by Amanda Owen
‘Now this won’t do,’ I said grumpily to Clive one day whilst I attempted to warm my numbed fingers. ‘I just can’t get this thing to throw out any heat at all. And not only that’ – I was on a roll now – ‘yer can only put the smallest of logs through the door. I’ve got better things to do than spend my life sawing normal-sized logs into miniature wee ones.’
I have got previous form when it comes to over-ambitiously stoking the fire. Once, long before I met Clive, I half burnt my house door down after embers from a huge, partially burnt log dropped in the draught excluder. I’d forfeited a quiet night in beside the fire when I’d got a better offer that evening and, for safety reasons, I hadn’t wanted to leave the enormous knotty log burning in the grate, so I’d lobbed it out into the garden. I was extremely lucky that I didn’t raze my cottage to the ground.
Back then I was a contract shepherdess, working on farms all around Cumbria. Once, I had worked on the farm of an elderly bachelor where the farmhouse’s living conditions were none too salubrious. On the occasions that my presence was required, usually for mucking out some overfilled barn bottom, I was always curious about the appearance of a dead rat or two beside the house door. One day I decided to ask.
‘Yer must ’ave a gay good cat that can catch yer rats o’ tha’ size,’ I said.
‘Nae, it’s mi lal’ terrier that gets ’em,’ he replied.
‘An’ it brings ’em to yer door?’ I said quizzically.
‘Nah, he gits ’em upstairs an’ I drops ’em out o’ t’bedroom window,’ he replied.
His rat infestation was soon to be unexpectedly solved.
He and I had little in common other than a shared love for all things burnable. I suspect that he was just too miserly to buy a load of logs, whereas my passion was born of necessity as I really didn’t have two pennies to rub together. Tree branches and limbs – lopped off by gales – gateposts and pallets were all gathered up from the fields and conveniently but unceremoniously piled up beside the farmhouse door, at the opposite side to the rodent corpses. As he lived alone and didn’t have anyone to tend the house fire whilst he was out in the fields or farmyard, he had devised a cunning way to feed it. One of the many lengthy pieces of timber was suspended at a forty-five-degree angle on a chain from a hook he’d hammered into a beam in the ceiling. The fire would effectively feed itself: as the end burnt away in the grate, the wood would gradually move into the flames.
This basic contraption worked fine for many years, but when it failed it did so in a most spectacular fashion. A fire broke out whilst he was down in the fields on his tractor muckspreading, and smoke billowed through the windows and seeped from underneath the roof slates to such a degree that the rats called time and evacuated the premises.
The fire brigade was called, and the flames quelled, before too much damage was done. Those brave firefighters did their duty and the house was saved, but despite this the old farmer’s protestations were loud and clear.
‘Thoos put mi fire reet oot,’ he squawked. ‘Reet out. It’d bin better if thoo’d ’ave left it ’alf in.’
Clive was in agreement that we needed to do something about the wood-burning stove. Radiators are all well and good for background heat, and we would have to install central heating to warm all of the rooms in the house, but nothing could replace the homeliness of an open fire. The hearth is the heart of our home and the focal point for everything at Ravenseat. Babies have been born beside it, beloved dogs have drawn their last breath by it. Boots have been dried there, bread proved, kettles boiled and chestnuts and marshmallows toasted over it. We’d feed the fire lovingly all day with logs of hardwood or sometimes a knotty branch or root that refused to be cut; we were always sparing with the more expensive coal until the evening. The fire is always in, and our house is always warm, and that was what was needed at The Firs.
The antique black range was still in place, a masterpiece of Victorian craftsmanship which took up nearly half of the living-room wall. There was an oven on one side, a water boiler at the other, a drop-down griddle on which to cook, and a brass rail over which towels could be hung. The modern wood-burner had been fitted into the space where the fire grate should have been. With just a little modification, I could see no reason why we couldn’t put the grate back.
Above the mantelpiece hung a simple small picture, a woodblock print by writer and artist Marie Hartley, who meticulously wrote about all aspects of the life, tradition and history of the Dales and their folk. Titled Jack o t’Firs, it showed a gentleman, long and lithe in a jacket and buttoned gaiters, reclining in a rocking chair beside the fire. A dozing cat is curled by his clogged feet and he smokes a pipe as though in quiet contemplation. Across the fire hangs a crane upon which is suspended a kettle. It was an image that paid homage to a man who had lived and farmed at The Firs nearly a century ago. Susan had insisted that he remained in situ, and all throughout the renovations he never shifted. Dust settled on him and occasionally I’d give him a cursory wipe over with a cloth. Maybe I am overly superstitious, but I liked Jack overseeing things, and that unassuming little picture of contentment conjured up in my mind the idea of how I wanted The Firs to feel. I wanted Jack to be comfortable with what I was doing.
We needed expert advice regarding the fire before we ripped anything out. Perhaps the wood-burner had been installed because the chimney was in a poor state. It looked like a flue pipe had been put up it and the rest of the chimney blocked off with a heatproof sheet. I was loath to ring Susan to ask any questions about it. I didn’t want her to feel that we were finding fault with her cherished home or somehow questioning her tastes. We had already agreed that when the renovations were complete, she and Graham would come back for a look and I wanted her to approve of the changes we’d made but, as it stood, with units ripped out and walls with plaster hacked off, it all looked too brutal.
With the gradual disappearance of the open fire and the traditional black ranges, a lot of knowledge on their workings has been lost too. Fortunately, I knew of a retired builder, Alan, who, although still spritely, was not so keen on going up ladders anymore but was happy to come, oversee and impart some knowledge and guidance in an advisory capacity. As a young apprentice he had worked on the traditional black ranges, first repairing and maintaining them and then, as time went on, taking them out and installing a nice electric or gas fire in their place.
I was acutely aware that my nostalgia for the traditional farmhouse cast-iron range-oven was due to the fact that I was no longer entirely reliant on them. The daily work, the sheer drudgery of cooking, heating water for washing and warming the home (all reliant on the range) must have been wearying and there was little wonder that domestic servants and maids were employed even on the smallest of farms. Even the condition and upkeep of the black range itself was considered to be a matter of great pride. There’d be no tarnished brass work or sooty fingerprints, as everything would be highly polished at least once a week, and curlicue decorations were even carefully etched out onto the hearth stone with the use of light-coloured sandstone to add that extra flourish. This artistry was also used on doorsteps to impress visitors to the household. Alan was fond of telling how it was customary for Monday to be cleaning day and any black lead polish that became ingrained in the fingernails would be dislodged on Tuesday, bread-baking day. The convenience of the new electric fires and cooking hobs must have been most welcome: just at the flick of a switch there’d be hot water and a warm house, but without the soot.
Our neighbour and friend Jimmy Alderson grew up at Stone House, the next farm along from The Firs, in the 1920s and ’30s. He experienced firsthand how life was before the introduction of modern utilities – or should I say that his mother did. Seeing the black-and-white and sepia photographs of a young Jimmy with his parents and siblings at the farmhouse door always made me wonder whether the stern expressions were a reflection of the hardships endured, or whether it was just ‘not the done thing’ to smile. It did make me smile to find
a picture of Jimmy’s mother, once again standing outside the door of a house, but this time it was her new-build fifties semi-detached home on a housing estate in Richmond.
‘That must have been hell for her!’ I’d said to Rachel, her granddaughter.
This was a woman who had brought up her family in the most rural of places, who milked cows every morning by hand, sewed, baked oatcakes, cured hams and worked in the fields.
‘Did she not yearn to be back in the hills again?’ I said, studying the wiry figure in the photo with her headscarf knotted tightly under her chin and a stony countenance.
‘Are you joking?’ said Rachel. ‘She loved it, she was warm for the first time in her life, had friends next door and could walk to the shops.’
I was pleased that Alan was happy enough with the existing range to give us the go-ahead to pull out the wood-burner. Clive peered up the chimney.
‘What can thoo see up there, is there a gurt ’ole?’ asked Alan. ‘Can yer see t’sky?’
Clive confirmed that there was a bloomin’ gurt hole and that he could indeed see the sky.
Next, Clive was instructed to go outside and watch for smoke: hopefully there’d be none seeping out from cracks in the chimney.
We lit a fire beneath the chimney where the grate would be if we had one. It took a few goes to get the paper and sticks burning but eventually a small fire was crackling. For a while, the smoke billowed then rolled, almost clinging to the brickwork, then it spiralled away behind the metal sooker plate above the grate, designed to channel the fumes up and away.
‘We must ’ave chosen a new pope,’ Clive joked as he came in.
‘Eh?’ said Alan, looking perplexed, and then went back to explaining about downdraught, and how I’d need a new chimney pot – tall and narrow to be specific.
‘Pulling power is what yer need,’ he added.
Clive nodded in agreement.
Then after a bit of measuring and head-scratching he gave me the dimensions for the replacement ironmongery required to restore the range to its former glory.
There was only one place that I knew I could find the items on my list: at Hawes, our nearest market town. Ian, the antique dealer, had a shop, situated halfway up the cobbled one-way street. I would always slow down and stare through the windows as I went past in the Land Rover. If I was on foot, I would invariably find myself lured inside. There was always something that would capture my attention, for Ian had a keen eye and knew what the locals and tourists wanted to see. The shop was full of country farmhouse furniture. Nothing twee and twirly, nothing French with spindly legs or painted with Farrow and Ball. Everything was solid and fit for purpose, made of heavy oak and elm – all lovely things but unfortunately also too costly for my pockets. It was Ian’s shed, just across from the shop, that interested me. In here, in this fusty, dusty overfilled building, were stacked all manner of wonderful things, though, fortunately, not wonderful enough to be in his shop. It was here that the partially dismantled, slightly broken and beyond-repair stuff sat. In here was where I found my replacement cast-iron panels for the black range, a raised grate and a tidy betty. Heavy as they were, they were still fragile, easily broken if dropped, so Ian and I were careful as we put them in the footwell of the Land Rover. They didn’t look much, just rusted fragments of rough iron, but to me they were priceless. I paid Ian, thanked him and assured him that I would be back in touch when I needed more ‘things’, although I couldn’t be more specific at that moment in time as to what those ‘things’ might be.
Poor Ian, I always told him that I was his best, most faithful customer, but the likelihood is that I was his worst. Always wanting something unusual or trivial and never anything that incurred a large bill.
It filled my heart with joy to see the range complete with a jolly little fire burning in the grate.
‘That’s what people want to sit against on an evening,’ Clive said. ‘I think Jack an’ ’is cat’d be happy.’
I couldn’t have agreed more.
We now had two rooms that had sufficient heating, but the rest remained chilly and reliant on storage heaters, apart from the kitchen, where there stood a solid fuel Rayburn that was used for cooking and heating water. It looked the part – what farmhouse kitchen would be complete without an Aga or Rayburn? – and I’m sure it would have worked well with a competent operator, but that is where the problem lay. They are notoriously difficult to control, especially the solid-fuel versions. Realistically, I needed either a brand-new, modern one that ran off heating oil, or to quit with one all together and install a simple electric cooker and a separate boiler.
After weighing up the pros and cons, it came down to the simple fact that even if we got an all-singing, all-dancing new Rayburn it wouldn’t take away the problem of learning how to cook with one. I quite like the simplistic needle gauge on the oven door, with ‘simmer, bake, roast’, but ‘vague’ cookery is not everybody’s ideal. Paying guests would still need to have a usable cooker with rings and temperature dials. The cost, also, was going to be prohibitive, even second-hand on eBay they were very expensive, so after a consultation with a heating engineer, we opted for a super-efficient boiler system.
All I needed now was somebody competent enough to do the plumbing. Plumbers were a little thin on the ground in our area, we usually managed basic repairs around the farm ourselves, but this type of plumbing was in an entirely different league.
I rang around a few plumbers who advertised in the paper as offering ‘no-obligation quotes’. The few that I managed to persuade to come out to me would accompany Clive and myself from room to room, usually shaking their heads, occasionally stopping to scrawl indecipherable notes in a notebook. Some seemed more thorough than others and would climb up and peer through the loft hatches, the rest would just spend their time repeating how difficult it was all going to be. All of them were unanimous in sending us estimates that made me wince and Clive laugh in disbelief.
‘And that’s just for labour,’ I’d say to Clive as I read the quotes outlining the work required. ‘An’ we’ve still got all t’fixtures and fittings to buy.’
‘I think we should wait – we’ve got plenty to keep us occupied. Summat’ll turn up,’ Clive said and, as usual, he was right.
In this golden age of the internet and online communication – even if we do have the world’s slowest and most unreliable connection – it was a little out of the ordinary to receive a handwritten letter in the post. It was addressed to Clive and he opened it whilst eating his lunch.
‘It’s fra’ Dick,’ he said, between mouthfuls of sandwich.
‘Who?’ I said and carried on feeding Clemmie spoonfuls of yoghurt.
‘Dick, tha’ knaws,’ he said, sounding irritated. ‘Stayed in shepherd’s hut in t’summer.’
I dabbed Clemmie’s mouth with her bib, awaiting some revelation from Clive.
‘Yer knaw, he was ’ere when we ’ad that leak in t’kitchen.’
It literally all came flooding back to me! That day, Clive had got up early and gone downstairs into the kitchen to make me my customary cup of tea – the one that brings me to my senses each morning. It was the summer holidays, the children were all off school, and for once there was no mad rush to be up and about.
‘What time’s breakfast?’ asked Clive as we sat up in bed supping our brews. We would always try to get the children fed before starting the cooking of the full English breakfasts that the majority of guests staying in the shepherd’s hut requested.
‘Not till nine,’ I said.
‘What’s ’appening today then?’ Clive asked innocently.
This was a mistake on his part, as what could have been a leisurely lie-in and then a relaxed breakfast was entirely spoilt by me having an almighty stress about what needed to be done over the course of the day. I reeled off the list: I needed to bake, change the shepherd’s hut over ready for new guests that evening, there was laundry to do, washing to bring in off the line, not to mention the fac
t that we were terribly behind with clipping and should really have been gathering the moor for woollen sheep.
‘And then there’s everything that needs doing at The Firs . . .’ I was getting really worked up now.
‘It’s no good me just liggin’ ’ere in bed, is it?’ I said. ‘I need to be gittin’ on.’
Clive took that as ‘We need to be gittin’ on,’ and lumbered out of bed.
‘No rest for t’wicked,’ he muttered as he pulled on his socks, but it fell on deaf ears as I exited the room, ready to face the busy day head on.
I went into the kitchen and didn’t like what I saw.
‘We’ve got a flood down ’ere!’ I shouted upstairs.
‘Yer what?’ replied Clive.
Reuben heard me loud and clear and was up and out of his bed like a shot.
Quite how Clive had managed to make tea without noticing the steady trickle of water that leaked through the floorboards above the doorway, I don’t know.
‘Where’s that coming frae?’ I said, pointing at the ceiling.
‘Bathroom,’ said Reubs confidently.
‘I know that,’ I said. ‘I need you to be a bit more specific.’
At this point, Clive appeared on the scene.
‘Great, this is all I need,’ he said. ‘I’m not starting plumbing before I’ve had mi toast.’
This was the green light that Reuben had been waiting for. Out of the door he went, dodging the waterfall, before reappearing with a toolbox. Clive didn’t look up from his toast and marmalade as Reuben brushed passed him wielding a sizeable pair of pipe grips. Then there was a knock at the door, coupled with an enthusiastic, ‘Morning!’
