Nicola Barker - Burley Cross Postbox Theft

I sometimes feel starved of intellectual stimulation, of decent conversation. I used to enjoy the odd chat with Lance Tunnicliffe (OBE), but it’s been difficult to maintain the relationship since he moved into sheltered accommodation in Ilkley. I’m not entirely sure why… Perhaps I serve as too much of a painful reminder of his old life (now over)? Hopefully this feeling may alter, in the fulness of time.

Then there was Robin Goff (the inventor — or ‘The Prof’ as he’s known about the place). He’s an odd man, somewhat scatty, slightly sensitive and irascible, very intense, a keen fell runner, but extremely interesting for all of that. Unfortunately our blossoming friendship has recently been soured (I won’t go into all the sordid details) and I’m not sure if it will be possible to get it back on track.

The point I’m struggling to make here, Teddy, is that I still feel I have so much more to give… I just long to do something useful, something substantial, something of consequence, to break free from my shackles (self-imposed as they undeniably are) and purge this gnawing maggot of frustration that constantly and relentlessly seems to worry away at me.

I suppose this is all just part and parcel of the aftermath of Robbie’s death. A child’s death is never easy, but the death of a chronically disabled child takes its toll in so many quiet and insidious ways. It’s much less straightforward than you might imagine (on an emotional level), so much more difficult to ‘unpick’.

Joanna has coped with things by throwing herself, wholeheartedly (the only way Jo knows how!) into her many charitable pursuits — chiefly her animals. She’s become absolutely indispensable at Gawkley. I was speaking to one of the other volunteers in Ilkley the other week who said they were thinking of naming her their ‘Patron Saint’!

But it’s always been that much harder for me, Teddy, not least because I found the situation with Robbie so much more demanding — so much more challenging — than Jo ever did (Jo’s faithful as a Fox Terrier — loyal to the bone). I was always that little bit less ‘easy’ with it, less ‘natural’ with it, right from the start. I resented more. I gave less (or less willingly).

After he passed away I honestly believed life would just miraculously ‘start up’ again, that I would somehow (almost effortlessly) pick up where I had left off. But it seems like time has got away from me. Things have changed. They’ve moved on. And it’s a cultural shift as much as anything. I keep reading articles (in Nature , the New Scientist) about how geology is ‘the coming science’, but I still have this nagging feeling that I’m ‘old hat’, that I’ve jumped off the carousel, that I’ve missed the bandwagon to some extent.

Seventeen years ago, I felt like a lone voice crying out in the wilderness on soil erosion issues, but today there are many voices, all clamouring together, in unison. How to make oneself heard among them, I wonder? How best to stand out and yet still to fit in?

Of course, on a rational level, I know that this upsurge in interest can only really be to the power of good (politically, environmentally) and yet still I find myself almost resenting it at some level (absolutely ludicrous, I know!).

I was watching a nature documentary on television the other week about the life-cycle of the earwig. It transpires that earwigs actually have a set of wings on their back — perfectly functional wings — which they never bother to use! I found this fact both strange and extraordinary. Where’s the sense in lugging around a spare pair of wings all day, I thought, and yet never going to the trouble of unfurling the damn things? I mean why not just throw caution to the wind and cut loose, for once? Take to the air? If only as a novelty — for the sheer thrill of it? As an experiment! Because you can!

Then it suddenly struck me (with a sense of almost thudding dismay) that here I was — in all my hubris and my insolence — expecting the humble earwig (a mere insect) to step up to the plate and take exactly the kinds of life-altering decisions that I have always been signally incapable of making myself! Because sometimes I feel as though I had a pair of wings on my back — folded up but never opened, never tried, never extended, never truly and fully stretched out…

Have you ever felt that way yourself, Teddy?

On a more cheerful note (and much as it galls me to admit it), Baxter Thorndyke has definitely been of some positive use in this regard. He’s helped to snap me out of my funk (to pull me — kicking and screaming — out of my rut). As you know, I’ve always had my misgivings about the man. I’m not sure if we really see eye to eye on an emotional or intellectual level — and certainly not politically! It’s principally a ‘social’ connection, a ‘local’ connection, engendered, in the main, by my deep admiration for his prodigious energy — his enviable vitality.

There’s certainly no denying his magnetism. He’s deeply — even dangerously — charismatic (although cut more along the lines of ‘a pocket Stalin’ than a young Guevara, to be frank!).

I’m still somewhat at odds to understand what it is, at root, that drives him. I remain to be convinced that his motivation is entirely altruistic. But then who am I of all people (the personification of somnolence and ennui!) to stand in judgement on such matters?!

You may well remember that our ‘partnership’ (such as it is) began during his campaign to preserve the village’s grass verges. Joanna and I happened to have just such a verge outside our cottage, and were often frustrated to find people (generally tourists) parking their vehicles hard up against it before setting off on a ramble or a hike on the moor. The verge would invariably be either crushed or irreparably dented, and a considerable amount of work was involved in setting it right.

By and large the campaign (which consisted of a series of rehearsed, public ‘interventions’, a small flurry of newspaper articles, a firmly worded ‘Statement of Intent’ placed in a prominent position on the notice board outside the PO, and some tastefully produced, portable, plastic signs — on supporting spikes — to be pushed into the more vulnerable verges as a warning during wet weekends and Bank Holidays etc.) has been very successful, although there have, inevitably, been some notable casualties.

Wincey Hawkes (the landlady of our local pub, The Old Oak), came in for a bit of stick in this regard. She’s been encouraging coach parties to stop in the village (over recent months) and several prominent, central verges have suffered quite badly as a consequence. Don’t quote me on this, but I get the general impression that her trade has been rather poor of late (especially after that unholy bust-up following the darts competition on Dec 12th: a succession of tabloid-style ‘pub from hell’ headlines in the local rag are hardly conducive to an increase in your overall customer base, I’d have thought!).

Poor Wincey. From what I’ve heard on the grapevine, she’s still struggling to pay off the loans they took out for the extensive ‘improvements’ to the pub instituted by her late husband, Duke, who — just by the by — cultivated the most bitter and rancorous feud with Baxter while he was still alive. The two men quite literally loathed each other!

From what I can recall, Baxter was accused of using his influence on council to block the expansion of the pub car park. Duke was furious about it. His response was to spontaneously compose and perform a series of the most filthy songs about Mr Thorndyke — to general acclaim — while perched at his harmonium on the saloon bar!

He truly was a most extraordinary sight! While playing this wheezing instrument (and due to his enormous girth, he wasn’t entirely immune to emitting the odd wheeze himself) he looked not unlike an over-extended walrus, gently tinkering with a walnut!