Find The Fault No 6

Not a lot I can say really. Lovely morning here. Just wondering what to have for breakfast. Boiled egg'd be nice. Or a kipper. If I had one. Actually there might be one at the back of the fridge....

Semi Conducting

Rare these days to find an untouched pair of semi-detacheds. Even more so to find them within a mile or so of each other. The top ones are in Little Bowden, which joins on to Market Harborough on the south east, and the others are in Great Bowden, which joins on the north east. For a large fee I will do a conducted tour for film location finders, who will be blindfolded until we're outside. The windows look right to me, and I can vouch for the front doors being original. Unsung domestic architecture, both pairs stand alone, that is neither are part of any vast interwar development. Some people have a problem with rendering, as on the Great Bowden houses, or 'pebble dashing' as it's more popularly known, but it's fine by me. Although I lived in a house coated thus in Kent, and during the Great Storm of October 1987 thousands of tiny stones were blown off the wall and against the bedroom windows as I lay in the foetal position on the landing. But rendered or not, I think there is great charm in these original pairings. All they need is a Morris J-Type bread van parked outside, or a proper postman in dark blue serge sifting through letters on the path as mum shakes a yellow duster out of a bedroom window.

The Watchers

By the ford at the town's edge / Horse and carter rest: / The carter smokes on the bridge / Watching the water press in swathes about his horse's chest.

I once regularly passed through the village of Eynsford in Kent, on the road you can just see here in front of the church. It's not a town, but it's this bridge and ford over the River Darent that always comes to mind when I read Edward Thomas's poem that was later called The Watchers. There's only one more verse after the one I quote here, and Thomas wrote it in 1916, the year before his untimely death just after the Battle of Arras. The picture stands out in a book entitled This England: An Appreciation by A.J.Cummings, the political editor of the News Chronicle. Cummings is writing in 1944, demonstrating to a population depressed by war that the country was still functioning, much as Thomas did in his poetry. The photographer is sadly anonymous, but there are many pleasures to be had from this image of a dull summer's afternoon. Perhaps there was also a distant roll of thunder. I leave it to the mechanically minded to identify the tractor, and perhaps someone will also know the rest of the name on the trailer. Is it a farm or the manufacturer? And what's that old boy got in his sack? Couple of rats for tea I expect.

Find The Fault No 5

Are we fed up with these yet? I'm happy if you are, but just thought I'd ask. So, we're off to the seaside this morning, a harbinger of sunny days to come we hope. My first holidays were spent on the Lincolnshire coast in a bungalow at Anderby Creek (sounds like something out of the Secret Seven doesn't it?), and the memory of jumping down from the verandah with bare feet into soft white sand is still very fresh. Being Strict Baptists in the 50s we had Sunday School on the beach, two families listening to my father talking to us in his rolled-up trousers. We never forget him getting a large piece of newspaper out of his pocket, and unfolding it to reveal a cut-out letter 'S'. He asked us to tell him how many things we could see beginning with the letter. I still find it remarkable how many there are: sun, sea, sand, seagull, ship, seaweed, starfish, swimming costume. And I must have pointed to my cousin Sue at one point. Heady, carefree days. Kite-flying, serious cricket matches on the firm sand when the tide receded to Holland, trips to a corrugated iron watch tower at Donna Nook with a door banging in the wind (ah, that's where it comes from). And hoping my older brothers and cousins would let me play with the clockwork train set we'd brought on a real steam train all the way from Leicester to put up in the attic. Mmm, let's all go there now.

Unexpected Alphabet No 9

A baa lamb on Unmitigated England? Whatever next? Pictures of nodding daffodils? Patience Strong verses? Blame the boys I say, wanting to go over the gated road between Horninghold and Blaston to see if the new lambs had been put out into the open field. Having recently acquired a black cat they've got a current preoccupation with all four-legged creatures, but if I'm honest I think the attraction in this south east Leicestershire field is the fact that they can swing on the metal gates at each end. Of course I then noticed that each new arrival had been aerosoled with blue paint. At first I thought it was a powerful reminder as to the order in which they had been born, but on seeing a companion with the same number assume it's the code for the mother. Anyway, forget all that, it's a great addition to the country letters and numbers I'm collecting. And if anyone thinks we've all got unnecessarily sentimental, one of the boys did give a parting au revoir out of the car window: "Mint sauce!".

Creature Feature No 5

You've got to watch what you're doing walking around Soho with your head in the air. The Golden Lion pub sits on the corner of Dean Street and Romilly Street, and I came off Shaftesbury Avenue with a purposeful stride (walking to an imminent lunch on Tuesday) and took a chance to study the sun dial. I can't quite work out the shadow of the gnomon, but it might just be telling the right time. Lions of all colours are often found as pub names, having appeared on the arms and badges of kings since the 12th century. We've still got one now, rampant on the royal crest in heraldic companionship with the unicorn. The Red Lion is still the most popular pub name, but we'll often find a gold king of beasts with a paw resting on a golden ball. Golden Lion pubs are often nicknamed Brass Cats. This particular one probably had an Art Nouveau make-over in the early 20th century, when the definite article was revived as 'ye' to denote old age, as in Ye Olde Tea Shoppe. What else can I tell you? Well, Dennis Nielsen pick up murder victims here and some nutcase once blew the toilets up. And it has been known to charge £3.30 for a pint. No wonder my step quickened up Dean Street.

Jolly Pedalling Weather

Now, I don't know if this is true or not, but punting in Oxford is traditionally carried out from inside the boat. Whereas Cambridge, my preferred Boat Race choice, stalwartly stand on the back. It's just that I've got a hazy memory of being poled down the Cam by a friend many years ago, who stood safely within the punt, and as we passed King's a chap in another boat shouted out "Oxford bastard!'. So I soon learnt very quickly to balance myself on the stern (?) and only once have I been left stranded mid-stream hanging on to a slowly declining pole. So imagine my dismay on Sunday afternoon to poke my nose over Magdalen Bridge in Oxford and see this. The 'boater' is not just inside the craft, but lounging back with a bottle of Oasis and languidly pedalling. What on earth's going on? The last thing I expected to see on these hallowed waters was a pedalo. What next? Lilos on the bank? Windsurfing? Pink Lycra? Loudspeakers instead of May morning choristers on Magdalen tower? Hurrumph, hurrumph.