We could not find the tea cosy, and I was mortified. For the benefit of younger readers (if any) and anyone not British, a tea cosy is an insulated hat that covers a teapot to keep the tea therein hot. You hardly ever see them nowadays, presumably because fewer people make tea properly, in a teapot. As I have observed before, some people in the 21st century seem to think that a cup of tea is made from a teabag placed in a mug with hot water poured on top. That, I grant you, is a hot drink; however it is not a proper cup of tea. A refreshing (British) cup of tea is made by adding large-loose tea from India or Sri Lanka into a teapot using a teaspoon, pouring in boiling water, and leaving it to mast, mash or brew (depending on where you were born) for five timed minutes before dispensing the refreshing beverage into a bone china cup via a tea strainer. Using a teapot and tea cosy allows you to have more than one cup – indeed, if you keep adding boiling water the number of cups extracted can be almost infinite. Use a teabag if you must, but that is poor form in my view. A mug is permitted if one is a builder or one is undertaking a similar manual task oneself. Don’t put the milk in the cup first – if you do, then you won’t be able to judge the right amount according to resulting colour. The selection of the brand of tea is according to personal choice: the best tea that I ever had was the Ceylon Kenilworth Estate OP tea from the Dimbula region of Sri Lanka, but it costs an absolute fortune so we more usually drink Twinings English Breakfast Tea. Yorkshire Tea is pretty good, as is Rington’s. A recent Which? magazine review has just declared the supermarket ASDA’s tea the best. I don’t think I ever tried that stuff that the chimpanzees used to advertise on television and I am not a fan of lapsang souchong or Earl Grey, but each to their own. Of course, if you are Chinese (the nation that originated and perfected the tea drinking habit) then all this will be (literally) foreign to you. The same applies to those, like the Russians, who drink tea with a slice of lemon or without milk. Just as the English adopted the French language after 1066 and promptly mangled the whole thing, so they took the drink of tea, messed it about, and made it their own. The line must be drawn, however – in my view – at messing it about to the extent of tea bags in mugs or (worse) paper cups with hot (not boiling) water. Hrrmph.
Anyway, back to that missing tea cosy. We had our very good friends Benjamin and Marjorie to stay for a few days. They are generous, tolerant and very welcoming hosts who are free with their hospitality when we impose ourselves on them in Plymouth, and we have been trying to repay their kindness for several years. However, prising Benjamin out of his lair is like extracting a winkle from its shell and it was only by persistent offers and the provision of copious amounts of whisky and dry ginger ale that we managed to achieve it. With all our guests we like to cater for every taste and whim (flagellation and wife swapping excepted) so that our friends may leave us replete, satisfied and with the intention of coming again. Part of that process is to ask our guests their preferred breakfast beverage, so that the days of their visit may get off to a good start. Jane and I drink ground coffee for breakfast but, naturally, some people prefer tea and so we provide both drinks. Marjorie was a tea person, and so out came the bone china teapot with matching cup and saucer for her personal delectation. However, the tea cosy could not be found to go with the ensemble, and I was embarrassed and dismayed that I could not provide the full breakfast experience. That tea cosy dated from the days when I was a bachelor, serving ashore in the Ministry of Defence in 1982, living in my trendy little house with its brown walls, brown three-piece suite, brown telephone and contrasting orange radiators. The tea cosy matched the decor which I now know to be non-U by Jane’s taste (it was Item 1 on the list of Things To Be Changed, that she compiled before she married me; Item 2 was Stop Him Eating Digestive Biscuits Whole And In One Mouthful). Jane’s known history of aesthetic distaste for my choice of decor made me suspicious of her apparently innocent response to my question as to the whereabouts of that tea cosy. Vague muttering that it might be found buried in the Glory Hole that is our airing cupboard did not convince me, and I suspected that she may have given it a float test when I was away at sea (and out of the way) in the early 1990s. We will never know unless I explore the depths of that airing cupboard. It is not a job for the faint hearted, but I am determined to give it a go. We simply cannot have a household that does not provide the full Tea Experience for our guests. Now where is that torch?
Benjamin and Marjorie’s visit went well, despite the fact that we had run out of ideas for local attractions and so had decided to take them off on an excursion to nearby Wiltshire – just what they needed after a three-hour journey to get to us in the first place. However, they did get the pleasure of a trip in a chauffeur-driven all-electric vehicle – an experience that will have enhanced their Green credentials no-end and topped up their Smug Factor to 100% (well, it works for me). We visited Great Chalfield Manor, near Trowbridge – a remote 15th century manor house built in the 1470s for one Thomas Tropenell, but now run by the National Trust. It is still lived in by the Floyd family, descendants of Robert Fuller, who bought and restored the property according to ancient drawings in the early 1900s (the house is only open on certain days). I remembered the manor from when we used to live near Bath but, I must say, it and the guided tour that was included, had improved considerably since the last time we were there. The estate is a small one at seven acres, yet manages to include many attractive features: its own detached 14th century chapel (still used and open to the public – Anglican services); a moat; a beautifully kept garden with topiary and orchard; a spring-fed fish pond; and – of course – the small manor itself. I was astonished to discover that the guest bedroom, with its four-poster bed and ancient furniture, was still used by the family for guests (it looked a bit spooky to me). The large oak door was original, and looked it, yet was fully functional. The main hall with its vast inglenook fireplace and chestnut-trussed roof would have fitted well in any medieval film or drama and, indeed, it has featured in many such events (the historic television drama Poldark and the film The Other Boleyn Girl are two that I can recall). We thoroughly enjoyed Great Chalfield despite the unseasonal drizzle and, as we were in Wiltshire anyway, decided to move on to the ancient stones at Avebury.
I have always liked Avebury with its stone circle, and prefer it to the more famous Stonehenge. Unlike the latter site, you can walk around the Avebury stone circle and actually touch the stones. There is very much a mystical feel to the whole place – not a threatening one, just rather peaceful and restful. There is also another a manor house, but that was closed for refurbishment when we visited so we contented ourselves with tea and scones from the National Trust café, sitting outside on wet benches in the fine drizzle . The English summer – you can’t beat it can you? Mustn’t grumble. As the drizzle turned to rain we decided that you could only pack so much excitement into one day and beat a hasty retreat to the car for the long journey home. Overall, despite the rain and the travelling, I think the day went well and was a good precursor to the hearty meal that Jane produced back home. The conversation flowed, the wine and whisky were plentiful and – as ever – the food was sublime. Alas, our friends were leaving the next day and we were very sorry to see them go. Not for the first time I pondered that it is friendship, conviviality and the sharing of experiences that make a good experience, and we had those in spades. There will be other times, I hope. Note to self: must buy more whisky and ginger ale.
The ancient, and now uninhabited, village of Imber lies in the heart of Salisbury Plain, miles from the nearest public road or civilisation – its remoteness underlined by also being in the centre of a British army live firing area. The background is that in 1943 the villagers of Imber were given just forty seven days to evacuate their properties so that the village could be used by the American forces practising for D Day in 1944. Having gained possession, the British army never gave it back, possession being nine tenths of the law. The village is still used by the army for practising urban warfare and – for obvious reasons – it and the whole area are closed off to the public. Those born in the village are accorded the privilege of being buried in the churchyard on death and, twice a year only, the public is allowed to return – though by organised buses. When we lived in Wiltshire we often thought of availing ourselves of one of these excursions each summer to visit this mysterious village, but never quite got around to it. This year we decided to bite the bullet and do the trip. We wanted to see this ancient settlement pickled in aspic since 1943. We paid £10 each (profits to charity) to take the only method of access: a series of old Routemaster buses shuttling from Warminster and back (for the benefit of non British readers, the Routemaster is the design of double-decker buses with an open platform at the rear that used to be a prominent feature of London and other cities). Leaving our car with friends who live in Warminster, we set off early to walk to Warminster railway station, which was the departure point for the buses. However we did not quite get there, for it rapidly became apparent that other people had had the same idea. Stretching far along the two streets leading to the station was an enormous queue, perhaps a quarter of a mile long. Down one street, past the massage parlour, around the corner, past the Lidl supermarket, the B&M store, McDonalds and Lyon’s Seafoods…the crocodile trailed on: families, dogs, pensioners, back-packers – they were all there. I don’t do queues. In shops and cafés I delegate that pastime to my good wife, who seems to love chatting to all and sundry, sucking in intelligence on fellow queue-mongers and returning with their full background, family history, allergies and medical complaints. Alas, on this occasion I could not delegate the task and so my immediate reaction was to say, “Stuff this for a game of soldiers. Let’s not bother”, and made to return to our car. In this executive decision, however, I had not taken account of the views of Mrs Shacklepin, who adopted a somewhat robust stance on the issue: we had decided to do the trip, she said, after many years deliberating, and by golly we were not giving up now. Also she told me to stop grumbling about the queue, the children and the dogs. And so we stood, and we shuffled forward about a foot, and then we stood a bit longer, and I refrained from commenting on my fellow man and their canine companions and their offspring and their mode of dress. It was difficult; it went against the grain; but needs must and I managed it. Eventually we did make it to the head of the queue and piled onto an ancient noisy bus for transport to the middle of a minefield. With a graunching of gears we set off into the bundu, the bus struggling up the hills and occasionally stopping to take breath. Soon the urban sprawl fell away, we were through a military checkpoint, and we were in the heart of Salisbury Plain, with rolling hills, livestock and pasture on either side of the concrete road, yet no farmhouses. Here and there, the carcasses of half-destroyed rusty tanks littered the fields; other tanks were well concealed by innocent looking bushes or berms. I cannot describe the visit as desolate because the opposite was the case: the scenery was of a quintessential English rural landscape, unspoilt by roads or dwellings, vast and beautiful – if you ignored the ordnance. It was almost surreal. Onward we rolled, courtesy of 1950s technology and the mechanical wear and tear of seventy years or so. We seemed to continue forever, observing the ever-changing green landscape, but eventually we slowed down, the bus dropped a few gears, and we motored slowly into Imber. What did we expect of this odd little village, so isolated and inaccessible since 1943? In all fairness, the organisers of this rare opportunity made no claims or promises. I suppose we thought we would find an English village frozen in time: an old church, a school, a manor house, quaint cottages, a village shop, a red GPO telephone box with King George V’s ‘GvR’on the side …some buildings with the furnishings still intact, old yeomen’s smocks still hanging on pegs… The reality was completely different. All that was left of Imber was the ancient church and its churchyard, the path to which was packed solid with two columns of moving people: one column shuffling up to the church from the bus stop, and the other one shuffling back. The only other buildings were six portable lavatories in a field and the empty shells of several modern two-storey apartment blocks used for training, all with gaping window and door openings, all cordoned off with large red signs proclaiming “DANGER. UNEXPLODED MILITARY DEBRIS. DO NOT LEAVE THE CARRIAGEWAY”. A single concrete road ran through the village, terminating at each end with a sign forbidding further pedestrian progress. The odd sign informed visitors how the village used to be: “Down this road stood the Manor House”, “The School was here” and so on. There was nothing else. We trudged up the line to the church with the rest of the crowd and found it was packed solid with people partaking of the wares of an improvised café set up in the narthex and nave. We promptly exited by the west door into the churchyard, where a jazz band was playing. We toured the churchyard, reading the gravestones here and there, and observed one family enjoying a picnic on someone’s grave. Extraordinary behaviour. After that, there seemed nothing else to do but descend the busy path back to the bus stop and board the shuttle bus back to Warminster. The trip across Salisbury Plain to and from the village was the best part of the excursion. Apparently 5,000 people made the trip with us that day (I can believe it). So that was the ancient, abandoned and inaccessible village of Imber: been there, done that, didn’t stop to buy the tee shirt.
Have you ever been invited to some family gathering to celebrate an anniversary or birthday or something, dreaded it, but in the final event, quite enjoyed it? For the Shacklepins, every time we do these events we dread them, go, and they invariably turn out worse than expected. It has always been thus. Jane’s niece very kindly sent us an invitation for such a get-together to celebrate her parents’ (Jane’s elder brother and his wife’s) 50th wedding anniversary. We were not keen. We don’t do family gatherings, but it was an honour to be invited and it would have been churlish to refuse. Jane’s (single) younger brother was also invited, and he proclaimed that he, too, did not do family gatherings, but he accepted our offer to stay the night with us before and after the big event. The party was originally to be in a Caribbean restaurant in The Big City, but this was later changed to an obscure pub somewhere in the sticks. On a Sunday. At lunchtime. This did not bode well. Sunday lunches in pubs in Britain are invariably very busy family affairs, with servings of roast meat. Bonhomie abounds, feral and bored children run amok, dogs bark or get in your way. These are events that are avoided at all costs by the Shacklepins. We don’t do bonhomie, dogs or children, for one of us is a miserable so-and-so. Our forebodings were soon realised. The family get-together was set in an external plastic-sided marquee in the pub carpark, furnished with a collection of trestle tables and forms, all apparently hastily thrown together with no particular symmetry among them: some had access aisles, some not; some were parallel, some were not. It was as if the landlord had suddenly said on Sunday morning, “Oh my God, we’ve got that party for lunch today. Norman, get the tables ready”, Norman being the local hayseed who usually was more safely employed in tying the sheaves of corn at harvest time. Anyway, we duly rolled in at the appointed time to find the assembled company standing among the eclectic furniture, already well ensconced with glasses of wine, champagne and pints of beer. There were few people we recognised. We had debated (as you do) who the other guests would be: the happy couple, obviously; their two adult daughters and their spouses; the four teenage children of the latter; us, of course; and Jane’s remaining brother. That made thirteen people in total. We were astonished, therefore, by the throng that was assembled before us. In addition to the expected close gathering were strangers of the most obscure relationship. One group comprised Jane’s sister-in-law’s niece and her husband, plus the niece’s two adult daughters and their husbands and their several young children (I hope you are following this). Another couple were a second cousin with her partner, flown in from Colorado in the USA. It was as if the Happy Couple had thought, “Blimey, we’re a bit thin on the ground for guests and it comes out at thirteen. Anyone else we can bus or fly in?” None of the couple’s friends were invited. For my part, as I tried to get my mind around these tenuous filial links, I kept thinking of Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS PINAFORE, with the First Lord of the Admiralty’s sisters and his cousin and his aunts. Whatever, we stood around, chatting with the relatives we knew, hoping to be offered a drink and occasionally tripping over the furniture. The designated time for eating came and went, with no suggestion of when things would kick off or where we would all sit. We eventually were given a drink. Then, quite suddenly, there was an announcement that the food was coming, whereupon there was a sort of Gadarene swine movement to grab a seat at a table. Jane and I looked around helplessly at the swirling human mass leaping for seats, as if in a game of musical chairs, and when the music stopped…guess which table we ended up at. You’ve got it: the one with all the little children. I felt like a man allergic to bees imprisoned in an apiary. The food eventually arrived in dribs and drabs, delivered (like an electrical circuit) in series not parallel, the waiting staff considerably hindered by the odd inaccessible furniture arrangement. It was a very good roast, as it happens, and we did enjoy a very pleasant conversation with a young couple who were fifth cousins twice removed of the hosts (or whatever), but by the time the pudding arrived we had been sitting together on hard wooden forms for about two hours, my posterior had gone numb, my glass was empty and unlikely to be replenished, and we had exhausted most conversional topics of mutual interest. The young children had (inevitability) grown restless and were now running around, shrieking in loud voices; the teenage grandchildren had taken to beating each other with party balloons. I nudged Jane: time to make our excuses and leave. She agreed, but needed a suitable opportunity. Feeling the urge to stretch my legs and ease springs I extricated myself from the table and wandered outside, exploring a nearby country lane and farm, and enjoying the pleasant sensation of blood returning to my buttocks. When I returned Jane was beside herself. She has been searching everywhere for me, even sending an emissary into the gentlemen’s lavatory. Apparently the company had assemble for a family photograph in my absence and, horror of horrors, I was not in it. I shrugged. It was, after all, the best present we could give the Happy Couple: who would want a photograph of Mr Grumpy?
What’s that? Well of course we said ‘thank you’. We gave the happy couple a generous present and I was outwardly enthusiastic and pleasant. Just because I’m grumpy doesn’t mean that I’m rude.
We are back on my boat in Kingswear. As I sit in the saloon/wheelhouse I can gaze aft at the limp Blue Ensign, hanging soggily on its ensign staff at the stern. Through the windscreen, for’ard, I can see the ensign’s contemporary, the Pilot Jack, hanging just as soggily from its jackstaff at the bow. Yes, the rain is coming down mightily and vertically, there being no wind. It has rained all day. Ashore, the Noss Marina development is progressing apace with the hotel construction now at the second storey level. We now have two tower cranes serving the construction. Elsewhere in the marina, joy of joys, we have a coffee shop at last, serving savouries, tasty delicacies, wine, up-market ready meals and excellent coffee. It is not cheap, but the welcome is warm and the cuisine excellent. Donning our full foul-weather gear of salopettes, seaboots, waterproofs and hoods, Jane and I ventured out to try the facilities at lunchtime, before making a tour of the marina in the downpour, purely for the exercise. I think it is fair to say that Autumn has come to England. Never mind. I have just had another ‘all clear’ at my quarterly cancer review, Jane is in a good mood because her garden is now getting all the rain that she asked for, and I am promised a bacon sandwich for breakfast tomorrow. What more can a man ask?
6 September 2024
"A Very Vintage Chap..." 