Broadway was a town of perfect conical yews. Closely shaven and even, they were shaped like great thimbles, as if there was some competition. The town was busy. Arms were held diagonally upwards, iPhones pointed back at smiles. People bought ice creams and chocolates and squeezed past each other into the gift shop. Others milled aimlessly as you would in a town where there wasn’t much to do, besides look at pretty houses and perfect conical yews.
Broadway is a town with an outsized influence on the arts. It boasts an impressive roster. JM Barry, author of Peter Pan, John Singer Sargent, Vaughan Williams, Elgar and William Morris all called it home for a time. Little wonder the hedges were so creatively cut.
I didn’t linger long, walking across the green, under billowing chestnuts spotted white with candles. The road out curved steeply up a hill, cutting through a tunnel of conifers. An old man on a tricycle peddled past.
I put Snowshill on my sign but there were no cars around. The breeze smelt of nettles and the tangy scent of sheep musk as they chewed the thick grass, languidly tending to the field.
I leant on the fence post. A Porsche purred by, followed by a Range Rover, neither stopped, so I plucked the flowers of the white dead-nettles that surrounded my feet, sucking the base of the flower to taste the faintly sweet nectar on my lips. It reminded me of childhood.
“You’re better off walking,” an old man said, stooping in a tweed flat cap, possibly wondering why I had a tiny white flower in my mouth. It was apparently only two miles, about a 45-minute walk. I’d been waiting 20 minutes by then and I was beginning to think he might be right.
20 minutes later, another old couple approached. They said the same thing and pointed to various roads and hills, describing the lay of the land. They were right, I’d have been better off walking but I’d waited too long now - I’d made my bed, and I told them so. That’s the only way when hitchhiking. You get a lift eventually.
They wished me luck and continued down the lane under the bristling thatched roofs. They stepped aside as an army green Land Rover revved up the hill, a chunky tyre bolted to its bonnet. The driver saw me, waved cheerfully, and slowed to a halt. He called over the engine, so I rolled awkwardly into the open boot as if climbing through a high-up window. The old couple down the lane cocked back to smile and wave.
Tom and Sophie drove a Series III Landrover, I learnt as I leant forward under the canvas roof. Tom spoke loudly over his shoulder, the engine straining up the hill. It looked old but he explained it was from the 80s the plasticky steering wheel shaft gave it away. Older models had metal.
“You’re asking all the right questions!” Sophie said to me from the passenger seat, and Tom looked delighted.
The two of them were driving around. They’d had lunch in Broadway and were taking the old car for a spin. I told them I knew the feeling well. My uncle has a Series II, much like this one, and Dad had looked after it for several years. Every few weeks it needed taking out, getting the engine turning, the wheels greased, otherwise it would seize up. No different to people really.
Sophie said she was on her lunch break. She had her own marketing agency and it was great because she could work in her pyjamas with a glass of wine in hand. At lunch, she could drive out with Tom into the hills.
Snowshill didn’t take long to get to. Sophie said there’d be lots of people leaving lunch at the pub and someone was bound to stop. Tom suggested that I go inside. I would meet someone at the bar who’d take me on, he was sure. Their confidence gave me hope, it had been a slow afternoon so far.
“You might even meet Asda George,” Tom said, “he drinks in there.” The son of a seamstress and a sausage maker, George Davies set up George at Asda. He goes by ‘King of the Highstreet’, ‘Serial brand creator,’ and ‘Leading fashion visionary…’ I stopped reading the Wikipedia page. It sounded like he’d written it himself.
Tom and Sophie left me with a toot and cheerful best wishes as I scrambled awkwardly out of the back, as unceremoniously as I’d entered. Snowshill was quainter than Broadway and it had none of the tourists. The church held court in the centre, surrounded by crooked houses slumped on the hill, swaying with the best of May’s flowers. The hills rose up behind.
The walls of the pub were hung with photos of the local hunt. A signed cricket bat was pinned above the bar alongside a pass for a rugby match at Twickenham. England Australia 2018. It wasn’t busy and I realised Tom and Sophie’s confidence was probably misplaced. Besides the six ladies eating sandwiches in the window, there was only a solitary man at the bar. He wore a denim jacket and was playing solitaire.
“Dave not here today?” The young bar lady asked him.
“Nobody’s here,” He replied begrudgingly, “Jussst me.”
I ordered half a pint and did my best to casually catch the man’s eye. I succeeded eventually.
“You been hitchhiking have ya?” He asked, looking at the sign I’d left clearly on the bar. Boughton was written across it. I said I had.
“Why…?” He replied.
He didn’t offer me a lift and was confident I wouldn’t get one from anyone else. Nobody would pick a hitchhiker up nowadays.
I said, a little defensively that I’d managed to hitchhike here all right.“Do people come here for lunch?” I turned to ask the bar lady.
“Not from Boughton,” she replied. “I can give you a lift if you like, but not until I finish work.”
“When’s that?”
“Six.”
“Well if I’m still on the corner I’ll take you up on it.”
I finished my drink and made my way up the hill. The road to Boughton was a single track lane, overgrown with bushes. I stood in a farmyard driveway by an honesty box with half a dozen nut-brown eggs. Six for £1.50. Now the air smelt of rapeseed and cow parsley. Once again, no cars drove past and I began to wish I’d chosen a different route.
Half an hour later, I heard hooves clipping heavily and I turned to see a gleaming black horse nodding towards me. The lady leading it said if I was still here when he was done - him being the horse - she’d run me up there. “It’s not very far and you don’t look like a mass murderer.”
I thanked her and she led him over the lane to the schooling ring behind. Her black felt helmet bobbed among the cow parsley’s white umbrellas.
Glad I’d found a lift, I leaned back against the wall and plucked some more white dead-nettles. It had been a long afternoon of not much movement but such is the way sometimes. It was just nice to be out.