{"id":1598,"date":"2013-09-06T21:52:34","date_gmt":"2013-09-06T21:52:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/asenseofplace\/?p=1598"},"modified":"2017-05-08T17:39:20","modified_gmt":"2017-05-08T17:39:20","slug":"memories-of-place-held-on-the-tongue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/asenseofplace\/2013\/09\/memories-of-place-held-on-the-tongue\/","title":{"rendered":"Memories of place, held on the tongue"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I\u2019ve just finished my bedtime drink. Yes, I know it\u2019s late to be posting, where I am, but I\u2019ve not known what to write about all day. After my drink, I do.\u00a0The drink? It was hot, organic rice milk, with a dash of honey. I found the taste oddly reminiscent of Horlicks (without the flour residue). And Horlicks, for me, always makes me think of Cleobury Mortimer.<\/p>\n

\"Cleobury<\/a>
Cleobury Mortimer in the valley below Titterstone Clee, one of the Clee Hills. Image by John Clift, used under Creative Commons license.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s one of those picturesque villages of the English Midlands, with an almost unbearably twee \u2013 but absolutely real, and ancient \u2013 name. When I was little \u2013 about 8 or 9 \u2013 we would go on caravan holidays near there. Every trip, we would stop at the Lion pub in Cleobury, and eat our tea sitting in a corner of the pub lounge, with a framed guide to cricket and another to wild haggises on the wall, to complement the horse brasses hanging from the dark wood beams.<\/p>\n

I would eat chicken in a basket (it was the 70s). I don\u2019t recall what my parents ate: they were vegetarian at the time, so probably something deeply unsatisfactory (as I said, it was the 70s). Then we would travel the final few miles to our destination at Ditton Mill, up a hill that was dangerously steep even in dry weather. That was where I learned that people driving uphill on a single track road should stop for those coming downhill, in case the latter can\u2019t stop.<\/p>\n

Some time in our visit, we would walk to the little village of Hopton Wafers. I was always very proud to have walked the whole way there and back \u2013 a round trip of nearly 3 miles! \u2013 without needing to be carried. I would ask what all the flowers and birds were along the hedges on our route, and my parents would tell me. My mother fielding the plant questions (cuckoo pint, bladder rack, ox-eye daisies, hogweed), and my step-father telling the birds (yellow wagtail, chiff chaff, kestrel, yellow hammer).<\/p>\n

My parents weren\u2019t Pagan, per se, but they were lovers of nature. They were also\u00a0hippy, right-on and Green. There were books on ley lines, a tree calendar, and an enormous framed photograph of Stonehenge at the winter solstice at home. The first story books I remember were Anansi the Spider<\/em>, and The Hippo Who Couldn\u2019t Laugh<\/em>. My parents rotovated the garden, worked in a nearby wholefoods co-operative, and insisted on buying me carob bars instead of actual chocolate.<\/p>\n

When we were on holiday, healthy food rules were relaxed a little. First point of evidence: chicken in a basket. Second point of evidence: when we got to Hopton Wafer (or was it on the way back through Cleobury?) we would go to a little caf\u00e9 where they served Horlicks in a special mug, with a small handle high up against the rim, filled with concentric circles of clay.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Vintage Horlicks mug<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0All of these memories of place, held on my tongue, found in a mug.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bedtime drink brings back a flood of memories from childhood holidays in Shropshire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1297,"featured_media":1599,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[389],"tags":[217,391,393,390,53,7,8,392,394],"class_list":["post-1598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-memory-lane","tag-childhood","tag-cleobury-mortimer","tag-hopton-wafers","tag-horlicks","tag-memories","tag-pagan","tag-paganism","tag-pub-food","tag-senses"],"yoast_head":"\nMemories of place, held on the tongue<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A bedtime drink brings back a flood of memories from childhood holidays in Shropshire.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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