TADS #45:Tadley (or Tadley God Help Us).

"Tadley God help us, back of beyond. Broom maker's cottage, heather and pond. Acres of gorse flaming, hills keeping guard. Goats on the common, geese in the yard. Smother of blossoming apple and pear. Coconut shies and the fun of the fair. Work polished-off without grumble or fuss. Trips to the town on the top of the bus. Trifles put by against a rainy day. Mornings for thrift and evenings for play. Kind, honest faces all tanned by the sun. Lamplight in windows 'ere supper be done. Threshing machine and flying of chaff. Lads who can bargain, labour and laugh. Pitches for cricket and pub for drinks. Tadley ain't nearly so bad as you thinks" - Tadley God Help Us

When an errant balloonist crash landed in Tadley many many decades ago he had no idea where he was. He enquired of his destination to those who came to his aid and when they told him he had landed in Tadley, the ungrateful beggar replied, aghast, "Tadley! God Help Us".

Not everyone was so dismissive of the then north Hampshire village, now a town, and soon an anonymous poet had penned the above ode to the place that was my home for all but three weeks of the first twenty seven years of my life. Tadley AIN'T nearly so bad as you thinks but to listen to the stories me and some of my friends tell, constantly, about the place you'd be forgiven for thinking it is.

When Shep, Pam, and I were sat, not unusually, in a pub some years ago Shep asked her if there was anywhere she'd fancy doing a walk. She'd heard so much about Tadley she said she'd like to actually go there. Much to Shep's initial horror, I started to put in place a TADS walk around Tadley and its surrounding villages, forests, and commons. I'd planned for it to happen March last year but Covid and its lockdowns had different ideas.

So, by the time it actually happened it had been nearly two years in the planning. I was excited, I was eager, and I was apprehensive it went well. Both as a nice day out in its own right and as a distraction to the continuing horror of Putin's evil invasion of Ukraine and continuous murder of its citizens, children not exempted. In some ways I felt like Dr Who returning to Gallifrey. He always seemed to meet his most fearsome foes on his home planet.

I'd even bought a new pair of walking points (from Snow + Rock, they weirdly played Shine On by The House of Love as I was trying them on), a new network card, and a new portable charger for my phone. I'd even had a haircut and a beard trim and, luckily for the walk if not for my general health, the bout of gout that afflicted me in the week running up to the walk had remained in my left hand/wrist. Tricky for writing, typing, opening bottles, and wiping my bum but no problem when it comes to walking. Even if tying laces shouldn't really be that challenging.

I'd woken (and risen) super early, 5.30am, on Saturday and taken the train from Honor Oak Park to Clapham Junction where I had a pain au chocolate and met Pam. We took the train to Guildford and then the bus replacement service, a comfy coach - not so bad, to Basingstoke where we met with Adam, Shep, Neil, and Bee.

From there we took the number 2 bus to Tadley (Allen's Garage) and walked to my mum and dad's house where we joined by Chris D. Mum made most of us a cup of tea and we had a good old chinwag before setting off on the walk proper. First of all across The Green, past Tadley County Primary School (my infant and junior school) and St Paul's church where my brother's funeral took place and where, as a junior at school, I did my first ever public reading at a harvest festival.

From there we cut through a path that, as youngsters, we always called the 'Back Lane' and came out on Church Road where we made our way, passing the first of many impressive thatched cottages we'd see during the walk, to St Paul's. A much smaller, and much older, church and one where I have attended both the funeral of my nan and of Adam's dad.

We entered into the graveyard and, as ever, it's a poignant place. Many of mine, and Adam's, friends and relations are buried here. Often they're the same people - us being related and all that.

We had a look at Arthur Nash's, Mr Tadley's - besom broom maker to the Queen who once appeared on The Generation Game with Jim Davidson, grave and his bench before moving on to my brother Steven's. Mum and Dad still come down here to lay flowers and snowmen (his nickname was Snowy) on the grave and keep it clean. It's been over twenty-two years now since he died and though the open wound of grief has long since healed the scar it left will remain for as long as those of us who remember him still walk the earth.

Not far from Steven's grave is that of Ray Frost, a local councillor who was responsible for organising my coach to school and father to a kid I was friends with at a very young age. I can only assume, looking at his grave, that he was a keen gardener.

A bit further back from that is the double grave of Adam's nan and grandad, Albert and Vera, and, just behind them, it's my nan and grandad, Hazel and Tom. It seems silly but I find it quite comforting that they're all in there together.

My family members go back further still in this one graveyard. Above is the grave of my great-grandmother Elsie Trusler who died when I was in my mid-twenties. She shares the grave with her husband Tom who predeceased her by an astonishing fifty years. He died before I was born. In fact he even died before my mum, his grand-daughter, was born.

Tragically young. Below that is Elsie's mother or, possibly, grandmother Ellen. It gets confusing as we go this far back. I suspect some of the older, very mossy, graves elsewhere in the churchyard contain family members too but they are now illegible, sadly. One of Pam's sisters, Evelyn, has been researching her own family tree in recent years and has discovered the name Trusler cropping up a bit. So there is hope, possibly fear for Pam, that she'll end up discovering she is actually related to Adam and myself!

Moving to Adam's side of the family you can see his own father's grave above and also that of the man, Reuben Hicks, that Adam tells me was the King of Tadley. An honour, according to Adam, that, because Reuben had no issue, was passed on to to his father Mick and now rests with him. Adam has been challenged to announce himself as The King of Tadley in The Fox and Hounds and later that evening, with some drink in him, he did just that.

The final grave I wanted to visit was that of my old friend Pat Still. Pat the Rockin' Maniac. It's quite sad that there is still no headstone and, instead, a quite basic cross with the name PAT on it and no more. Remembering Pat, I doubt he'd be bothered. He had a pretty good time while he was here (most of the time) and he always claimed his only religion was rock'n'roll so he'd probably not be one for ostentatious goodbyes.

Even though, and nearly six years after his death, I'd still like to say "see you later, alligator" to a truly unique individual. 

We left St.Paul's and headed down a muddy footpath, across a field, and on to Skates Lane which brought us back on the A340, the main road between Basingstoke and Tadley. We followed Dix Hill and Main Road past the building that used to be The Fighting Cocks pub and up to my old house on the top of the hill.

That's it above. The first floor bedroom window at the side of the house was my bedroom. There's a carpenter's yard (Busby's) next door which has been there as long as I can remember and then the former post office where my grandmother, Florence - my dad's mum - was the postmistress. There was also, once, a fish and chip shop attached.

Across the road, near the bus stop, there once stood a mighty oak tree that was felled in the great storm of 1987 and you can see into the grounds of the large Fairlawn House. A place, Adam informed me, that is rumoured to be in some way linked to the Profumo affair.

We headed down Malthouse Lane and the house above was where my grandmother Florence was born in 1902. It was then a pub but has been a family home for as long as I can remember. In fact, as a kid, Roger Halliday lived there and he ended up being the singer in a band with my friends Ian and Mike.

More picturesque thatched cottages led us to Forest Lane caravan park, now rebadged (oddly) as Sleepy Hollow. My uncle, auntie, and cousins used to live down there and maybe my memory is failing me but I seem to recall that in those days the homes were proper caravans rather than the statics that dominate now.

From there it was into Pamber Forest itself. A popular walking spot when I was a kid and now predominantly used by dog walkers. I've seen a muntjac killed by a dog there and also the shedded skins of adders as well as getting lost there several times. 

Luckily I'd done my research and knew there was no danger of getting lost this time as we sped on towards The Plough. I was keen to reach there before 2pm when they stop serving baguettes and, with my new boots as my new friends, that proved to be easily doable. The forest is big, it's quite dense, but if you know where you're going you can pass through it pretty quickly.

At The Plough - my dad's pub of choice,we met with Jim (who'd join us for the rest of the walk) and I also saw my dad's mate Mike Hinge (he asked if my dad was joining us but he'd gone to see Reading play Millwall (they lost 1-0) with my nephew Daniel.

I had a brie and cranberry baguette and a tasty pint of dark Grave Digger's Ale. Many others took a Perridge Pale and we sat in the lovely, old fashioned, pub for a good hour or so chatting away. When we left Chris said goodbye and we headed along Little London Road to Frog Lane where we rejoined the forest.

Little London - once a centre for brick making, where my uncle and auntie now live, is one of many villages of that name in England. They're all roughly fifty miles from London and one theory has it that they are named after the Londoners who moved there to escape the Great Plague of 1665-1666 which killed approximately 100,000 capital dwellers, a quarter of the city's population at the time.

It was also, like Tadley, settled by Welsh drovers on their way to London. Which possibly explains how the Evanses arrived there. Back in the forest things were still just as muddy. Jim took the lead though our progress was, at one point, slowed by the arrival of a lowing bull.

In fact several bulls were blocking our path. Dexter steers. They didn't seem aggressive but they were pretty big and if one was to run at us, or gore us, I'm not sure if there was much we could have done about it. Soon enough, they sauntered off down a side path and we continued up through the Silchester end of the forest, quite near the legendary 'monkeybumps' where, as kids, generation of Tadleyites have raced on their bikes.

The forest path came out on Duke's Ride in Silchester and, from there, it was a short walk to the Calleva Arms. A pub we'd previously visited on a TADS walk in 2015 in the days before blogging. As I arrived at the pub I got a call from Darren in which he called me a cunt and told me to get him a pint.

He'd been on a child friendly TADpoleS walk with Cheryl, Tommy, Tony, Alex (the organiser of said walk and sporting a very natty William Onyeabor t-shirt), Izzie, Grace, Neil W, Tina, and Hannah and, as luck would have it, they arrived at the pub at almost exactly the same time as us. We had planned for that to happen but didn't expect it to actually work out.

Both Teresa and Gwen joined us at the Calleva too. I had a couple of pints of low voltage Seafarer's and so did many others. A few took cups of tea in twee teapots. All enjoyed a good chat and we heard that Tommy had scored a great goal in his football game earlier that day.

Silchester, as we'd seen on that walk nearly seven years ago, is most notable for the archaeological site and Roman wall of Calleva Atrebatum. Originally an Iron Age settlement of the Belgic Atrebates tribe who originated in the Artois region of northern France.

After the 43AD Roman conquest of Britain it developed into Calleva Atrebatum and boasted a mansio (hotel), an amphitheatre, and, possibly, a nymphaeum (not a brothel but a consecrated monument dedicated to female deities). Roads lead from Calleva Atrebatum to London (the Devil's Highway), Sorviodunum/Old Sarum/Salisbury (Port Way), Gluvum/Gloucester (Ermin Way), and Aquae Sulis/Bath.

The final one, seemingly, was not given a flashy name. The 11c Domesday Book claims Alestan held a manor in what is now Silchester with King Edward the Confessor (reign:- 1042-1066) his overlord. Cheping held another and his overlord was Earl Harold Godwinson, later Harold II (the last Anglo Saxon king who ruled from January to October in 1066). As late as the first decade of the 20th century Wellington still owned the manor of Silchester (hence Duke's Ride) but now Silchester's most famous daughter is Alys Fowler. The Gardener's World presenter and horticulturist having been born here.

Suitably refreshed and educated we crossed the gorse heavy Silchester Common as the sun began its slow descent. Gwen left us at Pamber Heath and we passed through The Glen and along Burney Bit before cutting through one of the new housing estates into West Street.

The memories were coming thick and thin and I was sad to learn that the tiny one room house on West Street is no more. I was equally surprised to discover that West Street has been tarmacked. When I was young there were many roads in Tadley that were still untarmacked. The gypsy horse and traps that I used to see around seem to have pretty much disappeared too.

We crossed over the A340 and Teresa showed us the house, on Harmsworth Road, she grew up on. We carried along Pleasant Hill and Mount Pleasant and up to Southdown Park where, as teenagers - too old for it really, we'd compete on the baby swings and try to annoy local residents by shouting rude things.

That took us to Huntsmoor Road and we had a look at Shep's old house (Neil W lived on the same road but he was no longer with us and I don't know what number he was at) and then past Burnham Copse school (Shep's old school, we'd been close to Bishopswood - Adam and Bugsy's school - earlier) and down Franklin Avenue whose chippy, now no more, used to be one of the main hangout spots in Tadley back in the eighties.

The origin of the word Tadley is unclear but it seems to mean a clearing in the woods (ley) for toads (tad). Or for a man called Tada. When, in 909, Edward the Elder, granted the Manor of Overton to the Bishop of Winchester, Tadley was mentioned. There is more Tadley history, of course, but as you'll have gathered if you've made it this far, this walk was more about personal history than any other.

We turned off Franklin Avenue, some bladders way too full by this point, on the path near the fire station. We were quite near Pat Still's old house on Glendale Road, the Bop Shack, but instead we passed through Honeybottom Road and saw the home (above) where I lived for the first four years of my life more or less. Where my brother Andy was born.

From there it's a short walk to The Fox & Hounds. A pub some claim has been gentrified of late but you'd not know that unless you'd visited in the eighties or nineties. It was overly light in there and we found a table and sat under a screen showing Liverpool beat West Ham 1-0 courtesy of a Sadio Mane goal.

I had a lager and we ran into Shep's friends Tom and Gary before being joined by Ben, Tracy, Carole, and Dylan. A table full of young lads, almost all in black jackets, were having a jolly old time and, to be fair, so were we. I remarked, more than once, at how odd it felt to see Pam in the Fox and Hounds. In THE Fox and Hounds!

From there we walked across the road to the Tadley Tandoori. The gout in my hand was still playing up a bit but I managed to recite Tadley God Help Us and ordered a dish that would need minimal cutlery work:- paneer shashlik, tarka dal, naan bread, and, of course, a Bangla.

The food was good, the service was good, and the company was good. Afterwards a few of us headed back to The Fox and Hounds for more drinks and, eventually, Teresa drove Adam, Pam, and myself back to Bramley where I slept very well indeed.

The next morning we had croissants with jam and headed into Basingstoke to meet Neil B, Bee, Tina, Neil W, and Shep for brunch in Poppins (cheese omelette and chips with a cup of tea) before Pam and I headed back to London. The Tadley itch had been scratched but it seems highly unlikely that the old Tadley stories won't be rearing their heads again soon. I'd been a little fearful of how the day might go but by the end of it all I was very pleased. Tadley, it seems, ain't really so bad as you thinks. Next month we're in the equally slandered settlement of Didcot for a walk that takes in Dorchester-on-Thames and Wittenham Clumps. The personal history, of course, will be more thin on the ground but the walk, as with this one, will hopefully still prove a tonic. Dexter steers or not.

Thanks to everyone who joined for either the walk, tea, beers, curry or whatever. Extra thanks to Pam and Bee whose photos and maps I've used in this blog. See you all again soon.