Frank and Me

         It’s not just the changing weather that signals the end of summer; there are other markers, such as the darkening evenings which, for me at least, reignite the fancy to read novels. Currently, Richard Ford’s works are capturing my attention, especially those featuring Frank Bascombe, a character with whom I feel some affinity, though he is American. What we have in common is our year of birth, our left-leaning politics and the degree of equanimity with which we bear the burden of guilt imposed upon us by an accident of fate – our white, western, male boomer ‘privilege’.

          Meanwhile, the warm, sunny second week of September insisted that summer wasn’t done yet and it was time, for those of us who are able, to make the most of it. The kids were back at school and we had the fields of leisure to ourselves. But first, I had one commitment to dispatch – helping out with the annual street party thrown by the charity with which I associate. My role as a volunteer involved a long day of interacting with the public, topped and tailed by the physical activity of dragging out and putting away a lot of bunting, chairs and miscellaneous kit. I had been suffering some lower-back pain (as a result of sanding and painting the skirting-boards at home, I’m sure), so I was apprehensive of worsening the condition. However, I awoke the next day pain-free – a testament to the aphorism “use it or lose it”. I wish I could pass this good news on to Frank, as he is something of a martyr to the aches and pains of his elderly frame.

          Then it was time to exercise the privilege of we self-employed/un-employed. We threw our hiking boots in the campervan and set off for a few choice days out – part of our on-going project to explore our recently adopted location on the border of Devon and Cornwall. We based ourselves at the village of Lydford, a place that has it all: ancient pedigree, interesting topography, a campsite on its periphery and a good pub at its heart. (It once had a post office, too, but now it’s a bijou residence.) Archaeology concludes that Lydford was established in the Bronze Age and documented history tells us that it was an important place in Saxon times – so much so that the Danes attacked and captured it in 997, overcoming its formidable defences, both natural and constructed.

          Lydford sits at the western edge of Dartmoor and just above a gorge, the latter seemingly inconsistent with the relatively gentle lie of the land. Yet, there it is! A mini gorge, with all the features of a maxi (except scale), complete with a Devil’s Cauldron of roiling water and a spectacular, 30 metre waterfall, known as the White Lady for its resemblance to long white tresses. No doubt Americans would be underwhelmed by the experience, though I would hope for at least a polite show of interest from Frank.

          The small scale of the gorge rules it out as a hike, so we took one on adjacent Dartmoor the next day. It’s a bleak landscape and famously treacherous in bad weather. Yet, even on the clear, sunny day of our visit, we found it a less than joyful experience. Like the Lake District, Dartmoor used to be completely forested and, with that in mind, it is hard to ignore the fact that these uplands, famed for their ‘beauty’ and favoured by hikers, are really despoiled and degraded regions. The pleasure of being in them is tempered with grieving for what they once were.

          Before leaving, we returned to the café at the gorge, which adjoins an old orchard, where the apples are free to gather. We took a load home and stewed them for the freezer, while planning which films to see now that the cinemas have come back to life. Autumn was in the air. Or ‘fall’, as Frank would have it.