Salop – A true story (Aug CW-2)

Mum was an only child, but Dad had four brothers and sisters, so perhaps Grandma wasn’t always the starch-stiff Victorian matriarch she appeared to her grandchildren, sitting in that high-backed wooden chair with the thin, knitted cushion and smelling of camphor and violets as the big clock on the mantlepiece loudly ticked away the long years of her widowhood.

Cast yourselves back if you will to the monochrome, grainy fifties when Dad’s elder brother (the eldest was, and will always be, in North Africa as a result of his Crusader tank having taken a fiery direct hit during one of the sandy spats between Montgomery and the Desert Fox not much more than ten years earlier) accepted a job offer in Shropshire, the curiously addressed ‘Salop’ on envelopes. They had always been close, perhaps closer since Tom was lost, so a routine was soon established whereby several times a year the surviving brothers and their respective families would meet, alternating trips to each other’s homes.

One of my earliest memories, aged three-and-a-bit, was the seemingly endless but nonetheless exciting journey from Lancashire, as it then was, to Salop. Dad had bought a pale grey, two-door Morris Minor with a red leather interior and illuminated trafficators popping out of the door pillars instead of modern flashing indicators on the wings. I used to ride in solitary splendour, before the arrival of my baby brother and seatbelts, perched in the back on the little armrest that hid the rear wheel arch. The route was always the same – an evocative childhood litany of places and blurred memories. Off to Widnes first to await the old transporter, a wonderful triumph of Victorian cast iron and cables soon to be replaced by the Jubilee Btidge, in 1961 to carry us above the tidal mudflats of the Mersey and into Cheshire.

On past industrial Runcorn, through genteel Frodsham, an old coaching town, and Delamere Forest with its heart-in-the-mouth (for a three-year-old) undulating road towards Beeston and then into Shropshire. Eventually, the old wartime airfield at Prees with its dark hangers flew by and soon we were past Whitchurch and Acton Reynold and on the outskirts of medieval Shrewsbury where Auntie Beth and Uncle George had settled with their two young children, my cousins.

I don’t know about you, but I remember houses from my childhood mainly by smell – probably the latent lupine instincts surfacing early – nothing unpleasant, you understand, apart from one spinster aunt’s house where the odour of stale cat was sufficiently strong to ream your sinuses. Great Uncle David’s sumptuous surroundings were redolent with the scent of the rich pipe tobacco he smoked incessantly. Grandma, as mentioned previously, was camphor and violets, whereas dear Gran was all home-baked bread and the sharp tang of the vinegar and lemon juice she used to mix the filling for the inevitable Sunday afternoon salmon sandwiches. Aunt Ethel ‘s home (Yes, I really did have an Aunt Ethel) on the other hand could be recognised blindfold by the wonderful smell of the cascades of old books that overflowed from every shelf.

Anyway, back to the story…..Auntie Beth’s house always smelled to me of lunch. Auntie Beth was, if the truth be told and even by her own admission, not the greatest cook in the world by a fair margin, but it was always good, wholesome English weekend food, a roast and two veg usually, although sometimes a steak pie or suchlike would be nervously presented. The whole point was that we would arrive late morning, have lunch, then go out by car to one of the many attractions of the Shropshire countryside for an afternoon walk, return by teatime and later in the evening face the long journey home.

On this particular occasion we chugged out to Church Stretton, Dad with his new grey Morris Minor and Uncle George in his swanky, black, split-screen, four-door model of the same marque, for a walk on the Long Mynd, A. E. Housman’s “blue remembered hills”. By custom, the children swapped cars, me childishly delighted by having my own door into the back seat and my cousins equally intrigued by the novelty of forward-folding front seats giving them access to the rear bench. Upon arrival we were free to roam on hills uncluttered by the picnic areas, fences, man made tracks and nannying warning signs that besmirch the countryside these days – the National Trust didn’t get their hands on these wild places until the mid sixties.

It was a lovely day (weren’t childhood days always like this?) with sunshine, a gentle springtime breeze and fluffy clouds that sent dark shadows scudding and dancing across the gorse and bracken. We scrambled upward, arriving panting at one of the highest points in Shropshire, the spiny ridge that runs the length of the Long Mynd and from where we could enjoy panoramic views into Wales and back into Cheshire. Recovering our breath we anbled along the ridge, the adults chatting and the children chattering and chasing each other across the bracken when suddenly there was a “whoosh” in the sky as the dark shape of a glider whistled overhead, airbrakes buffeting in the slipstream and headed for the landing ground further along the ridge.

“Oh, the gliders are flying. The gliders are flying”, shouted my six-year-old cousin excitedly. “Can we go and watch them, Dad. Pleeeease?”

The ladies exchanged doubtful glances as the landing site was still some way away, but soon relented in the face of increasingly strident pleadings from the children and a marked lack of moral support from their husbands, so off we went to spend much more time than we realised or intended watching the gliders being catapulted into the air, soaring and swooping through the updrafts and currents that eddied around the hill just like seagulls hovering off a cliff face. We sat near the runway watching as the aircraft returned to bump and rumble across the uneven grass before sinking onto one side like a wounded bird as the lift died beneath their wings. No sleek glassfibre and polycarbonate bubble canopies back then. These gliders had doped linen skins stretched over a wooden framework, open cockpits with a mimimum of instrumentation behind a thumbnail-small glass windscreen and they creaked protestingly as a couple of handlers raised their wings level and hitched them to an old Landrover for an undignified tow back to the takeoff point.

All too soon, though, we had to leave and started the return trek back along the ridge. Far below us we could see the cars parked side-by-side, but the approved route was long, at least an hour of brisk walking, and the sun was already low in the sky. Dad glanced at the cars and turned to us.

“Look”, he suggested. “It’s a long way and the children are tired. Let’s go straight down the hillside.” Mum looked at him in disbelief. “Don’t be ridiculous”, she spluttered. “It’s far too steep. Look at all that gorse and rock. We’ll never get down that way.” Dad turned to his brother. “What do you think, George.? I can see a way down that seems all grassy from here.” But Uncle George never had the chance to reply. “I’m not going down that slope and that’s final”, Mum almost shouted, her eyes wide with anger and apprehension. Forgotten in the heat of the moment, we three children stood silent, unsettled by the raised voices, a rarity in all our short lives. Uncle George opened his mouth to speak, but immediately thought the better of it as he caught sight of Auntie Beth’s warning glare. “Come on, darling”, Dad pleaded. “II’ll be fine, and anyway, we don’t want to be caught up here in the dark”, and with that, unusually for such a normally mild mannered man, he turned away abruptly, took my hand and started off down the hill.

Behind me there was icy silence, but looking back over my shoulder I saw Uncle George, after a moment’s hesitation, also start downwards guiding his son as he went. Auntie Beth shrugged her shoulders resignedly, took her daughter’s hand and set off after him. Mum, her face like thunder had no option but to follow behind. Not a word was spoken as we slipped and scrambled downwards. Dad had been right about one thing – the route was steep, but indeed covered in grass, nibbled short by the black-faced Shropshire sheep that grazed the hillsides and interspersed with large clumps of gorse and the occasional boulder. By this time Uncle George had moved slightly ahead of the party and we all saw him almost fall over on a particularly steep and slippery section. The silence was broken suddenly by a warning shout from Dad, “George! Dig your heels in!”

Then it happened. Barely were the words out of his mouth when Dad’s own feet shot out from under him. Instincively letting go of me, he put his hands out behind him to keep the seat of his pale slacks off the ground and careened feet-first downhill with arms and legs flailing, looking for all the world like one of those athletic Russian folk dancers in the baggy shirts, breeches and red boots. Hair akimbo, he slid about twenty feet before his wild progress was arrested by a particularly large and prickly gorse bush that punctured not only his dignity but several other tender parts of his body. The earlier tensions evaporated in an instant and we all, Mum included, howled with laughter at the sight of a tattered Dad trying to extricate himself from the bush without doing any further damage. Luckily the rest of the descent was kinder and we returned to the cars in good time and without further incident. Back in Shrewsbury Auntie Beth busied herself making sandwiches and a big pot of tea while Mum dabbed neat TCP into Dad’s numerous scratches, grinning to herself as he winced at the sharp sting of the antiseptic. “Don’t be such a baby”, she admonished., “Dig your heels in!”

To be honest, I don’t remember much of the return journies in those early days. In the evening and just before leaving I was changed into my pyjamas and settled sleepily under a blanket on the back seat of the faithful Moggy Minor with “Big Ted”, my hand-me-down, hairless teddy bear comforter with the button eye. Back home I was carried inside with my head on Dad’s shoulder and put yawning to bed with the minimum of fuss and disturbance.

Sadly, Uncle George and Auntie Beth are no longer with us, but the cousins have both visited me in Portugal and Mum and Dad still fly out once or twice a year. On their most recent holiday we went for our customary post-prandial stroll on the rough tracks that criss-cross the hills below The Cave. On one steepish stretch, Dad almost lost his footing on the slippery dust, leaves and small stones that carpeted the path. “Dig your heels in, Dad!”, I called. He turned and grinned.

OZ

Author: O Zangado

Just loping around. Extremely fond of roast boar in particular, meat in general and cooking on the barbie. Fish is good too. View all posts by O Zangado