A village's very modern battle (From Gazette & Herald)

A village's very modern battle

"IT'S like living on a knife edge," sighs Rachel Wright. Only a matter of weeks ago, the turgid River Derwent once again preyed on the nerves of people living in Stamford Bridge. Ominously, the water inched steadily towards homes and businesses, creating dreadful flashbacks to the disasters which befell the village in 1999 and 2000.

Once again, people could only look on helplessly as the river lapped ever closer. But this time, the water fell just short. "It wasn't our turn," muses Roy Parsley, who runs a pottery business next door to Rachel Wright's Lady Fayre shop, in The Square.

The last time that the water got so close, it continued rising and rising until it had invaded many properties in the heart of Stamford Bridge. In Lady Fayre, the water was up to the letterbox and there were similar levels at Roy Parsley's pottery business, which is also his home. Like so many others, these two businesses were shut for months as repairs were made to the appalling damage wrought by the River Derwent.

"Every time it rains," says Roy, "we think 'is it going to happen again?'" Should disaster strike once more, it may well be the last straw for Roy, his wife Jane and their young daughter. "I don't think we would survive another flood," says Roy, adding that it would probably signal time for the family to leave Stamford Bridge, after nearly six years there.

However, the very fact that so many villagers have had to go through the same painful experience has cemented the strong community spirit in Stamford Bridge. "Everybody pulls together," said Roy. The latest news for residents is that the Environment Agency has said that work on a flood defence scheme will not get underway until July and will take ten months to complete.

The 2000 floods actually brought tourists to York, though visitors arriving in Stamford Bridge are unlikely to be making a close inspection of the Derwent. People from all over the world come to the village on the trail of the famous battle of 1066. However, the closest they are likely to get is the monument in the centre of the village, though they may run across one or two suggestive street names - Godwinsway (Godwin was the father of King Harold) and, more obviously, Saxon Road and Viking Road.

But nonetheless, Stamford Bridge's claim to fame is vastly impressive. The battle had a profound impact on this country's history and, for local historian and retired headmaster Vic Naylor, it was the most important battle ever fought on English soil - eclipsing even the Battle of Hastings, to which it is so inextricably linked.

What happened on Monday, September 25, 1066 at Stamford Bridge, was, of course, that King Harold and his Saxon army defeated the Vikings, led by Tostig and his brother Harold Hardraada. However, the Normans, rather unsportingly one might say, picked that very time to land on the south coast of England. This meant a vast energy-sapping trek for King Harold and his men to their eventual defeat at the hands of William the Conqueror.

Vic Naylor, who is 82, makes the point that had things gone differently at Stamford Bridge, history would have been utterly different. "If there had been no Battle of Stamford Bridge, then Harold would have gone to Hastings fresh," he says, implying the possibility or even probability that Harold would have won at Hastings.

Adds Vic: "If Harold had lost (at Stamford Bridge), then William the Conqueror would have faced Hardraada." The Normans could have then been defeated by the Vikings or, Vic believes, the country may have been divided between the two powers. "We could have been living in a Norwegian province," laughs Vic.

Vic put his knowledge to good use in 1988 when he wrote a book about the battle. Not so long ago, he was contacted by a book seller from Hastings who was keen to stock Vic's work and so cement the ties between the two battles and, for that matter, the two communities.

For 40 years, Vic was headmaster at Stamford Bridge School and he is as amazed as anyone by the tremendous growth in the village over the years. In 1949, Vic remembers, when he was just beginning his time as headmaster, the population of Stamford Bridge was 500. Now it is more like 4,000.

But he is also impressed by the irony of how, in one way, it has not changed at all. Vic says that during the Roman occupation, Stamford Bridge was used as a stopping point on the road to the coast. The early residents provided sustenance for the Roman soldiers as they marched through. And 2,000 years on, Stamford Bridge is still heavily involved in catering for people passing through on their way to the coast.

Peter Long is a man who has done just that for over 40 years. Like Vic Naylor a former parish councillor, Peter runs the service station in The Square and the Homecare hardware shop over the road. From these places of business, he has a ringside view of the heavy traffic which, hour after hour, crawls through the village, courtesy of the A166 York to Bridlington road.

But unlike some, Peter strongly resists the idea of a bypass. "What they don't realise is, that if there was a bypass, people like us would move out. It would kill us." Peter has the old problem of locals not using the village services enough, plus what he terms as "excessive" rates on the properties he uses for business.

"But we don't really want to move out, despite the floods," he adds, wryly. "We were devastated (by the floods) twice. We have a lot of friends here and without them, we would have been really crushed."

The floods, of course, were hell for the humans. But Stamford Bridge's resident duck population would probably not have been complaining. And there is no question that the feathered few are thriving. Living alongside the river in the heart of Stamford Bridge, they quietly preen themselves or potter aimlessly about. That is until someone with food arrives and then the cacophony begins.

The sheer number of ducks has started to cause concern and the village hit the headlines again when the dreaded word 'cull' greeted the greedy ears of journalists. Since the story first surfaced, however, it has been made clear that there is definitely no plan afoot to do away with the ones with webbed feet. The parish council instead is continuing to investigate the problem and is considering moving them when conditions are right.

"We can't kill them," says villager Rene Norton, horrified at such a notion. "Maybe we should just not feed them so much. But we have to do something because they really do make a mess."

Like the ducks, Rene is something of a village institution. She has lived in Stamford Bridge for 27 years and is heavily involved in the local community. When the Millennium celebrations came around, it was 72-year-old Rene who worked tirelessly to raise money for a Millennium clock in The Square. Many raffles, domino drives and whist drives later, Rene had got together over £3,000 and the dream became reality.

Her bubbly, jolly personality is unmistakable when she speaks. "I just thought 'I wonder if it could be done'," she says of the Millennium clock scheme. "It just went from there," she adds, modestly. She is rightly proud that the clock has been named after her and that a plaque has been put up to celebrate that fact. It is somehow fitting that as long as Stamford Bridge is not washed away by floods, there will always be something there to remind people of Rene Norton, as well as those Saxons and Vikings.

Updated: 11:00 Thursday, April 04, 2002