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Garryowen, Chapter 4This story may contain adult content. |
| Written by mick beville | |
| Wednesday, 13 August 2008 | |
APPLEBY
The Eleven Plus, Primary School and Miss Bristol were all behind me and I was becoming a young man.King **** had asked mam if he could take me to Appleby horse fair for two weeks. Appleby is a small town up in Cumbria and has had its horse fair protected by a charter granted by James II since 1685. It is the key gathering place for the Romany, Gypsy, and travelling people, from all over the British Isles. As well as these noble people it also attracts the common rag and bone men. For two weeks I was going to pretend to be a gypsy. If anyone asked me I would say that the rag and bone man was just tagging along.
Appleby was over one hundred miles due north of Bradford and it would take a hard four days of travelling. If I was dreaming that we were going to travel in a lovely hand carved and finely painted gypsy caravan, then I was soon to be awoken. The King laid out his plan. We, that is the royal we, were going to cut the back off of a pre loved Austin A40 van and then somehow stick it on the back of a four wheeled horse drawn wagon. I imagined we'd do it with six-inch nails. Six-inch nails were the big thing in the fifties. Somehow the carcass of a red hand painted A40 van turned up outside our house. We had two days to do the fit out. Alec and my self were the ones who had to do most of the doing. I must admit that I had no idea what I was doing and I think Alec was the same. To cut the story short we made what was already a mess into a bigger mess. It gave The King the excuse to keep reminding me that it was my fault we were living under a leaky tarpaulin. My gypsy caravan had been reduced to a timber packing case with a tarpaulin thrown over it and tied down with ropes. The packing case had five sides and would sleep two with a small degree of comfort. The side that was missing was our door and faced the road ahead. We had two suitcases inside full of cloths plus the King's bowel medication.
As we left Ravenscliff It felt a bit embarrassing but after hitting the open road it didn't seem to matter so much, and then after a while it didn't matter at all.
We were on our way and I was a gypsy. Words can't describe what it felt like to be a gypsy on the road. Our first stop after four hours was on the outskirts of Keighley where we arranged to pick up a horse to trade at the fair. I think it was a commission job. Apparently the chestnut was an ex race horse that had suffered fetlock problems. It wasn't in a stable or on the end of a rope. It was and had been for about two years in a ten-acre field. Using every form of bribery we struggled against its wit before finally corralling it in a holding yard. But as The King approached it with the halter it bolted and tried to jump the wire fence only to fail and end up with its two front legs tangled in the barbed in a terrified state. It was the first time I'd seen a horse in real trouble. The King told the man he should call the vet and have it put down. I think his suggestion may have actually helped because the horse all of a sudden stopped panicking, stood perfectly still with both its front legs tangle and suspended in the air. The man who owned the horse went and got a pair of pliers. After he cut the poor horse down, a neighbour put Stockholm tar on the cuts and let it back into the field. The drama had set us running late for our first nights camp but with daylight till after ten o'clock it wasn't too bad.
There were three other wagons and a couple of tents set up when we pulled onto the side of the River Aire at Gargrave. They seemed friendly and shouted for us to come and join them. It turned out that the King knew two of them from a pub in Shipley called the Venture. The King was never a drunk. I don't think his grumbling bowel could handle it. The Venture was one of the pubs where the gypsy and rag and bone crowd would hang out; I think they call it networking, and while The King was ‘networking' I would be left to mind the horses. "Michael, take the harness of Bob... Michael, take Bob to the river for a drink," -stupid name for a horse. It was Michael this and Michael that. Didn't he know slavery had been abolished? It had been a long day and I wasn't up to cooking so I opened a tin of rice pudding. The King was eating pig's trotters with the Venture crowd. He would never have entertained pig's trotters when mam was cooking. After the rice pudding I was out like a light and up with the lark. Not so much the lark as the snoring. First it was The King but when I climbed over him to meet the dawn the whole camp was snoring.
The air at Gargrave tasted fresh and strangely nostalgic. I didn't put two and two together at the time but it was Limerick revisited. There was a whisper of a fog suspended above the river, but apart from that it was a perfect clear and crisp day. The river at this point was moving without urgency, maybe ankle to waist deep and about sixty feet wide. We were camped thirty feet or so from the shallow riverbank on a grassed area of a couple of acres. Tethered on the grass with Bob were five other horses. A sturdy piebald stallion with a long thick mane was trying hard to do what stallions do when blessed? As I walked along the riverbank I could see a nice sized trout. It was close to the bank, facing upstream and doing just enough to stay still in about a foot of water. I must have heard somewhere that people tickle fish out of the water, so I thought, ‘why not?' But like most things in life it's never as easy as it sounds and as soon as I put my hand in the water, it was gone like the knock on a door.
For the last four or five years in England all that I'd seen was the Industrial face of the north. Gargrave would be the first of dozens of picturesque English towns and villages that I would pass through over the next couple of weeks. As I came back from my fishing trip the camp had woken. One of the men was blowing the embers of last nights fire and The King had started bellowing out his orders. "Michael, get some water in the kettle; Michael, get some wood for the fire." ‘What kettle? What wood?' ‘ **** him.' I decided to harness Bob and yoked him to the wagon and then after helping myself to some left over sausages I was ready for more of the road again. As we hitched our wagon the King's grumbling bowel started having a good old complain. No breakfast for him today. Wagons ho...
Our next campsite was the 'Brackens' and that would take a big day's ride up through the Yorkshire Dales. We hadn't long passed through a small town called Settle when The King decided he wanted a ****. There aren't many trees in the Yorkshire Dales, so he started running over a hill with a piece of newspaper in his hand. He could have gone in comfort back in Settle but I guess with these things the mood just has to grab you. As he disappeared out of sight I had horrible visions of him giving birth to a couple of pig's trotters. Not a pretty sight. When he got back he was like a newborn man. "I'm starving," he said, with a new found vigour. "Let's stop for a bite to eat. "What do you fancy?" I asked. He put his hand on his stomach delaying his answer as if waiting for its approval. "I wouldn't mind an egg sandwich and a cup of tea," he said, with a slightly shaky conviction. We lit a fire and got a pan of water on the go and things had been looking good until I found the eggs. ‘Uh-oh...' They'd been slept on and were all broken. The King was undeterred. "Don't worry lad..." I wasn't... "There's a farm house just up the road, we could run up and see if they'll sell us some eggs" The royal we again. The house was fifty yards or so down off the road and with its roof was sagging from an age of heavy grey slates. It wasn't in disrepair so much as looking severely well used. I knocked on the door and waited with some apprehension for a growl or a bark. To my great relief the door was opened by a lovely homely middle-aged woman. "What can I do for thee love?" They call everybody love in Yorkshire. "Do you sell eggs Missus?" "Aye, I do love," she said. "Could I buy half a dozen please?" "Aye, course thee can love." She disappeared back inside and after a short while she returned with a half a dozen eggs in a brown paper bag. I put my hand in my pocket for some money and realized I didn't have any. My embarrassment must have shown because she took pity."Don't worry love. I only had duck eggs left and thee can have them f' nowt." I thanked her and headed back down the road. The King strangely enough had managed to boil the water without burning it. The cup of tea was ready and we ended up having boiled duck egg on toast. Somewhere north of Settle in the Yorkshire dales, Bob with his feedbag on, a camp fire, tea toast and boiled duck eggs. You would have to have been there. It was perfect.
We were in the process of packing up when our solitude was broken dramatically. Coming from the south and heading towards us. We could hear them before we could see them; a band of gypsies. There was no mistaking they were real gypsies. Not the rag and bone type with goldfish and balloons but the one hundred percent solid gold type of gypsy. There were two bow topped vardo wagons, followed by a large flat top wagon. There were two or three horses tied to each wagon; Piebald and Skewbald and the two vardo wagons were being pulled by Clydesdales. Out front leading the whole parade and being ridden bareback by a gypsy kid, was another Clydesdale. The Clydesdale had no bit and only a rope for a rein which in turn was tied to the halter. There was nothing casual about this gypsy band; they owned the road and were setting a cracking pace. "Grand day for it," one of them called out, in what seemed something like an Irish accent. It was no kind of English accent that was for sure. There was about twenty or so of them in what appeared to be an extended family of maybe three generations. As they passed us, vigorous and proud, they didn't look at all like a beaten people and I felt so humbled that I couldn't even pretend to be one of them. The spectacle was awesome. And then as suddenly as they had appeared, they were gone. ‘Maybe we'll catch them at the Brackens' I thought hopefully.
The sun was shining, the birds were whistling and as we forged on through the Dales I tried really hard to get my gypsy thing going again. After travelling a few miles we came across a man leaning on a Jowett van. We pulled up and asked him if he was ok. He told us the Jowett had run out of petrol and he was waiting for his pal who'd set off on foot to find a garage. The King started up a conversation with him about Jowett cars and vans. It seemed that none other than the King had once worked for the Jowett Car Company. The King said it was a little known fact that Jowett was a Bradford Car Company. ‘it was also a little cared about fact' While the two of them were talking about Jowetts, the petrol turned up. Another boring half an hour was spent waiting while the three of them tried to crank the engine over. Not with a battery but with a starting handle. There was nothing left for it but to call on Bob. They tied one end of a rope to the back of our wagon and the other end to the Jowett van. The plan was that Bob would pull them about half a mile up the road until they reached a good enough down hill stretch where they would then clutch start it. All went well until we were just over the hill, and then as I pulled Bob up to untie the Jowett. Bang! Crash... It seems that you have to pump the brakes on a Jowett and the driver forgot. He ran his priceless heap into the back of our wagon. Not a scratch on the Jowett. It seemed that the strongest feature of the Jowett was the armoured plating. We untied the rope and pulled Bob and the wagon clear. I prayed as they rolled down the hill that we would never see them again and after a few coughs and splutters it finely started. ‘There is a God'
I could smell the smoke from a fire and heard what sounded like a banjo. Drawing closer we could see dozens of wagons and tents of all shapes and sizes; oh yes, and a familiar looking Jowett van. ‘Please don't park us anywhere near that Jowett van.'
We found a good spot well away from the Jowett. The camp was alive with people. Most of them sitting around a big bonfire where a couple of drunks were jigging about as an old man played the banjo. This was my sort of campsite. I love characters. The setting was in a small woodland area about fifty yards or so up off the road. There was a large clearing in the middle of about one-acre, with the centrepiece being the big fire. The wagons and horses were parked and tethered in between the trees. The King took off networking and left me to do all the work as usual. I was getting used to it. Bob and my self would have these little chats about things. Bob it seems was also of the opinion that the King was a useless piece of shite. The Gypsy crowd that past us on the road were over near the fields and seemed to be keeping to them selves. Everyone was in great spirits. Food was being offered out all over the place. I was soaking it all up and loving it. The King had found the Jowett clan and so after I had sorted Bob out with a feed, and moved any breakable items from the sleeping area, I went for a bit of a wander.
At the edge of the camp one of the young gypsy girls was cracking a whip. Some of the lads seemed intimidated by her and after a short while most of them left. I was trying to get the whip from her when she turned and ran up the steps of a vardo wagon. Closing the door behind her, she left me standing at the bottom. It may have been five or ten seconds before she re-appeared with a bucket and gave me some kind of gypsy curse. How did I manage in what seemed like no time at all to get from a quiet stroll to this. I can remember thinking clearly as she threw the water, ‘Its only water.' Have you ever had one of those perfectly rational thoughts? 'It was only water,' but the fact that it was still warm and had travelled through the bowels of her family was just about to dawn on me. My gypsy fantasy was over. Finished... Gone. I was sick, wet and retching but as I hadn't had a bath for a week the smell wasn't going to make to much difference. Not to me anyway.
Next morning I woke to the first rain of the trip. We had gone to sleep with the front of the tarpaulin open and quite a bit of our stuff got wet. Bob had to be yoked up in the pouring rain. The campfire was deserted and no longer a fire. I had excommunicated myself from all my gypsy fantasies and breakfast would have to wait. Copyright 2008 mick beville |
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| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 13 August 2008 ) |
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