1964: Made in Yorkshire, #1

Warning

This book will contain large numbers of colloquialisms, phrases, and sayings that apparently make no sense at all. I assure you, I’m not utterly insane. That’s really how some of us speak in Yorkshire.

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Find out what happens to Richard Warren as soon as you can in James Farner’s Made in Yorkshire series.

Chapter One

Richard Warren was born on the first of February, 1953. This was a time of great change in England. The British people welcomed a new queen to the throne in Queen Elizabeth the Second. For the first time, the horrors of World War II could be firmly left in the past. It would make way for a new war, a Cold War. Josef Stalin would meet his end and the new Battle for Berlin would commence. All eyes descended on Europe as Britain clung on to fading glories. Now, a new generation was coming into being. With them would come riches, freedom, and Cold War crises.

In 1953, Richard didn’t know nor care about any of this. He wouldn’t for quite a few years yet. Unlike many of the other children born into families in Britain, he was born into the comparative innocence of the countryside. Families had their land and animals served as constant companions. Work revolved around the home and the home revolved around work. What went on in the wider world didn’t figure in the rural consciousness.

Everyone was poor and children had to grow up fast. Life was hard, but it was a life well worth living.

No matter the background, every child came out kicking and screaming in a haze of flesh and blood. It was the dirtiest miracle in the world. The Warren family’s miracle happened in the North Yorkshire village of Ledder Bridge. The village comprised one long lane and a few back streets. Most residents lived on small farms and in tiny isolated homes on the rolling green hills above.

Cassandra and James Warren, a proud mother and father, held little Richard swaddled in their arms as they stared at each other and into the open coal fire. It was to be their second child. The shifty eyes of a five-year-old brother, Peter, watched from behind a moth-eaten armchair they’d inherited from a deceased relative.

This was to be the start of great change in the Warren household. It would also signal the beginning of a life that would go on to change so many other lives. As parents planned and a brother schemed, none of them could have quite guessed exactly how their lives would turn out after this day.

Chapter Two

Cassandra Warren busied herself with the breakfast in the bustling kitchen. Sunlight streamed through the open panel windows in the middle of June. The occasional bee bumped up against the glass as it searched for its next flower. Richard and Peter, meanwhile, roughhoused around the kitchen table.

Stop that, both of you, said their mother. I’m not going to have any of this in my kitchen, understand?

Yes, Mum, they both chanted in unison. They knew better than to take her on when she was trying to finish breakfast.

Four solitary pieces of bacon sizzled in the pan, along with one fatty golden sausage each. It was a special occasion. Dad had received his monthly income cache. It signalled another month behind them. The Warren family always lived hand to mouth. Spare money was a luxury rarely afforded to any of them.

Richard let the breakfast aromas dance across his nostrils and draw him closer to where the pan spat a chaotic and violent tune.

Away from there. Mum pushed him away. That’s dangerous. I will not have my nine-year-old son scarred for life because he can’t stay away from hot pans.

Peter scurried away from the scene, whilst he received the same telling off he had more times than he could count. Freshly chided, Richard followed him back into the front room, where the ancient coal fire stood waiting for the winter to come again.

Want to play snap? said Peter.

They weren’t lucky enough to own a black and white TV yet. People in the country always lingered a few years behind their urban counterparts. It didn’t bother Richard. Mum schooled him and Peter at home, so most of his contact with the outside world revolved around what happened in the tiny village.

Fine, said Richard.

Peter retrieved the bent pack of playing cards from the mantelpiece. The object of the game was for each player to put down a card until the same number or court card appeared consecutively. Then, whoever managed to slap their hand down on the stack of cards and say snap first would take the whole pile away. Whoever lost all their cards first lost the game. It was an American version of the game their father learned during his brief time over there.

Peter threw down the first card. Richard followed. They continued to throw down cards, one after the other, until they both threw down sevens. Peter got his hand down first. He always did. The same story again and again, round after round. Richard never won a thing. His brother’s hand slapped down harder and faster than his ever could.

You’re such a cheater, said Richard after his fourth loss on the spin.

Am not. You just can’t play the game.

I can. I beat Dad all the time.

Anyone can beat Dad. He’s old and slow.

No, you just cheat.

How? Peter folded his arms.

Richard thought long and hard. He really didn’t know how his brother could cheat, but he was sure he was doing something.

See, you don’t know, so I didn’t do anything.

Boys, their mother called from the kitchen. Come and get your breakfasts.

The controversy surrounding whether Peter was cheating evaporated as they darted towards the kitchen. Richard lost again to his older brother as he climbed into his chair in second place. Their mother took off her apron and kicked a basket of washing next to the door.

What do you think you’re doing?

They stopped dead in their tracks.

I raised you better than that. Wash your hands before you eat breakfast, both of you.

Grumbling and sighing under their breaths, they thrust their hands under the stream of water, jockeying each other on the stool they used to reach the high sink. Their mother inspected their hands before letting them return to the table.

Eat up, and be quick about it. You’ll have to get on with your schooling soon. And your father wants you out in the field with him this afternoon.

She heaved the heavy basket of clothes into her hands and disappeared through the backdoor.

He wants us to go into the fields? Richard jumped up and down in his chair.

What do you think, dummy? His brother chewed on a long strip of bacon fat. Well, eat your breakfast, then.

Richard almost forgot the hot pile of food plated in front of him. He took his first bite of that juicy golden brown sausage. It was everything he expected, and more. Mum made her sausages with the right mix of chewy skin and soft meat. He could feel the juices left in the sausage mingle with his own saliva and overpower his taste buds. It gave him sweet release that only a home cooked meal could bring. Even at his tender age, he knew the difference between good food and bad food.

For the next ten minutes, the brothers ate their food in silence. Nobody could substitute the first meal after payday. Every month, Mum would reset the family budget and they’d just have enough to indulge in a meaty breakfast. It was the sort of day they lived for.

Mum returned from hanging up the washing and inspected their plates. The Warren homestead couldn’t tolerate leftover food.

Good, now get your slates and chalks. We’ll be starting with your numbers, Richard, and Peter, you’ll be reading to me from the Book of Genesis. I thought we would start from the beginning. You have to get better at your reading.

Yes, Mum. Peter’s eyes drifted towards the ground

Richard knew that look on his brother’s face. He always hated reading because it was one of the few things he was never much good at. Brilliant at everything else, but in school he always fell flat on his face. Richard was only a couple of months from his brother’s reading level, and he was five years younger; a fact he always reminded him of whenever they were quarrelling.

Schooling always figured as more of a chore than something to enjoy. It had given off the same aura of boredom since Richard first reached the age where he could pick up a piece of chalk. He never had problems with it, but he’d rather play outside or work with Dad in the fields.

Mum always praised him for being such a smart boy and Peter always disappointed her and received a clip round the ear for what she called not trying. They always finished their schoolwork at lunchtime, when Mum would start making the family’s evening meal.

Dad returned to pick them up to go and work in the fields. He always turned up on time with a disgusting, mustard yellow jumper and a pair of muddy boots. That was Dad. His stubbly beard connected with the remaining hairs on his shaven head. Moon dust glistened amongst the few black hairs. Peter told him that’s what happened to every man when they got older.

Boys, your father’s ready to go. Get your wellies on. Mum looked up from preparing the onions for just a second.

Richard pulled on a pair of bright green Wellington boots in the hallway. His fingers fumbled with the boots and his brow furrowed as he fought off the worry that Dad would leave without him.

Come on, said Dad when they’d lined up in front of him at the door. Time to work.

He took them both into the yard where the barn was. The barn barely deserved the name. It could only house a small tractor and a set of tools stacked up in one corner.

The family farm wasn’t big, but it wasn’t small, either. It gave them enough to eat with some left over to take to market, where Dad sold the family’s wares at market every month. Most country folk in this part of the world preferred to live as self-sufficiently as possible. The old men of the village always spoke about it to him like it was a mark of pride.

Dad left them in the main yard, whilst he jiggered their rusty, blue tractor to life. It stopped, still spluttering in front of them. He motioned for Richard and Peter to climb on top.

Richard always loved the tractor. It wasn’t fast, but it made him feel on top of the world. It felt like crossing countries and oceans with great leaps. It was also the closest thing anyone in Ledder Bridge had to a proper car.

The little tractor made its way through a small gap in the tired wooden fence separating the house from the main fields. Dad pulled up at the edge of a series of great trenches, where newly-planted potatoes grew, some stragglers with their pink flowers still in bloom.

Now, you two, I need you to get some of these weeds cleared up. There’s a whole field of them and I can’t do them by myself. Get to work, said Dad.

They needed no more guidance. They were farm kids, and even young Richard knew what to do. He had been playing in the mud and helping with the weeds since he was four. Peter found it tedious work, so he usually stopped every time Dad wasn’t looking. Richard always carried on until Dad told him to stop. There was nothing he liked more than spending time outside, with the sun beating down upon his head.

Working in the field gave them their only chance of bonding with their father. He was so engrossed in his work he rarely spent time in the house before they went to bed. After dinner, he would always disappear with the newspaper, and he was not to be disturbed under penalty of death, according to Mum.

Dad worked in the fallow field, threshing at the grassland with a long scythe. People knew him as the dinosaur of Ledder Bridge. Even in this brave new post-war world, where combine harvesters and threshing machines took over, Dad preferred the non-mechanised methods of old. The Warren family had lived in and around Yorkshire for centuries. Their ways rarely changed. They were a clan of hard-line conservatives at heart.

Rich, whispered Peter from the trench next to him. Want to go out for a bit?

Go out? Richard scratched his head.

I’ll take you out somewhere.

What about Dad?

He’s going back in now. Peter pointed towards the house, with the tractor now idling outside.

He’ll be gone for at least an hour and we’ve done loads of weeding. He won’t know we went out for a bit.

Richard thought long and hard. He really liked the farm work, but he didn’t want to look like a baby in front of his big brother. He was no coward.

Suppose he won’t notice. But I’m blaming you if we get caught, said Richard.

Shut up, you big baby. Just come on.

Before Richard could reply, Peter already started to climb over the gate at the bottom of the field. A small stream ran outside the boundary of their land. One leap over it and they entered Yorkshire’s green belt territory. Richard accidentally stuck his foot in the water, as he always did. It came up almost to the top of his wellington, making him screech and brace himself for the onrushing water that never came.

Peter kept running into the green hills of Yorkshire, far ahead of his brother. They climbed higher and higher up a large hill. Richard felt like he was a spitfire, flying to meet the Germans in the Battle of Britain. He stuck his arms out and made the whining noises he thought a spitfire would make.

Look down there. Peter squatted down and panted.

Is that our farm?

Yep.

I didn’t think it was so small, said Richard.

Idiot, it looks like that because we’re far away. Our farm isn’t really that small.

I’m not an idiot, Richard stuffed his hands in his pockets and stared at his boots.

Just come on, there’s more out here than that. You’ve seen nothing. Oi, want to see the old quarry?

The quarry?

Oh, I forgot you’ve never been there before. It’s the bee’s knees. Nobody there at all and lots a little tunnels to go around in.

Is it bad?

What sort of question is that? Nah, it’s not bad. It’s fine, really. As long as Mum and Dad don’t know we’re there, we’ll be fine. I mean it’s not like we’re going to get the law on us or anything.

Peter didn’t say anything else and started to climb the rest of the hill. Richard had to follow. He didn’t know where he was going, but he didn’t want Peter to start teasing him. All he knew was he was in for an adventure.

Chapter Three

The quarry looked like the resting place of some mythical beast to Richard. He looked wide-eyed from the top of the chasm into the large hole below. It seemed to go on for miles. The lush greenery ended abruptly and exposed the underbelly of the Earth. The entrance holes in the walls could go all the way to China, for all he knew.

What do you think? said Peter.

I don’t know.

Peter shook his head. Stay away from the far side. There’s a lake there and you can’t swim yet.

I can.

No, you can’t, because Dad never taught you. Now you just stay away from it unless you want to get hurt.

Richard folded his arms and mustered his best pout.

There’s a path down there, just along here. We’ll go down.

Peter walked off to the right and followed the edge of the cliffs until he reached a small passage leading downwards. The start of the path looked like nothing more than a jagged rock extracted from the hillside like a broken tooth.

Richard followed his brother along as fast as he could, trying not to look down. Screwing his eyes shut, a vision of what lay at the bottom made him jolt backwards. He hadn’t thought it was that high. Only solid ground and sharp rocks would break his fall if he lost his balance. Richard walked with one hand always on the safety of the solid wall to the side of him. As he descended further, he let go and walked with his hands in his pockets. This was easy.

What’s down here –

Richard slipped and landed on his backside. A series of large stones tumbled off the edge. He breathed heavily and almost allowed himself to cry. How close had he come to breaking his legs? He wiped his sleeve across his face. Peter wouldn’t see him cry.

Keep up, Rich. We need to be home before Dad notices.

He climbed to his feet again, and kept his fingers glued to the crevices and holes in the broken wall. When he made it to the bottom, he let go and started to run. He couldn’t believe he’d come down so far. It was like he’d made it inside the hills themselves, like a miner searching for gold.

Well, that’s it, said Peter.

Richard’s face dropped. That’s it?

It goes on for about a mile down that way to the lake. Peter jabbed his finger into the distance. There are some tunnels I’ve never been in before. Dad said it used to be a mine once. They tried to mine it out, but they couldn’t find anything so they just made it into a quarry. You don’t get many quarries and mines round our way.

Can’t we do something, then?

Like what?

Let’s do the tunnels, said Richard.

No. Peter’s face whitened. I’ve never been in them before. I don’t know what’s in there.

So let’s find out.

No. We’re going back. Peter took him by the wrist and walked him a few steps back to the path.

Richard groaned. He hated Peter when he started to get stubborn.

We’re off. Now don’t give me no lip about it. Follow me back up.

Peter let go and started to walk back up the path again. He didn’t come all the way down here only to have no adventure. He was an adventurer and a quest waited for him in those tunnels.

Richard waited until Peter walked a suitable distance away and sprinted towards the nearest