Decline and Rise

Evelyn Waugh did not have an overly happy time when he first went down from university. Funds were not overly available, and there were a succession of half hearted attempts to find a direction in life which culminated with a period as a schoolmaster in Wales which culminated in an attempted suicide.

His personal life was also far from secure. After Richard Pares had been spirited away by those who saw clearly his academic potential (and the threat posed to his reaching it by the company he kept), Waugh had fallen into company with Alastair Graham. Somewhat indulged by Graham's mother, the friendship/relationship/affair prospered for a while, and included a period where they shared a caravan on the fringe of Otmoor.....

....which brings us onto the Abingdon Arms, in Beckley. It was in the grounds of this pub, with its commanding views over Otmoor, that the caravan stood. Even after the affair with Graham broke up it continued to be a place that Waugh returned to - he spent the honeymoon of his first marriage to Evelyn Gardner here, and, in much the same way as he would do later in life with Chagford, adopted the pub as a literary retreat. It is believed that he wrote parts of Decline and Fall here, along with elements of other works of the period.

I've always had a soft spot for the Abingdon Arms - tucked away down a narrow lane it is one of those places where time feels like it has been standing still for a few decades. The food and beer hasn't been bad either. However, it has changed hands with alarming frequency over the years - possibly because being so tucked away means it has struggled for passing trade or impulse visitors. Recently it closed completely, and there were fears that it was going to become just another former pub (Oxford has depressingly many of these), whose attractive building will make a fine house for someone with the requisite amount of money.

To their credit, the local community organised themselves to fight this possibility and now we read in the Oxford Mail that their proposals (and more importantly money) have been accepted. The Abingdon Arms is moving into community ownership, and so this little piece of the literary landscape is saved for another wave of people to draw inspiration from its beautiful surroundings.

The caravan's long gone though.

Binsey Treacle Well

In the post on Port Meadow, I mentioned the Binsey Treacle Well.  This led to an interesting conversation in the Rusty Bicycle, as to what a treacle well is, and why they haven't heard of it.  Turns out everyone knows the story of Rosamund the Fair and Henry II at Godstow Nunnery (I love Oxford), so we'll park that one for a while, and concentrate on the black stuff.

I remember when I first heard of the well my thoughts immediately turned to visions of The Goodies, in the episode where they open a clotted cream mine in Cornwall.  Surely, in Binsey, I was going to be confronted by a gushing torrent of thick gunge, like the outfall from some Asiatic factory with dubious health and safety practices.  Sadly, the reality is it's a damp hole in the ground - there isn't even a lion's mouth for the fluid to come out of.   However, the background is only slightly less prosaic than my over-active imagination.

Lewis Carroll of course has a treacle well in Alice in Wonderland, so I'm in good company, but this is "treacle" in its medieval usage of balm, or unguent.  Essentially, it's a spring with purported healing powers which miraculously sprang forth in response to the prayers of St Frideswide. Oxford, of course, is a city of odd saints - Ebbe, Frideswide, Aldate, etc.  The city patron is the second of these, Frideswide, who was once the subject of one of the finest, shortest sermons I've ever heard.

Picture the scene; a dessicated church in the centre of Oxford, Mattins drawing to a close on St Frideswide's Day and an equally dessicated vicar mouting the pulpit.  The thin, crackly reed of his voice begins:

"Very little is known of St Frideswide. She lived. And, we may infer from her canonisation, she was good. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Amen."

Anyway, I digress. Referring to Westwood and Simpson's Lore of the Land, we discover that Frideswide had established a religious community in Oxford in about 700AD, under the protection of her father, who was the local potentate.  On her father's death, a chap called Algar of Leicester decided it would be rather a good scheme to be married to Frideswide, so pitched up and offered to do the decent thing.  Upon being rebuffed he decided that kidnap was the next best option, and essentially made a lunge for her, whereupon our city's patron took to her heels Tam Lin style and made a run for it.

Crashing through the swamps to the west of the city, she ended up on the then island of Beltona (modern Binsey) where she found sanctuary, had a bit of a pray, and brought forth the healing waters.  Following Frideswide's death, the well at Binsey became an important site of pilgrimage - at one point there were over 20 hostels at Seacourt (now a glamorous park and ride destination) to cope with the throng.  It was all a bit like the ghats in Calcutta (on a smaller and noticeably less Indian scale, obviously), with people coming to avail themselves of the miraculous cure.

Post reformation, it all went rather quiet, until in 1874 the local vicar decided to do a bit of "restoration." As with most things the Victorians touched, this bears about as much relation to what had been there before as the Olympic Park in London does to the pre-blitz East End. Now, it's slightly off the beaten track, but it's worth a look, if you ever find yourself in The Perch with  20 minutes to kill.  You can cheat, and used google to find out what you're supposed to be looking for, but I'm not going to put up a picture, so you can do a bit of proper exploring if you want!

Save Port Meadow

Let's get very local for a minute.  For those of you unfamiliar with Oxford, Port Meadow is an area of common land to the north west of the city centre, which runs from the village of Wolvercote down the Woodstock road to the suburb of Jericho.  Horses and cattle graze on it, the Thames runs through it, and there are a host of small things to go and look at - the Treacle Well at Binsey, for example, or the nunnery at Godstow, from where Rosamund Clifford sallied out to be courted by Henry II.

It's a green lung for the north of the city.  When I lived in Jericho it was basically my back garden - we picnicked on it, swam in the river on hot summer evenings after work, or drifted up to the Trout at Wolvercote or the Perch at Binsey to spend the day with the newspapers.

But one of the chief attractions has always been the views of Oxford.  They're not as spectacular as those from South Park, or Boar's Hill, but there was a panorama of the dreaming spires - the Tower of the Winds, PhilJim, St Barnabas, St Mary the Virgin, the Rad Cam, the Engineering Science Building (the last one may be a joke).

Jericho, however, is full.  What had once been a small densely populated district of workers in the prinitng house of the OUP decayed to the extent that it was nearly demolished in the 1960s.  Students brought it back to life, and then refugees from London arrived to raise their children.  It's all got a bit glitzy, and pricey.  The City Council, wanting to reduce some of the pressure on the housing stock in Oxford, has mandated both Oxford University and Brookes to reduce the numbers of their students living in private rented accommodation in the city.

Which brings us to Roger Dudman Way.  The university has erected a number of accommodation blocks along the railway line and canal from the west end of Walton Well Road.  In some ways, this is exactly what is needed - getting large numbers of students out of the private sector and freeing up housing for local people.  Unfortunately it's also obliterated the views from Port Meadow, and raidcally changed the character of that end of Oxford.  Debate rages in the local press (this is Oxford, city of lost causes and green ink), about how far what has been built reflects accurately what the city council was shown in the drawings, but the fact remains that somewhere along the line someone has got it wrong.

There's a petition live now to call the whole thing in and get it altered.  No one wants the blocks demolished, but the top two stories could, and arguably ought, to be removed.

you can sign it here:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/850/008/830/port-meadow-oxford-damaged-views/

London Welsh - part 2

5 point deduction, 5 points suspended and a £15,000 fine.  The judgement on the RFU's website makes pretty grim reading....  Inevitably, Welsh are appealing.  Watch this space.

The electric heart of England

Last weekend's castaway on Desert Island Discs was Martin Carthy.  Although he's rightly a folk legend, one of his throwaway lines in particular resonated with me  - that the average man in the street would be "blown away" if a decent morris dancer danced in front of them.

I have to admit to being ambivalent about the morris - there is a certain element of leather elbow patched, Cortina driving geography teacher about its image, but it really doesn't do to be snobby about these things. Having said that, I still think anyone using the words "methinks," "mine host," or "quaffed" probably needs to be rapidly censured.  I've come to be more appreciative of the genre and its place in our folklore since being in Oxfordshire (it's difficult to ignore on the streets of Oxford around May day), and done well it can be very good indeed.

But at the tail end of the 60s morris was moribund.  After having been revived much earlier in the 20th century in Thaxted it had once again fallen by the wayside, with the early 1960s folk resurgence focusing much more tightly on Britain's musical heritage.  So it must have seemed to many that the form was about to be lost.

If, then, you're Ashley Hutchings, riding high on the success of the early Fairport albums, you decide to do something about it.  But what a something.  It's genuinely difficult to pitch this to an impartial audience  so if you've wandered here by accident you'll have to take my word for it; he made a folk-rock electric morris album.

Uniting morris' John Kirkpatrick with fiddler Barry Dransfield and Fairport's Dave Mattacks and Richard Thompson, they set about a deliberately uncurated album of morris tunes, with the idea not so much being to preserve the genre in aspic, as take it on through both traditional and modern instruments - morris as a living form even as it must have appeared in its death throes.  Add in contributions from the ethereal Shirley Collins, and the Chingford Morris Men (God knows how they got them all in the studio), and they created something very special - vibrant, alive, shorn of cliche, and giving dignity to a very English folk form.

Particular highlights on the album range  from the moment in Morris Call where a very tentative fiddle is utterly swamped by the joyous arrival of accordion, bass guitar and drums, right through to a barely controlled version of the Cuckoo's Nest (possibly the filthiest song in a genre not exactly known for holding back - it's right up there with say The Bonny Black Hare).  Everything about Morris On screams England and Englishness - you've got ploughboys, drinking, sailors, tailors, and a bunch of raucous tunes any one of which, as Ashley Hutchings once remarked, would do as our national anthem (although, as suggested, some of the lyrics might be slightly problematic....).

The album is a folk rock essential, even for those who think they hate the morris - it brought morris to a new generation and was instrumental in kickstarting the resurgance of the art in the early 1970s.  I've still got no wish to get involved in the dancing side of things, but it's great that other people want to do it, and Morris On holds a worthy, if ever so slightly bizarre, place in my affections.

The Oxbridge Brain Belt

Last night, Nick Boles gave the Macmillan lecture to the Tory Reform Group.  You can read a potted summary of it here, but I wanted to pick up on one part of his text, because it's relevant to my post on HS2 a couple of months ago.  Essentially the issue of the Oxbridge Brain Belt has raised its head again, after first being proposed by Lord Wolfson last April.

This government likes large infrastructure projects - "Boris Island" and HS2 are ample proof of that, and I can see some logic in the Brain Belt proposal to link up the Oxford-Cambridge-Milton Keynes troika with a new motorway, paid for by the development of a new garden city en route. But, to return to a thought from last week, isn't this just another case where the best is the enemy of the good?

First, consider the very real problems of the northern cities - do we really want to be building an entirely new city in the south-east, when regeneration is so urgently required in large conurbations elsewhere.  Of course, some will argue that it should be both/and, not either/or, but it does indicate some "interesting" priorities, to say the least.

Then there's the purely political consderation, and this is really amusing.  If you're going to build a new city on this route, then where do you put it?  Logic would dictate the point where the motorway intersects with HS2 (for a potential new station), and the M40: so, North Buckinghamshire, just to the east of Bicester then; we could call it, oh, I don't know, Stratton Audley.  The best of luck with getting that one past an electorate that is already up in arms about HS2 - "by the way Bucks, as well as the high speed rail line, you're also getting a motorway and a city........"

And yet, there is something in this, and maybe it doesn't need a motorway. 

The first thing to say is that east west transport in this country is abysmal.  I regularly travel from Bicester to Milton Keynes for work, and what should be a 20 minute journey can take over an hour. Cambridge can take two.  Public transport is abject; the X5 bus weaves its merry way from Oxford to Cambridge via Milton Keynes and Bedford in a catatonia-inducing three and a half hours.

The Centre for Cities, in it's Cities Outlook 2012 notes that Cambridge and Oxford are first and third for number of patents granted in the UK, they've both got world class universities, and they don't directly capitalise on this.  The same report notes that Milton Keynes was the fastest growing city in the UK between 2000 and 2010, as well as being 3rd in the UK for business start-ups per 10,000 population.  Clearly there is potential here for an M4 corridor style belt of prosperity.

Of course, there used to be a rather well placed railway line.

The Varsity Line from Oxford to Cambridge was closed at either end in 1967, leaving only the section between Bletchley and Bedford, and the spur from Oxford to Bicester Town open to passenger traffic.  The rails are still in place between Oxford and Bletchley.  One of the infrastructure projects announced by the Chancellor in the run up to Christmas was the re-opening of the line to passenger traffic between Oxford and Bedford, with a new connection to Milton Keynes Central.  But why stop there?

The obvious answer is that the old trackbed east of Bedford has become obstructed.  Housing crosses the line at Sandy and Potton, the Mullard Radio Astronomy Laboratory has appropriated 3 miles of trackbed outside Cambridge, and there's a "guided busway" on the formation between Trumpington and Cambridge city centre.

But, if we're seriously debating building an entire city and new motorway surely we can look at whether it mightn't just be cheaper to allow Milton Keynes and Bedford to expand, and use the money from developers to fund either a deviation around the obstructions (surely not beyond the wit of man), or compulsory purchase/relocation of anything in the way.  This last might seem rather hardline, but actually I wonder if the authorities at the time authorising any of the above developments bothered to revoke the Act of Parliament for the railway line - which would lead to a potentially interesting legal position (feel free to step in here and correct me, it's certainly cost people their gardens elsewhere when the rails have unexpectedly been put back....).

Reinstatement of the railway line between Oxford and Cambridge would join up the Oxbridge Brain Belt, get freight off the roads, and provide a genuine east-west rail link in a country now largely short of them.  Indeed, if the government also reinstated the spur off to Banbury from Verney Junction then you've got a new fast link between Cambridge and Birmingham, opening up the West Midlands conurbation.  It's certainly worth looking at as an alternative: at a time when grand projects come with a grand price tag, maybe we should lower our sights ever so slightly and just have good, affordable projects?

Getting to the point.....

The big racing news of the weekend was trackside, rather than having anything to do with horseflesh - Ascot's spot of bother with its new dress regulations.  However, just up the M40 a few thousand people were having much more fun - and all dressed impeccably.

The Heythrop point to point was held at Dunthrop for the last time on Sunday, with the organisers citing the inability to water as the key reason.  This essentially means they have no choice but to meet early in the season, and hence restrict the number of races on the card because of the limited amount of daylight. Next year, they're moving to a new site in Aldsworth, so it was a last chance to experience the extreme silliness that a point to point 600 feet above sea level in January has always been....

A general lack of rain recently meant that the going was at least firm, and the car parking didn't resemble quite the Passchendaele of some past years.  There were a variety of decent stalls, some of which will be familiar from elsewhere on the circuit, offering the chance to stock up on everything from hunting prints to the works of Dick Francis.  I made a beeline straight for the cider stall, where £3 purchased an incredibly dry scrumpy at around 8%.  Once the initial shock had burned off a few tastebuds, the flavour settled down to a very crisp note; even so, it took nearly an hour to drink...

As ever, a good crowd had been drawn from the surrounding area.  Obviously a large number had come across from Chipping Norton, two miles to the west, but there were a fair few of the usual suspects from the hunting world.  The Heythrop were  out in force, but there were also contingents from the Christ Church & Farley Hill Beagles and Four Shires Basset Hounds as well.

So to the racing.  Prices were pretty keen along the run of bookmakers, but what reputation I may have had as a judge of horses was in tatters by the end of the afternoon following a steady procession of three legged horses, fallers, and non-stayers. Nevertheless, I'm sure someone somewhere had some success (probably the chap with the chalkboard).

Point to pointing has been undergoing something of a renaissance lately, as people seek out less costly ways of entertaining themselves than the corporatised experiences at the big racecources.  It's part of a wider trend that has seen attendances up at agricultural shows throughout the country - if only the Royal had held on for a couple more years it might still be with us!

As ever, there's a lot going on out here in the countryside if you scratch the surface.  An awful lot of the point to point was only possible because land owners and hunt supporters had donated their time, assets and experiences.  It wouldn't be possible without this sense of community, and of place.

Dunthrop was always a cold experience, and some years I certainly wondered what on earth I was doing there, but it will be sad not to be there next year.  Aldsworth is going to have a lot to measure up to, but I'm sure in 20 years time it will be every bit a part of the local calendar as its draughty but wonderful predecessor.

Next up, the Bicester with Whaddon Chase at Whitfield on 18th March (HS2 permitting...) - well, strictly the Bullingdon at Kingston Blount's before then, but who in their right mind wants to go to a point to point on the last Saturday of the hunting season?

9 Lessons and Carols

Last night we braved the increasingly icy B roads of East Oxfordshire to attend the service of 9 lessons and carols at the village church.  Apart from starting slightly late, it all proceeded pretty quickly (the fastest rendition in recent history of Silent Night being a particular highlight...), but the church was full, and the singing enthusiastic, so perhaps there's hope for the dear old CofE after all.

Sometimes it can feel rather like the world is moving on without us out here in the countryside.  Working so close to London I often hear colleagues talking about the latest restaurant that they have been to, and wonder for a moment if I'm missing out.  I''m not sure we are all that badly off out here though, you just have to work harder to pass the time.

I think the key to it all is evolution, not revolution.  In the same way that we've found ways to cope within the Hunting Act 2004, so too we have to cope with the changing needs of people for entertainment.

9 Lessons and Carols is actually an important symbol of this particularly English genius for evolution.  The CofE has since Cranmer's adaptation of the Daily Offices found time for Evensong, but the whole idea of going to church at night is not so very Anglican.  Neither is the presence of candles in church, now taken for granted, something that would have happened before the late 19th century.  The service was designed by Edward White Benson OE (an interesting chap who I may return to) during his time as first Bishop of Truro, and would have been dismissed, rather like Midnight Mass, as overly Roman had it not spoken to a deep need of the English people.  Today it seems as natural, timeless, and organically English as Cranmer's prose.

Happy Christmas

Why Speed 2?

Just occasionally, you get caught on the horns of a dilemma.  Being naturally fairly pro-rail, and pro-countryside, I'm a bit torn about what to make of High Speed Two.  Add in the fact that I live on the route (or at least very near to it), and you'll start to see why it's difficult.

First the problems - and they exist on both sides.  I wonder about the charge of Nimbyism, given the outstanding beauty of the Chilterns, but there's got to be at least a small dose of it around, because that would only be natural.  On the other hand, the Pro campaign haven't really handled their case all that well either.

The strongest argument that the Pros have in their arsenal is also the most provocative - but at the same time incredibly divisive.  Northern jobs are worth more than southern lawns.  I'm sorry, but I've got a lot of time for that if it really is that much of a zero sum.  I just haven't seen too much evidence that it is actually the case.  Having said that, saying that you're going to cut x minutes off the London-Birmingham time  isn't that strong. 

I get the impression that the only reason that argument was ever trotted out is that segment is all they can afford to build in phase 1.  HS2 has got nothing to do with reducing the London-Birmingham journey time, and everything to do with decreasing how long it takes to travel between say Leeds and London.  That's something that I can buy into, but it demands a level of vision and long term funding commitment that probably isn't there.

The other problem with HS2 is that it's essentially bipolar - it's great if you want to travel from A-Z but no good at all if you want to go to any of the places from B to Y.  All the compromise plans that suggest going via Heathrow, or ask "why can't we have a station for our town?" are heroically missing the point of High Speed rail.  You either totally go for the idea of mass rapid transit between cities, or you don't bother.

Of course, we did once have an alternative north south high speed rail link, the Great Central route out of St Pancras to Sheffield via Nottingham; but inevitably that was closed....

I do wonder though if there are other lines that we ought to be thinking about reopening first.  You could start with almost anything in the United Kingdom that runs east-west.  Given that the old Oxford-Cambridge line practically goes across the bottom of my garden I suppose I ought to be against it reopening, but, you know what? It would make a lot of sense, and potentially open up a new corridor for investment from Oxford to Cambridge via Bletchley, Milton Keynes and Bedford.  Now, there's an idea.  At the same time, there's the Waverley route up in the borders and Oxford-Cheltenham via Witney - all useful lines that I'd feel happier about investing in putting back.

Quainton Road - should we put the services back here in Bucks first before worrying about HS2?

I'd like to support HS2, I'm just not sure that it makes sense at this time, and on the terms outlined by the current plan.  I'm keeping an open mind, but east-west is at least as important as north-south - it's just that we don't have the lobby power in the west...