2d Week in July, Part 5

In Search of Bentleys

As if we didn't get enough driving yesterday, we again had a road trip today, to the Bedford area, which took a couple of hours. To break up the drive I stopped to let the boys take a few turns around a go-kart course, all kitted out with blue jumpsuits and helmets. This was a big jump from racing cars on the computer, and I was pleased that Nick resisted his natural impulse to crash into things.

In Bedford, we passed through another street market in the town center in order to hit the tourist infomation office, to get directions to the County Records Hall. We lunched at Mill Yard Cafe, sequestered back in a little lane, whose owner reminded me quite a bit of my grandfather in his younger days. Realizing that the John Bunyan Museum was just a couple of blocks away, I diverted us there and I'm glad I did: Bunyan, author of "Pilgrim's Progress," was the son of Margaret Bentley, herself the daughter of William and Mary Bentley, the earliest Bentleys I have been able to trace with any surety. In the museum were a number of amazing artifacts, including the key to his house, his anvil (he was a tinker by trade), the chair he used when preaching, and the flute he carved from a broom handle when incarcerated for preaching illegally. The docents were impressed that I was related, and pulled out a biography of Bunyan that listed William's mother as being named Mary -- information I had not had to date.

We walked along the swan-filled river to the Records Hall; the boys remained outside while I nipped in to try and dig up some parish records for Elstow and Ampthill, where the Bentleys lived and died. William and Mary were so early that there was no record of their births (primarily I was trying to establish William's parents), but there was plenty of corroboration for their children's births, marriages, and so on. The young guy helping me also looked at tax records and finally at wills -- whereupon miraculously he brought me a manila folder with Mary's will (dated 1632) - written in brown ink on very fragile paper. I got a photocopy of this.

From Bedford we drove over the river to the village of Elstow, birthplace of William Bentley (1573) and John Bunyan. This small suburb still has a nimber of half-timber buildings, an ancient moot-hall, and the church where Bunyan was baptised. We wandered the churchyard looking for Bentleys and Bunyans, to no avail. It also has a creek running through it that supposedly was the inspiration for his "Slough of Despond," and it looks the part, much overgrown with weeds and overhung by trees. The boys were getting hot, tired, and hungry (translation: irritable) and so we stopped at the Swan pub, where we were treated kindly by the barmaid; we had a lovely curry in the well-flowered back garden.

Before heading home (it was now about 5 PM) we continued onward a couple of miles to Ampthill, where the Bentleys settled and whence some eventually departed for America. It contains the church (St. Andrew's) where they were buried, but again, so early that no gravestones exist -- but we prowled about it anyway. The town was pretty much shut down except for a pub or two, and was not as picturesque as Elstow, and as we were pretty tired we headed home.

It was Nick's turn in the front seat as navigator, and unfortunately he steered us several miles out of our way, through Luton, which wouldn't have been too bad except there were extensive roadworks (bane of my existence) in the middle of town, and we had to do quite a bit of circuitous (and often signless) driving to get back on the right road. At one point we went right through the Muslim section of town, past a mosque that had been featured on the news the night before with regard to the London bombings.

2d Week in July, Part 4

Warplanes and Punts

I bravely or foolishly gave the Eye map another go this morning in the foggy wee hours. This time I found that one footpath simply was not there, apparently obliterated by new (post-1998) housing. I got a few suspicious glances from folks leaving for school or work, but persisted and finally located a track heading off along some parsley fields. I noticed a number of folks off in the fog in the middle of the field; they were either birders or perhaps panther stalkers. The footpath petered out after a half mile or so, or -- more precisely -- suddenly did not match the map, and rather than duplicate yesterday's wild goose chase I wisely turned around. An older gent with an aged golden retriever that resembled a polar bear were out for a walk and waylaid me for a few moments. For some odd reason (I guess I felt suspicious myself being out that early) I fibbed about where I was from and assumed what, I suspect, struck him as a weird amalgam of BBC English, Scouse, and Irish brogue, with not a small measure of American, but I escaped back to our cottage ready for the day's adventures.

After our typical cholesterol-heavy breakfast we walked up to the weekly farmers' market in the spacious, tall-ceilinged main room of the Town Hall, arriving on schedule but, according to some of the ladies there, after many of the best produce had already been snatched up by early comers. Some were selling baked goods, some greeting cards made with pressed flowers, some home-made children's clothes, and many fruits and vegetables; we bought some coffee cake, potatoes, and cards, and chatted with the ladies who of course were curious about of holiday.

We then drove an hour or so southwest, past Cambridge, to the Imperial War Museum at Duxford -- essentially was an airport. You could charter rides in vintage aircraft, but these were all reserved today by school field-trips.

So we wandered the various hangars looking at Spitfires, Mustangs, and other WWII planes from both sides of the conflict, in various states of repair, plus a number of modern aircraft, helicopters, and boats, including a small submarine. The American collection featured an entire B52 suspended from the ceiling, a Blackbird, Harrier, U2, and other impressive death machines. We skipped the tank exhibit. It was boiling hot. The cafeteria, deluged by students, was out of sandwiches and pop. It was refreshing to stand in the intense backwash of a biplane on the runway. After a quick walk through a Concorde, a rather unsatisfactory lunch at another cafe, and a spin through the gift shop, we headed back to Cambridge.

It took quite a bit of back and forth to find our way to the town center (dang ring roads and unclear signage!) but finally pulled into a parking garage just as an absolute torrential downpour unexpectedly hit.

We stood looking out at it for several minutes, watching hapless pedestrians skittering by on the sidewalk below, or huddling under the plane trees, totally drenched, but it soon had returned to a hot, dry afternoon and we walked the high street a few blocks to the river. There we were accosted by warring punting vendors, but I opted to stay on foot, making a brief circle following a map I'd copied off the Web, which led us to "the second oldest church in Cambridge" and a few pubs which frustratingly were closed for the afternoon. The boys were getting a bit tired and we plumped down at a coffee bar's damp table, beside the river; then since Nick was feeling contrary we simply returned to the car. It was mid-afternoon and I knew it would be pushing things to either take a punt or walk any further in the burning sun.

Leaving Cambridge was even more fruitless than entering it since we got caught in rush-hour traffic, but we finally crawled to a roundabout that led us home, although we'd wound up traveling in exactly the wrong direction (again, without signage) for 20 minutes (my fault, I should have been using the sun for directions!). Unfortunately we then ran into a terrible jam on the M11 due to an accident, and we couldn't get off; it was about an hour of stop-and-go creeping until I finally reached a Services and we pulled off for dinner at a Little Chef. By the time we left the traffic had thinned out. It looked like the accident had happened right at the spot where the Services slip road rejoined the motorway. We didn't get back to the cottage until about 8 PM, about two hours later than I'd planned.