The lovely and very talented Pam Ayres once wrote a poem that described the calling of dry stone walling as 'appalling'. I couldn't resist a reply.
WHAT'S APPALLING ABOUT DRY STONE WALLING?
By Patrick Wise (aged 71 and a bit)
Come rain and wind and squalls
I builds dry stone walls.
Whatever the weather I'm there.
To some, heaps of stones
Just looks like old bones,
But to me they looks lovely and fair.
Each one is a beauty.
I takes it my duty
To find the right place for each one.
I shapes up its face
And pops it in place
So it works well in rain, hail and sun.
One day a smart bloke
Came strolling, and spoke.
'That's easy' he said, 'Looks real cushy.
Just placing one stone
On top of another. Job done, what?
Fancy some sushi?'
''tis more than you think'
I said with a wink.
'Wallings a skill that few know.
You place one stone true
On top of the two
That you placed on the one down below.'
So see a stone wall,
Look closely and all.
It's a work of fine art, I elect.
I find dry stone walling
In no way appalling.
I'm an artist, so show some respect!
Tuesday 29 May 2012
The Poem That Nearly Wasn't
I've got to write a poem
By Thursday at the latest.
Rhona set us homework
And I know that she'll be waiting.
It's got to have emotion
And be first person singular.
But I haven't got a notion
No ideas in particular.
No time to write an epic
Of complicated verse.
My tempus has all fujit.
Oh heck! What could be worse?
Now get a grip there, Patrick.
You've shelled out for this course.
You've got to think of something,
For better or for worse.
I'll think about my heroes
Who wrote great funny lines;
Spike Milligan and Ogden Nash,
Who sometimes ended a verse with a line so long it almost ran right off the edge of the page and down the margin and didn't even rhyme.
Tick! Tock! The time is passing.
My nerves are getting fraught.
My head is full of empty,
Not a single bloomin' thought.
My heartbeat rate is rising,
As time for class draws near.
But at least I've got emotion.
Yes, panic, dread and fear.
Aha! I know! I'll write it!
I'll write these nervous thoughts.
Who knows? Perhaps they'll like it?
On the other hand ... P'raps not.
By Patrick Wise
(aged 66 and 3/4)
By Thursday at the latest.
Rhona set us homework
And I know that she'll be waiting.
It's got to have emotion
And be first person singular.
But I haven't got a notion
No ideas in particular.
No time to write an epic
Of complicated verse.
My tempus has all fujit.
Oh heck! What could be worse?
Now get a grip there, Patrick.
You've shelled out for this course.
You've got to think of something,
For better or for worse.
I'll think about my heroes
Who wrote great funny lines;
Spike Milligan and Ogden Nash,
Who sometimes ended a verse with a line so long it almost ran right off the edge of the page and down the margin and didn't even rhyme.
Tick! Tock! The time is passing.
My nerves are getting fraught.
My head is full of empty,
Not a single bloomin' thought.
My heartbeat rate is rising,
As time for class draws near.
But at least I've got emotion.
Yes, panic, dread and fear.
Aha! I know! I'll write it!
I'll write these nervous thoughts.
Who knows? Perhaps they'll like it?
On the other hand ... P'raps not.
By Patrick Wise
(aged 66 and 3/4)
Thursday 24 May 2012
Who do I think I am?
Yes, me. Who am I? Ordinary me, sitting in a hospital bed thinking, 'I know! I'll pass the time writing something, but what?
Write about something you know, is the advice in many books. Well, I knew about me, or at least thought I did. I was interested in the subject, but would anyone else be? I had no idea. Did it matter? Well, yes, it's no fun talking to yourself. So, I had to try to make it interesting. At least I wanted to know what happens next in my story. So I had one person in the bag. Then the doubts started creeping in. Did I really want to know what happened next? If I'd known, back in February 2010, what was going to happen next, I wouldn't have been bird watching on the north Norfolk coast in February.
I had a heart attack.
If I'd known that our lovely break would end with me flat on my back in Norwich University Hospital, would we have been there in the first place?
Three months later I was flat on my back again, this time in Cheltenham General Hospital, where I wrote this, inspired by the fact that Cheltenham Literature Festival was taking place just a stone's throw away, and I was missing out. My wife popped round at visiting times to tell me what I was missing. Would I have wanted to know this was going to happen beforehand? I think not.
As I sat in that hospital bed, my thoughts wove around ideas of the past, present and future, and what do we know about them? It's a common subject for writers to explore, from science to science fiction.
Is the future already fixed, or is it created as we travel through time? Is history a record of the past, or the past as each writer is convinced it was. Each one sees it differently. My past is not remembered by me as it is by you, even if we experienced it together, same time, same place, same events. My story of it will almost certainly differ from yours, even though we are both convinced that we, personally, are right. There are two different histories already, and we've only just begun.
This came home to me once in my late teens. I had to do a Year's practical on another farm, not the one I'd been raised on, at the insistence of the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, as a requirement of the short course I was to take there. That is why I was riding on a very old trailer towed by Bert, my colleague, using an equally ancient tractor. We had been working with the sheep, treating them for various minor ailments such as foot-rot and fly-strike, two of the many disgusting problems they are prone to encounter. These things are best attended to after lunch, not before when one is about to eat one's cheese and tomato sandwiches from a battered Oxo tin. Wash my hands? Where? With what?
It was the end of the working day and we were rumbling along the Burford road back to the farmyard. As we approached a blind bend, a car came hurtling round it from the opposite direction, tyres screeching and going far too fast to get back on its right side if the road. It was heading straight for us.
Tractors are not nimble. There was no way we could get out of the way in time. There was going to be a crash. The certainty of it slowed my perception of the event right down. Bert and I were right in the firing line. I sat and watched the inevitable.
The car struck the tractor, taking the entire front axle and wheels out from beneath it. The tractor engine block dropped to the road in a huge thump of spraying hot oil and water, and belching boiling steam. The impetus of the mangled car took it through a stone wall and into a field, where car and tractor axle rammed into the earth like a meteorite strike. For what seemed a long time there was silence, and then terrified screams. I was numb, but uninjured, saved by the inertia of the heavy load. Bert was bleeding and climbing from the wreck of his cab. We dreaded what we would find at the car, but Bert sent me running to the farmhouse to get help, while he went to do what he could at the car.
Amazing as it seemed, the two children in the back seat were shocked and bruised while their mother, who had been driving, was badly shaken and had a broken arm.
The accident lead to a court case, which in those far off days, was held in the nearby Burford court-house. Bert and I were called as witnesses. I stood in the witness box and gave what I believed to be a truthful and accurate account of the event. I was then shown to a visitor seat and watched Bert go through the same process. I was horrified. His account of the accident was very different. Worried that the court would think that I, or Bert, was lying, I asked a constable sitting next to me what I should do?
'Nothing,' he said, 'Happens all the time. No two ever the same. Even coppers do it. Court are used to it.' He nodded towards the lawyers.
So much for true histories. Yours, mine or the other person's?
Write about something you know, is the advice in many books. Well, I knew about me, or at least thought I did. I was interested in the subject, but would anyone else be? I had no idea. Did it matter? Well, yes, it's no fun talking to yourself. So, I had to try to make it interesting. At least I wanted to know what happens next in my story. So I had one person in the bag. Then the doubts started creeping in. Did I really want to know what happened next? If I'd known, back in February 2010, what was going to happen next, I wouldn't have been bird watching on the north Norfolk coast in February.
I had a heart attack.
If I'd known that our lovely break would end with me flat on my back in Norwich University Hospital, would we have been there in the first place?
Three months later I was flat on my back again, this time in Cheltenham General Hospital, where I wrote this, inspired by the fact that Cheltenham Literature Festival was taking place just a stone's throw away, and I was missing out. My wife popped round at visiting times to tell me what I was missing. Would I have wanted to know this was going to happen beforehand? I think not.
As I sat in that hospital bed, my thoughts wove around ideas of the past, present and future, and what do we know about them? It's a common subject for writers to explore, from science to science fiction.
Is the future already fixed, or is it created as we travel through time? Is history a record of the past, or the past as each writer is convinced it was. Each one sees it differently. My past is not remembered by me as it is by you, even if we experienced it together, same time, same place, same events. My story of it will almost certainly differ from yours, even though we are both convinced that we, personally, are right. There are two different histories already, and we've only just begun.
This came home to me once in my late teens. I had to do a Year's practical on another farm, not the one I'd been raised on, at the insistence of the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, as a requirement of the short course I was to take there. That is why I was riding on a very old trailer towed by Bert, my colleague, using an equally ancient tractor. We had been working with the sheep, treating them for various minor ailments such as foot-rot and fly-strike, two of the many disgusting problems they are prone to encounter. These things are best attended to after lunch, not before when one is about to eat one's cheese and tomato sandwiches from a battered Oxo tin. Wash my hands? Where? With what?
It was the end of the working day and we were rumbling along the Burford road back to the farmyard. As we approached a blind bend, a car came hurtling round it from the opposite direction, tyres screeching and going far too fast to get back on its right side if the road. It was heading straight for us.
Tractors are not nimble. There was no way we could get out of the way in time. There was going to be a crash. The certainty of it slowed my perception of the event right down. Bert and I were right in the firing line. I sat and watched the inevitable.
The car struck the tractor, taking the entire front axle and wheels out from beneath it. The tractor engine block dropped to the road in a huge thump of spraying hot oil and water, and belching boiling steam. The impetus of the mangled car took it through a stone wall and into a field, where car and tractor axle rammed into the earth like a meteorite strike. For what seemed a long time there was silence, and then terrified screams. I was numb, but uninjured, saved by the inertia of the heavy load. Bert was bleeding and climbing from the wreck of his cab. We dreaded what we would find at the car, but Bert sent me running to the farmhouse to get help, while he went to do what he could at the car.
Amazing as it seemed, the two children in the back seat were shocked and bruised while their mother, who had been driving, was badly shaken and had a broken arm.
The accident lead to a court case, which in those far off days, was held in the nearby Burford court-house. Bert and I were called as witnesses. I stood in the witness box and gave what I believed to be a truthful and accurate account of the event. I was then shown to a visitor seat and watched Bert go through the same process. I was horrified. His account of the accident was very different. Worried that the court would think that I, or Bert, was lying, I asked a constable sitting next to me what I should do?
'Nothing,' he said, 'Happens all the time. No two ever the same. Even coppers do it. Court are used to it.' He nodded towards the lawyers.
So much for true histories. Yours, mine or the other person's?
Saturday 19 May 2012
Uncle Randall ~
Randall looked like Mr Punch. He had a red nose, bright twinkly eyes, and he loved telling his nephews ever so slightly naughty limericks. 'Randal!' Aunt Nance would snap at him, 'Not in front of the children!'
Of course 'the children' meant my brother Mark and me, and we loved Uncle Randall's rhymes. And him.
We also loved him because he had a real Colt .45 six shot revolver, just like those used by our Saturday cinema film cowboy heroes, which he kept on a hook above the living room fireplace, well out of reach of nephews in short trousers. We were in awe that he actually had one, with bullets, and there was always the vague promise that he would demonstrate it for us one day. And our patience paid off. One day he did.
It was a Saturday, on Wytham village green near Oxford, just next door to Randall's farm. It seemed the whole village was there. There were Tombola stands, home-made cakes and jam, never-ending tea and cucumber sandwiches, but it was clear that the main event was to be a show by Uncle Randall of highlighting his horsemanship skills. Mark and I couldn't wait, but we filled in the time, and our tummies, with cake, jam tarts and lemonade, or pop, as we called it.
Randall had been a cavalry man. He, along with another brother, were horse-mounted guards alongside Queen Mary when she visited Oxford.
A great competitor, Randall rose to be the Army horse-riding champion with a lance. Since then he had adapted his skills to entertain audiences with demonstrations of his horsemanship. He would have worried Mongolian bare-back riding warriors and Ghengis Khan himself.
An accomplice in drag and a top hat (don't ask; all will be revealed) would walk to the centre of the performance area and begin to hammer a wooden tent peg into the ground. Suddenly Randall would appear behind him on horseback, galloping full tilt from the far end of the field and thunder towards him, twelve-foot lance held high. As he neared the man, who was still hammering the peg and seemingly oblivious of approaching doom, Randall would lower the lance and aim it between the man's legs. Rider and horse would hurtle by in a thunder of hooves and dust and the lance would spin over his head. On it's tip would be the tent peg. Of course this feat gave rise to ecstatic applause as Randall knocked the tent peg off his lance, but he had not finished yet. In a flurry of hooves, he and his horse would whirl around and head back towards the fleeing accomplice. Again, at full gallop, and with the lance levelled, Randall would fly at the running man and spear the top hat from his head.
Of course 'the children' meant my brother Mark and me, and we loved Uncle Randall's rhymes. And him.
We also loved him because he had a real Colt .45 six shot revolver, just like those used by our Saturday cinema film cowboy heroes, which he kept on a hook above the living room fireplace, well out of reach of nephews in short trousers. We were in awe that he actually had one, with bullets, and there was always the vague promise that he would demonstrate it for us one day. And our patience paid off. One day he did.
It was a Saturday, on Wytham village green near Oxford, just next door to Randall's farm. It seemed the whole village was there. There were Tombola stands, home-made cakes and jam, never-ending tea and cucumber sandwiches, but it was clear that the main event was to be a show by Uncle Randall of highlighting his horsemanship skills. Mark and I couldn't wait, but we filled in the time, and our tummies, with cake, jam tarts and lemonade, or pop, as we called it.
Randall had been a cavalry man. He, along with another brother, were horse-mounted guards alongside Queen Mary when she visited Oxford.
A great competitor, Randall rose to be the Army horse-riding champion with a lance. Since then he had adapted his skills to entertain audiences with demonstrations of his horsemanship. He would have worried Mongolian bare-back riding warriors and Ghengis Khan himself.
An accomplice in drag and a top hat (don't ask; all will be revealed) would walk to the centre of the performance area and begin to hammer a wooden tent peg into the ground. Suddenly Randall would appear behind him on horseback, galloping full tilt from the far end of the field and thunder towards him, twelve-foot lance held high. As he neared the man, who was still hammering the peg and seemingly oblivious of approaching doom, Randall would lower the lance and aim it between the man's legs. Rider and horse would hurtle by in a thunder of hooves and dust and the lance would spin over his head. On it's tip would be the tent peg. Of course this feat gave rise to ecstatic applause as Randall knocked the tent peg off his lance, but he had not finished yet. In a flurry of hooves, he and his horse would whirl around and head back towards the fleeing accomplice. Again, at full gallop, and with the lance levelled, Randall would fly at the running man and spear the top hat from his head.
YThe hat was attached to the drag dress with string, so hat and dress would rip off, leaving the chap in pantomime dame underwear. Cue more applause and lots of laughter. Both men would take a well deserved bow, one for his wonderful skills and one for quite breathtaking courage. The horse was happy for a chance to eat grass, but not for long. Randall had another amazing feat to perform.
At the edge of the Arena was a stack of straw bales, with a curtain of hessian sacking hanging in front of it. On a wooden shelf in front of that stood six beer bottles. At the far end of the field, Randall and his horse readied themselves to go again. And this time he was armed not with a lance, but with his Colt .45. This was it. The big one as far as Mark and I were concerned.
Urging his steed into another full gallop down the field, clods of earth flew from its flying hooves as they sped past the bottles. Suddenly the revolver was in Uncle Randall's hand and he levelled it towards the bottles. BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Six shots rang out, and six bottles shattered! Hopalong Cassidy, Tex Ritter, Gene Autry, the Lone Ranger ... eat your hearts out. This was our Uncle Randall! As far as we were concerned, from then on he was right up there with the best.
Years later, our father let us in on the secret. At the sound of each shot the accomplice, concealed behind the hessian sacking, would wack a bottle with a hammer and it would shatter spectacularly. Randall, of course, was firing blanks. But wow! It looked good and, although long gone, Uncle Randall is a hero of ours to this day, him and Hopalong Cassidy.
Urging his steed into another full gallop down the field, clods of earth flew from its flying hooves as they sped past the bottles. Suddenly the revolver was in Uncle Randall's hand and he levelled it towards the bottles. BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Six shots rang out, and six bottles shattered! Hopalong Cassidy, Tex Ritter, Gene Autry, the Lone Ranger ... eat your hearts out. This was our Uncle Randall! As far as we were concerned, from then on he was right up there with the best.
Years later, our father let us in on the secret. At the sound of each shot the accomplice, concealed behind the hessian sacking, would wack a bottle with a hammer and it would shatter spectacularly. Randall, of course, was firing blanks. But wow! It looked good and, although long gone, Uncle Randall is a hero of ours to this day, him and Hopalong Cassidy.
______________________
Footnote:
I had a friend at school called Bill Prewett. Bill is still around, as are other old school friends, but I am notoriously anti-social and accept that it is my loss that we don't meet nowadays.
Bill's father was the poet Frank Prewett, and one day in the sixties, in an old second-hand bookshop in Burford, my then wife Rosemary discovered a book headed, "The Collected Poems of Frank Prewett". In it we found this poem which, apart from the mention of wife and son, rings so true of my uncle, Randall Wise.
Randall is Dead
Randall is dead, Randall, lusty and big.
Hard riding Randall, wise in the ways of the wild,
Who jibbed at books like his mare smelt a pig,
His mare that flung him, his mare more dear than child.
Love of all living blazed from him around.
He cheered the stranger, warmed the poor and cold,
All but his meagre wife who envious frowned,
And his seven year old boy, in studying grown old.
When Randall galloped his fields a mile away,
He dwarfed the trees, as the sun he shone.
Maid or man he smote hard by his death this day;
Our fields must be barren, now great Randall has gone.
He lies in dust, bronze and tawny as in life.
And his loved mare peevishly snatches the grass,
Waiting his mounting and their joyful strife,
But his strength is stretched in the dust whoever may pass.
(Frank Prewett, 1893 - 1962)
Mobile Shops: Ron The Ironmonger
Ron Taylor's travelling ironmongery shop reminded me of Spike Milligan's illustration of Bluebottle. Bluebottle was a dedicated Boy Scout who always had a tin mug, spoon, toothbrush and catapult dangling from a piece of string tied around his waist. Ron's van also had a spectacular variety of goods tied around its waist, including dustbins, fuel cans, hosepipes, brooms and pitchforks. And every week this spectacular contraption would rattle and sway its way into our farmyard, announcing its arrival with a cacophony sounding like the Eiffel Tower falling down.
Out from the driver's seat would climb Ron, or sometimes his trusty assistant Tom, and descend very carefully to avoid dislodging anything. I got the impression that one false move could bring the whole gently rocking, creaking edifice down with a crash, throwing every animal and human of a nervous disposition within miles into a blind panic. It would already have made them twitchy.
Mum usually dealt with travelling shops on her own, but Ron's mobile Aladdin's Cave was for everyone. The stock list included six inch nails, candles, string, feather dusters, paraffin, screwdrivers, tins of dog food, a wonder hand cleaner known as Swarfega which removed all oil and tractor grease, and probably a layer of skin, from hands, and left-handed number eight nurdler's wing nuts. I made that last one up, but if you think they exist then Ron would have been sure to have some on his van. It had Tardis qualities.
Mum bought things like Fairy liquid, Brillo Pads and tins of pet food (most farmers kept cats and dogs to keep down vermin). Dad bought Swarfega and paraffin. Paraffin and other dangerous substances were top shelf material, and included rat poison and methylated spirits, usually known as meths. My brother Mark and I always tried to wangle some meths, because we used it to fire up our working model of a steam engine. Besides being to us an object of great beauty, the miniature steam engine powered whatever amazing machine we had conjured up out of our motley collection of Meccano, one of the best toys ever made, followed closely by Lego.
In those days, and being raised on a farm with all its dangers and delights, we were taught how to avoid hazards. Most of the time we did. We had red headed matches and meths and were expected not to burn the house down. And somehow we never did.
Out from the driver's seat would climb Ron, or sometimes his trusty assistant Tom, and descend very carefully to avoid dislodging anything. I got the impression that one false move could bring the whole gently rocking, creaking edifice down with a crash, throwing every animal and human of a nervous disposition within miles into a blind panic. It would already have made them twitchy.
Mum usually dealt with travelling shops on her own, but Ron's mobile Aladdin's Cave was for everyone. The stock list included six inch nails, candles, string, feather dusters, paraffin, screwdrivers, tins of dog food, a wonder hand cleaner known as Swarfega which removed all oil and tractor grease, and probably a layer of skin, from hands, and left-handed number eight nurdler's wing nuts. I made that last one up, but if you think they exist then Ron would have been sure to have some on his van. It had Tardis qualities.
Mum bought things like Fairy liquid, Brillo Pads and tins of pet food (most farmers kept cats and dogs to keep down vermin). Dad bought Swarfega and paraffin. Paraffin and other dangerous substances were top shelf material, and included rat poison and methylated spirits, usually known as meths. My brother Mark and I always tried to wangle some meths, because we used it to fire up our working model of a steam engine. Besides being to us an object of great beauty, the miniature steam engine powered whatever amazing machine we had conjured up out of our motley collection of Meccano, one of the best toys ever made, followed closely by Lego.
In those days, and being raised on a farm with all its dangers and delights, we were taught how to avoid hazards. Most of the time we did. We had red headed matches and meths and were expected not to burn the house down. And somehow we never did.
Thursday 17 May 2012
Everybody got to be somewhere. (Spike Milligan as Eccles)
Yes, everybody has got to be somewhere, and I'm in Gloucestershire on a dull May day working out how to do my first blog. I am well aware that everyone else in the world is blogging away, but I am a late developer, and if you don't go for that I plead insanity, M'lud.
My children, who are of course all computer literate like most of their generation, are a tremendous help with this fast moving technology, and I thank them for guiding their old Dad right now.
So, what am I going to blog about? As I am an 'oldie', and was born into a world very different from that of today, I have decided to describe my journey from a child's rural idyll to the complex world we all know now. However, as my blog title suggests, I have a meandering mind, which means I am hopeless on dates. I can remember incidents in my life, but ask me when they happened and I haven't a clue. So what follows is somewhat like a jigsaw. I'll give you the pieces, and you try to fit them together. I hope it will be fun.
My children, who are of course all computer literate like most of their generation, are a tremendous help with this fast moving technology, and I thank them for guiding their old Dad right now.
So, what am I going to blog about? As I am an 'oldie', and was born into a world very different from that of today, I have decided to describe my journey from a child's rural idyll to the complex world we all know now. However, as my blog title suggests, I have a meandering mind, which means I am hopeless on dates. I can remember incidents in my life, but ask me when they happened and I haven't a clue. So what follows is somewhat like a jigsaw. I'll give you the pieces, and you try to fit them together. I hope it will be fun.
Sunday 13 May 2012
The Darkness ~
The Venerable Bede once described life as being like a sparrow, which flies through an open door from the darkness into a warm, lighted room, flutters round confused for a few minutes, and then flies out into the darkness again. I like that. I think I am a sparrow. I can see, I'm confused, and I'm getting near that door again.
I flew in in 1941. Big things were afoot in 1941. I was born, and Hitler was making plans to invade England, although I don't think the two events were directly connected. My father worked hard running our farm and my mother was kept busy looking after me, the noisiest, muckiest member of the family, plus her aged parents-in-law, several dogs, various cats, a flocks of chickens, ducks and geese, any sick farm animals that happened to be using our kitchen as a convalescent ward, and a large vegetable plot. In her spare time she dealt with the travelling shops which used to call regularly at the farm, including the butcher, the baker, the green grocer, the ironmonger, some I have forgotten, and a wonderfully exotic gentleman salesman from India. More of him later.
My earliest memory is from when I was three years old and on my way, with a lovely old collie dog called Tuscan, to fetch the cows in for milking. It suddenly occurred to me that I was little, and cows were big. And there were a lot of them. They could bring serious harm to a young lad like me, not yet in his prime. I was puzzled, yet confident that they would obey me and head for the milking sheds because that's what they did, every time. Years later I realised the truth. It was Tuscan they were wary of, not me. Tuscan knew where they had to go and how to get them there. I was just along for the ride. Dad knew that Tuscan would do the job and also look after me. He was a wonderful dog.
I flew in in 1941. Big things were afoot in 1941. I was born, and Hitler was making plans to invade England, although I don't think the two events were directly connected. My father worked hard running our farm and my mother was kept busy looking after me, the noisiest, muckiest member of the family, plus her aged parents-in-law, several dogs, various cats, a flocks of chickens, ducks and geese, any sick farm animals that happened to be using our kitchen as a convalescent ward, and a large vegetable plot. In her spare time she dealt with the travelling shops which used to call regularly at the farm, including the butcher, the baker, the green grocer, the ironmonger, some I have forgotten, and a wonderfully exotic gentleman salesman from India. More of him later.
My earliest memory is from when I was three years old and on my way, with a lovely old collie dog called Tuscan, to fetch the cows in for milking. It suddenly occurred to me that I was little, and cows were big. And there were a lot of them. They could bring serious harm to a young lad like me, not yet in his prime. I was puzzled, yet confident that they would obey me and head for the milking sheds because that's what they did, every time. Years later I realised the truth. It was Tuscan they were wary of, not me. Tuscan knew where they had to go and how to get them there. I was just along for the ride. Dad knew that Tuscan would do the job and also look after me. He was a wonderful dog.
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