Part 1: As English As Sausage, Egg, Chips and Peas

A most remarkable parish spire! and, widely acknowledged as Just such...constantly commented upon being seen for the Very first time. Pressed into the church's soft sandstone walls, the shallow Indentations from ball and shot left over from when the Roundheads had came this way; The Royalists did determine to fight to the last man... Or so it was, reportedly, thus contendend. The sky above as hollow as a cathedral's resounding dome; and Possessing a sort of wild, uncharted immensity... And not a bird singing...not a single bird in flight. A strangely discomforting sunshine began to gently filter Through the moitionless leaves on the already limp branches Of the pale trees; Spots of sunlight dappling the pavements and roadway, Lying patiently underneath, with a hesitancy akin to Reluctant rain. Pausing in Sainsbury's carpark, I half turned:- The slow, dulled, monotonous clanging of the grieving bell As it relentlessly mourned the passing of it's beloved Queen. People moving about me with measured deliberation as if on Stage acting a part in a Victorian Drawing-room play. Cars and vans drove more slowly...perhaps they were compelled To do so by sudden divine intervention? ...or an inexplicable Sense of spiritual duty? Some great, unseen, all-powerful white God who had visted Each of them in their dreams and threatened one and all with Terrible retribution...and quite rightly so to my way of Thinking. And still the sobbing bell tolled...for it was determined to Command this sombre day.