An American doppelganger

As far as I can tell, there's no Ringmer in the USA. Although there is a city of Lewes in Delaware's Sussex County (named by expat William Penn, who may have been feeling a bit homesick), those of us living on the other side of Earwig Corner don't have any transatlantic clones. We Ringmerites are true originals. But what if Mr Penn had gone a step further?

Well, according to every Hollywood B-movie I can remember (and an old copy of the National Enquirer I once saw in my dentist's waiting room), this American interpretation of Ringmer would be located on a crossroads in the desert. Route 66, not the B2192. In my imagination, tumbleweed blows across the petrol station forecourt, where an old man in dungarees is standing by the pumps. Instead of a friendly pub there's a diner - advertised by an intermittently-working neon sign - that's run by a former Marine and an impossibly glamorous waitress. Customers have waffles for breakfast and, much to the confusion of residents in Lewes, order coffee by saying "I'll have a coffee, please" rather than "can I get a skinny decaf cappuccino, a little on the wet side?" Bowling takes place in an alley, not on a green. Oh, and most people shop at the drive-through supermarket where they buy high-fructose corn syrup and shrink-wrapped shotguns.

Somehow I suspect real life isn't much like that. However, Ringmer can (as I mentioned a few months ago) claim a couple of key roles in American history. In 1636, local vicar's daughter Ann Sadler married John Harvard. They moved to America, where Harvard's bequest of £780 helped to found the university that now bears his name. These days you'd be lucky if that money saw you through the first month of a new term. A few years later, Ringmer resident Gulielma Springett married the aforementioned William Penn. As part of a debt repayment, Penn was given a large parcel of land in America. He wanted to call it 'Sylvania' but King Charles II insisted he named it 'Pennsylvania', which duly happened in 1681. All are remembered in our village road names: Harvard Road, Penn Crescent, Sadlers Way and Springett Avenue.

And I can claim my own transatlantic connection. Back in the early days of the world wide web, when Dave Gorman was still learning how to use Google, I was contacted by a man in the USA who shared my name. This other Mark Bridge introduced himself as a singing cowboy. I was delighted; it felt rather like finding a time-travelling relative. And although I've subsequently discovered we both have a more-famous namesake who plays professional football in Australia, it's the folk singer I'm especially pleased to be associated with. But which one of us was the first Mark Bridge? That's a bit of a worry. Surely I'm not a pale imitation of myself?

First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 106 July 2015.