'So it's a ditch.'
'Yes. They're everywhere. In fact at my grandparents' house there's a wooden bridge over the dike to get from the road into the garden. Some of the dikes are bigger, like canals. Dad used to take me fishing in one just up the road.'
'You ever catch anything?'
'Only a cold. Dad's joke. He told it every year. The countryside was so flat you could see for ever. Fields of corn, or potatoes, and not many hedges or fences because the dikes divided the land up. From the house, we could see the bus coming down the lane ages before it arrived. And we'd just go down the path into the road and the driver would pull up for us. There were no bus stops. And off we'd go to the sea. It was about a mile away.'
'OK, downsides then. I'm trying to prepare you.'
'Well, the house was minuscule. There were only two tiny little rooms. No more than about 8-feet square. One was a bedroom, the other a living room with fold-out bed.'
'How about the kitchen and bathroom?'
'Ooh no. There was no running water. There was a pump that must have gone straight down to a well under the house. Do you know I can still hear the noise of that pump? Judder, splosh. Judder, splosh. That was for washing and cooking.'
'Now you're going to tell me something horrible about the sanitation.'
'Yup. It was a wooden bench with a hole in it, inside a hut in the back garden.'
'Oh my God! So was it like that for everyone in the village?'
'Well, I suppose it must have been. You know, I said the English village is an anachronism. Well Hogsthorpe was literally medieval.'
'That must have been horrible, wasn't it?'
'No! I loved everything the way it was. No electricity of course. Oil lamps for lighting. The one concession to semi-modernity was a single gas ring powered from a bottle. But none of that mattered. What I looked forward to was waking in the morning to see rabbits playing on the grass out front, then we'd go and hunt in the field next to us for mushrooms as big as kitchen plates that my mother fried for breakfast.'
'This must say something about expectations,' observes Maggie.
I dart a quizzical sideways look at her.
'Today, if anybody lived like that, it would be denounced as a national scandal and disgrace… because we expect much better now.'
'I guess you're right. And it's worth remembering that kings and queens in the Middle Ages used lavatories pretty much like the one we had at Hogsthorpe.'
Two hours later, we're getting close, and the village names are starting to ring some rusty bells down my less-frequented neural pathways: SKENDLEBY, CLAXBY, MUMBY, CANDLESBY, FARLESTHORPE.
'See,' I point to the road signs. 'Old Danish, the lot of them.' And I realise there's a flutter of butterflies just below my ribcage. I don't know why.
Then all of a sudden, a female voice says, 'Turn left. Then. After. 200. Yards. You have reached. Your destination.' A white van driver behind leans on his horn, as I slow down to peer around at the roadside bungalows. The satnav intervenes to assure me there's no mistake: 'You have reached. Your destination.' It's always right so there's no point in tapping it. So I tap it. But it's had its say, and it maintains a confident silence.
I'm flummoxed. It seems as if we've just flowed into Hogsthorpe from… well, from wherever we were before.
'Ah,' I exclaim at last, 'there's the pub. Oh, and the church on the other side of the road.'
Maggie says nothing.
The place looks as confused as I am. I edge the car forwards along the main street. There are cars and vans everywhere, parked or struggling to get through. A few little shabby terraced houses, higgledy piggledy, sit on the edge of the street and seem to be in the way. Everywhere here looks untidy. I catch sight of a brick barn-like building on the corner, its roof tiles broken or missing. Then I have a sudden image in my mind of horses. It used to be the blacksmith's. A battered sign on it says DUNKLEYS. It's nothing now.
'Let's start by looking for my grandparents' place,' I say, 'It's on the edge of the village.' The ill disciplined line of terraced cottages quickly gives way to ranks of bungalows, all a uniform 4 metres from the road, a uniform 4 metres apart, the triangles of their identical gable ends diminishing into the distance.
After five minutes we're out among open fields with deep dikes running along each side of us. This makes me feel better. But we've obviously gone right away from the village and still no sign of the old house. We turn round and drive through the village three times. At last, I recognise a signpost, SEA LANE.
'Right,' I say. 'Where we are now is called "Three ways". Both these roads lead back to the village, and that one goes to the sea. I was thrown because it's all built up with bungalows. Granddad's place is just down here.'
A minute later, I slam on the brakes.
'Crikey!' I exclaim.
Maggie, who's been patient and quiet for the past fifteen minutes, touches my elbow; 'Is everything all right? What's the matter?'
'That must be it.' We've stopped by two large caravans and a couple of cars in the front garden of a rambling house. 'It's been extended,' I say. 'Quite a lot, in fact. And there's no dike at the front any more.'
'Are you sure?' asks Maggie.
'Yes, this is definitely the road. And it was the end one in a line of similar little houses. Let's go in.'
There's a chap bending inside the bonnet of one of the cars on the concrete that used to be the rabbits' playground, and he looks up as we approach.
'Hello,' I say, 'I'm sorry to disturb you. My grandfather bought this house in the mid 1920s. He owned it for about forty years till he died, and I used to come here every summer.'
It's a mouthful of an introduction, but we're in luck.
'Oh aye,' says the man with an encouraging lilt to his voice, and lifting his baseball cap to scratch his forehead, adds, 'I bet it's nowt like it was when you were 'ere last.'
'Too right,' I say, and we're away.
His name's Jerry and he shows us round. The house has had bits added to it on at least eight occasions as far as I can make out, and its total size now must be five or six times what it was in Granddad and Grandma's day. We can detect the original part from its old roof end which is still visible on both sides of the house. But inside it seems a warren and nothing relates to what I remember.
I ask Jerry what Hogsthorpe's like now to live in.
'Me and the wife are both outdoors people,' he says. 'And you get the sea air here, straight off of the North Sea.'
He looks like he's in his fifties. Is he retired? I ask.
'Unemployed,' he answers. 'I'm a skilled motorbike mechanic. I had a good job in Chesterfield, in Derbyshire, then got made redundant. That were two years ago, so we moved to Hogsthorpe. But there's hardly anything going for mechanics round here. I applied for a maintenance job at Butlins in Skegness, and I'm still waiting to hear.' But he's not sounding bitter.
'So what do people do in the village?'
'Well. A lot of 'um's retired. In all these bungalows. They've moved from Nottingham, Derby or Leicester.'
'Do you mix with them much?'
'Some of 'um comes into the pub.'
Jerry then explains that he's in dispute with the local farmer about the tractor access way that goes alongside his garden.
'You can maybe do me a favour,' he says. 'The farmer claims the border's actually back against the side of the house. We've had solicitors on to each other and all sorts of legal punch-ups going on.' He asks, 'Can you remember from years back a hedge along there?'
'As a matter of fact I can, Jerry. I used to play "Chase", running all round the outside of the house including between that side wall and the hedge.'
'Champion,' says Jerry. And I agree to write him a letter that he can use in his case. So we all shake hands and part, with me glowing inside because my memories of a Hogsthorpe childhood are of practical use in the twenty-first century.
Next, Maggie and I decide to go and take some sea air ourselves. The village of Chap
el St Leonards is only a mile away. Back in those far-off summers, Mum, Dad, my sister Anne and I often used to walk there or back if we missed the bus or simply because it was a balmy evening. But it's no surprise now that, instead of open fields, much of the still-winding road between the two villages is lined with yet more bungalows, as far as I can tell, uniform with the ones that that have infested Hogsthorpe.
A welcome sign reads: CHAPEL SAINT LEONARDS TWINNED WITH CERANS-FOULLETOURTE.
'I know where that is,' exclaims Maggie. 'I've been there. It's in the Loire Valley. Cerans-Foulletourte has got one of the most magnificent baroque chateaux in the whole region, surrounded by beautiful gardens, alongside the River Loire. It's stunning.'
We enter the heart of Chapel St Leonards past GREENS AMUSEMENTS, I E CR AMS COF EE BAR AND GRILL, POUND SAVER and CRUMBS FILLED COBS TAKE-AWAY. You can't actually see the sea from the village centre. It's hidden behind a sea-defence embankment which rises higher than the shop roofs and separates the village from the beach.
We try to imagine the first visit by the burghers of Cerans-Foulletourte to their new twinning partner. Had the French drawn a name out of a hat? Or does this little seaside village have a particularly persuasive publicity department: 'Chapel Saint Leonards [French accent]: this elegant coastal settlement of Norman origin, as its name suggests, boasts international cuisine (GOLDEN DRAGON CHINESE AND ENGLISH TAKEAWAY), many reminders of a colourful history (HISPANIOLA BEACH BAR), year-round sunshine (DEETRE'S VERTICAL TANNING BOOTH) and breathtaking views of the ocean.'
To be fair, Chapel St Leonards does have the last of these items. Maggie and I walk up the pull-over, which – in my day at least – was what the little road going up the sea wall was called. And from there you see mile upon mile of sands, to left, to right and down below before you. The tide's out and it's a quarter of a mile over grass-tufted dunes to where the waves lap in. It's a sunny autumn day and with the village's garishness hidden behind the sea bank at your back, a desolate beauty stretches in every direction.
It's too cold for sandcastles or paddling, but dogs chase sticks as one or two walkers keep up a stiff pace in the chill wind, and a single fishing boat slides silently out to sea. On the far horizon we can just make out the stretched white arms of wind turbines. We count fifty of them before they merge into the mist to the far right somewhere off Skegness.
We walk for half an hour till we come to a set of steps leading to the top of the sea-defence wall that separates our little promenade from the villages and countryside inland. For no particular reason, we climb up.
There's a shock waiting at the top. No fields to be seen on the other side. No villages. Just row after row, rank after rank of identical rectangular, shiny roofs. Mobile homes. Mobile homes that probably never move and are home to no one except holidaymakers for a week or two each in August. There may be a thousand. Or five thousand. It's impossible to count them.
We climb back down to the cheery desolation of the sand and sea. And as we walk back past The Hispaniola, a couple in their sixties are slipping into yellow reflective jackets. He stoops to fix his bike clips, and says to her, 'That was a grand five minutes.'
'Five minutes!' she replies. 'More like an hour, yer daft old codger. When you get up here looking at the sea, you've no more idea of time than my elbow.' And they cycle off, laughing.
Back down on the village pavement, we weave around a clutch of mobility scooters, their drivers grim faced and stooped, then through pink and yellow buckets, spades and kiddies' bathing rings piled high outside an open-fronted shop. The owner jumps from his seat to attend to us, then flops back when we ask, 'Do you sell newspapers?' He directs us to the Co-op, where we buy a copy of the latest Mablethorpe Leader.
It's two o'clock and we decide to head back to Hogsthorpe and Jerry's favourite pub for a spot of refreshment.
Inside, the place has old beams and a firegrate in one bar, and a pool table in the other, and shows no sign of the ravages of a brewery tarting-up department. Both rooms are empty apart from a half-blind old golden retriever who walks into my leg, and a young guy reading the Daily Mail.
'Hello there, what can I get you?' he asks, rising from the window seat. For those involved in village research, he turns out to be a treasure. After he's supplied us with drinks, he perches on a bar stool and chats to us about twenty-first-century living in Hogsthorpe.
'I love it here,' he explains. 'I'm all for a quiet life. I don't think I could stand all that rushing about in a city.' He brushes his shoulder length hair back from his eyes.
'The trouble with Hogsthorpe is people don't muck in with community life. They'll give money for the church fete or the primary school, but they're stingy when it comes to an hour of their time. All these bungalows you'll have seen. The people in 'em come out once a week to go to the supermarket in Skeggy' – that's what locals call Skegness – 'then they shut themselves back up inside their little houses again.'
'Are they mainly retired people?' I ask.
'Yes mostly. They've come here to die.' He grins. 'That's what we say. Let's hope they don't take Hogsthorpe with 'em.' Like Jerry, he doesn't seem sour about this; regretful but cheerful at his own lot. 'I'll give you something that tells a big story,' he goes on. 'For the first time since the 1930s, Hogsthorpe doesn't have a football team.'
'Why's that?'
'Well partly it's because they can't find anybody willing to organise the club and coach the team. But it's more than that. When the lads get to the age when they're just coming through with talent on the pitch, they up and leave. There's nothing for them to do here.'
'You mean no social life?'
'That, but more important, there's no jobs. There's not even an industrial estate or a business park for miles. There's one in Skeggy, but they can't fill the units. And there's no work in farming any more. It's either mechanised, or the fields are full of caravans.'
'But what about the holiday trade? There must be lots of work in that, isn't there?'
'Well, this isn't the Costa del Sol. Holiday work's seasonal. Only a few months in the summer. And anyway, young families who come and stay in the mobile homes, they don't have much money to spend.'
The old retriever waddles over and pokes a nose into my knee.
'Sorry,' says our host, 'come here old girl. She likes to have her chin scratched.'
'No problem,' I say and oblige her. 'So are you set up with a job at the pub?'
'No, I'm just filling in.' He balances a beer mat on the edge of the bar and flicks it with the back of his fingers. 'My girlfriend comes from Essex originally,' he continues, studying the beer mat. 'She wants to go back there. So I don't know what I'm going to do.' He looks back at us. 'You see,' he goes on, 'there's no motorways or fast roads round here, so industry and business aren't interested. Mind you,' he laughs, 'I always reckon if we did have good roads, that'd bring crime in here as well. It's very peaceful in Hogsthorpe. This pub's only once had anything stolen in twenty-five years.' He nods with what could be satisfaction, and goes off to serve a customer who's just turned up in the other bar.
Maggie picks up the Mablethorpe Leader – Mablethorpe is a little seaside town just up the coast – and, as if to bear out our young host's judgement, we read, '18 Months Jail For Bungalow Burglar'. 'Bungalow burglary' must be the most heinous crime imaginable round here. The Leader's editor clearly knows the burning interests of his readers because the first inside page headline (next to an ad for 'Seacroft Motability') is 'Councillor Hits Out At Cemetery Vandals', with a picture of a couple standing by an undamaged gravestone and looking like they may have just risen from it. My eye next happens on what I assume is a review of the latest horror movie to be a box-office hit: 'Farrow And Son Have The Top Grossing Louth Beast'. But it turns out to be written by the Leader's agricultural correspondent, and concerns the biggest cow at the Cattle Market in the town of Louth the previous Thursday. It's on page twenty-four and is the only farming story in the paper.
An hour a
nd a half later, after winding our way homeward via SCREMBY and SAUSTHORPE, we coast down a southbound slip road to be welcomed back into the arms of Eddie Stobart and the rest of the industrialised world.
'So, what about the Ralph question?' asks Maggie, pushing her seat back four notches and putting her stockinged feet on the dashboard. 'Are you any nearer to finding out if you're fulfilling a sentimental dream by wanting to live in Stow?'
'Hard to tell,' I reply, 'since there's nothing left of my childhood paradise in Hogsthorpe any more. Before we went there, I was sure Stow and Hogsthorpe would have a lot in common. Both surrounded by lovely countryside – one hilly, one flat but near the seaside, both places attractive in their own way. And both of them, I thought, would be thriving because they're a Mecca for visitors.'
'But I did warn you Hogsthorpe would have changed since you fished in dikes and rode on tractors.'
A Horse in the Bathroom Page 6
