I had a farm in Cornwall, at the foot of Bodmin Moor.
I was a sheep farmer , supplementing my living by offering cream teas and bed and breakfast to the passing tourist trade. I am talking of many years ago, before the era of mobile phones and when Curly Wurly’s were as long as your arm. That was so long as you had an arm of standard length of course. If you had a short arm it is likely a Curly Wurly would have been very long indeed and a standard Curly Wurly still very long today compared to your arm. On the other hand, if you had a long arm it is a good bet a Curly Wurly would have appeared very short in those days and even shorter now.
Anyway, the farmhouse backed onto a tor, with rocky outcrops about 251 yards back up from the kitchen garden. On the side of the largest outcrop, which seemed to plunge down into the depths of the earth, there was a cavern.
The entrance to this cave was very slim. Tall but not very wide, rather than wide but not very tall, if you understand me. Imagine the entrance being vertical rather than horizontal. Now it was impossible for me to squeeze into this cave as the gap was too narrow except for the daintiest person. Well, coming from Cornwall I was hardly dainty so there was no way I was going to squeeze in. This gap was generally some 8 inches wide falling to just 4 in places, but about 18 feet 2 inches high. Hanging over the front of this entrance was a small silky substance about the size of a tennis court net. It was rather like a silk web, but sticky, with adhesive qualities, the odd white bone hanging from it, and oddly an Ordnance Survey map number 102 covering Land’s End.
It was during a balmy, melancholy September morning just like today, (except for the fact it was March) that I took a walk up to this tor, through my garden, between the evergreen bushes and, up the rocky meadow, past my nervous quivering sheep, to settle down with a flask of coffee and watch the early evening sunset. I used to enjoy the vivid orange, red, purple and flame colours changing and shifting as the sunlight bounced off particulates cast into the air from the clanking machinery, SUVs and heavy industry grinding away in Mevagissey.
With my back to the cold rock, I drew my Musto Quilted Windjammer tightly around my body (despite this being a time before that specific line of wear had been introduced) and lay back to soak up the last of the rays before plans to head back to my kitchen, the strong orange glow from the window beckoning me down to it. I looked back to the sunset, back to the kitchen window, a quick double-take. Fuck….the kitchen was on fire!!
The scones! I had put the scones in for the soon to be passing Easter tourist trade and had forgotten about them. I jumped up and was just about to sprint down to my house when I felt a snatch as my left shoulder, jerked back, was held tightly in the grip of something. I slowly turned my head round and there was the most ENORMOUS spider you could ever possibly see. Black body, shiny black and silver eyes, with enormous bent legs mottles black and brown.
The thing was at least 3 centimetres across, possibly 4 even!
And then it spoke to me. “Stay back, Saggi, this is one for me….” He continued “It is the least I can do to repay you for providing me with fresh lamb throughout the winter”. Well let me tell you, this arachnid thing was a mass of writhing legs as it scuttled down the hillside scooping up the sheep’s buckets – all eight of them – aiming its gangly legs for the water pump by the back door. On reaching the water pump its limbs went into action, turning like the London Eye (or how I imagined that would look when it had been invented) round and round in fast succession scooping up buckets of water to throw on the flames. Eventually the fire was out, but sadly the scones could not be saved.
But Henry, as I named him, turned out to be very useful. We baked some more together - his 8 legs compared to my two arms being very efficient - just in time for the Easter weekend, drinking lemonade and eating twiglets while listening to Radio 4. That weekend Henry drew the crowds in as he delighted them by slitting open eight scones at a time, then simultaneously laying the clotted cream down before alighting each one with a blob of jam.
Later that weekend, after the tourists had left, I squished him. Though he saved my home for which I will always be truly thankful, I could never forgive him. A true Cornish arachnid would know you put the jam on the scone before the cream. I could not live with that.