A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 44 Spring, Broadband, and Natural Justice
Since being a toddler, Violet had heard many conversations concerning war, it was something regularly discussed by Bearthwaite men, a number of who had served in the armed forces, and she had taken it all in, for to her the Bearthwaite view made perfect sense. Much of what she’d heard over and over again could be summarised in short pithy sentences. ‘Wars are caused by idiots who have the principles that ordinary blokes don’t give a toss about, but end up dying for anyway.’ ‘The number of armed conflicts a nation gets involved in is a measure of the incompetence and stupidity of its leaders because in the end all conflicts are settled around the negotiating table. It doesn’t actually require that much intelligence to have the negotiations before the conflict.’ ‘A squaddie(1) I knew a long time ago who’d been in the mob(2) for twenty-odd years once telt me that a battle that doesn’t happen is one won by the lads on both sides.’
A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 44 Spring, Broadband, and Natural Justice
Since being a toddler, Violet had heard many conversations concerning war, it was something regularly discussed by Bearthwaite men, a number of who had served in the armed forces, and she had taken it all in, for to her the Bearthwaite view made perfect sense. Much of what she’d heard over and over again could be summarised in short pithy sentences. ‘Wars are caused by idiots who have the principles that ordinary blokes don’t give a toss about, but end up dying for anyway.’ ‘The number of armed conflicts a nation gets involved in is a measure of the incompetence and stupidity of its leaders because in the end all conflicts are settled around the negotiating table. It doesn’t actually require that much intelligence to have the negotiations before the conflict.’ ‘A squaddie(1) I knew a long time ago who’d been in the mob(2) for twenty-odd years once telt me that a battle that doesn’t happen is one won by the lads on both sides.’
The snow drops had been out in swathes down the sides of The Bearthwaite Lonning, especially on the side opposite the beck, for some time. They were at their peak and a blindingly white sight to gaze at when the sun shone. The daffodils(3) belovèd of Wordsworth,(4) albeit in the slightly gentler clime of farther south in the county that he hailed from, were full, fat budded and about to burst. A few of them would be creamy white which was a genetic sport, a mutation. They were not imported, but were a variant of the wild type, and like the wild yellow type had centres with a varying depth of orange colouration, though they always opened before their yellow sisters. The blackthorn was only just over it’s peak, but the lightly scented, frothy, pale yellow tinged, white blossom that filled the Bearthwaite hedges were still glorious to behold. The still tight furled, green leaf buds of the hawthorn, known locally as Mayblossom, that were eaten as a snack by the children as they walked past skilfully plucking them by the handful whilst avoiding the thorns without breaking stride, held promise of further blinding white blossom and the overwhelming scent that would fill the valley in May. The edible unopened flower buds and young stems were referred to as bread and cheese by the children.
The fruits of blackthorn, hawthorn, mountain ash, also known as rowan, and the hips of the wild rose would later in the year be used by Christine and her staff, along with the wild crab apples, to make jellies that selt for high prices to the tourists. The as yet immature flowers of the croci were attempting, but not yet succeeding, to make a visual impact on the sward they had so recently forced their way through in their search for light and the bees. The honey bees who were now making their presence known on all but the coldest of days. The dark green, foot tall stems of the bells were easy to identify, but from the as yet unswollen buds it was not possible to distinguish which of the three colours of bells that were to be found in the valley one was looking at. The bells were known locally as bluebells, pinkbells and whitebells, though the pink ones were more nearly mauve than a genuine pink. Mauve was not a word that came readily to the lips of most Bearthwaite folk. Some had never heard it used in speech, and many more wondered if it were a genuine word or some kind of an arrogant prank that the tourists from way to the south were trying to pull on those they regarded as uncultured, unlettered rustics.
Though the native hyacinths and many other late spring and early summer flowers had as yet to make an appearance the as yet tight furled fiddle head fern buds announced that without doubt spring had sprung. Birds were pairing, some of the males with elaborate displays that endlessly shrieked, ‘Look at me. Look at me.’ Bright red breasted cock robins were even more feisty, if not outrightly more aggressive, than usual as they defended what they considered to be their territories. For Bearthwaite folk everything was as it should be in their world. It was anticipated, expected even, that the warmer weather and the sun would induce some of their older children to make a start on the next generation on their rambling, hand held walks around the further and more private reaches of the valley, but that too was as it should be, as all too many of the adults remembered with a great deal of fondness.
Ellen, Alf Winstanley’s wife, smiled as she watched Zella her eldest granddaughter setting off for a walk with Ryan who she knew before long was going to father the eldest of her great grandchildren. She smiled at Alf and said, “It’s the sunshine that does it. I remember―” She stopped herself at that, for there was no need to say more, a whole series of conversations had just been exchanged with the man who for so many decades had worked so hard to create the good life that she and their family had enjoyed, and in the process had become a wealthy and sucessful man. Alf as a youngster had been believed to be a brainless failure with no future by his school teachers and virtually all who knew him. Other than his dad, Ellen was the only one who believed he had greatness in him, even his mother had been concerned regarding his future. Ellen’s belief in Alf right from their start had decided her to deliberately become pregnant at sixteen with Sylvia their eldest. She’d had to wait nearly three years for Alf to be old enough to marry her, but it was a decision she’d never for a second regretted, despite their differences, which both admitted were rare occurrences, for Alf whose brains were mostly in his highly skilled hands and eyes had always loved her, had never even looked elsewhere, and she knew he still loved her just as he did all those years ago.
Almost as if he knew she needed confirmation of her beliefs, Alf put his arms around her, held her tight and whispered, “Me too.”
After kissing her ear, he breathed heavily on her neck and into her ear, which as usual tickled her into paroxysms of delicious expectation. Purely as a matter of principle, knowing where this was all leading to she said, “Alfred George Winstanley, will you please act your age.”
Alf replied lecherously, “But I am, Love. Surely you don’t believe it’s only the youngsters that can have some enjoyment out of life when the sun is shining? I worked hard to make that bed of ours and I intend to extract every bit of fun out of it as is possible. I expect to have as much fun out of it today as Zella and Ryan are going to have on the fells, but maybe they’ll go to Alan’s barn which was where it all started for us.”
“You were a beast at fourteen,” Ellen sighed with feigned regret before saying, “and you haven’t changed a bit in five and a half decades thank goodness, so there’s no need to stop, Love. I know you know, but I want to say that I do love you as much as I did all those years ago, Alfred.”
Perhaps it’s best if a line is drawn under this interlude at this point, for indeed spring had sprung.
The Bearthwaite folk were making a significant amount of money from the tourist industry, for there were few places where such a variety of birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians could be so easily seen in such a small area. Much of what the Bearthwaite residents provided the tourists with were goods and services sourced in the valley and as such there was no audit trail on them, which was something that the village accountants, Murray, Chance and Emily, found convenient for maximising their neighbours’ incomes whilst minimising their taxation obligations. The valley had numerous micro environments and ten of the thirteen reptiles and amphibians to be found in the UK could be found there if one were patient. Natterjacks, the hunting toads, could be seen every evening jumping for the moths attracted to the eighteen inch [45cm] high, LED footpath lights around the green that derived their power from the bobbin mill millwheel. Slow worms, that were properly speaking legless lizards, were to be readily found in the compost heaps of the allotmenteers. To see adders [vipers] and grass snakes it was probably best to take a walk up towards the fells over the marshes and brackens where common lizards could also be seen like the snakes basking in the sun often easily seen on the top of a dark rock which absorbed the sunshine and reëmitted it as heat.
Common frogs and common toads were, it had to be said just that, common, and could be seen in a wide variety of damper habitats and in water too. One would be lucky to catcht a sighting of a smooth newt or a palmate newt, and luckier still to obtain a photograph, but they were to be seen if one had the time and the patience. By contrast it was said one only had to walk along any two hundred metre stretch of Bearthwaite Beck to spot at least one great crested newt which though considered environmentally of least concern were protected, and wonderful to see. They had always been present in the valley, but till the beck had filled had rarely been seen by outsiders. Fortunately for Madeline, from the legal perspective, the fish had been introduced to Bearthwaite Beck before the efts, as newts were locally known, had moved in, for all were protected and introducing fish to a water where amphibians dwelt was specifically against the law. It was known that the efts had spawned and plenty of their young had survived the fish, for there were any number to be seen at the beck edges in the reeds where the fish could not take them.
The invertebrate wildlife to be found in the valley was of many varied types and more were being discovered all the time, more or less every time someone took a camera out or took a water sample from a ditch. As Alf was known to have said, “At long last those little biting buggers you can hardly see have come in useful for something. You know the ones I mean, the little buggers that lurk near water and swarm around in misty clouds especially when it’s gloaming. I hate the things. Mind I reckon it’s only the swallows that do like ’em. I read once a single swallow eats thousands of ’em every day. Only question is how do we make life better here for swallows. Then they can tell all their mates what a brilliant place this is to spend the summer.”
Tommy Dowerson was building a huge collection of photographs of unknown things of which he sent copies off regularly to various specialists in universities and institutes all over Europe. Many of the subjects turned out to be different forms of species already known, some of which were interesting to the academics. However, occasionally something unexpected and exciting turned up. Two previously uncatalogued lichens had been discovered on gravestones in the Bearthwaite cemetery and a dozen and a half that had been exceedingly rare, six of which had been believed to be extinct, killed off by the air pollution of the coal fuelled industrial revolution, had been discovered on the stones and nearby trees. Even the life forms in the local ditches had been of interest. When Tommy managed to take high resolution video footage and still photographs of mating(5) earthworms(6) on the village green he’d included some photographs and detailed explanations in his guide book which led to many excited eco tourists haunting the green at night in order to acquire a photograph of their own.
A professor from the University of Glasgow had said, “It’s like opening a window on the past of two centuries ago. An ecology that has been preserved untouched by time, and more to the point by modern pollution and agricultural methods. The fields still have the same hedge lines they had centuries ago. The preserved ancient hedges, which are still periodically laid the old fashioned way, are maintained at two metres [7 feet] wide to provide stock proof boundaries. They still act as wildlife corridors, wind breaks and habitats that in most places went long ago when the hedges were grubbed out to make fields bigger so that larger agricultural equipment could be used. The interesting thing to me is that in the valley they are regarded as another food crop, for there are dozens of things they produce that are harvested, many of which are bottled and sold by the Bearthwaite visitor centre. They also produce blackthorn walking sticks and shepherds’ crooks. That is why they aren’t flail cut. A tightly flailed hedge, like most of the country does it every autumn [US fall] produces nothing, not even shelter for livestock.”
Some powerful outsiders wished to make the entire valley a national park so, they said, as to ensure it stayed pristine and unchanged. The residents resisted the move because they saw through the rhetoric and knew it was an attempt by the authorities to gain control of the valley, the home they had fought so hard and paid so much for. They knew that if the outsiders were successful the residents would still own the valley, yet have no say as to what happened there. That there would be no monetary compensation offered was irrelevant, for there could be no compensation for the loss of their way of life.
At the hearing convened to argue the case. Adalheidis stated, “I’ll try to address the points put forward in the order they were presented. However, to do so there will of necessity be some overlap and an unavoidable degree of repetition for which I apologise in advance. The opposition have taken three days to present their case. I shall be finished today, but I reserve the right to three days too which I intend to use to present our case as I see fit. That should cover any overlap and repetition, so any objection by the opposition will be countered on those grounds as of right now.
“We have successfully looked after the valley for over a thousand years, and it is our property. For nearly half a century every resident of Bearthwaite, man, woman and child, has worked and saved to pay for that property. It has all been transferred into the ownership of Bearthwaite Business Enterprises Limited, bee bee ee ell [BBEL], usually known as Beebell, the Bearthwaite coöperative that is equally owned by every adult resident of the valley. We still have millions in outstanding loans to pay off for that ownership. The lonning in and the land around it is private property as is the entire valley.” At raised eyebrows from the two men and a woman who were presiding over the hearing, all from a long way to the south of Cumbria, Adalheidis said, “My appologies, a lonning is a lane. It is a widely used Cumbrian word. The official name of the nearly nine miles long unmetalled lane into the valley is Bearthwaite Lonning. We refuse admission to any official and shall enforce that if necessary. We pay Council Tax for the police service and shan’t hesitate to use the service we have paid for. In addition I’m an expert concerning the exact legal technicalities of citizens’ arrests and there are more than enough large and tough Bearthwaite men with poor attitudes to the authorities who would be delighted to be given an excuse to effect such an arrest. Naturally with the minimum of force required in order to comply with the law, and I’ll make sure they know exactly what they may and may not do.
“Without a magistrates’ bench warrant, to use a well known phrase, they shall not pass. Moreover, they’ll need a better reason than any reason that has been provided here to obtain such a warrant. All we have heard from the authorities for three days has been based on a presumption of our guilt. Is their legal team so ill versed in the law that they are not aware that under UK law presumption of guilt is illegal? It certainly would not be accepted by a magistrate or a judge at any level of court to obtain a warrant, and there is a distinct possibility they would end up being prosecuted by the authorities should they try to obtain a warrant on those grounds. You can be certain I would bring such actions to the attention of the relevant judicial bodies. I’ll help them out here. To obtain a warrant they need to be able to present convincing evidence that a crime has taken place or is about to take place. Nothing else will do. That is the law.
“However, moving on, there is no industry of the types the proposers of this outrage say need controlling in the valley and there is not going to be, we neither wish it nor shall we permit it. As for funding, there is no such thing as a free lunch, it always comes at a price, a price that we have no intention of paying, so I suggest Natural England(7) or who ever is managing and manipulating the opposition at this hearing from behind the scenes, keep their blood money for those who can be bribed, for it isn’t us. I’ve said it in court before and I’ll say it again here, we are not selling our birthright and that of our children for bread and a pottage of lentiles.(8) Just for the record, it is illegal to overfly private property with a drone. Peeping Toms, and voyeurs are defined by the law as criminals. Too, it is totally legal to shoot such a drone out of the sky. Naturally being the type of environment it is there are any number of legally licenced shot guns in the valley and a remarkable number of those are owned by folk reckoned to be excellent shots.
“At the moment we allow, encourage even, tourists to observe and photograph the valley wild life which is completely unbothered by their presence, for other than legitimate game at the appropriate times of the year none have bothered the wildlife for centuries. Wildlife moving in soon becomes the same as the indigenous wildlife. That alone should be worth much to the authorities, for why would a tourist desirous of photographing rare wildlife go elsewhere to photograph what is difficult and arduous to find, and probably end up disturbing it when they find it and fail to obtain the desired photograph, when they can book a comfortable room with a good dinner in the Green Dragon, buy a guide book and receive free advice on where to go to find what they’re looking for that is easy to photograph and as long as they are reasonably quiet is virtually impossible to disturb and frighten away? I suggest the opposition consider that deeply.
“You have already heard Mr. Thomas Dowerson’s explanations of the wildlife guides he produces and sells. They are very popular and the kind of tourist we attract is one that wishes to take photographs not specimens. We know many of them well, for they return over and over again in order to obtain further sightings and photographs to add to their guide books. Many have been our friends for years and are exactly the kind of folk we wish to entertain, for their financial input and support enables us to maintain and improve the valley somewhat faster than we would otherwise be able to do, and they share our concerns and respect for the wildlife. We have never encountered any of the specimen collector types, but we would know if such invaded our home, the home we share with the wildlife, and they would be rapidly extradited to the outside. I use the concept extradition because that is how we see it. We may be UK citizens, but we have a completely different view of life from most outsiders to the valley. We do not control the wildlife in our home, we are an integral part of it.
“Doubtless you have read in the media the slurs concerning us and our acceptance of those who have different ideas concerning their identity. We have been castigated as being all sorts of things, but the strange thing is we are merely conforming to the law. It is actually illegal to discriminate against any member of the LGBT+. We don’t. As long as their values are not incompatible with our own we welcome them. I am trans and my father’s family is from Newton Arlosh where I was born, but my mother was German. However, my husband’s family has been Bearthwaite born and bred for centuries, and I, and our children to be which we are on a waiting list to adopt, am continuing in the Bearthwaite way of life. I hear you asking, what has that to do with what we are discussing? That respect we have for each other extends to all living life and is why we reject outside control, for that is subject to a pragmatism we would never accept.
“We make room for the wildlife, no matter the cost. An example of that would be Alan Peabody. He is one of our farmers, and years ago he stopped using one of his barns rather than disturb a pair of breeding peregrines that have now successfully nested there for years. None telt him to do so. That is just the way we are. I gave him some of my fees from winning the recent case against the utility company to build a new barn, an expensive stone built barn built to be in keeping with so our environment, that he and his employees need suffer no more loss of income as a result of his actions concerning the barn. I didn’t need the money and he and his employees did. After all like all of us I benefit from his activities, and the peregrines are a glorious sight to behold that add to the quality of my life. That new barn provided a roost for hundreds of bats within twelve months of its erection and there are thousands that use it now. I challenge the opposition to tell me who else including themselves have ever done such a thing. It is illegal to do anything that disturbs bats and that is as far as they will have gone, we on the other hand have created a safe habitat for thousands of them that did not exist before and we are building three more such barns elsewhere in the valley. A modern barn built of sheet steel would provide habitat for naught other than the rats and mice found in all barns everywhere. There are many other such examples I could quote, but I consider the point to have been made, for neither Alan nor myself are in any way atypical of Bearthwaite residents, wealthy and poor alike, and all our children will become adults no different from their parents in that regard.
“If needed we could close access to the valley. That’s easy enough; we just allow the lonning going into the village which we own to flood as was the case year round not so long ago. We and not some outside agency are the best and only suitable custodians of the valley. Born of Bearthwaite folk or not, it was our ancestors inheritance. It is our inheritance and we shall make absolutely certain it shall still be there as it is right now to be the inheritance of our descendants, many of who like myself will be Bearthwaite folk by choice and the acceptance of their neighbours which by our beliefs gives them the right to claim all of past Bearthwaite residents as their kin, which probably explains why ignorant outsiders believe we are highly inbred and incest is the norm in the valley. We find that to be amusing because all it proves is their lack of knowledge, intelligence and perception, which probably is due to too much inbreeding. To be acceptable to us as a resident a person has to already have the requisite values and ways of seeing things. What I am saying here is all future Bearthwaite residents will be suitable custodians of the valley.
“We shall permit no officials to enter to catalogue and count what is there, so that they can in the future control our lives. We put an end to that sort of despotism by spending every penny we had to buy every property and square foot of land in the Bearthwaite Valley, and we are not going to allow any to resurrect that kind of feudalism again. Any cataloguing and counting shall be done by us, and yes a large part of that will be done by the tourists who are all more than willing to share their information with us, for we attract the right sort of visitors. We have nothing to offer that would be of interest to other sorts of folk. All that data and photographs too we shall continue to share with respected academics at universities and institutes all over Europe, and every one of them is a world authority in their field. Those experts offer advice, not orders, as to how we can improve our environment and make it more resilient and robust against the constant degradation of our neighbouring ecosystems, and for sure they do not need to be monitored by any civil servant, and we certainly don’t need ham fisted amateurs from some government agency trampling over our home and dictating what we may and may not do there.
“Bearthwaite Business Enterprises Limited owns everything in the valley that is not privately owned by residents. I and my colleagues represent Beebell. It is within our power to make life exceedingly difficult for all outsiders. The key is we own and maintain the Bearthwaite Water dam and it does not have to be there. We do not need it to be there. The water it catches and retains we sell to the utility company who use it to meet some of the needs of the metropolitan cities to our south, well to the south of the county of Cumbria I’ll add. That water controls flooding outside the Bearthwaite Valley, if it is not piped away south it floods many miles of Cumbrian roads, and we are not obliged to sell it. We certainly don’t need the money. We can live with the lonning permanently flooded. For the flood water spills out of the valley and can’t possibly reach anywhere near any of our dwellings buildings nor the land that feeds us.
“That the rest of the county to the east of us cannot live with the flood waters spilling over The Rise has been seen in our recent struggles to control our own destiny with the utilities company. Should the dam be removed or its sluices opened the valley would be effectively cut off from most of the outside, a state of affairs we are used to several times a year, but we have the boat, so it is not a problem to us. However, isolated like that would make the valley an ideal candidate for a number of our wilder rewilding ideas. Most of our residents would be happy for lynx and wolf to be resident along side us again. After all we lived in harmony with them in days gone by, so we could do so again, and it’s an easy way to control the coneys. Sorry, I believe coneys are what you call rabbits. Perhaps the authorities should consider that? Both perhaps a little ambitious, but reintroducing the European wild cat would be perfectly feasible without risking contamination of their genetics with domestic cats. Too, one of the daughters of an established and innovative farmer in the valley has expressed an interest in a small herd of European bison managed for beef which would not be unworkable. We do have the contacts who would be prepared to provide the initial blood stock for all those ideas.
“Oh, and I refuse to use the usual term ‘the competent authorities’ because from a Bearthwaite point of view they are totally incompetent, for they know less about our valley than our average ten year old. My last remark concerns the folk who invade our home without telling us why they are there from time to time. It is strange but since this idea of taking control of our home away from us was first mooted those outsiders have increased in numbers dramatically. They must think we are as stupid as they are, for it rapidly became obvious to us they were not our friends at which point they were escorted out of the valley. If they return they will be prosecuted for criminal trespass, for that we allow others on our property does not give them the same permission. If they get into difficulties and need help to extricate themselves from whatever situation they find themselves in, they’d better have organised it beforehand for we will ignore them and if that leads to their death, so be it. They’ll have done it to themselves not us, and let this serve as their warning. As folk who are deliberately attempting to catastrophically destroy our way of life they can not reasonably expect any help from us, from any of us, under any circumstances. We do have a good signal for mobile phones in the valley which they could use to contact the air ambulance, and that is all the help they would get from us. Other than that we’ll watch them die and consider it to be suicide.” Adalheidis had spoken her last few sentences in the tones of a judge passing a death sentence and it was clear she meant every word. It was also known that when a representative of Bearthwaite spoke they were truly representing the views of the entire population there.
The two men and the woman presiding over the hearing decided in favour of the residents in less than an hour which led to media headlines along the lines of, ‘Cumbria saved from floods and misery’ and ‘David topples Goliath again’. The highways authority were much relieved, and a spokeswoman said, “The Bearthwaite estate has been private property for hundreds of years without any need of outside interference. Nothing other than its ownership has changed, and that much for the better. They successfully manage their road, their water, the valley wildlife and their lives in a completely integrated manner. Their coöperation with the highways has always been amicable and our only problems have occurred as a result of actions by others not by any actions of the Beebell estate as it is now. They allow us to maintain a considerable stockpile of road salt for gritting the roads during the winter on their land just off the main road. In return all it costs us is whatever salt they need for their lonning which is trivial, and we grit their lonning for them free of charge, which takes less than an hour. It’s a most satisfactory arrangement to both parties.”
Adalheidis said to the Beebell board, “They tried and they lost. It has cost them a considerable amount of money, and they have lost a lot of face. They’ll try again, but it won’t be for a decade or more. We by then shall have a considerable body of irrefutable evidence from both here and our academic friends as to just how successfully we are managing the Valley. They will try again to shew the Valley can only be managed properly by themselves and will again focus on our unofficial ‘amateur’ status. Yet again they will act on the presumption of guilt, for they learn nothing and none who work for them now will be working for them then. They are too unintelligent and ignorant to avoid making serious mistakes. As soon as one of them does their bosses, to protect themselves against the consequences of their own incompetence, move them on rather than firing them. That is the backdrop and culture they all, from top to bottom, operate and exist in. What they won’t do is offer a fully considered management plan to stack up against ours.
“They won’t be able to for several reasons. One, and perhaps most importantly in their arrogance they won’t consider it to be necessary. Two, they won’t have direct access to the necessary data and information because we won’t provide it and they will be forbidden to access to the valley. Three, they aren’t bright enough to collect and collate all the information and data that is out there. Four, they will have made a lot of enemies amongst our tourists who know that if they coöperate with the authorities those authorities are a step nearer to winning their case, and as soon as that happens they would prevent our tourists from being able to pursue the activities they come here for. Five some of those tourists have positions of considerable power and influence and they will exercise both on our behalf. Trust me, yet again they shall lose.
“I think we need to have our history written as a book, paying particular attention to what has happened here since the industrial revolution, especially our struggles of the last few years to determine our own destiny by improving our environment for ourselves and the wildlife we share the valley with. We have the necessary folk here to do that, after all it could be authored by dozens of us each writing about the aspects we know best. Initially we could have a couple of thousand printed and sell them at cost via the post office and the visitor centre. I envisage the last chapter to be a speculative look into our future. It would doubtless be preferable to the authorities if they could depopulate the valley as happened in the Cairngorms. They would be unable to realise that that of course would result in serious problems, for if forced out before we left we’d destroy the dam and all the pipework. That would result in massive flooding on local roads and a significant water shortage in the south during times of drought. None would ever be prepared to finance the rebuilding of the dam due to the high cost for the relatively small volume of water to export. Put simply the payback period on the investment would be far too long. Yes I know that locally it is seen as a lot of water, but compared with say what is extracted from Thirlmere it’s nothing really.
“If that happened before long much of the wildlife here would be gone. The fences and drystone walls on the fells would fall into disrepair for it is Bearthwaite residents who maintain them. The sheep would enter the valley from the fells, for the grass here is lush, and destroy the trees whose roots hold the topsoil together. The steep valley sides would erode and wash away for the treeless, tight sheep cropped sward would not have the roots to hold the soil together. Eventually the valley sides would fill the beck and the valley bottom exacerbating the flooding. Unchecked the pike in Bearthwaite Water would clean out all the fish and the amphibians would have nowhere to spawn for the reeds would be under ten feet of water and die. Doubtless mink would eventually arrive to take the water over. The raptors would have a hard time to raise their chicks without food provided by the children. The valley has been a managed environment for at least a millennium and a half, and for all to thrive here it needs to remain a managed environment and only we can do that successfully, for only we have the necessary knowledge. The frightening thing is even if we could move out, all of us I mean, and find somewhere else equivalent to live because of the way we are we would recreate a haven for us and the wildlife and eventually they would try to take that off us too for the same reasons they want to take the valley off us. On a different but related matter I have wondered if any land comes up for sale on the other side of the main road near Bearthwaite Lonning Ends it may be an idea to see it we could buy it. It’s all arable and our farmers could use it to all our benefit and it pushes our boundary out a bit. Calva Marsh and Calva Beck have been too dry to support amphibians for generations. Since that will no longer be the case, if some were to be assisted over The Rise to the far side of the main road they would rapidly establish over there. Of course that would be completely illegal, but the reasons for making it so under these circumstances are equally completely without any foundation for the creatures used to be found there in great abundance when there was enough water there according to some of the records I have read.”
The Beebell board considered Adalheidis’ idea concerning buy more land to be a good one, and since money no longer needed to kept to one side to purchase anything inside the valley for virtually all was already owned there, it could be used for the purpose. Few other than the Beebell board members were aware that Sasha had bought up all the outstanding mortgages on land in the valley and folk were gradually repaying their debts to the fund managed by Elle for land and property purchase and improvement. A number of persons considered what she had said concerning the amphibians and realised that her licence to practice law were at risk were she to be involved. It was decided in her absence that the matter should be taken in hand during the next spawning season.
Elle had bought out Bearthwaite’s worst neighbours, the Wainwright family, which was a huge relief to the entire village. Their two sons aged sixteen and fifteen had been bullies who had made the lives of a lot of younger children hell, and that of some of the somewhat older girls terrifying. That had recently stopped after dozens of Bearthwaite lads had given both of them a good beating, stripped them and tied them to a pair of trees a mile outside the village in the dark during a thunderstorm. The rain had been pouring down and the village lads had had the best laugh of their lives when the two Wainwright boys had started blubbering and howling because they were terrified by the thunder and lightening. The Bearthwaite lads would have left them there all night, but it was a couple of the girls whom the Wainwright boys had intended to have ‘a little fun’ with who were their saviours and insisted after a couple of hours their parents were contacted to tell them where they could be found.
The girls weren’t bothered how long the pair were tied to the trees for, but they were concerned their brothers could get into serious trouble if the boys died from exposure. The brothers’ parents had talked about bringing assault charges, but some of the girls’ fathers had in turn talked about bringing charges for the attempted rapes that had only been prevented by the girls’ brothers. The boys’ parents had been shewn video footage from mobile phones to substantiate the girls’ claims which ended the talk of bringing assault charges. That their sons couldn’t leave the valley till the water receded and if they left the house would likely be involved in violence every day till they left with dozens of witnesses to swear that their sons had started the the problems made their parents discipline them properly for the first time in their lives.
One of their fathers telt a number of the boys, “We’re trying to keep you idiots alive. Don’t you realise the next time you confront the boys here you’ll likely get kicked in the balls so hard you’ll need the air ambulance to take you to the Cumberland Infirmary to remove them before you die, which at least will get you out of here. However, if you consider being a eunuch is a price worth paying to get the fuck out of here get on with it because I seriously doubt the girls you tried to molest will save you from their brothers twice. The people here are fucking savages, and their kids are no different. I know you, like the adults, want to get out of this place, but I suggest you ignore the kids here both boys and girls, or as I said you’ll get air lifted out to spend the rest of your lives as eunuchs if you are lucky, or as corpses if you’re not. These people hate us and don’t give a damn if any of us live or die. They hate you boys even more than they hate me and the other adults, and there’re far more of them than there are of us. You can forget any recourse to the law because these bastards will lie through their teeth to back each other up, even in court. Till we get the hell out of here we’re fucked, and the only way we’re going to do that is on their terms, or we’ll probably starve to death. There’s no possibility of buying food at any price from any of them, and I’m not even going to contemplate what they’ll do if we try to steal any. They’d probably leave our bodies for their pigs to eat which would leave no evidence whatsoever. God knows how long it’s going to take us to convince your mothers of that, but I and your dads are only too aware of it, and of how little food we’ve got left. I suggest you grow up and get to grips with the reality we are confronting here, or you’ll find out what a real good hiding from your dad feels like.”
One of the boys started whining about his rights. His father backhanded him so hard the door frame fifteen feet away that he hit with his head knocked him out. Once he came to his father said, “If you want to die just keep going the way you’re doing now. Otherwise shut the fuck up or I’ll hit you again repeatedly till you do. The same goes for the rest of you from your fathers. Now get the fuck out of my sight.”
Ellen Winstanley, Alf wife, telt many of the women, “Alf said, ‘That’s now got it down to five houses left in the hands of folk we want rid of, and I reckon another couple of twelvemonths(9) will see the arse end of ’em, for they obviously don’t like living here any more than we like ’em being here, though Old Alan Peabody reckons the flood will see ’em off before long. I can put up with the adults, but those boys bother me. The girls’, he was referring to our granddaughters, ‘telt me they won’t go anywhere without the protection of their older brothers, and that’s not right. However the boys telt me not to fash mysel about it,(10) for if need be they’ll deal with those little shites. I didn’t ask for explanations, but one of the lads glanced up at the old pack pony trail. It’s a goodly way to fall for someone desperate enough to try to get out of the valley that way at this time of year.’ I reckon Alf thinks if that pair even think about touching any of the girls the lads will drag them up to the top of the gully and push them off near the top. He obviously approved because he added, ‘The lads are becoming men.’ I think the less we know about any of it the better.”
Not long after Alf’s remark, Old Alan had proven to be right. It was a complex set of negotiations that had enabled the five families to leave involving Adalheidis, Murray and the families who had their solicitors and banks involved in the Zoom conference too, for they could not leave the valley without help from the villagers. They knew all outsiders would be turned back and prosecuted for trespass. Help which they had been refused till they had selt up and all the paperwork had been finalised. The adult women who wished to leave had finally realised what their men had long known: that Bearthwaite folk were not just tough they were ruthless too and willing to watch them starve to death. It had been made clear to them that Adalheidis and Murray at least regarded their word as worthless. “Not till everything is signed, sealed and delivered will you receive owt from any of us,” they been telt by Murray. “Till then you are on your own, and the only way you’ll get out of here before the flood subsides is by swimming or the air ambulance, possibly in the cases of some of those arsehole, animal sons of yours in a body bag.” It was a deeply resentful group of outsiders who’d been telt by their bank managers that they were lucky because there would be no last minute hiccup concerning payment for their houses, as often happened, for Murray was well known to them and he had billions not millions at his disposal and his word was better than money in any bank. He’d refused to consider paying a deposit on the properties and said the entire sum would be paid upon completion of the contracts and it was a take it or leave it offer. The families had finally realised they either accepted the offer or starved. They caved in and accepted Murray’s terms.
On Elle’s instructions, the properties of the five families had been bought up by Murray rapidly on behalf of Beebell. The speed with which it had been done had amazed the solicitors of the families, but Adalheidis had said no land registry and property ownership searches were required since she knew everything that there was to be known concerning every property and piece of land in the valley going back at least a millennium. Murray as promised had organised their moving with all their possessions within a few hours of the purchases. Dozens of Bearthwaite folk had assisted them, and they had been predictably as ungracious and ungrateful about that as they had been about everything else during the time they had lived in the valley. However, as Murray had insisted would be the case nothing had been done till after they had signed their agreements to the sales and the moneys had been confirmed to be in their possessions. All their possessions had been taken by boat to the Rise jetty and left on the road for their furniture pantechnicons(11) to load and without a single backward glance the boats and the folk had returned to Bearthwaite village.
Pete had suggested a bonfire barbecue party on the green would be a suitable way to celebrate the leaving of the last of the ‘miserable bastards’ and the last property or square foot of land in the valley finally being under the control of Bearthwaite folk. Miserable bastards was what he had actually said, but the children were telt he’d said ‘folk as made life difficult’. Most of the older children knew Pete well and didn’t believe he would have used such restrained language, so they asked Peter, “What did your granddad really say, Peter?”
Peter had replied, “I wasn’t there, but my sister was and she telt me he called them miserable bastards.” The children had nodded, for that they believed, and the tale soon circulated. Most had suffered to some extent from the outsiders and considered, despite what their mothers regularly telt then about bad language being the result of a lack of command of the English language and a poor imagination, that Peter’s granddad had been spot on in his description of the outsiders and his language was totally justified. The party was enjoyed by all, and the women closed their ears to their seriously inebriated menfolk’s toasts to the miserable bastards and even to their children imitating their fathers and grandfathers, for they knew how to pick their battles, and that one was unwinnable.
Violet, one of Bertrond and Amelia Walker’s daughters was descended on both sides from families that had lived in and around the Bearthwaite valley since long before William of Normandy had arrived at Hastings in ten sixty-six to change the face of England for ever on the fourteenth of October that year. A change that a millennium later had resulted in the deep north south divide. She’d always been fascinated by tales of her ancestors and was aware of every detail that was known concerning the men, and boys too, whose names were chipped into the rough hewn war memorial on the village green. It was her fascination with the old war memorial on the green that had initiated her interest in modelling the Silloth convalescent home. The memorial that listed the names of those who did not return and the tales of those who did, often via the Silloth convalescent home, had been part of her life since her birth.
The convalescent home had cared for the blind, the halt, the maimed, the gassed and those who twitched away the rest of their lives and were terrified all the way to their deaths often decades later by sudden movements and loud noises, the shell shock victims that later would be called PTSD(12) victims were all victims of other folks’ principles. Other folks who never went anywhere near the front, risked nothing and lost nothing, other folks many of who had made huge fortunes from the war, other folks whose families were despised still by Bearthwaite folk who referred to them as politicians and war profiteers and considered the two terms to be interchangeable. Mention of either put a stony look on the faces of Bearthwaite folk that one could imagine would be similar to the one they would wear if they been using a strimmer [powered weed wacker] without wearing a face shield and had hit a dog turd that had gone into their mouth.
On the other side of the memorial were the names of those who didn’t return from the second world war, again many proud names that had been in use for centuries before they became associated with the border reivers.(13) Many had joined the RAF(14) as bomber crew which had prompted Violet’s interest in modelling the huge Solway plain airfield. All had believed what they did was right and that they did it to protect they and theirs from the Nazi monster rampaging through and treading all of Europe under the jackboot heels of his malevolent forces, though many like Violet wondered if their beliefs too had been manipulated by government propaganda. However, all were revered in a quiet unobtrusive way at Bearthwaite and the memorial and the garden around it was immaculately maintained no matter what the weather was doing.
Outsiders had often been surprised by what they considered to be the crude obelisk and many had asked had it not been considered to replace it with a more fitting memorial that the villagers could be proud of. They had all been silenced by their embarrassment when they had been angrily given an explanation of the memorial’s history. True, it was not a finely crafted work, though the names on it were chipped out deep, so as to be long lasting. It had been painfully hewn out of the hard granite of the igneous intrusion that formed The Rise by under nourished, poverty stricken men who’d been too old, too ill or too handicapped to be considered for war service. At best they’d had little skill working such stone, for the Bearthwaite quarry provided much softer sandstone. The nearest Bearthwaite had to stone masons at the time were the dry stone wallers who built and maintained the stone walls up on the fells without benefit of mortar, and the quarry workers who roughly squared off sandstone blocks for building purposes. The memorial had been crafted by men who had lost their sons, brothers, fathers, uncles, cousins and nephews, many before they had had the opportunity to pass on their line, though many had descendants who lived in the valley, most descended from the girls who had given their boys a proper farewell just before they went away to a war they did not return from leaving grief stricken women and families to mourn and wonder why and what it was all for.
The memorial had been hewn by many hands with widely varying degrees of skill, the hands of every man in the valley who had lost kin, and that was all of them, with love and grief in every blow of their hammers and to Bearthwaite folk it stood as a testament more to the stupidity of their so called betters than as an act of remembrance, for Bearthwaite did not commemorate Armistice day, nor have anything to do with the commemorative poppies which were despised as manipulative political constructs that were considered to be deeply cynical manipulations of ordinary folk’s emotions. Like the rest of her people, Violet was deeply respectful of the sacrifices made by not just the names she was so familiar with but of all such men. The ordinary men who it was considered had been forced or manipulated into fighting on both sides of the conflicts. Men like Bearthwaite men, farmers, labourers, shepherds, tradesmen and their like who worked long and hard that their families may eat. It was that respect that had sparked Violet’s interest in modelling the Convalescent home at Silloth and the huge airfield that had dominated the Solway Plain, an interest that had become a passion. She readily admitted to friends that it was only Peter who’d stopped her passion from becoming an obsession, for he was kind and gentle and knew how to distract her from the grief that overwhelmed her from time to time at the futility of all that had led to the memorial’s necessity.
One of the things that had always puzzled Violet, and millions of adults before her too, was that considering Britain had supposedly been on the winning side, rationing in Britain did not end completely until nineteen fifty-four, nearly a decade after the end of the war, and the UK was the last country to end rationing. She was a highly intelligent young woman with rather unusual tastes in reading materials for one of her age and was well aware of her nation’s financial affairs since the days of Napoleon and Arthur Wellesley the first Duke of Wellington. During the second world war the government was forced to borrow heavily in order to finance war with the Axis(15) powers.(16) On the thirty-first of December twenty oh six, Britain made a final payment of about $83m (£45.5m) and thereby discharged the last of its war loans from the US. What stuck in her throat, and she was not alone in that, was that Germany had been free of debt for generations by then.
Since being a toddler, Violet had heard many conversations concerning war, it was something regularly discussed by Bearthwaite men, a number of who had served in the armed forces, some for twenty-plus years, and she had taken it all in, for to her the Bearthwaite view made perfect sense. Much of what she’d heard over and over again could be summarised in short pithy sentences. ‘Wars are caused by idiots who have the principles that ordinary blokes don’t give a toss about, but end up dying for anyway.’ ‘The number of armed conflicts a nation gets involved in is a measure of the incompetence and stupidity of its leaders because in the end all conflicts are settled around the negotiating table. It doesn’t actually require that much intelligence to have the negotiations before the conflict.’ ‘A squaddie(17) I knew a long time ago who’d been in the mob(18) for twenty-odd years once telt me that a battle that doesn’t happen is one won by the lads at the sharp end of the killing on both sides.’
Bearthwaite views concerning Armistice day were not quite so easy to summarise but definitely non PC(19) and at odds with most of those of the nation, but Violet had heard a lot about that too. ‘I knew a bloke who’d been in numerous armed conflicts. He’d served many years in the army, but he had grave reservations concerning poppy day and the constant harping back to the first and second world wars. He wondered how long was it going to go on for. He said that we’d never regarded the peninsula wars culminating in Waterloo like that, and reckoned that the grandfathers of the men who fought in world war one would certainly have heard tales of those wars when they were boys and passed them on. From Waterloo in eighteen fifteen to world war one which was nineteen fourteen to nineteen eighteen was just a century. It’s now an hundred and five years since world war one ended. There can’t be more than a handful alive today who were even born on the last day of world war one, the eleventh of November of nineteen eighteen. It’ll only be twenty-seven years before the same will be able to be said of the second world war. When are we going to let it go?’ Violet had also heard George, who’d served twenty-five years in the army, say, “I’m an intelligent enough man to know what happened, and I don’t need it ramming in my face. I’m no holocaust denier, but the Russians lost more folk than everyone else put together in world war two. The Jews don’t have a monopoly on suffering, no one does. It’s damned unhealthy and gives many folk a distorted, jaded view of history. A lot of folk are so sick of it they ignore all of it and that’s not right either. It like the constant appeals for money to feed folk in other parts of the world when something happens there. Many folk just don’t hear any of it any more. Famine or disaster fatigue they call it.”
Violet had been telt by her father about Jake, a man who’d been a friend of her grandfathers. “Jake came from Maryport and spoke the gey strang(20) Maryport dialect. Most folk from Cumbria thought he was difficult to understand, and most from outside the county found it hard to believe he was speaking English, but you know how that works, Violet Love. Jake was in the TA(21) for years. He telt me of the time he was in a wet and miserable hole on an exercise of some sort in Wales, no surprises there as Wales gets more rain than we do here. One of his comrades was a well spoken highly educated medical man. They hit it off well, and Jake eventually asked him what the hell he was doing in the TA. He was telt ‘Most of my life is completely predictable and most of the persons in it are just like me. The only persons in it that aren’t just like me are female versions of me. Everything about this for me is exciting, I couldn’t imagine meeting someone like you back home. Some one whose way of life and experiences are so different from mine. I know what most of the persons I know are going to say before they say it which doesn’t make for interesting conversation. Even listening to the way you speak for me is an experience I’ll never forget. Before I joined I knew things were different elsewhere, but I’d no idea how much variation there was in the persons who made up the British. Since I joined I’ve met persons from many places in Britain and it has been an eye opener for me. All of us so different in so many ways and yet so similar in so many ways too, after all here we are, both wet, cold, miserable and yet in a perverse way enjoying it because we’re here for reasons we both share, and you must admit this God awful but hot coffee is the most important thing in our small universe right now. Shall I get you another as well?’ ”
That for Violet was initially a confusing tale, for whilst it certainly didn’t glorify war or the military it taught her that men, particularly men she considered, all men, found comradeship wherever it was available to be found and it made their lives better. That made her think of the Christmas day football match played by the English and German soldiers during the first world war so long ago. Eventually she came to believe that both those events demonstrated the folly of war and hardened her heart against the politicians who sent men, and women too now, to their deaths, for usually no good reason that she could see. No fool, she knew there were things that were worth fighting and dying for, and there were things she knew she would be prepared to fight and die for, but she believed that few if any of them were what politicians sent folk out to war for.
A senior official from the Minister for Health’s staff had contacted Wing Tan Sun the Bearthwaite GP(22) with a view to discovering what it was that made health and social care so much better in the village than elsewhere despite the appallingly low incomes of many folk who lived there. Sun had replied that he was a relative newcomer to Bearthwaite and did not feel it appropriate that he should be a spokesman on the matter. After speaking to a number of the Beebell board, who were effectively Bearthwaite councillors, he invited the official to meet with them. After an hour the official felt he hadn’t actually learnt anything of use that could be applied elsewhere and believed that secrets were being kept from him. As his questions became sharper and more offensive Sasha held his hand up to stop him.
Sasha said, “I understand why you are here. You want to take away a silver bullet or a magic spell that can make other communities as successful as ours. There would be great political kudos in that for your masters, and possibly deliver a winning general election for them. We don’t have any involvement with any political party here, and we certainly have nothing against you or those you represent. We just happen to believe your very existence is a complete waste of time and money. All adults here always vote and they all spoil their ballot papers by writing ‘None of these fools’ if not something even more offensive across them. If you don’t believe that ask our returning officer who has managed elections both local and national for two decades. At every election entire ballot boxes full of spoilt ballots cause an investigation. She’s used to it now and expects it, but still there is an investigation every time. Politicians are incapable of creating what we have here because they seek a top down solution to be imposed upon the public. A public, if they could but see it, that will ultimately reject whatever they propose. The health and social solutions that we have here work because we have a bottom up model.
“The persons you see in this room are all board members of Bearthwaite Business Enterprises Limited, effectively our Council. BBEL, or Beebell as it is usually referred to as, is a coöperative company owned equally by every adult who lives here. It owns just about everything here other than the privately owned houses. It owns the lonning in to the village from the main road and the land around it up to the fells, the village green and all on it, the boat we use to cross the road when it floods, the pumps that can pump the flood away, the reservoir, the fish hatchery, the sewage works, the waste water treatment plant, the quarry, the empty houses under modernisation, the school, the library, the community centre, the church, the bobbin mill, the street lighting, the bus and much more including large tracts of land in the valley and some arable land outside the valley too. It also serves as a source of mortgage money for those residents that need such. What little profit it makes is ploughed straight back in to local ventures, though it has a sizeable just in case fund.
“We, by which I mean the board members, are in this position because our neighbours wish us to be because we ensure all are cared for here. However, all citizens know they may attend board meetings and that they will be listened to if they chose to say owt. No Bearthwaite citizen is in fuel poverty,(23) all get enough good quality food to eat, none are lonely nor are any ever worried they will be cold, hungry or uncared for because we have mechanisms in place to ensure none of those things can happen. I am sorry, but your visit here is as pointless as your existence, for there is nothing here you are capable of learning and there is even less for you to take away. We do not have a solution to our problems based on politics and profit. We do have a solution based on looking after our neighbours and making sure we all live well and enjoy life doing so. The difference between our community and those of outsiders is here none suffer from greed. It’s called being a good neighbour especially towards folk you don’t like.”
The newly opened visitor centre in the bobbin mill was on the ground floor. [US 1st floor] The villagers had decided that it was a sensible use of space to maximise their incomes. Anything and everything made or harvested in the valley was for sale there in one place. Some of the men did a little carving and some of the women a little knitting, maybe only a handful of items in a year, but it gave them retail space and it was rapidly realised that the visitors did indeed spend more when it was all conveniently located in one place. The glass wall through which tourists could observe Christine and her staff working as they prepared, pressure canned and made the jars of jams, pickles, relishes and many other food stuffs ready for sale or storage had been one of Brigitte’s better ideas, for visitors often bought not just what they could see on the shelves but what they had seen prepared too.
Everything about Harriet and Gustav’s wedding was going to be lavish, massively over lavish. Gladys maintained that it had to be, for the entire community was expecting it, and all were prepared to contribute time and goods to the party of all parties that was expected to last days rather than hours. Gladys had said it was necessary that it be a bigger and more significant celebration than her and Pete’s silver wedding anniversary party, for it was far more than just Harriet’s wedding; Gustav being merely the groom didn’t even come into her considerations, nor those of any other Bearthwaite female. Thanks to Adalheidis the utility company’s impact on their lives was history. The outsiders who’d made their lives difficult were all gone and all was ready for all the children to be educated at Bearthwaite school in the coming September. Money was flowing around like it never had before and the Bearthwaite villagers wanted to spend a significant amount of their money and even more importantly their time on the celebration of the recent improvements in their lives. A celebration of having a control of their lives that even a few years ago they’d never have been able to envisage.
Dave had cynically remarked, “Bearthwaite Independence Day,” as a result of all the fuss. However, that wasn’t how the remark had been taken, for it had been taken seriously. Of course all knew Dave and knew how the remark had been intended to be received, but he’d had it boomerang on him for the day was to henceforth known as Bearthwaite Independence Day.
That they now all had heating fuel they could afford and their elderly relatives and neighbours were permanently warm and well fed and more to the point had no worries that that would ever change was something most had never imagined as possible. That Alf and a crew of like minded souls were working on designs for heating, hot water and cooking facilities that would ultimately sever all dependency on coal, kerosene and propane and were anticipating making that beginning to become a reality within two years and to complete the matter for all within five seemed to be a miracle. That in the not so far distant future the valley would be producing all their own heating, hot water and cooking fuel using locally produced fuel that would then cost them next door to nowt was considered to be so significant a matter that all, men women and children, were more than willing to offer whatever assistance they could to bring it about.
Coppiced wood, mostly willow, had to be bundled and tied tightly into faggots which had to be trimmed to about four feet in length which even older children could help do. Initially they had been tied with wire, but it was obviously better to use a tie that would burn. For the moment sisal bale twine was being used, but several folk were looking into how they could produce their own twine from retted nettle and hemp fibres, both plants that thrived in the valley. The demolition timbers brought to the quarry by Saul and his mates had to be cut to length using power saws, and some split for kindling using a splitting machine produced by Bertie and his apprentices. Many men spent several hours a week helping and stacking the resultant ‘logs’. All who operated the fully guarded power saws were adults, but it was mostly children who split and packaged the kindling. The locally produced straw bales that were stored in barns all over the valley had not as yet been used as fuel but there were plans afoot to do so, not least to fire the bakery ovens at the flour mill.
All was being managed equitably by the staff of Beebell the Bearthwaite coöperative who ensured all were fairly paid for their efforts and who also regularly renegotiated what was an appropriate ‘Bearthwaite price’ for the villagers to pay as events changed. Sometimes prices went down as things became easier, usually because a new machine or mechanism rendered what had previously been done by hand much quicker, sometimes prices increased due to a variety of factors, but whichever way prices moved all was discussed openly in front of all, and all could expect to have their opinions listened to. That was regarded as only sensible for the views put forward by children had from time to time been of immense value and had saved both money and more importantly effort.
The ever increasing income from tourists who were grateful for what they considered to be wondrous experiences that many admitted they’d never been able to dream about being to afford before was making it all possible, and as Chance had said the money worked its way around and around being spent many times within their community. Pat had created the Bearthwaite Valley Visitor Centre On Line Shop on which tourists who’d enjoyed the food and other things produced by the villagers when they were on holiday could order once they’d returned home. The website was generating considerable income for many folks, not just from folk who’d been to Bearthwaite, but from others who’d been telt of what was available, many of who had commented that they intended to visit Bearthwaite at some time.
Their improved and still improving circumstances had made the villagers rethink who was most important to them, and they’d realised it to be those who had the dreams and the visions to bring Bearthwaite up to date and yet be able to retain all that they considered important from their history. They’d realised many of those folk were recent incomers to Bearthwaite who they’d accepted as truly Bearthwaite folk no matter where they had come from which made many of them reëvalute what it was that made someone one of themselves. They’d realised it was nothing to do with blood, it was nothing to do with colour, race, religion, sexuality, gender or any such belittling differences, for as long as the folk involved had wished to become Bearthwaite folk, they were one of themselves. To their surprise, many had realised and telt others they had unknowingly actually known this for years, for Black Simon the village blacksmith, who came from Jamaica, had been one of themselves since he had been a child. He’d married one of their daughters, and his children and grandchildren were just Bearthwaite children.
The wedding of Harriet and Gustav was considered by the Bearthwaite residents to be an appropriate focus for their desire for a major celebration of their liberation from outside forces. Gustav employed directly and indirectly a few hundred men and women who were paid more than well, and Pete had admitted in the taproom that Gustav did far more than himself in the Dragon these days and that both of them were happy about that. The menfolk of Bearthwaite just considered that was how it should be. It was expected that a son gradually took over the craft of his father as he aged and became his son’s advisor. That Gustav was Pete’s son in law was irrelevant. Harriet was known to be gradually taking on more of the management of the Green Dragon from her mother, Gladys, who admitted that being a mother of a young child at her age was tiring, which the womenfolk of Bearthwaite considered to be as it should be too. What made Harriet so significant to the Bearthwaite women was her rôle as the mother of her recently adopted eleven year old children, for that transcended all other female rôles in their eyes and her obvious success as their mum gave her the status of a long established mother, a mother of eleven years. When it became known that Gladys was pregnant again it was expected that Harriet would more or less completely take over her mother’s rôle as the Landlady of the Green Dragon which gave her a significant authority in Bearthwaite.
The wedding had been in the planning for months, indeed the planning was still ongoing. It was decided, Harriet and Gustav had had no say in the matter, that it would take place on the longest day of the year, which was considered an auspicious day. Bearthwaite residents would deny being superstitious, but admitted to holding that some ancient traditions were a significant part of their culture, their history and even of themselves. Maybe they were, maybe they were not, superstitious, but they understood about the cycles of the year that none could control that just had to be adapted to. Too, though most had never heard of the biblical seven good years and seven years of famine,(24) they understood about the cycles of plenty and scarcity and the need to conserve from the times when harvests were bountiful to enable survival during the times when they were not. They were realists in tune with their environment as only those who considered themselves to be a part of that environment, and not superior beings who separate from it controlled it, could be. They were brutally realistic survivors.
Alf, on the instructions of the board of Beebell had acquired seven bouncy castles, which he and a dozen helpers had cut and recombined to make a huge activity for the younger children. His instructions had been, ‘We wish a major modern activity for young children that we can in the future use whenever we have a significant celebration. At the very least we wish to use it at the summer solstice when they will be made aware of the turning of the year.
The dogs were in front of the fires, the men were well down their first, if not their second, pint and the ladies were ten minutes into discussion concerning the wedding preparations. The men, including Gustav and Pete, or perhaps that should have been especially Gustav and Pete, had decided months ago the safest way to navigate the tricky waters concerning the wedding was to leave all to the womenfolk and just to do as they were telt, for that would provide a route to marital harmony. Dan had said, “I love my missus and I enjoy loving her frequently. If any is fool enough to suggest I’m going to upset that by arguing about a bloody wedding they need their head examining.”
It was blunt, but all agreed he’d got a valid point, and as Stan had pointed out, “To be fair, Lads, the lasses are leaving the really important things to us aren’t they? Whilst they’re messing about with all the fancy stuff, we can just get on with organising the drink. As long as Gladys and Harriet sort out whatever the womenfolk are drinking and tell us what we’ve to organise for ’em we’ll be left in peace to sort the beer and the chemic out.” Indeed it was considered he’d got a point.
“You mind those ‘Sellery Storks’ you saw in Lidl, Phil. Not quite as good as that, but I saw a sign that said ‘Caution wet paint on window cills’, where sills was spelt with a see the other day.”
“Aye well, Alf, we need the folk that write those sort of things, so we can feel like we we actually derived some benefit from all those years they forced us to waste at school.”
To the amusement of many, Alf nodded his head in agreement at Phil’s comment that had only been intended in jest, but none remarked on it.
“The visitor centre has been open three weeks now, Chance. I know it still early in the season, but Murray said it and Pat’s website were bringing in a fair deal of money. Is that still true or was that just an initial sales boom because it was new?”
“Both are bringing in more money all the time, Sasha. I reckon it’s such a success because like Tommy in the Post Office we don’t sell the kind of tat you can by in any tourist trap in the British Isles and not know where the hell you are because it’s all the same and probably made in China.”
An outsider none had ever seen before asked, “I’m Al. May I tell a tale, well make a comment really?”
Pete replied, “Just pass that glass over for a refill, Al, before you start. Bertie, pass those over as well, Lad. We may as well all have a fresh pint.”
After all were ready, and Pete had refused Al’s money, he started. “I’m originally from Tyldesley near Manchester, but I live near Chorley now. I was in Keswick a week or so ago with my wife and there were some folk at the next table to us in a café we were in having a coffee. We couldn’t help but over hear their conversation because they were rather loud. One was complaining about the traffic going through Maryport. Jackie and I had to smile because we’ve never seen any heavy traffic in Cumbria. Nothing like what you find in Chorley which is nothing to Manchester. Mind near to fifty years ago I went to London and was looking for the address of a mate of mine. I knew I was near enough there because I could see Buck House(25) which he said could be seen out of his upper floor windows. The speed limit was thirty miles an hour [48kph] I was keeping pace with the traffic doing about fifty and I slowed down to thirty so I didn’t miss any road signs. As I was looking there was a rapping on the window and a motor cycle cop threatened to book me for causing an obstruction if I didn’t get a move on. The traffic was eight lanes wide I think and nose to tail. God alone knows what it’s like there during the rush hour because that happened just gone three in the morning.”
“Aye, Lad. They’re all mental down there, and that’s got bugger all to do with the lunatic way they drive. They’re fuckin’ mental just for living there.” At that there were nods and sounds of agreement all around the taproom. Alf continued, “Chorley’s too far south for sanity. That only starts as you pass junction 36, the A590, on your way north. You lose a fair bit of traffic there going to Kendal, Ulverston and Barrow. After the South Lakes’ traffic leaves the motorway there’s a bit of space between the vehicles.”
It was still early and none were in need of anything more potent than Bearthwaite Brown as yet. It usually took a bit longer before settling down to serious story telling and the pouring of the ferociously potent beverages the men indulged in as a matter of course. However, Frank asked, “So how did the meeting with the ministry man go then, Sasha?”
“More or less as I expected, Frank, a complete waste of time. They believe in magic and he expected to be give a silver bullet or a potion that they could impose on the entire UK public to fix all its social ills and sort out the screw up that’s referred to as the NHS(26) as a fringe benefit whilst it did so. They won’t see that they are a major part of the problem not a part of any solution. They can’t fix anything. The only thing they could do to help is to create an environment in which communities can help themselves. There can’t possibly be any one size fits all solution, for every community is different with its own unique set of issues that need addressing. The problem is even if they accepted that, it would take years, a couple of generations at least, to see any results, and no politician can envisage anything further into the future than the next election. They are only interested in quick fixes that they can take credit for the next time they are trying to woo voters, and for the issues he wanted solutions to there are no quick fixes. How long has it taken us to change Bearthwaite from the poverty stricken place it was that was subject to the whims of outside powers and absentee landlords to what it is now?”
Pete replied, “I was only a lad, barely school age when things started to change, so that’s at least sixty-odd years ago and it was gey slow at first. It got a bit faster when you arrived, Sasha, thirty-odd years back, but things only really started to happen maybe fifteen years ago. It’s only in the last few years that we started getting to grips with things as a result of finally realising exactly what it was we wanted and the help we were given by decent folk like you and Elle, Tommy and Sarah, Gustav, Murray, Chance, Adalheidis and others too too numerous to mention moving in. You’re right it’s taken a gey long time, more like four generations than two.”
Alf added, “Aye it has, Pete, but a major change happened once we realised what it was we wanted. That was when we started to get rid of the undesirables, and encourage outsiders who were proper Bearthwaite folk, even if they didn’t know it then, to move in, and that made life a hell of a lot better for all of us. Covid was a major benefit to us because none here catcht it that we know of and three or four dozen families left as soon as lockdown was over because it made ’em finally realise just how unwelcome they were here. Thank god, and Sasha too, that we had enough in the kitty to buy them out, so they weren’t replaced by other outsiders that were no better. Too, that gave us decent houses to offer to new folk we actually wanted living here. Talking of which, I was gey pleased to hear that Elle had Murray buy out the Wainwright house and they’ve gone. You wouldn’t think with a surname that was more identifiably Cumbrian than virtually any other,(27) and mind that’s over the entire country never mind the county, they could be such a bunch of bloody nightmares here would you? Those boys of theirs were a right pair of little shites. I reckon it’s a good job our lads sorted ’em out before those lasses’ dads got to ’em, or there’d been a couple of extra wethers(28) on the fells.”
“Aye,” agreed Stan, “but all that them moving on does is give some other poor buggers the problem. Better if they’d been wethered. Still the last five families were as glad to leave as we were to see ’em go.”
Pat laught and said, “No bloody wonder is it, Stan? Our kids didn’t like and wouldn’t play with theirs. They had to take ’em to school outside when they could and mind ’em when they couldn’t. They couldn’t buy anything here except postal services because none would deal with ’em. They were trapped here with their kids not going to school and only what food they had in the house till the water went down. I know Murray telt them the moment they signed to sell up he’d make sure they and all their possessions would be transported safely out of the valley to where ever they wished to go in the county. Next thing he knew they all telt him to fuck off. I reckon in the end it was running out of grub(29) that made ’em get back to him. That was when he said his original offer was off the table and they could ring for removals van to pick their stuff up from the Rise. When one started to rear up on him he telt them that was the last offer he would mek, and after that we’d all watch them start swimming or starving. Whilst they were here none would would talk to ’em no matter how objectionable they became. I read a book about that happening in some religious communities in the States, it’s called shunning. We don’t suffer from religion, but I reckon shunning is a useful concept and it’s completely legal. Most importantly as we all know it works. Right to end they were unpleasant and ungrateful. Siobhan said that actually did us a favour because after that none will feel any guilt about pushing the bastards out.”
“Where did you get to on Wednesday, Bertie? I was trying to track you down to MOT(30) my truck.
“I went hiking up Whinlatter to take a look at the old hydro electricity generator that used to serve Keswick till sometime in the sixties I think. I read a couple of years ago that Forestry England(31) as is part of the Forestry Commission(32) are looking to put a new turbine there. I don’t know if they plan on putting it where the old one used to be or not but I wanted to see the site. I reckon we could obtain a fair bit of power out of the water we provide the utility company before it’s piped away, possibly sited at the bottom of the pack pony gully. We don’t need their permission or any else’s. It needs looked into. I haven’t bothered looking at details of the old plant because much more efficient and compact plants are available now. I’ll be putting some sort of a presentation together for not just the board but any as wants to watch and even say owt. I reckon to do it in a few weeks either in the Community Hall or the church. I’ve got everything done that I need to do but Murray, Chance and Emily are still researching costings and seeing if we can gouge any coin out of the authorities that doesn’t have any strings attached. If that works well enough we could consider a second plant just before the water leaves the village for the pipes tekkin it south.”
At that there were sounds of approval all round the taproom for the overhead electricity that came in as a three phase supply on small pylons over the fells was regularly disrupted by the weather and the expense and complications concerning permissions of an underground supply on land that belonged to Crown Estates was something the electricity supply company had refused to even contemplate. Bearthwaite’s own supply, even if it came from several sources would be a considerable improvement, and Bertie was known to opine that several sources of supply were preferable and he and others had some rather sophisticated and elegant if off the wall ideas. It seemed as if things were finally beginning to shape up as something that would in the near future be operational.
Arnie, a local builder married to Jane, was a regular attender at the Saturday evening story telling. He’d never telt a tale before, but when he said, “I’ve never had anything to tell before, Lads, but now I have. It’s official. I’ve been throttled and dethrottled or maybe that should be unthrottled or even disthrottled, but anyway like Lazarus(33) I’ve been raised from the dead, and now I’ve got a new best mate called Leroy Miranda. You reckon he made that up or what?” there were expressions of interest and more than a few encouraging voices.
“Like a lot of us here I signed up to receive broadband and telephone via a dish on the roof courtesy of Solway Communications a few years ago. Solway Communications was a company I always got along with gey well, but as I discovered going on two years ago they ceased to exist because they were bought out by Voneus a London head quartered national firm. I find it difficult to remember their name because as a result of my experiences with them, Venereal.com and Uranus.com keep emerging from the darker recesses of my mind.
“Maybe six months ago, maybe twice that, to my surprise I received an email telling me I owed money and had to pay for my broadband. I say surprise because it was paid for by direct debit. I kept ringing the number offered in the email but it never answered. I tried emailing the address provided and guess what, no one answered that either. Then my broadband became unstable, nothing would stream, huge delays playing a clip. As it got worse over three weeks I repeatedly tried to contact Solway communications, but no one answered. I’d reached the point where I decided to cancel the direct debit. That was easy because I use a telephone banking service, First Direct who I would recommend to any one. Then I got a phone call from Voneus who I’d never heard of. That was an interesting conversation because I was pretty certain after a few seconds the call was a scam.
“That the woman was able to provide me with a load of information about myself didn’t change my mind till she mentioned one fact that meant I had to have provided that information directly to the outfit she was representing. I let her carry on talking and eventually I said, ‘Okay, somewhere in the last five minutes you have provided me with a piece of information that convinces me you are not a scammer.’ ‘What was that,’ I was asked. I telt her I had no intention of telling her, but I had my own mechanism for determining whether I was prepared to trust someone or not that I never disclosed to any. I repeated that I had never heard of Voneus. She said, ‘We provide your broadband.’ ‘No’ said I, ‘Solway Communications provide my broadband.’ ‘We bought them up over two months ago and you’d have been emailed about it several times back then.’ Now, I don’t do emails because I don’t have the time to sort out what’s email and what’s shite that gets through, despite the spam filters, but I had my laptop in front of me and searched through for the email address she provided. Nothing there. ‘What is the email address you sent those emails to,’ I asked. The email address she said was an old one of mine that no longer existed because the service provider folded five years before.
“That established, I provided her with my current email address and telt her I never check it and why. She wanted a cheque payment sending, said she couldn’t accept a card or a direct debit mechanism. I replied, ‘Till I get a working broadband I’m not paying you anything.’ That pole axed her. I then said, ‘Right now, I’m thinking my best bet is to write you off as a bad experience and seek a provider elsewhere. At that point she suggested I speak to their technical service. That was the first time technical service had been mentioned, so I said, ‘Okay, can you put me through?’ Technical service was very helpful. A young man from the sound of his voice had me try to play a Youtube clip and tell him exactly what was happening as it happened or more precisely what wasn’t happening as it didn’t happen. ‘It sounds like you’ve been throttled,’ he said. ‘What’s that,’ I asked. ‘If you owe money the finance peoples’ computer will cut your available bandwidth down to the point where you experience what you just described,’ he explained. ‘So how do I get it fixed? Can you fix it?’ ‘No only finance are able to do that.’ ‘Why don’t they just cut the service?’ I asked. ‘I don’t know, but I suspect this way they don’t lose as many customers.’ ‘How soon after I get finance sorted will I get a service worth having?’ ‘Twenty minutes or so I suspect,’ he replied. ‘It’s automatic no one has to unthrottle you. If the account is paid the service is provided. I suspect the throttling works the same way and both will be automatically done by finance’s computer. Probably none in finance is aware of the issue.’
“Now bear in mind I’d been paying by direct debit for a few years and had been trying to pay the woman who rang me by a safe mechanism with the direct debit guarantee safety net, or the similar mechanism that prevails if you pay by credit card, so I was more than a little pissed off, but it wasn’t his fault, so I asked if he could put me through to finance expecting a circular trip back to the woman who’d rung me. He put me through to finance and a mature sounding male voice asked, ‘How may I help you?’
“I explained the situation and he said he’d check my account. It only took him a few seconds and he said he didn’t understand why my direct debit hadn’t just been transferred from Solway Communications to Voneus because that was what had happened to every one else. I telt him I’d just cancelled the direct debit and what the woman had said about not being able to take a card or direct debit payment. He said,‘I can take a direct debit mandate instruction over the phone that will take care of the outstanding debt due to the old direct debit not having been transferred across and all future payments as well. In a few days a letter confirming that will arrive and there will be a form for you to sign and return in a prepaid envelope to make it all acceptable to your bank. Would you like me to do that?’ I asked how soon would I get my dethrottled connection back. He telt me probably a couple of hours which though longer than twenty minutes was okay. We set up the direct debit and after thanking him I rang my bank to explain what had happened and that the new direct debit they should have been made aware was now in force was kosher.
“That would have been at about four in the afternoon. Even two hours was over optimistic, but I was back up and running by eight that evening. The only trouble I’ve had since then was the entire service went down at their end for six hours one day. What really pisses me off about the entire affair is if my service had been cut I’d have sorted it out weeks before. The effect of the throttled service was to make me think the problem was at my end and I resent having had to pay for all that time when the service was so poxy it wasn’t worth paying for.”
“Telt you before so I have, reckon bloody computers are more trouble than they’re worth, Arnie. Bring back Bob Cratchit(34) I say.” There were gales of laughter at Alf’s cynical remark which referred back to the days of quill pens. It was something he said whenever he came across problems with modern communications technology.
“To bring you up to date. Leroy Miranda has been ringing me from Voneus for about a fortnight starting at nine in the morning, feels like a dozen times a day till five at night. He’s left messages on the answer phone telling me that he’s got some great news for me. To be honest I thought he’d be talking shite because what most folk consider to be great news concerning modern communication technology isn’t owt most of us give a toss about. He left me a number to ring, but no bugger ever answered it. Now you can imagine with a name like his he ain’t English English and he speaks with a funny accent that is part foreign and the rest is from deep down south, so I guess that makes his accent completely foreign. Anyway seems I misheard the number, though I listened to it god knows how many times. Eventually I was beside the phone when he rang, so I answered it. Turns out that Voneus are trying to roll out fibre broadband with upload and download speeds of between five hundred and four hundred Megabits per second, typically four fifty, which is he said, ten times faster than what I get now. Do I need it? How the hell would I know, but probably not.
“It’s a similar deal to how I got my broadband gear from Solway communications in the beginning. It seems they’re trying to roll it out over the country and are focussing on rural areas. There’s a government grant like before and I’ll have to apply for a voucher of some sort which I presume like before they get and redeem off the government for kitting me out. It’s a two year tie in which is what I’m on now at a thirty-two quid a month as opposed to my existing forty-four quid a month for the two years. Like my existing deal I get the house phone threwn in. It seemed too good to be true. You know how it goes, if it sounds too good to be true that’s probably because it is. I said, ‘I suspect there’s no chance of it happening because I live in the middle of nowhere.’ To my surprise he said, ‘I know exactly where you live that’s why we’ve selected you and others like you for this deal.’ I reckon they chose real isolated houses as a marketing ploy, you know you it goes, ‘We kitted out Father Christmas’ igloo at the North Pole with fibre broadband for just thirty-two quid a month and we can do the same for you.’ Anyway I know I can bail on it if it turns sour on me so I said, “Go ahead.’ Leroy said the engineers would be in touch to kit me out in three to four months. I presume that’s when they’ve got enough folk on board to be able to plan their fibre cable runs. So, Lads, watch this space. I’ll let you know when owt happens.”
Pat announced, “Talking of communications technology, as discussed in the Community Centre I’ve created a mobile phone contact list that contains the numbers of every inhabitant, adult and child, in Bearthwaite, both mobiles and landlines. I’ve already made sure it’s on every Bearthwaite child’s phone, so they can always reach someone if they get into any difficulties. I’ve now got the time to offer it as an add on to the contacts list of any resident of the village who wants it. Just drop by my spot and I’ll do it for you, and I’d appreciate it if everyone passes the word round. If any gets a new phone or changes their number if you tell me I’ll circulate the information for folk to update their contacts. Eventually I’ll have it organised so all phones are automatically updated at regular intervals.”
Stan asked, “Harriet, Love what we having for supper?”
Coney and mixed fungi pie made with flaky pastry, canned garden peas, coney giblet gravy with apple mint and Rowan berry jelly. The suet and coneys came from Uncle Vincent who telt me the coneys were white ones from Auntie Rhona. The fungi were a mixture. A quarter of them were grown by some of Uncle Alf’s mates on the allotments and the rest Mum bought from some of the children who gathered them from up at the top end of the valley near the woodland edge. The potatoes are Bearthwaite Queen and the canned peas are local grown canned by Auntie Christine who also made the jelly. The locally grown wheat for the flour in the pastry as always came direct from the mill. The butter came from Auntie Lucy who gets it from the Peabodys. Even the herbs used were locally grown. Spiced apple meringue tart for pudding. Other than the sugar, salt, pepper and spices all was produced in the valley. That’s what we’re trying to do, so yet again we’ve succeeded in producing an essentially entirely locally produced supper. Auntie Veronica says she’s going to try using honey from Auntie Kathleen’s bees instead of sugar in future. Uncle Chance says that though it saves us all money the real benefit is that what money we do spend goes into the pockets of Bearthwaite folk who mostly spend it here too. He said there’s a money concept to do with the number of times the same money gets spent before it finally disappears to the government in taxes.”
Harriet looked at Chance, who further explained, “In most places you spend some money and twenty percent of it immediately goes to the government as VAT.(35) The bloke you bought the stuff off spends what he gets and twenty percent of what he spends disappears as VAT, and so it goes on money haemorrhaging away as tax at every stage. Of course there are other taxes eating into the money too. However, most folk in Bearthwaite sell locally grown stuff that is not subject to VAT because they don’t earn enough. Many folk here are completely and legally under the government’s radar for tax eligibility. A good example of that would be the kids gathering and selling fungi to Gladys. What she pays them they don’t pay tax on. The kids spend money buying confectionery from Hazel, but she only makes enough to sell here, so she doesn’t earn enough to pay tax either, and most of her raw materials are sourced here, so she’s probably only paying tax on sugar which like every one else she buys at bulk wholesale cost via Murray.
“What I was telling Harriet was that here the same money goes round and round being spent many times. What that means is we don’t have to save much money by dealing locally and we don’t have to earn much from outside for that to eventually have a significant impact on the entire population. The coöperative ownership of much here assists that considerably. The major saving occurs when we trust someone enough to give them something rather than selling it to them because we know that at some time in the future it will be reciprocated. Thus the government doesn’t have the opportunity to take a bite out of a minimum of two sales that didn’t happen. Too, prices here are as a result very low compared with outside, but in order to ensure that benefits us and we are not exploited by outsiders we have to do what Alice does when outsiders wish to bulk buy from her at Bearthwaite prices which to them is flour at a give away price.”
There was considerable laughter at that for Alice was no fool and had no time at all for the larger concerns that for generations had been trying to put the Bearthwaite flour mill out of business. Under those circumstances her choice of language was known to be a trifle flavourful. Most of Chance’s audience understood how what he was explaining worked. Alice and Phil bought grain locally cheaply, selt flour and bread to the village cheaply secure in the knowledge their needs would be met at similarly low prices whereas the outsiders would give them nothing in return. When they had a surplus to sell to outsiders they selt at the going rate at the time as quoted by the major wholesalers, not at the Bearthwaite price, for part of the Bearthwaite price was the invisible reduction in the prices they paid for goods and services. It was true that wages in the valley were low too, which minimised tax obligations and since prices were low it kept living standards high without the government being able to enforce inbuilt poverty in the valley.
As Chance had said, it was a matter of trust, for it was in the interests of the residents that prices, wages and especially housing costs were kept to a minimum, for that meant outsiders, which they saw both local and national government as, could not profiteer out of their sweat and toil. The low prices meant there were far fewer opportunities for government to exploit the residents via taxes, which they said were levied to pay for the services they supplied. Services that they had never supplied to the valley. Bearthwaite folk preferred lower wages, lower prices, much lower levels of taxation and no services most of which they neither wanted nor needed and what they did, like the school, they provided for themselves, for that resulted in a significantly higher standard of living. None had ever paid stamp duty(36) on a house at Bearthwaite for all properties were below the thresh hold price of two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. None had ever been selt for more than a hundred thousand pounds.
It was many years since the valley had had a landline telephone service, for towards the end of its usage the decrepit connection was unmaintained and hadn’t worked for more than half the time. With the advent of adequate mobile phone coverage, it had been decided to abandon BT(37) the landline provider. Most of the drugs, prescribed and otherwise, used in the valley, controlled or otherwise, were bought from outside the UK on the internet by Wing Tan Sun, the Bearthwaite GP, for a fraction of the price they were available at in the UK as a result of taxation. Murray considered that what little aspects of the NHS Bearthwaite residents used they had paid for ten time over in taxation.
“We’ll be serving supper in about half an hour, Gentlemen. In the meanwhile I’ll open the back door for the dogs, and top up their bowls. Don’t bother shutting the back door. It’s not raining and we need to let some fresh air into the kitchen.”
After draining his pint and walking behind the bar to refill his glass, Alf refilled two or three dozen more glasses whilst Pete washed glasses and Stan took the money. Sitting down he said, “Most of you know I used to mess about with biodiesel and that I still run static plant with bio fuel of a couple of types. What you maybe don’t know is that Otto Diesel designed his initial engine to run on vegetable oils for third world countries that couldn’t afford to buy petroleum oil products, peanut oil I think. The concept was later taken over by the big oil companies and developed to run on the heavier oil fractions that were a financial embarrassment to them. That was what they refined diesel from. As chemical engineering became more sophisticated they became better at turning just about anything into anything else, but after that all engine development was focussed on using their product and for most of the world for many many decades vegetable oil based fuels had become history.
“What I have only just become aware of as a result of talking to Gustav is that the modern day global centre for bio fuel is probably Bavaria where they grow huge acreages of sunflowers for the oil to produce bio diesel, and they have very sophisticated continuous production facilities to produce it. I virtually gave up on bio fuels for a number of sensible reason, not least of which is that by law the diesel from the garage forecourt these days already has significant proportions of bio in it, and in a modern common rail diesel engine fuel delivery system it’s potentially risking an engine to put any more bio in your fuel. We’re already exploring ways of eliminating our reliance on fossil fuels for cooking, heating and hot water. I’m not sure we should be moving towards solar photovoltaic electricity by the way because we’d be relying on outside for solar panels which we couldn’t make ourselves. Solar hot water yes, for we can make and maintain what we need. Solar electric, no. It’s too expensive, too sophisticated and we can’t maintain it ourselves. I can see no reason why we couldn’t use wind powered electrical sources to power ground source heat pumps which could charge a lead acid battery back up system with an easy to maintain inverter technology. I’ve made note on ideas that came to me when I watched Youtube ‘Pakistani Truck’ videos. What those guys do to maintain so called dead lead acid batteries is nothing short of amazing, though I am aware we in the west were able to do that once too. I have copies of all those videos and they are providing me with new ideas every time I watch them.
“However, back to diesel. Modern engines, diesel and petrol, are so sophisticated it’s impossible to maintain anything but their most basic parts, but older diesel engines can be fettled and rebuilt to keep them running for millions of miles, Mercedes especially so. I think that’s the way we should be looking. I suggest I start buying up old diesel trucks, vans, cars, and parts and owt else that could be our future. They’re cheap enough at present, and we have the space to store them in the quarry. I’d prefer it if they were under cover, but we can sort that out later. Gustav has relatives involved in the bio industry and he’s going to talk to them concerning what we’d need, and I’m going to look into it much more deeply than I did years ago. Given government policy concerning doing away with the sale of new diesel and petrol cars by at the latest twenty thirty-five and replacing them with electric ones, which we couldn’t fettle ourselves I reckon we need to start preparing for that years in advance. Like now, since that’s only twelve years away. I know older vehicles will be around for a long time after that but they will start to get gey dear. Like I said we don’t want newer vehicles we want stuff we can fettle here. We need to be talking about this as a matter of priority, and I need a group of lads with the appropriate backgrounds who can help me to get it off the ground and train up some youngsters.”
“Alf doesn’t say much as a rule does he?” Sasha said with a smile, “but when he does it pays to listen. I didn’t see that one coming, but Alf put it all together well. I agree with him about the solar photovoltaic electricity and had been meaning to say something about that myself. If necessary I’ll fund it, Lads, but Alf needs the workforce. I suggest we all think about it, talk to others about it and don’t regard this as an exclusively male thing. I can’t see many women being interested, Maybe Samantha Graham, but there are perhaps a few lasses would regard it as a future for them. Pass that oily, vile, violet looking chemic over here, Bertrond, would you please.”
“Working hard I see, Pet,” Alf remarked to Brigitte who had come to fill the dog’s bowls with water.
“Mum had to do something in the kitchen, Uncle Alf, so I said I’d do the dog’s bowls for her. Granddad, will you open another bag of kibble for me please. It’s too heavy for me to lift down off the shelf, and everyone else is busy.”
Dan, a local plasterer, was at the bar and he said, “You keep your seat, Pete. I’ll do it for you, Love, if you’ll shew me where it is.”
“Thank you, Uncle Dan. It’s in a pantry at the side of the kitchen.”
“Nice lass. You did well there, Pete. Proper well mannered Bearthwaite lass she is. Going to be a looker too. I heard she’s teken up with one of Charlie’s grandsons.”
Brigitte had recently acquired an hour glass like figure and, much to Ron’s delight, was blossoming, though Peter who had started as her identical twin sister still had, as a result of the medications prescribed by Dr Wing on Dr Tenby’s recommendation, the figure and height of a much younger child.
“Aye, Bill. The lad goes by the name of Ron. He seems a bit shy, but I’m glad she finding her feet as a Bearthwaite lass. Doubtless a bit of kissing with a gentle lad will help her forget or at least get over the nightmare she lived in before. I suppose discovering kissing is one of the better bits of growing up.”
Bill laught and there was a lot of chuckling about that before Bill asked, “I haven’t met her brother yet. What he like?”
“Quiet, Bill, very quiet. They both had a rough deal, he more than his sister, which is probably why he’s so quiet. He enjoys fishing and messing about with Jeremy and the model train crew, but he’s a likeable lad. He’s clever, but you have to work hard to get him to shew you that. Violet, one of Bertrond’s lasses is interested in him, so he must have something about him because she’s three years older than him and not without admirers.”
Jeremy added, “He’s clever all right, and imaginatively creative too. Wants to model two working swing bridges side by side over the Manchester ship canal, one carrying a canal and the other a road. Found the real things on the internet near Manchester. Violent can’t take her eyes off him, but all they talk about is modelling. She’s keen on modelling Silloth station, the convalescent home there and the old Solway plain airfields.”
Bertrond said, “He’s a polite, helpful lad. I can see what Violet sees in him and at the same time I can’t. She’s a bonnie, well developed lass, a young woman really who’s rapidly becoming a carbon copy of her mum, and he’s still a young boy, but each to their own. Truth is it’s none of my business is it? When he’s at our spot he helps out, and not just at what Violent has to do. Amelia’s a bit disappointed he’ll not be able to give her grandchildren, but I telt her to keep that to herself seeing as the lad was adopted out of what Violet had telt us was a hellhole of a life. After all, I telt her, if it comes to it Violet can always adopt too, and there are other options, but don’t tell Amelia I said that. The lad’s no idea what he wants do for a trade, but hellfire, at his age what can you reasonably expect? Like I said he’s a decent, helpful, polite and clever lad. What more can you ask for for one of your lasses?”
Gustav who’d just entered the taproom realising what the conversation was about, and it was reasonable to him that his neighbours and friends wished to know about their new residents said, “His German was just what you’d expect of a schoolboy of his age when he first came here. I wouldn’t say he’s fluent yet, but I’ve never known any learn a language so quickly. He spends a lot of time studying and it won’t be long before he is fluent. I’m thinking of having him spend a few weeks in the summer with my mother. An inn, whether in Bavaria or over here, will be a familiar environment to him by then and it will not only do his confidence good it will enable him to speak German like a native. I thought he could go with my family when they return after the wedding.”
The subject was dropped when Brigitte returned with Dan and her pail of kibble. Before she left she asked, “Uncle Alf, have you seen those edible gourd seeds that Uncle Johnto got from China?”
“No. What are they called, Pet?”
Brigitte laught and said, “No idea. Neither of us can read Chinese, and that all that’s on the packet. The pictures on the front look good, but uncle Johnto said coming from China they could be owt. He telt me about the seeds you got from China.” Alf smiled remembering those seeds too, the ones that had turned out to be anything but what they were supposed to be. As Brigitte left she said, “I’ll shut the back door now, Granddad.”
Not long after she left she returned with Harriet and Veronica bringing the supper.
“Well, bred or no, those coneys made a damned fine supper, Vincent.”
“I’ve always said, Alf, that they taste different from wild coney, but not inferior, and I like the taste of both.” There were a lot of nods at that, for Vincent had indeed been heard to say that dozens of times. When Rhona had first started breeding the large, New Zealand White coneys there had been a reluctance to try them for it was considered they would probably be inferior somehow to the wild coneys that were to be found in considerable numbers in the valley. There was a certain almost perverse pleasure to be had for the Bearthwaite residents in eating wild coney, for local memory went back to the days when killing a coney was a hanging offence since they belonged to the local Lord of the estate. A number of Bearthwaite residents knew at least one of their starving ancestors had been hanged for trying to feed his children and there was a childish enjoyment in eating what was once a forbidden viand that the large bred coneys did not provide, for all irrespective of their age knew being able to stick a middle finger up to the establishment was an enjoyable experience, and being irresponsibly childish had nowt to do with it.
In the early days in order to overcome folks’ reluctance to buy her produce Rhona had asked Vincent if she should reduce her price, which had been the same per pound as the wild coneys, and he’d replied, “The hell no, Rhona. I’ll tek ’em all off you at the agreed price. If you sell ’em cheap to start with you’ll never get a fair price for ’em, for that will establish them as an inferior product in folks’ minds. Gladys isn’t daft, and I know she’ll tek a load for suppers at a fair price. I’ll butch some and sell ’em as joints. Plenty of folk as don’t have a lot of money will buy a coney joint, especially if I put a bit of offal to it for free. I give that sort of stuff away all the time, so it’s costing me nowt extra. The village, and I too, need you breeding coneys, so we have to do this right right from the beginning. Every pound of coney you breed is a pound of meat I don’t have to buy at a mart, for local farmers can’t supply all the meat we need. That keeps more money local. A coney joint with say a pigs tail, or a trotter, some liver, a kidney or a slice of brawn will all get selt. Any bits left over after butching for joints I’ll include in soup packs along with some vegetables from the allotment lads. Don’t worry, Lass, eventually folk’ll get used to the idea that they get selt by weight at the same price as the wild ones.” It had taken going on a twelvemonth, but Vincent knew his customers, and they needed cheap food. He’d never tried to pass bred coney off as wild, but he’d refused to accept a lower price for them either. That was long ago, and now bred coney was considered to be no different from bred lamb or any other meat from the farms, but Rhona had only selt them via Vincent since then. In Bearthwaite even unacknowledged favours were always returned.
“I haven’t a clue what half of the stuff I see on the internet means these days. They don’t even speak English any more. I wrote down what I saw last night just to tell you. Don’t bother trying to explain cos the truth is I don’t give a fuck. If they don’t want me to understand fine. If they do then they need to write in English not frigging gibberish. It makes you glad to be old and then it’ll soon be all over and the idiots can just get on with it, but here it goes,
“One, Ciara Talks About The ‘Selective Outrage’ Over Her See Through Dress. Any got any idea what selective outrage is? Or even who the hell Ciara is?
“Two, Interest rate expectations torn up across the City into Bank of England meeting. How about torn up? How do you tear up something like an interest rate which is a completely abstract idea.
“Three, Prince Harry confused for father King Charles in poignant royal photo. What does confused for mean? Okay I accept complete stupidity in connection with that idiot.
“Four, Louise Redknapp rocks sheer leotard and high cut hotpants in her most daring look yet. Rocks? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Rocks are chunks of stone and what cradles do, and I suppose somebody must know who Louise Redknapp is.
“Five, Girl claiming to be Madeleine McCann speaks on Dr Phil about DNA test results. The fact that she on a TV programme of that kind tells you she’s completely full of it.
“Six, roundabout sling-shots. Is the divisive driving hack legal What the hell is that all about?
“Those are just a few from yahoo, but I could have written down a hundred. Youtube is obviously populated by folk from Gibberland since they are all writing complete Gibberish, and the clip titles are just so much shite I couldn’t bring myself to write them down.
“Well, Denis, I guess like most of the rest of us you’re just an old bugger who doesn’t place any value on what seems to be moving the world these days, but I reckon as long as we keep a tight grip on our money and keep fucking off those that want us to spend money on compete shite we’ll be okay, and I for one don’t give a toss what happen to my cash once her indoors(38) and me are gone.”
There was a murmur of agreement at Francis’ opinion, and a silence that lasted several minutes before Barry broke it by saying, “For Christ’s sake it’s been a gey heavy diet the night. You not got owt to lighten us up a bit, Dave?”
“Only a gey short one off my mobile phone. Okay give me time for my pint, Lads. Old Dorothy was looking a bit worried and her mate Edith asks, ‘What’s up, Dot. You seem a bit preoccupied. You okay?’ Dorothy sighed and says, ‘I’ve not been feeling too good recently, Eedie, and my lady garden(39) has been getting gey sore. I went to see that nice lady doctor and she gave me some cream, steroids she said were in it.’ Dorothy hesitated and then in a rush said, ‘I think I’m growing a penis.’ Edith looked thoughtful before saying, ‘Powerful tackle those steroids, Dot. Anabolic?’(40) ‘No, Eedie, just a penis.’ ”
Barely heard through the laughter Tony could just be distinguished spluttering beer and choking out, “Oh for fuck’s sake, Dave. Anabolic! Jesus Christ, Lad, if ever I get to suffer from terminal depression I’ll come to you for a cure and bugger the quack and and his happy pills.”
When all had calmed and pints had been refreshed and bottles of rare stuff passed round along with the tin for donations to the kids’ Christmas party Barry asked, “I heard there was a bit of bother at the Academy in Whiteport connected with your kids, Gustav. What was that about?”
“I don’t actually know, Barry, because my children weren’t directly involved. The Academy rang me up on what was clearly an information fishing trip. They obviously didn’t know owt and were after something they could use against the Bearthwaite kids. Even if I knew owt I wouldn’t have telt them, for seemingly a bigoted bully had been threatening and trying to intimidate my children for speaking differently and Peter for being trans. Someone beat seven shades of it out of the thug who subsequently claimed he’d seen none doing it. The Academy didn’t believe him and thought he’d been terrorised into keeping his mouth shut on pain of something worse happening to him. When I asked mine about it they both said they it was the first they’d heard tell of it and I believe them. The sooner we educate our kids here the better because I reckon the school was just looking for a scapegoat and our kids are an identifiable minority that fit the bill nicely, and that is never going to change. I did hear a rumour from one of the deliverymen that one of Bertie’s lads was involved, but that’s as much as I know.”
The room turned to face Bertie who smiled and said, “I heard that too from one of my lasses. She said she and her sisters wanted me to know what actually happened, not some garbled Chinese whispers type of account. I’ve deliberately not asked any questions, but seemingly a bullying thug got out bullied and out thugged by one of my lads who was even bigger than him and wasn’t up for taking any shite on behalf of any of the Bearthwaite kids. I wasn’t telt which one of the lads it was, and I didn’t ask, for my kids won’t lie to me and I didn’t want to put the lasses in a hard place, though I reckon I know. Having said that, it could have been any of my lads, cos none are full grown yet and all are above six six and heavy built, I reckon they’ll all top Granddad eventually at over seven foot. Much more to the point they are all decent lads who think the same. Seems to me to be a case of natural justice. The Academy rang me too and said they knew it was something to do with the Bearthwaite kids and suspected one of mine had been guilty of the assault. Obviously they were bluffing in an attempt to find out something, so I put the phone down without having said a word and passed the matter over to Adalheidis. The day after I got a phone call from the Academy with an apology. I’ve no idea what Adalheidis did or said, and I’m not going to ask, but I owe the lass a favour. I agree with Gustav that the sooner we get our kids out of that spot the better, and leaving the examination year kids there next year would have been a serious mistake because there’re wouldn’t have been enough of them to protect each other. Still the academy can worry about it all come September, because for sure none of us will be fashed(41) by it.”
“Is that all you’re going to do about it, Bertie?” asked a newcomer from out side.
“Hell no! What kind of an ingrate do you take me for? I gave the kids a rise in their allowance. I gave it them all, so as not to make it obvious which one of them I was proud of for kicking the shit out of an arsehole for whom a good kicking was clearly long overdue. I believe the arsehole was threat with gelding by one one of the farm lads if he breathed a word which seemed fair enough to me. To make sure the thug kept his mouth shut I believe several of the farm lads took a bloodless castrator into school the day after to shew him and they explained how they were used. I may not be the best Dad in the world, but I got that one right. I taught all my kids that you look after your own, because when the chips are down they’re the only ones who will look after you.”
There were a number of very shocked looking outsiders who became even more shocked at the shouts of approval from the Bearthwaite men. ‘Good Lad, Bertie,’ ‘You’re a cracking Dad’ and ‘You did right, Son,’ were common refrains, and Alf shook his grandson’s hand and put his arm around Bertie’s shoulders in a way only a proud grandfather could.
Sasha said, “It makes me deeply satisfied to think that long after our generation are all gone Bertie’s generation will be upholding everything that we and they too believe in and that which will make life good for the generations to come after them. That’s no reason for us to slow down though. As we age we are not capable physically of what we once were, but naytheless we can still think and guide other younger folk to what will be their generation’s interpretation of what it is to be Bearthwaite folk, which will naturally have to change with the events of the future. Alf and his group are leading the way with their insistence upon our self reliance for fuel, but I’m sure there are many other things we need to be looking at with one eye on the opportunities of the future and the other on what we know worked in the past. Neither the future nor the past are sacred, and it is the task of the intelligent and perceptive guiders of our society to pick and mix whatever blend of both will take the next generations forward as well equipped survivors with a good standard of living.” Sasha continued with his vision of the future for ten minutes and it was a very quiet taproom when he finally finished to say, “Okay, Lads, that’s me finished. Dominoes, and, Gustav, be a good lad and make sure we have enough of the rare stuff to last us. Partner me if you will?”
After the Dragon had closed and the usual meeting took place in the best side Pete said to Sasha, “That was a fair powerful oration, Sasha, concerning where we go next, and I agree entirely with you. Gustav, you’re a member of the next generation. You got anything to add?”
“No, Dad. I think Sasha said it all, but I’m glad that like all Saturday nights in the taproom it was video recorded for youngsters who will be born long after I am gone, so they are not just listening to second or third hand memories of it, but seeing it as it was said. I was thinking the other day that, despite the accent I have, I’ve not been a Bavarian German for some time. I don’t think like a Bavarian German any more and what matters to a Bavarian has not been of any import to me for a long time. I reckon Simon has the right of it when he said that he was not English nor even Cumbrian, but he is a UK citizen and a man of Bearthwaite. That’s all that matters to me too, for here is where the future of myself and mine lies. My children started their lives in an place with it’s own language and culture and received nothing but abuse there, which is only a reflection of their family not the language and culture there, but now they are growing up as Bearthwaite folk. I am grateful for the protection and opportunities Bearthwaite gave my children and myself. In its willingness to accept us as Bearthwaite folk Bearthwaite has created a future for itself protected by not just its existing citizens but all of the ones it will accept in the future too. In that I see our future as one of success and wellbeing.”
Harriet kissed Gustav and said, “I believe that is all we have to say tonight. I’m tired and I wish to check on the children before I go to bed. Gustav. Bedtime.”
The couple left and Elle said, “It’s my belief Harriet is right. We do often attempt to overthink things. Let’s go home, Sasha.”As they left, hand in hand, Gladys said to Pete, “Well, Love, since that leaves us with none to talk to except each other I suggest we too go to bed.
1. Squaddie, member of the armed forces, usually refers to the army.
2. The mob, reference to the armed forces.
3. Daffodils by William Wordsworth
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed, and gazed, but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
4. William Wordsworth (7 April 1770 – 23 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet, who was Poet Laureate from 1843 till his death.
5.Earthworms are hermaphrodites. Each carries male and female reproductive organs. When mating, two individual earthworms will exchange sperm and fertilize each other’s eggs.
6. Earthworms, there are 31 species of earthworms in the British Isles, though two are only known in Ireland. Many are rare. The Common Earthworm, the Lob Worm, Lumbricus terrestris can be anything up to 35 cm [14 inches] long and will dig down as far as 5m [16½ feet]. It is probably this that is being referred to here.
7. Natural England is a non departmental public body in the UK sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs. It is responsible for ensuring that England’s natural environment, including its land, flora and fauna, freshwater and marine environments, geology and soils, are protected and improved. It also has a responsibility to help people enjoy, understand and access the natural environment.
8. A reference to Esau and Jacob Genesis 25:27-34. The spelling of lentiles is as in the King James Version.
9. A twelvemonth is a commonly used synonym for a year in various parts of the UK not just in the north.
10. To fash mysel about it, to worry about it.
11. Pantechnicon, a large furniture removal van, probably only used in UK English.
12. PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
13. The border reivers were lawless raiders along the Anglo Scottish border from the late 13th century to the beginning of the 17th century. They included both Scottish and English persons, and they raided the entire border country without regard to their victims’ nationality.
14. Royal Air Force often referred to as the Royal Hair Farce. During the WW2, members of the RAF became known as Brylcreem boys. Initially intended as an insult by other branches of the forces due to the RAF’s perceived safe and comfortable job back in Britain, one that afforded them the luxury of personal grooming; the term became one of endearment after their success during the Battle of Britain. Brylcreem, a hair cream created in 1928.
15. The Axis powers, originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis, was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against the Allies. Its principal members were Nazi Germany, the Kingdom of Italy, and the Empire of Japan.
16. During World War II the UK government was forced to borrow heavily in order to finance war with the Axis powers. By the end of the conflict Britain’s debt exceeded 200 percent of GDP. As during World War I, the US again provided the major source of funds. Even at the end of the war Britain needed American financial assistance, and in 1945 Britain took a loan for $586 million, and in addition a further $3.7 billion line of credit. The debt was to be paid off in 50 annual repayments commencing in 1950. Some of these loans were only paid off in the early 21st century.
17. Squaddie, member of the armed forces, usually refers to the army.
18. The mob, reference to the armed forces.
19. PC, Politically Correct.
20. Gey strang, very strong.
21. TA, Territorial Army, the UK’s part time reserve military.
22. GP, General Practitioner, a family doctor.
23.Fuel Poverty. In the UK fuel poverty is now defined as when a household’s required fuel costs are above the median level, and if they were to spend what is required, then the household would be left with a residual income below the official poverty line. Additionally, a Fuel Poverty Indicator has been created, which shows how far into fuel poverty households are, not simply if they are in poverty or not.
24. Genesis 41:7.
25. Buck House, a common expression used all over Britain for Buckingham Palace.
26. NHS, National Health Service.
27. Alfred Wainwright, the one name above all others who has become associated with walking in the Lake District. His seven-volume Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells, first published in 1955–66, has become the definitive fell walkers guidebook.
28. Wether, a castrated ram. Most male sheep are wethered at a few days old if not at birth. Wethers are easier to handle and gain weight faster than rams.
29. Grub, food.
30. MOT, Ministry of Transport annual certification of road worthiness, a legal requirement in the UK.
31. Forestry England is a division of the Forestry Commission, responsible for managing and promoting publicly owned forests in England.
32. The Forestry Commission is a non-ministerial government department responsible for the management of publicly owned forests and the regulation of both public and private forestry in England.
33. Lazarus being raised from the dead is a biblical reference, Gospel of John (11:1-45).
34. Bob Cratchit is a fictional character in the Charles Dickens 1843 novel A Christmas Carol. The abused, underpaid clerk of Ebenezer Scrooge, Cratchit has come to symbolize the poor working conditions, especially long working hours and low pay, endured by many working class people in the early Victorian era.
35. VAT, value added tax. A UK tax of 20% levied on virtually all goods. Those in business can reclaim what they have paid on bought in goods and services and have to pay the tax on what they sell.
36. You usually pay Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) on increasing portions of the property price when you buy residential property, for example a house or flat. SDLT only applies to properties over £250,000.
37. BT, British Telecom, the national landline provider that had been voted the worst service provider in the nation for many years in a row.
38. Her indoors, a UK expression that a man uses when referring to his wife.
39. Lady garden, expression used by women when talking to other women concerning anything related to their genitalia.
40. For those for whom English is not their first language speakers. Anabolic is being misheard for ‘and a bollock’. A bollock is slang for a testicle.
41. Fashed, bothered.
Comments
So frustrating
Wonderful tales of a fictional (?) place. I don't suppose there is a real place like Bearthwaite to go visit??