodded and resumed. “The next few bits and pieces are all what Amy my missus has told me of her childhood. They’re neither complete, nor very long, so I left them till the end to finish with. Her family were much poorer than mine, and she remembered the entire row of houses she lived in being temporarily rehoused by the council, so they could fumigate the entire row to get rid of the cockroaches. Long Row it was called. It was on a street called Pinner’s Brow because the houses had been a originally been factory that made pins and it was at the brow of a bit of a hill. Seemingly fumigation of the houses was an annual, or even six monthly, event. Amy said the only thing that got rid of the cockroaches was the demolition of the row years later.

“Amy told me about the girl who sat behind her at school who was a dirty, smelly, underfed, unpleasant individual with no friends who went by the name of Jacki Palmer. She couldn’t remember the girl’s real name, maybe it was Jacqueline, but maybe not. Jacki was regularly infested with nits, despite the best efforts of the nit nurse who appeared at all schools regularly on a rotating basis with her assortment of insecticidal potions and nit combs. One of Jacki’s more unpleasant activities was to take nits from her hair and place them on the heads of other children. Jacki was violent and despite her lack of size was a bully. She stole Amy’s bike one day. When Amy’s mum found out she marched out of the house and returned with the bike. She never told Amy what had happened, but Amy said she had bruises on her face when she returned. Years later Amy found out her mum had got into a fight with Jacki’s parents and beaten both her father and mother senseless.

“Amy’s mum was a nice enough woman, I got on well with my in laws, but she was a law unto herself. She was a good manager, and her old man handed his pay packet to her unopened for her to manage. I know he did it willingly because he told me once, ‘If I give the old woman the money I eat better, and if there’s any to spare she gives me enough to get a drink with, but the kids are clothed, we eat okay and the rent gets paid first.’ Amy never found out why her mum did it, but she’d been perming Amy’s hair since she was three, and only stopped when Amy married me.

“The last couple of bits concern Amy’s dad. I get on well with Amy’s sister’s old man, Jimmy. Now Jimmy and I both earnt good money, a lot more than our father in law, and whilst the girls’ parents were alive we and our kids spent Christmas with them. The girls would decide who was buying what food to take to, and leave it to Jimmy and I to organise the drink. One Christmas, my father in law, who was no drunk even when he could afford it, had had enough to loosen his tongue a bit. Like all blokes his age he’d done his National Service. He’d done his in the army in what was then Palestine. Now the man was no coward, but we were laughing for ten minutes at his description of events. ‘There were these here Jews on one side of me shooting at these here Arabs on my other side who were shooting back. Now it was no quarrel of mine, and I didn’t want to be there never mind get shot or killed by either of them for getting in the way of a quarrel I didn’t understand, so I hid behind a sand dune for most of the time I was there.’ After that we referred to him as ‘Our Hero of Palestine.’

“My father in law was a bit of a joker, and he could certainly tell a tale, but his best trick was to get lost after he’d died. Seriously. My mother in law had died a few years before and the flavour had gone out of his chewing gum if you get me. He’d not been seen by a neighbour he was friends with that day so she rang Jenny my sister in law who lived nearby. Jimmy went round and couldn’t get in. He rang the police who forced entry and found Dad dead in the bathroom. It turned out that his heart had given up on him. Jenny rang a local undertaker and walked round to wait for them at Dad’s house. The undertakers came and did what they had to. Jenny was on the phone to Amy telling her what had happened when there was a knock at the door. It was the undertakers that she’d instructed. Dad was missing.

“It was twenty-four hours before the mystery was resolved and forty-eight before Dad was where he should have been, in Sanky’s parlour of repose. Seems the police had instructed an undertaker too, and they got there first. The girls were mad as hellfire, but Jimmy calmed them down by saying, ‘You two are tough and can cope with everything life chucks at you. Chester and I reckon we did well marrying you, but most folk aren’t like that and can’t cope with death. Yes, those police were out of order, but they’ll be dealing with folk who can’t cope on a regular basis. They were just trying to help, and most folk would have been grateful, so just let it be both of you. Think on, it was Dad’s last joke, and if it had to happen to anyone it should have been him. He’d have considered it to be really funny wouldn’t he?’ I’ll give Jimmy his due he can handle women, and I was glad he was there rather than me. That’s it.”

“Well done, Chester Lad. Nothing wrong with those. They were good tales. The sort that need telling. A change for us. We could stand more blokes like you giving it a go. We get tired of hearing each others voices. The rest of you take heed. You tell tales, the drink’s free. Supper too.” Pete was smiling as he stood and said, “It brings trade and the Dragon has a reputation to maintain. Consider the price of your drink and supper to be part of our advertising costs. The accountant does, so the tax man pays, not me.”

~o~O~o~

Frank said I’ve got a real short one that will take us up to supper time. From the look of Harriet and Gladys supper will be served gey shortly. It’s more of a puzzle than a tale really. “Bill goes with me regularly to collect pallets, cardboard and whatever else we can get from the Carlisle industrial estates. I take the the hardwood pallets to make stuff I can sell like bird nesting boxes, and he has the rest for firewood and composting. We usually do Rosehill industrial estate first and use the M6 motorway as a ring road to jump up to Kingstown. We have lunch at Gregg’s pie and pasty shop on the Kingstown industrial estate and take it in turns to pay. What puzzles us is the prices we get charged for the same order. We always order two steak bakes, two sausage rolls, two teas and two cream doughnuts to eat in. The price varies, six quid, eight quid, eight pound fifty and ten pound thirty-eight have been regular prices. God alone knows what makes the difference as we always say we want to eat in. We never question the price as it’s usually at the six quid end rather than the ten pound thirty-eight end. If one of us gets unlucky on the price that’s just how it is, but we still just don’t get it. I’ll get em in because that wasn’t worth free beer.”

~o~O~o~

Harriet came in from the kitchens to say, “Clear the tables please because supper will be served within five minutes. Gustave Love, if you put all the empties on the bar I’ll wash them as soon as supper is served.”

Pat said, “Forget about the glasses, Harriet Love. We’ll collect and wash them. You just sort the supper out.” There was a murmur of agreement from the men in the taproom. All the men, locals and the outsiders.

Harriet smiled and said, “Thank you, gentlemen. Mum and I appreciate it. Is there anything special you would like to drink with supper? If there is I’ll fetch it from the cellar for you.”

Pete, Harriet’s dad said, “Don’t fash yoursel(13) about it, Love. I’ll fetch anything required. Gustav’s already brought a dozen bottles of rare stuff up and there are half a dozen cases of the usual spirits under the bar. You just sort supper out, but make sure you have the best side sorted first because we can always have another drink whilst we wait. What do we want, Lads?”

Pat replied, “Poteen,(14) Akvavit,(15) and cactus juice,(16) genever(17) if there’s any left. I’ll put some whisky, Irish, Scotch and US, gin, rum, brandy and vodka ready under the optics for when they run out. What say you, Lads?”

There was a murmur of agreement and Pat said, “Okay, some one give me a lift and we’ll fetch the extra stuff.”

Dave stood and said, “Fine, but a couple of bottles of Calvados too. As usual, any of you lads from outside Bearthwaite that fancy a drop of the rare stuff put a couple of nicker(18) in the kids’ Christmas party collection box and tell Gustav what you want.” A dozen and a half outsiders went to the bar to pay and place orders with Gustav.

Supper was much appreciated and half an hour later, after Pat and Stan had gone down to the cellar to fetch more of the ‘rare stuff’, story telling recommenced.

~o~O~o~

Eric said, “I’ll start with a really quick one, Lads. Shauna sent a pair of nine karat [spelt carat outside the UK] gold earrings weighing less than a gram to Louise the granddaughter who lives in Paris, which is in the EU, as part of a package of things for her birthday. The customs idiots, and I haven’t managed to find out if they were UK customs or French customs recorded it as one unit which is one Kilogramme, and Shauna got a tax demand for exporting a thousand grammes of gold from the UK authorities and another for importing a thousand grammes of gold from the French authorities. It took seven weeks to sort it all out, after which they were prepared to release the gold, which was long after Louise’s birthday. Idiots, every last one of the bloody incompetent bastards.”

~o~O~o~

Sasha said, “Ye mind that wee red cat of mine, the Marmalade Murderer. Well the little monster is now eighteen. Once upon a time he’d go out in the teeth of a howling gale when the rain was knocking holes in the tarmac. The grief that little bugger put Elle and me through was endless. He’d just disappear for anything up to three weeks at a time, and there was many a time we’d given up on him returning thinking he was dead. Then he’d just turn up like nothing had happened. We used to joke he’d packed a suitcase and gone on holiday. I’ve a photo of him twenty feet up a ladder I’d left against the house when I was fitting gutters. He was trying to work out how to catch the martins nesting under the eaves. However, a month back, he wanted to go out through the back door, so I opened the door for him. There was a trace of rain, and a gentle breeze. He took one look at the weather and went back to the fire where he lain down. It comes to us all in the end, and the older you get the faster the process becomes. He disappeared last week and I reckon he’s now at the great fireside in the sky.” A clearly distressed Sasha rose and went towards the door that led to the gents. All knew better than to offer any sympathy. Sasha would handle his pain better without any comment from others. That he could take any amount of physical pain the scars on his body testified and many had seen what he could tolerate when working, but the death of a cat was a tortured anguish to the Siberian.

~o~O~o~

After a grim faced Sasha returned, Dave Wannup indicated he’d a tale to tell. Though not originally from Bearthwaite Dave was a Cumbrian born and bred for centuries. He had a hard line Cumbrian’s disdain for the southern establishment and if anything was even less politically correct than Sasha. He was also extremely quick witted and of a satirical frame of mind. Dave regularly referred to political figures by pejorative epithets and lewd names. Yasser Arafat was Joseph Marrafat(19) or Tea Towel Head. Slobodan Milošević had been Fuckingman Shagabitch. Colonel Gaddafi was Colonel Gadfly. Western politicians faired no better. Prime minister John Major(20) he referred to as Major Grey or Weak Tea,(21) Margaret Thatcher as the Milk Snatcher,(22) Edwina Currie as The Grey Man Shagger(23) or as Mistress Salmonella.(24) Donald Trump as Do Naught Rump or Psychopres, Hillary Clinton as the Email Queen(25) or the Party Canceller,(26) Bill Clinton as the I Didn’t Inhale Lewinski.(27) Dave was constantly making up such names as characters came up in the news much to the amusement of the tap room audience. It was the casual family friendly ones that often made folk laugh the most, ones like Burly Chassis.(28) Doubtless had he had a wider audience he could have been prosecuted though he had always claimed should that happen it was almost certain he would be acquitted on the grounds that satirists had always had more leeway than others.

“I heard a tale last week concerning Covid masks and a bloke who was trying to upset the system without leaving himself open to grief from the police. He used one of the cups of his wife’s bras as a face mask. He didn’t cut the cup out of the bra. He just wrapped the rest of it round his head. The police arrested him. When in court he argued his face mask was at least as good as any other and the magistrates agreed. When asked why he had done it he replied, ‘As I’m sure a lot of you can understand life is difficult at the moment and there is little joy to be had from lock down. I enjoy the scent of my wife’s breasts, so it seemed eminently reasonable to use one of her unwashed bras as a face mask.’ He was found not guilty and the police were reprimanded for harassing a member of the public who had clearly complied with the law and they had to pay four thousand pounds in compensation for harassment. Apparently the only one who wasn’t amused was his wife who was a rather generously proportioned lady. I can only assume she was upset by having to go braless.”

~o~O~o~

After the laughter quietened, Alf said, “I’ll tell a tale or two from being a kid. Not as funny as Dave’s tale, but I mind repairing a Swiss roll electrolytic capacitor [condenser] on a Necchi spin dryer. I knew nowt about capacitors then, but my mum’s spin dryer had stopped working. Dad had been dead for a few years, so I did my best. I could see where the connections had been, so I poked needles into there and soldered the wires to them. Years later I found out the capacitance wouldn’t have been quite right, but it would have been close enough to work. Mum’ spin dyer worked for another twenty years.

“I also mind rewiring the stator on Mum’s Hotpoint mangle washing machine. She’d had a few firms in to look at it. I’d have been twelve or so. They’d all said it was not possible to repair it at an economical price and she needed a new machine. I telt her if that was the case she could afford me to play with it, and if I got nowhere it didn’t matter. I stripped it, did a solder and nail varnish job on one of the windings and got it working. As a result, I made a lot of money out of that, not out of Mum, but out of a lot of other women who had the same machine and were being troubled by the maintenance situation. Over the next decade I made a decent amount of money, even whilst an apprentice, out of repairing Hotpoint mangle washing machines, which were of no interest to any other I was aware of. After that there were no more machines of that type around.

“Funny thing is years later I made money out of converting old spin dryers to operate under steam so bee keepers could spin the wax out of old brood combs. I’m still making money out of that.”

~o~O~o~

Seeing no one was ready to tell a tale Sasha said, “When I worked driving a taxi we had a guy with Yiddish parents who operated the desk on Sundays. He was the best desk man I had ever worked for on a Sunday. Sundays were quiet, so entertainment was at a premium. Hymi the desk man was the best. The stories he telt were brilliant, and kept us all laughing for the entire shift. I can’t mind his best tale, but the essence of it was the nebbish. A nebbish he explained was a person of so little personality that when they left the room it felt like someone had come in. He had endless tales concerning a nebbish that all made us nearly wet ourselves with laughter. I think negative personality is an amazing concept, mostly because it’s all too real. If we didn’t know folk it applied to it wouldn’t be at all funny.”

~o~O~o~

Alf chipped in again, “I’ve another short one that may make you laugh. I try to listen to Gardener’s Question Time on BBC Radio Four every week. It’s a long-running programme in which amateur gardeners can put questions to a panel of experts. It’s repeated twice a week and on a podcast too, but I usually listen on a Sunday afternoon down at the allotments [US community gardens] with some of the lads when we knock off for a cup of tea. It’s on at two in the afternoon. There’s a bloke called Stefan Buczacki—”

Dave chipped in, “I mind him well, Professor Stefan Fuckovski, reckoned to be a clever bloke bloke isn’t he?”

Alf grinned and replied, “Yeah, and as a rule he is. He did over six hundred appearances and has given the program some shit since. I reckon he’s right because after the program was selt(29) off to some other group it went downbank(30) rapidly. I still listen to it, but it’s not the same. However, clever as he is he doesn’t know everything. I mind one Sunday when someone asked a question about Chinese gooseberries, they’re called kiwifruits these days, and he said they won’t fruit in the UK, cos it’s too cold. Thing is, I was sorting through a full two gallon bucket of kiwifruit I’d just harvested that day as I was listening to him. Another time I was listening to him going on about Jerusalem artichokes. He was saying it was too cold in the UK for them to flower. As he said it, I looked across at one of my plots where I’d got hundreds of them in full bloom. I’d say they flower two out of three years for me.”

~o~O~o~

There was a hush as the men were awaiting someone to tell a tale. Eventually Stan asked, “What do you reckon to these bloody missionary folk who are going round knocking on doors and wasting folks’ time, Sasha?”

“Well, Stan, I fucked ‘em off and tried to shut the door in their faces. One of them tried to keep the door open with his foot, so I let him, but he fucked off fast enough when he saw the splitting maul(31) in my hands. All Christians, and every other bunch of idiots who have religion, are primitive groups of folk defined by their superstitious beliefs which they have absolutely zero evidence for. They define themselves in terms of their faith in their god which is a deal they make with themselves if they but knew it to reassure themselves of a good place in the hereafter for which they have no evidence either. They spend their entire lives making excuses for the abominable and unconscionable acts of a non-existent, malevolent god which are in fact purely due to mischance or the nature of the human beast. As for the devil and other evil forces or beings, human beings have already committed every atrocity that the human mind can conceive of, not just once but many times over, so there is no need to invoke the existence of a malevolent being in order to lay the blame at his feet because the blame lies firmly and squarely on the shoulders of human beings. Many years ago, I mind someone telling me, albeit cynically, that God had said to a group of folk contemplating sin ‘Take what you want and do what you will. You can pay right over there at the checkout on your way out.’ Tell you there is no limit to folks’ capacity for self delusion.”

After that the dominoes were produced and as usual the outsiders were invited to partner the locals in the attempt to make them feel welcome and thus return in the future. The outsiders were always welcomed to the monthly dance, for the Bearthwaite girls needed variety and it was hoped that some of the younger outsiders would settle with a local girl and bring their talents and skills to the village. Many had done so in the past, but the residents were constantly trying to recruit new blood. It was harder to bring in new females, but the older boys who went to school and college outside the village were self reliant and compared with most of their age were skilled, confident and all had part time employment. As a result they had money in their pockets, and all with Alf’s help had their own transport at seventeen. Tessa who was a middle aged widow with no children had moved to the village when her husband had died to be near her sister Sarah the post mistress. Tessa was seeing Freddy Wannup, Dave’s brother who was a bricklayer who lived in the village. Freddy was a widower with four teenage children. Tessa was a fully qualified driving instructor who’d taught all the locals for several years. The Bearthwaite boys were attractive to outside girls, and few subsequently divorced. It was known in the county that if a girl decided to leave a Bearthwaite boy she would make nothing out of him, for at a divorce hearing he would turn out to be worth nothing, living with relatives and out of work due to a breakdown caused by her leaving him. When the chips were down, the entire population of Bearthwaite closed ranks around their own. All that was required to be considered one of their own was loyalty, for life.

It was known in the county that Gustav was German, irrevocably and mutually in love with Harriet who was trans, and that her adoptive parents were happy to give the young couple the Green Dragon which was an extremely profitable concern that poured a lot of those profits back into the village. That Gustav’s name was also on the license of the pub as one of the four magistrate sanctioned licensees was a much talked about matter, well it had been for a week. The word was that that was how Bearthwaite worked. Many youngsters came to Bearthwaite to try their luck with locals, but only those genuinely caring and seeking a future as a committed member of a couple had any luck, for Bearthwaite youngsters were discerning and asked advice from their elders. None were telt what to do. Rather they were advised how to make their own decisions. That advice they took to heart, for it was how their parents’ generation had made such good choices, and they were aware of the differences between Bearthwaite folk and others, and they wanted to remain Bearthwaite folk, for that it was a better life was obvious.

When most had gone Pete asked Sasha, “What do you reckon to tonight, Sasha?”

“Good. Chester will come up with more tales eventually. He barely touched on his adult life, but we need to encourage more. You know I’ve recorded the sessions?”

“Sure. We all do. When did you start recording?”

“From my very first tale. I’ve got the lot. I’m thinking a talking book, a CD, and maybe we should video stuff for a DVD in future. Pat could set it up for us. I’ll tell him to get whatever equipment he needs and I’ll pay for it. What do you think?”

“I think it’s a bloody good idea. The kids will have a record of us long after we’re gone. Do it, Sasha. Pat and Alf between them will be able to sort it all out.”

~o~O~o~

Later that night once they were in bed Pete telt Gladys about Sasha’s idea and she agreed saying, “Get Pat to buy equipment that can be used outside too. So the Carnival, the School’s sports day, the barbecues and the Christmas Party can all be videoed. He can teach some of the kids how to use the equipment. If he gets video editing equipment the kids can do it all and the DVDs can be copied and made available in the school library for the entire village. What do you reckon?”

“I know Sasha will go for that. I’ll put it to Pat that he runs an after school club for kids of all ages not just the primary school pupils. Pat will enjoy that and some of us will be happy to help him. Yes a good idea, Love. Now I’ve another good idea what do you think?”

“I thought you’d never get round to it, Old Man, but before you consume me with your lust there’s something I need to tell you. You do know you won’t get me pregnant don’t you?”

Pete wasn’t quite sure where this was going because although Gladys had shewn no signs of approaching menopause yet they’d given up hoping for a second child over fifteen years ago after trying for more than five years. Five years during which Gladys had been deeply distressed by four early miscarriages. She’d always admitted it was only Pete’s love and the daily tasks of the Dragon that had to be done that had distracted her enough to keep her going, but she’d been suicidal from time to time for years. That had only ended when Harriet arrived and filled the empty place in her heart. They’d had an unhappy experience with Delia their only child who’d turned out to be an unpleasant young woman and who’d left with much acrimony on her part. Harriet whom they had adopted was actually Pete’s niece. They’d never bothered with birth control, but even Gladys had stopped longing and praying for a child a long time ago. “Yes I know that, Love, or at least I think I do.”

“Well I do know it because I’m three months pregnant now. I didn’t tell you before, because I was afraid I’d lose the baby like the others. I don’t want it to be known till I can’t hide it any more. It’s a little girl, Pete. We need to think about names. Don’t say anything, Love, just love me. I need you.” Pete understood, and they made love rather more violently than they had done for years. In the afterglow Gladys said, “Thank you.”

“You’re thanking me for making love with you?”

“No. I’m thanking you for your understanding.”

“Well, you are welcome, and I hate to admit it, but just in case you couldn’t tell I did enjoy myself.”

“Idiot.”

“Guilty as charged. Does anyone other than me know yet, Love?”

“Only Harriet. I wanted her to know because if things had gone wrong I would have needed her.” Pete nodded. “You know she and Gustav are looking into adoption, Pete?”

“Yes. Gustav mentioned it a while back. He said Harriet had telt him to tell me. I said I thought it to be an appropriate thing to be doing at that stage of their relationship.”

“I asked Harriet to start the ball rolling immediately after the wedding, because maybe if I lost the baby I could at least be a grandma. She telt me that she already had some contacts with adoption agencies who didn’t care that she is trans, nor that she and Gustav aren’t married yet. They’ll place children with singles and unmarried couples, but apparently their searches are rather more in depth than other places. All they care about is that children will be safe and loved with their needs met. Stuff like religion and LGBT+ issues are of no concern to them. The agencies have all started looking into matters and are collaborating regards that. Harriet has been cleared, but Gustav being a foreigner will take them a little longer. How do you feel about all this, Love?”

“If you’re happy. I’m happy. You happy?”

“No. I’m beyond thrilled. Make love to me again, Pete. Gently this time. Then we both need sleep. We’ve both got deliveries arriving early tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

They were making love when Gladys said, “I think I should tell, Gustav, Elle and Sasha. What do you think?”

“I think you are a very sexy lady and a piece of fluff young enough to be my daughter. I also think you’ll tell whomever you wish to, and that’s all fine with me too.”

“That is really very nice of you, and what you are doing is very nice too. I wonder if this pregnancy will make me as randy as the last one did?”

“I do hope so.”

“Me too.”

It wasn’t long before Gladys said, “That was very nice indeed. Night, Pete.”

“Night, Love” Gladys was asleep almost immediately, but it was an hour before Pete’s thoughts allowed him to sleep. He was truly happy for Gladys, and himself too, but he prayed for a better outcome than they’d experienced with Delia. Most of all he prayed that Gladys did not lose the baby.

~o~O~o~

Pete and Gladys both awoke at five, and were smiling as they prepared to get dressed. Gladys stood in front of the mirror and asked, “Can you tell yet, Love?”

“I think so, but I’m not sure. Your breasts look bigger, but your tummy is not much changed. Can you feel movement yet?”

“It is a little early for me to shew. I should shew some time towards the end of the next four weeks and probably feel movement then too. My breasts are bigger. That started over a month ago. I had to buy some new bras. We’ve probably got a month before it’s obvious. I’ll finish dressing and get ready for the grocery delivery. I promised Aggie I’d do it, so she can get on with the breakfasts with Harriet. How much are you and Gustav taking delivery of?”

“A full load of barrels and we’ve the wines and spirits delivery too this morning. Gustav is expecting delivery of some brewing equipment some time this week, possibly today but more likely tomorrow. I’ll go and catch you for breakfast once I’ve opened the cellar hatches.”

Aggie was entering the kitchen as Gladys was filling the first tea kettle. She said, “I’ll deal with the breakfasts if you deal with the tea and coffee, Gladys.”

Aggie was getting the makings of breakfast out of her fridges when her eye caught Gladys’ face. She looked hard at Gladys’ face then her gaze lowered. Gladys thought ‘So much for another month of privacy’.

“Congratulations, Gladys. Who else knows?”

Knowing it was pointless to do else than accept that Aggie knew she was pregnant Gladys replied, “Only Pete and Harriet. I’m going to tell Gustav, Elle and Sasha.”

“None else will find out from me, Lass, but there are a lot of other women who will be able to tell.”

“What gave me away? My boobs?”

“No. Your face, Love. You’re blooming and there’s only one thing I know that puts that look on a girl’s face. You’ve gained a cup size at least, but that can happen due to the time of the month. Your face, no. Only a baby does that. How far are you along?”

“About thirteen weeks.”

“It’ll be no secret for long, Lass, but with your history I suggest you take it easy. Let Harriet take up your load. I’ll get someone else to deal with the delivery, and don’t bother arguing because I shan’t listen to you. Be sensible.”

Aggie knew about Gladys’ miscarriages and had been a tower of strength in those unhappy days. Gladys said, “Pete said the same without saying a word. Thanks, Aggie. It’s a little girl.”

Aggie hugged her and kissed her forehead saying, “Sit down. I’ll fetch a pot of tea and pour us all one. I don’t want to see you in here till nine from now on because I don’t want to be shouted at by Pete or Harriet, and you know they’d be right to shout at me. I’ll have a word with Harriet and we’ll find some more help from somewhere. Morning, Pete, from now on Gladys is not to get out of bed till nine, okay? I’ll be dealing with things with Harriet. Gladys won’t argue because, well you know why because. I’ll hire some more help as and when we need it.”

Pete sighed with relief and said, “Thanks, Aggie. I thought I was in for a stand up row with Gladys sometime soon. So now I’m ready for a decent breakfast. Tell you what though, Gladys ate like a horse when she was expecting Delia, so get used to it.”

1 Cow cabbage, a large, solid, white cabbage often left for animals to graze whilst still rooted, hence the name. Often strip grazed with an electric fence.
2 The lasses are wearing the kit, an expression used by northern UK men that doesn’t refer to ‘kit’ as in clothes, which is the usual usage. It refers to the female body, as in the women are wearing, or walking about with, the parts that men are interested in.
3 Telt, told.
4 NHS, National Health Service.
5 Snafu, situation normal all fucked up.
6 Mind, remember.
7 Received pronunciation English, (often referred to as RP), the Queen’s/King’s English or Oxford English is the accent traditionally regarded as the standard for British English. There has been a lot of argument concerning that for over a century. Many educated northerners regard the concept of good English being defined as RP as insultingly patronising and bigoted. It is true to say that many less well educated northerners simply don’t understand RP speakers.
8 Gey, very.
9 Away, in this usage referring to those who have died.
10 Back to backs are a form of terraced houses in the UK, built from the late 18th century through to the early 20th century in various guises. Many thousands of these dwellings were built during the Industrial revolution for the rapidly increasing population of expanding factory towns. Back to backs share party walls on three of their four sides, with the front wall having the only door and windows. Back to backs were built as the cheapest possible housing for the impoverished working class, and their construction was usually sub-standard. Their configuration did not allow for sufficient ventilation or sanitation. Toilets and water supplies were shared with multiple households in enclosed courtyards. Back to backs gained an unfavourable reputation for poor levels of health and hygiene. Around the mid-19th century, back to backs were deemed unsatisfactory and a hazard to health. The Public Health Act 1875 permitted municipal corporations to ban new back to backs, replaced in the next phase of building by by-law terraced houses. Leeds City Council opted not to enforce the ban. The popularity of back to back houses with builders and residents led to their continued construction in Leeds until the 1930s. Most back to backs were demolished in waves of slum clearances, although many remain in Leeds and Bradford.
11 Vimto, a soft drink first sold in Lancashire in the UK. It was first manufactured as a health tonic in cordial form, then decades later as a carbonated drink. It contains the juice of grapes, raspberries and blackcurrant, flavoured with herbs and spices. Vimto was created in 1908 in Manchester, England by John Noel Nichols, a wholesaler of herbs, spices and medicines. He saw the market opening for soft drinks due to the temperance movement and the 1908 Licensing Act. Originally sold under the name Vim Tonic Nichols later shortened the name to Vimto.
12 Safety elfs, vernacular for health and safety regulations.
13 Fash yoursel, worry yourself.
14 Poteen, Irish moonshine.
15 Akvavit, distilled spirit principally produced in Scandinavia.
16 Cactus juice, Tequila.
17 Genever, also jenever is Dutch gin made in The Netherlands and Belgium.
18 A nicker, colloquial usage for a UK pound. Maybe going on for one and a half US dollars.
19 Marrowfats are a type of culinary pea.
20 John Major was a compromise candidate for leadership of his party when Margaret Thatcher was forced by her own party to give up leadership because they believed her to be unelectable. He was referred to as the Grey Man.
21 Weak Tea, an elliptical reference to Earl Grey tea. John Major was perceived as a weak man.
22 Margaret Thatcher ended the free milk in schools which had ensured school children had a better diet by giving all UK children a half/ third/quarter of a pint of full cream milk every school day. It was usually provided at morning break. The program had been in place since the second world war. She was opprobriously dubbed ‘Thatcher the milk snatcher’ by the centre and left wing press for years. Free school lunches and had been the subject of the 1906 Education Act and its 1921 extension to include milk, the subsequent 1944 Education Act which provided both and the separate 1946 School Milk Act which specified a third of a pint of full cream milk to be provided in schools to all children under the age of eighteen. School meals have a long history in the UK. When compulsory education was introduced in the 1870s, thousands of poor children went to school hungry. The city of Manchester started giving some children meals in 1879 and the 1906 Education Act allowed authorities to provide meals, but very few did.
23 Edwina Currie later admitted to having had a previous sexual relationship with prime minister John Major.
24 Edwina Currie had to resign over her stating that most eggs sold in the UK, whether produced at home or abroad, carried salmonella. She was subsequently found to have been correct.
25 Email Queen a reference to the scandal caused when secret and top secret emails were found on Hilary Clinton’s inadequately secure, private computer equipment.
26 Party Canceller, a double reference to the victory celebration party that was cancelled when Hilary Clinton unexpectedly lost the presidential election to Donald Trump, and the perceived relationship between ‘Cancel Culture’ and the US Democrat party.
27 I didn’t inhale Lewinski, a double reference to Bill Clinton’s protestations that when he smoked marijuana he didn’t inhale and to his illicit sexual liaison with Monica Lewinski when he was president.
28 Burly Chassis, Shirley Bassey the singer.
29 Selt, sold.
30 Downbank, down hill, deteriorated.
31 Splitting maul, a heavy, wide angled axe used for splitting logs. Usually with a hammer head on the opposite end of the head and about three to four kilos in weight [7-9 pounds].

Harriet and Gustav had announced they were going to get married several weeks ago. Harriet and Gladys were full of wedding plans and Gustav and Pete were playing out of sight. They wanted the wedding after Gladys had had her baby, so were planning for in five months time. Gustav’s mother and brothers had arranged for der Kupfer-Braukessel to be managed by friends who were familiar with what was necessary whilst they had a week off to attend the wedding. The adoption agencies had finally cleared Gustav as a suitable prospective parent and were looking for a sibling pair of opposite sexes under the age of five for the couple. Harriet and Gustave had said that the idea wasn’t set in stone, so if other opportunities came up to they would like to be contacted. That was six weeks ago, but so far nothing had turned up at all.

When Harriet had been talking to Adela, the wife of Bernhard Gustav’s eldest brother Adela told her that Clara the brothers’ mother would be at the wedding with Wolfgang. Wolfgang was she said looking like he was going to propose to her mother in law, probably before Harriet’s wedding. The brothers and their wives were all in favour of the match because Wolfgang was a decent man who’d recently retired after a lifetime spent working in engineering. Adela added, he clearly made Clara happy and she’d been lonely for over long. Harriet had considered it appropriate to tell Adela that she was trans, so if it caused any problems those with problems could back out and avoid coming to the wedding. Adela’s reaction was all that Harriet could have hoped for. “Do you love Gustav? She asked.

“Of course.”

“Does he love you?”

“I wouldn’t be marrying him if I didn’t believe that to be true.”

“Then there is nothing to discuss. Anika, Jessika and Clara will see it that way. I certainly see it that way. Bernhard, Carl and Ernst probably won’t care and in any case we live here in Bavaria and you live a long way from here in Cumbria. The men will remain silent on the matter if they know what is good for them no matter what their opinions. We will make that very clear to them, but I doubt there will be any problems. Clara will be delighted to hear you are adopting, and she will make it clear that she will be very disappointed if her sons’ behaviour means she will not see her grandchildren.” Adela who was an English teacher in a local secondary school laught and said, “There is a lovely English expression I have never had a chance to use before. Any trouble from the men and they will be recieving an excessive amount of preserved meat at every opportunity, hot tongue and cold shoulder. Don’t worry, Harriet, none in the family will be bothered, surprised, yes, bothered, no.”

~o~O~o~

Gustav’s brewery was to be set up in the old tannery which had been purchased for more or less the site value since the building was considered by its owners, who lived somewhere in Somerset, to be dilapidated to the point of potentially costing money to demolish before the claims for injury came in. The grumpy old men discussed the matter in the tap room and concluded it was possible to restore it economically if only just. Freddy a local and a retired bricklayer said the exterior was no problem to restore to it’s original condition. A major benefit was it fronted the site and looked perfect for marketing material. A huge prefabricated factory building was built by locals supervised by Bill behind the old tannery in such a way as to be barely visible other than from behind, and eventually Freddy and a gang of locals built a brick shell around the prefabricated building using recycled old bricks so that it blended in perfectly with the original tannery. The new building was where the brewing was going to take place whilst the restored tannery was used for offices and a number of other activities that had nothing to do with the brewery.

The UK suppliers of the brewing equipment had been surprised that they were not required to install and commission the equipment for which they had planned to charge an exorbitant price and had said that being the case they would provide no guarantee on the equipment. Gustav immediately cancelled the order and rang his eldest brother in Bavaria asking him to find a source of equipment over there. “Why do you need to buy new equipment, Gustav? When there is a complete brewery here. Our plans to extend the inn with more bedrooms for the summer trade are nearing completion and the brewing equipment has to be removed sometime in the next six months. If you will pay half of the dismantling and removal costs you can have the equipment. Mother, Carl and Ernst will agree and I’m sure father would have approved. I’ll need to find a careful company to do the job without damaging anything which may take time, but it can be done.”

“Bernhard, I shall speak with Alf who is a friend who lives here. He is a mechanical genius and I’m sure he could put together some men to do the job with no damage. Charlie, another friend, will wish to be involved and he speaks local German. Alf’ll be able to package all to transport safely and probably arrange the transport too. You talk to Mother, Carl and Ernst and I’ll talk to Alf.” The brothers were both happy at the arrangement.

Alf asked Gustav to have some photographs taken, so he could see what needed to be done, and spoke to Harry who owned and operated his own eighteen wheeler. When the pair of them examined the photos they agreed two eighteen wheelers with forty foot trailers would be required. “I’ll put the word out for you, Alf. There’s bound to be an owner operator dropping over there who’d appreciate a return load.”

Harry took Alf, Gustav, half a ton of Alf’s tools, a huge amount of construction timber for packaging and a team of six Bearthwaite men over to Bavaria. All was dismantled, boxed and crated in three days. Three very long days, but they were made easier with Charlie and Gustav being German speakers and able to explain to the four local workers provided by Gustav’s brothers what was required. Jake turned up on the second day with his waggon and an empty forty foot box trailer and pitched in with the work. They finished loading the waggons on day four and set off for Cumbria at six in the morning on day five. Gustav’s brothers had been amazed at the speed of it all, for they’d been told it would be at least a fortnight’s work just to dismantle everything. Alf’s price was so reasonable that Gustav’s brothers paid him in full without a qualm and told Gustav the entire price was far less than the half they had anticipated paying and they looked forward to seeing it all in operation sometime.

~o~O~o~

The following Saturday evening in the taproom of the Green dragon the men hadn’t even sat down when Dave asked “I’ve seen the stuff unloaded in the brewery. So did it all go smoothly then, Alf?”

“Apart from Bill scaring the shit out of us by setting Harry alight with a gas axe (1) a couple of times it went okay, Dave.”

“How the hell did that happen? Bill’s a really careful bloke and he’s magic with oxy.”

“Yeah I know, that’s why he was the one using the gas axe. Where they were working it was gey(2) tight for space. It would have taken another day and a half to do it from the other side. I’d have been happy enough to take the time, but Harry said if Bill wielded the gas axe and Joe a fire extinguisher he’d take his chances on pulling the hot pins out. Wearing all cotton, two pairs of pants, two shirts and a freshly washed cotton overall with no grease on it plus a flame proof face mask and gloves he told them to get on with it. I thought all fucking three of them were crazy, but they’d done in an hour with no injuries, and the tank was loaded and secured on a trailer in another. The time consuming bit was crating up all the small bits so as to prevent them getting damaged. Most of the stuff is copper, beautiful to look at, made by craftsmen to work of art standards. It would be criminal to damage it. We’ll have to build some supporting structures for some of it, but I reckon to do the job in coppered stainless so as to look the part.”

~o~O~o~

It took a month to reassemble the brewery and the inspectorate granted a licence after a three hour inspection. The customs and excise licence was a formality. It took a few weeks to find a master brewer to oversee the operation and to start training the initial staff of three locals and Gustav who were also taking evening classes in brewing at a local technical college.

~o~O~o~

“Changing the subject, Alf, how come you managed to free the oil drainage plug on Alice’s car when no one else could?”

“I have special sockets that are a perfect fit on the plugs no matter what they be. Tapered square male or female, hex, torx, whatever.”

“Where do you buy those from?”

“You can’t buy all of then because some are only available to the car dealers. They aren’t for sale to the general public, so I make ‘em. It’s easy enough. If I haven’t got a socket that fits, I use a piece of tool steel and get the male ones to rough shape by forging on the anvil, finish the shape by filing before hardening and tempering them. In the worst cases I have to use a die grinder. Females are more involved because I have to make a male drift to drive into the drilled white hot metal before getting the final shape by driving the white hot metal onto the plug. Then harden and temper as usual. In the past I’ve made three and four point sockets to get the drain plug out the first time. In dire cases I weld or braze something appropriate to the plug. If it’s a weird fitting, because it’s likely that I’ll be changing the oil on that vehicle again, I replace the plug with a conventional one, a Japanese type if it’s a Japanese vehicle and usually a Ford one if it’s anything else. I try to use a conventional plug off another vehicle of the same make if possible. If I have to make a plug by screw cutting a blank on the lathe or machining a standard fitting that is commercially available it’s no big deal. I’ve got a box of plugs. Jim at the scrapyard saves them for me. In return I do the odd small job for him for free. I’ve put a standard Toyota Corolla plug in Alice’s motor, so next time it’ll be a piece of cake.”

Alf continued, “Actually I wanted to tell a tale tonight.”

The others nodded, and Dave said, “Keep going, Alf lad.”

Alf took a deep pull on his pint and continued. “The so called horticultural experts all talk Bullshit. They all agree Egyptian onions, also known as tree or walking onions don’t flower. Every book I’ve ever read and every TV programme I’ve ever watched said it’s only possible to propagate them vegetatively from offsets. All expert authorities say they never produce flowers. I think they all talk shite because never is a bloody long time. The other day I was walking round my plots with a bottle of IPA(3) in my hand because it was a hot day and I’d done four hours graft by nine o’clock. I was gobsmacked by what I saw and so I took photos with my mobile. One of my Egyptian onions was in flower. The flowers were among the bulbils of a secondary growth growing out of the first set of bulbils. There were vegetative bulbils in the secondary cluster but half of the cluster was flowers. It was the first time I have seen it happen in sixty-odd years, and I have no idea what will pollinate them, maybe some other allium, maybe they’ll self pollinate, maybe they won’t be fertilised this time, but they flowered and I can prove it. I have always believed that all the plants that the experts say can only be propagated vegetatively, like say saffron crocus, do actually reproduce sexually. It may be so rare an event that none has yet recorded it, but I believe it does happen for all such plants, even the genetically weird ones like saffron crocus which has three sets of chromosomes, triploidy they call it. Funny thing is when I got home I looked it up on the internet and there for the first time I saw a reference to Egyptian onions being able to flower. It said the competition from the bulbils was too fierce for the flowers to develop and the author said he or she had never seen seeds. However there was a copy of a letter dated 1780 included in the article which referred to bulbils and seeds being produced. The article also said the modern genetics studies indicated they were a result of a cross between Welsh multiplier onions, Allium fistulosum, and ordinary onions, Allium cepa. The only conclusion I came to was that every so called expert since at least 1780 was nowhere near as widely educated and well informed as they claimed to be. They certainly weren’t as well read as they should have been.”

There was a long silence as the men in the taproom considered how to respond. Eventually Dave said, “I don’t understand, Alf. I want to because I reckon it matters, so explain in more detail please. You’ve always said you don’t understand why the rest of us bother with you, but this is the reason why we do, Mate. You’re fucking clever at things we have no understanding of at all. For fuck’s sake explain what the hell you’re talking about. I truly believe it’s significant, but honest to God, Mate. I just don’t get it, and I can see from the looks on the faces of the lads they don’t get it either. I can also see that we all want to understand what you are going on about.” Dave had a seriously perplexed look on his face and the other men in the taproom both locals and outsiders were nodding in agreement with him.

“You all know that inheritance is from your genes which are on your chromosomes?” All nodded. “You know that a baby gets one set of chromosomes from its mum and the other from its dad?”

All nodded again and Dave added, “I even know that the mother is XX so always supplies a female X chromosome and the dad is XY so can supply either an X or a Y chromosome which decides whether the baby is a boy or a girl.”

“Yeah well, in most cases inheritance is similar. In some cases the father has two chromosomes the same but the mother has two different ones so she determines the sex of the offspring. However some are nothing like that at all. Bees for example are genetically super weird. Males have no father. I’m no expert, so if you want to know more Tony can tell you about it.”

Tony nodded, “Sure. If you want to know I’ll have a think about it for explaining sometime. Mind it’s damned complicated and new stuff is being discovered all the time.”

Alf continued, “Sometimes things go wrong, for example if there is a full or even partial third copy of chromosome number twenty-one, people normally have twenty-three pairs of chromosomes, the individual has Down syndrome. That sort of extra chromosome is called trisomy. Most things aren’t that severe, but some can be lethal, and they reckon the fœtus aborts often before the mother was even aware she was pregnant. In the case of the saffron crocus there are three complete sets of chromosomes which is called triploidy. More sets is referred to as polyploidy. Recently it was discovered the saffron crocus originated in Crete or Central Asia and is descended from wild Crocus cartwrightianus. Experts still insist it’s completely sterile but also say it has some genetic variability. Those two statements are kind of mutually exclusive I reckon. We all know spuds are grown from tubers and any one variety is a huge clone. King Edwards are genetically identical all over the world. The same can be said for a lot of commercially grown plants, especially fruit cultivars. However, if there is any genetic diversity at all in the saffron crocus they can’t strictly speaking be called a clone. So I believe you can’t rule out entirely the possibility of successful pollination and seed setting. It may be near enough true, but I don’t believe it is one hundred percent true, whether it’s been seen to occur or not.”

Stan breathed out a huge breath and said, “Fuck me, Lads! Was that really Alf speaking? Where did you learn all that, Alf?”

“I’ve always been interested in plants. Dad used to take me to the allotments before I could walk. The rest I looked up on the internet last night ready for my tale. It’s easy to remember if you think it’s interesting.”

~o~O~o~

“You got a spare cucumber plant I could have, Alf?”

“No problem, Phil. I’ve got some spare courgettes too if you want?”

“Thanks. If I could have a couple of courgettes that would be good. I left it too late to sow them this year. I went to Dobbies at Cardewlees Carlisle, but only found a sorry looking courgette and no cucumbers. They’d got sod all left. I did manage to pick up three peppers and seven tomatoes. Then I went for a coffee in the cafeteria but the lass on the till wanted all sorts of details for track and trace. I said she was all right but I didn’t want to. She said I had to, so I telt her I didn’t want a coffee that badly and walked out. When you see the fuck up that mobile phone app is causing with this pingdemic it’s sensible to avoid all of it. They did, however, take my money at the till for the plants with no questions asked. No truck drivers to deliver stuff, and workers by the tens of thousands stuck at home because the GPS on their smart phone shews they went somewhere near someone with covid means the shelves in all the shops and supermarkets are three-quarters empty. There’s no difference made for someone sleeping with someone they met somewhere who has covid and someone else who was in a car in a traffic jam near another driver with covid when both had the windows shut. Tell you it’s nuts. Anyone who puts that app on their phone has a wheel going in the wrong direction. Anyone for a pint? Oh and that damned courgette I managed to buy turned out to be a bloody cucumber.”

~o~O~o~

After all had had their glasses refilled Sasha said, “I’ve a tale to tell, well I downloaded it off the internet and printed a copy for my files. It was posted anonymously by a woman, but I thought it was an amazing tale of life as it truly ought to be. I’d rather none commented on it when I finish telling it, for I’m only telling it for us all to think about.” The men wondered what was coming, but all respected Sasha enormously, so they just nodded their acceptance of his terms.

“She was an old woman who’d had six children, and that was enough to have impaired her bladder control.

“Years ago when both were in their early sixties, when they were making love she’d sat over his face and he’d said, ‘You’re peeing on me, Love. Go take a leak and we’ll continue.’ Ten minutes later he’d gone into their en suite bathroom to find her and said, ‘What’s the problem? I thought we were making love.’

“Deeply embarrassed she’d replied, ‘I feel so ashamed, and I couldn’t return to bed.’

“ ‘Don’t be silly, my Love. I want you, I need you to enable me to be a man. You are not the young girl I married. You are the mother of my children and the grandmother of theirs which has naturally taken its toll on you. I am not the boy you married, so I can’t perform the way I could once. Not yet, but one day soon I shall probably need Viagra or something similar to manage at all. Time has passed, but it has not passed us by. We are merely ageing. There is nothing to be ashamed of about that. For those it doesn’t happen to are the unlucky ones who died before their time. Come, enjoy the night, for whatever occurs we can take a shower before we sleep, and that will be enjoyable if we shower together.’

“He was she knew not the most intelligent of men, yet she’d always known he was the one who managed their relationship for he was far more perceptive and empathic than she. From the day he’d met her he’d always said, ‘I shall be able to cope with age and whatever it does to me. For most men that is a worry, but not for me. I take a vigorous enjoyment in your body as we are. As we move into middle age I shall accept the slowing of desire for both of us. As an old man I shall enjoy whatever our age affords us. When young I shall pursue you for pleasure. In our middle years doubtless we shall both enjoy what we can provide each other. However, in our twilight years, doubtless you will be more able than I, but I accept that and I shall do my best.’

“Well the twilight years had come upon them long ago, and all he’d told her as a young man had come to pass. She’d not believed him then, but he’d been and done exactly what he’d said he would be and do. Both now well over eighty, diabetes and blood pressure issues precluded him taking Viagra and its like, but they made love at least once a month, and still they both enjoyed it. They had discussed the future when one of them would be left alone and had plans in place for both of them to cope with that, but for the present life was still good.

“The piece ended with her reflecting, ‘I am that old woman and Joseph passed a few months ago. I miss him terribly. I miss the prospect of making love. I’m neither morbid nor depressed, but I hope to join him soon.’ ”

All knew the tale couldn’t have been of any they knew else Sasha wouldn’t have repeated it, but there were a few, both locals and outsiders, who knew the tale was applicable to them though none other than they and their wives knew that. Pete nodded when it was clear Sasha had finished and said, “I see why you said there is to be no comment on the tale, Sasha. I agree, however, I think a goodly drop of the hard stuff rather than a pint is in order after that. Stan help me fetch a selection from the cellar will you?”

As the two men went to fetch some of the ‘rare stuff’ those in the tap room carried on drinking. All looked serious and none met any else’s eyes. The ‘rare stuff’ was privately owned, mostly illegal, distillates which the men acquired from all over the world. A lot of it was toxic in large quantities, None had ever had any form of tax paid on it and all was prohibited from being sold. However, if an outsider fancied a drop, a donation of a couple of quid into the children’s Christmas party collection box would solve the matter.

After Michael, the local police sergeant who was born and had grown up in the village of Bearthwaite had passed the collection box round for the donations, all who required a glass of serious chemic(4) had been served and beer glasses had been topped up the dominoes were produced for the second part of the evening’s entertainment.

1 Gas axe, common term used for an oxy acetylene cutting torch.
2 Gey, very.
3 IPA, India pale ale. A common style of beer in the UK.
4 Chemic, a colloquial term for spirits, probably derived from the word chemical.

I just copied these three mesages from ‘My Messages’ because I thought others may be interested. I have cleaned up the copy somewhat to make it more readable.

Snarfles Sep 12
Loved the story!
However I do need to make a correction to your definition of IPA. It does indeed stand for India Pale Ale, but most people believe it was a style of ale discovered in India and brought to Britain. The opposite is actually true. India pale ale was first created by adding hops to the brewing process, as a preservative, to enable Britain to ship ale to India without spoilage. In the 1400s the official ingredients list for ales was updated to include hops, by royal decree. At present, there are more than 140 varieties of hops, and nearly a dozen ways in which to use them in the brewing process, each with a distinctive flavor. The hops from various regions generally carry a discernable flavor note as well; floral from Europe, citrusy from the Southeastern US, Woody from the Northern US, and earthy from the Western US.
In addition to the individual flavor base, the variety of usages ( such as inclusion in the primary brewing, dry hopping, pre-roasting, etc ) and the ratio of mixing various hops in a single brewing, the combinations are too numerous to list; just as the preparation of the barley pre-brewing changes the resultant flavors. Add to that the nearly 150 varieties of yeasts, brewing temperatures, and the length of the brewing cycle, and you can see where the artistry of crafting ales lies ( pilsners and lagers not withstanding). Finally, expand the list again with porters and stouts using oats rather than barleys, Shandi’s which add fruit juices to ales, wheat ales, and a host of other creative combinations such as coffee ales, chocolate milk stouts, etc..
Imagine! We must give thanks to the shoddy builder in Sumeria, whose poor roofing skills allowed a storage hut to leak and ‘spoil’ a harvest some 3000 years BC.

Eolwaen 9:16 am
Agreed. I am well aware of such history and will gladly discuss such matters. However, brevity is sometimes necessary for a more general readership. Would you have any objection if I posted this discussion for others to read?
Regards,
Eolwaen.

Snarfles 1:16 pm
Absolutely no objections whatsoever.

Life in Bearthwaite had continued and as usual events in the village were determined more by the inexorable turning of the seasons rather than by the artificially imposed government conditions due to Covid 19. The haymaking was over, and all were aware they were in that slight lull in the pace of the agricultural year that occurred between haymaking and harvesting. The general hope was that the harvesting weather would be as good as that they’d enjoyed for the haymaking, for many locals enjoyed part time seasonal work on local farms which added considerably to many straightened family budgets.

~o~O~o~

Gladys was eight and a half months pregnant with the daughter she and Pete had decided to name Gloria. Gladys was big with her pregnancy, and for the last six weeks she’d tired quickly from the least exertion, so she found herself subject to the tyrannical regime imposed on her by Aggie, her elderly, morning cook who had worked for her for years and was a close friend as well as an employee. Aggie and Harriet, Gladys’ daughter, had taken over the management of the housekeeping, cooking and much else that Gladys had done when she’d been able to at the Green Dragon. Typically, Gladys constantly complained she was being bullied by Aggie with the collusion of Pete, her much older husband, and Harriet, but all including herself were aware that she was grateful. She had enjoyed being pregnant, but wasn’t going to be sorry when it was over, and in her own words, “I’ll be glad to have Gloria in my arms rather than in my belly. With a bit of luck my feet won’t hurt so much. I read once that if your feet hurt there’s damn all else you can do because life is decidedly limited sitting down, and in any case then your backside hurts instead.”

~o~O~o~

Gustav’s brewery had been a success, and the first batch of beer had been served at the Green Dragon free to all comers in gratitude for the help the entire village had willingly given to ensure the success of the only new employment venture in the village for at least a generation. As Vince the Mince, the local butcher and slaughterman, had said, “This would have been damned good beer even if I’d had to pay for it. For free it’s the best I’ve ever tasted.” The barley for the first year’s production had had to be bought in from outside, but a number of local farmers including Alex Peabody and his son Alan had agreed with Gustav to grow the varieties of barleys that Clarence, Gustav’s master brewer, wanted for the following year. Gustav was waiting for local land to come up for sale, and he had agreed with the Peabodys that should he be successful they would manage the land under barley for him as external contractors.

~o~O~o~

On the Saturday evening when ‘Bearthwaite Brown’ was first pulled from the pumps in the Green Dragon the crush in the taproom was so bad that many of the men completely broke with tradition and joined their wives in ‘the room’. Others unable to force themselves into the lounge on any day other than a Sunday, when it was expected they would be shaved, in decent clothes and completely spruced up with their wives in the ‘best side’ of the Inn and fit for inspection by their wives’ friends, took their beer outside to enjoy. Fortunately it was a pleasant and relatively warm evening. A much fêted Clarence had maintained, “A good beer needs more time to ripen than the big commercial brewers are willing to give it. They consistently produce a good beer, but rarely a truly superb one, because to them time is money, and their shareholders are leaning over their shoulders watching the clock and counting the pennies. Gustav telt me of course we have to make a profit, but we’re not here to make millions. We’re here to make the best beer we can that contributes to the social life in the Dragon and plays its part in promoting and enhancing the village economy. He wants eventually to employ a bigger work force and sell beer to other nearby free houses,(1) but insists we get the entire process perfected to the point where we can all play our part in our sleep before we expand. He’s the best boss I’ve ever worked for, for there’s no cutting of corners and no cheapening of ingredients. I worked for a huge organisation before I came to Cumbria in Burton upon Trent,(2) and I was going to retire as soon as possible, but here with the much smaller volume of production and without the constant pressure to cut costs and increase production I’m not even thinking about retirement because for the first time since I can’t remember when I’m enjoying going to work.”

That was a while back, and Clarence had announced at the time he was thinking of the next step. Eventually he’d said. “Now we’ve got production of our brown ale down to a fine art, I’m going to try for a lightly hopped ale somewhere between an IPA(3)and a traditional northern bitter in style. I’ve got several trial batches on the go, and I think we’ll have a serious taste testing in here next weekend. I’ll have Pete set the barrels up ready during the week, so they’ll have settled and be ready to drink by Saturday. I’ll bring enough analysis forms for everyone to fill in when I bring the barrels. I suspect we won’t have a clear winner ready to go, but at least I’ll know what needs doing next. I haven’t come up with a name for it yet, and would appreciate any suggestions.”

~o~O~o~

Harriet and Gustav’s wedding plans were proceeding apace, yet though they were in regular contact with the adoption agency they were no nearer to finding children to adopt. Heavily pregnant, Gladys was deeply involved in the wedding plans which to her were at least something she could play a part in without becoming exhausted. Gladys and Harriet were in regular contact with Gustav’s mother and sisters in law in Bavaria concerning arrangements, though the wedding date had not as yet been finalised. It was not spoken of, but all were aware the date would depend on the outcome of Gladys’ pregnancy. If she lost the baby, she had an unfortunate history of several miscarriages, it would be deferred considerably. Most of the worry had disappeared of late, for it was no longer considered likely that anything untoward would happen, for even if Gladys had to have a caesarean section she was already far enough along to virtually guarantee a joyous outcome.

~o~O~o~

The first order of business that Saturday evening for the Grumpy Old Men’s Society and their associates in the taproom of the Green Dragon was the tasting testing session of Clarence’s four new ales. “I’ve already eliminated the others,” Clarence explained, “because they weren’t worth wasting your time and taste buds on. These remaining four are all excellent in different ways. They naturally divide into two different pairs, so I suggest you try a similar pair to decide which you prefer and then you do the same with the other pair.”

“I tried them all down at the brewery the other day before we moved the barrels to the cellar,” Pete said. “To my reckoning every one of them was a better pint than you’d find in most ale houses, but I agree with Clarence that these four are the best.”

The first pair of beers were tried, and all filled in the tasting forms. Gustav collected the forms and after a few minutes announced, “It’s a clear cut result. The sharper, lighter and more heavily hopped sample, labelled A604, is the preferred choice. It’s virtually a unanimous decision.

As with the first pair, the second pair were sampled. This time, however, the decision was not so clear. Gustav announced, “It’s about two to one in favour of A641, but A638 did receive some very favourable comments. Where do we go from here, Clarence?”

“Given that we only have the capacity to brew one full batch at a time, at any one time we have to make a choice as to what we brew. However, we don’t have to brew the same beer every time. We could brew all three and the brown on a cycle and let popularity determine how often each is brewed. I don’t have a problem putting my name to any of these beers, but given the way sales of Bearthwaite Brown are going up to outside houses, I think we need more capacity and staff too, which would give us much more flexibility. I’m thinking of working on a lager and something similar in style to Guinness in the future. One of our high volume customers wants us to brew a dark mild ale(4) of less than three percent in strength. He has a high turn over of mild, but his regular supplier has gone out of business, and he doesn’t think much to what he has had to replace his original mild with. There are opportunities for us to be had, but we do need to seize them with both hands.”

As Harriet came into the taproom with a bucket of kibble and another of water for the dogs she said, “I’ll be back in a minute to collect glasses, Gentlemen.”

“What’s for supper, Harriet Pet?”

“Rabbit stew containing potatoes, swedes(5) and carrots with a handful of barley too, Uncle Vincent. We’ll be dishing it up in about an hour. Veronica made it this afternoon using vegetables donated by Uncle Alf and his allotment(6) mates, and the barley is from a sack Auntie Alice from the mill gave me a while back. It’s being served with Auntie Aggie’s pickled red cabbage. Mum bought the rabbits off Uncle Bill’s grandsons. Alan Peabody is paying them to reduce the rabbit population because they are damaging his vegetable crops, and he said they could keep whatever they could kill. You mind a while back he came across some fox snares set where drainages ditches go through a pipe under the field entrances. Well he reckons whoever set them must have set more that he didn’t find, cos he hasn’t seen a fox for six months. He and his dad never go anywhere on the land now without a shotgun. Uncle Alex claims they’re after wood pigeons, but I wouldn’t fancy being a stranger acting suspiciously on their land till some foxes move in to control the rabbits, cos at the moment Uncle Alex is absolutely hoppin’ mad about it.”

Like the others, Sasha was spluttering with laughter, but he managed to say, “That sounds just like the Alex we have all come to know and love, and that boy of his is a regular chip of the old block.”

“Aye, and he’s a damned fine shot too, Sasha,” remarked Freddy, who was no mean shot himself.

“After I’ve collected the glasses, I’ll get Gustav to pull some pints if you want, Gentlemen. He’s in the cellar at the moment putting on another barrel of mild.”

“It’s all right, Love,” Pete said. “I’ll collect the glasses and pull the pints myself. You go and make sure your mum’s not doing too much and see if Veronica needs any help in the kitchen.”

“Okay, thanks, Dad.” Harriet kissed Pete’s cheek and left with her now empty buckets.

Denis asked, “You any idea how lucky you are to have that girl, Pete? That older brother of yours must have been a complete fucking idiot abusing her to the point where living on the streets in Manchester was a better option than living with him. No bloke worthy of being called a man would do that to any kid never mind one of his own, no matter were they trans, nor anything else.”

All the locals and the regular Saturday evening drinkers knew Harriet’s story and she was a popular and well loved young woman. There were nods and sounds of agreement all around the room, before Alf summed it all up by saying, “She’s a proper sweetie, and my missus says she’ll be a brilliant mum the way she handles kids. Any news on the adoption front yet, Pete?”

“I know. She’s the best thing that ever happened to Gladys, Denis, and after a dodgy start, she’s turned out to be not bad at picking men either. I don’t reckon they get much better than Gustav. As for kids, Alf, there’s no news yet, but the agency are in regular touch with them.”

None said anything in response, but all looked a little glum in their disappointment at the lack of good news concerning the young couple’s hopes to adopt. “You get behind the bar and start pulling pints, Pete Lad, and I’ll collect glasses before I fetch another couple of bottles of the rare stuff(7) from the cellar.” At that Stan drained his glass, stood and started rounding up empties.

“When you’re in the cellar, Stan, fetch bottles out of that crate that was delivered for me the other day. There’re two different kinds, one is deep green and the other a kind of pale lemon colour. Bring a couple of bottles of each.”

“Sure thing, Sasha.”

The matter of brewing more beers and expanding the brewery was discussed till Harriet announced supper would be on the tables in five minutes.

Over supper, amongst comments of ‘Damned fine bit of stew this’ and similar of the same intent, the brewery continued to be the major topic of conversation.

Sasha asked Gustav, “You got enough money to extend the brewery and buy some more equipment, Gustav?”

“I don’t know, Sasha. Paying for extending the building will be no problem, even paying for it to be done like the first extension. I mean a prefabricated building clad in recycled brickwork to make it look the same as the original building. The equipment I’m not so sure about. That English firm we approached first were very expensive and not easy to deal with. I’ll ring my brother Bernhard to see if he can track down some second hand equipment for me. It’s not that many years ago that most Inns in Bavaria used to brew their own beer, so maybe we could do a similar deal with one, two or even more of them. I’d like to be able to brew four different beers at the same time, but maybe I’m just dreaming.”

“How many jobs would that create, Gustav?” asked Gerry. “I mean once the place was built, not the temporary construction jobs.”

“We currently employ six full time and two part time workers, plus Clarence and myself. We were after another couple of full timers, but Wilf and Eamonn who both live in Bearthwaite have accepted the jobs, The only problem is they’re both working, so we’re having to wait while they serve their month’s notice where they’re working now. At the moment Harriet insists on doing the paperwork for us, but if we expanded we’d need a couple of administrators because it would overwhelm her, and in any case she does it for free which would have to stop, so the answer to your question is at least two dozen and possibly as many as forty.”

Vince remarked, “Don’t forget neither of you will have as much time available once you have a family, Gustav.”

“Can you sell that much beer to guarantee the safety of those jobs?” Dave asked.

“Can we, Clarence?” Gustav asked.

“Currently, hell yes. I’m having to make sure we reserve enough for this place. I could already sell every barrel several times over. As to whether that situation will continue long term only time will tell. But for the moment no problem. My advice is make the enquiries now, but don’t commit any serious money till we have a full year behind us. Some beers sell better at different times in the year, so best not to get into difficulties as a result of being too optimistic.”

Sasha was seen to be thinking deeply. “Potentially forty jobs‽ I think we need to consider this as a community issue and keep as much work in the community as possible, so it would be a good idea to let everyone know what’s going on because they’ll help rather than risk losing the brewery. That will keep costs down in the short term and maximise any employment opportunities in the long term. I know you only use Harry and his mate Jake for transport, Gustav, but we need to extend the principle in order to keep the next generation living here. Local jobs will assist kids to settle and rear their families here. I need to talk to you, Pete and your ladies about how we go about financing this if it turns costly on us.”

~o~O~o~

“Jesus! What the hell is this stuff, Sasha?” Alf was referring to the pale lemon coloured liquid in his glass.

“It’s called Grappa, Alf. It’s an Italian chemic(8) made by distilling the pomace left over from wine making. Pomace is the skins, pips, and stems of the grapes. It varies in strength from maybe thirty-five to sixty-five percent alcohol by volume. I was informed this is sixty-two point one percent. It’s widely available, and made all over the place in Italy, but it’s difficult to get hold of stuff of this quality because it’s only made by a few small businesses. It’s actually legal which makes a change.” Reflectively Sasha added, “Well it would be if any duty had been paid on it, but hell Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise can’t have all the fun in life.”

There was quiet laughter at that, because a lot of the ‘rare stuff’ they privately owned was not permitted to be made, never mind selt for public consumption. The Grumpy Old Men had extensive dodgy contacts in Europe, and not a few elsewhere who provided them with the corrosive liquors they imbibed from time to time. None had ever paid customs and excise duty to the powers that be.

Vince the Mince,(9) the local slaughterman and butcher, had tried the green liquor first and said, “Not bad, not bad at all. I like the taste, but hell it’s strong enough to take a man off his legs. Mind water will do that to me.” There was a round of laughter at that as Vincent had suffered from polio as a child and needed two sticks to walk, and he couldn’t walk far even with his sticks. “What is it, Sasha? And just how strong is it?”

“It’s absinthe. This is from a different source than my usual supplier. Over the years, there have been all sorts of claims about absinthe due to the presence of thujones in the drink which are chemicals that come from the wormwood plant the drink is made with. Because of the thujones, absinthe has been claimed to be psychoactive, and also everything from toxic all the way to beneficial to health depending on whom you listen to. Absinthe was banned for years in various countries. It’s now legal in most places, but most countries restrict the amounts of thujones permitted in the stuff. The States allows up to ten milligrammes per litre. European countries allow up to thirty-five. Even when it was banned enthusiasts continued small scale production. This is the real deal from a producer the authorities have never heard of, and I imagine it contains way more than thirty-five milligrammes per litre of thujones. However, the only conclusions that can be drawn from an unbiased study of the scientific literature, are first like anything else prolonged over indulgence is dangerous, after all even too much water can kill you.”

“I’m not having that, Sasha. You’re saying that clean pure water can be toxic and kill you?”

“I’m not saying you die from toxicity, but death due to too much water happens all the time. It’s called drowning, Stan.”

It took a while for the laughter to fade sufficiently to enable Sasha to continue with his explanations. “Pure thujones are without doubt psychoactive, but at levels found in any absinthe ever made the effect would have been small, if any occurred at all. Probably the claims for toxicity were were made by the folk who were trying to have alcohol banned too. The temperance movements were strong and loudly influential in those days.”

“Bastards should a bin strung up for not minding their own businesses.”

“I suspect a goodly few were, Alf. It was easier in those days to get rid of social misfits, especially in rural areas where the local aristocrat enjoyed a drink himself without the interference of social do gooders and folk who’d come down with a serious dose of religious intolerance. However, some of the other claims were probably made by those who were also taking drugs and those who were already having hallucinations from regular long term alcohol abuse. Years ago, both habits were commonplace with folk who drank a lot of absinthe, and that was folk from all walks of life, not just derelicts and deadbeats. I suspect if one of us drank absinthe till we fell over the only ill effect from such a one off experience would be a sore head the following morning due to the alcohol. I’m telt this stuff is similar in strength to Polish spirits which is about eighty percent alcohol by volume. However, since we are all familiar with an alcohol induced sore head that’s not really a big deal. I just like the taste every now and again. Here, I’ll pass the bottle round, so you can all have a refill.

~o~O~o~

Paid staff were never employed to work behind the taproom bar, for all the local men who drank there considered it to be a fundamental part of their membership of the Grumpy Old Men’s Society to be able to function as both a barman and a cellar-man, and would have regarded it as a serious insult to Pete, who was a local for more generations than any could remember, and regarded most highly, if due to their negligence he had had to seek paid help. Too, that any serious taproom drinker couldn’t change a barrel, wash out beer lines or pull pints would have been regarded by them all as serious effeminacy on a par with drinking from half pint glasses, carrying an umbrella, other than holding one over their good ladies of course, or even worse carrying flowers, unless they grew them on the allotments for sale or were providing their wives with them for their turn to organise the church flowers. All locals made sure their younger sons and grandsons, who were all drinking in the taproom with the oversight of the older men long before they were legally entitled to, were capable of fulfilling their adult responsibilities regarding the bar and the cellar. Many of the men’s younger sons and grandsons enjoyed, again with the oversight of the older men, a pint of weak shandy, which was mostly lemonade, in the taproom, and as a result they felt they were part of an ongoing ages old tradition by keeping the fires stoked and the dogs fed and watered. Bearthwaite customs were very liberal, as the total acceptance of Harriet who was trans had demonstrated, but there were limits concerning how far the men were prepared to go, which were actually nowhere near as tightly constrained as to what their ladies were prepared to accept as proper female behaviour. Trousers of any form were not acceptable to Bearthwaite women as wear for any female accepted into their society as a Bearthwaite woman. An impartial critical analysis of the entire situation would have had to conclude that Bearthwaite folk were no bigots, but they were adamant that their unique culture was respected, and those who did not respect them and their culture could in the words of Rosie, Vince the Mince’s wife, ‘Leave to upset some other community somewhere else because they will never be accepted as one of us here.’

Stan went behind the bar and started pulling pints just placing them on the bar ready for collection. “Dad, if you collect the empties, I’ll wash them in a minute. Uncle Stan, I’ll take the money for you before I wash glasses.”

Stan turned and smiled at Harriet before saying, “Thanks, Love.” With full pint glasses, and the bottles of hard stuff conveniently nearby the men settled to hear some tales. “Who’s got something to set us off with, Lads?”

“I’ll have at it if Sasha agrees to help out, cos it’s a goodly part his tale to tell.”

Sasha laught and asked, “The crusher, Alf?”

“Aye. The crusher. You start, Sasha, and set the scene.”

Sasha nodded and said, “You all know I imported a small masonry crusher from China years ago.” There were nods of agreement from many, but some of the outsiders were not aware of that. “Alf mounted it on a trailer for me and married it up to a twin cylinder Hatz diesel engine that I bought from Honeypot Lane, that military surplus auction place near Grantham in Lincolnshire. It’ll take a twelve inch square chunk of masonry of any length and turn it into crush of any size from two and a half inches down to half an inch. I have it set on about three-quarters of an inch. I use the crush, which comes out as three-quarters down to dust, to maintain the paths in the garden, the area I use to park on and anywhere that gets muddy on the field tracks.

“About ten or twelve years ago it stopped working. It turned out that a steel plate had jumped out and needed putting back.”

Alf interrupted to say, “That steel plate that Sasha is talking about is about six inch by six and a half and just over three-quarters thick. I’d say it weighs about four pounds. Tell you one thing, lying on your back holding the bloody thing up at arm’s length struggling to fit it in place makes your arms get out of breath gey(10) fast. It has a running track shaped hole in the middle maybe two and a half by one and a half inches.”

Sasha nodded and said, “Remember about that damned hole. It’s significant. Now I remember getting it working again that first time, and I know I did it within two or three hours, but I couldn’t remember what I’d done. This time, I couldn’t even work out where the plate went or what it did, so I ratched the manual out. I remembered from before that it was nigh on useless, but I was desperate. The only diagram is minute, and I’m almost certain it is of a different model from mine. It doesn’t shew the plate, and one of the long pieces on my machine is in two parts on the diagram. The manual is written in Chinglish, and completely inexplicable.”

“What the hell is Chinglish, Sasha?” The question was asked by a tall thin man who appeared to be in his early fifties. He had only recently discovered the Grumpy Old Men’s Society meetings at the Green Dragon, but he’d been present every Saturday evening since his first which was about a couple of months ago. He was usually a quiet man, and it was known he went by the name of Chance, but little else was known about him, other than that he came on his own, always had supper and always booked a room overnight before leaving on Sunday.

“It’s a portmanteau word derived from Chinese and English. It’s used to describe the sort of thing you find in manuals of stuff from China and similar places. The sort of stuff that’s either been done by a rather poor piece of translation software, or more likely by a Chinese speaker whose only acquaintanceship with English is via a dictionary and a thesaurus and who uses Chinese grammar to string the individual, mostly inappropriate, words together. I’ll quote you a bit. ‘Rack relat to single ensemble irrigate steel structure, on the frount of the rack fixed regular gnathostegite by cuniform boit, the top and bottom of the rack fulcrum bearing on the bracket and with the bracket is roll torch.’ The rest of the manual is the same or worse. I’d never heard of the word gnathostegite before, and I thought it was just a bit of made up bullshit, but I looked it up, and lo and behold it is a proper word. It’s a bit specialised though and wholly inappropriate used in connection with a masonry crusher. A gnathostegite is one of a pair of broad plates, developed from the outer maxillipeds of some some crustaceans, for example crabs, and they form a cover for the other mouth organs. That’s what Wikipedia said, so now you know.”

“You’re having me on, surely, Sasha. You can’t have remembered all that nonsense.”

Alf said, “Yes he can. He does things like that all the time. He’s a walking encyclopaedia of complete irrelevance. Actually that’s not true, possibly three parts per million of it is useful, maybe even four or five.” There were agreements from various members of the locals.

Pete, however, took issue with Alf saying, “Come on now, Alf. That’s a bit unfair to Sasha, I think seven or eight parts per million is nearer the mark. On a really good day possibly even ten.” The resultant laughter took a while to ease, but Chance had a better understanding of Sasha as a result of the banter.

Sasha resumed, “Anyway, Chance, I had vaguely remembered that the manual wasn’t much help, but it was much worse than I remembered, so I emailed the company for a diagram. That was months ago and they still haven’t replied. So I kept trying the plate in various places. Remember the hole in the plate? I’d assumed that was for the spring operated movable jaw return rod to pass through and I wasted a week maybe ten days buggering about with that. Fact is, that’s not how the beast works. That I’d never understood the principles on which it worked didn’t help. I studied the rust and weathering patterns on the plate and the rest of the machine, and eventually I saw a glimmer of daylight. Right from the word go, I’d been puzzled by where the plate was lying on the ground when it had dropped out. I did remember from years before that it had no fastenings, but was trapped into place. I just couldn’t work out where that place was because I didn’t know what function the plate served. Where I’d found the plate indicated that it had come from behind the movable jaw, but if it had come out with any force it could have bounced off the trailer and gone off in a different direction. One edge of the plate was shiny metal, obviously where it rubbed against another surface which should have been shiny too, but I couldn’t find such a place.

Eventually, I managed to eliminate all the places where the plate couldn’t go, but no memory of doing the job years ago returned. I found one place where an edge of the plate could go, and subsequently worked out where the opposite edge had to go. It was on the back of the movable jaw where it couldn’t be seen from anywhere, but I could feel it and the metal in the grove was smooth and presumably shiny too if it had been visible. At last I’d worked out where the plate had to go. I could see what its function was and how the crusher worked too.

“Trouble was when it had jumped out it must have been under enormous pressure and there was no way I could fit it back without completely stripping the movable jaw adjustment mechanism. All those pieces are much heavier than the plate, and they have to be fitted with your arms at full stretch. I’ll let Alf tell the rest because he was the one who actually did the job. I did the really important work, and went for the coffees and put the pasties in the microwave.”

Alf grinned and said, “If I’d known what was happening I wouldn’t have gone round to Sasha’s spot. I only went to scrounge some inch and a quarter reinforcing rod for a tool I was making. I knew Sasha had a pile of it left over from when we poured the new concrete floor in one of his out buildings a few years back. As I was walking to his back door, Elle waved at me from the kitchen window and said, ‘I’ll make some tea, Alf, and you can take Sasha his. He’s out behind the barn fixing the crusher. I don’t think it’s going too well. He’s been at it over a week. He’s as mad as hellfire with himself because he did the same job years ago, but he can’t remember what he did. The manual’s no good, the manufacturers haven’t replied to his email and he’s inventing new Russian swear words at a rate I can’t keep up with. He says this time once he’s done it he’s going to write his own manual. I suspect just to be bloody minded he’ll write it in Russian, so no one else can read it. See if you can get him to write an English version too will you? That way next time someone else can fix it for him. I can’t even pick up the pieces they’re so heavy, and I doubt he’ll be able to in a few years either. I reckon it’s a job for a young man, but you know what he’s like. I wonder if he’ll ever grow up enough to admit just how old he is.’ We laught at Elle’s remark which was funny in a completely Sashaesque way. I invented that word from hearing Sasha use the word Kafkaesque once years ago. I can’t remember what Kafkaesque means, and please don’t anyone try to tell me, but I’m sure you all know what I mean by Sashaesque. I could hear the cursing in Russian long before I reached the barn.

“ ‘Doesn’t sound like it’s going too well, Lad,’ I said. ‘At least I know what I’m trying to do now, Alf, but it’s taken me ten days to get this far,’ he replied. He calmed down a bit as we drank our tea and talked about the crusher. ‘You should have given me a call. I don’t remember even looking at how it worked when I mounted it, but two heads are better than one on this kind of a job because you can bounce ideas off each other. At the very least you can identify your bullshit ideas faster,’ I telt him. ‘I would have done if I’d realised it was going to take this long, but you know how it goes, Alf.’ ‘Aye. You keep thinking it’s going to sort itself out in a few minutes, and then another day has gone with nothing to shew for it, and it’s bloody dark again.’

“Quarter of an hour later Elle brought us another mug of tea and a plate of sandwiches. She said, ‘Well, at least he’s not swearing at it now, and he’s calm enough to take his tea and eat something. You should come round more often, Alf. Don’t worry about food. I’ll feed you because no matter how much you eat it’s got to be worth it. He’s hell to live with when he’s got it on him.’ ” There was a great deal of laughter at that because Alf was a colossus of a man with an appetite to match, and all knew Sasha didn’t tolerate fools gladly, especially when he considered he was being the fool.

“Sasha shewed me where the plate had to go and it was a very clever bit of design. We stripped the adjuster mechanism down which meant two pieces of cast steel, maybe five kilos, ten or twelve pounds apiece, had to come out as well as the return spring and its actuating rod and a damned awkward throat adjuster mechanism. That spring is a seriously mean piece of kit. It’s maybe nine inches long, a two and a half inch wide spiral made from half inch spring steel rod. It looks as if the rod has been bent round a scaffold tube. Putting that plate back in without taking serious safety precautions was begging to lose a finger if not a hand, because the movable jaw has to be swung up and out of the way. That’s a fifty or sixty kilo [110 - 132 pounds] piece of cast steel, and if that starts moving down hill nothing made of flesh and bone is going to even slow it down never mind stop it. I managed to lock it into the up position with a six foot gevlik(11) held down with a ratchet strap. Putting the plate in place was a matter of a few seconds. Unfastening the movable jaw allowed it to swing back down and trap the plate in place. It’s a damned clever idea. Then to quote the Haynes motor manuals’ infamous words, ‘Reassembly is a straight reversal of the above procedure’.” There was a deal of laughter at that as most had suffered from the phrase when using the renowned series of motor vehicle manuals to maintain their own vehicles.

Reflectively Alf continued, “The way the machine works is not how one would think. It surprised me because it’s completely counter intuitive. You’d naturally think determination of the crush size is controlled by the crushing action of the movable jaw as it approaches the fixed jaw, but that is not so, for it always moves to the same position relative to the fixed jaw when crushing. That position is determined by the eccentricity of the driving mechanism which like a cam gives it a fixed degree of throw. The maximum crush size is in fact determined by the position of a trapezoidal piece of cast steel which meets the similarly shaped back of the movable jaw. That determines how far away from the fixed jaw the moveable jaw can retreat under the return spring ’s action during the opening part of the crush cycle. The higher up the trapezoidal piece is lifted by its adjuster screw the narrower the wedge shaped throat gap is when fully open. That in turn determines how far down the crusher throat material of any given size can fall and how small crush has to be before it can fall out of the throat. In practice this means if the bottom of the throat when fully opened is adjusted to say 18mm, which is what Sasha has it set at, the crush that drops out of the the crusher throat due to gravity is 18mm to dust. Like I said it’s a damned clever and deceptively simple piece of design. Like all truly great pieces of design it’s completely obvious once you understand it. Just for the record Sasha gave me a copy of the new manual written in English, in return for me taking pictures of it so I could draw up a proper working diagram of the mechanism to go with it. I reckon any work done on it in the future will probably be done by Bertie, cos he’s already made up a one shot central lubrication system to make sure it gets greased properly. Three of the grease nipples are easy to access, but the fourth is a bastard to get at.”

Bertram, known as Bertie to all, was one of Alf’s grandsons. He had a first class honours degree in mechanical engineering, but reared in Bearthwaite, he’d decided to work with his grandfather and live at Bearthwaite, rather than work for much more money elsewhere. After losing Eloise his wife, the mother of his two children to cancer nearly three years ago he’d returned to the village to live with his grandparents. He’d recently set up house with Emily whose estranged husband, Dean, had used Covid as an excuse to leave her with their four children. A couple of months after abandoning his wife and children Dean had returned Bearthwaite to remove the more valuable household effects which he’d claimed were all his. A few of the local men including Mark and Mason, Emily’s brothers, had persuaded him it was not a good idea, and it would be for the best if he left never to return again. Bertie, who had obviously inherited his massive build from Alf explained that Bearthwaite was not a healthy place for Dean. None had laid a finger on Dean, but several matters were made very clear to him. One, Emily and her children were all Bearthwaite folk, and he wasn’t. Two, they were having to restrain themselves from beating the living daylights out of him, and three such restraint would be beyond them should he return.

Bertie also explained that Emily was now his wife to be, and as soon as the divorce was finalised they were going to marry. They were rearing all six of their children as siblings and they would shortly be joined by a seventh. He offered Dean a deal. “If you give up all rights to the kids via a court stamped edict allowing me to adopt them as my own we’ll sign to the effect that neither Emily nor I shall ever claim child support for the kids, nor maintenance for Emily. I’m offering you a clean break. You’ve never had a job since leaving school, so doubtless the court will see the kids as being better off, and you can just walk away. If you agree, I’ll pay to have a solicitor draw up the paperwork for the court to rubber stamp. It’s an all or nothing deal, if you don’t take it all I promise I shall do my damnedest to take every penny off you in child support and maintenance for Emily that I can, and further more I’ll hound you till the youngest of the kids turns eighteen.”

Dean replied immediately, “Done. I think you’re an idiot, but done. Good luck to you with that stupid bitch and her pack of whining brats, you’ll need it.” That was the point at which Bertie’s restraint evaporated, and it was twenty minutes before Dean recovered consciousness from Bertie’s single blow. The police were called, and Sergeant Michael Graham didn’t blink an eyelid when all the men swore that Dean had threwn the first punch, which had failed to make contact, and Bertie had in return only punched him once. Michael was after all Bearthwaite born and bred, and Bearthwaite folk looked after their own. It was known to all that Dean had been a bit free with his fists on his wife and kids several times, and as a result he’d been given ‘hands on counselling’ by Emily’s brothers. When he’d left Emily, he’d been considered to be no loss to Emily, her children, nor indeed to Bearthwaite, for his absence was regarded as a positive outcome for all. Emily and Bertie’s relationship was considered to be a well deserved reward for a young couple who’d had more than their share of misfortune by both families and the rest of the village too.

~o~O~o~

“Another round, Lads? Before we have a tale to take us up to dominoes.” Pete was already moving to get behind the bar as glasses were collected for washing.

When all were ready for drinking and listening, John said, “I’ve something to say. It’s not so much a tale as something I saw the other week. I must have driven into Wigton from Abbytown crossing the A596 bypass thousands of times and gone past the road on the right, though truly it’s not much more than a metalled lonning(12) really. It’s called Cuddy Lonning. Does anyone know what it means?”

“Aye,” replied Pete. “I checked it out years ago. Seemingly, a cuddy is a small cabin in a boat, also a small room or a cupboard. However, I don’t reckon Cuddy Lonning has aught to do with any of those. Cuddy is also a boy’s name derived from Cuthbert. It means bright, brilliant or famous. I reckon a modern day version would be Cuthbert’s Lane. But it’ll probably only live on as a road name before long, cos you don’t find a lot of Cuthberts around these days. A lot of roads and places still survive with very old names. Some of them are so old no one knows what they mean. Some odd ones are obvious, some are understood wrongly and some are just a mystery. An odd one I know of that’s kind of obvious is Butts Bridge. The butts were where folk had to practice archery after church years ago when by law every man had to fire a certain number of arrows to be ready for war when his feudal master was required by the king to provide men. It was part of the deal in those days; the king provided the land in return for archers when required. There’s a road bridge over a canal there now hence the name. Likewise Barracks Bridge, the bridge area next to where the barracks used to be. Causeway Head is pretty self explanatory too. Kirkhall Lane was the lane leading to the church hall or possibly house. Clay Hole Pit, again obvious. Spinning Jenny Street, named after an industrial revolution era spinning machine invented by James Hargreaves. Slag Lane, Guest Street, and Shilling Street are anybody’s guess.

Worsley Mesnes and Mesnes Street would have been something to do with the local lord or possibly the church for the demesne was the land that went with the manor or possibly the church and was under the direct control and ownership of the feudal lord, or possibly the local bishop though in the latter case control of the land devolved from incumbent to incumbent. Unlike common land no one else had any rights on demesne land. Hag Fold, Higher Fold, Smithfold Lane and Harrop Fold, are all examples of the word fold which referred to an enclosure usually to keep animals in and was often of a temporary nature. Siddow Common would have been a common land where ordinary folk had rights to, for example, collect firewood or graze their animals. Most common land disappeared as a result of the Enclosures Act of 1801, though more properly the term should be the older word of Inclosure. An interesting one is Heol Dŵr Vach which is Little Water Street in Welsh. Lovely Alley and Gentle Boulevade are kind of interesting. Bessemer Way and Aeneas Coffey Promenade are named after Henry Bessemer who patented the steel making Bessemer furnace and Aeneas Coffey who patented the continuous distillation column for distilling alcohol.

Nel Pan Lane is a very old name, Pan could refer to a pond or a pound, and Nel may be from a local form of the word ‘old’, or even from eel with the ‘n’ detached. Things change with time. What we now call an adder, the snake, used to be a nadder in years long gone. One I’ve never managed to find anything about is Hob Hey Lane. Hobb, usually spelt with two ‘b’s on the end is an old word for a devil, maybe even the devil, but who knows. There’s a street in Liverpool called Besford Road. Morrisons have a supermarket there now. It was often referred to as Spam Street because of the factory on it that produced Spam. It’s probable older locals still call it Spam Street. Spam was often said to have derived from ‘Shoulder of Pork And Ham’, but the American inventors claimed it was just from ‘SPiced hAM’. Spam was a war time shortage product produced as a real meat replacement, but for a long time it was jokingly said to derive from ‘Surplus People Are Meals’, which was a reference to Soylent Green, a 1973 dystopian film in which people were killed and used to provide food. I’ve tried Spam once and thank Christ I’ve never been so poor that I’ve ever had to eat the shite again. If you can even imagine it, it’s even worse than McDonald’s or Kentucky fried sparrow, both of which I’ve tried. Once.”

“Christ above, Pete! How do you know all that?”

“Just because my missus has a degree doesn’t mean she’s the only one in the family who can read, Alf. You like engineering and growing stuff. I’ve heard some pretty amazing stuff on both come out your mouth. I’m a bit like Charlie. I like historical sort of stuff, but I’m especially into old names. Is that it, Lads? Dominoes? Partner me Alf?”

1 A free house is a privately owned pub and may sell whatever the owner(s) wish. The landlord or landlady often own the establishment. By contrast a tied house is a pub owned by a brewery who control what it may and may not sell. The brewery appoints a manager.
2 Burton upon Trent has a long history of brewing, due to the suitability of the local water supply. Burton at one time exported beer throughout the world and accounted for a quarter of the UK beer production. Emulation of Burton water in brewing is called Burtonisation. Much of the town was given over to the industry throughout the 19th century and brewers dominated it politically and socially. The town is still a significant producer of the UK’s beer supply.
3 IPA, India pale ale.
4 Mild ale, ale with a predominantly malty palate. Usually dark-coloured with an alcohol by volume (ABV) of 3% to 3.6%, although there are lighter-hued examples as well as stronger examples reaching 6% ABV and higher. Often taken to mean a mildly hopped ale.
5 Swede, Swedish turnip, rutabaga.
6 Allotment, community gardens.
7 Rare stuff, a term applying to spirituous liquors. Usually applied to a particularly expensive, or in some other way unusual liquor. Here the term is used in connection with illegally obtained or illegally made liquors.
8 Chemic, a colloquial term for spirits, probably derived from the word chemical.
9 Mince or minced meat is called ground meat in the US.
10 Gey, Cumbrian dialectal usage meaning ‘very’.
11 Gevlik, a pry bar or crowbar. A long, heavy, pointed piece of steel. Steel not iron.
12 Metalled lonning, a tarmac surfaced lane.

At long last the wait was over. In the early afternoon of a Wednesday Gladys went into labour with no warning a week before her due date when the road into Bearthwaite was flooded such that it would have taken the pumps half a day to drop the water level sufficiently to enable even a high four by four fitted with snorkels for the air intake and the exhaust to take her to hospital and ensure she arrived there dry. There was a brief discussion as to whether it would be best to ring for an ambulance to meet the boat at the far side of the mile and a half of flood waters, but Pete and Gladys agreed with Elle when she said, “There is too high a chance of delays. If something goes wrong due engine problems, road works or serious traffic congestion when folk finish work delay is almost certain. Too, the rain is deluging down and an open boat is not the best place for Gladys to be in this weather. Maybe we need to put a cabin on it or buy a boat with one ready fitted for future emergencies. Anyway, right now more heavy rain is forecast, so that could be problematic if it takes roads out of service.

“Gladys has telt us that the OG(1) folk said all was well on her last hospital appointment which was a fortnight ago. Susanna says all is well right now, and has pointed out that despite Gladys’ miscarriages she did carry Delia to term and delivered with no problems, so she is not a first time mother, and all should be working, relaxed and ready for a second childbirth. What I’m saying is I think it is far better to have Gladys here comfortable in the warm in the care of Susanna, whose midwifery qualifications are up to date. Like all the rural midwives those two bags of hers have virtually got an entire hospital delivery facility in them. In addition, there are at least six nurses or ex-nurses in the village to assist her if she needs anyone. I don’t want Gladys out in the cold even with Sasha’s overcoat on risking delays. The idea of her giving birth under those conditions when she could be here is recklessly stupid.”

Sasha’s overcoat, like all his other outer cold weather wear, was made of real fur in Siberia. One could not obtain warmer or better cold weather wear from anywhere on the planet, as warm yes, warmer no. That his furs were the real deal was a fact the village kept quiet to avoid him being harassed by the ‘Friends of the Earth’ and their like; all of whom Sasha referred to as ‘bloody squirrel picklers’.(2)

Six hours later, after Gloria had made her appearance and met her father, Sasha declared an extra Saturday and had word sent round the village that there was an extra meeting of the Grumpy Old Men’ Society in the taproom of the Green Dragon taking place immediately. He’d added that it was likely to be an extended affair. Pete was dragged off for a celebratory drink and was helped to bed several hours later by Harriet and Gustav.

~o~O~o~

As expected Harriet and Aggie took over all of Gladys’ work, and by the time Gloria was a fortnight old all at the inn was running smoothly again, despite Gladys’ insistence that her presence in the room for gossip with Gloria in attendance for part of the evenings was necessary. Harriet and Aggie didn’t like it, for they considered Gladys should be resting, but they were overruled by the other women who supported a cantankerous Gladys. “I’ve had a baby,” Gladys insisted. “I’m not ill. I’ve had enough damned rest to last me a long time, unless,” she snickered at Harriet, “Your dad gives me another present to be opened in nine months.”

~o~O~o~

Sasha met with Elle, his wife, Gladys and Pete, and Harriet and Gustav to discuss financing the proposed brewery extension and concomitant ability to brew four or even more different beers simultaneously. He proposed terminating the mortgages he held on the Green Dragon immediately and that the repayments be used to finance the brewery’s extension and buy the extra equipment that Clarence, Gustav’s master brewer required.

Harriet started the discussion by saying, “The planners have already agreed in principle to the extension and said it would probably be better to use all the available space rather than just half of it and end up applying again in a few years. We instructed Jacqueline the architect to that effect and she’s already measured up the site and we should have outline plans some time next week. She wasn’t born here, but has close family living here. Godfrey one of her cousins was in Freddy’s gang of brickies that did the brickwork last time. It wasn’t discussed, but I’m sure her fee will be very reasonable, as she made a point of mentioning that not just her cousin but other family members too will appreciate what ever work they can get without having to spend hours a day travelling. Gustav?”

“I’ve spoken to Freddy, and he said he could have the same gang of men do the work for us at the same rate as last time. He added that if there were any others in the village wanting work he could use them all. I’ve asked Godfrey, the architect’s cousin if he would like to work in the brewery as soon as a job is available. He said yes, so Harriet’s is probably right about the architect’s fee. Freddy is already looking for recycled brick, and at the moment he has a small gang of men demolishing a house over Waverbridge way for the materials. The developer is paying for the demolition, and I’m adding to the men’s wages to make it more than worth their while to ensure the brick doesn’t get damaged. The men are loading the brick and other stuff onto pallets, so Harry and Jake can sneak a quick load in after their contracted work. Mostly they’re working evenings and week ends, but the job will be finished by the middle of next week. They wouldn’t even take diesel money off me, so I asked what would they take. They’re taking all the wood from the house which is all firewood quality at best and selling it locally for firewood. Actually I think they’re virtually giving it away at ten pounds a ton to the elderly. Some of the younger men are cutting and delivering it for free. Jake reckons it’s worth it, as it means he can get a free mug of tea anywhere in the village and at any time of day. Harry borrowed Alf’s stacker truck to load with at the house, and Alex Peabody is offloading the pallets at this end with his big tractor. It’s all being offloaded behind the brewery.”

Sasha looked thoughtful as he said, “If there’s any masonry of no use for building with that you want to clear I suggest you take my crusher, and bring the crush back to maintain farm lonnings. The farmers will be glad to provide tractors with front loaders and trailers though it may just be easier to get hold of a conveyor. Push the feed end under the crusher, and drop the crush straight into the trailers. I’ll ask about and if I can’t find one I’ll buy one. I’ve seen loads of them in this country for sale second hand at less than a grand on Ebay. I’ll get Alf to look into it. It makes sense that we should have one. I should have bought one years ago. Some of those younger men could possibly make a least a part time income from the job. My crusher stands idle for all but a few days a year which is daft really. Sorry for the interruption, Gustav.”

“No need, Sasha. That’s the sort of ideas we should all be coming up with. However, I’ve got a price for a prefabricated building to cover the entire site which Bill has said he’ll over see the construction of like last time. He’s telt me what it’s likely going to cost for ready mix concrete from DA,(3) so I have a good estimate of the cost of the building and the labour to put it up. That’s going to be no problem for me to pay for, but Bernhard has had no luck yet sourcing brewing equipment. He says he still has any number of leads to follow up on, but maybe we’d better get some prices on new equipment from over here.”

Sasha nodded and said, “Okay, but keep me informed. If your brother can get the equipment at a reasonable price in Bavaria maybe we don’t need to do anything for a while. However, if it looks like serious money for equipment I want to know about it so we can minimise costs. Bottom line is I want those mortgages wrapped up. If the money’s not needed for the brewery equipment good, but it needs investing in something, so maybe you should be looking at buying farm land farther afield. I’ll have a think about what other employment options we could start round here.”

“Well, that was a lot quicker and easier than I thought it was going to be, Sasha,” Gladys said with Pete nodding in agreement.

Elle nodded and said,“I’ll see what the local women consider to be good employment opportunities for women and girls. We need something to keep the girls here when they’ve left school. Most don’t mind living at home with their parents, but they don’t like having to rely on them for every penny in their pockets. It’s a real issue because if the girls leave to find work the boys follow them very quickly. Most Bearthwaite youngsters settle down and marry younger than outsiders, so understandably the boys are not going to stay where there are no girls. We need to provide work for them both, but especially the girls. All the kids will stay if they can. None of them wish to leave, but there has to be something here to keep them that provides self respect.” All nodded in agreement with Elle. She continued, “We need to talk to Alf and Bertie, Sarah and Tommy, Alice and Phil, Rosie and Vince, Gillian and Simon, Samantha and Gee, and every other self employed person in the village. A lot of them are already employing others due to Covid, but not especially kids, and mostly it’s seen as a temporary thing. We all need to be thinking more about kids in particular and long term, by which I mean permanent. If some of that mortgage repayment money is used to develop their businesses to enable them to employ kids, even if it means we pay the kids directly for a while, that has got to be a good use of the money. We need to resurrect the long dead proper apprentice system, and if that means starting with fourteen year olds at weekends and school holidays so be it.”

Pete smiled and said, “Alf is going to love that, Elle. He’s been saying college trained kids on two year apprenticeship schemes are completely useless for years. He taught Samantha Graham as is now Samantha Shaw how to weld starting when she was maybe six, and he reckons she’s one of the best. Not just because she was clever and paid attention, but because she had the time to take it all in and enjoy it without any sense of pressure. I reckon he’d jump at the chance of a couple of youngsters to train.”

“I reckon we could kick the process off by employing a couple of girls over the weekends. What do you think, Pete?”

Pete replied, “Aye. We could do that, Gladys Love. Only problem is it’s sixteen year olds that need the work, because the older girls have already left, and at sixteen they’re not legal to serve behind the bar. Just collecting glasses and waiting on may not provide enough interest. I know it’s money, but they’re just kids, and all kids want a bit of excitement. If we got caught employing anyone under eighteen behind the bar we could lose the licence. Maybe we need to be thinking of something to bring our older teenagers and young adults back. At the very least we need their families to make them aware we’re working on it.”

Gustav asked, “When was the last time a police officer other than Michael came into the Dragon?”

“Maybe fifteen years ago, if you mean another policeman unaccompanied by Michael, Gustav. Because he’s from here, Michael always takes anything going on here personally, and all the other police officers automatically let him know about any incidents here, so he can deal with whatever it is because they know Bearthwaite is different from anywhere else and he’s the only one who’ll get enough coöperation to be able to deal with issues here without anything escalating. It took us a while and a lot of effort to make sure they perceived matters that way.” replied Gladys with an attempt at a guileless smile.

Gustav nodded and asked, “And how often do some of the underage boys coming in with their fathers or grandfathers pull a pint in the taproom? Agreed they’re not working here for money, but maybe we could look into that?”

It was Pete who provided the solution, “Okay, how does this sound? Say one of Alf’s grandsons works behind the bar in the tap. “We don’t pay him, so technically he isn’t working. The moment anyone we don’t know walks through the door Alf’s grandson disappears and goes home. It’s no problem for us to make sure he ultimately gets paid for the complete shift. We pay Alf for some imaginary job we say he’s done for us, so the books are right if we’re asked to produce them which isn’t going to happen, and Alf passes the money on as a bit of pocket money for helping him out at the workshop. I’m sure you can come up with something similar for the girls, Love. Making soft furnishings or maintaining them, the bar cloths and tea towels that were woven by Beatrice and her girls. If they weave some for Tommy and Sarah to sell in the post office to tourists that will hide any problems. They’ve been selling some of Simon’s artisan smith-craft for Gillian for years, so maybe there are other things they could sell too, maybe enough to pay one of the girls to help out in the summer time. However, we need to be selective in the Dragon and only chose kids who have a relative we deal with, but it’s a start. You know I wouldn’t wish Covid on any one, but it is indeed an ill wind indeed that blows nobody any good, and mind if the road’s flooded there’s nothing to worry about, for outsiders will not be able to surprise us.”

There were smiles all round, and the beginnings of the Bearthwaite economic and social recovery plan was under way.

~o~O~o~

In the taproom that Saturday a complete stranger in conversation with Pete who served him with a drink asked, “I have been led to believe this is a place where stories are told on Saturdays. Is that so? And who tells them?”

“Aye,” replied Pete. “You have the right of it. The story telling will start in maybe quarter of an hour when all the regulars have arrived. Most of the folk in here who come from outside of Bearthwaite are regular Saturday night customers who come for the tales.” Seeing a blank look on the stranger’s face who sounded foreign, Pete added, “Stories that is. Sasha, the Siberian bloke over in the corner started it years ago, and he tells more stories than anyone, but tales are telt by all the locals and many of the outsiders too. All are welcome, for we appreciate a change. Why? You interested in telling a tale or two? If you are you’re welcome to do so.”

“I like to tell stories, but mostly the only opportunity I have is to my grandchildren. I was surprised to hear that here is a place where adults gather to tell and listen to stories.”

“Aye well, there’s many a tale telt in here that would not be suitable for children to listen to. You could say some are definitely adult in nature.”

Gladys had heard what Pete had just said and added, “Some are definitely top shelf if not triple x-rated and probably not suitable for the ears of grown women never mind children, but boys will be boys even if they have turned eighty, and it’s a traditional barmaid’s obligation to keep the boys under control.”

Pete grinned and said, “My wife, as you probably gathered. What’s your name stranger? And where do you hail from?”

“I am Aesir. I am a mix of Svensk, that’s Swedish, and Scots, but I live in Finland now. I am over here visiting my daughter and her family. Her man told me of this place. So I came to listen.”

Sasha had just come to the bar to collect a couple of bottles of Genever. On hearing Pete’s conversation with Aesir he chatted with him for a few minutes before saying, “We’d be happy to hear a tale from you, Aesir. Tell us whatever you wish, and we shall all listen, for that is what we are all about here. Good, bad or indifferent, we shall listen with interest, and whatever the outcome you shall be welcome to return.”

The outsider looked flustered and said, “I only know stories that I have told my children and theirs. I think they are not suitable for grown men.”

Gladys said, “The only difference between children and grown men is the size of shoes they wear. I wouldn’t worry about it, Aesir. Most of the men in here spend hours every week telling stories to children. A lot of those stories are telt in here and appreciated too. Even the færie tales, as every dad and granddad appreciates widening his repertoire for the little ones to listen to.”

There was a crowd of men round the bar all agreeing with Gladys and saying things like, “Kid’s tales, real life events, pure fantasy, dirty stories, funny stories, jokes, whatever. It’s all free entertainment, Lad. It’s better than the TV. If you tell a tale the drink and supper is free. That’s the rule.”

Aesir looked puzzled, so Sasha explained. “We,” he indicated the company with a wave of his hand, “are the Grumpy Old Men’s Society. Grumpy Old Man is a humorous reference known to all in the UK indicating the way men become as they age. We are an organisation that meets here every Saturday evening to tell tales, enjoy a drink and then play dominoes. All the tales that have been telt in here have been video recorded and are available for future generations on DVD. The quality of the earlier ones is not as good as the more recent ones, but they are available. If you tell a tale, Lad, like the rest of us, you’ll be recorded for posterity too.”

Stan said, “Looks like we’re all here, Sasha,” before banging a pint pot on the bar for attention and announcing, “Okay, Gentlemen. We’re starting in a few minutes as soon as everyone has sorted out their drink situation, so get yourselves ready please.” As a crowd of men converged on the bar Stan added, “I’ll help pull them, Pete. Ah, good girl, Harriet. Thanks.” Pete said the last as Harriet started taking the money leaving them to concentrate on providing beer.

Sasha asked, “You want to start, Aesir? If you do tell the lads who you are and where you’re from, so it’s recorded.” Aesir nodded and Sasha added, “Bill, pour the man a goodly dose of that Genever.”

Aesir looked around before saying for the second time that night, “I am Aesir. I am a mix of Svensk, that’s Swedish, and Scots, but I live in Finland now. I am over here visiting my daughter and her family who live at Bothel. Her man, who is Cumbrian, told me of this place, so I came to listen. I didn’t expect to be telling a story. In the past I have only told stories to children, so I only have children’s stories to tell. However, this is not strictly a children’s story, but a story about a child. Me as a child.”

“Good lad, Aesir. We tell a lot of tales from when we were kids. You’re in the right place.” That had been said by Freddy, but similar comments were aired by a number of the men and Aesir was considerably less nervous as a result. Though that may have been in part due to the Genever, for he’d dropped the level in his glass sufficiently for Bill to consider it was in urgent need of topping up.

“This story is a matter of my ancestry and goes thus. I suppose I was nine, yes nine I’m sure. I was born and grew up in the high arctic of Norway, which was where Pappa came from though he was Swedish, and right then according to Cousin Lykke it was -35 ℃ back home; Mamma had been speaking to Tant(4) Alice, Pappa’s sister, on the phone the night before, and I had a few minutes talking with Lykke at the end. She was nine too, and we liked each other enough to sit together in school classes. After nine years of it I should have been used to the cold.

“We were at Mamma’s parents in Scotland for Christmas, which was a week away. Morfar(5) was by trade a stone mason, but he worked as a self employed builder, so he worked every day, no matter what the weather. I always went to work with him because I enjoyed it. At that time he was re-fronting a corner shop which was being turned into a private house. He told me he’d worked on the estate of houses when they were built when he was an apprentice forty-odd years before.

“Morfar?” Someone asked.

“My apologies, morfar means mother’s father. It was cold, bitterly cold, the ground was frozen solid down to half a metre, [twenty inches] and all my winter clothes were back at home. All that I had to wear was hopelessly inadequate. My teeth chattered, my knees knocked and my fingers and toes were blue and desperately sore. With fingers stupid from the numbing cold, I was chopping up an Edwardian oak fire surround to burn to make the tea on. Well you did in those days. Nowadays they are worth a considerable amount of money, but back then they were just firewood. You couldn’t use the cast iron ones because they didn’t burn, so they were just smashed up with a hammer and weighed in as scrap. They are worth even more than the wooden ones now.

Stan whispered to Alf, “The lad speaks better bloody English than any of us, Alf.”

“Excepting Sasha.” Alf whispered back.

“The tea was a revolting looking mahogany brew, but Morfar and his six men thought it wonderful. The recipe was simple. A big jerry can, or a large, burnt out, cast iron paint kettle which was what I was using, containing a gallon and a half [7litres, 15 US pints] of boiling water, four ounces [114g] of loose tea leaves, a pint [0.7litres, 1¼ US pints] of milk, the bottle was tall and thin and had a beer bottle type crown cap. It was called sterilised or UHT(6) milk by most people, but Morfar and his men called it tall milk, for the bottles were taller and narrower than the bottles pasteurised milk was sold in. A lot of persons referred to tall milk as ‘sterri’. All boiled up together with a couple of mugs full of sugar. Morfar and his men considered the use of teabags to be effeminate, all right for when their wives made tea at home, but they said no real man would consider using them! Using tea bags was in the same category as using an umbrella, carrying flowers or drinking half pints, something only effete southerners engaged in.”

“It was just the same here, Lad. Come to that it still is. We refer to them as talcum knackered southern jessies,” Alf informed him.

Aesir smiled obviously understanding the not so subtle implications of Alf’s remark. “ ‘How long do I boil it for?’ I asked.

“ ‘Till the leaves don’t come to the top any more, Son. Then it’ll be a good brew.’ In those days I didn’t speak English, which is why I liked being with Morfar, who was from Càirinis on North Uist and spoke Gaelic as his first language. Mormor,(7) my mother’s mother, unlike my parents who both spoke Gaelic and Swedish, our family languages, only spoke English. Pappa didn’t get on with Mormor, which made for embarrassing silences in the house, so I was glad to get out during the day with Morfar. I think the reason Pappa didn’t get on with her was because when he met Mamma he learnt Gaelic, and Mormor, who came from Edinburgh and was a terrible snob, considered it to be an inferior language and had never bothered.

“After twenty minutes of boiling the tea looked revolting, but it tasted like nectar. My enamelled metal mug just about warmed my hands, and the scalding tea re-fired my internal furnace. I’ve never been as cold before nor since, but that wonderfully disgusting brew has never been called for since either. I was never as glad to get back home, and to Lykke too, whom ten years later I married, where at least I had the clothes for the weather, and Sasha has told me to inform you that like him I had a full set of arctic furs and I still do.”

“And that’s one in the eye for all the PC, green peacing, whale and squirrel pickling, tree hugging, Earth befriending types,”(8) Sasha added. “I’m not the only bugger that likes to stay warm.”

There was a lot of laughter at Sasha’s remark, but even more approval of Aesir’s tale.

~o~O~o~

Sasha looked around and said “I thought I’d inject a bit of culture into this evening. Now, I’ve read that Shakespeare invented anything from four hundred and twenty to seventeen hundred words, though I’ve also read that many of them were probably in common usage in his day and he was merely the first person to document their usage. I’m not claiming to be in the same class in a literary sense as the Bard of Avon, but I’ve done my share of inventing words in a goodly few languages, so I thought I’d tell you about a few of my offerings in English. I’m sure a number of other folk would argue that I didn’t create all of these words and phrases, but to the best of my knowledge all were at the very least coined independently by me except of course the ones I don’t lay claim to. Some were created out of my ignorance of English, others for obvious reasons and some because I have a dirty mind, or so at least Pete’s good lady assures me. Some and I’ll explain as I go were as a result of me over hearing the likes of Hyacinth Bucket who insisted her name was pronounced Bouquet.(9)

“First off a definite Vetrov word, though it could have been coined by Elle. I’m not sure now. Higgers are work clothes, and higging is any activity that gets one filthy. The word derives from H,I,G, a Hole In the Ground. We were digging out a cellar at the time these words and their derivatives were coined. A snurge is not a word I coined though I did give it a new and extra definition as a joke to describe a compulsive bicycle seat sniffer. I was having a go at someone I wasn’t too fond of at the time. Perhaps my most contentious claim is that I coined the expression ‘brain dead’ as an insult during a vitriolic argument. The expression had only recently been adopted by the medical profession as a result of new technology, and certainly I had never heard the expression used thus when I first did. Another, but one that never caught on, was a ‘sea bed job’ meaning the lowest of the low. I have no intention of describing the circumstances, suffice it to say the conversation was with Elle when I coined the phrase ‘butterfly panties’ on seeing the shape a pair of split crutch knickers made when flattened out on a market stall. The expression is used in various ways by manufacturers of lingerie, but not thus.

“Squirrel picklers and whale picklers as I’m sure you are aware are terms of contempt I coined for the intolerant bastards who think it a legitimate political ploy to contaminate food stuffs. I mind some of them claiming to have put ground glass into jars of baby food back in the eighties some time. Funny thing is the thick bastards didn’t know ground glass is just sand and kids eat the stuff by the ton every year in kiddies’ sand pit play areas. In addition I believe their claim was never substantiated by investigations. Now powfagged, that means knackered or extremely tired, is not one of mine but it’s a word used by few other than myself. There’s a song about that called ‘I’m powfagged’ by The Five Penny Piece on Youtube, look it up for a laugh. Wuss is another I can’t lay claim to, but few use the word these days, pity really.

“Now we get to some of the things I’ve heard folk say over the years which I use in jest. Man get outs, was something I heard a woman say to her friend on a bus many years ago. She was talking about mange tout peas. Another woman I heard was trying to avoid using her rather broad Lancastrian accent. She was talking about demolition of some houses which would have been described in her native accent as ‘pooin tharses darn’. Pulling the houses down. She almost made it, but it came out as ‘pooing the houses down’ said with a decided plum in her mouth. It didn’t quite work. I’ve heard about folk drinking mine strone soup rather than minestrone, and even seen someone read out loud some dodgy hand writing as ‘John-John le Bleu’ which was supposed to be ‘Jam jar label’.

“While I’m at it I may as well relate the few expressions in my head at the moment. Expressions some use for folk in neighbouring towns. Folk in Leigh Lancashire, Leithers, which although it is pronounced Lay thers is spelt L,E,I,T,H E,R,S, refer to folk from Wigan, Wigginers, as ‘Pie aters’. The Pie aters, which in ‘English is Pie eaters’ refer to the Leithers as ‘Lobby goblers’ or ‘Pettydoorrappers’. By repute Wigginers eat a lot of savoury pies, many of them meat and potato pies which for obvious legal reasons these days have to be described as potato and meat pies, and Leithers eat a lot of a dish called Lobby which is a casserole born out of poverty in which the star attraction is also the humble potato. A petty is an outside lavatory, of the type that was common in the earlier half of the last century. A Pettydoorrapper was some one who rapped or knocked on a petty door. It is not clear why Leithers became known by this soubriquet.

“Jam eater is a term used by various folks to describe others as poverty stricken. Men who could only afford to take jam sandwiches for lunch to work. In Cumbria, Workington folk describe folk from Whitehaven as ‘jam eaters’. Interestingly Whitehaven folk describe Workington folk as ‘jam eaters’ too. However, I’ve heard that folk in other parts of the country use the expression to describe their neighbours too.

~o~O~o~

“I’ve got some bits and pieces that’ll keep us going for a few minutes,” Alf said as he emptied his glass and went behind the bar to pull himself another.

“Good man, Alf,” said Stan. “While you’re there pull me one too, Lad. Anybody else want one whilst Alf’s on the job?” Several of the men passed glasses over for refilling.

After all had a glass back in front of them Alf said, “It’ll be a goodly few years back this, cos I couldn’t have been thirty, but I must have close to it because I was still working for Bamford’s Agricultural Engineering. I’d gone out in the van to look at a Massey with knackered hydraulics. The farm was somewhere near Ulverston. Ulverston had been in Cumbria since the county reorganisation of seventy-six, but folk down there still got upset if you didn’t call it Ulverston Lancashire. I was having a cup of tea after having sorted the tractor, and was watching a battery technician sorting a big battery out on an Aveling Marshall crawler. By today’s standards it wasn’t particularly big, but at the time it was the biggest piece of kit I’d ever seen on a farm. The battery was made up of twelve separate lead acid two volt cells. Actually they’re two point two volts, but that arrangement is referred to as a twenty-four volt system. Technically a twelve volt car battery is thirteen point two volts. Each cell was in its own glass case, and they were sealed at the top with stuff that looked like hard tar. The entire assembly of twelve cells was housed in a fibre board box.

“The old bloke doing the job had cut the lead alloy cell connectors off the cell that had gone down and he replaced it with a fresh cell. He telt me they’d repair and recondition the dodgy cell back at the factory. He said the black stuff was pitch of some sort that set like rock, but it was easy enough to melt off. To seal a cell it was poured back on atop of a piece of cardboard filler around a breather tube for any excess gases to escape. He said the pitch set so fast that the cardboard was all that was required to stop it going down in to the cells. Batteries can produce oxygen and hydrogen from electrolysis of the water they contain which is why they need a drop of distilled water to top them up with sometimes. They need a breather tube to prevent an explosion from any pressure due to gas build up. What he did next scared the shit out of me. Why the hell he was bothered about a gas build up explosion is beyond me.

“He had an oxy set(10) on the back of his pick up to melt the battery posts and solder the cell connections back with, which is a dangerous enough procedure where there inevitably are oxygen and hydrogen in the perfect proportion for a gas explosion. I’ve seen it done many a time and though the worst I’ve ever seen was a small ‘pop’ from a bit of hydrogen burning off the potential for a bigger explosion blowing a battery up and covering anyone nearby in sulphuric acid exists. Hydrogen is a lot lighter than oxygen and the theory is because of that it disperses much faster than the oxygen thus rendering the process safe. I’ve been telt that hydrogen is so much lighter than air it disperses upwards, and gravity isn’t enough to keep it in the atmosphere so it’s lost to space. Oxygen is actually heavier than air which is about four fifths nitrogen which is a bit lighter than oxygen, so in theory oxygen disperses downwards away from the hydrogen. Which may or may not be true. I wouldn’t know. However, what is true is that batteries have exploded from the process, so it’s sensible to wear full protective gear if you insist on doing it at all. Personally I would only do it if I had to, and I’d empty all the acid out of the cells first, and wear appropriate protective clothing and gear. Then do the job, and finally replace the acid. The sulphuric acid in batteries is not stuff to treat with contempt.

“Battery terminals, or posts, are a soft lead alloy and they get damaged easily in service. The procedure for the battery post renewal is an appropriate mould is put round them, the post melted in the mould and a bit more lead is run in till the mould is full. Then a gadget that works like a pencil sharpener is used on the post to bring it down to size. The mould is the same for both posts but the pencil sharpeners are different sizes, cos positive posts are bigger than negative posts. Like I said I’ve seen it done many a time, but what I’ve never seen done was lighting the torch by holding the near end of the torch on one post and shorting the nozzle out on the other to spark the acetylene. Mental. The entire process is banned these days and with nutters like that about for good reason. Just thinking about it make my blood run cold, so I think I’ll try a drop of something to warm me up.”

“Calvados, Alf?” asked Pete.

“Aye. That’ll do the trick before I tell you about my next hair raising experience.” A few others joined Alf in a drop of something warming before he resumed. “I was only a bit of a kid, not long started my apprenticeship. We had a big cage outside the workshop made of at least inch and a half solid steel bars set maybe four inch apart in a square pattern. We used it for putting tractor tyres and the like in for inflating. We also used it for inflating all split rim wheels. Split rims are a type of wheel where you dropped the tyre over the big part of the wheel, which was a piece of cake and then the second part that effectively formed the other rim, called the locking ring, had to be slid back in to place which often wasn’t so easy because the bastards were made of spring steel and too big to go in. The idea was after you pushed the ring down past the lip they would sit snugly in the groove which was the right size for them and the inflated tyre would hold everything in place.

“To service one the best procedure is to jack the vehicle, let the air out, remove the valve, go for a cup of tea to ensure all the air is out when you return to the job. Then and only then lower the vehicle so that the wheel nuts can be removed. The damn things are bloody dangerous and very unforgiving. God alone knows how many folk they’ve killed. If there is any trace of air in the tyre after you loosen the ring with pry bars the air pressure, just a few pounds of pressure will do it, will cause the locking ring to fly off like a projectile. I don’t know what a typical ring weighs but I imagine twenty-five kilos [56 pounds] wouldn’t be far off the mark for a small one. Most waggon tyres operate at tyre pressures of anything from sixty psi(11) [400kPa] to a hundred and twenty psi [800kPa] inflation pressure, though I have heard of truck tyres that use two hundred psi [1400 kPa]. Even at only sixty psi nearly twelve tons of force pushes on the locking ring on the rim all the time. If the tyres ever become underinflated the rims can just fly of without warning because they need the properly inflated tyre to hold them in place.

“As apprentices we were all a bit pissed off that we had to roll a wheel outside to inflate them. It was particularly irritating when it was pissing down. Some were massively heavy and required a few of us to push them suspended by a hoist. Quarry vehicles usually had cast wheel centres rather than ones made from thick stamped steel sheet and were water ballasted too. That’s three-quarters of the tyre volume was water. It’s a lot of weight in a big tractor wheel. Some of the bigger ones must have been over two tons. [2000Kg, 4480 pounds] Then we had to man handle the wheels into the cage again using a puller to get the bigger ones in. Then lock the cage door before finally inflating the tyre. The tyre would be left at least an hour before it could be inspected from outside the cage and finally extracted. We apprentices all did it to the letter of the correct procedure because any mechanic who saw us doing other wise would kick our arses with no fear of recriminations from the management.

“It was a sunny afternoon and we were all having our afternoon break outside and enjoying a kickabout.(12) Telling you, Lads, what a fucking bang. A not particularly big split rim wheel had been inflated just before we went for our brew. The rim had bent some of the bars of the cage when it flew off. I think some of the younger apprentices turned green. I’m damned sure I did. Cool as a cucumber Old Arnie the shop foreman was as he said, ‘Never mind, Lads, you can get a bit of practice with the oxy when you’re heating and straightening those bars.’ If it were up to me I’d outlaw split rims because it used to happen at least twice a year. There is however another type of wheel referred to as a split rim where the parts of the wheels are bolted together, most appear to be smaller mag-alloy(13) wheels, but never having had any dealings with them I don’t have an opinion concerning them one way or the other.”

“A drop more Calvados, Alf?”

“Aye, why not?”

“I’d better fetch a few more bottles of the rare stuff from the cellar, Lads. Any requests?”

“Fetch half a dozen of mine,” said a familiar voice from the far end of the room.

“Michael, it’s good to see you. What are you doing here?”

“I’m under orders, Pete. Out on the arm.(14) Mavis is next door catching up on what’s going on.” Michael Graham was the local police sergeant and was born and reared in Bearthwaite as was his good lady, Mavis. We’re stopping the night, so Mavis doesn’t miss anything. That’s why I’m here, as to what I’m doing here. I’m listen to Alf telling tales at the moment. Ah! Stan’s back with a dozen bottles. I’ve been drinking that Genever at home, so I’ll try the Calvados for a change, Stan.”

A few minutes later Alf said, “This is the last one from me for a while, Lads. Again it’s from when I was working at Bamford’s, but when I’d nearly finished my apprenticeship. We had a special test bench in an enclosed small workshop for any work on diesel fuel systems. Any work on fuel pumps or anything else had to be done in there. The entire area was spotlessly clean to avoid any shit getting in to damage components, some of which are matched to a tenth of a thou. [0.0001 inch, 0.00254mm]. Now stuff couldn’t be machined to tolerances that fine in those days, so they used the finest and most sensitive measuring equipment available, women’s fingers. The procedure for in line fuel pumps was the blocks were reamed to as fine a finish as possible and the plungers that went in them were likewise produced. The whole assembly was done under paraffin, I heard some producers used diesel. The women wore nitrile rubber gloves, the acid in a finger print was said to completely ruin a component, and tried plungers in turn in each cylinder till by moving them side to side they found a perfect fit. Any plunger that wouldn’t go in was put to one side till they found a cylinder big enough to match it. I don’t know if it’s done that way now, but that was the best that could be done then.

“Any engine that had had fuel system work done on it was tested in there. If the engine was still in a vehicle it was fitted with a snorkel powered by a fan over the exhaust to remove the smoke and the whole area was under a slight pressure to ensure air left the area rather than entered it. The fuel to supply the diesel pump was provided by a small tank of less than a gallon in capacity. The fuel line was entirely visible and it ran over a bench to which was chained a pair of bolt croppers to cut the line with in case of emergency. The croppers were chained down, so they could not be removed. They weren’t even removed when they were fitted with new jaws, though I believe that had only been necessary once. All this was necessary to be able to shut a diesel engine down as rapidly as possible if it started to ‘run away’. Run away happens when the engine is not being governed correctly which is not always due to a faulty governor as this tale will demonstrate. When a diesel engine is working properly it tends to run faster which draws more fuel which makes it run faster. It’s a positive feedback system, so something has to control, or govern, the engine. If allowed to run away with itself, eventually, and it doesn’t take long, the engine will self destruct, often explosively.

“There are a couple of ways a diesel engine can be stopped, one is to cut off its air supply and the other is to cut off its fuel supply, hence the bolt croppers. Diesel engines operate at much higher compression ratios than petrol engines. Petrol engines typically compress an air petrol vapour mixture together which then requires a spark to make it ignite in the cylinders and cause the engine to run. Diesel engines compress the air much tighter and it becomes hot enough to ignite the diesel which is injected in via an atomising jet referred to as an injector. You can demonstrate the principle easily enough. If you pump a bicycle pump with your finger over the outlet it gets hot from the compression. There is thus no possibility of stopping a diesel engine by disconnecting the sparking mechanism because it doesn’t have one. That’s not the entire story, but it’ll serve to get the fundamentals of the idea across.

“That morning we had an engine on test and it had been running nicely for twenty minutes or so when we heard the sound of an engine run away. It was a sound few of us had ever heard for real but we’d all heard and seen videos of it happening at college. It’s been described differently by different folk, but to me it’s like the high pitched sound effect they use for bombs dropping in the movies, not the explosion, but the sound as the bombs are falling before they reach terminal velocity which only happens when the air resistance counter balances the effect of gravity. Till that point the noise rapidly gets higher and higher pitched. The two lads working in there had tried to stop it. The rag one put over the air intake had been sucked in without any noticeable effect. The other lad had cut the fuel line just before it entered the pump, with again no effect. At that point the pair of them left as rapidly as they could run. The engine blew up and metal shrapnel came through the four inch cement block wall. Some of the pieces of metal hit three of the lads working in the main workshop. They were all taken to hospital, but fortunately none had serious injuries.

“Then came the issue of the health and safety at work inspectorate investigation. Bastards were desperate to pin it on the two lads working in there insisting they must have been incompetent. It was the two from the inspectorate that were incompetent. One of our lads, Bert, had been working on diesels for over forty years, and he was the one we youngsters wanted to be like eventually. It was Bert who finally worked out what had happened. The oil in the sump was pretty degraded, so it vaporised more easily than it should have done. Once the engine started to run away it had created a relative vacuum in the sump which enabled the oil to evaporate more easily still, and the engine was burning the vapour as fuel. The engine ran faster creating more vacuum hence more fuel for the engine and so on. A positive feedback that the governor had no effect on. After that any engine on test had an oil change before starting it up. That’s me, Lads.”

“Good tales, Alf. Tales of the best sort, ones that remind someone else of another tale. I’ll let those dogs out and pick up the next one if that’s agreeable, Lads? It’ll keep if someone else wants to follow Alf.”

“Looks like you’re up next, Harry.” Pete looked around and added, “I’ll just pull a few pints and let any that need the back(15) have a few minutes.”

Eventually Harry who was an owner driver of an artic [US eighteen wheeler] said, “The events in this tale took place round Darwen Lancashire somewhere. It happened a long time ago, and I just can’t remember where. I was picking up a load of weirdly shaped pipes for the refinery at Ellesmere Port from a spot that specialised in fabricating that kind of stuff. You couldn’t get a decent load on in terms of weight because there were bits sticking out all over the place. I’d picked up there once before. It would have been lunch time when I arrived, and I settled down to wait for a crane operator. I was in no rush. I’d got some bait(16) and a flask of tea with me. I’d just finished eating, and was on my second mug of tea when a bloke came up and said, ‘I’ll load you, Mate.’ I thought he was the crane operator, so I nodded and unloaded my ratchet straps, chains, and load binders. [US chain binders] I think the load binders were referred to as Silvesters, but that could have been the make, or then again I could be talking rubbish due to my faulty memory. I do remember they were lever not ratchet types.

“I knew something was wrong when I saw that bloke slew the crane boom over in my direction far to fast. The pulley block, which must have had a weight of going on quarter of a ton, [250Kg, 560 pounds] was far too low and swinging completely out of control. He was clearly no more a crane operator than I was. Not far away was a loading bay with a load of oxygen and acetylene cylinder upright next to the edge. It was the oxy in your battery tale that reminded me of this one, Alf. I dived down on the ground on the far side of my waggon from the loading bay and I heard the pulley block take the cylinders out like a cluster of pins at a bowling alley. Looking underneath the waggon I watched as the cylinders headed for the ground. The whole event seemed to be in slow motion and to take forever. The acetylene cylinders being at the front hit the ground on their rounded shoulders, and then the bottom of the cylinders fell to the ground too, and they just stayed there. The oxy cylinders being farther back hit the edge of the loading bay first. That upended them so they hit the ground perfectly to knock the valves off. Now, a full BOC(17) oxy welding cylinder is at 2540 psi, [17500 kPa] and those bastards took off like torpedos going upwards and towards the factory wall. Straight through a nine inch block wall, through the factory and straight through the nine inch block wall on the far side. Not long after that they must have run out of propellant and as they dropped out of the sky they ended up in a field at least a quarter of a mile away.”

“What happened then,” asked a clearly fascinated Alf.

“Not a lot for a while. A bloke came out and loaded me. He obviously was a crane operator. I kind of secured the load, and was about to get the hell out of there when some bloke in a suit wanted me to give him the details of what happened. I telt him I didn’t know. I said I was eating my bait and not looking in that direction at the time. I wasn’t for getting involved. If their organisation was so piss poor that could happen I wanted no part of cleaning up the bloody fall out. I was out of there as soon as I could be with an inadequately secured load which I sorted out properly on a service station forecourt a quarter of a mile away. I reckon I got lucky to survive it, and I never took a load from there again. I’ve another just come to me if any want to hear it? Not dangerous, but just as crazy.

Pete said, “Keep going, Harry Lad. You ready for another drop of hard stuff?”

Harry replied with a question, “You got any of that Highland Park left, Sasha?”

“No. Some coming next week I think. I got a couple of cases of Lagavulin and a couple of Dalwhinnie if you’ve a mind to either.”

“I’ll try the Lagavulin, Please.” Harry looked at the clock over the bar and said, “This next one isn’t long should just about get us to supper time.”

“Hellfire, tonight’s flown away, Lads,” remarked Stan.

“It’s what happens on a good night,” Phil said philosophically.

“I’d not been driving long. That trip I was running Aberdeen Angus and Highland cattle down from the highlands destined for Smithfield market in the city of London for some organisation that specialised in complex delivery schedules. I took the loaded livestock trailer down to Scratchwood services on the M1 just outside London, dropped it for another waggon to hitch up to and take into the city. He was already there waiting; he said he’d been there twenty minutes. I waited nearly an hour for a bloke to drop a thirty-three foot flat bed trailer for me to go in to Chelsea with. I was picking up a load of bacon and hams from what I remember as Brown and Knight’s curing house, but again I could be remembering it wrongly. I do remember the trailer must have used for picking up coils of wire from Irlam steel works which is now long gone to take to what was Rylands nail works in Warrington. The coils of wire were still damned hot when they were loaded and before they cooled they burnt characteristic groves in the wooden trailer beds. The wire settled in the grooves and the load was more stable as a result.

“I picked up the cured pork and prepared to dogleg back and forth across the country on a long and slow route back north. The only compensation was the money was damned good. Salted pork is slimy, and it is said to sweat, hence the expression sweating like a pig. Pigs don’t start to sweat till they’ve been slaughtered and brined for a while. A side of bacon is referred to as a flitch and four flitches or four hams were wrapped up in hessian and roughly stitched with sisal twine. I say roughly stitched because the stitches were four to six inches apart. The hessian wasn’t a sack it was just a big square of stuff and after it was folded in half over the bacon or hams it was stitched top, side and bottom purely to stop the meat falling out. They had to wrap the stuff up like that or it would have been unhandleable due to the slime. I think I had seven or eight drops, all at upper class spots like Littlewoods or M & S(18).

“The entire trip was pretty unremarkable really except at Derby. I’d been telt that the approach to wherever it was I was dropping at Derby was impossible without a copper stopping the traffic for you. You had to reverse in off the main road round a pair of tight S bends and avoid knocking down the corrugated iron shanty that was owned by the cantankerous old man who selt newspapers out of it, and you needed the entire road, both sides, to do it. Apparently the store had offered him huge amounts of money for what was no more than a six by eight metal shed that was falling apart, but he wouldn’t have any of it. I heard when he died his grandkids took the money fast enough. After negotiating the shed and the S bends it was a tight fit to get the trailer reversed up to the loading bay. Well I found a copper easily enough, and he grinned and said, ‘You a waggon driver wanting to back off the road round Ernie’s shed?’ It would have been about half five in the morning and once I was backed up to the loading bay I couldn’t find anyone about, so I knocked on till an old bloke arrived. I telt him I’d a load of bacon. He said, ‘Just put it down there, Driver. The day lads will take in in after they’ve had a brew. We don’t have keys to the doors and there’s not enough room to put it on the bay and then open the doors. They open outwards because it’s tight for space inside.’ Christ above, they’d obviously never heard of roller doors.

“All over the place were big signs saying, ‘NO SPITTING’. The old man had a cold and was hawking up big green lumps of phlegm like he was trying to get rid of his lungs. In addition, the yard where he’d suggested I threw the load was crushed hardcore, like temporary car parks are after the houses have been knocked down and they’ve just levelled the site with a dozer. Like a car park of that type that’s been in use for a while there were potholes full of water, and every one was slicked with a film of oil. You could tell from the metallic sheen that constantly changed colour. I must have looked horrified at his suggestion, and I said, ‘I can’t do that.’ He took that to mean I was saying ‘I’m a driver. I don’t load or unload anything,’ which was becoming more commonplace then. ‘Sorry, Mate,’ he said. ‘I’ll get some of the lads.’ I watched his mates threw the load on the floor into the oil slicked potholes, phegm and all. I asked one of the lads, ‘What happens to that before it gets selt?’ He shrugged and said, ‘Pressure washer will cure that.’ I thought that was bad, but I’ve heard a lot worse since concerning food and the places that prepare and sell it.’

“Supper in five or ten, Gentlemen. Chicken and mushroom pies with penne pasta and mushroom sauce tonight. The pies are a bit on the small side, cos we misplaced the big pie press and had to use the small one, so it’s two apiece. We’ve found the big one now. I’d be obliged if you cleared one of the smaller tables, so I can leave an oven tray on it with the spare pies.”

“I’ll sort it for you, Harriet Love.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

~o~O~o~

After supper all looked round to see if there were any more tales forthcoming. Denis said, “Harry talking about that bacon reminded me of a tale a mate of mine telt me years ago. It was when his lad was at university and had come home for the holidays. He’d got a holiday job at a frozen food place that made burgers. He did tell me who owned the spot, but I forget now. I do recall it was a supposedly decent make, like Findus or Birds Eye. I recall my mate telling me after his first shift at work his lad never ate a burger again.”

~o~O~o~

“Aye,” agreed Charlie, “there’s a gey(19) load of bullshit in the food industry. I mind when I drove lettuce to London every now and again we’d take a load down to Mac Fisheries; in Farnworth I think they were. Mac Fisheries had disappeared by nineteen eighty, but they insisted that every lettuce was packed in a plastic bag on the farm to ensure ‘farm freshness’ and quality. The pickers worked in pairs. One wore a belt with a couple of hundred plastic bags on it. The belt had two wires pointing forward and the bags had two small holes in to match. The picker with the bags walked backwards down the rows holding each bag out for the other picker who had the knife to cut the lettuce stem and pushed the lettuce into the bag with enough force to rip the bag off the wires. The lettuce dropped to the ground to be picked up and put in a cardboard box with eleven others by a follow up team. The boxes were then loaded onto a waggon.

So far, so good. A waggon stacked up to the sky with cardboard boxes is not the best load, and nothing used pallets in those days, so we used use corner boards which are two six by one pieces of timber laid may be half a foot apart and connected by three webbing straps. They’d be maybe six foot long. One goes on the top of the boxes, the other drops down over the side. You use them all the way down each side of the load. You brace the outside of the bottom of the load with eight by four sheets of shuttering ply long edge down. The load is roped down by placing the ropes between a pair of boxes and the rope is prevented from going anywhere by the corner boards. I always used a waggoner’s hitch with a double half hitch half sheep shank as the upper loop. [US a particular version of a trucker’s hitch] This of course was before ratchet straps were widely used. After that the entire load was sheeted and roped again. The problem is someone has to be on top of the load before the sheeting to manage the ropes and the corner boards, and those cardboard boxes aren’t designed to take even a kid’s weight. So the bloke on top is regularly putting his boots through a box. Which wouldn’t be so bad if he hadn’t just been milking and got his wellington boots covered in cow shit. Which was a frequent occurrence. All of which meant those plastic bags were pretty point less really, but the shit would have been full of ‘farm freshness’, or maybe it was the ‘farm freshness that was full of shit.

“I mind once on that run a quarter of a load dropped off the back end of the waggon as I went round Banbury cross. I never saw Lady Godiva,(20) but then I was too busy to look. I threw an extra waggon sheet over the load, roped it down and just got out of there as fast as I could. I worried for a bit because the boxes had the farm they came from all over them, but I never heard about the incident again.”

Charlie’s tale caused a ripple of mirth to go round the audience, most had had some sort of similar experience with food at some point in their lives.

~o~O~o~

John added, “Trouble is unless you hear the tale from someone you trust it’s hard to know how much of that kind of story is true and how much is urban myth. There were always tales going round the Manchester area of workers at the Lucozade factory in Little Hulton, known as LH, pissing into the stuff. It was widely known that LH was a den of iniquity. It was run by gangs who had sex with bits of kids not old enough for secondary school,(21) controlled all the drugs and who drove all decent folk out. You simply couldn’t sell a house there. Fire engines and ambulances wouldn’t go there without a full police escort because they’d be firebombed with Molotov cocktails. It had happened a few times. The police couldn’t provide the escort, so the fire and ambulance services simply didn’t go there. Their employers knew the staff would leave before putting their lives on the line. The police said it wasn’t a no go area, but everyone knew they only went in in force and with full riot equipment. The bus companies had withdrawn all services, and all the shops including the pubs had closed and been burnt out. There were areas in parts of the world where civil wars raged that were in better condition.

“After some druggies raped a midwife when they discovered her black bag was mostly full of dressings and contained no drugs there was no health service there either. Even the medical centre closed. And the inhabitants who’d never made any attempt to control their kids never stopped whining that nobody ever did anything for them. The schools were like fortresses and had high staff turnovers when they could get staff at all. Even the lucozade factory shut in nineteen ninety-three. I suspect nobody pissed in the lucozade, but it was what folk from elsewhere thought the workers there would do. They wanted to believe the worst of them, and it’s really hard to get a job with an LH address. Look it up on Youtube. Sure there are plenty of houses advertised as model properties, but look at the bleaker stuff too. Try searching Youtube for ‘Little Hulton inbreeding louts’. You’ll need to turn any net nanny you’ve got installed for the kids off. Don’t forget to turn it back on again. The place isn’t two miles across in any direction, so living there you can’t be far away from hell.”

“Aye you’re right, John. What with urban myths and fake news you just don’t know what to believe these days. You hear youngsters talking about how many friends they’ve got on the internet, but I doubt that it is possible to have internet friends, for in the internet there lies no reality. You can never even know who you’re really talking to. All these kiddie grooming scandals confirm that. I do accept it is possible to have internet folk who say they think well of one, though they’re not friends as I understand the word.” Pete looked around and continued, “These are my friends. Folk I can see, folk I can trust, folk I can tell are full of it with out causing any offence and perhaps more importantly folk who know that when they tell me I’m full of it know that I won’t be offended either.”

There was a murmur of agreement with Pete, and more than a few comments to the effect of, “Aye you hit that nail on the head, Pete.”

Stan asked, “Any more tales? Or is it time to get the dominoes out?”

“Well it’s not exactly a tale, so much as a query tacked on to the end of a bit of a tale,” Sasha stated. “Elle and I have both had our two Covid jabs. When the text came through for the flu jab it only mentioned me. So I went on my own and queued for nearly an hour. The queue was right across the surgery car park and half way back again. Eventually I was jabbed, and I asked about Elle. They gave me some nonsense about a bureaucratic mix up with the phone numbers. I didn’t say anything. As you know I don’t have a mobile. It was Elle’s phone they’d texted for the Covid jabs and my flu jab. They said to bring Elle down and they’d do her. I did, but she wasn’t too good on her pins that day, so she waited in the rover while I queued for nearly an hour again. I’d seen them going out to cars to jab others who weren’t too clever on their legs, and that’s what they did. The quack jabbed her in the rover. I’m still waiting for supplies of the pneumonia vaccine to come in for that. Elle had it last year, but I was somewhere else at the time. My query is has any one heard anything about the Covid booster jab? Because it’s been in the media for days that it’s supposedly available, but I got the same old nonsense when I rang the surgery. The pre-recorded voice said to hang up and they’ll tell us when to go down for it.”

Charlie replied, “Susanna said she’s heard the texts are going out next Wednesday. I think she’s getting cynical in her old age. She reckoned they were sending them out on Wednesday because the surgery is shut all day every Wednesday for staff training, so they get an extra day with no phone calls to deal with. She doesn’t know when we can go down to get jabbed, or even if they are operating a drop in any time system rather than making appointments, but the texts on Wednesday will inform us what we’ve to do. The two Covid jabs were appointments, but the flu jab was a drop in any time. The reason Susanna doesn’t know any more is because the lass that let her know that didn’t know any more herself. She said the doctors were saying it hadn’t been decided yet. Which she didn’t believe, but couldn’t really do anything about because she’s a nurse just helping them out on a temporary basis.”

~o~O~o

“I think that’s it for the tales, Lads. I’ll start pulling pints, if someone will take the money, and the rest of you can set the dominoes up.

.

1 OG, UK version of Ob/Gyn. Obstetrics and Gynaecology.
2 Squirrel pickler, pejorative term for conservationists and their like. It comes from the concept of preserving squirrels by pickling them.
3 DA, a reference to D. A. Harrison, the largest Ready-Mix concrete supplier in Cumbria. Known to most in the area as simply DA [dee ay] they operate plants at numerous sites in Cumbria.
4 Tant, Auntie.
5 Morfar, mother’s father.
6 Ultra-high temperature, or UHT milk comes in sterilized containers. It has a shelf life of several months. UHT milk is heated to a higher than usual pasteurization temperature for a few seconds.
7 Mormor, mother’s mother.
8 PC, green peacing, whale and squirrel pickling, tree hugging, Earth befriending types. Sasha is on a comprehensive rant against some but by no means all that he despises. The references are, PC – politically correct, green peacing – Green Peace, Whale and squirrel pickling – reference being to those stupid enough to think that pickling is a type of conservation, tree hugging – reference obvious or perhaps to Prince Charles, earth befriending – reference to Friends of the Earth. Sasha is not against most of the aims of those organisations, but his is avowedly against fanatics and those organisations contain a goodly few, too many in his opinion.
9 Hyacinth Bucket, née Walton, who insists her last name is pronounced as “Bouquet”, is the main character in the BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances. She is the epitome of a snob, perpetually but hopelessly trying to climb the social ladder and forever trying to impress her neighbours and friends.
10 Oxy set, an oxy acetylene torch.
11 Psi, pounds per square inch.
12 Kickabout, an impromptu game of soccer, often using coats to mark the goal posts.
13 Mag-alloy, magnesium aluminium alloy.
14 To be out on the arm is to be escorting ones wife or girlfriend. It implies shaved and dressed up.
15 The back, vernacular for the Gents’. US men’s restroom or bathroom.
16 Bait colloquial usage for a working man’s meal when at work.
17 BOC, British Oxygen Company.
18 M & S, Marks and Spencer.
19 Gey, usually means very, but here the meaning of a ‘gey load’ is ‘a great deal’.
20 Lady Godiva, the reference is to the nursery rhyme. Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross, To see a fine lady upon a white horse, With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, She shall have music wherever she goes. It is not known who the white lady refers to, but one of the many explanations put forward is that it was Lady Godiva Countess of Mercia who was reputed to have ridden naked through nearby Coventry.
21 Not old enough for secondary school, children in the UK go to secondary school when they are eleven.

Yet again it was Saturday evening and the Grumpy Old Men of Bearthwaite were meeting in the taproom of the Green Dragon with their regular drinking friends from elsewhere outside the village and a number of new faces for an evening of tales, dominoes and drink, especially drink. After all were settled and serious drinking had commenced, Sasha shouted for attention and announced, “Phil has a long tale, so hush it up, Lads. I’ve been led to believe it’ll take a few of us to tell the entire tale properly, so it sounds interesting.”

Phil started by saying “I tender my apologies to the regular Saturday night outsiders and those of you who are here with a view to becoming regulars. There is no insult intended to you, Lads, for you are more than welcome since, and I make no apology for saying it, you contribute both economically and socially to the lives of those of us who live here, especially those of you prepared to tell a tale as well as drink, so if any fancies having a go at telling a tale feel free, for we’ll appreciate the change whatever it is you wish to relate. Fact is when we run out of ideas Sasha fills in and we’ve heard more of his ‘new truths’ than is probably decent and in truth fair to him. When the weather is poor I’m sure most of you are aware that the flooding of the road cuts off access to Bearthwaite from time to time. For those who don’t already know, if you google ‘Green Dragon Bearthwaite’ our website will give you information concerning the state of the road and the likelihood that if you can make it to here you will not be able to leave and will have to book a room at the Dragon after spending the evening here. I’d suggest if that is at all likely you bring your missus with you for a night out with our girls in the best side and book a double room.

“However, back to the point, despite outsiders being welcome here, for all are from the county or just outside it, we all know that Bearthwaite folks are trying to cut down outsiders from the cities delivering anything and everything and that Lucy and Dave used to receive three deliveries of bread a week. We were particularly bothered about the risks associated with importing foodstuffs that would not be cooked and considered bread to be a high risk import. Alice and a couple of dozen women including Lucy have cleaned up and renovated the old mill bake house and are using it as a modern bakery. Alf has converted the ovens from solid fuel, they used to use the faggots supplied by the hedgers and ditchers, to kero(1) and sorted out an adjustable thickness loaf slicer for the lasses. The lasses’ intention is that folks as don’t want to bake their own bread, or don’t have the time, and some as used to have the time don’t any more because they’re doing something else to help the situation here, can buy Bearthwaite baked bread from Lucy and Dave’s shop, or if they prefer they can pick it up direct from the mill. Turns out, the bread they bake is considered tastier than commercial bread, and even at half the price everybody involved is making a decent living out of it.

“I’m paying some of the kids to deliver bread to the old folk using the old delivery boys’ bicycle carts that turned up in an old out building on Peabody’s place that hadn’t been used for sixty years. Vince found another at the back of his slaughter house. You know the sort of thing I mean, a bicycle frame with two wheels at the front below a big basket woven from willow to keep the weight down, The baskets had to be replaced as they were rotten. Gillian, Simon’s missus, as weaves stuff to sell on the local summer marts and her Ebay shop wove them from split willow out of the hedges. Alf and some of the lads have restored them to like new condition, and even put modern gears on them, so they are not as much hard work to ride when loaded. Stan has finished them off with a bit of sign writing saying Bearthwaite Deliveries. They looked like they came straight off one of those old Hovis bread adverts that were on the box in the sixties that nostalgically harped back to the twenties and thirties. Reminded me of the spoof sketch skit that the Two Ronnies did on their television shew way back they did. The kids are having fun picking stuff up from anywhere and when they aren’t delivering they’re using the bikes as recreational vehicles.

“The bake house roof is leaking a bit, so I asked Mark and Mason to have a look at it. Turns out there’s evidence that at one time the roof was thatched, but when the thatch was taken off it was then roofed with wooden shingles. Neither of the lads had come across a shingled roof before. Mark said he’d only ever come across them on Youtube in the States. Mason said he’d heard of them being used down country aways,(2) but he’d never seen them in use. Both agreed the simplest and by far the cheapest solution was to repair the roof, and since the construction was the same as is used on a slate roof there would be no problem doing it provided they could either get a holt on(3) some shingles or some other waterproof material of similar thickness they could cut to the same dimensions as the shingles. Both opined that wooden shingles of a weather resistant wood would be best. They said they’d look into it for me. That would be a month over at least. Mark, Mason, one of you want to take it from here?”

Mason said, “Aye, nay bother, Phil. We had a word with John to see if he had any suitable wood to make shingles from. Since he retired, John’s only worked when George needs a hand with a tree felling job and he said he had nowt.(4) He also said, if George didn’t have owt(5) he’d know someone who would. George reckoned it would be no problem to find straight grained oak that could be cross-cut, [US bucked] into fourteen inch lengths for riving(6) into shingles.”

Mark interrupted to say, “I asked him whether it would be best to cut the shingles out on a table saw or a band saw. I was thinking if a table saw were best it would have to be a hell of a piece of kit.”

Mason resumed, “The look on George’s face was a picture. You’d think we’d committed every one of the seven deadly sins all at the same time.”

The was a voice from the other side of the tap room that declared, “You had. Bit’s of kids these days know nowt. Cutting shingles! Bloody heresy, Lads, I’m telling you. Shingles have to be rived(7) so the split follows the grain of the wood and the end grain doesn’t break out of the surface like it would with a cut piece. Cut shingles wouldn’t last two minutes because the rain would soak into the surface where the end grain breaks out and then they’d rot. The only tools to make shingles with are a froe(8) and beetle.(9) These two didn’t even know what I was talking about. Everyone had a froe and beetle once to split kindling with. They disappeared when open fires were replaced by central heating. Froes were made by the village blacksmith, Thomson back in my day, his family had been smiths in Bearthwaite for many a generation, but everyone made their own handles for them and their own beetles too.”

There was a lot of laughter at that since whilst not elderly neither Mark nor Mason could reasonably be referred to as bits of kids. Both brothers were forty turned and well established family men. Mark, the elder of the brothers was a time served carpenter and Mason a similarly qualified plasterer though they worked together as jobbing builders prepared to do a variety of work. Emily their younger sister did their paper work and books(10) for them as she did for a number of other self employed folk in Bearthwaite.

Mason grinned and said, “After we’d calmed George down a bit, he suggested we have a word with Alf, as he might have a froe, and he said a beetle could be turned down from any bit of hardwood log. ‘Make a few,’ he suggested. “Get a six to eight inch thick piece of branch maybe fourteen inches long off someone’s fire wood pile and turn or drawknife the bark off for safety. If you leave the bark on a piece of greenwood the beetle can easily slip off the froe and slip sideways with however much force you applied to it which isn’t good if your leg is in its path. Turn or drawknife a convenient length for the head and ease the diameter down to a comfortable fit in your hand for the rest of its length. Alf will be able to turn you half a dozen in an hour.’ Alf said he hadn’t seen a froe for decades. He admitted he’d had one years ago that had been his dad’s, but said he’d no idea where it was now. ‘Probably in a museum somewhere,’ he said. He said he would have a word with Simon for us. Simon, you want to take it from here?” Alf could be seen nodding in agreement though he said nothing.

Simon, as was befitting a blacksmith and farrier, was a colossus of a man every bit as big as Alf, but, despite being nearer seventy than sixty, with even bigger biceps. He was left handed and the development of his left arm musculature was truly prodigious. He originated in Jamaica and his skin was as black as a moleskin waistcoat which was an incongruous contrast to his pale grey, almost white, wiry hair. He was a humorous man with a lively sense of the ridiculous with a large family. He was married to Gillian and had served his time as a smith with Thomson his father-in-law. He was a popular man, especially with children, and was locally known as Black Simon which was purely a descriptive term and in no way discriminatory. Even the children called him Black Simon as an honorific form of address to his face; most of them had thought it was in connection with his trade for decades, and for most, regardless of their age, it had become so. Twinning a name with an occupation was a commonplace sort of soubriquet, Vincent the village slaughterman and butcher was known as Vince the mince(11) and Phil who owned and operated the village flour mill was referred to as Phil the mill. Simon nodded, but passed his glass forward for a refill. “Good idea, Simon Lad, I’ll have one as well. Any more for any more? We’ll take a minute to fill glasses before Simon tells us his part of the tale.” By the time Pete had finished saying that, he and Freddy were already behind the bar pulling pints and Gustav was taking the money for them.

Simon, after taking a goodly pull on his pint, said, “This brown ale of yours is getting better with every batch, Gustav.” He wiped the froth off his mouth with the back of his hand and said, “It was a bit of a surprise when Alf telt me Mark and Mason needed a selection of froes from ten inch up to maybe a couple of foot. I used to make ’em by the dozen in all sizes as an apprentice. But that was in the days when Thomson was still in his prime and full of vigour. I still miss that bad tempered, old bugger, specially on cold, frosty Monday mornings. I swear he could light the forge fire with the heat off his curses alone.”

There was a lot of laughter at that, for Simon had succinctly described his late father-in-law in terms all who had known him recognised. They also knew the two men had been close. When they met, Thomson had been a still grieving widower with a family of six young daughters and Simon a homeless runaway from physical abuse. Simon’s family had left a life of poverty in Jamaica and started anew in London. Ten year old Simon, who’d been subject to extreme violence in Jamaica from his father and elder brothers, which hadn’t ceased in London, had finally escaped by hitching a ride on a lorry to anywhere. Anywhere as long as it took him away from his family. He’d ended up in Bearthwaite not knowing where he nor Bearthwaite was, nor caring. Thomson had found him one morning huddling behind the barely still warm forge keeping warm from a freezing cold night and had taken him into the house for a decent breakfast.

On seeing Simon’s bruises, Thomson had prised his tale out of him, and he’d gan radge,(12) which is to say become enraged. He’d said, “I’m no good Samaritan, but neither am I a man as can walk away from from a child who’s been treated the way you have, Son. As all know, I’ve had my issues with the law, Lad, but I know the difference between right and wrong, so fuck the authorities and the courts. We need to get clever because from now on you live safely here with me and the girls, Son, and we need to lie through our teeth to make that stick. I’ll ask the locals to keep their mouths shut about you, so nothing about you will ever leave the village, and that bunch of bastards down country who hurt you will never hear about you again. You’re more than three hundred miles north of London here, so you’re unlikely to meet anyone who knows who you are. Even if any of the authorities become interested in you there’re any number of farmers in the middle of nowhere who’d do me the favour of looking after you till officialdom buggered off and things cooled down. You’re a big lad for ten, and big enough to be a convincingly small one of sixteen. So if any ask you’re sixteen. Okay? That way even if the powers that be hear about you they’ll assume there’s bugger all they can do about it and leave you alone.” Simon had never had any dealings with his family again who had, had he but known it, not even bothered to report him as missing.

Not long after joining Thomson’s family, he’d started to grow dramatically and none had ever questioned the age he claimed to be. Masquerading as sixteen he’d ‘officially’ left school and he was educated by his new family and friends. Gillian, Thomson’s youngest daughter, who was his age made sure Simon kept up with what she was doing at school. Despite Thomson’s heavy hand from time to time, Simon had worshipped his mentor whom he’d apprenticed to without realising it from the day Thomson had taken him in. Simon had only bothered to sort all his official identity issues out at the age of twenty in order to marry Gillian by which time there was nothing anyone could do about the way he had spent his teens. As Thomson aged and gradually did less, Simon gradually took over the forge by doing more. The forge’s success as a business was assured when Gillian encouraged Simon to make small, easy to produce pieces she could sell on the internet along with her basketry work, which he did when in his own words, ‘I haven’t any real work to do.’

When Thomson died none questioned Simon’s right to the forge when his five sisters in law, all married to successful village tradesmen, had said that since Gillian and Simon were continuing a business that had owed its success to them both for years before their father had died it was only reasonable that Simon was the Bearthwaite blacksmith who owned the forge, for if he didn’t own it the business would be worth nothing and Bearthwaite would no longer have a blacksmith which would be an unthinkable calamity. That there were two of Simons sons and a couple of his grandsons too who regularly worked the forge and over a dozen of his descendants and nephews who competently worked the forge from time to time reassured the community considerably. The citizens of Bearthwaite were happy to know that the future of the forge facility, which was an essential one to their community, was assured for at least another half century.

“I’d not made a froe for years. When Alf asked me to make some I ratched(13) about in a corner and found a couple I’d made decades before. I knew they were made by me rather than by Thomson for they’d my maker mark(14) on them. One was ten inch the other eighteen. I made a couple of others, fourteen and twenty-four inch. None had handles, but Alf said he’d drawknife(15) some down from green ash on his shave horse.(16) Thomson always said to make froes from a high carbon steel in it’s normalised(17) state and that it made more sense to use leaf springs from light trucks and cars from the scrap yards than to waste money paying for something like new EN 45 spring steel. I’ve never closed the eye up on a froe because Thomson said that was the hallmark of an amateur because any weld, whether it be a forge weld, an electric weld or a gas weld, would always ultimately fail due to the sideways levering forces that the froe was subject to in normal usage and that rivets fared no better. Listening to the problems of others convinced me decades ago that he knew what he was talking about. He was truly a master of masters. He stuck to the old ways only when he had convinced himself it was the best way to do a job. When he found a better way that was how he proceeded thereafter. He always said, ‘Use the best techniques and materials, Son. Old or new, it makes no odds, just stick with the best, but don’t take anyone’s word for anything; try them all for yourself. Smithcraft is the same as every other craft, it’s full of charlatans. Make your own mind up.’

Alf was nodding in agreement when he interrupted saying, “Thomson, telt me those very same words many a time.”

Simon smiled as he said, “Nothing he ever taught me have I ever had reason to question. Sure, given modern technology and materials I’ve added to what he taught me, but none of the newer stuff has ever even challenged the principles he imparted to me, never mind refuted them. Dad may have had no formal education, but he was highly intelligent, read a lot about metallurgy and integrated everything he’d ever come across with a prodigious analysis of everything he’d ever done himself, and he was ever willing to experiment and try new ideas both his own and those derived from other folks. There are plenty of damned good blacksmiths with channels on Youtube shewing amateurs how to do all sorts of things, but few even approach Dad’s level of knowledge and skill.

“The best smiths I’ve come across, bar one who has a forge in Devon who I assume does it like Dad did, taper the eye of a froe so that the handle can’t come out, like a pick axe and its handle, but Dad forced a tapered drift in to the white hot open eye from both sides which created a waisted hourglass shape on the inside of the eye. A simple tapered eye is almost certain to free the handle on every blow from the beetle. His hourglass shaped eye retained the handle fast every blow. Some of my best memories of working with Dad are when we were trying something new. Most failed and that was okay, for then we knew the idea was no good, but when we discovered a winner we were both on a high for weeks.

“Dad hadn’t any time at all for the ‘sophisticated’ nonsense many spouted about froes; much of the rubbish I’ve seen on Youtube would have had him frothing at the mouth and in serious need of a drink. He insisted that a froe was a splitting tool not a cutting tool, so it didn’t need the steel to be heat treated because it didn’t need to be sharp. He preferred a forged bevel rather than a ground one, so I always did it that way too, though I know some folk used to make them using mild steel with a ground bevel with perfectly acceptable results. I suspect the bevel would have needed fettling more often than a forged one, but I don’t know that for sure because I’ve never done it that way because forging the bevel down is a damn sight quicker than grinding all that metal off, but Dad was a perfectionist. When they were in common use, every one knew you never hit a froe with anything other than wood. Hitting one with a steel hammer was a sure fire way of eventually snapping one in half.

“Dad selt froe blades by the tens of thousands, and they were exported to every corner of the globe, so I reckoned he must have known how to make ’em right because the repeat orders kept coming in, so I made ’em the same way he did. Nowadays, given the advances in materials technology, I suppose using a heavy polymer beetle would be okay. When Alf telt me what the boys wanted the froes for I telt him the waste left over from making the shingles, for me to use as forge kindling, would do the trick for payment. I’ll take a drop of the hard stuff now, Pete, please. The rough cane rum of mine will be just fine. If there’s none behind the bar, I’d be much obliged if you’d fetch a case, or even two, up for us to taste.”

“I’m on it, Simon. You’ve only three cases left, so you may want to be sorting out a further supply?”

“Jesus, Pete! you should have let me know a few months ago. Luckily for you I won’t hold it against you because my friend Adio, who lives on his boat which earns his living, is leaving Kingston for Silloth next month. I’ll have him bring us a decent cargo if some of you want to chip in. His family don’t know, but he’s coming this way to propose to Alerica his second cousin. She lives with family in Hawick, and I know there’s absolutely no possibility she’ll say no. They’ve been in love for years, but her parents don’t approve of Adio because he has a rather haphazard lifestyle. Now he’s worth a lot of money, and they are both old enough to tell her parents to mind their own business. Alerica will be leaving with Adio and a load of non existent malt whiskey, some of which I hasten to add will end up here. To pay Adio for a full load of hostage rum,(18) which is probably several thousand bottles, I need four or five grand, preferably ten to make sure he’ll do a return run some time.

“Put me down for a grand, Simon,” was shouted by any number of the men. The only difference being how much was being pledged.

“Okay. I’ll tell him to bring as much as he feels he can get away with, Lads. Do I tell him to bring a cargo of whatever spirits he can load for us whenever he can? You have to mind there is no guarantee where it’s coming from nor what it is, but I do guarantee it will all be rare stuff and appropriately priced because the authorities will have had nothing out of it. Adio has a contempt you can’t imagine for politicians who he believes parasitise folks like us by means of taxes to fund their lifestyles.”

Stan said with heat in his voice, “Adio sounds like the kind of a man we all would like to shake hands with. It would be an honour to meet him and pay for his board and lodging at the Dragon, Simon. See if you can persuade him to stop over a weekend when he delivers. He must have a tale or two to tell well worth listening to.”

“Nay need,” said Pete. “Board and lodging for such a man are free at the Dragon.”

Sasha replied, “Fuck it to hell, Simon. Regarding cargo, tell Adio just to get what ever the stuff is here, whenever it suits his life. We’ll pay for it. Hell, I’ll pay for it upfront if necessary. I can always sell it off later as and when whoever wants to buy some. We don’t suffer from the trust issues that affect most of the world. At two quid a shot, and a shot here is at least four of the poxy, parsimonious measures served elsewhere, we’ll be able to cover whatever the cost, and we have no need to do more than that do we? Talking of which, Gustav, you need to be looking into the situation regarding setting up a Bearthwaite distillery completely registered with Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise. I know the registration process is lengthy, complex and expensive, however, if all of us put our weight and money behind you it shall be doable. Possibly the best way to proceed is to still off some high octane super pure spirit and let it down and flavour it as required. There is no need to produce just one product, perhaps you could be more successful selling a variety of end products. Once the tax is paid we could sell your produce anywhere from high class vendors and the internet to street markets in tourist centres and car boot sales. [garage sales] Who the hell cares as long as it doesn’t lose money and is providing work for locals? Eventually, Bearthwaite Blonde Blitz and her relatives, or whatever the hell we call them, will sell as long as they are tasty, especially sweetened for female palates, and we can produce it at a price folk like us are prepared to pay. There is little point in trying to produce a product at an exorbitant price that only the wealthy few can afford and then trying to convince them they want to buy it. Make it up as you go along.”

After the lengthy diversion Mason took up the original tale, “George delivered some twenty inch [500mm] diameter oak logs ready cut to length for shingles, and Alf dropped a half dozen beetles off along with the four handled froes the day after. He’d done a a good job on both having turned the lot. After a bit of practice with a froe we both reckoned it was an easy tool to use and we were producing acceptable shingles at a decent rate in no time. We used all the oak blanks which made a load more shingles than the job required. After sorting out Alice’s bakehouse roof we stacked the spares on a pallet in one of the mill’s out buildings, so they are there for next time for whoever has to do the job. All telt, it was an interesting job though it took a few of us to sort it. Mark and I were talking about that when we were up on the roof. We reckon all of us need to be thinking about how we can help each other like that, so money doesn’t leave Bearthwaite. Most of the time bits of jobs don’t get charged for here, cos it all works out in the end. Regarding the price of the wood for the shingles and the beetles George said, ‘Forget it.’ Simon charged bugger all for his time and effort, just a few bags of waste wood. Alf wasn’t interested in being paid and seeing as we all eat bread and the bakery is part of the village’s food supply system we didn’t charge anything either. Phil has his roof fettled, and Alice is going to give everybody involved free bread for a bit. Result is all is well and no outside economy took money out of us, which we reckoned was more important than owt else.”

~o~O~o~

Tommy who had the Bearthwaite Post Office with Sarah his wife said, “ I’ve a kind of similar short one, Lads. It’s only ready for telling now thanks to several other folks. It all came about because last year I saw advertised in the Cumberland News a book binding course that was being held at a bookshop in Cockermouth. I’ve always wanted to be able to do a proper job on my guide book to the Bearthwaite pack pony trail. The ones I originally selt were just photocopies of my self produced manuscript. As most know they are hand written and Sarah has done the sketches from my photographs, both hand writing and sketches done in Alfred Wainwright’s(19) style whose influence I have always acknowledged. It’s a slim volume, but I always wanted to see it in hardback the same size as Wainwright’s volumes. Trouble is it there’s only the one walk, and it would be barely worth the trouble since it would be a gey thin book, so a while back I started working out other walks round here to add to it. Most started, ended or both at the Dragon. Pete’s going to put some information behind the bar to encourage folk as is staying here to do the walks or return and do them. Alice and Phil have agreed to do a conducted tour of the mill from time to time in the late morning. Aggie will provide a breakfast and a packed lunch if required, and we’re working on incorporating that into a gentle walk breaking at Peabody’s farm in the afternoon where Alex’s missus Winifred will serve a cream tea.

“The plan is the walkers pay here at the Dragon for the entire event and we sort the money out with Gladys, Alice and Winifred whenever it’s convenient. If we can come up with enough activities, Gladys suggested offering weekend packages and even three day packages over bank holiday weekends, we reckon we have something that will attract older visitors and those with young families, especially during the better weather of summer. I’m currently in contact with the reservoir authority about the fishing with a view to putting together a fishing and accommodation package including a Saturday night in here for the men, and an evening for any lasses fishing in the best room. However, Harriet pointed out, there are many lasses as enjoy fishing who may just enjoy the tales in the tap better than being in the best side with the girls. Since we’ve nay issues concerning that we may as well advertise our ready acceptance of women in here. Harriet reckons there’s a huge recreational market with trans lasses if they are just accepted as they are. None of us here have any issues with that, so I reckon we should go for it. Cis or trans, I don’t care and I know none else here do either, so I think we should focus on the business aspect of the matter, and deal with any issues as and when they arise. What I’m saying is just do it.

“I reckon if we agree to maintain the access footpaths to the reservoir’s various pumps and other engineering equipment they’ll grant us the fishing rights in exchange. The bloke I spoke to was favourably disposed to the idea. Sam and Gee Shaw have agreed to allow campers to pitch tents on their field next to the reservoir for a nominal charge if it’s paid for at the Dragon. We could do some sort of a camping fishing deal. I’ve heard of one reservoir somewhere in the north east that does a free fishing day in return for a couple of days’ of path maintenance and the like, and because it’s a private fishery they don’t limit the catch. They have their own hatchery which is may be something we could be thinking about for the future, but I reckon the free day’s fishing in return for maintenance is something worth considering.

“At the moment, there’re not a lot of fish in the water, but that’s something the environment agency have said they’d be willing to look into for us regarding what species we could seed the reservoir with. Then it’s just a question of ringing one of the hatcheries, there’re a few in south Cumbria, and paying for the fingerlings. If anyone has any ideas for walking routes I’d be obliged to be telt of it, but even more if anyone has a workshop where they could put on a twenty minute to a half hour exhibition of whatever they do, or, better yet, allow folk to have a go that would be brilliant to be able to include in a guided tour. Some of the farmers are prepared to have special days where kiddies can feed pet lambs, calves and the like. None of it is properly organised yet, but I think there’s a bit of money to be made out of the guided tours and a fair bit more for folk putting on meals or refreshments for walkers. The pack pony trail is only suitable for adults and older teenagers, but the gentler stuff that stays down here in the valley is highly appropriate for older folks and families with young kids. Sarah and I shall write the guides and they’ll all go in the Bearthwaite Walkers’ Guide that I want to produce, but we’d appreciate any help we can have putting it all together.

“Getting back to that course. I was never prepared to pay the ridiculous money that the vanity press demanded to produce a limited edition, so I rang up and booked the course with a view to learning what was involved. It was a two day course, but I’ve no idea now what it cost. Sarah went with me on both days and said there was plenty for her to do in the town. The only other thing I knew about Cockermouth was that years ago there was an ironmongers at the top end of the town next to the Cocker bridge that selt bee keeping stuff. I don’t think the ironmongers is there any more, but I could be wrong.

“I’ve no idea what Sarah did with herself, but I do remember meeting up with her for lunch. There was a small shop across the road from the book shop that selt sandwiches, coffees and the like. They selt some pretty exotic combinations of sandwiches and baguettes. First time I’d ever come across crispy bacon and avocado in combination, but it was damned tasty.

“I’ve been making practice hardbacks for a while now. It took me a couple of months to produce one good enough for sale and the few folk who’ve bought one seem to like that they’re completely produced in Bearthwaite. Any slight imperfections are made up for by the fact that every one is signed by both of us, writer and illustrator. I wanted a book press, but I wasn’t prepared to pay for even the cheapest of book presses off Ebay, so I asked Alf if he could make me one. He asked did it have to be screw operated or could he make me a hydraulic one one using a small bottle jack. I went on line, but I couldn’t find any references to hydraulic book presses, but I did find references to screw types capable of exerting two or three tons of force. Alf had said there were many hydraulic bottle jacks that would exert at most a ton, so I could have as little or as much force as I required. Now I have a really easy to use hydraulic book press that Alf said cost less than fifteen quid for the parts, and at twenty-five quid all in I reckon it’s a snip. That’s where we’re up to. Like I said we’d appreciate any ideas and help we can get.

~o~O~o~

Alf was looking seriously disgruntled before he said, “Sorting Tommy’s press out was just about the only thing that’s gone right for me in the last month, and I had a seriously bad week last week, Lads, but like I said things had been going bad on me for three or four weeks before that. Ellen’s microwave went down and the replacement finally arrived. Only trouble was it didn’t work. So I had to return it. In order to do that without having to pay for a fifteen quid return fee I had to print off a returns label provided by Ebay. Easy, well it would have been if my printer hadn’t refused to print because the black cartridge was out of ink. So I sent for some ink cartridges, but when they arrived they were for the wrong printer and didn’t fit. I contacted the supplier who immediately admitted fault and gave me a refund. Naturally he wanted the other cartridges back which were huge and expensive ones for a full blown Hewlett Packard office printer. Problem solved you’d think, not a bloody bit of it, more damned trouble. He’d already given me the refund so I couldn’t print his label off even had I had some cartridges because I couldn’t access the order on Ebay anymore. Ebay concierge team explained to me that since the seller had given me a refund the case was closed and even they couldn’t access the order, so I ordered some cartridges elsewhere to avoid confusion and contacted the original cartridge man. I explained the situation and he telt me what to write on the parcel to get it back to him at no cost to myself. Which I did and that solved that bit of the screw up that was that week.

“In the meanwhile I copied the microwave return label that I could see on the screen by hand and wrote the number of the bar code down where it was supposed to be, stuck it on the parcel and took it to the post office. I’d done that a couple of years ago with something following the instructions Tommy had given me, and it had been delivered okay. Three days later the microwave was returned to me by Tommy who telt me Parcel Force won’t play that game any more. Trouble was I still hadn’t got a working printer and I only had five of my twenty-eight days left in which to return the microwave for a refund. I already had its replacement, but Argos still had my money for them both.

“The printer cartridges arrived and I did manage to print the return label and return the microwave in time, but I’d only had a day to spare. And before any asks why I didn’t go round and use their computer setup to access my Ebay account and print the labels off. I tried it on Tommy’s, Sasha’s and Phil’s but it didn’t work. I managed to get logged on to my Ebay account but I couldn’t print the labels. In addition that week the eight inch bandsaw tyre I’d ordered for my Draper bandsaw came and it was far too big. I did manage to to return it and get a refund, but I still haven’t managed to source a replacement. What can you do? It’s the only way to buy stuff that’s coming from far away.”

Tommy smiled and said, “It won’t happen again, Alf. Sarah ratched about online and downloaded a bit of software that if you feed in the barcode in numbers it will print out the barcode itself for you that a reader can scan in. If we’d had that then we could have printed off your barcode glued it on your label and Parcel Force could have scanned it. We’ve tested it with a Parcel Force scanner and it works.” Alf said nothing as he shrugged and reached for a bottle with which to pour himself some liquid comfort from.

~o~O~o~

“I’ve had the electronic equivalent of Alf’s screw ups,” Sasha said wryly. “All my Ebay data including passwords died. I was on their helpline at least half a dozen times. PayPal wouldn’t let me pay for stuff, so I was on their helpline six times in fourteen days of which three times were in forty-eight hours. God alone knows what was wrong, but one of the PayPal persons telt me that they had just become a separate company and were no longer part of the Ebay group. He said the separation hadn’t been without its problems, whatever that means. Anyway the problem seems to be cured now, but who knows.

“That, however, was small beer compared with the problems we’ve had with Elle’s phone. It started when she telt me she couldn’t use it because she’d run out of data and asked me if I could put some more on it. You know I’ve never had a mobile, but knowing I’d be better at working out how to do that I said I’d have a look at it for her. It didn’t take me long and I bought four giga bytes of data. I can’t remember what it cost and I wasn’t sure how much to buy, but whatever, that’s what I did. In less than forty-eight hours Elle had no data. Elle has a contract with O2, so I rang the O2 helpline and spoke to a very helpful lady in Cape Town. She reckoned that Elle who watches all kinds of stuff on her phone must have picked up some apps that run in the background and suck data. I’m still not exactly sure what an app is. I know it stands for application, but that’s not helpful. This lady spent ages talking me through every app on Elle’s phone, telling us what it did and looking it up for us if she didn’t know. We deleted a couple of dozen of them leaving the phone with only the stuff that Elle actually used. The lasa credited the phone with two giga bytes of data as a goodwill gesture.

“She also made us aware of the little fan shaped icon that meant the phone was using the router connection that I access the my internet broadband through via a Solway Communications dish on the roof. I haven’t had a British Telecom land line for years; it all goes via the dish. She said when the two little arrows icon was moving it meant the phone was using mobile data. I thought I understood what she meant at the time, but, knowing what I do now, I clearly didn’t. The two giga bytes of data had gone in less than twenty four hours. I started exploring various menus on the phone. I found out that Elle had a contract that gave her an allowance of one giga byte of data a month, and any left over would roll over to the following month, but not on to the month after that. I also discovered her average monthly usage for over two years had been point six eight giga bytes and her maximum had been one point one eight giga bytes. But the data rolled over from the month before had covered her and she’d not noticed any difference because she hadn’t run out of data.

“An other phone call to the O2 helpline in Cape Town. This time I spoke to Frau Hitler of Cape Town, an arrogant condescending bitch if ever I heard one. I tried to have her explain how a phone and user that averaged so low a usage could suddenly use six giga bytes in less than three days, a nearly one hundred fold increase. I wasn’t questioning that it had done so I merely wanted to know how that could happen, but I reckon she was too thick to appreciate that. The bottom line from her point of view was that it was all our fault and she telt me nothing that I hadn’t telt her. I was patient, God knows I was patient. It takes a lot to get me going with helpline staff. They are underpaid and it’s never their fault, so it’s unreasonable to take it out on them even if they are the only folk you can talk to. I always make it clear to them that no matter how irritated I am with events I know it’s not their fault and I am not having a go at them. Ask Elle. She’ll tell that’s true.

“In the end Frau Hitler asked if there was anything else she could help me with. I was still being polite, but that was my opportunity to tell her that I objected to the way that had been phrased because it suggested that she had already helped me, and since she had provided me with no help at all so far it was patronising in the extreme. I admit I thought ‘Gotcha bitch’ as she finally lost it screaming at me on the phone as I disconnected the call. All was being recorded of course, and she would be in a whole load of shit for that. All childishly satisfying, but totally unproductive.

“What I haven’t mentioned yet is I have been having serious problems with my broadband connection. The broadband started dropping out and losing contact a couple of months ago. The problem has been intermittent but getting worse with time. It has affected my desk top upstairs which the router sits on the top of, and my laptop downstairs. After a lot of research and some serious thinking I realised it was also affecting Elle’s mobile phone. Now three different devices all affected sounds like a router problem.

“I rang Solway Communications who promised that they would contact me within one working day. They didn’t. I rang again and was promised contact that day as a matter of urgency. It didn’t happen. I rang yet again and was yet again promised contact that day as a matter of urgency. It didn’t happen. I rang again asking what was going on and that time I was put through to an engineer who said he had been trying to contact me and we must have missed each other. I said I’d been near the telephone all the time which was an answerphone. That was when things began to clear. A bit. He said he’d been emailing me. I told him he hadn’t got my email address. He quoted a long defunct BT(20) email address. I telt him it was because of the problems with BT that I had terminated my contract with them and switched to Solway Communications ten or twelve years ago. He said he’d be round the following day early on.

“He was, at ten to eight. He went up on the roof and checked the dish. It was fine. He came in and checked the router which he said was receiving the signal okay from the dish, but it was an old model and possibly its wifi capability was erratic. He installed a brand new up to date router. He speculated that one of my trees was possibly causing a problem because the branch concerned in a strong wind could possibly interfere with the line of sight required by the dish to the tower it took its signal from. As soon as I can I’ll lop the branch. Finally I reckoned I knew what was going on. Elle had not been using just point six eight giga bytes a month. That was just the amount of contract mobile data she’d used. Most of her usage occurs in the house where her phone has wifi access to my router which has an unlimited data allowance and she’d been using probably a hundred times as much in total as her contracted mobile data, but we weren’t aware of that, and her phone doesn’t record it. When the old router dropped out her phone switched to using her contracted mobile data which she used in no time at all. The nightmare is she wants a new phone and God alone knows what grief that is going to give me.

“However all that pales into insignificance along side my crusher refusing to start. Even after charging both of its batteries’, it’s a twenty-four volt system, it wouldn’t give a flicker. The hold down solenoid that allows fuel through has been playing up for a while. I’ve been manually holding it open with a piece of wire, but now not a flicker. I presume the box of electric tricks has given up, so on Alf’s advice I’ve sent for an auto-electrician to pay a visit.”

~o~O~o~

Liam said, “Buying a new new phone isn’t too bad, Sasha. It’s everything that goes with it. Because we hardly go anywhere these days when we have to go to Carlisle or any other big town Rhona and I try to pack every thing we need to do into one trip. We needed to visit the opticians for sight tests and new glasses, the solicitor to update our wills, and to buy a phone from the O2 shop and whilst we were at it we planned on a big supermarket shop and to sort out Rhona’s jewellery and ears. Since the opticians, the solicitors and the O2 phone shop are all in Whiteport we decided we’d shop at Asda there. We knew it would be a nightmare of a day, not least because parking there is so difficult. You all know what the roads are like between here and Whiteport. I drove forty miles down nightmare country roads averaging twenty-five miles an hour. I felt like I’d done a day’s work before I got there. We arrived early, so Rhona decided to see about jewellers to get a new chain for her pendant and get the little ring on it mended. It needed soldering. Jewellers call them jump rings.

“However, the first stop was Greggs for a steak bake(21) for me. Then we trailed round for an hour and a quarter to see about getting Rhona’s ears re-pierced because the holes had healed, made up they call it. Wouldn’t you know it, we tried eight or so jewellers and places that advertised ear piercing, two of them major high street chains and no luck. A tiny little place that selt all kinds of tat that was the first hit up the night before when I googled ‘ear piercing in Whiteport’ sorted her out with two pairs of suitable earrings and the lass who looked to be in her early twenties managed to fit one pair without having to re-pierce Rhona’s ears. She said they hadn’t made up it was just they were tight from lack of use. Problem solved for twenty-eight quid to keep Rhona happy. I reckon that to be cheap. Next a different Greggs for a steak bake apiece and a tea for me that Rhona had a sip of. She’s not too keen on drinking anything away from home because the ladies’ lavatory facilities are usually pretty grim.

“Then it was time to move the truck for the first time because you can only park for an hour if you want to park anywhere near Sterling Road, the main shopping street in Whiteport, and there is no easy long stay parking close enough for Rhona to walk from. Next the opticians for both of us. I wanted new lenses with a bit more power as reading small writing had become more difficult. The type of lenses I prefer have a bigger than usual field of view for close work and reading. They have to be specially ordered, and are expensive, round three hundred quid [$400] for a pair of lenses. The frames are on top of that. Rhona wanted a new pair of specs but with the same kind of lenses I use which she hadn’t had before. The lass downstairs said Rhona’s appointment was before mine. I telt her Rhona needed a sit down to rest from walking, so we’d switch appointments. She was fine about that, and telt us our appointments were in the examination rooms upstairs. As I went upstairs I was thinking that Rhona was going to need a rest halfway. Now as most of you know Rhona is poor on her pins,(22) and the stairs up to those examination rooms are steep and long. A standard house stair has fifteen risers. Those had thirty-two risers with a quarter landing a third of the way up.

“Stroppy Mare behind the upstairs reception desk started riving into(23) me about switching appointments demanding to know where Mrs McKenzie was. She obviously went to the same training camp as Sasha’s Frau Hitler. I telt her, ‘Having a sit down downstairs so she doesn’t collapse and blow her heart up. I hope when you’re half her age, which from the look of you won’t be for a good few years yet, you have a bit more consideration for older folk. We decided to swap appointments, and I’m not asking for your permission. If you don’t like it we’ll use a different optician. Last time I was in here I spent nearly a grand [£1000, $1350], this time it’ll probably be even more. Your call, Lady.’ To a background of sniggers from her colleagues she apologised and backed off.

“I had the initial check ups done by a technician, that included the air puff test for glaucoma,(24) and I waited for the optician to do the eye test. Whilst waiting, I went downstairs to help Rhona up the stairs. Once we were up, Stroppy Mare reared up again implying we were making problems for ourselves. She telt Rhona, ‘You should have rung for a downstairs examination room.’ Rhona replied, ‘I gather you are the Stroppy Mare my old man telt me about. The one intent on driving customers away. We came forty miles for this appointment. I don’t need to travel that far to be abused by a bit of a kid like you.’ I’d say the lass was early thirties, but Rhona with it on her(25) has to be seen to be believed. ‘Now we’re here we’ll see it through, but I’m thinking next time we’ll try somewhere else. Had anyone made me aware that a downstairs examination room was available I should have requested it, and just for your information I’m psychotic not psychic.’ Again to a background of sniggers Stroppy Mare apologised and backed off.

“While Rhona was having the initial check ups done I went to move the truck again, and returned to have my main eye test done by a wee Asian lass wearing a hood. I’m more than willing to admit I don’t like Muslims, nor indeed any other folk, bringing their culture to Britain, but as long as they don’t try to stuff it down my face and demand changes to my culture I’ll accept their options. She politely telt me I’ve now got the beings of a cataract on my left eye which is the good one, but with my new prescription I’ve got twenty-twenty vision. She reckoned it could be a long time before the cataract became a problem, but it may only be five years due to my diabetes.

“After some questions she became concerned that because I have diabetes treated with insulin I didn’t take enough care of myself in general and of my eyes in particular. She was amazed that I don’t see a diabetes consultant. That tells you she’s not been in Cumbria long because the area health authority hasn’t had a diabetes consultant of its own for over twenty-five years I know of, it has just borrowed them from all over the country and Scotland too whenever it could get one. That I also I forget to have the eye screening retinopathy tests as well as forgetting to have my annual general check up with my GP(26) completely perplexed her. She asked for permission to email my GP to get me enrolled on the retinopathy screening program and to have regular check ups. I telt that was fine, but because I am what I am it didn’t necessarily mean I would do anything about it, and that chances were in a couple of year’s time when she had moved on some other optician would be singing me the same song. I left a very puzzled young woman behind me.

“When I was talking to the technician who was taking the necessary details and going to order my new lenses and arrange for them to be fitted in my existing frames because it turned out that was cheaper than a new frame – if only I’d known – I realised that Rhona was back downstairs with me. I’d been intending to go up to help her down. She telt me it was much harder coming downstairs than going up, and some one had carried her stick down for her, so she could hold the bannister rail with both hands, which she reckoned was the best way to go about it.

“My technician was a trainee and he readily admitted he was sure the lenses I wanted were on the computer system somewhere, but never having had any dealings with them before he couldn’t find them. He apologised and said he’d fetch someone who would be able to do so. I telt him I’d prefer that he was up front about it than that he waste our time. The older woman whom he fetched found them straight away and telt him why he’d failed to find them before. I didn’t reckon it was his fault as the system was completely counter intuitive and my lenses weren’t with the others. In short he was using a poxy computer system. When he wanted to discuss paying I telt him that I’d pay for Rhona’s and mine together. He was okay about that, but said my glasses, because of the lenses, could possibly take four weeks to arrive, but Rhona’s would probably be only a fortnight. I telt him she wanted the same type of lenses as I had. He said it would best to assume it would take a month for both, but he’d text us when both were in for fitting and collection.

“By that time I had to leave to move the truck again. Fortunately this time I managed to park close to the opticians, easy enough for Rhona to walk to. I’d parked right outside Greggs and the smell coming from the shop was hard to ignore, but I resisted the lure of another steak bake. When I returned Rhona was still being seen, apparently she’d needed extra tests for peripheral vision which was done downstairs. When she came out she telt me she had the beginnings of cataracts on both eyes. Typical! She just had to go one better. Anyway after selecting a new pair of specs and making sure she had ordered the same type of varifocal lenses I had we left the opticians knackered. The opticians was cheaper than I expected, a mere snip at just less than eight hundred quid [£800, $1000] and that was just the specs. Both of us being over sixty the eye tests were free. God knows how much they are if you have to pay for them.

“Off we set for the appointment at the solicitors’ three-quarters of an hour late. Fortunately the solicitor we were discussing the change to our wills with knew about the opticians appointment and expected us to be late. The directions I’d been given took me to a chartered accountants, so I had to take the truck off their parking. I got lucky and managed to park two hundred metres [200 yards] down the road outside the solicitors’ office on double yellow lines(27) that were just about obliterated by time and vehicles wearing them away, probably by parking on them. Like I said parking in Whiteport is a nightmare, so folk break the rules all the time. The solicitors’ receptionist asked me who we were there to see, but I couldn’t remember. The third name she suggested sounded familiar, and for once I made a good guess. She was a pleasant and helpful wee thing in her middle thirties who made the appointment quick and relatively painless, but they haven’t presented their bill yet, so maybe it’s a little early to say painless and more appropriate just to settle for quick.

“Our next stop was back into the town centre for a visit to the O2 phone shop. I parked again on Stirling Road. As before I went into Greggs, but I lived dangerously this time and tried a chicken bake. I’d been considering trying one for a decade or so. The verdict was it was innocuous but tasteless, so maybe I’ll try a corned beef bake in ten or so years; if I’m still above ground that is. I have no intention of ever trying a vegetarian bake and even less of trying a vegan bake. Now the O2 phone shop was fun. The plan was I was going to have Rhona’s old phone, so I could accept text message code numbers from PayPal and the like. I had no intention of using it to text anyone. I don’t do texting, and in any case I have no one to text since I have no friends or relatives I have any intention of communicating with. I had no intention of using it for anything else. I have a laptop which I use for internet usage, and, like Sasha, I have a Solway Communications dish for broadband and my ‘landline’ which I use for phone calls. Rhona was going to buy a new phone with a new number and transfer her contact list, photos, and video clips from her old phone to her new phone.

“The lass in the O2 shop was nice and during the transactions we discussed all sorts whilst waiting for phone things to happen. She asked what I did, and I said I was a retired mathematician. The usual conversation ensued. She said that she was no good at maths but her daughter loved it. I didn’t have the heart to tell her she wasn’t talking about mathematics but arithmetic and that she, like nearly all folk who were not mathematicians, had no idea what mathematics was. I admitted a lot of what she was talking about concerning phones went right over my head, and that though I was not stupid I had no interest in anything O2, nor any other mobile service, had to offer. I made her explain in sufficient detail what she was talking about to enable me to understand what was going on. Rhona when asked said, ‘My husband is the one you have to convince. If you can’t, and he says, ‘Let’s go and try somewhere else, Love’, that’s what I’ll do. You won’t be able to con or fast talk him into anything he is not completely happy with, and he won’t be happy with anything he doesn’t completely understand. It’s why I keep him. You have to explain well enough to ensure he understands entirely what you are talking about. Trust me, though he has no understanding of, nor use for mobile phones, he is incredibly intelligent, and if you fail to explain well enough to convince him I’ll buy a phone somewhere else.’

“After a lot of reëxplanations I was happy at what she proposed and why. She’d managed to match our requirements with a customised deal that I was prepared to pay for. She kept asking Rhona, ‘Are you happy with that Mrs. McKenzie?’ Rhona kept asking me, ‘Am I happy with that, Love?’ It took a while for the penny to drop(28) with the lass, but eventually she realised Rhona was telling me what she wanted, I was interpreting that in terms of what O2 could deliver and I was making the decisions as to what Rhona would accept. Then we did the same with the phone I was going to be taking over. The lass had difficulty understanding and accepting that I only wanted a phone to be able to deal with folk who wouldn’t do business any other way and that I wasn’t interested in it for anything else. Part of the routine she went through asked me if we had enough money to fund the contract. I was irritated by the repetition, so replied, ‘That is less a month than I usually spend on whisky in a day.’ Her forty year old, I worked his age out a little later, colleague standing at her side had a wry smile on his face. Rhona asked him, ‘I take it you like dram(29) then?’ There then ensued a conversation concerning whisky, Scotland and his visits to various distilleries. The lass was amazed and said, “I’ve worked with him for I don’t know how many years and I never knew that about him.’ The lass and I reached accord, she printed off the contracts for me to read, I read the relevant sections that applied to us and electronically signed on behalf of Rhona and myself. She then asked her colleague, ‘Graeme, will you do the transfer please?’

“Now that was more than interesting. Rhona immediately asked, ‘Graeme? Is that spelt with an h?’ He replied, ‘No. It’s Graeme.’ He spelt his name out. Rhona said, ‘Now that’s interesting because that’s my husband’s name. It’s what his family call him, and I met him because I was a friend of one of his sisters. He usually goes by his first name which is William, so everyone calls him Liam.’ The lass looked puzzled, so I explained, ‘In England use names are usually from the first part of a name, so William is often called Will, Bill or one of their many variants, but in Celtic cultures like Scotland or Ireland the use name is more usually from the back of the name which is why many Celtic Williams are called Liam. Murray become Ray, Alasdair uses Dair, Edwins are called Win rather than Ed or Eddy, and Torquil has Quil or Quilla though in jest some younger boys use Kill or Killer, but that usually stops when they grow up. It’s the same with girls’ names. My sister Morag has been called Rags all her life, Bonelles get called Elle or Ella, Charlottes become Lottie or Lotta, and Brichtredes are often known as Treedie. Some times there is no obvious connection between a use name and the name it is associated with especially in Welsh culture. Evan has Yanto as a use name and Dafydd uses Taffy. And once you start using the Celtic languages the situation becomes even more complex.’ Graeme nodded in agreement.

Graeme asked Rhona exactly what it was she wished transferred over, and went through her phone’s list of stuff, deleting what she didn’t want copied over. When that was complete he read what was left seeking agreement and other than one app which he then deleted it was in accordance with Rhona’s requirements. Then it was just a question of waiting till the transfer took place which was probably about half an hour. In the mean time we chatted. Some how we got back to the subject of mathematics, and I said I’d taught for ten years in the town at Whiteport Academy. It turned out that as Graeme left the academy in the July I’d started teaching there in the September, so we both knew a lot of the same staff and pupils there. That’s how I knew he was forty. We also seemed to have liked the same folk, and disliked the same folk too. Rhona asked if he wore the kilts and telt him that I used to teach wearing the kilts. He did and said his was a hunting McDougall. There then followed an extensive Celtic conversation of current events and nostalgia too. We talked concerning the kilts, my granny and her three sisters were all kilt makers, the beauty of our native land, distillery visits, and the merits and demerits of watering whisky. We discussed adding a splash of peat water to cask strength spirit to drop the cloudiness out of it. When we left after the data transfer on the phone was complete, I’d no idea the process took so long, I shook hands and said ‘Thank you for your help, Graeme.’ He replied, ‘It was a pleasure, Graeme.’ It had been a well spent hour and a quarter.

“Next was Asda. First I filled up with diesel at the Asda fuel station. Nearly eighty quid [$100 US] for half a tank. Bugger me haven’t prices gone up, despite the international barrel price of crude staying constant. God love our bloody government. Then we went into Asda and had steak pie, chips, peas and gravy with a coffee and a tea; we were starving. It was okay given our desperation, but that was all it was at twelve quid [$16] for two microwave thawed and heated meals on seriously small plates. The plates matched the cutlery which looked like it was designed for young kids to eat with, but you’ve got to work with what you’ve got.

“Then we commenced battle versus the shopping list. We managed to buy all we had on the list, plus of course a few extras mostly in the spirits section which was nearest to the cafeteria. We were accosted by a woman in the beers, wines and spirits section who had clearly no need of any more liquor. She had long, black, dyed hair and looked like Cruella Deville but with neither the beauty nor the charm. She looked to be in her early forties but was probably in her twenties possibly even a late teenager. It happens, and it happens a lot round there. Rhona said if she’d been on a bus the woman would surely have sat next to her.(30) Though the woman didn’t claim to know me she seemed over familiar. I’m used to being approached by folk whom I have taught in the past, and of the many who approach me with my name, some I remember, but many I don’t.

James the man in his middle thirties who said, ‘Mister Mac, how are you doing?’ I knew close to twenty years ago who when he spoke to me said he’d been working at Asda for ten years I did remember even though I taught his brother not him. Funny thing was that I bumped into David his brother three years before, on our previous visit to the opticians.

“I know Whiteport is not the wealthiest of communities, but the crowd of vultures hovering round the poor, terrified looking bloke in his early twenties putting reduced stickers on some of the near sell by date stuff looked like they were getting ready for war. I saw one of the harpies an hour later pushing a trolley containing four dozen eggs with reduced price stickers on them, some ready meals and six cases of cheap Asda own brand lager. Each case contained a dozen cans. Why is it I asked myself that folk like that are always obese, ugly, covered in tattoos and carrying more metal in the form of body piercings than there is in a scrap yard? Poor diet, poor genes and too much inbreeding came to mind, but I didn’t really want to know. At the checkout, Rhona went for a sit down after I’d put everything on the conveyor belt leaving me to stack stuff in our two trolleys.

“I was puzzled by the five pound bag of potatoes that obviously she must have put in a trolley, since we’d grown at least a quarter of a ton [250Kg, 560 pounds] this year. I was even more puzzled since they were green, and hence clearly not of the best eating quality. I decided to say nothing about it, but tis said that the ways to hell are paved with good intentions, and my resolution failed. When I asked about the potatoes Rhona said, ‘I didn’t buy any potatoes.’ ‘So what are these?’ I asked pulling the bag from the trolley. ‘Oh’ said my beloved, ‘I thought they were pears.’ Now you know why she needed new glasses. We were both disappointed by the poor variety of goods available, even given the supply problems all shops were facing, and decided when we went to collect our new spectacles we would go to Tesco.

“When we arrived home, first we fed the cats, lit the fire and had a drink, and I don’t mean coffee. We’d prepared a meal of Pea soup and garlic bread for when we returned. However, we were not up to eating so much as drinking after putting all the shopping away. Sitting down in front of a warm and relaxing, open fire with a drink and a purring cat on your knee decidedly influences your decisions, and an early night was a mutually decided excellent option to take.

“However, the following day, things did get worse and better. I looked for gold jump rings on Ebay and found a gold plated keyring style version that would do the trick for Rhona’s pendant. It cost two and a half quid bar the penny [£2.49, $3.00] that’s for five hundred of them. Anyone want a five mil [¼ inch] jump ring or even four hundred and ninety-nine of them? I’ll give you a decent price. Then the following day, I got the letter from the opticians saying they’ve snapped my old frame, so I had to either take my other frame in for glazing or select a new frame. Either way I had to go back to Whiteport. I went for a new frame, the difference in price is next to nothing. Having a cheap new frame glazed is actually cheaper than having new lenses put in an old frame. There was no way I was handing over my only other pair of specs that I could see through. Can you just go in and hand over an old frame or select a new one? You have to be joking. You need an appointment for either option. Four days minimum waiting. I’ve said it before and I’ll doubtless say it again, but it is good to know things are returning to normal, completely screwed up.

“The day came for the appointment at the opticians when I was going to select a new frame. A one o’clock appointment and we were a quarter of an hour early. We were going to risk a corned beef bake apiece from Greggs, but fate decreed it was not to be. The queue moved so slowly we left before we were anywhere near the front. I wanted a pair of glasses that would take a big lens because I find them easier to use; I don’t have to turn my head as much. I like blue frames and they have to be solid plastic with no nose pads or separate bit over the ears that I can break because if there are I will break them for sure. I hadn’t managed to find anything in twenty minutes when the lass came over to help. I telt her what I wanted, and she handed me a pair. Without trying them I said, ‘I don’t like them.’ Rhona said, ‘You’ve got to buy a pair, so what’s wrong with them?’ My reply to that was, ‘I can buy a pair for nineteen pounds I don’t like, so why would I spend seventy nine pounds on a pair I don’t like?’ The lass handed me another pair to look at. Blue, solid plastic, big lenses. Without taking them off her, I said, ‘I don’t particularly like them, but they’ll do.’ Rhona sighed, but said to the lass, ‘He’s made his mind up, and he’ll not change it now.’ The pair I’d said would do were ninety-nine quid.

“So we went for me to have my frames centred on my eyes and the distance between the centres of my pupils measured. That was a mere five minutes of a job. Then I said, ‘Now we come to the difficult part, arguing about the price. The lass messed about with her calculator and said, ‘You owe us fifty pounds.’[$70] ‘Not on your life,’ said I. ‘You break my frames which I appreciate can happen, but want to charge me fifty quid for you doing it. I’ll take my prescription and that of my wife to Vision Express first. Your letter said you had and I quote snapped my frame and said I had to pay a contribution to the cost of a new frame. That’s reasonable. Fifty quid is more than a contribution it’s more than the cost of many of your new frames, and as such is not reasonable. When the young man I spoke to a few days ago about my frames asked if I wanted new frames or my old ones reglazing I said, ‘Throw some numbers at me in terms of prices.’ He telt me based on a middle priced new pair at a hundred and twenty-nine quid,[$172] I didn’t think that to be a middle price but I let it slide, reglazing my old pair was fourteen quid[$20] cheaper than than a new pair, so I said reglaze these. I’m not certain what the price situation is, but I do know your numbers don’t stack up.’ She went for her Supervisor.

“I reiterated what I had said and lo and behold, after some verbal legerdemain about no special deals being available on reglazing your own frames, but new ones had all sorts of special prices available, none of which I believed, she said they owed me fifteen quid[$20] and they put it back on my credit card immediately. Tell you, Lads, it always pays to argue. It was worth sixty-five quid[$90] to me.”

There was a murmur of agreement with that, and Alf said, “They only ever tell you anything to your advantage when you push them, and they could be any bugger. It’s how everyone does business these days. What happened after that, Liam?”

“We went to Tesco, and had an all day breakfast with coffee. Same deal as Asda, small plates, small cutlery and marginally acceptable food. Only difference was the price. It was eighteen quid.[$24] All edible except the hash browns which were minging,(31) though I ate mine and Rhona’s too. I had a plate of chips with mine to bring the calorie, cholesterol and grease counts up to acceptable. You know how it is once you start ageing, you’re fine when you leave the house and then it comes on you. A visit to a lavatory is required. Tesco’s lavatories are clean, don’t stink, the water is hot enough and the hot air blowers dry your hands in no time, but they were lacking in a couple of respects. Soap was noticeable by its absence – the liquid soap dispensers were all empty – but worse than that was the lavatory paper was bugger all wider than a bus ticket.[25mm, 1 inch, obviously a serious exaggeration] That means given no soap extreme care needs to be exercised in the act of wiping. Anyway after having exercised extreme care and with washed and dried hands I returned to the act of shopping.

“Rhona pointed out some truly spectacular savings if only one had a Tesco club card. I had a moment of enlightenment at that point and immediately commenced a deep search of the darkest recesses of my wallet where I found a cracked Tesco club card I had not used since living near a Tesco store which was at least twenty-five years ago. Rhona asked a Tesco uniformed lass if there was an expiry date on club cards and was telt no. According to the till receipt the card had saved me fifty-five quid,[$75] but as I said to Rhona, ‘All the stuff with the deals on was over priced to start with.’ Not all is what it seems. The best part of the day was the barely damaged pheasant I picked up off the road on the way home. But another day was completely wasted because we arrived home in the gloam(32) and by the time we’d put the shopping away it was no longer gloaming it was pitch black outside.”

~o~O~o~

Dave said, “This is all a bit depressingly heavy, Lads. When I’ve a fresh pint and a drop something to strip the hairs off my chest I’ll tell a one that’ll lighten the tone a bit. Has anyone got anything truly toxic left? Or are we down to drinking something depressingly legal?”

Sasha said soothingly, “There’s no need to worry, Dave. I’ve got a few cases of home distilled Żubrówka bison grass vodka.(33) That’s good enough to satisfy even the worst of us on a truly cataclysmic day. This stuff is the real deal, not the modern commercial stuff made to satisfy the US FDA who banned the real stuff in nineteen seventy-eight because they said it contains blood thinners called coumarins that they considered dangerous to health, nor is it the emasculated legal European version. The proper stuff has been drunk for going on eight hundred years without any buggering about with it at all, and it’s a bloody sight safer than some of the chemic distilled in the back woods of the States and even more so than some of the stuff sold during the days of prohibition. They had mad and blind folk locked up in asylums for decades after prohibition ended due to the poisons they’d been drinking.”

“Yeah, but what is it, Sasha?” asked a middle thirties looking man who had only recently become a regular Saturday night attendee.

“The commercially available stuff in the US is a vodka distilled from rye and flavoured. It’s said to taste like the real thing and has a blade of the grass in every bottle as a sop to authenticity. It was made to sell in to the US and was only made legal there in two thousand and eleven. The blueish green grass is found in the woods of Poland on the Belarus border and it gets its name because it’s found where the bison that are a protected and endangered population are to be found. The European commercial stuff has a limit of ten milligrams per litre of the coumarins. The real stuff is made on farms and by woodsmen and obviously has no limit on coumarin content. The neutral vodka is poured and pressed through the grass to extract the flavour and it has a greenish tint to it. It is hard to get hold of unless you have contacts because it’s only selt to trusted customers. The base vodka is produced from various sources according to the producers resources and their product too has a blade of the grass in every bottle. I don’t reckon the US stuff is remotely similar in taste to the proper stuff and the European legit stuff is a poor imitation, but that’s just my opinion. If you want to try a glass, Pauli, as usual throw a couple of quid in the kids Christmas party box.”

Stan disappeared and came back with a case of six bottles, and the party box was passed around whilst pints were pulled and corks pulled to fill spirits glasses. Since no tax of any kind had ever been paid on it a couple of quid’s worth of donation provided a very healthy slug of Żubrówka. “Okay, Dave, have at it,” Pete said.

“Some time after the war, late forties or early fifties I’d guess, there was a touring troupe of entertainers that worked their way around the towns of northern England and southern Scotland. It was the usual, jugglers, puppeteers, pretty girls dancing, singers, mostly typical family entertainment. They were more than welcome everywhere they went to a population that had just come out of a major war and had little money. The austerity folk lived with here was worse than it had been during the war. I’d remind you that Britain still had food rationing till some where in nineteen fifty-four and was the last country to end rationing. This tale revolves about a particular performer who was a stunningly gifted ventriloquist. He mesmerised children particularly since he was also a gifted mimic and could talk just like their mothers, fathers and grandparents after listening to them speak just a couple of sentences. He particularly entertained adults with his parodies of politicians of the day. What astonished all was his ability to make it seem as if the animals at the livestock fairs and sales were talking. He held lively debates between some of the animals imbuing them with anthropomorphic characteristics. Particularly popular were discussions between dogs on who to bite next and why.

“At the Penrith summer festival where there was a large animal auction as well as the usual entertainments he’d performed a spirited discussion amongst several pigs as to who would make the largest hams, the most sausages and the tastiest bacon. Another such discussion took place between two bulls as to the attractiveness of the cows in their vicinity and the relative sizes of their udders. It was vastly amusing to the men, brought a blush to many a maiden’s cheeks and went completely over the heads of the children present. It was when he moved on to the pen of sheep that the serious disturbance occurred. The sheep were straight off the fells and their shepherd who all knew spent most of the year on the tops with the flock was with them. Before the performer had said a word, the shepherd in a loud voice proclaimed, “You don’t want to believe a word that comes out of the the mouths of those yows.(34) They’re all bloody liars.”

It took a few seconds for the penny to drop with a significant part of the audience when the uproarious laughter took over. Sasha noticed that neither Gladys nor Harriet were behind the bar any more.

~o~O~o~

With glasses topped up and bottles of Żubrówka passing round with the charity box most were looking around to see if any was going to continue. With nearly an hour to go before supper it would be disappointing if there were no further tales. Eric looked about and said, “I’ve a wee one, Lads. Not much of a tale, but it amused me. The grandkids had been harassing Shauna to make them some jelly to go with ice cream, but she hadn’t got any of the stuff she usually uses which is like a block of concentrated jelly maybe three-quarters of an inch thick and kind of divided up into twelve one inch squares like a bar of chocolate is. What she did have was some red jelly crystals that purported to be strawberry flavoured. She’d got it for free when she’d bought something else, you know how they stick a little sachet of stuff to other things as a promotion. I don’t know how long it had been in the cupboard, but it was at least ten years. She’d never used crystals before, and didn’t particularly want to, but the rain was hammering it down and she wasn’t up for going out in it to the shop to get what she normally uses. Following the instructions, she mixed it with the appropriate amount of boiling water in her trifle bowl and stirred it for the specified two minutes till the crystals dissolved. Foolproof you’d think. Well it sure fooled us and the kids too. The top three inches of the jelly was pale and weak on taste, but the bottom quarter of an inch was vulcanised to the bowl. I reckoned the crystals had separated out at the bottom and set like cement. The kids ate the soft stuff and I put the bowl complete with the vulcanisate and a bit of water in the microwave to melt and mix, stuck it in the fridge with regular mixing and the kids ate it the day after. I reckon they’ll eat owt as long as there’s ice cream with it.”

After the agreement and laughter had faded Pete looked around and seeing Aesir, a visitor from Finland looking like he had something say he asked, “Aesir Lad, you look like you have a tale to tell. Last week’s contribution was sound, so have at it if you want.”

“I have just a small one that amused me when I was a young man. As I said last week I am mixed Swedish and Scottish and used to stop over here and work with my Morfar, my mother’s father, when I was not at school, and even when I was at university I came over during my holidays. Morfar was a builder. This relates back to when I was in my late teens because I had a driving license. It was at the time when the UK was trying to change from Imperial units to metric units. Morfar sent me to the builders’ shop in his ford transit truck for some three-quarter inch plywood to surround concrete. My apologies, but I don’t know the proper words.’

Alf said, ‘You went to the builders’ merchants for some shuttering ply. Yes?”

“Yes. Thank you. I really only understood metric measurements, but I asked for what Morfar had specified. The young man in the place who was probably the same age as myself was very condescending as looking down his nose at me he said, ‘We only sell materials in metric measurements now. Plywood is sold twelve, eighteen or twenty-five millimetres thick.’ I rapidly worked out eighteen millimetres was very close to three-quarters of an inch, so I asked what sizes the eighteen millimetre sheets were sold in. It was a while before I stopped laughing at the patronising fool on the other side of the counter when he said without a blink, ‘eight by four’, which I explained equally condescendingly should really be twenty-four hundred by twelve hundred millimetres. Morfar and his men were still laughing from time to time about it till I went home a few weeks later.”

The old men thought that to be absolutely hilarious and as Stan said, “The world is full of the ridiculous and even fuller of fools, but it becomes truly farcical when the two meet. Has anyone got another short one to take us up to supper time lads? Anything at all?”

Aesir nervously said, “I can tell a short one, but I am not sure it is appropriate. It is of a medical nature.”

“There been Saturdays where all the tales have been medical, and some pretty grim, Lad, so don’t let that stop you. Someone get the lad another pint and top his chemic glass up too, Stan.”

“I’m on it, Pete. Whenever you’re ready, Aesir, off you go.”

“I’d have been twelve or thirteen, of an age where spots due to puberty were erupting on a daily basis.” Alf nodded to Stan who smiled at Alf’s recognition of Aesir’s command of English. “I had one on my neck that seemed to be different from the rest. Bigger and much more painful. Within days it was huge and excruciatingly painful. I was as usual when in Scotland working with Morfar. The spot was just below my shirt collar which constantly chafed it which was even more painful. In the late afternoon Morfar noticed it. I’d said nothing about it till then. I couldn’t see it well even with two mirrors and I couldn’t bear to touch it. The pressure was unbearable. When Morfar saw it the string of curses that came from his mouth in two languages was truly impressive, well it impressed me.

“As soon as we finished work he took me straight to his doctor who said, ‘It’s a carbuncle, a collection of linked boils. Cover it with warm compresses as hot as you can stand and wait till it bursts to drain. That will relieve the pressure and the pain will go then. That’s all I can suggest.’ Morfar called him all sorts of names, but he wouldn’t do anything. Morfar took me to the Accident and Emergency department of the local hospital where the doctor said much the same as the first doctor. Morfar hadn’t stopped cursing for going on an hour at that point. Before going home he called at a pharmacy for some stuff called phisohex(35) which he said would help sort me out. When we got home he said, ‘I’m going to wash all the skin around that damned thing with this, and then I’m going to do something that is not recommended that any other than medically trained persons do. I’ve done it before and it works, but we have to keep all the skin around that thing clean so as to prevent spreading the infection. If that happens it is not good, but if we leave it till it bursts naturally you’ll have the same problem and be in pain for a lot longer. I’m just going to help it get there faster to stop the pain sooner. When it bursts the pressure will go and the relief will be immediate, but there’s no saying how much pressure is in it so we’ll do it outside. Okay?’

“ ‘What are you going to do,’ I asked. ‘I’ll strop my cut throat razor and then boil it for half an hour to make sure it is sterile and then I’m going to lance it which because my razor is so sharp will put no pressure on it. Then it’s a clean up job with warm water and the stuff I got from the pharmacy.’ ”

Pete asked, “Those things can be huge, Aesir. How big was yours?”

“Morfar said it was about an inch and three-quarters [43mm] across and not quite an inch [22mm] high.”

“Christ almighty!” Alf said, “I had a much smaller one behind my knee when I was about that age too, and it was excruciating. I can’t believe those doctors wouldn’t do anything. Bastards the pair of them. What happened then? Did it hurt to have it lanced?”

“Morfar washed my entire neck with warm water and then the phisohex before drying the skin. He then dressed the entire surrounding area with a heavy gauze so that nothing that came out of it could touch my skin. We went outside and he said, ‘Stand still.’ I did and I felt nothing except an awareness that the pain had gone. He’d sliced the entire top of the carbuncle with no pressure at all. The stuff inside it had travelled a metre twenty or so. [four feet] After that he cleaned up the mess on my neck dressings before rewashing the entire area again with warm water and the phisohex before covering the Carbuncle site with dressings. He burnt the gauzes and dressings and reboiled his razor for half an hour. Then he turned the soil over where the contents of my neck had landed. Every day for over a week he rewashed and dressed my neck with new dressings and burnt the old ones, but twenty-four hours after having it lanced it I could feel it was healing. I’ve never been so grateful for anything in my entire life. I asked him how he knew what to do.”

“I was going to ask you the same question,” said Harry.

“Morfar replied, ‘On the Isles nurses are rare and doctors non-existent, so folk learn to do things for themselves, often because the alternative is pain or death. That kind of knowledge had to be passed on, though that was always strictly unofficial. Which meant if they wanted to survive they had to learn how to do things properly and in the case of my neck that meant scrupulous attention to sterility and cleanliness to prevent further infection.’ It’s true, for it is what happens in the high arctic too. You hear of appendix surgery done by all sorts of persons who are not medically qualified, but that doesn’t mean they don’t know what they are doing. There are any number of persons who know how to set and splint broken bones so they heal properly. None are qualified to do so. Too, just about every baby born till very recently was delivered by older women who were neither midwives nor nurses, they just knew what to do. The same women laid out the dead too.”

“It used to happen in these parts in years gone by too. I mind my grandparents talking about that sort of thing. I’m glad we’ve access to modern facilities in Carlisle and the bigger towns, but maybe the loss of all that knowledge is not entirely a good thing when it hits the fan.” Pete had a thoughtful look on his face as he continued, “An interesting and thought provoking tale, Aesir. Many of us can relate to it and it was entirely appropriate for this audience. It’s been an interesting selection so far, but I can hear Harriet sorting out supper for the ladies, so I suggest we deal with the glasses and clear the tables. If someone rounds up empties I’ll wash ’em. From the looks of it, Stan, we could stand another case of rare stuff up here. Fetch a couple of cases of that farm stilled, wild Armagnac of mine up will you. It’s not the tame stuff, but it’s slightly more refined than some of the other stuff we’ve been sampling tonight.

~o~O~o~

When Harriet entered to inform them supper would be served in five minutes, she saw the cleared tables and said, “Thank you, Gentlemen. Supper in five minutes. Mum’s just nursed Gloria, Dad, and has taken her to bed. She’ll probably be back down in ten or fifteen minutes, to help clear up the supper things on the other side. Don’t worry. If I let her do that she’ll be too tired to help clearing up after closing time, so it’s the best of a bad job. None of the older women will let her do too much.”

“Okay, Love. I see you’ve got it all under control, including your mum.”

Frank smiled and asked, “What’s for supper, Pet?”

“Tatie pot,(36) Uncle Frank. Uncle Vincent’s best black pudding, and skirt steak this time not mutton. I’m surprised you had to ask, cos Auntie Aggie prepared it this morning ready for Auntie Veronica to put in the oven earlier on.”

Frank laughed and said, “I’m only married to your Auntie Aggie. You don’t seriously think she tells me owt do you?”

It was to much laughter that Harriet left to reappear with a trolley on which were six enormous casserole dishes. “I’d be much obliged, Gentlemen, if you make sure there is nothing left to be dealt with in the kitchen.”

“We’ll do our best, Lass, won’t we, Simon?” There was a lot of laughter at Alf’s comment since both he and Simon were huge men with appetites to match. Twenty-five minutes later, Harriet was back collecting the empty casserole dishes and the plates, Pete was pulling pints and Sasha was pouring Armagnac.

~o~O~o~

“Okay, Sasha, what the latest on your teeth. I can see you’ve not got any, but what’s the score on the dentures?”

“When I had the bottom set out, Pete, Sammi my dentist gave me erythromycin and metronidazole to take home. I’d used erythromycin before. I telt you about that before. She reckoned the constant metallic taste in my mouth was most likely due to a vitamin deficiency. I didn’t reckon that was true then and after taking multi vitamins for a month I certainly don’t think so now, but the metallic taste is far less noticeable than it was. That other antibiotic she gave me was metronidazole which also goes by the name of Flagyl. I looked it up, internet to the rescue yet again. I’ll tell you what it said. Metronidazole has a high efficacy treating anærobic bacterial and protozoal infections. It is particularly prescribed for vaginal and dental infections. Which means the good thing is I won’t get any infection of my vagina and since I’m neither breast feeding nor pregnant I should be fine taking it. The down side is it can be seriously dodgy with alcohol. I know they tell you not to drink with anything, most of which is bullshit, but they really mean it with this stuff, and you’re an idiot if you do. It’s a classic case of too many warnings, most of which are nonsense, causing most folk to ignore them all, even the ones that they really need to take heed of. If you take too many tablets it says to head for your GP or casualty.(37) Again the list of possible contra-indications, that’s medical folks’ mumbo jumbo for side effects, Alf, is as long as your bloody arm, though unlike in days of yore they have left off ‘Death’ as your first choice.

“Did you take them, Sasha?”

“Don’t be daft, Stan. I’d have had to give up drink for ten days. That could have killed me.”

“Anyway, the bottom set have been out a while now. Initially there were a few bone splinters moving to the surface of my gums which hurt till they came free, but I think they’re all long gone now. My gums were firming up, but though I could wear my dentures for an hour or so at a time I couldn’t eat with them. I just couldn’t put enough pressure on them with out hurting my gums. I couldn’t use the front teeth to bite anything, nor the back ones to chew with. I wondered how the hell I’d ever be able to chew meat when I couldn’t crush a bloody grape. My false teeth were rocking as my gums shrank. I wondered at one point whose mouth the teeth were supposed to fit. I went to see the lass, and my teeth were a better fit after she used some of the dental equivalent of bog(38) on them, but they were still no good to eat with. In order to get my teeth to stay in I had to use a lot of dental fixative, and even the better one from Germany was awful. As the stuff warmed up in my mouth it softened, and the pressure of my teeth squeezed it out for going on half an hour. That’s the experience I hated, and the truth is I couldn’t face putting myself through it.

“I was supposed to visit my dentist for the impressions of my final set of teeth a month or so back, but my gums were still shrinking. They cost too much to have a set made that you know in advance are only going to fit for a couple of months. So I rang the surgery to defer the appointment for three months. Nothing doing, my dentist is full of arms and legs(39) and will be on maternity leave then. Okay, no big deal I thought, and I asked when she would be back. Turned out it would be in nine months. I can wait that long, women have to, all women. There’s an old expression that goes ‘A cow or a countess either way they have to wait their time and nine months is what it takes’. I even considered what do I do if she doesn’t go back to work. Childbirth has that effect on some women. Answer, get another dentist. I’m managing, and at least by then there will be no further changes to my gums. I’ll just live with it. What was not so easy to live with was Elle. She knows I don’t like having no teeth and that all the things I enjoy eating I can’t, so she was harassing me to keep trying my teeth. ‘Just try them for an hour a day, Sasha,’ she kept saying. I think I’ve finally managed to get her to understand that whether I wear them for five minutes or all day the experience with the fixative is the same, bloody awful.

“I knew I’d finally got through to her when she said, ‘I don’t get it, Sasha. None of the old folk I nursed ever used fixative and loads of them had no teeth at all.’

“She finally convinced me that when she’d said no teeth she meant literally that, and further when pressed she couldn’t recall a single person who had to use fixative. Since most of the folks in the nursing homes she worked in had to have help putting their teeth in I was convinced again. At that point I said, ‘Okay, you’ve convinced me that when I get a set that actually fit properly I won’t need fixative, so stuff the ones I’ve got. I’ll wait till I get a set that fit.’ ”

“ ‘But that’s in the middle of next year!’

“ ‘I know,’ said I, ‘but I’m a patient man.’ So that’s where I’m at. I’m not even bothering for another seven months, and I’m getting really creative in the kitchen. Somebody push me a bottle of Simon’s chemic over will you, please.”

“It’s time to get the dominoes out, Lads. Anyone for a pint? Partner me, Sasha?”

“Surely, Pete. You pull pints and I’ll let those dogs out. I’ll leave the back door open for them till I’ve drained my brain too.”(40)

“I’ll set ’em up, Lads,” volunteered Stan, “if some one will collect my pint.”

“No problem, Stan. Partner me?” asked Phil. The focus of the evening had already shifted from tales to domino strategy.

1 Kero, kerosene.
2 Aways, in this context means a long distance away.
3 Get a holt on, get hold of, acquire.
4 Nowt, nothing.
5 Owt, anything.
6 Riving, splitting, cleaving. To rive, to split, to cleave.
7 Rived, riven.
8 A froe, frow, shake axe or paling knife is a tool for riving or cleaving wood by splitting it along the grain. It is an L-shaped tool, used by hammering one edge of its blade into the end of a piece of wood in the direction of the grain with a wooden beetle or mallet, then twisting the blade in the wood by rotating the haft or handle.
9 A beetle, A mallet for driving a froe made from a piece of branch wood. Such a beetle has an integral handle and is often made on a shave horse with a drawknife rather than by turning on a lathe. Also a heavy wooden hammer used by timber framers often up to 15Kg [30 pounds]. Such a beetle has a separate handle, shaft like a sledge hammer.
10 Books, accounts.
11 Mince, a UK term for minced meat. US ground meat.
12 Gan radge, gone (with) rage, become enraged. Commonplace Cumbrian dialectal form.
13 Ratched, rummaged, sought.
14 Maker mark. A signature mark stamped, burnt or otherwise placed on an article indicating the individual crafter who had made the article. Also called a touch mark.
15 Drawknife, A wood worker’s and joiner’s tool. A knife with a handle at each end at right angles to the blade, used by drawing towards oneself over a surface.
16 Shave horse. A combination bench and clamp. A worker sits astride the bench and clamps the work piece to the bench by operating the treadle bar below with his feet. Often used to shape green wood with a drawknife.
17 Normalised state. Normalizing is a heat treatment that makes a metal more ductile and tough. It involves heating and then cooling by exposure to room temperature air. There is a lot more to it, but that is a simple explanation.
18 Hostage rum, illegal locally distilled rum. A term used amongst smugglers in the Caribbean islands.
19 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.
20 BT, British Telecommunications.
21 A steak bake, and many other kinds of bake exist, is a small pasty one can eat immediately. Served in a small paper bag they are popular food to eat on the move in the UK. Especially popular with working men for lunch.
22 Pins, legs.
23 Riving into, in this context means verbally abusing.
24 The ‘air puff test’ is a slang term for non-contact tonometry (NCT), a test used during an eye exam to measure the pressure inside your eye. The air puff test gives your optician an eye pressure reading known as intraocular pressure (IOP), which helps detect glaucoma.
25 With it on her, she is irate to the point of being verbally combative.
26 GP, General Practitioner, a family doctor.
27 Double yellow lines painted at the side of the road in the UK mean no parking under any circumstances.
28 Penny to drop, old term from coin operated mechanisms that did not function till the coin had dropped to the bottom, indicating thinking time. It took time to realise.
29 Dram, a Scottish term for a small drink of whisky or other spirits. The term is widely used by non Scots too.
30 ‘The looney on the bus always sits next to me’ is a UK meme that most are familiar with.
31 Minging, disgusting.
32 Gloam, dusk, as daylight is fading and dark is falling.
33 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.
34 Yows, dialectal for ewes, female sheep.
35 Phisohex is a bacteriostatic cleansing agent. It cleanses the skin thoroughly and has bacteriostatic action against staphylococci one of which is responsible for boils.
36 Tatie pot, Cumberland tatie pot is a casserole made with mutton / lamb or beef, onions, carrot, swede / turnip, potatoes (taties) and herbs. The proportions and exact ingredients vary according to availability, but what makes it tatie pot is the addition of black pudding, a blood sausage. There are probably as many versions of it as there are persons who cook the dish.
37 Casualty, Accident and Emergency unit, ER in the states.
38 Bog, vernacular for car body filler.
39 Full of arms and legs, a vernacular expression for being pregnant. It is only used by men.
40 Drain my brain, vernacular expression for urination.

The Grumpy Old Men were ready for yet another Saturday evening in the tap room of the Green Dragon Bearthwaite. All was ready, beer glasses were filled and numerous bottles of of spirituous liquors of dubious legality were awaiting broaching once the beer no longer proved to be satisfactory. Pete the landlord nodded to Sasha the Siberian semi-official leader of the group to set the process of tale telling in motion. Sasha in turn nodded to one of the men to proceed.

“I’m Græme Scott and still after forty-odd years happily married to Faith. Less than five years ago I bought an expensive six hundred and fifty quid [$870] lawn mower and it hasn’t worked for eighteen months now. I used to live near Branthwaite, and I’d had good dealings with Keswick Garden Machinery over the years, so I took it to them to have a look at. I now live at Beckfoot near Silloth, which is a long way from Keswick, but I wanted to take it to someone I trusted. Faith decided to come with me just for the ride because we rarely go anywhere these days. The entire trip there it was hammering it down with rain which only eased for the five minutes it took me to unload the mower. Hell, you can’t lose them all. Negotiating the parked cars on Greta Street, which is narrow, with a Land Rover towing a fourteen foot trailer had been as difficult as I remembered it, but eventually I pulled up outside the spot, had a minute of explanation with the lass there that I already spoken to on the phone and left for home, in the pouring rain. Why didn’t I put the mower in the back of the Rover and leave the trailer at home I hear you asking. The answer is because with all the tools and equipment my Land Rover is loaded with all the time it wouldn’t fit, and I couldn’t be arsed to empty it and reload it when I got back. I have a lot of practice manœuvring my Rover and the Ifor Williams fourteen footer, so it didn’t bother me.

“Now the shortest way from Beckfoot to Keswick is cross country through Bothel and using the A591 to cut behind Bassenthwaite Water, but the roads are grim, and how the 591 ever got A road classified I’ll never understand, so if I ever have to do it again, I’ll go on the back roads through Aspatria till I hit the A595, head to Cockermouth and then use the A66 to Keswick which goes in front of Bassenthwaite Water. That’s what I did in reverse order on my return home. It was maybe eight miles farther than my outward bound route, but a hell of a sight quicker, and in the rain it felt a lot safer too. Faith asked why I hadn’t gone that way, and I said that it just hadn’t occurred to me.

“The mower wasn’t economic to repair. The carburettor was corroded away and the mechanics couldn’t even get the thing to run. So much for modern technology. I’ve a pre second world war Allen Scythe(1) that is in perfect working condition and I use it every year under rather extreme conditions. For most of its life it has lived out in all weathers. I keep it in a barn, but that is TLC(2) it had never had till I bought it at a farm estate auction eight years ago. But back to my mower, a new carburettor was ninety quid to buy, and there were a load of other bits it needed too. Given the labour charges for doing the job, it was a no brainer,(3) it needed writing off. The boss at Keswick had tried to source a decent mower at a half way decent price, but he telt me all he could source were cheap Chinese imports at round four and a half hundred quid.[$600]

“I’d not been idle in the meanwhile and I’d managed to internet source a six and a half horsepower Chinese import, available in the UK, a self propelling model with a key start and a recoil spring starter too, for a quid short of three hundred [$400] which I reckoned, if it lasted three years, I could scrap it, buy another and still be money in front. As for the stigma of being made in China, all the so called ‘decent makes’ are made in China too these days, and I’ve got nothing against the Chinese, nor anybody else come to that. I said I’d see what I could do, and telt him if he would scrap mine for me he could keep any thing off it worth keeping. He agreed, so I asked him what I owed him, and he said given the parts he was happy at forty quid. [$55] I was happy at that, especially since I didn’t have to drive back to Keswick to pick it up which is a round trip costing going on for fifteen quid [$20] in a Land Rover pulling a big and heavy trailer.

“That night I had the heat out of(4) the plastic bits from the mower I hadn’t taken with me, the top shoot blocker that forced the cut grass out of the side shoot on to the ground rather than allowing it to be collected in the hopper, the side shoot itself and the hopper. I’ve taken delivery of the new mower, but not yet had time to assemble it, nor put any oil in the sump. They always ship stuff like that with no fuel nor oil in to prevent spillage. That’s my tale, but I have a question to ask concerning what you here refer to as the rare stuff. I’ve tried a goodly few different distillates from all over the world over the eighteen months I’ve been coming here on Saturdays. I’ve no problem whatsoever about chucking a couple of quid [$3] into the collection box, but what’s the situation regarding someone like me who doesn’t live here bringing some rare stuff for storage and usage here?”

All looked at Pete since he was the Landlord. “As long as you understand the implications, Græme, no problems. You bring your liquor here purely for storage. It can never be selt because that is illegal, it has to be given away. The couple of quid you associate with drinking the rare stuff is not connected with it, it is purely a charitable donation and can never be considered as a part of a transaction, because that too would be illegal. That right, Michael?”

Michael Graham, the local police sergeant, who was born and bred in Bearthwaite though he no longer lived there, replied, “Absolutely correct, Pete. That’s my understanding of the law, and it’s the basis on which I and my boys enforce it. Too, it’s the only reason I feel okay, as a member of Her Majesty’s Cumbria Constabulary, about keeping a supply of some of the rare stuff here myself. I’d like to know why you’re asking, Græme Lad? The way you pronounce your name tells us you’re no southern fool and are potentially one of us. From your questions and attitude you sound like you’d fit in here right fine which is why even as a copper I’m being so open. You got something you want to share and give us a taste of? Please don’t say anything I could get into trouble for knowing about and not reporting. Is your good lady in the best side?”

“Indeed. Why?”

“Make sure she understands the situation will you, because my wife is in there too, and I’d not be happy having to tell a magistrate I thought what she telt me was a lie. I love my wife, and I hope you are understanding of what I am saying.”

It was clear that Græme was mentally organising his words to comply with Michael’s request. After half a minute or so he said, “As regards Faith, I’ll explain the situation to her, Michael. But back to explanations. I have a friend who likes to experiment.” There were numerous ‘Ahs’ about the taproom in understanding and appreciation of Græme’s delicacy when explaining to Michael, though Michael’s face was completely blank. All understood that closer interrogation, which would not happen since that would be considered to be appallingly bad mannered, would reveal that Græme’s friend was in fact himself. “He is by way of being a bit of an engineer, scientist and experimenter. His latest experimental venture has resulted in the distillation of very clean and potable beverages. He doesn’t drink himself, so he gives me the results of his endeavours, as I appreciate them. As you made clear, Michael, to comply with the law I hasten to add I don’t do anything in return for him, but he is a good friend whom I help with various tasks from time to time, purely as an act of friendship you understand.

“It’s those gifted beverages I was wondering about bringing for others to taste too. I suppose they could best be described as super strength Polish spirit, of about ninety-six percent by volume ethanol. I usually cut that fifty fifty with water to produce a fifty-ish percent by volume liquor that can be used with any mixer of your choice. Obviously it’s easier to transport the stuff undiluted. If I brought some here and any who’d subsequently tried a sample felt the ‘spirit’ move them to donate a couple of quid to the children’s Christmas party collection box I should consider that to be the act of a decent, reasonably well off man who merely wished to share his good fortune with the less fortunate from time to time.”

“Fuck me, Græme, that was eloquently said, and so delicately put it could be called a speech from a diplomat. I loved that bit about being moved by the spirit, that could have come out of the mouth of a bosky(5) parson delivering a sermon. You aren’t a barrister or a solicitor in real life are you?”

“Language, Uncle Alf, please. Though I can always close the door betwixt the tap and the room to make sure any strong stuff doesn’t reach the ladies. You do of course realise that if I do that you can only be served by Dad and yourselves because neither I nor Mum will hear you. I don’t have a problem either way, and if the door between the bar sides is closed I’ll tell Gustav to stay on the tap side which doubtless he will enjoy. Maybe we need to have you sort some kind of semi noise barrier betwixt the two sides, Uncle Alf? That would be good if you could manage it?”

“Sorry, Harriet Love, I’ll try to keep my language under control. I’ll start thinking regards your idea concerning a semi door. However, Græme, I still want to know, are you a barrister or a lawyer?”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Alf, but no. I’m a graduate chemical engineer, but I work for a company that makes building adhesives. We make ‘Glues that will stick owt(6) to owt’. You probably recognise the advertising jingle from the northern TV channels.”

“A chemical engineer eh? Ah well, it takes all sorts, and I’ve even used some of those glues. If you are responsible for any of the ones I’ve used you certainly know your trade. Initially, I admit I had my doubts, but they actually did what the advertising bullshit said they would do. For once it did exactly what it said on the tin.(7) Put him out of his misery Pete. Michael, perhaps you’d like to check that Mavis is okay at this point. We’ll only take a couple of minutes to conclude matters.” Michael nodded in awareness that things of a perhaps not totally legal nature were about to be discussed.

Pete waited till Michael had closed the door behind him before speaking. “Aye, Græme Lad. Drop the bottles off some time, or bring ‘em with you of a Saturday. If there are too many for you to handle easily I’ll find some of the lads who will help you to fetch ‘em in, but welcome to the storage club. If you want to obtain some decent rum, and we are talking serious quality and quantity too, have a word with Simon or Sasha and they’ll put you down for a couple of hundred quid’s worth of charity donation to a Caribbean maritime charity that will handle matters outside of UK jurisdiction. That’s to say all will be handled out side territorial waters, We’re not exactly sure what that will get you, but we reckon the stuff is going to be about four quid a gallon [US 50 cents a pint]. If there’s anyone else interested, like I said, talk to Simon or Sasha. You don’t have to put two hundred up, there’s no upper nor lower limit. Some of the lads have gone for fifty and some for a grand. Don’t worry, the liquor will be safely delivered and protected till required in small quantities. None will ever be discovered. Daniel, the previous landlord and his family had been handling such matters for a few centuries. He regarded Gladys as his daughter and that’s why our names are above the the doors now. She inherited all such knowledge. I suggest we end this conversation now before Michael returns. Like I said a quiet word with Simon or Sasha later will sort you out.”(8) Pete looked around and saw several of the men were clearly interested and Adio’s boat load looked like it would be all spoken for long before he arrived with it. He whispered to Sasha, “A chemical engineer with a degree would know about distillation, wouldn’t he?” Sasha just smiled and reached for bottle of Simon’s rum. “I’ll give Michael nod to return. Put him down for a couple of hundred quid’s worth Sasha.” Sasha just nodded.

~o~O~o~

As Alf poured himself some rum, Michael returned and Alf said, “I keep being asked why I’m limping, so I’ll tell you the tale. Sasha’s crusher being on a single axle means it’s too heavy to tow legally on the public highway. I’ve always admitted the sophisticated electronic starting system is beyond my knowledge, so when it stopped working I telt Sasha to have an auto electrician look at it. I also telt him given the machine is too heavy to legally tow it’s an appropriate time to mount it on two axles which would mean it could be used elsewhere to make money. I know that’s already been talked about so it makes sense to do it legally. The single axle it’s on at the moment was only a stop gap when I originally mounted it because it was all I could lay my hands on at the time. Knowing that it would eventually need two axles I long since had a mate pick up two army cooks’ trailers from the military surplus auction site at Honeypot Lane Grantham Lincolnshire for me. My idea is to bolt them together to create a two axle trailer using the NATO towing hitch on the forward trailer to tow the pair with the crusher above them. Sasha said he trusted me completely and telt me just to do
whatever I thought was best.

“Years ago I fitted the Dixon-Bate adjustable hitch set up on Sasha’s Land Rover, and in theory all I had to do was remove the combined ball and pin hitch in order to fit the NATO hitch that went with the tow bars on the trailers. To do that all you have to do is pull out the four R clips that secure the two one inch [25mm] pins and then pull the pins out, easy. I wanted to do that so I could tow the two cooks’ trailers to somewhere more convenient to work on them. That’s when things went a bit pear shaped. The NATO pintle type hitch didn’t quite fit. The part of the Dixon Bate coupling that’s permanently bolted on to the Rover was a gnat’s nadger(9) too narrow to accommodate the nuts on the NATO hitch. It needed prying apart, but it was too narrow to fit the high rise jack I was planning to use to pry it out with. The thing is made from twelve millimetre plate steel [½ inch] so a goodly amount of force was going to be needed to move it even the fraction of a millimetre [10 maybe 20 thousandths of an inch] required.

“Not able to use the high lift jack, which would have applied the force in a gradual and controlled way, I resorted to MBFAI, which is massive brute force and ignorance to those of you who don’t understand technical terms. Translated into real terms that’s a fourteen pound [6.4Kg] sledge hammer. Six blows, three each side. Though the fitting was not spring steel, its shape was such that it worked like a spring under impact. The thee blows on the first side worked well. The first two on the other side worked equally well, however, the last blow, though doing what it was intended to, rebounded and hit the outside of my knee. It just about crippled me for forty-eight hours, but it was liveable with after that. Well, with the pain killers and the ibuprofen it was. There was swelling but no bruising which gave me to serious thoughts concerning the meaning of life. Maybe Ellen’s right and I’m not human. However, the NATO hitch fitted like a hand in a glove, and I managed to move both trailers to exactly where I wanted them. My knee still hurts and I’m still limping a week later.”

~o~O~o~

Gerry said, “Ne’er mind, Alf. Another glass of chemic’ll put you to rights. When you’ve done with it pass me the bottle before I tell you about when Gwen and I went for our booster Covid jabs last Sunday at Darrelby Cottage hospital. I know a few of us went down there over the weekend, but I thought it was an interesting experience in a silly sort of a way. Ten past and twenty past eleven we were down for. When I woke up at just gone six there was three inches of snow on the ground and it was still coming down, but the weather forecast said it wouldn’t snow for long, so I wasn’t expecting any problems getting to Darrelby and then back here. As I was doing the toast and Gwen was cooking bacon and eggs it occurred to me that the trip may not be fun, as I was prepared to bet that every idiot and his wife was going to be out there driving, but at least the kids weren’t at school today, so few of them were going to be dying on the roads. It’s when we get weather like that that I remember why I drive a big, heavy, high, permanent four wheel drive truck that I haven’t actually needed for years. I do hardly any mileage these days, less than a thousand mile a year, and I’ll live with the fuel consumption for the safety. If some fool in a small car driving too fast in poor driving conditions runs in to me on a narrow country road it’ll be a head on collision, and the chances are he, or even she, will die rather than me or Gwen.” There were a number of the old men nodding and saying things in agreement, for it was a reason many of them shared for driving similar vehicles which covered more or less the same annual mileage as Gerry’s.

“We’d had the AstraZeneca vaccine for our first and second shots, but were having the Pfizer vaccine for our boosters. We left home giving ourselves plenty of time due to the conditions. It was still snowing a bit, but from the tracks in the snow there’d been hardly any traffic that morning, and there was little on the road all the way there. Surprisingly what little there was was driving at speeds appropriate to the conditions; they must have been old buggers like me who’d already scared themselves nigh to death once too often.

“When we arrived, we noticed the place was signposted all over the place giving instructions as to where to park and where to go after we had. That surprised me because it’s damned tight for parking at that spot,(10) but it was unusually easy. The number of folk there was amazing, traffic and parking marshals in hi-vis jackets outside, and nurses and general helpers inside. I don’t think the folks actually doing the jabs were doctors, but who knows. Hell, a jab in the arm is a jab in the arm, right? I’d say there were at least a couple of dozen folk in all there. They’d been recruited from local hospitals, surgeries, the north fells response team, the ambulance teams, first responders, and anywhere else they could get appropriate personnel who were available, and needed the extra cash. That’s what one of the nurses Gwen was talking to said.

“We went in, and answered all the usual questions Covid folk always asked concerning recent health. I noticed a sign on the door that said, ‘These doors are alarmed!’ I couldn’t help myself when I said to the bloke who was going to stab us. ‘Those doors are lucky. They aren’t going to be violated with anti-Covid vaccine. Me, I’m not just alarmed; I’m bloody terrified.’ Another jobsworth with either no sense of humour or no brains or possibly neither. We were stabbed in the arm by the bloke who said he was Peter and his colleague, who was doing all the bureaucracy, was Annette. She recorded it all and filled in the cards that we were given that were our copy of information that proved the government had now done as much as it could for us and if we were going to die please go and do it discreetly somewhere else. We were then escorted into an other room where there were dozens of stainless steel egg timers marked Electrolux, they even looked liked eggs. Our egg timer was turned to twelve minutes, and we were telt when it rang we’d be hard boilt and could escape. On my way to the egg timer room I’d noticed another sign that read, ‘Ramp behind these doors’. I’d thought that was a bit much, and said indignantly to the lass escorting us, ‘I don’t take orders about that sort of thing from anyone, and in any case I only ramp in private with another consenting adult, and they have to be female.’ Ah well like I said the world is full of jobsworths with neither a sense of humour nor any brains or possibly neither and I’d just found my second one in a matter of minutes.

“Gwen asked that nurse I telt you about what were the common symptoms if one reacted badly. ‘I’ve never seen it, cos it’s really rare’ the lass replied, ‘but it’s anaphylactic shock.’ Both Gwen and I knew what that meant. She’d suffered from it in the past and had carried an EpiPen(11) for years. I’d seen her suffer from such an event and someone else do so too when I was a school boy and it’s anything but funny.

“On our way back to the truck, as we were walking across the car park I noticed yet another amusing sign, there surely was a plethora of them about that morning. This one was on a skip [US dumpster] and it read ‘General Waste’. ‘Good job this is a hospital and not an army base. That’s a pretty poor office for a general,’ I remarked to Gwen. Gwen sniffed and said, ‘What is it with you this morning, Gerry? You really have got it on you, haven’t you.’ Maybe she was right, but it all amused me. However, better to be amused than to be a miserable bastard.

“I was originally supposed to go on Monday at nine in the morning to the quacks at the Allinthwaite medical centre for my pneumonia jab. Then they texted to change it to thirteen fifty on the Tuesday. I don’t know why, but Gwen had had it and I hadn’t. It’s a one off jab, for life I think.

“When I went for my pneumonia jab the car park was empty and the lass giving it was a lass I’d known for thirty years. Gwen and I used to be a member of the same Scottish country dancing society as her. However, I’d not laid eyes on her for a decade or more. I knew she was a district nurse, but when I’d last laid eyes on her she’d been a natural red head. Now she was completely white haired which lead me to wonder what she’d made of me. I’d had my Covid booster in my right arm a few days before, I’m left handed, so I asked her if it was okay to have the jab in my right arm too. She said it was okay, so I went with that. I didn’t feel a thing, and after another few minutes craic,(12) mostly about Gwen, I left. Later that afternoon my arm started to ache a bit, and it did for two days or so, but it’s fine now. I want another, shall I pull a few pints, Pete?”

“If you will, Gerry. I’ll chase up a few empties. Then I’ve a tale to tell.”

~o~O~o~

Pete started the conversation by saying, “I want to talk about someone who’s been on my mind for years. It’s only now that I’m no longer embarrassed to mention her. That’s probably because Gladys openly loves me and I openly love her and Harriet and Gloria too. Whatever. It may seem stupid, but I’d like to ask you all to think seriously about sandwiches. What is it with sandwiches, Lads? Before any answers the question I’ll tell you how it was for me. We were poor when I was a kid, we all were in Bearthwaite in those days, and I was sick of eating owt in between two thick slices of bread long before I went to the big school.(13)

“I mind years over once I started work I hated anything put between two slices of bread to make it go further to eat for my bait. God knows I’d eaten enough like that to hate it. When I went cross country to work in the Newcastle Durham area I was earning serious money and I could afford decent digs.(14) Mrs. Agecroft was my landlady. She was a lonely, widow woman in her early sixties with no family, and there were six of us, all young blokes, lodging with her. We all helped her out, kept her car running and did bits of jobs to maintain her house and garden. She treated us like we were family, and was really upset when one of us left, though she was always happy when another young bloke took the leaver’s place. She only accepted young blokes, we were like her kids, she even mended our clothes for us and did our laundry. She gave us good meals and a really decent bait box to take to work.(15) Thinking about it she certainly wasn’t making much money out of us, it was just the company she wanted.

“Our sandwiches were always cut diagonally into two triangles, and somehow that made them taste better. I suspect it was because we thought they were classier somehow, and so we were important to her, but whatever the reason it lifted our self esteem. I’ve never forgotten how important that is to those I’ve employed since. She’s long gone now, but I was notified when she died. I went to her funeral, where there were well over two hundred of her ‘boys’, but no relatives. Despite all being sad that it was time for her memorial headstone, we all dug deep into our pockets to buy one that expressed our appreciation of what she had done for us. She was real folk, folk as all ought to be, and as I have tried to be ever since.”

There was a thoughtful silence as the men considered Pete’s tale. Alf smiled and said, “I never thought about it, but you’re probably right about sandwiches tasting better if they’re cut diagonally, Pete, which just goes to prove how daft we are.”

Sasha said, “There are a lot of decent folk everywhere. We are just lucky to live in a spot where there are none of the other kind because they don’t stay long.”

“Aye, and any bad bastards as are born here like my brother Bert soon leave, or they face the consequences and then they leave.” There was a murmur of agreement with Pete, for many had known Bert when he lived at Bearthwaite, and knew he’d been an unlikeable and argumentative young man with a bad temper who was over ready to use his fists. After causing and losing numerous fights, he’d left Bearthwaite at the age of twenty for the North East and never returned. He was Harriet’s biological father, and he’d physically abused her as a child called Alex before she’d escaped from Bert’s scrapyard. The scrapyard was the hell she’d known as home, and she’d left, at the age of fourteen, to live on the streets of Manchester prior to transitioning to become Harriet, a silver service waitress living in a tiny bedsit apartment flat who’d just about got by. It had been Sasha who’d instructed Pete to get her to Bearthwaite and adopt her.

Vince the Mince,(16) the village slaughterman and butcher, had summed up local opinion in a nut shell years before when he’d said, “For sure Bert won’t be made welcome if he tries to return here. Even as a kid he was a gey(17) ignorant(18) bastard that none liked.” This time though he had an expression of distaste on his face he said nothing about Bert, merely remarking, “I’ll have another Guinness if someone would be good enough to pull it for me.”

Stan said, “Nay bother, Vincent. I’ll pull it and any others too. You stay there. Someone will fetch it over to you.” Vincent had suffered from polio as a child and needed two sticks to get around, as a result the other men treated him in an appropriate manner.

~o~O~o~

“Now you’ve a pint in front of you, Vincent. How did you go on with Peabody’s old Belgian Blue bull. I heard a couple of month ago when the the vet called to look at a couple of cows that he said it needed put down from old age. Next thing I know a couple of days since I’m being telt it’s in your window being selt behind a sign saying Peabody’s beef. How did you manage that?”

“Well I’ll tell you, Stan, the vet wasn’t happy about it. Probably because he didn’t get the fee for knocking it down. If he’d knocked it down, Alan would have had to pay the knackers’(19) fee to dispose of it, for at that point it can’t legally be selt into the human food chain. There was nowt wrong with the beast, it just couldn’t get it up to serve a cow and wasn’t interested in ‘em even when the were bulling(20) right next to it fit to raise the roof. I paid Allan a decent price for the beast and everyone except the vet was happy.” Vincent chuckled and said, “Comes to us all in the end if we’re lucky enough to live that long.”

Bill snorted and said, “I don’t care how bloody old I get. I’m not going to be knocked down by you, Vincent, to be displayed in your shop window, along with the other meat. You might put me along side some bugger I don’t like.”

There was a lot of laughter at that, but eventually Vincent resumed, “Alan brought it to my spot in a horse box and the moment it walked out of the horse box and into my yard on its own legs it became legal to sell for folk to eat. The law says if it walks in to a slaughter house it’s legal, and my yard is registered as part of the slaughter house. Course the meat inspectorate have to pass the carcass, but that’s a minor inconvenience I sometimes forget about. I’ve forgotten more about meat hygiene than any of those bits of kids with the ink still wet on their college diplomas will ever know.”

None were bothered by Vincent’s flagrant disregard for the law since they knew what he’d said was correct and on a couple of occasions over the years he’d refused to sell meat that had been passed by the inspectorate. On both occasions subsequent investigations had proven the carcasses to be unsafe to eat. Stan asked, “You equipped to butch(21) something that size, Vincent, because it was a gey big bugger?”

“Not really, but I did what I always do with a beast of that size.”

“What’s that?”

“I borrowed Alf’s stacker truck, Bill, and once I’d knocked it down I strung it up from the forks. I did all the initial work in the yard. Once I’d reduced it into primals(22) that I could take inside on a trolley it was just like any other butching job.”

Alf interrupted to say, “Vincent gave Ellen some of the beast in return for the loan of my stacker. It was damned tasty no matter how old it was. It would have been criminal to waste that much meat that tasted that good. Vincent always said Allan’s meat is all good meat because of the way he raises and feeds em. I know Ellen prefers meat raised local rather than anything Vincent buys at slaughter markets.”

“Aye that’s right enough, Alf, but to be honest that pair of rump steaks I gave Ellen hadn’t really been hung long enough. They’d had three weeks, but with an old bull I prefer six weeks hanging, which is what the stuff I’m selling now has had, but Alf was itching to put his knife and fork to it, so what can you do, Lads? I have to keep Alf happy to make sure I can borrow his stacker in future. Allan was happy with the price, I was happy with the price and the ladies of the village are happy with the price I can sell the meat for whilst still making a living. I’ll have another pint please, Pete.”

~o~O~o~

After all who required serving had another pint, Sasha said, “It’s no good, Oliver, you can’t put it off any longer. You must have kicked that tale about your new Rayburn into some sort of order by now.” The other men were nodding in agreement with Sasha’s remonstrations, for Oliver could tell a tale and they’d been waiting months to hear the full version of what they’d only heard tantalising whisps of up till then.

“It’s a hell of a tale that will take some time in the telling if you’re insisting on hearing it all in one go. Up to you, Lads, I’m willing, but I may have to back track a couple of times to fill in stuff I missed out that’s relevant.”

Simon said thoughtfully, “That being the case, rather than interrupt the tale perhaps we’d better have three or even four pints apiece in front of us and lay in some extra supplies of the hard stuff from the cellar. I’d hate to be considered bad mannered to the point of interrupting a tale teller in full flow. And after all tales is why we’re here whatever the length.”

There was a lot of laughter at that, but Pete and Bill started pulling pints whilst Stan and Gee disappeared down the cellar for some cases of ‘serious chemic’. When Simon’s proposal had been fully implemented and all had settled down Oliver began.

“What a performance getting a new cooker turned out to be. Three or four years ago I bought a claret red (Scarlett insisted on the colour which cost an extra few hundred quid) Rayburn 699K oil fired Range Master. It cooked, provided domestic hot water and could heat twelve radiators according to the blurb. It provided a hundred thousand Btus per hour(23) which is about thirty kilowatts. I knew a couple of folk who had one and they said the beast would heat twenty radiators with no problems. I suppose it depends on the size of the radiators and the general standard of insulation in the house. I had a bloke to it to advise me on what I needed to do, remember about him, cos he resurfaces later in the tale. Anyway I hadn’t sorted out other things in the house that needed to be done first, so it sat there in its box in the kitchen for at least three years. When I finally was ready to have it installed I thought I’d better have everything ready for who ever was going to commission it. I could have done the job, but not being OFTEC certified that would have voided the warranty which started from when it was commissioned by an OFTEC certified engineer. I wasn’t prepared to do that to something that had cost us ten and a half grand. [$14000]

“My existing kerro tank was twelve hundred litres [240 Imperial gallons, 300 US gallons] and not in the best of conditions. Having said that it was worth a fair amount of money because I’d just had it filled before the old Stanley cooker went down for its final time. I bought a new two and a half thousand litre [500 Imperial gallons, 625 US gallons] tank. It took a couple of weeks for me to decide where to site it, and the only sensible place was in my vegetable plot. I cleared the beds to provide for a ten foot [3m] by eight foot [2.4m] reinforced concrete base which I planned on being six inches [150mm] thick. I’d calculated that if I ordered a cubic metre of concrete that would be perfect. I used old scaffolding planks for the shuttering, and liberally covered the ground with broken masonry to lift the steel work off the ground before ordering the cubic metre of ready mixed concrete from DA.(24) The steel rebar(25) wasn’t particularly good stuff, but it was what I had and it was a better use for it than weighing it in at a mere eighty quid a ton, [8 pence a kilo, 5 US cents a pound] and using it did do a bit of clearing up. It actually looked like a half decent job when I’d wired it all up together into some semblance of a grid.

“I planned on building a shed on a dwarf wall of cement blocks to cover the kerro tank. I bought a cheap steel shed which was seven foot four [2235mm] by nine foot four [2845mm] and built the block work three foot high and sized to suit the shed base. Inside the dwarf wall I built a platform using concrete blocks which had a solid block top. I made four wedges the width of the tank, in turn they tapered from four to three inches [100-75mm], from three to two inches [75-50mm], from two to one inches [50-25mm] and from one inch to nothing [25-0mm].The wedges were covered in a treated piece of 18mm [¾ inch] exterior ply which was screwed to them. The idea was the tank would not only lean backwards away from the outlet but from side to side too meaning any water that settled out of the kerro or formed as a result of condensation would lie at the most accessible rear corner for pumping out via a solid copper 12mm [½ inch] pipe. It had to be done that way because my new tank was bunded, i.e. it was essentially a tank within a tank to contain any kerro in the event of leakage.

“Because it was in effect two tanks it was damned heavy to lift up onto the piece of ply, but it was manageable. Next came the nightmare of assembling the shed around the tank. I have to say that poxy shed was the poorest quality piece of shite I have ever come across. The idea was okay in principle, but the panels were wafer thin and the fastening mechanisms were hopelessly inadequate in both mechanism and in number. We had a slight breeze over night and it nearly destroyed what I had assembled of the shed the day before. In the end I pop riveted every panel every six inches [150mm] using stainless steel blind rivets to fasten them to the vertical stanchions. That’s a lot of three millimetre [⅛ inch] holes to drill high up on a set of step ladders drilling into stuff that won’t stay still. As a result the job ate up drill bits at a ferocious rate, so it’s a good job I took delivery of five packets of a hundred cheap bits off Ebay the week before. It’s as easy to snap a quality bit under those conditions as it is to snap a poor one, and since they snap long before they lose their edge cheap ones are definitely called for.

“The bottom rails of the shed I’d screwed to the dwarf wall with 100mm [4 inch] coach bolts screwed into large diameter plastic wall plugs set into holes drilled into the blocks. The vertical stanchions I drilled and bolted to the bottom rails. Half way along the back and sides I set a piece of four by two [US two by four] timber in place on the inside of the shed. I screwed a bracket to the foot of the timbers and screwed through the panels into the timbers from the outside using heavy duty screws through large washers. It looked okay with a dab of brown paint on the washers to match the shed. I had to cut the tips of the screws off on the inside with an angle grinder to avoid tearing large chunks of flesh off yours truly. The brackets at the foot of the timbers I coach bolted to the block work the way I had bolted the bottom rails. The entire job required extra fixtures to hold the shed together a lot of which I had to make, but hell that’s what a forge and an anvil are for right?

“I assembled the roof on the ground and again pop riveted the panels to the framework at six inch intervals. There was no way I could get that roof up and in place on my own, so I readied a couple of scaffold towers and some twenty foot scaffold planks and rang a mate. Now Lou is up for anything as long as it’s crazy enough. He’s the ideal bloke to help on a job like that. The trouble was the roof was pretty flimsy and flexed alarmingly as we man handled it. We slid it up the planks on to the top of the tower at the front of the shed. Then we moved the planks to span the two towers, and gradually eased the roof over the shed. After a bit of messing about it was in position. Sounds easy, but it took us from just after lunch at one till six in the evening. Fortunately there’d been no wind that afternoon, but it was forecast to blow up over night, so when Lou went home I carried on drilling holes through the vertical stanchions and the roof frame members to bolt them together. I finished at eight. The following day I pumped the fuel out of my old tank into forty-five gallon [50 US gallons] oil drums, took the drums forty metres [130 feet] to the new tank and pumped the fuel into the new tank. I rang the oil merchant for the tank to be filled up with the required twenty-eight second kerosene.(26) Completely fortuitously I found a farmer who wanted my old tank. He picked it up on the pallet forks on his tractor and I didn’t even have to dispose of it.

“The next task was to dig a forty-odd metre [150 foot] trench a foot deep for the oil pipe from the shed to where it was to enter the kitchen. I didn’t know it, but I was digging through tightly packed hard core all the way. That’s not true, I was using a pick to break the hard core up so I could use Scarlett’s narrow border spade to get the stuff out. Christ that was hard work. I didn’t do it all in one go because I’d other stuff to do as well, but I was at it every other day for a couple of hours for nigh on a fortnight. It was much harder than I’d expected. But you do get some breaks. Putting a two inch [50mm] core drill through the concrete base for the oil pipe took less than an hour, nowhere near the nightmare I’d been expecting. I reckon I must have been lucky and missed all the steel. The core drill through the kitchen wall for the oil pipe was a breeze. I laid three inches of sand in the bottom of the trench before laying the white plastic coated oil pipe in it. I’d bought a fifty metre [170 feet] coil of the pipe. Getting the pipe through the concrete base was pretty easy, but getting it through the kitchen wall was anything but. Problem was the pipe was tight up against the wall between the kitchen and the pantry wall. I didn’t want to cut the pipe and install an elbow, so I fed it in a bit at a time bent tighter than I was happy with. Every time I pushed a bit through from the outside I had to go into the kitchen to move it and relieve the bend. Took me an hour and a half to push ten foot [3m] of pipe through the wall.

“I’d always been worried about protecting the oil pipe. The solution came to me by accident. I must have had a thousand foot [300m] of that foam insulation stuff that fits round fifteen millimetre [½ inch] copper water piping. I took it as part payment for a job that went bad on me. The bloke hadn’t any money but he’d a load of gear. I did all right out of it in the end, but I’d rather have had the money. I ran the insulation over the oil pipe and back filled the trench with more sand. The trench was twelve maybe fifteen inches [300-400mm] deep and after treading the sand down to firm it up I used the smaller hardcore to back fill the last couple of inches. To finish that bit of the job I connected up the tank fittings and used a flaring tool to put a double flare on the tank end of the oil pipe. A final connection of the pipe to the tank and I was ready to face the next part of my adventure.

“I decided that the Rayburn needed to come out of it’s box for two reasons. One I wanted to site it so I could connect it up to the water pipes and the flue, and two since I knew whoever commissioned it would be travelling a long way possibly two hundred miles [320km] or more I wanted to ensure all the pieces that were supposed to be there were actually there. I’ll get round to that sorry state of affairs in a minute. Connecting the Rayburn up to the existing twenty-eight millimetre [approximately 1¼ inch equivalent] pipework was no problem even though I wanted a number of changes to the system. Sorting the flue out meant dropping flexible stainless steel pipe down the chimney and connecting it up to an anti down draft cowl. Problem was the cowl didn’t match up with my chimney pot, so I ended up making a custom adapter piece, but that was only an hour’s work. I was glad to get that done because not long after the wind started up, and it didn’t let up for a month. Far too dodgy for me to even consider working on a roof. Okay for some, but not this mother’s son. I was blown off a thirty foot roof years ago and walked away from it. I was young and a quick healer in those days. Now I’m neither, and I may not be that lucky next time, so I’m not even chancing it a second time. Splicing the Rayburn up to the flexible flue pipe was a relatively easy job, but it was nerve racking due to the cost of the stove enamelled solid pipes and fittings involved. They had to be cut to fit and it was gey difficult to decide where, so I cut ’em over big and kept taking small slices off. Kind of sneaking up on the size till I’d got a perfect fit.

“When I looked at the books of words that came with the Rayburn, one for the appliance itself and one from the manufacturers of the pressure jet burner installed in it there were a number of bits missing. One or two flexible oil pipes that fitted inside the beast, it was a long time before I got to the the bottom of that conundrum, a horseshoe shaped washer that was only required if the two pipe system was adopted, two fibre washers that went between the enamelled front rail brackets and the enamelled front of the cooker to protect the enamel and the two grub screws that fastened the front rail brackets to the Rayburn. The two front rail brackets were also missing There were two plastic pieces that I supposed could be a modern day replacement for the fibre washers but I didn’t like the idea of what were obviously polyethylene washers on the front of an appliance that became as hot as a Rayburn does.

“I rang Rayburn and explained what were missing. They were helpful and said they’d send the bits to me, Two flexible oil pipes arrived along with the brackets for the front rail, nothing else. No grub screws. I tried to match the internal threads of the brackets but nothing I had would fit and I have a huge variety of threads to go at. If I ain’t got one it truly is an odd ball. If I’d known what size the screws were I could have bought a couple or even made them, it’s easy enough to do. I rang Rayburn and explained again to an obliging young man who said he would contact technical service on my behalf. A few days later I rang again and he said technical services had no knowledge of the fibre washers, the horse shoe shaped washer nor indeed of the grub screws. He suggested they may be described as miscellaneous parts and not have a part number. I said well I only have knowledge of them as a result of reading the literature that came with the appliance. They are there clearly diagrammed and referred to in the accompanying text. He asked if I would send copies of the appropriate pages which I did indicating on the pages the serial number of the booklet that page was in. Time went by and I rang Rayburn again. I asked to speak to the young man I’d spoken to before, but he was unavailable. The young woman I spoke to was perhaps the beginning of my good luck. She said a package had been sent out to me the day before and it should contain what I required. It arrived by carrier in the early evening.

“The package contained four fibre washers the internal diameter of which was too small to fit, and a fuel pump manufactured by Danfos that looked like over a hundred quids worth [$150]. I didn’t know why I had been sent a pump. The pump was not the one that the box it was in was for, nor was it one of the four pumps that were referred to on the A3 sized leaflet included with it. The following day I rang Rayburn and was talking to the same woman as the day before. I explained the situation, saying the fibre washers are okay, their external diameter is the right size and I can enbiggen(27) the hole to fit, but I’m completely perplexed by the pump. She said she’d look into it and get back to me. Fifteen minutes later to my great surprise she rang me back. She telt me the horse shoe shaped washer was not available on its own and was part of the pump, so they’d sent me a pump. Okay, I could live with that. She said it had taken her a bit of time to access Rayburn’s technical sheets because she was working from home due to Covid and the computer link was slow. She telt me she’d had no trouble finding the grub screws, but there were some letters and numbers beside them on the diagram she did not know the significance off. She read them to me, ‘M5 x 0.8 18mm hex head pointed grub screw’. Bingo! I knew exactly what that meant. A five millimetre screw with a thread pitch of point eight millimetres, eighteen millimetres long with a head to fit an Allen key and a point on the other end that located in the groove on the bracket mounting stud. She added they come in packets of four and she’d send me a packet. I only needed two, but that was okay. So a lass working from home with no technical background had solved something in a matter of minutes that the other lad and technical services hadn’t been able to solve in weeks. It makes you wonder if they’d actually tried doesn’t it.

“I telt her I needed to know what the situation was regarding the one or two pipe oil system. I explained I’d been looking for an OFTEC certified technician to commission my appliance for ten or so weeks and I was now having to approach folk who were over two hundred miles away and talking about paying for local hotel accommodation. I’d been telt by their technical people that even if I couldn’t find an OFTEC certified person who was familiar with Rayburns as long as they were familiar with pressure jet systems once I got them on site they’d be prepared to talk them through the process even if it meant an hour or more on the phone. If it was going to cost me that kind of money I wanted to be sure that everything was ready for the job. I asked her to find out if my appliance was set up for one system rather than the other or was it truly optional. I said it was a ridiculous situation to be in, but I was now starting to think in terms of small claims courts and Trading Standards Services. She said she’d speak to technical services who usually were only prepared to talk to OFTEC certified persons, but she’d ask if they would contact me.

“Technical services contacted me, and the bloke was as much use as a chocolate fire guard. It was clear he didn’t wish to talk to me or explain anything. I think it was only my talk about legal action that had made him ring me at all. I get it, I really do. They have to be careful in case some idiot sets up an appliance and his family die from carbon monoxide poisoning and he says in court, ‘But the man from technical services telt me what to do and that’s what I did.’ I explained I had no intention of trying to do the job, I just wanted to be sure that when I did find someone to do it he didn’t have to go home again while we waited for parts or anything else. I telt him we were talking hotel bills and hundred of miles travelling. I said that I’d a fifteen thousand pound [$20000] investment of which ten and a half thousand [$14000] was in the appliance and I still had a cold house. Talking to me as though I were a child he said the one or two pipe issue was purely down to the installer. It was obvious I was getting nowhere and he wasn’t going to tell me anything that would be of any help. A completely pointless conversation with a zero communication content.

“Back to the question of finding someone to do the job. I went on the website suggested by one of the Rayburn folk to find a Rayburn installer. I’d been on the phone to them far more often than I’ve just telt you about. The nearest was just less than eighty miles [130km] away. Trouble was he was on the Isle of Man. Trust me the ferry fees on top everything else made me sweat. All the others less than a hundred miles away [160km] wouldn’t travel that far or had already retired. Most gave me phone numbers to try and I tried them all without any joy at all. I tried everyone within two hundred miles [320km] on that website with no results at all. I tried a builders’ merchant over on the other side of the county that I knew had sold Aga cookers and Rayburns too years before. I didn’t know if they still did, but I wondered if they had any contacts concerning local installers. The bloke there gave me three phone numbers. The first he said was definitely still working and specialised in Rayburns, but he was booked up for months. The other two numbers were builders’ merchants of the same company both in the county and he said they may be able to help as they all still selt Rayburns from time to time.

“I rang the first number, spoke to the bloke’s wife and she said it would have be a couple of months. She said best to ring her old man at the house number at seven in the evening after he’d eaten. I rang and I was amazed when he said he knew my house and had even seen my Rayburn just after it was delivered. I telt you to remember him. He asked how come it had taken so long and I explained about the other work on the house that had had to be done first. How I lost his number I don’t know, but to be honest I’d expected him to have retired by then. He said best to ring him in maybe six weeks and we’d sort something out. He explained a number of issues I hadn’t fully understood, but it was when I asked him about the one or two pipe issue I hit gold. He replied by asking me how much head was there between the bottom of my fuel tank and the surface the Rayburn sat on. Maybe a metre [three feet] I answered. A one pipe system is fine he telt me. He added that a two pipe system was only required if the head of oil was less than a foot [300mm]. Now why couldn’t that bloody technical services bloke have telt me that. So now I have a bloke lined up to do the job.

“Fitting those grub screw and installing the hand rail was a farce. What should have been a five minute job at most took an hour and a half. There was no way the screws would go into the thread inside the brackets. At one point I’d considered drilling the holes out to five millimetres and tapping(28) them with an M6 x 1.0 tap to take six millimetre grub screws, but that was before I found out they took M5 screws. I tapped them M5 x 0.8 to clean them out. I can only assume the brackets had been enamelled after drilling and tapping and the threads were full of enamel. It was damned hard getting that tap through to clear the crud. I’d get it in a bit, back it out, clear the threads as well as the flutes of the tap, put some more cutting compound on it and reinsert it to clear a bit more thread, and then repeat the process ad nauseam. I was damned careful not to snap the tap because they are a nightmare to extract. I can spark erode(29) one out but it takes forever. However, after that the screws went in just fine. Trouble was I couldn’t fix the brackets on to their mounting studs. Eventually I realised that the holes in the brackets weren’t deep enough to push the brackets on far enough for the grub screw point to locate in the grove in the stud. Drilling cast iron isn’t difficult so I drilled the holes in the brackets deep enough. Nibbling out a fibre washer with a leather punch isn’t difficult either, so I made the fibre washers fit, and now I have the hand rail mounted. That’s the state of play at the moment. I’ll let you know in two or three months when I finally have a working Rayburn.”

Alf looked puzzled and said, “The issues with the threads and the holes for the studs are pretty much par for the course these days, Lad, but why do you reckon it’s all been so difficult, Oliver?”

“I don’t know, but one of the folk I spoke to said they’d recently been bought by an American company, so doubtless the changes involved by that didn’t help. I was also telt by one of the retired Rayburn engineers that I spoke to on the phone that at one time Rayburn had their own team of installer commissioners, but they no longer did. I think that’s true, but I couldn’t swear to it, and even were it to be true I have no idea how long ago it was they made the change. It sounds like the kind of thing that’s been happening in just about every branch of British industry, and none of it helps the customer. Now you’ve all been drinking whilst I’ve been talking, so I think I’ll just ease some of that beer down, before I try whatever is in my jungle juice glass and have a listen to some other bugger talk for a while.”

“It’s some of Simon’s hostage(30) rum, Lad. It’ll cure whatever ails you, even if you aren’t aware you’re ailing. You up next for a tale, Murray?” Asked Dave.

~o~O~o~

Murray who was married to Madeline had not long moved to Bearthwaite. They’d been looking for somewhere quiet and peaceful with good neighbours to retire to. Murray was a self confessed raconteur and had regularly attended ‘The World’s Biggest Liar Competition’ held at the southern end of the county every November at the Bridge Inn Santon Bridge. It was there he heard about the Grumpy Old Men’s Society that met every Saturday evening at the Green Dragon Bearthwaite. The couple had booked a room at the Dragon for a week, and on his first Saturday Murray had telt a short but well received tale. Madeline was not particularly interested in listening to tales, but had been welcomed and enjoyed her evening in the best room with the women. The couple had talked the matter over and decided to enquire as to the cost and availability of housing in and around the village.

Sasha had advised the couple to leave it a while and spend some time in the village, “Let yourselves become known. When that happens if you’re welcome you’ll find a place to live with no trouble at all. If the consensus is against you there will be nothing available to you. We have financial mechanisms in place to ensure that property here is not bought by folk who are not, I suppose the best way to put it is, folk who are not our kind of folk.” A couple of months later the couple had bought a cottage just off the village green. They were helped to move in, and threw a party in the Green Dragon ball room to which all were invited.

In answer to Dave’s question Murray replied,“Aye, but as a bit of a change from my usual line of tales, I’ve decided to tell one of my early life before I met Madeline. Decades ago I was working for a multinational as an accountant and to my surprise I was transferred to the Amsterdam branch. The work was okay, but not particularly interesting. I soon found a girlfriend, so the sex shows and red light district had never had any appeal for me. I’d been a malt drinker long before I left school, so the ready availability of drugs had no appeal to me either. I often went to ‘sex bars’ with my friend Wim(31) to play pool or darts or to watch big sporting events on the huge TV screens the clubs had, and the lady on the stage in the corner with the donkey was of no interest to either of us. It reached the point where the doormen knew I was a local not a tourist, and that trying to shake me down for fifty guilders to enter would only result in a torrent of abuse in Dutch with a funny accent. That I referred to guilders rather than euros tells you how long ago I am talking about because the Dutch adopted the euro when it first came in on the first of January nineteen ninety-nine, and when I was over there no one had ever even heard of it. I don’t think the idea of a common European currency had even been considered then, but who knows what politicians get up to in cigar smoke filled rooms.

“Once the doormen knew me well enough for us to have a laugh and a craic they used to take the piss out of my accent. I always telt them my Dutch was perfect it was just that they were listening in a funny accent which always cracked them up. Another thing that they thought funny was when I translated expressions from English to Dutch that had no equivalent. A particularly funny one seemed to be ‘Why not’ which I translated as ‘Waarom niet’ which I believe though technically correct was not a widely used expression. Then again maybe I just used it inappropriately. I was single and had a good time over there. Most of the girls I went out with dumped me as soon as they realised I’d no intention of getting too serious, which was more often than not a relief to me. It was obvious I was earning serious money, and I think most were more interested in my wallet than in me.

“I worked in the area known as the west harbour, and at the time a Japanese car company, Nissan or maybe Toyota, I can’t recall, was developing a new European site to import their cars by the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands a year. The enormous warehouse, like all buildings on the polders,(32) was build on piles. The piles were huge reinforced concrete affairs that were made individually for where they were going to be placed. Each one was custom made in length for its site according to how deep it would sink through the sand before it hit what I had been telt was hard clay. I could see the whole process through my office window. The piles were about three hundred millimetres [a foot] square in section and typically thirty to forty metres [100-130 feet] long. They were delivered by helicopter dangling vertically below the huge transport. I was telt typically they weighed six to seven thousand kilos [6-7 tons, 13500-16000 pounds] but the longest ones could be as much as ten thousand [10 tons, 22400 pounds].

“The helicopter hovered with the suspended pile below it while the lower end was manually jockeyed into position, when that was okay the helicopter lowered the pile which sunk into the soft sandy substrate anything up to a third of its length. Then a vibrating pile driver was clamped around the pile, and a deep toned thumping began which caused everything around to shake including my office which was maybe a couple of kilometres away [a mile and a half]. To begin with every thump caused the pile to sink dramatically often by more than a metre, [three feet] gradually as the pile sank the driver was raised to be clamped higher up the pile. When perhaps eight or so meters of the pile was above ground the helicopter released its connection and flew away. The driver continued to put the pile into the ground each thump making a smaller difference than the last.

“When only a couple of metres [six feet] remained above ground the process stopped because the pile had bottomed out. We could tell when that occurred because our building shook much more violently. The entire process took about two hours, and they put three a day in seven days a week for months. Then they started piling for another building. A colleague telt me the piling had been going on for years and would continue for several years more till the area was completely developed into the proposed light industrial park. He said the plans were freely available if I wanted to see what the area would ultimately look like.

“I left the company after a while and returned to the UK. Amsterdam was a great place to live, but that bloody thumping all day every day started to get me down. I couldn’t work properly, and there was no escaping it, so I quit. I did well out of coming back, I got a better job with more money. I’d definitely had more fun living in Amsterdam than in Leeds, but there were no pile drivers in Leeds. I was in Leeds for the best part of a year. It’s not a bad place, but I was awful glad to move to a job in Lancaster. It’s bloody cold in Leeds, and the wind is bitter. They say it’s a lazy wind because it can’t be bothered to go round you. It goes straight through you.”

Stan said, “It’s the same every where on the east of the country, Murray. Years ago, I worked in the Newcastle Durham area. Just the same. Bleak, bitter, cold and unforgiving. And it makes the folk there miserable. I was pretty miserable too when I lived over there. Other side of the coin is it never stops bloody raining on this side of the country, but at least the rain’s relatively warm. Even when it is cold over here it’s bearable. More pints, Lads?”

~o~O~o~

“Tommy, now you’re here you can tell us where’ve you been these last few days,” Alf remarked.

“Sarah and I haven’t had a day off from the Post Office in eighteen months, so when her sister and brother-in-law said they’d mind the shop for a few days we took the opportunity. They’re both cleared with the Post Office to do that, so it seemed too good an opportunity to let go. There were a few places down country we wanted to see so we took the car and stayed in bed and breakfast hotels. Mostly we wanted to visit Kidderminster.”

“Kidderminster!” Exclaimed Paul who’d spent part of his childhood in Malvern which was about twenty-five miles [43km] from Kidderminster. “There’s nothing there now. It used to be the carpet capital of the empire, maybe sixty years ago, then when traditionally made Axminster and Wilton carpets got to be uncompetitive as a result of modern cheaper methods of making carpets the town died. What did you go there to see?”

“Sir Roland Hill was born there and there’s a marble statue of him statue in Kidderminster. It’s at the junction of Vicar and Exchange Streets. We’ve always wanted to see it.”

Alf asked, “Sorry for being ignorant, but who the hell was Roland Hill?”

“The bloke who completely revolutionised the postal system. He invented postage stamps. Before that you had to pay to receive post.”

“I suppose that makes sense for someone in your line of work, Tommy. Did you have a good time?”

“Yeah, both of us, Alf. I enjoyed seeing the Ironbridge and Coalbrookdale and Sarah loved Stratford upon Avon and some of the small towns on the river Severn, especially Stourport on Severn and Bewdley.”

“I wouldn’t mind seeing the Ironbridge and Coalbrookdale myself. It’s where it all started, engineering and the industrial revolution I mean.”

“You’d enjoy yourself, Alf, and there are some truly superb ales to be enjoyed down there. Talking of which I seem to have an empty glass. I wonder how that happened?” Stan started towards the back of the bar amidst the laughter as empty glasses were rounded up for washing.

~o~O~o~

Luke emptied his third pint and pulled his fourth towards him as he said, “We’ve heard a variety of tales tonight of various kinds. An interesting mix I’d say. I’ve a short one, Lads, that’s along similar lines to the work related tales. It’ll probably take us up to supper time. I’d have been twenty-two or -three and working as a van driver for an outfit in Chester called Terraqua. They specialised in river crossings of various kinds. To be honest I didn’t know too much about what they did at the time because I wasn’t involved. I just picked stuff up and delivered it. I know even less about what they did now. I don’t think the company exists now, but I don’t know that for sure. I was offered a big pay rise if I’d go down to Carmarthen in Wales. They said they’d pay for my hotel too. I’d nothing to stay for where I was, so I went. They were doing a three mile stretch of the original gas network that crossed the River Towy that the Welsh called Afon Tywi. That’s the west end of the network. Essentially Sam and Gee Shaw were working on the new parallel network, but at this end of it. To drive from one side of the crossing to the other was a forty-odd mile drive to cover a few tens of yards.

“We used to see a lot of fishermen on the banks after the salmon and sea trout the river is famous for, mostly they were locals. They were always warning us about the incoming tide, for the river was tidal and it flowed backwards when the tide came in. The spring tides were apparently very dangerous. To avoid the inconvenience of the drive round which took over an hour because the roads were narrow country lanes, a boat was used for fetching small stuff from one side to the other. It wasn’t big, maybe ten foot long and had a small outboard motor on it. Some lads had come over for a selection of hand tools one day and reckoned it was fifteen minutes before the tide came in. The river narrowed quite dramatically down stream of the site, so as the tide came in the water built up in height and increased in speed. We’d seen it often enough, a wall of water a foot [300mm] high moving at maybe five miles an hour [8km per hour]. But tides aren’t predictable to that degree. I know the tide tables seem to suggest that they are, but a lot depends on how much rain there’s been and how strong the wind is and on what direction it’s blowing in.

“It was only a couple of minutes to cross the river, so no one was concerned. That is no one was concerned till they saw the four foot [1.2m] wall of water moving at maybe fifteen miles an hour. [24km per hour] It hit the boat as it reached the middle of the river and took it out of sight upstream in less than a minute. We found out the day after it had taken the boat near to twenty miles [32km] upstream before they managed to get the boat to the bank. None of the lads were hurt, but they all admitted that a change of underwear had been a good idea. I worked there for maybe six months before the job ended. The firm had been good to me, and I made some good mates down there. Locals as well as others working for the firm. That’s where I got the fishing bug. When I left I came up here to work for Lux Lights delivering temporary traffic lights. I moved around a bit but I’ve never lived outside Cumbria since. Just after starting work for Parcel Force I met Hazel and we decided to live here when we got married. That was just after her dad died, and her mum wanted the company. Hazel is an only child and her mum left her everything including the house. We’re still living in the house Hazel was born and grew up in. I’ve been in Bearthwaite just over thirty years now, and I’m still driving for Parcel Force. I’m helping Tommy to put together the proposal for the fishing rights to the reservoir, so we can create a fishing weekend staying at the Dragon including listening to the Grumpy Old Men’s Society on the Saturday night. Damn me, Tommy had the right of it, my glass has become empty too. Stan do your duty, and make sure everyone’s glass is full before Harriet brings the supper through. Anybody know what’s on the menu tonight?”

Harriet entered in time to hear Luke’s question and she replied, “Steak and kidney puddings with mashed potatoes and mushy peas, Uncle Luke. There’s extra gravy too. I made the puddings yesterday and put it all together today, cos Veronica’s not feeling too good and has taken to her bed. Looks like I’ll be cooking for all her shifts till she’s well again. She’s got a bad cough and a really sore throat. Auntie Elle said it’s a five day thing that’s doing the rounds. A lot of the kids have got it, so Auntie Lucy has ordered in a load of cough medicine that has something in it to sooth a sore throat. It’s already arrived and is available from the shop and the Post Office. The supper has been served in the best side, so I’ll be bringing yours in within five minutes.”

~o~O~o~

“By hell, those puddings of Harriet’s hit the spot, didn’t they just, Alf.”

“Aye, Rib sticking without a doubt, Simon. What I like about the recipe used here, which I think was originally one of Aggie’s, is unlike commercial ones, which contain bugger all kidney, these are fifty fifty steak and kidney. I know the pastry is made with beef suet and that’s exactly what what the doctor ordered when the weather is cold.”

“The good thing from my point of view, Alf, is it doesn’t matter how much kidney of whatever kind I’ve in the shop freezers, which sometimes doesn’t sell very quickly, when steak and kidney pie or pudding is on the supper menu here the entire lot goes. I don’t even have to ask I just deliver every thing I’ve got with the steak trimmings. Both of which I’m glad to see the back of and both of which are perfect for pies and puddings.” The speaker had been Vincent the village slaughter man and butcher. “Someone mentioned earlier you were telling a tale tonight, Alf. Was it that one about Sasha’s Land Rover or another? If so are you up for it now?”

“Aye but, before I even start I’ll tell you I’ve Ellen’s permission to tell this tale. She wanted to buy some new knickers, but with the Covid she said she wasn’t prepared to go out shopping in anywhere she’s likely to find anything suitable, so seeing as I regularly use Ebay to buy bits and pieces I got volunteered for the great on line knickers hunt. I wasn’t bothered, no problem, search, select, buy and wait a few days. That’s how it works for me. I didn’t realise women’s stuff was so different and complicated. Talk about a lamb to the slaughter. I’m sure if I’d been after underpants it would have been as simple as buying nuts and bolts. I no idea there was so much to it. I asked Ellen what we were looking for. Black and size fourteen women’s knickers I was telt. That seemed straight forward enough. Then she started telling me what she didn’t want. No menstrual knickers, nothing that would give a vpl, that’s a visible panty line as I now know, no bikini types, nothing with the word high associated with them and definitely no throngs or G strings.

“Two and a half hours of trawling through knickers of the world before she settled on a twelve pack that met all the criteria at a price she was prepared to pay. Still some things remain the same, just like real shopping the ones she ended up buying were some we’d looked at right at the beginning. I’d definitely lost the will to live long before she’d done, but at least my feet didn’t hurt from all that walking though my benumbed arse took an hour to regain any sense of feeling after the pins and needles had gone. Still no matter how long it takes to get what she wants online it’s got to be better than hanging around all day in the lingerie section in department stores and places like La Senza in Carlisle trying to look unconcerned by what’s all around you.”

“Is that us, Lads? Time for dominoes?” Asked Pete.

~o~O~o~

“Nay lad, I’ve a quick one,” said Dave. Most realised Dave was about to tell something humorous, or at least quirky, and nodded in agreement. “This tale takes place in an art gallery in Dublin. The exhibition was titled ‘Being Black in Ireland’. There was a painting of three naked black men, all were as well endowed as stereotypically black men were said to be. However, the middle man of the three had a white penis. A group of middle class art aficionados were gathered round in front of the picture bullshitting in the usual way of such folk concerning the deeper inner meaning of the painting. After a while a scruffy looking man came up to them and said in an Irish accent, “You are all talking bollocks.”

“And how would you know,” condescendingly asked one of the group.

“I painted the picture,” replied the man. “The three men are all Irish coal miners who work a drift mine painted from real life after their shift ended immediately before they had a shower.”

“So what is the real meaning behind the middle man having a white penis?” Another condescending voice asked.

The painter looked disdainfully at the group before saying,”He goes home for his lunch.”

~o~O~o~

After the laughter quietened, Pete looked around to see if anyone wanted to tell another tale, but seeing no takers he said, “Okay, lets have the glasses washed, some more pints pulled, and a round of rare stuff for any as want it. I’ll just go to see what’s happening on the best side and check on Gladys and Gloria, so if someone will deal with matters here I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

Sasha said, “I’ll sort the dominoes, Lad. Stan and the others can do the rest. Partner me?” Pete nodded and on his return the rest of them were waiting ready to commence the onslaught of the no holds barred event that playing dominoes involved.

1 Allen Scythe, a self propelled knife bar mower the operator walks behind. A heavy and exhausting machine to use. The clutch only controls the forward motion. When the engine is turning over the knives are in operation. The only way to stop them is to stop the engine.
2 TLC, tender loving care.
3 No brainer, not worth considering.
4 Had the heat out of is a vernacular expression implying not just burning, but burning in a stove or on a fire. Literally it means usefully extracting the heat. A common expression implying getting the best out of a bad situation is, ‘Well at least I had the heat out of it.’
5 Bosky, drunk.
6 Owt, anything.
7 It does exactly what it says on the tin, was the punch line of an advert in the UK which rapidly became a meme all were familiar with indicating whatever was claimed was true. It originated in a series of TV ads by the wood stain and wood-dye manufacturer Ronseal, initiated in 1994, and it is still being broadcast in advertisements and online media to date.
8 It is a legal requirement that the names of the licence holders of all establishments entitled to sell alcohol in the UK are displayed above the entry doors to such establishments.
9 A gnat’s nadger, colloquial expression indicating a very small amount.
10 Spot, dialectal for place.
11 EpiPen, the trademark of a particular hypodermic device that administers a dose of epinephrine, also called adrenaline, used for the emergency treatment of an acute allergic reaction. For someone with an allergy an EpiPen can mean the difference between life and death. The term has come to be used as a generic name for all such devices.
12 Craic, pronounced crack, enjoyable social activity, a good time, or just gossip.
13 Big school, secondary school. UK children go to secondary school when they are eleven.
14 Digs, accommodation.
15 Bait, a working man’s mid shift meal. Bait box, the box in which his bait was packed.
16 Mince or minced meat is the English expression for ground meat.
17 Gey, very.
18 Ignorant in this context means bad mannered and antisocial.
19 Knackers, those who collect ‘fallen’ stock for rendering. They deal with animals that can’t be sold into the human food chain. They are in the main the only legal way open to most farmers to dispose of dead animals in the UK and they are expensive. There are other legal methods that are not widely available and there are of course illegal methods too.
20 Bulling. A cow is said to be bulling when at the appropriate part of its oestrus cycle to become in calf. Cows at that time make characteristic, and very loud, mooing noises.
21 Butch, verb to butcher.
22 A primal or primal cut of meat is a piece of meat initially separated from the carcass of an animal during butchering. Different countries and cultures make these cuts in different ways, and primal cuts also differ between type of carcass.
23 Btu, a measure of energy, a British thermal unit. 100,000 Btu per hour is equivalent to 29.307106944 kW, say 30kW.
24 DA, a reference to D. A. Harrison, the largest Ready-Mix concrete supplier in Cumbria. Known to most in the area as simply DA [dee ay] they operate plants at numerous sites in Cumbria.
25 Rebar, reinforcing bar. The steel used to reinforce concrete.
26 Twenty-eight second kerosene, the twenty eight seconds is a viscosity term. It refers to the time it takes a standard volume of the kerosene to flow through a standard viscometer under standard conditions. The term is widely used in the UK.
27 Enbiggen, enlarge. As far as I can ascertain this is a word coined by a Youtuber with a workshop channel in humour maybe five years ago. It seems, however, to have caught on and I have heard it in general usage by others who all seem to have workshops too. I stand to be corrected, and if anyone knows of an earlier or different origin of the word please do let me know.
28 Tapping, the process whereby a female thread is produced using a very hard male thread form called a tap. A tap has grooves down its sides called flutes that are there to accept the material removed in the process and also to provide the sharp ‘edge’ that actually cuts the female thread.
29 Spark erosion is a process where metal is melted or vaporised by an electric spark. Commercial machines often use cold water to flush away the eroded material as microscopic pieces of now solid material. It is a very precise and controllable process, often the only way to remove a broken tap or drill, which are very hard, from a softer work piece without destroying the work piece.
30 Hostage rum, illegal locally distilled rum. A term used amongst smugglers in the Caribbean islands.
31 Wim, a Dutch masculine given name or short for Willem. Pronounced Vim and Villem.
32 Poulder, a piece of low-lying land reclaimed from the sea or a river and protected by dykes, especially in the Netherlands.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~o~O~o~

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~o~O~o~

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

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

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

~o~O~o~

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~o~O~o~

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

~o~O~o~

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

~o~O~o~

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

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

~o~O~o~

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

~o~O~o~

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

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

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

~o~O~o~

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~o~O~o~

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

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

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

“Right you are, Alf, thanks.”

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

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

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

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

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

~o~O~o~

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

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

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

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

1 PSV, public service vehicle.
2 MoT, refers to Ministry of Transport annual test certificate of road worthiness. Only mechanics that have the relevant certificates may grant an ‘MoT’ on any vehicle.
3 Border Farce, commonly used pejorative term for Border Force. Border Force is a law-enforcement command within the Home Office, responsible for frontline border control operations at air, sea and rail ports in the United Kingdom.
4 Dummy, baby pacifier.
5 Vindaloo, a particularly hot style of curry. One to work your way up to over time.
6 The lasses are wearing the kit, an expression used by northern UK men that doesn’t refer to ‘kit’ as in clothes, which is the usual usage. It refers to the female body, as in the women are wearing, or walking about with, the parts that men are interested in.

A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 36 Changes Modern and Ancient

It was a Saturday eve, so as usual Gladys, Pete, Harriet and Gustav had all ready for a full house at the Green Dragon Inn,(1) the social centre of Bearthwaite. Gladys and Harriet, her daughter, had all ready for the ladies of the village in the best room and Pete and Gustav, his soon to be son in law, had all ready for the weekly meeting of the Grumpy Old Men’s Society in the taproom. The fires were lit and the hods of coal and logs were filled for the eve. The glasses, barrels and bottles of spirituous beverages of dubious safety and zero legality were ready for thirsty menfolk, though doubtless more would be required before the eve’s drinking had reached its end. Veronica and Harriet had supper on the stoves and in the ovens and it would be ready when required. Harriet had been trying her hand at making Eccles cakes(2) using flaky pastry of her own making and they were on oven trays ready for baking.

The first evidence of customers was the dozen or so dogs entering via the open back door. The dogs went straight into the taproom looking for the bowls of kibble, food scraps and water left for them. Harriet surmised their owners would be expecting Pete, her dad, to be pulling pints within the minute. Pete had a dozen pints ready on the bar before the first of the men walked into the taproom from the rear entrance. There was a front door to the taproom, but it was only used by outsiders. It was considered somewhat effeminate by local men to use it. Perhaps most telling was that none of the dogs ever tried to get into the taproom that way.

~o~O~o~

As the men walked in, having escorted their womenfolk to the front entrance of the Dragon before following the dogs, Denis seeing the wound on Alf’s forehead when he took his hat off said, “Fuck me that looks nasty, Alf. You took a fair thraping(3) with that, Son. How’d it happen?

“Not sure, Denis. I’ve been using a tarmac tamp to flatten food tins and the like, so they pack down tighter for weighing in at Moss Bay Metals in Workington, for years. I used it the other day and it seemed to spring back on me. Mayhap I didn’t use it square on, but I don’t know for sure. Any hap the bastard rebounded back and twatted(4) me on the forehead and split the skin. There was blood everywhere. Telling you what a friggin mess. However, Ellen sorted me out in a couple of minutes and I was back at work in a quarter of an hour, so it wasn’t too bad.” Alf laught and said, “Nothing a few scoops(5) and some chemic(6) tonight won’t put right, though I’ll admit I’m raring to take Eric at dominoes after the pasting he gave me last week.”

~o~O~o~

“For fuck’s sake, Alf, you’re too bloody sensitive about brains. Brains aren’t the be all and end all of what matters. We all know you’re the best at mechanical stuff. Don’t kid yourself, despite his education, even Bertie says you’re way better than him when it comes to dreaming up off the wall solutions to tricky problems which is how to earn a living from it.”

Alf interrupted to say, “That’s just down to experience, Denis, and Bertie will get that with age.” Alf laught and said, “And then like every other old bugger he’ll be wishing he had neither. Still I shan’t be here to listen to him moan because I’ll have been dressed in my wooden overcoat with brass handles(7) by then.”

There were laughs of agreement at that and Stan said, “Denis is right, Alf. Okay I admit playing dominoes is different, and I’ll take every opportunity to slaughter you and every other fucker too at that, but win or lose that’s just a game, entertainment, mate. Life is different and you are one of us.” As Stan concluded the rest of the local men were nodding and making comments of agreement.

Alf nodded but said, “You lot just don’t understand how it was for me. I really didn’t get what school was all about. I was the best pupil they’d ever had at woodwork and metalwork, but most of what went on went completely over my head. I was really grateful that for the last two years at school the head allowed me to spend most of my time helping the caretaker and the maintenance men. I hung doors, reglazed broken windows and anything else that needed doing, and I left the day I turned fifteen. Actually I didn’t go in for a month or two before that because I knew the wagman(8) wouldn’t chase me up since I was so close to leaving.”

“Come on, Alf, we know you’re no Einstein, but you’re not thick. The amount of stuff you know is bloody incredible. You’re like an encyclopaedia on growing stuff and making and mending stuff.”

“No. I’m being serious, Stan. Other than learning to read, write and reckon, school was a complete waste of my time, and the teachers’ too. God knows I felt sorry for them, cos they tried with me, they really did, but I just don’t learn anything that way. True I’m not thick, and I agree I do know a lot of stuff, but I learnt it by doing it because it was relevant to what I was doing at the time. I still know stuff from years ago that I’ve never needed since because my memory is pretty good. Straight up though I was so clever at school it was five years after I’d left before I discovered the euthanasia that was being discussed in RE [religious education] wasn’t about kids in India. I’ve never wanted nor needed sympathy because I am what I am and I’ve always been happy about that. Ellen has always been happy with me being what I am, and the kids and grandkids are fine with that too. May hap I’m finally coming to terms with myself, possibly as a result of my contributions during this Covid, but whatever the truth of it I’m happy being me, but I wouldn’t mind being a bit cleverer.” The matter was allowed to drop because all his friends knew Alf would never change. The truth was they too were happy with him just like he was and probably didn’t want him to change because then he wouldn’t be Alf.

~o~O~o~

Some of the women of Bearthwaite had gone out earlier in the day for shopping and pampering and had enjoyed themselves.

“You’re supposed to be a clever girl, Jane. What do you make of David coming out as Stephanie? Bit of a shock that wasn’t it.” A number of the women at the hair and beauty salon were nodding in agreement with Clarice concerning the surprising event.

Beatrix added, “What I find a little galling is she is so pretty she doesn’t need the services of a place like this. Not fair that.”

There was almost total agreement with that, but Ellery the village hairdresser said in disagreement, “She may not need the services of a place like this, but that doesn’t mean she won’t enjoy them.” There were nods of agreement.

Margaret who was not quite seventy said, “I don’t get it, Jane. At the age of twenty-four with no warning or prior indication at all after finishing university with a first class honours degree in child psychology and a teacher’s ticket on top of it she comes back home to live wearing a rather spectacularly filled out frock, and it was obviously filled with the real thing, announcing she is now Stephanie and she is no longer a work in progress. Mind Penny’s not backward in coming forward regarding her bosom is she? When she came home last time three summers ago it was David who came home not Stephanie, and none had even a hint of suspicion of any changes, so it’s all happened in the last three years years at most. Though I got the impression from Penny that it came as a complete surprise to her and Ian when she came home that they now had a daughter not a son. Naturally and properly enough they are completely supportive and are saying little if anything about it. Ian telt John Stephanie was his child and since she was a girl he’d decided it was all best left to her mum. Penny telt me that it was up to Stephanie to explain or not to whoever she chose and she wasn’t going to risk losing her daughter by telling tales out of turn, which I considered to be right and proper.”

There was a murmur of agreement with that before Margaret continued. “Stephanie is good friends with my granddaughters, three of who went to school with David, and they all come round at least once a week. The girls say they’re just socialising and after a cup of tea, but the truth is they’re decent well reared girls who are checking up that the old folks are still breathing and not in need of anything, just like we did decades ago.” There was a ripple of laughter at that as most of the older women had younger relatives who did the same, and those who hadn’t were visited by the younger relatives of friends with the same intent, but who said their mum had sent them round to see if they wanted anything from the shops. “I like Stephanie, and if I hadn’t known her family since I went to school with all four of her grandparents there’s no way I would have suspected she ever was anything but a pleasant young woman. I know David was never a girl chaser, but he was a perfectly normal and good looking boy and then young man who had his share of girlfriends. He went out with my granddaughter Amy for a while when they were fifteen or sixteen. Then this overnight change happened and it just doesn’t make sense. You’d think there would have been some indication David was different. Even Amy said she was surprised. I reckon that girl is a bit of a dark horse because she was blushing as she said it, so who knows what they’d got up to her make her blush by recalling it. Mind, at that age I suppose it could have been anything.”

“Aye,” agreed Clarice. “I can’t help but wonder what Harriet and Sam Shaw make of it.”

“I don’t know about what Harriet or Samantha make of it,” Beatrix said, “but I do know Elle was impressed that after finishing her education Stephanie returned home to start a play group and early years classes at the library rather than going elsewhere to earn a lot more money. Elle telt me she achieved as highly as any can at the university and gave up a certainty of a high salary outside to gamble that folk here would put their hands in their pockets to support her in return for her looking after and educating their little ones. I know none has ever considered it before, but we’d never manage to provide early years education any other way, so we need to support her because we need what she is offering. There’re any number of young women and girls too who would regard the opportunity to help, even if only part time, as a career opportunity, something to put on their CV,(9) though mayhap many would prefer to stay here.

“It may well be that we need to support any of our young men who may be interested in her too. She is one of us, a proper Bearthwaite woman in every sense, and we need to ensure she remains one of us and stays in Bearthwaite. If she wants to live and work here as a married woman with a family we need to enable that, so we don’t need or want any of our young men worried about what their mates will say if they take up with her. So, Girls, we need to lean on them and lean hard as to how they should react to her. In short the same as they do to any other young, single woman. Agreed? Better still if we can get her set up with one of the local single parents struggling to rear kids. There are any number of them both men and women.” There were nods and expressions of agreement all around. “Anyone know where her interests lie?”

“The girls tell me she is only interested in men and has gone out with a few outsiders for a meal and a drink of a weekend night from time to time,” Margaret replied immediately understanding Beatrix. “There is no indication that she’s interested in women. I think you’re right, Beatrix. We really don’t want her taking up with an outsider and then moving away, so I suggest we put the word out and start doing the necessary. Changing the subject, but still considering Stephanie, Elle suggested a while back that she and Sasha would match any funding that we raised to employ her and if necessary fund converting an old building for her to use rather than the school library which isn’t really big enough, so let’s get to it regarding raising funds too.”

Julie said, “I heard that too. My Stan knows Elle’s old man Sasha well, they’ve been friends for years, and he said that was the way Sasha would do it. We’d have to make the effort to raise money before he’d give us any. Stan says Sasha has more money than you can dream about and he’s a very charitable man, but he’s selective about where he gives it and he likes to see evidence that folk are doing what they can for themselves, which is more than fair enough. We all know that he funded the Green Dragon extensions and refurbishments for the entire village to enjoy and avoid the risk of a chain brewery turning the place into something we wouldn’t like. Stan says that Sasha, Pete and Gustav are as thick as thieves now the brewery is a going concern providing jobs for locals. I reckon that those story tellers that meet at the Dragon are like the local mafia. Still why should we worry; they’re on our side because we feed ’em and sleep with ’em.” There was a great deal of laughter at that, but all present understood. Men were men and completely inexplicable to any woman, but these were their men they were talking about, and every last one of them was a decent human being, the young, the old and all those in between too, but their women had no illusions that life was oft a harsh and unforgiving affair made easier by a good marriage, family and community, They could and willingly did provide what it was their menfolk as men so badly needed to function as providers for themselves and their families down the generations, and as a result they would make sure what their womenfolk required for themselves their children and their descendants too was provided too. It was a trade that went back to the dawning of humanity and was considered to be an equitable and enjoyable one by Bearthwaite women and men alike. It was only ever referred to obliquely, but all knew it boiled down to sex for security and it was not taken lightly by any of the Bearthwaite folk. All knew women ensured their family circumstances ran as smoothly as possible from their beds.

The Bearthwaite women all came from the village of Bearthwaite, which was an isolated, tightly knit community perhaps typically forty miles from any of the local centres of population that offered major retail opportunities, and they were out enjoying their recently instituted two monthly girls’ day at one of the local towns courtesy of the double decker bus Alf had recently bought and made road legal on behalf of the village which now owned it as a community resource like the library, the school and the sporting facilities. Today they were in Carlisle, and shopping, lunch, hair, nails and gossip were the order of the day before returning home to dress up and spend a pleasant Saturday evening in the best room of the Green Dragon whilst their menfolk drank and swapped tales, lies and probably subversive thoughts too before doing war on each other with dominoes in the taproom. The women ranged in age from single in their mid teens to grandmothers in their sixties, a few were their with their daughters, and Margaret was there with one of her daughters and two of her granddaughters, all four of them mothers.

They all looked to Jane who was an academic in her middle forties who had moved into the village twelve years before when she had married Arnold Wright, who’d been a bitter and acrimoniously divorced local builder with custody of his six children. Her love had returned Arnie, as he was generally known, back to the well balanced family man he’d been before Chelsea, the girl he’d married from outside, had shewn her true colours and run off with an outsider leaving him with the children. How Jane had reached through to Arnie whose hard shell due to his emotional crippling by Chelsea had rendered him unapproachable to any, including his children, had been a subject of much hopeful speculation at the time to the Bearthwaite womenfolk who had effectively been looking after and seeing to the mothering needs of his children. It had been immediately noticed by those Bearthwaite womenfolk that once Jane had come on the Bearthwaite scene she’d looked after Arnie’s children like a mother should and the children had started calling her Mum from the beginning.

Other Bearthwaite mothers had soon heard tales from their children that indicated Jane’s children had rapidly started to forget Chelsea and that the village children, who’d not liked Chelsea, too considered Jane to be their friends’ mother. The mothers had been led to believe that Chelsea had hit her children a lot, and they’d been too frightened of consequences to tell any one about it, but now they had mum who was far more free with her kisses than her scoldings and she’d never smacked them. That their children liked Auntie Jane, as they referred to her in accordance with local usage which indicated their total acceptance of her, and spent far more time with Arnie’s children at their house than they had before Chelsea had left had meant Jane had been well thought of right from the beginning, the main reason being she lived by the unwritten codes of Bearthwaite folk, in particular those that applied to Bearthwaite womenfolk and especially those that involved motherhood. Of most note was that Jane like all the other Bearthwaite mothers thought nothing of feeding a couple of dozen children at no notice at all who just turned up with her own at meal time, though properly she insisted on informing their mothers as to their whereabouts. In short she was a one of their own, a Bearthwaite woman, wife and mother who like a number of them was looking forward to becoming a grandmother in the not too far distant future.

Many of the womenfolk of Bearthwaite were puzzled by events concerning Stephanie, though certainly not concerned by them, for it was known by all that Harriet, the popular adopted daughter of Gladys and Pete Maxwell the licencees of the Green Dragon, who lived with her Bavarian fiancé Gustav at the Dragon was trans. The young couple who were in the process of arranging their wedding, a matter that most of the village were involved in, were fully approved as adoptive parents by the adoption agency they had registered with and Social Services, though they were still waiting for appropriate children to adopt. There was for the village children an air of expectation and excitement concerning the matter. Perhaps more to the point the village adults approved of the young couple’s decision to adopt trans children who’d been rejected by their families, for the rejection of children was an alien concept to the inhabitants of Bearthwaite, and they were aware that the national umbrella organisation all adoption agencies registered with had flagged the couple’s application and it was purely a matter of time before children with the needs they could so easily meet were identified, and Bearthwaite was a place where all children could thrive. Being trans was a nonissue to the folk of Bearthwaite, what mattered was belonging which was evidenced by behaviour and nothing else.

Too, Samantha Shaw, who had earned her living as a welder for British Gas, but who now with her husband Gee farmed the valley head and did jobbing engineering work, often with Alf her mentor from childhood, was trans too, and she like Harriet was accepted as a local woman by their community for exactly the same reasons that any woman was; she lived by the unwritten codes of the Bearthwaite womenfolk. That Sam and Gee had registered with the same adoption agency as Harriet and Gustav to adopt trans children reviled and rejected by their families was regarded as recognition that not only was Samantha, who was Bearthwaite born and reared, one of their own, but so was Gee who had been an outsider. Bearthwaite was a community that only cared about matters that truly mattered: folk who cared about folk who cared.

Jane laughed and said, “I’m not sure what perfectly normal means when applied to folk, and it’s said the only constant in life is change.” She’d said that to give herself a few moments more to decide how to express her thoughts. “Since time immemorial it has always been considered by some that moments and events of change are magical. The turning of night into day and that of day into night, dawn and dusk, the gloaming. The phases of the moon, day length changes, the sun return at the winter solstice and all fallows eve at the summer solstice, even the equinoxes were considered special, though less so. Even the tide’s changes were so considered.”

The women were puzzled as to the relevance of what Jane was saying, but she was a professor and head of the chemistry department at a north eastern university. She was also a kind and generous woman who’d always been active in social matters in the village and she played a major rôle in the village during the recent and ongoing Covid events. Perhaps more importantly she had long taken her turn arranging the flowers in the church which defined her as a Bearthwaite woman. As such she was accorded a great deal of respect and had been accepted as one of themselves since her arrival at Bearthwaite a dozen years ago.

“Strange is it not that modern day scientists have come to regard such events and their concomitant energy changes as deep problems? I do not wish to appear to look down on any, but to a scientist deep means subject matter so complex it is of potentially Nobel prize winning nature. The details concerning phase changes like solids turning to liquid or liquids to gas, and of course the reversals of those changes are still almost a complete mystery to us. Similarly with the allotropic changes of, to name but a few, sulphur, iron and tin. That’s where elements change their structure usually due to temperature and pressure changes. The most dramatic and though probably unknown to you is perhaps the most easily understood. Graphite and diamond are both just carbon in different forms. Graphite is a dirty, messy, black substance used as a lubricant on its own and in grease by engineers like Alf. Diamond is a clean sparkly crystal that every female is more than familiar with. Both are effectively purified soot or coal and given the right conditions one can be turned into the other. Industrial diamonds are used for cutting and polishing and have been manufactured from carbon on a vast scale for a few decades.” Jane had a moue of distaste on her face before she continued, “I hate to tell you this, Girls, but diamonds can be burnt as fuel just like coal. I know the thought of that is painful to contemplate, but it is true.

“Too, there is a huge branch of science that overlaps many disciplines and mathematics too that is often referred to by the media as chaos theory which can be viewed as essentially the study of changes. Some of what little knowledge we have was known to the ancients, but most of that little we do know has only relatively recently been discovered. An example easily understood of that is iron which when it becomes hot enough will no longer be attracted to a magnet. For centuries blacksmiths have regarded the change from magnetic to non magnetic that occurs when steel, which is mostly iron with a little bit of carbon added, is almost white hot to be a significant matter for the heat treatment and forge welding of the steel. Steel heated and appropriately cooled, which smiths call quenched can be heat treated to be a hard cutting material like a good kitchen knife, or a soft easily shaped material depending on exactly what is done to it. It can only be forge welded by a blacksmith when it is non magnetic and so hot and soft it is almost liquid. Folk like Simon, Alf, Samantha and Gee will be very familiar with these matters. However, though those facts have been known for centuries, perhaps millennia, it is only relatively recently that studies have understood the change is due to a matter of an internal rearrangement of the crystalline structure of the steel. Possibly the only person we know who would understand that sort of thing is Bertie.” Bertie was one of Alf’s grandsons who worked with him and had a first class honours degree in mechanical engineering.

“However, back to the matter at hand, but staying with the concept of changes. Nowadays, the matter of male and female is considered by the open minded to be a very broad multi dimensional continuum, a multi dimensional spectrum if you like, rather than two points at the opposite ends of a single dimensional line. However, the questions I would love to have answered are at what point, and why, does a person of one apparent gender or perhaps that’s better expressed as one apparent identity, wherever they are on that multi dimensional spectrum, make the decision that they are in the wrong body, or indeed accept that they are in the right one? I’m asking what is the trigger mechanism that brings about that magical transformation? I know the matter is much more complicated than that, but you have to start somewhere. I am sure I’m not the only one who would like to know. I also suspect the matter to be deep, very, very deep.

“There is a phenomenon called super heating. There are many other phenomena associated with changes of many kinds, but super heating may be familiar to you. It occurs when, for example water, is heated slowly without any mechanical vibrations and it reaches a temperature above its boiling point at that particular pressure. By rights it should have turned to steam, but presumably there has been no initiating event to cause the transition. The change can happen when a superheated liquid is removed from a microwave oven and the vibrations caused by doing so cause the liquid to almost explosively boil and instantly change to steam in the vapour phase. Some very unpleasant scalding accidents have happened as a result of such events.” Many of her listeners were familiar with that event and were nodding. “Yet if the microwave is turned off before the explosion and the liquid is left undisturbed it will simply cool to below its boiling point never having turned to steam. You can check with one of those point and click infrared thermometers that it was indeed above the point at which it should have boiled. They are available from Ebay for less than a tenner [$15] from China.

“Similarly lakes can become supercooled due to a slow temperature drop in the air above them taking the water down to a temperature below its freezing point whilst still remaining liquid. Such lakes have been observed to instantly freeze to a depth of eight to twelve inches [20-30cm], and again point and click infrared thermometers confirmed the water was well below its freezing point before it suddenly changed state. This phenomenon has been seen to freeze herds of drinking deer in place with tragic results. I’ve seen photographs and videos of such events.

“The reason I mention the last two phenomena is because to me though they sound different in kind they sound to be not so different in principle from some of the more extreme transition experiences of some of my trans friends at the university. Most happened slowly over time, but some were almost explosive events with difficult to cope with or even tragic consequences. I conclude that like many other changes they are natural events, variable in their details, sometimes beautiful to watch, sometimes hard to accept, sometimes dangerous or even tragic, but naytheless always magical. I admit I am a romantic, but too I believe that life is better, though perhaps no easier, if you focus on the better aspects of all events.”

Most of the women were thinking deeply about what Jane had said and were gradually coming to understand what to them had been her rather esoteric, exotic and intellectual point of view. “So what are you saying, Jane? That David becoming Stephanie was nothing more than a natural event that was overdue to happen, and David always was Stephanie, but an event hadn’t happened that would initiate the change? And had there been no such event David would never have become Stephanie? But once that triggering event happened David became inevitably Stephanie quite quickly?”

Jane took her time answering Clarice, but eventually replied, “I can no more speak for Stephanie than any can for someone else, but I suppose I am saying that it’s possible, or may be even probable.” There was stunned silence when Jane finished by saying, “You can decide for yourselves who is the lucky one Stephanie or I, for I was never sure what I was and it took me three decades to decide I was female and not male, though my transition was certainly a magical and explosive event in comparison with my life before that.”

~o~O~o~

Several hours later, the ladies having settled in the best room of the Green Dragon with appropriate glasses of refreshment the earlier conversation in Carlisle was résuméed and resumed for the benefit of the women who’d not gone to Carlisle. However, the focus was no longer so much on the unexpectedness of David becoming Stephanie, but more on how Stephanie could be persuaded to stay in the village and continue providing the families with young children with the service she so clearly was not only good at but derived considerable satisfaction from too. Elle summed up opinion by saying, “I think you have it in a nut shell, Ladies. If we can but find her a good man who can provide her with children of her own, she’ll never have a reason to leave, and, more to the point, she’ll never wish to, for it seems to me that would give her all she wants and make her happy. Girls like her are safest living here, and I know none of us would want her to be just another fatal trans statistic on the news.” At that there were nods of agreement all around. “However, there may be a more obvious solution to the problem than most of us are aware of. I’ll need to check with Sasha before I have anything like even a definite possibility.

“I’ll out line it for you, but I don’t want this being telt to any outsiders, our folk yes, but outsiders no because that could ruin all hope of a successful outcome. There is an outsider who has been attending the story telling for two or three months now. Sasha said he has never telt a tale and is a quiet man who doesn’t drink much because he probably can’t afford it. Naytheless he is regarded well by all our menfolk. He appears to be thirty give or take two or three and has admitted he is single. Bachelor, separated or divorcee Sasha didn’t know. I’ll have him find out. Sasha talked to him at the end of the eve a couple of weeks ago because he thought he looked depressed and tormented. What is interesting is he has a couple of nieces and a nephew who are the orphans of his eldest sister and her husband whom he and his three sisters are rearing amongst them. He’s the children’s official guardian. He’s the youngest of the four remaining siblings and his parents apparently named him Chance because they’d taken a chance on getting a boy as their last child. The sisters are all married with families, but none of the siblings are really in a position financially to look after the children all the time. They all lied to Social Services, so as to keep the children in the family with folk they knew rather than being farmed out into the care system, and they are desperately afraid they’ll be found out and lose the children. Though legally the children are under Chance’s wardship they are cared for by his sisters and their husbands between the kids finishing school at half three and Chance getting home from work at half five. The kids sleep over with their cousins on Saturday night. They do the rounds of Chance’s sisters each Saturday and he collects them late Sunday afternoon to eat at home with him. Saturday eve is his only time off and he comes here to get his head back in order, so he can face the week ahead.”

“How on Earth did Sasha find all that out, Elle?”

“You know how persuasive and insightful he is, Julie. Chance probably wasn’t even aware of just how much information he’d given Sasha, and he certainly wouldn’t have been aware of how much more Sasha had deduced. Sasha doesn’t know what he does for a living, but said he dresses well and sounds and speaks like a well educated man. I’m not prepared to go into the taproom, but I’ll ask Gladys to tell Sasha I want a word. We’re already housing Stephanie as part of her salary in one of the flats in the old vicarage, but it’d be no big issue to house her and her family in suitable accommodation on the same terms if required. Chance knows Harriet is trans and is clearly okay with that, but that’s a long way from being prepared to enter into a relationship with a trans woman. I have no idea if it is even a possibility to get them together, but I do think it needs looking into on the usual Bearthwaite terms.”

The women nodded in agreement, understanding that part of the deal if it went through would be Stephanie’s adoption of the children, in part to protect them in case anything happened to Chance and in part to give them a mother Chance would have to negotiate with if their relationship foundered. He would be prevented from just leaving with the children Stephanie would certainly have come to love quickly.

~o~O~o~

When Sasha arrived to see what Elle wanted him for she took him into the empty dance hall for privacy and asked, “Is Chance here tonight, Love?”

“Yes why?”

Elle outlined her view of the situation and asked, “What do you think, Lover of mine?

“I don’t know what to think, Belovèd, other than it needs to be looked into, and it needs looking into quickly. I’ll speak to Chance after folk have left. As he’s always done before he’s booked a room, so he’ll still be around. I’ll have to be blunt because though you have time to play with for Stephanie, I suspect Chance’s family are running out of time. His parents are still both alive, but they are too elderly and fragile to be able to help with the children. However, no matter how much those children are in need of help, I’m not prepared to push a trans girl from here into a relationship with Chance if he has issues with that just to help those children. If it comes to that they’d be better off in the care system with an immediate application from Harriet and Gustav to adopt them. I’ll make sure I am made aware of them going into care the same day the decision is made, and in the meanwhile we’ll have Harriet and Gustav apply to be placed on the foster parents list prior to anything happening. That covers the children and possibly Stephanie and Chance too. I don’t think there’s anything else we can do for the moment. I’ll tell you how it went with Chance on the way home and then you can say whatever is necessary to Stephanie tomorrow.”

Elle kissed him and said, “That’s why I love you, Sasha Vetrov. Even under pressure you can think a long enough game to derail the authorities when vulnerable folk are involved. I’ll talk to you later, Love.”

As Elle left the dance hall, Gladys seeing her smiling asked, “I take it the Cossack came up with a plan?”

“Indeed, clever as always. I’ll tell you all when we get to the room. Could I have another Courvoisier please, Gladys?”

“Of course. I’ll join you, though I’ll have an Asbach.”

~o~O~o~

“Everything okay, Sasha?” Pete asked.

Sasha shrugged and replied, “Yes, just the womenfolk rearing up on me again. You’d think Elle would know better by now, but it’ll all come out in the wash by tomorrow lunch. It just gives me more to do.”

“So what did you say, Sasha?” Simon the blacksmith asked.

Sasha grinned and replied, “Yes, Dear.” At that there was lot of laughter but no further questions, for they were all familiar with the classic male self preservation tactic Sasha had employed on something that clearly didn’t matter to him.

~o~O~o~

Harry said said, “Talking of the womenfolk rearing up, I’ve worked out a perfect solution to bring Kathleen round. She’s gey(10) fond of pickled onions, so when she’s mad with me and and not speaking I tighten the pickle jar lid, so she has to talk to me to get the bugger open.” Many of the men instinctively looked behind the bar to see if Gladys or Harriet were there before joining in with the laughter of their friends.

~o~O~o~

Back in the lounge, after Elle had telt the women what had been agreed Harriet said, “Uncle Sasha is without doubt the most manipulative and devious man I have ever heard of.” She smiled and added, “And probably the kindest too. I’ll put Gustav and myself down on the fostering list as soon as Social Services are open at nine tomorrow morning. We’re already cleared with them so there shouldn’t be any issues. I’ll just tell them that till we adopt we’ll do what we can to help because I want children around me.”

Samantha Shaw added, “Let’s play it as safe as we can. I’ll have Gee and myself put on the list too, cos we’ve both been cleared as well.” The were murmurings of agreement with that.

~o~O~o~

Back in the taproom Pete was pulling pints, Denis was threwing logs on the fires and Bertie was pouring various corrosive liquors into glasses whilst Tommy was passing round the children’s Christmas party collection box to the outsiders who wished a glass from Bertie. Stan went to let some of the dogs out and returned to say, “I’ve been watching a lot of Youtube videos recently on wood turning and various restoration projects. I was absolutely gob smacked to see how many idiots there were turning wood wearing rings on their fingers and then after turning the lathe off slowing the wood down to look at it with a hand wearing a ring. I haven’t seen any wearing ties yet, but I suspect it’s just a matter of time.

Gerry asked, “What do you think to that, Alf?”

Alf replied slowly, “If some one is that desperate to lose a finger or strangle themselves what right have I to interfere? There’s no point in talking to someone who’s a sandwich short of a picnic(11) because they don’t listen, after all why should they? They know, just like teenagers, they’re immortal and invulnerable. The only difference between idiots like that and blokes like me is they clearly didn’t have their arses kicked hard enough and often enough when they were learning. That’s why I won’t wear a wedding ring, just in case I forget to take it off when I’m working. It’s an easy enough mistake to make, but it’s one I can’t make. The only bloke I’ve ever seen on Youtube who make a point of taking his ring and watch off before using a lathe is called Scott Bennet. He makes his living restoring furniture and owns what I presume is a one man band called Wooden It Be Nice. He has a Youtube channel called Fixing Furniture. I assume he’s Canadian because he sounds like one and he once said Robertson screws were common in his parts and the only place I know of where that is true is Canada. Robertson screws have a square recess in the top and were invented in Canada in nineteen oh seven I think. I’m sure there must be many others who’ve made a point of it on Youtube and elsewhere, but I haven’t come across them.”

“You’ve never worn a ring have you, Alf?”

“I’ve got one, Gerry. I wore it when I got wed. Ellen insisted. I think to women it’s kind of like them putting their brand on you. She’s okay about me not wearing it most of the time, for she doesn’t want me to lose a finger any more than I do. I only wear it to formal events. If I’m wearing a suit I wear my wedding ring, if it’s not an event that requires a suit I don’t. I don’t even know where Ellen keeps it. With her jewellery I suppose. When required she gets my suit and ring out, and when I’m shaved, washed and dressed she inspects me to check I’m fit to be seen out. When we get home she makes sure I take my ring off, hangs my suit up and puts my ring away.” As many of the men laught Alf just shrugged, for it was what he did to keep Ellen happy and it was just one of the things he and Ellen did to ensure an in the main peaceful marriage. He knew all couples had their quirks and accommodations arrived at over the years to make their marriage more harmonious and he wasn’t perturbed by what anyone thought about how he and Ellen managed their relationship.

~o~O~o~

“Sasha, you’ve been very quiet concerning the recent furore concerning the quality of writing submitted to the sites you are involved with. I’ve been watching and waiting for you to defend your position. Do you not have a view or a reaction to that that you wish to put out there?”

“Well, Pete, the simple answer is no I do not. I find it unrewarding to be involved in such disputes because I don’t care enough. I read what I enjoy and ignore what I don’t. I believe it is not up to me to have a go at those whose views I despise. They are after all entitled to their opinion. Think about it, you never bothered with Bert, you certainly weren’t prepared to be involved in an argument with him. He treated Harriet badly, and when you found out about it you took her in and ultimately adopted her. End of story. He lost a child he clearly didn’t care about, and you and Gladys gained a daughter who loves the pair of you. Why would you want to become involved in a dispute you had already won?

“Poor writers are like politicians, if you don’t approve of what they appear to stand for you don’t vote for them, or in writers’ cases you don’t bother to read their views and works. You know when a politician is lying because their lips are moving. Similarly a writer whose work isn’t convincing is probably not what they purport to be.

“As to the critics, strange is it not that folk, who as far as I can tell have never written anything other that negative criticism, are such experts on what constitutes good writing and an excellent story. Even stranger is the appalling English that most of them use when writing their criticisms. And it matters not whether they are using an English, American, Canadian, Australian or South African version of the language, nor indeed any other variant, for as a result of their total lack of consistency and the rabidness of their writing one can only conclude they are illiterate, unimaginative, small minded and exceedingly jealous souls who can do no other than resent their more creative peers and colleagues. That many of those creative colleagues are perfectly happy to admit their imperfect skills at using the written word, yet are still driven to express their creative souls in writing seems to infuriate their soulless uncreative critics even more. Many of those imperfect users of the written language write wonderful stories that more than make up for their lack of technical skills in writing, and I am delighted when I come across a new work of theirs to read. I hasten to add that I’m not having a go at English speakers and writers because it no different in all of the dozen or so other languages I am able to use well enough to be able to tell. I suspect it’s the same in all languages.”

“What about those who have a go at your own writing? How do you react to them?”

“I don’t react to them, for they only do it once that I read. After that I block them and don’t bother my head about their lack of manners. Most folk can cope with being hated, reviled, spat at even, but they can’t cope with being ignored, so if you really wish to hurt them just ignore them. It requires fortitude for most folk to see that through, but I’ve been doing it since I was a young child and I know it works. But back to the works of others, if I read a story I consider to be indicative of both a lack of writing skill and a lack of imagination I just don’t read that writer’s work again, but I certainly wouldn’t dream of having a go at them hence allowing others to consider I had been bad mannered. Time, and lack of readers, will either force them to improve or give up. Both are a good result. Lest, by the bye, you consider that to be noble or particularly decent of me Elle would tell you the truth if you asked her. I’m that way because most folk bore the shit out of me, and I truly don’t give a fuck what they think, if that is they are capable of thought, which is why I just don’t wish to engage with them in any way because I don’t wish to encourage them.”

“Christ, Alf,” responded Stan, “do you realise what that means?”

Alf looked puzzled and said, “Not a clue, Stan. Do I want to know?”

“Course you do, Lad. It means you and I and the rest of the lads don’t bore the shit out of Sasha, cos we’re folk who count in the universe of Sasha the chief bull shitter of the Bearthwaite Grumpy Old Men’s Society based at the Green Dragon.”

As Alf began to smile, the rest of the men in the taproom were laughing uproariously and Vincent announced, “You deserved that, Sasha, and it’s your shout,(12) Lad.”

Sasha nodded and said, “Start pulling pints, Pete, and we’ll have a bit more of the rare stuff to go with them if you will please, Bertie. I’ve got some serious chemic from Yuri that’s in need of some lads with appreciative taste buds. Alf, I’d appreciate it if you fetched a case(13) up.”

“You serious, Sasha? I took those bottles down the other day, and they’re recycled half gallon Bells whisky bottles. [5 US pints] A case?”

“Well if we don’t drink it all tonight there’s always next week isn’t there?”

“Okay, Lad, what ever you say. I’m on it. Bertie, give me a lift will you?”

Bertie, Alf’s grandson who worked with him, nodded and said, “No bother, Granddad, but I’ll fetch a case of that Canary Island potato vodka of mine up as well. Any want anything else in particular? Or shall I just fetch a case of mixed bottles up?”

As Bertie looked around, Pete said, “Fetch a mixed case, Bertie Lad.”

Alf stood, and as he left the taproom in a hurry he said, “Got to go, Lads. Back in a minute.” On his return he said, “I don’t mind getting old, but I bloody hate getting knackered. The only thing I’ve got that works as well as it did when I was younger is my frigging bladder. Actually the sodding thing works ten times better than it did then. Ten times more often at least.”

A lot of the old men were nodding in agreement when Sasha said drily, “Just be grateful you’re a bloke, Alf.” Seeing some puzzled looks around him he added, “Many an older lass wouldn’t have made it in time. That’s why they go to the ladies at frequent and regular intervals even when they don’t feel the need, because by they time they feel the need it’s already too late.”

At that there were even more looks of agreement and understanding from the older men, but Vincent the village slaughterman and butcher, known as Vince the mince,(14) added cynically, “Better your bladder working over time than your arse, Alf. Just be grateful.”

~o~O~o~

“How long have we got till supper, Harriet Love?” Vincent asked Harriet who was topping up kibble and water dishes for the dogs from a couple of pails.

“Probably twenty minutes maybe twenty-five, Uncle Vincent. It’s Cumberland Tatie Pot(15) with Auntie Aggie’s pickled red cabbage. I’ll bring some of her pickled beetroot too just in case anyone would prefer that.”

Pete asked, “Any one got a short one, Lads? Anything about food seeing as it’s nearly suppertime.”

“I’ve got a five minute tale maybe less.”

“Have at it, Clarence Lad.” Clarence was Gustav’s master brewer and as such an important man in Bearthwaite.

“Last week Amy and I decided to have a day out to Kendal. Normally we’d stop and have lunch at Oakhurst Garden Centre just outside Cockermouth. You can sit outside on the balcony which projects right out into the tree tops over the valley which is gey steep sided. The red squirrels are so tame you have to watch they don’t nick your food off the table. The food is excellent and reasonably priced, and a wander round the spot is an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours. But it’s where we always go if we’re going out west, so we decided on a change and ate somewhere in Kendal not far from the Moot Hall. There’re several places to eat round there and not knowing anything about any of them we just picked one at random. I can’t remember the name of the place and I don’t want to. Amy had steak and ale pie with chips [US fries] and peas, and said it was excellent. I should have joined her. Most of my meal was okay, the mash, [mashed potato] cabbage and parsley sauce were all superb. All the vegetables including the chips were cooked from fresh not from frozen. The gammon however was shite, nothing but pure fucking salt. It took me a couple of pints or maybe that was three just to wash it down, and it was all a hell of a sight dearer than the garden centre. Still at least the beer was excellent.”

Vincent said in explanation, “That was how virtually all bacon and gammon uest to be made when I was a kid. It was understandable in those days, for the salt was needed to keep the meat fit to eat over winter and spring till the first lambs and bull calves were big enough to justify killing em. Folk couldn’t provide the feed to prevent them loosing weight over the winter, so all the pigs other than breeding stock were slaughtered at the back end whilst they were still in prime condition as soon as the weather had started to cool. I mind my dad and granddad wouldn’t slaughter pigs till the first overnight ground frost, for handling pork in warm weather is unpleasant and it goes off on you as fast as you can look at it. Handling salt pork in warm weather is even worse, for the salt draws moisture out of the air to the meat and it is said to sweat because it’s becomes slimy. It’s difficult to handle because you can’t get a decent grip on it. You have to mind there were no chiller units nor freezers then. To make sure the meat kept the brine used was gey strang.(16) Some folks cured pork using dry salt which made for even saltier bacon. The flitches(17) of bacon and hams hanging up in the back cured that way were crusted with salt. Before it was cooked it was always soaked overnight in water to leach some of the salt out. Granddad used to leave a flitch in the beck(18) overnight before drying it off the following morning to cut up for bacon. He did the same with hams. Sounds to me that some tosser of an amateur has been making so called artisan bacon and gammon using a recipe out of a decades old if not more than a century old cookery book like Mrs Beaton’s Book of Household Management which was first published in eighteen sixty-one and used a shed load of salt in curing pork. The problem is they didn’t bother to read the bit about soaking it overnight before cooking it.”

Pete asked, “That it, Clarence?”

“Aye I said it wasn’t much of a tale. It was only made interesting by what Vince had to say.”

Sasha said, “Well I’ve a tale, well a question really. Is it just me, or is all ice cream shite now? I’ve tried it all, every make I’ve been able to lay my hands on and it all tastes like shit, even the expensive so called luxury brands, and as for those Magnum lollies, they’re okay, but they’ve got bugger all to do with ice cream. If you allow any variety to thaw out you get some crap tasting gritty froth on the top and at least half of it is some kind of vegetable oil emulsion that sinks to the bottom. A friend of mine who’s a dairy farmer out Kirkbride way telt me that even Twentymans in Allonby who’ve been selling their own ice cream since nineteen twenty have made their ice cream from powder for years now, but they used to use whole milk from local herds. I’ve no idea if that is true, but I think Keith would know. I do know I used to enjoy their ice cream and what they sell these days isn’t worth buying. Once I used to stop for ice cream every time I passed that way, now I just don’t bother. Maybe my taste buds are old and knackered like the rest of me, but I don’t think so. Elle says the only way to get decent stuff is to make it yourself using proper ingredients, so I bought her a machine with a stirrer and a freezer unit in it, takes an hour to make a litre and a half. That tastes damned good, if that is I can get to any before the kids.”

“There were sounds of general agreement with Sasha and Pete added, “Belgium and Italy are famous for their ice cream, and it’s controlled by law what you can put into stuff that’s selt as ice cream. Nothing selt over here would be legal over there. It’s like chocolate in Switzerland and Belgium and beer and sausage in Germany. None of our chocolate, beer and sausage would be legal there.”

Gustav said, “Clarence’s beers would be okay, but most sausage wouldn’t be. Vincent’s Cumberland sausage would be okay. I sent some home a month or so ago for one of my brothers’ birthdays. They were celebrating with a barbecue at the inn, and my brothers and their friends said it was excellent. Ernst wants some more sometime, so, Vincent, when it’s convenient any chance of fifty kilos? [110 pounds]

“No bother, Gustav, but now we’re out of the EU won’t there be a problem sending it to Germany?”

Gustav smiled and said, “Those regulations only apply to food, Vincent, not to packages labelled industrial engineering samples.”

Amidst the laughter Pete said, “That boy has been associating with too many disreputable old men for too long. I think he’s completely corrupted and beyond hope now. There’s no way he could go back to live in Bavaria now, he belongs here.”

Gee said, “I’ve got a short one about food, well about eating out, anyway. Samantha and I decided to eat out with a couple of friends at the Golf Hotel in Silloth. It was a good meal and good crack too. They’re married, like us both welders and we had two or three years’ worth of catching up to do from since we last worked with them. I tried a very spicy green lipped New Zealand mussel dish as a starter. The chile blew my mouth away, but it was delicious. I followed that with steak and ale pie with mixed vegetables and mashed potatoes. All the vegetables there are frozen I think, but all the stuff like the pie is made on the premises as are most of the puddings. We all said we’d go there again, so if you want a decent meal out in the kind of spacious surroundings that only a Victorian spot like the Golf offers I can recommend it. We all thought the food was excellent, not cheap but well worth it. We were using taxis and I’d had three maybe four pints, so a visit to the gents was called for. Now obviously I’ve got no problems with the trans, but I have to say it was quite a shock when a good looking lass in a full length frock pulled up at the next urinal to me to take a leak by hitching her skirts up. Apart from anything else she was a hell of a sight bigger than me.

“I said nothing when I got back to the others, but I telt Sam about it in the taxi on the way home. She was fair pissed off by it and said that sort of behaviour got all the trans a bad name. She asked me if the lass passed and I had to admit there was no way I would have known her as anything other than a lass, and a pretty one at that. That seemed to make her even angrier, and she telt me she should have used a stall in the ladies and none would have been any the wiser. Now I may be married to a trans lass, but I’ve never had to walk in her shoes, so I said nowt because I don’t reckon I have a right to an opinion. However, a few days later we were back in Silloth doing a bit of business, and after that we went into the coöp for a can of pop apiece because it was a hot day. Sam met a mate of hers called Sally in there and telt her the tale getting me to describe the lass. I was asked how tall was she and I replied at least six foot maybe a bit more. Sally said she’s known to every one round there and gets a lot of shit for it. Seems she’s down for GRS surgery next month and has said she’ll not be returning to Silloth after that. Sally said she’d have been crucified if she’d gone into the ladies, beaten up for sure by some of the local idiots. That calmed Sam down, but it upset her at the same time. Can’t say I felt too good about it either.”

Sasha said, “It’s a shame that folk get so wound up over something that doesn’t have to be an issue. We’ve got a much higher than statistically representative proportion of trans living here and none give a damn because we’ve got more important things to worry about. Like keeping our early years teacher, and pressing forward with anything that creates jobs here without us losing our culture to outsiders with money. What’s the lass do for a living, Gee? Do you know anything about her?”

“Who the trans lass or Sally?

“The trans lass.”

“She works in an office in Carlisle, but I don’t know what she does. Her parents have both died, but Sally said her dad was from West Newton(19) and her mum was German. The lass’s name is Adalheidis Maxwell.”

Sasha had a speculative gleam in his eyes as he said, “Get Sam to find out what she does for a living will you, and see if she’s got something lined up to go to after she leaves Silloth. If not we may wish to have a chat with her.”

Gustav added, “Adalheidis is the older form of what has now become Adelheid which is the full version of the name Heidi. Adelheid is the modern Dutch and German form of the Old High German female given name Adalheidis, which meant nobility or nobleness. Though Adalheidis is rare these days it is still used and both versions of the name are considered to be a very feminine names back home.”

Stan said in tones of mock reproval, “Christ above, Gustav you’re going to have to cut back on that education, Son. You’re making most of us look thick.”

Like lightening Gustave riposted, “That’s a lie. It’s not me that makes you look thick, Stan. You don’t need my or any one else’s help to do that because it comes naturally.”

To around of clapping and banging of beer glasses on tables Alf said, “Got to give it to the lad, Stan, he had you fair and square there, but you set yourself up for it.”

Wryly Stan admitted, “Aye fair enough, but Pete was right, he belongs here. He can’t go back to Bavaria now.”

~o~O~o~

“Harriet announced as she came in pushing a trolley and then depositing jars of pickled red cabbage and beetroot on the tables along with cruet sets, “Right, Gentlemen. Clear the tables, supper will be in here inside five minutes. Mum and Auntie Veronica are dishing up next door right now. I’ve put some pickled onion jars out too. Auntie Aggie wants them used up because they’re the last of that batch and she’s got a new lot already on the shelves that’ll be ready next week.”

Alf added, “That latest batch she made are not a usual pickling onion. They’re a French shallot called Hermine. The pickling onions didn’t do well this year, but the shallots did. Hermine is a white, round shallot that I’ve been growing for a few years mostly for pickling. According to the experts they are mild and don’t keep very well. I’ve never come across what they say regarding pickling. I don’t reckon mild is a fair description. I think they have a pleasant, sweet flavour. I agree they don’t keep particularly well, but since they pickle really well I can’t say that bothers me.”

Pete started collecting empty glasses whilst Gustav went behind the bar to pull fresh pints, most of which were beers crafted by Clarence in Gustav’s brewery and brewed by a work force who all lived in the village, many of who were in the taproom. A couple of minutes later Harriet arrived pushing a trolley with cutlery and crockery on the bottom shelf and two huge oven dishes of Tatie Pot on the top. “Careful with the plates, Gentlemen, they are straight out of the oven and very hot.” It was seen that she was correct because as she ladled the Tatie Pot out it was seen to sizzle and spit on contact with the plates.

There was not much conversation for the next ten minutes as the men concentrated on their supper. “By hell, Lass, that hit the spot,” Alf said with approval. “I can tell you made it, not Veronica nor your mum.”

“How did you know that, Uncle Alf?”

“Veronica uses slightly more celery and less carrot than you. Your mum uses more pepper and less salt than either of you. All damned fine suppers, just slightly different.” He chuckled and added, “Most folk think I just wolf my food, but I pay attention to what I’m eating. That’s why I enjoy food so much. And I am to Tatie Pot what an expert sommelier is to wine.”

Pete said, “You bloody well should be, Alf, you’ve scoffed enough of it over the years to keep piglets awake at night. Their mums tell them if they don’t behave they’ll send them to Uncle Alf’s winter festival as guests of honour.”

The roars of laughter eventually quietened down and after Harriet had cleared the tables and taken all away she returned with a huge silver salver with pastries on. Pete asked, “What’s this, Love?”

“It’s guinea pig time, Dad. I’ve tried my hand at these for the first time and I need honest opinions if I’m going to improve. Buttered Eccles cakes using Auntie Aggie’s recipe with local butter. I’ve never made this type of flaky pastry before though I have prepared the filling for Auntie Veronica before. I’m including them in the supper price because the margin on Tatie Pot is a little more than on most suppers. These are traditional with just currants, though like Auntie Aggie I soaked them overnight, but if folk want me to I’ll include some sultanas or raisins or even mixed dried fruit including some glacé citrus peel next time.

“That was the good news, the bad news is the price of a supper is going up from two pound to two pounds fifty. We’ve held the price at two pounds for as long as we can. Everything’s going up in price. They say it’s due to Covid and the war in the Ukraine, but I reckon it’s just due to greed. However, Uncle Vincent is having to pay more for his meat, and despite helping us out as much as he can he has to pass it on to us. Uncle Dave and Auntie Lucy at the grocers and Uncle Phil and Auntie Alice at the mill are all in the same boat. It’s not reasonable to expect Uncle Alf and his allotment mates to subsidise us. Some of those men need the money to feed their families. As before we have arrived at a price to charge regardless of what any particular supper cost to put on. If we get cheap conies or even a free deer carcass off the road we’re in front, which is off set when we serve fish or steak. We hope we’ve got it right, but if the price is a little high it’ll stay fixed for longer. If on the other hand it’s too low you’ll be seeing three pound suppers soon enough. Next week it’s haggis wi basht neeps and tatties(20) which will hold the price a while.”

Dave, Vincent and Phil were nodding in agreement and Vincent said, “I’ll do my best lads, but I’m helping out more than just us in here. Some of the old folk need help more than we do.”

There was a general agreement and Clayton one of the outsiders said, “Two fifty is still a damned cheap night out. A fiver for the two of us to have supper, cheap, bloody good beer, a decent slug of poison for a mere two quid in the kids’ party box, and free entertainment to boot. There’s nowhere we could go for a decent night out for several times the price. I’ve been coming here for going on three years and supper was good value at two quid back then. If three it has to be I’ll be happy to pay it.” There was no further discussion regarding supper prices. Most were looking around to see who was telling the next tale.

Vince seeing none wanted to speak immediately said, “I had Mark and Mason build me a new smoker using bricks in the yard behind the shop. My old one was wooden, lost a lot of smoke from the cracks and was too small for what I want to do. This one is like a decent sized walk in building with a smoke tight galvanised tin roof. Up to now I’ve only ever smoked bacon and ham, but I went for a drink with Jot a lad I’ve known for thirty years out Bowness on Solway way a month or so ago. He lives there and does a bit of haaf netting.(21) He offered to get me a few salmon and shewed me his smoker, so I’m going to have a go. I’ll try other things too. I went on the internet the other night to see what I could find. I’d no idea so much stuff could be smoked.”

~o~O~o~

There was a long silence as men drank but eventually it was filled. “I broke my damned specs last Tuesday,” announced George. Two months old and hellish expensive varifocals. Had to trail all the way to Specsavers in Workington, but eventually I had them replaced for free. I was cleaning them with the stuff they gave me to clean them with, and the frame at the bottom of the lens just parted and the lens dropped out. Fortunately I catched it before it hit the floor and got scratched. They tried every way to insinuate I was responsible, but in the end they said they’d replace them for free. They had me walking all over the shop and said I could have any pair in the shop as mine were top of the range. New lenses for the new frames would be necessary, but they would be free too. It makes you wonder what the profit margin is doesn’t it. In the end when I was losing the will to live I asked why wasn’t it possible to just replace my frame with the same frame and put my lenses in that because that one I liked and I didn’t like anything else. They produced an identical frame from a storeroom in less than a minute. I expected it to take ten days and to have to trail back forty miles each way again, but they said a technician could put my old lenses in the new frame in ten minutes. The technician said the problem was my old lens had not been fitted properly, it had been slightly oversize and that had stressed the frame enough to break it. Twenty minutes later I walked out wearing a new frame with my old lenses in it. Problem solved, but if I hadn’t pushed for the same frame it would have been a fortnight for new lenses to be fitted to a new frame which would have been another day and thirty or forty quid in fuel up the Suwannee and no specs for a fortnight. Joke is my specs were free, but it cost me half a day, a hundred and fifty to fill the tank and Christine spent over two hundred quid in Tesco.”

~o~O~o~

George continued by asking, “How’re things going with the wedding and all the rest of it, Gustav?”

Gustav shrugged and said, “Dad and I just leave the matter of the wedding to Mum, Harriet and anyone else they involve. Life is a lot more peaceful that way. I’ve finally realised the significance of ‘Yes, Dear,’ to an Englishman.” There was a lot of laughter at that and when it quietened Gustav said more seriously, “We’re still waiting regards adoption. It’ll happen in its own good time. There’s nothing we can do to make it happen any faster. Harriet is upset about it. No, that’s not quite right, she’s disappointed not upset, but she knows she just has to accept it too.”

There were a number of men who said words to the effect of the harder you push officialdom the more counter productive it is in the long term. Tony who was a dentist from outside added bitterly, “That’s right because the bottom line is they just don’t care. At five o’clock the problem ceases to exist when they go home, and it only becomes real again after their first coffee in the office, somewhere round nine thirty the next working day.”

Græme who lived at Beckfoot asked, “How’s the brewery extension going, Gustav?” Græme was a chemical engineer with an extensive understanding of brewing and distillation which was tacitly understood to derive from illegal experience.

“Work has started on the brewery extension and Clarence is looking forward having more space for extra equipment with a view to the creation of his new beers. My brothers have managed to buy a lot of second hand brewery equipment at reasonable prices from establishments that no longer brew their own beer. Alf and some others are going over to collect it and bring it back when there is a full load. It seems we are swimming against the tide of current trends, but it’s making money and creating employment here. I’m still looking into the feasibility of buying a bottling plant, so we can sell beer farther afield than barrels will travel, maybe aluminium kegs are the way forward, but I don’t know yet. Whatever we do we’ll trial it here, so you’ll be the first to know about it. I’ve managed to buy a considerable amount of land and the Peabodys will be growing barley, other cereals and hops for us on a contract basis. All that’s looking good. Some of the major drink companies are sniffing round with a view to buying us out, but I’m not even prepared to talk to them. They after all are why the Dragon and the brewery in its turn exist.”

Clarence added, “If they bought us out, even if they didn’t just mothball the brewery they’d lay off most of the staff pleading a poor economic climate and start brewing gnat’s piss that you could buy anywhere and everywhere. They just don’t understand they and their ilk are the problem of our time. They and the way they do business and manipulate economies and communities are certainly not a solution to anything.”

A lot of the men nodded and made expressions of agreement before Græme continued, “So if all that is going well, what’s the fly in the ointment?”

“I’m sorry I don’t understand.”

“It’s an expression that means what’s not going so well, Gustav.”

“The negotiations for a distillery licence. It’s a different government department that deals with that, and they seem to operate on the principle that we are all thieves and our only objective is to defraud the government. I’ve never met any one as suspicious, and the ridiculous thing is all distillation has to be undertaken behind a calibrated spirit safe(22) so they know to the millilitre how much you have produced and they have right of unannounced access twenty-four hours a day and can without justification have a twenty-four hour a day presence on the premises. We don’t seem to have made any progress at all in the last two months, though I have found a retired still master who used to work for Martell the cognac company. Jean-Claude is a widower who lives on his own near Alston and is willing to relocate. He’s a decent man who speaks English with a strong French accent. I’ve been looking for someone with his experience for a while now, so as soon as I persuade him to move I’ll start paying him because I want him available as soon as we get the licence.”

Græme smiled and said, “It drives the Customs and Excise crazy to think you might be robbing anyone because they hate the competition. Liquor would be virtually the same price as water but for the tax. Taxmen of all descriptions are the only legally sanctioned monopolies of theft anywhere in the world. Amongst some criminals they use the verb to tax as a synonym for the verb to steal.”

Pete announced, “I reckon that’s it, Lads. Time for dominoes. I’ll start pulling pints and put some bottles on the bar. Some one let those dogs out. You can leave the back door open.”

A number of men stood heading for the gents and Alf said, “I’ll deal with the dogs, Pete.” Ten minutes later the taproom was quiet as the no holds barred dominoes battles commenced.

~o~O~o~

At the end of the eve when most of the clientele had left the Dragon and Chance was about to make his way to his room Sasha asked, “Could you spare me a little of your time, Chance, please? Pete you too if you would?”

Pete knew what was going on having briefly discussed the matter with Sasha earlier in the eve, but Chance was completely mystified. There were just the three men in the taproom when Pete said, “I’ll get us a glass of Lagavulin. Don’t say it’s okay, Chance. We’ve figured you don’t have a lot of money and are no leech, but this is a gift because we have something serious to discuss with you that calls for it. Sasha?”

“Sit down please, Chance. There is no easy way to approach this, so I’ll go straight at it. After my last conversation with you I had the distinct impression you and your sisters were worried that Social Services were going to find out you’d been a little economical with the truth and take the children off you. Don’t worry, we’re are on your side here, and we have a potential solution that could possibly solve your family’s problem, a serious issue for the village of Bearthwaite, and a personal issue for a rather special young lady who is one of us.”

“I would be overjoyed if that were to be so, but I’m afraid I just don’t see what I could do to help to bring that about. I can barely manage my own life as it is, Sasha.”

Pete fetched three glasses and the bottle too. He sat down and cracked the seal on the bottle before pouring the glasses three-quarters full which left maybe two and a half inches [6 cm] of whisky in the bottle. Sasha nodded in approval thinking Pete was taking no chances with Chance which made him chuckle if only to himself.

Sasha said quietly, “The proposal is that you become one of us by taking up with the young lady who works here as our early years teacher and play group leader. She is seeking a man to settle down with and we are keen to make sure she settles down here and remains our early years teacher and play group leader. She is housed as part of her contractual agreements which would house you and the three children. I know you are single, but are you currently married awaiting divorce?”

“No. I’ve never been married.”

“Good. That’s one less complication to have to deal with. Pete?”

Pete picked up where Sasha had left off. “You may think you understand us, but I assure you you don’t. The reality of life here is very different from anything you, or indeed any other outsider, will ever have heard of. Every one here watches every one else’s back all the time. Not all who live here are wealthy, but there are no folk living in poverty and need here. Vincent referred to that obliquely tonight when he said he had others to help too and some of the old folk needed more help than we did. There are a number of old folk who live here who would never be able to afford to eat meat if he didn’t give it to them. Even more who can only eat meat because their families help them.”

“How can he afford to do that?”

“Others in the village help him in turn. In may ways ultimately Covid did us more good than harm, for it refocussed our entire community on what matters and what doesn’t, and many things changed as a result. Things that are going to remain changed, for that way is better for our community. Mostly we just went back to how things were done decades if not centuries ago. In reality this place is very wealthy and that wealth is shared in many ways, and much of it can’t be assessed nor accounted in terms of money. The folk who live here own the sporting facilities and the green. We put the road in around the green to enable us to receive artic(23) deliveries in stead of a dozen or more large white vans which cuts our costs. We put that road in not just with our own money, but with our own sweat too. We own the school, the library and the bus that is maintained at cost by Alf. If it came to pass that he hit hard times we would pay him for that, but for the moment like many of our residents he considers what he does to be his contribution to our community. We own the pumps that can clear the floods and the boat too that is used to connect to the outside when it is not desirable to pump the flood water away. We pay for the early years and play group teacher, the young woman Sasha was referring to, as well as all the other expenses of the school which is a privately owned and controlled non local education authority establishment. The purchase, modernisation, refurbishment and extension mortgages on the Dragon are all held privately at very low interest rates.

“My soon to be son in law, Gustav was obviously an outsider once, but as I said this place is a place no outsider can possibly understand, for once understanding is reached that person is no longer an outsider. No matter what happens between Gustav and Harriet in the future, Gustav has been my son for some time now and that will never change. I can’t remember when he first called me Dad and I doubt if he does either, but as far as I am aware it has never been commented on by any resident of Bearthwaite, for it is a natural thing that is fully in keeping with the way we all live and as such is taken for granted here. Gustav owns the brewery outright and I’m not sure just how many folk he now employs, certainly fifty. He has recently acquired thousands of acres on which to grow barley, other cereals and hops which will provide more employment next year. I know you heard him speak of that, but he owns that land outright. There is no outside financial organisation with a stake of any size involved. There is nothing here that can be foreclosed on by an outside agency. We have a number of very wealthy folk living here and we all help when things get difficult. We consider that you would fit well here and would soon become one of us.”

Chance was clearly taken aback. A shy man with not a great deal of self esteem he couldn’t think of anything to say as it all seemed to be almost a dream.

Pete exchanged a glance with Sasha before continuing. “You know my daughter is trans?”

“Yes what of it. She’s always been kind and polite to me and seems to be a nice girl. Gustav certainly thinks so.”

Sasha and Pete were watching Chance very closely when Sasha nodded to Pete who very casually announced, “So is Stephanie, the young lady Sasha was referring to.” If Chance had any negative reaction to that neither Sasha nor Pete saw so much as a flicker of it though he did look worried.

“You seem to wish to know if that would make a difference to me. It doesn’t. I’m interested, why should I not be? If it goes nowhere I will have tried, but if it does I’m a not very long qualified accountant and I don’t earn a huge salary. Not enough to pay in the near future for any surgery Stephanie may want, and no bank would regard me as a good credit risk. I’m not saying she would have to have surgery that’s not my decision, but I suspect even our joint salaries with free accommodation could not run to it soon, and that I would find embarrassing. I’m no film star, nor an athlete, and have never been of interest to girls, so I probably won’t be of interest to Stephanie either. To be honest I’ve never been particularly bothered by that since I’ve was never overly interest in girls at school nor women since then. I’m not interested in men either, it’s just that I’ve never been obsessed by women unlike most of the boys I went to school with. I was bullied at school by girls as well as boys and worked hard to go to university to read accountancy in order to start a new life. Unfortunately it didn’t work out as well as I’d hoped, and where I live now is not much different from school, so I keep a low profile. I don’t like where I live, but I can’t afford to live anywhere else. Most of the folk who live there have never done a day’s work in their lives and are criminals, many of them are violent, and I would be really glad to be given an opportunity to leave. To live here would be a dream come true.”

Sasha looked at Pete as Chance’s words died out. They barely nodded to each other and Chance hadn’t notice their nods because he’d not been looking. Sasha asked, “It is our belief that we have little time to waste and if possible we should act pre-emptively so as to forestall any possible action that Social Services could take with regard to your children. If my wife has words with Stephanie tomorrow morning would you be prepared to meet with her later in the day with a view to exploring possibilities?”

Chance was a little taken aback for that was the first time any had ever referred to the children as his children, but he immediately albeit nervously replied, “Yes. Where?”

Pete replied, “Here. You could take a walk round the reservoir. It’s maybe three or four miles, an hour or an hour and a half.”

Chance smiled, and for the first time since Sasha had started Chance looked less unhappy. “Yes that sounds pleasant, but why are you doing this for me?”

Pete replied, “You may not be aware of it, but all of the Bearthwaite menfolk you have met think well of you. This, if it works, helps you, the children, your family, Stephanie and the village too. It’s also possible we could offer you a job as an accountant.”

“I’m not experienced enough to work on my own,” Chance protested. “The women at work made sure I only was given the most trivial routine tasks to do like sorting out boxes of receipts. I try to avoid them because they act in ways that are sexually inappropriate trying to provoke me into doing something that would get me sacked, which doubtless they would consider to be funny. The truth is I avoid women because they scare the hell out of me.”

“We have an experienced accountant who lives here called Murray. He does the accounts for all that the village owns as community resources. Strictly he’s retired, but he also does a bit of work for locals along with Bertie’s wife, Emily. I know he would be delighted to mentor you.” Sasha continued, “Now lest you start to think that this is all your birthdays and Christmases come together obviously there are terms, but they may not be what you would expect. We’ll accept you as one of us only once you marry Stephanie and on marriage you sign that she adopts the children. Till then you would be living in her home and could be evicted. You’ve got three months in which to make it happen. That’s why I wished to know if you were married. Waiting to be divorced would have complicated matters. If you can’t make it happen in three months you never will, so at that point you’re out. The reasons for the marriage are obvious, the reasons for the adoption are less so. One is to protect the children in case anything happens to you. If Stephanie had adopted them Social Services can’t take them off her and into care. The second reason is to protect Stephanie. If you decided to abandon her you would not be able to just remove the children if they were hers. Given her nature and her relationships with children she would have come to love them as their mother quickly and would be devastated if she lost them. Those are absolute and non negotiable terms. If you can’t agree to them now there is no point in this going any further and Stephanie has no need be telt anything.”

Chance smiled again and said, “I see the necessity, and those are not unreasonable conditions, but I do get the feeling you have done this before or at least something like it.”

Pete said, “Not the same, but any number of things like it. Harriet was my eldest brother’s child and he tret her badly. He is not welcome here. Gladys and I adopted her. Sasha was involved in that too. We’ve been involved in a few messy marriage breakdowns between locals and outsiders too, so we have a little experience of these sorts of thing. I’ll add that Harriet and Stephanie are not the only trans women who live here, but those are not my tales to tell.”

Chance said, “Today was not a good day for me for a variety of reasons. The kids are all bullied at school and the school seems to think it’s my fault because they never go outside to play at home. The reason they don’t is because they are too frightened of the local kids, and after having been beaten up a few times at at odds of over ten to one they have reason to be. The letter from school as well as the utility bills I have no idea how I’m going to pay all arrived in the post this morning. However, it seems to be a better day now. I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep or not, but if I can’t at least it won’t be due to crippling anxiety. I’ll bid you goodnight and look forward to seeing you and Stephanie tomorrow. I do hope we can make something of it, but only time will tell. I’ll top this up if you don’t mind, Pete, and take it to bed.” At that Chance filled his glass which emptied the bottle and left saying, “Goodnight, Sasha, Pete.”

“What do you think, Sasha? I notice you deliberately didn’t tell him Stephanie was post op. Nor about Harriet and Gustav going on the foster parent list.”

“Like you said, Pete, not my tale to tell, and he doesn’t need to know about Harriet and Gustav. That’s a safety net for the kids, not a sword of Damocles to hold over his head. I think the relief from knowing that someone, anyone, is willing to help even if the chance that it will improve things is vanishingly small, which is how I think he sees it, is overwhelming him at the moment. That tells you just how little support he has had from anyone other than his family who aren’t in a position to do much because they have to look after their own kids and their parents too. I think he really doesn’t care that Stephanie is trans or whether she’s pre or post op. What part his low level libido plays in that I don’t know. I also think unless something happens soon to change his life significantly, something that gives him a place in life, a rôle, a purpose and some light at the end of the tunnel he’ll end up committing suicide before long. Such a mind set is dangerous in people who have kids they care about because their minds become so disturbed they often take the kids with them rather than risk them ending up in even worse circumstances. Keep that to yourself, Pete. None else who can’t reason it out for himself needs to know.” Pete just nodded. “His lack of self confidence and self esteem and the fear he’ll lose the children is crippling him to the point of being barely able to function. Christ his whole life has been one unending pile of shite, whatever happens has got to be an improvement. A decent single bloke with no life experience worth a damn and even less self confidence who has clearly been reviled and abused all his life by women as well as men was given the custody of his sister and brother in law’s three orphaned kids because his parents are too old and his sisters already have a family and can’t afford to take the kids in, and with no bloody support at all he was expected to cope playing mother and father both to the kids. He’s doing his damnedest, but what the fuck were the powers that be thinking of?”

“That’s obvious, Sasha. They weren’t thinking at all beyond their own convenience. He was there, had what they could present to the court as a graduate level job and his sisters were in the background. Case closed. Closed that is till his inability to cope starts to threaten their comfortable little worlds at which point they’ll pour shite and blame all over him and with the kids taken off him and dumped into what they laughingly refer to as the care system they are in the clear.”

Sasha sighed and said, “Unfortunately I suspect you are correct in every detail, Pete. I think this could work out very well, but if it doesn’t we need to work out some thing that will help him and the kids and get them here. We’ve gone too far with it to just walk away if Stephanie and he can’t see a future as a couple. Having given him some hope, if we took it away from him, we’ll have effectively sent him down the road to suicide and passed a death sentence on those kids. However, it occurs to me that Murray would benefit from having him handle the bulk of the routine work immediately, and he would benefit from Murray’s experience and mentoring which will eventually enable him to take over from Murray entirely. Emily will be glad of him. She doesn’t wish to commit the time that taking over the Bearthwaite Village Community Ownership Company accounts and the Bearthwaite Property Developments Company accounts would require when Murray finally retires, so she’ll help Chance too. She’ll do whatever she can to help, but she’s a pregnant young mum with a family to look after, so it’s understandable. There’s not a lot to do really, for we can provide him with a decent place to live and a job with training at a sensible salary that will enable him to pay for it. The kids will be infinitely better off here than in Raffles. If it goes belly up with Stephanie we just turn the rest over to the women. It won’t take them long to find him a wife and Stephanie a man with kids. No, Pete, we’re doing okay. All we need to do now is acquire Bearthwaite a decent solicitor next. I can’t bring to mind all the details, but there is something I heard a goodly while back in connection with that trans girl from Silloth that is intriguing me.”

“Adalheidis?”

“Aye. I’m sure it would be the same lass because I doubt there being two with the name Adalheidis in a place the size of Silloth. I first heard something about her just after she left the secondary school at Silloth. Mostly it was the usual bigotry that trans folks are only too familiar with, but there was something about her living in a flat in Carlisle and working in an office there. I’m not sure because it was going on ten years ago, but I can’t get it out of my head that there was a connection to Cartmell Shepherd, but that could be about someone else and my mind is making a incorrect connection.”

“What the big solicitors on the Viaduct?”

“Yes, so since I don’t wish to advertise, perhaps some discreet questions wouldn’t go amiss. I’ll ask Sam Shaw to look into it for us.” Sasha drained his glass and said, “That bottle did more than its share. Who paid for it?”

Pete shrugged and replied, “You? Me? One of the lads? It was on the counter behind the bar, so I’ve no idea. Who cares, it tastes the same irrespective of who paid for it. If I’m asked what happened to it I’ll replace it, but I doubt if I shall be. You better go, Lad, or Elle will be looking for blood. She’ll not come in here after you, but she be pacing waiting for you getting madder by the second. I’ll tell Gladys what was said with Chance, and have her ring Elle first thing. Goodnight, Sasha.”

Sasha wished Pete a goodnight and walked round to the room. “Home, Elle. I’ll give you the details on the way, but in short an excellent result. Gladys is going to ring you first thing to discuss what happens next.”

~o~O~o~

Gladys rang Elle at eight the following morning and the pair went to visit Stephanie at nine. Stephanie looked a little panicked at being telt a man was being arranged for her, but further details soon calmed her down. “We do not wish you to leave, Stephanie,” Elle telt her. “We do believe it is neither in the interests of yourself nor the village, in that order. Since you came home you’ve always admitted that you are looking for a man and a future, and we admit to being a pair of interfering old women, but this was agreed upon by most of the women in the village. We wish you to find a man you can settle down and be happy with, and this one comes with three children whom he is terrified of losing to Social Services. We also wish you to settle down here where you are safe and amongst friends, folk who care about you. You’ve never mentioned what your life was like before you returned, but we’re not daft. It’s obvious it wasn’t too good. If you can make this work you need not leave and Chance’s children are safe from officialdom. If you can’t we’ll still be looking for a man with kids for you because as I said, we do not want you to leave. We’ll sort things for you too. I want you to be contractually employed as just another school teacher here. The arrangement we have is ridiculous, for you are no less important than the teachers of the older children, and I don’t want you to be regarded by any including yourself as any different because that may make it more likely that we will lose you. There were good reasons for initially using the current arrangements, but they no longer exist and there are good reasons for changing them.”

“Thank you, but what if he doesn’t want to live here, Elle?”

Elle was please to note that Stephanie’s mind was more focussed on Chance than her job, and replied “Sasha tells me he’s an accountant and a gentle character who has been bullied a lot. He doesn’t like living in Raffles, for it not a good area and the children are bullied at school for which he is being held responsible by the school. It doesn’t take much insight to realise that it is not going to be long before the Education Authority brings the full weight of Children’s Services to bear on him which will mean the children will go into the fostering system. We already have a response in place for that eventuality.” Stephanie raised her eyebrows and Elle continued, “Harriet and Gustave and Samantha and Gee rang at nine this morning to register on the list of foster parents. They are already cleared, and Social services are desperate for foster parents, so there shouldn’t be any issues. Sasha will be informed as soon as it is decided to remove the children from Chance’s care if that happens. I have no idea how that works and since it is probably illegal I don’t wish to. I suggest you forget I mentioned it.”

Stephanie shuddered and said, “I can understand him wanting out of Raffles. I’ve lived somewhere similar. Those children need out, to a decent school and environment. It’s good that there is something in place for them in case Chance and I don’t take to each other.”

“Sasha reckons he’ll enjoy working with Murray here. I’ll sort you out a house big enough for the five of you in your name to start with. Sasha telt Chance he has three months to get married and have you adopt the children. I presume you don’t need that explaining, Stephanie?”

“No. That’s obvious, and in any case if we can’t get there in three months it’s unlikely we ever should. What’s he like, Gladys? To look at I mean.”

“I was wondering where your pride was, Steph, I’m sorry, Stephanie, I know you don’t like that. I thought you’d never ask.” Gladys pulled her phone out of her handbag and said, “These were all taken last night.”

“Christ he looks gey unhappy!”

“Yeah, but Pete said he looked a lot happier after he and Sasha had talked to him.”

“So they played good shrink, bad shrink with him?”

“Probably, though Pete didn’t say. He did say they telt him nothing concerning your surgeries and that he was worried he didn’t earn enough to help you pay for them if that were what you wanted. He went to considerable lengths to explain that wasn’t a condition of marriage, but if that were what you wanted he was embarrassed that your joint salaries wouldn’t be able to pay for them any time soon. He is of no sexual experience whatsoever and appears to have a low libido, but Pete said his past history of being bullied and general lack of self confidence undoubtedly played a major rôle in that. Chance also made it clear he was heterosexual, but just had never chased girls nor women, because none had ever shewn any interest in him, not even just to talk to. Apparently some of the women where he works consider it to be entertaining to sexually taunt and humiliate him.”

“Bitches don’t deserve a pair of— They don’t deserve to be women.”

Elle and Gladys smiled and to Stephanie’s surprise, Elle said, “Quite. Women like that get us all a bad name.”

It was clear Gladys agreed with her when she said, “Women like that may catch a decent man, but sure as seawater is salty they won’t be able to keep one.”

Stephanie continued, “Well he definitely becomes more interesting now. What happens next?”

Elle replied, “Gladys introduces you at the Dragon and you go for a walk round the reservoir. You should be able to arrange things for yourselves after that, though I suggest you meet the children today if things go okay. That will take some of the pressure of Chance and his sisters. If you text me it’s going forward as soon as you can, I’ll close matters with the Heywards concerning their house here. They moved back to Essex three months ago. For speed I’ll buy the house in the name of the Bearthwaite Property Developments Company and transfer the money immediately. We can sort the details out at our leisure. I’ll text you as soon as that’s done and you two can move in with the kids later today. Bearthwaite one, Social Services nil which is a satisfactory result. Despite the assurances the Heywards gave me, I think I’ll complete the purchase as soon as possible no matter what. That was a little remiss of me for I should have done that weeks ago just to prevent it ever going on the open market. Assurances are not a contract, so I’ll not take that risk again. You okay with that?”

“Yes. Nervous and excited, but I’m okay with it.”

“Good off you go with Gladys. I’ve a couple of houses to complete the purchases on.”

~o~O~o~

Stephanie and Chance were very nervous, but both had had matters clearly explained to them and they were barely over the foot bridge at the beginning of the reservoir about half a mile [800m] from the Dragon, when they were holding hands. “This feels like an arranged marriage, Stephanie. I never even considered that I’d be in this position.”

“Me neither, but I shan’t mind if it works. Things tend to be different in Bearthwaite, but this is different even for Bearthwaite. I’ll tell you what’s going on. I currently live in a flat in the old vicarage, it’s part of my salary, but there will shortly be a house available for all five of us if you and I can move forward on this. The folk that lived there were outsiders and they returned to Essex. It’s one of the last few houses owned by outsiders, for the Bearthwaite Property Developments Company usually buys up all such as fast as they come up for sale. Outsiders have caused us problems in the past and folk who come here and then expect us to live the way they consider to be appropriate are neither welcome nor wanted. We can live without the Local Authority investigating their vexatious and trivial complaints lodged purely to cause us unnecessary problems that were never found to be justifyable. There are a few who originally came from outside who have been made welcome, but that is because it was clear they were like us, and so they were welcomed as one of us. If they hadn’t been like us they would have been unable to buy property here and none of the retailers would have selt them anything. Too none would allow their children to play with theirs. Since the school here is private, owned and financed by us, and not under LEA(24) control they would have had to take their primary school age children fourteen miles to the nearest LEA school and fourteen miles back. Their secondary school age children would have to go twenty-four miles to school the same as ours. However, the road severely floods every winter, often six to eight feet deep and a mile or more of it under water. It’s the only way in and out of Bearthwaite other than the old pack pony route out of the valley head which is a steep and difficult route for the fit and able in summer. In winter it’s either covered in ice, fast running water or both and it’s very dangerous. Other than the air ambulance helicopter that’s it. For most it’s the road or nothing. The residents of Bearthwaite own the boat and the pumps. The pumps are expensive to run and would not be used to clear the road just so some unwelcome outsiders could get their children to school. We wouldn’t be prepared to use the boat to enable their children to get to school and back either. There are any number of highly educated folk live here, and we educate our own children of all ages during times of flood. In addition, our secondary school age children lost no school time due to Covid, but the outsiders’ children were not educated by us, so missed out on considerable education. That convinced a number of particularly obnoxious outsiders to sell up and leave as soon as the flood waters subsided. The Bearthwaite Property Developments Company, which is overseen by Elle Sasha’s wife, bought their properties as soon as they were on the market. There are only a few outsiders living here now, unwelcome and shunned they’ll go soon, and as soon as their property comes on the market it’ll be snapped up, even if it is at ten times it’s value.”

“How can that be done?”

“Simple. Sasha. He’s a multi billionaire and the only thing he cares about is the well being of Bearthwaite. He was given a lot of grief by outsiders who lived near him for a good few years. That’s why he founded the Bearthwaite Property Developments Company, to buy up property as soon as it became available and make sure it was never selt to undesirables. He is incredibly clever and was a pure mathematician of international renown, welcomed everywhere in the world, Europe, the old USSR, now Russia, the States, China, everywhere. He chose to settle here and converted his house from a ruin into what it is today himself. I wasn’t born then, but we all know about it, and every tradesman and craftsman here has a huge respect for his abilities. He’s completely unsnobbish about it all and one of his best mates is Uncle Alf Winstanley who though he is a mechanical genius describes himself as having been a teachers’ nightmare and as thick as a stump.”

“What, Alf is your uncle?”

“Not exactly. All adults are referred to as Auntie or Uncle by children here, it’s a respect and a caring thing, and that doesn’t change when we reach adulthood ourselves.”

“I knew this place was different, but how will I and my children fit in? Will we even be welcome?”

“You are already liked by the Grumpy Old Men, the men who really count here. That means you are also respected and liked by the older women, the women who really count here.”

“Why? I’ve never met any of them.”

“Because that’s how marriage works here. Their menfolk like you, they love their menfolk and respect their opinions regards other men, so of course they like you. It works both ways. An incomer woman, for example Jane Wright who came here when I was about twelve and married Arnie who had six children, who is respected and liked by Bearthwaite women will be respected and liked by Bearthwaite men simply because they love their womenfolk and respect their opinions regards other women. That’s how it works here. That’s why the trans don’t present a problem to anyone here. Bearthwaite men don’t have any direct opinions concerning me as a woman because I’m not one of them. Like all women here regardless of our history I’m appraised constantly by every other woman here including me and as long as the consensus is that someone measures up to our codes of conduct they’re accepted by us as a Bearthwaite woman like every other Bearthwaite woman. If they are accepted by the women it’s automatic that they are accepted by the men too.”

Stephanie laught and said, “It not difficult. The main thing is no trousers, so sorry, but you’ll never see a tight pair of jeans stretched over my backside. I’ve always supposed that there’s a similar mechanism amongst the men, but I don’t know because though born a boy I became a closeted girl from the age of maybe four, so I never became enough of a man to find out. I was just good at hiding what I really was till I was ready to come out, which was at the beginning of my second year at university, though I’d started on blockers and hormones at the beginning of my first year. For the next three years I didn’t come back home. For the first two of those three years I finished my degree and during the last one I did my PGCE, (25) the teachers’ ticket at a different university. My degree was difficult because I had a hard time being trans at Birmingham, but by the time I left I looked like I do now complete with the boobs and bum that I inherited from my mum. None ever suspected I was anything other than a girl at Bath University where I did my primary and early years PGCE. I was lucky in that the only surgery I required was GRS and I had that over the summer in Thailand at the end of my second year at Birmingham. I don’t have implants and my face didn’t need anything because other than my long hair I always looked like this. I had very little body or facial hair and what little I had disappeared due to the hormones.

“Addressing your concerns for the children, children rapidly absorb the culture of the children they associate with. Though there have been a couple of exceptions. There were a pair of siblings, a brother and sister from Manchester, though I was only three and don’t remember them, who came here who were already beyond redemption. Bullies and thugs in their early teens, they systematically made life hell for other children. I no more than any other, including the police, have any real idea what happened, but they were found drowned in the reservoir. An accident? Perhaps, but it’s strange that there have only ever been those two deaths in the reservoir since it was created in Victorian days. They’d been seen swimming and diving from overhanging trees into the water in the area by many adults for a couple of weeks prior to their deaths. The corner’s reports concluded from the pathologist’s reports that they had been swimming and that they had dived into an area that was not as deep as they’d thought. They’d hit their heads on the rocky bottom and drowned.”

“What do you believe happened?”

“I believe they paid for their behaviour. I believe they were executed by other children who’d suffered enough. I say executed, not murdered, deliberately. You asked, so I answered, but I’ll warn you it would not be wise of you to ever repeat what I said to an outsider, for if my belief is correct the folk who did it are probably in their middle thirties now, and who knows what they would be prepared to do to avoid discovery.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“No, Chance. If you truly wish to become one of us no threat is necessary. If you do not I don’t care what happens to you, for I am Bearthwaite folk and like everyone else here I see most outsiders as a threat to us and our way of life. If you do repeat what I said I shall deny ever having said it, and the ranks will close to protect me and every other inhabitant here too, and you and yours will be outside those ranks. The choice is yours. Become one of us and you and yours have protection for ever. Pretend to be one of us and you and yours are expendable, worthless and of no interest to anyone here, and it would be discovered sooner rather than later. Certainly, if that is how you feel you should ask yourself why should any here make any move to prevent your nieces and nephew from being taken from you and into the care system. We all have choices to make, and I have made mine. I may not have been born a Bearthwaite girl, but I am a Bearthwaite woman, and one thing I have learnt since this morning is just how important both are to me. Whether we make this work or not, I’m not leaving here just for a man. No matter how much I want and need a husband and children I’d rather be single here than married with a family anywhere else. Here I’m safe, valued and loved, outside all I ever received was abuse, pain and disdain. As I understand it that is something you are only too familiar with, so you should at least understand why I feel that way.”

After considerable thought Chance asked, “Will you marry me, Stephanie?”

“No, for I have not met the children. Introduce us and after an hour you shall have my answer, but I will kiss you.”

~o~O~o~

Using Chance’s clapped out Citroën, an hour and a half later they were in Raffles, a notorious estate [US hood] of Carlisle and Stephanie met her future children. Grace the oldest was nine, Erin the middle child was seven and Luke the youngest was four. Not unfamiliar with such places, that the children, who were polite and timid, had to live there made her cry. That they never went outside to play for fear of being beaten up again didn’t make her cry, it made her angry. She was talking to the children with the girls either side of her and Luke on her knee when she received the text that telt her the old Heyward house was now available for her use. She texted back ‘van boxes 32 ca2 7wz i w8’(26) and telt Chance to start getting everything packed up. Stephanie was amazed at how little the entire family had in the way of possessions and clothes. The entire kitchen packed into a couple of cardboard boxes that weren’t very big and that included all the food too. She had more in her kitchen for just herself than Chance had for four of them. They seemed to have the clothes they were wearing and a single change of clothes. Since there was no washing equipment and their clothes were clean Stephanie concluded Chance must use a launderette. The children had virtually no toys and no entertainment devices, not even a radio to listen to. A dinning table and four chairs and four very narrow beds, no more than sixty centimetres [24 inches] wide and that was it.

Alf arrived driving the village bus with three dozen men, half a dozen women and the boxes. After dismantling the beds and the table, they had loaded up and were ready to head home within half an hour. As they were about to leave a gang of a hundred or more older teenagers approached and one said, “We want some money before you can go.” The men got off the bus to confront the growing crowd. The Bearthwaite men were seen to be all carrying heavy gevlik(27) bars which made some in the crowd leave and others step back, but there were more than enough who thinking the odds were in their favour were not deterred.

Alf stepped out of the driver’s cab and with out saying a word walked right up to the crowd and with a reaction speed that perplexed the thugs grabbed hold of the leader and his henchman by the throat. Alf at well over seven feet tall and of a massive build shook the two like a puppy shaking a rag for several seconds and finally spoke. “You may possibly give us a beating, but I’m betting I can cripple a couple of dozen of you before you do, and the lads will take out even more of you. Those gevliks they’re holding will put any one they hit in hospital for months and in a wheel chair for life. If anyone feels like trying it I suggest you don’t fuck about waiting, but just get on with it.” He dropped the two he’d suspended in the air with their feet a foot off the ground and kicked them both in the belly, just once each. They wouldn’t be getting up due to difficulty breathing for several minutes, and without their leaders Alf had reckoned the rest would behave like sheep.

He continued, “You’re just acting tough. Those guys with the gevliks are the real deal, don’t even think about the fact that they’re way older than you, most are ex special forces trained to kill, so I suggest you leave. The police are on their way and as we speak are watching the video footage. They know what happened, so lying about it won’t help you. I suggest you go and avoid the trouble before they arrive and I’ll warn you any who gets in the way of the bus will end up under it, because I won’t be slowing down never mind stopping. After all if I kill you that way I can always claim I was looking somewhere else due to your actions and it was just an accident. I’ll get a suspended sentence and a fine at most, and my neighbours will help me pay the fine.” The crowd dispersed dragging the two Alf had man handled with them.

Once on the main road and on their way home far from Raffles, Chance asked Bertie, who was more or less as big as Alf, “Is that true, you are mostly special forces, and the police were on their way watching video of it all?”

Bertie laught and replied, “Granddad could easily have take two or even three dozen out on his own and we’d have sorted the rest out with no bother. They weren’t men, just thugs used to getting all their own way. They wouldn’t have lasted two minutes if it had got real. But mostly Granddad was just bull shitting to avoid the problems that violence would have caused us. I reckon he’s been associating with Sasha for too long.”

“How do you mean, Bertie?”

“Obviously Sasha is a master story teller of master story tellers right?” Chance nodded. “Well, he reckons a good tale teller should never allow the truth to interfere with a good tale, so he uses what he calls story tellers’ licence. That’s the right to enhance the tale for audience enjoyment. He says no story teller ever tells lies they merely create the new truth. I reckon Sasha wouldn’t recognise the real truth if it hit him in the face like a yard [a metre] of fresh tripe. Actually I reckon the concept of truth has no meaning to Sasha because he considers it to be a matter of where one perceives it from, and there is no such thing as the real truth. I also reckon that’s no bad thing, quite the contrary. You’ll learn what I mean when you start to understand what Sasha has done for Bearthwaite. Tell you, when he goes that funeral wake will be something else, but we all hope he’s going to live for ever. Folk don’t say much, but we all hope he goes when the road is flooded, so the funeral will be completely private with no outsiders there. There’s already been talk of dropping the reservoir water onto the road to make sure. Even if it’s dry at the time it would take forty-eight hours for the water to subside. He’s already picked his plot and his monument has been carved, though there’s still discussion on the words. He wants it to read ‘Here lies Sasha Vetrov, creator of the new truth.’ That will certainly be there, but only Elle knows what else will be there too, and it shall be her decision alone. She’s almost as difficult to understand as her man. Truth is her background and history is even more of an enigma than Sasha’s and he was a KGB officer.”

It was a thoughtful Chance who sat holding hands with Stephanie who having heard what Bertie had said respected Chance’s introspection. She knew he was still coming to terms with the reality of becoming Bearthwaite folk, though she was convinced he was already there. He just didn’t realise it. He was she understood at a deep level as damaged as she had been and he would become in Sasha’s words a new truth. A new and real version of himself, as she had become a new and real version of herself on returning home. She regretted the pain she had had to undergo outside her home environment in order to acquire the education she so desperately wanted, but she had no regrets now she had acquired it and was permanently back at home where she belonged. She was committed to Chance as her man, the mother of his adopted family, and knew he would do all he considered necessary to make sure all recognised he was equally committed to her, the children and Bearthwaite. That the men liked him she knew, but eventually his care for children that weren’t his, even though kin, would mean the Bearthwaite women would regard him as a man among men and she would be regarded as a fortunate woman. It would perhaps be a couple of decades before Chance was able to accept that, but she was thinking about it now.

Grace, Erin and Luke somehow understood their uncle, who they knew was legally their father now, was struggling to come to terms with events. Exactly what that involved they didn’t understand, but that he needed Stephanie to function as their guardian and protector they did understand, so they left the couple alone and interacted with the others on the bus. Grace speaking on behalf of the three asked Gladys, “What is going to happen next? Are we safe now? We know Uncle Chance and our aunties have been trying hard to avoid us being taken away to live with folk we don’t know who would possibly hurt us, but we don’t understand what is happening. Are we safe now? And are we not going to be taken away to folk who would separate and hurt us?”

Gladys telt Grace, “You are all safe now, Pet. Your Uncle Chance has legally been your father for some time. Social Services could only have taken you away from him if he had not had the resources, that’s money and a decent place to live, to support you. He is going to marry Stephanie, who wishes to be your mum, and she has a large house for you all to live in. Your new parents are more than able to make sure you are safe from Social Services, for you are now Bearthwaite children. Bearthwaite is where we live. It’s where you live now, and you’ll never have to go back to where you used to live. You’ll go to our school now, not the school you used to attend. Your new teachers are kind and will help you to learn. None of our children are bullies, so you are safe at school and at home and can go outside to enjoy playing with other children, nice girls and boys. I suggest you start calling Stephanie and your uncle Mum and Dad because it’s what our children will expect you to do. I’m Auntie Gladys. Bearthwaite will provide whatever is necessary to ensure your safety from outsiders, and Social Services are without doubt outsiders. We’ve known your dad for a few months now, and we like him. He has a new job working with us, so he’ll never have to go back to that dreadful place where he used to work. Please explain all that to Erin and Luke and if you need help just ask.

An hour later they had unloaded all of Chance’s family’s chattels at their new house and others were moving Stephanie’s possessions from her flat to join them. An hour after that with their furniture reassembled they had moved in and Stephanie was cooking their first dinner as a family, chicken korma. That she could create something that looked like takeaway food amazed Chance and the children. That it tasted so much better than takeaway they found hard to believe. Their reactions to poppadoms with plain boiled Basmati rice, served with chicken legs she’d cut off a whole chicken, a few vegetables and spices cooked in a supermarket jar of korma cook in sauce perplexed Stephanie, for to her it was a quick lash up because it was late and the children had to be up early to go to school the following day. “What on earth did you eat before?” she asked.

“Ready meals for the microwave,” Chance replied. “I don’t know how to cook.” That explains the lack of cookware in the kitchen Stephanie thought.

“Well I’m not eating that rubbish,” Stephanie responded hotly. “And further more nor are the children. It’s not good for them. They need fresh fruit and vegetables, fish and meat, dairy products made from quality milk, freshly cooked grains and decent bread to be healthy. I buy my bread, but it is good bread baked at the mill just down the road.”

After Stephanie’s outburst over food the children were cautious in their dealings with her, but when she asked bluntly in Bearthwaite fashion, “Do you want me as your mum? I want to marry your uncle who is now your legal dad. He wants to marry me. I have always wanted children, but I can’t have any. I would love to adopt you to be your legal mum. I am a teacher of lots of young children, and I enjoy that, but I have always wanted some of my own.” They all started crying and whispering admitted that they wanted a mum. It was clear they not only wanted a mum they needed a mum. Stephanie telt Grace and Erin, “Good food is important and everyone should be able to cook. Luke is not yet old enough, but you two should be learning. There is an after school cooking club you could go to on Wednesdays, but you could help me in the kitchen too. We’ll all be busy tomorrow, but you could make a trifle after school whilst I’m preparing dinner. That only needs the kettle to be boiled for the jelly and some milk heated for the custard, the rest is easy. You can do it together all by yourselves. Would you like that?”

The girls clearly were interested though Stephanie suspected they had no idea what a trifle was. The goodnight kisses when Stephanie put the children to bed eased relationships enormously, and she was surprised but happy when at breakfast the children all called her Mum.

Whilst the children washed and partially dressed Stephanie was cooking breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast when Chance asked her again, “Will you marry me?”

“After last night? I rather think I should, so yes. Sit down, Children. I’ll dish up your breakfast in a sec.” Stephanie produced plates for all five of them with buttered toast on saying, “You too, Chance, sit down.”

As she spooned the scrambled egg onto the toast Erin asked, “What is it, Mum?”

“Scrambled egg. Try it. It’s nice. What did you usually have for breakfast?”

“Cornflakes,” Luke replied.

“Do you like cornflakes?”

“They’re okay.”

“So do I buy some more?”

There was no answer, so Stephanie decided to buy some up market cereals that the children may like because they would eat them with milk and she was concerned that their diet had not been too healthy just recently. The children would doubtless enjoy some of the highly nutritious muesli that Phil the mill and Alice provided the rolled cereal ingredients for and Dave and Lucy the grocers made up customised with dried fruit, nuts and seeds as per request. Stephanie decided she would take the children with her so they could decide how they wished their muesli made up. Lucy and Dave she knew would be happy to make up three different mixes for the children.

Whilst the children were finishing getting dressed, Stephanie picked up her previous conversation with Chance. “As to the wedding. None of us here are exactly religious, but we have a church, though it’s been de-consecrated, so technically it’s not a church any more. The church is well attended even if we have to buy a vicar or registrar in when we need one, which is only for weddings. We have our own ideas of which events are appropriate to celebrate in church, mostly to do with farming, things like harvest festival, that’s important here, and weddings of course. Like all the other women here I help with the flowers in the church. Uncle Alf and his allotment(28) mates grow them specially for the church. Next time it’s my turn to help with the flowers I’ll take the girls with me. It’s what mums with girls do here. The Lawtons have been officially registered undertakers here for generations and we handle our own funerals. None except the very old have been christened, certainly none since the last resident vicar left which was during the second world war. [1939-1945]

“We run our own services, and you’d be surprised who speaks from the pulpit. You can’t call it preaching sermons because mostly it’ll be about things that matter to us, so it’s more like a community meeting. Uncle Alf spoke once about what he needed from everyone else to get the bus back on the road. He did all the mechanical stuff, but the seats were just bare tubular frames, so some of the men did the required woodwork and some of the women did the upholstery. That’s why the bus seats look like the seating in the best room in the Dragon. The church had been falling down for decades with no repairs done since the first world war, [1914-1918] and thirty or forty years ago in the eighties some time the village bought the entire site, the church, the vicarage, the church hall, the grave yard and the three or four acres of land it all stood in from the Church of England. That was when it was de-consecrated.

“The church and the vicarage were restored by local labour at no cost other than materials. The old church hall was demolished to build the Community Centre, the school and the library that is there now the same way, materials costs only, though all the materials that could be recycled into the new buildings were reused. There are photographs in the library that shew it all as it was at every stage of demolition and construction. There are similar photos of Gustav’s brewery too. We’ve been regularly turning down offers of a resident clergyman from the Church of England ever since. They seem to think they’d be doing us a favour. Despite Sasha and several others telling them as bluntly as they could, they don’t understand that from our point of view all that would do is cost us money to listen to nonsense we neither believe in nor want to hear. I suspect they don’t want to understand us. After we paid for the site and repaired the church and the vicarage they seem to think it’s reasonable to expect us to give it back to them. Presumably so they can dictate how we should live. One idiot, a bishop, telt Sasha that if they resumed regular services they’d have to have control of the church building and the vicarage handed over to them for their vicar to live in. Can you believe it‽”

“What did Sasha reply?”

“He swore at him in Russian. The bishop asked him what he had said, and Sasha telt it it translated as, ‘Go and shit in your hat’, which I suppose is funny in a way because bishops wear those pointy hats called mitres. I suppose it would have been rather painful.” The couple were laughing when Stephanie asked, “You okay for a wedding next week? That gives everybody time to organise the service and the reception in the Dragon.”

“Yes.”

“Then we need to tell the children and find sixty quid for an immediate licence. That can all be done over the internet. We’ll also need to find a vicar who needs some cash or a licenced registrar to marry us, but Elle will deal with all that for us because she has the contacts. We also need to set the process of adoption in motion, but again Elle will file the application over the internet though it will require all five of us to go to a family court session of the combined court on Earl Street in Carlisle to be finalised. I don’t know if you are aware of it, but the way the adoption laws work means that legally we shall both be adopting the children, not just me. You need to find Murray today to see about your new job. If he’s not at home I suggest you try Bertie and Emily’s house. She has a big office at home and the pair of them do a lot of their work there. Take all those utility bills, your rent book and the letter from the school with you along with any other outstanding bills including your credit cards. Don’t forget to take all your Bank details too. Murray won’t deal with them himself, but he’ll know who can deal with them on your behalf to best advantage.

“I’ll take the children to school with me. Luke can join my little ones till he settles in then he can go with the others of his age. The girls can join the appropriate classes. Admin will inform their old school they are now being privately educated and ask for their records. Their old school will doubtless be difficult since they’ll resent that they are in a private school, but a solicitor’s letter threatening to take the Education Authority to court for non compliance with the law will sort that out, but it may take six months. The school here won’t be bothered, for they’ll soon understand what the children need to focus on. It’s just that the Education Authority is left wing, doesn’t approve of private education and has tried to make life difficult for them in the past, so they like to return the favour. Completely changing the subject, Chance. Are you okay if I give Grace ten pounds a week pocket money, Erin eight and Luke five? I’ll open a Cumberland building society account for them too, if that’s okay?”

“That’s too much.”

“No it’s not. Children need to learn to handle money and they can’t do that unless they have some of their own to handle. If they save it they’ll learn something from that. If they blow it they’ll learn something different. Anyway there’s not much for children to spend money on here. I suggested those sums because that’s more or less what all children of their ages receive here, and I don’t want them to be embarrassed by being different. The rule of thumb here is add one to a child’s age and that’s how much they get a week. When I was a child the extra one wasn’t added. I guess that’s called inflation. So is that okay?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“I’m their mum, so thanks are not necessary. What about the building society accounts?”

“I was going to do that myself, but I didn’t have enough money to open them with. After the bills and the food there was never much left over, but I’d have gone crazy and been unable to cope if I hadn’t gone to the Dragon on Saturdays. The first Saturday I went to the Dragon I didn’t have enough money for a room, so I slept in my car.”

“Okay. I’ll see to it. I can open the accounts over the internet.”

“When you said to take all the bills and the rent book as well as my bank details to see Murray why was that?”

“To give you a fresh start. The bills will be paid, credit cards too if you owe anything. Your salary here will be one that is realistic not the pittance you were paid before. If you feel it necessary you can total your debts and pay them back as you can into any Bearthwaite Community endeavour, the kids’ Christmas party if you want, or help supervise after school activities, but it is not expected. There’s a shortage of helpers for after school ballet. I always wanted to do ballet, but I was too scared of what would have been said. Silly really because I now realise even back then none would have been bothered. As far as I’m aware all the dance helpers are women, but their dad helping out would give Grace and Erin some serious status amongst their peers. That would be worth doing, and you’d get to know a lot of children and their mums too that way. The more folk you get to know and the sooner you do so the better your life will become. Changing the subject again, I suggest you let Murray write your resignation letter, he’s good at that sort of thing, and if he writes it there will be no issues with your old employers. You may wish to talk to him about moving here because he and Madeline were outsiders once. The only other thing I need to tell you is I’m taking the children on the bus to Carlisle shopping on Saturday for some clothes and toys. We’re leaving early and there are a few child friendly places to eat lunch. There are a lot of women going and some are taking their children, so the children should have some fun. We’ll probably be back at about four. The children will be exhausted, so I’ll prepare something to eat that will take no time to have on the table for an early dinner in advance.”

“This is like a dream, Stephanie, and I’m terrified I’m going to wake up.”

“It’s actually only too real, Chance. Yes I do understand that you are bowled over by what has been done for you and the children. However, I’m equally certain you don’t understand how grateful the village is now that they know I’m not going to leave. It is true I decided that for myself, but I may not have reached that decision had you not come into my life. I am even more certain that you do not appreciate how grateful I feel at being able to settle down with a family here where I want to live. I am grateful to have you in my life and suspect I am falling love with you. I certainly wish to. I am certain that I love the children already, and I’d truly no idea concerning the emotions being a mum involved. I can’t explain that even to myself, but it is wonderful. Last night was an amazing experience for me. Quite apart from enjoying myself enormously I appreciated being treated gently and not like an object to be hit and treated roughly because that’s how a lot of men believe women should be treated in bed as a result of watching too much pornography. So if this is a dream there are a lot of us dreaming it, and from my point of view long may it continue.”

“I’ve never had a mobile phone nor a computer, so I wouldn’t know about the pornography.”

“Well, well, well. Aren’t I the lucky girl‽ Come on, I have to go to work with the children and you have to find Murray. I’ll just check if the children need any help to get ready. I always eat lunch at school with the children, so you’ll have to fend for yourself. Though doubtless Madeline Murray’s wife or Emily will feed the pair of you, so I’ll see you back here after work. I’m usually home for quarter to four. I’ve the makings of a cottage pie(29) and some fresh peas that need shelling in the fridge, so I’ll make a start on that as soon as I get home whilst the girls make that trifle. We’ll have the rest of the chicken roasted as a meat and two vegetable meal with Yorkshire puddings, boiled and roast potatoes and gravy on Sunday. Tonight I’ll aim to eat at six. You okay with that?”

Chance nodded and by the time he’d thought of something to say, for as he’d admitted he was no cook and they’d lived on ready meals, Stephanie had kissed him and was helping the children on with coats, hats and gloves. “I know it’s not cold, Children, but it’s going to rain later, and it’s easier wearing a coat than carrying it.” They all turned and waved and then they were gone. Gladys had dropped the the coats and hats off whilst the family were moving in which was why they all fitted the children, and being busy he’d not noticed them, but he did wonder where they had come from. As he put a light waterproof on ready to leave he realised the children were adapting far faster than he to their changed circumstances. He was coping so far, yet he knew he’d a lot to face in the near future, but what bothered him most was next Saturday eve in the taproom.

1 Many pubs in the UK are inns and many are hotels. Historically there was a huge difference. Inns, like smiths, in those days served the road, i.e. the traveller. Their millennia old allegiance was to the road, not to the local land owner, and as such they could not legally refuse to provide food, drink or accommodation as long as there was some available, be it stale bread to eat, water to drink and a place to sleep in the stables or on the taproom floor. Likewise a smith could not refuse to shoe a horse as long as the rider or vehicle driver could pay him. A hotel was a private establishment that could turn any one away without providing an explanation, many were owned by the local landowner and tended to be larger and higher class establishments than inns. Inns and smithies were the places to go for local news as well as news from afar. Hotels catered to a more genteel clientele.
2 Eccles cake, An Eccles cake is a small, round cake filled with currants and made from flaky pastry with butter, sometimes topped with demerara sugar. Eccles cakes are named after the English town of Eccles, historically part of Lancashire, but now in the City of Salford, Greater Manchester. They do not have protected geographical status so may be, and are, made anywhere. The first I ate was bought in Morrisons supermarket in Eccles in a packet of four labelled ‘Genuine Eccles cakes’ but it said ‘Product of France’ on the packet. Their history goes back to 1793.
3 Thraping, painful punishment, a beating, not necessarily administered by another man as here. A centuries established usage in localised parts of the northern UK, and it has no connection with modern internet usage which suggests the word is a portmanteau word derived from thrashing and raping.
4 Twatted, struck, hit or punched depending on context.
5 Scoops, scoops of beer, vernacular for beers.
6 Chemic, a colloquial term for spirits, probably derived from the word chemical.
7 Wooden overcoat with brass handles, coffin, casket.
8 Wagman, schools truancy officer. Wagging it is playing hooky. Playing hooky is absenting oneself from school when one should be in class. Originally a US term, but now it is widely used in the UK.
9 CV, Curriculum Vitae, US résumé.
10 Gey, very.
11 A sandwich short of a picnic, not quite right in the head.
12 Your shout, your turn to pay for a round of drinks.
13 Mince, minced meat, US ground meat.
14 Cumberland Tatie Pot, a traditional Cumberland dish containing lamb or mutton, onion, carrot, swede [rutabaga] or turnips, black pudding [blood sausage] and potatoes. There are many variations on the recipe, but the black pudding is what defines the dish. Cumberland was a county that in the administrative reorganisation of 1976 was subsumed into Cumbria of which it formed the northern part.
15 Gey strang, very strong.
16 Flitch, a side of bacon is referred to as a flitch.
17 Beck, stream, burn, a small river. A beck is bigger than a rill.
18 Haggis wi basht neeps and tatties, haggis with mashed swede [rutabaga] and potato.
19 Haaf netting is an ancient type of salmon and sea trout fishing. The technique involves fishermen standing chest-deep in the sea and using large submerged framed nets to scoop up fish that swim towards them. It has been practised on the Solway since Viking days and still is. Haaf is a Norse word meaning channel or sea.
20 Spirit safe, a locked enclosed glass box that the spirit enters immediately it leaves the still. Usually only the Customs and Excise have a key. Modern ones accurately measure the alcohol passing through them enabling Customs and Excise to demand the tax due immediately on distillation. Too within the spirit still are numerous controls enabling the master stillman to remotely determine where any particular part of the distillate is sent, which is the first step in the complex set of processes that constitute blending.
21 Artic, articulated trailers. Trailers using a fifth wheel coupling, eighteen wheelers.
22 LEA, Local Education Authority.
23 PGCE, Post Graduate Certificate of Education, one of the UK qualifications that licences one to teach in the UK.
24 There is no such postcode as CA2 7WZ, though possibly half the properties in Carlisle have post codes beginning CA2. Raffles exists and is as described, for despite numerous initiatives to improve the area the inhabitants remain the same.
25 Gevlik, a heavy, pointed iron prybar or crowbar, usually five or six feet long.
26 Allotments, US community gardens.
27 Cottage pie, traditional dish made with minced [ground] beef, onions, stock, flour to thicken the stock, and seasonings to taste. The above are cooked, placed in an oven dish, covered with mashed potato and put in an oven to warm through and brown the potato tops. Often served with garden peas.

A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 37 Alf’s Philosophies and Youtube

Before dawn, the first Saturday of October had brought rain. By mid morning it had become a deluge lashing down in torrents several inches deep across the lonning despite the grikes(1) cut through the verges for water to run off into the beck that took water away to the lowest part of the eight miles of single track that outsiders referred to as a public highway, which it wasn’t, where it often ran back onto the lonning flooding it and isolating the village. Since it was expected that by Sunday afternoon the only route into Bearthwaite would be under several feet of water Gladys the landlady had made appropriate information available on the Green Dragon website. Alf and his mates knew the new village boat that enabled contact with the outside world when the road was flooded was in full working order, for it was tested every weekend, but as was their wont during heavy rain they had checked everything again at lunchtime. The boat was referred to as the new boat which though a fair enough description wasn’t strictly true. Some time ago Gladys, the landlady of the Green Dragon, had gone into labour during such appalling weather conditions that the lonning had been flooded at least four feet deep for several miles. Rather than risk trying to take her to meet an ambulance in an open boat during torrential rain, an ambulance that may not have been there due to the road conditions between the main roads and the Bearthwaite turning, she’d been attended by Susanna the village’s midwife and the half a dozen nurses who lived locally. Gladys had given birth to Gloria at home with no problems, but it had been decided a new covered boat was required. The cost of a covered boat approximately the same size as the village’s open boat had had been considerable. The villagers had been prepared to pay it, for due to a number of factors the village was wealthier than it had been not so long before, and it was a characteristic of Bearthwaite folk that those with money were happy to spend it so all could benefit.

Sasha who was a very wealthy man had said he and Elle were prepared to stand most of the cost. Other folk with money had been equally prepared to put their hands deep into their pockets, till that was Alf had telt them they were all daft. His argument was that given some help with internet research and enough practical help he could convert what they had to what they wanted. Not easily, he’d admitted, but there were any number of men in the village skilled enough at working wood to assist and given enough help he assured them he could do it for a far more reasonable cost than buying a covered boat. He’d argued that if he and local men did the work all the village could play a part in the design process and they’d end up with exactly what they wanted and not have to settle for what was available. Too, he’d argued that the hull of the boat they had was in first class condition and unless they bought a new boat at a horrendous price they would probably have to spend considerable time, effort and money on the hull of a older boat. His most compelling argument was the money should be spent paying the folk who did the work which at least would keep the money local. Keeping money local was always a major concern in Bearthwaite, so his argument was a powerful one that prevailed. The old boat had been named Bearthwaite Princess, but in a major village celebration she had been rechristened Bearthwaite Queen, and hence was referred to as the new boat.

The adults of Bearthwaite were keeping a close eye on the children, and all their whereabouts was known at all times, for in heavy rain the water cascaded off the hills in places like a force(2) two or more feet deep and tens of yards wide. Such a torrent could easily wash away and drown an adult never mind a child playing in the wrong place. It had never happened, and the adults’ diligence was to ensure it never did.

It was a source of constant bewilderment to the residents of Bearthwaite that during heavy rain the houses in some places like Carlisle which was not so far away flooded. That it happened over and over again and the people who lived there expected taxpayers elsewhere to assist them in their troubles because insurance companies wouldn’t insure their properties at any price for obvious and sensible reasons was seen by Bearthwaite folk as an insanity characteristic of outsiders. None had property insurance in Bearthwaite, for it was considered much cheaper and wiser in the long run to do without. In the event of troubles their neighbours rallied round and whatever issue had occurred was soon put to rights. That was the Bearthwaite concept of community. You didn’t have to like all your neighbours, but you did have to help them when they needed it, for they would help you when required. Pete the landlord of the Dragon had summed up local opinion in a nutshell years before when he’d said, “What kind of idiots build houses in places that have been known to flood regularly for over two thousand years? And what kind of bigger idiot buys one of those houses? You look at where the Vikings, the Romans, and even the Old Folk that were there before the Romans had even been heard of lived. High ground over looking the river Eden, ground that had never flooded. As far as I’m aware no property has ever flooded here in all known history, and that is because we’re not stupid enough to build anything where it floods.”

~o~O~o~

It was early Saturday evening, so the old men who with their womenfolk were the core of Bearthwaite society were beginning to gather in the taproom and the best side of the Green Dragon respectively. The weather was cool but by no means cold, so though the open wood fires in the taproom had been lit with logs cut and dried a couple of years before to provide a bed of hot embers to start the large fires going they were currently burning this years dried logs which though containing a little more water provided enough heat but did not burn quite as quickly. The heating in the much more genteel environment where the ladies gathered for gossip, assisted by a moderate quantity of socially acceptable and legal beverages, was provided by the central heating system powered by the twenty-eight second(3) kerosene boiler in the cellar. Their menfolk who gathered for stories whose veracity varied from one hundred percent, the relating of recent events for example, to zero, often outright fantasy and fabrication, adult færie tales if you like, often telt by Dave who seemed to have an endless supply of such matter. Often Dave’s tales were skilfully tailored urban myths crafted in the local dialect especially for his audience. The men’s stories were usually assisted by more than generous quantities of Bearthwaite Brown, a rich, nutty, powerful brown ale crafted by Clarence, Gustav’s master brewer, and liberal quantities of spirituous liquors of dubious safety and definite illegality that His Majesty’s customs and excise were completely unaware of the existence of. If you didn’t specify something else you were offered a pint of something brewed in Gustav’s brewery which was a just a few hundred metres away from the Dragon. The only beer available in the Dragon that was not brewed locally was bottled, and not much of such was selt due to the high quality of the local products. All of Gustav’s employees lived locally, and the village’s loyalty to their beers was fierce. That Gustav was a Bavarian German was irrelevant, for he was a local about to marry Harriet, Pete and Gladys’ daughter, and had committed his entire future and not inconsiderable fortune to the well being of his community. He was one of them.

~o~O~o~

Pete had made a unilateral decision concerning the spirituous liquors before most of the men had arrived and had poured a couple of dozen glasses of illicitly distilled Dutch Genever that he’d recently negotiated a very attractive price on provided he purchased a hundred two hundred litre containers. The containers had been brought into UK waters up the Solway on a German fishing vessel, transshipped onto smaller boats during the dark and landed on the beach some distance south of Allonby bay. At high tide the containers whose labels said they contained fertiliser were loaded onto trailers already loaded with a couple of dozen identical containers also labelled as containing the same fertiliser because they did. The trailers were towed off the beach by quad bikes before being hooked up to JCB fast track agricultural tractors capable of fifty kilometres an hour for delivery to nearby farms and premises. It was always some time before the containers started to arrive a few at a time in the ubiquitous white vans of small delivery firms at Bearthwaite. It was a well rehearsed procedure undertaken no more than twice a year though the same landing site had never been used twice and often the containers were landed on the northern Scottish cost of the Solway. The smugglers had any number of small scale customers like Pete all over the European coasts. The vessels they used were borrowed for the runs and for an appropriate consideration, usually paid in smuggled goods, they provided a welcome additional income to the vessels’ owners and crews.

That Pete had to subsequently bottle the Genever himself had been a matter of no consequence at all since the huge and recently extended cellars under the Dragon were hygienically clean and well lit as a result of the recent renovations which had been part of the above ground extension. He hadn’t done any of the bottling himself. The matter had been dealt with by some of the younger village men using the electrical pumps and the vast supply of two gallon supposed whisky bottles that Gee Shaw had obtained for next to nothing because they were neither used nor wanted by any else. He’d bought all the supplier had, two artic [eighteen wheeler] loads for five grand [$5583] delivered, and the other village men had willingly contributed knowing he’d taken a chance on their behalf using his own money. That Pete would surely be able to use them at some point was a secondary consideration. Julie had possibly been correct when out shopping in Carlisle with numerous other Bearthwaite women she’d described the old men as the local mafia. Pete left a couple of bottles of the Genever on the bar with a few other smaller bottles of assorted dodgy spirits too. Meanwhile he was pulling pints.

~o~O~o~

Given the moderate weather, moderate, for despite the rain it was not bitterly cold, Pete was expecting a complete turnout of local men of all ages and somewhere between sixty and eighty men in all in the taproom after the outsiders had arrived. He was aware Gladys had taken bookings for over twenty double rooms for both weekend nights by mid afternoon, and she’d telt him, “Outsiders must have read what I put on the website concerning the lonning or most of them wouldn’t have booked two nights. I reckon folk have had enough of the world outside and just want a bit of peace. I suppose if it comes to it I can always put camp beds in some of the single rooms. If I have to do that you’d better make sure the Cossack is on top form to avoid any complaints.” The Cossack was how she referred to Sasha Vetrov the Siberian decades long resident of Bearthwaite who was the master story teller who had started the Grumpy Old Men’s Society. It was known to all that she loved the old man as a father figure who regarded her and Pete in the light of his children, however it was never referred to in front of outsiders.

~o~O~o~

There was a rush of dogs coming in from the back door looking for the food that was always provided. The coming of the dogs indicated their owners were not far behind them and Pete looked to check the kibble and water bowls were full. He heard someone ask, “Where’s Bess?”

“She came into season, so I left her at home.” He didn’t recognise either voice due to the chatter and couldn’t recall who owned Bess. As a dozen or more men came in from the back door the matter went out of his mind as he kept pulling pints.

When Sasha came in he said, “I’ll take a glass of Talisker, Pete, and I’d appreciate a word at the end of the night. Pete knew by a glass Sasha meant a dram, a quarter of a bottle(4) [US 7 ounces, 188ml] and without a word did as requested. Sasha went to sit in his usual place, right in the middle of where the locals sat, and the taproom gradually filled up. There were over a hundred men in the taproom and to enable the evening to start four locals helped Pete and Gustav to serve and take money.

As the men settled down the conversation was typically about the British preoccupation: the weather which given the conditions outside was not at all surprising. One of the outsiders said, “The road’s a foot deep already and the water’s still rising. There was a convoy of us coming in. One of the lads I talked to in the car park said he hadn’t booked a room, but if he had to sleep in the taproom under his coat for ten days that was okay because he was sick of the crap he was getting from work. He worked sixty-six hours last week and his boss wanted him to work even more and gave him grief for going home. He telt him to stuff it. Folk are that short of workers he’s not bothered if he gets fired because he can choose from any number of jobs. His missus said the food here was excellent and if it meant they had a fortnight’s enforced holiday here that was fine with her.”

Gladys came in at that point to say, “According to Radio Cumbria the lonning is now impassable, more to the point Mavis has just phoned to say Michael telt her the lonning is impassable. To any who don’t know him, Michael is the local police sergeant and is Bearthwaite born and bred. If he says the lonning is impassible it is. When I find out how many folk require accommodation I’ll deal with it. If there’re more than we can accommodate here I’ll ring round and see what we can do to put folk up with neighbours. If the worst comes to the worst we can put you up in the dance hall like a dormitory. The heating’s on so it’ll be warm enough and you’ll be well fed, so it’ll not exactly be disaster relief. Your womenfolk aren’t bothered by the situation, some seem to think it’s the most exciting event that’s ever happened to them. I’ll let you know what’s happening as soon as I know. It’s haggis, bashed neeps and tatties with gravy for those as want it for supper and Veronica and Harriet are preparing a rhubarb crumble with custard to follow as we speak. The rhubarb is this seasons’ crop that Christine pressure canned early in the year. They’d appreciate being telt early how many want supper to make sure there will be enough for all. I suggest you enjoy the evening, Gentlemen.”

~o~O~o~

An outsider of about forty who none recognised said, “The weather is what it is and I’ll just live with it. My grandfather came from the Hebrides and used to maintain there was no bad weather just unsuitable clothes. May I tell a very short tale and then ask a question?”

Pete replied, “Go for it, Lad, we always welcome new faces or at least new voices. Tell us your name first and a bit about you please.”

“I’m Jeremy Caldbeck and I’m a chef. I have a tiny restaurante that seats twelve at a pinch just outside Kendal. It is a restaurante not a café because I serve quality food. It’s silver service and most of our evening clients are courting couples or married couples wanting a bit of romance. I’m doing more than okay and Lizzie my wife and I hope to save enough money to move to a larger establishment in about twelve months. I am self taught and obtain a lot of my menu ideas off the internet. Mostly my ideas are European cuisine, but I’m not fixed on that, and I look at ideas from all over the world on Youtube. Most have to be adapted, but that’s what cooking is all about. I have a couple of wonderful recipes based on South African Boer meals.” Jeremy chuckled and continued. “I say based on them because it’s difficult to obtain impala in Cumbria, but I imagine venison is not so very different in taste. Recently I’ve been looking at recipes from some of the older USA areas. The Appalachians are a good source of inspiration. However, I recently discovered a site that purported to shew traditional and popular US dishes of the twentieth century. The bloke didn’t actually sound American, but I knew he was a fake as soon as he cooked his first dish which he said was a traditional and popular US dish derived from fast food restaurantes of the sixties. I knew that was bullshit because there was no cheese in it.”

Stan snorted with laughter and said, “All the US government would need to do to virtually eliminate obesity in the States is make cheese illegal, but then the criminals and the politicians who all have their snouts in the same trough and piss in the same pot would corner the market on bootleg dairy products. Which reminds me of a short story I read once by F Paul Wilson called Lipidleggin’. It’s included as a historical prequel at the end of his novel An Enemy of the State, the version published by Infrapress. You had that one spot on, Jeremy, even though most American cheese is processed and is only about fifty percent cheese. I watched a Russel Howard Youtube clip a while back where he shewed an NBC headline reporting that more Americans die choking on their food than from terrorism, but what about your question?”

“It’s a puzzle rather than a question really. It’s about the single shoes that you see at the side of the road, often in the middle of nowhere. Babies’ and toddlers’ shoes I can understand because they’ll just have threwn them out of the window of a passing car, but adults’ single shoes at the side of the road just baffle me. Where did the other shoe go
? What happened to it?”

As the others were chuckling Dave responded to say, “I reckon you’re just going to have to stay baffled, Lad, because that is a puzzle closely related to the mysteries of sneezing and hiccups and the origins of navel fluff. You want another beer and something to help it down?”

As Dave and Pete pulled pints and Alf passed bottles of chemic around, the collection box for the kids Christmas party was gradually getting heavier as those drinking hard liquor threw a couple of quid in, not in exchange for the drink, for such a transaction was illegal. The money was purely a charitable donation and to ensure it remained seen that way the locals threw a couple of quid in from time to time when they were not drinking the hard stuff.

~o~O~o~

“Jeremy has got me thinking about Youtube stuff,” said Pete, “I’ve been wondering what they do on the other side of the pond when they’re not going ahead.”

“Easy,” said Stan, “I’m surprised you haven’t worked it out for yourself, Pere. They’re getting ready to go ahead.”

“I don’t get it,” said Alf. “What are you talking about?”

“You watch horticulture, engineering, wood working and general craft stuff on Youtube right, Alf, don’t you?”

“Yes. It beats the shine out of the garbage that’s on the TV, but so what, Pete?”

“It’s a common peculiarity of US English virtually all over the states that they don’t say for example, ‘I’m going to strip the varnish off this chair’. Many of them will say, ‘I’m going to go ahead and strip the varnish off this chair.’ Stan was saying a lot of them say ‘I’m getting ready to go ahead and strip the varnish off this chair.’ They don’t all speak like that, but a lot on Youtube do. Stan and I were just taking the piss. English as spoken over here is no different, we just use different expressions that are equally meaningless. A bloke I knew from Rawtenstall way would have said I’ll go forward and strip the varnish off this chair. Mostly I suppose like the Yanks(5) it’s those of us with less education that are more prone to using bullshit expressions that just use more words up to make what we’re saying sound more profound, though it has to be said neither we nor the Yanks talk as much bullshit as politicians on both sides of the pond do. You must have heard Yanks say going ahead and getting ready to go ahead surely?”

“Yeah, but one of the advantages of being as not clever as me is somewhere between my ears and my brain all the shit gets filtered out. Unless I have a reason to take notice of the bollocks a lot of those folk talk I only actually register the stuff that matters, probably because a lot of interesting stuff is provided by folk who don’t speak very good English because it’s not their first language so you have to make allowances. I watched a guy from a village in Vietnam repairing a machine a week or so ago with really primitive tools and facilities. The guy was a genius well worth watching despite his poor English. And of course a lot of stuff with subtitles has the subtitles done by Google translate or something similar which is often good for a laugh, though I admit the US twenty-five letter alphabet irritates me from time to time.”

“Is this one of those lame Christmas jokes about the angel saying Noel, Alf?”

“Is it buggery, Dave. Surely you must have heard them. A lot of the time there’s no tee in the US spoken alphabet which is why they wear pandies. Try listening to them sometime. It’s not just on Youtube it’s― What’s that word for God being everywhere all the time, Sasha?”

“Omnipresent, Alf.”

“Yeah, omnipresent is what I meant. To a lesser extent Aussies do it too.”

Dave whistled and said, “I’ve heard it all now. Alf using a non technical word that I don’t think I’ve ever used, and in a tale topping not only Pete but Stan too.

Alf grinned and added, “Funny isn’t it. I don’t have an issue with the ay sound in tomayto which is how Yanks would say tomahto, if only they knew how to pronounce the second tee, but the dee sound in tomaydo really grates on my nerves, almost as much as them constantly placing the emphar siss on the wrong bit of words, which I know is not their fault. I’ve often wondered if that’s because they insist on doing everything ‘real quick’, though maybe that’s just on Youtube. I prefer to take my time and get the job done properly. Just thinking about using puddy to glaze windows and fill wood, even if only a liddle bit is required, or having a glud of tomaydoes on the the allotment [US community garden] makes me wince almost as much as the jab supposedly giving me immunidy from Covid makes me. The stress of it all makes me need another pint and glass of chemic to soothe my frayed nerves.”

All were laughing uproariously at Alf’s clever and appropriate segue as Gustav headed for the bar to start pulling pints. Stan was topping up shot glasses with some noxious oily looking liquor with a vaguely violet colouration whilst the rest of the men passed empty glasses to Dave to wash. They all knew Alf didn’t really have a problem with folks from the other side of the pond. Some of his closest collaborators were from the new world, and were folk he had exchanged horticultural and workshop ideas and help with for decades, so far back for some of them their communication had originally been done by post which had taken a long time for letters delivered by ship from Australia and New Zealand. Pat was currently working on a video conferencing system whereby some of them could join in on Saturday evenings in the taproom as virtual, honorary grumpy old men. As Sasha had said after spending an evening at Alf’s house on his laptop, “Your mates from overseas certainly meet all the criteria that matter to be considered a grumpy old man, Alf.”

Alf had said, “That’s because I only bother with real folk, Sasha.”

~o~O~o~

When drinking was resumed, it was agreed that without doubt the summer was over. The heat waves that had threatened the health of the nation, in the south at least which didn’t bother the inhabitants of the taproom one little bit since they lived five hundred miles north and cooler than where the southerners lived, were already consigned to history, till as Sasha remarked next time. Alf who was their resident horticultural expert telt them, “It was close a couple of nights ago, Lads, but we’ve not had even a trace of the first ground frost yet, and I don’t reckon we’ll have one for at least a fortnight possibly more than twice that.”

“How do you know there hasn’t been any trace of frost yet, Alf? Couldn’t there have been just a few minutes when the temperature dropped below freezing?”

“My nasturtiums are still in full bloom, Eric. All nasturtiums are sensitive to frost, but I grow my own from seed and I noticed years ago, I was still in my teens, that the ones I grew went as dead as a doornail at the slightest trace of frost, a few seconds will do it. Different plants contain different amounts of natural anti freezes in their cells. Really hardy ones contain a lot, but nasturtiums and some other plants contain next to none. So frost freezes the sap in the cells almost immediately, and as the sap turns to ice it expands and bursts the cells, result no turgor in the cells, plant can’t stand up or move liquids around and it blackens and dies. I’ve kept on growing ’em, so as I know when it’s happened. They grow, and mostly self seed, just outside one of my green house doors though I always save a decent amount of seed just in case.

~o~O~o~

“Supper will be on the tables in fifteen to twenty minutes, Gentlemen. Does anyone want me to get them a drink, or can I top the dogs bowls up after letting them out for a run?”

“You deal with the dogs, Harriet Love, I’ll do the bar work.” Harriet nodded to her dad and after opening the back door went for her pails of kibble and water.

~o~O~o~

“I’ve a quick one. Not a tale, Lads, more of an observation. It won’t take us up to supper, but it’ll help.”

“Go on, Gerry,” Sasha encouraged him.

“Well it’s about flies, all of them, bluebottles, the biting buggers and the little ones that just bloody annoy you. If you want to kill the damned things you’ve a real problem on your hands these days because those new baited bags bags you open at the top, add some water to and hang up just don’t work. The clever buggers who make them have printed pictures of flies on ’em so you think there’re flies in ’em, but it’s all a con, and fly sprays, swatters and zappers have had all of the sugar, salt and fat taken out of them.”

“How do you mean, Gerry?”

“They’ve all become like the really tasty stuff of our childhood, Alf, victims of the nanny state. Whatever it was that made ’em work, taste good or whatever has been deemed dangerous and so banned, so they don’t work any more or taste any good. I’ll give you a few examples. Crisps, [US chips] all taste crap. Why? Because the government made the manufacturers take the salt and fat out, result is we all add extra salt, probably far more than was in them originally.” There was virtually universal agreement at that and many looked at the salt cellar on the bar for customers to help themselves to with a bag of crisps. “That favourite of childhood, Heinz cream of tomato soup is now tasteless unless you add salt and some butter, so what you eat probably contains more salt and fat than it ever did. Another example, Heinz baked beans are now tasteless beyond redemption, along with all other baked beans. Why? Because the sugar, salt and fat content have been reduced. The only baked beans worth eating are Branston’s and they’re only just worth eating. Even sweets are tasteless these days. I mean how the hell can you reduce the taste of pear drops?(6) You used to be able to smell someone eating ’em from half a mile away if the wind was blowing towards you. However, back to killing flies. I recently bought an electric fly swatter, what a beast of a gadget that is. It works, but you have to be on it all the time and your arm soon gets out of breath and you lose the will to live. I reckon the only way to make life bearable is the old fashioned way, fly papers. They look minging but at least the bastards work. Trouble is they’re really hard to get aholt of. However, Jaybees in Silloth sell ’em as do Saundersons in Wigton.”

Phil the mill said, “Taking of modern stuff having no taste, Sasha, you mind you were complaining about all ice cream tasting shite these days a while back?”

Sasha nodded and there were mutterings of “He wasn’t wrong,” in the background.

Phil continued, “Well Alice found some decent stuff in Lidl of all places. Aberdoyle’s it’s called and it’s made in Scotland. It’s hard and tastes good. I don’t know if it would pass muster in Belgium or Italy, but at least it tastes and feels like ice cream in your mouth as opposed to that soft mushy stuff.”

~o~O~o~
Tik toc
The men were looking around to see if any one had a tale to take them up to supper. Eventually Simon the blacksmith asked, “You seen any of those welding videos on Youtube, Gee?”

Gee looked pained and replied, “I try to avoid them if possible, Simon, not least because then I don’t have to calm Sam down if she sees one. She’s one of the the best welders I’ve ever come across and they really wind her up, probably because they’re all done by men who seem to be somewhat misogynistic. Doubtless they have a downer on the trans and any who’re different in any other way too, but I’m only assuming that, I’ve no evidence to support the view. One thing is certain though, most of them haven’t a clue how to weld. Not all of them, some of them are damned good, but most aren’t. Sam reckons most of them would do better using double sided sticky tape.”

“She was a good welder when she was just a slip of a girl, Lad,” Alf said. “And you’re right, she’s one of the best I’ve ever come across too. MIG, TIG, stick or gas she always was a natural. Her first weld was a stick weld, aged seven she was, and it was as clean as a whistle. What’s that expression she uses to describe tossers with a welding set up in their hands?”

Gee grinned and said, “ ‘A grinder, some filler and a can of paint makes them the welders that they ain’t.’ I’d heard it before, long before I met Sam, but when she says it it sounds particularly vicious.”

Alf said, “That’s me. I’m for the back to drain my brain before supper.”

As a number of men followed Alf to the gents Pete said, “Let’s clear the tables, Lads, and get set up for supper.”

~o~O~o~

“Damned fine haggis that, Vincent. Not that I expected it to be any different.” Vincent was the village butcher and some of the village women helped Rosie his wife make the haggis, as well as pies, sausage and various other things in the kitchens behind his shop, to a recipe that had been in his family for generations. Dave continued, “Your veg, Alf?”

“The neeps(7) were, but I’m not sure who grew the tatties.(8) A lot of the lads were growing Picasso(9) this year because we had the seed available from last year, Dave. If you want some I’ll have at least a ton [1000Kg, 2240 pounds] available.”

Dave, who with his wife Lucy owned the village grocers, nodded and said, “I’ll take you up on that, Alf. I need to take a walk down to the allotments to see what else is available.”

As Harriet was loading her trolley with the last of the supper plates she asked, “I know the red cabbage sauerkraut I make is liked and the stuff the staff make from cow cabbages to Gustav’s recipe is too, but I’ve been watching Youtube videos about fermenting all kinds of vegetable pickles and would like to try it. The question is would you be willing to try them? Too, I’d need fermentation locks, glass or glazed pottery weights to keep the vegetables below the brine to prevent any going mouldy, and I’d like a couple of sauerkraut jar packers. They sell the sauerkraut packers on Ebay turned from acacia wood, but the prices are silly money and if none likes the pickles that’s money down the drain. I’m using a wooden rolling pin at the moment, but it’s not ideal. Can any help?”

Alf replied, “I don’t have any acacia, fact is I’m not sure I’ve ever laid eyes on any, but I can turn the packers out of ash or beech for you if you shew me the clip. I’ve still got some nice straight grained beech left from when I made your rolling pins. As for the weights, I could make a mould and heat it and some broken glass up with oxy(10) or in my furnace till the glass melted into the mould. I’ve seen them, and they’re just like ice hockey pucks with a circular groove in one side so you can pick them up to take out of the jar by the raised bit in the middle of the weight, so they should be cheap and easy enough to make. Or you could get Steven Menzies that studio potter out Allonby way make you some glazed ones. As for air locks, just use wine makers’ air locks. Let me know and I’ll use a fly press to stamp holes in some lids for you to take a rubber bung. They sell bungs with holes already in ’em to take an air lock. I’ve tasted brine fermented dill gherkins and they’re good, so I’ll eat those for sure. Thinking about it I can’t see that other stuff won’t be tasty too. If you call in at my workshop tomorrow with the jars and lids you intend to use, Lass, I’ll measure them up, and we’ll look at Youtube and Ebay too. Okay?”

“Uncle Alf, you’re wonderful. Especially where food is involved.” Harriet kissed his cheek and left pushing her trolley.

~o~O~o~

Chance had been worried about the reception he would receive in the taproom after his moving to Bearthwaite to live with Stephanie who was adopting his children and whom he was going to marry. He had no need to worry, for to the local men he was a welcome new member of their community and the outsiders knew nothing of the recent changes in his life.

“So when’s the wedding, Chance?”

Chance laught and said, “I’ve no idea, Vincent. Elle’s still trying to find a registrar who will marry us here. Murray advised me to leave it all to the womenfolk and just to do what I was telt and turn up when I was telt. He’s my best man, so I thought it would be a good idea to accept his advice. Elle filed the paperwork on line for Stephanie to adopt the kids. The court acknowledged receipt of it almost immediately, but we haven’t got a hearing date yet. Changing the subject. Is there any possibility of me making an investment in something we can drink, Pete? Now I’m living and working here, I’d like to play my part and not just drink some one else’s liquor for a couple of quid a go.”

“Talk to me about it at the end of the evening, Chance, and I’ll explain what your options are, okay?” Accepting Pete didn’t wish to discuss the matter in front of strangers Chance just nodded.

~o~O~o~

“Oh bugger!”

John could be seen to be manipulating the fingers of his left hand with his right hand. “What’s to do John?”

“I spilt a bit of my ale, Stan. Bloody lucky I didn’t spill it all. Only reason I didn’t was because Harriet gave me a tankard with a handle and not a straight glass. It’s due to duck trainer’s contraption. I’ve got it in both hands. Most of the time it’s no bother and I’d rather have this than carpel tunnel. At least this doesn’t hurt or keep me awake at night.”

“What the hell is a duck trainer’s contraption, John?”

“It’s properly called a Dupuytren’s contracture, Alf. I can spell it, but I end up pronouncing it differently every time I try to say it, so I don’t usually bother and stick to duck trainers contraption. Too taking the piss out of it makes me feel better about it. It’s a lump of scar tissue in the palm of your hand. See.” John held his hands out palms up and they could see the lumpy shapes under the skin in the middle of his hands. “They don’t know what causes it, but I’ve been telt it’s been called the Viking disease because it can be inherited, especially if you have any north Scandinavian descent which like all of us from this neck of the woods I have, and Mum’s mum’s dad was an Icelandic fisherman, but I don’t recall any else in the family having it. Sometimes my finger sticks in the curled up position and I have to slowly and gently extend it using my other hand because it hurts. There’re half a dozen different treatments, but none are a certain cure and some seem to be decidedly risky, so I decided years ago that unless it gets a lot worse I’ll just live with it. Mostly when it happens which isn’t even once a day it just makes me clumsy. It mostly affects folk who are getting old and buggered like me. It’s why I always insist on a tankard with a handle. There’s less chance of me losing a pint to gravity that way.”

“It’s not all bad getting old you know, John. The good thing about being an old bugger is youngsters just assume you know nowt, which in the case of stuff you don’t give a toss about is probably true, well it is for me any road, but for stuff that really matters, they know nowt and I do. I love dealing with ’em because I won’t play their games and they have to play mine. I haven’t figured out what an app is yet never mind a bloody widget, and don’t bother telling me because I won’t listen because I don’t care. Tell you, Lads, dealing with youngsters is easy money.”

“How do you mean, Alf?”

“Well, while they’re busy doing a thousand quids’ [$1117] worth of damage to a car to rip out a hundred pound [$112] radio CD player to sell on a car boot [yard sale] for a tenner [$11], I’m busy making a legit living out of them. They can’t rip me off because I only deal in cash and direct bank transfers, after I’ve rung the bank to make sure I’ve got the money of course. I only deal in owt that guarantees I get paid up front, cash or goods it doesn’t matter as long as I can tell it’s actually worth what they say it is. If there’s any doubt I won’t accept the deal. I don’t do credit unless it’s someone that lives here. I don’t have owt to do with anything that comes over a mobile phone or a computer, and I don’t give a monkeys how smart it’s reckoned to be. I don’t trust credit card transfers and I’ve never accepted cheques. Result is I’ve never had any bad debts.”

“That must seriously knock your trade back, Alf.”

“Not at all, Oliver. I’ve never been short of work. Everyone knows I sell good stuff. Every vehicle I sell is kosher. That’s known for a hundreds of miles and is why folk from three counties over come to see me to buy cars, vans, trucks, whatever. All the work I do is guaranteed to be good and if something goes wrong I’ll either refund the money or put it right. None who’ve ever dealt with me have ever ended up out of pocket as a result, so folk deal on my terms or they can go back home. I’m not parting with a vehicle I may have invested god alone knows how many hours of my time into for plastic money or European gymnasts, that’s bouncing Czechs to you. I can fix stuff and give a guarantee it’s fixed, if kids don’t like my terms I tell ’em to fuck off and deal with some thief who purports to be a car dealer or whatever. I have no use for their world, and they all desperately need old bastards like us, because their generation is by and large incapable of actually doing owt. That’s why we all live so well here.

“Like Dad and Granddad before him and I dare say a few generation before him too, I’ve always grown vegetables and kept hens for eggs. My missus is a good cook and has always been able to put a decent meal on the table no matter how little money we had. She can knit and sew and knows I can fettle her sewing machine if owt is up with it. We’ve always had decent clothes, decent meals and the house has always been warm enough. Years ago we couldn’t afford coal, but I could always cut enough wood for Ellen to cook on and keep us all warm. What Ellen can’t do she deals with another lass and exchanges skills, same as I do. Truth is that’s how we all live here. We deal in real skills, real goods and real money that are all tradable commodities. I can’t do the tax and VAT(11) returns, but Murray and Emily can, though neither can service their car. I may not be explaining it well, but I know what I’m saying is right. The proof of that is that we fetch our kids up the way we were fetcht up and they do a lot better than outsiders’ kids even if they move away from Bearthwaite. Funny thing is most eventually return home disenchanted with the outside world because they discovered they can’t trust any to deal straight with them.”

“That it, Lads? Or has someone got another tale or else to say? No? Okay let’s have the dominoes out while I wash some glasses and I’d be grateful if some one starts pulling pints and we need more chemic from the cellar too. Chance, partner me and we’ll have that chat.”

“I’ll fetch some bottles from the cellar, Dad.” Few noticed Gustav call Pete dad. To the locals it was how it ought to be because he was marrying Pete’s daughter, and few outsiders knew the exact situation.

Whilst Stan went behind the bar to pull pints and Tommy collected money, in quiet voices Pete and Chance discussed what options were open as regards spirituous liquors and Chance opted for a hundred litres of the genever.

~o~O~o~

After the locals had gone home and the guests had retired to their rooms there were only Sasha, Pete and Gustav left in the taproom, Pete asked, “What do we need to discuss, Sasha?”

“You mind some time back I proposed trying to bring in some new businesses that will bring trade and money into the village. I now reckon we should be tracking down the ownership of and buying up all the old properties that have been empty for decades. Elle’s near enough bought up all the terraced properties behind the old allotments site that aren’t owner occupied, and she’s negotiating money on the few left that she hasn’t already bought. Buying them on behalf of the Bearthwaite Property Developments Company is no problem as they’re mostly worth bugger all, but modernising them will cost far more than the company has in the kitty. If need be Elle and I shall provide an interest free loan. I’m telt structurally they’re all in good condition, but many need new roofs before the rain gets into the brickwork and frost demolishes them, so it needs to be done quickly. Most of the houses not lived in are uninhabitable and Elle was right the owners want whatever they can get and are likely to settle for the site value which isn’t much. The good thing about them is they all have always had a right to a rent free full allotment plot(12) which transferred to the new allotment site. That will be of value to a lot of even our younger men and women. Any unused land round the village we need to look into too. We may as well because I can’t find a tailor who makes shrouds with pockets, and I’ll put the assets into the village trust.

“We need a good solicitor to handle it all, one with commitments to the village. I’ve had Sam Shaw do a little digging for me and that trans girl Adalheidis Maxwell trained and qualified as a solicitor, but due to bigotry and manipulation she left Cartmell Shepherd and now works as an office junior in a place where the money is abysmal and the working conditions worse, but there is no problem about her being trans. We need to sound her out about moving here. Elle suggested that if Murray, Emily and Chance formed a Bearthwaite financial and legal services company she could join that and we’d pay them all out of the rents and other incomes from the community holdings. If at a later date we acquired other professionals like architects or structural engineers its remit could be expanded to include those as well. From what Sam found out Adalheidis is a bright, decent lass who has been pushed to the end of her tether, possibly beyond it. As a result she over reacts and is seen by some as a stroppy mare, but that’s just a front to hide her insecurities and pain. Sam is worried about her and wants permission to approach her with an offer of a job and accommodation to come back to here after she has her GRS. Apparently she’s having that in a few weeks in London and Sam says with a decent future to look forward to her recovery, physical as well as mental, will be a lot faster and probably a lot better too. As Sam put it, ‘She’s a born and bred Cumbrian, Sasha, and won’t do well else where, so bringing here as soon as possible would be doing her and us a favour.’ I reckon Sam knows what she’s talking about, so I said I’d speak to you tonight and let her know tomorrow. However, I want a back up plan. To start with, she can have the flat Stephanie occupied in the old vicarage, but it’ll take time for her registration with the law society to come through so she can operate on her own as a solicitor. Will you give her a job as a barmaid if I can’t find anything else?”

“No need, Sasha. I need a couple of office staff at the brewery. I’ll give her a job for as long as she needs it. I’ve already been approached by a couple of young women who are interested in the jobs and am meeting them on Tuesday, but the finances will stand an extra office worker, and after all this is exactly why we set up the brewery isn’t it? To provide locals with employment and make every one’s lives better.”

Pete nodded at Gustav’s words and said, “I always did reckon my lass did all right with you, Son.”

Sasha said, “I’ll ring Sam when I get home, Gustav. However, one more thing. That Jeremy Caldbeck who telt a tale early on tonight. He said he was a chef with a small restaurante near Kendal, but was hoping to expand in maybe a year when he had enough money saved. I wondered at the time if he’d consider relocating to here, home and restaurante both. He seemed a decent man. I suggest we ask Gladys, Harriet and Elle what they thought about his wife. If they fit, a high class restaurante couldn’t help but bring trade and money here. Obviously from what he said about the food he cooks he’s flexible. We’re not cut off from outside for much of the year, and like many of us he may appreciate the odd break from working every now and again. We’ve certainly got enough empty buildings in good repair for him to have a choice to suit whatever ambiance he feels is appropriate for a clientele he described as courting couples or married couples wanting a bit of romance. The old granary opposite the church may be a good choice, and the ground floor [US 1st floor] could certainly seat fifty diners in the comfort one would expect from a silver service restaurante. And of course he would need staff which would be employment and training opportunities for our youngsters who could then find higher paying employment than fast food places when they move away for university or the like. I understand he’s booked in for two nights, so if we ask the womenfolk tonight and that is okay you could speak to him tomorrow, Pete.”

“Okay, Sasha. Gustav, you anything to add?”

“Other than that we tell him any agreement would have to be subject to the usual business checks and the properties would be rented for our usual twelve month initial term to give both them and us an exit if required in a year’s time. He seemed a reasonable man with a good sense of humour able to laugh at himself, but I’d like to know what his and his wife’s views are on members of the LGBT before offering him anything. Presumably he is aware that Harriet is trans, so we’re part of the way there, but there are a disproportionate number of the LGBT who live here because it’s safe. We need to know what his and his wife’s feelings are concerning that. We have enough problems without importing any more.”

Sasha nodded in agreement and Pete said, “Maybe it would be better, Sasha, if you spoke to him tomorrow. If that’s it I’m off to bed. Gladys went up as soon as they’d finished clearing up in the room.”

“I’ll lock up after Sasha goes, Dad. Goodnight.”

As Sasha left he said, “I’ll be round at nine, I’ll have a late breakfast here. Tell your dad. Goodnight, Gustav.”

1 Grike, a drainage channel cut into the verged so water can drain off the road. Also a gardening fork.
2 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 forces in northern England that are popular tourist destinations. Examples would be Aira Force and Force Jumb.
3 Twenty-eight second kerosene, a measure of viscosity used in the UK. It is based on the time taken for 50ml of kerosene to drip via an orifice of specified size under tightly specified conditions into a beaker below. Typically diesel is thirty-five second fuel.
4 A bottle, historically a bottle was a measure, and a bottle contained 1⅓ imperial pints, 26⅔ fluid ounces.
5 Yank, in the UK the term applies to all Americans and is applied equally indiscriminately to Canadians too.
6 Pear drops, a powerful smelling and tasting British boiled sweet whose main flavour is due to the esters isoamyl acetate and ethyl acetate. They are traditionally red and yellow, isoamyl acetate provides a banana like flavour and ethyl acetate a pear like flavour.
7 Neeps, Swedish turnips, swedes or rutabaga depending where you come from.
8 Tatties, potatoes.
9 Picasso, a variety of potato.
10 Oxy, oxy acetylene welding torch.
11 Owt anything
12 Nowt, nothing.
13 VAT, Value Added Tax. A UK tax of 20% on most goods levied at the point of sale. Intermediate users claim it back from His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and charge their customer the tax on their sale price. The idea is only the end user should be paying the tax.
14 A full plot is ten poles, 302½ square yards, 252½ square metres,

A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 38 Bearthwaite Invests Even More in Itself

Harriet’s brine fermented dill cucumbers and the various other vegetables that Alf had given her to try, on condition he had the first opportunity to taste them, had been well received when presented with suppers in the Green Dragon. So much so she needed to produce them on a larger scale. Lucy Wannup who owned the village grocery store with her husband Dave had been asked by women who were shopping if she selt them as their menfolk had been asking for them after having tasted them at the inn. She went to speak with Harriet with a view to finding out if it would be possible to produce them in sufficient quantity for them to have some to sell in the shop. Harriet telt her, “In China they produce them in huge glazed pottery containers, they must be five to ten gallons in capacity. The advantage of a big container is they can take whole vegetables like cucumbers. Not having to cut them means they remain crunchier. I wonder what fermented courgettes [zucchini] would be like? The fermenters have a ring of pottery round the top to fill with brine too, and an upside down bowl in the brine makes an air lock. I’ve seen them on Youtube. I suppose a plate with weights on it would serve to keep the vegetables submerged. It didn’t shew how they did that on the clips I watched. Steven Menzies that studio potter out Allonby way could easily make one to try. You want to give it a go, Auntie Lucy? We could try it now with bought in frame cucumbers and whatever we can lay our hands on locally this year and use ridge cucumbers from Uncle Alf and his mates next year. I fancy trying radishes and small turnips.” Harriet shrugged her shoulders and added, “I don’t know why, but a lot of what I’ve seen fermented in China was leaf greens of all sorts, but I fancy trying stuff with more substance than leaves, though sauerkraut is good.”

“Yes, we’d have to start somewhere and that seems as good as anything else. You may as well start with what you fancy doing. Try the courgettes too. I suggest we ask Celia if she could make the fermenters, after all she’s one of us and Steven isn’t. She’s one of Vince and Rosie’s grandkids and wants to make a living threwing pots. She’s making some big pots with no bottoms for forcing rhubarb, celery and the like for some of the blokes on the allotments using clay from the roadside where it used to slip onto the road in heavy rain. She says it’s not particularly good clay, but it’s good enough when she adds crushed brick to it. Some of the demolition men have allotment plots and when they crush old bricks for the farm tracks the fine material gets left on the concrete area where the crusher operates. In return for a few of her forcing pots they shovel a couple of tons [4500 pounds] of the fines onto a trailer for her with their tractor and deliver it to her studio for her. She sieves the fines using an old vibrating potato riddle that Alf modified for her to separate the size of stuff she wants which she says is called grog.(1) The clay, grog and a bit of water are all mixed by a machine called a muller, that again, Alf made from something else. The dust and bigger stuff she doesn’t want the demolition men collect, The big stuff goes onto the tracks and the fines they mix with compost for drainage that doesn’t just disappear with time. It’s all done by the ton easily by machine, so your fermenters shouldn’t be a problem for her to make at a reasonable price. If she makes the fermenters she would know exactly how big to make the plates and could glaze some weights for you too. She lives with Jude Levins who’s a grandson of Alice and Phil and her studio is in one of the outbuildings at the mill. Alice reckons she’s going to be a granny before Easter, but neither Celia nor Jude have mentioned it yet, so keep that to yourself. They just set up home together, maybe ten days ago, in one of the small two up two down terraced houses on Glebe Street where your dad used to live, back of the old allotments site. Jude’s a plumber, but his three brothers are all in the building trade too. The four of them gutted his place and completely modernised it before the couple moved in. Alice telt me the brothers are all of an age where they’re looking to settle down, and they’ve bought a house each and have started doing the same with them. However, back to your fermenters. You’ll be doing all the work, so I’ll pay for the first one. If it works we use any profit to pay for the second one. Any extra money required you pay. You okay with that?”

“Aye, that seems more than fair of you. How did you find out all that about Celia and Jude?”

Lucy chuckled and replied, “I spend most of my days, all day, working in the shop which is just another way of saying gossiping with my neighbours about my neighbours. I imagine there’s not much Alice, Rosie and I don’t know about what’s going on. Amongst us we probably talk to every woman in the village over a week, and what one of us knows we all know. It’s a major mechanism for knowing who’s not doing too well and may be in need of some help. Never mind, Harriet, give it time and you’ll become a middle aged gossip too, just like the rest of us.”

The pair laught and went about their respective businesses.

~o~O~o~

As usual the kerosene tanks in the village had all been filled ready for winter by a convoy of articulated [eighteen wheelers] tankers and Sasha had Murray deal with the single invoice at the pre negotiated bulk price which was at a considerable discount. Some years ago Sasha had discovered that the villagers had been buying their heating oil from several different suppliers. After a village meeting in the church all had agreed to allow him to negotiate a better deal from a single supplier. His strategy had been simple if brutal. Murray, who at the time had recently moved to Bearthwaite with his wife Madeleine, was a recent retired accountant who’d started to deal with the villagers’ collective financial matters wrote a letter to all the local suppliers and several others from further afield. He’d stated how much the entire village required in a typical year and that he was looking to source it all from a single supplier to deliver to various places all of which were on average closer to each other than a hundred metres, which after Covid had reared its head had included filling Sasha’s tankers if required.

The suppliers were invited to submit a price that they would guarantee for further deliveries within twelve months when the contract would be up for renegotiation with all suppliers. Perhaps not surprisingly a large tanker transport firm that bought their supplies from the largest refinery in the UK(2) said they would agree to supply at the same price that they sold to all their other major customers at, but the price could not be fixed, for the refinery’s costs were subject to severe fluctuations beyond their control and hence so were theirs. If the price went up to their other customers it would go up by the same amount to Bearthwaite. When Murray was relating their offer to Sasha he was telt to close the deal. Murray passed the appropriate shares of the cost on to the Bearthwaite residents though the poorer inhabitants were not aware that Sasha had instructed him they were not to pay the full amount and to save any embarrassment they were to be invoiced for the amount they had paid for at the correct price per litre.

By contrast the similar letters that Murray had sent to suppliers of solid fuel had resulted in the best deal from Geoff, a relatively small coal merchant who operated from a yard sixty miles as the crow flies to the east of Bearthwaite, call it eighty-five by road. He only ran six three axle rigid(3) waggons, but still had a large number of customers in the west of Cumbria where he used to be based. He already supplied many households in Bearthwaite and said he could offer a better price as a result of supplying them all, but an even better price if in return he could store some ready bagged coal in the old quarry where he currently had coal tipped that belonged to Bearthwaite. He explained that if, as often happened, he had orders for more fuel out west than he could transport on a single waggon, the ability to deliver what he could transport and then pick up the rest from Bearthwaite whilst he was not far away would save him a hundred and seventy miles worth of diesel and a second trip out west possibly only part loaded the following day. Murray advised Sasha to agree and the deal was struck. Thus all the villagers had full coal bunkers and Murray paid Geoff for Sasha and distributed the costs to the Bearthwaite households on the same basis as their oil costs.

Geoff bought his supplies from CPL, the largest supplier of smokeless fuel in Great Britain and the Bearthwaite supplies intended for the quarry fuel dump were delivered directly there by CPL articulated tipper waggons. The waggons drove into the quarry backed up to the pile tipped their loads, and were gone in a matter of minutes. Geoff was invoiced by CPL for the fuel and passed the price on to Murray at cost who dealt with it. Geoff came to an arrangement with Murray whereby some local men in need of work bagged up coal from the loose heap for him using a spare set of scales. Geoff paid the men for their work and Murray for the Bearthwaite owned coal, again at cost. It was a satisfactory arrangement to all parties. Sasha asked Alf to find a second hand hopper bag loader so the men could load the hopper with the tractor fitted with a front end shovel. The loader shut off automatically when a bag contained fifty Kilogrammes [110 pounds] and could fill a bag in seconds. There was not a huge amount of work available for the men many of who worked part time at a dozen or more local activities to make a living, but what there was was welcome.

The quarry, despite still being a working quarry in use providing local building stone, had been referred to as the old quarry since the new quarry had been established nearly two centuries ago. The new quarry site had been submerged when the reservoir had been constructed over a century ago. The Bobbin Mill had still been in operation when the reservoir had been constructed and much to the water authorities dismay they had been telt that the mill had a right to the water first having been there first. That had been a source of much acrimony all the way till the Bobbin Mill closed in the middle of the twentieth century for the mill had been lower down the valley and once the water reached it it was no longer available to fill the reservoir for it cost money to make water flow uphill. The old quarry had supplied the sandstone, locally pronounced sand stun, for Gustav’s brewery refurbishment and extension to enable the newer portions to match the older parts. It had also supplied the stone required for the library, school and Community Centre building that stood on the site of the old church hall. It was a large site, now owned by the Bearthwaite Property Developments Company, and was used for storing demolition clearance materials and all sorts of previously used metal that was seen as potentially useful material rather than as scrap.

Murray had been the only buyer of bottled propane gas in Bearthwaite for years, and he bought it by the artic load, mostly in 47 Kilogramme [103.4 pounds] bottles, from the producer, Calor Gas, at wholesale price. It too was delivered to the old quarry and Murray sold it on to the villagers for what he on behalf of the Bearthwaite Village Community Ownership Company had paid for it which was substantially less than what they could buy it for any where else.

Those who used wood as fuel had more than adequate supplies to see the winter out. The wood had been cut, stacked to dry and ultimately delivered by a couple of dozen village men and boys over the last few months. Much of the wood was demolition timber that was acquired by locals who worked as contractors in the demolition and site clearance business. They were paid for demolition and site clearance and the poorer quality hard core they crushed to maintain the road into Bearthwaite which was largely unmetalled, and any remaining was used for local farm track maintenance. Much of the better quality masonry was piled up for subsequent usage though some was crushed for immediate use on the road. The fines from the better crush was what Celia received. Metal was either reserved for potential use or weighed in as scrap and useful timbers were kept dry in local barns along with any cut firewood surplus to immediate requirements. However, a lot of firewood came from the hardwood trees the villagers had started to plant over forty years ago. More trees were planted every year, mostly on bits of land unsuitable for anything else. The villagers had begun to coppice the trees for fuel when the first planted were ten years old. Every year there was more wood available and some trees provided willow and hazel wands used by Gillian and a few others to produce baskets, sheep hurdles and other products. The small brash from difficult sites was chipped in situ and spread on the ground, but some that was from sites easier to access was chipped into trailers to be used as soil improver on local farms and the allotments. A small quantity was bundled to be used as kindling and of course fuel for the celebration bonfire parties held on the green where there was a large area set aside for bonfires.

A huge number of trees had been planted down the sides of the Bearthwaite access road all the way up to the base of the fells to stabilise the banks, for as one left the village on the right hand side the land rose steeply for four hundred feet of fractured clay and rock before levelling out as a marsh for a few hundred metres [¼ of a mile or so] till one reached the base of the Needle Fells. Years ago heavy rain would often wash thousands of tons of clay subsoil and rock onto the road rendering it impassable till the rain stopped and it was safe to deal with the problem. The left hand side of the road, though of more moderate a gradient, had if anything been worse. For twenty feet to the left of the road the ground was a bank barely a foot higher than the road which had drainage grikes cut through it at regular intervals for rain to drain off the road into Bearthwaite Beck which ran between the bank and the more moderate climb of a couple of hundred feet that lay at the base of the much steeper side of Flat Top Fell.

As one travelled away from Bearthwaite the road dropped slowly but constantly in elevation till half a mile from where it met the main road it climbed maybe sixty feet or so over The Rise. However, as the road dropped the land and beck to the side remained at more or less the same elevation. Eventually the beck and bank disappeared and for a mile and a half the road was significantly lower than where the beck ultimately delivered water to with nowhere else to go to other than onto the road or to seep agonisingly slowly into the ground at the base of The Rise that trapped the water in the valley. Although light rain sank into the ground surrounding the beck before reaching that point, heavy rain forced by the pressure of the full beck behind and uphill of it ran back onto the road and flooded it for miles. Under really heavy weather conditions the water at its highest could be eight feet above the road at that point. Too, the rushing flood waters in the beck washed away the level ground at the roadside and undermined it too which historically had led to total collapse of the road every few years. In years gone past the sub soil and rock slides from the Needle Fells side of the road had been used to replace the ground washed out on the Flat Top Fell side of the road.

The cost of a modern engineered solution had been out of the question, so the villagers had resorted to the ages old soft engineering methods. Pointed willow stakes known as spiles were driven into the banks which were lined with woven willow gabions filled with rocks and clay planted with willow, alder and whatever else would survive the water. Eventually the tree roots had stabilised the ground on both sides of the beck enabling grasses and scrub to grow, further stabilising the ground. The beck itself was rendered much more resistant to erosion by the roots of the invasive phragmites reeds they’d planted along its entire length. That the reeds had to be controlled by a JCB with a ditching bucket on its back actor every few years was considered to be far less onerous than major road repairs often every other year. The road had remained more or less intact ever since, though a little of the fractured clay still found it’s way onto the road. Till recently it had been spread where ever it had been least inconvenient. Now it was delivered to Celia’s pottery at the mill.

Mostly the road was a single track with passing places and none of it was metalled though there were stretches that had been covered with road planings by the county highways workers when they had nowhere else to use the material. Gerry, a retired Bearthwaite man had worked for the highways and long ago he’d negotiated the agreement as part of a bigger deal where the highways gritted the Bearthwaite Lonning in winter for no charge in return for being able to store road salt on Bearthwaite land at the point where the lonning joined the public highway. Legally Bearthwaite Lonning was an unadopted road that the county did not maintain and it was not a public right of way. A court case centuries ago ago, based on the even then ancient principle of ‘Custom and Usage’, had deemed it to be a private road on land that was owned by the land owner who had owned the entire Bearthwaite valley as one of his lesser holdings. The land was deemed to reach to the feet of the fells on either side of the road.

The site that contained Flat Top Fell, to the north of the Bearthwaite valley, was owned by Crown Estates who historically had rented out the abysmally poor grazing to local sheep farmers for next to nothing, for they wouldn’t pay any more. The Peabodys had never been prepared to pay for grazing on what Auld Alan had always said his ancestors had maintained for centuries was common land stolen by the crown as a result of the enclosures act of seventeen seventy-three. Nothing had been paid for grazing the site since bracken had taken over the site during world war two [1939] because the men who’d looked after it had been sent to war. The original fencing had rotted and rusted away decades before, but there was so little grass to be found there that it was rare to see any sheep there, despite the free access due to no fencing. The site that contained Needle Fells that lay to the south side of the Bearthwaite valley was in private ownership and maintained as a well fenced grouse shooting moor. Deer and coneys abounded there amongst the rampant bracken, but there were no young trees and not much grass for sheep though it was a huge site.

None of the authorities could insist on accessing the road nor Bearthwaite village without having to justify applying for a magistrate’s bench warrant. With the breaking up and sale of the least profitable parts of the estate to pay death duties in nineteen eighty-four, Bearthwaite village had passed from the ownership of the Challercombe family into the ownership of its residents and the road was a pan handle the maintenance of which the county had insisted to be the responsibility of the village as a whole. That had been accepted and it had legally transferred ownership of the pan handle to the property owners of Bearthwaite who had recently signed it over into the ownership of the Bearthwaite Village Community Ownership Company which widened its ownership to every adult over the age of eighteen who lived at Bearthwaite whether they owned property or not. That had been seen as a clever move by Bearthwaite residents, for it meant locals would always be the majority shareholders and thus always maintain control of the access to their homes. The road was maintained by the Bearthwaite residents as a superior quality farm track which was why most of the Bearthwaite vehicles were high ground clearance four by fours.

The usual deal that the Bearthwaite demolition and site clearance team worked with was that site clearance meant just that, total site clearance, which although it negotiated the best deal financially for them wasn’t without its problems. The glass that came from demolition sites, mostly broken window glass, had been a cause for concern for years. The men had to work to feed their families, so to meet their end of the deal had to clear the broken glass, and the quarry had been the only place to dump it at a price they could afford to pay, i.e. nil, and all else was dumped there as well. The men had been relieved when the Bearthwaite Property Developments Company had purchased the old quarry with just their kind of usage in mind, for their work was seen by all as a community endeavour, for a lot of the materials that had ended up in the quarry had been of great use to the village, and as all had agreed ‘The price was right,’ but they had been using the quarry without permission for years and had expected that one day that would catch up with them.

A good thing from the residents point of view was it gave them a place to deposit used jars and bottles, which before to comply with the law would have had to have been taken to a civic amenity site, [dump] nearly forty miles away. That had never happened and they had been dumped with the broken window glass. For decades glass had always been the only material the village had not recycled, for even plastics had been mixed with wood and used as a high energy content solid fuel. All the glass had been piled up out of the way in a heap that had been getting bigger every year. It was admixed with a considerable amount of old mortar and masonry fines and considered not sensible to sort through it. What little wood that had been in it had been constantly picked out for solid fuel by teenagers who wanted the money they could earn by doing that, but the problem had remained till Alf had suggested to crush it for sand. Someone had asked, “But what about all the masonry in it?”

Alf had replied, “What about it? Concrete, insulation block, brick and old compo(4) will all crush for sand too in a masonry crusher. Put the stuff through a masonry crusher first, then a one inch vibrating [25mm] screen to tek all the masonry out. Then use a quarter inch or five mil screen. Most of what won’t drop out of that put through a glass crusher. It doesn’t make sense to crush that sort of stuff just to make sand, but if it gets rid of the glass and turns it into something useful it makes perfect sense. Use the lot as mixed aggregate in low grade concrete, for farm yards, barn floors and the like. Just make sure any odd bits of glass that failed to be crushed properly get pushed down below the surface and it’ll be fine. It’d work just fine used in building foundations if it were mixed with some clean sand and a bit of decent crushed concrete aggregate if you throw a bit of reinforcing steel in it, use up some of the scrap steel in that pile over there. Glass crushers aren’t that expensive even new. You can get PTO(5) driven ones and hook ’em up to the arse end of a big tractor for power or I’ll look out for a big high power low speed diesel engine to power it. Your pile isn’t that big. A couple of lads with a tractor fitted with a front end shovel would clear it in a week or two, a month at most. Problem solved. As and when I can I’ll get aholt on a cone crusher which although they’re damned dear would do the entire operation in one pass and tek care of owt we ever needed crushed in the future, window glass and pickle jars too.”

For a couple of years some of the local building trades men had been discussing building a large building in the quarry from the materials there to avoid having to take timber worth keeping and firewood elsewhere to keep it dry. Machinery could be parked under it out of the rain and the demolition crew could process demolition material, especially firewood, out of the rain too. It had been decided that as soon as they had what they needed building would commence. It had been seen as a community endeavour that hundreds of men and their sons volunteered to assist in. The footings had already been dug by Tony and his machine and the foundations laid by Freddy and the gang that had worked with him on Gustav’s brewery. The footings had used up what was left of the sand from the glass pile and a lot of steel that they had originally intended to take to Moss Bay Metals in Workington to weigh in as scrap. Bill had said, “It’s got to be worth a hell of a lot more to us as rebar(6) than as scrap, Lads, and think on we’ll be working in the dry soon which has got to be worth our share of a bit of scrap money.”

The articulated fifth wheel fuel tanker trailers Sasha had bought to tide the village over possible problems during the Covid lockdown were full and had been inspected and serviced by Alf and were housed in the now extended boat shed on the green. Thus kerosene, diesel and petrol supplies were available if needed. The old quarry had several hundred 47 Kilo propane cylinders stored there and several thousand tons of Bearthwaite owned coal tipped there ready for emergency use, as well as Geoff’s bagged up reserves, and spare barns all over the valley were stocked with dry wood. It was now a normal annual event. All that was required was a couple of demolition jobs taking down goodly sized buildings to provide the rest of the materials for the new quarry building.

~o~O~o~

Saturday evening had rolled around again. The rain had stopped and the flooding on the road to Bearthwaite had receded to less than a foot deep, so it was passable with care, but the weather had turned cold with a chilling wind. The bitter north easterly caused it to feel much colder than the thermometer indicated. There had been a frost every night for a week and the last few nights had seen the temperatures drop to minus five Celsius [22℉] with the ground remaining frozen during the day.

The central heating in the best room at the Green Dragon kept it delightfully warm and the fires in the taproom had two piles of sleepy dogs in front of them. There was barely room on the fenders for another nose. As Pete was pulling pints he asked, “Seeing as Auld Alan ain’t here, as our resident horticultural and weather expert how long is this cold spell going to last, Alf?”

“Unfortunately the USB port on my crystal ball is well and truly shafted at the moment, Pete. I’m awaiting delivery of another, but it’s coming from China, so I don’t expect it to arrive any time soon. According to the Meteorological Office as quoted on the BBC(7) ten day forecast this was never supposed to happen. They said it would continue to piss it down and remain warm, and given all the signs I agreed with them. We were both wrong. They’re now predicting another fortnight of cold, and I’d agree but for this wind. I reckon it could blow it all away in a few days, four or five. However, the truth is your guess is as good as mine.”

~Evangelism~

“How you going on with your new hedge, Græme?”

“Well the trees have grown fine, Sasha, and I planted them between two rows of sheep netting with chicken wire at the bottom to keep them safe from coneys as well as deer. I was originally planning on removing the outer fence, but thanks to Allerdale and my neighbours who’ve never stopped complaining about something they know I have a Landscape and Countryside Improvement grant for, so it’s beyond their control, I’ve decided to leave it where it is. I discussed what to include in the hedge with Natural England, and I went massively over what they even considered possible thanks to help from interested neighbours and their relatives. I’ve included over fifty species native to Cumbria, with a dozen and a half providing the birds with food. Golden, red and black bullace, bird and Cornelian cherries, wild crab apples and pears, haw, sloe, holly, hazel, chestnut, almond and walnut and even more bush, climbing or scrub berrying species like ivy, honeysuckle, guelder rose, rose briars, and brambles. Most of the saplings came free from locals who were interested to help and one of my neighbours gave me three young trees with established mistletoe on them. She insisted on helping us plant the hedge. What more can a man do? My hedge is three-quarters of a mile long and the only new hedge for miles and certainly the only one to get the wildlife grant that I did. I’ve decided I’m going to remove the inner fence, not the outer, so as to be able to maintain it. Childish I know, but that’s how I feel about it. I don’t bother anyone and I’d like the same in return.”

“Your neighbours are all retired are they?”

“Aye. Mostly why?”

“That’s all they’ve got to do all day, Lad: mind some other bugger’s business, in this case yours. I’d ring up the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Mormons and a few other groups of religious nutters asking for a visit to discuss bible matters on their behalfs. After all you are concerned about their immortal souls aren’t you? And even if the law sussed you out there’s fuck all they can do about it other than try to give you a lecture which you don’t have to listen to. Make the bastards frightened to leave the house in case they get waylaid by some rabid lunatic with a serious dose of religion they won’t be able to shake off easily who desperately wants to know if they have taken the lord Jesus Christ as their personal saviour. Give them something else to think and worry about other than your hedge. Tell you, Lad, it works every time. I use the technique on cold callers trying to sell me something by pretending to be an evangelist. Before they get into their selling spiel I have ’em desperate to get the fuck out of my company.” At that there were gales of laughter, but it wasn’t a complete surprise, for. Sasha was known for creative solutions to unusual problems.

~o~O~o~

Liam who was a retired mathematics teacher said, “I’ll start us off, Sasha. I’ll take as my topic education and it’s value. Now I’ve always believed that a little education is without doubt a dangerous thing and even if not dangerous it can definitely prove to be embarrassing. I’ll give you some examples, the first one from someone who should have known better. The tale goes that a man received a letter concerning the increase in the fees at the extremely expensive private school his son attended. The letter asked if he would be paying by monthly direct debit or would he prefer to pay per anum. His reply was that he would prefer to pay through the nose as usual.”

“You’ll have to explain that one to me, Liam.”

“It hinges on the pronunciation and spelling of the words annum and anum, Alf. Per annum with a double en in the middle and a hard short initial a means yearly. Per anum with a single en and a soft and long a is derived from the word anus and so he was being asked if he wanted to pay via his arse. His reply was witty, since paying through the nose implied he thought he was already being charged an extortionate amount. The point being the letter was from an expensive educational institution that should as I said have known better. A second example is provided by a conversation between two middle aged divorced women who were members of a widowed, divorced and separated club that held its weekly meetings in a local pub. The first asked, ‘I saw that bloke at the bar chatting you up last night, Edith. Anything come of it?’ Her friend replied, ‘There were no sparks flying, Jackie. He asked me out, but I politely reclined.’ You okay with that, Alf?”

“Yeah. I get that because it’s more at my level.”

“My last example is a conversation I overheard in a supermarket queue between two women when a word completely new to me was used. They were talking about those steak pies you can buy in a tin that Fray Bentos and others make. The first woman asked, ‘Was that pie any good, Amy, or haven’t you tried it yet?’ The reply was, ‘Not bad, Betty. Handy to have one in, but a bit dear though for something so pastriffey.’ It took me a while to work out that pastriffey was an adjective meaning something with a lot of pastry in it, on it or what ever. I must be a bit thick because Betty clearly understood at once. Like I have said before if you don’t know how to spell a word exactly and what it means it’s best not to use it, and getting too creative with language can shew you up as a bit of an illiterate in the eyes of those who are literate, and it’s unlikely you’d ever get to know that’s what they think about you.”

~o~O~o~

“What’s for supper tonight, Pete?”

“I’m not sure, Doug. I heard talk of it being battered cod, chips and peas before it turned cold, but I suspect it’ll be something warming instead now. I’ll ask one of the womenfolk.” Pete who was behind the bar walked through to the lounge and on his return said, “I was right. They’re leaving the cod for warmer weather. Now it’s steamed steak and kidney pudding with mashed potatoes, mashed carrots and gravy followed by steamed treacle pudding and white sauce. Gladys said if that doesn’t warm you up nowt(8) will. Seemingly they were going to use Holland’s puddings, but the delivery was seriously short, so Aggie and Harriet set to and made a few hundred starting with the pastry at six this morning. They’ve decided since the deliveries are becoming unreliable, rather than having to deal with a last minute crisis on a Saturday morning again they’re going to sack the distributor and make all they need themselves earlier in the week when they can take their time over it. Aggie added that since they were on it they were making a load to freeze ready for next time too. Gladys is going to take on another school leaver in the kitchen in order to virtually eliminate buying stuff like that in from outside. She reckons even it it cost us money it’s the sensible thing to do. It keeps money local and it’s far more reliable and flexible.”

Vincent remarked, “So that’s why they wanted more suet and the steak and kidney as a rush job at eight this morning. Harriet rang me at home before I left for the shop. I had to include ox hearts(9) and lambs, and pigs kidneys as well as the usual beast(10) kidneys to make the order up because I didn’t have enough to make up the weight with just beast trimmings and kidneys which is what I usually provide her with. I could hear that lass of yours shrugging on the phone as she telt me, ‘Just make sure there is the right weight, Uncle Vincent, and we’ll make sure it tastes good,’ Pete. She’s right about that distributor, typical bloody white van man,(11) inconsiderate as they come. He used to buy sausage, pies, haggis and the like off me, but he started not to turn up to collect them, and I’d have them left on my hands. I sacked him a twelvemonth since maybe longer. I’ll have my missus have a chat with yours and Christine. Maybe they can work out a better way to make pies and puddings that suits all of us better. Your kitchen is not ideal for wholesale baking. We’ve got lasses that need the work that we can’t employ full time and Christine is seriously short staffed from time to time. Maybe if the lasses made the pies and puddings in Christine’s kitchens and froze any surplus, but did whatever else Christine needed staff for when appropriate it would work out better for us all. I’m sure the lasses could mek it work, and it probably best just to mention the idea to them and then leave it up to them.

“Whatever. Harriet’s a canny(12) one isn’t she? She telt me a while back that no matter how many turkeys I bought off Alan Peabody she’d take what ever was left after Christmas to make Stroganoff with. There’re always some left over in the new year, and even if I butch(13) ’em they’re difficult to sell because folk have had a bit of a sickner of turkey by then. I usually end up mincing a lot of the breast meat along with the trimmings for the lasses as work behind the shop to make pies with which barely covers my costs, and scraping the leg meat off the spurs(14) in the drumsticks before mincing it is a thankless task given I’ll make nowt on the deal to pay the lasses with. She telt me to butch the breast meat and any other easy boneless meat off the bones and send it to her. She said any surplus she’d either freeze or send Christine for canning. She suggested I left as much on the bones as I considered sensible for the lasses to make the broth and soup with. When I asked her, ‘What about the spurs, Harriet?’ She said, ‘Put all the drumsticks in the soup and cook the spurs out, Uncle Vincent, cos it’ll save a lot of time, and I wouldn’t want the work taking the spurs out any more than you’re lasses do.’

“Sure I’ll lose a bit of money on that, but it’ll make my life a whole lot easier. The lasses will be able to have the spurs out of the legs after the boiling with no bother. They’ll just glide out, and that’ll recover more than any money I’ve lost. We’ve continued making broths and soups to give away to those in need, so throwing the drumsticks in the soup pan will just mean we make a bit more and there’ll be more meat in it than usual. Phil and the allotment lads are still providing whatever else the lasses in the back need free too. That was one of the better ideas to come out of these Saturday night bull sessions. I’ll box and freeze the meat in suitable quantities for Harriet to take with a decent discount for solving my annual problem for me. The Peabodys are happy, I’m happy, Harriet’s happy and the folk that need the soup will be happy too. Doubtless we’ll all be happy when stroganoff is on the supper menu. We need more of this kind of joined up, forward thinking that benefits us all.”

Alf said, “That’s why a few of the lads started growing mushrooms of several different types. Dave asked if it were possible and some of them thought it had two chances, and were prepared to give it a go. It turned out to be easy enough, and it meant less stuff bought in during Covid. Dave and Lucy still take everything they can grow. It’s a decent cash crop too. That was when some of the kids started growing bean sprouts of a few different types for Lucy in empty coffee jars which gives them a fair amount of pocket money, though at the moment the kids are scouring the valley for sweet chestnuts, hazel nuts, almonds for Aggie to cook and salt for the bar, and acorns for Clarence and his staff to brew acorn ale with too. I’ll find out how much mushroom Harriet needs for the stroganoff and make sure she gets given enough. The lads that grow them are all in here now, so I doubt that will be an issue as they’re all fond of a decent supper.” Folk looked round to see various men nodding in agreement.

Pete continued, “It seemed whilst they were making the suet pastry for the steak and kidney they decided to make more and change the pudding from apple crumble and custard to steamed bonfire toffee treacle pudding with white sauce. Gladys sent them Annie, one of the mature chambermaids, to help out, so Aggie could go home at lunchtime. Gladys knew if Harriet hadn’t any help, or even if she had one of the younger lasses helping her, Aggie would have insisted on staying, but she’s getting on and though none wanted to take her dignity away from her we’d rather she doesn’t push herself more than is sensible. The new arrangements are she works five mornings a week, six till twelve, because she prefers that, but she goes home at lunch time. The staff can’t prevent her coming in at five, but they can make sure she goes home at twelve. It sounds cruel maybe, but we all need Aggie far more to be passing her skills and knowledge on than we do to be having her working herself in to an early grave. The problem is getting her to see that rather than thinking we’re just feeling sorry for her.”

Frank, a retired shepherd, who was Aggie’s husband said, “Thank Gladys for me, Pete. My old girl’s like a bloody old plough horse. She’s willing enough, but not got enough sense to know when to stop so as not to drop between the shafts. I keep telling her she has nothing to prove any more and needs to rest up in the afternoons to properly enjoy the craic(15) and the drink of a nighttime on Saturdays. She only goes along with me because she likes a glass, but she’ll never admit that I’m right.”

~o~O~o~

“What you up to these days, Alf? Still sorting out the bits for the Levens lads doing up the rest of the houses on Glebe Street?”

Alf replied, “Aye, but it’s not just Glebe Street they’re doing now, but all four of the streets behind the old allotments. Allotments Row, Demesne Lane and Pastures View are up for total renovation too, originally some hundred and eighty odd houses in all out of the two hundred and odd. Over the last couple of years, the Bearthwaite Property Developments Company managed to buy all the ones that weren’t already in private hands and occupied, and Elle has contracted the Levens brothers who own four of the houses to modernise the rest too. She’s had words with all the owner occupiers and has offered to completely modernise their houses too at cost. They all accepted her offer because none of those houses are in good condition and they need time and money spending on them, so all two hundred and thirty-two being houses are going to be sorted. There are enough decent houses round the village for them to live in whilst their houses are sorted out, and the lads are happier that they can get on with the houses an entire street at a time. They’re starting with Allotments Row at the front and moving backwards, so then it’ll be Glebe Street, Demesne Lane and finally Pastures View at the back. Though there are some ideas being bandied about concerning extensions.

“They’ve got a good few local mates in the trade working with them, and the Jarvis girls have contracted with Murray to do the painting and decorating. Mark and Mason are doing the roofing, so it shouldn’t take too long to have the structurally better houses ready for living in. The houses farthest from the village at the west end backing up to the fells are in the worst condition, especially the roofs because that’s where the prevailing winds hit. We’ve a few thousand slates in the quarry but Mason telt me they’ll need more, so I’m looking, though the demolition lads reckon they’ll have a goodly load within a couple of months. Either way, Murray said to just get aholt on ’em all and we’ll store ’em against future needs. There’s a bloke at the southern end of the county who’s mekin reproduction slates by grinding up brock slates and slate quarry waste and mixing the powder up with a bit of granulated recycled plastic of some kind. The stuff is formed into slates complete with the edges that slates have and heated to melt the plastic to hold the whole lot together. They’re tough too far less susceptible to damage when waked on and you can’t tell the difference from the ground. They’re cheaper than new slates, when you can get aholt on ’em, but dearer than second hand ones, again when and if they’re available to buy. Murry has ordered a hundred thousand of ’em and said if he’ll drop the price by a third delivery is okay over the next two years. The first waggon load arrive on Tuesday.

“The Levins lads insisted on completely shelling the houses. Hal said there was no way he and his brothers were going to do a half arsed job for others to talk about in years to come. Elle agreed and that was the end of that argument. Jack is doing all the internal joinery with a crew of six others and all the replacement timbers bigger than three by two are recycled timbers provided by the demolition crew or new stuff provided by Edward the forester who has a sawmill. Jack has bought a thirty foot pressure tank to treat them all, both demolition timbers and new timbers against rot and worm and says the saving using some recycled timbers will more than pay for it. The wiring is in terrible condition and Hal and his gang are just ripping it all out including all the old consumer units and the even older fuse boxes and he’s paying the demolition crew to salvage the copper on behalf of us all. Matt is overseeing all masonry repairs including the injection of the new damp proof course and subsequent plastering.

“However, Jude is taking out all the old plumbing as intact as he can. A lot of it is in surprisingly good condition. The old half inch internal diameter pipe and fittings are compatible with the new fifteen mil outer diameter pipe and fittings, but to use the three-quarter, inch and inch and a quarter pipe. Some of the pipe can be swaged out to fit modern fittings or even to join onto modern pipe. I’ve a set of swages and they are easy enough to make by the dozen. Anything not to clever like end to end sliding fit imperial to metric pipe joins it’ll be best to silver solder. I’ll have to supply Jude with some end feed conversion pieces which I’ve hundreds of on the shelf. The three-quarter fittings I’ll bore out to twenty-two mil. The inch I’ll probably bore out to twenty-eight mil and I’ll make some internal reducers for the inch and a quarter fittings to take twenty-eight mil pipe too. It’s not difficult and it should save the Bearthwaite Property Developments Company a deal of cash that they don’t actually have. Probably it’ll be Bertie’s apprentices that will do the lathe work.

“The onerous bit is on Jude not me because it’ll all take him a bit longer than a straight forward job using new stuff. He’s dropping all the old plumbing, pipes, fittings, cylinders and back boilers too, off at my workshop for me to go over with a list of what he wants in total. As I said, a lot of the old stuff I can fettle, and there’s a lot I can make, but there’ll still be a good bit I’ll have to buy for him. Elle insisted they do it that way to keep the costs down, so that we have some housing stock that youngsters just setting out can afford to rent or buy. The boys are in agreement because it’s what they did with Jude’s house. He’s already moved in with Celia, and it’s what they planned on doing with the other three boys’ houses too. I got a really good deal for him on all the central heating radiators from a firm in Yorkshire. Completely modern steel radiators with modern style radiator tail pieces to connect to. Like a lot of stuff they’re currently stored in houses with watertight roofs. However, I’m getting sick of idiots selling stuff on Ebay and you’ve no idea exactly what it is the fools are selling. Jude needed some straight lock shield radiator valves with fifteen mil(16) compression connections on both ends incorporating a radiator drain.

“The idea was the valves would fit vertically into the pipe work below the radiators using a fifteen mil tee to connect to the radiator tailpieces which have a fifteen mil spigot end. I couldn’t even track down a straight lock shield valve with a drain, and I had a lot of problems tracking down straight valves with no drain but fifteen mil compression fittings on both ends. Now most lock shield valves are right angled and have a vertical compression fitting at one end to take fifteen mil pipe and a male threaded horizontal fitting at the other end to fit a captive female half inch BSP nut on a radiator tail piece. Problem is there are two common styles of radiator tail piece both of which have a male half inch British Standard Pipe thread at one end which screws into a UK domestic radiator. The older style has the captive female half inch BSP nut at the other end to fit the male thread on the valve, but the more recent type of rad tail terminates in a fifteen mil spigot to connect to the valve which has a fifteen mil female compression fitting to suit which was what I needed.

“Trouble is most valves selt have useless pictures or generic pictures of something similar and you can’t tell which type you are buying. It’s made more difficult because valves are selt with rad tails and the pictures invariably shew the two connected, and you can’t work out the nature of the connection from the picture. I spent hours on the internet before I found straight valves that shewed the tails separate. God alone knows what it cost me in time to buy the valves at four ninety-nine apiece. Why are folk so stupid? When I sell owt it’s crystal clear what I’m selling, and the result is I always sell stuff within forty-eight hours. When I buy stuff that isn’t what I thought it was I give crap feedback and then folk get upset. Since I’m standing the financial loss I consider it reasonable they stand the shit I give them. Idiots. What really winds me up is the time it costs me. A week to take delivery of the wrong gear then back to searching the bloody internet again. If you aren’t fit to be in business you deserve to be put out of business. Wankers.”

“Calm down, Alf. Have a pint and a glass of chemic too. Your blood pressure clearly needs both. Matter of interest what about the radiator drains?”

“Thanks, Pete. A good idea. As to the drains, like I said I couldn’t find a straight valve with a drain incorporated. Angled valves yes, straight no. I found some A type drains with a fifteen mil spigot on the end that fit into a standard fifteen mil equal tee. It’s not the perfect solution because it looks clumsy and amateurish, but at one ninety-nine apiece for the drains and one sixteen apiece for the tees that’ll have to do. I could make what Jude needed, but I can’t justify the time and hence cost involved.”

Alf took a deep pull on his pint which nearly emptied it and Harriet who was behind the bar said, “There’s another pint here for you, Uncle Alf. I’ll pull as many as required, Gentlemen.”

After emptying his glass and his poteen too, Alf said, “Thanks, Harriet Pet,” before continuing with his fresh pint and his grievances concerning the plumbing industry which due to his arrangement with the Levens brothers he was up to his ears in. “In a similar vein, another thing that used to wind me up is the general lack of availability of plumbing fittings. Loads of less commonly used fittings that used to be easy to get aholt on(17) at any plumbers’ merchant are now not available, not even from China nor India. Compression crosses and corner fittings are not available in any size never mind reducer sizes, and you can just forget about conversion sizes involving metric and imperial. Inline drains, same again, but at least a drain with a spigot in a tee does the job. Talking about drains, why does anybody bother to make type B drains? They leak around the spindle as soon as you back the seal off the seat to operate them and type A drains with a gland on the spindle don’t. It only costs a few pence to machine a groove in the spindle to fit an O ring, so why bother making owt(18) else?

“How come it doesn’t wind you up any more, Alf?”

“Because I’m making money out of it, Vincent. If a compression fitting I want a few of is not available I cast it in brass and machine what needs doing. If I want a load of them I have Daniel cast ’em up for me. Olives [US ferrules] and nuts are standard and cheap if you buy in bulk, but if I have to I can make them too. Mind I have boxes of ’em from knackered fittings on the shelf. End feed soldered fittings are even easier to make from braised up tube. If I want a female end I sweat it up with a torch and use a swage on it. You can do it on unheated pipe, but unheated pipe is half hard and harder work to swage and there’s a danger of splitting it. If you heat the pipe gey hot and leave it to cool slowly on its own it becomes softer and stays that way, so it’s more ductile and easier to swage without the risk of splitting it. I’ve got patterns to cast brass swept tees, whys [Ys], corners, crosses, five ways, six ways and loads more besides, including some multi part patterns with the ability to provide fittings at any given angles. If it’s to go somewhere it won’t be seen it’s often easier to just drill out a piece of brass. As far as I’m aware I’m the only one selling stuff like that and as a result the price I can get for them on Ebay means I can afford to sell them locally to folk like Jude for what I consider to be a half way reasonable price.

“I also sell conversion fittings from not just old imperial sizes to modern metric sizes, but any given size to any other given size, it’s only a question of what size you bore ’em out to for compression fittings and swage tube out to for end feeds, and like as I said swages are a piece of cake to make on a lathe. I’ll be doing a lot of that on the old stuff that Jude has left at my place, so that it’s all compatible with modern pipe and fittings. I want all the tricky workshop stuff gone at my spot so that Jude and his lads are only involved in plumbing in order to keep the costs down. I’ll need to make sure that all the pipe that is reused hasn’t worn thin with use. Really old pipe which all has a greater wall thickness than modern stuff should be okay, but I’ve a gadget that can measure wall thickness from the outside. It’s usually only a problem where the water had to change direction suddenly like at bends in the pipe or at fittings like elbows and tees. Slow bends, slow elbows and swept tees and whys are a lot less of a problem than tighter bends and the tighter fittings that are all you can buy these days.

“I used to produce the more common stuff in batches of a hundred and box ’em up on the shelf ready to pack in a jiffy bag and ship, but I have to batch ’em up by the thousand these days. Anything really oddball I can make, usually by butchering and braising standard fittings I’ve had in my junk pile for decades. A couple of years ago a bloke from Kent whose sister married a bloke from the east coast had heard about me somehow. He rang me up to see if he could have a couple of sixty degree twenty-two mil end feed crosses made with two females on one long side and two males on the other. God alone knows what he wanted them for. I didn’t ask because I didn’t want the job, so off the top of my head I said a ton apiece, [£100, $125]. To my surprise, he didn’t blink at the price and asked, ‘How soon can I have them if I transfer the money now?’ Seemingly he put the word out, and I’ve been making a tidy bit of money since then from making custom fittings and sending them all over the country. Crazy thing is I’m starting to receive orders from the continent too. I refuse to believe I’m the only bloke in Europe capable of making a living out of producing stuff like this. You’d think there’d be capable lads in some parts struggling to get by who’d be every bit as able as I am with a workshop wouldn’t you? Most of the work is being done by Bertie’s apprentices ’cos I ain’t got the time these days.

“It’s crazy, but apparently it’s difficult to get replacement rubber seals for plumbing drain fittings, and what there are are stupid money for a pair, like a tenner [$13] a pair stupid. As a result I’ve a permanent posting selling seals of any size on Ebay. All they are are circular flat pieces of rubber with a small hole in the middle, and most of them are well less than twenty-five mil [an inch] in diameter. I used to make them from old inner tubes out of tractor tires, but these days I use nitrile rubber sheet which is far more resistant to thermal degradation. I punch them out with a piece of metal tube filed on the outside to a sharp edge and sell ’em in packs of ten for a fiver [$6.50] with free postage. I stick ’em in a zip lock bag in a standard letter envelope and they go with a second class stamp, cost 68pence. [85 cents US] Metal tubes of every size are easily available, mostly gey(19) cheaply from the scrapyards, despite the price of scrap going up and down like a whore’s drawers. To make anything odd sized you take a smaller tube heat it and swage it to what you want and then sharpen it, and a multi size leather punch puts the appropriate sized mounting hole in the middle easy enough. Tell you, Lads, a man who can use a workshop with a lathe and a milling machine can always make a decent living from outside idiots who can’t wire a plug.”

That was the brutal reality that had made Alf a wealthy man. The same Alf who had been an educational reject all his early life when he’d been at school. He may not have been clever in any conventional sense, but he’d been aware of that brutal reality and its implications for himself long before he’d reached double figures in age. He’d always been clever with his hands and had no problems learning anything that was relevant to his manual skills. He’d mastered trigonometry long before his contemporaries because it was necessary to be able to use his dad’s lathes and milling machines to make complex parts. The mathematical complexities of differential indexing(20) had been transparent to him by the age of twelve, and it was how he’d created a one hundred and twenty-seven hole dividing plate(21) to create the one hundred and twenty-seven toothed gear necessary to enable the cutting of accurate metric threads on his dad’s imperial lathe.(22) A diving plate with a hundred and twenty-seven holes on it was not available and so it had to be made. His memory concerning matters horticultural and technical was vast simply because they were what he was good at and enjoyed doing. He was a little sensitive concerning what he perceived as his stupidity, but his friends regarded him as a mechanical genius whose mind worked very differently from theirs. Even Bertie, his grandson who had a first class honours degree in mechanical engineering, a masters degree in electrical engineering and a doctorate in metallurgy who worked with him regarded him thus too.

Ellen would never admit it, but it was his incredible manual skills coupled with his amazing mental abilities, though at the time none other than she recognised the latter, that had made him so desirable as a boy and later as a man to Ellen that she’d been prepared to ignore possible family disapproval by marrying Alf who was her first cousin. She was three years older than Alf and had become interested in him at the age of nine when she was beginning to blossom. She was astute enough to realise then that six year old Alf had been interested in her and particularly in her blossoming. From then on he’d been a marked man, and at sixteen she’d seduced the underage Alf to stake her claim to him because at nearly seven feet tall, built like a truck, yet kind, considerate and gentle, he’d never been a fighter, and, despite being nowhere near school leaving age earning good money, a lot of other girls were interested in him. That he only had eyes for her she was aware of, but she knew a baby would seal the deal, for even at thirteen Alf was a responsible male who would never walk away from a lass who carried his child. Sylvia was born before she was seventeen and they were married on Alf’s sixteenth birthday. In the end none had cared that they were cousins.

Flo, Alf’s mother, had always worried a little about his future because the school said he was really slow and would never amount to nor achieve anything, so she was happy that Ellen had taken up with her son, for she believed Ellen would look after him in a way she no longer could. It had been a great surprise to her that despite what the school had telt her Alf had never had any problems with literacy and his mental arithmetic had been years in advance of his age. Jim, Alf’s dad, had never worried about him because he was convinced Alf would continue make a good living with his hands. Alf worked with his Dad who realised his son was a machinist of a calibre he couldn’t even aspire to be, and one day his workshop and all he owned would become Alf’s. In his eyes his son was assured a future few could look forward to. His other children were cleverer in the accepted sense and had made their far more conventional ways in the world, but Alf was the son closest to his heart and he had never had any concerns.

Ellen’s parents were of a similar mind set concerning Alf to that of their wayward daughter. Alf was respectful and looked after her, he was a hard worker and from the age of thirteen he had been happy for her to handle their joint finances with a view to saving for a place of their own to live, and he clearly made Ellen happy. Their shared grandparents, Ellen’s mum and Alf’s dad were siblings, were of the opinion that the pair knew what they were doing, they were sober, responsible, good parents and sensible enough to ask for help when they needed it, so what was there to worry about? Ellen’s view of her future married to Alf had been correct. In the early days of their relationship they’d had very little money, but they had always had some because Alf considered working for money to be of greater significance than going to school where he achieved nothing. He was a poor attender and the school weren’t over bothered by that any more than he was. That he was considered to be a conscientious and thorough hard worker meant he was never short of work. Sex for security and protection for comfort had always been the unspoken currency underpinning marriage for Bearthwaite folk, an agreement that went back prior to the dawning of humanity, and Ellen was only too aware of the implications of that. It was a reasonable and enjoyable arrangement to her thinking, and there was no way in her mind she would ever become less than a woman by defaulting on her side of the bargain, and Alf she knew was too proud of being a man to default on his.

Ellen had earnt money as a knitter and seamstress long before she went to secondary school aged eleven and eventually it was what she did for a living as well as providing her family with clothes. It was later in her life that she took up spinning and weaving which had expanded her earning abilities. Her confidence that Alf would make sure her children would never go short of anything that mattered had not been misplaced. In her own way she was every bit as clever as her man. An earthy woman who took a great deal of enjoyment from her bed she was regarded as an exceptionally good wife and mother and eventually a tolerant and remarkably good grandmother. It had saddened her that most of her children had been successful in the way outsiders would see it and had moved away to find spouses away from Bearthwaite. Her daughter Cecilia had married Vale a local man which had made her happy. Tragically Cilly, as Cecilia was known, had died young, Vale had retreated into himself and Ellen had reared Bertie their five year old son. When Bertie had moved back to Bearthwaite to work with Alf after obtaining his PhD she’d been happy, despite not always seeing eye to eye with Eloise his wife regards the way she reared her children. When Eloise had died leaving Bertie with the twins she’d been felt torn, but his second relationship with Emily had made her very happy. A lot of folk had always thought her relationship with Alf to be an odd one, but neither were bothered because they’d made it work and it suited themselves and their children.

~o~O~o~

“You seen these before, Alf?” The speaker was Jack one of Jude Levins’ brothers who was a joiner and doing the woodwork and UPVC window fitting on the houses the brothers were refurbishing. As he spoke he passed a piece of plastic over to Alf. It was maybe eighty millimetres long, twenty five wide and four or five thick. The black piece of plastic injection moulding had a grooved rough surface on one side with a raised lug on one edge and the characteristic injection moulding hollows on the other, though there were grooves on the bottom that matched those on the top which ensured when stacked two or more of them would lock rather than slip on each other.

“Clever, but as you know, Jack, hot melt glue will do the job just as well. It only has to stop ’em moving whilst you tap the bottom bar in.”

The piece was passed round and someone asked, “What is it?”

Barry a middle aged carpenter of a generations old local family replied, “It’s a spacer used for packing under double glazing units to lift then to the right height in the frame. I’ve never seen one with a lug on before, but as Alf said it’s a clever idea. Alf, you can explain.”

Years before Alf had come up with a mechanism to ensure the plastic spacers that lifted double glazed glass units to fit in the frames stayed where they were supposed to be. It was a simple idea that prevented double glazed units from shattering when fitted. When fitted a double glazed unit had to be lifted by the plastic spacers to the appropriate height to fit within its frame. If during the fitting process the topmost of the spacers were moved slightly too deep within the frame such that they were within the gap between the two panes it guaranteed a failure. It was an easy mistake to make. It was not a problem till the bottom inner glazing bar was installed which as a result of the wrong placement of the spacer then pressed the outer edge of the inner pane against it. The glass pane was then stressed and ultimately would crack usually immediately, but sometimes not for even as long as a year or two. Alf realising the problem used a blob of hot melt glue on the inner edge of the spacers which prevented them moving outwards during the glazing process. It was a trick all local window fitters had used for years and all knew the idea came from Alf.

“When you fit a double glazed glass unit in the frame you work from the inside. If you push a spacer at the bottom away from you, which is only too easily done without realising it when you lift the glass and offer it up to the frame, it can get trapped behind the edge of the inner glass and the pane cracks when you fit the bottom glazing bar. Years ago I started to use a blob of hot melt glue on the top spacer in a stack of them to make sure it couldn’t happen. This lug serves the same purpose. Like I said. Clever.”

“Some body is probably making millions out of this, Alf. An idea you dreamed up what? Twenty or more years ago. It’s not right, Lad.”

“Yeah, maybe, Barry, but the poor bastard lives with his millions up to his eyes surrounded by scum he can’t trust. I live here, and I wouldn’t trade places with him for free ale for life. I learnt that from my old man when he came up with an idea some one else did make millions out of.”

“What was that about, Alf? Sounds like a good tale. Your dad was a crusty tempered auld bugger, but a gey decent bloke. He never said much about it, but all knew he prevented many a Bearthwaite family from going hungry when times were hard.”

There were numerous voices agreeing with Vince and Stan said, “I miss auld Jim, so tell the tale, Alf, but hang on till I get a round in and we’ll have a glass of rare tackle to go with it.”

After the usual glass collection, pint pulling, topping up of shot glasses and passing round of the collection box for the children’s Christmas party Alf looked around and started.

“To understand this properly you need to know a bit of social history, mostly to do with the relationships between folk like us and plumbing, and to arrive at that understanding I’ll have to tell you a load of history about plumbing and central heating and some workshop technical information too. You still sure you want to hear it?”

Eric in impatient tones said, “I want to hear the tale, Alf. You’ve telt us some gey queer stuff over the years, but none of it was boring and all of it was relevant to the way we all live, not just folk as grow and fettle stuff like you. After I’ve refilled my glass pass the bottle to Alf for a top up so he can start, Stan.” There were murmurings of agreement. Stan topped Alf’s glass up himself and nodded to him to make a start.

“It was back in the early sixties when Britain was finally beginning to emerge from the post war austerity and economic down turn when town and village folk too were starting to think about central heating, which was pretty well normal on the continent by then. Till then an open fire in the front room with a back boiler for domestic hot water was what most folk lived with if they were lucky. Many didn’t have a back boiler for hot water and heated a pan on the stove or the open fire. I mind my gran used to cook chips [US fries] in a pan of fat on the living room fire, a lot of women did in those days because that was all they had. Every now and again the pan spilt which was exciting and occasionally tragic. A lot of folk like us had a kitchen, a living room, two bedrooms upstairs and some of us slept downstairs. We were considered well off because Dad could make sure we had enough to eat, even if we did get tired of eating eggs and vegetables. Bacon or sausage was a treat, and when dad killed an old laying hen, he raised his own chicks, it was a bloody feast day. The best meal of all was coney but that didn’t happen often because as soon as one was seen it was in somebody’s stew pan. Wealthy folk possibly had a solid fuel stove in the kitchen with a back boiler, but in those days I didn’t know any one who had one of those.

Ice forming on the inside of bedroom windows at night in winter was normal, and most kids slept at least three to a bed for warmth. Boys and girls of all ages together, and none thought owt of it because it was too bloody cold to get up to owt. Last thing at night you went to the outside outhouse, because there were no inside crappers in those days. If you wanted a pee in the middle of the night you had two choices. If you were male you went outside and pissed in the bucket, if you were female the bucket was in the kitchen. Dad took the buckets to the allotments for the veg first thing every day The outhouse was what’s called a dry toilet these days, coming back into fashion with the tree huggers and Friends of the Earth types they are, but you can keep ’em for me. Me and my bothers had to empty ours on Saturdays and take the nightsoil down to Dad on the allotment. We’d bring back some buckets of soil with us. One went down the crapper and was levelled to shit on, the others were left for sprinkling on it after you’d taken a shite. A lot of folk don’t know how lucky they are these days. I do and I’m grateful. I don’t miss wiping my arse on a square of old newspaper from the pile that had been nailed to the back of the shithouse door one little bit.

“The government were getting worried about the cost of the ill health and deaths caused by that. Only cities and towns had water closets and sewers then. I’m maybe over stating it, big villages had ’em too, but places the size of Bearthwaite certainly didn’t. Despite the reservoir Bearthwaite didn’t have water piped into the houses till some time in the early nineteen thirties, before then there were a dozen standpipes in the village and the outlying houses and farms used wells. The village didn’t get sewers till the eighties when the treatment works was built at the bottom end of the valley. In Great Britain a hugely disproportionate number of our auld folk died during the winter mainly from lack of adequate food and heat, and our child mortality rate was generating bad publicity for the UK government abroad.

“Our child mortality rate is in line with other developed western nations now, but I know the UK still has more auld folk die in winter than in summer. It’s in the papers every year. It’s not a hell of a lot more these days, but more folk dying before their time is still more folk dying before their time regardless of how few it is. At the time, the sixties I mean, the result was there was a huge amount of tax money poured into home improvement grants, a lot of which was for central heating. It was decades before the home insulation grants were dreamt up, but that I reckon was more to do with global warming, green house gasses, international conferences, world opinion and other political bullshit than from a genuine concern for the health of ordinary folk. Don’t get me wrong, Lads, I’m all for cutting down energy usage because it makes sense to play it safe and it’s cheaper too. If the scientists are wrong about global warming we’ve lost nowt. If on the other hand we do nowt about it and the scientists are right we’re stuffed. It’s just the political hypocrisy, and, if you’ll pardon the pun, the hot air spouted and wasted by the politicians that gets right up my nose.

“Anyway back to the sixties, a fire or a stove with maybe a back boiler that only heated hot water for the kitchen was as much as a lot of folk had. All of us that lived here then can remember bath night in the tin bath in front of the front room fire and it was no different for millions of others either. Our bath night was Sunday. On Sunday afternoons my brothers and I had to fetch a load of wood in for the fire ready for bath night. Mum’s cooking pans were all out in the kitchen to fetch hot water in from the sink tap for the bath, and whilst we were fetching fire wood the girls were airing towels for us all to dry off with and clean clothes for us to put on afterwards. The day after was Monday and Mum and the girls did the washing whilst we boys fetched more firewood. I recall we fetcht a lot of firewood in those days. Many folk had only had a bath once a month and some once a year or never. When we complained about it Mum said it was because we had standards. I’ve often wondered what she’d make of me having a shower at least once a day, and having a shower at the workshop too.

“A hot water system in those days heated by a back boiler always used a direct system copper hot water cylinder. That’s where the water that comes out of the hot tap has actually been through the back boiler. The hot water was heated directly by the back boiler. If you want to instal central heating radiators you can’t use a direct system because the rust from steel radiators taints the water making it not fit to drink. Too, in a direct system the radiators would quickly corrode through since hot water is constantly being drawn off and replaced with fresh oxygenated water which once heated eats steel in no time at all. Even with an indirect heating system to protect the steel of the radiators you have to add corrosion inhibitor which you really don’t want coming out through your taps [US faucets] as the water can be pretty black. I don’t know if it’s toxic, but I wouldn’t want to chance drinking it.

“In areas with sewers a lot of folk had a bedroom partitioned and a bathroom installed with the gray water outlets going into the sewer. There were grants for that too. In the early days the grants only covered part of the costs and a new indirect copper cylinder with a copper heat exchanger in it was more expensive than many folk could afford even with the grant. The heat exchanger sat in the cylinder surrounded by the water it was heating with two brazed connections to seal it to the cylinder where it passed out through the cylinder wall. Some manufacturers used tank connectors tightened up before the cylinder was finally assembled. The two connections from the heat exchanger were made to the back boiler or other water heating system which had its own water feed and blow over safety mechanisms.

“The usual arrangement was that as for the previous direct system the domestic hot water was fed by a gravity system where hot water from the heat source expanded and became less dense causing it to rise to the top of the heat exchanger where it lost heat into the bulk of the cooler water in the cylinder, cooled a little and became denser causing it to fall back to go through the heat source again. The hot water that circulated via the central heating radiators was a forced system that utilised a pump. Water that went through the heat source, the heat exchanger and the central heating radiators did not mix with the domestic hot water supply which was indirectly heated by the heat exchanger. Dad worked out how to convert a direct cylinder into an indirect cylinder at a price folk could afford. He made a coil former to bend pipe he’d softened by heating that produced a coil maybe a foot in diameter with several turns of pipe, maybe six or eight I can’t remember now, though there are a couple of coils in the workshop somewhere. The two ends of the pipe were left straight for feed and return connections to pass through the cylinder wall. The trick was getting it into the cylinder and sealing it once it was in.

“Prior to the seventies Britain used four imperial plumbing pipe sizes for domestic systems. Half inch, three-quarters, inch and inch and a quarter all ID(23) pipe measurements, but by the early seventies they had been superseded by three metric sizes, fifteen, twenty-two and twenty-eight mil all OD(24) pipe sizes. I suppose the first coils Dad made must have used three quarter or inch pipe, most likely three-quarters, but I can’t remember, and I was only a child then. By the time I was old enough to discuss engineering with him imperial plumbing was just history and all the coils I remember helping him with were made from twenty-two mil pipe. I know he made a set of swages to make imperial and metric pipe compatible because there was a lot of the old stuff still fitted in houses and any new work had to marry up to it. I still have them and I possibly use one every few years even now if I’m working on a really old system. Interestingly Ireland, despite being in the EU, still uses imperial plumbing pipe and fittings.

“Maybe ten years ago I came across an unopened box of a gross of old three-quarters tee connectors that Dad must have bought in the sixties because they used the finer thread that was in use then and was replaced before my time with the coarser thread still in use today. I can’t remember anything being selt by the gross.(25) Boxes have all contained a hundred in my memory. That was too much money’s worth to weigh in as scrap, so I bored the bodies out a touch and drilled the nuts both to suit twenty-two mil pipe, replaced the olives with new twenty-two mil ones and I’d a box of twenty-two mil fittings for less than an afternoon’s work and well less than a fiver’s worth of new olives. You have to be more careful using them because the fine threads are easier to cross thread and being brass which is gey soft a cross threaded fitting is knackered unless you fettle it by building the threads up with braise and recut them using taps and dies or a lathe. Anyway back to Dad and his coils.

“He used a trepanning tool to drill a twenty-six mil hole at the top of the direct cylinder and a thirty mil hole at the bottom to suit the coil. He brazed a brass male tank fitting a few inches back from the coil flow end and fitted it with a heat proof fibre washer. He fed that end in from the bottom hole before winding the coil in and wiggling it to come out of the top hole. Another fibre washer, a bit of sealing compound and a nut on the tank fitting and that was the upper connection water tight. The tank fitting brazed on the lower return end of the coil passed in through the bottom hole, and to secure it he used a thick brass washer too big to go through the hole. The washer was split from the outside right through to the middle. When placed on the pipe the cut was pushed into the cylinder edge so one side of the washer was inside the cylinder and the other side was outside it. When it was turned it was all inside the cylinder. A pair of fiber washers, more compound, another large washer bigger than the hole and a tank fitting nut and the job was done, one indirectly heated cylinder, for about a tenth of the cost of a new one that usually only took half an hour to install. Not quite as efficient as a commercial version which had a cylindrical heat exchanger of annular cross section resulting in a larger heat transfer area, but it worked and it worked well.

“Years later I was telt that long after he’d been making and fitting the things, IMI, which was then part of ICI, had patented them under the name of ‘The Sidewinder’ because of the way they were wound into the cylinder, and he’d made nothing out of it. Did he invent them? Probably not, but I doubt if IMI did either. I suspect the concept had been around possibly for centuries. Doubtless the IMI version was prettier and more efficient than his. They were said to be made of thinner copper tube which would have aided heat transfer a bit. When I telt him about it he said he knew and didn’t care because he and Mum were doing okay, not going short of owt and he doubted Mum would have been happy living in Birmingham which was where IMI was located. The clincher for him I think was when he added, ‘And the beer’s shite down there.’ ” At that there were roars of laughter from the locals who’d all known Alf’s dad and they could almost hear him saying that about the beer. “My only regret is the auld bugger’s not still with us to enjoy the Bearthwaite Brewery’s Brown Bevy.”(26) Alf raised his glass and said, “To you, Dad.”

At that all those who’d known him raised their glasses and said, “To you, Jim.”

“Just to bring things completely up to date and perhaps full circle too, Lads. I’ll possibly be be converting all those direct cylinders that Jude is dropping off at my spot to indirect ones starting as soon as I’ve worked out what the best way to go in terms of cost and time will be. I’m waiting for a price on two hundred commercial annular heat exchangers from the manufacturers. Either I make sidewinders and install them because as far as I could find out they’re not made any more, or I cut the cylinders open to install the commercial heat exchangers before braising them back up again, or then again I could just buy new indirect cylinders at probably a hundred and fifty quid each delivered for a bulk order of two hundred.”

“What’s it likely to be, Alf?”

“I’ll possibly be making sidewinders, Jack. It’s all a question of time versus money. The unpalatable truth is that owt you can think of is doable with the right tools which you can make if need be. The issue is is it worth the time, effort and cost of doing it. I suspect buying heat exchangers will be a non starter due to cost and the time the job will take. As I said, the cylinder would have to be cut open, the exchanger installed and then the cylinder braised together again which I reckon would take longer and be way more expensive than fitting a sidewinder coil. A six coil sidewinder can be made with a six metre [twenty foot] length of twenty-two mil pipe which will be more than adequate to do the job in a small house in terms of heat transfer. I reckon I can buy two hundred twenty metre lengths delivered direct from the manufacturers for well less than twenty quid each. On the other hand I’ve some very good contacts in the metal recycling industry, that’s upper class scrap dealers, who often have large quantities of ten foot lengths weighed in because the ends have been damaged, typically run over by a stacker truck in a plumbers’ merchants warehouse. The merchants who weigh them in reclaim it on their insurance. Major metal recyclers sell that sort of stuff on to folk like me gey cheap by weight.

“The last lot of copper pipe I bought I paid bright copper scrap price plus ten percent for, and one end of the three metre [ten foot] lengths had less than three inches damaged which I swaged back to shape again. It’s possible that I could pay a lot less than twenty quid for the copper pipe for a sidewinder. Of course then I’d have to collect it which is a cost for fuel, braise two ten foot lengths together before winding them into a coil and unlike a new cylinder they would then need insulating and to do a proper job of it is not cheap no matter how you do it, so it all needs weighing up, but twenty quid for pipe and possibly the same again for insulation would be a top end figure. You can forget the cost of the rest of the bits because I’ll recover them from Jude’s stuff or my scrap pile. Maybe a bit for braising rod and gas but I can braise with propane and compressed air, so I’ll get a propane cylinder from Murray’s stock whenever I need one. A lot of the work can be done by the apprentices supervised by Bertie whilst I’m tracking stuff down and doing the more complex things. The apprentices can certainly make and fit the sidewinders into the old cylinders, but maybe buying new cylinders and having them do something else is the way to go. I don’t know and I’ll probably change my mind a dozen times before I actually do anything.”

~o~O~o~

“Supper will be here in ten or fifteen minutes, Gentlemen. Harriet and Veronica are in the kitchens loading the trolleys at the moment. Home made steak and kidney puddings mashed potatoes and carrots with gravy followed by steamed treacle pudding and white sauce. And may God have mercy upon your bellies. Without doubt it’ll fuel your internal furnaces, but the walk home may take a little longer than usual. I suggest you prepare the tables.” At that Gladys left to supervise supper in the lounge.”

“Right, Lads. You heard the landlady. Let’s have the glasses on the bar for washing and refills organised. Clear all unnecessary objects off the tables. Some one let the dogs out, so supper isn’t interrupted. Shut the back door, but keep listening for them scratching to come back in. No need to worry about that as the door is now clad with a stainless steel sheet courtesy of Alf. I’ll start washing glasses if some of you will pull pints and deal with the money.” At that Pete collected some glasses and started washing them. Gustav and Dave started pulling pints and Stan and Bill collected money.

Gustav said to Wilf, who worked for him in the brewery, “Take over here will you, Wilf. I’ll put another barrel on. This one’s empty. We seem to be going through it faster than usual tonight.”

It was only a couple of minutes after the beer, the glasses, the new barrel and the tables were organised before Harriet came in with a trolley loaded with plates and cutlery. “Sort your own plates and eating irons out, Gentlemen, please. I’ll go for the food. Be careful with the plates, they’re straight out of the plate warmer and gey hot.”

Harriet returned with another trolley loaded with steamers full of the steak and kidney puddings which was closely followed by Veronica pushing in another with huge pans of mashed vegetables. “I’ll leave this with you, Harriet, and fetch the gravy.” Five minutes later the taproom was silent other than for the sounds of cutlery rattling on plates.

Ten minutes after that Alf stood to slacken his belt a couple of holes. He was closely followed by a dozen or so men doing the same thing. “I had to do that to make room for the treacle pudding,” Alf said to no one in particular.

“I think that has set and caused my ribs to stick to each other so badly some of them have crossed over to the other side, but like Alf I’ll manage the pudding,” an outsider announced before adding, “I’m Will, by the way.”

Another outsider said, “I think I’ll fast tomorrow, but hell that was good, but then it always is here. I’m Clayton.”

Harriet and Veronica appeared with their trolleys and started clearing plates and serving equipment away. As usual there was no food left over. They’d both commented any number of times it didn’t seem to matter how much food went into the taproom none ever came out which they considered a boon and a blessing for unlike with the food served in the lounge they never had any left over to deal with. Aggie used the unserved food from the lounge to provide breakfasts for the farm workers who came in first thing to eat and to collect their lunches and thermos flasks that Aggie had ready for them. “We’ll be back in a minute to finish clearing up and your pudding will be being dished up in about five minutes. Mum and Aggie are dealing with the lounge.” Pete nodded to Harriet as the two women left.

“It always beats me how those lasses can serve, clear and serve again so quickly, Pete. Even when it’s a hundred meals it only takes them minutes.”

“They are highly organised, Vincent. And have a dozen or so trolleys. It’s all ready to go before they start serving anything. All the dirty dishes are left on the trolleys till we close. Then they get stacked into the dish washer cages and are lined up on the conveyor to go through the washer. It’s all automatic. As a cage comes out it lines up on the drainer to dry and another goes in. The early morning kitchen staff deal with the dish washer cages of washed tackle first thing the following day. Harriet bought the extra trolleys and the new dish washer system because after the extension was built trade kept getting more busy on Saturday evenings. If it continues we’ll have to serve supper in the dining room or even in the dance hall.”

The pudding arrived and the two women served it up in a matter of two or three minutes. Veronica announced, “There’s a bit of pudding left and a jug and a half of white sauce, so help yourselves, Gentlemen, for we’d rather there were none left to have to deal with, or you’ll be eating local bacon that tastes of treacle. If any wants any more let me know for there is sure to be some left over in the room.”

A couple of minutes later Bertie, who was every bit as big as Alf, said, “I can handle a bit more. Pass me that sauce jug over will you, Simon?”

Alf immediately said, “See I telt you Bertie ate more than me.”

“So you’re not going to have any more then, Granddad?” Bertie asked in guileless tones.

When Alf replied with great dignity, “I didn’t say that, Son,” there were gales of laughter as the sauce was passed over to him.

~o~O~o~

Once supper was over and cleared away Sasha asked, “So has any one got a tale for us? I can fill in, but I’d rather listen to someone else.”

Stan replied, “Maybe not exactly a tale, but I was watching the news some time this last week and there was a report about a single mum down south somewhere who’d lost it with her crying baby. I don’t know how old the lass nor the baby was. As soon as I realised what the the report was about I moved to turn it off, but I heard the baby had died before I reached the TV remote. I don’t need to hear the details about that sort of stuff. I think that’s kind of obscenely and grotesquely voyeuristic. It’s more than enough for me to know that she lost it and the baby died.”

Sasha said, “That’s how I feel about the holocaust. I don’t need details pushed into my face to know what happened and I won’t watch or read fictionalised accounts, so I’ve never seen Schindler’s List nor read Exodus. I consider that to be commercial exploitation of human misery of the worst kind. That crosses my moral Rubicon. It’s a step too far, Alf.” Sasha said the last at the look of puzzlement on Alf’s face. “So I’m with you on that one, Stan. Interestingly, in the Netherlands the papers don’t report any incidents of child abuse. You’ll get two lines of bald fact. They’re not censored in any way they just refuse to give those bastards who perpetrate that sort of crime any publicity which is what they reckon they crave. It’s the same with incidents like mass shootings where some one runs amuck with fire arms in a school or a shopping centre, terrorist incidents too. Their view is take ’em out or take ’em down and lock ’em up and do it quietly. Then forget ’em and if necessary threw away the key. They argue it is a rare event and children do not need to be scared half to death by such. They believe that the media attention such events receive in the UK makes kids think it’s going on everywhere all the time and it’s clearly not. Sorry for interrupting, Stan.”

Stan smiled and continued, “No problem, Sasha, but I reckon the Dutch have got it right. Well that report got me to thinking. When we were babies if we had a screaming fit on us Mum used to harness us in that big Silver Cross pram that gets passed round the family to whoever needs it at the time and push it down to the bottom of the garden out of earshot. You’d probably have your kids taken off you today for doing that, but at least she stayed sane and there was no risk of her battering us, and mind she had Dad, and a whole pile of family and friends nearby. She wasn’t a single mum having to cope with it all on her own. Folk have got their ideas arse upwards these days. Everything seems to be about some mythical standard all parents should have to measure up to meet the grade as a perfect parent. There’s no more such thing as a perfect parent than there is as a perfect child.

“What they should be considering is what exactly can a imperfect but reasonable human being take or be expect to take as a parent. Some times a baby will scream all day. Doctors can’t always provide an explanation for it, and they certainly don’t have any magic potions that stop a baby screaming. A baby’s cry is designed by evolution to be impossible to ignore, and logically it affects women more than men. Any parent can only take so much. I reckon that’s why some babies get battered and even killed. They still make those big prams near Skipton somewhere. A big pram and a long garden is sometimes the secret to sanity as a parent, especially mothers. Too, I mind Mum used to put both of us in the pram and collect a week’s shopping down in the town when we lived near Keswick. It would all fit on the rack under the pram and the wheels are so big she said even when she was expecting it was effortless to push all the lot uphill on the way home, and kerbs made no odds with wheels that big.”

There were nods of understanding all round the room, but Alf summed up their beliefs as a community when he said, “I’m not saying that could never happen here. Never is a bloody long time. However, though I do believe what you’re saying, Stan, there are other things to consider too. You said she was a single parent. We have single parents too, Bertie here was one for a while when yon outsider took off leaving him with the kids, but they are never on their own here. Ellen like all our lasses here was happy to help out so Bertie could earn a living. We have a community that looks after all of its members even the ones we don’t particularly like, maybe even especially those.

“I telt you what it was like when we went down with chicken pox as kids. We’d have all been under eight or nine. I was six. Seven of us, my siblings, all my cousins and I were all at Mums, so we’d all catch it and get it over with. All put to bed in one double bed, four littlest at the top with the two youngest in the middle to prevent them falling out of what was quite a high bed. I was on the outside at the top, and the three oldest were at the bottom. We were all bathed together in front of the fire. It was like a production line with two women supervising bathing and older kids helping little ones get undressed, dried and dressed again ready for bed. There was no way we wouldn’t all catch it. That’s how it was handled in those days. Mum, my aunties and my grannies all took it in turns to look after us. They helped each other. Dad was always giving veg and eggs from the allotment to folk who had the need. He telt me times out of mind, ‘It may be us in need one day, Son.’ I do the same, as do all the other lads on the allotments. As Vincent reminded us, the lasses help him out at the shop, so he can provide free soup and bone broth to families as need it. The lads and Phil give them the veg and barley to go in the soup. It’s how it is here. Not every one is wealthy here, but none is ever alone nor suffering shortage, for there is always help. My family was and is no different from any other that lives here.

“That alone would stop a mum getting that desperate, because she could get a break and get away for a while. Millions of kids all over Britain, not just the kids living in cities, nor even kids in poverty, don’t even have a concept of what a father is beyond being a sperm donor. Many grow up and live in completely dysfunctional families on the social,(27) and even those growing up with mums where money is not a problem live in serious emotional and social deprivation because they don’t have a dad. They live in social deserts where the communities were completely destroyed generations ago, possibly by their own greed, and now they’re paying the price for it. A dead child, a mother off her head with grief probably banged up in gaol for years who will never forgive herself. Chances are there’s nothing the law can do to her that’s anywhere near as harsh as what she’ll be doing to herself till the day she dies.

“For sure the politicians have never helped. I mind a few years back when there was talk of bringing back the married couples tax allowance. The single parent organisations and gay so called communities were up in arms about it saying it was discriminatory. I say so called communities because clearly their ideas as to what constitutes a community have nothing in common with mine. The biggest single thing I recall about the media ruckus was a politician, of what flavour I have no idea, stated at a press conference that it was no part of British politics for a government to attempt to change the structures of British society by means of tax reforms nor by any other means. I mind thinking to myself at the time, ‘If not then what the fuck is the purpose of the government since it interferes with everything else.’ My parents taught me to value what we have here, especially Dad.”

“Wow, Alf. That was deep.”

“I don’t think so, Stan. It just seems kind of obvious. We all know the differences between here and outside. We have never conceded control of our lives to anyone, neither the aristocracy who owned everything years back nor the politicians who came after then. Taking personal responsibility for yourself and your community is the only way to live with any degree of dignity and pride. It’s one of the hardest lessons every Bearthwaite teenager has to learn, and why most of them eventually come home to live. If outsiders wish to live like we do they’re going to have to take back ownership of and responsibility for their lives and their communities and not rely on politicians and bureaucrats hundreds of miles away who don’t give a stuff as long as they get their share of whatever is on the gravy train at the time.(28) If they expect politicians and bureaucrats, both in London and locally, to do anything for them they’ll be waiting a long, long time, and it’s never been any different. I’m for another pint and a glass too, but first I’ll threw a few logs on the fires.”

“Do you get the impression that Alf doesn’t think too highly of politicians and bureaucrats, Dave?”

“Nah, he’s just having a bad day, Stan. Fill him up with chemic and some ale and he’ll be fine.” The laughter that filled the taproom was loud, but it had a brittle quality to it too.

~o~O~o~

Gustav passed several bottles of different spirituous liquors from the bar saying, “Calvados, grappa, raki, genever, hostage rum(29) and something that Græme obtained from his mate with no label on it, take what you want.” At that he picked up the collection box and passed it to Bertie who passed it on. All the locals were aware that the superb tasting liquors that Græme obtained from his mate were in fact illegally distilled by himself, but in front of outsiders the fiction of his mate was maintained for safety.

Too, the matter was never discussed in front of Michael Graham the local police sergeant who was Bearthwaite born and bred out of respect for his professional requirement to be unaware of such things, which didn’t stop him sampling the rare stuff and even owning some some in the cellars. Pete handled such things with great discretion. Typically a theoretical discussion concerning the drinking qualities of whatever had just been obtained would be started in front of Michael. Michael would later make an innocuous remark concerning something else, say, ‘I saw a skein of a couple of hundred geese flying over the reservoir earlier this evening, Pete. Are they a bit earlier than usual arriving this year?’

Pete would reply, ‘I saw some too, but I didn’t think there were that many. A couple of hundred you say, Michael.’ And the matter was dealt with. The conversation could be about anything, coneys, lambs, flocks of yellow hammers or starlings, you name it. They were rather good at making Michael aware of what was available and establishing his requirements without ever mentioning it. Michael’s wife Mavis would give Gladys a couple of hundred pounds saying it was their contribution. To what she wouldn’t say, and Michael then had two hundred pounds’ worth of high proof rum, or whatever else was on offer, in the cellar. Sometimes Pete would just transfer ownership of a few cases of something to Michael and tell him, ‘You owe me a ton, Michael.’ Michael would just pay him the hundred pounds.

Sasha reached for a bottle of grappa topped his glass up and passed the bottle on, saying, “Any one new fancy a go? Doug, how about you?”

“Well, I have something, but it’s not exactly a tale, rather a recollection of an event when I was a student. Will that be okay?”

“Aye, Lad, and if you feel the tale goes over better with a bit of story tellers licence mixed in don’t let it become corrupted by being too much like the real thing. Most of us here wouldn’t recognise reality if it slapped us in the face like a yard of fresh tripe. We’re all as honest as the day is long, but as Sasha would tell you the truth is a very elastic quantity in this taproom.”

There was a lot of laughter at that and Stan added, “And Dave would be the one to know.”

After the laughter faded Doug took a heavy slug of Calvados and began. “Years ago maybe, nineteen seventy, at the University of Keele I was in a chemistry practical class in a ground floor lab when another undergraduate student dropped a full one litre glass bottle of bromine which broke when it landed. There are several points of interest about the incident. Bromine is damned dangerous stuff. It’s a liquid at room temperature, but it has an appreciable vapour pressure which is to say it fumes like hell. The fumes are a choking brown gas that is a major irritant to the skin, eyes, mouth, nose and lungs. Like I said it’s dangerous, much more so than it’s close relative chlorine which was used as a poison gas by the Germans in the first world war. That bottle should never have left the laboratory preparation room, and certainly never been handled by an undergraduate student. Normally the lab technicians put a small quantity of stuff as dangerous as that in a much smaller bottle for undergrads to use.

“Also, the design of the laboratory was appalling because as you entered the lab from the main hall the emergency fume cupboard switches were on your left and your right. Those switches turned on all the fume cupboards and the emergency air extraction fans to the entire lab. Fume cupboards are places you can do unpleasant experiments in safety. That lab had in excess of a couple of dozen of them. They have a toughened glass front that slides up and down and you only push them up enough to enable your hands to work inside. They also have an air extraction system and can’t close completely. The rule is the fronts are down against their stops when not in use which enables the fan system to pull air in from the lab at the three or four inch [75-100mm] gap at the bottom and vent it outside over the roof. That way fresh air is pulled into the lab from outside via ventilation louvrès designed for the purpose. Just past the switches the lab narrowed to a corridor because there were two emergency showers, one on the left and one on the right. They were to be used in the event of someone needing to wash something off themselves immediately or someone who had caught fire needing to be extinguished and were operated by large handles hanging down from above. The space between those open fronted shower rooms was down to maybe eight feet. The bromine bottle was dropped just inside that eight foot gap so the way out was blocked.

“The next thing of note was the emergency exit, exit note not exits, at the back of the lab was locked with a chain and padlock. That was explained afterwards to be because undergrads kept opening the emergency exit from the inside leaving it open to allow entrance afterwards. I pointed out that there were mechanisms to prevent that which still provide emergency exits. It was fortunate that it was a ground floor lab because to get out I broke a window with a lab stool and we all left that way after clambering over a lab bench to reach the window. I immediately ran round to the main entrance and turned the emergency extraction fans on. At the investigation I was heavily criticised for breaking the window. I too was an undergrad at the time, but I left Keele for Manchester University at the end of the university year because of the criticism.”

There was a lot of comment, but the general view was the powers that be had behaved like typical bureaucrats. They had the power, students didn’t, so it must be a student’s fault.

~o~O~o~

Pauli, who was an irregular attender on Saturday evenings, had never telt a tale before, but seeing the approval at Doug’s tale he felt emboldened enough to say, “I’ve a similar tale that would be maybe from the early eighties. I was in a second floor [US 3rd floor] polymer chemistry lab at Manchester Polytechnic as it was at the time, it’s Manchester Metropolitan University now. The fire alarm went off. Now I take all fire alarms seriously. In my teens I’d been rescued by a fireman from a high rise block of flats. Being carried over a fireman’s shoulder down an extremely high ladder flexing in the wind with smoke swirling round you and crackling flames sounding too close for comfort is not an experience you ever forget.

“I made my way down the designated escape route which led to an exterior fire escape. It was like a glass box on the end of the building just containing stairs, and there was a route to it from every floor except the first floor [US 2nd floor]. The building was I think six floors high. All floors were science departments except the first which contained the finance department and had it’s own fire escape. When I and a number of others reached the ground floor [US 1st floor] the door was bolted which locked it. The door had a small hammer chained to it which was intended for breaking the tubular glass bolt that prevented the door from being used to access the building from outside. I picked up the hammer to break the bolt and a porter said, ‘You can’t do that. It’s only a fire drill. Someone must have forgotten to remove the bolt.’ There was no way I was going up back to the second floor, probably sixty feet of stairs, to find an alternative way out. ‘Fuck that,’ I replied breaking the bolt. I was sent a bill for it which my solicitor dealt with.”

“Sounds about right, yet again,” said Doug. “Put this in the collection box for me, someone. I’ll try the raki this time.”

~o~O~o~

After shot glasses and pints had been freshened up and a number of the old men had returned from the gents, Barney, who was an outsider but a regular Saturday evening attender said, “I’ll try my hand at telling a tale in a similar vein, but involving tragedy too. And I’ve a couple of really short things to add after that. It too would have been in the early eighties when there was a butadiene gas leak leading to a fire and a subsequent explosion in the west harbour area of Amsterdam. I don’t know how many persons died, but I believe it was eight. Some from the Amsterdam fire brigade and some from the company’s internal fire brigade were lost to the incident. The company concerned made polymer powder amongst other things. The powder was transported round the site down metal tubes. There was a real danger of static building up and causing a dust explosion and all along the pipes were lightning conductor size copper earth straps connected to it at close intervals to bleed off any build up of static charge. These straps were about fifty mil by ten. [2 inches by ½ an inch] I was not there when the tragedy occurred, but I was telt about it and I do remember the earth strapping when I was there a few years later because I was servicing it and replacing a lot of it. The staff there were still understandably nervous about any fire risk. I’m an electrical maintenance engineer and the firm I was working for at the time did a lot of that kind of work. It’s only when you see stuff like that you realise how dangerous seemingly ordinary processes can be.

“Connected to that in an obscure kind of a way. A friend of mine shewed me a huge spanner one time that was part of his works tool kit. Like all his work tools it was phosphor bronze. He worked at a petroleum refinery and he explained phosphor bronze tools don’t create a spark in contact with steel. Last, another friend who worked for ICI in some kind of a chemical plant, I believe they made explosives, told me all the workers there wore wooden clogs with rubber soles for similar reasons. I mind he telt me the clogs were made by Walkley’s clog mill in Hebden Bridge which is the only custom made clog mill in the UK. That’s it. Sorry it wasn’t more interesting.”

“Nay, Lad that was fine. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in telling of the lives of ordinary working blokes, and those lads that died fighting that fire and in the explosion deserve to be remembered, and doubtless they were our kind of folk, just ordinary working lads trying to get by and feed their families in a hostile world. We may not know their names, but there’s many a man here who tragically lost a mate under different but similar circumstances at work and will feel for them and their families and mates. It one of the reasons we meet here. Even Sasha tells the truth occasionally, though I’m not sure about Dave.” At Vincent’s final words there were hoots of laughter including from Dave.

~o~O~o~

Denis moved to behind the bar and asked, “Another anyone?” When that was dealt with he said, “Time for a lighter note I think. Years ago not long after I met Belinda we were having dinner at my flat. You all know the deal, a young bloke and a young lass seriously interested in each other and under the influence of their hormones, full on romance, soft music, candle light, flowers, good food, chocolates, champagne and the hope of a bit of afters. I’m usually pretty good opening bottles of sparkling wine. I ease the cork out and don’t let it fly anywhere, and usually I don’t spill a drop because I don’t have the kind of money nor the ostentatious, wasteful temperament that formula one racing folk do. I well and truly screwed that one up. I wasn’t fast enough to catch the cork and it flew across the table like a bullet right into my belovèd’s left nipple. She telt me she had the bruise for ten days. And before any asks. No I never did see the bruise, nor was I allowed to kiss it better, but to this day when I open sparkling wine she leaves the room. She tells me she is immediately wary of any male who says ‘Trust me,’ and in all the years she’s been married to me I have never given her any reason to trust me.”

Amidst the laughter Dave asked, “Is that true, Denis?”

“Aye. It’s true enough. Ask Belinda. She’ll tell anyone about it, though the way she relates the size of the bruise is I think a gross exaggeration due more to story tellers licence than reality. Seemingly the bruise was bigger than her boob and she was as buxom a lass then as she is now.”

~o~O~o~

Dave nodded and said, “Since we’re now onto the ridiculous I’ll tell a tale that was related to me years ago by a bloke who said it was a tale about his dad. It’d be some time in the late fifties or early sixties, but I don’t know to this day if it was a wind up or not. I don’t know enough science to be able to tell. His dad he said had lost all his teeth to three incidents, one a rugby match which his team won, two a motor bike incident which he definitely lost and three a dray horse’s arse and a stable wall. His head was between the two when the horse decided to rub its arse on the wall presumably to relieve an itch. I suppose you could call that one a draw since presumably the horse had no malicious intent.

“His dad according to the tale had a very powerful jaw action and wore out his first set of dentures in less than a month. The super tough replacement set took him six months to grind flat. At huge expense his next set were stainless steel, which the bloke telt me got him a bit of grief at school, which only stopped when he telt the other kids if they didn’t stop he’d ask his dad to bite them. Now his dad was some sort of top scientist and used to work at various research establishments all over the world. This incident purportedly took place in Switzerland at that CERN spot. He said that they use massively powerful magnets there and when they turned it on his dad’s teeth left his mouth at considerable speed. Now I originally thought that stainless wasn’t magnetic, but I later found out that some kinds of stainless are and some aren’t. Even if it were just a yarn it’s always seemed funny to me. Can anyone cast any light on the likelihood of there being any truth in it at all?”

Denis replied, “The rugby, the motorbike and the horse, yes I can buy into those, and I know that years ago dental materials weren’t as tough as they are now and for a while some teeth were made in stainless steel. There are thousands of alloys referred to as stainless steel. They are all made because of their different properties, but broadly speaking they fall into three categories, austenitic, ferritic and martensitic. However, I don’t know whether those teeth were made from austenitic stainless, which is by far the most common type manufactured and in the main is non magnetic, or not. Yes, CERN uses hugely powerful magnets, but their fields are tightly focussed into the workings of whatever machine they are a part of, mostly particle accelerators I believe. I’m no expert, but as a result of what I do know I think the last part of the tale, though amusing, is unlikely to be true. Sasha?”

“I agree entirely with you, Denis, for similar reasons. I too am no expert in the field, if you’ll pardon the pun, but it is my belief that even were it possible to generate such a powerful magnetic field over any significant distance it would be extremely dangerous other than focussed on the beam and there would have to be stringent safety procedures in place to prevent such an incident as you described. And mind some folk have stainless steel implants as a result of bone damage. It is extremely difficult to produce fields that strong and they can only be produced over very small distances between the poles of the generating magnet which have to be very close together. Such a set up produces very little leakage of field from between the poles and any leakage would be many orders of magnitude less powerful even at a few centimetres [an inch] away its focus.”

An outsider asked, “What’s an order of magnitude?”

Sasha replied, “One order of magnitude would be a tenth, two would be a hundredth, three a thousandth, and so on. As the order goes up by one the strength decrease to a tenth of what it was before. It can be used the other way round too, but whether becoming less or more the factor by which it does is always ten.”

“Okay. Thanks. I get that.”

Dave sighed with regret before saying, “Ah well! I almost wish you two hadn’t telt me that, but it was fun believing it could be possible. Any one else got a tale or is it time to get the dominoes out?

~o~O~o~

Charlie said I’ve a short one, more a series of observations really. It was Denis mentioning stainless steels with different properties that triggered the memories. This is about wood, not metal, specifically oak. All of us who’ve ever worked wood know that green oak isn’t too difficult to work, but it gets harder and more difficult with age as it dries out. Dry oak needs very sharp tools to work it with any ease. I read an article in a wood carvers’ magazine years ago about a lass who was commissioned to carve rural life tableaux into the ends of centuries old oak pews that were in a rural church down south. Her descriptions of carving it and the effect it had on the cutting edges of her chisels and gouges were eye opening.

“Many a year ago, I’d have been maybe fourteen so that puts it in the early fifties. My Uncle Michael was building a barn and round the back of a building he’d a piece of oak he intended to use as a major structural beam. He said it was originally a ship’s timber and was at least five hundred years old, but he’d no idea how it came to be on the farm, for his granddad had remembered it being there when he was boy. That timber was going on sixty foot long and twenty-four inches by eighteen inches, though characteristically of ships’ timbers it tapered slightly. The supports for it were in place and god alone knows what it weighed but my cousin Mick and I lifted one end into place with the back actor of a JCB(30) and then did likewise at the other end. Easy, or so we thought. Trouble was we couldn’t put a nail or a screw into it. Even high tensile steel masonry pins just bent. Every screw hole had to be pre drilled and it took a week just to get the rafters fastened to it.

“I also mind one time Mick shewing me a fence post on the farm. All the fence posts on the farm were oak heartwood that was a couple of centuries old, and all in as good a condition as the day they were first sunk into the ground. This post had a knot in it and with time it had bent sharply about fifty degrees at the knot, but after it had been repositioned so the top was vertically above where it entered the ground it was still perfectly serviceable, just not quite as tall as the others. I don’t know how many times the barbed wire had been replaced on those posts but I do know we had to pre drill holes for the staples to fasten the wire.

“Last, my uncle had a pile of massive bog oak trees from off the moss at the back of the big barn. That’s weird stuff because it looks to be purple and I suppose it could be thousands or even tens of thousands of years old rather than hundreds and you can’t put masonry nails in that either. He’d intended it for firewood, but a chainsaw went blunt on it in minutes. It wasn’t till long after my uncle had died that Mick bought a hellishly expensive chain with tungsten carbide teeth that we made any dent in the pile at all. That’s it, but even if that oak wasn’t as hard as steel there wasn’t a lot in it. Dominoes? Partner me, Sasha?

~o~O~o~

After the guests had retired to their rooms and the locals had left, Sasha, Pete and Gustav were drinking Highland Park, a positively genteel and almost ladylike beverage compared with what they had been drinking earlier, and discussing matters of import when Gladys came in and said, “Join the three of us in the lounge, and you’d better bring a couple of bottles of that. I’ll have some, Sasha, or this that out of my case? I’ve got the Asbach and the Courvoisier out on the table. Elle has something to say.”

“Well, well, well! Gladys has a case of Highland Park in the cellar. Did you know that, Pete?”

“No, but I do now, Sasha.”

“I’m warning you, Gentlemen. If you drink it you’ll have to replace it, and I’m not drinking any of that rotgut you lot insist on addling your brains with.”

The three men followed their instructions, all had a good idea what they were about to discuss, and though they were okay about drinking in the best side they knew not even Gladys would be truly comfortable sitting down for a drink and conversation in the taproom. Though she be the landlady, it had always been a male only space, though there were tales that went back a couple of centuries and more that ladies of a very old profession had long used the taproom to meet the itinerant pack pony men who used the valley in summer as a short cut to cross the county to Caldbeck using the steep and dangerous millennia old trail that led out of the valley head and was now only used as a recreational scramble by the physically fit seeking adventure. Tommy Dowerson the Bearthwaite postmaster had written and bound a guide book of local walks including the route closely following Alfred Wainwright’s(31) style using sketches drawn by his wife Sarah from his photographs.

Elle waited till the men sat down before saying, “First, Stephanie, Chance and the children. The adoption hearing now has a date. It’s three weeks away. I’ve lined up a registrar for the wedding here a week on Tuesday. We have less than ten days to have everything ready, and I want a party that night in the Dragon dance hall. Gladys and Harriet agree and will handle the details. We want a party because we could do with one now the nights are drawing in to cheer us up.

“Sam and I went to speak to Adalheidis Maxwell and she was bowled over when Sam telt her she was trans herself and there were a number of trans women living here with no issues. She was in tears of joy for our entire meeting which took most of last Wednesday afternoon. She’d like to look at the flat Stephanie occupied in the old vicarage and move her things in as soon as she can. I agreed. I telt her about Gustav’s job offer and that it was only temporary till her affairs with the Law Society were finalised and still crying she said she’d accept anything if she could just live in peace. She asked if she could have an advance as a loan from her salary to pay for some care during her recovery from her GRS in London before travelling north. I suggested we get her to Bearthwaite as soon as possible after she left hospital and telt her she would be nursed in her own home with no charge by local fully qualified nursing staff. She found it hard to accept but agreed. I didn’t mention it, but I want her flown up and taken by a vehicle she can lie down in from the airport to here as soon as possible. Alf said he’d organise borrowing an ambulance. Sam said she’d go down there to accompany her on the trip back. From what Sam discovered she is highly intelligent and a first class solicitor. I also wish to give her a golden hello of say at least ten thousand which if necessary I’ll pay myself. I really don’t want this one to get away.

“Next. I want to make more money available immediately for the modernisation of Allotments Row, Glebe Street, Demesne Lane, and Pastures View. We need all those houses sorted out as soon as possible because we’re going to need them if we don’t want some of the older youngsters to leave. I want the word put out they’ll be available very soon. I want to tell the Levins brothers to source everything through Alf. He has the contacts, the patience to ratch through thousands of Ebay entries and elsewhere too, but most importantly I’ve never met anyone who can bargain like him. I want to authorise him to use two hundred and fifty thousand [$300 000] to start with and to submit the receipts to Murray. I’d like to know how much he can can buy for the money, so Murray can estimate how much more he’s going to need to finish the job and I can make sure it’s available. The sooner those refurbished properties have occupiers paying rent or mortgage the better. If need be rather than lose the kids we subsidise them. I also think we need to bring forward discussions on building the extra houses overlooking the old allotments site.

“Regarding Lizzie Caldbeck and her husband Jeremy. We all agree Lizzie is exactly what we are looking for. She wants a family, but feels too financially insecure to risk it, but her biological clock is ticking so loudly you can hear it. It’s now up to you, Gentlemen, you’re the ones to weigh Jeremy up, but the womenfolk approve of Lizzie. However, regarding the old granary, for little money as compared with the renovations behind the old allotments, the upper stories can be converted into a mix of three and four bedroom flats and some bedsits too for those leaving home, which will give them some independence with all the support they are used to still in place here. My idea is the entire ground floor [US 1st floor] be converted to the restaurant, complete with a small dance floor. I suggest once we have Jeremy on board we set up a meeting between him and Jacqueline our tame architect. I want the Levins brothers to boss the job even if they don’t actually do the work themselves because I’m telt by all our men in the building trade that their work is of the highest quality and they wouldn’t accept anything less from anyone working under their oversight. Most of those men are either semi retired or unavailable due to pressure of work they’re doing and have agreed to undertake. Again I suggest we get Alf to do the buying. Ellen says he’s getting tired and Bertie is taking a lot of the weight off his shoulders. Bertie’s taken on another apprentice, so that’s the third. He’s looking for a fourth, and said the two older ones are already doing a lot of the routine stuff with minimal supervision. Bertie says they have a good future in front of them as first class engineers and he wants Alf to slow down, so doing the buying will at least be less physically tiring. I think that’s all I’ve got to say. If any one has anything to add now or later please tell me. I’m sure I’ll have missed a trick somewhere, but we need to at least get things under way soon.”

It was clear Gladys and Harriet had already discussed things over with Elle and she was presenting their combined case. Sasha shook his head and said, “The money is nothing. There comes a point where you have to make your mind up and put it on the table. I think we are at that point. I’m sure things will arise that we’ll have to deal with. I equally sure that we will deal with them. We always do. I’ve nothing to add, Love.”

Pete added, “We’ll do whatever we can to support the lads doing the work and assist the womenfolk to help their menfolk. If it helps we can have bait(32) put up for any that want it and deliver to the site. We’ve got a couple of dozen bait boxes and thermos®(33) flasks available too. But I’m up for a party.”

Gustav laught and said, “Anything for a good bash, Dad?”

Pete recognising his own words from long ago being quoted at himself replied, “Aye, Son. Anything for a good bash.”

Gustav looked thoughtful and said, “We need our own architect. Is Jacqueline married? Could she you think be in need of introductions to some available men or women of professional promise? Or do we need to look elsewhere?”

Gladys spluttered and said, “Gustav, you are becoming as manipulative as the bloody Cossack.”

Equably Gustav looked at Pete then Gladys and said, “Be reasonable, Mum. A man needs more than one teacher.”

Harriet who’d said nothing to that point said, “I think Mum is just worried by the rate at which you are learning from those teachers, My Love.”

The six plotters stood and said good night as they drained their glasses before Sasha and Elle hand in hand went through the front doors of what was effectively the Bearthwaite Council Chambers. Gustav locked the front doors of the Green Dragon behind them. Pete and Gladys had already left for bed as he turned. Harriet held her hand out and said, “Bedtime. Something tells me tomorrow is going to be a long day, Love.”

1. Grog, is added to pottery to reduce shrinkage and cracking in pottery as it dries. It also aids workability. It has been made over the millennia from many things but crushed potsherds, fired clay failures and old clay bricks have been commonplace. Today some highly sophisticated grogs are formulated for specific uses, but essentially their function is what it has always been.
2. The largest refinery in the UK is the Esso refinery at Fawley in Hampshire. It is about 350 miles due south of Bearthwaite Cumbria. Esso is known as ExxonMobile outside the UK.
3. A rigid waggon is one that is not articulated and does not pull a trailer mounted on a fifth wheel coupling.
4. Compo, derived from composition, refers to both lime and cement mortars.
5. PTO, Power Take Off, a drive shaft from the tractors engine that powers other machinery.
6. Rebar, vernacular for steel used to reinforce concrete.
7. BBC, British Broadcasting Corporation, Britain’s state funded broadcaster.
8. Nowt, nothing.
9. Ox heart, traditional term for a cow’s heart.
10 .Beast in this context refers to a cow.
11. White Van Man, a relatively recently coined UK pejorative expression originally referring to the archetypal inconsiderate drivers of delivery vans which tend to be white. The expression has become so widely used that it now refers to being inconsiderate generally, not just behind a steering wheel.
12. Canny, astute.
13. Butch, dialectal form of butcher, a verb.
14. Spurs, turkeys, especially turkey stags, [males] have bony reinforcements in their lower leg muscles referred to as spurs, which are ossified tendons. One end is usually flat and thin becoming rounder and eventually becoming pointed at the far end. Even though they are seventy-five to a hundred millimetres [three or four inches] long they are difficult to extract from raw meat muscle which is tightly connected to them other than by scraping the meat off them with a knife. There can be a dozen or more in each drumstick. Pheasants and other game birds have them too as did many dinosaurs.
15. The craic or crack, a term for news, gossip, fun, entertainment, and enjoyable conversation.
16. Mil, millimetres.
17. To get aholt on, to get hold of, to purchase.
18. Owt, anything.
19. Gey, very.
20. Differential indexing, a method of precisely turning the work piece in a lathe, here a steel diving plate to be drilled with a circular set of holes, by a given fraction of a full turn.
21. Dividing plate, a circular disk with holes in it at regularly spaced fractions of a circle used to control the turning of a lathe’s work piece by that fraction. Commercial dividing plates have many such circles of holes on a single plate. A full set of such plates, usually thee or four of them, enable division to be carried out to any fraction of a circle up to about a hundredth. It was at one time relatively commonplace for craftsmen to manufacture their own at need often to enable a lathe’s work piece to be rotated by a single degree or as here to enable metric screw cutting on an imperially calibrated lathe, i.e. a lathe with an imperial lead screw, say 4, 8 or 10 threads per inch.
22. The significance of this is 127 is a large prime number and given that an inch, 1000 thousandths of an inch, is 25.4mm, after the only common factor, two, has been divided out the ratio in integers of 5000:127 is what remains. (1 000 : 25.4 ≡ 10 000 : 254 ≡ 5 000 : 127). To set up a lathe for screw cutting the tool advancement along the axis has to be geared correctly to the rotation of the work piece. This is achieved by setting up a series of gears referred to as change gears between the two on the lathe’s facility to so do. For a lathe manufactured with an imperial lead screw, which controls the advancement of the cutting tool along the lathe’s axis relative to the turning of the work piece, to cut metric threads one of those gears has to be of 127 teeth. In practice in many hobbyist workshops close approximations are used. CNC has rendered this unnecessary, but many older lathes remain in service that require such a gear.
23. ID, internal diameter.
24. OD, outside diameter.
25. A gross, twelve dozen, 144.
26. Bevy, beer.
27. The social, Social Security.
28. Hostage rum, illegally distilled Caribbean rum. A term used amongst smugglers in the Caribbean islands.
29. JCB, a popular back actor and shovel machine in the UK. Back hoe, US.
30. 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.
31. Bait, workman’s mid shift meal. The term baggin is also used.
32. Thermos LLC is a US company that manufactures vacuum beverage containers as well as other insulated food containers. The word thermos has become a term used generically for vacuum flasks regardless of the manufacturer.

A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 39 Iroko, Ermine and Critters

Atypically for the time of year the weather was warm at Bearthwaite; it had reached twelve Celsius [54℉] at midday for three days in a row. However, typically for the time of year the weather was thoroughly and unpleasantly inclement. Harry Maywell had always maintained, “My missus Kathleen has the right of it. She reckons if her bees ain’t flying the sensible woman stays in the house and does some ironing. I don’t do ironing, but there’s always something constructive I can find to do indoors.” With the winter solstice just a few days away there were only seven hours of daylight, but when the sky was overcast with dark, heavy, ominous looking rain clouds there seemed to be many fewer than that. Some days began dank in the dark followed by a barely different dimness of a moisty, misty early dawn that lasted all day seamlessly seguing into gloaming dusk before finally fading almost unnoticed subsumed by the dark from whence it came such a short time before which was yet another day with no daylight that made it difficult to keep track of whereabouts in the week one was. Though the rain hadn’t truly stopped for over a week it was just wet, misery inducing rain, not a deluge that would have flooded the road into Bearthwaite. The road was almost clear of running surface water which soaked away into the ground at the bottom of the drainage ditch, but the constant drizzle and lack of daylight, was depressing, and with Stephanie and Chance’s wedding reception a fading memory there seemed little to look forward to taking joy from till the Solstice bonfire celebration and its open air supper on the village green sheltering if need be in the encircling barns and the boatshed, which seemed a long way in the future to the adults and forever away to the children who couldn’t work up the enthusiasm to get excited by the prospect of the fireworks display yet.

Despite, the advent calendars, which the children had made a start on opening the little doors of, the lighting of the first of the four ritual advent candles on the four Sundays before Christmas and the carol service that the primary school children held on their last day of term, the children knew that Christmas did not start for a long time yet. The advent calendars the children used were not the anything but cheap disposable card ones sold everywhere, but hand crafted wooden items usually about two inches thick painted with whatever images took the maker’s fancy, often a Christmas scene, but animals were popular too. The most popular shape was that of a house, but again animal shapes were common too. The little doors opened onto a small space which usually contained a sweetie [candy] or possibly a small toy, puzzle or joke. The contents were refilled every year and many of the calendars were generations old. Many of them had been made by teenage boys as gifts to the young woman they were involved with which was considered to be a serious declaration of intent. Boys were still making them for that purpose.

The four ritual advent candles were placed in hand carved wooden crowns that were always surrounded and decorated with holly, mistletoe, yew, ivy and juniper sprigs woven into a wreath. Only one candle was lit the first Sunday and allowed to burn for the duration of the evening meal. Each Sunday thereafter an extra one was lit too, all four being allowed to burn down completely on the last of the four Sundays. The crown and wreath had connection to the Swedish Santa Lucia festival and the entire matter had remote connection to the Jewish Hanukkah festival of lights, but over time it had evolved to become a uniquely Bearthwaite tradition. Like the calendars, many of the candle holders were generations old, but many were recently crafted. Most had been created soon after marriage by a husband to give to his wife as recognition that she was the ranking female of the household and about to become the mother of his family. Only the ranking female of a Bearthwaite household was allowed to light the candles.

In the main it could be said that the essentially non religious residents of Bearthwaite had an old fashioned view of Christmas and they took a dim view of the rest of the world for whom Christmas started a month or more before the clocks went back. Christmas in Bearthwaite started on the morning of Christmas eve when the womenfolk aided by their daughters finished the preparations for the following day’s meals. It was traditional and thought proper for all the females of the household to spend at least some time in the kitchen, and even newborn girls were in the kitchens in their cribs for some of the day. The menfolk assisted by their sons collected the last of the necessary firewood and set up their dining arrangements for the following day, so as to be able to accommodate those who would be sharing the day with them. That usually involved scaffolding planks covered with blankets supported at each end by a stool to provide seating for the children. Like their newborn daughters were with their mothers even newborn sons were in the dining room as their fathers and brothers prepared the seating arrangements, for again it was traditional and considered proper.

Christmas day like all other notable days in the Bearthwaite calendar was special in Bearthwaite, and to remain so it was considered it had to be just that, Christmas day. It was considered that extending Christmas over weeks if not months diminished it and turned it into just another tawdry event manipulated by marketing men. As Vince the Mince cynically said, “You can tell when it’s Christmas out yonder because there’re Easter eggs in the shops.” Gifts were exchanged at Christmas but there was no orgy of spending as elsewhere. Gifts tended to be practical or small tokens of affection. Many, even toys, were hand made, often items intended to be of use especially those given to children, though knitted and crocheted stuffed toys were popular with younger children. Children’s gifts included tools appropriate to their age, sewing and knitting paraphernalia were always popular with girls and wood working and mechanics tools were similar with boys. It was normal for children to ask for such presents in advance and negotiate what they would receive. A common present for older girls and boys was poultry or coneys to keep for eggs or meat, such presents were highly esteemed by children, for they indicated their parents considered them mature enough to look after livestock. Many houses at Bearthwaite were built with a pigsty and children in their mid teens were often given a piglet to raise. Christmas cards were considered to be a pointless device invented by greedy folk to separate them from their hard earnt money. It was considered enough to wish someone a happy Christmas which cost nothing. However, the primary school children enjoyed making them and they were usually a large card intended for their entire family that took several hours to produce. Their teachers regarded it as a valuable activity enabling children to practice their hand skills during their art lessons.

~o~O~o~

Alf was working on a car gearbox when Pete came into his workshop. He put the micrometer he’d been using down and asked, “What can I do for you, Pete?”

“Alf, what would it cost us for some decent hardwood to make a load of tables for the Community Centre, so we could use it for for social activities as well as its current uses? I’m asking because even with Gustav’s brewery used for such things we need more space to accommodate a really big event.”

Alf laught and replied, “That depends entirely on what you mean by a load and by a decent hardwood, Pete, because quality tropical hardwood is damned expensive. The oak for the shutters on the dragon would seem cheap by comparison because that was European, French if I remember correctly. If you’re thinking in terms of a dark coloured tropical hardwood you’re talking serious money, but you get what you pay for. You could buy oak, elm, beech, ash or the like and have it stained, but used in the kind of environment you’re talking about to look halfway decent it would have to be refinished every few years. What were you thinking about?”

“Something like the bar tops in the Dragon taproom.”

Alf whistled and said, “I don’t think so, Lad. The original piece is a single plank of over two hundred year old solid teak three inches thick and the other piece is the same only it’s younger at a mere hundred and fifty years old. I was gey lucky to find that piece for the extension at any price. The bloke was only prepared to sell it to me because I promised him it was for a bar top extension to match what was there and it wouldn’t be cut up. I shewed him pictures of the taproom bar. Have you any idea what Sasha paid for it?”

“No. Do you?”

“Aye, and there was barely enough change out of five grand [$6250] to buy a pint, and I had to collect it with a truck doing twenty miles to the gallon [7 km per litre] at best from Penzance in Cornwall which was over a thousand miles round trip.”

“Bloody hell!”

“Aye bloody hell indeed. That’s why I wouldn’t let those bar fitters touch it and I installed it myself. I wasn’t prepared to cut it which is why the bar is a foot and a half longer than on the drawings”

“You got any suggestions, Alf?”

“You said tables, but what do you want? How big and how many?”

“Somewhere between eight and twelve foot long. How many would depend on how long they were.”

“How many folk do you want to be able to seat?”

“About three hundred.”

“Three hundred folk need six hundred feet of table. Two foot a head is the usual rule of thumb that’s used. That’s, let me see, seventy-five eight foot tables, or sixty ten foot tables or fifty twelve foot tables. You’d probably seat a few more folk, but that’s a safe estimate of what you need.”

“What will that cost, Alf?”

“You could do it for less than five grand if you were prepared to settle for wood effect melamine veneered chipboard on tubular steel legs.”

“No. We want something in keeping with the rest of the building, some thing that looks as if it belongs in a two hundred year old building. I know in one sense the Community Centre is a relatively new building, but it was constructed entirely from centuries old recycled materials and stone to match from the quarry, so in a very real sense it is centuries old.”

“I know. I made the spindle moulder(1) tooling to make all the architraves and skirtings(2) match up. Who’re we?”

“Sasha, Elle, Gladys, me, and the finance group.”

Alf grinned and said, “Okay. I get it, the Bearthwaite movers and shakers group. Well, using stained European hardwood it could be done for twenty, maybe twenty-five grand, but I telt you the downside of that, and tropical hardwood tops an inch thick made up of strips maybe two inches wide would cost about the same, but all the ones I’ve seen look to be candy striped with wood of widely varying depths of colour in them. I don’t think any of you would like that.”

Pete was shaking his head and said, “I don’t think we would. What would it cost to do it properly, Alf, with a decent tropical hardwood. I don’t think any of us would object to multiple planks in a top, but they’d at least have to match each other in depth of colour.”

“The trouble is even if they appeared to match, some of that could be due to clever shade matching of different tones using stains and various other materials specifically made for master crafts workers to do that with. It’s not a con. It’s very difficult these days to obtain wood where that is not required and colour matching is a major skill required of furniture makers nowadays.”

“You telling me there is no solution?”

“No. What I’m telling you is you’re looking at hellish serious money to get a solution within the parameters you’ve outlined. If you’re looking at that many single slab tables, you could be starting at a well over a hundred and twenty grand, and the sky is the limit, just to buy the wood for the tops as rough sawn planks, and even full of holes, voids, defects and bug damage they’re bugger all cheaper. There is a whole industry out there that uses slabs like that to produce designer tables after the gaps have been filled with epoxy of all sorts of colours and often with metallic effects too. Such tables start selling at ten or twelve grand going up to well over fifty and the slabs sell quickly for silly money. Surely there must be better things round here to spend the money on. Who’s driving this, Pete? Elle?”

Pete nodded and said, “I think she’s looking for something to leave behind her as a legacy to Bearthwaite. I know most folk think of Sasha as the village’s benefactor, but Elle’s done as much as he though in a much less noticeable way. After what she’s done for the place, I really don’t want to disappoint her. Is there really nothing else, Alf? No other way?”

Alf sighed and said, “I wasn’t going to mention it, because I don’t like dealing for big money with friends. You can lose friends quickly that way. However, I’ve got forty odd pieces of fifty-four mil [2⅛ inch] thick iroko just over a metre [40 inches] wide and three point eight metres [12½ feet] long as well as god alone knows how many shorter pieces too, at least six hundred feet in all, maybe over eight hundred feet. [maybe 250 metres]”

“What’s iroko? And how come you’ve got that much?”

“Iroko is a superior quality tropical hardwood, that used to be widely used for laboratory bench tops. Iroko was used because it’s resistant to chemicals of all descriptions and damned difficult to set on fire. Too, it’s hard and given a decent finish it looks good for years, and it’s easy to finish. When it starts to look scruffy maybe every twenty years or so in a laboratory environment you just sand the finish off and reapply it. Iroko lasts almost for ever. In a bar or restaurante environment the stuff would be nigh to immortal. It must be twenty-odd years ago that I heard that some labs were to be gutted at a secondary school out west. I made enquiries and eventually offered to do the job and take all the old benches away too. The price I asked for was gey reasonable and they snapped my hand off.

“I went over there one Saturday morning with some lads and four waggons with trailers. We started at eight and we worked right through till early Sunday evening leaving the four huge rooms shelled. I paid the lads well, and everyone was happy. The benches themselves and all the cupboards and drawers were quality pitch pine pieces made with tight dovetails and I selt them to three different customers, all shop fitters, for a tidy price. I selt a hundred and twenty-odd tall lab stools to a bar fitter in Glasgow for thirty quid apiece, but I kept the iroko. I think the school had regrets afterwards when someone telt them what the iroko was worth, but that wasn’t my problem. I think they were a sandwich short of a picnic(3) for having the stuff ripped out to replace it with melamine formaldehyde veneered chipboard atop tubular steel framed tables. The only problem with iroko is you need damned good dust extraction to work it because the dust it produces, like a lot of tropical hardwoods is nasty. You really don’t want it in your eyes or your lungs because it can do you serious harm.”

“It sounds just like what I think we’re looking for. I’m not asking for any favours, Alf, because I don’t want to lose any friends either, but what would you be looking for to part with it?”

“The stuff I’ve got is solid. Each piece is a two inch single plank. Iroko work tops that wide and a whisker over inch thick made up of two inch [50mm] strips sell at about two hundred quid a running metre [$80 a foot]. I’ve possibly about a hundred grands’ worth at that price if it were made laminated up from two inch strips, a lot of which would be much lighter in colour and look nowhere near as good as the solid dark stuff I’ve got. Gaudy is the word that springs to mind. Mine is certainly worth twice that. Some of the planks had splits in them when we took ’em out but they’ll glue and clamp so the join can’t be seen. There’re enough pieces to invisibly patch where the lab sinks used to be. I don’t wish to be greedy, but that wood has long been a significant part of my pension plan, so I’m not going to give it away. That little lot could be made to produce at least sixty ten foot [3m] tables or fifty twelve footers [3.65m] if the job were done right. I could have square tube frames with four legs welded up in stainless steel made to fasten to the underneath of the tables by a bloke who only works with stainless and he’s damned good at it. He could make the stainless black in colour with some kind of a heat and chemical treatment rather than an applied surface colour like paint. He could also make ’em so the tables nest.

“Alternatively, I could make any one of several different arrangements in oak or some other European hardwood and stain it to match the iroko. The legs wouldn’t get the wear that the tops would, so that would have an acceptable appearance for at least a century, long after we’re gone anyway. For two hundred and fifty grand I’m prepared to do the entire job and threw in the legs. That’s five grand apiece for fifty twelve and a half foot tables, and that’s gey cheap for wood of the quality they used a century back when that wood was fitted into the school. I’m prepared to sell the lot for that and make up as many tables as it will provide. If as I believe it will it makes made a few more tables I’ll threw them in as part of the deal. The tables will only appreciate in value and they’d be better in the ownership of the Bearthwaite Village Community Ownership Company than the wood is in mine. I’m not pressing you, but you won’t find wood of that quality anywhere today unless you get gey lucky, and you know in advance that if I made ’em they would be of a quality high enough to grace anyone’s dining room.”

“I don’t think Elle would go for the metal legs even if they were black. Any chance of you sketching a few different leg arrangements with stained wooden legs and shewing Elle the iroko?”

“No problem. Bring her down to my workshop. The wood’s stored on the racks over my metal store. I’ll sand and refinish a sample for her to look at.”

“Okay. I’ll do that, but I think I’ll have a word with Sasha first. He’ll maybe want a look first.”

“I doubt it, Pete. He saw the iroko years ago when he was thinking of buying some for window sills. He didn’t buy any because he preferred the teak railway sleepers I had at the time. Now they were a bastard to resaw(4) down to window sill thickness. My bandsaw is an old heavy one with a six inch resaw blade and that cut the teak easily enough, but handling the timbers was a whole different story. I had to lift them onto the saw table with a chain hoist and arrange for in and out feed tables that could take the weight. I have to say his sills look good, and that beeswax polish that Harry’s missus Kathleen makes is perfect to keep them looking that way.”

“How come you’ve still got it, Alf? Haven’t you ever tried to sell it?”

“Yeah. Maybe three years since a bloke from Merseyside offered me two hundred grand for it, but he wanted me to deliver it.”

“So how come you’ve still got it?”

“I didn’t like the bastard. He knew nothing about wood, just that what I had was worth money. He wouldn’t explain how he’d heard I’d got it, so I didn’t trust him either, and there was no way I was taking a cargo worth that kind of money anywhere near Liverpool. You know what they say, ‘What do you call a scouser(5) in a suit? The accused.’(6) Even if he’d brought his own waggon I’d still have fucked him off just because I didn’t like him.”

Pete smiled. Alf was Alf, and had his own way of seeing the world. He was one of the most generous folk Pete had ever come across, but he also had a core of steel and didn’t readily change his mind. It was impossible to imagine Alf changing his views about scousers.

Alf looked thoughtful as he continued, “If I selt it to a commercial outfit they slice it all up into one inch strips, turn ’em sideways and reglue them into slabs a inch thick. They’d get vanya(7) twice as much table top doing that, but it would be criminal to do that to what is absolutely beautiful wood. ” Alf shook his head and shuddered at what was clearly a heinous thought to him. “Far better it stays here to be appreciated as two inch tables in the Community Centre. I’ll work out some way to personalise a table for Elle.”

~o~O~o~

It was early Saturday evening, and the taproom of the Green Dragon Bearthwaite was filling rapidly. There was water pooling of underneath the rows of overcoats and hat racks. There were no umbrellas draining as Bearthwaite men considered their use to be as effeminate as drinking from a half pint glass or carrying flowers, unless of course they were grown for sale or for their womenfolk to decorate the church with. The piles of steaming dogs vying for position in front of the fires gave the air a decidedly doggy smell. “Damn you, Tolly,” was heard as Frank a retired shepherd cursed his border collie for covering him with rain as the long rough coated, black and white dog shook the water off himself soaking Frank and a few others nearby too. “Sorry about that lads. Let me get a few in by way of an apology,” Frank said.

“Nay need for the apology, Frank. I don’t like my old bones getting soaked, and I don’t suppose Tolly does any more than I do. Getting on too like us all ain’t he, but I’ll take you up on the pint. Eric reached down to scratch behind Tolly’s ears saying, “Good lad, Tol, you get in there with the others in the warm.” Wagging his tail Tolly licked Eric’s hand and did as he’d been telt wriggling in for a place twixt two other somewhat more active and younger sheepdogs. “Clever bugger ain’t he, Frank?” Eric said watching the sagacious dog finally end up with his nose on the fender.

“Aye. They’re clever as a breed, but in his day Tolly was the best I ever worked. Meg as I lost a couple of year back and Tolly were a fair canny pair working ’em down from the tops(8) to bring ’em in for lambing, sheering or tecking(9) to market, and they were unequalled for cutting what I wanted out of a flock before penning the rest. I reckon we both still miss Meg; she was Tolly’s dam. Like me Tolly’s got rheumatism these days. I still teck him down to Peabody’s place to help out at sheering. Truth is Alex doesn’t need him, but it makes Tolly happy to do a bit. Aggie says the old dog needs to keep doing to keep his mind active, and I don’t think she was talking about Tolly. She’s going buy me a pup when one of the right breeding is available. That’s serious money we’re talking, so God knows where she’ll get the cash from. The kids have said come the day they’ll always look after my dogs, so I suspect they’re putting their hands deep in their pockets to help her out. Harriet love, put a packet of crisps [US chips] in a dish for Tolly please, will you, Pet? Look at that Eric, his ears are up. He heard his name and the word crisps. He’ll get up in a second to go to Harriet for ’em.”

Eric smiled as Tolly shook the other dogs off him and went to the doorway waiting for Harriet. It was true Tolly was bright even for a border collie, but Frank had been a byword as a sheepdog trainer and handler for his entire working life, even before he left school working shepherds regarded him with respect. He had the endless patience required and shepherds still spoke in awe of the so called useless dogs rejected by other shepherds he’d acquired for next to nothing and turned into sheepdog trials champions. Tolly like all his breed was friendly, but in his eyes Frank was God. Even Aggie when out at odds with Frank had been know to snap occasionally, “His bloody dogs mean more to my old man than I do.” However, once domestic harmony had been restored she usually added, “It’s not surprising. For every hour he’s spent in my company he’s spent endless days and nights up on the fells with only his dogs for company. His family have been shepherds for ever, and the blood run true in my Frank for sure. It makes both of us happy that Harmon and Vinny are tecking it forward. As long as those two are breathing my Frank will never die.” Harmon was Aggie’s second son and like his eldest boy Vinny both were working shepherds spending most of their lives on the fells.

As Harriet put the dish down, Tolly looked at Frank for permission, and only when Frank said, “Go on, Lad. They’re for you,” did he start eating.

~o~O~o~

Tony was waiting at the bar to be served having just walked in and he was recounting his holiday the week before. “We went to Scotland skiing last week for five days. We only got back at midnight last night. It’s cheap at the moment with the kids back at school, and there weren’t too many folk about. We had a really good time and will definitely go there again. The hotel was out in the middle of nowhere and the wildlife was amazing, red squirrels all over the place and the deer were fed hay nearby and I took some really good photos from less than twenty metres.[ 60 feet]. I took loads of photos of birds I’d never seen before that I’ll have to look up to identify. We were making our way back to the hotel in the gloam on Tuesday when Beth pointed out a pure white weasel that was really hard to make out against the snow. Mind, maybe it was a stoat. I can’t tell the difference, but this one was pure white all over, which I’ve never heard of before.”

“For fuck’s sake, Tony, you need to take a bit of notice of the countryside. You ex-townies need to know there’s no similarity between the two at all. They’re stoatally different and so weasily distinguishable!”

“Hellfire, Alf, that’s so old the hairs on its arse have dropped off due to baldness!”

“Yeah, I know, Stan, but the old ones are the gold ones, and I couldn’t stop myself. Just for the record, Tony, it was a stoat in its winter colours and they’re referred to as ermine. They moult and their coat changes colour according to the season. Technically the species is ermine whether in winter or summer colours, but stoat is a common name for them in many places when in summer colours.”

“How do you know that, Alf? I didn’t know you were into wildlife too.”

“I’m not really, Stan, but I had a pair when I was a boy and used them just like ferrets. Granddad Winstanley bought them off a bloke in Penrith when they were little and gave them to me for my tenth birthday. They were friendly enough with me and gey tame, but they were feisty little buggers with any one else. Damned good at working coneys though. I spent many an afternoon when I should have been in school providing us all with a decent meal, and I selt a goodly few to Vincent’s dad too for the odd shilling.”(10)

“I remember those beasties, Alf. I’ve still got the teeth marks on one of my fingers, but Dad was always glad to see you. There were a few lads at that time who had ferrets and selt him coneys which has always been a popular here. I buy ’em off the kids too whenever I’m offered any and I don’t think I’ve ever had one in the window for as long a two hours before someone bought it. My best supplier is Olivia Gerry’s nine year old granddaughter. She’s that keen she takes her ferrets to school and works ’em during her lunch time too. Dad always said you were his best supplier.” Vincent shrugged and added, “Probably because you didn’t bother going to school if you could think of something better to do, which was never more than five days a week.” There was deal of laughter at Vincent’s remark, which although an exaggeration had more than a grain of truth in it.

Alf laught and said, “Okay, Lads, just because I got that one in, which I’ll admit is well older than I am, I’ll stand a round. Tell Pete what you want. On my slate, Lass.”

Alf’s last remark was addressed to Harriet who replied with a smile, “I’ll put them down to your slate, Uncle Alfred, but Gustav telt me days ago that your next shout was down to him for sorting the clutch on his truck as an emergency job.”

Anthony said with a smile, “Harriet Love, that chestnut(11) maybe old, but it fit so well even if Alf was taking the mick(12) out of me, I’ll stand for half of it.”

Tony was amazed and secretly proud when Harriet replied, “Okay, Uncle Anthony, I’ll deal with the reckoning.” She’d never referred to him as Uncle before. He was aware that though he was only ten or so years older than Harriet it was a significant sign of respect that the local men wouldn’t have missed and they would now accept him as one of themselves. He wondered what the possibilities were of himself and Beth moving to Bearthwaite and making a living as dentists there. He was not interested in making a fortune as he once was, rather he was interested in creating a good future for himself and Beth and their future family that they’d just made a start on, and Bearthwaite was a good place to rear kids. If he ended up as a part time dentist and doing something else, preferably something creative with his hands, in order to make a living that would not just be okay that would be excellent. There were many clever professionals in Bearthwaite who lived that way, so he wouldn’t be breaking new ground. He’d have a talk with Beth about it in the car on the way home. He smiled to himself thinking that the odds were she’d been thinking that way for a long time and was just waiting for him to catch up with her. Given that Beth was two months pregnant, if they wanted a home in Bearthwaite before the baby arrived he needed to be doing something about it soon. He decided the best thing to do was to have a word with Sasha.

~o~O~o~

Freddy pushed his beer glass forward and said, “If someone will refill that I’ve a short one that was quite funny at the time.” Five minute later after a number of glasses had been replenished, Frank began. “The other day I was looking for some old eight by four three-quarter inch exterior shuttering ply sheets. I’ve had them for years. I bought them new years ago for twelve quid a sheet, so that tells you how long I’ve had them because they’re over forty quid a sheet these days. I know they’re all metric now a days but that’s still how I think of them. Twenty four hundred by twelve hundred at eighteen mil thick doesn’t actually mean anything to me. I wanted two sheets to cut in half to make a four foot cube to use as a coal bunker. Godfrey came round to cadge some three inch screws for a job he was doing and stayed for a mug of tea and some craic. He was giving me a hand ratching through a pile of sheet materials and he asked me, ‘What about this one, Freddy?’ I replied, ‘Iffy on the edge.’

“When Godfrey started laughing I asked what was so funny. ‘Iffy on the Edge. It was the way you said it. It sounded like one of those fictitious villages on those old BBC radio comedy shows in the fifties and sixties. You know Much Binding on the Marsh and Rough on the Whole.’

“I suppose it doesn’t take much to keep either of us amused. We spent the rest of the afternoon recalling and inventing names for villages and the folk who lived in them. Some of them were decidedly not to be mentioned in mixed company, but it passed the afternoon and at the end of it I had a new coal bunker.”

“Names of what like? The rude ones I mean. Anything I can use in a tale of the new truth?”

“I’ve forgotten most of them already, Dave, but Warrington Minge springs to mind as a name I heard many years ago, Peter Sellers on the Goon Show I think.”

“Christ! I remember that, but it’s a gey long while back.”

Dave laught and said “Aye I know, Vincent, ain’t it just, but there are a few clips on Youtube of that sort of stuff. Look ’em up. If you remember any more of those villages and folk make a note of ’em for me will you, Freddy?”

“Sure. I’ve always liked your tales, Dave, so I’ll be glad to. I’ll have a word with Godfrey to find out what he can call to mind.”

~o~O~o~

Pete had finished pulling pints whilst Gustav washed glasses and looking round the taproom he asked, “You ready to go, Liam? Or shall we pass the chemic round before you start?”

“I’ll have some of that Calvados, Pete, before I start.”

A number of men expressed similar desires and it was a few minutes before Liam started telling his tale. “I mind when I was teaching we had a young and rather naïve French lass naturally enough teaching French. Her English was certainly better than that of some of the staff born and bred in the UK. However her grasp of the Cumbrian dialectal version of English was decidedly lacking. One day in the staffroom she asked, ‘What’s a penneh?’ There was some puzzlement till she gave her question some context. Apparently she was regularly being asked by the kids, ‘Borrow us a pen, eh?’ She clearly hadn’t understood the Cumbrian practice of ending every question and a lot of statements too with, ‘eh?’ She did grasp that it was a request to be lent a pen, though I’m not sure she understood the explanation, or that to many Cumbrians and virtually all Cumbrian children the verbs to lend and to borrow were interchangeable though the selection of which to use was hardly random since the kids chose the wrong one most of the time. They had similar problems with to learn and to teach and invariably used us in place of me. Whilst over here she’d met and married an English civil engineer who spoke fluent French. I can’t say I was surprised when she handed her notice in when her first babe was a twelve month old. She was already having her second and they moved to France. The kids even then were becoming unmanageable and senior management didn’t do anything effective about it. They certainly didn’t provide any support for abused staff. She telt me she had accepted a job at the school she’d attended. It was in a decent area with well behaved kids eager to learn and the school had a crèche. Her husband had been given a transfer to France working for the same firm that currently employed him. That must have been a no brainer, eh?”

There were roars of laughter at Liam’s inclusion of ‘eh?’ after his question.

~o~O~o~

As the men looked around to see if there were any volunteers to continue after Liam had clearly finished, Francis took a goodly pull on his pint and said, “Adele hit the deck at Lidl last week. Fortunately there was a lass there who said she was a nurse to help me get her into the Land Rover which is a bit on the high side to lift some one into. Luckily she hadn’t hurt herself, it was her leg that had given way under her. Adele is a big lass and I haven’t been strong enough to lift her up for a few years now. The nurse wanted to call an ambulance or have me take her to A&E,(13) but Adele wouldn’t entertain either. No surprises there. A couple of days later it happened again outside the coöp, and again a couple of folk helped me get her in the car and Adele wouldn’t even get an appointment with our GP.(14) I don’t know where we go from here, but as I suspect many of you already know, I put the word out, and I’ve now got a collection of sticks including one that branches out into four for increased stability, two zimmers,(15) one of which has wheels, a stroller with a seat, room for some shopping and brakes on the handles and a wheelchair to boot. You can barely get into the spare bedroom.

“Adele wants me to donate them to the clinic the nurses run in the Community Centre so that any who needs them has access to them. I suppose it would be a good idea if we all did that with any stuff we don’t need any more, after all if the need returns we can just go and get whatever we need. The reason I’m telling this tale is I heard that there’s a fortune’s worth of unwanted, unused stuff like that in public circulation because the NHS(16) no longer has a mechanism to accept them back, and folk are reluctant to threw the stuff away. Apparently charity shops won’t accept them because there was a tale of one prosecuted for stealing a donated NHS wheelchair a few years ago. I think the issue was they were selling it. Since they exist to raise money, not unreasonably if they can’t sell something they don’t want it. Maybe we can lay our hands on some of those things that folk would be glad to see go to a good home, at least enough to cover any possible future needs of Bearthwaite folk. I was telt that anything returned to the NHS has to be cleaned and sterilised before it can be reissued and due to budget cuts they no longer have the staff to do that. Mental! Anyway, the good thing is Adele seems to have been okay since her second fall. Well, okay enough to be drinking and gossiping with the other lasses in the room at any event.”

“That’s a good idea about collecting crutches and the like for the clinic, Francis. I’ll have Karen look into it.” There were murmurs of agreement with Geoff, whose wife Karen was a retired nurse who played a major rôle in the Bearthwaite health clinic that was located in the Community Centre. Other folks’ waste could often be turned to advantage by the Bearthwaite folk. The NHS may no longer be able to pay staff to sanitise returned equipment, but the job would be done at Bearthwaite because none would expect to be paid for it. Too, it was the sort of thing Bearthwaite children and teens did purely to contribute and to be seen to be doing so by their elders which enhanced their status and perceived maturity, and of course they had fun when a group of them were involved.

~o~O~o~

As Eric munched on the contents of a bag of salted sweet chestnuts that were a Green Dragon speciality prepared by Aggie from either local nuts collected by the children who selt them for pocket money or from imported Spanish ones bought direct off the internet by the quarter tonne, [250Kg, 550 pounds] he looked around to see if folk were ready for him to begin. Several men were still visiting the gents, so he waited till all were seated before commencing. “We’d had some kind of a critter living under the floor in the front room for a few weeks. Shauna said since the little bugger wasn’t paying any rent it had to be evicted. As I’d expected Shauna said critter catching was man’s work and that I’d better get on with it. The floor is concrete, but laid on that is a tarred building paper waterproof barrier to protect the wooden three by twos from any damp. The three by twos have expanded polystyrene insulation sheet laid between them. On top of that is a wooden floor of tongue and groove oak put down with secret nailing,(17) so there was no easy way of getting at the damned thing. I didn’t think it was a mouse because it made so much noise. At the side of the fire is an alcove and the oak flooring doesn’t go all the way to the back. There’s a six inch gap that the damned beastie kept filling with chewed up polystyrene.

“I wondered what it was living on, for there’s no nourishment in insulation sheet not even for a rat if that’s what it were. The two cats are old now and couldn’t be bothered with it, so it was down to a trap. I had some mouse traps and thought I’d try those before I bought a rat trap. I baited the trap with a piece of dried cat food, but it was still there after a fortnight. Next I tried one of the expensive cat treats. I went outside to do a bit of gardening and a couple of hours later when I went back into the house for a cup of tea one of the cats was interested in the gap at the back of the alcove where I’d set the trap because I reckoned the critter would have to exit that way to find food. Took me nigh on three weeks to catch the little sod, but they say God rewards the patient and diligent with success. Since the little bugger wouldn’t eat cat food, but the treats did the trick it was obviously an upper class mouse. I reckoned the least I could do was to give it a decent send off, so I cremated it on the front room fire. It wasn’t a big mouse, so I wondered if there were more than one of them, but there’s been no noise under the floor since then and no chewed up polystyrene either.”

Pete said, “It’s what happens when you live out in the sticks, Eric. Mostly it’s just mice coming in at the back end when it gets cold. Still at least it’s just mice. In the towns and cities it’s rats that move in and that can happen all year round. Stupid idiots should deal with their refuse better, because no refuse means no rats which means no rats going into houses. Still what do we know? We deal with all our refuse properly and encourage and reward the kids who go ratting with the dogs of a weekend. How deep are the composting pits for compostable household waste on the allotments, Alf?”

“How would I know. Ask Tony. He’s the machine driver who digs ’em.”

Tony grinned and said, “Fourteen foot, Pete. It’s as deep as I can reach. I’ve noticed the worms go that deep now. When the one in use is four foot short of full one of the local farmers tops it up with shite for me and when it’s sunk a bit I level it off before digging another. Give it another few years and there’ll be fourteen foot of topsoil down there. Give it a generation and they’ll be growing pumpkins you can hollow and rent out as bedsits.” There was a lot of laughter at that but there was some truth in Tony’s remarks about the soil on the allotment plots. For decades unused plots had been used as sites for the waste trenches. Once filled and levelled another was dug out. Existing plot holders moved onto one of the enriched plots and their old one eventually was dug out to be used in turn. It was a few years since Tony had been digging out plots that had been dug out before probably half a century ago. No trace of household waste remained; the worms had done their job. As Tony put it, “I just provide the opportunity for the wormy chappies and chappesses to have a party. After the feast comes the orgy and lots of little baby wormy chappies and chappesses ready to continue the party. They’re the ones that actually do all the work.”

~o~O~o~

Harriet entered the taproom with her pails of water and kibble for the dogs dishes and announced, “Supper will be on the tables in twenty minutes. Battered cod, chips [US fries] and mushy marrowfat peas tonight. Don’t worry, Uncle Alf, when you see the size of the portion of chips on your plate. There are so many here tonight we’re having to cook the chips in two batches. You’ll all have a half portion to be going on with whilst the second batch finishes cooking and we’ll serve those a few minutes later. I’m going to order another chip fryer first thing tomorrow, so this won’t happen again. Veronica said to tell you that for the sophisticated there is home made tartare sauce to go with the cod and for the philistines there is gravy to go with the chips, which I guess makes me a philistine. If anyone wants a couple of slices of bread and butter to go with it tell Dad and as soon as I know how much bread needs buttering we’ll deal with it. Veronica is buttering bread at the moment. To any of you who don’t know we only use bread baked down at the mill and butter locally produced by Alan Peabody’s dairy in this establishment. We don’t have anything to do with any of the healthy alternative spreads, so it’s full fat or nowt.(18)

“For pudding there is rhubarb crumble and custard. The rhubarb is locally grown and was canned by Christine especially for us earlier in the year, and we have a plentiful supply of it. It’s main crop rhubarb, not the forced early rhubarb that was canned by Aggie much earlier in the year which there won’t be any more of till next year’s crop is available. The crumble contains rolled oats and the mixture was blended for us with mixed grain flours by Auntie Alice at the mill specially for making crumble with. If you like it let your wives know that Auntie Lucy is selling it at the grocers. We added the spice in the kitchen. Comments would be gratefully received especially concerning the clove content. Christine has agreed to do a lot more canning for us mostly of things that produce gluts for the allotment folk, apples, rhubarb and other fruit and vegetables too. In order to meet all her commitments and continue to supply Auntie Lucy in the grocers as well as supply us, so that we can source even more locally rather than having to buy from outside she is looking for an apprentice canner. It would possibly suit a girl or a boy not looking to continue education at college after leaving school, so she asked that the word be passed around. The wind has eased and changed direction. It’s now blowing away from the back door, so I’ll leave it open for quarter of an hour for the dogs. I’d be obliged if someone will check that it is closed it in a bit in case I become too busy and forget.”

“I’ll see to it, Harriet.”

“Okay. Thanks, Uncle Barry.”

~o~O~o~

It was no surprise to the men that Alice had blended the crumble mix, for they’d been discussing it earlier with Phil her husband, however, it was a surprise that Christine had canned the rhubarb. Christine was a small scale professional canner of all sorts of foods that usually were selt via Dave and Lucy’s village store, but it appeared that was one more thing that was changing for the better. As a result of the Covid Christine had lost her job in a hotel in Carlisle and had turned what had been a domestic kitchen activity into something that provided her with a reasonable income. Alf’s grandson Bertie had modified a commercial pressure vessel originally intended for sterilising operating theatre surgical instruments into a pressure canner of considerable capacity. At five feet in diameter and two feet deep it could take hundreds of Kilner jars [US Mason jars] at once and it’s operation was completely automatic thanks to Bertie and Pat the local electronics guru. It was widely spoken of that whilst none would ever have wished Covid on any, the consequences of having to reëvalute and change the way they did things and the subsequent improvements in their lives were agreed to be very positive things. Everyone knew that anything that eased gluts on the allotments was a good thing for the entire Bearthwaite population. When it was time to lift the maincrop potatoes several hundred men and their sons went down to the allotments to help lift, bag and load the sacks onto farm trailers for taking away to a storage barn. The harvesting of many vegetables and fruit picking too were community activities.

For years Aggie had usually had to ask round for help preparing windfall and bruised apples for the freezer that ultimately would be canned to free up much needed freezer space. They had to be processed immediately for unlike the apples picked from the trees they would not keep and the loss of so much food was a serious matter. It hadn’t been unknown for several tons, [several thousand Kg, x 2⅕ in pounds] of fruit or vegetables to have been stored in the freezers and chillers of Vincent the Bearthwaite butcher as a temporary measure to avoid spoilage till the materials could be processed. The provision of large scale walk in freezer and chiller units was under discussion by the committee of the Bearthwaite Village Community Ownership Company. The committee members were all agreed that it should be done. The sticking point was that there was nowhere suitable to put them. It was considered preferable to utilise existing buildings rather than build something from new and Jacqueline the architect used by Bearthwaite was being consulted concerning modifications required for several potential buildings.

~o~O~o~

After supper once the important matter of the drink had been organised, Gerry asked, “Have you noticed that everything you buy is replaced by a newer model at regular and frequent intervals and the latest version is always designed with loads of extra features as a selling ploy, features that nobody actually uses. Mobile phones, cars, washing machines in fact all kitchen appliances and all of the iPad, iPod type devices, not that I’d know the difference. It’s all just a ploy to part you from your hard earnt money in exchange for nowt you’ll ever use. And to add insult to injury if you have a problem with any of those gadgets the customer support will tell you, ‘I’m sorry, Sir, but that model is no longer supported.’ What they really mean is hand over your cash for a new one. Bastards!”

“It is all deliberate, Gerry, and often was carefully planned before the product was even launched. Marketing is a highly developed discipline, and many if not most universities offer it as a degree level subject. Lecturers and others in the field refer to something they call ‘The Product Life Cycle’ which is a series of steps, that goes as follows: development, introduction, growth, maturity, saturation and decline. Some of them ignore development and decline, but the introduction of models with the addition of extra features, whether of any use to the market or not, is considered to be a vital part of the marketing strategy for a product, especially from the growth phase onwards. Marketing is a highly developed art to separate folk from their money, and it’s part of many different disciplines.

“Most supermarket management have studied a course heavy with marketing components. The placement of goods in a store is deliberate. The products most folk buy regularly, staples like bread, milk and the like, are always placed in inconvenient places you wouldn’t otherwise go to to make you walk past other stuff to enable you to impulse buy it. Often milk is right at the back of a store. Same with toilet rolls, feminine hygiene products and babies’ nappies, folk have to have them and will go out of their way to get to them, so they put them well out of the way surrounded by washing machine and dishwasher supplies, again things folk don’t need persuading to buy. Products they want you to look at are immediately visible at eye level down to just above waist level, they call that the grab zone, and they make you reach up or down for products you would probably buy anyway without any persuading.

“When all the goods change place in the supermarket you usually use it’s a deliberate change to make you look for what you want and discover other products whilst doing so. They do it periodically to make your previous knowledge of where everything you normally buy is to be found redundant. It prevents you shopping on auto pilot and just going straight to the products you want. They know it irritates you, so they don’t do it too often in case it irritates you so much you start shopping elsewhere, and they already know exactly how frequently they can get away with it. Toys and sweets are where kids can see them, and all that stuff they sell near the till [US checkout] is there to tempt you to buy it whilst waiting to pay. Got a store loyalty card? Ever wondered why they don’t just reduce their prices. It’s so they have data on what you buy and can target you with promotions likely to induce you to get your credit card out. It’s all damned clever.”

“How the hell do you know all that, Will? I thought you were an ambulance paramedic.”

I am, Gerry, but Carolyne is a supermarket manager and has a degree in retail marketing. She’s worked for all of the major supermarkets over the years and currently works for Tesco, so I’ve learnt a load about their devious tricks over the years.”

~o~O~o~

Pete announced, “Most of us know Jeremy, but for his second time he’s providing the entertainment. Okay, Jeremy, have at it, Lad.”

“I’m Jeremy Caldbeck. As many of you know I’m a chef and I own a small restaurante out Kendal way. I do a lot of cooking at home too because I enjoy it, and occasionally I come across something I can put on the restaurante menu. I particularly enjoy cooking oriental foods, Japanese, Chinese of many styles, Thai, and many others. Maybe a month and a half back, I started watching a lass on Youtube who’d created a series of twelve videos on making dough, and there’s a lot more to it than I’d ever imagined. She takes total control of everything, water to flour ratio, water temperature, yeast both quantity and how you let it develop, sugar content, oil content, salt content, resting times and cycles and in some cases she makes two different doughs and mixes then to combine their properties. The doughs range from a gluey sticky almost pourable stuff you can barely work with to a hard, dry, mass that’s really difficult to knead. Depending on what kind of dough she’s making she uses her hands, a food mixer and a pasta machine too sometimes. She explains exactly why she does each step and explains what it does to the structure of the flour and the gluten in it. Trouble is she only speaks Mandarin and the subtitles are often a bit dodgy. To start with her graphs and diagrams and the few cookery terms I recognised in Mandarin were a great help. I understand a lot more now.

“Like I said, I also watch a lot of other food and cookery content. I have also become interested in Chinese historical dramas and some more modern Chinese TV programs that are on Youtube too. Some have subtitles, but most don’t. A while back I decided it would be helpful if I learnt Mandarin. The script isn’t too bad to learn. There are a lot of symbols, but you can get by with a relatively limited number of them, most of the Chinese do just that, they are not fully literate in that there is a lot of the written language they don’t understand because they don’t need to understand it. It’s a lot easier to understand spoken Mandarin than it is to speak it because changing the pitch of the same words means they actually become different words and depending who you listen to there are three, four or five different pitch sounds.

“I don’t just listen to videos in Mandarin I use some of the free Mandarin instruction videos. There are dictionary sites where you can filter for a given set of words and see them written and hear a variety of speakers from different provinces pronounce them in their own accent. I started with cookery terms, weights and measures, ingredient names and that sort of thing. Then I went on to telling the time, the calendar and body parts and I’m on names of relatives at the moment, and that is well hard.

“In some European languages there are finer subdivisions of relatives than English has. French for example has cousin spelt the way we do, but that only refers to male cousins. In the case of female cousins the French word has an e on the end which changes the way it’s pronounced. I believe it’s similar in German. Scandinavian languages have different words for paternal grandparents and maternal grandparents that’re rather clever. Mor refers to mother and far refers to father, so you have mormor, morfar, which are you mother’s mother and father respectively and farmor and farfar which are you father’s mother and father respectively.

“It goes to a whole new level in Mandarin. Older brothers and their in laws have different words from the one used for younger brothers and theirs, different words again again for older and younger sisters’ in laws. Again uncles are different if they’re mother’s older or younger siblings and there are different words again for father’s side of the family. By the time I was looking at grandparents and their siblings the situation was totally out of control and my brain was out of breath and needed a rest. I haven’t even looked at it from the in laws’ perspectives yet, but I believe there are words for two unrelated blokes who married a pair of sisters, two unrelated lasses who married a pair of brothers and other words for those who married a brother sister sibling pair. The words depend on who married the elder or the younger or the male or the female sibling. You only understand how it came about when you understand that disobeying any family member defined as being a member of the generations above you is considered unfilial and for millennia was a serious criminal offence. I don’t know if it still is, but doing what your elders tell you is deeply ingrained into the Chinese psyche. It’s fascinating even if it is hard.”

“You’re seriously telling us that you’re doing all that learning just to cook chicken chow mien, Jeremy‽ Just get a book written in English, Lad. My missus would lend you one if you’re strapped for the cash.” Pat’s words caused gales of laughter. All knew that was not the issue, but they were up for the laugh anyway.

Jeremy laught with the others, but clearly he had not finished. “The whole thing made me remember and understand an incident that happened years ago that I didn’t understand properly at the time and though I meant to find out about I never did. I was dining at a rather expensive restaurante with my wife Lizzie, my sister in law, Carrie Lizzie’s sister and her husband Lizzie’s brother in law, Roaul. To make sure you understand that, Roaul and I married a pair of sisters and that is our only relationship. Roaul is Roaul Rodriguez the Portuguese fado singer, and he and Carrie were paying as a celebration of his highly successful recent solo album release. He is a wealthy man, but it wasn’t about the money it was about his success as an artist.

“I like the bloke, we get on really well and have a common interest in HO scale model trains. The first time I saw his huge layout I was amazed, amazed and impressed. I kind of specialise in detailing scenery and Roaul was impressed by that. I gave him a hand painted section of urban back drop that included an old gas and coke works and some low relief buildings along with a couple of gasometers I’d scratch built to go in front of it for Christmas, and his delight was clear. He gave me two huge cardboard boxes full of scenery bits and pieces, paints and various other materials. Some were new, but most were second hand including a load of broken stuff that was ideal for the kind of things I enjoy making. His gift to me of broken bits and pieces, which included left over parts and sprues from Airfix® kit models, other kits too, models with bits missing, scraps of various types of textured paper and card, damaged small scale figures of people and animals, and a lot of other toy shop ‘rubbish’ that on the face of it had no relevance to model trains would perhaps to many have been an insult, but to me they were the best gift he could have given me, a treasure trove of pure gold, and I was equally delighted.

“He telt me, ‘I scoured toy shops, junk shops, street markets and charity shops on three continents to find that little lot, Jeremy. Most thought I was mad for taking all their rubbish away, and I considered threwing some of it away, but then I decided you’d probably be able to do something with at least most of it and included a selection of super glues to go with them. I have to say it was fun, it let me escape the persons who think they should control my life and I found a fair few things to suit my layout at the same time.’ He laught and added, “And you can always make something with the boxes.’ I did eventually and gave him the multi storey car park and aircraft hanger I’d made out of them. That Christmas Lizzie and Carrie smiled indulgently as the ‘boy’s discussed their ‘new toys’.

“Roaul is from Maputo that used to be Lourenço Marques in Mozambique and looks typically Portuguese, which accounts for most of his ancestry, but he has some African heritage too which is clear from his very dark skin. The evening in question we were dining at an expensive independent Victorian hotel in the middle of Chester called the Griffin Hotel that served excellent food. We had finished dinner and were enjoying a chat over coffee, the sisters were talking clothes and shopping, Roaul and I were talking tunnels and track side paraphernalia, when a man who had clearly had too much to drink came over to our table and started harassing Carrie and making racially bigoted remarks about Roaul. ‘Come with me and I’ll shew what a real man, a white man. can do for you. Ditch the monkey and we’ll have a good time,’ were the least of it, and the word nigger was heard by all present several times.

“The hotel staff were moving towards the idiot and the manager was telling him to go before the police arrived, but the fool wasn’t having any of it. Roaul hadn’t reacted till the bloke grabbed hold of Carrie by the arm. Then Roaul pushed him away from Carrie and put himself between her and the drunk. The drunk staggered back and stumbled against the carvery. He put his hand out to avoid falling and when he stood up he had a long knife from the carvery in his right hand. At that point everyone stood back except myself and Roaul who smiled and said, ‘Come on, little man, let’s see what you’re made of, or is it only the knife in your hand that makes you feel big.’ The drunk was over six foot tall though not of a heavy build, and Roaul is at most five foot six, but he is build like a tank. He was deliberately goading the bloke who rushed at him with the knife. Roaul stepped to one side and simply kicked his feet out from under him as he went past. Unfortunately the man fell on the knife. He didn’t die, but he needed surgery, fifteen stitches and blood transfusions. The police arrived and an ambulance took the drunk away.

“We spent the next few hours, along with a load of other folk from the hotel both staff and customers, in the cop shop being questioned and having statements taken. As far as the police were concerned that was it. The CCTV footage was crystal clear and the score or more witness statements concurred with the footage. There was no question of Roaul being prosecuted. Or so we thought. The drunk took out a private prosecution against Roaul for grievous wounding I think it was. Anyway we and a load of other folk were in court as witnesses. Even I could see the bloke was on a hiding to nothing, but despite the evidence his barrister was not for giving up. I was flummoxed when he started cross examining my evidence by questioning me as to my exact relationship to Roaul. This is where the connection to me learning Mandarin comes in. The bloke’s barrister was seemingly trying to establish that since Roaul and I were related I was naturally lying to protect him and that since I was the only witness who was really close to the incident the others could have been mistaken as to what they had seen. He conveniently ignored the CCTV footage by saying it was from a camera that only had an oblique view.

Roaul’s barrister was a small Chinese looking woman called Xu Chin Li, or something like that, it’s a long time ago and I don’t remember her exact name. I replied we were unrelated, but the barrister continued to have a go at me. Xu Chin Li objected and asked the judge was it not true that the matter was being looked at under English law. The judge asked her what was the exact point she was trying to establish. She said that English law was clear, and it said that though we had married a pair of sisters we were neither biologically nor legally related. She quoted several precedents that established that and said that we would be legally related were we Chinese and the case were being heard under Chinese law, but since neither were the case she couldn’t see the relevance of what her esteemed colleague seemed to be trying to establish. The judge telt the opposition barrister that the law was the law and Xu Chin Li was correct in that English law said we were not related. He suggested that the other barrister ceased that line of questioning because it looked like he was to create false evidence and should he believe that to be the case he would hold him in contempt of court. Xu Chin Li did say the Mandarin words for the relationship Roaul and I had but I don’t remember them. I know it was words not word which confused me at the time. I now know our relationships are not reciprocal because I married the elder sister. Doubtless I’ll discover them soon.”

Sasha remarked, “I am aware of the complexities of Chinese familial relationships because a little of that has established itself in parts of southern Siberia. I don’t have any understanding of it myself. However, you are a keen HO scale modeller you say. That would be one in eighty-seven scale would it not?”

Jeremy nodded, and said, “On sixteen point five millimetre gauge track. OO is more common in the UK. It uses the same track, but at a scale of one in seventy-six it’s a little over size. I use some OO things for right at the front of my layout. It helps to give a sense of perspective.”

“Would you have any interest in starting a Bearthwaite model railway club based in one of our larger unused buildings, for if you were I’d be willing to have the building completely refurbished appropriately. I’m thinking of the second floor [US 3rd floor] of a warehouse that we shall wish to use the ground floor [US 1st floor]of for chilled and frozen food storage. We had not decided to use the building, for there would be a lot of expense and we had no projected use for the upper two floors, however if you accept my offer that casts the matter in a different light. There is of the order of a thousand square metres which should give you all something to get your teeth into. There is little for some of our children to do here in the winters and wet springs and such an enterprise would be of great interest to both our boys and our girls. My wife and I would be delighted to host your sister in law and her husband whatever his relationship is to you for however long they could spare.”

“I would certainly be interested in discussing the matter, Sasha, but have you any idea of how much planning and money that would take to even make a start on it?”

“I have no idea, Jeremy, but I’m sure you’d have plenty of help with the planning. As to the money don’t worry yourself about it. I’ve no idea what Roaul is worth, but I doubt it is a fraction of myself and Elle’s resources. This would be a worthwhile enterprise for our children, and I’m sure most of Bearthwaite would give you as much help and support as any could wish for. We’ll talk more later of this and other things too.”

~o~O~o~

Sensing a change of conversation was required Vincent asked, “So how’s married life suiting you, Chance?”

“To be honest I don’t actually know, Vincent. I do know if I don’t take some time off work Stephanie is going to give me some serious grief, because I hardly see the kids these days. I’m gone before they awake and they’re asleep when I finally arrive home. I’m just grateful they’ve got a mum they love who loves them, because I’m not being much of a dad at the moment. The three of us are trying to get matters to do with the Bearthwaite Property Developments Company and the Bearthwaite Village Community Ownership Company organised somewhat better. I’ve had all the invoices and that kind of paperwork sorted out for a week now, but what’s left is more complicated. I think we need to simplify our taxation calculation mechanism. Murray and Emily agree, but we’ll not manage to do it this side of the new year. We’ll probably end up merging the two concerns due to the complications caused by buying all the old properties and the land too. Murray says he’s tired and needs to put less hours in. Emily only has a month to go before she gives birth and she has a young family that need her time, but I have a young family that need their dad too. Things will become a lot easier once Adalheidis is ready to start work because even the semi legal stuff is beyond all of us, so it has to get left which slows a lot of other paper work down.

“Murray is looking for an office junior to help us out with all the paperwork generated by Alf, and the Levins brothers as a result of the refurbishment of the houses behind the old allotments site, and I wondered if we could steal Adalheidis from you, Gustav. We’ve all agreed she should be paid as a solicitor, but till she acquires her accreditation with the Law Society she can serve as an unofficial legal advisor and do a bit of office junior work with me till we manage to find someone else. I think Murray’s idea is she can start doing the legal work immediately, and instead of her signing it we’ll put the office stamp on it. By the time it’s pointed out and returned she’ll be legally entitled to sign it. Murray is putting the word out and he’s spoken to Elle about it. Till we get some help we’ve decided to only work three days a week each. Some one will be working all five days of the week, but there will probably only be two of us available for most of the time.”

“That does seem a sensible solution, Chance. I could certainly use Adalheidis, but to be honest it would have been a waste of the talents of someone as highly qualified as she. She needed a job and I had a vacancy, but it is better that she works with you three from the beginning. I’ll find someone else. A bright school leaver seeking work experience to put on a CV [Résumé] would be able to do what I require. You finished your tale, Chance?”

“Yes.”

~o~O~o~

Gustav smiled and announced, “Well I have some good news, Gentlemen. His Majesty’s Customs and Excise officers finally granted us our licence to operate a distillery yesterday afternoon. Jean-Claude, for those who don’t know him he is our still master, spent the rest of the day burning up the telephone lines buying whatever cheap poor quality alcoholic brews he could lay his hands on, after having instructed his staff to commence the brewing of our first batch of still feed. His view is we need to make a start as soon as possible to start recovering our investment and I have no problems with that. We didn’t wish to start brewing still feed till we had the licence in case that took even more months to be granted than it already has, for then the still feed would probably have had to be dumped. Jean-Claude telt me unlike wine it doesn’t keep well and tends to oxidise into acetic acid which is an expensive way of making vinegar. As a result he is going to start with wines none else will buy because he can buy them at the right price and start by distilling ultra clean vodka for subsequent flavouring if required. Our first tanker delivery arrives late tomorrow evening or very early the following morning, and the still will be operational as soon as it has been filled. HM C&E will be observing. Dad has suggested we have an open day and any who wish to watch join us for a celebration lunch. Mum is organising the lunch and I’ll provide as many barrels of ale as required. It will be a good day for us and I agree with Dad that a celebration is mandatory. The brewery staff would appreciate some help in the morning setting up tables and the like, so feel free to come down and make an early start on the ale whilst you shift tables.”

The cheers in the taproom were deafening, but eventually the cheers quietened and the conversation resumed. The distillery was a commercial enterprise, and the men’s main interest in it centred around the employment it would provide. Bearthwaite was a small place, but it was becoming, purely as a result of the endeavours of its inhabitants, a much more prosperous place than of yore.

~o~O~o~

“Anyone got anything to say before we get the dominoes out, Lads?” Sasha asked.

Alf said, “Only that I read in the paper that Old Harpic died and was buried last week.”

A number of the men had like Alf been taught physics by the individual mentioned, though he’d been rather more successful with them than with Alf. Vincent said, “He must have been close to ninety, so it’s not surprising.”

“Ninety-three according to the Cumberland News,” Alf said.

“How come you called him Harpic. That couldn’t have been his real name surely,” Doug asked. Doug was an outsider who was a regular Saturday evening attender.

There were howls of laughter from the many men who’d never thought of Harpic by any name other than by his schoolboy provided nickname. Stan explained, “It goes back decades probably the sixties or maybe even the fifties. There was a brand of lavatory cleaner called Harpic in those days.”

“Still is. We sell it,” interrupted Dave the local grocery store owner. “Julie buys it.” Dave was referring to Stan’s wife.

Stan laught and continued, “The TV adverts at the time used the slogan ‘Cleans right round the bend.’ Well Old Harpic taught physics at the secondary school and that description fitted him like a glove. He was decidedly eccentric and definitely clean round the bend.(19) Most of the kids liked him because he was all right. His classrooms were always orderly and peaceful and he wouldn’t tolerate bullying, though I think more than half a century later the kids still talk about the way Alf dealt with bullies when he bothered going to school.”

Doug who knew Alf to be a peaceable man who didn’t approve of violence except under the most exceptional of circumstances asked, “What did Alf do to the bullies?”

Vince replied, “Threw them over the school yard wall. Thing was there was a twenty foot drop the other side of the wall. After that there was the canal and you were far more likely to die from catching something from the water than you were from drowning. That water was absolutely hanging. Chemicals, slime, rotten stuff with the odd dead dog threwn in for good measure. You name it, if it was minging it was in the canal. There was always a film of oil on the top of the water and it stank like something long dead. I have to say it cured the thugs because there was no way they wanted a repeat prescription of Alf’s patent cure for stealing little kids’ dinner money or hurting them.” A number of outsiders looked at the massive frame of Alf who was only an eighth of an inch shy of seven feet tall in his stockinged feet, and Vince added, “He was as big then as he is now, and unless Ellen has him in a suit I’ve never seen his feet in anything other than heavy steelies(20). Even as a kid he always wore steelies.” It was a while before the chuckles entirely ceased at the appropriateness of Alf’s solution to what had been the bane of many of them when at school. Some were still smiling at the thought whilst playing dominoes.

~o~O~o~

Earlier Tony had asked for a word with Sasha when evening was over. He waited till the taproom had emptied, most had gone home and the overnight guests had collected their wives to find their rooms. “You wish this to be just the two of us, Tony? Or is it okay if Pete and Gustav hear what you’ve got to say?”

“Pete and Gustav will be fine but I’d prefer it went no further for a while. Beth is about two and a half months pregnant and we could be looking to move here if we could find a house. I used to want to make a fortune, but now I just want a decent place for us to rear a family. I’d like to continue as a dentist, but if I had to find something else to do as well, preferably something creative using my hands that would make my life even better. I don’t know what Beth will wish to do once she’s a mum. I doubt if she knows. She may think she does, but motherhood changes women, and I don’t have a problem with that. We’ll talk about this on the way home, but I want to know what our chances are of finding a home here before we leave tonight. If we can move here I’d like to do it long before the baby is due.”

The three men were all smiling at Tony, and Pete said, “We will be able to find you a home easily enough, Tony. You are accepted here as the sort of couple who are welcome to live here. I saw you notice my lass referring to you as Uncle Antony. The womenfolk like Beth and doubtless will like her even more when they find out she’s pregnant. The rule we have here is you may not buy a property till you have lived here for a twelve month. Till then you may only rent a property. The rent will be the same as the mortgage would be, so unless you wished to live in a different Bearthwaite home you’ll not notice any difference. The rule is to make sure we don’t have to put up with any undesirables for more than the twelve month and can then get rid of them. I can’t see that happening with you two, but the rule is inflexible. As to employment, a dentist will be welcome here and we’ll see what we can find that has a room you can use as a surgery, or whatever it is dentists have. There’re are any number of other opportunities available here especially if you are okay with being an adult apprentice. As for Beth, the best thing is to do what we all do here.”

“What’s that?”

Gustav laught and replied, “Leave it to the womenfolk, and refuse to become involved. It’s the safe way to survive, and learn to say ‘Yes, Dear’ at any and every opportunity.”

Sasha concluded the conversation by saying, “You talk this over with Beth, Tony, and I’ll have Elle sorting out somewhere appropriate for you to live. Elle is heavily involved with property management in Bearthwaite, both what we have in good repair and what we are in the process of putting into good repair. Don’t worry about selling up before you move because we can cover it. The Bearthwaite Property Developments Company already owns near enough all the empty properties in the valley and is negotiating to buy the rest. That’s one of the companies that all the residents are part owners of. It was formed to enable us to prevent unsuitable folk from buying property here, for we like to be able to get on with all our neighbours.”

~o~O~o~

“Well damn me! Sasha,” Pete said. “That came out of the blue didn’t it? Looks like we get our own dentist, and two of them at that.”

“All we need now are a doctor and an architect,” Gustav added. “Who do we think is going to be best to approach Jacqueline?”

The three men laught, but all left deep in thought.

~o~O~o~

On the way home in the car, Tony telt Beth of his conversation and she was as he had suspected way in front of him and indeed waiting for him to catch up.

“The Bearthwaite women know I am pregnant, Love. It came out in conversation tonight because a couple of them are too, and women share those sorts of things. You want to do this move quickly don’t you?”

“Yes. I’ve been telt we don’t have to sell the business and our house first because we’re well thought of and welcome, and Bearthwaite has mechanisms in place to help folks they regard as one of themselves to ride over things like that, but I’d like us to be settled before you become ungainly enough to make moving a chore for you. What do you think as regards selling the business as is or keeping the equipment and selling the business as a going concern with no equipment?”

“Sell it as is with all the equipment. We’ll start with new stuff and the latest up to date stuff at that. Ask Murray to negotiate a bridging loan for us. I’ll ring Elle tomorrow and see what she has to say about it all. Happy, Love?”

“Yes. Definitely. The prospect of being a part time dentist and a part time apprentice of some sort working with my hands working close to my family in a far better place to be than anywhere else I’ve ever even heard of means life is definitely looking up. You any idea what you’re going to do once you’re a mum?”

“Yes. Part time dentist, part time on the allotments and a full time mum. I reckon that’s doable at Bearthwaite.”

~o~O~o~

1 Spindle moulder, a woodworking machine that uses special tools or blades to cut and shape wood often with a curved profile. Typically used to produce long lengths of wood with a shaped profile like skirtings and architraves.
2 Skirtings, skirting boards, US base boards.
3 A sandwich short of a picnic, simple minded or not quite right in the head.
4 Resawing is the process of slicing timber along the grain direction to reduce it to thinner sections or to make veneers. In simple terms, you are splitting the thickness of the wood to get two thinner slabs.
5 Scouser, a person from Liverpool and its environs. They have a notorious reputation for thievery, which may or may not be deserved. Whether it is or not largely depends on one’s personal point of view.
6 The implication here is that the only reason the person is wearing a suit is to present a better appearance in court.
7 Vanya, almost, nearly.
8 A fair canny pair working ’em down from the tops, a highly intelligent pair bringing sheep down from the hilltops.
9 Tecking, dialectal taking.
10 Shilling, a unit of UK pre decimal currency, equivalent of five pence. [US 7 cents]
11 Chestnut, here used in the sense of an old joke that has become so overused it has become dull and worthy of groans. Also the word is used to signify a trite remark.
12 Taking the mick out of someone is an UK expression for making fun of them.
13 A&E, Accident and Emergency, [US ER Emergency Room].
14 GP, General Practitioner, a family doctor.
15 Zimmer, a walking frame for the infirm.
16 NHS, National Health Service.
17 Secret nailing, a method of nailing tongue and groove boards down at forty five degrees through the tongues that leaves no visible nail heads on the floor surface.
18 Nowt, nothing.
19 Clean round the bend, completely off his head.
20 Steelies, vernacular for steel toe capped working boots with a steel plate in the sole to prevent harm from stepping on a nail or some thing similar.

A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 40 Bearthwaite Acquires New Bearthwaite Folk

This contains an edited version of ‘A DISTURBING SCENE’ first posted on 2019/09/10

The recent cold snap taking the temperature down to minus twelve Celsius [10℉] had been replaced by a wet, warm, fine rain that soaked one down to the skin without being aware of it till it was too late. The high winds were dangerous to children and the infirm, but the footing was good now all the ice had finally melted. Younger children unable to go outside to play were bored and fractious and many a Bearthwaite parent was grateful there were Stephanie’s early years centre and the play group for them to attend during the day. Stephanie had two full time assistants and many adults gave up a few hours to assist at one or the other enabling them both to operate seven days a week. The availability of seven day a week child care was considered well worth contributing towards the cost of, despite which many parents were grateful when bedtime came around. Under such conditions Bearthwaite mothers hosted others’ children for the night along with their own, so some of them could have some much needed respite. It was no sinecure being a Bearthwaite granny, auntie, nor indeed a responsible older female sibling. Boys were generally not considered reliable enough to mind young children for extended periods of time. That was not an inflexible, nor a sexist stance, for some boys were but most weren’t. The general female view was that most teenage boys couldn’t remember how fast they could move when they were younger and potential Houdinis,(1) nor get it into their heads just how far bored children could move in just a few seconds, and bored children always knew when the eyes minding them were not paying attention.

~o~O~o~

There’d been a considerable amount of gossip concerning the new arrivals to Bearthwaite. Few had yet met with the village’s solicitor, for Adalheidis was shy, but the rumour machine had reliably linked her with Matt Levins, a local bricklayer who worked with his three brothers, which was regarded with approval by most, for it meant it looked like she would be putting roots down in Bearthwaite. It was, however, regarded with a degree of envy and resentment by some of the young men, for Matt had been seen with a proprietary arm around her and being kissed by her too before most had even had an opportunity to meet her. That she was pretty, clever, pleasant and helpful was widely known. It was said she could sing like an angel and had been persuaded to perform at the next concert to be given in the community hall. That was considered important by the villagers; that she was trans was not. Over the last couple of decades things had indeed changed. When Matt first met Adalheidis he knew who she was and had been a little intimidated by her educational achievements, but bowled over by her looks he’d forced himself into talking to her. Matt had not had much luck with girls at school, nor women thereafter, but she’d been easy to talk to and had seemed interested in him. He’d been initially intrigued by and subsequently captivated by her dry, but completely realistic sense of humour about herself which didn’t contain a drop of self pity. Laughing she’d telt him, “I think my færie godmother must have been trans too and reckoned if it were good enough for her it would have to be good enough for me as well.” When they had become on more intimate terms she’d telt him, “Most girls get to kiss a lot of frogs before they find their prince. Every one knows that some frogs are deadly to even touch, so all girls looking for their prince are taking chances, so I must have been lucky to have hit pay dirt on my first attempt.”

“What, I’m the first to ever kiss you‽”

“Yeah. None were ever interest in me before. I reckon they were scared that they may enjoy it and turn gay or worse. You know like it were catching or something.”

Matt had shaken his head in bewilderment and said, “I don’t get that. I think you’re every blokes dream. To begin with I thought you were out of my league because you were so pretty. And clever too. I didn’t really think you’d even entertain going out for a drink with me. I’m just a brickie. I know as brickies go I’m one of the best, but I’ve never had any pretensions to being clever. Even my brothers laugh at me.” Rather than face public scrutiny to start with they’d gone for a drink at a village pub some fifteen miles from Bearthwaite. “So why did you say yes?”

“Well the first reason is obvious. You actually asked me. That was a first, well, it was a first with no strings and expectations from blokes who thought I’d be grateful as hell and let them do whatever they wanted with me. ‘I don’t normally do blokes, but I’ll make an exception for you,’ was one of the politer things said by blokes of their like. I’ve done a lot of self defence and martial arts and I tend to react badly to that sort of thing. I thought you were nice, nervous, but nice. Probably a more relevant question would be why did I wish to go out with you the second and subsequent times. To which there are a lot of answers. Unlike the blokes who were just after a quick lay who couldn’t be bothered to even try to get my name right, you did and were bothered in case you hadn’t pronounced it properly. You tret me right from the very beginning. You made it clear you were interested in me without being in any way pushy. That you clearly didn’t know where to put your eyes for safety I thought was sweet. When talking you always talk to my eyes which is nice, though I enjoy you looking at the rest of me too. You’re big and easy on the eye and you make me feel petite which is really nice for a girl of my height. You paid for our drinks, but gave me some modern dignity and freedom when I insisted on paying for the cab home. I liked that. When you kissed me goodnight after our first date I didn’t have to fight you off because you weren’t all over me like a rash. I’d been telt Bearthwaite folk weren’t bothered about LGBTP issues, but meeting a bloke who knew I’d been born a boy, but was still interested in me was not something I’d even considered.” She’d chuckled a wicked sounding chuckle before saying, “I hope you realise that what you are currently enjoying cost me a hell of a sight more than most folks’ cars, but please don’t stop because it was worth every penny!”

~o~O~o~

When Tony and Beth had visited Bearthwaite to look at available housing they’d liked the recently refurbished terraced houses on Allotments Row, some of which were double fronted as a result of one of the smaller houses being combined with the house next door to create a decent sized family dwelling. Matt Levins who was shewing them around had telt them with a laugh, “They didn’t use plans in the days when these houses were built. I reckon when the brickie felt he’d laid enough bricks across the front he just turned at right angles to start the party wall between the two houses. I don’t think they could count bricks too well either for I doubt if any two of the two hundred or so houses in the four streets here are the same size, and some of them only have two bedrooms whilst most have three. There’re even a few on the terrace ends that have four. Some of the ones that were two houses have five. If you tell Elle Vetrov you want this one it’ll be yours. If when your surgery is ready you want to live somewhere more convenient just let her know, and she’ll sort something out for you.” That was that. They moved house three days later having had all their possessions moved for them by members of the Bearthwaite Shift It Team which they were laughingly telt comprised whichever folk happened to be available.

Tony and Beth, who were both dentists, had already been well known to and liked by numerous villagers, men and women, before they moved. They were now making themselves more widely known around the village. They were said to be good neighbours and even women who’d not met Beth were aware that she was three going on four months and still suffered a little from morning sickness. A dentist in the village was regarded as a definite improvement, for suffering from toothache when access to outside was not easy and involved a trip by boat due to the floods was neither a quick nor a pleasant matter to resolve.

The day after they’d moved in, Murray visited them to ask if they would like him to handle the sale of their old house and their business, which he assured them would be free of charge. “Estate agent [US realtor] is just another synonym for thief,” he said laughing. “However, what I really came to talk about is your request for me to arrange a bridging loan for you to purchase new equipment. I shall if you insist, but I’ll arrange it via the Bearthwaite Village Community Ownership Company at zero interest. My question is since you will be using it on behalf of the residents do you really wish to own that equipment, or would it be okay for the Bearthwaite Village Community Ownership Company to buy and own it?”

“We’d rent the equipment?” Tony asked.

“No. You’d use and operate it. The medical centre operates that way. This way every adult in the village including you two owns a small share of what is very expensive equipment. If that’s what you’d prefer just make sure you buy us the best available and let me and my two colleagues worry about the cost. We’re the village accountants and that’s what we’re paid to do.”

~o~O~o~

Chance was already well known around the village, for most had attended his wedding and the subsequent reception, and many mothers had fed at least one of his three children or had theirs fed by his Bearthwaite born and bred wife Stephanie. Their children were polite and helpful and the entire family was well thought of. That Chance was making the village’s finances simpler and worked long hours to do so had him almost as well thought of as that he assisted at the after school ballet classes. That his son, Luke who was four, attended the ballet lessons as well as his older sisters, Grace and Erin, had encouraged a number of other younger boys to do so too which was considered to be a good thing. Stephanie had been correct in that Grace and Erin derived considerable status for having a dad cool enough to assisted at ballet.

When it was being discussed that it was a shame it was only the youngest boys who were learning ballet since their older brothers were in need of something to use up their energies too Bertie had said, “I can quite see why a lot of lads, especially older lads, don’t want to do ballet. I know mine aren’t interested. However, there’re a lot of parents here who enjoy ballroom dancing. Just think on the number of couples dancing in the dance hall at the Dragon or the Community Centre whenever there’s something going on there. I reckon a lot of the older lasses would be interested in learning and where the girls go the lads ’ll follow. I know my lads ’d buy into it if the lasses do. I’m not that good a dancer and I don’t reckon I know enough to teach it, but I enjoy dancing and Emily does too, so I’m willing to help. There must be someone here good enough to be able to teach it. It’ll give the kids something to do instead of wearing their parents, especially their mums, down into the ground because they haven’t been able to run around outside and burn some energy off. The older, more responsible kids will keep the younger ones in line which’ll give the adults a break. We also need to see if we can find someone who could teach karate or judo or something similar.” There had been no luck so far finding a marshal arts teacher, but the ballroom dancing lessons were seen as a very positive result of Chance’s marriage to Stephanie.

~o~O~o~

The old granary was already under development, and all were looking forward to the opening of Jeremy’s new restaurante which was logically enough to be called ‘The Granary’. All the old equipment, grain augers, the huge mechanical sieves and the like had been cleaned and polished with beeswax and were ready to be used as items with which to provide the restaurante with an appropriately themed ambiance. Some of the larger pieces of equipment were to be used as screens between tables to provide diners with a degree of privacy and the windows were hung with lined curtains that utilised the hessian sacks that long ago had been used to hold two hundredweights [100Kg, 224 pound] of grain. The logos and the writing on the sacks faced inside so they were visible to diners. The curtains had eventually been custom made by any number of the village women who’d been shocked to discover that Lizzie was looking for a company to make the curtains. “It’s a good thing that none were prepared to make ’em up from the sacks like you wanted, Lizzie, for that would’ve seriously upset any number of the women here.” Gladys had explained, “That’s just not how things are done here. All the curtains and upholstery in the Dragon were made by women who live here. We had fun doing it and it gave us an excuse for throwing a party when it was all finished. The most it’ll cost you is a free meal for all involved. I’ll put the word out and get back to you when I know owt.”

Jeremy had been asked if he would take charge of the cooking at future barbecue celebration events on the green. He’d agreed and all was being prepared for the Valentine’s day celebration. Vincent the village slaughterman and butcher said he’d have the carcasses for the spits in cold store by the weekend, and the allotment growers and Christine the pressure canner had telt Jeremy what would be available for the event. He had already had Christine make up and can a hundred litres [22 imperial gallons, 28 US gallons] of his barbecue sauce recipe in two litre jars [3½ imperial pints 2 US quarts] and was working on the menu. Alf and the other allotment holders had earmarked tractor trailer loads of Picasso potatoes for baking for which that variety was particularly suitable, for they were large, fluffy and absorbed copious quantities of butter. The ovens for baking the potatoes were mobile, wood fired contraptions that Alf had created from forty-five gallon oil drums and some bits of scrap including old trailer axles with welded up steel wheels that could be pushed into the bonfire.

~o~O~o~

Jeremy and Lizzie had been assisted to move into a recently refurbished semi detached house behind the village green by the Bearthwaite Shift It Team. Elle had insisted they chose a house suitable for not just themselves but for their future family too. “There’s no point in you having to move twice is there?” She said not expecting an answer. Their new neighbours had been quick to tell them the previous owners had finally in desperation accepted a realistic price for the house and left three months before leaving the house in such a shocking state of disrepair that the Levins brothers had had to send in a team of building tradesmen before the Jarvis girls could go in to redecorate. The now immaculate garden they had been telt was a far cry from the neglected jungle the previous residents had presided over thanks mostly to the folk who worked the allotments. The neighbours had also informed the couple how glad they had been to see the previous residents go, and that they were even happier to see the couple move in. One neighbour had said, “They made life difficult for us for the entire five years they were here. I think they believed we were just country bumpkins who they could tell how to behave and manipulate, but they soon learnt the hard way. Still, with you here now that’s one less property in the ownership of outsiders. There aren’t many left that we need to buy out now.”

Lizzie asked , “Learnt the hard way? How?”

“The shops wouldn’t serve them. Other than official post office goods and services which it is illegal to refuse to anyone they got nothing from anyone here. No one would have any dealings with them. We didn’t even have to tell our kids not to play with theirs, for theirs were obnoxious spoilt brats that ours didn’t want anything to do with. We own the primary school site and building, and it is a private school, not a Local Education Authority financed and controlled school, so they had to take their kids elsewhere and that’s a tedious business from here, and an impossible one when the road is flooded. Too they had no schooling during the lockdown which made no difference to our kids as we have enough clever folk here to teach even the A’ level kids ourselves. It had been made very clear to them that if they or their kids were ill they were on their own, for our resources are not available to folk we neither like nor get on with. One of the kids was rushed to hospital with acute appendicitis when they were at her mother’s down south somewhere. I reckon them realising that the kid could have died if that had happened here when the road was flooded unless the air ambulance got here in time was what eventually made them just give up and leave. Good riddance to bad rubbish was how most of us saw that. Talking of which the Council doesn’t empty the bins here, and the men who deal with the matter here wouldn’t, so they had to take it all to a civic amenity site somewhere themselves or live with the rats. Still, on a more pleasant matter, you’ll come round for supper tonight will you? Say quarter to eight? There’ll be a dozen or so of us at least. Most of them will be eager to meet a new neighbour who will actually be a neighbour not a pain. Elle said you were interested in babysitting to get a bit of practice before you have a family of your own, Lizzie. That will make you exceeding popular round here, and of course put a lot of women in your debt ready for when you need a babysitter.”

“How can I possibly repay you all for doing all that you’ve done for us?” Lizzy asked.

Amarie replied, “Easy. Throw a barbecue party in the garden some time. We’ll all help and the lasses’ll all bring food. I’ll have my Dan organise the equipment and the drink. He’ll be more than happy to do that with his mates and doubtless they’ll have a drink with Pete and Gustav whilst they’re doing it. I’ll ask Stephanie to organise some of us to keep an eye on the little ones. She’ll know who can ride shotgun on a crowd of ’em best. Folk ’ll all be glad to celebrate having decent new neighbours.”

Now she had moved to Bearthwaite Lizzie wanted a family, and it seemed every woman in the village already knew that, but she was worried that she may have trouble conceiving due to her age. “Easily dealt with, My dear,” Susanna the midwife telt her. “I’ll give you a diet sheet and a leaflet with a list of websites on it that’ll help, but in the meanwhile keep trying. I’ll put you in contact with Harriet and Samantha who can advise you about going on the list to adopt. Even if you don’t bear all of your children yourself that way you will at least have a family, and of course if you adopt a couple of older children you’ll have caught up on a bit of lost time.” As a result of those contacts Lizzie decided she was going to take Susanna’s advice and keep trying, but she too would like to adopt unwanted trans children, who would in all likelihood be in their teens according to Sam and Harriet, which was widely talked about by the village women, but only because it was seen as a sign that their assessment of her as a proper and decent woman by their standards was correct. Bearthwaite women, and their menfolk too, didn’t really understand how a child could be unwanted or considered bad for what was a personal characteristic outside their control. In general, views on being trans, or indeed being any part of the LGBTP, had not always been so accepting in Bearthwaite, but the last two decades had brought great changes which the entire population recognised they had all benefited from.

~o~O~o~

It had been decided by the committee of the Bearthwaite Property Developments Company that the old bobbin mill, which nearly a century ago had ceased producing wooden bobbins from ancient local coppiced woodlands for the Lancashire textile industry, mostly for spinning and threading, and had been slowly but inexorably deteriorating ever since, was to be completely refurbished since now most of the space in it had been spoken for. Mark and Mason, the Lightfoot brothers, were already working on the minor repairs that the slate roof required to render the building water tight. The Bearthwaite Village Community Ownership Company had owned the site and the building for twelve years and it had recently become an almost perfect solution to many of their pressing problems rather than the previously deteriorating asset they were reluctant to commit the funds to in case there were no use for the enormous building. They were convinced what few problems remained with the mill would soon be ironed out. Jacqueline, the architect, had already drawn up an outline for local discussion and suggestions and was now working on more detailed ideas. Her brief from Elle had been simple, “You know what we want, but we want to be able to do as much of the work using the local workforce as possible. As much money as possible has to remain in Bearthwaite, even if the cost is higher.” Jacqueline had always enjoyed working with the folk her cousin Godfrey and other relatives had chosen to live amongst, who he said had a different way of seeing and living life, but this was the first time she had realised just how different they were.

Intrigued, she started to spend more time at Bearthwaite than she really needed to for her work on the mill and the various other buildings she was involved with. It was when she was looking at some of the houses on Pastures View that she met the three Jarvis girls who were doing all the painting and decorating of the four parallel rows of terraced houses. Her life changed dramatically when she met Noëlle Jarvis and the two started seeing each other regularly. Within a month they were a couple and Jacqueline had plans to move to Bearthwaite.

Gustav had not had to consider guileful ways for Bearthwaite to acquire the architect of their choice, but as his dad, Pete, had said, “You can’t win ’em all, Son, but you can’t lose ’em all either. You have to get lucky once in a while, and, think on, the architect’s fees stay local too this way.”

The gossip machine had always been puzzled as to why Noëlle had remained unmarried. She was twenty-six, pretty and as one of the Jarvis girls who worked together was moderately wealthy. She’d been pursued at school by any number of boys and later by several young men with serious intentions, but she’d never allowed things to proceed any further than half a dozen dates. The rumour was she was still a virgin. Naturally enough her sisters, Diana and Faye, refused to discuss the matter and folk soon stopped asking, for due to their constant interactions with men in the building trades the girls could be forcefully blunt in their responses to invasions of privacy. If pressed they became positively Anglo Saxon(2) in their responses. When Jacqueline and Noëlle announced they were moving in together all became clear. The gossip was plentiful for a few days and somewhat bitter amongst the young men who had now lost all hope of not just Adalheidis but Noëlle and Jacqueline too. That two pretty young women were as several put it ‘batting for the other side’ was a severe blow to not just their egos but their sense of fairness too. When the matter had been discussed in the taproom of the Green Dragon Pete had said, “That they still think that way proves they have a deal of growing up to do before they become of any serious interest to lasses ready to settle down and start a family.” It had been universally agreed that Pete had hit the nail fair and square on the head.

~o~O~o~

The ground floor [US 1st floor] of the old mill was to be used entirely for food preservation and storage, cool, cold and frozen. Christine had agreed to have her entire canning operation moved there, for it had been decided it would be far more convenient to have the canning taking place close to where the jars would be stored. The extra space available meant she could expand her operations which benefited the village by providing employment and by enabling more food to be grown locally and preserved for all year round availability. In the stead of having the like of potatoes and apples stored in barns all over the valley there would now be central temperature and humidity controlled storage specific to each item to be stored. It would also be vermin proof. In addition it was considered desirable that there be enough facility for much more meat storage than Vincent had behind his shop, so that he could take advantage of any opportunities for buying livestock at bargain prices at local slaughter marts.(3) In the past he’d had to pass up such opportunities for lack of available meat storage space. When he could buy cheaply he passed his savings on when he selt the meat and the committee wished to take advantage of the opportunities extra storage would give the folk of Bearthwaite. As Alan Peabody had said, “If Vincent can store more meat I and the other local farmers may as well raise more. In the end we get a better price from him, because we’re not having to pay transport and auctioneers’ costs and he prefers buying local because it’s cheaper and it’s better meat too which is appreciated by Bearthwaite housewives. Too, more money stays local which benefits us all.”

Vincent looked thoughtful and said, “I know a couple of gamekeepers in the Highlands who manage expensive shooting estates. Periodically they have to have a cull to keep the deer healthy and prevent over browsing. They have always had trouble disposing of the carcasses, for no one wants entire deer carcasses. Folk prefer their venison on polystyrene [styrofoam] trays covered with cling film [Saran wrap]. They don’t want the legal hassle of butching the meat to sell on into the human food chain. They used to give the carcasses to the kennels for the fox hounds, but with fox hunting being banned they struggle to get rid of the carcasses these days. They’ve been digging big holes with a JCB and burying them for some time now. If we sent a waggon up there to collect ‘em I reckon I could have the lot for nowt. If we time it right and send a fridge unit up the lads up there can just load the carcasses without having to gralloch ’em. That way we get everything there is to be got. There’re enough lads here who could help me to gralloch and skin ‘em, and now we have somewhere to store the meat I reckon I’ve a few phone calls to make.”

It had been decided that the first floor [US 2nd floor] of the mill was to be used to provide offices for the administration of the Bearthwaite Property Developments Company and the Bearthwaite Village Community Ownership Company which Chance was working hard to amalgamate into one company. His proposal was that the new company would simply be called Bearthwaite Business Enterprises Limited. He wished the company to be registered as a limited liability company subject to the coöperative ventures regulations, and he and Adalheidis were spending a lot of time on the exact wording of the articles of incorporation to ensure they were exactly what was required without having to have subsequent alterations which could be a tedious and expensive procedure. One of the problems was since each adult in the village was a member of the coöp it was desirable that they had to sell their one pound membership on moving away back to the coöp or to one of the other members which would prevent the few outsiders who lived in the village from passing their vote on to someone outside the village or worse retaining it to cause problems in the future. Too, any new folk moving in to the village had to be able to be made members of the coöp without having to undergo the process required by a new share issue. It could be done, there were precedents, but it was complex and it took time.

The medical centre and all associated with it was moving into space on the first floor too, which included the proposed dental surgery and a number of other clinics too. That left the old medical centre area free for the play group and early years learning group to move into from their currently rather inadequate quarters in the school and library areas of the same building as the community centre. There was enough space available for a dozen or so women with babies ranging from newborn to a couple of years old to start a baby care centre available to all and any mothers who needed the facility for whatever reason. The first floor of the mill was to be the home to all professional activities for the village. There would be some space left over for a while, but it was felt that once they had the space available it would soon be put to good use, for there would be the incentive to ensure that it was. It wasn’t long before Jacqueline had office space pencilled in and that was one less office that needed an occupant. As she’d explained to Noëlle, “Most of what I do I do on line and the rest I can as well do from Bearthwaite as anywhere else in the county.”

The Bearthwaite Model Railway Society started by Jeremy Caldbeck would soon be occupying the second floor [US 3rd floor]. There would be workshop facilities of all kinds there for the enthusiasts and Alf had said he would find some small machine shop tools for them, at the least a lathe and a milling machine, and he could provide training to use them. The entire floor would be part of their backdrop and discussions were already underway concerning what would be done in what order and what their ultimate ambitions would be, though it had already been decided that the layout would be modelling aspects of Cumbrian railways both pre and post Beeching,(4) and both pre and post the demise of steam. Jeremy was particularly interested in modelling the Solway Junction Railway which included a viaduct of over a mile in length [1.1 miles, 1.8km](5) over the Solway Firth and the railway and docks of Silloth on Solway. Many of the children were more interested in modelling the docks and the Solway than the railways and were already dividing the tasks as to who would do what.

The lift engineers were overhauling and servicing both lifts in order to enable furniture and the like to be taken to their appropriate places. Many of the older children were already involved in cleaning the second floor [US 3rd floor] of the old mill ready for when the painting could begin. The video and photography activities of the children that Pat supervised would be moving in to the first floor too with a view to assisting the modellers with such things as photographic backdrops and scenery. On the first floor the medical and other professionals could make good use of the video and photographic equipment too.

As yet none had come up with any ideas for the mill basement and the third floor [US 4th floor] which was the uppermost floor of the building and had wonderful three hundred and sixty degree views of the entire Bearthwaite valley. The third floor was not a complete floor for the centre portion of the ceiling and floor had never been installed, if indeed it had ever been the intention to install it. Instead at the same level in the building as where the ceiling and floor should have been was an eight foot wide balustraded walk way all around the perimeter of the building that had what appeared to be book shelving wherever there were no windows. Adalheidis had suggested that the shelving could be retained as a home for all and any Bearthwaite archival materials.

~o~O~o~

It was known to all that Bearthwaite was advertising for a family doctor. It was not widely known where it had been decided to place that advertisement. Logically enough the advertisement had been placed in medical journals and national media, but it had also been placed in niche LGBTP media too so as to maximise the chances of finding an appropriate candidate. As Pete had put it when arguing that advertising in the LGBTP media was a sensible use of their money, “We don’t give a damn about things like that and there are sure to be quacks out there being given a hard time for such matters. A decent doc that few others treat with respect provides us with a golden opportunity to offer a mutually advantageous exchange. The doc gets decent neighbours and we get a decent doc. Win win.” It had been deemed pointless to advertise in the local press. The advertisement read, ‘Fully qualified and BMA(6) registered GP(7) required for an exceedingly isolated Cumbrian community of several thousand persons. No consideration shall be given to race, religion, nor sexuality. We are a non religious community and no proselytisation will be welcome, but your beliefs and personal identity matters are just that. Personal. Salary to be negotiated due to housing and surgery being provided.’

The only otherwise viable candidate had, despite the answer being in the advertisement, asked would there be opportunity to establish a mosque and Murray had immediately and politely started to close the conversation down telling the man he would get back to him. Bearthwaite had no interest in any who wished to change it’s culture in any way be it howsoever small. The only other interest shewn for several weeks had been from elderly doctors looking for a cheap place to retire within a year or two. Murray who’d done the interviewing had not been impressed by any of them. He’d said to Sasha, “All of them were out of date pill rollers and baby catchers looking for a cheap place to retire and I doubt if any of ’em would have accepted our views concerning identity matters. I know you want the matter resolved as soon as possible, Sasha, but they were definitely not what we’re seeking, so I’m sorry, but I wasn’t prepared to risk importing any bigotry. I reckon we’ll just have to keep looking and hope we find someone soon.”

Sasha had said in response, “No need to apologise, Murray. I left the matter to you because I believe out of all of us you are the one who will make the best decision. You’re right about my desire for haste which is why I didn’t wish to interview. I possibly would accept a less than good candidate. You can’t find what’s not there. I’m sure we’ll find a good GP eventually. Pete was right about where to place the advertisements, so there’s little else we can do till an appropriate person approaches us.”

Wing Tan Sun was twenty-eight and from Hong Kong, On production of his qualifications he admitted to being a political persona non grata in Hong Kong to the mainland Chinese authorities due to his political beliefs and activities. He was a highly qualified doctor who had qualified at a major London hospital, but he had been unable to find work other than as a locum. When pressed, he finally admitted that his difficulties were not due to being Chinese but to being gay. When telt Bearthwaite was looking for a good GP not a conformist to outside societal norms he asked, “I have been living with Eli, my partner for three years, and we wish to marry. Eli is from Hackney in London, twenty-five and an artist. We don’t wish to make any hasty decisions lest we move to somewhere where we would not be welcome. I’m sorry if this makes things difficult for you, but the truth is I don’t care. We are as we are and are trying to find a life that at least accepts that even if it doesn’t approve of it. Is it likely to be here?”

Murray said, “We advertised for a GP, not for a heterosexual, white, English GP. To do so would of course be illegal on several counts, but even had we we been allowed to word our advertisement thus we would not have done so. Bearthwaite does not care what you are with regard to those matters. What it cares about is how you live and how well you treat not just your patients but your neighbours too. We can provide you with every up to date piece of equipment and software you could desire. We are about to do so with our dentists who are new residents here. Unlike in many other communities you will not have to waste your time talking to lonely old persons, for we have no such. Bearthwaite is different from outside places, and our elders have many folk of all ages to talk to every day who will ensure all their social needs are met. We can provide you and Eli with living accommodation and you with a surgery. We can even organise a wedding for you at our church if you so wish. I can assure you there would be hundreds of approving, welcoming folk in the church, for as I said we are not like outsiders.” The conversation continued and Wing Tan Sun eventually came to the belief that taking the job at Bearthwaite was a sensible and desirable move. Murray asked, “What exactly does your fiancé do for a living? We could maybe help him to find good employment.”

Amazed that Murray had so casually and naturally referred to Eli as his fiancé Sun had answered, “He manipulates images using sophisticated software to produce material mostly used by persons involved in advertising, though some of what he does is involved with three dee printing and laser cutting. He is not really happy doing the advertising work, but it helps to pay the rent on our extremely expensive flat in London, and working just the odd day here and there as a locum I haven’t been earning much recently.”

“Would he, do you think, be happy doing something similar for our recently formed Bearthwaite Model Railway Society? I am telt by Pat who currently does what he can for and with the children that they are desperate for that kind of skill set to produce material for their huge layout. The Society has only just formed and is mainly seen as an activity to interest the children when the weather is poor.” Murray chuckled before continuing, “Perhaps not surprisingly a lot of those children are big boys with children and grandchildren. They are in the process of renovating their new home. It is over a thousand square metres and in our old disused mill which is ultimately where you surgery would be, though on a different floor. That floor is still in the hands of the architect and the builders.”

“I can’t see that he would be interested in trains, but the challenge that activity would offer would be irresistible to him, but what about the pay? We can’t live on my salary alone.”

“Don’t worry about the pay, Sun. If the pair of you fit here the pay will be more than you could dream of.”

Sun was more than impressed that Murray had realised that his given name was Sun not Wing, his family name, for few westerners were aware of oriental conventions. He thought hard and long, he could think quickly due to his intelligence, before deciding that Bearthwaite was worth taking a chance on. It was unusual for him to make a decision of anything like that magnitude without prolonged discussion with Eli, but he didn’t wish to lose the opportunity to someone else. Unfortunately though not as intelligent as himself Eli was by far the more perceptive member of the couple. Sun realised to his dismay that this was one decision he was going to have to make on his own and he didn’t like it. However he finally said, “Yes, I accept, but at the first hint of homophobia, we’ll be out of here, and to hell with the money and the conditions. It’s bad enough in the anonymity of a city. In a place this size it would be a worse hell than I could probably imagine.”

Murray smiled and said, “Not going to happen, my friend. I have already rejected more than half a dozen inadequate candidates, some because it seemed to me they were not good at their job, but most because I perceived them to be folks intolerant of what they would probably have referred to as identity issues, which are not issues to us merely an atypical senses of identity. To us atypical does not equate with inferior nor undesirable. I’m not going to tell you how many of the LGBTP we have living here, but you and Eli between you don’t have enough fingers and toes to count them. Many don’t come from here, but decided to live here because it’s safe and nobody cares concerning such. We only care about how they are as folk and how they get on with their neighbours. It’s what we call being Bearthwaite folk, a good neighbour. You treat others well and do your best to help out when someone else’s life hits the fan, then in turn you’ll be helped because that’s what Bearthwaite folk do. You want in?”

Sun realised the gravity of the so simple question and replied, “Yes. Yes I do. Is that it?”

“Aye, Lad. It’s that simple and it boils down to do you wish to be one of us or not. To many we’re a strange breed, but to us there’s nowt strange about it. You help your neighbours when they’re in need and you’re one of us, or you don’t and you ain’t. In which case you can bugger off and be a pain in the arse somewhere else because you’re not welcome here. You don’t have to like a neighbour who’s in trouble, but you do have to help him because when your life goes belly up he’ll help you no matter how much he dislikes you.”

“I, no we because I know Eli will agree, wish to be Bearthwaite folk. Thank you.”

~o~O~o~

Harriet was crying as she said, “Davy Parker has been looking badly(8) for a while now, and he had another stroke last night, Mum. Simon took him to the Cumberland Infirmary at going on midnight in the village ambulance with Vera looking after him. It’s not looking good because he’d not regained consciousness at lunchtime today. Folk as know about it reckon he’s poorly sick wi’ a shawl on(9) and isn’t long for this world. Vera used to work with a couple of the nurses on his ward who were prepared to tell her it like it really was. They reckon he probably won’t regain consciousness and is going to go within forty-eight hours. Granny seems to be tekin(10) it better than our lasses thought she would. She telt Aggie that after being married to Davy for eighty-five years it was obvious one of them was going to go soon and after his first stroke she felt it in her watter(11) that Davy was going to go before her. I knew she passed her century nearly a year since, but hadn’t realised she married when she was sixteen and Davy was scarce turned eighteen.

“He’s a hundred and three just turned and Granny’s hundred and first birthday is on the ninth of next month. Elle has telt Casper Lawton(12) to be prepared, and to have a traditional Bearthwaite ash wood coffin ready for him. The allotment lads are gutted, but have said that for more than his entire working life Davy was one of them and they’re ready to dig the grave at a moment’s notice. Nobody has died since I came to live here, Mum, and though I didn’t know Davy at all well I know Granny well. She’s always been a kind woman who made life easier for me especially in the beginning when few here understood about being trans. I don’t think she did either, but Sam Graham telt me Granny didn’t care about that sort of thing. Like Aggie she just took me as I was and tret(13) me as the Bearthwaite lass I was so desperate to be teken(14) as. I’m not sure how I feel about Davy, but I’m trashed for Granny because I know she’s loved him since they went to school together. I don’t know how I’m going to face her any more, but I do know I’m going to make sure she never goes short of owt.”

“That, Harriet Love, is all any decent person can ever do. Granny understands how that works for Bearthwaite folk and will accept that without embarrassment. When she was able she was a good neighbour to the entire village. She delivered many of us into the world and laid many of us out when we left it. Casper and his dad Cecil were glad of her help especially with folk who weren’t too happy about a man laying out their womenfolk. He won’t talk about it, but she laid both Vincent’s parents out long after having delivered him which is why he’ll never see her go short of owt he can supply. Now it’s time for us to repay what she did for us, despite many of those she helped being long gone. All her life she’s been a perfect rôle model for Bearthwaite girls and women of all ages, and I don’t doubt she will continue to be so even as a grieving widow. When I first took up with your dad there was a fair bit of disapproval because he was so much older than I was. She fought our corner saying it was nobody else’s business. Bearthwaite became a kinder place because she has always been who and what she is. If you cry when you meet her next, that will be okay, for she will understand. She likes a small glass of Windjammer Jamaica rum from time to time, so I suggest you go to see her and leave a bottle. She’ll appreciate it all the more coming from a lass of your age rather than an older woman. There is no need to say owt regards it. She’ll understand.”

Harriet smiled, a bleak smile, kissed her mum and said, “Thanks, Mum,” before leaving to collect a bottle of Windjammer.

~o~O~o~

Alf made Elle’s tables using his entire supply of iroko. He’d decided that no two tables should be the same to avoid the tables having even a hint of anything institutional about them. Forty-two of the tables were about twelve and a half feet long [3.8m] but they varied by as much as a foot [30cm] in either direction. One table was just over twenty feet [6.2m] long because he’d refused to cut it down, but it was the only one anywhere near that length. The shorter pieces he’d turned into nineteen tables varying between four [1.2m] and six feet [1.8m] in length. He’d managed to find some suitable, dark coloured, recycled mahogany to make repairs with and to make the smaller pieces of iroko produce appropriately sized tables.

Alf went to see Edward the local forester and sawyer concerning making a table top from local beech to the same dimensions as his largest piece of iroko. Several huge beeches had been felled and harvested after a storm twelve years before. Edward had exactly what he wanted and when he heard what Alf wanted it for he’d grinned and said, “Just tek(15) it, Alf Lad. It’s the best use for it I could imagine. It’s the best piece I’ve got, and I’m glad to think it’ll stay here where it started growing from a nut when what, our great great granddads were boys? Or maybe it was when their great great grandads were boys? I’m happy to give it away as my contribution to the project. If you like I could give my mate over Caldbeck way a bell for some ebony and holly for the inlay. He’ll want paying for the ebony because he’ll have had to pay long money for it, but he’ll give you the holly because it’s local. I imagine the ebony will need plenty of steam to bend it, but I know it can be done because I saw a piece like that when I was a lad just out of my time (16) at a furniture auction in Lancaster.”

Alf finished the beech table top to the same dimensions, just over six metres by just over a metre [20 foot by 40 inches], as his longest iroko piece. He routed out the beech in a cursive copperplate scrip which had been a time consuming task, for the width of the channel constantly changed and he’d had to make a template for the router guide bush to follow first. Using the nearly black ebony at one end and the pure white holly at the other end he inlaid into the table top in letters two and a half inches tall and half an inch wide in places, ‘The Elle Vetrov Bearthwaite Collection’ In all he’d produced two hundred and sixty-eight metres [881 feet] of essentially iroko table top.

With the exception of the beech table and it’s fraternal iroko twin, whose legs were deliberately identical, the legs were all different. The long beech and iroko table tops were each supported by three huge turned and carved pillars made by glueing pieces of one hundred and fifteen millimetre [4½ inch] square oak together. The turned pillars were four hundred millimetres [16 inches] in diameter at their widest and they terminated at the top with a one hundred millimetre [4 inch] wide and deep recess across their centres that accepted the four by four oak members that spanned almost the full width of the table top. The upper three members supported the table top across their entire lengths and were tapered towards their extremities to avoid looking clumsy. The pillars terminated at their lower ends six inches [15cm] off the floor with two mortices each and the six highly carved lower leg members distributed the load onto the floor.

Many of the smallest tables were supported by a single turned central oak pillar in a similar way to their largest two brethren but they accepted three tenons at the top to support their tops and the three leg pieces tenoned into their lower ends were all carved differently. Some of the middled sized tables of about six to eight feet in length had two such pillar arrangements, but all like their larger and smaller cousins, had uniquely carved leg members.

Alf had decided not to have conventional legs at the edges braced by stretchers and an H stretcher on the grounds that they would be to vulnerable to breakage from folks’ feet and had decided that making more substantial central legs from oak was a better solution. The tops were all highly polished, unembellished iroko, barring the odd piece of indistinguishable, colour matched mahogany, but the legs were all oak, all different in design and all carved differently. The only thing they had in common was the staining which complemented the iroko. Every table was an impressive work of art, as a collection they were overwhelming. Alf had had some help with the initial stages of wood preparation and the finishing, but the artistic genius that had created them had all been his and his alone.

Elle insisted on paying an extra fifty thousand pounds. Alf who’d enjoyed making the tables had been embarrassed, and Elle suggested if that be the case that he should considered how the money would be best employed on his behalf for Bearthwaite. Alf’s reply had been immediate, “Some CNC(17) machine tools for Bertie and his apprentices. That will give them a wider skill set if they ever choose to take on any work outside the village and be useful if they stay here too.”

Elle had nodded and said, “I’ll speak to him about it.”

~o~O~o~

Some of the cheap wine bought by Jean-Claude had been sweet and he had decided that after the distillation had removed the alcohol it would be worth brewing the residual sugar out and then stilling the resultant brew. “It will have stabilisers in it that will inhibit yeast, but I can deal with that easily. The men won’t object to the overtime pay if I ask them to put the extra hours in, Gustav, and the sugars in it will produce more than enough spirit to make it worth while. Interestingly, last Saturday in the Dragon Græme Scott asked if he could have a thousand litres of the still residue in an IBC(18) for him to experiment with. We didn’t have time to talk, so I don’t know the nature of his experiments. I said I would talk to you about it. Do you know what his intentions are? And do I give him what he asked for?”

“This is decidedly Bearthwaite business, and to go no further, Jean-Claude, okay?”

“But of course. In my line of work much occurs that is how you say clandestine, but I am French, and we are more relaxed about such matters than the British, who are a little uptight about all matters concerning alcohol. You are German, so I am sure you understand.”

Gustav nodded and said, “Græme is a talented and intelligent man and he is interested in all aspects of zymurgy,(19) including distillation. From previous conversation with him I know he has long wished to do what I am sure he wishes to use the liquid for. I suggest you give him a full IBC, after all it is merely a dilute sugar solution containing a lot of impurities and as such of no direct interest to HMRC.20 I suggest you talk to him, for he could be very helpful to you. In essence I suspect he wishes to take that dilute sugar solution and do what he described to me as a crude and very atypical cryoscopic distillation on it to dramatically reduce its volume. I imagine he’ll reduce it enough to produce a feed that after brewing will rapidly produce a ten percent alcohol result, maybe eight percent due to the impurities. I don’t know and probably he doesn’t know either, but he will. That way the volume to be stilled is dramatically less, saving money and time.”

“But cryoscopic distillation is done on gas mixtures to separate them when liquid at very cold temperatures. It’s how they separate air into its component gasses. What has that process to do with alcohol production?”

“I know and so does he. His idea is to chill the liquid till it starts to freeze. I’m sure you know what happens then.”

“Ice forms on the liquid.” Gustav could see understanding on Jean-Claude’s face. “Yes. The ice is formed from pure water, and if it is removed you are concentrating all other liquids and solutes(21) in the remaining solution. It is a method used by peasants all over the world in cold climates to produce strong drink simply by leaving the brew outside for the weather to freeze. It is not safe because all the methanol, higher alcohols and fusil oils that brewing always produces as well as ethanol are left behind and they are toxic in large quantities. However, if you concentrate the sugars by removing ice, brew the sugars completely out and then use a conventional distillation process the methanol comes over first and you can remove it and the higher alcohols and fusil oils are left in the still after the ethanol has stilled over. Ingenious, simple and elegant, very ingenious. I’ll talk to him. That could be a process we could well make use of, and there is a ready market for the toxic by products as feed stock for other processes. I wonder if there is someone here who could use them to produce something that would sell for more as a value added product. I’ll make enquiries, Gustav. If Græme wishes laboratory space here we could easily accommodate him in the brewery. I’ll speak to Clarence concerning accommodating his experiments here. If he needs assistance may I assign one of the distillery workers to him?”

Gustav nodded and said, “Help him in any way possible. His ideas may provide us with additional sources of income and enable us to employ more staff.” The two were both smiling as they parted, but Gustav was wondering if Græme and his wife would be interested in moving to Bearthwaite.

~o~O~o~

To the children of Bearthwaite the Solstice, Christmas and the New Year celebrations were barely a memory, and at a month past the Solstice the nights were slowly but noticeably drawing out. They were looking forward to the Valentine’s day bonfire and barbecue on the green, for which the long range weather forecast as provided by Auld Alan Peabody was for cold but calm and dry. That the meteorological office agreed with him was not regarded as significant. Yet again it was Saturday evening and Pete, Gladys, Harriet, Gustav and their staff had all in readiness for the Grumpy old men in the taproom and their womenfolk in the best side. Though all knew there was the possibility of some bitter winter weather still in front of them they expected a good turn out in the Green Dragon that night because yet again the weather had recently changed. It was cool not cold and there was little wind and no rain. There were only a few men few in the taproom, but it was still early and there were only Sal Bill’s elderly Jack Russel bitch and Jem, Saul’s border collie dog pup in the taproom as yet.

Bill and Saul were leaning on the bar halfway down their first pint when Bill asked, “You got anything that will bind the crush together on the road, Saul? Plasterboard or ashes. We’ve got plenty of crush on hand, but with no binder all the fines wash out and it’s only a matter of time before the heavier stuff disappears too.

“Not at the moment, Bill. Gerry asked me the same question a couple of days ago. How bad is it? I’ve not been that way for a week.”

“Nothing deeper than six inch [15cm] at the moment. All at the far end in the dip where the road floods first, but give it a fortnight or a cloudburst and the potholes will be a foot deep [30cm].

“You’ve already taken all the stuff we had at the quarry with limestone fines and plaster in it. We’ve a big job coming up that will yield maybe a few hundred tons [x 1000 for Kg, x 2240 for pounds] of plasterboard [US drywall] and a couple of thousand [2000 tonnes, 4.5M pounds] of old lime mortar, but it’s not for six weeks, so we definitely can’t help till then. Your best bet is to ask one of the Levins brothers what their lads are ripping out of the old terraces(22) and wherever else they’re working. I know the old lime plaster off the walls of the terraces hasn’t been taken out to the quarry yet. It may even be still on the walls. If you get desperate see if you can get that bumped up in priority, at least for long enough for you to have what you need for the road. Alternatively see if you can find some more men to do it for you. How much do you need?”

“Maybe five ton.” [5000Kg, 11 200 pounds]

“Not a lot. Shouldn’t be a problem. Ask around tonight to see if you can put a few more men to your regular crew.”

Brian, an outsider who’d just arrived and was waiting to be served, asked, “Why are you concerned about holes in the road. Can’t you just ring the Council or the highways, Bill?”

“No. We own the road. It’s a private road on private property, so we have to maintain it. Gerry and I manage it. He worked for the highways for most of his life and I did twenty-five years with McAlpines mostly on the motorways. Ashes, old plaster or plasterboard bind the demolition crush that we fill the potholes with together. Most of the time Saul and his mates who work as demolition and clearance contractors keep our gang of lads going in materials, and we get rid of a powerful load of waste stuff for them. It’s a year round job because the rain and the wind take stuff away, and you’d be amazed how much disappears on the tyres of outbound vehicles.

Pete who was behind the bar served Brian and then started pulling pints because a dozen and a half dogs had just entered from the back door eager to find the bowls of kibble and food scraps that had been awaiting them. He pushed some glasses towards the three men saying, “Sort out the money when someone comes in who’ll do it for me whilst I’m busy.”

“I’ll do that for you, Pete,” Bill said walking round to the other side of the bar.

~o~O~o~

When Mason Lightfoot came in his left hand was seen to be heavily bandaged. “What happened to you, Mason?” Alf asked with concern as he came out of the cellar with a case of hostage rum.(23)

“I went round to see a mate in Maryport about giving Mark and myself a hand with a plumbing job, and without warning his dog ripped my hand open. Bit of a thick(24) dog really as I was carrying a thirty inch Stilson(25) in my other hand. Result one dead dog and I’ve one less mate, but mates like that I can do without. And he not only hasn’t got a dog any more he hasn’t any work either. We used to employ him for maybe eight months a year, but Mark point blank refuses to have owt to do with him any more and I’m not arguing with him. We went to senior school with him which is why we gave him the work, but I’d rather we employed someone from here. The doc said it was pointless trying to stitch it, but she gave me a couple of jabs and a course of antibiotic pills just in case. It’s nothing a few bevies(26) and glasses of chemic won’t put right. Don’t fash yoursel(27) about it, Alf.”

Pete said, “Vicious dogs want killing, or better still their owners do. I went round to see my brother Bert at his scrapyard over Newcastle way oh maybe fifteen years ago. I was working over that way at the time and I can’t mind what it was I went to see him for. He had a really big Alsatian dog [aka German Shepherd] chained up to a kennel in the yard. Dirty, neglected, abused thing it was. Truth was I felt sorry for the dog. Whenever anyone came into the yard it would fly out to the end of its chain frothing at the mouth and barking like it was demented. I suppose in a way the poor bugger was. They used to feed it by pushing a bowl towards it with a broom. Murphy’s law was at work that day, for both the dog and myself. When it flew out of its kennel at me the rusty old chain parted as a link snapped and it kept coming. From six foot it launched itself at my throat. I’ve never been bothered by savage dogs. I’d dealt with a few over the years, and a couple of them were Rottweilers way bigger and heavier than that Alsatian. A dog in the air has no purchase on anything, so I stepped to one side grabbed hold of it and snapped its back over my knee. A boot to the head and that was one more dead dog. Bert said I owed him a dog, and I telt him to go and fuck spiders. Folk like him shouldn’t be allowed to keep a dog. I reckon in the beginning there are only a few bad dogs, but there’re a hell of a lot of bad dog owners that make even more dogs bad.”

“So that’s what happened to Frodo. I was telt he died in his sleep. Dad didn’t know it, but he’d been okay with me since he was a puppy and when Dad was looking to give me a good hiding I used to hide in his kennel. I’m glad I found out, Dad. It’s not your fault. His life was as bad as mine, but at least like him I escaped in the end.”

Harriet was crying as she left and Pete said, “You’d better go after her, Gustav. I’m sorry, Son. I didn’t know she was there.” As he looked about him seeing a sea of puzzled looks on the faces of the outsiders Pete enlightened them a little. “Harriet was my brother Bert’s child who he tret more badly than I’m prepared to explain. She ran away to Manchester before she left school and lived on the streets, she’d have only been fourteen. Eventually she contacted me, and I brought her here and adopted her. Bert was scum even as a kid, and it was all downbank(28) from there. He is not welcome in Bearthwaite.”

Vincent added, “Folk were getting ready to make him leave because he was so unpleasant and disliked. He didn’t want to go, but if he hadn’t left my Uncle Vincent who I was named after would have killed him for trying to rape one of my cousins who was a lass of fourteen at the time. It was Jim Alf’s dad who stopped him. The scars on Bert’s face are what Jim gave him with a piece of steel reinforcing bar and his steelies.(29) Days later my dad had to stop my uncle from killing Bert to prevent him doing time for it. Dad telt him to leave it to others who’d make him wish he’d died which was what happened. The only thinking Bert ever did was with his fists and his balls. Pete was being over kind to the bastard calling him scum, and saying folk like him shouldn’t be allowed to keep a dog. I reckon folk like him shouldn’t be allowed to breath, but even a place like Bearthwaite produces the odd bad apple. The trick is to get rid of ’em before they turn any of the others bad. I’ll try a glass of the Clarence’s latest batch of brown please, Pete.” The outsiders who knew Vincent were surprised at what they considered to be his atypically unforgiving and violent attitude. The locals who knew him well weren’t.

~o~O~o~

Clayton who’d been a regular attender on Saturday evenings for over three years indicated he wish to speak and Sasha said, “It’s all yours, Clayton, it’s about time you had a free supper.”

Clayton immediately said, “All this talk in the media of a financial crisis hitting ordinary folk, and mortgages going through the roof is really winding me up. You’d think it was new and had never happened before. Interest rates went up to sixteen per cent in some cases way back, what thirty-odd years since? Lenders at the time wouldn’t see sense and foreclosed on loads of folk resulting in homeless folk on the social(30) and marriages breaking up. The burden on the state went through the roof in a self perpetuating spiral and the lenders owned hundreds of thousands of properties worth nowt because the scum went into the empty houses to rip all the copper plumbing out to weigh it in for scrap. The banks would have been better off accepting what folk could pay and forgetting the rest, at least that way they’d have had folk living in the houses as de facto security and the properties would have had some value. But they don’t learn anything due to their greed and I dare say it’s going to happen all over again. It certainly looks that way.

“I was a builder before I retired and Nancy and I got gey lucky. She’s was a nurse, and we wanted to buy a big old vicarage down Manchester way to turn it into a nursing home, but the Church of England got greedy over price and messed us about for eighteen months. That gave us time to realise mortgages interest rates were going to go through the roof and we were better off out of it. Six months later the vicarage had been torched by vandals and the church had the land and nowt else. By that time we’d have been bankrupt due to interest rates if the sale had gone through. I laid off my men before the wages bill broke me and streamlined my business to ensure I always got paid. Having always paid heavily into pension funds I retired at fifty five and moved up here. I reckon most of this so called financial crisis could be avoided if the government behaved responsibly and I mean politicians of all flavours, and, and it’s a big and mind, folk stopped spending money they don’t have on stuff they can’t afford and don’t actually need.”

Alf said, “I read years ago that the average adult in the UK has over twenty thousand quids worth of debt over and above the mortgage. That’s the mortgage and going on fifty grand of debt for a couple. That’s a lot of money, and I imagine it’ll be a lot more now.”

Stan nodded his head and said, “Clayton had it right when he said folk are spending money they don’t have on stuff they can’t afford and don’t need, but God help the country if the bubble bursts and the banks and their like need it repaying because it’s not available to repay the debt with. I’m for a pint, Lads. Any one else?”

~o~O~o~

When the drink had been organised and bags of the in house produced pork scratchings,(31) salted nuts and crisps [US chips] had been passed around Morgan indicated he had something to say. Morgan had lived at Bearthwaite for fifteen years. Though a regular attender on Saturday evenings at the Green Dragon he was a quiet man who didn’t usually say much. He’d worked as an engineer of some sort, retired at sixty with ill health as a recent widower and subsequently moved to the village. He was a well liked but reserved man who it was recognised still mourned his wife. It was a surprise to all when he started talking for little was known about his past other than that he originated in the Highlands which was obvious from his voice. “I went to boarding school in the deep south, and I mind going back home to the highlands with Mum for Christmas. I’m going back to when the M6 motorway stopped at the A50 just south of Warrington, so that puts it before nineteen sixty-three when the Thelwall viaduct opened. I guess it would be nineteen sixty. We were driving on the A6 going uphill after the deep dip before Shap. It would have been maybe eleven at night. It was pitch black and we were in a slowly moving line of traffic with numerous heavy goods vehicles in the line too. We were behind a wagon with steel sides when I saw its tail gate shift. Tons of what subsequently turned out to be industrial glass marbles about an inch in diameter for gas cooling towers dropped out of the back and hit the road. They all bounced and went straight over Mum’s six cylinder Ford Zephyr. Not a mark on it, many vehicles behind us weren’t so lucky. It was maybe minus five Celsius[23℉] with a nasty east wind blowing heavy sleet, not a night to lose a windscreen. In the headlamps the marbles had looked like hail or heavy sleety rain. It was impossible to tell what was sleet and what was glass. There were tons of the marbles everywhere. The road was closed and eventually the police and the clean up crew arrived who were just shovelling the marbles onto the verge to reopen the road as soon as possible. Mum asked one of the clean up crew if she could have some marbles, ‘I’m a teacher and I want them to help the children learn to count’, she’d explained. ‘No problem, Love,’ the man said as he proceeded to shovel marbles into her boot [US trunk]. She had to stop him. The car had a huge boot and he’d put a couple of hundredweight [100Kg, 224 pounds] in already. I don’t recall what happened after that.

“Another time Mum was taking me back to school and the same Zephyr kept losing all power. It would go fifty miles or so and then the engine would fade. We’d wait twenty minutes and it would go another fifty miles. That happened all the way to school. I was supposed to be back for eight, but it was gone three in the morning when we got there. It took the Ford dealership ages to solve the problem, but seemingly some of that model were fitted with an extra fuel filter in the tank and when the fuel tank was less than half full it could block if it sucked up crud from the bottom of the tank. The stuff would gradually fall back to the bottom and all would be well till it happened again. Apparently the solution recommended by Ford was to remove the filter.

“I know exactly when the next thing I remember took place. It was the thirteenth of September nineteen seventy-one. I was a post graduate engineering student at Imperial College in London hitch hiking north on the M6 going home. I’d have been twenty-four. The fog had come down in the night, it was hard to tell when in the dark. I’d got as far as Knutsford services. It was about eight thirty am. I went into the transport cafe looking for a driver going at least as far as Glasgow and preferably right up. I bought breakfast for a driver going to the Fort [Fort William] who had offered me a lift. That was when the coppers came in and one announced, ‘M6 is shut lads. Major pile up on the viaduct. Anybody got any first aid skills willing to help? If you are go with my mate.’

“Knutsford services is about eight miles south of Thelwall viaduct. In those days the viaduct carried three lanes of traffic north and three lanes south with no hard shoulders for access. Now that bridge has a hard shoulder and carries only four lanes of traffic, but they’re all for north bound traffic. A parallel bridge for south bound traffic opened in 1995 some time. Both halves of the modern viaduct are just short of a mile long and go over the Manchester ship canal and the river Mersey which is tidal at that point.

“Three of us were taken to the edge of the viaduct in a police transit bus. What a sight! The motorway was blocked by dozens of vehicles, I later found out it was two hundred. Visibility even with the emergency mercury lights was very poor because they were so far away. The screams! If I live to be a hundred I shall never forget the sights, sounds and smells. We were given rapid training in use of morphine and given a bag of preloaded hypodermics. Interestingly I’ve never read about that nor met anyone who knew about it. I can only assume that that sort of thing is handled at a very high level and a blanket silence is maintained, though it has to be said I was never told to keep my mouth shut, and I don’t know if any of the others were either because I never saw them again.

“At one point I saw some bits of bodies. The carnage was appalling. I had to climb over and through the wreckage. Ambulances couldn’t get any where near, but more paramedics and doctors had started to arrive. Dawn was normally at about eight, but it was difficult to tell due to the fog whether it was day or night. The nightmare was made worse by the poor visibility, but still I can’t forget what I saw and experienced. I was there for twenty odd hours, the fog for two days, but it was a week before the M6 reopened.

“It was later determined that at about eight more than two hundred cars, trucks and tankers piled up, five vehicles burst into flames, ten people were killed and seventy injured. It was the worst accident ever recorded on British roads. There may have been worse since. I don’t know and I don’t wish to.

“I’m in my mid seventies now. I haven’t had a nightmare about it for decades, but I still wake with the cold sweats in the middle of the night. I’d had a wait of nearly an hour for a ride at the Blue Boar Watford Gap Services, the ride that took me to Knutsford. If I’d managed to catch the waggon driver who drove off before I could catch his attention, the one whose waggon came from Glasgow, those body parts I saw could have been mine.”

Alf said, “I mind the incident. It made a strong impression on me at the time. I can’t imagine the effect it had on someone who witnessed it, for the TV coverage was horrific.” There were a number of others who remembered the incident too, again from the media reports, and again all agreed with Alf concerning the effects it would have had on someone who had witnessed events.

~o~O~o~

There was what seemed to be a long silence before Arthur who was an outsider and a regular attender said, “I mind an eventful journey too coming back from Somerset over the Severn bridge to south Wales. Not horrific like the previous tale, but scary all the same. Carice wasn’t due for two weeks, but I ended up delivering my third daughter over the front seats of an A40 with my elder two looking on from the back. Fortunately we were back on the Welsh side of the bridge. The weather was grim and it was dark with virtually no traffic going past in either direction. A couple of hours later we were home and I called for a midwife the following morning when Carice allowed me to. I paid ten pounds for that A40 complete with a twelve month MOT(32) in nineteen seventy-six, so that was July seventy-seven.”

~o~O~o~

Josh nodded and said, “Scary is the right word, Arthur, but owt to do with women is scary when it comes right down to it. I was going into Wigton for some wall plugs and other bits and pieces last week and before I left Diane telt me to buy four onions. She said Lucy didn’t have any on hand and Dave had said it would be a couple of days before the allotment lads resupplied him. There were none in any of the shops I passed and I didn’t wish to go into one of the super markets. Then I remembered Harrison’s butchers selt onions, carrots and spuds(33) so I called in for the onions. When I reached home Diane went ballistic. I couldn’t see a problem, for there were four onions in the bag and that was what she’d asked for. Okay they were big, but an onion is an onion is an onion right? Seems I’d bought just over five kilo’s of onion which she considered to be over the top.”

Alf said, “Onions that size were probably allotment grewn for shew. Those would have been the ones that were undersize or not perfect. Onion exhibitors regularly grow ‘em to fifteen pounds [7Kg].(34) Farmed onions don’t usually get anywhere near that size. Diane had possibly never seen onions that big before, Lad. Thing is, with any woman you’d probably have got away with it a couple of days earlier or a couple of days later.”

Josh grimaced and said, “Aye, you’re right, Alf. If you get the wrong time of the month you’re deep in it if you don’t do as you’re telt, but you’re just as deep in if you do, and even deeper in it if you say ‘Yes, Dear,’ and she hears you say it.”

Stan said, “That’s how it is, Josh Lad. It’s hard being a bloke. We all know we can’t live with ’em, but they’re wearing the kit,(35) so we can’t live without ’em, and there’s nowt we can do about it. If you think PMS(36) is bad, just wait till she hits the change.(37) Then you’ll know what suffering is all about. However, the hardest thing any of us have to do is trying to get our son’s to understand what they’re facing, and the truth of it is we mostly fail miserably. They have to go through it knowing nowt because at their age they’re convinced they know it all and won’t listen. So they go through what we did, but eventually after they’ve suffered more than a bit they come to realise their dad knew what he was talking about, and then you can have a decent relationship with ’em. Of course just like us they swear they’ll wise their sons up, and just like us they’ll fail for exactly the same reasons.” Stan was clearly warming up and those who knew him well paid close attention to what they were now convinced was a shaggy dog tale in the making.

“That’s the real difference between men and women. Girls listen to their mums and take it all on board; they’re members of the sisterhood from birth and puberty makes no difference at all to that. Little girls can manipulate blokes, especially their dads, with no effort at all. They can do it without even being aware of it and take in the ability at the breast with their mother’s milk. Puberty gives ’em the wherewithal that turns ’em into fully kitted out women who are even more dangerous to blokes than little girls. The moment females enter the fray they deploy WMD which takes warfare in the battle of the sexes to another level altogether. It’s completely impossible for a bloke to concentrate sufficiently to put together a reasoned argument in the face of a pair of primed ICBMs pointed straight at him. Weapons of Mass Distraction leave every bloke on the planet totally screwed, if you’ll pardon the expression. Just in case you didn’t know ICBM is an initialism formed from Inherently Coupled Ballistic Mammaries. Ballistic means something that moves subject only to the force of gravity. I’ll add that it makes no odds as to the mega-tonnage, nor the delivery system, for the result is always the same: total annihilation. Though it has to be said that women using the modern front loader delivery system can deploy their the ICBMs more rapidly than using conventional systems. Under battle conditions in the field, or anywhere else where women require maximum immediate impact, the stunning shock effect of the truly ballistic nature of a pair of ICBMs upon a bloke as they act under gravity alone no longer supported by their delivery system is utterly and totally devastating. After that women deploy their most dangerous weapons which rapidly overwhelm and neutralise everything a bloke can bring to bear on the situation, leaving him weakened and unable to continue. Spent our cause is well and truly shafted, if you’ll pardon the implication. By the time a bloke has recovered his resources the matter is over and it’s pointless to continue battling.”

It took several minutes for the laughter to subside enough for Stan to continue during which time glasses were replenished. Before he did he sighed and said, “However, it’s completely different with lads. Before puberty they have no idea what you’re talking about. I mind one of my lads who’d have been twelve or so at the time referring to a bloke wearing gey fancy coloured jeans maybe fifteen yards [15m, 45 feet] in front of us when we were out in Keswick. I telt him it was a girl not a bloke. When the lass turned round and he saw the rather pronounced headlamps, that’s another name for ICBMs, Lads, he asked in total surprise as if I were psychic, ‘How did you know, Dad?’ He clearly had no idea that women’s backsides were very different from blokes’ never having had the urge to study the matter’. That lass was a superb example of womanhood from both the front and the rear view. The bounce I could see from the front was mesmerising and the view from behind was truly splendid, for her hips were twice as wide as her shoulders and occupied three times the space when you took the sway into account, and my lad hadn’t even noticed, however six months later it was a completely different story. After puberty lads spend the next two or three decades trying to get back to where they spent their first nine months. They listen to no one and most don’t become men till they hit twenty-five if their dads are lucky. It takes others up to another ten years, and some just never make it. Sure there is a small number that are different, what would you say, Lads? Two per cent? Perhaps one? Or maybe less than that?”

There was considerable agreement with Stan when he’d suggested less than one per cent, and Sasha said, “It goes with the balls. Testosterone is what makes a man, and I’m talking about a decent man not a sub human animal like Pete’s brother Bert, be able to cope with the grief that life threws at him and still be able to provide for and look after his family. It’s a heavy price to pay, but think on, the alternative is feeling like death every month, and most women will admit they hate the way they treat their men at that time and are grateful for their tolerance. Then there is going through pregnancy, which many women say morning sickness takes all the joy out of the first three or four months of, and though they enjoy it till the end, it is a really frightening experience for them at that point. You may think your balls dictate your life, but pardon the pun that’s pure bollocks. Women’s every waking moment is influenced by, if not dictated by, their ovaries. Those of us with any sense, women and men both, accept the limitations our hormones impose on us, do our best to ignore what we can’t change and enjoy being what we are. I’d suggest we are all, men and women, grateful that we aren’t trans because that to me would be the ultimate challenge and possibly hell. If you don’t believe me I suggest you consider what your next act would be if you had to live as a woman.” At that there was a profound silence amongst both locals and residents. The locals already knew about and accepted Sasha’s intellectual insights concerning folk, but for many of the outsiders what he had challenged them with was a shock they had difficulty coming to terms with though they knew it was unarguable.

Even had Sasha known that he could be heard by Gladys and Harriet it wouldn’t have affected what he said. Harriet smiled at her mum and said, “Sasha is special isn’t he, Mum?” Gladys nodded and Harriet added, “It’s not always easy being trans even when folk leave you alone, but a trans friend in Manchester telt me that easy or difficult it was the path of least resistance, and if it weren’t maybe you weren’t fully trans, but were somewhere else on the spectrum. Either way she said following the path of least resistance regardless of what others said or did was what would probably make you happiest.”

“You believe that, Love?”

“I don’t know, but I do believe she had a point. It seems to works for me with Gustav, but I wouldn’t be prepared to say it were true for everyone. I think we all have to work out who and what we are for ourselves whether we are cis, trans or anything else.”

~o~O~o~

“What we drinking, Lads?” asked Pete to break the tension in the taproom. “I suggest we try Clarence’s new IPA.(38) Gustav’s just put a barrel on and he said earlier on it beats the daylights out of any Bavarian lager which is quite a complement from a bloke whose mum and three brothers own and manage a large Bavarian ale house in which he worked for most of his life. Bertie has brought up a fair selection of the rare stuff. It’s all labelled and behind the bar. Have a look and see what tickles your fancy. The usual terms apply. The kids’ Christmas party collection box is now virtually empty and in need of refilling for this year. It’s just in front of Sasha and I’m sure you’ll all do the right thing.” As Pete finished speaking there was loud thump as a bird flew into and bounced off the lunette fanlight above the rarely used front door to the taproom.

Alf opened the door and returned holding a pair of small birds. “It’s a sparrow hawk,” Alf said. The sparrowhawk had a dead starling grasped tightly in it claws. “It’s just stunned and needs a bit of warmth to recover. Raptors kill with their talons feet first, so I reckon the starling took the brunt of the shock of what was probably a thirty-five mile an hour impact. I saw a Youtube clip a while back that said most birds can usually escape from attacking sparrowhawks which have a killing speed of thirty-five miles an hour. It was going on about why virtually no birds get killed by traffic in towns, but the number jumps up dramatically once the traffic speed reaches thirty-five. It said hawks take out the slow and the stupid birds, so the rest that live to breed have evolved to avoid anything that attacks at thirty-five or below including vehicles. I’ll put it on my coat on the radiator in the back corridor and leave the back door open. It’ll be okay within twenty minutes and fly off, probably taking the starling with it. Alf had been correct and when a few of the men had gone to the gents’ which was off the back corridor they said upon their return it had gone and the starling too. The outsiders had always been amazed at the Bearthwaite residents’ understanding of and inter relationships with the wildlife and environment around them. For a few it hardened their resolve to move to the village, though they were aware they would have to be acceptable to live there.

~o~O~o~

Ahti was a furniture restorer who mostly worked as a luthier making and repairing musical instruments made of wood, violins and guitars in the main. He’d lived in Bearthwaite for more than thirty years. His tale was known to all the locals, but Pete had persuaded him to tell it for all. “I’m Ahti. I was born near Preston from first generation Estonian immigrants who’d managed to escape the Soviet occupation and annexation. I lived near Keswick for a long time My parents both died from what was called Norwalk in those days, but it’s what we call Noro virus now. I was married to an English girl called Rosemary from Carlisle when it hit me and I wasn’t aware of it. I mind that night when I didn’t feel right. I went to the lavatory, we had an en suite, and then I went back to bed. The bed was full of shite and Rosemary was covered in it. To say the least I was not well, but I didn’t feel too bad. Rosemary was a nurse so wasn’t as horrified by it as I was. We cleaned up, showered and made a bed up in the spare bedroom. Despite my guts turning inside out on me at no point had I felt seriously unwell. The following day we went shopping for a new mattress and bedding. The old stuff I dumped at the town civic amenity site, that’s bureaucratic double talk for the dump. We were okay for a week, but Rosemary picked up the virus from work. I suppose it was inevitable, she was a nurse at the Carlisle hospital. She had it much worse than me. I had to pick her up to put her in the bath, bathe her, lift her out and put her to bed. I woke up a few days later and she was cold beside me. She’d died peacefully smiling in her sleep for which I am still grateful, but I had to sell up and move. I couldn’t stay there where we’d been so happy. It was pure fluke I ended up moving here more than thirty years ago, but I’m glad I did. Is there any schnapps available, Pete? I could do with a goodly glass after that.”

“Aye, Ahti, There’s some home made from northern Sweden. I don’t know exactly, but it’ll be about sixty percent [UK 105 proof, US 120 proof]. I’ll fetch a couple of bottles.”

Gustav said, “It’s okay, Dad, I’ll get it and I’ll get some more of what ever’s behind the bar as well.”

~o~O~o~

Bill asked, “Give me a bit of hush, Lads, please. We’ve a bit of a problem with the road. The potholes are six inch deep and unless we get aholt on39 something to bind the crush with like plasterboard or old lime there’s no point in filling ’em because the crush will just wash out. It we don’t do something soon the holes’ll be a foot deep and only tractors will be able to use the road. Saul says they haven’t got anything suitable, but there is a load of old plaster in the terraces that either has to be loaded or has yet to come off the walls. We need about five ton of plaster. I need some more lads to load it or if it’s still on the walls to knock it off and load it. Ask about will you?” There was a murmuring in the tap room and a few of the locals said they and their sons would help.

~o~O~o~

“What’s for supper, Harriet Pet?”

“Lanky Lobby, Uncle Geoff. Properly it should called Lancashire Lobby. I saw it on Youtube and the woman making it called it Lanky Lobby. It’s a Lancastrian version of our Cumberland Tatie Pot, but with no black pudding and different herbs. I liked the idea. It contains what you’d expect, taties, carrots, onions, and stewing steak, but with pepper and sage added. I included the green onion tops that I froze when I used the white bits for other things. They came from all sorts of alliums, not just onions and leeks. They were all provided by Uncle Alf and his mates. They wanted used(40) up, so I took the opportunity. There’re dill flavoured mixed fermented pickles, vinegar pickled beetroot and buttered granary bread to go with the lobby. Pudding is laced cherry tart with custard. Before you ask the cherry tart is made with a short crust pastry base, Christine’s canned cherries and topped with a lattice of flaky pastry, and it’ll be at least twenty minutes before I put anything on the tables.”

~o~O~o~

“That was serious ballast,” Alf remarked concerning the supper as he reached for his glass. He drained the three-quarter full tankard and seeing Pete was still eating said, “I’ll pull a few, Lads, if someone will deal with the coin.”(41)

“I’ll do that, Alf,” Geoff said as he stood with his empty glass in his hand.

The beer had been dealt with when Harriet came in pushing her trolley to collect plates “Okay, Gentlemen? Do I do it again? Or do I stick to tatie pot?”

“That was excellent, Love,” Bill telt her. “You do whatever suits at the time for me.” There was a round of agreement round the taproom as plates were passed towards Harriet.

“I’ll be back with your pie in a couple of minutes. Someone let the dogs out please.”

~o~O~o~

After the cherry pie had been eaten and the dishes removed Stan asked, “Phil, I heard your lad Matt is keeping company with Adalheidis Maxwell. How did that come about?”

“Buggered if I know, Stan. Matt’s always been a quiet lad who kept things to himself and even Alice hasn’t been able to find out owt. Well, not yet any roads. Even his brothers say they don’t know owt. I can see why he’s interested in her. She’s almost as tall as him, pretty and slender enough to be a model. She talks decidedly upper class, and she sings like a nightingale. What puzzles me is what she sees in Matt. She’s well clever, whilst even with a lot of help from his older brothers he only just managed to get through school with enough certificates to get taken on as an apprentice. Okay, I know he’s a damned good brickie and my four lads have always made seriously good money because once out of their time they started working together. Hal reckons working that way they make twice as much as they could on their own. Matt’s one of my lads and I think the world of all of ’em, but even I’m not blinkered enough by that to think that in any way he could be considered to be a good catch for a good looking lass who’s reckoned to be a first class solicitor. She could have taken her pick of every available lad here and probably elsewhere too.” Phil shrugged and added, “But there’s nowt so queer as folk, and I never could see why Alice took up with me. Still, she’s thirty-three, ten years older than Matt, so you’d expect her to know her own mind by now even if he doesn’t.”

In serious tones Pete chipped in, “A ten year age difference is nowt, Phil. At least it’s not to folk as look deeper than just superficial things.” All the locals knew Pete was twenty years older than Gladys, and considered that he maybe had a point seeing as they’d celebrated their twenty-first wedding anniversary in the Dragon and all had been invited.

Harriet said quietly as she removed empty glasses, “Dad’s right. Matt’s kind and doesn’t care that she’s trans which a lot of men outside would hurt her for when they found out, so it’s not true to say she could take her pick of them. As for all the available ones here, I can easily see what she sees in him rather than anyone else. He may not be the brains of Britain, but he’ll make some lucky girl a good and loving husband, and I imagine Adalheidis recognises that and wants to make sure it’s her. Sam Graham telt me Adalheidis had a life that was awful as a young girl at home and at school. Her mum was okay about her, but her dad knocked her about a lot. Her siblings and the kids at school were even worse. Seemingly sixth form college and university were little better. Sam said she be surprised if she hadn’t tried to take her own life several times to make the pain of abuse and rejection go away and that her moving to here was probably the best thing that had ever happened to her. It’s not so surprising that when she sees an opportunity for someone decent and caring in her life that she wants him so badly that she’s prepared to take chances and overlook an awful lot to establish a relationship with him. I was the same.” Harriet smiled at Gustav and put her hand on his shoulder. “In the end, money, looks and brains don’t matter much to girls who’ve got any sense because they’re looking for someone who will respect them enough to treat them right both in public and in private and who will be a good father to their kids. As long as they have that and enough to get by on anything else is a bonus. Then again maybe she just wants a toyboy.”

There was no reply to what Harriet had said, not even a chuckle at what all had recognised was her attempt to lighten the atmosphere with her last humorous threw away remark, but many of the men in the taproom looked at each other with thoughtful looks on their faces, for Harriet had succinctly summed up the Bearthwaite unwritten and rarely spoken of female view of marriage.

None responded to Harriet’s words for some time and after she had left for the best side when conversation did resume it was subdued. George, who was an ex squaddie(42) said, “I can accept it’s different for single blokes and women too, though that’s no justification for putting it about like a coney, but once you settle down a whole new set of rules comes into play. If I’d even considered Christine had been unfaithful I’d have emigrated and left her with the kids that could have been any blokes’ to fend for, but that should cut two ways and a family man, whether married or no, who plays away deserves stringing up. All the bullshit others in my unit came up with about a man having needs are just that, bullshit. I didn’t need to even consider the fine I’d have been hit with if I’d reported to the M.O.(43) with a dose of the clap from some skanky whore. Just the idea of going where God alone how many miles of men had gone over the years was enough. They used to reckon the average, raddled, middle aged whore near the base worked her way through a mile of prick every three years, and the younger ones possibly every year, and that was just the back alley standing up jobs. Nah, no thanks. I was never that desperate even when I was a lad long before I joined the mob.(44) Thumbelina Palm and her four gorgeous sisters(45) have always been a lot safer. Harriet was right, respect is definitely the key concept here, Lads. Matt’s a good lad and I wish him luck and joy. Let’s just hope life keeps the pair of them local, we need folks like both of them.”

George had put it crudely, but his sentiments were understood and agreed with by all the Bearthwaite men in the taproom.

~o~O~o~

Sasha said, “I think you’re right about relationships, George, and we mustn’t allow outside forces to affect that aspect of our lives, but things change, some for the better, some not. All we have to do is to try to keep the best of the old and to keep up with changes that improve our lives which is not always easy and sometimes not even possible. Moving away from relationships, something that changed for the worse recently was when Lidl replaced their own brand blended malt which was called Queen Margot with something called Balmuir. Queen Margot had been voted the best tasting blended scotch in independent blind trials for years. I used to buy it by the case, twelve one litre bottles. Balmuir tastes awful, so I don’t buy whisky there any more. I complained, but as I expected it made no difference. However, one thing that I reckon that has been a change for the better is LED lights. I bought a site light on a stand a few months ago off the internet which is a really good piece of kit at thirty-five quid [$40]. Unlike my old one which got damned hot and the incandescent bulb filaments were so fragile you only had to look at them and the bulb was dead this new one runs cool and bright on next to no electricity and it’s amazingly robust.”

Pete added, “I burnt myself on my old one many a time, but I bought a couple of hand held ones in the factory shop in Wigton a couple of weeks ago. Powered by three AA batteries they chuck out so much light you can’t look at them, and they have a hook and a pair of neodymium super magnets on to mount them with. Fifteen quid [$20] apiece. A definite improvement on what I used before.”

Alf took a deep pull on his pint and said, “Aye but sometimes all is not what it seems. I bought a belt in Marks and Spencers a few years ago that was labelled Genuine leather. At twenty quid [$25] it wasn’t cheap. Genuine leather my arse. It was a lamination with a half a mil [0.020 inches] of leather on each side and three mil [⅛ inch] of some brittle shite in the middle that delaminated after a twelve month. I know that anything labelled ‘Real leather’ is some polymeric crap from the far east. That was why decades ago it was made illegal to sell owt in this country labelled ‘Genuine leather’ that was anything else, and that hide symbol was made illegal to use on owt that wasn’t genuine leather. I checked and that belt was not illegal, but it wasn’t what it purported to be either. In my book that’s fraud and the hell with what the law says. I expected better from M&S.

“I’ll give you a different type of example. I read and looked up on the internet about radiator valves that could self adjust to balance a central heating system automatically over a few hours. It seemed like a really good idea. Balancing a system is tedious and can take days to do properly, so I tried to buy some, but nobody stocked them. Most suppliers had never heard of the valves and none had heard of the purported manufacturer. As far as I can tell they’ve never been available, so maybe they’re just a figment of some marketing man’s imagination. Makes you wonder what kind of a scam somebody was running. Similar sort of thing was the KwikGripper. It was a well designed superior nail and screw puller that I saw a clip of on Youtube years ago. The clip implied they were immediately available, I wanted one but when I tried to track one down it seemed they had never gone into production.” Alf shrugged his shoulder and continued, “Really bad changes are when good stuff just disappears, Sasha. What happened to Chambourcy yoghurt and Dunster Farm cottage cheese? Morning Coffee biscuits and Vienna wafer chocolate triangles are just nostalgic memories of childhood now. Lots of stuff is lost to constant change, some like those for no good reason.

“Some losses are inevitable. Who even makes typewriters or floppy disks these days? It would be pointless. A similar type of change is when things change so fast you wonder why you bothered even being interested. For a while I used old catering deep fryer fat to make bio diesel. I even converted some of my static plant to running on a straight chip pan fat diesel blend. All of which became pointless within a handful of years as major fuel producers started selling diesel with anything up to twenty per cent bio diesel in it. Adding any more would be risking an engine.”

“So what do you do with the chip pan(46) fat now, Alf? I know you still collect it.”

“Heating fuel, Phil. Unlike using it for road vehicle fuel there’re no complications with the tax man and it’s a damned sight easier to do with virtually no maintenance required. Most of the fuel that heats the bread ovens at your spot is recycled chip pan fat and the rest is old engine oil that I’ve cleaned up with a centrifuge. The residue from the centrifuge I mix with sawdust, compress it into bricks and use for fuel in the workshop heating system. There’s a pre heater in your both of your fuel tanks now so the ovens can burn whatever cheap fuel is available. When Pat shewed Alice how to operate it all ages ago she was amazed at how easy it was. She turns the electric element on first thing and as soon as the fat is warm enough to flow easily the burner kicks in. The control system Pat put together turns off the electricity and diverts some of the heat to keep the fat hot enough to run the ovens. When she and the lasses have finished baking all she has to do is turn it all off at the main switch.”

~o~O~o~

Sasha said, “Talking of baking I was in a bakery the other lunch time looking for a couple of meat pies for my bait.(47) The woman in front of me was buying bread and I heard her say ‘I shouldn’t but I’ll have one of those cream cakes too. I only need to walk past a pie or a cake shop and sniff the air and I put on a kilo [2⅕ pounds].’ I telt her, ‘It’s said that the road to hell is flanked on both sides with shops selling cream cakes.’ She laught and said, ‘Sounds like a fun place to be.’ ”

Tommy said, “That puts me in mind of something that happened in the Wigton Spar shop the other day with Sarah. We were squeezing past this old woman in one of the narrow aisles when she turned round to Sarah and said, ‘You could do with losing a bit of weight.’ Now I know my old girl’s a substantial lass, but I thought that was going a bit far. Sarah said to me she was so gobsmacked she couldn’t be bothered to get angry about it. Apparently the old biddy had exchanged a couple of sentences with her a few minutes before at the far end of the store. I looked at the old girl with her basket which contained bugger all, and what there was was all essentials, six eggs, a small loaf and a pint of milk, and said to Sarah, ‘She looks gey lonely and short of a bob or two.(48) She probably thought she was a friend of yours after having exchanged a few words. She certainly didn’t sound as if she were being deliberately unpleasant.’ Sarah nodded and said I was probably right. One of the lasses as works in the shop has been friends with Sarah for years and when we reached the till to pay Sarah telt her about it. She was was outraged, which I thought was funnier than the incident itself. That’s how feuds start, folk taking offence at nowt. On the way out I dropped a tenner [$14] in the old girl’s bag when she wasn’t looking.” There were numerous nods of approval though none said anything.

Dave said, “Talking of weight loss. You mind that old advert for Malteasers,(49) ‘The sweet with the less fattening centre.’ ”

“Aye I mind it, Dave.”

“It was a lie, Pete, because the sweet with the less fattening centre was a polo mint.” There was a ripple of laughter at that for polo mints were like a ring with no centre.

Pete said, “I mind they used to push sweets gey hard at kids in those days. Milky Way chocolate bars were pushed as, ‘The sweet you can eat between meals without losing your appetite,’ and all those ads targeted kids. They’re not allowed to do that now which has to be a change for the better.”

Alf said, “I can’t mind where I was, but a few years ago a woman in a pie shop nearly took badly with a heart attack when I asked for a steak pie in a buttered balm cake.”(50) Reflectively Alf added, “Working lads eat pies in buttered stotties(51) over in the north east which is a substantial bite of bait.”

Charlie said, “I mind when I was a lot younger, after a night out on the town we’d all go down to the Hoggie Waggon at Bridge Foot in Warrington. He was parked up on the bus station and would be there selling burgers and hot dogs till gone four in the morning. A hoggie was a full unsliced loaf with six or eight frankfurter sausages in it. Onions and sauces too. You had to be a big lad to eat a full one. Most of us had a half a one each. I mind us going down there one time with half a dozen nurses from the local nurses home we’d met when we were dancing. We were in the mini bus I was using for wheels at the time. The lasses bought a French One, that was a thin two foot loaf with a few sausages and the trimmings in it, amongst then and we went back to their place for coffee and to eat. We were eating till six before we all crashed out.”

A stranger added, “I’m Gerald. Talking of pie and pasty shops. I mind shopping with Abby in Workington. Like a lot of blokes, shopping saps my will to live, so I nipped into Gregg’s for a steak bake(52) to pick me up a bit. When I rejoined my missus outside on the pavement [US side walk] two old women near us nearly died laughing when after taking a bite I said to Abby, ‘I think somebody’s nicked the filling out of my pasty!”

“Aye. I know what you mean, Gerald,” said Dave. “The history of the amazing shrinking Gregg’s steak bake pasty is complex and distressing. They used to be semi circular, then they went rectangular. That was understandable, less pastry wastage and easier to make, but they did get smaller overall as a result of the change. At that point they were about twice as long as they were wide, but they started getting shorter over the years. Now the damned things are no wider and near enough square, and they definitely don’t taste as good as they used to. I reckon they’re half the size they used to be and they’re going on for two quid a throw. What’s that, Alf, a nicker(53) a mouthful?” There was a lot of laughter at that, but Alf just nodded glumly. He wasn’t in the least bothered by Dave making fun of him eating a steak bake in two bites, but the evil truth in the tale of the shrinking pasty upset him. Dave finished with, “They ain’t cheap, but I reckon Harrison’s pork pies are still a decent sized, tasty bit of bait.”

Another stranger said, “I’m Brian and I came to live in Cumbria maybe forty years ago from Leigh in Lancashire. A spot where good pies abounded. Coan’s was a small bake house with maybe three shops and their pies were to die for, but according to my sister in law who still lives there they went to the wall decades ago. Then there was Wee Jock’s pies and cream cakes. He was about four foot ten, spoke broad Glaswegian, so you only understood one word in ten that he said and his bake house was at the bus stop I waited at to go to work. He started baking at four thirty six days a week and the smell just pulled you in. The pies were exquisite and his blackcurrant and apple turnovers and cream horns contained no air at all. Most spots just put a bit of fruit and cream where you could see it. His were filled right from the bottom to the top. Round there folk from Wigan are called pie eaters, but I reckoned Leigh folk ate as many pies as the Wigginers. I mind shops selling plate pies maybe ten or twelve inches across and poor folk, and there were plenty of them there then, would buy one for dinner for a family of six or more. Most of all I recall Yates and Greer’s pork pies, but like Coan’s and Wee Jock’s they’ve disappeared too. I think it’s safe to say that a decent pork pie is now extinct unless you make your own. On a trip to Cumbria when we still lived down there I mind saying to the wife when I bought a pork pie in Kendal, ‘Christ Almighty, Dorothy, this pie is dryer than an undertaker’s [mortician’s] eyes at a funeral, Love.’ But still I’ve no regrets about moving to Cumbria. Where I used to live is like a war zone now, and finding this spot was a real piece of luck.”

Dave continued the pie tales with, “I had a similar experience in a bar at Imperial College in London. We were working down there and I bought a pie from a pie warmer you could have killed someone with. God alone knows how long it had had been desiccating in that pie warmer. There were softer beach cobbles, and the enamel on my teeth was spalling off on it. I ended up leaving it because I couldn’t break into to it, and they don’t serve gravy or mushy peas with pies that far south. Southerners have no understanding of the trauma a northerner suffers from encountering a bad pie, and gravy or peas at least renders hard pastry crust soft enough to be edible even if not tasty. Tell you there was more moisture in a bucket of Gobi desert sand or Tutankhamen’s mummy than in that pie.”

Paul said, “Well whilst we’re on about food many of you know I lived in Worcestershire when I was a lad, mostly near Malvern. For a while I lived near Kidderminster and went to the local grammar school, King Charles the first it was. I mind we had blue blazers and caps, but I wasn’t there long enough to have either. I got friendly with a lad called Nigel in my class whose dad was a partner in a nearby pork butchers shop. Edwards pork butchers shop Kidderminster it was. My mate’s dad was Frank Cavendish and his partner was a Mr. Larkin who was elderly and about to retire. Every lunchtime we went to the shop to help for a few coppers. We’d plug the pork pies with cracks in the crust with dough, so they could be filled with jelly. When the jelly set the dough was removed. We helped to make sausages too. His dad’s sausages were so highly regarded the local coöp couldn’t sell their own and bought sausages from the shop. The only other thing I remember about that time was at a mobile food van on the banks of the river Severn at Stourport one weekend. Birmingham was so far from the sea folk from there used to go to Stourport on Severn at weekends because the river was safe there and had wide sandy beaches with a massive wide flood plain maybe ten foot above the river that extended for miles up river. Down stream of the bridge on the far side of the town the sandstone cliffs were hollowed out into a series of adjoining caves that were great for kids to explore and play in and around in perfect safety. There were always crowds of folk there of a weekend with decent weather and a lot of the food vans were run by Brummies which is what folk from Birmingham were called. Brummie(54) is a pretty strong accent or at least it was to me. I asked the man on a hot food van for a pasty and he asked me if I wanted a Cornish or a Chisalean. I played it safe because I didn’t know where Chisalea was and opted for a Cornish pasty. It was a while before I realised chisalean was the way the man pronounced cheese and onion.”

A stranger who said his name was Colin said, “I got threwn out of a McDonalds years ago for asking, ‘Don’t you have anything that contains meat?’ ”

Phil said, “I don’t see why. That seems a perfectly reasonable question to me even if you were being a bit stupid, Colin. You should have known the answer was no.” When the laughter died down Phil continued. “Carrying on with the food theme, though a bit different. When I was a kid I liked Mum’s gooseberry jam with sausages, and her marmalade with bacon. Folk thought I was a crackpot, but years later I discovered posh folk had cranberry or lingon sauce with game and redcurrant jelly with goose or duck, and I reckoned maybe I wasn’t so strange after all. Apple sauce with pork is normal over all of Europe though I don’t know about elsewhere.”

“Don’t worry your head about it, Phil. I still like buttering two slices of bread and spreading tomato ketchup on one of them. Them I smash up a packet of prawn craptail crisps(55) before opening them and pour the smasht bits onto the other slice. Squash the two slices of bread together and it’s a decent snack. I do it with others crisps too, cheese and onion are okay with mayonnaise and beef are okay with brown sauce, but prawn craptail, which aren’t fit to eat any other way because they’re pure chemicals, are my favourites.”

“You’re still eating ’em, Luke?”

“Sure. Hazel insists on buying those multi packs of crisps which always contain two packets of the dreaded prawn, but she won’t eat ’em. So if I have to eat ’em I’ll eat ’em the way I like, and I’ve telt her she doesn’t have to watch if it makes her feel nauseous. If I were you I’d have Alice buy you a jar of gooseberry jam and some marmalade. Christine makes both and Lucy and Dave sell ’em in half litre Kilner jars.” [One US pint Mason jars]

Dave said, “Aye we’ve always got both in stock. If we’re on with food, Lads. I was way down south years ago maybe in my teens living with a load of lads in caravans [US trailers] on the building site where we worked because it was cheap digs.(56) It was a bit grim to start with because none of us could cook. I mind making a stew with some shin beef one night and that meat was the toughest stuff I’ve ever had between my teeth. I suggested the only way to eat it was to cut it up gey(57) fine and just swallow it, but one of the lads recommended we went to the off licence for a few crates of beer and just let it simmer whilst we played cards for an hour or two with a few bevvies.(58) It seemed like a good idea. After an hour of playing brag we switched to poker and one of the lads asked how we would know when it was ready. ‘Easy,’ said I, ‘Just keep stirring it with that stainless steel spoon and when the spoon dissolves it’s ready’ ” Amidst the laughter Dave said, “I’ll continue when I’ve another pint and a glass of something stronger in front of me.”

After visits to the gents and replenishing beer glasses, bottles of corrosive spirituous liquors along with the kids ‘Christmas party collection box were passed round before Dave resumed. “Eventually a lad arrived on the job who could cook. We always chipped in for food stuffs, and one day after work he sent some of us out to buy some stuff for our dinner that night. I went to the green grocers for some spuds, carrots, onions and a couple of cabbages. In front of me in the queue was an old woman who spoke like she’d a bushel(59) box of plums in her mouth.(60) You know that RP(61) English the southerners all went on about at the time calling it the Queen’s English. Well this old dame points to the spuds and asks the grocer, ‘Do you have sex?’ The old bloke serving replied absolutely deadpan, ‘Not as often as I used to, Madam, but is there something I can help you with?”

When the roars of laughter subsided, Alf said, “You’ll have to explain that to me, Dave.”

Gustav admitted, “Me too.”

“In the RP English of the time, a cat was pronounced a ket, and sacks would be pronounced sex. She was asking if he selt potatoes in sacks.”

Sasha added, “A few years ago I was looking on the internet for lists of examples of IPA pronunciations. The IPA is the International Phonetic Alphabet. It’s a method of spelling words as they are pronounced. One of its functions is to help folk pronounce words in foreign languages. It has more symbols than standard alphabets have letters, but every symbol is always pronounced in the same way and never any different. Of relevance to this tale is one of those symbols. It’s a curly letter e, [Ꜫ] it’s like the Greek lowercase epsilon. I found a list of all the IPA symbols and examples of words using them in English. I found a similar list in Russian. Problem was they didn’t match up, and they are supposed to. So I found a few more lists in various languages that I can read, and the English list was the odd one out. The relevant example it gave was cat but it was pronounced ket. It was some time before I realised that was how RP English pronounced the word decades before and the list I had was years out of date. The IPA is a helpful tool, but it’s not foolproof.

Stan asked, “Is that tale true, Dave?”

Very blandly with a barely perceptible shrug of his shoulders Dave replied, “Almost,” to much laughter.

~o~O~o~

Daniel said, “I’ll tell a tale many of you will know bits of, but I suspect few will be familiar with it all. Basically it’s the tale of my life. If you don’t wish to hear it, say so, for I won’t be offended. It’s neither exciting nor of any particular importance. It’s certainly not funny nor even amusing.”

Sasha replied, “Tell your tale, Daniel. It doesn’t have to be exciting, important, funny or amusing to be of interest.”

“I was born here at number seven Demesne Lane which is now half of a decent sized house back of the old allotments. Bearthwaite was really poor in those days, most folk here struggled to keep body and soul together, so my parents moved away for work and better opportunities when I was eleven. They found work and had money, not a lot, but they didn’t have to worry about where our next meal was coming from nor about us being evicted by some absentee landlord’s minions any more, but my life became hell. I tried desperately hard to fit in and to be cool with the other kids at school and round where we lived, but some how I never succeeded. The music they listened to was just noise to me and in truth it did no more for me than anything else they thought hip and cool did. The red and blue jeans I’d bought to try to fit in just got me called a garden gnome. It was years later when I realised that if one of the cool kids had worn them they would have been envied. It wasn’t the jeans that were despised it was me because I didn’t understand how they thought. I was just a country kid from Nowheresville out in the sticks. I was laught at for telling the truth and refusing to go shop lifting with them. The few skills I had were worthless to them, and they beat me up for being a lying, mental, fantasising pervert with a bestiality fetish for cows tits when I telt them I was able to milk cows because they knew milk was made at the coöp factory on the other side of town. I was beaten up so badly for that I was in hospital for over a fortnight. My life was just a bag of shite from the moment I awoke to the moment I fell asleep.

“Eventually I left school and became interested in girls, but I didn’t last long with any of them. I had a half decent job in the local foundry and did night school mechanic’s classes, but it wasn’t long before I realised I was just a lad the girls despised, but because I had a bit more money than the other lads near my age they feigned interest. Deep down I knew the girls were just using me, but I was proud and didn’t want to admit it, not even to myself. That I could afford to run my truck because I could maintain it myself didn’t seem to mean anything to any of them, girls or boys, because it wasn’t a Porsche, even though they all had to use public transport because they couldn’t afford a vehicle of any kind. Eventually, when I was pushing thirty after two failed marriages and god knows how many failed relationships, with fortunately no kids, I came to realise they were all nothing but superficial irrelevance, incapable of owt and their opinions weren’t worth listening to never mind courting, which realisation was a huge relief.

“I left the city and came home to my grandparents in Bearthwaite where at least life was real and it was okay to take heed of the words of elder folk who had been through the mill of life before. Before I’d been back here twenty-four hours I’d realised I was a child of Bearthwaite and proud of it. Even then I knew I didn’t wish to live anywhere else and would prefer to settle here with a Bearthwaite lass. If that was not possible I reckoned I could settle for a lass that would be happy to make her home and family here, but that was my bottom line: I lived here with my family. For a couple of years I worked on the allotments with Granddad whilst I put a small foundry together. As a lot of you know I met Eleanor who’d never lived anywhere else. We married here and had six kids. I’ve made at least part of my living here as a foundry man since I returned, and all of it for many years now. I see a lot of folk about me tonight who helped me set up that first foundry when I just cast articles in green sand using easy to cast low melting point alloys like ally and shit metal.(62) Eventually, I expanded and started to cast in brass and then in both iron and steel, though there’s little money in small scale casting in iron and steel, and I only do so occasionally as a favour for Alf these days. I’ve done alright for myself and my family.

“Mum and Dad thought I was crazy for returning here. I thought they were crazy for not returning. Sure they had a bit of money, but they worked over long hours, were lonely and had no friends. They died together by their own hands and it was never discovered why, for they left no note. There were only Bearthwaite folk who went to their funerals. That may have been because I had them buried here where they belonged, but I doubt it, for at no point did any from out there, other than the police investigating their deaths, speak to me of them. The police interviewed hundreds of folk in connection with their deaths. Many of their neighbours and folk who worked with them too knew about what had happened, but most said they couldn’t recall ever having spoken to either of them. Such as it was, I inherited it all, and to me those few hundred quid seemed little to shew for the lives of two folks who’d spent decades with none else to talk to. I know they claimed they were happy, maybe they were, but I couldn’t see it when I stood greeting like Christmas card(63) at the sides of their graves and I can’t see it now.

“Mostly these days I’m casting fireside companion sets(64) in brass, usually replicas from sixty or more years ago. Simon makes the tools for me. I’m selling a lot of sets on Ebay that look like a traditionally dressed Dutch girl and boy. Also popular is one of a Dutch sailing barge with drop down leeboard(65) stabilisers. All three were originally available in vitreous enamelled cast iron, but most were selt as plain cast iron. They were very popular years ago and have been making a comeback going at anything up to a hundred quid each on Ebay, though a bit of ratching can get them for sixty-five for the girl boy pair including packing and postage.

“I’ve always been happy since I returned here. It’s my home, a place where we all help each other. I don’t have a lot of money, but I’ve never been a poor man. I help my neighbours who have always in turn helped me when I needed it. Like all of us, I squash the few food tins [cans] we use and use a magnet to extract the nails from the fire ashes after burning demolition timber firewood to threw in the community scrap skip [US dumpster] that when full gets weighed in for the money to help those of us that need it most. For fun I restore, collect and sell wood working planes, auger bits and antique tin openers too. As a hobby it more than pays for itself.”

Alf interrupted to say, “I’ve never met any one before who can recut or accurately replace the snail(66) on an auger bit before. The precision that requires is amazing. Daniel has fettled any number of my tools over the years.”

“It’s amazing what you can do with oxy(67) using a hypodermic needle as a jet, a Dremel tool, and a binocular microscope, Alf. My life is relatively simple, and I accept it for what it is, and I don’t appreciate folk trying to make it otherwise. When I was in Carlisle not long ago there were a load of folk on the streets asking daft questions for a questionnaire concerning opinions about what’s going on in the Crimea. I can see why it matters to Sasha, and that’s fair enough, but I’m not a Siberian Russian. Since then I’ve become sick of the same daft questions popping up every time I want to use my laptop. What do I think about Ukraine and Russia? Truth is I don’t give much of a bugger about what happens in Brampton, which is what? Thirty-five miles away at most, and I certainly don’t give any of a bugger about what happens east of the Northumberland coast which is barely double that. Some folk would say I’m a parochial, ignorant peasant. I dare say I am a peasant, but I’m neither parochial nor ignorant. The truth is I am aware of my limitations and what I can actually have any effect on. Putin doesn’t give a damn about what Biden or Xi Jinping thinks, so he certainly isn’t bothered about what I think. Eventually they’ll all go to hell on a hand cart of their own making without any help from me, so why should I care or even have an opinion on their activities.

“All I want to do is enable me and mine to survive, to eat and stay warm and happy. Everything else is all so much nonsense. If death rains down from the sky we die, and there’s nothing I can do about it, so let’s live as well as we can till it does. I enjoy my work and what I do in my free time. I’m a bloke, and I enjoy being warm, good food, a family life and a drink in the Dragon on Saturdays. I know I have what some consider to be very outdated and chauvinistic views, but I truly believe them to be appropriate for decent couples living a decent life. Maybe I’m lucky because so does Eleanor. I’m happy to work long and hard to provide for my family and community, and to enable my family to provide what I enjoy. The rest of what the media endlessly goes on about, especially all that sexism nonsense, is completely irrelevant to my family life, and Eleanor would be seriously upset if I thought any other way. She is proud to be Mrs Daniel Armstrong, and like most of your womenfolk considers being addressed as Mrs Eleanor Armstrong to be a none too subtle insult or just ignorance from outsiders who don’t know any better because that doesn’t acknowledge her marriage lines.(68) The implication to her is they are accusing her of being an unmarried mother with six illegitimate kids and she doesn’t like being referred to as a slut with a tribe of bastards be it howsoever indirectly. Putting it bluntly, Lads, a decent meal, followed by putting my kids to bed, telling them a bedtime story, and afterwards enjoying a glass with my missus before making love to fall asleep and wake up to a decent breakfast then going to work again is all I have ever asked of life, and bollocks to the Crimea.”

~o~O~o~

Simon, after pouring himself a goodly measure of hostage rum and passing the bottle on said, “I’m with Daniel on that, but I reckon a lot of folk see life in a very distorted way. Particularly those whose ethnicity is not European English. I think most of those non white folk complaining about the way folk of their culture are treated just don’t get it. Those of us who are British as a result of our upbringing and subsequent culture are sick wearied and tired of outsiders insisting we have to change. All my neighbours know I was born in Jamaica, but from the age of ten I grew up here in Bearthwaite and more to the point I’m a Bearthwaite lad who’s never lived anywhere else since, and I can’t mind being treated as owt else. The little I remember about the first ten years of my life I’d rather be able to forget, and for me my only reality is Bearthwaite. It’s where I have been happy and where I belong, so I’m not having anyone from anywhere else telling me how I have to react to white Europeans being involved in the slave trade and that reparations are due. When I ran away from a violent black family that regularly beat me to almost the point of death by pure chance I ended up in Bearthwaite with a white family who tret(69) me right and for the first time in my life I was lucky. Thomson took me in as his son and apprentice and hid me from the authorities who’d have taken me into care or given me back to my family to be abused some more, and doubtless sooner or later I’d have died from that. Folk here knew what was going on and helped him to keep me safe. He didn’t even consider it relevant that my skin was black. I married his youngest daughter, Gillian, a white Bearthwaite lass whose family had been Bearthwaite folk for generations untelt. Thomson was so grateful he didn’t have to get up as early to fire the forge he left it all to me. Gillian’s family didn’t want nor have a use for the forge and didn’t want Bearthwaite to be without a blacksmith, so they were happy about that.

“I’ve never been tret by my neighbours with anything other than respect as the man who was the local blacksmith. My kids are just Bearthwaite kids like all the others. I get called Black Simon, but that’s just the same as Phil gets called Phil the Mill and Vincent gets called Vince the Mince. The kids think it’s short for Blacksmith Simon, and to them it is. I’m a black blacksmith living in a place where being black is no more significant than being tall, but where being a good blacksmith and a good neighbour matters. Most of this rubbish about racism that’s bandied about is just that, rubbish. I reckon all those southerners who live their lives enjoying being victims of being black or wearing a turbine(70) round their heads need to engage in real British life and make something of it in stead of feeling sorry for themselves as a result of their total inadequacies to face and embrace life of any kind and British life where they live in particular. Nobody asked them to come here, and if they want to live here they need to accept they are now British and that is the major factor of their culture. The rest is just peripheral. Sure it matters to individuals which part of the country they’re from, and it matters to them whether they are of protestant or Catholic descent, but it’s not worth fighting over. The Northern Irish lunatics of both persuasions need to grow up. I once heard that every generation of ’em was more brainless than the one before due to the kids with any sense at all leaving for more enlightened places. The way it was put was ‘There has been a haemorrhaging of intelligence out of Northern Ireland for generations’. The fact is in the UK religion is history and if they can’t consign Islam or whatever else they are burdened with to history, why did they come here? If they want to fight about it, far better they go somewhere where it’s a fighting matter. The middle east somewhere maybe?” Simon could not possibly be accused of racism, at least not as regards skin colour, but all knew he didn’t consider himself to be English, nor even a Cumberland lad, but he was in his mind, and, as others considered him to be too, beyond doubt a Bearthwaite man and a UK citizen, and in his mind, and, in the minds of all his neighbours too, nowt else was of any significance, for he was a good blacksmith and a good neighbour.

“What choice have they got if they don’t want to do that, Simon?”

Simon was unusually for him profane in his answer. “I suggest they shut the fuck up and go back home because sure as hell we neither need nor want ’em here.”

To defuse the situation Pete said, “I’ll have a glass of that purple poison Alf acquired from somewhere in the middle east where I’m pretty certain alcohol is illegal.” There was a lot of laughter at that and even more when he added, “So let’s be grateful it is and they sell it to folk like us for pennies.” The subsequent laughter had the effect he’d intended.

~o~O~o~

Vincent said, “Just by way of a change I think I’ll try something legal. You got any decent London gin behind the bar, Pete?”

“Several. Bristol gins too. Gordon’s okay? It’s your usual.”

“Aye, but a goodly glass to see Davy off in style with.” Pete just nodded and put a quarter of a bottle [187½ml, 6⅔fl oz] in a glass for him. Vincent took a goodly pull on his gin and said, “Davy’s funeral was the grimmest event I’ve attended for a long time. I knew him when he was in his prime. He was a quiet and generous soul, and I’ll miss him till I go. Davy was our oldest neighbour and now Granny is. I doubt she’ll last long now Davy is gone, for she’s done her ton,(71) so what’s to stay for? As their wedding vows proclaimed, through sickness and health they lived for each other as a married couple should and now she’s on her own. As I said, I’ll miss him, but I can’t even begin to imagine the loss Drusilla will be having to deal with.” Many took a few seconds to realise that Drusilla was Granny Parker, for she’d only been referred to as Granny for decades. In Bearthwaite when one referred to Granny without further identifier or qualifier all knew you were referring to Granny Parker. Vincent’s words reached deeply into the souls of the Bearthwaite men, and there was a silence after them that lasted for what seemed to be a very long time.

Eventually, Sasha the master of moments raised his glass, which was full of a spirituous liquor of an oily, greenish appearance to say, “Let us drink to our neighbour and friend Davy, may he rest in peace, and to Granny too for the peace she gave him when he was with us.”

Pete proposed the toast in quiet clear tones. “To Davy and to Granny.” All drained their glasses and Pete said, “After you with that bottle please, Sasha.”

~o~O~o~

There was a few minutes of quiet chat after Pete’s toast during which Gustav pulled pints and some took the opportunity to visit the gents. The mood returned to its usual conviviality when Harriet came into the taproom with her pails of water and kibble to top up the dogs dishes.

~o~O~o~

Dave had an angry look on his face when he said, “Sorry, but I want to have a bit of a rant, Lads. I’m sick of listening to and reading the words of the totally illiterate who are bastardising my language. I left school at fifteen and I accept I’m neither well educated nor the best at English, but I do try and I always have. Why do the idiots insist on using verbs instead of nouns? Fails instead of failures, picks instead of choices and likes instead of things you like. Too, gonna and wanna are not words, it’s going to and want to, and why do they write a lot as one word? It’s illiterate and certainly not English. There is a similar word with two ells that means to give or apportion, but I doubt if they are aware of it. They make me look like a professor of English literature by comparison. I won’t deal with such ignorant bastards, and if they don’t like that all they have to do is wait till I’m dead when it won’t matter any more. Well not to me it won’t.”

“Well one of two things will happen, Dave, either it’ll continue with no end, humanity becomes subhuman and it’s the end of us, or those who care about such things reject the herd and their media connections. If it’s the latter humanity divides into two. That being the case the whole world divides like Bearthwaite and the outside. We survive well and the rest take their chance and probably don’t. In the meanwhile I suggest you have another pint and a glass of chemic too to settle your nerves and lower your blood pressure.”

“That’s not a bad idea, but it’s a hell of a bleak view of our future, Sasha.”

“Do you have a better vision?”

“No, I suspect you’re right, and that’s what scares the hell out of me. Still I suppose those folks’ butchery of the language is no worse than Lucy referring to pastage and poking.(72) I’ll settle myself over that with a glass of chemic, so maybe you have the sensible way to cope with the illiterates.”

~o~O~o~

Euan McIvor was a popular local farmer who’d just turned seventy. He was an irregular Saturday evening attender at the Dragon, but had telt a tale or two over the years. Euan indicated he’d something to say and Sasha telt him to make a start. “I recently deregistered for VAT(73) because when I decided to retire I rented all the land out to Alan Peabody. So now I have income from the rent which is nowt to do with the VAT. I filled in all the VAT returns except the last one, but I wrote to HMRC(74) explaining that I had nothing to pay but I couldn’t log on to their site to fill in the return because I was no longer registered, and I quoted their de-registration number. I thought all was okay till two months later I received a letter telling me I had to login to my VAT payment site to fill in the last return because they couldn’t do it for me. I’ve never had a payment site ID because I’ve never had any VAT to pay, and since I’m no longer registered I shan’t be able to get one. I’ve always been a net VAT claimant because everything I’ve bought I’ve reclaimed the VAT on and since I’ve only ever produced and selt hay and haylage which is livestock feed and VAT exempt I’ve never had owt to pay. I believe folk like me are kept in a special file for closer than usual scrutiny.

“I’ll just ignore it till they write back. They’ll get sick of it eventually and at the worst they’ll take me to court to recover nothing where they’ll be laught at since they will have known for years there was nothing to recover. The reason I’m telling this tale is it makes me wonder how many lads there are out there who could contribute to the British economy due to their trade skills, but who just don’t bother because of all the internet nonsense they’d have to learn to deal with the authorities. A load of them are damned good at what they do, but IT is completely beyond them and having to be ripped off by some thief otherwise known as an accountant sticks in their throat, so they either work for some big company that employs in house accountants to avoid them paying much in tax and contributes bugger all to the economy and just do what they have to to earn a crust or they don’t bother and take the social security handouts. Tell you, Lads, Whitehall needs to wake up to reality, but I can’t see it happening in my lifetime. Result is for those of us Bearthwaite folk who can actually do owt we get paid in goods and services and pay nothing in taxes because HMRC doesn’t even know what we’re dealing in exists, and I can live with that. Let the talcum knackered southern jessies(75) tax each other to death.”

~o~O~o~

Dave said, “Another pint and a glass and then I’ve something that will take us up to dominoes, Lads.” After all had been dealt with and the dogs barking at the back had been let in Dave said, “Alf I mind you saying your dad bought a box of plumbing fittings that contained a gross(76) and you’ve only ever seen them selt by the hundred. When we went metric dozens became tens and the gross died to be replaced by the hundred, but there never was a corresponding reduction in price. When vendors bothered to say owt they claimed stuff had gone up in price but selling in smaller quantities enabled them to keep the price for a box the same, which was all bloody lies. It was just a way to rip us all off for an extra sixteen and two thirds of a percent. Well I had a daft idea. Just imagine that instead of twelve a dozen had been nine and a gross nine nines which is eighty one. I’d put money on it we’d still be buying stuff by the dozen and the gross. The only reason we went metric on that was because it suited big business. It boiled down to them being greedy bastards. The only time it didn’t work was with eggs. The foreign owned discount stores like Aldi, and Lidl, and Netto too when they existed over here, tried palming eggs off us in fives, that’s how they’re selt on the continent. The British housewife wouldn’t have it. She may have shopped in Aldi, Lidl or Netto but she wouldn’t buy her eggs in fives there. Result, the discount stores soon caught on and resumed selling eggs by the half dozen or the dozen in the UK. The womenfolk won their war against decimalisation and we went down with all hands. Now tell me they are the weaker sex.”

Amidst the laughter, Pete was heard to say, “Round up the empties, Lads. I’ll pull pints if someone will wash glasses and someone take the money. Bertie, fetch some more of the rare stuff from the cellar will you please, and the rest of you can sort the dominoes out. I’ll fetch a damp cloth to wipe the tables with before you set up.”

~o~O~o~

The after closing discussion had now become a weekly event. Sasha and Elle, Pete and Gladys and Gustav and Harriet were chatting in the best side mulling over the week’s events. “Well,” Pete said, “I’ll admit I didn’t think we’d be having that many new folk in such a short space of time, but we’ve done well with all the men. Chance, Jeremy, Tony, Sun and Eli are all positive assets to Bearthwaite and all are well liked by the men. Eli brought his personal portfolio to shew us. That man is a genius with any type of art be it manually or digitally produced. He’s decidedly feminine in his character and was clearly thrilled to be working with kids. I reckon the kids will love him and be more than happy to learn what he can teach them. He telt us he’d always avoided kids because of fears of being accused of being a pædophile. I don’t know if he’s a feminine gay man or a trans woman, but I do recognise someone who loves kids and is no danger to them when I see one. He’s happy to be here and to be tret with respect for just being himself.”

Harriet added, “Lizzie and Beth are nice. Both want a family and Lizzie is looking into adoption as well as trying to have one herself. Beth’s first is due in the summer. Lizzie says she’ll happily train any girl or boy who wishes to learn silver service waiting on, and any adult too. I said if there were a lot of them I’d help too, and they can work in the restaurante here for practice. Jacqueline and Adalheidis are both well liked and I think we are lucky they decided to live here. Both are highly intelligent and once they become used to the place I suspect they’ll both play a much more active rôle in managing the village. Folk like them will need the challenge and mental stimulation which can’t help but benefit everyone. I’m telt that some of the younger men are a bit upset that both of them and Noëlle too are now spoken for, but I heard that Dad said they need to grow up a bit before any lass will take them seriously, and I agree.” She looked at Pete, shrugged her shoulders in dismissal of the matter, and with a serious look on her face said, “If Eli is trans he needs to know soon that that’s okay here. I’ll talk to Samantha, Stephanie and Jane about it.”

Gustav said, “All we need are a structural engineer, an optician and a chiropodist now, and I wondered if Græme Scott and his family would be interested in moving here. He’d be a real asset, and Faith his wife is a primary school teacher who would be more than welcome.”

Harriet laught and said, “You are never satisfied are you, Love? You want it all.”

“Why not aim for the top?” Gustav replied reasonably. “It seems to have worked so far. Bertie says we need a martial arts teacher of some sort for the kids, so let’s hope for one of those too. Elle, how are the building works coming along?”

“Some hold ups due to problems sourcing materials, but Alf is dealing with that. He’s complaining about the time he’s having to spend on the telephone and the internet, but Ellen and Bertie both say he’s not as tired as he was. Murray too is not as tired as he was since Chance took up most of his work load and Emily says she’s glad to be able to spend more time at home. The children have cleaned the second floor of the mill and washed everything down so well you could eat off the floor. The Jarvis girls are going to provide them with paint, brushes and everything else they’ll need and the children have said when all is done they’ll start on the first floor and then do the ground floor, the basement and the third floor too. Sasha telt them he’d pay them, but they want the money to buy things for their layout and insisted Jeremy be given it to buy trains and things. He’s spending time with them going over catalogues and on the internet so they can decide what they want first. Maybe Eli and Jeremy could give them some direction as regards the painting. Hal Levins says some of his crew of electricians will be going over and completely upgrading the electrics in the mill starting Thursday or more likely Friday next week. They’ve finished on the terraces, but still have the Granary and maybe twenty other properties to deal with. We’re doing well. There are any number of terraced houses available now and I’m telt a lot of the younger folk are no longer talking about leaving. We’re keeping many who were going to seek employment elsewhere as a result of jobs being available here.

“I telt you a long time ago the secret is to keep the girls here. They don’t wish to be too far away from their mums and families, but wish some independence and employment. Many are happy to keep studying and just work part time. And as we know if we keep the girls, we keep the boys. Christine has four lasses working part time with her and once she moves into the mill she wants another two which is already sorted out. All six of them have boyfriends in the village so that’s six lads we’re hanging on to too. Alf is buying her Kilner jars, well Mason jars I should say, direct from the States by the container load at a fraction of the price he can obtain them for over here. As a result of the public meetings held during and after Covid every self employed person has taken on apprentices and more workers. Of course we lose kids to higher education, but we’ve made sure they all know there is work and housing to return to.

“My next major project is the Bearthwaite secondary school classes and I want our school to be a single organisation from play group age to eighteen. We can do it with the folk we have here. Even A’ level(77) students suffered no break in their education due to Covid. We’d need some more teachers, but not many, and Frances reckons three or four and we’d be able to offer a wide choice of subjects. We don’t need to follow any other education model because Bearthwaite school is a private school, so we do it the Bearthwaite way, and use whatever skills and knowledge base we have, for there’s no law that says a teacher has to have a government recognised teaching qualification. We even have enough knowledge here to teach all STEM(78) subjects to A’ level. We may have to use a dozen different folk to teach a particular subject due to the specialised nature of their education, but that’s what we did during Covid, so we can do it again whilst we look for teachers. Alf taught some fragments of the A’ level physics and biology syllabi and was good at it. I wonder if Eli would be prepared to be our art teacher. I’m sure we could justify a full time teaching contract if we regarded his work with the children on the railway layout as evening classes. Mmm, I’ll mention the matter to him, for he possesses the width of skills that a really good art teacher needs to teach children from toddlers to A’ Level pupils.

“When I spoke to Frances about the matter she posed the question, why do we have to have a head teacher? We don’t for the primary school. The Ownership Company committee serves as a board of governors which has control, so we could just continue with that. When we set up the primary school the Local Education Authority pointed out that there had to be a headteacher because legally there had to be someone with over all responsibility. Murray telt them that was not true. He was the chairman of the Ownership Company committee at the time, so he had overall responsibility in the eyes of the law, so legally he served as the headteacher. They telt him he was not a teacher, but he’d done his homework and pointed out that there were dozens of Cumbria Education Authority employed head teachers who did not teach, but functioned purely as administrators, a job for which they had no qualifications. He provided details of their names and schools and what they actually did. He pointed out he would be doing no less teaching than they would and gave them the details of his administrative qualifications. The LEA solicitors had no choice but to back off when he telt them he was sure a court would see it his way. Murray has said he’d he happy to teach parts of A’ level business studies, economics and accountancy if required.

“The LEA has tried to make life difficult for us at every turn since then, but unlike them we don’t have to employ monkeys because we don’t pay peanuts. We have intelligent, experienced experts who in the main work for free on our behalfs because they are Bearthwaite folk. Frances also pointed out that it’s not as if we’ll have discipline problems that require a head teacher to deal with them is it, or at least we’ll have nothing nothing a quiet chat with a parent can’t deal with. As usual if anyone has any ideas let me know.”

Sasha asked, “Is that it? May I go home now for a last glass before bed?”

Elle laught and said, “He takes that last glass and the bottle too to bed with him. His bedside cabinet would make quite a respectably stocked bar.”

~o~O~o~

1 Houdini, Harry Houdini was a Hungarian-American escape artist, magic man, and stunt performer, noted for his escape acts.
2 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.
3 Slaughter mart, slaughter market, an auction of animals that have to be slaughtered after sale. Distinct from a livestock sale where tighter regulations apply due to the higher possibilities of transmitting diseases round the country.
4 Richard Beeching closed 2,363 railway stations in the UK and 5,000 miles (8,000 km) of railway line in 1963, 55% of stations and 30% of route miles, to stop the vast losses the railways were incurring on behalf of the tax payer. Beeching was a much vilified man for doing so, and still is, but he was in a hard place. The motorway network was expanding and there was a lot of money to be made from road transport by influential folk who wanted the railways closed down as competitors. Beeching was made a Lord for his work.
5 The Solway Junction Railway provided a shortened link between the iron ore mines of Cumberland England and the iron works in Lanarkshire and Ayrshire Scotland over the Solway Firth. It had opened on the 13th of September 1869 and was closed on the 27th of April 1921.
6 BMA, British Medical Association.
7 GP, General Practitioner, a family doctor.
8 Badly used thus is vernacular for ill.
9 Poorly sick wi’ a shawl on, dialectal expression for one working their way to the point of death. The expression goes ‘There’s sick, poorly sick and poorly sick wi’ a shawl on,’ indicating increasing degrees of illness.
10 Tecking, dialectal taking.
11 In her watter, in her water, an expression indicating an intuitive deeply held belief.
12 Casper Lawton, the Bearthwaite undertaker [US mortician].
13 Tret, vernacular treated.
14 Tecken, dialectal taken.
15 Teck, dialectal take.
16 Just out of my time, refers to just having served his time as an apprentice.
17 CNC, computer numerically controlled.
18 IBC, An Intermediate Bulk Container.
19 Zymurgy, a branch of applied chemistry that deals with fermentation processes, as in wine making or beer brewing. The word is often used to include all aspects of alcohol distillation too.
20 HMRC, Her Majesty’s Custom and Revenue.
21 Solute, the minor component in a solution, dissolved in the solvent, in this case the sugar is under discussion.
22 Terraces, terraced houses.
23 Hostage rum, illegally distilled Caribbean rum. A term used amongst smugglers in the Caribbean islands.
24 Thick, in UK usage the word means stupid, unintelligent.
25 Stilson, a make of pipe wrench. The term is used generically in the UK to refer to pipe wrenches in general.
26 Bevies, beers.
27 Fash yoursel, worry yourself.
28 Downbank, down hill. A deteriorating situation.
29 Steelies, steel toe capped work boots.
30 The social, Social Security.
31 Pork scratchings, cooked and salted pork rind.
32MOT, Ministry Of Transport test certificate of road worthiness. A legal requirement that lasts for twelve months.
33 Spuds, potatoes.
34 The heaviest onion weighs 8.5 kg (18 lb 11.84 oz) and was grown by Tony Glover (UK). It was weighed at the Harrogate Autumn flower show in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, UK, on 12 September 2014. Tony Glover has been growing onions for years and finally achieved the world record.
35 Wearing the kit is a men’s vernacular reference to women’s bodies not their clothes.
36 PMS, Pre Menstrual Syndrome.
37 The change, menopause.
38 IPA, India Pale Ale.
39 To get aholt on, to get hold of, to obtain or purchase
40 The use of a past participle in this way rather than a present participle is a widespread and common place practice in Cumbrian English in many parts of Cumbria.
41 The coin, the money.
42 Squaddie, member of the armed forces, usually refers to the army.
43 M.O., Medical Officer.
44 The mob, reference to the armed forces.
45 Thumbelina and her four gorgeous sisters, a reference to the thumb and four fingers, i.e. masturbation.
46 Chip pan, a pan for deep frying potato chips [US French fries].
47 Bait, also baggin, a working man’s mid shift meal.
48 Short of a bob or two, short of money. A bob was a shilling [5 pence, 7 cents] in pre decimal UK currency.
49 Malteasers, a sweet [candy] with a honeycomb centre coated with chocolate.
50 A balm cake is a soft, round, flattish bread roll from North West England, traditionally leavened with barm. Balm is an old term for yeast.
51 A stottie cake or stotty is a doughy type of bread that originated in north east England. It is a flat and round loaf, usually about 30 centimetres (12 inches) in diameter and 4 centimetres (1½ inches) deep, with an indent in the middle produced by the baker, traditionally using his thumb.
52 Steak bake, a steak pasty made with flaky pastry.
53 A nicker, a pound [$1.20].
54 Brummie, often used to refer to the Birmingham accent as here, or even to folk from Birmingham, as in she’s a Brummie. More widely used as an adjective indicating a connection to Birmingham.
55 Prawn craptail crisps, a common UK derisory reference to prawn cocktail flavoured crisps which do seem to be completely artificially flavoured. Crisps, are chips in the US. Prawn is usually called shrimp in the US.
56 Digs, temporary accommodation for someone working away from home.
57 Gey, very.
58 Bevies, beers. To be out on the bevy is a weekend activity for young men.
59 A bushel is 8 imperial gallons, or 2,219.36 inches3, 36,375.31 cm3, 36.4 litres, 10 US gallons.
60 To speak with a plum in one’s mouth is to sound RP. A distinct southern accent in English that all BBC, British Broadcasting Corporation the state radio and television service, announcers used at one time. See below.
61 RP, Received Pronunciation English, often referred to as the Queen’s / King’s English or Oxford English is the accent traditionally regarded by some, all southerners, as the standard for British English. There has been a lot of acrimony concerning that for over a century. Many educated northerners regard the concept of good English being defined as RP as insultingly patronising and bigoted. It is true to say that many less well educated northerners simply don’t understand RP speakers.
62 Shit metal, also pot metal or monkey metal is an alloy of low-melting point metals that is used to make inexpensive castings quickly and easily.
63 Greeting like a Christmas card, crying badly. Greeting is vernacular for crying and this common expression derives from a play on the fact that a Christmas card is a greetings card.
64 A Companion set is a group of fire tools that are neatly organised on an accompanying stand. They are both functional and a feature piece of fireplaces. Traditionally a companion set would consist of a poker, brush, shovel and either log or coal tongs.
65 Leeboard, a form of pivoting keel used by a sailing boats largely and very often in lieu of a fixed keel. Typically mounted in pairs on each side of a hull, leeboards function much like a centreboard, allowing shallow draft craft to ply waters fixed keel boats cannot. Only the leeward side leeboard is used at any time, as it submerges when the boat heels under the force of the wind.
66 Snail, the pointed screw threaded leading portion on an auger bit that pulls it into the wood. The thread has to be precisely positioned with respect to the cutting edges of the bit. That is easily achieved from new because the entire bit is manufactured from a single piece of steel. It is a lot more difficult if the snail is being replaced, and most would write the bit off.
67 Oxy, oxy-acetylene welding equipment.
68 Marriage lines, wedding certificate. In the UK, the property of the bride. It is her proof she is married and her children are legitimate. In the event of her widowhood it gives her respectability. The term is old fashioned but still widely used by women.
69 Tret, dialectal treated.
70 Turbine, a derisory reference to a turban that is widely used in the UK usually by white folk.
71 Done her ton, in this usage a ton is a hundred, and Vincent is saying she has reached a hundred years old.
72 Pastage and poking, p&p, postage and packing, a spoonerism.
73 VAT, value added tax. A UK tax of 20% levied on virtually all goods. Those in business can reclaim what they have paid on bought in goods and services and have to pay the tax on what they sell. It is a disliked tax because the paperwork is onerous and has to been done by every VAT registered business. There are heavy penalties for not doing it correctly or submitting a VAT return late.
74 HMRC, His Majesties Revenue and Customs. The tax man.
75 Talcum knackered southern jessies. A commonly used pejorative expression of contempt used in northern England to describe southerners. Talcum knackered refers to talcum powder on the testicles, a derisory assumption of effeminacy. The word jessie is also used as a noun to refer to an effeminate male.
76 A gross, a dozen dozens, 144.
77 A’ level, Advanced level. The qualification that follow on from official school leaving age in the UK. Usually taken in three or four subjects and examined at the age of eighteen,
78 STEM, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 41 Bearthwaite Politics, Law, Lore and Reality

One of the pupils at Whiteport Academy was Fergus McCann. To others fourteen year old Fergus was the ultimate alpha male. A big strong and physically unstoppable boy who was the star of all the physical sport games he played for his school. It was a surprise to most when they discovered he was more interested in the creative stories he wrote for his English teacher than he was in his endeavours on the fields of sport. The boys thought he was a bit odd because he admitted to enjoying reading, and even writing, poetry, drawing and painting, but none made anything of it because Fergus was not someone whose ire they wished to court. Without doubt Fergus was a masculine male, and he had never considered being, nor had he ever wanted to be anything else. But his day dreams would have been considered by most of his peers to be in a word, pink, if that is any other than himself had been aware of them. He had absolutely no desire to be in any way feminine and like other typical males of his age from time to time he had sexual fantasies concerning his friend’s mothers and sisters, but naytheless he had a very different view as to what constituted masculinity from that of the males of his acquaintanceship and especially his father, Davy, who he did not get on with. His father would have liked him better if he’d been a male chauvinist bully, and better still if he’d been a chauvinist thug like himself, but his mother, Eunice, was delighted that Fergus was naturally polite, helpful and considerate, especially to girls, but his father unremittingly reviled him for being a sissy. The only reason it had not come to blows between them was that his father was like a lot of bullies a coward and was deep down afraid of Fergus who had for a number of years been bigger and stronger than his father.

~o~O~o~

With four weeks to go before the official start of spring, the nights were finally drawing out with just over nine hours of daylight a day. The weather was normal for the time of year, overcast to sunny, blustery to calm, driving rain to dry, frosty to warm and miserable to pleasant: typical early February weather, unpredictably variable with anything a possibility all in the same day. Children in Bearthwaite were well wrapped up and playing outside which was a relief to mothers who’d been driven to distraction by their children when they had been obliged to keep them inside for their safety. Life in the village had been pretty typical too, unpredictably changeable. As all were aware the only constant in life was change. The new villagers had been welcomed, all considered to be more than acceptable and things on that front had settled down, the newcomers were no longer considered to be new, for most had met them and they were establishing their niches in village life, many enriching life for all which was appreciated. That was especially true of the children, both those who’d never lived anywhere else and those who had recently arrived, for as children had always done they’d all adapted to new circumstances rapidly and absorbed each others’ skills, abilities and knowledge. A new game to play was considered to be major improvement to life by the children. Many of the Bearthwaite children were intrigued by the new children, mostly those of the opposite sex as prospective interests, and the tolerance of their parents’ generation enabled them to further those interests. Life was looking good for all residents of Bearthwaite but especially for the children.

A week and a half later

The Valentine’s day bonfire and barbecue on the village green as always had been well attended and the shelter provided by the boat shed and the nearby barns hadn’t been necessary, for though cold the weather was dry and the blustery breezes of the last few days had dried the ground up rendering wellington boots unnecessary. The younger children had been looking forward to the bonfire, the barbecue food, the dancing and especially the fireworks. For them it was an exciting event, not least because it would probably be well gone midnight when they went to bed. They knew their teachers would be forgiving and undemanding at school the following day and all adults considered they had a right to the break in their usual routines. It was fun. For the older teens it was a ritual of courtship that the adults smiled upon with a benevolent and approving attitude. It was perhaps of most significance to the younger teens who had yet to demonstrate publicly their relationships with their choice of partner to the village at large, though most of their friends and relatives were aware of their feelings.

Some of the Bearthwaite children had explained to their recently moved in friends how it all worked and a number of Bearthwaite born and newcomers too were looking forward to kissing in public. For generations it had been the event where Bearthwaite youngsters had first kissed in public the person they had often ended up married to. It was not only approved of by the adults it was expected by them, and for the young teenagers it ended the awkwardness and self consciousness that they had lived with for what to them had seemed to be an eternity. After that they were a couple and none would remark on it, for it was normal and nothing untoward, nor even anything special. The two same sex couples though almost heart stoppingly nervous regarding going public, as coming out was referred to, concerning their feelings did so naytheless and their lives immediately became calmer and within the week stress free as a result. Afterwards they wondered why they had been so concerned, for it was clear none else cared. The Bearthwaite secondary school pupils all attended school at Whiteport Academy, three-quarters of an hour, often an hour, by the village bus from home, and the gay couples knew they would get some verbal abuse at school, but every pupil at the school knew all of their peers from Bearthwaite would fight their corner, literally if need be, so it was extremely unlikely the abuse would be anything other than verbal, and they could live with that.

~o~O~o~

One of the pupils at Whiteport Academy was Fergus McCann. To others fourteen year old Fergus was the ultimate alpha male. A big strong and physically unstoppable boy who was the star of all the physical sport games he played for his school. It was a surprise to most when they discovered he was more interested in the creative stories he wrote for his English teacher than he was in his endeavours on the fields of sport. The boys thought he was a bit odd because he admitted to enjoying reading, and even writing, poetry, drawing and painting, but none made anything of it because Fergus was not someone whose ire they wished to court. Without doubt Fergus was a masculine male, and he had never considered being, nor had he ever wanted to be anything else. But his day dreams would have been considered by most of his peers to be in a word, pink, if that is any other than himself had been aware of them. He had absolutely no desire to be in any way feminine and like other typical males of his age from time to time he had sexual fantasies concerning his friend’s mothers and sisters, but naytheless he had a very different view as to what constituted masculinity from that of the males of his acquaintanceship and especially his father, Davy, who he did not get on with. His father would have liked him better if he’d been a male chauvinist bully, and better still if he’d been a chauvinist thug like himself, but his mother, Eunice, was delighted that Fergus was naturally polite, helpful and considerate, especially to girls, but his father unremittingly reviled him for being a sissy. The only reason it had not come to blows between them was that his father was like a lot of bullies a coward and was deep down afraid of Fergus who had for a number of years been bigger and stronger than his father.

Fergus’ standard of personal hygiene was high, as high as that of a girl of his age, and he took great care of his clothes and his appearance in general, especially his shoulder length auburn hair. He had any number of male friends, but avoided associating with groups of boys because he was repelled by the coarseness of their conversation and because he liked girls and did not regard them as merely bodies to be sexually objectified and used for male gratification. Many of his friends were girls. He was repelled by the oft quoted phrase used by some of the boys he knew that a girl was just a convenient transport system that connected a vagina to a pair of breasts. The phrase was said to originate with a Scottish adult stand up comedian and was in fact much coarser than he permitted himself to say even within the confines of his mind. As a result he spent a lot of school breaks and lunch times with groups of girls with whom he was popular. Fergus was clever too and in the top sets for all subjects. He enjoyed learning, and was well thought of by all his teachers not just his English teacher, though everything he did had an unmistakeable Fergusness about it, some would have said a touch of pink. Last summer, at the end of his year nine academic year, his mathematics class had been given a month in which to complete a statistics project of their choice. They’d been telt that they had to justify their choice and consider how much data they had to collect in order for their results to be meaningful. The project didn’t have to be complex, but it did have to be thoroughly thought through and carried out. Unusually it didn’t have to be finished to produce a result, but if that were the case it had to be summarised with a clear indication of what remained to be done in order to reach a satisfactory conclusion.

There were fifteen hundred pupils in Fergus’ school and he decided to find out from all of them which day of the week they were born on. He considered it possible that given there must be an average human gestation time, whether it were exactly known or not, and it was likely that slightly more babies were conceived over the weekend it was probable that there would be a stable proportion of children born on each day of the week if one chose a large enough sample. He decided to determine how large that sample had to be. His method was given the date of birth of every pupil in the school, from the school records, to enter every datum into a spreadsheet which as each datum was entered also gave the percentage of children born on each day of the week. Given that a seventh was equal to 0.142857 recurring, i.e. the six digit group of numbers kept repeating itself, he decided that probably the numbers would be close to that but they would eventually stabilise near but not exactly at that number. He decided, somewhat arbitrarily he admitted, that he would accept the result once all six numbers stabilised in the first six decimal places. If fifteen hundred data were not sufficient to achieve that he would seek mass data online till he had a result. All of which his mathematics teacher said would make a good project. She admitted she would be interested to know his results. It was his intention to only check his findings against national statistics when he had concluded his write up and to append the national conclusion as an appendix.

Fergus had written up his results and was working on his presentation at home. He’d decided to use pastel pink paper for his title page. His intent was to print a children’s birth day rhyme in the centre of the page and surround it with a wreath of hand painted flowers. The rhyme he intended to use was the centuries old one that went,

Monday’s child is fair of face,
Tuesday’s child is full of grace,
Wednesday’s child is full of woe,
Thursday’s child has far to go,
Friday’s child is loving and giving,
Saturday’s child works hard for a living,
But the child who is born on the Sabbath Day
is bonny and blithe and good and gay.

He’d only just finished when his father had entered his room, and he’d been drinking again. He looked at the title page and went incandescent with rage hurling accusations of girlishness, gayness, sissyness, transness and a lot of other nesses too that made no sense, for by them he was frothing at the mouth and incoherent. He reached for Fergus’ work intending to rip it up, but Fergus stopped him saying quietly, “No, Dad, that’s my school project and I’ve been working on it for nearly a month.” At that his father even angrier at having been stopped, lost all reason and raised his fist to punch Fergus. Still speaking quietly Fergus said, “Don’t, Dad. I don’t want to hurt you, but I won’t be able to stop you unless I do. I’m not going to let you destroy my work, and I’m not going to let you hit me either.” His father threw the first punch, which Fergus avoided. Fergus only threw one. His father was out of condition and the punch he’d taken to his chest had knocked all the wind out of him and was subsequently found to have broken two ribs one of which had punctured his left lung, which explained why he was coughing blood. That Fergus thought was going to be the beginning of the end for himself.

Rather than the beginning of the end for him, it was the end of the beginning for Fergus, for his mother came in and quietly said, “I’ll ring for an ambulance, Love. Then you can tell me what happened. But whatever happened, that’s it. I’ve had enough of your dad, his drinking and the verbal abuse.” They left Fergus’ father where he lay coughing and moaning on the bedroom floor, and whilst they waited for the ambulance in the living room Fergus explained the events to his mum. “I suppose it would only have been a matter of time before the verbal abuse became physical. I’m not hanging around here waiting till your dad hits me, Love. I’m going home and you’re coming with me.”

“How do you mean, going home, Mum? This is home.”

“No not really, not for me. For me this has never been home. This is just somewhere I lived with your dad. He’s been out of work now for five years, not been trying to get a job for at least three, and due to his drinking he’s probably unemployable now. My salary has been paying the rent and all the other bills too for years. I earn all the money and I can only just afford to keep myself in underwear and you decently dressed. I haven’t bought myself a new frock for years, and I’m done with it. I’m going home, which to me is where your gran and granddad live. Bearthwaite is where I belong. I should never have left, but it’s never too late to return. God alone knows why I stayed here for so long when I knew it would eventually come to this a long time ago. You can still attend Whiteport Academy. It’s where all the secondary school kids from Bearthwaite go anyway, and you already know dozens of them. The village bus takes them to school and brings them home too unless the road is flooded when they study at home. You’ll have to get used to a forty-five to sixty minute bus ride rather than a quarter of an hour walk and to being home schooled by two or three dozen different folk for a couple of months a year. Most of them aren’t teachers, but they do know their stuff.”

“Better that than having to change schools and having to try to make new friends when every one else already has friends, Mum.”

“I suppose so. As soon as your dad’s been picked up we’ll start packing. I’ll make a phone call for some help to take all our clothes and personal belongings. Your dad can have the rest. We’ll probably have to make a statement to the police, but they’ll send Sergeant Michael Graham to talk to us at Bearthwaite, which will be fine because he’s one of us. He’s born and bred Bearthwaite folk. I know what your dad thought of you, but I’m proud of you, Love, and you can be whatever you wish to be at Bearthwaite. We’ll soon find somewhere to live, and I’ll not need the money I’m earning at present to manage because your dad won’t be drinking half of it. I’d rather settle for less money and do something else that pays less in the village. We’ll be safe from your dad at Bearthwaite, for he’ll be made to leave if he goes there, by force if need be. I am Bearthwaite folk, so are you, and Bearthwaite folk look after their own.”

“Will we really be okay, Mum? Or are you just saying that to stop me from worrying about things?”

“No, Love. We really will be okay. Honestly. I’m glad to be out of it. Your dad was a good man once, but once he was made redundant it all went down bank(1) after that. I don’t know what happened because it just kind of sneaked up on me, him too I suppose, but no matter what I said he wouldn’t get help, nor even try to sort himself out. I put up with him because I was the one who’d chosen to live with him, but trying to hit a child of mine was a step too far. The truth is I’ve done no more than tolerate him for years. He wore out whatever love I had for him a long time ago, and I can’t remember how long ago it is since we shared a bed as married folk do. I suggest you start thinking of yourself as a child of mine, a child of Bearthwaite and no longer a son of your sire, for I’ll be seeking a new man, a real man, for me as a husband and for you as a dad. I’ll not accept any man who will not accept you as his son, for that would not be a real man by my reckoning, by Bearthwaite reckoning, though there will be none there who do not measure up according to Bearthwaite’s and their family’s standards and expectations. Now I suppose your sire will sell everything for drink, run into rent arrears and be evicted in short order, Fergus, but that’s not my problem any more, and it’s certainly not yours.”

As his mother had suggested to Fergus they both had to make a statement to Michael Graham, but that was the end of the matter.

Eunice had reverted to her maiden name of Scott and at Fergus’ request had his school records changed from McCann to Scott as well. She filed for divorce, but since the house had been rented in her husband’s name, and there were no savings to share, other than her rainy day money of a few thousands of pounds that she had started to secrete distributed in the linings of her handbags once her husband’s drinking had taken him over. Money which she didn’t tell even Fergus about. She telt Adalheidis, who was acting as her solicitor, her husband could keep everything that was in the house which she had no intention of paying any further bills on. Though the storm of separation and divorce had finally broken over her head things went better than Eunice had considered possible and her rainy day money remained intact. The mortgage on one of the smaller terraced houses on Demesne Lane was much less than the rent she had been paying and she was pleased to hear that since Tony and Beth had moved to the village to live and work as soon as their new equipment arrived and was set up there would be vacancies for a pair of dental nurses, which was what she’d done for a living for years. She met the couple and was immediate engaged. In the meantime, till she started her new job, she caught the Bearthwaite school bus in the morning with Fergus and the other children to go to work and caught a Stagecoach(2) bus that dropped her at Bearthwaite Lonning Ends(3) after work from where she was given a lift for the remaining eight going on nine miles home.

Tony was delighted and said to Murray, “Training two new nurses was not something I was looking forward to. Eunice can work with Beth when she’s working and help me train the new nurse when Beth isn’t. If we find someone who only wants part time work we could probably make it work because Beth’s been talking of only working part time because she wishes to to spend some time working down at the allotments.”

Fergus was the subject of some curiosity at school as a result of his name change. He saw no point in not telling his peers what had happened. That he’d become a Bearthwaite kid had caused a distancing between him and the non Bearthwaite kids, but the other Bearthwaite kids reckoned it was funny because though none, not even they, had known, he’d always been a Bearthwaite kid. Marrie, one of his classmates, said they should have known because his behaviour had always been that of one of them. It hadn’t been long before Fergus’ fantasies became less frequent and after a walk around the reservoir with Marrie one warm and sunny afternoon, which took several hours longer than strictly necessary, they became redundant. Fergus was in the same class as Marrie, a Bearthwaite girl who was interested in him. She had had to make more effort than he to establish a relationship, but that was she considered to be expected because though the major influence on Fergus was clearly his mum, who was Bearthwaite born and bred, Fergus had grown up outside the valley where the influences of third and fourth wave feminism would have been able to get to him.. It had taken her time but eventually she considered she had a future husband and a father for her children. She was a very bright and perceptive young woman and her vision of her future eventually would prove to be correct.

Eunice started seeing Norman Scott, a Bearthwaite born saddler and tack maker of national renown, who was a very distant relative of hers, possibly, she explained to Fergus, Norman and she were fifth or sixth cousins. Norman regarded and treated Fergus as his son, and Fergus’ life became a lot less tense. Once news of his mother’s second marriage, in the church at Bearthwaite, to a man surnamed Scott had circulated at school his name change was considered to be a matter that required no explanation, for it all made sense to the non Bearthwaite pupils many of who used their step father’s surname, so from that point on it was no longer remarked on. A few months later his mum telt Fergus that in half a year or so he would have a little sister.

~o~O~o~

Both Adalheidis and Chance had been spending a lot of time trawling through land registry documents, property transfers and sales and any other paperwork they could discover concerning the Bearthwaite valley, for many of which they’d had to travel to the records offices of various county organisations to view and some much farther afield than that. They’d had to take a couple of trips to London which was an exhausting way to spend a couple of days searching archives just to inspect and photograph ancient muniments, on one occasion for four hours and on the other for less than twenty minutes. They were looking through a lot of material that went back centuries and the oldest document of interest to them went back to a century before the Norman Conquest of ten sixty-six. To say the least after translation from the Anglo Saxon of the day in that case and the Latin of the day in the others their findings were illuminating and more than pleasing.

Chance at a meeting of the Bearthwaite Village Community Ownership Company committee asked, “What would we be prepared to pay for absolute ownership of and total rights to the water in the reservoir?”

Sasha replied, “Rather a lot, because it’s the last significant piece of land in the valley that isn’t owned either directly by one of us or by the Ownership Company, but it’s never going to happen, Chance. The utility company that owns the reservoir is owned by a huge French company that has fingers in a lot of pies and they’d never sell. God alone knows who actually has a majority shareholding in them now. Maybe some outfit from the Middle East, China or even Russia. Why?”

“I reckon given the right leverage they would part with their rights. As I’m sure many of you are aware Adalheidis and I have been researching anything and everything to do with the land of the Bearthwaite valley. We went down to London twice to look at and copy some ancient documents and after translation we’ve discovered some rather interesting information. We’ve also been looking into exactly what the Ownership Company owns, and the terms on which it owns everything it does own. One, you’re wrong, Sasha, despite what the utility company implies in their documentation, which is cleverly worded so as to avoid telling any outright lies, they do not own the reservoir site. We do, as well as the water treatment works and sewage farm sites. The land never left the ownership of the old Bearthwaite estate which the Bearthwaite residents bought out years ago. The ownership now resides in the Ownership Company which of course is owned by every adult who resides here. The original transfer documents that deal with the matters each specifically refer to exactly what was selt on the three sites, and only limited rights to the use of the sites were selt to what was the water board in those days. The water board was subsequently taken over by Northwest Water and ultimately when Northwest Water was privatised it was bought by the current utility company which has changed hands, or at least control of it has, several times since then. However, only the original limited rights to use of the water can legally have changed hands. Two, because the bobbin mill was built, owned and operated by the Bearthwaite estate the estate had retained priority rights to the water whether it used that water to power the millwheel or not. Legally we, the Ownership Company, are now the owners of the Bearthwaite estate and we own all the rights that the original estate owned. Three, we also own rather a lot of shares in the utility company. Putting together those three factors provides us with some rather interesting opportunities.

“My suggestion is the fish hatchery that Tommy and Luke wish to establish to provide angling opportunities for visitors should be directly owned by the mill company which was a limited liability company that was never formally wound up and is therefore still in existence. Under UK law a limited liability company has the same rights as a citizen, but unlike a citizen it is immortal and can only die as a result of formal winding up procedures. It even has a legally valid signature which is the company seal which we possess. Modern companies use a company stamp in place of a signet ring or seal with which to make the appropriate mark in sealing wax. Though seals are coming back into fashion, I suspect for reasons of prestige and snobbery. Furthermore, I suggest the mill exercises its legal right to the entire water output from the reservoir. It can at its discretion allow that required by the water treatment plant and the sewage farm to be taken, for an appropriate price of course, after all there is no point in cutting off our noses to spite our faces. If the utility company won’t pay they will become legally liable for the consequences and the environment agency are not exactly forgiving for such breaches of the pollution laws, but that will not be our problem, although as conscientious citizens we will of course be obliged to point out all failures to comply with the law to the environment agency won’t we? If we farm fish that need fast moving highly oxygenated water the justification for us needing the water is obvious even though we have neither need nor obligation to provide such, so I suggest we do not provide any explanations, but just leave it to the Environment Agency and Natural England to provide whatever explanations they choose to. If we only farm native fish that are found in the reservoir, like brown trout as opposed to rainbows, all government ecology departments and all other such non governmental organisations and charities will be on our side. We’d be putting the environment before any profit, profit which I would add we have no need to make. Adalheidis discovered that we’ve never used our shares to vote at shareholders’ meetings of the utility company. I suggest we use them to vote against everything the utility company directors wish to do. Though the value of our blocks of shares is large altogether we only own a relative small, albeit significant, proportion of the entire share stock. However, if we consolidate them and Murray manages the matter sooner or later we shall cause a motion to fail, especially if we buy up more shares as they become available. The utility company will eventually wish to know why we are doing what we are doing.

“The volume of water the utility company currently takes from the Bearthwaite reservoir is tiny compared with the output they take from say Thirlmere Reservoir and the like and the water treatment plant and sewage farm have always been provided with what they require before the utility company has taken the surplus, but we have no legal obligation to do so with what is our water. With no water available to them from the reservoir the utility company’s rights to the water are worthless, and the environmental fines due to pollution from the sewage farm and the water treatment works will be heavy because it will be deemed to be wilful pollution when they could have bought the water necessary to prevent it. We will become a major financial problem to them, rather than a mere irritation. So much so that they will have no choice but to buy us off. If they don’t pay the fines the Department of the Environment will start to threaten to revoke their licences to extract water elsewhere. At that point their share price will plummet which would be an ideal time for us to buy more shares. Since we as owners of the mill have the first right to the water we don’t need to negotiate with them. We tell them what we want and walk away. The next move is theirs. We make it clear that till they give up their now worthless secondary water rights to us we shall continue voting against all their motions, not just the ones that involve Bearthwaite. When they get back to us we could offer in exchange for their secondary rights to provide the water required by the water treatment and sewage plants and undertake any clean up and reinstatement required. Of course as part of the deal we would take over ownership of and responsibility for all reservoir, water treatment and sewage farm plant and equipment which would include responsibility for running and maintaining them, but since all those currently engaged in running and maintaining them live here that would be no hardship. They would just work for us not the utility company, and as I said we do have the water to put an immediate stop to all and any pollution issues.

“One of the things we discovered was that the rights to the fish in the reservoir were specifically retained by the estate. Once we have the entire rights to the water, and given that we own both the site and the fish in it we would no longer have to consult with the utility company concerning Tommy and Luke’s ideas of stocking the reservoir with fish and offering package fishing holidays with accommodation at the Green Dragon. If the bobbin mill millwheel were put back into working order it would provide an additional tourist attraction and could provide a back up power supply for when the mains fails. I doubt it could supply Bearthwaite’s entire needs, but with appropriate conversion to LED lighting it could certainly provide all our street lighting and probably power the mill and the Community Centre too. The fish hatchery would of course only breed the species of native fish we wanted in the reservoir or ones we could sell fingerlings of to elsewhere, which I suggest includes species of no interest to fishing folk but of importance to environmental diversity. Naturally we would consult with environmental groups as to what those species should be who would doubtless be happy to provide us with the initial breeding stock and any required advice. All of which would provide employment here, and as I said give us support from the governmental and other environmental agencies and organisations. Too, there would be real educational opportunities for some of our children interested in that sort of endeavour.

“Any water surplus to our requirements we would offer to the utility company at a reasonable wholesale price which given the political grief they are currently experiencing concerning the poor state of repair of their pipe network and the huge volume of water they are as a consequence losing every minute of every day they would have no choice but to buy. The moment a payment is more than twenty-four hours late we close their supply from us down and make it public as to why we have done so. That instead of the water going to supply outside towns and cities Bearthwaite Beck(4) will be running alongside the road for the first time in over a century will be seen as an ecological victory and will win us many friends.

“Too, the utility company currently bulk tankers the residual sludge from the sewage farm to somewhere else which costs them a lot of money. I did a bit of research on raw sewage and after maceration followed by a modern oxygenated bio digestion the sludge doesn’t smell much and is eminently suitable for direct injection as fertiliser into farm land. The methane from the composting sewage is an additional source of fuel which could power at least in part the macerators and the oxygenation pumps. The articles I read all said ideally the sludge should be injected prior to sowing a crop. To avoid any chance of spreading internal parasites the articles all recommended prior to sowing a cereal crop rather than a vegetable crop. I considered Gustav’s cereals grown for the brewery to be perfect and that would obviate the need for a lot of the commercial fertiliser required to produce a decent grain harvest which would save a lot of money.” Chance grinned slyly and added, “Something I heard the other day caused me to think that if we maintained a minimum reservoir water level, and I’m sure cleverer folk than I could determine what that should be, whenever it was considered desirable we could flood the road sufficiently to render it impassable within an hour or two. Since it’s our water and our road none can complain can they?

“One last point, since we are only interested in winning control of our own lives and unlike the utility company we have no interest in profit nor in outside public opinion we make it clear to them that as long as they make no direct nor indirect attempt to blacken our reputation we shall not contradict what ever spin they chose to use to explain their withdrawal from the Bearthwaite valley.”

“Hellfire, Chance, remind me never to cross you, Lad. That is positively Machiavellian. Now I understand how bean counters(5) came to rule the world. What do you reckon, Sasha?”

“I reckon we need to wait a bit, Stan, at least till Adalheidis and Chance have had time to check all their facts and together with a group of folk who can analyse it all and play devil’s advocate with each other they put together a detailed and comprehensive plan along with a time line for discussion by the Ownership Committee. I suggest then we need to involve any in the village who wishes to express an opinion. I also suggest Murray as usual is the face of the Ownership Company and does the negotiation with Chance as back up, for Murray is subtle and the best we have at that sort of thing and Chance needs to learn how a master negotiates ready for his take over when Murray retires. I don’t wish to be involved directly because they would rapidly realise where the financing was coming from and possibly work out just how much money they were confronting and hence possibly take effective evasive action. In the meanwhile I’ll watch the price of the utility company shares with a view to buying when the price is right. I’ll buy not just in my name, but on behalf of any number of us, after all no point in tipping ’em off before we strike is there? And we’ll need to sign proxy voting rights over to the Ownership Company, i.e. in practice to Murray. As a plan it serves numerous of our goals. It gives us more control over our own lives, creates employment and generates and save a powerful lot of money. I think it’s a superb idea. What do you think, Gustav?”

“I think Alan Peabody needs to be telt to look into buying a large direct injection setup on our behalf. I know you need to apply for permission from some organisation or other to spread sewage sludge on farmland prior to ploughing it in, but direct injection only requires permission from the land owner. A tenant farming rented land needs to seek permission from the land owner, so aren’t we lucky that we own all our land outright. If we do that the local farmers own more than enough land that is put down to cereals every year to more than deal with the sludge. Maybe we should offer to deal with appropriately treated sludge from other sewage farms in the county, for an appropriate price of course. Land lying fallow could of course be injected too with no risk to health. However, any sludge not appropriately macerated and treated by a modern oxygenated bio digestion method is not something I want on my land. I also think Jeremy and Lizzie need to be involved in the tourism projects.”

~o~O~o~

The court case had made front page news in all the local media and was reported as lesser news in the media nationally. Alice Smallwood, a southerner from Bath in Somerset who was holidaying in the Bearthwaite area, had a room in the Green Dragon at the time. She was walking past Bertrond Walker’s nine acre small holding in the dark. She said from the witness box that because she had good eyesight she’d been aware that the accused was urinating behind his vegetable plot and she was offended by that. When challenged she admitted that she had not seen anything of his face, nor had she seen his penis or urine stream, but from his stance and motions she had been aware of what he was doing.

Due to the lack of light and it being a moonless night there was some doubt as to who it was who was purportedly urinating in the dark. Bertrond had maintained he was in the house watching football [US soccer] on TV at the time, which his wife, her sister and her sisters husband testified to. Alice’s solicitor remarked it was very convenient that Bertrond’s sister in law and her husband happened to be at his house that evening. Bertrond’s wife had said, “Not really. We all live there and jointly own and work the property. It’s a family business. Between us my sister and I have five sons and six daughters, all of who live at home and are in their teens. The boys are all over six feet tall like their fathers.”

Adalheidis, Bertrond’s solicitor asked, “So if indeed anyone had been urinating in Ms Smallwood’s self admittedly limited sight it could had been one of the boys who are not being charged rather than my client?”

“Indeed, yes. However, it could have been Bertrond, my sister’s husband or one of the boys, if indeed Ms Smallwood saw anything at at all which I doubt, for it was a gey dark, overcast and moonless night. At the time mentioned my husband and brother in law were watching a football match with the boys on the TV in the kitchen which is the biggest room in the farmhouse and has a wide screen TV so they can watch sport together there. They all follow the game.”

“Do you know if all them were there at the time in question?”

“No. I was ironing in the front room with my sister because neither of us are interested in sport. The girls were all upstairs watching a DVD. I do know the men were all watching the match, but the exterior kitchen door accesses the back so any of them could have slipped out and subsequently reëntered the kitchen. The footpath that Ms Smallwood used is used by others too, and any men going that way feeling the need would have relieved themselves on the compost heap. It’s a not infrequent occurrence and the high sides of the compost boxes mean unless you are standing right next to someone you would be unable to see anything. I find it curious to know how Ms Smallwood was aware a male was purportedly urinating from his stance and motions. I can only conclude she has studied the matter in some depth.” At that the magistrate had to call the court to order and it took some time for the laughter to quieten.

Bertrond when called to the witness stand by Adalheidis his defence solicitor said, “Before I am questioned I would like to say as all my neighbours are aware I have an almost super humanly keen sense of smell, and I am aware where every woman in this room is as regards her menstrual cycle because they smell differently every day of their month. If there is any woman in this room who wishes to challenge that I shall insist they provide medical evidence to support their claim. More to the point I am aware that my accuser is menstruating right now though she is almost at the end of her period and in six days she will be in the middle of her ovulation fertile window. I too can’t see that but I am aware of it. I could claim and do so that I am offended by that. Her solicitor is three days over her ovulation and is probably expecting to experience her next period in eleven days. That isn’t going to happen because she is currently pregnant. I accept women menstruate as men urinate outside, both are incontestable. Neither of us have seen anything, but she is the one bringing this to court. Under normal circumstances I am far too well mannered to even mention the matter to any woman, but she is trying to have me found guilty by a court of law and I feel that in order to defend myself my sense of good manners has to be sacrificed. If this is to go anywhere I insist that she is examined by a doctor within twenty-four hours to determine if my sense of smell is correct or not. If that doctor’s report says she is not menstruating I shall change my plea to guilty. I shall leave the matter to her. I also suggest that her solicitor takes a pregnancy test to check that I really have that good a sense of smell.” The woman was bright red as she instructed her equally bright red solicitor to withdraw the complaint. Both were banned from the Green Dragon and subsequently from Bearthwaite for life.

~o~O~o~

A foreign business man had provisionally been accepted as a Bearthwaite employer because he was talking of investing heavy money in a women’s clothing company to be based in the basement of the now fully refurbished bobbin mill. At the meeting between him and a prospective workforce he had said, “I expect you to work your asses(6) off during work time. I understand the UK legal situation, so weekends are yours as are official bank holidays. The rest you work as required.”

Of the interested proposed workforce Harvey had been chosen to respond. “That may be how you operate back home on the other side of the pond, but none will work for you on those terms here. I’m desperate for work and I do whatever pays, sometimes working for twenty or more folk in a week, but I’ll not work under those conditions and neither will any of my neighbours. Despite your claim, you clearly don’t understand how it is here, so I suggest you either fuck off back home right now or start to understand what is expected of a good employer over here, especially so in Bearthwaite. We’re not overfond of outsiders from a dozen miles away which puts you right at the bottom of the evolutionary scale alongside the slime moulds as far as we are concerned. To make a decent living we’ll work our arses off and stop when it is time to go home. If we believe more time is required we’ll put it in, but that shall be our decision not yours. None is going to dictate to us whether we do overtime or not because we all have families that have a higher priority claim on our time. Naturally we’ll expect to be paid well for pulling you out of the shit, if we’re not we’ll all walk out on you. If you go bankrupt that’s you’re problem not ours. If you go broke there are any number of Bearthwaite folk worth more than you could ever dream of who’ll buy you out at bankruptcy fire salvage prices and the work force will then carry on as if nowt had happened. By their first payday you wouldn’t even be a bad memory. Don’t even think about threatening us with being sacked because you’re in one of the last places on Earth where that matters. You sack one of us and the rest of us will all walk out on you and our neighbours shall support us to sustain body and soul, that’s how it works here. We’ll take up the business after you’ve been broken and have been long gone. We’re not interested in profit, all that matters here is that we all live well, wealthy and poor alike. And as a matter of interest other than you we don’t have any donkeys(7) here, working or otherwise.”

~O~

As a result of Harvey’s confrontation with the prospective investor Sasha had called an emergency meeting of the Ownership Committee and it was decided to tell the man he wasn’t welcome under any conditions, yet the idea of a women’s clothing company was discussed and considered to be an attractive proposition. It was decided to set up a company producing not just women’s clothing, but men’s and children’s too. Home produced knitwear and many other things too could be selt via the company. There were any number of women and a few men too who would be glad of the work. Eric, the village cobbler, was interested to produce custom footwear from outlines and details provided by customers, for him it was nothing different, for every pair of shoes he made was produced that way. A use had been found for space in the mill basement and other commercial activities were being considered to fully utilise the space.

~o~O~o~

It had been decided that the first floor [US 2nd floor] of the mill was to be used to provide offices for the administration of the Bearthwaite Property Developments Company and the Bearthwaite Village Community Ownership Company which Chance was working hard to amalgamate into one company. His proposal was that the new company would be called Bearthwaite Business Enterprises Limited. He wished the company to be registered as a limited liability company subject to the coöperative ventures regulations, and he and Adalheidis were spending a lot of time on the exact articles of incorporation to ensure they were exactly what was required without having to have subsequent alterations which could be a tedious and expensive procedure. One of the problems was since each adult in the village was a member of the coöp it was desirable that they had to sell their one pound membership on moving away back to the coöp or to one of the other members which would prevent the few outsiders who lived in the village from passing their vote on to someone outside the village or worse retaining it to cause problems in the future. Too, any new folk moving in to the village had to be able to be made members of the coöp without having to undergo the process required by a new share issue. It could be done, there were precedents, but it was complex and it just took a lot of time. Too the first floor of the mill would be home to all the medical and other professional services provided to the residents of the valley.

Saturday evening in the taproom

Sasha was leaning against the bar of the Green Dragon’s taproom awaiting his first pint of the Saturday evening session of the Grumpy Old Men’s Society. He looked around the taproom and seeing most of the locals were present he announced, “Adalheidis has expressed a desire to direct a production of H. M. S. Pinafore, a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta in the community hall if she can find enough folk willing to participate. Put the word out, Lads. Elle’s telling the lasses tonight too. Maybe some of the kids will be interested. If she can find enough folk she said she’ll start a choir too. I know the nights are drawing out now, but if sucessful and the idea continues that will provide activity for some folks when the nights come back in this back end(8) and over the winter.”

~o~O~o~

As men were served and went to sit down Pete kept pulling pints for those still entering the taproom. Looking up at a group who had just come in preceded by a dozen and a half dogs he asked with a grin, “So, Bertrond, how do feel now that the case was chucked out of court?”

Sourly Bertrond replied, “The same as I did before. What kind of a stupid bitch wants to make a court case out of a bloke pissing on his compost heap? I reckon her problem was she couldn’t see owt and resented it. The government is always going on about recycling, and we’ve all been doing it for years by pissing on the compost. It a pity the southerners can’t cope with the reality of recycling. I’m not a vindictive bloke, so I’m fine with it if she wishes to let bygones be bygones and takes a piss on my compost heap as a gesture of good faith. That solicitor of hers poked a hornets nest with a stick. It seems her old man had been out of the country for six weeks on business and as I said she’s pregnant, so there’s a divorce in the offing. It seems he’s been playing away too, so it’s all getting a bit messy. Tell you lads, they’re all mental out there. Sleeping with one woman can be dodgy enough, you’d need your head examining to go for two, and I don’t doubt it’s no different as seen from a woman’s point of view. My old man always telt us lads that if we wanted sex the best thing was to go home because it was safer, and one of my sisters had had a drop too much one Christmas and she telt us that Mum had telt the girls the same.”

Once the laughter had faded Bertrond smiled and added, “Talking of bitches, better leave Sal at home next week, Tony. She’ll be ready for a dog by then.”

~o~O~o~

Everyone was still settling down and none had indicated they had a tale to tell yet but Dave said, “Talking of dogs, that chemic(9) Adio had for you from Argentina was so rough you could have uest it as a guard dog, Simon.”

“How do you mean, Dave?”

Dave grinned and barked, “Ruff, ruff. Good taste though, so if you get the offer of any more put me down for a dozen cases too, Simon. Tell Adio to buy what he can and we’ll all chip in for it. Won’t we, Lads?”

There was a taproom full of agreements and more than a few, “Ruff, ruffs,” too. Adio was a friend of Simon’s from Jamaica who had his own ocean going vessel which he and his wife Alerica lived on. Mostly his cargoes were legitimate. but he was not above smuggling illegal duty free drink and had delivered considerable quantities that had ended up in the cellars of the Green Dragon.

~o~O~o~

“Suzie’s lass Olivia, that young granddaughter of yours, Gerry, is really something else isn’t she? But I’ll bet she’ll take some handling when she gets a bit older and starts tekin(10) an interest in lads.”

“Aye I don’t doubt it, but she’s always been a case, Vincent. One of a kind that girl. Never did play with dolls, nor boys’ toys either come to that. Always been more interested in animals. Well, dogs and ferrets really, snares too, and she’s damned good with the four ten(11) Billy her dad bought her last year. She packs her own cartridges too when she can afford the cost of the makings. I bought that jill(12) ferret of hers from one of Alf’s grandsons for her sixth birthday. She was chuffed to bits. Suzie wasn’t, but Billy was okay about it. Mind Suzie wasn’t well pleased when he gave her a piglet two Christmases back, but when she isn’t after coneys she’s ratching about for free food for the bugger. She must be finding plenty because she’s only buying the one bag of feed a month from Phil at the mill and its bin growing gey fast. She wants to breed ferrets now and has borrowed a hob(13) from one of the boys, but Suzie doesn’t know about that. She’s working on me to get her a dog for her tenth birthday. Suzie has okayed it, but I think she’s thinking in terms of a Jack Russel for ratting. Livvy wants a lurcher for coursing coneys and hares.”

Pete asked, So what you going to do, Gerry?”

Tony interrupted to say, “I’ve promised to sell Gerry my pick of Meg’s next litter. She’s a gey good un as a running dog, and the dog I put her to from Grasslot(14) way is a cracker.”

Gerry grinned and said, “Suzie’ll make a great deal of fuss when it doesn’t stop growing, but in the end she’ll settle down. When all’s said and done it’s only a dog, and Livvy will look after it properly, so Suzie won’t be left with it on her hands to exercise. Come hail, rain or shine Livvy’ll exercise it. I’ve seen her out on the fields and even up on the fells after coneys when it’s been raining a mix of bitter cold rain, sleet and hail that was knocking holes in the lonning. Truth is like any mum of a daughter with interests not usual for a lass Suzie’s bothered that Livvy is becoming more like a lad than a lass. My view on that is if that’s really the case there’s bugger all any can do about it, and it’d be unkind to give her a hard time over it. However, the way she’s eyeing up Vincent’s grandson Nicky I don’t reckon there’s any likelihood of it. She’s blossoming and it’s obvious Nicky is aware of it and is interested. He’s definitely sniffing,(15) and I reckon they’ll be holding hands before the summer. Is that why you made the comment about her, Vincent?”

“No. She provides me with almost as many coneys as Liam’s missus Rhona as breeds ’em. Rhona’s are a lot bigger and some kind of a New Zealand White(16) strain, but some folk prefer a smaller wild one cos they reckon they taste better. I like ’em both and reckon they taste different, but I wouldn’t say one was better than t’other. She fetcht me a dozen coneys last week and mentioned her pig. Said she had a big boar ready for slaughter and asked if I were interested. So we went to look at it. Fourteen going on fifteen score(17) I reckoned it at. Absolutely perfect weight for knocking down and all prime pig. She said it had just slowed down growing and I reckoned she’d judged it perfectly regarding time to slaughter it. I could smell it was a boar before I laid eyes on it, so I telt her that it would be more suitable for bacon and ham than for pork. We agreed on the price which included enough meat and offal scraps to keep her ferret going, though mostly she feeds it on what it catches.

“She insisted part of the deal was she wanted to watch everything. Killing, eviscerating, butching,(18) and what I did with every last piece of it. She wanted to help make brawn, sausage, black pudding, the works. She said she knew everything bar the squeal was used and she wanted to watch it all. When I said I was surprised at her wanting to see it all especially the killing she looked at me as if I were daft and said, ‘It’s had a good life, but I’ve raised it for meat. I’ve raised it to eat, Uncle Vincent, and I don’t want to have to fight with it to get a bite, so it has to get killed and I want to watch.’ As far as I’m aware I buy all the pigs that Bearthwaite kids raise, but I’ve never had one, lass or lad, as wished to be involved once the deal was struck. I’ve bought coneys off her for a few years, and many a one has had a broken neck which means she killed ’em not her ferret, but that I admit did surprise me. Nicky will have to keep his wits about him if she decides she wants him.”

“So how did it all go, Vincent?”

“I was going to borrow a horse box to tek(19) the pig to the abattoir, but she said, ‘No need, Uncle Vincent.’ She picked up a pail, put a handful of feed in it and it followed her through the village and into my yard. She tipped the pail out, and I knocked it down as it went for the feed, hoisted it and bled it out into the stainless box I use for the job. Usually I prefer to hunger(20) an animal a bit before slaughter as it makes the job easier, but it’s not necessary not even with a beast. She watched me gut and butch it and stirred the blood for me whilst I put the chopped up fat, rolled barley and seasonings in for the black pudding. She helped me pour the hot water on it, scrape the bristles off it and process the offal, Over the next couple of days she helped me and the lasses deal with the lot. She deboned the boilt head and tail herself for the brawn and took the hard bits out of the eyes and the toenails off the trotters. She even helped the lasses use the bones and make the soup. She asked a lot of intelligent questions and clearly was tekin it all in. She’s a clever lass and she’s after another piglet. Said she wanted a sow this time, so she could see the difference when it was butched and wanted to see what we did different when butching for pork rather than for cured meat. Makes you wonder what she’ll do for a living when she grows up doesn’t it? Cos I can’t see her tekin to hair dressing somehow.” There were chuckles all round the taproom at that.

~o~O~o~

After refreshing everyone’s pints and some had started on a glass of spirits of dubious safety and definite illegality, the matter of the now rejected clothing manufacturer had been brought up for discussion. Alf brought the matter to a close by saying, “I didn’t like the bastard, but he did us all a favour. It’s true what’s said, ‘It’s an ill wind indeed that blows nobody any good.’ ” There was a tense atmosphere in the room, for there was always a need for employment, and local employment was obviously preferred for it saved the cost and time of transport to work and back. Many locals felt perhaps their rejection of the investor had been a little precipitate and resulted in a lost opportunity. They all knew that there were things going on in the background to provide a similar opportunity, but till the jobs were there and money was being earnt they were on edge concerning the matter.

~o~O~o~

Dave laught and said, “I’ll tell a short one to lighten the atmosphere, Lads. I mind many a year back when I was just a teenager, I was walking in the Lakes (21) with company and was catcht having sex by her mother behind that large boulder to the left of Easedale Tarn as you approach it going uphill from the Grasmere side. I was pounding her from behind and was on the vinegar strokes when we were spotted by her mam. You know what it’s like when the testosterone fog takes your brain over, Lads. To start with you’ll take any level of risk to have it away, and once you’re started you don’t care if you do get catcht. Just short of getting there after shortening up the stroke there’s nowt on Earth can stop you finishing.

“What did she say, Dave? Her mother I mean.”

“Baa, baa.”(22)

The laughter took five minutes to dissipate as his audience realised that, yet again, Dave had conned them with a shaggy dog tale disguised as the truth only to be revealed for what it was in the last few words. A few of them knew that Dave’s most valuable talent to the entire community was the ability to change a stressful atmosphere into a humorous one and that yet again he had delivered by defusing the issues created by the outsider. Eventually the womenfolk would hear of his salacious tale, probably only piece by piece as their menfolk would be reluctant to tell them what they would consider to be a dirty story in its entirety, but the womenfolk would eventually piece it together and it would circulate, and they too would be grateful for his ability which had relegated the outsider to an issue of no importance to their entire community, which in the long term would protect what they cared about most, their families. Pete had moved to behind the bar and there were a dozen pints on it ready for those who required one. “I’ll keep pulling pints of brown till I’m telt to stop, Lads, and if any requires owt else shout now and Gustav will deal with it.”

~o~O~o~

Once settled, Colin who was an outsider asked, “I was telt Bearthwaite doesn’t even have a Parish Council, and the County don’t seem to be willing to allow one to be formed. So how does it work here when there is no official Council to take charge and organise things?”

Amidst much laughter from local men, Dave replied, “I reckon Sasha is the best one to explain since he’s the hyper intelligent intergalactic space being from the planet Zanussi(23) whose father was a fifty-eight program washing machine and whose mother was an automated four slice bread toaster.”

There was a lot of laughter at that and Pete asked, “Where the hell did you get that from, Dave?”

Dave grinned and replied, “Watching children’s TV when I was minding the grandkids. I’ve been waiting a few weeks now for a suitable opportunity to use it.”

Sasha smiled and said, “Someone I came across a while back telt me that Bearthwaite was nothing more than a communist commune where the government owns everything and the workers own nothing. I assumed by the government the Ownership Committee which serves the function of a local Council here was meant. Either that or she just wasn’t aware of its existence. The whole point of the way we live in Bearthwaite is that everyone, by which I mean all adults that live at Bearthwaite, own an equal share of everything that is community owned. All can have their say and are listened to and a consensus of opinion is what determines who is on the Ownership Committee. The constitution says if required a ballot can be called, but none has ever required a vote be taken. That I opine indicates that the system works. There is no fixed number of folk on the Ownership Committee, it comprises folks as are able, capable and willing to discuss what needs discussing and do what needs doing if necessary. Chance and Adalheidis are currently working on reforming all community owned matters into a single limited company subject to the coöperative ventures regulations whereby all adult residents will own a one pound share in the company.”

“However, when you say there is no official Council, Colin, what you are saying is that the county haven’t given us permission to take control of our own lives. I agree, and we have no intention of asking them, nor any else, for permission to have control of our own lives because there is no legal requirement that we do so. If more communities governed themselves the way we do eventually there would be no need of the County Council and the trough would have nothing in it for the elected pigs to fight for more than their fair share of. We are all deeply political beings here, but none of us have anything to do with political parties, for we have no need of nor use for any of them. Politics here is simple, is something in the interests of the community? If yes then we are for it. If no then we are against it.

“I’ll give you a recent example. We were approached by the county with a proposal to metal the road in to the village. The price they proposed we would pay would be they would then own the road and the land on either side of it all the way to the fences at the beginnings of the fells. They were amazed when we said no without having to even consider it. That we own the road and the land around it means we control it. They said that they would ensure the road never flooded again. That was complete arrogance and hubris on their part thinking they could control the weather. If we had said yes they would have control of access to the village in perpetuity and have acquired free ownership of close to six thousand acres of land that we currently use for grazing sheep. Doubtless we’d subsequently be charged for that grazing. Moreover, despite their ridiculous claims, the road would still flood because the terrain is what it is. We’ve have selt our birthright for bread and a pottage of lentiles,(24) and they would soon find excuses for not running the extremely expensive to run pumps necessary to pump the water away. We know what it costs to run them because at present we pay for the fuel to power them. We also know that even pumps powered by engines that could keep an Airbus 380 in the air could not prevail against a heavy rain induced flood the like of which probably happens twice or thrice a year. Since the road and the pumps are our property none can compel us to clear the road when it floods. Too, we sometimes find it convenient to have the village cut off because it saves us the trouble of refusing access to their minions on what is our private road running over our private land, and we have methods of crossing the flood when necessary.

“In order to prevent the lonning from ever flooding it would be necessary the blast a road through the rise, and elevate several miles of the lonning to a height that would keep it above the water. At it’s worst the flood water is over eight feet deep. That would be a major civil engineering project costing tens of millions, far more than the Council would be prepared to spend on us even were they to have the money. In addition that would put the flood we currently experience from time to time onto the main road instead. Our lonning wouldn’t flood, but that would make it even more difficult for us to leave the valley because the main road at Bearthwaite Lonning Ends would be under several feet of water. I don’t suppose they’d be bothered by our inconvenience, for there are not many voters live here, but the inconvenience to the outsiders who use that road would bother them, for there are many thousands of folk who use the main road. It’s never going to happen. Folk have lived here for millennia and some of us are descended from them. We like the way we live and are not up for changing it. Outsiders who have become Bearthwaite folk, many of whom have had family members who married into long time Bearthwaite families, feel the same way too for they are Bearthwaite folk.

“The lonning is not a public highway, a bridal path, nor even a pedestrian right of way, and there are no Council owned nor funded amenities here. They don’t empty our waste bins, provide street lighting, education, the library, nor indeed any other service, so the Council has no reason for requiring access. Regarding education our primary school is a private school, not a Voluntary Aided School like most non LEA(25) schools in the UK most of which are religious schools, for it receives no LEA funding at all, and we don’t wish any, for that would give the LEA some control. Yes our secondary school children attend Whiteport Academy, but they won’t for long because soon we will have a secondary school here for them to attend. Other than half a dozen or so owner occupied houses outsiders own nothing here and we intend to snap those up at the first opportunity regardless of the cost.

“Without hard evidence of a crime having been committed by a resident or that a resident has the intention to commit a crime even the police would find it impossible to obtain a magistrates’ bench warrant which they would need to force entry, so even the police ask for permission to come here, though Sergeant Michael Graham never does for he was born here and is one of us. His parents and most of his relatives still live here. He’ll be here with his wife Mavis in about an hour, for he was working this afternoon. Mavis too was Bearthwaite born and she Gladys went to school together and are close. If there is anything that the police are interested in here they send Michael rather than seeking a warrant which is fine with us.

~o~O~o~

Dave said, “Just to lighten things up a bit I’ve another tale. It’s an old one, but it’s a gold one. A granddad saw his grandson pulling a string behind him with a toy car on the end of it. He said to the boy, ‘I’ll give you a quid [a pound, $1.25] if you can push that car with the string, Son.’ The following day the boy said, ‘You owe me a pound, Granddad. Look.’ Sure enough he was pushing the car along on the string which was as solid as a wooden stick. ‘I’ll pay you tomorrow, Son,’ the old man said. “How did you manage that?’ ‘I borrowed Gran’s tin of spray starch that she does the ironing with. Easy.’ The following day, much to the boy’s surprise, the grandfather gave his grandson a pound coin and a five pound note. ‘You said a pound, Granddad, not six.’ His grandfather winked at him and said, ‘The fiver is from your gran.’ ” Most remembered hearing the tale before possibly decades before, but it was still funny and it took a while for the chuckles to totally dissipate.

~o~O~o~

Bertie after finishing pulling pints said, “Tell you what, Lads, Eli may be as soft as a big girl’s blouse and prefer to drink in the best side with the lasses, but he’s not just a genius artist he’s one hell of a martial arts instructor too. The older lads are well impressed with him. He telt ’em he’d had to learn to look after himself from a young age because of the way he was. Apparently the thugs at school and round where he lived soon learnt to leave him alone though the name calling didn’t stop. His teacher was a woman who was an ex military combat instructor and he and Felicity are still friends. Seems she doesn’t have an easy life with adults either because she is very mannish in appearance and behaviour but she always got on well with kids. He smiled and telt me, ‘Maybe we’re friends because opposites attract.’ He’s invited her up here for a holiday and if she fits in here I’m wondering if she’d be prepared to live here and work as the games and gym teacher at the school. When Elle manages to get the high school established we’ll have even more need of at least one. I reckon Gustav’s got the right idea about attracting the right kind of folk when he says, ‘Always aim for the top and make sure they know you want them.’ He reckons that way you may not get quite what you want, but you never miss out on anything just because you didn’t ask for it.”

There were murmurs of agreement and approval at that and a red faced Gustav eventually said quietly, “That’s what I telt myself when finding the nerve to ask Harriet to marry me. Mum always telt me and my brothers, ‘Always aim at least as high as your imagination can soar.’ ”

~O~

“What’s for supper, Gladys?” asked Geoff as she pulled pints whilst Pete was busy in the cellar.

“Well despite the Burns’ supper being so successful, which so many folk came to we were serving in the dance hall as well as the restaurante, we had twenty-odd haggis left over. Aggie ordered a gross of large ones but Vincent had the makings of maybe fifty more than that so he sent the lot, which was a couple of hundred, which was just as well or we’d have run out. We froze the surplus and Vincent has made some more for us for tonight. Alf has delivered a quarter ton [250Kg, 560 pounds] of neeps(26) and half a ton [500Kg, 1120 pounds] of his own variety of tatties.(27) So there’re plenty of both to put on with the haggis again. Some of the outsider ladies have said they can’t obtain decent haggis where they live. I telt ’em to place an order with Rosie next year some time before Christmas. The apples in cool store have been sorted, so Christine can pressure can any in danger of going bad, and she’s sent a load here for making tonight’s pudding which Gustav has asked we make strudel with. So Apple Strudel and Peabodys’ Jersey cream it is.”

Vincent nodded and said, “Rosie’s teken(28) that many haggis orders already for next year we’ll have to start making ’em at the beginning of January for the twenty-fifth, and possibly order in extra pluck from outside abattoirs long before Christmas because it’s always in short supply in January unless I order from way down south where they’ve never heard of Rabbie Burns.(29) Fortunately pluck keeps frozen so I may just start stock piling it starting now. Usually I make four dozen haggis a week every week of the year, and maybe ten times that in January, but often I have to use whatever I’ve got to hand which contrary to popular opinion is completely in keeping with the wider tradition. McSween in Edinburgh over three generations have made haggis from all sorts.”

“What’s pluck?” asked Arthur an outsider.

“Heart, liver, and lungs, traditionally from sheep or even goat,” replied Vincent. “They traditionally were cooked still connected to each other with the windpipe hanging over the side of the pan into a jug. It’s a major ingredient in haggis, but when pushed I’ve used pluck from beasts(30) and most folk aren’t aware of any difference. Some folk make haggis from venison. Haggis isn’t really Scottish. It’s made with minor variations all over the world. It’s a cry back to the days when folk couldn’t afford to waste anything that would keep body and soul together, like black puddings and many other things too.”

~o~O~o~

“Damned good basht tatties(31) those, Alf. Gladys said they were your own variety.”

“Aye. They’re from a volunteer(32) I found growing in a unused plot down at the allotments some twenty-five years since. Probably thirty-odd now, funny how time seems to get away from you isn’t it? The plot had never been used, so who knows where the variety originated, though they must have come from a self sown seed from somebody’s plot, so I called ’em Bearthwaite Queen. The best for chips [US fries] are Johnto’s. He raised them from what must have been a seed set volunteer he found on his plot decades ago when he was scarce thirty. I reckon Picasso,(33) which is a commercial variety, are as good a baker as you can grow and they’re a big tuber available everywhere, but we propagate our own seed tubers. There’re any number of good boilers and first earlies, though I prefer to grow Astrid’s Own for first earlies and Bearthwaite Queen for boilers and mashing which both sell well. As yet we’ve no eelworm of either variety(34) here and we rarely suffer from blight, which is why we won’t buy in seed tubers, so King Edward’s(35) are popular here with growers and housewives alike. I don’t grow ’em, but a lot of the lads do. A bit of variety is I reckon a good thing. When Dad was a boy they had serious infestations of both yellow and white eelworm on the old allotments which they controlled by crop rotation and by planting decoy plants(36) that made the eggs(37) in the soil hatch, but the nematodes couldn’t penetrate the roots to complete their lifecycle. When the allotments moved to the new site the lads washed all the soil off every plant they took with them and then washed ’em off in potassium permanganate and Jeyes fluid.(38) Proper crop rotation and a whole host of other measures have meant we haven’t seen any signs of the damned things for decades. We all grow taties and outdoor tomatoes in the same place and move where we grow ’em every year. The following year we grow decoy plants on the previous year’s potato plot, and don’t grow taties or outdoor tomatoes there for at least ten years. That’s better than all of us growing a few stitches(39) on our own plots. If we ever get a problem it’ll be in one place to deal with. We decided years ago if that ever happened when Tony digs a new compost pit we’ll have him scrape the top foot and a half of topsoil off and dump it fourteen foot down in the bottom of a new pit. Then we’ll grow decoy plants on that plot for ten years. Indoor tomatoes grown under glass we grow in flame sterilised medium. Even bought in compost goes through the steriliser. The entire allotment organisation is much more coöperative and collaborative than it ever used to be which means far more produce for far less effort, and there are no empty plots any more, for we all use the lot amongst us. Any who wants to join us is welcome. We’ll find a bit of decent ground for them to pursue personal projects, but in the main the objective is we all work to feed us all. We buy stuff in bulk for all of us so nothing is wasted any more, so we save a lot of money too. Murray buys in what we need any quantity of now, so we get a better price on it. He reckons that the way we’re growing stuff to feed us all means it’s pointless to charge rents on the plots and since the entire site belongs to us all it’ll be easer on him not to have to keep track of the payments.

~o~O~o~

Pat took a piece of paper from his pocket and said, “I want to read something I printed off from a news article I found on the internet about that couple with the baby that the police were searching for. Then I want to hear some views on it because I don’t know what to make of it.” Pat started reading.

“Aristocrat Constance Marten is accused of manslaughter after a dead baby girl called Victoria was found wrapped in a plastic bag under nappies [US diapers] inside an abandoned shed, a court has heard. The 35-year-old faces a manslaughter charge alongside her boyfriend, Mark Gordon, 48, a convicted sex offender, over the discovery of the baby earlier this week. Appearing in court for the first time on Friday, Marten smiled and blew a kiss to Gordon as they sat together in the dock. Prosecutor Jeremy King said an ‘extensive search’ was carried out after the couple’s arrest on Monday, leading police to a shed in an ‘overgrown’ allotment in the Brighton area. ‘In a locked shed, wrapped in a plastic bag, under nappies, the baby was found inside’, he said. ‘Life was pronounced extinct - the charges flow from that discovery.’ According the charge, the couple, who were arrested at the end of a nationwide fifty-three day search, are accused of manslaughter by having ‘unlawfully killed baby Victoria’. Together with the manslaughter charge, they are also accused of concealing the birth of a child, and perverting the course of justice. It is said the birth was concealed between January the twenty-seventh and February the twenty-seventh, and they are accused of ‘doing an act or acts by concealing the death of baby Victoria which had a tendency to pervert the course of public justice.’ As they appeared together in the dock at Crawley magistrates court, Marten smiled and reached out her hand to Gordon, with two security guards sitting between them. Mr King said the hunt for the couple, who have been dating since twenty fifteen, started with the discovery of placenta in an abandoned motor vehicle on the M61 motorway.

Pat put the sheet of paper down and asked, “What do you make of the situation, Simon? Does being black give you any insight into the matter?”

Simon took his time replying but eventually admitted, “I wish I could say it does, Pat, but I suspect it’s similar to what you’ve said about the lunatic terrorists in Northern Ireland. Being Irish doesn’t mean you understand them any more than anyone else. I only understand the situation from what I’ve been informed of via the media over the last few weeks. A not over bright, insecure, white, female aristocrat with royal connections takes up with an older, black, bad boy is a familiar tale beloved of the media. The rest we’ve been telt I suspect is purely the bullshit that editors believe will sell copy. I doubt we’ll ever arrive at the truth because even what the police put out will be what they believe will cast them in the most favourable light. Probably the nearest we’ll ever get to the truth is what we can put together given our understanding of human nature and the few undisputable facts that we can arrive at. Given that, I suspect Sasha is likely to be our best source of information and not the media nor the police.”

All looked at Sasha, who indicated a desire for his glass of poteen to be filled before saying, “I’m no bleeding heart leftist, but at the same time I’m no supporter of right wing views either. I’m my own man and my views are my views. Most of the time I keep them to myself, however, if asked I will express them. So the question is are you asking to hear them or no? Many of you, especially outsiders, may not like or approve of what I think, but if you wish to hear what I have to say I’ll tell you. I’ll add I’m not going to argue about it, debate it nor even listen to views that consider me to be out of order. So as I asked do you really wish to hear what many of you will certainly find objectionable, even offensive?”

Pete stood up and said, “I wish to hear you, Sasha, and I’m the landlord here, so any who get upset about it can fuck off and not bother coming back. I’m not a clever bloke, but I do understand about the thought police and they are not welcome here. So, keep talking. Even if I don’t agree with you I wish to hear what your views on the matter are, and I suspect that goes for most of us.”

There was a loud murmur of agreement. Sasha nodded and started. “To start with let’s consider what we know and can reasonably surmise about Constance and Mark. Let’s start with Constance. From what I can gather she’s not over bright and has always been a little resentful of the way she was expected to behave. Clearly there were issues in her relationships with her family. There’re no references to any boys in her early life and no men later on. Eventually she met Mark who gave her the attention as a woman that she desperately needed. The probable disapproval of her family was the worst thing they could have done, for it made her defensive and protective of him. Eventually I imagine it led to the breakdown of her relationships with her family and her nomadic life with him. Now, consider Mark’s life. He was born with a serious disability, being black. That meant he was never given the benefit of the doubt by any and was regarded with considerable prejudice by most of the folk he had met since childhood. I have no idea why he was convicted of a sexual offence, I suspect a single offence or the media would have certainly described him as a habitual or serial sex offender. I’ve read he was convicted of rape, but there are many convicted of rape where I suspect the issue was at least questionable, for rape revolves around the issue of consent which can boil down to a he said, she said issue with no real undisputable evidence either way. I’m not saying he was a victim of the system, but I am saying without further facts which the police either can’t or won’t disclose it is a serious possibility.

“As a result of these few facts and what I consider it is reasonable to surmise it is not unreasonable to conclude neither Constance nor Mark had any reason at all to trust the system. Constance possibly believed the system to be hand in glove with her family and Mark would have seen it as the enemy. I suspect both thought the system was out to get them. Is it any wonder then that they went on the run. Neither are stupid and they must have been aware from the media that they were being hunted. Constance initially was in the last stages of her pregnancy with her hormones putting her emotions and feelings all over the place and Mark would have been scared shitless that he was considered to be abusing a vulnerable white girl. Naturally they went on the run. The media which they would have had sporadic information from would have frightened the living daylights out of them, for as I said neither had ever had any reason to trust the system.

“Now the law has caught up with them, the police will separate them in order to assist in making them incriminate each other, which will result in Mark being fucked. Constance’s family will provide her with the best barrister available and Mark will have a publicly appointed defender, probably a just qualified kid who barely passed the law examinations. Mark will end up doing a goodly amount of porridge(40) and Constance will end up on probation under the supervision of her family. I doubt she will ever trust them again, certainly the possibility of establishing cordial relationships with them is nigh to nil. What puzzles me is we have only heard anything from her father. Does he have that tight a control over the rest of the family? for I doubt that he is her only relative. Where is her mother? Has she nowt to say? It makes me wonder if Constance had good reason to run away from him.

“What none will consider is the culpability of the system that led to this tragic ending. I would argue that though neither Constance nor Mark should be considered free of blame neither should the media nor the police and Social Services. In these circumstances clearly neither Constance nor Mark are fully responsible for their actions due to the external pressures they were subject to. The hounding they would have felt subject to would doubtless have rendered their actions somewhat irrational. It is my view that the police should have some balls and refuse to comment in any way on ongoing investigations no matter what those investigations be concerning, for they only do so to make themselves look good as a result of media inquisition.

“On a different but related topic, it looks like the Lancashire police force are quite rightly in deep shit for releasing medical details, that there was no explicable reason for releasing, about Nicola Bulley who went missing. She was the lass whose body was eventually found in the reed beds of the river Wyre. One has to ask how could releasing that she had alcohol issues and had recently stopped taking her medication for menopausal issues because she was unhappy with their side effects to the general public assist their investigation into her disappearance? The specialist underwater search team said if they’d been given that information earlier they would have planned their search differently, but apparently they only learnt of it from the media.

“As for Social Services, they shouldn’t comment on anything they are or have ever been involved in, for there is no justification for them to so do no matter how the media attempt to provoke them. The media should never be fed with anything by either the police or Social Services and should be judicially crucified to the point of being closed down for releasing anything that could ultimately influence a jury or is an invasion of privacy. All three have contributed to this tragedy, possibly even been responsible for it. I don’t have much time for Constance and Mark, but I have even less for the police and Social Services and none at all for the media. The victims here are a newly born baby named Victoria, note seemingly named so purely for the convenience of the system, and the rest of us who have to put up with the bullshit given out by the police and Social Services and promulgated by the media in order to sell copy. It’s possible, not likely I admit but possible, that without the media hue and cry Constance would have sought medical assistance and that baby may still have been alive.”

Simon added, “I don’t know how many times I’ve heard some representative of the media say ‘The public have a right to know,’ when clearly, to me at least, they don’t, and in any event that is not what is meant. What is meant is, ‘We, the gutter press, have a right to satisfy the scum bag classes’ appetite for salacious titillation no matter how much it hurts and damages the individuals we are taking advantage of.’ By doing so they are pandering to the lowest of the low and expressing a desire to exploit any and all situations to make money out of them. Bastards should be castrated at the neck.

“Furthermore, I may be out of order here, and if I am I apologise, but I suspect Constance’s family, now she’ll finally be separated from Mark, were not sorry her half cast baby died. I just hope that the poor lass doesn’t hurt herself as a result of being forcibly separated from a man she has been with for over seven years. He may be a bad man, then again as Sasha suggested, maybe not, but he stuck with her for seven years and that has to count for something. Bottom line for me is it’s yet another major fuck up, and the system is as responsible for it as any. I’m a black man with five kids who’s been happily married to a white girl for decades not years in a place where none give a damn and just thinking about this mess makes me need a drink, so, Pete, pull a round on my slate and someone pass a bottle of chemic over here.”

That Simon had resorted to profanity had a profound impact on his neighbours, for he was usually a mild and even tempered man. Few had ever heard him refer to being black, for, as he’d said, like to other Bearthwaite residents, to him it was a matter of no import. The only black thing about him that mattered to his friends and neighbours was his craft, he was the village blacksmith. However like others he was not unaware of what went on outside the village. Many outsiders realised that what he had said had had a profound effect on the residents but couldn’t fathom why. At that point visits were paid to the gents and the dogs were let out. After ale glasses had been collected and fresh ones filled the men started to sit down again. Gustav let the dogs back in and started passing round bottles of spirituous liquors and the children’s Christmas party fund collection box for the usual donations.

~o~O~o~

“What was white van man(41) delivering in that long box to your spot earlier in the week, Tommy? I’m only asking because I wondered what would be in such a gey queer shaped box?”

“We bought a new king size bed, John. It came flat packed in that box which was six foot nine long and nine and a quarter inch by seven and a half if I’m being on the generous side. I know because I put a tape on it. I asked the lad that delivered it where the other boxes were. He grinned and said, ‘That’s it, Lad. There’s only the one box.’ I asked him if he was sure and he said, “Aye, we deliver loads of ’em. Always just the one box. It says on the side ‘Carton one of one’. Some of ’em are in even smaller boxes than that one, but they’re always the same length. King size isn’t it?’ Not difficult to assemble for a bloke who has a bit of shape about him with tools, but for sure Sasha was right when he said the instructions for his crusher were written in Chinglish(42) because this was the same. They made almost sense and were good for a laugh, but were absolutely bloody useless if you needed help to assemble the thing. I’ve still got ’em, so I’ll bring ’em in next week to pass round.”

~o~O~o~

Joey indicated he wished to speak and being encouraged by the others he said, “There’s something really sad about the ageing process for women. They get gey fat, their arses reach for the floor and their tits which were once their pride and joy are only just behind their arses. Their bladder control is even worse than an auld(43) man’s, but just like an auld man they still see themselves as the youngster they once were. Sure performing is harder for men in auld age than it is for a lass, but at least we can still father a child if we try hard enough and often enough with a young enough lass. That part of a woman’s life is over once she hits the change. I’ve lived through it all and still don’t understand the injustice of it all.” Joey was seventy-one, and he’d buried May his eighty-two year old wife three years before. The couple had been inseparable and none doubted his sincerity, but all wondered where he was going with what he was saying, for two years after burying May he’d to the surprise of all married forty-two year old Alicia, a Bearthwaite primary school teacher who’d lived locally with her son Garson for fifteen years after her divorce. Their wives had telt them that Alicia had admitted she’d always had a soft spot for Joey and had seduced him out of his grieving which had made her very happy and put Joey into a state of bewitchment which was fine by her. The women had recently telt their husbands that Alicia was now going on three months pregnant. Joey continued, “I’m sure you all know that Alicia is full of arms and legs.(44) I’m gey happy about that. I love the lass, but I’d hate any to think I love May any the less for that. She was a good woman to the day she breathed her last, and not for a second did I ever consider playing her false. She telt me not long before she passed to find a woman to care for. She said I needed a woman to care for more than I needed a woman to care for me. She was auld, worn out and she suffered from all the problems that most auld women suffer from, but, and this is what I really wish to make clear she was still every inch the woman she was sixty years before her heart gave up on her. Any man that can’t see that in an ageing lass has no right to be called a man. He’s just a selfish piece of something to scrape off your shoe. I’ll take a goodly glass of that chemic please, Phil.” Joey had tears in his eyes as he was passed the bottle.

None said anything for a while, but eventually Sasha said, “Joey, those are the words of a real man. A man I’m proud to call a friend. I appreciate what it cost you to say them, but why did you feel it necessary to do so?”

Joey half emptied the glass of almost luminous green liquid he was drinking and replied, “I know all the auld men here already know the truth of it, but if we don’t tell them how will youngsters in their fifties, forties and younger learn the truth of life for the auld? It’s too important a matter to allow them to stumble about taking years discovering it for themselves. That would be a serious unkindness we’d be perpetrating on their auld women, for those men in their unknowing would possibly not treat them right in their fading years.”

~o~O~o~

“Point of information, Lads,” Vincent announced brightly to dispel the gloom that was almost palpable. “Murray’s missus Madeleine and her helpers will be dropping off a load of carp from the village pond at my spot next weekend some time, probably Sunday afternoon. It’s three years since she harvested the last lot, so there should be a goodly number of a fair size given the wild water weeds she feeds ’em on that the lads clear out of the reservoir. I’ll save a whole one for you, Sasha, and any else who wants one let me or Rosie know in the next couple of days. Rosie and the lasses will gut them all, but other than any reserved whole they’ll be filleting and freezing the rest. When one of the allotment lads’ wives come into the shop I’ll let them know when I’ll need the frames(45) and guts collecting. This time the lasses are going to boil the frames up to cook the last of the meat off them including off the heads and tails. They’ll be making a fish soup that’ll be free to any as wants it. Rosie will let the lads wives know what veg she wants for it, Alf.” Alf just nodded in acknowledgement.

“Thank you, Vincent. I haven’t eaten carp since Madeleine’s last harvest, and I’m looking forward to it. It’s one of those tastes of childhood for me, something you never forget.” Seeing the looks of puzzlement on some of the outsiders’ faces Sasha continued. “Carp is an expensive delicacy all over central and eastern Europe and further east than that too. It’s traditional to eat carp for Christmas dinner in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland. But some families in Hungary, Austria, Germany and Croatia eat it at Christmas time too. The tradition is said to date back to the Middle Ages. It’s not often available in the UK, but Madeleine introduced carp to the village pond a few years back because even in still muddy water in the absence of predators like pike and perch they thrive. She feeds them every week on water weeds that the lads who work for the water utility company clear out of the reservoir to stop the sluices choking up with that bright orange, amphibious, weed harvester boat that can move on rubber tracks you sometimes see out there. A Conver it’s called. The weed used to be composted, but carp love it and seem to grow fast on it. You can see them milling about to eat when the weeds are dumped in the pond. This is only her second harvest. The way the harvest was managed last time was they partially drained the pond to a maximum of two foot deep. The pond when full is about half an acre but only about six foot deep in the middle. Then the fish were seine netted. She had a huge wide mesh net that let anything under four inch [10cm, 100mm] escape. A lot of folk, mostly children, helped her to harvest the fish. Even then she threw a lot of the smaller ones back. Then the pond was allowed to refill as it rained. We’re hoping to maybe harvest every two years now they’re being fed, but we’ll have to see what’s in the pond before we make a decision on that. It was decided a while back not to introduce carp into the reservoir. We don’t need the fish and we’re not sure if the brown trout that have been in it from before the dam was built could cope with the dirty water that carp create as they ratch through the mulm and mud on the bottom searching for food.”

“What do you do with the fish bones, Alf?”

“Throw ’em in the compost pit, Arthur. Fish bones make good compost. Let’s have the dominoes out, Lads, unless some has some thing they wish to say?” None had anything else to say or discuss, so domino battle commenced.

~o~O~o~

Pete said to the others at their after closing time Saturday evening meeting in the best side, “Well, Eunice returning home was as lucky as it was unexpected wasn’t it?”

Gladys replied “Aye, but it’s what happens. Folk from here often move away tempted by what they see as a life with more opportunities, but when life goes pear shaped on them and they realise life outside is actually far more constrictive than life here, they come back home. A bad taste of outside life tends to be a one off experience, for few are prepared to risk another, especially women who have not been tret properly by outsider men. Michael Graham telt me he loves his job, but he has to return here from time to time to recharge his supply of sanity. Mavis wants him to take early retirement so that they can return here to live. He telt me he didn’t think that would be financially possible for him, but a small motor boat with a shallow draft to manage the road flooding and keeping his truck on the other side of the Rise would enable them to return here to live whilst enabling him to continue working. He’s looking for a suitable boat. Alf has said it would make sense for us to buy half a dozen small boats.”

Pete informed them, “The kids have telt Jeremy that his idea of modelling Cumbrian rail and especially the Solway Junction viaduct and Silloth station and harbour was really good, but they asked would it be possible to model something more up to date too. After considerable thought he asked them if they would be interested in modelling something that was right on the edge of science fiction and some of it was science fiction. He explained about ring trains, levmatic trucks two hundred feet [60m] long that worked using inverse cube ground repulsion, hydrofoils and hovercraft all of which he now believes can be modelled using appropriately arranged powerful guided electro-magnetic fields in conjunction with neodymium super magnets and existing control and guidance mechanisms. Gee Shaw who is interested in Jeremy’s ideas telt him about how gas pipes are cleaned and tested using things called pigs which is an acronym for pipeline intervention gadgets. Pigs are pulled down a pipe with a cable or driven through by a fluid, but Jeremy wants to try low pressure compressed air to use the concept to model what he called tube shuttles, a kind of rapid transport system. I heard about it and telt him how when I was a kid the coöp multi floor department stores in big cities used to use a system of three inch pipes using either compressed air or vacuum, I don’t know which, to deliver paperwork from one place to another in seconds. It must be possible to find out the details of such a system. He was pleased to hear about it for it meant at least the idea was viable.

“Jeremy explained to the kids about first coming across the more futuristic concepts of the ring train and what he had called the levmatic truck, levmatic being a rendering of maglev,(46) when reading ‘Starman Jones’ by Robert A Heinlein when he was in his teens and many years later when they were referred to in a story called ‘A Real Train Layout’ by an author with the user name Eolwaen on a story site called ‘bigcloset’. It was that story that had given him to ponder if Heinlein’s ideas and his own too could be modelled given the technological resources available to us today. I used to read that kind of book when I was a lad, so I can understand why the kids were interested. The kids were fascinated and the library downloaded a copy of both stories onto its computer system that made them available for the kids to read. As a result many of them started to read Heinlein’s teenage series and Eolwaen’s stories for those of all ages, the latter mostly concern matters of identity with a lot of LGBTP stuff threwn in.”

Elle nodded and said, “I heard about it from Alicia who teaches the ten year olds at the school. She’s telt Jill the librarienne to make sure all her part time staff understand that from a Bearthwaite point of view, which she maintains is little different from that of an enlightened school teacher of years gone by before cancel culture took schools over, ’twould be sensible to make anything the children wish to read is as widely available as possible. She also said that she’s all for anything that has kids reading, and she was certain that I and the rest of the Ownership Committee who will be authorising the payments for the licences for the Heinlein copyrighted materials will be too. She certainly had that correct.

“Jill said she had read all of Eolwaen’s internet published materials and she appeared to live in north west Cumbria somewhere. Jill also said that Eolwaen had stated many times in many places that all her material is copyright free, other folk just aren’t allowed to profit from it. Much more to the point, she has repeatedly written, that anything that encourages tolerance of folk who are different has to be a good thing for all.

“Alicia reckons that from our point of view that tolerance is the essence of what makes Bearthwaite folk what they are. She wishes the kids to be encouraged to read anything they wish to, but, and it is a big but mind, she said we must make sure that anything they wish explanations and understanding of they are provided with explanations and understanding of that are age appropriate. She suggested that those explanations are provided by both men and women, not just teachers, for that will provide different explanations, all necessary for our girls and boys to achieve a balanced view. I would add that the views of those who do not see themselves in terms of a binary model of society are equally as important. We need all the intelligence and insight available to us, and that means providing the children with all the intelligence and insight available to us ready for when they become the Bearthwaite adults of the future.”

Sasha smiled and said, “The viewpoints of the entire spectrum of Bearthwaite folk are all of equal importance and should our young folk be missing some of them they will have a skewed point of view which would be almost as bad as having no point of view, for it has little to offer without the balance offered by what they are missing, and, this is the crux of the matter, without balance on the part of our future generations eventually the views and power of the outsiders shall prevail over our attempts to control our own lives. If and only if we use one hundred percent of our intellect, and more importantly our insight, shall we prevail against the outsiders in that struggle, for they only accept a classically regarded male view as of importance and of value. We can easily prevail on any issue against them if we use all our available intellectual resources. It may seem strange to many of us, but our male viewpoint though different from theirs is no more powerful, so if that were all we pitted against them there would be a stalemate at best. However, all their other viewpoints they ignore as worthless. Therein lies our strength, for as long as we consider our entire society’s viewpoints to be of equal value we have a major advantage and thus we shall be able to repulse their attempts to control our lives.”

~o~O~o~

1. Down bank, down hill, a deteriorating situation.
2. Stagecoach Group is a transport group based in Perth, Scotland. It operates buses, express coaches and a tram services in the UK.
3. Bearthwaite Lonning Ends, the end of Bearthwaite Lonning where it met the main road. Lonning a Cumbrian dialectal word that means a lane.
4. Beck, a small river or stream.
5. Bean counters, a semi pejorative term for accountants.
6. Asses, he means arses in English English. Asses in English English are donkeys.
7. An ass in English English is a donkey. An arse in English English is what the US English speakers refers to as an ass.
8. Backend, refers to the back end of the year, autumn. [US fall].
9. Chemic, a colloquial term for spirits, probably derived from the word chemical.
10 .Tekin, vernacular taking.
11. 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.
12. Jill, a female ferret or polecat.
13. Hob, a male ferret or polecat.
14. Grasslot, an out lying part of Maryport, a port town on the Cumbrian coast.
15. Sniffing, used thus it indicates a male shewing interest in a female. The word is used thus for male animals and humans, though it is not quite polite when used in connection with humans.
16. New Zealand White a popular strain of rabbit to keep for meat in the UK. The New Zealand, which despite the name, is American in origin. The breed originated in California, possibly from rabbits imported from New Zealand.
17. Traditionally the weight of pigs were quoted by the score, i.e. in multiples of twenty pounds, [9Kg], so a 14-15 score pig weighs 280-300 pounds, [127-136Kg]. This is now rather old fashioned but it is still in use in conversation in many areas.
18. Butching, present participle of to butch, vernacular for to butcher.
19. Tek, vernacular take.
20. Hunger in this context starve or deprive of food.
21 The Lakes, vernacular for the Lake district in Cumbria.
22. The Lake district is like New Zealand, humans are out numbered hundreds if not thousands to one by sheep, the raising of which is the major industry of the region.
23. Zanussi, a major global manufacturer of domestic appliances.
24. A reference to Esau and Jacob Genesis 25:27-34. The spelling of lentiles is as in the King James Version.
25. LEA, Local Education Authority.
26. Neeps, Swedish turnips, swedes or rutabaga depending where you come from.
27. Tatties, potatoes.
28. Teken, vernacular taken.
29. Rabbie Burns, the familiar name of Robert Burns, (25th of January 1759 – 21st of July 1796) was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide, especially by the Burns suppers referred to above on January the 25th. Burns suppers have an internationally accepted formal structure and to those who celebrate them are a matter of considerable importance.
30. Beasts, in this context cattle, beef.
31. Basht tatties, mashed potatoes.
32. Volunteer, in this context a plant that was not deliberately planted. Often in the case of potatoes a plant growing from a tuber that was missed at the harvest the year before.
33. Potato cyst nematodes are tiny worms There are two species of potato cyst nematode that affect potatoes, tomatoes and many other species of closely related solanum plants most of which are not cultivated and considered to be ‘weeds’, like the poisonous Deadly nightshade Atropa belladonna and the slightly less toxic Bittersweet or Woody nightshade Solanum dulcamara, though a few are cultivated but rarely in the UK. Globodera rostochiensis known as the the golden nematode, golden eelworm or yellow potato cyst nematode forms yellow cysts in summer. Globodera pallida known as the white cyst eelworm forms white cysts summer. The cysts of both species turn brown as they mature.
34. The King Edward potato is a main crop potato. In the UK it is traditionally planted in April for harvest in September. It is suitable to be grown both commercially and in allotments. It is very resistant to common scab and offers some resistance to potato blight but is susceptible to potato cyst nematode.
35. Decoy plants, wild nightshades like Solanum sisymbriifolium are resistant to eelworms since the cell walls are too rough for them to penetrate. However, they are closely related to potatoes and tomatoes and they also put out the chemical that induces eelworm cyst hatching, but the nematodes starve to death.
36. Eggs, strictly they are cysts.
37. Jeyes fluid, a disinfectant patented in 1887. It contains 5-10% para chloro meta cresol, 5-10% poly alkyl phenols, 1-2½% propan 2 ol and 2½-5% turpineol for fragrance. It is predominantly used for removing bacteria, while gardeners have found it effective at cleaning paths, patios, greenhouses, driveways, and drains - particularly of moss. With cautious use, it can also remove weeds.
38. Stitches, allotment growers refer to a row of plants, especially potatoes, as a stitch.
39. Porridge, time in prison.
40. White van man. Most local deliveries in the UK are done using white vans. White van man is a term used for the drivers of such delivery vans whatever their colour. It is often, but not always, a pejorative term because of the poor and reckless driving of many such drivers.
41. Chinglish, a portmanteau word derived from Chinese and English. It’s used to describe the sort of writing you find in manuals of things from China and similar places. The sort of writing that’s either been done by a rather poor piece of translation software, or more likely by a Chinese speaker whose only acquaintanceship with English is via a dictionary and a thesaurus and who uses Chinese grammar to string the individual, mostly inappropriate, words together.
42. Auld, old.
43. Full of arms and legs, a vernacular expression for being pregnant. It is only used by men.
44. Frames, the bones left over after a fish has been filleted.
45. Maglev, (derived from magnetic levitation), is a system of train transportation that uses two sets of electromagnets: one set to repel and push the train up off the track, and another set to move the elevated train ahead, taking advantage of the lack of friction.

A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 42 Adoption, Education and Death

~o~O~o~

Petra, who thought of himself as Peter, was an eleven year old trans boy from a hamlet not far from Mousehole in Cornwall who was despised and abused by his family, especially his father. Eventually he’d been so badly hurt by his father that after collapsing at school he’d been taken by ambulance to hospital where he stayed for several weeks with numerous serious skeletal injuries including a dozen broken ribs, two of which had punctured his lungs. Along with his twin sister, Brigitte, he’d been taken into care by ‘Together for Families’, which was the official name of the children’s services of Cornwall Council. Because they’d said the only person they trusted was each other so refused to be separated, and they’d said they would run away should separation even be considered the Social workers were looking for foster parents who would take them both preferably with adoption in the short term in mind. The Social workers managed to keep the twins together in foster care, but it was only a short term placement, for the carers were not looking to adopt. The twins had no caring relatives and had said they had no friends they would miss.

When asked how they would feel about moving a long way away from Cornwall, which had a distinct and unique Celtic culture including its own language, Brigitte had replied the further away they went the better as long as her brother was safe. At that their Social worker telt them about the NCSG(1) organisation that all Social Service departments had access to that covered the entire British Isles, not just the UK. She warned them that an offer of a safe, permanent home would be almost certain within a week, but it could be anywhere in the British Isles including the Scottish Highlands and Islands, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and Eire, the last two of which were not a part of the UK. Brigitte said again it would be okay and they would be happy wherever they went as long as Peter was safe.

The NCSG organisation immediately put Harriet and Gustav forward as suitable parents, but the logistics of setting up compatibility meetings with over five hundred miles separating the children and Bearthwaite were difficult. Gustav, asked the Cornish Social workers over the phone if it would be acceptable for Cumbrian Social workers to manage the introductions in Cumbria. Together for Families wasn’t happy, but its case workers accepted that it was probably the best that could be done under the circumstances and started talking about rail versus road journeys. Gustav said that was ridiculous and he and Harriet would pay for the children to fly from Bristol to Newcastle upon Tyne if Cornish Social workers saw the children onto the plane and Cumbrian Social workers collected them off it. He added if things didn’t go well they’d pay for them to return the same way and if accommodations were required he would provide whatever rooms were required at the Green Dragon for the children and their Social worker escort. The three way Zoom conversation was a much less painful affair than he and Harriet had anticipated. Harriet said afterwards, “I think it went so smoothly because the two sets of Social workers didn’t want to be seen disagreeing with each other in front of us.” Gustav merely nodded suspecting Harriet was right.

Gustav arranged for and prepaid for a taxi from the children’s short term foster home in Penzance to Bristol airport, whence they flew to Newcastle airport. He’d also engaged a limousine to take the two Social workers and Harriet and himself to the airport to collect the children and their luggage and then return all of them to Bearthwaite. The children arrived excited, nervous and tired. Harriet was upset at how little they had in the way of clothing and personal possessions. After introductions, Gustav asked the children how their journey had been. Brigitte who seemed to do most of the talking for both of them replied, “Three and a half hours to drive a hundred and eighty miles from Penzance to Bristol, just over an hour to fly three hundred and fifty miles from Bristol to Newcastle and an hour to drive forty miles from Newcastle to Bearthwaite. I looked it all up on the internet at school. I don’t think we’ve taken it all in yet. Is it always this cold here?”

Harriet replied, “It’s warmer at Bearthwaite than here. However, it will be colder than what you are used to, but we’ll buy some warmer clothes for you soon. If you like I can ask one of the women who knit for a living to make you Nordic yoked jumpers. The patterns run all the way around them and match those on the sleeves too. They are knitted on a single flexible knitting needle with points at each end and are popular with children of your age because children from outside Bearthwaite know how expensive they are in the shops. It’s a status thing.” Seeing a look of apprehension cross the children’s faces and correctly interpreting it she added, “But don’t worry. The ones knitted at Bearthwaite only cost so much to outsiders. Louise won’t charge me anywhere near that. Many of the patterns are traditional centuries old ones and the wool used is always from our own flocks. If any of the children at school see you wearing one they’ll know you’re from Bearthwaite.” Deliberately changing the subject, Harriet asked, “Are you hungry? If you are we can eat before we go home.”

Brigitte turned to look at Peter who shook his head. She replied, “No thank you. We’d rather go and see where we are going to. Will we have to share a room? We did at the last place.”

Gustav replied gently to that, “No. You’re far too old a girl to share a room with your brother. You know that we keep a inn?” There were nods. “It’s more like a hotel. We have forty-five going on forty-eight rooms depending on how we arrange them. Like parts of Cornwall we are a popular tourist destination, but at this time of the year we don’t have many guests, so the Green Dragon is a bit quiet at the moment and there are a lot of rooms available, but it becomes busy over the summer.”

One of the Social workers seeing how well things were going said, “You seem to have organised everything to run like clockwork, Mr Meltzer.”

Gustav grinned and replied, “But of course. I’m German. Organisation is what we’re known for.”

Peter spoke for the first time. “If you are German shouldn’t that be Herr Meltzer? I was learning German at school. What does Meltzer mean?”

Gustav smiled and said, “Indeed it should be Herr Meltzer, but I don’t make an issue of it, and Frau Harriet Meltzer doesn’t sound very natural does it? Meltzer means maltster, someone who turns barley into malt for making beer or whisky. My mother and three brothers own and run a large inn just outside München, that’s Munich in Bavaria, called der Kupfer Braukessel which means the Copper Brew Kettle. My family have run the inn for many generations, and a long time ago the beer was brewed on the premises. All the beer making equipment from there is now in my brewery at Bearthwaite which makes the beer selt in the Green Dragon. So now I truly am a Meltzer.”

“What is selt? And how come you are not over in Germany, Herr Meltzer?”

“Selt is the word locals use for sold, Brigitte. There are a number of words you’ll hear that will be unfamiliar to you that are only used this far north. The dialect here is heavily influenced by Nordic, that is old Scandinavian speech, for the Vikings had a long history here a long time ago that still lives on in the way we speak. Some of the hill shepherds here speak a dialect called High Fell that is so Norse that few inside Cumbria and none outside Cumbria can understand them. They even have their own numbers used for counting sheep. I only know up to ten but they go up to twenty and are slightly different in just about every area. Yan, tan, tethera, methera, pimp, sethera, lethera, hovera, dovera, dick is what I know cos that’s what the Bearthwaite shepherds use. However, they can communicate with the Scandinavian sailors, who are mostly Norwegian or Icelandic, that put in to Cumbrian ports. There are a goodly number of shepherds who live in the Bearthwaite valley, but they spend most of their lives up on the fells with their flocks. Whereas, as I understand it, the dialect in Cornwall is heavily influenced by older Celtic words, which is essentially what comprises Kernowek.(2) Gustav finished learning his English here, so he speaks the Cumbrian version of English too. He went to university in Glasgow which is in Scotland, about a hundred and fifty miles north of home, and he is still here because he met me and decided to stay. His selt his share of der Kupfer Braukessel to his brothers and he invested a lot of the money into the Dragon and his brewery. If you don’t want anything to eat I suggest we find the taxi to get out of the cold and go home. We brought some snacks which are in the car. There’re are some cartons of fruit juice too.”

The twins were quietly impressed that Harriet had taken the trouble to learn all that about whence they came. “Wow! A limo with a chauffeur. Why? And what are the fells?”

“Well, Peter. We expected you to have a lot more luggage, and actually it’s a chauffeuse, a lady driver.” Seeing the looks on the children’s faces, looks indicating they felt they had disappointed and let the couple down Harriet smiled brightly and said, “Don’t worry about it. Mum and I enjoy shopping. We’ll probably use the village bus to go on a shopping safari with other women and girls from Bearthwaite to Carlisle or Workington where I’ll try to spend all of Gustav’s money again. Peter, I can see that the idea of a shopping spree with a load of women and girls doesn’t exactly fill you with joy. So how about we see what we can find on Ebay for you some time? because you need more clothes. Bearthwaite isn’t in the arctic, but you do need some clothes that are warmer than what you are wearing. Okay? Oh, and lastly before I forget, the fells is the Cumbrian word for the hills that surround where most of the folk here live. I imagine they are a bit like the moors of Cornwall and Devon, higher land with a lot of rock that is mostly grazed by sheep.”

Peter smiled and nodded before saying, “Thank you. I’m not into shopping.”

There wasn’t much conversation in the car till they reached the Bearthwaite Lonning Ends when Harriet said, “Once we turn off the main road here we are on Bearthwaite Lonning. A lonning is a lane. Bearthwaite Lonning is a private road on private land that belongs to all the folk of Bearthwaite. All the land on both sides of the road as far as the fences at the foot of the slopes going up to the fells is owned by the Bearthwaite residents. The beginning of the village isn’t quite nine miles away from here. That water you can see coming out of the large pipes in front of us off to our right is from the pumps that take flood water off the road the other side of the hill in front of us that we go over in a minute. The Bearthwaite valley proper starts on the other side of the small hill which we call The Rise.” Harriet and Gustav explained at length about the floods and how the Bearthwaite residents coped with them by using a combination of the pumps and the newly refitted covered boat, The Bearthwaite Queen. Gustav laughed as he telt the children Bearthwaite Queen was also the name of a popular locally bred and grown variety of potato. That conversation lasted till they reached the Green Dragon.

The young male case worker who had come from Birmingham in the Midlands listened in amazement to the explanations the children were being given. The case worker who had grown up in Cumbria doubly so, for few outsiders were given so much information and what they were given most didn’t believe. Bearthwaite folk had a reputation in the county for being clannishly different, at least a century behind the times and it was believed by many, without evidence, that they were so highly interbred that most of the folk who lived in the valley never left it for they were simple. Titillating tales of generations of incest were commonplace. In fact though it was true to say that Bearthwaite folk were clannish, different and that in many ways they held to older social values, it was anything but true to say they were highly interbred. For well over a millennia the valley had been a pack pony route and the traders had always brought fresh blood to the valley along with their goods, often courtesy of the facilities offered at the Green Dragon, and many over the years had settled there with a local girl. Since those days, civil engineers and the men who’d worked creating the reservoir, quarry and mill workers from outside and most recently visitors had provided the Bearthwaite folk with a far wider gene pool than most of the county could boast. In the last two decades the practice of deliberately attracting suitable outsiders with desirable skills and knowledge had brought not just fresh blood but wealth too.

As the party of six stepped out of the car outside the Green Dragon they were greeted by Gladys and Pete. “My mum and dad. If you decide to stay they’ll be your gran and granddad,” was how Harriet made the introductions. Gladys hugged the children and kissed their foreheads. Pete kissed Brigitte and smiled as he held his hand out for Peter to shake. Peter was more than grateful for the masculine treatment though he said nothing.

Pete said, “I’ll shew you to your room, Peter, and your gran can escort your sister to hers. The two rooms are on parallel corridors not quite opposite each other. We gave you those because they have en suite bathrooms. We’ll have someone fetch your luggage in a few minutes. We’ll be eating dinner in the family dining room in about an hour. There are some snacks and fruit juice cartons in your rooms. When you’re ready just walk down the corridors towards the rear of the building where we’ll be. Okay?”

The Social workers were talking to Harriet and Gustav. The senior of the two, the Cumbrian woman, said, “That went much better than we considered likely or even possible. Obviously we’ve never met the children before, but we’ve read their notes and they make for grim reading. Pet―” She recovered herself from the partial use of Peter’s dead name quickly, but not quickly enough to avoid Harriet noticing, “Peter still has most of the bruises and the broken bones are still mending and so will not be allowed to take part in games or gym at school till a doctor signs off on the injuries. Once the adoption has gone through a copy of the notes will be given to you. Harriet, I suggest that Gustav reads them first and decides if you really should read them, for you seem to be sensitive to such matters. I will tell you now that both their parents are heavily into drugs, drink and debauchery and both are violent. It’s a miracle the children are alive. They’ll both go to gaol, but they’ll not be there for long and doubtless when they are released it’ll be business as usual. Fortunately they only had the two children.”

Harriet had noted dispassionately that neither of the Social workers had yet used he, him or his when referring to Peter since their meeting at the airport. She was now incensed by the case worker’s misnaming Peter Petra, for it telt her everything she wished to know about the case worker’s attitudes to the transgender. However, she gave nothing away considering that was information best saved till it could be used to maximum effect, for it would have been documented by her lapel recorder. Laughing a dry bitter laugh Harriet said, “If there had been any case notes on me I doubt very much if they’d have made any easier reading than Peter’s. You already know Dad adopted me and that I was his eldest brother’s youngest child. He was a monster who brutalised me, but to be honest I ran away as much from Social Services as from him. To a fourteen fifteen year old you have a poor image and a worse track record. That’s why I lived on the streets of Manchester till I was old enough for you to have no say in my life before I contacted Dad. Anyway, that’s water under the bridge. I shall talk to the children, but I want them seen by our local doctor and one of our local dentists. As regards that sort of thing I only trust folk whom I know well.”

The Social workers considered it wisest not to respond to Harriet’s condemnation of Social Services, and one asked, “There’s a doctor here? and dentists? Much of Cumbria is surviving on locums.”

“Yes. Sun is a good doctor who trained in a major London hospital and we have a married pair of dentists. Beth in is the last trimester of her pregnancy, so she is only working part time, but Tony works full time. I want the children to have settled in for at least a fortnight before going to school at Whiteport Academy. That will give them enough time to get to know and be known by all the other local children who attend there too which will give them the protection they will need. They speak differently which will make them targets for the bullies to have a go at, but no child there under the protection of the Bearthwaite kids will suffer more than verbal abuse, and wearing a locally produced Nordic jumper will keep the thugs off them for fear of retribution. Changing the subject, I would like to point out that I have noticed that as yet neither of you have referred to Peter using he, him or his. I’m not making a big issue of it, but it’s glaringly obvious and some would consider that to be an offensive discriminatory stance. I’m glad your use of his dead name did not take place in front of either of the children. That was totally unacceptable coming from a Social Worker. I suggest it doesn’t happen again.” Harriet’s voice was chill and she’d been thinking it may have been better had they covered the expense of the Cornish Social workers to come north and then return, for they had seemed to be far more tolerant that the Cumbrian Social workers, but it was too late for that now.

The Cumbrian case workers had always known that all conversations with Harriet and Gustav were recorded, for they had always openly worn lapel recorders. Too, they knew that there were records of all communications both paper and electronic, but that was the point that drove it home that they needed to be more careful in their dealings with the couple who had yet again wrong footed them. Some time ago they had insisted that Harriet and Gustav remove the recorders. The couple had refused and then and there Gustav had contacted the local director of Social services who had informed her case workers they had no right to insist their interactions were not video recorded. When they had returned to their office they had been reprimanded and asked, “What do you have to hide? If that you insisted that records of your meetings were not kept became public you and the entire service would be castigated by the media and accused by inference of all sorts of things. The best I can do is equip you with recorders too, so if there is any doubt as to what was said or done we will have our own evidence.”

Recently the case workers involved had been made aware that Harriet and Gustav had far more money at their disposal than they had realised and moreover that they would be prepared to use however much it took to achieve what they desired. Like a lot of Social workers they were used to being able to ride rough shod over their clients whenever it suited them and they resented that they were dealing with an intelligent couple with more money and more influence than they had at their disposal. A couple who gave them every politeness but no deference which stuck in their gullets. When they were telt that Professor Sasha Vetrov, a local multi billionaire who lived at Bearthwaite, regarded Harriet’s mother as his daughter and Harriet as a granddaughter they’d been shaken badly.

Mrs Beattie, the extremely intelligent and enlightened new local Social Services director, had been appointed to bring the department up to date in order to avoid any further cases like the recent spate of cases that had seriously tarnished its reputation. Mrs Beattie had dealt with the case workers over the matter of the recorders, and had telt them weeks ago, after what had been for them a particularly difficult conversation with Harriet and Gustav because they were not used to being treated as no more than equals, “It is obvious to me that if you upset them, or worse if in their opinion you upset their prospective child or children, this couple will clearly go to war against you with a weekly budget that is hundreds if not millions of times your annual budget. They are considered by the NCSG to be ideal parents for troubled trans children who need a new life. Children who will need them much more than they need us. Part of our job, which we are paid to do out of the public’s tax money, is to match children in need of families with those families. We need that couple, they do not need us, for they are wealthy enough to adopt from abroad which would leave us still to find homes for any children they could have adopted here. Our job is difficult enough without you making it more so. I suggest you settle your hackles back down, for you have nothing against them other than that they have a vastly bigger budget than yours and rightly they will not accept your word as gospel. I don’t, so why should they. As I see it they clearly have children’s interests as their priority and if anything ends up in court you will be crucified and lose.

“That couple will doubtless take anything to court if they consider it in the interests of a child to do so, and it won’t be a local magistrate you can intimidate who will hand down the final judgement it would be at the least be a high court judge. If I am called to testify as doubtless their solicitor would insist on I should have to say that I agree with them. Their solicitor is by the bye reputed to be one of the best in the county and far more astute than anyone we can afford. She lives at Bearthwaite and from what I can gather would do the work gratis for she is trans too and in a relationship with a local man. I suggest you realise in advance that if you ask me to protect you from the witness box to do so I would have to suppress some of the paperwork and commit perjury which is subject to a ten year gaol sentence, and for what? Even if it worked, which I doubt, all it would shew is that your subjective opinion were better than someone else’s. No thank you. I’m not prepared to protect your dubious and I consider fallacious opinions and your egos too at the risk of my freedom.

“I suggest you start to realise you are Social workers not gods. However, it’s your decision, but if you lose a court case I’ll fire you for incompetence. Even if you win I may fire you for bringing the department into disrepute by subjecting any child involved to the stress of it all. I’ve studied all the paperwork and I agree with NCSG, who are notoriously impartial and completely free of prejudice which is why they can provide parents for children no matter what their issues are, this couple are perfect, and Harriet obviously will understand a trans child far better than you or I ever could. NCSG provide us all with solutions to our most thorny problems. The price we pay for that is that they are completely independent and under the control of nobody but themselves. They offer solutions and having asked for their assistance it is up to Social Service departments to either accept or reject what they offer. Of course if we reject what they offer and the lives of the children involved suffer that they won’t hesitate to go up against us in court is the risk we take, and I’m not going there. That the Meltzers won’t kowtow to you as superior beings whose views are of greater significance than theirs does not justify your attitudes to them. If anything I would suggest it indicates that they will be good, and by that I mean protective, parents. I suggest you start treating them with the respect they deserve. If you don’t you will the ones who get hurt at the end of it all. I also suggest you forget all the nonsense that flies about the county and beyond concerning Bearthwaite folk, for it is clearly based on what is nothing more than xenophobic jealousy.” Harriet pulling them up concerning their lack appropriate pronoun usage had brought what their director had said to them weeks ago back to the front of their minds. Given their views they were on their own. The new brush that was Mrs Beattie was sweeping exceedingly clean.

~o~

The children had moved five hundred miles north from Mousehole to the border with Scotland, physically from a warm, mild, welcoming climate to a cold and occasionally bleak and bitter one, but socially and emotionally they had made the trip the other way round. Fifteen minutes after meeting Harriet and Gustav they knew they would, for the first time in their lives, be safe from adult abuse and they had rapidly started taking up the values that would make Bearthwaite folk of them. That first evening when Harriet telt them that she was trans all vestiges of their remaining doubts as to the genuineness of the love their new parents wished to unconditionally give them disappeared. When she’d asked them what their birthday was, Brigitte had said, “August the first. Why?”

Harriet had replied, “Excellent. That gives you plenty of time to get to know all the local children before the party. I suggest a huge party in the Dragon dance hall, for not just you two but for myself and your dad too, to celebrate not just your twelfth birthday but you coming to live here too. You’ll have lived here for several months by then, so we’ll have a small party as soon as you have made some friends here as well.”

The Social workers called at Bearthwaite from time to time, sometimes announced, often not, sometimes one of them, sometimes both of them. They were a little irritated that Harriet and Gustav didn’t always know where the children were. However, on one occasion Gustav had said, “We wish to be the parents of a couple of eleven year olds not their gaoler. At that age they need to be allowed some freedom in order to develop into well balanced adults. I did. Can’t you remember that far back? As they grow they’ll need more and more till they need no more, for by then they will have become masters of their own destiny, and I have no intention of constraining their behaviour in such a way as to prevent the development of themselves that they are entitled too.” The Social worker was taken aback yet again by Gustav’s command of English and his amazing vocabulary both of which were, notwithstanding his obvious Bavarian accent, much better than hers. “Peter I last saw with Dad going fishing. I don’t know where, and I didn’t ask. He’ll be perfectly safe with Dad and enjoys the company of his grandfather, for it’s probably less intense than mine. After all I’m just his father, but Dad is his friend. Brigitte said she and some friends were going to make sure some of our older residents, mostly grandparents of her friends, were okay and do any errands they needed doing. After that they were going to their friend Ally’s house to try on some new clothes. She’s probably still there. If she’s stopping to eat there Bella Ally’s mum will tell her to ring home to let us know.” The Social worker realised she had no cogent argument to retort with and backed off knowing the entire conversation had been recorded.

~o~

Peter found his niche in life when he discovered the activities of the Bearthwaite Model Train Society and was particularly interested in the history and modelling of the Solway Junction Railway viaduct. He spent hours poring over old photographs and accounts of it’s construction and use and ultimate demise due to ice and corrosion damage. When he’d been ratching(3) on the internet for ways to scratch build bridges from photographic and written records he’d come across the three swing bridges at Warrington that were over the Manchester Ship Canal. Further ratching discovered the Warrington high level bridge and the two M6 motorway bridges that formed the mile long Thelwall viaduct that were over the ship canal and the river Mersey, but he considered he’d hit the jackpot when he discovered the two swing bridges at Barton over the ship canal. Side by side were a road bridge carrying the B5211 and a canal bridge carrying the Bridgewater Canal. He saved all the data and web addresses and made all the notes he considered necessary. When he next met Jeremy he asked if working models of the two swing bridges could be incorporated into the proposed layout. Jeremy had looked at all of Peter’s information and agreed that it would indeed be an excellent, if challenging, task to make working models complete with moving ships, barges, boats, and motor vehicles.

Jeremy had paused a few seconds and added, “There is a modeller on You tube called Patrick McFarlan, Ranoak is the name of his layout, who has modelled several amazing animated scenic mechanisms including the Falkirk wheel,(4) a wind turbine, a vampire villa, a ride on lawnmower, a lift bridge that takes a road over a canal and a level crossing, all of which are on one video. He gives some technical details of the mechanisms and their suppliers too.” Jeremy had opined that given the space in the mill they had at their disposal they could have at least one distinctly themed area between the two currently projected areas, those being the Silloth on Solway scene and the science fiction futuristic scene, and the ship canal bridges scene, which historically was between them, could be one of them. Jeremy was pleased that so many of the children were so creative, for it looked like their layout would be one of the best.

At school Peter was naturally enough asked why he wasn’t allowed to do games or gym, “I was involved in a bad accident, broken legs, arms, busted ribs, jaw, cracked skull and fractured pelvis. I have to have monitoring xrays every month and the doctors say it’ll be at least six months maybe a full year before I’m allowed to do anything other than walk. I’m not even supposed to run which is a pain, and as for climbing trees Mum would kill me if she found out I’d been doing that.” Naturally enough it was assumed the accident was a car crash, and the Bearthwaite kids who knew the truth kept it to themselves.

One of Peter’s classmates from Whiteport who knew he was adopted said, “Kinda cool getting a new granddad with the same name as yours isn’t it? Better than me at any rate. I get called Little Dave cos my dad is Dave too. Still it could be worse, he could have been named Richard. Even being called Little Dave is better than being called Little Dick.” He laught and continued, “I don’t suppose my old man would object to being called Big Dick though.” The two laughing boys made their way to their history lesson and were still laughing as they sat down. Eventually it became known that Peter was trans. Most of the kids had heard of trans girls, but had never considered that there could be trans boys too. There was a deal of name calling resulting from that, but after the first serious beating by forces unknown of the most vociferous bigot, an overweight fifteen year old who went by the nickname of Porky, behind the dining hall even the name calling diminished to almost nothing. The entire school knew the Bearthwaite kids had to have been responsible, but they were as closed mouthed about the matter as they always were about any incident that protected their own and as usual the school authorities were frustrated by finding out nothing, for Dean, Porky’s real name, had clearly been terrorised into silence and stuck to his story that he’d seen nobody. The rumour was that he’d been telt if he opened his mouth he’d be the next transgender victim of the gossip and he wouldn’t be needing GRS because it would already have been done for him, but none knew if that were true or just scuttlebutt.

Imogen a reasonable girl from Whiteport said, “I wish I had friends that would look after me like that. Anyone who upsets one of the Bearthwaite kids is bonkers, you take one of them on and you take all of them on, and there’s no reason to, cos they’re all decent kids, and none of them are bullies. Whoever did it did right, for Porky had it coming, and I notice he keeps to himself now. I heard he was threatened with much worse if he didn’t leave the little kids alone. The Bearthwaite kids aren’t going to change, cos they don’t care if they get expelled. They know they can be home schooled just like they are when they can’t get to school when their road floods. I heard that Bearthwaite is going to set up its own secondary school and they won’t be coming here after that which will be rubbish, cos I like them and they do sort the idiots out which makes things better for all the rest of us. Lara my science practicals partner is from Bearthwaite and she’s really nice.”

It took Peter much longer than his sister to settle in at Bearthwaite, and more particularly to get used to the idea that everyone there, adult and child, accepted him as a boy. It took Violet who was three years older than him the best part of ten months to obtain her first kiss off him. They travelled to school together, but what bonded them was their shared interest in the Model Railway Society, though Violet was particularly interested in the Silloth on Solway railway station and its sidings, both lost to the Beeching(5) axe decades before. Violet was also interested in modelling the nearby grade two listed building that was the Silloth Convalescent home, now a nursing home though still named the Convalescent home and referred to by locals as the Convo, which was built a hundred and fifty years before far out onto the dunes. She had hundreds of photos of the building and its environs taken over its entire history and was planning on a combination of kit bashing(6) and scratch building(7) her model. She laughingly referred to it as bit scrashing(8) which was a jumbled up portmanteau expression she had coined herself.

The Convo had had its own railway station(9) used for injured soldiers to arrive at from the First World War in need of its care. Violet was aware men from Bearthwaite had been cared for there. It had also taken women workers who’d suffered accidents in the huge (nine miles long with two created townships and its own transport system) Gretna munitions factory on the other side of the Solway in Scotland. At one time the Convalescent home had had its own dance hall though that had been converted into extra rooms for the residents some somewhere round twenty oh five. An outsider who had moved into the area a few years before had agreed to remove the Canadian red oak flooring from the dance hall in exchange for the flooring and it was rumoured to have been reused in his huge, centuries old, local house that had been completely modernised over the last twenty years. Violet’s interest in modelling the huge World War Two RAF airfield and the many aircraft hangers associated with it that had covered thousands of hectares [1 hectare = 2½ acres] of farm land with concrete and tarmac was because she was aware men from Bearthwaite had served there. She had done paper and card mock ups of the hangers and had been more that satisfied with the results.

~o~

Brigitte although too young to legally work was interested in the allotments, the kitchens and silver service waitressing in the Green Dragon, the last two of which all at Bearthwaite made sure Social Services were not aware of. It was no problem to them, for they had been covering for hundreds, if not thousands, of children who wished to do what outsiders would consider to be the illegal exploitation of juveniles for decades. Many of the younger adults remembered well when they had been so covered for, and their attitude was that if the kids were interested and wished to gain what schools would call work experience what right had any to prevent them just because they were being paid, which was considered only right and proper. Brigitte spent most of her spare time at the allotments helping Johnto. Johnto was an elderly allotmenteer who, as well as growing his own variety of potatoes which were reputed to be the best available for chips [US fries], had heated greenhouses and focussed on semi tropical fruit and vegetables. She was delighted when the Bearthwaite Lonning became impassable for the first time after her moving north due to flooding because it meant she and her family were safe from the surprise visits by Social workers if she helped in the kitchen and waited on tables in her free time. Both she and her brother were given a generous allowance that was completely independent of whatever help they provided, so she didn’t consider that she was working. She was merely doing what she enjoyed and would have bitterly resented it if she had been prevented from doing so.

Brigitte had enjoyed helping Christine make and jar marmalade which was traditionally made early in the year when the bitter Seville oranges became available. A number of different marmalades were made not all of which used Sevilles. Christine’s intention had been to lay down a year’s supply for the village and Brigitte had enjoyed designing the labels with help from Eli who had taught her and some of her friends how to use design software to create them. Eli had printed them onto laser cut coloured sheets of sticky label paper and Brigitte and Ron, who was in the year above her at school had stuck them onto the jars. It had been only a matter of a month before she became on kissing terms with Ron, a shy twelve year old Bearthwaite boy whose major free time activity also involved the allotments where he helped his granddad and dad grow herbs and early season forced rhubarb as well as main crop summer rhubarb. They both intended to help Christine canning considerable quantities of the forced rhubarb as soon as it became available and were looking forward to jam, pickle and relish making later in the year. They were already designing the labels.

~o~

The children had been with Harriet and Gustav for six weeks when Peter said after dinner, “Mum, Dad, I have something I want to tell you, but I don’t want you to tell the Social workers. I know you don’t like them. I can tell. If you won’t promise not to tell them I’ll leave it till after the adoption then it won’t matter any more, but I’d rather tell you now, Mum.”

Harriet looked at Gustav who gave the barest nod of his head. She then said, “I think I know what you mean. I can promise and your dad will too, but if your father raped you, Peter, you need to see a doctor and no doctor would promise. The law doesn’t allow them to.”

Peter started to cry, but stammered through his tears, “No. No, but he said he was going to rape me till he got me pregnant to teach me a lesson for being such an unnatural pervert, but we were taken away before he touched me. He was going to. Him beating me up and putting me in hospital was all that saved me. It sounds mental, but I think I got lucky. I used to have nightmares about it every night, but I haven’t had one for a week now. If you don’t believe me, Brigitte was there when he said what he was going to do to me.”

The children had rarely referred to their father, and as far as Harriet and Gustav were aware had never referred to their mother. When the children referred to their father they invariably referred to him by pronouns only. “I, we that is, believe you, Love, but why don’t you wish us to say anything. We promised and will keep that promise, but don’t you want him punished?”

Brigitte answered, “Yes, but neither of us want to have to face him in court. We’d rather just forget him. He threatened to do the same to me if either of us ever said anything. We know he can’t get to us now, but we talked about it and about telling you and we decided we wanted to tell you, but we’d rather just forget about it now that you know. The Social workers would make us go to court wouldn’t they?”

Gustav said, “Almost certainly, and if you refused they would probably claim we were manipulating you and take you away from us. So we do understand, and if it makes you happier to just leave it, then just leave it.”

Harriet said, “They are bullies really and that’s why I don’t like them. When I ran away from my father Bert, who was Dad’s eldest brother, I went to Manchester and lived on the streets. I knew I could have contacted Dad and he would have taken me in, but I was frightened of what the Social workers would do to me if they found out, so I didn’t contact Dad till I was sixteen when they couldn’t do anything to me. Once the adoption goes through if you feel differently about it all you need to do is say so and we’ll support you no matter what you decide. The Social workers will not be able to take you away from us then. Now changing the subject to something pleasanter, it’s a school day tomorrow, so I suggest you make sure you are fully prepared and that includes doing any homework that you haven’t yet done. Okay? Or have you anything else to tell us?”

“No, Mum, nothing else. We have some geography to finish, but that’s not my idea of pleasanter.”

~o~

The Social workers had soon realised after Brigitte and Peter had gone to live at Bearthwaite that Bearthwaite, although a strangely different environment they were not familiar with and didn’t understand at all, was a place where Brigitte and Peter were thriving under the care of their new family, and their neighbours too, and the adoption was finalised within four months. Much to their bitter resentment Harriet had then said, “So that’s it now isn’t it. There is no longer any need for you to visit again.” The Social workers had protested saying that that was not how it was done. Harriet had replied, “Well it is now. You don’t visit other kids with their parents because you don’t have the right to so do, and these are legally my kids now and according to Adalheidis Levens you no longer have the right to so do with us either. After what they’ve been through, and I suspect it’s far worse than you could ever imagine, I desire that their lives become as normal as possible, and normal does not include Social Services knocking on the door for a visit and inspection every few days. Bearthwaite Lonning is private property that you no longer have permission to access. To do so you will need a magistrates’ bench warrant, which you won’t get, or you are guilty of trespass, and Adalheidis won’t hesitate to prosecute. The police won’t assist you because they know better. There is only one policeman welcome here, and he was born and reared here. Michael is one of us and the one the police send when they have any business here.

“I have no intention of adopting just two children, but I’ll warn you in advance if you make that difficult because I have refused to allow you to overstep your rights and impinge upon mine and my children’s you’ll end up in court. Now let’s at least try to part amicably. We’ll maybe meet again when Gustav and I adopt further children, but it may be preferable to you to let other case workers deal with that.” What Harriet did not tell them was that she had already requested that different case workers be assigned in the future, preferably ones who had no problems using appropriate pronouns in regard to trans children, and who did not misname them. Mrs Beattie the local director had rung her up after receiving her email to discuss the matter. Harriet had explained to her that neither of the case workers assigned had ever used he, him or his in connection with Peter and that on several occasions Peter had been referred to as Petra by both of them. Harriet sent video copies of every conversation she and Gustav had had with either of the pair. A few days later Mrs Beattie rang her up again and said, “I’ve reviewed the conversations, both on your body cams and on theirs, and the correspondence, and all support your contention. I agree with you as to their unsuitability, so not only will you never have to deal with either of them again, till such time as they have successfully undertaken transgender specific training neither of them will deal with such cases in the future. I’m sure we shall be in contact with you again concerning other children. I have no idea how long it will take but there are moves afoot to enable NCSG to handle everything after children have been passed over to them to find a home for including the adoption applications. It is hoped by those like myself that will mean once NCSG have found a family for children they alone will have dealings with them and Social Services will not have any part to play.” She hesitated before asking, “I can’t help but be inquisitive about you, your husband, the children and Bearthwaite. Unprofessional I know, but may I visit you sometime? If you don’t wish to tell the children what my job is that would be fine.”

Harriet replied, “Come for lunch on Sunday. I’ll tell the children who and what you are and that you were the person who made the whole adoption process so much better for all of us. Unlike that pair of inadequates you are welcome. I don’t consider your request to be unprofessional at all, for I’m sure if I had your job I would like to see at first hand at least some of my successes.”

~o~

When Harriet telt the children about Sunday lunch Peter asked, “Now we are officially adopted, you think we should tell this lady about us being threatened with rape don’t you, Mum?”

“I think it is up to you to decide whether you tell her or not. That is neither my nor your Dad’s decision to make. It will not be an easy decision to make either way, but perhaps I can suggest something that may help you to make up your minds, though as I said having done so will be difficult either way. If you tell her what happened there is far less possibility that he will be able to hurt any else in the future when he gets out of prison. I can’t get my head around the idea that a father would systematically rape not one, but two of his children. Eleven year old children who are far to young to be involved in sex at that level, and I do know about you and Ron, Brigitte which is okay.” Brigitte flushed but said nothing, so Harriet continued, “Raping biological girls, and I make no apology for saying that, Peter, who have not yet reached menarche―” Seeing the look on her children’s faces Harriet said, “That’s having your first period. As I said raping them till they became pregnant. Such a man I imagine would be capable of almost anything no matter how depraved it be. To me he needs stopped(10) to protect other little girls, but as I said it’s not our decision to make. Whatever you decide your dad and I shall support you.”

Harriet opened her arms to Peter and Brigitte went to Gustav. Both children were sobbing, but eventually Peter said, “Let’s just do it, Brigitte. I don’t want to, but even less do I think I could live with myself if I heard that he’d done that to someone else. I can’t deny that I want to get my own back on him, Mum. Is that wrong? Am I being bad?”

“No, Love. It’s how I used to feel about Bert who was never my dad. I don’t care any more because I have a really good life here, but what you feel is entirely natural. Like I said we’ll support you whatever happens.”

There was a long silence broken by Gustav when he asked, “You ready for the train to London next week, Peter?”

“Yeah, Doctor Wing said Doctor Tenby was one of his professors at university and is a really nice lady. When I asked him what she would do he telt me she would do a quick physical examination all over and give me a really long and tough grilling about being a boy. He said when she had finished she’d know what went on in my head better than I do. Which is okay because I’ll just be glad someone understands what goes on in there because I don’t. He took some blood to test my hormone levels and said the results would go to Doctor Tenby too. I think he expects me to be put on hormone tablets of some kind, but he didn’t seem sure, so he was reluctant to say much about that. I’m hoping I’ll be prescribed something so that I never have periods and don’t get breasts and a big bottom. I guess I’ll know a lot more next week. Will you come in to see the doctor with me, Dad?”

Gustav smiled at Peter’s use of the Cumbrian telt rather than told and was surprised that he wanted his dad with him rather than his mum, but schooling his face to give nothing away he simply replied, “If you want me to, yes.”

At that Peter smiled and said, “Good. Thanks.”

~o~

Sunday lunch was enjoyable and after a couple of hours sight seeing and chat. Harriet telt Mrs Beattie, “The children have something they have decided to tell you. It is about serious abuse and involves their father. We’ve set up a video camera in the office at the Dragon, so you can take away a copy of what they wish you to know with you.”

The children had finished in twenty minutes and Mrs Beattie said, “I am not going to ask you anything, so as not to taint any of your evidence. I would like to return in a few days with a solicitor and a barrister both of who are experienced in bringing such matters to court successfully. After that the police will be involved. I am not going to say anything concerning the likely outcome for your father. Thank you. That was very brave of you. I’ll leave now and then you can turn the recording device off.”

After Mrs Beattie had gone Harriet asked, “How do you feel now?”

Brigitte replied, “A lot better. I’m glad we’ve telt some one and I’m glad if it means it stops someone else from getting hurt. Now we can forget about it.”

Gustav looked at Peter who replied, “Hungry. I feel hungry. There’re two hours to go before dinner, so I’m going to ask Auntie Veronica to make me a corned beef and pickle sandwich. I really like her home made corned beef. It’s way better than what comes in a tin, cos it’s like proper meat not some kind of paste. Her sandwiches are brilliant. She cuts them into triangles which is super cool, and she uses spreadable pickle that is made from really small pieces of whatever is in it. Auntie Veronica telt me that the pickle is made by Auntie Christine as an imitation of something you can buy in the shops anywhere but it’s better.(11) I think people who don’t live here don’t know what they’re missing.”

After Peter left, Brigitte said to a worried looking Harriet, “Peter’s fine, Mum. If he weren’t, food would be the last thing on his mind even if he is into food in a big way.” She hesitated a little before asking, “Mum, how long do you think it will be till I get my first period. Some of the girls in my class have started theirs and they look more…” Brigitte’s voice faded away as she looked at her chest.

Harriet smiled and replied, “From the look of you not long, Pet. Maybe we should go shopping for some lingerie for you. Some padded training bras would help you feel that you weren’t being left behind by the other girls. There’re other things too that can help to give you a more feminine figure.”

Gustav said, “I’m going for a sandwich too if you’re going to start talking about die Büstenhalter.”(12)

After Gustav’s precipitate departure Harriet giggled and said, “We must have embarrassed your dad. He only talks in German when he feels under pressure or is upset. Die Büstenhalter, means brassières. They are usually called a BH which is pronounced bay hah which is the German equivalent of saying a bra. If Peter carries on with German maybe we should tell him that too.”

Brigitte smiled and said, “He’ll be interested for other reasons before long. He likes Violet and she’s three years older than us. She really likes Peter too, and she’s way in front of me. I think that’s a bit weird really cos girls usually like older boys, and loads of boys at school are interested in her, but she’s nice even if she is bonkers. Do you speak German, Mum?”

“Not well, Love, but I’m doing an online course and your dad is a great help. We spend time when we only speak German, and I Zoom his brothers’ wives and his mum regularly which helps too.” Harriet knew Violet as a buxom young woman of fourteen who sometimes helped Lucy at the grocers and was intrigued to discover she was interested in Peter. “How do mean Violet is bonkers, Love?”

“She’s really into the Model Railway thing at the mill. I know lots of girls are, but not the way she is. She’ll talk about it for hours if you let her. Like I said. Bonkers!”

Mother and daughter laught and decided to see what was available in the way of lingerie on the internet that was appropriate for tweens. It was whilst looking on the internet Brigitte said, “I don’t really like French, Mum. I think I’ll change to German. I’d like to be able to talk to Dad and the cousins in German too. What do you think?”

“Your decision, Love, but I think you’re making it for sensible reasons, and there are a couple of other folk who live here who can speak German too. Your dad tells me he speaks with a Bavarian accent and so does Uncle Charlie. You know who I mean? Uncle Sasha apparently speaks really posh upper class German.”

Brigitte nodded and said, “Yeah course I know who they are. Cool. I never thought about there being accents in other languages.”

~o~

Gustav who didn’t wish to lose the possibility of Græme(13) becoming Bearthwaite folk and being able to work full time on what he knew Græme enjoyed a lot more than his mundane but high pressure job had simply asked him would he consider moving to Bearthwaite to work with Jean-Claude. Græme who was a chemical engineer with an extensive knowledge of zymurgy(14) had been working from time to time with Jean-Claude in Gustav’s distillery for months. Faith his wife was happy with the arrangement because it took most of the stress out of Græme’s life which was due to his job. He’d successfully managed to concentrate and brew out the last traces of sugars in the over sweet wines Jean-Claude had bought to start the distillery off with by freezing pure water out of the dilute sugar solution left after its initial distillation. Jean-Claude had been impressed and the two men worked well together and had become good friends. Græme had answered he would, but the financial implications meant it would be difficult for him to sell his house and move, and he’d added there was Faith’s job to consider too. Gustav had explained that BBEL would buy his house at a price he’d be happy with and recover the money when a suitable buyer came along, and that BBEL owned any number of houses in the valley that he and Faith could chose from. He added that an empty house was much easier to sell than one still occupied by folk stuck in the middle of a housing buying and selling chain. That BBEL wouldn’t be upset to take a loss on his house if it meant Bearthwaite acquired Græme and Faith as residents he didn’t mention.

As for Faith’s job Gustav explained that Elle via Murray was actively seeking good teachers to extend the primary school’s intake upwards in age all the way to eighteen so as to include A’ level(15) pupils, and since Faith was a known quantity there would be no need for an interview. If she wanted the job it was hers, and Murray would be grateful one of his headaches had gone away. Græme had explained they were having serious issues with neighbours and asked could it really all be settled that quickly, for he’d heard about any number of folk who’d desired to live at Bearthwaite, but had been unable to find a house there. Gustav has grinned, almost smirked, and said, “That would have been because they weren’t considered to be desirable neighbours, so nothing would have been available. For folk we consider desirable it really can be settled that quickly and that simply. You talk to Faith about it and decide if you wish to move. If you do ring me tomorrow, and you could be ensconced in a new property the day after or at the latest the day after that. All that needs done immediately is to move you and all your possessions. We can organise that in less than an hour. The Bearthwaite Shift It Team can do the actual removals within half a day.” He laught and added, “The team is just whoever is available at the time, but they’ve done removals at virtually no notice any number of times for folk we consider to be good neighbours, Bearthwaite folk.”

~o~

Faith was a welcome addition to the Bearthwaite school staff. She’d taught primary school children for years, but had trained as a middle school English teacher, so she was especially welcomed as she could teach three years beyond primary. She’d said she would also be able to teach English to GCSE classes which were the two years above that, and since her first degree was in psychology she’d be happy to teach that at A’ level if required to do so. Elle’s plans to extend the school all the way to A’ level pupils who left school at eighteen were finally coming together. They hadn’t found all the staff they needed for a full time ongoing situation, but they did have enough folk prepared to step up and do what was required to make it happen till the appropriate staff were found. It was all under wraps and the school staff had no intentions of revealing anything to the education authorities till September when the Bearthwaite secondary school pupils would simply cease going to school at Whiteport Academy and go to school locally. There was no legal requirement to inform anyone that pupils were now attending a private school, so to avoid having to deal with the grief and aggravation they knew they’d get from the Local Education Authority they telt them nothing. Murray had effectively handed over the management of BBEL to Chance, Emily and Adalheidis and was focussing on adverts for teachers and then interviewing them.

~o~

Any number of Bearthwaite residents who normally had nothing to do with education were meeting together in the evenings to divide syllabi up and prepare schemes of work and even lesson plans. They knew what GCSEs(16) and A’ Levels they had to teach which was not a complete selection and knew they had the persons in place to do it. It would mean some subjects were taught by up to a dozen folk, but that did not imply those subjects would be ill taught. Team teaching had long been done when considered necessary due to the flooded lonning preventing the children going to school, and it could be done again. They had time in which to acquire teachers with a broader range of knowledge that was more specific to the syllabi, but as Elle said, “We could actually do it now if we had to. We would if the road flooded, for we’ve done it before and we did for an extended period of time during the Covid lockdown. That’s the best reason for educating the kids here, because then the state of the lonning is irrelevant.”

It had initially been decided that pupils who had already started their two year GCSE examination courses and those who’d started their two year A’ level courses should finish those courses at Whiteport Academy, unless the academy made their lives difficult in which case they would attend the second year of their course at Bearthwaite studying a course designed to pick up from what they had already covered. All other pupils would transfer to Bearthwaite school in the coming September. When the Bearthwaite kids heard about that the GCSE and A’ level pupils requested that regardless of the academy’s reactions they wished to finish their courses at Bearthwaite. Elle at a meeting of all those who’d had anything to do with teaching during the floods and the Covid lockdown asked, “I don’t want our kids unsettled or their studies disrupted, so for me it boils down to one question. Can we deliver what they need with a seamless transition from the academy to here?”

Liam, who was a retired mathematics teacher replied, “Much more easily and better for the kids too if we do it as part of a planned move rather than as an emergency measure because the academy becomes unpleasant and takes out their resentment on the kids causing us to withdraw them.” There were nods and expressions of agreement with that, so Liam continued, “If we make sure they know they have to bring all their exercise books and notes home with them at the end of the summer term, so that we can work out which bits of their various syllabi they have already covered and hence they need to revise and which bits they then have to learn in the second year of their courses, we’ll have six weeks over the summer holiday in which to analyse that information and plan their second year, and mind as long as the school offers a minimum number of three hundred and eighty sessions over a twelvemonth period we don’t have to start their school year in September.

“We could start our school year in October, even if we only did it this coming year. We already provide well over the thirty-two point five hour weekly requirement for our primary kids, and our enrichment activities are second to none. Since legally the kids are all privately educated few of the regulations apply to us, and Germain Beattie and NCSG have said they are more than willing to put it about that our kids get a better education than any state school in the land provides, as shewn by our examination statistics which Whiteport Academy can’t claim is due to their teaching because our kids do so much better than the rest and in any case we educate them for some where between a quarter and a third of the time due to the floods. The authorities know that if they give us a hard time Adalheidis will put egg all over their faces in court and the media too. We are not obliged to meet all the regulations, but we will in fact exceed them all by a considerable margin, so we don’t have anything to worry about.

“Picking up the teaching of the kids half way through their examination courses will be easy enough as long as we know what they’ve already done, and the syllabi can be down loaded off the internet. We shall need to check with the examination boards that all the children are registered with them because there’s no point in leaving anything to chance. We also need to seek accreditation as an examination centre so that the children can sit their examinations here. With the qualified teaching staff we already have and our track record concerning the existing primary school that will be no more than a formality, but it needs to be done as soon as possible, for it will take time.” He looked around with a questioning look and there were smiling faces all agreeing with him.

Elle asked, “So are you all willing to do that?” Again there were exclamations of agreement. “Has any any concerns?” There were none. “Right forget the previous plan. All the kids get taught here as of this September. Murray, how is the search for teachers going?”

“Better than I expected. I’m getting a goodly number of enquiries from teachers who are obviously having issues with their senior management teams, most due to PC(17) and cancel culture. I suspect either they won’t be provided with good references or they’ll be provided with excellent ones to get rid of them. Either way I’d rather make my own mind up and ignore the references. Every one of them clearly enjoys working with kids and is committed to teaching their subject which I suspect many have somewhat atypical approaches to which also causes them problems because they are not seen to fit into their schools’ systems. I reckon we’ll have a full staff of good teachers by September, but certainly at the worst we’ll fill any vacancies by no later than the new year. I’ve asked Jane to interview with me because I want a woman’s view on them as well. It’s not going to be easy, but we will get most of what we need before September.

“Any shortfall we’ll just have to fill ourselves, but we had to do a lot more than that during lockdown, and we managed, so we’ll cope. Jane is also going to work with Harry to put A’ level chemistry plans together. Harry is working with others on A’ level physics and biology. There’s a group of folk working on mathematics. I only know about STEM(18) subjects in detail, but I do know the rest of the subjects are being covered by other groups and I’m expecting details from them in the next few days. Neither Charlie nor Gustav wish to be involved in teaching, but both are prepared to host German conversation events in order to improve children’s fluency. Gustav is going to arrange a school exchange scheme for our kids and kids from the school he attended outside Munich. He’s thinking about the kids spending a fortnight together in each others homes and schools. I’ll provide the money for our kids to go as part of the school budget and I’ll include a decent amount of spending money for them buried in the costs too.”

Jane Wright was a Chemistry professor who worked at a university in the north east. She’d lived at Bearthwaite married to Arnie for going on a decade and half. Arnie’s first wife had left him and the children never to be heard of since. Jane had been Mum to his children as soon as she’d entered their orbit. That she was trans was not considered relevant for she was beyond doubt a Bearthwaite woman and mother in every sense. She would provide a fully female view on any interviewee. Harry was a qualified secondary teacher who’d never worked as a teacher. He was an intelligent, widely educated man who’d earned his entire living, a very good living it was known, as an A’ level private tutor across the entire spectrum of all subjects that comprised STEM and social sciences too. In his admittedly erratic life he’d also spent years driving a cab and had his own waggon which he currently used to earn a living with. He was a major part of the Bearthwaite Shift It Team.

~o~

Yet another of Murray’s problems went away when Eli’s friend Felicity Watson, who had been an army combat instructor, came to Bearthwaite for a holiday and took up with Geordie Granger, one of the Bearthwaite primary school teachers. Felicity was six foot two, broad of chest and shoulder and of a decided mannish visage and appearance. She was flat chested, had no hips and from behind looked like a man. She also had a hard look to her except when she smiled. Geordie who was a head shorter than she afterwards admitted, “It was the smile that did it for me.”

After watching Eli teach the kids martial arts, and being telt by him about Felicity his teacher who he said had had a difficult life because of how she looked, Bertie had idly wondered long before Felicity came to visit Bearthwaite if she’d be interested in teaching sport in the extended school. Bertie had talked to Murray who’d said if Bertie could bring the matter to a successful conclusion he would be grateful. When Felicity had been at Bearthwaite for a fortnight Bertie had approached her concerning the matter. “But I don’t have any qualifications as a teacher,” she’d said in surprise.

“We are not an LEA(19) controlled school. We’re a private school and can hire anyone we like, though of course it’s only sensible to have the enhanced background checks required of state school teachers conducted by the police. You’ve not robbed any banks recently have you?”

Felicity chuckled and said, “No. Well not very recently.”

Bertie smiled and continued, “Anyway, any number of folk who teach the kids when the road floods aren’t teachers either. They’ve all had the police checks done though I must admit some of them had been teaching when required for going on a twelvemonth before the results came back.” He shrugged and added, “The kids needed teaching and here we’re in the position of being able to ignore the usual paperwork and bureaucracy. We do what we have to. You come with a personal recommendation from Eli who is someone we trust which matters an awful lot here. You’re certainly good enough to do the job, and Eli said unlike most folk you were nice to him when he was a kid when most of the folk he knew gave him a hard time for his effeminacy.

“Murray said if I could twist your arm into agreeing you’re now head of games and PE, boys as well as girls, and can help him out by interviewing to find as many games staff as you need. Full or part time he’s not bothered. Choose anything up to half a dozen full time equivalents, even if they all want full time because he’ll find something for them to do. He said Elle wants flexible folk who can actually do the job and enjoy working with kids like you. She doesn’t care if they’re qualified teachers or not because there are an awful lot of qualified teachers out there who shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near kids. I heard you and Geordie are looking for somewhere bigger than his spot to move into, so how about it? You want to live here with Geordie, and presumably you’ll want some kind of employment to avoid boredom if nowt else. Your contract would be as per the school teachers’ Burgundy Book(20) conditions for a head of a small department with a goodly number of extra benefits. We are not a member of NEOST,(21) the school teacher’s employers’ organisation, of which a member is the Local Government Association. The LGA(22) is a main mover and shaker of NEOST, but despite our differences we consider it’s workings in the main to be worth keeping up to date with. Our main disagreement with it is that it would consider our terms of service to be unaffordable. It’s a good deal you’re being offered, and Elle who currently has oversight of the school expansion wants you, we all do. The kids who do martial arts with Eli are desperate to meet you.” Bertie paused and finally added, “Eli telt us about the shit you got outside just for being yourself, but I can guarantee that won’t happen here. Ask Geordie.”

~o~

Felicity’s choices for her staff would have seemed strange to some, but they were approved of by Bearthwaite parents and their children too, for they were sport players not mere teachers. Sophia was a newly qualified young secondary trained teacher who’d played field hockey for Derbyshire ladies and wanted full time employment. She been happy to teach mostly younger children’s games and take charge of athletics and golf for all ages. Sebastian, who was known as Seb, was a very fit, middle aged, retired navy Chief Petty Officer who was going to work two and a half days a week, but who was prepared to do more when required, took over all gymnasium activities at which he was an expert having trained navy competition teams for twenty years. He’d competed himself till his early forties. Ralph, a retired professional football [US soccer] coach who was to work six afternoons a week, was going to deal with boys’ football and rugby and cricket during the summer. Maybel, a thirty-two year old national level ladies netball goal shooter and amateur marathon runner, who was to work two days a week mostly with older girls completed her staff. They all wished to live at Bearthwaite and those who wished to work part time wished to do so because they had other things they wished to do too. Seb was interested in horticulture and wished to be a part time allotmenteer. Ralph had said that due to his age he tired easily, but he was interested in the fish hatchery’s activities and would enjoy spending time there. Maybel said she was half way through an Open University mathematics degree and required time for study. That all four of Felicity’s staff were single was considered by many to be interesting and fortuitous.

Saturday Evening in the Taproom

It was raining, but the rain wasn’t heavy, so the road wouldn’t flood for at least twenty-four hours, and it was reasonably warm, so Pete expected a reasonable turnout of outsiders as well as a full contingent of local men who were inured to the weather and who he reckoned would turn out for the entertainment even if they had to use their hip waders. Gladys had prepared a dozen and a half rooms ready for the couples who would usually stay over night and any who were of a nervous disposition and weren’t prepared to chance the water till it subsided completely, and was ready to prepare many more if they were required. Pete had stoked the fires with logs, and coal to help them burn, and had brought enough of both into the taproom to more than see the night out. Late last year some of the locals had finished building a large wood and coal store using stone from the quarry. The store backed up to the rear wall of the Dragon and when it was finished they’d knocked a hole through the wall which Jack Levens had fitted with an external door to enable Pete to fetch fuel in without having to brave the elements. Earlier in the day Pete had demonstrated to his grandson Peter how to change a keg of Guinness and he was still chuckling at Peter’s sense of real achievement, which had reinforced his view that it didn’t take much to make children happy, just a bit of time, as long as it was done with love. Back in the taproom he’d lined up pint glasses ready for filling, shot glasses and a selection of dodgy beverages to pour into them knowing that the first sign of customers would be a dozen or more dogs arriving via the open back door of the Green Dragon. Two of Tony’s lurchers arrived first followed by a couple of dozen other dogs, mostly the shepherds’ border collies that hadn’t been able to keep up with them, at which he started pulling pints.

~o~O~o~

Once most of the local men were present Matt Levens said, “Unless I can get hold of some plasticiser for compo(23) the lads and I will have to stop laying brick in maybe three days. I’ve tried all the men here who might be expected to have some, but no luck. The lads from outside won’t be able to get into work on Monday because the road will be impassable before tomorrow evening, so what we have will last a bit longer than you’d expect, but it’s not looking good. I’ve already rung for a delivery of ten five gallon [50l, 6¼ US gal] drums to be dropped off on the other side of the water that we can row across to collect. None of the merchants have any the now, and those who are expecting a delivery next week can’t deliver for a week which takes us to next Friday or Saturday. Monday after if they’re pressed. So it looks like we’ll be off the tools(24) for maybe a week unless I ring a carrier to deliver some from down country which will cost a small fortune. I’m going to ask Elle what she wants me to do. Bite the bullet and pay the money to keep building or leave it for a few days. I thought I’d ask if any can help us out.”

Alf telt him, “My granddad used to use Lux soap flakes as plasticiser in compo. See what Dave and Lucy have in the grocers.”

Dave seeing Matt looking at him said, “We haven’t stocked Lux flakes for years. I’m not even certain if Lux or any other brand of soap flakes are made any more. I was telt years ago that washing up detergent will do as plasticiser if you’re desperate, but that soap is better. However, I reckon Lucy will be able to help you out. All the village womenfolk drop the small bits left from bars of soap off with Lucy. She’ll have a couple of hundred weight [100Kg, 224 pounds] of it at least. She has a machine that Alf put together for her. It’s sort of like a huge liquidiser that blends the bits up so they dissolve easily in the hot water and produce a thick liquid soap, like that green soft soap(25) that used to be available.

“She’s already recovered the cost of the machine and any number of the lasses help to make the stuff, so she sells it back to ’em gey cheap. The womenfolk use it for washing woollens. The price just covers her time because the lasses use their own containers and the soap is provided by them, so she’ll sell you enough for next to nowt to keep you going even if it means the lasses have to leave their woollens unwashed for a week or so. They’ll not complain because it means likely keeping more of the youngsters here if they have somewhere to live and if it keeps their men folk in work they won’t have to put up with the complaints. I’ll go and have a word with her. She’s in the best side sampling brandy punch.” Dave disappeared, but was back a couple of minutes later and said, “No problems, Matt. If you drop a five gallon drum off at the shop tomorrow she’ll fill it sometime during the day for you. Leave your mobile number with her if she hasn’t already got it and she’ll text you when you can collect it. She said to forget the money and drop a fiver into the kids’ Christmas party collection box for her.”

Matt smiled and pulled a ten pound note from his wallet which he dropped into the box without taking any change. “Thanks, Dave. That’ll make the lads happy to know they won’t be out of collar(26) for a week, and that’s gey(27) cheap plasticiser at a tenner. Harriet Love, pull a round please and put it on my slate.”(28)

~o~O~o~

When a young girl came into the taproom carrying a pail Pete said, “Hello, Love, what are you doing in here?”

“I asked Mum what I could do to help. She said to fill the dogs’ water bowls and the kibble food bowls too, Granddad.”

“Good Lass, Brigitte. You need any help?”

“No, thank you. I’ll do the water first and fetch the food pail next. Then I’m helping Auntie Veronica in the kitchen with supper.”

Pete announced to the company, “This is Harriet’s lass, Brigitte. Where’s your brother, Pet?”

“Peter’s practising German on the computer. He wants to be able to talk to Dad. He’s found a really good site where he has to speak to it and it checks how he pronounces words. It’s got an entire dictionary on it which includes a lot of swear words too, but I don’t think he’s bothered about them, cos he just wants to be able to talk to Dad, and I don’t think using swear words would be sensible talking to Dad. Right now, he’s Zooming some of our cousins in Bavaria. Mum said only an hour a day, so when they’ve finished his German half hour, he’ll be talking in English for their half hour, so they can improve. I’ve decided to give up French and learn German, so I can talk to Dad and the cousins in German too.”

All the locals knew Harriet and Gustav had adopted a pair of twins who’d come from as far away down country as it was possible to be and that one of them was a trans boy. Few adults had met either of them, but they were aware the local children thought well of the pair. That Brigitte was happily helping her mum was seen as a sign of proper behaviour. That her brother was studying was similarly seen. To the men in the taproom the children were off to a good start and none doubted they would be and be seen to be Bearthwaite folk in short order.

~o~O~o~

Tommy said, “As I promised, Lads, I’ve brought the assembly instructions for our new king size bed that are written in Chinglish. I made a few notes to help you appreciate it properly that I’ll read out before I pass the destructions round. First as you can see it’s a booklet and on the front it says in big, bold, black capital letters BED which I suppose is helpful, but if you’re so thick(29) you need that there not a snowflake in hell’s chance of you being able to assemble it.” As Tommy held up the booklet for them to see the word there were snorts of laughter.

“In the box were fifty-four bits of chipboard and plywood, with a bag containing a hundred and thirty wooden dowels and seventy pieces of assorted hardware, bolts, screws and the like including a soft steel Allen key to tighten up the screws with which were all recessed hex heads. The key was too short to get any torque on, and it hurt my hand like hell trying to use it, so I chucked it in the scrap metal pail and used an an appropriate sized bit in a rattle hammer.” Seeing some puzzlement on a few faces he explained, “That’s another name for an impact driver, which is a kind of vicious version of a powered screwdriver on steroids. The booklet has a shed load of inexplicable diagrams of the ‘put bolt six into nut forty-three after passing through hole seventeen first’ type. Like I said last week any one with a bit of shape about them would have no problems, but any one who hasn’t is fucked before they start. It took me twenty minutes to open the box and strip the packaging tape off it so I could throw the cardboard on the compost and it took Sarah three quarters of an hour to burn the tape, bubble wrap and the polystyrene packing in the kitchen stove. It’s a Rayburn wood burning cooker,” he explained to the outsiders with puzzled looks on their faces.

“As to the bed itself, I suppose I should have known better. It was bloody dear for what amounted to barely adequate firewood. The slats are plywood supported in the centre by an additional two legs and some of the fastenings stripped on first assembly so trashing any chance of holding in the very soft wood without fettling the holes. The centre support for the slats is a piece of planed three and a half by one, so that’s what? Three and a quarter by three quarters? [93mm by 18mm]. Thing is it had to be installed flat, not exactly the best way for rigidity, edge vertical would have been much stiffer, but worst of all there was a knot in it that took up at least three quarters of the width. Oh without doubt I’ll sort it all out in the end, but with hindsight, which as all know is twenty twenty vision, I should have designed and built one myself using timber from the builders’ merchants where at least I could select the timber. I’ve done it before. However, I was in a hurry. As I said, I’ll fettle it, but it’ll probably end up being a very expensive bed. When I was writing the feedback I was tempted to run off at the mouth, but I was objective which wasn’t flattering. Here, Alf, you have a look and pass it on. I’ll start pulling a few pints for Pete if some of you deal with the glasses and the coin.”(30)

The laughter started immediately and as the booklet was passed round Elliot one of the outsiders who’d been attending for a few months said, “You were right, Tommy, it’s right good for a laught, but you need at least a pint to cope with it. Here’s a couple of quid for the box, Bertie, if you’ll pass that rum over please.”

By the time all had looked at the booklet most of the men had at least a pint and a glass of chemic of some sort in front of them, and most were still chuckling.

~o~O~o~

“Supper will be on the tables, Gentlemen, in about twenty minutes, so please have the tables cleared and ready.”

Chance asked, “What are we eating, Harriet?”

“Mince,(31) peas and chips. [US fries] The mince has a bit of minced beast(32) kidney in it. That was Uncle Vincent’s idea, and I thought it was worth a try. It tastes excellent with some ground black pepper, so I’ll leave some for you to use or not as you choose. As usual the mince and the peas are in the gravy and the chips will be served separately. There is rice pudding with Auntie Christine’s yellow raspberry jam to follow. The chips will be a bit of a surprise.” Before any had time to ask about the chips Harriet had gone. A number of faces turned to Gustav with questioning looks on them. Gustav just shrugged the shrug of a happily married man who knew when to ignore the vagaries of not just his wife but all other women too.

Pete laughed and said, “That shrug was the perfect example, Son, of a man saying ‘Yes, Dear,’ without moving his lips.” There was a lot of laughter at that and there wasn’t a man there local nor outsider who didn’t understand what Pete had said and furthermore they all agreed with him. Some of them may not have been Bearthwaite folk, but to find peace and enjoyment in the company of the Bearthwaite men in the taproom of the Green Dragon on a Saturday evening they had to be of at the very least a similar mindset to that of the local men and many of them had been regular Saturday evening attenders at the meetings of the Grumpy Old Men’s Society for years.

When Harriet and Veronica arrived with the supper, Pete asked, “What are those, Love?”

Harriet replied, “These are the chips. They are called Scotch scallops, Dad. I saw someone from Manchester way from the sound of her voice cooking them on Youtube, but as far as I can tell they are nowt to do with Scotland. I thought they were interesting, so tonight, Gentlemen, you are all guinea pigs.”

“What exactly are they, Love?” Pat asked.

“Slices of potatoes dipped in batter and then deep fried. Battered round chips [US fries] I suppose, so I took Uncle Alf’s advice and used Uncle Johnto’s own variety because Uncle Alf reckons they’re the best for chips. Brigitte helped me with them. We washed and scrubbed them but didn’t peel them. The woman I watched cooking them added chile powder to her batter, but I didn’t think that would go with the mince and peas, so my batter has Coleman’s mustard powder and a few chopped up green onion tops added to it instead. Just like I do with chips, I cooked them through in hot fat, took them out and turned the fryer up to maximum. They were finished off in the really hot fat for thirty seconds to brown and crisp them. If you like them I’ll maybe do them with chile powder another time, but I’ll have to think of something for them to go with, so if any has ideas about that Auntie Veronica and I shall be pleased to be telt.

~o~O~o~

As Harriet was clearing away the plates. Sasha said, “Damned fine that, Harriet Love. The kidney addition was like you said excellent with the black pepper. And those chips were tasty, but to be honest, Love, I suspect the effort you put in to make ’em wasn’t justified. However, if you dish ’em up again I’ll happily eat ’em.”

A number of the men agreed. Harriet nodded in acceptance and said, “I’ll be back in a minute with your pudding, Gentlemen.”

~o~O~o~

After fresh pints had been pulled and various bottles passed around, Dave waited for all to settle before saying, “Someone telt me last week that this country is becoming a joke as a result of the fresh fruit and vegetable shortage. I telt him that this country has long been a joke for a whole host of reasons. Tell you, it’s crazy. Supermarkets have shelves with no fresh produce on them and I saw a clip of a Parisian street market the other day somewhere near the river Seine and the stalls were overflowing with fresh fruit and vegetables of every description. A mate shewed me a map of Europe on his mobile phone with every country either blue or red, blue indicated no problems with the availability of fresh produce, red indicated severe shortages. Only mainland UK was red, even Northern Ireland along with Eire was blue. There has been some bat shit crazy stuff in the media about it just recently.

“That Henry Dimbleby, the bloke who co-founded the restaurant chain Leon, who advises ministers on a food strategy for England, said Europe wasn’t facing shortages because they didn’t have the weird supermarket culture that we’ve got in the UK. He disagreed with the environment secretary, Thérèse Coffey, who denied that the recent shortages of eggs and vegetables was a market failure. He reckoned it’s a market failure of the British food system which is why it’s not happening elsewhere, and unless something is done about it it’s going to get worse. He said the UK food system is unique and he didn’t know of anywhere else in the world where the supermarkets have fixed price contracts with producers and suppliers which meant effectively there is no market in the UK, for a market relies on prices based on supply and demand. The example he gave was lettuces. In the UK lettuce prices in supermarkets are kept stable, whether there is a shortage or a glut, meaning farmers can’t sell all their crop when they have too much, or get incentives to produce more during a shortage. If there’s bad weather across Europe, because there’s a scarcity European supermarkets have to pay more and so put their prices up – but not in the UK, and therefore UK suppliers will supply to Europe for a higher price leading to further shortages in the UK. If there is good weather and it produces a glut, European supermarkets pay less and lower their prices to sell the extra – but not in the UK, so the lettuces rot in the fields. I reckon it’s really bad for ordinary folk for they’re not able to buy cheap when stuff is readily available and preserve it. Christine said she never buys owt from supermarkets because there’s no point. If necessary she rings up contacts at wholesale markets.
“I think it was in the Guardian that I read this week that the farming minister, Mark Spencer, held a summit with large food chains but did not invite farming groups. I presume that summit was about all the empty shelves in UK supermarkets. I also read in the same article that Timothy Lang, a professor of food policy at the University of London, said he was not in the least surprised by the recent food shortages because the government did nowt because it was locked into a leave it to Tesco(33) approach to food policy.
“I went into the Spar shop in Wigton for a few bits and pieces the other day as I was passing, and I asked the lass on the till if they were having any trouble getting fresh produce. She said no, but pointed to some cucumbers priced at one twenty-five [US $1.50] and said a fortnight since they were fifty pence. [US 60 cents]

“Lucy shewed me the funniest thing about the situation. A picture popped up on her mobile phone of Shamima Begum. The image had been photo shopped and posted on line the day after her appeal against losing her UK citizenship was rejected. It was an old image of her at that prison camp where the Kurds are holding her. She was dressed in a black one piece marquee complete with hood holding a cardboard placard in front of her. I mind the original image from years ago on the news, but I can’t mind what was originally written on the placard. Whoever posted it had pasted over the original placard with one saying, ‘Let me back in. I have tomatoes.’ So I can’t be the only one who reckons the government is full of it. Thank god we buy all our stuff local or doubtless we’d have nowt in the shop to sell either.

“Strange isn’t it that most of the readily available fruit and vegetables in supermarkets is now foreign grown tropical and semi tropical stuff, not UK grown. It’s easier to get citrus fruit from Israel than it is to get UK grown cabbage, and I could buy Seville oranges from Spain by the container load if I’d a mind to though I bought a ton and a quarter [1250Kg, 2800 pounds] for Christine to mek marmalade with along with more or less the same amount of assorted other citrus fruits. I bought her lemons, limes, grapefruit and a raft of more exotic stuff. The lad I deal with reckons I’m easy to deal with, by which I think he means I pay my bills on time, or at least Murray does for me, so he gave me half a ton [500Kg, 1120 pounds] of stuff that wouldn’t keep long for nowt because he said he knew we would be able to put it to good use and he hated stuff just going to waste. He does that just about every time I place an order and seeing as he delivers that’s a really good deal for all of us. It does pay to deal straight because like Alf has always said a decent reputation as a trader is something no amount of money can buy you.”

There was a pause for thought and beer before Pete asked, “You reckon they should let that Begum lass back in, Dave.”

“I don’t know. I’m a grocer not a national security expert. The government aren’t disclosing their side of the argument they say for security reasons which may be a valid point of view, then again it may just be total bullshit and lies like everything else they put out. You know how it goes, you can tell when politicians are lying because their lips are moving. Whether someone like her who ran off to join IS as a Jehadi bride should be allowed back into the UK to me is irrelevant. If she is let back into the country she’ll end up in court charged with serious offences, seemingly war crimes, not just something trivial like shoplifting. I reckon if that’s actually true if she’d been tried at Nürnberg (34) she’d have been hanged, but then again I only know what I do from the media who tell even more lies than the government. Maybe I’m overly cynical, but if she does get back in chances are the bleeding heart brigade will cause any court case to be a white wash, and for sure if she gets back in just to stand trial they’ll ensure she’s never put out again. However, having said that it does seems clear that the UK government is out of step with other governments who are repatriating their similar citizens, most say to prosecute them and keep them where they can monitor their activities rather than leaving them in Syria where radicals can keep indoctrinating them and potentially make them more dangerous which doesn’t seem to be an unreasonable stance to take. What I do know is neither she nor any other idiot suffering from religion of any flavour will be welcome in Bearthwaite and will certainly not be allowed to live here, and that’s exactly as it should be. We have enough problems of our own just dealing with the powers that be over here without importing any, especially via a Muslim Bangladeshi citizen that Bangladesh refuses to allow back into the country.”

~o~O~o~

“How’s it all going with the utility company, Chance? Are we any nearer?”

“Well, Alf. To be honest to me it doesn’t seem that much has changed, but Adalheidis says that things are going well. She says she wants just a little more time before she pulls the plug on them. Her intention is to just turn the water off, and let them react. She says it’s cheaper that way and they’ll almost certainly make mistakes. I don’t know what she’s waiting for, but she describes their legal team as a bunch of talentless losers that have already made mistakes and she wants to capitalise on that. I just keep digging up archival evidence for her on anything and everything to do with the creation of Cumbrian reservoirs, most of which is well over a hundred years old and the licences to extract water from up here and pipe it away south, mostly to the Manchester area, which go back even further. I asked her what she wanted it all for and smiled and telt me I didn’t need to know because it would influence my research. Make what you will of that. Murray trusts her and she hasn’t made any mistakes yet, so I reckon I do too. Emily says once Adalheidis is in solicitor mode she’s not a very nice person, but not to worry because she’s on our side.”

Alf nodded and said, “Typical solicitor then, a demon in disguise as a thief dressed up as a little girl on her way to Sunday school. Happen she’ll do.”

~o~O~o~

Dave took a deep pull on his pint and said, “I was listening to a clever bloke on radio four the other day on that ‘After Work’ programme that interviews folk who’ve retired, and it seemed to me that we had a lot in common with his philosophy. At one point he said ‘Now I’ve retired a lot of folk ask me how I fill my days. Well, I’m really lucky because I used to be a chemical engineer and I really enjoys spending my time taking vodka, wines and beers and turning them into piss.’ ” It took a second or two for the penny to drop and for most of the men there to realise that yet again they’d been had by Dave. None were surprised, for it was what he was best known for. As the laughter faded most were shaking their heads with a look on their faces that was one of amusement tinged with just a touch of chagrin.

~o~O~o~

Alan Peabody, Veronica’s husband was an infrequent but welcomed visitor to the taproom. “What brings you out the night, Alan?” Pete asked.

“I’ve must have been working too hard recently, and Veronica must be reckoning I was tekin it out on the kids. She had a right stand up fight with me earlier and telt me I needed a bloody good drink to set me to rights. About as friendly as a stoat with a toothache she was. She said if I were sober when I came home the night she’d lock me out of the bedroom to sleep with the pigs seeing as I’ve been spending so much time with ’em recently.”

It took a while for the laughter to quieten, for all knew Veronica who cooked in the Dragon and was usually working on Saturday evenings when she cooked the supper with Harriet. Veronica was a feisty lady and they could all envisage her making the threat. They knew there weren’t many women who would regard sending a husband out to the pub to get pissed would be in the interests of marital harmony, but for sure they could accept she’d be one of them.

“What you bin spending time with the pigs for, Alan? I thought your younger lads usually dealt with ’em.”

“They do, Vincent, but we’ve had a load of sows farrow just recently, all with big litters, so we’ve bin abarrowing.” Seeing the looks of puzzlement on some faces he expanded on his explanation. “Riving the nuts out of the young boars. A nutted(35) boar is called a barrow, so nutting ’em is called barrowing ’em. Like I said I’ve bin abarrowing. The lads need help with that. It’s done with a razor blade and is gey quick, but the boys need shewing how to do it right. They’ve started doing the job but want me there. Next time they’ll be fine on their own. Barrows are a lot easier to handle than boars when they get up towards slaughter weight. Boars are fine if you spend a lot of time with ’em, but we don’t have the time.”

Vincent the village slaughterman and butcher said, “Aye by a body as knows what they’re doing it’s gey quick. Do ye mind auld Mac the vet. He always reckoned that with a welly boot and a razor blade he could nut a tom cat in ‘three-fufths’ of a second. I can hear his Glaswegian brogue in my mind like he were standing here along side o’ me. He’d stick its head in the boot and before the cat had time to complain it was over. I reckon it must be forty years since he died. Seeing you reminds me, you got a sow you can spare for Gerry’s granddaughter Livvy to raise?”

“Aye nay bother, Vincent. Tell her come round any time. I’ll tell the boys to pick her the best we’ve got.”

“How much do you want for it, Lad?”

“Forget it. Regard it as part of the deal when you knock down and butch a big boar for Granddad. Why are you after a piglet for her? And why not a barrow, for they make up to more weight and the meat tastes the same as a sow. There’s no boar taint to it.”

Vincent grinned and said, “I like the lass. She’s different. I slaughtered and butched her boar not long since and she watched and helped every step of the way. She’s a fair dry and adult sense of humour on her. She wants a sow so she can see the differences in butching it from a boar and wants to see what’s different when I butch for pork rather than for cured meat, and she’s chessing(36) my grandson Nicky. I don’t reckon he has any chance of getting away from her. He’s interested and if he’s got any sense he’ll close the deal as soon as possible because he’ll not find a better one.”

“What’s boar taint?” a stranger asked.

“Boar meat is affected by their testosterone which gives the meat a hint of an acrid taste. It’s fine in bacon and ham because the salt destroys the taste. It can be an issue that affects the saleability of pork. Some enjoy it, but most folk don’t these days. It’s not a major difference, but it is noticeable,” Vincent replied. “Auld Alan, Alan here’s granddad, always keeps a boar for his own pork. I go down to his spot to slaughter gralloch and split the carcass and leave it all for him to deal with complete with the head and all the offal too.”

~o~O~o~

“Who the hell are the Meltzers whose names are over the door,(37) Mum?” the orange and purple haired virago demanded loudly of Gladys as she stormed into the lounge of the Dragon.

To Gladys’ and Pete’s shock Delia their estranged daughter who had left Bearthwaite under acrimonious circumstances of her own making had turned up at the Green Dragon late that Saturday evening. Her appearance was to both of them a severe shock. She not only had purple and orange hair her face was full of metallic piercings. Pete came through from the taproom followed by a number of local men to find out what was causing the disturbance and to aid in dealing with it physically if necessary. He arrived before Gladys had replied. When Delia repeated her question just as loudly Pete replied, “Quieten down, Delia, or I’ll throw you out on your arse by main force if necessary and call for Michael Graham to arrest you for causing an affray and have you locked up overnight to appear in front of a magistrate tomorrow.”

Delia knew her father wasn’t joking and that he would do just that, so sneeringly but much more quietly she said, “You haven’t changed a bit, Dad.”

“You have and not for the better.” Pete replied coldly. “Now you may not be, but I’m working and I have much better things to do than to trade insults with you. To answer your question Harriet Meltzer is your Uncle Bert’s youngest daughter, your cousin, and Gustav is her husband. Why are you here? and what do you want?”

“I’m checking up on my inheritance of course,” Delia smirked. Delia went ballistic when she discovered that her cousin and her husband were going to inherit everything, and raved about her rights. She knew her Uncle Bert had had a lot of kids but she’d never met him or any of his kids and didn’t know any of their names. She had no idea that her parents had adopted Harriet nor that she was trans and none bothered to tell her. Pete said she had no right to inherit either his or her mother’s estate under the law. She threatened to take the matter to court. Pete wished her luck and took a great deal of pleasure in telling her that even if she had rights to her parents’ estates there was little there to inherit, for most of the Dragon was actually owned by Sasha Vetrov who held the mortgages, because he had put the money up that had enabled them to buy the place and pay for the subsequent extensions. He didn’t tell her that what Harriet would inherit was the right to be the landlady and to decide who would inherit that after her.

Delia suffered a total melt down when she discovered the Green Dragon was a limited liability coöperative company that couldn’t be selt except under very restrictive conditions, which specifically excluded being selt to a brewery or hospitality company or indeed into the control of any who didn’t reside full time at Bearthwaite. That the Dragon was effectively owned by all the adult residents of the village equally as a result of the nature of the company which meant that ownership of it would never be contestable since control of the majority of the thousands of individual shares was in the hands of Beebell(38) made her face match the colours of her hair. Beebell was what the media had called BBEL after the utility company filed their initial writ against BBEL concerning the water rights. Pete explained, “Control of the Dragon is a matter of becoming the CEO of Beebell which still does not enable sale, and day to day control is vested in whoever the board of directors of Beebell appoint to manage the matter, which currently is Chance Kerr. In turn, Chance has appointed your mother and myself to do it for him.”

Perceiving what she thought was an opportunity, Delia started asking questions about Chance. Despite Chance being married to Stephanie who was Bearthwaite born and bred, that she had no recollection of Stephanie and that Chance was not from Bearthwaite and had not lived there very long was something else that made Delia become unhinged. When she started to threaten her mother with violence Pete telt her that if she became violent he would personally beat the shit out of her and the presence of Deedee would make no difference because every man in the taproom would help him.

Gustav had telt Pete and Gladys a long time since that since he was wealthier than they he neither needed nor wanted anything unless it made the legal situation better for Harriet. Equally long ago, at a meeting with Sasha and Elle it had been decided that it would be wise to leave the shares owned by Gladys and Pete split fifty fifty between Harriet and Gustav and for Sasha to put all his shares in the Dragon immediately in to the control of the Bearthwaite Village Community Ownership Company which along with the Bearthwaite Property Developments Company subsequently became Beebell, Bearthwaite Business Enterprises Ltd. That way if anything happened to him the Dragon was safe. Sasha had originally planned on leaving his shares to Gladys and Pete, but they’d suggested leaving them to Harriet and Gustav would be better. It was Gustav who’d suggested leaving them to himself and Harriet would be fine but putting them in the control of Beebell would be best, for they would then be bombproof from outside control, and after all they could leave ownership of them to any children they may have in the future, yet still leave them in the administration of Beebell for safekeeping.

Gladys was more than tired of Delia and said, “What shares your dad and I have in the Dragon we have already left shared between Harriet and Gustav. Harriet has created an entail with her shares for her children which is like a kind of trust fund and can’t be broken under any circumstances till the children are thirty-five. The entail is managed by Beebell.” That seemed to enrage Delia even more if that were possible.

When Gustav added he had put his shares directly into the control of Beebell she lost whatever reason she had possessed on her arrival at Bearthwaite and attacked him. Gustav had been an amateur boxer since childhood. He only punched her once, which though a pulled punch naytheless stunned her and put her to the floor. Deedee who hadn’t moved because she’d been seriously intimidated by Bertie who at seven feet tall and of a massive frame towered, or perhaps loomed was a better choice of word, over her said she was going to call the police. Pete pointed and said, “The phone is there, but if you try to use it I’ll beat the shit out of you, and there will be a room full of witnesses who will swear you attacked me and I was merely defending myself. The police sergeant who will arrive will be Michael Graham who was born and reared here. He’ll just accept what he’s telt as the truth whether he believes it or not. You obviously don’t understand how it works here. You are an unwelcome outsider and we look after our own which hasn’t included Delia for a very long time. It’s your call, literally if you try to make it, but the phone is still there waiting for you, and I’m still here waiting for you too. Much against my better judgement and Delia’s mother’s too I’ll provide you with a room rather than throwing you out, but that’s only because I want to know where you are rather than having you wandering round the village causing god alone knows how much damage out of spite. I suggest you take Delia to your room and leave first thing tomorrow morning before either of you get hurt, and don’t ever bother coming back.”

Deedee sneering said to Bertie, “Despite your size and thuggish attitude, Lurch,(39) you’re no more of a man than that cunt who hit Delia are you? Delia said none of the men here would hit or hurt a woman. Obviously she got that wrong.”

As cold as ice Bertie replied, “No she got that right. None of we men would hit or hurt a woman, but I like Pete, Gustav and every other man here would be quite happy to beat the crap out of both of you. You’re not only not women, you’re not even human. I suggest you shut your mouth before someone puts their fist in it shortly followed by their boot when you hit the deck and do what Pete suggested. Room sixteen, Pete?” Pete nodded and Bertie said, “I’ll shew you the way.” When Deedee looked at him for help he added coldly, “You pick it up. I’m not defiling myself by touching it,” referring to Delia, and you can carry your own bags too. Deedee helped Delia to her feet and grabbing both of their bags she assisted her upstairs following Bertie.

“Well, Lads, after that bit of excitement I suggest we get the dominoes out.”

“Good idea, Pete. Partner me?” asked Denis.

~o~

As Pete put it later whilst pulling pints in between domino games, “She’s become an ugly, wide arsed, grossly obese lesbian monster with a combative and grossly offensive attitude, with an even uglier and nastier monster in tow going by the name of Deedee, which I reckon must stand for Diesel Dyke. Bertie got it right, for it’s stretching the bounds of any definition of feminity to call either of them a woman. Both of them have more metal piercing their faces than I’ve seen in many a scrapyard. I gave ’em a room for the reasons I gave, but mostly because I want to know why she arrived unannounced on the doorstep. I just don’t believe it was purely to check up on what she’d get when Gladys and I passed.”

Later that evening Gladys said in the privacy of their bedroom that Delia had the most evenly balanced and split personality she’d ever come across. She contemptuously and crudely explained, “She’s chips on both shoulders that reach down and disappear into her fanny,(40) but I’m glad she came back just so I can see what she has become. Any regrets I ever had about cutting her out of my life have completely disappeared. I don’t care what you say, Love, once she leaves here she’s never setting foot over my threshold again.”

Pete had just nodded in agreement and explained, “Whilst I still think I did the right thing by providing the pair with a room I certainly won’t be sorry when they leave.”

Gladys had a whimsical tone to her voice when she said, “I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed telling so many lies or hearing so many lies telt in my life before. Actually I know I’ve never telt that many lies in such a short period of time in my life before.”

“How do you mean, Love?”

“Well controlling the shares isn’t the same as owning them. Beebell have control of the Dragon and as you know Harriet and Gustav have said they’ll keep it that way, but when Sasha and Elle have gone, Harriet will own virtually all of the shares and Gustav and Gloria will own the rest. The children will in their turn own them all between them, subject of course to the limitations as to what they can do with them. My guess is they’ll run the place and leave the shares in the administrative control of Beebell because that way is much safer for them, the Dragon and Bearthwaite. At least one of them will probably be on the Beebell board of directors. It’s all working out rather nicely don’t you think. You know what? I’ve just realised Delia isn’t even aware of her sister Gloria’s existence, nor that of Brigitte and Peter. She didn’t meet the children and isn’t aware they were not born to her cousin and Gustav.”

Gloria was Pete and Gladys’ nearly three year daughter. Pete replied immediately, “Well, I reckon Gloria is better off that way, the twins too. The less Delia knows about anything here the better. Brigitte filled the dogs’ water and kibble bowls tonight, fortunately Gustav was thinking on his feet and took her upstairs as soon as he realised Delia was around. As to Beebell, I’ve said it before Sasha’s a wily old fox. I know Chance and Adalheidis assisted by Murray and Emily actually set Beebell up, but at the far end of it it was Sasha’s doing. You fancy trying to give Gloria a little brother or sister, Love?”

~o~

Delia was found by Deedee the following morning dead in their bed. The police were called for, and Michael Graham with two constables arrived behind the ambulance. He ended up arresting and removing Deedee for a breech of the peace. An ambulance took Delia away to the morgue. It was subsequently discovered both Deedee’s and Delia’s bags contained class A narcotics.

~o~

Pete had been concerned as to how upset Gladys would be by Delia’s death, after all he reasoned Gladys had given birth to her and she had a history of depression associated with losing children due to several miscarriages. He was surprised rather than shocked when Gladys said in a rather bright voice, “All’s well that end’s well, Love. At least Harriet and the children won’t have to be worried about things when we’re gone. It always bothered me that Delia would come back to cause trouble. Well she did, and it got her nowhere, but at least we now know it’s literally a dead issue. The good thing is she didn’t meet Brigitte, Peter and Gloria because I’m sure she’d have done her best to upset them.”

~o~

The post mortem subsequently determined that Delia had been an opioid user for many years and that she had died from a fentanyl overdose. It was later discovered that she had died with considerable debt. Gladys surmised Delia had arrived at Bearthwaite in an attempt to obtain money, which Deedee corroborated to the police. However, her greed and anger concerning what she had clearly regarded as her rightful inheritance had meant she’d not found an appropriate time to ask for money. Pete and Gladys refused to pay her debts, nor even for her funeral, as Pete said, “Neither are anything to do with us.”

Gladys said, “Potters’ field(41) is more than good enough for the likes of her and I certainly don’t wish her remains to contaminate the site where our friends and neighbours have their last resting places. That is where my man and I shall ultimately rest, and I no more wish her as a neighbour when I have passed than I do now whilst I am alive.”

~o~

Sasha asked Pete, “How is Gladys taking it all? Is she at all bitter?”

Pete telt him, “No, possibly a touch regretful, but probably not, Sasha. She said she was glad Delia came back because seeing what she’d become killed any regrets she’d ever had.” Harriet replaced Delia in her heart and mind a long time ago. And having Gloria gave her a peace of mind she’d not had for at least a decade. Years before she finally left Delia had started treating her mother with contempt and a considerable distance had grown between them.

“And you, Pete?”

“I’m a bloke. I don’t worry about stuff I can’t do owt about, and I wouldn’t like any who didn’t treat my missus like she should be tret,(42) and I guess that included Delia, who I think had hated and despised me for a year or two before she finally upped and left. We didn’t know where she was and she never contacted us till she landed back here. Anyway the matter’s over now, and I can put my hand on my heart and say neither of us were in any way responsible for what Delia became, nor how she died. To be honest, Lad, there are more important things for us to be discussing and getting on with. Right now it’s preparing for the older kids being schooled here come September.”

~o~O~o~

1. NCSG, National Child Support Group, the umbrella Social Service Group referred to elsewhere. In reality there is no official such group, though unofficial mechanisms based on the idea exist in the UK.
2. Kernowek, one of the spellings of Cornish, the language, rendered from Cornish into English.
3. Ratching, rummaging, seeking.
4.The Falkirk wheel lifts a stretch of canal carrying water vessels. The wheel raises the water and vessels by 24 metres [79ft)]. The previous 11 locks that it replaced had fallen into disuse, but when in operation it took the best part of a day for a vessel to work its way through them.
5. Richard Beeching closed 2,363 stations and 5,000 miles (8,000 km) of railway line in 1963, 55% of stations and 30% of route miles, to stop the vast losses the railways were incurring on behalf of the tax payer. Beeching was a much vilified man for doing so, and still is, but he was in a hard place. The motorway network was expanding and there was a lot of money to be made from road transport by influential folk who wanted the railways closed down as competitors. Beeching was made a Lord for his work.
6. Kit bashing is the practice of making a new scale model by using and or modifying pieces out of kits. These pieces may be added to a custom project, as here, or to another kit.
7. Scratch building is the process of building a scale model from scratch, i.e. from raw materials, rather than building it from a commercial kit, kit bashing or buying it pre assembled. Scratch building is easiest if original plans of the subject exist; however, many models have been built from photographs by measuring a known object in the photograph and extrapolating the rest of the dimensions.
8. Bit scrashing, a halfway house between kit bashing and scratch building which involves using bits of kits, either as they come out of the box or modified, when convenient and using raw materials when nothing else is available to create the desired effect.
9. Cumberland and Westmorland Convalescent Institution railway station was a terminus off the short Blitterlees branch off the Carlisle and Silloth Bay Railway, within Silloth itself. The station did not appear on standard railway maps, but it can be discerned on at least two published maps and most clearly on the 1914 25 inch OS map. The station’s sole purpose was to serve the convalescent home of the same name. Although this was the home’s formal title, it was widely referred to as “Silloth Convalescent Home”, as was the station. The station never appeared in public timetables. “Invalid Trains” to the station were run on an ad hoc basis, though for many years they commonly ran on Thursdays around 15:00, preceded by a shunter or a guard on foot, as the line to the station was a siding without signals or fencing. The unstaffed station was minimalist, consisting of a single wooden platform next to the single track. The home and station opened in 1862. One source states that the station is believed to have closed around 1928, whilst another, with local knowledge, refers to it as both mentioned in the 1937 Sectional Appendix and “open during the Second World War” In 2023 the home is still operating.
10. Stopped. Use of the past participle rather than the present participle is common in Cumbrian English.
11. The reference here is to Branston pickle® small chunks. Branston pickle had been a best seller for decades but their small chunks innovation along with their ‘smooth pickle’ had been huge commercial successes.
12. Die Büstenhalter, brassières
13. Græme, pronunciation varies with UK dialect used. In order of usage they are, Gray + emm, Gremm, Grame. IPA Greiɛm,Grɛm,Greim. Often pronounced incorrectly as Graham, IPA Gray + ham or Gray + am.
14. Zymurgy, a branch of applied chemistry that deals with fermentation processes, as in wine making or beer brewing. The word is often used to include all aspects of alcohol distillation too.
15. A’ level, Advanced level. The qualification that follow on from official school leaving age in the UK. Usually taken in three or four subjects and examined at the age of eighteen,
16. GCSE, General Certificate of Secondary Education. Examinations usually taken by 15/16 year olds in the UK.
17. PC, political correctness.
18. STEM, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
19. LEA, Local Education Authority.
20. Burgundy Book, the Conditions of Service for School Teachers in England and Wales. It is a national agreement between the six school teacher unions and NEOST. It sets out national conditions of service for school teachers in England and Wales and is an essential reference for all maintained schools and also non-maintained schools that choose to incorporate this agreement into their teachers’ contracts of employment. The Burgundy Book’s main provisions relate to notice periods, sick leave and pay and maternity leave and pay.
21. NEOST, National Employers Organisation for School Teachers. NEOST is the statutory recognised national employer representative body for school teachers. The LGA provides the Secretariat to NEOST, which represents education authorities and other employers of school teachers in maintained schools in England and Wales.
22. LGA, Local Government Association. The body that provides NEOST with its secretariat.
23. Compo, building trade vernacular for mortar.
24. Off the tools, building trade vernacular term used in two senses. One, as here to not be able to work for reasons beyond the craftsmen’s control, as in the shortage of materials to work with referred to. Two, when a middle aged tradesman who is not a particularly skilled worker is being talked about it may be said, ‘It’s time to tek him off the tools and mek him up,’ which means to promote him to a foreman (to mek, make, him up) where he will no longer have to work as a craftsman (to tek, take, him off the tools).
25. Soft soap, a soap with a thick viscous consistency made from soap with large amounts of hartshorn, more often called spirits of ammonia these days, a mixture of ammonia, water and alcohol. Nowadays soft soap is widely sold as perfumed hand soaps and body washes dispensed from small plastic bottles with a pump action.
26. Out of collar, out of work. The expression is an old one that refers to draft horses who worked by pushing their weight on the collar they wore around their necks. To be out of collar referred to when they weren’t working.
27. Gey, very.
28. Slate, slates used to be used to record who owed what. Matt is going to pay for the drinks.
29. Thick, in UK usage thick is synonymous with stupid.
30. The coin, the money.
31. Mince, used thus refers to minced [US ground] beef.
32. Beast, in this context beef. Cattle are referred to as beasts.
33. Tesco is the largest supermarket chain in the UK with a 27% market share.
34. Nürnberg Trials. Held for the purpose of bringing Nazi war criminals to justice, the Nürnberg trials were a series of 13 trials carried out in Nürnberg, Bavaria, Germany, between 1945 and 1949. The defendants, who included Nazi Party officials and high-ranking military officers along with German industrialists, lawyers and doctors, were indicted on such charges as crimes against peace and crimes against humanity. The Nürnberg executions by hanging took place on 16 October 1946, shortly after the conclusion of the trials.
35. Nutted, castrated.
36. Chessing, chasing.
37. All premises licensed to sell alcohol in the UK are required by law to display the names of all the licensees prominently over the main entrance.
38. Beebell, a name originally used by the media for Bearthwaite Business Enterprises Ltd, BBEL, and subsequently adopted by Bearthwaite Business Enterprises Ltd. It is the holding company for all collectively owned assets of the Bearthwaite valley coöperative that every adult resident of Bearthwaite holds an equal share in.
39. Lurch, a reference to Lurch the colossal character in the ‘Addams family’ TV drama.
40. Fanny in English English is a crude expression for a woman’s genitalia. As here it usually refers to the visible cleft dividing the pudendum.
41. A potter’s field, paupers’ grave or common grave is a place for the burial of unknown, unclaimed or indigent people. The term is of Biblical origin, referring to Akeldama (meaning field of blood in Aramaic), stated to have been purchased after Judas Iscariot’s suicide by the high priests of Jerusalem with the coins that had been paid to Judas for his identification of Jesus. The priests are stated to have acquired it for the burial of strangers, criminals, and the poor, the coins paid to Judas being considered blood money. Prior to Akeldama’s use as a burial ground, it had been a site where potters collected high-quality, deeply red clay for the production of ceramics, thus the name potters’ field. Matthew 27: 9-10 says, Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: “They took the thirty pieces of silver, the price set on him by the people of Israel, and they used them to buy the potter’s field, as the Lord commanded me.” See also Zechariah 11:12,13 and Jeremiah 19:1-13; 32:6-9.
42. Tret, treated.

A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 43 The Beck, The Wedding and The Limned Letter

~o~O~o~

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?”

~Dr Tenby~

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.

~Steak and Mushrooms~

“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.

~Bearthwaite Beck~

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.

~o~

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.

~o~

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.

~o~O~o~

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.

~o~O~o~

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.”

In The Taproom

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.

~o~O~o~

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.

~o~O~o~

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.”

~o~O~o~

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.

~o~O~o~

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.

~o~O~o~

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.”

~o~O~o~

“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.

~o~O~o~

“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.

Over In The Best Side

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.

Back in the Taproom

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.

~o~O~o~

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.

~o~

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.”

~o~O~o~

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.

~o~

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?”

~o~O~o~

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.

A look Into The Future

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.

A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 44 Spring, Broadband, and Natural Justice

Since being a toddler, Violet had heard many conversations concerning war, it was something regularly discussed by Bearthwaite men, a number of who had served in the armed forces, and she had taken it all in, for to her the Bearthwaite view made perfect sense. Much of what she’d heard over and over again could be summarised in short pithy sentences. ‘Wars are caused by idiots who have the principles that ordinary blokes don’t give a toss about, but end up dying for anyway.’ ‘The number of armed conflicts a nation gets involved in is a measure of the incompetence and stupidity of its leaders because in the end all conflicts are settled around the negotiating table. It doesn’t actually require that much intelligence to have the negotiations before the conflict.’ ‘A squaddie(1) I knew a long time ago who’d been in the mob(2) for twenty-odd years once telt me that a battle that doesn’t happen is one won by the lads on both sides.’

~o~O~o~

The snow drops had been out in swathes down the sides of The Bearthwaite Lonning, especially on the side opposite the beck, for some time. They were at their peak and a blindingly white sight to gaze at when the sun shone. The daffodils(3) belovèd of Wordsworth,(4) albeit in the slightly gentler clime of farther south in the county that he hailed from, were full, fat budded and about to burst. A few of them would be creamy white which was a genetic sport, a mutation. They were not imported, but were a variant of the wild type, and like the wild yellow type had centres with a varying depth of orange colouration, though they always opened before their yellow sisters. The blackthorn was only just over it’s peak, but the lightly scented, frothy, pale yellow tinged, white blossom that filled the Bearthwaite hedges were still glorious to behold. The still tight furled, green leaf buds of the hawthorn, known locally as Mayblossom, that were eaten as a snack by the children as they walked past skilfully plucking them by the handful whilst avoiding the thorns without breaking stride, held promise of further blinding white blossom and the overwhelming scent that would fill the valley in May. The edible unopened flower buds and young stems were referred to as bread and cheese by the children.

The fruits of blackthorn, hawthorn, mountain ash, also known as rowan, and the hips of the wild rose would later in the year be used by Christine and her staff, along with the wild crab apples, to make jellies that selt for high prices to the tourists. The as yet immature flowers of the croci were attempting, but not yet succeeding, to make a visual impact on the sward they had so recently forced their way through in their search for light and the bees. The honey bees who were now making their presence known on all but the coldest of days. The dark green, foot tall stems of the bells were easy to identify, but from the as yet unswollen buds it was not possible to distinguish which of the three colours of bells that were to be found in the valley one was looking at. The bells were known locally as bluebells, pinkbells and whitebells, though the pink ones were more nearly mauve than a genuine pink. Mauve was not a word that came readily to the lips of most Bearthwaite folk. Some had never heard it used in speech, and many more wondered if it were a genuine word or some kind of an arrogant prank that the tourists from way to the south were trying to pull on those they regarded as uncultured, unlettered rustics.

Though the native hyacinths and many other late spring and early summer flowers had as yet to make an appearance the as yet tight furled fiddle head fern buds announced that without doubt spring had sprung. Birds were pairing, some of the males with elaborate displays that endlessly shrieked, ‘Look at me. Look at me.’ Bright red breasted cock robins were even more feisty, if not outrightly more aggressive, than usual as they defended what they considered to be their territories. For Bearthwaite folk everything was as it should be in their world. It was anticipated, expected even, that the warmer weather and the sun would induce some of their older children to make a start on the next generation on their rambling, hand held walks around the further and more private reaches of the valley, but that too was as it should be, as all too many of the adults remembered with a great deal of fondness.

Ellen, Alf Winstanley’s wife, smiled as she watched Zella her eldest granddaughter setting off for a walk with Ryan who she knew before long was going to father the eldest of her great grandchildren. She smiled at Alf and said, “It’s the sunshine that does it. I remember―” She stopped herself at that, for there was no need to say more, a whole series of conversations had just been exchanged with the man who for so many decades had worked so hard to create the good life that she and their family had enjoyed, and in the process had become a wealthy and sucessful man. Alf as a youngster had been believed to be a brainless failure with no future by his school teachers and virtually all who knew him. Other than his dad, Ellen was the only one who believed he had greatness in him, even his mother had been concerned regarding his future. Ellen’s belief in Alf right from their start had decided her to deliberately become pregnant at sixteen with Sylvia their eldest. She’d had to wait nearly three years for Alf to be old enough to marry her, but it was a decision she’d never for a second regretted, despite their differences, which both admitted were rare occurrences, for Alf whose brains were mostly in his highly skilled hands and eyes had always loved her, had never even looked elsewhere, and she knew he still loved her just as he did all those years ago.

Almost as if he knew she needed confirmation of her beliefs, Alf put his arms around her, held her tight and whispered, “Me too.”

After kissing her ear, he breathed heavily on her neck and into her ear, which as usual tickled her into paroxysms of delicious expectation. Purely as a matter of principle, knowing where this was all leading to she said, “Alfred George Winstanley, will you please act your age.”

Alf replied lecherously, “But I am, Love. Surely you don’t believe it’s only the youngsters that can have some enjoyment out of life when the sun is shining? I worked hard to make that bed of ours and I intend to extract every bit of fun out of it as is possible. I expect to have as much fun out of it today as Zella and Ryan are going to have on the fells, but maybe they’ll go to Alan’s barn which was where it all started for us.”

“You were a beast at fourteen,” Ellen sighed with feigned regret before saying, “and you haven’t changed a bit in five and a half decades thank goodness, so there’s no need to stop, Love. I know you know, but I want to say that I do love you as much as I did all those years ago, Alfred.”

Perhaps it’s best if a line is drawn under this interlude at this point, for indeed spring had sprung.

~o~O~o~

The Bearthwaite folk were making a significant amount of money from the tourist industry, for there were few places where such a variety of birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians could be so easily seen in such a small area. Much of what the Bearthwaite residents provided the tourists with were goods and services sourced in the valley and as such there was no audit trail on them, which was something that the village accountants, Murray, Chance and Emily, found convenient for maximising their neighbours’ incomes whilst minimising their taxation obligations. The valley had numerous micro environments and ten of the thirteen reptiles and amphibians to be found in the UK could be found there if one were patient. Natterjacks, the hunting toads, could be seen every evening jumping for the moths attracted to the eighteen inch [45cm] high, LED footpath lights around the green that derived their power from the bobbin mill millwheel. Slow worms, that were properly speaking legless lizards, were to be readily found in the compost heaps of the allotmenteers. To see adders [vipers] and grass snakes it was probably best to take a walk up towards the fells over the marshes and brackens where common lizards could also be seen like the snakes basking in the sun often easily seen on the top of a dark rock which absorbed the sunshine and reëmitted it as heat.

Common frogs and common toads were, it had to be said just that, common, and could be seen in a wide variety of damper habitats and in water too. One would be lucky to catcht a sighting of a smooth newt or a palmate newt, and luckier still to obtain a photograph, but they were to be seen if one had the time and the patience. By contrast it was said one only had to walk along any two hundred metre stretch of Bearthwaite Beck to spot at least one great crested newt which though considered environmentally of least concern were protected, and wonderful to see. They had always been present in the valley, but till the beck had filled had rarely been seen by outsiders. Fortunately for Madeline, from the legal perspective, the fish had been introduced to Bearthwaite Beck before the efts, as newts were locally known, had moved in, for all were protected and introducing fish to a water where amphibians dwelt was specifically against the law. It was known that the efts had spawned and plenty of their young had survived the fish, for there were any number to be seen at the beck edges in the reeds where the fish could not take them.

The invertebrate wildlife to be found in the valley was of many varied types and more were being discovered all the time, more or less every time someone took a camera out or took a water sample from a ditch. As Alf was known to have said, “At long last those little biting buggers you can hardly see have come in useful for something. You know the ones I mean, the little buggers that lurk near water and swarm around in misty clouds especially when it’s gloaming. I hate the things. Mind I reckon it’s only the swallows that do like ’em. I read once a single swallow eats thousands of ’em every day. Only question is how do we make life better here for swallows. Then they can tell all their mates what a brilliant place this is to spend the summer.”

Tommy Dowerson was building a huge collection of photographs of unknown things of which he sent copies off regularly to various specialists in universities and institutes all over Europe. Many of the subjects turned out to be different forms of species already known, some of which were interesting to the academics. However, occasionally something unexpected and exciting turned up. Two previously uncatalogued lichens had been discovered on gravestones in the Bearthwaite cemetery and a dozen and a half that had been exceedingly rare, six of which had been believed to be extinct, killed off by the air pollution of the coal fuelled industrial revolution, had been discovered on the stones and nearby trees. Even the life forms in the local ditches had been of interest. When Tommy managed to take high resolution video footage and still photographs of mating(5) earthworms(6) on the village green he’d included some photographs and detailed explanations in his guide book which led to many excited eco tourists haunting the green at night in order to acquire a photograph of their own.

A professor from the University of Glasgow had said, “It’s like opening a window on the past of two centuries ago. An ecology that has been preserved untouched by time, and more to the point by modern pollution and agricultural methods. The fields still have the same hedge lines they had centuries ago. The preserved ancient hedges, which are still periodically laid the old fashioned way, are maintained at two metres [7 feet] wide to provide stock proof boundaries. They still act as wildlife corridors, wind breaks and habitats that in most places went long ago when the hedges were grubbed out to make fields bigger so that larger agricultural equipment could be used. The interesting thing to me is that in the valley they are regarded as another food crop, for there are dozens of things they produce that are harvested, many of which are bottled and sold by the Bearthwaite visitor centre. They also produce blackthorn walking sticks and shepherds’ crooks. That is why they aren’t flail cut. A tightly flailed hedge, like most of the country does it every autumn [US fall] produces nothing, not even shelter for livestock.”

Some powerful outsiders wished to make the entire valley a national park so, they said, as to ensure it stayed pristine and unchanged. The residents resisted the move because they saw through the rhetoric and knew it was an attempt by the authorities to gain control of the valley, the home they had fought so hard and paid so much for. They knew that if the outsiders were successful the residents would still own the valley, yet have no say as to what happened there. That there would be no monetary compensation offered was irrelevant, for there could be no compensation for the loss of their way of life.

At the hearing convened to argue the case. Adalheidis stated, “I’ll try to address the points put forward in the order they were presented. However, to do so there will of necessity be some overlap and an unavoidable degree of repetition for which I apologise in advance. The opposition have taken three days to present their case. I shall be finished today, but I reserve the right to three days too which I intend to use to present our case as I see fit. That should cover any overlap and repetition, so any objection by the opposition will be countered on those grounds as of right now.

“We have successfully looked after the valley for over a thousand years, and it is our property. For nearly half a century every resident of Bearthwaite, man, woman and child, has worked and saved to pay for that property. It has all been transferred into the ownership of Bearthwaite Business Enterprises Limited, bee bee ee ell [BBEL], usually known as Beebell, the Bearthwaite coöperative that is equally owned by every adult resident of the valley. We still have millions in outstanding loans to pay off for that ownership. The lonning in and the land around it is private property as is the entire valley.” At raised eyebrows from the two men and a woman who were presiding over the hearing, all from a long way to the south of Cumbria, Adalheidis said, “My appologies, a lonning is a lane. It is a widely used Cumbrian word. The official name of the nearly nine miles long unmetalled lane into the valley is Bearthwaite Lonning. We refuse admission to any official and shall enforce that if necessary. We pay Council Tax for the police service and shan’t hesitate to use the service we have paid for. In addition I’m an expert concerning the exact legal technicalities of citizens’ arrests and there are more than enough large and tough Bearthwaite men with poor attitudes to the authorities who would be delighted to be given an excuse to effect such an arrest. Naturally with the minimum of force required in order to comply with the law, and I’ll make sure they know exactly what they may and may not do.

“Without a magistrates’ bench warrant, to use a well known phrase, they shall not pass. Moreover, they’ll need a better reason than any reason that has been provided here to obtain such a warrant. All we have heard from the authorities for three days has been based on a presumption of our guilt. Is their legal team so ill versed in the law that they are not aware that under UK law presumption of guilt is illegal? It certainly would not be accepted by a magistrate or a judge at any level of court to obtain a warrant, and there is a distinct possibility they would end up being prosecuted by the authorities should they try to obtain a warrant on those grounds. You can be certain I would bring such actions to the attention of the relevant judicial bodies. I’ll help them out here. To obtain a warrant they need to be able to present convincing evidence that a crime has taken place or is about to take place. Nothing else will do. That is the law.

“However, moving on, there is no industry of the types the proposers of this outrage say need controlling in the valley and there is not going to be, we neither wish it nor shall we permit it. As for funding, there is no such thing as a free lunch, it always comes at a price, a price that we have no intention of paying, so I suggest Natural England(7) or who ever is managing and manipulating the opposition at this hearing from behind the scenes, keep their blood money for those who can be bribed, for it isn’t us. I’ve said it in court before and I’ll say it again here, we are not selling our birthright and that of our children for bread and a pottage of lentiles.(8) Just for the record, it is illegal to overfly private property with a drone. Peeping Toms, and voyeurs are defined by the law as criminals. Too, it is totally legal to shoot such a drone out of the sky. Naturally being the type of environment it is there are any number of legally licenced shot guns in the valley and a remarkable number of those are owned by folk reckoned to be excellent shots.

“At the moment we allow, encourage even, tourists to observe and photograph the valley wild life which is completely unbothered by their presence, for other than legitimate game at the appropriate times of the year none have bothered the wildlife for centuries. Wildlife moving in soon becomes the same as the indigenous wildlife. That alone should be worth much to the authorities, for why would a tourist desirous of photographing rare wildlife go elsewhere to photograph what is difficult and arduous to find, and probably end up disturbing it when they find it and fail to obtain the desired photograph, when they can book a comfortable room with a good dinner in the Green Dragon, buy a guide book and receive free advice on where to go to find what they’re looking for that is easy to photograph and as long as they are reasonably quiet is virtually impossible to disturb and frighten away? I suggest the opposition consider that deeply.

“You have already heard Mr. Thomas Dowerson’s explanations of the wildlife guides he produces and sells. They are very popular and the kind of tourist we attract is one that wishes to take photographs not specimens. We know many of them well, for they return over and over again in order to obtain further sightings and photographs to add to their guide books. Many have been our friends for years and are exactly the kind of folk we wish to entertain, for their financial input and support enables us to maintain and improve the valley somewhat faster than we would otherwise be able to do, and they share our concerns and respect for the wildlife. We have never encountered any of the specimen collector types, but we would know if such invaded our home, the home we share with the wildlife, and they would be rapidly extradited to the outside. I use the concept extradition because that is how we see it. We may be UK citizens, but we have a completely different view of life from most outsiders to the valley. We do not control the wildlife in our home, we are an integral part of it.

“Doubtless you have read in the media the slurs concerning us and our acceptance of those who have different ideas concerning their identity. We have been castigated as being all sorts of things, but the strange thing is we are merely conforming to the law. It is actually illegal to discriminate against any member of the LGBT+. We don’t. As long as their values are not incompatible with our own we welcome them. I am trans and my father’s family is from Newton Arlosh where I was born, but my mother was German. However, my husband’s family has been Bearthwaite born and bred for centuries, and I, and our children to be which we are on a waiting list to adopt, am continuing in the Bearthwaite way of life. I hear you asking, what has that to do with what we are discussing? That respect we have for each other extends to all living life and is why we reject outside control, for that is subject to a pragmatism we would never accept.

“We make room for the wildlife, no matter the cost. An example of that would be Alan Peabody. He is one of our farmers, and years ago he stopped using one of his barns rather than disturb a pair of breeding peregrines that have now successfully nested there for years. None telt him to do so. That is just the way we are. I gave him some of my fees from winning the recent case against the utility company to build a new barn, an expensive stone built barn built to be in keeping with so our environment, that he and his employees need suffer no more loss of income as a result of his actions concerning the barn. I didn’t need the money and he and his employees did. After all like all of us I benefit from his activities, and the peregrines are a glorious sight to behold that add to the quality of my life. That new barn provided a roost for hundreds of bats within twelve months of its erection and there are thousands that use it now. I challenge the opposition to tell me who else including themselves have ever done such a thing. It is illegal to do anything that disturbs bats and that is as far as they will have gone, we on the other hand have created a safe habitat for thousands of them that did not exist before and we are building three more such barns elsewhere in the valley. A modern barn built of sheet steel would provide habitat for naught other than the rats and mice found in all barns everywhere. There are many other such examples I could quote, but I consider the point to have been made, for neither Alan nor myself are in any way atypical of Bearthwaite residents, wealthy and poor alike, and all our children will become adults no different from their parents in that regard.

“If needed we could close access to the valley. That’s easy enough; we just allow the lonning going into the village which we own to flood as was the case year round not so long ago. We and not some outside agency are the best and only suitable custodians of the valley. Born of Bearthwaite folk or not, it was our ancestors inheritance. It is our inheritance and we shall make absolutely certain it shall still be there as it is right now to be the inheritance of our descendants, many of who like myself will be Bearthwaite folk by choice and the acceptance of their neighbours which by our beliefs gives them the right to claim all of past Bearthwaite residents as their kin, which probably explains why ignorant outsiders believe we are highly inbred and incest is the norm in the valley. We find that to be amusing because all it proves is their lack of knowledge, intelligence and perception, which probably is due to too much inbreeding. To be acceptable to us as a resident a person has to already have the requisite values and ways of seeing things. What I am saying here is all future Bearthwaite residents will be suitable custodians of the valley.

“We shall permit no officials to enter to catalogue and count what is there, so that they can in the future control our lives. We put an end to that sort of despotism by spending every penny we had to buy every property and square foot of land in the Bearthwaite Valley, and we are not going to allow any to resurrect that kind of feudalism again. Any cataloguing and counting shall be done by us, and yes a large part of that will be done by the tourists who are all more than willing to share their information with us, for we attract the right sort of visitors. We have nothing to offer that would be of interest to other sorts of folk. All that data and photographs too we shall continue to share with respected academics at universities and institutes all over Europe, and every one of them is a world authority in their field. Those experts offer advice, not orders, as to how we can improve our environment and make it more resilient and robust against the constant degradation of our neighbouring ecosystems, and for sure they do not need to be monitored by any civil servant, and we certainly don’t need ham fisted amateurs from some government agency trampling over our home and dictating what we may and may not do there.

“Bearthwaite Business Enterprises Limited owns everything in the valley that is not privately owned by residents. I and my colleagues represent Beebell. It is within our power to make life exceedingly difficult for all outsiders. The key is we own and maintain the Bearthwaite Water dam and it does not have to be there. We do not need it to be there. The water it catches and retains we sell to the utility company who use it to meet some of the needs of the metropolitan cities to our south, well to the south of the county of Cumbria I’ll add. That water controls flooding outside the Bearthwaite Valley, if it is not piped away south it floods many miles of Cumbrian roads, and we are not obliged to sell it. We certainly don’t need the money. We can live with the lonning permanently flooded. For the flood water spills out of the valley and can’t possibly reach anywhere near any of our dwellings buildings nor the land that feeds us.

“That the rest of the county to the east of us cannot live with the flood waters spilling over The Rise has been seen in our recent struggles to control our own destiny with the utilities company. Should the dam be removed or its sluices opened the valley would be effectively cut off from most of the outside, a state of affairs we are used to several times a year, but we have the boat, so it is not a problem to us. However, isolated like that would make the valley an ideal candidate for a number of our wilder rewilding ideas. Most of our residents would be happy for lynx and wolf to be resident along side us again. After all we lived in harmony with them in days gone by, so we could do so again, and it’s an easy way to control the coneys. Sorry, I believe coneys are what you call rabbits. Perhaps the authorities should consider that? Both perhaps a little ambitious, but reintroducing the European wild cat would be perfectly feasible without risking contamination of their genetics with domestic cats. Too, one of the daughters of an established and innovative farmer in the valley has expressed an interest in a small herd of European bison managed for beef which would not be unworkable. We do have the contacts who would be prepared to provide the initial blood stock for all those ideas.

“Oh, and I refuse to use the usual term ‘the competent authorities’ because from a Bearthwaite point of view they are totally incompetent, for they know less about our valley than our average ten year old. My last remark concerns the folk who invade our home without telling us why they are there from time to time. It is strange but since this idea of taking control of our home away from us was first mooted those outsiders have increased in numbers dramatically. They must think we are as stupid as they are, for it rapidly became obvious to us they were not our friends at which point they were escorted out of the valley. If they return they will be prosecuted for criminal trespass, for that we allow others on our property does not give them the same permission. If they get into difficulties and need help to extricate themselves from whatever situation they find themselves in, they’d better have organised it beforehand for we will ignore them and if that leads to their death, so be it. They’ll have done it to themselves not us, and let this serve as their warning. As folk who are deliberately attempting to catastrophically destroy our way of life they can not reasonably expect any help from us, from any of us, under any circumstances. We do have a good signal for mobile phones in the valley which they could use to contact the air ambulance, and that is all the help they would get from us. Other than that we’ll watch them die and consider it to be suicide.” Adalheidis had spoken her last few sentences in the tones of a judge passing a death sentence and it was clear she meant every word. It was also known that when a representative of Bearthwaite spoke they were truly representing the views of the entire population there.

The two men and the woman presiding over the hearing decided in favour of the residents in less than an hour which led to media headlines along the lines of, ‘Cumbria saved from floods and misery’ and ‘David topples Goliath again’. The highways authority were much relieved, and a spokeswoman said, “The Bearthwaite estate has been private property for hundreds of years without any need of outside interference. Nothing other than its ownership has changed, and that much for the better. They successfully manage their road, their water, the valley wildlife and their lives in a completely integrated manner. Their coöperation with the highways has always been amicable and our only problems have occurred as a result of actions by others not by any actions of the Beebell estate as it is now. They allow us to maintain a considerable stockpile of road salt for gritting the roads during the winter on their land just off the main road. In return all it costs us is whatever salt they need for their lonning which is trivial, and we grit their lonning for them free of charge, which takes less than an hour. It’s a most satisfactory arrangement to both parties.”

Adalheidis said to the Beebell board, “They tried and they lost. It has cost them a considerable amount of money, and they have lost a lot of face. They’ll try again, but it won’t be for a decade or more. We by then shall have a considerable body of irrefutable evidence from both here and our academic friends as to just how successfully we are managing the Valley. They will try again to shew the Valley can only be managed properly by themselves and will again focus on our unofficial ‘amateur’ status. Yet again they will act on the presumption of guilt, for they learn nothing and none who work for them now will be working for them then. They are too unintelligent and ignorant to avoid making serious mistakes. As soon as one of them does their bosses, to protect themselves against the consequences of their own incompetence, move them on rather than firing them. That is the backdrop and culture they all, from top to bottom, operate and exist in. What they won’t do is offer a fully considered management plan to stack up against ours.

“They won’t be able to for several reasons. One, and perhaps most importantly in their arrogance they won’t consider it to be necessary. Two, they won’t have direct access to the necessary data and information because we won’t provide it and they will be forbidden to access to the valley. Three, they aren’t bright enough to collect and collate all the information and data that is out there. Four, they will have made a lot of enemies amongst our tourists who know that if they coöperate with the authorities those authorities are a step nearer to winning their case, and as soon as that happens they would prevent our tourists from being able to pursue the activities they come here for. Five some of those tourists have positions of considerable power and influence and they will exercise both on our behalf. Trust me, yet again they shall lose.

“I think we need to have our history written as a book, paying particular attention to what has happened here since the industrial revolution, especially our struggles of the last few years to determine our own destiny by improving our environment for ourselves and the wildlife we share the valley with. We have the necessary folk here to do that, after all it could be authored by dozens of us each writing about the aspects we know best. Initially we could have a couple of thousand printed and sell them at cost via the post office and the visitor centre. I envisage the last chapter to be a speculative look into our future. It would doubtless be preferable to the authorities if they could depopulate the valley as happened in the Cairngorms. They would be unable to realise that that of course would result in serious problems, for if forced out before we left we’d destroy the dam and all the pipework. That would result in massive flooding on local roads and a significant water shortage in the south during times of drought. None would ever be prepared to finance the rebuilding of the dam due to the high cost for the relatively small volume of water to export. Put simply the payback period on the investment would be far too long. Yes I know that locally it is seen as a lot of water, but compared with say what is extracted from Thirlmere it’s nothing really.

“If that happened before long much of the wildlife here would be gone. The fences and drystone walls on the fells would fall into disrepair for it is Bearthwaite residents who maintain them. The sheep would enter the valley from the fells, for the grass here is lush, and destroy the trees whose roots hold the topsoil together. The steep valley sides would erode and wash away for the treeless, tight sheep cropped sward would not have the roots to hold the soil together. Eventually the valley sides would fill the beck and the valley bottom exacerbating the flooding. Unchecked the pike in Bearthwaite Water would clean out all the fish and the amphibians would have nowhere to spawn for the reeds would be under ten feet of water and die. Doubtless mink would eventually arrive to take the water over. The raptors would have a hard time to raise their chicks without food provided by the children. The valley has been a managed environment for at least a millennium and a half, and for all to thrive here it needs to remain a managed environment and only we can do that successfully, for only we have the necessary knowledge. The frightening thing is even if we could move out, all of us I mean, and find somewhere else equivalent to live because of the way we are we would recreate a haven for us and the wildlife and eventually they would try to take that off us too for the same reasons they want to take the valley off us. On a different but related matter I have wondered if any land comes up for sale on the other side of the main road near Bearthwaite Lonning Ends it may be an idea to see it we could buy it. It’s all arable and our farmers could use it to all our benefit and it pushes our boundary out a bit. Calva Marsh and Calva Beck have been too dry to support amphibians for generations. Since that will no longer be the case, if some were to be assisted over The Rise to the far side of the main road they would rapidly establish over there. Of course that would be completely illegal, but the reasons for making it so under these circumstances are equally completely without any foundation for the creatures used to be found there in great abundance when there was enough water there according to some of the records I have read.”

The Beebell board considered Adalheidis’ idea concerning buy more land to be a good one, and since money no longer needed to kept to one side to purchase anything inside the valley for virtually all was already owned there, it could be used for the purpose. Few other than the Beebell board members were aware that Sasha had bought up all the outstanding mortgages on land in the valley and folk were gradually repaying their debts to the fund managed by Elle for land and property purchase and improvement. A number of persons considered what she had said concerning the amphibians and realised that her licence to practice law were at risk were she to be involved. It was decided in her absence that the matter should be taken in hand during the next spawning season.

~o~O~o~

Elle had bought out Bearthwaite’s worst neighbours, the Wainwright family, which was a huge relief to the entire village. Their two sons aged sixteen and fifteen had been bullies who had made the lives of a lot of younger children hell, and that of some of the somewhat older girls terrifying. That had recently stopped after dozens of Bearthwaite lads had given both of them a good beating, stripped them and tied them to a pair of trees a mile outside the village in the dark during a thunderstorm. The rain had been pouring down and the village lads had had the best laugh of their lives when the two Wainwright boys had started blubbering and howling because they were terrified by the thunder and lightening. The Bearthwaite lads would have left them there all night, but it was a couple of the girls whom the Wainwright boys had intended to have ‘a little fun’ with who were their saviours and insisted after a couple of hours their parents were contacted to tell them where they could be found.

The girls weren’t bothered how long the pair were tied to the trees for, but they were concerned their brothers could get into serious trouble if the boys died from exposure. The brothers’ parents had talked about bringing assault charges, but some of the girls’ fathers had in turn talked about bringing charges for the attempted rapes that had only been prevented by the girls’ brothers. The boys’ parents had been shewn video footage from mobile phones to substantiate the girls’ claims which ended the talk of bringing assault charges. That their sons couldn’t leave the valley till the water receded and if they left the house would likely be involved in violence every day till they left with dozens of witnesses to swear that their sons had started the the problems made their parents discipline them properly for the first time in their lives.

One of their fathers telt a number of the boys, “We’re trying to keep you idiots alive. Don’t you realise the next time you confront the boys here you’ll likely get kicked in the balls so hard you’ll need the air ambulance to take you to the Cumberland Infirmary to remove them before you die, which at least will get you out of here. However, if you consider being a eunuch is a price worth paying to get the fuck out of here get on with it because I seriously doubt the girls you tried to molest will save you from their brothers twice. The people here are fucking savages, and their kids are no different. I know you, like the adults, want to get out of this place, but I suggest you ignore the kids here both boys and girls, or as I said you’ll get air lifted out to spend the rest of your lives as eunuchs if you are lucky, or as corpses if you’re not. These people hate us and don’t give a damn if any of us live or die. They hate you boys even more than they hate me and the other adults, and there’re far more of them than there are of us. You can forget any recourse to the law because these bastards will lie through their teeth to back each other up, even in court. Till we get the hell out of here we’re fucked, and the only way we’re going to do that is on their terms, or we’ll probably starve to death. There’s no possibility of buying food at any price from any of them, and I’m not even going to contemplate what they’ll do if we try to steal any. They’d probably leave our bodies for their pigs to eat which would leave no evidence whatsoever. God knows how long it’s going to take us to convince your mothers of that, but I and your dads are only too aware of it, and of how little food we’ve got left. I suggest you grow up and get to grips with the reality we are confronting here, or you’ll find out what a real good hiding from your dad feels like.”

One of the boys started whining about his rights. His father backhanded him so hard the door frame fifteen feet away that he hit with his head knocked him out. Once he came to his father said, “If you want to die just keep going the way you’re doing now. Otherwise shut the fuck up or I’ll hit you again repeatedly till you do. The same goes for the rest of you from your fathers. Now get the fuck out of my sight.”

Ellen Winstanley, Alf wife, telt many of the women, “Alf said, ‘That’s now got it down to five houses left in the hands of folk we want rid of, and I reckon another couple of twelvemonths(9) will see the arse end of ’em, for they obviously don’t like living here any more than we like ’em being here, though Old Alan Peabody reckons the flood will see ’em off before long. I can put up with the adults, but those boys bother me. The girls’, he was referring to our granddaughters, ‘telt me they won’t go anywhere without the protection of their older brothers, and that’s not right. However the boys telt me not to fash mysel about it,(10) for if need be they’ll deal with those little shites. I didn’t ask for explanations, but one of the lads glanced up at the old pack pony trail. It’s a goodly way to fall for someone desperate enough to try to get out of the valley that way at this time of year.’ I reckon Alf thinks if that pair even think about touching any of the girls the lads will drag them up to the top of the gully and push them off near the top. He obviously approved because he added, ‘The lads are becoming men.’ I think the less we know about any of it the better.”

Not long after Alf’s remark, Old Alan had proven to be right. It was a complex set of negotiations that had enabled the five families to leave involving Adalheidis, Murray and the families who had their solicitors and banks involved in the Zoom conference too, for they could not leave the valley without help from the villagers. They knew all outsiders would be turned back and prosecuted for trespass. Help which they had been refused till they had selt up and all the paperwork had been finalised. The adult women who wished to leave had finally realised what their men had long known: that Bearthwaite folk were not just tough they were ruthless too and willing to watch them starve to death. It had been made clear to them that Adalheidis and Murray at least regarded their word as worthless. “Not till everything is signed, sealed and delivered will you receive owt from any of us,” they been telt by Murray. “Till then you are on your own, and the only way you’ll get out of here before the flood subsides is by swimming or the air ambulance, possibly in the cases of some of those arsehole, animal sons of yours in a body bag.” It was a deeply resentful group of outsiders who’d been telt by their bank managers that they were lucky because there would be no last minute hiccup concerning payment for their houses, as often happened, for Murray was well known to them and he had billions not millions at his disposal and his word was better than money in any bank. He’d refused to consider paying a deposit on the properties and said the entire sum would be paid upon completion of the contracts and it was a take it or leave it offer. The families had finally realised they either accepted the offer or starved. They caved in and accepted Murray’s terms.

On Elle’s instructions, the properties of the five families had been bought up by Murray rapidly on behalf of Beebell. The speed with which it had been done had amazed the solicitors of the families, but Adalheidis had said no land registry and property ownership searches were required since she knew everything that there was to be known concerning every property and piece of land in the valley going back at least a millennium. Murray as promised had organised their moving with all their possessions within a few hours of the purchases. Dozens of Bearthwaite folk had assisted them, and they had been predictably as ungracious and ungrateful about that as they had been about everything else during the time they had lived in the valley. However, as Murray had insisted would be the case nothing had been done till after they had signed their agreements to the sales and the moneys had been confirmed to be in their possessions. All their possessions had been taken by boat to the Rise jetty and left on the road for their furniture pantechnicons(11) to load and without a single backward glance the boats and the folk had returned to Bearthwaite village.

Pete had suggested a bonfire barbecue party on the green would be a suitable way to celebrate the leaving of the last of the ‘miserable bastards’ and the last property or square foot of land in the valley finally being under the control of Bearthwaite folk. Miserable bastards was what he had actually said, but the children were telt he’d said ‘folk as made life difficult’. Most of the older children knew Pete well and didn’t believe he would have used such restrained language, so they asked Peter, “What did your granddad really say, Peter?”

Peter had replied, “I wasn’t there, but my sister was and she telt me he called them miserable bastards.” The children had nodded, for that they believed, and the tale soon circulated. Most had suffered to some extent from the outsiders and considered, despite what their mothers regularly telt then about bad language being the result of a lack of command of the English language and a poor imagination, that Peter’s granddad had been spot on in his description of the outsiders and his language was totally justified. The party was enjoyed by all, and the women closed their ears to their seriously inebriated menfolk’s toasts to the miserable bastards and even to their children imitating their fathers and grandfathers, for they knew how to pick their battles, and that one was unwinnable.

~o~O~o~

Violet, one of Bertrond and Amelia Walker’s daughters was descended on both sides from families that had lived in and around the Bearthwaite valley since long before William of Normandy had arrived at Hastings in ten sixty-six to change the face of England for ever on the fourteenth of October that year. A change that a millennium later had resulted in the deep north south divide. She’d always been fascinated by tales of her ancestors and was aware of every detail that was known concerning the men, and boys too, whose names were chipped into the rough hewn war memorial on the village green. It was her fascination with the old war memorial on the green that had initiated her interest in modelling the Silloth convalescent home. The memorial that listed the names of those who did not return and the tales of those who did, often via the Silloth convalescent home, had been part of her life since her birth.

The convalescent home had cared for the blind, the halt, the maimed, the gassed and those who twitched away the rest of their lives and were terrified all the way to their deaths often decades later by sudden movements and loud noises, the shell shock victims that later would be called PTSD(12) victims were all victims of other folks’ principles. Other folks who never went anywhere near the front, risked nothing and lost nothing, other folks many of who had made huge fortunes from the war, other folks whose families were despised still by Bearthwaite folk who referred to them as politicians and war profiteers and considered the two terms to be interchangeable. Mention of either put a stony look on the faces of Bearthwaite folk that one could imagine would be similar to the one they would wear if they been using a strimmer [powered weed wacker] without wearing a face shield and had hit a dog turd that had gone into their mouth.

On the other side of the memorial were the names of those who didn’t return from the second world war, again many proud names that had been in use for centuries before they became associated with the border reivers.(13) Many had joined the RAF(14) as bomber crew which had prompted Violet’s interest in modelling the huge Solway plain airfield. All had believed what they did was right and that they did it to protect they and theirs from the Nazi monster rampaging through and treading all of Europe under the jackboot heels of his malevolent forces, though many like Violet wondered if their beliefs too had been manipulated by government propaganda. However, all were revered in a quiet unobtrusive way at Bearthwaite and the memorial and the garden around it was immaculately maintained no matter what the weather was doing.

Outsiders had often been surprised by what they considered to be the crude obelisk and many had asked had it not been considered to replace it with a more fitting memorial that the villagers could be proud of. They had all been silenced by their embarrassment when they had been angrily given an explanation of the memorial’s history. True, it was not a finely crafted work, though the names on it were chipped out deep, so as to be long lasting. It had been painfully hewn out of the hard granite of the igneous intrusion that formed The Rise by under nourished, poverty stricken men who’d been too old, too ill or too handicapped to be considered for war service. At best they’d had little skill working such stone, for the Bearthwaite quarry provided much softer sandstone. The nearest Bearthwaite had to stone masons at the time were the dry stone wallers who built and maintained the stone walls up on the fells without benefit of mortar, and the quarry workers who roughly squared off sandstone blocks for building purposes. The memorial had been crafted by men who had lost their sons, brothers, fathers, uncles, cousins and nephews, many before they had had the opportunity to pass on their line, though many had descendants who lived in the valley, most descended from the girls who had given their boys a proper farewell just before they went away to a war they did not return from leaving grief stricken women and families to mourn and wonder why and what it was all for.

The memorial had been hewn by many hands with widely varying degrees of skill, the hands of every man in the valley who had lost kin, and that was all of them, with love and grief in every blow of their hammers and to Bearthwaite folk it stood as a testament more to the stupidity of their so called betters than as an act of remembrance, for Bearthwaite did not commemorate Armistice day, nor have anything to do with the commemorative poppies which were despised as manipulative political constructs that were considered to be deeply cynical manipulations of ordinary folk’s emotions. Like the rest of her people, Violet was deeply respectful of the sacrifices made by not just the names she was so familiar with but of all such men. The ordinary men who it was considered had been forced or manipulated into fighting on both sides of the conflicts. Men like Bearthwaite men, farmers, labourers, shepherds, tradesmen and their like who worked long and hard that their families may eat. It was that respect that had sparked Violet’s interest in modelling the Convalescent home at Silloth and the huge airfield that had dominated the Solway Plain, an interest that had become a passion. She readily admitted to friends that it was only Peter who’d stopped her passion from becoming an obsession, for he was kind and gentle and knew how to distract her from the grief that overwhelmed her from time to time at the futility of all that had led to the memorial’s necessity.

One of the things that had always puzzled Violet, and millions of adults before her too, was that considering Britain had supposedly been on the winning side, rationing in Britain did not end completely until nineteen fifty-four, nearly a decade after the end of the war, and the UK was the last country to end rationing. She was a highly intelligent young woman with rather unusual tastes in reading materials for one of her age and was well aware of her nation’s financial affairs since the days of Napoleon and Arthur Wellesley the first Duke of Wellington. During the second world war the government was forced to borrow heavily in order to finance war with the Axis(15) powers.(16) On the thirty-first of December twenty oh six, Britain made a final payment of about $83m (£45.5m) and thereby discharged the last of its war loans from the US. What stuck in her throat, and she was not alone in that, was that Germany had been free of debt for generations by then.

Since being a toddler, Violet had heard many conversations concerning war, it was something regularly discussed by Bearthwaite men, a number of who had served in the armed forces, some for twenty-plus years, and she had taken it all in, for to her the Bearthwaite view made perfect sense. Much of what she’d heard over and over again could be summarised in short pithy sentences. ‘Wars are caused by idiots who have the principles that ordinary blokes don’t give a toss about, but end up dying for anyway.’ ‘The number of armed conflicts a nation gets involved in is a measure of the incompetence and stupidity of its leaders because in the end all conflicts are settled around the negotiating table. It doesn’t actually require that much intelligence to have the negotiations before the conflict.’ ‘A squaddie(17) I knew a long time ago who’d been in the mob(18) for twenty-odd years once telt me that a battle that doesn’t happen is one won by the lads at the sharp end of the killing on both sides.’

Bearthwaite views concerning Armistice day were not quite so easy to summarise but definitely non PC(19) and at odds with most of those of the nation, but Violet had heard a lot about that too. ‘I knew a bloke who’d been in numerous armed conflicts. He’d served many years in the army, but he had grave reservations concerning poppy day and the constant harping back to the first and second world wars. He wondered how long was it going to go on for. He said that we’d never regarded the peninsula wars culminating in Waterloo like that, and reckoned that the grandfathers of the men who fought in world war one would certainly have heard tales of those wars when they were boys and passed them on. From Waterloo in eighteen fifteen to world war one which was nineteen fourteen to nineteen eighteen was just a century. It’s now an hundred and five years since world war one ended. There can’t be more than a handful alive today who were even born on the last day of world war one, the eleventh of November of nineteen eighteen. It’ll only be twenty-seven years before the same will be able to be said of the second world war. When are we going to let it go?’ Violet had also heard George, who’d served twenty-five years in the army, say, “I’m an intelligent enough man to know what happened, and I don’t need it ramming in my face. I’m no holocaust denier, but the Russians lost more folk than everyone else put together in world war two. The Jews don’t have a monopoly on suffering, no one does. It’s damned unhealthy and gives many folk a distorted, jaded view of history. A lot of folk are so sick of it they ignore all of it and that’s not right either. It like the constant appeals for money to feed folk in other parts of the world when something happens there. Many folk just don’t hear any of it any more. Famine or disaster fatigue they call it.”

Violet had been telt by her father about Jake, a man who’d been a friend of her grandfathers. “Jake came from Maryport and spoke the gey strang(20) Maryport dialect. Most folk from Cumbria thought he was difficult to understand, and most from outside the county found it hard to believe he was speaking English, but you know how that works, Violet Love. Jake was in the TA(21) for years. He telt me of the time he was in a wet and miserable hole on an exercise of some sort in Wales, no surprises there as Wales gets more rain than we do here. One of his comrades was a well spoken highly educated medical man. They hit it off well, and Jake eventually asked him what the hell he was doing in the TA. He was telt ‘Most of my life is completely predictable and most of the persons in it are just like me. The only persons in it that aren’t just like me are female versions of me. Everything about this for me is exciting, I couldn’t imagine meeting someone like you back home. Some one whose way of life and experiences are so different from mine. I know what most of the persons I know are going to say before they say it which doesn’t make for interesting conversation. Even listening to the way you speak for me is an experience I’ll never forget. Before I joined I knew things were different elsewhere, but I’d no idea how much variation there was in the persons who made up the British. Since I joined I’ve met persons from many places in Britain and it has been an eye opener for me. All of us so different in so many ways and yet so similar in so many ways too, after all here we are, both wet, cold, miserable and yet in a perverse way enjoying it because we’re here for reasons we both share, and you must admit this God awful but hot coffee is the most important thing in our small universe right now. Shall I get you another as well?’ ”

That for Violet was initially a confusing tale, for whilst it certainly didn’t glorify war or the military it taught her that men, particularly men she considered, all men, found comradeship wherever it was available to be found and it made their lives better. That made her think of the Christmas day football match played by the English and German soldiers during the first world war so long ago. Eventually she came to believe that both those events demonstrated the folly of war and hardened her heart against the politicians who sent men, and women too now, to their deaths, for usually no good reason that she could see. No fool, she knew there were things that were worth fighting and dying for, and there were things she knew she would be prepared to fight and die for, but she believed that few if any of them were what politicians sent folk out to war for.

~o~

A senior official from the Minister for Health’s staff had contacted Wing Tan Sun the Bearthwaite GP(22) with a view to discovering what it was that made health and social care so much better in the village than elsewhere despite the appallingly low incomes of many folk who lived there. Sun had replied that he was a relative newcomer to Bearthwaite and did not feel it appropriate that he should be a spokesman on the matter. After speaking to a number of the Beebell board, who were effectively Bearthwaite councillors, he invited the official to meet with them. After an hour the official felt he hadn’t actually learnt anything of use that could be applied elsewhere and believed that secrets were being kept from him. As his questions became sharper and more offensive Sasha held his hand up to stop him.

Sasha said, “I understand why you are here. You want to take away a silver bullet or a magic spell that can make other communities as successful as ours. There would be great political kudos in that for your masters, and possibly deliver a winning general election for them. We don’t have any involvement with any political party here, and we certainly have nothing against you or those you represent. We just happen to believe your very existence is a complete waste of time and money. All adults here always vote and they all spoil their ballot papers by writing ‘None of these fools’ if not something even more offensive across them. If you don’t believe that ask our returning officer who has managed elections both local and national for two decades. At every election entire ballot boxes full of spoilt ballots cause an investigation. She’s used to it now and expects it, but still there is an investigation every time. Politicians are incapable of creating what we have here because they seek a top down solution to be imposed upon the public. A public, if they could but see it, that will ultimately reject whatever they propose. The health and social solutions that we have here work because we have a bottom up model.

“The persons you see in this room are all board members of Bearthwaite Business Enterprises Limited, effectively our Council. BBEL, or Beebell as it is usually referred to as, is a coöperative company owned equally by every adult who lives here. It owns just about everything here other than the privately owned houses. It owns the lonning in to the village from the main road and the land around it up to the fells, the village green and all on it, the boat we use to cross the road when it floods, the pumps that can pump the flood away, the reservoir, the fish hatchery, the sewage works, the waste water treatment plant, the quarry, the empty houses under modernisation, the school, the library, the community centre, the church, the bobbin mill, the street lighting, the bus and much more including large tracts of land in the valley and some arable land outside the valley too. It also serves as a source of mortgage money for those residents that need such. What little profit it makes is ploughed straight back in to local ventures, though it has a sizeable just in case fund.

“We, by which I mean the board members, are in this position because our neighbours wish us to be because we ensure all are cared for here. However, all citizens know they may attend board meetings and that they will be listened to if they chose to say owt. No Bearthwaite citizen is in fuel poverty,(23) all get enough good quality food to eat, none are lonely nor are any ever worried they will be cold, hungry or uncared for because we have mechanisms in place to ensure none of those things can happen. I am sorry, but your visit here is as pointless as your existence, for there is nothing here you are capable of learning and there is even less for you to take away. We do not have a solution to our problems based on politics and profit. We do have a solution based on looking after our neighbours and making sure we all live well and enjoy life doing so. The difference between our community and those of outsiders is here none suffer from greed. It’s called being a good neighbour especially towards folk you don’t like.”

~o~O~o~

The newly opened visitor centre in the bobbin mill was on the ground floor. [US 1st floor] The villagers had decided that it was a sensible use of space to maximise their incomes. Anything and everything made or harvested in the valley was for sale there in one place. Some of the men did a little carving and some of the women a little knitting, maybe only a handful of items in a year, but it gave them retail space and it was rapidly realised that the visitors did indeed spend more when it was all conveniently located in one place. The glass wall through which tourists could observe Christine and her staff working as they prepared, pressure canned and made the jars of jams, pickles, relishes and many other food stuffs ready for sale or storage had been one of Brigitte’s better ideas, for visitors often bought not just what they could see on the shelves but what they had seen prepared too.

~Bearthwaite Independence Day~

Everything about Harriet and Gustav’s wedding was going to be lavish, massively over lavish. Gladys maintained that it had to be, for the entire community was expecting it, and all were prepared to contribute time and goods to the party of all parties that was expected to last days rather than hours. Gladys had said it was necessary that it be a bigger and more significant celebration than her and Pete’s silver wedding anniversary party, for it was far more than just Harriet’s wedding; Gustav being merely the groom didn’t even come into her considerations, nor those of any other Bearthwaite female. Thanks to Adalheidis the utility company’s impact on their lives was history. The outsiders who’d made their lives difficult were all gone and all was ready for all the children to be educated at Bearthwaite school in the coming September. Money was flowing around like it never had before and the Bearthwaite villagers wanted to spend a significant amount of their money and even more importantly their time on the celebration of the recent improvements in their lives. A celebration of having a control of their lives that even a few years ago they’d never have been able to envisage.

Dave had cynically remarked, “Bearthwaite Independence Day,” as a result of all the fuss. However, that wasn’t how the remark had been taken, for it had been taken seriously. Of course all knew Dave and knew how the remark had been intended to be received, but he’d had it boomerang on him for the day was to henceforth known as Bearthwaite Independence Day.

That they now all had heating fuel they could afford and their elderly relatives and neighbours were permanently warm and well fed and more to the point had no worries that that would ever change was something most had never imagined as possible. That Alf and a crew of like minded souls were working on designs for heating, hot water and cooking facilities that would ultimately sever all dependency on coal, kerosene and propane and were anticipating making that beginning to become a reality within two years and to complete the matter for all within five seemed to be a miracle. That in the not so far distant future the valley would be producing all their own heating, hot water and cooking fuel using locally produced fuel that would then cost them next door to nowt was considered to be so significant a matter that all, men women and children, were more than willing to offer whatever assistance they could to bring it about.

Coppiced wood, mostly willow, had to be bundled and tied tightly into faggots which had to be trimmed to about four feet in length which even older children could help do. Initially they had been tied with wire, but it was obviously better to use a tie that would burn. For the moment sisal bale twine was being used, but several folk were looking into how they could produce their own twine from retted nettle and hemp fibres, both plants that thrived in the valley. The demolition timbers brought to the quarry by Saul and his mates had to be cut to length using power saws, and some split for kindling using a splitting machine produced by Bertie and his apprentices. Many men spent several hours a week helping and stacking the resultant ‘logs’. All who operated the fully guarded power saws were adults, but it was mostly children who split and packaged the kindling. The locally produced straw bales that were stored in barns all over the valley had not as yet been used as fuel but there were plans afoot to do so, not least to fire the bakery ovens at the flour mill.

All was being managed equitably by the staff of Beebell the Bearthwaite coöperative who ensured all were fairly paid for their efforts and who also regularly renegotiated what was an appropriate ‘Bearthwaite price’ for the villagers to pay as events changed. Sometimes prices went down as things became easier, usually because a new machine or mechanism rendered what had previously been done by hand much quicker, sometimes prices increased due to a variety of factors, but whichever way prices moved all was discussed openly in front of all, and all could expect to have their opinions listened to. That was regarded as only sensible for the views put forward by children had from time to time been of immense value and had saved both money and more importantly effort.

The ever increasing income from tourists who were grateful for what they considered to be wondrous experiences that many admitted they’d never been able to dream about being to afford before was making it all possible, and as Chance had said the money worked its way around and around being spent many times within their community. Pat had created the Bearthwaite Valley Visitor Centre On Line Shop on which tourists who’d enjoyed the food and other things produced by the villagers when they were on holiday could order once they’d returned home. The website was generating considerable income for many folks, not just from folk who’d been to Bearthwaite, but from others who’d been telt of what was available, many of who had commented that they intended to visit Bearthwaite at some time.

Their improved and still improving circumstances had made the villagers rethink who was most important to them, and they’d realised it to be those who had the dreams and the visions to bring Bearthwaite up to date and yet be able to retain all that they considered important from their history. They’d realised many of those folk were recent incomers to Bearthwaite who they’d accepted as truly Bearthwaite folk no matter where they had come from which made many of them reëvalute what it was that made someone one of themselves. They’d realised it was nothing to do with blood, it was nothing to do with colour, race, religion, sexuality, gender or any such belittling differences, for as long as the folk involved had wished to become Bearthwaite folk, they were one of themselves. To their surprise, many had realised and telt others they had unknowingly actually known this for years, for Black Simon the village blacksmith, who came from Jamaica, had been one of themselves since he had been a child. He’d married one of their daughters, and his children and grandchildren were just Bearthwaite children.

The wedding of Harriet and Gustav was considered by the Bearthwaite residents to be an appropriate focus for their desire for a major celebration of their liberation from outside forces. Gustav employed directly and indirectly a few hundred men and women who were paid more than well, and Pete had admitted in the taproom that Gustav did far more than himself in the Dragon these days and that both of them were happy about that. The menfolk of Bearthwaite just considered that was how it should be. It was expected that a son gradually took over the craft of his father as he aged and became his son’s advisor. That Gustav was Pete’s son in law was irrelevant. Harriet was known to be gradually taking on more of the management of the Green Dragon from her mother, Gladys, who admitted that being a mother of a young child at her age was tiring, which the womenfolk of Bearthwaite considered to be as it should be too. What made Harriet so significant to the Bearthwaite women was her rôle as the mother of her recently adopted eleven year old children, for that transcended all other female rôles in their eyes and her obvious success as their mum gave her the status of a long established mother, a mother of eleven years. When it became known that Gladys was pregnant again it was expected that Harriet would more or less completely take over her mother’s rôle as the Landlady of the Green Dragon which gave her a significant authority in Bearthwaite.

The wedding had been in the planning for months, indeed the planning was still ongoing. It was decided, Harriet and Gustav had had no say in the matter, that it would take place on the longest day of the year, which was considered an auspicious day. Bearthwaite residents would deny being superstitious, but admitted to holding that some ancient traditions were a significant part of their culture, their history and even of themselves. Maybe they were, maybe they were not, superstitious, but they understood about the cycles of the year that none could control that just had to be adapted to. Too, though most had never heard of the biblical seven good years and seven years of famine,(24) they understood about the cycles of plenty and scarcity and the need to conserve from the times when harvests were bountiful to enable survival during the times when they were not. They were realists in tune with their environment as only those who considered themselves to be a part of that environment, and not superior beings who separate from it controlled it, could be. They were brutally realistic survivors.

Alf, on the instructions of the board of Beebell had acquired seven bouncy castles, which he and a dozen helpers had cut and recombined to make a huge activity for the younger children. His instructions had been, ‘We wish a major modern activity for young children that we can in the future use whenever we have a significant celebration. At the very least we wish to use it at the summer solstice when they will be made aware of the turning of the year.

~In the Taproom~

The dogs were in front of the fires, the men were well down their first, if not their second, pint and the ladies were ten minutes into discussion concerning the wedding preparations. The men, including Gustav and Pete, or perhaps that should have been especially Gustav and Pete, had decided months ago the safest way to navigate the tricky waters concerning the wedding was to leave all to the womenfolk and just to do as they were telt, for that would provide a route to marital harmony. Dan had said, “I love my missus and I enjoy loving her frequently. If any is fool enough to suggest I’m going to upset that by arguing about a bloody wedding they need their head examining.”

It was blunt, but all agreed he’d got a valid point, and as Stan had pointed out, “To be fair, Lads, the lasses are leaving the really important things to us aren’t they? Whilst they’re messing about with all the fancy stuff, we can just get on with organising the drink. As long as Gladys and Harriet sort out whatever the womenfolk are drinking and tell us what we’ve to organise for ’em we’ll be left in peace to sort the beer and the chemic out.” Indeed it was considered he’d got a point.

~o~

“You mind those ‘Sellery Storks’ you saw in Lidl, Phil. Not quite as good as that, but I saw a sign that said ‘Caution wet paint on window cills’, where sills was spelt with a see the other day.”

“Aye well, Alf, we need the folk that write those sort of things, so we can feel like we we actually derived some benefit from all those years they forced us to waste at school.”

To the amusement of many, Alf nodded his head in agreement at Phil’s comment that had only been intended in jest, but none remarked on it.

~o~

“The visitor centre has been open three weeks now, Chance. I know it still early in the season, but Murray said it and Pat’s website were bringing in a fair deal of money. Is that still true or was that just an initial sales boom because it was new?”

“Both are bringing in more money all the time, Sasha. I reckon it’s such a success because like Tommy in the Post Office we don’t sell the kind of tat you can by in any tourist trap in the British Isles and not know where the hell you are because it’s all the same and probably made in China.”

~o~

An outsider none had ever seen before asked, “I’m Al. May I tell a tale, well make a comment really?”

Pete replied, “Just pass that glass over for a refill, Al, before you start. Bertie, pass those over as well, Lad. We may as well all have a fresh pint.”

After all were ready, and Pete had refused Al’s money, he started. “I’m originally from Tyldesley near Manchester, but I live near Chorley now. I was in Keswick a week or so ago with my wife and there were some folk at the next table to us in a café we were in having a coffee. We couldn’t help but over hear their conversation because they were rather loud. One was complaining about the traffic going through Maryport. Jackie and I had to smile because we’ve never seen any heavy traffic in Cumbria. Nothing like what you find in Chorley which is nothing to Manchester. Mind near to fifty years ago I went to London and was looking for the address of a mate of mine. I knew I was near enough there because I could see Buck House(25) which he said could be seen out of his upper floor windows. The speed limit was thirty miles an hour [48kph] I was keeping pace with the traffic doing about fifty and I slowed down to thirty so I didn’t miss any road signs. As I was looking there was a rapping on the window and a motor cycle cop threatened to book me for causing an obstruction if I didn’t get a move on. The traffic was eight lanes wide I think and nose to tail. God alone knows what it’s like there during the rush hour because that happened just gone three in the morning.”

“Aye, Lad. They’re all mental down there, and that’s got bugger all to do with the lunatic way they drive. They’re fuckin’ mental just for living there.” At that there were nods and sounds of agreement all around the taproom. Alf continued, “Chorley’s too far south for sanity. That only starts as you pass junction 36, the A590, on your way north. You lose a fair bit of traffic there going to Kendal, Ulverston and Barrow. After the South Lakes’ traffic leaves the motorway there’s a bit of space between the vehicles.”

~o~

It was still early and none were in need of anything more potent than Bearthwaite Brown as yet. It usually took a bit longer before settling down to serious story telling and the pouring of the ferociously potent beverages the men indulged in as a matter of course. However, Frank asked, “So how did the meeting with the ministry man go then, Sasha?”

“More or less as I expected, Frank, a complete waste of time. They believe in magic and he expected to be give a silver bullet or a potion that they could impose on the entire UK public to fix all its social ills and sort out the screw up that’s referred to as the NHS(26) as a fringe benefit whilst it did so. They won’t see that they are a major part of the problem not a part of any solution. They can’t fix anything. The only thing they could do to help is to create an environment in which communities can help themselves. There can’t possibly be any one size fits all solution, for every community is different with its own unique set of issues that need addressing. The problem is even if they accepted that, it would take years, a couple of generations at least, to see any results, and no politician can envisage anything further into the future than the next election. They are only interested in quick fixes that they can take credit for the next time they are trying to woo voters, and for the issues he wanted solutions to there are no quick fixes. How long has it taken us to change Bearthwaite from the poverty stricken place it was that was subject to the whims of outside powers and absentee landlords to what it is now?”

Pete replied, “I was only a lad, barely school age when things started to change, so that’s at least sixty-odd years ago and it was gey slow at first. It got a bit faster when you arrived, Sasha, thirty-odd years back, but things only really started to happen maybe fifteen years ago. It’s only in the last few years that we started getting to grips with things as a result of finally realising exactly what it was we wanted and the help we were given by decent folk like you and Elle, Tommy and Sarah, Gustav, Murray, Chance, Adalheidis and others too too numerous to mention moving in. You’re right it’s taken a gey long time, more like four generations than two.”

Alf added, “Aye it has, Pete, but a major change happened once we realised what it was we wanted. That was when we started to get rid of the undesirables, and encourage outsiders who were proper Bearthwaite folk, even if they didn’t know it then, to move in, and that made life a hell of a lot better for all of us. Covid was a major benefit to us because none here catcht it that we know of and three or four dozen families left as soon as lockdown was over because it made ’em finally realise just how unwelcome they were here. Thank god, and Sasha too, that we had enough in the kitty to buy them out, so they weren’t replaced by other outsiders that were no better. Too, that gave us decent houses to offer to new folk we actually wanted living here. Talking of which, I was gey pleased to hear that Elle had Murray buy out the Wainwright house and they’ve gone. You wouldn’t think with a surname that was more identifiably Cumbrian than virtually any other,(27) and mind that’s over the entire country never mind the county, they could be such a bunch of bloody nightmares here would you? Those boys of theirs were a right pair of little shites. I reckon it’s a good job our lads sorted ’em out before those lasses’ dads got to ’em, or there’d been a couple of extra wethers(28) on the fells.”

“Aye,” agreed Stan, “but all that them moving on does is give some other poor buggers the problem. Better if they’d been wethered. Still the last five families were as glad to leave as we were to see ’em go.”

Pat laught and said, “No bloody wonder is it, Stan? Our kids didn’t like and wouldn’t play with theirs. They had to take ’em to school outside when they could and mind ’em when they couldn’t. They couldn’t buy anything here except postal services because none would deal with ’em. They were trapped here with their kids not going to school and only what food they had in the house till the water went down. I know Murray telt them the moment they signed to sell up he’d make sure they and all their possessions would be transported safely out of the valley to where ever they wished to go in the county. Next thing he knew they all telt him to fuck off. I reckon in the end it was running out of grub(29) that made ’em get back to him. That was when he said his original offer was off the table and they could ring for removals van to pick their stuff up from the Rise. When one started to rear up on him he telt them that was the last offer he would mek, and after that we’d all watch them start swimming or starving. Whilst they were here none would would talk to ’em no matter how objectionable they became. I read a book about that happening in some religious communities in the States, it’s called shunning. We don’t suffer from religion, but I reckon shunning is a useful concept and it’s completely legal. Most importantly as we all know it works. Right to end they were unpleasant and ungrateful. Siobhan said that actually did us a favour because after that none will feel any guilt about pushing the bastards out.”

~o~O~o~

“Where did you get to on Wednesday, Bertie? I was trying to track you down to MOT(30) my truck.

“I went hiking up Whinlatter to take a look at the old hydro electricity generator that used to serve Keswick till sometime in the sixties I think. I read a couple of years ago that Forestry England(31) as is part of the Forestry Commission(32) are looking to put a new turbine there. I don’t know if they plan on putting it where the old one used to be or not but I wanted to see the site. I reckon we could obtain a fair bit of power out of the water we provide the utility company before it’s piped away, possibly sited at the bottom of the pack pony gully. We don’t need their permission or any else’s. It needs looked into. I haven’t bothered looking at details of the old plant because much more efficient and compact plants are available now. I’ll be putting some sort of a presentation together for not just the board but any as wants to watch and even say owt. I reckon to do it in a few weeks either in the Community Hall or the church. I’ve got everything done that I need to do but Murray, Chance and Emily are still researching costings and seeing if we can gouge any coin out of the authorities that doesn’t have any strings attached. If that works well enough we could consider a second plant just before the water leaves the village for the pipes tekkin it south.”

At that there were sounds of approval all round the taproom for the overhead electricity that came in as a three phase supply on small pylons over the fells was regularly disrupted by the weather and the expense and complications concerning permissions of an underground supply on land that belonged to Crown Estates was something the electricity supply company had refused to even contemplate. Bearthwaite’s own supply, even if it came from several sources would be a considerable improvement, and Bertie was known to opine that several sources of supply were preferable and he and others had some rather sophisticated and elegant if off the wall ideas. It seemed as if things were finally beginning to shape up as something that would in the near future be operational.

~o~O~o~

Arnie, a local builder married to Jane, was a regular attender at the Saturday evening story telling. He’d never telt a tale before, but when he said, “I’ve never had anything to tell before, Lads, but now I have. It’s official. I’ve been throttled and dethrottled or maybe that should be unthrottled or even disthrottled, but anyway like Lazarus(33) I’ve been raised from the dead, and now I’ve got a new best mate called Leroy Miranda. You reckon he made that up or what?” there were expressions of interest and more than a few encouraging voices.

“Like a lot of us here I signed up to receive broadband and telephone via a dish on the roof courtesy of Solway Communications a few years ago. Solway Communications was a company I always got along with gey well, but as I discovered going on two years ago they ceased to exist because they were bought out by Voneus a London head quartered national firm. I find it difficult to remember their name because as a result of my experiences with them, Venereal.com and Uranus.com keep emerging from the darker recesses of my mind.

“Maybe six months ago, maybe twice that, to my surprise I received an email telling me I owed money and had to pay for my broadband. I say surprise because it was paid for by direct debit. I kept ringing the number offered in the email but it never answered. I tried emailing the address provided and guess what, no one answered that either. Then my broadband became unstable, nothing would stream, huge delays playing a clip. As it got worse over three weeks I repeatedly tried to contact Solway communications, but no one answered. I’d reached the point where I decided to cancel the direct debit. That was easy because I use a telephone banking service, First Direct who I would recommend to any one. Then I got a phone call from Voneus who I’d never heard of. That was an interesting conversation because I was pretty certain after a few seconds the call was a scam.

“That the woman was able to provide me with a load of information about myself didn’t change my mind till she mentioned one fact that meant I had to have provided that information directly to the outfit she was representing. I let her carry on talking and eventually I said, ‘Okay, somewhere in the last five minutes you have provided me with a piece of information that convinces me you are not a scammer.’ ‘What was that,’ I was asked. I telt her I had no intention of telling her, but I had my own mechanism for determining whether I was prepared to trust someone or not that I never disclosed to any. I repeated that I had never heard of Voneus. She said, ‘We provide your broadband.’ ‘No’ said I, ‘Solway Communications provide my broadband.’ ‘We bought them up over two months ago and you’d have been emailed about it several times back then.’ Now, I don’t do emails because I don’t have the time to sort out what’s email and what’s shite that gets through, despite the spam filters, but I had my laptop in front of me and searched through for the email address she provided. Nothing there. ‘What is the email address you sent those emails to,’ I asked. The email address she said was an old one of mine that no longer existed because the service provider folded five years before.

“That established, I provided her with my current email address and telt her I never check it and why. She wanted a cheque payment sending, said she couldn’t accept a card or a direct debit mechanism. I replied, ‘Till I get a working broadband I’m not paying you anything.’ That pole axed her. I then said, ‘Right now, I’m thinking my best bet is to write you off as a bad experience and seek a provider elsewhere. At that point she suggested I speak to their technical service. That was the first time technical service had been mentioned, so I said, ‘Okay, can you put me through?’ Technical service was very helpful. A young man from the sound of his voice had me try to play a Youtube clip and tell him exactly what was happening as it happened or more precisely what wasn’t happening as it didn’t happen. ‘It sounds like you’ve been throttled,’ he said. ‘What’s that,’ I asked. ‘If you owe money the finance peoples’ computer will cut your available bandwidth down to the point where you experience what you just described,’ he explained. ‘So how do I get it fixed? Can you fix it?’ ‘No only finance are able to do that.’ ‘Why don’t they just cut the service?’ I asked. ‘I don’t know, but I suspect this way they don’t lose as many customers.’ ‘How soon after I get finance sorted will I get a service worth having?’ ‘Twenty minutes or so I suspect,’ he replied. ‘It’s automatic no one has to unthrottle you. If the account is paid the service is provided. I suspect the throttling works the same way and both will be automatically done by finance’s computer. Probably none in finance is aware of the issue.’

“Now bear in mind I’d been paying by direct debit for a few years and had been trying to pay the woman who rang me by a safe mechanism with the direct debit guarantee safety net, or the similar mechanism that prevails if you pay by credit card, so I was more than a little pissed off, but it wasn’t his fault, so I asked if he could put me through to finance expecting a circular trip back to the woman who’d rung me. He put me through to finance and a mature sounding male voice asked, ‘How may I help you?’

“I explained the situation and he said he’d check my account. It only took him a few seconds and he said he didn’t understand why my direct debit hadn’t just been transferred from Solway Communications to Voneus because that was what had happened to every one else. I telt him I’d just cancelled the direct debit and what the woman had said about not being able to take a card or direct debit payment. He said,‘I can take a direct debit mandate instruction over the phone that will take care of the outstanding debt due to the old direct debit not having been transferred across and all future payments as well. In a few days a letter confirming that will arrive and there will be a form for you to sign and return in a prepaid envelope to make it all acceptable to your bank. Would you like me to do that?’ I asked how soon would I get my dethrottled connection back. He telt me probably a couple of hours which though longer than twenty minutes was okay. We set up the direct debit and after thanking him I rang my bank to explain what had happened and that the new direct debit they should have been made aware was now in force was kosher.

“That would have been at about four in the afternoon. Even two hours was over optimistic, but I was back up and running by eight that evening. The only trouble I’ve had since then was the entire service went down at their end for six hours one day. What really pisses me off about the entire affair is if my service had been cut I’d have sorted it out weeks before. The effect of the throttled service was to make me think the problem was at my end and I resent having had to pay for all that time when the service was so poxy it wasn’t worth paying for.”

“Telt you before so I have, reckon bloody computers are more trouble than they’re worth, Arnie. Bring back Bob Cratchit(34) I say.” There were gales of laughter at Alf’s cynical remark which referred back to the days of quill pens. It was something he said whenever he came across problems with modern communications technology.

“To bring you up to date. Leroy Miranda has been ringing me from Voneus for about a fortnight starting at nine in the morning, feels like a dozen times a day till five at night. He’s left messages on the answer phone telling me that he’s got some great news for me. To be honest I thought he’d be talking shite because what most folk consider to be great news concerning modern communication technology isn’t owt most of us give a toss about. He left me a number to ring, but no bugger ever answered it. Now you can imagine with a name like his he ain’t English English and he speaks with a funny accent that is part foreign and the rest is from deep down south, so I guess that makes his accent completely foreign. Anyway seems I misheard the number, though I listened to it god knows how many times. Eventually I was beside the phone when he rang, so I answered it. Turns out that Voneus are trying to roll out fibre broadband with upload and download speeds of between five hundred and four hundred Megabits per second, typically four fifty, which is he said, ten times faster than what I get now. Do I need it? How the hell would I know, but probably not.

“It’s a similar deal to how I got my broadband gear from Solway communications in the beginning. It seems they’re trying to roll it out over the country and are focussing on rural areas. There’s a government grant like before and I’ll have to apply for a voucher of some sort which I presume like before they get and redeem off the government for kitting me out. It’s a two year tie in which is what I’m on now at a thirty-two quid a month as opposed to my existing forty-four quid a month for the two years. Like my existing deal I get the house phone threwn in. It seemed too good to be true. You know how it goes, if it sounds too good to be true that’s probably because it is. I said, ‘I suspect there’s no chance of it happening because I live in the middle of nowhere.’ To my surprise he said, ‘I know exactly where you live that’s why we’ve selected you and others like you for this deal.’ I reckon they chose real isolated houses as a marketing ploy, you know you it goes, ‘We kitted out Father Christmas’ igloo at the North Pole with fibre broadband for just thirty-two quid a month and we can do the same for you.’ Anyway I know I can bail on it if it turns sour on me so I said, “Go ahead.’ Leroy said the engineers would be in touch to kit me out in three to four months. I presume that’s when they’ve got enough folk on board to be able to plan their fibre cable runs. So, Lads, watch this space. I’ll let you know when owt happens.”

~o~O~o~

Pat announced, “Talking of communications technology, as discussed in the Community Centre I’ve created a mobile phone contact list that contains the numbers of every inhabitant, adult and child, in Bearthwaite, both mobiles and landlines. I’ve already made sure it’s on every Bearthwaite child’s phone, so they can always reach someone if they get into any difficulties. I’ve now got the time to offer it as an add on to the contacts list of any resident of the village who wants it. Just drop by my spot and I’ll do it for you, and I’d appreciate it if everyone passes the word round. If any gets a new phone or changes their number if you tell me I’ll circulate the information for folk to update their contacts. Eventually I’ll have it organised so all phones are automatically updated at regular intervals.”

~Supper & Economics~

Stan asked, “Harriet, Love what we having for supper?”

Coney and mixed fungi pie made with flaky pastry, canned garden peas, coney giblet gravy with apple mint and Rowan berry jelly. The suet and coneys came from Uncle Vincent who telt me the coneys were white ones from Auntie Rhona. The fungi were a mixture. A quarter of them were grown by some of Uncle Alf’s mates on the allotments and the rest Mum bought from some of the children who gathered them from up at the top end of the valley near the woodland edge. The potatoes are Bearthwaite Queen and the canned peas are local grown canned by Auntie Christine who also made the jelly. The locally grown wheat for the flour in the pastry as always came direct from the mill. The butter came from Auntie Lucy who gets it from the Peabodys. Even the herbs used were locally grown. Spiced apple meringue tart for pudding. Other than the sugar, salt, pepper and spices all was produced in the valley. That’s what we’re trying to do, so yet again we’ve succeeded in producing an essentially entirely locally produced supper. Auntie Veronica says she’s going to try using honey from Auntie Kathleen’s bees instead of sugar in future. Uncle Chance says that though it saves us all money the real benefit is that what money we do spend goes into the pockets of Bearthwaite folk who mostly spend it here too. He said there’s a money concept to do with the number of times the same money gets spent before it finally disappears to the government in taxes.”

Harriet looked at Chance, who further explained, “In most places you spend some money and twenty percent of it immediately goes to the government as VAT.(35) The bloke you bought the stuff off spends what he gets and twenty percent of what he spends disappears as VAT, and so it goes on money haemorrhaging away as tax at every stage. Of course there are other taxes eating into the money too. However, most folk in Bearthwaite sell locally grown stuff that is not subject to VAT because they don’t earn enough. Many folk here are completely and legally under the government’s radar for tax eligibility. A good example of that would be the kids gathering and selling fungi to Gladys. What she pays them they don’t pay tax on. The kids spend money buying confectionery from Hazel, but she only makes enough to sell here, so she doesn’t earn enough to pay tax either, and most of her raw materials are sourced here, so she’s probably only paying tax on sugar which like every one else she buys at bulk wholesale cost via Murray.

“What I was telling Harriet was that here the same money goes round and round being spent many times. What that means is we don’t have to save much money by dealing locally and we don’t have to earn much from outside for that to eventually have a significant impact on the entire population. The coöperative ownership of much here assists that considerably. The major saving occurs when we trust someone enough to give them something rather than selling it to them because we know that at some time in the future it will be reciprocated. Thus the government doesn’t have the opportunity to take a bite out of a minimum of two sales that didn’t happen. Too, prices here are as a result very low compared with outside, but in order to ensure that benefits us and we are not exploited by outsiders we have to do what Alice does when outsiders wish to bulk buy from her at Bearthwaite prices which to them is flour at a give away price.”

There was considerable laughter at that for Alice was no fool and had no time at all for the larger concerns that for generations had been trying to put the Bearthwaite flour mill out of business. Under those circumstances her choice of language was known to be a trifle flavourful. Most of Chance’s audience understood how what he was explaining worked. Alice and Phil bought grain locally cheaply, selt flour and bread to the village cheaply secure in the knowledge their needs would be met at similarly low prices whereas the outsiders would give them nothing in return. When they had a surplus to sell to outsiders they selt at the going rate at the time as quoted by the major wholesalers, not at the Bearthwaite price, for part of the Bearthwaite price was the invisible reduction in the prices they paid for goods and services. It was true that wages in the valley were low too, which minimised tax obligations and since prices were low it kept living standards high without the government being able to enforce inbuilt poverty in the valley.

As Chance had said, it was a matter of trust, for it was in the interests of the residents that prices, wages and especially housing costs were kept to a minimum, for that meant outsiders, which they saw both local and national government as, could not profiteer out of their sweat and toil. The low prices meant there were far fewer opportunities for government to exploit the residents via taxes, which they said were levied to pay for the services they supplied. Services that they had never supplied to the valley. Bearthwaite folk preferred lower wages, lower prices, much lower levels of taxation and no services most of which they neither wanted nor needed and what they did, like the school, they provided for themselves, for that resulted in a significantly higher standard of living. None had ever paid stamp duty(36) on a house at Bearthwaite for all properties were below the thresh hold price of two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. None had ever been selt for more than a hundred thousand pounds.

It was many years since the valley had had a landline telephone service, for towards the end of its usage the decrepit connection was unmaintained and hadn’t worked for more than half the time. With the advent of adequate mobile phone coverage, it had been decided to abandon BT(37) the landline provider. Most of the drugs, prescribed and otherwise, used in the valley, controlled or otherwise, were bought from outside the UK on the internet by Wing Tan Sun, the Bearthwaite GP, for a fraction of the price they were available at in the UK as a result of taxation. Murray considered that what little aspects of the NHS Bearthwaite residents used they had paid for ten time over in taxation.

“We’ll be serving supper in about half an hour, Gentlemen. In the meanwhile I’ll open the back door for the dogs, and top up their bowls. Don’t bother shutting the back door. It’s not raining and we need to let some fresh air into the kitchen.”

~o~O~o~

After draining his pint and walking behind the bar to refill his glass, Alf refilled two or three dozen more glasses whilst Pete washed glasses and Stan took the money. Sitting down he said, “Most of you know I used to mess about with biodiesel and that I still run static plant with bio fuel of a couple of types. What you maybe don’t know is that Otto Diesel designed his initial engine to run on vegetable oils for third world countries that couldn’t afford to buy petroleum oil products, peanut oil I think. The concept was later taken over by the big oil companies and developed to run on the heavier oil fractions that were a financial embarrassment to them. That was what they refined diesel from. As chemical engineering became more sophisticated they became better at turning just about anything into anything else, but after that all engine development was focussed on using their product and for most of the world for many many decades vegetable oil based fuels had become history.

“What I have only just become aware of as a result of talking to Gustav is that the modern day global centre for bio fuel is probably Bavaria where they grow huge acreages of sunflowers for the oil to produce bio diesel, and they have very sophisticated continuous production facilities to produce it. I virtually gave up on bio fuels for a number of sensible reason, not least of which is that by law the diesel from the garage forecourt these days already has significant proportions of bio in it, and in a modern common rail diesel engine fuel delivery system it’s potentially risking an engine to put any more bio in your fuel. We’re already exploring ways of eliminating our reliance on fossil fuels for cooking, heating and hot water. I’m not sure we should be moving towards solar photovoltaic electricity by the way because we’d be relying on outside for solar panels which we couldn’t make ourselves. Solar hot water yes, for we can make and maintain what we need. Solar electric, no. It’s too expensive, too sophisticated and we can’t maintain it ourselves. I can see no reason why we couldn’t use wind powered electrical sources to power ground source heat pumps which could charge a lead acid battery back up system with an easy to maintain inverter technology. I’ve made note on ideas that came to me when I watched Youtube ‘Pakistani Truck’ videos. What those guys do to maintain so called dead lead acid batteries is nothing short of amazing, though I am aware we in the west were able to do that once too. I have copies of all those videos and they are providing me with new ideas every time I watch them.

“However, back to diesel. Modern engines, diesel and petrol, are so sophisticated it’s impossible to maintain anything but their most basic parts, but older diesel engines can be fettled and rebuilt to keep them running for millions of miles, Mercedes especially so. I think that’s the way we should be looking. I suggest I start buying up old diesel trucks, vans, cars, and parts and owt else that could be our future. They’re cheap enough at present, and we have the space to store them in the quarry. I’d prefer it if they were under cover, but we can sort that out later. Gustav has relatives involved in the bio industry and he’s going to talk to them concerning what we’d need, and I’m going to look into it much more deeply than I did years ago. Given government policy concerning doing away with the sale of new diesel and petrol cars by at the latest twenty thirty-five and replacing them with electric ones, which we couldn’t fettle ourselves I reckon we need to start preparing for that years in advance. Like now, since that’s only twelve years away. I know older vehicles will be around for a long time after that but they will start to get gey dear. Like I said we don’t want newer vehicles we want stuff we can fettle here. We need to be talking about this as a matter of priority, and I need a group of lads with the appropriate backgrounds who can help me to get it off the ground and train up some youngsters.”

“Alf doesn’t say much as a rule does he?” Sasha said with a smile, “but when he does it pays to listen. I didn’t see that one coming, but Alf put it all together well. I agree with him about the solar photovoltaic electricity and had been meaning to say something about that myself. If necessary I’ll fund it, Lads, but Alf needs the workforce. I suggest we all think about it, talk to others about it and don’t regard this as an exclusively male thing. I can’t see many women being interested, Maybe Samantha Graham, but there are perhaps a few lasses would regard it as a future for them. Pass that oily, vile, violet looking chemic over here, Bertrond, would you please.”

~o~O~o~

“Working hard I see, Pet,” Alf remarked to Brigitte who had come to fill the dog’s bowls with water.

“Mum had to do something in the kitchen, Uncle Alf, so I said I’d do the dog’s bowls for her. Granddad, will you open another bag of kibble for me please. It’s too heavy for me to lift down off the shelf, and everyone else is busy.”

Dan, a local plasterer, was at the bar and he said, “You keep your seat, Pete. I’ll do it for you, Love, if you’ll shew me where it is.”

“Thank you, Uncle Dan. It’s in a pantry at the side of the kitchen.”

~o~

“Nice lass. You did well there, Pete. Proper well mannered Bearthwaite lass she is. Going to be a looker too. I heard she’s teken up with one of Charlie’s grandsons.”

Brigitte had recently acquired an hour glass like figure and, much to Ron’s delight, was blossoming, though Peter who had started as her identical twin sister still had, as a result of the medications prescribed by Dr Wing on Dr Tenby’s recommendation, the figure and height of a much younger child.

“Aye, Bill. The lad goes by the name of Ron. He seems a bit shy, but I’m glad she finding her feet as a Bearthwaite lass. Doubtless a bit of kissing with a gentle lad will help her forget or at least get over the nightmare she lived in before. I suppose discovering kissing is one of the better bits of growing up.”

Bill laught and there was a lot of chuckling about that before Bill asked, “I haven’t met her brother yet. What he like?”

“Quiet, Bill, very quiet. They both had a rough deal, he more than his sister, which is probably why he’s so quiet. He enjoys fishing and messing about with Jeremy and the model train crew, but he’s a likeable lad. He’s clever, but you have to work hard to get him to shew you that. Violet, one of Bertrond’s lasses is interested in him, so he must have something about him because she’s three years older than him and not without admirers.”

Jeremy added, “He’s clever all right, and imaginatively creative too. Wants to model two working swing bridges side by side over the Manchester ship canal, one carrying a canal and the other a road. Found the real things on the internet near Manchester. Violent can’t take her eyes off him, but all they talk about is modelling. She’s keen on modelling Silloth station, the convalescent home there and the old Solway plain airfields.”

Bertrond said, “He’s a polite, helpful lad. I can see what Violet sees in him and at the same time I can’t. She’s a bonnie, well developed lass, a young woman really who’s rapidly becoming a carbon copy of her mum, and he’s still a young boy, but each to their own. Truth is it’s none of my business is it? When he’s at our spot he helps out, and not just at what Violent has to do. Amelia’s a bit disappointed he’ll not be able to give her grandchildren, but I telt her to keep that to herself seeing as the lad was adopted out of what Violet had telt us was a hellhole of a life. After all, I telt her, if it comes to it Violet can always adopt too, and there are other options, but don’t tell Amelia I said that. The lad’s no idea what he wants do for a trade, but hellfire, at his age what can you reasonably expect? Like I said he’s a decent, helpful, polite and clever lad. What more can you ask for for one of your lasses?”

Gustav who’d just entered the taproom realising what the conversation was about, and it was reasonable to him that his neighbours and friends wished to know about their new residents said, “His German was just what you’d expect of a schoolboy of his age when he first came here. I wouldn’t say he’s fluent yet, but I’ve never known any learn a language so quickly. He spends a lot of time studying and it won’t be long before he is fluent. I’m thinking of having him spend a few weeks in the summer with my mother. An inn, whether in Bavaria or over here, will be a familiar environment to him by then and it will not only do his confidence good it will enable him to speak German like a native. I thought he could go with my family when they return after the wedding.”

The subject was dropped when Brigitte returned with Dan and her pail of kibble. Before she left she asked, “Uncle Alf, have you seen those edible gourd seeds that Uncle Johnto got from China?”

“No. What are they called, Pet?”

Brigitte laught and said, “No idea. Neither of us can read Chinese, and that all that’s on the packet. The pictures on the front look good, but uncle Johnto said coming from China they could be owt. He telt me about the seeds you got from China.” Alf smiled remembering those seeds too, the ones that had turned out to be anything but what they were supposed to be. As Brigitte left she said, “I’ll shut the back door now, Granddad.”

Not long after she left she returned with Harriet and Veronica bringing the supper.

~o~

“Well, bred or no, those coneys made a damned fine supper, Vincent.”

“I’ve always said, Alf, that they taste different from wild coney, but not inferior, and I like the taste of both.” There were a lot of nods at that, for Vincent had indeed been heard to say that dozens of times. When Rhona had first started breeding the large, New Zealand White coneys there had been a reluctance to try them for it was considered they would probably be inferior somehow to the wild coneys that were to be found in considerable numbers in the valley. There was a certain almost perverse pleasure to be had for the Bearthwaite residents in eating wild coney, for local memory went back to the days when killing a coney was a hanging offence since they belonged to the local Lord of the estate. A number of Bearthwaite residents knew at least one of their starving ancestors had been hanged for trying to feed his children and there was a childish enjoyment in eating what was once a forbidden viand that the large bred coneys did not provide, for all irrespective of their age knew being able to stick a middle finger up to the establishment was an enjoyable experience, and being irresponsibly childish had nowt to do with it.

In the early days in order to overcome folks’ reluctance to buy her produce Rhona had asked Vincent if she should reduce her price, which had been the same per pound as the wild coneys, and he’d replied, “The hell no, Rhona. I’ll tek ’em all off you at the agreed price. If you sell ’em cheap to start with you’ll never get a fair price for ’em, for that will establish them as an inferior product in folks’ minds. Gladys isn’t daft, and I know she’ll tek a load for suppers at a fair price. I’ll butch some and sell ’em as joints. Plenty of folk as don’t have a lot of money will buy a coney joint, especially if I put a bit of offal to it for free. I give that sort of stuff away all the time, so it’s costing me nowt extra. The village, and I too, need you breeding coneys, so we have to do this right right from the beginning. Every pound of coney you breed is a pound of meat I don’t have to buy at a mart, for local farmers can’t supply all the meat we need. That keeps more money local. A coney joint with say a pigs tail, or a trotter, some liver, a kidney or a slice of brawn will all get selt. Any bits left over after butching for joints I’ll include in soup packs along with some vegetables from the allotment lads. Don’t worry, Lass, eventually folk’ll get used to the idea that they get selt by weight at the same price as the wild ones.” It had taken going on a twelvemonth, but Vincent knew his customers, and they needed cheap food. He’d never tried to pass bred coney off as wild, but he’d refused to accept a lower price for them either. That was long ago, and now bred coney was considered to be no different from bred lamb or any other meat from the farms, but Rhona had only selt them via Vincent since then. In Bearthwaite even unacknowledged favours were always returned.

~o~

“I haven’t a clue what half of the stuff I see on the internet means these days. They don’t even speak English any more. I wrote down what I saw last night just to tell you. Don’t bother trying to explain cos the truth is I don’t give a fuck. If they don’t want me to understand fine. If they do then they need to write in English not frigging gibberish. It makes you glad to be old and then it’ll soon be all over and the idiots can just get on with it, but here it goes,
“One, Ciara Talks About The ‘Selective Outrage’ Over Her See Through Dress. Any got any idea what selective outrage is? Or even who the hell Ciara is?
“Two, Interest rate expectations torn up across the City into Bank of England meeting. How about torn up? How do you tear up something like an interest rate which is a completely abstract idea.
“Three, Prince Harry confused for father King Charles in poignant royal photo. What does confused for mean? Okay I accept complete stupidity in connection with that idiot.
“Four, Louise Redknapp rocks sheer leotard and high cut hotpants in her most daring look yet. Rocks? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Rocks are chunks of stone and what cradles do, and I suppose somebody must know who Louise Redknapp is.
“Five, Girl claiming to be Madeleine McCann speaks on Dr Phil about DNA test results. The fact that she on a TV programme of that kind tells you she’s completely full of it.
“Six, roundabout sling-shots. Is the divisive driving hack legal What the hell is that all about?
“Those are just a few from yahoo, but I could have written down a hundred. Youtube is obviously populated by folk from Gibberland since they are all writing complete Gibberish, and the clip titles are just so much shite I couldn’t bring myself to write them down.

“Well, Denis, I guess like most of the rest of us you’re just an old bugger who doesn’t place any value on what seems to be moving the world these days, but I reckon as long as we keep a tight grip on our money and keep fucking off those that want us to spend money on compete shite we’ll be okay, and I for one don’t give a toss what happen to my cash once her indoors(38) and me are gone.”

There was a murmur of agreement at Francis’ opinion, and a silence that lasted several minutes before Barry broke it by saying, “For Christ’s sake it’s been a gey heavy diet the night. You not got owt to lighten us up a bit, Dave?”

“Only a gey short one off my mobile phone. Okay give me time for my pint, Lads. Old Dorothy was looking a bit worried and her mate Edith asks, ‘What’s up, Dot. You seem a bit preoccupied. You okay?’ Dorothy sighed and says, ‘I’ve not been feeling too good recently, Eedie, and my lady garden(39) has been getting gey sore. I went to see that nice lady doctor and she gave me some cream, steroids she said were in it.’ Dorothy hesitated and then in a rush said, ‘I think I’m growing a penis.’ Edith looked thoughtful before saying, ‘Powerful tackle those steroids, Dot. Anabolic?’(40) ‘No, Eedie, just a penis.’ ”

Barely heard through the laughter Tony could just be distinguished spluttering beer and choking out, “Oh for fuck’s sake, Dave. Anabolic! Jesus Christ, Lad, if ever I get to suffer from terminal depression I’ll come to you for a cure and bugger the quack and and his happy pills.”

~o~

When all had calmed and pints had been refreshed and bottles of rare stuff passed round along with the tin for donations to the kids’ Christmas party Barry asked, “I heard there was a bit of bother at the Academy in Whiteport connected with your kids, Gustav. What was that about?”

“I don’t actually know, Barry, because my children weren’t directly involved. The Academy rang me up on what was clearly an information fishing trip. They obviously didn’t know owt and were after something they could use against the Bearthwaite kids. Even if I knew owt I wouldn’t have telt them, for seemingly a bigoted bully had been threatening and trying to intimidate my children for speaking differently and Peter for being trans. Someone beat seven shades of it out of the thug who subsequently claimed he’d seen none doing it. The Academy didn’t believe him and thought he’d been terrorised into keeping his mouth shut on pain of something worse happening to him. When I asked mine about it they both said they it was the first they’d heard tell of it and I believe them. The sooner we educate our kids here the better because I reckon the school was just looking for a scapegoat and our kids are an identifiable minority that fit the bill nicely, and that is never going to change. I did hear a rumour from one of the deliverymen that one of Bertie’s lads was involved, but that’s as much as I know.”

The room turned to face Bertie who smiled and said, “I heard that too from one of my lasses. She said she and her sisters wanted me to know what actually happened, not some garbled Chinese whispers type of account. I’ve deliberately not asked any questions, but seemingly a bullying thug got out bullied and out thugged by one of my lads who was even bigger than him and wasn’t up for taking any shite on behalf of any of the Bearthwaite kids. I wasn’t telt which one of the lads it was, and I didn’t ask, for my kids won’t lie to me and I didn’t want to put the lasses in a hard place, though I reckon I know. Having said that, it could have been any of my lads, cos none are full grown yet and all are above six six and heavy built, I reckon they’ll all top Granddad eventually at over seven foot. Much more to the point they are all decent lads who think the same. Seems to me to be a case of natural justice. The Academy rang me too and said they knew it was something to do with the Bearthwaite kids and suspected one of mine had been guilty of the assault. Obviously they were bluffing in an attempt to find out something, so I put the phone down without having said a word and passed the matter over to Adalheidis. The day after I got a phone call from the Academy with an apology. I’ve no idea what Adalheidis did or said, and I’m not going to ask, but I owe the lass a favour. I agree with Gustav that the sooner we get our kids out of that spot the better, and leaving the examination year kids there next year would have been a serious mistake because there’re wouldn’t have been enough of them to protect each other. Still the academy can worry about it all come September, because for sure none of us will be fashed(41) by it.”

“Is that all you’re going to do about it, Bertie?” asked a newcomer from out side.

“Hell no! What kind of an ingrate do you take me for? I gave the kids a rise in their allowance. I gave it them all, so as not to make it obvious which one of them I was proud of for kicking the shit out of an arsehole for whom a good kicking was clearly long overdue. I believe the arsehole was threat with gelding by one one of the farm lads if he breathed a word which seemed fair enough to me. To make sure the thug kept his mouth shut I believe several of the farm lads took a bloodless castrator into school the day after to shew him and they explained how they were used. I may not be the best Dad in the world, but I got that one right. I taught all my kids that you look after your own, because when the chips are down they’re the only ones who will look after you.”

There were a number of very shocked looking outsiders who became even more shocked at the shouts of approval from the Bearthwaite men. ‘Good Lad, Bertie,’ ‘You’re a cracking Dad’ and ‘You did right, Son,’ were common refrains, and Alf shook his grandson’s hand and put his arm around Bertie’s shoulders in a way only a proud grandfather could.

~o~

Sasha said, “It makes me deeply satisfied to think that long after our generation are all gone Bertie’s generation will be upholding everything that we and they too believe in and that which will make life good for the generations to come after them. That’s no reason for us to slow down though. As we age we are not capable physically of what we once were, but naytheless we can still think and guide other younger folk to what will be their generation’s interpretation of what it is to be Bearthwaite folk, which will naturally have to change with the events of the future. Alf and his group are leading the way with their insistence upon our self reliance for fuel, but I’m sure there are many other things we need to be looking at with one eye on the opportunities of the future and the other on what we know worked in the past. Neither the future nor the past are sacred, and it is the task of the intelligent and perceptive guiders of our society to pick and mix whatever blend of both will take the next generations forward as well equipped survivors with a good standard of living.” Sasha continued with his vision of the future for ten minutes and it was a very quiet taproom when he finally finished to say, “Okay, Lads, that’s me finished. Dominoes, and, Gustav, be a good lad and make sure we have enough of the rare stuff to last us. Partner me if you will?”

~o~O~o~

After the Dragon had closed and the usual meeting took place in the best side Pete said to Sasha, “That was a fair powerful oration, Sasha, concerning where we go next, and I agree entirely with you. Gustav, you’re a member of the next generation. You got anything to add?”

“No, Dad. I think Sasha said it all, but I’m glad that like all Saturday nights in the taproom it was video recorded for youngsters who will be born long after I am gone, so they are not just listening to second or third hand memories of it, but seeing it as it was said. I was thinking the other day that, despite the accent I have, I’ve not been a Bavarian German for some time. I don’t think like a Bavarian German any more and what matters to a Bavarian has not been of any import to me for a long time. I reckon Simon has the right of it when he said that he was not English nor even Cumbrian, but he is a UK citizen and a man of Bearthwaite. That’s all that matters to me too, for here is where the future of myself and mine lies. My children started their lives in an place with it’s own language and culture and received nothing but abuse there, which is only a reflection of their family not the language and culture there, but now they are growing up as Bearthwaite folk. I am grateful for the protection and opportunities Bearthwaite gave my children and myself. In its willingness to accept us as Bearthwaite folk Bearthwaite has created a future for itself protected by not just its existing citizens but all of the ones it will accept in the future too. In that I see our future as one of success and wellbeing.”

Harriet kissed Gustav and said, “I believe that is all we have to say tonight. I’m tired and I wish to check on the children before I go to bed. Gustav. Bedtime.”

The couple left and Elle said, “It’s my belief Harriet is right. We do often attempt to overthink things. Let’s go home, Sasha.”As they left, hand in hand, Gladys said to Pete, “Well, Love, since that leaves us with none to talk to except each other I suggest we too go to bed.

1. Squaddie, member of the armed forces, usually refers to the army.
2. The mob, reference to the armed forces.

3. Daffodils by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed, and gazed, but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

4. William Wordsworth (7 April 1770 – 23 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet, who was Poet Laureate from 1843 till his death.
5.Earthworms are hermaphrodites. Each carries male and female reproductive organs. When mating, two individual earthworms will exchange sperm and fertilize each other’s eggs.
6. Earthworms, there are 31 species of earthworms in the British Isles, though two are only known in Ireland. Many are rare. The Common Earthworm, the Lob Worm, Lumbricus terrestris can be anything up to 35 cm [14 inches] long and will dig down as far as 5m [16½ feet]. It is probably this that is being referred to here.
7. Natural England is a non departmental public body in the UK sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs. It is responsible for ensuring that England’s natural environment, including its land, flora and fauna, freshwater and marine environments, geology and soils, are protected and improved. It also has a responsibility to help people enjoy, understand and access the natural environment.
8. A reference to Esau and Jacob Genesis 25:27-34. The spelling of lentiles is as in the King James Version.
9. A twelvemonth is a commonly used synonym for a year in various parts of the UK not just in the north.
10. To fash mysel about it, to worry about it.
11. Pantechnicon, a large furniture removal van, probably only used in UK English.
12. PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
13. The border reivers were lawless raiders along the Anglo Scottish border from the late 13th century to the beginning of the 17th century. They included both Scottish and English persons, and they raided the entire border country without regard to their victims’ nationality.
14. Royal Air Force often referred to as the Royal Hair Farce. During the WW2, members of the RAF became known as Brylcreem boys. Initially intended as an insult by other branches of the forces due to the RAF’s perceived safe and comfortable job back in Britain, one that afforded them the luxury of personal grooming; the term became one of endearment after their success during the Battle of Britain. Brylcreem, a hair cream created in 1928.
15. The Axis powers, originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis, was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against the Allies. Its principal members were Nazi Germany, the Kingdom of Italy, and the Empire of Japan.
16. During World War II the UK government was forced to borrow heavily in order to finance war with the Axis powers. By the end of the conflict Britain’s debt exceeded 200 percent of GDP. As during World War I, the US again provided the major source of funds. Even at the end of the war Britain needed American financial assistance, and in 1945 Britain took a loan for $586 million, and in addition a further $3.7 billion line of credit. The debt was to be paid off in 50 annual repayments commencing in 1950. Some of these loans were only paid off in the early 21st century.
17. Squaddie, member of the armed forces, usually refers to the army.
18. The mob, reference to the armed forces.
19. PC, Politically Correct.
20. Gey strang, very strong.
21. TA, Territorial Army, the UK’s part time reserve military.
22. GP, General Practitioner, a family doctor.
23.Fuel Poverty. In the UK fuel poverty is now defined as when a household’s required fuel costs are above the median level, and if they were to spend what is required, then the household would be left with a residual income below the official poverty line. Additionally, a Fuel Poverty Indicator has been created, which shows how far into fuel poverty households are, not simply if they are in poverty or not.
24. Genesis 41:7.
25. Buck House, a common expression used all over Britain for Buckingham Palace.
26. NHS, National Health Service.
27. 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.
28. Wether, a castrated ram. Most male sheep are wethered at a few days old if not at birth. Wethers are easier to handle and gain weight faster than rams.
29. Grub, food.
30. MOT, Ministry of Transport annual certification of road worthiness, a legal requirement in the UK.
31. Forestry England is a division of the Forestry Commission, responsible for managing and promoting publicly owned forests in England.
32. The Forestry Commission is a non-ministerial government department responsible for the management of publicly owned forests and the regulation of both public and private forestry in England.
33. Lazarus being raised from the dead is a biblical reference, Gospel of John (11:1-45).
34. 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.
35. VAT, value added tax. A UK tax of 20% levied on virtually all goods. Those in business can reclaim what they have paid on bought in goods and services and have to pay the tax on what they sell.
36. You usually pay Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) on increasing portions of the property price when you buy residential property, for example a house or flat. SDLT only applies to properties over £250,000.
37. BT, British Telecom, the national landline provider that had been voted the worst service provider in the nation for many years in a row.
38. Her indoors, a UK expression that a man uses when referring to his wife.
39. Lady garden, expression used by women when talking to other women concerning anything related to their genitalia.
40. For those for whom English is not their first language speakers. Anabolic is being misheard for ‘and a bollock’. A bollock is slang for a testicle.
41. Fashed, bothered.

A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 45 Teachers and Tofu

Recently the weather had been reasonably warm at Bearthwaite though the constant forty miles an hour wind gusting to sixty or seventy miles per hour down the valley from the valley head at its west end had made being outside unpleasant and dangerous for younger children and the elderly for nearly a month. According to the shepherds the wind was gusting at well over a hundred miles an hour up on the fell tops, so they’d brought the sheep down to avoid them being blown away over the cliffs. Shepherds spent most of their lives up on the fells with only their dogs for company, and understandably to Bearthwaite folk Vinny had said, “I can stand losing a few yows,(1) but I’m not risking any of my dogs.”

Despite being early summer the light had varied from bright warm sunshine that made folk sken(2) and reach for sun glasses, or be grateful they wore glasses with reactolite(3) lenses, to overcast days with poor visibility dark enough to trigger the sensors to keep the street lighting on all day and have people leaving the lights on all day in their houses. What ever the situation had been regards the light the precipitation had been unpredictable, the wind squally and the weather had been given to sudden cloud bursts of heavy wind driven rain, sleet and on a few occasions painful to be caught out in hail which had rendered life miserable. The heavens had been just as likely to open in eye watering sunshine as in the gloom most associated with the far end of the year. The lonning into Bearthwaite had been impassable due to flooding any number of times, usually at most for a few hours, but it had made planning difficult for those who needed access to ‘out there’, as the rest of the world outside the Bearthwaite valley was usually referred to. Most of the men and the few women who worked outside had been dressed in Souwesters with Mae Wests,(4) just in case, for what had seemed to be forever. Mothers had been snapping at their fractious children who complained constantly that they wanted to go outside to play with their friends.

It was Stephanie who resolved the matter of the complaining children by taking over the entire Community Hall for her play group children and inviting mothers with children of any age to join her for community child minding, tea, scones and chat. Women from all over the village had converged on the Community Hall, some with children in tow, some without, but many took ingredients and the necessary impedimenta for a major baking session with them to use in the kitchens in the Hall. Some of the older girls joined the women baking in the kitchens and some supervised groups of boisterous younger children who were just as happy to play inside as out now they had their friends to play with. Felicity, the ex military combat instructor and soon to be the Bearthwaite School head of all sporting activities, with a dozen supporting adults took any who ere interested to the school gymnasium and assembly hall for martial arts and ballroom dancing practice. All in all life became considerably better for everyone, women, girls, boys and men too after that, for the men no long needed to justifiably walk on eggshells around their exhausted womenfolk who as a result of Stephanie’s ideas were nowhere near as tired as they had been of yore. It had been decided that in the event of long term poor weather in future that was how the younger children would be dealt with. It had also been decided that community cooking as well as baking would be undertaken, so that women didn’t have to cook an evening meal when they took their children home and that would enable meals for the elderly to be cooked too.

On the following Saturday, the weather was still poor, and though still squally the wind had backed off a little to thirty miles per hour with gust of up to forty-five. When folk started arriving at the Green Dragon the rain had stopped though most had set off in a down pour. As usual men escorted their womenfolk to the front door to enter the best side and left after having seen them enter to walk around the back heading for the taproom where Pete had rows of full pint glasses on the bar awaiting their arrival. The open fires were stacked high with logs throwing out enough heat to make the dogs, whose noses were lined up on the fenders, look as if they were smoking due to the steam rising from their shaken but not yet dried coats. There was a decidedly doggy aroma on the air and the still full bowls of kibble had been untouched in favour of the fireside warmth.

As the men were still draining their first or possibly their second pint of what they referred to as Bearthwaite Brown Bevy: the nut brown ale brewed at Gustav’s brewery just a couple of minutes away from the inn, the women in the room had already settled and Elle was talking and being attentively listened to by a large group of women most of who were locals. “It doesn’t even bear thinking about that if we hadn’t supported her Stephanie could have left to find a life and a living elsewhere does it?” There was no response for Elle had exposed what all realised was a potential village vulnerability that had to be addressed. In the taproom Dave had stated, “Every man in the village owes Stephanie a heavy debt, for as a result of her activities she has enabled conjugal bliss to be restored.” Yes he was intelligently and humorously addressing a sensitive matter that none would be prepared to discuss, but all the locals knew he was being serious concerning a marital matter of serious import, and after a little thought all knew he was correct.

Within a couple of days Elle’s words had reached the entire village population, and there wasn’t a soul in Bearthwaite who disagreed, and all understood what Elle hadn’t said. They must all ensure that such risks must be avoided in future, for their greatest and most valuable resource was themselves, and Stephanie was a valued and important woman of Bearthwaite.

Despite the weather Livvy and Nicky had spent a lot of time on the lower fells with her ferrets and her lurcher puppy Legs who despite her lack of age had an astonishing turn of speed and a goodly number of coneys to her credit. Tony whose bitch Meg had whelped Legs was delighted when he’d heard that, and in the taproom of the Dragon he’d opened the tale telling by saying, “I telt you I knew right from the start that feisty, skinny, leggy, little bitch was a cracker and I knew Livvy would work her right. I saw her and that lad of Vincent’s out on the bracken halfway down the lonning a few days ago with the pup and doubtless her ferrets too. Pissing down sideways due to the wind it was, but they were holding hands, kissing and laughing at the pup’s antics. Give her time to have her first season unmated, so she’s full grown before her first litter, Gerry, and I reckon if we keep putting her back to her sire within three litters we’ll get a stud dog out of her that will sire a Bearthwaite strain of lurchers that will be the envy of the county.”

Vincent telt the men, “I’ve had going on a dozen coneys off her that she said that lurcher pup of hers had taken. Legs she calls it because of its speed.” He paused for a drink and added, “Years ago I heard a tale that to lur was a Romany verb that meant to steal. Lurchers were used for poaching, so a lurcher was a stealer or a thief of meat that the upper classes had legal ownership of. Their lurcher dogs were rough coated, rough looking cross bred dogs that were bred for speed and their ability to kill for meat, to bring the families of their owners a meal. Their looks were irrelevant and they didn’t look anything like the elegant, sleek, fast racing dogs the aristocracy raced against each other and coursed for money, so they were disparagingly written off as useless which kept their owners safe from over close scrutiny. The tale I was telt said that for generations the best lurcher bitches when on heat were deliberately tied up where the fastest pure bred dogs of the aristocracy would be sure to be diverted for long enough to have them in pup. That may or may not be true, but it sounds exactly like the sort of thing my ancestors would have done to feed their children, for it is what we would do today, and we are their children, even though it may be at several generations removed. Most of us are agreed the so called upper classes of those days were an arrogant set of folks who deserved whatever ill fortune befell them and that the politicians of today are without doubt their heirs.”

Alf smiled and said, “Yeah well, talking about the lying bastards that some folk call politicians. I read some bullshit the other day that I think came from the BBC, but it could have been from some other bunch of owt but responsible purveyors of so called balanced news. It started by saying as a statement beyond question that pensions were now a real big problem to the treasury because they represented forty-two percent of all social benefits. That is a malicious lie of the most insidious kind. Pensions are not a social benefit because folk have had no choice all their working lives but to pay National Insurance contributions in order to pay for their state pensions. For their entire working lives they’ve paid it out of their wages, twelve percent is the current rate for the majority of the population, and that’s on top of income tax deductions, both enforcedly stopped at source by their employers mind, with no ability to opt out of it. If you’re a high earner that drops to two per cent on all you earn over nine hundred and sixty-seven quid a week. I don’t know any bugger who earns that much. The Government bullshit as described on their official website is that you pay it to and I quote ‘protect your national insurance record’. For the record that is what determines your pension.

“Originally, the NI contribution was to pay for the NHS and your pension. Now both are grossly underfunded and our pensions are the worst in Europe. The total the government takes in NI contributions could easily pay for the NHS and our pensions many times over. I know we all return spoilt ballot papers here, but on my next voting slip I’m going to write, ‘I care enough to vote, but not for any of these thieving, lying cunts. This is a deliberate, spoilt ballot.’ That way if there’s a recount there can be no doubt my vote can’t be given to anyone, and there’s not a thing they can do to me because if they try that will prove we don’t have a secret ballot in the UK and then they’re fucked. Having said that, yon billionaire Asian prime minister(5) of ours ended up painting(6) himself into a corner promising to keep the triple lock(7) on pension increases so as not to lose pensioner votes, but if you keep a close eye on the media it seems the robbing, lying weasel is now talking about means testing the old folks’ winter fuel payment(8) to pay for it. If they had a decent pension folks wouldn’t need a bloody winter fuel allowance. Even if he back tracks on that he’ll find a way to claw the money back off us some how. Pensions are not a social benefit! The reality is they are a piss poor return on a forced investment. I reckon the only bloke who ever went into parliament with honourable intentions was Guy Fawkes.(9)

“Stan, pull a couple of pints for Alf. Denis Lad, pour him a goodly measure of chemic. Best use a gill glass,(10) for I reckon that would be advisable to reduce his blood pressure.”

Alf grinned and said, “I’ll tek the drink, Lads, but now I’ve got that of my chest I feel a lot calmer already.

~o~O~o~

When all had settled down and were looking around to see where the entertainment was coming from next, Saul announced, “I’ve been having a bit of a costly do on the domestic front recently, Lad’s. So this series of linked events is going to take some time to have telt. First the fridge went down. I only discovered that because milk didn’t seem to be keeping. I really took notice when I bought a four pint bottle when I was at work with a sell by date a week away and it had gone off the day after I bought it. I prefer Peabody’s milk, but I’d forgotten to pick any up from Lucy at the store and I wanted some for my and the lad’s tea for bait time. Normally we’d use the entire bottle, but half of the lads were on another job, so I took what was left home and put it in the fridge. Belle said she’d cook with it. The following day when I found it had turned I just thought it was a dodgy bottle of milk, so I emptied it out on the compost heap and took the bottle back to the shop in Wigton. I’m well known there so after one sniff they replaced with it no fuss.

“The following day some soup in the fridge was not quite right. It was at that point where though it wasn’t bubbling I could tell it was going to be within hours. I turned the fridge to its coldest setting and left a max min thermometer from the greenhouse in it. When I checked both read room temperature. The folk in the shop where I bought the milk were gobsmacked when I explained about it being my fridge and not their milk that had been the problem and I insisted on paying for the replacement they’d given me, they said it wasn’t necessary. Well to me it was. I telt them if they wouldn’t take the money for the till then to put it in their poor box.(11) I don’t like any thinking I’m a cheat or a thief even if it’s only me thinking it. Actually especially if it’s me thinking it.” There were some surprised looks on the faces of outsiders who clearly didn’t understand Saul’s point of view. There were no surprised looks on the faces of the local men because they’d all have done the same.

“So it was on to Ebay playing hunt the larder fridge that evening. Like most of us we’ve enough freezer capacity so we didn’t want a fridge with a freezer unit.” Seeing some puzzled faces Saul expanded on that, “We’ve a huge chest freezer and two large uprights. We need that order of capability ready for when the floods cut us of in poor weather which can be for as long as six weeks at a time. That long is not a frequent occurrence though it was much longer than that when Bearthwaite was at odds with the utilities company over the reservoir as I’m sure most are aware from the media. However, the old fridge was a high performance model regards insulation and low electricity consumption and about one forty-five centimetres high [57 inches]. After a couple of hours I managed to find a similar performance model regards insulation and low electricity consumption. As required it was a larder fridge and supplied by folk I knew had a decent reputation for service. The only major difference between it and what it was replacing was it was one seventy-eight centimetres tall [70 inches].

“The glass shelves out of the old fridge would fit the new one, so Belle could have as many extra shelves as she wanted. She’s always complained that fridges don’t provide enough shelves even though the mechanisms to slot them into are there. In the past I’ve often had to provide her with a couple of plywood shelves which being opaque are not ideal. I don’t like the idea of using clear plastic for extra shelves as I don’t know if the cold will embrittle them. At three hundred and sixty four quid I could have bought a smaller, lower performance model that would have done the job for less than half that, but despite it being designed for built in kitchen units and we were using it as a free standing fridge Belle was more than happy with it, so I can live with the price. The best thing is she can’t reach the back of the top shelf without a hop up to stand on, so it’s an ideal place to keep beer.”

The chuckles were from every man in the taproom, be they local or outsider, for all knew money was a very small price to pay for domestic harmony, and the idea of hiding beer from their wives was an amusing thought. “All right, Lads, let’s have some glasses washed and refilled before Saul continues.” As he spoke Bertie was reaching for some glasses to take to the bar.

After all had settled, Saul continued, “I don’t know how it happened, but the glass in the living room solid fuel stove door cracked and dropped out.” The ouches and grimaces of pain were audible and visible, for all the locals knew what that entailed in terms of cost. “I couldn’t find anything on Ebay, which I subsequently discovered was due to my stupidity using the wrong search terms, so I went on to Yahoo which is the search engine I prefer. I ordered a replacement glass for fifty-four quid. The site didn’t seem to take the order, so like an idiot I tried again. Whilst I waited for the replacement glass I bodged up a repair with fire cement to put the three pieces of glass back in so we could use the stove. Before I finally replaced the glass I’d had to repair the broken piece three times. However, after a fortnight, no glass had arrived and I couldn’t mind who I’d ordered it from other than that their user name was ‘World of Glass’. When you order stuff via Ebay all details of the vendor are available, but I’d forgotten I needed to keep a record because it’s rare that I don’t use Ebay. I looked up World of Glass and discovered it’s the name of the glass museum in St Helens where Pilkingtons the inventor of the float glass process in the fifties and a major player globally in glass is based. The Pilkingtons glass museum and the St Helens Council museum combined resources and exhibits recently to produce a major display to shew off the history of glass and of the town, which was essentially made by the glass industry, in a brand new custom designed building. That was interesting but not helpful.

“I received a phone call from some one who left a message asking me to call them about my order for glass. They didn’t say who they were nor did they leave a phone number. Helpful. After three or four days I finally started to shew some signs of intelligence. I’d paid via Paypal, so I went into my Paypal account to find I’d screwed up and ordered two pieces of quartz glass, but most importantly I found a phone number for Safety Glass Replacements of Newcastle under Lyme. I rang them up and after a bit of talking at cross purposes we were finally getting somewhere. The lad I spoke to hadn’t dealt with my order and he said he was the only one there, so I reckon they must have been quite a small outfit, but he said it had been picked up that I’d ordered twice within ten minutes and they wanted to know if that had been a mistake. I said it was and he said, ‘No bother I’ll refund the money to wherever it came from’. Two days later I had my glass and three after that the refund was in my Paypal account.

“The glass came by courier and the packaging was the best I’ve ever come across. The glass was cradled all around in expanded polythene foam blocks with slots to take it and the blocks were hot glued down in between two of the most ridged pieces of quarter inch plywood I’ve come across. That was wrapped in bubble wrap that was hot glued down to the plywood and the whole encased in a rigid corrugated cardboard box that had interlocking sides that were hot glued together too. That was wrapped in yet more bubble wrap hot glued down and encased in the final rigid corrugated cardboard box that also had interlocking sides that were yet again hot glued down. All of which was inside one of those plastic bags that are so tough there is no way you can get into them without a decent pair of scissors or a sharp knife. The bag had been heat sealed to close it three times. It took me twenty minutes to get the glass out.

“I’d thought that reglazing the fire door was going to be a nightmare, especially since one corner was generously covered in set fire cement which also covered a screw and the clip it held in position. Well, you can’t win ’em all, but you can’t lose ’em all either. Less than fifteen minutes to do the entire job, take the old glass out, remove the four screws and clips, clean off the set fire cement, damp down the sealing string that the glass goes up against to soften it to allow the glass to settle properly without any stress, reinstall the glass retaining clips and their screws and clean up the mess to Belle’s satisfaction if not her standards of cleaning. I’ve kept the old glass because being quartz oxy will melt it easily and I fancy having a go at repairing it. I’ll let you know how that goes because hundreds of us here use stoves like mine and a tenner repair is better than the price of a new glass.” That latest piece of information was clearly of interest to many and a hum of quiet conversation ensued.

“That it, Saul?” Pete asked. “Shall I pass some chemic around?”

“Aye to the chemic, Pete, but I haven’t even started on the microwave, the leaking dishwasher and washer and the cooker yet.” It was a few minutes before Saul could continue. “There was a hell of a flash inside the microwave one night when I turned it on to nuc something, a pasty I think, and it started to arc constantly. I turned it off and started looking inside. The microwaves are generated by a thing called a cavity magnetron, God alone knows how that works, but they enter the oven space through the wave guides which are covered with a sheet of mica to stop food getting into the electrical bits. Mica is a natural crystalline mineral and mica crystals can easily be split into extremely thin sheets. The mica in ours was dirty with what looked like soot, probably cremated food spatter, so I took it out and washed it in the sink with a light brush and some washing up liquid. I didn’t want to put it back wet because I thought the microwaves may turn any water that had penetrated in between the layers of mica to steam and explosively destroy it, so I left it on a radiator for an hour or so before replacing it. That worked a treat, but it was cracked so I ordered a new one off Ebay. At pennies over two quid and less than five minutes to fit that has got to be one of the cheapest and easiest domestic fixes ever. I’ll just read you what wiki says about magnetrons, ‘The cavity magnetron is a high power vacuum tube used in early radar systems and currently in microwave ovens and in linear particle accelerators. A cavity magnetron generates microwaves using the interaction of a stream of electrons with a magnetic field, whilst moving past a series of cavity resonators, which are small, open cavities in a metal block.’ There was shed load more but after reading that I was no wiser and losing the will to live, but I thought you should know.”

Saul was grinning as he said that and Sasha pushed a half gallon whisky bottle towards him that contained a dark oily looking liquid that definitely wasn’t whisky, smiled and said absolutely straight faced, “No need, Saul, I already knew that.” There were roars of laughter from local men which most outsiders didn’t understand the reason for because they knew next to nothing about Sasha other than that he was the semi official chairman of the Grumpy Old Men’s Society because he was said to be the best story teller and he’d started the story telling years ago.

“Okay, Sasha, one to you. Anyway the next thing to happen was I arrived home after work one day to find the floods. The kitchen was ankle deep in water and Belle was in floods of tears. Now, Lads, as any long married man of sense and experience knows and will tell you less experienced blokes there are priorities that have to be taken into account when facing multiple issues that require damage limitation actions when one of those issues is the lady of the house. So I reached out to turn the kettle on, settled Belle and telt her to go and get dressed up and I’d take her out to dinner. Whilst she was doing that I’d make us a pot of tea. That neatly turned a domestic crisis into what was merely a domestic disaster.” There were nods of agreement and understanding going all around the room. “Now knowing I don’t take anywhere near as long to make myself presentable and ready for going out on the arm(12) as Belle takes to get ready I reckoned I’d plenty of time to fix whatever was wrong. I doubted it was either the dishwasher or the washing machine and suspected the one and a half inch [38mm] waste pipe had come adrift at the elbow where it goes out through the kitchen wall to the drain outside. Once I’d pulled the dishwasher away from the wall I could see I was right. The elbow is an rubber O ring reusable compression fitting so a fifteen minute fix even cheaper than the microwave resulted. I even had time to mop the water off the floor, have a shower and still be ready before Belle. Now I’ll give good women their due they really do know how to shew gratitude when it matters in a way that we can all appreciate and when we arrived home after a very enjoyable meal and some dancing before Belle dragged me off to bed she went to fetch a surprise for me: a bottle of cask strength Laphroaig that she said she’d been saving for an appropriate occasion. It’s true what they say, Lads, every cloud does have a silver lining. Pass that hostage rum around again some one please.” Saul was really hitting what was understood but best not spoken of explicitly as could be be seen from the nods and smiles all around the room.

It was maybe ten minutes before all was ready for Saul to recommence for many had gone to the gents and some of the men had taken the opportunity to wash and refill glasses.

“Now we come to the serious coin,(13) Lads, the cooker. Our old cooker was a halogen hob with a top oven that doubled as a grill and a bottom oven that was more or less like any other electric oven. Maybe two possibly three months ago one side of the grill died when I was doing some toast for breakfast. It worked intermittently for a while, but I knew it’s days were numbered and it certainly wasn’t worth attempting a repair. I’d mentioned it to Belle and she said that no doubt I’d get around to doing something about it when I was ready or when I was forced into it. Talk about prophecy. Early one evening Belle asked me to put the potatoes she’d peeled on the hob. The back left ring is a twin ring. Together they are two point three kilowatts. The other three are single rings. The front right is one point eight kilowatts and the other two are one point two kilowatts. I was going to put the spuds on the back left because Belle would put the vegetables in a couple of steamers on top of them after maybe ten minutes and it needs the power to cook whatever is in the top steamer. Belle was standing beside me as I turned it on. What a fucking bang. There was a big flash from behind the cooker too and Belle had already gone by the time I’d turned round.

A little investigation revealed it was only the back left ring that was out, but the cooker was definitely fucked beyond economic recovery. We’d had it fifteen years or so and it was second hand when I bought it at a farm estate sale for a fiver [7 or 8 USD]. I’d been the only bidder. Funny thing was whatever had happened hadn’t tripped the breaker. I wasn’t sure whether that should have worried me or not, but when I tested the breaker it was fine. You’ve got to hand it to Belle, the lass was right. That evening I was looking for a cooker because I’d been forced into it. I can put up with her when she’s being a smart arse, and I can put up with her when she’s right, but I hate it when she’s being a smart arse and right. As an aside, I’ll offer a piece of advice to some of you younger married blokes. In the event of marital strife as soon as you realise you’re right back down immediately. Life’s quieter that way and whatever the original issue it’ll be resolved far faster, and remember this, we’re talking about the lady you sleep with right? Anyway, back to the cooker. I can’t be doing with going round Curry’s and spots like that looking for domestic appliances, the staff wind me up, it writes off an entire day and there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to find what you want anyway which means you risk buying something you don’t really want just to get the whole miserable process over and done with. Any roads, since Cury’s and all the other major domestic appliance vendors all sell direct from their warehouses on Ebay there’s no point in leaving the house, so it was back to Ebay again.

“Halogen hobs have been yesterday’s technology for decade and a half. The only ones I saw on Ebay were second hand which reminded me to click the new only tab. We’ve got the money and I was hoping this cooker, which would be our first brand new one, was going to be our last. After a couple of hours on both Ebay and the internet doing a bit of research it came down to two which I’d put in my basket. I’d decided against individual solid cast hobs because Belle hated them because she said they were impossible to keep even looking clean. In my Ebay basket were a ceramic hob at three hundred less a quid and an induction hob at six fifty less a quid. At that point expert opinion was required and the first thing Belle asked was ‘What’s the difference? What do I get for my extra three fifty?’

“Like I said I’d done my homework because somehow I just knew it would get down to that. I explained about halogens being unsupported any more, though they are still relatively popular in the US apparently, and how I had written off solid cast hobs because she hated them. I telt her, ‘That leaves ceramic hobs and induction hobs. Both like halogen hobs have a ceramic glass top. The so called ceramic hobs have an electric heater element under the glass and heat travels up through the glass and into the pan. They are slower to heat up and cool down than induction hobs and the glass gets hot in the process. Induction hobs have electromagnetic mechanisms below the glass and electromagnetic waves pass through the glass without heating it and they heat the pan directly. They are extremely fast both heating and cooling though of course heat in the pan contents remains there. Pans have to have an iron content, they can’t be used with aluminium or glass pans. To test if a pan will work use a magnet, if it sticks to the pan it will be okay.’ Predictably, next up Belle asked, ‘Will my Le Creuset pans work?’ ‘No problem,’ I said, ‘They’re made of cast iron.’

“Now you all know I cook from time to time, mostly far eastern, Asian and Chinese food of various cuisines. I enjoy it because I’m good at it, and I’m good at it because I enjoy it, but like a deal of men who cook for fun I’d be a disaster if I had to cook under the pressure that most women cook under. Limited time, resources and money. You know what I mean, typically for example they’ve got to finish ironing the kids clothes for school the following week, get the old man’s overalls in the wash, try to do a bit of house work and then and only then can they start preparing a meal for starving kids who will be home from school in less than an hour and a tired, hungry husband who’s done his days graft and gets home an hour or so after the kids. They just have to make do with the ingredients that are in the house because there’s no time to go out for something. If they’re lucky they can send one of the kids to the shop or to Vincent for some meat, maybe. On top of that they budget for at least a week’s meals at a time and most of them are permanently having to juggle spending money on clothes for the kids or on food. When I cook I’ve had time to think about it, it’s after all just a hobby for me. I’ve got all the ingredients for whatever I want to do ready in advance and I’ve got all the equipment I could possibly dream of because I’ve bought it over the years. I reckon it’s a lot cheaper than playing golf, so the cost doesn’t enter into it. I’ve enough time, resources and money. Belle enjoys my cooking, but I constantly tell her not to compare herself with me because if I were given forty minutes to have a meal on the table using only what was in the house at the time for a horde of starving kids like ours and a bad tempered, tired husband like hers who’s just had a bad twelve hour day because three men didn’t turn up for work we’d all starve, yet she does just that regularly.

“So it was a shock when she asked, ‘Your shroud got any pockets? Mine hasn’t.(14) You’ve always wanted an induction hob. The hell with it. I’ll use a male argument on you, Love. Three hundred and fifty for marital harmony, cheap at twice the price. Just order it. So I did. It came almost as well packaged as the fire glass and took me even longer to get out of the packaging, and then my nightmares started. Cookers these days don’t come with a connection cable. I disconnected the cable from the old cooker which turned into a pig of a job, and since the cooker was scrap I ended up ripping the back out of it to get at the terminals. At that point Belle insisted on washing the cable because it was greasy. I wasn’t going to argue the toss because as she said that she gave me a glass three-quarters full of malt with instructions to sit in front of the fire in the front room and enjoy it. That was the point at which I realised I needed to calm down a bit, so as the cable dried off on the rug in front of the front room fire, which was a relatively fast process because the new glass was still completely clear and soot free, I drank my whisky and the next one that Belle poured me too. It took me over an hour to connect three wires to the new cooker. Thinking back perhaps it’s as well I’d taken a glass. Interestingly there were options for a two forty volt single phase supply and a four forty volt three phase supply.

“Trouble was the spaces in the terminal blocks to put the wires in weren’t large enough for the minimum sized wiring necessary for an appliance that could draw the current that that beast can. The earth was easy enough, the other two were a nightmare because you can’t see what you’re doing due to your hand trying to put the wires in being in the way of the hand holding the screwdriver, and you’re working upside down too. Too, the clamping screws are central in the holes the wires go in. I managed it by taking the entire connection assembly out, splitting the multi strand wires so as to pass half on each side of the screws and then tightening them up. Then I had to refit the entire connection assembly. I did a far better job than I’d feared would be possible, but like I said it took time. When the wall behind the cooker is plastered I’ll solder some terminals on to the wires that are solid with a U shaped end designed to bypass a central clamp screw. I’ve ordered some.

“I suppose I’m a glutton for punishment, but a couple of years ago I’d decided that when I did install a new cooker I’d use a new cooker connection box on the wall and do away with the manky looking thing we were using, which typically had a switch for the cooker supply and another for the integrated thirteen amp plug. The plug switch was definitely dodgy so the socket hadn’t been used for years. As a result I’d bought a new cooker connection box and a new back box to go with it ages before and put them in the cupboard at the side of the cooker. Somewhere in the recent past I’d demolished the old wall behind the cooker which was disintegrating and built a new block wall. The new wall also had a damp proof course which the old one didn’t. It had been the rising damp that had caused its demise. The new back box couldn’t be mounted directly on to the block wall without butching(15) it to allow the heavy gauge feed and load cables access to the connections. I wasn’t prepared to do that, so I made a wooden pattress and machined out entry for the cables and trepanned a hole in the centre to allow access to the electrical box terminals, which will do till the wall is plastered when the pattress can be used for firewood since the cables will be embedded in the plaster. The pattress with the cables passing through it was screwed into wall plugs in the wall. Doing that involved, a one ten volt transformer box, my Spitt SDS(16) drill and a seven millimetre SDS masonry drill bit. Then the wall plugs are tapped into the holes ready to take the screws. It all takes time and all of that kit I’d had to carry from my workshop and the one ten box is damned heavy. Once upon a time I’d have just picked it up along with the rest of the tackle, these days I use a wheel barrow. Then the wires in the cables were connected to the terminals in the electrical box which was then screwed to the pattress and closed up. Another two hours gone.

“It’s the only cooker I’ve ever heard of that has to be chained to the wall. No kidding! There are two chains bolted to the rear frame, one at each side about six inches down from the top. Two expanding bolts are provided to drill holes for and sink into the wall. They have hooks on for the chains. The book of words says they are to prevent the cooker from over tilting itself forwards. I did wonder about not bothering, but if there’s say a big turkey or goose in the top oven at Christmas time and you pull the shelf its tray is on out to the max to look at it or baste it or whatever though the shelves are designed so they can’t come out by accident I could see that may tilt the entire cooker forward on to its face which would be bloody dangerous if you were in front of it. All that hot fat could give you a nasty case of A&E.(17) I’d already been for a one ten box, my Spitt SDS drill and a selection of different sized carbide tipped masonry drill bits to fasten the pattress to wall so I was tooled up to do the job which was a lot quicker to do than putting all the tools away.

“All I had to do next was learn how to use it from the decidedly inadequate instruction leaflet, so that I could explain it to Belle. I wrote down the feedback I left on it and I’ll read it out, ‘A very good cooker that was seriously let down by inattention to detail. The point at which it accepts the electrical supply is tragic. It took an over an hour to connect three wires. The space available was inadequate to readily accept the minimum sized wiring required by an appliance of this type. The manual describes itself as ‘detailed instructions for the use of electric free standing cooker’, which cooker? The cooker probably had been improved over the years but the manual was for the original version.’

“I surmised that about the manual because it said there is a padlock symbol on the front panel to lock out the panel so as to prevent accidental use by children. It also shewed a photo of the front panel with the padlock symbol which is not there on my cooker.

“The grill in the top oven has two settings, on and off. It’s intended for browning joints of meat and not cooking bacon or toast. It will do both, but it is slow to warm up and then needs watching like a hawk to prevent it cremating your toast. However, the really tricky thing proved to be turning the hob on in the first place. It took me over an hour to do that and I was almost convinced the hob didn’t work and it was going to have to be a return under warrantee job, and I’d been stupid enough to burn all the packaging. Trusting soul ain’t I? The manual stated that to use a ring you first had to power up the hob by touching a horizontal bar in a circle symbol, which is not the conventional on symbol, which was nowhere to be seen. Eventually I realised the symbol was on the ceramic top, it was tiny, maybe a centimetre across [⅜ inch] and dark and thus hard to see against the black background of the hob. Once the symbol is touched the knobs turn and operate the rings in the usual manner. When done touch the symbol and the hob is inactive again. Eventually all became clear, but though I really like the beast it’s a hell of a steep learning curve to use it well. For example to cook rice on the old halogen hob I put a measure of rice with two and a half measures of water in a pan. I brought it to the boil for two minutes before turning the hob off covering the pan with kitchen foil to make a seal when I put the lid on and left it for between half an hour and three-quarters of an hour. In that time all the water was absorbed and the rice was perfect. All thanks to Madhur Jaffrey’s book. For those who’ve never heard of her she’s a well known actress and Indian food cookery writer of about ninety, but she’s still going strong.

“We also have a top of the range Rayburn in the big kitchen which won’t do rice that way either. The reason it worked on the halogen hob was the residual heat in the ceramic glass. On the induction hob there is no heat in the ceramic other than the little that is passed downwards by conduction from the pan. On the Rayburn the heavy cast iron top is always very hot so you’d burn the rice if you left the pan on that. Talk about from the sublime to the ridiculous. To add insult to injury my favourite pan to cook rice in is not quite flat on its base so is useless on the Rayburn. It’s a copper bottomed stainless steel pan, so I expected it to work on the induction hob, ha! No such luck. It’s non magnetic stainless, some stainless pans are magnetic and work, some aren’t and don’t. It ain’t and don’t. The other thing about the induction rings that took time for me to realise is they work like electric ovens. Unlike other types of electric hob rings that operate in an analogue fashion where as you turn the control knob they receive gradually more power which gradually increases the heat output in step they are digital. By which I mean at any given instant they are either on at full power or off. Control is by a mark space mechanism. In an electric oven you set the thermostat to a desired temperature. When on the oven is heating at full power. Control is achieved because at a few degrees above the set temperature the oven turns off which then starts to cool. At a few degrees below the set temperature the power is turned on again. The on off cycle is managed by means of thermostats. The larger the fraction of the time the power is on the hotter the oven temperature averages at. Our induction hobs seem to work similarly. I suspect they are either on at full power or off. I say that because a pan’s contents alternate between boiling and not, and the higher the control knob is set to the larger proportion of the time they are boiling. I don’t know how control is achieved, but I suspect a timer device or possibly a thermostat below the glass top. This would explain why even on a relatively low setting the pan contents can stick to the pan and burn. The burning is possible because for short periods of time the pan is subject to full power. It takes a lot of getting used to and in general I think it’s true to say when in doubt turn the hob down.

“Like I said, Lads, it been a hell of stressful, and costly do on the domestic scene recently, but if any wants some tuition on induction hobs, so they don’t need to learn the hard way like I had to let me know. Too if any wants a quartz fire glass fettling let me know.”

“Bring that glass down to my spot, Saul, I’ve got some oddments of quartz glass we can have a practice on before working on yours and I’d like to have a go at that myself. If it works it could be a right handy thing for folks to save a bob(18) or two.”

“Thanks, Alf, I’ll do that. You okay tomorrow afternoon? because I’ll be at work till gone half eight everyday next week and won’t be home till quarter past nine if I’m lucky. We’re demolishing some terraces of houses down Siddick way. We negotiated a gey good deal for us, but part of the deal is the job has to be done gey quick. Too, Matt’s lads need the bricks, so we’ve taken on a dozen extra lads on a temporary basis and it’s a minimum of twelve hour shifts for us till further notice.”

“Aye, that’ll be fine.”

~o~O~o~

Stan looked around and asked, “You mind those three young, outsider blokes who were obviously bothered by the reaction in here to Bertie’s lad sorting out that thug at the academy at Whiteport as was bullying Gustav’s kids? That’s a goodly while back, but they’ve never been back have they?”

Sasha replied saying, “There’s no loss there, Stan. Some outsiders just naturally have no balls, and can’t cope with reality. Not good dad material. No good as a rôle model for their lads and even less good as a protective dad who looks after his lasses. Definitely not the kind of bloke our lasses are interested in as husband material. And not the kind of drinking company we need either.”

Dave had added, “Sasha’s right, but he forgot to add that gutless bastards of that sort all sit down to piss. Which is fine and only to be expected in a decent lass, but it’s hardly a sign of character in a bloke is it?” The laughter had taken a while to dissipate.

~o~O~o~

“What’s for supper the night, Harriet?”

“Auntie Veronica’s fish pie with sliced green runner beans and parsley sauce, Uncle Gerry. The pie’s made with fish that we mostly bought local. Mostly it’s cheap but tasty cod out of the Solway from the Maryport fishermen. The small amount of Scottish smoked salmon in it was fish that the local town shops couldn’t sell probably due to a lack of flavour, but Veronica thought it was acceptable for fish pie, so she bought the lot gey cheap off the wholesaler who had about half a ton of it left on his hands and was asking silly money for it. Auntie offered ten percent of his asking price, and walked away saying if he was prepared to sell at her price to give her a call, but her offer was it, not a penny more and it would decrease by one percent every day as the fish quality deteriorated. She added that in five days she wouldn’t be interested, but if he paid her six hundred she would take it away for compost. He did the deal before she left. Another wholesaler heard about Veronica buying it and tried to sell her a load of Norwegian salmon, but you’d have to insane to buy Norwegian farmed salmon never mind eat it. The Norwegian government have advised pregnant women not to eat it at all and the rest of the population to eat it no more than a limited number of times a year. There are reports (19) that it’s the most toxic food on the planet due to the chemicals they dose the fish with and what’s in their feed. Auntie Veronica’s response was, as she put it, ‘A touch spicy.’ ” It took a while for the laughter to die down as most could imagine that what Veronica referred to as a touch spicy in reality translated into classic Anglo Saxon abuse.(20) “He also tried to sell her some Alaskan smoked salmon, but she reckoned it had no flavour compared with what she could buy from Scotland and it wasn’t cheap enough to bother with, so she offered him half his asking price and when he refused she said, ‘Fine, but no thank you, not at that price’ and walked away. She said he was upset to near greeting,(21) but not upset enough to accept her offer. She reckons he’ll be getting back to her some time in the next week so he can stare at her cleavage again. She telt the ladies she’s going to wear a really low cut top for the meeting and offer to buy at half of what she offered to pay last time. She’s not really bothered one way or the other about the fish, but said only Alan gets away with looking at her like that for free and he’s not trying to sell her smoked salmon and greasy, illegitimate pigs like the wholesaler have to decide what it is they really want. To make a sale or stare at her boobs because either way the price has to be paid.”

There were roars of laughter around the taproom, although many outsiders did not fully appreciate the humour of the situation in the way the local men did, none of who believed for a second Veronica had referred to the wholesaler as a greasy illegitimate pig, sleazy bastard yes, greasy illegitimate pig, no. Veronica was a feisty and generously endowed lady who drove hard bargains with outsiders, yet just like every other Bearthwaite lass and woman she regarded marital fidelity as far more than just staying in her own bed. Years before she’d married Alan Peabody, a widower with four children and they’d had another four subsequently. She was Alan’s wife, he was her man and that was the far end of it. In Bearthwaite lechery and serious flirting was not considered to be proper behaviour for women nor men. Yes the banter between men and women took place, Sasha was constantly teasing Gladys with salacious under tones and she played along, but all knew there was nothing in it and he regarded her in the light of a daughter.

“Finally, there’s a small amount of caviar in the pie. It’s in jars from a fish called black capelin that Auntie Veronica thinks she’s seen in Sainsbury or one of the other major super markets. She said that it has not a huge amount of taste, but it’s gey salty. Sainsbury, or whoever, presumably couldn’t turn it over fast enough to want it on their shelves or in their warehouses, so probably returned it to the supplier. Uncle Murray took the lot, a few hundred tons of jars, off the hands of who we presume is the supermarket supplier for nowt. It seemed the storage cost was hurting them and they were glad to be rid of it for nowt as long as Uncle Murray had it shifted within twenty-four hours. All he paid for was our delivery costs to Uncle Harry and Jake. Uncle Charlie and Jake’s mate Turk took turns driving with Uncle Harry and Jake so the two waggons were working twenty-four hours a day and none of them went over their permitted hours. It took them more than twenty-four hours, going on a day and a half, but the warehouse manager wasn’t bothered because he could see it disappearing fast and knew he’d have the space it occupied back soon. It’s mostly stored in the mill with Auntie Christine. As a result Auntie Veronica has created an excellent tasting meal that is so cheap it’ll keep supper prices gey low for a sixmonth. The allotments have seemingly produced a bumper crop of green beans this year and Auntie Christine’s staff are canning them on an almost daily basis. When I asked her if she’d any peas for tonight’s supper she suggested using green beans instead. I agreed and she had them delivered processed and sliced but raw. All we had to do here was steam them.”

~o~O~o~

“Damn fine supper that, Veronica. Those taties on the top that were crushed rather than mashed gave it an excellent texture when it was finished off in the hot oven. The parsley in with the fish and the parsley sauce was gey tasty. If you run short of the cod, let me know because I’ve a lot of Madeleine’s carp and a goodly amount of pike too in the freezer, both ready filleted, and Christine has a lot more carp fillets in her freezers.”

“Thanks, Vincent. We’ll be okay for the next fish pie supper with the Maryport cod in our own freezers, but after that we’ll use what you have on hand. That caviar will last us a goodly long time and Dave has some in the shop if any one wants to try it. He worked out the cost of the transport per jar and it’s only a few pennies. He’s asking ten pence a jar, but I reckon that’s only so he can give it away to any who’s struggling a bit. The parsley wasn’t the curled type. It was a flat leaved variety from Johnto. It’s flavourful.”

“Who grew the beans, Alf?”

“None in particular, Charlie, or may be all of us. We have two full plots given over to runner beans and grow eight different types including two of our own heritage varieties, one of which has white flowers and beans. We call it Davy’s Bean because Davy Parker’s family had been growing it for centuries. We grow ‘em up sixteen by eight foot sheets of the six inch mesh reinforcing steel that’s used in concrete floors supported by four inch hardwood posts that the lads harvested from the woods at the top of the valley assisted by guy ropes like a tent. Dave is taking what ever he can sell in the shop but Harriet was right when she said the crop is huge this year. Christine must have teken several tons [a ton is 1000Kg, or 2240 pounds] already this year and there’s probably the same to come again, and then there will be the ones we leave to dry in the pods to harvest as dried beans. A few of which we’ll keep for next years seed. It’s been a gey queer year for beans and peas. There was no sign of the flowers producing beans on any of them or the broad beans [fava bean] either till mid July. There were plenty of flowers mind just no beans. Normally we nip the broad bean tips out when the plants reach a yard [1m, 36 inches] high and the six or eight inch tips are selt as a popular vegetable by Lucy in the shop. This year we didn’t dare pinch ’em out because the lower flowers shrivelled and died with out setting beans, so we left the plants to produce flowers higher up the stems hoping for a later crop.

“It’s been a bloody nightmare because the broad bean plants did eventually set a decent crop but the heavy pods grew at the top of plants that were five going on six foot tall by then. The first wind that blew knocked the plants flat and they’re now growing all over the place. Harvesting will be no fun, so we’ll pay some of the kids to help. The peas and mange tout peas were just the same as regards failure to set pods till late, but we at least have a decent bean harvest at the end of it but the peas are dying back now and the crop was poor on all varieties, so you’d better get used to eating green beans where you’d normally expect peas. We do have another lot of peas coming along but they won’t be producing any decent amount for probably six weeks, and an early autumn frost will play havoc with the pea crop. Changing the subject, we decided last back end not to grow soya bean at the allotments this year and the Peabodys are growing five acres for us along with their usual ten of a different variety that they grow for animal feed. We’ve always grown a bit of soya, for the women like to use ’em as a vegetable to use like dried green peas in pease pudding,(22) but this year we’re growing a lot more so Christine can use the extra to produce tofu and they’ll be harvested by Alan’s combine harvester. He’s keeping the haulm for cattle feed and said he’d do the job for nowt seeing as how it’ll be feeding folk and his missus Veronica is interested in mekin(23) it. We’ll provide him with the cost of the fuel for the combine and tractors involved.”

“What the frig’s tofu, Alf?”

“Soya bean curd, Barry. It’s a massively produced food in China, Japan and Korea, and spots like that in the far east. I first had it in a take away meal from Carlisle. Ellen brought it back when she’d been shopping with the lasses on the bus. There’s a Chinese restaurante called the Golden Phenix the lasses go to that does takeaway meals in boxes for any number of folk you want. The more you buy the cheaper per head it becomes, and the more side dishes he threws in as part of the deal. The lasses used to ring in a bulk order a few days before they went shopping, collect it on their return to Bearthwaite and share it out when they got home. They’ve been dealing with him so long that these days they don’t even tell the bloke what they want included, just how many they want it for, and he makes the order up with as wide a variety of stuff as he can provide. Some of it isn’t even on his menu. He writes on the boxes what each dish is, so we know what we’re eating. That way we get a few surprises. I suppose it’s a bit of meal time excitement, the kids certainly think so. He’s a decent bloke and is always generous, I suspect because he knows he’ll be paid in cash. Mind I don’t suppose it’s every day he gets a phone order for a banquet for six hundred and a few days warning, so he can sort it out without panicking knowing that as long as it’s cooked it’s okay to be cold from his chiller units because the lasses will have to warm it all up when they get home anyway. Tofu’s okay. I’m telt it is a bit bland on its own, but it takes up flavour from almost owt else gey easy. The first time I tried it it was in a duck dish and it definitely tasted of duck. I’ve had a prawn one too that was definitely prawnish. It’s supposed to be full of nutrients and easy to digest. It’s good for growing kids and the elderly who have trouble eating due to their teeth, because its soft. Elle and some of the nurses telt me that. Any roads the top and the bottom of it is Christine has always wanted to try mekin it and the bloke at the Chinese restaurante in Carlisle telt her he’ll buy 50Kg, [110 pounds] a week if it’s available. Sun telt her it would be a healthy thing to have available. It’s widely available everywhere back in Hong Kong and seemingly it was easy to buy down south, but he misses it up here. The lads at the allotment were up for it because it’s no graft(24) to them if Alan sows and harvests it for them, and Alan was happy to grow ’em for us in return for the haulm. Surely you must have had some of the Chinese banquet tackle in a box? I know Beatrice goes shopping with Ellen because she’s said so.”

“Aye, I’ve just never had any of that tofu stuff. I’ll ask her to get me some next time the lasses go to Carlisle.”

“So what do they do with the soya beans to make this tofu, Alf?”

“I don’t know a lot about it, Stan, but seemingly you soak ’em overnight to go soft and whizz ’em up to produce a mix of what looks like thin milk and gunk. The gunk looked vaguely like dessicated coconut on the Youtube clips I watched. Separate the milk off the gunk using cheese cloth and then warm the milk up and coagulate curds off it just like mekin cheese using a variety of stuff. Seemingly gypsum will do the trick and I think that’s just plaster, but I could be talking shite. The gunk that is strained off can be cooked with in all sorts of stuff according to Christine, and the whey off the curds can be used too. The Peabody dairy womenfolk are interested because they have all the equipment to mek cheese which is a similar process. Christine has ordered some wooden moulds and the few extra bits she needs from Gilespie the cabinet maker. It seems you can use just about any pulse to mek the stuff, though to me some of what I saw on Youtube looked more like mekin pease pudding than mekin cheese, and the product looked like pease pudding too. If it’s a success, and from what I saw on Youtube it didn’t seem difficult, they are going to branch out a bit next year. Alan says that if the beans are dried properly they keep for months, at least as long as cereal grains in a silo with an air blower he said, and when there is less milk available over the winter the dairy could mek tofu in stead of cheese from time to time because Christine says she knows how to store it so it will keep for over a twelvemonth, though like cheese it changes a bit as it ages. Seemingly owt you can mek from proper milk you can mek from soya milk. Alan’s lads are interested in it as a method of diversifying the farm’s activities and mekin our locally produced food supply more resilient against outside influences.”

“Well bugger me! I agree with their thinking, but I never thought I’d see the day oriental food was being produced in Bearthwaite on a semi commercial scale. And as for getting a lecture on how to do it from Alf of all folk, I need a glass of chemic to prop me up.” The ripple of laughter that went around the taproom became much louder as Barry finished talking. Most of the men clearly agreed that oriental food being produced in bulk at Bearthwaite was a surprise.

~o~O~o~

Eric asked, “I hear you’ve got us some more medical folk and teachers, Murray. What’s happening there?”

“You all know Jimmy the solicitor who works at Carlisle who’s pretty regular here of a Saturday evening. After his first wife died he remarried a couple of years later and Hayley his wife is a lot younger than he is. He’s decided to take early retirement at fifty-eight, and Hayley rang me up to see if we still wanted secondary school teachers. She teaches chemistry and is sick of the abuse from the kids where she teaches, sick of Carlisle and it’s lawlessness, and wants out. The way she put it was that there’s nowt to keep them in Carlisle now. I put her on to Jane who tells me we now have an excellent A’ level chemistry teacher who is prepared to teach all sciences and maths to the lower school too if required. Jimmy is happy to work part time with Adalheidis and Matt Levins is shewing them round tomorrow with a view to finding them somewhere to live. This is an excellent result because we’ve all known and liked them both for a few years. I only found out about Jimmy working part time here a couple of hours ago from Adalheidis on the phone.

“We are definitely getting there as regards the extra teaching staff we need. What else can you tell us, Murray?” Sasha asked reaching for a bottle of Talisker malt whisky, a relatively innocuous and ladylike beverage compared with the men’s usual liquors. He poured himself a generous glass and passed the bottle on. Bertie reached round for the case and put another couple of bottles on the table. For a couple of minutes all that could be heard was the clink of coins hitting the ones already in the children’s Christmas party collection fund box. At two quid a glass money was definitely being lost on the price of the Talisker, but none were bothered because it would more than be made up for by the two pounds taken for liquors the revenue knew nothing about that only cost pennies for a glass.

Eventually Murray resumed, “Jennifer, or Jenny as she prefers to be called, is a fully qualified prescribing optician with amazing academic credentials, but unfortunately for her her sense of right and wrong wouldn’t allow her to feed her patients bullshit to make them part with more money than necessary. She had serious issues with her erstwhile employers who are a national chain of high street opticians, and was under serious pressure for a long time before they manipulated her into handing her notice in. She is a thirty-two year old military widow with four kids and in serious need of a job. She telt me she could go for constructive dismissal and would win, but with no job she wasn’t prepared to put her kids through what that would entail. I’ve asked Adalheidis to look into that on her behalf. The non combatants army dependents pension, which was all the army coughed up, isn’t enough to keep body and soul together for herself and her family down at Aldershot. I imagine the money will go further here.

“She took her kids on holiday to her sister’s guest house in Windermere when the business was quiet. She hadn’t see our advertisement, but luckily for us she met Diane as was Diane Graham, Hetty and Billy Graham’s lass, in Windermere who telt her about us. By the bye it seems Diane and her old man plan on coming home permanently maybe later in the year, but more likely next Easter after the last of her four kids gets wed. Jenny rang me and emailed her CV. [résumé] She came to see me and I offered her the job subject to our usual terms and conditions. She’s seriously short of money and desperately worried about her children. I offered her a rent free house for a twelvemonth and a decent salary to get her on her feet again. Said we’d buy all her stock and equipment as is usual for us and all she needed to do was to find herself a technician who could do whatever fitting and fettling of lenses and frames was required.

“She choked on asking for a fifty quid advance out of her first month’s salary, so she could buy some clothes for her kids. I gave her a grand and said to consider it to be part of her resettlement allowance. She’d been living in furnished married quarters that she has to vacate at the end of the month, so she’s leaving her children with her sister and going back to Aldershot to pack and send the stuff directly here by carrier. I reckon I did well for us. She’s pretty and from what she said her kids are a credit to her. I can’t see her remaining single for long. She was born and grew up in Kendal and said she’d be gey glad to get back up here again. She also said she has a technician in mind, a spinster called Yvonne. She’s in her fifties who reading between the lines is plain, but our kind of folk. Who knows maybe two marriages in the offing. It might be an idea to make some of the single men aware of them especially the two with kids. Ellis works with your brother Hal, Matt. Have a word will you?” Matt just nodded.

“However, for Jenny it was the usual kind of bullshit you’d expect from the system. Her old man died in service with the army, but not actually in action and they don’t care enough to do right by his widow and kids. Callous bastards are trying to wriggle out of what Adalheidis telt me they know full well they are obliged to pay her. Whatever, their loss is our gain, and the poor, slippery bastards don’t realise that Adalheidis is on their case now. Adalheidis telt me yesterday that the constructive dismissal is an open and shut case because Jenny kept copies of all emails, letters, texts, and phone calls and that she doesn’t need any more evidence to force the opticians to a generous out of court settlement so as to avoid it hitting the tabloids, so it looks like Jenny will do all right out of it. Adalheidis is also in touch with the military to see what she can do regards getting Jenny’s war widows pension paid out quickly seeing as her old man died deployed abroad in to a war zone. She said no promises it will be sorted quickly, but she’s hopeful to have it done and dusted within a twelvemonth because the rules say Jenny is entitled to the same war pension as dependents of support staff deployed to a war zone who don’t actually serve in combat and the longer it goes on for the more they’ll have to pay her. I was amazed by how much she knows about the military. I know it’s been said before but Adalheidis is a truly lovely lass, who turns into a complete monster when she’s in solicitor mode. It really is hard to get your head round the fact that she’s actually the same person.”

“Hang on a moment, Murray. I can see empty glasses including yours, so I’ll just pull a few before you continue.” Pete went behind the bar and as he pulled pints Bertie washed glasses and Stan took the money.

Murray took a goodly pull on his pint and resumed, “Thanks for that, Pete. Back to new folk. A couple of months back I advertised for a part time chiropodist to take some of the pressure off Sun and the nurses. We kept the advertisement running and it was only a few days ago that we had any response. A lass called Mackenzie rang me up and because she only lives in Brampton I asked her to come across to see me. We agreed on the following morning. She’s twenty-three, single, drop dead gorgeous, blonde and bubbly. She gives the initial impression of being a blonde airhead, but though blonde she’s owt but an airhead. She’s sharp, very sharp and completely pissed of with men. I reckon that’s because all she’s ever met are beer swilling gob shites only after one thing and has probably had a series of bad experiences with blokes who can’t be described as men. Right now it’s obvious she wants to move on past whatever has happened to her in the past, and she wants to live an adult life in safety. I reckon a major attraction to her of Bearthwaite is the way we live and she’s obviously heard a lot about us here, and as I said she wants to be safe.” He paused and unexpectedly added, “I like the lass and intend to introduce her to Madeleine. It’ll do both of them some good.” The outsider men in the taproom had no idea that Madeleine was Murray’s wife, and they’d lost their youngest child and only daughter five years before to cancer at the age of thirty-one. Madeleine had never truly recovered from the loss. The local men knew why Murray had said what he had and realised that he must more than like Mackenzie. They said nothing, but Arnie pushed a rum bottle towards him.

After nodding in appreciation to Arnie Murray filled his glass, half emptied it, refilled it and passed the bottle on to Josh before continuing, “However, we’d been talking for no more than ten minutes when I realised I was in way over my head, but I’d already made my mind up about her by then. She’s our kind of folk, and was desperate to be seen as such, so I rang for Adalheidis or Emily to take over. A part time chiropodist I could manage, but one who intends to spend the rest of her working time as a ladies’ manicurist and was trying desperately hard to convince me she can do the job, just forget it. My secondary sex characteristics just don’t meet the requirements necessary to understand the differences between acrylic and gel nails. Adalheidis spent the next two days giggling and laughing at me. Anyway she offered Mackenzie our usual deal and a flat and said the Bearthwaite womenfolk would be very appreciative and booked an appointment to boot. Despite the dim view she currently has of men, neither Adalheidis nor I can see Mackenzie being single for long either. Adalheidis also believes that Mackenzie had an abusive rather than a supportive family and said that Mackenzie may not realise it but she is looking for a bloke and a family too. How the hell women work that sort of thing out beats me, but I know they can and I just go with it. I’ve only just found out from Sun just how much foot care our old folk need, so maybe I should see if Mackenzie will do more than part time, or maybe we need to see if one or two of our older school kids fancy working as her assistant. If it comes to it we’ll have to keep running the advertisement to find someone else too because we need to ease up the pressure on Sun and his nursing team. At the moment they have only been keeping on top of things because our retired nurses have been putting in considerable time to help out.

“Changing the subject a little bit and taking a view to our long term future. Gerry telt me ages back that Olivia wants to be a veterinary surgeon, and she’s certainly clever enough and dedicated enough. She’s well into animals and been giving some of the shepherds a hand with the lambing for a few years, and they all think highly of her. That brings forward the acquisition of another person we need. A vet. If Livvy wants to get a place to study veterinary science at Glasgow university, which she says is what she intends to aim for, she’ll have to have experience of voluntary work with a practising vet, or they’ll not even consider her for a place no matter how good her exam results, and the experience she will be able to acquire without a vet will be deemed inadequate. We need a vet anyway, but we don’t have enough work here for a full time vet, and it would be almost impossible for a vet based here to work outside the valley in poor weather.

“For sure there is not enough work here to attract a youngster with ambition. That leaves us looking for someone happy to work part time, probably someone retired or looking to retire shortly. We need a vet who has done both farm and small animal work. We’d offer the usual arrangements, to set him or her up with whatever were necessary via Beebell. It won’t be cheap, but the benefits would recover all costs in not too long a space of time. Alex Peabody was telling me how much it costs to get a vet out here and it’s frightening. He’s had to shoot more than one cow that was having issues calving when the road was flooded, and said he’s prepared to contribute over and above a typical share of costs if we can get a vet here and that all the other valley farmers would too. He added that some knowledge and experience of bees, fish and coneys would be useful and suggested I had that put in the advertisement. He also suggested that Livvy doing voluntary work with whomever we decide on is written into the contract. That way if he or she tries to avoid it we can get rid and try again. Emily is working on the advertisement, and we aim to put it out next week and just keep running it till we get a satisfactory result. We haven’t completely made our minds up where to place it, but are discussing the alternative media too. Adalheidis is drafting out a contract.”

“Livvy is not only as sharp as a tack, she’s got nous(25) too,” added Harry. “When I was teaching science during Covid, I decided to do some practical stuff with the nine, ten and eleven year olds, so I could teach some theory to the older kids readying for their GCSEs. She was nine then, but only just. I had three microscopes, a binocular microscope and a load of other stuff too, so I set the lot up as different experiments for them, and they worked their way round them over six weeks. Amongst other things I had the kid’s looking at their own blood and at plant tissues after preparing and staining their own slides. After explaining how to prepare an onion slide I provided them with onions to prepare their slides from. She was up and running long before any of the others. When I asked her how she’d prepared a slide so quickly she smiled and said she didn’t believe in doing owt unnecessary. You know the slippery, transparent layers between onion shells?” A number nodded their heads. “Well so did she. They are called epidermal layers and are just one cell thick and she used that, so no tricky onion slicing with a razor blade to obtain a thin enough sample and no damaged cells causing problems. That’s perceptive and applying what she knows to a different situation which is almost a definition of intelligence. She’s got what it takes. Talking of equipment we need an astronomical telescope for the kids to go star gazing too. I reckon we could set up a small observatory on the top of the bobbin mill for them cheap enough, but I’ll get back to you on that one, Murray. Sorry for the interruption.”

“Nay, Lad, you did right. That’s the sort of thing we need to know. However, as for teachers, after a ten minute session with me, Elle or whoever on our school management group is available, to determine whether they are potential Bearthwaite folk, I’m for letting our existing teachers, the ones that are available, both new and ones that have been teaching here for a while, interview their potential colleagues. I reckon their judgements as to the interviewees ability to teach and get on with our kids will be better than that of most of the school expansion management group because though we’ve all taught kids only a few of us are teacher by profession. Too, we could do with a handful more teachers across the different subject areas to give us a bit more timetabling flexibility, and we’d rather have a good teacher teaching the wrong subject than a poor teacher teaching the right subject, but we’re okay for September as of now if only just. Two of the recent appointees are pregnant and single, one of them already has two kids. She discovered her old man was playing away a week before finding out she was expecting. The other one’s old man lit out as soon as he found out about the baby. They will have delivered by Christmas, and obviously will need to be accommodated in whatever way necessary to cope with their babies, their lives and their work. I suspect Stephanie’s crèche staff will be able to provide most of what they will need. Too, we have a further eight or nine married or marriageable young women who could be starting their families in the next couple of years, so I’ve suggested we over staff to cover for potential maternity leaves and any illness and compassionate reasons. We can afford it, and Elle agrees it is better to be over staffed rather than under staffed since supply teachers are not really an option for us, and though we could cover the gaps ourselves that too is anything but a counsel of perfection.”

~o~O~o~

Stan was having a go at one of his favourite targets: the NHS.(26) “Let’s get it perfectly clear right from the word go, Sun and his medical team is exempt from everything I have to say. Julie and I heard that the flue vaccine was available, we went down to the surgery and were jabbed by Karen with no problems. I found out a few days later Sun, the nurses and the midwives had done everyone in the village, regardless of age inside of a week. I know he managed to lay his hands on that much vaccine by not even bothering with the NHS because he said it just gave him a headache. Instead he bought ten thousand doses at commercial rates off the international market, and when he’d done everyone who lives here and all our friends he offered what was left to anyone one who wanted it free of charge, so there was none wasted. That’s how it ought to be right? However, that’s not how it works in most places. Julie was telt by one of the midwives that it’s cheap enough the way Sun bought it and he wanted the entire village protected and wasn’t prepared to waste any left over. She said due to stupidity the NHS are paying through the nose for the vaccine and are trying to cut costs by restricting its availability to just certain groups of folk. She added that if they used their buying power to negotiate a realistic price they could jab the entire country for less than what they are currently paying to jab just a tiny fraction of the population.

“Julie’s sister Lily and Danny her old man telt us it’s all a bit of a joke at their end out west. They both received an invitation to go for a flue jab through the post. Lily received a text asking Danny to go for the jab at the quacks. She hadn’t been invited. Now mind Lily is seventy-two and Danny is seventy. They decided to have them at the local pharmacy because Danny won’t go to the surgery. When they went shopping on the Tuesday they popped into the pharmacy to book an appointment. They were telt five and five fifteen on Friday. When they turned up they were telt there was no vaccine available and to come in the day after. When they went on the Saturday, guess what? There was no vaccine available and it was suggested they try the following Monday. On the way home Danny spotted a twenty foot wide five foot high banner on the local library fence exhorting folk to get the flue jab. Now I’m not saying Danny is a cynic, but he telt me that he was still laughing at that when he arrived home fifteen minutes later. That afternoon Lily received another text inviting Danny for a jab, but not her. Danny’s view was if the pharmacy can’t get their hands on the vaccine the surgery will be in the same boat. Lily rang the pharmacy on the Monday to avoid wasting more time and was informed the vaccine was in. Now Danny may or may not be a cynic, but he is suspicious of officialdom and given what he’s telt me about the surgery he used to go to he has good reason. Many of you know him as he’s been here for a drink on a Saturday many a time and he fits in right well here. At the pharmacy he asked the lass, who hasn’t been there more than a month or two and I know he neither likes nor trusts her, ‘Exactly who is doing the jabs?’ She telt him the pharmacist and the manager, and started to tell him who they were and the training they’d had. Lily telt Julie Danny was gey short with her and he’d said, “I know them both. That’s okay. I just didn’t want some half arsed idiot who’d jabbed an orange once with water to be sticking a needle in me.’ The lass was offended, but there wasn’t much she could do or say about it as Danny hadn’t said owt that was out of order. Lily telt Julie it was pointless her having a go a Danny because she knew he’d just tell her he didn’t give a fuck. They got jabbed by the pharmacist, which they both said was completely painless though they both had sore arms due to the stuff for a few days. All was okay eventually, but what a bloody performance.”

“What was that about oranges, Stan?”

“I don’t know if they still do it that way, Alf, but years ago that was what they started nurses off on when learning how to do injections.”

“I’ll tell you another crazy thing Danny telt me. You not allowed by law to collect a prescription even if it’s already been made up and you’ve had a text to collect it if the pharmacist isn’t on the premises. Some days at their spot they don’t have a pharmacist at all because all they do there is exist on a series of locums. That’s a temporary bloke or lass that doesn’t actually have a job there, Alf. They haven’t had a proper pharmacist for years. It makes sense because I know Tommy can’t pick up the prescriptions for the village unless the pharmacist is there. He’s had to wait a few times till the pharmacist got back from picking up his lunch from the bakers next door. Which is daft if you think about because he picks up hundreds of prescriptions at a time in big boxes. Anyway, even if the pharmacist is out the back taking a leak it’s fine for you to be given a prescription that you’re just collecting for someone else by a college kid who just works there on Saturdays and doesn’t know you or the person for who the prescription is for from Adam, because the pharmacist is on the premises. I don’t know if the kid has to be eighteen, like they do to serve you a pint. Probably not because the law and the NHS always go for anything that maximises stupidity and inconsistency.”

“Pete, for Christ’s sake get Stan a glass of something seriously poisonous before he has a seizure.”

“I’m on it, Alf.”

~o~O~o~

Alf started by saying, “Lads, we need to be keeping a close eye on Colin McFirth. He’s getting frail and needs our support. I know he will resent that, but at my spot last Saturday we were talking about Dr D G Hessayon’s treatise on soil types. He fell asleep on me mid flow concerning his sandy soil and the problems it presented. Yes, I know it happens to all of us from time to time as we age, but I reckon he needs to talk to Dr Wing for a complete reëvaluation of his medications and his lifestyle before we lose him for no good reason. For more than seventy years his contributions to our ability to feed ourselves on the allotments have kept many of our old folk and children alive. We all owe him whatever we can contribute to his health. I owe him that, as do all Bearthwaite men.” Many of the local men were startled by Alf’s unexpected announcement. However, all on considering the matter realised that he was not only correct but he was challenging their right to be considered as a man of Bearthwaite, a matter none were prepared to ignore. A few more seconds of reflection made them realise that Alf was far more in tune with Bearthwaite reality than they. It was a shock to consider that Alf, who most regarded as not over bright, was so aware of what mattered and what did not.

Many were considerably taken aback when Sasha said, “Thank you, Alf, for saying what I was going to say at some point. I was wondering how how to present it, but I have to admit you put it far better, if much blunter, than I would have been able to. Colin has indeed been a major contributor to life as we all experience it here, especially when times were hard. That he always avoided being in the limelight probably tells you more about him than anything else. Alf is correct. We all owe him, and now it is payback time. Yes he finished school at the age of eleven. Yes he married young and has fathered fourteen children, yet after all these years he is still happily married to Elsa. I suggest you look at the lives of his children. All are successful in our terms, and all are well thought of, their children and grandchildren too. Do you think that was just an accident? Just pure chance? He has quietly been a role model for all Bearthwaite men his entire life and now as Alf has said it is time for us to repay our debts.”

~o~O~o~

It was unusual for Vincent, the Bearthwaite slaughterman and butcher, known locally to adults and children alike as Vince the Mince to speak at length, but he was clearly about to. “I’m angry about things I’ve been interested in from outside. I’ve been thinking about some of the stuff I’ve enjoyed watching on Youtube. To any with a minimum of knowledge and the barest of brains some of what I initially thought well of and have enjoyed, and still do, to my embarrassment, has to be a complete misrepresentation at best or even a complete bullshit at worst. Specifically I’m thinking about a channel from Vietnam, by a bloke who gives his name as Duong. The channel purports to be by a bloke from a peasant background who’d had a hard life, but had learnt from it. First, no illiterate peasant could have the knowledge of STEM matters he displays. I’m not over bright, but I’m not thick either. I’m reasonably well educated, and I have learnt a lot from Alf, Sasha and many more of you, yet still I can’t hold a candle to the supposed intelligence of this guy Duong. Second, I’d like to know who is recording and editing the amazingly high quality video supposedly taken in the backwoods of a bloke who purportedly lives and works completely on his own when his wife and kids aren’t there because they live in the local town with her mother most of the time. It is my opinion that none could have all the knowledge of human history and technology that he implies he rediscovered. Don’t get me wrong, Lads, I enjoy watching his channel enormously, but it is not what it purports to be. If from that you conclude I watch bullshit, okay you’re right, but at least I admit it. He has to have had an enormous amount of help behind the scenes that is financially supporting him, presumably for their own reasons. Since he has over two million supporters there must be some heavy advertising money involved.

“The internet is the mother and father of all lies and liars too. I am not an intellectual, all know I’m a slaughterman and a butcher, but I’m clever enough to recognise this guy is entertaining but not for real. I am descended from Bearthwaite folk for more generations than any can mind. I am proud of that, for it means I do not lie and I will not lie, and I mean I will not, not I shall not, lie, for though ill educated at least I’m educated enough to know the difference there. It also means when I discover I have been lied to it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Yes, I am angry, but I have the right to be. I like to be able to accept things as they appear to be. Why should I not? I have no so called political agenda. The ethnic and woke I don’t even bother to take notice of and why should I? They spend their lives upsetting other folk and I spend mine working to make life better for my family and community, and all my community know that.

“Those woke folk are of no value to me and should the gods say I had to decide upon their fate my decision would be death. Should any ever challenge my choice on the grounds of moral responsibility and ask would I be prepared to take their deaths upon myself, my answer is yes I would kill them myself, why should I not, after all I am a slaughterman, and a pig is a pig is a pig, and over the decades I’ve slaughtered thousand of ’em and it’s not exactly a difficult thing to do. I admit I should rather it not come to that. However, if it ever comes about that society descends into chaos, and it’s definitely heading in that direction, then each and every one of us will have to decide where we stand with regard to the useless bastards who can contribute nowt to our society. That will be a decision each and every one of you will have to make for yourselves. However, for myself I’ll be more than happy to slaughter the bastards and butch them for my neighbours to eat the good cuts and use the rest for sausage. More to the point my grandsons, who are my successors, are of the same opinion.

“As a community those of us who live here drove that kind of folk out of Bearthwaite and took steps to ensure none of their like could ever live here again, for their standards of integrity and morality were unacceptable to us. They tried to manipulate us, so in return we systematically made their lives here unendurable and bought them out. There are none of them left here now. Covid was not of our creation, but created by outsiders and it matters not to Bearthwaite folk whether they are from China or Carlisle, they’re all outsiders. When Covid became a real threat to us we closed ranks and took a defensive stance against outsiders. We finally realised outside had over the years infiltrated us more than we had been aware of, so we turned the clock back here centuries in many regards and we’re keeping it that way. Those of you who are outsiders, it is up to you to make your own minds up and to take your own stances on such matters. You may not need to now. It may not even happen in your lifetimes, but sooner or later it will happen. I have stated our position and it is non negotiable. We are Bearthwaite folk and our values and decisions are based on that and nowt else. We are moving into our future by holding to that which matters from our past.”

There was a silence that many found embarrassing after Vincent’s words. Local men were not embarrassed, for they all agreed with him, but many wondered why he had chosen to say what he had on this particular day.

~o~O~o~

“Well, Lads, after those rather heavy, but informative and insightful words of Vincent’s I’ll lighten the tone a bit. Tonight I’m going to teach you all about marriage and sex. As the local lads know I’m now living with Valerie and have taken on her kids. For those of you who don’t know she was one of the lasses whose husbands lit out when Covid landed, but he was an outsider, so that’s no shame to us. I reckon he was one of those blokes Vincent was going on about with an unacceptable sense of integrity and morality, or may hap I should say a lack of any sense of integrity and morality. However, be that as it may, as a result I am now in the fortunate position of having a decent lass to wife and a family. Her ex, as far as I can tell, has the clothes he’s standing up in. Valerie hasn’t said much about her marriage to him, and I’m certainly never going to press her to, but I don’t reckon he could ever have been much good as a husband or a dad because after I moved in it took the kids less than forty-eight hours to start calling me Dad. Now you need to listen carefully to the rest of what I’ve got to say because it’s important.”

There was already considerable amusement in the air and the men in the taproom were anticipating a good laugh. They couldn’t predict what was coming, but naytheless they knew it would be funny. Edward was a thirty-five year old Bearthwaite born and bred forester, sawyer and a divorcee whose wife, an outsider, had disappeared a few years before. Edward didn’t usually say much, but he had always said he was grateful they’d had no kids. However, he could tell a tale and when he did it was usually amusing.

“We’ve the four kids now and are working on a fifth. Valerie has telt the lasses that she wants another four and I don’t have a problem with that. We’re getting wed in the outsiders’ eyes as soon as Valerie’s divorce is finalised, but in Bearthwaite terms we’re wed. Vaughn our youngest is six and Val telt me that the other night he solemnly asked his mum, ‘Did you know, Mum, that when you marry Dad he has to put his penis in your virginia?’ ” The choking on beer and the laughter took a goodly while to fade enough for conversation to resume. Eventually Edward said, “So there you have it, Lads. That’s what you have to do when you get married, put your penis in her virginia no less. Bit of an eye opener that isn’t it? It’s almost enough to put you off the idea of marriage altogether. Marriage and sex as seen through the eyes of a six year old lad who doubtless in the fulness of time will earn how to pronounce virginia correctly. Now after that shocking body blow, I’m sure you are all in as much need of another pint as I am. I’ll start pulling ’em, Pete, if some of you deal with the coin and the glasses.”

~o~O~o~

“D’ye(27) mind those Fire Cracker air dried salami available from yon butcher in Spatri?(28) His surname was Shaw, Barry I think but I could be wrong. He had a spot in Silloth before moving to Wigton and then to Spatri where he is now on that small industrial estate off Park Road. I mind well the salami though. Maybe six inch long and half an inch in diameter. Well I thought those buggers could blow you mouth off with the chilli in ’em. They were only available from him because he made ’em.

“However, I was shopping with Julie in the Spar shop in Silloth a couple of weeks since and she found some sausages with reduced labels on ’em. Four different kinds, all produced by Graham Eyes Quality Butchers according to the label. I looked ’em up on the internet and they have eight shops, all in the north, and seem to be a fair sized outfit connected with Spar somehow. I picked up one of each kind for her. I don’t know, maybe a pound in each I reckoned at the time, but the reduced labels covered most of the information. At one ninety-nine a pound Julie said they were decent value. They went into the freezer and a couple of days later she asked me to get one out and defrost it for her in the microwave. She still can’t use the defrost function. I asked her which one she wanted and she telt me the tomato sausage that were coiled and looked like thin Cumberland sausage. I did as asked and we had microwaved spud, baked beans and sausage. It’s not exactly cordon bleu, but it’s a meal I enjoy, comfort food from childhood I reckon, though the spuds were always baked in the range when Mum did it.

“We both thought the sausage were tomato sausage from the colour and just about every local butcher meks and sells those. Tasty, but frig me, Lads, it took an hour for my mouth to cool down. The colour was due to chilli not tomato. They made those Fire Crackers taste like blancmange. Two meals and a supper we had out of ’em. I like spicy food, but I couldn’t eat any more than that at one go. A few days later we were in Silloth again visiting Julie’s sister Lily and as usual Julie does all three food shops, Spar, the Coöp and Jay Bees. In Spar there was just the one packet of reduced sausage and it was the hot buggers. The reduced label was in a different spot, and I could see there was five hundred grammes in the pack, like I said a pound near enough, and they are called Dragon Slayer. Christ almighty they got that right, though one of the kids referred to ’em Dryan Slaggers.”

Amid much laughter Dave said, “I take it you left well alone this time, Stan‽”

“Are you kidding, Dave? I put them in the basket gey quick before some other bugger had away with ’em. Good gear. If you get out that way I suggest you lay your hands on some. Damned tasty, but I’ll have some lager out of the fridge with ’em next time.”

“Is that it then, Lads? Any more for any more or is it time to get the dominoes out?” Pete waited a minute before continuing. “Okay dominoes it is. Give me a minute to wipe the tables down. Whilst I do can some of you do the honours behind the bar and if we’re running short of chemic will some one fetch some up. I took delivery of a couple of pallets of mixed stuff sent by Adio this week, but I haven’t opened them yet so there may be some surprises in store for us. Some of you owe me some money, but we’ll discuss it when it’s more convenient.”

~o~O~o~

At their usual after closing time meeting Sasha asked, “Is there much we need to discuss? Things seem to be going well. Murray is happy with events and says the school is ready to go in September and all he is looking for now is over staffing to give us more flexibility. He admitted to me yesterday his biggest challenge is finding us a vet. I telt him to advertise wherever he thinks there is the remotest chance of success for as long as it takes and I’ll happily pick up the bill. We need that lass of Gerry’s studying veterinary science and whatever we can do to ensure she does has got to be done.”

Harriet said, “Adalheidis telt me she has all in hand that needs to be undertaken from a legal point of view, and if Jimmy is joining her even one day or a half a day a week things are definitely looking up. She telt me he was well known as a top of the trees family law and divorce solicitor so those lasses that are joining us and have been dropped in it by scumbag ex husbands are going to get the best deals available. Even the unmarried ones will get the best child support possible.”

Gladys added, “The Lucy, Alice and Rosie matchmaking agency will be working overtime for a while. They’re determined to pair up the single lasses coming to join us with our single men especially all the one who were hurt by outsiders and even more so Ellis and Finley because their kids need mums.”

Pete asked, “Is that it then? It’s been a long day and I’m ready for my bed. If I don’t see you for breakfast here I’ll meet you and Clarence at the brewery tomorrow at nine, Gustav.”

Elle pushed Sasha towards the door and said, “Home, Love.”

June the 20th

The recent warm but exceedingly windy and wet weather had blown over nearly a month ago and been replaced by clear skies and sunshine. It was calm and dry and all at Bearthwaite were glad that the parties and the wedding were to be so favoured. Hundreds of folk had been making the necessary preparations that had to be left till as late as possible and the excitement in the air was almost palpable. The atmosphere was more like that of a carnival than a wedding and that suited every one including the young couple. Alf’s colossal bouncy castle that had been put together from the parts of seven that he’d acquired had been on the village green for nearly a week and hundreds of children had been testing it for the same length of time. Any number of busy parents and older siblings had been grateful, for it only required a few of them to mind the younger children which meant most could get on with the party preparations secure in the knowledge they knew where their children were and that they were safe being minded by responsible folk. That the younger children never seemed to tire of the activity did seem surprising, but it was a welcome surprise. Most of the children wolfed their breakfasts in their haste to go to the green, were reluctant to break for lunch and recalcitrant when they’d had to go home in the evening.

The night before their wedding Harriet had aid to Gustav, “You know, Love, I’ve just realised our wedding will have been a process rather than be an event.” Seeing that Gustav was looking puzzled she continued, “For any number of unavoidable reasons it’s been, what? well over a year in the planning.”

“Nearer two,” Gustav answered.

“Yes, and all that time it’s been becoming more involved and been involving more and more folk. In the mean while half a dozen couples at least have married. Some with no fuss at all, but most with the ceremony in the church here and a major reception in the Dragon.”

Gustav smiled and said, “As Dad would say anything for a good bash. Does it bother you, Harriet? That it’s taken so long to prepare I mean. Are you nervous about tomorrow?”

“No and no. I suppose it’s every girl’s dream to have what will amount to a færie tale wedding even if it is something that only lasts a day, yet I’ve been lucky enough to have mine last for months. Brigitte telt me that she’s never been so excited about anything in her life before. I don’t think I could say I’m excited about it. It’s more like a deep sense of satisfaction that I feel especially about all the hurdles, perhaps that’s not the right word but I can’t think of a better one, that have been surmounted on the way. Mum having Gloria and expecting another little girl, we adopting the children, and all the changes that have occurred at Bearthwaite that are being celebrated too. It wasn’t exactly nice to hear that Austol(29) Nancarrow had been killed in custody by another prisoner, but Peter said Brigitte was just relieved that she wouldn’t have to go to court to give evidence against him, though their mother was still alive.” Austell Nancarrow was Peter and Brigitte’s biological father

“He telt me that too. When I asked him how he felt about it he shrugged his shoulders and telt me ‘I’d made my mind up ages ago I was going to do whatever it took to see he was gaoled for a long time to keep other children safe. I wanted some justice, or maybe I mean vengeance, for what he’d done to us and I can’t say I’m bothered whether it came from a judge or in gaol the way it did. This is half of a perfect outcome and now he’s behind us. At least this way he’s all over and I reckon long before we are asked to appear as witnesses against our mother we’ll hear that she’s dead too. Either someone will kill her in gaol or she’ll die from an overdose inside. I know drugs are readily available in every gaol in the country. We’ll be fine. We’re just waiting to hear she’s dead too. It won’t be long. You and Mum don’t need to worry about either of us.’ The lack of emotion in his voice was chilling, but I reckon he was right. They’ll be fine. They’ll need to cry sometime, but not till it’s all over, and they have enough sense to come to us when the need arises. I doubt if either of them will ever talk about it to anyone else other than us, Violet and Ron. I can’t see Peter talking to his trans shrink about it no matter how much pressure is put on him. I’ve already made it clear to him if that happens we find another shrink. Okay?”

“Aye well I suppose I’ll have to be okay about it because there’s nothing we can do about it other than accept their right to view things the way they do and offer whatever support we can. I was mighty pleased I never got involved with shrinks, and I’m just pleased so many things have been so well resolved recently. The utilities company no longer have any say here, and we’ve finally got rid of all our unpleasant neighbours. All sorts of enterprises are now flourishing, and there’re even more in the pipeline, if you’ll forgive me the expression given our recent problems concerning the utilities company over the water. Expanding the school intake to include children up to eighteen is completely prepared for September, and I don’t doubt it will be hugely successful especially for the less academically inclined, and now we have enough staff of the right sort to offer a wide range of trade apprenticeships. Too we’ll be keeping the boys here, not just because the girls have employment opportunities here, but because they have too. Elle says even most of the school leavers going to university in October now have the intention of returning here if they can manage a to find a job such that they can live here.”

Harriet smiled before saying, “And according to local rumour I’m going to be marrying the local super hero tomorrow. The man who boosted our economy by opening a brewery providing scores of jobs and then never looked back as his business empire expanded into a distillery and farming hundreds of acres, and as he did so made sure most of the money stayed local.” Gustav looked embarrassed, but Harriet kissed him and said, “That’s how you are seen, Love, truly. Violet says it’s ironic that Britain’s and Germany’s politicians took us to war against each other twice in the last century, yet ordinary British folk and ordinary German folk can coexist so easily to each others’ mutual benefit. Folk listen to her on such matters because she knows so much about the war and its effects on ordinary folk like us. She also says that you may have been German once, but now you aren’t. She says you aren’t English and never will be, but you’ve been a Bearthwaite man for a long time and are one of us. She’s a clever lass, and I for one am really glad that she and Peter are a couple. You ready for the party tonight?”

Gustav nodded, and much happier to be discussing safer matters said, “Yes, but before that I’ll be going up to the reservoir with Dad, Peter and a dozen or more men and boys in a few hours to open the sluices. Once we know most of the outside guests are here we’ll flood the road and Bertie with his lads are going to take the boat down to the flood to collect any late comers. Peter is going to open the first sluice probably at about seven o’clock.”

“Why?” asked Harriet in astonishment.

“It was decided last Saturday in the tap room that we’ll shut out any unwanted folk including all the media, but it’s mostly so that the under eighteens can enjoy a drink too if they wish one without any officious interference from outsiders. Sergeant Graham was there and he said that he was of the belief it was a wise thing to do, for though it was completely legal for under eighteens to enjoy a glass with a meal when their parents and Dad as the landlord were okay with it it would be best to avoid having to argue about afterwards. As all are aware Dave’s amusing declaration of the day as Bearthwaite Independence Day has caught on, and the men decided that it should be a private matter. Pat, Eli and I don’t know how many others will be spending the day armed with video cameras, but there will be a full record of everything going on. You’ll see a few of them at the party tonight.”

The party Gustav was referring to was taking place in every large space in the village, and all had already been supplied with food and drink of every conceivable description in large quantities. The couple would be doing the rounds over the evening as indeed had many others decided they would do too. Harriet and Gustav had both strenuously resisted the idea of hen and stag parties, for such were not to their taste, and the pre wedding party had been their solution to the pressure. That the wedding reception would essentially be a rerun of the pre wedding party was not something that any in the village had been concerned by. The party was supposed to start at maybe six in the early evening, but in reality had been going for several hours by then. Peter had opened the first sluice at twenty to seven when Pete had a text to say most who mattered had arrived, but there would be folk taking it in turns to man the boat for any late comers till ten. When Gustav and the others had returned from the reservoir Harriet and Gustav danced, ate, and drank their way around the village several times that evening before finally retiring to bed at just after one in the morning. At various places the party continued all through the night.

June the 21st

The wedding of Harriet and Gustav was anything but typical. Harriet had three bride’s maids, Brigitte, her daughter, Gladys her mum and Elle who was effectively her granny. Gustav had three best men, Peter his son, Pete his dad and Sasha who was effectively his granddad. In addition Sasha was going to walk Harriet down the aisle, and Pete was going to give her away. It had taken a little bit of working out to do it all so all rôles would be fulfilled, but it had been proven to be possible. Harriet and Gustav hadn’t been happy with the idea of importing an outside clergyman or a registrar to conduct the ceremony at the Bearthwaite church, so they’d legally married the week before at the registry office in Carlisle with Brigitte, Gladys, Elle, Peter, Pete and Sasha as witnesses. Murray who was regarded as the unofficial Mayor of Bearthwaite had agreed to conduct the wedding ceremony in the Bearthwaite church. The couple had agreed that the event at the registry office did not make them feel married, so decided it didn’t count, and they were looking forward to finally being married after what had seemed to be an interminably long wait in their own church. As demanded by Bearthwaite custom Harriet was in white. In Bearthwaite even girls nine months pregnant married in white, and there’d been a couple who’d had abridged ceremonies in order to give birth in one of the side rooms of the church itself. The bride’s maids wore green and looked very glamorous. Brigitte admitted that she felt very grown up wearing what was by no means her first proper grown up frock, but it was the first she’d ever worn at a proper grown up frock event. “Does that make sense, Mum?” she asked Harriet at one of their fittings.

“Of course it does, Love. It’s not just enough to have the frock, you have to have somewhere to go in it to imbue yourself with a sense of the occasion. That would make perfect sense to any woman. Just don’t expect your dad and your brother, or any other man for that matter, to understand.”

Typically for Bearthwaite the wedding planning was a shambles, well at the very least it certainly did not go according to plan. Whilst Gustav, with Peter, Pete and Murray waited for the traditionally late bride, her maids and Sasha the crowd was gathering outside the church. By the time Harriet arrived there were nearly four thousand folk there all wanting to be as much a part of her nuptials as possible. A seriously upset Harriet whispered to Sasha, “I can’t do this to all my friends and neighbours. Would you get everybody in the church out here please? and ask Murray to conduct the ceremony out here.”

Sasha whispered, “That’s my girl, Love. You wait here. It’ll all be sorted in a minute or two. It was near enough a quarter of an hour before the crowd heard the words they’d been expecting: ‘Dearly belovèd….”

Murray’s words were of the traditional form, but with all religious references removed and replaced by words that had meaning to Bearthwaite folk. Most present would have noticed and resented the original form of words, yet few were aware of Murray’s changes till long after the ceremony was over. Murray afterwards admitted, “That went better than I thought it would. I spent a goodly while creating a form of words based on the traditional Church of England service that would be relevant and meaningful to not just Harriet and Gustav but to all Bearthwaite folk too, and I was sure I’d screw it up.” What he didn’t know was that would become the Bearthwaite norm: marry in the registry office for the law, and then hold the ceremony that mattered in the Bearthwaite church. For a long time it would be he who conducted the ceremonies and his words would soon become the only acceptable ones for a Bearthwaite wedding.

The parties lasted for a further two days.

Aftermath

Eventually life returned to whatever passed as normal at Bearthwaite. Hay making came and went. The school year came to an end, and folks were looking forwards to meeting their new neighbours who now their teaching contracts elsewhere were at an end could settle in at the village and prepare for the new school year in September which would be almost as new an experience for the established Bearthwaite teachers as for them, for the secondary pupils had always attended Whiteport Academy before. All the children who’d attended Whiteport Academy knew their school lives were about to become much less tense, for as a distinct minority who spoke identifiably differently from the other pupils they’d had to band together to prevent bullying of their younger members and unwanted sexual attentions from disconcerting the girls. They’d had many friends who weren’t from Bearthwaite, but those friends had joined them, for they always stuck together in large groups. They were regarded by some as aloof and snobbish, and by all as cliquey which was true, but it had been forced upon them. In future they knew they would be able to just be themselves. Older Bearthwaite children were awaiting their examination results, some to join the new sixth form at Bearthwaite and some to leave for Universities all over the country and some abroad. Bearthwaite pupils were unusual for Cumbrians in that they had no fears leaving Bearthwaite far behind them, for they knew they would be returning and they relished the challenges their immediate futures offered. Many of the Bearthwaite youngsters had no desire to continue with academic study and were happy to be starting their apprenticeships in a week or two. Most of the adults were looking towards the harvest season which was not so far away. Life was good, and it offered more possibilities than it ever had before.

A number of the Bearthwaite adults were deeply involved in driving the juggernaut that was their search for decreased reliance on the outside world forward as far and as fast as possible. It may have seemed strange to some, but the man at the wheel of that juggernaut was Alf. The man whose teachers had given up on as a waste of time when he was boy.

1 Yows, dialectal ewes, female sheep.
2 Sken, squint.
3 Light Adaptive Transitions, LATs, and photochomic lenses, also known as reactolite lenses, automatically adjust from clear to dark according to the outside lighting conditions. They are activated by UV light.
4 Souwesters, extreme wet weather over clothes comprising a pair of trousers, a cape or jacket and a wide hat often referred to as a Mae West. They were the normal clothing for deep water sea fishermen.
5 Billionaire Asian Prime minister, Alf is referring to Rishi Sunak.
6 Penting, dialectal painting.
7 The triple lock. The coalition government introduced a triple lock guarantee for pensions in 2010. The measure ensures the state pension rises each year in line with which measure is highest from 2.5%, or average wage growth between May and July (compared with the three months in the previous year), or inflation using the consumer prices index measure in the year to September (which was 10.1% in 2023). Many said the government would lose to much credibility if they allowed pensions descending into poverty at the rate current at the time and the triple lock was seen as the cheapest way for the government to be seen to be dealing with the matter.
8 Winter Fuel Allowance, Winter Fuel Payment is an annual tax-free payment for households that include someone born on or before 25 September 1957 (for 2023-24). It's designed to help you cover your heating costs in winter. If you were born on or before 25 September 1957, you could get up to £600 to help with your bills in winter this year. The exact amount depends on your age and whether other people in your household also qualify. In fact most folk get less than half of £600, £200 seems to be typical.
9 Guy Fawkes, a Catholic opposer of the government who was betrayed by his co-conspirators to blow parliament up. His death was hideous, but despite England remaining protestant he remains to this day a nation hero celebrated with an annual day, Bonfire night, the 5th of November.
10 A gill in this context is half a UK pint, 10fl oz, 284ml.
11 Poor box, charity collection box.
12 To be out on the arm is to be escorting ones wife or girlfriend. It implies shaved and dressed up.
13 Coin, money.
14 Shroud, the traditional cloth used to wrap the dead for burial. The implication here is since a shroud has no need of pockets you can’t take your money with you after death, so you may as well spend it before then. The expression ‘Shrouds don’t have pockets’ is an ages old one.
15 Butching, dialectal butchering.
16 SDS, The initials SDS stands for Slotted Drive System or Slotted Drive Shaft. It is a mechanism which enables positive drill bit location whilst allowing the drill to move in the chuck whilst under power. It is particularly effective in hammer drills.
17 A&E, Accident and Emergency, equivalent of ER, Emergency Room, in the US. Also referred to as Casualty.
18 A bob, slang for a shilling. In pre decimal currency a shilling was what became five new pence 7 or 8 US cents.
19 In 2019, the Swedish magazine Filter announced its investigative report on Norwegian farmed salmon like this: “Ninety-seven per cent of the salmon we eat in Sweden is farmed and from Norway. Farmed salmon are fed food that contains heavy metals and toxins. Tens of thousands of tonnes of pesticides are used to combat diseases and pests. In addition, the fish farms themselves kill shellfish and cause eutrophication.”
There is also a horrifying Youtube investigative video on the subject.
20 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.
21 Greeting, The full expression is Greeting like a Christmas card, crying badly. Greeting is vernacular for crying and this common expression derives from a play on the fact that a Christmas card is a greetings card.
22 Pease pudding, also known as pease porridge, is a savoury pudding dish made of boiled legumes, typically split yellow peas, with water, salt and spices, and often cooked with a bacon or ham joint. A common dish in the north east of England, it is consumed to a lesser extent in the rest of Britain, as well as in other regions worldwide.
23 Meckin, dialectal making.
24 Graft, hard work.
25 Nous, in colloquial British English nous often denotes perception or good sense, which is the meaning here.
26 NHS, National Health Service.
27 D’ye, dialectal do you.
28 Spatri, local usage for the small town of Aspatria.
29 Austol, pronounced Os tal is a rare but traditional Cornish boy’s name.

A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 46 Bringing the Past into the Future in the Present

Alf’s time had been becoming more precious for several years. Decades of hard toil had taken its toll on his body, though his focussed mind that had for years been regarded as a cross between genius and not entirely connected to the rest of human endeavour was as sharp as ever. He’d been under orders from Wing Tan Sun, the Bearthwaite family doctor, Bertie his grandson and heir, Sasha and all their friends to take it easy and only work part time, all of whom he’d agreed with and then ignored. He’d asked Ellen, his wife whom he could not ignore what her thoughts on the matter were. Ellen knew her man, who was also her cousin whom she’d been involved with since they were toddlers over seventy years ago, far better than any other. She knew that watching others doing the work he wanted to see through to completion would upset him greatly unless he could justify that state of affairs to himself, for he enjoyed his work and like an old dray horse he would one day drop between the shafts and from choice he would have it no other way. Too, she was also far more worried about Alf than any one else, though to maintain his self respect none would have guessed it from her demeanour and interactions with him.

“Alfred,” Alf knew things were serious when she used his full name, other than when in bed, which none other than he had ever heard her use, though there were a few of his friends who could cast their minds back sufficiently far to remember his mother using his full name, usually when he was in trouble which had not been an infrequent occurrence, “The most important thing you do is not messing about in your workshop getting filthy, much as you enjoy it. You greatest gift is the way your mind works. I agree with you a little bit when you say you are not clever, Love, but that’s not entirely true. It certainly gives the wrong impression and presents nothing like the entire picture of a man who all who know him regard as extremely talented and gifted. Yes you are not clever in the way most folk think of cleverness, but you can think of and create things that no one else can, even Bertie says so.” Bertie was one of their grandsons who had amongst other qualifications a PhD in metallurgy. He had decided years before to return home and work with his granddad rather than working elsewhere for a lot more money which would not have made him happy. “There are so many things that need to be made, put into service and then have all their problems sorted out. There are hundreds of folk here who can make them, install them and refine them. There is only you who can dream them up and design them and later guide those who are working on perfecting them. You need to focus on what only you can do. That will be less physically demanding and get all the others like Sun and Sasha off your back, even though you will still be able to put a full day in seven days a week if you like. Too, it means you could spend more time relaxing down at the allotments.” Time spent at the allotments often involved Alf in extremely hard physical work, but she knew it was Alf’s idea of relaxation and without doubt it relieved him of most of the stress that his other activities piled up on his shoulders.

“You already spend a fair amount of time on the computer and the phone, which though you complain about it I know how good it makes you feel when you get a good deal or solve a problem that’s been irritating you for a while. If you spend more time telling folk what needs to be done you’ll be able to see far more projects completed in the same time. Actually all you need to do is tell Bertie what you want done and leave him to deal with the folk doing it. Then when the whatever it is they’ve made is working you can go to look at it and tell them how to make it work the way you want it to work. In the meantime you can mend my rocking chair. I’ll go and make you a pint of tea, Love, and fetch you a slab of buttered fresh baked fruit cake.” Ellen didn’t labour her point, she knew Alf would eventually see it her way and start to enjoy the new way he worked. She knew fine he would still work long days seven days a week, for it was his life and he didn’t really see it as work. It was what he did for fun, and she would have her rocking chair mended.

It didn’t take long before Sun, Sasha and the rest of Alf’s friends realised that somehow he wasn’t as stressed nor as tired as he had been of yore. None of them understood how it had come about, and though Ellen had said nothing of her rôle in the matter there wasn’t a woman in Bearthwaite who didn’t understand what had happened, but typically that was the sort of thing that was not for male ears, for they knew their menfolk wouldn’t appreciate their friends knowing how their women folk protected them from themselves.

Ellen had once telt her mother, ‘He’d been working twenty hours a day for going on a fortnight and was exhausted, Mum. He was planning on going down to his workshop. I was frightened he’d hurt himself, so I did the only thing I could think. I took my blouse off and dragged him off to the bedroom. Just after lunch it was, but fortunately the kids were at school. To be honest I was amazed he managed what he did, but he slept straight through till eight next morning afterwards.’ Her mother had nodded and said, ‘He truly is a chip of Jim’s block all right. Like father like son. Flo telt me years ago that she’d had to do the same with Jim more than once.’ She’d been very serious when she’d added, ‘It’s a good thing that when matters are serious we can handle ’em that way.’ Then she’d chuckled before adding, ‘And it’s an even better thing that they can’t help ’emselves to do owt but coöperate when we do.’

After that Alf spent probably half of his working day on the phone, the internet and his drawing board and half of the rest talking to Bertie and looking at mechanisms that needed to be tweaked into better performance. What remained he saved for the allotments. The implementation of his ideas was managed not just by Bertie but also by the team of folks of numerous crafts and trades he had surrounded himself and his group of engineers with in order to manage the huge volume of concepts that flowed off his granddad’s drawing board and sketch pad. Ellen too in her own way was a genius. She’d smiled at some of her mum’s other words spoken when she and Alf were not getting on too well. ‘Any woman who can’t handle her man is not using the gifts God gave her for the purpose properly, or more likely not often enough.’

~Fuel Changes Bio Diesel~

Much to the dismay of the wholesalers of propane, kerosene and permitted solid fuels Alf, Bertie and several hundred Bearthwaite men, and a smaller number of women and children too, had turned the clock back a century or more and the valley was using ever increasingly larger proportions of bio mass solid fuel, mainly willow coppicing sourced by the Beebell estate management workers and demolition timber sourced by Saul and his teams of demolition and site clearance contractors. Every square foot of land in the valley that was too difficult to access for growing purposes was being planted with trees suitable for coppicing for fuel. Willow was perfect for the job, for a piece left on the ground would put roots down as likely as not and if it were poked into the ground it was a certainty. Thousands of potential trees for coppicing could be cut from an existing tree if not in minutes certainly in less than an hour.

The local agricultural vehicles, the village bus and all the various vans and waggons operating out of the valley had one by one been modified to start running on locally produced bio diesel,(1) mostly produced from locally grown rape which produced the seed oil feed stock. The plant that extracted the oil had been simple to make and was easy to maintain. However, it was not particularly efficient, but that didn’t matter since like the haulm the oily husk residue was excellent cattle feed when mixed with sillage, and the effort to extract the remaining oil was most easily, and cost effectively, undertaken by dairy cows, pigs and sheep.

Manufacturing the bio diesel was a relatively straight forward process overseen by Jane who was a university chemistry professor. The excess methanol used to drive the reaction towards completion was recovered by distillation for reuse. Most of the methanol used was bought in from outside, but a worthwhile quantity was provided by Jean-Claude and Græme, Gustav’s still masters, for the heads, the first highly volatile fraction that came off when distilling, was virtually pure methanol. There’d been a lot of work done looking for the best use for the glycerol by product. There was a market for the crude glycerol, but Harry, who operated his own waggon, said that the price that the buyers paid wasn’t sufficient to bother loading it. It could, according to the literature, be used as a component in livestock feed, but all felt that till more information was available and Jane had evaluated the effort and cost involved in purifying it and come a conclusion as to whether the benefits made it worth doing it was best just to compost it. The allotmenteers had been composting the glycerol for a few months when Oscar, one of the engineering apprentices, had watched a Youtube clip of a small Indian company that made domestic solid fuel briquettes from sawdust. The sawdust had been bound together with a small amount of PVA glue and compressed and extruded as the briquettes by a small locally produced machine. He’d asked Bertie if the glycerol could be used as the binding agent to turn the sawdust produced in considerable quantities by various processes at Bearthwaite into a more conveniently handled fuel rather than just composting it as had been done up to then.

As a result, experiments were conducted into the viability of compressing the sawdust and glycerol mix into solid fuel briquettes. Initial trials were conducted using a small commercial machine hired from a tool hire depot. A small quantity of glycerol was mixed with sawdust and other small pieces of combustible organic matter too. The trials were a success having discovered the appropriate ratio of sawdust and small stuff to glycerol to produce a non sticky handleable product. The secret was to use just enough glycerol in the mix to act as a binder and enable the mix to be pressed into solid cylindrical chunks that were extruded from a locally produced larger version of the commercially produced machine that had been hired from the tool hire company for a week. It was thought that that was the best use for the glycerol since no effort was required to purify it and the cylindrical chunks were convenient to use as fuel. Using the sawdust and other small stuff that were both produced in quantity by various operations in the valley was a far better use than the allotmenteers could make of them for both took a long time to rot down.

The conversion of the vehicles had been a relatively easy matter. Once an engine running on bio diesel had warmed up sufficiently for the heat exchanger system to reach the required temperature to reduce the unmodified oil’s viscosity the fuel feed switched itself over to the major tank containing the rape seed oil. The heat exchanger system was cleverly integrated into the vehicle’s water cooling system via the radiator pipework. The lowering of the oil’s viscosity was necessary so that the fuel pump could handle it without any risk of damage. The shut down procedure was simply a matter of throwing a switch which changed the fuel pump’s feed over to the much smaller tank containing the bio diesel. The unsophisticated electronics then allowed the system to purge the oil from the fuel lines, the pump and the injectors refilling them with bio as it did so. After a minute or so the electronic box of tricks, developed by Pat, turned the engine off automatically.

Ready for the cold weather the insulated fuel tanks had electric heating elements inside them, and the equally well insulated fuel lines had been wrapped with electric heater tapes prior to being insulated. The heaters could be powered by mains electricity when the vehicle was parked up and by the engine’s alternator when running. Some vehicles had had their fuel systems modified, some had had their engines replaced and some had been selt to be replaced by vehicles of a type more amenable to conversion. As Bertie had said, “Working on one of these little beauties beats the hell out working on modern vehicles out yonder. At least with these we know what everything does, how it works and who to fetch to fettle it when it breaks down.”

When the commercial vehicles had all been dealt with the group of engineers turned their attention to cars. Many Bearthwaite folk had decided they didn’t need a car as they could always borrow one when the need arose, and eventually Beebell bought appropriate cars that residents could rent at cost by the mile. Murray had negotiated the purchase of a company group insurance policy that covered every driver in the valley to drive any and all vehicles they were legally entitled to drive, which had saved many tens of thousands of pounds.

Most folk who still had a car now owned vehicles powered by diesel engines originally fitted into older Mercedes models and Alf had streamlined the project to just three different readily available engine models for ease of maintenance and conversion to run off bio diesel and rape seed oil. All those engines had inline fuel pumps, rather than rotary pumps, with a external source of lubrication rather than being lubricated by the fuel they pumped. Vehicles had been chosen for longevity and ease of maintenance rather than the latest level of sophistication and none had any computer controlled systems at all, though Pat had brought them up to date by the judicious use of relatively simple and readily available electronic components. Most of the bodies had been stripped right back to the shell and chassis, which had been repaired where necessary, prior to hot dip galvanisation and reassembly ensuring the chassis would last for decades. All new body parts required were being made from stainless steel, where possible by nearby outside firms with power presses, but where not by panel beaters at Bearthwaite. Bertie had seven adults working on the engines and a dozen and a half apprentices of various ages two of who were girls, Gerry’s eleven year old granddaughter Daisy and Bertie’s twelve year old daughter Zella.

~Fuel Changes Ovens~

The bread ovens at the mill had reverted to solid fuel which they had used over a century ago. The large main oven now used round bales of straw which had a mechanised handling system based on something Bertie had seen on the TV being used at Chatsworth House, the Duke of Devonshire’s residence in Derbyshire. The smaller ovens used faggots from hedging and ditching and the small stuff, locally referred to as brash, the coppicers cleared out as they managed the beck edges and elsewhere. The brash also included everything the hedgers and ditchers removed when laying hedges that was left over after any firewood logs and material suitable for the faggots had been removed. The brash had always been passed through a chipper as it was collected which blew it into one of the high sided trailers that at harvest time took the grain from the combine harvesters to the silos. The chipped brash had been a pain to handle and some folk had suggested it may be better just to compost it as had been done with sawdust and other small stuff. However, it was now being dealt with in a much more convenient fashion.

The trailers were now taken not to wherever the fuel was required, but to the relatively recently completed, huge, covered, multi use building at the quarry and dumped onto the concrete floor, as was the sawdust and small stuff from other sources with which it was to be mixed. The materials from the pile were pushed into the mixer hooper in roughly the appropriate ratio, it wasn’t critical, by a farm tractor with a large front bucket. The hopper fed the conveyor that fed the mixer which had a steady glycerol feed. The mixer was essentially an eight foot [2.4m] diameter steel drum with fins welded on its inside to do the mixing. The output end of the twenty foot long [6m] drum was mounted slightly lower than the feed end. As the drum revolved by the time the contents dropped out of the lower end onto the conveyor that fed the recently constructed extruder thorough mixing had taken place.

The extruder compacted the mixture and produced the much more convenient to handle cylindrical chunks referred to as brash blocks. The brash blocks were available in quantity, and the first few weeks’ production had also contained the coal dust remaining from the part of the quarry site where tens of thousands of tons [a ton is 1000Kg or 2240 pounds] of coal had previously been stored. It had been discussed as to whether it was worth shredding paper and cardboard packaging waste to include in the brash blocks, but Alf had immediately knocked that idea on the head when he’d said, “Sounds like a lot of work to me for bugger all reward. Just chuck the stuff into the compost pit at the allotments and let the worms do the work. In twenty years there won’t be any evidence there was ever any paper there. If there’s ever too much paper and card get Tony or one of his lads to dig another pit. Dump it in there and ask one of the farmers to cover it in shite or slurry.” Too, the brash blocks had provided sufficient employment for the estate management group to employ two more full time workers though the entire estate team worked at whatever needed doing at the time.

One of Bertie’s teams had converted part of an old sheaf binder to tie faggots gey tight with burnable, and bio degradable, sisal(2) bale string to make them much more handleable with an appropriately heavier weight in them. After tieing they were trimmed to length and the offcuts dealt with by treating them as brash. Bertie was also supervising the creation of a bale string making machine that would be capable of utilising not just locally produced retted hemp and nettle fibres but grass, willow wands and just about anything else locally available too. The machine was in the final stages and he anticipated it’s completion in a month or two. It was a simple device and produced slightly thicker string than what was commercially available but as Harvey one of the coppicers had said, “What the hell, Bertie? It’ll be string that costs nowt. All you’ve left to do is get that twisting mechanism tweaked a bit and we’re in business.” His intention was to turn it over to the hedgers and ditchers for evaluation and then build a second one incorporating their recommendations before altering the first one to suit.

~Cooking Stoves~

Alf had decided that the village had all the folk with the necessary skills to design and build custom cookers that also provided hot water and heating using masonry with welded and recycled heat exchangers embedded in the masonry. Matt Levens and his brickies built the outer masonry shell and the necessary internal masonry and others filled in over the heat exchangers and pipework with fine sieved, loose, masonry crush infill that would enable easy maintenance in the event of a burst. It was intended to replace the 18mm [¾ inch] mild steel tops once Daniel the local master caster and his mates had built their cupola furnace and all else necessary for the task of producing cast steel top sections that were handleable by two strong men and over lapped to produce a single smoke tight cooking surface. Local scrapyards were more than happy to gas axe(3) old brake drums, axles and the like off scrap vehicles for the premium price Daniel was prepared to pay for the readily available source of quality metal suitable for casting.

The womenfolk had been more receptive to this than of using repurposed old Rayburn and Aga type appliances since they could be built in to their kitchens at a full room wide. Most were mayhap fifteen feet wide and two and a half foot deep and proved to be easily capable of cooking for their rapidly expanding extended families in a world that seemed to them to be increasingly dystopian for ordinary folk outside. A major benefit was that several folk could use the cookers at the same time and most women had started cooking together for their families. It saved time, effort and fuel, and it was a social activity they could enjoy whilst their daughters widened their culinary skills in an environment of total female solidarity. Their menfolk were happy to provide the fuel they required and telt them. ‘We no longer have to cut wood all year because we have enough growing every year to just cut when the sap is not in it and we have enough fully dried wood, faggots and brash blocks in store both grown here and from the demolition crews to last for nigh on two years, and even firing your big stoves you are now using less fuel in total.

~The Returnees~

The villagers were not unrealistic. They knew there was no possibility of becoming completely self sufficient and living reasonable lives. What they wished was to become as independent from outside as was possible yet still live well, and if and when it hit the fan they would just deal with it and find a solution, for they always had in the past. If the worst came to the worst they would find a substitute or do without. Much to the joy and benefit of the Bearthwaite residents large numbers of their relatives had started returning to the village. It had started as a trickle, but eventually became a torrent as more Bearthwaite reared folk became increasingly disenchanted with the world out there Most of the returnees opined that the world outside the valley was rapidly degenerating and it was becoming more unsafe by the day.

Nancy who’d worked as a midwife for an area health authority had explained, “Joel my husband worked at the same hospital I did, but for the ambulance department. He usually drove a car to collect folk as would have no other way of making it to hospital appointments. Mostly they were elderly persons, but not all. When he caught Covid, we were expecting him to be telt to stay at home, but his boss telt him that he could keep working, because that was the new NHS policy. After what we’d been through with lockdown, that was what did it for me. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Joel too. I telt him it was time for us to hand our notices in and get the hell away from idiots who could put elderly folk at risk like that. I telt him that I wanted to go home. He wasn’t sure about coming here, but he’s glad he did now. He served his time as a mechanic and mostly he’s working with Bertie, but he’s had a weather recording station since he was a boy, and long before I met him he’d upgraded to a state of the art thing that sends information to the meteorological office. The Met Office use data from their own weather stations, but they have thousands of amateurs like Joel sending them data too. They use the data for weather forecasting.

“Joel’s always been fascinated, or obsessed is nearer the truth, by weather, and he’s doing a bit of part time teaching doing the meteorology parts of the syllabuses at the school. Once he saw the valley, the opportunities for indulging in his hobby here had him hooked on the place in minutes. Most folk just aren’t interested in weather, sure they talk about it, but not in the way that he enjoys. Here he has the opportunity for serious conversation with a lot of mostly older folk who know a lot about local conditions, and getting the chance to talk about weather to kids and shew them some of the interactive stuff that’s available on line, which they enjoy, has made his day. He spends hours talking to Auld Alan Peabody. Joel says Alan may be in his middle nineties, but he has crystal clear recollections of the bad winters of forty-three, sixty-two and eighty-two, the drought of seventy-six and much else too. What he’s especially interested in is the plethora of minutiae that Alan remembers about the weather and wildlife behaviour in the months leading up to those extreme events. Joel records all their conversations, so as to document Alan’s detailed local knowledge for future generations.”

Many returnees, like Nancy, brought like minded spouses and their children back with them and outsiders who were wishful of a trial as Bearthwaite folk too. Bearthwaite folk were good judges of character and over the next twenty years only three out of a couple of thousand incomers were unacceptable and they had decided to leave without any prompting, and no others left of their own accord. Many like Joel had brought highly valued skills, knowledge and new ways of looking at old problems, and many, again like Joel, worked two or more jobs as circumstances required.

~Ofsted 1st Visit~

Several years before, the Ofsted(4) inspection of the primary school had been a disaster for Ofsted. They’d had to obtain a right of entry permit from a magistrate to travel to the school at Bearthwaite. When the inspectors arrived all the staff, not just the teaching staff, had walked out, and the parents of all the children had removed them from the school premises. The lead inspector had been angry but controlled and had threatened Murray as the headteacher with legal action. Murray had calmly informed her that he had no more control over the parents than she did and he had no intention of doing anything concerning the staff without proper consultation with their professional associations and unions which would take time and any court would regard that as a perfectly reasonable and proper process during an industrial dispute. For the first time Ofsted had been forced to realise that they could only inspect a school with the coöperation of the inspected and since Bearthwaite school’s staff and the parents of its children had taken a shoulder to shoulder stance of non coöperation there was nothing they could do about it.

Initially they had tried to claim that the parents were illegally denying their children education, but on behalf of the entire parent body Murray had explained in writing that the children were being tutored, not just by their parents, but by experts too, most of who, which whilst it was not a legal requirement, providentially just happened to be qualified teachers, to wit the ex teachers that the school had employed. Hoping to find a crack in the Bearthwaite stance to exploit in court, Ofsted demanded to be told just how were those tutors being paid. Adalheidis had dealt with that by telling them it was an entirely private matter between the tutors and the parents who employed them and as such it was not within their remit to ask such questions and they certainly had no right to receive answers. The entire matter stalled, and the consequences of that were still being argued about though Ofsted had been telt by their legal advisors that they had no case against any, be they school management, teachers, parents or pupils, that would stand up in a court of law.

~Ofsted 2nd Visit~

Back to the present, Ofsted sent notice to the much expanded Bearthwaite school, now a secondary as well as a primary education establishment, of an inspection, but by the date given the road was flooded for several weeks due to rain, judiciously assisted by controlled release of water from the reservoir, whilst matters were discussed and arrangements put into place ready to deal with Ofsted. The Ofsted inspection team had been incredulous that there still existed places on the UK mainland where folk actually lived that were so isolated that the weather could prevent all access to them for weeks. They had put up at a hotel in Carlisle till the situation became a little clearer. In conversation with locals in the lounge the lead inspector had said they were waiting to go to Bearthwaite, but the road was closed at the moment. He and his team had no idea what to make of the ensuing talk.

The lead inspector asked, “These floods, how bad is they? There surely must be a way in and what if some is ill or hurt so badly they need a hospital? How do they manage then?”

A smartly dressed, prosperous looking man in his late twenties or possibly his early thirties replied, “The road can flood eight feet deep for several miles. The marshes at the sides of the road are not safe under those conditions. You could I suppose walk in over the fells, but the shortest route must be going on for twenty miles [32km]. It’s anything but straight, or even obvious, and if the road is flooded the fells like the marshes will be saturated and not safe either. The old pack pony trail out of the back of the valley that centuries ago was used as a short cut in summer to Caldbeck will be a force with the rain.” Seeing puzzled faces on the Ofsted inspectors’ faces he explained, “A force is a waterfall to those that don’t know. It’s a word widely used in these parts. As to the requirements for a hospital, there’s the air ambulance, or if it’s that bad Sasha Vetrov would order a helicopter in. He’s not short of money, and has done it before. For less critical situations there’re a doctor, dentists, midwives and nurses that live at Bearthwaite. Dr Wing has done a couple of appendectomies and a caesarian or three in the operating theatre that’s in the old bobbin mill. He’s not a surgeon, but is knowledgable and skilled, and he has access to experts who can assist him in real time via video link at every step of the way under emergency conditions. Anyway I must go. I’ve somewhere to be. I’ve just come up by train from London and I’m going home, for good this time, but Mum will still give me hell if I’m late.” At that he left.

“He seemed to know a lot about the place didn’t he?” one of the inspectors said.

An elderly man said, “Aye well he would wouldn’t he. He’s one of ’em. You can tell by his voice. Bearthwaite folk speak different from the rest of us.”

“He said he was going home. If he can get home that must mean there is a way for us to get there too doesn’t it?” another of the inspectors asked.

“No. Not so. He’ll phone or text home and a small boat will collect him and take him home over the flooded road. They wouldn’t take you. If you try to get there by boat there’s a good chance you won’t be coming back, well only with your lungs full of water. It’s well over nine mile [15km] from the highways maintained road to Bearthwaite village and it’s all privately owned by the villagers. They maintain the road themselves. In fact they receive no services whatsoever from the local authority or any other organisation, which means none have the right of entry and that’s the way they like it. They have no mains water, electricity, gas, sewers, education, street lighting or anything else. They provide all those and more for themselves. If they don’t want you in they won’t let you in, I suspect even if they had to sink your boat and watch you all drown. Those folks don’t mess about. Like I said, they speak different and they think different. Oh right enough most of them have been living here for centuries, possibly millennia, but for all that they may as well be foreigners.

“Their shepherds speak a version of English that is so ancient they have no trouble talking to fishermen from Scandinavian countries that put in to local ports, whilst folk from Bearthwaite mostly understand ’em other than the high fell shepherds and the drystone wall lads the rest of Cumbria isn’t even sure they are speaking English, and any one else has no chance at all of even passing the time of day with ’em. They are the truest descendants of the Vikings that lived round here a thousand years ago, and the Vikings were not known for dealing gently with their enemies. One explanation of the name of Buttermere is that the area was an estate belonging to a Viking chieftain named Buthar and Buttermere would have been rendered in his folks’ speech as Buthar’s lake. It is noteworthy that the name Buthar is still used in Bearthwaite. It’s not sensible to antagonise any of them, for they are a tightly knit, clannish folk, and if you do you will have antagonised all of them, and they are reputed to have ways of dealing with that that you wouldn’t like to find out about. Tis said that folk who upset them have died out there due to the weather, and they were quite happy to turn their backs on them and let them die. Tis also said some of them did not turn their backs whilst they watched them die.”

A well spoken woman who appeared to be in her early forties said, “A child died in the reservoir up there years ago. It must be going on thirty years ago, perhaps a bit more, I believe. The crowner(5) put it down to accidental death. The report said he hit his head on a rock and drowned. The report also said he’d been seen diving in from overhanging trees and been told not to by several adults, for it was shallow there with a rocky bottom. That reservoir has been there since Queen Victoria was a young girl, and that boy has been the only one to die in it in all that time. He was reputed to be a bullying thug from a long way south of here, Manchester or Liverpool I think, but I could be wrong. The Bearthwaite children cheered when they were told he was dead, and any number of them said they’d been the victims of the dead child’s bullying. Hitting them and stealing their lunch money at school. It makes you think doesn’t it? If you treat Bearthwaite folk as good neighbours then they’ll treat you the same way. If you antagonise them then they’ll deal with you harshly. During Covid lockdown, there were folk they didn’t get on with that lived there. When the road flooded the Bearthwaite folk schooled their own children, and there’re plenty of clever and educated folk who live there to do it. Their own children didn’t suffer an hour’s loss of education, but they wouldn’t educate the children of the families they didn’t get on with. They lost nigh on a year’s schooling.”

“Aye,” a middle aged woman with gray hair said, “They’re used to being shut off from the world, and have huge food and fuel reserves stored there, but they wouldn’t share, nor even sell to the folk they didn’t like. There was a story that did the rounds that they caught one of them stealing. They stripped him, tied him to a tree and flogged him with a cat(6) like they used to do with criminals on the Isle of Man. According to the tale they left him out all night in a storm and only allowed his wife and family to untie him from the tree the following morning. The matter was never reported to the police, so god alone knows what they threatened to do to him and his family if he opened his mouth. Seemingly, not surprisingly no one tried to steal owt off them after that. They have a big boat that they can use to get out if they wish, loads of small ones too, but they’re their boats and they wouldn’t accommodate those other folk. Those other folk would have starved if they hadn’t selt their houses to the folk there, and the Bearthwaite folk made no secret of that they would have watched ’em starve.

“There’re no properties in the valley not owned by Bearthwaite folk any more, and they won’t sell to any they don’t like. Even if they do like you they’ll only rent for a twelvemonth at a time till they accept you as one of themselves. That way if they change their minds about you they can evict you, and make no bones of it they would, for they’re gey hard folk. And even then if you want to leave and sell up you have to sell back to them. Mind I heard the others were keen to leave and the Bearthwaite folk paid a fair price for their houses, but till they had the deeds registered with the government and knew the money was in the sellers’ banks they wouldn’t help. I also heard when the others left they had to have furniture vans and taxis on this side of the flood water, for the Bearthwaite folk took them across the water and left them there with all their stuff. I don’t know if that is true for sure because there’s a lot of folk don’t like them and will say owt about them whether it be true or not just out of spite.”

“Oh aye,” cackled an old crone who appeared to be drinking neat gin from a very large glass. “It was right enough, for they’re gey strange folk, and tis said they’ve been inter breeding in that valley of theirs for centuries.” Her voice dropped to a whisper as she said, “Not just cousins, but mothers and sons, fathers and daughters and brothers and sisters too, but for sure it’s well known there’re a lot of those trans types, gays and other perverts and weirdos living there too, though I can’t see for the life of me what two women can do for each other.” Her voice rose to its former level as she said, “What really sticks in my gullet is that none of the rest that live there are bothered. Can’t say as I’d like them sorts living with decent folks like me and my neighbours. Taint nachural and shouldn’t be allowed. You just watch your back if you go avisiting, Sonny.

“Mind my old man goes to the pub there regular of a Saturday night when the road’s open. He always used to have a good head for the drink, but now when he comes home he’s wasted for two days. They tell stories in the taproom there. Wild and dirty stories I reckon by the look in his eyes when he’s asked about it. Tisn’t a decent spot though, for in the bar there’s still spittoons and sawdust on the floor and the place is full of dogs, or so he says. Can’t say as I’ve ever bin and I’ve no intention of ever going. Folk should stick with their own kind I say. Tis well known that in the days when the pack ponies used the valley as a short cut to Caldbeck there used to be a dozen or more women who were no better than they should be(7) that haunted the place waiting for the men that had the pony trains, for they always had money in their pockets. Gipsies for the most part I dare say. I reckon probably nowt’s changed, for he hasn’t bothered me that way for years now, not since he took up with a couple of workmates that had been going there for years.

“Still my old mum always said we should be grateful to those sorts of women because they kept girls safe to walk the streets and married women from having to put up with it. Too, they say the landlord’s daughter was his brothers son and she’s married to a German. I thought coming out of the EU was supposed to have put a stop to us having to put up with foreigners over here. Tekin up with a German! Some folk’ll do owt. Dirty buggers. As for Dr Wing, with a name like that he ain’t from these parts that’s for sure. And Sasha! I ask you what kind of a man is called Sasha? He’ll be another of those half and halfer types who can’t make their minds up what they are, probably like those dirty buggers on the tele the other month, cline feelers(8) or something such filth like that they were called. Tis easy enough to find out, just look down in the bath. It makes you want to spit. I reckon a good kick in the knackers would solve most so called gender confusion issues. My sister is into astrology and she says that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, but I reckon all those other so called genders are from your anus.” She cackled with laughter at her witticism before draining her glass and saying, “Ah well, somehow my glass has gone and got empty, so I’ll just go for a refill.” With that she limped off to the bar somehow managing her glass and two walking sticks.

Before they left, the inspectors heard every kind of tale concerning Bearthwaite possible. Some were clearly motivated by bigotry and hated, some by ignorance. They heard from many who clearly thought well of the folk who lived at Bearthwaite, but the thing that stood out was a degree of perplexity for none claimed to understand Bearthwaite folk. They were obviously different, but none could explain exactly how. The team weren’t bothered, for they were from Ofsted and different or not when inspecting a school they had the upper hand for they wrote the report, and it was rare indeed that an Ofsted report had been successfully challenged. They were there a week before it became obvious they weren’t going to get into Bearthwaite any time soon, so they returned home.

Before the road was finally opened Bearthwaite school had ceased to exist on paper, and every Bearthwaite parent had notified the Local Education Authority that their children were being home schooled leaving the inspectors yet again with nothing to inspect. The LEA (9) had been reminded by Adalheidis on behalf of every Bearthwaite parent that since Bearthwaite no longer had a school the LEA was obliged by law to make provision for any home schooled children whose parents or guardians requested it for their children to be able to take their examinations in LEA controlled schools. She added that she was requesting that on their behalfs. The LEA found that impossible to accommodate because the senior managements of their schools were proving to be difficult and unwilling to be coöperative, for all had long been resentful of the Bearthwaite private school and even more so of the educational achievements of Bearthwaite children. Now Bearthwaite school was educating its own secondary school aged pupils that had deprived Whiteport Academy of hundreds of children which in turn dramatically reduced the budget provided by the LEA which was worked out in the main on the basis of a head count, with the amount per head increasing as the children moved up through the school year groups. The loss of the sixth form pupils who were above the legally required age for children to be in full time education and carried a premium in their budget allocation was a serious financial blow. As a result the powers that be at Whiteport Academy were having to make deep and stringent retrenchments and refused point blank to coöperate with the LEA producing spurious grounds for their attitude that would have taken the LEA more time than they had available to refute at arbitration or in court.

Adalheidis suggested to the LEA that since they couldn’t meet their legal obligations perhaps they were in need of some assistance, and since Bearthwaite school was still licensed by the examination boards to conduct examinations and had the spaces which could serve as examination halls and more than enough adults to serve as invigilators under the supervision of the schools’ old senior management team that the Bearthwaite children’s examinations were conducted ‘in house’. She added that should the LEA accept her generous offer, which would get them off the legal hook they were currently dangling on, it had been decided by the Beebell directors that graciously they would not charge them for the assistance. Even though they were over a barrel, the LEA were difficult and stupidly said that the proposed adults were not teachers. At that they were gently but firmly reminded that it was illegal under government regulations that had been in force for well over a decade for teachers to waste their highly expensive training on routine tasks and invigilation was specifically mentioned as one of those routine tasks they were not to undertake in the regulations. However, Adalheidis had added, the invigilators available to her though qualified as teachers were no longer working teachers and they certainly were not in the employ of an LEA which those regulations applied to, and they would be would be paid via exactly the same mechanism that all of their LEA schools used to pay their invigilators who were mostly unqualified parents, administrators, cleaners, dinner ladies and the like.

The LEA and Ofsted were stymied and they knew it. The LEA also knew if they did not provide somewhere suitably staffed for the Bearthwaite children to take their examinations they were staring down the barrels of what would be class action law suit that would cost them many tens of millions, for they would be deemed to have seriously damaged the education and life opportunities of scores, probably hundreds, of children. They’d heard that Adalheidis had been preparing the Bearthwaite case for months at least. They stalled for as long as they could, but when they finally agreed to allow the examinations to take place at Bearthwaite insinuating that they were the ones doing the favour they received a serious shock when they received a written reminder that the offer of free examination provision had been rescinded by Beebell in writing over two months before. To the fury of the senior LEA officers they discovered that the Beebell offer had been withdrawn as the reminder had said over two months before, but the document saying so had not been passed on to them by their subordinates. One of the subordinates had explained, “We were told that all communication with Beebell was at a standstill in order to make them capitulate. In the months when we had been incommunicado with Beebell they emailed us to say they had taken our silence to be a spurning of their offer and due to what they described as our recalcitrance the next move would be ours. We were still being told by our senior officers that there was to be no communication on our part with Beebell and they, the senior officers, were not interested in anything Beebell had to say. Emails to that effect were circulated to all staff and we all have copies.”

That was the point at which the senior officers realised that their choices were between forcing their secondary head teachers to accommodate the Bearthwaite children by threatening immediate budget cuts, which would create animosity lasting years if not decades, and eating humble pie by caving in to Adalheidis and paying what she informed them Bearthwaite assistance in the matter would now cost them. She’d reminded them of the money they’d saved when the Bearthwaite secondary school had opened by neither paying it to Whiteport Academy nor to Bearthwaite which they no longer seemed to have in their possession. She accompanied that with a request under the freedom of information act asking where the money was or if they no longer had it what had it been spent on. They’d taken the matter up to the wire and it had cost them dearly, far more than they’d initially thought they’d saved. It had also cost several of the LEA senior personnel their jobs. They’d been warned by their legal advisors that Adalheidis had one of the best legal minds in the country and she was backed by equally good accountants with access to what seemed to be limitless funds and a research team that was second to none. She was a virtuoso court room performer, a veritable Rottweiler when it came to extracting compensation and she only ever gave one opportunity to compromise before going in for the kill. Their advisors had also warned them months before of what she had done to the utilities company, but they were civil servants and as such considered themselves untouchable, so they’d scoffed and listened even less than the directors of the corporate utilities company had to their legal advisors, and now she was biting chunks out of their budget and their careers too and there was nothing they could do about it. The Rottweiler had its teeth well and truly around their jugulars.

The pay masters of the LEA senior officers had sacrificed them and told the remaining officers to have the problem solved within three days or they would have no jobs either. The remaining officers of the LEA caved in immediately as regards the children taking their examinations at Bearthwaite, and as demanded by Chance had paid in total in advance. Chance had informed them that till he knew the money was in the Beebell account he’d instructed that no one was to sign the agreement on the Bearthwaite side. The new LEA senior officers found out over a year later that long before the issues between the LEA and Beebell had been settled Murray had negotiated with the examination boards’ umbrella organisation that the children could take their examinations at Bearthwaite supervised by their ex teachers, in the presence of a couple of board officials that Murray had requested be there in order to avoid any subsequent claims of irregularity, no matter how they were deemed to be educated and regardless of the LEA’s stance at the time or in the future. The examination boards had been happy to reach a conclusion to what had been to them an amicably and quickly resolved matter with a friendly and reasonable group of persons. They had expressed that they wished they could have that kind of relationship with the LEAs most of who were difficult for them to negotiate with.

The senior LEA officers were angry to discover the pre existing agreement between the examination boards and Beebell because initially they’d believed they’d been conned and that Adalheidis had finessed them into paying what they need not have paid. That was till they found out that should they not have paid the money Adalheidis had intended to sue them for three of their years’ entire budget under discrimination and hate crimes legislation. It was the opinion of their legal advisors that given the documented, upheld complaints concerning poor treatment of various Bearthwaite children over the years at Whiteport Academy, and the LEA primary schools before Bearthwaite started it’s own, she’d have won the case hands down. “That fucking bitch is definitely no fucking lady,” one of the recently promoted LEA officers had remarked when he’d realised that right from the start Adalheidis had been many steps in front of them.

He’d been startled when Clerkwell James, one of the legal advisors and researchers, had said, “In some ways maybe you’re correct, she’s trans, but I wouldn’t shoot my mouth off about it if I were you. It’s not only not a stance taken by a reasonable person it’s illegal and could get you sacked, gaoled and subsequently unemployable upon release for using a position of public responsibility, paid for incidentally by the public purse, to proselytise what amounts to views that constitute hate crimes. I’ve met her and her husband socially when she wasn’t in solicitor mode. I like her, and she definitely is a lady. Her husband is a good bit younger than she and lays brick for a living. He is built like a brick built outhouse if you’ll pardon the almost pun. He’s a decent bloke, and I wouldn’t fancy your chances if he heard you were bad mouthing his wife. The last bloke who did he crippled and would have killed if his brothers and their mates hadn’t dragged him off. The CCTV shewed that the other bloke threw the first punch, so apart from his permanent injuries it all came to nowt. It was all in the papers and on the telly. What I think you really mean is that you resent that she is an awful lot better at her job than you are at yours. I admit she’s a lot better than me, and we do a similar job. I would be prepared to hazard a reasonable sum of money that she’d been preparing for this confrontation for years not months. It’s the way she works as the utilities company found out when she led them round by the nose for a couple of years.

“I’d give more than is decent to talk about in mixed company to have a research team like hers. They produced the material that kept the utilities company legal team on the hop so badly after she’d given them a thrashing in court that their bosses didn’t dare replace them with a fresh team which is what they should have done the moment they’d lost the case. Having been beaten once they were three parts beaten before they went into court the second time, and all she’d been doing by all those demands under the freedom of information act was keeping them wondering what the hell she was up to and what she’d be doing next. All she was doing was wasting their time and keeping them there. She knew she could thrash them again, and didn’t want to face a fresh team with no history of loss behind them. Some of those questions, demands and information that she threw at them I found out she’d had her researchers dig out of London archives two and a half years before the second court case which was twelve months before the first court case. That is one sharp lady.

“And by the way, she’s financially backed by a multi billionaire who lives at Bearthwaite and regards her as family, she is like a daughter to him. Mind every one is that close at Bearthwaite which is probably where all the trash talk about inbreeding comes from. We were doomed before we started. That Ofsted team shot themselves and all the rest of us too in the foot and the senior officers the county fired were so far up their own arses nothing could ever have penetrated their hubris. Now you’re a senior officer, Frank, and I see the signs of you going the same way, but before it hits the fan and nemesis brings your just rewards home to roost I’ll be gone. I can take early retirement in three years and I’m thinking of finding out what my chances are of moving to Bearthwaite. I reckon for sure working for her has got to be better than working for the county, and I’d like to be on the winning side for a change.”

~The Thin Edge of the Wedge~

Whilst the negotiations were under way regarding Ofsted’s rôle in the education of Bearthwaite children the education of those children didn’t suffer as lessons took place as before in the school taught by their usual teachers in their usual classrooms, and ultimately the examination results spoke for themselves as to the quality of Bearthwaite education. Not all Bearthwaite children were clever, but all achieved their full potential. The secret to that that outsiders just couldn’t perceive was simple: Bearthwaite children grew up in a caring and loving environment with adults that genuinely lauded their achievements, be they academic or other. For many of the less academically able children Alf was their rôle model if not to say hero, and that too was something outsiders simply did not have the ability to understand, for their thoughts were totally channelled and conditioned by the prejudices and stereotypes they had lived with all their lives. Prejudices and stereotypes that had been hard for Bearthwaite folk to rid themselves of, but hard or no they had done so, and were now reaping the benefits of those efforts. As a result Bearthwaite children wanted to learn, to do well and ultimately to become an accepted and respected adult member of their society. As Murray had repeatedly said when interviewing potential teachers, “What we do here is not rocket science, if you can’t see that I would suggest that Bearthwaite is not the right environment for you to teach in, and we do not want you teaching here.” Eventually it was understood, if not legally agreed upon, that Ofsted would in future have no part to play in Bearthwaite education. Once that had been made public, it was the thin end of the wedge for Ofsted because the precedent had been set, and elsewhere other educators including most of the private schools in the UK, and some LEAs too, were researching how they too could remove their children and their schools from under the heels of Ofsted’s jack boots.

~Pre Saturday, Weather, Clocks~

The clocks had long since been set back an hour and Bearthwaite like the rest of Britain was operating on Greenwich Mean Time. It was dark in the morning when children went to school and it was dark in the afternoon before they left school to return home again. Fortunately the weather was being kind for the time of year. The wind was blustery but relatively warm. There had been little precipitation to speak of for ten days and the forecast was for the weather to remain unchanged till after the Solstice bonfire on the village green and possibly till into the new year. The children were looking forward to the bonfire and to Jeremy’s barbecue. Jeremy, who owned the Granary restaurante, an upmarket silver service establishment that directly and indirectly provided considerable employment and brought a lot of money into Bearthwaite from ‘out there’, had long taken charge of all village communal entertainment cooking. True the women still baked and provided what they had always provided, but Jeremy was the one they spoke to for ideas, and he coördinated every one’s efforts and the supplies they would need from various sources for their contributions. It was universally agreed that though things had been good before Jeremy moved to Bearthwaite they were much better after.

Before Jeremy moved to Bearthwaite the village had spit roasted quarters of beef for public celebrations on the green, but Jeremy had had some of Bertie’s associates provide two huge spit mechanisms that could road an entire beast(10) each with ease and he used the lesser ones for the ridiculously easy tasks of roasting sheep, pigs, and even poultry. Traditionally the children had taken it in turns to rotate the carcasses to ensure they cooked evenly, but now they were rotated by old twelve volt car batteries that had been stripped, fettled and rebuilt. For the children that was a mixed blessing. They no longer had the tedious task of turning the spits, but it hadn’t been all bad, for there’d always been a group of them doing it and the craic had been good. Too, it had been a twenty-four hour a day task for three days and working through the entire night and being provided with mugs of cocoa whilst they did had been exciting, especially for couples still exploring their relationships. After a battery failure things became even better as they had to watch the spits without having to manually turn them. They were still provided with cocoa and rarely had to do any work. Bertie had remarked to Alf, “I didn’t have the heart to tell them another couple of batteries in parallel would obviate any need for them to be up all night, Granddad.”

Alf had smiled and replied, “The most efficient way is not always the best, Lad.”

Parent’s lives, especially those of mothers, and grand mothers, aunties and older sisters too, were now easier than even a few years before, for there was now a wide variety of activities for children of all ages to engage in to prevent boredom and its concomitant poor behaviour. Even the men were now substantially involved in childcare. The model railway society, self defence, martial arts, gymnastics and ballroom and other dancing styles had recently been added to by weight training and similar fitness activities. Though there were some women involved, notably Felicity who was head of games and sport at the school, and Sophia and Maybel her two female games teachers, most activities other than the dance classes were in the main overseen by men.

~Introducing Hamilton the Vet~

Pete held his hand up for some quiet and announced, “Lads, I’d like you all to meet Hamilton. He’s Diane as was Diane Graham’s old man. She’s in the room right now and any as would like to welcome her back can do so, after the ladies have finished with her that is. They’ve a room here at the Dragon, and Matt Levens is shewing them round tomorrow looking for a place to live. Diane’s home and she’s back for good.” Hamilton was taken aback by the stamping of boots and the cheers. He knew that the expressions of goodwill that he accepted were mostly due to Diane’s return, but there was considerable interest shewn in him too. He accepted from what Diane had telt him over the years that folk would be concerned that he could fit in in the rather unusual society that was Bearthwaite, but he already felt that the welcome he was being offered was genuine and he couldn’t understand why, for he was essentially a stranger, some one these men didn’t know from Adam.

That the Bearthwaite philosophy was to offer outsiders friendship and every opportunity to succeed as one of themselves from the outset was as alien to him as it was to most outsiders. He’d yet to realise that if he failed it would be due to his own actions and not due to any pre conceived views of theirs. In short they offered him a rope, and he could use it to secure himself a place in their society with or he could hang himself with it, but whatever he did with it they would not string him up, for to do that was his responsibility not theirs. Theirs could on occasion a be brutal society that was prepared to take vicious steps to protect itself, but it was a fair one, even if it did stray from time to time over the edge of what outsiders regarded as the law. Although Diane had telt him a lot about the place of her birth he’d never visited Bearthwaite before, but hearing the voices around himself he had realised within minutes of his arrival where Diane’s unusual accent and turns of phrase originated. Some of the older men in the taproom he found rather difficult to understand from time to time and to his embarrassment he’d had to ask one or two to repeat themselves, and he didn’t understand one word in ten that Joey, a retired shepherd he’d been telt, spoke. Under other circumstance he was aware that he wouldn’t have recognised that Joey was speaking English, though his four dogs seemed to have no trouble understanding him and every one else in the taproom too who interacted with them. To Hamilton he sounded similar to the Scandinavian fishermen, friends of his parent’s and family, whom he’d met years ago as a child from time to time when they had taken him back to Scotland to stay with relatives.

Hamilton had been amazed when thirty or more men of all ages had stood up to walk round into the best side to greet Diane hugging her tightly and kissing her cheek. None had said much more than, “Welcome home, Lass. Your mum and dad would be pleased to know you’re back where you belong.” Clearly Diane had arrived home, and she was rather emotional about it, but he worried about how he would fit in in a society that he now realised was obviously far more different from anything he’d ever come across before than he’d expected. What Diane had explained in trying to prepare him for Bearthwaite fell far short of the reality of it.

Sasha had telt him, “I’m Siberian, and I’ve lived her for a gey lang time as they would have it round here, yet I still have to ask for explanations, not often these days, but it still happens, so don’t worry about it, or as some of these heathen illiterates would say, ‘Dinnae fash yoursel aboot het.’ Still it could be worse you could be in Maryport, no bugger understands them, and Gustav’s kids still have Cornish accents as broad as a pasty.(11) Pete, another pint for the lad if you would please.”

There was a lot of laughter at Sasha’s remarks and the heathen illiterates he’d pointed out were obviously not offended in the least. Joey clearly thought Sasha’s remarks were hilarious. Pete returned with a pint and said, “It’s Bearthwaite Brown brewed just up the way in Gustav’s brewery by the bloke who sits at the right hand of God. Clarence be a good lad and take a bow if you would, Lad. That’s Clarence, Gustav’s master brewer.” Clarence stood and literally bowed to the cheers of the taproom crowd. “Now, Hamilton, tell us about yourself. Mek it a good tale and tonight you drink and eat supper for free. This is the weekly Saturday evening meeting of the Bearthwaite Grumpy Old Men’s Society where story telling, lies, jokes and owt else we can think of to entertain ourselves with are followed by dominoes. The rule is story tellers get a few free drinks and supper is free. The better the tale the more free drink you get.

“Sasha started it all years ago and is the chairman because as we tell any and all he’s the biggest bloody liar ever to enter the premises. He by the way strenuously denies that and says he just creates the new truth. Dave over there is almost as big a liar, but doesn’t tell anywhere near as many lies and he is a comedian to boot.” The laughter took a while to abate and Hamilton was poured a glass of what to him was a strange looking liquid. “It’s the local distillate, Cyanobacta. Gustav’s master distillers Jean-Claude and his mate Græme, who have a side line being god, make it and sell it to out there by the tanker load. Some of the lads are putting a bottling plant together so that we can up the profit margin on all drink that we export. The stuff reserved for sale in here is considerably stronger than the stuff selt out yonder. It’s made using the blue green, toxic, algae sludge stuff that blooms from time to time on the reservoir in the summer, though Jean-Claude and Græme keep some as pets breeding in poly bags(12) at the distillery to use in the still. They feed ’em on god alone knows what and artificial sunshine from fancy LED(13) strip lights. HMRC(14) know all about it, but we buy it at cost.” That was a lie for the benefit of outsiders but none of the locals even blinked at the statement. “Off you go, Lad.”

“At forty-eight I’m a few years younger than Diane. I was born in Portsmouth. Mum was from Hamilton near Glasgow. Dad was from not far away, East Kilbride, so I was named Hamilton Kilbride McDonald. My family moved to Hammersmith before I was a year old and that’s where I lived till I left school for University.”

“Where’s Hammersmith, Lad?” a toothless old man sitting by the fire asked in a local accent.

“It’s in west London about four or five miles away from Charing Cross railway station. After I graduated I never went back to London to live. I was the youngest of ten and my parents were almost old enough to be my grandparents. Mum died whilst I was at university and Dad a couple of years after I left. His funeral was the last time I went to London. I don’t really get on with any of my siblings. They all just messed about at school whereas I studied hard. They resented the support our parents gave me, and all live on benefits and on the wrong side of the law. I haven’t seen any of them for years. After I graduated I went to Cheshire for work which was where I met Diane. She’d left Terry the year before I met her and was divorced by then. We married and had four children all of who did well for themselves. They all graduated from university and eventually married. Some of them have families now and we’re close. We see them from time to time, but it’s not easy because they live and work all over the place, two of them abroad a lot of the time. After Jilly got married Diane decided since I was unhappy at work after the firm got bought out and the new owners made dramatic changes in the interests of economy, and the kids and the management at the school she worked at were becoming a nightmare she’d rather return home. I agreed we had to change jobs, but I was easy either way about us coming here, so that’s how I’m sitting here telling what to me is a pretty boring and mundane tale about myself. Diane wants to work at the school here because she believes the kids here will be better behaved than anywhere else, and I suppose I’d better start looking for job soon. It’s not critical for a few months because though we’re not loaded we do have a bit of cash behind us.”

Sasha asked with a thoughtful look on his face, “You said Diane worked at a school and wants to work at the school here. As what? I thought she had a landscaping business.”

“She did when I met her, but it always reminded her of Terry, so when she was pregnant with Jamey our eldest she sold the business and started a degree in physics with the OU.(15) After that she did a PGCE(16) with them to enable her to teach. She’s been teaching physics for a good while now. Why?”

Murray asked, “What age kids did did she teach?”

“A’ level(17) and GCSE(18) down to eleven year olds, but they were only taught physics as a component of a general science course.”

“Halle bloody lujah! Tell her to see me tomorrow with her qualifications and she’ll have a job as soon as I have sight of them. I’ve got folk who can teach A’ level physics and are good at it, but to have a teacher specifically qualified to teach it is serious icing on my personal cake, and my existing A’ level STEM teachers will be even more pleased than I to have her teaching here.” Murray looked around with a decidedly smug smile and said, “Another round, Lads, I’m buying, and fetch some more chemic someone. For some strange reason I feel like celebrating.” He noticed the puzzled look on Hamilton’s face and said, “Technically I was the school’s head teacher, but that’s only because we had to have one for legal reasons. When the road flooded in the past and our kids couldn’t get to school we taught them ourselves. We have enough knowledge base to cover everything even if some subjects were taught by half a dozen of us. I’m a retired accountant and I taught part of the A’ level economics syllabus. I’m the also chairman of the School’s Management Group and of Beebell too. Beebell is the company that owns and manages the community assets here. Beebell is what the media referred to it as when we went to war with the utilities company. Bee, Bee, Ee, eLl is the Bearthwaite Business Enterprises Ltd company, Beebell. Some of what the kids do we still take part in. Gustav and Charlie are involved in German conversation groups, and Gustav manages the school exchanges with the school he attended at Munich. Eli teaches photography and numerous aspects of art. Harry drives a waggon but teaches astronomy. We have a goodly few folk who aren’t teachers, but are still involved in teaching. It’s worked for years, it ain’t broke, so we don’t try to fix it. I’m still after a few more teachers, but it not critical. We have enough to get by with, but we want some more to cover sickness, maternity, compassionate leave and the like, and to give our teachers more time for planning, feedback to the kids and the like. We’re aiming for a fifty percent contact time teaching load for full time teachers. Legally we don’t have a school any more and the staff aren’t teachers. We have an educational establishment where the kids are tutored privately paid for by their parents. That’s how we get away with having nowt to do with Ofsted.”

It was fifteen minutes before Hamilton was ready to be grilled further due to dealing with the dogs, visits to the gents and the washing and refilling of glasses. Sasha asked, “Where did you study and what did you study there Hamilton?”

“I read Veterinary Science at Glasgow. I lived with my Dad’s younger sister whilst I was there. Even my full scholarship didn’t run to board and lodging, and it’s an expensive course to follow.” The outsiders weren’t particularly impressed by that, but in the silence that followed you could have heard a pin drop, and the local men had looks of incredulity on their faces. Some looked like they’d just won the lottery.

It was Bertie who casually asked, “I don’t suppose you know owt about bees, fish and coneys do you?”

“Yes. I’ve kept bees since I moved to Cheshire and was a County Bee Inspector there for a number of years. On my last patch I had three fish farms that farmed rainbow trout and a large rabbit farm on a world war two air base that utilised the hangers as rabbit housing, but though I’d describe myself as very knowledgeable concerning bees and I keep up to date on development in apiculture and science I certainly couldn’t be described as an expert on pisciculture, aquaculture or cuniculture Why?”

There were laughs around the taproom and Dave said, “I think I’m glad your no expert on Pisciculture and cuniculture. At least you’re not a graduate pervert in topics that shouldn’t be spoken of in front of the womenfolk.” There were roars of laughter at that even though most of the men knew what the words meant, even Alf who’d only ever heard of aquaculture had realised what Hamilton was talking about.

When the laughter faded, there was a gentle sigh from Murray who said quietly, “I think I’ve just died and gone to heaven. Hamilton, over a month ago I embarked on what I thought may be a search lasting years to find a vet for here. I may not be a proper head teacher, but I’m the one who advertises for staff and in the main interviews them, though I had to bottle out(19) on our chiropodist manicurist and get help from Adalheidis to talk to her about the pros and cons of the different types of false nails. Adalheidis is one of our solicitors and she was giggling at me for days after that incident. However, Bertie asked what he did because one of our local farmers pointed out that we needed that knowledge base, or at least a willingness to acquire it. We have several bee keepers with over a hundred hives apiece and any number with round a dozen hives. They obviously have access to the heather that surrounds us, and it’s a profitable business with no need for marketing due to the visitors we get. It’s important to us because it employs any number of folk here both directly and indirectly.

“We also have a hatchery that raises a wide variety of fish species, some for reinforcing the bio diversity of the environment here, but most to sell elsewhere. We farm carp and breed brown trout for the table. The trout also form the basis of the recreational angling business on the reservoir. We also have a medium sized business here breeding a New Zeeland white strain of coney for meat, though Rhona wishes to expand to be large enough to enable her two sisters who moved here some months back to make at least a partial living out of it too. However, those are just peripheral things. It is impossible to get a vet here when the road floods, and our farmers have had to shoot cows with calving issues which is a serious financial loss to them. We also have a highly intelligent young lass who’s eleven going on twelve who needs regular work experience with a vet to get into Glasgow to study veterinary science. Livvy has kept ferrets for coneying since she could walk near enough and now has a lurcher pup for the same purpose. She’s worked with the shepherds during lambing for years, and they say her small, strong hands make easy work of some lambs that they’d struggle to have out alive.

“In addition we earn significant amounts of money from a rather unique form of eco tourism that is reliant on everything from unicellular life forms found in ditches right up to medium sized mammals and large trees. Our success is due to the animals’ relative indifference to human presence which means if visitors are quiet they can easily obtain photographs that are extremely difficult to obtain elsewhere. Unfortunately I’m not sure we have enough veterinary work for a full time vet, but if you were willing we could pay you a full time vet’s salary, and you could use your spare time to be involved with the abundant Bearthwaite wildlife and the international experts who advise us on all aspects of the welfare of the valley wildlife and their environment. In addition I’m sure you would be offered any number of business opportunities raising livestock of whatever sort you were interested in. Please think about it.”

“I don’t need to think about it. I know that Diane would not be happy living elsewhere. I know she left here because of what her brother and niece went through. I also know she has wanted to return for years. She wishes to live here, and I wish to live with her. If she can teach here and reëstablish relationships with her family and friends, and she is aware that things have changed here for the better since she left, she will be happy. As for myself, I was disenchanted with working with huge herds of black and white udders on legs that never saw the sky or grass. I’d become disenchanted to the edge of depression. Sure I know vets can’t expect to work regular hours, it goes with the job, but when the new owners took over our hours went up without our pay going up to match. When one of my colleagues quit she was not replaced, and the rest of us were expected to take on her work load too for the same money. When another colleague told me he had accepted a job offer at a rural practice in the Highlands and he was going to hand his notice in I thought ‘enough is enough’ and both of us quit at the same time. When the senior partner asked me why I was leaving I told him it was because he was an overbearing, greedy, pompous arsehole. God, that felt good.

“I was bothered about what Diane would say about me quitting, but she just said ‘fine’ and handed her notice in the following day. My bosses told me not to bother working my notice because it wouldn’t be good for the atmosphere at work, and Diane worked her notice on the sick. Stress the doc put on her sick note. Working here sounds much more interesting, and even if the pressure builds up from time to time, that is part of the job too. At least here I’ll enjoy life and the pressure will be due to events beyond human control not due to some fat bastard living the high life on my sweat. Farm and small animal work, bees, fish, coneys and wildlife along with possible commercial interests in raising stock. What more could a man ask for. As for your young lady who wishes work experience, there isn’t a good craftsman or tradesman alive who doesn’t wish to have at least one youngster to pass it all on to. I suspect those who don’t have that interest aren’t that good at what they do and don’t want that to be realised by a youngster.”

“Welcome to Bearthwaite, Neighbour. You’re the vet for me, Lad,” said Alan Peabody offering a hand the size of a shovel. “Alan Peabody. I farm here, and have had to shoot a number of cows with issues calving over the years. You hit the spot right on with me when you referred to black and white bags on legs. I keep pure bred, original population Dairy Shorthorns and pedigree Jersey cattle. I have my own bulls too to catch any that the AI(20) lass didn’t manage to have in calf. That way I avoid too much in breeding. but don’t have to stand the loss of a calf and a lactation. Duffy my shorthorn bull is a nice lad. I can trim his feet with no bother just by offering him something he like to eat like a few heads of kail, but Vlad my Jersey bull is about as nasty and dangerous as they come. He’s appropriately named after Vlad the impaler and was a bad tempered little piece of work from the day he was born. To trim his feet involves a crush and a jab of something to calm him down. I’ll give you a call next time around.

“The bull calves from our farm, and from a few other farms too including all the farms in the valley, Elleanor, one of my daughters raises for veal, and Vince the Mince there slaughters them at his abattoir that’s right behind his butchers shop.” Vincent nodded at the mention. “That doesn’t make a great deal of money, but it makes some and provides employment. It also keeps the money local, which as you’ll soon find out is a major issue with all of us as live here. However, the market for veal seems to be expanding a little, mind it’s only doing so slowly, but there are a couple of spots down south that are interested in buying, but for them we’ll put the price up. Elleanor has been negotiating to get a couple of bison cows and a bull over here from Poland for a couple of years now which has been really upsetting some of the authorities at DEFRA,(21) but it looks like she’ll have her cows some time early next summer. Seems it’s the bull that’s the sticking point, but if push comes to shove she can obtain AI bison semen easily enough from sources in the UK and then raise her own bull. Once she has a bull here it’ll be no problem to import a quality bull, for the authorities will have no real argument to offer other than the one they have for importing cattle of any breed. Her plan is to see if the bison cows will suckle a shorthorn or a Jersey bull calf alongside their own to save her a deal of work when they’re young and possibly some milk from the herd too.

“Just a suggestion, Lad, before you go looking for a place to live have a word with Sam, your missus’s niece. She farms at Pant Pedwar up at the valley head. It’s a huge place, and there’re just her and Gee her old man with their two tweenage lasses. Gee’s usually here for an hour or so of a Saturday more often than not with Sam, maybe he’ll be by later. I reckon they maybe glad of you living there. Family is always better than taking in lodgers. There are dozens of Peabodys live at Wood End farm and most of the time we get on just fine. Murray will fill you in later, but our usual deal for folks like you is we set you up with a surgery and whatever equipment you need. The doc, the dentists and others have all been set up like that. The valley management company, Beebell, owns the stuff, but you use it on our behalf. Beebell is a coöp owned equally by every adult that lives here. Like I said, welcome to Bearthwaite, Hamilton.”

Hamilton had just been given a lot to think about, but Pete, Murray and Alan had said all that could be said for the now and he was left to his thoughts, though a fresh pint and a topped up glass of Cyanobacta were put in front of him.

~Burpuh Lion and Dandock~

Clarence said, “I’ve a tale related to the brewery rather than the distillery which will be coming later. Janet the daughter that lives near Birmingham and her family were staying with us last weekend. The little lass is only three and tends to mangle her words a bit when she gets excited. She telt me we were having soaked smammon for tea. I understood that was smoked salmon, so I said nowt and kept my face straight. Well I did till she said she was having Burpuh Lion and Dandock to drink with hers. Rather than upset her I left to have a good laugh somewhere else. Thing was even after they went home I couldn’t get it out of my mind. There was something there that I couldn’t let go, you know what it was like when you were a kid and had a wobbly tooth, you just couldn’t let it be. Eventually it came to me we should be brewing super low alcohol fizzy drinks. Drinks that are below the alcohol limit, so don’t have any duty on them, just enough alcohol to provide the fizz from the carbon dioxide. We’d already discussed making elderflower champagne for the summer visitors, but that has to have duty paid on it, admittedly not much because it’s a seriously low octane(22) drink, typically that of a relatively strong beer but that of a seriously weak wine, say five percent.

“I want to brew dandelion and burdock, but I think we should label it Burpuh Lion and Dandock, Ginger Beer, Sarsaparilla, Cream Soda and whole host of other exceedingly low alcohol content drinks mostly enjoyed by children ready for the summer, and if we can get some off the wall names for them from the kids so much the better. I’m prepared to try owt, whether they be traditional like the ones I mentioned or new like say brewed raspberry or other fruit flavoured beverages. At the least I’d like to have some of the concentrates available before then, and if possible have whatever we need grown locally. Christine has said she’ll can large jars of fruit concentrates for us as they become available and owt else when we can get our hands on the ingredients. If we do that we don’t need to buy in pop, and we can buy the minimum amounts of concentrates, and we won’t need carbon dioxide to gas them up. It’s another source of income for the allotment growers, possibly even for some of the farmers. I’ve talked about it to Gustav and he said anyone interested needs to have a chat with us, so put the word out, Lads.”

~Blackthorn Spike in Norman’s Skull~

Norman took up the tale telling. “Alan had one of his lads lightly flail my hedge on the outside for me. That makes it easy for me to finish the job. I stop infection getting into the flailed ends of the branches by going over the hedge with loppers and secateurs. I should have worn a helmet because a high branch I lopped off lower down dropped on my head. Unfortunately for me it was blackthorn and it drove a spine into my skull. I could feel it was big and had to get Eunice to dig it out. It was in tight and the skin had been pushed up. She had a hell of a time getting it out. It took her ten minutes because it had gone under my scalp which had shifted and covered it over. I felt like throwing up whilst she was on the job. I suppose one of the nurses could have given me a local and cut it out, but it was hurting, and that would have taken a couple of hours before it was out. Once Eunice had managed to move my scalp to expose the end of it she still had a hell of a time because it was embedded in the bone. She got nowhere fast with a pair of forceps and ended up digging it out with a darning needle that she sterilised in a candle flame, though she didn’t have to say anything about the bone splinters that came with it, but that’s nurses for you. I knew if I’d complained she’d have said, ‘You’re supposed to be a man, and it’s only pain.’ Here look, this is the bastard thing.” At that Norman produced a piece of kitchen paper that contained a thorn that as he’d said was half an inch [13mm] long and maybe a two-thirds of a sixteenth of an inch [1mm] in diameter at one end tapering to a blunt point at the other.

There quiet whistles of surprise and expressions that amounted to what Alf said, “That’s one mean bastard of a thing to have fast in your head, Norman Lad. You okay now?”

“Aye. The spines are sharp, but the tips are fragile and drop of just looking at them, so the point of the bloody thing is probably still in my skull, but it’ll be forced out or be dissolved soon enough. Either roads I can’t feel it. Karen gave me a tetanus and an anti biotic shot at the surgery, so I’ll be okay. I’ll be even better than okay if someone passes me that bottle of chemic over here. It looks interesting. I presume this bottle contains the same stuff that Hamilton is supping. What is it, Dave?”

“Aye, both bottles contain Cyanobacta and it’s the new poison that Jean-Claude and Græme have had the distillery lads mekin from that nasty looking, blue green, toxic, gunky, sludge they got out of the reservoir. They’re growing it themselves now and have some fancy equipment to clean out the really dodgy stuff and mek sure we don’t die from it, but you’re okay, Lad, they’ve not teken out owt that matters, so you won’t miss out on having a bad head tomorrow.” That caused a minute’s hilarity before matters resumed.

Norman poured himself a goodly glass and drank going on for three parts (23) of it before smacking his lips and saying, “Christ, Lads, that hits the spot. Got a fair bite to it ain’t it? Please tell me there’s no danger of us running out is there, Gustav?”

“Not a chance, Norman. They’re mekin it to sell by the tanker load, though ours is not quite as ladylike as what we sell to out there. It’s got more bite and going on for fifteen percent more alcohol in it. We’ve been asked to sell some of our stuff to spots out there, but Jean-Claude and Græme are against it on the grounds that restricting its sale to here enhances Bearthwaite’s and the Dragon’s reputation. Guinness do the same with their brew. There is a variety that’s only available in Dublin. If you like it that much put twelve quid in the party box and tek a half gallon bottle home.”

~Cyanobacta~

Cyanobacta was the name of Gustav’s distillate made from potatoes using water containing artificially bred cyanobacteria widely referred to as ‘blue-green algae’, a type of so called blooming algae that was actually a bacterium. Some cyanobacteria, like the microcystin producing bacteria genus microcystis, produced neurotoxins, cytotoxins, endotoxins and hepatotoxins which were collectively known as cyanotoxins. Those toxins could kill wild animals, livestock and pets. They could also harm people, producing rashes after skin contact and illnesses if swallowed. With Gustav’s encouragement Jean-Claude and Græme had invested in a laboratory full of sophisticated analytical equipment to ensure the safety of the product after distillation whilst still maintaining the taste which provided the marketing edge that the thrill that accompanied drinking the liquor that derived its characteristic taste from the deadly cyanotoxins provided.

Jean-Claude had said, “It like the Japanese eating that fugu pufferfish. It’s toxic and chefs have to study for at least three years to be allowed to prepare it. It’s been illegal for restaurantes to serve the liver since nineteen eighty-four because it contains the highest concentrations of toxins, though it’s said there are spots where folk in the know can get to eat it. It’s bloody expensive and I reckon folk only eat it for the thrill or to shew off their wealth. Every year there are a few deaths in Japan, Korea and parts of China as a result of folk preparing it themselves domestically.” They were also breeding the bacteria to eliminate the toxins without affecting the taste, so far with only a little success, but they had eliminated the most toxic cultivars as breeding stock and were heading in the right direction. Bearthwaite men were just happy to enjoy the tasty bite of what they knew was a harmless but potent drink, some of the other beverages they consumed though potent definitely could not be described as harmless, that provided employment for a goodly few and wealth for them all indirectly.

Later as Norman went to collect his bottle Gustav whispered to him, “Just a fiver will do, Norman. That’s the Bearthwaite price. It’s only twelve quid to outsiders.”

~Cream in Four Pint Milk Bottles~

Dave indicated he’d a tale. “I mind years ago when Lucy’s folks still ran the shop. I was working down Manchester way and there was an Indian or maybe a Pakistani take away we used pretty often, three times a week I’d say. It was interesting because it had a full width shop window and when you went in there was the counter in front of you and the entire kitchens were visible behind it. There was no wall behind the counter so you could see the staff cooking your food. You should have seen the size of the pans they cooked rice in, they looked like oil drums cut in half, and the pans they used for cooking curries in were at least three foot across and looked like woks but with steeper sides. There were called called karahis and I was telt that karahi was where the English word curry came from, not the food itself, but the thing it was cooked in. I mind one day six of us were having a korma and a vindaloo with the usual rice and chutneys, popadom and naans to go with it. I wondered what the bloke mekin the korma was doing when I saw him pouring milk from a four pint plastic bottle like you see in supermarkets into the pan. It was only when he put it down I could read the label which said it was double cream. That’s the only time I’ve ever seen cream in one of those bottles. Maybe in big cities dairies sell it like that to catering outlets. You ever come across that, Alan?”

~Alan and Milk~

“No. I’ve seen it selt in one litre pots like is typically used for yoghurt often enough. We sell cream and yoghurt like that, and plenty of spots sell it like we do in twenty-five litre drums to restaurantes, but I’ve never come across it in milk bottles. It’s not a stupid idea, I’ll ask some of our wholesale customers if they’d be interested. I doubt any housewife would be though. Pete, ask your missus if her lasses in the kitchen here would be interested, and I’ll ask Jeremy when I see him if he’d be interested for the restaurante. Thinking on it, I suspect four pints would be much more convenient than twenty-five litres which is forty-four pints, close to five and a half gallon [6.8 US gallons]. That weighs twenty-five kilos, [4 stone, 55 pounds] and is not easy to handle and pour from. Even if only a few customers like the idea it’s no problem to us to keep them happy because we use tens of thousands of those bottles a year for milk. Funny thing about that, some shops, like Spar shops, sell milk in two litre bottles which is what? three and a half pints, and others, like the Coöp, sell it in four pint bottles. All our customers prefer four pint bottles. There was a time a few years ago when I could only buy two litre bottles for a while, and my customers were not happy about it.”

~Alf Four Inch Gas Pipe~

Alf took up saying, “Talking about strange things seen in take away spots down country. I was in a Chinese chippy(24) that did take away meals years ago. That might have been Manchester way, but I suspect it was north of there somewhere round Preston maybe even Lancaster. I noticed the main gas pipe coming in through the wall to feed the rings they cooked Chinese food on was huge. I’d never seen four inch Yorkshire self soldered copper capillary fittings before and I’ve never seen them since either. Mind they might have been hundred mil for all I know, which ain’t exactly four inch but is close to it. Four inch is one point six mil more than a hundred mil. I asked the lad serving me if he knew what power the rings were. He said they were fifty kilowatt rings. I don’t do heat in kilowatts, but I later worked that out to be just over a hundred and seventy thousand BTU(25) per hour. Mind that was each ring and there were six or maybe eight rings. A small well insulated house like some of the ones the Levens brothers renovated by the old allotments can get by easily on eighteen or twenty thousand BTU per hour. I know a lot of Chinese food is stir fried for just a few seconds, but that is an impressive amount of power for a cooker.”

~Brigitte, Supper and Ron~

As Brigitte entered the tap room with a pail of kibble for the dogs, Alf asked her, “What’s for supper, Love?”

“Veal pie, mashed potatoes, red cabbage cooked with apples because Dad asked for it the way Granny Meltzer cooks it, and there’re carrots and gravy as well. Followed by apfelstrudel with white saus, again because Dad asked for it. Granny gave me the recipes for the Veal pie, the cabbage and the strudel, and I helped Mum and Auntie Veronica prepare them. The veal pie has veal meat and some veal kidney in too. I gave Uncle Vincent the recipe yesterday, and he chopped all the meat up for us ready to cook this afternoon. It has also onions and celery in it and is topped with Auntie Veronica’s flaky pastry. The potatoes, cabbage, carrots, onions, celery and apples all came from Auntie Christine’s stores, but she said they were all locally grown by Uncle Alf and his mates. The veal was raised by Elleanor Peabody. The strudel has spices and raisins in it, and the white saus is sweetened and flavoured using sugar that has had vanilla pods stored in it. Supper won’t be on the tables for at least three-quarters of an hour. I must go. I need to fetch some water too.”

“Where’s your brother, Pet? I haven’t seen much of him for a while.”

Brigitte smiled before replying, “He spends a lot of time at Violet’s house these days, Uncle Charlie.” She winked and added, “No doubt they’ll be studying.”

Charlie laughed and said, “No doubt. Is that what you get up to at Ron’s house then?”

Without a trace of a blush Brigitte replied, “Of course, he needs to study harder. I just provide him with the incentive. I’ll nip and get that water.” With that she was gone.

“Lovely lass, Gustav. That grandson of yours, Charlie, will have done well for himself if he manages to keep her interest.”

“I don’t think he has a snowflake in hell’s chance of getting away from her, Stan, and truth to tell the entire family is more than happy about it because Ron’s doing a lot better at school since she took up with him. Seemingly she’s not over impressed by under achievers, and he’s terrified if he doesn’t do well she’ll dump him and move on. Needless to say none of us are saying owt about it. True love! Wonderful ain’t it?” There was a lot of laughter and head shaking at that. Most of the locals knew that Ron was a decent lad, but Charlie had been known to complain about his lack of application at school from time to time.

Dave said, “He’s on the slippery slope to wedded bliss, Charlie. There’s no hope for the poor lad now. It’s what happens to us all once we become old enough to keep our brains in our trousers.” Amidst the roars of laughter, and many were laughing so hard they had tears in their eyes, there was a general nodding of heads. Dave had made it funny, but the effects of growing up was something all were familiar with and many had grandsons or sons of Ron’s age. By the time Brigitte returned with a pail of water the conversation had moved on.

~Supper About Veal~

It was a heavily pregnant Gladys who waddled into the taproom to say, “Gentlemen, Harriet and Brigitte will be fetching your supper in about ten minutes. Veronica and I shall be serving in the room. Please have the tables ready cleared for them. Doubtless you are aware that it’s veal pie tonight. This is the first time it’s been on our menu, and we’d like some feedback please especially regards herbs and seasoning. You have Elleanor to thank for this, for she was the one who decided to raise veal. I suggest you talk to Vincent regards the meat itself.” It only took ten minutes for the tables to be cleared, glasses washed and refilled, dogs let out and back in again and for superannuated bladders to be drained. Once the men were settled one of the outsiders, who was not known by name, said, “I’m Jason. Gladys said it was your lass Elleanor who raised the veal, Alan, and this is the first time it’s been on the menu here. What happened before?”

Alan as always didn’t bother to prevaricate so as not to offend outsider sensibilities because as all knew, and agreed with, his views were if they couldn’t stomach reality then they should drink elsewhere. “Veal is always raised from bull calves usually from pure bred dairy breeds. I breed high quality dairy shorthorns and Jerseys for milk. I’ve never had my cows in calf to beef breeds because one of my pure bred heifers and a bull calf killed at birth always fetched a better price than two cross bred calves which I’d have if I raised the heifers and the bullocks as stores for beef as well. Heifers we keep till at least their first calf and lactation. If they’re good enough they join the herd, if not we sell ’em on. They still fetch a good price because I have a good reputation for breeding quality beasts, but I cream the best off for my own herds, if you’ll pardon the pun. Most farmers in our position slaughter bull calves at birth, and we always used to do the same. A tap on the head with a hammer is all it takes. Then we used the calf for dog food. Tony used to take most of them for his lurchers.” The local men knew that Alan was pushing the incomers to see if he got a reaction. Like Vincent he hadn’t any time for folk as were okay eating meat, but tried to pretend to themselves it was made in a factory somewhere and had never existed outside of a polystyrene [styrofoam] tray covered in cling film [Saran wrap]. He wasn’t bothered by folk being vegetarians, one of his sons who raised pigs was, it was the hypocrisy he couldn’t stomach. However, this time none bit at his lure so he continued.

“It has always been generally believed that it was a money losing proposition to raise the bull calves off pure bred milking strains, and for a good few decades that was true, which is why unless pedigree cows are required the black and white bags on legs are had in calf to a meat breed because the cross bred calfs, bulls and heifers alike, put some weight on and are worth raising as meat animals. There has long been a public out cry in the UK concerning the way most Europeans, especially the French, raise veal. They keep them in small crates, so they can’t exercise to keep the meat tender. They are also kept in the dark and bled from time to time to keep the meat as pale as possible because that’s what the French want to eat. They are also slaughtered gey young because that’s what the French market demands.

“Once that became know over here the demand for veal dropped through the floor because most of it came from France. The meat market over there is by our standards bizarre. They buy our lambs when they are gey small, so small that we couldn’t sell them at that age over here because they are virtually tasteless. The result of that was nobody raised veal here because there was bugger all market for it, and the few that wanted to buy it couldn’t lay their hands on it. My lass did her homework on the situation and reckoned she could make a go of it. To be honest I wasn’t convinced. Vincent supported her because he said to start with whatever she produced he could sell local. I didn’t, though when she said if I gave her the calfs and selt her the milk at the price the big dairy was paying me at the time, which was peanuts, she’d stand any losses herself. It wasn’t going to be costing me owt, but I’m her dad and I didn’t want to see her losing money on it, or getting upset by a failed venture, so I took some persuading. My lads wanted to start a dairy of our own on the farm producing butter, cream, cheese and yoghurt like was done in my granddad’s day, though they didn’t do yoghurt then because nobody had ever heard of it. Their aim was to use all of our milk ourselves and tell the outside dairy outfit that was paying us bugger all for the milk where to go, and eventually they convinced me to let them give it a go using the auld dairy buildings. Now we’re buying in milk from other farmers in the valley. However, next thing I knew was Elleanor and the girls were accusing me of sexism. What can you do? So I said okay go for it.

“She’d had the word put out that the calves would initially be milk fed and subsequently on a decent fibre diet too with enough iron in it to be healthy and they were to be raised loose so they could socialise with each other. They don’t do any of that in France because the meat gets darker and the muscle develops a bit. She conned me into leaving them on the tit for a couple of weeks, heifers and bulls both. She raised them in a big barn all together with straw litter, no pens never mind crates and when they were old enough they had access to grass, but the barn was there for them if they wanted it to get out of the weather. She’d advertised that there were no French techniques like bleeding being used and they were being raised humanely and anyone who wanted to visit was welcome. Mum and Veronica encouraged that because they reckoned we’d make money on it when the visitors bought a cup of tea and a meal in the coffee shop, and letting visitors kids bottle feed lambs and calves has long been a money earner because their parents appreciate a bit of a sit down, a cup of tea with a scone and the peace their kids being occupied whilst safely supervised provides. I’m no fool, Lads. With my mum, wife and daughters against me I just let them get on with it.

“Vincent slaughters them at eight month. The meat would be unsaleable in France because they are too big and the meat has too much colour, but now Elleanor could sell every calf a dozen times over despite a small number of other farmers doing it now too, but as far as we were aware nobody else was doing it when she started. Funny thing is the computerised milk records show a slight improvement in overall milk production despite the fortnight’s loss of milk to the calves, which is not what the experts say happens, but I doubt if any of them have ever kept cattle, so what do they know? Technically if a calf is over eight month old the meat ain’t veal, but the few spots down country that are making the job pay slaughter at twelve months and call the meat rose veal. Elleanor says she’s going to try it sometime.

“The big supermarkets and some of the London hotels are sniffing, but they’re all offering peanuts. I heard her on the phone to one of them one day. I was shocked at her language, so it’s a good job her mum didn’t hear. Actually thinking on it Veronica uses choicer language than that, so that’s probably where she picked it up from. Talking of her using ripe language, what feed I buy in comes in by bulk tanker and goes straight into a feed silo, but the kids buy in smaller quantities of various kinds of feed and the like that comes in twenty-five kilo bags [25Kg, 56 pounds]. We’re all constantly trying to reduce what we need to buy in and we’re getting there, but there’s no instant fix. Seems the girls decided that they we sick of having to deal with empty plastic feed bags. At the moment the only way to deal with the plastic bags is to burn them in one of the forced air inlet blown furnaces, but it’s not ideal. Some of the lads think they could remelt them to use for fence posts and the like, but it’s a lot of work for little reward, and everyone would rather we didn’t have ’em to deal with.

“Elleanor was on the phone to the supplier the kids all use asking for all their feed and the like to be delivered in paper bags sewn up with cotton or some other bio degradable thread. The idea was if it came to it the allotment lads could threw them in a compost pit and every one except the worms could just forget about them. The supplier buys in in bulk and bags up himself, and some of his plastic bags are stitched not heat sealed, so he obviously has the equipment to do the job. Since plenty of the type of heavy duty paper bags that she was asking for have been used for agricultural supplies for years it was not an unreasonable thing to ask for. From the half of the phone conversation I could hear she must have been talking to a bloke who thought he could mess her about because she was a lass. That wasn’t very sensible of him because she buggered him off by cancelling the entire order. Telt him she wasn’t asking his permission to spend her money and she’d find another supplier.

“That was before she called him some seriously offensive things that questioned his masculinity and slammed the phone down on him. I thought her mum was bad, but Mitchel must have nerves of steel planning to marry her. I’ve tried to persuade him to leave the country and hide, but the poor lad isn’t for having it even though he knows what she’s like. He must do because when I asked him once why Elleanor was driving his truck he grinned and telt me her broomstick was down at Alf’s for service and MOT.(26) Mind, what can you expect from a lad that raises ducks and geese? The feed supplier they use now is in Annan just over the border and buys their paper bags in from a German firm based in Bavaria. They offer a choice of heat sealed plastic bags and cotton sewn paper bags, so the lasses are happy about that, and even happier because the feed is cheaper than from the outfit they used to buy from which was based in Yorkshire somewhere. The original company has rung the house several times since then, and she just uses it as an excuse to practice her insults. Greg Armstrong is now offering bagged feed in a choice of heat sealed plastic or cotton sewn paper bags and mixing up new formulations, so it won’t be long before they’ll be buying everything local from him. I buy feed by the trailer from Greg, but Alf is working on making me some trailers that double as feeders too. Idea is one of my lads takes a trailer to Greg’s, he fills it direct from a silo, and my lads just leave it in a field for the cattle to feed from. It should save a powerful lot of work and time. One of my lads saw the idea on a farming program on the telly that was on a farm in the States somewhere.

“Elleanor’s next plan is to integrate veal production with raising bison beef. Probably starting next summer some time. One of her sisters telt me they are toying with the idea of raising highland cattle on the bracken down the lonning side. One of my lasses wants to try Soay sheep on the Calva marsh. Murray is negotiating for some farm land that way, and telt her that now he knows someone can make use of the poorer land he’ll push a bit harder for whatever is available over there regardless of the land quality. He reckons if folk think they are putting one over on him eventually he’ll get a better price. The kids are a nightmare, there’s no keeping up with them, but it serves me right for having eight of them. Still, at least when I retire there’ll be Peabodys ready to take over, and the kids all get on with each other. Veronica telt me they have an agreement that they all have to get on with each others’ boy and girlfriends so as to prevent future friction when they all have families, so maybe it’s not so bad. It’s funny though, my lads are all into dairying and pigs and my lasses are all raising meat with no interest in dairying at all. You’d think it would be the other way round wouldn’t you? Vincent, you want to take it from here?”

“After a fresh pint and a glass, Lad,” When all was organised Vincent said, “I’ve got some customers in the hotel trade mostly in Scotland, but some in the Lakes too that will try owt if the initial price is right. They’re sensible folk who know that when they reorder the price has to reflect my economics not theirs. So I knew I could get them to try it, and I knew that the Bearthwaite market would be strong, so I reckoned that there would be no problems selling Elleanor’s calves for veal in her first year, but I’d no idea how the second year market would shape up. That’s all a few years ago now, and Alan was right. These days I can shift what ever his lass can raise. She’s been taking the dairy bull calves off all the farmers in the valley for a while now and a few from outside too. I’m trying to source some more from out there, but the bastards are greedy. I telt the ones I’ve recently spoken to ‘If you knock ’em on the head you mek nowt and have the cost and trouble of disposal. If you give ’em to the lass at the least you’ll get some meat back when I slaughter ’em. The trade is still very uncertain, and her dad is a mate of mine, so whilst the lass is establishing her market I’m not going to let her take a risk on the kind of money you’re talking. Any fool can trade at a loss, and I’m nobody’s fool.’ I knew that sooner or later they’d learn and that doubtless they’d get back to me some time. At the time Elleanore shrugged her shoulders and said, ‘Let them come to us, Uncle Vincent, cap in hand like.’ She’s a tough lass that’s for sure.

“A while back a few of the outsiders I’d spoken too and refused to pay what they were asking, said by way of retaliation that they’d have a go raising veal themselves, but I knew they wouldn’t mek a go of it because none of ’em were over bright, and it was a gey steep learning curve to get to where Elleanor was at the time. Like all that Bearthwaite folk do she’s always been in it for the long haul, and as long as she wasn’t losing too much money she wasn’t bothered about mekin any whilst she did her learning, whereas those others would be want the job to shew a decent profit right from the word go. The ones that actually tried it soon gave up, so she’s still the only raiser of veal in the county, and probably the only one north of Preston, but like I said other folk down country are getting into it, but not many. A few of the hotels will tek whole carcasses, but most just tek what they consider to be the best cuts, which are all too lean for our taste. Local women tek all of the so called second quality cuts which have enough fat to be tasty and I reckon are actually the best meat on the carcases. It’s good meat especially if you cook it with a bit of ox liver for the taste. Some of that, the trimmings and the rest of the offal is what you’ll be eating the night. It’s good business for Elleanor, myself and for local womenfolk all subsidised by the hotel trade. She’ll be mekin it pay big time in two or three years. I’m looking forward to the day when I’m butching(27) bison for her.”

~Supper~

“That was well beyond excellent!” exclaimed an outsider eating in the taproom to Jeremy who he knew from his previous visits to the Granary, Jeremy’s restaurante. He was a person that other than Jeremy none of the locals had seen before and he wasn’t much liked for he came across as a pompous little man who was over full of himself. “I’m Alphonse le Breton and I am a cookery critic for any number of major publications that circulate across the entire western world. I’ve been instructed by two of my editors to sample a meal here. To be completely honest, I was expecting a good meal simply because the Green Dragon Inn at Bearthwaite has a nationwide reputation for its excellent food and drink, which I was aware was brewed in the village. However, I was not expecting to be served food that could go head to head with anything served in any five star establishment anywhere in the world. What truly took my breath away was that it cost me a fraction of a barely edible, sub standard sandwich in just about anywhere I have ever been, and I was served by pleasant, helpful staff who had no idea who I was, and I suspect even had they known wouldn’t have given a monkey’s.(28)

“What was described simply as veal pie was one of the finest and tastiest meals I have ever come across. That the veal was admixed with a trace of beef liver, obviously for the flavour, was a master chef’s inspiration beyond doubt, and the flavours were balanced to perfection. That the vegetables were fresh and local was obvious, and their texture and flavour was delightful. I couldn’t identify the sources of the gravy, but it too was of the highest quality. The apple strudel was delicious in taste with a texture to the apple pieces that remained even after cooking. The apple reminded me of the varieties the French use for Tarte Tatin, Reine des Reinettes(29) and Calville. The spicing was barely there and complemented rather than distracting from the essentially apple taste. I suspect the locally grown apples are a heritage variety not available elsewhere. This was one of the finest few meals I have ever eaten in my life, and without doubt I shall be back without any instruction to do so simply because because I can not remember ever eating a meal I have enjoyed as much.”

Gladys, Harriet and their staff were completely unimpressed by his words, for he was from out there, and all that counted to them from the likes of Alphonse was in the till. It was much more significant that Alf had said, “Damned fine meal that, Harriet. That black kail was an excellent choice to go with the pie. The spuds were good, but I suggest you try using a waxier potato next time. I’d try Anya. Dougie grows ’em, and Christine has two or three ton in storage. Vincent, that veal mix would mek a good Cornish style pasty for lads to tek to work for bait.(30) Some potato and swede [rutabaga] and maybe carrot and you’d have a winner. Tell the lasses as work at the back of the shop for your missus to put a pinch of pepper in ’em too. You could have Lucy in the store sell a load of ’em for you too.”

~Eli is Elin~

In the best side Harriet announced, “After a lot of discussion with a lot of folks Eli has realised she is trans not gay.”

There were a number of women who agreed with Gladys when she said, “I’m glad she has finally realised that. I didn’t like having to watch her suffer trying to be a gay man. She wasn’t any good at it. She didn’t find the company of men easy, not even gay men, and wasn’t prepared to do what she perceived as forcing herself upon the company of women. How did it come about, Harriet Love?”

“Sam Graham and I went to talk to her months ago. We were blunt, and telt her we were both trans, it was okay here, and there were over a dozen of us, a few trans girls, a couple of trans men and a trans boy too. Sam said it was fine if he were gay and it was equally fine if she were trans. We left her with the contact details of a good gender counsellor, and advised Eli to to get in touch with him for at least that would help to resolve the conflicts any reasonably perceptive person could see he was suffering from. A fortnight ago she came to see me for a chat, and I have her permission to talk about this. She said the gender counsellor we’d recommended had moved on, and the man who took over not been particularly helpful, nor she believed empathetic. She’s seeing a woman in Glasgow now, and some of their chats use zoom. Interestingly, at least to all the Bearthwaite trans women and girls too, Elin, as she now names herself, said that talking to the trans women and girls here had been more helpful than both the counsellors, and it had been something one of the girls had said that finally crystallised her self identity issues and provided her with a solution. I thought that she’d become Elin because it was like Eli, but it was anything but. Her mum’s mum was one of the few member of her family who tret her well. She was Swedish and named Elin which is a traditional Swedish name.

“She is now taking appropriate medications, and has started presenting as a woman. Initially Sun didn’t know what to make of it, but now he has accepted that he has a fiancée not a fiancé, and they’re talking about a wedding in the spring. Elin went to the mill to do some photographic work for the model train layout with the kids this Monday night after school was out, and was asked why she was wearing a frock by one of the boys. I’m telt that there was no malice in the question, just curiosity. Janine, the trans one of Sam and Gee Shaw’s eleven year old twin lasses, as quick as a whip replied for her saying, ‘Are you stupid or what, Finn? Elin’s trans. You ever seen any of the women or girls here wearing trousers? I’ll remind you that only men and boys wear trousers here, and other than some of the men wearing the kilts for special occasions it’s only women and girls that wear frocks and skirts and bras too, unless of course there’s something you want to tell me? So the choices for Elin are obviously a frock or a skirt aren’t they. Boys!’ Needless to say Finn backed off immediately muttering what one of the boys later confided to his mates was, ‘Dad’s right, they’re all bonkers and that’s on the okay days of the month.’ Which apparently was the end of that, not least because Janine and Finn are on kissing terms.” There were smiles and more than a few chuckles around the room at that.

Jane added, “I managed to talk her into joining us later on. Stephanie will be going round to accompany her here to make sure she doesn’t have a crisis of confidence and stays at home. Some of the men are going to be dragging Sun to the taproom for a celebration drink on deciding to marry at last. I wonder what kind of a frock she wants to get married in. Still that’ll give us something to talk about without embarrassing her when she arrives won’t it?”

~Hedging & Ditching~

Hedging and ditching, a trade resurrected from over a century ago, provided work for some dozen, mostly men and boys not all of who worked at it full time, and baking bread provided similar employment for many mostly women and girls. It had been decided that the hedgers and ditchers and the coppicers too should be paid as employees of the Beebell estate management group which made both Harvey and Max smile when they were telt. Both had been odd job men who for years had done what ever earnt them a crust. Both had worked as part time coppicers for a few years and recently taken up hedging and ditching too. Max explained in the tap room of the Dragon, “Talk about things coming full circle, Lads. Both our great granddads were estate workers in the old days, and they did a lot of hedging and ditching, and coppicing too though not so much. Now we’re both turning the clock back by being paid by the estate to do the same job.”

Harvey added, “The difference this time, Max, is we are part owners of the estate. I just wish great granddad were here to see it.”

~Sasha on Jordan Peterson~

Sasha asked, “Has any one read what’s recently going on with that Jordan Peterson bloke? No? Well he’s a Canadian clinical psychologist, author and media commentator who has a big Youtube presence. He talks a lot of sense, and though I don’t agree with everything he says I believe in free speech and would defend his right to believe and say what ever he choses to say. He is never offensive though it seems a lot of the left wing, woke brigade say they are so offended by him that they want him closed down and to see him barred from speaking at universities, and everywhere else too it seems. It seems from what I can tell that he has been effectively suspended by his university and telt he has to be retrained. I take that to mean that if he wants to keep his job he has to shut the fuck up till what he says is acceptable to the neo Nazi useless bastards who are doing a fine job of losing Canada all credibility internationally, and if allowed to continue will bankrupt their nation financially as thoroughly as they have morally. Well done the Canadian thought police.

“I can’t believe I seriously thought about going to live there once, which was obviously a close escape. Frighteningly I can’t remember why I didn’t. Recently, I’ve just turned down an invitation that came with a serious money offer to lecture on my particular speciality. For those of you who don’t know I’m a retired academic mathematician. I telt them that since my work can be used in connection with social sciences, though I’ve never used it thus, I was not prepared to be attacked whether it be verbally or physically by their so called students who were no more than an out of control mob that they had not even tried to control for decades not years. Since I am Siberian I suspected that I would be used as a target for their uninformed and unintelligent views concerning the Russian activities in the Ukraine. I concluded by saying that till they put their house in order by restoring free speech there was no way I would visit Canada.

“Now I know there are plenty who would disagree with my views, maybe some of you in here do, but I am entitled to hold those views and further more to express them in public, and I know that Pete will tell you that even if he does not agree with me he gives me the right to say what I will in here. So if you wish to present a view in direct opposition to mine that’s all fine and good, and I’ll listen. I know Pete won’t have a problem with that, but if you wish to challenge my right to say what I have just said I recommend that you shut the fuck up before Pete throws you out. That’s the price we all pay for free speech.” Sasha had no takers willing to present a view that differed from his, though there were a number of men who said though they didn’t agree with all of what he’d said they would defend his right to say it. There were none that said he had no right to say what he did, which was not surprising to any, local and outsider alike, for such folk would not be likely to seek entertainment in the taproom of the Green Dragon at Bearthwaite on a Saturday evening which was known county wide, and further afield too in some circles, as being a hotbed of non politically correct, anti conformist, if not to say anti establishment, separatist philosophy where good craic, off colour jokes and completely unbelievable tales could be enjoyed in like minded male company accompanied by an excellent supper available at a very moderate price before finishing the evening off with a score or so games of very competitive dominoes.

~Denis on Just Stop Oil~

Denis said, “Well whilst not on quite the same line as what Sasha said, but in my mind there are connections, I read recently that a UK farmer was absolutely livid at finding a mountain of trash fly tipped on his land which was obviously generated by ‘Just Stop Oil’ whose most significant sponsor has recently repudiated them and cut off all funds from himself because they were not what he had thought them to be. He’d believed in what they were saying, and to an extent I do too, but their actions were not compatible with those beliefs. Violence, severe disruption and their hidden woke agenda were unacceptable to him, and again I agree with him.”

~Mackenzie’s Assistants~

Mackenzie, the Bearthwaite chiropodist and manicurist had acquired two assistants. The first was Evelyn who’d just left school with respectable GCSEs and was specifically interested in manicure and pedicure. She wished to go to college to study beauty therapy and hairdressing, and the second was Leo who’d just come out as gay, had just passed four A levels and was interested in doing a degree in podiatry. Both wish to find courses they could mix with their employment with Mackenzie whilst they studied. Mackenzie, Ellery Graham the Bearthwaite ladies hairdresser, who also cut men’s hair, and the nurses were convinced both Evelyn and Leo could be accommodated even if Evelyn could only work with Mackenzie at the weekends and out of college term time and Leo could only do so out of term time though if a local degree course could be found perhaps more would be possible.

~Hatched, Matched and Despatched~

“Well, Ladies, unfortunately there are no newborn arrivals though there are a few unborn babies that could be accused of procrastinating.” There were chuckles going round the room, and a number of heavily pregnant ladies including Gladys gave sighs of exasperation in agreement with Aggie’s words. “The adoptions situation remains the same. I do understand it’s important that proper checks are carried out, but from this end one can’t help but wonder if someone somewhere in an office is dragging their feet. Thank goodness no one has died, and there’re none in danger of doing so to discuss. So that’s dealt with births and deaths, and there’s only marriages left. As far as I’m aware there are no imminent celebrations planned in the church though I am aware there are some couples planning on dealing with the paper work at Carlisle registry office in the near future. So that only leaves us with newly formed relationships. My question is who knows what about whom?”

“That was pretty blunt, but typical for Aggie. I guess at her age she’s entitled to speak her mind.” There was a lot of chuckling at that, for Aggie was one of the local gossip repositories and she was completely unabashed about it. That the words came from Lucy who, along with Alice and Rosie, was another such repository as a result of being the village store owner was considered to be amusing. Lucy, however admitted, “Yvonne, Jenny’s technician at the opticians, has moved in with Eamonn who works at the brewery, but I don’t know anything about wedding plans. I also know Jenny was seeing Finley, but I don’t know if they’ve taken it any further, or even if they are still seeing each other.”

Frances said, “Yvonne and Eamonn have been to the Carlisle registry office for the paperwork. I’ve no idea when they’re planning on having the ceremony, but I know they’ve registered with the NCSG to adopt specifically older teens, or even kids who’ve aged out of the system. I also know they’ve placed advertisements in the LGBTP press looking for kids up to the age of thirty or so who want to get the hell out of the insanity that is out there and could fit in here.”

“How on Earth did you find that out, Frances?”

“Eamonn telt my old man about it at work. Eamonn said they were both nervous about it, but believed it was a proper thing for them to do. Needless to say my old man agreed that it was fraught with risk, but it was a proper thing for a Bearthwaite couple to do. He also promised as much support as was necessary. I’ll never admit it to him, but that made me gey proud to be Wilf’s woman, for that was a proper Bearthwaite man speaking.”

Alice said, “Jenny is a war widow with four kids, two of each, and Finley’s ex wife walked out on him and left months ago leaving him with the two girls. I never liked her much from the day she came here. She went through the motions of being one of us, but some how it never seemed natural to me, like she was forcing herself. For sure she never quite got it right. I always thought she considered what she had to do was beneath herself and that she was somehow better than us. Came from Leeds she telt me once, and I always expected her to cut and run and go back there. Still, she’s gone now, and I reckon Finley and his girls are better off without her. Jenny I do like, and more to the point, so do Finley’s lasses.” There were nods of agreement around the room as women expressed agreement with Alice’s evaluation of Finley’s ex. “Jenny came down to the mill a few days ago for some bread and muesli and chatted for a while. Seems the six kids all get on and are keen for their parents to get together, and she and Finley have decided they like each other enough to move in together. It was obvious love was growing. She said Murray had sorted out somewhere for them to live, but due to her lack of familiarity with Bearthwaite she didn’t know where it was because she’s not been there yet, though Finley had said it was a big spot the other side of the green that would suit them fine. There’re a few empty big houses over there so it could be any of them. Finley is probably next door in the tap sorting out a few men to move them and their kids from two dwellings into a house big enough to accommodate them all and from what she suggested maybe another couple of kids too. I gathered they’ve already had a few trial runs.” There was some laughter at that, but the local women considered it wise for couples in their situation to have another couple of children ‘to seal the deal’ as the Bearthwaite ladies’ expression went.

Harriet said, “I know that Ellis has been spending his nights at Mackenzie’s flat for a while and his two kids too. Mackenzie gets on really well with the children, and they call her Mum, but despite that I can’t see them taking things any further for a while, but I can’t see them breaking up either. I suspect they’ll be looking for a bigger place for them all soon. There’s a wedding there, but it’ll probably be the year after next rather than next year, unless of course she seals the deal with a baby.”

Suzie informed them, “Jessica, my eldest lass, telt me that Evelyn, who left school at sixteen this year, has apprenticed to Mackenzie as a manicurist and pedicurist and wishes to go to a local college to study beauty therapy and hairdressing. She has taken up with Oscar. He’s eighteen and is one of Bertie’s brighter apprentices. Early days yet. They’re just kids enjoying being in love. I suspect they’ll end up together permanently, but maybe not for three or four years.”

Harriet had more news. “Leo who is eighteen passed four A levels with good grades this year. He, like Evelyn, works with Mackenzie, but he wishes to study a degree in podiatry. He’s just come out as gay and is seeing Noah who is twenty and works for Saul in the demolition crews. I wouldn’t like to speculate on how long they’ll last as a couple, because if Leo wants to study a degree in podiatry he may end up spending a lot of time away from here, and that as we all know is no ingredient in a recipe for a stable, lasting relationship. If they manage to survive prolonged separations for three years and are still a couple at the end of it doubtless they’ll marry more or less immediately. Interestingly, about a week ago Leo asked me to find out what the NCSG’s attitude was to gay couples adopting. I didn’t need to ask them because I already knew it was the same as it was to any other couple. When I explained that to him there was a smile on his face, so it’s obvious he’s thinking long term with Noah at the moment, but whether with Noah or someone else he wants kids.”

“Any more information or is that it regarding hatched, matched and despatched?”(31) Since no one had anything to offer Aggie said, “Well in that case, Gladys, I’ll have another dose of mother’s ruin please.”(32)

“You know where it is, Aggie. I suggest you fetch the bottle since you’ll see it off before you go home and that’ll save both our legs.” There was a lot of laughter at that for Aggie’s capacity for gin and her ability to see a bottle of gin off and then walk home, sometimes near enough carrying Frank as a result of his endeavours in the taproom, was proverbial.

~Elin Arrives~

When Stephanie arrived with a very nervous looking Elin Gladys greeted them saying, “Good evening, Ladies.” She went behind the bar as the two moved towards it and asked, “What may I get you? Your usual Windjammer and coke with ice, Stephanie?”

Stephanie nodded and asked, “What do you usually drink, Elin?”

“I can’t drink, but I like brandy and Babycham.” She blushed and added, “I know it’s old fashioned, but it’s what Mum drinks and I like it, though two will last me all night.”

“We don’t stock Babycham because no one here drinks it, but I can provide a locally made sparkling perry (33) which is what Babycham is or a locally made sparkling cider and I can offer a wide selection of brandies, cognacs and even a couple of Armagnacs. When I’m not in this condition,” Gladys indicated her pregnancy, “I like Asbach, it’s a German brandy with a distinctive taste. I’ll get out of your way so you can better see what we have to offer. If it’s what you like I can order in a case of Babycham for you it’s no bother.”

“I’m not sure I have a sophisticated enough palate to tell them apart. May I try that German one you mentioned with the perry please?”

“Certainly. What kind of a glass would you like? I can offer a very large brandy glass that if full probably holds three-quarters of a pint. If I put a double brandy in it and three parts fill it with perry out of the keg that would probably last you all night, but if it doesn’t there’s plenty more of both available.”

As Gladys chuckled she passed Stephanie her rum and coke and waited for Elin to make her mind up. “Yes please. Thank you. I’ll go with your suggestion.”

When both ladies had been served Gladys and Stephanie shepherded Elin to a long low table with more than a dozen women sitting there. Faith, who was a blue eyed blonde, said, “I couldn’t get away wearing that frock with my figure or my colouring, but it suits you. I’d kill for your eyes though.”

Elin had large soft brown eyes, had used barely a trace of make up because she didn’t need it and she looked gorgeous. She’d been to see Ellery Graham the Bearthwaite ladies’ hair dresser earlier in the day who’d transformed her nondescript hair into a feminine pixie cut and they’d discussed hair extensions for a later date. She was wearing a rather vintage styled, sable coloured, below the knee A line frock with a fitted bodice that suited her and enhanced her slender figure with a lighter, undyed, woollen cardigan that shewed many subtle shade variations of the wool’s natural colours. “Where did you get that cardie from?” Madeleine asked. “I’d love one, but perhaps a bit darker if possible. The undyed look is fabulous.”

Elin blush bright red and admitted, “I knitted it myself, and I bought the wool and the pattern in Ambleside when Sun and I went for a day out at Windermere. The shop has a lot of different undyed wools from all sorts of different sheep. She had a really harsh, tough, dark one from a sheep called Karakul that she said was usually the wool used in quality carpets like Axminsters and Wiltons before foam backed synthetic carpets were made. I bought some to make a jumper for Sun that he could use when working in the garden on cold days. I’ve not quite finished it yet.”

Veronica said, “I’ll get back to you on those sheep. Alan, my old man, farms and some of the kids may be interested in looking into those sheep. They’re into at least a dozen things, but I’m always on the look out for projects to keep them interested to stop them from driving their dad round the bend.”

“How many children do you have?”

“Eight, which I enjoy, but Alan, bless him, is a typical bloke, and true to form he enjoys the process, but from time to time is unimpressed by the product.” At that there were appreciative chuckles from every mother in the room. “However, that is beside the point. What we need to know is what are you doing about the wedding? Where, when and more to the point the gown. Details are what we need.”

There was murmuring of agreement and dozens of nodding heads at that. Elin was a little surprised by the interest being shewn. She was encouraged to answer Veronica by Elle who said, “Veronica can’t help herself. With eight kids all on the edge of marriage, most of the time, even when she’s working, her head is completely taken over by wedding planning and the prospect of grandchildren. I suspect she dreams about nothing but weddings these days. She’s not exactly subtle about it, but yes we’d like to know, so take your time. You were one of us, Bearthwaite folk I mean, when you came here. Now you are one of us in here, a Bearthwaite woman. Our children have always been impressed by your skills, abilities, but most of all by your kindness and that you are now a woman makes no more difference to them than it does to us.” Elle continued in a much softer tone, “And if you’d like to take the final step, motherhood, we’ll support you all the way.”

Elin went bright red, way beyond mere blushing and finally managed to whisper, “I’d love that. That was what finally made me realise I was truly trans, but I don’t think they allow folk like me to adopt and―”

Erin was loudly interrupted by Sam Graham who said, “Not true, Elin. You already know that Harriet over there and I are both trans. I was married before I adopted Janine and Michaela, but Harriet wasn’t when she adopted Brigitte and Peter. We decided we wished to adopt children who’d had a hard time and been rejected for trans issues. Harriet’s kids came from the far end of Cornwall though mine originated much closer to home in Ulverston. We can put you in touch with the NCSG,(34) which is an agency that serves as an umbrella organisation that covers every adoption agency in Great Britain as well as all the Social Services departments. They cover Eire and the Isle of Man as well as the UK. The most problematic and difficult to place children end up on their books, and that includes most of the abused and rejected trans children in Great Britain. They are very good at their job, and always manage to place the children on their books appropriately, and usually almost immediately they become aware of them. They don’t care what you are as long as they are convinced you will offer children who have probably been seriously scarred, often physically as well as psychologically, a loving and permanent home.

“There are a number of couples here where neither of them are trans who have registered with them and wish to adopt trans children. Bearthwaite folk don’t accept the concept of unwanted kids, and the NCSG are very familiar with the culture here, even if they don’t really understand how it works. Just by being accepted by us and living here you already will be regarded favourably by them. I’m not saying it’ll be a shoe in,(35) it won’t be. They do deeper and more significant background checks on every applicant than every other agency does simply because they don’t care what you are as long as they believe you will be good parents. What that means in practice is it takes a little longer to get on their list as prospective parents. Too, it’ll take longer to get Sun cleared than you because he grew up outside the UK. You’ve already met most of us, and we will be there for you whenever you and your old man are ready. There’s no pressure, if it doesn’t happen it doesn’t happen, and none will think any the worse of you for it. It’s not an easy decision to take, but every single person who lives here women, men and girls and boys too will be behind you. This is the one place that can guarantee you will never be on your own. However, the place, the date and the frock, especially the frock, need to be discussed.”

Elin took a while to reply but eventually said, “I’ve discussed it with Elle who said she wouldn’t say anything till I did. Sun suggested we go to the Carlisle registry office to sort out the legal paperwork sometime in the next fortnight. Elle suggested that we leave the wedding in the church here till the weather improves, so every one could enjoy the party and the dancing outside, which even Sun thought was a good idea, though he’s not one for much socialising. I’m amazed the men managed to coerce him into going out for a drink with them tonight. I’m certain he’d have needed to be subject to considerable pressure to make him agree.”

“Not really,” said Gladys. “They brought out the biggest gun they had to bear: Elle’s old man, Sasha.” At that there was considerable laughter, for all knew once Sasha had made his mind up there was no resisting him. Elle, however was aware that Sasha had been concerned for a while that if Sun did not integrate with the village more he would soon become seen as a necessary outsider in their midst. Their doctor, but not really one of themselves. He’d have used this opportunity as a lever and he’d use that lever as often as he could till it was no longer required. Sasha liked and respected Sun, as did all the senior Bearthwaite men, and appreciated why he’d become the way he was, but he needed to be shewn that it was no longer necessary. Sasha was also aware that now he had a wife he needed to understand that for women the company of other women was critical to their well being. Some believed that was not the case for men, but Sasha also knew that was not true, and he’d no desire to see Sun or Elin hurt at Bearthwaite by events in their past that others, outsiders of the worst kind, had inflicted upon them. However, like Sasha she was now convinced all would be well.

Harriet added, “So many folk turned up for my wedding that when I arrived at the church I had to have those inside it dragged out, so we could have the ceremony where every one could see and hear what was going on. We reckoned about four thousand folk were there. It was fun though, but you’ve said nowt about the wedding gown yet, Elin. I suggest you talk to Freya and Louise. Both are really good dress makers, and between them they’ve made dozens of wedding dresses for brides here and hundreds for outsiders for serious money. You probably don’t know, but it’s got to be white. All Bearthwaite brides marry in white. Even the ones who gave birth in the church married in white!”

Elin didn’t know what to say to that, and decided to say nothing. Eventually the silence made her finally admit, “I’d like to marry in white. Would a skirt suit be acceptable?” At that there were exclamations of surprise at the novelty of it, but it was fully approved of, and the arguments as to the details commenced in earnest. Within minutes Elin had put all her fears behind her concerning being accepted by the women, the other women as she then realised. When Gladys asked if she’d like another drink, she smiled and nodded in agreement no longer afraid of what others would say if she became a little silly. “I like this, Gladys, so there’s no need to order any Babycham, but thank you for the offer. Just a single brandy this time please.”

~Sasha on Pronouns~

“How’s the writing going, Sasha? You haven’t said much about it for a while.”

“Funny you should ask, Denis. I’ve been doing a bit of pondering about and researching into how folk are addressed as regards titles, honorifics and pronouns. Most of you are aware that I regard most of the plethora of so called preferred pronouns that are bandied about these days to be complete bullshit that I simply won’t engage with. In my view folk are entitled to call themselves whatever they like, but they are not entitled to demand that I belittle myself by using bastardised, substandard, degraded English. I worked far too hard to learn quality English to throw it away just because some ugly, fat, purple haired virago covered in tattoos with a violent temper, a negative IQ and more metal piecing her face than could be found in a scrap yard demands I address her as zway or something else equally bloody stupid and meaningless. You know immediately that some one needs put down(36) when as soon as they have introduced themselves they tell you what their preferred pronouns are. You know how it goes, ‘How do you do. I’m Arsehole, and my preferred pronouns are shit and shat.’ Tossers need rendering for bio diesel.” The laughter took a while to fade enough to allow Sasha to continue. “However, I recently came across for the first time the Mx honorific or title whose history seems to date back to nineteen sixty-five. It’s pronounced mix or mux. The latter sounds derogatory to me, but I can go with mix. It’s a non gendered version of Mr, Mrs, Ms and even Miss. Mx makes far more sense than anything else I’ve ever come across in this context.”

“You reckon Sasha is reaching the end of a very bad day, Dave?”

“Nah. He’s probably had a tax demand, so he’s running a bit short on chemic, Pete. Push that bottle close enough to him so he can top his glass up whenever he needs to and he’ll be fine.”

Sasha grinned at the pair but continued, “Slightly differently, other than you which in standard usage has become both singular and plural, although like everyone did once the shepherds and wallers still use the older thee forms as singulars and you as a plural only, the use of a plural is grammatically unacceptable in the place of a singular pronoun. Such usage is a solecism in the true sense of the word. I’ve always considered English needs non gendered third person singular pronouns when referring to an individual of unknown sex. It has become the practice, unacceptable to users of quality English, to use them when they don’t know whether to use him or her. Since it is neither really suitable nor acceptable for a human being perhaps hem would work. His, hers and its present similar problems and theirs is not good, another solecism, so maybe hets or perhaps hems would be better. He, she and it again are problematic and they is yet another solecism, so maybe xhe? or xe? I’m really open to suggestions on that last one.

“An interesting modern usage that is not entirely without merit is the use of singular you and plural yous. The usage is mostly to be found amongst ill educated inner city estate [US hood] dwellers. That they feel the need to distinguish the singular and plural forms of you is fascinating, at least to me it is. As far as I am aware they have not as yet, however, created similarly distinguishable versions of your and yours though I have heard of youse being used in some contexts. Also interesting to me are the Dutch pronoun usages which are more complex than in English. They have stressed and unstressed versions and formal and informal versions too, and they also have equivalents of the thee forms that are only of significant usage in their bible and in Flemish. Without going into any depth U is formal you singular, jij is informal you singular and gij is, to a first approximation, equivalent to thee. However, U is also formal you plural, but jullie is informal you plural which is nearly always the form used these days in the Netherlands. The possessive forms are often different again, but the point I’m making is that most of the time you is different in the singular and the plural forms.

“Why do you care, Sasha?” asked a puzzled Alf.

“I don’t give interviews, so what I say doesn’t matter because other than the DVDs of our meetings here there’s no record of it. However, I do write rather a lot of fiction some of which which gets printed and even more gets posted online on various sites. Once either is done there is a permanent record out there of what I have written that is completely outside my control, so I do my damnedest to write work of as high a standard as I can, and I just can’t make myself refer to an individual of unknown sex as them. As things stand it has to be him or her. Whenever appropriate I use the English language default which is him. Occasionally her is most likely to be the case and so is the appropriate default, but often neither is appropriate. Like I said it is not acceptable, but no appropriate non gendered words exist. As a result I end up doing a lot of rewriting to work around the problem. It’s strange since modern English is essentially a non gendered language, and it would be good if appropriate words existed. That’s all.

~Dave on Language~

Dave announced, “Talking about languages, here’s a short one I found on my mobile phone the other day that should give you a laugh. The headline was, Cops beat Chinese man after asking for his name. ‘I’ve now lost all faith in our police,’ said Fuk Yu, who came to Britain twenty years ago from the city of Wanking.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake, Dave. Only you could come up with that. Surely to god that can’t he true can it?”

“No idea, Frank. Does it matter? I’ve looked it up and Fuk Yu is usually a girl’s name that means fragrant jade that is usually pronounced fook yoo in Cantonese and foo yoo in Mandarin. I printed off what it looks like written in Chinese characters, here.” At that Dave passed over a piece of paper with 馥瑜 written on it. “The concept of the Chinese language as such is a nonsense because there are dozens of languages and even more dialects of those languages spoken in China. It’s a huge place with a billion and a half folk. Cantonese as spoken in Hong Kong is nothing like Mandarin as spoken in most of China. Neither is understood by a speaker of the other though the written languages are more or less the same to the point where they are mutually understood. Depending on whom you talk to and where about in China you are each word or perhaps I should say glyph can have three, four, five, six or even seven related sounds that mean different things. To a Chinese speaker from anywhere fuck you and Fuk Yu sound nothing alike and most are surprised that English speakers associate the two.

“Regarding Wanking, I added that for humour and interest. It is, or at least it was, a city that I recall seeing on a map in that atlas book we had for geography when we were at school. We’d all seen it. It was really funny when we were eleven or twelve. It doesn’t seem to exist now, but I suspected the spot was renamed some time back for obvious reasons as over the last half a century China’s interaction with the rest of the world intensified, so I asked Sun about it and he said he vaguely remembered it and thought it was in north east China somewhere, but he wasn’t sure because the name had ceased to be used before he was even born. Even if it’s not true it’s just a creation that is part of the new truth. What do you reckon, Sasha?”

Sasha smiled and replied, “We’re here for entertainment and that’s enough said isn’t it? Sit you down, Sun. Pete, fetch the lad a glass of brown. What do you reckon to Dave’s Tale, Sun?”

~Sun in the Taproom~

Sun had not long entered the Taproom and few had noticed his presence.

“Dave was correct in what he said, and he shewed me the joke on his phone when seeking understanding. I speak Cantonese and don’t understand much Mandarin, though one of my sisters who works for a mainland company speaks both. I can read newspapers printed on the mainland as well as the Hong Kong papers. Pin Yin which is the most common romanisation system for standard Chinese is not as useful to ordinary persons as the powers that be would like them to think it is. It is also known as the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet.” Seeing puzzled looks he explained, “It’s a way of turning Chinese writing into the alphabet that you use. It’s used to teach westerners Mandarin. Mostly what Dave said about different but related sounds is true, but as far as I’m aware in the main there are three sometimes four. Certainly what he said about fuck you and 馥瑜 being nothing alike when spoken is true. I’ll repeat that for you. Fuck you, and now 馥瑜.” Sun had given 馥瑜 its usual Cantonese pronunciation, and it was agreed that it was no surprise that Chinese speakers failed to perceive any connection between the two. “As for the city of Wanking, it would have been properly pronounced Wan King in English and 旺 in any Chinese language which are in no way similar. Wang is a Chinese word, and one of its meanings is king, so I suspect wang king was a mistake, a doubling of the word into what would more properly be translated as King king that made an appearance on English maps, made years ago in the early days when Europeans first went to China, that was corrected many years later, but I’m only guessing.” The way he’d pronounced it in his native Cantonese indeed sounded nothing like the way it had sounded in English.

~Sun becomes a Grumpy Old Man~

“Congratulation on the wedding finally being decided on. You planning on having it here with Murray doing his parson’s bit in the church?”

Sun was taken aback by the casual and friendly acceptance of his marriage. He’d initially been devastated at the thought that his relationship with Eli was over when Eli became Elin, but had been relieved that Elin still loved him and he felt the same about her as he’d felt about Eli. Sun knew the word was now out that Elin was trans not gay, and in turn that meant he would now be perceived as straight not gay which took some getting used to. He also knew that the entire population of Bearthwaite would be aware of it with in forty-eight hours at most, but after their unpleasant experiences in London purely because they were different it was hard for him to accept acceptance readily. “Yes. We’ll probably go to the registry office in Carlisle next week to sort the official paperwork out, but leave the wedding till the weather improves. Elle told Elin that the entire village would appreciate that because then the party would be better with dancing outside on the green. Thank you.” Sun said the last as he was given a pint of Bearthwaite Brown and a glass of strange looking liquid too. No matter how others perceived him, gay or straight, it had been a puzzle to him as to whether he was still gay or not. Elin had expressed a desire to ultimately have GRS, and he knew none anywhere, not just at Bearthwaite, would consider him to be gay if he were married to a woman, even if she be a trans woman which it was unlikely any outsider would ever be aware of. In the end after a lot of soul searching he came to the conclusion that labels had little objective reality, for the reality was he loved Elin and was loved by her. That their relationship made them both happy was reality, their reality, and the rest was just so much hot air.

“It’s okay, Sun, it won’t hurt you. Gustav has it made just down the lonning. Once the tales are over I’ll partner you when the dominoes come out if you like.”

Sun had been in the taproom on Saturday evenings before, though not often, and knew he was not a good player of dominoes. Stan was a seriously competitive player, and Sun knew he was offering friendship, for by partnering himself there was no way Stan stood any chance of winning. He was an intelligent man and decided that he should become a regular attender at the Saturday evening sessions, become better at the game and consider telling a tale or two. Perhaps tales of Hong Kong and Singapore would be unfamiliar and of interest to the men.

“Thank you. I’d appreciate that, Stan.”

~The Model Railway Society~

“Right, Jeremy, since we no longer have male access to Eli as a result of her becoming Elin, you are our only top level source of information concerning the Model Railway Society.” Gee was typically blunt, but obviously interested in the activity that was keeping so many Bearthwaite children happily occupied during the inclement weather when previously at such times it had been difficult, onerous and tiring to keep the children safe. He was interested and involved in the activity, but was a busy farmer and father of two girls who did not have as much leisure time as he’d have liked to keep up with the Society’s activities. Sam, his wife, encouraged him to be involved, but to Gee his family came before anything else. Despite his outsider origins he was truly a Bearthwaite man.”

Jeremy took some time to gather and organise his thoughts, which gave others time in which to visit the gents, wash and refill glasses, let the dogs out, sort out the various noxious mixtures they drank and regarded as essential to a good Saturday evening, let the dogs back in and settle down for a good tale. “The first area that most of the children worked on was the Silloth station, the convalescent home and its siding, the docks and the World War Two airfields and hangers. That has been time consuming, but not particularly difficult as there are a huge number of photographs, maps and written records to use as reference materials. Only slightly more problematic was the Solway Junction Rail Viaduct across to Scotland, but eventually enough reference materials were discovered enabling what we consider to be an excellent HO scale reproduction to be envisaged. The children are still working on it with the aid of Elin. There are no commercially available model locos or rolling stock of the type that used the Viaduct, so some of our members are scratch building them from the photographs and technical details that we have managed to obtain copies of. Elin is working on the creation of detailed three dee printed models too, but writing the programming software is time consuming. However, once written it will take neither time nor effort to produce as many models as desired, and possibly some could be selt.

“Some of the children are working on modelling Skiddaw which is on the English side of the Solway and Criffel which is on the Scottish side. Skiddaw at nine hundred and thirty-one metres [3054 feet] high is the sixth highest peak in England whilst Criffel which is five hundred and seventy metres [1870 feet] high is in height terms of no particular significance. However, both are isolated peaks and offer commanding presences in the Solway environment which makes them of significance to the modellers, for naturally the estuary and its floodplain are virtually flat. Skiddaw in HO scale is just over thirty-five feet higher than the water in the Solway and Criffel is about twenty-one and a half feet higher which will make for an extremely impressive model. The mill ceilings are about twenty-five feet above the floors, but for reasons none seems to be aware of the ceiling and floor over where the models are being built was never installed. Instead at the same level in the building as where the ceiling and floor should have been is an eight feet wide balustraded walk way all around the perimeter of the building that has what appears to be book shelving wherever there are no windows. It provides perfect viewing both outside of the entire Bearthwaite valley and inside of the entire layout, so the children decided they wished to make both Criffel and Skiddaw to full HO scale. Such high models will require considerable internal support to be safe and some of the building trades men are working on ideas. Brick, steel and timber were all discussed but I suspect they will be using a solid insulation foam. A clever and intricate scaffolding set up will be required to paint and detail both peaks, but there are folk working on that.

“There is yet a huge area to be used, but as yet none have provided us with any ideas as to what to use it for. I’m sure ideas will come.”

“The next part of our layout under consideration was that envisaged by Gustav’s son Peter. He was keen to utilise the type of animated scenes that Patrick McFarlan the creator of Ranoak had done, but he had no intention of copying his work. He was especially interested in the bridges over the Manchester Ship Canal, the swing bridges, the high level bridge at Warrington, the Salford Quays Millennium Footbridge, but most of all the parallel canal and road swing bridges at Barton. There has been little visible progress of his vision on the layout, but he has made huge strides forward concerning the electronics and the mechanisms that will be required to turn his vision into working models. He is truly a prodigy, and I suspect he will turn this into a high paying career one day. I’ll give you an idea of the complexity of his thoughts. He is working on model ships sailing up and down the ship canal, and model barges and boats going in both directions on the over head Bridgewater canal swing bridge along side model motor vehicles of all descriptions, as well as cyclists and pedestrians, travelling in both directions on the parallel B5211 swing bridge all being computer integrated automatically. I’ll be honest, I don’t understand how it will work, but Pat who is doing the electronics assures me it will.

“The most challenging part of the railway layout is the futuristic spectacular stuff, the Heinlein stuff, of which the Japanese shinkansen bullet trains are without doubt the easiest component. We have made a commitment to not just HO scale physically, but to HO scale as regards speed too, which means that to model something moving at say mach one, the speed of sound, it has to move on the layout at about four metres a second which is about thirteen feet a second. Some of what we are trying to model moves four or five times faster than that. Some of the slower models we have already made a reality, but others leave us with a long way to go. We are nearly there as regards the levmatic trucks, but as yet we are a long way from realising the hypersonic ring trains. We are getting there, and at our current rate of progress shall be there within five years. The science and engineering that we shall have to uncover on our way there will I don’t doubt make us, and by us I mean Bearthwaite folk, prodigiously wealthy, which shall be a serious slap in the face for the US powers that be who constantly belittled Heinlein as no more than an idiot who was a fantasist like Walt Disney, but unlike Walt a fantasist without any economic clout.

“I consider Heinlein to be a man who didn’t recognise there was a box to be thought out of, a genius who has provided millions with thoughts to extrapolate, and I shall be more than happy to tell the US powers that be, and all others too, to use Sasha’s wonderful expression, to go and shit in their hats when they come cap in hand to beg us to disclose the results of our research. Our children are maybe not unique, but they are certainly very rare in that we do not try to force their minds into so called acceptable modes of thought at any age. As a result all our children’s thoughts are available to us, and some of those thoughts are startlingly original and creative. Every now and again one or two have genius level creativity. Out there they force their children's thinking into acceptable moulds, and thus deny themselves anything that can propel their society forwards in huge leaps rather than at a snail’s pace. Without doubt their societies shall collapse under the weight of their stupidity whilst ours shall thrive as a result of our care for each other.”

“That wasn’t bad for a welder farmer, was it, Lads?” The laughter at that took some while to dissipate, but all appreciated that Sasha was telling them that Gee like themselves, though no academic, was not without vision.

~Weight training~

Tommy asked about what a number of the men had been interested in, “So, Seb, what’s the score concerning all that new weight training equipment Felicity ordered for the gym? And when will it be delivered?”

“We, and by that I mean all the school sport staff and George who was involved in fitness training when he was in the army, had decided months ago that we could make good use of some professional standard fitness training equipment. The stuff costs a fortune, but when we spoke to Murray about it he shrugged his shoulders at the cost and asked how much use we reckoned we’d get out of it outside school hours. We’d no idea, so we surveyed the kids and asked around the adults. You probably received the questionnaire.” At that there were a considerable number of nodding heads and murmurs of agreement. As professionals with amongst us many years of experience we knew that you can’t just turn folk loose on that kind of kit. They can do serious damage to themselves. So we had a word with Sun about it. Sun, seeing as you’re here the night, you want to take it from there for a bit?”

Sun nodded and happy to be talking about medical matters said, “We realised it wasn’t practical to have the gymnasium locked at all times other than when in use for lessons or for evening and weekend fitness sessions. The situation regarding keys would have been a nightmare, and sooner or later someone would forget to lock up and youngsters would have a go unsupervised. They wouldn’t be able to resist it, and it’s no use getting hot under the collar about it, it’s just part of being a child, it’s what they do, and sooner or later we all forget to do something important. It’s up to us to plan so that such events can’t happen. Eventually we decided it was practical to have the fitness equipment fitted with locks or chains such that though the gym was open the equipment couldn’t be used. If the keys were kept in a locked key safe in the school office the situation would be manageable. Felicity spoke to the equipment suppliers and was fobbed off. The manufacturers were a little more helpful, but could not help with every piece of equipment. However, Bertie said one of his teams could sort out what the manufacturers couldn’t. We had Murray ring them, and he managed a substantial discount in return for Bertie’s working safety drawings. I’m happy about things now from the safety point of view. Seb?”

“To answer one of your easy questions, Tommy, it’s already been delivered, but a fair bit is down at Alf’s workshops with Bertie’s lads fitting the safety locks. We reckon to have it all up and running in a fortnight. We’ve worked out a time table, so we can have the equipment in use three evenings a week and weekend days, but not weekend evenings. At the moment we’ve the school sport, gym and athletic staff available, that’s Felicity, Myself, Sophia, Ralph and Maybel, and George will be helping out whenever he can. We’ve a dozen or more adults and older teens wanting to learn and eventually become certified as fitness trainers. Certification can be done in any major city, we’ll either use Glasgow or Newcastle because we know folk in both places.

“Give it six months, and we’ll have the equipment and trained staff available for seven evenings a week, all day over Saturday and Sunday and during the school holidays seven days and evenings a week, which should provide a lot of our teens with something constructive to do. Sophia and Maybel will be starting gentler keep fit classes primarily for women, but not exclusively so. They are also working with the nurses to provide something for the pregnant. Maybel says they will be entirely appropriate for the elderly and Sun approves. They’re starting next week.” Sun nodded in agreement with that. “Felicity wants a full size swimming pool down on the old allotments site. She’s been talking to Tony Dearden concerning excavation costs and Murray has folk researching construction costs. It’ll probably be damned expensive, so we may have to pull our horns in(37) a bit and do it incrementally over two or three years. It would make sense to employ another sport teacher who specialised in swimming and water games, but we have plenty of time before that becomes necessary, unless of course we run into such a person by accident. It would be stupid not to take advantage of such a piece of good fortune.”

~Computers Are Electronic Sheep~

Tony Dearden who was the local machine driver and did most of the excavation and the like required in the valley said, “I read in one of the contractor trade journals the other day about a development that I don’t know whether to be worried about or not. Most heavy plant these days isn’t bought it’s operated on some sort of a lease buy back arrangement which is just fancy talk for hired on hire purchase with an option to upgrade to a newer machine in two or three years. I’ve read that a lot of the combine harvesters that work their way up the States and Canada as the season advances are replaced after just one season. I don’t really understand how it works because I own my machine and Bertie’s lads keep it working. Anyway back to the tale. These days the manufacturers, or maybe it’s the dealers can remotely cripple the machine from anywhere in the world. It can be done using a mobile phone. One touch and whatever it is just won’t run. The operator rings the supplier up in desperation about it to be telt, ‘You’ve not made this month’s payment. Make the payment and you’re back in business.’ I suppose it beats the hell out of getting a court order to repossess the tackle which may well be only worth a fraction of it’s new cost by then and then actually going about the repossession possibly hundreds or even thousands of miles away from what could be an extremely hostile group of folks. You come across this before, Alf?”

Alf shook his head but said, “No, but it’s no surprise is it? That’s why I’m buying up older equipment, waggons, cars and the like. There’re no computer chips in them and we can maintain them indefinitely. The moment you have stuff with chips in them you give up a degree of control. It’s far better to own in total cheaper kit that you have total control of and more importantly a total understanding of how it works.”

Oliver who was a long established drinker at the Dragon and lived outside the valley said, “It’s not new technology. I knew a bloke from down country ten maybe twelve years ago who manufactured sophisticated and expensive printing machines that selt all over the world, and every one of them was fitted with such a mechanism. If folk didn’t pay the printer didn’t function. A lot of his stuff went to ex Soviet Union places where an attempt to repossess something would have been suicide. His stuff was build so that attempting to disable his shut down mechanisms trashed it beyond repair. Most modern waggons, agricultural plant and even top end cars are fitted with the same sort of mechanisms. In fact just about anything that’s expensive is. You could be driving a big waggon down the motorway and pull in at a services for a pee and a coffee and the waggon is dead when you get back to it. They have trackers fitted so they know when the vehicle is moving, so it’s only immobilised when it safe to do so. I can see it from the point of view of the outfit that’s losing money, but it does seem a bit big brotherish, and doubtless it won’t be long before they’ll be fitting ’em to domestic appliances like food mixers and toasters.”

Alf had a sour look on his face as he said, “There’re no computers nor connection to bugger all except the ignition key on owt that comes out of my workshop. I’ve said it before and doubtless I’ll say it again, computers are nowt but trouble. They’re just some thing to go wrong. They’re like electronic sheep. What is it you say about sheep, Joey?”

The venerable retired shepherd said in barely explicable tones, “Sheep are critters just looking for a place and an excuse to die.” He laughed and added, “Eighty-odd years I spent with sheep up on the fjäll(38) tops. My granddad telt me that when I was a boy and in all those eighty-odd years I never saw owt that gave me reason to doubt the old bugger.”

“There you have it,” said Alf as he had the final word using a phrase all who knew him were familiar with, “Bring back Bob Cratchit (39) I say.”

“If that’s it. Lads, I’ll wipe the tables down ready for the dominoes, if some one will deal with the glasses and the chemic.” As he was speaking Pete was already reaching for a damp clout.

~After Closing Time~

The locals had gone home and the visitors had retired to their rooms. As usual Sasha, Elle, Pete, Gladys, Gustav and Harriet were relaxing with a pot of tea in the best side discussing the events of the week and anything significant that the evening had brought to their attention, “The only new project that I’m aware of that needs some serious thought is Felicity’s desire for a full size Olympic swimming pool at the old allotments site. Tony is going to do the excavation and the farmers are going to take excavated material away as he digs it out to level out some of their rougher fields and the hollow swampy ground down at the new allotments site. Saul’s demolition crews are going to use explosives on any large rocks to reduce them down in size so the crusher can reduce them to gravel to be teken to the allotments site. Murray says that the financial implications are nowhere near as serious as Felicity had feared may have been the case and there is no reason why the pool shouldn’t be open for use next summer. The school will then have sport facilities as good as anywhere. We have all the teaching staff we need, and we still have the emergency teaching provision that we utilised over the Covid lock down, though Murray says he is now going to be looking around for a retired top lever swimmer to teach all to do with swimming and water games like water polo. I take it you ladies have heard about Diane and Hamilton?”

Gladys replied, “Indeed, Sasha. A specialist physics teacher and a vet. That must have made Murray’s day. Changing the subject we were all glad to see that Elin’s problems had finally been resolved. It seems that Sam’s daughter Janine was the person who facilitated that. The children as one would expect gave her no problems down at the mill when she appeared for a photography session with them wearing a frock, not least because they all thought Eli was wonderful, so Elin was regarded no differently. She’ll do well here and is looking forward to a wedding next summer when the weather is fine. Jenny and Yvonne are sorting their lives out and settling in well. Both have found a man and are happy to have done so. Jenny was obviously going to find a man soon. However, I don’t think things had been too good for Yvonne before with regards to romance, but Eamonn is a calm, quiet man who is perfect to make both of them happy. Jenny and Finley have made their six children into a family, and all seems to be going well there. There are a number of new relationships in the making amongst younger folk, and the only one of any concern is that of Leo and Noah. Leo will be spending time out there studying at university and that is as always problematic, but time will tell, and whatever happens there are enough folk around to support them both.”

Elle said, “Unless there is anything else that needs to be said, it’s been a long, exciting and tiring day, and I’m ready for bed. No…? Well goodnight. Sasha my love, home.”

Gustav as usual locked all the doors and checked the windows whilst Harriet went upstairs to check on the twins.

Gladys was holding hands with Pete about to go upstairs to bed. Her foot had just touched the bottom stair when she said, “Time to ring for Susanna, Love. Clodagh is about to make her appearance.” There was to be no peace for any that night in the Green Dragon.

Susanna the midwife arrived twenty minutes later with Elle, Karen, Vera and Margaret arriving over the next half hour. The women all nurses, albeit three of them retired, took over and Susanna telt Pete, “Pete, we’ll let you know when your presence is required. Sasha is down stairs with what he described as a select party of drinkers with the required chemic to help you through your ordeal. Men! You put us in the straw(40) and then fall apart as a result of your handiwork. Go, but don’t you dare drink too much. Gladys will need her man to aid her to fully enable your daughter to make her entrance to Bearthwaite.” Harriet was chuckling as her Dad looking like a coney in front of a stoat did what he was telt.

Susanna asked, “Where does your mum keep her nursing bra’s, Harriet? Or did she get rid of them after weaning Gloria? We may as well be ready, so if any are available it’s best you have them ready.”

“Mum’s bras?” asked Harriet. “Fourth drawer down in the chest to the left of her dressing table aren’t they, Mum?”

“Get the pink one please, Love. I’m thirsty would someone make me a cup of tea please?” Gladys asked.

“Shall I make us all one, Ladies?” Harriet asked.

“A good idea, Love, any biscuits?” asked Elle.

“I’ll deal with it,” Harriet replied

The night passed slowly and when Aggie arrived at just before five Susanna telt her that Gladys still had a few hours to go. Things started to happen rapidly at ten past ten when Pete was telt his presence was required. It was twenty-five to eleven when Clodagh arrived. A six pound twelve ounce [3.068 Kg] baby with possibly bright read hair and definitely powerful lungs. Gladys was tired, but as she said, “I’m nowhere near as tired as last time.” Susanna and the nurses left shortly afterwards leaving Gladys and Clodagh to the care of Harriet and Aggie.

Brigitte was a little put out that she’d not been awakened, but Aggie calmed her by saying, “It’s nothing to do with your age, Love. Your gran has a history of losing babies and had you’d witnessed that it would have badly upset you for a long time. Susanna and the nurses, particularly Elle, were not prepared to risk that and I agree with them. They made the decision using their profession judgement. You shouldn’t criticise them for that, it’s what they have been trained to do. If you must be upset with anyone, far better you be upset with me.”

“Gran has had babies who died‽” Aggie nodded solemnly. “Babies plural‽” Again Aggie nodded. “How many?”

“It’s not my place to tell you. I suggest you ask your Gran. If she wishes you to know she’ll tell you. If she doesn’t she won’t.”

“You were there for all of them, Auntie Aggie?” Brigitte was crying silent tears as she asked.

“I was. It’s the tragic side of womanhood, motherhood, but it is a part of motherhood and we all have to accept it. However, Gloria and Clodagh are the joyous part of of your gran’s womanhood, an equal part of motherhood that takes no effort to accept. Being a mum is a mixed blessing, Pet. Fortunately the joy far outweighs the tragedy. I know you have been telt about Delia. For your gran Delia was a tragedy, as bad a tragedy as a daughter who died. To your mum Delia died years before she did. She was depressed badly by the way Delia turned out for years. I’m sure you must know that that was none of you gran’s nor your granddad’s doing, for they are just not like that. The only thing that cured your gran’s depression was adopting your mum. You know your mum had a tragic life as a child, as did you and your brother. Now you have brought joy into each others’ lives. You are not a woman yet, but you will be sooner than you realise, and sooner or later you will have to accept being a woman, the tragedy and the joy, for you can’t have one without the other. Now, Pet, dry your tears and go to see your gran and your Auntie Clodagh, though it’s probably best to call her Cousin Clodagh. I’ll send your brother to see them too.”

32434 words

~o~O~o~
1 The process of converting vegetable oil into bio diesel is called transesterification. Chemically, transesterification involves taking a triglyceride molecule or a complex fatty acid, neutralizing the free fatty acids, removing the glycerol and creating an alcohol ester. The process typically uses potassium or sodium methoxide which due to its instability has to be made at the time. The methoxide is made by reacting sodium or potassium hydroxide, which are corrosive and will damage skin, with methanol a toxic liquid with toxic fumes that is readily absorbed by skin. The methoxide is a dangerous substance that needs to be handled with caution. More sophisticated processes use a two step reaction involving acid before the hydroxide. The glycerol by product from the reaction has numerous commercial applications, but the crude material from the process has to be purified to be of much value.
2 Sisal Agave sisalane is a plant from which a stiff fibre used in making rope, twine and string and various other products can be obtained.
3 Gas axe, common term used for an oxy acetylene cutting torch.
4 Ofsted, the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills is a non-ministerial department of His Majesty's government, reporting to Parliament.
5 Crowner, archaic usage of the modern word coroner.
6 A cat, the reference is to the cat o' nine tails, commonly shortened to the cat. It is a type of multi tailed whip or flail. It was used as an implement for physical punishment, notably in the Royal Navy and the British Army, and as a judicial punishment in Britain and some other countries. The cat is made up of nine knotted thongs of cotton cord about 75 cm or 2½ feet long designed to lacerate the skin and cause intense pain. The punishment of birching and cat o' nine tails continued to be used in Northern Ireland into the 1940s. The Isle of Man [not in the UK] caused a good deal of controversy by continuing to birch young offenders until 1976. The birch was also used on offending teenage boys until the mid 1960s on the Channel Islands of Guernsey and Jersey [neither are in the UK].
7 Women that were no better than they should be, an old and scarcely veiled reference to prostitutes.
8 Cline feelers, Klinefelter's syndrome is being referred to. A genetic condition where an extra X chromosome is present. Such XXY type individuals may present as males or females though the former is more common.
9 LEA, Local Education Authority.
10 A beast, used thus refers to an ox or a cow.
11 The Cornish accent is broad and can be difficult for others to follow due to the number of dialectal forms used. Cornwall also has it’s own language, Kernowek, a Celtic language with similarities to Breton which is having a resurgence. The Cornish pasty, or tiddy oggy as it’s referred to in those parts, is a local dish whose name is protected and pasties made elsewhere may not be called Cornish. There are numerous explanations of the origins of tiddy oggy, but tiddy is naval slang for proper and an oggy is reputed to be a potato pasty. Nowadays a tiddy oggy is taken in Cornwall and its neighbour Devon to be a proper pasty, i.e. a Cornish pasty.
12 Poly bags, in this context the reference is to vertical thin polythene tubes two feet in diameter used for the culture of such organisms.
13 LED, Light Emitting Diode.
14 HMRC, His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the tax man.
15 OU, the Open University. A distance learning environment.
16 PGCE, Post Graduate Certificate of Education, one of the UK qualifications that licences one to teach in the UK.
17 A’ level, Advanced level. The qualifications that follow on from official school leaving age in the UK. Usually taken in three or four subjects and examined at the age of eighteen.
18 GCSE, General Certificate of Secondary Education. Examinations usually taken by 15/16 year olds in the UK.
19 Bottle out, retreat, withdraw. It implies a lack of bottle or courage.
20 AI, Artificial Insemination.
21 DEFRA, The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is a department of His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom responsible for environmental protection, food production and standards, agriculture, fisheries and rural communities in the entire United Kingdom.
22 Octane, normally a measure associated with petrol [US gasoline] here used as a joke referring to alcohol content.
23 Three parts, in this context is an expression that means three-quarters.
24 Chippy, a fish and chip shop, a specific kind of fast food outlet. UK chips are fries in the US and UK crisps are chips in the US.
25 BTU, British Thermal Unit.
26 MOT, Ministry of Transport annual certification of road worthiness, a legal requirement in the UK.
27 Butching, dialectal butchering.
28 Couldn’t give a monkey’s, a shortened, or more polite, version of couldn’t give a monkey’s fuck, British slang to not care about something.
29 Reine des Reinettes translates as King of the Pippins. A pippin is an apple.
30 Bait colloquial usage for a working man’s meal when at work.
31 Hatched, matched and despatched, a well known UK expression equivalent to born, married and died, which is not quite the familiar order of the quality daily newspapers which inform of births deaths and marriages.
32 Mother’s ruin, a centuries old name familiar all over the UK for gin.
33 Perry, like cider but made from pears rather than apples.
34 NCSG, National Child Support Group, the umbrella organisation referred to elsewhere. In reality there is no official such group, though unofficial mechanisms based on the idea exist in the UK.
35 A shoe in, a foregone conclusion.
36 Put down. The term is usually used in connection with elderly pets that are living in pain. It is usually used in connection with veterinary practitioners. Here used in this context it means killed.
37 To pull one’s horn in, to begin to behave in a more circumspect manner, especially to spend or invest money more carefully.
38 Fjell, dialectal fell or mountain.
39 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.
40 In the straw, a blunt expression used mostly by women for being in labour since animals giving birth tended to lie down in the straw.