MINE AND OURS

 

You’re probably walking over archaeology every step of the way near Castor: houses, industry, graves. Think of the number of people who’ve lived hereabouts, compared with the number of known burials. The way out towards the river is down ‘Port Lane’, but how far did the navigable water come towards the present-day town in ancient times? The field I’m walking through is called ‘Normangate’. The adjacent Roman town, Durobrivae, is on the far side of the Nene, near Water Newton. Before I reach the river there’s a sign warning of new excavations near the HT line on my footpath. And over there are the remains of Ermine Street, standing proud on the landscape for a few hundred metres. Later on, I stand at a badger sett on the old road’s side and inspect the scrabbled-out  gravel at its entrance to see if the animals have unearthed a Roman brooch or a fourth century coin, but of course they haven’t.

 

Ermine Street near Castor

There’s a lively, chilly west wind in my face today.

Ruach

A friend who was a

Headteacher used to say the

Wind disturbs. It does.

For a good explanation of the Hebrew word ‘ruach’, the late Bishop John Taylor’s ‘Go-Between God’ is handy.

My path ( the ‘Nene Way’) runs alongside the Nene Valley Railway for a while until Wansford Station. There aren’t any trains running today, although it’s half-term, but the station café is open for coffee and stale lemon drizzle cake. Good to see the fine traditions of British Rail being maintained. Nevertheless, it’s a charming place, with old rolling stock, and battered looking continental steam locos, which apparently have starred in a number of films shot on location there.

 

Catch that train, my sister,

Catch that train.

Catch that train, my brother,

Catch that train.

We are travelling

Onwards to heaven

Bound in a hope

That we all share

A crowd is waiting

At our destination

Familiar faces

Will greet us there,

So catch that train, my children

Catch that train.

This chorus of mine echoes the work songs and laments of black slaves in the US which have become known as ‘spirituals’.  But this picture of cattle wagons, taken near Wansford Station, also takes me back to a visit I made a decade ago to the Jewish holocaust memorial in Lodz on a November day that was chilling in so many ways. Train journeys will never be the same again.

A father and his five year old son in the café, doing socialisation. Unbidden, the boy takes something from the counter, and the dad asks him to put it back. Dad then produces a pound coin.  ‘This is ours,’ he says. Then pointing at the counter, ‘That isn’t ours.’ Together they then buy the packet of crisps.  The five-year old is learning what a lot of people seem to find it hard to grasp at present, including politicians. I liked the emphasis on the plural.  How can we thoroughly  re-establish ownership by the community? How to avoid centralisation of power on the one hand, and aggressive personal possession on the other?

I meet the two of them again, as I walk on to Stibbington, where according to ‘Historic England’ Grade 2 listed St. John the Baptist’s, now a festival church, is in danger of serious deterioration unless funds can be found. And the ‘Stibbington Centre’, used by Cambridgeshire as an outdoor pursuits centre for Primary schools, is closing in September ’23, presumably a victim of budget cuts. Bad for the village. Bad for Cambridgeshire kids. So, yup, bad for us all, at least symbolically.

I make a dodgy crossing of the A1 near ‘Bunkers Hill’. I can only do this because of the current temporary 40 mph limit on the road. Do not try it if in any way infirm, or at all, if the road is again derestricted.

The entrance from the south to Wansford is by the old Great North Road, and very handsome it is, if the mind’s eye can peel away the parked cars and modern detritus. The bridge is quite wonderful, as single-lane as ever it was, and feeling more elevated above the river than it really is. There’s a story about Wansford, commemorated in the name of the Haycock Hotel.

 

Wansford in England

 I was tired, so tired.

My feet wouldn’t carry me.

My pack cutting valleys

In the ridges of my shoulders.

I slumped on the hayrick

And closed my eyes

And dreamed of my life

As an arc of the rainbow.

 

I woke as I drifted

On a lilt of waters

Past houses like loaves

To the span of a bridge.

As my bark of hay

Floated in the reeds

I rolled to the bank

Thinking I had died.

 

While I lay on the grass

Hands folded on my chest

I was startled to see

A giant overlooking.

I asked where I was.

Came his rumbling reply,

‘This is Wansford-in-England’.

Heaven in small’.

It was once claimed that St. Mary’s Wansford was the smallest church in England. Probably not, but it’s been beautifully re-ordered. From it I export an Easter book originating at Little Gidding, of which the church has multiple copies. (I text them a fiver’s contribution!) A lady offers me a cup of tea. There’s a table by the churchyard bench where I sit for a while. There’s a 1663 inscription above the porch. Was it raised in gratitude for deliverance from the harsh years of spiritual new-think under Cromwell?

By the north bank of the Nene I return to Castor through Sutton. There are boards on a window of St. Michael’s church, and the door is locked. A hundred metres away in the garden of a house, an impassioned plea to passers-by:

(click on the image for the full text!)

And there’s the difficulty. Whose community?  Whose good?  Mine or ours? And how to describe the limits of ‘ours’…?

Castor – Wansford Station – Stibbington  - Wansford – Sutton – Castor.  15 km. Five hours. Dry but very breezy. 12 degrees. As always, all content © Vince Cross, unless otherwise credited.