Another morning and another batch of film to be loaded while Jemima eats her breakfast.

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Continuing my weekly dispatch in The Times, week 8 was taken in Chelford, Chesire.

Chelford, 13th July 2008

 

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The journey is starting to take it’s toll on us, mainly thanks to the continued bad weather we’ve had this past week. Tempers start to fray when you’re living in such a confined space and the rain is lashing down outside. I have to come clean and admit that we’ve just booked into a hotel for 24 hours to get a bit of relief from the daily grind.

Having said that, reading the newspapers today is not brining much cheer on the weather front. It seems that the Met Office has apparently aligned itself with the law of St Swithin, which asserts that the weather on July 15th will be the norm for the next 40 days – a mixture of sunshine and clouds, average temperatures, lots of rain and no heat waves. The sun will come, eventually, in September when there will be dry, warm weather.

I’m going for a hot bath.

 

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A lovely picture published in today’s Times and taken from the Times Archive.

“Daredevil boys take the plunge – Skylarking youths take advantage of hot weather on July 15, 1949, to shed their clothes and leap off Battersea Bridge into the cooling, muddy Thames at high tide.”

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It turns out that the North-South divide I wrote about in my last post has recently been redrawn in a controversial new study. Interestingly, the study was undertaken by one of the Human Geography professors from my old department at The University of Sheffield.

Professor Danny Dorling has devised the line based on a number of more recent socio-economic developments, including rising house prices, increased life expectancy and voting patterns. Dorling’s line says the North begins at the Severn estuary and heads up towards the Humber, hitting the coast in a higgledy piggledy diagonal south of Grimsby.

You can read about Dorling’s study in an article in the Observer and more about his research on British identity (with Bethan Thomas) here.

 

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According to a recent article in The Times, which quoted a survey conducted by Travelodge hotel group, almost 5m southerners have never travelled north of the Watford Gap – and the cultural barrier, often known as the North-South divide, has become an equal deterrent in the opposite direction.

© David Sillitoe/ The Guardian

 

The North-South divide is not an exact line, but one that can involve many stereotypes, presumptions and other impressions of the surrounding region relative to other regions. The Times article quotes that almost three-fifths of northerners in the survey described southerners as “snobs” while half surveyed associated London and the home counties with “wide boys” and City brokers in “pinstripe suits”. For southerners, the north is a desolate landscape of derelict mining villages and fish and chip shops, and is dismissed by three-fifths as “bleak” and “unsophisticated”.

The existence of the North-South divide is often contested, although the Watford Gap service station is unofficially known by residents of London and southeast England as the point where the north-south divide occurs.

According to wikipedia, it has recently become more popular to use the phrase “north of Watford“, referring to the larger town. The reason for this change is probably due to the signs at Staples Corner, where the M1 begins, reading simply ‘M1, Watford, The North’ thus potentially implying that Watford is the last place in the South.

In his book The English, Jeremy Paxman proposed that the north might be defined as anywhere above a line drawn from the Severn to the Trent. Whereas Stewart Maconie, in his book Pies and Prejudice, suggests the north begins at Crewe station, beyond which point “the geology becomes harder, the accents flatter and the climate wilder. And the surface of the M6 turns from tarmac to cobbles.”

Having driven past Watford Gap, the Severn-Trent line and finally passing Crewe train station on Friday, we must officially now be in ‘The North’. 

 

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Continuing my weekly dispatch in The Times, week 7 was taken in Peatling Magna, Leicestershire.

Peatling Magna, Leicestershire, July 7th 2008

During a weekend break away a husband indulges his favourite pastime, angling, as his wife looks on. Behind them is All Saint’s Parish Church, which dominates the skyline of the Leicestershire village of Peatling Magna.

 

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Here’s a quick update on our route. Having started the month of July in Bedfordshire, we have since traveled through Northamptonshire and Warwickshire, dipping into the southern part of Leicestershire. Rather than continuing north to Nottinghamshire, as originally planned, we cut through Staffordshire into Shropshire. We’re now in Cheshire and we’ll be heading north into Lancashire next week. 

 

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On leaving our small campsite on a farm in Northumbria last week we came across a rather bizarre scene. There was a car parked on the side of the road with one door ajar and the keys left dangling in the boot lock. A pile of personal photographs and letters were lying on the ground by the open door and on the back seat were several bin bags full of clothes. There was nobody in the car and nobody to be seen in the vicinity. 

 

We alerted the owner of the farm as we departed. I can’t help wondering what the sequence of events were, that led to this strange finding and what the outcome was (it’s like the start of a movie script or crime novel).  

 

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So far during our journey St. George is definitely winning the popularity stakes. However, entering Cheshire yesterday, the reverse seems to be true. The citizens of this leafy (and wealthy) county are flying the Union Jack with pride, especially in the village of Audlem where the flag appeared to be flying outside every other house.

 

It’s even flying above my head as I write this post from our campsite outside Nether Alderley. (Please no wisecracks about my ability at parking! It was the only pitch left on the site).

 

The same cannot be said for Cheshire residents David and Ellen Stephenson who have flown a St. George’s flag at their home in Rochester Crescent, Crewe for more than eight years. The couple were featured on page 2 of yesterday’s Crewe Chronicle under the headline “National Pride? You’ll need to get permission for that…”

 

As Chronicle journalist Antonia Merola writes, “A patriotic Crewe couple have been told have have to apply for advertising consent to continue flying an England flag in their back garden.

In April the couple were sold an unofficial St. George’s flag with ‘England’ written across it and decided to put it up. 

The couple have now received a letter from Crewe & Nantwich Borough Council planning chiefs stating someone had queried whether their flag was breaking council rules. The letter advise them that, under the Town & Country Advertising Regulations 2007, flags are under the definition of ‘advertisement’ and because it was not the official national flag, they would require advertising consent.

David, 59, said: ‘We have been here 23 years and love coming back from holiday and seeing our flag flying as we drive up the road. What is the world coming to if you can’t have some price in your own nation?’

The couple have returned to flying an official St. George’s flag.”

 

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