Thursday night used to be quiz night at the Farrier’s Arms. The questions were never too demanding; a lot of them you could answer in your sleep. Let’s be straight, the “comet” is always Halley’s. The “literary prize” is always the Booker. The “art prize” is always the Turner. The “medieval writer” is always Chaucer. The “famous diarist” is always Samuel Pepys. The “medical journal” is always The Lancet. And the “garden designer” is always ‘Capability’ Brown.
Landlord Brian abandoned The Big Book of Pub Quiz Questions - they were too trivial, he said - and started to compile his own. He decided it was time to ask his customers some of life’s more challenging questions. He didn’t get further than number one, "Why are we here?": a subject that’s preoccupied mankind ever since we started walking upright. A discussion turned into a heated argument, which, in that combustible, beer-fuelled atmosphere, degenerated into a fist fight. That evening’s prize, a mixed grill, was trampled underfoot; the pile of pennies on the bar, earmarked for the brave (but under-employed) men of the Whimsey Mountain Rescue Team, was knocked over prematurely.
That unfortunate episode marked the end of quiz nights. Brian keeps a pepper-pot and a pick-axe handle behind the bar these days, but he hasn't needed to use them. Thursday nights are convivially conversational... well, until a stranger strides up to the bar. Brian sweeps his hand across the beer pumps with proprietorial pride. “What will you have?”, he asks. “A pint”, the stranger replies. Brian sweeps his hand across the pumps once again, for dramatic effect, cocks his head to one side and raises one quizzical eyebrow. “Which one?”, the stranger says, impatiently. “Oh, it doesn’t matter”.
The room goes quiet. The locals shuffle uneasily along the bar. Old Bert, aiming for double top, misses the board entirely and throws his dart into the wall. Beer, you see, is taken very seriously at the Farrier’s. If the choice of beer doesn’t matter then the lives of most of the pub regulars are rendered meaningless at a stroke.
Brian has beers to suit all tastes. The budget option is a cheap ‘cooking bitter’, so weak it’s almost homeopathic. It arrives already watered down, which saves him the trouble. He’s got premium beers, with daft names, from local micro-breweries. He’s got fancy foreign lagers (all brewed in Warrington). He’s got a range of Belgian fruit beers, brewed by monks (who are bound by a vow of silence... especially about where the beers are actually made. Yes, Warrington).
So go on, nip down to your local. Pick a quiet night - so you can enjoy the satisfaction of shouting “drinks all round” at the startled regulars - and get the party started. Order a pint of Old Profanity, without regard for the consequences. Strong beer only attacks the weakest brain cells (the stragglers, cells that probably wouldn't have survived anyway) so a pint or two will actually help to make you more intelligent. Or, at the very least, more gullible. Cheers!
Saturday, July 4, 2020
Wednesday, July 1, 2020
25 Our miniature library
Valid or not, there were as many dissenting voices raised at the possibility of losing our phonebox as there where when it arrived 69 years earlier. Now that we were no longer using it, the red phonebox on the village green had somehow acquired ‘iconic’ status. Nobody wanted to see it go. Nevertheless, the writing was on the wall - quite literally so in the case of our phonebox - until Jean and Hayden stepped up to the mark. When they offered to ‘adopt’ the phonebox, BT readily agreed. The phone itself disappeared, and Hayden fitted the back wall with wooden shelving, floor to ceiling, and Jean volunteered to fill the shelves of the Whimsey Lending Library with books.
Jean knows what locals like to read. Until the service was axed, she had driven the mobile library from village to village, bringing the written word to the natives. Sometimes it seemed like literary evangelism, sometimes missionary work. After all, there are farmers in the flatlands whose reading is confined to the application forms for set-aside grants and the cooking instructions on the back of a ‘Boil-in-the-bag Cod in a Chedder cheese-style Sauce’ TV dinner for one. After a hard day’s work harvesting root vegetables, they’re unlikely to curl up by the fireside with a Booker prizewinner. “I read a book once”, Les confided to Jean, when she’d parked the mobile library next to Wolds End Farm, “and, to tell you the truth, I wasn’t impressed.”
Jean’s readers were keen on fatuous adventure yarns, usually featuring killer bees, for some reason. And romantic fiction: an uncomplicated world where men are men, and women are airline stewardesses. Conveyor-belt books: nothing to tax the brain after twelve hours inhaling sileage. The romantic action used to stop at the bedroom door, with three little dots of discretion... Readers could fill in the more salacious details for themselves, depending on their own tastes, experience and sexual proclivities. But these blockbuster authors have no such qualms. Confronted by a locked bedroom door, their first instinct is to batter it down and burrow voyeuristically beneath that double duvet of desire. Some of Joan’s more elderly customers may have raised their eyebrows and suggested that the book they’d just finished had been a bit on the steamy side - before asking, in a demure whisper, if she had any more like them.
There wasn’t much call, around Whimsey, for science fiction, or avant-garde poetry, or impenetrable stories that boast of their ‘exciting and experimental use of language’ (which generally means there’s no punctuation). Jean tried - God knows she tried - to introduce her readers to the classics, but it was a thankless task. Weaning them off Jeffrey Archer was a start. It was the smallest of victories, though, like getting cannibals to eat with a knife and fork.
The rationale behind the Whimsey Lending Library is simplicity itself: locals bring a book to the library, and take another book out. Jean visits her immobile library a couple of times a week, to wash the windows, ensure all the books are in shelved in alphabetical order and do a cull of Jeffrey Archer books. We may have lost our payphone, but, hey, we still have standards.
Jean knows what locals like to read. Until the service was axed, she had driven the mobile library from village to village, bringing the written word to the natives. Sometimes it seemed like literary evangelism, sometimes missionary work. After all, there are farmers in the flatlands whose reading is confined to the application forms for set-aside grants and the cooking instructions on the back of a ‘Boil-in-the-bag Cod in a Chedder cheese-style Sauce’ TV dinner for one. After a hard day’s work harvesting root vegetables, they’re unlikely to curl up by the fireside with a Booker prizewinner. “I read a book once”, Les confided to Jean, when she’d parked the mobile library next to Wolds End Farm, “and, to tell you the truth, I wasn’t impressed.”
Jean’s readers were keen on fatuous adventure yarns, usually featuring killer bees, for some reason. And romantic fiction: an uncomplicated world where men are men, and women are airline stewardesses. Conveyor-belt books: nothing to tax the brain after twelve hours inhaling sileage. The romantic action used to stop at the bedroom door, with three little dots of discretion... Readers could fill in the more salacious details for themselves, depending on their own tastes, experience and sexual proclivities. But these blockbuster authors have no such qualms. Confronted by a locked bedroom door, their first instinct is to batter it down and burrow voyeuristically beneath that double duvet of desire. Some of Joan’s more elderly customers may have raised their eyebrows and suggested that the book they’d just finished had been a bit on the steamy side - before asking, in a demure whisper, if she had any more like them.
There wasn’t much call, around Whimsey, for science fiction, or avant-garde poetry, or impenetrable stories that boast of their ‘exciting and experimental use of language’ (which generally means there’s no punctuation). Jean tried - God knows she tried - to introduce her readers to the classics, but it was a thankless task. Weaning them off Jeffrey Archer was a start. It was the smallest of victories, though, like getting cannibals to eat with a knife and fork.
The rationale behind the Whimsey Lending Library is simplicity itself: locals bring a book to the library, and take another book out. Jean visits her immobile library a couple of times a week, to wash the windows, ensure all the books are in shelved in alphabetical order and do a cull of Jeffrey Archer books. We may have lost our payphone, but, hey, we still have standards.
Sunday, June 28, 2020
24 At the end of the line
It was in 1951, the year of the Festival of Britain, that the telephone box arrived, bringing a touch of modernity - and an incongruous splash of red - to Whimsey. The locals, barely out of the dark ages, were unimpressed when a phonebox appeared on the village green. They regarded anything new with suspicion - as they still do today - and were quick to voice their grievances. A local historian and pedant called the new phonebox an “unnecessary excrescence”. The vicar of St Breville’s denounced it as “ungodly”, voicing his suspicion that it could undermine the power of prayer.
It’s hard to stop progress and, predictably, the objections came to naught. Over the next few years the phonebox went from ‘indefensible’ to ‘indispensible’, even for those little-travelled locals who could communicate with all their friends and family merely by walking around the village and knocking on a few doors. For example, when an unattended chip pan burst into flames, a sharp-eyed neighbour dashed to the phonebox, called the fire brigade and averted a potential tragedy. On another occasion, Hayden’s father heard the phone ring in the phonebox and, on a whim, answered it. So beguiled was he by the female voice at the other end of the line that he asked her out on a date. Unfortunately, she was phoning from Dundee.
Telephones soon appeared in our homes too, with the handset taking pride of place on a ‘telephone table’ in the hall. But the phonebox on the village green offered something that most of us couldn’t get at home: privacy. There are some conversations we didn’t want to be overheard. Lovers poured out their hearts over the phone until they’d emptied their pockets of their last copper coins. Extra-marital affairs were organised, in conspiratorial whispers, and tearfully ended. Salacious gossip was spread, along with the implausible instruction to “keep this to yourself”. By the time of the Summer of Love, and the Winter of Discontent, the phonebox had embedded itself into the fabric of village life. How, we wondered, had we ever managed without it?
Then mobile phones arrived, and in the time it took Tony Blair to fail to find any ‘weapons of mass distruction’, our phonebox went from valuable lifeline to anachronistic relic. The red paint started to peel, and no one came to repaint it. When the coin box was emptied every month, there wasn’t enough money inside to buy a telephone engineer a pint of Old Profanity in the Farrier’s Arms. Two years ago a notice appeared, announcing that, unless there were any valid objections, BT would shut down the phonebox and take it away. Our local councillors were in two minds about what to do with it. We could let BT remove it. Or slap a preservation order on it. Or just bow to the inevitable: plumb it into the main drain, and mount an illuminated sign - Gents Urinal - on the top.
It’s hard to stop progress and, predictably, the objections came to naught. Over the next few years the phonebox went from ‘indefensible’ to ‘indispensible’, even for those little-travelled locals who could communicate with all their friends and family merely by walking around the village and knocking on a few doors. For example, when an unattended chip pan burst into flames, a sharp-eyed neighbour dashed to the phonebox, called the fire brigade and averted a potential tragedy. On another occasion, Hayden’s father heard the phone ring in the phonebox and, on a whim, answered it. So beguiled was he by the female voice at the other end of the line that he asked her out on a date. Unfortunately, she was phoning from Dundee.
Telephones soon appeared in our homes too, with the handset taking pride of place on a ‘telephone table’ in the hall. But the phonebox on the village green offered something that most of us couldn’t get at home: privacy. There are some conversations we didn’t want to be overheard. Lovers poured out their hearts over the phone until they’d emptied their pockets of their last copper coins. Extra-marital affairs were organised, in conspiratorial whispers, and tearfully ended. Salacious gossip was spread, along with the implausible instruction to “keep this to yourself”. By the time of the Summer of Love, and the Winter of Discontent, the phonebox had embedded itself into the fabric of village life. How, we wondered, had we ever managed without it?
Then mobile phones arrived, and in the time it took Tony Blair to fail to find any ‘weapons of mass distruction’, our phonebox went from valuable lifeline to anachronistic relic. The red paint started to peel, and no one came to repaint it. When the coin box was emptied every month, there wasn’t enough money inside to buy a telephone engineer a pint of Old Profanity in the Farrier’s Arms. Two years ago a notice appeared, announcing that, unless there were any valid objections, BT would shut down the phonebox and take it away. Our local councillors were in two minds about what to do with it. We could let BT remove it. Or slap a preservation order on it. Or just bow to the inevitable: plumb it into the main drain, and mount an illuminated sign - Gents Urinal - on the top.
Friday, June 26, 2020
23 On display
This is the time of year when locals, like peacocks, put on a display and make a joyful noise. The village is a catwalk for girls in diaphanous dresses: girls for whom earth-motherhood is still years - and half a dozen dress sizes - away. Guys drive around in off-road vehicles with raised suspensions and big knobbly tyres. Where do they park? Anywhere they damn well like. Maybe on top of your poxy four-door family saloon if they feel like it. They crank up the bass on their new in-car stereo system to hear what it sounds like. As anyone living within five miles of Whimsey is painfully aware, it sounds like a man armed with a leg of lamb trying to break out of an IKEA wardrobe.
For a few hours the village green is transformed into an impromptu display of classic motor-bikes. And, a few yards away, lounging on the benches outside the Farrier’s Arms, is an impromptu display of classic motor-bikers. Yes, lock up your daughters, the Hell’s Angels are here. These guys may try to look fierce, but they’re not looking for a fight any more. It’s too risky; some of their blood groups have been discontinued. Instead of laying waste to Whimsey, these grizzled old greybeards are happy just to avoid getting stuck in a low chair.
Clad in leather, their helmets shining in the afternoon sunshine, they look like black beetles. They loll around, squinting into the sun, and talk about... well, bikes mostly. Good British bikes that sound like an artillery barrage, and drip oil all over the road. None of your Japanese rubbish. To hear some of the locals talk - in hushed whispers - you’d think we’d been invaded by aliens. Respectable parents shield their childrens' eyes as they walk past - which only serves to give the bikers an unwarranted air of mystery and menace. Their reputation goes before them, but they’re not as young as they were. There’s no pressing need to lock up your daughters; maybe just keep granny indoors.
For a few hours the village green is transformed into an impromptu display of classic motor-bikes. And, a few yards away, lounging on the benches outside the Farrier’s Arms, is an impromptu display of classic motor-bikers. Yes, lock up your daughters, the Hell’s Angels are here. These guys may try to look fierce, but they’re not looking for a fight any more. It’s too risky; some of their blood groups have been discontinued. Instead of laying waste to Whimsey, these grizzled old greybeards are happy just to avoid getting stuck in a low chair.
Clad in leather, their helmets shining in the afternoon sunshine, they look like black beetles. They loll around, squinting into the sun, and talk about... well, bikes mostly. Good British bikes that sound like an artillery barrage, and drip oil all over the road. None of your Japanese rubbish. To hear some of the locals talk - in hushed whispers - you’d think we’d been invaded by aliens. Respectable parents shield their childrens' eyes as they walk past - which only serves to give the bikers an unwarranted air of mystery and menace. Their reputation goes before them, but they’re not as young as they were. There’s no pressing need to lock up your daughters; maybe just keep granny indoors.
Monday, June 22, 2020
22 The height of summer
It’s the height of summer: hotter than an arsonists' convention. Dogs, especially the long-haired breeds, go a little crazy in the sun. They crawl into spaces that are far too small for them, in a vain attempt to escape the heat. They dig holes in flower beds, and roll in dirt, then collapse with the effort into a panting heap. Cats saunter by, in a carefree manner, aware that the dogs of Whimsey have put all cat-chasing activities on hold for the duration of this heatwave.
The ice-cream man stops his van outside the pub, and activates the chime: it's Greensleeves, blasted out at migraine-inducing volume. Bob the postman has persuaded his kids that the ice-cream man only plays his chime when he’s run out of ice cream. Though it’s saving him money now - money he can spend on beer instead - the deception won’t last for ever. The ice-cream man is doing good business, unlike the fish & chip shop in town. Most of the year the shop does a roaring trade, but no one wants fish & chips on a day like this. That smell isn’t appetising, it’s rancid. Suddenly, working in the chip shop looks like the worst job in the world, like doing a shift down in Dante’s inferno. The woman in the shop is suffering - her hair lacquered to her forehead, skin glazed by the searing heat. Beads of sweat drip into the hot fat. You make a mental note to eat elsewhere. A sandwich will do. Or just a drink. It’s too hot to eat.
Torper is infectious on a scorching day like this. It looks like a lot of Whimsey folk have decided to postpone their chores until the sun has gone down. In the beer garden of the Farrier’s Arms, they loll beneath the beach umbrellas, nursing a pint or two through a sultry afternoon of indolence and forgetfullness. Every few minutes there’s a scream from the car park, as another motorist is reminded what happens when his car has been standing in the sun all day, and he gets in wearing just a pair of shorts. Bare flesh and hot leatherette are welded inextricably together: it makes your eyes water just thinking about it.
The ice-cream man stops his van outside the pub, and activates the chime: it's Greensleeves, blasted out at migraine-inducing volume. Bob the postman has persuaded his kids that the ice-cream man only plays his chime when he’s run out of ice cream. Though it’s saving him money now - money he can spend on beer instead - the deception won’t last for ever. The ice-cream man is doing good business, unlike the fish & chip shop in town. Most of the year the shop does a roaring trade, but no one wants fish & chips on a day like this. That smell isn’t appetising, it’s rancid. Suddenly, working in the chip shop looks like the worst job in the world, like doing a shift down in Dante’s inferno. The woman in the shop is suffering - her hair lacquered to her forehead, skin glazed by the searing heat. Beads of sweat drip into the hot fat. You make a mental note to eat elsewhere. A sandwich will do. Or just a drink. It’s too hot to eat.
Torper is infectious on a scorching day like this. It looks like a lot of Whimsey folk have decided to postpone their chores until the sun has gone down. In the beer garden of the Farrier’s Arms, they loll beneath the beach umbrellas, nursing a pint or two through a sultry afternoon of indolence and forgetfullness. Every few minutes there’s a scream from the car park, as another motorist is reminded what happens when his car has been standing in the sun all day, and he gets in wearing just a pair of shorts. Bare flesh and hot leatherette are welded inextricably together: it makes your eyes water just thinking about it.
Sunday, June 21, 2020
21 Sunday at St Breville's
If there’s another church in East Yorkshire dedicated to St Breville, the patron saint of toasted snacks, then we haven’t heard about it. Steve, our vicar, is a fine and decent man, always ready to offer a helping hand or a willing ear. His moral probity is beyond question - earning him the nickname, around Whimsey, of ‘Stainless’ Steve. He’s a model of modesty too: genuinely surprised that his parishioners want to have anything to do with him. He tries to see the best in everyone, a policy that’s so far had mixed results. "Being a Satanist doesn't automatically make you a bad person", he confides to the churchwarden, as he prises out the nail that somebody’s driven straight through a sheep’s heart and into the oak door of his church. "Actually”, the churchwarden replies, “I think you'll find that it does".
Steve bites his lip in vexation. He’s finding life in the 21st century unnecessarily complex; whenever he feels he’s got the hang of it, the rules seem to change. The Church lurches erratically between laughable anachronisms and unseemly haste in jumping on the latest barmy bandwagon. Where the Church used to provide unequivocal moral guidance (“Repent… or face the fires of hell”) it now offers the merest slap on the wrist to those who transgress. When we swore an oath in court, we used to place a respectful hand on the Bible. But now, according to a new directive from Canterbury, it seems that an Argos catalogue will do. The Bible itself isn’t seen as infallible any more. Instead of taking every word as gospel truth, we treat the Good Book like an a la carte menu - picking out the tasty bits we like, while leaving the tough, indigestible chunks on the side of the plate. After all, the world has moved on a bit since Jesus beguiled and perplexed his followers with parables. The Bible still offers the last word on big issues such as love, honesty and redemption. But God has been inconclusively silent about many of the issues which engage us today, such as the efficacy of the latest diet regime and the outrageous price of replica football strips.
The Church used to take a lead; now, loathe to upset anyone, it meekly follows. Acknowledging ‘the sanctity of indiscriminate shagging’, for example, isn't giving the youngsters much guidance. People have to make their own decisions today about what’s right and what’s wrong. “It’s not like the commandments were written on tablets of stone”, says Steve. “Actually”, says his churchwarden, “I think you’ll find that they were”.
Steve bites his lip in vexation. He’s finding life in the 21st century unnecessarily complex; whenever he feels he’s got the hang of it, the rules seem to change. The Church lurches erratically between laughable anachronisms and unseemly haste in jumping on the latest barmy bandwagon. Where the Church used to provide unequivocal moral guidance (“Repent… or face the fires of hell”) it now offers the merest slap on the wrist to those who transgress. When we swore an oath in court, we used to place a respectful hand on the Bible. But now, according to a new directive from Canterbury, it seems that an Argos catalogue will do. The Bible itself isn’t seen as infallible any more. Instead of taking every word as gospel truth, we treat the Good Book like an a la carte menu - picking out the tasty bits we like, while leaving the tough, indigestible chunks on the side of the plate. After all, the world has moved on a bit since Jesus beguiled and perplexed his followers with parables. The Bible still offers the last word on big issues such as love, honesty and redemption. But God has been inconclusively silent about many of the issues which engage us today, such as the efficacy of the latest diet regime and the outrageous price of replica football strips.
The Church used to take a lead; now, loathe to upset anyone, it meekly follows. Acknowledging ‘the sanctity of indiscriminate shagging’, for example, isn't giving the youngsters much guidance. People have to make their own decisions today about what’s right and what’s wrong. “It’s not like the commandments were written on tablets of stone”, says Steve. “Actually”, says his churchwarden, “I think you’ll find that they were”.
Thursday, June 11, 2020
20 A white-knuckle ride
Life is a gamble: a white-knuckle ride from the cradle to the grave. We’re just not very good at reckoning the odds. We’ll happily spend a quid or two on the lottery, even though the odds of winning the jackpot are a distant 14,000,000 to one. “It could be us”, we tell ourselves. Yet when we hear similar odds against a cataclysmic meltdown at Drax power station, we think “impossible!”.
Even in a well-ordered community like Whimsey, danger stalks the unwary. As Old Ted knows only too well, you can be perched on a bar stool one minute, exchanging pleasantries with Brian, the landlord of the Farrier’s Arms, and a moment later you can be choking on a honey roasted peanut that went down the wrong way. An immovable object lodged in the windpipe isn’t something you can write to an agony aunt about. It concentrates the mind, wonderfully, like having a pistol at your head. Time is of the essence. Yes, if Dr Fallowfield and his wife hadn’t been enjoying an all-you-can-eat Sunday carvery in the other room, Old Ted might have become just one more statistic in the annals of snack-related injuries.
If you’d asked Ted about the Heimlich Manoeuvre up to that point, he’d have guessed it was a World War II stratagem aimed at opening up the Russian front. But, red-faced, bug-eyed and gesticulating wildly, he was in no position to argue as the doctor, moving remarkably quickly for a big man, sized up the situation. Dr Fallowfield approached Ted from behind and took him in a huge bear hug; it looked like he was lifting a sack of potatoes. With no time for social niceties, the doctor drove his clenched fists into Ted’s solar plexus, with irresistable force. The peanut was expelled with such velocity that it ricocheted off two walls and a lampshade, before embedding itself harmlessly in a bowl of guacamole. Old Ted was so grateful that he allowed the doctor to buy him a drink.
Even in a well-ordered community like Whimsey, danger stalks the unwary. As Old Ted knows only too well, you can be perched on a bar stool one minute, exchanging pleasantries with Brian, the landlord of the Farrier’s Arms, and a moment later you can be choking on a honey roasted peanut that went down the wrong way. An immovable object lodged in the windpipe isn’t something you can write to an agony aunt about. It concentrates the mind, wonderfully, like having a pistol at your head. Time is of the essence. Yes, if Dr Fallowfield and his wife hadn’t been enjoying an all-you-can-eat Sunday carvery in the other room, Old Ted might have become just one more statistic in the annals of snack-related injuries.
If you’d asked Ted about the Heimlich Manoeuvre up to that point, he’d have guessed it was a World War II stratagem aimed at opening up the Russian front. But, red-faced, bug-eyed and gesticulating wildly, he was in no position to argue as the doctor, moving remarkably quickly for a big man, sized up the situation. Dr Fallowfield approached Ted from behind and took him in a huge bear hug; it looked like he was lifting a sack of potatoes. With no time for social niceties, the doctor drove his clenched fists into Ted’s solar plexus, with irresistable force. The peanut was expelled with such velocity that it ricocheted off two walls and a lampshade, before embedding itself harmlessly in a bowl of guacamole. Old Ted was so grateful that he allowed the doctor to buy him a drink.
Saturday, June 6, 2020
19 The good old days
You remember the good old days? Of course you do! Being an essentially meaningless concept, they can be any time in the past: Ancient Greece, the Renaissance, the summer of love, a week last Wednesday. It really doesn't matter. It was a beguiling time, whenever it was. Beer was fourpence a pint, kids had respect for their elders and unicorns roamed the earth. Music was tuneful, not just a noise. Art was a picture you could hang on the wall, rather than a shark in a tank of formaldehyde. We were happy to leave our front doors unlocked (which ensured that it was a golden age for burglars too).
There comes a time in life when the world seems to be spinning too quickly on its axis, when the desire to learn new things diminishes - along with our eyesight and libido. And, once we stop learning, it’s tempting to take refuge in the past. We bore anyone foolish enough to listen with a mantra of memories: farthings, florins, farenheit and fuzzy felt. Antirhinums, antimacassars and avoidupois. Dubbin and dolly blue. Green Shield Stamps, twin-tubs, tiger nuts, singing cowboys, coltsfoot rock, barley sugar twists, temperance hotels, sarsaparilla and sweet cigarettes (what a great idea they were, introducing kids to two lifelong addictions - sugar and tobacco - for the price of one!).
Childhood memories develop a golden bloom. We were young, idealistic and still had most of our marbles intact. Unlike now when, if it’s quiet, we can actually hear those brain cells popping; it sounds like idle fingers bursting bubble wrap. We had no trouble getting up out of a low chair. We had hair and teeth and prospects, not just a wispy comb-over. Our welfare was someone else’s responsibility back then. All we had to do was enjoy ourselves; no wonder we were happy!
But there wasn’t really a ‘golden age’, and the ‘good old days’ remain an alluring fantasy, because we wear that most ubiquitous of fashion accessories: rose-tinted glasses. Yes, that’s the trouble with taking a stroll down memory lane. The past is fine for the occasional visit, but it’s all too easy to get lost there. Maybe we should stick to the here and now. ‘Here’ being a small village on a cul de sac in the flatlands of East Yorkshire, and ‘now’ being a sunny day in June.
There comes a time in life when the world seems to be spinning too quickly on its axis, when the desire to learn new things diminishes - along with our eyesight and libido. And, once we stop learning, it’s tempting to take refuge in the past. We bore anyone foolish enough to listen with a mantra of memories: farthings, florins, farenheit and fuzzy felt. Antirhinums, antimacassars and avoidupois. Dubbin and dolly blue. Green Shield Stamps, twin-tubs, tiger nuts, singing cowboys, coltsfoot rock, barley sugar twists, temperance hotels, sarsaparilla and sweet cigarettes (what a great idea they were, introducing kids to two lifelong addictions - sugar and tobacco - for the price of one!).
Childhood memories develop a golden bloom. We were young, idealistic and still had most of our marbles intact. Unlike now when, if it’s quiet, we can actually hear those brain cells popping; it sounds like idle fingers bursting bubble wrap. We had no trouble getting up out of a low chair. We had hair and teeth and prospects, not just a wispy comb-over. Our welfare was someone else’s responsibility back then. All we had to do was enjoy ourselves; no wonder we were happy!
But there wasn’t really a ‘golden age’, and the ‘good old days’ remain an alluring fantasy, because we wear that most ubiquitous of fashion accessories: rose-tinted glasses. Yes, that’s the trouble with taking a stroll down memory lane. The past is fine for the occasional visit, but it’s all too easy to get lost there. Maybe we should stick to the here and now. ‘Here’ being a small village on a cul de sac in the flatlands of East Yorkshire, and ‘now’ being a sunny day in June.
Thursday, June 4, 2020
18 The satnav lady
Most of the people who find their way to Whimsey are lost. Having wound the window down, and asked a local for directions, they get a long list of left and right turns (of which they’ll remember just the first two) and the names of half a dozen pubs. The directions always end the same way, with a smile and “you can’t miss it”. Well, yes, they can miss it; they’re lost.
A few minutes later they’re asking someone else, and then someone else after that: a procedure complicated by a few other factors. The person they ask may know the way, but is wilfully misdirecting them (we’ve all done it, haven’t we?). The person they ask may be lost too, but doesn’t want to admit it. The person they ask may be a helpful soul, who would rather offer misleading directions than no directions at all.
We carry with us a mental map which, over the centuries, has helped us to find our way across unfamiliar terrain. However, all it takes is a complex motorway junction, or a convoluted one-way system, to wipe our mental map clean of useful information. Having lost our bearings, we have to rely on signs and instructions.
Everyone seems to have a satnav these days. Instead of cultivating our innate sense of direction, we’re delegating the route-finding responsibilities to a small computer screen perched on the dashboard. Once we’ve tapped a postcode into it, a lady’s voice, serene and measured, offers simple, unambiguous, turn-by-turn directions well in advance of every manoeuvre. We arrive at our destination ahead of time: cool, calm and collected. For the return journey we simply enter our own postcode and follow the instructions. The technology is amazing. What can possibly go wrong?
Problems arise when drivers develop a blind, unquestioning faith in their onboard gadgets (never a good idea with inanimate objects), and leave their dog-eared maps at home. Though rich in data, the satnav is notoriously short on common sense. Lorry drivers drive down narrow country lanes, quite unsuitable for HGVs, for no better reason that their satnav told them to. Terrified motorists find themselves teetering on clifftops and river-banks, or stranded in a ford that the satnav lady neglected to say was a bit too deep, after heavy rain. One man is reported to have driven along railways tracks, having followed satnav instructions rather too literally as he was negotiating a level crossing. Add your own choice of (possibly apocryphal) satnav horror stories here...
Yes, the gadget that works so well in the leafy suburbs may be a liability in the flatlands. A-roads turn into B-roads, soon degenerating, without warning, into narrow, single-track lanes, with grass growing down the middle, which come to a dead end at a farmyard full of clapped out tractors and savage dogs, chained up and howling at the moon.
With her fallibility so cruelly exposed, the satnav lady can become defensive - the voice no longer reassuring but now tinged with mockery and sarcasm. Once drivers start bickering with a disembodied voice emanating from the dashboard, they’ve lost the plot. When this temperamental technology lets them down, they’re not merely lost... they’re completely lost, geographically and psychologically, to an extent they couldn’t have imagined before their capricious computers started telling them where to go.
Viewed through the windscreen of a four-door family saloon, the landscape that once looked inviting now seems oppresive and unwelcoming. What a relief it is, after driving around East Yorkshire for hours, to see a comprehensible road sign: the M62, the motorway services (Kanye West at junction 36) and home.
A few minutes later they’re asking someone else, and then someone else after that: a procedure complicated by a few other factors. The person they ask may know the way, but is wilfully misdirecting them (we’ve all done it, haven’t we?). The person they ask may be lost too, but doesn’t want to admit it. The person they ask may be a helpful soul, who would rather offer misleading directions than no directions at all.
We carry with us a mental map which, over the centuries, has helped us to find our way across unfamiliar terrain. However, all it takes is a complex motorway junction, or a convoluted one-way system, to wipe our mental map clean of useful information. Having lost our bearings, we have to rely on signs and instructions.
Everyone seems to have a satnav these days. Instead of cultivating our innate sense of direction, we’re delegating the route-finding responsibilities to a small computer screen perched on the dashboard. Once we’ve tapped a postcode into it, a lady’s voice, serene and measured, offers simple, unambiguous, turn-by-turn directions well in advance of every manoeuvre. We arrive at our destination ahead of time: cool, calm and collected. For the return journey we simply enter our own postcode and follow the instructions. The technology is amazing. What can possibly go wrong?
Problems arise when drivers develop a blind, unquestioning faith in their onboard gadgets (never a good idea with inanimate objects), and leave their dog-eared maps at home. Though rich in data, the satnav is notoriously short on common sense. Lorry drivers drive down narrow country lanes, quite unsuitable for HGVs, for no better reason that their satnav told them to. Terrified motorists find themselves teetering on clifftops and river-banks, or stranded in a ford that the satnav lady neglected to say was a bit too deep, after heavy rain. One man is reported to have driven along railways tracks, having followed satnav instructions rather too literally as he was negotiating a level crossing. Add your own choice of (possibly apocryphal) satnav horror stories here...
Yes, the gadget that works so well in the leafy suburbs may be a liability in the flatlands. A-roads turn into B-roads, soon degenerating, without warning, into narrow, single-track lanes, with grass growing down the middle, which come to a dead end at a farmyard full of clapped out tractors and savage dogs, chained up and howling at the moon.
With her fallibility so cruelly exposed, the satnav lady can become defensive - the voice no longer reassuring but now tinged with mockery and sarcasm. Once drivers start bickering with a disembodied voice emanating from the dashboard, they’ve lost the plot. When this temperamental technology lets them down, they’re not merely lost... they’re completely lost, geographically and psychologically, to an extent they couldn’t have imagined before their capricious computers started telling them where to go.
Viewed through the windscreen of a four-door family saloon, the landscape that once looked inviting now seems oppresive and unwelcoming. What a relief it is, after driving around East Yorkshire for hours, to see a comprehensible road sign: the M62, the motorway services (Kanye West at junction 36) and home.
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
17 Duck race
There’ll be no duck race this year, after last year’s fiasco. It was Brian, the landlord of the Farrier’s Arms, who first suggested a duck race, and the idea quickly caught on. Even after learning that no real ducks would be involved, the pub regulars were happy to muck in. They bought three thousand yellow plastic ducks from a place that specialised in bulk sales of yellow plastic ducks; it’s amazing what you can find in the Yellow Pages. Sales were as bouyant as the ducks themselves, thanks to the terrific prizes donated by local businesses (first prize: a free appointment with a visiting chiropodist).
When the big day arrived, crowds lined both sides of the River Whim, in eager anticipation. The water level looked low, after a dry spell, but no one was overly concerned about that. A net was stretched taut between the stanchions of the bridge - the finishing line - to catch the ducks as they completed the course. Two hundred yards upstream, where the road crosses the river, a tipper truck full of ducks was backed over the parapet. On an agreed signal, three thousand yellow ducks slid from the back of the truck and hit the water simultaneously.
The event, as a genuine race, was over there and then. The breeze, though light, was still stronger than the river’s sluggish current. Instead of rushing pell-mell downstream, in the approved manner, three thousand yellow ducks closed ranks - in a jaundiced armada - and sullenly refused to move. The breeze quickened, pushing ducks to the water margins, where they got stuck in the branches of overhanging trees.
A few spectators decided they had better things to do with their time, and left. Little kids, blessed with a low boredom threshold, demanded chips and ice cream. People started to throw stones: some to dislodge ducks, others out of mischief. Stewards in yellow tabards waded into the water and tried to hurry the ducks along. They fell over and got drenched; spectators laughed; words were exchanged. The ducks remained stubbornly uncooperative, their identical expressions no longer cute but mocking: Stepford Ducks.
A few ducks eventually crossed the finishing line, but only because they’d been thrown there. “It’s a fix”, shouted the few onlookers who hadn’t already drifted away in disillusionment. “That’s the last duck race we’ll ever go to”.
The following week the Gazette and Advertiser printed this statement from an ashen-faced duck race spokesman, who asked to remain anonymous. “It is difficult to know what to say about the shameful events of last weekend. We are stunned. The entire duck-racing community is stunned. We have witnessed many sporting disasters over the years. The abortive Grand National of 1993. Mike Tyson chewing Evander Holyfield’s ear off. Derek Pringle. But these are as nothing compared to the debacle of Whimsey’s duck race. The river level was low, making the going firmer than we - or the ducks - would have liked. Some of the spectators suggested the ducks weren’t trying, though random drug tests proved negative until we started on the crowd. After all, it was their boos and catcalls which disorientated the ducks and made them swim around in circles. I am not making excuses; no-one comes out of this fiasco with much dignity. There will be a steward’s enquiry. Heads will roll. Thank you”.
Beneath this terse statement was a display ad: “Almost 3,000 plastic ducks for sale. Nearly new. No sensible offer refused”.
When the big day arrived, crowds lined both sides of the River Whim, in eager anticipation. The water level looked low, after a dry spell, but no one was overly concerned about that. A net was stretched taut between the stanchions of the bridge - the finishing line - to catch the ducks as they completed the course. Two hundred yards upstream, where the road crosses the river, a tipper truck full of ducks was backed over the parapet. On an agreed signal, three thousand yellow ducks slid from the back of the truck and hit the water simultaneously.
The event, as a genuine race, was over there and then. The breeze, though light, was still stronger than the river’s sluggish current. Instead of rushing pell-mell downstream, in the approved manner, three thousand yellow ducks closed ranks - in a jaundiced armada - and sullenly refused to move. The breeze quickened, pushing ducks to the water margins, where they got stuck in the branches of overhanging trees.
A few spectators decided they had better things to do with their time, and left. Little kids, blessed with a low boredom threshold, demanded chips and ice cream. People started to throw stones: some to dislodge ducks, others out of mischief. Stewards in yellow tabards waded into the water and tried to hurry the ducks along. They fell over and got drenched; spectators laughed; words were exchanged. The ducks remained stubbornly uncooperative, their identical expressions no longer cute but mocking: Stepford Ducks.
A few ducks eventually crossed the finishing line, but only because they’d been thrown there. “It’s a fix”, shouted the few onlookers who hadn’t already drifted away in disillusionment. “That’s the last duck race we’ll ever go to”.
The following week the Gazette and Advertiser printed this statement from an ashen-faced duck race spokesman, who asked to remain anonymous. “It is difficult to know what to say about the shameful events of last weekend. We are stunned. The entire duck-racing community is stunned. We have witnessed many sporting disasters over the years. The abortive Grand National of 1993. Mike Tyson chewing Evander Holyfield’s ear off. Derek Pringle. But these are as nothing compared to the debacle of Whimsey’s duck race. The river level was low, making the going firmer than we - or the ducks - would have liked. Some of the spectators suggested the ducks weren’t trying, though random drug tests proved negative until we started on the crowd. After all, it was their boos and catcalls which disorientated the ducks and made them swim around in circles. I am not making excuses; no-one comes out of this fiasco with much dignity. There will be a steward’s enquiry. Heads will roll. Thank you”.
Beneath this terse statement was a display ad: “Almost 3,000 plastic ducks for sale. Nearly new. No sensible offer refused”.
Tuesday, May 26, 2020
16 Barbecue time
The warm weather is encouraging locals to forego their shopping expeditions and spend the day down by the river instead, where tiny waves lap invitingly against the pebble beach. There's an impromptu festival of belly buttons, as teenage girls compete to see who can wear the skimpiest outfit. Little kids paddle in the shallows, scattering shoals of silvery minnows. A startled moorhen skitters across the water and into the reeds. A heron takes off, laboriously, like a broken umbrella. A kingfisher flashes past. The colour of its wings - an electric blue - seems to burn itself into your retina, leaving a neon trail as it disappears downstream.
Picnic blankets are spread out, giving the grassy riverbank the appearance of a threadbare quilt. Picnics are enjoyable, in an abstract kind of way, right up to the moment that you actually open the hamper. They’re better experienced in the past (“Remember the day we had the picnic?”), or some unspecified time in the future (“wouldn’t it be great to have a picnic?”), rather than the present. Sharing a meal with insects that bite and sting is only going to end in tears.
In the gardens of Whimsey, makeshift barbecues fill the air with acrid smoke and the beguiling smell of budget burgers being cooked - or, rather, incinerated - by men who would normally baulk at grilling toast. What is it about men and barbecues? Once they've had three sunny days in a row, they’re happy to haul the barbecue out of the shed, fill it with charcoal, pour on half a can of petrol, and, with never a thought for their own safety, casually toss a match in. Then, having beaten back the flames, they can get down to the serious business of feeding the family. Everyone gets their food just the way they like it, assuming they like it charred on the outside and dangerously raw on the inside. Everybody likes to eat outdoors on a summer’s day, and the folly of buying the cheapest meat products in the supermarket freezer won’t become apparent for at least eight hours.
Picnic blankets are spread out, giving the grassy riverbank the appearance of a threadbare quilt. Picnics are enjoyable, in an abstract kind of way, right up to the moment that you actually open the hamper. They’re better experienced in the past (“Remember the day we had the picnic?”), or some unspecified time in the future (“wouldn’t it be great to have a picnic?”), rather than the present. Sharing a meal with insects that bite and sting is only going to end in tears.
In the gardens of Whimsey, makeshift barbecues fill the air with acrid smoke and the beguiling smell of budget burgers being cooked - or, rather, incinerated - by men who would normally baulk at grilling toast. What is it about men and barbecues? Once they've had three sunny days in a row, they’re happy to haul the barbecue out of the shed, fill it with charcoal, pour on half a can of petrol, and, with never a thought for their own safety, casually toss a match in. Then, having beaten back the flames, they can get down to the serious business of feeding the family. Everyone gets their food just the way they like it, assuming they like it charred on the outside and dangerously raw on the inside. Everybody likes to eat outdoors on a summer’s day, and the folly of buying the cheapest meat products in the supermarket freezer won’t become apparent for at least eight hours.
Saturday, May 23, 2020
15 Shooting the breeze
There are many kinds of silence. There's the embarrassed silence you get at breakfast in a seaside boarding house, which makes the tinkling of tea-cups seem deafening by comparison. There's the blissful silence when a migraine-inducing car alarm finally drains the battery and whines to a halt. There's the brooding silence at the heart of a marriage when love has died. But best of all are those moments when the chatter of the mind abates, when memories, ambitions and everyday worries evaporate like puddles on a hot pavement, and - however briefly - you are blessed with stillness.
There are a few precious days every year when the leaves on the trees glow with an almost hypnotic shade of green, as though lit from within. When the swallows, swifts and martins race and scream above the village, seemingly for the sheer joy of scything effortlessly through the air. When the more irritating members of the insect world have yet to muster in numbers. When almost anything seems possible. And today, is one of them. The world seems to have been washed clean by overnight rain; now the sun is shining out of a cloudless and untroubled sky. It's perfect. A buzzard flies overhead - two beats and a glide – before finding a thermal and getting into a holding pattern. It soars high over the patchwork of fields in a lazy spiral, up and up and up, until, no more than a speck, it disappears into the clouds.
There's no better time of the year to skive, loaf, dawdle, dally, hang loose, take things easy, stand and stare, shoot the breeze, twiddle our thumbs, kick our heels, and generally let the grass grow under our feet. Here in Whimsey we have learned to enjoy the lexicon of leisure. We have time to relax and ponder some of life’s knottier questions. Like “Have Wagon Wheels got smaller, or is it just that we’ve got bigger?” “Why is there a 'best by' date on sour cream?” “Why don't film censors get depraved and corrupt?” And that hardy perennial: “Why are we here... instead of, say, over there?” With some questions resisting a simple answer, we may have to admit, if pressed, that we still don’t know the way to San José…
There are a few precious days every year when the leaves on the trees glow with an almost hypnotic shade of green, as though lit from within. When the swallows, swifts and martins race and scream above the village, seemingly for the sheer joy of scything effortlessly through the air. When the more irritating members of the insect world have yet to muster in numbers. When almost anything seems possible. And today, is one of them. The world seems to have been washed clean by overnight rain; now the sun is shining out of a cloudless and untroubled sky. It's perfect. A buzzard flies overhead - two beats and a glide – before finding a thermal and getting into a holding pattern. It soars high over the patchwork of fields in a lazy spiral, up and up and up, until, no more than a speck, it disappears into the clouds.
There's no better time of the year to skive, loaf, dawdle, dally, hang loose, take things easy, stand and stare, shoot the breeze, twiddle our thumbs, kick our heels, and generally let the grass grow under our feet. Here in Whimsey we have learned to enjoy the lexicon of leisure. We have time to relax and ponder some of life’s knottier questions. Like “Have Wagon Wheels got smaller, or is it just that we’ve got bigger?” “Why is there a 'best by' date on sour cream?” “Why don't film censors get depraved and corrupt?” And that hardy perennial: “Why are we here... instead of, say, over there?” With some questions resisting a simple answer, we may have to admit, if pressed, that we still don’t know the way to San José…
Thursday, May 21, 2020
14 Best Kept Village
You can tell a lot about people from the state of their gardens. For example, if you can see an abandoned mattress and an old car propped up on piles of housebricks where the wheels ought to be, then you’re probably not in Whimsey at all. We have standards here. Not rules, exactly, though anyone with an untamed garden is likely to get a discreet visit from Hayden, in his capacity as president of the Keep Whimsey Tidy committee, with some timely words of advice.
Back in in 1992 Whimsey came third in the Best Kept Village competition: a success still remembered fondly, and why not? After all, in Formula 1 third would count as a podium finish; we would have been spraying each other with champagne. Instead there’s just a small certificate commemorating the achievement, which, when framed, served to hide a damp patch on the wall in the village hall. Third was good, but we can’t rest on our laurels. As Hayden keeps reminding any back-sliders, we’re never going to win the competition if we don’t mow that lawn/trim that hedge/get rid of all those garden gnomes (delete as appropriate).
Hayden organises his own garden like a military campaign. He has cowed nature into submission with hard work, an iron will and some industrial-strength weed-killer, bought ‘under the counter’ from the local garden centre. ‘Agent Orange’ seems an odd name for a harmless defoliant, but never mind. The flowers in Hayden’s garden do as they’re told, or else. His lupins stand straight and tall, like guardsmen at attention. The lawn is pristine - the stripes made by his lawnmower as straight as the creases in a sailor’s trousers. Hayden won’t even let you walk on the sacred turf until you’ve taken your shoes off.
The garden reflects the man, and any weed that has the temerity to grow where it’s not wanted is ruthlessly terminated. The war against wildness is never won; there are always new battles to be fought. Gardening brings Hayden no pleasure whatsoever. It never occurs to him to relax in a deckchair, with a glass of iced lemonade at hand, and just enjoy his handiwork. He only ever sees the flaws: another aphid, another blackspot on the rose bush, another daisy on the lawn.
Back in in 1992 Whimsey came third in the Best Kept Village competition: a success still remembered fondly, and why not? After all, in Formula 1 third would count as a podium finish; we would have been spraying each other with champagne. Instead there’s just a small certificate commemorating the achievement, which, when framed, served to hide a damp patch on the wall in the village hall. Third was good, but we can’t rest on our laurels. As Hayden keeps reminding any back-sliders, we’re never going to win the competition if we don’t mow that lawn/trim that hedge/get rid of all those garden gnomes (delete as appropriate).
Hayden organises his own garden like a military campaign. He has cowed nature into submission with hard work, an iron will and some industrial-strength weed-killer, bought ‘under the counter’ from the local garden centre. ‘Agent Orange’ seems an odd name for a harmless defoliant, but never mind. The flowers in Hayden’s garden do as they’re told, or else. His lupins stand straight and tall, like guardsmen at attention. The lawn is pristine - the stripes made by his lawnmower as straight as the creases in a sailor’s trousers. Hayden won’t even let you walk on the sacred turf until you’ve taken your shoes off.
The garden reflects the man, and any weed that has the temerity to grow where it’s not wanted is ruthlessly terminated. The war against wildness is never won; there are always new battles to be fought. Gardening brings Hayden no pleasure whatsoever. It never occurs to him to relax in a deckchair, with a glass of iced lemonade at hand, and just enjoy his handiwork. He only ever sees the flaws: another aphid, another blackspot on the rose bush, another daisy on the lawn.
Saturday, May 16, 2020
13 Incomers
When a new family moved into Whimsey, we hoped they would take to village life. No such luck. Having made his money in the city - something to do with 'business to business IT solutions', apparently, whatever that might be - Montgomery Blythe decided to uproot his family and move to the country. He wanted his kids to have ponies and breathe clean country air, rather than choke on exhaust fumes in town. His wife, Pristine, imagined herself floating around the village in a floral print dress, buying home-made bread from a real village shop and bringing her organisational skills to a handful of local charities. Mr Blythe himself imagined entertaining business clients in style, and joining the 'hunting set’: sending small game-birds to meet their maker with a pair of Purdy shotguns, in the company of other men of standing in the local community. He'd bought the guns already, even before he saw that the Old Manor House in Whimsey was up for sale.
The family had hardly moved in before the trouble started. They complained about the church bells which were "intrusive" and "spoiled the peace and quiet of village life". They weren't keen, either, on the pungent rural aromas, which made the children’s eyes water. They said the locals were surly, "didn't know their place" and failed to doff their caps in a deferential manner. Having accepted an invitation to join a hunting party, the newcomer shot two sheep and a beater. It was a mistake anyone could have made, though the injured man kicked up quite a fuss, long after the last of the pellets had been removed. Dr Fallowfield was sure the man would be able to sit down again before too long.
To give the family more privacy from prying eyes, Mr Blythe planted a leylandii hedge. It seemed to grow about six inches every night until an unknown assailant attacked it with a chainsaw. Mr Blythe tried to ingratiate himself with the locals by shouting "drinks all round" on a quiet night in the Farrier’s Arms, but the damage had already been done. Brian, the landlord, put him straight. “You may be a big cheese in the city”, he said, “but you don't mean anything round here”. Except he wasn't so polite.
Matters came to a head when Les 'accidentally' dumped a pile of slurry on top of Mr Blythe’s BMW. When the police failed to make an immediate arrest, the local estate agent took a phone-call from a distraught Mrs Blythe of the Old Manor House in Whimsey. The 'For Sale' sign went up the same day, and a removal van came. The Blythes left as quickly as they'd arrived. No doubt they're regaling friends in the city with tales of how their dreams of country life turned sour. Moving to the flatlands proved to be a folly too far. And we still have to find homes for two ponies.
The family had hardly moved in before the trouble started. They complained about the church bells which were "intrusive" and "spoiled the peace and quiet of village life". They weren't keen, either, on the pungent rural aromas, which made the children’s eyes water. They said the locals were surly, "didn't know their place" and failed to doff their caps in a deferential manner. Having accepted an invitation to join a hunting party, the newcomer shot two sheep and a beater. It was a mistake anyone could have made, though the injured man kicked up quite a fuss, long after the last of the pellets had been removed. Dr Fallowfield was sure the man would be able to sit down again before too long.
To give the family more privacy from prying eyes, Mr Blythe planted a leylandii hedge. It seemed to grow about six inches every night until an unknown assailant attacked it with a chainsaw. Mr Blythe tried to ingratiate himself with the locals by shouting "drinks all round" on a quiet night in the Farrier’s Arms, but the damage had already been done. Brian, the landlord, put him straight. “You may be a big cheese in the city”, he said, “but you don't mean anything round here”. Except he wasn't so polite.
Matters came to a head when Les 'accidentally' dumped a pile of slurry on top of Mr Blythe’s BMW. When the police failed to make an immediate arrest, the local estate agent took a phone-call from a distraught Mrs Blythe of the Old Manor House in Whimsey. The 'For Sale' sign went up the same day, and a removal van came. The Blythes left as quickly as they'd arrived. No doubt they're regaling friends in the city with tales of how their dreams of country life turned sour. Moving to the flatlands proved to be a folly too far. And we still have to find homes for two ponies.
Friday, May 15, 2020
12 Flattened too soon
The howling keeps Dan and Dottie awake most nights, but, fortunately, no-one else. You have to drive a mile out of the village to find the Whimsey Kennels, Cattery and Pet Cemetery. Out here, where there are no close neighbours to annoy, the yelps and caterwauls are carried away on the prevailing winds.
Dan and Dottie advertise their business as a one-stop shop for everything pet-related. They’ll deliver bulky items to your door - everything from hamster bedding to tins of butcher’s tripe. They’ll look after your dog, cat, parrot or iguana while you’re on holiday. And they’ll be there, with respect, sensitivity and the practicalities, when a favourite pet passes on. They can organise a short, non-denominational service at the graveside, a discreet bural and the siting of a small headstone. Though it’s never easy to find the right words to express the grief of losing a much-loved family pet, Dan and Dottie have years of experience. For example, on the grave of Jean’s poodle, sadly involved in a traffic accident last week, is a newly-erected stone. The inscription is a model of tact and brevity: ‘Fluffy, flattened too soon’.
Business is good, because everyone in Whimsey seems to have a dog these days. Unsurprisingly, Bob was the first to notice the upward trend. Having the occasional dog snapping at his heels is all part of a day’s work for a village postman, but now they’re everywhere. We’ve got big dogs, small dogs, friendly dogs, savage dogs, dogs that look like wolves and dogs that wait, with infinite forbearance, for a postman’s fingers to appear momentarily through the letterbox, before clamping on with needle-sharp teeth.
Though most people are responsible, some owners, too idle to take their dogs for a proper walk, just boot their pooches out of the door. This ensures that pavements are transformed into slippery skid-pans. Walking from one end of the village to the other, while avoiding the dog-shit, requires some nifty footwork; it makes people look like they're auditioning for Riverdance…
Dan and Dottie advertise their business as a one-stop shop for everything pet-related. They’ll deliver bulky items to your door - everything from hamster bedding to tins of butcher’s tripe. They’ll look after your dog, cat, parrot or iguana while you’re on holiday. And they’ll be there, with respect, sensitivity and the practicalities, when a favourite pet passes on. They can organise a short, non-denominational service at the graveside, a discreet bural and the siting of a small headstone. Though it’s never easy to find the right words to express the grief of losing a much-loved family pet, Dan and Dottie have years of experience. For example, on the grave of Jean’s poodle, sadly involved in a traffic accident last week, is a newly-erected stone. The inscription is a model of tact and brevity: ‘Fluffy, flattened too soon’.
Business is good, because everyone in Whimsey seems to have a dog these days. Unsurprisingly, Bob was the first to notice the upward trend. Having the occasional dog snapping at his heels is all part of a day’s work for a village postman, but now they’re everywhere. We’ve got big dogs, small dogs, friendly dogs, savage dogs, dogs that look like wolves and dogs that wait, with infinite forbearance, for a postman’s fingers to appear momentarily through the letterbox, before clamping on with needle-sharp teeth.
Though most people are responsible, some owners, too idle to take their dogs for a proper walk, just boot their pooches out of the door. This ensures that pavements are transformed into slippery skid-pans. Walking from one end of the village to the other, while avoiding the dog-shit, requires some nifty footwork; it makes people look like they're auditioning for Riverdance…
Thursday, May 7, 2020
11 The Whimsey run
Our rural bus service is in serious decline so go on, catch a country bus while you still can. Your driver might be Jack, who works for the local bus company (slogan: ‘Better late than never’). If so, make sure you have a supply of travel sickness pills to hand. The Whimsey run is viewed by the bus drivers as a punishment for poor time-keeping. If they want to get their regular routes back, they’ll have to follow the bus drivers’ handbook to the letter. This requires them to accelerate as fast as possible from every bus-stop, then brake equally hard at the next one - thus making the journey as uncomfortable as possible for their passengers. With a glance in the mirror and a well-timed tap-dancing routine on the gas pedal and the brake, Jack can transfer an old biddy and her tartan shopping trolley from one end of the bus to the other in less time than it takes to say “Hold tight at the back”. It’s moments like these that make a bus driver’s life worthwhile.
As soon as Jack ventures off the main road, time loses all meaning. Forget whatever you’ve read in the timetable, especially about the length of time your journey might take. Don’t be lulled into any false sense of security by the idea that the bus is only going a few miles. The country lanes around Whimsey are bereft of signs; even locals get lost. Jack has such a poor sense of direction that he has to to stop periodically and ask the passengers which way to go. On one occasion, when he ran out of petrol, Jack had a whip-round to fill the tank up.
You’ll need provisions. Imagine you’re embarking on an African safari, and pack accordingly. At the very least, you should take some refreshments for the outward leg of your journey. Wear a scarf or cravat over your face; it will help to keep out the dust and the flies and the overpowering smell of lavender water. By the time the bus rolls into Whimsey once again, having covered half of East Yorkshire, most of the passengers will be delirious. No wonder the rural routes have been re-classified as white-knuckle rides. You have been warned.
As soon as Jack ventures off the main road, time loses all meaning. Forget whatever you’ve read in the timetable, especially about the length of time your journey might take. Don’t be lulled into any false sense of security by the idea that the bus is only going a few miles. The country lanes around Whimsey are bereft of signs; even locals get lost. Jack has such a poor sense of direction that he has to to stop periodically and ask the passengers which way to go. On one occasion, when he ran out of petrol, Jack had a whip-round to fill the tank up.
You’ll need provisions. Imagine you’re embarking on an African safari, and pack accordingly. At the very least, you should take some refreshments for the outward leg of your journey. Wear a scarf or cravat over your face; it will help to keep out the dust and the flies and the overpowering smell of lavender water. By the time the bus rolls into Whimsey once again, having covered half of East Yorkshire, most of the passengers will be delirious. No wonder the rural routes have been re-classified as white-knuckle rides. You have been warned.
10 Rose Cottage
Locals were flabbergasted when the estate agents found a buyer for Rose Cottage. It had stood empty for years - due to a catalogue of structural defects - and every year that passed only made it less likely to sell. The wind had loosened the slates, and the roof was sagging like a saddle-backed horse. It was a heap, frankly; you could have doubled its value simply by screwing a satellite dish to the wall. Locals wouldn’t have touched the place with a six-foot barge-pole... unless they’d wanted to be the proud owner of a six-foot barge-pole with dry rot. The ‘For Sale’ sign had disappeared beneath an exuberant growth of virginia creeper, which, according to the surveyor, was the only thing holding the place up. The best way to sell Rose Cottage, locals agreed, would be to demolish it and auction off the bricks as individual lots.
Convinced, like P T Barnum, that there’s a mug born every minute, the seller bided his time. So it seemed like Christmas had come early when Gemma came to Whimsey, saw Rose Cottage featured in the 'slums for sale' section of the Gazette & Advertiser, and immediately fell in love with the place. Love is blind: a condition that’s not improved by wearing rose-coloured glasses.
Gemma has a trusting nature, and doesn’t like to be on the receiving end of bad news. She missed the explicit warnings in the surveyor’s report, despite them being highlighted with a fluorescent marker pen and strings of exclamation marks. The report made such depressing reading, in fact, that she threw it the bin. She decided to back her feminine intuition instead, which proved to be an expensive mistake. Gemma had a warm feeling about the house; it had a welcoming aura. All it needed, she reckoned, was a lick of paint, some wind-chimes and a few dozen house-plants. She walked into the estate agents office with the proceeds from a generous divorce settlement, forgot to haggle and paid cash.
Rose Cottage is a black hole of a house: able to suck in as much money as anyone would think of throwing at it, and still be barely habitable. When the wind whistled through the cracks in the window frames, it sounded like Larry Adler tuning up. Gemma 'cured' the leaky roof by the simple ruse of not venturing into the loft any more, and masked the more malodorous smells with incense. She coped with the grime and neglect in the only way she knew how - by using dimmer lightbulbs. By the time she was down to 4-watt bulbs, she was bumping into the furniture.
With the help of a local builder who knew which side his bread was buttered, Gemma put the kitchen where the bathroom was, converted the box-room into an en-suite bathroom, raised the roof by two feet and created an extra bedroom. She had the house sand-blasted - though, intriguingly, only on the inside. A plan to move the entire house three feet to the south ("to get the morning sun") was abandoned, but only with the greatest reluctance. After all the upheavals Rose Cottage now looks a picture; unfortunately it's a picture by Hieronymous Bosch.
Convinced, like P T Barnum, that there’s a mug born every minute, the seller bided his time. So it seemed like Christmas had come early when Gemma came to Whimsey, saw Rose Cottage featured in the 'slums for sale' section of the Gazette & Advertiser, and immediately fell in love with the place. Love is blind: a condition that’s not improved by wearing rose-coloured glasses.
Gemma has a trusting nature, and doesn’t like to be on the receiving end of bad news. She missed the explicit warnings in the surveyor’s report, despite them being highlighted with a fluorescent marker pen and strings of exclamation marks. The report made such depressing reading, in fact, that she threw it the bin. She decided to back her feminine intuition instead, which proved to be an expensive mistake. Gemma had a warm feeling about the house; it had a welcoming aura. All it needed, she reckoned, was a lick of paint, some wind-chimes and a few dozen house-plants. She walked into the estate agents office with the proceeds from a generous divorce settlement, forgot to haggle and paid cash.
Rose Cottage is a black hole of a house: able to suck in as much money as anyone would think of throwing at it, and still be barely habitable. When the wind whistled through the cracks in the window frames, it sounded like Larry Adler tuning up. Gemma 'cured' the leaky roof by the simple ruse of not venturing into the loft any more, and masked the more malodorous smells with incense. She coped with the grime and neglect in the only way she knew how - by using dimmer lightbulbs. By the time she was down to 4-watt bulbs, she was bumping into the furniture.
With the help of a local builder who knew which side his bread was buttered, Gemma put the kitchen where the bathroom was, converted the box-room into an en-suite bathroom, raised the roof by two feet and created an extra bedroom. She had the house sand-blasted - though, intriguingly, only on the inside. A plan to move the entire house three feet to the south ("to get the morning sun") was abandoned, but only with the greatest reluctance. After all the upheavals Rose Cottage now looks a picture; unfortunately it's a picture by Hieronymous Bosch.
Saturday, May 2, 2020
9 Bargain basement
Thanks to the sterling efforts of Brenda, our tireless Tourism Officer, we have a hectic schedule of events lined up for the summer months. Morris dancing, the duck race, the scarecrow festival, blood donor sessions: will the fun never end?
You could go a long way (well, another postal district, anyway) to find better entertainment than our weekly car boot sales, held every Sunday morning on Potter’s field. It wasn’t so long ago that people went to church on a Sunday morning. They looked to the man in the pulpit for guidance and reassurance. But the habit’s been broken, and it will take more than gimmicks like hymn number bingo to bring the congregations back to fill the empty pews. Nevertheless, locals find there's a big hole in their lives where blind, unquestioning faith used to be. So they go car-booting instead - to rummage through other peoples’ cast-offs and maybe pick up a bargain.
Here, in the bargain basement of budget retailing, there’s plenty of stuff to keep the browsers busy. 'Antiques of tomorrow', the stallholders call it: what used to be described, more prosaically, as 'rubbish'. Displayed artlessly on makeshift stalls is the kind of junk that most Whimsey folk would otherwise be taking down to the dump: dodgy DVDs, rusty tools, chipped coronation mugs, old biscuit tins, novely ashtrays, foot spas, toasted sandwich makers, Polaroid Swinger cameras they stopped making film for twenty years ago... and that elusive third LP by Bucks Fizz.
There's always an ancient Hoover with a sign reading 'Genuine Reason For Sale'. Yes, it's a genuine reason all right: it’s knackered. Those who have suffered the misfortune of having their car radio stolen may find a replacement on one of the stalls. They may even find the one that was stolen in the first place.
You could go a long way (well, another postal district, anyway) to find better entertainment than our weekly car boot sales, held every Sunday morning on Potter’s field. It wasn’t so long ago that people went to church on a Sunday morning. They looked to the man in the pulpit for guidance and reassurance. But the habit’s been broken, and it will take more than gimmicks like hymn number bingo to bring the congregations back to fill the empty pews. Nevertheless, locals find there's a big hole in their lives where blind, unquestioning faith used to be. So they go car-booting instead - to rummage through other peoples’ cast-offs and maybe pick up a bargain.
Here, in the bargain basement of budget retailing, there’s plenty of stuff to keep the browsers busy. 'Antiques of tomorrow', the stallholders call it: what used to be described, more prosaically, as 'rubbish'. Displayed artlessly on makeshift stalls is the kind of junk that most Whimsey folk would otherwise be taking down to the dump: dodgy DVDs, rusty tools, chipped coronation mugs, old biscuit tins, novely ashtrays, foot spas, toasted sandwich makers, Polaroid Swinger cameras they stopped making film for twenty years ago... and that elusive third LP by Bucks Fizz.
There's always an ancient Hoover with a sign reading 'Genuine Reason For Sale'. Yes, it's a genuine reason all right: it’s knackered. Those who have suffered the misfortune of having their car radio stolen may find a replacement on one of the stalls. They may even find the one that was stolen in the first place.
8 On the Whimsey beat
In the East Riding police force, a posting to Whimsey is seen as a step down the career ladder. A punishment for past misdeeds, perhaps, or a tranquil semi-retirement for traumatised coppers who can no longer hack it in the city.
No serving police officer had ever volunteered for the Whimsey beat until Sam Braithwaite threw his hat into the ring. Five years ago Sam was just another copper pounding the city streets, filling his little black notebook with incomprehensible squiggles. But when Sam tried to learn the off-duty jargon known as canteen culture, he found plenty of canteen but precious little culture. He could’t join in the banter; his face didn’t fit. Sam decided to jump before he was pushed. When the Whimsey posting came up, he applied and, in the absence of any other candidates, got the job.
Like Sam, the Police House in Whimsey is modest and unassuming. Parked out front is a compact hatchback with a Greenpeace sticker on the back window. Sam doesn’t do a lot of mileage; five years on, the car still looks brand new. It’s got a siren and a little flashing light, but Sam doesn’t like to draw attention to himself. In the front garden is a notice board warning locals about the hazards of Colorado Beetles, abd the need to check the credentials of unannounced callers.
Having chosen out-of-the-way Whimsey, Sam ensures that his shortcomings as a police officer go more or less unnoticed. He can still hardly believe he’s getting paid to wander round the village, keeping an eye on things. It’s not like work at all. Old biddies ask him the time; some of them ask him what year it is. He sees things that other, busier people miss, such as the kingfisher that flies - with a flash of electric blue - across the river. And when things are particularly quiet in Whimsey - that’s most days, really - Sam takes the opportunity to slip away into the woods. Inside his jacket is a well-thumbed field-guide to mosses and liverworts. In the leather pouch where his walkie-talkie ought to be Sam keeps a pair of compact binoculars.
He was glad to get rid of the walkie-talkie. It made him feel self-conscious, and the antenna used to jab him in the eye. No-one ever called him up anyway. Unless Whimsey is suddenly overrun by mobsters, or cash-strapped farmers decide to diversify into cannabis cultivation, there is a tacit agreement at divisional headquarters that Sam should be left to his own devices. Indeed, the only contact with his Chief Inspector is a monthly phone call - merely to check that Sam is alive and well and keeping Whimsey’s crime figures down. This is fine with Sam, and keeps paperwork to a bare minimum.
Whimsey is not one of the East Riding’s crime hot-spots, though PC Braithwaite can’t take much credit for that. Local kids don’t go out looting. Well, not on school nights anyway. Misdemeanors seldom get more serious than serving red wine with the fish course, or wearing a loud tie in a built-up area. On those blessedly rare occasions when we do have a robbery, it’s likely to end with a red-faced burglar returning a bin-bag of valuables with an embarrassed shrug of the shoulders and the offer of a conciliatory pint. We have our fair share of roughnecks, of course, but they mostly drink out of harm's way, at the far end of the bar in the Farrier’s Arms, where the people most at risk from their lager-fuelled outbursts are each other.
No serving police officer had ever volunteered for the Whimsey beat until Sam Braithwaite threw his hat into the ring. Five years ago Sam was just another copper pounding the city streets, filling his little black notebook with incomprehensible squiggles. But when Sam tried to learn the off-duty jargon known as canteen culture, he found plenty of canteen but precious little culture. He could’t join in the banter; his face didn’t fit. Sam decided to jump before he was pushed. When the Whimsey posting came up, he applied and, in the absence of any other candidates, got the job.
Like Sam, the Police House in Whimsey is modest and unassuming. Parked out front is a compact hatchback with a Greenpeace sticker on the back window. Sam doesn’t do a lot of mileage; five years on, the car still looks brand new. It’s got a siren and a little flashing light, but Sam doesn’t like to draw attention to himself. In the front garden is a notice board warning locals about the hazards of Colorado Beetles, abd the need to check the credentials of unannounced callers.
Having chosen out-of-the-way Whimsey, Sam ensures that his shortcomings as a police officer go more or less unnoticed. He can still hardly believe he’s getting paid to wander round the village, keeping an eye on things. It’s not like work at all. Old biddies ask him the time; some of them ask him what year it is. He sees things that other, busier people miss, such as the kingfisher that flies - with a flash of electric blue - across the river. And when things are particularly quiet in Whimsey - that’s most days, really - Sam takes the opportunity to slip away into the woods. Inside his jacket is a well-thumbed field-guide to mosses and liverworts. In the leather pouch where his walkie-talkie ought to be Sam keeps a pair of compact binoculars.
He was glad to get rid of the walkie-talkie. It made him feel self-conscious, and the antenna used to jab him in the eye. No-one ever called him up anyway. Unless Whimsey is suddenly overrun by mobsters, or cash-strapped farmers decide to diversify into cannabis cultivation, there is a tacit agreement at divisional headquarters that Sam should be left to his own devices. Indeed, the only contact with his Chief Inspector is a monthly phone call - merely to check that Sam is alive and well and keeping Whimsey’s crime figures down. This is fine with Sam, and keeps paperwork to a bare minimum.
Whimsey is not one of the East Riding’s crime hot-spots, though PC Braithwaite can’t take much credit for that. Local kids don’t go out looting. Well, not on school nights anyway. Misdemeanors seldom get more serious than serving red wine with the fish course, or wearing a loud tie in a built-up area. On those blessedly rare occasions when we do have a robbery, it’s likely to end with a red-faced burglar returning a bin-bag of valuables with an embarrassed shrug of the shoulders and the offer of a conciliatory pint. We have our fair share of roughnecks, of course, but they mostly drink out of harm's way, at the far end of the bar in the Farrier’s Arms, where the people most at risk from their lager-fuelled outbursts are each other.
Sunday, April 26, 2020
7 Flannelled fools
On a soporific afternoon in the last week of April, the air is filled with the sounds of the summer game. From Whimsey’s compact cricket ground, down Lover’s Lane, we hear shouts of “Owzat!”, followed by desultory clapping from the spectators (Ben and Carol Flowerdew). As one batsman makes his way back to our makeshift pavilion, another one wanders out to the middle, nervously adjusting his box.
There’s a poisonous atmosphere in the pavilion today: a heady pot-pourri of sweat, fungus, unwashed socks, cheap deodorant, horse liniment, athletes foot lotion, talcum powder, mildew, hand-rolled tobacco and unrestrained flatulence. It’s gloomy too; the grubby windows are shrouded with spiders’ webs, where the trussed-up corpses of unwary flies are marinading gently. A prawn salad sandwich, thoughtlessly discarded under a bench at the end of last season, is giving off a pale phosphorescent glow. Scientists seeking the perfect conditions for the propagation of virulent bacteria need to look no further than Whimsey’s premier sporting facility.
The pavilion is essentially a masculine environment. Women - even those up to date with their typhoid jabs and blessed with strong constitutions - do not cross the threshold on match days. In any case, the wives and girlfriends of the Whimsey XI have better things to do with their leisure hours than watch a bunch of overweight men chase a small red ball around a field.
Dennis, our captain, has come to terms with the disappointments of last season: having no new silverware to brighten up the optimistically large trophy cabinet mounted above the bar in the Farrier’s Arms. Talk of ‘silverware’ rings a little hollow, though, now that the league’s trophy budget is being sliced ever more thinly. Instead of lustrous metal, the trophies are cheap and nasty: just plastic sprayed to look like gold. On top of each little plinth is a figure who either bats or bowls, designed by someone ill-acquainted with both cricket and human anatomy. The batsman looks like he’s throwing a stick for a dog; the bowler appears to be dancing a jig. The gold paint soon peels away; after a few weeks the figures appear not merely deformed, but leprous too.
There are trophies for winners, runners-up, best individual performances and most sportsmanlike team. There are commemorative medallions for plucky losers. There’s the ‘clubman’ award: given to good-hearted guys who, though useless at cricket, bring other talents to the game. Like turning out uncomplainingly every weekend, even though they’ll bat last (if at all), never get a bowl and have to field down at third man where the most vicious horseflies lurk. Or mowing the wicket every Friday evening. Or shouting “Drinks all round” on a slow night in the pub.
After the game the players repair to the Farrier’s. After a few pints of cooking bitter they tend to forget just how soundly they’ve been beaten. The team’s performance will, in beery retrospect, be awarded a heroic perspective that was entirely lacking on the field of play. Yes, the unwarranted optimism of third-rate cricketers is an inspiration to us all.
There’s a poisonous atmosphere in the pavilion today: a heady pot-pourri of sweat, fungus, unwashed socks, cheap deodorant, horse liniment, athletes foot lotion, talcum powder, mildew, hand-rolled tobacco and unrestrained flatulence. It’s gloomy too; the grubby windows are shrouded with spiders’ webs, where the trussed-up corpses of unwary flies are marinading gently. A prawn salad sandwich, thoughtlessly discarded under a bench at the end of last season, is giving off a pale phosphorescent glow. Scientists seeking the perfect conditions for the propagation of virulent bacteria need to look no further than Whimsey’s premier sporting facility.
The pavilion is essentially a masculine environment. Women - even those up to date with their typhoid jabs and blessed with strong constitutions - do not cross the threshold on match days. In any case, the wives and girlfriends of the Whimsey XI have better things to do with their leisure hours than watch a bunch of overweight men chase a small red ball around a field.
Dennis, our captain, has come to terms with the disappointments of last season: having no new silverware to brighten up the optimistically large trophy cabinet mounted above the bar in the Farrier’s Arms. Talk of ‘silverware’ rings a little hollow, though, now that the league’s trophy budget is being sliced ever more thinly. Instead of lustrous metal, the trophies are cheap and nasty: just plastic sprayed to look like gold. On top of each little plinth is a figure who either bats or bowls, designed by someone ill-acquainted with both cricket and human anatomy. The batsman looks like he’s throwing a stick for a dog; the bowler appears to be dancing a jig. The gold paint soon peels away; after a few weeks the figures appear not merely deformed, but leprous too.
There are trophies for winners, runners-up, best individual performances and most sportsmanlike team. There are commemorative medallions for plucky losers. There’s the ‘clubman’ award: given to good-hearted guys who, though useless at cricket, bring other talents to the game. Like turning out uncomplainingly every weekend, even though they’ll bat last (if at all), never get a bowl and have to field down at third man where the most vicious horseflies lurk. Or mowing the wicket every Friday evening. Or shouting “Drinks all round” on a slow night in the pub.
After the game the players repair to the Farrier’s. After a few pints of cooking bitter they tend to forget just how soundly they’ve been beaten. The team’s performance will, in beery retrospect, be awarded a heroic perspective that was entirely lacking on the field of play. Yes, the unwarranted optimism of third-rate cricketers is an inspiration to us all.
6 The Gazette & Advertiser...
Everyday life is chronicled in our venerable weekly newspaper, the Gazette & Advertiser, ‘serving Whimsey and the other flatland villages since 1847’. It’s a publication of few ambitions and even fewer readers; we read it to see if we’re in it and, if so, to check that Frank has spelt our names correctly. A local paper is supposed to reflect the tenor of village life, but the Gazette & Advertiser has lost its way over the years. On how many other newspapers would a story be spiked for being “too interesting”?
Some of the stories almost write themselves. Every year Frank begins his report on the Whimsey & District Agricultural Show in exactly the same way: “Torrential rain failed to dampen the enthusiasm of the crowds who flocked to the showground last Saturday”. Over the years Frank has developed the unerring knack of elevating the dull and the uneventful into headline stories, and burying anything of genuine significance towards the bottom of page five, next to the results of the Womens' Institute's Most Exciting Tea-towel Competition. Week by week Frank takes a long hard look at what makes Whimsey shine in the presence of its less exalted neighbours, and ignores it altogether.
After all this time Frank is part of the furniture: so firmly ensconced in the editorial chair that some days - after one pie too many - he has to be prised out of it with a crowbar. Journalism courses through his veins; even his conversation can be measured in column inches. He’s spent more years than he cares to remember, stabbing one-fingered at the keys of his ancient Remington typewriter like a demented woodpecker. When a computer appeared on his desk one day, he tried to make it work. But the internet baffled him, and his emails remained resolutely earthbound, like pinioned birds. Fortunately, the CD tray was just the right shape and size for holding a doughnut.
The people Frank writes about every week are the very same people who read the paper. There isn't much call, in a place the size of Whimsey, for scoops, exclusives and salacious headlines. Even the village’s recent “crime wave” was just a few local felons, selling contraband snuff, forging library tickets and rustling geese: not so much a crime wave as a crime ripple. Revelations about nefarious goings-on might briefly attract a few extra readers. But what's the point of upsetting everybody, just to double the circulation? Readers and advertisers are the most important ingredients of a local paper, though not necessarily in that order. And if Frank’s readers were ever to develop an unhealthy interest in kiss-'n’-tell exposés, they'd be unlikely to salivate over the paper's more mundane headlines, such as this week's offering: Whimsey Man Dies of Natural Causes.
Some of the stories almost write themselves. Every year Frank begins his report on the Whimsey & District Agricultural Show in exactly the same way: “Torrential rain failed to dampen the enthusiasm of the crowds who flocked to the showground last Saturday”. Over the years Frank has developed the unerring knack of elevating the dull and the uneventful into headline stories, and burying anything of genuine significance towards the bottom of page five, next to the results of the Womens' Institute's Most Exciting Tea-towel Competition. Week by week Frank takes a long hard look at what makes Whimsey shine in the presence of its less exalted neighbours, and ignores it altogether.
After all this time Frank is part of the furniture: so firmly ensconced in the editorial chair that some days - after one pie too many - he has to be prised out of it with a crowbar. Journalism courses through his veins; even his conversation can be measured in column inches. He’s spent more years than he cares to remember, stabbing one-fingered at the keys of his ancient Remington typewriter like a demented woodpecker. When a computer appeared on his desk one day, he tried to make it work. But the internet baffled him, and his emails remained resolutely earthbound, like pinioned birds. Fortunately, the CD tray was just the right shape and size for holding a doughnut.
The people Frank writes about every week are the very same people who read the paper. There isn't much call, in a place the size of Whimsey, for scoops, exclusives and salacious headlines. Even the village’s recent “crime wave” was just a few local felons, selling contraband snuff, forging library tickets and rustling geese: not so much a crime wave as a crime ripple. Revelations about nefarious goings-on might briefly attract a few extra readers. But what's the point of upsetting everybody, just to double the circulation? Readers and advertisers are the most important ingredients of a local paper, though not necessarily in that order. And if Frank’s readers were ever to develop an unhealthy interest in kiss-'n’-tell exposés, they'd be unlikely to salivate over the paper's more mundane headlines, such as this week's offering: Whimsey Man Dies of Natural Causes.
Monday, April 20, 2020
5 A late breakfast
Bob knew something was wrong the moment he opened his eyes. Normally, on a Sunday, he would wake to the reassuring aromas of coffee and burnt toast, with the prospect of doing nothing more strenuous than tackling the Sunday papers and the pile of aspirational supplements. He would read about cars he’d never own, restaurants he’d never visit, exotic holiday destinations that would remain off-limits to a man on a postman’s salary. But not today. He wrinkles his nose; he can smell something caustic and lemon-scented, and that doesn’t seem right. It’s noisy too; why the hell is Cath banging pots and pans together so early on a Sunday morning? Bob pulls the duvet over his head and tries to blot out the noise.
Cath’s been up and about for an hour, which has given her the opportunity to rehearse what she’ll say to Bob and the kids when they finally show their faces. “Look at this place”, she’ll say. “It’s a dump. I’m not prepared to go on living in this squalor for one more day. Whatever you had planned for today, forget it. We’re all going to roll our sleeves up and give this house a proper spring clean”. She’s all fired up and doesn’t want to lose momentum; she runs upstairs, taking two steps at a time, and whips the duvet off Max’s bed. “Up, up!”, she yells. Emma tries to hang on to her bedding and her dignity, but she’s no match for Cath in full flow. “Up, young lady, up!” Bob is next. One minute he’s warm and cosy, lost in his Sunday morning reverie. Then, without warning, he’s exposed; a postman can feel very vulnerable when he’s curled up in a foetal position wearing only his underpants. “Get up!”, says Cath. “There’s work to be done.”
Straight from sleep they’re disorientated and confused. What greets them, in the kitchen, is an array of mops, dusters, brooms, and buckets. Cath issues instructions, before anyone gets the chance to plead a prior engagement or think up a convincing excuse. She tells Bob to take the rugs outside, and hands him a carpet-beater. Emma gets a bucket of hot water, foaming with detergent, and is dispatched to the bathroom. Max, blinking away tears, is given a duster; he’s never seen his mum like this before, and it’s scaring him. Cath tackles the greasy cooker, with a proprietory cleaner and a quiet ferocity.
Emma scrubs at the tenacious tide-mark around the bath, and rehearses what she’ll say to Social Services when she reports Cath for cruelty to children. Max flicks a duster round, without much enthusiasm. When Cath isn’t looking, he slips back upstairs, to his bedroom, and starts reading a comic. But Cath finds him, drags him downstairs and gives him a sweeping brush. Will this nightmare never end?
Bob, in contrast, is warming to his task, as he wipes beads of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. Beating a rug, and raising clouds of dust, is proving quite cathartic. Thwack! That’s for the owner of the Lakeland Terrier that nips at a postman’s ankles. Thwack! That’s for his bank manager, who last week refused him a loan. Thwack! That’s for his boss who kicks up such a fuss when Bob delivers letters to the wrong address. It’s a mistake any postman could make, especially if he’s keen to finish his round and get to the Farrier’s for a lunchtime pint. An hour later an exhausted Bob has gone right through his roster of retribution, and the rugs are ready to be taken back inside.
The house looks better - even Bob can see that - and smells more fragrant too. The cooker gleams, and the work surfaces are pristine, right up to the moment when Max attempts to pour cornflakes into a bowl. He expects a telling off from his mother for making a mess, but the spring-cleaning whirlwind seems to have blown itself out and Cath, thankfully, is back to normal. Coffee and burnt toast have never tasted so good. “It’s too late for breakfast”, she says, smiling for the first time today. “We’ll call it brunch”.
Cath’s been up and about for an hour, which has given her the opportunity to rehearse what she’ll say to Bob and the kids when they finally show their faces. “Look at this place”, she’ll say. “It’s a dump. I’m not prepared to go on living in this squalor for one more day. Whatever you had planned for today, forget it. We’re all going to roll our sleeves up and give this house a proper spring clean”. She’s all fired up and doesn’t want to lose momentum; she runs upstairs, taking two steps at a time, and whips the duvet off Max’s bed. “Up, up!”, she yells. Emma tries to hang on to her bedding and her dignity, but she’s no match for Cath in full flow. “Up, young lady, up!” Bob is next. One minute he’s warm and cosy, lost in his Sunday morning reverie. Then, without warning, he’s exposed; a postman can feel very vulnerable when he’s curled up in a foetal position wearing only his underpants. “Get up!”, says Cath. “There’s work to be done.”
Straight from sleep they’re disorientated and confused. What greets them, in the kitchen, is an array of mops, dusters, brooms, and buckets. Cath issues instructions, before anyone gets the chance to plead a prior engagement or think up a convincing excuse. She tells Bob to take the rugs outside, and hands him a carpet-beater. Emma gets a bucket of hot water, foaming with detergent, and is dispatched to the bathroom. Max, blinking away tears, is given a duster; he’s never seen his mum like this before, and it’s scaring him. Cath tackles the greasy cooker, with a proprietory cleaner and a quiet ferocity.
Emma scrubs at the tenacious tide-mark around the bath, and rehearses what she’ll say to Social Services when she reports Cath for cruelty to children. Max flicks a duster round, without much enthusiasm. When Cath isn’t looking, he slips back upstairs, to his bedroom, and starts reading a comic. But Cath finds him, drags him downstairs and gives him a sweeping brush. Will this nightmare never end?
Bob, in contrast, is warming to his task, as he wipes beads of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. Beating a rug, and raising clouds of dust, is proving quite cathartic. Thwack! That’s for the owner of the Lakeland Terrier that nips at a postman’s ankles. Thwack! That’s for his bank manager, who last week refused him a loan. Thwack! That’s for his boss who kicks up such a fuss when Bob delivers letters to the wrong address. It’s a mistake any postman could make, especially if he’s keen to finish his round and get to the Farrier’s for a lunchtime pint. An hour later an exhausted Bob has gone right through his roster of retribution, and the rugs are ready to be taken back inside.
The house looks better - even Bob can see that - and smells more fragrant too. The cooker gleams, and the work surfaces are pristine, right up to the moment when Max attempts to pour cornflakes into a bowl. He expects a telling off from his mother for making a mess, but the spring-cleaning whirlwind seems to have blown itself out and Cath, thankfully, is back to normal. Coffee and burnt toast have never tasted so good. “It’s too late for breakfast”, she says, smiling for the first time today. “We’ll call it brunch”.
Saturday, April 18, 2020
4 Putting things right...
Civic pride is one of those virtues - like politeness and sportsmanship - that we seem to have abandoned as being quaintly old-fashioned. But Hayden has an old-fashioned view of things, and he doesn’t mind who knows it. With his collarless shirts, waistcoats and corduroy trousers, he even looks like he belongs to another age. Some find his behaviour a little baffling but, if pressed on the matter, will offer grudging admiration. To those of us who know him better, he’s a saint.
Hayden is a fixer, a handyman; he’s a jack-of-all-trades, and master of quite a few. His neat little house confirms the wisdom of doing those vital jobs a few weeks before they really need to be done. He doesn’t lie awake on stormy nights, wondering whether his house will still be standing in the morning. He enjoys the untroubled sleep of a man who is up to speed with his maintenance programme. When a job needs doing, Hayden doesn’t talk about it... he just does it.
Whimsey belongs to Hayden. Most people are fiercely proprietorial about their little fiefdoms. When they re-point a wall or trim a hedge, they go to the limit of their property and not an inch further. It just wouldn’t occur to them to pop next door and say “I’m tidying up my bit of the hedge; shall I do yours while I’ve got the clippers out?” The results look ludicrous, of course. But Hayden has a stake in Whimsey that has nothing to do with deeds and contracts. When he says “It’s my village”, he isn’t merely confirming that he was born here fifty five years ago and that, with luck, he’ll be buried here too. It’s his village because he looks after it.
Hayden takes pride in his little fiefdom too, but his gaze extends far beyond the boundary of his property. Whenever he spies some little corner of the village that needs sprucing up, he takes action. Instead of complaining to the council, or writing a stroppy letter to the local paper, the Gazette & Advertiser, he changes into his overalls and sets off with his canvas bag of tools to put things right. Yes, Hayden has a different agenda altogether. He’s a free spirit, an independent thinker... almost an anarchist.
Hayden is a fixer, a handyman; he’s a jack-of-all-trades, and master of quite a few. His neat little house confirms the wisdom of doing those vital jobs a few weeks before they really need to be done. He doesn’t lie awake on stormy nights, wondering whether his house will still be standing in the morning. He enjoys the untroubled sleep of a man who is up to speed with his maintenance programme. When a job needs doing, Hayden doesn’t talk about it... he just does it.
Whimsey belongs to Hayden. Most people are fiercely proprietorial about their little fiefdoms. When they re-point a wall or trim a hedge, they go to the limit of their property and not an inch further. It just wouldn’t occur to them to pop next door and say “I’m tidying up my bit of the hedge; shall I do yours while I’ve got the clippers out?” The results look ludicrous, of course. But Hayden has a stake in Whimsey that has nothing to do with deeds and contracts. When he says “It’s my village”, he isn’t merely confirming that he was born here fifty five years ago and that, with luck, he’ll be buried here too. It’s his village because he looks after it.
Hayden takes pride in his little fiefdom too, but his gaze extends far beyond the boundary of his property. Whenever he spies some little corner of the village that needs sprucing up, he takes action. Instead of complaining to the council, or writing a stroppy letter to the local paper, the Gazette & Advertiser, he changes into his overalls and sets off with his canvas bag of tools to put things right. Yes, Hayden has a different agenda altogether. He’s a free spirit, an independent thinker... almost an anarchist.
3 Springtime...
Colour is returning to the flatlands, like the blush to a maiden’s cheek. The grass is greening up, and the trees are laden with blossom; from a distance it looks like freshly-popped popcorn. The scene is softened – for a few days, at least – by the pastel, candyfloss colours. It’s like finding youself in a particularly sentimental Walt Disney cartoon. You half expect a flock of bluebirds to land on your shoulder and trill in three-part harmony.
The trees are filled with songbirds, their little chests puffed out with springtime fervour. What they are actually singing about is anyone’s guess. Maybe it’s a heartfelt paean of love from a cock bird to his mate, as she sits on the nest and incubates the eggs. Or maybe it’s something more prosaic, like “This is my tree... clear off”.
A sunny day in April is quite a shock to the system. For the first time this year - but hopefully not the last - we have to shade our eyes against the harsh spring sunlight. The unforgiving light penetrates every cobwebbed corner of our homes, revealing what havoc has been wreaked by another winter of household neglect. Our failings and foibles are held up to the light as well, subjected to closer scrutiny than we either want or need.
Lewis Hamilton would feel at home in Gemma’s cottage: it's the pits. She'd like to do something about the mess, she really would. Getting rid of all those self-help books piled up on the coffee table would be a good start; they just make the place look untidy. Gemma compensates for her lack of home-making skills with an active fantasy life. She dreams about a life less cluttered: cooking candle-lit dinners for sophisticated friends, swapping recipes, having animated discussions about the vital issues of the day, not having to sniff the milk before pouring it into a glass.
She moves the sofa to see what's underneath, then moves it back again quickly. She waves a feather duster around, without much enthusiasm, succeeding only in whipping up the dust in thick clouds. Over recent months a deep layer of dust has helped to lag pipes, stop draughts and impart a silvery bloom to the pile of unread feng shui books. But now the dust seems to dance in the rays of light. It's Disney dust…
The trees are filled with songbirds, their little chests puffed out with springtime fervour. What they are actually singing about is anyone’s guess. Maybe it’s a heartfelt paean of love from a cock bird to his mate, as she sits on the nest and incubates the eggs. Or maybe it’s something more prosaic, like “This is my tree... clear off”.
A sunny day in April is quite a shock to the system. For the first time this year - but hopefully not the last - we have to shade our eyes against the harsh spring sunlight. The unforgiving light penetrates every cobwebbed corner of our homes, revealing what havoc has been wreaked by another winter of household neglect. Our failings and foibles are held up to the light as well, subjected to closer scrutiny than we either want or need.
Lewis Hamilton would feel at home in Gemma’s cottage: it's the pits. She'd like to do something about the mess, she really would. Getting rid of all those self-help books piled up on the coffee table would be a good start; they just make the place look untidy. Gemma compensates for her lack of home-making skills with an active fantasy life. She dreams about a life less cluttered: cooking candle-lit dinners for sophisticated friends, swapping recipes, having animated discussions about the vital issues of the day, not having to sniff the milk before pouring it into a glass.
She moves the sofa to see what's underneath, then moves it back again quickly. She waves a feather duster around, without much enthusiasm, succeeding only in whipping up the dust in thick clouds. Over recent months a deep layer of dust has helped to lag pipes, stop draughts and impart a silvery bloom to the pile of unread feng shui books. But now the dust seems to dance in the rays of light. It's Disney dust…
Thursday, April 16, 2020
2 Chapel Sundays...
The building on the right of the photograph is the Methodist chapel, where the Rev Atkinson Grimshaw presided over his flock. Of course, religion was a more compelling proposition at the turn of the 20th century, when the picture was taken, than it is today. It was a time when the devil walked among us, and wasn't just your dad dressed up. Sunday may have been a day of rest, but that didn’t mean locals were free to visit a garden centre or car boot sale, or nurse a pint through a lazy afternoon in the beer garden of the Farrier’s Arms. Attendance at chapel was compulsory. If anyone failed to to occupy his cusomary pew on Sunday, the minister would be round on Monday morning demanding to know why.
There was no escape from the minister’s gimlet gaze, as he cast his eyes over his parishioners and itemised, one by one, their moral frailties. For those who’d transgressed, the future looked bleak. Even if they escaped censure in this life, Grimshaw warned them, unambiguously, that the fires of hell were waiting. With his stern demeanour and mutton-chop whiskers, he looked like he’d be happy to stoke the flames himself. One thing was certain: sinners wouldn’t be needing an extra sweater in the next life.
There was no escape from Grimshaw’s foghorn voice either, as he banged his fist on the edge of the pulpit and reminded his forgetful flock about the ten commandments. His sermons were of such length and ferocity that parishioners with nervous dispositions - or weak bladders - tended to sit near the back. For those who had given in to temptation, Grimshaw’s sermons hit home. When he mentioned theft, the landlord of the Farrier’s Arms sat bolt upright, wondering how the minister could possibly know he was watering down the workers’ beer. When the minister mentioned adultery, the blacksmith’s wife could feel his eyes boring into her, even though her head was bowed and she was staring at her shoes.
Relief finally came when they were able to file out of the chapel - men ashen-faced, women weeping, children traumatised and damp. After an hour of fire and brimstone, spring sunlight never felt so good.
Tuesday, April 14, 2020
1 Middle of the road...
If we want to see how the village looked, before our world was rocked by two world wars, one world cup and a worldwide pandemic, we can revisit the photographs taken by renowned photographer, Archbold Quinlan. Shot at the turn of the 20th century, these sepia-toned images capture a vanished way of life, when men wore hats, beer was a penny a pint and the only people who had tattoos were sailors. They offer an intoxicating glimpse into a world that, though only four generations away, already seems infinitely and achingly distant.
In the picture at the top of the page, the presence of the photographer - a man dressed in Harris tweed plus-fours and a deerstalker hat - has encouraged curious locals to stand about in the dusty roadway. The arrival of a travelling photographer was probably the most exciting event they had witnessed since Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee, which they celebrated, as village tradition demanded, with cock-fights, strong liquor and a street-party.
A boy and his sister don’t seem in any great hurry to move. There’s no good reason why they should; another dozen years would pass before the first motor car appeared in the village. They look towards the camera with studied indifference, giving the distinct impression that they have nothing much better to do with their time: very much like the youth of today, in fact.
The village blacksmith remained out of shot, in the smithy; he didn’t have time to stand around and gawp. With the fire going full blast, the forge was as hot as hades. Shoeing horses was thirsty work; almost single-handedly he kept the Farrier’s Arms in business. Anyway, he was unimpressed by photography and other short-lived fads. He knew that as long as we needed to get from A to B, we would need horses, and as long as we kept horses they would need shoeing. Sadly, he was still repeating this mantra when the first car eventually did career through the village: raising dust, scattering chickens and changing the tenor of village life for ever. The blacksmith took early retirement (he didn’t have much choice in the matter), and spent his declining years propping up the bar in the Farrier’s, bemoaning the invention of the internal combustion engine.
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