Gervase Phinn: Hail caesar

In the evening, the space is converted into a makeshift theatre with tiered seating and a stage, good acoustics and excellent lighting. It is such a clever, innovative concept and brings comedians, folk groups, pop bands, one-man shows, and actors to the market town that perform in an intimate atmospheric arena redolent of animals, earth and hay.

It was to the Skipton Auction Mart that I made a special journey to see a Belgian Blue bull being auctioned. It was a magnificent beast, like a huge box on legs, pale brown and white in colour with a massively thick neck, mighty horns and great muscles. Here was the Schwarzenegger of bulls.

I had seen my first Belgian Blue when, as a school inspector, I visited a school in the Yorkshire Dales. In a nearby field I had come across this striking-looking creature of impressive girth and incredible muscles, staring impassively over a gate.

Approaching him, I could smell his grassy breath and felt a tingle of fear as he scraped the compacted earth with a massive hoof. He was, indeed, a remarkable creature. I was told by the headteacher of the school I later visited that the bull was called Caesar and was owned by her neighbour, Mr Purvis, a man of few words and strong views.

"He's a great, fat, pompous creature," the headteacher told me. "The bull, that is, not Mr Purvis. He keeps Caesar only for breeding purposes and the bull looks like the emperor himself the way he struts round the field until he's called upon to 'do his duty', as one might say. He has a really vicious streak and many's the time old Mr Purvis, has stamped back to the farmhouse, cursing and swearing, and black and blue with bruises. The bull broke his arm a couple of times when he was trying to get hold of him.

"Anyway, when Jacob his grandson was about 11, so the story goes, he rushed into the farmhouse kitchen one morning shouting blue murder. 'Grandfather! Grandfather! Caesar's gone! He's not in his field! Somebody's stolen Caesar!' His grandfather didn't bat an eyelid but carried on drinking his tea. Then he nodded in the direction of the window.

"In the field beyond was poor old Caesar yoked

to a plough pulling away down the furrows, with two of the farmhands flicking his haunches with sharp switches. Caesar snorted and bellowed and puffed and heaved and looked very hard done by. 'I'll show him that there's more to life than love-making!'" said Mr Purvis."

The headteacher chuckled loudly, her body heaving and her eyes filling with tears of pleasure.

Gervase Phinn will be performing in An Evening with Gervase Phinn in November and December at the Bridlington Spa Theatre, Wakefield Theatre Royal, Grassington Town Hall, Harrogate Royal Hall and Huddersfield Lawrence Batley Theatre.

YP MAG 6/11/10