Constable on the Hill (16 page)

“Is the parish hall free on Saturday, Vicar?” asked Gilbert.

“It’s free today and Saturday,” he said. “Does that give us time to get things fixed?”

“Sure! We can run a dance. Charge ten bob per person for entry, run a bar and a raffle, lay on a supper and we’ll make enough to give John a decent burial. Great idea!” George was delighted with the scheme.

And so the function was organised. I have never seen a village committee work so quickly. I left because I had to see a man about a witness statement relating to a traffic accident in York, but the committee remained on the pub premises to work upon the idea. Before tea-time that Friday evening, posters had been handwritten and distributed, the lads seen about the music, the bar arranged, the vicar had checked the heating of the hall, and the W.I. agreed to provide the supper. Their terms were half the proceeds for themselves and the
other half to be allocated to the I.J.F. – the Irresponsible John Fund.

And so the great dance was fixed. It would take place in the village hall, Elsinby on Saturday night, commencing at 8.30 pm. Tickets would be ten shillings each, with supper 5 shillings extra, payable on receipt. George, the landlord of the Hopbind Inn, agreed to let all his profits, less expenses, be allocated to the Fund. The cost of hiring the hall would be waived, and so a good “do” was assured. One village elder suggested that John should lie in state during the dance, with his clean body, probably with a shave and a haircut, on display in his excellent coffin. The notion was not considered viable because he wasn’t president of anything, or an
archbishop
.

At eight o’clock that Saturday, I presented myself in full uniform at the dance hall and was staggered by the size of the crowd. With half an hour to go, a queue was forming. The waiting people were of all types and ages – pensioners, farmers, young folk, professional people and even a
smattering
of visitors who had come to pay their last respects to a lovable person. The three lads who formed the group called themselves Hot Potato and were on stage, fixing their
electronics
and amplifiers, and tuning their guitars. They fancied themselves as the Beatles, and although their music was amateurish and noisy, with a lot of wrong notes, it was ideal for this night.

In one of the ante-rooms, the ladies of the Women’s
Institute
were frantically laying out plates of food, each plate bearing two quarters of a sandwich, one bun and one biscuit, with an unspecified number of cups of tea being allowed per person. They had arranged a raffle, with rapidly gathered prizes like fruit cakes, bottles of spirit, a chicken or two, and several prizes of a dozen eggs.

George had installed his bar in another ante-room and although all his produce was bottled, he was guaranteed a good trade. Drinkers of draught beer would come tonight – he had ensured that by the simple expedient of closing his pub in John’s honour.

The dance began with the opening tune of “Johnny was a Warrior” and the excited crowd squeezed onto the floor. The
place was heaving with room only to shuffle around but everyone seemed very happy. These rural dances seldom caused any policing problems because they attracted a good quality of person, youngsters who knew how to behave in public and who respected the property and rights of others. I had managed to park all the cars around the minor roads of the village and some had squeezed onto the car park before the hall. Sergeant Bairstow arrived about ten o’clock, just to make sure things were running smoothly and he remarked upon the good nature of the dancers and the lack of fights and other trouble. He had spent a large slice of his time in one of the local towns on the borders of Middlesbrough, where trouble went hand-in-hand with Saturday night.

Out here, it was different. We had pleasant ways of
enjoying
ourselves. I wandered around the exterior of the hall, showing my uniform prominently as I was expected to do, and occasionally I popped in just to check that the bar wasn’t full of children and that no drunkenness would spoil the evening. My worries were superfluous. The committee had everything under control.

Myself and Sergeant Bairstow purchased our suppers when the group broke for theirs, and by quarter to midnight, the dance was over. The revellers made their contented way home and I spent another hour in the village, checking that no one had broken any of the minor laws that the Government had inflicted upon us. I turned in, very happy.

When I called at the Hopbind the following lunchtime, Sunday, the committee members were earnestly counting cash. The bar was high with coins and notes, and there were little boxes marked ‘raffle’, ‘door’, ‘bar’ and ‘supper’. A
representative
of the W.I. was there in the form of the husband of one of the members, and when all was totalled up, the profit was just over £800. In precise terms, it was £806 15s. 7d. George had taken out his expenses for the purchase of beer and spirits, which he allowed the committee to have at cost, while the W.I. stuck to their guns by claiming half-crowns for every supper sold. The £806 was profit after all expenses had been deducted.

Harold the undertaker reckoned that his costs would be little over £200, added to which would be the church expenses
and other incidentals, coming to around £50 at the most. Another item of expenditure was the funeral tea. It was customary in these moorland villages to have a funeral tea, and it was fashionable among the best people, to have ham. As one old lady said, “I’ve buried four husbands, and all with ham.”

Some twenty years before this particular burial, the funeral would have been a long, drawn-out affair with everyone dressed in black, and a
cortège
drawn by a black horse. Bidders would go around the village, ‘bidding’ folk to attend, and another custom was that every one attending the funeral would pay a proportion of the cost. It was a relic of such a custom that helped bury John in a decent grave, although the method of raising the cash was a little at variance with past ideals.

The committee therefore decided to organise a funeral tea in the village hall and the W.I. accepted responsibility for that task. The costs would come from the fund already on hand. This was agreed. As the funeral was the following Tuesday afternoon, I made sure the body was released on Monday, in time to be laid in the coffin so lovingly prepared by Harold. On the Monday evening, it was taken into the church where it rested overnight on a bier before the altar.

By 3.30 pm on Tuesday, the church was full with
mourners
spilling into the churchyard as the bells tolled mournfully. Many were dressed in the traditional black, wearing clothes that had attended every funeral in this village for the past century or so. The committee had found six volunteers to act as bearers and John’s grave had been dug in a peaceful corner. As the sexton told me afterwards, “Ah laid him in t’quietest spot, thoo knaws. Ah thowt that if he was gahin ti pong as mich in deeath as he did in life, we’d better put him somewhere oot of t’rooad. Ah disn’t want my graveyard smelling’ o’ tramps.”

With the body already in church, the vicar began his service as only Anglican vicars can. His sombre intonations echoed around the church and sounds of sobbing could be heard here and there, with elderly ladies sniffing into black-edged handkerchiefs. The Reverend droned on and on, using the formal service and then he delivered his tribute to the
dead John. He spoke in glowing terms of John’s love of peace and solitude, of his godliness, of his desire never to inflict himself upon anyone and never to be a burden on society. He talked in emotional terms, but failed to
remind the
congregation
of the time he’d asked John to leave a communion service because of the old wayfarer’s pungency on a hot summer day.

He then quoted a little from Milton by reading “A deathlike sleep, a gentle wafting to immortal life” and ended with Byron’s words,

Finally, the bearers lifted the superb coffin from its
wheeled-bier
and carried it from the church. Everyone tried to follow it into the churchyard where the interment occurred amid more sobbing. Solemn prayers filled the air, a handful of earth was thrown into the grave to rattle on the coffin lid, and it was all over. The sexton, who was able to dig any grave in any ground and achieve straight sides, began the long job of topping it up. Everyone else made a rush for the village hall where tea, with ham, was laid on. John had been finally laid to rest. His tombstone, suitably inscribed, stood in the
blacksmith’s
shop awaiting erection at the head of the grave.

The blacksmith was something of a stonemason too, and he had carved an epitaph upon it. It read, “John, a friend of the village”, followed by the date and a small piece of prose which read, “A tombstone can neither contain his character, nor is marble necessary to transmit it to posterity”. The obscurity of this phrase made it very acceptable, because no one really understood it.

The tea was a mountainous affair and it seemed that the ladies of the W.I. had talked to their grannies and elderly relations, because it was reminiscent of a funeral tea of the last century. There was ham in abundance. It was a memorable day to say the least and it lasted from the beginning of the funeral until about eight-thirty at night, with the final moments of the tea providing beer for everybody who requested it and tea for the teetotallers. When the meal was
over, the drinkers adjourned to the Hopbind for further opportunities to say farewell to Irresponsible John. I went home.

I thought that would have been the end of my involvement with John, save for the occasional burst of energy in
attempting
to trace his relatives, but this was not the case. About a week later, I dropped into the Hopbind Inn at lunchtime and found the committee still hard at work. They welcomed me and offered to buy me a drink, but I declined because I was in uniform. A drink was therefore set aside for me next time I called off duty. It was a small ‘thank-you’ for my help with the funeral.

“We’ve all this spare money, Mr Rhea,” Dr McGee told me. “Our total income from the dance was in excess of £800 as you know. The funeral costs came to £243. That left us with a balance of £563 to be precise. We laid on that funeral tea – and a right good ‘do’ it turned out to be. All that ham! That cost us £120, leaving us with £443, which we have placed in a deposit account with Barclays Bank. Now several folk at the tea reckoned that John’s Fund should not have paid for it – they were old-fashioned folks who believed that bidden mourners should pay towards the expense. So
somebody
started putting money in a jug. Others followed suit and we collected £74 at the tea! That makes a balance of about £517, give or take a bob or two. We’re meeting now to discus what to do with it. Damn it all, we didn’t intend this. We just wanted to give John a decent funeral. So how can we spend it?”

“Have you considered a playing field for the village?” I suggested. “You’ve no cricket field of your own, have you? I’ve often talked to the youngsters of Elsinby and I know they’d love a field where they could play football and cricket.”

“Now that’s a grand idea,” beamed George the landlord. “Aye, that’s a right good idea. Jim Friend has a field, hasn’t he? You remember, he tried to get planning permission to build a couple of bungalows, but they wouldn’t let him. Summat to do with ribbon development, I think. It’s no good for grazing because it’s too sour. He might sell it, eh?”

It was therefore decided that Dr McGee, as chairman of the
committee, should approach Farmer Friend with a view to buying the field. It was reckoned there was enough land to provide space for a pitch and changing rooms/pavilions. And there was sufficient cash for all that. As they deliberated the possibilities, I felt elated. John had done a lot for Elsinby.

I called in a week later, off duty and in civilian clothes, and Dr McGee was in the bar, as usual. I got my free pint this time.

“Ah, Mr Rhea. Just the fellow. We got that field.”

“That’s great news!” I was delighted. “When do we start making it fit for play?”

“We’ve started,” he told me. “But old man Friend insisted we did not pay for it. He’s made his money, and he felt it was a good donation for the village. We can’t get rid of John’s money, can we? Anyway, we now have a sports field, and we are busy looking at suitable pavilions.”

The plans went ahead. The local reporter heard about it and did a feature in the Ryedale Weekly. The formal opening of the field, with an inaugural if late cricket match, took place one September evening and a good crowd attended. Elsinby beat Aidensfield by three runs, a good result. A small charge was made to fund the newly formed Elsinby Cricket Club, and so that project was nicely under way.

As a result, the story of Irresponsible John’s benefit to the village made headlines in some of the national papers. A local T.V. station made a short feature film about the village community and in all, Elsinby hit the headlines for a brief period. The field was named after John, and is now called John’s Field.

The fund continued to grow in spite of efforts to spend it, and after everything had been paid for, there was still £400 left. And it was gaining interest all the time. The fact that our story had appeared in some of the national papers resulted in the inevitable.

People began to claim relationship to John. Some said the money was theirs by right, but none of the claims could be substantiated. The committee made use of a solicitor who had a cottage in Elsinby and he reckoned the cash did not belong to any estate of John’s. It belonged to the villagers, for it had been contributed by them to a fund for use by the village, and
not by John. The living John had never exercised control over it. We successfully resisted every claim.

The finale came late one evening as I was patrolling Elsinby. I decided to pop into John’s old house. I often did this just to check that no more dead bodies lurked there. On this night I found three living bodies – three more tramps. They had a small paraffin stove in the middle of the
living-room
floor and were brewing soup of doubtful origins. It was evident they intended staying.