Rural Retreat

There is a perfect campervan site in Shropshire (actually, there are quite a few, since Shropshire is pretty much a perfect county for campervanning) just below Stiperstones Ridge where, from its elevated position, the view is westwards over an almost uninhabited expanse of fields and small woods that stretch to the mountains of Wales on the horizon. The first time we stayed there, we had the place to ourselves. This time, however, there was another couple, Bernie and his wife – or “Bernie the bore” and “her indoors,” as we nicknamed them. They lurk in a permanently pitched caravan in a fenced-off corner of the site. It is next to the gate and all the facilities, so there is no chance of avoiding them. His first approach seemed innocuous. “I’m just going for a newspaper. Can I get one for you?” he said, as I was recycling our bottles. It was twenty minutes before I could get away and, during that time, he recounted his life story. He asked me just one question – the standard travellers’ “Where are you from?” – and when I answered “Manchester” his eyes glazed over as he struggled to think of a response. Campsites abound with people like Bernie who are unfamiliar with the concept and practice of ‘interactive conversation’. The trick is to identify them early and avoid meeting them at the water-point or the bins. If you do get caught and they ask about your itinerary, be warned that it is merely a prelude to a detailed account of their own, often going back as far as the 1960s.

Actually, the aura of the 1960s seems to linger still in parts of Shropshire. Below Stiperstones, where a former village school has been adapted as a Visitor Centre, nice old ladies offer milky tea, Nescafé and home-made scones – just as they always have. A few miles away, in the market town of Bishops Castle, the picturesque high street is unspoilt by intrusively modern buildings. However, the economy is very much of the 2000s. Very few traditional retailers remain: in their place are charity shops, cafes, tourist traps and unoccupied premises. The neighbouring small towns of Kington and Knighton are in a similar bind, rich in the attractive infrastructure of rural English towns that prospered until fifty years ago but lacking the economic activity to sustain it. Is it possible that Brexit will restore the full-English vigour and vim of the agricultural economy they used to enjoy?

I left this question hanging as we drove on to Pembrokeshire, another pretty part of Britain where tourism supplements the incomes of the local farmers. We are currently in the fourth year of a project to complete the Wales Coast Path, not in a strictly linear progress, but by a series of sorties targeting stretches according to whim, weather and the availability of local transport to or from the end-points. During the summer, the Edwards brothers run a bus service for this purpose, though its frequency is sparse and it is essential to plan carefully. The little buses labour tirelessly up and down the sides of coves, mostly along single-track roads. Progress is slow, especially at stops where foreigners (English included) have difficulty understanding the Welsh drivers’ pronunciation of place names, but the summer days are long enough for even the most arduous stretches of the Path to be completed before dark.

We pitched up on a site and, just as we lifted our aperitifs to clink glasses, the farmer roared into the field on a tractor the size of a house. He had come to collect his fee. “I would offer you a glass,” I said, “but you’re obviously driving and, possibly, still working.” Alas, this was all the invitation he needed to launch into his life story which, given his 84 years of age, took quite some time.

Arch Politics

I took the campervan to Paul and Colin, the mechanics I have used for years: they operate from a railway arch, as do many small, useful businesses that serve inner-city residents such as me. The nation’s railway arches are public property, insofar as they are owned and operated by Network Rail, but I had learned that the leases are to be sold as a job-lot to the highest bidder. Meanwhile, existing tenants are being pressed into onerous rent rises and short-term lease renewals as part of a process designed to raise the sale value of the property portfolio. “Has this affected you?” I asked Paul (or Colin – they are twins and I still can’t tell which is which). “No,” he said, “I haven’t heard from them:” which fits with the suspicion that Network Rail is deliberately keeping its tenants in the dark so as to avoid their objections to its plan.

I went back to collect the vehicle, as arranged, only to find that it would not be ready for another week. “Why didn’t you call to let me know?” I asked. “Sorry,” said Paul-or-Colin, “Colin was in charge of the job and he’s gone on holiday.” I studied him hard for a moment, but he remained poker-faced. I let him know that I was a bit miffed because we had planned to go touring the next day. However, I soon got over it, since our diary was flexible and, in any case, the weather had turned rainy.

I made good use of the unexpected week at home. I saw two cinema documentaries – Tracking Edith, about the photographer and Soviet-era spy Edith Tudor-Hart, and Leaning into the Wind, about the work of artist Andy Goldsworthy – and an Icelandic tragic-comedy, Under the Tree. I also had two catch-up dinners with male friends, remarking that, in the old days, we would not have isolated ourselves at tables in restaurants: on the contrary, we would have been mingling in buzzing bars.

I also found time to finish reading Hans Rosling’s book, Factfulness, in which he argues in favour of cultivating the “...habit of carrying only opinions for which you have strong supporting facts.” He was driven to this by analysing the responses of educated audiences to questions about world statistics. When given the choice of three possible answers, no group had any more success than chimpanzees do in random-choice tests. Horrified by this level of ignorance, he set about exploring why we are so deluded and, in the process, came up with some convincing reasons. One of them is that we tend to look at things from a single, limited perspective i.e. our own.

When I went back to collect the van, Colin (as he claimed to be) was back from his holiday. The job had been well done and, after handing over the keys, he said, “They want to put our rent up. We might have to move from here.” “Oh no!” I said. “It will probably become another Starbucks and I’ll have to travel miles to get my van fixed.” Neighbourhood gentrification has its downsides.

“Why are they selling them anyway?” he asked. I explained my take on it thus: the Government wants the assets sold to the private sector on the pretext that the money raised from the sale will be used for much-needed rail investment. The fault in this logic is that the assets already generate income, against which capital for such investment could be borrowed. Income-generating assets like this are hard to accumulate and nobody in their right mind would sell them; therefore, the buyers must be companies in which the politicians have financial interests, direct or indirect, present or future. But perhaps my conclusion is distorted by my single, limited perspective? Paul-or-Colin doesn’t think so.

Street Life

Since 2008, when the bankers sucked up all available public funds, homeless people have become a common sight on the streets of our cities. Urban tents are no longer remarkable, except for the degree of ingenuity that goes into their positioning. While I was staying in Wapping last week, there was one pitched on a quiet pedestrian walk-through, snuggled up to a wall for maximum privacy and security. I walked past it one day just as its inhabitants, a young couple, emerged. I looked the other way – I like to think it was to spare them embarrassment at their reduced circumstances but, in truth, it was also about avoiding being asked for money. Although I feel charitable towards people living on the streets, I hold firmly to the principle of not giving them cash but, instead, funding organisations that try to help them in the long term as well as the short.

I was on my way to the mini street-library – a cabinet on a pole, stocked with donated books. I was clutching Amy Liptrot’s The Outrun and Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping, hoping to swap them for something I had not read. At the library was a scruffy-looking woman, one hand restraining a large dog on a leash, the other rummaging through the books. We exchanged a few awkward words and she moved over to give me access. Then, seeing I was scanning the titles, she began to recommend randomly selected books for my consideration. “Do you want to read this?” she said, holding up a dull-looking textbook. “Not really,” I replied, thanking her politely for her trouble. “What about this one? It looks good.” It was a collection of translated Lithuanian Folk Tales. “Uh, no thanks,” I said. “Have you read it?” She shook her head. I began to suspect that reading was not her motive for being there. Maybe she was a local eccentric who had appointed herself the unofficial librarian, I thought. More likely, however, taking into account the big dog, she was someone down on her luck and with a keen eye for anything on the street with a potential monetary value. She had not actually asked me for money but I began to suspect that she might if I stuck around, so I adopted my avoidance tactic and took my leave of her. In any case there were no books that had appealed to me so we both came away empty-handed – she with no donation and me with no books.

Later, I saw her again. She was at the entrance of Wapping Station, where she was trying to sell books to commuters. As I approached her, she proffered me The Outrun, inviting me to buy it so that she could get money for a hostel for the night. “I’ve read it,” I said with an ironic smile, but she evidently did not recognise me. “What about this one, then?” she said, holding up the Lithuanian Folk Tales. I shook my head and walked on. On reflection, I could have helped her out by recommending the novels I had read to her potential customers as they hurried homeward. It would have been a difficult sell but a charitable gesture towards someone in need. However, I soon persuaded myself that I should not be aiding and abetting in the sale of stolen goods – and that she would probably just buy drugs with the proceeds.

At the end of the week, I saw that the tent-dwellers had written a notice on a big piece of cardboard and propped it against the wall. It read, “To all the people that helped us with food & money we have now got somewhere to live. Thank you!” (smiley face, heart, heart, smiley face).

Don't Talk About Brexit

At the beginning of the week, I was at the Manchester Jazz Festival, enjoying a series of (free) performances by a contingent of French groups promoted by the Association Jazzé Croisé. They were talented performers and accomplished English-speakers, addressing their audience with wit, humour and tact, never once mentioning Brexit, though I’m sure I sensed an underlying tone of regret at our imminent departure. Next day, on a train to London I was sitting next to a couple of empty-nesters on their way to visit their offspring and we struck up amiable small talk. Since it is the accepted convention to avoid religion and politics on first acquaintance, we did just that. However, after an hour of uninteresting accounts of their favourite holiday destinations, I was almost hoping they might instead court controversy by raising the B question. But we arrived at Euston shortly afterwards and the awkward moment passed.

In London, the following night, the heatwave broke down amid thunderstorms, followed by an eclipse of the moon. Science provides explanations for such phenomena but they were, nevertheless, sufficiently spectacular for me to imagine why our uninformed ancestors believed them to be signs of the gods’ displeasure. Ten days ago, I was viewing the remains of the Roman city at Wroxeter, most of which is buried under agricultural land and which, were it not for the skill and knowledge of archaeologists, might easily be mistaken for a group of randomly abandoned foundations. I wandered the site and read the interpretive material, marvelling at how our ancient ancestors, through their own efforts, and using advanced engineering techniques, designed and built a thriving city yet still credited imagined gods for their success. Superstition trumped rationality, then as now.

Yesterday, in London, I went to explore the newly opened section of ‘pedway’, or elevated walkway, through the cluster of office buildings at London Wall. The location is at the heart of fortified, Roman Londinium and this scheme aims to do two things: link the many buildings for pedestrians, while showcasing the sorry remnants of the ancient Wall. It succeeds in both. Moreover, it extends north to the Barbican Estate and south to the Guildhall, taking in the Museum of London at the centre of the complex and thereby providing the basis for a grand day out – if you are interested in urban history. I had never before been to the Guildhall, so was surprised to find that it has an extensive collection of paintings in galleries open to the public. The architects who extended those galleries also got a surprise, when they discovered the remains of a Roman amphitheatre underneath the building. It’s not much to look at – just the outline of part of the foundations and some wooden drainage channels – but the display chamber is lavish, clever and evocative.

However, I was drawn back to modernity by a walk around the Barbican Estate, a place I do know and one where I aspire to live one day. “A concrete monstrosity,” is some people’s opinion, but I admire the rationality of the compact, densely populated development with its gardens, fountains, communal facilities etc. In short, I favour its modernist ideals of urban living. The development was conceived in the late 1950s, a time when town planners embraced a vision of moving on from class divisions, slums, and European wars – principles not dissimilar from those who conceived and founded the EU in that same decade. In both cases, however, they were swimming against the tide of irrational human behaviour.

The next day, at a family gathering, the conversation began to drift towards the topic of Brexit but fear of the quagmire swallowing up the party quickly led to a consensus to change the subject. “Don’t talk about Brexit!” we all said – though really, we know we must.