Anton Coaker farms 1,500 acres of tenanted peat on Dartmoor, lying roughly between 900ft and 1300ft, enjoying just under 100inches of rain. he is also an active grazier on the adjoining common, the Forest of Dartmoor. He also writes a monthly column for the south west edition of British Farmer and Grower magazine.
For my birthday treat, my adorable little wife took me out on the razz.
You might recall I told you backalong that I’d been listening to Hayseed Dixie, a pretty daft bluegrass-come-rock cover band (I know, it sounds ridiculous, but it works. Trust me on this). Well they were noticed to be playing locally and we just had to go along and check it out.
Arriving on stage already clutching bottles of beer, sporting a selection of beards and bib and brace overalls, these ole Southern boys set to with their geetars, banjos, fiddles and a mandolin and charged into a selection of the rock classics of my youth. Not surprisingly, AC/DC tunes feature heavily in their repertoire. It is all done with a degree of tongue-in-cheek humour (well, you could hardly keep a straight face could you?) If you’re still struggling with the idea, imagine the illegitimate issue of a liaison between ‘Oh Brother Where Art Thou’ and ‘Spinal Tap’.
Along the way, they embrace the clichéd image of hill-billy backwoods America, both in song and banter. Lot’s of reference to moonshining and corn liquor. Introducing their song about alien abduction, they ask why abductees always claim to have had similarly…intrusive examinations? They close their set with a take on the ‘duelling banjos’ tune featured, you’ll recall, in the fine instructional hawg husbandry movie ‘Deliverance’. Knowing this tune was likely in the set, I wore the t -shirt my cousin had sent specially. It sports the question ‘if it’s the tourist season, why cain’t we shoot ’em?’
The Hayseed Dixies are a raucous, funny night out, with lots of thigh slapping yee-hawing, if you’re prepared to let your hair down. It should be observed that some of those assembled appeared to be bluegrass ‘enthusiasts’, who were a bit nonplussed by it all. Poor souls. Some of us, however, got the joke from the first moment, and loved every minute of it. I’m sorry to admit that your humble scribe was impelled to get fuelled up, having discovered that some dang fool was only charging £2.30 for a double (sadly, no single malts were on display, but a bottle of Jamesons was spied on the shelf).
He subsequently jumped up and down a lot and, to the lasting embarrassment of his chauffeur and PA and sang-along at the top of his voice. She finally had to lead him away, like a balloon on a string. Yee ha! Don’t miss the opportunity if it comes your way is my advice (and is, of course, my standard ‘one size fits all’ bit of advice).
Another birthday treat went past recently as well.
The boy had been promised, once the mercury got above freezing, he could take some of his chums fishing. Well, the time soon came around, and off we went. To be sure they actually came home with something, this meant turning up at the trout farm with six ‘enthusiastic’ little hoodlums. For the first hour, they could do nothing but, by turns, run up and down the bank shouting and then get their lines tangled. After this hour, I gathered them round and laid down the law. Be quiet, or there will be no fish. That worked like a charm. The minute the fish started to move, it was all the blood thirsty little monsters could do to keep pulling them out and clubbing them half to bits and baiting hooks again (the quietest, best behaved of this gang, Douggie, was in charge of the net, and a priest. Jeez! Different boy once his bloods up!). It was, as they say, like shooting fish in a barrel.
Anyway, they loved it, and Dad had a good old time to boot. The only catch? Well the catch is that you pay by the kilo on your departure, and the fat little trout weighed a lot heavier than the wild little things the boy catches up here! I won’t go into the SFP mess. We’re still lacking maps, and the RPA are making plausible promises that I don’t quite believe. Better crack on, lambing and calving apace.
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