Barrows, Shucks and Bravery

After a week of (not so) hard labour, Little dog has been given time off for good behaviour. She is now out on parole, so we decided to revisit Wilmington and the Long Man. I had seen several references to long barrows and tumuli marked on the map in the vicinity of the giant which I wanted to take a look at. Little dog just wanted to run around and enjoy herself after her recently self imposed incarceration.

A long barrow is a bronze age burial mound usually for a chieftain or somebody of high status and a tumuli is a smaller grave. The most prominent barrow is on the top of Windover Hill above the head of the Long Man, it is approximately twenty metres long and is surrounded by a ditch. According to local folklore this barrow is the giants actual grave, he was killed after having a fight with another giant who lived on Firle Beacon a few miles away. The chalk figure outline was made as a memorial to him  apparently. Just below the barrow are several other smaller mounds and round trenches these are the spoil heaps and remains of neolithic flint mining.

Long Barrow on Windover Hill above the Long Man

Another view of the Long Man at Wilmington


Little dog did not take much interest in these bronze age remains, she had discovered a rabbit hole which was much more exciting. It appeared to go down vertically into the ground and reminded me of the rabbit hole that Alice went down on her visit to Wonderland. Judging from the size of the entrance it must have housed some very large rabbits.

Is this the den of a Shuck or of giant rabbits

Or could this have been the den of a 'Shuck' which according to legend is a large black ghostly dog that is supposed to haunt Windover Hill. Apparently shucks are shaggy phantom dogs about the size of a calf and they are associated with ancient trackways and ley lines. There just so happens to be an ancient trackway running across the hill and a ley line running from the barrow, through the Long Man to the church in Wilmington. Some shucks are supposed to be a portent of impending doom and others apparently guard the sites of hidden treasure. Little dog was doing her best to impersonate a shuck by rolling in something horrible giving her the appearance and smell of a demonic hound.

Ancient trackway looking towards Firle Beacon


We left Windover hill by means of an ancient trackway and as we turned a corner, there coming towards us was a shuck. Actually there were about thirty shucks, they were large black and shaggy about the size of a calf (some were the size of a cow). "Bollocks" I thought "I bet we're standing on a ley line as well". The thing about these shucks was that they didn't appear to be particularly canine in appearance, they were more bovine. Whatever, they certainly  appeared to be the portent of our impending doom.

A herd of black shaggy shucks, the portent of our doom (possibly)


We were on a section of track that dropped off like a cliff face on one side and had a steep bank on the other. Little dog bravely hid behind my legs as this gang of marauding cattle decided that they had right of way and were going to partake of that right no matter what. Something had to be done and fast; suddenly like those faithful canine companions of film and television, Lassie, Rin Tin Tin and Snowy, Little dog launched herself in front of this seething mass of bovine muscle (or rather she didn't, I launched her with a size nine up her backside).

A faithful canine companion, doing her stuff


Then a very strange and unexpected thing happened, the cows stopped as one and started to look a little worried. "We didn't expect him to throw a dog at us, that's not playing fair". Two of the braver cows were pushed to the front by their compatriots and held a brief parlais with Little dog. After a short 'Mexican standoff' the cows 'bottled it' and as if by a miracle the herd parted to let us pass. "That showed them eh! Little dog, double rations for you tonight".

Tea and Medals with The Queen for a Brave 'Little dog'


Note: This is the last post for about ten days as Mrs C and I are off to sunny Spain and Little dog is going to Grandma's for a bit of Rest and Recuperation after her recent adventures. She will be spoilt rotten, spending most of her day lying on the sofa being fed biscuits and grapes.

Crime Doesn't Pay (Apparently)

Little dog has been feeling very sorry for herself for the past few days. It may be because I took her to the Vets for her annual check up last week. Our Vet is a very nice man and Little dog being a complete tart started flirting outrageously with him. I think that he was flattered because he said that she was in very good condition for her age. Every thing was going well until he opened her mouth to check her teeth, then he recoiled in horror as he was struck by her very bad halitosis. She could obviously see the look of shock on his face and was deeply upset. No longer was she the belle of the ball, she was now the mad bag lady. To be fair to him he did say that it's not too bad (although he was holding her at arms length) and we've now sorted the problem out with some medication.

Little dog and me in happier times, before she embarked on her life of crime.

The other possible cause of her lethargy and the most likely, is that she has become a member of the criminal classes. On the evening of Friday last, she committed a burglary contrary to Sec 9 of the Theft Act 1968. That is she entered a building or part of a building as a trespasser and stole something. I'm probably stretching the law a little by accusing her of burglary as the part of our house that she trespassed in was our refrigerator, which strictly speaking isn't part of a building, it's a fridge. But she was definitely a trespasser therein, as we have strictly forbidden her entry to it. At the very least she is guilty of theft as she did take property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving them of it. In mitigation the door was left slightly ajar by Mrs C.

Her crime came to light shortly after it was committed when she walked into the living room coughing up something bright red. "Do something" cried Mrs C "She's coughing up blood"! I rushed to Little dog's aid and realised very quickly that the snotty crimson mess coming out of her mouth was actually the remains of a tomato. All that training at Hendon Police College paid off as I followed the trail of evidence back to the scene of the theft. They say that a criminal always returns to the scene of their crime, that was certainly true in this case, Little dog followed me to the fridge to see what else there was worth stealing.

Contemplating the consequences of her criminal behaviour.

I would like to think that Little dog was suffering pangs of guilt and a little touch of remorse for her actions. However I suspect that the most likely reason for her feeling upset is that the stolen item which she consumed at the time (trying to dispose of the evidence) was a smoked mackerel fillet. Not any mackerel fillet though, this one was covered in Peri-Peri spices. There were some rather loud and strange rumbling sounds coming from her stomach the following morning and she wasn't her usual bouncy self. This Springer had definitely lost her spring.

Having served her time in the House of Correction and done her porridge, Little dog has now been fully re-integrated back into polite society and is looking forward to her next adventure.

My Camino de Santiago (Puente, Picnic & Pink Socks)

The town of Puente La Reina is named after the bridge constructed in honour of its benefactor Queen Dona Mayor wife of King Sancho III (whoever he was). She commanded that it should be built to provide a safe crossing of the Rio Arga for the increasing number of peregrinos from both the Camino Frances and Camino Aragones which meet at this point on the route. The bridge is Romanesque in style with six supporting arches spanning the river which has swollen in size to a wide powerful torrent since we joined it near Zubiri.

On the morning that I crossed the bridge, the river was certainly wide but not exactly a powerful torrent, in fact it's surface was as flat calm as a mill pond (They obviously use a bit of poetic licence in the travel brochures).

I was walking in company with numerous pilgrims from all corners of the world the majority being Americans followed in descending numbers by Germans, Koreans, Australians, Spanish, Irish and one lone 'Billy no mates' from England, namely me. I did meet some other Britons along the way but we were definitely in the minority. Our idea of Spanish culture is to get pissed out of our brains in Malaga on cheap lager and throw up everywhere (apparently).

After approaching another peregrino and exchanging names the next question would usually be

"Which part of the United States are you from"?
"Florida, which part of Australia do you come from"?
"London"
"Is that just south of Sydney"?
"No, it's just north of Surrey"
"I didn't know that there is a Surrey in Australia"?
"There isn't, I'm from England"
"Why are you speaking with an Australian accent"?
"I'm not, I'm speaking with a London accent".

This is how I discovered that I was bi-lingual. I lost count of the number of Americans who thought that I was Australian. It got even worse though when some of the Australians thought that I was a fellow country man of theirs. A thought crossed my mind that if it carries on like this, I'll have to wear a string vest and a hat with corks around the brim. Later a couple of Australians that I met in Galicia decided to christen me 'Bruce' and make me an honourary citizen of Oz, I think that they were impressed with my beer drinking skills.

A few miles along the trail we stopped for a lovely picnic breakfast made from the remains of last nights meal by two of my new found friends. It was another glorious spring day without a cloud in the sky. The birds were singing, the bees were buzzing and all the flowers were in bloom (Now look what's happened I've turned into Mary Poppins).

As the morning wore on it got hotter and hotter and my left hand was suffering from the sun burn that I picked up yesterday. Luckily for me I was walking with a very resourceful young Woman from Colorado who made me a pair of sock gloves, an invention of hers that she had perfected in the highlands of Scotland a couple of weeks earlier. Another lady pilgrim donated a pair of old pink coloured socks which were turned into a gloves by cutting off the toe areas and making a slit along the natural curve of the heel sections. They worked really well in preventing my left hand becoming more sunburned, and matched my wife's pink coloured camera that I was carrying. I was definitely getting in touch with my feminine side out here on the camino.

I stopped for lunch in the shade of an under pass beneath the main road where I brewed up a cup of good old English tea on my super light camp stove, Titanium cup combination. It wasn't real tea unfortunately, but  it was the next best thing, instant tea powder from an old army ration pack. It tasted great and was a change from cafe con leche which I was beginning to get fed up with. Everybody who passed by found it highly amusing that I was brewing up along side of the trail. Just another eccentric Englishman, mad dogs and all that. On the wall of the underpass amongst all the usual graffiti  somebody had drawn an amusing cartoon of a typical peregrino which was so apt.

The rest of the afternoon was a long dusty slog under the heat of the unremitting sun but I was in good company. We eventually reached Estella our destination for the evening and booked into the municipal albergue. An hour later after a warm shower and a couple of cool beers I felt  almost human again. 'Buen Camino' as they say in these parts.

Not Forgotten - George Arthur Lumby

On this day ninety seven years ago my Great Uncle George died, not peacefully in his sleep as an old man with his family around him. No, he died a sudden and violent death at the age of twenty five in the mud and blood of France. There is not even a grave for his wife and family to visit and pay their respects. He is one of the many thousands of men whose remains simply disappeared into the earth, blown apart by two further years of shelling and mechanised warfare on an industrial scale. Until ten years ago I was totally unaware that I even had a Great Uncle George as nobody in my mothers family had ever spoken about him; he died several years before she was born.

The Lumby family. George is standing in the middle. My Grandmother Helena is on his left.


I have been interested in military history since I was a boy but never bothered about WW1. Like most people I thought that it was just four years of stalemate with two opposing armies shelling the life out of each other. This all changed in 2002 when I visited the Western Front with some work colleagues, for a laugh and a weekend of drinking beer. We went to several cemeteries, where we saw row upon row of identical graves, just like soldiers lined up on parade. I don't know how it happened, but reading their epitaphs, many just saying 'A soldier of the Great War, Known unto God' simply blew me away. After coming home I set about finding out as much as I could about these men who died such tragic deaths far from home and their loved ones.

War Graves at Serre Road Cemetery on the Somme


The scale of the casualties was so great that I thought virtually every family in Britain and the Commonwealth probably have an ancestor who died during this terrible conflict. This inspired me to look into my own family's history. I decided to look down my mothers line because her mother had the unusual maiden name of Lumby, easier to find a match than Smith or Jones etc. I wrote to my elderly Aunt Gladys for information about her mothers family which she very kindly sent to me along with a family photograph taken just before the war.

My Aunt Gladys sitting on her Mothers knee. My Grandfather was also in the West Yorks Regt.


While waiting for this information to arrive from my aunt I did some research on the surname via the Commonwealth War Graves Commission web site. Here I discovered  a George Arthur Lumby of the West Yorkshire Regiment who died on 17/08/1916 and is remembered on the Thiepval Memorial to the missing on the Somme. I am a very sceptical person, that's what 25 years of being a Police Officer does for you, but some how I knew that I was related to this man. Was this his spirit calling down through the years, or was it something from my subconscious mind that I had heard when I was very young, who knows! A few days later I received a letter from my aunt with the necessary information, confirming what I already instinctively knew to be true.

Thiepval Memorial to the missing on the Somme


Armed with this information I visited the National Archive at Kew to find out all about George and how he lived and died. Unfortunately sixty percent of  individual soldiers service records, including that of George, were destroyed during WW2 when the Public Record Office was bombed in the blitz. This led to several months of investigation using Regimental and Brigade war diaries and other sources until I eventually discovered the tragic circumstances surrounding his death (I will post about this at a later date).

George's name inscribed on the Thiepval Memorial to the missing


I have been to the Somme several times since then and on each occasion I made a point of visiting the Thiepval Memorial where I left a small cross and poppy in remembrance of George and his comrades who died attacking 'Lonely Trench' on the night of the 17th August 1916. He was married to Elizabeth Ann Kyle but I don't know if they had any children and As far as I am aware I am the first and only person to make this pilgrimage. 'So he is not forgotten'.

A Cross for George from his Great Nephew

My Camino de Santiago (Onward and Upwards)

Another early start. First stop was at a bar about fifty metres from the albergue for the usual coffee and croissant to wake me up. Now fully awake and refreshed, I followed a long crocodile of peregrinos out of Pamplona through a well manicured linear park; coming towards us was an equally long crocodile of joggers. The horizon ahead of us was filled by a long flat hill with a thick white cloud sitting across its summit like a table cloth. Oh Joy! we would be climbing this in a few hours time, and it was already beginning to get very warm.

We had a very pleasant stroll along a gently ascending path towards the foot of the long ridge, it's summit decorated with a row of wind turbines. On the way I stopped for a short rest next to a wayside shrine dedicated to a Belgian peregrino who had died after suffering a heart attack a few years earlier. This was just one of many others that I would pass along the camino over the following weeks. As a sign of remembrance I deposited a small stone on the shrine. This is a practice that I first discovered whilst visiting war graves on the Western Front a few years ago (apparently it is a Jewish tradition). I think that it is a wonderfully poignant way of showing other visitors that this person is not forgotten.

The sun was beating down upon us as we struggled with our heavy rucksacks to the top of what had now become a very steep hill. On 'The Way of St James', they talk about Camino Angels, who appear when you are at your lowest ebb and provide you with help or the thing that you need most. On the summit of the Alto Del Perdon, the name of this hill, I found my first Camino Angel in the form of a local man who was selling ice cold beers. Suitably refreshed I took my turn posing in front of a large sculpture of medieval peregrinos and their animals leaning into the westerly wind. It is called "Where the path of the wind crosses the stars" and is one of the iconic landmarks along the Camino Frances.

From the narrow summit of the Alto Del Perdon, I could see my destination for the evening, the small town of Puente La Reina; several miles in the distance, across a patchwork of fields. After walking for a few miles I left the designated route to visit the church at Eunate set amongst fields of oilseed rape. This detour turned out to be further than I had anticipated but was well worth the extra effort getting there. Unfortunately though with the sun still blazing down out of a cloudless sky I ended up suffering from sunburn on my left arm.

When I reached the church which was built in the 12th century by the Knight Templars, it was closed. However there were several Australian pilgrims sitting outside who assured me that it was due to open in about thirty minutes. One hour later a car pulled up and the church warden got out and quietly unlocked the door. The church is horizontal in shape with a free standing porch surrounding it. Inside it was very peaceful and pleasantly cool; decorated with a small altar upon which stood a statue of the Madonna and child. While I sat quietly admiring the simplicity of the church, around me several people were kneeling in prayer or taking photographs.

Gradually we left the church and got our credencials stamped by the warden who warned us about leaving our rucksacks unattended, as there have been a lot of thefts since the recession hit Spain. We then walked together for the last few miles along the main road to the municipal albergue in Puente La Reina (The Queens Bridge). Opposite the albergue stands an old stone church with several storks nesting on the roof of its tower. That evening several of us got together and enjoyed a communal meal that we prepared ourselves, washed down with the local red wine. It can be extremely tough on the camino. Never mind tomorrow is another day!