The lecturer droned on. The exponential rise in sheep numbers through the middle of the twentieth century, he was saying, was caused by the introduction of aerial topdressing in 1949, relatively cheap superphosphate, and high prices for meat and wool. Government subsidies helped…….but he lost me after sheep, as I recalled my own special lamb, Jennifer Rose.
My grandmother, whom we called Nan, was quite a formidable woman. Tough? She had to be. Her husband, who was fifteen years older than her, became crippled and confined to a wheelchair, and when her only son, my father, went away to fight in WW2, she was left to run the 500 acre farm alone. An accomplished horsewoman and a champion milker (she could milk eight cows an hour by hand) she was just as at home in the pig sty as she was dressed up in her fitch fur coat, driving her purple V8 Chevrolet into town.
Nan lived in a large handmade concrete block house but when my father returned from war with his Welsh bride, they were housed in a tiny wooden matchbox of a house which lacked both a bathroom and an inside toilet. My sister and I grew up there and we called in on Nan often. We were always careful to show respect, and to remove any chewing gum, storing it behind our ears, when in her presence. Occasionally we would stay the night when our parents were away. She always bought us a cup of very milky creamy tea and a slice of extremely thin bread spread very thickly with butter. We hated it but we would never have dared not eat it or just ask her not to make it. If she told us to do something we did it, without question.
One time we were staying with her for several days, during which the school calf club day was being held. As usual, I had a pet lamb, Jennifer Rose, and the day before the show I was surprised when Nan told me to go and get the lamb and bring it into the house. Then I was instructed to put the plug into the white porcelain-tiled sunken bath and fill it with warm water, to which she added soap powder. Of course I did as I was told but I was discombobulated. Why was the lamb in the house and why did she want a bath run in the middle of the day? To my amazement, the lamb was then manhandled into the bath and we set about giving it a good wash. When the water was filthy, the plug was pulled, the lamb stood there shocked and dripping and then the bath was refilled with fresh water. Cups of water were ladled over Jennifer Rose until the suds were all gone and once more the plug was pulled and she stood there dripping. If I thought that was the end of the business I was mistaken. Once more I was asked to run the bath with clean water and this time to fetch the blue bag from the laundry. Just as the white sheets were always given a final rinse in ’blue’, Jennifer Rose was also to receive the special whitening routine.
I can’t remember if Jennifer Rose was conveyed to school in the V8 or whether the judges disapproved of her fleece being stripped of all its lanolin, but I do remember that she looked and smelled wonderful and my Nan had become a little less intimidating in the process.
What happened was... 