The market was the farmers’ domain. Wives didn’t enter unless to collect husbands and even then it was a dangerous thing to do

Ronnie went to his father. “Could I have some of these old slates, Dad?” he asked.

The slates, along with pieces of chalk, were taken to the university and put on display with a placard stating they were ‘Revolutionary calculating aid slates’. Big queues of students formed, eager to have one.

The only time Ronnie asked me for anything came later in the campaign.

“Could I have a dozen jars of your raspberry jam?” he asked me one morning. They stood glowing on a top shelf in the kitchen, ruby legions of them.

“What on earth do you want them for?” I asked in turn.

“Lord Mackie is giving the students free pies and pints,” said Ronnie. “I must give them something.

“The students at the bothy suggested ‘jam pieces’. They love your raspberry jam. It’ll be something different and unexpected.”

Ronnie began to gain ground. Every student, it seemed, was wearing a large round disc with VOTE FOR RON in large letters.

They came flocking to hear his speeches, which would be revolutionary, I’ve no doubt, although perhaps a little tongue in cheek. I knew that they would certainly be witty.

“Look, let’s cool it, lads,” said Ronnie one day to his group of student friends. “I’m not actually wanting to win this thing.”

Worried

But the university was getting worried too and I didn’t blame them. Some student undercover agent came across a letter.

It appeared that the university was investigating Ronnie and had written to the college he had attended in Carlisle to see if they could get anything against him.

Back had come the note from the college. “He didn’t do anything wrong” it said. “He didn’t join any communist or radical party. But some of the crowd he ran with...”

Ronnie got three quarters of the number of votes gained by his opponent. He heaved a sigh of relief; now he was free to go to Australia.

Ronald’s health was not improving. The circulation in his legs was giving him problems. He tried to ignore this but he took to using a stick, the smartest stick around.

He had several with beautifully carved heads; a deer, a spotted trout, a dog.

When he saw an unusual stick he bought it and began to make a collection.

His problems with health did not alter his neat appearance.

Ronald had never gained weight over the years, his clothes sat well on his slim frame and he often wore a tweed jacket and hat that suited him well and when he was going out, even to the market, he always wore a bow-tie.

“I always tie my own,” he would tell any farmer who, thinking it was one of the elastic type, would try to make it ping.

He was still very independent and it was hard to believe he wasn’t well.

I could help with the driving and took him about wherever he needed to go.

Once a week, to the market, was a regular excursion we made. In those days there was still a lot of business done at the market.

Information

This was the day the farmers got together, they bought and sold animals and crops, bought from the salesman, bargained, exchanged information, gloomed over weather and prices.

A Friday afternoon was the main market day. It had been customary for some time for a farmer and his wife to go in together, the wife to shop, perhaps meet a friend.

The market was the farmers’ domain. Wives didn’t enter unless to collect husbands and even then it was a dangerous thing to do.

You might find that your husband had not finished some lengthy negotiation. You were better not to go in and interrupt.

However, Ronald didn’t mind me coming to collect him at the end of the day in the market bar, and I came to enjoy entering this male province.

I found it immensely interesting and I loved everything about it.

There was the odd mixture of smells – rain, dung, tweed jackets, wet raincoats, and then there was the men in country clothes topped usually by a cap.

In the case of the farmers from further north, they were distinctive by their wearing of a deer stalker with flaps to keep their ears warm.

There was a healthy atmosphere about; the smell of outdoors, the wind, the rain and the sun-growing crops.

All of this was mixed, of course, with the smells of whisky, beer and cigarette smoke that rose like clouds over a hillside.

The main noise that you could hear was the babble of men’s voices.

There was an explosion of laughter from time to time, to which Ronald contributed often with his ready wit and his quick grasp of the ridiculous.

But there was hard bargaining done at the market too. Deals were done with the shake of a hand and no signature was needed.

There was nothing other than perhaps the luck-penny, the money that changed hands for luck, it was said; an old custom of the market place.

There were all kinds of farmers, of course, just like there are all kinds of people in any walk of life.

There were the greedy and the generous, happy and dour, rich and poor.

So poor were some of the hill farmers that they would be living on less than the dole.

They all mixed together as one, understanding each other’s problems.

No farmer was too cocky about what he was earning because he knew that next year his earnings might be drastically reduced. You could never tell. There could be a run of good years when the weather behaved and prices were good.

However, you knew that it was inevitable a run of bad years would follow when the weather refused to be anything but inclement, the prices poor, the government and the people against you, but you travelled on. Perhaps it has always been so.

In the poor years Ronald would say: “I don’t really know why men want to be farmers. Those who own their land would make a lot more money if they sold up and put it into shares.” More tomorrow.