Beating about the bush

In the 1970's I tried a few things in order to supplement my pocket money

Coming from a large family of 5 money absorbing children and with a Bank Manager father we operated on a strictly within means basis which was a sound grounding for later years.I have not, however, really applied the theory from my early years lessons in frugality and economy. My parents were fair in their distribution of pocket money and for every year of our age we children got 1p decimal a week. At the age of 15 I found that this allowance never went very far especially as my Speed and Power Magazine cost 10p per month and I never had the sense to save over the four weeks between issues. In addition I liked fizz bomb sweets and my absolute and still current favourite of sherbert fountains. It is little wonder that my interest in smoking was short lived and I stopped that pastime at the age of 12 fearing bankruptcy or withdrawal of finance from the IMF- Income for my Fags.

I did the usual paper delivery round for the newsagent shop opposite the Grammar School. In summer this was a delight with fresh air and a lot of cycling. My technique of scooting along on my bike between house gates on one pedal laden down with a sack of weighty morning tabloids soon cause chronic metal fatigue to the cranks of the pedals and their replacement devastated any profit from that job.

Potato picking sounded good in theory and with the promise of a kingly sum of £15 for a weeks work I promptly signed up. My mercenary attitude backfired big style as I had a round trip of 6 miles to reach the spud field and I had to buy packed lunch and liquids to offset premature death from such arduous work. I had not really thought through the physical demands of harvesting a potato, let alone how many of them could actually be found in a 5 acre field .The tractor had a rear mounted arm attachment that spun out the despised vegetable and a group of us schoolkids had to follow and quickly hand pick and fill up wire mesh baskets before tipping the contents into a nearby trailer. The field was wedge shaped and the first two days were totally demoralising and back breaking in that we were working on the longest rows and had no actual sense of real progress. By days three, four and five we were up and down the shorter furrow lengths at rapid speed and soon completed that form of employment. On the same agricultural theme I also spent a week picking out the wild oats and weeds as part of a crop yield study. Perhaps you could say I was outstanding in that particular field.

I also participated regularly as a bush beater for a large corporate shooting business. This involved wearing thick waterproof clothing all day whilst walking through dripping wet fields of Kale and Sugar Beet a-whooping and a-hollering and smacking the ground and available ground cover with a stout stick in order to startle pheasants, partridge, woodcock and pigeon to almost certain death under a barrage of lead shot from a front line of posh people out for the day in order to claim the highest body count of small animals. There was no more an example of the social divide than between a shooting party and the minions of the bush beaters. I often thought ,with head down against stray lead shot fragments in a head on beat towards the guns,that  if one of us beaters actually died from inflicted wounds in these circumstances we would still be retrieved by the trained dogs and hung up for a few days to mature before families were informed.

The afternoon sessions were the most nerve wracking as the shooters had just partaken of a generous, mostly liquid lunch and could not be relied upon to fire straight or even differentiate between man and beast at an alcohol induced squinting range. The larger animals of the fields and forests were wise to the approach of humans and were rarely ever seen in a perilous position between beaters and guns. I did enjoy the revenge of a huge Hare which, having been shot and then disrespectfully thrown over the proud shoulders of a waxed jacketed businessman for a photo opportunity, promptly evacuated its bowels all over the hapless individual. The stench over the course of the day was warning enough of the position of the guns. The shooting season was mostly in the damp and misty early mornings of the spring before any real damage could be done to the crops by waves of beater infantry. My income from this hazardous work was £6 for a full day.

I now acknowledge that I participated in some barbarous, cruel and, frankly, painful  activities in my attempts to supplement my pocket money but this has made me appreciate to this day the value of a strong work ethic in life. If there was a surplus of kill from the shooting party then this was distributed like and in the manner of charity to the scruffy and cold air induced ruddy faced beater brigade. We bowed and grovelled in thanks which the executive ladder climbers lapped up before alighting in their Range Rovers and Jags.

 Any pheasant that I presented at home was hung up in the shed for a few days and always ended up being buried in the garden as no-one had the desire to pluck, gut and dress the fabulously flashy male of the species. I did reserve one or two of the fancy tail feathers to adorn my rather faded and sweat stained bush hat to give my beating activities some credibility. I made a point of taking off the hat for the post-lunchtime shooting drives mindful that, to the half cut owner of a double barrelled shot-gun , I could appear like a giant freakish game bird and fair game for that.
A repeat from last year ......sorry, just had to see Skyfall at the cinema when should have been writing.