Into the Chase
Staffordshire always strikes me as a busy county. One of roadsalt-greyed grass verges and constant roadworks. Huge roadside pubs, always boarded up; nobody ever having time for a swift libation, I assume, it being so busy round here.
This view is borne largely from experience; I've travelled through the county extensively all my life, and indeed lived for a time in the old family house in Penkridge, walking down the busy roads to and from work and into town.
It was my first real taste of town-aligned life; having grown up in largely rural Warwickshire. We had Stratford and Leamington of course, but the lack of horses in either meant they had limited interest to my family as a rule. Going To Town (caps deliberate) was something you did so rarely that you got dressed up for it, like some latter day homesteaders in a Spaghetti Western. Close proximity to the county town of Stafford therefore exposed me to people on a regular basis in ways I'd not experienced before, and I grew into an enthusiastic visitor to a town which held the three things I needed most at that age: record shops, book shops, and scores of girls to be too scared of talking to to even try. It also had the fabulous Mike Lloyd music shop down a side street where you could buy tickets for all the bands on tour as they passed through the Midlands, each week's offering marked in biro on little pink filing cards pinned into the window. That was where my lifetime of concert attendance really took hold, thanks mainly to them letting you pay them off over a few weeks.
It was a couple of summers, really; the first was the last before I left home, and then the second summer after I'd left school a couple of years later. I returned to Stratford later that second summer and my next formative experience of the area was being tied to the Stop the BNRR (M6 Toll Road) protests, where we tried to divert the works around ancient woods (and failed, as always). Later, I worked up at Shenstone there on the reinstatement, healing the scars on land left by the road building, joining homes back to water supplies and power, replanting hedges, and generally trying to salvage some habitat from the engineered wreckage.
A more productive approach to mitigating for the modern world perhaps than chaining oneself to trees, but one tinged with sadness throughout; the damage having already been done. I still hate that bloody road, with it's excessive tolls. The likes of me can't afford to use it for the most part, and in fact on this very day I wouldn't have had the 30 quid needed to access it there and back had I wanted to. Such is life, however, and it offers me chance to see the old way up again; through Sutton Coldfield, Muckley Corner, Chasetown, and past the Roman town of Wall on Watling street. It's no hardship really, we used to use this route for family occasions when I was young. Possibly because the M6 was so bad, and possibly because the cars we had were so bad it was madness to take them anywhere near a big road, let alone one with motorway police all over it.
I suppose it's the proximity to Birmingham (a catch all name for the great industrial conurbation that marks the middle of the country) that makes Staffordshire so busy. As the landscape pivots round the city, almost all routes north and south coalesce there one way or another, the hourglass waist through which all things pour towards London. The steady stream of people and goods that rumble through this land is as incessant as it is noisesome.
It takes me by surprise then, each time I veer from the main roads into the countryside of Cannock Chase. I am presented with redbrick or sandstone cottages set back from the roads in tiny estate villages or planned roadside settlements, still clinging to their medieval layouts. They seem almost aloof to passers-by in the sunshine, but take on a more huddled appearance under grey skies- perhaps cowering from the ever increasing encroachment of modernity into this enclave of beauty and peace.
The pretty city of Lichfield takes me aback as I cut through. My one prior visit here was back in the early 1990s to watch my cousin play tennis, and the way to the last mooring takes me past the same vista I saw that day, it seared into memory far more deeply than I expected. The sun makes a rare appearance as I navigate the regency brickwork and manicured green space, just to hammer home the spring sunshine of that memory.
The way home for the boat is becoming clear now, and I don't need a map to find the canal again any more. We have rounded the town of Stafford to it's east, and a few locks lie between us and the end of the Trent and Mersey, or at least the place where we leave it. Passing Great Haywood, memory throws another curve ball. Back in the 1990s and early 2000s we ran FSO trucks for delivering logs. A sort of Polish-built FIAT pick up with a Peugeot engine and a gearbox made out of something significantly less substantial than pillow talk; these trucks were imported for a short time after the Iron Curtain was pulled back, until the company sadly went under. There was only one dealership in the entire country for spares, and it was here at Great Haywood on the edge of the Chase. I pass the garage and smile at the memory. I was their last remaining customer for the brand, my final trip there in 2003 saw me load up with everything they no longer wanted, a veritable cornucopia of truck parts almost completely free of charge. I was sent on my way with firmly shaken hands and hearty thanks for the memories (and for saving them from having to get a skip in, no doubt). I genuinely think they were over the moon that someone still had one of their wagons going, and they regaled me with tips and tricks for giving it a long life to come- all washed down with hot tea in mugs in their workshop. They're like that round here; if you're one of them they'll give you anything you need without a second thought.
The boat run down from Stone is brief, and sees us many-handed for once; my father joining Willow and I for the dubious pleasure of getting absolutely soaked by a hail storm that turned quickly into sleet and then stair-rod rain. My wax jacket leaks, I am reminded.
I've been meaning to re-wax it for at least a decade now, and it still bears the cold dampness of it's last outing in August at a festival. I'd have thought 3 weeks in 30 degree European heat might have dried it out, though perhaps I should have taken it out from behind the van seats while we were out there.
We pass the time in conversation, Dad and I gossiping about our parallel pasts as machine drivers at the same drainage firm, while Willow draws the world passing by. Later, during the rain I spy her fast asleep in the back cabin, lullabied by the rhythmic drum of the diesel under our feet. It's been quite a month for her, I reflect; life used the time we were away to take a massive run up, kicking her at full tilt upon our return. Let her rest, I think. She's earned it.
As we round the pasture and gardens between the town and village the Trent shadows us from behind the trees, recent rainfall already turning summer grazing into winterbourne meadows for the season. This is a foreshadow for the coming week; like watching the detective in some tv drama fail to declare something innocuous in the first episode only to see it derail the whole thing later on. The overspilled riverwater gathers pace and intent from here, growing in scale with each passing tributary. Further downstream and just seven days later over 500 people have had to evacuate their homes as the levels continue to rise in Nottinghamshire.
We tie up almost as soon as we've cast off. The days are short now and in a week we will lose another hour from the afternoon until March of next year.
A few days later I head up alone for a bit more. Willow is still laid low by her illness and the rest of the family are prepping for a funeral. I take a short run down into Haywood itself, temporarily lowering property prices by tying up outside a sleek-looking marina. I can feel the gaze of the shared-boat owners as their doily-net curtains twitch, “Margaret, there is a PROLE mooring over there!”. They'll live, and all the kids fishing the cut are suitably impressed, “that's proper cool, that” I am informed. More important still is the enthusiasm of a little white haired terrier who seemingly wants to come home with me, to the dismay of her owners. She bounces with all the joy of someone who has just this minute discovered puddles and wants to show them off to the world, and as is my role in life I tell her to look me up if her owners are no fun and we can paddle splash forever…
Immediately ahead is a choice, muddying any previous clarity of the way forward. I can take the first right and head down to Birmingham, Alvechurch, and then perhaps Stratford on Avon; or take the second junction and onto the Coventry, thence Nuneaton, Rugby, and then onto the Oxford at Napton on the Hill. The latter has always been the plan; it's quicker, flatter, and less fraught with ‘bandit country’ where leaving boats is ill advised. But the former route does also take in some wonderful bits of Worcestershire and Warwickshire, my own home counties, and offers the opportunity to pass through Penkridge, where at one time a whole clutch of us lived together.
I'll need to count the number of locks on each route for a start, and check the planned stoppages, for that season is now upon us. We'll see.
For now, home again on the Roman road. I've been hit with a nasty stomach bug this week, so all adventuring must be put to one side while I recover properly.
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