There And Back Again

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago in the sunny seaside town of Tricebourne, on the coast of the rural county of Thropchester, lived Mr & Mrs Theodor and Tamara Myze and their three sons, identical triplets; Tim, Tom and Tony.

Theo was a bookbinder; he owned his one-man book-bindery business in the small town’s quaint yet bustling High Street, working hard day-in and day-out, earning an honest living and providing for his growing family. He worked with his books though all stages of their binding; from cutting smooth, pliant, sweet-smelling leather or brightly-coloured buckram cloth book covers, to stitching it all into place, page by page, all bright, cleanly-cut and white; sometimes stamping and rubbing gold-leaf embellishments onto them, before returning them to their owners who had commissioned him to revamp their books, or selling them next door at the bookshop of the cheerful and kindly bookseller, Theo’s friend, Mr Loveday.

Theo and his wife had been married a long time and were still very much in love. Theo enjoyed his work very much, and had at one time, in the early days of their marriage before they’d had children, planned that his thriving workshop would, in time, become T. Myze & Sons. Bookbinders. This, however, was unhappily not to be, because his three sturdy sons, otherwise healthy in all other ways, were congenitally blind.

Tamara worked equally hard in the neat little two-up, two-down house that abutted Theo’s workshop; cooking, cleaning, ironing, sewing, laughing and singing, whilst caring for their three strong sons with love and compassion, and teaching them at home, too - for they were not able to go to school because of their visual handicap. Tamara even found time to teach them to play the violin, whistle and sing, for they loved music. She often help Theo with his work; sometimes writing fairy stories and comical tales that she would also read to her sons at night, making them laugh loudly and sleep tightly in the happy security of being loved by their doting parents. Tamara, however, was deeply saddened by the knowledge that neither Tim, Tom nor Tony would be able to read the stories which she wrote and read, nor ever see the contents of the well-crafted books that their father bound. In fact, both parents were at an absolute loss to know exactly what craft or workplace to apprentice their three boys into, considering their handicap.

One day, Theo was working hard in his workshop, when his shop bell clanged and his neighbour, the sprightly bookseller, Ted Loveday, entered. Ted often came in to pass the time of day; sometimes bringing the daily newspaper, to chat about local events; such as who’d won the town’s lottery that month, winning the portly pig that was the envied prize, or who’d been born, got married or died that week. On that particular day, Ted waved his newspaper, The Tricebourne Times, high in the air, proudly shouting that he had at last solved Theo and Tamara’s problems as to what work their three sons could do; for the paper was advertising for three grape-pressers at Farmer Toby Giles’ nearby vineyard, to aid him in getting their ripening grape harvest ready for fermenting and bottling.

Farmer Toby Giles was famous throughout the county and even further afield, for the superb quality of his red wine. He prided himself in its absolute purity, in that nothing but the ultra-clean, fresh grass-washed feet of his grape-pressers touched the ruby-red liquor in the wine-making tub. Indeed, either Farmer or Mrs Giles always closely watched their grape-pressers at work in the wine-shed to ensure that nothing whatsoever contaminated their valued wines. So, when Theo approached Farmer Giles to ask if his three sturdy but visually handicapped sons could take on the job of pressers, it was with total and utter care that Toby explained the very stringent rules that nothing but his triplet sons’ six scrupulously-washed feet were able to touch his cherished wine.

Now ten years old, all three boys were overjoyed when they were told by their parents that they were at last able to work to bring some money into the household. Even their father’s strict instructions that nothing at all should touch Farmer Giles’ wine except for their clean feet put them off saying that they would do the job to the best of their ability. So, the very next day, off they set on their very first day at work; the three of them being collected very early in the morning by Farmer Giles in his horse-drawn wagon, being taken to the winery for their work.

Sitting in the back of the cart in the warm, early-morning sunshine, Tom laughed and told jokes, Tim sang, and Tony whistled happily as they all rumbled and tumbled along in the rickety-rackety ancient wagon, hearing the equally ancient horse clippity-clopping slowly in front of them down the lane. They sensed the smell of fresh hay that had been carried in the wagon last week, whilst sniffing at the earthy fragrance of Toby Giles’ herbal pipe-smoke, which caught in the boys’ nostrils and throats, as his curly smoke-rings wafted in the dawn breeze past the boys’ noses.

Arriving safely at the Giles’ tidy farmyard where brown hens clucked, slow cows mooed, wise dogs barked and old sheep bleated, Mrs Trina Giles bade the boys welcome and led them to the winemaking shed where they were to tread grapes. She helped them to feel their way to the big tub where the grapes were contained, and assisted them in removing their six hand-knitted, multi-coloured, often-darned stockings, rolling up their six trouser-legs high above their sturdy knees to save them contaminating the wine, and carefully and meticulously washing their six powerful feet and thirty chunky toes with handfuls of fragrant, moist, fresh grass. The boys then used their thirty dextrous fingers to grab the wooden rail by the side of the large wine container, and then used their six muscular hands to help them climb into the big vat full of fruit.

Tom said “Ughhh”, its cold.”

Tim said, “Yuk, it’s wet.”

Tony said, “Ahhhha, it tickles.”

Trina then sang and sewed and watched attentively whilst the three brothers trod the firm, ovoid, sweet-smelling, scarlet grapes which exploded under their combined weight. The boys fell into a comfortable sort of marching rhythm around the vat together as they popped and mashed the pungently acidic berries between their long toes and under their large soles; squidging the pulp down and down and down, until the juices ran as liquid velvet, soft, maroon and fruity - free from their encompassing, imprisoning skins.

Trina’s soft background folk-singing gradually changed pitch and tempo into a rousing sea-shanty to match time with the boys’ increasingly fast marching around the tub. Trina gradually added more of the luscious crimson grapes as the boys traipsed round and round, using her long, large, sharp carving knife to cut bunches of the headily-scented fruit from their cool, leafy vines before tipping them in. Tom laughed wildly in time to the music. Tim joined in the singing with Trina, making up nonsense words to counterpoint Trina’s songs and drumming on the side of the tub with his hands as he moved; he sounded as if he were the drunken, old Russian sailor that the boys had once heard tipsily droning on the beach. Tony whistled with tuneful gusto, puckering his full lips and trilling loudly to make himself heard against the laughter of Tom, and the duet singing of Trina and Tim. All smiled widely and laughed with their eyes as the boys furiously became faster and faster and faster, almost running around the wine-tub in time to the beats of their self-made music.

All of a sudden, Trina stopped singing, abruptly, letting Tim’s thinner voice become an alto solo for a few seconds before he, too, stopped. Sensing something was very wrong, they all stopped marching - Tom stopped laughing and Tony stopped whistling at exactly the same time, in only the way that identical triplets can do when they each know something is very wrong, but without telling each other. Even the brown hens outside the wine-shed suddenly stopped clucking in the yard, the slow cows in the hayfields stopped mooing, the wise dogs in the yard stopped barking, and the old sheep in the clover meadows stopped bleating.

Trina screamed in horror. Never before had she screamed so loudly nor for so long - for she had suddenly realised that in their rhythmic, hypnotic pounding of the prized fruit, getting faster and faster and faster as they marched dizzily around the tub, the boys’ hand-made linen shirt-tails had become slowly loosened from the waists of their kersey trousers and were dangling down, low and loose into the scarlet wine. Not quite realising what was wrong, but not failing to hear Trina’s primeval scream; the three boys immediately panicked and tried to climb speedily out of the wine-tub; splashing in the wine and tripping over themselves as they awkwardly felt their way to the wooden handrail and steps, out and down to the ground, attempting to run away as fast as they could, for they were frightened as they had never before been frightened in their lives.

Trina however, was too fast for them, no sooner had each of their ten fingers and two hands found the railing than Trina snatched up her long, large sharp carving knife to cut off the boys’ offending wine-soaked, linen shirt-tails as they fled. Somehow, and they were never sure how (because they were violently clucked at by Farmer Giles’ brown hens, bellowed at by the now not-so-slow cows as they chased the boys through the hayfields, barked at loudly by the criticising, wise dogs from the farm-yard and even bleated to roundly by the ancient and now not-so dozy sheep in the daisy meadows) they found their way back home to the book bindery: back to their mother and father’s loving arms and comfy home.

The very next day, Ted Loveday once again came into Theo’s workshop to see them all and to check that the triplets were once again safe and happy after their big scare. This time he was waving his copy of The Tricebourne Times in alarm and anger at what had happened to shock the triplets witless, for somehow the editor of this local newspaper had got hold of the boys’ sad story. Its editorial read;

Three blind Myze. Three blind Myze.

See how they run. See how they run.

They all ran after the farmer's wife

She cut off their tails with a carving knife.

Did you ever see such a thing in your life

As three blind Myze.