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.
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.
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 it 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 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.
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 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. You 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.
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 tourists 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.”
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.”
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 s 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.”
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.
“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.
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.
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.”
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 a 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.
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.
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.’ ”
“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.”
“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, 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(33) here and we rarely suffer from blight, which is why we won’t buy in seed tubers, so King Edward’s(34) 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(35) that made the eggs(36) 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.(37) 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(38) 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.
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 years. 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(39) 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.
“What was white van man(40) 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(41) 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.”
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(42) 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 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.(43) 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.”
“Point of information, Lads,” Vincent announced brightly to dispel the gloom that was almost palpable. “Murray’s missus Madeline 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(44) 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 Madeline’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 Madeline 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.
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 far 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,(45) 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 LGBT 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.
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.
Comments
Starman Jones
Probably the first science fiction book I owned, back in the late 60's. Making me feel old again. I haven't re-read it as I remember it was pitched at teenagers, but I do remember even from then that it was a good book, and was the first of about 1000 SF books I have read over the years.
Why the speculation over where you - Eolwaen - lives? Surely you must be a resident of Bearthwaite...? If any houses there come on the market I'd love to know :)
Alison
Where I live?
I’m still trying to establish for myself where Bearthwaite is so that I don’t create any really gaping ‘plot holes’. There are bits of information through out the entire GOMT that help me. Times to Carlisle, Workington, the odd distance to other places too. I suppose I imagine it to be on the edge of the ‘fells’ south of Dalston and east of Bassenthwaite. The rest is pure fun / fantasy / ego? on my part. Writing is fun to me especially the GOMT and Castle the Series. I certainly have enough material for GOMT 42 and have already written most of it, but after that I’m afraid the wells of imagination, memory and new material from the news and other sources are probably going to run dry.
Bearthwaite is probably my vision of exactly the environment where I would like to live, so it is a fantasy - too good to be true, but it makes me happy writing about it.
Thank you for your comment, Alison. You take care now.
Regards,
Eolwaen.
Eolwaen
Bearthwaite
is probably pretty close to Utopia, but I can't find that on the map either! Shame, planning to retire soon and it sounds lovely. Not sure my liver is up to some of the spirits they drink though!
These continue to be lovely stories about how the world _should_ be.
Alison
Glad that it makes you happy....
..to write GOMT, Eolwaen, because it certainly makes me happy to read it, and re-read it too. I'm sorry the source of the well from which the GOMT is drawn is running dry. Another effect of climate change? I love how the Water Company is going to be brought to heel too and I hope to see that further developed and the beck flowing again, especially if it can be used for crop irrigation.
Brit
The well springs of inspiration
Thank you for the comment Brit. I suspect like the Bearthwaite Beck the well springs of inspiration never truly run dry. Your comment provided me with at the very least a sub tale concerning the Beck. I've only just read your comment, but I have already noted the idea I derived from it in the draught version of GOMT 42. I have to write things down, at least in note form, as soon as they occurr to me or alas they are only too soon gone. Sad I know, but I never go anywhere without pencils and a note pad in my handbag.
Again Thank you,
Regards,
Eolwaen
Eolwaen
My pleasure, Eolwaen
I'm pleased that I have been able to give something back and make a small contribution to GOMT 42. Thank you Eolwaen for all the pleasure that you have given me, and others, in your writing, especially the GOMT series.
Brit
Ahhhh....
Another fine installment of GOMT. A nice mix of sub-plots makes for a good read. I especially liked the part regarding the reservoir and machinations to get the whole thing under town control.
In days of auld when men were bold, and sheep were nervous.....