As some of you may recall, we completed part one of this
challenge in April, via the beautiful Settle-Carlisle railway. Part two was
completed via a somewhat less beautiful car journey as part of a Christmas
mini-break to visit Charlotte’s Uncle Stu. Although thanks to a total gridlock
on the A14 on our journey down, we did eventually have to head across some
rural back roads through Papworth, Royston and Buntingford, which were at least
a little more scenic than the originally intended M11 motorway.
As my father was already staying with my brother, our home
for three nights was the Bishop’s Stortford Travelodge, which could hardly be
described as the lap of luxury, but at £24 a night for a family room at an
otherwise very expensive time of year holidaywise, it did the job nicely. A few
years ago, the Travelodge was a fairly decent hotel called Stansted Manor, and
was where we held my mother’s wake after her funeral. The hotel has now been
completely ripped out and refurnished with the bright but spartan Travelodge brand,
but for me the room where we had our all you-can-eat breakfast buffet each
morning was still recognisable as the place where I had last been seen downing multiple
whiskies and trying to make polite conversation on one of the worst days of my
life.
Bishop’s Stortford and the general East Hertfordshire area
always seem to come high up in lists of desirable places to live on the likes
of Phil and Kirstie’s property programmes. It’s a place which people leave
London for when it’s time to start a family. They want to live in a bog-standard
semi with a garden, where you won’t get murdered (
or not, as it turns out) and
where you have an excellent choice of schools. Bishop’s Stortford has always
been a stopping off point, initially for Romans marching along Stane Street and
latterly for stagecoach travellers between London and Cambridge. It
has a plethora of former coaching inns - apparently Samuel Pepys used to stay at one. So I
suppose it’s no surprise that it is now by and large a commuter town, full of
people used to journeying. Stortford once had some importance in its own right
as a market town for the county and a centre for the malting industry. It is mentioned in the Domesday
Book as “Esterteferd”, has a mound where a Norman castle once stood, and its
most famous former citizen is Cecil Rhodes, colonialist diamond-bagger and
founder of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Bishop’s Stortford’s permanently right-wing
town council were all in favour in erecting a memorial statue to Cecil in the
market square, until they found out that he might have been gay. So they set
about cancelling the town’s twinning arrangements in evil Europe instead.
Growing up in Bishop’s Stortford, it was thoroughly
boring place, with sod all to do for anyone between the ages of ten and
eighteen. It’s possibly a little better now. My parents moved there after my
father got a job as a research scientist for a Harlow-based
Latex manufacturer (making carpet backings, not condoms) and they decided that
they didn’t want to live in Essex. You see, contrary to popular belief,
Bishop’s Stortford isn’t in Essex, though it is right on the border. But
anyway, their decision meant I got a good education, and being near to Cambridge
and London and, in later years, a newly expanded Stansted Airport had its
advantages (as long as you didn’t mind aircraft noise).
I have no family in the actual town now, as my brother’s house is
in the nearby village of Stansted Mountfitchet. This trip was the first time I
had been back since Charlotte was born. Bishop’s Stortford continues to
struggle with its identity, and with the economic climate. It’s part genteel
and snooty, and part chain-store chav. There’s a Café Rouge on one corner and a
place where the locals fight on another. There’s posh vowels and Essex vowels, there’s
Waitrose and there’s Poundland. We managed a quick walk along the high street
in heavy drizzle and fading light, and there was a weird mix of fates on view.
One side of the street was a row of sad, boarded-up buildings where large
independent shops had operated for decades, like Pearsons department store and
Clement Joscelyne’s home furnishings; both of which were fairly exclusive in
their time but have now sunk from flourishing into bankruptcy. But on the other side of the street were newly opened branches of
White Stuff and Jojo Maman Bébé, so the town’s smart side is still thriving at some level.
 |
| Happy Charlotte |
We showed Charlotte the Corn Exchange, the market square,
the police station which once held such dubious late-night parties that it made
national headlines, the spire of St Michael’s Church, the timbers of Tissiman’s
gentleman’s outfitters, and the Boar’s Head pub where my entire sixth form used
to drink underage (right next to said police station). But the highlight for Charlotte of course was a ride-on Thomas The Tank Engine in Jackson Square shopping
centre, which funnily enough was situated in exactly the same spot as a huge
and ugly winding concrete ramp that was the main entrance to the shopping
centre in the seventies, and running down which was the highlight of any trip to
town for me as a little girl.
 |
| My first employer |
We had a quick drive past my old family house, but there
wasn’t much to observe at half past nine on a wet Friday morning other than the
fact that someone appears to be about to pave over the front garden. We made a yoghurt stop at the supermarket at the local parade of shops where I worked on Sunday
afternoons during my A Levels. Someone called Lisa who started on exactly the
same day as me still works there now.
The trip gave me a chance to introduce Charlotte to a few of
my school friends and their families. The great thing about school friends is
that you may not see each other for years, but as soon as you meet up again it
feels like it was only yesterday that you were last together. We turned up
regularly at my brother’s house for food, including the world’s largest
vegetarian Christmas dinner. Charlotte met some new playmates and I think
learned to extend the meaning of the word “holiday” to apply to more than just a
motorway service station. Now it probably incorporates bouncing up and down on
a Travelodge sofabed long after she should have been asleep and eating “chocolate
toast” (Nutella) for breakfast.
It was nice to be back, and sad to be back. They say that
there is no place like home. Home is a place that gives you happy childhood
memories and that you spend your teenage years fighting against. Home
is an emotional place as well as a physical one. In 2005 when my mum died, I
lost my emotional home, that safe place, that rock, that shelter that would always take
you in whatever your circumstances. I am of course lucky that I had that place in my life for 32 years. When my dad sold the house, the physical home went too. Losing
Mum decimated my life, and it’s a void that can never be filled, an ache and
a longing that never goes away. Yes, there’s no place like it, but the reality for
me now is that there can be no going back home, and life has to move forwards. It is
now my responsibility to provide that same emotional haven for my young
daughter, to watch her grow into it, and to create that place of happy memories.
No comments:
Post a Comment