shower you see would suddenly go ice cold. Had Sellafield run out of hot water?! Four reactors with
white hot innards working flat out spinning the steam turbines to keep people’s lights on and ... we had
no hot water?! Had the management not paid the ‘ironic’ electricity bill?
Nope. Joss Naylor had arrived and, shown complete disregard for normal humans, gone behind the
showers and adjusted the valve to the ‘hot for ‘Joss’ setting i.e. turn off the hot water. You spend your
life on the fells, like Hanna Hauxwell (remember her?) and cold just doesn’t exist; everything is hot; even
Joss’s hot water bottle was filled with dry ice (that’s not the secret by the way).
I would actually pad behind the showers leaving wet footprints as evidence, open the control box,
and put the hot back on and regain the Anti Joss Naylor setting. ‘He’ would then scream and run out the
same colour as a Masterchef lobster. Somehow we all managed to get clean, and then changed. Joss
began to time it better and by the time he arrived from sleeping in his cubby hole somewhere on site, the
shower would be empty ... perfect.
One day though, as he was drying himself next to me, I noticed a wound on his back, with what
looked like hair underneath it. Strange? I pointed it out to him as there was no one else there; they had all
gone for a cuppa in the tea room.
He panicked and tried to hide it, but his game was up.
“Frankie, will you promise not to tell anyone if I tell you the ‘truth’?
“This body you see is a very clever latex skin.” and he told me the full story ...
He turned the showers cold because, well, he liked the cold, sheep do ... but more importantly, if
any hot water got through the slit (that’s how he got it on), it, together with the soap, would trash the
lanolin (and then his wife wouldn’t have soft hands any more ...).
Joss Naylor, being a sheep (female), was actually born Jocelyn Naylor Sheep (domestic animals
have second names too), but shortened it when he found that being a male human was so much harder
than being a female human ... even now, (he has a high pain threshold you see ... it said so in the
Whitehaven News), he thinks it’s easier to be truly ‘alive’ like that (there must be some logic
somewhere).
Plus, when you get the latex human skin, if you have ram’s horns they look ridiculous and the
human form could resemble John Merrick as far as the head goes ... too much trouble. Of course no one’s
noticed his lack of horn.
If you’re a ram and cut holes in the head and let the horns out, you either get accused of being an
over enthusiastic Pagan, or asked why you are wearing a top hat if you get a job as a swimming pool
attendant; “I’m a rather posh swimming pool attendant old chap” doesn’t wash.
Jocelyn, was born in the Spring on the side of a fell in full view of Sellafield, and immediately
thought, “I’d like to work there one day, but they probably don’t employ sheep” (that’s debatable). As
she grew up, narrowly avoiding being ‘silenced’ for the shop one Spring night when very young, she
developed a dislike for sheepdogs, but actually enjoyed running at speed and distance to avoid ‘her’
amorous master and his farmer friends who came along to try their luck too.
Jocelyn didn’t mind the weather of course, but would look through the farm house window and
watch the TV set, which she liked. You won’t believe me, even though you’ve now seen loads of films
such as Charlotte’s Web etc., that animals can think in ‘and’ understand ‘human’ English. Even thinking
they can’t delivers a load of mental pain trying to figure what human sounds actually mean. They can
understand us ... and only pretend they can’t to piss us off and give us something to do when we’re bored
