No Way But Gentlenesse

by Richard Hines

  Out of the wind and well away from the noise of the film crew, I crouched behind a stone wall holding the young kestrel firmly in my hands. I’d been worried about her developing fret marks through fear, and here I was tilting poor Freeman from side to side, deliberately making her call out in alarm, ‘kikiki . . . kikiki . . . kikiki’. Crouched beside me, the sound recordist was holding a microphone, recording her cries. I understood he needed to do his job, but after a few alarm calls I insisted on returning the frightened young kestrel to the cardboard box.

  David Bradley, the boy who played Billy Casper in the film, was small for a fourteen-year-old. With his short hair and fringe, he looked like the waif and stray I’d imagined Billy to be when reading Barry’s novel. I have a photograph from that summer of 1968 in which David has the young kestrel Willis on his glove. I’m standing beside him hiding a piece of meat in my hand, ready to take over should the hawk begin to bate. In the photograph the top of David’s head barely reaches my shoulder, and over his head and behind him is the brick-fronted air raid shelter mews in Barry’s garden. The wooden laths I’d fixed into the sawn-out window in the door were still intact, but the coat of paint I’d put on three years earlier, in 1965, is peeling and rain and damp have creased and curled the piece of plywood that I’d nailed across the top of the door to strengthen it. The terrible state of the mews door embarrasses me, but my neglect went much further than not repainting the door. I should have worked out how to fix an extra door, so I could close the first door behind me, before opening the second. But I didn’t and paid dearly for my carelessness.

  A few days before the three young hawks’ feathers would be fully grown, I plucked and cut up their food and put it in my falconry bag; then, after carefully opening the door of the mews a few inches, I eased my way in sideways. To my horror Hardy – the hawk also known as Yellow Cere – flew straight at me, eyes staring wildly, and in a blur of flapping wings she was up and over my shoulder through the gap at the top of the door. Distraught and fuming at my stupidity for not fitting an extra door, shuffling sideways I eased my way back out of the mews and closed the door.

  I couldn’t see the young kestrel anywhere – not in the garden or perched on the house, nor at any of the neighbours’. Running up the drive, I stared wildly at walls, fences, bushes, trees and the rooftops of the houses opposite, then I ran back down the garden and through the gate into the fields. As I wandered the stubble fields and meadows the sense of loss was added to by the futility of my search, by the senselessness of it. For if I did see her, I wouldn’t be able to capture her and bring her back. She was untrained and completely wild. I was nothing to her, I had no hold over her, I couldn’t call her name, call her to the glove, call her to the lure. She didn’t yet associate any of these actions with food, and so she was lost, irretrievable. Yet I continued to wander the fields desperately looking for her, reminding myself that when she’d escaped her jesses were hanging loose. Unlike T. H. White’s doomed goshawk, she had no leash trailing behind, but still she was unable to fend for herself and so would probably die of starvation. And that was entirely my responsibility.

  I was in despair. I hadn’t even started training the hawks and I’d already lost one, nor had I any idea where I could find a replacement, as the other young kestrels that Keith had left in the nest would have fledged. A few days later I heard that Towser’s younger brother, Chris, was rearing a young kestrel. There still might be unfledged kestrels in the nest he had taken his from, I thought, so I headed over to Chris’s house. As I walked along the street where he lived he appeared around the corner of a house with his kestrel on his fist. Seeing its feathers were fully grown, I knew this hawk’s nest mates would have fledged the nest weeks ago. I stroked the breast feathers of Chris’s kestrel with my finger as I told him my woes. Chris listened sympathetically, and then with amazing generosity said I could have his kestrel as a replacement for the lost Hardy. Later that day, he released her into the mews to join Freeman and Willis and so she became the second Hardy. I never saw the original again.

  By now, the field of wheat had been cut and as I made my way across, towards Barry’s garden, a black flock of rooks and jackdaws rose up out of the stubble. A week or so earlier I’d walked this field at night, sneaking into the dark mews to shine a torch on Freeman and Willis to check if their feathers were still ‘in the blood’ or ‘hard penned’. On those starlit nights I was aware of the sharp stubble crunching under my boots. This morning my attention was caught by the twitter of swallows, a skylark singing, and, a couple of meadows away, the lowing of a cow.

  One of the carpenters who worked for the film’s art department had made me a long perch that stretched the length of the mews. Peering in through the wooden slats on the mews door, it was lovely to see the three kestrels perched side by side, each contentedly standing on one leg. As had become my routine, I pushed the spikes of the three block perches into the lawn, carried each kestrel out of the mews, and, one by one, let her hop from my glove on to her perch.

  Occasionally the three young hawks would ‘rouse’ – raise their feathers, shake them, then allow them to drop back into place: a sign of contentment. Other times, cocking their heads to one side, the three young hawks watched as swifts flew high in the sky above the garden. Seeing the kestrels, I was struck by how different they were. Freeman, who’d come from the nest at Tankersley Old Hall, looked like the pictures of kestrels you see in books, for she was handsome with her head in perfect proportion to her body; Willis, who’d been reared by her parents in an old crows’ nest, had a small head, large eyes and a really long, curved beak; and Hardy, who Chris had brought me, was noticeably smaller than either Freeman or Willis. Her wings drooped down by her sides, quite unlike the other two, who crossed their wing tips neatly across their backs as they perched on their blocks.

  A wild screaming hawk, hanging upside down from the glove, wouldn’t have done David or the young kestrel’s confidence any good at all. To try and prevent this from ever happening, I decided to man, train and fly the kestrels twice a day myself, to make them tame and amenable before I introduced them to David. Freeman’s training was well on its way, for she was already flying free to the glove. Willis had become hard penned a few days after Freeman, so her training had begun later and I was still flying her to the glove on the creance, but before I flew those two hawks this morning I needed to see what my new kestrel, the second Hardy, could do.

  Head lowered, tail fanned, Hardy now tugged at the raw beef held between my gloved fingers as I walked through the stubble field. To my dismay her tail feathers had ‘hunger traces’, or maybe they were ‘fret marks’ caused by stress. The location of the damage, halfway down her tail, suggested that the lack of nutrition which had temporarily thwarted feather growth had happened while she was still in the nest. Noticing small feathers from a previous meal still on her beak, I took a closer look and saw that her beak was also cracked and that the feathers had become stuck in the crack. Whatever had taken place in the nest to cause her temporary starvation or heart-racing stress, it seemed the same thing had also damaged her beak.

  Leaving the field of stubble, I walked across the meadow and tipped my glove, encouraging Hardy to hop on to the fence. As the young kestrel perched there, bits of feathers still stuck in the cracks in her beak, her wings drooping by her sides, I thought what a poor little thing she looked. I suddenly feared she might not be a good enough flyer to appear in the film.

  With Hardy still perched on the fence, I turned and walked back across the meadow. As male and female juveniles have identical plumage, I hadn’t known whether they were hes or shes, but I’d called both my Keses she. Initially I’d imagined Freeman, Hardy and Willis as males, and had only begun to call them she when I remembered that Billy Casper called his hawk a she in Barry’s novel. Whatever Chris had called Hardy – ‘he’ or ‘she’– before he’d passed her on to me, didn’t seem to matter.

  ‘Come on, Kes,’ I called. ‘Come on, girl.’<
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  And she was off the fence in an instant, flying fast and powerfully across the meadow to my raised glove, the creance trailing behind her. Delighted, on her next flight I untied the creance from her jesses and flew her free.

  Later that morning, leaving the streets of stone-built terraces, I walked past the red-brick council houses at the edge of the village. It was when these houses were being built that John and I had borrowed a ladder and carried it to Tankersley Old Hall in the moonlight. Three summers later, one of those houses was being filmed as Billy Casper’s home. Behind it there was a patch of spare land where the catering van was parked. Having flown the three hawks, as I did each morning, I was on my way to have lunch. Barry spent his days with the film crew, and now, carrying my tray from the catering van, I joined him and David Bradley at one of the trestle tables to tell them how the hawks had flown.

  After lunch, I wandered off to look at the hawk’s mews which the film’s carpenters had built on the spare land behind the garden of the house. They had used planks of wood and fitted a metal-barred window in the door. Opening the door, I saw the screen perch inside, then I looked into the shed they’d built beside the mews, which had a bench on which Billy could cut up the hawk’s meat and fasten it to the lure. Further across the spare land, the film’s carpenters had built a large, ugly shed. Inside, the film’s art director held out a can of paint he’d just mixed and asked Ken Loach if that was the shade he wanted. The shed’s interior had been made up as Billy Casper’s living room and I was surprised how realistic it looked, with its tiled coal fireplace and wallpapered chimney breast. Through the large window I could see a hedge, and beyond that a field where David Bradley would fly the kestrels. I was worried that dozens of people would pour out of the houses to watch David as he flew the hawks, distracting them and sending them off in search of their usual flying ground back on the other side of the village. But there was nothing I could do except hope.

  The day after, returning from a search for hawk food, I was walking through the stubble field with my air rifle under my arm when Barry and Ken Loach came through the gate from Barry’s garden into the field. Barry had told Ken about my worries that we might lose the hawks if David flew them in the field behind the film set, and Ken had come to see if this was a suitable alternative. He gazed across the fields, then after what seemed ages said he liked the fields, the fence posts, the telegraph poles, the pit slag heap in the distance, and said he’d film the hawk flying scenes here. I was delighted.

  NINETEEN

  The fierce and eager hawks down thrilling from the skies

  Make sundry cancelleers . . .

  – Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, poem, 1622

  For most of the hawking scenes to be shot over the summer, all three hawks would be needed. After each flight for the camera, the kestrel would be given a small reward of beef, which would eventually dull her appetite and reduce her keenness to fly. The next hawk would then be brought on, then the last one. This significantly extended the length of time the hawks could be filmed. In the completed film, of course, the flights of the hawks were edited to give the impression of a single hawk. Today, the hawks were to be filmed flying on the creance. The night before, on receiving the call sheet with the details of today’s filming schedule, I’d calculated each hawk’s food so it would be at its flying weight when today’s filming was due to begin. This morning I’d nervously carried each kestrel from the screen perch to the weighing scales on the shelf behind the mews door, and with great relief discovered that each hawk’s weight was spot on. Now each kestrel was on her block perch on the lawn, slowly flapping her wings each time I passed, showing she was keen to fly.

  Raising his glove, David called: ‘Come on, Kes.’

  Freeman launched herself off the fence. Untroubled by all the unfamiliar things around her – the camera, the boom swinger’s large grey furry microphone, the crew or the creance trailing behind her – the kestrel flew fast and low across the meadow and up on to David’s glove. David walked to the fence, let the hawk hop on to it, then walked back to the middle of the meadow and called her again. Again she flew fast and low and up on to his glove. As David walked back to the fence to give Freeman her last flight, I gave Barry a piece of beef from my falconry bag and asked him to go and fetch Hardy from her block perch in the garden.

  After Freeman’s last flight I’d unfastened the creance from her jesses and was feeding her up on my glove when Barry walked across the field with Hardy on his glove. Barry handed Hardy over to David. I handed Freeman over to Barry, then fastened the creance on to Hardy’s jesses. As David walked to the fence with Hardy on his glove Barry looked upset.

  ‘All right?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ Barry said unconvincingly.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Hardy tried to gulp down a big piece of beef. I tried to take it off her but she bated and hung upside down at the end of her jesses screaming.’

  ‘Did she swallow any meat?’ I asked, panicking.

  ‘Yeah – a great lump. After I’d managed to get her back on the glove.’

  I was so angry with Barry, he later told me I’d looked at him as if he wasn’t fit to have a hawk on his glove. It was my job to prepare the hawks for filming, and I was convinced Hardy would still be in a rage, and that, with the edge taken off her appetite, she would embarrass me on the first day of filming by refusing to fly.

  David had walked back into the middle of the meadow.

  ‘When you’re ready, David,’ Ken Loach called.

  David raised his glove.

  ‘Come on, Kes . . . Come on, girl.’

  Hardy was off the fence immediately and flying fast across the field. Barry and I looked at each other and blew out a sigh of relief. After her next flight I stayed with the camera crew and David, while Barry took Freeman back to the mews and fetched Willis for the creance flying scene.

  Standing in the middle of the field David raised his glove. ‘Come on, Kes,’ he called . . . And called . . . And called . . .

  It looked as if I was going to be embarrassed on the first day of filming after all. Large eyes bulging out of her small head, Willis prepared to launch herself into flight, but, racked by indecision, she turned and walked along the fence, stopped, prepared to fly but again, when tantalisingly close to taking off, she turned and walked back along the fence, the creance trailing behind her. And so it went on, her hesitation becoming unbearable to watch. I was about to tell David to go and pick her up, and suggest to Ken Loach that he abandon filming, when the young hawk suddenly took flight. Flying high and fast, she looked as if she would overshoot David but she braked, hovered over David’s head and flew back to the fence. David called the young kestrel again and she was just as hesitant, walking up and down the fence. When she eventually took to the air, once again she hovered over David’s head, ignoring his upheld glove. With her training appearing to have gone backwards, I decided not to fly Willis for the camera until she improved.

  The next morning I carried Willis into the field. I attached the creance to the swivel on her jesses, put the young kestrel on the fence, then walked into the middle of the field and raised my glove.

  ‘Come on, Kes.’

  She didn’t move. I called again and again, encouraging her, pleading with her, willing her to take flight. She wouldn’t, and I moved in closer, wiggling the meat around in my gloved fingers to tempt her to launch herself off the fence. She just stood there, until, overcome by frustration and fear that I wouldn’t get her trained in time, I’m embarrassed to say that I did something stupid; futile. I shouted at her. This was definitely not the gentleness that it takes to redeem a hawk, and I had to calm myself, lowering my voice back to gentle, encouraging calls before she eventually took wing and flew across the field. To my dismay, just before she reached me she slowed, rose into the air, hovered a moment, and then sheered off with the creance trailing behind her until it caught on the fence. I hauled her in, flapping around in panic. She looked be
wildered as I carried her on the glove across the field and back to the mews.

  I decided to try and make Willis tamer by bringing her into contact with more people. After spreading newspapers on the floor, I put her on a perch in Barry’s house so she’d see people from the film’s production department traipsing in and out to use the telephone. Years later, on reading a translation of D’Arcussia’s Falconry, written in 1643, I smiled to discover it had been the practice in seventeenth-century France to keep goshawks tame by placing them on a perch in the kitchen, which in those days would have been the busiest room in the house.

  I also manned Willis by walking around the village carrying the nervous kestrel on my glove. One day a man I knew, referring to the title of Barry’s novel, jokingly shouted across the road: ‘Are tha the knave?’

  Grinning, I walked on. Another day when I walked around the village with Willis, David joined me with Hardy on his fist and we called in at Jackie’s house. Her mother spread out newspapers to catch the mutes and invited us to sit down. Rather than enquire about David’s life as a ‘film star’, she asked him how he was ‘getting on’ at school. In the end Willis became so content when being carried on the glove that she occasionally fluffed her feathers, tucked one leg into her breast feathers and stood on the other.

  Yet Willis’s flying did not improve. She only flew to the glove when I approached to within a few yards. I’d thought it was just nervousness that made her reluctant. Now I began to wonder if her flying weight was too high and decided to feed her smaller meals. So I kept up the extra manning, reduced her flying weight from seven ounces to six and a half, and within a couple of days she flew across the field three or four times on the creance the moment I raised my glove. A day or two later Willis flew free to the lure but, with her eyes staring wildly, she hovered above me once again, too nervous to grab it until I let it fall on the grass. Then, like a wild kestrel which had spotted a field vole, she closed her wings and dropped on to the lure.