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NEWCASTLE JOURNAL 29.5.05

It was in the middle of the road, when I crested the hill. My first thought was – ‘Golly! That’s a damned great big cock pheasant!’ I dropped the gears a cog and slowed down to have a better look and had to correct my first thought. It would have been a ‘damned big cock pheasant’ if it had not been a peacock - a peacock? As I crept towards it, it turned to look at me and suddenly spread its magnificent tail feathers. Oh yes, it was a peacock all right, but what was a peacock doing in a rural road in darkest Northumberland? Knowing the speed at which some blighted fools drive along country roads, the answer was ‘setting itself to get run over, if it did not sharp develop a bit more traffic sense’, but apart from that, it was hardly a bird you expect to encounter. I mean, I know that Shooting Chappies are always experimenting with rearing different breeds of pheasant – Mongolian pinks, Michigan purples and that sort of thing, but surely peacocks are a bit over the top? There are also some matters that would arise – like what might the season for peacocks be? And what sort of fliers might they be? I remember the period when I shot feather, or tried to, I used to chant the old mantra – ‘bum, belly, beak, bang’ and then, in my case, ‘Oh Bother!’ It strikes me that with a peacock the ‘gun’ might have a problem deciding where the tail ended and the bum began. Anyway that is not likely to be a problem for me. The only birds I try to shoot now are ‘Corbies’ – the ‘Oh Bother!’ still applies.

As the Hunting Season approaches some interesting advice to the Constabulary has emerged from ACPO (the Association of Chief Police Officers). It has advised its members not to approach any seemingly illegal hunting operations because of Health and Safety problems. According to the report that I have read, approaching a hunt in action might result in injury to policemen and subsequent litigation from the Police Federation. Coppers have been told not to approach hounds or horses, or to try and confiscate dead animals for evidence, because of the risk of injury or infection. It seems that all officers would have to carry out a ‘risk assessment’ before starting an investigation; they should not go on farmers’ land without permission and not to use helicopters in case they cause ‘alarm to horses’ (not to mention the constabulary’s budget). In other words the police are going to be tied hand and foot with red (what an appropriate colour) tape before they even leave the station and, if they do, the fear of litigation will ride in the back of the car. I asked an experienced senior police officer of my acquaintance, what chance the police would have of proving the ‘intent to hunt’ with these restrictions – the proof of ‘intent’ being vital to a successful prosecution? He shook his head – ‘Bugger all, Willy Lad’ he said – interesting innit?

Every time I visit a doctor there are three questions that he/she is bound to ask me (1) how many fags do I smoke per Diem? (2) How many units of alcohols do I drink p.D? (3) How heavy am I?

The answer to (1) is none, because I smoke a pipe. This usually throws the Doc because he/she has no idea how much tobacco a pipe consumes and neither have I. I smoke a small pipe after breakfast and a large pipe in the evening and only one of each. Hrrrmph! he/she says and starts in on lung cancer. Now is the time to point out that lung cancer existed in this country, before tobacco was heard of and why? And pipe smoke is alkaline, whilst fag smoke is acidic – discuss.

(2) I have no idea how many units of alcohol I drink because I do not know what a unit is and, remember, neither does the doc. The ‘unit’ of alcohol was ‘taken off the wall’ by the BMA when it couldn’t decide either.

(3) When the doc weighs you, he/she will suck his/her teeth and take a little table out of a desk drawer. This will tell him/her that at your height you should be x pounds or, as it may be, y kilos. I discussed this with my excellent Physio the other day, whilst he was pummelling my tangled musculature back into some sort of order. He says that the doc’s table gives your ‘actuarial’ weight as opposed to your ‘actual’, It is like saying that a number cruncher in the DHSS should take the same size of suit as a Falcon’s prop-forward.

In no way am I seeking to denigrate doctors – some of my best friends are doctors. But they are only human and sometimes an answer ‘off the wall’ is an easier option,

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NEWCASTLE JOURNAL 22.6.05

It was just about the middle of June when I saw the first one. It was a day of brilliant sunshine with a cool breeze. The combine was munching its way steadily through a good looking field of barley. ‘Well, well’ I thought; then, a few miles further on, ‘well I never’ as I saw a field of rape being swathed. At this point some folk will be saying: ‘where the hell wor yee then, Man? It wor p#ssing down with rain o’er oor way?’ At this stage I must warn the lady who, or so my wife tells me, writes furious letters to the Journal, whenever I mention France, that I am about to mention France – yes madam, France, madam – that’s where I witnessed the June harvest, in France – rather a different climate to the Borders, ye ken. We were reconnoitering another area of France and yes, this time, I think we’ve found it. So, madam, just as soon as you stop swithering, open your thrifty and buy my place, then we shall sugar off and leave you in peace.

We got back very late last Thursday night. This was because we had missed our Eurostar. This was because Paris (France) was gridlocked. The taxi driver did some absolutely splendid offensive driving, but we missed the train by 10 minutes and had a 2 hour wait for the next one. Northumberland looked very green and wet and the winter barley looked a bit off yet. The Captain, who house sits for us, had kept an eye on the fox cubs which he reported as all present and correct. He had also seen two yearling Red stags (I believe the Scots call them Brockets) wandering across the farm. There was a bit of a harroosh a year of two back when a big flap of Reds was reported as having escaped from the Park at Alnwick. It was then said that they had all been recovered, but a big stag has been seen regularly in the Beanley area and a dozen plus herd of hinds around Jenny’s Lantern. I would think these young beasts were a product of a natural conjoining. The hinds would be ready to drop their new calves and as is the sensible custom with deer, the male calves of last year get driven out of the herd to fend for themselves. The Captain said that these two were definitely on the wander and he had last seen them going across the neighbour’s field heading for the hills. I wonder what will become of them. I was once up in Scotland at the beginning of the Red Deer rut and watched an epic battle. There was a big old stag with a flap of hinds and he was being challenged by a younger, slightly smaller stag, which had a young, weedy, stag tagging along with it. The two big stags battled for a good half an hour, coming together with great clashes of antlers, locking, twisting and retreating, only to charge and clash and lock again. By the end they were fighting in a great cloud of steam. All of this was being watched by the hinds with varying degrees of interest. But, you may ask, what of the scruffy little stag? Was he bellowing support for his chum, or rushing in for a quick thrust at the big stag? Was he sugary! He was wandering round the back of the big stag’s harem, with his hands in his pockets (figuratively speaking). In the time that I was watching, he warded two hinds and then when his chum was finally driven off he just mooched away like an urchin whistling and kicking an empty beer can. Now there has got to be a moral there if only we could find it, but I am not much in the mood for moralising today – you can have a go at it. Although it does make me think of a ‘dog Latin’ tag that a solicitor used to use for female clients who came complaining about their husbands’ habits:

“Hogamus, Higamus, man is polygamus – Higamus, Hogamus, woman’s monogamous.”

I was up on the hills yesterday. I needed the walk after a week sitting in cars and trains. I went to a place where I had not been to for a bit and there was a tremendous scene of curlews. Ever since my Cornish childhood, curlews have been my very favourite bird. Their whistling, piping and stunning aerobatics are, to me, the very essence of wild places. I have always said that I did not want to live where the curlews did not come in spring. When we first moved to Breamish Parks, the curlews came every spring as did the peewits and the oyster catchers, but then the Goshawks came and that was that…

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NEWCASTLE JOURNAL16.6.05

I have been listening with half an ear to all this wittering on about the G8 conference and poverty in Africa. As far as I am concerned the G8 conference is just another ‘Boondoggle’. That is an incredibly expensive meeting where various politicians and civil servants sit around preening each other’s feathers and filling their already fat faces

I have also gathered the fact that that scruffy Irishman is raising a musical evening in aid of the poor people in Africa. He is also encouraging a million people to march on Edinburgh and protest about the ‘Boondoggle’. As far as the concert goes, I am agin it. These things are merely an ego trip for all the ‘Luvvies’. The question is how much all of this will cost? What will be the cost of trying to funnel a million people through Edinburgh? The city is pretty much a shambles at the best of times. But the question (yet another one) we must ask is just how any, or all of this, will benefit the poverty stricken Africans? When all the ‘tumult and the shouting dies’ will the poor of Africa be better off? I beg leave to doubt it. You may remember there was another of these musical evening some 20 years ago in aid of the starving people of Ethiopia, most of whom never saw a penny of the monies raised. The Ethiopian government creamed off most of the money and used it buy more weapons to oppress their hapless people even further. Any monies that may be raised this time and which manage to reach Africa – after the Charity Conglomerates have deducted their ‘administrative expenses’ will merely go on to swell the Swiss bank accounts of the various brutal and corrupt dictatorships which govern Africa for worse.

As someone once said:

“Giving money to Africa is like giving drink to an alcoholic. You know what he is going to do with it – but you do not know which wall he is going to do it on.

This is the time of year for shows. . A friend of mine came out of the Army and found himself ‘volunteered’ as a Steward at one of the big county shows. This meant digging out the pinstripes and the bowler hat. Stewarding is a very stratified business – you have to start at the bottom and work your way up. The bottom was very definitely the Donkey Ring and this was where my friend found himself posted. Having marched smartly into his ring, an immediate problem presented itself. It took the form of a very large fat man who was leaning at the edge of the ring chatting to his mates. Nothing wrong with that, you may say, except that the man was in the ring talking out, as it where, whilst the muckers were very properly outside the ring talking in. The man in the ring had trousers way to small for him and his bottom and so was displaying an unseemly amount of what is now known as ‘Builder’s Bum’. He and his bum were definitely in the wrong place. My friend went and pointed this fact out to him in a polite and well modulated manner. Builder’s Bum said that he weren’t going to be ordered about by some toffee nosed twit in’t Bowler Hat, so there. He weren’t in Army now, by heck he bloody weren’t.

The parade of the Jack Donkeys was about to start. There was one especially unruly Jack who was rearing and braying and was barely under the control of his leader – a small woman with pebble glasses and apparently dressed entirely in Tartan rugs – a sight that caused great mirth amongst the fat man leaning on the fence inside the ring and his friends outside. This braying may have attracted the Donkey’s attention, because with a great bray of delight he dragged his wretched owner out of the parade and finding Builder’s Bum bent over and shaking with laughter, the donkey rose up and mounted him with great vigour. This wiped the greasy grin off BB’s face, but roused his mates to further paroxysms of mirth. The lady with the pebble glasses meanwhile laid into the donkey with her whip and hapless cries of;

“Gittorf Piglet!!” All this excitement and intensive flagellation from the owner only seemed to rouse the donkey to a higher plane of priapism. The lady’s face was streaming with tears. She was tugging on the halter shank with one hand and belabouring Piglet with the other. BB was having a pretty rough time. BB’s friends were hanging on the fence helpless with laughter. My friend who had so far been an interested spectator thought that it was time he did a bit of stewarding. So he approached the frantic tartan lady, raised his hat and asked if he could help:

“Oh God!!” cried the lady through her tears:” isn’t it awful. He always does this”.

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NEWCASTLE JOURNAL 9.6.05

It is always a lovely sight to watch a litter of young animals playing together. I one had the good fortune to chance upon a litter of stoats playing beside the road. They were like quicksilver in their fluid movements – in and out of the long grass, rolling and tussling in the road and going up and down the roadside thorn bushes. It was a breath taking sight of acrobatics and graceful movement. I spent (wasted) half an hour watching them with great delight, before the protestant work ethic clicked in and I felt compelled to be about my business. I know that all that play was basic training for their life of killing, but that is what stoats are about. It was sheer delight to watch them, but I was pretty sure that the Game Keeper, who regularly travelled that track, would not share my sense of pleasure.

A litter of piglets at play is another great time waster, but it is another one that few people get the chance to see, these days. But perhaps my greatest pleasure comes from watching a litter of foxcubs. A fox is one of the most beautiful and graceful animals and wonderful movers. I never see a fox without a ripple of pleasure. I have been going out with the binoculars and watching a litter, from a safe distance, as they tumble, wrestle and chase. I have counted seven cubs and two old ‘uns. As the old foxes are almost certainly vixens – dog foxes are not great ones for bonding with their children - I suspect that there are two litters – 7+ would be a big litter. This is not extraordinary. I remember two foxhound bitches in adjacent hutches. The puppies from both litters seemed to feed from both bitches without discrimination or maternal jealousy.

The cubs are good to see, being on a bare bank, but this, I fear, will be their undoing. Before the hunting ban, those cubs in that place would have been zealously guarded – ‘watch and ward’ - by their pro-hunting landowner. He may feel that there is no point in so doing now. If I can watch them easily, so can others. Some ‘others’ will not be as well inclined towards foxes as I am. Although I have taken great pleasure and satisfaction in watching hounds hunt and catch foxes, I have never even considered killing a fox outwith a hunting day. I consider the sin of vulpicide to be Mortal. I shall take great pleasure in watching the cubs whilst I can and shall mourn their eventual and, I think inevitable, murder. May those who brought this unhappy situation about, rot in the juices of their own malice.

The Dragon Lady and I went on our annual jolly to the Derby with the Boisdale Jazz and Cigar Club. This eminent and respected body is based on the Boisdale Restaurant in Ecclestone St, London, London’s only Scottish restaurant (to the best of my knowledge and belief). Restaurant and Club are run by that dashing blade, The Younger of Clanranald. We travel in a topless double-decker bus (this is not quite the oxymoron that it sounds) and park on the downs opposite the winning post. Mrs Poole is quite keen on racing (she backed the winner two years running) but to me the Flat is about as interesting as creosoting the stables. It would be wrong to say that I only go for the beer. I do not like beer. I go for the crack, the Champagne, the wine and the cigars – of all of which there is an apparently endless supply. As for the Derby, I usually retire to the top deck, tip my hat over my eyes and enjoy a snooze in the sun, until the ‘tumult and the shouting dies’.

The Nanny State strikes again. I am a fairly regular traveller on our excellent GNER. I look forward to settling down comfortably with my book and early cup of tea and smoking my early pipe. This is the most important pipe of the day and is akin to an Editorial meeting, when I sort out what I have to do – ‘action, this day’. I do not mind a bit that GNER has now confined we smokers to a sort of broom cupboard. Now this comfortable regime is to stop. It seems that as part of the new franchise agreement, the government has told GNER that all smoking must be banned by August. Yet another example of the prodnose Puritanism that is rotting this blighted country – ‘Roll on de-mob’ as we used to say in another time and another place.

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NEWCASTLE JOURNAL 3.6.05

People often ask my why I do not take up cudgels when people write rude letters about me, in the paper - can such uncouth people exist, I ask myself? I am assured that they do. But the answer is very simple – I do not see them. When I was young and green in the journalistic profession, I used to read them all and would dab my eyes with a Kleenex if someone complained about something I done wrote. Sometimes a letter would quite spoil my breakfast (but never my lunch) because I was a tender and timorous creature into whose soul; the iron had not then yet entered. Then I borrowed a trick from Mrs Thatcher. Nothing in the papers ever upset her, because she never read the papers. I do not read the papers except, on occasion, the excellent Newcastle Journal and I certainly never go near the letters page. So you can all dip your pens in vitriol as often as you like – what the eye don’t see, the heart don’t fret about.

A nice man rang me the other day and told the Dragon Lady that he wanted help publishing a book he had written. It seems that the DL and I appear in the Yellow Pages under ‘Publishing Services’ – whatever they may be. I’m blessed if I know. As to how you get book published, I only wish I knew. I also wish I knew why Yellow Pages are playing fast and loose with my name. They have never contacted me and I have never contacted them. I can only suppose that they had a bit of space that needed filling up and thought that they would bang me in, rather as you might use an old bedstead and a couple of sheets of corrugated iron to patch up a gap in a fence. The only advice that I would offer to any wannabe author is – ‘try prayer’.

There are a lot of ‘leaps’ scattered around the Cheviot Hills and they all have some story attached to them. It is sad that most of these stories have evaporated into the mists of time. The history in the Hills was mostly in the great oral tradition of the Borders, where stories were passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth and were a great source of entertainment in the remote steadings during the long dark winter evenings. The arrival, first of the wireless and then of television, effectively killed off these stories amongst recent generations. When I first moved up here, I went in search of them. I came to dread the shake of the head and words on the line of – ‘If only you could have met Uncle Jock, he knew all the old stories’ and sadly took them with him to the grave. I have managed to reclaim two of the ‘leap’ stories.

Head up the Coquet Valley and just opposite the old school at Windyhaugh, the river narrows and rushes between two great slabs of stone. This is known as the ‘Wedder Leap’. The story here concerns a young Scotsman. He had crossed the Border with nefarious intent and had nicked a wether lamb from Batailshiels. He slung it across his shoulders and had it away up over the hill towards the Coquet. He must have been a very fit young man because that is a very hard lead indeed. It was unfortunate (for the Scotsman) that he was spotted and ‘hue and cry’ was called. It was not surprising that by the time he approached the river, his unladen and justifiably angry pursuers were gaining on him by the yard. With the wether still draped across his shoulders, the young man tried to leap the gorge. He missed his footing and fell back into the torrent. The thief was drowned (I can’t answer for the wether) and that was how the ‘Wedder Leap’ passed into folklore.

The other leap is ‘Lady Stanley’s Leap’. I was helping my good friend Walter Brown gather one side of The Cheviot. On the way back down the burn above Langleeford, he pointed out the ‘Leap’ to me. Once again it is a rocky chasm with the Harthope Burn rushing through. It seems that Lady Stanley was out riding on The Cheviot, when she was ‘bumped’ by three marauding Scots. The chase was on and we may assume that the Reivers were not pursuing the Lady to find out the latest football scores. Her Ladyship was better mounted, but with the rushing burn before her things did not look too good for her. Her only chance was the rocky chasm, so she had at it and the good horse cleared it, leaving her pursuers to gnash their teeth and scratch their lice. The leap was off rock onto rock. Walter told me he had measured it at 33 feet.

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