A Haven for Eccentrics

At the head of the queue in the butcher’s shop was a very old, shabbily-dressed woman with out-of control hair, fierce eyes, a strong voice, confident manner and a seemingly familiar relationship with the man behind the counter. She pretended to bully him and he pretended to be intimidated by her, each of them turning occasionally to wink at the rest of us. When it came time to pay, she threatened that she would brook no increase on last week’s prices, offered up her purse, instructed him to take what was due and to place the change in the appropriate compartments, all of which he did with an obedient flourish. She left the shop, smiling triumphantly. I would have applauded her had I not been inhibited by the fact that I am a stranger in this, the Lincolnshire village of Ruskington, which is, according to my brother-in-law who lives here, the largest village in the land (though a cursory online enquiry lends no evidence to this: for a start, there is no universally agreed definition of “village”). From the perspective of a city-dweller such as me, however, the point is academic: it feels small anyway.

My father was stationed at various RAF bases around here when I was a child, so my extended stay in Ruskington is beginning to feel like a homecoming of sorts. Driving through nearby RAF Cranwell, I stopped for a walk around the place where I first went to school. Our house is still there, as is the shop across the green, but the school – a collection of wartime wooden huts – has disappeared. I walked up and down the B1429, which runs through the military base, identifying some familiar landmarks, but my progress was thwarted by a proliferation of fences and KEEP OUT notices that I certainly don’t recall. It being Saturday, there was no-one around (it worries me that our armed forces take weekends off), so I stepped off the public highway and onto a patch of grass in order to inspect the information plaque under a permanently displayed aircraft (the splendid Hawker Siddeley Dominie). As I was reading, a security guard arrived out of nowhere. He confronted me politely, but he was well-armed, so I did not protest that the plaque is unreadable from the pavement. Instead, I consoled myself with the fact that somebody, at least, was on duty.

Later, I walked elsewhere, though the flat landscape of Lincolnshire, ideal for farming and flying, is not so attractive for recreational hiking. Perhaps that is why the local authority has devised a trail running from Lincoln to Sleaford called Spires and Steeples – the idea being to provide hikers with something of interest to engage their minds as they tramp along the edge of one field after another. The path is thoughtfully furnished with signposts which, though appreciated, are an unnecessary expense, since the next spire or steeple along the way is clearly visible at all times. I have not had an opportunity to walk the path to Sleaford, but did drive there one day. Unsurprisingly, it is not quite the metropolis it seemed to me a child. It is also – again unsurprisingly – run down. Nevertheless it does have aspirations to reassert itself post its market-town-heyday: it boasts The Hub, a new building that houses the National Centre for Craft and Design, set pleasantly among riverside boutiques and residences. There, the thought of coming back to live in Lincolnshire floated by me on a wave of nostalgia and other considerations: the easy pace of life, ready availability of fresh produce and low property prices. Okay, I might eventually develop eccentric tendencies but there’s a lot to be said for having friendly relationships with your local shopkeepers. And who knows? The guards might one day be persuaded to let me stroke the Dominie.