‘Now and again,’ said Ernie slowly. ‘Ah’ve seen ’em, and others has, who live up here. Just like you said.’
‘Really?’ The lad’s eyes brightened. ‘Then I wasn’t dreaming?’
‘No, you saw a chariot race,’ said Ernie. ‘They used to ’ave ’em along this road – there’s a slope just a bit further along. T’spectators used to stand there and cheer. They did ’ave four horses, sometimes six, yoked up in their chariot races, but two as a rule, in war and in normal manœuvres …’
‘But who are they?’
‘The Romans,’ said Ernie with all seriousness. ‘This is a Roman road, tha knows.’
The lad looked horrified. ‘You’re joking?’
‘No,’ said Ernie, lifting a Ministry of Works leaflet from a shelf and passing it to him. ‘It’s my job to tend it. You saw t’chariot race. Ah’ve seen it and so have others, but nobody talks about it.’
‘But I don’t believe in ghosts …’
‘Me neither,’ said Ernie. ‘At least, not till I saw yon race.’
‘If I tell my mates about this, they’ll think I’m crackers,’ said the youth, now laughing with the relief that came from the fact that someone did believe him. ‘I mean, ghosts don’t exist, do they? They can’t … But those chariots? Surely it would be some local lads doing it for a laugh? I mean, I heard the noise, the rattling, the horses panting, the cheering, I saw the men cursing and whipping their horses … I had to dive out of their way …’
‘You ’ave a look in t’soft bits of ground between them stones out there and try and find t’wheel marks,’ challenged Ernie. We all knew there would be none.
Ernie’s account of the chariot race was identical with that of the lad, whose name was Ian Jarvis, and he told it in a most practical manner. He said the race usually heralded a time of peril for England – they’d appeared in 1805 before Nelson’s death at Trafalgar. They’d also appeared before each of the two world wars – and shortly after Ian’s sighting, a Labour government was elected! By the time Ernie had finished his story, Ian Jarvis accepted he had seen a Roman chariot race, but he did not try to understand how or why.
I gave him a lift into Brantsford, and he now seemed fully recovered; he caught a bus back to Malton.
Several weeks later, I learned he had invited Ernie on a train ride from Malton to the Brontë country, which Ernie had always wanted to visit. They were two men who had shared a curious experience – or was it merely a dream? No one talks of the chariots any more, but I often wonder whether they still race across Wheeldale Moor at the crack of dawn.
On another occasion, I had to deal with a lengthman who cared for a stretch of modern moorland road. His name was Rodney James Featherstonehaugh, and he had been the Aidensfield roadman for some twenty years. During my time there, he was nearing retirement, and although others of his kind were being detailed to work in road gangs, Rodney was left alone to end his career around the village he loved. And he did a good job. He was responsible for the lanes around Aidensfield, Elsinby, Briggsby, Ploatby, Waindale, Lairsbeck, Maddleskirk and Crampton. He worked completely alone, although he was answerable to some distant and anonymous boss in the local Highways Department.
I was never sure how Rodney received his instructions or list of duties for the week, or whether any of his superiors ever came to visit him or inspect his work. But his work was immaculate. Without supervision, Rodney kept our lanes and byways in a state of near perfection. He gritted and sanded them in winter, dug out snow drifts or cleared gutters; he weeded the edges, trimmed the verges, clipped overgrown hedges and made sure all the road signs were maintained in a clean and legible state. Nothing seemed to be too much trouble. He was at his best during the winter, when he had an uncanny knack of anticipating frost and snow. Then he would be out at dawn, digging a route through the drifts or scattering salt on the icy stretches which caused the most difficulties.
The snag with a man like Rodney is that no one really appreciates him until he’s gone. When he retired, he was missed – in fact, with oceans of goodwill, he would sometimes turn out in his own time, merely to clear a drain or salt a hill which was causing problems. He was that sort of man. His work was his life, and he loved the roads for which he had cared for so long. He knew every inch of them, their history, their weak points, the places liable to frost pockets or flooding. In short, Rodney was irreplaceable.
When he retired, no one took his place. The villages, through private individuals and formal representations by the parish councils, appealed for a replacement, but their pleas were ignored. The council said its team of highway operatives would maintain the roads with just the same care and to the same standard, but of course they could not and did not. Floods developed, drains were blocked, weeds grew apace, the verges thrived until they obstructed corners and blocked views. Rodney had made his mark on our locality.
I came across him quite frequently during my patrols, and I would always stop for a chat. We had a good understanding of one another’s duties and areas of responsibility, and if I spotted something which needed his attention, such as a pot hole, damage to a direction sign or the emergence of a spring through the middle of the road, I would inform Rodney and he would do something about it. Similarly, if he knew there were to be roadworks in the area, such as occurred when laying a new surface or digging up a road to lay water mains or telephone lines, he would tell me. I felt that between us we provided a useful public service.
Rodney was very recognizable, even at a great distance. At times, I parked on some of our loftier ridges and saw his dark figure busy with his brush and shovel some miles down the dale. For some reason, he always wore black, which was surprisingly visible in daylight; he had a long black coat, like an army greatcoat, which he wore both summer and winter. His headgear was like a baseball player’s cap, and in winter he wore black leather leggings over his stout and studded leather boots.
He pushed a council barrow around too. It was on two wheels, as the dustcarts of our cities used to be, and was really a dustbin on a pair of old car wheels. I think he had made it himself. He used it to contain the rubbish he collected, and it carried his tools – his huge, stiff brush, the shovel, a rod for clearing drains, a hammer and other essentials.
It was some time before I realized what he looked like beneath all that gear. Once I saw him in the Hopbind Inn at Elsinby, and it was a while before I realized that the swarthy, smart man at the bar was Rodney. Like his clothing, he was dark. He had a head of rich black hair with just a hint of grey; his eyebrows were black too, and so were his eyes. He had a black moustache and was swarthy and dark skinned, not through a suntan but through his ancestors. I sometimes wondered if he had gypsy blood in his veins, or whether some of his ancestors came from Spain or Italy.
I liked him. I found him totally honest and reliable, meticulous in his work and always good-humoured and willing in both his private and professional duties. Oddly enough, I never did discover whether he was married or had a family, for he never spoke about his home interests.
But of all the facets of Rodney Featherstonehaugh, the one which most intrigued me was his devotion to time-keeping.
From time to time when I was on patrol, I would see him sitting in the hedge bottom or in the entrance to a field, with his wheeled dustbin on hand, and on such occasions I would stop for a chat. In time I realized that these occasions were his official breaks. He started work at 7.30, with a ten-minute ‘’lowance’ break mid-morning, a dinner break of half an hour at noon and a tea break of ten minutes during the afternoon, before finishing at 4.30 p.m. When I realized that these were his break time, I avoided chatting to him then – after all, a man is entitled to some time free from the cares of office – and I tried to talk to him when he was actually on his feet and going about his daily routine. He did not mind such interruptions, but I felt he should have some privacy. My own job had taught me the value of a meal which is uninterrupted by public demands.
Through regularly p
atrolling those self-same lanes, I became accustomed to Rodney’s break times. I began to realize that when he was sweeping the grit of winter from the roads, to gather it and replace it in nice heaps by the roadside, he would take his first break at 10 a.m., with dinner at noon and his tea break at 2.30 p.m., all being serviced from the flasks, sandwiches, cakes and fruit he carried with him.
Then one bright and sunny June morning, at 9.30 a.m., I noticed him sitting in the entrance to a field just beyond Crampton Lane End. It was a junction where the lane from Crampton emerged onto the busier Malton to Ashfordly road. The road sloped quite steeply down to that junction, and Rodney’s chosen gateway was right on the corner. It gave him long views along the road and up the hill. I could see him for some time before I arrived. His bin was nearby as usual, but this was half an hour earlier than his normal time and, knowing Rodney’s meticulous time-keeping, I wondered if something was wrong. Maybe he was ill?
I drew up and parked, then clambered out to meet him.
‘Morning, Rodney,’ I greeted him. ‘All right?’
‘Aye, Mr Rhea.’ He was munching a piece of fruitcake and had a flask of coffee at his side. ‘It’s ’lowance time.’
‘You’re early,’ I said. ‘I thought you might be ill.’
‘Nay, Ah’m fine. They’ve changed my times.’
I presumed ‘they’ were the council.
‘Oh, well, I won’t trouble you …’
‘We’ve changed areas,’ he added, as if in explanation. ‘Ah was under Ashfordly, now Ah’m under Brantsford, so they’ve changed my ’lowance time. Half-nine instead of ten.’
‘But does it really matter?’ I asked in all innocence.
‘Aye, well, if they say half-nine, then half-nine it is. Ah mean, it is a bit early, if you ask me, but, well, Ah’m not in a position to argue.’
‘No,’ I smiled. ‘We must all do as we’re told, Rodney. Well, I must be off. I’m meeting the sergeant at Ashfordly, and I’d better not keep him waiting.’
‘It’s a nuisance, all this chopping and changing,’ he grumbled as I prepared to leave. ‘Ah can’t see why they must keep on changing. Progress is all right so long as it doesn’t change anything. That’s how Ah sees it.’
I could sympathize with him. I have a theory that council managers and their white-collar staff, including their counterparts in other public bodies, regularly reorganize things in order to keep themselves in a job. Much work is generated by any reorganization, and at times it means that more staff are recruited to cope with the increase in paperwork. Reorganizations are wonderful job-creation schemes, even if they never achieve an improvement in efficiency or cost.
‘You’ll be on half-nine ’lowance for a while then?’
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘And here, for all this week. I’m on this length, cutting hedges, trimming verges, guttering and the like.’
‘I’ll see you around then!’ I smiled and drove away.
Sure enough, for the next couple of days, he was sitting in that same gateway from precisely 9.30 a.m. until 9.40 a.m.
And then, on the Thursday, I had an awful shock. I was on an early patrol, having started at 6 a.m., and my own breakfast break was scheduled for 10 a.m. at my own police house in Aidensfield. But a few minutes after 9.30 a.m. I received a radio call from Control to the effect that a lorry had run off the road and had gone through the hedge into a field at Crampton Lane End. There were injuries; an ambulance had been called, and a man who lived in a cottage at the lane end had witnessed the accident. He’d called the police with the news that somebody had been hurt. There were no further details. Switching on my blue light, I dashed to the scene. As I approached, I found myself worrying about Rodney. He had his break at Crampton Lane End at half past nine, and I knew the gateway was directly in the line of a runaway lorry … I pressed the accelerator.
I was relieved when I could not see his wheeled dustbin, but as I parked and hurried to the crashed lorry, I realized it had run away down the hill, over the verge and then through the very gateway that Rodney occupied. And it must have gone through as near 9.30 a.m. as made no difference. So where was he?
The lorry had run into the field beyond, then nose-dived into a hollow; its load of rubble had not shifted, but the driver was trapped in his cab. I found him groaning in agony; his leg appeared to be trapped somewhere near the foot pedals. He was alone. Jim Lewis from the cottage was on hand and helped me give comfort to the driver. I radioed for the fire brigade, saying we would need cutting gear, and in the busy time which followed, I forgot about Rodney. He was nowhere to be seen. In time, we released the driver and rushed him off to hospital with a suspected broken leg, chest injuries and concussion, then a breakdown truck was contacted to remove the damaged lorry.
I now had an accident report to compile, and my day would be fully occupied. I gave no further thought to Rodney’s near-brush with death until I had to fill in the accident report later that day. I was working in the office which is attached to the police house, using my faithful little typewriter. In the space for ‘Time of Accident’, I wrote ‘9.30 a.m.’, the time given to me by Jim Lewis. He was sure about that – he’d tuned into the radio news just as the lorry crashed. As I entered the time, I wondered where Rodney had got to. But even as I worked, there was a knock on the office door. I opened it to find Rodney standing there, accompanied by his faithful bin.
‘Oh, hello, Rodney. Come in.’
‘Nay, Ah shan’t stay, Mr Rhea. Ah just wondered if Ah could ask a favour.’
‘Of course. What is it?’
‘That wagon this morning, it went through yon gateway …’
‘And I was very worried that you could have been injured,’ I said. ‘It went right through that gate you’ve been using – and spot on half past nine too!’
‘Aye, Ah know, but, you see, Mr Rhea, Ah didn’t have my ’lowance till ten this morning. I wasn’t there when she crashed.’
‘You could have been killed if you had been there!’ I cried.
‘Aye, t’reason Ah came was, well, if anybody from t’council asks, Ah’d not want ’em to know Ah took my ’lowance break late.’
‘I can’t imagine anybody checking on that, Rodney!’
‘Well, you never can tell, Mr Rhea. Ah mean, Ah’m supposed to take ’lowance at half-nine, not ten. And today Ah didn’t. Ah took it late, you see … contrary to instructions.’
‘And saved your own life in the process, eh?’ I smiled.
‘But you will back me up, won’t you?’
‘Of course I will, Rodney. If anybody asks, I’ll say you were in that next gateway, eh? At half past nine.’
‘Aye,’ he relaxed now. ‘Thanks, Ah’ll say t’ same.’
‘As a matter of interest, Rodney, why did you take a late ’lowance?’
‘My old cart got a flat tyre. I took her to t’garage to get it fixed and took my ’lowance there, while they fixed it. It took me half an hour to get there, you see …’
‘I see,’ I smiled. ‘Never fear, Rodney, your secret is safe with me.’
And off he went, very pleased at his own piece of subterfuge. I don’t think he realized he owed his life to that flat tyre, but I did wonder what went through his mind each day as he worried about his unseen bosses. If I knew them, they wouldn’t know of his existence. Poor old Rodney, he was a slave to his own conscience, a lovely chap.
3 ‘Sup That!’
Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.
J.H. Payne (1791–1852)
One aspect of rural life which continues to fascinate me is the wealth of differing styles in the cottages and houses found in most small villages. In some cases, they are in very isolated locations. They represent the entire range of social classes and aspirations, but in a village community most of their owners live happily together. Millionaires and professional people live next door to labourers and lorry-drivers. You cannot reproduce that social mix
in modern housing estates – they tend to be limited to people of one kind or class, and the houses are all too similar.
Most of us know of stockbrokers’ ghettos, professional parades, executive avenues and council towerblocks, but these communities lack the character of a true village whose community spirit has matured over centuries. I believe that in modern times no one is capable of designing or constructing a genuine village with all its charm, benefits and close-knit atmosphere. A village needs time to mature; it must evolve over many generations and contain many generations. A true village is a splendid place in which to live and bring up one’s children.
So far as the houses are concerned, the lack of planning control in times past has produced a fascinating mixture of good and bad, of ugly and beautiful, of large and small. At one end of the scale, there is the grandeur of the Big House where His Lordship or the squire used to live (and in many cases continues to live), and at the other there is the rustic simplicity of tiny cottages which serve the basic needs of their occupants. Between these extremes is a range of other homes, sometimes in terraces, sometimes semi-detached, but very frequently standing alone in a much-loved piece of well-tended ground. All are rich in contrast and full of interest.
Perhaps that is over-simplifying the position, especially as it affects the moorland and dales around Aidensfield. For example, the word ‘hall’ can indicate something as massive as Castle Howard, which achieved fame as ‘Brideshead’ on television, or it could refer to a small farm deep in the hills. One famous hall on the edge of my beat had a cricket field on the lawn where the Yorkshire first team would sometimes play. In direct contrast, I have visited halls which were smaller than a semi-detached house.
Similarly, the name ‘castle’ appears in the names of some houses. Danby Castle in Eskdale is a small working farm, although in Henry VIII’s time it was a castle. Indeed, one of his wives, Catherine Parr, lived here. There are other occupied homes around the moors which bear the suffix ‘castle’ and are very handsome and well-maintained; these are not open to the public because they are private houses. Of several Bumper Castles, one is a farm, while another is a pub. Slingsby Castle, for example, is not a true castle. It is a fine example of an Elizabethan type of house, although it dates from the time of Charles II. Now in ruins, it was never completed and has never been occupied – but it is massive and imposing, even though it was built for a dwarf, Sir Charles Cavendish. He was clearly a little man with big ideas.
Constable among the Heather Page 4