Page 21 - Kol Bogrei Habonim - January 19

room. His look was provocative full of salty rooms. At exactly six, I was down in the five-acre
cockiness. A one-upmanship sparring contest was
in the air.
"Veggie soup, thane fush wuth beeked pataytooz."
"Fush??" mocked Jack, prodding Raymond's
normally laid-back manner into battle stations.
"What, Jack, doon't ye like fush?"
"Fish can't taste good!" goaded Jack.
"How d'ye know, Jack? Ye harven't trried it yairt.
Just trrryee a wee but." Raymond strode over and
gave Jack a sampler on a fork.
"Christ, it's orrable. Blimey, what a cook! Fish.
Wot d'ye fink we are, Dutch? Carn'tshu get some
decent food in, Ray? Fer Gord's sake." Jack kept
up his ragging, but he downed the fragment
hungrily.
"Decent food, lieek whort? At one-an-nine pence
a dee?" Raymond was still in defensive mode,
aware that Jack was piss-taking.
"Well, what about a juicy sirloin steak, or
chicken-ar-la Paree, garnished wiv Champignons-
Montmarter," he continued to lark in an
impossibly cockney French.
"Och, shure. Git awee with ya, and let me wurrk,"
cried Raymond, his soup ladle pointed menacingly
at Jack, who bolted for the door with a mock
squeal of terror. Raymond returned grinning to
garnish his trays of baked fish with slivers of
lemon and chopped parsley. To most of us, it was
incredible how he managed to provide such fine
fare out of that wretched budget. But, as we all
know, many people's most sensitive spot is their
stomach, and poor Ray got more than his fair
share of criticism.
Work
The next morning, my first day as a farmer – what
a lark – at twenty to six and still pitch dark, I
somehow dragged my way up the hill to the
mansion for a quick cuppa and toast made on the
huge, kitchen range. The kitchen was the group's
focal point, especially in winter evenings. People
would lounge around that mammoth stove for
hours, loathing leaving it for their unheated
21
field for some hedging and ditching. Mr. Hobbs,
the farm manager, supervised such jobs and taught
us how best to handle them. I was surprised to see
him arrive in his Land Rover, immaculate in a pair
of polished, calf-length, leather boots, a pair of
plus fours, and bang on time. Over these, he
sported an Irish tweed jacket, a striped shirt, a tie
and an Irish-style cap. Hardly the garb for running
around a farm, I thought, but when he began
showing me the art of hedging and ditching, it
appeared to be his recipe for success. He pulled a
spade, a digging fork and a hand-sickle from the
car. The brambles, thorns and wild bushes all
disappeared in seconds under his sickle. He
showed me how to catch the briars with a forked
stick to prevent them escaping devastation. But
for me, they always managed to get away, and
never had that clean-shaved look that Hobbs
obtained. Then, he showed me how to dig a ditch.
The squire and the city boy. What a caper!
"Don't need to werk 'ard at it, Maurice ludd," he
said in his firm, broad Tyneside. "Joost sulect yer
ungle and then keep the sides square. Put yer wairt
on the spaird. Dawn't try to clean oop too mooch
'til yer done with the ditch. The stoof falls back in
all the time. Now look, ludd, joost watch me fer a
coople ov minutes."
He worked away smoothly and cleanly for five
minutes without stopping for breath. He seemed to
avoid any great effort, but when he handed me the
spade, I swear to you he'd cut a perfect, two-yard
length of ditch regular in depth and cross-section
as though cut with a precision machine. Not only
was it a work of art, but his boots were still as
immaculate as when he arrived. The displaced soil
was piled up neatly on one side of the ditch. Then
I took over full of confidence that I'd achieve an
equally good result. It looked, after all, so damn
easy. I saw him smile as I began to dig. It was a
slightly ironic smile, a bit too pitying for my
liking. Almost immediately, my spade struck a
large stone, so I had to dig around it and pull it
out, disturbing Hobb's perfect symmetry. His
smile turned into a momentary wince. He hadn't
hit a single stone.