Heres a bit more about village life a few years ago, following on from the last piece I posted about Barripper; The village has its more shadowy side as well and at the bottom of the field behind the St. Michaels Mount Inn is one of the darker, more mysterious aspects of Barripper - a small, marshy area, intersected by a stream whose source is a spring in the next field, and surrounded by trees. It has been known to generations of Barripper people as Capn Jacks and is reputed to be haunted - there have been locals, one of them my grandfather, who profess to have seen the ghost. Tales also exist of a young girl being drowned there but like much else it is lost in the mists of time. There are banks and mounds there which suggest the possibility of a long disappeared dwelling, perhaps the home of the legendary Capn Jack, but the truth will never be known. This whole area was extensively explored by the old tin streamers so this place may represent a remnant of that industrial past. The meadows alongside Capn Jacks were a joy, always damp but rich and fruitful. One, to the east, towards Ramsgate, was, in truth, not a meadow but a marsh, in spring and early summer filled with ladies’ smock, meadowsweet, buttercups and mounds of pyramidal orchids. Frogs and toads lived there in abundance but the real joy for me in childhood days was the certainty of finding a newt in every clump of water weed you plunged your hand into. These fascinating and beautiful creatures are similar in appearance to the sun basking lizards found in local hedges but so different in their habits. We would carry them home to keep for a while, then we returned them, or they liberated themselves – I did not discover until much later that part of their life cycle was spent out of water. We would spend the whole day there in the heat of summer, going home only when our bellies dictated. At the marsh’s centre, and its source, was a spring that gave its name to the present rash of buildings and concrete nearby – and what a sense of mystery it was. Bubbling straight out of the ground, it was crystal clear and icy cold. We would lie flat on the ground beside it and plunge the full length of an arm into its depths, burrowing through small stones and into the clay at its sides. The relative cold made your arm numb and there was always that thought at the back of childish minds that somewhere in those cold depths lived some creature that might lay hold of your arm! Being so near to Cap’n Jack’s, with its air of foreboding, and the knot it tied in your stomach, it was a place where creative imaginations ran riot. Perhaps it wasn’t all imagination. Though, many a time I have been there, engaged in some feat of water engineering such as creating a dam, when I have been acutely conscious of someone watching me, only to turn and find no-one there. The profusion of colour and the rank, heady scents of the plants in that marsh are no more – it has been drained long since and is now a green desert like many of the other meadows of my youth. One plant does remain, however, for along its fringes grew a type of reed with delicate, thin, spiky leaves and feathery flowers that often had a tinge of red. Bunches of this were always gathered to adorn the sides of the pulpit in chapel at harvest festival and they still endure in the hedges today. Most pulpits have sheaves of corn around them but perhaps in watery Barripper these reeds were more fitting. Those meadows in that damp but luxuriant soil are, sadly now, swallowed under concrete and tarmac of the modern estate of Springfield Park but once fulfilled a more natural and satisfying role as the land around a farmhouse, long since demolished and lived in by the Carlyon’s who were in our family. As one of the extended family once said of Mr Carlyon, who was a mining engineer, “not a Barripper man, but still a decent sort of chap”. Their house was abandoned as a dwelling in my youth and used to store hay but there was a fascination in going there, walking into rooms and up stairs with an undeniable presence of those who had gone before. One incident stopped me going there when a boy with whom I had been playing some time before went there, playing with matches and set fire to some of the hay. No great damage was done but that was the end of that. It would be a much sought after smallholding today but was swept away when the inevitable bungalows arrived. The meadows were always cut for hay in summer, not the clinically green and sterile swathes of the modern farm but rich conglomerations of grasses, flowers and herbs, all dried white in the heat of the June sun before being gathered in the traditional way and stored for winter use. I have spent many happy hours turning those meadows of hay by hand, with a pitchfork, once, twice a day in the shimmering heat until it was dry enough to be gathered into larger piles to be loaded onto the horse-drawn wagon to be carried home. Big fields would have a number of turners but for me, in these small meadows, it was a solitary activity and an enduring memory of the sun on my back, the glorious scent of the drying grass and the constant sound of running water from the stream that edged the field. It was one of lifes rich experiences indeed, at the end of the day, to ride back on the top of the swaying, horse-drawn load, enveloped in the scents and sensations of summer. No hard, prickly bales then, but soft piles of loose, dried grass. My particular job in Barripper at hay harvest was to take food to the workers in the field, carrying a huge wicker basket, almost as big as myself, loaded with bread, cold meats, heavy cake and either tea or the superb, locally made herby beer, the ingredients gathered from the local hedgerows. Sadly the secret of this nectar is now gone - I know the ingredients but not the quantities, so a taste probably handed down through the centuries has disappeared for ever. In Barripper it was always made by Mrs Harvey, who lived in the Square, near the Institute. She was the grandmother of one of my primary school companions and was the village post-woman. I assume she used her long walks around the farms and cottages of the district to collect the raw materials for that brew. Herby was common in many households and all of us knew the sound of a bottle exploding due to over exuberant fermentation and the yeasty smell that betrayed its presence! It was consumed with gusto by teetotal Methodists who, presumably, forgot, or were ignorant of, what happened when sugar and yeast came together in a warm environment! Eating out in the fields was always a joy - a social occasion indeed. Many of the helpers were from outside the village, big men with coarse language and coarser habits bred from working close to nature. They were not the gentle, wise men of the village chapel that I had grown up with but they had a fascination for me, bringing a taste of experiences still far distant. I would eat with them, fascinated by what I took to be their more worldly ways but a little fearful, too, of that world beyond the confines of our village and the valley it occupied. The farmer too, was one whose like will not be seen again. Born in a tent, in the aptly named Gypsy Lane, near the village of Kehelland, about two miles away, he was adopted as an infant, legally or otherwise, by a childless couple who owned a small-holding nearby. He retained a gypsy name, Cooper, which signifies prowess with horses, and prospered sufficiently to start a small-holding of his own at Barripper – right next door to our house. He had no children of his own and seemed to take to me and I spent many happy hours in his company, and the company of his collie, Rose. His wife, it transpired later, was from my wife’s family. From gypsy stock, more used to animals than people, he could forecast changes in the weather better than all our modern technology and lived all his life to the pulsing rhythm of the seasons rather than by the nine to five restrictions of our modern life. True to his origins, he was adept at making deals and buying and selling. Knowing a good horse was priority for him and that non-human worker had the best of care.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 22:27:17 +0000