Too Good Samaritan

It’s late in the afternoon and I’m driving along a dual carriageway on the outskirts of Nottingham on my way to deliver a Citreon C2 to a dealership in Derby.

As I go around a busy island there is another plater standing at the exit, trying to hitch a ride, holding a sign saying ‘Derby’.

There is a car close behind me and no shoulder to pull over onto, so I have to keep going. However, there is a signpost indicating that there is a lay-by a quarter of a mile further up so I decide to stop there and go back for him.

But by the time I get to the lay-by it seems further than this and as I pull in I find myself wondering if it is beyond the call of duty for me to go stumbling back along the grass verge in the dark. If anyone did that for me my gratitude would be tinged with suspicion – there is some solidarity amongst platers, but not usually that much, and it isn’t as if the guy is stuck in the middle of nowhere.

But since I’ve taken the trouble to pull over I decide that I might as well follow through with the plan. The roaring traffic and the lumpy overgrown grass makes the distance back seem even longer, and my actions feel even stranger.

He has his back to me and can’t see me approaching. I’m almost close enough to call out to him when a car pulls over next to him and within five seconds he is inside and on his way, without even noticing me there.

I guess I ought to feel unhappy about the wasted effort, but more than anything I feel relieved as I turn round to trudge back to the car.

The End of History?

It’s a cold Tuesday morning and I’m hanging around in Colchester with an hour to spare before I can get a bus to the small village of Great Wenham, where I’m due to collect a car to deliver to Peterborough.

I’ve walked up to the castle, on the edge of the town centre, and am looking around the grounds.

Colchester castle dates back to the eleventh century and boasts the largest Norman keep in the country, not so much because of the ambition of the architects but because it was built around an even older building – the Roman temple of Claudius.

The castle was originally four stories high, but the top two are long gone now, not due to the ravages of time or warfare, but due to the actions of a certain John Wheeler, a local businessman who purchased the place from the Crown in 1629 with the sole intention of demolishing it to sell the rubble to local builders. However by the time the upper two stories had been knocked down he had concluded that he would not make a profit from the enterprise after all and abandoned it.

The absence of the top half of the castle did not prevent the Royalists from holing up there for a twelve week siege during the civil war, in 1648. A small obelisk now marks the spot where their generals were executed following their surrender to the Parliamentarians.

Three years earlier, Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General himself, had also concluded that there was enough of the building left for him to make use of as a prison in which to hold and interrogate suspected witches. Anyone who has seen the classic 1968 film starring Vincent Price, then in his fifties, might be surprised to learn that Hopkins was only twenty five when he began his witch hunting career. He died just two years later in uncertain circumstances, by which time he and his partner John Stearne had been responsible for the deaths of twenty three women. In a strange echo of modern times, Hopkins’ interrogations were hampered by the fact that torture was unlawful, meaning that he had to resort to such tactics as sleep deprivation and the ’swimming test’ which involved determining whether the suspect would sink or float in holy water.

The castle was acquired by the local council in the 1930s and went through various restoration and repair projects to arrive at its present state. Now that it is considered part of our national heritage and worthy of preservation, it’s easy to think that this must place a full stop at the end of its history, but who knows? Maybe sooner or later someone else with big ideas will get hold of it again for better or worse.

Every Little Helps

It’s shortly before eleven in the morning and I’m standing on the platform of Newtown station, in mid-Wales, feeling out of breath and unhappy. About three minutes ago, a train left for Shrewsbury. I was not on it, thanks to Tesco. They are building a new store nearby and the resulting roadworks have virtually gridlocked the main roads into and out of the town.

This delayed my delivery of a brand new Mercedes van to an energy company about a mile from here. One of the guys who worked there offered to give me a lift to the station, but the idea was abandoned by mutual consent when it became clear that I would be quicker walking, although not quite quick enough as it turns out, despite jogging the last five hundred yards. The next train is not for another two hours so I set off to find something to do here to distract myself from my perception of being the unluckiest man in the world ever.

Opposite the station is a Somerfield, and half a mile up the road is a Morrisons. Why is there such a need for a third supermarket that the whole town has to grind to a halt in order to facilitate its arrival?

I wander around for a while, through the town centre and then along the river Severn. In pathless corners of a large empty park I find a big old owl carved from a tree stump, its face now badly damaged,

and a stone circle centred around a raised slab of about the right size and elevation to sacrifice an animal on.

I then head back to investigate a department store I noticed earlier near the station – Pryce Jones – which describes itself as the largest department store in mid-Wales, and is housed in an old ornate brick building. I saw it as soon as I walked out of the station, but avoided going in. The problem is that even though I resent the increasing dominance of the chain stores, the more of them there are around the more the few remaining independent stores just seem strange and anachronistic – unknown quantities to be avoided.

But I still have an hour to spare and have now developed a principled desire to look inside the place. The interior is a strange mixture of forlorn, faded glamour and cheap, poundshop cheerfulness. On the ground floor they sell biscuits, crisps, pop, canned food, cd cases, clothing and any number of other odds and ends.  On one shelf are dvd players still in their original Woolworths boxes. In a space on the floor lies a pallet loaded up with bags of sugar and surrounded by a white dusting of spillage.

There is a cafe on the first floor and so I head up there. On the landing is a large stained glass window with a royal crest and an inscription saying that the store is patronised by her Majesty herself. I wonder how long it is since her last visit. A hole in the top corner of the glass has been crudely covered over with card. Almost all the customers now seem to be working class women.

I could probably find more things that I wanted or needed in a single aisle of Tesco, but I like the oddness of this place, and the way it has obviously re-invented itself to remove all traces of refinement and gentility.

The cafe is tucked away to the side of the furniture section and in contrast to the rest of the store is spotless. There is only one other guy there, who I recognise as having arrived at the station just after me, sprinting from his car only to find that his fate was the same as mine, for the same reason.

I like the small wooden flowers in vases on the cafe tables, and the smiling relaxed staff. I was intending to just have coffee, but feel that I ought to do something more to show my support for the place’s continued existence. I end up ordering scrambled egg on toast and a cream cake as well, which is perhaps not the most overt or inspiring display of solidarity ever, but better than nothing.

Strange Addiction

It’s a cold clear Wednesday morning and I’m on a train home from Stafford, where I delivered a Vauxhall Astra an hour or so ago to an Arnold Clark dealership on the edge of the town. I’m in a glum frame of mind following a disagreement with my controller over traveling expenses, which has led to me turning down the only other job they had offered me today.

The train pulls into Wolverhampton and a couple of  middle-aged guys get on board. They are casually dressed, bordering on scruffy. One is white, the other looks Indian, although he talks with the same Black Country accent as his friend, with not the slightest trace of any other influence.

‘Turns your legs to jelly,’ the Indian-looking guy says, continuing a conversation begun before they arrived within range of my eavesdropping ears, ‘you just want to get somewhere safe to sit down, but you have to keep going to the toilet, you drink a lot of fruit juice with it. You’re walking to the toilet and you’re thinking “Am I walking straight?”‘

His friend laughs – ‘Sounds good to me!’

‘Does to me too but I’m am addict!’

More chuckles.

Addicted to what? I strain to hear more, but once the train is moving again I can only pick up the odd snippet.

‘I’ve been along to that Horizons walk-in centre, but they can’t do nothing for you, it’s not classed as a drug.’

He goes on to say something about the YMCA which I can’t catch, and then the conversation moves on to other thing – football, drinking, ex-girlfriends, marriages, divorces – just about every stereotypical bloke topic is covered in a way which seems to give no hint that they are anything other than a couple of everyday working class guys.

We are not far from New Street when the apparent addict begins talking about fishing -

‘I found this great little spot on the canal, up past Four Ashes. And there was a sub-post office just round the corner! Great days!’

His laughter has that hint of bravado of someone who knows they are doing something ‘bad’.

Can his mysterious drug of choice be bought in a post office? Glue perhaps? But surely solvent abuse is classed as a drug problem? Marker pens? It must be something as odd as that.

The train pulls into New Street, the final destination, and we all disembark. They walk along the platform in front of me, still smiling and joking about something or other, and looking generally more carefree than most of the other morning commuters, whatever they might be hooked on and whatever they are up to.

Golden Oldie

It’s a wet Wednesday morning and I’m in the small town of Shaftesbury in Dorset, waiting for a bus to Salisbury.

I’d never heard of Shaftesbury until yesterday when I was told I would be delivering a car here. As I drove into the town earlier a large sign proclaimed it to be ‘The Home of Gold Hill.’ I’ve never heard of that either.

From the bus stop I can see a pedestrian signpost at the side of the town hall, indicating the way to this apparently famous hill. I have a few minutes to spare before the bus arrives so I follow the sign down a narrow cobbled alleyway which brings me to the top of a steep cobbled street, ridiculously picturesque and devoid of people or vehicles.

It is less than a hundred yards from the town centre and yet the place is so deserted that for a moment I wonder if it is private property. But there are no signs to confirm this so I walk down to the bottom and then back up again, still without seeing another soul.

If you’re older than about thirty you will have seen this view before, although you might not immediately recognise it. It is the setting for the black and white Hovis advert with the kid pushing the bike up the hill.

While looking this up I came across a couple of improbable facts. Firstly, the advert was recently voted the nation’s all-time favourite, and secondly it was directed by Ridley Scott, the guy responsible for Alien and Blade Runner amongst other things.

Personally I think the advert could have been enlivened by an alien bursting out of a doorway and chasing the kid back down the hill. It might still have had a chance of being voted the nation’s favourite, although not by the same people.

Where Was I?

It’s Thursday afternoon and I’m at my flat sorting through some old maps as part of a general clear out.

In the years between the dawn of the internet and the arrival of satnavs I used to print out reams of one-page maps from Multimap or Google, covering anywhere I needed to be the next day which wasn’t already covered by my shelf of street atlases.

I’ve been hoarding these ever since with the vague idea that they might one day become aids to my appalling memory – I could look back at them in later years and be able to recall those days and places again.

One of the pages catches my eye now as the ink is so smeared and splattered by rain that many of the street names are illegible. I can make out Thornaby Road – a red line running north to south – so I guess I was somewhere in Teeside, a part of the country I very rarely go to. Wherever I was heading for I must have got absolutely drenched on the way. And yet neither of these unusual circumstances are enough to stir even the slightest recollection of that day, however much I stare at the crumpled paper.

Maybe my pile of would-be memories will turn out to provide only another demonstration of my inability to recall anything much about anything much.

I think I’ll keep them anyway.

Not Keeping up Appearances

It’s early afternoon on Monday and I’m in the village of Caersws in mid-Wales, waiting for a bus to Llandidloes where I’m due to collect a car from a dealership.

I’m passing the time trying to guess whether the pub opposite me, The Buck Hotel, has closed down. There are no metal shutters on the windows but in general it looks as though nobody has paid it much attention for some time. The paint is peeling badly from the black window frames. Running just below the roof there is string of small decorative red and blue lights, looking suspiciously like they may have been there since last Christmas. On the ground at the front a long trough contains a flowerbed which has long since turned feral – a mass of unidentifiable plants and weeds tumbling over the edges. In the midst of the unruly crowd a single small red flower stands out.

A white Somerfield carrier bag, blowing by on the wind, flattens itself against the plants at the end of the flowerbed but does not succeed in making the place look noticeably more run down. It lingers for a few moments and then darts away again, as if it has spotted somewhere where it has more chance of making a difference.

Between the front doors and the pavement there are a couple of wooden tables of the variety that have the bench seats built onto them. The fact that these tables are not bolted to the ground, and are still here, finally makes me decide that the place must still be in business

It would be easy to write some disparaging conclusions about The Buck, or to make a big poignant deal out of the solitary red flower. But the truth is I don’t mind places like this, where appearances are clearly not a priority, provided there is no air of menace to the dilapidation.

I would always rather be somewhere untidy than somewhere which is just too neat. If nothing is out of place then you are the thing that is out of place.

All I would change about the pub would be to add a sign in the window to let people know that they had not gone bust, something along the lines of -

‘Yes, we are still open, we’re just not that bothered.’

A Brief Guide to the Outside of Raglan Castle

It’s midday on Friday and I’m outside Raglan Castle, in Monmouthshire.

I often drive past here on my way back from south Wales and have stopped several times before with the intention of looking around the place. The first time I came the castle was besieged by workmen who had so covered it in scaffolding that it didn’t seem worth hanging around. The second time it had just closed for the day. The third time I finally realised that you have to pay to get in, and was once again deterred.

Today I’m still in two minds about what to do, having forgotten how much the admission fee was. It turns out to be £3, which seems reasonable enough. But, this being the school holidays, the place is particularly busy. In front of me a couple of young boys are play-fighting boisterously with wooden swords which is, of course, exactly the kind of thing that boys that age ought to be doing on a trip to a castle. But I seem to have gotten into a mindset now where only the perfect opportunity to look around the place undisturbed will do for me.

The car park consists of a large area of short grass in front of the castle entrance, and while I’m hanging around hesitating I notice that there are one or two things to be seen here, for free.

On a small section of old grey stonework, presumably the remnant of something bigger, there is a plaque explaining the role of the castle in the English Civil Wars. At the time Raglan was owned by Henry Somerset, the first Marquess of Worcester, who was a staunch Royalist and reputedly the richest man in the country. In 1646 Cromwell’s Parliamentarians laid siege to the place and subjected it to daily bombardments for several months before Somerset eventually conceded. It was the last of the great aristocratic homes to fall, and the new occupiers immediately set about trying to demolish the main tower, although this proved harder work than they had anticipated and so a large section of it still remains.

Behind the wall with the plaque on it, in the very back of the parking area, stands a venerable old oak tree which still seems very much alive despite having lost a long vertical strip of bark and being so hollow at the base that it looks almost as if it has decided to stand up out of the ground, perhaps  in preparation for walking Ent-like away over the fields.

Oak trees can live for over five hundred years, so it’s possible that this old specimen was already here when Cromwell’s men arrived armed to the teeth and grimly determined to gain entry to the castle. I wonder what they would have thought of a man who was put off by a small admission fee and a couple of kids with wooden swords?

Give Us a Clue

It’s about half past nine on Friday morning and I’m walking through the centre of Lincoln on my way to a dealership on the edge of the town.

The cathedral dominates the skyline here, not just through its size, but through the size of the hill it sits on as well.

On the grassy slopes at the bottom of this hill I can see a statue, which from a distance looks like a knight in armour swinging some kind of large, unwieldy implement, which presumably has some religious significance. But when I get closer I can see that it is neither within the cathedral grounds nor (probably) a knight. More than anything it now seems to resemble a man attacking a speed camera.

It stands outside the Usher Art Gallery, which does not open until ten o’clock, although the gates leading from the road up to the main building are open.  There seems to be a small plaque at the statue’s base and so I walk over to see if my guess is anywhere close. But it is just a blank metal surface. Maybe I’m being encouraged to think for myself, which seems rather annoying at this time in the morning.

The statue is clearly making some point about something, but if visitors are expected to not only work out if they agree with it, but also what it might be in the first place then there ought to at least be a coffee machine next to it.

Secret Places

It’s Monday morning and I’m on my way to Whitchurch (the one in Shropshire) to collect a vehicle from an auction. I’m currently at Crewe station, nearing the end of an hour long wait for the Shrewsbury train, which stops at Whitchurch. The platform only has one bench, which already has a person sat on each end of it, and so I’m crouched down on my heels nearby, looking idly around.

The platform opposite is about four feet above the level of the tracks, with the vertical side of it being made up of old brickwork, mostly black with dirt, but crumbling away in places to reveal unblemished red beneath. Exactly opposite me there is a gap in this brickwork, filled by a couple of lengths of timber, about six feet across. But between these lengths is another small gap through which can be glimpsed a lit subway running beneath the platforms. Nothing too unusual about this except that pedestrian access to all the platforms here is via footbridges. Presumably there is still some routine explanation – maybe the elevators go down while the stairs go up, or maybe it is some kind of service access for the staff. But I find myself wanting to think that there is some other more secretive, maybe even magical explanation for it.

I spent the last week on holiday near Chichester, during which time we took the kids to see the new Harry Potter film. I’d never seen any of the films before, or read any of the books, and I think maybe this first exposure has left an impression on me.

I catch the train to Whitchurch and then have a couple of miles to walk out to the auction, on the A41 south of the town. I’m only about half a mile away when it begins to rain so hard that I have to take shelter under a tree. In front of me the traffic on the dual carriageway ploughs through the surface water in a perpetual cloud of spray. Behind me is a tangled hedge and a dense patch of old trees, and behind that only fields. But peering through the trees I can see below me, at the bottom of a steep cutting, a dirt track which disappears into a tunnel under the main road. Undoubtedly this is just an access road and the only thing I’m likely to see on it is a tractor containing a ruddy-faced farmer with a flat cap on his head. But again there is the desire to believe that if I keep watching for long enough then something stranger than that will come along, out of sight of the drivers in the vehicles roaring past, and not expecting to be seen by anyone at all. I blame J K Rowling.