Engel's England

by Matthew Engel

  They look smarter than the average sheep, so much so that one senses they could open information booths and point lost climbers in the right direction. At their mother’s knee the lambs get to know their ‘heaf’, their own area of the fell. Only rarely do they stray to the far side of the mountain. It is an astonishing, mystical branch of agriculture, its continuation largely made possible by Beatrix Potter, who put her Peter Rabbit earnings into buying up farms threatened by development or the Forestry Commission.

  Their existence was briefly put at risk again by foot and mouth in 2001 and now again by the scientists and bureaucrats of Natural England and Defra, the rebranded Min of Ag who – as every farmer in the country will insist – invariably put their feet in their mouths and talk through their arses. Gavin Bland, who has 2,000 sheep in the narrow valley between Thirlmere and Dunmail Raise, is no exception.

  This is the final element of the Cumberland coalition. Bland’s world bears little relation to that of the arable men by the A6. And he believes it is threatened by the insistence of Whitehall that the ewes be taken off the tops in winter to let the flora regenerate, thus endangering the transmission of knowledge from ewe to lamb that is fundamental to the survival of the Herdwicks and their masters: ‘The Herdwick sheep is happiest where it lives. It’s just the boffins dictating theory. They have no idea about farming sheep.’ He pointed across to Helvellyn. ‘That hill produces lamb in summer. There’s no input. No fertiliser. It’s sustainable.’

  Five times a year the sheep have to be gathered: for shearing, dipping, drenching, tupping and lambing. It’s the July gather – for the drenching against fluke and worms – that’s the hardest, because by then the Herdwicks have moved high up the mountain to find fresher grass and cooler air. Which means Bland has to climb the mountain himself to round them up and count them. He counts them in twos and in English, not the old Cumberland way (where 1-2-3 becomes yan-tan-tethera). Does anyone still count like that? ‘Only if someone’s listening.’

  It all makes these farmers Cumberland’s second most impressive inhabitants. Gavin Bland was British fell-running champion in 1999: ‘Half my training was just work. You can’t do this job if you’re slow.’ His uncle Billy was even better, said by some (including his nephew) to have been more dedicated and determined than the most famous fell-runner of all, Joss Naylor. Billy Bland holds the record for the Bob Graham Round, which involves ascending at least forty-two peaks over 2,000 feet inside twenty-four hours. He did it in thirteen hours fifty-three minutes. ‘I walked round with Uncle Billy once,’ said Gavin casually. ‘We still did it in twenty-four hours.’ We were talking the day after I had made a big fuss about simply going up and down Mount Toebang.

  It is said of the old Cumbrian farmers that they could be more easily understood in Oslo or Stockholm than in the West End of London, because their dialect was still heavily influenced by their Norse ancestors. It is also said that in the primary schools of rural Cumberland, almost every child is blond, but they get darker as they grow older. Another Norse characteristic. Which is strange, because it makes them the precise opposite of the Herdwick sheep.

  March/June 2013

  By 2014 Gavin Bland had no sheep on Helvellyn: it had been fenced off. He still ran his Herdwicks on High Raise and Ullscarf. The contest between the farmers and officialdom – plus writers like George Monbiot of the Guardian who says the fells have been ‘sheepwrecked’ – goes on.

  29. A midsummer night’s mare

  WILTSHIRE

  As the title may not immediately suggest, the play Jerusalem, widely regarded as the best British drama of the early twentieth-first century, is set in Wiltshire.

  The central figure, Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron, is a small-time drug dealer and big-time character, a Romany anarch presiding over a perpetual Saturnalia from his filthy caravan in the woods. He spends his life infuriating the council, the constabulary and the residents of the spanking-new housing estate just offstage. Rooster was played, in the West End and on Broadway, by Mark Rylance in a performance at once so glorious and domineering that it is hard to imagine another actor ever risking reputational death in the attempt.

  The writer, Jez Butterworth, lives in Somerset, and in some ways Wiltshire is an odd setting for the play. ‘I leave Wiltshire, my ears pop,’ says one character, which doesn’t seem quite right: Wiltshire is a county with little sense of unity. The main roads and railways run east-west; it takes an age to get between the two main centres, Swindon and Salisbury. People habitually shop in Bath or Bristol. In Cornwall, Devon or Dorset one might meet a trans-county ear-popper. But in Wiltshire? Hardly.

  Maybe Butterworth was just following Hardy’s rule for rural writers: he wrote about who and what he knew but made sure they were well enough disguised not to sue. But in another way Wiltshire is the perfect setting. In London’s inexorable campaign for a total takeover, Berkshire has fallen; Somerset is under sporadic bombardment but still behind the lines. Wiltshire is now the main theatre of war: Swindon is commutable; Salisbury and Chippenham just about; the new estates are comparatively affordable and attractive, as long as any lingering Rooster Byrons can be cleared out; and the thatched cottages are simply divine for the weekend.

  There is something else about Wiltshire. As Jerusalem’s hero-villain-victim approaches his Calvary, he calls to his aid his ancestors, actual and then spiritual: ‘Rise up! Rise up, Cormoran. Woden. Jack-of-Green. Jack-in-Irons. Thunderdell. Búri, Blunderbore, Gog and Magog, Galligantus, Vili and Vé, Yggdrasil, Brutus of Albion …’

  In this county, that lot are frankly parvenus.

  It was 3 a.m., and misty, as we trudged across the darkling plain, hordes of us. At that hour, it was a long way from the car park. ‘This walk’s bullshit,’ said someone. It felt as though we were clocking on for the early shift at a distant coal mine, probably in midwinter, possibly on the steppes. The way was lit only by occasional banks of arc lights, which did their job well enough to fool the occasional skylark into thinking dawn had already come. Dawn had not come, or we would be heading the other way.

  Finally we went through one last checkpoint and the scene seemed suddenly more like a funfair, with a row of food stalls: gourmet burgers, an Oriental noodle bar, vegan and vegetarian. Then another field. I still couldn’t see our destination but the noise preceded its appearance. When it did emerge, Stonehenge looked fiddling and small. Unreal. I don’t mean unreal, wow! I mean unreal, it looks like a film-set replica.

  This might have been to do with the goings-on inside the circle. Hundreds were crowded in, dozens of whom had climbed on to the fallen lintel that lies on top of the Altar Stone and were jiggling endlessly about to the sound of bongos, waving their arms and their mobiles. We might have been filming a new teen blockbuster: Meet the Halfwits.

  This is the world’s most famous celebration of the summer solstice: the shortest night followed by the longest day. In these circumstances I was hoping for an appearance by Arthur Pendragon, formerly John Timothy Rothwell from Wakefield, one-time head of the Gravediggers’ biker gang, campaigner for access to Stonehenge and crowned ‘Raised Druid King of Britain’. And, even more, for an appearance by the sun.

  What is alleged to happen is that the sun pokes his head up just to the left of the Heel Stone, which in 2013 was next to the perimeter fence dividing the site from the A344. ‘I’ve been coming here for twelve years and I’ve never seen it,’ said a copper. ‘I think there’ve been two clear mornings and both times I was called to do something at the wrong moment.’

  No one even seemed to know when sunrise was meant to be: 3.52, someone said; 4.27, 4.35 and 4.43 were other suggestions. I was armed with the correct time: 3.52 GMT would have been right but, on British Summer Time, sunrise was due at 4.43 in London and, according to English Heritage, which runs the place, 4.52 at Stonehenge. Wrongly, I assumed that someone would call for silence and the artist formerly known as John Timothy Rothwell would appear and provide a sense of occasion, maybe even dignity.
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br />   Naturally, there was no appearance from the sun, which was not on English Heritage’s email list. More surprisingly, King Arthur did not show his face either. The sky did lighten somewhat. But 4.52 came and went and no one noticed; the jiggling continued regardless on the Altar Stone.

  At this point anyone with a beard, a robe and a knowing air could say anything and be believed, and they did. One such figure told me the druids would appear by the Heel Stone shortly. So I got past the Hare Krishnas (‘They’re from Scunthorpe,’ a bystander was explaining), picked my way through the sleeping bodies and the empty cans of Skol and Strongbow, and headed to the fence, where indeed some white figures were prancing around, one of whom was administering knighthoods to anyone who asked.

  This might have been the real King Arthur, returned from the islandvalley of Avilion, where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, nor ever wind blows loudly. This might have been the fake-real or real-fake King Arthur, aka John Timothy Rothwell. Or it might have been any old fake King Arthur. By now, I was beyond caring and joined the throng heading out. (‘We’re going! McDonald’s!’ said a voice.) It took two hours to get out of the car park.

  I had been here before for the solstice, in 1976, when I was a young reporter and the stones were probably still under guarantee. I have distant memories of a small and enjoyable occasion, graced by the presence among the druids of Bill Roache, who even then was Ken Barlow of Coronation Street. But each year interest was building and soon the fields nearby were turned into a summer-long campsite.

  In 1985 came the Battle of the Beanfield, when the police smashed up a convoy of New Age travellers heading to the site. For years thereafter access to the circle was heavily restricted. English Heritage relented in 1999, partly at the instigation of Arthur Pendragon, and allowed ‘managed access’. These two protagonists battled each other through the court for years, though they seem to have been roughly on the same side. Hence, before the 2014 solstice, Arthur was due to achieve his objective, with the demolition of the old Visitors’ Centre, the completion of a new one a mile from the site and – that rarest of modern phenomena – the permanent closure and grassing-over of a major road, the A344.

  What happened in 2013 was something that offered the worst of every world: a takeover by pig-ignorant students and backpack-tourists, without regard for this place or its meaning. There is a growing urge by the young, who spend almost their whole waking lives vicariously, looking at screens, to see something for themselves. This is wonderful, provided they don’t wreck the occasion with their own self-regard. For 363 days a year English Heritage runs Stonehenge with an iron fist, admitting only carefully vetted small groups into the circle. A discerning and hardy minority is allowed in for the winter solstice. On the 365th, the most important, authority stands back and allows a free-for-all without purpose or dignity.

  I had been warned it would be ghastly. The cool Wiltshire place to go for the solstice is Avebury, twenty-two miles away. The stone circle at Avebury is older, bigger, more complex, more ravaged by time and desecration, more mysterious, more beautiful in its setting and less hackneyed: in the phrase I learned at Little Gidding, a thinner place. It also has a beckoning, half-timbered pub. The little village itself is absolutely darling, with particularly fine stone. It would be, because the old peasants built their homes by ravaging the sarsens that lay around the fields, little realising that they were recklessly endangering their descendants’ fortune. The remains were not obvious, and it was the 1930s before the archaeologist Alexander Keiller arrived, bought Avebury Manor with the proceeds from his family’s marmalade fortune, excavated the site and then tried – with partial success – to evict the inhabitants and make Avebury as famous as Stonehenge.

  I was there the evening before, in bright sunshine, as a far smaller, older set began to gather, and came back the next. Avebury is big enough to allow everyone to find their own stone and stage their own solstice. The default Avebury-goer – and this may be true all year – is an ageing hippie with a grey ponytail, beads and/or a floaty dress. Folk songs wafted over from outside the pub. Everyone smiled at everyone else, and began conversations in which they explained at length their theories about crop circles and ley lines. A woman from New Mexico in a floppy hat wished all-comers ‘Happy Solstice’. One might have had a very happy solstice, leaning against a rock and waiting for Rooster Byron to appear, offering a very large spliff. Unfortunately, I felt this strange obligation to bear witness to the Stonehenge horror instead.

  Even without the aid of a Chippenham carrot, Avebury offered a sense that the Wiltshire landscape has a quality almost totally absent from England south of the Pennines. It’s not just pretty, it’s breathtaking. Chalk downland hardly exists outside England. And this is the heart of it, in a landscape less broken by development than further east. I came off the North Down near Milk Hill, descending into the Vale of Pewsey in the evening light. A near-full moon had risen over the midsummer landscape and would be glinting on the chalk when the late June night finally fell. It was exhilarating.

  The downs themselves have a sinuous shape, and the huge, nearhedgeless landscape, broken only occasionally by trees or copses, has an unearthly air. Everywhere there are strange shapes. Is that a round barrow up there? Or is it just a bump? This is country fit for Thunderdell and Woden, big and bold enough to attract dreamers and theorists and outlaws like Rooster. Funny thing is, Wiltshire’s other big business is the one most calculated to repel such types. This is the army’s county.

  The village of Copehill Down stands out starkly in the midst of the plain, and might be a little incongruous in any case. But then there are the steeppitched roofs and the un-Englishly neat line of young beeches planted on the high street. It seems, well, just a bit Germanic.

  Indeed, you can almost smell the apfelkuchen. Copehill Down was built by the army in the 1950s to prepare troops for the war that was never fought: the one where its soldiers probably got wiped out as the Soviet Union swept across Central Europe. The population of the village is zero: the houses, authentic in outline, are short of trivial details like windows; and the climbing frames in the front gardens look a bit severe for even a Prussian pre-schooler.

  Time has also damaged the purity of the conception. Copehill Down has had to adapt to the wars Britain actually did fight. ‘Bosnia didn’t look out of place at all,’ said our guide, the anagrammatically named Lieutenant-Colonel (retired) Nigel Linge. But the Afghan compound thrown up in the square would completely baffle a future Pevsner. The village was also now protected by fierce lines of razor wire. This was nothing to do with military training: it was to stop the metal being nicked.

  Less than four miles away is another village – even more remote, same population (zero), very different history. Imber is thought to date back to Saxon times; it lasted until 1943, when the army – having acquired all the surrounding land – decided to evacuate the inhabitants in the run-up to D-Day. It was always a lonely place: ‘There stands Imber on the down, Seven miles from any town,’ said an old verse. And the pre-army track is still lit only by ‘Wiltshire street lights’, piles of chalk by the roadside. Nonetheless, Imber has inspired in death a sentimental following it never had in life.

  Colonel Anagram had never been enthusiastic about taking me there. He thought too much fuss had been made about Imber already – ‘much bigger places than this were evacuated’ – and was worried I would write about nothing else. He agreed to go under mild protest. And we glimpsed the spire of St Giles’ Church through the trees, passed the new housing on the edge of the village (Potemkin houses, with no actual existence, though these were built to resemble Ulster blocks of flats) and eagerly awaited the rest of it. Then, whoosh, before we knew, we were out the other side. True, except for the church, the Baptist cemetery and a single farmhouse, there is not much left of Imber, but it would have been nice to have a gentle look round; it would have been a good spot to have our sandwiches, at least. But the colonel did have a valid excuse: the area w
as being pretty much enfiladed by live artillery fire at the time. The red flags were flying above the village, though not to indicate a Communist takeover.

  He was a good sort, Nigel, with an endearing weakness for liquorice. After forty years’ service, he had taken the civilian job of Lands Liaison Officer at Salisbury Plain. The army controls 94,000 acres here, a stretch twenty-six miles long from Bulford and Tidworth in the east to Warminster in the west; and up to ten miles wide, almost half of the plain on most reckonings; and 11 per cent of Wiltshire (with a sliver of Hampshire thrown in). And it has acquired an unlikely reputation as a good steward. Here the chalk downland not only lives on, but does so with a minimum of heavy agriculture; the ox-eye daisies and lady’s bedstraw, being impervious to bombardment unless they suffer a direct hit, can flourish. The survival of this vast tract can largely be credited to the army’s presence, in terms of both keeping out the developmental threats that assail the rest of southern England and showing a surprising amount of institutional and individual sensitivity. The nesting boxes for owls and kestrels that dot the trees near Imber are down to the enthusiasm of a single officer, Nigel Lewis. ‘We’re trying to get a symbiotic relationship so soldiers can train and animals can graze, but not overgraze,’ said Linge.

  Salisbury Plain feels like a kind of thoroughly un-Disneyfied theme park of millennia of British history: the remains of Neolithic causeway camps; Bronze Age burial barrows; Iron Age hill forts; Romano-British villages; medieval lynchets … The army’s own additions merely add to the effect. As well as Copehill Down and the Imber flats, there is a patch of land designed to represent the damper parts of Afghanistan. There are Iraqi touches too, so that it adds up also to a history of modern British foreign policy.