ACROSS ENGLAND.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 229, 27 September 1930, Page 1 (Supplement)

ACROSS ENGLAND.

Tourist-Ridden Stratford

SENTIMENTALIST'S JOURNEY. OVER-BUSY OXFORD. (By R.E.8.8.) •The great frost was loosing its grip on England; every morning the grass covered with, a "white carpet, every puddle was ice, but the days broke sparkling and by noon the gun was foot. It seemed like spring, but the woods stayed leafless and brown, waiting with endless patience for the moment when th-ey could safely put on their green dresses. It was one of those flawless days that saw mer set off to cross England. A few hundred yards brought me to the old meeting house, Jordans; this, a simple seventeenth century building, played a big part in the early history of the Society of Friends. The smoothshaven lawn is marked with a few simple stones; here lie buried many early ftriends, and several of the Penii fa.mily are among 'them. Next through russet woods —Chiltern beech-woods are a revelation— Ave came to the Oxford Road, and in a few minutes to Beaeonstield. Beaconsfield, that gave Disraeli his title, and now shelters various writers, including G. K. Chesterton and Rose Macaulay, has been marred by the stucco villas of London stockbrokers. Peripherally it is a London suburb. Its heart is still charming, and it professes Georgian affections.

I Noisy Oxford. High Wycombe -was the next town, pleasantly ancient in the middle but ratlicr distressed at the demands of the crowding traffic; it lias - some wicked suburbs of gaunt 'brick. West Wycombe near by, lias recently been saved from destruction, but if the motor traflic is not' diverted, it will soon have little cause for congratulating itself. Now the road climbs the long slope of the Ghilterns, and running through beech-woods emerges on to a plateau; after some miles the chalk scarp is reached and we look down into the vale of Aylesbury, and 'farther away we can sec the liills round Oxford. Crossing the pleasant •farm lands we are soon in Oxford. I am never quite at home in Oxford; it is too big; its geography is difficult. Without the colleges Oxford would be a big county town, and now it is more, it is a thriving industrial town. Without the colleges Cambridge would be an insignificant place. In Cambridge the colleges arc in relief; at Oxford —if we except the High—many are inconspicuous. The High, Magdalen tower, and Christclvurch are at least easy to find and recognise, but the others are more difficult. The traffic through Oxford makes one shudder. At Carfax lines of -wagons, lorries and cars were held up; all the traffic for the Morris motor factory clatters through the streets. Two enormous trees were being dragged along to the confusion and panic of smaller vehicles. Newman would have been terrified and Matthew Arnold appalled at such a scene. The roar and bustle distressed me. Where was the academic calm? Surely the dreaming spires would wake with a start. I turned to the serener condition of Cambridge with a littl«? comfort. But I -would leave this death agony of medievalism and seek the peace of the countryside. My destination was Worcester, and I found I could make a detour through Banbury and Stratfiord-on-Avoii. I wanted to see Banbury Cross, but my car was a poor substitute for the "Kide-a-Cock-Horse" of the nursery rhyme. Banbury Cross disappointed me, and, seized 'with the lust for speed, which I always decry, though I nearly always succumb, I Hew on into the rich "Waiwickshire fields, now a warm yellow, as they held their ploughed furrows to the sun.

I had never seen Stratford'-on-Avon, largely because I thought it should be avoided as the haunt of perspiring tourists from the Middle West. But early spring was a close season for tourists and I overcame my silly prejudice. The road crosscs the Avon and enters the town. The tragedy of famous towns is that tliev are turned into tlic pathetic condition of selling souvenirs. This is a lamentable disease and Stratford is pock-marked with it. Shop after shop sells revolting china with idiotic inscriptions on it, "A Souvenir of Strat-ford-on-Avon," cigarette ash trays bear Shakespeare's noble features; a liberal use is made of the definite article 'ye. "Ye Oldc Shakespeare Tea Shop," if not actually there, will be soon. There is also a horrible craze for the Tudor, raising sinister doubts as to its age. But the church was entrancing. It is built by the river and is set 111 a churchyard planted with yews. Its modest r»rey shrine speaks a diffcient language from gross china and sham antiques But it'may have a tale of secret grief to unfold, some shameful insult of chewingrrum or Kodak;, or it may look down with o-enerous pity on the poor ones who visit it. It may look on all tourists as strange, pathetic creatures who know no 'better, but who should be treated kindly. Tourists are a meaningless set of people, rushin 0- to take snapshots, to buy postcards, to see Anne Hathaway s cottage, all in the pathetic hope that they will be able to speak of it afterwards, that people will love to hear. But people never do. Those of us who tour are tourists, and we cannot escape the title, I however much we preen ourselves that we are distinguished from the common ],erd that there arc subtle differences. We always tend to think of the othei people as tourists and they no doubt hold the same opinion of us. Whether we are eating bananas at Blackpool or a? hi^h-brows examining Siamese temples we are, both of us, tourists. Stella Benson is amusing over these matters. What Shakespeare would have said of ug I blush to think. In this church stands his tomb, and its Jacobean charm soothes and pleases. In the faded ink of the register you can rpad his name with the lecord of his baptism. The church both from within and without struck me as full of giace and the churchyard and smooth river frame the picture. Shakespeare's house was disappointing. Early in the nineteenth . century it was bought by a butcher,, who hung out a sign, _ The Tmmortal Shakespeare was born in this house," and he waxed rich in consenuence. Now it is officially run, and vou pay your shilling and buy a ticket I felt Shakespeare had long since left the house and had gone off with Falstaff to some comfortable and secluded inn. I also felt he would have preferred the butcher.