standing outside the cottage and waving, the young girl I’d observed when I’d called on Sam, the girl who sang in the choir. That set me thinking.
The train wasn’t busy and we had a compartment to ourselves. Sam unbuttoned her coat and sat back in her seat. As the train picked up speed and the smell of smoke from the engine came at us in wafts, she pointed out various villages we passed: Charlecote, Littleham Bridge, Avoncliffe. The line crisscrossed the green-dark waters of the Warwickshire canals a few times, and she knew their names as well. Her body, under her coat, was more than a match for the countryside.
“Have you been sailing on the canals?”
“Of course, many times. But it’s a bit slow for me. I like speed.”
Why hadn’t she wanted to go on my motorbike, I wondered.
At Stratford we got off and Sam waved to the children who weregoing on to Bristol. Away from the station, we decided to have a walk around town to begin with, to work up an appetite, then have lunch at a pub we both knew, the Crown, and take a longer walk by the river in the afternoon. I knew the main streets of Stratford pretty well by now, but Sam knew the back alleys and mews, the secret yards and dead ends where many of the older establishments were to be found— blacksmiths, stables, foundries, saddlers. The road led us by the ferry, past a church and a water mill. I noticed the high proportion of women working in the blacksmiths and in the foundry—the men, I assumed, were away fighting. It may sound odd, but at times I was grateful for my limp. It explained why
I
wasn’t abroad, doing my bit.
At one point we stopped off at a small mews house that, according to the sign outside, was a woodworker’s shop. “Come on, look inside,” said Sam. “This is where to come if you ever need a new walking stick—or a wooden leg.” She flashed me a grin.
I did as I was told.
Inside, there were three men working—one man and two boys, really. But they were not what drew the eye. What you couldn’t help but notice was what was on the walls. Those walls, made of old, long, brown bricks, were covered in every type of tool you could imagine. All pegged to the brickwork in a neat arrangement, each with its place—where the workmen knew how to find them—were the most beautifully crafted implements: planes, in shiny polished wood, bradawls, bodkins, drills, awls, hammers with different kinds of heads, prongs, small pickaxes, knives of varied shapes and sizes, chisels, spokeshaves, cleavers, adzes, whittles, naked blades, and rasps. The overall effect was like the huge abstract collages I had seen in Munich.
“How did you stumble across this?” I asked.
“There’s a woodwork teacher in school. He brought me here. I love tidiness. Have you ever seen anything like it?”
“Not in Stratford,” I said. “Someday I’ll tell you about my time in Munich. But this is stunning, stunning.”
We waved good-bye to the three men.
Gradually, we worked our way back to the Crown. Sam knew one of the waitresses there, who was introduced to me as Maude, and she gave us a good table with a view of the yard, where, in the old days, the coaches would have unloaded. The yard contained a number of barrels—empty, I presumed—which were waiting to be exchanged for full ones the next time the brewery made a delivery.
There wasn’t much choice on the lunch menu—it
was
wartime, after all—but it was a good deal less brown than the canteen at the Ag and I remember the hotel actually served a fish course after the soup: very civilized.
I don’t remember too much about the Crown itself on that occasion because by now I was totally smitten with Sam. I have only fallen in love once in my life and it happened immediately, totally, and right there in the back alleys and dead ends of Stratford. Sam, I realized, was trying to keep her distance even as I was trying to get closer. As we had poked about the hidden side of Stratford she’d spoken as if
The train wasn’t busy and we had a compartment to ourselves. Sam unbuttoned her coat and sat back in her seat. As the train picked up speed and the smell of smoke from the engine came at us in wafts, she pointed out various villages we passed: Charlecote, Littleham Bridge, Avoncliffe. The line crisscrossed the green-dark waters of the Warwickshire canals a few times, and she knew their names as well. Her body, under her coat, was more than a match for the countryside.
“Have you been sailing on the canals?”
“Of course, many times. But it’s a bit slow for me. I like speed.”
Why hadn’t she wanted to go on my motorbike, I wondered.
At Stratford we got off and Sam waved to the children who weregoing on to Bristol. Away from the station, we decided to have a walk around town to begin with, to work up an appetite, then have lunch at a pub we both knew, the Crown, and take a longer walk by the river in the afternoon. I knew the main streets of Stratford pretty well by now, but Sam knew the back alleys and mews, the secret yards and dead ends where many of the older establishments were to be found— blacksmiths, stables, foundries, saddlers. The road led us by the ferry, past a church and a water mill. I noticed the high proportion of women working in the blacksmiths and in the foundry—the men, I assumed, were away fighting. It may sound odd, but at times I was grateful for my limp. It explained why
I
wasn’t abroad, doing my bit.
At one point we stopped off at a small mews house that, according to the sign outside, was a woodworker’s shop. “Come on, look inside,” said Sam. “This is where to come if you ever need a new walking stick—or a wooden leg.” She flashed me a grin.
I did as I was told.
Inside, there were three men working—one man and two boys, really. But they were not what drew the eye. What you couldn’t help but notice was what was on the walls. Those walls, made of old, long, brown bricks, were covered in every type of tool you could imagine. All pegged to the brickwork in a neat arrangement, each with its place—where the workmen knew how to find them—were the most beautifully crafted implements: planes, in shiny polished wood, bradawls, bodkins, drills, awls, hammers with different kinds of heads, prongs, small pickaxes, knives of varied shapes and sizes, chisels, spokeshaves, cleavers, adzes, whittles, naked blades, and rasps. The overall effect was like the huge abstract collages I had seen in Munich.
“How did you stumble across this?” I asked.
“There’s a woodwork teacher in school. He brought me here. I love tidiness. Have you ever seen anything like it?”
“Not in Stratford,” I said. “Someday I’ll tell you about my time in Munich. But this is stunning, stunning.”
We waved good-bye to the three men.
Gradually, we worked our way back to the Crown. Sam knew one of the waitresses there, who was introduced to me as Maude, and she gave us a good table with a view of the yard, where, in the old days, the coaches would have unloaded. The yard contained a number of barrels—empty, I presumed—which were waiting to be exchanged for full ones the next time the brewery made a delivery.
There wasn’t much choice on the lunch menu—it
was
wartime, after all—but it was a good deal less brown than the canteen at the Ag and I remember the hotel actually served a fish course after the soup: very civilized.
I don’t remember too much about the Crown itself on that occasion because by now I was totally smitten with Sam. I have only fallen in love once in my life and it happened immediately, totally, and right there in the back alleys and dead ends of Stratford. Sam, I realized, was trying to keep her distance even as I was trying to get closer. As we had poked about the hidden side of Stratford she’d spoken as if
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