Chapter 18: Ermintrude
By about 1976, I had got tired of the city. London had stopped swinging and maybe I had been watching too many episodes of The Good Life, but I decided the countryside and self-sufficiency would be ideal for me. I had to move on and reinvent myself every few years and it seemed like a fun idea at the time.
In the 1950s I had hung around the East End being a sharp dressed and dangerous gangster. In the sixties I’d set myself right in the heart of swinging London. In the seventies I experimented with a few things. I was like all the other idiots in the seventies; we all did things we shouldn’t have and self-sufficiency was just another concept.
In the 1970s you could still conduct trading in cash and I had amassed a small fortune. I bought a farm far away from everything in deepest Devon. I bought five Red Ruby Devonshire cows – they were known for the quality of their beef, so I was sure their blood would be good too – and two pairs of Yorkshire terriers, which I hoped to breed if I could hold back my appetite for long enough.
The farmhouse was small and I furnished it with just a few mismatched second-hand pieces. I thought it very quaint and rustic. I told the farmer who sold me the cows that I still worked in the city, so he’d have to deliver them in the evening. He looked at me with disdain, and I could tell he was thinking that here was another one of these city folks coming to the country, thinking they could have an easier life growing their own food – and trying to do it part time!
‘So have you got any experience running a farm?’ he’d asked me, with barely concealed contempt.
‘I’ve read a lot about animal husbandry and I lived on a farm when I was younger,’ I’d told him beaming with confidence and excited about my new plan.
‘We’ll see. There’s a lot you can’t learn from books. And are you ready to get up in the dark of night and look after your animals,’ he’d asked as he unloaded the cows from his trailer.
‘I don’t think getting up in the dark will be a problem,’ I’d replied, helping him lead the Devonshires to their new home.
I also got a few chickens and some pigs, no use to me, but they’d keep the Yorkies fed. It wasn’t easy for me to go to the shops and buy dog food, as they were only open during daylight hours. The whole growing your own dog food idea fitted in nicely with my self-sufficiency ethics too. I arranged with the farmer to have weekly deliveries of chicken and pig feed and there I was, totally self-sufficient.
My tailor in London had assured me I looked the part in my tweed jackets and corduroy trousers and I was pleased that knitwear was making a comeback. I’d met my tailor, Tigran, late one night on a back street somewhere in the East End. The little, dark-haired man was being threatened by a rather scary looking and much larger dark-haired man. I’d not been afraid of anything apart from daylight for a long time, so I decided to get involved. I overheard something about fingers breaking and money, so I addressed them.
‘What seems to be the problem here, friends?’
The two men looked at me, their mouths gaping at my audacity, but after a while the big one spoke.
‘You’re Armenian too?’ Ah! So that was what I had last week! I’d wondered what her accent was.
‘Scottish actually, but I had dinner with an Armenian girl last week,’ I said to confuse them a bit more.
‘We have business and it is no business of yours,’ said the big one, after sizing me up.
‘Ah. You see, though, I don’t like wee guys being threatened by big guys,’ I told him. Frankly I didn’t care a toss, I was just in one of those moods and wanted to have a bit of fun.
‘It is ok, sir,’ pleaded the wee guy. ‘It is our business and Ali and I are sorting it out.’
‘Listen Ali,’ I said, ‘you’d better run along now and leave the wee man in peace.’
Ali eyed me with total disbelief; this pale young dandy must have lost his mind! He took a swing at me and I ducked out of the way, but at the same time drove my fist into his abdomen. I had gone easy on him though and he was lucky just to be rolling on the floor gasping for air.
‘Now friend. What business are you in, exactly?’ I asked the little guy, leading him away from the scene. He kept looking worriedly back at Ali, but slowly started telling me his story. He told me he’d had a tailor shop and was struggling to pay off his loan to Ali. He agreed to come to my flat in the evening to make me some new clothes.
He didn’t find it strange that I didn’t want to look in the mirror and that I relied on him to tell me if it looked good or not. Luckily, he was skilful and had impeccable taste in clothes, so there I was in Devon dressed like – what seemed to an Armenian and a dead Scot – the perfect English country gentleman. Judging by the looks I got from the locals, I gathered we had probably got it wrong.
The first couple of months on the farm were great. Ermintrudes 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 didn’t mind being snacked on at night, and proved indeed to be a very tasty breed that kept me off the Yorkies. The dogs I had named Felicity and Kendall, and the other pair Penelope and Keith. I had definitely watched one too many episodes... I’d also developed a serious crush on Felicity Kendall – I’m sure she would have tasted delicious.
Soon I had my first litter of tiny little pups and they were totally adorable. I just had to find out what Yorkie pup tasted like. It was mouth-watering, but barely yielded more than a small teacupful. I decided to let the others grow a bit more.
I spent the days cuddled up in a comfy chair with a good crime thriller and a couple of dogs on my lap. The nights were spent getting down and dirty on the farm, mucking out the pigsty and the chicken enclosure. Who would have thought that farming was such hard work! There wasn’t anything for miles around, so burgling places became trickier. I also had to drive all the way to London to fence the stuff.
And then there was the lack of women. I tried the local pub once, but as soon as I walked into the Sheep’s Head Inn, a deadly silence fell and every head turned to look at the stranger. I turned and walked straight out again. This was the kind of crowd that would form an angry mob with their pitchforks and torches. I was sure that even the slightest suspicion of me being a vampire would have them marching on the farm and burning it to the ground with me locked in the building.
Then winter came and even though 1976/7 wasn’t the worst on record, it was bad enough. Walking through snow and having to go out in all weathers to feed the animals wasn’t for me. I had enough to eat, but the cold made my bones ache all the time. I decided this was going to be my last winter in England. I’d had enough.
The farmer smiled when I came to ask if he wanted to buy my livestock back.
‘You city folk are all the same. You’re always surprised when you find out that farming is bloody hard work,’ he told me, smiling sarcastically.
It turned out he actually wanted to buy the whole farm. The land was adjacent to his and he wanted the extra grazing pastures for his cows, so he offered me a decent price.
‘Good grief! What did you do to these cows? They’re thinner than when I sold them to you,’ he said aghast when he came to collect the cows.
‘It was a long, hard winter,’ I said apologetically.
‘And what do you call those furry rats?’ he asked, derisively, pointing at the group of Yorkshires that were running around our feet. ‘Those aren’t real dogs.’
‘They’re Yorkshire terriers and I think they are rather sweet,’ I told him.
‘Why do you need so many of them?’
‘They’re pedigrees. I breed them.’ I had been wonderfully restrained and now had about ten of them. A few didn’t want to stop barking at the farmer.
‘God, you are the most unlikely farmer I ever had the misfortune to come across,’ he said, pushing the Ermintrudes back into his trailer.
‘I know. I don’t always make the best decisions, but it seemed a good idea at the time. Well, thanks for taking the Ermintrudes. I will miss the girls, but I don’t think you’ll see me on a farm again,’ I said while I loaded the
Yorkies on to the back seat of my Ford Granada.
Then I set off for Dover. It was time to head south – it was time to go back to France!