Down an English Lane

by Margaret Thornton

  They found that finding their way around London was not really difficult, provided that you had a good map with all the main streets and the places of interest clearly marked; and it was easier, they soon discovered, to walk rather than use the buses or the Underground. To appease Timothy, however, they did take a few journeys on the Tube, so that he could show off his prowess with the multi-coloured map. And he was as good as his word; not once did he get them lost, or get on a train going the wrong way which, apparently, was a common mistake made by strangers to the city.

  And to please Johnny they had a ride on one of the big red buses. He had a Dinky bus in his toy box at home, but it could not compare with the real thing. He sat on the front seat of the upper deck staring out delightedly at Nelson’s Column in the middle of Trafalgar Square, where hundreds of pigeons were pecking at the nuts thrown to them by tourists. Timothy tried to give a running commentary to his little brother, but he eventually gave up when he realised his words were going in one ear and out of the other. He, too, just stared, taking in the wonderful sights and storing the memories in his mind to be mulled over later.

  Every evening when they had finished their sightseeing and returned to the hotel, Tim retired to the bedroom he was sharing with Luke, Patience and Johnny, to write up his diary. When they got back home he would make a journal, he had decided, including the postcards he had bought and some of the snapshots that Luke had taken.

  Maisie and Audrey had no such good intentions. They had already done quite enough writing during the exam fortnight. But the memories of this holiday would be lasting and very precious ones, they were sure of that. The two of them were sharing a bedroom and they lay awake for hours each night, discussing the events of the day. As Patience had predicted, it was hot in London, very hot; and the hotel, tucked away in a corner of one of the busiest parts of the city and surrounded by tall buildings, retained the heat of the day, even with the windows flung wide open. And when the girls finally fell asleep they were often awakened in the early hours of the next day by the dustcart collecting the refuse from the hotel and the others nearby. Their window overlooked a back alley, but even the dinginess of the view or the clang of dustbins and smashing of bottles at two o’clock in the morning could not detract from their delight in all the new experiences they were enjoying.

  ‘What have you enjoyed the best of all?’ asked Maisie as they lay in bed on the very last night. They had returned rather later than usual after having a final meal at what had become their favourite eating place: Lyon’s Corner House on the Strand. They had had a slap-up meal of steak and chips that evening, followed by apple pie and cream. Maisie had, again, been fascinated by the Nippies, as they were called, in their neat white aprons and caps, dashing hither and thither with their laden silver trays held high aloft.

  ‘Oh… I don’t know,’ replied Audrey. ‘What a difficult question. There’s so much to remember, isn’t there? I enjoyed the trip on the river boat, seeing all the sights from a different angle. St Paul’s dome – d’you remember how it shone in the sunlight? And going under Tower Bridge and seeing all the cargo boats unloading in the Pool of London. And the Angel Inn; I thought it was amazing to think that it was there in Tudor times and that it’s still here. Just think, perhaps even William Shakespeare had a drink there.’ The captain of the boat had given a running commentary and had told them that the Angel Inn in Bermondsey was the oldest inn on that bank of the Thames. They had learned all sorts of gems of information this last week.

  ‘And the Changing of the Guard,’ Audrey continued. ‘I know it’s put on for tourists, for folk like us who want to stare, but it’s exciting all the same. And wasn’t Johnny thrilled?’

  The little boy had stared, mesmerised, at the troop of Life Guards with their helmets shining in the sun and their gleaming bayonets pointing upwards at their side. Their red tunics had glowed as brightly as the geraniums in the flower beds near to Buckingham Palace, and the regimental music had made them feel ‘so proud to be British’, as Patience had remarked. Timothy had informed them that the Royal Standard flying – somewhat limply on that very hot day – from the palace flagpole meant that the King was at home. And how thrilling that was, to feel that King George the Sixth was actually so near to them.

  ‘I enjoyed the view from the Monument,’ said Maisie. ‘It was a bit scary at first, looking down all that way…’

  ‘Scary! I was terrified!’ said Audrey. It had taken a while for Maisie to persuade her to take in the view, and she had kept her arm around her all the time. It had been a breathtaking view; the dome of St Paul’s was the focal point, then, further away, the Tower and the River Thames, like a broad greyish-blue ribbon running under its myriad bridges towards Westminster, an endless panorama of roofs, chimneys, spires, towers and domes. It was like that poem by Wordsworth, written on Westminster Bridge, Maisie had thought.

  Timothy had reminded them, when they returned to terra firma, that the Monument was Sir Christopher Wren’s memorial to the Great Fire of London, and that the view that they had seen from the top that day was almost exactly the same as the one seen by Samuel Pepys and those who had lived in the city at that time, apart from the rebuilding of St Paul’s. For not only were some of the well-known sights visible from the Monument, but also a scene of destruction, the legacy of the Blitz; a scene such as would have been viewed following the devastating fire three hundred years before.

  ‘What a miracle it was that St Paul’s was not bombed,’ Luke had remarked when they had paid a visit to the cathedral, and had seen how it stood like a sentinel amidst the vast areas of rubbish and rubble which still surrounded it. In the patches of earth the rose-bay willow-herb plant had grown up and flourished, covering stretches of ground with its bright pinky-purplish flowers. It had come to be known as London Pride by the inhabitants of the city.

  ‘Perhaps the next time we go they might have rebuilt the area around St Paul’s,’ said Maisie, recalling Luke’s words. ‘It’s said that London was rebuilt within three years of the Great Fire, but I don’t believe that, do you? It looks as though it may take much longer this time. War is dreadful, isn’t it, Audrey? I hope there will never, ever be another one.’ She stopped suddenly, realising that Audrey might find her remark tactless, considering that the girl had lost both her parents during the war. But Audrey did not appear to be affected by her friend’s words.

  ‘Yes…’ she agreed. ‘It is dreadful… But we have to look to the future now, as my father is always reminding us.’ It was amazing, really, how Audrey could refer to Luke as her father in such a forthright way. It had not always been so, certainly not at first, when she had been adopted by the rector and his wife, but now she seemed very proud of the fact. ‘And the future for you and me, Maisie, is exams and more exams,’ she went on. ‘We’ll start studying for our Higher in September.’

  ‘For goodness sake, give it a rest!’ retorted Maisie, laughing. ‘It’s ages and ages till September. Let’s try and think of something more cheerful… Are you looking forward to seeing Brian again? Have you missed him?’

  ‘Mmm…sort of,’ said Audrey. ‘Yes, it’ll be nice to see him again. Actually, I’ve hardly thought about him at all; we’ve been so busy. What about you…and Ted?’

  ‘Same here,’ replied Maisie. ‘I must admit I’ve hardly given him a thought all week.’ She surprised herself by her admission, but it was true. ‘I sent him a card, but it seems as though out of sight has been out of mind as well. Isn’t that awful?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Audrey. ‘Middlebeck seems a long way away, doesn’t it? But I expect we’ll settle down again.’

  ‘We will have to, I suppose…’ said Maisie thoughtfully. ‘Anyway, we’d better try and go to sleep. Goodnight, love. Sleep tight…’

  ‘Goodnight, Maisie…’ her friend replied.

  Maisie did not go to sleep for a while. Middlebeck did, indeed, seem to be a very long way away from London, not only in distance but in its way of life; the steady day
to day existence endured – or maybe even enjoyed – by its inhabitants, who had no desire to live elsewhere or to seek a different kind of lifestyle. She had realised this past week that there was a whole world waiting for her away from the northern dales, not only in Britain but much further afield. She had never before been out of her native Yorkshire, and London was only the start. There were other parts of the British Isles to explore; Scotland, Ireland, Wales, the Lake District, the Cotswolds, or the far western counties of Devon and Cornwall. She had seen pictures in the windows of travel agencies they had passed, and these yet unseen places had beckoned to her enticingly.

  In the windows of the airline agencies in the Strand or Regent Street – BOAC, KLM, or Pan American Airways, names which were starting to sound familiar, even to ordinary untravelled folk – there were models of aeroplanes with great silver wings, advertising flights to Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, or the United States of America.

  And in the windows of the Cunard Company were models of the two great British ocean going liners, the Queen Elizabeth and her sister ship, the Queen Mary, which were now making the journey each week between Southampton and New York. There were adverts for cruise ships, too, visiting such wondrous places as the Mediterranean ports, the Norwegian fjords, or the islands of the South Seas.

  Only for the rich, of course, excursions such as these, but that did not stop Maisie from wishing and hoping.

  They arrived back in Middlebeck on Thursday afternoon, and the same evening Maisie had a surprise visit from Ted. Lily and Arthur, tactfully, left them alone in the living room to talk. Lily had noticed the rather hangdog expression on the young man’s face, she had told Maisie later, and had guessed that he might want to speak to her privately.

  ‘This is a surprise,’ said Maisie. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you till after choir practice. I thought you might meet me out tomorrow night, like you sometimes do.’

  ‘Er, well…that’s why I wanted to see you now,’ said Ted, staring down at his feet and wiping his clammy hands on his trousers before he raised his head and looked at her. ‘Before you see Celia at choir practice, I mean. I’ve got summat to tell you, Maisie… I’m awful sorry, but…’

  ‘But you’ve started seeing Celia, haven’t you?’ she interrupted. He nodded silently. If she were honest with herself she was not surprised, although it had given her rather a start all the same. She had noticed, on the odd occasions that the three of them had been together, that the other two seemed to get on very well. She gave a slight shrug. ‘Well then, that’s OK, if it’s what you want. Thanks for telling me and not leaving me to just…find out.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Maisie,’ he said again. ‘I don’t want to hurt you, honest I don’t, and neither does Celia. I haven’t taken her out whilst I’ve been seeing you, only this week while you’ve been away. And she said I had to tell you before I saw her again. I do think a lot about you. And I know I could easily get to – you know – be even more fond of you. But it’s no use… You’ve got all your studying to do, your sixth form an’ college an’ all that. An’ I’m just an ordinary bloke. Nowhere near good enough for you, Maisie…’

  ‘You mustn’t say that, Ted,’ she replied. ‘Never, not about me nor about anybody else, because it’s not true. We’re just different, that’s all… But I suppose it wouldn’t have worked in the long run, with you and me. Anyway… I hope you and Celia get on OK. She’s a nice girl and she’s probably better for you than I was.’ She stopped speaking because she didn’t know what else to say and she was beginning to flounder; besides, even though what she was saying to him was true, it still hurt to think that he didn’t want to go out with her anymore. She blinked hard.

  Fortunately he stood up then. ‘Well, I’ll go now… There’s no reason why we can’t still be friends, Maisie. You’ll still… talk to me, won’t you? And Celia…she feels quite bad about it.’

  ‘Yes, Ted…it’s OK,’ she said briefly. ‘Thanks for coming. See you soon then…’

  ‘Ta-ra, Maisie. Be seeing you…’

  ‘He’s dumped me, Mum,’ she said when her mother came into the room a few moments later. ‘And he’s started going out with Celia James from the choir; you know, the girl who was Cinderella.’

  ‘Oh dear!’ said Lily, sitting on the settee and putting an arm around her. ‘I guessed it might be something like that; he was looking a bit shifty. Well, never mind. You can’t really call it dumping you, love, because you weren’t really much more than friends, were you?’

  ‘Er, no… I suppose not.’

  ‘And he wasn’t right for you. I never thought he was. He’s a nice enough lad and all that, but he’s not the one for you, Maisie.’

  ‘Why? Because he’s got a Yorkshire accent and he works on a farm and gets his clothes mucky?’ Maisie’s hurt was making her feel that she wanted to strike out at somebody, although she knew, deep down, that her mother’s words were true. Ted was not the one for her, and she had known that their friendship could not have continued for much longer.

  ‘Now, now, I didn’t say that,’ replied Lily. ‘I know you’re upset, but you’ll get over it, really you will. Anyway you are only sixteen, and you’re going into the sixth form soon, remember. You have years and years ahead of you before you need to start thinking seriously about boyfriends.’

  ‘You didn’t say that when you met my dad, did you? How old were you? Seventeen?’

  ‘Yes…but that was different. I was just a mill worker and so was he. I could never have gone to college an’ all that even if I’d wanted to. But I want you to make the most of your opportunities, Maisie. Times are so very different now…’

  As had been expected, both Maisie and Audrey’s School Certificate results were very good. They had both passed in all their subjects, Maisie gaining distinctions in English Language, English Literature and History, and credits in most of the other papers; apart from General Science, which had never been of great interest to her and in which she had scraped through with only a pass mark. Audrey’s results were equally gratifying. She, too, had excelled in the English papers and also in Mathematics. Her prowess in this subject she had inherited from her real father, who had been a bank manager in Leeds.

  They were both well qualified to enter the sixth form and start studying for their ‘Higher’. Maisie chose English Literature, Geography and History as her main subjects, and Audrey, English, Geography and Art; she would need to be proficient in this last subject if she were to succeed as an Infant teacher, and she already had a flair for painting and drawing.

  Audrey, therefore, was not one of the group of twelve girls, plus two teachers, who journeyed to York during the first week of December on a History trip. It was known educationally as an Environmental Visit, to provide an insight into the subject they were studying, and also, it must be admitted, to be a little holiday as well, one of the perks of being a sixth form student.

  They alighted from the train at York Station, said to have been the largest railway station in the world when it was completed in 1877. With its high arched glass roof, supported by an iron framework, it was an impressive sight. Maisie had visited the city before on a couple of occasions, but mainly to look at the shops and to take a cursory look at some of the well known sights. But for the next few days they were to make a detailed study of the city and, inevitably, write a thesis on returning as part of their coursework.

  The place was steeped in history, and it was not difficult to imagine themselves back in Victorian, or even Medieval, times as they wandered through the narrow twisting streets with their jettied houses practically meeting across the cobbled roadways. Their quaint, old-fashioned hotel was in a black and white building in Low Petergate street that, they were told, had originally been part of the Roman fort’s main road.

  Maisie had known that York – Eboracum, as it was then called – had been an important city, second only to London, fortified by the Romans, but she had had no idea that Constantine the Great had been proclaimed Emperor there in AD
306.

  And after the Romans came the Vikings from Denmark and Norway. They had captured Anglo-Saxon York in AD 867 and settled there. They called the town Yorvik and made it their main base in England; until they were driven out by King Edward of the Saxons in 954…

  All too long ago and too far away to be of much consequence to us today, thought Maisie. All the same, she was captivated by stories such as these, and enthralled by their in-depth studies of such places as the Minster, the Treasure House and the Mansion House, Clifford’s Tower, and the many old churches, tucked away in corners of the cobbled streets.

  They walked through the streets in a crocodile, more or less, and for most of the time they were expected to wear their school uniform of navy and pale blue. But the teachers trusted them to behave as sensible young women, and provided they were all back at the hotel at five o’clock – by which time it was dark – in readiness for their early evening meal at six, they did not do too much counting of heads.

  Maisie had palled up that week with a girl called Jill, with whom she was sharing a room along with two other girls, Hilary and Sheila. On the third day of the holiday the girls were told they could make their own way back to the hotel – they had been visiting the Minster and the hotel was only a few streets away – provided they kept in twos or threes and promised, on no account, to be late. Maisie and Jill, who had been together all afternoon, looked at one another and grinned.

  ‘There’s a shop I want to look at in Stonegate,’ said Jill. ‘We passed it the other day, but there wasn’t time to stop. I noticed a gorgeous teddy bear that my little sister would love…’

  ‘OK,’ said Maisie. ‘Let’s go then. And I’ll see if there’s anything I can get for my brother and sister…’

  York was a magical sight at that time of the year, only a few weeks prior to Christmas. Already a dazzling Christmas tree was shining out into the darkness surrounding the Minster, and the shop windows were gay with toys and gifts, glittering baubles and streamers and artificial snow; such a contrast to the gloom of only two years before, when blackout restrictions had made all such light and gaiety impossible. Fairy lights were strung across Stonegate, a somewhat broader road than many of the others, and here there was a variety of shops: high class ladies and gents’ outfitters, hatter’s, and exclusive shoe shops such as only the rich could afford to patronise, cheek by jowl with toy and gift shops; tobacconists, tea rooms, from which there drifted an appetising aroma of roasting coffee, even a butcher’s and a grocer’s shop.