It almost goes without saying that I got more involved with the revamped Village shop than I intended. All of the fixtures and fittings needed renewing. As well as new fridges for the shop there was the necessary equipment and signage for the tearoom side to be purchased. I just got on and paid for all of this without making a fuss. Unlike Helen who had to broadcast it every time she did any little thing. I got the W.I. a line of credit with the wholesalers by standing guarantor. The fact that the shop would be up and running again was my main motive.
When the opening day finally arrived, the Women's Institute ladies insisted that I came and saw what Helen had achieved.
The shop and tearoom occupied the same general area. The shop was on the right with the four tables and chairs on the left. This was quite convenient as it meant that the volunteers could help out wherever they were needed. I say volunteers, I think that Helen had press ganged most of them. I managed to slip away fairly quickly.
-
Oh, by the way, don't put nail varnish remover on your nipples. It will come off in the shower. Eventually!
-
I'm not much of a telly watcher but I do love to see a history documentary. If I have an odd hour to myself I go on to the BBC iPlayer where there are so many to choose from. The overwhelming message that a lot of people miss is that things were different in the past. We can't change it, we can only learn from it. There have always been injustices and we all need to ensure that they are not repeated.
There are a lot of game shows on TV too. I'm not a big fan but, if I can, I like to watch the first five or ten minutes. I live in hope that one day when the host asks the retired headmistress from Chelmsford, "And what do you do in your spare time?"
She is going to reply, "My husband and I like to go dogging."
It hasn't happened yet. But, as I say, I live in hope.
-
One afternoon, I was trying to sneak past the shop without being seen when someone tapped on the tearoom window. Two ladies were frantically gesturing for me to come in. I'd been caught so I couldn't really avoid it.
The tearoom side was empty apart from the two old dears. Helen was in the shop along with Mardy, the retired blacksmith. She had persuaded him to 'volunteer' to take care of the heavy lifting side of things.
I said Good Morning to them as I passed by.
The ladies were Alice, who is 101, and her young daughter who is only 78. The daughter is also called Alice but everyone calls her Lis. They have both lived in the village all their lives and had a wealth of stories about the old days and the old ways. The women in these parts seem to last a lot longer than the men. What I really liked about them was that they always called things what they were. In the country a horse had a pizzle and they called it a pizzle (or sometimes a prick if they wanted to be polite).
They asked if I wanted coffee but I told them I would have tea. Lis called over to Helen for a pot of tea for one.
Alice said, "I've really wanted to talk to you for some time. I'm glad to hear that you are now the keeper of the Yew Tree Farm Book."
"How on earth did you know that?" I replied.
"Village women know these things. The menfolk have their Secret Society but we have real secrets," she said.
"It's always been the same. My mother and grandmother told me things that would cause townies like Helen to have a heart attack," she whispered.
"If you only knew," I thought.
Young Lis went on in a hushed voice, "We are both getting on a bit now and are worried that most of the stories will be lost."
"I thought that stuff was specific to Yew Tree Farm," I said quietly.
Alice chuckled and said, "No my dear, nearly every farm had its strange ways of doing things.
"My granny told me about Windy Ridge Farm. She said that the farmer had a daughter and four farm boys. He was desperate to ensure that she didn't wind up pregnant so he told his wife to make sure that the boys were kept de-spunked. He thought that maybe she could toss them all off every few days."
Lis joined in with, "She pretended that it was a chore. But it turned out that she had a real addiction to the taste of, you know, spunk. Every day she would put the boys' lunch in a basket and take it out to where they were working. While they were eating their lunch she would eat hers."
Both ladies giggled.
"My granny often said that every one of the Windy Ridge Farm boys had a stutter," said Alice.
"The daughter never married. Some unkind people said it was because she looked like a horse. I'm not sure what the farmer was so concerned about. Sex before marriage was the usual way in the country. If the maid got pregnant the last man in her would marry her. Nearly everyone around here was related in some way so it didn't really matter who the father actually was," added Alice.
"God knows I had enough cocks before I got married. And after I got married, come to think of it."
"Mother!", laughed Lis.
The ladies had an easy unabashed way about them and we chatted freely for about an hour.
Eventually, I reminded the ladies that I had a pub to run so I made my excuses. We agreed that it might be nice to chat further on another day.
As I was leaving, I heard Helen and Mardy discussing their hobbies and interests. I thought, "Why don't they just tell each other what they really like to do?"
"You two seem to be getting on like a house on fire," I said as I wished them goodbye.
-
That evening I was in the bar talking to customers. Young Trev approached me a little gingerly. "Saw you was in the caff (his spelling not mine) today," he said.
"Yes, I was chatting with the Alices," I said.
"I don't much like that Helen woman from the W I," Trev said.
"I'm not overly fond of her myself. What's she done to upset you in particular?"
He went on, "Me and my mate, Jem, was in there the other day. One of the old ladies done us a nice big mug of strong tea and a lump of bread pudding each.
"That woman comes in and gives the old lady a right hard time. Says it's a tearooms not a transport caff. Says she should only use cups and saucers.
"I couldn't hear it all but it sounded like she didn't want rough men in there at all.
"The old lady was nearly in tears."
"That's not good," I agreed.
"Leave it with me there may be something we can do to bring her down a peg or two."
Then the cheeky blighter put his hand up my skirt and started stroking my knickers where they covered my fanny. I pretended not to notice for a while then I just moved away.
I don't want to discourage him in case I need his services some time. Although, I think I would have to be in a desperate state to take on Trev from a standing start. I've only had him twice before and each time I had been well primed first.
-
I finally found time to visit Alice and Lis at their cottage. For two elderly ladies they kept it remarkably clean and tidy.
I learned that their family had been tenant farmers for several generations on the farm now run by Farmer Brian and Rita. They weren't sure how many generations. The farms around here had been there for at least a thousand years. Long before those 'Bastard Normans' turned up, as the ladies put it.
"You must have been at the farm when the war started?" I put it to Alice.
"Oh yes, I was nineteen and not long married. Before that I'd been in service so I'd been had by a few aristocrats as well as several grooms and the butler. When the war broke out most of the men went off to fight. Just my husband, me and two land army girls were left to run the farm.
"The girls were a bit strange. One of them was a little bit manly in her ways. They came from London. The farmhouse had lots of bedrooms but they insisted on sharing.
"Things were tough. Most of the essentials of life were rationed but living in the country you could get your hands on a lot of things by swapping what you had.
"By 1940 it was fairly obvious that I wasn't going to fall pregnant so as well as a few eggs and a bit of butter I had other things I could trade.
"I owned an old bicycle with a basket on the front. Most days I would cycle between local farms, village shops and army camps swapping my goods and services for whatever blackmarket stuff I could get my hands on. There's nothing quite like pedalling fast with your drawers full of spunk. As soon as I got back to the farm my Mick and I would fuck. That way, he said that, if I did get pregnant there was a chance that it was his. But I think he really just liked a well buttered crumpet."
"Mother!" exclaimed Lis.
Alice went on, "When the Yanks came over here I started to get hold of things like Nylon stockings, chocolate and cigarettes. Mick would take them to the pub and swap them for other things we needed.
"Mind you, I nearly came a cropper once. I was pedalling like Billio back from one of the American camps. I was really pleased with myself; I had chocolate and a bag of sugar. There was a ford in the lane. The water was about 8 inches deep so I got up a bit of speed to get through it. Just then one of our Hurricanes flew over really low and it frightened me. Somehow, I ended up on my hands and knees in the middle of the stream with my skirt up over my back. The new nylons that I had put on this morning were laddered to shreds. Everything from the basket had floated off or dissolved.
"All I could do was just stay where I was and cry; I was that heartbroken.
"Just then a Jeep pulled into the ford and two Yanks jumped out. Because I was crying they thought that I was hurt.
"When I told them that I'd lost all my stuff and that I'd had to be fucked three times to get it, they laughed.
"Just where I was, one of them got behind me and pulled down my French Knickers and shagged me like a monkey with me on all fours and my blouse and tits in the water. To make things worse, so did the other one.
"To be fair, afterwards they chucked me and my bike in the Jeep and took us back to the camp.
"They got me dried out and cleaned up. A mechanic fixed my bike, for a fuck. The quartermaster gave me six big bars of chocolate, five pairs of Nylons and some parachute silk, to make drawers from, for a fuck and one of the cooks gave me two bags of sugar, for the same thing.
"I got a lift all the way home in the Jeep. When my old man came out to meet us at the gate one of the Yanks told him not to worry. I was unharmed but he was sorry they'd left my twat in a bit of a mess. Mick thanked them both very much, but I'm not sure what for. We didn't even make it back to the house; I just had to brace myself against the gate post.
"Then, just before D Day, I picked up something else from one of the camps."
Alice nodded towards Lis.
"Mother!" Lis said, slightly embarrassed.
"We couldn't quite believe it. After all that time. We were so pleased. And then we were a bit worried. No one was going to believe that a coloured baby was my husbands. As you can see, we needn't have been concerned," Alice said smiling at Lis.
"It does seem to be a pattern in these parts. The farming men have often needed help producing offspring," I said.
Alice and Lis both tried to talk at the same time but Lis deferred to her mother.
