page1

THE GATE ON THE HILL

You’ll smile when you read this and shake your head and say he’s pulling our leg or what a vivid imagination he’s got. Well, that’s as maybe, but it’s easy to talk of leg-pulling in a light hearted manner among friends. Just as easy as it is to talk of imagination in the bar of the Horseshoes when the fire’s blazing and the drink has been flowing awhile. I’ve been taken to task before over this sort of thing but the critics have never offered an alternative and acceptable explanation. I am not responsible for the folklore of the parish. That was established before I was born and I have only passed on what was earlier word of mouth. You don’t have to take my word - just look up the files of the Echo or the Bridport News. Only last November there was another occurrence on the Hill which has never been explained but I don’t know if that one got into the paper.

I’ve been making a sort of living on the north side of the Hill for over thirty years. During that time I have found a body there. A young girl staying with a neighbour came across a circle of chicken feathers as if a sacrifice had been made. The contents of several burial urns have been scattered to the winds which constantly blow across the top. The treacherous air currents on the south side have claimed one victim who was hang-gliding from the steep cliff overlooking Askerswell.

When the fog drops suddenly as it sometimes does, onto the Hill it becomes a very lonely and eerie place and with visibility down to about thirty yards one lives and works in ones’ own little world. It’s strange, this fog. In the winter it will hang about for days whilst the valley is often clear. In the summer it is gone in an hour or so leaving the partly dried hay black and spoilt.

We have had a lot of fog since Christmas this year if my memory serves me rightly and the hedge which runs in the trough beside the road across the top of the Hill was out of sight very often whilst we were working. I left it once because I could hear a voice calling but I never found anyone. Everytime I stopped to listen the voice came from a different direction, a different part of the fog and in the end I gave it up and went back to the hedging. The almost incessant rain since Christmas had turned a six week job into twelve and we were still having fogs in early April when it happened.

I’d been at the hedge since about ten o’clock after the chores were finished and at eleven thirty my daughter came up with a flask of coffee. There was just one car after that and that was all the traffic for the morning. It varies with the weather as you will imagine, the Hill being a big draw for tourists and other sightseers. I had done with the chain-saw and had been working with the billhook for about ten minutes when the atmosphere became decidedly chilly. It didn’t worry me as it always does turn colder just before the fog drops and I glanced up to confirm this but there was no sign of fog although the sun had disappeared and the whole area had become dull and overcast and there was a hint of mist on the horizon to the west.

I thought I knew the Hill and all its moods after half a lifetime of toiling on its steep sides but this was a new facet, one that I had not come across before. The chilly atmosphere had become oppressive and there was something different, something strange, something which took my concentration for a moment. It came between me and the job I was doing and I cannot account for it try as I will. It’s no good saying you should be more careful. I’ve been using edge tools for over fifty years and apart from an accident with a circular saw which was my own fault, nothing like this has happened before. Suddenly there was blood spurting up in front of me, coming from a gaping hole in my left wrist and my instinctive reaction was to put my mouth to the wound. The amount frightened me and I tried to put pressure through my sleeve with my right thumb but it wasn’t very successful. I scrambled up the bank and ran to the car parked about a hundred yards along the road. Somehow I wound a piece of baler string around my wrist to stop the flow but I had to drive back to the house with blood spurting everywhere.

I stopped the car in the yard and hammered at the kitchen window, and that’s about it really. I spent the night in Weymouth Hospital where they stitched up an artery and three tendons. There was also damage to the bone and I am typing this with one hand. “How did you do it?” everyone wants to know but I can’t honestly say. I can only assume that the billhook glanced off another stick but did it? Surely I would have remembered it slipping? Was there something which, at the moment the temperature dropped, the moment my concentration went, took control of the blade in my hand? If it had been a glancing blow it would surely have lost its impetus and I would have instinctively removed my left hand and the result would have been a mere scratch. All I do remember is this great gash appearing and the salty taste of blood in my mouth as I tried to staunch the flow.

When we drove past the gate on the hill about ten minutes later on the way to hospital the clouds were gone and the sun shone with some strength through the car window.