CONSTABLE ALONG THE HIGHWAY a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain’s best-loved authors by NICHOLAS RHEA

Author:NICHOLAS RHEA [RHEA, NICHOLAS]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Joffe Books crime thriller and cozy mystery suspense
Published: 2021-05-25T00:00:00+00:00

The Aidensfield Oak. Planted on 29 May 1966, Royal Oak Day, by Doris Redfearn and Constance Whittaker, the longest living residents of the village. This replaces an earlier tree which dates to medieval times.

And there is no reference to their actual age.

Chapter 7

Claude Jeremiah Greengrass was one of thousands of dealers throughout the nation who managed to earn a living from buying and selling second-hand goods. I do not include genuine antiques in this scenario, but scrap iron, old household goods, second-hand furnishings, discarded ovens and washing machines, old cars and bicycles, dead cattle and horses, rags and bottles and a mass of other miasma which always seemed to be in demand. It was difficult to imagine why anyone would want to buy such stuff and it is something of a mystery how people managed to earn a living from selling other people’s junk. Nonetheless, it has often been said that everything comes in useful once every seven years, but why would anyone buy the sort of rubbish peddled by scrappies — as we called these characters? Their activities did support the long understanding among country people that anything would sell in due course — the rubbish of today becomes the antique of tomorrow, and I think such optimistic philosophy was inbred in second-hand dealers. In spite of everything, their activities must have had some kind of impact upon the national economy because there were items of specially framed legislation designed to cater for their work, and for others in areas of similar enterprise.

A glance at some of the terminology reveals a wonderful array of persons who buy and sell a bewildering array of merchandise — there are scrap-metal dealers, pawnbrokers, pedlars, hawkers, game dealers, knackers, money-lenders, mediums, dealers in securities, mock auctions, medicines, poisons, liquor, food, furniture, bedding, clothing, obscene publications and even assorted verminous articles.

I am sure there are others, such as prostitutes and poachers, whose business activities attract scrutiny from various officials, including the police, but for reasons which never become glaringly obvious. Claude Jeremiah Greengrass, a dealer of considerable local esteem, seemed able to exempt himself from most of the rules governing others of his kind.

Even now, I have little idea how he managed to distance himself from the welter of legal provisions. For example, when the Scrap-Metal Dealers Act of 1964 became effective, he said his premises were not a scrap-metal store; they were a smallholding chiefly concerned with furniture, vegetable produce and livestock. Then, when someone suggested he should obtain a pedlar’s licence, he said it did not apply to him because he did not travel on foot exposing for sale his goods, wares or merchandise, and he claimed he was not a hawker because he did not use a horse as a beast of burden.

He maintained that his scruffy dog, Alfred, was not a beast of burden and assured the authorities that he did not deal solely in game, so he was not a game dealer, nor did he lend money at exorbitant

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