Jaunt – late 16th century: of unknown origin. Originally depreciatory, early senses included ‘tire a horse out by riding it up and down’, ‘traipse about’.
To Ellie and me “jaunt” will always, I think, mean the short trips that have marked our time in England. Maybe the 30 miles to Oxford for a walkabout, late lunch, and an Evensong service in an ancient college chapel. Maybe heading to Norfolk with a couple of B&B reservations, maps, and overnight gear to explore Constable Country, we have had jaunts. Last week a departure from Lane End in pre-dawn darkness, a wet-eyed ferry ride to Dunkirk, and some Belgian beer marked our last jaunt.
Though deeply in denial, we had been planning our departure from England for months and “ticking the boxes” for jaunts to various places we’ve always planned to visit. Our trip across the Channel began with Ellie filling two suitcases and various baggages with all of the clothing and household gear she’ll want for living in Puglia (Italia) for November through perhaps March. (Coincident was the packing of all the baggages we’re shipping back to the US, but that’s a separate story.) We loaded up Bluebell, and Ellie planned her trip (ultimately) to Italy; I planned to share the first two days, and then head back to Lane End for a week of work and cleanup.
It was a crisp autumn morning, and the dreaded M-25 London ring motorway was tie-up-free in the pre-dawn hours. We descended the sloping downs above Folkstone into the port town of Dover as the dawn light illuminated the never-sleeping shipping and ferry traffic up, down, and across the English Channel. The cliffs began to glow with the dawn, and France was on the horizon. Ellie shed her last tears as we left England behind, and we adjourned to the lounge for a breakfast of tea and beans on toast. We had chosen a ferry to Dunkirk, further east on the French coast than the port of Calais, partly because both of us are so staggered at the stories of good fortune, determination and grit that marked the legendary evacuation of the British Expeditionary forces from the beaches seventy years ago.
Surrounded by Hitler’s tanks and strafed by his warplanes, the Brits and some French defended a perimeter around Dunkirk for just over a week in May 1940 at the close of their rout in the Battle of France. With little notice and no advance planning, the British command despaired of evacuating perhaps 45000 troops before they were over-run, but managed almost ten times that number.
We saw nothing in the way of historical markers, but found teeny local roads leading out around some nightmarish industrial zones to the dunes and the seaside. Today sail-boarders in wet suits frolic where starving and wounded waded out to the Kentish fishing boats which had braved the Channel and the Nazis to save them.
We picked our way along country towns heading south to Ypres, a market town first besieged by the English in the 14th Century, and completely destroyed by German bombardments in 1915. In looking at the roadmap of the countryside, we were astounded at the number of teeny rural cemeteries maintained by the Commonwealth Graves Commission. This was Flanders, the land ravaged and criss-crossed by years of trench warfare, and each cemetery holds the remains of perhaps just a dozen, or maybe a hundred, British teenagers lost in The Great War.
American war graves in Europe and in the US are solemn rows of identical tombstones, most inscribed with a symbol of Christ, some with a Hebrew star. In Belgium and France each German boy is marked with a dark stone cross. Each British and Commonwealth stone bears the historic regimental crest of the fallen: the thistle, the rose, the elk, or the other symbols that say “Here lies a Highlander,” or “This is an Oxfordshire rifleman.” The most appalling are those stones with no such crest, honoring the two, or even three, unknowns who lie entwined below.
And where the medieval wall and its gate would have been, near the reconstructed market square of Ypres stands the Menen Gate, its carved stone slabs overwhelming a visitor with the names and ranks, regiment by regiment, of each of the 54,896 British and Commonwealth men who came here to fight and die, and whose remains were never found after the guns fell silent in 1918.
In the nearby shops you can buy the rusty bayonet, shell casing by the dozen, or tarnished buttons that these men and their German foes wore in the mud. Each night, from one season through the next, the roads to and through The Menen Gate shut down, the crowds gather in silence, volunteer memorial groups conduct a ritual, and “The Last Post” plays on a bugle.
We drove out of Ypres toward Bruge, silently horrified by the slaughter and wondering at how the medieval town of Ypres, the surrounding villages and fields have healed in the decades since.
Finding our vest-pocket hotel after dark on a canal in the ancient trading center of Bruges was a minor puzzle. Safely parked with Bluebell and our worldly goods locked away, we relaxes: Ellie took a long bath and I wandered down the cobbles in search of a Belgian brew.
We found such brew, searching the streets, in the hall of a sixteenth century public house. The morning dawned clear and chill, giving us a few hours to explore the back streets, canals, and squares of the city before heading out.
Ellie’s destination was a rendezvous with daughter Sophie in Paris; I had to return to Lane End for a week of work deadlines, packing and scrubbing. We spent a few minutes organizing Bluebell at the ferry terminus in Calais, and Ellie pondered the circuitous routes to the rendezvous point in Paris. I boarded the ship, and then watched the modern port and medieval center of Calais disappear into the crystalline autumn afternoon.
Following a brief snooze of the sunny afternoon ferry ride, I came back to England for the last time and headed into town on foot from the ferry port. Dover is a major port on the south-east coast of England, at a gap in the white cliffs near the narrowest point of the English Channel. Its proximity to mainland Europe has made it a key military, maritime and trade location for millennia. The Romans built forts here and the town has fortifications from many eras since. I walked up the steep path to Dover Castle, most famous as the bastion built by Henry II as expiation for countenancing the murder of Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury. But I had visited the castle keep before, and was here to tour the “secret” underground tunnels. Though some date back to the unsuccessful 13th century siege by Louis VIII of France, tunneling in earnest began as part of the defense against feared Napoleonic invasion in the late 18th century.
I briefly visited St Mary de Castro, a church in the grounds of Dover Castle, a heavily restored Saxon structure, built next to a Roman lighthouse which became the church bell-tower.
The outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 saw the tunnels converted first into an air-raid shelter and then later into a military command centre and underground hospital. In May 1940, Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsey directed the evacuation of French and British soldiers from Dunkirk, code-named Operation Dynamo, from his headquarters in the cliff tunnels. A military telephone exchange was installed in 1941 and served the underground headquarters. The switchboards were constantly in use and had to have a new tunnel created alongside it to house the batteries and chargers necessary to keep them functioning. The navy used the exchange to enable direct communication with vessels, as well as using it to direct air-sea rescue craft to pick up pilots shot down in the Straits of Dover.
In late afternoon I came above ground to have my last glimpse across the channel, hike down and through the town to the railroad station. I made my way back by rail, in the dark, through London, and out to High Wycombe. Friends met my train, and so I came back to Lane End for the last time, our English jaunts at an end.
To Ellie and me “jaunt” will always, I think, mean the short trips that have marked our time in England. Maybe the 30 miles to Oxford for a walkabout, late lunch, and an Evensong service in an ancient college chapel. Maybe heading to Norfolk with a couple of B&B reservations, maps, and overnight gear to explore Constable Country, we have had jaunts. Last week a departure from Lane End in pre-dawn darkness, a wet-eyed ferry ride to Dunkirk, and some Belgian beer marked our last jaunt.
Though deeply in denial, we had been planning our departure from England for months and “ticking the boxes” for jaunts to various places we’ve always planned to visit. Our trip across the Channel began with Ellie filling two suitcases and various baggages with all of the clothing and household gear she’ll want for living in Puglia (Italia) for November through perhaps March. (Coincident was the packing of all the baggages we’re shipping back to the US, but that’s a separate story.) We loaded up Bluebell, and Ellie planned her trip (ultimately) to Italy; I planned to share the first two days, and then head back to Lane End for a week of work and cleanup.
It was a crisp autumn morning, and the dreaded M-25 London ring motorway was tie-up-free in the pre-dawn hours. We descended the sloping downs above Folkstone into the port town of Dover as the dawn light illuminated the never-sleeping shipping and ferry traffic up, down, and across the English Channel. The cliffs began to glow with the dawn, and France was on the horizon. Ellie shed her last tears as we left England behind, and we adjourned to the lounge for a breakfast of tea and beans on toast. We had chosen a ferry to Dunkirk, further east on the French coast than the port of Calais, partly because both of us are so staggered at the stories of good fortune, determination and grit that marked the legendary evacuation of the British Expeditionary forces from the beaches seventy years ago. 
Surrounded by Hitler’s tanks and strafed by his warplanes, the Brits and some French defended a perimeter around Dunkirk for just over a week in May 1940 at the close of their rout in the Battle of France. With little notice and no advance planning, the British command despaired of evacuating perhaps 45000 troops before they were over-run, but managed almost ten times that number. 
We saw nothing in the way of historical markers, but found teeny local roads leading out around some nightmarish industrial zones to the dunes and the seaside. Today sail-boarders in wet suits frolic where starving and wounded waded out to the Kentish fishing boats which had braved the Channel and the Nazis to save them.We picked our way along country towns heading south to Ypres, a market town first besieged by the English in the 14th Century, and completely destroyed by German bombardments in 1915. In looking at the roadmap of the countryside, we were astounded at the number of teeny rural cemeteries maintained by the Commonwealth Graves Commission. This was Flanders, the land ravaged and criss-crossed by years of trench warfare, and each cemetery holds the remains of perhaps just a dozen, or maybe a hundred, British teenagers lost in The Great War.
American war graves in Europe and in the US are solemn rows of identical tombstones, most inscribed with a symbol of Christ, some with a Hebrew star. In Belgium and France each German boy is marked with a dark stone cross. Each British and Commonwealth stone bears the historic regimental crest of the fallen: the thistle, the rose, the elk, or the other symbols that say “Here lies a Highlander,” or “This is an Oxfordshire rifleman.” The most appalling are those stones with no such crest, honoring the two, or even three, unknowns who lie entwined below. 
And where the medieval wall and its gate would have been, near the reconstructed market square of Ypres stands the Menen Gate, its carved stone slabs overwhelming a visitor with the names and ranks, regiment by regiment, of each of the 54,896 British and Commonwealth men who came here to fight and die, and whose remains were never found after the guns fell silent in 1918. 
In the nearby shops you can buy the rusty bayonet, shell casing by the dozen, or tarnished buttons that these men and their German foes wore in the mud. Each night, from one season through the next, the roads to and through The Menen Gate shut down, the crowds gather in silence, volunteer memorial groups conduct a ritual, and “The Last Post” plays on a bugle.We drove out of Ypres toward Bruge, silently horrified by the slaughter and wondering at how the medieval town of Ypres, the surrounding villages and fields have healed in the decades since.
Finding our vest-pocket hotel after dark on a canal in the ancient trading center of Bruges was a minor puzzle. Safely parked with Bluebell and our worldly goods locked away, we relaxes: Ellie took a long bath and I wandered down the cobbles in search of a Belgian brew. 
We found such brew, searching the streets, in the hall of a sixteenth century public house. The morning dawned clear and chill, giving us a few hours to explore the back streets, canals, and squares of the city before heading out.Ellie’s destination was a rendezvous with daughter Sophie in Paris; I had to return to Lane End for a week of work deadlines, packing and scrubbing. We spent a few minutes organizing Bluebell at the ferry terminus in Calais, and Ellie pondered the circuitous routes to the rendezvous point in Paris. I boarded the ship, and then watched the modern port and medieval center of Calais disappear into the crystalline autumn afternoon.
Following a brief snooze of the sunny afternoon ferry ride, I came back to England for the last time and headed into town on foot from the ferry port. Dover is a major port on the south-east coast of England, at a gap in the white cliffs near the narrowest point of the English Channel. Its proximity to mainland Europe has made it a key military, maritime and trade location for millennia. The Romans built forts here and the town has fortifications from many eras since. I walked up the steep path to Dover Castle, most famous as the bastion built by Henry II as expiation for countenancing the murder of Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury. But I had visited the castle keep before, and was here to tour the “secret” underground tunnels. Though some date back to the unsuccessful 13th century siege by Louis VIII of France, tunneling in earnest began as part of the defense against feared Napoleonic invasion in the late 18th century. 
I briefly visited St Mary de Castro, a church in the grounds of Dover Castle, a heavily restored Saxon structure, built next to a Roman lighthouse which became the church bell-tower.
The outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 saw the tunnels converted first into an air-raid shelter and then later into a military command centre and underground hospital. In May 1940, Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsey directed the evacuation of French and British soldiers from Dunkirk, code-named Operation Dynamo, from his headquarters in the cliff tunnels. A military telephone exchange was installed in 1941 and served the underground headquarters. The switchboards were constantly in use and had to have a new tunnel created alongside it to house the batteries and chargers necessary to keep them functioning. The navy used the exchange to enable direct communication with vessels, as well as using it to direct air-sea rescue craft to pick up pilots shot down in the Straits of Dover.In late afternoon I came above ground to have my last glimpse across the channel, hike down and through the town to the railroad station. I made my way back by rail, in the dark, through London, and out to High Wycombe. Friends met my train, and so I came back to Lane End for the last time, our English jaunts at an end.
