Day twenty-seven

 27th May 2009     WALES

Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?

I open my eyes, the room is quiet, between the gap of a make-shift pair of curtains a shaft of sun light cuts across the room. I lay awake, arms out of the sleeping bag and behind my head, watching dust move through light. On the other side of the window, I hear the song of a Blackbird… morning has broken, a brand-new day, I have a sense of peace with the world… the prayer this morning is a simple thank you and an amen.

I cannot help but wonder, what it must have been like to wake up in a workhouse a hundred and twenty plus years ago… at peace with the world… I don’t think so. Waking up hungry in a crowded room of strangers, strangers that haven’t had a proper wash for a number of weeks and more… in the far corner an argument turns into a fight… people begin to shout and still you lay there on a lice ridden and worn out mattress, with arms behind your head… a shaft of sun light shattering any lingering dreams of better days ahead, as it did the morning before and the morning before that… and in your despair your prayer is to be the Blackbird on the other side of the glass, with the hope of one day being able to fly fly away… and what are your chances of that happening… I’m guessing the same as hearing a Blackbird singing in the dead of night… Hmm, There but for the grace of God go I.

As I climb out of my sleeping bag, there is a knock on the door, a guy walks in with a mug of coffee, “Breakfast is on the go”. “Wow that’s great thanks a lot”. In another room there is a make-shift kitchen, pots, kettles, frying pans all up and running… a place of industry, of teamwork, I try to step into help… but am told to grab some fresh air and to enjoy the coffee. I step outside and find a bench. These Workhouses (also known as the Poorhouse in other parts of Britain) were built to accommodate those that had fallen into destitution, only it was not long before the infirm, sick and elderly were also housed in such buildings. Pick up a Dickens novel, it is through his fictional characters, that he rages at what it was he saw around him. Charles Dickens was not just an incredible novelist; he was also a social commentator, that made a difference in this world… I wonder at what he would make of our welfare system today… would he have needed to create new characters to carry on the fight against the injustice he saw in the world around him, or maybe he would change his focus onto what it is we are doing to the climate… and create a new character to champion that course… a character by the name of… oh I don’t know… David Attenborough maybe… My thoughts are broken with the shout of “Breakfast”.

Stepping back through the green door into the Workhouse, a part of me was expecting a bowl of gruel and a chunk of stale bread… but not at all, instead a fry up fit for a king… as I clean my plate with my last piece of toast, I hear one of the guys shout out… (I could be wrong, I think his name was Olly… something like that) “Please sir, can I have some more”.

Breakfast is done, bag on my back, map in hand and with the thank yous and handshakes made, I step out of the green door, open the iron gate and head again for the open road. Looking at the map, a thumbprint of a walk will by the end of the day take me to the far side of Welshpool, somewhere close to Offa’s Dyke. Offa’s Dyke is a massive piece of defensive earth work, that is over eighty miles long, thought to have been built back in the mid to late 700’s AD by Offa, the Anglo-Saxon king of Mercia. A dividing line between Wales and what was then the kingdom of Mercia (now England).

The landscape I walk through is of rolling hills, fields and country lanes, the sky blue with cottonwool clouds, the technical name Cumulus… “fair weather clouds” being another name, a dry day ahead… another day of kicking stones, I kid myself that I’m a mountain kinda of guy… and there is truth in that, the hills and mountains of these islands will always be a big part of who it is I am… and yet pick me up, like that little yellow man from google maps and drop me into an agricultural landscape, with its drystone walls, hedgerows, wooden gates and styles, fields both ploughed and in crop, a land that has been worked on for a thousand years and a whole many more, woodlands and scrublands, the musical notes of our song birds, the throaty ‘crow’ of a pheasant, a deer grazing in the distance, hares darting across open pasture, the ‘caw cawing’ of a handful of rooks (rarely seen on their own, pretty much always seen in gangs… a parliament I think is the proper name for a gathering of rooks), a squashed hedgehog on a country lane (… hmm I guess a more rounded shaped one, that is still on the move would be better still), the unkept road verges with their brambles, wild flowers and bumbling bees, nervous rabbits venturing out early evening, chomping away at the edges of fields never too far from a hedge and always looking out for Mr Fox, the untamed thorny gorse bushes with its explosion of yellow flowers, a place of food, shelter and safety for tiny birds, bugs, beetles and spiders not forgetting scared rabbits. It is in such surroundings, for reasons I don’t fully understand… that I feel the most close to this world…a sense of belonging… the whoever it is I am, feels good in being a part of such a diverse and beautiful landscape… I’m not sure I need country roads… feels like I’m already at home.

I walk through the small village of Bwlch-y-cibau, I slow down a little (drop a gear), I don’t stop, the guys back at the Workhouse had sent me away with a packed lunch and my water bottle full of juice. I don’t want to stop and step into a café and ask “Please sir” when I have no need of doing so. A mile or two out of town, I realise that I’m still in a lower gear… the body is slowing down a little, the aches, pains and the steady hobble are all a part of who I am at the moment… and all that is ok… What is catching up on me is that I’m using more fuel than what it is I’m taking onboard… not for a moment am I grumbling, not at all… the people I have met have absolutely taken care of me. the slowing down I’m kinda of ok with… the feeling is I am still on target to finish this walk in the forty days that I had set myself. For a couple of days, a lower gear will do me no harm… better than pulling on the handbrake.

A few hours more of walking, hobbling, bumbling along in my own unique way… I come across a field of sheep; they all seem to be on the far side of the field. I climb over the fence and sit on the grass, out of sight of the road… glad for the break, I dig out the sandwiches and the bottle of juice from my bag. Before unwrapping my lunch, I lay back on the grass, head resting on my bag … five minutes that’s all I need… and five minutes is all I get, sheep are curious animals, as I sit up the sheep scatter. I take a sandwich… cheese and pickle, in my opinion a sandwich doesn’t get better than that… Thank you. I take a bite and lookup and who do I see climbing into the field… Mr Ebenezer Scrooge himself… yeah ok, that’s not quite true, it is my head that he has just climbed into… Ebenezer tells me of the pride he felt when he had fed the Cratchit family a number of Christmases ago and how he sees everyday as Christmas and the desire he has to feed the world. I tell him, his words have the makings of a song… he looks at me blankly for a moment and then throws an arm into the air “Bah humbug”… he climbs back out of the field (my head) and walks of up the road, heading back to I guess the Workhouse or maybe to volunteer in some local Food Bank. Scrooge is my kinda of hero, he doesn’t have the physique or a square cut chin of a comic strip superhero… I think his catchphrase of ‘Bah humbug' is a thousand times better than ‘To infinity and beyond’. But more than this he doesn’t have to step into a telephone box and change his outfit to be able to do good… instead he just had a change of heart.

It is late afternoon when I walk into the market town of Welshpool… a town that is only a handful of miles from the English border. I find a small café, the Pinewood, I step inside with the hope of a cup of tea. The lady behind the counter is called Cara and again I share my story and again I am shown kindness… I sit at a window table with tea and toast, ten minutes later Cara comes over takes the mug away and puts down a fresh mug of tea, I say “thank you”, she tells me I look to be a million miles away… she’s not wrong, maybe not a million, I look out the window but I’m someplace else, with Scotland, Ireland and Wales pretty much under my belt, tomorrow I step into the last chapter of this wee adventure… England…the church that I was baptised in, suddenly feels very close. For the first time on this walk, I wonder to myself… what am I supposed to do when I reach the south coast and step into that church… I don’t know.

Apart of me thought about trying to find a place to stay in town, but instead I decide to head out of Welshpool… a few miles out, close to a small place called Leighton, I see an open barn and next to that a small farmhouse. I knock on the door to ask if it would be possible for me to rollout my sleeping bag in the barn just for one night… after sharing a little of what it is I’m doing, the couple invite me in to share some supper. I feel awkward, the couple I’m guessing must be in their eighties and I’m a stranger… and yet at the same time it feels not right to say no… stepping into the house is like stepping back in time…into a Dickens novel… the furniture and the interior decorations feel like they have not been changed for a hundred years. Sitting around the table with a simple meal of potato and leek soup and bread with real butter, I learn that the couple have lived in this house since they were married… and that was over sixty years ago. After the soup we sit with a pot of tea and home baked cake and talk some more. He had been a farm labourer all his life, tells me of the day when the first tractor came on to the farm, it was just after the war. I could have sat there all-night listening to their stories. They were an incredible couple that had seen much. [the diaries I am using to re-write this story, does not have their names written down anywhere… how rubbish is that]… an hour goes by before I head out to the barn. I say thank you for both the soup and the cake; I am told to wait one moment… and a moment later I am given another slice of cake wrapped in tissue paper. Again, I say thank you, “It was a privilege to have met you both”.

I set up base camp next to a digger in the barn, I climb into my sleeping bag, the body is tired, but the head is wide awake, a dozen different thoughts whizzing around.

I have this image in my head… I see Ebenezer strutting across a stage towards the microphone, the stage is ‘Live Aid’ Wembley, London… Scrooge’s hometown… he’s feeling good. standing at the mike, the lights go down, he tilts his hat and stretches out his arms wide and, in a voice only Scrooge could have, bellows out “Do they know it’s Christmas time at all”… the crowd go crazy… His band (The Dickensians… The Dickies for short… Dodger on drums, Nancy on keyboards, the two Davids on guitars, Copperfield on lead, Attenborough on bass), follow up with their own distinct smog filled London voices “Feed the world… …feed the world”. Ebenezer turns to his band… smiles… and then back in song turns again to the crowd, in the corner of his eye, close to the front, he sees a young boy sitting on his father’s shoulders the dad is holding a pair of crutches… Ebenezer falters mid-song, the voice breaks… something has happened… two worlds touch (the world that is and the world that should be and still could be). He stumbles, turns around. Nancy looks across at him, his eyes are welling up, nostrils aflare, biting his lip… his shoulders begin to shudder. Nancy, stepping away from her keyboard, makes her way towards him, Dodger is not far behind…climbing out from behind his drum kit, knocking over the cymbals. Just before Ebenezer’s legs give way, they are there to hold him up. The three of them turn around to face the crowd, the two Davids join them… they stand in line…no drums, no keyboard just two guitars and over seventy thousand people singing “Do they know it’s Christmas time at all”… “Feed the world… …feed the world”. Ebenezer, still with tears in his eyes, turns to Nancy, “God bless them, every last one of them”. Backstage I see two guys in dustcoats, I don’t know who they are… roadies, caretakers maybe … their stage passes tell me they are called Bob and Midge, they both have a grin on their faces as wide as wide can be.

Crumbs I don’t know where all that came from, perhaps a piece of uncooked potato that hadn’t been properly digested or maybe the pickle I had earlier… I that’ll be it.

… we are so much more than just dust passing through light… the human heart is not of this world… it belongs to a world of profound truth, of incredible beauty… and once in a while that world and this world will touch, be it in a stadium of over seventy thousand people, or in a small market town café, where a cold mug of tea is taken away and replaced by a fresh mug of tea, a quiet smile and a genuine “You ok”.