The Old Farmer

Walking down the road to Cropredy, we met an old farmer, he allowed people to camp on his land, "a tenner a night". 

The old farmer was short and squat, possibly an ex-soldier with a kind of London twang:

      "You're a Geordie, aren't you?"

      "No, I'm from Bury, the north-west, not the north-east"

      "Well, you sound like a Geordie to me, don't you?"

 

The old farmer smiled at me, as he playfully wound my friend up like a cuckoo clock.

 

The old farmer lived in a long, narrow caravan, no farm building in sight. Suddenly, something caught my friend's eye:

      "Gosh, I've just seen a rat near your caravan!"

      "Ha-ha, no worries, my old Tabby'll take care of that".

The old farmer then recalled a strange tale. 

He'd hired an oddball-Frenchman as a farmhand. But there'd been some kind of disagreement, and Pierre had dug up the farmer's land in the middle of the night.

We liked our new friend, he gave us some advice:

      "You know what the BBC stands for, don't you?

      "Yeah, the ..."

      "The B%ll-shit Broadcasting Company!"

      "Yeah, of course"

      "Them b%stards wouldn't know the truth if it hit them in the face".

The old farmer had just one request, to stay on his land:

      "Just one important thing, lads, the bathrooms are deluxe, please treat them with respect"

      "Yeah, of course".

      "You know, not often, but it happens, some knob-heads splash their sh%t around them"

      "Oh gosh".

Our new friend was true to his word, the toilets were almost penthouse standard, he looked after his campers properly.

We asked our new friend about Cropredy:

 

      "Will you be going to the Festival?"

      "No, not my kind of thing, that crew on there, can't sing"

      "Ha-ha"

      "I like somebody who can really sing like Roy Orbison or Gene Pitney"

      "Yeah, I see what you mean".

The next morning, we met the old farmer at the gate, just as we were leaving. He told us about his plan of moving to Dorset, we talked about Thomas Hardy a bit. Half an hour later, we were on our way. My friend and I liked the old farmer. He had the time of day to have a chat. He liked making people laugh.