Editor's note: In June, the Billerica Twinning Group sent its first delegation - 10 visitors, including a Billerica Minuteman reporter - to the village of Billericay, England, from which the town derives its name.
The group visited Billericay, surrounding communities and London, accompanied by members of the Billericay Mayflower Twinning Association, which had sent a delegation in 2002.
This week, the Billerica Minuteman begins the first of a two-part series on the June visit to Billericay, with a look at the village's historic links to Billerica and the concerns both communities share for the future.
Take a walk in late June along High Street, the main street of Billericay, and one will see a flurry of images that reflect the past and point to the present.
Small white buildings with gleaming black beams, dating back to the 1500s, huddle along the street with those whose severe lines and angles reflect the functional architecture of the 1970s.
Everywhere the air is filled with fluttering white and red, English flags that bear the cross of St. George flutter in the cool, mildly humid breeze. The week in which visitors from Billerica, Mass. arrived was a decisive one in the Euro Cup soccer games. With England's recent win over Switzerland, patriotic fervor was running high.
(England would later lose to Portugal over a hotly-disputed technicality. Ultimately, a triumphant Greece took the cup home.)
When visitors arrived, a different flag was flying on the pole outside the town police station, one the visitors cheerfully hailed as that of the town of Billerica.
The snap of green in the breeze greeted bleary-eyed visitors fresh from a five-hour trans-Atlantic flight. The flag, visitors are told, was raised only by special dispensation by county government, as foreign flags are not usually allowed to fly on government property.
Billerica takes its name from English settlers who petitioned the king to name a new community in the nascent Massachusetts colony in 1655.
Billericay is associated with Christopher Martin, treasurer of the 1620 Mayflower voyage, who did not live to see the founding of the namesake community.
Historians in Billericay point to the unassuming United Reformed Church - whose sanctuary bears a plaque to Martin and other Mayflower travelers - as a testament to those who broke from the Church of England and laid the foundations for religious freedom.
In no small way, the history of Billericay - pronounced, Bill-Ricky - a village of about 35,000 in Essex County, southeast of London, parallels its American counterpart in Massachusetts.
While the names of other neighboring communities, such as Chelmsford and Colchester, are easily traced to their Norman or Anglo-Saxon origins, the name "Billericay," which first appeared in known written records in the late 1200s, offers no hint of its meaning.
Clues might be buried in the lush green tangle of the Norsey Wood Local Nature Reserve, where Roman coins have been found. Such treasures have also been found on the grounds on which the town of Billericay evolved, notes historian Roy Mizen, who led a group on a walking tour of High Street, past cottages decorated with famous English roses and monuments to war dead.
One thing seems certain: Billericay and the county of Essex have a history of revolutionary thought. Neighboring Colchester, one of many places which Billerica visitors toured, was burned to the ground by British queen Boadicea (commonly pronounced, Bu-dic-cah) in an uprising against Roman occupying forces. In the 1381, Billericay men were among those who died in the Peasants' Revolt against unfair taxation.
After the Protestant Reformation, splinter religious groups began to form across Britain, demanding the right to worship as they chose. Among those were a small contingency from Billericay, including Martin, his wife, son and servant, who set sail for the Massachusetts colony. Some of them would establish the town of Billerica, Mass.

Changing times

For many years, Billericay was an enclave of industry and the working class. But recently, a housing boom has led many families to relocate there from London, which commuters can reach in a 30-minute train ride. The soaring price of homes reflects the demand; houses fetching 250,000 pounds Sterling - roughly, just under $500,000 - are not uncommon, judging by flyers on the windows of real estate agents.
A sampler of English history can be found in the tiny Cater Museum on High Street, which began life as a Tudor-style house (in the style common during the Tudor Dynasty, which included the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.)
Here, one can find many symbols of England's past, from delicate Victorian black lace, to a poignant display of gas masks and artillery from the horrific trenches of World War I.
In one corner of one hallway is a tiny, stuffed, two-headed lamb who died at six weeks of age and whose remains a farmer opted to donate to the museum. That animals shared their owners' struggles is clearly evident; when the Cater home was excavated after the family sold it, the remains of a mummified cat were found within its walls. Tradition dictated that a live cat be entombed in a new house's walls, to scare away demons and ill-bidding ghosts with its anguished cries.

Public safety a concern

A stop at the town police station reveals much about the contemporary issues faced by law enforcement in Billericay and in England as a whole.
At the town police station, beat officer Kevin Hopton and community police officer David Lynch, a showed the weaponry typically carried by a patrolling officer, including a truncheon, baton and chlorobenzalmalonitrile, a gas spray commonly referred to as CS spray.
The spray,which works as an eye irritant and is similar to pepper spray, has drawn some criticisms from those who question whether it may cause some long-term health effects.
Lynch's role a newly-created one; he patrols the streets but does not have powers of arrest as do other officers.
Violent crime appears to be increasing throughout the United Kingdom - which includes England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and several islands. In this nation of 60.2 million people, reported violent crimes rose 14 percent between 2002 and 2003, according to a recent report by the British Broadcasting Company.
However, the report notes that crimes overall may have declined by 3 percent during that same period.
Alan Wood, treasurer of the Billericay Mayflower Twinning Association, is also an organizer for Neighborhood Watch In The UK. Throughout the United Kingdom, he said, about 150,000 such watches look after 6 million homes.
In the Billericay police station, the local neighborhood watch has its own small office, complete with a phone line which police explained was confiscated from a drug-dealing operation. Occasionally, a would-be customer still calls the number to make an inquiry, they said.
"They are all volunteers and they are all set up in areas or roads. We are not police, but are there to assist the police, to report anything suspicious, and to provide members with information on various types of crimes."
Hopton and Lynch said Billericay had been plagued of late with crimes they blame on loitering youths. Billericay has two faces, they said: mostly quiet by day, but alive at night with noisy pubs. Drunkenness and boredom appear to be two culprits, police said.
Yet staffing remains at levels of previous years. For Billericay, two officers are on duty on any given shift, as well as a sergeant and an inspector who works a split shift.
The Billericay police are part of a police district that includes five divisions with borders along community lines. The Essex County police have their headquarters in neighboring Chelmsford - from which Chelmsford, Mass. takes its name. Headquarters can send in an helicopter when a situation warrants.
The police talked about another tool aimed at deterring crime, but one which has stirred cries of privacy violation - electronic cameras, which can catch alleged shoplifters, speeding motorists and other scofflaws on tape. The sleek, white cameras are an ubiquitous presence.
Signs on motorways warn of the cameras. The police station bulletin board is plastered with images of those caught on tape and now sought for various alleged crimes, such as shoplifting.
With some exceptions, British police officers don't carry firearms. Among police and the public, the lack of firearms is stirring debate. There are those who believe police are now dangerously underarmed and no match for those who do carry guns. But Wood said many police believe that arming police would have the effect of upping the ante, and prompt criminals who were previously did not carry guns to procure more dangerous firearms.
"The trouble is, these days, the modern replicas [of guns] are very life-like, and it's very difficult for police to ascertain if it's real, or a replica."
Wood added, "There was an amnesty a few years back, where people could hand in guns."
He said police are especially concerned about an increase of attacks on police with knives, including one off-duty police officer who died from stab wounds. As a result, more police are being issued vests to protect them from stabbing attacks.
As these questions fuel debate about public safety, Wood said many people derive a sense of empowerment from the neighborhood watches, as well as a sense of cooperation with the police. "We hope in the neighborhood watch that we are instilling in people a sense of civic responsibility," he said. He said, "We are much closer to our neighbors. We are much more aware of our neighbors."
(In the next issue: From fiefdoms to feisty MPs- surviving the English political arena. Also, efforts to preserve the past; students contemplate their future.)

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