Those Trousers In Full

Newcomers to this blog may well be thinking "Why do we need to see Mr.Ashley's new trousers?". Well, I made a thing about them a few weeks ago (six to be precise) when we went over to Holt in Norfolk to look at and try on a pair of High Rises as my Christmas and birthday treat at Old Town Clothing, and my loyal band of commentators have been equally fascinated by them ever since. Delayed gratification was stretched to the limit like an optimistic waistband, and so I rang their Miss Willey last Thursday. I heard her shoes tap away across the linoleum, followed by a silence where I thought I heard the tick of a station waiting room clock, and then the return: "They've only got to have the buttons sewn on". The rest was down to Parcel Force, who claimed that they came to my village on Monday, only to find I'd gone out. I hadn't. So they very kindly sent me a letter that directed me to a Post Office at the back of a grocers in Market Harborough. I tore the brown wrapping paper off and...I love 'em. Have I tried them on yet? Steady on, I've only had them a day. It'll be at least a week to decide which braces match the herringbone Harris Tweed. Delayed gratification kicking in again you see. However, some young know-all on the Guardian said recently that the people who buy Old Town's clothes must still have outside lavatories. Yes. So?

Scratching A Living

We think now of plumbers as those chaps who turn up the day after you were expecting them and who are very adept at sharp but meaningful intakes of breath. Perhaps it was ever thus, but at least our friendly local pipeman doesn't generally scratch his name on your boiler. Robert Morris didn't waste any time in advertising his services to the handful of people who live in Stockerston on the Leicestershire Rutland border. Or perhaps he wanted to deeply impress the folk at the big hall next door to the church he was working in, not only as to his glazing prowess, but perhaps with the thought that he had a diamond ring with which to leave his mark. There are quite a few other bold statements made on other panes, and I expect that if we look closely at our local church we may find it was a common practice. I like the way he tells us he was a plumber (more plombe as in leadwork, rather than conjuring tricks with copper pipes) and glazer [sic], but adds '&C' to leave the job opportunities open. And also how the whole thing fits in very nicely with the leaded glass still up above the windows of an ironmonger in Mr.Morris's Uppingham, proclaiming them to once have been the Pinteresque 'Gasfitters' and 'Bellhangers'.

Find The Fault No 3

I'm more at home with this week's puzzle picture, having just shoved some tulips in the Agricastrol jug. And just look at that radio, or 'wireless' as we call it in Unmitigated England. We had one of this vintage in the 50s, and there is a photograph somewhere of my father smoking a Player's whilst listening to it in the late 30s. I learnt to tune it in to Listen with Mother after the glass valves had warmed through, turning the big Bakelite dial past stations with exotic names like Luxembourg and Hilversum. But I think the biggest treat was Childrens' Hour, particularly when David Davies read The Hobbit, with Greig's Hall of The Mountain King announcing his rich fruit cake voice: "...Bilbo Baggins was standing at his door after breakfast smoking an enormous long wooden pipe...". My father rigged-up an extension speaker in the kitchen, where I could listen with mother while she thumbed through the Bero cookbook. Or run out into the garden when Victor Silvester came on. Learning to read meant I could look up programmes in the single colour Radio Times, and gorge myself on the superb line drawings by people like Robin Jacques and Edward Ardizzone. But I think that's for another posting. Tune in soon.

Up In The Wind

You can see them from wherever you are. When you're up here you can see wherever. A clump of young beeches and the odd fir form a dark blip on the ridge above the Northamptonshire / Leicestershire border. There is talk of a causeway camp long, long ago; there are marks on old Ordnance maps indicating a windmill. Always a meeting place of both people and trackways, there is more recent talk of the derelict single storey cottage being built in the 1930s for a chap to live in with his emphysema. Up in the wind, to help his gasping lungs. And the wind does blow. Producing ghostly squeals as the beeches crowd in and rub against the lichened brick, moaning in the rotten chimney stacks. Next door the air moves icily through the glassless metal casements of a wartime observation post, still with its wooden bunk beds up against the wall. In this strange grouping are also concrete entrances to bunkers that must have given chilling credence to the words 'Cold War'. Of course my boys thought they'd gone to some kind of windy heaven. They ran up here yesterday, dashing in and out of the swaying trees and invading the cottage like a landing force, moving from room to room with shouts of glee. "This is so awesome Dad". And then they unearthed the mossy skulls. Sheep, we hope. They carried them back down the hill like battle trophies, singing songs snatched away on the March wind. Just as it probably always was, a long, long time ago.

Village Eyecatcher

Isn't it odd how one changes one's mind about things. In the 1970's I lived in Tur Langton in Leicestershire, and just because this church wasn't on a ley line (the original is now only an arch in a garden just outside the village) we flared-trousered know-alls dismissed it out of hand. "No sense of holiness" we opined, looking at it from the pub windows opposite and never going in it unless one of us got married or died. Now, I can't get enough of it. Designed by those dynastic architects, Goddards of Leicester, the new church for the village arrived eye-wateringly in a field given by Sir Giles Isham in 1866. Much red brick, as can be seen, but with Box stone dressings and blue brick detailing. Goddards had been busy restoring local churches in the area (Slawston, Glooston) and used the local 13th century idiom for the spire, but in brick rather than stone. Inside (we increasingly find ourselves in there) it's a Victorian riot of polychrome banding, patterned encaustic floor tiling and much decoration on the pews. And a 'very florid font', as Geoff Brandwood and Martin Cherry have it in their very informative Men of Property, a study of six generations of Goddards. Round here you just can't get away from them- schools, banks, churches, lodge houses. All now glowing in early March light.

Find The Fault No 2

Hallo Sailor! Not being given to hanging around dockyard gates this one took me a while. Those with maritime predilictions will get it immediately of course. And it goes without saying you are only eligible to answer this puzzle if you've appeared on University Challenge whilst pretending to study Naval Fabrics 1805-1947

Down at Heal's

Going on about Humbers brought to mind this little filling station. A couple of years ago I walked round here to find it painted pink, and I've got an odd feeling it may now have dispensed the last gallon of unleaded. I found it on a dull June Saturday afternoon in 1990, when I wandered round the back of all those furniture stores on Tottenham Court Road after being led submissively around Heal's. It was easy to imagine Luton vans in the 1930's being primed with petrol here after being loaded-up with Elysian sofas and weathered oak beds destined for the new garden suburbs. In nearby Torrington Place Heal's vans were packed with new mattresses. I couldn't believe my luck when I found the Humber Super Snipe parked outside, its colours perfectly complementing the garage paintwork. Later I learnt that the garage was put here to serve the Duke of Bedford's Bloomsbury Estate, and as such is very likely the earliest petrol station in London. I'd be very grateful for any news (it was on the corner of Store Street and Alfred Place), but in any case it's well worthwhile standing opposite Heal's and admiring the superb decorative panels on the front elevation.