A Year in the Life of the Yorkshire Shepherdess

by Amanda Owen

  Reg was in hospital for a very long time: both his legs were broken, and he spent a long time in a wheelchair. Even in hospital he still worked as a haulier, delivering precarious loads of chocolates, newspapers and magazines from the hospital shop to the other patients on the ward.

  It was winter when Reg finally returned to Ravenseat for his lorry, limping back into the farmyard after being dropped off by a friend. His old lorry was not keen on starting, having been idle for so many months. He sat in the cab, his straw Panama still propped up on the dashboard and his empty bait box on the seat, while Clive and Reuben rigged up our battery charger. Eventually they managed to get her started, belching out smoke as Reg revved her engine. He wound down his window to bid us farewell. That was the last time he visited Ravenseat. There was no way that we could ever risk an accident like that again. We decided that from then on we would have all our straw dropped off at Kirkby Stephen, and would bring it up to Ravenseat ourselves in small loads with the tractor and trailer. Occasionally we see Reg out and about taking hay and straw for delivery – same old lorry, and he still looks like he’s carrying twice as much as anybody else.

  Reuben was the right choice to help Clive jump-start the lorry, because he’s a natural mechanic. He loves tinkering with the tractors, and if a wheel on the quad bike or trailer needs changing, we call for Reuben. He has an old tractor of his own, given to him by Colin and Anne, farmer friends of ours from Weardale. He keeps it inside a barn for most of the year, but at hay time it comes out, does a few laps of the field and then invariably breaks down.

  The tractor, a 1960 David Brown, had belonged to Anne’s Uncle John, who bought it new from the factory in Huddersfield. Whenever we went over to visit their farm Reuben would make a beeline for the tractor, which was falling into disrepair in an outbuilding.

  ‘One day, mi’ lad, that tractor’ll be yours,’ they said.

  And they were true to their word. To Reuben’s delight they rang up one day and announced that the tractor was his, but with the proviso that they needed to borrow it back in a year’s time to transport one of their friends to her wedding at the local church. The betrothed couple are vintage tractor enthusiasts, so it seemed more fitting to arrive at the church on a trailer pulled by a David Brown than in a Rolls-Royce. By that time it obviously needed to look better than it currently did. So that was the deal: Reubs would get it tidied up for the wedding, and then it would be his.

  Reuben was terribly excited, and couldn’t wait to go and pick it up from Weardale and start work on it. After days and days of pestering, Clive and his friend Fencer set off one Saturday morning with a low loader trailer to bring it back to Ravenseat. Of course it wouldn’t start; no one expected it to. The plan was to roll it down the hill to get the engine started so that it could be driven up the ramps and onto the trailer. Clive sat in the driver’s seat with the clutch depressed, and all he needed to do was let the clutch out when it was going sufficiently fast, with the hope this would turn the engine over.

  The tractor was shoved, and soon gained enough momentum for Clive to let the clutch out. But nothing happened. The tractor was bowling on, gathering speed. Only then did Clive notice that the lever connecting the clutch to the engine had seized, and needed a kick to make it engage. The tractor was now going at a rate of knots as Clive kicked the lever repeatedly, to no avail. He decided that it was time to abort the mission, but was unable to get his thick-soled thermal welly back across and onto the brake pedal. He said afterwards that he wasn’t worried, but his face told a different story as one wheel of the speeding tractor went up onto the grass verge and the tractor began to bounce. The small crowd of onlookers lost sight of him as he rounded the corner at the bottom of the track, and Reuben said afterwards that he was waiting for the sound of crunching metal. It never came. Clive had the presence of mind to pull on the ratchet handbrake, and came to a very abrupt halt before he got to the main road.

  After towing the tractor back to the top of the track they resorted to the traditional cure-all: a hammer. It worked – the hammer released the lever, and after a re-run the tractor started and was driven onto the trailer.

  Reuben used some of his savings to buy new parts. We bought him an exhaust pipe for his birthday, some of the rustier bits were shot-blasted and the bonnet was resprayed red, with the wheel hubs in primrose yellow. He also made a little bit of money to reinvest in the tractor by swapping the spare double wheels that it came with for a pair of calves that he later sold. Finally, the tractor went back for the wedding. Reuben got an invite, but the downside for him was that he, too, had to undergo a transformation from an oily Fred Dibnah wannabe to a relatively clean wedding guest.

  It wasn’t long before Reuben gained another acquisition: a mini dumper truck. It had been languishing in a lean-to at our neighbour Totty’s old house, up at Smithyholme, and for years Reuben had admired it from afar. After Totty died, the house and land was put up for sale, and Reuben was worried when he saw that the place was being cleared of all the rubbish and detritus accumulated by Totty and his mother. Some was being burnt, other stuff being put out for the scrap man.

  ‘If yer want thi’ dumper truck then thoo’d better do summat about it,’ said Clive. ‘Yer should put a note on it an’ see what ’appens.’

  ‘It’s called being pro-active,’ I said.

  Reuben spent the afternoon writing his letter, even adding an annotated diagram at the bottom showing his plans for the dumper, how he was going to renovate it and what he was going to use it for. He added our telephone number, slipped the letter into a plastic sleeve and set off to Smithyholme, armed with a roll of Sellotape.

  We heard nothing for a while, and Reuben was getting disheartened. Then we were called by Mr Smith, the executor of the estate. The estate agent had been showing potential buyers around, had seen the note and passed on the message to him. Reuben talked with him at great length about the dumper, which he had researched, explaining that it was a 1956 Roughrider. Mr Smith, either impressed or taken aback by Reuben’s enthusiasm, agreed that he could have it. All he had to do was get it out of the lean-to.

  And so began a labour of love. Almost every day Reuben walked the mile or so to Smithyholme to tinker with the dumper, trying to get it started. His luck was in when one day the estate agent turned up for a viewing and found the dumper’s starting handle in the house. Having the starting handle made the whole process of moving it much easier. By putting it in gear and winding the handle it would move, fractionally. It was a very long process. Every day he wound the handle and the dumper slowly edged its way out of the lean-to, up the side of the house, round a corner and then roughly about another thirty feet, until it reached a place where we could load it onto a trailer and get it home. Seeing the blisters on Reuben’s hands from turning the starting handle, we took pity on him, and on some days we all went with him, taking it in turns to wind. It was a monumental day when we finally got it back to Ravenseat. I thought that the years of neglect meant that it would become another piece of scrap adorning our farmyard – so I was confounded when, within a couple of days, Reuben had it running. It comes in handy, particularly in the winter, when I use it to move the muck out of the stables around to the midden.

  Reuben has now progressed to a level where he actually fixes more things than he breaks. For many years we’ve had to tolerate him dismantling numerous broken items: pushbikes, lawn-mowers, washing machines, anything made of metal or with an engine. But recently he’s had a few successes in the repairs department. Not long ago, one of our visitors to the shepherd’s hut broke a wooden rocking chair. Admittedly, it was on its last legs and had been repaired a few times already.

  ‘Chair in t’hut’s knackered,’ I said to Clive, as I came back into the kitchen to get the vacuum cleaner to finish cleaning the hut. ‘I’s thinkin’ it needs slingin’.’

  ‘Won’t it glue?’ said Clive.

  ‘Nae, not this time,’ I said. ‘It’s not safe to sit on. Where there’s b
lame, there’s a claim an’ all that.’

  We took it to the woodshed. ‘I don’t want any of mi walkers sittin’ on it, neither,’ I said as I writhed the armrests off, sweating and cursing, putting the bits on the woodpile. We snapped the spindles from the back, prised the curved rockers off the bottom and put a great deal of effort into breaking the chair into pieces that would fit on the fire.

  When Reuben came home from school he disappeared off outside, as usual, only to emerge later looking particularly pleased with himself.

  ‘Mam, I’ve got a surprise for yer,’ he said, grinning from ear to ear. ‘I’ve made yer a rockin’ chair.’

  In the summer the majority of the animals are out in the fields, which means that there are fewer daily bullocking-up routines. There may be a few baby calves in the buildings that need feeding, but on the whole the animals are outside, with us making daily visits to check on them.

  There are plenty of other things to keep us occupied, as summer is when we have visitors to the farm: either overnight guests to the shepherd’s hut, or daily walking visitors wanting cups of tea and home baking. The children are all good at looking after the visitors, even the little ones – but only once I’d trained them in customer relations.

  At one time, when someone came to the door, they would open it a crack and mutter, ‘Yeah, what d’yer want?’ – now the door flies open and people are greeted with an effusive, ‘Hello, how can I help you?’

  Sometimes, though, they can be too good. One day it was pouring with rain, torrential, and Clive and I had been grumbling to each other all day about the weather. I was wet to my skin, as water had got inside my waterproofs. Clive had lost his hat, and he had a leaking welly.

  ‘Ah can’t wait t’dry mi arse in front of t’fire,’ I said, cheering up at the sight of the smoke spiralling out of the chimney.

  ‘Yeah, best moment of t’day,’ he agreed.

  When we finally got finished and back to the farmhouse, we found Reuben entertaining four wet walkers who were sitting on the fender in front of the fire, drinking mugs of tea.

  ‘They’re tired and wet,’ he said, ‘can’t walk no further, they’ve phoned for a lift an’ I’ve made ’em a cup o’ tea . . .’

  So while they hogged the fire, Clive and I hung around shivering and damp in the kitchen . . .

  Throughout the year we buy in calves – Aberdeen Angus, British Blue and Friesians at about a week old, from a dairy farmer – and teach them how to lap milk from a bucket, rather than suck a bottle. Twice a day we mix powdered milk with warm water, and after a few days of us putting our hands in the milk and letting the calves suck our fingers, they master the art of slurping it down.

  One afternoon we had an American woman come by for a cream tea, and she talked to me about the animals. She had a languid American drawl which must have lulled me into stupefaction, because I heard myself saying, ‘Do yer want mi to show yer around?’

  I soon realized my mistake as we walked towards the barn and she told me that she was a lecturer in animal rights and welfare at a university in the States. But I knew we had nothing to hide, and that she’d soon be able to see the animals were all healthy and happy. I decided to start by showing her the calves that I was hand-rearing.

  ‘But where are their mommas?’ she said.

  I explained that their mothers were all alive and well, but they were milk cows, and that a cow could either feed humans or a calf. In order to provide milk for human consumption the calf would remain with the mother for a few days feeding on colostrum and then be reared on a calf milk replacement powder, in the same way that a baby could be reared on formula milk.

  ‘I’m their momma,’ I said. She gave me a disapproving look.

  ‘They tek no harm,’ I said. ‘In fact, they mek lovely cows. They’re gentle wi’ folks, as they’ve been ’andled.’

  Perfectly on cue, the eight calves noticed that their human ‘momma’ had shown up and they came galloping towards me, anticipating a feed.

  ‘Awwwww, can I touch one?’ she said. I could see she was warming.

  She scratched the top of the calves’ heads as they jostled for position, all trying to suck her fingers.

  ‘I feed ’em with a bottle for a start,’ I said. ‘An’ then I learn ’em to lap out of a bucket: I put mi ’and in t’milk bucket, then they suck mi fingers. Look.’

  I held out my hand to the calves, and sure enough one of them nuzzled me, and then started sucking my fingers.

  I felt I’d won her over and while I was on a roll I kept talking, my back leaning against the barrier gate. I told her all about Ravenseat and our cows, pigs, horses and sheep. I wasn’t taking much notice of the calf sucking my hand, only turning to look at it when I felt a tug on my finger. The little Aberdeen Angus calf stopped sucking, gulped, gave a wide yawn, licked his lips and then sauntered off to the other side of the pen.

  The American lady was chattering away, but I wasn’t listening. With my right hand I was feeling the wet, wrinkled ring finger of my left hand. Something was different about it . . . it was a naked finger. My wedding ring had gone.

  I brought the conversation to an abrupt close. I needed my newfound American friend gone if I was going to wrestle the calf to the ground and try to get it to regurgitate my ring – I certainly wasn’t going to do it in front of her. The best I could do, in the meantime, was make a mental note of which calf was the culprit.

  I told Clive.

  ‘Are yer sure?’ he said. ‘Was yer ring loose?’

  I explained that it was looser than normal, due to clipping time and my skin being softer and smoother than usual.

  ‘Which calf were it?’ he asked.

  I pointed to him, sitting in the straw, oblivious to the fact that he had swallowed an eighteen-carat symbol of Clive’s undying love for me.

  ‘Reeuuuuuuuuuben . . . ga an’ get the metal detector,’ he yelled across the yard.

  The calf stayed still while Clive hovered the metal detector over it. It clanged. Reuben got excited; Miles, who was also now in the pen, was a little more dismissive. ‘That’s its bloody ear tag,’ he said. ‘They’ll all clang if yer wave it over their head.’

  ‘Yer reet, Miley,’ I said. ‘But dun’t sweeear.’

  It was a pointless exercise. Even if we located the ring, it wasn’t going to help get it back. We decided to put the calf in solitary confinement until nature took its course. But the calf had other ideas. Alone in a stable, he bawled his head off and strained against the wooden hurdle, desperate to be reunited with his friends. We soon put him back.

  Bribery was my next strategy.

  ‘Twenty quid for whoever finds mi ring,’ I said.

  Every day Reuben methodically did a sweep of the calf pen, finding all manner of things, but no ring. After about a week I was giving up hope, deciding that the ring would stay in the bottom of one of the calf ’s stomachs forever. Then, late one afternoon, Reuben approached me with outstretched hands.

  ‘Look ’ere, Mam,’ he said, unable to conceal his glee.

  There, in his grubby hands, was a dollop of muck. I raised my eyebrows and closely studied it, trying to look as interested as it’s possible to be in a calf turd.

  ‘Yer ring,’ he said excitedly. ‘It’s in ’ere.’

  He went over to the water tap and started to rinse his hands, keeping them tightly cupped together.

  He was right: within a few minutes I was slipping my wedding ring back into position. Reuben’s hands remained outstretched, only this time I crossed his palm with silver . . . or rather, a crisp twenty-pound note. Proving that, as the old saying goes: where there’s muck, there’s money.

  Our cream tea visitors are sometimes a wonderful diversion from the routines of the farm. It was a glorious summer’s day when I took a phone call from Ian, the verger at the church in Kirkby Stephen.

  ‘Amanda,’ he said. ‘Can you do me a favour?’

  ‘Go on,’ I said.

  He explained that the even
ing before, he had been in the church quietly preparing for vespers when a small group of people had wandered in. This was not unusual, as visitors often came in for quiet contemplation or to admire the medieval architecture and ancient tombs. Ian was sorting the hymn books when he heard the piano in the chancel being played. Brilliantly.

  ‘Such talent,’ he said to himself, stopping his work to listen.

  The other three visitors were sitting in the pews while the fourth played. Ian was reluctant to disturb them, but eventually his curiosity got the better of him.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Your friend plays beautifully.’

  ‘G’day, mate,’ said one of the three. ‘We’re from Sydney in Australia and mi mate here Duncan is a concert pianist. We’re doing the coast-to-coast, and we’ve been walking for a week now. Duncan here was getting piano withdrawal symptoms, so we decided to check in to our B & B, drop off our rucksacks and then see if we couldn’t find him a fix.’

  ‘I tell yer what,’ said Duncan, turning round from the piano. ‘I wouldn’t mind a go on the organ over there.’ He nodded towards the church’s substantial pipe organ.

  According to Ian, what followed was a beautifully moving, impromptu organ recital.

  After they left, the only way Ian could think to thank them was by asking me to provide them with cream teas and a go on our wonky, out-of-tune piano for their next stretch of the coast-to-coast journey.

  So that is how I came to have a party of four Australian walkers sitting in the living room, one of them perched at the piano playing a slightly off-key rendition of ‘Moonlight Sonata’.

  It is fair to say that when you visit Ravenseat, you must expect the unexpected. You never know who or what you’ll find. Usually you’ll be pleasantly surprised, but this was not the case for a couple of guests to the shepherd’s hut.