The Tenants Of Fell End Farm Part One

On Tuesday the 28th. Of December 1936, Twenty 0ne year old Andrew Emmott stood staring sadly out of the window of his hill farm home as he sipped his breakfast cup of tea. His father had died in November.  An influenza epidemic had struck the local town of Trentham and his father Harold had  succumbed.  His mother Jean had left seven years earlier, no longer willing to put up with the isolation and privations of being a hill farmers wife.  She had wanted to take Andrew with her but he stayed loyal to his Dad and the farm that the Emmott family had tenanted for three generations.  He simply asked, 'Why are you leaving us Mum?'
 She explained, 'This place is the end of the world Andy.  I have had one holiday in fifteen years.  Paraffin lamps, cooking everything on the fire.  Just one cold tap. Washing everything by hand.  Never seeing anybody for weeks, working all the hours god sends and for all that we were dirt poor.  Your Dad didn't help, just sitting there at nights reading Shakespeare and going on about his daft socialist ideas.  I mean, what other farmer behaves like that.  Sandy Renton the estate manager calls him a damned Bolshevik.  We would never have got any repairs done  If I hadn't got on the right side of Sandy.'
In the end she left without her son.  She had insisted on having a weekend on her own in Blackpool
and there she had met Sid a business man with a string of novelty and toy shops.  He was in poor health, suffering from stress and high blood pressure.  He had married for a second time, to a much younger woman.  She had started an affair with Sid's son and they had run off to London together taking a lot of Sid's money.  On top of that the recession was hurting business.  Jean, a good looking woman in the prime of her life, took him over.  She sorted out the business.  Sacked some staff who were on the fiddle and recruited good staff.   Sid adored her.  A divorce was arranged.  Harold did not want it but when he saw that Jean was never going to return to him, he went along with it.  Jean and Sid married.  She did occasionally return to the farm to see Andrew as he refused to come to Blackpool to visit her.  She returned to help with the funeral when Harold died and again pleaded with Andrew to leave the farm.  'If you stay here you will never get a nice girl to marry you.  They won't put up with the life.  You will have to marry a hill girl bred to it.  Some cylindrical, gimlet mouthed, monosyllabic drab.  Either that or you will end up a smelly old bachelor.'
'I'll find a girl,' Andrew had retorted.
Jean laughed, 'You won't.  Remember what the cowboys say about life on the ranch, tough on horses and women.  Well hill farming is the same.'  She made one last plea, 'Please love, come with me.  You're only twenty one.  You can't do it on your own.'  But Andrew had stayed.  Sandy Renton agreed to let him keep the tenancy on a years probation and after a sad and lonely Christmas, here he was ready to start on the milk round.  He took a final sip of tea, tossed the tin cup into the sink and stepped outside.  The horse stood patiently harnessed to the float.  The churns of milk and a basket of eggs were already loaded.  Andrew stripped the blanket off the horse, climbed into the float and set off.  He would stop at the next farm to take on the milk of his neighbours David and Annie Nicholson and then head on into Trentham.  He had taken over the milk round when he was sixteen years old.  Harold had been too easy going, giving customers credit and then being unable to get paid.  He had been a man with no head for business and no love for social interaction, happier with his dogs, amongst his sheep.
Andrew enjoyed the milk round.  The housewives liked the teenage lad and inevitably one took him to bed.  Andrew was like a child with a new toy.  He had sex with other women but then found it was complicated.  However inappropriate, some women wanted the relationship to be going somewhere.  Others wanted free eggs and milk.  He wrote to his mother for advice.  She replied, 'You are not God's gift Andrew.  Of course any woman who gives herself to a seventeen year old sexual duffer like you wants something in return.  We are in the middle of a recession. Money is tight.  Some women have to do what they can to feed their families.  Grow up.  Keep your customers at arms length then they won't ask for credit.'  Andrew was knocked back by his mother’s response.  At seventeen years old he had concluded that he was endowed with an animal magnetism so strong that he had an almost supernatural power over women. Chastened, he decided to leave his customers wives alone and find a girl his own age.  He was attracted to one girl in particular, the daughter of a customer.  She was good looking, of average height and slim almost fragile build.   She had blue eyes and fair hair.  He had seen her entering and leaving her house, probably going to and from work and they had smiled briefly at each other.  However, he had not seen the girl or her mother for many weeks.  The terraced house was closed, the curtains drawn.  
By eleven a.m. Andrew was in the street where the girl lived, serving the last of his customers. The women all brought jugs and Andrew ladled out the required amount of milk.  He had two ladles, a pint and a gill.
'Hello,' a woman said.  'What's this?'
Andrew turned to see a boy running down the street.  He stopped and knocked at the door of the girls house.  The door was opened by the girl.  The boy spoke hurriedly then dashed away.  The girl looked anxiously about, saw Andrew and approached him.  The women all melted away.  Andrew saw that the girl had lost weight.  She was pale and thin.  She had a livid boil on her cheekbone.  She was trembling.  'Will you help me?' She asked.  Andrew nodded.  The girl ran back into the house and returned with a small suitcase.  She handed it to Andrew, 'Look after this for me.  It's all I have in the world.  My landlord is coming with a bailiff to evict me.'  Andrew took the suitcase.  The girl ran back into the house as a car followed by a furniture wagon came round the corner.  The two occupants of the car disembarked, kicked the house door open and walked in.  Andrew pretended to busy himself with the horses harness.  He heard raised voices then the men started putting furniture out on the street and loading it into the van.  When they had finished they escorted the girl outside, took the house keys off her, locked the door and with a derisory look at Andrew they left.  The girl was left on the street.
When the furniture van left she crossed the street to Andrew.  He saw that she was close to tears.  He handed her the suit case, 'Where's your Mum?' He asked.
'She died of influenza in November.  Dad died some years ago.'
'Sorry for your loss,' Andrew replied.'  'No other family?'
'No,' the girl shrugged helplessly.  'I have an uncle but he's in Australia,, Adelaide.  She went on, 'Honestly, it's been just one awful thing after another.  Mum took ill, then she died.  The doctors bills and the funeral took all the money we had then I lost my job.  I went to the labour exchange but they said I wasn't entitled to any help from them so I've just been pawning things to stay alive.'
She was fighting back tears.  He asked, 'What will you do?'
'I have eight shillings.  Maybe I can find cheap lodgings somewhere.  Then look for a job after New Year.'
'What's your name?' Andrew asked.
'Lynn, Lynn Trevor.'
'I'm Andrew Emmott.  My Dad died of the influenza too.'
The girl nodded, 'Well thanks for your help Andrew.  I'd better be on my way.'  As she turned to go Andrew came to a decision, 'Wait,' my Mothers gone.  I live on a farm, up there,' He pointed, 'on Crowsdale Fell.  Just think, eleven people died in the epidemic and your Mum and my Dad were among them.  I know what you are going through.  You can come and stay with me for as long as you like.'
'What, just the two of us?'
Andrew nodded.
'Oh I couldn't do that.  I don't know you.  Anything could happen.  Thanks but no.'
Andrew was disappointed, 'Will you come out with me some night?'
'I have no idea where I am going to be,' Lynn pointed out distractedly.
 'Well, alright.  Good luck anyhow.'  Andrew turned, shook the reigns and the horse moved off.  Lynn watched him go with mounting alarm.  She had never felt so alone.  She had no idea what to do.  She did like Andrew, his shock of black hair was cut in the no nonsense short back and sides haircut that reminded her of her Dad.  He was of average height and wiry build.  He was wearing a leather jacket, a navy blue polo necked jumper, corduroy trousers and boots, a typical farmers lad.  She new nothing about them.  He seemed decent enough though and she new he liked her.  She Did not know where she would spend the night.  Somebody had suggested the railway station waiting room.  She came to a decision, 'Wait!'
 Andrew reigned the horse in and turned.
Lynn asked, 'Maybe I could come and lodge at your house, just until I find work.'
'That would be great,' Andrew smiled.
'You would have to promise that I would be safe.  I would want your word on that.'
'I promise,' He grinned.
Lynn still agonised, 'What will people think.'
'Who cares what people think.'
'How much will the rent be?'
'Can you cook?'
Lynn nodded.
'Well then, if you do the cooking and housekeeping, I won't charge you anything.'
After a pause Lynn reluctantly agreed to the proposal.  'Alright then I'll come.'
Andrew was delighted,  'That's grand, come on.'  He climbed down took the suitcase, helped her into the float, sat her down and they set off.
Travelling in the milk float was an embarrassing experience for Lynn.  She sat on the seat by the wheel arch with her suit case on her knees and her head down.  She did not want to be seen by anybody who new her.  Andrew was delighted with the turn of events.  He stood feet apart with his eyes on the road.  He could see that Lynn was worn out by her experiences and worried about her decision to come with him.  He tried to reassure her when she asked, 'I will have my own room?'
'Of course, you can have mine.'
They climbed out of the town, through the suburbs, into open country and higher until they were onto a lonely moorland road that ran along the side of the fell.  Lynn pulled her coat around her.  It was noticeably colder.  She saw they were coming to a farmstead, 'Is that your farm?' She asked.
Andrew shook his head, 'That's our nearest neighbours, David and Annie Nicholson.  We will call in there to drop off a milk churn.'  They pulled up in the Nicholson' farmyard.  David and Annie were amazed to see Lynn.  'This is lynn Trevor.  Lynn, this is David and Annie.  Andrew explained.  'Her Mum died of the influenza so she is coming to stay with me.'
The Nicholson’s faces registered their surprise.  Andrew stepped down from the float and carried the empty churn into the dairy.  David Nicholson followed him clearly excited to hear the details, 'Where did you meet her?' He asked.
'I've known her a while,' Andrew lied.
'Well you've kept that quiet.  What are you going to do with her?'
‘Marry her.’
 ‘Mary her, Man she'll never make a farmers wife.
'She will,' Andrew was resolute.
David laughed, 'Well if that's what's on your mind, you'd better throw your leg over her as soon as you can, otherwise she will be off.'
They returned to the float where the two women were talking. They said their goodbyes and resumed their journey.  Fell End Farm was well named.  It was in a slight hollow only two fields away from where the road dipped steeply away down through the Crowsdale Wood which clothed the end of the fell and through which tumbled  the Crowsdale Beck.  At the foot of the fell it joined the Ingle Beck which ran down from the village of Inglebeck and along the valley floor.  'There's our place,' Andrew pointed.  Lynn saw the roof and bedroom windows of a house with a stand of sycamore and elm trees behind it.   The farm stood back from the road and was approached by a narrow lane.  As they turned off the road and onto the lane, Lynn got her first view of the farm.  It faced south west and was typical of the hill farms of the area. The house was of good size and stood at the end of a row of buildings that included the barn, cow shed, stables cart shed and dairy.  There were other smaller buildings.  Everything was built of stone including the lattice work of dry stone walls that divided the fields and kept the brooding moorland above the farm at bay.  The house had its own garden.  The other buildings clustered round the farm yard which had a hawthorn tree on its perimeter.  Lynn looked around nervously.  The place was more isolated than she had imagined.  She was aware of the farmyard smell.  Andrew showed her into the house.  The main room was dominated by a large black leaded range fireplace.  Light entered from a south facing window.  There was a smaller inglenook window in the gable end wall.  The floor was stone flagged.  The room was furnished with a battered three piece suite, a sideboard and a table and four dining chairs.  It was immediately obvious to Lynn that only men lived here.  'Well this is it,' Andrew said.  'The kitchen and pantry's through there.  I've got work to do.  I'll be in at five o’clock.  You get a fire going and cook something for tea.'  He took Her up stairs and showed her the bedroom.  It was a pleasant south facing room.  The bed was unmade and strewn with Andrew's belongings.  'Cheer up Lynn everything's going to be alright,' he grinned.
'Where will you sleep?' Lynn asked.
'In Dad's room.'
When Andrew left Lynn sat on the bed and took stock of her situation.  Everything had happened so quickly.  She opened her case and unpacked her things.  She placed two framed photographs of her parents on the bedside table.  One was a wedding photograph, the other of her as a child with her parents on a seaside holiday, then she left to start work.
At five o’clock she went looking for Andrew.  She saw light streaming from a hurricane lamp hanging in a doorway and entered.  It was the cowshed.  Andrew was milking a cow.  The smell overpowered her and with her hand over her nose she said, 'Your tea is ready.'
Andrew laughed, 'I'll be there in a minute.'
After tea they sat in front of the fire and talked shyly about how they had been aware of each other.  Andrew complimented Lynn on her cooking.  They made bread and left it before the fire to prove. When they went to bed they would put it in the fireside oven to bake and it would be ready in the morning.  Andrew talked of his parents problems and how his impractical father had annoyed him at times but how much he missed him.  Lynn told her story.  Her father had been a pattern moulder in a foundry.  He had died quite young as many foundry workers did.  It was extremely unhealthy but well paid work.  Whilst he was alive he had earned a good living.  Lynn had been able to socialise.  She was a member of the Ramblers' Association and Trentham Cycling Club and had enjoyed the hiking and biking so popular with the young people of the time but when he died their income dropped.  Her mother returned to work in the mill.  Their two wages were barely enough to live on.  She had worked for an old Jewish man a Mr Lavenberg' who had a kiosk on the market from which he ran a jewellery business.  She had worked for Mr. Lavenburg since leaving school and was very happy there but one night he had been robbed and severely beaten.  He was no longer capable of work and in any case the robbers had taken all his stock.  'Why would anyone do such a thing?'  she asked Andrew, 'he was totally harmless and kind.'
Andrew shook his head, 'Beats me,’  he replied.