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.”

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.”

“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.

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.

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.”

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.”

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.

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.”

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.