Patients, Pills and Partridges by Tom Ferrier

Author:Tom Ferrier
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
Published: 2020-07-29T00:00:00+00:00

The Gamekeeper

Sometimes a simple doctor-patient relationship leads to a friendship that you slip into without really noticing. On the surface, we were so very different that it is hard to determine why we became friends in the first place, let alone remained friends even after I left Norfolk. What we had was a gentle, low-key relationship that made no demands on either side. The truth was that we both enjoyed each other’s company. George could give free range to his wealth of stories and his deep understanding of the wonders of his outdoor workplace and the wild nature around him, without fear of criticism or interruption. In turn, I lost myself in those tales and found the problems of my professional and family life lifted from my shoulders.

Later, when George had retired and I had moved on to wide, open skies in continental Europe, our contacts were confined to an annual Christmas morning telephone call, a ritual that went on for many years until one year, George didn’t call. He had passed away a few months before.

Should I hear the thudding and clacking of a large diesel engine, I am immediately transported back to Little Baddock and to George. Conversely, if I think of George, the sounds of diesel engines fill my mind. My memories contain no sadness, just the pleasure of carefree moments in that country idyll in deepest East Anglia, listening to George.

Norfolk exposes itself in a most undignified manner to the rude, icy blast of the north-east winds by protruding, like a Victorian lady’s bustle on the rump of England, into the cold waters of the North Sea. To the fruit farmer, this brings peculiar problems. In the early spring, as the buds on the bare branches of trees begin to swell, the frequent heavy frosts and biting cold winds can ruin a crop even before the leaves appear.

Three miles out of King’s Longville, on the Grantley road just before the village of Little Baddock, was a tract of land belonging to the manor estate. There they had overcome the problem of frost-related damage by the clever application of a simple scientific principle. They protected the emerging buds by spraying the fruit trees and bushes with thousands of gallons of water pumped from flooded pits dug in the marshy banks of the meandering River Whitewater. Water, as it freezes, gives up latent heat. So long as spraying was continued throughout the period of a frost, the buds would be kept snug and warm. The trees, heavily laden with sheets of ice and glistening in the pale moonlight, formed a beautiful tapestry. Beside each riverside lake was a pump house. These contained two or three diesel engines that sucked water out of the lakes and pumped it along the miles of pipes that followed the rows of apple and pear trees, and the lines of blackcurrant bushes. Rotating nozzles, situated every fifteen yards or so along these pipes, ensured water was evenly sprayed over the buds.

When the temperature dropped towards freezing point, an alarm bell sounded and wakened the sleeping farmhands.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.