I had two grandfathers (I though it was neater that way). One was a quiet East Yorkshire house-builder whose regiment was virtually wiped out in the Great War. I would have said decimated, but if you follow the Roman way, that only means one in ten being killed, which would have been quite light. Grandpa’s lot suffered more like nine in ten losses – wounded, missing or killed – and I think they had to be dispersed or disbanded afterwards.
The author and his grandfather (I’m the smaller of the two)
He was supposed to be a very nice man. Apart from a few details of that action, lodged in the family vaults, I have some letters from a German POW camp, and then a picture of him in the uniform of the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders. I have no idea why he re-enlisted, and Grandma must have been very annoyed, having to build brick walls on her own for years.
My other grandfather was a master-butcher in North Yorkshire.
So I was in one of the local shops a while back, saying I could bone the joint myself, why didn’t more people sell proper mutton instead of lamb, and could they lend me any more sausage skins? And I told them at length about Grandpa Two, in case his background added to my credentials. We had to befriend a butcher, you see, because of the longdogs.
There are times when the house looks like an abattoir. I don’t say this lightly. We can have huge pans of liver on the stove, bowls of raw chicken and chicken carcasses on the floor, and fresh bones all over the carpet, which is distinctly blood-stained in parts. During these times I might also be shoving Django away and trying to dismember a sheep’s back leg.
I was a vegetarian once, and so was my partner. Yes, we’re lapsed, but we still like meat-free breaks. The dogs don’t.
When we took on our two longdogs, we found out that they’d been brought up on bones and raw food for some time. It’s also called the BARF diet, which is what some people might do when they see it. Our previous lurcher had been on standard fare and a lot of scraps. But we wanted the longdogs to be at home, and so we decided to try converting our aged chocolate labrador to BARF as well. We half-expected rampant diarrhoea, choking dogs, problems keeping the new arrivals fed properly and so on.
The actual result was that we became acolytes of the raw food diet. Our old dog loved her new meals, becoming more lively and alert. She queued up for her minced flesh with a distinct drool. Instead of toilet problems, we had three dogs who did compact, low-odour dry poos which you could kick around the room like golfballs. If you were quite bored. I even considered putting the poos in paper bags and offering them to the next lot of Hallowe’en callers. I consider children fair game. Can’t live with ’em, can’t mince ’em up for the dogs. Bah.
I looked at the success of the experiment. I read the labels on canned dog-food and saw how little meat there was in there. I considered the general pointlessness of kibble, which seemed to be mostly ash. And that was that.
So I beg bones from the butcher in quantities which I can barely carry and we lug them back for the pack. Django, the worst offender, eats a large sheep femur in about one and half minutes. In addition we have 40+ kilos of raw minced chicken carcass sent to us every few weeks. It’s like a serial killer version of Interflora. Add a bit of shredded carrot, apple, mushy peas, and there you are. BARF.
We don’t proselytize or preach the raw diet, but it certainly can be done, and can work.
And to end this tale of dismemberment, I’ll mention that Yorkshire is also one of the earliest locations for the Rawhead and Bloody Bones legend. No, I didn’t choose my title at random. I love collecting old legends, especially if I can nick the idea for a story. The best legends are really obscure ones, like local oddities which you can borrow without readers even knowing. The readers, when they finally find out, call it “Not making your own stuff up like a proper writer”. I call it introducing fascinating myths to a new and vibrant audience…
Rawhead and Bloody Bones has a long history. He may be one monster, sometimes two. The story of a bloody creature which lurks ready for unpleasant or misbehaving children seems to have been common in the North of England, and transferred long ago to parts of the United States. It dates back to at least the sixteenth century.
Rawhead and Bloody Bones
Steals naughty children from their homes,
Takes them to his dirty den,
And they are never seen again.
(I was also pleased when I came upon across biographical notes on Sir Thomas Lunsford, a Royalist commander during the English Civil War. Present at the sieges of Parliamentarian Hull (1642/43), he was sometimes known as Bloodybones Lunsford. His opponents and detractors claimed that he was a cannibal, and ate children.)
Anyway, back to Rawhead. This charming humanoid fellow may be found hiding under the stairs, gristle and raw flesh hanging from his bare skull, waiting for little miscreants to tear apart. His long pale hands reach up and grab them. Game Over. Sometimes he dwells in dank pools or other haunted places, crouching on a heap of human and animal bones, but he’s always waiting for the children. And I thoroughly approve. If Rawhead had occupied our house, then our son might be a lot better at hanging up wet towels, washing-up and paying over his housekeeping.
But life is not so kind, and alas for poor Rawhead, let’s be honest. The longdogs would surely have eaten him by now.
Crunch.
