Open Writing

On a hot summer day over sixty years ago, Ma took me on a bus trip to Southwell. For locals, it was Suthull, more or less, just as Rainworth was Rennuth and Blidworth was Blidduth. They're small towns in Nottinghamshire, except that Southwell is sometimes called a city.

After visiting the cathedral, which is called a minster, we went to an unpretentious upstairs tea-room on the main street. Curtains in the sash windows kept the room cool. White linen cloths were smooth on the little wooden tables. We enjoyed a pot of tea and homely slices of bread and butter with apricot jam. It's interesting how one remembers small things, isn't it?

In those days, Southwell seemed to be a village when compared with Newark-on-Trent, where I was born. Its 'cathedral in a village' is said to have been founded fourteen centuries ago. The sturdy stone building which still stands is largely from Norman times, a modest ten centuries ago.

There's a family connection, too. My grandfather, the idiosyncratic, William George Barratt (1838–1901), lived for a time in the precincts of the Bishop's Palace. An agèd aunt fondly remembered those far-off days: 'The house had glorious gardens, pagodas and steps, and spacious rooms'. However, agèd aunts in our family were prone to mislead by exaggeration. WGB did not serve the Church of England in any grandiose position. He was a gardener, or perhaps a steward, so the infant children in Victorian times had free run of the palace grounds.

The population of the whole of Nottinghamshire is about one-third of the population of the city where I now live. But Melbourne does not have a castle on a rock or Ye Olde Trip To Jerusalem, the oldest pub in England, so called because pilgrims had a swig or two of ale when they passed through Nottingham on their way to the holy city.

Melbourne does have the largest cricket ground in the world and, among other edifices, a residential tower 297 metres in height. That's OK, if you like that sort of thing, but Newark has a parish church the size of a cathedral, with a spire 73 metres tall. So what? Well, the tower was built 800 years ago and the spire added 600 years ago. Some of us prefer that sort of thing for beauty and revered age.

Another grand Nottinghamshire sight is the Major Oak near the town of Edwinstowe. Legend has it that Robin Hood used to hide in this enormous tree. Be that as it may, it is certainly many centuries old. Umpteen family albums have snapshots of half a dozen happy kids standing in the hole in its huge trunk. That probably isn't permitted, now, as the ancient tree is in danger of collapsing.

When I was old enough to go on bus trips without my mother, I went with a school pal to Edwinstowe. Our mission was to inspect the Major Oak. We were disappointed by Sherwood Forest, of course. Even in those days there were very few trees in evidence, covering a much smaller area than we anticipated. It was a hot summer day. Childhood in those times comprised lots of hot summer days, remember? We went into a small, dark shop for a cold drink, and emerged into the sunshine with ginger beer. Not your commercial stuff, but the real thing, cool and sparkling in stone bottles.

Words from Richard Llewellyn's immortal novel 'How Green Was My Valley' shine through the years — 'It is strange that the Mind will forget so much, and yet hold the picture of flowers that have been dead for thirty years or more'. And the picture of ordinary bread and butter with apricot jam, and cool ginger beer, in the warm summer days of long ago.

© Copyright Brian Barratt 2006

More information and photographs at:
http://www.southwellminster.co.uk/index.php
http://southwellchurches.nottingham.ac.uk/n02/index.html
http://www.eyemead.com/majoroak.htm
http://www.triptojerusalem.com/about_name.php