Northern Pennines.
It was all that was left of a man’s dream.
They had a toughness and a philosophical attitude which was new to me. Misfortunes which would make the city dweller want to bang his head against a wall were shrugged off with “Aye, well, these things.
First job I had to do was pass the stomach tube on a horse. Got it into the trachea instead of the oesophagus. Couple of quick pumps and down went the horse with a hell of a crash – dead as a hammer. That’s when I started these grey hairs.
There have been times in my life when, confronted by black and hopeless circumstances, I have discovered in myself undreamed-of resources of courage and resolution.
The old man looked me over, piercingly. “My vet is Mr. Broomfield. Expect you’ll have heard of him – everybody knows him, I reckon. Wonderful man, Mr. Broomfield, especially at calving. Do you know, I’ve never seen ’im beat yet.
Rage flooded through me like a draught of strong spirit. The right thing to do, of course, would be to get up, tip the bucket of bloody water over Uncle’s head, run down the hill and drive away; away from Yorkshire, from Uncle, from the Dinsdales, from this cow.
But I was beginning to realise that life was not a tidy little parcel at any time.
Fred had trocharised a bloated cow and the farmer had been so impressed by the pent up gas hissing from the abdomen that Fred had got carried away and applied his cigarette lighter to the canula. A roaring sheet of flame had swept on to some straw bales and burned the byre to the ground.
I found that the fear is worse than the reality and horse work has never worried me as much since then.
Looking back, I realise it was one of the bravest things I have ever done.
It took me longer than I thought and it seemed to me that the calf was beginning to lose patience with me because when its head was forced out by the cow’s contractions we were eye to eye and I fancied the little creature was giving me a disgusted “For heaven’s sake get on with it” look.
The clever economists who tell us that we don’t need British agriculture and that our farms should be turned into national parks seem to ignore the rather obvious snag that an unfriendly country could starve us into submission in a week. But to me a greater tragedy still would be the loss of a whole community of people like.
I looked again at the dog and saw in his eyes only a calm trust. Some dogs would have barked their heads off and soon been discovered, some would have become terrified and vicious, but this was one of the totally undemanding kind, the kind which had complete faith in people and accepted all their actions without complaint.
There wasn’t much of her, in fact she must have been one of the smallest women I have ever seen – around five feet high – but there was a core of steel in her. She had her own mind and her own way of doing things.
And for me it was a wonderful time and I marvelled at my luck. So many men with high-pressure jobs see very little of their families but I had it both ways with my little son and daughter so often at my side as I worked.
She was too good a cook and I was too faithful a disciple of her art.
It was still quite early in the morning and perhaps I wasn’t feeling quite strong enough to have the evidence of my failure thrust before my eyes.
I have children of my own.” And then he spoke the words that have become engraven on my heart. “You need nerves of steel to be a parent.
To say I had a hangover next morning would be failing even to hint at the utter disintegration of my bodily economy and personality. Only somebody who had consumed two or three quarts of assorted home made wines at a sitting could have an inkling of the quaking nausea, the raging inferno within, the jangling nerves, the black despairing outlook.
All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small, All things wise and wonderful, The Lord God made them all. Cecil Frances Alexander 1818-1895.