Walking to Camelot (21 page)

Karl trundles off to the bar, where he phones home. In ten minutes, he comes back with a glass of brandy.

“You're frowning, Karl. Is everything okay on the home front?”

“It's all over, John. Tampa won the seventh game and their first Stanley Cup. I was really hoping for Calgary.”

We do not tarry to watch the end of the football match. We are fagged. Karl downs his last sip of brandy and we walk home to our
B&B
, albeit a little unsteadily.

Before I turn out my light, I read in the paper of yet another old custom involving food — this time cheese. Five miles away, at Cooper's Hill near Brockworth, some three thousand people have assembled to watch four races of twenty people each run, roll, and plunge down a hill, chasing seven- to nine-pound Gloucester cheese containers. Participants arrived from all over the world, and twenty-one were treated by the St. John Ambulance Brigade, five for major injuries. All over some cheese barrels. The event has been held for at least two hundred years. Oh, and a streaker hurtled himself down the hill at the end, butt naked, much to the crowd's delight. Cheeky fellow! There are fewer injuries in the Indianapolis 500. Why do the English do these things? First Hallaton bottle kicking, then Tetbury woolsacks. Now this. Are they all mad?

Next morning we get an early start and follow a track beside horse stables to enter the village of Luckington. Five roads converge here, all of them minor, but they manage to slice the place up into triangular fragments. The manor house was the setting for the 1995 British television production of Jane Austen's
Pride and Prejudice.

There is a James Bond connection with Luckington. Sir Stewart Menzies, former head of
MI
6 and Ian Fleming's prototype for Bond in his novels, resided in a farmhouse in the town. Ironically, right next door, from 1936 to 1939, lived Captain Robert Treeck. Treeck was secretly a high-ranking German intelligence agent. Menzies and Treeck fraternized with one another extensively, and both men participated in the Duke of Beaufort's Hunt. Treeck vanished back to Germany with his mistress, Baroness Violetta Schroeders, in 1939, whereupon his house was placed under the control of the Custodian of Enemy Property. There is something weird about two high-profile spymasters from different countries residing side by side as close friends in a remote English village.

Half the structures in Luckington are “listed buildings.” Over half a million buildings in the United Kingdom are listed, a status which has serious implications for those wishing to make renovations. A listed building is a structure of special architectural or historical interest and may not be destroyed or altered without permission from a local planning authority. This means that often the only way one can build one's dream home on a plot of land is to make use of the outer walls of an old building like a barn and seek permission to turn the inside space into a residence. One is more likely to obtain permission for such a renovation than to build a new home on bare ground. The disadvantage is that one is limited to the footprint of the existing structure. Lighting also becomes an issue, since these old buildings seldom boasted large windows and the planning authority insists that the exterior be replicated. The result is that the converted vicarage, chapel, or barn can be dark and depressing unless flooded with indoor lighting.

A squishy woodland track leads toward Nettleton Mill. The last of the bluebells have wilted to a dull mauve. We have seen every kind of weather today — pelting rain, drizzle, Scotch mist, fog, and pale sunlight. In other words, typical English weather.

The entry into the wooded valley of the By Brook is truly enchanting. Here lies Castle Combe, consistently voted the most picturesque village in England. As we tramp down the steep lane to the square, we are inundated by Japanese tourists who have arrived with their colourful floral umbrellas and cameras to view this diamond of the English landscape. I feel grubby, sweaty, and unkempt alongside them.

The market cross with its water pump form the centrepiece of this classic village. This is a true “buttercross,” an open-roofed enclosure that dates from the medieval period when people from neighbouring farms and villages gathered to buy and exchange butter, milk, eggs, and vegetables.

Castle Combe features on millions of postcards. Whether it's the loveliest village is subjective, but it certainly is tucked away in a dream-like glen with quaint stone buildings clustered beside a burbling stream. The church features one of the only medieval clocks still in use in England.

Castle Combe was used as a location in 1967 for the movie
Doctor Dolittle,
featuring Rex Harrison and Richard Attenborough. The filming was disastrous. First off, all of the trained animals for the production were quarantined upon entry to the
UK
, so they had to be replaced at huge expense. Then, shooting was continually disrupted by bad weather, and the villagers resented the director's arbitrary edicts — such as when all
TV
aerials had to be removed from personal residences. An artificial dam built by the producers was blown up one night by a local British Army officer, Ranulph Fiennes, using explosives he had obtained from his service, because he believed that it ruined the village ambience. The frustrated producers finally fled to St. Lucia to finish the movie.

We leave the tourists behind and exit the village along the By Brook. Then it's up a wooded slope past gnarled, vine-clad maples and a magnificent coppice of beeches, while below us we hear the swish of ducks' wings amid the
Ooo-oo
of wood pigeons and the distant call of a rooster farther down the valley.

A few scattered pollarded oak trees populate these woods. The practice of pollarding came from Normandy and used to be widespread in England. If a young tree was cut through about six feet from the ground, it would send out new shoots and form a bushy crown. Repeated pollarding created abundant supplies of small poles used for fencing, gaskets, and firewood.

At the end of the wood we descend to a stone bridge crossing the By Brook. Our landlady generously packed us a picnic lunch, and we find this an ideal spot to drop packs and grab the sandwiches. I stare at a tiny blue, paint-chipped rowboat tethered by a frayed rope to a makeshift dock. Around it swirl reflections of an oak tree with its roots literally disappearing into the water. Soft light filtered through the trees combines with the reflection to create an ethereal effect. A few molehills perforate the grassy bank. I think of Ratty in
The Wind in the Willows
taking Mole on their picnic excursion, when they hop into the rowboat on the river and sample their cold chicken sandwiches. The gentle By Brook babbles its way beneath the stone bridge on which we sit. Neither Karl nor I speak for some time, captivated as we are by this idyllic hidden riverside glen.

THE VILLAGE OF FORD
lies on a small but busy stretch of the
A
420. We are booked at a
B&B
called Big Thatch, and Pat is there waiting for us. She is an attractive, vibrant lady whose first thought is for Karl's sprained ankle. She offers to massage his feet. He thanks her but demurs.

Pat's husband commands a naval vessel and is away at sea. “We don't really need the money, but you know, I get lonely and like to do
B&B
to meet people and have something to do.”

We have a lovely meal of roast lamb and return to Big Thatch to chat and enjoy tea and biscuits with Pat before retiring. Next morning, after a delicious breakfast of croissants, fresh fruit, and strong coffee, we bid her adieu. She hugs both of us and says, “Thank you for coming into my life.”

As we return to the banks of the By Brook, I reflect that wherever we walk in England, we have been amazed by the friendliness, frankness, and effusive warmth of Englishwomen. Sure, there are the frosty, frumpy landladies of the old school who guard their central heating thermostats like a daughter's virginity. But they are hardly harridans. On the whole, I have formed the impression that many Englishwomen are starved for attention from their menfolk and crave not only adventure but improved communication skills from the male species. That said, they always observe the proprieties.

A hazy languor pervades the fields this morning as we follow the meandering By Brook through the clover-studded fields. We see fishermen hunched on benches on the stream's bank, so motionless that one wonders if they are props placed there to create an Izaak Walton motif.

We follow a muddy path known as Weavern Lane into deep woods. Myriad mud puddles make it tough slogging. In the midst of one mass of mucky ooze I spot a pair of pink high-heeled stiletto shoes — just lying atop the mud and still shiny. We stop to ponder this. Unlike our “Tiffany site” up north, this doesn't strike us as having sinister implications.

Rather, as Karl observes, “It looks as if a fashionable lady got bogged down in the mud and decided ‘to hell with it!,' then took her shoes off and carried on in her bare feet, leaving the heels behind.”

“Maybe it's a practical joke, Karl. The
Guide
says we are passing through a ‘Husseyhill Wood.' Is there some play on words here?”

But Karl has surged ahead and left me behind in the muck. Then the lane ends and I emerge at a stile where a sign is posted: “Beware of Bull.” Beyond is a vast field of at least five hundred acres with a steep, scarped hillside above. I stand on the stile and observe that Karl is already halfway across the field. As I clamber over the stile, I hear a commotion and to my horror glance up to see a two-thousand-pound bull thumping down from the hill above, heading full tilt in Karl's direction. Karl sees him too, likely alerted by the ground shaking. But he is too far from the fence line to escape the big white brute!

There is, however, one lone oak tree standing in the field close at hand. Karl makes for this, drops his pack, and prepares to meet the enemy. Meanwhile, the bull has slowed a tad. Then he stops to stomp his feet on the ground. His massive skull shakes. He lowers his head and rubs it into the torn-up earth. He's about twenty feet now from Karl, who stands poised with his walking stick beneath the oak tree. I hear a
merrumph, merrumph
growl emanate from the beast.

The white mammoth shakes his head one last time and, with nostrils steaming and spewing out snot, he rushes Karl with his head down, chin tucked in. My heart is in my mouth. Karl stands placidly, stick raised, and then at the very last moment sidles around to the opposite side of the tree. The bull crashes into low branches, which crunch and break and dangle to the ground. The entire earth seems to tremble. The bull shakes his head, puzzled. Where is his quarry? He ambles slowly around the tree, only to have Karl reverse his body back to the other side. The bull gets worked up at this and follows Karl around the tree, crashing against the trunk again. But as he does so, Karl gets in one good thwack with his stick on the bull's nose from another side of the tree, where he has now taken up position.

The bull backs off. He stands there contemplating his phantom quarry for a few moments and then, as if to shrug, lets out a loud snort of disgust and heads lazily off, back up the scarp. Halfway up, he starts grazing, still keeping a wary eye on Karl and the tree.

By this time, I have in cowardly fashion climbed into the field and followed the lateral fence line, opposite Karl and the oak tree, ready to scramble under the fence should the bull attack again. But Karl is on the move. He is walking briskly toward the far fence line, and I jog diagonally across the field to join him, glancing nervously uphill. He is smiling, none the worse for wear, though he is covered with leaves and his Tilley hat is askew. He resembles the Green Man of English folklore.

“So what were you thinking of when the bull attacked you?”

“I just prayed like hell.”

“I didn't think you were religious.”

“I'm not, but sometimes you have to hedge your bets.”

“A nasty brute. The warning notice was clearly posted on the stile back there, but you sure couldn't see him hidden over top of the hill.”

“He's just missing his harem, John. If there are cows in the field with him and he's engrossed, he'll never bother you.”

“Perhaps, but next time if there's any sign denoting a bull in a field, we take a diversionary route.”

I wasn't about to test Karl's theory, as seven or eight people are killed each year in English fields by raging bulls and cows with young calves — half of them farmers, but the other half walkers. Even a minister of the Crown was recently injured by bovines while walking. Farmers are prohibited by law from allowing bulls of specified dairy breeds in fields containing public rights-of-way. Beef bulls are allowed in fields with footpaths only when accompanied by cows or heifers.

Karl is now marching well ahead, his stick clomping the turf. He exudes a jaunty Al Pacino aura of indomitability.

Historically, walking the footpaths in England was full of diverse dangers — bulls, vagabonds, and criminals being the most common. In Trollope's
The Last Chronicle of Barset,
Lily bravely exhorts her companion to enter the field footpath: “We are not helpless young ladies in these parts, nor yet timorous . . . We can walk about without being afraid of ghosts, robbers, wild bulls, young men, or gypsies. Come the field path, Grace.”

We stop to rest on a bench near the By Brook. We are on the outskirts of the village of Box, near Saltbox Farm. The village name derives from the rare box tree that is indigenous to only three locations in the country, the others being Box Hill in Surrey and a spot near Dunstable. We see a number of these trees lining the path. They are short with oval leaves, greenish flower clusters, and dark grey bark. As a tree, box is not popular in England, but cuttings from it have resulted in the distinctive boxwood hedges one sees throughout the country and in North America. It is the supreme example of a wild tree being transformed into a finely wrought garden delight. The million or more boxwood hedges in the world all originate from cuttings taken from a few box trees growing in England.