Diagonal Walking

by Nick Corble

  Spotting someone in the car park I asked if she was anything involved with the pub.

  ‘No, I’m trying to get in. I’m a guest,’ she replied in an unmistakeable Irish lilt.

  She was called Siobhán and was over in England for a funeral, taking the opportunity to call in on some clients of the small business she ran at home running up prototypes of electronic gizmos (she lost me at this point). As we shared a predicament, we also shared conversation, and it came as no surprise when the subject of Brexit came up.

  Siobhán had been trying to get the measure from her customers of what Brexit might mean for her business. She, they and all of us didn’t have an answer for that one. It was her view that the larger companies like Microsoft were in an advanced state of planning for any scenario and that ultimately their businesses would survive. She was pragmatic and thought her business would survive too. She would find other suppliers and customers, but the work required to do so for her was disproportionate. Critically, she lamented the lost opportunities. How there’d be less interaction with customers amongst innovative hubs such as Cambridge, where she’d been earlier that day. This, in turn, would lead to a loss in creativity, for all parties.

  Besides, Siobhán always enjoyed coming to England, and indeed being amongst the English, but opportunities to do so would, inevitably, be constrained in the future. This wasn’t something tangible, but was real nevertheless. She was exasperated but fatalistic. She was also very tolerant, staying with me for three-quarters of an hour before the pub reopened, despite the fountains of sweat still pouring off me. Then again, a bit like the government, she lacked an alternative option.

  None of Toddington’s six pubs served food, so Indian it was. Until near the end of my meal, I was the only customer; the only sitting customer, that is. It was fascinating to watch the takeaway trade come and go, most of them displaying the confidence of regulars. Some telephone callers were advised their meal would be ready in ten minutes, others in three-quarters of an hour. It was impossible to know whether this was because of the complexity of their order or their familiarity with the staff. On the other hand, it could just be a game the order taker played to pass away the hours.

  One customer came in personally, placed his order, and instructed it to be brought over to the pub across the road when it was ready. This may have been because he intended to eat it there, or because he didn’t like the Kingfisher or Cobra on offer at the restaurant, a swift pint of which appeared to be de rigueur for many of the men who came to collect orders. As I waited for my bill a short man of early retirement age came in and, refusing the menu, said he’d have the chicken dish he’d had the previous week. Somehow, the order taker was supposed to have remembered this.

  ‘Chicken Madras?’ the man with the pad suggested.

  ‘No, you know, the Chicken …’

  ‘Swarma?’

  ‘No, not that one, Chicken …’

  ‘Pasanda?’

  ‘No, Chicken …’

  This one could run all night, but I was invested enough in it to take it to its conclusion.

  ‘Rohani?’

  ‘No …’

  ‘Jalfrezhi!’ the order taker exclaimed, convinced he’d arrived at the answer. He was to be disappointed.

  ‘Nope … Chicken …’

  ‘Biryani?’ was suggested, only to be dismissed.

  ‘Pasanda?’

  ‘No. Vindaloo. That was it, Vindaloo.’

  How neither of them had started there it was difficult to imagine. The order was placed and I left.

  *

  The cacophonous rendering of Toddington’s church bells, directly outside my open window woke me up the next morning. This meant only one thing: one of my ear plugs had fallen out overnight, ear plugs and an eye mask having become an essential part of my kit. It was time to leave my slightly seedy hotel and exit via the fag-end strewn fire escape, leaving the keys on the bedside cabinet as I’d been instructed. Naturally no breakfast was on offer, so I headed for the delightful Bistro 24, a local coffee shop, surviving in the absence of a Costa. No sooner had I settled down with my order than the shop immediately began to fill with whatever the collective noun is for young mums (a concern? an indulgence?). To a woman wearing sunglasses propped in elegant hair, they’d dropped their children off at school on what was the last day of term, although I got the impression this was a regular Friday morning breakfast ritual.

  Seeing it was going to be their last gathering for six weeks, most appeared determined to bank that many weeks’ worth of chatter in advance. I tried to tune in to their conversations, but the noise level was too loud and too high pitched, punctuated with laughter and the screams of pre-school age children. Instead, I tried to lose myself in a copy of the local paper, The Herald and Post, helpfully left on the table. Here I discovered that the local MP was currently sitting as an independent, pending investigations into alleged sexual misconduct, and that the nearby airport at Luton was celebrating its eightieth birthday. The paper proudly described the airport as the country’s fifth biggest, which came across as a bit of a backhanded boast. The front-page story was about an eighty-four-year-old man (he was even older than the airport) beating off an intruder using a billiard cue.

  I left as the last full English breakfast was being served. Ah. The full English. Something that remained unchanging, despite the health police. The young mums looked okay on it, maybe it was okay to indulge just once a week, or maybe they were fortifying themselves for the weeks ahead?

  Next up, before heading out of the village, was the local baker, for an advance purchase of lunch (a cheese and pickle roll and a tuna salad roll – they were only small). The elderly woman behind the counter quizzed me on where I was going, having spotted the rucksack. When I replied Luton, she pulled a face likely to curdle the cheese in my roll.

  Back amongst the fields, the eponymous service station lay tucked away in the valley to my left, identifiable by the Corgi-model tops of the lorries parked up there. After a couple of miles of farm track I turned left, towards my diagonal and also the motorway, onto a byway. Technically more than a footpath but less than a road, byways are defined as ‘a right of way along which it is legal to travel by any mode … excluding “mechanically propelled vehicles”.’ The track was enclosed with high hedges, with tracts of blue-flowered wild borage growing along the side.

  I once again crossed the M1 and followed another byway down the side of an industrial estate and a track that looped around the very northern edge of Luton, or more accurately Leagrave, once a village in its own right, but now swallowed up by Luton. The sun had gone in and it had become very muggy, almost threatening rain but in a childlike way, pretending to threaten, without really being menacing at all. Was the curse of school holidays going to hit? Having sat out the hot days in examination halls, longingly gazing out the windows, were the hopes of the nation’s youth of long hot halcyon days about to be doused?

  Having hauled myself up to the top of an unexpectedly steep hill (the map clearly marked a water tower, so I should have anticipated it), I headed south, into dense housing and down an alleyway, towards the heart of Luton. One of the houses to my right was still displaying a flag of St George, presumably a leftover from the World Cup, or perhaps just a general expression of patriotism, it was impossible to know. It was odd, this assertion of ‘Englishness’ through the use of this particular flag. As recently as the 1980s, England fans had been happy to express their allegiance by brandishing Union Jacks (or, more correctly, Union Flags). Look at pictures from the 1966 World Cup Final and that’s what you see.

  Widespread adoption of the St. George’s Cross probably dates from the 1996 European Championship. Held in England (prompting the chart-topping ‘Football’s Coming Home’, which had enjoyed a resurgence during the English team’s Russian success), this tournament had taken place shortly after the Scots and the Welsh had been grant
ed their own Parliaments. English football fans rallied around the Three Lions, even if few could say what they represented. Most would probably be shocked to discover they were derived from the coat of arms of the Plantagenets, who had last ruled the kingdom in 1154. How very English.

  Outside football, the flying of the St George’s Cross has become something, well, almost un-English or, at worst, a tad, you know, neo-fascist. Again, how very English for it to become un-English to fly your own flag. I’d read18 there was also a connection between Englishness and the Brexit referendum, with 73 per cent of those identifying themselves as primarily English voting to Leave, against the 66 per cent of those who defined themselves as primarily British voting to Remain. I gave this particular flag-flyer the benefit of the doubt and walked on.

  The alleyway morphed into a tree-lined path taking me down towards Leagrave Common. I was on a mission to find the source of the River Lea, which was due to become a regular companion over the next phase of my walk, in much the same way as canals had been earlier in the trek. Sometimes called ‘London’s second river’, the Lea flows into the capital from the north, where it becomes a navigation, that is a river that is ‘canalised’ and channelled, both to allow boats to pass down it unhindered and, in the Lea’s case, as a way of supplying water. South of Hertford, where it becomes a navigation, it tends to be known as the Lee. A river so good they named it twice. Often forgotten, the river achieved something of a renaissance in recognition following the restoration work carried out on it where it passed the site of the 2012 Olympics.

  It was difficult to imagine the river’s importance to London standing by its source. Unsurprisingly, it had dried up. Even the barred grating near the sign proclaiming the spot as the river’s source was dry. It turned out this wasn’t even some kind of natural spring, rather where rain run-off from nearby roads supplemented the river. There hadn’t been much of that in recent weeks. Instead, before me lay a collection of tall grasses, willow and stinging nettles all sitting in a slight depression. Impressively green it’s true, but hardly a bubbling spring. This was deemed to be the main one of five springs feeding the river, known collectively as Well Head, with the other main source a few hundred yards to the west at Sundon Brook. I checked this out, and could see some water actually flowing, albeit impeded a bit by the cliché of discarded shopping trolleys.

  I walked back to the supposed source along a series of scorched playing fields where a council employee was marking out a cricket pitch with white paint. A quartet of freshly emancipated schoolboys kicked a football around behind him in defiance, in true ‘jumpers for goalposts’ fashion. I remembered from a previous walk that there was an art installation featuring a number of brass hats on stalks nearby, a tribute to Luton’s history as a maker of straw hats (and the origin of the local football team’s nickname of ‘The Hatters’). It was nowhere to be found, or maybe I was just too tired and hot to be bothered to find it. I asked a couple of locals and they professed ignorance of it, and when one talked of it in the past tense I took this as my cue to stop looking and unpack the by-now horribly tepid contents of my Toddington-purchased lunch.

  Revived, I followed the river as it picked up speed, and decided to follow it as far as I could before it disappeared under Luton. A well-marked Riverside Walk made this easy, even if the track was paved and hard on the feet, especially to feet bound up to avoid blisters. The track took me through Limbury Meads, a County Wildlife Site, where I duly spotted some wildlife: a green and crimson woodpecker. For centuries prone to flooding, this area has been converted into a pleasant walking route into the town centre, where I didn’t know what to expect. It was true the town didn’t have the brightest of reputations, but I tried to maintain a positive mindset.

  As I got closer to the centre the housing started to become larger, better tended pre-war, semi-detached and detached homes all exuding an almost affluent air. I walked through Wardown Park, an area developed at the beginning of the twentieth century, following the council’s purchase of land previously owned by a local solicitor. Given the size of the park, soliciting had clearly paid well back then. The park has a lake, fed by the Lea, and was popular on this sweltering day, both with parents and young children, although not teenagers playing football. We knew where they were. The park received a spruce-up during its centenary, perhaps offering another sign of hope for the town?

  Was Luton going to be another Northampton? Somewhere that defied its reputation, both locally and nationally? They were both medium-sized towns, sharing a population around the 200,000 mark, both trying to find their place in a changing world. It was time to find out.

  *

  Although initial impressions had been positive, these took a blow when I did a little research before diving into the town itself. A completely unscientific online poll19 rated Luton the third worst place to live in the UK, behind Hull and Dover. As one critic said: ‘Thank God there’s three motorway junctions, two railway stations and an airport that can be used for a swift exit.’ On reading this, I recalled the information board in Leagrave which told how the River Lea once formed the boundary between the Saxon lands of Mercia and Danelaw to the east, leaving Luton standing on the border between Christendom and Heathenism. It wasn’t promising.

  My hotel was on a corner of the Arndale Centre, which in turn sat on the edge of the main square with its ornamental fountain, which parents where encouraging young children to use to cool off, possibly in lieu of a bath. On leaving the mall, I went up the first street I could see, opposite the imposing 1930s Town Hall with its clock tower and two-tonne bell. Note to self: secure earplugs properly tonight. This building replaced the original Town Hall, burnt down by disgruntled ex-servicemen on Peace Day 1919, which must have punctured celebrations a little.

  The street, Wellington Street, ran uphill and I was able to spot Romanian, Polish, Turkish, Greek (not next door to each other) and Thai establishments along a short run, as well as an ‘International Store’ run by someone spreading their bets. Luton has one of the most diverse make-ups in the country. It’s one of only three British towns outside London with a non-white majority (the other two are Leicester and Slough). Although the figure for those who described themselves as white was around 55 per cent in the 2011 census, calculations based on these figures suggest the level has dropped below half since then.

  These figures are not as straightforward as they might appear though. Of those identifying as white many originate from other EU countries, notably those on the eastern edges of the Union, and it was certainly my experience that these were much more prominent than those with darker skin tones. I also noticed a large proportion of children of mixed parentage, making me wonder if skin colour, ethnic origin and country of birth were all just statistical devices. They were simply people. It’s worth noting that 81 per cent of Luton’s residents define themselves as British, even if their origins may have been elsewhere.

  What does all this tell us? Probably that Luton is a microcosm, or an extreme example of trends seen elsewhere. A symbol of change, and the uncertainty, and sometimes hostility, that can bring. Despite the high level of residents from other European countries, Luton had voted decisively in favour of Brexit, 56 per cent against the national average of 52 per cent. One explanation that’s been offered for this is that many of those from ethnic minorities voted against the ‘newcomers’ taking their jobs, thereby parroting the alarum calls of the Far Right used against themselves. Indeed, the town’s leading UKIP politician, who came to England from Pakistan twenty-nine years ago, has expressed discontent with what he regards as uncontrolled immigration from Eastern Europe.

  Luton also has a reputation as a home for extremism, of both the Jihadist and Far Right varieties. The standard bearer of the Far Right, the English Defence League (which, it is worth noting, has displaced the British National Party at number one in the neo-fascist charts, a small but significant difference), was formed in Luton. Likewise, extrem
ist Islamic groups and terrorists have originated in the town. I kept half an eye out for evidence of this, for graffiti or antagonism, but I searched in vain. All I could see were people trying to cope, with the heat, and with their lot in general.

  A release of a sort was offered at the top of Wellington Street, where a so-proclaimed ‘Adult Store’ stood on the main road. A sign on the front of the store spoke of a ‘discreet side entrance’. After wondering if I’d led a sheltered life and missed something, I realised what was meant and took a peek, as it were. The side entrance may have been discrete, but it wasn’t as ‘discreet’ as promised, a large red sign next to number 24a in white lettering a foot high announcing a doorway for the ‘Adult Shop’. A small sticker in the corner warned people to ‘mind the step’, presumably easily missed when looking around to see if anyone saw you going in.

  Back where the street met the main drag a number of drunks were already in evidence, even though it was only five in the afternoon, albeit on a Friday. Maybe they were celebrating the start of the school holidays, or possibly hiding from the thought of them? I walked up this thoroughfare. Although pedestrianised to make it more accessible, it was pretty desperate, full of third-rate shops and gambling emporia. I sensed any retailers with any pride had decamped to the Arndale Centre. This looked reasonably clean and drunk-free, so I wandered in.

  The first thing I noticed was that two doors down from a Poundland stood a Luton Town FC store. It wasn’t busy. Mindful of having to eat sooner rather than later, I followed the signs for the ‘Feast Street’, passing a poster for the Luton Foodbank on the way. I was too hungry to indulge in irony. An Ann Summers store stood unembarrassed opposite a River Island. The people of Luton appeared obsessed with sex. No discreet side entrance here. Both Marks and Spencer and Debenhams sat unobtrusively in the corner of the Mall, as if not quite sure how they’d got to be amongst such company.