Brecon
Beacons National Park and its sheep was a rolling green carpet flecked with white lint. The ears of these camera-timid sheep were tagged. Further on, I met four girls – hikers who were
participating in a contest of girls that ranged from 16 to 26 years in age. They were hiking 50 miles through the Beacons in
four days. I continued on and reveled in the
undulating green of Wales through to Agrivenny where the land flattened out until Melawend
and I reached Monmouth, in the county of Gwent.
In
town, I sat of a bench by the River Monnow and wondered what to do next. My mother had said I had roots in Monmouth. Mom was proud of her Welsh roots. Grandpa had also said told me that Grandma’s
family had come from this area. I had not
pursued any of this. I had not wanted my
journey to be perceived as a personal adventure. And
having spent so long in Wales without having earned money, I felt the need to keep moving. So I had come here totally unprepared and felt a
personal guilt for that.
Back
in England, I would be visiting the place where my Grandpa Darby said an ancestor had
built the world's first bridge made of iron. I
had planned to simply visit the place out respect for my grandfather. I felt that I had no time for any larger personal
purpose. I told myself I would come back to
Britain and conduct a proper search for my family tree.
Still, I felt I was forsaking my family for some vague altruistic goal.
(Twelve years
later, still struggling just to make a living, I regret that I did not do so then. It hurts. I
had actually been in Monmouth. I should have
found a way to stay, to check out local records, to find, if possible, relevant sites, and
maybe discover a distant relative. I should
have done my homework.)
I
gave up and submitted to the touristic tendency – I took photographs. I shot "one of Monmouth's prized possessions
and the only Norman fortified bridge to survive in Britain". It was a massive three-arch structure that
leapfrogged over the Monnow. Atop the bridge
between the first and second arches rested the real prize – a thick stone tower,
built in 1260 as one of the four original gates to the town.
It had served as a guardhouse, watchtower and a prison. The bridge was designed for pedestrians and horses. It was easy to imagine medieval knights riding over
the one-lane bridge, through the central arch in the tower... but this was a romantic
daydream. I sidestepped small cars between
yellow-painted lines to get my photos – slow-moving cars and ambling tourists passing
through medieval arches.
Melawend
and I headed south along a twisty road between the steep forested hills of the valley of
the River Wye. The scenery was superb –
so green with dense forests. I wanted to do
this again. On a narrow bridge over the Wye, I
looked back upon the roofless remains of Tintern Abbey soaring against a wall of forested
hills. A beautiful Swedish girl stood near me. I waited too long to photograph her against such a
romantic backdrop. He spouse and child
rejoined her and they walked away.
Next time, I
won't hesitate to at least ask.
It
was early evening when I reached Woodstock from South Wales.
Blenheim Palace, birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill, was closed. I sought a campsite on what I thought was just a
large farm nearby. It was 2,000+-acre Glympton
Estate, home of Mr. E. W. Towler, C.B.E. (Commander of the British Empire), a real estate
tycoon who was presently at one of his homes in the south.
The estate included the village of Glympton.
John and Ivy Dixon, managers of the estate, directed me up a narrow lane to
a wooden gate between two stone buildings in the estate village. John said to follow it and that I would have a view
of the house.
I
steered Melawend through a wooded area, just inside the gate, and down to a flat clearing
that had been frequented by horses. There was
a good spot near a few trees next to a stream. I
put the Melawend on her center stand. I looked west and beheld a scene out of a gothic
novel – there was a huge stone mansion about 200 yards away on a low hill on the
other side of the stream. Canada Geese were
swimming across the stream. Ominous clouds
moved slowly overhead with the setting sun breaking through them over the hill. The whole area looked deserted. Imagination took over and I saw a girl with long
dark hair and wearing a gown that was flowing in the wind as she walked alone by the
stream. From behind, the thunder of hooves...
Back
to reality. I went sleep to the sound of a
single cackling goose. The next morning, under
a promising sky, the brisk wind decided to play soccer with my emptied tent. I abandoned the gear and chased the tent full tilt
and caught it just before the stream had its way. The
Canada Geese took loudly to the air.
We
rode on to Blenheim, to another palace and another gate before which to photograph
Melawend. Admission costs kept me out. But it was a gate more magnificent than that of
Buckingham Palace. On a huge tablet in the
towering stone entrance, above the gold and black-painted iron gate, this was engraved:
Under
the Auspices of a Munificent Sovereign, this house was built for John Duke of Marlborough
& to His Duchess Sarah by Sir J. Vanbruck between the years 1705 and 1722. And this Royal Manor of Woodstock, together with a
grant of £240,000, towards the building Blenheim was given by Her Majesty Queen Anne And
Confirmed by act of Parliament (3. and 4.annec. 4.) to the said John Duke of Marlborough
and to all his issue male and female Lineally descending.
I
was overwhelmed even by the magnificence of this entry to the former home of Churchill.
Said
Churchill: "At Blenheim I took two very important decisions: to be born and to
marry."
He
never lived in the palace but frequently visited it. The
palace was presented to John Churchill, first duke of Marlborough, for defeating the
French at Blenheim, Bavaria, in 1704, crushing the ambitions of Louis XIV to rule Europe.
As a boy, Churchill would arrange his toy soldiers in battle formations in the vast halls. Later he scoured dusty boxes of stored documents to
write a definitive biography of his forebear. Of
the inscription above the gate, Churchill wrote: "In fact, it (this inscription)
would serve as a history in itself, were all other records lost." (Which of course they weren't because Marlborough was published in six volumes between
1933 and 1938. These were also years when
Churchill was out of government.)
(Coincidentally,
Winston Churchill's son Randolph was, in 1986, working on book about his father, which
would become the world's longest biography ever written.)
It
was Wednesday, July 23, 1986, overcast, and the stage was set for another royal wedding
– Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson. Though
it was not a national holiday as it had been for Charles and Diana's wedding, half a
million people thronged in the streets of London. Upwards
of 300 million people around the world riveted themselves to TV sets. About the time the wedding procession
clattered through the gates of Buckingham Palace, I was about five miles (eight
kilometers) from Stratford-Upon-Avon, getting gas...excuse me, petrol.
"Hello,"
a man said from behind. He was tall, with
sandy-white hair, a beard, and wore glasses and a blue sweater. "I noticed your (license) plates... We're from
Ontario too...would you like to join us for lunch?"
I
had wanted to arrange a community exchange with Stratford-Upon-Avon, but on this cool and
dreary day I welcomed the invitation from Len and Pat Davies of Brantford, Ontario, even
if they might have been tourists. Actually,
they were nostalgic former expatriates. Len
had been an exchange teacher working in York. Pat
was a nurse and worked in hospital administration. They
had lived in York for a year and had come back to England on vacations several times since
then.
I
followed them to the remote village of Swinbook, to a cozy old freehouse called The Swan
at Swinbook (Len taught geography and had discovered The Swan while using survey ordinance
maps). When the wedding guests at Buckingham Palace were feasting on lobster, lamb and
strawberries, and I thought I would be wolfing down peanut a butter sandwich by the side
of a road, Len and I dined over 6X beer and
trout, head and tail attached. Pat ate a
bread, cheese and sauce combination called a "ploughman". I had been shivering and felt nervous about my next
diplomatic endeavor when I had met the Davies, but I now felt well-fed and sanguine,
sharing fine food in homey surroundings with kind homefolk.
Len ordered some "scrumpy".
"Here,
Tom, try this," he said.
Scrumpy
is a potent cider.
We
talked of breweries, cricket and the quiet life in England.
Then they were off to tour a brewery and take in a cricket match. I resumed my trip to the home of William
Shakespeare, glad that I had crossed paths with the Davies.
It
was late afternoon by the time I reached Stratford-Upon-Avon, too late to arrange an
exchange, I thought. I'll just grab a picture and pass through. But as
I drove through the town, I wondered, Why am I here? If Lady Macbeth had heard me, she might have
scolded me: "Infirm of purpose!"
This
place attracted half a million tourists a year. It
was a performer's place, the Mecca of actors, a place of pilgrimage. Was I an actor?
I had claimed the world as my stage. I
knew little about "the bard" – only that it seemed that the work of this
one person was the pivotal point of all world literature and theatre. It seemed that all literature and theatre had lead
up to and then from Shakespeare’s work. So
my knowledge of Shakespeare was meager. I had
survived high school studies of a few of his plays – I had even seen Hamlet performed at the Stratford Festival Theatre
in Stratford, Ontario. But like most of my
fellow students, I became bored with his work because I could not understand the
vernacular of his time. It was too damned
complicated and highbrow for me. But now I was
here in the town where the man was born and grew up. I
felt I owed something to the legacy he had given to the world. But I also felt incredibly ignorant and not at all
qualified to present myself to anyone here. But I thought, What the hell, I'll try for an exchange anyway. Prepared or not, I can't simply waste this
opportunity.
I
met Jack Foley, Chief Executive of the Stratford-on-Avon District Council in Elizabeth
House. The place seemed virtually deserted, like I had come after hours. Even the lights were out in the council chambers
where I talked with Mr. Foley about my journey. He
seemed preoccupied and the expression on his face was quizzical: Fort Erie? Whatever,
he still welcomed me and the concept of my journey. He
annotated a council map of the city with directions and wished me well. That was it. No
fanfare but also no rejection, just a brief polite exchange.
My previous apprehensions had amounted to much ado about nothing.
I rode over to
Henley Street and found the buff-coloured half-timbered birthplace of William Shakespeare. I settled for a photograph from across the street
with Melawend in the foreground. The house
stood alone, though it had been part of a continuous frontage of houses and shops, which
was a common Elizabethan arrangement. The
buildings on either side were demolished in 1857 to lessen the risk of fire. Shakespeare's father was a glove maker and wool
dealer and part of the house had been used for his shop.
That part now housed a Shakespeare museum.
With time and money, I would have gone inside, but it was near
closing time anyway. With more time, I might
have gone over to Holy Trinity Church where Shakespeare was buried. I had read that there was a life-size bust of the
bard in the wall of the chancel over the spot where his body was interred. There was perhaps a morbid sense of reverence and
respect given when visiting gravesites. Yet
Shakespeare himself may have considered at least his site sacred, if it was, in fact, he
who authored the words that appear on his gravestone:
Good friend
for Jesus sake forbeare
To dig the
dust enclosed heare
Bleste be ye
man yt spares thes stones
And curst be
he yt moves my bones.
What
mattered more to me was not where a famous person was buried but where he or she grew up
– became initiated to life; felt those first thirsts for knowledge, beauty and love;
experienced those first joys and sorrows, triumphs and disappointments; and learned about
his or her world and formed early attitudes and values.
Little was known about Shakespeare's early life. He was born in an upstairs bedroom in that
two-story house across the street on April 23, 1564, making him 388 years older than I
was. He was likely educated at Stratford
Grammar School (still standing on Church Street) and had gone to his first play in the old
Guildhall under the school. He walked the
footpaths to Anne Hathaway's cottage, courted her, and married her in 1582. It was suggested that one reason he might have left
Stratford to become an actor at the Globe Theatre in London was because he got into
trouble for poaching deer in Charlecote Park, on the grounds of the Sir Thomas Lucy's
mansion. The rest, as they say, is literary
history, world class.
I
rode over and parked Melawend in front of Halls Croft, the former home of Shakespeare's
favourite daughter, Susanna, and her husband, Dr. John Hall – "probably
Stratford's finest surviving Tudor house". I
took a photograph. Then, as I was sitting on
Melawend, consulting my map, an American tourist came up to me.
"This
is where you are," he said gruffly, pointing to his own map. "I'm trying to get you out of the way because
we're taking a picture."
This
took me by off-guard. I moved out of range
immediately, but I was pissed off by his manner. It
did seem he was going for a "win-win" solution to his problem, but his
aggressive and essencially self-serving attitude was typical of what often branded
American tourists as a whole and made them sometimes openly resented in places that they
visited.
Anyway,
I had my picture. And while a picture may
indeed be worth a thousand words, the words of Shakespeare may be worth thousands of
pictures – they have certainly pictured themselves in our everyday life. Considers these from Hamlet alone:
·
To be or not
to be
·
in a nutshell
·
see in our mind's eye
·
cruel only to
be kind
·
the innocent
are pure as snow
·
neither a
borrower nor a lender be
·
advise against
wandering down the primrose path
·
hoist with his
own petar
·
That it should
come to this!
·
news that must
give us pause
·
of the time
when we have shuffled off this mortal coil
·
and of this
rather abrupt tourist, methinks he doth protest too
much
·
and me,
regarding the rude impatient tourist, hoping that I shall
not look upon his like again.
Oh, what a
pointed loss is this upon which I impaled my own soul! (That one is mine.)
I saw no play at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, nor visited Anne Hathaway's
cottage. I consulted no local historian –
and though it was in the museum across the street, I didn't even see the desk reputedly
used by schoolboy William Shakespeare. I
posted some Royal Mail First Day Covers of the Royal wedding to get the Stratford
cancellation stamp. As I rode out
Stratford-upon-Avon, I felt an incredible sense of loss.
I promised myself I would come back someday.
When
newlyweds Prince Andrew and Sarah, the Duchess of York were airborne for the Portuguese
Azores to begin a five-day cruise on the royal yacht Britannia,
I was looking for a field in which to camp. I
rode northwest, skirting the industrial morass of Birmingham. It had been a strange day for weather. It had rained when I was dining at The Swan with
the Davies, was partly sunny in Stratford, and was cool all day. Now, as I rode near the banks of the Severn, a long
black cloud hung over the road. It rained,
then hailed, then rained again. It annoyed me
that it was sunny beyond the edges of this black shroud that seemed to travel with me,
hovering over my head.
Near
Bridgnorth, I found a little farm where there were horses in a small pasture. I rode down the drive and found a man inside a
barn, working on a truck.
"Sure,
you're welcome to camp here lad. Come
inside."
I
had lucked onto a small farm in Shropshire known as Lupin Patch.
Bert
Alpont, a strong-built middle-aged man of medium height, led me into his house and
introduced me to his wife Caroline, a short attractive woman who looked ten years younger
than she really was. They sat me at the
kitchen table and immediately fed me a most welcome dinner of peas, carrots, potatoes,
bacon, and turkey breast with a tasty parsley sauce on it.
I drank tea with goat's milk – delicious.
I knew that Ironbridge was nearby, the site of the world's first bridge made
of iron. I told them how Grandpa Darby had
told me that an ancestor had built it.
"You
should go and see Lady Labouchere at Dudmaston, “ Caroline said. “She's the great-great grandniece of Abraham
Darby, who built the bridge."
I
thought: Then she must be a distant relative of
mine!
I
set up in the pasture I had seen from the road and shared it that night with three horses. At 2:16 in the morning, I saw moon-shadows of
horses on the tent and heard munching just outside its walls.
The next
morning, in one of my more audacious efforts of the journey, I rode onto the 850-year-old
estate known as Dudmaston in hopes of meeting Lady Labouchere. I felt a little foolish, the errant ner-do-well
distant relative who suddenly discovers he might be related to aristocracy and suddenly
appears up on their doorstep. It was more than
that. I loved my Grandpa Darby and wanted to
find the family connection with the builder of the iron bridge that he had once told me
about.
(Ignorant me,
I had unknowingly stumbled upon the roots of the Industrial Revolution, a topic I vaguely
remembered from some history class.)
From
the outside, Dudmaston was unimpressive, as English manors went. It was a huge red-brick mansion with simple lines. It lacked adornments.
It might have been mistaken for an old institute. Built around 1695, it had changed little. I could discern no formal entry so I simply went up
to the first door that I saw. The head maid
came to the door and took my blue portfolio into the recesses of the house while I waited
outside.
She
returned and I was admitted into The Entrance Hall. I
suddenly became self-conscious of what I was certain was my scruffy appearance. I was in a simple but large room of dark raised
paneling that had a plaster ceiling with a large oval wreath. On the walls there were paintings that included
members of the Wolryche family and some of its servants, including the Wolryche Fool. There was one of Sir Thomas Wolrche, the original
owner of Dudmaston, in armour with the besieged castle of Bridgnorth in the background. Extravagant and a gambler, Sir Thomas would have
walked through this very hall, perhaps on the day he drowned in the Severn while returning
from "a too successful day's racing" in 1723.
The
maid returned and escorted me through The Staircase Hall with its elegant curved and
cantilevered stone stairway. Midway up the
stairs, there was a portrait of a beautiful young lady – Lady Rachel Labouchere
– done by Spanish artist Ricardo Macarron (who in 1982 was commissioned to do a
portrait of the Queen). The bright room was
complimented by the presence of a harp under the celestial sweep of the stairs.
The maid
escorted me to a pair of Chippendale chairs in the spacious white-painted library. She left. A
moment later, Lady Labouchere entered from a doorway at the far corner of the room. She looked regal.
She looked like a younger version of the Queen Mother, with her fine auburn
hair combed back in and distinctive gray curls radiating from her temples, a style much
like that of Queen Elizabeth II. She was
dressed simply in a navy sweater and skirt and a blue blouse. She wore pearl earrings and carried a pair of
glasses.
For
the next half-hour, we talked over tea. She
told me of her life as the wife of Sir George Labouchere, a diplomat. From their international duties, Lady Labouchere
gained wisdom and she shared some with me.
"It
doesn't matter where you go, or the social status of the people you will meet, everyone
wants and needs the same thing: peace around them and within them."
She
told me of her connection with the Darby's of Coalbrookdale and in particular to Abraham
Darby I. In 1709, he almost single-handedly
began the Industrial Revolution. She was
descended from Alfred Darby, a brother of Abraham.
Lady
Labouchere was also the president of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. She wrote an introduction for me and made a phone
call, connecting me with an unexpected personal tie with world history.
(Dear Reader,
I must apologize for not yet having sufficient proof of the Darby lineage to tie in my
grandfather, Thomas Jefferson Darby, with Abraham Darby.
I'm still working on it. If I
have a website when I determine this, I will post a story there.)
(And to those
of you who have lost your grandparents – do you now feel a loss in their not being
around to meet those family members who have come since?
My greatest wish in this regard is that I could have introduced Melanie and
Wendy, and now Jonathan and Mylene to Grandpa and Grandma Darby, and to Papa and Nanny
Smith.)
I
knew little about iron other than it was a hard rust-prone metal. A welder had once used some to repair a go-cart for
me. In some school class, I had learned
something about "the Iron Age" and also associated "iron" with a golf
club, something used to press clothes, used to make engine blocks, and about having an
"iron-clad" contract, an "iron-will"...
What was so damn revolutionary to the world about this new way
of refining iron?
It
had to do with finding an alternative fuel (so
what's new about that?) for its processing. For
a far more detailed account, you would do well to turn to The Day the Universe Changed. by James Burke, a
master of making historical connections, but here is the story in a nutshell.
The
Industrial Revolution began in the 1700's in England, the time of "cottage
industries". Production centers were
isolated from towns, located near forests that provided fuel. Iron-makers were itinerant, carrying the tools of
their trade around, using up local wood supplies and moving on, creating a shortage of
fuel. Meanwhile, the weather was great and
crops, particularly corn, were flourishing. Peasants
had more disposable income and demanded new products: coffee, sugar, cheaper tea and
spices, and tobacco and potatoes from America. The
slave trade in Africa was growing to serve plantations in the Caribbean that were
producing sugar for trade in America for tobacco that is marketed in Europe. Tea imports from India began to soar. Prices dropped.
There was more disposable cash, more demand for goods. Growth in the domestic market exploded. More ships were required and more iron was needed
in their construction. (Aha!) It
became imperative that a new way of producing iron without wood be found.
Enter
Abraham Darby, a Quaker from Coalbrookdale, Shropshire, who was looking for opportunities
in the household utensils market. In his
copper and brass works on the river Severn, he started to use coke for fuel. (Coke is the solid left after gas and tar have been
extracted from coal.) The local coal was soft
and relatively free from impurities. In his
new furnaces, he produced high-quality metal. He
switched to producing iron that was cheaper. Burning
off the impurities in coal to produce coke meant that even low-grade coal could be used. England was an island of coal. In 1712, Darby's first iron was used in a new
pumping engine that was needed to pump water out of mines that were going deeper in search
of more metal.
Then
came the Revolution. The need for coal
required its transportation but the condition of English roads was deplorable – dirt
roads were hellish with dust in summer and impassible with mud ruts in winter. As Daniel Defoe put it in 1724: "…the
roads are packed, over-used and ruined!" The
solution was canals. Industry and its
workforce moved out of the country to the cities. This
created service needs. Populations in places
like Manchester, Glasgow, Liverpool and Bristol grew as much as 800% by the middle of the
century. The Revolution was underway.
Meanwhile,
back in Coalbrookdale, a bridge was needed across the gorge of the Severn to replace
ferries and barges. The Severn was prone to
flooding and crossing it between the iron factories was sometimes dangerous. After much debate over composition and design, the
world's first bridge made of iron was erected in 1779 under the direction of Abraham Darby
III – 100 feet long, five graceful arches of iron side by side in a single graceful
leap, surmounted by a road and walkway 55 feet above the Severn.
And
then, 207 years later, I was standing on it, under it, beside it, standing on trash
containers, fences and abutments to photograph it. There
were some locals and a few tourists on or near the bridge but nobody stared – the
site was surely a tourist cliché. I didn't
care if my photographic antics were noticed. I
felt a personal connection with this old bridge that was described in Museum Guide No.
3.01 as "Britain's best known industrial monument". It was a Darby production and I was part Darby, in
the lineage of old Abraham himself, I believed.
As
in so many places during the odyssey, I felt time and money worked against me. To my regret, I let them get to me here. After years of searching titles for other people, I
did not take even an hour to search local records for myself. I felt I would have to settle for the time spent on
the bridge.
Standing
on that bridge I sensed a kind of epiphany. While
the Peace Bridge lent an obvious symbolism to my journey, this bridge, old and solid, a
first of its kind, suddenly stood for the linking of generations, a bridge across time
linking ancestors and descendents, and that we owed it at least to our families to build
and maintain these bridges from generation to generation.
Grandpa
had never been able to see this monument or visit the home of his ancestors. I wanted to send a postcard to him. Thank you
for telling me about this place, Grandpa. I
wish you were here. But how does one send
postcards to heaven?
In
prayers.
But
I was also upset with Grandpa for evading me when I had said that I wanted to write his
biography.
“You
should write about your Grandmother,” Grandpa had said a few months before he died. “She was a talented artist, an unfulfilled
artist.” He missed her and his health
deteriorated rapidly after she died.
I
will forever kick myself for not having pressed him to record his experiences, his
thoughts, feelings, philosophies, etc. I
should have got him on movie film. Melanie was
barely able to sit up on her own when I was able to get a photo of her on Great Grandpa
Darby’s knee. Wendy never saw him. The same now applies regretfully of his great
grandson Jonathan and great-step-granddaughter Mylene.
There
is plenty of evidence that he was here including many news articles about Grandpa Darby,
like the article that described how, during a courtroom trial over which he presided as
judge, he patiently tried and convicted with contempt of court an errant bird that had
flown into the courtroom and refused to leave. And
there are many pages of notes that he made. But
there is no recording of his voice, no moving image, no story in his own words. Even with copious research and extensive
interviews, the best a biographer can do is distill out the character. Yet not even the best biographer can evoke the
whole true person. I feel a debt to my
children and to future generations than I can never pay.
And
had I ever told him I loved him? Had I said
that to any of my grandparents?
A
brief article about my visit came out in the July 31 issue of the Telford Journal, a newspaper much like any other
with its local articles, muffler shop ads, TV listings of British and the more familiar
western programs, and with its wedding photos and "remember when" photos.
I
spent that night back at Lupin Patch. Over
dinner, I thanked Bert and Caroline for having told me of Lady Labouchere. I felt lucky to have come across the Alponts. Later, I joined Bert in his workshop and discovered
that he was quite a poet. He was apparently
well known for composing verse on the fly and was in demand for social functions. He treated me to one of his spontaneous creations
which I am privileged to share with you.
"I'll
tell you a piece of poetry about my dog," Bert said.
"And I think you'll like this piece of poetry about my dog."
It was by a
fence in a Shropshire lane
That there a country woman stood.
She called to me, "Would you like a cup of tea?"
I says, "Yes, by gum, I would."
She smiled as
I walked towards her,
I thought this was kind.
She says, "Is that your dog
that walks one step behind?"
"It is mum, says I,
as I stopped to touch me hat.
She says, "Can you wait one minute
while I looks to find the cat?"
"All safe
now," she says,
and beckoned me on through.
But I was atook back by her garden,
where I should think every flower grew.
I asked her who tended it.
She smiled and then turned away.
But I caught a glint in her eye.
It was that alone did say.
"It is good, mum," says I.
"And it does one good to see,
for it's by one's garden
I judges one's ability."
Eventually, I
reached her door,
And I asked my dog to wait.
But already there was a mug of water
and there were some biscuits on the plate.
"Thank you mam," I says.
"Your kindness it does show."
"I judge a man by how he treats his dog,
And there's not a better way, you know."
She turned
then to face me,
Her eyes they opened wide.
She says, "I vowed I'd never have another dog,
The day me old dog died."
"I understands ya mam,
and your ways," I sayed.
"For I can't help the way I am made.
That dog is part of me."
And it stops
there,
he's just behind me.
He is waiting to obey.
"You see he gives his life to me, mam,
For one meal a day.
I don't ask him to stay.
But he'll never leave me,
Until his death takes him away.
And then life takes him kicking
Sorrow fills me heart
But Jesus gives him back to me, mam,
He's a little one to start."
I drank her
cup of tea, I ate her piece of cake.
She says, "Is there anything from the garden
That you'd like to take?"
"There are many things, mam," I did say.
"And thank you for that cake,
But it is the memory of your kindness
That I shall take away with me."
And (Bert said
to me) I hope you'll do the same.
I thanked the Alponts for their kindness and retired to the tent. I lay there grateful for all that I had experienced
in Shropshire and the good people that made it possible.
As the shadows of horses once again moved slowly across the walls of my
tent, I drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 11
South Stack, Snowdonia
and Soggy Sheep
YOUR feedback is important!
(It is the
main reason I'm doing this.)
As you read
the story, please send an e-mail to me with any
questions or comments you have.
For example,
What things in the
story do you find useful to you? What is your opinion of the writing?
Do you find the story entertaining? Informative? Motivational?
Back to
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Dear Reader,
Now for the
somewhat boring but fundamental part...
Copyright
Notice & Agreement
Here is what you can
and cannot do with this story, website, photos, etc.:
Copyright © 1984 - 2008 by
Thomas Martin Smith. All rights are reserved.
All text and photographs, and associated HTML code - on this website or on any other
website where they have been used and in any other form they take or place they exist -
are protected by Canadian and International Copyright Laws, and may not be copied,
reprinted, published, translated, altered, hosted, or otherwise distributed in whole or in
part, by any means without explicit written permission from me, Thomas Martin Smith,
currently of Victoria, BC, Canada.
You are
hereby permitted to retrieve, print, and store a single copy of any part or the entire
book (IN THE LONG RUN: A Hopeful World Odyssey) contents as made available here,
for personal use only. This permission does NOT extend to producing hard copies or
electronic copies for any manner of (1) distribution, (2) promotion, (3) creating works,
(4) resale, or (5) any uses other than personal use. Nor does this extend to making
the book contents available yourself (for example, you may not post or distribute in any
way any portion of IN THE LONG RUN: A Hopeful World Odyssey or this website on
your website or any other website, bulletin boards, nor by in any place or by any means
online or off-line - without written permsision from me.)
This Copyright Notice &
Agreement supercedes the Copyright Notice on this page: http://www.melawend.com/copyrigh.htm
In other words, if you want to do
anything beyond what is permitted here, you must contact me first and receive my written
permission.
