Today was a day for revisiting the past. It was a cold, fairly bleak day with no sun to be seen until the afternoon, when it made a brief appearance.
I had a couple of planned Zoom calls first thing so R made us a packed lunch and we set off late morning, walking along the disused Buckingham Arm. It is in the laborious process of being renovated and as you turn onto it there are many boats permanently moored and obviously water in that part of the canal, that gradually peters away as you walk further along. There were workmen in progress having nearly completed a new bridge over the arm. Then it will be time to restore the canal itself. Quite an undertaking as we walked along and saw the dilapidated state it is currently in. The towpath itself was one of the trickiest I have walked along. This was more like a skating exercise. The mud itself was not deep, it was just incredibly slippery and at one point R did actually lose his footing. We eventually found a couple of walking sticks but resolved to return another way.
We arrived at Old Stratford, just outside of Deanshanger and I was ashamed to admit I did not remember this little village at all. Nor did I remember the fairly extensive park that ran between Old Stratford and Deanshanger. I don’t think I ever walked there. My memories of Deanshanger are painting and decorating our first home; zipping into Milton Keynes to visit John Lewis and then six weeks of bedrest prior to arrival of H, our eldest, because she was not growing properly. Our lovely neighbours, B&E, who had a 12 and 10yr old at the time, put a bed up in their lounge and I spent nearly every day with them, whilst R commuted to London to work. I occupied myself with a tapestry that still remains unfinished to this day – the needlework is done but I then tried to attach it to some velvet to make a cushion and have never managed to complete it. The friendship of B&E was a lifesaver to us – we knew no one in the vicinity and once I was on bedrest we had no opportunity to make any new friends. B&E, being a decade further on in parenting skills, taught us a lot and we remain so thankful of their friendship and the role model they set. B is a godfather to one of our children and knowing that he still prays for him weekly is a comfort to us.
We lived a stones throw from Deanshanger church, the only lively evangelical church in the area and each week about 200 people flocked to its doors. We leant a lot at that church but also, because it was so big, felt we had no specific role there. Everything was covered. I remember after H was born saying to R that I would give chuch a miss for a while. After all I had a baby to care for. R, to my total surprise, disagreed. He was so profoundly affected by seeing his daughter born, that he wanted to go to church, on a regular basis, to give thanks. That switching of roles I think led to us both becoming closer to God – R because he wanted to and me because at a time when I might have given God a backseat, I was prevented from doing so. On revisiting Deanshanger, we both agreed, that our time, though short there, was instrumental in shaping our way forward as both a couple and a family and in many ways it helped to shape our spirituality.
The village had changed considerably. The secondary school was still there and prominent – probably one of the largest schools in the area, just as in our day. However when we lived there it had a massive factory producing the ochre for coloured bricks and on washday everything hanging outside had a tinge of deep rusty red. There was an incredibly high chimney that bellowed out smoke and was not particularly attractive! Now that has all been replaced by housing and apparently, when not in lockdown, the car queues are lengthy getting out of the village. Dominated by housing estates you might think Deanshanger an unattractive place to live and yet the village green still retains character and the beautifully maintained old houses and thatched cottages add a touch of oldy worldy charm.
Our first house
The journey home was uneventful save for a meeting with a man who R later told me was probably the local farmer. Having nearly slipped into the canal on the muddy clay rich footpath we thought to return home on a parallel strip of land that was the edge of a field. This farmer accosted me just as we were about to walk the field edge saying that the footpath was along the canal and that is where we were to walk not on the field boundary. Explaining to him how precarious the towpath was fell onto deaf ears. He didn’t give a monkeys. All he wanted was to ensure we did not trespass on to his land. Although sympathetic to this view, I still found it incredulous he would not take any heed of what I was saying. At least R and I both had, by then, our walking sticks!
The evening was quiet with a relatively early bedtime as there is a busy day ahead of us.
NarrowboatTLC 