Open Writing

If you think you are a clever, observant person you will derive some quiet satisfaction from chuckling over the missing
apostrophe at the end of the title of this piece. Well, clever clogs, you’d be wrong. This piece is not about talking at
all. It’s about Talkin, which is a small village near Brampton, which itself is not far from Carlisle, which in its turn is in
the United Kingdom.

Talkin is not a famous place, as far as I know. It was not the birthplace of any well-known historical figure. But to
me it is a significant place, because I grew up there.

Here again I am misleading you. I didn’t spend the most important years there at the beginning of my life. In fact, I
was there for only three weeks. But it is true to say that I moved from one period of my life to another during those
weeks. I grew up.

During the war - and, since young children always ask me which one, I tell you now it is the one the encyclopaedias
abbreviate to WW2 or WWII - the Government urged all able-bodied people not actively engaged at the front to help
out each year with the harvest and other farm work. Lend a Hand on the Land was the motto, and in my final year at
school we senior pupils were encouraged (with the permission of our parents, of course) to do just that. I volunteered
to work in Talkin Tarn. A tarn, in case you don't know, is a mountainous lake. Raymond Stewart, who lived in
Cadishead - no, I’m not going to tell you about Cadishead, because there wasn’t much to say about it then and there
is probably little more to be said now - agreed to go with me.

I had never been away on holiday from my home before and my mother agonised over giving me permission. She
was persuaded by my father, too old for front-line service in WW2, who thought I was to be praised for wanting to do
my patriotic bit, and by the knowledge that Raymond was older and much more experienced, having spent time at
several summer camps with the Boy Scouts. We were given travel warrants to Carlisle and detailed joining instructions.

We would be met at the station by a lorry which would take everyone to where we would be living, a former POW camp
with a warden and an on-site nurse, who would be there to see we didn’t get sunburnt or catch terrible diseases from
cattle. (It didn’t say exactly that in the instructions, but I supposed that that would be one of her duties, since I had
recently learnt the word brucellosis.)

Packing was an agonising business, which I left entirely to my mother, a notorious fusspot with a tendency to
include two of everything ’just in case’. I remember the little elasticised pockets on the inside of the case were filled
with TCP pastilles. I don’t know if they still sell them, but at the time they were a prevent-all and cure-all in our
family. We had been told to bring our own Wellies and one blanket. I asked my father to see me off at the station,
because I couldn’t bear the prospect of my mother breaking down, crying or fainting.

Things went according to plan when we reached Carlisle, he longest rail journey I had ever made in my life, and on
arrival at Talkin Tarn Raymond and I were shoved into a barrack-like room with six collapsible bedsteads facing each
other pushed up against the walls. We were told to stow our stuff and then get ourselves to the dining hall for dinner.

I was puzzled, because where I came from dinner was at midday. You see what I mean about growing up?

There were some older lads who had clearly been to this particular camp before and one of them - Cyril, a steel
worker from Sheffield - took pity on us and decided to show us the ropes.

“The thing to do is get to the grub first,” he said, “before it runs out. You can make your bed up afterwards.”

“We make our own beds?” I said. He looked at us pityingly.

“No other f****r’s going to,” he said. “Come on.” Well, he was a steel worker from Sheffield.

It was about this time that I realised that Raymond was not the grown-up, sophisticated man-of-the-world I had
thought he was. He was older and taller, but, if anything, he was shyer and more awkward than I was. It may have
been the effect of, for the first time, having to spend time with lads older than himself.

Because Cyril took us under his wing we got enough to eat that first night, but it was a pretty rough sort of meal,
with none of the table manners I had carefully been taught at home. Cyril also took pity on us and showed us how to
make a bed from the torn and stained mattress, rough pillows, blankets and sheets we had. Bed-making, as everyone
knew all those years ago, was something wives and mothers did. That was one of the things they were for, wasn’t it?

Both Raymond and I didn’t have a clue. So - more growing up.

Someone came in early - very early - the next morning and started shouting at us to get up, get washed and
dressed and ‘get your fat arses’ into the dining hall for breakfast. Raymond and I did as we were told. By then we had
already decided that we had made a mistake in offering to Lend a Hand on the Land.

I saved a bit of time in the washing hut, because I hadn’t started shaving then.

“Lucky bastard!” said Cyril, who lent me his plug for the wash basin.

“Why are there no plugs?” I asked. “All wash basins have plugs, don’t they?”

“Nicked,” he said shortly. “If you can get it into your pocket you nick it.”

“Why should anyone want to nick a wash basin plug?”

“There doesn’t have to be a reason. You must come from a pretty posh sort of family.”

A lorry came to collect us after breakfast and sped along deserted roads in the half-light, dropping people off in
twos and threes at various farms. When Cyril hopped over the side I said: “What are you going to do today?”

“You never know in advance. I think I’m spud picking.”

“What are Raymond and I going to do?”

He had a word with a man carrying a clip-board.”

“Bracken cutting,” he said.

“What’s bracken?”

“You’ll find out. It’s not bad until it starts raining, See yah.” And he and two others jumped on a trailer behind a tractor.

That first week we cut bracken, stooked, picked spuds and spent a lot of time sheltering in barns from the rain. At
the end of every day Raymond and I were so exhausted that Cyril had to remind us we couldn’t go to sleep until we’d
eaten and that the dining hall closed promptly. So we ate, flopped on to our beds and then woke up in complete
blackness in the middle of the night. Incidentally, if you don’t know what stooking is, I’ll leave you to look it up. All I
know is that I never used the word again until I started playing Scrabble. Another player challenged it unsuccessfully
and I felt very superior.

When we had got our second wind Cyril and his mates invited me to join them after dinner in the village pub.

“I can’t,” I said. “I’m not old enough.”

“You’re doing a man’s work,” said Cyril in his direct way. “If you’re old enough for that, then I reckon you’re old
enough to get pissed.”

So I went.

I tried the beer they put in front of me - pints they had, of course, only women drank halves - but I didn’t like the
taste and when they were all busy seriously drinking I took my glass to the bar and negotiated quietly with the
barmaid for something non-alcoholic which was the same colour. The result was that I got back to camp that evening
without falling down several times. Cyril and his mates taught me some interesting songs, too.

At the beginning of the second week I noticed that Raymond was getting quieter and quieter and spending a lot of
time just staring ahead and answering questions in monosyllables. We were working in a field one afternoon when I noticed that he had stopped and was staring at a train steaming along the line which bordered it.

“You OK?” I asked, wiping the sweat from my face - it really was very hot some days.

“No,” he said. “Would you do me a favour?”

“What?”

“Well, I think I want to go home.”

I knew it took a lot of courage for him to say that. He was homesick. He wanted his mum. I didn’t laugh or call him
a cry-baby.

“Well, go home then. Tell them you’ve had enough. They said we don’t have to stay the three weeks. We’re
volunteers. We’re not being paid.”

“Don’t you want to go home?”

“Me? No, I’m OK. I reckon I’ll stick it out.”

“You won’t tell anyone at school, will you?”

“No, of course not.”

I could see the gratitude in his eyes. I remember thinking that, since my mother was looking to Raymond to look

after me, if he went back I ought to go with him. But I didn’t want to. I didn’t need looking after any more. Anyway,
there was Cyril and his mates.

So Raymond talked to the camp commandant and was driven to Carlisle station next morning. Cyril grimaced.

“I didn’t think he’d stay the course,” he said. “You can always tell.”

“What about me?” I said. “He’s older than me.”

“You?” said Cyril. “You’re a stubborn bastard. You’ll stick at anything you decide to do. Believe me, I can tell.”
That, I think, is when I first felt grown up.

I have never been back to Talkin Tarn. My RAC map tells me that there is an ancient windmill there. At least there

was in 1999. I don’t do much travelling these days, so I don’t have to keep my maps up to date. If you know any of

the places I have mentioned I would be glad to hear from you. And if you happen to be the barmaid who swapped my

beer for a sarsaparilla or a dandelion and burdock or whatever - Cheers!