Journey through charm and childhood
Was everything simpler in the black-and-white England of childhood? Was the world more knowable when the edge of it was as far as my uncle's 1956 Ford Consul (cream, red bench seat, sun visor, chrome eyelashes) could get, there-and-back, in a day?
It was a childhood full of green fields and coppices, and picnics just over the five-bar field gates, with grandparents in checked- jacket-and-brogues, and hat-and-handbag. Of flasks and tablecloths on the harvested ground. They were days of gentle streams and low-arched stone bridges and of a world seemed intimate and yet infinite.
As a child growing up in the rural countryside of England, the one thing I knew for sure was that the end of the world was not nigh but somewhere past Bourton-on- the-Water - the lip over which we would surely plunge, if we went too far.
And today, I stroll around this pretty Cotswold village and not a stone of it seems changed: stone arch bridges over a wide, shallow River Windrush, neat lawns, gift shops and lunch restaurants.
And best of all, Birdland. It was one of the most exciting places of my childhood and it's still there, with penguins and plovers, parrots and pigeons, pheasant and pelicans. (So exotic to a small boy then.)
Birdland marked the start of my photographic career. I had a grey Kodak Vecta Brownie film camera with a dodgy white bar across the front that sometimes clicked. I took a picture of a macaw on a post but by the time the Vecta had "clicked" the bird had flown and, when I unfolded the prints' envelope and excitedly took out the 6x4 black-and-white photographs, all that was there was the post.
The Model Village is still there, but now seeming smaller than a one-ninth scale replica of the heart of the Cotswold village that surrounds it. (Or maybe it's just that I am bigger.) The Old Water Mill, the New Inn and the ford are there along with people, still stuck in their stationary, miniature lives. I still have a picture of my younger brother there; now taller than me, he was always big for his age.
The Model Village took local craftsmen five years to build and opened on the Coronation Day of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1937.
And now to lunch, at the Riverside Cafe, the Chestnut Tree Tearooms or the Rose Tree Restaurant. The charm and manners of Bourton-on-the-Water seem untouched to me, as are those of other intimate black-and-white towns within driving distance.
It was more about meandering than just getting somewhere.
Ledbury, just over the border in Herefordshire, has many timber-framed buildings, including the Market House which was built in 1617. St Katherine's Hospital has an even longer history, founded in 1231.
Timber-framed barns surround a town still with narrow, wonky, monochrome streets.
Ledbury dates back to AD690 and was mentioned in the Domesday Book as Liedeberge, taking that earlier name from its River Leadon, the Old English "burg", for a fortified site, being added. And then, over the hills to Upton-upon-Severn, founded much later (ha!) in AD879. This little black-and-white town perches on the side of the River Severn, coming to life through its music festivals.
And as I sit here, outside the 16th century White Lion Hotel, where soldiers of both sides (Royalists and Parliamentarians; Charles II and Oliver Cromwell head-to-head, so to speak) in the English Civil War are said to have come before they later ripped into each other in the 1651 Battle of Worcester.
Royalists were sent to Upton- upon-Severn to demolish the middle of the bridge over the river, and so stop the Parliamentarians crossing to the west bank. But history says they left a plank across the middle of the bridge and troops fought their way over and into the town.
The Pepperpot Tower still wears scars from the fighting.
They are something to consider, these histories - these moments that have left their mark on black- and-white England, and the black-and-white England that has left its mark on me.
DISCOVERER CARD
Visitors to the Cotswolds can now use a new, unlimited travel card.
The Cotswolds Discoverer provides unlimited travel on trains between Moreton-in-Marsh and Oxford, Swindon and Ashchurch for Tewkesbury, and between Gloucester and Yate, except before 8.50am between Mondays and Fridays.
It also gives bus users complete access with travel companies including Pulhams, Cotswold Green, Swanbrook, Johnsons Excelbus, Go Ride CIC and Stagecoach Oxfordshire.
The Cotswolds Discoverer was first tested as a pilot scheme in April 2012 by the Cotswolds Conservation Board in partnership with First Great Western, local bus operators, Cotswolds Tourism and local authorities.
Cotswolds Conservation Board director Martin Lane says: "The Discoverer ticket provides a great day out with family and friends.
"The scheme was established to encourage more sustainable travel options to and around the Cotswolds and reduce the reliance on the car."
Cotswolds MP Geoffrey Clifton-Brown says: "Encouraging a greater use of public transport through this scheme is good news for the environment, rural economy and local communities as well as offering extremely good value for money for both visitors and locals."
A one-day pass costs £10 ($17.65) and a three-day pass is £25 ($44).
escapetothecotswolds.org.uk/discoverer.
