The next day, John and Yvonne took me for a walk out of town. I did the old A4SML, and Yvonne left after a mile, leaving John to lead me on. It became obvious he was up for a proper walk - he's very fit, and he knows the entire area like the back of his hand, so I was happy to give up my route planned with a road altas in Jarrow to go along the dual carriageway, to the leadership of a local who wanted to show me the most attractive parts of his county. We started to climb, and soon left Mansfield behind:
We passed into a place called 'Thieves Wood' which was a huge, silent forest of pines:
and over, down a narrow lane,
It started to rain a little as we passed this HUGE tree,
...which John reckoned was a beech, and we turned through another wood, and out at this:
This is Newstead Abbey, boyhood home of Lord Byron, the ultimate Romantic playboy poet, and he of 'mad, bad and dangerous to know' fame. That's John in the bottom left, looking at the map, and deciding that we needed to re-trace a few steps, and head off down another lane through the trees. This took us past this ...delicious looking thing..
and past some more MASSIVE trees - ones which Byron must have tried to climb as boy:
We left Newstead behind, coming through the very prim village of Papplewick, and over farms. Here, I saw an amazing bird that nobody else ever seems to have heard of. It sped past me, and I knew from my boyhood obsession with ornithology that it was a hobby, a very impressive falcon that I'd only ever seen two times before- one of those being in France. It's one of the fastest things in the air, and really good-looking too (wonderful plumage..etc....yeah, yeah) . Everyone always sees kestrels, and talks of peregrines, but this one's a lot more secret, and better-looking than both.
After more fields, we came out at a weird group of low-level housing spread over a hillside. They looked like prefabs, but every one was perfectly-decorated, with twee little lampposts and manicured lawns. Everything was dead quiet, too, and the whole place reminded me of The Village in The Prisoner. The type of place it was can be seen by these two characters who were sitting in a garden:
We reached a riding school, and took a turn up a hill, to come out at our first view of the Nottingham suburb of Arnold:
We followed the lane out, onto a road - the main one, as it turned out, into Nottingham. Here John left me to get the bus, and I stormed the last three miles into, to try to reach the council offices - that massive white building that overlooks the market square. On the way I passed this object, which I can think of no words to describe:
...except that I'd rather things like that existed, than didn't. I got to the council offices at4.45, but the guy on reception told me that the communications department was in the 'Civic Hall' which closed at 4.30. Bang went the chance to talk to meet another Natalie, because it was a Friday and...that was that.
I used to know Nottingham really well. In 1994, myself and three others from Jarrow -Paul, Fraser and Dougie did a week-long 'tour of England sleeping in a car', and ended up here on the second night, sleeping...in a car on top of the multi-storey. A year later, while I was studying in Stoke, a mate of a mate was here doing surveying at Nottingham Trent uni, and we went over about 15 times. The thing is...the summer of '95 ended, and..I've never been back since. I still had a good idea of the layout, but outside the offices, in what used to be the market square, they've installed a funfair, and a 'beach':
The place was heaving, and the T-shirt worked its magic, as I worked my way up to the Castle:
..and my arranged meeting-place, reputedly the oldest pub in England (1191, they say):
I flyered the Trip, and as I met my hosts, Samuel and Hazel Burgess, I became aware that a woman across the room was listening. As we left, she asked me the reason for the walk, and when I told her, she said she'd write a 'letter' and sign the book willingly. She told me about the March, and how when it went though Luton, where she was from, the local Co-Op deaf and blind group stayed up all night fixing the marcher's shoes. You could tell she was genuinely interested by the way she asked about the Guildford story as well. This is just what I mean about every signature in the book telling a story – this one was exceptional, and could have gone on longer, but we had to leave.
Samuel and Hazel took me to their home in West Bridford, and from there, to a country carvery, which was busy, but we found a seat. Samuel is one of those guys who's always laughing, and we talked a lot about local history. On the way back, he drove half the way to Loughborough, to show me what to expect , which was a great thing to do. He also told me about some congestion charge that's ben imposed by...who do you think? The Sheriff of Nottingham! He still exists!
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