I sell items which are associated in some way with my stories. The story-copyright is not for sale.
Batch 2, story 3
Farmer Giles: And ‘ere we be at Chockibox Farrm. I ‘ope you enjoy yourr stay, boy.
Johnny Holliday: Thank you. What perfect weather we have for it. There’s no wind, and it’s so peaceful. Not a single leaf is moving.
Giles: Arr, well moi lad, those there trees, they be radio masts, roight. Wonderful what they can do these days. Your old moboile phone will work alroight here. You can text your nippers and keep an oiye on ‘em, see. Aye.
Holliday: Erm, yes, how nice. What a lovely old watermill you have there. Tell me, where are the headwaters which run the wheels? From here I can only see the village and a valley where the milldam and waterfall should be.
Giles: Arr, well. We be decorative, see. Bloke came round with his clipboard and told us where to set them up. “You can’t have none of that there stinking silage ‘ere, ‘e said, “nor that there unhealthy dung-sprayer, nor that there dangerous bull, nor that there poisonous paraquat. Against these ‘ere tourist board regulations,” he said. They work, you know, those there millwheels. But you ‘ave to get inside ‘em and walk. Tourists do that all day, they do. They miss the gym, you know. Oh aye.
Holliday: So what do the wheels drive?
Giles: Eh?
Holliday: What machinery in the building are they connected to?
Giles: Well the left one drives tourists.
Holliday: Yes, right, thank you. And what about the right one?
Giles: It do droive the ‘eritage grant. It be a old steamer paddle-wheel. It ‘ad to be fixed ‘oigh up out of the water, didn’t it, ‘cos o’ the rust.
Holliday: Ah . . . Yes. How lovely to see traditional ploughing, by the way. But why is that elderly gentleman ploughing the pasture – or has the cow strayed into the arable department?
Giles: Oi told you, didn’ oi. Decorative. Anyway, that ol’ boy won’t be doin’ a roight lot of ploughing, now. No ploughshare. No point.
Holliday: Well, I did wonder why the horses were just standing there. But why is he putting so much effort into it?
Giles: Oh, that be moi ol’ brother in law, old Smocky Yeoman. He has short-term memory-loss. He be still in the 1950s: still wears black wellies. He thinks you still ‘ave to plaant things.
Holliday: Well, don’t you? Where does the supermarket get our fruit and veg from, then?
Giles: Oh you ol’ townies think we farmers still live in the Daark Age. You don’t need no seeds any more, boy. You just plant them chemicals. There be more profit in that for the national economy, you see, boy. Then we get the grant. They make the food in faactories now, you know – out of chemicals. More consistent, see, lad – fits in the packaging without wasting no space.
Holliday: Ah, well. Never mind. So tell me about your lovely, patient Jersey cow. How pleasant to see her in such a calm pose: dreaming of buttercups and pastures, perhaps. I suppose such peace is good for milk-production?
Giles: Aarr well then, lad, she ain’t Jersey. She be MiltonKeynesFriesian-cross-IronLawnDog.
Holliday: What?
Giles: Last set of tourists but one complained about that there cow-dung on the lawn. Ol’ health and safety lad said we had to tidy up or lose our tourist licence.
Holliday: Yes. . . And the ducks?
Giles: Plastic. Pollution from run-off from the fields. Phosphates, you see, boy. They be toid to the bottom, them ducks. Security. See ‘em turn round and round, look. The old lot used to keep floiyin’ off: spoilt them ol’ tourists’ photos.
Holliday: Well, erm, my goodness me, what a lot of modernisation. So what is inside the farmhouse, there? A lovely old black kitchen-range, spit and coal fire, I guess? And can you recommend a nice route for our first country walk?
Giles: No, no, boy. It be all telly and computer-games in there, and a freezer. You won’t be going out. You be our thirteenth tourist since the modernisation, and none of ‘em’s gone out yet.
Copyright © 2003 LS
THIS ITEM TO BE AUCTIONED IN My Ebay Shop FROM SEPT 27 2003, 1915h BST, FOR 10 DAYS
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