"The Glittering Cosmopolis that is Kettering"
When I am driving, I most often like to be in silence, alone with my thoughts. But sometimes I will plug my phone in for some noise. About 5% of the time I listen to music. Whereas about 95% of the time I will listen to some podcast. And at least 50% of that time, I am listening to my absolute favorite, David Crowther’s The History of England podcast.
He started with the Romans. I am currently on Episode # 331, whereas he is up to Episode # 351, and both are within the reign of James I. Crowther is obviously in no hurry. If I ever catch up with him, I may start over again, as he is one of the most entertaining podcasters around. His style is informal, chipper, and chatty. I might not always like this approach in others, but it sure seems to work for him. I get the idea that Crowther does not take himself too seriously.
Every one of his podcasts is shot through with David’s own particular slant on English humor. Sometimes I find myself looking more for the quips and asides than I do for the history bits. To me, that is perhaps England’s greatest legacy: not her Empire, but her self-deprecating, dry, ironic sense of humor. I am not going to name names on the globe, but believe me that some peoples, nations, cultures simply do not have it at all. That does not mean they are not pleasant, it just means that they tend to be quite literal, with no sense of a joke, irony, or a skillful play on words. Their humor is confined to pratfalls and such like.
And so, my ears perked-up when I heard Crowther playfully note in passing, with a lilt in his voice, the glittering cosmopolis that is Kettering. I started laughing, as a particular memory came to mind. I have not, in fact, ever set foot in Kettering. In fact, the only thing that might tempt me to taste the delights of Kettering would be Crowther’s good-natured barb. I have, however, spent a night in its sister-city, Wellingborough, located seven miles to the South. I am convinced that the sobriquet would, no doubt, apply equally to the latter as well.
The problem, of course, is that they are both in Northamptonshire. I once read that Northamptonshire was considered the most unfriendly county in England; and this was in a guidebook, no less. Well, I put no stock in that at all. Great Britain is one of the most uniformly friendly and hospitable places I have ever visited. Though if you spend enough time in a country, you will encounter the sourpusses, and they are certainly not confined to one county.
Like Rodney Dangerfield, Northamptonshire gets no respect. A recent survey ranked it as the worst place in the U.K. for a “staycation.” Well, after having spent a few nights this last summer right down the road from a campground, I believe Northamptonshire residents may in fact be pleased with that reputation. The problem, I think, is that it is the county “between.” It is not really the Midlands, is it? If so, then the tail-end. Nor is it Oxfordshire, for sure. It is not old East Anglia, but it is certainly not the Cotswolds either.
Native son Mark Valentine notes that it is the “least-regarded part of England...a quiet, apparently unremarkable place.” But he pushes back against the common perception, finding Northamptonshire “obscure but… secretly loved,” and in its very obscurities, finds plenty of interest, and indeed, mystery. I agree with Mark. For an American in search of the quintessential bucolic English countryside, Northamptonshire is as pleasant an area as you could ask for.
Sure the Cotswolds ranks higher with its exquisitely dear patented quaintness. But try experiencing any of that charm with the incessant traffic and the nearest car park being in Gloucester. I jest, but not much. Perhaps Evelyn Waugh was right: Charm is the great English blight. It does not exist outside these damp islands. It spots and kills anything it touches. It kills love; it kills art…
I have actually had several good experiences in the Northamptonshire countryside; All Saints Church high on a hill at Brixworth with its Saxon stonework, and viewing my ancestors all lined up in a row in a memorial at the church in Thorpe Mandeville (actually, the church was locked, but I have seen pictures of what I know to be right inside those doors.) And I still have unfinished business in Northamptonshire: searching for my ancestor’s memorial at Staverton, tagging the old Saxon church at Earls Barton, and a pilgrimage to the grave of Digby Dolbein at Finedon.
My most extensive time on the ground in Northamptonshire was in seeking out the grave of Dame Edith Sitwell at Weedon Lois. The surrounding countryside was absolutely beautiful. I found her there along with her parents, brother Sacherevell Sitwell and wife, and nephew. I wondered why any of them were buried in Weedon Lois. Renishaw Hall, the family seat, is located one hundred miles north, near Sheffield. I discovered that the brother had a home somewhere in the vicinity from 1923, so the entire family, other than Osbert in Florence, ended up in this country graveyard amid gentle rolling hills. If any entrepreneur ever puts together an Eccentrics Tour of England (perhaps there is one already,) then certainly the tour buses will be rolling through Weedon Lois.
The St. Mary and St. Peter Churchyard is quiet and serene. The inscription on Dame Edith’s stone is notable, reading:
The past and present are as one -
Accordant and discordant youth and age,
And death and birth,
For out of One come all -
From all comes One.
At the top of the stone is a bronze carving of cupped hands, in which someone had left a rose in her memory.
While the Northamptonshire countryside may have its own particular charm, I think it is in the urban areas where the prejudices against it take shape. Our stay there was simply a matter of logistics. I met my son at a train station north of London. He had ridden down from Petersborough after a visit with his grandmother. From there we drove to a country inn on the River Great Ouse in the Fens near Ely. As it turned out, our time in Cambridge, Ely and Norfolk and environs was not a highlight of the itinerary. Our next stop was several days in the Peak District, and Wellingborough made a good transition between the two. I chose an Edwardian-era businessman’s hotel near the High Street. It looked interesting enough on Booking.com. Whatever charm it possessed, however, must have been clustered around the reception desk, and not in the annex out back, beyond the car park, where our room was located.
At the hotel bar that night, I received my second lesson from James on how the English drink their ale. I am a quick study at this sort of thing, and was already acquiring a taste for room temperature Guinness. This was not a venue that particularly catered to tourists, being a local, working class bar, and even for us, a bit rough. But not being a tourist myself, this suited me just fine. We hung around and had dinner there as well.
Later, we walked up the pedestrian High Street to get a feel for the town. A short amble up into the town provided us with all the ambiance either of us desired. We turned around and began retracing our steps. We had to stop for an extended time at the crosswalk on Sheep Street, with our hotel in view across the way. Among the crowd waiting to cross, I spied a rather hefty woman of a certain age, with cropped blond hair, wearing a strapless, shimmery, shiny, low-cut, fringed mini-dress. It was as if a disco ball had been transformed into fabric. She tottered precariously atop a pair of backless stiletto high heels. At one time, James would reprimand me for being judgmental. He no longer does so, because: a) I’m hopeless, and b) he’s now just as bad as I am.
Anyway, I guffawed a bit, and made a slight aside to him: “Will you take a look at that!”
Apparently my aside was not as slight as I imagined, for the woman suddenly glared at me and said, “What did you say?”
My lie came quickly and effortlessly to my lips: “Oh nothing, I was talking about something else.”
The light changed and we crossed over Sheep Street and veering right, while the woman and her partner veered left. It was high time to bring our Northamptonshire adventure to a close.