Under the Tump

by Oliver Balch

  By virtue of being the longest-standing, Woko’s universe – that of furrow ploughs and shepherd’s hooks, of quad bikes and tup sales – remains the most emblematic of the Welsh Marches. The rustic hill farmer is the common staple of popular perception and official myth, even though most residents would know as little as I when it comes to drenching a lamb or whistling instruction to a sheepdog.

  On the farm, there is no doubt that Woko is master of his world, with his hoggets and his ‘beef animals’ and his lengths of gigot. Beyond the gate to Caenantmelyn, however, this total command inevitably loosens. Instinctively, I suspect he knows this. Which is why when a tapas bar replaces the Wheatsheaf, or when Lucy Powell is no longer landlady at the Three Tuns, it’s not anger he feels but confusion. And it’s also why he roots himself here, among fellow farmers, where he belongs and where everything makes sense.

  So wrapped up am I in this notion that someone as seemingly authentic as Woko could also be, in some respects, an out-of-towner like me that I entirely lose the thread of his conversation. From sheep, he seems to have moved on to biodigesters (which stink, apparently, and, what’s more, are responsible for pushing up the price of maize).

  ‘So soon matey up here wants a hundred and fifty acres to feed his cows, look. And Joe Bloggs down there wants another hundred. They all want it like, so the price goes up …’

  I lean in a fraction the better to catch what he’s saying. My timing could not be worse because at that very moment, with my head turned askew, the girl to my right catches the ball, swings it across her body and releases it into the air in my direction. Only at the very last moment do I spot the rotating oval appearing at speed in my peripheral vision.

  Swivelling round, I thrust out two desperate hands but I’m grabbing at air. The ball is already on me, colliding with my upper arm, then knocking against the side of my thigh as it falls, before quickly clattering to the floor and racing tip over tail into the middle of the circle.

  ‘Run! Run! Run!’ a roar of children’s voices screams in my direction.

  The noise, the clamouring: it’s instant, incessant, insistent. I look at the ball. I look at the crowd. There’s no means of escape, no exit, no plea bargain. Fireball’s golden rule: don’t drop the ball. I’ve broken it. I lose. I’m ‘it’. Touched. Tagged. Cornered. Kiboshed. Round the circle it is. As swiftly as my legs will carry me. No delay. No hesitation.

  And so I turn and I sprint. Fast as I can.

  *

  The lab-coated boy in the back of the horse-trailer is sitting on a chair with a blindfold across his eyes. Two official-looking women are standing beside a bare desk next to him. They are holding clipboards.

  A third woman with a lipless grin is passing various objects to the boy. He looks frightened, as though the unseen items might bite. From the bottom of the gangplank outside, it’s difficult to make out what exactly the objects are. I suggest to Seth and Bo that we climb inside.

  They look at me as if I’m insane and impolitely decline. Rally Day has far more appealing activities to offer besides hostage simulation. The first lies a short sprint away and comes in the shape of eleven toadstool letters. Three feet high and carved from soft wood, they spell out the name of this year’s host club. TALGARTH YFC. The boys disappear towards them, darting in and out of their upright stems.

  Off to the left stand two sheep pens with a raised platform in between. One is empty. In the other, four flustered ewes are bleating and bumping into one another. A young, nervous-looking lad in a shirt and tie is preparing to give his summation in the stock-judging competition.

  ‘Mr Judge, Mr Timer,’ he starts, a picture of courtroom formality. ‘I place the four Texel butcher’s lambs in the following order: X, Y, B, A.’

  He checks his notes quickly and then commences on a well-argued defence of his verdict. In his view, ewe X excelled in the class, having tremendous width and fleshing throughout. Fullest loin of the four by far, bulbous over the chump, good depth in gigot, ‘all round a tremendous animal, Mr Judge’.

  His second choice of lamb shares similar attributes. Same width and fullness over the top, tremendous squareness of the shoulder, carrying no waste. Just lacked the length compared to his first-placed lamb, he feels. Third and fourth are saleable lambs, but are slacker-coated and lack overall finish at present. ‘And those, Mr Judge, are my reasons for placing the four butcher’s lambs in the given order.’

  The elderly adjudicator looks impressed and scribbles down a score on a card. Mr Timer checks his stopwatch, thanks the competitor and invites him to step out of the sheep-pen dock. The boy obliges, making way for another young farmer to take his place.

  Bo and Seth are tugging at my coat. They are done with the letters. They have spotted a burger van inside the entrance gate to the farmyard where the majority of the rally activities are taking place. Can they have a hot dog? I’d like to wait to hear the judge’s response, but know better than to fight the rumbling of small stomachs.

  We pass through the gate and join the queue for food. The menu of the Welsh Venison Centre is painted on a chalkboard: steaks, burgers, bacon rolls, chips, wedges, chilli. An afterthought appears at the bottom: ‘salad’.

  Standing immediately in front of us is a mother-and-daughter pairing. The older of the two is wearing a fitted derby tweed jacket and wellington boots, while the younger is dressed in jeans, white trainers and a sweatshirt. ‘I told you not to wear your new shoes,’ the mother is saying. Her daughter must be around eleven, old enough to know what adolescent freedoms look like but still too young to taste them. She says it’s fine. The mud will wash off.

  The queue runs to about twenty people in total. Most of them are teenagers or on the verge of becoming so. Jeans, rugby socks, heavy boots, baseball caps and, among the cooler girls, spotty wellies prevail. A good number are dressed in branded sweatshirts too. ‘Probably the best club in the world,’ reads the strapline across one. Another has four boxes in a vertical column, each with a white tick inside. Next to each box in a parallel column are the words, ‘Eat. Sleep. Farm. Repeat.’

  Right at the front, I spot a pair of young lads from Llanigon. They are tipping vinegar and salt onto a polystyrene bowl of hot chips. A picture of an upturned turnip is emblazoned across the front of their T-shirts. ‘Toshing Swedes Since 1955,’ the slogan proudly declares. I don’t know what ‘toshing’ means, nor what doing it to a swede entails, but, conscious of the Young Farmers’ penchant for double entendres, I think it might be best to leave off asking until Bo and Seth are out of earshot.

  Beside the food van is a large barn. Once we’re done with the hot dogs, the boys want to see inside. It’s organised like an IKEA store, with a clockwise circular route marked out. Instead of flat-packed living spaces on show, however, there are rows of trestle tables laden with cakes, arts and crafts, and other assorted output from club nights across the county.

  The boys sprint off, disappearing through the barn door marked EXIT.

  I wait for them at the entrance. Within two minutes, they have completed a full surveillance of the place. Through gulps of delight, Seth conveys that he would like his face painted, while Bo is excited at having seen a group of supermen. He insists on the plural. It’s definitely supermen, he says. ‘And them is dancing.’

  In the far corner of the barn, hedged in behind a wide semicircle of plastic chairs filled with camera-pointing relatives, there is indeed a troupe of dancing superheroes. To a thumping techno beat, eight of Erwood Juniors’ best are racing towards the climax of their dance competition set. They kick their legs and jab the sky, flip over in cartwheels and then, as the music reaches its climax, they charge towards the audience and leap on top of one another in a choreographed heap.

  The music stops, the audience claps and Bo removes his hands from over his eyes.

  Next up is Talgarth Juniors, an all-girl ensemble decked out in purple gym dresses and waving fluffy pompoms. They spring out onto the dance floor to a speeded-up version of ‘M
ickey’.

  Bo and Seth are rapt. I sit them on two plastic chairs and ask a responsible-looking lady on the end of the row if she could possibly keep an eye on them for a few minutes. No problem, she says. ‘I’ll be back in five,’ I tell the boys. ‘Don’t move.’

  The barn is busy with families and kids. An announcer is reading out competition times over the loudspeaker system. Groups of teenagers mill around in huddles, joking with one another and checking their phones.

  Spotting an exhibit free of people, I wander over. A sign reveals it to be the Minutes Book Competition. Fourteen Black ’n’ Red notebooks, A4-size and hard-covered, are lined up along a lengthy trestle table. A judge has ranked them, a speech card clipped to the front page revealing their score and overall ranking. First place goes to Troedrhiwdalar. Second to Sennybridge. Llanigon is tied equal in eleventh.

  I pick up Llanigon’s minute book to read the scrawled comments on the judge’s note more closely. The adjudicator finds room to praise the write-up for the annual general meeting, which is rated as ‘well-written’, but the club’s failure to provide updated accounts (‘as per the rules’) has earned them a major black mark.

  I open the minute book at random, turning up the entry for 14 October. Lauren’s rounded script covers the lined page. The entry is brief and bureaucratic. Written at the top is the name of the chairman, the date of the club night and the number of members present (thirty-one). Six numbered points follow:

  1) Apologies: There were no apologies.

  2) Minutes: The minutes of the last meeting were read, signed and dated as a true and accurate record.

  3) Matters arising: There were no matters arising.

  4) Correspondence: Members discussed the Brecknock YFC Harvest Festival. It was decided that Owen Watkins and Beth Jones would attend at Brynbont Chapel, Pontfaen on Sunday 20th October.

  5) Business: Members discussed what they would like to do at the next club meeting and it was decided that Owen Watkins would teach members how to make sheep halters out of string.

  6) Any other business: There was no other business.

  The entry finishes with the time of the meeting’s closure and the scheduled date of the next club night. Swirling across the bottom of the page in a blue pen is the aforementioned chairman’s florid signature: Johnny Davis.

  A similar laconic style characterises the remainder of the book, stiff sentences charting the club’s year from the Christmas bingo and Halloween party through to the creative arts day in Llangynidr and the percussion class by Brecon’s samba band. Each merits a single line under ‘business’.

  The only entry to run to more than one page relates to today’s rally. It dates back a month or so and contains a list of names clumped into batches. Each batch is linked to a specific activity, which is capitalised and underlined in the left-hand margin.

  The activities fall into one of three broad categories. There’s the Agricultural, which covers the likes of Stock Judging, Wool-rolling, Setting a Stack Box, All Terrain Vehicle Driving, ‘Junior Agri Challenge’ and the ‘Poultry Challenge’. There’s the Physical, which ranges from Mountain Bike Racing and Woodwork through to the Wheelbarrow Obstacle and the Pedal Tractor Course. And, thirdly, there’s what might ambitiously be defined as the Theatrical, which is made up of the Heroes Challenge, Dressing Up, The Voice, the Bake Off and the Senior Taste Bud Challenge. Toshing does not appear to be included.

  Responsibility for the annual rally rotates among the different clubs. It will be Llanigon’s turn to act as hosts next year. A few weeks ago I talked over the prospect with Woko, who is already getting excited. The plan is to hold it at Dany-Comin, Johnny’s farm. Plenty to sort out, he mused ruefully. They’ll need to wash down the barns, scrub out the sheds, arrange the parking, organise the toilet facilities, book the band. ‘It’ll be all hands to the deck.’

  The rally marks the year’s pinnacle, the Young Farmers’ equivalent of the World Championships. For months, the clubs have been contending in one-off tournaments, but Rally Day is when the majority of competition points are on offer and so their performance today typically decides which club is crowned County Champions.

  I return to the boys, who remain gripped by the dancing.

  Troedrhiwdalar is now up, another all-girl team, this time dressed in silver-sequinned bodices and streaked in red war paint. I thank the lady for keeping an eye on them, and suggest to the boys that we move on. They are reluctant to leave. Then three words sound out over the loudspeaker – ‘pedal tractor competition’ – and they’re done with the dancing.

  We ask for directions from a man at the help desk, who points us to a patch of yard along the far outside wall of the barn. The race circuit is marked out by training-ground cones. It is oval-shaped, the main straight running to about fifty yards before hurtling into a sharp bend.

  Competitors are already queuing behind the start line. I recognise a tall boy from Llanigon. He is up second. We cheer him on but his knees knock against the bonnet of the toy tractor, significantly reducing his pedalling power. I fear Llanigon won’t be carrying the cup home tonight.

  Once all the competitors have had their turn, the timekeeper lets Bo and Seth have a go. Clipboard and whistle in hand, he counts them down. ‘Three, two, one …’ They massacre the cones and career through a puddle, but cross the line elated. The timekeeper reads off their respective scores from his stopwatch. Seth finished marginally ahead, at thirty-two seconds. Bo clocks thirty-four and claims victory on the grounds that his number is greater.

  Euphoric from their race, they prove amenable to checking out the wool-rolling, which is taking place in a marquee located on a patch of grazing land next to the farmyard. The field also contains a candy-floss stall, a craft tent and a bouncy castle, all of which we can return to later I tell the boys.

  The wool-rolling competition is already under way when we arrive. The marquee is divided into two, with chairs and spectators occupying one half, and pens and sheep the other. A circular wooden platform stands in the middle of the room about two feet off the ground. In the centre of the platform is a curtained cubicle, out of which a series of bewildered-looking ewes will be periodically thrust into the custody of a series of brawny-looking men wielding electronic shearing clippers.

  Sitting behind a flimsy desk close to the action is a white-haired gentleman holding a microphone. In a strong Radnorshire drawl, he reads out the name of the next competitor from a sheet on the table. ‘Next up is Gwilym, from Pontfaen.’

  A boy of about fourteen steps forward from the crowd. He is dressed in a green jumpsuit with a black-and-yellow trim and a John Deere logo affixed to the breast pocket. He looks a little lost inside it, as though his tangled teenage limbs remain a novelty to him.

  ‘And we’re away,’ the commentator says, as a sheep emerges from the cubicle and the shearer grips the animal between his knees. ‘There, up the neck he goes now. Shearing that awkward first shoulder, the most difficult part of the sheep.’

  Bo and Seth look on, fascinated by the ewe’s gradual denuding.

  ‘Right down over the sheep now, one, two, three, short blows there, and then onto the long blow, right from the hip bone to the top of the head. And away he goes, round that last shoulder now.’

  As the first shearer nears the end, another sheep is shoved out onto the boards and a second shearer gets to work. All the while, Gwilym is standing on the floor below the platform, waiting patiently for the first fleece to slip off the ewe.

  When it does, he springs into action.

  The expert’s commentary begins to take on a more instructive tone. ‘Wrinkle that one up, get any dirt off that’s not wanted.’ Concentration writ across his face, Gwilym pulls rapidly at the fleece, gathering the loose clumps of clean belly wool into a small pile. ‘Now he’ll be watching for the bits around the neck.’ The teenage competitor wraps up the fleece as though it were a sleeping bag, scrunching it tight at the tail end and then folding it in on itself. ‘Very good, h
e’s rolling that sheep round in the classic Bowen style.’

  With the fleece now bundled up against his chest, Gwilym steps away from the platform and moves towards a wide metal table that runs lengthways beside the commentator’s desk. The table’s surface ripples with a succession of horizontal, stainless-steel rolling pins, which are spaced out at two-inch intervals. Positioning himself at the head of the table, he briefly eyes its length, picturing his next action as a golfer might seek to envision the flight of his pending shot.

  A vote of confidence sounds over the loudspeaker. ‘It looks like he knows what he’s doing, this young man. Let’s see how he does.’

  His fingers gripping hard to the tail end of the fleece, Gwilym throws his hands forward in a sudden, explosive motion that sends the sheep’s ex-winter jacket unfurling through the air. It lands flat and uncrumpled, a woolly picnic rug covering the width of the table. Over the side flop four stumpy leg-warmers.

  ‘Bingo, that’s pretty good,’ the commentator cries. ‘Bit of wrinkle off the side, but that’s not too bad at all. Now then, he’s away.’

  Suddenly, everything is happening very fast. Gwilym is frantically folding in the outer parts of the fleece so he can start rolling it, while over his shoulder the second shearer is nearing the end, manoeuvring the ewe around on her hindquarters as he passes the clippers over her back legs.

  ‘Get it rolled up, there, turn the sides in real well. This second shearer now, he’s coming down that far side. Three more blows and she’ll be down the porthole again. Tuck it in at the neck there, Gwilym. Tidy job. Now give it a pull, that’s it, good neck on it. Nice roll, well done. And he’s straight on to the next fleece and we’re in business again …’

  The process repeats itself, the commentator’s delivery growing increasingly staccato as the clock ticks on. Gwilym wrinkles up the fleece, dashes across to the table and unfurls it in haste, causing it to land less neatly than the first time. Quickly straightening it, he begins rolling it into a tight sleeping-bag coil.