A Bimble round Boggle Hole

April fools, as ever, we planned a hopeful hiking/biking trip to the North East and our luck was in as we beat the snowfall by a day.  Bathed in sunshine with only a nip in the air we struck gold on the Eastern frontier.  Riding our luck and our iron horses, Lord Robert of Whitley and I reconvened our mounted, quixotic adventures upon the Cleveland Way.

Our castle was the jewel in the YHA crown, intriguingly entitled Boggle Hole, a magnificently converted corn mill, refuge for shipwrecked sailors and hostel since the 1930's. Recently upgraded for modern yoots, peddling food and fun for families, this venue is haven for beachcombers and sand artists. All generations mingled and idled in the snug of the bar with a bit of something for all ages.  Grandad sat with his map and a sprained ankle while kids tucked into mounds of spag bol.

We wilted by the fiery blast of the wood stove and got stuck into the range of cakes; gluten free carrot for me and a lime and zucchini for Rob.

The beach was a sight to behold after months of land locked winter and that first blast of ozone and salt unlocked the spirit as the German Sea unleashed its secrets.   A lower layer of mudstone is being constantly worn away on this coast and the gritty sandstone and shale falls away revealing fossils and Whitby jet treasures.  Limestone caulks stretch into the bay at low tide creating rock pools for miniature bimblers to explore. Oystercatchers needled the seaweed as fear of the Boggle who lives in a cave by the tideline kept naughty children in check.

Upsetting this sea sprite was a bad omen and I reminded a few young sprites of this at breakfast after a few belts in the pubs in Robin Hood Bay caused morning fragility.  The sight of a frantic parent tearing around shouting, 'where are the kids?' and racing down to the beach suggested the Boggle was causing mischief.  We could stem a sigh of relief as we had left such responsibilities inland for the weekend. The hard work of the hostelleers allowed communality and afforded hospitality that would be hard to match in more upscale accommodation.

My something was a library of books on the adult wing which they tucked us away on.  Leather sofas and wooden floors and walls of readable books bequeathed by visitors imbued with the ethos of brotherly love, wanting to leaving something behind for fellow bogglers. The twin room was a bit bleak but functional as we were consigned to the snoring section but that was all we needed and at such a bargain price we almost felt guilty for the riches on offer.

Always prepared I was now shamefaced as Rob arrived. I had a triple whammy of a puncture, the wrong inner tube and no spanner! Determined to be positive we set off, after more cake, to scale the cliffs to the Cleveland Way toward Whitby. We would return to the micro climate of Robin Hood Bay, nestled in the lee of the North East winds and pushed on upward as the cliffs rose and the wind keened on the heights.  We came across an unfathomable device for removing sailors from stranded boats by winching a barrel along a wire to the top of the cliff. We imagined the sailor who was chosen to dangle perilously would have preferred to have taken his chances in the German Sea than undergo this vertiginous journey.  The local engineers must have longed for the chance to rescue stricken sailors to try out their experiment in defying physics.

We pushed on, knees creaking in a walk to beat any stepmaster and came across a fine art deco horn and light house warning boats off these barren cliffs and away from the dangerous waters hundreds of feet below.

Now gentrified into spectacular accommodation this would make a great spot for a weekend away, rather than billeted in the rows of green mobile homes nearby that resembled an internment camp rather than a holiday park.  The isolation of the wild cliffs jarred with the multitude of metal boxes that resembled shipping containers.This was no place to linger in a fret or sea fog and luckily we had an azure sky and a sea I remembered as brown looked almost blue.   This juxtaposition of splendid isolation in nature and the hustle of humanity was to hit us full square as we descended the 199 steps from Dracula's dramatic and iconic perches on the headland into the town.

 Unprepared for the late afternoon revellers we got discombobulated. Another time, we would be in the midst of the revelry but the sight of stumbling stag and hen do's on the cobbled streets caught us unawares.

Funland would have to wait for another visit as we settled for an obligatory fish supper on the harbour wall, warily protecting our chips from beady eyed seagulls and Captain Jack Sparrow having a crafty fag.

Inner tube and spanner procured we decided only losers take the bus and indulged ourselves in a ride with Bob's taxi looking for some local knowledge.  Tales of Larpool viaduct and its 5 million bricks which awaited us on the Cinder Path tomorrow segued into a tale of a mine in the distance that bore unheralded riches in some kind of magic fertiliser. There's gold in them thar hills. No locals were employed in this venture according to Bob and the potash found a mile underground was being surreptitiously smuggled away to Middlesborough along a 20 mile tunnel. Top secret information with a suggestion that it was a German company behind it led to the inevitable B word. Google revealed it was actually a spectacularly ambitious and expensive project organised by a spirited entrepreneur backed by an Australian mining billionairess to extract the finest fertiliser in the world with an expectation that China and the sons of the steppes of Russia will pay a fortune for it in the future as soils weaken.  This sounded like the most ambitious project the UK had posited for a long while with Europe's deepest mine and billions in investment.  I thought this Klondike spirit had disappeared and I wished the visionaries of Sirius well in such a risky venture.  Someone must know that this spice from the world of the worms will allow them to control the universe in the future.

We wondered how many minutes it would take for Brexit to rear its head and sure enough Bob had a view, informed by a variety of sources with a bent toward leave.  As a fisherman and now a taxi driver he made an articulate case and who were we to argue on this fine day, even if we could have gotten a word in. Entertained and armed with new facts we wrestled with our consciences back to the safety of Boggle Hole where the smugglers rest with my fisherman's friend.

A bimble around Turville

A Kite’s eye view of the Chilterns would be a magnificent sight, soaring above the beechwoods, top of the food chain.  Hughes 'Hawk Roosting', no sophistry in this body, ‘I kill where I please because it's all mine.’ I settle for a quick spin to get the skull cinema going. Endorphins rush as I imagine the earth’s face upward for my inspection.  The plaintive cries of the circling Kite’s are rejoindered by the inimitable squawks of the countless pheasantry in the fields.  Bursting from hedges and strutting in fields with their feathered harem they are a sight to behold. Cocks proud in their plumage crow their guttural pride. Bred to be shot in the local estates this is the new economy of the area and they are lords of the manor. Their cocksure manner is ill found though as they are more akin to sitting ducks. There cannot be much sport in bagging such a tame bird.  They make for pleasant company though and enliven the combes and valleys of the Chilterns which always seem a bit empty and desolate in winter despite the apparent wealth of the area. There is a sense of isolation and hilly miles can be passed as if there is one secret, unknowable world within these charming valleys, guarded by hedges and security cameras. Or perhaps I am bonking and reaching maudlin capacity in need of a power bar. 

I was slightly concerned about my descending skills as I freewheeled from Ibstone. The valleys are steep and unforgiving and I didn't fancy the ride back. Beyond lay the Thames and this secret area was slowly offering up its jewels.  Someone knew something and Turville was a good place to begin.  A postcard village that can boast of more celebrity references than Love Island.  The Bull and Butcher was my primary research haven, finding a focus group over a pint of Brakspears.  I  had taken a few photos and wondered why they were familiar.  Ten minutes in the bar revealed a treasure trove of information that would keep the squirrels in beech nuts for a year.  

That'll be the Vicar of Dibley's cottage by the church... and another Midsomer Murder happened there.

Then the big reveal! 

Of course, the windmill ! I had just staggered up a ridiculous incline to this Cobstone Mill, home of Hayley Mills no less. Sure enough, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  

Keep going... Day of the Triffids?

There was something else though, and they kept me guessing... I was thinking 'Went the Day Well' ...They didn't know what I was on about. 

You'm joking I bellowed in my mother's favourite Black Country drawl. Not really. She visibly recoils at this utterance. 

Goodnight Mr Tom ! I'd just been forced to watch it three times. I had to go and have a look at the village green to get my bearings and sure enough there it was with the flint walls of the Oxon cottages dressed wth wisteria and manicured to a tee. The epitome of rural safety, a safe haven for young Willie from the horror of the war and a vicious mother. I had to get the details from Isla, who is a mine of information about Little Werewold and William Beech. She could contest mastermind about the book and film. Isla even knew the name of the dog, Sammy if you are testing.  A Year 6 staple, the village is burnt into the retina of our youth of today, much like Lennie suffocating dogs in Californian sunshine is for the previous generation. There are no snakes swimming across ponds in the garden of Eden here though, only a picturesque spot drawing the crowds.  Rust coloured rooves and box hedges draw the eye toward the windmill on the horizon.  Hawthorn blossom and daffodils  in the churchyard suggested sheltered climes. Blackened creosote on barns signified the uniform style that is so quintessentially Chiltern.

Storm Freya approached so I set off uphill past a burst water main that had me wading knee deep. There was a ten mile detour on offer but I was on my last, very wet legs.  I hoped the pheasants were finding some shelter. Undefeated I wanted to eke the day out and there was just enough  time for a short walk from Ibstone, diving into the woods and the Worsley Estate looking for Paul Getty’s cricket pitch.  He has created a duplicate of the Oval and I was determined to find it. Even in Storm Freya it was quite an amazing apparition, a manicured lawn of international quality in the middle of the woods. I bet he hosts great celebrity ding dongs with this fine centrepiece ringing with the summer clink of Pimms on the lawn and the crunch of cucumber sandwiches. I could almost hear the crack of willow on leather above the approaching gale.

A bimble along the Phoenix Trail

Bumbling through red kite country again just off the M40 drag-strip to London, probably the dullest road in the land, I extricate myself and land in Thame.  I had been reading about disused railways and in my post hibernation bid to regain a modicum of fitness I was drawn to the flat straight paths which I could whizz my wizened limbs along.

Thame is a good stop off when heading South for a breakfast butty and a bimble round the bookshops. You know you have hit the home counties when you price up the charity offerings. £3 a book but they have some good titles in good nick and I picked up some nature writing which tend toward the confessional and morose but often enlighten.  I also found my favourite 501 jeans here which are now being patched so they can live again.  This time I ended up with more books about cycling in the Chilterns as a means of procrastinating about actually cycling in the hilly Chilterns and packed my panniers full of Scotch Eggs.  I snacked amongst the pollarded oaks looking for the ghosts of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh in the stunning churchyard and rolled around the timbered houses on the side streets, a lazy warm up as the sun broke through and took the edge off the wind, and I don't mean the eggs. 

Further procrastination in a small museum brought some insight into the history of the town with its usual civil war struggle between factions leading to misery and ruin for feuding nobs.  I found these local crafty artworks which have inspired me to copy them wholesale at a later date and pass them off as my own ingenuity.

I could wait no longer and having risen at the crack of dawn to beat the traffic I realised I was wasting the day. Atrophying muscles sparked to life as I hit the trail out of quaint Thame. I love a straight track riding through history. This was part of the Wycombe railway and an extension built in 1862 took the line to Thame and eventually through to Oxford, enabling a languid route from Paddington to Oxford purpose made for bimblers looking for the slow train.  It later became a key part of the route to Birmingham but lost out to roads and a faster route via Princes Risborough after World War Two. It managed to survive until a few months before Beeching when they knew the game was up with annual losses of £35,000.  In 1991 Sustrans re-surfaced the track and commissioned furniture students to make 30 sculptures to mark the route.  

He gets a nice view of the Chiltern Hills. He does have a pole stuck up his arras though. 

Not sure about Eeyore though. He smelled a bit after playing with Pooh!

There is still steam to be seen on the route as the Chinnor and Princes Risborough railway runs across the trail as you leave Princes Risborough behind. Heritage trains run during summer months along one of the quaintest lines in England from the meticulously restored Chinnor station. A testament to the industry of retired middle England in the lee of the Chiltern ridge.  Everything manicured and kempt. Wot ho, Toot toot!

www.chinnorrailway.co.uk

The sculptures livened up the trail in the bleakness of Winter as I passed barren fields with an occasional Kite for company.  

It is a popular route and well used by runners and families with the odd windswept stockbroker puffing away looking for a personal Strava best. I don't think I was winning any awards but it got the wind back in my sails.

The scarp of the Chilterns was a constant companion looming ominously beyond my flat bed. I resolved to conquer the ridge another time and bent my wend back to Thame. It turned out to be just enough as the headwinds kicked in and a pint in the Spread Eagle beckoned, former roost of Evelyn Waugh and, like most places round here, site of a Midsomer Murder. I unsaddled with grace to cogitate upon writing my misery lit memoirs and planning some bad pebble based art.  

A Bimble with Rosie

 Painswick must have loomed large in Laurie Lee's childhood as the bigger village in the next valley that might as well have been a world away from his secluded Slad. In 'Cider with Rosie' Lee evokes an idyllic childhood spent in an isolated Cotswold valley that has charmed generations of readers.  The imposing church and the 99 Yew trees in the kempt graveyard provide a sense of order and status to the village, lording it over lesser hamlets and stating that Painswick's valley is a cut above.

 The streets are lined with rather imposing three storey townhouses which provide a sense that this place housed a wealthier bunch than the raggedy valleys beyond.  Neatly clipped yews strike a sense of order in a topiarised world and provide a view for my lodging that is pure middle England. They provide inspiration for an American artist who diligently commits to a painting pilgrimage each year

It is easy to see why coach loads of tourists browse these narrow streets in summer as England's chocolate box heritage becomes ever more popular as the pound sinks.  It is stunning in its honey coloured Cotswold charm, aloof and unknowable yet accessible and easy to peer into the empty second homes resplendent in their fading glory.

It is the whispers of secret histories that beguile the visitor with names like Friday Street and houses with tales visible in their facades. There is a sense that this was a respectable village governed well with a sense of mercantile propriety fed by the wealth of the trade in wool.  This was where the barons slept soundly above the hidden Cotswold coombes beyond.

I am here in search of 'Cider with Rosie' though and the hills beckon as I dip down into rural isolation.  This tractor reminds me of the William Carlos Williams poem;

so much depends
upon a red tractor
glazed with rainwater
beside the white chickens

...until I remembered its was red wheelbarrow.  Same difference, 'no ideas but in things' and when the skull cinema gets going with an oxygenated ramble the connections flow.

I started to revel in the idea that this was where Laurie Lee and his mates would have explored and played in their gilded youth so evocatively portrayed in his memoir. The path that leads to the next valley runs a zigzag through birch woods, ailing January limbs still in hibernation burn as I climb.

Up and over is a theme in the parts as one valley cedes into another.  As I descend into Slad it becomes clear how isolated these coombes would have been when Laurie was three just after the First World War when he was set down from the carriers cart and his memories began and 'our horizon of woods was the limit of our world.' His vivid recollection of a village that was their world leads one to remember a sense of rural bliss about the tale although the actuality of agricultural poverty is much clearer upon a second reading.  It reminded me of Hudson's Wiltshire as Lee casually remarks, ' my mother was born to quite ordinary poverty,' and then more annoyingly in a Smooth radio contemporary vibe to Paul Young's cover of 'living in the love of the common people' as memories of the familial love in the book shone through my ramble.

A young boy's love for his family is the lasting impression of this timeless evocation of a bygone age as Lee brings the village and valley of Slad to immemorial life. His sisters picking him up as an infant lost in the grass is a vivid image, their mouths smeared with red currants and their hands dripping with juice.  'Come down 'ome and we'll stuff you with currants'.  It is a blissful existence in part, edged with the tragedy of mortality and patient suffering in a place embalmed from the vicissitudes of a changing world.  His world is his mother and his sisters in a world where the men seem traumatised by war or figures of another world of adventure beyond the valley walls.  It was, as ever, the women who kept things together.  Lee himself just walked out one midsummer morning as men increasingly deserted their homes to find themselves and get lost in wars and making their fortune.  He wrote a better book out of his adventures but it is Rosie that holds our imagination.

Bringing jugs of flowers into the cottage to brighten a humble home, his mother's fragility and boundless love feeds the family, binding them together in her selflessness. 'She was a country girl; disordered, hysterical, loving. She was mischievous as a chimney jackdaw,' struggling to keep them clothed and fed living by 'the easy laws of the hedgerow'.  The father gets short shrift as he abandons the family although it is his death that finally breaks his mothers spirit after 30 years of hoping he will return from a suburban London life of automation, dying whilst cranking his new car.  In the pub I heard that he ran the Co-op in Stroud but I like to avoid reality spoiling a good narrative. He was a bounder and a cad.

 His mother is the heroine believing like Gatsby's Daisy Fay that the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy's wing. Not contemplating tomorrow but dealing with the demands of the day.

 Lee's descriptive language captivates readers of all ages and is so memorable that the walk reminds one of small instances like the split stone tiles that decorate at the rooves. I read a passage to my Year 7 students and their tongues started lolling and the thousand yard stares suggested reveries of their own.  A couple of pages is a all that is required to begin tales of childhood that would horrify their parents.  I hope I add a few metaphorical flourishes to their writing but it is Laurie that inspires.

 Soon enough I stumbled upon the very house, the epicentre of the tale. It was such a surprise after years of creating a vision in my mind.  This was what I had come for, realisation of the vision so vividly portrayed. I wasn't sure whether to be disappointed or in wonder, I thought it a rather grand residence compared to the book but perhaps our perceptions of wealth and grandeur have shifted. It was up for sale at half a million pounds! Rather more than the peppercorn rent his mother struggled to find.  Snowdrops adorned the approach to an idyllic spot nestled in the valley.  An artists studio extended to the rear.    

 My visions of bleak winters where, ' young children dropped dead like chickens,' and 'wet winter days at times unending which quite often led to self slaughter' were tempered by the idyll before me and a pint of ale in the Woolpack.  As I read Lee's words, ' if you survived melancholia and rotting lungs it was possible to live long in this valley', I thought if I finish this pint before Poppy and Josh have a melt down I will survive this valley. I'm being flippant though and historical perspective is not aided by the fog of the snug.  I left my crisps and took the air, wanting to feel the essence of Lee and the sense of place he describes so vividly.  The schoolhouse is still extant, in gentrified form, although why anyone would want to live in a building stared into in summer months is a question Lee will have to answer for.  His grave demands star billing in the picturesque church and a leaded window attests to his legacy.

Somehow the proximity of other tourists shook my sense of being the explorer, the pathfinder. This book was so special and such a long held passion that I didn't want to share it and suddenly felt protective of my memories. Silly really how the mind works.  I felt the need to stride out, up the valley, to leave the modern world despoiling the authenticity of my experience. I was jarred into thinking how personal a thing a book is. How these thoughts and visions of a place really hit home and live for the reader.  This was my book. How ridiculous! I walked the streets looking for the 'old sodger' who had deserted the war to live rough in the valleys, sniffed the air for Jones' terrorist goat and waited to be whacked by Cabbage Stump Charlie.  There are still a few characters in the bar at The Woolpack and in my wickedness I though they were tolerated for added authenticity. I must have had a bad pickled onion.

As my choler returned I reflected on Lee's characters and how they resembled a sense of community with he espouses. A community that policed itself and tolerated difference in a time worn fashion. Albert the devil, a deaf, mute beggar;  Percy from Painswick, ' a clown and ragged dandy' who the young girls followed through the streets until 'he died of his brain soon after.'

 As I pushed on up the valley my limbs told me what a tough existence this must have been. I was heading for Bull's Cross, a windswept netherland for Lee where myths abounded to terrify the children. Tales of Hangman's House in Deadscombe's Bottom must have kept order and limited the straying youths. I gave in when I saw my alter ego power past, I was more Wysis way by this point so I cut back to Painswick after a short consultation with a long face.

 On my way back I wondered why Lee had recounted such a vivid tale some years after the event. Maybe his childhood illness, where his family had felt his number was up on several occasions led to a sensitivity to his surroundings, the images he conjures made so redolent in the time spent in bed tucked up like RL Stevenson. Maybe illness in youth leads to a speculative imagination or perhaps the motherly affirmation of his sisters and mother led to a need to thank his matriarchal support network in later life. Whatever his motivation what a wonderful and honest account he provides, it could be entitled 'o lucky man!'.  I want Bovril and hens' eggs for tea.

And that is before we even get to Rosie! My least favourite parts of the book, but perhaps the most infamous. These tales of coming of age seem to have caught the imagination but the book tails off for me as transgressors being dealt with by their own community and boys' sordid adventures in the woods lend a tone that is unedifying and leaves a sour taste that any editor today would have had a stern word about.  Innocent, natural exploration about rumbles in haycocks, 'she was yellow and dusty with buttercups'. I suppose it has its charm but it is the sheer power of his descriptive prose that transports one to another world that time forgot that brings endless joy in a memoir that brings a happy glow wherever you dip into it. I have often picked this in a library just to spend a minute with Laurie Lee and who am I to challenge the authenticity of a timeless classic.