The scourge of poachers
No bulletin from the Clyde this week. Instead Alan Berry writes about the life of a gamekeeper and the battles between poachers and keepers 60 or more years ago. They could get rough when the police joined in brandishing cutlasses
When I was bound apprentice in famous Lincolnshire
Full well I served my master for more than seven year
'Til I took up to poaching as you shall quickly hear...
Oh 'tis my delight on a shiny night,
In the season of the year...
Old folk song
IT is almost pitch dark outside, and little stirs in the fields and woodlands around the cottage.
Ghostly owls call to each other before swooping silently for the kill, furry animals scurry about in the undergrowth while plump pheasants roost silhouetted against the sky. The moon sails behind the clouds and Long Harry Tilstone, gamekeeper of the Brodsworth Estate, having settled his long bony frame into a comfortable armchair for the night, waits, half asleep, listening.
He keeps his boots on but unties his bootlaces, placing his gun, his stick, his horse-hair rug and his gaiters close to hand.
For much of the early evening the only sounds have been the far-off shunting of coal wagons in a pit yard, a barking fox and the clickety click of his wife's knitting needles, but now she is long a-bed. Harry waits for the muffled gunshot that will tell him a poacher is abroad.
When it comes, that single shot could mean the prowler didn't need a second. Is he one of a gang, or perhaps he is an ex-army sniper and knows how to use a weapon? More likely there are two or three of them, out for a brace of pheasants for the pot. Will the poachers fight if cornered or will they run? Time now to be up and about. Time now to find out.
Long Harry gathers up his equipment. The rug that will allow him to lie low in the dark damp hiding places. The big stick for his defence. The gun? Pray he never has to use it except on a wounded animal. He moves swiftly and silently, knowing every inch of the estate.
Today's poachers are not the same as the apprentices of 'famous Lincolnshire' of whom we used to sing at school. The modern thieves may bring guns and nets and sacks, arrive with motor transport standing by, but they are just as cunning as their fathers as they swoop at dawn.
If disturbed, they do not always run. They stand and fight. Pheasants, partridge, rabbits are scarcer than they used to be and fetch good prices. Worth a bruise or two.
Harry remembers that years ago poachers came to South Yorkshire in gangs of 20 or more, to take anything that moved.
They were adventurous semi-professionals, prepared to pit their wits against the crafty countryman; they believed it was right to poach the rich man's birds for the poor man's comfort when times were hard.
Then, Long Harry and his like were watching for them every night.
By day Harry might cover 20 miles on foot, his route through his patch of 3,000 acres taking in parts of Thurnscoe, Hooton Pagnell, down the Great North Road as far as Woodlands, Marr Grange and along Melton Wood. These days he operates alone, except for his spaniel Judy.
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Latest sport He loves the silence of the woodland, but is well-prepared for the dawn excitement, the nerve-wracking moments hidden in the thickets, before the hot-blooded chase, followed by the fierce encounter with potentially fatal consequences.
He will begin a patrol just before dawn, never without that knot-headed stick. The harvest fields are bare, the bracken is down, the birds waiting for the sun. He expects trouble, even relishes it. His eyes light up when he says: “I like nothing better than pitching into them poachers. They say in t' village that when there's trouble, fetch Long Harry. That's what I like.”
He remembers the days when there were 13 keepers on the estate and there were more birds and animals to protect. A day's legitimate shooting could see a bag of 2,000 pheasants, 100 hares, countless partridges and as many rabbits as they could be bothered with. On the other side of the fence it was commonplace for the gangs to prepare for an evening's sport by cutting the trip wires that set off explosive alarms.
News of where the next attack might come was essential so gamekeepers employed special agents, like innocuous farm labourers, to keep their ears open and pick up any gossip in the public houses, or note any strangers in their midst.
When the opposing sides came together a pitched battle might ensue. The poachers used sticks, stones and bottles, the gamekeepers defending themselves with bigger sticks and home-made shields.
The shields were of aluminium sheet braced with cane and carried on the left arm. This armour was enough to save many a keeper from permanent or even fatal injury
“We keepers also wore white armbands to distinguish ourselves during the heat of battle,” said Harry.
“Sometimes when it was dark we used a flare, a canister of burning brimstone, which we threw in the direction of the poachers to light up the scene and sort out friend from foe. It was tough but nothing suited me better. When the police came one night they carried cutlasses, so you can see how dangerous it could become.
“Someone once fired a revolver at me from point blank range, but the chamber was empty. When the gunman was finally carted off to the police station at Adwick he needed a doctor, believe me.”
Today the rabbits are kept down, much of the woodland has gone for the growing of food during the war. Pheasants are having to roost on the ground where the poacher cannot pick them out so easily, but the stealthy intruders still come regularly.
“If they have been in the army they are probably good shots. They are noiseless and cunning and they don't whistle to one another, or tap sticks like people think they do. They glide along silently like shadows; you can only sense they are near you.
“But once I have spotted a poacher he will not get away. I'll follow him, for five miles if I have to. I'll get so close I can hear him breathing.”
At nightfall Harry does not seek company. Rather he will settle down in the silent seclusion of his cottage, half asleep, half awake.
The tall wiry man, in the big armchair, Long Harry, waiting ... waiting and listening.
n The above is an edited version of a story written in the late 1940s by RH No local journalist ever got his full byline in those days, and Reg Hancock was fortunate to get even his initials.
Reg wrote for the Yorkshire Evening News and Doncaster Gazette before joining the staff of the Yorkshire Evening Post in Scot Lane, and he was a good friend to all junior reporters working for the seven newspapers with resident journalists in the borough.
He had the finest shorthand of anyone I ever knew. An earlier career as a minutes taker for Worksop Council obviously helped.
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Friday 10 February 2012
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