Elizabeth Elder: Suddenly the whole world’s heard of Rothbury

Things We Thought They Would Never Say Number 87: “Tonight, there are fast-moving developments in Rothbury” – Fiona Bruce, BBC News at Ten, 9 July 2010.

We live about 20 minutes from Rothbury and go there a couple of times a week. It is the sort of place where shepherds and farmers like to retire. It’s quiet, has some decent shops and facilities and, when two or three are gathered together, they can discuss sheep.

In normal circumstances, the peace is only disturbed by gatherings of bikers on Sundays and Bank Holidays and occasional bouts of flooding. Other than that it is not a place where much happens.

So it must have been both shocking and worrying for people in the area to find themselves, in early July, in the middle of a massive police hunt for an armed killer. This would be particularly so for those in isolated properties.

When I was a teenager the police would periodically ring up my mother, who was by then a widow with three children, to say that a prisoner or prisoners had escaped from the local jail. They would ask her to search the farm buildings but warn against approaching anyone she found because they were dangerous.

That was frightening enough, but at least our escapees didn’t have guns. As I recall, we used to encourage the dog to bark for a bit and then retreat into the house, carefully locking all the doors. Discretion being the better part of valour and all that – there isn’t a lot else you can sensibly do.

There are said to have been more than 10% of the UK’s armed police resources in the Rothbury area during the manhunt. Locals are questioning whether the supposed £3m cost of the police operation relates to the manpower or just the cost of refuelling at the local garage at 133p/litre.

Tensions were further raised by a full turn-out of the nation’s 24-hour rolling news corps. Kay Burley interviewed the butcher, then the baker and you just knew that the candlestick maker was going to be dragged out in front of the cameras next.

Having invested in the helicopter and the hotel bills, all the news channels seemed determined to fill for hours with so-called experts advising that a determined fugitive could evade capture for months in a place like this. I’m not sure that this helped the peace of mind of anyone apart from potential fugitives planning to flee to Rothbury in the future.

At one stage the police raided a farm on the edge of the range and we started to think the gunman might be moving in our direction. At times like this, you become quite sensitive to things like the Countryside Alliance bumper sticker I noticed on a car. It bore the legend, “Keep Shooting”, which I thought was rather unfortunate in the circumstances.

As time went on, you began to wonder if the police had any idea what they were doing. We heard of them taking hours to respond to sightings and break-ins. There was sporadic stopping and searching of vehicles, but nothing was found. Even our daughter’s school bus was stopped in Ponteland. (That’s pronounced Pon-tee-lund, by the way, as you will not necessarily have gathered from news reports.)

Then suddenly, on that Friday evening, the gunman was located. Our neighbour Frankie was having a meal in Rothbury that night. He has described the enormous feeling of relief experienced by everyone in the pub as it became clear that the police had the situation under control.

In fact, as the tension lifted, Frankie said, the atmosphere transformed into something reminiscent of the Rothbury Music Festival, with various news crews joining in. They were probably just as relieved as the natives at the thought of being able to leave.

Thankfully, matters were finally resolved without any further injuries to third parties. I hope Rothbury will be able to return to its previously well-earned obscurity soon.

At home, in the relative calm of the military firing range, Jake has started clipping the sheep. He hasn’t got the moccasins and reinforced trousers of the professionals, but he gets the job done slowly, surely and cheaply. Archie and Julia are quite a good help with the wrapping of the fleeces and will have more time available as we move into the school holidays.

We have just undergone a spate of sports days, prizegivings and school performances in the final throes of summer term.

Julia’s school put on an environmental musical set 30 years hence, which was performed very well and with great enthusiasm. School performances with an environmental theme seem to be par for the course nowadays. Sometimes I think that occasionally we could be allowed something a little less worthy.

After all, in many ways we’re already doing our bit on the environmental front. First, we are organic farmers. Second, as I look out onto the Redesdale Rewilding Project (formerly known as the garden), I can see we have created a whole new haven for wildlife.

The next major job after the clipping will be making silage and hay, if the grass ever gets long enough to cut.

Things They Thought They Would Never Say Number 88: “It’s been very hot here recently. We could do with some rain” – Otterburn farmer, July 2010.