Over Hill and Dale

by Gervase Phinn

  ‘Here are your trousers, Mr Phinn,’ said Miss Taylor, suppressing a smile. ‘We wouldn’t want you to leave without them.’

  22

  It was a glorious early summer day when I visited Scarthorpe Primary School. I sat uncomfortably in an already hot car, parked in a gateway, becoming increasingly frustrated. It was as well that I had set off early that morning because I had been over hill and dale in a futile search for the elusive little school. I had checked the route to the village of Scarthorpe on the Ordnance Survey map before setting out and it had seemed simple enough. Indeed, the route via quiet, snaking lanes was quite straightforward until I had arrived at some crossroads where none of the old, pointed wooden signs made any mention of Scarthorpe. It was as if the village had been suddenly swallowed up. I tossed a mental coin, turned right and drove for a couple of miles until I came to a sign for Scarthorpe pointing in the opposite direction. I retraced my route, crossed over the original crossroads and came to more crossroads with another set of signs but, again, none with the name of the village I wanted. I turned left and arrived at a sign which indicated that Scarthorpe was, yet again, in the direction from which I had just come. So, back I went and after a couple more miles, with no signs in sight, I pulled off the road. I was now sitting, fuming, in the car, deciding which way to go next. I pushed the totally unhelpful road atlas aside – its scale was far too small – and stared through the windscreen at the magnificent view which stretched before me.

  Beneath a vast, blank curve of blue there stretched the brilliant greens of the pastureland, rolling and billowing up to the richer, darker hues of the far-off fells. Fat, creamy sheep grazed lazily behind the white-silvered limestone walls in fields, while their lambs frisked and raced. In the still, windless sky a wedge of birds moved slowly south, high above a trembling kestrel. There was the heady scent of may blossom and buttercups blending with the smells of earth and grass. I returned to the map and followed with my finger the route which I had taken from Fettlesham earlier that morning: the straight road to Hawksrill, over Butterwick Fell, through Whisterton, by Castle Crags, past the United States Airforce Base at Ribbon Bank, into War-grave village, on to the Thresherton road, to arrive at the first enigmatic crossroads. I leaned back in the hot seat, the sun on my face, wiped my brow and sighed aloud. ‘Where, in heaven’s name, am I?’

  I realised that it would have been far more sensible if I had stopped to ask directions at the pub a couple of miles back or at a house close to the road. Now, with time ticking on, I was in the middle of nowhere. I sighed and wondered what to do next. Across the road an ancient millstone announced the entrance to Providence Farm and a long, narrow, pot-holed track led to a distant cluster of buildings. If only I had brought the Ordnance Survey map with me; it would have surely shown the farm and pinpointed my whereabouts. The road atlas was useless. There’s nothing for it, I thought, I will have to ask. The track looked good only for tractors and jeeps so I decided to walk.

  The muddy track seemed endless, and it was a long, hot trek to the farm. In a field beside the track, a herd of black and white cows stared with elaborate indifference as I passed, and continued to swish their tails slowly and chew methodically. In the field on the other side, standing alone, was a huge, square-bodied bull with a brass ring through its nose. It looked like a box on legs. The creature regarded me with utmost suspicion as I came closer and when I was level it bellowed loudly and lengthily. On closer examination it looked abnormally large. Its back was as wide as a trestle table and its neck as thick as the sentinel chestnut tree which cast a shadow over the farmhouse. As I approached the cattle grid and the buildings, I became aware I was being observed. Two men were standing at the entrance to a barn watching me as bright-eyed cats might watch a mouse. The older of the two had a stern, weathered face the colour of bruised parchment, grizzled, smoky-grey hair and a sharp beak of a nose. He was dressed in a clean, long-sleeved, collarless shirt, open waistcoat and ancient wellington boots. His companion was a fair, thick-set young man with an equally weathered face and tight, wiry hair. He was dressed in a T-shirt and shorts but, incongruously, he wore large heavy military-style boots. His arms and legs were wind-burned to the colour of copper.

  ‘Can’t tha read?’ demanded the older of the men.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Sign on t’gate. Can’t tha read? Feed reps only by appointment.’

  ‘I’m not a rep,’ I panted. ‘I’m a school inspector.’

  ‘Well, tha’ll not find any scoil up ’ere and that’s for sure.’

  ‘I gather that,’ I said, getting my breath, ‘but I’m well and truly lost.’

  The younger man screwed up his face, surveyed the sky, empty apart from skimming swallows, and sucked in his breath.

  ‘What scoil are tha looking fer?’

  ‘Scarthorpe Primary School. Do you know where it is?’

  ‘’appen I do.’

  ‘Well, would you be so kind as to tell me?’

  The young man pointed across the fields. ‘See yonder spire. That’s t’church. Scoil’s next door.’

  ‘Tha’r a bit on t’early side to go a-visitin’,’ said the older man. ‘It’s just past eight. There’ll be nob’dy theer at this time.’

  ‘Well, I always set off early to make certain I get there.’ There was no reply, just a couple of slow nods of the head. ‘As you might have guessed, I’m not too good at directions and, I have to say, the road signs around here are very confusing.’

  ‘Been t’same since time o’ t’Vikings. They had difficulty finding their way around this part o’ t’dale, I’ll be bound. We don’t go advertisin’ ourselves up here, tha knaws.’

  ‘Nay,’ agreed his young companion. ‘We don’t want rooad full o’ caravans!’

  ‘And coaches.’

  ‘And ramblers climbin’ ovver t’walls and knockin’ ’em down.’

  I felt it politic to make a hasty retreat. ‘Well, thank you for your help. I’ll be on my way. Just head in the direction of the church, you say?’

  ‘Nay, it’s not quite as easy as that,’ explained the older man. ‘Rooad comes back on itsen at t’bottom o’ yonder ’ill. When tha gets to t’crossroads, tek sign for Whisterton, and you pass Thresherton Hall on yer right. Turn left at Holloway Farm, stay on t’rooad and you’ll get to t’scoil.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, trying to memorise the instructions and turning to go.

  ‘’old on,’ said the older man, ‘we’ll walk to t’gate wi’ thee and see thee off t’premises.’ I was thus accompanied by the two farmers, in silence, down the long muddy track which seemed to stretch endlessly to the road. Our pace was leisurely to say the least and they kept their eyes suspiciously on me from the start.

  The farmer stopped when we came level with the fearsome bull. The beast eyed us malevolently, scraped and stamped the ground with a cudgel of a hoof, snorted contemptuously and filled the air with loud and mournful bellowing.

  ‘Telling us who’s t’boss,’ announced the older man, his face screwing up with pleasure. ‘Showing off for t’benefit o’ t’cows.’ All the cows I could see in the fields surrounding us ceased their swishing and chewing and stared in the direction of the bull. ‘Leads a life of owd Riley, does Samson. Spends all t’winter inside in t’warm, eatin’ and drinkin’ and sleepin’, and all summer in t’ field, in t’sun, eatin’ and drinkin’ and sleepin’ and mekkin love. Not a bad old life, is it?’

  ‘I could imagine worse,’ I agreed.

  ‘Mind you,’ commented the younger man, ‘many a bull nivver gets t’chance of any o’ that, eh, Dad?’

  ‘They don’t,’ agreed his father seriously. ‘Most of ’em get castrated and end up as beefburgers.’

  ‘Really,’ I said.

  ‘Tha’d be ’ard pushed to imagine owt worse than that, wun’t tha?’

  ‘You would,’ I agreed, with feeling.

  ‘Gerrin castrated and endin’ up beefburgered. But that’s the way o’ things. Aye, that’
s the way o’ things.’

  ‘How many cows do you have?’ I asked, attempting to get on to less delicate ground.

  ‘Near on three ’undred,’ replied the older man as we set off down the track again.

  ‘And do you have sheep?’

  ‘We do. Up on t’fells.’

  ‘And pigs?’

  ‘No, we don’t keep pigs. Not a lot o’money in pigs these days. Not a lot o’money in owt, if truth be told. Poor relations are yer farmers. Hardly worth keeping livestock what wi price o’feed.’

  ‘And how many acres have you?’

  ‘I can see tha’r an inspector,’ said the farmer stopping in his tracks. ‘Tha’r full o’ bloody questions, aren’t tha?’

  We walked on without another word. However, after a minute or two, I found the silence rather embarrassing so I commented cheerfully, ‘The farm’s a fair old distance from the road.’

  ‘Aye, it is that,’ agreed the older man.

  ‘Yes, quite a distance,’ I said, not expecting a reply.

  ‘That’s what t’local MP said when he comes up ’ere a-canvassin’ last year. “Aye,” I said to ’im, “it is a fair distance, but if it were any shorter it wun’t reach, would it?” ’

  At getting on for a quarter to nine, I finally arrived at Scarthorpe Primary School. The small stone building was tucked away behind the ancient Norman church and half-hidden by a huge, stunted oak tree, its twisted roots grasping the thin soil like arthritic fingers. The school was further obscured by the overhanging branches of laurel and sycamore. Mrs Fox, the Headteacher, was a vast and jolly woman with a shock of streaky curls and large friendly eyes behind enormous coloured frames. She wore a bright tartan smock, a rope of large, blue glass beads and yellow dangly earrings. Mrs Fox had the sort of voice which would penetrate bricks and mortar.

  ‘My. goodness, Mr Phinn, you are the early bird,’ she chortled. I explained that I would have arrived even earlier had I not taken so many wrong turnings at the mysterious crossroads. I was also foolish enough to mention that I had broken my journey at Providence Farm and related the conversation with the two farmers about the bull.

  ‘Oh, you met Mr Purvis and his son, Jack, did you? I was at school with the one and taught the other. Both are real characters, aren’t they?’

  ‘They are indeed,’ I agreed. ‘Well, Mrs Fox, what I intend to do this morning –’

  ‘He dotes on that bull of his. Soft as a brush when it comes to Samson. We often take the children up to Providence Farm as part of our environmental studies work.’ At this point I attempted for a second time to explain what form my day’s inspection would take, but Mrs Fox continued blithely. ‘My great-uncle Beecham had the land adjoining Providence Farm and knew his grandfather really well. Old Mr Purvis – lived right up to his ninety-eighth birthday he did, without a day’s illness – didn’t have the patience of his grandson when it came to bulls. My great-uncle Beecham always used to tell the tale which never fails to bring a smile to my lips.’

  ‘What I hope to be doing today, Mrs Fox –’ I tried again.

  ‘His bull was called Caesar. He was a great, fat, pompous creature, no good at all except for breeding purposes. He looked like the emperor himself the way he strutted round the field and proceeded to… er… do his duty to the cows, as one might say. But he had a really vicious streak had Caesar, and many’s the time Old Mr Purvis stamped back to the farmhouse, cursing and swearing, and black and blue with bruises. The bull broke his arm a couple of times when he was trying to get hold of him. Anyway, when Young Mr Purvis was about eleven, as the story goes, he rushed into the farmhouse kitchen one morning shouting blue murder. “Grandfather! Grandfather!” he cries. “Caesar’s gone! He’s not in his field! Somebody’s stolen Caesar!” His grandfather didn’t bat an eyelid but carried on drinking his tea. Then he nodded in the direction of the window. In the field beyond was poor old Caesar yoked to a plough pulling away down the furrows, with two of the farmhands flicking his haunches with sharp switches. Caesar snorted and bellowed and puffed and heaved and looked very hard done by. “I’ll show him that there’s more to life than love-making!” said Old Mr Purvis.’ Mrs Fox chuckled loudly, her body heaving and her eyes filling with tears of pleasure.

  ‘What I hope to be doing today, Mrs Fox –’ I attempted a third time.

  ‘Did Mr Purvis tell you about the incident when that poor young vet was called out to see to Samson?’

  I took the bull firmly by the horns. ‘Mrs Fox, I really would like to make a start, if I may.’

  ‘Why, of course you do, Mr Phinn,’ she replied smiling broadly. ‘That’s why you’re here. Come along and I’ll let you look through our planning documents while the children arrive. I’ll tell you about Samson, the vet and the bottle of liquid paraffin later, if you like.’

  I thought it would be the last time that day that I would hear about bulls but sadly I was mistaken. In the junior classroom later that morning, I joined two boys of about ten or eleven. Both were miniature versions of the farmers I had met at Providence Farm: plain, stocky individuals with sturdy legs, brown faces, tightly curled hair, short, sandy eyelashes and bright eyes. Neither was a very good reader but each tried hard and barked out the words with grim determination. The reading book depicted an idyllic town with sparkling shops, gleaming hotels, brightly painted houses with well-tended gardens and white gates, and a manicured park with a friendly, waving park-keeper standing at the entrance. There were no traces of litter or graffiti and not a sign of a public house, betting office, job centre or charity shop. Everyone in this Utopia looked happy and well dressed, from the jolly policeman to the beaming vicar to the smiling shoppers. The most exciting things that happened in the story were a walk round the lake to look at the ducks and a ride on the bus. It came as no surprise therefore to discover that it was called Merrytown.

  ‘Do you enjoy reading?’ I asked one of the boys when he finished and had snapped the book shut with a vengeance.

  He lifted a sandy eyebrow. ‘No.’

  ‘Do you read at home?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Don’t ’ave t’time.’

  ‘Do you have any books at home?’

  ‘A few.’

  ‘And what are they about?’

  ‘Tractors.’

  ‘Do you like reading about tractors?’

  ‘Not particularly.’

  It was like extracting blood from a stone but I persisted and tried, by changing tack, to get him to open up a little.

  ‘You live on a farm, do you?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘I visited a farm on my way here this morning.’

  ‘Oh, aye.’ He appeared a little more interested.

  ‘Providence Farm. Do you know it?’

  ‘’appen I do.’

  The other boy looked up from his work at the mention of the farm. ‘Did tha see Samson?’

  ‘I did indeed,’ I replied.

  ‘’e’s a champion beast is Samson, ’e is that.’

  ‘Do you live on a farm as well?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Do you have a bull?’

  ‘Nay, only bull we ’ave on our farm is t’bull wi t’bowler ’at.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘AI man.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  The boy sighed and gave me such a world-weary look. Then, as a teacher might explain to a particularly slow child, he articulated, ‘Artificial Inseminator. ’e comes round and sees to t’cows.’

  ‘I see,’ I said somewhat uncertainly.

  ‘So, there’s no need for t’bull.’

  The first boy decided to contribute to the discussion. ‘French sperm’s best, tha knaws.’

  ‘Really?’ I sighed. ‘And do you have a bull on your farm?’

  ‘Nay, we ’ave all our cows done, like on Roger’s farm. We did ’ave two bulls but they’re both deead now. One were called Eric, he were an ’olstein and t’other were called Osc
ar and he were a Belgian Blue. Samson’s a Limosan and not near as big.’

  ‘You mean there are bulls which are bigger than Samson?’ I gasped.

  ‘Oh aye, Belgian Blues can weigh owt up to a ton and an ’arf Double-muscled, tha sees. Bred for their meat.’ He was now quite animated. ‘Yer Belgian Blue ’as muscles on muscles and is so big tha can only deliver a calf through a Caesarean. Tha knaws what a Caesarean is, dust tha?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Can’t gerrem out natural way, Belgian Blues. Vets just zip ’em oppen down t’belly.’

  His companion added, ‘If tha was to cross ’em wi’ a Fresian you’d ’ave a fair chance of a natural birth, Jacob.’ He turned to me. ‘Tha sees most Belgian Blue cows bred wi’ another breed, so it meks it easier for ’em to calve.’

  ‘Still large, though,’ said the other seriously. ‘Anyroad, we dun’t bother wi’ bulls any more. Best bull is t’bull out of a test tube.’

  ‘What a pity,’ I said. ‘To think that those wonderful creatures, those great, snorting, bellowing beasts with their massive bodies and sharp horns might not be seen again.’

  ‘They don’t ’ave ’orns,’ Jacob told me bluntly.

  ‘They don’t? But I thought all bulls have horns?’

  ‘They ’ave ’em tekken off after three month. You de-bud ’em. Burn off their ’orns. Bulls are bad enough wi’out ’orns on. Tha dun’t go lookin’ fer trouble. It’s ’ard enough gerrin’ ’em in from t’fields as it is. Old Samson’s a devil. Belgian Blues are placid usually, but your Limosan, they can be reight frisky. Toss you up in t’air or butt thee as soon as look at thee.’

  ‘And tha’s talkin’ money,’ interrupted Roger. ‘Best o’ breed at Fettlesham Show this year, Pride o’ Brussels ’e were called, fetched fotty thousand quid. Serious money is that, tha knaws. And o’ course, if owt ’appens to ’em like if they ’ad an accident or come down wi summat and tek badly, then they’re no good to man nor beast.’