Flintshire 2 - Hawarden /William Gladstone /a haircut and a bacon butty

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Sometimes - that is a funny old word . Sometimes we do something different . It was Wednesday - work day, walk day and shopping day. I did none of those things . Work, shopping and the walk would have to wait until Thursday . Sometimes is one of those random thoughts that creep into your head. It comes from somewhere but equally comes from nowhere. You don't really know how you got to sometimes but you have got there. Sometimes it is the smell of fresh baking bread. The sound and smell of sizzling bacon frying away in a pan. Lamb cooking gently in the oven . Mint Sauce . Sometimes it seems like nothing at all .

We had parked up in a tiny village high up above Wrexham waiting for the hairdresser appointment . We had got here too early. Sometimes we do arrive early and have to sit around. Sometimes we hit a problem on the motorway which throws us out. The car park was reasonably full. We drove on intending to stop at the Village Hall car park . Closed . Locked up due to Covid 19. Sometimes you forget about Covid and the effect it is having on our lives .

It had been over 4 months since we last parked up on the car park . Four months for my hair to take on shaggy dog proportions. Sometimes you don't realise just how quickly time flies . Sometimes - a song by Erasure was going through my mind as I walked to the hairdressers shop. The Buddha had said " The trouble is you think you have time" . I looked into the shop. I could see a customer having her hair dyed. I waited outside just as the sign on the door told me I should do . I paced up and down in this brave new Covid Lockdown opening world. There is a chapel next door to the hairdressers. A utilitarian building . Large, plain and dominating the High Street . I had long thought it had shut but never taken the time to look properly at it . A welsh Baptist chapel it was. It must have been well loved by the congregation who put the money together to erect it and open it for services in 1891. How the world had changed ? They would not have recognised the world we live in now. The windows were diamonds of glass . Pale pink, pale green and white . Some of the glass was broken . Some windows boarded over. A big padlock on the door and on the gate . The commemoration stones had once proudly given the names of the benefactors . Sadly they had faded with time . Someone and some time had whitewashed them over . I guessed the chapel would be taken down once the land was sold and the stones would be thrown on a skip. An obelisk had been erected in memory of the Parch - the minister . He had served Iesu Grist - Jesus Christ for over 35 faithful years. The chapel had been in the past used for marriages and the women met weekly in the chapel for some kind of Mothers Union. It felt sad looking at it - a part of the villages history fading away.

"Come in " shouted the hairdresser . The experience was strange . Wearing a mask odd . It slips and slides . One mask fits all . Whoever designs different sized masks will make a fortune . Whoever makes one that prevents smogging up your glasses will be a genius . My hair was cut. The shaggy look gone . Tidied up for the next 8 weeks . I booked another appointment there and then in the hope that lockdown would not happen again.

Our next stop was Hawarden. One of those villages you don't say the name as it looks . Harden - a small village with a big history. The home of the eminent Victorian Prime Minister William Gladstone . He of the Gladstone and Disraeli battles . The man Victoria was not fond of. We parked beneath the Castle Park open to the public and walked up into town . Sometimes you have a memory of a place . Sometimes that memory proves to be right . I was not sure what I would think of Hawarden. It had been over 30 years since I set foot here. Visits to the Records office to do family history. A weekend away studying at the Gladstone Library . Today we were house hunting . Yes there you go . The house is on the market again and we are searching for a new one . We had never considered Hawarden so today was the day we were going to walk the village and see what we thought .

Hawarden is a bit of on a one street village . A hairdressers , two pubs - both closed . One for sale and the other due to Covid 19. A post office with a queue outside . A water pump and an old fashioned very ornate fountain . The three-sided stone fountain in municipal Renaissance style was erected to commemorate Gladstones wedding . His portrait is on the west side and his wifes portrait on the east side , Ornate indeed with swagged surrounds, moulded plinth and scrolled corners. Above these are a sculpted putto sitting astride a dolphin. At the other corners griffins bear the arms of the Glynnes and the Gladstones.

The water pump had been moved to make way for the war memorial . It dominates the street . Thirty feet high, of Northumberland grit stone, the memorial, in the form of an obelisk with a cross in a niche at the summit looks very different to the war memorials that we normally see. Art Noveau in style it seemed very modern for its time.

We headed out of the village looking for the property we had earmarked . Past the Masonic Hall and out into countryside . Just as we thought this might be Hawarden by name but we were heading for Ewloe and Mancot . We did not want to live in either of these villages . The house was well average. Crowded in with other properties . Not what we were looking for .

All that was left was to leave and look for dinner somewhere . As we drove I had a plan . A stop off on the way home - an area where the old railway station once stood. There were toilets there 30 years ago . Long gone due to some of the things that went on there . Would the sandwich wagon still be there I wondered ? Was it still owned by the same person ? What about Gladstone ? He did a lot of good . With the new wave of pulling down statues I was surprised he had got away scot free. A Liverpudlian whose attitude to slavery was shaped by his father who was one of the largest slave owners in the British Empire . He opposed the emancipation of slaves . He obtained £106,769 for the value of the slaves the father already owned. You cannot airbrush his part as a slave owner from history . Looking round the village he did spend a great deal of his wealth on education and welfare in Hawarden . But then that is the story of slave traders in Britain . On the one hand he was part of a family that owned slaves and on the other hand he used his wealth to benefit his small village . The benefits are still there to see today .

The butty wagon was still there . We ate bacon butties and drank a good cup of tea wondering why the council did not open the site up for motorhomes . Plenty of space, a bus stop opposite , a garage and a small shop. Everything a winner in our eyes . We wondered when and if our small country would ever wake up to opening thse areas up for motorohoming . And yes it was the same owner of the butty wagon . A lot older but still the same person . Sometimes things never change .

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