ACCOMMODATION: The Turf Club, The White Horse Inn, Captain Pepper’s Inn.
BANK: Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork.
Annual horse fair and horse yearling sales in April.
This area is celebrated for its horse-racing and is also a centre of specialist medical excellence. The small cottage hospital has an Igor who can repair the most complex limb fractures and spinal injuries in both man and horse. NB His stock of spare parts is strictly segregated.
EVEN IF ONE is not a follower of the turf, Shankydoodle is a pleasant place to stay. There are several scenic walks through the parkland and it is worth getting up early to see the horses at the morning gallops. One can hear the thunder of their hooves before they emerge from the dawn mists in a rush of speed. Exhilarating indeed.
On race days there is an air of anticipation and excitement in the town. The jostling crowd is a mixture of the wealthy (well-dressed owners in conversation with trainers and jockeys) the hopeful (serious-looking men wearing flat caps and binoculars, intent on their racing paper) and the desperate, those to whom a flutter on the races has, over the years, turned into more of a forlorn flapping with serious consequences to their personal finances. And of course there are day-trippers with a few dollars to risk on the favourite runner. Since gambling is frowned upon in the dwarf fraternity few are in evidence here. On the other hand trolls have embraced the turf with some enthusiasm and troll consortiums now own several racehorses. They have also embraced racing fashions and what appears, at first glance, to be a large, brightly checked tweed marquee is likely to be one or more trolls checking out their investments.
Trolls have brought more than just their huge size and sartorial dash to the turf as is revealed in the attached cutting from the Shankydoodle Racing Times.
THE RACECOURSE BENEFITS from a rather fine and somewhat elaborate tote board, originally designed as a five-year desk diary, almanac and appointment device by Bloody Stupid Johnson. Unfortunately its size of over twenty feet by thirty made it impractical and the dates were never correct. The giant device was discovered in a barn close to the racetrack and was renovated by a family of goblins while they lived within its complex interior. With their cooperation the contraption was eventually erected at the main entrance to the viewing paddock where it now displays the tim
e of the races, names of runners and jockeys, the changing odds and for some reason the phases of the moon and high tide in Quirm. It is much admired.
Don’t leave Shankydoodle without sampling the local brew, Mudstone’s Peculiar, a robust porter made using water from the Netherglades which gives substance to its rich darkness.
The journey continues hubwards, the train passing through a landscape of pasture and woodland to the usual delays at Champal Junction where it rejoins the main line to Ankh-Morpork.
I once asked Mr Lipwig why the train did not continue back to Ankh-Morpork via the coast. Part of the reason was the difficulty of laying more track through the Netherglades. But the other reason is more curious. Apparently a rival company decided to run a railway along the Circle Sea coast and build a modern holiday resort there. They made good progress for the first hundred or so miles. But then the trouble started and it was reported that workmen on the dawn shift found several pretty girls in filmy clothing tied down to the track who, as the mists lifted, seemed to melt away. There were rumours that these were girls from the Pink Pussycat club, in the pay of the AM&SPHR. Mr Lipwig said he could not possibly comment and that everyone knew the old legends about a place called Holy Wood where a great city disappeared into the sand overnight.
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FROM DIMMUCK A single-track branch line extends hubwards to Scrote and the Effing Forest. The train has just one carriage for passengers, the rest being flatbed trucks or wagons to transport timber from the forest.
I am told that Scrote hasn’t changed much even with the arrival of the railway. A narrow stone building serves as the station master’s office, the upper floor acting as a signal box.
LEVEL AND UNLEVEL CROSSINGS
AT THE POINT where the railway meets one of Scrote’s two roads the right of way across the junction is governed by a level crossing. Gates close off the track from the road traffic until a train is approaching, when a bell rings in the station master’s office, prompting him to move the gates to bar the road and allow the train free passage.
The system works well here, but elsewhere, according to the guard on the train, the rumour that the purpose of the gates was to indicate a request stop has caused some minor injuries as well as disappointment. Large signs have now been erected at all level crossings explaining their purpose.
By an accident of geography (or maybe because the surveyors were guests of the hospitable landlord of the Pickled Cabbage pub near Sto Kerrig), one section of railway track on the Sto Kerrig branch line was laid through the Pickled Cabbage’s yard, and a level crossing installed. Reuben Sticky, the said landlord, was planning to make sure the gates closed off the track at meal times, thus causing unscheduled stops for the passengers but a lucrative business for himself. What he actually got was a fine from the railway company who then replaced the gate with a permanent structure. His dismayed regulars now have to put up with the noise and smoke of the trains and the additional inconvenience of the conveniences being the other side of the track.
There is also a story about an engine driver in Ohulan Cutash. He was faced with the conundrum of either disobeying company regulations about road crossings where he should sound his whistle on the approach, or encountering the wrath of his old granny who lived near by and said the noise was enough to wake the dead let alone her and her cat. Apparently he made arrangements with local goblins who, when they see his train approaching, flash with mirrors or lamps to another of their number who deals with the gate.
After Scrote the landscape becomes more wooded, and in less than half an hour the train terminates at Effing Halt deep in the bosky shadows of the Effing Forest. There is a well-constructed wooden station and gantries for loading timber and also coal from the small, family-run mines. A plaque on a dented anvil within the station commemorates Jed and Crucible Wesley, local pioneers in the field of steam power for one short, abruptly ended day.
•EFFING HALT•
POPULATION: 41
CLACKS TERMINAL
This stop primarily serves the local logging industry. Most travellers stay in Scrote.
THIS ANCIENT WOODLAND is home to some interesting flora and fauna: details are recorded in a pamphlet distributed by the Friends of the Effing Forest. This body is now campaigning to save the Effing Great Tit, whose nesting sites are apparently endangered by the greatly increased level of tree-felling. I was shown a copy of a letter they have sent to the railway pleading their cause.
The Effing Forest is also home to lumberjacks who, it is reported, are often the worse for drink, a most unfortunate condition for young men whose livelihood depends on the axe. Unsurprisingly, there is an Igor Rapid Response Unit based at The Forester’s Arms, where impromptu entertainment is sometimes provided by the lumberjacks who have formed a rustic and somewhat energetic choir.
Tucked away in a glade a mile or so from the station is a shrine to Sweevo, the God of Cut Timber. It takes the form of a carved pine totem pole about twenty feet high and it is still regularly visited by the local woodcutters. There is a superstition that bad luck will follow if a woman witnesses any of the ceremonies surrounding Sweevo. It has been reported that since the arrival of the Igors the offerings of severed limbs have been replaced with carved wooden representations of the same.
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THE SINGLE-CLASS STOPPING train to Big Cabbage leaves from platform 2 of New Ankh Station. This country train is very friendly; everyone seems to know everyone else, as they clamber on at the stations along the line, armed with shopping bags and baskets for the journey to market, or going to see family and friends in the surrounding towns and villages. There are a good number of trolls, generally travelling in their own open carriage, on their way to visit their families in the new housing estates in Sunink. What were once small villages on the outskirts of the city have expanded into suburbs so that the view from the train is rows and rows of new houses which fill the gaps between the old farm buildings. There is a certain similarity to all these houses and it appears that builders will erect a row of dwellings in a week and sell them by the weekend and even arrange for the goods and chattels of the new owners to be delivered by cart before the ink is dry on the contract. Such is the competition between builders that they employ a number of trolls to walk beside the track with huge sandwich boards offering property for sale.