Time ( VILLAGE TALES EP. 40 )

An iron age fort, an antique, or the cottage we live in, there is a fascination for the past. It’s a connection, a continuity, and a firm spot. Like generations before us, it speaks to us of other times and of the part we play in our time, and that we will not be the last.

The life of an antiques dealer is spent by its nature in the company of things that are generally over a hundred years old, that being the standard definition of an antique.

Why one becomes a dealer in such old things has been the subject of countless conversations and the conclusions are as individual as are the dealers themselves. It may come as a surprise the amount of affection a dealer has for those things when he or she will inevitably sell them on. It’s been compared to the care and affection that farmers give their livestock, when they know it is them that will eventually take them to the market, or to the abattoir. 

Imagine wanting to collect something you are passionate about, its appearance, the fine skills that go into its making, the design, the craftsmanship. Add to it a history, perhaps a rarity, the visions it conjures of those generations who have used it, cared for it, bought and sold it, its story through time. Perhaps you’d like to have them all, but you neither have the space nor the finance. Being a dealer gives you the chance to enjoy them for a while before someone makes an offer you can’t refuse which then gives you the opportunity to enjoy something else, and its story. So rather than having it all at once , it’s a few at a time.

While in a city I remember how of an evening I would leave my shop full of pieces of history, close and lock the door, turn and be confronted with the chaos and temporary nature of the modern world. The comparison was inevitable. 

In an environment where nothing lasts very long, I’d spent my days surrounded by things that had. 

A flat-packed mass produced piece of convenience furniture made from something more akin to porridge than real wood was anathema. To be passed down through the generations, it has to stand the test of time, of use, and be the recipient of care and affection, that human interaction becomes its story. In a world where time seems to evaporate with increasing rapidity it’s comforting to have a connection with the past, some firm spot to cling on to. 

Does time really drag when you have little to do? And do you wonder where it’s gone when you are in a hurry? Time is a constant, its we that change.

Kipling wrote, “If you can fill the unforgiving minute, With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, . . ‘ A shame then, you’ll never have time to enjoy it.

A busy life is like being in a railway carriage, carried along at the same speed as everyone and everything around you. Only when the curtains part do you realise you are moving, and how fast. No sooner have you noticed something than it’s gone, and something else takes its place, and in an instant that too is gone. There’s no time to enjoy the view.

I got off the train, the one hurtling along and getting nowhere fast, and moved to the country. My cottage being much more than a hundred years old, I therefore live in an antique, as do many of my neighbours. Most of the village is at least that old so moving from my shop surrounded by antiques, to the village where I now live, you could observe that I am still surrounded by antiques, only the scale has changed. Time has not ceased to exist, it is just more noticeable. As opposed to it pushing you unnoticed from behind and telling you to,

‘Keep up, keep up!’

It holds your hand and walks alongside.

The ground beneath this village has not been disturbed for many centuries. A bit of tarmac here and there does no more than protect it. The annual turning of the topsoil does little to change the surrounding contours, and livestock graze where their ancestors have done so since flocks and herds were domesticated.

Walk the lanes and paths, and you walk the lanes and paths that have been walked for a few hundred years, or perhaps a few thousand. I have added to the fondness of the antiques I have dealt with, the fondness of the world about me and its history and its time.

To one side of our village lies the Blythe estate and its large Georgian house, formal gardens, lake, and deer strewn parkland. To the other overlooking all this is Kilnbury, an Iron Age hill fort. Walking up to Kilnbury, not only has the train stopped, its going into reverse. Each step higher seems to take you another step backwards in time. Up at the top the ancient earthworks are a cause for marvel. A wide circle deep cut into the flinty, chalky earth then piled high on its inside to form a ring of protection. Whatever might have been constructed on top, for the average modern invader access is much easier and safer by way of what we believe to be the entrance, just a level passageway between the ditch and mound. I can’t say the feeling of coming home is overwhelming. There are no gates closing behind us, no huts in which warm fires are lit and food being cooked, no children running to greet us, or our loved ones welcoming our safe return. But all of this can be imagined, and even felt if you give it a chance. A survey might describe it clinically but emotionally it is that depth of time that marks it out and those who may have lived there. At home I will never know who it was in the past sat in my old carver dining chair or ate at my oak and walnut table. Their time has run out, as ours will, but what was a part of their time continues into our time and reminds us of them. Like them we hope to be remembered? 

Blythe Hall’s history, on the other hand, has chapter and verse. Its past is used to lend value to its present. The building of the house, the landscaping of the grounds are all documented. The family itself can be seen and identified, portraits and family groups record the generations. Their achievements and awards are celebrated on every wall. Besides a trade we now consider to be despicable, most of their history is there for us to see and to admire, but not those that did the work. Those that built the house, or those that dug out the lake. The forgotten root of all commerce is the toil of the labourer. 

Paul Goggin who runs our village shop, took over from his father, Michael who had been a gardener on the Blythe estate. After an accident he was made shopkeeper when the estate bought the shop from Tom Jeffers. The Goggin history has been passed down by word of mouth, but as in the past, each generation remembers less, until it’s gone. That is unless it’s recorded by historians like Rachael in our village, or fellow scribblers. Those more scholarly than I may presume that the Iron Age folk that lived up on Kilnbury had stories too that were passed down in some form or other. Like much of our village history it has been lost because it, or the people, weren’t considered important enough and that no one had the learning or could afford the time.

Part of our village hall is also the village museum but there is nearly as much memorabilia surrounding Rachael and I in our pub, The Old Drum and Monkey. On the wall beside me is fixed a bill-hook used for working the hedges, cutting and laying, or splitting hazel and making hurdles and a dozen other jobs. The old steel blade, much harder than its modern equivalent, nevertheless it’s worn deep though many years of service. The handle, and probably not its first, has a dark patina and is rounded smooth and stained through use in the field on long hot summer days and frosty winter mornings. It may have been the worker’s only tool and itself passed down from father to son and so treasured by its hard working owner. It’s sad to think of this tool and the hand that for so many hours had grasped it, when all we have is the tool, and not the man, the father, the son, the husband.

Rachael and I met that evening to discuss the latest museum additions. We were deciding what to include as a new strain of exhibits had come on stream since the village’s detectorist’s group had been formed. Space is limited and not everything the detectorists dig up can be found a place.We were wondering by what criteria should we judge whether an item is worth exhibiting. What would make it of interest to a visitor, what merit should it have or demonstrate, when Dave the landlord called out, 

‘Time!’

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Written and read by Barkley Johnson.