The Yorkshire Shepherdess

by Amanda Owen

  The big stone dairy is wonderful: I now use it as a pantry and a storeroom for all the supplies I have to keep in for the winter. It has stone shelves, which would have been used to keep the milk cool before the days of fridges, cheese shelves, and hooks for hanging meat and game.

  In the kitchen there used to be a white Rayburn – well, it had been white once upon a time. There had been so many spillages baked on to the enamel it was impossible to get them off. It ran off bottled gas, which scared me, and it had a very nasty habit. Every so often the pilot light would blow out, everything would go deathly quiet, and a few minutes later the bottom door would blow off with a huge bang, travelling at high speed right across the kitchen. It was a momentous day when that contraption was removed, and replaced with a new one that runs off kerosene.

  It has taken a good while to get the house the way we want it. Things happen slowly here, because there’s so much work to do on a day-to-day basis and time is at a premium. It’s also true that, given a choice between being outside shepherding or being inside painting a room, then there is no contest. Outside every time.

  The most ambitious work on the house took place during the summer of 2009 when I was pregnant with my fifth child. We had to move out and live in a caravan while the whole of the front of the house was taken down and rebuilt. Over the centuries, the relentless, driving rain from the west had penetrated the exterior wall, causing the whole front wall to belly outwards, and rotting the upstairs floor beams. In fact, the porch was all that was preventing the entire collapse of the front wall. If you looked at the house square on from the front then it seemed fine, but from the side it too looked pregnant, bowing outwards in a frightening way.

  The weather up here is so fierce that the lifespan of the wooden sash windows is only a few years: no matter how much you paint them, they rot. The wind whistles through them, and in an attempt to stop the draughts I roll up towels and place them between the upper and lower panes, only for them to blow off. You can see where the house used to have mullions, and it still has its small ‘fire window’ that lets light into what was the inglenook fireplace.

  An architectural historian showed me the original wattle and daub foundations, and all these factors, on top of the fact that it’s a listed building, meant that the job of repairing it had to be done meticulously, with every stone carefully numbered and replaced in its original position.

  I knew that we would have to move out of the house while the work was being done, so when I saw a beautiful big blue and chrome caravan advertised in the paper I decided to buy it. It was flashy, and I realized it must be a gypsy caravan because there was no toilet inside: gypsies consider it unsanitary to have a toilet in a caravan. It didn’t matter to us because we had a toilet in the yard. The caravan was at a scrap-dealer’s yard at Morecambe and I arranged to pick it up, as I was planning on parking it out of the weather at the back of the building at Ravenseat until it was needed. I am used to towing trailers, but this caravan was exceptionally wide as well as long so Clive was specific in his instructions as to how I should tow it home: do not go on the motorway, do not exceed 40 mph and give yourself plenty of room past parked cars. I told him in no uncertain terms to shove off and returned home later in the day with one large caravan in one piece, after driving down the motorway at more than 40 mph. I pulled up into the farmyard and Clive came to admire our new acquisition.

  ‘Great, tha’s done well to get tha’ back in ya piece. Now you ga an’ get tea gaan, and I’ll put it in t’building.’

  Off I went, but before I had reached the kitchen door there was a nasty crunching sound. Clive had backed the caravan right into his sheepdog Bill’s kennel, and the back fascia and light were cracked and hanging off. Needless to say a heated exchange, with a wealth of adjectives, followed.

  The work on the house took ages. It was supposed to be six weeks, but it was nearly ten before it was finished. By this time the fun of living cramped up together in a caravan had worn distinctly thin. Special experts in ancient and listed buildings had to advise on the whole renovation process.

  ‘Have you thought of planting a forest to the west side of the farmhouse to act as a windbreak and stop the weather hitting the house?’ one of them asked.

  Clive was indignant. ‘You cannae grow trees up ’ere: just tek a look round an’ count the number of trees thoo can see. Besides, ’ow can we plant a forest of fully grown, mature trees to stop t’house collapsing when it’s already falling down?’

  Luckily, the work, including these consultants, didn’t cost us anything: the estate footed the bill.

  While the builders were in we decided we wanted a traditional range in the living room, in place of the tiled monstrosity that was there. So when the work was underway I set about looking for one. There is an antique shop that I drive past every time I visit Hawes, and I knew the owner, Ian, had a big working black range in the cellar of his shop. I decided that he would be a good person to ask.

  ‘Aye, I’ve just gotten one, it’s in pieces in t’outbuilding. I’ll get it all fished out an’ yer can come back an’ ’ave a look-see,’ he said.

  Clive came with me and we were confronted with an array of pieces of cast iron, propped up against a wall. It was difficult to imagine what it would look like when put back together. It had belonged to a drover at Hawes auction known as Lal’ Ed (Little Ed), because he was small with a hunched back. He used to drive the animals into the pens on auction days, a local character, everyone knew him. He’d recently died, his house had been sold and the new owners did not want the old range.

  Clive took a bit of persuading. He wasn’t convinced that the pile of rusty-looking iron could ever look the part, but I liked the fact that it had a stone sooker (that’s a local word for the bit at the top that sits over the open fire, forming the flue and sucking the smoke up the chimney). By Victorian times the sooker was made from metal, so I knew this was a really old example. The stone had been daubed with thick chocolate-brown paint over more layers of green paint. It was a lengthy job removing it, two whole days with a steam cleaner and a scraper, but eventually the flakes of paint came away to reveal the beautiful, intricately shaped stone.

  We bought the range knowing that we needed two things: a bloody big hole to put it in, and somebody who understood it, who could get all the flues working for us. I didn’t want it to be just decorative: I wanted it to work.

  The first problem was easily solved. When the builders took the plasterboard off in the living room, they found a huge inglenook behind, just the right size for the range. Ian, the antique shop owner, gave us the number of a retired chap who in his youth had worked with open fire ranges, and taken many out as people replaced them with newer electric and gas fires. He came up to Ravenseat and worked with our builders in an advisory capacity, keeping a beady eye on proceedings as it was slowly reassembled. Garbed in his bib and brace overalls, he would park himself up on a stool with a mug of tea doling out instructions. Every so often he would get on his hands and knees, look up the chimney, move some stones a fraction of an inch and then sit down again, pondering and sizing up where everything should go. It was a precision job and needed someone who knew exactly what he was doing. He frequently became exasperated with the young builders who weren’t happy with the fine tuning needed to make this contraption fully functional.

  The range has an oven and a boiler, and an open fire which I have burning every day of the year, even in summer. Reckan hooks are suspended from the bar above and can be used to hang a cooking pot or girdle over the fire and there’s a sliding rack on the grate for a kettle. If we look after the fire properly it never goes out. It’s a bit like the Olympic torch: an eternal flame. It heats all the hot water for the house and dries all the washing on the flake. Whenever there’s a storm I tour round in the Land Rover, loading up branches that have blown down. My quest for firewood knows no limits, there is no branch too big for me to pick up. The children keep an eye out for wood while on the move and any s
hout of, ‘Muuuuuuuuum, I can see some woooooood,’ signals an emergency stop.

  I like to remind the children that the wood will warm them up twice, once when chopping it into manageable logs for the fire, and again when they’re lying in front of the hearth. It is Reuben’s job every morning to stoke the fire, rekindling the glowing embers, while Miles fills up the coal bucket and log box. They know, from past experience, that no fire equals no hot water, equals cold shower. Now they never forget: that’s how they learn.

  Once the work was done on the house it was lovely to settle back in, and I’ve been collecting antiques and bits and pieces that fit the age of the place ever since. I’ve got my goose pot, and a girdle for making oat cakes and drop scones, and of course the range is great for making bread. These jobs are more suited to the winter months when I have a little more time, and it makes more sense to be self-sufficient when getting to the shops is sometimes impossible.

  I want Ravenseat to be homely, a warm, comfortable place where the children can be happy and relaxed, a place where it isn’t the end of the earth if muddy terriers stretch out in front of the fire, or pet lambs are allowed to curl up by the hearth. There is nothing fancy about the place, though I do like to cover the walls with paintings and prints that relate to us and resonate with the place’s history. Recently, when looking through the window of a gift shop in Reeth, I saw a print that I knew needed to be on the wall at Ravenseat.

  We had an old neighbour, Tot (short for Christopher), who farmed at Smithy Holme, two farms away from us. The farmhouse had been abandoned after his mother died, and Totty, who had just a small flock of sheep, had farmed the land and lived in a caravan. I loved talking to him: he remembered life in the Dales so far back. He was very fond of his mother, and he never married.

  Eventually he went to live in sheltered housing at Gunnerside further down the dale, but still kept his handful of sheep. I’d see him almost every day across in his fields pulling thistles or repairing the walls. I would sometimes visit him in his little bungalow next to the school. We and other neighbours would lend a hand at certain times of the year when his sheep needed clipping or if he needed a pet lamb to mother on to a yow.

  When he became ill he was taken into the Friarage Hospital, and I went to visit him. All he wanted was to go back to Smithy Holme. We knew, and I’m sure he knew, too, that he’d never get there again, so me, Clive and the kids went there, gathered up his sheep and made a film on the iPad. I saw him in hospital a few days before he died, and showed him the video. He was quite lucid and he loved seeing his old home. He was naming all the sheep and telling me stories from way back.

  Clive was a pallbearer at his funeral, and that morning the children and I picked flowers from the meadows – lady’s mantle, marsh marigolds and wood cranesbill – and tied them together into a small bouquet. At the funeral people commented, ‘Them’s some o’ t’bonniest flowers ’ere.’

  A few months after his death I was in Reeth waiting for the garage to repair the Land Rover and had a bit of time to kill. I walked onto the village green and, glancing through the window of the gift shop, saw a picture I recognized. It’s of Tot’s mother, sitting by a black range, with a sheepdog pup at her feet. I’d seen the picture hanging on the wall at Totty’s house. I bought it straight away. In years to come the memory of who the lady in the picture is, or even where she is sitting, will have faded, but we know. It may not be at Smithy Holme, but it’s at Ravenseat, the next best place for it.

  10

  Our Little Flower

  I am, as you’ve gathered by now, a regular at the Friarage Hospital, and not just because all my babies have been taken there, wherever I’ve given birth. We’ve had a few other medical problems that have required trips there. One that puzzled the doctors (but not me) was when Edith caught orf when she was a baby, still in nappies.

  Orf is a skin disease that sheep can catch, sometimes called scabby mouth because that’s what they get. It’s a virus, and you can vaccinate against it, but even after vaccination it still happens occasionally and there’s not much you can do but let it run its course. You treat the lambs and their mothers (who sometimes gets the scabs on their teats from the lambs’ mouths) to stop the scabs becoming infected. The pet lambs, the ones we hand-rear, are more susceptible because they share the feeding teats and pass it on to each other and they don’t have the same immunity a mother’s milk passes on.

  It looks terrible, but it’s not really harmful. There are various remedies that people suggest – spraying it with vinegar, giving the lambs zinc supplements – but nothing I’ve tried works. I hate it, it stinks.

  It’s what’s known as a zoonotic virus, because it can be passed to humans, and when you are dealing with pet lambs you have to keep your hands very clean. I wear surgical gloves. I’ve had orf and Raven has had it: just the odd pustule on our hands. They hurt a bit and look pretty unpleasant but eventually they disappear.

  I was bathing Edith one night when I noticed a little warty thing on her bottom. I ignored it but the next day it was bigger, and alarm bells started ringing. I said to Clive, ‘There’s summat on Edith’s bum.’

  It looked suspiciously like orf, but I was trying to play it down. Unfortunately, he agreed.

  ‘Looks like poor lal’ bugger’s got orf.’

  I must have given it to her off my hand when I changed her nappy. I was hoping it would shrink away of its own accord, but when it didn’t I took her to the doctor.

  ‘She’s getten orf,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, it’s orf,’ said the doctor. ‘But I’ve never seen a case of it there.’

  Our GP practice is a rural one, used to the problems of farmers. I told her my theory, that I had likely passed it on to her when I changed her nappy. She gave me some cream, told me to keep it clean, and said it would run its course, which was what I already suspected.

  Keeping it clean inside a nappy wasn’t easy and no matter how much cream I slathered on it kept on growing, getting bigger and bigger. I remember having her in the backpack on a warm day in June when I’d been selling bullocks at Penrith auction. All the while I could smell the awful orf smell that I was so familiar with from the pet lambs.

  Back we went to the doctor, who said the orf was infected and Edith had a temperature, so we were sent straight to the hospital.

  ‘Right, well, we’ll run some tests to see what exactly this is,’ the paediatrician said.

  ‘It’s orf,’ I said flatly.

  Edith was put on an antibiotic drip, and we were put into an isolation unit, Edith in a medical cot bed and me on a fold-down bed. Nobody was allowed in or out without good reason, and the staff who came in wore plastic suits.

  ‘We’ll have a result soon, we’ll soon know what it is,’ one of the nurses told me.

  ‘It’s orf,’ I said.

  We had an endless stream of medical professionals and even a medical photographer.

  ‘My God, what is that?’ they all said when they saw it.

  I gave the same answer: ‘Honestly, it’s orf. Sheep ger’it.’

  I told everyone who would listen that it was orf and that it was a common sheep ailment. Nobody actually contradicted me, but clearly they weren’t about to accept my diagnosis. In the meantime, the thing on her bottom grew ever bigger and the doctors began treatment with antiviral drugs. We were in isolation for about a week until eventually we were given the diagnosis ‘ecthyma contagiosum’. Which is the medical term for orf in human beings . . .

  It didn’t make any difference that we had the official name, there was no new treatment. Like I said, orf just has to run its course. I was a bit relieved to know this: it means that when I leave my sheep to get on with it I’m not depriving them of a cure, because there isn’t one.

  Eventually, the big growth began to shrink, probably of its own accord, and we were allowed to go home. I had to take Edith back for check-ups, and weeks later the medical photographer came back to take a picture of her perfect, blemish-free littl
e bum. I expect she’s in some obscure medical book somewhere.

  The upside for Edith is that she can be around the pet lambs as much as she likes: she’ll never get orf again.

  It was while I was taking her backwards and forwards for check-ups at the hospital that I had two customers for cream teas who looked a little bit out of the ordinary. It was late afternoon, and a big, executive-type car came up the road, and two men in immaculate suits got out.

  Uh-oh, these guys is lookin’ official, I hope I’m not in some sort of trouble, I thought. We have farm inspections, hygiene inspections, animal assurance inspections . . . you name it, someone inspects us for it.

  The men ordered cream teas, and I got chatting with them. It turned out that the one with the really expensive suit had flown in to Manchester Airport from Chicago, and the other one, who met him at the airport, had promised him a trip to the Yorkshire Dales and a traditional cream tea. They were brokering a deal to supply cutting-edge technology to hospitals to combat hospital infections: it was at the time when there was a lot in the news about MRSA and other hospital bugs.

  I told him of my limited experience with viruses and bugs, and all about our recent orf incident. He wrote down my address and a couple of weeks later I received a large parcel full of special dressings, antibacterial wipes, hand sanitizers and disinfectant sprays. I’ve still got some of it.

  It was so kind and such a coincidence that I met them at that time.

  Just a few months later, I was back at the Friarage. Violet was born twenty-one months after Edith, and she is the holder of a record in this family that still stands to this day: she’s the only natural birth I’ve had in hospital (Raven was in hospital, but she was a C-section). She was born in May 2010, and it was half-term so Raven and Reuben were home from school. We’d had a busy day: we’d decided to take the quad bike and trailer and go stick-picking. This means we pick up all the sticks and move anything else that will stop the grass growing in the fields where we make hay, and move anything that will knacker our hay baler. Or, I should say, knacker it any more than it already is.