The ambient winds had dropped and a blue sky smiled down on cold Harrogate’s dusting of frost and ice, so out I went for a bike ride. After my helmet (safety comes first, as we all know) I strapped on my writer’s utility belt (available via Amazon from £49.99, belt and pouches only. Okay, that was a joke, but maybe one day . . .) so was kitted out with camera, MP3 voice recorder, notebook, pens, diary and binoculars. All these essential writerly items were secure and out of sight beneath clothing, with minimal chafing risk and yet ready to hand. Thus I could look out for news-worthy items and write notes, record conversations and sounds, take still digital photos, shoot videos, make appointments and see quite a long way. All I needed was a phone hacking kit, slush money, night vision goggles and an ethics by-pass to be a News International journalist.
I was ready for anything, but my circular journey of six miles was uneventful until I met Jack. He was spreading grit on the steep path up from the cycle track to the road and I thought: what a sound chap. How unexpected to find a vehicle-free route being gritted at all, especially on a Saturday. I told him so.
“You wouldn’t believe”, he said “what’s been going on. People have got the local M.P. involved, so here I am again. It were all stones and mud ‘til this summer, when I put down the tarmac.” He stamped the blacktop path for emphasis. “One woman told me back then that it were a waste o’ money. I saw her again this morning and she told me it were a disgrace I wasn’t putting grit down earlier on when she took her dogs out. Then a posh bloke on a horse went past on the road and shouted that I was using too much grit and that the bin over there,” he waved towards a yellow plastic container, “will soon be empty and it was him that got it put here in the first place for the road and what would he do when it was all gone? You can’t win, can yer!”
I agreed and we spent a few minutes watching the antics of a robin. Jack had laid his grit and was now on with digging holes in the hard ground for fence posts.
“Soon as I turn my back he’s down there, looking for worms. I’ve got to be careful I don’t squash him. Course, this fence is being extended for the same reason I’m spreading grit. Health and safety! People don’t have common sense any more.”
I nodded. Up until recently I was an uncomfortable apostate serving with the Health and Safety priesthood and had to agree with him. ‘Common sense’ was not defined by Statute or case law, having been replaced many years ago by, in summary:
Suitable and sufficient control measures determined by competently undertaken risk assessments and applied to a reasonably practicable standard.
I shuddered at the memories.
I shuddered at the memories.
“I mean if it’s icy don’t it make sense not to come this way if you think you might slip? Or at least wear proper shoes!”
I had dismounted rather than risk a bottom gear dash up the slope past the guy in the contractor’s jacket, but now I could feel the mix of grit, salt and melting ice lubricating the new tarmac beneath my soft-soled Vans. It was time to move on.
“I bet if I told any of those moaners to take another route they’d tell me where to get off and do what they wanted anyway. Then if they fell and hurt themselves I’d be sued! Bloody daft, I call it.”
He carried along on this vein for a little longer. I was leaning on my bike for extra support holding both brake levers with a tetanic grip, but I felt a tyre slip sideways. I needed an escape route before I slipped and crashed to the ground, but Jack had found a sympathetic ear and was into his full stride.
“I used ter work f’t council years ago, but they ‘ad these daft safety types oo’d come round wi’ their notebooks and clipboards and big attitudes . . .” So many people slip into a stronger accent when getting worked up and Jack was reverting to type. “Ah sez to one on ‘em, ‘ yer daft wassock, ‘ow can ah do’t job properly if I can’t go up that ladder, eh?’ Ee just said to me, ‘You need someone to foot it and hold it steady.’ Straight back, ah said, ‘only one place my foot’s going in a minute, lad!’ and off ‘e went, meek as a lamb. Five minutes later ‘e’s back wi’t Clerk o’ Works and I’m on a disciplinary!”
I was reminded that even the simplest, most obvious beneficial measures often have a background of great complication involving Westminster M.P.s, the council, various experts, local people, single-issue pressure groups and, in the end, a moaned-at, underpaid, pissed-off guy with a shovel just getting on with it. Jack was putting things right, but still copping all the grief.
The robin saved me. He flew onto the handle of the spade as Jack let go to supplement his words with hand movements. “Hello little feller”, Jack was distracted so I took a chance and jumped back two-footed onto the churned up mud beside the path. Instead of sinking up my ankles in brown ooze, I hit frozen, lumpy ground and stayed upright.
“Well, I’d best be off. Nice meeting you, Jack.” I wheeled my bike up the path without a slip.
“Aye, and you lad. Take care.” Jack went back to his hole.
I hadn’t used any of my utility belt equipment, but felt as genuine in my new role as if I had scrawled “WRITER” across my forehead in bright, boggart-eye green. When I got home I realised that maybe another six-letter, two-syllable word starting with a “W” was as appropriate a label for a man who rode around wearing a utility belt.
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