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Ware, a town not a question.

Ware lies in east Hertfordshire, on the river Lea, about two miles from the county town which is, of course, Hertford. Relics as far back as the stone age have been found here, so it’s been around for a while, and the rather odd name, which everyone finds so amusing the first time they hear it, is a simple corruption of ‘weir’.
Ware has flirted with history on several occasions, but never quite got past the peck on the cheek stage. It was mentioned by Shakespeare (more of which later), and Pepys in their writings, Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen while staying here in 1553, it staged one of the Cavalier versus Roundhead matches, and was a major overnight stop for coach and horse traffic between London and Cambridge. It is also on the route once taken by Ermine Street, but as far as I can gather that’s all the Romans ever did for us.
In the 17th century it became England’s premier malting town, an industry which only finally died out here in 1994. There have always been a lot of pubs in the town, there are still 24 now, but at the beginning of the 20th century there were over 100 due to all the coach and horse traffic, so one way or another Ware’s prosperity, such as it is, was built on brewing and beer.
My family moved here in August 1961, the same month as my fifth birthday. This was a very traumatic time for me, leaving behind my whole life (as it had been up to then) playing happily in our old house in Kent, which I can still visualise, moving to this strange place that seemed as far away as the moon and, horror of horrors, starting school all within the space of a fortnight. We moved onto the first of the new estates that have been eating away at the town's surrounding farmland ever since and were not much liked by the locals who saw this as the beginning of the end for their old way of life; they were right. This was the start of Ware’s transformation from a small and then quite rural market town into a medium sized commuter town - and all that goes with it.
The changes that have been wrought since then are in many respects no different to those in lots of other towns I can think of. One of the saddest things for me is the way that the High Street has been destroyed. The old heart of the town used to have some wonderful little shops. Apart from the greengrocers and butchers where the proprietors knew everyone by name, there was a fabulous toy shop which I walked past every day on my way to school, a very exotic and smelly pet shop from which various rain forest type noises would emanate and an angling shop which sold eccentric riverbankwear. Even ordinary shopping was an adventure, a journey of discovery. Now the march of the estate agents and fast food shops, combined with the onslaught of the supermarkets have ravaged this old centre and with it the sense of community. Much of its character is lost, preserved only in the old photographs which are now framed, packaged and bar-coded in the gift shop. Fortunately our old Norman church, St. Mary’s, is still in good shape, and forms the centrepiece of the town, along with the priory – this area still retains some of Ware’s old world charm.
As I said, the pubs are still very much in evidence, even if some of them now resemble the inside of Ikea rather than the infinitely preferable traditional style (Carol Smilie has so much to answer for). These still provide the main source of entertainment, other more highbrow attractions such as theatre and cinema having been mere passing fads against the proliferation of ale houses. Many of the other buildings have a little blue plaque on the wall testifying to the fact that they too were once pubs; Tesco used to be the White Swan, now it’s an ugly duckling. And so the people of Ware still wander from pub to pub at the weekends, much as their predecessors did, except that you’re likely to get run over by a boy racer these days while staggering across the road.
The thing that annoys me most now about the town is the increasing influence of its major employer, Glaxo Wellcome, the pharmaceutical company. When they want something to happen it happens. They wanted the land which had been home to Ware Football Club for many decades. They got it. They wanted to join two of their sites by erasing the road which ran between them. They got it. They want to build a dedicated access road cutting through adjacent park land. They’ll get it. They’ve got Ware in their pocket, but if they ever pull up and move out, the town will be broke, and I’m still not sure what effect they’re having on our environment. The town is hooked on drugs. They should never have been allowed here in the first place - a relatively mild but still pernicious example of globalisation.
I don’t know what I actually feel about Ware now. I grew up in it, did all the usual teenage things in it, left it for a while to do Uni and some teaching, came back to it again to re-join the family and sort of settle down, though I’ve never quite managed that. I don’t think I’d miss it if I moved, but it’s preferable to living in one of the new towns nearby (Stevenage, Harlow). I’ve always wanted to live in a city, but haven’t got round to it yet. Ware is my family, my friends, my local and in that respect it could be anywhere (pun not intended, but difficult to avoid). Familiarity has not even bred contempt, just apathy for what Ware has become.
My favourite story about Ware is the one also referred to by Shakespeare. When trade at the inns started to fall off because a new and better road had been built, offering an alternative route to Cambridge, the innkeepers got together and decided that a publicity stunt was required. They decided to build a huge bed for their guests to stay in, the inns taking turns to house the monster, and devised an apparently rather bawdy initiation ceremony to go with it (unfortunately the details have been lost to history). This seems to have done the trick and the bed’s fame spread far and wide, becoming known as the Great Bed of Ware. It is still in existence and now in the Victoria and Albert museum. Shakespeare makes reference to it in Twelfth Night and I will finish with some words from the man himself, and dedicate them to the Ware town planners over the last four decades, who for this purpose are now all rolled into one.

SIR TOBY BELCH:
Go, write it in a martial hand; be curst and brief;
it is no matter how witty, so it be eloquent and fun
of invention: taunt him with the licence of ink:
if thou thou'st him some thrice, it shall not be
amiss; and as many lies as will lie in thy sheet of
paper, although the sheet were big enough for the
bed of Ware in England, set 'em down: go, about it.
Let there be gall enough in thy ink, though thou
write with a goose-pen, no matter: about it.

Bare Nibs

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