An’ away he went about his business. Well, she were that frightened. She’d allus been such a gatless mawther, that she didn’t so much as know how to spin, an’ what were she to dew tomorrer, with no one to come nigh to help her? She sat down on a stool in the kitchen, an’ lork! how she did cry!
Howsivir, all on a sudden she hard a sort o’ knockin’ low down on the door. She upped and oped it, an’ what should she see but a small little black thing with a long tail. That looked up at her right kewrious, an’ that said:
“What are yew cryin’ for?”
“What’s that to yew?” says she.
“Niver yew mind,” that said. “But tell me what you’re a cryin’ for?”
“That oon’t dew me noo good if I dew,” says she.
“You doon’t know that,” that said, an’ twirled that’s tail round.
“Well,” says she, “that oon’t dew no harm, if that doon’t dew no good,” and she upped an’ she told about the pies an’ the skeins an’ everything.
“This is what I’ll do,” says the little black thing. “I’ll come to yar winder iv’ry mornin’ an’ take the flax an’ bring it spun at night.”
“What’s your pay?” says she.
That looked out o’ the corners o’ that’s eyes an’ said: “I’ll give you three guesses every night to guess my name, an’ if you hain’t guessed it afore the month’s up, yew shall be mine.”
Well, she thowt she’d be sure to guess that’s name afore the month was up. “All right,” says she, “I agree.”
“All right,” says that, an’ lork! how that twirled that’s tail!
Well, the next day, har husband he took har into the room, an’ there was the flax an’ the day’s vittles.
“Now there’s the flax,” says he, “an’ if that ain’t spun up this night off goo yar hid!” An’ then he went out an’ locked the door.
He’d hardly gone, when there was a knockin’ agin the winder. She upped and she oped it, an’ there sure enough was the little oo’d thing a settin’ on the ledge.
“Where’s the flax?” says he.
“Here te be,” says she. And she gonned it to him.
Well, come the evenin’, a knockin’ come agin to the winder. She upped and she oped it and there was the little oo’d thing with five skeins of flax on his arm.
“Here to be,” says he, and he gonned it to her. “Now what’s my name?” says he.
“What, is that Bill?” says she.
“Noo, that ain’t,” says he. An’ he twirled his tail.
“Well, is that Ned?” says she.
“Noo, that ain’t,” says he. An’ he twirled his tail.
“Well, is that Mark?” says she.
“Noo, that ain’t,” says he. And he twirled harder, an’ awa’ he flew.
Well, har husband he come in, there was the five skeins riddy for him. “I see I shan’t hev for to kill you to-night, me dare,” says he. “Yew’ll hev yar vittles and yar flax in the monin’,” says he, an’ awa’ he goes.
Well, ivery day the flax and the vittles, they was brought, an’ ivery day that there little black impet used to come mornins and evenins. An’ all the day the mawther she set a tryin’ fur to think o’ names to say to it when te come at night. But she niver hit on the right one. An’ as that got to-warts the ind o’ the month, the impet that began to look soo maliceful, an’ that twirled that’s tail faster an’ faster each time she gave a guess.
At last te come to the last day but one. The impet that come along o’ the five skeins an’ that said:
“What, hain’t yew got my name yet?”
“Is that Nicodemus?” says she.
“Noo, t’ain’t,” that says.
“Is that Sammle?” says she.
“Noo, t’ain’t,” that says.
“A-well, is that Methusalem?” says she.
“Noo, t’ain’t that norther,” he says.
Then that looks at her with that’s eyes like a cool o’ fire, an’ that says: “Woman, there’s only tomorrer night, and then yar’ll be mine!” An’ away that flew.
Well, she felt that horrud. Howsomediver, she hard the King a comin’ along the passage. In he came, an’ when he see the five skeins, he says, says he:
“Well my dare,” says he, “I don’t see but what you’ll ha’ your skeins riddy tomorrer night as well, an’ as I reckon I shan’t ha’ to kill you, I’ll ha’ supper in here tonight.” So they brought supper, an’ another stool for him, and down the tew they set.
Well, he hadn’t eat but a mouthful or so, when he stops an’ begins to laugh.
“What is it?” says she.
“A-why,” says he, “I was out a huntin’ to-day, an’ I got awa’ to a place in the wood I’d never seen afore. An’ there was an’ ol’ chalk pit. An’ I heerd a sort o’ a hummin’, kind o’. So I got off my hobby, and went right quiet to the pit, an’ I looked down. Well, what should be there but the funniest little black thing yew iver set eyes on. An’ what was that dewin’ on, but that had a little spinnin’ wheel, an’ that were spinnin’ wonnerful fast, an’ twirlin’ that’s tail. An’ as that span that sang:
“Nimmy nimmy not
My name’s Tom Tit Tot.”
Well, when the mawther heerd this, she fared as if she could ha’ jumped outer her skin for joy, but she didn’t say a word.
Next day, that there little thing looked soo maliceful when he come for the flax. An’ when night come, she heerd that a knockin’ agin the winder panes. She oped the winder, an’ that came right in on the ledge. That were grinnin’ from are to are, an’ Oo! that’s tail were twirlin’ round that fast!
“What’s my name?” that says, as that gonned har the skeins.
“Is that Solomon?” she says, pretendin’ to be afeared.
“Noo, t’ain’t,” that says, an’ that come fudder into the room.
“Well, is that Zebedee?” says she again.
“Noo, t’ain’t,” says the impet. An’ then that laughed an’ twirled that’s tail till yew cou’n’t hardly see it.
“Take time, woman,” that says; “next guess an’ you’ll be mine.” An’ that stretched out that’s black hands at her.
Well, she backed a step or two, an’ she looked at it, and then she laughed out, and says she, a pointin’ of her finger at it,
“Nimmy nimmy not,
Yar name’s Tom Tit Tot!”
Well, when that hard her, that shruck awful, an’ awa’ that flew into the dark, an’ she niver saw it noo more.
Robert Munro · aged twenty-five · schoolmaster
Did I always want to teach? Although I didn’t know it—yes. It was one of those odd things. I started off to be a quantity surveyor, becoming a trainee when I was 17½. I had five O-levels—fantastic! But after a year at this I was in a complete mental vacuum—don’t ask me why. I thought, what am I doing . . .? What am I doing! Nothing. That Saturday morning, for all this happened literally “one day,” I spent with the old village schoolmaster. We had coffee in his kitchen and he said, “Boy, I’ve never mentioned it before, but aren’t you ready for teaching?” And I said, “God, I think I am!” That’s how it started. There and then. So I got a place at a teachers’ training college near by and started on an art course. I never enjoyed the college, it was just a means to an end. No one was encouraged to be anything there. Dead, all dead. All the same, I managed to become the best male practical teacher on the course. I think it was because the stars were in the right place or something. I did a study of boats for my course—I love boats. I did some sculpture and some design but I wasn’t terribly good at these things. The art course stimulated me, woke me up, but taught me little in itself. It was because the college had acquired a stigma for me, so that anything to do with it seemed bad—a bind. But I’d got my qualifications and now I could do what I had always wanted to do, which was to live in Suffolk.
I didn’t belong to Suffolk. I came here because I had a kind of dream of it when I was twenty.
I am an only child and I knew that I had to go somewhere. I had to leave home, but not for London. So where? Well, when I was twenty I suddenly found this very old British Railways Guide with a photograph of Southwold in it—Southwold lighthouse. I remember thinking to myself, “I don’t know. . . .” Then I read Julian Tennyson’s Suffolk Scene—wonderful. I bought an old car and I remember driving away from my parents’ house and thinking, “I’m off to Suffolk.” I had never been away on my own before and now I was taking things into my own hands. When I got to Walberswick I saw Southwold across the River Blyth. I drove down to Aldeburgh, somehow not wanting to get there too quickly. I was thinking, it may be all wrong, then what will I do? I talked to a fisherman at Aldeburgh and took his photograph. Then I went to Southwold and pitched my tent. It was nearly dark. The next day I drove round the town and by the sea, and I thought, “Two more years teacher-training and this is where I’ll come—Suffolk. This is where I will live.” The following year, my father gave me a fairly ancient caravan for my twenty-first birthday and I spent the summer holidays in it at Southwold with Buster my dog. I photographed boats, sketched and talked to the people. I was feeling my way into Suffolk. The strange thing is that I had this tremendous sense of affinity with the place. There was no question about teaching anywhere else. This was it. Suffolk pulled me.
You have to apply to an Education authority for a job when you are still at college and I applied to the East Suffolk authority. All the other students were thinking of exotic places like Birmingham and Coventry. “Everything’s happening there,” they said. “It’s all happening—it’s on the scene”—and all that kind of talk. “It is bright, boy.” They looked at me oddly when I told them that I had applied to Suffolk. I was lucky and was offered jobs all over Suffolk—the stars were with me again. I arrived two years ago to teach in the big Primary just outside Akenfield and I am settled. I will move eventually, but not from Suffolk. Because of this hold.
I’ve got a twenty-two-footer caravan now and the farmer lets me live in it behind his barn. It has a coke stove and a calor gas cooker and is very pleasant. It has a bedroom, a lounge and a little kitchen. It is easy to keep clean, easy to heat. I found the idea of going into a modern house very boring. Modern houses are sterile. The caravan needs ingenuity all the time. I can never understand people who pay all this money for convenience. Convenience has become a drug to them. Easy this, easy that. If I could afford it I would buy a boat and live on that. It would need even more ingenuity to do this. I was terribly lonely at the start but I told myself, “This is good for you. It won’t last for ever, so bear it. It will be good in the end.” And it is turning out this way. I mean that, without being smug, I now have the existence which I designed for myself years ago. Fair enough. Essentially, it has been marvellous.
I like teaching but what I’d really like to do would be to make documentary films about East Anglia for regional television. They need some of these every day on both channels of the local news. At the moment, the level is very poor. I think that of all my ambitions, the greatest is to make good country documentary. It is not an entirely hopeless ambition. I would like to be a Hugh Barrett * kind of chap. I would still be teaching but I would be a personality.
Hugh Hambling · aged thirty · schoolmaster
I am really a foreigner. I come from Norfolk. I got married when I was twenty and the only reason I am in Akenfield now is that there was a cottage here at the right price then, if you know what I mean. We didn’t move here at once because I was still a student, although from the very beginning Mary and I thought that this is how we should live. Or try to. We are village people two generations town-removed. Town for us would have been an estate and a biggish rent; village, a cottage and a car at the same price. That was the basic choice. Apart from this advantage, it was hard to decide when we first came here why we did it. We sat in these little rooms and didn’t know quite what we felt. We have got almost an acre of orchard. The grass is so high and the trees so bent that it isn’t much really. But it meant something when I was twenty-three to plunge into it and shout, “My trees!” It was marvellous—it still is at times. I’ve never felt possessive about anything else, except the orchard. I notice that the village men have the same kind of possessiveness about their gardens. They don’t garden competitively like suburban men but in a claiming way, like lovers. I hardly touch our garden and I think they find this cold.
I talk to people whenever I can. I am very unguarded. You’ve only to put a few pennies into some chaps and you get some wonderfully unexpected talk. But it has to be the right moment. In Suffolk you won’t get a thing back if you choose the wrong moment. They won’t talk politics in the pub. Their attitude is puritan in such matters. Politics to them is a kind of necessary function which stinks. They stare straight back into Wilson’s eyes on the pub telly with that hard blue gaze of theirs, and God knows what they are thinking! They have a passion for telling you what they used to do and not what they are doing now. What they used to do always seems more important to them, so you get old Charlie going on about being R.S.M. in India. They hate to forget a scrap of the past. It is all hoarded up and, if they live long enough, some of the ordinary things that have happened to them this week will end up as epics. Experiences have to turn into tales, and this process takes a long time. If passion or emotion is the criterion of involvement, then the village men never seem to have been involved. They can’t get very heated about anything. They show a lot of indignation when they have been let down. They tell everybody and demand sympathy. It strikes me that they always keep personal relationships fundamentally simple. As long as they can “get on” with somebody, that is enough. “He gets on with everybody,” they say, and it is a great compliment. They are so private. They talk about beet, holidays and telly, never about personal hopes or worries. And there is sport, of course—but sport-talk is a kind of sport in itself, with the speakers obeying the rules. They will pass and re-pass football opinions although you can often see that the subject bores them stiff. I chat to everybody in the pub and my wife to anyone she happens to meet on the bus, but we often feel that we are doing all the talking. Mary feels cut off from the central life of the village although she doesn’t want to be. We both know that however long we stay we shall never be as near to them as they are near to each other. It is a pity. When I return from studying in London or teaching in Ipswich, it is this small cottage I come home to, not Akenfield. I have no sense of community and the people who live next door aren’t real neighbours. I wish they were. The man works on a farm and his wife helped Mary when she was pregnant, and we liked her very much. After the baby was born she just “withdrew”—that is the only word for it. Mrs. Ford, our neighbour, is about forty but looks much older. Her wedding photo shows the perfect English country girl—marvellous. So many of the village women change in this way—a quick switch from prettiness to shapeless comfort—that the men look as if they had married their mothers when they are about forty-five. Men treat one another’s wives with extreme respect and call them “Ma’am.”
My own life isn’t at all impaired by what one might call “village restriction” but I’m beginning to wonder if it is all that good for the children. We have four and it is obvious that they need more than fresh air. The local children are a pretty slow lot. They mature early, physically not mentally. The boys are often men at thirteen and as strong as little oxen. The town children mature in a more subtle way. I teach in a co-ed secondary modern school in Ipswich. There are about a thousand children and they nearly all come from the new estates. They like the idea of being town children; they think it is better, although they come from a kind of no-man’s-land of concrete and official grass. Most of them have to make quite a journey to get into the town or country proper. They’re rough but bright.
I’m on the committee of the local film society—and here we come to that old business about so-called village culture. Most of the cultural life of the village—of all villages—takes place collect
ively in Ipswich. People used to go to a talk or social once or twice a year in the village hall, now they’re likely to attend some society or club in Ipswich once or twice a month. Or more. They like to belong to things. There is hardly a death notice in the local paper which doesn’t tell you that so-and-so was a life-long member of the bellringers or the W.I., or the Traction Engine Society—usually half a dozen things. A good half of the membership of all the Ipswich music, art and scientific societies are village people. It’s easy transport, of course. They all have transport now; it has changed everything.
And talking of joining, there’s this Civil Defence lark and all these old major-this and wing-commander-thats. My wife and I joined for a bit, I don’t quite know why. Certainly not to set an example. I wouldn’t want to set an example to anybody. But there we were, with this ginger-freckled major, building toys on the table with bits of stick and stones. “That,” they say—you should hear their voices—“is a mark 2 field kitchen. It will be easy to make after the bomb because there are bound to be lots of loose bricks around. . . .” These C.D.s—they’re all so worried about each other, that is what we noticed. About who is important, who counts. We sat around and they rapped away at us. We didn’t count. You could see our major often wasn’t thinking about the Bomb; he was thinking, “Bloody pansy hair . . . look at them!” He had a ballpoint pen which he continually dropped on its press-stud between his fingers, making it jump like a nerve.
I was in the army. It’s no good, I can’t take this type any more. I try and see it their way, but I can’t. I see them—scores of them—when I’m on Ipswich station, on the way to London to do this film course. They’re all upright and the rest of us look floppier than ever because of it. “Oh-ho!” they shout when they see somebody they know, somebody who counts. You should hear them, it’s fantastic! A charade. They all do it—Oh-ho! The neat minds and the big gestures. I sit on a bench and watch because it’s all wonderfully mad, wonderfully English. Big black shoes, umbrellas, the Telegraph and Oh-ho! The smile just right, not too little and not too much. It kills me. They are doing all this for me, showing me their Important Things. In the village where they live they are just a small scrap of the pattern: On Ipswich Station they can see a reassuring bit of the full design. So oh-ho!
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