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BEWITCHED

I don’t suppose you will believe me. I can’t believe it myself and yet what other explanation can there be? I’m not old -just over forty. I was never superstitious, but now, well I just don’t know. I mean I’ve always believed in wart charming. I’ve had it done in the past on several occasions, very successfully too, but this, well, it was something different. It had entered my mind from time to time over the past fourteen years, but I’ve always told myself not to be silly, that these are the 1960’s when such things never could happen, anyway, but now I’m not so sure. In fact I’m convinced. I was bewitched!

Let me tell you about it and then you can judge for yourself and give me another explanation if you can. And bear in mind that what I’m about to relate is perfectly true, so true in fact that I want to remain anonymous should the editor see fit to publish this and not because I feel guilty about this belief of mine either.

I came out of the R.A.F. at the age of 23 in 1946 after five years service. In 1948 with the help of family funds and a mortgage I was able to buy a hundred acres here in Dorset. By the time I had finished buying I had to go carefully with twenty-three cows, a couple of pigs, and a hundred or so hens. It was difficult to get tackle - new I mean, even if one was able to pay for it and all my equipment was pretty well worn.

In the summer of ’49 I was turning hay up on the flat at the top of the hill. It was extremely hot and the damned turner was not behaving. As I was pulling half-dry grass from the tangle round the tines an old woman came across the field. I was in a temper and asked her where she was going. When she told me I said she’d better go back around the lane in the proper manner and she went off muttering. The lane passed around the back of the yard but had become so bad that people had taken to walking past the house. My sister was there and made the old woman go round the correct way. I thought little of these incidents at the time.

By the end of August the field I’d been hay-making in was a mat of red clover. I was tilling rape in the next ground and keeping an eye on the cows at the same time. When they had been in the clover about twenty minutes I went over to turn them out and found two blown but still on their feet. I was driving them slowly down the track which runs across the side of the hill when the front one kicked up her heels and galloped off down the hill followed by the rest. The two blown cows were unable to control their speed and ran off the side of the track, rolled over, and bounced like two rubber balls to the bottom of the hill. Needless to say they were dead when they reached the bottom.

Things did not go well during the next twelve months and I put the farm on the market. I was fortunate enough to sell at a profit which covered the business losses and was then able to rent a similar holding not far away.

I came here in 1950 but things were not a lot better although I had more capital to use. Within five years I had 200 acres and employed a man and a boy. I had also married and started a family. But somehow things were not going as they should, even allowing for it being a marginal farm. Some years we made a profit and some a loss. No advice from the Provincial Economist or the N.A.A.S. District Officer could improve matters. The D.O. was a regular visitor at my request had access to my accounts and tried hard to improve the position without success. I had to look for financial assistance other than from the bank which was not very co-operative. They take no risks, do they?

During the years 1950-1964 an old gypsy woman called on us once or twice. One cold day my wife gave her a cup of tea and she read my wife’s hand. Said we had an enemy! “Nonsense” I said, and dismissed it.

The severe winter of 62/3 nearly cooked my goose - I lost nearly a half of my capital. By the end of ’64 things started to get better and have gone on improving ever since - touch wood!

One day in August 1965 my wife’s Mother was telling us about a recent visit she had made to the local Evergreen Club. She said she had been talking to a woman whose son did a certain job. I said, “Well it can’t be Mrs. so-and-so, she’s dead and so is her son. She died a year ago…” and then it clicked! That was the woman whom I turned out of the field in 1949.

As I said at the start, I don’t suppose you’ll believe me, but the date of improvement in things is too close to the old woman’s death to mean anything other than what I said in the beginning - I was bewitched, and you will never convince me otherwise.