Only a Pig and Heavy Horses

Ploughing championship day and it was a glorious autumn day. The setting was magnificent and a very good time was had by all.

We walked around, stopping off to look at various tractors, some vintage, some modern, some small and some gigantic. New farm machinery working alongside yester years agricultural implements.  All fascinating stuff.  We were entertained with the terrier racing, ferret racing and a breath taking falcon display.  There was an awful lot for one to try and keep an eye on. Then there were the heavy horses, truly awe inspiring as we watched them pull their ploughs through the Cotswold brash ground and as the mould-board of the plough wreaved the earth over, the heavy horses looked so proud and confident as they worked up and down the furrow and when they approached a line of brand new massive tractors, the look of contempt they gave these machines were as if to say “this is ploughing with heart and soul horse power”. Always a joy to watch and a privilege to behold.

We mingled around bumping in to people who we hadn’t seen since the last ploughing match.  I was tapped on the back by an old friend and like always, it wasn’t long before we started to reminisce on times passed.  Teddy, the chap who tapped me on the shoulder was someone I had known since childhood, always a muscular, strong type of a chap and was a great school boy chum.  We were soon joined by a couple more people whom we knew and the smells from the pig roast set Teddy off on a tale that had happened some forty years earlier.

It was a day much the same as today although the venue was much smaller, it was the village fete.  As children, we all looked forward to the village fete.  We would all be given a few pennies and we could have a go on anything and everything, well, not quite everything because the money ran out always far speedier than there were things to spend it on.  Teddy always had more money than us as a child, largely due to the fact that his family was nowhere near as big as mine.

In those days the biggest prize in a village fete was bowling for the pig.  It was about a six week old piglet that had been weaned from its mother so it was just ready for the stye.  I used to say to Teddy, just how cool that would be to have a weaner as a pet.  Other kids had budgerigars, mice, rabbits but a piglet I would have been top of the stack.  Teddy soon snapped me down, “Those wooden balls are quite heavy and it is the event that all the dads have a go at.  Everyone wants to win the pig.”  He continued “and look how thin and weedy you are, you can’t possibly compete.”  Of course, every word he was saying was true, but where there is a will, there is very often a way.  I used to lay in bed nights thinking about it and then the solution was handed down to me like something biblical.  Cotton and sticker upper was the key.  I got very little sleep that night.  The very next day on our walk to school, I put the plan to Teddy, who at first was very non-plussed with the idea, but as we walked nearer the school my persuasion seemed to be working.  He was now starting to talk on how we were going to share the pig. “We don’t.” I responded. “The pig will be mine!”  This was like red rag to a bull.  He barely spoke to me then for the rest of the day but on the walk home I tried to explain the complex issues of pig keeping to him.  “You need a stye for starters, and my mum and dad rent an estate house and all the estate houses have old pig sties. But you are welcome to come and scratch his back and play with him whenever you want to.”   Teddy seemed very pleased with this idea but came straight back with, “How exactly are we going to do it again? You’re just not strong enough to bowl for a pig, you can’t compete with all those dads.”

“No, you’re the one doing the bowling and I’m sticker upper, but we’ve got to pick the right time for you to bowl your three balls and that will be just as they are all called to their pig roast supper then no one much will be watching, they will be more interested in their feast.”  Fetes in those days, you always had a nice supper to finish the event off with, our timing was crucial. 

The day of the fete duly arrived.  I went with a pocketful of cotton and three pennies.  The Parson had told me that I was sticking up from 3pm onwards.  I had a good relationship with the Parson as I used to get him quite a few duck eggs.  He was quite partial to a duck egg.  I went round the fete with Teddy and spent my three pennies on the coconut shy, the tombola, throwing the cricket ball but kept well away from the bowling of the pig.  Three pm duly came, all the dads now were coming in to try their hand at bowling for the pig, also the mums and the big brothers.  The weaner was in a little wooden crate, all strawed down, looking quite adorable.  It was now ten to five and only ten minutes of the fete remained and the highest score achieved so far with three balls was 24.  For those of you who have never bowled for a pig, there are nine wooden skittles and three wooden balls.  People had now had their goes and had resigned themselves that 24 was going to win it.  I got the cotton from my trouser pocket, it was a thick heavy duty wool sack type cotton, used normally for darning up the wool sacks.  Teddy started to come down towards the bowling alley.  People’s eyes had turned from the skittle alley to the pig roast.  I stuck the nine skittles up and put the cotton on the first skittle and looped it around the others so that the nine skittles stood in the loop of the cotton. I drew the cotton back over the straw bales which act as stoppers for the bowling balls and knelt behind them with cotton tightly held.   “One more person coming to try their luck vicar,” I shouted, for he was scoring.  The vicar looked at Teddy and gave him that no sort of hope type of look.

“Alright, alright,” he replied. Teddy rolled down his first ball.  As the ball approached the skittles it caught the outside one and I pulled the cotton.  “Nine skittles vicar,” I shouted as I jumped up and started to put the skittles back into place. The vicar nodded munching through his pork sandwich from twenty yards away. His attention had been caught by Mrs Robinson, who seemed to be giving him a type of Spanish inquisition. They were embroiled.  “Keep talking to him Mrs Robinson,” I was thinking to myself and I know Teddy was thinking the same.  Teddy stood there holding his second ball ready.  “Hurry up,” he shouted.”

“Shush”, I thought to myself. That wasn’t part of the plan.  Teddy sent down his second ball, this ball was missing the skittles completely, as the ball rolled missing the skittles, I pulled at the cotton again, all nine skittles went down.  “Another nine vicar,”

“Heavens above, what has your mother been feeding you, raw steaks Teddy?” The vicar then started to shout, “We have a budding bowler over here.”  I stuck the skittles up for the third time as quickly as I could, I threw the cotton around them.  The vicar and a few of the dads were approaching the alley.  “Now, Teddy now.” I thought.  Teddy put his head down and heaved the ball down the alley.  For the first half length it was resembling Barnes Wallace’s bouncing bomb, it hit the middle skittle and I pulled the cotton, but I honestly think to this day, and so does Teddy that his last ball would have hit them all down without my intervention.  Teddy’s dad came over and hoisted him into the air.  The vicar had thought he had witnessed a miracle and I made my way over to the crate where the weaner piglet was up on all fours, basking in the excitement. 

Teddy visited the pig on a very regular basis and so did all the other village kids.  The pig became quite notorious, even kids from neighbouring villages would come to feed and play with him.  And although Teddy and myself had won the pig by foul means, we never felt the slightest bit of guilt, our conscience was clear as there wasn’t a pig in England that could have been more happy and content.

The most honourable, honest and hardworking, the land misses such an awe inspiring guardian.

Nature is on Our Side, The Barn Owl is With Us.

I finally got round to correcting the date on my camera.  21st September, the first day of Autumn and I never honestly thought in my wildest imaginations that the badger cull would ever come to pass. The whole, shameful business will be a blight on the government I fear, for quite a considerable time. But we are where we are.

My particular badger sett is doing extremely well.  The cubs have grown up strong now, they are a good size, healthy and full of fun.  Nature seems to work in some quite extraordinary ways. A barn owl, one of three hatched this year has taken to visiting the badgers on a nightly basis.  These visits seemed to coincide with the announcement of the badger cull and when I am down at the sett and I watch the barn owl glide so gracefully overhead, I like to think, rightly or wrongly, that he is just making sure that all is well.  An angel of nature doing his bit to look after one of Britain's finest, The Badger.

Please find below the link to You Tube where you will be able to watch my latest video clip. Watch out for the low flying barn owl.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPi_O4M8hyc

Sleeping With Badgers

In a week that has seen my daughter administer treatment at Chelsea, Stanford Bridge on Wednesday night and help treat a heart attack victim at Lords yesterday Nottingham v Glamorgan and a whirlwind tour of Reading University with our son looking at campus and various components to do with agriculture, a very enlightening week all round. Two kids who think the world of each other could not be more different but each equally as interesting.

  Sophie from the age of four would charge upstairs on a Sunday morning with a small doctor’s bag grasped in hand to administer quite a wide range of treatments which had been mainly picked up from her cartoon favourites; Tom and Jerry, Mickey Mouse and all the Disney productions. She would rifle through her little black bag and pull out the biggest toy syringe you had ever seen. The sheer size of it made your eyes water. She would prod, poke and pull your hair to hold you steady. This doctor business was a rough old game. Her mother thought this was great entertainment and I was never in any doubt that this level of endurance was necessary as not to put her off her chosen trade. It still makes me wince whenever I think back to those days.

Whereas Sam on the other hand is a very casual, unhurried soul and the countryside is very much his bag.  There was a time when Sam was about seven years of age, we had a broody hen and he would check on her progress every morning and evening, before and after school to see if the chicks had hatched from the gorgeous, lovely brown eggs of the Cuckoo Moran. The look of disappointment on his face each teatime when I came in from work was calculable and you could see by day 20 the disappointment was turning more into a frown of disbelief until the night I returned home from work as normal in the land rover and before the engine had stopped I could hear cries of delight, “Dad, dad, the chicks are hatching.” That was then, and now is now.

Friday night, Jackie thought it would be a good idea to go out and pick some blackberries to enable her to make blackberry and apple pie for Sunday lunch.  As we were picking the blackberries Jackie then went on to say “I think the Coopers should be in constant communication Allan, don’t you? By this I mean, in case anything ever happened they could ring for help, for example if they overturned their invalidity car, or a tree fell on them, anything really.”

“What? Do you mean a mobile phone?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”

“Good idea, when are they getting that?”

“Well I got them one on Wednesday, I didn’t think you’d mind, I’ve tied a contract in and put it on your business account.”

“Oh, well that’s it then.”  Just then, talk of the devil, trundling down the track came the Coopers.  This time, Mr. Cooper was driving and Mrs. Cooper was on the back holding something up to her ear, “the new mobile phone” I thought.  They pulled up alongside us.

 “Thank you very much for this phone Jackie, It is a true life saver and I am learning to do so much with it. We just don’t know how we’ve managed without one for so long.”

“Well we won’t hang around as we can see your busy blackberrying,” said Mr. Cooper,  “and you’ll soon be losing the light so we’ll say goodnight,” and off the Coopers sped. The Harvest Moon you could see clearly now on this mid-September evening. As the Coopers went off I noticed a large bundle which she was sat on and Jackie also noticed it. 

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” and then it dawned on me. I turned to Jackie and said, “You knew they were camping up at the badger sett, that is why you bought them that mobile phone.”

“Yes” Jackie replied. “A couple of mornings this week I have seen them returning from the sett.  They have got themselves in such a tizzy over the shot badger images that have been bandied about by the media, and they keep saying about how worried you are especially as we near The Hunters Moon. They just don’t like leaving the badgers at all at this very dangerous time.”

“That’s as may be,  but this is the Harvest Moon.”

“I know, but it is still a full moon.”

 We returned home with the blackberries and I told Jackie that I would be getting up in the early hours to go and check out the Cooper’s situation for myself.  2:30am came and I snuck out the house and made my way to Beech Wyn.  As I walked up the track, the Harvest Moon was full and bright.  As you looked at it you sensed it was almost trying to steal your soul.  There was barely a breath of wind. The early morning was so peaceful and tranquil.  In its own way it was quite reassuring and overwhelming.   I arrived at the boundary of Beech Wyn and then began to walk through the beech and ash trees.  I could now see the large boulders that I had strategically placed around the sett and as I got nearer I stood for a second or two.  There was the Coopers tent, a little scout type tent, that was so near to the entrance of the sett, they were almost down it.  I crept by one of the rocks and five metres in front of me, right outside the opening of the tent lay Daddy Cool.  He turned his head towards me, our eyes met for a spit second and for that split second, his eyes were almost Michael’s, a shiver went down my back. 

If there is any such thing as reincarnation, this was the nearest thing that I had ever seen to it.  He scuttled off down into his sett.  I reached inside the tent and pulled back the canvas. There was Mr and Mrs Cooper snuggled down underneath a big duvet, the bag of peanuts by the side of them and on top of the peanuts was that lovely, shiny, new iphone.  As I retreated from the scene, the ones that had given so much over the years looking after these badgers seemed to me were now being looked after by the badgers themselves.

This is the great Daddy Cool whose presence has brought so much pleasure.

Come On Give Me a Hand

Last week I showed you a short video of Daddy Cool's family which proved quite popular and I thought it might be quite fun to show a short film on a weekly basis.  This week's short film shows this year's cubs play fighting and towards the end of the film Mother Cool starting to bed down the sett and the way she slides back into the sett you would think she has been studying Michael Jackson's moon walking. But on a more serious note this badger sett is doing very well and is extremely safe and will remain so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCcqdOA4c0M

Hares a Butcher’s Apron

Hares are truly magnificent, graceful and really quite mythical creatures in the way they appear and just disappear. Equally as much at home in woodland as they are in vast open spaces. 

The European Hare which is not the same as our Brown Hare was probably running around with the dinosaurs.  A fact even the great Darwin found difficult to comprehend, but our Brown Hare was probably brought over by the Romans.  For the hare to the Romans was the Centurion’s favourite friend, for when the Legions were marching against the Barbarians, the Romans would recognise a natural fact that was as true then as it is now for when you see a hare in open country or even in woodland everything is at peace, no surprises, no sudden attack.  The sight of a hare conveys peace and tranquillity.

Back to the spring of 2013 when the countryside is so often invaded with gangs of hare coursers dressed in their camouflage trousers and combat jackets.  They are a perfect menace to the animals in which their hoard of dogs become entwined with for example  deer and  muntjacks or anything else in their path, but they have really only come for the hares.  A fair contest between lurcher, greyhound or hare, the hare would certainly come out on top one against one 99 times out of 100, but what makes a lot of todays’ coursing so unfair is that there are  dogs on every boundary of the field making the hare’s escape almost impossible. 

One Saturday, back in middle of April 2013 the Coopers had offered to walk Mitch and Shep and have them for the day while Jackie and I went shopping.  The dogs were promptly picked up by the Coopers and that we thought was that, however, once we got down round the shops of Cheltenham, one shop then into another, a cup of coffee in between, then on for lunch, eventually returning home at 4pm only to find at the back door of the house were the very distraught Coopers.  One dog sat up ears pricked pleased to see you, that was Mitch, but Shep, the other dog was led in a heap covered in a blanket, head didn’t move even when he heard my voice.  “They got him, they got him,” shouted Mrs. Cooper fighting back the tears.  I knelt down by the side of Shep and pulled back the blanket.  His head stayed still but his eyes opened.  The wounds on the back of his neck were gaping open and all his hind legs were also very badly damaged.  Jackie immediately on seeing the horrendous wounds turned and asked “What happened?”

“The hare coursers’ dogs set about him.  We were just walking when we encountered them. Shep ran off into the middle of the spring barley field, that’s when they all set aboard him. He tried to fight back but to no avail, there were too many, then another hare appeared and the lurchers then left off of Shep and pursued the hare. When we got to him this is what was underneath him.”  She then produced a baby Leverette from underneath her coat.  “We think he was trying to protect this little fellow and his mother, but that was the hare that the lurchers left Shep for. We saw them catch and kill her along the top boundary.”

“What vehicle were they in?” I asked.

“They were in a blue ford van, there were about ten dogs and four men.  They had at least six hares. We didn’t manage to get their van registration, we had to stay with Shep.”

I took Shep up to the kids’ old playhouse which the dogs had adopted as theirs.  Jackie took the baby Leverette and the Coopers went off in tears.

I returned back to the house for needle and cotton.  I began to sew up Shep’s wounds, pulling the skin together neatly as one could.  He had lost a lot of blood going by the colour of his tongue which was a much paler pink than normal. Jackie then came into the playhouse with Mitch who was looking very solemn.  “What shall I do with this Leverette?”

“Tuck him in under this blanket with Shep, the feeling of protecting this little chap might just be the tonic he needs to help pull him through.  Mitch was now licking Shep’s wounds. The best antiseptic in the world is a dog’s saliva. 

Jackie and I couldn’t wait to get up on the following Sunday morning.  We opened the playhouse door gingerly.  Mitch was there tail wagging, Shep had hotched around in the middle of the night which was a good sign, he pricked his ears and you knew then he was going to be alright, and underneath his chin you saw the two ears of the Leverette.  Jackie and I retreated with Mitch.  As we walked just the one dog, who was looking decidedly out of sorts not having his brother with him, I said to Jackie “The Coopers said that the hare coursers had six hares, a good day’s plunder, they will be back.”  I left Jackie on the walk and went on down the village to the blacksmith’s who I had known all my life and I asked him for forty foot of chain.  He then went through the various chains with me, some were far too big and some were far too small.  Then he supplied something from underneath his bench which was heaven sent.  Light enough to carry yet big enough to do some damage. I returned home with the chain and put it in the shed and that’s where it stayed until last weekend.

 Shep made a full recovery, the hare has spent his first few months in our garden, venturing sometimes out into the adjacent fields. 

Saturday morning the phone rang, it was Mrs. Cooper and she was excited, seriously excited, “I’ve seen the van, I’ve seen the van.”  I knew instantly what she meant.

“Where?” I asked.

“They’ve tucked it in behind the hawthorn hedge up by the old stone stile.”

“Thanks Mrs. Cooper, got to go.”  I went to my shed and retrieved the chain that I had picked up from the blacksmith’s those few months earlier.  Now the combines had been over the ground so you could now see vast open spaces again.  The coursers were back and now it was payback time.  I got out my old trials motorbike, put the chain on the back of the seat and I ripped along the stubble fields on my way to the stone stile.  There it was just where Mrs. Cooper had said it was.  I stopped the bike fifty yards short of the van, no one to be seen but I could hear dogs making tongue in the distance.  I had to be quick, time was of the essence.  I took the chain to the back of the van and attached it to the back axle. I then fastened the other end of the chain to the thickest hawthorn stump within the hedge.  I covered the chain with straw left over from the combine harvesters and I vacated the scene as quickly as I had arrived.  I rode the bike up to Four Oakes which was a great vantage point where I could see all over the valley and there I waited and watched.  I could now see five men with about a dozen dogs who were now making their way back to the van.  I sat astride the bike, and just as I was about to kick it over, I could see approaching the van with speed were the Coopers on their off road invalidity car. This invalidity car was as good as that salesman had said it was in the shop all those months ago, they were two up and they were going across the stubble field at a surprising speed for an invalidity car and flying in the wind above them I could see the Union Jack. 

Mr. Cooper had given me the history of the Union Jack. The flag of the British Empire where the sun never set and the blood of innocents never dried. How England’s foes in centuries past had nicknamed the flag “The Butcher’s Apron” due to all the bloodletting that went on in its presence.   Such was the fear of the sight of this flag flying at full mast heading towards the enemy, the coursers would not understand this emblem but I did.  I kicked the bike over, I hit the bridge over the river at speed and scrambled up the bank on the other side.  I wasn’t going to get there in time, the Coopers were going to get there first.  When I did get there, there were the two Coopers by the side of the van looking very jubilant and excited. “They’ve gone, they’ve gone,” The five people were walking away from the van with their dogs shouting back to the Coopers all kinds of abuse.  The Coopers were stood there with a nut stick in each hand and you could see that they were not afraid to use them.  Looking at the state of the van, they had been using them.  “They went to speed away and as they did so there was an almighty bang and they just stopped dead and then the van wouldn't move.”

“How extraordinary,” I replied.

“They won’t be back again in a hurry, we’ve taught them a lesson they won’t forget.  That’s for Shep.” 

After a couple of minutes of them strutting around the van triumphantly, I said that we all ought to get going.  The Coopers went their way and I unhitched the chain from the back of the van and I went mine.

This little Leverette is a regular visitor to our garden much to our delight.

Short Video of Daddy Cool's Family.

Motzart's Magic Flute has been a storming success and although the summer is coming to an end  and these badgers have occupied and taken up such a large amount of my time, I find it a huge privilege and terribly gratifying and fulfilling to watch Daddy Cool's family enjoying their family life as they were meant to enjoy it, free, unhindered and totally at ease in nature's woodland surroundings.  For me the badger will always be the Lord Protector of the Woodlands, because a woodland is all the poorer for the absence of the badger.

Please take time to have a look at this short video of Daddy Cool's family, and I feel sure that no right minded person could ever lift a gun or any other harmful device to such a harmless, special, spell bounding animal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk-x8LJJAvM&feature=youtube_gdata

Memories While Watching Black and White

Up at the badger sett the other night watching the little group putting fresh bedding into their sett, it started to drizzle in a continuous fashion.  As I pulled the hood up on my wind sheeter to keep the rain from going down my neck ,watching the  young badgers play fighting on the mound, my mind went back to the early seventies and I started to think about the little job I had in the evenings from 5pm to 7pm after school five days a week.

The job consisted of washing up and waiting on tables in a transport café on the A40.  It was quite a notorious café in its heyday. It would service the wagons with diesel and service the drivers with a good British fry up which was all the rage in those day.  Breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner was always the same, a fry up, these were the days before the M4 motorway when the A40 was the main haulage route from Wales to “the smoke”.  Wagons laden with everything you could possibly imagine.  Coal from the Rhonda Valley for Didcot power station, lorries filled with fruit and vegetables collected from the Avonmouth docks, Matchbox lorries filled with toys, bricks, steel, wood, almost every kind of produce and material imaginable would travel up the A40 and this café was positioned in an absolute ideal spot, roughly half way and the drivers loved it. 

The job was really quite interesting, especially if you could give the coal drivers or the Walls drivers some cheek for a damaged pack of ice cream or some sausages or get the coal wagon to tip up a little bit and leave a heap of the precious black stuff, especially in the winter time.  We would all share whatever any of us managed to get, but the most exciting thing to me as a thirteen year old kid was every now and again the wrestlers would come in on their way down to Cheltenham Town Hall.  Wrestling today is no big deal, however, in those days, wrestling was massive.  ITV’s World of Sport would put on a wrestling match every Saturday afternoon around half past four, and it would attract anything from ten to fifteen million viewers a week.  These wrestlers were house hold names.  Mick McManus, his tag partner, Logan, they were definitely the ones in the black hats.  The tag team always with the white hats were the Royles, Joe and Burt Royle.  Then there was Jackie Pallo with his well-known pony tail, Johnny Quango with the largest forehead I had ever seen.  Bill Toronto from Canada.  These were the school boys’ greats, I could go on and on but the list is too long to mention, and my favourite was the comedian, Les Kellett, who would always give me a two bob bit which is the equivalent to ten pence today.  “Have a go on that one armed bandit and if you win we will go halves,” he would say.  The one armed bandit was next to a beautiful pin ball machine that I had perfected getting free goes on as I never had any money and I could beat all comers on this machine, and right next to that was the juke box. 

One particular evening, towards the end of my shift, all the wrestlers were in and I was constantly being rollocked by the boss for time wasting but these wrestlers, I found quite mesmerising, for instance, Mick McManus was Mr. Evil on TV, but in real life, he was a total gentleman, whereas the Royles, who were always the nice guys on the TV were really quite miserable, but Les Kellett was Les Kellett, he was the same off TV as he was on and everybody seemed to like him.  I had just put the two bob into the one armed bandit when the boss came lumbering down the centre of the café.  “If I’ve not told you once, I’ve told you half a dozen times this evening, sort yourself out or I’ll pay you up until tonight then you needn’t bother coming back again.”  This was serious as I used to give all my wages to my mother as times back then were terribly hard and she could ill afford to be without the little bit I was earning, however little, and it made me feel quite big and grown up that I could help my mum and dad with this token amount.  I left the machine and carried on washing dishes back in the kitchen. It was nearing the end of my shift. The weather outside was raining and I had to walk to and from the café so I was in no hurry getting out in it.  “Sausage, egg, beans and chips,” was shouted from the counter and tray in hand I was off down the café as I recognized the number.  It was Les Kellett’s.  The time now was five past seven, five minutes after my shift had finished.  I put the food down on Les Kellett’s table that was also accommodating several other wrestlers.  Les Kellett had a new wrestling move that I had seen him do on TV that looked both amusing and hideous in the same measure.  It was called “The Mule Kick” where he would get his opponent knelt down on the canvas and he would then swivel round and seemed to kick them in the small of their back and I had asked him earlier on in the evening if he would show it to me so I could learn it and perfect it and then I could demonstrate it to my school chums in the school yard. 

 “It is five past seven, are you going to show me this mule kick or not?” I asked.  The other wrestlers, Johnny Quango, Mick McManus and Logan all laughed.  Les Kellett was out of his seat in an instance, he was moving quickly as he didn’t want his food going cold.  He got me by the ear and marched me down to the machines, the music coming out of the juke box was by the greatest band in the world, in my opinion, The Who with their record Pin Ball Wizard.  Les Kellett knelt me in front of the machine, the other wrestlers were slow clapping and Les Kellett started to do his long wind up.  He had my arm pulled up behind my back which was known in wrestling terms as a “Backhammer” and then he let the kick go.  I felt the kick in the small of my back very gently and then I overdid the playacting.  I rolled all over the floor moaning.  By this time all the other drivers were stood up watching and cheering but as I rolled about on the floor pretending to be in agony, the cheering turned to jeering.  Les Kellett knelt down on the floor beside me and said “That shouldn’t have hurt.”

“It didn’t,” I replied winking up at him.  He then slapped me across the ear.

“This will hurt,” and it did.  “You really worried me you bloody fool.”  The other wrestlers were laughing and so too were the drivers now.  As I got up from the floor to the clapping and cheering of the drivers and wrestlers the boss was stood right in front of me.

 “Don’t bother coming in again, here are your wages paid up to date.”

The wrestlers immediately rushed to my defence saying that it was quarter past seven and that I had finished my shift.  They also added that if I was to go they would never come back into the café again.

“I’m so sorry,” said the boss, “I thought he was annoying you.”

“No, not at all,” replied Les Kellett, “You’re annoying us.”

I had caused a mutiny with the TV wrestlers and wagon drivers.

 I have told this tale a thousand times and as I watched the rough and tumble of the badgers, I thought of the old greats, Jackie Pallo, Mick McManus, The Royles and last but not least, Les Kellett, I thought of them all, and how good they had made me look for a short while in the school yard, demonstrating their TV catch-phrase like moves on my chums but these badgers for downright entertainment would have given any of those wrestlers a run for their money.

Daddy Cool keeps an eye on his play fighting cubs.

Badger: Lord Protector of the Woodlands

Another week into the badger cull and you do realise the futility of the whole shambles of it. Conservatives by their shear nature are supposed to conserve, while liberals are supposed to be, well, liberal. The instructions on the can are a million miles away from what’s happening on the ground, a sad enlightenment on today’s political party’s knee jerk reactions to please a tiny percentage of country’s population; a democratically elected government acting on dubious scientific evidence when, in reality, the flow of information runs in a totally different direction. Lord Crepps’ years of research have proven a badger cull won’t diminish the disease in cattle by any meaningful amount, but still they persist with this needless slaughter. Here we are in the twenty first century, practising nineteenth century politics, to appease a few, at the expense of the masses.

Last evening, on my way down to see the badgers, I managed to trip over a rather impressive hedgehog. After picking myself up and dusting myself down, I looked behind me and the hedgehog was just carrying on, unfazed, on its very intent route to our backdoor, where Jackie had left a bowl of kitecat. ‘So much for the country’s favourite emblem,’ I thought, ‘almost stopped me from seeing mine!’ As I walked towards the badger sett, on a beautiful early September evening, I couldn’t help but think just how lucky and blessed I was to be able to do this walk and see these sights on a daily basis. On getting to the sett, I was greeted by the Coopers, who told me with great enthusiasm that they were being able to get all eight badgers into the cage on the promise of a peanut supper on a nightly basis. If anyone could have achieved this feat, it was certainly the Coopers because their dedication to the badgers was awe-inspiring. As we sat there, watching the badgers mosey in and out of the cage after the peanuts, the old man badger lumbered out of it. Mr and Mrs Cooper said in unison: ‘Oh there he is, Daddy Cool!’ They had adopted the same name for this old badger as the one in the film I had made some thirty years earlier. Which, by the way, the first viewing of that film was for the Coopers. I laughed at the comment and, amazingly, he did look strikingly like my old Daddy Cool, in that film all those years ago. The two dogs, Mitch and Shep, who accompany me every evening, just sat there and watched as the badgers continued to ramble around. Mitch rolled onto his back, very much enjoying the attention given to him by both Mr and Mrs Cooper, in the form of many treats and a good tummy rub. Shep sat a tad more aloof, instead looking over to the badgers with an air of both awe and respect. I sometimes wonder if the two collies think that they were once part of the black and white sett amongst the trees. Some of the younger badgers returned the stares of awe, although with a hint of smugness as they finished off the last of the peanuts.

I left the Coopers and headed towards home. As I got nearer the house, I espied a group of five deer, just ready to raid our garden – again. As I watched them, a thought crossed my mind: ‘these deer can pass on TB to cattle just as easily as badgers can. What if Owen Patterson targets them next?’ The thought is not so alarmingly surprising as one might think. Who’d have ever thought that, in 2013, we’d be legislating the slaughter of the Lord Protector of the woodlands: the badger.

Deer too can pass BTB onto cattle. But, surely, they’re not to be targeted next?