Monks, Miners and Moonshine

Northern History as it should have been

Did you ever wonder what happened when William the Conqueror stopped off in Durham after a little scrap with the king of Scotland? Or when the train wouldn't start on the day of the opening of the world's first railway? And did you know that Harry Houdini and Buffalo Bill visited the North East?

'Monks, Miners and Moonshine' takes a sideways glance at some of the North's forgotten history through the eyes of those that served the famous, but never made it into the history books.

Without its figureheads, recorded history would have as much meaning and direction as a train without a driver. The Great and the Good, as well as the power-greedy Scoundrels and Villains who seek to oppose and usurp them, have their dates of birth and death recorded for posterity.

However, even the Great, the Good and their evil opponents would have been seriously inconvenienced without someone to cut their hair, weed their garden and wash their dirty linen.

It is through the eyes of these people (whose names are not followed by two dates separated with a hyphen) that Valley Writers have tried to imagine, and to tell again, some of the incidents, both familiar and obscure, which make the history of our Northern region such a rich one.

Since the publication of the book Valley Writers have turned some of the stories into playlets with the idea in mind to have them performed at various community venues. With the playlets being interchangeable, programmes can be easily adapted to the different characters of audiences. Anyone interested in these plays please .

There are details about how to buy the book at the foot of the page, meanwhile here are some extracts:

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In 1486, Monks at Rainton in Durham County learned how to mine coal from beneath the natural water drainage level. This is a speculation on how they might have developed the technique.

WEEKEND LEAVE

John Gamblin

Brother Ullrick groaned in exasperation as he sat against the undressed stone in the corner of his minute cell. The only furniture, a wooden cot with its single roughly woven blanket, was forbidden territory until after Vespers and Ullrick was not tempted to add to the trouble, already heading his way over the matter of the socks.

A soft tap on his cell door interrupted his melancholy and the cautious opening revealed the face of Brother William, the dull light making his red hair appear even redder.

'I saw the light under your door. Why aren't you at work?'

'Why aren't you?' replied Ullrick.

'I've been suspended.'

Ullrick felt no surprise at the news. He had warned his friend often enough that his apprenticeship in the Abbey Brewhouse could be jeopardised if he continued to sample the production as liberally as was his custom.

'What was it,' he asked, 'the ale or the mead?'

'Hey, that's unfair! What makes you think it ...'

'I've told you a dozen or more times that your addiction will earn you a spell of stable duty.'

'My addiction? It's not "my addiction" when stock reaches its sell by date is it? Oh no. Then it's all, "Good Brother William." "Clever Brother William." "Do you need a hand, Brother William?'

Ullrick interrupted, 'OK. OK. Don't get your habit in a twist. It's your liver not mine.'

'I'm supposed to test it, man. It's my job.'

'Your job is it?. I know the Abbot says be happy in your job but I think he would see a difference between being happy and being merry.' retorted Ullrick.

William scowled irritably, 'What about you then?'

'I'm suspended, too.'

'Why?'

'Socks.'

'Socks? You mean those sheepskin tube things your mother made?'

The same. Old Kendrick spotted me wearing them.'

'But he brought them in to you.'

'He did indeed.'

'Still, on second thoughts, I think you huffed him when you took the initials from the message on the package to give those things a name. "Sent Over Care of Kendrick, son.' I mean, would anyone want to be connected with those raggy bits of lambswool? Socks! What a stupid word.'

'I don't know. He was all right until he stopped going to visit me Mam. That was after me Dad asked if he could learn to play the lyre too. Mind you, I could never understand how three of them would manage to play such an instrument in that one bed - it was crowded enough with only Kendrick and me Mam.'

'Hey, Ully, forget it man, cheer up. You knew you weren't supposed to wear them at work. Persocka non grata as Brother Claudius might say in the Latin class.' William laughed.

'That's easy for you to say, working in the Brewhouse. Just try sitting and painting cherubs and ivy leaves around capital letters for eight hours with your feet on a stone floor.'

'Aye I can see that but remember, in here, we all have a cross to bear.' William paused, deep in thought, 'I'm still puzzled. How did old Nosy spot them?'

Ullrick, head down, examined the stone slabs covering his cell floor with scrupulous attention.

'Come on.' William persisted 'You always wear your habit long enough to sweep the cloister floor. How did Nosy manage to see your covered feet?'

Ullrick fidgeted. William waited.

William slapped his companion's tonsure, 'Hey, wake up man!'

'Lay off! That's enough. I was watching Sister Beatrice going to the Abbot's rooms.'

'Well, by my sanctified still! Watching Sister Beatrice were you? You'll end up in the stocks m' lad.'

Ullrick continued his appraisal of the stone flagging.

'And that begs another question', William continued, 'how could you manage to see her?'

'Through the window, stupid.'

'Not so much of the stupid, if you don't mind. That window is more than six feet high.'

'I stood on a chair.'

'You stood on a chair?' William emphasised each word.

'That's how Kendrick saw the socks.'

By now, socks had ceased to interest William.

'Let me get this right. You stood on a chair to watch Sister Beatrice going to the Abbot's rooms. Is that what you're saying?'

Ullrick nodded, his foot tracing the line between two slabs.

'How did you know she would be there? I mean; at that point; at that time.'

'She goes every day - straight after Matins.'

'And you watch her every day, of course.'

'When old Nosy is otherwise engaged. She's different to the others somehow. Y' know, when she moves. The others kind of glide as if they were on rollers but she, well, she bounces. Yes, that's it. Every part of her bounces.'

William joined his friend in stone slab contemplation. 'I wonder what instruction the Abbot is giving her', he murmured.

Ullrick could not concentrate at Vespers and afterwards, a restless conscience rendered sleep elusive. He did realise his good fortune in having a place in the Monastery. He had even avoided the waiting list after asking Brother Kendrick if he could see the lyre his mother was learning to play. He remembered his Mother sitting up in the bed and asking Kendrick to do something about 'that boy'. The Monastery gave Ullrick both an education and a calling, a circumstance normally denied to the offspring of farm workers. Increasingly though, of late, the eight years to his thirty-first birthday, when he would no longer be a novice, stretched in an endless path littered with restrictions, like rocks to make passage difficult.

He had, once, voiced his misgivings to William who, after anxious glances all around, agreed. 'I know what you mean. Just two or three hours outside the walls would make all the difference.'

'Once in a while,' Ullrick added.

Before he slept Ullrick had the embryo of a plan.

'I'm going to do penance.' He informed William the following morning.

'How?'

'I'll volunteer for latrine duty.'

William's face paled and his throat constricted to contain his surging stomach.

'That is penance indeed.' He gasped.

'Nothing less will do.'

William scanned the face of his young friend, convinced that all sense had left him. 'Why?' he asked.

'Because nothing less will convince them of my sincerity.'

'Ha! Ha! Ha! This is William you're talking to y' know, so let's have less of this sincerity claptrap, eh?'

'Just testing. Look, Willy, it's the only work that goes near to the old coal pit.'

'That's nearly as bad as latrines,' snorted William, 'What do you want with a flooded hole in the ground?'

'That hole in the ground goes under the wall.'

'So?'

'So, all we have to do is dig upwards on the other side of the wall and we can have Saturday nights with the lads.'

William stared in disbelief.

'Once in a while', added Ullrick, belatedly pious.

'All we have to do? Where do you get 'we' all of a sudden? You're raving, Ully! Completely, utterly, hideously, stone barking mad.'

'We can do it', insisted the potential lunatic.

'There's that we again. Listen, Ully, once and for all. One half of that 'we' thinks it's not only mad, but impossible.'

'Why?'

'That you have to ask, shows that all your marbles have spilled. First. The old pit is flooded. Second. If you could breathe underwater, which you can't, how far would you have to dig to come up on the other side? Third. Do you think a hole in the ground on the other side of the wall would go unnoticed? Fourth. Two monks doing the town with the lads on a Saturday night would be as inconspicuous as a grizzly bear in the chicken house.'

'You're just being negative. Take one thing at a time.'

'OK. How long can you hold your breath?'

'We won't . . .'

'There's that 'we' again.'

'. . . need to.'

'What? Not need to. How's that?'

'Because there won't be any water.'

William, tapping his temple with a crooked forefinger, gazed sorrowfully at his companion.

'There won't be any water. Right! Do you mind explaining this miracle? This water vanishing trick. Where is it going to go, pray tell.'

'Down the latrine channel, that's where.'

'Uhuh, I see. This is where the "we" comes in of course. I'm on to you, Brother Ullrick. I expect your "we" plan includes you filling the buckets and me carrying and emptying them. Well, it's not on. No. No. No. I fill and you carry.'

'Good man. You're right. We'll make a good team.'

William grinned triumphantly.

'Now', continued Ullrick, 'you go and find as much rope as you can and as many rags as the laundry can provide while I go and arrange things at the Tannery.'

'Rope? Rags? The Tannery?'

'Of course. What's better than leather for carrying water?'

'Try wood. We already have wooden buckets.'

'Not buckets, dimwit. A tube - like the one Mam made for my feet - only longer.'

'And the rope and the rags?'

'Trust me!'

When approached, Brother Kendrick made no attempt to dissuade the errant novice from his intended penance.

'Lost time will be added to the end of your apprenticeship, of course.'

'Yes, brother,' said Ullrick meekly.

'And, as junior calligrapher, you will have to prepare the paperwork.'

'Of course, brother.'

'In triplicate.'

'Naturally, brother.'

Five days later, the Abbot was startled when his copy was presented by Kendrick.

'Don't you think latrine duty is a bit extreme for such a minor offence? I mean, the boy was only improperly dressed.'

'He volunteered for it, to show sincerity in his penitence.' Kendrick simpered.

'Oh! Right. But I mean to say, latrines?

'I have heard you yourself say, Father, that if God had not intended us to shovel shit He would not have presented us each with a bowel.'

'Quite so. Very well, latrines it is.'

In the meantime William was collecting rope and rags. For every strand of rope and every stitch of rag he offered two prayers. The first, in piety, was for forgiveness and the second, in a fervent hope for undetected crime.

'Now what?' he asked, as he delivered them to the friend he now referred to, in the privacy of his brain, as "The Maniac".

'Come and I'll show you.'

Ullrick led him to a bucket filled with water and placed into it one of his "socks" through which a short length of rope held a bundle of rags. Immersing the sock so that only the upper rim was clear of the water, he pulled on the rope and the rags, tight to the side of the sock, forced a tubeful of water out of the bucket.

'See?'

Ostentatiously, William sniffed. 'I think so, but I could concentrate better if you would stand further away and downwind a pace or two.'

'Never mind that. Once we get the tube in place we'll empty this pond in no time.'

They worked incessantly, building a frame to hold the wheel around which the rope pulling the bundles of rags through the leather tube, would run. A wooden trough fed the liberated water into the latrine trench. Ullrick controlled a sluice gate, brushed the channel and, from time to time, checked the water level in the pit.

Their endeavours did not go unnoticed. Remarks from the Ropemaker, casual comments from the Tannery, took root and thrived in the confined hothouse of the Monastery.

'What are those two youngsters up to?' asked the Abbot. 'They appear to be working hard but are they observing their devotions?'

'Yes, Father.'

'Young men need to find an outlet for their energy. Don't you agree?'

'Yes, Father.'

'I think we should leave the reins loose while, at the same time, keeping a careful eye. What do you say?'

'Yes, Father.'

And so it was. Sooner than anyone expected, the underground lake was empty.

'Whheee,' screamed Ullrick. A sound which did not escape the ears of the watchers and within minutes a wondering congregation had assembled. Soon the Abbot arrived and a corridor opened through the throng to allow him pride of place. He sauntered through with Sister Beatrice bouncing becomingly behind.

William, winding the wheel, felt trapped. The Abbot smiled at him.

'The pit is dry now, I hear,' he said, 'does that mean we can dig deeper to obtain coal for our fires?'

'I suppose that is possible, Father.'

'Won't that be a pleasure?' said the Abbot, smiling at Sister Beatrice, 'But why is there so much water in the latrine channel.'

'Brother Ullrick is in charge of that department, Father.'

At that moment Ullrick emerged from his search for the best site to position the weekend exit.

'Ullrick. I'm curious about all this water in the latrine.'

'No problem Father. I simply open this gate and the running water helps keep the channel clean.' The Abbot nodded approvingly.

'Perhaps one day we might all have latrines with running water.' ventured Kendrick

'Take care Kendrick,' warned the Abbot. 'You are treading close to heresy. Do you imagine that if God had not wanted us to enjoy our own effluvium he would have given us all a nose.'

'Beg pardon, Father. My mistake.'

As the Abbot was leaving he called to Ullrick and William.

'Walk with us a little. We wish to speak with you.'

Sister Beatrice walked between the Abbot and Ullrick, who was so aware of the large mound of soft tissue brushing his upper arm, that he could scarcely concentrate on the Abbot's words. 'You have both done well. Is there anything we can do to show our appreciation?'

Ullrick glanced at William who appeared to be studying the effect of the wind on the tree tops.

'Do you think a weekend pass could be permitted Father? A spasm passed over the Abbot's face. Once in a while,' added Ullrick hurriedly.

'Why would you want to leave us for a weekend, Brother Ullrick?' said the Abbot, icicles forming on every syllable.

'Well Father, it seems to me that if our Lord had not wanted his message carried to the most needy of His beings, He would not have created Saturday nights.'

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Monks, Miners and Moonshine costs £5.95 plus £1.20 postage and packing (total £7.15).

Special offer: buy Laying Ghosts as well as Monks, Miners and Moonshine for £10.90, which means we pay the postage!

To purchase: send your cheque for the appropriate amount (£7.15 or £10.90) payable to Valley Writers, to 7 Hamilton Row, Waterhouses, County Durham, DH7 9AU.

These prices apply to UK sales only: for details of worldwide prices.

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Last update: 22nd May 2004

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