Today … the Shepherd

Today is Sunday and I took my dolls and the equipment required for what is going to be my living and working quarters from dawn until dusk for the next week. It seemed like a mammoth task toing and froing with boxes of stuff. Now complete I am pleased. The real work starts tomorrow when I turn what is essentially a pump house suspended over a mighty weir into a studio. It is far from home comforts, its noisy and not conducive to film making. Yet it is light and airy and has a beauty only experienced when experienced if that makes sense. So, my dolls will find the space a joy too I am sure.

Once have set up my studio and placed my dolls I will return to my stories and the individual characters and the roles they will play in little animated motifs.

Last week you met Margery today it her father who is a shepherd who is one of the most skilled and respected members of his community. He works for the local farmer who would have to trust him implicitly before entrusting him with a flock of sheep whose welfare depended on him.

It was a lonely experience but while it was poorly paid it was a regular income and during lambing time, he could earn a little more. Furthermore, if he killed a sheep he was entitled to its hide and the head and liver etc that could be boiled and made into a stew and a welcome treat for his poor family.

Shepherd families in the villages and tiny hamlets where our family lived continued for many generations, handing down rural skills and methods building up a good reputation with farmers and neighbouring shepherds providing medical advice and cures.

John was fine looking man, his gait like many whose work is restricted to tending sheep is free from swaying and rolling movements like those used to walking with a plough. With a smock flowing gracefully behind him, with a crook on his shoulder and a dog at his heel he would walk majestically with steady even pace, head thrown back with his sheep following it was a picturesque figure in the landscape.

All this aside, farm work was long hard and poorly paid, and the family lived mostly in poverty. There were few ways to relieve it, but they are mostly illegal and harshly punished but it seems that most families had to take the risk.  Poaching for instance John was not averse to bringing home a hare or a rabbit under his smock if the opportunity arose.

John and his family were near the river side where there was a supply of water for washing and cooking. He spent most time on hillside in the meadows away from the marsh land and increasing urbanisation. He would spend the winters at home and attend the market and festivals when necessary.