by Helen Watts
‘I’ve been looking for rabbits. They love it down there. It’s so sheltered and safe and the soil is much looser than up on the top, so it’s a great place to dig a burrow. There’s hundreds of the little devils. Hey, look who it is.’
Tyson had forgotten all about his badger trail. He’d raced over and was now happily licking Ben’s hand.
‘Why is there such a big hole in the ground anyway?’ asked Kelly. ‘I’ve been trying to work it out—why it’s fenced off and everything.’
‘It’s one of the stone pits. Part of the quarry. There are four pits altogether but this one’s the biggest. It seems to have become rather overgrown but some of the sides are still really steep and the loose soil over the top makes them pretty slippery. I suppose it’s been fenced off to keep people out but it’s a paradise for animals. Not just rabbits but badgers, foxes, even deer.’
‘Ahh, a quarry. That’s why the farm’s called Stone Pit Farm.’
‘Yup. No flies on you, eh?’ Ben winked.
‘Shut up!’ giggled Kelly. ‘I’ve never been up this far before. I didn’t even know Wilmcote had a quarry.
‘Oh yes,’ said Ben. ‘The quarry was really important to the village when…well, in the nineteenth century. You know those rows of stone cottages on the main road down to the village green? The terraces?
Kelly nodded.
‘Well, they’re quarry workers’ cottages, and the main farm house is—I mean, was where the quarry owner lived.’
‘Cor,’ exclaimed Kelly. ‘That’s why it’s quite grand for a farm house. It’s great finding out about places, don’t you think? You know, discovering why they’re like they are now. What stone did they quarry here, then?’
‘Limestone. Look, you can see chunks of it along the path.’ Ben took Kelly further up the footpath, where some kind-hearted walker had used flat pieces of limestone to make stepping stones through a muddy patch.
‘Cool,’ said Kelly. ‘Do you know what they used the stone for?’
‘Well, those quarry workers’ cottages in the village are built from stone from these pits. One of the pubs was too. That’s why it’s called the Mason’s Arms, of course. But the stone’s been used for churches, bridges, stately homes all over the place around here. Ragley Hall for one.’
‘Wow!’ said Kelly. ‘You can see that place from up on the hill behind the Traveller site. It’s huge. That’s quite impressive.’
Ben nodded, smiling. ‘That’s not the most impressive thing about the quarry, either. Did you know that…?’
Kelly was already walking on around the perimeter of the quarry. ‘But how did they get all the limestone out?’ she shouted back to him. ‘There aren’t any roads up here.’
‘By tram,’ explained Ben, catching up with her. ‘They loaded the stone onto trucks at the pit side, then it was pulled by horses along the tramway to the canal where they put it onto barges.’ He paused, before mumbling, ‘Oh, and then later they extended the tramlines to reach the railway.’
‘Yes, of course. I guess the railway was really important to the quarry,’ Kelly mused, putting a tired but happy Tyson back on his lead.
‘Would you like me to walk back with you?’ asked Ben. ‘I can tell you some more along the way, if you like.’
Kelly smiled. She noticed that Ben had a row of freckles over the top of his nose. Sun kisses, her nana used to call them. ‘Yes,’ she said, rather breathlessly. ‘I’d like that.’
The two friends walked around the edge of the quarry and followed the tramline back across the fields. At the bottom of the hill, at the side of the track, was a mound of compacted earth, set within a clump of small trees.
‘I was thinking, on my way past here, that my brother could use that for a fantastic BMX jump,’ observed Kelly. ‘I must tell him about it when he gets back.’
‘BMX?’ enquired Ben.
‘Yeah,’ said Kelly, unsure what Ben wanted to know. ‘The way the mud is so smooth, and the slope and the height of the mound and everything. It’s a natural stunt ramp.’
‘No it’s not,’ said Ben stiffly. ‘I’ll show you what it is. Look.’
He took Kelly’s hand and led her off the path and round to the other side of the mound. There, out of sight from passing walkers, was what looked like a tiny cave, with loose soil and rubble piled up in its mouth.
‘It looks like a dragon’s lair!’ squealed Kelly. ‘What is it really?’
‘It’s one of the old lime kilns.’
Now it was Kelly’s turn to look confused, so Ben explained how Wilmcote limestone had layers of darker, blue-grey rock, with more clay in it, sandwiched between the harder, pale brown layers. Rock with a high clay content made good lime and that was what the kiln was for.
It was like an oven. The men would fill it with lumps of stone from the quarry, add coal, then start a fire at the bottom. Once the fire was lit, they would wait for a few days, allowing the fire to build up and then die down again. When the kiln was cool, the men could rake out the lime that was left behind.
‘But what was the lime used for?’ asked Kelly, picking up one of the smaller rocks from the entrance to the kiln and rubbing it between her fingers.
‘For building. To make mortar.’
‘What, you mean, like cement?’
‘Yes. Good Lord, geology isn’t your best subject, is it?’
‘No,’ laughed Kelly, thinking how old-fashioned Ben could sound sometimes.
She sat herself down on a fallen log. ‘I’m better at English, and history. Anything involving a good story. I just like imagining how places were in the past, and finding out their stories. Do you know what I mean?’
‘I think so,’ said Ben, sitting down next to her and stroking Tyson’s head.
‘Shut your eyes,’ said Kelly. ‘Go on. I’ll do it too.’
Ben did as he was told, turning his face up to the sun.
‘Now imagine you’ve gone back in time. It’s…I don’t know…1850 or something.’
She opened her right eye and peeped at Ben to see if he was playing along. He was, so she shut her eye again and carried on.
‘The quarry is in full swing. You can hear the men chipping away in the stone pits. You can hear the rocks being loaded onto the carts. You can hear the horses snorting as they struggle to pull their heavy loads along the tramlines.’
‘Can I smell the manure too?’ sniggered Ben.
‘If you like,’ replied Kelly, refusing to be led off track. ‘Go on. What else can you sense?’
‘I can feel the heat from the kiln behind us,’ said Ben. ‘And I can hear the roaring of the fire, and the sound of the men’s spades as they shovel in the limestone. I’m covered in dust. It’s in my hair. Under my fingernails. I can smell bacon.’
For a moment Kelly thought Ben was pulling her leg again, but when she opened her eyes, ready to scold him, she saw he was miles away, his eyes screwed tightly shut. She remained silent and let him carry on.
‘Umm, yes. They are frying bacon on their shovels, holding them in the mouth of the kiln.’
‘Really?’ interrupted Kelly, unable to contain her curiosity any longer. ‘Did you make that up or did they really do that?’
Ben opened his eyes slowly and shook his head a little as if to clear the image from his mind. He seemed to be in a bit of a daze.
‘Sorry. What did you say?’
‘All that about frying bacon. Where did that come from?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. You told me to imagine I was back in time. I was just getting a bit carried away that’s all.’
Kelly grinned. ‘There’s me thinking I was the daft romantic one. You’re better at this than I am!’
The pair sat there for a while, chatting happily side by side on the tree trunk while Tyson chewed on a stick and rolled lazily in the grass. Then they made their way across the rest of the fields down to the canal. Ben showed Kelly where the tramway would have forked left and right, one route heading into a cutting where the quarry work
ers would have loaded their stone onto waiting canal barges, while the other route wound across a bridge—which had collapsed long ago—over the canal to the railway.
‘Do you know when the railway was built?’ asked Kelly, thinking that her dad might be interested to know that, too.
‘Well, I don’t know much about the railway, but I know it’s been here since about 1860.’
‘Hey!’ Kelly exclaimed. ‘Do you remember that old boot Tyson found? The one I told you about? Wouldn’t it be amazing if it dated back that far? Imagine if it belonged to one of the quarry workers, or one of the men loading the stone onto the railway carriages, or even to someone who built the railway. Imagine that!’
Ben looked alarmed. ‘Do you think it could have survived that long?’
‘Buried in the ground like it was, I think it could have, yes.’
Ben went to lean over the side of the rickety old canal bridge. He stared into the water, his lips tight, forming a hard, thin line, while his forehead wrinkled into a frown.
Confused by his sudden change of mood, Kelly followed, dragging a now tired Tyson after her, and leaned on the bridge next to him. She stayed silent for a few moments. Then, without looking at him, she said quietly, ‘I’m sorry. I went on a bit back there, didn’t I? I know I can get a bit boring sometimes. It’s just that, when I get my nose into a story, I can’t stop asking questions. I don’t like to let go. I’m a bit like Tyson. Like when he smelled that old boot stuck in the ground and kept on digging, oblivious to everything. I can’t stop being curious.’
‘It’s fine,’ grunted Ben. ‘But perhaps we’ve both had enough history for one day. Let’s talk about something else.’
Desperate not to upset her new friend, Kelly decided to ask about his mum and dad and where their cottage was. Ben still seemed a little quiet, almost cagey.
‘I told you,’ he said. ‘It’s called Stone Pit Cottage. It’s down the track beyond the main farm house, which is the big house that belonged to the quarry owner. There’s nothing down that track except our cottage. It’s been in my family for years. My…now what would it be, my great-great-great-great grandad or something was the first one to live in it. He was a vicar. Then when he founded the church in the village he was given a vicarage alongside it. I think he gave the cottage to his daughter or something…or so my mother said.’
‘Now who’s talking history?’ joked Kelly, impressed.
Ben laughed, but still looked a little unsettled. ‘When I first met you, you said that your dad was working on the railway line.’
‘Yes that’s right. He’s clearing the embankment.’
‘Well, my father…my dad…he used to work on the railways, too.’
‘Used to?’ asked Kelly, tentatively.
‘Yes. A long time ago.’
‘And now?’
‘Oh, now he just…he just looks after the farm land,’ spluttered Ben, all the words coming out in a rush. ‘That’s why I can go anywhere I like round here. No one seems to mind me.’
‘And your mum?’
‘She keeps the house.’
‘And teaches you,’ added Kelly.
‘Yes. That’s right.’
‘I’d like to meet them some time,’ Kelly said. She saw that Ben looked less than enthusiastic, and tried a different tack. ‘Well, I’m sure my parents would like to meet you, anyway. They always like to know who I’m friends with. Perhaps next time we hook up you could come to the campsite and say “Hi”.’
‘I’m… I’m not sure,’ stammered Ben. ‘I don’t know if I could. I mean, I don’t know how my parents would feel about it.’
Kelly bristled. ‘Why’s that? Because I’m a Traveller? You think they might not approve of me, is that it?’
When Ben didn’t reply, Kelly took his silence as confirmation of her fears. ‘Oh, don’t worry about it!’ she snapped. ‘Listen, Tyson and I have got to go. We’ve been out a long time. My mum and dad’ll be worried something bad has happened to me. Perhaps they’d be right!’ She paused, to let her sarcasm have full effect. ‘Thanks for the tour. It’s been, oh, what do you people say?’ She put on a posh accent. ‘Most enlightening!’
And before Ben had the chance to say another word, she scooped Tyson up into her arms and ran off towards the railway, heading for home.
Chapter 12 – September 2012
Kelly didn’t see Ben again for the rest of the summer holidays. It wasn’t that she avoided him particularly—she had still been out walking with Tyson every day—she simply didn’t make much of an effort to look for him. She suspected that she had over-reacted about his reluctance to meet her family, but she felt that it was up to him to seek her out and explain.
Meanwhile, she had been busy expanding her collection of treasure, tucked away in the box under her bed. She had added the stone which she had picked up at the lime kiln that day with Ben, and a piece of broken pottery she had found pressed into the mud in the footpath, with a faded but still beautiful blue bird painted on it. It looked like a stork and Kelly liked to think that it was from a once priceless Chinese vase.
Every time she slid the treasure chest out from under her bed to add her latest find, she would take out the old leather boot and examine it again, wishing that it would give her some clue about its owner or about how it had come to be buried in the stones and earth by the railway line. Was it just her, or did it look more shiny and in better shape each time she looked at it?
Before she knew it, the long summer days of August had given way to the first week of September, and Kelly found herself leaving a sad-looking Tyson behind with her mum as she headed off to catch her school bus.
She was no longer a ‘newbie’ and by the start of Year 8 she should have felt relaxed at school, part of the scene. But Kelly found herself feeling more on the sidelines than ever. All the talk in the tutor group that morning, while everyone waited for Mr Walker to come and take the register, was of overseas holidays on hot Spanish beaches, of trips to Disneyland or weeks at the beach in Cornwall or Wales. And all the girls except for her seemed to have spent the rest of the holidays together, and were recounting tales of sleepovers, days at the park, hanging out at the shopping centre and camp-outs in the garden.
Kelly took her usual seat at the back of the room and tried not to show that she was listening but, true to form, Charlotte spotted her and couldn’t resist the chance to poke fun.
‘Have you been on your travels, too, then, Kelly?’ she sneered, emphasising the word ‘travels’ in case anyone had missed the joke. ‘Where did you go?’ Then before Kelly could answer, ‘To a caravan park somewhere on the A36? Or did you go upmarket this year and stay on the M1? Lovely!’
‘I stayed at home, Charlotte. And yes, I do have a home. Amazing, isn’t it?’ Kelly replied sarcastically. ‘And you know, we have a car too. A real one with four wheels. No horse in sight. And no, I don’t sell heather in my spare time, or read palms.’
Leanne, who was standing behind Charlotte and listening in, giggled. Charlotte shot her a look so frosty it could have cooled red-hot lava, and was desperately struggling to think of a clever come-back when Mr Walker walked into the room.
‘Okay, okay, quiet everyone, please!’ he commanded, raising his voice so it could be heard over the din. ‘I know you are all thrilled to be back but you’re going to have to control your excitement and settle down. I could hear you from the car park.’
Kelly sat stewing in furious silence at the back of the room while Mr Walker went through the register and began giving out the timetables for the year. Why had she let Charlotte get to her? She was normally so good at controlling her temper and letting stupid remarks like that wash over her. What was it about today? Why was she feeling so sensitive?
She tried to focus on the piece of paper Mr Walker had put in front of her. It mapped out the shape of her week for the coming term in rainbow colours—one for each subject. But her mind kept wandering. Did Ben have a timetable or did his mum just teach him whateve
r she felt like each day? Was he having lessons right now? Did he even have summer holidays, or did home education mean you carried on all year? She had never actually asked him. Why hadn’t she asked him?
Then she realised what was making her so crotchety. It was that whole thing with Ben. She missed him. She had let the last two weeks of the summer holidays slip by, sulking at him for not coming to find her. Maybe she had been too hard on him. Even if she had been right, and his final comment to her when they were last together had been about her being a Traveller, was he being that unreasonable? There weren’t many parents who would feel comfortable about letting their children visit a Traveller site. There was usually too much ignorance and nervousness on both sides for that to happen. And there was always the chance that Ben wasn’t being prejudiced at all. Maybe the reason he didn’t want her to meet his parents was that he was worried he would have to explain how they met, which would mean his parents would find out he’d been near the railway. He had told her he wasn’t supposed to be there.
By the time the tutor group session was over and it was time to head off to her first lesson, Kelly had made up her mind. She was going to go and find Ben that evening, as soon as she got home. She had to tell him that she still wanted to be friends.
As if to confirm that she had made the right decision, something happened that afternoon that gave her even more of an incentive to find him.
Kelly had a double history lesson with Mr Walker, during which he set the class an extended history project. It was designed to develop their research skills, Mr Walker explained, and was an introduction to a new unit in their Year 8 history curriculum. He gave everyone a sheet headed, ‘British history and the development of industrialisation and technology, and its impact on different people in Britain’.
‘I want you to find out as much detail as you can about an event or an activity relevant to this topic,’ he explained. ‘It must have happened in your local area, somewhere near to where you live or within this part of the country. I want you to explain how industrialisation and technology changed people’s lives. As always, I will need you to acknowledge your sources and the highest marks will be awarded for work which clearly shows detailed research using different kinds of sources. And I want to see your own interpretations of the facts.’ He looked directly at Charlotte. ‘So cutting and pasting chunks from Wikipedia won’t get you an A.’
