We ferried from France to England and landed in Essex for a while, parked in a farmer's green field which has an amazing three metre high hedge of Lleylandii cyprus bordering it. Our farmer delivered milk to the surrounding district for 41 years, and in that time, he and his wife, never missed one day's delivery. He doesn't do it now, but someone else does, and every two or three miles along the little lanes we are driving we see different Royal Mail post vans, too, so little farms are still so amazingly serviced here. How long ago in Australia did we lose similar amazing services? Which government cut which budget that wiped them out? Such services still function in England, which, of course, may contribute to crippling this country, I am not sure. But I do love to see it these country folk being so well looked after.
The things we find we are missing now that we are in England are the beautiful plane trees that line the roads into French villages: the bread (oh, the divine bread! like nowhere else in the world); and we mourn the loss of our wonderful French espresso, although, to be fair, we have had three days of excellent coffee being served to us here. We just know, though, that this cannot last.
One of these charming English villages we've been exploring is Clavering, which is where Jamie Oliver grew up. His father's pub is here and does a terrific trade, and no wonder, as his village, is a delight. A long village, it is a meshing of about seven hamlets, each with a green, like Deers Green, Stickling Green and so on. Local villagers were out in their full whites playing serious cricket on one of them when we arrived. Which is just what we love to see in an English village on a sunny Sunday after lunching on roast beef and yorkshire pudding in a nearby little black beamed pub heavily decorated with brasses. So quintessentially English. Below the church is a cluster of charming old thatched and tiled village dwellings, including one that is among the smallest ever in England, a one-up-one down 8' x 10' weatherboard cottage, once the home of the village ford keeper.
Following the ford, and in the field behind the church, is a tussocky green mound with a remnant moat, once the home of an adventurous French Knight who built his castle here after following William the Conquerer from France.
The church at the heart of the village is a genealogist's delight, full of dated lists, names and descriptions. If there are any 'Barlees' out there they might like to know that their ancestor, Haynes, oft mentioned in the church annals, had more than one wife. His first bore him 13 children though 6 small skulls reveal some died too young. On another monument Haynes remembers Mary, his second wife, as being "a loving and obedient wife" by whom he came by "a very plentiful fortune, but noe issue, beinge married two yeares and fower monthes". Poor Mary, remembered for being barren.
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