February 9th 1982 is a date imprinted in my head.  I hadn’t got much longer at St Margaret’s School in Horsforth. At Easter I’d be gone, heading for Thorpe, a small ex-mining village in South Leeds. The idea of being the Head of a little village school had always appealed. Except this was no leafy lane village, this was an ex industrial village, with closed down railway yards and an old quarry. It was a tiny place of terraced rows and a council estate. It didn’t know whether it belonged to Leeds or Wakefield. It was a school and part of Leeds that was quite the opposite of the one I would leave behind. Both Thorpe village and school were run down, shabby and the school had staff there that had been in residence for years. It didn’t bode well that one of them was so slow to do anything that she was draped in cobwebs. The other had a Bobby Charlton combover. I had my work cut out. For the interview I polished my shoes; something I hadn’t done for years. I noticed one of the interviewing panel peering at them as I sat before the long table at which they all sat. I like to think it was the shoes that got me the job. Or it might have been bad luck.
   
     But all that was still to come and for now life had a nice comfort zone routine to it in affluent Horsforth, a nice suburb, nice shops, nice children, nice grateful parents; you get the picture. In the meantime there was a toddler daughter to bring up, half a dozen hens in a shed in the big garden we had then, and a football team to follow when we got the chance.

     Keeping hens was rather nice. They had an enclosed area in the large garden we had and we popped them into the shed every night safe from the garden foxes that we knew were around. The first time an egg was laid Mrs T actually phoned me at school to let me know. Going down the garden to collect the eggs each morning was a ritual of which we never got tired. It was like getting something for nothing – excpet they cost a fortune in straw and feed. But boy did those eggs taste good with wonderful yellow runny yokes. We grew potatoes and so on the occasions we had egg and chips for tea we though boy this really is The Good Life.
 
     All this was well and good however until two disasters happened. One night the fox did get in and we hadn’t fastened the pop-hole. The feathers and corpses the next morning made a sorry sight. Undeterred we got a new batch and settled them in. But then an intruder from the adjoining terrace decided that hens equal free food. One by one the hens vanished over a period of a few nights. Whoever it was wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box. The adjoining terrace was mainly flats rented out to social services cases and drop-outs. A trail of feathers one morning led to one house in particular and there in the dustbin was a carcase. The police of course thought it was all a huge joke and sadly it was the end of our hen-keeping.
 
     The toddler on Saturdays was deposited with grandparents in Todmorden. We went to the match, and returned to meat and tatie pie. Todmordenat this time was famed for its UFO sightings..............

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