Exmoor Lockdown Diary 4 - The Curious Case of Lardy Cake and the Ballet Dancer
Let’s look at the cheerful side of all this… Walking up to the top of the hill above my house I can gaze down on a series of valley systems that lace the area where I was born and bred, and where I have spent most of my life. And when I look at the beautiful view, the sobering but somehow reassuring thought hits me that most of the people I have ever known within that view are dead.
I do not know, exactly, why I find that reassuring. Something to do with the inevitability of life’s cycle, I guess. But if you are in your 60s or older then this is probably the way it’s going to be - unless you spent the first half of your life living as a recluse. A great many of the people you knew who were 30 or 40 years older will be gone - that is just a fact of life and we are lucky to live in a modern civilised country where you can make even that generous equation.
One of the things that comforts me during the present crisis is remembering all the fun I had with those dear departed folk. Or with some of them, anyway.
In my own particular case, there was one man who lived in the same valley system as the one where I live now, with whom I probably had more laughs than anyone else. His name was Randolph Priddy and he’s the old guy holding a camera in these black and white photos - taken at Roadwater Fete, by the way, long long ago.
Prid, for that is how most people knew him, was a local press photographer who’d turn his hand to snapping anything from news-stories to weddings to skittles matches. He was blind in one eye, which didn’t exactly help with his photography much - and he often worked with a journalist (my dear old dad, Peter Hesp) who was deaf in one ear. This amused both of them and they considered it made them the perfect team.
But what really did that trick was the irreverent sense of humour they shared. One thing they both loathed was any sort of self-importance or pomposity - two things which local newspaper folk come across a great deal. When I grew up to become a cub-reporter for the local paper, I joined the team - and on more than one occasion Prid and I were thrown out of events for being overtaken by terrible bouts of the giggles.
The other day, after I started this Exmoor Lockdown Diary, someone asked if I wasn’t worried I’d soon run out of things to write about… Well, no. I’m not. And wouldn’t be anyway - but I could keep this thing going for a few months on Prid stories alone.
I was thinking this as I went down to the Roadwater village shop earlier today for a handful of things. My first trip outside the immediate valley since last Monday. And I was passing a house which has been so majorly messed about with and “done-up” that any person who knew it 40 years ago simply wouldn’t recognise it today. Talk about over the top… Homes and gardens gone mad.
The place used to be a hovel. A real dump. And it was like that partly because of its location right next to the river, but also because the elderly lady who lived there had somewhat given up the ghost. She no longer tidied either the house, or herself - so was infamous for having a bit of a pong about her.
Not many people would have her in their houses - but one person who did, of course, was old Prid. To be honest, he wasn’t too house-proud himself - and I don’t think any of this three children would mind me saying that. Hayman’s Cottage, Roadwater, wasn’t exactly Ideal Home material.
Needless to say, this did not put off Mrs L. She loved going round to see Prid and did so often. She was an entertaining old girl and had been a professional ballet dancer long ago and so had numerous wonderful stories about life on the stage. But even her colourful tales weren’t enough to persuade those of us who happened to be at Prid’s place from leaving if Mrs L arrived. Prid, however, always seemed to be immune when it came to unpleasant odours - which he put down to having lived in some squalid parts of India during the war.
I believe this little aside is true and maybe my friend Chris Priddy will tell me if it’s not… But one day Prid was driving over the Lodge Rocks road taking his young son to Minehead when they came across Mrs L walking up the hill. Knowing what would probably happen, Chris said: “Dad, if you stop to pick her up, I’m getting out!”
Prid - in that charitable way he always had - duly stopped to pick the old lady up. And Chris duly hopped out and walked.
“Have I done something to upset him?” Asked Mrs L.
“No,” shrugged Prid. “It’s just that he says you smell - which you do a bit.”
That was always the way with Prid. He’d always tell the absolute truth - out loud, to anyone - about anything.
That was one of his many remarkable characteristics. And here’s another one - a far less remarkable one, it must be said, but it has direct bearing on this story…
Prid loved lardy cake.
Now, I don’t even know if bakeries still make and sell lardy cake. If they do, it probably has some kind of government health warning on it - because the word lardy comes from lard - or pure pig fat, from which the sweet cake is made.
And Prid loved it. Which wasn’t such a good idea because he had an angina problem. Nevertheless, he loved lardy cake so much he went about the area on his photographic duties forever on the lookout for better and better lardy cake. And eventually he found it.
The old photographer reckoned the best lardy cake in all the world, let alone West Somerset, was the stuff made at the old bakery in Dulverton - which is now the excellent Woods wine bar. And so, for a couple of years, he took to making special journeys across Exmoor in his old Ford Anglia estate car in order to replenish supplies of this ruinous morsel.
Eventually, though, he began to work out his addiction was becoming expensive. It’s a 30 miles round drive from Roadwater to Dulverton - all that for a greasy chin and a raised cholesterol level…
So at that point Prid took the previously unheard of move of ate noting to make lardy cake for himself. His usual diet was a kind of black stew to which he added stuff daily - so he was most definitely not what you’d call a cook. But now he’d become obsessed by his favourite toothsome morsel and he managed to purloin a recipe from somewhere.
And it was with great pride that he eventually launched his lardy cake upon the world.
I’d gone round to see him and he offered me a slab of the oily, lumpen, thing. It was awful. I just couldn’t swallow it. My father said the same. So did dear old Doc Hardman who was another frequent visitor - and even the cellist who often came to stay with Prid could not get the lardy cake down. Which was saying something because that particular guy was always, always, hungry.
After trying it on us all, Paid had to admit that even he couldn’t stomach the stuff. So we then tried giving it to Anushka, Prid’s large and sometimes aggressive Alsatian dog. She was like the cellist - always hungry - but she wouldn’t as much as sniff Prid’s lardy cake.
Late that evening Mrs L arrived. I wasn’t there, but I see no reason to disbelieve Prid’s word on this… Mrs L was offered black microwaved tea (Prid’s speciality) and a slab of the aforementioned cake made of pig’s fat.
She loved it! And asked for another piece. In fact, soon she had eaten more than half of it. Which fascinated Prid at the time and which gobsmacked all of us when we heard what happened…
Eventually Mrs L - who fancied Prid and would probably like to have stayed (a thought I shall put rapidly from my mind) was persuaded to go - and off she went up the valley.
She was never seen again. Mrs L died in the middle of that lard-flavoured night.
Prid used to say that in ten-thousand years time some archaeologists might find themselves in the place above Roadwater that used to be known as Leighland, and there they’d find an old burial site. They’d dig through the old remains - now all rotted and turned to dust. And then they’d come across a strange skeleton that had four of five lumps in the cavity which had not rotted at all…
They’d take the stuff away and do exhaustive tests on the mysterious substance that had obviously killed the human all those centuries ago. But no, the material inside the ancient person’s stomach cavity wasn’t anything ever seen on Planet Earth before.
You shouldn’t laugh. But sometimes you havn’t much choice. Right now seems like one of those times.
Leighland Chapel
