Tower and Town, July 2021 (view the full edition)'As I walk down Marlborough High Street, my progress is accompanied by an undercurrent of memories'Rachel Bond, 56, was born and grew up in Easton Royal, before leaving Wiltshire to work, travel and start a family. She returned to Wiltshire 15 years later and now lives in Great Bedwyn.  To me, Wiltshire always feels like a hidden gem in plain sight. So many millions of people drive through it on the M4 and A303, catching mere glimpses of its beautiful scenery and rich history as they head for better-known tourist destinations. Those of us who live here, however, have learned over the past year to appreciate more than ever the network of footpaths and bridle paths that allow us to roam this ancient landscape. I was born in Easton Royal and lived the first 18 years of my life there. My father taught at the Marlborough Children's Convalescent Hospital and School on Marlborough Common, now Merlin Court Care Home, and my mother worked part-time in the White Horse Bookshop. I went to Easton Royal Primary School, then to Pewsey Comprehensive before doing my A-levels at St John's. The train from Pewsey station then took me away to university and eventually off into the big, wide world. As a teenager, I was persuaded by a friend to join Pewsey Vale Young Farmers Club and that was where I met my future husband, Ian, a farmer's son from Gloucestershire. Married life took us first to a pig farm near Wuhan, China - a fascinating experience cut short by the events in Tiananmen Square in June 1989. Spain, Mexico and the USA followed, before we settled back in Wiltshire, this time in Great Bedwyn, in the thatched cottage that my great-aunt had bought in 1948. With a dog and a young family, there was so much to explore, and I came to relish walking along the myriad footpaths that have been rights of way for centuries. Their names are so evocative: Galley Lane, Hatchet Lane, Monk's Lane, the Brails. A more recent feature of the local landscape, the Kennet & Avon canal, has its own charms, not least the wildlife you see along the towpath. I never tire of seeing the extraordinary flash of blue from a darting kingfisher or hearing the rhythmic thrum of a swan in flight. I tend to take other wildlife sightings for granted these days: skylarks trilling overhead, hares dashing across a field or the ever-present red kites performing aerobatics in the skies above my garden. Coming back to live in the place where you grow up can be disconcerting. Familiar places feel different when viewed through an adult lens. As I walk down Marlborough High Street, my progress is accompanied by an undercurrent of memories. More recent events, such as registering the birth of our third son in the Town Hall, singing carols in Marlborough College Chapel with the Bedwyn Millennium Choir or watching Big Man Clayton's fat fingers hammering the piano keys at the jazz festival, have added new layers to much deeper-seated experiences. I have vivid memories of climbing up the creaking stairs to the labyrinthine attic rooms at the very top of the White Horse Bookshop, where the then owner's son had an impressive model railway. The lawns of the Priory Gardens were a haven of freedom for us sixth-formers in those heady, post-exam days of summer and served the same purpose for my sons and their friends many years later. In contrast, the flint walls of Old Lion Court still send a slight shiver down my spine as I recall sitting in trepidation in the waiting room of the dental surgery there. Two of our three boys were born overseas, and it would have been easy to carry on with expat life indefinitely, but we chose to come back and put down roots in Wiltshire. This was a deliberate decision: we wanted our children to grow up in a rural environment and feel a deep sense of belonging in a landscape and a community. It is hard to imagine a better place than Wiltshire to do just that. Rachel Bond |