A Somerset Lad

“Blazing June,” it always seemed an odd description of the month. No June in England was ever really blazing – except, perhaps June 2018. Nevertheless, there were some who reckoned it the best month of the year, the days were long and the sun frequently shone.

At our school on Dartmoor, it was undoubtedly the finest time of the year. It seemed that an easing of the weather, after the severity of the winter, brought an easing of the regime to which we were subject. By June the school year was drawing to a close, term ended at the beginning of July, and the staff were almost relaxed, (or as relaxed as fundamentalist Christians living in fear of the final judgement might be). It wasn’t that there was an easing of the rules, which were frequently absurd and arbitrary, but there was occasionally a stretching of time and, once, even the cancellation of the Sunday evening service – which could last an hour and a half – to allow time for a long cross country walk.

In June, the school could become a detail in a bigger picture that was the Moor. Much that would have marked teenage life in the world outside was almost entirely absent from our daily routine, but what we had, that would transform the memories of many, was some of the most rugged and beautiful country in England, and in June it would be at its best.

The moorland roads were hardly more than single vehicle tracks, rough stone walls on either side waiting to punish the paintwork of cars where drivers misjudged the width. An encounter with a tractor and trailer might mean a long reverse before a gateway or entrance provided the passing space required. Traffic was no concern of ours; roads were only walked on when no alternative bridle way, footpath, or, sometimes, just open country offered themselves.

The moor was filled with treasures entirely inaccessible to motor vehicles – the granite tors, the “postboxes,” the bronze age hut circles and standing stones, the industrial archaeology of places like the Haytor granite tramway. Of course, they were there all year round, but in June they provided reason for trudging over hillsides of heather, gorse and bracken, and through dark wooded valleys where black bog water would run in streams and where sturdy slate roofed houses testified to human tenacity in the face of the elements.

Perhaps places do not have personalities, perhaps that is a fanciful notion of someone with an overly suggestible mind, but the Moor seemed to have. It seemed moody, bad tempered at one moment, and buoyant the next. It seemed to treat some people badly and others as friends. It seemed to like the boys of our school, as it knew what it felt like to be isolated, to be out on one’s own; rarely was it unkind to us.

Once, when retirement seemed not a distant prospect as it does now, a thought occurred that to live in such a place would be heaven on Earth, but the prices were far beyond anything I might ever manage, and there was the sobering thought that June lasted for but one month of the year.

It is odd to imagine it will be forty years ago, each detail retains a fresh intensity

Catching the District Line train from Kew Gardens to Waterloo, I carried a case that could only be moved in fifty yard bursts, the weight of books being so heavy.  The District Line tube train chiefly defied the label “underground” as it made its way through the scenery of west London, only dropping just below street level as it approached the centre, like an uncertain swimmer not wanting to get out of their depth; being overtaken by the speeding trains from the Piccadilly line which did not hesitate to dive deep into tunnels.

I bought a single ticket for Yeovil Junction and lugged the case into a compartment of one of the old Southern Region carriages that were still pulled up and down the line to Exeter.  There was poetry in the list of stations called out by the British Rail station announcer: the next train from Platform 10 will be the 1435 for Exeter Saint Davids, calling at Basingstoke, Andover, Salisbury, Gillingham, Sherborne, Yeovil Junction, Crewkerne, Axminster, Honiton, Exeter Central and Exeter Saint Davids.  A man walked the length of the train, swinging closed the carriage doors, each resounding thud bringing nearer the moment of departure. A shrill whistle and then we pulled out, heading south through Clapham.

The compartment was empty except for myself; I leaned against the glass and watched the grey suburbs which were followed by the greenness of English shires on a June afternoon.

The train pulled into Yeovil Junction at twenty to five; opening the door meant sliding down the window and leaning out to turn the handle.  My Dad stood waiting on the platform and moved to help with the weight of the suitcase.  We walked up the stairs and over the bridge to reach the car park.

Having dropped out of college after two terms, and having returned twelve months later to complete first year, it seemed like the end of a very long journey.

I never really re-engaged with the London School of Economics, where I was a student.  It was as though the year apart had opened a chasm between us.  I went on to complete the second and third years in a desultory fashion, turning up for lectures, completing essays on time, getting sufficient marks to pass the exams.  I made no friends in the seven terms after returning and never set foot in the place after leaving in 1983.

Passing down the Aldwych in a cab one day a dozen years ago, a friend looked left into Houghton Street and said, “There’s the LSE, Ian. Didn’t you go there?”

“Aye,” I said, “it was a long time ago”.

Yet the memories of that June afternoon are fresh, even the taste of the tea at the house of my grandmother where we called on the way home.