Norfolk and Suffolk - Excellent

[cloughie]

... ah! Beefy's photo of our post-Brexit England, I see...

.

Ee, it’s just like the old days!

[Lat-Literal]

Day 3, Part 1 - Ipswich to Brantham and Colchester then onto Shenfield

This was always going to be a hugely challenging day. I knew that I would have to approach it as if money for me was no issue either so as to complete what I wanted to do while not needing to return to the region again. In the end, it involved five trains, one bus, four taxis, and six walks, while carrying my worldly possessions, totalling perhaps 12 miles. Luckily it was dry and often sunny. Feeling a bit disappointed but not surprised at having no visible sign of my family's presence in East Bergholt, I hoped that nearby Brantham which had also shown up on the family tree might address this issue. I had always had it in my mind to include Brantham in the previous day's activities and that thought had remained with me until the previous evening on reaching Manningtree. Once there, I had known it wouldn't be possible. Consequently, on checking out, I had to get a taxi to Brantham on Monday so as to catch up on the itinerary and fit everything else in that I wanted to do. I was dropped off at the church there fairly early. Typically, the church was a long way out of the main part of Brantham which the taxi driver described as "mainly just one main road" although it goes on for perhaps three miles. The church was on one of the small lanes off that main road and it was very peaceful there in contrast to where the traffic thunders by. While on paper it is a less attractive place than East Bergholt, I was surprised to find that I preferred the overall "vibes" for somehow it seemed less prissy and more real. Regrettably, I didn't find my family name there. Again, the older gravestones were severely weathered but I was pleased to have visited the church which I very much liked. Next, I thought I would walk to Manningtree station along the main road but it was a much longer walk than I had anticipated. At the far end of the village, a bus came along. This was very helpful. I jumped on it although even then it didn't go through the town of Manningtree so I never got to see what it was like.

I then took a train from Manningtree station to Colchester, another place which I had never seen. Just as we were arriving at Colchester station, I asked a woman if it was near to the town. She said "nope - 20 minutes at least and up an extremely steep hill". This turned out to be spot on. As with Ipswich, Colchester was not at all as I had imagined it and that hill was the first of the surprises. Somehow when one thinks of these parts of Essex and Suffolk, the word "flatlands" comes to mind and even where they are tucked down east on the map in a corner hadn't suggested to me huge heights. I suppose its Roman heritage might have led me to different conclusions but it hadn't and maybe I am being naïve here but I didn't see as much of that in the buildings as I was expecting. I found it architecturally and culturally to be a combination of a mid Sussex or mid Kent town and a London market which while it was undoubtedly interesting was also somewhat strange and even hard to process. Briefly I thought about taking a bus to the university campus as I was curious on where and how it sat in relation to the town but I didn't do so as it would have thrown my afternoon objectives off course. So I walked back to the station and got a train to Shenfield where I was planning on getting a train to Hockley even though it would be taking me further from home. Once at Shenfield, though, it suddenly dawned on me how I once knew that place well.

[Lat-Literal]

Day 3, Part 2 - In Shenfield

At the end of the third year in my senior school, my very best mate in my pre and post adolescence had moved there. His parents had invited me there during school holidays and then ferried us to bowling in Basildon and pub restaurants in Billericay. I had even gone on holidays to the posh end of Bognor Regis with them. There had been a lot of laughter in that friendship. It was quite a loss to me when they moved. They were really my main introduction to wealthy people. Their houses were of a considerable size with games rooms where we played table tennis and snooker. While we remained close until our late teens, albeit with them on the other side of London, what that move had always signified was the start of school work having to become serious and hence the start of adult life. Mark in that move quickly went from a slightly plodding independent school type to a high achiever. He lost weight in the process. Everything fell into place for him so that at 18 he could be contemplating Oxbridge although he didn't quite make it and ironically ended up at Exeter. Within a week there, he met a very middle class girl who three or four years later became his wife. For the times, it was a young marriage. I am in no doubt it will have lasted. He was not the divorcing type.

I think the last time I was in Shenfield, it was up in the private roads on Hutton Mount where they lived for his 21st birthday where in terms of social class although I was then at York I felt completely out of my depth. His friends were 21 year olds who could have been 43 year old professionals. His father gave a formal speech. Not all of them knew what we had long known which was that he was a self made man from an ordinary background who had because of his own character easily acquired wealthy middle class ways. Not wholly dissimilar to John Major, albeit with a sense of humour, he was actually very interesting when talking about his work because he was a very senior manager in Bass Charringtons who would describe the architecture and history of pubs as he drove past them and any plans for their regeneration. Now there again, some 34 years later, I just felt that I should walk to the road and have a look at the house. It all felt so odd. How the years had flown by in a blink of an eye. I stood outside it for a while and then on making my way back down the road spotted a woman in a driveway. I asked if she had been there long. She said "yes". I said that I knew Vera had died but was Michael still alive? My full expectation was that he wasn't but she said that he was although he wasn't too well and had had to give up driving recently. This then led to a big, big, dilemma and even slight panic at getting into this rather tricky sort of situation.

On hearing what I had to say, she felt that I should go back and ring the door bell. He would welcome younger company, especially from someone in his past. I said to her that I was not so sure. I think Mark and his parents had probably been very disappointed that I hadn't stayed in touch, although it was clear we were about to live very different lives. I felt that the associations might have been painful for his father, given that they would remind him of his wife. And I was also wanting distance for exactly the same reason as I wanted distance in some ways then. They to me were the epitome of success. His son will now be living in an even grander house. I never, ever expected success and live in exactly the same sort of house as my Mum and Dad, and next door to them where Mark had to share a room with me on his stays as we didn't have a variety of guest rooms to offer him, let alone a games room for entertainment. But the woman on the driveway was insistent. "I really think you should try" she said. Nervously, I went back to the house and rang the doorbell but only once.

I could see through a window that the television was on and there appeared to be a computer there too probably for Skype. He was, therefore, in but he didn't answer the door. Perhaps he didn't hear the bell. Maybe he was asleep. It is possible he had spotted me earlier outside and decided that he couldn't face it. I even wondered if he might have been alarmed that I may have fallen on hard times and come for money. Whatever, I didn't ring the bell a second time. I just went back to the woman's house and explained that I had tried. She was all for ringing him from hers by 'phone or getting me a pen and paper to leave a note but I said "no thanks". I didn't want to frighten him or do anything which might make him upset. She said she understood. But I left there with so many thoughts and feelings swirling around, it all felt very confusing, a little unnerving and unreal as if time doesn't make sense anymore.

[Lat-Literal]

Day 3, Part 3 - Shenfield to Canewdon

Next, I took a train from Shenfield to Hockley and then a taxi from Hockley to Canewdon. This is the Southend line and beyond Billericay it was all new to me. I expected to see masses of new homes but while in Wickford and Rayleigh there are substantial numbers I was struck by just how much lovely countryside there is still between such places. Many quiet scenes of horses in fields. Much the same is true on looking out of the window on the main line south from Ipswich and Colchester. Luckily, there was a taxi immediately outside Hockley station so that helped to catch up on lost time. The driver was heading for retirement and mostly he had lived in the area so we were able to have a good discussion about Canewdon. Until three years ago, he had lived for 17 years in Pudsey Hall Lane which was where my mother and grandmother had visited my grandmother's sisters before and during the war. They were Londoners too but their husbands had decided to move them out seemingly into a rural idyll and found the means to do so. It was as I have written before where my Mum and my Nan had gone walking in some woodland after picking blackberries and run away from a German soldier who had been shot down, not realising that he was dead rather than asleep.

We discussed development. He said that several bungalows had been built over many years along the lane but until 2000 it retained its old world lazy charm and mostly even now it retained it. A housing estate had been built in the village itself in the 1960s which had somewhat altered its character but little of note had been built there until now where they are currently building 40 new houses following a relaxation in the planning laws. There is one pub and one shop. A decade ago there were two of each. I asked about Jamie Oliver. According to the driver, he had run the pub that has now closed. His Nan still lives there. Possibly his two Nans. Then we turned to the matter of white witchcraft. Anthea Turner and several other television people had been there a lot in recent years for programmes about the haunted. This had raised the village's profile from what was a starting point of nil. The locals, I was told, would be welcoming but they would assume on seeing a lone man with a ruck sack that he was there to explore that sort of history. I said to him that my very dark appearance which was inherited from my mother and my grandmother would probably reaffirm it. What I didn't say was that all three of us always had a sense that was not witchy exactly but uncanny and what I was beginning to wonder privately was whether that arose in a weird sort of way from the time that my Mum and Nan spent there. As far as I am aware, neither of them knew anything at all about that aspect of the village and its history but if anyone I have ever known would have felt it strongly on a vibey unconscious level, it would have been them.

On my arrival, my first impression was that the insensitivity in which the 1960s buildings had been plonked there was grotesque and from all of the noise and the clamour around the current construction of new houses it appears that the same mistakes are about to be made again. Indeed, it could lead to something very much worse. But where one is able to turn one's head from it, there are signs everywhere of how it would have been in the past. An old woman who could easily have been my late grandmother left her 17th century cottage and greeted me like a long lost friend. The man in the shop was no ordinary man in a shop because I have tried the family history thing on others and it generally gets minimal response but one who was genuinely fascinated to hear my story of the village in the war. He wanted to know my family names. I am almost certain his enquiry to me was linked to the witchcraft. The witchcraft was handed down from century to century in several families. It would not have been ours because we were not local but I think he wanted to check just to make sure.

Outside some of the older properties, the owners place figurines as a testament which are like a more charming version of the cabbage patch doll. It transpired that the second pub was looking for a new owner so perhaps that may close soon. The church not surprisingly was the first I had tried to enter and found padlocked. Those involved in it are probably frustrated at the types who head for it based on what they have seen on television. There is on the fringes some war infrastructure which I was especially pleased to see. But mostly - and I spent over two hours there walking footpaths across farmland where the estuary could be seen in the distance and making my way to walk Pudsey Hall Lane which is still rural-ish with a 10mph speed limit on a barely made road surface and not very near the village itself - it was the atmosphere of the place which grabbed me. It was very, very atmospheric. It is by far and away the most atmospheric place I visited in the three days and it was the one place which genuinely excited me so much I could return to see more, especially of the estuary.

[Lat-Literal]

Day 3, Part 4 - Home via Hockley and London

But then it was back to the grim reality. The same taxi driver told me that the trains were now up the spout and not to expect going anywhere fast once we had reached Hockley. This was upsetting, given that I was tired and still had a long journey to do. I walked around Hockley for an hour before ultimately the trains started running again and one took me to London Liverpool Street. Someone had jumped on the line apparently. I have now travelled on the Greater Anglia network on three occasions since August 2017 and every time the trains have been delayed at some point because someone has jumped on the line. All I can say about Stratford from what I saw of it from the train window and light was turning to dark is that it is my idea of hell on earth. At Liverpool Street, it was towards the end of the rush hour and the walk to London Bridge was horrible, everyone seemingly walking along densely populated pavements while pressing keys on their mobile phones. Ludicrous. I didn't hang around at London Bridge. I got the first train that would take me in the general direction of home. This unfortunately was West Croydon which I tend to avoid and it was the only place on my entire journey where such was the atmosphere I was concerned about the prospect of being mugged or stabbed. Fortunately, I got a taxi quickly with a nice driver who took me on my final leg. It was 8.30pm. It could easily have been the end of the world. My parents were a bit worried but seemed, as they increasingly do these days, remote. It was quite close to their bedtime and hence like someone appearing on a doorstep just after midnight.

[Beef Oven!]

You should have said.

I was very close to there yesterday.

It was an impromptu thing, I didn't know I was going there until about 8.00pm.

[Serial_Apologist]

You must write incredibly fast, Lat. I can't even read your posts in the time it must have taken you to write them!

[Lat-Literal]

It was an impromptu thing, I didn't know I was going there until about 8.00pm.

How very mysterious.

You must write incredibly fast, Lat. I can't even read your posts in the time it must have taken you to write them!

I don't know what to say.

[Serial_Apologist]

I don't know what to say.

Oh I think you do!!!

[cloughie]

It was an impromptu thing, I didn't know I was going there until about 8.00pm.

Inspired by Schubert, perhaps?

[Serial_Apologist]

Inspired by Schubert, perhaps?

Beefy could have been on a Chopin trip!

[Beef Oven!]

Beefy could have been on a Chopin trip!

[LMcD]

Beefy could have been on a Chopin trip!

Hopefully complete with a Chopin Liszt.

[Beef Oven!]

Day 3, Part 4 - Home via Hockley and London

But then it was back to the grim reality. The same taxi driver told me that the trains were now up the spout and not to expect going anywhere fast once we had reached Hockley. This was upsetting, given that I was tired and still had a long journey to do. I walked around Hockley for an hour before ultimately the trains started running again and one took me to London Liverpool Street. Someone had jumped on the line apparently. I have now travelled on the Greater Anglia network on three occasions since August 2017 and every time the trains have been delayed at some point because someone has jumped on the line. All I can say about Stratford from what I saw of it from the train window and light was turning to dark is that it is my idea of hell on earth. At Liverpool Street, it was towards the end of the rush hour and the walk to London Bridge was horrible, everyone seemingly walking along densely populated pavements while pressing keys on their mobile phones. Ludicrous. I didn't hang around at London Bridge. I got the first train that would take me in the general direction of home. This unfortunately was West Croydon which I tend to avoid and it was the only place on my entire journey where such was the atmosphere I was concerned about the prospect of being mugged or stabbed. Fortunately, I got a taxi quickly with a nice driver who took me on my final leg. It was 8.30pm. It could easily have been the end of the world. My parents were a bit worried but seemed, as they increasingly do these days, remote. It was quite close to their bedtime and hence like someone appearing on a doorstep just after midnight.

Thank you L. I really enjoyed reading about your travels/adventure.

[Lat-Literal]

Thank you L. I really enjoyed reading about your travels/adventure.

Thank you very much indeed for saying so.