Are You Ready For The Country

The past is still alive

We were heading to the countryside for the weekend, not this countryside in Norfolk which is maybe more what you’d call seaside, but a land called Shropshire I’d only heard of in literature or Escape To The Country, a British property show Eric and I watch regularly with a mix of reverence and disdain. Reverence for the presenters - Nicki, Alistair, Jules, Steve and the late much missed Johnnie, disdain for the property hunters with their laundry list of wants they’re always willing to throw away over an emotional reaction to a kitchen island or rolltop bath in just the right impractical position next to a window with countryside views “to die for”.

It was only a month or two ago we saw a Shropshire episode that centered around Clun, the village we planned to visit for a 70th birthday party of one of Eric’s grammar school friends Dave. Now the words “Eric” and “grammar school friends” are not probably what you expect to hear, it surprises me too and I think surprises Eric himself. Years ago we played a kind of school reunion organized by one of the guys who were teenagers in a Sussex school together and it turned out that during what had felt like a lonely time for Eric there’d been allies, a disparate group of oddballs bound together by geography, timing and a shared attraction to the weird, exciting music of the day.

The property show highlighted historic Clun Castle, a dramatically situated 13th century ruin and apparently well worth visiting.

“Eric, we need to stay an extra day in Shropshire! I want to see the castle!” I cried, sounding like my mother who never encountered a piece of pewter without buying it; sounding like the easily impressed by old things American that I am to my core. Usually, maybe because we’ve spent so long as touring musicians —in and out of a place in less than twenty four hours , load in at 4, soundcheck, dinner, gig, hotel and get thrown out at checkout time. On to the next town. I realized while searching for a place to stay that wasn’t our usual boring go to Premier Inn but also wasn’t directly above a pub how rare it is for us to travel together to any event that isn’t a gig. Eric’s daughter Luci’s wedding a year and a half ago comes to mind. This would be a treat! Norfolk to Shropshire is about a five hour drive - it would be worth it to hang out an extra day, wouldn’t it?

I booked a nice place in a nearby larger town called Ludlow - kind of like that medium priced wine in a restaurant, not the richest fanciest one where I would feel duped and under pressure to wring every penny from the stay, loading up my bag with any shampoo, lotion and even q-tip and free cotton eye makeup remover pad I could get my hands on, but not the low budget option either. A treat, since along with it being Dave’s 70th it would soon be Eric’s too.

We set out to Ludlow on a bright spring day, one that almost threatened to be hot. I brought some snacks and bottled water and we listened to music along the way and had a nice time. There was a slight diversion outside of Birmingham for Eric to pick up a pair of studio speakers he’d found on eBay, as is his way. I was desperate for the toilet by this point. We tried at a nearby service station, out of order. The town name Dudley sounded familiar and Eric reminded me of a crazy Saturday afternoon gig in a pub there, where a large portion of the audience had been frankly terrifying. “Gosh do you think the speaker guy would mind if I used his bathroom?” “We’ll suss it,” said Eric. This was no social call, small tidy row house with the sound of a dog unhappy behind a door. The guy was brusque, Black Country, I gritted my teeth and helped carry a speaker lead to the car.

Up the road from Dudley the countryside suddenly opened out and folded in on itself, like a rural origami: blue sky, puffy clouds matched by fluffy sheep dotted along tall green hills crisscrossed by slanting stone walls. “There’s a pub, there’s a pub!” I shouted as we neared a large sandstone building that opened out into a patio teeming with Saturday afternoon drinkers and diners. Eric practically skidded to a stop and we tumbled out, making our way as discreetly as possible to the facilities which were tucked up on the second floor of the characterful old building. It was that kind of country pub Americans dream of, you imagine yourself having the most perfect vacation time drinking delicious beer and becoming friends with all the locals while tucking into a cottage pie followed by apple crumble with real cream while the world just disappears. But the place was crowded and there were no tankards, the pint glasses may have even been plastic -we were after all not that far from Dudley. We needed to get to Ludlow and check in before heading over to Clun for the birthday party. There would be food and a Neil Young tribute band and we didn’t want to miss either of those.

Ludlow was a beautiful historic town. Our lodgings were in one of those old timbered buildings we see on Escape, the kind that make the escapees sigh “ooh the beams.” It was spotless and lovely, but we needed to get ourselves together quickly and head to Clun.

Flying along the country roads, I tried to make a note of everything I saw to look up later, One Hundred Years Distillery and “Mickey Miller’s Playbarn.” I’d come to Shropshire worried I’d say “why are we so hung up on Norfolk, this is the place!” but I was enjoying it as an other kind of place, fun to visit but couldn’t see myself living here, remembering rural France and how some country is just too country for me. But I soaked up the beauty as Eric drove and wondered who might be there from the old gang.

As we headed into Clun, the GPS took us down a tiny road that required driving through a stream. Not feeling sufficiently roguish, we turned around and went a more civilized route, leaving the “tourist couple swept to their deaths on otherwise quiet Saturday” headlines for another time.

The party was in an old church hall. I saw a sign that said “Band Parking here” and felt bereft - someone else was the band! Membership has its privileges, we had to search down another quiet lane for a parking spot but it was a beautiful night and I reminded myself “we can do this, we can be guests!”

Dave the host and his wife Liz were so nice and welcoming, Dave is a massive Neil Young fan and had arranged with the band to sing a number or two. I predicted they’d start with Cortez the Killer as I’d read the actual Crazy Horse had done the night before in Nashville, not expecting that would be Dave’s choice to sing. The long guitar intervals that the young and very adept guitarist handled well found Dave standing stock still, at attention, feeling the music to his core, and then he’d launch himself at the microphone to sing. He was delightful.

I liked encountering Eric’s school friends, once they’d get going reminiscing about this band or gig or some awful teacher at their school they all threw chairs at I felt like I was watching an unaired episode of Monty Python.

Next day we woke up to the sound of ancient church bells ringing. Ludlow was having a big food festival, the town was thronging and it was beautifully warm and sunny. We strolled through the market and ate sausage sandwiches at a boring old cafe which was perfect. Then I forced Eric to walk the circumference of Ludlow Castle with me. The Severn River was there at the foot, it really was stunning as were all the tiny ancient houses nestled along the hilly streets leading up to the town and castle. We found a cool record store Mod Lang I’d encountered via Twitter. The owner Paul had posted a vintage poster of Eric and someone tagged me and it was pure coincidence we just happened to be passing through. I love when serendipity happens. I described the poster to Eric and he said Barney Bubbles the designer had printed a very few number of them, of Nick Lowe, Eric, Elvis Costello and Larry Wallis. Since it would soon be Eric’s birthday we left with the Larry Wallis one, after a great time hanging out chatting with Paul.

Paul Bradshaw took this pic of us and Larry, visit his great shop Mod Lang in beautiful Ludlow!

We headed back to Clun to drop by Dave and Liz’s house on a hillside for tea and cake with a few of the gang. Through the countryside, taking in the sights, by this point we were flagging a little. I asked Eric if it would be okay if we just pulled over somewhere and shut our eyes for a minute? I knew a nice spot at the end of a little lane where cars had to ford a stream to cross…

I think we both passed out for about ten minutes, and woke when a hardy Land Rover cut right across the water. We slapped ourselves in the face, drank water and showed up at Dave’s for a short visit. Again I got a kick out of the school stories and the improbability of everyone keeping in touch for so long. I thought about how different things must’ve been in England for teenagers, post-war and half a decade earlier than I was in high school. How the teachers, mostly men old enough to have been teenagers themselves or of fighting age during World War II had no doubt visited their trauma on these boys and wouldn’t that bond you together forever? I was getting a kind of history lesson I hadn’t really planned on.

It wasn’t til a day or so later I had another realization. Between the castle in Ludlow and the Larry Wallis poster and the nap by the stream and the vivid stories of gigs and Cliff Richard visiting the school and the twists and turns of boys of fifteen or sixteen arriving at seventy years old - I’d completely forgotten to even LOOK for Clun Castle! I’m sure I’ve never seen anything like it - or maybe I have. But like an archeologist excavating an ancient site, it takes time to dig down and sift through the past and you can’t really know what you’re looking for until you bring it out and dust it off.

And Clun’s been there a long time and will surely sit around long after all of us are gone.