Chapter 17

Because Andrew was working every Saturday at the Campbells, he had taken to going round to the camera shop after school. Sadly it meant there were no Monica sightings but it was good to chat to Tony about music and photography. It killed an hour after school a couple of times a week. Tony was on his own in the afternoon, Stacey only worked until 2.00 so he liked the company. Most of the time they chatted about music, new bands that Andrew (or Leslie) had heard, mixed with Tony reminiscing about gigs he had been to when he was younger. Andrew had been tempted several times to develop a roll of film but he realised that was stupid. He doubted Tony would let him anyway. But it was good to maintain the contact, even if it was sporadic.

Andrew got a break for a week from Mr. Campbell and his computers when he attended the CCF camp. It was at a place called Otterburn in Northumberland, just over the border in England. He had enjoyed his time in the CCF so far and was planning to continue in the autumn when school resumed. They had to be at school early on the first Monday of the summer break, and from there they were loaded into a coach for the two hour drive down to the camp.

Otterburn is a huge training area and is used extensively by both the regular forces and the reserves. The CCF camp brought every unit from southern Scotland as well as northern England together all at once. There were nearly 500 boys between the ages of 12 and 19 there. They kept the CCF pupils away from the regular soldiers so there were fewer temptations of smoking or drinking.

The camp itself was British Army spartan; no frills, inadequate heating, no hot water. Not that any of them were planning on washing much anyway! The CCF had a separate mess where breakfast and dinner were provided. Andrew’s recollection of the camp was how the staff tried to enforce discipline and be organised and instead the whole thing was on the edge of chaos the whole time. Yes there were regular army instructors, mainly corporals, who spent the whole time corralling them and getting them to the various activities. The permanent staff would make daily examples of unfortunate souls who fell afoul of them for a variety of transgressions. Andrew avoided any of these but there did appear to be a certain capricious arbitrariness to some of the crimes and subsequent punishments. The rest of the time it was tons of fun. A bunch of teenage guys, up in the hills, camping and practicing some of the skills they had learned. There were several sessions at the rifle range as well as lots of physical exercise. Andrew was an okay shot, better than average but not great. He could shoot accurately but not consistently in the centre. As he hoped he would never have to put this skill into practice he was okay with his skill level. What did surprise him was that he was one of the fitter guys there. He didn’t have a lot of stamina for running yet but he could survive and Andrew had more strength in his upper body than he had previously. The obstacle course was attempted every morning after a run and he could get over all the obstacles, some of which defeated most of the guys there. The push ups and swimming meant he was stronger than he realised and could haul himself up and over things that others couldn’t. This was a nice boost for his self-image and encouraged him to continue the exercise regime. One of the benefits of having all the different CCFs there together was that definitely brought the group together. They looked out for each other and made sure that nobody was getting harassed, especially by any of the English CCFs. There was lots of bad chat back and forth between the different groups but it never got out of hand. There was a competition between the platoons as part of the camp and so most of the arguments were settled there.

Sunday night saw Andrew back home, tired and more than a little smelly but happy. He had enjoyed the experience and was committed to returning to the CCF in his 3^rd year. But he had no time to relax and recover though, he was starting six weeks of work at the Strachan’s farm. Andrew was being driven out on Sunday night and collected on Friday evening. He would stay at the farmhouse during the week and live and eat with the family. He had agreed to work for £1 an hour, so had proof of how crazy Mr. Campbell was being. Andrew’s bag held some computer textbooks as well as his clothes. He planned to do his exercises every morning but would only be able to swim at the weekend and was going to hold off on the rest of his exercise until he saw what Harry had him doing. Harry Strachan was a man of few words. His farm was a mixed one, he had some sheep and lambs, both dairy and beef cattle and a variety of cereal crops. Andrew knew that he would get lots of experience and that the work would be hard all day but exactly what Harry wanted him to do was a mystery.

He had no nerves when he woke on the Monday morning. Andrew got up and did his exercises before getting dressed and heading down for breakfast. He had recently started drinking coffee and so grabbed a cup. Just getting up on his own without any need for Harry to bang on the door was a mark in his favour. Josephine, Harry’s wife, put a large breakfast down in front of Andrew and he quickly ate it up. When Harry stood up, Andrew too rose and grabbed his coat and followed Harry out. They walked towards the barn. Andrew was Harry’s shadow that day helping him with his daily routine. He had a small notebook in his pocket and made notes whenever Harry was explaining specific things to him. Harry had a list of projects that he was behind on. This was why Harry had agreed to let Andrew work for him over the summer. The last week of the six at the farm Andrew would be there with only Harry’s two farmhands as the Strachan family were going to take the first week off in the summer in more than a decade. Harry had the two farmhands as well as Andrew, who was clearly the unskilled grunt worker. His job would be to free up one of the hands to work with Harry on the projects while trying to keep on top of the day to day work.

Farming is backbreaking and relentless and endless. Every day had a long list of chores and jobs. The next day often would have the same list as well as others. Andrew was amazed that the six weeks disappeared in the blink of an eye. Harry wanted him to deal with the cows and heifers. He supervised Andrew for the first week but as Andrew was thorough and diligent, from the second week on he left Andrew to it. He was still around but no longer watching over Andrew’s shoulder. Every morning Andrew had to get the dairy herd into the milking shed, ensure that they all had food and water, connect the milking machines to each cow and supervise the milking. Then he had to unhook them all and get them back out into the field. Harry would give them a once over to check there were no obvious signs of ill health. Meanwhile Andrew was making sure that the milking equipment was clean and sterilised in preparation for the evening milking. The milk was collected every other day by a tanker and Andrew had to check the volume and sign for each delivery. He was also responsible for the food and water of the beef herd. They were out grazing in some of Harry’s fields but they had additional feed on top of the natural grazing in an effort to fatten them up for market. The coolest part of the job, as far as Andrew was concerned, was driving around on a small ATV. It was not called that yet, Harry called it a mini-tractor or something but looking back it was an early primitive ATV. Andrew had to go round the whole farm, checking the walls, gates and fences to ensure that they were all secure. This took longer than he thought as there was a lot of getting off the ATV and opening and closing the various gates.

As Andrew was touring round the farm he would check on the fields of lambs. They were coming up on three months old and would be going for slaughter before Andrew finished his six weeks. Harry was always concerned about predators so when Andrew passed through the sheep and lamb fields he was always to watch out for any carcasses which would signify there was an active predator nearby.

Once these daily tasks were done then Andrew would sit with Josephine and help her with the paperwork. There were endless forms to be filled in for the government. A lot of them had changed as a result of the UK joining the European Economic Community in 1973. The Strachans were barely keeping up with all the additional paperwork as well as the paperwork relating to the business of the farm. There were piles of receipts for the milk, animals sold for slaughter, all the purchases etc. Every farm is a small business and part of Andrew’s job was to help get them all caught up and as prepared as possible for the rest of the year.

His parents were a teacher and a social worker. He had no experience of running a business so this was a whole new kind of education for him. He learnt about wages for the hands, deductions and remittances that had to send to the government, calculating VAT, claiming VAT, reporting VAT. Josephine talked to him about the expected return for different animals and different crops. The impact of certain animals or crops on the soil. What they had to do to keep the production up, the cost of fertilisers, the cost of leaving a field fallow for a year. Andrew’s head was spinning by the end of the first week trying to keep track of all the different considerations. He loved it though. It was like a huge puzzle and you had to figure out all the different permutations.

By the time his dad collected him on the Friday evening he had worked 65 hours. Andrew hoped that Harry was pleased with his work but it was difficult to tell with him. Andrew hadn’t been fired so he was happy. £65 was a tidy sum and he had a chance to make more the next day. When Andrew got home his mother immediately checked him for sunburn. Given what he gone through she was taking no chances with him. Andrew had been given special high SPF sun cream for skin cancer patients. It didn’t have an actual SPF number on the tube but it came out like paint so it was very effective. He had been very diligent in applying it to his face and hands. Despite the summer heat he wore long sleeved shirts and jeans not shorts. His laundry bag reeked of sweat and farm smells.

Despite all the work Andrew was up early ready to exercise and swim. His mum, after a bit of grumping, drove him down to the Commonwealth Pool and sat with the paper while Andrew swam for an hour. He covered nearly 2200m in that time. She then dropped him off at the Campbells. They wanted to hear all about farm life but once he had explained Tuesday he told them that Wednesday through Friday were the same. Cows, lots of cows, form filling and a drive in the country!

Mr. Campbell practically dragged Andrew through to his home office. Brian Campbell was a clever man who managed a large business but when it came to technology he was pretty inept. His Apple II Plus was not working as expected. So Andrew’s first two hours were spent hardware troubleshooting trying to find out what had happened. Eventually he found the problem and the II Plus with all of its additional RAM was working with VisiCalc loaded and ready for use. He had missed the previous weekend due to the CCF camp and had expected Mr. Campbell to have done at least some work, inputting, checking in his absence. Nope. Everything was waiting for him.