An extract from Racing the Wind, A Cumbrian Childhood Memoir by Patricia Nolan
Posted by Lydia Unwin on
An extract from Racing the Wind by Patricia Nolan. This powerful and beautifully-written account is the memoir of Patricia who lived in a tiny community in Cumbria and it captures the end of an era in the 1950s.
There had been few changes in the way of life in the valley where my grandmother’s family farmed for centuries, tracing directly back to the 1600s. Horses and carts trundled up and down the same pink dust roads, hay was raked and laden on horsecarts to barns, bracken cut and stored for bedding, grain harvested, crops gathered, cows milked, sheep sheared and ancient dry stone wall gaps repaired. At my local school our half term holiday at the end of October was always referred to as ‘Tatie Pickin’ Week’, when all the children would lend a hand in gathering in the potatoes before the frost set in. It was in the 1950s that the Ferguson tractor first appeared, changing the life of a farmer for ever.
But in the Lakeland valleys sheep rule, and with us it was Herdwicks, noted for their hardiness and ability to withstand the bitter weather out on the fells; occasionally they have been discovered in snow drifts, keeping alive by nibbling their own wool. They are left to graze freely on the fell but learn to stay in their own ‘heaf’ or home territory, the ewes passing on the knowledge to their lambs. They usually spend winter out on the fells, checked occasionally by the farmer for any problems that might have arisen. On a fine day in spring, weather noted, lunch packed, liquid refreshment sorted, the farmer would set out for the fell to collect his flock: gathering, it was called.
I often seemed to be around on these days, when there was excitement in the air, dogs barking and the owner calling them to heel: ‘e-Jess-e-Jess e-Jess’ echoed down the street to the sound of sturdy boots on the tarmac. The farmer would call in the shop for chocolate or a can of drink, smart in his tweed jacket and clean shirt, holding a large walking stick with a carved handle. He would be accompanied by his son or any other willing helpers. My mother always inquired as to what time they would be returning.
‘Nay now,’ would be the amused reply.
But usually it was in the late afternoon when you heard the distant bleating of the herd descending the fell and my mother would run out with a stick to guard her flowers in the small garden by the road, trying, mostly in vain, to prevent the sheep from snatching at the tasty morsels on offer.
At her cries of ‘Get off!’ the farmer would hoot with laughter as he brandished his stick and shouted at the dogs. The noise made by the sheep was deafening, and even my mother had to admit it was a fine sight.
I was lucky that my mother took a keen interest in the past and told many stories about the old times, resisting any exaggeration or embellishment.
My grandmother, Hannah Hartley was born in 1894 on a remote farm over a steep fell, two and a half miles from the village, and from the age of five she walked to school, weather permitting. Sometimes a horse and cart might give her a lift back up the hill, otherwise her small legs toiled up the winding road over the fell each evening. In spite of her absences she left school at the age of twelve with beautiful copper- plate handwriting, and a sound knowledge of grammar and spelling. She was a favourite with the teacher, who kept up his spirits with regular slugs from a bottle of whisky in the drawer of his teacher’s desk.
She married George Massicks at the age of eighteen, and, with great efficiency, produced six children, each two years apart, three boys and three girls. My mother, the second child, remembered the year 1918 when, at the age of four, she was sitting on a swing in the garden leaning back trying to fly over the tree-tops, when she saw a strange man in uniform walking up the hill towards her. He scooped her up in his arms and kissed her, the bristles of his moustache scratchy on her cheek
‘Hello Mary,’ he said. It was her father, who had joined up in 1914, back from the horrors of war of which he rarely spoke.
My grandfather’s return ended the gentle way of life to which the family had grown accustomed.
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