A few months ago on an open day we visited the Old Kirk, Kirkcaldy, the old parish church of the town, whose tower can be seen here from Kirk Wynd.

We knew before we went that there was some stained glass by the pre-Raphaelite (in its later phase) Edward Burne Jones.

The church is no longer in use as a place of worship having been closed as such by the Church of Scotland in November 2010. The congregation merged with that of St Brycedale Church – no more than 50 yards away! – to become known as St Bryce Kirk. St Bryce is the patron saint of Kirkcaldy. (See here.) These two Burne Jones windows are towards the back of the building if you were entering from Kirk Wynd and are only two of many stained glass windows whose splendour cannot be fully experienced from the outside.

The above much more recent stained glass windows represent the flames of the fire which damaged the interior a good few years ago. These flank the main entrance from Kirk Wynd.

One slightly older window by Crear McCartney is on the immediate left wall (see left.)

None of the pews remain as the space inside has been cleared for community use.

It is possible to climb the tower. Don’t do it on a windy day (of which there are a quite a few in Kirkcaldy) as you are fairly exposed on the tower parapet.

Before the stairs/ladders which allow the climb we passed the impressive memorial – see below – to the members of the congregation who died in the World Wars. (The 1939-45 addition blends in well.)

I had to stitch three pictures to get the full panorama of the memorial as the space to step back was limited. The passageway to the stairs is on the left of this.

Who’d have thought this:-

(which I have featured before) would be on a postcard?

This is at the end of North Street hard by the cathedral precincts, parts of which you can see in the background here.

The photo was taken a few months ago. We were there last Saturday and there were still wreaths from the recent Remembrance Day commemorations laid around it.

There are names for 1914-18 on plaques on both sides in this view. The 1939-45 ones are obscured behind the cross’s pedestal as you’re looking at it here.

Two more War Memorials from our recent trip down south. It is Remembrance Sunday after all.

The first, on the left, is in Great Dunmow, Essex, a village I used to travel through on the bus twice every workday when we lived in Braintree. The memorial is triangular in cross section which you can’t quite make out from this photo.

The second is in Saffron Walden. It is located at the top of the main street, which dips down away from it. I had to stand almost in the middle of the road to get a decent angle but unfortunately must have shaken the camera as it’s a bit blurry. Both of these are elegant, restrained and prominently situated at road junctions.

In Braintree we parked as close to our old house as possible and strolled up to the town.

The route took us past the War Memorial.

Just over the road is this deco Masonic Centre.

And next door to that is an Art Deco house.

From the above angle you cannot see the curved balcony but looking in by the gate you do.

The old Woolies in the town centre was/is deco in style.

There used to be a Critall window factory in Braintree but that seems to have been demolished and replaced by modern housing.

When we lived there the traffic in the town was horrendous. The queues to get in on a Saturday from the north were enormous. So were the ones in the supermarket; they stretched from the tills all the way to the other ends of the aisles.

The town has long since been bypassed both north/south and east/west and so was relatively tranquil. Mind you we got there about five o’clock.

There is also now a retail park and an outlet centre off the bypass. Considering that, the town centre looked more thriving than you might expect.

I scheduled this post for a certain time today as it seemed appropriate.

This is the North entrance to the US WW2 cemetery near Madingley, Cambridgeshire.

We visited it just after Grantchester. It’s set in some nice agricultural land a few miles east of Cambridge. The grounds are beautifully kept. Several people were busy keeping the paths clear of leaves while we were there.

The memorial itself is monumental in the same way that the corresponding cemetery at Collevilles-sur-Mer in Normandy is. Though Madingley has less than a third of the burials that are in Collevilles – which we visited over ten years ago now – it is still overwhelming when you pass through the entrance from the car park and see the thousands of grave markers. Most of the interred were airmen killed in the bombing campaign over Europe.

This is from the northern end. It doesn’t show the crescent effect that other angles give but from here the crosses (and stars of David) retreat into the distance.

The flagstaff is massive and there is an avenue leading from it to the memorial chapel on whose steps the photo above right was taken.

The long wall on the left here contains the names of all those who died either in the North Atlantic or Europe but have no known grave. A starred entry denotes a Medal of Honor recipient, Lt Col Leon R Vance, who sadly perished when the aeroplane taking him back to the US after he was wounded, disappeared. The statues along the wall represent the various US services, including coastguards as well as airmen, soldiers and sailors.

The chapel itself, seen below first from the flagstaff and then from among the graves, is an impressive building.

The circular pieces in the windows are stained glass images of the seals of the various individual States that make up the Union that is the United States.

The wall on the southern side of the chapel displays a map showing the location of the many US bases in WW2 Britain. The hedge enclosing the grounds made it difficult to get far enough back.

The chapel doors have bronze plaques of the heavy equipment the servicemen may have used and inside, a whole wall is given over to the North Atlantic and European theatres of war, showing the routes of convoys and various air-raids over occupied Europe. Below that, panels show the extent of the Axis advance and the Allied ripostes for both the Africa/Europe and Pacific areas over three different time intervals.

The visitors building near the flagstaff had a well signed visitors book and staff who were welcoming and helpful.

Despite the buzz of the leaf clearer, the overall effect was one of tranquillity and harmony, of a strange sort of peace. US citizens with relatives buried there may find that a small comfort.

The experience, like that of visiting any large war cemetery, was humbling.

For a wonder I actually saw poppies on sale this year (in my local Homebase) before there was any sign of one on a TV presenter or politician.

While I bought mine a week ago I haven’t put it on yet. Armistice Day isn’t till this Friday (I’ll have a special post for that) and Remembrance Sunday is seven days away yet. I think wearing one for more than a week is excessive. And I have a category dedicated to War Memorials.

So I wasn’t going to mention it this year. But they’re at it again. Hardly a TV programme I’ve seen during the past couple of weeks has had anyone without a poppy. Even Benjamin Zephaniah had one on Question Time; though his was white. I also find the ostentatious inclusion of a poppy on the shirts of English Premiership football teams in the past two rounds of fixtures somewhat bizarre.

On Saturday, Football Focus (for whom a previous instance has to be considered) interviewed David Beckham – presumably in the US (as he’s just helped LA Galaxy into a final or something) – and there he was sporting a poppy. Now where did he get that? While I fully expect Beckham would be extremely keen to wear one I can’t believe they’re on general sale in the US.

And I noticed on flicking through the channels on the TV that Johnny Depp was wearing one on the Graham Norton Show two nights ago.

However, a real nadir was reached tonight (perhaps last night as I never watch the programme concerned.) After Countryfile – whose presenters both this week and last naturally wore poppies (Naturally? How long ago were the items actually filmed?) – on came the results show for Strictly Come Dancing and we were given the spectacle of a troop of barely clad young women writhing about – all with poppies attached to what little costume they did have.

Might I submit that this display was rather inappropriate, not quite sober enough, as a mark of respect for the sacrifice of the fallen?

Oh for someone to appear on TV in late October or early November with, in place of a poppy, a sign saying, “They died for my right not to wear a poppy.”

We hadn’t intended visiting Ely but when we discovered it was only twelve miles from Cambridge we thought we might as well.

Its most striking feature is of course the Cathedral (see left.)

Almost the first house we encountered was in a highly traditional style. We had been forewarned by signs in the car park – and the streets up from it – to “Oliver Cromwell’s House.” This surprised me as I’d always thought Cromwell was a farmer from Huntingdon till the Civil Wars dragged him from hearth and home to military fame – not to mention notoriety – regicide and the Lord Protectorship. Anyway the tacky figures outside put us off entering.

I had expected the town would contain mostly traditional architecture. There was nothing extremely modern but I was pleasantly surprised to find not one, nor two, nor even three, but four buildings showing deco styling.

The first had “Coronation Building” and a crown inscribed on it. I suspect this would have been the 1937 Coronation (George VI) rather than that of 1953.

The second now hosts WH Smith’s – I had to stitch two photos as the street wasn’t wide enough to allow me to frame the whole thing in one shot.

The third looked as if it had once been a Woolworths.

The fourth was on another street (Lynn Road?) just off the main one.

The War Memorial was unostentatious, restrained and dignified, set into a niche in the wall that backs onto the cathedral.

There was also a street market which looked pretty thriving. Whether it’s there everyday or merely Wednesdays I don’t know.

After Newmarket we headed just south-east of Cambridge to the not very well sign-posted village of Grantchester.

“Stands the church clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea?”

As you can see from the church clock in the photo below we arrived an hour too early.

I looked for the Old Vicarage but even though there was a Vicarage Lane the houses’ identities were being closely guarded. Jeffrey Archer (yes, Jeffrey Archer) bought the Old Vicarage in the 1980s. If he still lives there perhaps it’s a blessing I didn’t find it.

I did find a new(er) vicarage right beside the church. Hardly iconic.

I was, however, delighted to see the War Memorial in the churchyard of St Andrew and St Mary.

I was even more delighted to see Rupert Brooke’s name there.

Brooke greeted the Great War with some enthusiasm, in sonnets such as Now, God Be Thanked Who Has Matched Us With His Hour and The Soldier.

Brooke didn’t die in battle. He developed sepsis from a mosquito bite on his way to Gallipoli and was buried on the island of Skyros in Greece.So some corner of a foreign field is forever, if not England, then at least Grantchester.

He was a casualty of the war, though, as he would not have been in the Aegean but for that.

Passing the Green Man pub I saw a sign saying “Grantchester Meadows.” I followed the path down and took this photo.

This was because Grantchester has another famous son, Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour. The song Grantchester Meadows from the 1969 album Ummagumma, though written and performed by Roger Waters rather than Gilmour, was, I presume, inspired by this.

After Stamford we stopped at Cambridge for two nights.

Despite seeing signs saying Lincoln City FC stadium on the way in to that city I never caught so much as a glimpse of Sincil Bank. The only football ground I did see on the trip was the Abbey Stadium, Cambridge United’s home, as we headed out of Cambridge the first morning along Newmarket Road.

I only took two photos in Newmarket. One was of the War Memorial, which has a lovely setting in a square surrounded by trees.

Newmarket itself could be described as a one horse town. I have never seen anywhere so dedicated to the one activity. Not only are there two racecourses, the National Horseracing Museum and the Jockey Club Estates Limited, but on the road out east there are training areas for horses on either side of the road and bridle paths running at the back of the pavements. There was even one road crossing dedicated to horses. Horses are Newmarket’s raison d’être. It seems to prosper with it, though.

The other photo was of this quite imposing deco style building.