Fifty Years Ago: Saturday, 24th July 1976
(Appleby Castle, Age 14.9)
Appleby Open Day. Get up early.
Dad said thet the Eden Fly Fishing Club had spotted his Coscoroba Swan – it’s the smallest living swan species, native to South America, Dad tells me, going on to explain that it’s more closely related to whistling ducks and geese than to other true swans. His interest in birds is lost on me, as was the swan.
It was one of a growing collection of rare breeds Dad had recently acquired, rescued or traded as he built up the Rare Breeds Conservation Centre at Appleby Castle. By then, there were all sorts of creatures scattered around the grounds and moats: mute swans, black swans, trumpeter swans, geese of various breeds, ducks varieties beyond counting and impossible to distinguish, peacocks, white park and Soay sheep, and Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs. As well as a number of rescued birds of prey. Escapees were hardly unusual. Animals got out. Gates were left open. Storms damaged fences. Visitors wandered where they should not. The castle grounds were full of opportunities for something to go wrong.
The old moats around the castle had never historically held water, but Dad had them puddled with clay and turned into enclosures and water features. Increasingly, the Castle and grounds felt llike a mixture of cohabiting and symbiotic communities: a business HQ, a management training centre, a rare breeds centre, an historic Castle and grounds, kitchen gardens and a private home. Looking back there are many who were grateful for my fathers iniatives as it brought a major employer to the town.
The Open Day was underway, visitors drifting through the grounds, peering into enclosures and wandering wherever curiosity took them: up the Keep though one floor was missing and it was mostly full of dove droppings. The swan we were told was up by the viaduct.
I went down to the boathouse and got the boat ready. The canoe was a traditional Canadian canoe, canvas stretched over a wooden frame. I loved it. I had spent enough hours on the river to feel completely at home in it. I’d navigated up river the other side of the weir several times and go into town until the water got too shallow. Water held the same attraction for me as swimming. If there were a choice between travelling on land and travelling by water, I would almost always choose the latter.
Dad thought it would be slower than on foot, but it is much faster. Chris, the farm manager had already set out with a net.
I had explored stretches of it that were difficult or impossible to reach from the bank. The Eden twisted through thick vegetation, steep banks and muddy margins. You could spend hours stumbling through undergrowth and never get close to a bird. From the water, you could see everything.
At fourteen, there were not many occasions when I knew something my father did not. This was one of them.
I found the Swan at the viaduct and chased it down.
“Chase” perhaps makes it sound more dramatic than it really was. The bird had been pinioned and could not fly. Once located, the problem became one of herding rather than hunting, like moving sheep, or rather kne sheep. It was surprisingly cooperative. I imagine it was quite tame and used to people. I got behind it and encouraged it down river.
Between us, Chris and me, we worked the bird towards a creek where it could be cornered and recovered. Whether a net was involved or someone grabbed it, I can no longer remember.
What I do remember is the absence of frustration. That came directly from Dad. I remember feeling quietly pleased about that. Not because I wanted to prove him wrong, but because I knew the river better than he did.
His attitude to escaped animals was one of stoical resignation. Lose some. Keep most. Learn from mistakes. Don’t make the same one twice. There was never much point in getting angry about something that had already happened.
When Dad turned up, I give him a lift back all the way in the canoe.
Reading the diary fifty years later, this is the sentence that interests me most. Dad did not say, “You were right.” He did not tell me I had handled the situation well. I do not remember hearing words of praise very often at all. But he got into the canoe. That was enough.
His willingness to abandon his original assumption and accept my solution was, in its own way, a form of respect. He had expected the river route to be slower. It turned out to be faster. He accepted that without fuss or defensiveness. Looking back, that may be what I am really recording here.
The swan is almost incidental. What remains is the memory of understanding the landscape better than my father, making the correct judgement and seeing him recognise that fact. He might have said so but I don’t recall it. He was a funny fish. Somewhat anally retentive when it came to his emotions.
Perhaps that is why the entry survived when so much else from the Open Day is forgotten. The visitors are gone. The stalls and displays are gone. Even the swan itself vanished from memory until the diary brought it back.
What remained was a brief moment of competence. A son discovering that he could occasionally be right, and a father secure enough to acknowledge it.
Years later, when we sailed together offshore, across the English Channel and around the coasts of Britain, I would discover that every conceivable mishap can befall a small boat. Gear breaks. The weather changes. Charts deceive. Engines fail. Plans unravel. Those voyages taught me many things, but one lesson was already present in embryo on the River Eden that afternoon: practical judgement matters more than hierarchy. Problems arose, you dealt with them. In fact things going wrong was half the fun?
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