Hardknott Pass and the 999 Sheep – Researching The Port in Cumbria
Hardknott Pass is a real road over the fells in Cumbria, and a very steep one. I drove it on a research trip for The Port, book 7 in the Cumbria Crime series I write with Joel Hames, and the trip ended with me calling Cumbria Police about some sheep. The Port itself is set at the Port of Workington, a working commercial port on Cumbria's west coast.
I should probably explain the circumstances.
What is it like to drive the Hardknott Pass?
I was doing a research trip with my son for The Port, working our way around Cumbria. We'd completed what I can only describe as the Hardknott Pass experience, which, if you haven't driven it, involves a road that appears to go straight up, corners with no visibility, and other drivers who seem to have made peace with the situation in a way I have not.
We survived. We descended. And then, on a quiet wooded lane heading into the national park, a Land Rover flashed its lights at us.
I did not think much of this. After the Hardknott Pass, not much can unsettle me.
The sheep
Two bends later, I found the reason.
Three sheep were on the road. Two of them were huddled at the edge of my side. The third was standing in the middle of the other lane. When it saw our car, it decided to walk towards us.
Of course it did.
I stopped the car. The sheep did not move. The verge was too steep for them to get off the road, and the road was too bendy and narrow for oncoming drivers to see them in time.
We needed to do something.
My son suggested the RSPCA. I didn't have their number. There was nothing for it.
I dialled 999.
'999 emergency, which service do you require?'
I took a breath. 'Police, please.'
How Cumbria Police handled it
Cumbria Police, as it turned out, handled this with complete professionalism. The man on the phone took my What3Words reference, took my details, and told me they would take action.
The proposed action was a 'drive-by', as he called it.
I drove on, hoping the sheep and the oncoming drivers would be fine, and feeling that this experience would somehow end up in a book.
When I told Joel about it later, his response was immediate.
'Ha. Cumbria Police's first drive-by shooing.'
And that is why I write with Joel.
Where is The Port set?
The interaction also reminded me just how different real Cumbria Police work must be from what Joel and I write about. Zoe's team deal with murders, organised crime, bent colleagues. The man who took my call about the sheep was equally unflappable, and equally professional.
In The Port, Zoe and her team investigate a murder connected to the Port of Workington, a working commercial port on Cumbria's west coast. It's a very different side of the county from the lakes and fells: industrial, functional, salt-aired and windswept.
But the policing, as ever, is what makes it interesting. And now I have a slightly broader appreciation of everything Cumbria Police is asked to do.
Read more
New to the series? Start with The Harbour, or get the prequel novella The Castle free.
