Shoes are often a giveaway to a person’s status in the world, highly polished ones indicating someone in a position of importance, casual ones revealing someone who pays more attention to comfort than appearance and those with thick soles indicating a person with a complex about their lack of height. I think the modern term for short people is ‘vertically challenged’ — I’m not sure what the term is for people who dream up such political daftness.
Authors tend to observe others in a continual search for characters suitable for inclusion in their novels. There are times when a person’s appearance can be deceptive — it is easy for a writer to look at a smart person and then to describe the style of clothing. It takes a vastly different technique to understand the character who is wearing those clothes — to create a totally fictitious character so that the person appears to be real, with feelings and ambitions, is never easy. In fact, it is extremely difficult.
Many authors tend to base their creations on people they know well or whom they meet during their travels. Quite often, for example, a very smart and confident appearance will conceal a confidence trickster; an old person in cheap, ragged clothing might be a titled and wealthy individual; the fun-loving, chip-eating buffoon you meet on holiday might well be a highly successful company director back home while the man with dark glasses and a pipe might be a detective watching us all.
It was this habit of observing others that drew my attention to the curious world of Miss Mabel Hibbard, sometimes known to the children of Aidensfield as Old Mother Hubbard. She was a rather squat and heavily built lady with iron-grey hair done in a bun and she always wore a heavy royal blue overcoat; she topped it with a curious old-fashioned hat. Her bun protruded from the back of her hat rather like a rabbit’s tail.
She always carried a round shopping basket with nothing inside. Her shoes were flat and well-worn, while her stockings were of old-fashioned lisle and full of wrinkles. She walked with a slight limp in her left leg; her gait was rather like that of a rolling sailor. Even so she would walk very rapidly, almost trotting along when she was out and about in Aidensfield. It did not take long for me to realize that she was a regular sight in the village and was one of the local ‘characters’.
Miss Hibbard lived in a large detached house overlooking the green; it was a splendid, if neglected, dwelling built in local moorland stone with a blue slate roof. It was constantly in need of a coat of paint and the garden was overgrown but I was to learn that the interior was full of antique furniture and a wonderful collection of rare Staffordshire pottery. In spite of her run-down appearance, Miss Hibbard was known to have a substantial private income and she could be very generous.
Although she rarely spent much money on herself, she did, from time to time, reveal flashes of true benevolence by donating cash to the church, to any village charity and to the Missions to Seamen or the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
She was a very familiar figure in the village, pottering around the shops, going along to the church, visiting friends, helping at functions in the village hall or simply enjoying the fresh moorland air on long and lonely walks. But as she pottered about her business in Aidensfield, she began to intrigue me. I was first drawn to observing her after seeing her waiting for Arnold Merryweather’s bus.
At ten o’clock one morning I was standing near the telephone kiosk, from where I could see the bus stop. Mabel Hibbard was standing there, empty basket in hand, as she waited for Arnold’s service bus which would take her to Ashfordly. It was Friday: market day in Ashfordly.
There was no one else at the bus stop; other people would be going to town later or perhaps using their own cars. And so Mabel waited alone. As she waited, her eyes caught something in the window of the village shop. She pottered across a few yards of green to examine it. But as she started that manoeuvre, Arnold’s bus appeared at the far end of Aidensfield, rising up the hill and heading for the bus stop. I felt sure Mabel would have seen or heard the oncoming bus, but she hadn’t. I was too far away to shout at her, although I did try.
The bus rumbled past without halting and quickly disappeared around the corner as it made for Ashfordly. Mabel then returned to the bus stop, never realizing she’d missed it.
I decided to help. I drove to the bus stop in the police minivan and said, ‘Hop in, Mabel, we can catch the bus.’
‘Pardon?’ she cupped an ear with her free hand.
‘Bus!’ I shouted. ‘We can catch it.’
‘No, it’s not come yet,’ she said. ‘I’m waiting for it.’
‘You’ve missed it,’ I shouted again. ‘When you were looking in the shop window; it came past and didn’t stop. It’s gone round the corner.’
‘I never saw any bus,’ she looked puzzled.
I realized that for the first time that she was as deaf as a proverbial post and went closer, shouting that if we hurried, we could catch Arnold’s bus before it left the outskirts of Aidensfield.
It took some time for her to get the gist of my shouting and arm-waving and I know she was worried about getting into my police minivan, but I did catch the bus for her. With a cheery wave she boarded the rickety old vehicle and I saw the gigantic conductress, Hannah, come and take her fare.
From that time onwards, whenever I saw Mabel out and about in Aidensfield, I realized that she always missed seeing those things she wanted to see. She was always looking the wrong way at precisely the wrong moment.
One example occurred at the annual church fête. It was known that one of her nephews was a squadron leader in the RAF; he was a flying instructor at RAF Leeming and, as a special favour for the village, Mabel had been approached by the chairman of the organizing committee to ask her nephew if he could arrange a fly-past of jet aircraft while the fête was being held. Mabel had written to her nephew, Squadron Leader Hibbard, but he had stressed that it was impossible to make an official fly-past of jets for something as minor as Aidensfield church fête. He did say however, that, weather permitting, he would be in the air that day with five of his pupils in jet trainers, and he would arrange for them to fly over the village at 3 p.m. His own aircraft would make it six, and they would fly in formation, doing three runs over the village. It was all very unofficial, but the committee was delighted. They announced the fly-past at 3 p.m. on all their publicity material and invited Mabel to be their guest of honour.
For the fly-past she would be seated on a platform with the vicar, the chairman, the doctor and other dignitaries. On the morning of the fête, Squadron Leader Hibbard telephoned his aunt to say that the weather was ideal for flying and that he would take to the air as planned, except that another commitment had arisen which meant that only one pass across Aidensfield was possible, not three as originally suggested. It meant that Aidensfield would still have its very own unofficial fly-past, however. There was great excitement about this event and it certainly attracted the crowds to the fête.
At a few minutes to three, therefore, a loudhailer announcement reminded the gathering of the impending arrival of six jet aircraft. Everyone assembled to wait. And then, in the distance across the moor, they could hear the distinctive sound of jet engines; Squadron Leader Hibbard had been true to his word and I saw the tiny outline of six distant aircraft as they flew ever so slowly towards the village.
It was at that precise moment, that Mabel decided to look in her handbag for a toffee. As she bent down to open her bag and rummage inside, I wanted to shout at her and tell her to look skywards but I was too far away and the crowd was shouting with happiness as they sighted the planes. Everyone else was looking at the sky; no one was bothering to observe Mabel except me. I was switching my gaze between Mabel and the oncoming aircraft.
It was almost as if I knew what was going to happen. Soon everyone was cheering as the six planes, in arrowhead pattern, swept across the moors. Mabel was oblivious to all this. Head down, she was rummaging in her bag while everyone else was gazing skywards — I continued to alternately look at her and at the planes, w
illing her to forget whatever she was seeking, but no one else was paying her the slightest attention. All eyes were on the heavens.
And then, with a roaring and whistling sound, the six shining aircraft, flying as slowly and as low as permissible, came directly over the church fête. They waggled their wings and flew on. Within seconds, they were disappearing over the horizon to the cheers of the crowd. I looked at Mabel.
Only then, as the jets whistled out of sight, did she find her toffee; she sat erect with a smile on her face, popped the sweet into her mouth and settled down to wait for her nephew. By then, of course, he was heading for the North Sea, never to return that day. She had neither seen nor heard the fly-past.
Everyone was so sorry that Mabel had missed the moment, but as I talked to people afterwards, I heard lots more similar tales about her. I was to learn, for example, that years earlier she had been invited to a friend’s house to watch the Coronation on television, then a real national treat. Mabel was an ardent royalist and loved anything connected with the Royal Family. But seconds before the Archbishop of Canterbury had placed the crown on Her Majesty’s head, Mabel had left the room to go to the toilet. When she’d returned, the supreme moment was over — and in those days there were no such things as video recorders to tape highlights from television.
Then, when she had watched a replay years later, she missed the crowning again because she dropped her spectacles on the floor at that precise moment and spent some minutes trying to find them. So far as anyone knew, Mabel had never actually seen Her Majesty being crowned — she had always been looking the other way whenever the ceremony had been repeated on television.
Some friends had tried to rectify those omissions when a local lass, Katherine Worsley of Hovingham, married the Duke of Kent to become Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent. The date was 8 June 1961 and the entire population of the villages on the edge of the moors had become extremely excited. Her Majesty was a guest at the wedding and she would be driving through the countryside following the ceremony.
Locations and timings of Her Majesty’s journey from Hovingham were publicized, so the people of Aidensfield felt they should take Mabel to a suitable position so that she would see the Queen. Having never seen a royal person in the flesh, Mabel had said she would cherish that moment for the rest of her life. To see the Queen in the flesh was like meeting God!
A small group of her friends had taken her to a knoll just outside Hovingham which was a superb vantage point. From there one could look along the road towards Hovingham and so gain a superb aspect of the royal cars as they sped towards us. Although this was before I became the village constable at Aidensfield, I was there too, on duty, because this was a busy road and there was a set of crossroads at which I had to halt all oncoming traffic to allow the royal procession to speed past. We knew the cars would be travelling at a very fast speed for security reasons and we would be warned, by police radio, when the royal motorcade left Hovingham Hall.
At that time, of course, I did not know Mabel, although in fact she would have been waiting within a few yards of my traffic duty position. And then we got word — the royal party was leaving; Her Majesty was to travel from Hovingham Hall to Malton to catch the royal train back to York and thence to London. That was my signal to halt all traffic at the crossroads. I shouted to the crowd that Her Majesty was en route, and would arrive in about five minutes. Everyone grew excited as I stood on the crossroads, ensuring an open run for the royal motorcade.
It was when I became village constable at Aidensfield that I heard about Mabel’s mishap during her vigil. She had been among a crowd of friends and seconds before the royal cars appeared in the distance, Mabel decided she would have an orange.
She had brought some sandwiches, a flask of tea and an orange to eat during the long wait. And, oblivious to the cheers around her, she had ducked down to the grassy knoll upon which she stood and had begun to ferret in her basket for an orange. Then, having found one among the other picnic paraphernalia, she had sought a knife with which to cut the skin so she could peel it. And as she had squatted on her haunches among the crowds, hunting for the knife, the Queen’s motorcade had flashed past at seventy miles an hour. As Mabel had straightened up, orange in hand, the last police car of the royal motorcade was heading out of sight. Mabel had missed the Queen.
I did learn that there was a saying in the village that Miss Mabel had missed again; she missed seeing the presentation of the World Cup to Bobby Moore, captain of the winning England soccer team in July 1966. She had just popped out to make herself a cup of tea; she missed the thrilling sight of Neil Armstrong stepping on to the moon in 1969, the first man to do so, because she realized she’d forgotten to switch on her oven to warm up so that she could cook herself a casserole.
Mabel’s great love, however, was the church. A committed Anglican, she thought God was an Englishman and believed that the British Royal Family was somehow descended from Him. Thus, for her, the Church of England with the British Sovereign as its Supreme Governor was something founded and approved of by God himself.
But being deaf she missed most of the points raised by the Reverend Roger Clifton in his sermons. She also missed advance information about church events such as parochial parish council meetings, weddings, baptisms, confirmations and funerals. None the less, she was a regular attender, relying on the church notice board for times of special services, additional functions and visits by the bishop.
It would take a long time to catalogue all the important events that Mabel had managed to miss; she managed to miss most of the local sights and occasions, and also contrived to miss those of national interest which appeared on television. And then one July, she died. She passed away very quickly due to heart failure and so the time came for her own funeral.
The vicar of Aidensfield, the Reverend Roger Clifton, was on holiday and his place had been taken for three weeks by the Reverent Austin Threadgill who hailed from Scotland. Six feet six inches tall, with a shock of black hair, he lived in the vicarage for those three weeks, and it was soon known that his strong point was his stentorian voice.
It was thunderous. Rumour was that he had been a sergeant-major in the war, but I have never heard such a powerful voice. It was deafening, even from a distance, and in the confines of the church it echoed about the building, reverberating from the walls and waking up the bats which slept in the belfry.
When the Reverend Threadgill opened up on Sunday mornings, his sermon could be heard by anyone walking past the church; I passed on one occasion when he was lecturing about sin, and his voice sounded like a clarion call to arms. His enunciation was clear though, and no one could avoid his message, nor could anyone go to sleep during his thunderclap sermons.
And, of course, Mabel had missed him. By dying when she did she had missed the only vicar whose voice she would have heard, but at least she had the honour of having this clamorous voice to conduct her funeral. The reverend’s powerful and sonorous tones filled the church and brought tears to those who listened (probably because he was hurting their ear-drums), but Mabel did receive a loud and very fitting send-off.
Even at the graveside the roar of his words drowned the sound of passing traffic and we all felt that Mabel, wherever she was, would have heard him. Some said he had been sent by God especially to provide Mabel with a perfect end to her time on earth.
Later, though, a new bus stop was built in Aidensfield. It was right outside Mabel’s old house. I wondered whether, if she had been alive, she would have missed the buses which came to that stop. Somehow, I think she would. I could envisage her standing there, waiting for Arnold’s bus to appear and then, seconds before it arrived, hurrying back into the house for her purse.
Miss Mabel had gone through life missing things; sometimes I wondered if that was why she had never married. Maybe she had missed every opportunity to fall in love, but actually, after she died, she was missed by everyone in Aidensfield.
* * *
Fiona Tucker-Smith. Her husband worked away from home during the week, doing something mysterious but very financially rewarding in the City of London. He commuted to London from York station on Sunday nights and returned to Aidensfield on Friday evenings. While he earned his weekly crust in pin-stripe trousers and bowler hat he left Fiona to occupy herself during the week and so she did.
Her only source of interest outside her home was the church. She was a very tall and slim lady in her late forties who dressed in expensive but old-fashioned clothes, always of a dark colour but always immaculately kept. Her hair was pulled tightly back and she wore it in two ringlets curled around her ears where they looked like a cross between sea shells, curled-up fossil snakes and ear-muffs. Pale faced and devoid of make-up, she seldom smiled and tackled every aspect of life with the utmost severity and efficiency. A capable organizer, she did take part in many village events, particularly those which had a strong link with the Anglican parish church.
She spent her time raising funds for the parish, helping with the Remembrance Day distribution of red poppies, running raffles, coffee mornings, wine and cheese tastings and a host of other fairly upper-class functions, all of which were linked in some way with Aidensfield’s Anglican parish church. She ignored the Catholic church in the village, even though some of the ‘best’ people in the village followed the ancient faith of this land, and she would not be caught dead in a bingo session, whist drive or beetle drive. Another character trait was that she tended to socialize only with people superior to herself. There were many such people in the district, some titled and others of aristocratic bearing, but she seemed able to distinguish between those whose money was ‘new’ and those whose ancestry could be traced in blue blood.
CONSTABLE BENEATH THE TREES a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain's best-loved authors (Constable Nick Mystery Book 13) Page 16
