My Dad, and the Legend of the Three-Legged Chicken

There’s no simple way to say this, my father died last Friday, very suddenly, in his kitchen. He and his wife had just come back from the shops, all was well, until it wasn’t.

Ambulances – multiple – arrived within minutes, but his heart simply stopped. I’m sure we’ll know more soon, but for now suffice to say for whatever reason, he stopped being, very suddenly, with no forewarning and apparently little to no suffering.

As with so many relationships, ours was complicated. We didn’t communicate too much in the past years, but I understood him and his wife to have found a joyful existence which brought me comfort to know.

I tried to think of a few memories and anecdotes to share with my stepmother to lift her spirits a little, and while I did come up with some fond memories the thing that always sticks out for me was his love of jokes. He like a good fast pun, he liked a three men in a bar joke, he liked a Englishman Irishman Scotsman tale, and he loved long jokes. Loooong jokes.

When I was writing my note I remembered the first time I heard him tell the three-legged chicken joke. I was enrapt. It was long. it was detailed. And although I didn’t have the word for it at the young age of nine or ten or so, I now know it to be an anti-joke. I watched him tell it, and I could see the joy he had in the telling of it, he relished it. His eyes sparkled when he told a good joke. Had a killer smile, my Dad. He was more present, more alive when he told a good joke.

It is this joke I remember the strongest, I’ve embellished it and molded it to my own and told it on many an occasion. When I do, it is with fondness for him and our shared time together when I was young.

So, I share it with you now. Except for one hopefully obvious lie, it is all true, all based on real memories and real experience.

Before you read, it’s important to know that when I tell this joke, my Dad is voiced in a rapid fire Welsh accent, Cardiff as best I can do, and the farmer is a slow West country drawl. If you don’t know the accents, here’s a snippet of each:

Cardiff accent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIQcuejDXTQ

West country accent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x-PtJPmeXk

It’s important for the pacing.

Anyway, for Dad. When I tell this in person, it’s about twice as long, but I don’t think I can hold your attention on the page, so a slightly tighter version for your reading pleasure.

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This reminds me of the time I was in the car with my dad driving to Sidmouth in Devon from South Wales. Late Thursday evening, no traffic, M5. My mum had left us and my dad was seeing this lady in Sidmouth, so we used to go down for the weekend.

My dad, an ex-mechanic and now a window cleaner, had saved and saved and saved and finally got himself a used BMW 316. He loved that car.

So, Thursday evening, no traffic, M5 south, he opens it up a bit more than he probably should have just past Bristol, have a bit of fun. Inside lane. 80 mph.

VROOM.

Something tiny goes whizzing past us. We look and I swear to all things holy it was a chicken. Running down the M5. Doing 80 mph.

My dad, he wasn’t having none of it so he speeds up to get a better look. 85 mph. Catches the chicken.

Chicken looks over its shoulder, bawks, accelerates. 90 mph.

Dad accelerates. 95 mph.

We inch closes and he says to me “I think that chicken has three legs!”. I squint real hard and sure enough, that’s a three-legged chicken doing 90-odd on the M5. Three legs. No wonder it can move so fast.

This goes on for about 15 minutes, my dad and this chicken neck and neck heading toward Exeter. Dad was about to give up when the chicken sticks out its left wing and leaves the motorway, I might be misremembering but I think it was near Buckland.

Anyway, my dad decides he needs to find out what this chicken is doing so he pulls off too. Up the slip road, round the roundabout, up an A road, down a B road, we chase this flippin’ chicken through the Devonshire countryside until it darts off into a farm track up toward a white stone farmhouse.

Poof! Gone. Round the back. My dad handbrakes the BM spitting gravel all over the place, just shy of splattering this old geezer sat quietly out front, the farmer.

My dad jumps out of the car gesticulating like a mad man, our blood pressure is sky high and he is yelling “DID YOU SEE THAT CHICKEN?”

The farmer slowly raises himself and headed towards us. “Carm down mate” says the farmer, slowly as you please in a thick Southwest accent, “I knows about the chicken”.

“I CHASED A CHICKEN DOING 90 UP YER MATE” says my dad. “FLIPPIN’ THREE. LEGGED. CHICKEN”.

“I knows I knows” says the farmer, trying to placate my dad, “I breeds ’em I do”.

“YOU WHAT MATE? You breed three-legged chickens?” my dad, starting to calm a bit but still ruffled.

“Aye” says the farmer. “Three legged chickens is what we specialise in round yur. Y’see, of a Sunday lunch, oy loykes a leg, me woyfe loykes a leg, and me boy Abel, well ‘e likes a leg too. So’s we breeds three-legged chickens ‘ere we do”.

My dad deflates, takes a deep breath, looks the farmer square in the face and says “seriously mate? How do they taste, like normal chicken?”

“I don’ royghtly know” says the farmer.

“I ain’t never caught one”.

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It’s often the silly ridiculous things that anchor us to the people we’ve lost. For me, it’s not a grand life lesson or some passed-down wisdom that remains most vivid, it’s the image of a three-legged chicken hurtling down the M5 and the shine in my Dad’s eyes as he breathes in right before smacking the punch line.

Relationships can be complicated, and time for sure slips by, but a shared laugh is permanent magic and adds light to any room.

For teaching me to fix a bike, to use a wood saw, to change the oil, to face a wall with purloined sandstone from the beach, to lay a patio, to watching the Tour de France together and talking about Shimano gears, for my first bitter shandy, and my first proper pint… cheers Dad. Safe travels.