Work!

I shuffled into work half asleep this morning.  An air of quietness permeated the building, the kids are all back in school!  Add to this the girls were out 'ten-pin-bowling' last night there were a few hangovers draped over desks this morning.  I assisted by adding my cheery personality and was immediately shown the door and the way to Tesco for milk, an operation even I could manage.
Wrong!
I found the milk, checking for the furthest off date, and headed for the self service checkout.  I put the item through and it all stopped.  I stopped, the machine stopped, I did it again and stopped with the machine not even bothering to start.  Then as I realised the price was showing I placed the bottle to my right as you do.  It was at this point the young lass came to my aid, indicating the bottle ought to have gone to my left, not the right where an old basket was left and "You can't get the staff" was muttered under her breath.  I paid my money, eventually as the brute asked several questions about bags and cards first before my change arrived and I headed for the door, the lass pointing me in the right direction in the fashion women have when dealing with men.

Naturally with the kids being away I expected a quiet day of gossip with Peggy, however she was unavailable today and instead of sitting sipping tea and meeting a few visitors I was kicked out once again!  Laura sent me out to take photos for a project she is working on.  Naturally I could not refuse her, she would break both my legs if I did, so off I jolly well went, uncomplaining, unfed, and without any tea. 

A trail around town for kids has been prepared to reveal to them the things they see everyday as they pass by.  Or something like this.  Pictures, descriptions, all written in language kids understand will enable them to know their history better, or at least this is the intention.  So I had to take appropriate pics here and there.

How come when wandering through the town daily I never meet anyone?  Today while on a project I met several off the better classes!  This thankfully hindered my work and allowed me to rest for no good reason.  This Lane was once a road which has lain here for many, many years I sometimes wonder how many and was home to many works of various kinds.  Now it houses a fancy shopping centre, that's progress.  

The kids will know the church dates back at least 800 years, possibly much more and the fountain with the gay looking chap playing with fish was built to improve the area, the slums that once stood here being demolished in the 30's.   You will notice there is no water in the fountain, too many have been putting washing up liquid in the water where the detergent has damaged the pipes.  Now they complain it does not work but as soon as it does some berk will once again have it flowing with bubbles.

Something schools ought to consider is the 'Cage' or 'Lock up' once all villages in the area had one, many still stand happily, this was where folks, usually drunk, were locked up for the night in one of the two six foot cells therein.  Once the police station was built they lost some of their usefulness.  The much changed road on which this stands contained several public houses of dubious reputation, we know they were dubious as three had nicknames, 'Little Hell,' 'Big Hell,' and 'Perdition!'
It was better in the old days...

If they make it this far the kids will find on one side of the street 'Courtaulds' final mill.  The firm had been in the town and in many towns round about for over two hundred years.  Factories abounded and offices were found all over the world.  Sadly during the period after the war all this died away and the company was sold and resold to various businesses and this mill closed in the early 90's.  
What cannot be seen now is the number of houses that once stood in front of the Mill along the wall on the left.  There were several there until improvements were made for the motor car.  It is almost difficult to believe that houses would be there but pictures exist and somewhat downtrodden they looked.

  
Right opposite the very busy road lies the Silk Weaving Mill, two large white wooden buildings with sheets of window all the way along.  Once 'Warners Mill' was engaged on making robes and decorations for royal coronations and now it has also died away, foreign competition, from whom we stole the silk worms in the past many years ago, claimed back their dominance of the industry.  This building houses both offices and flats, the other offices and the 'Warner Textile Archive,' part of the museum and useful for women interested in courses on all sort of wool, silk, thread and such like hobbies.  Many courses take part here through out the year. 

Then it was off home to fiddle with the pictures and by the grace of God I worked out how to do this properly for once.  Then I sent the boss the pics by email and limped back to work.  Here I found myself totally out of routine as I had been out an hour and a half and (still without tea) returned to the usual confusion.  
However an attractive young lady came in and immediately caught my attention, my tea was forgotten especially as she came in to check on one or two of the Christmas items (that's Christmas!) and by the time she had left she had parted with almost £42, I say almost as she got a penny change. Soon after she sent her friend in who also paid £20 for one of the events.  I took more money in ten minutes than some days I take in a week!  
The problem came when she asked if she could pin up a notice, we let folks do this, and I took this and looked for a space.  The notice concerns a book reading group that meets in a pub once a month, hmmm...  However I looked for 'Blu Tack'  to attach the notice to the only space left on the wall and not one blob of the stuff either blu or White could be found in the drawer, and I raked the entire drawer.  Mentioning this to the boss she looked in said drawer and produced the entire packet of 'Blu Tack' that sat their in front of me.
They sent me home after that...

Drizzling Dunmow

Drizzle is not the ideal weather in which to wander around looking at old buildings, only someone with a lump of wool for a brain would do such a thing. 
I caught the 9:10am bus!
For half an hour we wended our way passing ploughed fields and acres of grass, rolling hills and rows of trees decorated with rust coloured leaves, many littering the roadside as we pass.  Typical Essex villages with houses dating back before the English Civil War, the churches a great deal older.  

This interesting building rears it head round the corner from the main street and appears to be the 16th century Town Hall.  I can see no other reason for such a delicate but expensive building to have been erected here.  The town was a commercial success in medieval times, a market was established and prosperity has never left the town, it is a step up from Braintree I tell you.

I doubt these delicate looking lodges were here when the Romans established the settlement on the crossroads.  The town was a days march from Braintree and ideal for a stopping place and once they had moved back home to defend the empire the Saxons quickly arrived and continued to make use of the agricultural lands.  Agriculture would have been a major occupation over the piece however pigs were also a major part of the commerce.
Not far from the town, Great Dunmow if you have not worked it out yet, lies the village of 'Little Dunmow, where the one time pub is called the 'Flitch of Bacon.' This relates the tale of the 'Flitch Trials' in which a couple have to testify before judges who have been married in church and over the last year have remained 'unregreted' the marriage.  The winners then receive half a pig, a 'Flitch of Bacon.' This dates back several hundred years and continues to this day, anyone wish to try it?

 
As always a War Memorial dominates the town commemorating the men of the district who fell during the Great War, those who fell later in the second war were also added.  For a town which even now contains merely some ten thousand souls the loss of almost seventy men at the time must have left a big hole in the town.  The returnees would of course have contained many damaged men.

 

How many of those men carried buckets and pails of water from here I do not know, however I suspect the wives and kids were responsible for that duty.  This Water Pump now stand in the centre of the High Street but I wonder if it stood elsewhere and was relocated?  No reason why it would not be found here, it is the centre of the Victorian town that erected it, it looks at least to me as a Victorian Pump, and it would be reachable for all from here.

The citizens were not always happy, cheery, well behaved souls as they no doubt are today.  In times past several towns and villages had their 'Lock up' or 'Cage' in which drunks were deposited to sober up or felons awaited further punishment.  This one has windows albeit they may well have had wooden shutters over them in the past also.

Lady Warwick, Frances Evelyn "Daisy" Greville, Countess of Warwick, was well able to care for the poor of the parish.   Lady Warwick was to put it mildly, a 'right little goer!'  Marrying well did not stop her, or her husband, making use of other people, the 'elite' are not renown for their fidelity, and she managed to find the Prince of Wales, later 'King Edward VII' as a lover.  She was inbetween  playing the field a bit of a socialist and participated in many 'good works,' even becoming a member of the Labour Party in time.

  
Clearly not all were impressed by the woman!  The deterioration of the weather is seen when Canada Geese are seen trying to keep one leg warm while they sleep!  If he finds it cold so do I!

The cold water of the 'Doctor's Pond,' a doctor in times past is reputed to have made use of the pond to breed Leeches used in medical treatment, makes for a decent photograph.  I like the rippling water stretching out across the pond.  The Geese ignored it.

Not far away a house stood with this excellent Grouse flying across the wall.  Is 'Parqueting' the word I am looking for or does that just involve floor tiles?  There is a name for the artistic rendering of these plaster walls.  All Essex contains houses emblazened with such decoration and this is an excellent large example.  It was lot yellower in reality I have to say, I used the wrong setting.

At this time of year when 'remembrance' is in vogue it is common for stupid people to complain that today's 'soft youth' are not like the youth of yesterday who fought in two world wars.  The normal response from me is to indicate 'you' didn't do that either and 'you' are no better than these.  
I did wonder what goes through the mind of young men in the Air Training Corps (ATC) when there is talk of war in the air. 
"What would you do if war was declared?" I asked.They looked a bit askance as if they had never really given it much thought.  
"A bit scary but exciting" said the one hidden behind the fat controller there.
Both gave sensible answers and left me in no doubt that when they join the RAF, as the tall one seen will be doing, the RAF will benefit from the right kind of man.  These two young men with their lives before them will give a dozen years of their lives in service for their country not for the rewards and not unaware of the possible dangers.  Two sensible good men, I suspect there are more like them in the ATC.

Fun Friday, Bah!

This rain grubby window sums up today.  
The tired feeling arrived last week and has hung around, the past two days have been a pain.  Add to that the journey to fix the bike, and after finally fixing it I have just found the new tyre stinking the place with rubber aroma has once again gone down.  Ogh I am so happy!
I had bought two new inner tubes and both were the wrong type, they were for mountain bikes, not road ones.  The tyre fits mind and now I am staring through the grubby window forgetting all about it till next week.

There has of course been a lot of talk recently re migrants/refugees depending on your stance in the news recently.  I have avoided most of the reports.  The sight of a child lying drowned on a beach was too much to look at and the confusing loud voices telling everyone what to do helps no-one.  
Here we find Europe overflowing with people attempting to enter one or other of the nations.  Many come from war zones such as Iraq and Syria, others from despotic nations like Eritrea, still others just wish to enter Europe to find a better life.
In amongst all the noise I find myself with no easy answer to all this.
Many simple answers have been heard this week, one says let them all come, the other send them all back, neither are correct.  It is right to help refugees, Europe however expects them to be somewhere far away like the Middle East or Africa rather than at their doorstep.  Should we keep the refugees and return the migrants who want a better life and how do you tell one from another?
The laws of various states, let alone European law does not help here especially when so many nations ignore the law while struggling to cope with thousands who arrive daily.  
The UK government has been awfully quiet and rightly so.  For years the Conservative Party have had their lackeys in the media offering propaganda which stresses the danger of 'swarms of migrants' coming into England (note, not UK but England as that is where the 'British' Tory vote lies) and people, even those of keen brain, have swallowed this propaganda and believe we are being replaced by a new nation of foreigners.  Such lies keep the Tories in power, no wonder they say little about this problem.
Nothing was said for a while and now David Cameron who, believe it or not, is actually Prime Minister, did mutter something about taking some refugees (not migrants) and other lying words.  No numbers were given.  Germany is taking considerably more than we but that matters not as the lie also claims the UK is awash with Eastern Europeans taking all our jobs, living on the dole, begging on the streets, so we must not take even more from elsewhere.  Hmmm, many from Poland stay a year or two and return home money in wallet, the beggars tend to be from south east Europe, Romanians mostly and for them this it must be said, is a way of life.
So what to do?
One answer would be to deal with the terrors back home.  Encourage Saudia Arabia and Quatar to stop paying for the fighters in Syria and Isis in Iraq.  This could be troublesome as they have oil and money both of which are important to this country, especially this government.  Eritrea has a despot, he could easily be overthrown, why not?  Because he has no oil, in fact they have no nothing as far as I can see so the west cares not yet thousands from there come to Europe.  Nothing will be done to upset those paying for Middle Eats fights, Eritrea will be ignored like Darfur now is, remember that?  Afghans and others strive to come here, those who worked as translators wish to enter the UK but this government refuses them permission even though many friends of our army have been shot!  Other madmen have been allowed to remain according to their 'human rights' even if they were murderers or rapists, why not interpreters?
This is a confusing situation, no country wishes to make decisions, nobody really has a clue what to do, yet all around the cry is keep them or send them back and all the while people die or live rough.
What a situation.

During Victorian times when the police force was just beginning there was no established police station in the town.  Pubs in the Braintree centre were numerous, as were 'beer shops,' not pubs but places to buy beer, several such were found in this town.  With long hours of work, cold houses, possibly colder wives, many made their way to such establishments for food and drink.  Down New Street, imaginatively named after it was  created, stood four pubs that we know off.  There was the 'Three Tuns,' 'The George' and the 'Green man.'  These were known as 'Little Hell,' 'Big Hell' and 'Perdition' by the folks of the town!  This indicates problems at closing time, and indeed all other times, with the gentlemen and ladies who inhabited these places.  The fourth pub did not have such a nickname and I have forgotten its name, 'The Angel' perhaps?  
As a result of the problems with drunks the 'cage' was erected in 1840 to cater for those whose indiscretions merited a place to sleep it off.  Each parish council required to have such a 'cage' which explains so many 'Cage Streets' etc to be found in villages and towns.  This one has two cells, about six feet long, each with a bed of sorts along one side, the cell may have been designed for one but I suspect had more on Saturday nights.  No doubt most who entered pubs, like today, behaved themselves reasonably well (does any drunk behave reasonably?) and bigger families with many working could rent better housing and avoid the need to dwell late in such pubs.  These places at least were warm, offered company, entertainment often ( Music Hall grew out of these) and cleaned the throats of men working in local foundries where dust in the air was part of the job.
The cage was still used until 1875 even though a decent police station then stood in the town.  Now demolished and replaced by a 'Peel Crescent!'  The police developed over the years and now their hulking great station sits behind my head, all too often we hear their sirens at just the wrong moment, and I wonder if they actually have less officers on the beat now than then!   They all use cars today, George Osborne's 'austerity' has taken beat officers of the beat and allowed many crimes to flourish.  
The 'Cage' has been used by the militia once the drunks were removed, to store weapons and ammunition, and has lain empty for many years preserved by the local Civic Society.  Most do not even know of its existence, yet many had a relative who could tell them what the inside looked like before 1875!