I was on my way to a training thing as part of work and ended up getting an earlier train than I needed to. I'd spotted this ruined castle from the train and so I wandered over to take a look at it. It's called Berkhamsted Castle. As you can see, I took many stunningly bland photos of it.
It started to rain while I was there so I ran on to the porch of the caretaker's house to shelter under its roof. The caretaker stood at the sink, eating his lunch. I asked him through the window if it was all right if I sheltered there. He said, "of course" and then proceeded to tell me the history of the place and of himself. His name was Stevens but everyone called him Steve. This started in the war. If your name was White, they called you "Chalky", if your name was Stevens they called you "Steve" or "Inky" (Stevens being the primary manufacturers of fountain pen ink at the time). Steve was 84 and had been at the Castle for the last 30 years. He told me the property was now owned by Prince Charles who kindly let him live there rent free for his war service. He served in the RAF during WWII and had 6 sisters and five brothers. All the brothers were in the war. Two were in the RAF, two in the infantry, and one was a sailor. All made it through the war, including one lucky brother who managed to survive both Dunkirk and the D-Day landings.
We held our conversation the entire time through the window. This seemed to irritate his ancient dog who had obviously heard it all before. The dog lay on a bed by the stove and every so often would raise its head to glare at me.
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