Giving it Bollocks

The Peak District Park VIII

The passenger in the pickup was bald, a bar through his eyebrow, squinting. The driver leaned forward, wrinkled face, no teeth on one side. “We’ll get you to where you wanna go,” said the driver, his accent distinctly Derbyshire. I felt nervous.

The driver got out and came round the side. He was wearing a T-shirt with a motorbike on it, shorts and huge clunky work boots. I wasn’t sure about this, something felt off. He tugged open the back door and looked at me expectantly, willing me to get in.

On the backseat was a shining angle grinder and a heavy-looking hammer. That sealed it.

“Thanks, mate…” I said as I got in. With an angle grinder and hammer next to me, I had all the power.

“Lemme just move that,” the man said, tossing a pink puzzle aside. He had skinny arms wrinkled like an overripe peach, “That’s for the little one that is.”

If hitchhiking teaches you anything, it’s that looks are deceiving. Maybe one day they won’t be, but touch wood, so far every time I’ve judged someone on how they look, I’ve been left feeling guilty for doing so.

The man with half a set of teeth was Bill. He was chirpy once we were moving, affirming my decision. He grinned through the mirror. “So where you off to then?” London I said. “London! And what could possibly tempt you there? I went to London once.”

“What did you do?”

“Turned around and came straight back!”

Bill was born and raised in Derbyshire. He knew the landscape we drove better than anyone. We came up behind a tractor, an enormous load of hay balanced on its back. Bits tittered off its back like confetti, skating across the road. “Whose is that?” he muttered to Pete. They wondered who’d been pulling hay off at this time of year. Must be someone big.

Bill and Pete did all sorts of work. “Bit of everything like,” nodded Bill, “Cut trees, trim hedges, work on farms, do a bit of sheep, tractors, got two diggers,” he counted them on his fingers, “We take them around people's gardens. We do everything mate. We normally work on Sundays but not today. Nah today we’ll give it bollocks.”

It was a day to give it bollocks too. Perfect sunshine, barely a cloud.

“See that barn there?” Bill pointed to a large white metal shed by the road, “Yeah we did that one. They buy the shed, see, and we’ll build it. Same with the concrete floor. The bastard still owes us 10k. Paid us 2.5 and won’t pay the rest.”

We were coming towards Matlock but they said we wouldn’t want to go through it on a day like today. Full of tourists, the traffic would be backed up for miles. It’s a nightmare, so Bill said he’d take us the back route.

We swung onto a single-track lane, up a steep hill where an arctic lorry had got stuck the other day. Bill grinned through the mirror again. “Driving up into the hills with two blokes…!” He said with a slight joking leer. —“And an angle grinder,” I added. He cackled. —“Yeah, we got three serial killers in the car!”

He pointed out every field we passed and planted it with some story or other, “…that one there cost a million quid. See that shed in the corner? Did that extension last year…There was a steam fair in that one last week. And a big car boot in that one over there. Had bouncy castles and everything. £3 entry though! Bit steep.”

We reached a T junction and a car pulled out in front of us. Bill slammed the break. The angle grinder lurched forward. “You stupid spunkwidth bastard spunk fock face!” Bill cried. I thought it the most remarkable insult I’d ever heard.

The track continued up the hill to a wood and turned a sharp corner. The tree trunks were tall and tight, the boughs dark. Bill said they’d built a shed right in the middle of it once. They had no idea what it was for. Maybe something dodgy I suggested.

“When we were kids we’d come and pinch cars up here,” Bill said. Or at least, they’d pinch the cars and take them here, leave them for a few days, “Let it cool off. Then we’d take them off and strip ‘em clean.”

Bill couldn’t remember how much they’d get for them. It was 30 years ago now. Not much though he thought. “We were just kids messing about.”

They used to pinch the rescue Landrovers from over Edale way. The keys were always left in so they could rescue people quicker. “You imagine they’re off to save someone. They don’t wanna be like ‘Oh no where’s ‘t key!’”

Mind you, I said, they’d probably rather forget the key than have nothing to rescue them in!

“We never got caught or anything,” he reminisced fondly, “Ahh we were just kids messing about.”

We came out of the woods back onto the open hills. Bill saw me trying to take a clandestine picture of the angle grinder. “What you photographing?” He asked suddenly.

“Err I was just trying to take a picture out the window,” I lied a little awkwardly. For some reason I didn’t want him to think I was photographing the angle grinder. He might think that was weird.

“Taking a picture of what?!”

“Just the view…” You couldn’t see over the hedge.

“If you want a view, I’ll get you one,” he said cheerfully. We took another detour, turning left up the hill. There was a layby at the top. “Here ya go. Let’s all get out and be tourists. Who’d a thought we’d pick up a hitchhiker and become tourists for the day!”

Bill leapt onto the roof of the pickup, sun of his face and fading tattoos. He surveyed the fields proudly. “Trying to see if I can spot any sheds I’ve built… That’s Eden’s Farm there,” he pointed, “That’s the tower if you ever need to work out where ya are.”

Pete stood on the passenger seat and leant on the open door. We all looked out. A moment of calm. Silence across the valley.

“Worse places in the world to be,” Bill reflected, “Bit different to where you’re from aye. Worse places to be…”

“Not a bad day to be tourists,” I said.

“Aye, we’ll give it bollocks today.”

He squinted up at the sun. “We get a couple nice weeks a year up here. The rest of the time it’s raining and wet and miserable and floods. You ever tried sweeping water uphill?”

With that he jumped off the roof, knobbly knees springing back into the driver’s seat.

We did the same and set off down the hill, the usual tour guiding resuming. “…That’s the golf course… Pff do I play! Do I? Don’t do anything I don’t have to mate… That’s the police station. They’ll have him in there coz he’s from Scotland,” he jabbed a thumb at Pete, “They’ll have you in there coz you’re from London…That’s where Terry’s mum used to live…”

We came towards Alfreton, the suburbs a blunt and ugly shock after the hills. On the radio, someone mentioned Keeping Up with the Kardashians which set Bill off in a cackle.

“Do they live near you?” He asked me. I said I didn’t think so, but he was onto something else, “Ahhh hangin’! I’ve got a mate from London now, gangster!” He pulled his biggest grin yet and contorted his hands into a gangster sign, “And he lives near the Kardashians!”

They left me in Alfreton. The road was busy. They wished me luck getting to London. “Aye we’re off ‘t pub!” Bill smiled a final half-toothed smile, “Nah we’re giving it bollocks today.”

Quite right I thought. A day like today, we should all be giving it bollocks.