Walking to Camelot (31 page)

Maiden Newton was dubbed “Chalk-Newton” by Hardy in
Tess of the D'Urbervilles,
and our inn is where Tess is harassed by some young blokes as she eats breakfast. To ward off any further unwelcome attention from these or any other aggressive males, she heads into a field, tears her dress, cuts off her eyebrows, and covers up her hair.

In the inn's dining room this evening we meet Bill, an eighty-two-year-old widower from Southampton who is staying at the Chalk & Cheese because this is where he and his wife came for many years to enjoy their annual vacations. She died very recently. He has his black Labrador dog with him, and both he and the dog are as gentle as lambs. Bill is blue-eyed and cheerful, despite having everything to be angry at the world about. His wife is gone and he is battling throat cancer. He tells us that since the doctors removed a significant portion of his larynx, his voice has been rather high-pitched and faint, and he apologizes if he sounds shrill. Bill says that he spent his working life in the mines of Yorkshire as an electrician and is just glad to be alive. When he learns that we are walking the Macmillan Way, he talks about the wild roses and holly blooming gloriously in the hedgerows.

“Wonderful, innit?” he says.

Later on in the night, through the thin wall that separates our rooms, I hear him rasping and sucking for air. Poor Bill.

Maiden Newton has been occupied for thousands of years. On Hogscliffe Hill, excavations have unearthed an Iron Age cluster of dwellings built over twenty-six acres. Above the railway embankment one can still see long lynchet rows characteristic of the strip farming used by the Celts and Saxons. Round shot from muskets was found in the Norman doorway of the church of St. Mary's, fired by Cromwell's men during the Civil War. Interesting paintings are etched onto the north wall inside. These include a man blowing a horn, a lady wearing a fourteenth-century head covering, a snarling dog, and a dog with a bone. So dogs already played an important part in English culture ten centuries ago — they even made it to the inner areas of churches.
6

During World War
II
, Maiden Newton was of prime importance to the Allied cause. The village was on the main rail line from Bristol to Weymouth, and was also the junction of a line that ran to Bridport and West Bay, connecting troops from the interior with the naval exercises on the coast. In the weeks preceding D-Day, thousands of tanks, troops, and trucks streamed via these rail connections for loading onto the invasion ships.

Every two years, during a weekend in late June, “Maiden Newton at War” re-enacts wartime Britain on the eve of D-Day. Genuine military vehicles from the war, a few surviving veterans, and enthusiastic volunteers combine to put on a realistic performance, the highlight of which is a pitched battle between assaulting Allied troops and German soldiers, with jeeps, tanks, half-tracks, and fighter aircraft all involved. Gunfire, smoke, and artillery explosions make this an unusual event for the quiet village. One wonders, of course, what passing German tourists think of it all.

Being so close to the famed Cerne Abbas Giant, Karl and I decide to walk the short four miles off trail to observe this artifact. The Giant is a 180-foot-high man carved on a steep hill in foot-wide chalky trenches. In one hand he holds a huge club, and his virility is in no doubt, given his forty-foot-long erect penis and scrotum. His outline served in past centuries as a warning to would-be invaders that Dorset people are not easily intimidated. He was widely believed to aid in fertility, and many couples desiring a child over the centuries have spent a night sleeping beside the Giant “to ensure a healthy birth.” As recently as the late twentieth century, young women were known to leave their knickers with the Giant for good luck.

It is amazing that the Victorians didn't plough the Giant under, given their hyper-sensitive attitudes toward sex. So why did they let this chimerical monstrosity on the hillside survive intact? All I can think of is that they feared an insurrection by the locals if they dared to touch it. Indeed, why didn't Cromwell and his Puritans destroy it during the Civil War? Cromwell ruined enough churches, and regarded even market crosses as blasphemous. Victorian mothers were so embarrassed by the Giant that they told their children he was a “tailor with a large pair of scissors in his lap.” During the 1930s, local schoolchildren recited a rhyme:

The giant he looks over us

A-doing of our work

He must be very chilly

'Cos he hasn't got a shirt!

John Steinbeck and his wife, Elaine, visited the Giant in the summer of 1959, and Elaine commented, “I think they put him there to scare the tar out of passing ladies.”

On May 1 of each year, Wessex Morris dancers “bring in the May” at Cerne Abbas by performing fertility rites around the Giant, followed by festivities in the village itself. Bringing in the May is an ancient custom in England. In the twelfth century, the Bishop of Lincoln chastised his clergymen for participating with common folk heading into the forest, picking flowers and greenery, and decorating their homes to welcome in the season. Later clergymen railed that virgins were defiled in the course of “a-maying” festivities. The maypole was banned by Cromwell, then revived by Charles
II
. The Victorians dumbed down the tradition by turning it into a children's custom. Children were encouraged to make a spring garland, travel around the neighbourhood, and ask for money, much like kids do on Halloween in North America.

Scudding clouds sweep over the Giant as we dawdle down the steep slope. We have time to explore today, so we hike the two miles south to Godmanstone, where we visit the Smith's Arms, reputed to be the smallest pub in England. We are not disappointed. The tiny structure is made of stone with thatch, and the front is only eleven feet wide, with just one, Hobbit-sized dining room. The building is 600 years old and used to be a smithy. When Charles
II
rode through the village and stopped to have his horse attended to, he asked the blacksmith for a drink and was appalled to learn that the smith had no licence, so he granted him one forthwith, and it has been licensed ever since. It also offers the usual pub services: shove ha'penny, darts, table skittles, and a variety of lunches. A terrace outside is where we have to eat as part of the overflow — in fact, this is where most of the customers sit, good weather or bad.

THE SIX-MILE TREK
back to Maiden Newton is miserable. Rain lashes our faces, and cars speed by dangerously on the narrow twisting road, splashing us as we dart to nonexistent verges. I look back at one point when I hear thunder, and catch a brief lightning flash on the hillside illuminating the Cerne Giant's head. Karl just presses ahead with vigorous strides. When we finally arrive at the Chalk & Cheese, we are as drenched as otters, and I am ready for a hot bath and lasagna. There is no sign of Bill.

At dinner, we talk in low tones about the walk and how it will soon be over.

“So Karl, at some point in life does one opt for a safe harbour as opposed to ongoing adventure?”

Karl contemplates me with a frown and downs some more Shiraz.

“I don't believe in safe harbours. Once you decide to pack it in with your work, your wanderings, or your hobbies, you go to pot — physically and mentally. You have to keep going. As George Burns used to say, ‘Use it or lose it.' And there is no Nirvana; even quaint places have problems.”

My mind focuses for a moment on an apple orchard in Somerset and a small cottage with a garden and a little picket gate with a sign reading “The Shire.” In
Watership Down,
a group of rabbits search for a safe haven. Ratty advises in
The Wind in the Willows:
“Beyond the Wild Wood is the wild world” — and he's never going there. Yet even though the outer world is too much with us, most of us feel the need to press on into it. Frodo and Bilbo press on when convinced there is danger to their precious shire and a greater good to be achieved.

The storm is still raging outside and the entire inn shakes with a couple of rolling peals of thunder. Rain spatters the smoky leaded glass windows. A St. Bernard lazily shifts his position in front of the blazing fireplace.

I don't believe in safe harbours,
Karl said.

I join Karl for an after-dinner brandy. Then I stumble up to bed. Through the wall, I hear Bill rasping and coughing.

Before turning out my lamp I read the latest press report on Madonna's battle to keep her estate closed to walkers. The planning inspector in Sherborne has just ruled that only 130 acres of Madonna's 1,130-acre tract will become accessible as “open country” under right to roam legislation, not 350 acres. Both sides in the dispute seem happy with this decision.
7

Bill is now talking to someone, although I can't hear the words distinctly. Then I realize that he is quietly praying.

The second story to catch my eye in the newspaper is the conviction and sentencing of two brothers who have systematically abused a gypsy family, which is an offence under the provisions of the Race Relations Act. “Neil Shepherd, 41, a crossword compiler, and his brother Martin, 36, a psychology student, called the family ‘scum' and ‘vermin' as they drove past their camp beside the
A
350 at Blandford, Dorset,” reports
The Telegraph.
A crossword compiler? A thirty-six-year-old psychology student? The family in question qualify as travellers, and like the Romany, are a specified protected minority group under the law. These are the first convictions involving racially motivated behaviour against the traveller community.

The thunderstorm continues through the night. When Karl and I assemble for an early breakfast in the dining room, I notice streams of water cascading down the village street.

“We may want to wait for this storm to abate, Karl. I don't fancy stepping out into that maelstrom.”

“Weather's supposed to improve by mid-morning, John. Let's go. We have to get to the coast.”

Before we leave I need to call our
B&B
at Abbotsbury — our final destination — because we will be arriving a day earlier than expected, and I have booked rooms only for the following night. So after breakfast I use the pay phone at the Chalk & Cheese to ring up the establishment.

“Hello, it's Mr. Cherrington here, and we have a booking to stay at Farley Lodge for the fifteenth of June, and I'd like to book an additional night now for the fourteenth, as we are going to arrive a day early. You see, we are walking the Macmillan Way.”

“What, you want to change your booking, sir?”

“No, I'd like to book one extra night, please.”

“What is your name, sir?”

“Cherrington.”

“I will have to check the booking sheet, sir.” The pay phone beeps to prompt me for more coins.

“Are you there, sir?”

“Yes, I'm here.”

“I am sorry, sir, but I must check out some guests. Could you call back in twenty minutes?”

“Uh, sure.”

Twenty minutes later . . . “Hello, Farley Lodge.”

“Yes, it's Mr. Cherrington again.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Can you confirm my booking now?”

“Confirm, sir?”

“Yes.”

“You wanted the fourteenth of June, you said?”

“Yes, but I'm booked for the fifteenth already and would like the same room for both nights.”

“I was going to check and see if we had you down for the fifteenth, sir.”

“Yes, you were.” The pay phone beeps for more coins.

Silence; then I hear a rustling of paper.

Finally, a gushing torrent: “Oh, sir, sir!” the woman cries. “Why, I've located you in the book! It's Mr. Cherrington, correct?”

Can orgasm be far behind?

“Uh, that's great.”

“You're booked for Room 7, sir.”

“Okay.”

“Yes, sir, it's a twin room.”

“I know that.”

Silence again.

“So, ma'am, how about the fourteenth, then — am I booked for the extra night as well?”

“Oh, right, you'd now like the fourteenth, wouldn't you. Do you still want the fifteenth, sir?”

“Look, how many times do I have to tell you — I want the fourteenth
and
the fifteenth. Twin room — okay?”

“Sorry, sir, you don't have to get angry. I am doing the very best I can.”

The phone beeps for more coins.

“Please, ma'am, please just tell me that we are now booked for the fourteenth and the fifteenth.”

“Well, it would seem fine, sir, but I will of course need your credit card number to hold the room for both nights.”

“But you already have my Visa number from my earlier booking!”

“Sorry, sir, it is not showing up
—”
The phone connection cuts out, as I have run out of coins.

After obtaining more change at the pub, I return to do battle.

“Farley Lodge.”

“It's me again, Mr. Cherrington. I'm sorry that we were cut off.”

“Well, sir, you didn't have to hang up on me like that!”

“Please! I didn't hang up — can't you see that I'm in a phone booth on the Macmillan Way and it cuts off when I run out of coins . . .”

“I see, sir.”

“Yes, quite. Now here is my Visa number
—”

“Sir, I'm afraid you cannot have the same room for the fourteenth as the fifteenth, as your Room 7 has been previously booked by another party. Do you want a different room for the fourteenth?”

“Please God! Yes, of course I do. I am so sorry for all of this.”

Indeed, it was all my fault. As the learned Anglo-Afghan writer Idries Shah — himself a naturalized Englishman — observes, “It is normal practice in England not to answer anything directly. Standard practice too, is not to ask direct questions: it is considered aggressive to assume that the other person can, should or will answer at all. The correct form if compelled to approach another for help, is to start with ‘Excuse me, I wonder whether . . .' ” And this clearly had been my sin. Instead of charging ahead and boldly demanding my rights, as one does in North America, I should have delicately asked the lady to pardon my behaviour and requested her — nay, begged her — to perhaps accommodate us, if at all possible, without undue inconvenience to her, the staff, or other guests, with a room for both nights. One learns, but slowly.