Jim Cawley, seen below right, was born in Denton in December 1918 the older son of Denton born James Stock Cawley, a roadman, and Miriam Cawley.

 

 Sadly Miriam was to die in 1927 at the young age of 38 leaving James senior to bring up Jim, then aged 9, and his younger brother Edwin.

 

Both brothers have lived all their lives in Denton and have a huge fund of memories of days gone by.

 

The following tale is a story, as told by Jim, in his own words, about an incident in late 1939 just after war had broken out when Jim was aged 20 and working as a bricklayer.

 

It happened the first winter of the war – when the war broke out it was very cold and I was working at Simpson Barracks – there was about 200 of us bricklayers – they were trying to get it finished you see. We were there when war broke out because on the Monday they tried the air raid warnings on the factories – all the factory hooters went off. Simpson Barracks was started on before the war – they knew war was coming.

 

 On those days when it froze we couldn’t work even though it were important – there were nothing you could do – just had to stop at home and go on the dole. There was no antifreeze – if it was anything less than just 1 degree and you tried to pick your mortar up it used to stick on your trowel.

 

 It was a very cold winter the first winter if the war – there were quite a few builders who couldn’t work and I used to go rabbiting. Two or three of us would go – my Uncle Horrace had got a ferret. I don’t know why he didn’t go but I went on my own this particular morning. It was a bright and sharp morning –  you could sometimes go to work later if it came bright and sunny and thawed well – around 11 o’clock or something like that. But I had done it about 3 mornings like this and that day it was pretty sharp and a lovely clear sky and I thought I’m taking the old dog down Whiston Road and I’m going to get a couple of rabbits.

 

 So I took my nets because in the gateways there are drains and so you popped a couple of nets – one each end – and you carried on walking – didn’t let the dog roam about. When you come back you would stand in the gate or wherever you could see him and you’d say ‘Go on Jack’ - he was young keen dog and there’d be rabbits flying everywhere – there were thousands of rabbits in those days.

 

 There was one hedge on Gilbert’s farm, The Slade and I remember our milkman, who came from Cogenhoe –  used to pay Gilbert – perhaps a fiver – and  he used to ferret this hedge –  with a mate they’d go there on a Saturday afternoon – have a couple of hours – and  they’d have 60 rabbits – they were only just under the surface they had plenty of nets on every little hole and then put the ferret in – Good Lord you couldn’t get hold of them and kill them quick enough.

 

I knew if you went down Whiston Road there were a lot of gates with these little drains where there were ditches running alongside the road – all the water ran off the side of the road and they used to pipe them through the gateways so carts and things could go in the fields.  You could always get a rabbit – and I had a good dog and I’d got him well trained – he was a whippet and he was faster than a greyhound you see over a short distance –cor he could go!

 

 Some greyhounds stand and shiver but he wasn’t like that – he was perky and on the look out – he looked as if he had a thicker coat although he was a thoroughbred whippet – his mother was a little dainty buff colour and they crossed him with a black whippet and he come out black and white.  He was ever so tough.  Horrace Walker had one as well – called  Teddy – he was black like Jack but Teddy was dainty – ever such fine skin and he used to stand and shiver if he was outside – always on a shiver – he were a good worker – him and Jack used to work together but Teddy hadn’t got the toughness – somehow he was a different kind of mentality -  dogs are the same as people, all different.  I could pick Jack up and put him on the gate in front of me and he’d be looking where I was looking – I gave a whistle and his two little ears would come up and he tensed and I used to push him off the top of the gate and he was galloping when he hit the ground. Well, a rabbit couldn’t get away from him then – he’d catch it because they didn’t know where to go or what to do.

 

This particular day I went well down Whiston Road where there was an old black shed about 200 yards back from the junction where you go down into Whiston village. There was a gateway there and it was an extra wide one because to be able to get in they’d had to take a bit of the verge away because that was where the main entrance to the 2 or 3 fields stood. A cart with just two wheels you could turn in easily as a horse would go round just like that but a wagon is long and once you started turning you’d got to be able to get square or it wouldn’t go through a 10 foot gate – it would catch the post.

 

I was looking to see if there was any chance of laying some nets – but suddenly I noticed this hare’s run – when they come through a hedge they leave some of their fur behind them – I noticed it had run through there times – it was what you would call a main run and if I remember right it had only got the one run.

 

It was one of Tompkins’ fields and it had been a cornfield that season. It hadn’t been ploughed – it was early like and they hadn’t long been got the corn off. Funnily enough the weather seemed to be different then – I know very often there was a frost before they’d got all the corn off the fields and anyway this stubble field lay bare and I thought there’d be one or two forms. Well hares are like rabbits in that they scratch a hole – they are cunning – if there’s stalks of corn or tufts of grass they always do it behind a tuft of grass and they always do it where they can see and they crouch down and they are the same colour as ground.  Rabbits are a grey colour and hares are a browny colour and they have bits of white on so they are properly camouflaged.

 

 Well I thought I’d stand at the gate and I’d put Jack on the gate – he used to love that – he’d jump up and sit on this 4 inch gate top and I’d hold him and I thought I wonder what will happen if I whistle so I gave a blast – ever so shrill – and sure enough two ears came up in the field – and they were long ears. I felt him tense – he was looking the same way and I said “Get him Jack” and I pushed him down. Well the hare didn’t have much time but he got out of his form and got running before Jack could get to him so Jack weren’t up with him by 10 yards. By the time he had overhauled

him – dogs will try and go round them to get at the back of the neck – he had gone down the bank.

 

 

He had crossed the brook - and it’s a big dip down to that brook - and you could see all the pine trees in the old quarry – they weren’t very big then and that quarry wasn’t overgrown like today.

 

 I waited and I watched and up the side of that quarry about half a mile away – or maybe three-quarters -   suddenly I see the hare. Well he’s double-crossed Jack you see as he knew where he were going and I thought -  Good Lord! he’s going to go in the quarry and Jack won’t see him and if he did go after him I’d probably have to go down and get him back.

 

Lo and behold suddenly the hare turned round and I couldn’t see Jack.  I thought that hare’s going to come back again – well Jack had probably lost his scent through all the bushes and undergrowth.  He’d gone through a bit of the spinney but anyhow Jack was on to him straight away and suddenly up the rise about 200 yards away from me down this field comes the hare – then about 20 yards behind him comes Jack – he’d had a good run.

 

 I knew what to do then.  I went and stood carefully then knelt down where the run through the hedge was and I peeked through the hedge - the leaves we off it you see - and when the hare came it would be about 6 yards away from me – I went “Booo!” like that.  The hare stopped dead – it didn’t know what to do – it didn’t know where to go.

 

 Before he could blink Jack was there.  I don’t know how fast Jack was going but for Jack to go 6 yards was an instant. I remember him catching it by the neck – back of the neck - and this hare just started to walk away and he was hanging on it – and I  thought “God that’s a big un!”

 

 I thought well I’d leave it to Jack – I hoped he wouldn’t crunch it up – if they struggle much the dogs tend to bite them harder and damage all the guts and everything. He got it and wouldn’t let go so I got over the fence and thought I’d better be careful here because the copper might come by  – hare is game and illegal –  rabbits we just vermin. They were always called coney.

 

And I thought if the policeman comes he can wheel his bike and see all down where I was – there was no shelter just an open flat field and that Whiston road looks up if you go by on a bike or in a car if the hedges are not very high – you can see way across to Earls Barton.

 

 I got to Jack and he’s got hold of it and won’t let go.  And I said “Come on Jack - let me have it” and as soon as I got hold of it it died – I didn’t have to kill it. Hares will die like that – they die of fright – their heart just stops.

 

Well I picked it up – Good Lord – It was bigger than Jack.  Jack weighed around 16lbs – very light for a dog and not much heavier than a big cat. All whippets are is long thin body and spidery legs – but their breeding apparatus is good because they can hold their own with the ground – no end of stamina.

 

Well I thought “What am I going to do with this then?”

 

  So what I did was I went into the old wooden shed – it was never kept locked. It was a big tarred thing containing a cart full of food – a load of hay for anything eating on the stubble – something for if there was no grass there it was all.   They would put sheep on there to clear up the cornbine and they used to move them about and they would eat the weeds as well as anything else.

 

 Then I thought – brainwave.  I’d got brown overalls – bib and braces and I hadn’t got my bike so what I did was tied the bottoms of my trousers up. Also I had an old mac on – one of those thin, loose ones with a round collar. You could carry a gun under that – take it to bits and stick it in your belt. – or hang it round your neck – I used to borrow one from grandfather who lived next door to me – he used to lend me his .410 – we used to call them garden guns because  they were used for shooting anything in the garden.

 

 So I put the hare in the overalls over my shoulder and tied it in the bib straps so I had got the thing hanging down my back – every few minutes I got to look round behind me as there might be a policeman –  they used to patrol regularly. The was a policeman at Brafield, one at Yardley and another at Bozeat and they visited all the villages frequently.

 

So back to the hare.  I got it home to Denton and went and saw Uncle Horrace at night – he was one who always went to the Red Lion every night for a drink and play darts – which I didn’t.

 

 He said “ Why didn’t you go to work? -  we started about 11 o’clock”   I told him I’d been keen to get a couple of rabbits so we could have one and I could give one to next door.

“But you should see what I have got in the barn at the back –  come and have a look at this – Jack caught it”.

 

 He said “He didn’t”,  I said “He did”.  The hare was hanging up there with a great fat belly because it was after harvest time – it was in good condition.

 

 He said “Christ that’s a big ‘un.” I said “yes it comes up to about my chin with its ears on the ground”.  – He said “Let me take it in to Brafield club tonight”.

 

  He and my dad used to go to the club every Friday night – they used to play skittles and did whatever had got to be done.

 

 He said “I’ll take that and I’ll get it raffled.   That’ll go like wildfire - take my word – what does it weigh?”

 

 I said “It’s about 16 lb with its entrails” – because you hang them with their guts in you know – you have to hang them 6 weeks – no freezing in those days. They’re beginning to go ripe by then – course when they’re cooked that kills all the germs

 

I saw him on the Saturday morning he said – “Do you know what that hare fetched?”  I said - “I’ve got no idea”. He said “It fetched 25 shillings!”

 

They raffled it with two packs of cards – first Bot won it and put it back in to go again and it kept being raffled again

and again. Eventually old Tommy Austin bought it in the finish for 3/6d – he was like a fishmonger and he sold fruit – in fact he sold anything and everything. He used to come round with a horse and dray from Barton.