Royal Border Railway viaduct, Berwick-Upon-Tweed AND the view from my bedroom window

It must be said at once that the Tweed is a tidal river, not a fabric or some reason to make a joke about rightly silly British place names of which there are hundreds; this just isn’t one of them. Berwick-Upon-Tweed is in Northumberland, in northeast England and two miles from the Scottish border. The general area is referred to as The Borders because through the ages the border has moved between the Scots and the English too many times to get into here and because I don’t actually know how many times. Berwick itself changed hands 13 times from the 13^th to the 15^th centuries– reading from my Berwick Chamber of Trade Town Map and Mini-Guide.

The original medieval walls were fortified by the Tudors and they remain today, making it possible to walk all the way around the old town on its walls. That’s always fun. One other unforgettable feature is the wind. The wind blew so fiercely one of the days I was there, I staggered down off the walls because I was afraid that I was going to lose my balance.

My first morning in Berwick, I went to the train station, which was just up a flight of stairs and around the corner from Castle Vale House, to inquire about trains to Durham and to ask about the Holy Island bus schedule, the next two places on my itinerary. Here I made friends with the railway staff and met Graham who drives a bus on Sunday. Graham walked me to a spot where I could get onto the old town walls to begin my walkaround.

Mozart on the ramparts, Berwick-Upon-Tweed

It was gorgeous: grass, garden, trees, trails and parks everywhere. I stayed on the walls until I got to the ramparts.

Holy Trinity Churchyard from the Ramparts, Berwick

Distracted by a churchyard, I found the next egress from the wall and walked back. When I got inside the Holy Trinity Parish churchyard, bells began tolling. Not the usual resonance, these were electric bells. I was to learn later that the church was Cromwellian, which means there is no steeple, tower or church bells; i.e. the bells you pull with ropes. Inside there is no huge cross. Cromwell was such a killjoy.

The tolling of the bells came simultaneously with my needing a toilet so I went into the church where I ran into the vicar. He directed me to the “Ladies.”

“What are the bells for?” I asked

“There’s a service at ten.”

Inside the toilet there was no toilet paper. (I’m always so glad when I remember to check.) I went back to the vicar.

“There’s no toilet roll,” I said.

“Oh, that won’t do.” He took me to another building.

As I was washing my hands, I thought, “Oh, crap, I expect I should go to his stupid service.”

Gentle readers, I went to Morning mass—it’s an Anglican church but I guess they still say “mass,” not “eucharist” or “communion”. There were five of us: three elderly men, me and the vicar. To say that I started out with an irreverent attitude is putting it mildly. (What on earth is he kissing when he kneels down there behind his thing? What the hell, we have to stand up? Oh yes, when the gospel is read; that’s so silly etc.) But as the short service went on, I became mildly ashamed of my attitude. Here was a vicar doing what vicars do (my hostess at the Castle Vale House told me he would be reading the mass to an empty church if no one had been there) and here were some elderly men to whom morning mass had purpose and meaning. I can’t imagine what they thought I was doing there; I knew some of the responses and ritual but I was clearly not well-oiled. We were all just people. We passed the peace and then it was over. The vicar came and sat with us and began talking about football (soccer).

It’s a funny old world.

I walked into the old town to the high street, called Marygate (scene of a recent Vera episode for you Vera fans) and hit the jackpot: Sugar Mountain, a confectionery. Was this a reward for my going to church?

In a café I had some rather tasteless lentil soup and horrid watery greyish tea served to me by an adolescent boy with no people skills who I nevertheless felt sure would develop into a fine man, I don’t know why. Maybe my recent conversion at Trinity Parish church made me less critical of the human race.

Also, I had had a conversation in Sugar Mountain with the teenager behind the counter who looked at me wide-eyed and admiringly.

“You’re from America? Oh, I want to go there!”

“Well,” I said. “I wouldn’t mind living the rest of my life in Berwick.”

“Oh god, ick. Why?”

“Did you grow up here?”

“Yeah, I’ve been here my whole life. I can’t wait to get out. I want to go to America!

“I’m sure you will get there,” I said.

I have grand hopes for both of the young people I met in Berwick.

If you re-call, I had gotten sick while on Mull and by the time I had finished my tour of Berwick, I felt awful so I went back to Castle Vale House and slept for three hours.

In the evening, I decided I would walk to the closest place I could find that looked like they had decent meals. I found “Coulls,” advertising the finest fish and chips in town. I had Minestrone and chips. (Chips are fried potatoes.) When I went to the till to pay, the girls there said, “Your bill has been taken care of.”

“What do you mean?”

“That woman who was sitting over by the window—she paid for it.”

“Why?”

They shrugged. “Kindness?”

I remembered the woman who had been sitting over by the window with a wheely suitcase so I recognized her at the bus stop near the steps to Castle Vale House.

“Excuse me, you’re the woman who just paid for my meal! Thank you! But why did you do that?”

“You were a woman alone like me,” she said. “We are fellow travelers.”

“Thank you,” I said again.

“My pleasure.”

It isn’t just a funny old world. It’s also full of lovely surprises.