The Joy of Six 1373

"Weaponising food deprivation has been Israeli policy for decades. As a senior adviser to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert put it in 2006, the government’s aim, in strictly restricting the entrance of foodstuffs into Gaza, was to 'put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.' Now, Israel seems to have committed fully to the latter goal." Jennifer Zacharia details the sufferings of the Palestinians.

Roland Smith weighs the objections to the European Convention on Human Rights and says we'll need good arguments against them if we're to resist the coming campaign for Britain to withdraw from it. 

"I moved to the city eight years ago to study neuroscience at University College London. Since then, rents have nearly doubled but the square footage of my digs has stayed the same. As I grow up in age and out in size, I begin to see that the hoped-for upgrade that should come with time now looks impossible. My generation is running but we’re not moving." Rose Dodd reports on life as a private tenant in London.

Michael Rosen proves that educational research did not begin with Michael Gove.

Londonopia tells the story of a unique London store: "Arthur Liberty wasn’t just flogging  fabrics. He was hawking a vision - a sensual rebellion against the stiff moral corsetry of Victorian Britain. Where others sold sensible serge, Liberty offered peacock-feather glamour, hand-painted decadence, and the vague but thrilling possibility that you might run away with an artist and spend your life eating figs in an atelier."

"War is a dreadful thing, amongst all of the horrific things that human inflicts upon other human in the name of 'war' there are some events that stand out as atrocities: one such atrocity took place in the aftermath of the battle of Naseby." Keep Your Powder Dry tries to pin down the exact location of The Farndon Massacre in the villages just south of Market Harborough.

10 churches around Market Harborough on Historic England’s new ‘at risk’ register

Historic England’s new ‘At Risk’ Register includes 10 Leicestershire and Northamptonshire churches near Market Harborough, reports Harborough FM.

The churches, which are deemed by the public body to be at risk of being lost due to neglect or decay, are:

St Denys, Kelmarsh; All Saints, Clipston; St Mary, Ashby Magna; St Peter, Horninghold; St John the Baptist, King’s Norton; St John the Baptist, Little Stretton; St Giles, Great Stretton; St Michael, Loddington; St Leonard, Misterton with Walcote; Church of St Andrew, Owston and Newbold.

Market Harborough to Melton Mowbray by bus

My most recent Six of the Best included an article by John Disney that says our rural bus services are in meltdown.

Judging from Market Harborough he is right. In the last couple of years we have lost a bus that served Northamptonshire villages on the way to Clipton and our service to Wilbarston, Corby and Gretton. Even the mighty 44 has been reduced in frequency.

Given that background, I have long been intrigued by the 303, which claims to run from Rothwell via Market Harborough to Melton Mowbray on the first Tuesday of every month.

Finding myself at a loose end last Tuesday - the first Tuesday in August - I had a mind to catch it.

So unlikely did the service sound that I rang Hamiltons & Buckbys Coaches the day before to make sure it was running.

They assured me it was. Where it stopped in Harborough was a slight mystery, but my mother said she had caught a bus to Melton years ago and her memory of where she had got on it coincided with my theory.

So I presented myself at the bus stop on Northampton Road shortly before 9.30. By the time the bus was due I had been joined by half a dozen old ladies and when it arrived it proved to be the mighty beast you see in the photo above.

We followed the B road through High Leicestershire from Market Harborough to Melton, taking in little-visited settlements like Three Gates and New Inn. It would have been an education to those who tell me the Midlands are flat and uninteresting - as would my ultimate destination Burrough Hill.

The 303 appears to be a purely commercial venture to take the active pensioners of Rothwell to Melton Mowbray market. I wish it well.

How Sherlock Holmes anticipated Lord Bonkers

A couple of years ago Lord Bonkers reminisced about an incident from the 1920s:

One bright April morning the 11:15 for Northampton Castle left Nottingham London Road Lower Level as usual, but it never reached its destination. It was seen to call at Melton Mowbray North, and there were unconfirmed reports of it reaching Clipston and Oxendon, but one thing is sure: it never arrived in Northampton. 

Extensive searches were undertaken and reports of sightings from as far afield as Bodmin Road and Leeming Bar were followed up, but not a trace of the train or its passengers was ever found.

What I didn't know then was that this is strangely reminiscent of a short story by Arthur Conan Doyle called The Lost Special.

It is not a Sherlock Holmes story, but he surely makes an appearance as the writer of a letter about the affair to The Times.

You can listen to a reading of it by David Schofield on the BBC iPlayer for the next four weeks.

A final thought... Can I be sure that Lord Bonkers was not pulling my leg?

Lord Bonkers' Diary: The disappearance of the 11:15 from Nottingham London Road Lower Level

Tuesday

The mysterious disappearance of that Malaysian jet has put me in my mind of a sad story from the 1920s.

One bright April morning the 11:15 for Northampton Castle left Nottingham London Road Lower Level as usual, but it never reached its destination. It was seen to call at Melton Mowbray North, and there were unconfirmed reports of it reaching Clipston and Oxendon, but one thing is sure: it never arrived in Northampton.

Extensive searches were undertaken and reports of sightings from as far afield as Bodmin Road and Leeming Bar were followed up, but not a trace of the train or its passengers was ever found.

It was because of this tragedy that the nation’s youth was encouraged to take up locospotting. The authorities reasoned that, in the event of a similar occurrence, the spotters’ notebooks could be called in and the mystery solved in short order. Happily, this has never proved necessary.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary...

• Floreat Estonia

Clipston: Another wayside telephone exchange

Last spring I discovered a couple of wayside telephone exchanges in Maidwell and Kibworth.

Here is another one. It is more rustic than the other two, which resembled little chapels.

A brick wall in Clipston

Reviving village shops

As I have mentioned before, in my current excursions to Leicestershire and Northamptonshire villages I am often retracing journeys I made on my bike 30 or more years ago.

In those days I was too young and stupid to appreciate half of what I was seeing, but I do recall that I never took a drink with me because I took it for granted that when I reached a village of any size I would be able to buy one in the shop.

Times have changed. The picture above shows what used to be the shop and post office in Clipston. Like many other village shops it has long since closed, though most have been converted to houses a little more elegantly.

All economics is against them - a fact that even Ambridge has caught up with - but some shops do manage to cling on. Wistanstow in Shropshire is one example I have come across.

Like a lot of surviving village shops it is run on a voluntary basis and supported by the Plunkett Community Shop Network. See there website for more about this trend.

Clipston Baptist Church

There is a plaque in the entrance of the church with the date 1803. Pevsner has it right:

The brick side with the three arched windows belongs to that date.The gross and townish front of 1864 is by E.F. Law.

"Gross and townish" is just right, and it is an extraordinary building to find in what is still a small village. Finding it is even more of a surprise than discovering that Clipston still has two pubs.

The 1803 church seems to owe its existence to what sounds like an outbreak of religious mania led by a young man called John Gulliver. A leaflet tells the story of this revival, concluding:

Meeting for Prayer was the cause of this revival more than preaching, Preaching however has led many to inquire about the way of salvation. The youth Invited others to church meetings and many who came were deeply touched. In tears and weeping they have sought the way to Zion.

This work has effected a change among the youth in Clipston. Their behaviour is now mild and gentle. The streets during summer evenings were thronged with misbehaving idle youth, now they are silent and still. They walk together in groups praying and talking about religion.

The effect is mainly among the youth.

The Clipston congregation experienced considerable growth averaging 700 - 800 people in a service.

In 1803 a new church building was commissioned.

And that new church must have been substantial, even before the intrusion of the gross and townish front later in the century.

Clipston: The most beautiful primary school in England?

Who needs the Cotswolds? This is the grammar school and hospital designed and built by Matthew Cole of Clipston between 1667 and 1673. It is still in use as the village primary school.

Pevsner records of the three bays:

Originally the centre had the headmaster's lodging on the ground floor, the school-room on the first, and the hospital, which was for twelve men, occupied the two wings.

He also says that the frontage is in its original state, but the interior and back were completely remodelled in 1926.

The school fete, indicated by some delightfully homemade bunting, was taking place when I arrived, so I was able to have a nose around the back of the building and enjoy a cup of tea.