Diagonal Walking

by Nick Corble

  Feast Street turned out to be a disappointment. A KFC, a ‘Cake Box’ and a place specialising in toast? Toast? Maybe it was toasties, I didn’t hang around to look. Not really a feast. Not really a street. A billboard back on the spine of the mall invited people to visit ‘LoveLuton.org.uk’. It came across not so much as a request but more of a plea, and I wondered how many hits the site received. It struck me that this symbolised a difference between Northampton and Luton. Whereas the former had a sense of people caring for it, Luton had more the air of somewhere people were passing through, but had somehow got stuck there. Okay, I’d been lucky in Northampton, catching it on a day of civic pride, but I could only feel as I saw.

  Later, I checked out the LoveLuton site, which promoted the town as a creative space, stressing its hat-making origins. The former was hardly a novel strategy, every medium-sized town had hit upon the idea of promoting itself as a hub of creativity, even Hinckley earlier on the walk. The whole ‘Hat District’ approach was an echo of Stoke’s attempt to promote its ‘Ceramics Trail’. One was focussed on the future, the other on the past, but I wasn’t sure either of them was hitting the mark. Okay, I was only passing through, but then again, as the old adage has it, you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.

  Eons ago, back in the coffee shop in Toddington, when I’d been reading the Herald and Post I’d come across a letter to the Editor. I love letters to the Editor, they often tell you more than any article about a town. This one highlighted how Luton was trying to revive itself with a new shopping centre, and how something like a new House of Fraser might do the trick. It looked like someone hadn’t been checking their memos. First, hello, high street retail was dying and second, hello again, House of Fraser had just announced a halving of its store portfolio – it was too busy closing stores to think about opening new ones.

  Towns like Luton, and it was still a town, even if it was also a Unitary Authority, like Stoke (a city) and Milton Keynes (not a city), were going to have to find a new way to give themselves purpose other than as a shopping destination. Maybe it was as a creative centre after all, but my message would be, make it obvious rather than implicit. Even the art installation at the source of the Lea had disappeared. The closest I came to seeing something eye-catching was some murals in the Arndale promoting … you’ve guessed it, the importance of a good hat.

  Back in my room, I browsed the internet to see if I’d missed something. I hadn’t. Meanwhile, the clock on the Town Hall struck the hour (I was going to have to close the window, not even ear plugs were going to be able to stand up to that). It was time to eat. In the absence of any alternative, I plumped for the Wetherspoons just over the square from the hotel named, appropriately enough perhaps, St George Square. I was, and remain, a fan of a ’Spoons, the way they renovate old buildings (this one, The White House, had been a nineteenth-century brewery) and use old photos and other homages to the locale in their decoration. I also loved the (possibly apocryphal) story behind the name, Wetherspoon being the surname of the Geography teacher at his school who’d told the founder Tim Martin (a big supporter of Brexit) that he’d never amount to anything. Finally, I loved the value for money. Less than £7.50 (okay, £7.49) for fish and chips and a pint. Unbeatable.

  My belly full and throat lubricated, I went for one final stroll to confirm I hadn’t missed anything. All I saw was the by-now depressingly familiar sight of homeless people bedding down for the night in shop doorways. I had a quick chat with a security guard closing the doors of the Arndale, presumably before anyone took up residence, although sleeping outdoors was probably preferable to indoors given the heat, and headed for my own berth ten floors up overlooking a flat roof and a threatening clock tower.

  The next morning, I grabbed what I could from the bunfight of a buffet breakfast laid out for the tour groups passing through. I really wanted to know where they’d been and where they were headed, but they were mostly American and didn’t leave any time between mouthfuls for talking. Instead, I got on my way. The Lea re-emerged above the main high street, with my route marked now as the Upper Lea Valley Walk. I passed the university, once again the only part of the town that appeared to have had any serious investment in recent years and, having passed under a roundabout, checked Pathwatch to make sure I was on the right road.

  I was, and it took me alongside a long office building belonging to the car manufacturer Vauxhall. Vauxhall opened the largest car plant in Britain here in 1907 and went on to make Churchill Tanks during the Second World War, something that made the town a target for Hitler’s Luftwaffe. The town weathered the 1930s depression rather well, driven mainly by manufacturing, and it was, as we know, around then that the airport opened. The heyday of the town lasted until the 1970s, with the Arndale Centre opening in 1972, and although the Centre was revamped in the 1990s that was a long time ago to have had a heyday.

  These days the Vauxhall plant on the edge of town employs 900 people, a shadow of its peak of 30,000, with a focus on commercial rather than passenger vehicles, which is appropriate given that two types of Vauxhall van, the Bedford and the Luton, were named after the area. It was still a mechanically propelled vehicle, of the type that could not be used on a byway, but only just. I was to see this plant, but I hadn’t intended to. Fooled by signs showing a cycling and walking route out of the town where no one but the very brave would attempt to either cycle or walk, I’d got lost. Apparently there was more than one route out of Luton, excluding those suggested by the contributor to the ‘worst place to live’ website.

  As well as being fooled by the cycleway signs, I’d been put off by the high cliff face alongside the dual carriageway I was now walking up. Surely I wasn’t expected to climb that? Yes, I was. I ducked into some woods and emerged on the other side of the road. There, some overgrown wooden steps pulled me up the cliff and beside some tall fencing. Just then, with only a couple of seconds warning, the loud, yet familiar sound of a jet engine rattled my senses. It was John Lennon Airport all over again.

  I was on the perimeter of Luton’s airport, where no sane man dares to tread. I’d been expecting it, but not this suddenly. When I’d planned my route the airport had been a bit of an obstacle. Well, more than a bit: the diagonal went right through the runway. As luck would have it, there was also a footpath running alongside the perimeter, which I was walking along now. It stood on the edge of a high embankment, with the runway itself sitting on another above me to the left. What started out as a hacking-through-the-undergrowth path soon emerged onto a field edge, lined not just with stinging nettles, but also an unusual red and yellow berry, some of which had turned to black, which I later found out was probably viburnum.

  Luton liked to call itself London Luton Airport, in a perhaps rather desperate attempt to gain some borrowed credibility. Still, at least it had resisted naming itself after a local celebrity.

  Eric Morecambe Airport, anyone?

  11

  Herts is Where The Home is

  Bedfordshire held a final surprise. Near the end of the airport perimeter fence, and still within range of a sudden jet engine blast, stood Someries Castle. This dates back to the fifteenth century and claims to be Bedfordshire’s oldest surviving brick building, although ‘surviving’ may be stretching a point. What stood before me, near the entrance to a working farm, was clearly a ruin, albeit one in pretty reasonable nick. It stood two stories high, and although it lacked a floor, it was still possible to see the remains of a spiral staircase, the octagonal turrets and some arched windows. The latter included an angled ‘squint’, which once allowed ladies of the house to view Mass.

  The building’s brick construction was unusual as the material was only just being used at the time when it was built, and it must have been an article of faith to have used it exclusively, as well as expensive. They’d even incorporated a diamond pattern using different coloured bricks. It was impressive, both for its structure, and for being
unexpected, and in this sense was an uplifting way of leaving the county after some mixed experiences.

  I was now into Hertfordshire: home turf. Hertfordshire was where I’d been born and spent the first twenty years of my life. It also explained my Watford fixation. The diagonal didn’t cut through my home town of St Albans, but it did come close. As chance would have it, in another one of the strange coincidences that had closed the decision to undertake the walk, it passed within a few yards of the house we’d rented for two years after leaving St. Albans back in the 1980s, in a place called Blackmore End. This lay slightly north of the city, and yes, St Albans is a city, with its own cathedral and everything. Sorry about that Northampton and Milton Keynes. Just around the corner lived yet another cousin, and it was here that I’d arranged to spend the night and rendezvous with my clean clothes, as well as Annette of course.

  The planes arriving into and leaving Eric Morecambe, sorry, London Luton Airport, continued to make their presence felt, and later that afternoon my cousin bemoaned plans to increase the number of flights. They didn’t seem too bad to me, but then again, I’d seen and heard them at source, so it was all relative. The footpath signs in Hertfordshire were exemplary, indicating not only the right direction but also destination, distance and even a designated number for the footpath. They were also clear, uncluttered by vegetation and all present and correct. Staffordshire’s footpath people needed to come to Hertfordshire on a Learning Day.

  Having crossed the border, I wandered into a small village called Peter’s Green, where I ordered what was fast becoming my standard drinks order – a pint of bitter shandy and a pint of tap water, with a splash of ice if that’s okay with you, barman.

  ‘Any particular bitter, sir?’

  I surveyed the pumps. They were all McMullens, the local brew. Whichever I chose it was going to be a taste of childhood, well, not exactly childhood, but you get the drift. ‘Country, I think,’ I replied, and watched as he drew the amber fluid into a straight glass. I was going to enjoy this, even if prudence demanded a quantity of lemonade.

  Suitably refreshed, my route followed what felt like an ancient drover’s lane, flanked with trees, which in turn offered welcome shade. Judging by the regular puddles of white feathers, it also acted as some kind of ‘Killing Fields’ for local pigeons. This emerged onto the lane where my family’s rented home stood, so I decided to take a look. I’d written to the current occupiers, but received no reply, despite my assurances in the letter that I wasn’t a madman or scammer. I didn’t judge them for not wanting to engage, that was their choice after all, but when I arrived another possible explanation revealed itself. It looked the same from the outside, but decidedly quiet inside. There was no sign of furniture and no evidence of habitation on the drive or front garden. Okay, most houses in the close looked quiet, it was a hot and sultry day after all, but this one didn’t even have any of the top windows open. Maybe my letter still sat on the doormat, as the house looked deserted.

  Back on the road, there was no getting away from the fact that this was an affluent area. Some of the houses that had been built since I’d lived there made what had been our perfectly acceptable, detached four-bedroomed house, look like a peasant’s hovel. They weren’t the norm though. It was as if they’d been grafted onto the rootstock of the local community, shortly after which their new owners had decided to install electric gates to keep that community out.

  Before linking up with my cousin Robert and his wife Denise, I paused at the fringes of a golf course under the welcome shade of a large oak. The fairways looked brown and parched, of course, but the greens were, well, green. A deep, vivid, emerald green. I got out my pad and jotted some notes, watching two women finish off a hole as I did so. As they walked off, one remarked to the other, ‘How very English, a man propped up under a tree writing poetry.’ If only she’d known I was writing about her.

  It was a late start the next morning after an extremely convivial evening, and Denise led me to a shortcut alongside the golf course which headed into the nearby village of Wheathampstead. Along the way, a crop of shrivelled peas, or at least they looked like peas, occupied a large field, after which it was time to get re-acquainted with an old friend: the River Lea. It looked in good shape, verdant on its banks with reeds and low trees, with a steady flow, the surface reflecting the blue of the sky with the few white clouds taking on the appearance of a low mist.

  Wheathampstead itself looked a fairly self-sufficient place, not that much changed from when it used to my nearest village. There were still shops either side of the river, a large pub, a church and a school, as well as coffee and cake stops, as this was clearly a popular place for visitors also. Not far out of St. Albans, it was easy to see the village’s attractions, and I didn’t dare look in the estate agent’s window to check out house prices. The river flowed under a bridge and was a feature of the village, with a small quay.

  The Lea was no longer navigable here, but one theory has it that the village was originally established by invaders from Belgium who came up the river from the Thames. A plaque on the bridge, part of the Wheathampstead Heritage Trail, stated that in the 1940s a circus elephant was brought there to drink and damaged the quay: a pretty random fact to offer the passing traveller. During my brief stay it was popular with anglers, young and old, which was more in tune with the other fact on the plaque which stated that Izaak Walton had mentioned the river in his seminal work The Compleat Angler.

  A riverside path took me out of the village, with the river itself hidden to the right, but still trackable from the tall sedge and yellow flag iris growing on its banks. Families emerged clutching picnics, and a few young children were enjoying paddling in the clean water. I walked for a couple of miles and, on finding solitude, and a convenient bench, stopped to rest and take on some fluids. There was a slight breeze, but as temperatures were forecast to threaten 35°C that day, plus the fact that I’d had a late start, I was being sensible. I sat to let nature envelop me, with the swoops of grey wagtails particularly impressive. It was then that I heard it. One long whistle, followed by four short ones, the familiar call of the red kite, reminiscent of home. Having just said goodbye to Annette a couple of hours earlier, I felt a slight pull towards home comforts. No one had forced me to do this trek, to spend these precious summer days walking on my own and sleeping in sometimes quite dodgy hotels. It was something I’d chosen to do and I was glad I had. The experience had already surpassed my expectations: the places, the people, the history, all had made the occasional discomfort, and gallons of sweat, worthwhile.

  The next landmark was another golf course, that belonging to Brocket Hall. Now a hotel, the Hall has the distinction of having been home to two Prime Ministers, the Lords Melbourne, confidant to the young Queen Victoria, and Palmerston. Fun fact: the latter was the only Prime Minister to die in office (so far), supposedly from a fever, although another theory suggests his demise followed an encounter with a maid on a billiard table. Not my sort of encounter you understand. More recently, the Hall was owned by the Lords of Brocket, the current one inheriting from his grandfather when he was only fifteen and subsequently going off the rails a bit, his career encompassing the ignominy of appearing as a contestant on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!. This followed a short stay at Her Majesty’s pleasure after an incident involving Ferraris and an insurance company.

  The footpath ran right through the golf course, which had all the appearance of the desert having migrated to Hertfordshire. Climate change was a thing sure, but this was ridiculous. It was difficult to see where the sand in the bunkers ended and the grass began. The greens, though, had been suitably watered and nurtured, acting like tiny oases dotted around the sparse landscape, emerald jewels scattered randomly on a beach. The path then led onto Lemsford Mill, which appropriately enough housed the offices from which the Ramblers’ Holidays company operated. I stopped at a pub, the Sun, for the usual pints, where sleeveless ves
ts, shorts and red faces were very à la mode. It was difficult not to notice that the accents being bandied about were now decidedly more north London, with the liberal substitution of ‘sir’ with ‘mate’ and ‘chief’. Basically, it had become more ‘gor blimey’ – know what I mean?

  A challengingly low bridge under the A1(M) brought me into Stanborough Park, which was heaving with families enjoying the water, adventure park and weather. Young children were patrolling the Lea with nets, much to the disenchantment of the local ducks and moorhens. I was very tempted to join them as my feet were, by then, very sore; and the little toe on my right foot was giving me gyp. I suspected a blister, but didn’t really dare to find out. On exiting the park, a decision needed to be made as to how far to follow my route round the south of Welwyn Garden City, where my next hotel awaited. One way or another, these miles would have to be done, but my bed was nearer the centre and could be struck for at any point. Dodgy toe notwithstanding, I pressed on a bit longer and managed to make it to the most southerly point of the town before admitting defeat.

  My berth for the night was in another pub, where the process of checking in took forever, with the barman using what looked like an old Sinclair XL to find my booking. The room, when I eventually got there, was fine, and again had its own fan, but it was noisy. The pub’s clientele had clearly been drinking for a while, and were equally clearly content in the knowledge that their children were safe on the handy play equipment, which it appeared required constant shrieking to operate. After making myself human again, I opted to head into town to see what it could offer. Before then, however, I was delighted to see that the blister on my right foot had gone through the cycle of forming, bursting and exposing red raw skin without needing my intervention, the latter stages presumably having taken place during the final couple of miles around the edge of the town.