My rules state (being a Brit you understand these are rules in my head and nowhere written down - so much more classy constitutionally speaking!) that any new walk must begin somewhere on a circle previously described. So for the first time I use a car, but only to travel a couple of miles before parking near Holy Trinity, Northampton (post: 27.04.16)
I walk up Eastern Avenue South. It's a name that hints at a Grand Design, but there's no Western Avenue or Central Plaza to the St. David's area of Kingsthorpe, and though it's a long road, Eastern Avenue South hiccups in its middle even before it becomes...Eastern Avenue North. Half way along I arrive at St. David's church. There's something going on with children in the hall which I don't interrupt, so I sit on a bench in the small garden to pray and read a psalm. I hope the residents won't mind if I say this has always seemed to me an isolated and neglected part of town. St. David's and St. Mark's, Whitehills are grouped with St. John's Kingsthorpe, essentially appearing now as two mission churches bonded to an ancient foundation, both established in the nineteen thirties when housing boomed to meet new aspirations and the government built its way out of recession. I wonder what this feels like to the three separate but linked congregations. Looking forward into the 21st century is this good and sensible planning or not?
As I climb the hill further until it meets Boughton Green Road, I know I'm walking into our personal history. Here is the original part of Nene College, now the University of Northampton, which is spreading itself town-wide. Here is the Sunnyside pub. Here is Reynard Way and the second house we bought, at a time when young teachers didn't think twice about inviting their older students round to decorate their living room with an extravagantly inventive mural in green, purple and chocolate brown. ('You'll have to get rid of that', said the estate agent when we came to sell it). In those days we weren't much given to walking, so it's now a novel experience to pick my way round familiar streets on foot. Back then, having a car was a novelty, so we were in it whenever we could, crazily busy, fanatically dedicated to our profession. There was never the spare time or energy to use Shank's. I'm therefore surprised to find a small field where I didn't know there was one, and footpaths leading past a flower-filled nursery over the Harborough Road to Whitehills. Before I seek out St. Mark's, I visit our very first house in Clover Lane, a perfect starter home, costing £8750 in 1974. We had difficulty in persuading anyone to give us a mortgage for £5000, even though we were two graduates with good jobs. Me? Hold grudges? You bet! The banks, yesterday, today, forever.
To my shame I never made it inside St. Mark's (or St. David's) despite living so close-by for a decade and I won't today either. I can see an elderly gentleman shifting chairs in the hall, and suspect a lunch for seniors may be imminent, so again I don't disturb him to ask for a key to investigate what looks like a nice, bright, airy space inside the church.
Back in this old stamping ground, memories are crowding in on me, mostly good, but of course tinged with regret for things I might have done differently long ago. Then we acted fearlessly and with apparent assurance that we had the answers to everything. Now in (let's be generous) late middle age, we act only with caution and reserve. And in both unthought, instinctive strategies, there are seeds of sadness, ways of hurting people. We humans just can't help putting our foot in it, even if sometimes we can almost reach out and touch glory. Yup, folks, it's good ole 'original sin'.
But hey, the sun's struggling to emerge from a milky sky, so pushing maudlin stuff away, I retrace my steps and then pick up the path to Boughton (Bowton! cf. post: 08.05). I pause at the obelisk thrown up as one of the seven follies on the old Boughton estate just in front of a pretty new-ish pocket park. Seven? Only seven! Just a back garden project compared to Stowe.
St. John the Baptist, Boughton is slap bang on the wisteria-scented main street, convenient for the toffs from the Big House to stroll down. But originally it was only a chapel, and highly desirable though the property is around here, the real story of the village lies under the soil a mile away close to the ruins of St. John's church. A triangle of lanes marks the site of the Boughton Green Fayre, once nationally renowned. It survived as a horse fair until 1916, when other matters occupied the nation's mind. The infamous Captain Slash ( now there's a tabloid headline!), a highwayman, was arraigned here a century earlier and met his end on the gallows at Northampton's Racecourse. The small grounds of the current village church are quiet and peaceful. I drink some water, survey the scene, and remember that Sue and I came to see the Diocesan Director of Ordinands here in 1982, when for a daft moment I thought I might fancy ordination. The DDO didn't think much of the idea, and neither did Sue. They were right, and he's now Bishop of Dover, a preferment he doubtless wouldn't have obtained if he'd shown judgment so poor as to let me in.
Remembering last week's experience at Overstone, I opt for traversing the grounds of the stately home, rather than the tempting, direct, trespassing option, but have to put up with a quarter-mile or more of the busy A508 as a consequence. Then I turn off down a farm lane, and get rewarded with a magnificent long view of open country, green and yellow under a heat-haze. And now I can find virtue in the fields of rape. Like seaside sand under a humid sky, they shimmer and dance, reflecting mystical light upwards into the distant murk. From the 110 metre heights of Boughton, the path descends thirty of forty metres past a new plantation to the old railway line from Northampton to Market Harborough. The heritage buffs are at work here, about to build a new station at the Boughton Crossing. The track's laid and awaits the construction of a new platform. The work and ingenuity involved in this and similar projects astounds me. If you're building a railway, you won't find time for church.
I stop for lunch at The Windhover, and then keep to the tarmac cycle path along the line of the old permanent way back to Kingsthorpe. As on the western approaches to Northampton, the fields along the river here seem to penetrate further into the urban space than they should, and at length there's a pastoral idyll of a view, almost a 19thC view, across to Kingsthorpe's parish church. I follow my nose through the maze of little paths which arrow in on the village green. I get lucky and because it's Thursday afternoon and Mums and Tots, hurrah, the church is open. I talk to Lisa - I think it was Lisa, but my brain's in oxygen deficit - anyway she's running the afternoon session and four of her own children are in Andrew Moodie's choir here. Andrew used to direct the music at Weston Favell: a good professional, like many who do this part-time job, able to turn his hand to playing the organ, conducting, composing ( a copy of his service for morning worship at St. John's is open on a lectern) and teaching. I buy a battered edition of the church's history. Outside I cross paths with Fiona the curate and say hello. She looks rather surprised: her mind is probably on small children.
Walking back towards the car I find friend Gerald walking towards me. He's distributing public information literature about the 'Brexit' referendum to householders, good citizen that he is. I've known Gerald and played various kinds of crazy music with him for nearly forty years. One time member of Northampton's 'Celebrated Ratliffe Stout Band', a musician of heart, soul and dangerous lead guitar breaks, raconteur extraordinary and general good egg, he always has a joke for me. This time there are four, none of which I feel I can share with this blog, but they're all funny, tho' I only 'get' one an hour later. Inevitably at this moment one centres on a Tory politician arriving at the Pearly Gates. You know you want to: go on, make up your own version! We shake our heads at all the referendum lunacy, and its alarming power to unleash British prejudice. We speculate: will it prove a helpful blood-letting, after which we'll return to normality?
Stats man: 15 km. Leisurely 4.5 hours. 4 churches visited. 10 rabbits seen. Hello greeting to 11 people. Humidity 80%
Dear Lord
All those years!
What times! What people! What fun we had!
I run the DVD in my head,
And cringe at some of the things I said and did,
clutching at the straw there was no lasting harm.
Lord, remember not the sins and offences of my youth.
I trust you to heal any injuries I caused
As I rucked my way across the pitch of life.
And now Lord, please help me
As towards the end of the game I ask, 'What's next'?
Amen.
So very moving
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