One Young Fool in Dorset (2 page)

Throughout their lives, my parents never decided
anything in a hurry. They researched, discussed and deliberated
over every decision. So when it came to buying a house, they were
cautious. They refused to rush into a purchase, and wisely decided
to rent a property until the perfect house came along.

“
Ach,
I’ve always dreamed of living in a
little
olde worlde
English cottage, with a thatched roof and
cottage garden,” said my mother with stars in her eyes.

And that’s exactly what they found.

The picturesque village of Corfe Castle is dominated
by the ruined thousand-year-old castle built by William the
Conquerer, a magnet to visitors who gasp as they snap pictures with
their cameras. The castle stands on a hill, with the village in its
shadow.

Corfe
Castle

If one walks along East Street from the Greyhound
pub at the village centre, before one reaches the Purbeck
stone-built village school, there is a row of thatched cottages on
the left. The houses are terraced, shouldering each other like
square beads on a necklace. One of them was available to rent.

“Well, it’s certainly
olde worlde
,” said my
father.

“I love it!” said my mother. “I wonder how old it
is?”

“Very handy for the school,” said my father. “It’s
just steps away. Not even a road to cross.”

“
Ach,
this is
exactly
the kind of
house I’d like us to find for ourselves to buy,” my mother trilled,
in raptures. “Very old, with
heaps
of character.”

We moved in, but we weren’t the only residents. We
were sharing the house with spiders, mice and rats, all of whom
regarded the thatched roof and its surrounds as their home. Very
quickly, my mother decided she didn’t want to live in an
olde
worlde
property after all.

The school was very handy for me, although I
remember almost nothing about it. My sister, however, was attending
a preparatory school in Dorchester, and needed to catch a train.
The train station backed onto our cottage garden and my father,
ever ingenious, constructed a ladder for my sister to scale the
wall at the bottom of the garden. Every day, dressed in her school
uniform with her satchel on her back, she would climb the ladder
and catch the huffing steam train waiting at the platform. The
stationmaster was fully aware of this arrangement, which suited
everybody.

My sister must have been a familiar little figure,
because one day, she was late and the train had already drawn away
from the platform, leaving her behind. But the engine driver must
have caught sight of her, because he stopped the train, then
shunted back to pick her up.

Corfe Castle
railway station

Corfe had its own railway station until 1972 when
British Rail closed both station and the line. Luckily there were
plenty of passionate railway enthusiasts around, and the station
and line reopened in August 1995 as a heritage line. The old steam
trains puff in and out once more, this time carrying tourists
instead of taking children to school and folks to work.

Meanwhile, my parents drove us around the
countryside, estate agents’ details in hand, as they scoured the
towns and villages of Dorset for the perfect home.

They had a check list which included a decent-sized
garden, enough bedrooms for all of us, and a location not too far
from Bovington Army Camp where my father would be working. Houses
with thatched roofs, which before might have sent my mother
swooning, were now firmly struck off the viewing list.

Weekends were spent house hunting, and all the towns
and villages within a twenty-five mile radius were explored. During
the week, my father would spread a map on the floor and, armed with
the latest estate agents’ blurbs, he and my mother would plan the
route.

“There’s one here,” said my father, tapping the town
marked ‘Wareham’ on the map.

My mother squinted at one of the estate agent papers
in her hand.

“
Ach
, I saw that one,” she said, “but that
house looked very dilapidated.”

“But Wareham is a nice town,” my father insisted.
“Look, it’s right on the river, in fact it has a quay. And I know
the Saxon walls still stand. I’ll talk to the estate agent. I think
this house might be worth a visit.”

My mother, who loved history, added the house to the
viewing list but pencilled in a question mark.

The village of Corfe Castle is exactly halfway
between the bustling market town of Wareham and the popular seaside
resort of Swanage, so it wasn’t too far to drive to Wareham that
weekend. We sailed over the pretty white bridge that spanned the
river and admired the quay. Two swans glided on the river, followed
by their family of cygnets.

“Can we stop here?” we begged, but my father ignored
our pleas.

“Slow down, this is it,” said my mother, peering out
of the window.

“Do we
have
to go and look at another house?”
we children moaned.

By now, even my parents had almost despaired of
finding the perfect property, and they didn’t hold out much hope
for this particular house either.

My father parked, and we all stared out of the car
windows. The
For Sale
sign had lurched drunkenly sideways
and was choked by weeds, sending the message that the house had
been on the market for a long time. The house itself was big,
rather ugly, square and solid.

“
Ach
, I don’t hold out much hope for this
one,” said my mother.

The front of the house might have looked even worse,
but being springtime, it was softened by a cluster of apple trees
in full blossom, their roots obscured by long grass and bluebells.
Already crazy about animals and wildlife, I imagined what birds I
might see, and whether dormice would come and nibble the fallen
apples in autumn.

“Well, this is definitely the house,” said my
father. “I don’t know why, but the estate agent was reluctant for
us to see this one, he didn’t think it would suit us at all. The
owner should be expecting us. Let’s knock on the door.”

We climbed out of the car and walked up the
weed-choked drive. The house was pebble-dashed, although many of
the pebbles had fallen away leaving bald yellow patches. The
drainpipes and guttering hung at crazy angles.

My mother and we three children stood back as my
father pushed through the overgrown bushes to reach the peeling
front door.

He knocked.

2 Priests and Pets

Dorset Herby Potato Salad

“
S
ssh,” said my father, listening.

I could hear little birds, and bees busy in the
apple blossom, but nobody came to the door. He tried knocking
again, but there was no response.

“
Ach,
this door doesn’t look as though it’s
been used for a long time,” said my mother. “Shall we try the back
door?”

We all traipsed round to the back door, and my
father tried again.

Dogs barked within. The birds in the apple trees
sang as we stood stock still, listening. At last, somebody fumbled
with locks.

“Curse this door! Be’jeesus if the blessed thing
ain’t banjaxed...”

Even at the age of six, I knew the man behind the
door spoke in a strange way.

“Mummy, why does he talk all funny?” I piped up.

“Sssh, he’s Irish, a Roman Catholic priest.”

That meant nothing to me.

The door finally swung back, revealing the occupier
of the house.

“Ah, an’ ye’ll be the family come to see me
house?”

The man framed in the doorway had tufts of unruly
white hair attached to an otherwise bald head. His shapeless ears
seemed huge, and his face was as red as the tomatoes Lena used to
chop. Several day’s growth of white bristles sprouted from his
mottled skin. His nose was bulbous and as shapeless as a potato. He
wore a threadbare cassock, once black, now blotched with food
stains down the front, the fabric grey with age. I stared at him,
then into the house behind him, but it was too dark to make out
anything.

My father stepped forward to shake hands, but the
priest drew back, one hand on the doorknob, the other clutching the
large crucifix dangling round his neck.

“Welcome to me humble abode,” he said and waved us
in.

We trouped into the dark interior. The smell of
stale cigarettes and cooked cabbage hung in the air. The windows
were so nicotine-stained and filthy that very little light
penetrated. Bare, low-wattage lightbulbs hung down in the centre of
most rooms, but few of them worked. Great slices of yellowed
wallpaper hung from the walls where they’d come unstuck.

“Where’s the furniture?” I asked as we were taken
from one room to another.

“Shhh…” said my mother.

One room was filled with potatoes. In another, a
ramshackle bed leaned in the corner. The sheets were grey, the
blankets peppered with round cigarette burns. Above it, a wooden
crucifix was nailed to the wall, Jesus sporting a broken nose.

“Me bedroom,” said the priest, and then stopped at
another door. “And this room here is where me dogs sleep.”

There was scratching of large claws on the door, and
deep excited woofs.

“That’s okay,” said my father hurriedly. “Don’t
disturb them.”

“Ye may be right,” chuckled our host. “There’s t’ree
of ’em, Matthew, Mark and Luke. Used ter have four, y’know, praise
the Lord, but John passed on. They’re big Oirish wolfhounds, so
they are. They’ll probably be knockin’ yer yunguns over so we’ll
leave ’em be.”

“Mummy? Why isn’t there any carpet or lino on the
floor?” I asked as we continued down the hall.

“Shhh…” said my mother.

“And why does it smell funny?”

Exasperated, my mother turned to our guide.

“
Ach
, Father, may we send the children
outside into the garden to explore?” she asked. “We can join them
later when we’ve been upstairs. If that’s okay with you, of
course?”

“Of course!” he said, bending down to my level.
“Pr’aps ye’ll find some little people in the garden, so ye
will.”

“Little people?” I asked, wilting under the blast of
foul breath directed straight into my face.

“Leprechauns, fairies, you know…” said my sister,
the clever one.

Now, that was interesting! We exploded out of the
back door into the bright light.

The back garden was a tangled wilderness. Brambles
and stinging nettles vied with each other and it was difficult to
identify any boundaries. Ivy strangled trees and fences. The garden
had no lawns and the paths were merely ones flattened by the
priest’s feet. I could see it was the perfect place to build dens
and hide with a book. Even at that age, I was the quiet one, the
loner, the one who preferred to sit in a wardrobe looking at books
rather than play with the others.

“Mummy says the grounds are a third of an acre,”
said my sister. “And I don’t believe in little people.”

I didn’t care what size the grounds were and,
whatever my big sister said, I was sure little people could be
found, if one looked hard enough.

I loved the garden and tiptoed around searching. I
saw no fairies, no pixies, no little people, but I didn’t give up
hope. There were so many places I could crouch unseen, watching
insects while weaving stories in my mind. I climbed an apple
tree.

All too soon, my parents emerged from the house and
called us.

“Kids! Come on, we’re going home now.”

They didn’t say a word until my father started the
engine and the car drew away.

“It’s a mess,” said my father.

“It would take
years
to get that house
straight,” said my mother.

“All the electrics need stripping out completely.
That place is a fire hazard.”

“And the smell!”