Turkeys Make Us Move in Mysterious Ways.

When I was hedge laying last weekend and the Coopers joined me for lunch up at Beech Wyn, they reminded me of a story that had been prompted by their meeting that morning with an old gamekeeper called Catweazle down at the village hall.  

As we sat by the fire eating our bread, eggs and bacon, I started to tell the Coopers of a story that  angered Catweazle as much today as it did all those years ago.

It was at the village Christmas bazaar in the early seventies, and in those days one of the prized offerings was a twenty five pound turkey, all plucked, dressed and ready for the oven, and with this turkey came a competition on how it was to be won.  This was usually done by means of guessing the weight, who could lift the most weight or some general knowledge quiz.  This particular year however, Catweazle who was, I must say, the most formidable gamekeeper I have ever known.  There was nothing that he couldn’t shoot, there was nothing that he couldn’t catch and there was nothing that he didn’t know about the countryside, but all that being said, he was still one of the most dull, most arrogant, evil minded, bad tempered person that I have ever come across.   That was in those days.  According to the Coopers, he has since mellowed. 

Catweazle was on the committee of the bazaar and he thought it rather apt to have a days’ shooting and whoever came back with the most edible game won the turkey.  There wasn’t that many takers, largely due to the fact that not many people liked shooting, not even enough to win the twenty five pound turkey.  The afternoon of the bazaar, various gamekeepers, farm labourers and have-a-go pot shooters lined up to put their signature in the ‘I’ll have a go book’.  As I watched, I thought that I would love a go at that and joined the queue.  As I got further down the line and people had noticed that I was in it that was when the real jeering and mickey taking started.  “You’ve not even got a gun,” were the shouts. “You’re too young for shooting,” then a hand on my shoulder was pulling me out of the line away from the signing in book.  It was Catweazle and he was yelling about, “Come away, come away boy, being so stupid, you are too young for a shotgun, you’ve no license.” 

“Who mentioned shotgun?” I questioned. “I’ve got an air rifle.”

“Yes, and don’t I know it,” replied Catweazle gritting his teeth. We had had many a pheasant off of Catweazle’s patch over a period of time.  “No, you can’t do it, it’s for shotguns.”

“There’s no mention of shotguns on the posters.” I stated back at him pointing at the poster on the wall.  “And this competition is open for all, not just the chosen few who have shotguns.”  Just then, amongst all the commotion, the wife of the landowner approached us. Catweazle immediately let go of me and doffed his cap.

“I’m sorry about this Ma’am.”

“That’s quite alright,” was her reply. “I’ve heard the gist of this while I was sat by the fire with my cream tea and the lad here is right, let him have a go.  What chance does he stand against all you grown men, I admire his spirit.  And a week today, Saturday, 23rd of December, I will check you all out at 8am and check you all back in at 4pm and the one with the most edible game will be presented with the twenty five pound turkey.”

“Thank you Ma’am, I will see you at 8am on Saturday the 23rd and by the way, what part of the estate is the shooting to be held”

“You must pick your peg position from the bucket that will determine where you will be shooting.” Catweazle then produced a bucket and started to walk around the participants inviting them to have a lucky dip. Eventually it came around to me. My hand was soon inside the bucket, routing around until I found the perfect one. I pulled out the peg with the number 8 daubed on it.

 “Where am I on the estate with this peg?” I asked holding it aloft. I was soon shouted down by Catweazle and a couple more keepers “Wait until everyone has picked their pegs you impatient little runt.” Her Ladyship then produced a sheet of paper with the corresponding estate positions to the numbers that had been drawn from the bucket. She began calling out the numbers and then mine came out.

“Number 8, The Big Grizzly,”

“Not too bad a spot,” I thought.

The Big Grizzly was a farm towards the Northern part of the estate.  Woodland and pasture.  It was important that I knew where it was to be held as I also knew that an airgun against shotguns is a very tall order indeed.  Catweazle and a couple of other gamekeepers came over to me. “You haven’t got a chance, birds fly very high up at The Big Grizzly.” I ignored their banter and was only too pleased to be involved in the Turkey Competition.

As the bazaar drew to a close my mother, brothers, sister and I left to go home and from the village hall to our house the word idiot was mentioned by them fifty or sixty times.  “No one makes a fool of themselves like you Allan, wait ‘till we tell dad.” Mum was surprisingly quiet. I think she honestly thought that I had a good chance of winning that turkey.  That night’s teatime around the table with a cottage loaf and a lump of cheese, my father and brothers laughed and jibed.  “I know you’re not the brightest light on the tree Allan but take it from me, an airgun against a shotgun is the biggest mismatch as you trying to throw me over the front wall.” But as they were laughing and jibing my mind was already in overdrive on how I could wipe the smile off Catweazle’s face.  And by the time the bread and cheese supper was over, I had worked it out as to how I was going to achieve this. 

“Don’t worry your heads about a turkey this Christmas mum and dad, because this year mum, you will be cooking that twenty five pound turkey.”

“And pigs will be flying by Boxing Day,” replied dad. 

Friday night, 22nd December duly came and there hadn’t been much talk about turkeys all that week.  The school bus dropped us off in the village at 4pm, I ran on ahead of my brothers and sister to our house, inside the door and straight upstairs, I changed into my rough clothes, I got my trusted BSA Mercury .22 air rifle from under my bed and I was soon down in the kitchen cutting some bread and a lump of cheese.  “Don’t go eating that, it will be supper time soon, what do you think you are doing?”

“I’m going out tonight pheasanting and I will be late back.” Mum never liked me pheasanting neither much did dad.  But my father was very much of the mind that the Landowners owned the land but the wildlife upon it belonged to no man. The owner of nature was a much higher authority. A view probably as wrong today as it was then. We loved the pheasant dinners but poaching was a serious business.  As I have said before, we rented a house from the estate and in those days, poaching, if you were unlucky enough to get caught, your whole family could be turned out of the house so the risks were tangible. 

My plan was simply to go out that Friday evening and try and bag a few pheasants and rabbits and walk up and drop them off at The Big Grizzly where then on the following day, to all pretence and purposes it would be as if they had been shot on the 23rd.  Five forty five it was pitch dark.  I was out of the house and down the track and soon across the fields.  My peg number being The Big Grizzly meant that it was two and a half miles there and back.  It was to be a very long night.  The weather wasn’t particularly good, but it was bright with a three quarter moon which meant that the lighter the night, the more the pheasants were on their guard.  Soon I was underneath a Hawthorne tree, three pheasants silhouetted against the night time sky.  The BSA Mercury was in my hands already pointing at the highest bird for that was the clearest shot.  A zip from the air rifle and he came tumbling down inside the Hawthorne tree.  The other two pheasants immediately flew off.  This started a chain reaction of pheasants cutting off throughout the countryside.  The pheasant had got entangled half way down the tree.  I looked for a stick and the pheasant was soon freed and fell to the ground.  I put him inside my hessian sack but the noise from the cutting off pheasants was concerning. A fox getting too close to a pheasant would make them cut off on a light night but so would a poacher.  Soon I was walking down the hedgerows heading for much thicker woodland all the time in the direction of The Big Grizzly.  This was a poor night for poaching.  The hedgerows were going to bear no more fruit as every pheasant I approached flew off into the moonlit night.  Just then I heard a vixen letting off her blood curdling scream. “Must follow the foxes,” I thought.  Soon I was in the thick woodland with my one measly pheasant in my sack.  I briskly walked on through the woodland scrunching on the leaves that lay underfoot which every animal within a quarter of mile could possibly hear. I was focussed, concentrating on following the fox.  She was still in front of me in the distance.  After about fifteen minutes I saw the first snare.  “The Keepers had been busy,” I thought.  The first rabbit had had his head half chewed off.  “She isn’t hungry then,” I mused, as this is an old fox’s trick of putting the rabbit out of its misery.  “Damn, I can’t take that one.” But where there was one snare, there was very often a dozen.  I was now on the top boundary of the woodland.  All that I had to do now was walk down the edge of the wood and field and I should be able to gather my harvest.  Another snare placed in a rabbit run, head chewed, “Damn,” As I leant down to the rabbit the blood around the neck of the rabbit was still moist although the rabbit had been dead for a few hours.  The fox was just making sure that they were dead. She wasn’t too far ahead of me.  What I did then was very risky, as for my plan to have any chance of working, she had to be stopped from mutilating these rabbits. I had to have rabbits.  I picked up a large stick and started to wack the top strand of barbed wire as hard as I could, and started to shout.  I kept it up for three or four minutes.  Pheasants and pigeons were flying out all over the place.  I put down my stick and hurried along the top of the woodland.  Another snare, this time it was a complete rabbit.  That had the fox, she was gone leaving the catch of the snares to me.  Soon another snare and soon another rabbit, then another, then another, then another.  My hessian bag was now starting to feel pleasantly weighty.  One pheasant and seventeen rabbits. Eventually I arrived at The Big Grizzly.  I hid them amongst a thick hedge.  Now it was time to return home to bed.  The excitement of the following day ringing around my mind. 

The morning of the 23rd I was up early. I had a quick breakfast then fetched down my airgun with pellets.  I made myself a couple of sandwiches and a flask. My mum and dad wished me well and I was soon walking across the fields to The Court.  I arrived at The Court, I wasn’t the first or the last. We were then all greeted by her Ladyship who wished us a good days’ sport and said those immortal words, “May the best man win.” The Land Rovers were ready to despatch us to our various shooting points.  All very exciting to a fourteen year old.  Seven thirty we set off.  All in all there were twenty two competitors.  I was dropped off at The Big Grizzly at seven forty five. I waited until eight am and then I immediately made a b line to where I had dropped my hessian sack full of rabbits and my one pheasant from the night before.  The day was bright, clear and frosty with a breeze that was quite cutting if you allowed it to be, but while you kept moving it was a lovely day but a poor day for shooting.  Your scent could be picked up from miles away, very little chance of creeping up on anything and with my bag already quite substantial, almost full, I was not too concerned.  I got the rabbits out of the sack and hung them up by their back legs and ruffled up the fur around their necks to leave no trace of the snare wire and to keep them as good looking as possible for four pm that afternoon.  Then I put an air rifle pellet into each rabbit. I could hear the gun shots in the distance throughout the day but I couldn’t help but think they couldn’t be having much joy in these type of conditions. Three forty five duly came round and I was picked up by one of the Land Rovers.  “Good heavens, you’ve had a good day.”

“A great day,” I replied.  I asked the four people in the Land Rover what sort of day had they had, but their silence and miserable outlook told me that they had had a disappointing time. 

Back at The Court the other four Land Rovers had already returned and the competitors were listening to her Ladyship who was addressing them from the stone steps in front of her imposing home. Each man had his game laid out in front of him.  I only had eyes for Catweazle’s game.  I could see quite a number.  In fact, all down the line there was a tad more game than I had envisaged.  I joined the end of the queue and started to unpack my sack.  I laid the rabbits and my pheasant out in front just like the others.  Her Ladyship walked down the line with Catweazle.  Catweazle’s heap was the opposite end of mine.  Seven pheasants, five pigeons, three rabbits and one hare, that in anybody’s reckoning was a fantastic day’s shooting. Down the line they came. Catweazle had excelled himself.  He was full of confidence.  You could see in his smug face that he felt sure that his bag was the largest and as they got to me his bag was still the leading count.  When he saw the game in front of me his face went immediately stony straight.  He had counted my bag quicker than any calculator, “Seventeen rabbits and one pheasant,” he muttered.

“Well I never, you have done well,” congratulated her Ladyship with a beaming smile.  She then presented me with my precious prize. Catweazle then dispersed his men and was then asked by her Ladyship to take me home.  The ride home, Catweazle, myself and the turkey was one of the most awkward short journeys I had ever endured.  Even thinking of it today makes me cringe.  His passing comment to me as I stepped out of the Land Rover was.  “I don’t know how you did it, seventeen rabbits and a pheasant with an air gun on a day like this, I just don’t believe it you cheating little git.”  My comment back to Catweazle was, “Christmas turkeys make us move in mysterious ways.  Have a great Christmas Catweazle.”

A free range turkey always reminds me of Christmas in the most magical way.

Nature’s Top Guns.

In a week that has seen Defra criticised on the Badger cull with no real scientific strategy, and Bovine TB being found in Cumbria which can be directly linked to cattle movements, I have been really quite disheartened by the hopelessness of this Badger cull situation.  And yet, on the other hand, I have seen delightful developments up and around my Badger sett, in as much as, the Stag whose presence has been most welcome around my Badger sett for parts of the day, a Barn Owl who has had a continual presence over the sett by night have now been joined by a Sparrow Hawk that is continually in and out of the area and a couple of Buzzards have set up camp just a few yards down from the Badger sett and the Little Owl that positively relishes the idea of keeping an eye over his back and white friends.  This could be a coincidence, although in my experience, any animal in nature that doesn’t take heed from coincidence, their life span is dramatically reduced.  So on that note, I prefer to think it is the Badgers calling in long past favours from nature’s top guns and it ‘takes my breath away’.

Watch my short film of a beautiful Badger.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTquHdBQoC0&feature=youtube_gdata

Hedge Laying and Bazaars

Frosts decided to grace us with their presence this week. Two frosty mornings with damp in the air which makes for a particularly chilly, rimy start to the working day.  But I personally love a frosty morning.  It makes everything so clean and fresh and it fills you with a certain exuberance, so nothing that you take on that day seems to be too adventurous.

It was on such a morning as this last mid-week that I noticed a hedge up towards the badger sett that needed attention.  It had grown tall and straggly and needed laying.  It is a very ancient hedge and they say; “for every variety of tree in a hedge you add a 100 years”.  In this particular hedge there is Hazel, Hawthorne, Blackthorn, Ash and Field Maple so to my reckoning, it is at least 500 years old.  And in its lifetime it has probably been laid a few dozen times.  A hedge is in constant evolution, ever in flux.  The homes it creates for nature and the protection it gives, it is a truly, remarkable, living boundary and one I never tire of looking at or working on to preserve. 

I set out early Saturday morning with billhook, camping stove and kettle in the back of the Land Rover to the hedge in question.  It was about 500 yards from my badger sett.  However, just as I was leaving the house I bumped into the Coopers who were carrying a couple of bags.  I had not seen much of them since I moved their tent from the sett a few weeks ago.  We were now on good speaking terms, they understood, and they were still just as enthusiastic as ever on the protection of the badgers. 

“What are you up to this morning Allan?” asked Mr. Cooper.

“Laying that hedge up at Beech Wyn.”

“Oh, we might be up later.”

“Well if you do come up, bring some eggs and a few bits of bacon and we’ll have some lunch.”

“That sounds lovely,” Mrs Cooper replied with Mr Cooper nodding.

“What are you both up to?”

“We’re just dropping off a few bits and pieces for the village bazaar.”

“Oh yes, Jackie is just sorting out a few things for that, well lovely to see you, hopefully see you both later.”

“Oh we’ll be there Allan,” and with that we all went our separate ways.

In a very short time I was up at the hedge, first job being, getting a small fire going.  I filled the kettle from the water canister and soon the flames were leaping around it.  Time goes by so quickly when you are hedging and soon my jacket was off and it was time for a cup of tea.  As I sat on an old stump I noticed I was being kept company by a couple of Magpies who seemed to be looking down at the few yards of hedge that I had laid, I picked up another handful of sticks and put on the fire and there I sat with my tea.

 It must have been the Coopers mentioning the word Bazaar and I started to reminisce of the village bazaars of yesteryear, which were always two or three weeks before Christmas.  The villages were full of kids in those days and it was one of the main events on the village calendar.  There were a couple of large families in the village, mine being one of them and the village bazaar organisers would ask my mother if she would like to go round the night before the bazaar in the village hall and go through the jumble.  A lot of our clothes in those days were from the summer jumble sale, fete and bazaar.  It was a favour to my mother and family that she was so very pleased with and always held the two or three people who ran the bazaar in very high esteem. 

As I looked into the flames of my little fire listening to the sticks crackling as the flames licked in between them, I thought back to the winters when we were all small kids in a little cottage with one fire which my parents could not afford to fuel properly.  Coal was a very precious resource and was always expensive.  So us kids were always wooding, with our little wood cart, the fun was immeasurable, the days were really quite magical. 

It was  early December on a Friday evening, we were all sat around the fire, myself, dad and my five siblings, waiting for mum to return with her jumble sale purchases, my father told us of a family fable which he duly demonstrated.  He picked up a stick from the bundle by the side of the fire, he passed the stick to my eldest brother.  He then told my eldest brother to break it, which my eldest brother did with ease.  Dad then told him to toss it into the fire.  My father then picked up two sticks and passed it to my next brother down, dad then told him to break those, again, my brother was able to do.  Dad then told him to toss them into the fire.  Dad then picked up three sticks and passed them to the next brother down who was a twin with my sister.  With a little bit more of an effort he broke them and then tossed them into the fire by my father’s instruction.  Dad then picked up four sticks and passed them to my sister, she grappled with the sticks.  The effort this time was much more visible, after a minute or so she broke them over her knee.  She then tossed those into the fire.  My father then picked up five sticks and gave them to me.  I put the sticks across my knee, I tried and I tried to break the sticks, but I could not break them no matter how much I tried.  My brothers and sister watched as I struggled with this handful of sticks.  After what seemed to be an eternity but which was probably only a couple of minutes, I had to hand them back to my father defeated. With the embarrassment of not being able to do what my brothers and sister had done, I looked to my father and asked him “What was the point of that?” My father did not reply but handed them to each of my brothers and sister in turn as they too could not break the sticks. He then explained, “As you go through life, the more you lose contact and splinter away from each other, the easier you are to be broken, but if you stick together and each one’s problem becomes all of your problems, you will never be broken.”  This lesson I have never forgotten from a man I respected more than any other.  A man who had been a paratrooper at Arnhem and wounded three times and yet survived.  A self-employed Stone Mason who brought up six kids in very taxing and an austere age. 

After another couple of hours of hedge laying I was startled by, “Oh you’re getting on very well here.”  The Cooper’s invalidity buggy was so silent and yet so cool as it carried them along two up.  

Mr and Mrs Cooper then set up the frying pan and was soon cracking eggs and in no time you could smell the delicious scent of bacon and eggs.  As I cut the fresh loaf of bread into door step chunks, Mrs Cooper went on to say how they had bumped into an old keeper named Catweazle at the bazaar and what really tickled the Coopers was how he was going on about how he had lost a Christmas turkey to me forty years earlier.  A story I will tell you all about another time.

Magpies always seemed to look at you with an "I can do better" attitude.

A Great Friend in Tough Times

Last weekend I had to leave the badger sett for a couple of nights, the first time since the badger cull was announced.  Our business was in London where we also took the opportunity to pay our respects at the Cenotaph.  You might recall a few weeks ago I told you about a Stag that was looking over the badger sett during day light hours, the Barn Owls are regular over the sett at night, however, for the last six weeks or so, another old friend of mine, The Fox, has been paying regular visits on a nightly basis.  It is really quite amusing.  He will watch them from 2am until about 6am. It’s as if he is counting them, each and every one of them back into the sett.  And then just before first light, he walks slowly over to the sett, looking down the sett’s entrances, almost as if to say “Another day safe my friends.” He then disappears into the thick woodland until the following early hours.

So in a funny sort of way, although I had to leave the badgers, I felt very reassured.  The badgers were in the finest of hands.

Watch my short film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGqUcNrJ-Ww&feature=youtube_gdata

Badgers, Together We Stand

Nine Hundred and Forty Badgers were killed in total during a pilot cull which was lower than the government's planned targets a BBC reporter has just revealed on the Somerset Cull, stating that it is failing simply because the targets, whatever they may be, have not been reached.

November 5th, Guy Fawkes, reminds us all that we live in arguably the greatest democracy in the world, however, democracy for me takes a savage blow when by far the majority of the British people are against the badger cull, yet it goes ahead regardless.

Watch my short film on badgers enjoying the scents on an autumn, November chilly night.  Please click on the link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1WSRoPkygA&feature=youtube_gdata

Cowpats and Bangers.

Autumn was always such an exciting time when you were a kid.  You would be looking for the biggest and hardest conker to try and reign supreme in the school yard, this was followed up by the making of masks and lanterns for Halloween.  In those days, curiously enough, across the Cotswolds, the lanterns were made from turnips and swedes rather than the bright pumpkins that you see in the shops today.  This was then quickly followed by Guy Fawkes Night, commonly known as bonfire night.

All the planning for these events would kick off the day you started back to school for the autumn term.  You would collect bits and pieces of timber from the hedgerows for the bonfire from the end of September right through to the night itself.  You would be out waiting for the conkers to fall, prise open the conker casements that nature hadn’t always completed to expose the liverish brown, shiny new conker that you hoped was going to be the conker that no other kid could crack.  Then you would be off around the farm labourers asking them to keep their eyes open for the largest, roundest turnip or swede for the Halloween lantern and your mind was ever full of the most ghoulish, frightening face for your Halloween mask as well as the apple bobbing competition which entailed getting a bite out of an apple that was suspended across the classroom on a string head height as well as, getting a bite out of an apple that was floating in a bowl of water with hands clasped behind your back.  This was no done deal.  Everything in those days was competition.  There was a prize for the most imaginative mask, a prize for the most illuminating lantern and also a prize for the most competent apple bobber.  And last but not least, the making of Guy Fawkes himself that we all took so seriously.  The arguments and banter that created.  No two people’s minds effigy is ever the same or it certainly didn’t appear to be so then.  A trolley would be made to wheel him around on and as you knocked on every door almost before the door was open a group of screaming kids were shouting, “A penny for the guy.”  The money raised would go into a small fund to purchase fireworks, Catherine Wheels, Roman Fountains, Rockets, Bangers to name but a few.

 Guy Fawkes Night was quite a big deal.  Every village had a bonfire party where the whole village would take part.  There would be jacket potatoes and sausages all ate with relish in the glow of the bonfire. And the cheer that went up just as the flames consumed Guy Fawkes on the top of the fire.  Happy days.  The bonfire was always in a grass field in the middle of the village, more often than not the field had been grazed by the local dairy herd.  Every village had one and pranks were a plenty. 

Bonfire night was a very adult evening for us kids and the older girls who would never look at any of us younger lads other than with complete contempt were very often the targets in their tight mini-skirts.  As the fire was burning we would look for a cowpat and insert a banger.  These were called in those days either a Cannon, Little Demon or just plain Banger.  The Little Demon for this particular prank was always the obvious choice.  We would engage the help of an older kid who had had no joy at all with these long legged older girls to get them in conversation two or three meters from the cowpat which was to be duly ignited.  Once in conversation an ember stick from the fire would be chosen, walked back around into the darkness and approach this group of long legged girls who were deep in conversation and flirting watching the bright, brilliant bonfire.  The blue touch paper was ignited and then we stood back and listened and watched.  A muffled bang followed by an “Urgh” was the sound and sight which sent us kids into absolute hysterics, as now the girls were trying to brush off the back of their legs making their situation even more unpleasant and with all the comments that followed pretty untenable.  When I look back, it was a truly awful, disgusting prank.  However, the girls didn’t seem to hold any malice as when the Christmas party arrived, they too would joke about the very same prank.

All these events, especially bonfire night are all so different nowadays.  Our rockets were a foot long, just launched from a milk bottle.  The bangers used for the cowpats were three inches long.  Roman Candles eight to ten inches long.  Catherine Wheels three or four inches across.  They were good time fireworks for people with no money who were just out for a good time.  And what I remember about those times were nights filled with laughter, a belly full of good basic food and an evening that was thoroughly enjoyed by all who attended.  So much different to the bonfire parties of today.

The majority of working class people have long left the villages so each village sadly no longer has its own bonfire night.  The evening is now more of the preserve of the small towns where the population of the villages now go to be entertained.  If entertained is the right word.  It is an evening where buckets are passed through the crowd for a donation for the fireworks and ear protection for those who want it.   The fireworks arrive in pickup trucks.  An effigy of a Guy is nowhere to be seen and once the fire is lit and the fireworks ignited the whole experience resembles something of an imagery of the Siege of Sarajevo.  Kids screaming everywhere because of the hideous noise of these monstrosities, rockets, two meters long and look as if they could bring down a small aircraft and once they are airborne, the bang can only be described as ear drum shattering.  Ten minutes into it, you really are expecting to see any second a flinching John Simpson in bullet proof jacket detailing and explaining what he is witnessing. 

Where has it all gone wrong?  Why is our quest for bigger, louder and better so insatiable?  By wanting such a lot more we have got immeasurably less.

Rabbit trying his hand at apple bobbing and to be fair to the rabbit, he ain't using no paws.

Ever since Owen Paterson talked about "The Badgers Moving the Goal posts", the wildlife around my house won't leave our goal alone.