A Year in the Life of the Yorkshire Shepherdess

by Amanda Owen

  On one visit I was humouring Violet by looking through the clothes on the sale rails. I had no intention of buying anything, as it wasn’t exactly practical gear for wearing around the farmyard. Just as I was dragging Violet away a lady, dressed from head to foot in leopard print, approached me.

  ‘Don’t ah know yer?’ she said, chewing gum. ‘Yer off t’telly, in’t ya?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ I said, smiling and admiring her long neon-orange nails.

  ‘Oi, Cheryl!’ she shouted towards the white Transit van parked at the back of the stall. ‘It’s that family wi’ all them bairns, yer knaw, they’ve got ’orses an’ all.’

  Cheryl appeared, backside first as she climbed out of the driver’s side. Bigger and brasher than her friend, it was her oversized hair rollers that caught my eye.

  She came towards me, arms outstretched. ‘Eeeh, I luvved that programme. ’Ow many of t’kids has ta got wi’ yer today, then?’ Her accent was broad Yorkshire.

  ‘All of ’em,’ I said, gesturing towards the children.

  ‘Well, let me tell yer summat,’ she said. ‘I’m sixth-generation Romany, and I’m tellin’ yer that yer family’s gonna get bigger.’

  I didn’t put much store by the prediction, but smiled and thanked her.

  By now Violet was in the process of pulling a mauve-and-white frilly dress, garnished with tiny flowers, off its hanger.

  ‘Violet, leave that alone,’ I said, frowning.

  ‘Naw, naw,’ said Cheryl. ‘She can ’ave it. ’Ere, let me get yer a bag.’ Before I had time to argue, the dress and a pink fake astrakhan gilet were being unceremoniously stuffed in.

  ‘’Ere, ’ave some babby socks,’ she said, pulling out some adorned with pearlized beads and lace. ‘And a bonnet an’ all.’ In went a baby bonnet, with a big bow on the top. ‘You’ll be needing ’em. Worrabout a dummy?’ Before I could protest, a metallic gold-coloured dummy on a chain went in.

  ‘It’s been mighty fine meeting yer,’ she said, her friend nodding, her hoop earrings brushing her shoulders.

  ‘It’s varry kind of yer,’ I said. I could see Violet was delighted, clutching the plastic bag with glee.

  ‘Say thank you, kids,’ I said, and they chorused their thanks.

  ‘Kushti bok,’ they shouted back, as we set off towards the Land Rover.

  ‘Can I put mi dress on, Mam?’ said Violet, before we’d even left the field.

  ‘When we get ’ome,’ I said. The sky had greyed over, and it had begun to drizzle. As we left we saw the bow-top caravans, which were parked on the verges and roadside, had small fires smouldering next to them, with black kettles hung above on chivvies. The wooden wagons were intricately painted in deep, rich reds and greens, with swirling gilt scrolls. Tethered to fence posts nearby, coloured ponies cropped the grass. It was a timeless scene, unchanged for centuries, as long as you discounted the satellite dishes anchored to the fronts of the vans and the flickering TV sets inside.

  I breathed a sigh of relief when we turned up the road to Ravenseat. Taking the children to the horse fair is not for the faint-hearted. There are so many dangers: horses being ridden bareback at high speed, young lads on sulkies racing their high-stepping trotters. Every year we’ve seen bystanders being hit by runaway horses and sent flying, or being caught up in the wheels of the passing carriages. Keeping an eye on my brood had tired me out.

  ‘Mam, can I put mi new dress on?’ asked Violet once we were in. I could see she wasn’t going to rest until she tried it on.

  ‘Aye, Raven will ’elp yer,’ I said, putting the kettle on.

  Although I was tired, the children were as lively as ever. The rain stopped and the evening was now pleasant, except for the midges. It wasn’t long before the children were outside and I was sitting at the kitchen table with Clive, telling him about our day while waiting for the soup to warm up on the range.

  ‘I’m not sure about Violet’s dress,’ he said. ‘It’s gay nylony, looks highly flammable.’

  ‘That’s as mebbe,’ I said. ‘But she likes it, and it didn’t cost mi owt.’

  I glanced up at the clock. It was soon going to be bedtime, never mind teatime. I really should be rounding them up, I thought. At that moment I heard a bloodcurdling shriek. Clive heard it too, and he’s deaf – that’s how loud it was. He reacted fast:

  ‘What thi ’ell was that?’ he said, putting his cup down and striding out of the kitchen door.

  Seconds later Edith appeared at the door. ‘Mam, Violet’s ’urt, there’s blood.’

  I’d only got as far as the yard gate when I met Clive coming towards me carrying Violet, his hand over her forehead. Blood dribbled down the side of her face and dripped onto the farmyard floor.

  The children were all crying, a cacophony of wailing. The only one who was peculiarly silent was Violet.

  ‘What’s ’appened? What’s ’appened?’ I shouted, running alongside Clive.

  ‘She’s fallen, it’s an ’ospital job,’ he said.

  We got back to the kitchen. Clive sat down, his hand still firmly clamped over Violet’s brow. I grabbed a tea towel.

  ‘Let’s ’ave a look,’ I said. I knew from past experience that head injuries usually meant lots of blood, but as soon as he lifted his hand away, I could see that this wasn’t superficial. It was a very deep cut, the gaping wound deep enough to see bone. She also had a cut to her cheek. Her blonde hair was stuck to her face with clotting blood.

  I held the tea towel over the cut, trying to stem the blood flow. Violet was trying to rub her eyes, her lashes now encrusted with blood.

  ‘You ’old the towel an’ I’ll ring for t’ambulance,’ I said to Clive. The children gathered round Violet, their tear-stained faces a mixture of fear and pity as she lay in his arms. The new mauve-and-white frilly dress was smattered with blood and dirt. We went through the usual litany of questions on the phone.

  Had she lost consciousness? No. Was there any foreign object in the wound? No. Then it was a matter of waiting and planning. It was no good me getting in the ambulance with Violet, as there would be no way of bringing her back to Ravenseat after she’d been stitched up. We pragmatically decided that I should follow the ambulance in the Land Rover, so that I’d be able to bring her home later that night. We were sure Violet was going to be fine: she just needed cleaning up and suturing, and probably a tetanus jab.

  After what felt like a very long forty minutes, the ambulance pulled into the yard. Preliminary checks were done before she was loaded into it, and I explained to Violet that I would see her again when we reached the hospital. She was unconcerned, busy telling the ambulance man what had happened. Apparently she had climbed onto the straw bales in the barn and then spotted one of the chickens sitting on a clutch of eggs down a crack between the bales and the cattle barrier. In an attempt to get a better view she’d leapt the gap, but miscalculated the distance and fallen head first, hitting the concrete. I couldn’t believe that after spending the day chaperoning the children around the Appleby Fair and avoiding all the dangers there, an accident had happened under my nose in our own farmyard.

  It wasn’t easy keeping up with the ambulance as it sped along the country roads but eventually, at around 9 p.m., we pulled up at the Darlington Hospital Accident and Emergency department. Violet was wheeled in, clutching her dolly and complaining bitterly about her spoilt dress.

  ‘Never worry,’ I said. ‘It’ll wash.’

  We waited a while to see the doctor. Removing the gauze bandage and dressing the ambulance man had put on, he squinted at the gash in Violet’s head.

  ‘Mmmm, it’s a deep cut, clean but very deep,’ he said, pulling the skin either side apart. I held Violet’s hand in mine: she winced, frowned, but didn’t cry.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘She needs plastic surgery, so I need you to have her at Durham University hospital first thing tomorrow morning. Do not let her eat anything from midnight.’

  I hadn’t expected this. What was I going to
do? Durham is seventy miles from Ravenseat, so it seemed pointless going all the way home, then setting off in only a few hours to get to Durham. Plus Violet was complaining about being hungry, and there wasn’t much time left before midnight to feed her. I rang Clive, told him what had happened, and we both came to the same conclusion: I should call at a fast-food outlet, then find a hotel for the night.

  The fast-food bit went without a hitch. Then we went in search of a hotel, not expecting it to be difficult. I started with the more reputable hotels, then, becoming increasingly desperate, resorted to less salubrious-looking places. Each time it was: ‘No room at the inn.’

  I gave up on Darlington and set off towards Durham, spotting a seedy-looking motel at the roadside. Pulling up outside, I felt sure that we’d get a bed for the night. I walked into a dingy reception clutching Violet’s hand. Behind a metal shutter sat a bored-looking receptionist, texting on her mobile phone.

  ‘Any rooms for tonight?’ I said.

  ‘No,’ she said, not even looking up from her phone.

  By now it was nearly 1 a.m. and I was giving up hope of finding anywhere, and resigned myself to driving to Durham hospital and sleeping in the Land Rover in the car park: not a prospect that I relished. We set off again, Violet now dozing in her seat. I was in unfamiliar territory, but thankfully there was little traffic so I could drive slowly, watching the road signs. We were soon on the one-way system in Durham city, and I saw a well-lit hotel, blue fairy lights strung around the door and a sign saying ‘Champagne Bar’. A couple stood outside leaning against the wall, taking the night air. Doing an emergency stop, I decided that this was my last-ditch attempt to get a room for the night.

  ‘C’mon, Violet,’ I said softly. She never stirred as I picked her up. With me carrying her in my arms, we must have been quite a sight as we went through the pristine white foyer to the reception desk: Violet’s dress was stained with congealed blood, her tousled hair straggled out from beneath a giant bandage, I was still wearing the clothes that I’d worn for the fair: wellies, leggings and a camouflage jacket. I looked around at the smartly dressed couples sitting at small tables drinking cocktails, having hushed conversations with faint strains of blues music playing in the background. I was expecting raised eyebrows at the scruffy gatecrashers who had invaded the party, but rather than turn tail, I decided to give it one last go.

  ‘Hello, I just wondered if you had a room available for tonight, please,’ I said, probably sounding defeated and tired.

  The well-groomed young lady behind the desk spoke with a thick foreign accent. ‘Oh my goodness,’ she said looking at Violet, her head flopped back over the crook of my arm. ‘What ’az ’appened?’

  I told her our tale of woe. She listened intently.

  ‘I just need a room, no breakfast,’ I said. Violet was still fast asleep.

  ‘Do not vorry about anyzing,’ she said. ‘I ’ave a room for you . . . and I’m going to upgrade you to one of our business rooms.’

  She handed me the keys.

  ‘I need to park my car,’ I said. I’d left the Land Rover obstructing the drive, not really expecting to be staying.

  ‘I tell you vot,’ she said, ‘I weel votch ze baby while you do zat.’

  I didn’t sleep well that night, but Violet slept soundly. We were up with the lark and before we left for the hospital treated ourselves to a very deep, hot bath, then wrapped ourselves in the deliciously soft towelling robes. We could have been on holiday – apart from the bandage round Violet’s head. We set off for the hospital, expecting that Violet would be patched up and we’d soon be heading home.

  When we arrived she was assessed by a doctor, but then we were told that she needed an operation and the plastic surgeon was unable to do it until the next day – in the afternoon if we were lucky. Violet was happy, and had another clean dressing on her head, so we decided to get out of the hospital and go sight-seeing, as well as picking up a few essentials for our unexpectedly prolonged stay. Violet, although now clean, was still wearing her bloodstained dress, but we managed to conceal the worst of it under the pink fake-fur gilet that had been left in the Land Rover, part of Violet’s treasure trove from the trip to Appleby. We looked around the cathedral, wandered down the main street, then shared an ice-cream sundae in a parlour near the riverside. It would have been very pleasant if it hadn’t have been for the hole in Violet’s head.

  We were back in our room at the hospital by teatime, and spent an uncomfortably hot night there. The next day really dragged, because all we could do was sit around waiting. Violet was given her pre-med, and in order to take my mind off things I decided to use my time wisely and write an article that I’d been asked to do for a parenting magazine. It was about relaxed, hands-off parenting: letting children climb, run and play without worrying. The irony was not lost on me.

  Violet had the operation and we were back at Ravenseat by bedtime on the Monday, after our unscheduled two-day mini-break in Durham. Our trip to the horse fair seemed to be a long time ago, so much had happened. Violet has two small scars which will fade in time. I expect there will be further accidents from time to time at Ravenseat: children will be children.

  I brought horses back to Ravenseat when I moved in with Clive. Horses were at one time an integral part of farming in the Dales. Used for shepherding, now replaced by a quad bike, used to work the land, now replaced by a tractor . . . their only role now is for leisure and companionship. Talking to older farmers, there is a definite split in the attitude towards the horse power of yesteryear. Some have fond memories of the ponies, their names and their idiosyncrasies; others were pleased when mechanization took over. My old friend Jimmy told me about a pony being yoked to a trap laden with all manner of crockery and china to be taken to the chapel at Keld. The pony jibbed, stood rooted to the spot and then decided that the way forward was actually backwards. Unfortunately there was a steep drop at one side of the road and the trap, still harnessed to the pony, was left dangling over the edge, with all the plates and cups and saucers tumbling down the embankment and smashing.

  Tot, our elderly neighbour, remembered that during the war years an attempt was made to plough some of the land in the upper dale. The earth there is so heavy that when the horse took the strain of the single-furrow plough, it stubbornly refused to move forward. The solution, perhaps a little unconventional even by the standards of the time, was to light a small fire under it. It soon moved.

  Whether it was tales of Jimmy’s pony ruining afternoon tea at the chapel, or our friend Frankie’s horse saving the day by bringing him home safely from the pub after a long session, somehow it seemed right that horses should make a comeback at Ravenseat. We have over the years used them for shepherding, and even once for pulling a bogged quad bike out from its watery grave high on the moor. I’ve always loved horses, going right back to when I scrimped the money from my Saturday job to pay for riding lessons as a teenager. Clive, on the other hand, has an ambivalent relationship with horses: he appreciates them as animals, but he has no desire to ride them. I can only remember him climbing on a horse’s back once, and I don’t think he or the horse, Meg, enjoyed it.

  ‘Mand, it’s moving,’ he said, shuffling uncomfortably in the saddle.

  ‘It is called Meg,’ I said. ‘And she’s supposed to move, that’s the idea of going for a ride.’

  Then he tried to get off, swinging his leg over Meg’s broad back. It was no smooth dismount, as his dodgy hip meant that he got stuck in the process.

  ‘That’s the first time I’ve ever known thee to ’ave problems gettin’ thi leg over,’ I laughed.

  Clive is wary of horses and they, too, treat him with an air of suspicion. He is the complete opposite of a horse whisperer, having a natural ability to turn any perfectly sane, good-natured horse into a complete loon.

  The children love, understand and show great respect for the horses, and I believe that the horses reciprocate their feelings. The older children ride them down from the
moor bareback, through the heather and bracken, crisscrossing the little rivulets and following the sheep trods. Spending their summers turned out at the moor makes the horses sure-footed and unlikely to stumble. The younger ones trundle around the farmyard on our Shetland pony Little Joe, who is as saintly an animal as you could wish for. Bandaged from head to hoof for a game of doctors; his mane plaited and replaited and decorated with ribbons; even pulling skiers through the snow: he never demurs. The children have fun and Little Joe obligingly trots around with them, so I figure that he must enjoy the attention or he would head for the hills. He even (unknowingly) helped me with Violet’s toilet training. I’d never had much trouble when it came to getting the children toilet trained; I simply let them roam around the farmyard or field without nappies until they picked up on what was happening. Violet was more stubborn, and to persuade her to use the toilet I resorted to bribery.

  ‘If you use the toilet then I’ll take you for a ride on Little Joe,’ I’d promise.

  I had Little Joe on permanent standby in the garth. My plan worked a treat. I’d hear a little voice shouting from the downstairs toilet: ‘Maaam, can I go for a ride now?’

  The shouts became more and more frequent. Violet developed superb bowel control, and what should have merited one pony ride could be spun out to three.

  We have another Shetland pony, Folly, who the children bought for thirty guineas at the Cowper Day horse fair. They were on the field gate, helping to collect the parking money, pocketing all the loose change for themselves. When all the cars and horse lorries were parked they sloped off into the auction and bought themselves a horse. I admit that I had been quite vague and had said, ‘Go an’ get yerselves summat,’ meaning perhaps a new bridle or lead rope. ‘’Ave a look around the stalls, you’ll see summat, I’m sure.’ And they certainly did see summat: a very small pony, which came home with us crammed into the back of the Land Rover.