Chicken run (From Bucks Free Press)

Chicken run

1:11am Monday 1st March 2010

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Quite a few people in the street kept animals. One household even had a goat in the back garden, the beast also wandered into the house on occasion but only after feeding her first, if left unattended dear old nanny goat would eat the furniture. Next door had a parrot, he was a retired Naval Officer so it seemed fitting. A collection or flock of doves cooed happily from the house at the far end and three, maybe four gardens contained a chicken coop of some kind.

About a dozen houses made up the terraced row with a passageway through to the back every third house. Running from end to end at the back of the row was a footpath which gave access to the passageways. Ours, being the end one, had a gate across the path. - (I have always wondered if it was there to keep us kids in or to keep others out?) Whatever the reason, it meant we had a big courtyard outside the back door that incorprated the pathway, before the garden plot itself began. All the houses had the same sized garden, and a few had a chicken coop. We did too, though in typical fashion it was different to the others.

Indoor plumbing was basic in the house, a single cold water tap in the scullery and that was it. The privy was outside in the shed at the other end of the garden. A chilling prospect in winter, in summer too come to that. A roll of toilet paper had to carried from the house which as much announced to all what your intentions were, (sometimes squares of newspaper had to be torn, ..the Times was hard.) If said paper was left in the privy or shed, the chances are the rats would chew it to shreds. On many an evening it was possible to hear them and on occasion, see them scurrying about. They came in from the woodyard that lay beyond the sheds in search of the chicken feed and indeed, anything else that was remotely chewable. The chickens had something to say about any intrusion into their roost, the clamour they made would wake everyone in the street. The rats learned early that some places just aren't worth going to.

When Bert built the chicken run he had, for reasons known only to himself, built it across the garden instead of the more usual way of along it. This meant that in order to get to the shed and the toilet at the end of the garden you had to go through the whole structure. Bert never did explain why he had bucked the trend but his legacy was a sturdy, comfortable home for the chooks. So sturdy that it was able to support the weight of a child (me) should a ball get thrown or kicked onto the top of it. On the face of things this short route through the coop wouldn't necessarily have been a problem, but you have to take into account that we had - Bandit, the killer cockerel. Well ok, he never did actually kill anyone, but he definitely used to think about it.

He didn't like me. I tried everything to get on his good side, but he wanted nothing less than blood every time. Others would have no problem but Bandit would always see me coming and begin to cluck and flap at the fencing. I tried creeping up from next door and wriggling through the hedge, walking backwards so as not to catch his eye and even marching armed with a big stick but the resut was always the same; he would fly or flap at my ankles every time. Food sometimes distracted him for a moment giving time to make the dash through and it was a good idea to have some left for the return journey. He was simply a cussed beast, I still have scars.

The eggs produced by the band of birds kept us supplied for many years and delicious they were. But I wish Bert had put the damned coop along the garden, I might then feel more kindly toward chickens.

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