From Helen Carr: The most Important man in Dorset

The most important man in Dorset
Load up the van and head for Dorset, Phil repeatedly insisting that he does not want to follow the Thomas Hardy trail. I spend the evening reading Tess of the d’Urbervilles while rain pours down and windows steam up.

A new day dawns bright and I refrain from suggesting a Hardy related activity. To be fair to Phil, he did suffer the Hay Festival for my sake. Head for Maiden Castle after delicious pancake breakfast. We’re enjoying a bracing walk along the ramparts when we are hailed by a woman dressed in a long dress, woollen shawl and old boots. ‘Can ye tell me the way to Casterbridge, kind sir,’ she says to Phil. ‘I been and lost my way.’ ‘It’s over there,’ says Phil, pointing Dorchesterwards. He knows more about Thomas Hardy than I had given him credit for. The woman bobs a vague curtsey and goes on her way. We turn to watch her. Soon she is accosting another couple, probably with the same question. ‘That’s what comes of overdoing you know who,’ says Phil. ‘The poor woman has become obsessed, deranged, she believes that she’s a character in one of his miserable novels. Good God.’

We walk on, Phil ranting about the impossibility of avoiding TH in Dorset and how he would like to visit a county that had produced no authors and so on and on. Return to van for lunch, avoiding a scarlet clad Sergeant Troy in the car park. The tourist board at large. Phil proposes a Thomas Hardy avoidance strategy. He suggests that we use our copy of Betjeman’s English Churches as our guide to Dorset. Agree, with private plan to get to Hardy’s cottage on my own.

We select a village church which is just a few miles away and set off, our minds filled with the mysterious vocabulary of the ecclesiastical… screens, chancels, misericords… We are enchanted by the peace and simple beauty of this lovely church, Phil only slightly irritated when he discovers that TH’s grandparents were married here.

Stop in Dorchester to buy some supplies and decide to have dinner in an old pub on the high street. The walls are hung with black and white photographs of portly seed merchants with side whiskers, and ancient agricultural auction notices. The young man who comes to take our order sees Phil studying the picture beside him. ‘You tourists?’ he says. I say yes, Phil says no.

‘Mayor o’ Casterbridge,’ says the young man, nodding at the picture, ‘e drank in this pub.’ ‘What are you talking about?’ says Phil, ‘there’s no such person.’

‘Course there is,’ says the young man, ‘e drank ere.’ ‘He’s just a character in a book…’ says Phil, getting agitated. ‘No e’s not’, says the young man, unperturbed, ‘e he drank in this pub. Ask’em at the tourist information if you want to know.’

I order the steak and ale pie.

‘That was’is favourite dish,’ says the young man. ‘Unbelievable,’ says Phil, ‘unbelievable… .