Bob – Carl Davis.

Bob savagely flipped open his mobile phone and shouted, “I can’t talk now Carl, I’ve a girt massive cow down a storm drain.”

“Sorry,” I said, “Do you want some help?”

“Aah,” Bob replied, “I’m down at the bridge in Chantry Lane, I durnt leave this ol’ bugger.”

The line went dead. I rushed to the kitchen, pulled on my Wellington boots and an old wax coat that I wore when walking the dogs, threw open the back door and hurried across the fields. The river meandered its lazy way along a steep sided, self made, channel about six to eight feet below the surrounding fields. At about an average of two feet or so deep the river was hardly the Amazon at any time but heavy or continuous rain soon swelled the river and the depth of water would rise and rise until the muddy, swirling waters washed into the surrounding countryside, farmsteads and villages dotted along its banks.  The Water Board was supposed to maintain the gratings but some were so old and hidden behind tree roots and overgrown undergrowth that this task was virtually impossible. Bob’s girt massive cow was stuck in one of these hidden gratings just up river from one of the many animal watering holes along the bank. These had a much gentler slope into the river allowing cattle and sheep to drink their fill at their leisure and most farmers strung a length or two of barbed wire a few yards up and down stream to contain their livestock.

I could hear the cow bellowing long before I got to the scene of disaster. Then I saw Bob’s battered old Land Rover surrounded by cattle a few yards from the edge of the drop to the river, and heard his cursing. Several animals had ventured down to the dank and murky depths of the stream and were very inquisitive indeed. The last thing Bob wanted was an audience. His scant supply of calmness had been used up and he cursed freely at the oncoming beasts.

“What do you want me to do?” I shouted over the noise.

Bob looked up with strained eyes and I could see he was worried. He’d obviously been wrestling with this problem for quite a while, and whilst he and his farm seemed run down Bob cared very deeply for his animals.

“Git these boggers out of ‘ere!” He nodded towards the inquisitive cattle. “An’ show em oose boss then this’un will stop mugglin.”

I knew from my sketchy knowledge of Somerset dialect that ‘mugglin’ meant struggling and with that thought plunged into the centre of the river and started to drive the animals out of the river and up the slope. With a lot of bravado on my behalf and more by luck than judgment I got the herd onto the other side of the Land Rover, pulled a length of rope from the back and stretched it several times from post to post either side of the start to the drinking hole slope. I peered over the side and could see the problem. The cow had been trying to get at a patch of juicy grass growing just below the grating. She had pushed a bit too hard and the grating in the side of the bank had buckled and she’d managed to wedge a horn in the bars.

“Get me the ‘acksaw, the girt big ‘un vrom the Land Rover.”

To carry out Bob’s instruction meant rummaging around in the piles of tools, old fertiliser bags and other assorted debris in the back of his vehicle. It took me a while to find the implement required but once I’d got it I hurried back to Bob and handed it to him.

“Aah,” he said, and started to saw into the metal bars. With much use of basic Anglo-Saxon, and several trips by me back to the Land Rover to fetch crowbars and other required tools the job was done. The freed bovine was duty checked over and Bob found several nasty wounds.

“Ahll probly have to git vitnary.” he said.

He looked at me, smiled a toothy smile, and noted my efforts, seemingly for the first time.

 “Not bad for a townie. Dinnuz do well. I’d probly larst ‘er if you ain’t called me. What you want?”

I’d forgotten in all the excitement why I’d originally called Bob but before I could speak he said, “Cuppa tay?” and held up a battered vacuum flask of unknown antiquity. I nodded and he filled the flask top with the much needed brew and I drank my fill.

“The vicar wants to know if you’ll be at bell ringing practice tomorrow as you missed the last session. He said he’d put Jack Greene in if you weren’t coming.”

“Tell ‘im I’ll be there. Now I’ll get this lot sorted.” Bob nodded at the cattle, grabbed a reel of barbed wire, slithered down the bank and soon had several new strands stretched across the river, both up and down stream.

“I’ll tell those Water Board people what I think of their blessed drains! Soo ‘em; soo ‘em I will,” he shouted from the dank depths of the river.

I collected up all the gear we’d used and stowed it in the back of the vehicle. Bob shouted he’d finished and I undid the rope that I’d placed across the entrance to the water hole. Several cows started down the slope, almost knocking Bob flat, as soon as I’d finished untying the last knot. Bob’s head appeared and he surveyed the scene.

“Aah,” he said. “That be a proper job”.