Over the Farmer's Gate (26 page)

HERE WE go again. A new year, a new A4 pad, same old fountain pen, same old kitchen. It is inevitable that I write reflectively on what has happened recently.

Well, Christmas happened. To start with, I was asked to do one of the readings at the carol service in our local church. This was a surprise request for me, and a surprise for quite a lot in the congregation, too.

There were seven readings and it was a bit like the Royal Command Performance when you wondered who would be on next, as various
readers made their way to the front to do their turn.

After, we had mulled wine in one of the side chapels and several people came up and said they were surprised to see me there and surprised that I’d done a reading. Whether they were surprised at my presence or that I could read, I’m not sure.

The next night was Christmas Eve so I went to the pub for an hour. It’s strange, but no one said they were surprised to see me there.

The tanker driver gets a full English breakfast on Christmas day but this year he was haunted by the sight of a man and a little girl walking through a town centre at four o’clock in the morning. It troubled us both and the only comfort we took was that he was holding her hand and she seemed quite content. It’s the world we live in sadly. And it is sad.

It was my intention to just stay for an hour but we all know what happens to intentions. I knew I had passed the point of no return when I asked someone for a half-pint of mild and they bought me a large scotch.

One thing about our local, you can always find someone to drive you home. A young girl in her early 50s drove me home in my car and I was home by midnight, which was just as well as it’s up again at a quarter to four as the milk tanker is here just after six.

MOST OF my sheep-keeping neighbours have been scanning their flocks recently. It’s a process where a contractor comes and produces a scan that determines how many lambs each ewe is carrying.

This is very useful management information as the flock can be subsequently divided up into groups that are carrying singles, twins, triplets or are actually barren.

Lots of farmers let the ewes with a single lamb out of doors
where they can protect just the one lamb from the weather and predators.

A friend of mine was so pleased with the results of the scan he showed me the printout in the pub. He’s a bit of a local legend; got sheep everywhere and no-one knows exactly how many. I didn’t look at the results of the scanning, as I was busy adding up the numbers of his various flocks.

‘Always wondered how many sheep you had,’ I said. The piece of paper was snatched away with such force I had to check my fingers.

TODAY WE will consider, if you will, public conveniences. And in particular, gentlemen’s public conveniences. They are a facility in which I take a special interest, as I will explain later.

Last week I had occasion to use the gentlemen’s facility in our local cattle market, which is provided by the local authority. I knew that these toilets had been refurbished recently but had not yet taken advantage of them.

What a revelation, without going into particular detail; they were a celebration of stainless steel. It was everywhere. There were places to wash and dry hands and somewhere in the background there was classical music, it sounded a bit ‘tinny’ but then I suppose with all that tin, it would, wouldn’t it?

I was disappointed with the hand-driers, to which I pay particular attention, as they were located in a sort of recess in the wall.

Let me explain. Many years ago I found myself spending the evening in licensed premises. There was nothing remarkable about that, but what was remarkable was the weather. It was January and we were in the middle of a spell of freezing fog. It was a raw, damp cold that chilled your very bones – not weather to linger in.

I got into conversation with a local character, a young man given to spending his time in hostelries as well. Such was his consumption of alcohol that one of our local doctors bet him £20 he wouldn’t live to see 40. On the day of the appropriate birthday he made an appointment at the doctor’s, waited his turn, and duly drew the £20, which he had converted into drink and consumed by lunchtime.

To return to our story, he told me that for reasons associated with excessive drinking, he found himself homeless and had slept the last three nights on the steps of the cattle market and was shortly to spend the night there again.

I was appalled, given the weather as I described, that a young local man should find himself thus. I took him home with me and made him a bed in the attic above our kitchen.

I had him out from there early next morning and he actually spent three nights there without my wife knowing. By then I had bought him a caravan, we moved him in and he lived there for 12 years, after which time I found him a council flat.

It was a roller coaster ride of 12 years. There would be a job for a few weeks, an accumulation of some money, a two-week binge, no job, no money, a few odd jobs in return for some food and away we would go again on the same cycle. But there was an unexpected bonus. Everything in life is relative and, in comparison to his lifestyle, my own seemed relatively sensible. For a time, my wife sensed that she had married a relative paragon of virtue.

The link between gentlemen’s conveniences and this latter story? I’ve always been interested in other people and how they live their lives. This was the only person I ever knew who had found themselves homeless, so I was always interested in the detail.

‘You should always,’ I was told, ‘seek out a toilet with a push-button hand drier.’ These buttons come in two sorts, one can
be wedged into place with a coin, the other needs some sticky tape to hold it in. Having done this, the warm hand-drier will run all night and the homeless person can curl up on the floor underneath.

I always find myself checking this detail – you never know when you might slip through life’s safety net and be in need of this skill. The hand-driers in the new toilets cannot be used in this way, located as they are in a recess in the wall. I thought this to be inconsiderate.

I USED to have a Transit van and there was a spider living behind the rear-view mirror that was fixed on the outside of the driver’s door.

We drove thousands of miles together, the spider and I, and I often used to wonder what he was thinking about as we drove along.

In hard times, I used to catch him flies and put them in his web. He used to scuttle out and drag them back behind the mirror. I always thought he was grateful for that.

When I sold the van, I tried to catch him so I could transfer him to the next van, but he wasn’t having any of that.

When I sold that van, I was given £1,000 cash and a cheque for £400 – drawn on a bank account that had been closed for a couple of years, so I’m £400 and a spider light on that deal.

As that took place about 10 years ago, I don’t hold out much hope of ever seeing either again.

I miss the spider more than the money.

THE RECENT cold dry spell has allowed us to spread chicken muck on the 100 acres of grassland that provide our first-cut silage.

A dry spell is essential if we are to avoid tractors damaging the grassland, which is a pet hate of mine.

Chicken muck is a wonderful manure and used regularly it raises worm populations considerably, improving soil condition remarkably. It has the added bonus that it contains the grit that was fed to the chickens, so we are topping up the calcium at the same time.

Before we had poultry we would put five hundredweight of fertiliser on our first cut silage ground, now we put poultry manure plus just one hundredweight. On 100 acres, that means we reduce our fertiliser use by… I’ll let you work that out for yourselves, you can do that instead of the crossword. Some time soon I will take the chain harrows over it, just to spread it about a bit better, plus the mole hills, and then put some nice stripes on it with the roller. You can smell the chicken muck for 24 hours after it’s spread, but its all part of life’s rich pattern.

I was feeding the dry cows with silage soon after we’d done the muck-spreading and I could see two ramblers hesitating on their journey. As I drove home they were still there – it’s at a place where they often seem to lose their way. The path is rarely used so there is no clearly defined way and the next stile is out of sight down in a dingle.

‘Is this your field?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why have you removed the stile?’

‘I haven’t, it’s down there by that black and white cottage’.

This is win-win stuff. They quite obviously have enjoyed taking the opportunity to take me to task and I in turn have taken some pleasure in pointing out that they are at fault with their map-reading and not me with my farming.

So, the atmosphere quickly turns to be quite friendly and we exchange pleasantries about the weather and the view.

‘Your silage has a strong smell to it this morning.’

I think they are referring to the silage I have just fed the dry cows. I sniff the air, but couldn’t smell it, but then I’m used to it.

‘Sticks to your boots.’