Up and Down in the Dales

by Gervase Phinn

  ‘Well, you can have a rest tomorrow,’ I said.

  Out of the soapsuds came the hands and Connie dried them on the towel. ‘Chance’d be a fine thing. Last Sunday I was in the middle of putting the Yorkshire puddings in and there was a knock at the door. I’ve had a lot of these Jehovah’s Witnesses round recently on a Sunday, ever since they opened a church near us. Nice enough people – very polite, smartly dressed, very friendly – but they always appear when I’m in the middle of doing something. Anyway, on the doorstep there were these two men in grey suits with black briefcases. Here we go again, I thought. “I’m sorry,” I says, “I can’t speak to you at the moment, I’m very busy.” “Can we just have a moment of your time,” said one of the men, “to tell you what we believe?” “No, you can’t,” I says, “I don’t want to be unprepossessing, but I’ve got a pan of hot fat in the oven. I’m just about to put my Yorkshire puddings in.” Course, they wouldn’t take no for an answer. “It’ll only take a minute,” says one of them. They’re very… what’s the word?’

  ‘Persistent.’

  ‘Persistent, that’s it. “Look,” I says to him, “I’ve heard what you’ve got to say before and I’ve read the booklet you pushed through the door and the only thing you and me have in common is God. Nothing else.” Well that took the wind out of his sails, I can tell you. “Oh,” says he, looking all taken aback, “you’ll not be voting Liberal Democrat then?” I felt such a fool.’ Connie brushed down the front of her pink nylon overall. ‘Well, I can’t stop here talking all day. I’ve got the floor to do in here yet.’

  After I had set up the book display and before leaving, I popped into the ladies’ cloakroom. I could not resist having a quick look at the portrait of Mrs Osbaldiston. On the far wall, between the cubicles and the basins, was a large picture of a stooping little woman of raddled appearance, arrayed in a bright multicoloured overall and looking imperiously from the canvas. I had to smile. Knowing Connie as I did, that is where Mrs O. would stay, overseeing the ladies’ ablutions.

  I left the Staff Development Centre that morning in a much better frame of mind.

  That afternoon I decided to tackle the garden at the back of the cottage. Harry Cotton, my nearest neighbour, had already been across to see me to offer his usual unsolicited advice, this time on the pruning that needed to be done to the shrubs and trees, how I might improve the mossy, weed-infested lawn, what I should do about the overgrown bushes and with numerous other horticultural suggestions necessary before winter set in. The rats, of course, had arisen in the course of our conversation.

  ‘Must have been about four or five of ‘em runnin’ along that fence o’ yourn as large as life. Big as babby badgers they were,’ he had told me, almost gleefully. ‘It’s all very well you gettin’ this ‘ere ‘inderwell chappie out to set traps and put down poison and t’like, but rats are very resilient creatures. They’ll be back. Make no mistake about that. I know all abaat rats. I were brought up wi’ ‘em. There’s nowt I don’t know abaat rats. Tha wants a dog or a couple o’ cats. They’ll sort your rat problem out. Take my Buster, for example. Border terrier she is, and as tough as owld boots. I was only talkin’ to George Hemmings a week back and ‘e says ‘is Patterdale bitch is ready to whelp. I could get you one o’ those pups, if tha likes. Can’t beat a terrier. My Buster’s a rare little ratter. By, she can’t ‘alf shift if she sees a rat or a rabbit. She brings me a rat into t’kitchen every day. Just nips t’back of its neck as soon as it shows its scabby little face.’

  Harry had banged his stick on the ground as though knocking a rat on the head. He was an old man with a wide-boned, pitted face the colour and texture of an unscrubbed potato, a sharp nose with flared nostrils and a shock of white hair.

  ‘Well, I don’t think Christine would be all that keen about having a dead rat brought into the kitchen every day, Harry,’ I had replied.

  ‘Better a deead rat in your kitchen, than an army of live ones infestin’ your garden,’ he had said. ‘That’s what I always says.’ I wasn’t sure I agreed with that.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ I had told him. ‘Mr Hinderwell, the Pest Control Officer, is coming out to have a look. I’ll see what he says.’

  ‘Suit yourself,’ Harry had said. ‘But I’ll tell thee this. He can put all t’traps and poison down in t’world but they’ll be back. Mark my words, they’ll be back. Tha wants a dog or a couple of cats, that’s what tha wants. Ted Poskitt’s cat’s just had kittens. I could get you a couple o’ them, if tha prefers cats.’

  ‘That’s really good of you, Harry,’ I had said, ‘but I’ll see what Mr Hinderwell suggests.’

  ‘Mebbe it’s just as well. Old Mrs Poskitt probably wouldn’t let you have one anyroad. She’s not kindly disposed to thee at t’moment.’

  ‘Why?’ I’d then asked. ‘What have I done to upset Mrs Poskitt?’

  ‘Her granddaughter, little Bethany, goes to t’school what you’re closing.’ Oh, don’t let’s get onto that subject, I’d thought to myself, but Harry, true to form, had refused to let it lie. He was as tenacious as his Border terrier.

  ‘Aye, it’s a rum do about t’shutting a school what’s been ‘ere in ‘awksrill for countless centuries.’

  ‘It’s a Victorian school, Harry,’ I had told him, ‘so it’s not much more than a hundred years old and I should point out that I am not personally responsible for closing it. It’s the County Council and I’m as angry about it as anyone. Have a word with your local councillor and get him or her to complain.’

  ‘Local councillor!’ my companion had snorted. ‘Local councillor! You mean Horace Witherspoon. I was at school with Horace. He were a two-faced little bugger then and he an’t changed. I don’t have owt to do wi’ politicians, never ‘ad and never will. They’re all t’bloody same. My owld dad used to say politicians are like bananas. They start off green, then they turn yella and end up bent.’

  ‘Yes, well I don’t have any influence,’ I had told him.

  ‘That’s as may be, but people in t’village are up in arms abaat it.’

  ‘So I hear,’ I had sighed. Although Christine had kept deliberately very quiet about the whole matter, I had heard from Harold that there had already been a great deal of activity from the residents of the village. It was also clear to me that Christine’s stated intention to take the matter further was not an idle threat.

  ‘Well, I’ll get on,’ Harry had said and he had ambled off to give someone else the benefit of his uncalled-for advice and words of wisdom.

  Maurice Hinderwell had been very helpful but he had agreed with Harry that the rats would return, without a shadow of doubt.

  ‘You have to destroy their habitat,’ he had advised, nodding sagely. ‘Take that derelict building you’ve got at the bottom of your garden. That’s where they’ll likely be, out of sight, breeding and spreading disease. There’ll be nests of them in there, where it’s dry and dark. Plenty of food for them as well by the looks of it. Putting out a bird table full of nuts and bread is inviting rats. My advice to you is knock it down and lawn it over. Barn, I mean, not the bird table. Then your rats will move somewhere else. That old building takes up half your garden anyway and it’s an eyesore.’

  So, on this Saturday afternoon I made a start on demolishing the old building. It was not big enough to be called a barn, and it was bigger than a shed. It must have been some sort of outhouse, a store perhaps. One wall had completely collapsed and another was dangerously tilted. The exposed beams were rotten and little remained of the grey slate roof. It was a peculiar oblong building of dark stone with oddly narrow windows not like any of the outbuildings I had seen in the area, which were mostly built of limestone with red tiled roofs and had plain square windows.

  I worked all afternoon and soon all that remained was a pile of rubble. I was surveying my handiwork when Christine appeared with a mug of tea.

  ‘For the worker,’ she said.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘My goodness, it’s al
l gone,’ she said, clearly impressed. ‘The garden looks a lot bigger, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, and much better without that old building.’

  ‘What are you going to do with all the stone?’ she asked. ‘The garden’s too small for a rockery, isn’t it?’

  ‘I have an idea,’ I told her. ‘I thought we might have a wall across the back. Remember last year when those two sheep got through the fence and into the garden. You certainly weren’t too pleased with what they did to your plants. Well, I thought a drystone wall with flowering shrubs and creepers, sweet peas perhaps, against it would be ideal there.’

  ‘Good idea,’ she said. ‘Now, I’m off to the School Action Group meeting,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  We had been assiduously avoiding the subject of the school closure thus far, but she had spent most of the morning on the telephone so I wasn’t surprised about the meeting.

  It was later that evening when my knee began to hurt. One of the rotten beams from the old building had suddenly fallen and, in an attempt to avoid it crashing down on top me, I had leapt smartly to the side and fallen heavily, cracking my knee in the process. Later that evening the knee had swollen to the size of a pomegranate.

  ‘I really don’t know why you had to do the demolition yourself,’ chided Christine, examining the knee. ‘We should have got a builder in to do it.’

  ‘Think of the expense,’ I said. ‘I’m just about capable of knocking a couple of walls down.’

  Christine gave a wry smile. ‘Are you?’ she asked. ‘It looks dreadful. You had better see the doctor about that.’

  ‘I had worse bangs than that when I played rugby. It’s not nearly as bad as it looks.’

  Would that that had been the case.

  *

  Tom Fields, the drystone-waller, arrived bright and early the following Saturday. Christine had met him at the meeting of the School Action Group the previous week. She had arrived home with two bits of news. First, that she had been made chairman of the village’s action committee to fight the school closure and, following a brief but somewhat heated argument, we had agreed that there would be no further discussion of the subject between us. Secondly, she had met Tom Fields and once she had convinced him that I was not the demonic inspector intent on demolishing his child’s school he had agreed to build our wall. He had been let down over a job when some stone hadn’t arrived, and we were fortuitously able to take the slot.

  I found him staring beyond the small garden taking in the spectacular view: the dark and distant fells, the bronze belt of the dead bracken, the rolling green fields sweeping down to the river, the limestone outcrops gleaming bone-white in the early sunlight, the scattering of grey farmhouses and hillside barns, and the endlessly criss-crossing drystone walls.

  ‘Tha’s a grand view ‘ere and no mistake, Mester Phinn,’ he told me.

  I had rather expected an ancient, grizzled character in some sort of traditional outfit – flat cap, corduroy trousers tied at the knee with string, thick tweed jacket and spotted neckerchief-but Tom Fields was a young man dressed in a bright blue overall. He had a ready smile and long blond hair tied back in a ponytail. He didn’t look old enough to be the father of a child of school age.

  He turned his attention to the remains of the old outhouse. ‘And tha’s got a grand bit o’ stone ‘ere, an’ all.’ He placed his hands on his hips and surveyed the small mountain of rubble. ‘Cost a pretty penny this would to buy and o’ coourse then tha’d ‘ave t’added expense of ‘aving it brought in. Some on it will want a bit o’ dressing but there’s plenty ‘ere for what I’ve got to do. A wall across t’back will look champion, it really will. Just as it used to do.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, there’d ‘ave been a wall ‘ere afore. All t’fields were walled at one time. But when they fell down, some of ‘em newer farmers just replaced t’wall wi’ fencing, sometimes using t’bits of t’old wall to patch someweer else. That’s what’s happened ‘ere, tha sees.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad to be putting it back, then.’

  ‘Aye, and tha’s got more than enough stone ‘ere to mek a reight champion wall, not too ‘igh as it’ll spoil tha view, not so low as it’ll let t’sheep in.’

  ‘It’s the remains of the derelict building which used to be in the corner of the garden,’ I told him.

  ‘Oh aye?’

  ‘So how big will the wall be?’ I asked.

  He looked at me as if I were some sort of simpleton. ‘What I’ve just said – ‘igh enough to keep t’sheep out and low enough not to spoil tha view. Like them what were built in owlden days. My walls are a touch higher but not a deal different – not much more than four foot high. They’ll be t’same arrangement of throughs, fillings and top-stones as there ‘as been for centuries – abaat a yard wide at t’bottom lessening to a touch ovver a foot at t’top.’

  ‘And how long will it take you to do?’ I asked.

  ‘Same time as it did for wallers two or three ‘undred year ago, abaat seven yards a day. I’ll ‘ave yours finished within t’week.’

  ‘That’s excellent,’ I said.

  By the following Sunday, the small garden at the back of Peewit Cottage was transformed. Tom Fields had finished as he’d promised the previous day and the wall was magnificent. Straight and solid, it looked as if it had been there for centuries. I had pruned the trees and shrubs, cut down the dead flowers, dug up the weeds, turned over the soil, burnt the rubbish and prepared the ground where the building had been. I would sow grass seed there next year. I heard the garden gate click and a moment later Harry Cotton appeared around the side of the cottage. He was accompanied by his bristly little dog with large black eyes and a very hairy face.

  ‘Hello, Harry. Hello, Buster,’ I said. ‘Have you had a nice time away?’

  Harry had told me he was going to spend a few days at his sister’s and had asked me to keep a neighbourly eye on his cottage.

  ‘Aye. It were reight enough wi’ our Bertha, but it’s allus better in yer own ‘ome, in’t it? She dunt shurrup, that’s ‘er trouble and there’s nowt she dunt know abaat.’ Two peas in a pod, I thought, smiling. ‘She ‘as a view on everything, our Bertha and it’s all nowt abaat owt. It’s like ‘aving a conversation wi’ a bloody Gatling gun.’ He poked into some shrubs with his gnarled walking stick. ‘Got rid o’ your rats then, ‘ave you?’ he asked, regarding me balefully.

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ I replied. ‘Maurice Hinderwell caught about six in his traps and has put some poison down, so keep Buster well away. I should think that that will be the last of them. He reckoned that they were breeding underneath the old outbuilding.’

  ‘Oh aye,’ said Harry, approaching my new drystone wall which he patted as he might a pet animal. ‘Nice bit of work this. Very nice.’ His terrier nosed along the base of the wall. ‘I reckon she can smell a rat. Got a nose for ‘em.’

  ‘I doubt it very much, Harry,’ I said.

  ‘Aye, well we’ll see,’ he said, as ever the prophet of doom.

  ‘So, my wall meets with your approval, does it?’ I said, not wishing to start up a discussion about rats.

  ‘Who did it for thee?’ he asked.

  ‘Tom Fields.’

  ‘Oh well, ‘is family’s been building drystone walls since time o’ Vikings. I thought it were one of ‘is.’

  ‘He’s made a splendid job of it.’

  Harry remained staring at the wall for a good long time before saying, ‘I’m surprised they let you pull that owld chapel down, tha knaas.’

  ‘What old chapel?’ I asked.

  ‘That what were in t’corner o’ your plot.’

  ‘You mean the old outhouse?’

  ‘Nay, it were no outhouse. It were t’owld Wesley an chapel. Built seventeen ‘undred and summat. One o’ oldest chapels in t’county, so they say.’

  ‘It was a chapel?’ I said, my mouth dropping open and my heart sinking into my boots. ‘I thought
it was just some sort of outbuilding.’

  ‘Nay, not that ‘un,’ Harry told me, rubbing the whiskers on his chin.

  ‘It was a chapel?’ I repeated.

  ‘Did nob’dy tell thee?’

  ‘No, they didn’t,’ I said in a shocked whisper.

  ‘I don’t suppose there would o’ been much point in Tom telling thee, if tha’d already knocked it down.’

  ‘Did he know?’ I asked.

  ‘I reckon he did. But he’s a drystone waller not a church builder. He couldn’t ‘ave put it back together ageean, if that’s what tha’s thinkin’.’

  ‘What do you mean, put it back together?’ I said. ‘There was hardly anything standing. I had no idea it used to be a chapel. This is terrible.’

  ‘Aye, it is,’ agreed Harry. ‘Probably got some sort of preservation order on it. Could ‘ave been a listed building, tha knaas.’

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ I said. ‘I just don’t believe it.’

  This was like a re-enactment of an episode which had occurred when we had first moved into the village. I had taken over an overgrown allotment, spent many a Saturday clearing it of the thick briars and twisting brambles, overgrown bushes and rampant weeds, only to find that I had cleared the wrong plot, one that was rented by Albert Tattersall, a friend of Harry Cotton’s.

  ‘You see, owld Albert kept it on for t’gooseberries,’ Harry had been quick to point out to me as he had surveyed my handiwork, ‘and, of course, the blackcurrants?’

  ‘Gooseberries? Blackcurrants?’ I had cried. ‘What gooseberries and blackcurrants?’

  ‘Them what would ‘ave been growin’ on them bushes which you dug up and are now burnin’ on tha bonfire,’ Harry had observed.

  I had eventually persuaded Albert, after a good few beers in the local pub, the Golden Ball, and the promise of some fresh vegetables, to let me take over the allotment.