In search of inspiration for a veterinary magazine article she’s been asked to write, Dr. Harriet Bailey comes across an interesting tale of a 1940s snowstorm, a flock of sheep, and a Yorkshire shepherd who never came home. As Harriet delves into the historical records to separate fact from fiction, she brings to light some long-buried secrets and begins to develop theories about what happened so long ago.
But when a more urgent need arises, her search for the truth of the past is stalled. All over the Yorkshire countryside, flocks of sheep are dwindling, and it’s happening too often to be blamed on broken fences or carelessness of the owners. When she learns that Doreen Danby’s prize-winning ram, Prince Charming, is among the missing, Harriet realizes that the sheep are not simply wandering away. Someone is taking them, and she believes it is for a specific reason. Harriet will need all her skills to find the sheep rustler and recover the animals before more harm is done.
Lithograph after W.J. Allen. Original public domain image from Wellcome Collection
I’m delighted to have veterinarian Dr. Harriet Bailey, the main character and resident sleuth of the new Cobble Hill Farm Mysteries, here with us today.
Harriet, that’s a cute “self-portrait” you’ve supplied, but how about telling our readers what you really look like?
I’m pretty average looking, with brown eyes and long dark hair that I usually wear in a pony tail while working. I’m in my early thirties, petite, but strong, although my size still causes clients to doubt my capacity to do the heaviest tasks in a large animal practice.
The way I hear it, you soon prove yourself to be more than up to the job.
Yes, so far, I’ve been able to tackle most jobs with Polly’s or Will’s or the client’s assistance when needed.
Speaking of Pastor Fitzwilliam “Will” Knight, you seem to spend a lot of time with him. Is romance in the air?
Do I? 😳 He’s been a good friend. But I wouldn’t want you to get any ideas about us. He’s a self-proclaimed bachelor.
How did you come to inherit your grandfather’s veterinary practice?
That was an unexpected surprise. I assumed Cobble Hill Farm and everything connected with my grandfather’s estate would be divided between his two children–my Aunt Jinny who lives in the dower cottage and my dad. But my mom and dad love their life in New England. So, I guess my dad told my grandad to leave his share to me. It helps that I’m an only child. And I’m already a qualified vet–a career inspired by my grandfather from the time I was small.
But for you to leave your practice in the US and relocate to the UK must have been a huge adjustment?
It was. But leaving was easier than it would’ve been a year or more earlier, when I’d been blissfully planning a wedding with a fellow vet at the practice. After Dustin broke off our engagement, continuing to work at the same practice was beyond uncomfortable. Of course, it is taking the Yorkshire farmers a while to get used to their first female large animal vet. But as they like to say here in the UK, most folks have been brilliant about making me feel welcome.
It must help that your grandfather’s practice was already well respected?
Absolutely. In fact, I’m the third generation of Baileys to practice here. My great-grandfather opened the practice the year before the outbreak of the Second World War. The place has seen a lot of change since then, I can tell you. But I occasionally still use some of my great-grandfather’s original equipment, too.
Your grandfather was also a talented painter, opening his own art gallery here on the farm to display his work. Do you plan to follow in his artistic footsteps as well?
<Blows out a breath> I’m not sure that particular gift was passed on to me. And at the moment, the veterinary practice consumes most of my time. But…it’s something I might try my hand at one day. You never know unless you try, right?
What was the most difficult adjustment for you since arriving in the UK?
Hmm, there’s a few dishes, such as black pudding for which I still haven’t managed to acquire a taste. And understanding what some of the oldest clients are saying can still be a challenge, with the way they drop their ‘t’s and ‘h’s at the beginning of words and use many words I can’t for the life of me decipher.
But probably the biggest initial hurdle was learning to drive my grandfather’s beast of an old Land Rover on these hilly, narrow country roads. Never mind that I had to get used to roundabouts and driving on the left side of the road. I’d never driven manual and learning to do that on some of the incredibly steep grades we encounter in the moorlands is no easy feat. Add to that how close the stone walls enclosing the pastures are to the road in spots, well… I admit I’ve come close to clipping the side mirrors more than once whilst trying to pull over enough to pass a car coming from the other direction.
Notice how I slipped in the word “whilst” for “while”? 😀 I love the sound of that word.
Driving is easy peasy when the roads are flat and empty like this, but…
it can get a little dicey when you encounter buildings that are practically on the road and you can’t see what’s coming around the corner.
Then when I actually encounter oncoming traffic!!! I was catching a lift in a friend’s Renault when I snapped this pic through the windshield and the car’s warning siren was beeping hysterically because our “wing mirror” was scraping through the hedgerow camouflaging the stone wall behind it. I was glad not to be driving that day!
Image courtesy of Carlos Porto at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Does it bother you that you’re often mistaken for a boy because of your name?
🙄 As long as they don’t forget to feed me, they can call me whatever they like. Doc Bailey, Harriet’s grandfather who first took me in, said he called all his office cats Charlie over the years…one less thing to keep track of. <Shrug> Beggars can’t be choosers.
Do you mean no one else wanted to take you in?
Would you? I scarcely escaped the fire with my life. And my coat is still patchy all these years later.
But it’s what’s on the inside that’s important and from what I hear you’re a wonderfully protective mama.
I don’t like to see any creature abandoned. So when I found that baby under the bush, of course, I wasn’t about to leave him alone.
I take it that you didn’t like being shut out from watching over your young charge once Aunt Jinny took over the infant’s care?
They didn’t succeed at that for long though, did they? 😎
LOL, no I suppose they didn’t. You’re certainly a cat I’d want on my side.
I returned from the UK with the unique voices and terms of Yorkshire folks talking in my head and endeavoured to flavour the story with those voice as much as I could without making the reading difficult or awkward.
In particular, I dropped a lot of the ‘h’s and ‘t’s at the beginning of words, as Yorkshire folk do. 😳
TJBlackwell, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Not surprisingly, my editors nixed my attempts at phonetically rewriting several common expressions, and they removed some of the turns of phrases I’d kept in my second draft to try to still convey the folks’ distinctive way of speaking.
As a sampler, my submitted glossary of UK terms for the front of the book included the following words that were omitted from the final version*:
Anyroad – Northern English for anyway; I always get a kick out of hearing this expression and used it myself for weeks whilst writing the book (along with the word whilst 🙂 )
Aye up – common form of greeting in Yorkshire;
Backend – Yorkshire term for autumn or fall
Car boot sale – also called boot fairs are markets where individuals sell their household or garden goods, often directly from their car’s boot (trunk)
Kip – to sleep or nap
Nowt – Northern England term for nothing;this is another of the iconic Yorkshire expressions that I was disappointed to see nixed
Offcumden – Yorkshire term for someone who has come from elsewhere, an incomer
Punter – British slang for a customer in a commercial establishment
Shiverthewink – a rascal
Sprog – British slang for a child or baby
Summat – Yorkshire slang for something
Ta – British slang for thank you; I can still remember my grandmother using this expression, which I adopted when my children were little
*Of course, some of the above words may actually appear in the story’s final version with their inclusion in the glossary deemed unnecessary. On the other hand, I used the term brass in the opening scene but it was replaced with the word coin in the book. Yet, brass still appears in the glossary, so other places where I used the term were likely kept as originally written.
The Yorkshireman’s Motto says it all
“Ear all, see all, say nowt.
Eat all, sup all, pay nowt.
And if ivver tha does owt for nowt, allus do it for thissen.”
Translation: Hear all, see all, say nowt. Eat all, drink all, pay nothing. And if ever you do anything for nothing, do it for yourself.
I met an iconic looking Yorkshireman in Leeds–barrel-chested, braces (suspenders) holding up his trousers and he spoke like that motto. I could scarcely make out what he was talking about. And neither could the Brits with whom I was touring!
Garry Knight from London, England, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Before heading across the ocean to explore Yorkshire County in preparation for writing Into Thin Air, a friend mentioned her suspicion that a relative who purportedly worked for the US coast guard was really CIA. The comment stirred my creative juices and got me thinking about generating similar suspicions about my Clive Talbot character. Only, I intended to suggest he worked for MI-5 or MI-6.
In asking lots of questions about His Majesty’s Coastguard, upon my arrival in Yorkshire, I learned of the extraordinary work of the volunteers with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and instantly knew I wanted to include their work in my story.
The RNLI was founded in 1824 in response to the tremendous loss of life due to shipwrecks along the UK’s coast. In 2024, it celebrates it’s 200th year of operation. And two centuries later, the RNLI is still primarily operated by volunteers and funded by donations.
The RNLI’s legacy is truly inspiring.
Currently operating more than 400 lifeboats from 238 stations, the RNLI’s courageous volunteers answer more than 9000 callouts each year. Since its inception, the lifeboat service has saved more than 144,000 people. In an age when more people than not are concerned about their own comfort and wellbeing than helping others, the dedication of these volunteers is especially inspiring.
With multi-author series such as Mysteries of Cobble Hill Farm, the authors don’t always know what gets changed after the initial round of edits, because we don’t proofread the final galleys. So…unless I sit down and read the printed book after publication, I remain blissfully unaware of what else has been changed since my final submission.
The double-yolk laying chicken case is based on a true story my uncle recounted to me of a hen injured by my grandfather while farming in the UK in the 1940s.
However, the editors opted to make a fox, rather than Allen, responsible for Rosie’s injury, as I’d originally written it. I like that this puts the lad in a more favourable light, especially when he clearly cares a lot about animals.
In the original:
The boy had been fuming at one of the farm geese that was making a nuisance of himself and threw something at it to scare it off. But ended up inadvertently clipping Rosie, causing her injury.
Also deleted:
Being a practical farm woman, his mom had been prepared to cook Rosie for dinner, but Allen wouldn’t stand for it. To hear tell, he’d left his equally distraught sister in his dust as he raced to Cobble Hill, with his piggy bank tucked in his rucksack.
I guess my editors didn’t want to distress readers with that thought. 😆
Vocabulary and dialogue adjustments were also made throughout the story to better balance readability while maintaining a flavour of Yorkshire distinctiveness. Check out Yorkshire Speak for more details.
Harriet Bailey smiled at the sight of the young lad sitting in the waiting room of her veterinary surgery Friday morningwith a docile hen roosting contentedly on his lap. “C’mon in, Allen. How is Rosie doing?”
The boy sprang to his feet. “Right fine, Miss Harriet. She’s mighty grateful for us saving her. She’s laid a double yolk egg every day since.”
Laughing, Harriet lifted the hen out of the boy’s arms, being careful of its splinted leg. “Wow, that’s high praise.”
The boy grabbed an egg carton from the seat beside the one he’d vacated then followed Harriet to an exam room.“I brought you a bunch. Not all Rosie’s, since I wanted to give you a full dozen, but some of hers are in here.”
“Thank you so much. I appreciate that.”
Rosie pecked at Harriet’s dangling ponytail.
Harriet quickly deposited the inquisitive hen on the examination table then flicked her ponytail over her shoulder and tucked the stray tendrils of dark brown hair behind her ears. “She certainly seems spry enough.”
“She is. The other hens wanted to peck at her splint, so I’ve kept her penned away from them, close to the house. And I visit with her every day.”
“I’m sure she loves all the attention.” Chickens didn’t always appreciate the ministrations of rambunctious young boys, but Harriet had witnessed Allen’s extraordinary care and been impressed. She removed the splint from the bird’s leg and examined it carefully.
Allen had raced over on his sister’s bicycle a few weeks ago with the hen cradled in the basket attached to the bike’s handlebars. “I need to see the new lady vet,” he’d blurted to Polly Thatcher at the reception desk as he’d dashed into the surgery. He said a fox had gotten into the hen’s enclosure and injured Rosie before he could chase it away. To make matters worse, Rosie was his mother’s favorite hen.
Harriet’s heart warmed at the memory of the confidence the boy had placed in her capabilities. Several of the local farmers, especially the old-timers, were still wary of the idea of a lady vet—and an American at that—taking over her beloved grandfather’s decades old veterinary practice in the heart of North Yorkshire.
Harriet stroked Rosie’s feathers. “I’m pleased with how her leg has mended. She shouldn’t have any trouble with it now.”
“I’m most grateful to you, Doc.”
“It’s been my pleasure.”
He stuffed his hands deep into his jean pockets. “What will I be owing you?”
Harriet glanced at the carton of eggs he’d set on her counter and knew exactly how her grandfather would respond.“Those farm-fresh eggs should cover it.”
“Really?” He picked up Rosie and hugged her to his chest. “Oh, thank you! My dad said she weren’t worth the coin it’d cost to mend her. But after she started laying double-yolkers, even he admitted she’s a right grand hen.”
Harriet chuckled. “I’m glad to hear it. She is indeed grand.” She opened the door for him and gave a relieved sigh at the empty waiting room. After spending half the night seeing to a sick calf, she desperately needed a coffee. As fond as she’d grown of the locals’ strong Yorkshire tea, she needed a bigger caffeine kick before facing the rest of her day.
Bluebells, Gorse Bushes and dried Heather (this was taken in May. Come August the field will be covered in purple heather)
In Book 3, Harriet encounters everything from pheasants to fawns, and faces a particularly challenging case involving Highland cattle. In Book 9, it will be lambing season. 🙂
Photo by Charlie Firth on Unsplash
White Church Bay
The fictional village of White Church Bay is fashioned after the coastal village of Robin Hood’s Bay overlooking the North Sea. Harriet lives on the cliffs less than a mile north of town. The coast to coast trail crosses the back of the large farm property she inherited from her grandfather. And fields flanked by drystone walls surround the property.
the narrow “streets” between the houses in the lower Bay Areathe views from the shorelineclimbing up to the coastal path above the bay and views of “White Church Bay”Top: View from the back of Harriet’s property Bottom: Will’s street in the upper part of White Church Bay
White Church
The church depicted on this street was reimagined as a community church with a white-washed exterior based on a circa 1848 Wesleyan Chapel in Hull and an interior based on a church overlooking Robin Hood’s Bay that I was able to visit:
The interior was set up unlike any church I’d ever seen with a three tier pulpit area in the centre of the church and gated pews.
The Countryside
“The undulating hills weren’t as lush green as they’d been when she arrived in the spring, but the bilberry bushes were already fruiting. Their globe-shaped pink flowers dotted the low-lying shrubs and, even from the road, she could see the abundance of butterflies, damsel flies, and bees flitting about them. In another couple of weeks, the heather would bloom and paint the fields a glorious purple. Inhaling deeply, she revisited their light floral scent with musky undertones from her summer romps through the moors as a child.
The whistles, chirrups, and twitters of various birds drifted through her open windows, occasionally punctuated by a cock pheasant’s distinctive call.”
Passing on the narrow roads can be quite hair-rising in spots. The blue and red sign means no stopping at any time, not even to let off or pick up passengers. The single red line through the blue circle is a “no waiting” symbol for the verge (ie. shoulder of the road…if you can find one!). It means you can stop to pick someone up for example, but you can’t wait around.
In the middle of a country drive, we almost always happened upon a castle ruins of some type.
After her grandfather’s death, Harriet Bailey inherits her grandfather’s home, veterinary practice and art gallery at Cobble Hill Farm in White Church Bay, Yorkshire, UK.
It can be challenging to convey the layout of such a large property. And since, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, I’m sharing a pic of the hand-drawing I made before I started writing. Thankfully, our series editors approved, only shifting the barns more behind Aunt Jinny’s and Harriet’s homes.
Although in the UK, medical clinics are referred to as surgeries, and what we in North America might call a surgery or operating room, they call theatre, our editors opted to use the terms Harriet, as a transplanted American, would typically use. So…the Veterinary Clinic occupies a portion of the main floor of her two story house and shares a parking lot (aka car park) with the two-story dower cottage, where her Aunt Jinny lives and has her doctor’s office.
Below are some of the pics I took while touring the east side of North York Moors National Park. They depict what some of the fictional buildings and views might look like.
In this area of Yorkshire most of the farmhouses are built from stone. There are few whitewashed walls or thatched roofs. But Bailey’s Art Gallery has a thatched roof similar to this one I spotted:
Since Harriet Bailey is the third generation of Bailey vets to practice out of Cobble Hill, I imagined that parts of the home and clinic might still look as it had sixty or more years ago…as seen at the James Herriot museum:
Public Footpaths abound in Yorkshire and run through the fields adjacent to Cobble Hill Farm, while a coastal path traverses the tops of the cliffs overlooking the North Sea at the back of the property (minus the fence):
Each instalment of Mysteries of Cobble Hill Farm will feature a special English recipe connected to the story.
It’s early August and bilberry season in Book 3–Into Thin Air–and Harriet enjoys Mucky Mouth Pie courtesy of Doreen Danby, her wonderful neighbour who also happens to be a baker extraordinaire.
If you’d like to treat your friends or family to the delicious treat, here’s the recipe:
Mucky Mouth Pie*
Ingredients:
3 ½ cups bilberries** (In North America can substitute blueberries or Huckleberries)
¾ cup white sugar
scant 2 cups pastry flour
½ cup butter
8-9 teaspoons of cold water
Directions:
Cut the butter into the flour until crumbly, sprinkle with water to form into a ball. Let rest in a cool place for 30 mins.
Divide pastry in half, then roll out half to line a 9” pie plate.
Fill with berries and mix in the sugar. Add a splash of lemon juice if desired.
Roll out pastry top and cover pie. Dampen and seal the edges, trimming excess.
Jab the top with a fork in the center to allow steam to escape.
Bake in preheated 375 F oven until pastry is brown and crisp.
Hint: Best served hot, with custard, or cold with whipped cream.
Popular Variation: Bake bilberries in a Yorkshire pudding batter.
* Mucky Mouth Pie is so named because of the color it tends to leave your mouth. 😉
**bilberries are also called moorland berries, wimberries or European blueberries. They are a close cousin to North American blueberries, but smaller and more acidic.
Question: What are some of your favourite English dishes?
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