Читать книгу All Cheeses Great and Small: A Life Less Blurry - Alex James - Страница 8

CHAPTER 3

BRITAIN’S

BEST VILLAGE

We hadn’t been here very long when John Entwistle died. He was the bass player in The Who and he had lived not far away in Stow-on-the-Wold. I was as surprised to discover he’d lived nearby, as to learn that he was dead. He died in a hotel room in Las Vegas. I thought about him. You could just hear church bells pealing in the haze of the distance if you listened as carefully as you could. It was so quiet and it was just nice, and I wondered how bored I’d be in Las Vegas and what would have happened to me if this hadn’t.

I don’t think I could ever get bored of this place. It was a bright, infinite, bread and butter midwinter day. Sheep were giving an impression of idleness. Sheep are calming, particularly when seen in the middle distance, nibbling away at the grass. Pigs are at their best close up. They gush with industry and delight. They were always up to something or talking about something to each other. The Empresses had completely won me over and I was putting up more fences, and some pig houses – ‘pigloos’ – in the woods so that we could get some more. The more pigs there are in the world, the better.

The upshot of the starry-eyed plunge we took when we bought the place on our honeymoon was that I was continually faced with a million practicalities. I don’t think we would ordinarily have been bold enough to take such a big step had we not been fresh in love and captivated by each other and the thought of going somewhere new and doing something new. This was where I worked, but first of all it was my home. It was my life.

I worked hard. I got up early. I stayed up late. I rode my bicycle to the village. I still didn’t know what the hell I was doing or what was happening half the time, and I missed Blur. Blur were brilliant and I missed being a part of something that good. I thumped through lots of books and I planned agricultural experiments for the coming spring. I discovered tomato plants can grow twenty-eight feet high. I planned orchards. It was possible, with the right combination of trees to have apples in fruit nearly all year. I was getting to grips with roofs and drains, but I still knew nothing about crops, tenancy agreements, single farm payments or swill licences. Actually, I’ve only just found out I needed a swill licence. I was learning a lot every day and that was what I liked about it.

The nights were cold and dark. I was still a long way from turning the farm into a reasonable business. I was in my shed getting to grips with the elements of English gardens. I’d been reading about forestry all day and I was having a break. It was a really interesting section on pergolas – which I had instantly become a huge fan of. It was just like the first time I heard The Smiths. I was dreaming of making a really long and elaborate bower when the not so pretty gypsy girl came to the door, ashen-faced and said, ‘You need to come now. There’s loads of ca–cameras, see.’ She looked terrified. I could indeed see through the window that there were half a dozen news crews at the front door: cameras, producers with clipboards, runners, make-ups and a gaggle of pretty-but-too-skinny presenters with microphones. I hadn’t done a press conference since I got married. I wasn’t used to the limelight any more. I wondered what on earth could have happened. Whenever there are that many cameras at the door you assume something really terrible has been discovered. I could feel my pulse in my temples. The fight or flight reflex kicked in. I marched out of the door straight towards them, but as soon as they saw me, all their faces lit up. Every single one of them was smiling. The gods were smiling on us. They all talked at once and wanted to know what I thought about Kingham, the local village, being voted ‘Britain’s Finest Village’ by Country Life magazine. I said ahem, obviously we liked it here but I didn’t imagine that it is, or even if there is such a thing. I did laugh out loud though and I felt vindicated, just a little bit. I’d never heard of the place when we arrived, didn’t even know it was there. I thought this was the middle of nowhere. It had quite quickly become the centre of my world but I didn’t expect the rest of the world to notice it. Suddenly it was on the map and it felt like somehow or other we had landed on our feet.

There was a longstanding rivalry between the two neighbouring villages, Churchill and Kingham. For a lifetime, Churchill up the road had had the upper hand: the taller church spire (modelled on the one at Magdalen College), the best swing park (dedicated under-sevens area), and the best pub (The Chequers). But the balance of snobbery suddenly shifted, and they’ve been ringing the bells at St Andrew’s in Kingham a little bit louder ever since. Of course it was all utter nonsense, but the judges were keen on the fact that Kingham had plenty of low-cost housing, as well as mansions and manors. That had struck me too. There was an amazing cross section of people in the village, from rehoused travellers to High Court judges. There is a cricket green at one end and a well-used football pitch at the other. There is a thriving village shop, a school and a troublesome teenager or two, and it was flanked and bordered by land that had been, some of it for many generations, in the hands of grand families: some mad, some bad, some lovely. It was just a little bit real, Kingham. There are villages in the Cotswolds that are among the prettiest places on earth, places that take your breath away. Hidden corners, which can feel more like exclusive islands in the South Pacific, disconnected from the rest of the world.

Kingham is an entry-level kind of paradise with geezers, asbos and greboes. I don’t think anyone in Kingham took the matter very seriously, although everyone in the Tollgate Inn stayed late that night, but all the surrounding villages, the ones with better preserved stocks, earlier architecture and more legitimately famous residents were clearly slightly miffed as time went on, and as the place was continually mentioned as the jewel of the Cotswolds. The Cotswolds is snobbier than Paris, snootier than Upper West Side Manhattan, and the residents of Lower Slaughter, which always performs very well in ‘Britain in Bloom’, or Upper Slaughter, which has a Michelin-starred restaurant, were somewhat taken aback. Kingham could only boast a family-owned hotel that served twelve-course spectaculars in a creaky old silence. I rather like that hotel. There is the British Legion, too, for the geezers. Geezers have very few places left to go now that their natural habitats, pubs, are full of middle-class women drinking rosé.

Even though it is ridiculous to say somewhere is better than anywhere else, there was a serious upshot for the local community. The buoyancy of Kingham’s assets made it easier for local businesses to get investment. There was an accompanying redevelopment boom of such proportions that it was impossible to get a local builder. They all remortgaged and went to work on each other’s houses. The camping site had already transformed into a camping suite. Our nearest neighbour, a plumber, knocked his cottage down and replaced it with a post-modern eco-castle. The electrician bought a tranche of East Anglia and disappeared.

I took up football again, but here it was played slightly differently. My first Kingham football match was the best I’ve ever played in. It may not have featured the most skilled exponents of the game, but it was the most fun. It was an old Etonian, an autistic ten-year-old, a passing crusty dogwalker and a nightclub promoter, against the mums, the toddler and me. I was wearing a suit and a pair of GI pumps. The girls were in tight jeans. There was a lot of mud on the pitch, from a tractor driving back and forth, by the look of things, and the chaps had the considerable advantage of the slope. Blackie, who had been walking his dog, was in goal. He said he’d once been the drummer in Hawkwind. He looked like he might have been. He didn’t have many teeth left. When he found out what I used to do for a living, he asked if I’d like to join his band. They did Motorhead covers. His family were rehoused travellers. I liked them. His wife taught art at the local comprehensive, and he was on terms with all the nobs in the big houses because their daughter was some kind of genius who had won a scholarship to the top private school in Oxford.

Our fresh young forward, the two-year-old, was causing a few problems but mainly for his own side, as he was constantly wandering off and having to be rescued by one of the team. What a brilliant game football is. I’d forgotten just how much more fun it is doing football than watching it, especially with girls playing. There were frequent bouts of hysteria and a lot of running commentary. Claire, in goal, got a muddy one on the nose from the opposition, which galvanised the team spirit and took the competitive element to another level. The two-year-old found a big puddle that fascinated him and he sat down to play in the mud. Once he had stopped running away we really rubbed their noses in it. It felt good afterwards, the winter sunshine was warm and you could see for miles and miles. Far more people watch football than play it. Watching the best team in the world is nothing compared to playing in the worst. Football made me feel good.

We were nearly ready to decorate. ‘Who can paint?’ I asked.

‘If you can piss you can paint,’ said John, slowly and wisely, and everybody cheerfully agreed. We were sitting in the static caravan, me, John – the semi-retired chippy with a lifetime’s worth of breaktime wisdom to draw upon – and Blackie and Doa. Blackham and Doa were the only idlers left in the village, or had been until they started working for me. I felt slightly guilty for steamrollering their idyllic lifestyles. They were happy chasing barbel, growing their own vegetables and going to see Motorhead occasionally but due to the buoyancy of the local economy it was no longer possible to live here and not have a job, even if you’d retired. I suppose I thought I’d come here to retire, after all.

I was quite absorbed in village life, but it was surprisingly easy to stay in touch with people I cared about from the past too. In fact getting some distance from everything had helped me realise who I did care about. We were far enough away from London for people to think about staying the night if they came to visit, and even though everyone had said we were mad to do it in the first place, all the ones who had been the most indignant about what we were doing, were the ones who wanted to come and stay now it was Britain’s ‘Best Village’.

I was living in a different world. Most of the time I didn’t have any cash or any keys in my pocket. In the summer I didn’t wear shoes. In a way living on a farm was a return to a childlike state. There were far more exciting things to spend money on than comfy chairs or plasma screen tellies: now there were pergolas and gazebos, cherry pickers and mini diggers. I liked the places where they added the VAT on afterwards and sent you a monthly bill: builders merchants and plant hire companies. The countryside is not known for its shops. Stow-on-the-Wold sold fudge and antiques. Bourton-on-the-Water just sold fudge. Most of the villages didn’t even have a shop at all any more. I remember going to the country when I lived in London and feeling there was nowhere to spend my cash: it’s quite a nauseating feeling, when your money’s not worth anything or it won’t get you anything.

That wasn’t a problem in Kingham, because of Daylesford. The reason people wanted to come to Kingham was because of Daylesford.

I only discovered Daylesford by accident. My dad spotted it actually. Daylesford is the poshest organic farm shop in the world. There are shops I have to go to, and shops I like to go to. Daylesford Organic is one of the latter. More than a farm shop, this is a farm shop so fabulous that it gentrified the whole neighbourhood. It probably added more to the value of houses in the area than having a member of the royal family move in would have done. It really is a spectacular feat of fantasy, realised. Organic principles bundled up with glamour, off pat, tied with a ribbon into a retail experience every bit as sensational as Bond Street or Liberty. It was like accidentally wandering out of the economy cabin of grocery shopping into first class. The place was full of blissful-looking yoga chicks and anxious-looking husbands. The only problem with it, was that it was expensive. But how expensive can a carrot be? I have to say, I don’t care how much a carrot is. It can’t be that much and if it is really good, I’ll pay. Daylesford was incredibly popular with Cotswold high fliers, and a whole scene and mythology grew up around it. People who live in the Cotswolds don’t tend to go to other villages. It’s like London, people who live in Clapham never go to Camden. But everyone goes to Daylesford. There were credible reports of local movie stars spending thousands of pounds per visit, and aristocratic ladies unable to control the frequency of their trips to the holistic massage parlour. To shop there cost the earth, but it was heaven. The place radiated prestige and dispensed comfort.

It was all the dream of Carole Bamford, the wife of a local billionaire. People laughed at her, said she was losing money, that it was a hobby and that it was ridiculous, but somehow she had actually created the most desirable food brand there is. She didn’t particularly care about making money. She wanted to make amazing food. That was why the brand was so powerful and so valuable. It was food couture. I could see the Bamfords’ land from my bedroom window. I’ve never seen grass as green as that. It was a bit like the rest of the local countryside, but it was slightly neater and greener, even from a distance you could tell how tidy it all was. Part of the shop’s charm is that it was just nestled away in the middle of nowhere: rolling countryside at the heart of the next-door estate. The first time I went to the shop was on a Saturday. People had flocked in from all points west: on foot, on horseback, by motorbike and sidecar, in Bentleys and 4x4s. I parked my bicycle between some kind of dragster and a convertible BMW. There was nothing ugly and not a single reminder of any of the bad things about the world, not the merest hint. Even the car park was a beautiful thing, full of other beautiful things.

The renovated farm buildings that housed the shops were beautiful. I realised they were just like my buildings, probably built by the same builders at around the same time, but these had the benefit of a brilliant redesign. The perfect balance of rustic and contemporary. It was like strolling into Belgravia ‘en pays’. To enter was to be overwhelmed by a sea of beige punctuated by topiary splodges.

As a rule of thumb you can tell how affluent people are in the Cotswolds by how skinny they are. Everyone was skinny in Daylesford. As I arrived, two latte-sipping gymkhana mums in full regalia – knee-length riding boots, thigh-clinging jodhpurs – climbed aboard their supercharged Range Rover, happily chattering in fluent New Age. I passed a conspicuously gay man in a cravat carrying what might have been a cabbage – or could have been a large, unusual flower – to his car, a pristine vintage E-type Jag. He exuded great hauteur, incredibly managing to suggest that the whole experience was beneath him. And that’s how posh the Cotswolds are. There is always someone who thinks they are above the situation, no matter how spectacular it is.

There is never anything in the food hall that it would not be nice to take home. Once inside it’s irresistible, spellbinding. Buying food elsewhere is just unthinkable. It’s not that cheap, but a crisp paper bag of groceries from there was enough to keep me happy for quite some time. What meats! Everything from snipe to sausages ranged alongside unrecognisable vegetables from abroad and perfect specimens of familiar ones fresh from the market gardens right outside. The bread counter was piled high with rye loaves, batons and soda whoppers. There were pastries. There were tarts. There were full-on legs of ham, cheeses I’d never seen before. Everything was beautifully wrapped, perfectly lit and immaculate. There were even copies of Dazed & Confused and Wallpaper magazine at the checkout. It was all absolutely ridiculous and fantastic and sexy. I spotted a cruising Bentley bachelor who was unable to remember the name of the cheese that he liked, but the man on the cheese counter knew, and he knew the gentleman’s name, too.

Daylesford is a place that all women like. At least there seemed to be more women than men there. A lady of indeterminable age, wearing a denim mini skirt and looking very good, whilst rather nonchalantly buying truffles, was talking on her mobile. ‘Darling, I’d love to but the Clarksons are coming for dinner and the cook’s freaking out again and I’ve got to go to New York in the morning. See you in LA. Bye, darling.’ It was more glamorous than Cap d’Antibes and it was November and we were only thirty miles from Coventry. I was distracted by another lady in her forties in another short skirt–bare legs combo carrying a huge pot of tall flowers, so that I couldn’t really see her face. It was a surreal triumph, after Magritte. The whole shop is that. A shop in a field in the middle of nowhere. She was on the phone, too, behind the flowers, talking quietly, probably to her husband, confessing to having just spent all their money on flowers.

Daylesford is a colossal operation, a huge investment and a triumph of the ‘if you build it they will come’ school. Master bakers, pastry chefs, butchers, wine buyers, and goodness knows what other experts all going at it behind the scenes from dawn till dusk to fill the shelves. I was shown around the area where the cows were milked. The milk was fed directly by a pipe into the hands of an artisan cheesemaker and turned into award-winning cheese on the spot. A lot of the stuff in the shop was produced from scratch, with scientific attention paid to every detail on site, but all the home-produced lines were topped up with the finest luxuries from the four corners of the globe. It was a case study in excellence.

What a business to stumble upon in the Gloucestershire countryside. The food hall was just a part of it. There was a whole New Age massage, yogaromatherapy wing, apparently entirely staffed by Tibetan Buddhist monks offering the latest treatments from facials to full body massage. Alongside the new clothing department, was an interiors division full of knick-knacks and tasteful objets. Another building, with roaring open fires and scented candles, sold books about yoga for dogs and other suitable gifts for those who have everything. I took a tour of the market garden behind the shop. I roamed polytunnels full of exotic salad. From an observation deck I watched the cows being milked. I saw the yoghurt and butter-making facilities. I watched the artisan cheesemaker creating his award-winning cheese. They weren’t just making cheese, they were making milk and turning it into cheese and they didn’t just make milk, they made grass. You could tell worms were being taken into consideration and somewhere behind the scenes was someone who knew worms don’t like lemons. A group of wide-eyed Gore-tex-clad tourists looked clearly out of place, wondering at the sheer financial scale of any shopping activity. They stayed in a huddle and nudged each other and pointed at things, slightly scared, but thoroughly exhilarated.

I loved it. It was a dream that deserved to succeed. I couldn’t help thinking I was looking at the shop of the future. It did for shops what Ian Schrager did for hotels in the nineties. Made everything that had happened before look boring. Buying the groceries at Daylesford would never be a chore. It was a joy, because Daylesford managed to have that quality of being somewhere that it is actually quite nice to just pass the time. People didn’t go there just to buy filets mignons, they went to see and be seen. Even the chatelaines of the larger houses liked to drop in to pick up an extra bowl of chocolate-coated cherries when they could easily have sent their cook. It was amazing how it polarised people locally. The pickle factory caused an uproar in the village and was shut down. Many of the locals thought the whole thing was a nonsensical conceit for tourists and never went there. Fred sold lamb to Daylesford but he didn’t know what to make of it. He just shook his head and went very quiet whenever it was mentioned.

But it was a magnificent thing to have on our doorstep: as inspirational as it was convenient. I still didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my new life, I just wanted something else, but Daylesford was such a sophisticated dream, perfectly realised, that it showed that whatever it is you want to do, however far-fetched it is, it can be done. Right here, bang in the middle of nowhere.

There was always something happening at Daylesford but I was surprised by how much community activity there was, generally. I had no idea there would be so much going on in the countryside. It was one festivity after another in the parish. There was a firework display on top of the hill. It was the talk of the queue in the Post Office. We decided to go, but I had trouble finding Claire’s left welly and by the time we left, both furious with each other, with a sinking heart I saw the first firework go pop in the distance. It was all over by the time we arrived fifteen minutes later. We missed that one, but it soon became clear that firework displays would be actually quite hard to avoid. They seemed to be going on all around, all winter long. There were about three thousand people on the village green on bonfire night itself. Some druids performed quite a dark ceremony with a very lifelike guy while we munched burgers, spangled sparklers and watched our children on the bouncy slide. It seemed just as glamorous and interesting as Brook Street, Mayfair at midday or Newcastle in full swing at midnight. The bonfire was enormous and the fireworks went on for ages. Perhaps they never stop. I suppose there’s always a firework going off somewhere.

There was a pamphlet that came through the door every month with adverts for curtain alterations and swimming pool maintenance. I couldn’t help reading it. I always wanted to call every number in it. One month, between a landscape gardener and a fitness trainer, there was a new number to ring for singing lessons. I thought I’d have some singing lessons. I still played the guitar every day. I was in the best band in the world. I didn’t want to start another one, but I clung on tight to music, tighter than ever.