It's quite obvious from the feedback I have been getting that many of you enjoy my tales about the old days and some of the characters who inhabited them. There's always a danger that I shall repeat a story that I have already told in the past, if I do, please forgive me, they're still good stories!
As you all know by now, Ted Waite was a good mate of mine up at Hey Farm when he lived in the caravan in the orchard. He looked after things while I was away and taught me a lot that I didn't know even though I'd worked on a farm for a year before going in the army. I always listened to what he had to say so one day in 1968 when he told me there was a farm sale up Esp Lane and there might be a handy young heifer going cheap I immediately agreed that we should go up on the Saturday and see what was on offer.
It was a nice day and we set off in good time taking a halter with us in case we had to lead a beast back with us. We watched quite a few stirks and heifers being sold and then towards the end of the sale they brought a blue roan shorthorn cross heifer into the ring where she immediately started to reduce the sale to chaos! She was uncontrollable and not surprisingly there was very little interest in her. I bought her for £40 and I think everyone thought I was mad!
We paid up, managed to get the halter on her and set off down Esp Lane heading back to the Hey. I soon came to the conclusion that she was mad and so was I for buying her but in those days you bought under what was known as 'farm sale conditions' which was a different set of rules to what happened in a regular cattle market. At the fall of the hammer the beast was yours and you couldn't chuck it up even if it turned out to only have three legs!
We soon found out that when she got too frisky we could quieten her if I grabbed her neck and threw her to the ground. (I was a fit young lad in those days!) Half way down Wapping we decided to have a rest so we tied the halter to a lamp post while we had a smoke. That plan went awry when we realised she was shaking the lamp post loose and it was starting to lean! Nothing else for it, we had to untie her and set off again. Big does and little does we finally got home and turned her loose in the field with the other heifers. As soon as she got with the others she quietened down and as we leaned on the gate having a smoke Edward and Vera decided she had to have a name. They decided on Thunderbob.
Thunderbob decides to stay with us.
