I found myself in Malmesbury. I won’t explain why. Malmesbury, a tiny town surrounded by acres of Wiltshire farmland, acres and acres of it. Malmesbury sits in a loop of the river Severn that runs to the north and to the south, somehow – whichever way you go, you find yourself at the river, wondering why you came here.
But I liked Malmesbury, and when I like somewhere, it adds a dimension to my life. Here’s somewhere else I can come, one day, although I probably won’t. Here is another room in the house of my happiness. There’s the Three Cups, an excellent pub. Inside is jazz musician Keith Tippett’s piano. Tippett was married to Julie Driscoll whose most famous song is ‘This Wheel’s on Fire’ used in the BBC comedy Absolutely Fabulous.
James Dyson set up in Malmesbury, back in 1991. Dyson was a keen advocate of Brexit, but he wasn’t so much an advocate of Britain and relocated his business to Malaysia three years after the referendum. His vacuum cleaners sucked up billions – he made his money from other people’s dust. In Malmesbury I found the Abbey, and in it the tomb of Athelstan. Athelstan is thought by many historians to be the first king of England. Athelstan wanted more than just England – he considered himself King of all Britain. And he is a king who, for some reason, is hardly known outside of academia. Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria, those warring states of the soon to be English nation, he helped bring peace between them, and, at the Battle of Brunanburh, he defeated an alliance of what we would now call the Celtic nations. But Brunanburh is difficult to pronounce, even more difficult to locate, so there’s no statue to celebrate his victory, no Visitors Centre. Nothing.
Athelstan’s tomb sits in an untidy corner of Malmesbury Abbey – there’s no sense that this is a memorial to huge figure in British or more specifically – English – history. It looks as if it is about to be loaded on to a van and shipped off on a tour of provincial museums. Athelstan hasn’t made much of an impact on the English imagination: he didn’t burn cakes, like his grandfather Alfred, and he didn’t get an arrow in his eye like King Harold at Hastings. Athelstan needed better PR. He needed a story. A simple little story. Maybe should have burnt some cakes, or perhaps toast. We all like toast. Politicians are fond of being seen with food. Ed Miliband, Labour leader for a short time, made a mess of a bacon sandwich, and was beaten to Number 10 in the 2015 election by Tory David Cameron, a man whose face looked like a boiled egg, so smooth, Etonian and privileged. Harold Wilson liked to be seen with a pipe, although he preferred cigars. Margaret Thatcher was often photographed in her kitchen, wearing an apron, cooking the Sunday roast. John Major made sure he was pictured in a greasy spoon having eggs, bacon, beans and chips. A man of the people. A man of shite food and colon cancer. Then there are endless photos of politicians with pints: Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage, even though they probably prefer a good French wine. Ameican presidents with hot dogs and burgers, eating the farty beef products that are destroying the climate (check out Monbiot’s Regenesis) and then there’s French president Mitterand, whose last meal of roast ortolans, small songbirds, was coyly eaten under a napkin. What Athelstan needs is a simple Ladybird Book story – one that will impress the average 8 year old. So let’s make one up.
Are you sitting comfortably. So I’ll begin.
Athelstan loved balloons. As a child he played with balloons. These were inflated hides, or the skins of the then native triceratops. He flew a dinosaur skin balloon high above Mercia, and saw the lands beyond and thought, one day I will unite all England! But he is now dust. And dust sucked up into one of billionaire James Dyson’s shitty vacuum cleaners. I had a Dyson once. It was absolute crap. It should have sucked itself up. I use a Shark now, which is much better, although I need to remember to put it back in the sea after I’ve used it.
Let’s go out of the Abbey and into the sunshine, the long hot summer of 2025. Just there is the gravestone of Hannah Twynnoy – a young woman who was the first person to be killed by a tiger in the UK. Now that is a story. Poor Hannah, she shouldn’t have teased the creature. She was warned. Politicians are now wary of being photographed with food. But maybe some of them would benefit from being food. For a tiger.
(this is a transcription of ‘Malmesbury’ on my podcast ‘These Weird Isles’ – on all platforms)