Engel's England

by Matthew Engel

  A sculptor and lettercutter called Andrew Whittle had been commissioned to produce a stone to commemorate Winstanley for an exhibition. He was taken with the idea: ‘There was no known grave and he seemed like a worthy character,’ Whittle explained. One thing led to another, and thus he found himself marching through the gates of St George’s Hill with a group of activists to do a bit of ranting (in the very specific, seventeenth-century sense) and erect the stone in a permanent site on the hill. So they duly trundled the stone up the hill and across the golf course – startling a couple of ladies waiting to tee off – to a bit of spare ground in the woods. All this had been agreed by the Residents’ Association.

  That’s what Whittle thought he was doing, anyway. But two things he didn’t know. Firstly, these Diggers (300 of them, they claimed; probably more like thirty) were not planning just to commemorate their predecessors, but to emulate them – only this time they were not going to be pushed out. They had a marquee and a supply of perfectly good food thrown out as unsaleable by the supermarkets. Secondly, as Whittle explained, the residents had changed their minds: ‘First of all, they thought it was fine. A free bit of art, thank you. Then they found out who Winstanley was. Suddenly, they got very cold feet.’

  Millenarian socialism did not go down well with the Cromwellian establishment in 1649. It was never likely to be popular, with the real millennium approaching, on Britain’s richest estate, especially not among the Russians who had reached here by getting rid of the communists. History now began to repeat itself to an uncanny degree. The Diggers made big statements; the locals harassed them – one activist got punched and, said Whittle: ‘I remember a Mercedes with blacked-out windows that stopped so they could lob golf balls at us’; the water company which owned the patch of land being used for the camp, got heavy and went to court; and the whole thing fizzled out in a fortnight.

  There was one loose end: the stone which had been temporarily dug in was now homeless and, although it was rather beautiful, had become very unpopular on the hill, where it was thought to be a potential magnet for tourists, ramblers, idealists and other riff-raff. Elmbridge Council did agree to find a home for it. And so now it stands in the woods, half-hidden in the summer by bracken, close to Weybridge Station, by the junction with Cobbetts Hill, which gives it some historical resonance (William Cobbett, a far more effective radical than Winstanley, was also a Surrey lad: born and buried at Farnham). There is an information board, covered with dust and bird shit, but quite helpful, offering a not very convincing Diggers’ trail round the area. It does not include St George’s Hill.

  By 2011 the proportion of ex-Soviets on the estate was estimated at between a quarter and a third. Many of the houses were empty, or nearly always empty, because they were owned by people who had boltholes everywhere. When I was there, one had just been taken over by squatters. The original houses are very attractive but hardly any are protected by listing, so the gig now – I was told – goes like this: resident sells to developer for £3 million; developer spends £500,000 on demolishing the house and £3 million on putting up a more sumptuous replacement, then sells for £10 million to a Russian or a footballer.

  St George’s Hill is a very pretty place, offering what is usually called an enviable lifestyle. The houses are shielded by a riot of Surrey shrubbery, as well as high walls and security gates to offer protection from anyone not filtered out by the guards at the entrances to the estate. But the grass alongside the rampant rhododendrons is cut uniformly, like a fairway, which looks ridiculous: a foreign billionaire’s conception of England. ‘A nice place to live,’ said one advert. A nice place to endure house arrest while cowering from your enemies, perhaps. But to live? It’s miles to the shops and Lord knows how you borrow a cup of sugar from a neighbour.

  What would Winstanley have thought? Well, here’s the funniest thing of all. After the Diggers’ thing collapsed, he came into money and land, farmed near Cobham and became a churchwarden, constable and overseer of the poor. He would probably have fancied one of George Tarrant’s houses.

  Surely there must be somewhere in Surrey with which I could fall in love? So many of these places looked so beautiful, but further investigation made them seem intolerable (and usually intolerant as well). Flicking through Pevsner, I found something unexpected: FARLEIGH: ‘A tiny hamlet on the North Downs, quite unspoiled – almost the most rural in Surrey. Flint and brick farms and barns. This extraordinary place is four miles from the centre of Croydon.’ The edition was dated 1971. Doubtless it must have been wrecked by now. I could see this for myself, write a few more angry paragraphs, damn Surrey to hell and move on.

  It was Friday evening; the traffic was just starting to ease off, the weather was cooling down and Kathy the satnav was becoming calmer. She directed me along the M25 and up the steep hill towards Warlingham. Even this bit was a revelation: more like a Shropshire lane than the lanes they have in – ghastly word – ‘countrified’ Surrey. I passed somewhere called Halliloo House, nothing special as a property, but I could see what had inspired the name.

  Then out of Warlingham, pleasantly unpretentious, to Farleigh. I passed the Harrow, an unappealing pub with a packed car park that was obviously very Surrey. Then things changed. This was not like any normal boundary: it was like walking through the wardrobe into a parallel world.

  The grass on Great Farleigh Green grew high, set about with ox-eye daisies; there were twisted hawthorns instead of rhododendrons; horses grazed in thistly fields. I found my way to the church. It was small, Norman and stuccoed – in continuous use for worship since 1086, the rector, Rev. Alan Middleton, told me later. There was a breeze now and everything felt fresh. Nearby there was a tatty riding centre; across the road bits of machinery and a collection of old tyres. Normally, this might be annoying. But after days in Surrey, it was a revelation: like an English English village, not an oligarch’s notion of it, a place where people might even tend their own garden and let their children play in it. Here was a place where a man might breathe and a dog might crap.

  A bloke on a bicycle rode out of the woods. His name was Peter and he stopped for a chat. Stopped for a chat! In Surrey!

  ‘I didn’t know this place,’ I said.

  ‘Weird, isn’t it? You wouldn’t believe we’re a couple of miles from Croydon. I tell people at work I pass horses, cows and sheep and they don’t believe me. Mind you, we’re 600 feet up. Gets a bit naughty in the wintertime.’

  Not only is this not like Surrey, for a few years in the 1960s it was officially moved – into Greater London. That notion was so mad and the locals so determined that they fought and won. The history is that the land was owned by Merton College, Oxford, which refused to allow any development when the south London suburbs began their march towards the sea. The college was too rich to care, too dozy or too high-minded (too rich, probably). Then came the Green Belt legislation and suddenly the land could not be developed. Thus it has remained, in this glorious time warp.

  There has been some change: one farm has become a golf course; a few new houses have been allowed, and some residents insist on behaving as though they were elsewhere in Surrey and lock their front gates. But otherwise it remains astonishingly untouched. There is also a hall at the back of the church, useful for parish meetings – where people can get het up if developers find Farleigh on the map and start getting ideas – and also deanery synods. Alan Middleton said he was attending a particularly dull one of these when a horse suddenly appeared at the window and stared in. ‘I’m sure he was laughing.’

  The church itself is well attended. It uses an old-fashioned prayer book and on summer Sundays the congregation serve cream teas all afternoon, followed at 8 by candlelit compline with a guest speaker. ‘Everyone wants to come,’ says the rector. ‘It’s very popular among those who like a certain kind of religion.’ You bet! I’m a cream-tea-and-candlelit-compline Christian, and I’m Jewish.

  I resolved to return, not to Surrey, but here – to unSurrey. I had f
ound it. Halliloo, indeed, Halliloo-loo-jah!

  June 2011

  I was not imagining the blotches at Guildford Cathedral. In 2014 the cathedral’s website said there was a ‘serious risk of closure’ because of the state of the ceiling.

  4. Oh, my name it means nothing

  DURHAM

  The day of the 127th Durham Miners’ Gala dawned bright, with a hint of threat. As the crowds gathered good-naturedly on the streets leading into Durham city, clouds gathered more menacingly on the horizon. There was what felt like a conscious decision to ignore them. This may be a metaphor for the fate of the coal industry.

  The first thing outsiders learn about the Gala is that it’s pronounced ‘Gayla’. The second thing is that it isn’t necessarily. Most of the locals say ‘Garla’. I think this is a lesson in advanced Englishism, not just an unexpected pronunciation like Leominster/Lemster but something more complex. Maybe in Durham there are multiple layers of initiation and in some inner sanctum it really is called ‘the Gayla’. It’s also called The Big Meeting.

  There’s actually not much call for outsiders to call it anything at all. They are not unwelcome, just not expected. The signposting is useless. This may be because the event comes under the aegis of the National Union of Mineworkers, no longer the country’s most vibrant organisation (in July 2011 its homepage was still wishing members a Happy New Year) but also because Durham is a bit introspective. The people are not unwelcoming, the complete reverse. Nor, in the city, are they unused to tourists. But they still seem surprised to see any. They greet visitors from distant Herefordshire with the same kindly bemusement (‘You’re not from here, are you?’) with which they might greet ET.

  It’s not a big meeting either. It’s a middle-sized meeting. The Communist paper, the Morning Star, still clinging on for dear life, reported that ‘trade union leaders addressed 130,000 people’. They did nothing of the kind. They addressed about a thousand or two. Maybe 130,000 were in town, but the Gala has multiple purposes. It is a political meeting; it is a funfair; it is an informal brass band festival; it is an obeisance to history; it is a church service; it is a piss-up.

  Bourgeois Durham recoils. ‘It was all right when it was families coming for picnics,’ one woman working at the cathedral told me as she prepared to leave town. ‘Now it’s just an excuse to get drunk.’ Families do come, though they may not be the sort normally seen round the ancient cathedral. In the shadow of the walls, I saw a man pointing out his four-year-old to his mate. ‘He’s a little shit, that one,’ he said. ‘Gunna be a copper.’

  The Gala-goers march through the streets behind their smartly uniformed bandsmen and their lovingly crafted banners – some representing historic miners’ lodges, some representing still-thriving unions – to the Old Racecourse by the river. A small minority stood listening to repetitive speeches from an endless cavalcade of union leaders and old lefties. The speakers were behind a banner provided by the Morning Star and in front of a funfair sideshow called Jungle Madness. The speeches contained the same mixture of ever-changing topical references and unchanging slogans that have formed the basis of left-wing politics throughout my adult life: ‘We must all work for a new Labour government but it must be a true Labour government … Brothers and sisters, we are under attack from the government … They’ve got an ideological hatred of working people … WE OPPOSE THE CUTS!’

  The vast majority of the 130,000, or whatever, were either out of earshot – the sound system was mercifully useless – or just not listening. They were having fun. But then the clouds, which had been quietly moving towards critical mass all morning, suddenly exploded. There was a single but ferocious thunderclap and an overwhelming downpour. The speakers paused and huddled under umbrellas. I was given sanctuary behind the desk of a stall manned by the North-East Shop Stewards’ Network, which I will always remember with gratitude. The locals, famously insouciant about the weather, took little notice. The big fairground rides like the Waltzer and the Hard Rock continued as before, just as busy. Maybe the rain was an added thrill.

  When it eased and Dennis Skinner MP began banging on, I followed the banner of the Dean and Chapter Lodge which I assumed, with a name like that, must be heading for the cathedral. Actually, they were heading home to Ferryhill, whence they came. Dean and Chapter was the name of Ferryhill’s old pit because the Church was the landowner.

  The cathedral was packed anyway. Probably more people heard the current dean, the Very Reverend Michael Sadgrove, welcome them than listened to Dennis Skinner. In accordance with tradition, new banners were brought in to be blessed. Those from Easington and Eppleton collieries were given a place of honour, draped in black, to mark the sixtieth anniversary of major pit disasters: eighty-one killed at Easington in May 1951; nine at Eppleton five weeks later. ‘This is the day,’ said Sadgrove, ‘when I am reminded who this cathedral really belongs to.’

  Durham used to be dominated by a unique coalition: the coal industry and the Church, both once impregnable: the one now effectively vanished, except from folklore; the other facing the future with alarm. As the dean well knew, their relationship in this county was never straightforward, and the question of what belonged to whom was at the heart of the problem.

  On the eve of the Gala, I overheard an American tourist describe Durham Cathedral as ‘quite impressive’. Quite? OK, but not as classy as Minneapolis or Little Rock, then?

  Apart from anything else, Durham is the most unignorable cathedral in England. It stands on both a promontory and a peninsula, where the River Wear does a sharp U-turn. It looks like a defensive position, I said to Michael Sadgrove. Exactly, he replied. The Saxon followers of St Cuthbert discovered the site a century after the Vikings had chased them out of Lindisfarne. Then the Normans arrived and, having harried, devastated and subdued the North, they built their own cathedral, dedicating it to Cuthbert as a sop to local opinion, and placed it under the control of a bishop who turned into a prince. Durham did not become a county like any other; it was never a shire. It was a quasi-independent nation, run by a bishop who had his own army, parliament, courts and coinage. Though its independence waned after the Reformation, it remained a palatinate, a statelet, until 1836: arguably more of a country than Wales.

  And much of the land was owned directly by the Church. This became worthwhile when lead and silver mining took off in the early days of the Industrial Revolution. These industries were based in the west of the county: rugged, remote, now almost wholly depopulated. The silver was worked out, and the price of lead plummeted – just as the coal industry, in the eastern half of Durham, took off, creating another bonanza for the diocese. The mine owners, the Church among them, grew rich. The colliers did not grow rich but they had steady work: low-paid, dangerous and often horrendous, but reliable, less cyclical than Durham’s other great industries of shipbuilding and steel.

  For a century Durham was defined by Church and coal. But it was a stormy marriage. In 1892 Bishop Westcott brokered a peace deal that ended a particularly bitter strike. In the 1930s the miners were so livid with Bishop Henson (who had denounced the Jarrow march as ‘organised mob pressure’) that they tried to throw him in the river on Gala Day. Actually, they had the wrong man: it was his dean, dressed in bishop’s robes because he had once been Bishop of Calcutta. In 1984 Bishop Jenkins, the scholar-iconoclast who dared to admit to doubts about the Gospels, vociferously backed the miners’ strike. And to this day the cathedral authorities are acutely sensitive about the contrast between the opulence of their building and the poverty of the diocese. Despite its magnificence, Durham Cathedral does not charge admission.

  The night before the Gala it had been almost empty. The afternoon was rainy, and at Choral Evensong the congregation was slightly outnumbered by the choir. They sang Harold Darke’s arrangement of the Magnificat in A Minor, beautifully. The audience huddled alongside them in the seventeenth-century choir stalls, awestruck. It was as if a troupe of West End stars were putting on the performance of their
lives at a sparsely attended matinee.

  In return we recited the Apostles’ Creed as though we were certain of its truth:

  I believe in the Holy Spirit,

  the holy catholic Church,

  the communion of saints,

  the forgiveness of sins,

  the resurrection of the body,

  and the life everlasting.

  But as I mouthed the words, I was finalising my plan, for a rare, I think unique, Friday-night double. I had asked a local expert, Mike Amos of the Northern Echo, where I should go to capture the spirit of County Durham. He didn’t even stop to think. ‘Wheatley Hill dog track,’ he replied.

  It was below the village, the other side from the closed-down pit, just below the closed-down pub. It comprised some of the ugliest buildings in the palatinate: a mixture of breezeblocks and Meccano. The kennels looked as though they had burned down (they had). Nearby were several tethered ponies, munching in reasonable contentment. Sometimes they get raced on a Sunday evening. The official County Durham signs still call it Land of the Prince Bishops. I think of it as the Land of the Tethered Pony.

  This is part of a secret world, hiding in plain sight, as mystical in its way as Choral Evensong. Wheatley Hill is a ‘flapping track’, beyond the reach of the authorities that control greyhound racing, just about subject to the laws of England, but basically operating to codes that might have been understood, in some circles, at the time of the Apostles. They have been racing here on Friday nights since no one knows when. ‘It hasn’t changed much,’ said Tommy White from Hartlepool, who had been smoking his roll-ups here for sixty years. And it was going long before he arrived.

  ‘It used to be Tuesday night and Saturday morning too. That was good. I could come here in the morning, do Houghton on a Saturday afternoon and Easington or Stockton on Saturday night.’ He had just had half a lung out. ‘Nothing will stop me coming to the dogs,’ he said. Or smoking his roll-ups. Tommy was an old seacoaler, the most characteristic of marginal Durham jobs: wading into the sea, netting the coal waste that was either dumped into the water or emerged from seams deep under the seabed and drifted in on the tide and the easterlies, staining the beach black. There was enough coal in the waste to make some kind of living.