CONSTABLE ABOUT THE PARISH a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain’s best-loved authors (Constable Nick Mystery Book 17)

by Nicholas Rhea

  ‘Ruth’s got some of these, Mr Rhea.’

  ‘You can learn a lot from books,’ I said, providing him with a pen and some paper. ‘Make a list of these and then you’ve got something to start with when you go home.’

  They stayed about an hour and Mary made them a cup of tea, and then they left, with Ruth saying she was driving Wayne into Ashfordly to have a look at the library there.

  ‘Thanks, Mr Rhea.’ Wayne shook my hand again, this time with more strength and more friendliness. ‘When I get out, can I come and see you?’

  ‘Yes, do that. And let me know how you are getting along, keep in touch.’

  When they had gone, I found myself thinking that Ruth’s scheme had worked, if only for this one youth. He seemed so enthralled with books and with road building that I knew she had set a deprived lad firmly on a new style of life. I wondered if a week had been long enough for him to re-think his future, but perhaps it had. Perhaps a week away from Borstal, away from his companions and away from the influences of his past life had been sufficient for him? In the very brief time I was with Wayne, I had found him likeable and sincere — although I did wonder what he had done in order to be incarcerated in a Borstal Institution. I could have found out, by checking with CRO, but decided that would be intrusive.

  The following Sunday, I saw Ruth Lord walking someone’s dog through Aidensfield and hailed her.

  ‘This is Bonny, Mrs Popplewell’s retriever. Mrs P’s ill — a bad dose of flu, so I volunteered to walk her dog, didn’t I, Bonny?’ She smiled as I approached her. The dog wagged its tail at the mention of its name.

  ‘Wayne returned to Borstal, has he?’ I asked.

  ‘Sadly, yes. Thanks for showing the human side of policemen, Nick,’ she said. ‘He’d never been in a policeman’s private house before, and you made a hit with him. But he is a perfect example of a youth going wrong because he’s been reared in the wrong environment. He’s known nothing else but criminality since his childhood — his peer group at home are all petty criminals or worse — but in just a few days with the Fairfax boys, he realized that his future lay in his own hands, not in state institutions and officials. Once he’s released from Borstal, he’s going to look for work — you know they’re building lots more motorways in this country? Well, Wayne wants to work on those.’

  After he’d gone back to Borstal, I heard nothing more from Wayne although Ruth did receive the occasional letter; the first came within a week of him leaving the Fairfax Camp and was a thank-you letter, he even asked that I be thanked for my part in his new realization. Then there were long gaps until one letter announced his release from Borstal and said he was now back in Liverpool with a firm intention to begin his career. Then Ruth heard nothing more. I know she was disappointed because she’d felt sure her protege would maintain contact and even seek advice, but there was an ominous silence. I do know she wrote to the address he’d given on his first letter, but got no reply. Then, about eight months after Wayne’s return to Liverpool, she received a telephone call from the governor of the East Riding Borstal. It was to say that he’d been informed by the authorities in Liverpool that Wayne was back in police custody having been arrested in a stolen car after a raid on a building society in Huyton.

  I must admit I was disappointed too. Of all the criminals I had met, I had believed that Wayne would have the sense and determination to abandon his old way of life in favour of something more worthwhile; the lad had seemed so genuine, but it seemed that both Ruth and I had been wrong. For me, the disappointment was not as great as that felt by Ruth Lord — for her, apart from any personal disappointment, Wayne’s lapse could be used as evidence that the joint Borstal/Fairfax camps were not a viable option.

  I was not told of the precise circumstances of his latest lapse into crime and neither was Ruth, but we knew it could result in Wayne being returned to Borstal for a further period of so-called training but, if he was more than twenty-one years old at the time of his latest offence, he could be sent to prison. There was no word from Wayne, either by telephone or by letter and I do know that Ruth was profoundly hurt by his apparent lack of consideration for her.

  Perhaps he had no idea she had been told of his lapse? Perhaps he had taken advantage of her kindness while in this area, only to reject her once he was back on his own familiar patch of England?

  And then, one morning in early March the year following Wayne’s camp, she got a telephone call. It was from Wayne Buckle and it was from a telephone kiosk.

  ‘Can I come and see you?’ was all he said after introducing himself.

  ‘Yes,’ was all she was able to reply before his money ran out which meant she had no idea when he was coming, or how, or whether he wanted to stay in the village.

  She rang me, clearly experiencing some uncertainty about the wisdom of accommodating this wayward youth, but all I could say was, ‘It’s obvious he wants you to help him. Let’s see what he wants.’

  Wayne Buckle arrived during an afternoon two days later having hitch-hiked from Liverpool and he went straight to the vicarage. I have no idea of the conversation which followed but within a couple of hours, Ruth rang me and asked if I could pop around for a chat with her and Wayne. I went as requested and found him sitting on the settee, unkempt and dirty after his journey. He rose to his feet as I entered — I was in uniform, but he extended his hand and I shook it.

  ‘Hello, Wayne,’ I said, without making any reference to the information I had been given about his escapade at home.

  ‘Mr Rhea,’ he settled back on the settee. ‘It’s good to be here, believe me.’

  ‘Wayne has something to tell us, Nick,’ Ruth said and I could see that the gloom of the past few weeks and months had evaporated. She was back to her usual cheerful self.

  It seemed that, upon his release from Borstal, he had returned to Liverpool, to live in a small flat he was renting, but very quickly had found himself back with his former colleagues and mates. At first, it had been fun, doing the rounds of the pubs and clubs, conning bits of cash from people, stealing more when funds were low and then had come the escapade in the stolen car.

  Wayne said, ‘I tried to stop them, Mr Rhea. It was then I realized I was returning to my old ways — with my mates all around there was no way I could avoid it. They put pressure on, you know how they do that. They nicked a car and picked me up, for a ride they said — I had no idea it was nicked, by the way, not at first, and then they went for the bank raid. Clubs and pick-axe-handle job it was. I wanted no part of it; I asked to be let out but they said no, I was to go along with them. So I did, I had no choice; they raided a bank and got away with cash, lots of it, but the police were waiting. We all got nicked. With the loot. I got three months in prison, Mr Rhea. I’m not complaining, I deserved it. I shouldn’t have let myself get back into the old ways . . . but that job stopped me in my tracks and I remembered Aidensfield and Ruth and the camps and things. So I decided the only way to keep my nose clean was to get away from my mates, from Liverpool, start a new life.’

  Ruth said, ‘Christian and I have said Wayne can stay here, at the vicarage, until he gets somewhere of his own. He wants to look for work, Nick, and that’s why I asked you to call in. You know people at County Hall, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, several.’

  ‘How about the Highways Department? Any contacts there?’

  ‘There’s an old schoolfriend of mine, I’m not sure of his official status there, but he does work in the Highways Department. Wilson is the name. Jim Wilson.’

  ‘Can I ask you to contact him, to see if there are any vacancies now or in the future?’

  ‘They’ve been advertising for staff a lot in recent months,’ I said. ‘A lot of the county’s roads are being upgraded.’

  I rang my old schoolmate, Jim, and explained the situation, giving a full account of Wayne’s history and his latest brave decision. The outcome was that the Highways Department of the County Council was currently advertising for staff an
d there were vacancies in all kinds of disciplines for skilled and unskilled workers. I was told that if Wayne cared to send for an application form, it would list the range of openings and he would be given every consideration, irrespective of his criminal record. Within a month, Wayne had secured a job on the maintenance section of the County Highways Department and he was delighted; he found himself a rented cottage in the countryside near Bedale and went off to begin his new life. He did, however, return to the Fairfax Camps to help with some of the work and to advise some of the newest Borstal inmates.

  During this time, he did keep in touch. Eventually, he bought a small car which he cherished because it was his very own and soon found himself promoted. Wayne Buckle was the happiest man alive, I felt; it wasn’t long before he was courting one of the secretaries from the department and within two years, they were married. I was best man.

  Two children followed, then Wayne Buckle applied for a more senior post with a motorway construction company — and was successful — but kept moving to better positions. As I compile these notes in 1996, he is aged 54 and is chairman of a thriving motorway construction group of companies.

  In spite of a very busy life which takes him to every area of Great Britain and overseas, he does keep in touch.

  But Wayne Buckle took advantage of the opportunities that were presented to him and although he gave thanks to Ruth Lord for her vision of a better life for lads like himself, much of his success was due to his own efforts and a realization that the only way for him to succeed, was to abandon his former life of crime by moving to a new district.

  And even now, whenever he goes for a walk upon the North York Moors, he always visits the stretch of highway that gave him inspiration years earlier, the old Roman road at Wheeldale near Goathland.

  7

  He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.

  Luke 22.36

  During the 1960s, there was a renewal of interest in the past coupled with particular emphasis upon the so-called simple life. Young people were attracted to the notion that it was judicious to abandon a life of material things, consequently they began to flout the conventional rules of society and live in communes. Some stuck flowers in their long, unwashed hair and called themselves flower people. One Yorkshireman actually thought the flowers grew in their hair — ‘Wiv all that muck about, your flowers’ll be well fertilized,’ he remarked.

  Those members of the new society embraced a culture of peace and free love, which in reality meant fighting the police on CND rallies, taking drugs, challenging authority and having sexual relations with almost anyone or anything. Others opted out of what might be described normal society to live a life in the open air and on the open road, leaving their litter and junk behind for tidy-minded and more realistic people to clear away.

  At the same time, there was a corresponding move towards nature, even by the most conventional of people. This resulted in townies rushing into the countryside to buy tumbledown cottages with a bit of land so they could be self-sufficient in beans, potatoes and pigs. Fortunately, the true country folk, who were very realistic and wise, retained their old, infinitely more practical ways and made useful sums of money from these deluded aesthetes before they packed up and returned to town.

  It is difficult to determine whether society gained any benefit from the abandonment of self-discipline during the 1960s — perhaps we are only now beginning to suffer from that — but what did happen was that lots of forgotten customs were remembered and revived. Many had been discontinued during the World Wars and there developed a feeling that quaint memorials of the past should be restored as a symbol of happier times.

  One of them was the Aidensfield Sword Dance. A village incomer called Aubrey Fletcher, who ran a flower shop in Ashfordly, had purchased an old book about the North York Moors and in it had found a reference to the sword dance. It was only a fleeting reference but it did say that the Aidensfield Sword Dance was held on the village green at noon on Plough Monday. Sadly, the book, published in 1834, did not provide any further information although the nature of the reference did suggest the dance was being held at that time, i.e. 1834.

  Within rural Yorkshire, similar dances were still being practised earlier this century, some of the participants displaying their skills in popular competitions. In the 1960s, the Goathland Plough Stots were one surviving example — and continue to this day. Possibly the oldest surviving team of its kind in Britain, its origins date from Viking times more than 1,000 years ago, when long-sword dancing was associated with a fertility rite. It was thought that the clashing of swords drove away evil spirits. The word ‘stot’ means bullock and this name was given to young men who, in modern times, tow a plough around the village on Plough Monday as they sing and dance to raise money for the church and local charities.

  Today’s Plough Stots number about thirty young men and they are an amalgamation of the earlier stots and a local sword-dancing team; they continue to give lively displays in North Yorkshire’s Esk Valley and have visited venues in other parts of Britain and the continent, always raising money for local charities. There used to be a sword dance in Ampleforth too and, in the 1960s, an attempt was made by a monk to revive this one, with little success.

  Other sword dances, morris dances and mummers’ plays were held across Yorkshire, some as open-air dramas and others merely as dances, consequently the Aidensfield Sword Dance was not unique in its time. There are strong links between Plough Monday events, mummers’ dances, sword dances and morris dancing, the chief ones being that they devolve from a ritual associated with fertility of crops at the death of the old year and the birth of the new. In Christian times, Plough Monday, the first Monday after the Epiphany which is on January 6, marked the beginning of the farming year. It was the day when farm labourers returned to work after the Christmas break. Ploughs were blessed in church and there were other associated events.

  But, like so many ancient customs, the Aidensfield Sword Dance had ceased long ago and all modern records had been lost. Aubrey Fletcher, a small, thin and bespectacled man in his mid-fifties who bred Yorkshire Terriers, decided to do something about it. His first approach was to visit the older residents of Aidensfield to ask if they remembered the dance or had any recollection of their forebears talking about it. Surprisingly, none did.

  His efforts were rewarded with little more than shaking heads and forthright statements that they knew ‘nowt about that awd dance’. He even approached Aidensfield’s oldest resident, ninety-seven-year-old Mrs Maud Crabtree. Born in 1868, she had a remarkable memory for events in and around the village, having lived there for the whole of her long life, but when Aubrey mentioned the sword dance, she shook her head and smiled. ‘I know nowt about it and neither does anybody else, so there’s no point in asking, is there?’

  It was during a visit to his flower shop in Ashfordly during March, when I wished to buy a bouquet for my wife’s birthday, that he told me of his fruitless endeavours. As I listened to Aubrey, I began to wonder why the village’s own sword dance had been so completely eliminated from the folk memory of the community. Usually in this kind of circumstance, somebody in the community would have been expected to possess a relic of such an historic custom — in this case, I would have expected somebody at Aidensfield to have had cuttings from old newspapers, one or two of the swords, some remnants of the costumes used, souvenirs of family links, that sort of thing. But, according to Aubrey, no one knew anything nor had they kept any relics; worse still, no one appeared willing to even talk about the sword dance. All his enquiries had produced absolutely nothing. I must admit I thought this was very unusual.

  I did begin to wonder if there ever had been an Aidensfield Sword Dance. Could the author of the book in which Aubrey had found his reference have made a mistake?

  There was a village in the West Riding of Yorkshire called Austerfield but I had no idea whether that village had ever sported a sword dance and besides, Austerfield and Aidensfield
did not sound very similar — although some author’s bad handwriting might have led to confusion about their names. That was a remote possibility, a very remote one.

  ‘Mr Rhea,’ said Aubrey as I had a coffee with him that morning. ‘You get out and about a lot in the course of your duty. Can I ask you to keep your eyes and ears open for any reference to the sword dance? You get into people’s homes; you’d think somebody would have a keepsake of some kind. Maybe you could ask on your rounds? You know,’ he added confidentially, ‘I almost got the impression that people did not want to talk about it — the older people, I mean.’

  ‘Covering something up, is that what you’re saying?’ I asked. ‘Why would anyone want to hide the fact that a custom as harmless and historic as a sword dance had taken place in their village?’

  ‘My sentiments exactly, Mr Rhea,’ he spoke with a note of triumph. ‘I am now wondering whether I have uncovered some ancient secret about the sword dance, and it makes me more determined to get to the truth of the matter.’

  ‘I can’t imagine that kind of secrecy being a valid reason, Mr Fletcher,’ I said. ‘Things like old customs — sword dances or any other sort — usually fade away because nobody bothers to maintain them. In our case, two world wars have intervened, with our young men — the dancers — being called up for service in the armed forces and perhaps being killed, so there’s little wonder the sword dance has faded away.’

  ‘But if that was the case, surely the villagers would have wanted to revive the dance as a memorial to their fallen heroes?’ he suggested.

  ‘That’s a point,’ I conceded. ‘So all we’re left with is a brief note in an old book which tells us the dance was being practised in 1834, more than a hundred and thirty years ago?’

  ‘That’s it, nothing else,’ he admitted. ‘Not even the remotest of links remains in our village, and I find that very odd indeed.’