Witney, Oxfordshire

By Michael Quin

Down by Cogges Manor Farm, where the sagging roof seems depressed by another heavy grey sky, at least the stone walls stand firm with Cotswold pride, ruling the corner overlooking Wadard’s Meadow as they have centuries.

The cut-grass odor has been lent a new pungency by the rain. It lies in sad clingy piles at the feet of the great barn which stands over it like some Viking long house. There was a fleeting period when daffodils decorated its full length, but they’ve now come and gone, fooled by the bogus end of winter months ago. They realised the cruel trick only once it was too late, then wilted in resignation. A few rainy weeks ago the zealous grounds keeper finally mowed them down with the weeds who were taking full advantage of the extra rain combined with brief teases of sun.

The river marking the edge of the old Friary by the farm is swollen once again, now appearing almost too wide for the footbridge which spans it. The bridge is low and unassuming, but well used as a stage from where the townspeople throw their stale bread. Today no less than a dozen footbridge punters have braved the wet. The two splendid swans with their 6 awkward fuzzy signets are a seasonal hit. In a line stretching the length of the bridge, mothers are making quaking sound effects to bewildered babies in prams and old men are teaching how bread is to be tossed. An old lady stands to the side watching, not the snapping swans, but the crowd itself. She seems amazingly pleased with the whole affair, such jolly good fun it all is. Perhaps she did the same with her children, or perhaps even as a child. Maybe she too frequented this river, as oblivious to the dreary English sky as these happy children seem, so uncomplicated are the pleasures of a child.

Down stream the ducks aren’t so pleased. This season they’ve been outclassed by the swans, and are being ignored. I watched the other day as one approached the gallery of bread throwers more than once, but the swans were protecting their privileges as adamantly as if theirs by right of superiority. Since then I’ve seen the 8 ducklings swim clumsily in circles, quaking emphatically at their parents who can’t explain why they can’t play the bread game with the bigger birds.

Walking on into town, under the archways of the old Town Hall, I pass through Market Place where 14 year old girls brave the cold in skimpy skirts with expectant looks as if they too were waiting to be thrown something. In the square the market is winding down. One man shouts that the price of eggs is even cheaper than it was this morning, and further along I'm accosted by another salesman claiming great deals on microwavable packaged food he's pitching as ‘great value Italian meals’. As the cars parade down the main street with plastic English flags flapping madly I’m reminded once again that the football world cup is only a week away. It seems not only the cars, but every pub in town too, has made the trip into Oxford to buy flags. The swanky sports bar with its cosmopolitan menu and continental beers has outbid the old men’s pubs, and is decorated like the United Nations. I find one pub void of nationalistic boastings and choose it for a quick afternoon pint.

I’m always chasing a tasty local, and today it’s Old Hooky that catches my eye. The coaster under my elbow congratulates me on my choice, promising me “A beautifully balanced beer, fruity by nature with a well rounded body and the suggestive echo of crystal malt. Brewed for the discerning drinker”. I’m instantly glad I took it. As I raise the pint and take a swig, so eager to discover what an echo of crystal malt feels like, I notice the Hook Norton Brewery pint glass which reads “Where progress is measured in Pints” and so I drink to that. It’s nice in this pub, very homely. “Fine weather for a spot of golf!” the drinkers joke as a soggy tournament drags on in the corner on TV. The wall beside me hangs with faded sepia tone pictures with informative titles like ‘Cogges from the River Windrush’, while next to these are peculiar drawings entitled ‘Building a Breakwater’, ‘Reparing the Floor of a Lock’ and ‘Submarine Locomotion’, all torn from the pages of vol. XII of an unspecified reference. One of the pictures shows the spire of Witney’s church, and I smile because I can always see that spire off in the distance as I run through the fields on Windrush Hill, when I’m chasing the deer there from out of the hedge rows.

The beer is fruity like it promised to be and is going down like sweet nectar. The old men beside me are drinking their pints more slowly, but then they look like they have all day, and a few bags of tobacco to get through too. They talk over each other, agreeing with what the other says before they have even heard it, back and forth. Then again, maybe it’s me that’s missing the subtleties of the conversation, for as they croak on with indecipherably thick accents they seem content enough. At the sports bar of flags I’m sure I would have heard all about Beckham and Rooney to the sound of Coldplay and calls for more Stella Artois, and though to myself ‘ah, here I am still in England!’ Yet here in my tavern, amidst the dark beer and smoke-stained wood of table, chair, floor and wall, I can barely follow the jibes of the drinking folk nursing their warm ales, while I ponder swans and ducks, deer and a well-balanced Hook Norton brew, I’m thinking to myself how I’m still in a west Oxfordshire town. This old wool town I never knew, and which shall never remember me. Indeed.