Talking turkey
RAYNOR WINN remembers raising Christmas turkeys as a child
Raynor Winn helps out on the family farm
Three days until Christmas and I'm knee deep in whiteness.
But I'm inside, not out. Although my feet are ice cold, the air's warm with a raw, clinging, sweet smell. The radio, suspended from the rough-hewn oak beam by a piece of baler twine, is playing Christmas songs on an endless loop and Bing Crosby is still dreaming.
So am I but, when I pull aside the hessian sacking from the window, I can only see greenness outside. There's no hope of a white Christmas. The only whiteness I will see is inside, knee-deep in feathers in the turkeyplucking shed.
The turkeys. As much a part of my childhood Christmas as Santa or the hope of snow, but the preparation for their arrival began months before.
I grew up on a mixed farm of sheep, beef, potatoes and fields of barley, wheat and oats. The corn was held in huge granaries on the upper floors of the old Georgian brick barns. After the harvest, they overflowed with barley to be crushed and fed to the pigs, and oats to be rolled for the cattle over winter.
But one granary was always left empty. At the end of the summer holidays, a day was spent cleaning the dust and cobwebs from the crumbly brick walls, huge oak beams and slatted shutters that covered the windows. Then sawdust was scattered across the wooden floorboards in time for the arrival of the two-day-old turkey chicks. Tiny, chirping balls of yellow fluff that gathered under the warmth of heat lamps and pecked crumbs from my hands.
Four months later, the granary is full of huge birds with red combs and powerful beaks. They've grown big and feathered in their vast, airy space, where they run up and down, stretching their wings in the bright light from the windows that are only shuttered at night to keep out the cold.
I'm not allowed in there any more: the turkeys can knock me off my eight-year-old feet. One, much bigger than all the others, rushes to the door every time it's opened, with a cackle of ruffled feathers and fury. He's for Mr Whitmore, who wants the biggest bird we have. My job is the last in the processing line. I take the birds in their labelled plastic bags to the cold store, four at a time in the wheelbarrow. Parking the wheelbarrow outside the kitchen door, I run in and take my gloves off to feel the heat pulsing from the Aga. I then ferry the birds to the cold store. Beyond the kitchen, the rooms and corridors of the old house have no heat. They are the same temperature as the barns outside and the coldest spot is on the stairs. They're already filling up, two turkeys to a tread, one either side of the stair runner. I read the labels with their names and weights: Mrs Green – 14lbs 6oz; Mr Copley – 18lbs 9oz. By the end of the day, the stairs will be full and the tarpaulin on the living-room floor will be covered too. Tomorrow people will be queueing outside the door to collect them. Then finally it will be Christmas Eve and there'll be a Christmas tree on the carpet, instead of turkeys, and Mum will be making mince pies. Back outside with the empty wheelbarrow, I look up at the sky; heavy matt-grey clouds are starting to gather and it's getting a little warmer. Maybe, just maybe, it will snow. Christmas Eve morning and there's an argument on the doorstep. Someone's saying their turkey's too big for his oven. Mum takes ours from the pantry and hands it over. It's the only one left – does this mean we won't have one? It doesn't matter. I push past the squabbling adults, drag my sledge from the shed and run to the fields through ankle-deep snow that's still falling. From the top of the hill, I push off and the sledge races downhill, hitting the ridge, where it takes off for brief, brilliant seconds of flight, and Christmas is perfect. Not so perfect the next day, when I'm sitting at the Christmas table and Mum says we'll be having sausages. Until Dad comes through the door with a huge roast turkey on a plate. It's Mr Whitmore's bird – well, half of it at least. The Wild Silence by Raynor Winn is published by Michael Joseph, £14.99