A Walk Through Time

My #TravelAtHome this month is a combination of another retrospective (at least in part) and a bang up to date experience.

When I was 8 years old I went to live in the UK for the first time in my life.  At that time I did not know that it was to become a very important country to me.  Before that time my only experience of the UK was through period dramas (the BBC 1980s adaptation of Sense and Sensibility amongst others) on the Norwegian television.  While the English people I knew in Norway seemed normal (or perhaps, when I considered my teacher, cruel heartless individuals out of Jane Eyre and not really normal at all) I thought people in the country itself wore period fashions and drove coaches and horses.  I was convinced in this belief by the fact that, age 7, during a lay over in Heathrow early one morning I walked past the Sherlock Holmes Appreciation society lining up for a flight to Switzerland, all dressed in period costume!

King John's Castle at Odiham

Imagine my surprise, therefore, when we got out of the airport and straight into a normal car!  When we got to our house it was not a grand estate but an ordinary detached house in a commuter town and we had no maid or butler!  I was gutted.  My little sister, on the other hand was fascinated by the fact that she could understand everyone and spent a few days listening to every conversation she heard on the street with wonder.

The children enjoyed exploring our childhood haunts with their aunt.

We had a very happy two years living as expats in the UK before I stayed on to move to boarding school and the rest of my family relocated to Nigeria.  One of our favourite activities during those two years was to go on long rambling walks across the local countryside.  We did not have any pets of our own at the time as my parents knew their posting to the UK was short but we did look after a lot of friends’ dogs when their owners were on holiday so we almost always had a canine companion or two in the house. 

A walk along the Canal with my sister 30 years ago.

A popular local walk was along the Basingstoke Canal at Odiham in Hampshire.  We would park the car and then walk for miles along the canal, enjoying the views over the beautiful English countryside, the picturesque towns and the animals in the fields.  I remember that one field in particular always had Hereford bulls in, they are still there today, probably many times great grandsons of the ones I first met 30 years ago.

And with my sister and her husband in 2016

My parents settled for their retirement just round the corner from the Canal and my sister also lives close by.  The children and I are staying with my father for a few weeks (months!) while we wait for our new visas and a few weeks ago we met up with my sister, her husband and Archie the dog to walk the canal again.  It is, as is the nature of canals, unchanged from the experiences of my childhood.  Watching the children walk along in front of us I could be watching an image of the two of us 30 years ago.

We walked down to the ruins of an old Norman Motte and Bailey castle built by King John for use as a hunting lodge in or around 1207.  It was from this castle that he rode to Runnymede (now a scant 45 minutes away by car) to sign the Magna Carta.  His daughter, Eleanor, lived in it for a while with her husband Simon de Montfort but it passed to Edward I following Simon’s rebellion.  The castle passed through the ownership of the Plantagenet Edwardian kings and Edward III gifted it to his wife Philippa who once again used it as a hunting lodge.  It is possible, if you look carefully, to see the remains of the fireplace on the main floor.  It is quite something to imagine John, Eleanor and Philippa sitting in front of it for warmth and riding out over the countryside. 

Philippa, Eleanor and John's fireplace

Odiham continued to play an important role in English history and was the site of battles during the Civil War and, many centuries later, home to one of the Battle of Britain Airfields.  RAF Odiham is the home to the RAF Chinooks which can be seen flying overhead most days of the year.

As a nomadic expat I have very few chances to share experiences of my childhood with my own children.  They do not ski to school across the Norwegian mountains, go on trips down the Niger or live on the banks of the Tigris.  A walk along the Basingstoke Canal at Odiham allows them to do and enjoy something that I did at their age and I cherish that opportunity.

Posted as part of the Travel At Home link up.

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