The Great Millennium Circle
Avebury...
At 2.30am, I was woken in the pitch dark
by an unearthly deep electric humming noise, close to my head.
Needless to say, I jumped to the only possible logical conclusion,
that it was aliens come to take us away into outer space, from
where we lay on their prehistoric launch-pad. I woke myself and
Lewis up with a heartfelt cry of "It's a space ship"
and rather startled the chap who was making the noise on his didgeridoo.
He shuffled off, and I went back to sleep, only half happy not
to have been abducted by aliens. Now that would be a story.
We woke up in the clear dawn, a little stiff and cold but the
better for having spent the night out in the fresh air, and the
alien kidnapper chap, who turned out to be called Andy, played
his didgeridoo while the sun came up. The scene from the top of
Silbury Hill has to be witnessed to be understood. From the top
of Silbury Hill, the horizon seems to be mostly at the same level,
and is for a large part relatively smooth. The sun rose just to
the left of a copse of trees when we saw it, but I could imagine
that the solstices and mid-winter or mid-summer sun or moon-rises
might be marked by appropriately-placed sarsens on that saucer-shaped
horizon. Unfortunately, we were up where we shouldn't have been,
and had to climb over a fence to get out. The hill is supposed
to have a unique suite of vegetation on its flanks, never having
been grazed, so the whole thing is fenced off. Personally I would
favour putting in some proper steps and charging for entry, since
people (like ourselves) doubtless jump over the fence and contribute
to the uncontrolled erosion of the hill.
We spoke with Andy, the didgeridoo man. He told us that he had
done a lot of drugs in the sixties and seventies, but that he
had cleaned himself up, and was now straight as a die. He spoke
with real conviction about putting one's roots down into the soil
and channelling that earth energy through yourself. He was exceptionally
softly-spoken and it was difficult sometimes to make out what
he was saying. He had us sit in silence, eyes closed, while he
shook a rattle in circles around my head. The effect was rather
pleasant, rather calming. I didn't exactly feel as though I had
channelled any earth energy, but it was an interesting diversion.
He said that we were walking the Great Millennium Circle for everyone
on the planet, which was very generously broadminded of him, since
I for one thought that I was doing it largely for my own amusement.
Lewis and I left him blowing into his didgeridoo, and wandered
off into the lightening gray dawn, back towards Avebury.
Near Ramsbury...
"I've been here since 1968,"
said Ben, the more talkative of the two, "and was before
that in Sussex."
I told him that 1968 was the year after I was born.
"Crikey! It only seems like yesterday actually. It hasn't
changed much around here since then, but they've got restrictions
on the amount of building that you can do. It's still rural, still
farmland, there's nice villages. It's quite good." As we
were walking along, I saw a small disc on the side of a puddle.
I stooped to pick it up. "Is that a coin?" said Ben.
We gave it a good rub and got some of the muck off of it. "It's
an old penny, a 1930 penny. Some of these old pennies, not that
one I shouldna' thought, but some of these old pennies are valuable.
That's George the sixth, no, the fifth on the back there. That's
lucky that is. Well done, good for you." I wondered how long
it had lain in that puddle: probably for fifty years or more.
Anyway, Ben went on to mention his war exploits, and Thomas was
not to be left out. I asked Thomas where he went when he was in
the Navy. "Everywhere! Anywhere the ships could go. I was
in battleships when I was a young lad, that was before the war,
that was, then I was in destroyers during the war and in small
ships ever a'ter. Ben was in the KG Five, the King George the
Fifth."
"Aye," says Ben, "I helped to sink the Bismark,
chased it around the Atlantic."
Thomas was not to be outdone. "I was in a destroyer at the
same time, when the Hood was sunk, it was all a part of the same
operation, we wuz escortin' the Hood. But we musn't be tellin'
you all this old history."
I told them that I thought the war was probably the most exciting
thing that has happened in the last 100 years.
"I dunno about excitin'," chortled Thomas. "I was
at Dunkirk, I helped evacuate Dunkirk in the little ships, for
a week, backwards and forwards, gettin' the troops off the beach."
"You weren't at D-Day then," I said.
"No," says Tom, "otherwise I might not be here.
Mind, we lost one other brother at D-Day, he went down in a ship,
sank by the battleship Byram, what they would call 'collateral
damage' nowadays, I 'spect."
Picture: Robert & Lewis McCaffrey and Kevin Hannavy at the start of the GMC (70Kb)
In the Fens...
At Kirton End, I came across a singular
set-up.
A mess of cars were pulled up on the verge and two spotty local
youfs were gormlessly lounging in deck chairs. I enquired, and
they told me that it was the open day of the Lincolnshire Pet
Crematorium: they were organising the parking. I decided to investigate
a little further.
I walked in to the reception, to the sound of the "i£ching"
of the cash register.
"Hullo, I'm Russel, I'm the manager," said a fit, middle-aged
chap, with a strong Midland accent. I introduced myself, told
him I was doing some recording, and filled him in about the circle.
He suggested that a short tour of the premises was in order, and
I agreed, curious.
"We been going ten years, now, this is our tenth anniversary
opening. Baysically it's for any sized pet, i.e., any pet you
can think of..."
"Horse?"
"Not horses, baysically we have another outlet where we have
another person where they do that for us, but baysically we do
anything ranging up from spiders..."
We bumped into a chap wearing a dog collar. "There's the
Vicar," I observed astutely. He was just off after turning
up for the afternoon.
"Orlright Harry, thanks very much for comin' mate,"
said Russel.
"Baysically, we do Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs, goats, anything
that someone will keep as a pet, we will do. Anyhow, this is the
actual incinerator room. There's nothing morbid or disgustin'
about the place, this is baysically where it happens. When an
animal comes in, it's no different from an 'uman, it is toe-tagged
exactly the same as an 'uman, not round their toe but round their
foot, 'an all that, then baysically it's brought over 'ere. There's
two different groups of animals that we deal with, or ways they
can be cremated. There's one where they have their ashes back,
which is called a private crematation, where the animal's done
on its own, and there's another way, which is baysically a group
cremation, which is baysically where they don't want their ashes
back, so the animals are incinerated and then taken into the garden
and they are scattered there."
We were in a large brick-built shed with bare concrete floors,
with a blackened incinerator in the centre, and a great steel
chimney leading up to the roof.
"An individual, depending on the size, goes into trays, which
are at the back there, and anything bigger than that goes into
the bed, in here, and is swept up afterwards." He lifted
the heavy counter-balanced lid of the incinerator. "It's
gas fired, still a bit warm 'cos I keep firing it up 'cos people
like to see the flames. But baysically, the flame comes in through
this side, comes down, hits the back wall and comes back round,
so you get a circle of flames. It doesn't blow them all over the
place. Baysically, if I put an animal in the middle, it stays
there. Baysically, an individual, when they come out of here,
it takes two hours to get up to temperature, baysically, you're
looking, we burn at 750°C, after two hours, it's enough to
actually burn an animal. Placed in, it takes anywhere, depending
on size, I mean a spider don't take a second, but a pot-bellied
pig would take anywhere up to an hour an' 'alf. After comin' out,
it takes anywhere up to three hours for the actual ash to cool
down. If it's a smaller animal the tray is removed, there's a
nice wind tunnel out 'ere, cools 'em down a bit faster."
"People that want their ashes back, they baysically don't
want bones, they want ash. When they are taken out of the incinerator,
they are not ash, they are bone. To get it to powder, we 'ave
to put it through another machine, which is a cremulator."
He indicated a squat steel machine with a metal swing door at
the front, like a washing-machine.
"This is the actual cremulator, and people go, 'What, you
smash it all to bits?' but baysically, this cremulator come from
the Hooman crematorium in Boston. Baysically, me, you and all
our relations, if they're cremated will go through one of these
machines. The bone is put in, it's baysically a spin drier, but,"
and here he started it up with almost deafening effect, "it's
full of titanium steel balls."
He switched if off, thankfully. The Chinese say that silence is
worth buying. I agree.
"The balls smash together and small the bones, and the little
'oles, the ash goes through and then it comes out in a tray in
the bottom. Nice powder, for when you want to scatter them in
water or have them blown away in the wind. Bones won't do that.
"Baysically, we've got a certain number of people, that,
even though they wanted to do it privately, don't want to take
the ash 'ome, so we've got gardens, where they can actually, in
their caskets, bury them in our gardens, and have memorials and
all the rest of it. I mean, we've got memorials on special offers
an' all that. And we've got an 'ome burial service where we come
to your house and bury your dog, and do a complete service from
start to finish, right through from digging of the 'ole, right
through to the coffin, everything."
"This lady 'ere, she comes three times a year, and spends
a couple of hours, she cleans the memorial." The simple plaque
said 'Sadly missed, never forgotten.'
"Over 'ere we've got a new garden, baysically they will be
buried there, and there will be memorials with 'em."
The garden had an eclectic collection of far-eastern symbols,
from a bridge, geisha, budda and dragon to a griffin. I thought
griffins were Welsh?
"We was 'opin to have a Chinese sign down there, but to find
a person, even a Chinese, who can even write Chinese seems impossible
now. We've got the waterfall here." Another little plaque
said 'Gemma, 1983-1988.'
"We are going to be extending the garden next year. We've
got a charity event on tonight. Well, baysically, we couldn't
do it today because, really, it's out of taste. We didn't want
to make it a too sombre affair and everything. But we can't make
it too jolly, because it is a crematorium. But tonight, we've
got about 45 to 50 people coming, sort of for a barbecue, and
we've got a chef comin' down, and we're going to have moosic and
a disco and all the rest of it, and then there's me, Steve who
owns the place and one of the brothers, we're having our chests
waxed. And I'm a very hairy person."
"And then, I don't know if you've ever seen it on Sky, the
Endurance thing they've got on there, we've got one of them that
we're doing tonight. With baked beans and gravy and custard and
that sort of thing, just in here," he gestured towards the
Garden of Remembrance, "but that's after the public's gone.
All the people who's comin' tonight are friends and relatives.
We're a local business, so we're doing it from the local community
centre. It just puts a little back into the community that you
take out, like." Quite.
Picture: Silbury Hill, site of some very strange happenings...
Near Ellesmere Port...
Lew and I decided to let the owner know
that he was illegally blocking the footpath. I think that we must
have been rather hungry and tired, and I think that we were becoming
a little bit more belligerent than normal. We knocked on the door.
A dog barked from inside. We knocked again: the door opened.
"Hello," I said.
"Hello," said the young man in the doorway, who I guessed
was in his early twenties, and who was taller than Lew or I. He
spoke with a strong Merseyside accent.
"I just thought I'd let you know that you are illegally blocking
the footpath just here."
"Yeah, I know."
"Do you know about that?"
"Yeah."
""That's breaking the law," said Lew.
"Yeah."
"That's illegal," I said. "Why would you do that?"
"'Cos we are."
"Why would you do that then?"
"'Cos we are. 'Cos we had some knob'eds go through there."
"What did they do?"
"Kicked shit out the dog. So that why it's all shut up."
"But it would be illegal to have a dangerous dog in there
anyway." (I said it, but I don't know for sure that it is
true).
"Well it's our garden."
"But it's a public footpath as well."
"Yeah but we've been told that it's our garden, we're allowed
to let people through who we wanter let through."
"You've got to let everybody through."
"Don't care. Fuck off."
Hmmm. This was not going according to plan.
"You know we're recording this?" Lew helpfully chipped
in. The lad saw red.
"I don't give a shit what you record. Get off me drive now."
Now, my understanding of the law of trespass is that if you are
on someone else's property, (and we were off the footpath and
on his drive at that moment) if you are asked to leave, then you
must leave, although the route that you must take is not prescribed.
Anyway, we started to comply with his request.
"Get off me drive now." He came along and started to
push Lewis along with his chest, like a couple of stags fighting
over territory.
"Oh, I say, you can't do that," I said, with curiously
little effect.
"Get off me drive, Get off me drive."
"If you touch me you'll be guilty of an offence," said
Lew, standing rather too much upon the letter of the law.
"Get off me drive. Go on, get off me drive now," he
pushed Lewis some more.
"We're going to get off your drive," I shrieked. All
of our voices had risen a few notches in pitch.
"Go on, get off me drive now. And you."
"We are just going." He started pushing me now, and
made a grab for the microphone, which was sticking out of the
recording bag at my side.
"Now. You'd better watch it," I said, "because
you cannot do this. We are just about, we are going. We are going."
"Get off or I'll break your nose."
"I'm afraid that you'd better watch it," said Lew, as
we reached the safety of the end of his tarmac drive.
"Okay, we're off your drive now."
"We could take you to court for that. Yeah? Understood?"
Lewie's blood was up a little.
"Do you want to meet me dad?" he tossed over his shoulder
as he returned into the house, after having pushed us from his
property, "Go on, go and walk somewhere else."
"We are allowed to walk through there," I said, the
confrontation rapidly descending into farce. However, his Pathian
shot was his best.
"Have you got nothing better to do that go for a walk?"
He slammed the door behind him, the dog still barking.
Lew and I walked off, a bit surprised at what had happened. "Shall
we have him?" said Lew.
Ken and Robert, former miners at Dearne.
In deep Wales...
Along the plateau and
down to Coed-Llifoss Farm, we happened to meet a young lady who
looked rather out of sorts. She had long dark hair, but only on
one side of her head. The other half had about two month's worth
of stubble on it. She asked where we were going, and we said that
we were going down towards Glyn. She very kindly offered to show
us the way. I am always nervous of letting anybody know where
I am going to be bivouacking for the night, and we were very close
to our bivvy site, but the girl insisted, so we acquiesced. She
started to walk along next to us with a very stiff legged gait,
and she had a slightly-slurred voice. She was very friendly, and
it was obvious that she didn't get very many visitors in that
part of the world. Her name was Bronwen Davies.
"Okay, I'll take you down to the brook. You don't mind my
dog, do you? It's my parents' farm, a dairy farm. I'll have to
warn you, I am an epileptic: I am an uncontrolled epileptic. Don't
worry. It happens."
As we were passing through the yard, we bumped into a rosy-cheeked
and bucolic chap, Bronwen's father. "Ramblin' are you? Bit
late in the afternoon to go ramblin', en't it?" He obviously
had a keen eye. We showed him where we were off to, without specifying
where we were going to stop. He took the dog, Shep, in with him.
We started off again.
"So, how often would you have a fit then?"
"Once a day"
"That must be exhausting," said Liz.
"Oh no, far from it." We went into a big field through
a gate, which Bronwen shut behind us. " I was havin' them
four times a day. I'm very happy about havin' it only once a day.
I had a tumour that was makin' it worse. They took that out in
January. That's why my walkin' is now a bit.offish. The tumour
was makin' my fits worse, apparently, for twenty years and I didn't
even know it was there. It was in my brain, on the top, that's
where they took it out. Luckily it was not malignant. Before,
my leg was kickin' out, and it wouldn't stand straight. I couldn't
hold a cup of tea with my arm. I was sort of half paralysed down
my right side. Now I can do a lot better. Mind, I'm a forceful
person, I'll get on with things. I've just fed the calves. We've
just had a calf yesterday. Sometimes they are frightened and they
run away from you. They can be the worst: the most impossible.
It can take you half an hour to get them to suck anything, for
their own good food."
"We don't get many people goin' through the farm. What we
don't like sometimes is when you start claimin' all the land for
your own."
I didn't quite know what she was getting at, so I changed the
subject slightly: "It must be quite, er, tough to have a
tumour and some other problems and to be all the way out here."
"It is, it's quite isolated. Five miles from nowhere. Chepstow
is the nearest town. I didn't used to think much of walkin' at
all. But when I once stood out and looked at it all, and really
looked at it, especially in nineteen ninety-, I think it was seven,
and in autumn, and it was one of the most beautiful autumns we
ever had. The beech trees just shone like nothin' on earth. And
I thought, is it me changin' or is it just everythin's gone more
beautiful? And I think it was a bit of both. The years afterwards,
I didn't find it half as beautiful as that time. You get different
summers, you get different winters, sometimes leaves will drop
off before, and this time it just hang on, and it really did shine.
I'll never forget it. The colours of the leaves were so magnificent
in my eyes then. I started thinkin' about the land, and I started
thinkin' perhaps I'm takin' everythin' for granted. Be careful
where you're steppin' now."
We had come down to a brook in a wood, and with a great deal of
thrashing around in various bushes, throwing our packs across
and then jumping across ourselves with the aid of the wellington-booted
Bronwen, we eventually got across. Bronwen said her goodbyes to
us. "Don't be like the others who come here, and think that
this land is your own. And that you can do anything with it, mind."
"We are just, guests," I said, "just visitors."
"Then you're welcome. Goodbye." We watched her limp
back out of the wood and up the field.
