Tag Archives: Family History

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19/5/89

CAMBRIDGE

We had told Eddie and Pauline that we would be taking today off and had planned a trip to Cambridge.  

Our adventures started early.  We got up at 6 a.m. and showered, packed up some stuff and got out the bikes. The distant rumble of thunder told the story of what we were in for and as we cycled along the lanes towards Wormley, the air was full of the sweet, damp smell of approaching rain and bolts of lightning flashed across the sky.  Thunder crashed overhead and we were getting a bit nervous of being out with such a storm going on. We were halfway between Wormley and Broxbourne when the downpour hit us and soaked us to the skin. But, despite the rain we carried on and caught the 7 a.m. train.

The trip to Cambridge took one hour, the train stopping at every station as it travelled past canals and tree-lined fields then through the rolling grain growing area of Hertfordshire.

By the time we got to Cambridge the sun was out and we biked into the centre of town and had breakfast at a little café. We banked our wages and wandered around the market which has been held on the same spot for 1000 years. We decided that the best way to see as much of Cambridge as possible was to get a ticket on a sightseeing bus that would enable us to get on and off when we wanted to. So, we caught the first bus of the morning and sat up on the top in the open air and listened to the commentary telling the long and fascinating story of Cambridge.  The town was founded in 44AD by the Romans (the High Street still follows the exact path of the Roman road). They were there for 360 years until the fall of the Roman Empire and then in the 5th century the Saxons came and ousted the Danes (Vikings) who has established a fine inland port. The Cam River is navigable from the sea right up to Cambridge.

The university was founded in 1209 by scholars who had fled from rioting in Oxford. The first College was Peterhouse and was founded in 1284. The newest College is Robinson which was founded in 1977 and there is now a total of 31 colleges:  24 undergraduate, 6 postgraduate and one teacher training. The names of the colleges include Kings, Sidney Sussex, St Johns, Christ’s, Jesus and Trinity. The latter is the largest and richest of the colleges and is the largest landowner in Britain after the queen and the Church of England. Most of its land was bestowed on it by Henry the 8th after it’d been taken from the monasteries and it is said that it is possible to walk from Cambridge to Oxford without leaving Trinity Land.

Some of the other sites we were to visit were the American War Memorial and Cemetery where more than 3300 white crosses bear witness to some of the American servicemen killed in Europe in World War 2. Included on the wall of remembrance are Glenn Miller and Joseph Kennedy.  We visited the round Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built in 1138 and one of only 5 round churches in existence, and drove past the College Library which contains over 4 million books on 86 miles of shelves.

Around midday, we got off the bus and hired a punt and spent an hour on the calm and peaceful waters of the Cam, along behind the colleges – this area is known as The Backs. After a lazy hour of punting we had a shandy in a nearby pub then caught the bus for another 2 hours of getting on and off looking at the hundreds of lovely old buildings.

We got off for the last time outside St Mary’s Church and climbed to the top of the tower where we had an impressive view out over the old university town. Then we wandered down a back alley to get to St John’s Chapel.  What a wonderful building. We were both or struck by the beauty of it – a huge rectangular gallery with the only partition being a wooden bridge halfway along where the huge organ was mounted. The sunlight streamed through the huge stained glass window on the western end of the chapel and the huge columns rose up to fan-shaped vaults 80 feet above.  The acoustics were perfect.

From there we wandered the streets and bought a pizza for tea which we ate after having to move from one park to another after being accosted of by drunken, foul-mouthed beggars.

After our feast of pizza, garlic bread and Coke we cycled round nearly empty streets back to the river, where we bought a drink each at the pub and sat outside on the banks of the river and watched the punts and ducks drift slowly by as the sun set lower and lower behind the skyline.

Our day in Cambridge was at an end and we biked back to the station and caught the train back to Broxbourne.  It was cold and dark when we arrived so we left our bikes at the station and got a taxi home.

Here are a few interesting bits from the history of East Anglia.

  • BURY ST-EDMONDS AND MAGNA CARTA.  Bury St Edmunds is named after King Edmund of Anglia who was martyred in 870 by the Danes for his Christian beliefs.  The 15th of June 1215 is rightly regarded as one of the most notable dates in the history of the world. Those who gathered at the high altar in the great Abbey church in November of the previous year could hardly of known the consequences that were to flow from their proceedings. The granting of Magna Carta at Runnymede marked the road to individual freedom,  parliamentary democracy and the supremacy of the law.

          The principles of Magna Carta which had their foundation at Bury St Edmunds and           have been developed over the centuries by the common law,  are the Heritage not               only of those who live in these Islands, but of countless millions of races and Creeds           throughout the world.

  • CROMWELL (LORD PROTECTOR OF ENGLAND) Oliver Cromwell was born of middle-class parents on April 25th 1599 in the last year’s of the reign of Elizabeth the First.  Born in Huntingdon, where he went to the free Grammar School ( along with Samuel Pepys) Oliver afterwards spent a year at Cambridge University (1616 Sydney Sussex College)  before completing his education at the Inns of Court, London.

         General Ireton,  although born in Nottinghamshire,  when the Civil War broke out,            raised a troop of horse and in 1643 served with Cromwell in East Anglia.  One of the          most famous quotes from Cromwell was “it is an odd thing Mr Ireton, that every               man who wages war believes God is on his side. I’ll warrant God must often wonder         who is on his!”

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16/5/89

Eddie gave us a ride down to Wormley and then John, a regular at the pub, picked us up and took us to Hoddesdon.  We went to the library and got a couple of books,

We did a bit of shopping and had a beer in the White Swan pub.  Then we walked back via the public footpaths over Bass Hill. We stopped and sat in the grass out in the middle of a paddock and watched the sunlight playing on the hills and houses over on the far side of the Lee Valley.  The only thing about being this close to London is the constant roar of traffic on the A10¹ and the noise of aircraft overhead that destroys the peace and calm of the countryside. The air was full of the lovely sweet smells of spring and birds were everywhere.  I can’t wait to get to the remoter parts of rural England.

¹The A10 is a major arterial road linking London (the road begins at London Bridge) with King’s Lynn in Norfolk. Parts of the road follow the original Roman road known as Ermine Street.

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15/5/89

After work Rene took me to Enfield.  I changed my two left shoes for a left and a right.  Wandered around for an hour or so then met Rene and she took me back to Wormley.  I walked up the road to the pub and took some photos on the way including a couple of some headstones in Wormley churchyard.

 

 

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14/5/89

We had a couple of letters from Colin and Dill¹ and in them, written in Colin’s peculiar note-form were the paragraphs:

“A fellow shot a Black Power² member who was stealing petrol out of his car the other day, only one thing wrong, his mate got away. But it would be hard to hit a black moving target at night with a 303.” And: “Jill has just gone to bed in a huff because I wouldn’t let her slobber on letter or lick the stamp.”

¹Colin Johnson was the fellow renting our house in Geraldine. Dill, real name Jill, was an old sheepdog of mine who had been retired to Geraldine as Colin’s pet.

²Black Power are a New Zealand gang whose uniform is head to foot black leather.

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13/5/89

Another row involving Bill, his demented girlfriend and some other girl. The police paid another visit…and another visit at midnight after some guy had punched out a window. He had badly cut his hand & Linda told him to go to Enfield hospital so the police met him there and arrested him. There was also a row in the public bar over a horse involving Garry, Marina¹ &, yes indeedy, Bill. Bill has now been banned from the pub.

¹Garry and Marina were another couple of regulars at The Woodman. I can’t remember the outcome of the argument but can remember very clearly the aftermath. Out in the car park Marina was shrieking incoherently at the other people involved as they sat in their car. Someone inside said “I’ve lost my chain” [necklace] I wanna look for it.” Garry promptly smashed his fist on the roof of the car and shouted “fuck chain…cunts!” We burst out laughing at this, the car sped off, and Garry and Marina began shouting at each other. Such was a typical Saturday night at The Woodman. (FOOTNOTE: Even now, thirty years later, the phrase “fuck chain…cunts” is still one we use occasionally to describe an adult having a tantrum over something trivial!)

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17/4/89

A cold windy day, and Ray gave us a ride down to Broxbourne where we filled in the paperwork in order to open an account at Barclays Bank.  We looked around the limited selection of shops in Broxbourne then caught a bus to Hoddesdon. We spent 4 hours there doing a few jobs, periodically going into coffee shops for hot chocolate to warm us up.  We had a beer (xxxx for me and Lowënbrau for Linda) in an old pub and wrote a couple of postcards,  then went and registered at 2 employment agencies to get work for our days off. We bussed back to Broxbourne and decided to walk back to the pub.  It took us an hour & a half of walking to get home. We stopped and talked to horses, watched rabbits playing, and enjoyed the cold wind and rain-threatened sky which somehow seem to suit the woods and fields we were walking past.  We spent the evening reading writing letters and snoozing.

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7/4/89

We got up at 8 and went through the normal ritual of the day, that is, cleaning, morning session, break, and evening session.  We spent our afternoon break going for a walk up the road, across the fields, along a public footpath, talking to groups of horses and ponies along the way, then back round through the woods by little country lanes.  The pub was very busy in the evening.

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5/4/89

APRIL 5th

Since 1986, when I first heard the song april 5th, from the album The Colour of Spring by British post-punk, synth-pop band Talk Talk, I have always written its lyrics as my diary entry for this day. Although April 5th is actually autumn in the Southern Hemisphere, during the three years we spent in England, April 5th was always in spring, as Mark Hollis, the song’s composer, had intended.

HERE SHE COMES
SILENT IN HER SOUND
HERE SHE COMES
FRESH UPON THE GROUND
COME GENTLE SPRING
COME AT WINTER’S END
GONE IS THE PALLOR FROM A PROMISE THAT’S NATURE’S GIFT

WAITING FOR THE COLOUR OF SPRING
LET ME BREATHE
LET ME BREATHE THE COLOUR OF SPRING.

HERE SHE COMES
LAUGHTER IN HER KISS
HERE SHE COMES
SHAME UPON HERE KISS

COME WANTON SPRING, COME
FOR BIRTH YOU LIVE
YOUTH TAKES ITS BOW BEFORE THE SUMMER THE SEASONS BRING

WAITING FOR THE COLOUR OF SPRING
LET ME BREATHE…

SPRING