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.”

“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.

“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.

“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.