Thursday August 1st 2019

C Google Earth

When I began this blog I had a feeling it would cover a year of changes, some small, some with a wider remit. And so it has proved to be, although I'm writing this on Thursday, the day after my sad topic. Yesterday John Purvis passed away. I can not put into words how melancholy this makes me. John was the best of men, possibly alongside my Uncle Bob in Essex, the best man I've ever met. Both were true countrymen, and Bob died the year I first worked at the farm with John. 

John was kind, compassionate and someone who took time to instruct me in the ways of farming. I was only 15 when I spent 6 weeks on their farm. A summer job, when most of my friends stayed at home and played on the swings. I wanted none of that, I needed to break free from Tyneside. I knew my own heart, and that drove me to a life of the countryside, of farming, in only the way a teenager can be single minded and focused. They would have me back the following summer. A year of torment followed, back at school doing my O Levels - I hated it. Then in June 1980, aged 16 and 2 months I left home. A paid job, an agricultural student, on a north Northumberland farm over 60 miles from home. I loved every minute of that year, and would have stayed forever if I could have done. 

Living in a cottage on the farm (in the middle of this image) this landscape was my world. I'd begin work at 7am and work until 4.30pm on normal days. Breaks at 8.30am and 12 noon. During busy times I'd work into the evening and occasionally near to midnight. But it wasn't work. I was 16, full of energy and very happy. John employed a shepherd called Neville but for most of the year it was just myself and John with help from the bigger farm a mile away, though this one was nearly 1000 acres, nearly 2 miles long. I spent every day with John, he'd tell me stories of his time farming in Australia, driving for hundreds of miles just to get a drink, or his days in Hampshire before he and the extended family moved to two estates in Northumberland in the mid 1970's. 

John smoked a pipe - a silver stemmed pipe with a black bowl. I can't remember the make of the tobacco, but I can smell it still after all those years, and only a few years ago walking down a Bristol street that same aroma drifted my way. Memories flooded back. He was a dignified man, a doctors son (I met his father once, lovely man). John had thick dark hair, a deep voice, a gravelly laugh but a kind temperament. Yes if I got it wrong he'd tell me, but what struck me was his willingness to pass on his considerable knowledge to this teenage sponge, and treat me, someone 30 years his junior as almost an equal. Typified by Christmas Day that year when he asked me to look after the animals as he'd not had a Christmas Day off in years, and with a young family he'd like to spend it with them. Of course he was on the farm if anything happened, but trusted me to do the right thing in a mature way, many 16 year old's wouldn't have done.  He taught me to drive, to inject animals, husbandry, how to think long term, and how to weld, though I've never done this since then.

What a year, and what a man. I lost touch with the family for a while after leaving the farm. Then around 25 years ago caught up with them again and visited a few times, always with a job to do which I enjoyed. Then on the 6th January 2001 John got up with a blinding headache. Later he went up 24 acre to check on the horses and sheep and collapsed to only be found a while later having not returned. A massive  brain hemorrhage and for the last 18 years he has been bed bound, his view outside from a window over the garden and fields, the only connection with the farm he loved. The family rallied around and have done a superhuman job looking after John and keeping him  at home. I last saw him 3 years ago and we had a long chat about the old days, his speech was slurred but the old John was still there, the mischievous and kind man glowing from his damaged  and dysfunctional body. I've thought of John most weeks, a real countryman, locked in that body, locked in that room, with only the view. He was much much too good a man to have that happen to him. His passing is really the end of an era for me, and for his family (who I'll not name on purpose) during this year of change. RIP John, possibly alongside my Uncle Bob in Essex, the best man I've ever met.