Walking to Camelot (29 page)

We arrive at our farmhouse
B&B
in Lillington. No one answers the front door, but I hear sounds of life inside. I try entering a gate to the garden back of the house — big mistake. No fewer than six Jack Russell terriers come tearing around a corner and rush me, barking furiously. I manage to back off and close the gate just in time. Then a heavily made-up, frumpy, middle-aged lady opens the front door and demands to know who we are and why have we upset her dogs. Not a good start to a
B&B
relationship.

I manage to convince her that despite our seedy appearances, we are not vagrants but in fact the Macmillan Way walkers who have booked her home for the night. My accent convinces her. She ushers us into the house and points to our room . . . which measures about eight by ten feet and contains two short single beds and about fifteen dolls. That's right, dolls — in the corners, on the dressing table, in windowsills, even in the ensuite, lining the tub. Myriad dolls, of all sizes, shapes, and genders. And that's just for starters. The rest of the house is crammed full of dolls as well, some of them so realistic that it feels like their eyes are following us and it's hard to distinguish between dolls and living folk. I experience a creepy feeling like in a Hitchcock movie, where you just know that one of these dolls is either going to attack you or keel over dead. There are bodies here, for sure.

We are offered tea in the garden by the Doll House Lady. Her husband, Roger, is already sitting at tea outside on a lounge. The Jack Russells are nowhere in sight. Roger is sixtyish, unshaven, and completely obsessed with birds.

“Do you hear that wren?” he asks me in a gentle, mellifluous voice.

“No,” I replied. “Er, at least I didn't recognize it as such.”

“Walking all those miles, you two gentlemen must have seen and heard so many birds!”

“Well, yes.”

“Have you heard a nightingale yet?”

“I don't think so.”

“And you won't, there's nary a one left in these parts. Rooks, robins, and finches, with a few wrens — seems that's about all we get in Dorset now; and as it is, I have to keep the damned cat from going after them. I have a good mind to declaw the little killer.”

I catch a fleeting glimpse of a black feline in the grass. So does Roger, and he calls out to his cat: “Bert, Bert, come here now and stop stalking that wren. It's time for bed.”

“Roger,” I say, “you have quite the farm here. Have you ever dug up any artifacts from the past?”

“Artifacts?”

“Why, yes. I've read that human habitation in this part of Dorset goes back to the Romans, and of course there was Neolithic Man and the Celts. I would love to have a metal detector here.”

“Good God, man, are you insane?” he says. “Why would I disturb the good earth for such relics?”

I leave it there and ask when the pub opens.

“The pub? Don't rightly know. Don't even know if there is one.”

With that, Roger sighs and heaves his bulk out of the lawn chair, calling for Bert. “I'd best take him inside, as he's about to cause a ruckus with that wren.”

Alas, Roger is right: there is no pub in Lillington. So Karl and I take a taxi back to Sherborne to dine at the George, enjoy fish pie washed down with a Yellow Tail Chardonnay, and return via the same cab to the Doll House for an early turn-in. I also buy a paper to catch up on current events.

The Telegraph
reports this week that the 80,000-strong Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is trying to force the Queen to step down as patron of the charity because of her support for hunting. The militant members also want to drop the “Royal” from the charity's name. A leading
RSPCA
member, David Mawson, a vegan chef from Catford in southeast London, says that Her Majesty should be removed because “she battered a pheasant to death recently.” Several militant candidates for the
RSPCA
board belong to the League Against Cruel Sports, Compassion in World Farming, the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. All vehemently oppose fox hunting, though one is left to speculate on whether they would allow a farmer to defend his chickens from the depredations of a fox by shooting one
in flagrante delicto
.

The press also reports of the controversial hearings at Sherborne, where Madonna is battling with the Countryside Agency against the opening of her 1,130-acre Wiltshire estate to walkers under the new “right to roam” legislation. The singer has referred to Ramblers fighting the case against her as “Satan's Children.” She and her film director husband, Guy Ritchie, run a commercial sporting business on the estate, based on bird hunting. Madonna claims that her privacy would be compromised and that there is a question of safety for walkers with all the shooting that goes on.

Next morning we make an early exit from the Doll House and visit the village church and graveyard. Many of the grave inscriptions reflect the piety of parishioners who fervently believed in the raising of the dead at the Second Coming, particularly stones from the seventeenth century, when Puritanism was flourishing. One of the funniest tombstone inscriptions I've ever read in England was found in a churchyard in Bury St. Edmunds: “Here lies Jonathan Yeast — pardon him for not rising.”

We tramp along country lanes and bridleways on this fine misty morning, with nary a care in the world, though I am still worried about Karl's ankle, which is slowing him down to a pace that keeps him only slightly ahead of me on the trail. Three miles out of Lillington we pass a recycling site and emerge into Brierley Hay, a hamlet on the outskirts of Yetminster. It resembles Forest Lawn on a slow day.

Yetminster is a large village of a thousand people on the River Wriggle. Many of the buildings are seventeenth century, the houses built of honey-coloured limestone standing in neat rows. Yetminster Fair is one of the oldest in Dorset, dating from the thirteenth century. It is held in July and often culminates in a performance by the Yetties, a famous five-piece folk group from the village that has performed throughout the world since 1961. They have recorded forty-five albums, including two songs using Thomas Hardy's own fiddle and other Hardy family instruments. The genre they perform is described as “Scrumpy and Western,” though they have remained true to their Dorset roots by performing many old English ballads.

A unique feature of Yetminster is the eccentricity of the church bells. Six times a day these chime out the hour and then play the national anthem. It really is rather quaint. A painted sign at the church entrance cautions, “The swallows are nesting above. Please keep the inner door closed so they won't get trapped in the church. Thank you.”

We are in real Thomas Hardy country now. We observe many dog roses in the hedgerows. The dog rose is the national flower, made famous during the Wars of the Roses, when the rose was chosen by Henry Tudor as a symbol of unity. It is one of over a hundred species of wild rose found in Britain, and grows up to ten feet as a bush. The fruits, or “hips,” of wild roses are so rich in vitamin C that the government collected 2.5 million bottles of rose-hip syrup during World War
II
to bolster the health of Britons, the equivalent in vitamin content of 25 million oranges.

The mist continues to envelop us and gives a mysterious gothic feel to the landscape. The Way now winds toward Melbury Park. The
Guide
enjoins us to follow the path to the edge of Chetnole Withy Bed (no, it's not someone's bed — it's a wood, a copse) and warns that if you don't head across a field directly to the single oak standing beside the wood, you will lose your way. We spot the oak and enter Melbury Park. A large herd of deer graze near the path, unconcerned by our intrusion. The current owner of the park and nearby Melbury House is Lady Theresa Fox-Strangways. She also happens to be High Sheriff of Dorset and Master of the Cattistock Hunt.

“I wouldn't want to be caught poaching one of her deer,” remarks Karl. “She sounds formidable.”

Such is the fame and influence of the ancient Melbury family that a fictional Lord Melbury stars in the 1975 pilot episode of the popular series
Fawlty Towers
. In it, John Cleese's Basil Fawlty fawns over the sophisticated Lord Melbury and scorns his other guests in the dining room. He accidentally knocks the lord off his chair onto the floor while browbeating a family to move from their table to allow Melbury to sit there. Basil is at his sycophantic best in imploring the lord to allow him to make it up to him after the unfortunate incident. Melbury obliges by asking Basil if he would cash a small cheque for a hundred pounds. Basil asks obsequiously if that is sufficient, and is aghast when the lord ups the amount to two hundred. Basil honours the cheque, which of course bounces, as the man is actually a fraud artist.

Melbury Osmond is a photographer's dream, full of thatched cottages and charm. It is also the cherished home of Thomas Hardy's mother, Jemima. The village appears as Little Hintock in
The Woodlanders.
Jemima was a former maidservant and cook, but she loved reading and encouraged her son to read the classics in Latin. Her childhood cottage sits next to the church. Inside the church we find displayed a framed copy of her marriage certificate, presumably intended to silence wagging tongues as to Hardy's legitimacy.

Geologically, this village is interesting in that it possesses a mixture of limestone and clay that produces a special polish known as “Melbury marble.” Melbury Osmond was historically important for the manufacture of plated buckles, horn buttons, and dowels. Button making was once Dorset's number-one cottage industry. Hundreds of craftsmen engaged in “doing buttony.” This trade was dealt a severe blow in 1851 when a Danish button machine was displayed at the Great Exhibition in London. Machine production soon replaced handicraft work, leading to great poverty and distress throughout Blackmore Vale. Attempts to revive the trade have been partially successful, with production of a specialized button known as the Cartwheel. But the old models, such as High Tops, Birds' Eyes, Mites, and Honeycombs, have all vanished.

There is a long-standing folk tradition in Melbury involving Satan. A grotesque apparition known as the Dorset Ooser still appears at cottage doors every Christmas. Its head is carved from wood, with staring eyes, matted hair, a wide maw of a mouth with yellow teeth, and a huge pair of bull's horns. It is carried on a short pole by a man who hides his head under a long cloak. “Ooser” is apparently a corruption of “Worst One” — meaning the Devil. Thomas Hardy recorded the lyrics of folk songs about the Dorset Ooser sung by pranksters who accompany the figure door to door.

Every village and town in Dorset has memories of the occupation during World War
II
by Allied troops, especially hordes of Americans. Dorset was particularly important to preparations for Operation Overlord, the code name for the invasion of Normandy, as the practice exercises for landing craft and scaling cliffs were conducted along the coast here. The American troops tended to swagger, wowing the children in particular. Diana Mitchell grew up in Melbury and remembers: “When the war times came we had Americans in Melbury Park and I used to swing on my front gate waiting for the Yanks to throw sweets to me. I was too young for the nylons. On Sundays we would go to watch them playing basketball in the park.”

We wade through a raging stream inundating the paved roadway at a ford. Melbury Park stretches for about three more miles south of Melbury Osmond, and we eventually emerge onto a minor road by a triangular green at the entry to Evershot, the second-highest village in Dorset, at 700 feet above sea level. The mist clears and we are bathed in warm sunshine.

I hear the sprightly tones of fiddles, and we shortly en-counter a bustle of activity along the main street. Evershot is holding a spring fair. Stalls line the road, full of books, clothes, and crafts. A wide variety of local produce is on sale, from homemade jellies to walking sticks, rugs, and assorted baked goods. A talented carpenter has carved some unusual miniature tables that look like they must cater to Hobbits, with angled maple poles supporting flat tops that are finely crafted with dowels.

For the first time on our journey we observe people in shorts, which is not typical English attire. The onset of warmer weather this week has moved
The Telegraph
to comment on the poor taste Englishmen display in dressing for the sun: “One of the benefits of colder weather is that it encourages men to cover up — thus disguising their anatomical imperfections. However, the summer seems to take them by surprise and without preparing the rest of us . . . Otherwise normal and ostensibly respectable people take to the streets in states of near undress. They can be seen in wardrobes seemingly scavenged from long-neglected cupboards and corners of the attic: shapeless shorts, elderly polo shirts stretched over paunches, or untucked business shirts worn like peasant smocks, their stocky, pasty legs ending in shabby deck shoes or sandals from which poke calloused toes.” Well, men's exposed legs did not seem particularly grotesque in Evershot, though I will admit to detecting a certain chalky, pasty whiteness that confirms these particular blokes did not holiday in Spain last winter.

We enjoy the street music and linger to take pleasure in the dancers, then pop over to ogle the antique cars at the Acorn Inn. They are interesting, but not half so much as the inn itself. Thomas Hardy used Evershot as his key setting in
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
. He called the village Evershead, and the Acorn Inn became the Sow and Acorn. Tess stops for tea in the village on her way to Emminster, the fictional representation of Beaminster, making “a halt . . . and breakfasted . . . not at the Sow and Acorn, for she avoided inns, but at a cottage by the church.”

The River Frome has its source in springs located beside the village church, proudly marked by villagers as St. John's Well. This little river is only thirty miles long but is the major chalk stream in southwest England. Formerly a favourite fishing haunt, the river's salmon runs have declined from 4,000 fish in 1988 to only 750 in the year of our walk. The decline of Atlantic salmon is a serious problem on both sides of the pond.