Where civilisation ends

 My Girl from the Fens

You may, possibly, not have heard of The Ouse Valley Singles Club, so forgive me if I inform you that their style is often likened to 'George Formby meets the Clash,' and that they have shared stages with Chas and Dave, Pete Doherty, and The Boomtown Rats, and have headlined at the Peterborough Beer Festival, among other festive gatherings such as Bestival, Truckfest and Glastonbudget.....

OK, they are neither Mozart nor Sondheim. Nor are they quite CMAT. Their performances blend 1950s skiffle with the energy of punk and the swing of rock and roll, occasionally infused with a touch of reggae. They layer this with comic folk-like story-telling, often crossing the parameters of what is deemed to be politically correct but keeping it very tongue in cheek.

Anyway the reason I am drawing your attention to them is that I have just survived a visit to the Fens, a part of Britain normally avoided by both invaders and holiday makers, for reasons that we won't go into here.  It is a part of the world where civilisation ends (though where it begins these days is another question).  And one of the OVSC (Ouse Valley Singles Club)'s greatest hits is a song by the name of My Girl from the Fens, a song that has recently ear-wormed itself into my heart.

It's a catchy ditty, summing up the attractions of the folk that live worryingly near my home. It opens thus:

I love a girl

And that is that

She comes from the East

Where the land is flat

And on the surface

She may seem dumb

'Cause her cousin is her uncle

And he's married to her mum

But she's alright she's my Fenland Rose

And it gets worse.....

The second verse, which is not going to panic the Poet Laureate, nor frighten fans of Longfellow, goes like this:

If you meet a girl who comes from Wisbech

You might have trouble understanding her speech

Oh she sounds just like the Tasmanian Devil

And she gets a nosebleed above sea level

On our first date, we got a bit tipsy

She took me to a place

Where a farmer shot a gypsy

And then we went to King's Lynn

To do some shopping

She's the Cambridgeshire champion of carrot-topping

She's my girl from the Fens....

You see, for us that live beyond the reaches of Greater Anglia, these local references strike home and we chuckle (to avoid the shivers).....

But, don't be put off!  There's more to Wisbech than the muddy waters of the river Nene, or the now-closed Bingo Parlour, for example, and there are some (and I use the word carefully) places worth visiting, which include Peckover House and Garden, 

the Wisbech and Fenland Museum, the Octavia Hill (founder of the National Trust and a prominent social reformer) Birthplace House, and Blackfield Creatives' Wisbech Gallery..... 

Though I did come across this in Wisbech:

I find the third verse to be quite endearing, in a curious sort of way:

Well my Fenland girl has got the X-factor

At 6 years old she learned to drive a tractor

And at 8 she plucked turkeys, 9 she kept quails

She was born with the black soil under her nails

From Peterborough where they're a bit posh

To Spalding and Chatteris and the shores of the Wash

I will follow that girl

And my heart I do pledge

We will grow old together

Picking seasonal veg

She's my girl from the Fens

People here are definitely special, in a no-nonsense sense, though it is not all sugar beet and Chinese veg, shady characters dragging wheely-cases along narrow lanes, boarded up pubs and locked warehouses.  King's Lynn, for example, was once the third greatest port in England, with the Great Ouse still accepting shipping from all over the world,

And, scattered throughout the Fens, from Lincolnshire, across Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, there are many buildings of great interest, usually atop solid rises in the marshy surroundings.  Crowland Abbey, originally a Benedictine Abbey founded in memory of St Guthlac in the eighth century, has been much battered by history but is now the Parish Church of Crowland.  

The Church of St Peter, at Walpole St Peter, is, according to Nikolaus Pevsner, one of the most impressive churches of its date (c1350 - c1400) in Norfolk, and is a favourite of a number of royals, including the current King:

And across this watery world rises one of the greatest churches anywhere - Ely Cathedral - which reaches for the sky 66 metres (217 feet) above the town, which is already almost 30 metres above sea level, so the West Tower is one of the best viewpoints across the fens.

Anyway, back to the song.....  the last verse is quite down to earth, I will admit, but having pitched my camp in the area and feeling my feet taking root in the fertile slime of these reed beds, I can certainly relate to it.....

Well she smells of onions

She's got hair like wheat

She's my potato-eyed girl

Sweet like sugar beet

And she keeps all my wishes in a pickling jar

Our love is bigger than a combine harvester

She's my girl from the Fens

She's my girl from the Fens

On her heart I depend

She's my girl from the Fens

She's my girl from the Fens

Where civilisation ends, that's the Fens

She's my girl from the Fens

Now should this drive you to want to spend an evening with the Ouse Valley Singles Club, you could catch them at Doddington Village Hall on November 28th.....

https://theousevalleysinglesclub.com/

And, by coincidence, the late Kit Hesketh-Harvey (of Kit and the Widow), who lived in Stoke Ferry, not far from Doddington, where he owned All Saints' Church, was a big fan of the OVSC, and this was one of his favourite songs....

And if that isn't a recommendation, I'm afraid I cannot say much more.....

*    *    *    * 

For CeeJay

Merrie England - Part One

Autumn

OK, so England is far from Merrie!  And it probably never was.  In the days when it might have been a relief to catch the Black Death and tish-oo and fall down, it wasn’t Merrie.  It wasn’t Merrie when everyone either died of war or ‘flu.  It was hardly Merrie during the miners’ strike or the Tottenham riots, and when England didn’t win the World Cup, the Ashes or Wimbledon all at the same time what could there to be Merrie about?

OK, there were some Olympics, I suppose.  But if we need Queen Elizabeth II to jump out of a helicopter to cheer us up, then things are pretty desperate (and who would not rather see Cameron do it than poor old Bessie – at her age, really!  I mean, what’s a Prime Minister for?)  {Boris would have done it!}

OK then, think of the good things.  Peter Rabbit.  Postman Pat.  The Hobbit.   The Eurostar to Paris.  Llama trekking in the Surrey Hills (I’ll come back to that)…..  The list could be longer…..

Nice with chestnut stuffing!

If put on the rack, I guess, most people would confess to something favourite about this little country, and if we analysed e-book sales, tv ratings, twitter feeds or youtube hits, we might come up with “the truth.”  But that truth would probably lead us to assume that the favourite thing in this country actually originated in the United States…..

So, allow me to propose something.  Allow me to suggest that actually, really, truly, there is plenty Merrie about Old England and folks like thee and me can cheer ourselves up with relatively little effort or expense.

So, for starters, given that it is autumn, whatever the weather, let’s go outside…..  What we need is some anthocyanin.  This is what creates the red and purple pigmentation in, for example, maple leaves when the nights get longer and the trees no longer produce chlorophyll for photosynthesis (so trapped sugars need to be converted into anti-oxidants).  In some trees, the loss of chlorophyll simply exposes the xanthophylls, which are the yellow pigments, or the carotenoids, which are the orange colours, and so, in the shorter days of autumn, we get such beautiful displays. (When it becomes really cold, or when the leaves have fallen, these pigments decay and all that is left are the dark browns of tannin.)

So it’s off to the 100 acre wood, or the wild wood, or any wood.  It will need to be deciduous woodland, preferably mixed broadleaf etc, but it doesn’t take much to put on some boots and explore.

Churchill's View at Chartwell

When Winston Churchill wanted to unwind he would trip down to Chartwell, where he could breakfast overlooking sublime views of lake and woodland towards the Weald.  He knew a good place to be!  Not that far away, in Surrey, is Winkworth Arboretum, with pathways through the trees and round the water.  Dr Wilfred Fox acquired the site in 1937 and, having planted a variety of species of trees, including maples from Japan, America and Norway, he bequeathed the 46 hectares to the National Trust in 1952 for all to enjoy at any season.

Which is exactly what we do, peacefully breathing clean air, disturbed only by the honking of a gaggle of geese and the quacking laughter of a giggle of ducks.  The leaves flutter in all shades in a tapestry of natural colour so different from the bricks and concrete of our city lives that we are silent with joy.
 

Suitably buoyed up by the irrepressible delight of nature, we move on to the nearby Octavia Hill walk from Hydon’s Ball and Heath. Octavia Hill, who died in 1912, was a co-founder of the National Trust and, as Tristram Hunt says, “One of the greatest social entrepreneurs in British History.”  She is commemorated in this Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty by a stone seat at one of the highest points in Surrey, from which there are views looking south towards Black Down and the South Downs.

As the day begins to fade we need to find creature comforts and a place to rest. And, by chance, it is only half a mile from here down to the village of Hambledon where for four hundred years there has been a pub.  Although until about four years ago it was a relatively unkempt bikers’ haunt, it has been given renewed life by Colin and Julie Stoneley.  We are warmly welcomed and, at the Merry Harriers, find another aspect of Merrie England that should be preserved by law.  A comfortable room in an outhouse, disturbed only by the snuffling of a herd of llamas (I’ll come back to them) in the field outside, and a tasty supper of local food from an imaginative menu (just about everything is sourced locally) in front of a fragrant log fire (those anthocyanins burn so well!) with a pint or three of decent ale.  There's a buzz in the bar as locals unwind and refresh.....  How could we not be Merrie!

So what is this about llamas?  In Surrey?  At the time the pub came on the market the Stoneleys were looking for somewhere to keep their llamas (which were part of their yarn and fabric business interest) and so it all came suddenly together for them.  Now The Merry Harriers is the base for Surrey Hills Llamas, which organise individually tailored llama treks through the local countryside, a perfect way to celebrate the eccentricity that can make England Merrie!

In our case, we just sleep in the cosy company of the llamas. Then, happily restored, we take a leisurely Merrie English breakfast in front of the blazing hearth (those carotenoids and xanthophylls perfuming the air), with jam and eggs and real tea (ok that’s not local!) before reluctantly heading towards the crock at the end of the rainbow which is home…...  Merrie at last, whatever the weather!

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/winkworth-arboretum/

http://www.merryharriers.com/

http://www.surrey-hills-llamas.co.uk/index.html