LISA

….The rush for the train from Cambridge meant we didn't have time to use the station ATM, and were down to a grand total of £5.80 cash. "Not to worry" we thought, "there'll be an ATM at the station we get off at." Now this may seem a little silly once you realise that we were headed for country Essex, but every station we had been to so far had at least one helpful hole-in-the-wall, if not more. Hmmm, however, my wishing for a quaint little country town to visit had brought us exactly that, and it didn't have a single working ATM. On top of that, our Visa Debit cards which are supposed to be oh so handy aren't accepted in a lot of shops here because they only have a magnetic strip, not a smart chip.

So, there we were, in Newport, Essex, only about 3 miles from our destination Clavering (Paul's ancestors' town), with no cash, no transport, and no way of getting it. After trying and failing to access our money we decided to put a complicated, multi-train trip plan into action, prepared to deal with losing half of our day to useless travelling. Then, waltzing along the footpath came a wonderfully helpful young Englishman who had just been to get take-away for dinner, had his car parked just around the corner, and was happy to take a little extra trip to help out 2 silly, stranded backpackers. Sussing him out a bit and deciding he wasn't an axe murderer and that we could overpower him if need be…we accepted his generous offer and arrived 5 minutes later in Clavering with a new friend.

Finally there, we headed for the Fox and Hounds pub, were Paul's great-grand-relatives used to drink to get some information, and some cheap (less than £5.80) sustenance. After a nice, atmospheric drink there we headed out and across the stream to the street on which the Wayletts used to live. We located their old house and, after taking some photos, plucked up enough courage to knock on the door and have a chat with the new owners. They bought the house 17yrs ago but knew a bit about its history and had a few old photos as well. They also directed us to the barn across the road, 'Waylett's Barn'.

We set off to explore the town a bit more and found a delightful old church up (up a hill, round a corner, down a street and through a swing-gate) where we located some Waylett, Jackson and Burgess ancestral headstones.

A bit more of a wander and a scenic taxi ride later and we were at the station Audley End. Luckily our taxi-man had an eftpos machine that took our card, and we jumped on the train again heading for London.