Knock 'Em Cold, Kid by Elaine Morgan

Author:Elaine Morgan [MORGAN, ELAINE]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd

Billy and Olive – parents

Gran and Gramp – grandparents

Gareth – number 2 son

Elaine at 11 years

Morien with Dylan and Gareth

Morien Huw – number 3 son

CHAPTER 9

Idyll

On quitting Burnley, Morien’s first job application – for the post of French master at Abertillery grammar school – was successful. It seemed a good omen. But achieving the next objective, an affordable roof over our heads, was a far more difficult problem. We had no money for a deposit on a house of our own, as newcomers we were right at the end of the queue for rented property, and there was no hope of temporarily sharing someone else’s house as we had done when first married. The unspoken “no children” rule seemed as cast-iron as racist bans like “No blacks” or “No Irish” had ever been. When term started, Morien found lodgings for himself near the school, and I stayed with my mother while he spent his evenings exploring Abertillery and its hinterland on his motorbike, going ever further afield in his search.

One newspaper advert that had caught his eye had been placed by a rabbit-catcher. He turned out to be a rather posh rabbit-catcher, who had seen better days and been at one time a Formula One racing driver. Having fallen on hard times, the only saleable skill he possessed and was willing to exploit was a talent for killing things. Rabbits were a pest to farmers, and they would pay good money to have them eliminated from their land. That job meant that he was out for most of every day, but since his wife had recently walked out and left him high and dry, he urgently needed someone to run his house and look after the lifestock – dog, ferrets, and chickens – and put food on the table when he got back home, without expecting much in the way of wages.

He hadn’t contemplated having two children also in residence, plus a husband at weekends (Abertillery was too far away for daily commuting). However, I was the only applicant, and asking no wages at all, so a deal was struck. My skill at skinning rabbits and making rabbit pie escalated over time into the realms of high art, and living rent free meant we could make a start on saving up for a deposit on a house. The arrangement lasted for a year.

At the end of that time we moved into a solid stone house with stunning views, standing in its own grounds. It was vacant, and was available rent-free to anyone who chose to live in it. It had nevertheless been empty for four years. It was a farmhouse built high on a mountainside a few miles from the village of Michaelchurch Eskley, near the border between Radnorshire and Herefordshire. There was no electricity, no gas, no telephone, no piped water, and no mains drainage. There was a lane leading up to the house but it led no further: that was the end of the line. There was no

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