Thursday 30 June 2011

The tale of the Landkey rat.

         Yesterday afternoon Anne Cawood had a funny old tale to tell down at the Marshal's Thursday lunch club concerning the Landkey rat. I can't hope to emulate the way she told it as once she gets going she has her own special way with words. Anyway, her tale tickled us all. A few days last week she was out at Landkey to pick up one of her innumerable grandchildren from the school as her daughter Briony was on jury service and couldn't make it to fetch the little mites.
The heart of Landkey Town
So there she was, waiting in the road opposite the school yacking away with one of the mum's when over her shoulder she spied a bleddy gurt rat,  enourmous it was, scampering it's way along a wall. I asked her if she was sure it wasn't a koypu that had swum up from Bishop's Tawton but she assured me it was a rat. A rat that was quite literally the size of a cat. Old Annie drew the attention of some of the mums gathered at the school gates to the bold rodent but they all seemed rather non-plussed. "Oh yeah there he goes the little bugger" said one and a few of them seemed quite happy to catch a sight of the furry vermin and seemed to be addressing the little critter in similar terms of endearment.  On the way back over the way to Gorwell she mentioned the rat sighting to the kids telling them how amazed she was by the size of it. Mind you, knowing Annie it had probably increased to the size of a brown bear by the time they got to Westacott.  However, they like the mums also seemed rather bemused by their daft granny's ramblings, only adding nonchalantly that they often see it scuttling across the playground of an afternoon, making for the bins behind the kitchens and they all liked to stop what they are doing and take a look at him.  They even had a competition to find a name for him. Turns out he is called Rory after the little singing kid off of Britain's Got Talent
A brown rat

The following afternoon Annie was out there again. This time she parked up in Mazzard Way and was walking towards the school gates when, lo and behold,  the rat appeared again. This time scurrying across the road right in front of her as bold as brass. Amazingly, he then seemed to take a quick shower and had a brazen gambol under a lawn sprayer. This time Annie couldn't let it pass, so she went up to an old mate of ours, Terry Ford, who happened to be passing, to find out what was going on. Terry is a mine of information on all things Landkey so he was able to put her straight. It turns out that this here rat has become something of a celebrity in the village and he's been sighted all over from Lankey old town down to the Castle and further afield. Anyway the rat has obviously found Landkey to his liking and is seemingly impervious to the comings and goings of the villagers, through traffic and the hubub of such a vibrant community. Thankfully, at present, there seems to be no sign of a pied piper character to lead the rodent over to Venn Quarry and subsequently the good folk of Landkey have become quite proprietary towards him. As Terry Ford went on to say he was so charmed by the sheer audacity of the brazen rodent that he didn't have a heart to pull the trigger after he'd been asked, much to many peoples consternation, by the Parish Council to fetch up with his air rifle in order to dispatch it humanely.
It's good to see that in this day and age that something like this can galvanize a community and it has been able to draw together around it's very own regal rat.  Mind you I did point out that such things aren't that unusual out Landkey way as befits a village with such an illustrious history, founded as it was by Sir Francis Drake as a refuge from the Spanish Armada and named for the Celtic saint St Kea, Llan Kea until the Saxon invader turned up and Anglesized it. Bleddy Saxons.
In the eighties the Councils plans to demolish the place and start all over again on the other side of the valley were thwarted by a concerted local campaign and also the mazzard, North Devon's very own soft fruit was reintroduced after the heroic efforts of local residents especially those of my old comrade, Dickie Joy
Mazzards make a lovely pie

Of course the rat wouldn't fare so well in the neighbouring village of Swimbridge home of the Parson Jack Russell terrier which the eponymous parson specifically bred to be terrifyingly efficient ratters. Fortunately due to internecine village rivalry no one in Landkey is allowed to own a Jack Russell.
Likewise no one in Swimbridge eats mazzards.
Annie called round yesterday afternoon and reported that local opinion has now come to the conclusion that the rat is of a domesticated variety that must have made a bid for freedom. They may have a point as many domesticated rats are infact imported from South America and these can grow to be very large. Thinking about it it could also be a fancy rat. It is also thought that it didn't originally come from Landkey due to there having been no "missing" signs posted on lampposts nor messages read out at morning worship. I told her they ought to put a note in the Journal  Of course it could just be disorientated and will start making it's way back home like in that film. Maybe it's best to just let the little bugger be and let him make his own way.
Anyway following on from Anne's tale I have half a mind to pop over there one morning next week, have a spot of lunch in The Castle and then walk up and over to Venn on a rat safari to see if I can't catch a sight of this fine specimen of the species rattus norvegicus. That 'll give me something nice to look forward to..

Wednesday 15 June 2011

To the ferret king - Get well soon

Last week I was  quite perturbed by the news that reached me concerning Barry Jewel's finger.  Apparently, the legend, as he has become,  in local ferret racing circles has lost a finger. He is the North Devon's ferret racing answer to Henry Cecil and year in year out he always manages to breed sure-fire winners from his yard out at South Molton. My first thought was that one of his charges had turned nasty on him, a narky hob gone a bit mixxy and bit off the aforementioned digit. However that would have been highly unusual as from my own experience I know all too well a ferret can give you a fair old nip but it would have to set itself to  a good old gnawing before it could get through your finger. Anyway it turns out that Barry was doing a bit of work in his shed and lost the finger, his little finger, when he fed his hand into a band saw by mistake. Barry's plight caused a right old forore in South Molton as he'd picked up his finger from the shavings on the shed floor and walked around with it to his neighbours asking them to call an ambulance. Due to the nature of the injury, bleeding like beggary,  it was the air ambulance that came for him and that really did cause quite a stir in sleepy S'Molton on a weekday afternoon as in no time at all quite a crowd had gathered at the Rugby Club to see old Barry being whisked away in the big whirly bird up to the NDI in Barum. However, once he got to Barum he was no sooner up in the air again this time being conveyed directly to Exeter. Not that old Barry seemed to mind this one bit as he later told the Journal that despite the pain he was quite distracted by the lovely views he was getting of the Taw Valley, priceless they were. Fortunately, up at Exeter they were able, using state of the art technology, to rebuild his finger. Bleddy marvelous isn't it, what they can do these days.


Not Barry's missus with favourite ferret but Leonardo da Vinci's
Trouble is Barry has now been signed off by the doctor until the end of August and due to this being high season for ferret racing he is finding it quite frustrating being unable to compete until then. So far, all told he has already missed the Braunton fair and the Royal Bath and West up at Shepton Mallet. I would have given him a call and see if I could lend a fully fingered hand to enable him to take part in the races down at the Royal Cornwall show but the Hiace is still off the road. Although, I did give my ex common law brother in law Michael Tanton a call, him being a fellow ferret fancier and breeder. I just thought he may be able to help out but I could sense he wasn't too keen on the idea.Thinking about it now, I reckon there could be a bit of history between them, bad blood. Besides, he said from what he'd heard Barry seemed happy enough to give racing a miss this season and had decided to concentrate on his fancy ferrtets for showing in the autumn. Michael also told me that this wasn't the first time that Barry had lost a finger as he had managed to slice one off a few years ago when he was working out at the chipboard factory.

Well all I can add is that I wish Terry a speedy recovery. By the way, that's from me and the rest of the Marshal's Thursday lunch club and when he feels up to it maybe he could pop by one afternoon and tell us all about that helicopter trip.

Thursday 9 June 2011

I thought I could smell something fishy.

I have been wandering about with a dead crab in a bag in me pocket for the best part of a week. I was starting to wonder what the smell was. I thought it was due to the fish processing factory and wind direction. Turns out it was me all along. Mazed fool.