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Started by Traditionalist, February 07, 2007, 02:08:05 AM

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Traditionalist

Hazel Joe was possessed of a number of remarkable skills and characteristics, his odd and extremely scruffy appearance notwithstanding.
I mentioned that he gave an overall impression of "greyness", apart from his dark penetrating eyes.  This is extremely difficult to explain. 
One did indeed get the impression that he would disappear if one looked away.  This was in point of fact not just an impression, he could actually do it.

In the woods, he was perfectly silent, and he just faded away when he wanted to. It took me several years to get anywhere near as good at it, and I considered myself to be at a very grave disadvantage to begin with, as although my clothes were not exactly the height of fashion either, they were neither scruffy enough nor old enough. Indeed, it was some considerable time before I actually realised that the clothes had nothing to do with his skills in this regard. My bright red hair was also a serious disadvantage, I stood out in a crowd, or indeed in the woods for that matter! Joe simply vanished.

Years later, when watching kung-fu films, I was struck by one particular skill that Shaolin monks of the highest skill level apparently possess, the ability to disappear, and to leave no footprints, not even when walking on long rolled out lengths of rice paper in their bare feet.  The monks in the TV-films were swindles of course, and doubtless all sorts of tricks were used to make the films.  We had no long rolls of rice paper in Yorkshire at that time, and Joe invariably wore heavy hob-nailed boots,  but I have no doubt whatsoever that Joe could have done that as well.

When we were out together, he was absolutely silent. He could walk through dry leaves without them rustling. This may sound quite fantastic, but it is indeed true. It is a skill which may be learned. It is a matter of placing ones feet carefully, and in a certain way, but at normal walking speed. I have only ever met two other people who could do it. Perhaps the skilled backwoodsmen in America and other places can do it, but here the skill is almost dead.  For years I tried to teach my wife to do it, but she never learned it. She still sounds like a troop of elephants in the woods. At least to me.

(My wife passed away some years ago. I wrote this story from my original notes, almost thirty years after the events described. In the meantime even more years have rolled by at seemingly breakneck speed. I would give anything to hear my wife trampling through the woods again, but like many things, it is not to be.).

All of Joe?s senses were highly tuned, and some of the things he could do were almost magical.  He could smell a cigarette burning several hundred yards away, and he could hear a mouse rustling in the undergrowth, even in a high wind, when the trees themselves were rustling. I have often watched my cat concentrating on something in the undergrowth which I could not hear, or otherwise sense. Joe?s attitude was the same as my cat?s. He knew exactly where various animals were at various times, could catch fish by "tickling", and various other means, with unfailing and uncanny accuracy. In all the time I knew him, I never saw him  miss once.

You may have guessed by now, that Joe was a poacher, and a very very good one. He lived from his skills, and although every gamekeeper for miles around knew him and his reputation, he was never caught. He was not the type of poacher who went along and stole tons of salmon, or flocks of partridges, or even more than a couple of hares. He took what he needed to eat, and he occasionally traded or sold skins and the like, but he had a deep and abiding respect for the animals he hunted, and his own remarkably hard code of honour. He hated towns, and very rarely entered one. he was quite pleased that I brought him stuff along fairly regularly, as this saved him a trip. But this was not the reason for our friendship.

My first trip with Joe was to catch a hare.  We had sat tying flies for some hours on his "terrace", basically two old chairs at the rear of his caravan, as he had said we might go fishing, but my flies would have to improve first, and he suddenly looked up and said "We could get a decent hare tonight".

He very rarely said much at all, unless spoken to, and often not even then. Sometimes a grunt was the only comment which might be elicited from him, and the meaning of such was anybody?s guess.   I made the mistake of taking him to my house for tea once, and to visit my mother, who was grateful for the meat which often landed on our table, as indeed it did on the tables of a few neighbours, and he sat for two hours on the edge of the sofa, apparently trying to find some way to grip the teacup sensibly,  while my mother hopelessly tried to engage him in conversation. She wanted to be kind. She simply did not understand his kind of silence. Afterwards she asked me what I saw in such a smelly, nondescript, and obviously ignorant individual, who hardly said a word. I was just as unable to explain.  Although as poor as a church mouse, and my family often in dire straits, my mother was a terrible snob really. Joe was not ignorant at all. Indeed, in his own particular way he as a genius, almost a magician.

Just after 01.00 hours, a bright moon, only occasionally masked by a passing cloud, saw us moving slowly along the edge of a copse which connected two large fields at their corners, and backed onto a country lane.  Fields were getting bigger all the time, as more and more farmers started using heavy driven machinery, and copses and hedgerows which harboured untold amounts  of wildlife were slowly but surely disappearing to make room for more "efficiency". Joe, quite uncharacteristically, had a great deal to say about this, and could indeed hold forth at some length on the subject.

We crouched down in the wet grass and waited.  I had not the slightest notion of what we were waiting for, and I was cold, wet, and extremely uncomfortable to boot.  Joe never showed any signs of discomfort. The ambient temperature, or the amount of moisture clinging to his person, left him completely unmoved. After a while, he reached into one of his capacious pockets, which were in fact small sacks sewn into the inside of his jacket, and produced a length of fine wire, some string, and a knife.

Moving up into the copse, he cut a stake about a foot long, and about an inch thick,  from a convenient bush. Rubbed mud on the cut, and buried the shavings, and we then moved down into the field again.

"Best stay here", he whispered, "You make too much row", and he moved out into the open field under the full moon, and disappeared! 

I don?t mean he wandered off slowly, or faded into the night, or anything like that. It would have been impossible in any case, the moon was bright enough to read by. He simply stood up, took a step or two, and disappeared.  Despite straining my eyes, and blinking, and staring at the field which lay brightly lit before me, I could see neither hide nor hair of him.

Twenty minutes passed, and nothing happened.  I was most disappointed, and even more uncomfortable than before, when he suddenly appeared right in front of me, and said "Time for home".

Assuming that the trip had been a waste of time, and having seen nothing anyway, I was glad of an excuse to move, and after reaching the end of one field and the country lane adjoining it, we strode out for home.

Arriving at the caravan, Joe said "We?ll ave a brew. Put ?t kettle on", and walked round to the end of the caravan.   I brewed the tea, and took it out to the "terrace". There was Joe, busy stretching the skins of two large jack hares on a frame of branches. His ferrets were extremely excited, and obviously enjoying a meal of the entrails.

"Nice hotpot tomorrow", he remarked. "Bring an onion. You can have a skin if you want".  And with that he took his tea and disappeared into the caravan. I sat and thoughtfully drank my tea, left the cup on the chair, and wandered off home.

In the years that followed, I accompanied him quite often on his "trips". Sometimes quite long ones. We always went on foot, and we never had anything more than was in our pockets. Gradually I learned some of his tricks and skills. I was privileged to see things that doubtless few men will ever see now, at least not in England. A consummate countryman in his element.

For quite a while I considered writing a book about it, but Joe was fiercely jealous of his secrets, and would have been upset by the very idea of it I fear. He was constantly amused at my desire to write things down.  He would tip his forehead and say "Its worth nowt if it?s not ere, books is for idiots", and smile indulgently at my obvious foolishness.

Since that time, I have read quite a few books by various people about poaching, and the men involved in it. The best were by a bloke called Ian Niall, he apparently had some real experience of the matter. Most of the others appear to be little more than romantic nonsense.

Some of the methods we used were not "sporting" in the accepted sense of the word, but they were indeed sport.  Joe enjoyed what he did very much indeed, and it was not just his livelihood, it was his life. I once asked him what he thought about some of it being illegal, and he said "Its only illegal if they catch you", his attitude to the "ownership" of various game was the same, "If you can catch it, it belongs to you".

Nowadays, such attitudes would get one into considerable trouble, and they have no more place in society. But at the time they did.

Next time, I will tell you about my first fishing trip with Joe, and  why if you thought otters were perfectly harmless things, that this is definitely not the case!

TL
MC

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