The Tay Man.

Once upon a time, so long ago that only the storyteller remembers.

You couldn’t go to the shops to buy tea bags or even a packet of tea. You had to wait until the man came around the area with a horse and cart upon which were boxes of loose tea and we used to call him the “Tay man”. Now one day a farmer and his wife were sat in their little cottage looking miserable. The wife had made a gorgeous cake of bread upon which she had made a cross, it was sat upon the windowsill and the smell of it would make your mouth water.

Why are they so miserable you may ask, well I’ll answer you. They had no tea, “If only I had a nice mug of tay, wouldn’t I be the happiest man in Ireland” said the farmer. All of a sudden there came a knock on the door. “Hello the house” they heard. The wife jumped up and upon opening the door she saw a tall good looking young man standing there.”Hello” he said, “I’m the tay man”. Well before he could say another word up jumped the farmer, “Come in come in” he said, “Bring some of it in with you and we’ll do a deal and seal it with a lovely strong mug of tea”.  Well they did the deal, but by the time they had agreed a price it was getting dark so even though it was only a one bed cottage the Tay man was invited to stay the night.

They were all sat around the table when the farmer’s wife said “You know what a fine looking man like you needs, well it’s a chunk of my fresh bread and butter and aren’t I after making a fresh cake” with that she stood up and was just about to pull a big piece of bread off when the farmer stopped her “Woman. Ye can’t be pulling the cake to pieces, it’s still hot and you’ll only ruin it, leave it until morning he can have some for his breakfast. Now as I said it was only a one bed cottage and here was the problem but the farmer was cute enough and had the problem solved. “Well, it’s time for bed” he said, “you get in on the side next to the wall” he said to the wife, “I’ll get in the middle, and the Tay man can sleep on the outside”

Now they were all packed into the bed so tight that when one person turned over they all had to turn over. The farmer had also noticed how the Tay man and his wife had been making googly eyes at each other over the tea and didn’t trust them for one minute.  Now the farmer was of a certain age and as we all know when you get to a certain age you suffer from ‘The affliction’ as we call it and you have to get up during the night to go to the toilet. Well back in those days the toilet was out the back and up the field and on a normal night it wasn’t the best thing to have to do but on this night a storm was blowing in off the sea  bringing with it a heavy rain. 

In the middle of the night up the farmer got to go to the toilet and not trusting either his wife or the Tay man, he woke her up and said she had to go with him. A short time later in they came and got back into bed. Well the night wore on and the farmer made another trip to the toilet taking the wife with him, I can tell you she was not happy. The wind was howling and all of a sudden there was a noise on the roof like the devil himself was trying to rip off the thatch. The noise was so loud it woke everyone up. Up jumped the farmer and as we all know there are times when the urgency of one thing makes you forget another, you know what I mean, like if you have a bit of a headache and you hit your thumb with a hammer. Well you forget the headache because you are feeling the pain in your thumb. This was like that. The farmer grabbed some rope to tie down the thatch and ran outside forgetting all about the two in the bed. The farmer’s wife turned to the Tay man and with a little smile said “Now’s your chance, you can have a little bit of what you fancy” and with that up jumped the Tay man and ate the cake.

And they're all alive to this day, if they haven't died since.