Sawley, near Clitheroe, east Lancashire
Out high in the northern Pennines, between farms and mills towns, where life is hard, men are men and women are women, lays the Beat Herder, where men are women, women are cows and cows aren’t sacred.
Despite our foreign dress, we’re welcomed, and the locals show us the many delights of this isolated pagan settlement. There’s jerk chicken, THE Lancashire Hot Pots, living rooms in tunnels, Can-Can girls, the hardest of drum and bass and Dewsbury’s finest cabaret singer. By the fall of night we go walking in the wild wood, where we find their temple. The children watch us as we disappear into the flurry of beats and watch through ominous trees the sky turn from red to black to blue and, as the birds start to sing, we run, freed at last from the head-down mentality of the city. We worry the sheep, but there’s not need to be worried. Jeff is with us, and there’s no turning back.
By Kenn Taylor
Kenn Taylor 