CONSTABLE IN THE FARMYARD a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain’s best-loved authors

by Nicholas Rhea

  “A new beginning for Reuben?” I said.

  “Yes, exactly,” she added.

  “He’d stay there?” I put to her.

  “Oh, yes, the farm will remain in his hands; we’ve come to an agreement about a suitable form of rental for the parts we use and it will make life easier for him.”

  “It is tough, living at Rigg End,” I said.

  “We’ll make it easier for everyone. We’ll get a telephone installed and provide a good road to Rigg End, and we’ll upgrade his premises with things like flush toilets, showers and baths — and he can keep his cows and sheep as well. It’s an ideal way of utilising all that space he’s got. It will give him companionship and I know we will all learn something from him — and he’ll learn from our students.”

  Professor Hartley remained with me for some time, happy to chat about Rigg End, Reuben and her exciting plans for his place on the moors, then she said she must dash because she had a meeting on site with both Reuben and one of the college advisers. I wished her luck — and wondered, just fleetingly, whether there was a spark of romance in her eyes. She and Reuben?

  It seemed unlikely, but nothing is impossible!

  Those proposals, while not being particularly far-reaching or innovative, were one of the first of their kind in that region so far as diversification by moorland farmers was concerned. The farmers themselves, so often without any capital other than their farm premises, could never contemplate or finance any other form of use for their homesteads, and yet in the years which followed, more isolated farms were turned into other businesses. Some became living museums, bed-and-breakfast accommodation, small hotels, pottery manufacturers, carpentry workshops and study centres for all kinds of arts, crafts and academia. Others began to use their unproductive land for caravan sites and their unwanted outbuildings for holiday cottages; some turned to the rearing of exotic or rare breeds, the growth of new crops like flax and oil seed rape, or the sale of barns for conversion into splendid homes.

  But Reuben Collier was one of the earliest in our region to authorise the conversion of his farm into a place of rural study and relaxation. Keasbeck College moved onto his premises about eighteen months after my chat with Professor Hartley and Reuben began to play a vital role in their work, thanks to his extensive knowledge of the moors and wildlife about him. Eventually, the road was surfaced, the telephone was installed and the house was modernised. Reuben kept his cows and sheep and continued as a working farmer with all that bustle and activity going on around him. And I do know that he taught some of his students to milk his cows!

  And, not totally unexpectedly, he got married.

  Professor Hartley gave up her work at the college and moved into Rigg End with Reuben. She started to breed heavy horses, specialising in Clydesdales, and she won prizes at major shows, while Reuben gave up most of his nightly visits to the pub. However, he did not totally give up his former life because he continued to trek over the moors on a Wednesday night, and to walk home afterwards — now sober of course, and always making use of the shortest route back to Rigg End.

  When the long track to his farmhouse was eventually surfaced with tarmacadam, he learned to drive a car and this seemed to cure his car sickness. He even gave up wearing clogs.

  The inception of the Collier Field Study Centre at Rigg End represented a time of great change in Aidensfield.

  Chapter 2

  Scattered across the moors and throughout the expanse of my Aidensfield beat were lots of smallholdings. These were farms in miniature; some were privately owned and some were rented from larger estates. They were worked by the families who occupied the house which formed the domestic accommodation of such spreads but the size of these fertile areas of cultivation varied considerably. Some were very small — as tiny as four or five acres perhaps — although most of them seemed to extend to teens of acres, perhaps boasting fifteen, sixteen or even twenty acres plus a family house. I am not sure when a smallholding becomes categorised as a small farm but there were small farms of fifty and sixty acres on the moors. I would guess a smallholding could be generally regarded as being less than fifty acres.

  In most cases, there was not sufficient land to provide an independent living for the resident family. Smallholders reared and sold a variety of livestock such as pigs, goats, sheep, hens, geese or ducks and even kept a cow or two for milking; they grew marketable crops such as potatoes, turnips, cabbages, sprouts and other vegetables, but as this did not generate a living wage, most of the menfolk and sometimes their wives had to supplement their income by other work. Many men hired themselves out for what was known as datal work. This was the term used when men were hired by the day to work on neighbouring farms, undertaking such labours as hay-making, hoeing turnips, sheep-shearing, rabbit-catching, mole-hunting, drystone-walling, ditching, thatching, milking, harvesting, potato picking and a whole range of other necessary and sometimes seasonal tasks.

  It was customary for the smallholder’s wife to remain at home, tending the livestock and working on the land, but some did leave the premises for the odd hour or two to earn extra money in domestic service of various kinds as well as seasonal work in the hayfields or at harvest-time and during sheep-shearing.

  Casual labouring for other people enabled smallholders to spend fruitful time working on their own holding but even so, this was not easy without the help of their wives and even their children. Running a successful smallholding was certainly a family business. Few expected to make a full-time living from such a small patch of land; it was not an easy life but many found it enjoyable and fulfilling because it provided a means of working for themselves in pleasant rural surroundings while growing their own crops and rearing their own livestock. A smallholding provided a means of achieving the popular 1960s dream of being self-sufficient, but equally it demanded hard work and an unwavering dedication not found in everyone.

  One man who had always wanted to run a smallholding was called Edward Cowton. He lived on his little spread at Elsinby and was known locally as Ted. He had come to Beckside Cottage, Elsinby, from the suburbs of York, having seen the smallholding advertised in a local paper. He’d liked it, sold his suburban semi-detached house and bought it with the intention of rearing pigs for sale in the local livestock marts. He knew he could not make a complete living from pigs, and so he had half a dozen cows, a flock of hens and some ducks from which eggs would be produced and sold, and a large vegetable patch which would provide potatoes, cabbages, carrots and other popular household necessities.

  In his enterprise, Ted was fully supported by his wife, Dorothy, known as Dot. Both were in their early forties, with no children, and initially both of them appeared rather too idealistic to make a practical success of their chosen career. With no country knowledge and no background of country life other than the occasional hike across the North York Moors, they regarded their enterprise as some kind of dream. In spite of their naïvety, however, they were keen to learn, they were very nice people and they were very hard-working.

  From the outset, they realised the smallholding would not generate sufficient regular income to keep them. Even when buying the place, Ted knew he would have to find other supportive work and he found part-time employment selling cattle food to farmers. For this he was paid a modest wage of around £8 per week, plus commission. The work suited him because he could make his own hours and it kept him in touch with the complex world of farming; there is no doubt he did learn a substantial amount from his farmer customers. Furthermore, he could generate a few livestock deals while on his rounds, occasionally earning extra pounds from the sale of a pig to a farmer or buying a bargain-priced piece of second-hand farm machinery or selling a cartload of potatoes to a hotel.

  While Ted was performing these money-earning duties, however, it meant that Dot had to remain on the smallholding during the day to feed the livestock, milk the cows, clean the pigs’ sties, gather the eggs and wash them, weed the crops or harvest the fruit. But even her selfless h
elp was not sufficient — Ted felt that, in order to maintain their lifestyle, Dot must go to work, if only for a few hours a week.

  It would generate some much-needed cash. Accordingly, she cleaned at a bank in Ashfordly for two mornings a week; she worked behind the bar in the Hopbind Inn at Elsinby on Sunday lunchtimes, and helped behind the counter in the village post office from time to time. In short, life was hectic for both Dot and Ted and their endeavours were based on an old Yorkshire saying that there is no money in smallholdings.

  I did not have many dealings with the Cowtons, except a quarterly visit to check their livestock register, and once every three years to renew Ted’s firearm certificate. Apart from that, my only contact was when I passed them in the street or saw either of them in the village shop or at one of the local markets. They were a nice, pleasant couple, I realised, perhaps on the quiet side but very capable of working hard for themselves and causing trouble to no one. As I got to know them better, I realised they had no spare time; all their energy was directed towards survival on their smallholding. When Ted finished his salesman rounds there was always work to be done on his piece of land, and even his weekends were spent repairing buildings and fences, maintaining machinery, attending to his livestock, and doing the paperwork. And because he was so busy, Dot’s assistance was always required — apart from keeping the house clean and tidy, doing the washing and preparing the meals, she was responsible for dispatching the milk, feeding the poultry, collecting eggs, cleaning the henhouses and rearing chicks. I must admit there were times when I wondered if Ted and Dot were happy in their new life. It seemed they never had any spare time for social activities; their life was all work.

  They never emerged for an evening in the Hopbind Inn over a drink and a bar snack, they never attended events in the village hall or on the sports field, and did not go to church. The smallholding, it seemed, was their entire life and I must admit that, on the occasions I had to visit the establishment, it always looked as if more work needed to be done. Wire netting needed replacing, woodwork needed a coat of paint, paths needed weeding. I got the impression that the Cowtons were chasing their tails — paddling fast and getting nowhere, treading water, or whatever cliché fits the bill! For all their hard work, they did not appear to be making any kind of progress. I did not think that was their original plan — I think, when they left suburbia for a life of rustic bliss, they saw themselves sitting quietly on their land with lots of spare time while surrounded by clucking hens, contented cows, pink piglets and pretty flowers. Instead, they were surrounded by a permanently demanding, time-consuming business which did not appear to be paying for itself.

  And then one morning, just after ten o’clock, I received a call from Dot.

  “Can you come quickly, Mr Rhea?” She sounded breathless on the phone. “Somebody’s broken into our house.”

  My heart sank. “Has much gone?” I asked.

  “Yes, all Ted’s money . . .”

  “Cash, was it?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know how much. Several hundred pounds, I’d say.”

  “In notes?”

  “Yes, most of it.”

  “I’ll come straight away,” I promised her.

  Fortunately, I was on duty and had been spending an hour in my office, catching up with my own paperwork and report writing. Dot had caught me moments before I departed for a patrol of my patch. I was able to reach her smallholding within six or seven minutes of her call and found her waiting anxiously at the back door of the house. She was a pretty woman in her forties with short fair hair, blue eyes and a round, pink face. She was wearing a blue overcoat when I arrived, she’d not even removed that in her anxiety. I noticed the broken glass in the window to the left of the doorway — it seemed chummy had smashed it, reached inside and opened the catch before climbing through and gaining access to the house.

  “I’m sorry.” She looked so miserable and tearful that I felt I ought to express my own sorrow at this shock. “Have you touched anything?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I just got back from Ashfordly, I’ve been to work at the bank and then did a bit of shopping. I got home to find this smashed window, so I checked the money straight away and saw the box open, then rang you before doing anything else.”

  “Well done. Did you see anyone leaving?”

  “No, no one. They’d gone before I got here.”

  “Was the door open? Did he let himself out by the door?”

  “No, it was locked, just as I’d left it.”

  “So it seems he left by the same way he got in, via the window. Ted’s on his rounds, is he?”

  “Yes, it’s his Brantsford day. I don’t know how to contact him; I have no names of his customers. But he said he’d be back about three o’clock.”

  “What time does he leave for work?”

  “He usually goes out about nine o’clock,” she said. “But I leave at seven, for my little bank job, so I’m gone before him. I can’t be sure what time he left but it would be about nine, he always leaves at nine.”

  “And you returned at ten or thereabouts?”

  “Yes, just before I rang you.”

  “So they broke in between nine and ten — they can’t be far away.”

  I decided to radio Ashfordly Police Station from my Minivan, just in case any of our patrols came across a vehicle speeding away from the Elsinby area or someone on foot trying to thumb a lift; if so, it would be worth stopping and subjecting such a vehicle or person to a swift search with a request for an explanation about their recent movements. Alf Ventress responded to my call, and although I could not provide any description of a suspect person or vehicle, nor even give details of what precisely had been stolen, he said he would circulate the fact that the housebreaking had occurred within the last hour or so and that a large amount of cash had been stolen. All suspects would be checked and asked to account for their whereabouts since nine o’clock this morning.

  The smashed window was hidden from the neighbouring houses and the road; the villain would have been able to work unseen. I looked at the broken window pane. The window had not been forced open with a jemmy or other tool.

  Slivers of glass lay on the window ledge inside and a few had dropped to the ground outside the house; it had been a simple job to break the glass, probably with an elbow or gloved fist, release the catch and open the window. It was large enough to admit a full size person. She led me to the back room which they used as their office. It contained a small desk covered in papers and file jackets, two four-drawer filing cabinets, a couple of chairs and rows of shelves on the walls, all containing files. One of the filing cabinet drawers was standing open; inside was a large metal cash box, also standing open. It was empty but did not appear to have been forced. With Dot, I made a search of all the other rooms just in case Dot had returned while the villain was in the house and he was hiding here, but we drew a blank. He’d gone. No other drawer or cupboard had been searched; it appeared that the thief had known exactly where to find the money. I completed my own examination of the premises before calling the Scenes of Crime officers.

  “The filing cabinet drawer was not forced open?” I put to Dot.

  “No, we never locked it. Or the money box. You never think you’re going to get broken into, do you?”

  “Who knew the money was there?” I asked. “The thief seems to have known where to find it. He’s not searched any other room or looked anywhere else for the cash box — he’s broken in and gone straight to your office.”

  “I don’t know.” She sounded weepy and upset. “People have been in, when we sell a pig or want to pay for something, Ted brings them in here . . . he would know who they were; he’d know better than me.”

  “So several people, other than you and Ted, would know that your cash was kept in that drawer?”

  “Yes, I know we should have banked it, but, well, Ted didn’t want to . . . he kept them all, unopened.”

  “Unopened?” I was puzzled by her r
emark. “He kept all what unopened?”

  “His wage packets. He kept them all unopened, he gets paid in cash, you see, with his commission.”

  I was astonished at this. “So how many pay packets would there be in here?”

  “I don’t know, Mr Rhea. A year’s wages, maybe.”

  “A year? All in unopened pay packets?”

  “Yes, with his name on. Little envelopes with cash in them, with holes in the front so you can count the notes and coins before you open them.”

  “So if a year’s wages has gone, how much money are we talking about?”

  “I don’t know really, Mr Rhea. Five hundred pounds maybe.”

  “Five hundred pounds?” My own wage was around twelve pounds and I knew Ted was only working part-time. This was a huge sum to lose. “But why was Ted keeping all this money here, Dot? Why hadn’t he banked it, or spent it?”

  “He always said the smallholding should earn us a living, Mr Rhea. He wanted to show that it could actually pay its way, even when other people said it wouldn’t. So he got the sales job just in case — and said he would not use those earnings to supplement our income from the smallholding. And it worked, you see, he never had to use his sales income . . . it was completely separate; he was keeping it for a rainy day.”

  “He should have paid it into a bank account or building society,” I sighed. “He’s lost the lot now.”

  “He wanted his bank statements to show we were living entirely on our earnings from the smallholding, Mr Rhea. I think he wanted to prove to the bank manager that we could make a go of it without the need to take a job.”