by Amanda Owen
The children never tired of hearing these stories and being up by the watching house feeding the sheep on the gloomiest of winter days, when the mist swirls around us, makes the tale all the more vivid.
Poaching or sheep-stealing is a crime that still exists on the statute books. Though not so commonplace now, it is unfortunately still a problem, with sheep rustling having seen a resurgence in recent years. Nobody really knows who is responsible; the general assumption being that the unfortunate animals are slaughtered for meat and enter into the food chain illegally – a thoroughly unpalatable thought. We would read the newspaper stories in the Farmers Guardian about farmers (often in more densely populated areas) finding the gates to their fields wide open and their stock gone, tyre tracks in the gateway the only sign left by the thieves.
‘Sometimes yer ’ave to be thankful for where yer live,’ Clive had said as we talked of these horrible stories. And he was right. You would have to be very determined, and in possession of a talented sheepdog, to steal our animals from the open moors.
Gossip travels like wildfire up the Dales but our location meant that we were usually last in line to receive news, by which time rumours had usually been much embellished. So, we were more than a little sceptical when the jungle drums reported that a farmer in the locality, a highly respected man, had been stealing sheep.
‘Yer don’t think that it’s true,’ I’d said as yet another rumour was imparted via the telephone.
‘Tales is for tellin’,’ Clive would say, admonishing anyone who dared believe that a man who had been a huge name in the sheep world and, as a grazier, had his flock turned out at the adjoining moor, could ever be unmasked as a crook.
As time went on and real facts became known there could be no denying that we, and all the neighbouring farmers, had been duped. The stealing had been done over a number of years and therefore remained undetected. A jar of plastic sheep’s-ear tags was found, the only plausible explanation being that the tags had been cut out from their neighbours’ sheep. Then when hundreds of sheep were removed to a ‘safe house’ by the investigating police, it all became rather surreal.
Next came an identity parade of the recovered sheep, held at the local auction mart at Kirkby Stephen. The police issued an open invitation to anyone who thought that they might be missing a sheep – or maybe more – to come along and stake their claim.
The atmosphere at the auction was decidedly odd. We found ourselves looking at pen after pen of sheep, mostly elderly yows with no discernible wool marks, flock marks or heaf marks. They stood forlornly on the bare concrete, a sorry sight indeed. They were not quite neglected, but they looked as though they’d seen better times. Plucked from their moorland homes, taken from their familiar patch of ground and claimed by another farmer, they were now lost souls.
It is almost impossible to explain how the sheep were not of a type (even though they were all Swaledales). There are tiny traits that mean you ‘ken’ your sheep, that identify one farmer’s flock of Swaledales from another. These sheep, the stolen ones, did not match. They were a mish-mash, a variety that could only have come from different flocks.
The auction mart was busy, with folks walking up and down the alleys, some leaning against the iron railings and commenting, ‘It’s a sad day when it’s com’ to this I’ll tell ya.’
The general consensus was a mixture of disbelief and anger that the trust that has to exist between farmers and shepherds in order for animals to roam freely on open common land had been broken. In the pens people huddled watching a man in overalls and wellies astride of a yow. With one hand beneath her jaw, he lifted her head, tilted her face upwards, and momentarily scrutinized her, then ran his thumb over her bottom row of teeth.
‘Broken mouthed,’ he said. ‘She’s as old as the hills she com’ off.’
His friend, also in the pen, with his glasses on the end of his nose, now studied the yow. ‘Whose hills though, that’s the question?’ he responded dryly.
Then, stepping forward, he studied her smooth horns.
‘Nowt,’ he muttered. ‘Nowt to see.’
The horn burns that are a standard way of identifying horned sheep breeds had been removed with an angle grinder, a suspicious sign if ever there was one, for why would anyone do that?
People trade in sheep, buying and selling is the aim of the game. Every year we sell a consignment of draught yows, our older breeding sheep, which are bought by other farmers who breed from them for a few more years. People would put their own flock mark on their new purchases but never had I heard of anyone removing any identifying horn burns or ear tags.
We found none of our sheep there, but plenty of other farmers did – particularly those whose land was closer to the accused’s farm. The case began to make headlines, the novelty capturing people’s imagination. Even the police admitted that never had they had to deal with a stranger – and in many ways more complex – case. They needed the expert knowledge of other shepherds and farmers in order to make sense of the way the heafing system worked – how a flock could remain in one place with no discernible boundaries to contain them and how sheep were shepherded and identified.
We had ourselves been considering whether the practice of ear notching was of real value any more, but this incident reminded us that anything that can aid in the identification of your animals is a good thing. An ear tag with a microchip is all well and good but it’s also very easy to remove, whereas an ear piercing or notch remains forever.
The case was referred to crown court and the trial was set for December 2015. It was a real defining moment when the idea that a farmer or shepherd could recognize and confirm ownership of a sheep that had no visible identification was accepted as being plausible. Even so, the case was complicated, and emotions ran high throughout the whole debacle. No one could take any delight in the downfall of someone who was once held in such high regard, and the whole incident threw a wave of suspicion onto farmers. People wondered if the whole sheep-stealing crimewave was down to farmers themselves, a few bad apples that had sullied the reputation of the majority.
‘I cannae believe it was one of our own!’ was the subdued and incredulous comment made by many.
A guilty verdict was delivered by the jury, after they dismissed the defendant’s claim that the sheep had turned up at their farm by accident, without their knowledge. Although it was not clear whether the sheep were stolen deliberately, or just not returned to their rightful owners after being gathered in from the moor, either way it was theft.
We, like many others in the vicinity, would never know how many sheep were taken, and what was lost through the bloodlines and breeding potential could never be valued. Just as devastating was the loss of trust, the breaking of the unwritten rules of the ‘shepherds’ bible’ which had guided sheep farmers for generations.
A three-year prison sentence was imposed on the criminal in January 2016.
It wasn’t long after we had read about the verdict that I was getting ready to go out.
‘You’re gonna have to cut back on t’pies, Mand,’ Clive muttered as he tried to zip up my dress.
‘It’s supposed to fit where it touches,’ I retorted huffily before I breathed in. I wouldn’t normally have required any assistance getting my clothes on – leggings, skirt and jumper was my usual semi-scruffy ensemble – but in this instance things were rather different. Being blessed with ‘having the gift of the gab’ as Clive so eloquently put it, I had developed a little sideline in public speaking. Every so often I was invited to be guest speaker at meetings of the Women’s Institute, rotary clubs and other such groups, and in order to at least look the part, I’d attempt to tidy myself up. I’d found a simple black dress in a charity shop, nothing too flashy, just knee-length with a zip up the back, but it fitted well and looked smart. It was easy to wear (or at least it was before I piled on the pounds). On this particular evening I was going to a church near Harrogate to talk and, as usual, I was running late. I’d been consta
ntly delayed, my own fault for trying to make things as easy for Clive as possible. I’d always try to make a much more impressive tea than usual and then compile a comprehensive list of what everyone needed to do before bedtime. A guilt thing, I suppose; I felt like I was leaving Clive in the lurch with eight children to look after and I desperately wanted everything to run smoothly.
‘There’s some pressure on ’ere,’ he said, tugging at the zip, which eventually went up, the seams of the dress stretched to expose the threads that held them together.
There was no denying that the dress was getting a bit tighter. I’d last worn it before Christmas and since then there’d been warming casseroles for tea, home-made bread, and steamed puddings and custard too. Maybe I’d just overdone it; it was food for thought all right.
‘Yer lookin’ a bit portly yerself,’ I pointed out to Clive. ‘It’s all that fine food that I keep makin’ thi, cakes an’ buns an’ sek like.’
‘Aye, well it’s buns I was thinking of an’ all, a bun in t’oven,’ he said, his eyebrows raised.
‘No way,’ I said, then reeled off all the reasons that showed I could not possibly be in the family way. I didn’t feel sick, not even slightly; I was breastfeeding Clemmie, who was now six months old; and most critical of all I was still drinking tea, lots of it. It’s an absolute given that I can’t stomach tea when there’s a baby on its way.
‘I’ll go to see t’doctor next week,’ I said, just to appease Clive, whilst mentally making a note to cut back on portion sizes.
It was still in my mind when I was driving back home after the talk that evening. Once upon a time I’d scoffed at the idea of supermarkets being open for twenty-four hours a day. ‘What sort of person would want to do their shopping in the middle of the night?’ I’d thought. It would appear that I was that person. I thought I could pick up some essentials: washing powder and nappies, tins of beans, packets of pasta – all excellent winter provisions – and perhaps a few chocolate biscuits for the children by way of an apology for their abandonment. I also picked up a pregnancy test.
First thing the next morning before anyone wakened, I did the test. Just one blue line: negative.
‘There, I told yer I weren’t,’ I said to Clive after the bigger children had gone to school.
Weeks went by, cold wet wintery weeks. The ground was sodden and the days were long and arduous. I took trailer after trailer of fodder beets out for the sheep at the moor. Clemmie, being strong and able to support her own head, had graduated from the papoose on my front to the backpack, so she could come too. I’d drive along on the quad bike in a roughly straight line, picking my way around the gutters and bogs, whilst Annas and Sidney sat upon the mound of grubby beets and threw out a few here and there. I would stop and start, roll a few out onto the ground, and then go a bit further. Only when the trailer was empty could I park up and take the spade to begin chopping them. There was no quick and efficient way of doing this – I’d mulled it over in my head so many times – all that could be done was to walk the whole length of the line, chopping with the spade. Sometimes the sheep would come and begin to gnaw at the now-exposed crisp white flesh inside the fodder beets and this would hearten me to carry on, but to see a thinly made hungering yow turn her nose up and look to me in disappointment was frustrating.
The children had red cheeks and chapped lips, they wore tights and socks and woollen gloves underneath waterproof plastic mittens. In the worst weather, Clive and I would take it in turns to do the outside work. It made for longer days, working from dawn until dusk, but at least the children could play in the farmhouse by the fire if one of us was there. Work took its toll on Clive and me; it was tiring and monotonous, day after day of being out in the elements, our hands sore and blistered from the cold.
‘Don’t sit so close to the fire,’ he’d say as I perched on the fender, steam rising from my coat. ‘It’ll give yer bad circulation.’ He’d go on to cite various old ladies from times past who’d succumbed to chilblains, varicose veins and blotchy, mottled legs that were the colour of corned beef. I couldn’t stop him going into graphic detail.
Strangely enough, even after all this physical work, I was still fat, and getting fatter by the day. We decided that I should go to the doctor.
‘I’m ’ere ’cos I’m wondering whether I’m pregnant,’ I said.
I was suitably embarrassed to be uttering these words, a feeling exaggerated by the flash of incredulity on the doctor’s usually impassive face. I fidgeted as he leaned as far back in his chair as he could, and raised his eyes to the ceiling.
‘Righty ho,’ he said at last, looking right at me, ‘what makes you think that you might be?’
‘This,’ I said, standing up, turning sideways on and pointing at my tummy.
‘Hmmm, well we can soon find out,’ he said, handing me a specimen bottle.
After what felt like an age – me sitting staring at a full-size medical skeleton that hung in the corner, him staring at the stick that lay on his desk – he delivered his diagnosis.
‘Inconclusive,’ he declared.
‘What do you mean by that?’ I asked. ‘Surely I’m either pregnant or not.’
He explained that there are many anomalies that can affect a test. My mind was now racing.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said as I worried. ‘I’ll take some blood and find out what’s going on. It could all be hormonal.’
All the way home, I fretted. Hormonal! What did that mean? A phantom pregnancy? Our terrier Pippen had once had one of those. I was mortified. Then, of course, there was the unspeakable: that something was growing inside me that wasn’t a baby. Clive was worried when I told him. We talked seriously, but not for long.
‘Yer need some fresh air, tek yer mind off things.’
Back to chopping fodder beets.
To his credit, the doctor didn’t leave me wondering for long. After two days of me making a conscious effort to not google the possibilities, he rang.
‘I’ve made you an appointment to see the midwife,’ he said.
A week later, I was back in the surgery.
‘Not that surprised to see you back,’ my midwife said, smiling.
I explained that it was actually all a bit of a surprise to me, as there had been none of the usual symptoms and that, up until very recently, I had assumed that it was middle-age spread.
‘How far on do you think I am?’ I asked.
‘Well, we won’t get an exact date until you go for a scan,’ she said, ‘but we’ll have a listen now and see what’s what.’
I laid back on the examination bed as she ran her hands, and then the Doppler, over my tummy. I was quiet, listening hard, then, through the crackling interference, we both heard a familiar noise. She smiled.
‘There we go, just a guess but the fact that I can hear such a strong heartbeat would tell me that you’re around twenty weeks.’
I was flabbergasted; I must admit that at this point I doubted her. Five months!
She fast-tracked me an appointment at the hospital for a scan and I went home to relay the news to Clive that he was going to be a daddy again, and soon.
My midwife was right, I was that far along and then some. Twenty-three weeks said the sonographer. My friend Rachel wasn’t surprised at the news of this unexpected pregnancy at all.
‘Everyone down t’dale’s been saying that you’re having another one for ages,’ she said, as we drank tea at the kitchen table.
‘Well yer didn’t tell me,’ I said.
‘It’s a permanent rumour really,’ she said, and shrugged.
There was no nursery to paint, no pushchair to buy and no new baby vests required; the scene was already set, which is just as well, as our time was taken up with shepherding the sheep and lambing the yows. The sheep took absolute precedence: lambing time comes but once a year and how well we do dictates our whole year. Our visits to the new house were now fleeting and when we did go it just seemed to highlight how much more needed doing. I fai
rly developed an aversion to the place, as I could only focus on the work required rather than what we had already achieved.
Although only a mile and a half away from the farm, The Firs’ position is enviable as it is fractionally lower in altitude than Ravenseat and sheltered from the brutal gales that ravage the upper reaches of Swaledale throughout the winter months. Spring comes earlier here, just by a few days, but it is still heartening to see the land wake up and there’s a bite of grass by late March, which means that Miles’s little flock of Texdale sheep – which are always the first to lamb – take full advantage of the fields that surround the house. Every day Miles would go and fill their hay rack and take them a bucket of feed. Owing to the over zealous removal of barbed wire by Reuben, by now it was access-all-areas as far as the sheep were concerned. They went in the garden, down the riverbank or in the coal house but would all converge on the lawn as soon as they heard Miles approaching on the quad bike, and then squeeze through the stone stile upon his arrival with their hay and sheep cake.
