“A Sense of Place” A Collection of Creative Writing inspired by Greensand Country

“A Sense of Place”

A Collection of Creative Writing inspired by Greensand Country

May 2021

Greensand Country Creative Writing Competition 2021

In March 2021, Greensand Country Landscape Partnership commissioned a series of short courses in Creative Writing for Adults, Young People and Children led by Dr Tim Jarvis (Author and Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Bedfordshire) and Daisy Henwood (Writer and Arts Producer).

Following on from the success of these workshops, Greensand Country Landscape Partnership, launched its inaugural Creative Writing Competition on the 22nd April 2021.

Participants were asked to respond to theme of ‘A Sense of Place’ and to use the landscape, features and landmarks found within Greensand Country as their inspiration.

Greensand Country is a beautiful and loved landscape. It is defined by the Greensand Ridge, a band of higher ground stretching from Leighton Buzzard to Gamlingay, which rises out of the surrounding vales to create a locally unique environment. The area contains all of Bedfordshire’s remaining heathland, more than half of its woodland and 29 historic parklands. It is a landscape rich in wildlife and cultural heritage, with its own special qualities and sense of place. A ‘green oasis’ of peace and quiet, rolling countryside and breath-taking views.

Entries could be fiction, non-fiction or prose and a word limit was set of 1000 words.

Participants had one month to respond to the challenge and these are the wonderful results.

Greensand Country Creative Writing Entries, 2021 Checkmate, by Cassandra Philip (Winner) 1766 –1823, by Peter Kouwenberg (Runner Up) A Tale of a Highwayman in Greensand Country, by Samantha Wilson Ampthill’s Masquerade, by Diana Revell Roots, by Rita Spada

Foreword

by Dr Tim Jarvis Writing about landscape, really evoking a sense of place, is a hard craft. It requires sharp eyes, ears, even nostrils, to pick up on details of the setting. You can’t get these from looking at a map, you have to wear down the shoe leather/boot rubber, breathe the air.

And then you need the skill to evoke those details in words for the reader. An emotional connection with a region, some insight into its layered myth and history, its inhabitants, and wildlife, is crucial. And all this must be bound by a sense of narrative.

Greensand Country, a ridge of land running across Bedfordshire, has not historically been regarded as fertile arable land. But it is a varied landscape encompassing heathland, woodland, marsh, and river valley, with diverse flora and fauna. People have lived on the ridge since the Stone Age, and in more recent times manor houses with landscaped gardens have been built there and the wealthy have hunted in great parks. The tinker, John Bunyan, wandered the region, mending pots and pans, and dreaming of a celestial pilgrimage as he walked the vales and scarps.

All of the stories here, submitted to the Greensand Country Creative Writing Competition, have a strong and engaging sense of this unique place. In all of them, landscape, rather than simply being a backdrop, becomes a character. The winning story, ‘Checkmate’, is a powerful and moving piece of fictional archaeology, an affecting tale of King Edward I’s loss of his beloved Queen, Eleanor of Castile. Beautifully observed details evoke the setting. As in a haunting, the ghosts of the past are brought vividly to life; we can really see the procession carrying the Queen’s bier, feel the King’s grief.

Runner up, ‘1766 –1823’, is a richly textured prose poem telling of an enigmatic spirit wandering the ridge. Divisions between past and present and real and spectral dissolve, and the piece is brought full circle by the note of renewal on which it ends.

Greensand Country might not be fertile arable land, but as these tales show, it is a rich soil for stories.

Checkmate

by Cassandra Philip (Winner)

Based on real accounts and correspondence pertaining to Queen Eleanor de Castile’s final journey to Westminster Abbey on 10th December 1290.

It was the first time an English royal would be seen in this way, in a glass carriage, with glowing crown and sceptre, draped in velvet robes, a beautiful sentimental look upon her face. Ready for a coronation, except her body is instead dead, embalmed, laid flat, stuffed with barley.

Queen Eleanor's carriage with its Castile and Léon clad coat of arms in bright berry red, and an inappropriately timed fresh yellow, moved and danced below the glass surrounding her to a soothing rhythm.

Tracks of fresh horses' hooves stamping an arrival in frosted mud, leaving behind a message of mourning. All of Woburn had ventured into the chill of December 10th for the night long vigil. The finest vestments adorned the crowd, in awe of the spectacle, all quietly ready to tell those not in attendance of the arrival of the sorrowful king.

A distant mist through a sparse winter canopy of frail and skinny silver birch branches. The king's weary body mirroring the fallen tree ahead, broken, and trailing roots frozen and upended in their misery, showing the strength it once had but now looking pathetic in its state. Both the tree and the King in that moment trying to desperately merge back into the earth but failing to blend in at all. Layers of overlapping bark with the appearance of dead decaying skin. Jewels and the finest fabrics divorcing him from the nature of here.

Well ahead of him, the chaplain's horse, cross propped upon its saddle, is the first to wind down to a halt. His creature's hot steamy breath disperses in winter's harsh chill.

Robes and boots navigating pools of gloopy earth. Soft clay strewn with knobbly twigs, unwittingly bright and friendly moss full of miniature movement and life.

Princesses Margaret and Eleanora are the first to notice the sound and sense of the forty or so monks singing psalms and reciting canticles. The youngest daughter wipes the inside of the glass with a delicate gloved hand for a sighting of the Cistercian Abbey ahead, the next place for their mother's bier taking its resting place only once the Holy water has blessed the crisp cool ground. With their memories of their mother’s joy just months before, as they wed the men she had chosen to secure their futures. They now find themselves under the heavy clouds navigating this life without her.

The King puts foot to earth beside the glossy spiny toothed leaves of holly and breathes in. He imagines just what it might be like to be somewhere like here alone with her just once more. How they might have laughed and remembered their younger lives amongst the speckled mushrooms with their brown spots, like ink drops merging on a spongy artist's palette. He gathers a few rusty brown fragments of fern and lets them fall between his fingers trying to detract not from thoughts of war with the Scots, or bandits and lawlessness throughout his land, but of her leaving him now unchangingly.

As fearsome Edward is lost in his thoughts a single tear finds its way just ahead of his boots, desperately close to the murky water’s edge. He catches a momentary glimpse of a sceptical but bold lone water vole in the dark parts of the thicket.

Past the horse pond and kitchen garden and into the peace and warmth of the candlelit building, the gentle sound of his embroidered footwear on the cold stone floor.

Edward is followed and fussed over as he slowly climbs the stairs, brushing off news from the north. The king's warm breath danced with grace as they had once danced in the frosty air of the abbey in the elegant velvet robes she had again worn today. Taking a final moment to sit down he watches the pink sky and fading light through the arched window, his attention is drawn to parchment hidden amongst his things with a secret loving message from dear Eleanor just one week before when life was only gently fading from her eyes. Now he however is the scribe of a letter he had prayed would not be written this soon...

“The Abbot of Cluny, I write to you of Eleanor, whom living we dearly cherished and whom we cannot cease to love now dead...”.

The Hammer of The Scots, the tormentor of William Wallace, the fierce and feared warrior will once again tomorrow trail far behind his cherished wife’s grand sombre procession south to Dunstable before Westminster Abbey. Part political spectacle, yet no less than a full homage to the keeper of the heart few believed existed within him.

1766 –1823

by Peter Kouwenberg (Runner Up)

Again, the year’s decline, midst storms and floods,

Days have no meaning for this eternal traveller; nor seasons; nor years. In the corporeal world, some two centuries years have passed since those fragile bones were laid to rest in Campton, yet the spirit’s journey through the inspirational landscape of the Greensand Country is never-ending.

This pilgrim’s perpetual presence is not an isolated example of the supernatural bleed into our world, as the boundaries between realities taper and tear throughout our mystical district.

To the North, Home Wood extends her moss-clad timbers, beckoning to the careless rambler with promise of safe passage through shaded sanctuary and into the light at St Mary Virgin in Northill. But the pleasant solitude of this secret Eden changes as the burning Autumnal sun wanes and a night chill descends over all. Now, small pinpricks of light puncture the sombre darkness as all manner of native wildlife emerges to reclaim its domain. Yet, even they scuttle into the underbrush or freeze (their bellies pressed low against the misty forest floor) at the sound of the gentle, ghostly beat which canters into the evening gloom: this is no Fakenham Ghost, penned by the first of rural bards, but something that belongs to the land itself and to time immemorial.

Not 10 miles south, claims of ethereal apparitions haunt another St Mary’s church, the abandoned ruin nestled in the picturesque parish of Clophill. Here, truth and myth intertwine with disparate whispers about whether the building welcomes Light or Darkness, Heaven or Hell, and with the residents of its tangled graveyard not universally left to “rest in peace”.

What is beyond doubt is that hearty welcome and fine refreshment await in the local public house – The Stone Jug – a Tardis of a stone building dating back centuries, like much of the architecture in this captivating county. Alas, our spectral traveller can no longer wet his whistle, but feasts instead upon the merriment and mirth created by the inn’s living patrons, who meet weekly without fail to toast their successes and to drown their sorrows.

So many beautiful and blessed hamlets and villages sprinkled across three counties – joined by living arteries and veins of natural tracks and trails – each coquettishly ready to reveal hidden treasures to those who are willing simply to take a break from the world as it is now and venture into the world which has always been and which (we pray) always will be.

Ampthill Park stands tall and proud – the midway point of the Greensand Ridge Walk – an unstinting host for countless community events. The crisp September snaps do not deter or discourage the masses from a weekend of music: riding a tsunami of Rock or tracing the elegant harmonies of the Prom. Within a month, thousands will gather under the gaze of Katherine’s Cross, necks strained and goldfish mouthed as a kaleidoscope of fireworks howl and shriek into the infinite charcoal void of space.

Emerge from the undulating, rutted, tree-hemmed pathway just south of Briar Stockings into the glorious sun-drenched canopy of Eversholt’s Cricket Club green; the timeless sound of leather on willow before afternoon tea is served on that quintessentially British Summer afternoon, perhaps with an indolent half-pint of Side Pocket at the Green Man to follow.

To our traveller, whose paternal experiences in life were often challenging, venturing further south is bittersweet. Woburn Deer Park and the neighbouring District Scout Camp are, you see, symbols of childhood. Of exploration. Of adventure.

The soft, spongy slopes of the Park are a living canvas of deer, methodically chomping grass together before an unseen peril spooks them and the entire herd in one motion darts skittishly in the direction of the ancient Abbey.

Gaggles of excitable scouts jab their fingers animatedly at OS maps adorned by rainbow-coloured sharpies, all chattering simultaneously but none listening to their fellows. Do they appreciate the priceless natural splendour which they have been fortunate enough to inherit? Will they continue to have and to hold and to love and to cherish these gratuitous wonders as they grow older and are buffeted by the chaos and confusion of life’s storms?

Rushmere Country Park too is alive with activity: young families battle the twin perils of voracious ants and inquisitive bees in their quest for the perfect picnic; joggers of all shapes and sizes huff and puff their way to personal bests through the most scenic of Park Run courses; toddlers are hoisted high into the giant chair by their parents and for a brief become Zeus atop Mount Olympus.

From the sandy, bluebell-lined paths which run through the many forests and glades of Greensand Country to the boggy approach to the Grand Union Canal tow path.

Bull rushes wallow in this treacherous wetland, sustenance for the countless birds which soar away far above in the endless, blameless, brilliant blue sky…

That Spring will come, and Nature smile again.

A Tale of a Highwayman in Greensand Country

by Samantha Wilson

Richard Turnpin, the infamous highwayman, dropped his weight onto the small-framed kitchen chair which dare not buckle although it was under an unfamiliar amount of pressure. A nearby wooden stool was assigned to the role of footrest and was nudged and shoved by an outstretched foot into an agreeable position. Dirt scattered as the old boots hit the top of the stool. He uninterestedly gazed at the Lord of the Manor who was hunched over a kettle on the stove.

'Watch where them tears are falling; I don't drink salty coffee,' Turnpin offered.

The Lord was jerked into remembering he was not alone. He looked up. A slight nod cascaded into ugly convulsions as he battled to repress his sobs.

A few hours earlier, inside the cramped cave he was using as a hideout, Turnpin was getting some shut-eye before the night of action ahead. As he slumbered on the sandy earth, the worrying feeling that there was no way out of this cave permeated through him. He reeled at the horrific thought of being sealed inside. His discomfort woke him and he saw the exit was in plain sight. Gruffly, he breathed out his relief.

The last shafts of evening light exhibited the crocodile-coloured walls of his hideout. Turnpin ran through his plan for the burglary of Aspley Guise Manor and was satisfied. He pinched through the exit and out into the great Rushmere Country Park, uniting with all creatures of the night as they shuffled and readied themselves for the hunt. Bats. Badgers. Barn owls. Trees of other-worldly beauty shared a red carpet of pine needles that Turnpin undeservedly crept across to meet his horse. On horseback, they splashed through shallow bogs aggravating the silt into whirls of disorder. Out of the wood, atop a hillock, faces from gnarled and knobbly tree trunks glared and spat at him as he passed. He spat back. Turning into a field, the elegant Woburn Abbey presented

itself directly ahead. Onto the grounds of the Abbey, and the deer scattered as he tore by.

On foot, Turnpin passed the church towards the Manor and weaved around the granary. He forced the cellar window bars with a pry bar and slid inside. The chill of the cellar, compared to the warmth of the late summer night outside, appealed to his coldblooded nature. His eyes adjusted to the dark and he noted hung venison carcasses as well as cupboards for storage. Our highwayman started unfastening doors, dreaming of sweeping gold coins through his hands. With anticipation he swung the doors of a large closet open. Repelled by its contents, Turnpin rocked back on his heels and was caught between the arms of the dead deer. Recoiling from the animal's grasp, he regained his footing. Instead of gold coins, he saw golden hair on a delicate head of youth that lay slumped against the shoulder of another. Their bodies squashed against the interior walls; they were intertwined and holding hands. The young woman's skin was smooth and not yet blistered, suggesting life had not long left her. Her lover was in a poorer state with fluid exiting from nostrils and ears showing death had come for him days earlier.

Turnpin's questioning eyes lay on dull eyes staring to nowhere. His curious face looked at fish-like mouths on plastic faces. Their twisted limbs inspired his twisted mind as he considered how he could take advantage of this situation. The girl's ring was gold with square diamonds set along the band. He slipped it off of her finger and bound up the stairs.

On the ground level, instead of sandy earth there lay carpeted drawing rooms.

Wooded dressing cabinets stood smartly lining the rooms. From the landing window, the inky smudges of Pipistrelles blinked passed and Turnpin heard their high pitched cries.

Unexpectedly, this sound grew louder as he approached one of the bedrooms. With pistol in hand, he entered to find the Lord of the Manor crouched and whimpering as he rocked back and forth. The Lord looked up at the intruder, displaying his guilt-ridden face. Turnpin held out the girl's ring, his large palm highlighted the small and delicate nature of the piece of jewellery. The Lord saw it and cowered.

'Your face tells the story. What led you to this act?' Turnpin pressed.

In a monotone whisper, the Lord began, 'I had a drink to celebrate the day's hunt.

I finished the bottle. It's been like that since my wife passed. My daughter came in, she said she was with child. She is just fifteen. She indicated towards the boy who followed her in, the stable-hand, as the father. He said they were in love. I raged. He smiled. My hunting rifle lay within arm’s reach. I aimed at him. He turned to run and I fired. It's impossible to miss at such close range. I dragged him down to the cellar and into the closet. My daughter wailed, and wouldn't let go of the boy. She got into the closet beside him, her arms around him. I shut and barred the doors. I needed some time away from her noise to think, to clear my head. Time passed but her screaming didn't stop. Finally, it stopped. I felt such relief. I regained my ability to think but...'

The Lord became mute as the atrocity of the situation was spoken aloud. Turnpin shuddered. There was a pause.

'I'll need £500 up front and the use of this property as a hideaway as and when I require it,' the highwayman stated. 'Tonight, go to the graveyard, dig up an old grave and dispose of the bodies there. You can claim your daughter has run away with the farmhand, and offer a reward for her safe return.'

The Lord mumbled his agreement. 'Get up.' Turnpin ordered. He guided the old man by the scruff of the neck down to the kitchen. 'I need some coffee,' he stated, 'and boil some water for my bath.'

Ampthill’s Masquerade

by Diana Revell That balmy afternoon, we were wandering hand in hand along Ampthill Park’s murky footpath. The surrounding trees were rhythmically swaying from side to side, as if exhaling their humid breath towards us, with entwined leaves rattling some forgotten melody in the gentle breeze. Still anaesthetised by winter, the golden fern was slowly starting to transform its colour. Beneath fallen branches, twigs and fronds, small animals scampered towards secret lairs, reminding us we weren’t alone. The drowsy March sun was making its way through braided foliage, warming our faces as we were looking for a place to sit.

Just like the nature around us was starting to wake up from hibernation, from the depths of my emotions an idea then blossomed: I was going to make Ruth an infinitely precious jewel, the most beautiful she’d seen.

After meandering for a while along the zig zaggy paths, we finally found a place to spread our picnic. On the plateau, near Katherine’s Cross, we found a dry and comfortable looking stretch of grass and we sat there for the remainder of the afternoon. The cross was pointing towards a ridge and a stooping silver birch.

Embraced by icy white, smooth bark, with its leaves not yet the ripe shade of green, this solitary tree was, like us, witnessing the vernal equinox, celebrating days catching up to nights and the nature softly springing back to life.

In the distance, we could see a shallow man-made pond, where ducks were playfully going about their day, making gentle ripples on the water’s cloudy surface. The sun was going down across the park, casting a tangerine hue over the pale grass, moss, trees. I was indirectly witnessing this peaceful spectacle whilst staring at the dusk in her eyes, but then I noticed something else. Ruth grabbed my hand and touched her pursed lips with her delicate finger for there, in the corner of her eye, one could also spy a hare.

Lanky, with its unusually long ears and agile looking back legs, it stood stuck in the mire watching us for a long, thrilling second. As she squeezed my hand, the hare dragged itself out of the boggy ground and vanished into the thicket. This eerie apparition left me with an idea: I’d make her a golden hare, with eyes of ruby to forever remind her of that specific moment, just as it was going to be endlessly encrusted into my mind. My

handsome rabbit-like creature would carry the sun, the moon and the stars - all the gifts I wanted to offer her but couldn’t. I wanted to make it a part of our life together so I thought about hiding it, and offering her clues on its whereabouts for special occasions; in my imagination, we’d spend our youth searching for this elusive animal.

During one of my park visits I realised nature is covert, unveiling its secrets gradually to the right person. My hare would also be hidden yet there was no doubt in my mind that she’d remember the day we just sat and watched the odd daffodils undulating with the soft air, the mellow sun embracing us like an old friend. Hunting for somewhere to hide my treasure, my eyes were drawn to the shadow of Katherine’s Cross, pointing towards the place Ruth and I sat. In that spot, a hermitic mushroom decided to grow out of the moist soil’s nothingness, its fleshy umbrella protecting it from the elements, promising an ideal location for my yet imagined prize. My eyes kept getting drawn to the puzzle of patterns around me: ripples in the pond down below, the branching of trees, the repeating papery forms hanging under the fungus’ cap. Life repeating itself. Life preserving life.

And so it dawned on me that all this time we’d spent together, we both looked but never saw the world opening up just outside our front door. There was an entire new universe carefully kept under nature’s wraps, and all we had to do was open our eyes.

Ruth made me see that we occupied our self-absorbed time together lusting for new experiences, yet forgot to look at our immediate reality. The hare made me take notice of a nearly imperceptible world: blades of grass violently shaking when creepy crawlers went about their day, incessantly chirping insects, a flawlessly tangled spectacle that I was now invited to partake in.

I often returned to the park to draw inspiration for the necklace. Sitting on a bench, I was looking out in the distance - trees spreading across the fertile land, a sea of colours and textures beyond the scarped edge for as far as your eyes could take you. I imagined these would be our lives from now on: ever changing, vibrant, fascinating. I now think Ruth must have not been able to encompass this vastness for as my twisted fascination with my own idea grew, her love for me was dwindling until one day, I searched and there was nothing left.

I hid the finished piece for her and hoped for years she’d remember our day at the park, that she’d think of me and my enthusiasm for crafts and nature. I heard from mutual acquaintances that like many other people, she also became entrapped by the mirage of this treasure hunt, so often I liked to think she was close. Ruth was born and raised in Arthur street, not far from Katherine’s Cross. She never did find my hare.

ROOTS

by Rita Spada

He was rushing, as usual. It never seemed to change. Always rushing here, there and everywhere. Up the trees, in the trees, down the trees, across the interlocking branches that spanned the woods. ‘Got to catch the hoist, got to cross the leaf ferry, got to miss the morning rush of ‘umans, got to ...got to... got to... when will this ever end?’

The swing of tangled- twisted brambles and branches came into view ‘ ...one ...two... three... Jump.... Relief! Now I have a little time ...’ he thought.

He watched the inter-leaving junctions whoosh past… “ Ahh.. forgot to count ...!” he groaned. In his mind he gradually marked them off ...finally 42. ‘Ok…ok.. wait for it... One, two, three...jump!’ - as he jumped onto the delicate platform the ‘hoist’ whished past. He gave it a quick glance as it whisked down then, looked up through the canopy of leaves and saw the sun starting to peep through, and then he too was off waddling hurriedly along the majestic wooden beam. He bumped into many of his colleagues and friends, a few he did not recognise, “they must be visiting from the heath on the other side of the ridge’ he mused.

"Sanson!...Saaannnnson !.... What took you so long?" Sanson looked around in frustration, he could not believe she was complaining again. He was on time, early in fact, the sun had not fully risen yet, he had even taken an earlier leaf hoist then yesterday; but then - nothing was ever good enough for Picton, ‘she's always just got to complain’. He gritted his teeth and forced a contrite look on his face, "Sorry Picton, you know what it’s like down there, since the rains have stopped the woodlands are jam-packed with folks and so the leaf hoists are running slower than usual," he pleaded.

"It’s those darned ‘umans again! " Picton grumbled, "If they’d just stop pulls down them trees on the heath and clogs up the streams with their darn’ stuffs then our peoples from the other ridges would not have to keep coming, we won’t use them ‘oists and we would not have to wait for them - we could just live in the trees like we’s always done...

We's be able to just get on ... No’s ..no’s.. They jus’ got to keep building and filling, building and filling...." “Felling - you mean?” Sanson auto-corrected without thinking. “No’s I says filling and I mean filling!’ Picton growled. Sanson scooted off, he'd heard her diatribe all too many times. ‘Yes, it was true - but crumbs- does she always have to go on so?” He scrambled inside the slippery corridor of the trunk, side stepping the miniscule wafers and food globules as they swam down inside the tree-trunk towards the roots, way down below. It amazed and fascinated him: how trees could make their own food just using sunlight, water and air. The liquid syrup today was even more gloopy than normal, “..there was not enough water to make it run smooth. I’ll have to fix that first.” He thought about how often lately the food syrup got stuck halfway down the trunk; sometimes never to get to all the stores down below. Then he would also have to fix many of the trees’ corridor walls, damaged when the birds were nesting- and then "if i have time" he thought, "I’ll help the rest of the team fix the overhanging tree canopies". The dry spells followed by heavy downpours and violent winds caused havoc in the peaceful woods very old trees, oak and chestnuts’ that he had worked on tirelessly for years would suddenly tilt and fall, their groans and cracks would echo throughout the woods, frightening the birds and tree elves from their much needed sleep. “Fine for owls and bats,” he grieved, “they’re already awake, they get a whole day to sleep.” The chaotic images of the fierce freezing wind storm that had raced and railed through the forest only the day before rushed through his mind. It had been many, many moons since the tree elves and gnome community had seen such natural violence, "but while wind storms are natural - this did not feel normal?" he wondered as he hurried down to inspect the sieves in the phloem corridors.

When the sun was at its high point in the sky, Sanson trundled hurriedly to go help the Canopy team, he was very deep in thought; “the sieves were really blocked this time more worse than before..” he reflected on what he had seen, his mind rehearsing all the different ways he could fix the problem. But it always came back to same solution - he would have to select a team and go bark-side; he hated going out during the day, it meant they all had to get dressed up in their ‘gear’ so that they would not be seen by the ‘umans. “Aaaggh... it is so frustrating”. Often he longed for the ‘old days’ when gnomes, ‘umans and elves lived alongside each other. Occasionally there were issues, but

generally they all just got on with living. That seemed such a long time ago to him, it was sad how it just gradually and subtly changed - he remembered the laughter, the swings, the ball games, hide and seek had been one of his favourites - of course - then slowly the children stopped coming to the woods, soon it was empty, the little elves that waited patiently for their playmates realised they were not coming and they too got used to being separate. “Things have been changing slowly... the woods have been filled with people and children - especially recently ...it’s the ‘ockdown...’ he practised the word he kept hearing in the woods - he had no idea what it meant. But, it was not the same, the elves and gnomes daren’t be seen... he wondered if that ‘old-times’ would come again.