An Extraordinary Tale

I often have felt like I am living out a remarkable story written by unseen hands, with an intricately woven plot masterfully penned in ways that would make Dickens envious. Yesterday was one of the most magnificent and miraculous example of those hands at work, a tying together of threads left dangling for almost 50 years. 

The story begins on October 11^th, 1978, with my soon-to-be wife Karen and I at the beginning of a one-year trip around the world. At the end of August, we drove across the country in her old Pinto car, from San Francisco to my parents’ home in New Jersey. After a visit there, we boarded a Laker flight to London for some $150 each, hitchhiked north up to Scotland and then back South to the city of York. As recorded in my journal: 

 

10/11/ 1978 – Peanut butter lunch under a slight drizzle in a park in Newcastle, a quite friendly tire salesman who let us use his bathroom and gave us directions to a bus out of town. We found it, and rode to the outskirts and the driver gave us the ride for free, as if he never expected us to have to pay. Then a woman walked with us five minutes to show us a good spot and the right road for hitchhiking and within 5 minutes, we climbed up into another lorry carrying frozen sausage pies, the driver telling us what were probably delightful stories, but unintelligible in his thick Scottish accent. We just nodded our heads and smiled. 

 

He dropped us at the cut-off to York and 10 minutes later, we were riding with a talkative, friendly man on his way home from work who asked us if we’d like to stop at his hour for tea before going on to the York Youth Hostel. He lived just outside in a charming village called Nether Poppleton. 

 

We happily agreed and as we entered his house, he told his wife and two daughters, 3 and 4 years old, that he brought some guests for tea. They greeted us warmly and when we finally sat down at the table, we realized the “tea” was “dinner” in England! A most pleasant meal followed and when we suggested we better get going to the Youth Hostel, he said he would be driving to Cambridge in two days and we were welcome to stay with them. His name was Jim Bold, his wife was Karen and the two daughters were Rachel and Jane.

 

An evening of lively talk about English politics, history and geography punctuated by crackers and cheese and all of it thoroughly delightful. The next day off to be tourists in York with its charming car-less narrow streets, open-air market, bright cathedral, delightful museums and famous wall, then back to our hosts, Jim and Karen Bold, for an evening of cribbage, canasta, watching a bit of rugby and British sit-com on TV.

 

The next day we visited the kids’ school, beautiful building and grounds, good materials, pleasant teachers and focused kids. I did some singing with the preschoolers. In the teacher’s room, the teachers were talking in hushed tones and let us know that they were discussing a child whose parents were (gasp!— divorced. They seemed aghast when we shared that that described some 40% of the families in our school! But here in Nether Poppleton, life seemed like the British version of Leave It To Beaver, the husbands off to work, the mums walking their kids to school, back yards with swings, pet rabbits, bicycles. And it worked. 

 

When we finally reluctantly parted, I gave my kazoo to 4-year old Rachel and Karen made a drawing for 3-year old Jane. Off we rode with Jim to be dropped at the cut-off to Cambridge.

 

In 2020, I decided to fill some of the pandemic time writing a book about this extraordinary trip, alternating between those journal entries and my comments so many years later. (A book I’m now determined to publish!) Here is what I wrote about that story: 

 

The kindness of strangers. The tire salesman, bus driver, the woman from the bus, the sausage lorry driver all willing and eager to help. And then the extraordinary generosity of the Bold family, inviting two complete strangers into their home for two days within ten minutes of meeting us. Visiting my folks in New Jersey a few weeks earlier, I had noticed them locking the doors during the day while they were in the house! Nothing had happened in the neighborhood to warrant that beyond the rising epidemic of fear as the basis of the lives we lived. 

 

This was the first example of how trust fulfilled its own possibility to make people kinder, more generous, more happy. And it was far from the last. I don’t remember the names of people who refused help or ignored us or insulted us (and here I’m talking about our life in the U.S.. On this trip, there were perhaps two mild incidents in a year of travel!). But I will never forget Jim and Karen Bold. 

 

And indeed, I never did. So knowing we were going back to York 48 years later on the way to our walking trip in the Yorkshire Dales, I decided we should return to Nether Poppleton to see if we could find them. Read on to discover what happened.