Having said goodbye to Margaret, I walk south, into Withywood, an estate on the edge of Bristol. Walking down the main street, there’s a veg shop where I get a roll for lunch, a chippy and a pub. The housing is all post-war, and there’s a slight air of neglect. I am looking for the source of the Malago, but am just guessing where to head, based on a map I looked at Margaret’s house. I walk along Queen’s road, and come to the edge of the city. I climb a winding road up Broadoak Hill, the traffic storming past. I ask a girl by the gate of the stables if there’s a footpath. She tells me there isn’t, despite the sign on the gate. I can find no way off the road and into the fields – but I can see lots of streams flowing down the sides of the road, or being piped underneath it. I stop to ask a woman who’s sweeping her front yard if she’s knows where the source of the Malago is. But she says there are loads of springs up there on Dundry slopes, and there’s a stream in everyone’s garden. When the traffic stops for a moment the hill is alive with the sound of running water.
I give up hunting the Malago and walk back down the hill, calling in at the ‘University of Withywood’: the home of an eccentric and remarkable local historian, Anton Bantock. He founded the ‘Malago Society’ which archives the history of Withywood, Bishopsworth and Bedminster. His bungalow is full of books and papers, with boards of Spanish vocab on the wall. He’s a fountain of information and local stories. I asked Anton about the name of the river, and he said there are many different ideas. The one he told me that I liked the best is that in Shakespeare, the word ‘Malacho’ means mischief maker. And the Malago, with it’s fondness for flooding, makes its own mischief.
Anton used to teach at a local school, and back in the 1970s he helped the children to write and produce a musical called Malago. This tells the story of the Gods and nymphs who used to inhabit this valley, but were driven away by humans and their industrialised mess. Only three remained (the Malagojusted Nymphs). The story ends:
‘They became coarse and vulgar. They wallowed in the filth they had tried to stem… and invented dances, which they still perform on the heaps of garbage and human detritus heaped into their once pure Malago …They still resent travellers. Anyone who dares to follow the Malago to its source will encounter all kinds of obstacles placed in their way by our Malago nymphs.’
So now I know why it was so difficult to find.
