CONSTABLE
VERSUS
GREENGRASS
A perfect feel-good read from one of Britain’s best-loved authors
NICHOLAS RHEA
Constable Nick Mystery Book 16
Revised edition 2021
Joffe Books, London
www.joffebooks.com
First published in Great Britain in 1995
© Nicholas Rhea 1995, 2021
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The spelling used is British English except where fidelity to the author’s rendering of accent or dialect supersedes this. The right of Nicholas Rhea to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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ISBN: 978-1-78931-660-5
CONTENTS
1. Greengrass Roots
2. Antecedent History of Claude Jeremiah Greengrass
3. Greengrass on Wheels
4. Greengrass at the Fair
5. Greengrass on the Hoof
6. Greengrass on Tour
7. Greengrass Intoxicated
8. Greengrass in Business
9. Greengrass to the Dogs
10. Greengrass at Christmas
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GLOSSARY OF ENGLISH USAGE FOR US READERS
Dedicated to Bill Maynard for making Claude Jeremiah Greengrass such a lovable rogue in Heartbeat.
1. Greengrass Roots
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. . . the roots of sin are there.
RUDYARD KIPLING, 1865–1936
Researching the history of the Greengrass family of Aidensfield, a picturesque village on the edge of the North York Moors, has provided a fascinating glimpse into the history of that infamous dynasty.
The first recorded Greengrass probably appears in the Bronze Age. Knowledge of this bygone ancestor of Claude Jeremiah Greengrass came in 1846 with the discovery of a man’s skeleton during archaeological excavations of a burial mound. It was on Pike Hill Moss, above Aidensfield, and the skeleton of an unidentified breed of dog lay beside the man. Closer examination revealed strands of faded green grass complete with roots and panicles; these were in an earthenware vessel beside the man’s body. Initially, it was thought that the man had been a gardener and that the container was a primitive plant pot in which he was trying to cultivate grass, but closer examination revealed the vessel was in the shape of a very large version of a modern pint-sized beer glass with a handle.
The grass, of the variety Setaria viridis (green panic-grass) had clearly been fresh when placed in the burial chamber centuries earlier and its root may have enabled it to survive for some time. The grass was of little academic interest. In that era, deceased persons were buried beside the things they treasured; the huge drinking vessel is thought to have been important in the social life of the deceased. The significance of the green panic-grass has continued to puzzle historians.
The drinking vessel, handmade in local clay, might have been the forerunner of the jeroboam, a very large wine container; it bore some crude letter-type markings which appeared to be the name of the owner, Clod, and so, also bearing in mind the grass relics, the skeleton was nicknamed Clod Jeroboam Green Grass. Oddly enough, the word “clod” continues to be used to describe a clump of grass which is attached to a lump of earth; it is also used to describe a stupid person, i.e. a clodhopper.
The dog had the skeleton of a brown hare in its mouth along with some remnants of a plant called lucerne or alfalfa, this being a type of fodder. Subsequent examination showed that both man and dog had met a violent death, each having suffered a severe blow to the skull, probably administered by a heavy wooden club. It is thought the pair had been caught in the v of poaching and summarily dealt with. Because of the alfalfa found in its mouth, the dog was called Alf, later expanded to Alfred.
I could not find any further references to Greengrasses until Roman times. The Roman invasion of Britain began around AD 78, and the area around Aidensfield was quickly colonised, with York (Eboracum) and Malton (Derventio) being local centres of great military importance. A military road was constructed across the moors from Appleton le Street near Malton towards the coast at Whitby; the four Cawthorn Camps near Wrelton were built as a base for the soldiers and part of the road they built almost 2,000 years ago can still be seen on Wheeldale Moor above Goathland.
Over a mile and a quarter long, its legendary name is Wade’s Causeway, one story being that it was constructed by the giant Wade. In fact, it is one of the finest examples of a Roman road in this country. It passes very close to Aidensfield and records reveal that an ancestor of Claude Jeremiah Greengrass helped in the construction of this renowned highway. There is no record of a Wade Greengrass, but it is known there existed a man called Claudius Januarius Herbeus, the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier called Pontius Pilate Herbeus and an English girl called Clodasmunda.
She is thought to have been a descendant of the aforementioned Clod who had lived during the Bronze Age. Claudius was named after the renowned Emperor Claudius while Herbeus is the Latin for grass-green, a beautiful shade of that colour. The English version is Greengrass. Thus, with some certainty, the legendary Greengrass dynasty can be dated to Roman times, albeit with the likelihood of some Bronze Age Greengrasses.
Claudius Januarius Herbeus, alias Grassgreen, secured work on the Roman road near what is now called Aidensfield. His first duty was to clear the scrubland so that the road-builders and engineers could proceed without interruption. He was quickly promoted to carrier, his job being to cart stones to the construction site. He had to provide his own horse and flat-bottomed chariot. Always accompanied by his dog, a woolly grey caninus called Alfresco, it wasn’t long before Claudius was stealing some of the stones and selling them in the nearest village. He was caught, flogged, and ordered to do bathhouse and latrine fatigues.
He was then forced to work longer hours and to fetch more stones. He had to do the work of two men while his dog was forced to haul a small dog cart, also loaded with stones; this prevented it chasing the camp commandant’s game and poultry.
Contemporary records of the audited accounts for the road building show the best materials continued to disappear, and that some local English mansions appeared to be constructed from high-quality stones of a type very similar to that obtained especially for this magnificent road. One of the Roman soldiers, a regimental commander called Oscarius Blaketonicus, carried out a searching investigation but could not secure proof that Claudius Januarius Herbeus, alias Grassgreen, was responsible for removing them.
After the Roman era, th
e dynasty changed its name from Grassgreen to Greengrass and there are Anglo-Saxon records of a Claude Ethelred-The-Always-Ready Greengrass. An itinerant image-maker, he sold carved gods to the heathens and transferred his skills to making statues when Christianity came to this country. His depiction of his patron saint, St Jeremiah the Cunning, has survived and can be seen in the Ashfordly Museum of Antiquities.
A statue of this Greengrass, carved by himself in stone, was discovered cemented into the walls of an old church c.1346 with a dog asleep at his feet. Apparently hidden in the ninth century for reasons which are unclear, it was also placed in Ashfordly Museum.
It is thought this Greengrass had a son, Claude Sweyne Forkebearde Greengrass but no trace remains; a hint in an old manuscript suggests a man of this name earned a living selling rams’ horns to adorn the helmets of the Vikings.
After the Norman invasion of 1066, documents relating to an old church at Aidienesfeld (Aidensfield) show that the man who supplied the stone from which the church was built was a Claude Rufus Greengrass, described as a villain or feudal serf who occasionally worked for the lord of the manor. Without authority, he had removed stones from the Roman road, now disused, and had sold them to the church. Because no owner of the stones could be traced, no prosecution followed. Notes made by a constable of the time indicated that Claude said in court, “I reckon these belong to Julius Caesar and he hasn’t complained.” It was claimed that the ghost of a Roman soldier, with a stone hanging around his neck on a rope, haunted the church for centuries thereafter. One theory is that it was the ghost of the regimental commander, Oscarius Blaketonicus.
This same Claude, who had a dog called Hardigrasse, is believed to be the felon who was once arraigned before the court of the Manor of Aidienesfeld (Aidensfield) and Eschewathelby (Ashfordly) for an offence, which when translated means “surreptitiously, without permission and by divers unlawful methods, trapping conies in ye coneyries and warrens which are ye property of Robert, Lord of ye Manor of Eschewathelby, and through devilish antics of a dogge Hardigrasse, taking away said conies for sundry mischievous purposes”. He was fined fifty shillings, a large sum at that time.
In 1309, a Claude Plantagenet Greengrass was found guilty by the manorial court of refusing to work at the harvest and, along with his dog, Alfalfa, was placed in the stocks. At that time, a man had to mow for one day, hoe for one day, turn hay for one day and in the autumn, reap for three days for a fee of one penny per day. Greengrass had refused, saying the pay wasn’t good enough. When in the stocks, the Greengrass dog, Alfalfa, survived by eating rotten chickens hurled at Greengrass. This was considered apt punishment because one of Greengrass’s business ventures had been the selling of rotten eggs, vegetables, fish and meat to the crowds which assembled around the village stocks — they threw them at the prisoners. Now Greengrass was getting back some of his own ordure.
Then, in the late 1430s, a Claude Montefiore Greengrass was engaged in the manufacture of jewellery from jet found both on the moors above Aidensfield and on the coast while another, Claude Marco Polo Greengrass, a one-time explorer, earned his living as a fisherman at Whitby; both were sentenced to two days in the pillory for offences which have never been disclosed. It is thought that the jet was not true jet and the fish had been poached from Lord Eschfordeli’s stocks. Shortly afterward, the name Ashfordly appeared.
In one of the rare references to a female Greengrass, there is a note in the records of the Elsinby Court Leet for 1622 of a Claudia Jacintha Greengrass being convicted of being a scold, i.e. that she was guilty of lewd behaviour in that she daily caused strife and discord among her neighbours.
The punishment was “that she be soundly ducked on the ducking stool three times over the head and ears by the constables for such misdemeanour”. She continued to scold and curse even as she was being lowered into a deep pool in Aidensfield Beck. The water frothed and bubbled on the surface due to her powerful underwater ranting and, because of her violent kicking, the ducking stool had to be repaired. It is said that no fish has since survived in that pool. The stool was repaired by the local carpenter who was her son, Claude Hurstmonceux Greengrass. He specialised in the manufacture and repair of ducking stools, cucking stools, foot stools and milking stools.
One Greengrass who made legal history in the seventeenth century is Half-Hanged Greengrass. His real name was Claude Charlemagne Greengrass and he had been convicted of stealing a sheep which belonged to Lord Ashfordly. Sentenced to be hanged on the gallows on Ashfordly Hill, he recovered while his body was being cut down several hours later, and so the court ordered a retrial. He was found guilty once more and sentenced to be hanged again; for the second time, the gallows were used on Ashfordly Hill and a huge crowd gathered to see the now legendary Half-Hanged Greengrass. On this occasion, the rope snapped and Greengrass fell to the ground where he leapt up and shouted “Greengrass forever! Long live Greengrass!” The crowd loved this demonstration of invincibility. Not to be defeated by Greengrass, however, the authorities swiftly organised a new rope and for the third time, Greengrass was suspended by the neck from Ashfordly Gallows.
On this occasion, he made terrible choking noises and everyone was satisfied that justice had been done. Several hours later, though, as his body lay in the mortuary awaiting disposal on the community midden, he recovered yet again and staggered into the street shouting, “It’s a miracle, it’s a miracle. Somebody up there loves me!”
Upon hearing the news, Lord Ashfordly regarded these remarkable recoveries as a sign from heaven and ordered the release of Greengrass “on condition he went to live in Buckinghamshire”. It is not known whether that branch of the dynasty thrived in their new surroundings although it was recorded that ten sheep, sixteen hens, a horse and a cart all disappeared from Ashfordly Hall at the time of the Greengrass departure to the south.
The name of Greengrass appears in a list of 100 convicts who were transported to New South Wales, Australia, from Chatham in July 1829. He was Napoleon Bonaparte Greengrass who was convicted of stealing a pair of shoes, a side of ham and a sack of potatoes from the outbuildings of Ashfordly Hall, the property of Lord Ashfordly. The parish constable who arrested this Greengrass was called Oscar Blaketon, an ancestor of the Sergeant Blaketon of Ashfordly Police, who is reputed to have said at the trial, “These Greengrasses never learn, Your Worships. There’s bad blood in them, mark my words.”
Since the formation of the county police force in 1856, court records have been more meticulously maintained and the name of Greengrass appeared many times between 1856 and my time at Aidensfield in the 1960s.
Without going into unnecessary detail, the following are some of the offences:
1859 — Eli Humphrey Greengrass — hawking without a licence. Fined 10s.0d.
1864 — Whittaker Freeman Greengrass — drunk in charge of a horse. Fined 5s.0d.
1869 — Thundercliffe Jasper Greengrass — refusing to quit licensed premises. Fined 5s.0d.
1876 — Osbourne Charles Greengrass — travelling on a train without a ticket. Fined 5s.0d.
1877 — Osbourne Charles Greengrass — fraudulent travel on a tram. Fined 10s.0d.
1890 — Alfred Tennyson Greengrass — shoeing a horse in the street. Fined 3s.6d.
1891 — Alfred Tennyson Greengrass — standing a cart in the street for longer than necessary. Fined 2s.6d.
1892 — Alfred Tennyson Greengrass — allowing offensive matter to flow from his home into the street. Fined 10s.0d.
1894 — Thomas Fairfax Greengrass — leaving open a cellar door on the footpath to the discomfort of Sergeant O. Blaketon. Fined 15s.0d.
1897 — Jessica Flo Greengrass — shaking a doormat in the street after 8 a.m. Fined 2s.0d.
1900 — Five members of the Greengrass family were taken before the magistrates for lighting bonfires, letting off fireworks, placing streamers, flying kites, setting up market stalls and sundry other offences to the annoyance or obstruction of passers-by. In mitigation, members
of the family said they had merely been celebrating the turn of the century. The magistrate was not amused — he was one of the persons who had been obstructed. Fines totalling £8.15s.0d. were imposed.
1909 — Ockleton Blatherwick Greengrass — riding a donkey on the footpath. Fined 5s.0d.
1924 — Claude Jeremiah Greengrass — riding on shafts of a cart. Fined 6d.
1936 — Claude Jeremiah Greengrass — furious driving of a cart. Fined 12s.6d.
1936 — Claude Jeremiah Greengrass — drunk in charge of a shotgun. Fined 15s.0d.
1936 — Claude Jeremiah Greengrass — keeping a dog without a licence. Fined 7s.6d.
1939 — Claude Jeremiah Greengrass — fortune-telling by using subtle crafts with intent to deceive members of HM Forces. Fined 10s.0d.
1939 — Claude Jeremiah Greengrass — being an idle and disorderly person, exposing his wounds to obtain alms. Fined 10s.0d.
Claude Jeremiah Greengrass then joined the army in 1939 and served until 1945 as a private, his main duty being to drive senior officers in official vehicles. His court martial records, if any, have not been made available, but he was prosecuted in the civilian courts for stealing petrol from military vehicles, selling petrol without a licence, acquiring petrol otherwise than from an authorised supplier and failing to accept petrol coupons at the time of supply of petrol. He was also convicted of selling food in air-raid shelters without a licence and making an unauthorised appeal for charitable donations.
He was found not guilty on each count. The chief prosecution witness was a Corporal Oscar Blaketon of the Royal Military Police who was criticised by the magistrates for bringing the cases to court without sufficient evidence.
Since leaving the army and settling down as a self-employed civilian rogue in Aidensfield, there has been constant conflict between Claude and ex-Corporal, later Constable and now Sergeant, Blaketon. Although Claude has appeared before the magistrates on many occasions, it is very rarely, if ever, that he is convicted.
CONSTABLE VERSUS GREENGRASS a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain’s best-loved authors (Constable Nick Mystery Book 16) Page 1
