Bill ‘'ole

Olaf Chedzoy

Whenever I think back to my early days in my Somerset village, the name of Bill ‘ole comes very quickly to mind. He was an essential part of the community. I have this vivid picture of him in my memory. He was a little under average height, fairly strongly built, and he always tied string around his trousers just below the knee. He was normally seen around the village, sometimes working, sometimes not. With time on his hands, he knew a lot about local wildlife. He spoke with the local Somerset dialect.

Yet I never met him, never set eyes on him as far as I know. I think he must have died when I was about eight. It was my father used to tell us about him, what he said, what he did, how he looked. The bits he described fitted together to create this very strong image.

The first thing about him that I remember my father telling us is that he used to go to Taunton, nine miles away, by train, and walk back to cheat the railway company. I was born with a logical mind, and I couldn’t really appreciate why he did it.

One day, my father came in laughing, saying that he’d been talking to Bill. He always used the local dialect when he talked to him.

“Wur be goin’ vor yer ‘ollerdays this yer, then Bill?”

Bill, like many locals, didn’t take holidays as we now know them, but he’d sometimes go on a village or church outing for a day: usually it was Weston or Burnham or Blue Anchor. It had been the talk around the village that last year when Bill went to Weston, and somehow missed the coach home. He wouldn’t have liked that, he wouldn’t, for going away was one thing, but getting back was more important. It somehow made more sense of him wanting to walk back from Taunton so he wouldn’t miss the station, or get on the wrong train.

Bill had answered, “I bain’t never not going’ nowhere no more.”

Even at primary school, we’d been taught something about double negatives, but a clutch of five was a bit far. It takes time, even now, analysing and cancelling them out, to get at the meaning, yet curiously it was patently clear that he knew what he meant, and we knew what he meant. It certainly wasn’t ‘spin’ to obscure confused thinking.

But why did Bill go round with string tied around his trousers?

When I was about seven, I was sometimes allowed to go out on a Saturday afternoon with my father and my uncle and perhaps one or two other grown-up men to go rabbiting. Catching rabbits was a common practice, although it was an autumn or winter activity.

The method we normally used was to identify an area where rabbits had their burrows: I hesitate to use the word warren, as that implies a whole hillside, whereas we’d only be concerned with a small family group with about three or four entrances. By the time we arrived, the rabbits would have sought sanctuary underground. We’d select one entrance to be kept clear, and then peg down nets over the others. A ferret was sent down the clear entrance, and the rabbits, hopefully, would make a bolt out of one of the other holes, get tangled up in the net, and caught. One blow, and death was simple and quick: country people regard life and death in wild animals as a necessity for human existence.

Bill was the one who kept ferrets: he lent them out when he didn’t join the group himself. He was never there whenever I went with them. But it was a standing joke amongst the men to “make zhore yer got yer own ztring – an’ zum vor ol’ Bill” and then they’d laugh. It was explained to me that ferrets like dark tunnels!

About that time, one of the men acquired a shot-gun, a twelve bore. Guns about, a seven-year-old, wisely, I now suppose, wasn’t allowed to join them. It happened only a few Saturdays, but my father came back laughing because Bill had shot at a rabbit, and missed – and said, “I shot ‘un ‘tween ‘is back legs”. It would take an enormous amount of luck to do that without injuring the animal.

I can remember all of this very clearly. All the things he did and said add up to the picture of the man and his character. But what makes Bill ‘ole different from all the unusual village characters up and down every village in the land is just one of his utterances. I know, if I go back to that village now, well over sixty years ago, someone will know it and remember it.

The local hunt was in the village, searching for foxes to start up for the chase. As foxes are nocturnal a little bit of local knowledge is useful, so that they can dig out the fox, or put a terrier down.

Bill took them along to the hedge, and pointed to what might or might not have been a fox’s earth.

The huntsmen weren’t convinced. “Are you sure?” they asked Bill.

Bill had his answer ready. “I know ‘er’s in thur, I zee’d ‘un cum out.”

I don’t know what the huntsmen made of it, but the whole village had heard it by the evening. Bill was quite proprietorial about his knowledge of country wildlife: that was one thing you never questioned.

There have been great men who have been remembered for a single quotation. Henry Ford said “History is bunk”, while President Truman made his one famous statement, “If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen”. Henry Ford and Harry Truman may have got their quotations into the Oxford Book, but in my village, they will remember Bill’s and not theirs.