A Tale From The Memoirs: LONG

A Sunday evening Tale from The Memoirs for you, just to demonstrate
that I haven't always been quite so cautious and discerning as I am
now. It comes from my days in service to the Environmental Health
Department in North Devon, whence I moved from God's Own Country and
the Smell Of The Tyne for advancement and a post with a Special
Project. They didn't tell me at interview that funding for The
Project wasn't guaranteed, so I ended up doing all sorts of off the
wall stuff for the first year while the Powers That Bain't got the
bean counters to fund me.

A lot of the off the wall stuff consisted of out-of-hours stuff that
nobody else wanted to do: grist to the mill to me, when I was living
in a 12 foot caravan in Westward Ho! with only a black and white TV
for entertainment; especially at time-and-a-half. More of it was
unfinished jobs that nobody wanted to finish, or shitty jobs that
nobody wanted to start ... being Environmental Health, there were a
lot of particularly shitty jobs.
Really shitty, involving real shit - or worse ....

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In the days before Euro Regulations, there were many little rural
abattoirs. They'd kill the odd beast from the odd farmer,
consignments bought at market earlier that day, right up to three-day
killing frenzies for meat producers committing genocide-by-proxy.

There was one particular shitty little slaughterhouse that always
reminded me of a distillery: built largely of corrugated iron
sheeting, perched at the landward end of a picturesque and
spectacularly rickety jetty on the tidal river at the end of a muddy
potholed track, it was the arse end of Nowheresville for decades -
until the property developers got hold of the flood plain.

Where do rising thrusting executive types with sharp suits and
forward-facing haircuts want to live? Somewhere unspoilt and rural,
with a river frontage and a view across the bay unobstructed by 20th
century appurtenances like pylons and roadways, of course. Somewhere
that they can have their 100-yard gravel driveways directly off the
main road artistically curving through 200-year-old oak trees, 40 of
which they have felled to accommodate their trendy low-rise mansions,
their pseudo-helipad and golf practice greens, their sheepdip-sized
swimming pools and the associated patios for their trophy wives to
stretch out their wrinkles and gain leathery skin lazing around.


Somewhere that land is cheap to start with really helps.

Somewhere downwind of a shitty little abattoir, perhaps.


It is a strange feature of Public Health legislation that a Statutory
Nuisance, even though obvious, is not actually a Nuisance until action
is taken on it or it is complained of. There can be all sorts of evil
shit going on that society would abhor if it was but aware of it - but
until it affects someone enough for them to moan to the Council about
it, it can be happily ignored. Such was the situation with this
shitty little abattoir.

OK, as a meat products plant it had been regularly inspected for
compliance with Slaughterhouse Regs and such - we even had a resident
Meat Inspector on the premises whenever killing was taking place.
There were known defects with the place, but they had been like that
for years and nobody had quite died yet.

Until The Executives moved in.

With their shiny BMWs and shinier Range Rovers, trophy wives,
squalling precocious brats, their flash jobs in Big City Exeter ...
… and their well-developed, town-bred, senses of smell.

There were complaints. There were lots of complaints, actually.
Complaints from the residents direct, complaints from Parish, District
and County Councillors. Complaints from the Assistant Chief
Constable, the Mayor and even, I kid you not, the fucking Bishop. In
short, the entire Lodge was up in arms.

The Boss was concerned. He had reason to be, having been bearded in
his den by a bevy of bulky old birds from the WRVS. He promised an
investigation. He promised swift and savage action, he promised
imminent curtailment and abatement of the Nuisance. He would have
promised anything to get the shouty fat grannies out of his office.
He promised to put his Best Man on the job.

He sent me. The ****.

------------------------------------------------------------

It turned out not to be the abattoir itself that was the source of the
problem, as it happened. It turned out to be a couple of other little
things relating to the ... (sensitive readers may wish to turn away at
this point, or at least ensure proximity to a waste paper basket) ...
well, relating to the By-Products Plant wherein unspeakable things
were done to unmentionable parts of animals that were well beyond
caring by that point.

The BPP turned out Mechanically Recovered Meat, which is produced by
scraping bones, most successfully skulls, of all adhering muscle
tissue. It also provided part-cleaned intestine to the Sausage Skin
Factory, which had itself been the subject of a long-running battle
with the Best Man For The Job. It turned out all manner of disturbing
products, providing employment for local yokels who failed the entry
exams for Agricultural Employment and proving to be a real boon for
those with Olfactory Limitations.

Anyway, the problem confessed to me was to do with the air handling
plant - the whole place had to be (well, was supposed to be)
maintained at a lower air pressure than the Outside World. Thus, any
unpleasant odours would be wafted within, contained and then removed
by the scrubbers. No cheap jokes please, that's my job. The last
line of defence were the air filters, which removed the final traces
of any nostril-tickling niffs from the output air.

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The story from The Manglement was that the smell escaped during a
filter change, or that the filters had been wrongly placed, or an old
friend had come in from out of town and got it wrong. Or there was a
flood, an earthquake, a plague of locusts. Or something.

Obviously not particularly convincing, so the Best Man For The Job
undertook An Investigation. An Investigation in the very best
traditions of such things, undertaken solo, on site, under cover. On
overtime, natch. A man armed with a clipboard and a purposeful air
can get just about anywhere, you know.

This man ended up under cover of a hedge, in a field drainage ditch
which afforded a clear view of the premises under investigation.

Downwind, of course.

--------------------------------------------------------

Spending hours at a time in a ditch, under a hedge, dressed in
state-of-the-art protective clothing (tweedy jacket, moleskin trousers
and brogues) with all the high-tech monitoring and recording
accoutrements available at the time (a telescope with a chipped lens
and a notebook and pencil) was a life-changing experience. I became
familiar with all the lovely native wild flowers and how irritating
their seeds and pollen can be - and the wonderful array of insects
that live amongst them and how quickly their bites can cover every
exposed part of the body as well as some that weren't exposed. The
fleas that felt themselves to good to remain attached to the rat
population were probably not the most fun company, but at least they
were friendly.

After some days, the pattern of work at the factory became apparent,
as did the smell which became ingrained to the extent that nobody
wanted to share an office with me or my jackets. Disgusting, it was -
more of a stench than a smell; rich, fruity and fucking disgusting.
Like rotting meat that's been left in the sun, overlaid with tones of
blood, pus and two-day-old diarrhoea - with a catch in the throat
reminiscent of burning hair.

After a while, the real source of the smell revealed itself. It was a
product of the by-product of the by-products plant. There was stuff
that was left over see, stuff that even the twisted genius running a
slaughterhouse couldn't find a market for and he couldn't or wouldn't
dare discharge as effluent into the river. (I knew pretty much what
was being discharged; having had in-ditch conferences with a colleague
from the Environment Agency who I'd asked to check it out).

It turned out that the stuff they couldn't discharge, they were
storing. Not having a tank of infinite capacity, they would have to
have it emptied on occasion - every three days or so. These occasions
tied in precisely with the complaints, which reached a peak twice a
week. Once this had become clear, it enabled the right questions to
be asked.

------------------------------------------------------------

Manglement came clean, so to speak. The "effluent", a mix of blood,
fat, ordure and other less savoury substances was pumped into an
underground tank. The tank was contracted to be emptied by one of the
"Environmental Services" firms in a big tanker carrying "Non-Hazardous
Material" signage. Disposal was undertaken at a site licensed for
such things - well out of my purview, thankfully. The smell arose as
the tanker hose was coupled to the underground tank, apparently - and
a little bit of gas was "inevitably" released. Right.

New procedures were initiated: filter servicing only after shutdown,
all openings to external air closed and sealed, new coupling system
for tank to tanker transfer. Things got better and complaints became
fewer once the complainants had been informed of progress.

It seemed that I was indeed The Man For The Job.

------------------------------------------------------------

It was a long, hot Summer that year and nearly as dry as this essay.
The inevitable water shortage arrived and locals were forbidden to
wash cars, use hosepipes or flush toilets as frequently as they might
wish. The Water Board slipped stickers into the local papers,
designed for attachment to domestic cisterns: "If it's brown - flush
it down. If it's yellow - let it mellow" was the instruction. Mains
water pressure was reduced and metering to businesses introduced.

The complaints started again. With added ferocity, tinged with
threatening overtones and laced with physical threats, even. I found
out why, one early morning when out on another job downwind. Damn
near lost my breakfast under the assault of the stench. It was
obvious where it was coming from, and returning to the office, the
sheaf of complaint forms on my desk confirmed it. And there was a
sheet of A4 clipped to them - a "See Me" from the Boss.

The Boss was a bit wild and a bit wobbly when I went to see him - he'd
had visits again: the ACC, the MEP - and worst of all the WRVS. It
was a bit smelly in his office, let alone outside. It got a bit
shouty too, although less shouty than it had been during the earlier
visits, his secretary told me later.

Once again, I was The Man For The Job.

------------------------------------------------------------

SlaughterhouseMan was full of outraged innocence when I took the
shoutiness down to his office. He got the idea though, and took
additional shoutiness with him when we went to the office of the BPP
manager. It got rather shouty and rather sweaty, in more or less
equal amounts in the office rammed into the rafters of the BPP. We
didn't achieve much, but I felt a bit better when I left.

The next morning I was back in the ditch before dawn. Not much
happened apart from renewing old acquaintanceships with small parts of
the local wildlife population and getting cramp a couple of times.
For the rest of the week covert surveillance continued (from the
covert) and a series of null reports gelled with the nil complaint
level. Sitting in the empty office with a pot of coffee to myself on
Sunday morning, it occurred to me that the tank-emptying tanker hadn't
appeared as it habitually did at 08:00 twice a week. A small
sub-investigation was obviously called for to establish the reason for
its absence.

------------------------------------------------------------

On Monday at 05:30 it all became clear. A tractor pulling a
grievously manky tanker appeared beside the BPP. The driver (who in
build and movement bore a remarkable resemblance to the BPP manager
(as far as could be discerned through the chipped lens of the antique
telescope)), dismounted clad in a white coverall, hooded and masked.
He attached a hose between tank and tanker and the tractor gouted
black smoke from its stack as the PTO was engaged.

Once the tanker was full, he disconnected the hose, locked the access
point down and remounted the cab. As he drove off, towing the tanker
trailer full of noisome gunge, I thought it best to follow and find
out what he was doing with it, if I could. Fortunately it was a
knackered old tractor and with the added corpulence of the tanker full
of curdled waste in tow he made slow progress. I stashed notebook and
telescope in the pockets of my tweedy jacket and shadowed him, keeping
to the hedges and ditches as I went.

Along the lane, across a field, up a hill and down the other side we
went, tractor belching smoke and me, well, just belching a lot. And
considering giving up the fags and regretting the second bacon butty
an hour ago at home. Surprising the things one mutters about, when
unexpectedly jogging along a ditch, you know. Eventually he stopped,
just as I was on the third rosary of blasphemy. Thankfully, I
collapsed in a sweaty mess into a handy hedge.

He had come to a halt in a long and narrow field in a dip in the
ground, out of sight of the world apart from yours truly, my hedge and
associated rodent hangers-on. He dismounted, checked hood and mask,
walked around to the rear of the tanker trailer and spun a wheel. I
watched, not wanting to believe what I was seeing and exulting at the
same time.

The tanker was a muck-spreader.

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He remounted, revved it up and rolled off - and a black spray soared
from the rear of the tanker, glistening in the early sun's rays. An
inkling chose that moment to inkle, much like the tinkling of a very
small bell in the corner of a soundproof room. I licked a finger and
held it aloft. The post-dawn zephyr caressed the spittle-coated
finger pad facing the spreader and its vile cargo, now arcing higher
than the hedge as the pressure built.

Then the stench hit me and in instantaneous, unspoken response my
breakfast hit the ground.

Palpable, the putrid exhalation of dozens of dead animals wrapped
around me and the befouled ground came up to hit me. Indescribable.
Aghast, I was. Utterly fucking horrified. Did a bunk, I did. Quick
as you like, still along the hedges, I don't think I breathed in for
the mile back to the car and not more than twice - and them through a
filter tip - down the road to the office.

----------------------------------------------------------

I beat the complaints into the office that morning; had my skunky
jacket on a hook in the lab, a pot of coffee and half a pack of
Marlboro inside me - and a report on The Boss's desk before 08:30.
Then the phones lit up as the switchboard opened. The Boss responded
to my "See Me" pinned to the front of my report at 08:30:25 and then
he fucked off to go "Err, somewhere quiet to read this" all without
answering a single query. I realised what a good idea that was and
did a smart one out to the paper shop for fags and fresh air myself.
Sauntering back I intended to lurk on my favourite bench round the
corner from the office, but it was already occupied - by the Boss.

We held an impromptu Council of War there and then. Evidence was to
be gathered, a case prepared and then we'd do the fuckers a good one.
Build up the griff for a mortal blow and have them over before they
had us out of jobs - and hopefully, even before our collective ears
were bent to breaking point by the massed ranks of irate ratepayers,
not to mention the by now probably incanfuckingdescent Director. He
went back to the office, I went out in my car - back to the scene of
the crime.

------------------------------------------------------------

At the scene of the spraying, there was no sign of anything untoward.
Hardly a niff - smelled a bit agri, but nothing you wouldn't expect in
a Devon field. The next morning it was a different story: no wildlife
and hardly any insects in the bounding hedges, distressed and dying
plantlife all around the perimeter. The whole place was wilting,
man. Whether he had returned and sprayed water or some deodoriser I
didn't know, but on the surface it looked straight. He'd still broken
all the rules, our agreements and created a Statutory Nuisance by his
act, no matter how innocent it looked by then.

So - the Investigation continued; The Boss doing what he was paid for,
sitting in his office taking all the flak, me being paid considerable
overtime, living almost full time on watch in a ditch. From time to
time I'd entertain visitors - the lads from the Environment Agency and
the Water Board who were doing their bit too - and on one notable
occasion a most uncomfortable Principal Officer, who was nominally my
boss but who had been out of the loop for years. My PO, bless his
heart, extended my armoury. He'd scrounged up a Praktica SLR - "wiv
zoom lens and everyfink", which gave a better view than the damned
telescope - and a Dictaphone (should my finger get tired).

He did tell me that he'd found out, however, that the Environmental
Services tanker contract had been cancelled - by the tanker firm
following persistent non-payment of their not inexpensive fees.

So there I sat, a little ginger King of the Hedgerow - fully armed,
doing very little, achieving less - but being paid (comparatively)
handsomely for the privilege.

------------------------------------------------------------

It was particularly hot, sticky and dusty the following Friday
afternoon when I espied tractor action ongoing again. I sidled out of
my ditch and zoomed the SLR in on the action, catching the BPP manager
taking his mask off and reseating it. Bonus. He performed exactly
the same as previously, so I did a bunkette and got ahead of him,
banking on the same venue being the target. A more leisurely but
equally sweaty and tweedy sturry later and I was ready: perched
concealed in a particularly uncomfortable hedge on the far side of
what I hoped was his destination field. Five minutes crawled past,
each seeming like ten and I was clamming for a Marlbugger.

A stream of diesel smoke eddied over the hedge and the tractor
clankled into the field, then sat there vibrating as the driver
dismounted and went to open the Satan's Diarrhoeatic Arsehole
attachment. I had the camera on maximum zoom and got the necessary,
including a couple of shots of the spray starting up from the rear as
he got it into gear. Having had time for forethought meant I was
upwind, too. Having had ample time for preparation hadn't eliminated
the opportunity for a little fuckwittery, however. Winding on after
the next picture resulted in the lever straining, then stopping. Out
of film? Checked the back - a 12-exposure film, of all things.
Cheap? That's Local Government for you.

------------------------------------------------------------


Blessing my lovely tweedy jacket after all, a rapid rummage in a
capacious pocket yielded a new roll of 36-exposure 35mm film. Isn't
it surprising how sweaty hands can get when there's a bit of
excitement about? Slipped off the rewind knob more than a couple of
times, couldn't release the back, dropped the exposed film about four
times … got the new film in, wound it on and resighted the camera.
Couldn't get the tractor clear and couldn't work out why. Pulled the
zoom back all the way …

Full frame, the fucker. In my fucking face. I did my level best to
become one with the hedge, desperate to avoid being spotted so I could
carry on showing that I was indeed The Man For The Job. Completely
and utterly braindead, obviously. Apart from the hedge being largely
composed of holly (which was at least a good match for the tweed that
I was really hoping quite fervently would turn out to be thornproof) I
had just omitted from my consciousness what was trundling along behind
the tractor currently passing within five feet of me.

I remembered as the trailer wheels passed me; turning my head over my
right shoulder I could see the noisome spray sparkling in the sun. I
could even hear the spray hitting the hedge. The hedge? The same
hedge I was embracing like a long-lost lover? Oh. Oh dearie, dearie
me.

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I decided in an instant that I didn't want a relationship with the
hedge any longer. It was time to spurn its prickly advances and move
on - to a new hedge, perhaps a ditch - anywhere but right where I was
right then. The hedge thought otherwise. Clung to me it did, like a
teenage girl you might have just bought a Smirnoff Ice before spotting
her spots., if you see what I mean. That hedge loved me, man. Well,
it wanted my jacket, for sure.

With a huge heave I got my chest away from the hedge. The ditch saw
an opportunity to reclaim me and my feet slid down - towards the
ever-closer spray. I knew I was in deep shit (or actually, much, much
worse - I would have joyfully swapped some nice fetid shite for the
contents of that trailer at that point) as this was all happening in
slow motion by now. Frantically running back up the ditch, legs
windmilling, I blessed the capabilities of leather-soled brogues and
their ability to conjure improbable amounts of grip from nowhere right
when a bloke needs it - or not, as in my case.

Something stuck in the end - as my legs reached a considerable
fraction of a thousand rpm and I lurched back toward the hedge. I
didn't want to get pinned again, so I twisted and discovered that my
tweed wasn't thorn proof at all. Not even resistant. The holly or
something else of a spiky persuasion came right through the shoulder
pad. That really fucking hurt, that did.

But it was as a tiny prick compared to the mighty blow I felt as the
spray hit me.

------------------------------------------------------------

I cannot describe the revulsion as it poured over me. Hair, face, ear
… plastered. I couldn't hold my breath for ever, either. When I had
to breath, I couldn't hold onto my stomach lining either. Puked like
a baby. I did. Fell right through the gap in the hedge that had
likely been there all the time, too. Crawled most of the way to the
river that was about 100 yards distant, stripped off and dived - well,
slithered - over the bank.

The river is tidal, the sea being adjacent. The tide picked that
moment to be out. It hadn't been out that long, mind - the mud was
still wet. Very wet, sticky and slippery.

I managed to find some brackish water in the end, enough to rinse the
vileness out of my hair and only then did I dare to open my right eye.
People walk dogs in the strangest places …

 

<snip>

Nice.


It's obvious to me that some dumb **** will repost the whole thing,
adding a line "this deserves to be left unsnipped". All 445 lines of
it.

Whoever that person is (for it will happen), they need to be burned at
the fucking stake.

 

Can they be hung, drawn and quartered before burning? My money's going
on it being some car owning **** that wants to "get back into bikes
now the kids have left home".

 

Yeah, why not. Sounds like a laugh.

It'll be a total dullard, that's for sure.

 

I don't think you need worry about it - most people won't see it as it
will have tripped their default binary filters.

If I'd realised it was going to go on that long I'd have set light to
myself.

 

I find it hard to explain how tempting the repost is at the moment...

 

<snip>

Class. So when do we get to find out the results of your investigation/swamp
crawling exercise?

 

There's a BMA paper on it, and he's got his own module in the London
School of Infectious Diseases examination syllabus.

 

I'm perfectly calm and perfectly cheerful, thank you.

 

Just so long as you're not feeling Ropey.

 

I was afraid not.

 

Not while I have my strength.

 

Lets leave the eye problems to Lozzo eh.

Traditionally, agents are better fed than their clients and tend to wear
clothes so i suspect this might rule Champ out. You could get a copy of the
"Writers Year Book" from the library for a list of agents. Personally I
think you would be suited to a column in some sort of trade rag.


Top story BTW.

 

Wouldn't know where to start, old chap.

<blinding flash of perspiration>

Actually ...

 

Pip wrote

Tell Elly to put some clothes on then.

 

But *he* would, as a regular columnist.

 

"Pip's Pith"

 

Champ wrote

Speaking from a purely selfish point of view I think Pip should remain
an amateur.

 

sez the professional old man.

 

Speaking from a purely personal pov (once you fuckers have quite
finished (it's like an old XTC track round here)) then I will restate
that I will not write for money as that sort of thing involves
deadline sort of things. Not only that, but it is very easy to
recount an old story that has just been brought back to mind, but a
completely different matter to try to be so creative as to write on a
random subject, or a subject with which one is not intimately
familiar.

Initially tempting though it may be, it ain't for me.