We’re Olde England certain / Our tales are written within the floor
It was a spring morning in Norwich, the air alive with birdsong and promise, as I packed my guitar into the automobile and appeared to the highway forward. This effective metropolis, with easy accessibility to the Norfolk waterways and shores, had anchored a lot of my grownup life and was an exquisite place to have lived and grown. But I had turn out to be stressed, like a visitor who had overstayed his welcome and yearned for contemporary horizons.
As a songwriter, too, I had been nurtured right here, among the many folks golf equipment and cellar bars, and I longed to take my music farther afield. To journey and discover like a bard of outdated, making up a journey as I went alongside, on the intersection of land and tune.
Out right here, on the correct flank of England, the remainder of the nation had at all times felt like a distant dream, uncharted territory. To my remorse, I had by no means explored it correctly, by no means taken a correct look beneath its wing. Was England nonetheless as stunning because the poets, singers and storytellers claimed? I couldn’t declare to know, but I used to be one in every of them.
So I set off on a meander throughout the isle, a pilgrimage of types, travelling in my large property automobile, full with a easy fold-up mattress. My intention was to get off the crushed observe, discover these historic lands and write a tune about my journey. With no vacation spot in thoughts, I mentioned goodbye to associates and crossed the county border.
The times had been lengthy and but fleeting / As I made my manner throughout the isle / By way of the patchwork of cities, quietly protecting / Olde England alive
I made a decision to keep away from motorways and main A-roads and use a paper map wherever attainable. I wished to comply with my nostril, not my satnav, and it quickly acquired me fortunately misplaced within the nation lanes of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, gently transferring west. I used to be in no rush and stopped the night time beneath an oak tree by a grassy widespread, in a village whose identify I wasn’t certain of. It was quiet, oh so quiet, and I wakened inspired that the automobile would hold me secure and sound. Filling up my bottle on the native spring, I drove on.
For the primary time in my life I used to be nomadic, a person of no mounted abode. Not on foot just like the pilgrims of outdated, but witnessing the identical historic patchwork of fields, byways, church buildings and monuments that honoured their journey. A number of instances, I ended in a layby, wandered down a footpath and took relaxation by some brook, to pay homage to the simplicity of water on stones and wildlife quietly transferring throughout me. My senses had been coming alive after too lengthy within the metropolis. I may see the thatch, hear the bells, style the wild garlic, contact the mossy stones and, certainly, odor the roses. This England struck me as a spot of quiet surprise and I used to be waking to its splendour.
Spending the night time close to Avebury, Wiltshire, within the morning I walked the West Kennet Avenue and leant in opposition to the stones, imagining their place within the historic world. What songs had they heard, sung in Celtic tongues? Who would have sat in these circles, surrounded by kin, fireplace and kill? I closed my eyes and dwelt within the thriller of all of it.
Spring showers heralded the final day of April and I set off for Glastonbury, the place the pagan pageant of Beltane was brewing!
I noticed ferris wheels and a Could queen dancing/ I heard church bells ring within the many stony spires / And by the sunshine of the Dart, I discovered you ready / Olde England alive
In Avalon (Glastonbury), I witnessed the crowning of the Could king and queen, and a procession of dragons via the city. A pair I spoke with informed me they’d began the day on Dartmoor, the place morris dancers got here at dawn, weaving their dances and heralding the solar. I informed them of the molly dancers of Suffolk, who seem not at Beltane however at Samhain to mark the beginning of winter, their faces gray with soot and ash, like impish devils ushering within the darkness.
The customs and celebrations of Olde England are felt throughout the seasons, everywhere in the nation, however with specific delight at Beltane, AKA Could Day. Wandering via Glastonbury, seeing the painted faces and costumes, I felt awestruck at how these folkloric customs stay, mysterious of their beginnings and rationales. They level to one thing untamed, uncivilised and steeped in magic, nonetheless capturing the hearts of townsfolk to this present day.
Climbing the winding path as much as Glastonbury Tor, I encountered a gathering of druids on their very own pilgrimage, immersed in ceremonial rapport with the weather. Looking to the Somerset Ranges, and hovering above this honest isle, I felt a good distance from dwelling.
A good wind blew south, clouds-a-clearing / As I drove from the tor beneath painted skies / To the place the marshmen sing, for the salt and the samphire/ Olde England alive
I drove south to Dartmoor beneath resplendent spring skies, and stopped for the night time by Hound Tor, a robust outcrop on the jap fringe of the moorland. Within the morning, I explored the paths behind the tor, which dipped down into an beautiful faery realm of tinkling streams and shallow swimming pools, verged with wildflowers.
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Late afternoon, following a neighborhood tipoff, I parked close to Holne and ventured into historic woods that neglected the dashing River Dart far beneath. The timber had been gnarled and coated in moss, and the river beneath appeared iridescent. The place felt completely untouched, the environment palpably extra tree than human, with me undeniably a customer. I sang for some time, questioning who had lived amongst these timber way back, watching them via their first seasons of youth; and whether or not, in one other time and manner, we’ll return to reside in woods like these once more.
How had I not been to Dartmoor earlier than? I used to be surprised by its magnificence. I felt as if I may flip from any roadside, gate or hedgerow and wander right into a dizzy dell of bluebells or a hidden nook of earthy delights. The huge moorland was breathtaking, with ponies and cattle parading the roads and unusual stone rows pointing to distant horizons, misplaced in time.
The Cornish coast was calling me, so I set off to our most westerly county, feeling the invisible wire from my start line in Norwich stretched out to its fullest. After visiting St Michael’s Mount, clinging to its weathered rock, I adopted the southerly coastal paths and noticed the primary indicators of rock samphire rising on the cliffside. It made me consider amassing samphire with associates within the Blakeney marshes, and earlier than lengthy I felt the pull to return to Norfolk.
There’s a calling within the bones, a warming of the stoves […] / Down the St Michael line, the tales are alive […] / From the gold Norfolk shores, the West Kennet moors […]/ How the molly males they dance, put folks in a trance […] / Olde England alive
Crossing again over the East Anglian border, I ended for lunch by a village inexperienced. I captured some birdsong on my handheld recorder and performed via a brand new tuning on my guitar that gave the impression of heat logs on an open pub fireplace. Photographs of my journey – of Avebury, the Dart, Could queens, molly males and samphire – swirled in my head and swept out via my voice, on to the pages of my lyric e-book and right into a tune.
That tune, Olde England Alive (lyrics from that are interspersed right here), helps me keep in mind the reference to England that I felt throughout these days on the highway. An indigenous connection, a way of surprise and a long-forgotten delight in our countryside and historical past. Some say that outdated magnificence is forgotten or being solid apart, however I discovered it nonetheless dwelling and respiratory throughout me.
The place did I get the concept that England was someway beneath concrete or had misplaced its appeal? Who was it that claimed this nation has gone to wreck? My father? The politicians? The students? Possibly that notion has some reality in it, within the fixed circulate of modernity. However it’s only one narrative. Beneath, if we care to look, there’s an unbroken line, a spirit of Olde England transferring amongst us, within the landscapes, standing stones and unusual customs that, regardless of all of it, this nation has treasured so properly.
Father you lied / You mentioned it died […] / These books they lied / They mentioned it died / However I inform you now […] / Olde England is alive!
After a brief keep in Norwich, James set off once more, touring and travelling round England and recording the songs he wrote on his journeys. He now lives in Dartmoor. The completed tune, Olde England Alive, and James’s new album, All of Our Palms, could be listened to on streaming platforms
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