WAXCOATS AND WELLIES

One

I’m not sure how I gravitated to Harry other than that he was standing at a waypoint in my life. For some, long forgotten, reason I was looking for an old shepherds crook to take back to Canada as a reflection of our family’s heritage in Ripon.

I was following a trail, like breadcrumbs, starting in Harrogate, looking in Otley, Ilkley and all the way up to Hawes.
No matter what the weather it’s spectacular up there and yet you’re really not far from anywhere by Canadian standards. Nothing has changed much up here in the Yorkshire Moors. They got electricity some time back and that’s about it.
If you’ve never been there this is the land of Herriot, the Fells and soaring moorland. The only sounds the constant wind, curlews riding the air, the bleating of distant sheep and the burbling of a close by beck. The Lake District beckons slightly to the West but that’s a different area….a different story.

All of us, as we cruise through life, have contact with characters. Not just characters in our play but people who are slightly larger than life in their own way. People who, although they might have stepped onto our stage for only a moment in time, leave an indelible mark on our consciousness.
For many of us our lives are parochial…..certainly not a bad thing. We live, work and die in our parish and are happy with this. We live good productive lives, rear good productive children and are remembered for being just that – good people but parochial.
Some of us live or have lived, at times, a different type of life, quite often brought about by travel more often brought about by curiosity. Certainly less parochial. Certainly more risky. More rewarding? Depends on your parish.

These characters that punctuate our lives. These folk that are “larger than life.” Larger than whose life? My life? Your life? Life in general?
Quite often they could easily have lived in a different time. They march to their own drum. Some are well educated. Some have no formal education at all. They all have one thing in common. They are happy being inside looking out!

Two

It was easy getting out of Leeds/Bradford Airport in my rented car.

Now I had to navigate my way to my mum’s place in Harrogate…..on the wrong side of the road I might add.
I wanted to avoid Leeds. Leeds was the antithesis of everything I disliked about the industrial north. Each to his own for sure but I never liked it. I remember it as a dirty place. Grey with grey people, grey buildings, grey lives. I also am well aware that these are my glasses I’m looking through, certainly not rose tinted when it comes to Leeds. Perhaps your glasses have a different tint…..which would be a good thing.

There is one fact that is and was always phenomenal to me, surely planned at some point in time. You drive North out of Leeds, turn up the Harrogate Road, drive through Moortown and Alwoodly and pass Wigton Lane.

Leeds ends right there !

Like a knife cut. No gentle transition here. Leeds just ends! North of Wigton Lane the land is soft and pastoral. The Harrogate Road leading you through one of the more southerly, more benign Dales. Through Harewood, the home of the Queens cousin. North into a different world -The Yorkshire Dales.

So I turned a different way, map on lap, looking the wrong way at roundabouts. Heading up the Otley Road in the general direction of my brother’s haunted house on the Killinghall Beck. Woops……turn right. My mum’s in Harrogate hard by the old Granby Hotel . A jumping place in the forties and fifties. Now a retirement home for the well healed.

Mum’s place. An island of nostalgia. My dad had passed on five years previous. My mother never got over it but what has that got to do with you. Not much I guess.

The flat was filled with all things remembered. The only difference the building itself. A retirement flat. A modernized Victorian throwback. The groundfloor with a stunning, very “Harrogate” view. The “Stray.” A two hundred acre common in the middle of town. A huge grassy areas dotted with ancient oaks surrounded by buildings all built from local Yorkshire stone. All trimmed in white, most with roses out front.

In the distance, out of my mother’s front window, the square tower of Christ Church, known locally as St Johns. Nothing between us but two hundred yards of well tended grass and a couple of oak trees. Gravestones, crooked sentinels of the past, huddled behind the moss covered stone wall.

Three

Where did this idea of a shepherd’s crook come from? Still haven’t figured that part out so many years later. Perhaps it was from watching “All Creatures Great and Small” on PBS.
My search for the Grail (replace Grail with Crook) started in Harrogate and ended in Skipton. I won’t bore you with the trek itself other than to say that it took me through some of the more spectacular parts of the Yorkshire Dales. Certainly a most circuitous route as Harrogate to Skipton, in a straight line, is only about ten miles.

The real “characters’ in my life can perhaps be counted on one hand. Jason who taught me how to sail a small boat on Mudeford Water. Jacques a crazy French rugby player with fingers like bananas and a family that owned a chateau in Normandy distilling Calvados, that apple brandy, they drink like water. Donald (Dongo) a logger on Vancouver Island, a woodland philosopher and Harry a dour Yorkshireman with a startling side.
Not one of these folk was well educated, formally that is. In fact just the opposite is the case. All of these folk were distilled products of their environment. Steeped in tradition and honed by experience. The net result a spirit to be envied.
These four had traits in common. An inner satisfaction with their lot. An abiding love of history and how they saw themselves “fit.” A philosophical view of their world and, at times, critical of the new and perhaps outside world. An innate curiosity.
All this wrapped up in a quirky sense of humour.

Four

Harry from Skipton was the most surprising of them all.
By asking around I had been directed, in almost unintelligible Yorkshire dialect, to a gunshop called The Shooting Lodge. I had been assured that they had a selection of walking sticks and crooks.
A gunshop! Not like a North American store with it’s camouflage, blaze orange racks, handguns under the counter and insistence upon the rights of the second amendment. Rather a quiet, tastefully decorated shop. Behind the counter a gentleman in blazer and tie, not Harry by the way, no handguns in sight and very few rifles.

This is the world of Purdey and Churchill. The world of old money, tweeds and huge estates. A world in which the most important date in the year is August 12th……..the glorious twelfth.
No Harry though. No sticks. No crooks. More breadcrumbs. The clerk in the blazer directed me to another shop just across the cobbled yard, no more than twenty paces away. Waxcoats and Wellies!

Beams in the ceiling and an old pine floor. Counters that looked as though they belonged in a Dickens story and the smell of floor wax. All this not the mental machinations of an interior decorator seeking ambiance. The beams held the roof up. The floor was the original. No attempt to duplicate times gone by here. This was as it was…as it is. No elevator music. Quiet.
It was the type of store described in England as “A purveyor of country clothing to gentlemen” as pompous as that might sound. The home of Barbour and green wellies. Jodhpurs and cavalry twills. Plus fours and flat caps. Real Arran sweaters and shoes that might cost a months salary. Truly if you had to ask you couldn’t afford it. Most items bought “on account” unless you were a tourist. A visitor. Just passing through.
Waxcoats and Wellies. Owned by The Shooting Lodge. Owned by Harry.

Five

Harry, as bright in my mind as the day I met him fifteen years ago. A Yorkshireman through and through. Not overly tall and a little older than myself. Extremely ruddy in complexion, as a result of a lifetime outdoors, but clean shaven. Salt and pepper hair usually hidden under an old Trilby. Inevitably wearing a tweed suit that would weigh a normal man down. Jacket cut in the hacking style. Pants with cuffs. Brogues with a military shine. Pale blue twinkly eyes that always seemed to be laughing at some unspoken joke.
Harry was not, in fact, your typical storeowner although it should be said he was entrepreneurial by nature and typically canny. He was in fact a cattle breeder of some renown. He was also a cattle judge at the many “Fairs” held both locally and in Scotland his breed of choice being Aberdeen Angus. He also kept some Highland Cattle simply because he said he liked the look of them.

“Crooks? Nay lad nuthin’ in t’shop. Might ‘ave summat at’ome I might be willing to part wi’.” “Why don’t you drop in at farm later in t’day?” My first encounter.
The end of the breadcrumb trail is perhaps in sight…….but the tale is only just beginning.

He gave me instructions to the farm:
"Go out of Skipton and bear right at t’fountain. Go three, four mile then turn left at t’church. Follow thee nose until tha gets to auld barn on t’right.”
OK I’ve already had it. There’s no way I’m going to be tramping round the tops, in a rented car, looking for a farm I wouldn’t recognize and Aberdeen Angus cattle….they’re mostly black aren’t they?

“Why don’t I come back when you’re ready and I’ll just follow you home?”

“That’ll work right fine” he said.
Later in the day I followed his, mud splattered, Land Rover out of Skipton driving, as if in a tunnel, between the dry stone walls that crisscross the entire countryside in this part of the world.

We headed west. The sun was low in the sky making it even more difficult to see. Harry was in no hurry. I don’t think he ever was now I think about it. After a while he pulled over onto the well cropped verge. I pulled in behind him. He got out of the car and climbed over a stile built into the limestone wall. I followed him.
“I often stop ‘ere on t’way ‘ome when sun is low like this” he says. “Reminds me of wot I am and ‘ow little I am.”

The close, sheep cropped grass, ran down to a little beck running through limestone rocks. On the other side the fell rose up, beneath the vaulted blue/grey sky, checkered with dry stone walls and the odd stone barn . Little white dots of sheep in the distance. Beyond this, across the valley, the land became the land of heather bright purple and red in the waning day. You could see the shooting butts marching along the horizon and a huge limestone escarpment off to the west with the sun seemingly balanced on its lip. Quiet now but busy come the middle of August.

“Quiet” is the word.

The only sound the ticking of the car engines as they cooled down. Every now and again the sound of a pheasant in the distance happy that it’s not August. Hardly a breeze at this time of the day. In the background the sound of the beck as it made its way towards the sea. Reminded me of Smetner’s Moldau. If I missed anything about the England I’d left so many years ago……this was it.

Back in the cars. Stopped a couple of times for sheep on the road. They seemed to think they had more rights than we did. Across a splash where a beck ran across the road. Not worth building a bridge. Hardly anyone passes this way…..not even the tourists. Up the steep, winding road on the other side. Cresting the top of the hill, to a new vista, Harry suddenly turned sharp left through a wide gateway. No actual gate but a cattle grid across the laneway. He stopped. Got out and beckoned me over to him.
“There ye are lad. T’home farm.”

Six

Nestled in the valley below us at the end of a winding, deeply rutted track, lay a group of buildings that looked as though they’d been there since the beginning of time. They seemed huddled together as if for protection.
“Bought if ofn ol’ George Hislop almost thirty year since” he said. “’aven’t changed much since then. Put in a new generator. No electricity up ‘ere. T’farm isself is four hundred acres but I ‘ave grazing rights over another thousand. I keep big beasts close to farm but ‘ave Swaledales on t’tops.”
We pull into a cobbled yard my rented Golf happy to arrive. Two border collies tear out of a stone shed, greet Harry then sniff me carefully to make sure I pose no threat. “ ’ang on a minute” he says “ ‘ave to turn on generator, get some lights on.”

By now it was almost dark the sun having disappeared behind the fell climbing up to one side of the farm. I was already wondering how the hell I was going to find my way back to Harrogate which was starting to feel like a distant, far away place.
A muttering from another stone shed a little further from the house and with that lights sprang up in the old house shining yellow onto the old cobbles.
“Come in lad. Don’t ‘ave to tek shoes off. Mek your sen at ‘ome.” His accent was deeply Yorkshire but seemed in keeping with the surroundings.
We were in the kitchen. Stone flagged floor. Huge green Aga off to one side. He saw me looking at it. ‘Ave propane tank outside. Runs Aga and water ‘eater” he says. Answers that question I thought. “Waters good” he says. “T’wells not deep but t’water ‘s just grand. Never’ad it dry up neither.” Another question answered.
Coats hanging on wooden hooks. A row of boots on the stone flagged floor. An enormous pine table occupied the centre of the room scrubbed almost white over the years. The sink was old porcelain which reminded me of my grandmother’s kitchen. Beamed ceiling. Plaster and lathe walls. Chilly just now.
We go through a low door. “Watch your ‘ead” he says. “all doors are real low. You’ll only crack yoursen once.”
We enter his living room. Dropping to his knees in front of the fireplace he put a match to a fire already layed. “Soon warm up in ‘ere” he says. “Walls are real thick.”

A man’s room. A man’s house! Comfortable furniture drawn up to the fire, dogs already on the rug waiting for the warmth. Magazines everywhere. Shotguns in the corner, slippers in the hearth. Cattle prints on the walls. An old roll top desk in one corner and a TV, incongruously out of place, in a nook to one side of the fireplace. He saw me looking at it.
“I see you ‘ave a lot of questions. Let me tell you about the place. Like a drink?” We settled into chairs either side of the fireplace single malts in hand, fire just starting to take. A satisfied whimper from one of the borders.
“Like I said I bought the place from old George over thirty year ago. I don’t know how long he ‘ad it but I think it ‘ad bin in ‘is family for a long time. He’d done nothing to it! I added plumbing and wiring and installed the generator. There used to be an outhouse. Terrible in the winter.” He smiled at the memory and took a sip of the whiskey.
“There’s no phone but I use my mobile. It’s only recently I put in the dish for the TV but the reception’s a bit wobbly being down in the valley ‘ere.”
The main house, this building, was built just before the civil war as a gamekeepers cottage. The only thing different today is the plumbing and wiring I put in.” He stood up and shoveled some coal onto the fire. The room had quickly warmed up. “I never married. Haven’t found t’right woman yet. My neighbours wife comes over twice a week and fettle’s place for me. Does a right grand job. Not that I mek too much of a mess being on my own an all. I pay her a few bob and she’s ‘appy. Anyway lets ‘ave a look at wot we’ve got. Follow me lad.”
He got up and I followed him down a stone flagged corridor. The heat hadn’t got down here yet and it was cool. Not damp just cool. He entered another room and flicked on the light. “Lets see if we can find you summat in ‘ere” he says. I stood there in amazement. The end of the breadcrumb trail!

Seven

I discovered later at the Great Yorkshire Fair that Harry had, by far, the largest collection of sticks and crooks in the UK and quite possibly the world.
They were everywhere. Stacked like cordwood. All shapes and sizes. All colors. Many of them carefully carved. An incredible mix of woods, horn and bone. A lifetime of travel and collecting.
“Not all of ‘em are fer sale” Harry said. “Most o’them are irreplaceable but I’m sure we’ll find you summat.”
An hour later we were done. Spit on palm handshake in the old tradition. Four crooks and two walking sticks. Paid far more than I had anticipated but what the hell. I told you he was canny.

So now you think this is the end of this yarn? No way….it’s only just begun.

My search for crooks had led me to one of the more fascinating people in my life , one of the more weird experiences in my life and certainly one of the more startling sights in my life……all in one evening of my life……all in the one, unexpected, location.
“Dust tha’ want summat to eat lad” he says. “Nobbut take a few minutes to ‘eat something up.” “ ‘elp yoursen to the whiskey. I’ll ‘ave one too.” he said disappearing into the kitchen.
Half an hour later we’re sitting at the kitchen table. Huge plate of stew in front of me and a Guinness in a glass. Should go well with the two large whiskies I thought.
Harry was a comfortable man to be with. A man’s man in a man’s home. Stew on the table, dogs under the table, fire glowing in the room next door. Not much conversation. It wasn’t necessary. The lights flickering every now and again as the generator hiccupped. Must be great for TV reception I thought.
Harry in his braces. Stuck into his stew like it was his last meal on earth. Periodically tipping up his Guinness. “Want another beer lad?” he says.
“No thanks Harry at some point in time I have to find my way back to Harrogate.” It was getting late already and it was as dark as it can only get in the country.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Someone banging on the front door. I look up, startled. Who, in the world, can this be? We’re on a lonely farm in the depths of the Yorkshire Moors quarter of a mile down a worn, rutted laneway that demands a four wheel drive of one sort or another. Harry barely looks up. Picks up his beer then resumes eating. More banging on the door.
“Aren’t you going to get that Harry?” I said.
“Nay lad” says Harry. “It’s only George. He’s bin banging on the door since he died ten year ago. He’ll go away after a while. Thinks it’s still his place tha’ knows.”

Fair enough…….. not that I’m particularly looking forward to walking across the yard to my car later. Cross that bridge when we get to it.
“Nuther whiskey?” “I think so” I say as we retreat back into the cozy living room.
“Lotsa strange goings on up ‘ere” he says. “Nobody’s ever surprised. Strange sightings. People disappearing for several days then showing up again. Bright lights in the sky Bit further down t’road government has an observation post on top o’ fell. RAF blokes in there quite often. Supposed to be ‘ush ‘ush.”

Eight

We sat there, in front of the glowing fire, in companionable silence, gazing into the embers glasses in hand.
“ “ere lad there’s summat else I’d like to show thee.” I followed him down the passageway again but this time he turned into a different room and flicked on the light. “What do thee think of that then?” he says. I walked into the room and stopped dead. It takes a lot to truly surprise me but I was stopped in my tracks. It was so unexpected, so out of place, seemingly so out of character.

The room was quite large. A bedroom. Decorated in pink and white with a highly polished wooden floor partly covered by a beautiful far eastern rug glowing in the soft light. Chintz window coverings matched the coverings on the two easy chairs and the seat at the dressing table. Matching silver hair brushes and mirror on the dresser with fresh flowers in a cut glass vase.
Harry proudly walked across the room and opened another door giving entrance to a tastefully decorated modern ensuite complete with white, fluffy towels on a rail and lavender soap, still in its wrapper by the sink, all poised as though waiting for its user.
A woman’s room! Probably not just any woman but a woman of discerning taste and a love of nice things.

“I thought you said you’d never married Harry.”
“That’s quite true lad. Just never met the right ‘un….but when I do her room’s ready!”

An amazing, startling, loveable man full of surprises. He’d never used the room. Didn’t use an interior decorator. Got all the ideas out of magazines. Had his cleaning lady replace the flowers he brought up from Skipton every few days.

When I left he thoughtfully turned on the yard lights. I still watched the darker corners carefully and the shadowy sides of the lane as I drove off the farm.

I got lost of course. Ended up in Burnley which is in Lancashire in the exact opposite direction. Got instructions back to Harrogate, which is in Yorkshire, from an East Indian making Fish and Chips for locals in flat caps!

Had to use the expressway. Traffic. Trucks. Bright lights. Smell of diesel. Noise.
I much preferred Harry’s world……even with George.
I never knew if he found a woman befitting his room. I hope he did!

MY BROTHER'S HOUSEGUEST.

Ripon and Killinghall Beck

1622 to 1641

Michaelmas, Sept 29 1622, the first day of a bright Autumn. Henrietta, wife of Mark Fletcher, gave birth to a strapping son…….Henry. Henry’s birth, however, would have no effect on world events or even local history, remarkable only that he would live in a house later, much later, bought by my brother Tony in 1988, 350 years later.

Mark Fletcher, Henry’s father, was born and bred in Ripon in what used to be West Yorkshire. He was a stonemason as was his father before him. Generations of Fletchers had been stonemasons spending much of their time and tradecraft working on Ripon Cathedral, a building originally started in AD 672 with the major portions being completed in 1220. However a Cathedral is a work in progress providing the Diocese has the funds….then as now.

Young Henry had very little schooling and at an early age was apprenticed, through the Guild, to his father as a stonemason. Slowly, over time, he became stronger. Strong in the back as the work required. Hardened arms befitting his trade. Bronzed by the sun.
In 1640 Henry finished his apprenticeship and chose not to continue working with his father on the cathedral but to strike out on his own.

Unbeknown to him he lived in turbulent times. News travelled slowly in those days if at all. They were times that had had, as yet, no impact on tiny Ripon or the surrounding countryside.

For years now there had been serious discontent between Parliament and King Charles 1st. Parliament had, in fact, been dissolved by the King on more than one occasion. Civil War was in the offing.
Other than in and around the Church money was getting scarce. As a result young Henry didn’t get too far by modern standards. He made it, on foot, down the road, in the direction of Harrogate, as far as Ripley Castle and the quarries owned by Sir John Ingleby. With his experience and qualification and with no better prospect directly in front of him he took a job finishing stone after it was quarried.

Sir John had had built a row of quarry men’s houses along the Killinghall Beck facing the old packhorse bridge and within walking distance of the quarries. At one end he built the Starre Inn to provide lodging and food to both visitors to the Estate and travelers using the footbridge across the river.
A year later, in 1641, Henry, with his new wife Margaret, a scullery maid up at the Castle, moved into the house at the other end of the property. A home slightly larger than average directly opposite the packhorse bridge crossing Killinghall Beck.
It was exactly a year before the English Civil War broke out in earnest.

West Yorkshire 1642 to 1643

Discontent had been simmering between Parliament and the King since 1638. King Charles had recalled Parliament solely because he was desperately in need of parliamentary subsidies as a result of his wars with the Scots.
By March 1642 the quarrel had escalated to such an extent that the King moved his court from London to York thus making York the de facto capital of the country. It is to be noted that, at this point in time, the majority of Yorkshire was pro Royalist although the tide was soon to turn.

Parliaments leading commanders in the North were Lord Fairfax and his son Sir Thomas Fairfax. They had, at their own expense, raised over nine troops of horse, two thousand musketeers and two thousand clubmen. No mean feat!
Early in 1643, with the snow still on the ground, Fairfax attacked Leeds from both sides of the river Aire. Leeds was defended by Sir William Savile but had little chance in the face of overwhelming odds. The Royalists were able to hold out for only three hours and were then quickly overwhelmed. Over 450 prisoners were taken together with several canons and a great store of other weapons.

Savile escaped on horseback to the North West in the direction of Ripon knowing this area to be pro Royalist.
Sir William escaped to his old friend Sir John Ingleby at Ripley Castle and it is upon this fact hangs our tale!

Anthony Mellor 1948 to 1993

Tony, my brother, was born April 29 1948. I was already seven years old and playing with the big boys. 1948 the year we moved into our new house in Moortown. The year Monty the cat disappeared. The year we acquired Kim the Cairn terrier of air raid shelter fame.

Sadly Tony was born with polio, seven years before the discovery of the Salk vaccine. The disease left him physically hampered for life and somewhat quiet and withdrawn.
As he got older, not able to participate in most childhood activities, he developed an interest in history, more specifically Yorkshire’s history. An interest that became a vocation and ultimately a business.

It is to be said that he also developed a dry and wicked sense of humor that would stand him in good stead in later years.

After finishing school Tony opted not to go to university although he had attained the necessary qualifications. He chose to go to work with one end in mind. His sole objective was to amass sufficient funds to enable him to open his own antique store in rural Yorkshire.

It took him almost twenty years, all this time striving to become more knowledgeable and intimate with the history of Yorkshire.
He saved every penny but periodically acquired antique items of specific interest possibly unique. He avoided large pieces of furniture thinking that he would not be able to afford premises sufficiently large.

He also met Janet. She was a like traveler. She belonged to historical societies in Ripon and Harrogate and had a specific interest in 17th and 18th century Yorkshire. Invaluable!

Although they never married she stood by his side until his dying day.

In 1983 his dream came true. He opened an antique store in Poole in Wharfedale. His store rapidly became well known as far away as London for small, rare items. Shying away from commercial collectibles he focused solely on smaller items of proven provenance and historical value.
As his store became better known his financial situation improved proportionally. He was able to acquire rural properties that reflected his love of antiques and local history.

In 1988 he bought his last home. A 17th century stone cottage. The end house of a small row of quarry men’s cottages directly opposite an ancient pack horse bridge crossing Killinghall Beck.

Killinghall Beck 1643

In 1643 Killinghall, Ripley Castle and Ripon itself was an island of rural tranquility. Although a centre of Royalist support in the North it boded no military threat to the Parliamentarians. It was to Ripley Castle and his friend Sir John Ingleby that Sir William Savile fled after his defeat at Leeds thus bringing the Civil War to this quiet part of the Yorkshire Dales.

The Government commander, Lord Fairfax, understood the political value of capturing Savile after his escape at Leeds and ordered Sir Thomas Mauleverer in pursuit. Sir Thomas, although having been knighted by King Charles, raised a regiment of foot, a troop of horse and, changing allegiance, joined Fairfax and the government cause. These troops had become notorious for pillaging and defiling churches. Doubtless the proximity of Ripon Cathedral was added incentive for them.

To better enable his search for Sir William Savile Sir Thomas divided his force into small groups of men, some sufficiently small to be under the command of a sergeant, assuming that there was no local military threat of any concern.
One of these small groups arrived at the far side of Killinghall Beck in the spring of 1643 causing the inhabitants of the cottages to flee. Henry and his wife Margaret fled in the direction of Ripon and his father Mark Fletcher the stonemason.

Crossing the pack horse bridge this small group of government troops occupied the cottages recently vacated by the quarry men and their families including the Starre Inn although Will Foster, the tenant and landlord, opted to stay.

At Ripley Castle Ingleby and Savile became aware of the activity down by the river. As was common in those days Ingleby had at his disposal a small troop of cavalry maintained solely for the defense of the estate but posing no threat to a large military force. Ingleby was sufficiently astute to recognize that only small enemy groups were in the area and that no cavalry had been sighted.

Ingleby’s cavalry attacked the troops now occupying the cottages and the inn.

Mauleverers troops had no defense against the cavalrymen and were killed to a man both in and around the cottages.

As an aside Fairfax’s and Mauleverers forces were later routed by Savile at the Battle of Adwalton Moor in June of 1643. They escaped to Hull………but that’s another story.

Killinghall Beck 1993. (350 years later)

I visited my brother in this glorious old house, in the summer of 1993, the year before our dad died. The building was designated a Heritage 3 house so very little could be done to it.

It had modern plumbing and electricity.

A new roof had been installed the slate taken from the very quarry in which Henry Fletcher had worked so many years before. The windows had also been replaced one of the few concessions to modernity allowed by the National Trust. Other than that the cottages stood exactly as they had 350 years before.

The river still ran just in front of the houses spanned by the pack horse bridge crossed by the government troops in 1643.
The Ingleby family still lived in the “big house” and horse riders still used the old bridge. Unfortunately the Starre Inn no longer existed having been converted to a private residence over a hundred years previously.
Hard to believe that so little had changed.

The ceilings were low, the floorboards footworn and cockeyed. All the woodwork was original except for the new windows. A huge stone fireplace dominated one wall surrounded by 17th century accessories acquired by Tony.

The downstairs consisted of two rooms plus a small kitchen. Upstairs were two bedrooms and a small separate washroom. A long, narrow, creaky landing ran the length of the house upstairs with a right angled turn at the end leading to the stairs. Tony had furnished the house with legitimate period pieces and no broadloom anywhere just area rugs where appropriate.

The house was a time capsule.

With the front windows open you could hear the beck flowing by the front of the house the rich warm stone of the buildings, the walls and the bridge soaking up the summer sun.

The following is a poem found by my brother’s girlfriend, Janet, relative to the Starre Inn when occupied by Parliamentary troops. The original resides in a Yorkshire museum:

A bande of soldiers with boisterous dinne

Filled ye large kitchen of ye olde Starre Inne

Some rounde ye spacious chimney,smoking,satt

And whiled ye time in battle talk and chatt

Some at ye brown oake table gamed and swore

While pikes and matchlocks strewed ye sanded floore

Will Foster ye hoste ' mid ye group was seene

With full redd face,bright eye and honest miene

He smoked in silence in his olde arm chaire

No joke nor jeste disturbed his sadden'd air

I would doubt if pikes were actually in the building as they were at least 15’ long. Either some poetic license or they were Halberds being somewhat shorter.

More often than not my brother had to take a pee in the middle of the night, leaving his bedroom, turning right and walking the length of the old landing to the washroom.

One night he was not alone! In the corner where the landing turned towards the stairs stood a man in uniform. Not all cloudy and ethereal like a ghost in a movie but with stature and a presence. What was more curious was that there was nothing to be seen of him from the knees down.

With a doubletake Tony continued to the washroom. After he had finished the soldier was still there. In the morning he had gone.

The following night Janet stayed over.

In the middle of the night they both walked down the landing. He was there again…….still cut off at the knees.

Janet did the research on the man’s uniform. He was a sergeant in the Parliamentary army typical of the period of the Civil War. More specifically a sergeant in the musketeers wearing the required buff leather jerkin, the Morion helmet and carrying a short sword at his side.

Off and on my brother and Janet saw this soldier over the course of a couple of years. They tried to photograph him without any success. They repeatedly tried to engage him in conversation with an equal lack of success.

At one time they brought in a medium who was immediately aware of multiple presences in the house. She felt that several people had met violent ends in the house but that she felt no ill will. Having said that the sergeant never manifested himself to her.

It was a good friend of my brother’s that solved the mystery of the knees. He questioned whether or not the floor on which he was standing was the original. My brother and he very carefully took up the floor in that corner of the landing only to find the original floor beneath. At some point in time over the last few hundred years someone had replaced the floor.

The sergeant was standing on the original!

My brother was killed under mysterious circumstances in 1998.

After flying over from Canada I stayed in the house a couple of nights……not that I slept much….in an attempt to see the sergeant for myself. I never saw him. Perhaps if I’d stayed in the house longer he might have manifested himself to me concluding I was friendly.

I still have in my possession the letters from my brother describing, in detail, the events of those two years. What is fascinating is that everything my brother saw reflects the historical and well documented facts of that period so long ago.

I sold the house very quickly being the executor of my brother’s estate. I made no mention of the sergeant to the realtors although his presence was well known to the neighbors. Should it have formed part of the “disclosure?”

* The photograph is the cottage as it looked in 1998.

"DOGS' Nothing about boats......something about dogs.

In 1940 Mickey Trenholme's dad built an air raid shelter in his front garden. Not one of those Anderson shelters made out of corrugated iron with a couple of feet of earth dumped on top but a real shelter. Two feet of poured concrete including the roof. Fourteen feet down in the earth with a steel door at the top of the stairs and a concrete slab covering an escape hatch at the other end.

Old man Trenholme was a grey stick of a man. A teacher for many years. A teacher of the old school. Heavy of hand, heavy on repetition and deadly accurate with the old board duster. Having said that he had a heart as big as his shelter.

I met his son Mickey in 1948 when my parents bought the house directly opposite. We moved from a flat my mother and I had occupied during the war years. Now the war was over. My dad had somehow survived six years of very active service and my brother was on the way. Dad had not yet retired but we were not going to be moved by the "army" any more, due to his service, so the timing was good for a more permanent home.

We moved! The three of us dad being on leave. Mum well pregnant with Tony my brother, who was to be killed exactly fifty years later, plus the cat Monty!

The "boys" in my new street were all a couple of years older than I. Of course when you're in your sixties this is meaningless. When you're eight.....well that's a different kettle of fish altogether.

There was Mickey of course. He ended up going to Manchester University and became a quite prominent physicist. Trevor Newnham who took an accounting course, was articled, but preferred fixing cars so he bought a garage but only after losing an eye and and three of the fingers off his left hand after finding a hand grenade up on the moors. Last but never least Dave Jenkins. Dave whose dad was a retired sergeant major and acted the part all the time......scary to an eight year old. Dave who joined the paratroopers, had a shute only partially open and fell into a ploughed field breaking an arm and a leg. Survived though. Dave who loved old MG's and always had one .......of one marque or another......and of course me. New in the street. Younger. Vulnerable....not overly shy though.

Monty the cat, he was named after one of my dad's heroes...Fieldmarshal Montgomery, didn't last long. He was black and big with a mean disposition. I think he preferred the old place because he took off there. He was periodically seen by some of our old neighbours but eventually disappeared going to wherever it is that big, black, mean cats go.

From a cat we went to rabbits! Of course I had no say in these matters at the time and I never really knew whose idea this actually was.....mum or dad. Probably dad. He always was a bit of a nutter! I remember that it was my lot to keep them clean but what the hell do you do with rabbits. You can't really take them for a walk or play with them in the yard. Never really understood it! Ever see a rabbit "fetch?" Daft idea. They disappeared eventually. The novelty wore off.

Budgies. Guinea Pigs. A tortoise. The budgies escaped. My brother was allergic to the guinea pigs and the tortoise dug a tunnel under the fence and disappeared into tortoise land.

Dad finally bought a dog!! What took him so long?

That first dog was a little Cairn Terrier. Kim. We had him for years.

Cairns are an old Scottish working dog. Love to dig and are wilful if not carefully trained as pups. They are excellent ratters and will do the job of a cat as in "doing a number on mice and their ilk."

Dad loved to hunt and often went out with his trusty 12 gauge.....plus me....plus Kim. Five in the morning is a stupid time if you're only ten years old! Often is the time we've spent hours digging that darned dog out of a rabbit warren. Dad never learned. Neither did Kim.

The "boys" in the street. One of the first things they did, after stringing me up by my thumbs to an old fashioned gas lamp post, was to introduce me to the one thing that was totally off limits. Old man Trenholme's air raid shelter! Boy do I mean off limits!!

It was dark and wet down there. Sufficiently wet to have a hand pumping system built in in order to pump out the water as it seeped in. It echoed! There were still some iron framed bunks installed but no lighting. They used the old Tilley gas lamps when Jerry came calling. A little light seeped in around the escape hatch making it look framed in white trim.

What a place for kids! Our imaginations ran riot. The old man kept changing the padlocks. The old man kept punishing Mickey. The old man kept talking to the other parents. The "boys" always figured a way around everything and it was well worth the periodic punishment.

We never played there in the winter! In the spring the seepage was so bad that the water reached grade level and was dangerous. You could see the water level from the top of the stairs. Still, dark and sort of greasy looking. No more echoes the water being at least eight feet deep.

Once a year, in the spring, the parents got together and emptied the old shelter. A combination of bucket brigade and hand pump. An event that took several days. Slowly the water level would go down. The further it went down the further our imaginations went up developing scenarios for the coming summer.

Of course, over time, the boys got older. Interests moved to girls and rugby not necessarily in that order. Still every year the old shelter got pumped out to remove the danger.

Dad and I continued to hunt with Kim. By now I had my own 16 gauge shotgun. Hunt? More like dig!! Kim ,constantly, would worry himself down a rabbit burrow and not be able to get himself out so we would dig. We carried with us two old trenching tools solely for this purpose. Dad never tired of it. Struck me as being rather pointless. Much preferred going after pheasant. They don't dig!!

One winter Kim disappeared. He had the run of the garden which was well fenced. He was about eight at the time. The whole neighbourhood looked for him for days. Dad put ads in the local papers and notices in many of the local stores. All to no avail. I was devastated. By now I was a teenager but had spent half my life with this little dog. He slept on my bed and followed me around. No more digging. No more blisters. No more Kim. Tears!

I distinctly remember a family discussion regarding getting another dog.

Sixty years later I'm, hopefully, a little wiser. After losing a dog that has become a family member you either get another one straight away or you wait a while. By waiting the memories of the dog that has passed wane a little and you do not have expectations of your new acquisition that are based on the character of the previous. We chose to wait !

The following Spring the neighbours gathered for the annual event of pumping out old man Trenholme's air raid shelter. It, most certainly, had developed into an event. Beer and sandwiches. Sitting around on the front lawn and taking it in shifts to man the pumps......or the buckets!

Usually a fun day with a specific end in mind.

Kim was in the shelter! He'd obviously been dead for a long time. He'd probably chased a rat or a mouse through the little gap around the escape hatch facing the street and then couldn't get out. Perhaps he'd barked for a while but nobody would have heard him through the earth and the concrete. He drowned and he was on his own.

The following summer four local neighbours pooled resources and had a contractor fill in the old shelter. That place where the "boys" had had so much illicit fun for so many years. That place where my first dog died. My first experience of death.......of loss.

12 to 40 Charter Fishing Part 3

During what I call my "piscatorial period" ........tongue in cheek, more specifically those years spent charter fishing, I had experiences and adventures some good some bad. Perhaps experiences can never be categorized in such a manner; they're just experiences. I read somewhere that it's OK to risk but only if, when things go wrong, you are the only one to be hurt. Anything else requires a careful weighing of the gain....but I digress again. How easy it is.

The Canadian Coastguard Auxiliary has existed since before Confederation but was actually formalized in 1978. I joined in 1992 as a crewman!

The "Auxiliary" draws from local fishermen and people with local knowledge. Volunteers need to be able to be "on call" at a moments notice. Most volunteer for the evening/night shifts. I volunteered for the day shifts as I was available most of the time unless I was actually chartering. I also had the added advantage of living only minutes from the boat shed.

The boat in the shed! In those days a 24' rigid inflatable with 500 horses tacked on the blunt end and loaded down with state of the art electronics half of which didn't work half the time due to the environment. High on speed across the water but low on protection from the elements.

We had training. We had exercises. I took courses. I actually ended up being the boat's medic after having aced the final examination. (As an aside I was also teaching Advanced Piloting at the local Power Squadron.)

Sure we had our moments, some less memorable than others but one stands out as being remarkable.....a yarn worth telling.

Behind the mountains to be seen from my front lawn and across the Straights of Juan de Fuca lies Puget Sound not too far to the south. Just over the water from Seattle is Bangor WA one of the homes of the Pacific Fleet but more specifically the Pacific home of the USA's underwater nuclear deterrent.

The straights in front of my home are the only access to the open ocean. As a result warships of all types are a common sight as they sortie from Puget Sound. The most menacing of these is the Ohio class nuclear submarine carrying the Trident intercontinental nuclear missile. It is of one of these that I have a tale.

We'd had a steady blow over a number of days. Sufficient to keep the charter boats bobbing in their slips. Sufficient to develop a significant swell rolling down the straights. Sufficient to keep me in my vegetable garden taking advantage of the opportunity. The wind shifted as the depression moved through and the shift stirred up the surface of the waters on top of the swell leaving a confused and stomach churning sea. A mass of whitecaps to seaward of the sea wall. Spume blowing horizontally off the tops of the waves. Gulls disappearing behind the swells. A weak sun doing it's best to light up the seascape.

Being in the auxiliary I had a beeper on my belt. It had different tones signifying different levels of urgency the most electrifying of which being the Mayday signal. These were rare. Mostly, as a rescue boat, we performed search and rescue, towed in errant fishermen who had run out of gas and other equally mundane but very necessary tasks.

I remember I was picking green beans and commenting on how remarkable it was that each bright red flower turned into a green bean! Suddenly my beeper sounded. I couldn't believe my ears. A Mayday!! Run to the truck. Ignore the speed limit down to the boathouse. Struggle into the suit, boots and helmet whilst listening to Victoria Centre describing the incident on the VHF. By now the rest of the crew had arrived. Haul off the otter nets...otters make an incredible mess of the boat if you don't use them......open the outer doors and head out into the harbour.

A gill netter, overloaded after fishing the Swiftsure Bank, started taking on water on its way south. The pumps couldn't keep up with the flow and they had hit an area of significant chop caused by the collision of wind and tidal current thus compounding the problem. The crew, fearing for their lives, issued a Mayday on channel 16 and fired flares to attract assistance.

We struggled out heading for their last reported position. The conditions were atrocious for a small boat. A confused chop of about 10' riding on top of a westerly swell behind which the mast of a large sailboat would easily disappear.

As we approached the vessel it became quite apparent that we could not get alongside to take the men off as, by now, the aft sections of the gill netter were being washed by the chop. We were in constant communication with the vessel over the VHF radio and, of course, constantly monitored by the Rescue Centre in Victoria.

We suggested to the crew, three of them, that they get in the water in their survival suits. It would not have been easy to pick them up but a solution nevertheless. They refused. A second solution was to have them turn into the shore and run the boat aground. It was decided that this was impractical as the boat would have to turn broadside to the weather with a real danger of being rolled over.

By now we have a rescue helicopter overhead called in by the rescue centre. Due to the violent movement of the fishing boat it was impossible to lift the men off the deck. It was again suggested that the men get in the water with a swimmer from the chopper and they would be airlifted to safety. Again they refused. A quandary.

Our cox'n,s view was to just hang around, wait for the boat to go down and then take the men out of the water. It seemed to be the only option.

A new voice on the radio! "USS XXXXX calling rescue vessel off our port bow. Can we be of any assistance? Over." As we came high on the swell we could see approaching the sail (conning tower) of a submarine seemingly undisturbed by the seas that were tossing us and the gill netter around like corks. Her decks were awash as she headed home to Bangor. No one in sight. Black and menacing but at ease in her element. A "boomer." An Ohio class nuclear submarine!

We didn't realize how big she really was until a little later. Her skipper suggested that he bring his boat (they call them boats for some reason) broadside to the weather to our windward thereby putting us and the gill netter in her lea. Theoretically this should ease the conditions and enable us to take the men off.

By now we were willing to try anything. We were beginning to worry about our own safety in the confused sea and one of our own crew was violently ill. We were also concerned as to whether the sub could get close enough to create the effect we needed without running us all down. So much we knew !

Our cox,n agreed with the idea but only after advising the subs skipper that we retained command of the rescue should we have to abort.

The sub maneuvered approximately 100 yds to windward, broadside to the weather, and proceeded to blow her tanks. Remember that up till now she had been decks awash with just her sail and a small portion of her deck above the water.

I just stood there, hanging on for dear life, as this monster slowly rose out of the water. You could hear the blast of air as she forced air into her tanks and the water out. Water poured off her black and shining hull as she exposed as much of herself as physically possible. I had had no real idea how big she was other than some memories of Electric Boat Works in Connecticut......another tale! Now I know better. 560' long and displacing 17000 tons she sat there undisturbed by the weather. Sat like a rock. To give you some idea....a world war 2 light aircraft carrier was only 60' longer and this is a darned submarine!!

As she rose to windward, kept on station by her sophisticated navigation systems, the sea around us became quieter and quieter as if in fear and awe of this monster of the sea. We quickly drew alongside the fishing boat and took the three men off without them getting any wetter than they already were. We then quickly stood off in order to give the sub some room. "Thanks for your help Navy. Over." "Any time. Over" Came the response.

We watched her slowly settle back into the water like some leviathon and turn back on course for Puget Sound and home after her 70 day cruise in the Pacific.

It was all over in just a few minutes! Seemed like it anyway.

We radioed in the position of the gill netter as it was now a hazard to navigation only after the helicopter had agreed to stay on station as long as her fuel allowed. We advised the centre that it would be impossible to get a tow on the boat and that in our opinion she would founder pretty quickly.

As we pounded our way back to harbour we were advised that the boat had in fact gone down! We had the crew as was our mandate......and a tale to tell.

12 to 40 Charter Fishing part 2

Trolling along. That little four stroke kicker muttering and bubbling to itself. Wake disappearing into the fog astern. Water burbling under the bow. It's not that bad really......just damp, cold and I can't see a damned thing !

Suddenly, like going through a door, I'm in sunlight. Aft the fog bank lies on the water like a big cotton wool blanket. Dead ahead the Straights of Georgia the sun dancing off the water and the snow on the Olympic Mountains dazzling bright. On the port hand, not too far away, the bright green of the cedars crowding the waters edge. The sea curling against the rocky shore of East Sooke.

Within an hour the fog has completely dispersed and I am surrounded by the most benign of days as I troll by Beachy Head. This what it must be all about. No fish in the boat, except for the frozen anchovies in the cooler, but it's a beautiful day!

This abrupt change, like the switching on of a light, in the coming years, always came as a complete surprise. I knew it was going to happen. Never quite sure exactly when but you knew.....and it was always a surprise. Perhaps not quite the revelation of that first morning but a surprise nevertheless.

As the fog bank dispersed completely I became aware that there were no other boats in my immediate vicinity. They seemed to be more congregated around Secretary Island to the North and over to the Northwest. A clue Watson!!

Up with the gear. Crank up the big engine and head north to what must be the fishing ground.

Get close ! Kill the big engine. Fire up the kicker. Get the gear back in the water. Start fishing in earnest. The fish have to be here ! Everybody else is !!

A hundred yards away a cry of excitement and the flash of the sun on a flasher as it clears the water. I know enough to turn away and watch, with envy, a fish, a beautiful fish being netted, photographed and tossed in a cooler to await it's fate at the hands of the reaper with the filleting knife.

My anticipation rises. Now I'm excited. Thar's fish in them thar waters!! I've seen the proof of it.

Nothing! Fat zero. Zilch. Nada.

Over time I became the talk of the marina. Out most mornings. Some were foggy.....many not. Fill up with gas. Buy more anchovies. I remember it was hot. Occasionally cooled by an onshore breeze out of the northwest or cooler coming off the snow covered mountains of Washington State.

What I did get was a suntan!! Burnt black by the sun and the wind. I looked as though I belonged.

I fished for nine weeks, yes nine weeks, without landing anything of note......certainly not a salmon!!!

To fully understand the enormity of this you need to understand something of a salmon's life cycle.......not that I wish to bore you but......

The different specie of salmon have different life cycles some shorter than others. The shortest of them all is the pink salmon....they "run" every two years and on the west coast of Vancouver Island it's on the odd numbered years.

The waters are thick with them. You barely need a rod. You can whistle them into the boat !

This was an "odd" year! You could catch the limit before the fog burned off. Everybody is catching fish. Everybody except me! I would sit at the marina, later in the day, watching the lineup at the cleaning station. Photographs being taken. Otters and seals in abundance feeding off the leftovers of the cleaning station. (Never leave a fish out on the cutting board. An otter will have it faster than you can blink!!)

My stamina had to be admired as was my suntan. My fishing prowess was non existent. What was I doing wrong?

I had been out one morning not actually fishing. I'd taken a run up to Race Rocks in the direction of Victoria to see where the bachelor sea lions congregate before migrating south for the winter.

Back in the marina, sitting in the cockpit, enjoying the second beer of the day I was paid a visit by Ron. I remember him quite well. He only had one thumb and had been chartering for a number of years. Quite a taciturn sort of fella who tended not to socialize with the other charter fishers. He enjoyed the fishing. Always had a prosperous season........for as long as it lasted....and enjoyed home and family up the West Coast Road.

I offered him a beer and he took the other seat in the cockpit. Although he didn't have to ask he still asked me how I was doing. "I know the boat. I know the area. I'm getting used to the weather and being able to read it but I can't catch fish to save my life." I said.

"Don't worry about it too much" he said. "We've all been there at some time or another." "Some just don't like to admit it." "I have a cancellation tomorrow morning why don't I come out with you and maybe I can help you a bit?" I leaped at the opportunity. Ron was a successful charter operator and I could do nothing but learn from him. "I'll bring breakfast and coffee." I said. "See you in the morning."

For once it wasn't foggy that morning. It was dark but not dark. The stars were waining but the moon was still bright and shining like a spotlight down the water. It was as though the world was holding it's breath waiting for the sun to rise.

We left the dock in the dark and headed out across the basin. Ron tinkered with my radar which I'd added soon after my first encounter with fog. He showed me how to set the collision alarm. "One of the most important tools on this gadget." He said......not critical.

We entered the narrow marked channel running down the side of Sooke harbour, the lights winking in the distance to starboard as folk began another day. Hard to port running down Whiffen Spit. Stay within the marks. It gets awful shallow through here even at the height of the flood. Through the gap, rocks close aboard either side, big engine growling as we cleared the danger and headed out into the bay.

We ran out, chatting about the ups and downs of the business. "Head over there Peter and cut the engine" Ron says. He leant over and punched in a way point on the GPS. "For further reference." he said. "Give it a name later. You'll be able to come back to it now." First lesson !

"Set up the gear." he says. "Get two rods in the water. That's enough for now." I begin to set up the first rod. "That's on backwards" he says. Second lesson !

So began a crash course in salmon fishing. Ron reminded me a bit of an old sailing mentor Jason who taught me how to sail years ago in the south of England. Long dead but not forgotten. Ron didn't smoke when Jason was rarely seen without his pipe jutting out of his mouth like a bowsprit. He was quiet though. Rarely critical. Rarely judgemental and didn't seem overly concerned about protecting "trade secrets" as were many.

It couldn't have been ten minutes when Ron nodded in the direction of one of the down riggers. "Watch that one" he says. Wham....... the rigger gave a lurch, the release clip did it's job and line was running off the reel. We were fishing !!! I was elated. A few minutes later my first fish of the year was lying in the bottom of the boat. A pink! Just a lowly pink. The easiest of all the salmon to catch but it was a fish ! Not just a fish but a salmon!! I'd arrived.

Off and on Ron and I fished together over the course of the next five years. Particularly in the Fall when the customers had gone and kids were back in school. October was great fishing but with few customers. Fishing for the big Cohoe out in the traffic lanes. Learning every day.

I learnt how to fish the tide lines visualizing the convergence of currents below. I learned about Chinook....we call them Springs on the west coast. Americans call them King Salmon. How lazy they are and how territorial. These are the truly big salmon. The trophy fish.

I learned how to fish sockeye four to five miles out between the traffic lanes. One eye on the weather to windward the other on the freighter traffic conscious of the fact that off Sooke they do not carry a pilot.

I learnt how to quickly fillet fish and how to smoke them. I learned some of the local First Nation folklore so as I could entertain customers on quieter days. I learned about the birds, the seals and the whales. People ask questions. I wanted to appear "the old man of the sea." It was fascinating.

After learning the basics from Ron I slowly built up a customer base. Very slowly I should add. Revenue was lousy but the expense was constant. Every day I learnt a bit more. Every day a bit more confident.

In five years of chartering I only had one customer who was obnoxious. He was with his wife who never said boo. He was American and knew everything about everything. For him everything was wrong. "Don't do it that way back home" was his favorite expression. We have a couple of good fish in the cooler. One a Spring over thirty pounds as I recollect. "We're going too fast." he would say. "Are you fishing at the right depth?" He was relentless. What was his objective? Impress his wife? Looked to me as though she just tuned him out.

Hey...at the end of the day he's a customer ! He's paying $300 dollars for a morning's fishing.......but it's endless and getting boring. Tomorrow I have a rare back to back chartering day so to hell with it.

Stop the boat. Haul in the gear. Pour myself a coffee and leisurely head for home about half an hour's running time away. "What you doing" he says to me. "Heading home" I say. "You can't do that" he says sounding a little more belligerent. I haul back on the throttle and let the boat lose it's momentum in the gentle swell. I check 360 degrees. The shore is a couple of miles off.

" My boat" I say. "I'm the skipper. Don't want you on my boat any more so we're heading back to the dock. There's no charge for the morning and the fish are yours although I've no intention of cleaning them for you." Now he's getting angry. "Hey bud" I say. "You can get off here or back at the dock......I'm easy. Water's pretty darn cold though." With that I opened up the throttle and headed home quietly humming to myself.

Edging into the dock there's a couple of charter guys standing there. One helps me with the lines. I help the wife off the boat and put the fish in a green garbage bag. One of the guys on the dock starts to laugh. The other just can't help himself and totally cracks up. My non paying customer stalks off in a huff leaving disparaging remarks in his wake............but the wife does thank me!

I got the original booking through the local charter association to which all the operators belonged. This particular customer was known to the group and they had settled him on me.....the newbie.

I'd been accepted!

12 to 40. Charter Fishing part 1.

All of us have sudden urges. Many of them remain just that; urges just rolling around in the scuppers of our minds as we transit our lives. Sail around the world. Write a book. Most are not that grandiose. Most just become unfulfilled items on personal Bucket lists.

Most of my own Bucket list items have been fulfilled. Sure there are several left but I'm not past it yet. There's still time.

It's fear that prevents us from going there. Fear of the unknown. A lack of security. That unknown future. You also have the people that spend so much time preparing they never do anything. The pleasure is in the preparation, the optics of it and that's OK in itself. Perhaps that was on the list.

In the sailing world they're everywhere. These folk spend major sums of money on their boats. They buy self steering systems, single side band radios and so on but never really go anywhere. They take courses ad infinitum but never go anywhere. They'll make every excuse under the sun but, at the end of the day, it's the fear that stops them.

I had the urge once to be a charter fisherman! How weird is that for a guy that's spent most of his adult years messing about in sailboats? Where did it come from? Easy to answer. I went salmon fishing once on a small charter boat. Big mistake. The problem was the weather was kind and I caught a couple of good fish! Well...the charter guy did and I simply yarded them in.

I was hooked......excuse the pun.

Back then I was living hard by one of the best salmon fishing areas in the world, on the west coast of Canada, constantly being regaled by fishy stories where the fish got bigger, the seas rougher and the fog thicker with the passage of time.

I bought a boat. A major part of the learning curve. An expensive part. In retrospect I probably paid twice what it was worth but it did have a new engine. I borrowed a trailer and hauled her home. With difficulty we blocked her up as we had a considerable amount of work to do in order to turn her into a fishing boat both safe, efficient and attractive to potential customers. She was 22' long and looked tired.

I spent the rest of that Summer and Fall doing her up. Ripped out all her "furniture" both on deck and in the cuddy. Added a small "head," for the customers I didn't have yet, plus some decent seats in the cockpit whilst leaving a good sized fishing platform aft. Installed a new VHF radio, a color depth monitor and GPS. She was ready to go........almost. Looked good anyway. Optics!

During the winter I ventured over to Steveston and bought fishing gear. Rods, reels, down riggers and all the ancillary gear that catches fish. Hmmmmm. The expense just continues to climb......but that's boats!

At last Spring arrives and it's time to go. I launched in a local marina and bought some bait. We used frozen anchovies!! I always thought they belonged on pizzas anyhow I vowed to go out at first light and catch dinner. Me the provider!

That first morning the alarm pushes me out of bed. Coffee has already percolated. In the truck and down to the marina. It's still pitch black, damp and uncomfortably cool. Other skippers are already there some with their customers all primed and ready. Some have already left the dock. Some are in the process of leaving. Yellow oilskins. Fresh coffee and diesel on the air. Excited chatter. It's wet and salty. Someone says good morning. That's a start!

It's very dark and the course across the basin and out the harbor is tricky at the best of times even if you know the area well. Better to wait for some light only having done it once and even then I wasn't taking too much notice.

As the light slowly filters in from the East I see it's foggy. Not a morning mist but a thick blanket of damp and curling fog. It seems to be moving. Swirling around like a live thing. Wet and cold.

I talk to the marina operator. "Like this most mornings at this time of the year" he tells me. "Usually burns off by mid morning. The air is warm and the water cold." Great....now what?

I plot out a course on the GPS screen and head out carefully, worried about hitting someone else rather than getting turned around. Worried about making a fool of myself in front of people who I hoped would become my friends. Three months later I can get out without thinking and I have friends but that's then not now.

Once out in the bay I can hear other boats and voices across the water but no one comes near. Radar's a wonderful thing. I didn't have it but the more prudent of the other skippers did. A necessary expense for later! How about tomorrow !! More money going out! Time to start fishing.

The sea is quiet, before the clearing breeze fills in. Almost oily, with a gentle swell coming from the westward. Eerie in the fog. In your own little world maybe fifty feet across trying to hear the gentle but threatening sounds of the barely perceptible surf on the nearby rocky shore, carefully listening for an approaching kicker.

Fire up the little four stroke and kill the big engine. Quieter now but my world is the same size. When does this stuff start to burn off? Time to sort out the gear and get the bait over the side.

There's a lot of gear to figure out. Down riggers, weights, leaders, flashers, bait rigs, quick release clips. How fast should the boat be moving ? How deep should the bait be in the water? How long is the leader? How do you hook up a frozen anchovy? Should I run with the tide ? Against? Across? Where the hell are we anyway ?

Kill the little Yamaha and listen. Nothing !! No engine noises. No voices over the water. Just the rippling of the boat through the water as the weigh comes off her. My world fifty feet across.

Check the plot on the GPS plotter. Fine out here. Nothing to hit. No traffic that I can hear. Is this where the fish are ? This is supposed to be fun ?

Fire up the little kicker and troll back and forth for a while. Nothing ! Quietly nothing. Foggy nothing!

I look up towards the sky. Hey.....how weird is this. I can see patches of blue and the odd gull. I look around me. Fog ! Still thick but lighter in color.

Is this what they mean by "burning off?"

12 to 40. A Yarn (Part 4 of several.)

Some days are best described as "watery." No pun intended.

The water itself is often a steel grey and the sky a light, light blue dotted with high cirrus...... like stretched out cotton wool.

The sun is filtered but it's not cold. You're aware that summer is waning. Fall is around the corner. Some of the trees, at the waters edge, are starting to turn and the geese are looking to the south but there's plenty of life left in the year.

It was a day such as this that Jason and I shared our last sail in "his brother in law's skiff."

We pushed off with me at the tiller......by now I was, at least, comfortable with the dinghy but still on a steep learning curve. I had acquired foul weather gear recently, having learnt the hard way. The gear cost me more than the darned boat!

Jason, as usual, was in his old dark green gear and black rubber boots that he often wore about the yard on the muddy days. He's brought with him a flask of hot, sweet, milky tea which I detest to this day.....I prefer no milk no sugar......plus a couple of truly thick sandwiches made up for us by his wife. We had the customary gear in the boat including a couple of floater cushions plus life jackets. All this and two intrepid adults left little room!

As we hoisted the sails I commented that we were about two hours into the ebb and noted that the breeze was out of the south west. Wind against tide produced a healthy little chop for a small boat.

It's days like this that you remember. We wore upwind not that the boat pointed very well. Spray flying from the chop. Sun shining. Not having to work hard. Sitting on the weather gunnel tiller extension in one hand......a new and recent addition......main sheet in the other periodically leaning out to weather as the gusts threatened and to keep the boat trim.

Jason sitting up forward totally relaxed, cheerily puffing on his pipe; enjoying the moment but aware of everything. A look of contentment on his face. An ageing man comfortable with himself and his surroundings.

For a couple of hours we worked our way up and down the channel waving at passing boats some going with a destination in mind some, like us, simply enjoying the afternoon.

Not many words passed between us. A few simple instructions from Jason periodically in order to get the best out of the dinghy. Comments on trim and adjustments; the boats heading relative to the constantly shifting breeze. Jason teaching....me learning.

"Not sure you want to be over 'ere this toime of the arternoon" he says suddenly. "Put 'er about and 'ead back across the channel."

Woomph....too late.....we ran aground! "Thought so" he says. "Must be four hours into the ebb. This bank is a shifty one alright."

We tried to pole her off using the oars but she wouldn't budge. We upped the centreboard and leant her over. No luck. We were stuck for a while.

The water sluiced by the dinghy as the little bay emptied like a bathtub. Mud flats started to appear. "Part of the larnin' " says Jason lighting his pipe. "We'll be 'ere at least three hours. Must be an hour or so left in the ebb then about forty five minutes slack then it will take at least an hour of flood to float her orf." "Might as well make ourselves comfortable."

He poured himself a mug of his disgusting tea and shared a sandwich after which he loaded up his pipe and settled back comfortably leaning against one of the cushions at peace with his world waiting for the tide to come in and float us home.

"You've never told me too much about yourself Jason" I said. He looked at me over his pipe and thought for a few moments. I think he knew that, as I grew, we would see less and less of each other. He was right in this.

"My father owned the yard before me and his father before him. I'm seventy one years old and was born in a different time........ but aren't we all." I was born in 1890 in that old house by the yard. My family has lived in that house for over two hundred years that I know of. Queen Victoria was on the throne. Did you know that she died not very far from here? In Osborne House on the Isle of White in 1901. I remember it quite well."

He paused, spat over the side of the boat and began to load up his pipe again out of the old oilskin pouch that I had become so used to seeing. He was thoughtful. "What is it you actually want to know?"

I said "How much does your son know of your history and your family's?" "Not much" he replied. "We don't talk too much."

For me....there's the rub. Quite often little is passed down. Much gets lost in the passage of time. We lose our identity making it that much more difficult to determine who we are and why we are the way we are.

"Oi've seen three wars." he said. "One first hand.....I was in the Navy. The next sort of second hand as I was working in a yard in Portsmouth. I was too old by then to fight but I had to do my bit but they bombed Portsmouth all the time. The third was just in the newspapers. They never larn."

"Oi spent ten years in the navy. Oi joined up in 1914 at the start of the war against the Kaiser. Oi ended up Bosun on a destroyer. I was at the Battle of Jutland under Admiral Jellicoe. Oi dunno if you know but that battle was the largest navel battle in history in terms of the number of warships involved and men killed." "Oi was a lucky one though!"

"After oi was finished with all that I come back to the yard and worked with me dad." "It was about then I met the woife. Couple of years later my boy was born."

"Times was 'ard then." "Not a lot of money around. Folk picking themselves up arter the war. We did OK though. We grew all our own vegetables and had a few chickens. We ate well but the business was poor."

"Then, bugger me, if it didn't all start again. Hitler this time. I was too old to fight and my boy too young. I think he was only twelve when it began. Lucky it didn't go on another year he would've bin called up." "Dad stayed in the yard. Me and the family went down to Portsmouth to do war work until it was all over......do our bit loike." "Later on the Korean war came and went but it seemed a long way orf and we just read about it in the papers."

"Things got better then." More people took to the sailing. Dad and I built a few small boats and repairs kept us busy....roight busy in fact. Dunno wot is going to happen in the future though. Things is changing. There's all this fibreglass and suchlike now."

Our little boat gave a lurch. "Water's coming up." says Jason. "Won't be long. Should be off soon."

He was quiet for a few moments gazing across the rapidly filling bay.

"By the way Peter, I never told you, but it was me dad that built this little skiff for the wife's brother." "Brings back memories."

That was the last time I sailed with Jason. I saw him about the yard through the Autumn months but I already was dreaming about joining a yacht club and moving up to a modern fibreglass, competitive dinghy. As an aside I ended up buying a 505, an Olympic class at the time, and club raced until I moved back up north.

Jason died in 1966. He was seventy six years old. I saw his wife before emigrating to Canada.

She said his last words were "It's toime." She said he was content.

He has a headstone, next to his father's, in the churchyard. It reads:

"Jason... Fair Weather"

The image is a 505 dinghy in full flight. I ended up buying one very similar.!!

12 to 40. A Yarn. (Part 3 of several)

Mudeford Water...just outside Christchurch, Dorset. A haven for small boats and fishermen. The larger boats tend to inhabit Poole to the west and the Isle of White to the east; the centre of British Yachting.

On a fair day, from the air, the small boats on the water look like feeding gulls except they leave a momentary trail in the salt water in their passing.

A special day! With me hanging on to the painter Jason, pipe in mouth of course and one plimsoll sans laces, floated her off the dolly into the water.

She bobbed there. Hull, mast and boom gleaming in the bright sunlight. Mains'l neatly furled. We'd used some light stuff. Jason did that not I! The jib, neatly folded in the bow as we didn't have a bag that suited the dinghy's new suit of clothes. "She roids in the water roight noicely"said Jason punctuated by odd puffs of smoke from his pipe. "Once we 'ave our weight in 'er she'll settle on 'er lines." I nodded sagely. I didn't have a clue what he was talking about. She was floating and she was mine....that's all I knew......at the time.

She looked happy.If she could smile she would have. It's almost as though she was asking why it had taken so long to get her back in the water. Eager.

"Well get in." says Jason. "Get your weight on 'er centre line and sit yourself down on the forward thwart." Whaaaa. Centre line? Forward thwart? This boat has her own language. I knew I wasn't going to be driving so, by elimination, I concluded that a thwart is a seat and there were only two. I got in and sat down. Not much room. Jason stepped over the gunnel and sat down.

He just sat there for a while not saying a word, tiny puffs of blue smoke coming from his pipe as he breathed. He looked about our little world. "You'm did a roight, noice job on 'er. All Bristol loike."

He picked up one of my bright, shiny, clean oars upon which I'd vested hours of work and actually put it in the water. He poled us off until we were in a few feet of water.

"Grab the jib sheets and bend them onto the clew of that thar little jibs'l" he says. I looked at him questioningly. "Hmmm" he says. Another puff of smoke. "Watch me. When you don't understand.....ask! Stupid not to ask."

He was a good teacher. As he worked he named each item, each part. He recited its function and how each was a part of the whole. There I was, sitting in a small boat, listening to an old man who, only a few short weeks before, had been a complete stranger to me. Listening to him opening a world to me that I'd rarely thought of until, on a whim, I'd parted with my fiver and bought a small boat. Watching his gnarled old hands, burnt black by the sun, calloused by years of manual labour, deftly tie knots with a skill I have not matched to this day fifty years later. Always punctuated by little puffs of smoke. What did he do at night?

I remember him looking at me over his pipe and saying "if you'm only larn one knot larn the bowline. You'll need her if you take to the sailing. Learn to tie 'er upside down, blindfold and soaking wet. You'll need 'er. She can save your life."

He was patient. Never critical. If I got it wrong he would simply grunt and show me again.

Soon we had the sails up and I do mean "we." My bowline on my clew. My hanks on my forestay. Cunningham off. Outhaul tight. There we were head to wind, sails gently luffing.

Jason pushed the tiller over and fell off the wind slightly. The boat actually started to move!! Miracle of miracles. "Haul in on that thar jibsheet until the jib is full and bye." I actually knew what he meant.

The dinghy accelerated.....as much as an old wooden dinghy can accelerate. The sound of the tiny waves lapping against the hull as she moved through the water was payment enough for the hours of labour.

As we moved away from the shore the light breeze filled in slightly and the lapping of the waves turned into a hiss and the dinghy developed a slight heel. The joy of sailing! Drops of water sparkling in the sun. Saltwater wake astern of us. Eddies around the rudder. Slight weather helm. Quiet. Gulls wheeling high above. Wind in the air. The boat talking her own language.

Jason sat there. Tiller in one hand mainsheet in the other his pipe doing it's best to lay a smokescreen astern of us. He crossed his legs and, leaning against the transom, spoke of sailing.

"Sailing a boat is a feeling." he said. "She'll talk to you if you've larned to listen. Feel the wind on your cheek. Feel it shift. Larn how your boat reacts to adjustments." I didn't realize then just how many adjustments there are on a well fitted sail boat. "Larn in a dinghy!" He was adamant about this. "The dinghy tells you immediately what's up. You sail with all four cheeks sensitive to what is going on. The cheeks on your face tell you what the wind is doing. The cheeks on your arse tell you what the boat is doing." "Get it wrong and are insistent she'll get mad and dump you in the water. Get it right and she'll sing to you down the waves of the ages. If you can sail a dinghy you can sail anything!"

He was so right. Fifty years later I still pass on the advice of this old man.

We sailed together through that summer. I think he looked forward to it as much as I. He spoke of the intricacies of trimming a boat large or small. He talked of the weather and how to observe. He talked of trust and trusting your boat providing she was well found. He talked of tides and the effect of the moon. He talked of currents...the danger of wind against wave. He talked of open water, the danger of a lea shore, the thrill of a big boat, rail down, charging through the water.

In retrospect he was talking about life, analogous to our needs and the needs of a successful relationship. He walked the talk!

We talked of many things but never of himself or his family and rarely of his experience.

Except once........but that's another tale!

The photo by the way is the dinghy complete with me in my youth. Taken in 1960. Regrettably I have no photo of Jason. He would have been a good subject.

12 to 40. A yarn. (Part 2 of several)

Although time tends to erode memory and memory itself is impacted by the present there are events and characters in our lives that remain so well imprinted it's as though it were yesterday.

Jason was one of those characters!

Jason...not tall but erect as any Guardsman even in his advanced years. Jason with the pale blue eyes that always looked slightly amused, squinting as though looking up sun at some distant horizon. Jason with the omnipresent pipe and cloud of pale blue smoke that followed him wherever he went. Jason with the shock of white hair, bushy eyebrows and few words. A grunt and a gesture was often sufficient. You knew exactly what he was saying. You always felt as though you wanted to please him.

I don't know exactly how much time I spent scraping down that old, carvel built, dinghy. The yard was like a time machine for, once inside, time seemed to stand still and the work didn't seem like work at all. No belt or palm sander. Just a scraper that Jason had slightly modified with a file to take the corners off preventing it from gouging and a stack of sandpaper of varying grits.

People would stop and gam for a while or just stop and watch the progress as they made passage from one part of the yard to another. Everything unhurried. The buzz of the occasional fly. Sawdust motes hanging in the sunbeams flooding through the large doors to the shed. The rasp of the scraper. No thought given as to when the job would be finished.

At first my yacht was a lifeless turtle lying on those oversized sawhorses. Twelve feet of wood covered by a peeling layer of yellowing varnish which, in turn, covered another coat which, in turn another. Some of it dry and brittle. Some hanging on like a limpet not wanting to be worried off the wood beneath. Brass gudgeon pins and pintles, rowlocks all green with the verdigris of time.

As I scraped the wood below slowly came into view. Golden in color and soft to the touch. I soon came to know what Jason had known all along. Still plenty of life beneath those multi coats of aging varnish.

He would periodically stop by to view the progress and assess the quality of the job at hand. He rarely said anything. Sometimes he would look at the boat slowly coming to life and just walk away beneath his cloud of smoke. Other times he would run his hand over an area recently finished, grunt, look quizzically at me and then walk away. You knew he wasn't satisfied and you wanted him to be pleased.

I arrived one Saturday morning to find a gaping hole in the port side. A plank had been removed. I hunted down Jason. He was busy stoking the wood burning boiler that generated the steam for the bender.

He looked up. "Oi tore out one board. Didn't have no loife left in 'er. Oi'll bend a piece to fit for ee." That soft west country accent accompanied by a puff of smoke from his pipe. "Oi found the perfect piece for 'er in the seasoning shed."

He bent down and picked up a board to show me. I learned something else about him at that moment. He picked the board up almost as though it were alive. He didn't see just a board as did I rather he saw in it the function and the form. He could see it's shape and how it would become part of the whole. He exposed the artist in him.....unintentionally.

It took weeks to refinish that little boat. I think, under Jason' pale blue critical eye, I might have finished it several times. The hull both inside and out. The thwarts and gunnels. The centreboard, the rudder. The mast and boom. The oars. Jason laminated a new tiller as the original had gone missing. Perhaps rooted in the garden in which she had lay for so long.

At last she was finished. At least to the extent that any boat is actually finished. Experience has since taught me that boats are a constant work in progress.

We manhandled her onto a launching dolly and wheeled her outside for to meet another chapter in her life.

Jason took a hose and filled her with water while I watched in astonishment. "If it can't get out it can't get in."

Logical to me. Nothing got out!

Perhaps too soon she lay, right side up, in the sun showing off her several coats of new varnish. Now I know why varnished hulls are referred to as "bright." Her brass bits glinting. Her new lines coiled as if on a navel vessel. She was ready for the water. Problem........ I wasn't!!! I'd never been in a sailing dinghy before. Now what?

Over a mug of tea served in the cozy little shed that served as an office I said "Jason do you ever get out on the water?" He looked at me over the rim of his mug. "Ar 'ee wants me to take you'm out in 'er." "Oi'd like that. Must be twenty year since oi sailed that little skiff."

So began my sailing lessons. Jason in his overalls and flat cap. His only concession being that he exchanged his old army boots for an even older pair of plimsolls that had seen better days a long time ago.

Mudeford Water. An almost enclosed stretch of tidal water that the ebb emptied like a bathtub. Tidal flats that suddenly were there and least expected. Gusts of wind that exposed the frailties of small dinghies but sufficiently sheltered from the rowdiness of the English Channel.....but more of this later.