A Year in the Life of the Yorkshire Shepherdess

by Amanda Owen

  ‘Put it this way,’ he said. ‘She could stand on t’market square at Kirkby, watch for t’bus an’ look at t’church clock at same time.’

  ‘She was cross-eyed, was she?’ said Clive. ‘Never mind, Marsh; faint heart never won fair maiden.’

  When not chasing women, Marshall’s passions were growing giant leeks and playing dominoes. But if there was a tup viewing, he was first in line for the outing and spent many a happy evening sitting in semi-darkness, perched on a bale of hay in a shed, fag in one hand and whisky in the other whilst a procession of tups were brought out for inspection.

  As more whisky was consumed the atmosphere would get more raucous – comments would be more honest, and perhaps even brutal.

  ‘Hell, looks like ’is horns ’ave just bin thrawn at ’im.’

  ‘He’s gotta funny lug, ’im.’

  One of the most popular destinations for tup viewings is over in Weardale, where many of our friends and fellow tup breeders farm. The price of an entertaining evening over the border in County Durham is an extremely arduous journey back home, all the passengers with a few too many whiskies on board.

  How long the weather holds dictates when the cows and horses are brought in to the farm buildings. Once the fields start getting paddled with mud, then it’s time for them to check into their winter accommodation. Winters here are long, especially for the cows, who will not go outside again until May; although living in the barn is no great hardship for them, with silage or haylage on demand and perhaps a bucket or two of sugar beet pellets. A sleeping area is bedded up with straw and the rushes that we’ll have mowed off the banks in the summer, and the cows contentedly sift through the rushes looking for occasional tasty morsels.

  Before transport meant that straw was more readily available to hill farms, bracken from the moor was mown for the sole purpose of bedding the housed animals up during the winter. This wasn’t without its dangers, though, as the bracken could prove poisonous if it was eaten by the animals and had not been sufficiently dried after harvesting.

  Every day the cows are moved into a holding pen while we scrape the floor clean. For the horses, winter means overnighting in the stables and spending the day in the pens or at the moor bottom with a hay net. Being of indeterminate, but certainly native, breeding, they grow thick winter coats, and only on the harshest of days do they need rugging up.

  Entering the stalls on a frosty morning, the indescribable warm and comforting smell of horses fills the nostrils. Lovers of routine, they will nicker and snort as they wait for their morning rations, occasionally showing impatience by stamping their hooves. Footstamping out of impatience is one thing but when footstamping on a larger scale begins, and they are all doing it, it can mean that the horses have an infestation of lice. Lice can drive a horse almost to insanity, the urge to itch overriding everything else. When they are turned out they hardly take a step without dipping their heads to bite at the feather on their front hooves, or contorting themselves to nibble away at the feather on their back hooves. They can strip all the hair away by rubbing and biting, until only angry, scabby skin can be seen. Then infection may set in. Lice can be found on any part of the horse, but the heels and feather seem to be the most susceptible. Where the lice come from is a mystery: it’s a winter ailment, so possibly the straw bedding, or maybe the hay. They are determined little critters, and not easy to exterminate.

  One year, after we’d tried and tested many off-the-shelf remedies, it wasn’t just the horses that were tearing their hair out. Nothing seemed to work, and I was at my wits’ end. I even consulted my antiquarian horsemanship books, but many of the ingredients recommended were no longer available through the normal channels, owing to them being absolutely bloody lethal. Antimony, potassium and arsenic: I don’t think so.

  Reuben had recently discovered an old half-full glass medicine bottle, perched on a stone ledge in a barn. It had probably been set down by one of our predecessors, put out of harm’s way, after being administered to a sickly animal. Whether it worked, we will never know. But the ailments that the magic elixir claimed to cure were comprehensive, to say the least. I scrutinized the yellowing paper label: Driffield Oils. For sheep, cattle, horses, pigs and all fowl.

  ‘That’s everything, really,’ I thought.

  For internal and external uses.

  ‘Can’t go wrong there, then . . .’ I reckoned.

  A tablespoonful in half a pint of warm gruel for difficult lambings, scour in calves, foals and sheep. For dropsy, swelled legs, surfeits, impurity of the blood and obstructed perspiration . . . Might need an extra spoonful for this.

  Swollen and inflamed navels, colic or gravel, ulcers, fly galls, bites of dogs, wounds, swellings and sagged udders . . .

  This last one caught my attention. Clive’s, too, but he thought better than to say owt.

  ‘There’s nowt it didn’t remedy, a cure-all if ever I saw one,’ I said to Clive.

  There were no ingredients listed on the label, and just about the only problem it didn’t claim to solve was a lousy horse. I put the bottle away in our wooden animal medicine chest, preserved for posterity.

  A few days later Buffy and Albie, the scrap lads, drove into the yard. Always on the lookout for anything that they can sell for a few quid, they take away anything from broken round feeders to bent troughs, rusty gates and old fencing wire. No job is too big for them: they once took away an old barrel muck spreader on the back of their flatbed Transit by cutting it in half with an oxyacetylene torch. Very occasionally they have something on board that is just too good to be melted down and recycled. I bought a really heavy cast-iron circular pig feeder from them one day. I once even spotted them manhandling what appeared to be a very heavy safe down the high street in Kirkby Stephen. I can only assume that the fact it was in broad daylight meant that I hadn’t just witnessed a great heist.

  There is nothing even slightly effeminate about Buffy, so out of curiosity I asked his sidekick where the nickname came from, thinking it must have something to do with vampires.

  ‘What’s wi’ this Buffy thing?’ I asked, when his mate was out of earshot.

  ‘’E’s a Big, Ugly, Fat . . .’ he said.

  ‘Reet, got it,’ I interrupted him before he finished. It was an acronym. There was no denying that he wasn’t easy on the eye.

  ‘’Ave yer got any ’osses about?’ said Albie. Both lads were from Romany families and were brought up around horses. They are a fount of knowledge, and I like to pick their brains. Their cures are not always conventional, more akin to herbalism I guess, from feeding nettles to cleanse the blood of a horse with laminitis (a hoof disease that can cause lameness and even death), to horse soup made from stagnant water. I like the way these two unlikely-looking lads have absorbed all this information from their elders.

  I took them into the stalls, where the horses were picking at the hay in the racks, waiting to be turned out for the day.

  ‘Nice, I’s liking yer mare,’ said Buffy. ‘She’s proper lousy though.’

  I told him the trouble I was having and how I’d tried every potion known to man.

  ‘Worrabout benzo benzo?’ he said. ‘’Ave yer ’ad a go wi’ that?’

  ‘Benzo benzo?’ I’d never heard of it.

  Walking back towards the flatbed Transit, he went into more detail. Apparently I needed a bottle of benzyl benzoate (available at the chemist’s shop), pig oil and a tub of flowers of sulphur, both of which I could get from the agricultural supply shop. All I had to do was mix the powdered sulphur into the pig oil to make a paste, and then tip in the benzyl benzoate. It was all very vague, but I decided it was worth a try.

  The next time Clive went to Kirkby Stephen, I handed him a shopping list.

  ‘What d’ya want?’ he said, studying the scrap of paper.

  ‘Pig oil an’ sulphur, you’ll just ’ave to ask at the pharmacy for benzo benzo,’ I said. ‘They’ll know what you’re on about.’

  Off he went, returning
a couple of hours later.

  ‘Yer nivver tellt me ’ow much benzo benzo yer wanted,’ he complained.

  I explained that I didn’t know, as I didn’t have an exact recipe. ‘Enough to coat all o’ t’osses lower legs, I guess.’

  ‘Aye, well that’s what I thought an’ all,’ he said. ‘But it didn’t ga that weeell.’

  ‘What d’ya mean?’

  ‘I went into t’chemist an’ it was varry busy, there was owd Thunderbolt an’ Sonny in there, an’ I was havin’ a bit o’ craic with ’em an’ then t’lady behind counter asked mi worra wanted.’

  ‘Yes . . . ?’ I said, unable to see a problem so far.

  ‘I asked ’er for thi’ stuff an’ she asked what it was for?’

  ‘Mmmm, what did yer say?’

  ‘I tellt ’er it was for itchin’ an’ scratchin’.’

  Apparently the lady behind the counter raised her eyebrows, looked Clive up and down, and then asked how much he needed.

  ‘Aye, well I need a gay bit,’ he’d said. ‘I’m gonna slather it on ’cos them lice is making all t’hair fall out.’

  Wrinkling her nose up and grimacing, the lady had gone into the back to talk to the pharmacist.

  ‘Would you like to come into this side room?’ asked the pharmacist.

  ‘No,’ said Clive, getting impatient.

  ‘Mr Owen,’ she said, taking her glasses off and leaning towards him across the counter. ‘Have you been to see the doctor . . . because I certainly think that you should. Pubic lice are notoriously difficult to get rid of and I certainly won’t be dispensing litres of benzyl benzoate for self-medication.’

  ‘Eh?’ said Clive, who’s a little hard of hearing.

  ‘Pubic lice,’ she said, a little bit louder this time.

  Clive turned his good ear closer. ‘Say tha’ again,’ he said.

  ‘CRABS, Mr Owen, CRABS . . . you need to talk to your doctor.’

  ‘Oh Clive, I had no idea that it was for that!’ I said.

  Once Clive had cottoned on, he explained the misunderstanding – but not before the shop had emptied of people, all ready to report back to anyone who would listen that there was a nasty outbreak of something very unpleasant at Ravenseat.

  Surprisingly, the treatment worked, and the horses have never been troubled with lice since. I pointed out to Clive that I now keep the potion on standby . . . just in case he should ever need it.

  In October, I usually close the shepherd’s hut down for the winter. Some folks have romantic notions of staying there when there’s snow on the ground, but we know snow and ice bring problems. Even rain brings its own troubles for visitors here, not because there’s ever any danger of being washed away, but because we are almost surrounded by water. We have had visitors trapped here, unable to take their cars through the ford as the river has risen so much that it would be folly to attempt the crossing. We can tackle the packhorse bridge in the Land Rover or pickup, as they are not as low-slung as a car, where the oil sump and the exhaust are vulnerable at the apex of the bridge. Even in our vehicles you have to line up with the dead centre of the track, and there is a point when you can only see the sky as you go upwards at an acute angle. You must grip the steering wheel, hold it straight, and then the bonnet will dip and you nosedive down the other side. There may be the odd scraping noise, but we don’t worry. Our vehicles are workhorses, and have the battle scars to prove it.

  During one rainy spell, we had a run of folk trapped here because of the fluctuating water levels in the river. The land was so saturated that within minutes of the rain starting to fall, the water began to rise. Clive and I watched the levels closely and then had to make an informed decision about whether the car could cross the ford. What sort of car was it: was it light or heavy? Who was driving it: were they confident, or were they going to panic when they got to the middle and stall it? And most importantly: what sort of company were they going to be if they were stuck at Ravenseat with us until the water dropped?

  On one occasion we lent our pickup to visitors who needed to be at work later in the day. I was quietly mortified that these professional people with high-flying jobs were going to sit among all the dog hairs, junk and general farming paraphernalia.

  If the ford is crossable, then sometimes it is easier to let Clive drive the visitor’s car, rather than risk someone having an attack of nerves halfway over and coming to a standstill with the car filling up with water. We pride ourselves on making the right call, knowing when it is safe to cross and when it is too dangerous. We reckon we’ve never got it wrong.

  At least, not until Alec (who should have known better) managed to get trapped on the wrong side of the beck. Alec himself was busy doing some joinery in the shed – something that is more in his line than Clive’s, as Clive can’t bray a nail in straight.

  ‘Thee tek mi van over t’ford,’ Alec said to Clive, and carried on with his precision woodwork.

  Clive jumped into Alec’s small van, and set off down the yard. The beck was running full, but not dangerously so. Clive stopped momentarily before committing and putting her into bottom gear, then set off. Just as he reached mid-point the engine stopped dead, with no warning whatsoever.

  With the car at a complete standstill, he had no choice but to abandon ship. He pushed the door open, and the torrent took his breath away, leaving him gasping as ice-cold water began to pour into the van. He shut the door sharpish, the force of the water helping him slam it. Then he decided that he should make his escape through the passenger door, which was facing downstream, all the time hoping that the van wouldn’t be picked up by the flood and float off towards Keld. He managed to get out and run for the tractor, leaving Alec’s van slowly filling up with the dirty river water. Fortunately the tractor had been abandoned at the other side of the river. Without calling Alec, who was oblivious to the whole drama, Clive reversed the tractor, waded back into the river and attached a tow chain to the front of the waterlogged van. He dragged it out to the other side, leaving the van to drain, and went back to face the music.

  ‘Did ta’ manage?’ Alec asked, without looking up.

  ‘Weeeell, she’s at t’other side, Alec,’ said a soaked Clive, balancing on one leg as he tipped the filthy water out of his welly. ‘But I did ’ave a spot o’ bother.’

  Alec looked up, pushed up the glasses that were perched on the end of his nose and studied the dripping Clive.

  ‘What’s ta been doin’, boy?’ he said.

  Clive broke the news, and they went down to inspect the damage. They decided they would tow it to the garage and let a professional have a look.

  ‘Dun’t try an’ start it, Alec,’ Clive said. ‘The engine might still be OK.’

  With Clive in the tractor and Alec in his well-washed van, sitting on a plastic feed bag, they slowly made their way to Kirkby Stephen. They hadn’t gone very far when Clive felt a bit of resistance on the tow chain. It jerked a few times as Alec tried to start the engine.

  It didn’t start, and we’ll never know whether it was already busted or whether his efforts did the damage. Either way, the mechanics reported back that everything in the engine that could bend had done so, and it was a complete write-off.

  So that was the end of Clive volunteering to take other people’s motors across the river.

  Our two packhorse bridges have withstood the ravages of time and weather for centuries. In the past, people perished crossing rivers in spate, and the little bridges were built to afford safe passage for the pack ponies and drovers and their flocks. The yows have their trods, the paths that they follow as they wind their way back to the farmstead from the moor, and they know well the bridges and crossing spots. To the stray yows, those that do not belong at Ravenseat, the terrain is unfamiliar and can cause problems. Recently a neighbour came to pick up his stray sheep that we had gathered in from the moor. It had rained steadily for the duration of the day, and the sheep had been left in the pens in the farmyard, waiting for him to arrive. It was da
rk when we saw his vehicle lights coming down our road. We walked down to the bridge to meet him.

  ‘We’re gonna ’ave to run ’em down t’front o’ t’ouse an’ load ’em at t’other side o’ t’bridge. There’s ower much water in t’river for thi to be able to get across in yer motor,’ Clive said.

  He reversed the pickup and trailer up to the bridge, put a couple of wooden hurdles at either side to funnel the sheep into the trailer and then went to get them. It was still pouring with rain, but a couple of the bigger children had braved the weather and were in position, standing in the darkness blocking any likely gaps where a wayward yow could attempt a getaway. Not being on their home turf makes sheep flighty, and Bill struggled to keep them under control as we moved them towards the bridge. It was difficult to see, as the only light we had was from a head torch that I’d pulled on over my woolly hat, and the dim red glow from the rear lights of the stock trailer. Somehow a yow broke back from the flock and darted off to the left of the bridge. Bill set off into the blackness after her, Reuben and Miles appearing out of the gloom.

  ‘Where’s she gan?’ Reuben asked.

  ‘That way, towards the river,’ I shouted, gesturing.

  We set off after her, the beam from the head torch eventually picking out the green reflection of her eyes. She was standing stock-still, and so was Bill. She had a stark choice: move towards the noise and clatter of the trailer and the people beside the bridge, or take a leap into the unknown. She chose the latter, and it was the wrong choice. As I was busy telling Bill to back off and give her some space, Reuben and Miles were creeping around in the shadows in an attempt to get between her and the water, but she beat them to it and jumped. It was a huge jump, landing her in the middle of the swollen river. In the semi-darkness she disappeared under the swirl of inky black water.

  We stood on the bank, scanning the roaring water for sight of her.

  ‘There she is,’ shouted Miles, pointing frantically downstream.