The Yorkshire Shepherdess

by Amanda Owen

  As for Clive, the best present I’ve ever got him was a cattle crush. It may not sound so exciting, but it was a present that was long overdue as the old cattle crush was not in good shape. A crush is a metal contraption that the cow walks into, then you trap its head, a gate closes behind it and it’s held in position while you give it an injection, a wormer dose or put an ear tag in, in other words whatever you need to do to it that it would probably not let you do if it wasn’t restrained.

  We had the world’s worst crush, it had probably been used to restrain prehistoric oxen. Honestly, it was an antique. There was no solid floor in it, the cow would run into it and stand quiet for a moment and then run off, wearing the crush like some sort of medieval instrument of torture. Watching a demented cow running around a farmyard trying to shake off a crush would be funny if you weren’t the one who had to catch and calm the animal. So coming up to Christmas a few years ago I went online and bought Clive a state-of-the-art cattle crush. It’s wonderful: the cow walks in and traps its own head, and you can keep well out of the way. It means that handling the younger, wilder cattle is much safer for us, and them.

  Clive’s also had a quad-bike trailer and a space heater for presents: a bit tricky wrapping them up, but if it’s the thought that counts I was certainly thinking about what would make his (and my) life easier and better.

  He’s just the same, he buys me practical presents like a wheelbarrow. One year I got a foal. Now he reckons he’s cracked the whole present thing: he bought me a vintage charm bracelet, and every birthday or Christmas he just has to buy another charm.

  For some inexplicable reason, our neighbours and friends thought the christening was symbolic: they believed it meant that our family at Ravenseat was complete and that Sidney was the last of the line. We never actually said that, nor did we think it. But it was generally assumed that my child-bearing had reached an end.

  They were wrong, because within a couple of months of the christening, number seven was on the way.

  In the meantime, there was the usual round of problems to deal with, the worst being a real scare over Violet. I’d noticed that she was off colour, a bit poorly, but thought she was maybe just starting with a cold. It was Mother’s Day 2013, a beautiful, cold, bright day, and snow was falling softly. Violet stayed very quiet by my side all day and had a nap on the sofa mid afternoon while the others went out to build snowmen. Sadly, Clive’s mother had died a few days earlier, and I was busy baking a very big fruit cake for her funeral so I was in the kitchen for much of the day.

  It wasn’t until about 7 p.m., as Clive was getting Violet ready for bed, that he saw her feet had swollen to almost twice their normal size and were purple, and she had a dark purple rash all over her lower body. He was horrified and shouted for me to come and take a look. I took her temperature and she had a fever. Nothing was said, but we both thought the same thing: it looked like meningitis.

  We both panicked, and I rang the out-of-hours doctor service immediately. The doctor went through a set of questions with me, including asking me whether the rash disappeared when I rolled a glass over it. It didn’t. This is the classic test for meningitis, and a bad sign.

  I was told an ambulance and paramedic were on the way. I told the ambulance service that they wouldn’t get up our road in the snow, and we had the usual argument about it, them asking for a postcode and me telling them that although the road wasn’t blocked with snow it wasn’t passable without a four-wheel drive. Finally they agreed I should meet the ambulance at Keld.

  Clive was trying hard not to let the other children see how worried he was, but there was no fooling them: some were crying, while Sidney just looked confused. I wrapped Violet in a duvet and laid her across the front bench seat of the Land Rover, grabbed some money and a phone, and set off as fast as I dared. Our timings were perfect: as I reached Keld, the ambulance rounded the corner. I carried Vi across the road and laid her on the stretcher.

  While they made her comfortable, the paramedic gave her a strong dose of antibiotics. It was now a full-scale emergency, and they decided that as a police helicopter was already in the area they would airlift her to James Cooke Hospital in Middlesbrough.

  ‘Where’s the nearest flat field with no power lines?’ one of them asked.

  ‘Thwaite,’ I said, knowing that the air ambulance had recently landed there.

  ‘You know you won’t be able to come on the helicopter, don’t you?’

  Because I was clearly pregnant it was against the rules for me to be taken with her on the helicopter, something about air pressure making it dangerous. I wasn’t happy, but I wasn’t going to kick up a fuss if it meant getting Violet the urgent treatment that she needed.

  We set off for Thwaite, downhill for a couple of miles, and then we stopped, the lights of a helicopter hovering above. The crew were on their radios talking to the pilot. It was clear the weather was causing problems. The powdery snow on the ground was being picked up in a vortex, whirling around and hampering his vision. This, coupled with the total blackness, meant that landing was impossible, it was just too dangerous. Instead we were going to the Friarage at Northallerton by road. Violet was restless and tried to pull at the drip line in the back of her hand while I was being very sick in the back of the ambulance. I’m not normally travel sick but the speed we were travelling meant that the vehicle was swaying from side to side. When we finally pulled up at A & E we were told there was no paediatric cover, so the ambulance had to carry on to Middlesbrough.

  It was 11 p.m. when we finally reached the hospital. More antibiotics were given and blood samples were taken. The general consensus was that it wasn’t meningitis, she wasn’t really ill enough. But they had to err on the side of caution until they were sure. The medics suspected it was HSP (Henloch-Schonlein Purpura), a rare children’s illness, which starts with similar symptoms to meningitis but is not usually as serious. It causes vasculitis, the inflammation of blood vessels, which is what results in the purple rash. It’s most common in children, but occasionally occurs in adults and it can, in some cases, cause serious joint inflammation and damage to kidneys. Violet was lucky not to have it this badly.

  The following morning we were given the news that Violet did indeed have HSP, and I needed to keep a close eye on her and check her urine regularly to make sure she hadn’t got kidney damage, but there was no need to stay in hospital. I rang Clive to tell him the good news and set off on the epic journey home. Clive set about finding a babysitter and agreed to meet me at Richmond.

  It was snowing in Middlesborough, and we didn’t have coats, so I wrapped Violet in the Postman Pat duvet and carried her in my arms as by now she only had one shoe: she must have lost the other en route to the hospital. We caught a bus to the centre of Middlesbrough, then another bus to Northallerton, and then another one to Richmond, where we sat on the steps under the clock in the town square. Any passers-by would have thought we were down on our luck: a pregnant woman with a one-shoed child wrapped in a duvet. I’m surprised people weren’t throwing me their change. Luckily, we didn’t have long to wait before Clive showed up.

  I cannot express the elation I felt as we drove back over our cattle grid and looked down on to Ravenseat. The sun was setting, the snow so white and perfect and undisturbed: Ravenseat was as I had left it nearly twenty-four hours before. It seemed like nothing had happened. Violet was going to be fine, and in that single moment I felt so fortunate to live in such a timeless and beautiful place.

  The feeling of calm and reflection didn’t last long. After getting everyone settled down and the little ones to bed, I went into the kitchen to inspect the fruit cake that I had left cooling on a rack the previous day. I lifted the foil off tentatively, and underneath was my perfectly risen super-size cake. I guessed that as it looked so good it would taste pretty fine, so I was feeling pleased with myself. But as I turned the cake round I realized that it must taste incredibly good, because someone had found it irresistible. Not only had they tri
ed it, but they had eaten a substantial lump, and then tried to cover their tracks by putting the crusty top bit back. Nobody knew who the culprit was, nobody owned up. I was faced with a dilemma: start again or try to rescue it. I didn’t fancy the first option, it was a miracle that I’d managed to bake the darn thing in the first place. I decided that copious icing was the answer, so I trowelled it on and finished it off by sticking a large flower on the top. Clive went off to the funeral with strict instructions about where to cut into it, and no one was any the wiser.

  Violet recovered well, and there have been no after-effects, thankfully. So many of my children have had to go to hospital for one thing or another, but I guess that’s just family life. When Raven was eight she had to spend a week in the Friarage with psoriasis, having special emollient baths and dressings. I went every other day to spend time with her, and when she was discharged I had to take her back twice a week for light treatment. The treatment took one and a half minutes under a high-powered UV light, and the drive each way was two hours. She was treated for three months, and her skin cleared up beautifully, so it was worth it. She hasn’t had it since.

  Sometimes, no matter how hard I try to be well organized, I still make mistakes, and I did so one evening when I had an appointment at the doctor’s surgery over at Hawes. I set off and was about a mile from home when I casually glanced at the fuel gauge on the Land Rover: it was hovering at just above empty. Most of the gauges on the dashboard gave up the ghost years ago, so I never really pay attention to them. I’m quite used to not knowing how far I’ve been or how fast I’m going. After all, you’re never going to break the speed limit in a Land Rover.

  Never mind, I thought. There’s a garage at Hawes, I’ll get diesel there.

  I was running late and wanted to avoid the wrath of the doctor, so went to the surgery before the garage. Then, when I went to fill up, I discovered the garage had closed early. That happens round here: on dark, cold winter afternoons, if there’s no trade, businesses shut up shop early.

  Cursing, I set off back, out of Hawes, and was climbing uphill onto Stags Fell when the fuel warning light came on. I wasn’t sure that I was going to be able to travel the thirteen miles or so back to Ravenseat, and I didn’t relish the thought of walking. Then I cast my mind back to my contract shepherding days, when I was often short of cash and to save fuel I would freewheel from the top of Orton Scar down into Crosby Ravensworth. All I needed to do was round the corner at the top of Banty Hill and then it was all downhill into Thwaite – that would get me a bit closer to home. I knocked the Land Rover out of gear and flicked the ignition off. The engine died, the instrument panel dimmed, as did the road in front of me as the headlights went off. I was still OK: I could pick out the road with the sidelights. I was halfway down the hill, at a point where the gradient becomes a lot steeper, when I put my foot on the brake. Nothing, not a flicker. I didn’t have long before a very tight bend at the bottom so I made a grab for the ignition to get the engine back on. It refused to fire up. I pulled at the wheel to get myself better lined up to take the corner but it was nearly impossible to steer. I was panicking, thinking I was staring death in the face, careering downhill at speed with no brakes and dodgy steering, thinking about the wall and then the drop at the side of the road, thinking about my unborn baby, thinking about Clive, and all the children, really convinced that it was curtains.

  My brain was racing to think of ways I could safely stop the runaway Land Rover. What would happen if I pulled the hand-brake on, would the wheels lock up? It was just before the bottom corner that the engine fired and I got the Land Rover round the bend, albeit faster than usual. I can’t put my relief into words. I crawled home after that, not my usual confident self. As for the diesel: I probably had enough anyway, as the gauge on the Land Rover is very crude. But it would have been better, by far, to have been stranded with an empty tank than to have risked that awful, death-defying drive. That’s one thing I will never do again.

  Annas was born a couple of weeks early, on 3 July 2013. I’d gone after tea to collect our stray sheep. Our neighbour Raymond had been gathering the moor, and he’d left the strays in the pens at Beck Meetings. By going later it meant that the other farmers had been and collected their strays, and ours were the only ones left, so I simply had to back the trailer up, open the door and shoo them in.

  I brought them back and put them in the garth, and Clive and I decided we’d clip them the next day. We hadn’t really made a start on clipping, as the weather had been awful, and the sheep are better with their wool on in bad conditions. I got the children into bed, and then went to bed myself about 10 p.m., but I couldn’t settle. I felt quite restless, I tossed and turned and then got up. Everything was deathly quiet, everyone apart from me was fast asleep. I was looking for a sign that labour was about to start, but there was none. I got back into bed, my hands on my belly, trying to feel the baby.

  Is the baby moving? I wondered. I remembered from having Sidney that when they go quiet it can mean they are ready to come. Then, just after midnight, I woke Clive.

  ‘I think it’s time to go,’ I said.

  ‘Right, I’ll mek tea, thoo ring for t’ambulance,’ he said.

  He was very calm, he’s used to it by now. On the phone I had to answer the usual questions about how far apart my contractions were coming:

  ‘I’m not actually having contractions.’

  ‘Well, you’re not in labour until contractions start.’

  ‘Trust me on this one.’ Then I asked, ‘What’d ’appen if I just stayed ’ere and had t’baby? I’s likely gonna ’ave it afore I get to t’hospital anyways.’

  Clive was nodding, bless him. He’s always been quite happy to wave me off in an ambulance, but he was quite prepared for me to stay home. After all, it would save him a trip to pick me up . . .

  ‘No, the ambulance will come for you. We can’t send a midwife, you’ve got to come to hospital,’ she said. ‘Now stay on the line.’

  I can’t talk for forty minutes to someone I know, let alone to someone I haven’t a clue about. I handed the phone to Clive and went to get myself ready.

  ‘Don’t let your wife out of your sight, make sure she’s lying down and you have lots of clean towels,’ the woman said.

  ‘She’s gone to put some washing on and she’s searching for her lipstick,’ Clive said.

  The ambulance control woman asked him if he was worried about me having the baby before they got to me.

  ‘Nope, I’s a farmer,’ he said. I was proud of him.

  Meanwhile, the children slept soundly through, unawares. All that fresh air means that they sleep very deeply.

  It was the local ambulance that arrived forty minutes later, and I was escorted to my seat by Steve again, who had been with me for Reuben and Edith. His heart must have sunk when he heard the address he was heading for.

  ‘What’s your baby count so far, how many have you delivered?’ I asked.

  ‘Five, but two were born before I got there,’ he said. So one of those was Reuben, and one of those he delivered was Edith. He was expecting the worst.

  ‘We’re not gonna get there, are we?’ he said.

  ‘Nay, I don’t think so.’

  We headed off into the dark and the mist. It was a new ambulance driver, who was a bit unsure of our road. I could tell where we were each time we hit a cattle grid, but by the second one, just past our road end, I said to Steve, ‘I think I need to lie down.’

  He told the driver to slow down. We got as far as Keld, about three miles from home, and then had to make an emergency stop, as the baby was coming. In the dark I had no idea where we were, but we had actually pulled up outside Hope House, my friend Elenor’s house. The next day when I spoke to her she said, ‘Fancy, being woken up in the early hours by the blue lights of an ambulance outside my window.’

  So when this baby is bigger, I won’t have far to take her to show her the spot where she was born. I’ve taken both Edith and Sidney back
to see the lay-bys where they came into this world. I suspect that plenty of babies are made in lay-bys, but not many actually arrive in them. When I visit the registrar to register the children’s births I have to take a road atlas so that the correct road number can be put on the birth certificate.

  Annas was an easy birth. There were no contractions, my waters broke and seconds later there was a baby, a little girl. As usual, I had no idea until the birth whether it would be a boy or a girl. There was no nursery to paint in either blue or pink, no new clothes required, other than a packet of nappies. I had everything I needed: girl or boy, it just didn’t matter.

  The journey wasn’t the most comfortable and I was glad when we arrived at the hospital, me now with a seven-pound baby girl and a serious crick in my neck from lying in such an awkward position, once again trying not to drop the baby or roll off the bed. I suppose that in the scheme of things I don’t come off too badly if the only after-effect of giving birth is a cricked neck.

  They wheeled me up to the labour ward and the midwife greeted me: ‘You again.’

  It was the same midwife who had delivered Violet, which was good because I felt vindicated: she knew I was telling the truth about the rapid delivery, not just being blase about it. I stayed at the Friarage for the compulsory six hours and by this time Clive had recruited my friend Rachel to look after the other children. I do wish they would let me stay at home, it would make so much more sense and save everyone a lot of trouble.

  Of course, the question I am always asked is: ‘Will there be any more?’ I’m not ruling it out and I’m not ruling it in. I was only thirty-eight when Annas was born and I don’t feel so long in the tooth yet. When people ask I just say, ‘Farmers, they don’t like running things geld,’ or ‘There’s ten seats in t’Land Rover,’ or ‘Bloody bad TV reception.’

  Clive says, ‘I only ’ave to pass ’er on’t stairs an’ she’s in t’family way.’

  People sometimes suggest that having so many children limits what we can do in life. They point out that we can’t go to the pub or on holiday, but we are genuinely not bothered about doing these things anyway. We get such pleasure out of the children and take a pride in bringing them up in a free and natural way. We believe that you can do anything if you want it enough.