I Believe In Yesterday: My Adventures in Living History Read Free Page A

hand.
    It was Canada's primeval landscape that had lured him, along with a timelessly rural existence that until a couple of decades back had often been led without electricity or plumbing. 'It really doesn't take long to fall back into the natural rhythms of prehistoric life,' Will said. He raised a stubby finger and thumb. 'We're that close to our ancient selves.' Looking at his scarred, round face, now ruddy with rum and excitement, I suddenly found it very easy to imagine a horde of Wills scuttling down a hill towards a column of Romans, spears raised, tunic tails flying.
    This was what kept the dedicated re-enactor going back for more: the quest for that elusive, almost mystical moment – Will called it a 'period rush' – when all those elapsed centuries slipped away, when then became now. 'It might only be ten minutes, it might be a whole week,' he said, with studied intensity. 'Last time it happened was at an Iron Age village in West Wales – I just suddenly knew that if I'd looked over at the fire and seen a couple of bona fide Iron Age guys sitting there, I wouldn't have been surprised. Just for that brief moment I completely understood their world, their outlook.' He gazed blankly through the fag smoke and jostle. 'Next morning it was gone. I'd blown it.'
    Regrettably, the settlement in question was no more, but as we parted Will described a nearby surviving rival that he thought might offer what I wanted. Cinderbury Iron Age Village comprised a clutch of roundhouses built on a hill near the Forest of Dean's Welsh border. The area was apparently a focal point of Iron Age Britain – Will held forth at breathless length on the village's authenticity, both in terms of location and construction.
    As a tourist attraction, however, and therefore a model for Will's own project, Cinderbury had yet to prove itself. The pair of Iron Age enthusiasts who'd built the place with borrowed money had over-estimated its appeal to drive-by holidaymakers, and after a period of bankrupt abandonment the site had recently been acquired by a local man who, as an accountant named Wayne, one might have thought an unlikely proprietor.
    'Taste history, feel history, be history.' Laid bare on the website, Wayne's vision had a captivating and ambitious ring. Under his aegis, Cinderbury aimed to offer visitors a uniquely immersive experience of British daily life as it was led 2,000 years ago. Though a drop-in day visit remained an option, the stated hope was that most would book in for a week. Dressed in authentic costume, guests would sleep in a communal roundhouse, learn period skills from iron smelting to animal husbandry, eat authentic food and spend fireside evenings drinking 'historically accurate fruit juices' amid tales of heroes, demons, myth and legend. 'You may bring a toothbrush,' advised a footnote, 'which can be stored out of sight in your roundhouse. Make-up, jewellery and perfumes are however strongly discouraged and may be mocked.'
    Wayne had seemed a little distracted when I phoned him to arrange a little time travel. Having been contracted to work in London three days a week, he wasn't presently able to attend Cinderbury as often as he had. As we falteringly cobbled together an itinerary – with a whole week currently unfeasible, he could only offer me four days in July – I struggled to imagine Wayne's curious double life, commuting between neck-tied financial consultancy and woad-daubed animal husbandry. Then he asked if £150 sounded all right, and I found it slightly easier.
    I drove into the Forest of Dean halfway through the hottest July day in recorded British history. Serene and fecund, it wasn't hard to see what had made this area one of the great heartlands of Iron Age Britain. Or rather it was, because at 55mph you don't tend to get a good view of small-scale surface ore deposits.
    Bronze, the copper/tin amalgam that lent its name to the previous 1,500 years of British life, had been a rare and shiny rich-man's