VII. The Author
Rufus Arthur Bramble — RAF Technical Branch, then engine work of a quieter kind — keeps a cottage in the Pennines with Charlie, his brown Labrador, for company.
This page carries the fuller account: who he is, how he came to be here, and the handful of people — family, and one old friend in particular — who make up his world.
I was born in Oldham in the last winter of the Great War, the son of a draughtsman and a woman who knew every boggart and hob in the county by name. Between the two of them I learned to draw a straight line and to distrust one.
I studied engineering in Manchester, spent the war with my hands inside other people’s aeroplanes, and came home wanting quiet. I found it in a stone cottage on the hill above Dobcross, with a view of the moor, a chimney that smokes when the wind is in the east, and a Labrador called Charlie who will do anything for fruitcake and nothing whatsoever for me.
I work on engines that I am not at liberty to describe. In the evenings I walk, draw, write a little verse, and keep a record of the hills — the weather, the birds, the walls, and whoever comes up the lane.
— R.A.B.
The people in it
My father
Arthur Bramble has been a draughtsman at a textile machinery works in Oldham for as long as I have known him. He was an artillery mechanic in the war before mine, which he will discuss only in terms of lubrication. He draws what is there. He gave me his trench watch the day I was commissioned, and has asked after its timekeeping ever since. Of the Thunderbird he says she’ll be the death of me, or the making. He has not yet said which.
My mother
Clara was a Schofield of Delph, which in Saddleworth is a qualification. She knows every boggart and hob between Standedge and the Tame by name and address. She plays the parlour piano when she thinks nobody is in, and puts Gracie Fields on for victories. There is a tune she made up in 1931 and denies to this day. Her fruitcake is a matter of record.
My sister
Florence, Florrie to everyone but the school board, is four years younger and the only one of us to be relied upon in a crisis. She spent the war as a wireless operator in the WAAF and now teaches in Yorkshire. By her account the children there are quieter than the RAF and better at spelling. She comes over for the pictures and takes Penny’s side in everything, on principle.
Uncle Ned
Edmund Schofield, Mother’s elder brother, lives in Delph with a grey lurcher called Nell, who is cleverer than either of us. He was a rigger in the Royal Flying Corps, then spent forty years engraving copper rollers for the calico printers in Manchester. He gave me my first paint box when I was ten. He took me up Kinder when I was fourteen, against my mother’s express wishes, and gave me my pipe when I came home. “Tha’ can’t paint a sky tha’s not stood under.” He is usually right, and knows it.
Penny
Penelope Vance is a cartographer at the county records office. She lodges in Uppermill and comes over the hill on a bicycle in all weathers. She asked me the way in 1948 and has been correcting my directions ever since. She borrows my pens and returns other people’s, calls my drawings glorified connect-the-dots, and uses my old rank when she means to win. She is generally right about maps, and about most other things. I have got into the habit of putting a second cup out when I hear a bicycle on the gravel. It saves time.
Charlie
A chocolate Labrador, aged three, of no fixed principles beyond fruitcake. Asleep by the fire he could pass for a draught excluder; let his feet touch gravel and he is six months old again. He holds the good chair by right of conquest. I hold it by arrangement, when he is out.
The cottage
A gritstone cottage on the hill above Dobcross, bought in 1946, when I came out of the RAF wanting quiet and a view with no soot in it. It has small diamond panes, flagged floors, a range, and a chimney on the east side that smokes whenever the wind comes round. I have been meaning to see to it for seven years. Below lie the lower meadow, the canal, the railway and the Tame, and the Loom Works hooter to tell me I’m late. Behind are the top field, a length of wall I seem forever to be rebuilding, and the moor path up towards Harrop Edge. It is, strictly, Yorkshire. I was born in Lancashire and try not to hold it against the place.