TWENTY-ONE
. . . fowle weather . . . will breed offences [in] divers waies . . .
– Symon Latham, Latham’s Faulconry, or
The Faulcon’s Lure and Cure, 1615
One morning David, as Billy Casper, was filmed ‘manning’ his kestrel as he walked through Barnsley town centre with her on his fist. Later, as we returned to the village in a taxi, Hardy bated off the glove and broke a feather at one of the slashes that had been caused by stress or hunger in the nest. She’d already broken two feathers at those weak points, which, like this new break, hadn’t snapped off the feather completely, and she now had three feathers hanging loose. After this latest mishap, although I’d never done it before, I’d need to ‘imp’ Hardy’s broken tail feathers before the filming of the crucial lure-flying scene.
Rolling up an old cardigan, I placed it on the wide shelf on the inside of the mews door. Holding Hardy firmly, thumbs and fingers across her back, Barry placed her feet on to the cardigan so she’d have something to grip. Ideally, I would now have deftly slipped a leather hood over her head to keep her in the dark and calm, but as I didn’t have a hood I covered her head with a tea towel. Set out on the shelf beside her were three tail feathers that I’d received from a museum, along with a razor blade, a tube of glue and three-inch-long ‘imping’ needles. Proper imping needles are triangular shaped with three flat sides, and are filed to a point at the ends. Mine were ordinary needles from my mother’s sewing kit.
Using the razor blade I cut a V shape in one of Hardy’s tail feathers at the point where the shaft had broken, and removed the broken part of the feather. I then trimmed a new feather to fit into the V of the original tail feather, still attached to the young kestrel. Dabbing a touch of glue on the imping needle, I pushed it into the shaft of the new feather, leaving about half an inch sticking out like a strut. Then, after putting a spot of glue on this part, I pushed the exposed half of the needle into the shaft. The new feather fitted snugly into the original feather and gave the impression the young hawk had miraculously grown a new tail feather.
Like hair and fingernails, feathers are made from the protein keratin, and imping is painless for the hawk. But Barry winced, because despite the tea towel over her head, Hardy wriggled. When he was adjusting his grip, she grabbed his finger and sunk in her talons. Next she reached round and pecked his fingers. I wondered if she would be upset after her ordeal, but when Barry released her on to my glove she simply shook herself and began to feed, while we admired her three new tail feathers.
One evening, as Freeman flew in low and silently towards him, David Bradley let the lure fall on the grass and turned his back on the approaching hawk. It seemed he’d suddenly become frightened of her. Later, as we walked back across the fields to the mews, David told me that flying a hawk to the lure was ten times harder than anything he’d ever done. That worried me. Scheduled to be filmed at the end of the week was a scene in which Billy Casper stoops his kestrel to the lure watched by Mr Farthing, his supportive teacher. If it was to work, David needed dramatically to improve his lure-swinging skills.
It had been misty and drizzling when I’d flown the three hawks up on the school field in the morning, more like November than August. That evening, when David arrived by taxi for his lure-swinging practice, a howling wind had got up. I wasn’t sure what to do: risk a hawk being blown away and lost or jeopardise the film’s credibility by failing to ensure that David developed the skills he needed. Eventually I decided it was worth the risk of flying Freeman on the old flying ground with the fence posts, which was more sheltered than the school field.
‘Kes . . . Come on, Kes,’ David called as he stood in the middle of the field, almost being blown off his feet as he swung the lure. Standing at the edge of the field with Freeman on my glove, I raised my arm, and the wind tipped her forward off my glove and sent her hurtling downwind towards David. Despite the hawk’s speed he managed to throw the lure into her path and twitch it away, sending the kestrel speeding past. She turned and, battling with the wind, tried to fly back to David, but the wind was too strong and she sheered off and landed on a fence post, her feathers buffeted as she faced into the wind. Realising David wouldn’t get much practice in this weather and that I was on the verge of losing a kestrel, I hurried across and picked her up off the fence post, and, shielding the hawk with my body so she didn’t get blown off the glove, we headed back to the mews.
Next day the wind had dropped, but the clouds were dark blue and the rain so heavy that I didn’t fly the hawks in the morning. When David and Barry arrived after filming had finished for the day the rain had stopped and I decided David should try and fly Hardy, our star performer. So with Hardy on my glove, David and Barry beside me, and Barry’s collie, Bess, running around in front of us, we trudged through the sodden fields up to the school field. When we arrived it began to rain heavily and as there was nowhere to shelter on the large field, within a couple of minutes all of us – humans, dog and hawk – were saturated. David badly needed to practise his lure swinging, so I told him to run into the middle of the field, swing the lure and call Kes to see if she would fly. When he swung the lure and called, she refused to leave my raised glove. She just stood there, drenched, her wings drooping.
So for the second evening running I trudged back through the fields, frustrated that David’s lure practice had been thwarted by the weather. If things didn’t improve he would never make a convincing falconer. On top of that I had a bedraggled hawk on my glove. Hawks often catch colds in stormy weather, experiencing watery discharge from the ‘nares’ (nostrils) and ‘sniting’ (sneezing), and I needed to keep Hardy in top condition. Today I would dry her feathers using a hairdryer, but back in the 1960s the falconry book’s advice was to keep an electric light on in the mews – I’d have had to use a candle – so the hawk can rouse and preen rather than stand there immobile, wet and miserable in the dark. Barry had a better idea. After David had gone home to learn his lines, and after I’d fed up the hawk, Barry and I carried a small portable screen perch made by the film’s carpenters into Barry’s house, and left Hardy drying off on the perch in the bay window of the sitting room, while we went off to the cinema in Barnsley to watch the rushes – scenes which had been filmed the previous day and been sent off to be developed and were now ready to be assessed by the director and film crew. David Bradley, a polite, pleasant lad, with no previous acting experience, was the perfect choice to play Billy Casper. I laughed as up there on the cinema screen in his role as Billy he told outlandish lies as he tried to persuade the librarian to let him join the library and take out a falconry book. Then my heart jolted when he raised his glove and called ‘Come on, Kes’, just as I had when calling my two Keses.
Next morning, as each kestrel hopped from my glove on to the weighing scales, the rain was once again beating on the corrugated-iron roof of the mews. Each hawk was at its flying weight, but as I looked out through the barred window at the pouring rain and dark clouds, I knew I wouldn’t be able to fly the kestrels. Instead I’d have to feed them up on half rations so they’d be ready to fly when David came over for his evening practice. It should have been pleasant sitting on an old kitchen chair in the mews, with a hawk tugging at the meat on my glove. Instead I was deeply worried. The scenes of David flying the kestrels to the glove on the creance had worked well, but anyone could manage that. To be convincing as a falconer he needed to be able to fly his kestrel skilfully to the lure. If things carried on like this I’d fail in my job and David would look incompetent. Later in the day I voiced my concerns to Barry. He told Ken Loach, and the filming of the crucial lure-swinging scene was put off until early the following week. It would give David more time to work on his technique.
To my relief, the rain had cleared by evening. Although the filming had been put back a few days, it was frustrating watching David fly Hardy. He was whirling the lure so close to his body that Hardy was unable to get in a clear stoop, and was hovering and flying a
round above his head. I was so stressed by David’s lack of progress over the last few days that I lost my temper. ‘Throw the lure out to her, David, throw it out!’ I shouted.
Barry usually kept his emotions to himself, but my mood must have infected him because he joined in, shouting at David to get the lure away from his body.
Even the hawk seemed annoyed with poor David, and flew off on a circuit around the field before flying in fast and low. David threw out the lure, twitched it away, then, keeping it just out of her reach, he swept the lure in front of the kestrel, sending her curving into the air. This was more like it. She stooped, and again he kept the lure just out of the hawk’s grasp and sent her surging upwards. The next time Hardy plummeted out of the sky she caught the lure.
So I retrieved her and, standing at the edge of the field, I raised my glove and cast her off again. Gaining height, she was soon hovering thirty or forty feet above David’s head, looking down on him. Looking up while swinging the lure, David ran across the grass, but she just followed, keeping directly above him before closing her wings and plunging down in a vertical stoop. To my amazement and delight he kept the lure out of her grasp and sent her arcing into the sky to stoop again, then once more managed to send her curving into the sky as she pursued the arcing lure. She caught the lure on the next stoop, but it was a very promising performance. With David’s confidence boosted and his eye now in, he flew Freeman even better than he’d flown Hardy. As we walked back across the fields to the mews, the dark clouds threatened more rain. Tonight I didn’t care. David was getting the hang of it and if he continued to improve, next week’s filming of the lure-swinging scene could be spectacular.
TWENTY-TWO
He lures, he leaps, he calles, he cries, he joyes, he waxeth sad,
And frames his moode, according as his hawke doth well or bad . . .
– George Turbervile, The Booke of Faulconrie or Hauking, 1575
The day’s filming – David pretending to shoot a bird, David and Colin Welland, who played the teacher, discussing Freeman as she stood on her perch in the mews – had taken hours. It was after five o’clock in the afternoon when we arrived at the flying ground. I hadn’t wanted to dull Freeman’s appetite by feeding her scraps of beef, so her weight was below her usual flying weight. Last time she’d been so low, she was soon exhausted and had sought out fence posts to rest on, and although there were no fence posts on the school field I feared that she might pitch down on to the grass and refuse to fly. Racked with anxiety, I stood with Freeman on my glove as I waited for David to get into position. When he was ready, Ken Loach gave me the nod and I raised my glove and cast off Freeman from the edge of the field. My worries about her low weight and lack of energy were unfounded as she rocketed off my glove and towards David. Maybe he was as nervous as I was, because he didn’t swing the lure immediately, or call ‘Come on, Kes’. Perhaps Freeman was put off by the bright orange sweater of the sound recordist standing close to David. Whatever the reason, flying powerfully and gaining height, she ignored the swinging lure and continued flying until she disappeared over the edge of the field. Annoyed with David for not swinging the lure in time, I raced across the field in front of the surprised camera crew, snatched the lure off David and went in search of the lost hawk, eventually finding her perched on a fence post in a nearby field. Luckily, she came to the lure the moment I swung it. When I returned, Ken described her disappearance as a ‘very nasty moment’.
It certainly was, and when I raised my glove to cast her off again for another take I was terrified she’d once more ignore David’s swinging lure and fly out of sight. But to my relief, instead of gaining height quickly, she reverted to the way that she’d flown over the previous weeks, flying in low over the grass. David threw out the lure, swept it in front of her and sent her out towards the potato field where, after gaining height, she turned back to fly in fast and low. Again David kept the lure from her grasp. After the third or fourth such circuit around the field, the kestrel came in so fast that she managed to strike the lure with her outstretched foot, and David let her take her reward.
I walked towards the middle of the field to congratulate David and pick up Freeman. Things looked good. She was flying well and after a few more flights like this I’d bring on Hardy to perform her breathtaking vertical stoops. As I headed back towards the edge of the field with Freeman on my glove, I saw Ken and Chris and other crew members looking up at the sky. When I reached them the filming equipment was being packed away. The light had changed, which meant any further footage wouldn’t cut together with what had just been filmed. To my dismay, filming had been called off for the day.
Next morning it was warm, with hardly a breath of wind, with white fine-weather clouds sailing slowly across the blue sky. By nine o’clock Freeman, Hardy and Willis were perched on their blocks at the edge of the school field. The first scene due to be filmed was one in which Billy Casper is annoyed when his kestrel Kes grabs the swinging lure, after he’s been distracted by his teacher, Mr Farthing. Over the last week or so, Willis had begun to put in a few stoops as she tried to grab the lure, and this scene seemed a good opportunity for her to make an appearance in the film. As David swung the lure and Willis flew towards him across the field, Colin Welland, as Mr Farthing, shouted ‘Casper’, to let him know he’d arrived to watch. David, being a good actor, fumbled his swinging while swearing to himself. But instead of being on to the lure in an instant, as she should have been for the scene to work, Willis reverted to her old ways, and with her eyes nearly popping out of her head she hovered over David before sheering off. Perhaps using Willis hadn’t been such a good idea. Once again I was expecting to be involved in an embarrassing chase, but Willis had spotted her block perch at the other side of the field and landed on it. In the end, the scene was reshot using an impeccably behaved Freeman, who kept to the script and grabbed the lure at just the right moment.
The next scene was to be the culmination of my summer’s work: the one where Billy Casper stoops Kes to the lure while Mr Farthing watches. As before, both Freeman and Hardy were to be filmed and cut into a sequence. The brilliant flier Hardy was on her block perch across the field, but it made sense to continue flying Freeman, who was raring to go having just caught the lure a couple of times.
I could feel my heart racing as I cast Freeman off the glove. Calling ‘Come on, Kes’ and judging her approach perfectly as she flew in low over the grass, David threw out the lure. Keeping it just out of her grasp, he swept it in front of her and sent her curving up into the air and out towards the potato field. Flying leisurely, with flickering wings and glides, she circled the school field, then, with her jesses trailing behind her, she flew in fast and silently just above the grass in another attempt to grab the lure. And so it went on, circuit after circuit, as David skilfully kept the lure out of her grasp. On some circuits she reached a height of seventy or eighty, maybe even a hundred feet, before circling around and gradually losing height, until she was skimming silently over the grass, her eyes fixed on the swinging lure. On another circuit she flew so close to the camera that a crew member holding a clipboard had to pull her head back as the hawk’s wing tip flicked by her face. When David finally let Freeman catch the lure, I was so delighted that I ran across the field to congratulate him.
It was after lunch when the star performer, Hardy, got her turn to stoop to the lure. I’d weighed her in the lunch break and at six ounces her flying weight was now spot on. When I approached her on her block perch at the edge of the field she slowly flapped her wings, showing how keen she was to get on to my glove and get flying. I was delighted Freeman had flown well, but my hopes were pinned on Hardy flying her brilliant best and I had reason to be optimistic. It was a fine day with hardly a breath of wind, and on previous calm days like this she’d always put in up to sixty or seventy vertical stoops, often corkscrewing as she plummeted earthwards. David had got his eye in, flying Freeman earlier, and if he could keep that up and keep the lure out
of crafty Hardy’s grasp there was a good chance she would put on a spectacular show for the camera.
So, with Hardy on my glove, I stood at the field’s edge behind the camera as David walked into the middle of the field. She was so keen to get cracking that she was bating off the glove. I turned my back, shielding the young hawk so she couldn’t see David, but she kept trying to fly over my shoulder before he was ready. After what seemed ages, David eventually called: ‘Come on, Kes.’
I turned to face him, raised my arm, let go of Hardy’s jesses and cast her off my glove. She flew in low. David threw out the lure but she ignored it and curved upwards sharply and in an instant was twenty or thirty feet above David’s head. Almost falling over backwards as he looked up, he pulled the lure line through his fingers, but before he could get it taut enough to twirl the lure and throw it up to her, the kestrel plummeted earthwards in a corkscrewing vertical stoop and struck the lure with her outstretched talons. David had no choice but to let her take her reward.
After tying new pieces of beef on to the lure, I took Hardy from David, trudged to the edge of the field and when the sound and camera were rolling cast her off my glove a second time. Again she flew in low, ignored the lure, and shot upwards, until she was directly above David’s head. As he looked up and fumbled with the lure, she did a corkscrewing stoop and grabbed it. After tying more scraps of beef to the lure, I cast Hardy off for the third time. Once again she ignored the lure, and in seconds was above his head and plummeting earthwards before David could pull the lure line between his fingers, and get it taut enough to twitch the lure away from her grasp.
I surprised myself by calling out: ‘She’s making an idiot of him.’
Some of the crew laughed. Not me. As I ranted at Ken, telling him the stooping would look rubbish and Billy incompetent, he tried to calm me down, telling me they had already got some good shots of Freeman flying to the lure and that they’d be able to cut it all together into a good sequence.
No Way But Gentlenesse Page 18