Sherington was a North Bucks village typical of many others in the area. Newport Pagnell (Newput) was our metropolis; Olney the other local town seemed, somehow, in the wrong direction and even perhaps the preserve of Embertonions. Northampton and Bedford were the county towns of the two counties laying just a few miles to the north east and north west; much much closer than Aylsbury our own county town.
My mother’s family (the Lines and the Wright’s) had deep roots in the area and I had many relatives locally. Indeed, I was born in the same house my mother was born in. Her father had re-built the house from the footings and gables of a stone cottage, a marriage of brick and stone clearly visible to this day.
On the one hand village life made me a naïve, un-worldly and unsophisticated boy… on the other hand it instilled in me a rich vain of rural heritage, imparted independence, common-sense and imagination.
I did all the things I warned my children not to do.
The village of which I write lays beneath the modern parish and will never resurface; it’s buried forever. Griggs Farm and the orchard beyond have been made habitable and trendy… no pigs or rats now. Cottages have become en-suite and back garden orchards have been felled to make way for houses with patio’s and decking.
I am part of that changed world so must not put modern Sherington down. What I want to do is reflect the incredible warmth and charm Sherington had for me as a growing boy. I left the village in 1969 and have eventually settled in Dingley Dell, on the Northants and Leicestershire border near Market Harboro’.
