slightly damaged cabinets and a box of valves, knobs, capacitors, batteries and other components. There were sixteen more modern radios that he could probably sell or trade – three in their original boxes – two signal generators, an oscilloscope worth a hundred quid on its own, an avometer and a valve tester. On the seat next to him was a cardboard wavelength calculator, some ancient editions of the Radio Times and a couple of old receiving licences. Things like that were worth nothing, of course, but it might be fun to frame them and put them up on the wall of the radio room.
The showers had cleared to leave a warm evening in their wake, and through the windscreen Howard could see a hot-air balloon making the most of the thermals over Babb Hill. Rumour had it that due to some quirk of geography the locals up there sometimes got Radio Moscow coming out of their TVs and radios when the weather was right – although like all such things it was probably a myth.
I’ll get a battery in that Dansette, he thought, and I’ll take it up there one fine, dry night and find out.
Jack was toiling slowly up a path beside the young wheat when he saw Howard’s headlights flash out once as he turned off the Boundway towards the village. The field margins were coming alive around him, and it was the time of day Jack liked best. As the air cooled it was as though the young wheat exhaled, and he could smell the day’s sunshine on its breath.
It made him realise he was hungry: perhaps someone in Lodeshill grew vegetables, he thought, or perhaps the pub left their bin store unlocked. He would sleep in the little wood by the village tonight, he decided, and tomorrow he would visit the farms and find out if the asparagus was ready to pick.
As he reached the top of the rise a church bell began to toll, the old notes rolling out slowly over the darkening landscape. Jack crossed a stile onto a narrow lane that ran between the rectory’s garden and a paddock in which two horses stood as still as statues in the dusk. Ahead, the church spire marked Lodeshill’s position against the sky.
A second note joined the first, increasing in urgency, tolling the living and long-gone villagers in from the fields and farms as it had done for century upon century, gathering them in as night fell. Jack did not want anyone to see him and so he slipped into a quiet garden where he stood bell-struck, eyes closed, feeling the pull of the little church with its porch light and thinking about what it would mean to go in.
After a while the notes became again a single toll, like a passing bell, and then slowed, and stopped. The little village was folded again in silence, and the paths and roads seemed darker than before. Jack lingered until a blackbird scolded him from a magnolia, and when he moved on his face was wet with tears.
St James’s drew a regular congregation of about fifteen, though it swelled quite a lot at Christmas, and a little at Easter, too. But the monthly evensong was a different matter – which seemed a shame to Kitty, as it was by far her favourite service.
That night there were only four other worshippers: the churchwardens Bill Drew and George Jefferies, who rang the bell together; Bill’s wife Jean, who always had some morsel of village gossip for Kitty and would not be dissuaded; and one of the village farmers, a bent man now in his seventies who looked as though he could very well have tied his plough horse to the lychgate outside. They sat together at the front of the darkened church, except the farmer, who always took the rear pew no matter which service he attended.
When the bell’s last note had died away Bill switched the sidelights on and walked up the aisle, turned to them and said, ‘Alleluia. Christ is risen.’ ‘The Lord is risen indeed,’ they replied.
The service was short but had a simplicity that moved Kitty in ways some of the grander church occasions never did. It was a coming together of neighbours
The showers had cleared to leave a warm evening in their wake, and through the windscreen Howard could see a hot-air balloon making the most of the thermals over Babb Hill. Rumour had it that due to some quirk of geography the locals up there sometimes got Radio Moscow coming out of their TVs and radios when the weather was right – although like all such things it was probably a myth.
I’ll get a battery in that Dansette, he thought, and I’ll take it up there one fine, dry night and find out.
Jack was toiling slowly up a path beside the young wheat when he saw Howard’s headlights flash out once as he turned off the Boundway towards the village. The field margins were coming alive around him, and it was the time of day Jack liked best. As the air cooled it was as though the young wheat exhaled, and he could smell the day’s sunshine on its breath.
It made him realise he was hungry: perhaps someone in Lodeshill grew vegetables, he thought, or perhaps the pub left their bin store unlocked. He would sleep in the little wood by the village tonight, he decided, and tomorrow he would visit the farms and find out if the asparagus was ready to pick.
As he reached the top of the rise a church bell began to toll, the old notes rolling out slowly over the darkening landscape. Jack crossed a stile onto a narrow lane that ran between the rectory’s garden and a paddock in which two horses stood as still as statues in the dusk. Ahead, the church spire marked Lodeshill’s position against the sky.
A second note joined the first, increasing in urgency, tolling the living and long-gone villagers in from the fields and farms as it had done for century upon century, gathering them in as night fell. Jack did not want anyone to see him and so he slipped into a quiet garden where he stood bell-struck, eyes closed, feeling the pull of the little church with its porch light and thinking about what it would mean to go in.
After a while the notes became again a single toll, like a passing bell, and then slowed, and stopped. The little village was folded again in silence, and the paths and roads seemed darker than before. Jack lingered until a blackbird scolded him from a magnolia, and when he moved on his face was wet with tears.
St James’s drew a regular congregation of about fifteen, though it swelled quite a lot at Christmas, and a little at Easter, too. But the monthly evensong was a different matter – which seemed a shame to Kitty, as it was by far her favourite service.
That night there were only four other worshippers: the churchwardens Bill Drew and George Jefferies, who rang the bell together; Bill’s wife Jean, who always had some morsel of village gossip for Kitty and would not be dissuaded; and one of the village farmers, a bent man now in his seventies who looked as though he could very well have tied his plough horse to the lychgate outside. They sat together at the front of the darkened church, except the farmer, who always took the rear pew no matter which service he attended.
When the bell’s last note had died away Bill switched the sidelights on and walked up the aisle, turned to them and said, ‘Alleluia. Christ is risen.’ ‘The Lord is risen indeed,’ they replied.
The service was short but had a simplicity that moved Kitty in ways some of the grander church occasions never did. It was a coming together of neighbours
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