New Lighthouse Visits Part III (Isle of Wight)

The final installment of the Isle of Wight adventure:

Our ferry was not due to leave the isle until around noon, so I suggested that we make use of the morning by walking the trackbed of an old railway line, which I’d heard has been converted into a footpath cum cycleway.

I am particularly fond of these paths. After all, the gradients are shallow, they bring tourism into often overlooked areas, and they provide a glimpse of our once rich rail heritage that we have squandered for our singular love of the motor car.

Since the 50’s, we have built our lives around the car rather than the car around our lives. When the oil runs out or the planet boils (whichever comes first), we may well reassess the wisdom of this. The film 'Who killed the electric car' is a real eye opener as to how the oil companies and their puppets (politicians) simply won't allow us to find a way out of this predicament. Enough said.

Our ramble along this particular rail-trail was actually not dissimilar to a career in politics: The white-painted fences and brand new bridge across the path near Wooten Bridge promised great things, so off we trekked towards Newport, with the sonorous birdsong and buzzing of insects mingling around us in the hedges and trees. The straightness of the route and a glimpse of an old platform and station-house told us that we were definitely on the right track.

Then a little further, a sign directed both cyclists and ramblers off of the trackbed, but unperturbed, we carried on doggedy sticking to our 'mission statement'.

Then the route narrowed and became rather overgrown, but I was used to this. What I wasn’t ready for was the sudden termination of the trail, with a death-defying drop through the frame of a metal bridge for anybody who stubbornly dared to continue. We sensibly descended to the lane below the conventional non-suicidal way, wandered up to the main road to view the traffic, did a U-turn and returned from whence we came. End of parable.

On our way to East Cowes, we passed Queen Victoria’s hallowed retreat of Osborne House. We had a reasonable wait in the queue for the ferry, so I decided to treat my father to a final blast of the Wurzels’ excellent ‘Golden Delicious’ album before leaving the rustic isle.

This ‘cider and farming’ music had provided the soundtrack to our last few days, for the Isle of Wight seemed just far enough west for me to have an excuse to play it. My dad pointed out that their chorus of ‘You’re a short time living and a long time dead’ was a great piece of philosophy. Seriously, where else could you hear such cerebral reasoning for downing a bucket-load of cider?

Back on the mainland, we switched to Radio 2, and a particularly bland edition of ‘Pick of the Pops’ emitted forth.

This institution consisted of Dale Winton running through old top tens. Nowadays it is Tony Blackburn in the chair and Prior to Mr Winton it was Alan Freeman, and way back in the dark ages, Jimmy Saville.

The particular week being looked at in 1975 seemed almost as dull as today's charts of plastic music may seem to many over 30s, proving the old maxim that the public isn’t always the best measure of quality. For example, if there was any justice The Kinks’ “Arthur or The Decline and Fall of the British Empire” would be one of the best selling albums of all time, as opposed to just a record with one of the longest titles.

This would be in the same parallel universe where Van Gogh gets to sell more than one painting in his lifetime, Al Gore would have got to be president instead of George Walker Bush [original pun omitted on grounds of taste] and 'Mud Sweat and Beers' can be found sitting comfortably next to the 'Bill Brysons' in all major bookshops!

All these things are out of my control (perhaps I should rewrite some new lyrics to that old standard ‘If I ruled the World’) but one thing that I did have influence over was our route home, for this time it was me behind the wheel. There would categorically be no boring M25 - we were doing the A272!

Pieter Boogaart points out in his excellently produced book ‘A272 – Ode to a Road’, that this tarmaccadam conduit may have once been an alternative to the ‘Pilgrim’s Way’ because of its alignment from Winchester towards Canterbury. There is evidence of this on an old wooden fingerpost near Newick in deepest Sussex, giving a distance of 63 miles to Winchester and 68 to Canterbury.

I found the first thirty miles or so very pleasant, with pretty villages, rolling hills and even an old brick railway tunnel to drive through.

We made just one stop, this being in Midhurst, where we encountered the most disgusting toilets I have ever been in. We are talking loo-roll strewn across the floor, rude daubings on every available space of wall, and a pungent smell that defies description. My dad suggested that the staff sitting idle in the tourist office next door could also be employed to pop in and do the odd bit of cleaning. He has a point, as this does give a very mixed message to visitors, doesn’t it?

Well, I’m not going to ramble on about the A272 and how it is generally not a very expedient route from Hampshire to Hamstreet (the village in Kent we were bound for), neither will I muse on how I think that it should seize the A265, which continues where the ‘272 abandons its course, and make it its own. There is a perfectly adequate book on this road, resplendent with glossy photographs available already.

If you have enjoyed these chapters, you may wish to put 'England and Wales in a Flash' into Amazon or Google and take a gamble on a purchase. The sequel 'Bordering on Lunacy' will be available early in 2011 and humorously documents our hunt for lighthouses, haunted castles and the arcane border in Southern Scotland. There is also the aforementioned hiking tome 'Mud Sweat and Beers' and a collection of surreal, dream-like stories entitled 'Seven Dreams of Reality'. Here concludes the commercial break. I may return with more erroneous lighthouse tales soon.

- Adam and Roger Colton

New Lighthouse Visits Part I (Isle of Wight)

I have recently been working on two new books.

For details of Seven Dreams of Reality (dreamlike fiction) and Mud Sweat & Beers (non fiction - humorous hiking adventure) check out Amazon.co.uk or email hamcopublishing@AOL.com. One of the proposed new books will be a sequel to 'England and Wales in a Flash', which sees my father and I continuing our mission to visit lighthouses around the mainland coast with a foray into Southern Scotland. As a result, a handful of chapters documenting our visits to a few random lighthouses In England have had to be jettisoned, not quite in keeping with the theme of a book on Scotland.

Rather than waste them, I have decided to edit out some of the more raucous humour and lengthy observational passages (for that you'll have to buy the book) and include the chapters in this blog over the next few months. We begin with Day 1 on our visit to the Isle of Wight.

Joining our queue to board the Isle of Wight ferry, we broke open the ‘Yuk’ milkshakes [a reference readers of our first book will understand] and augmented its milky goodness with some chicken legs, slices of bread and a pork pie that we cut in half with the end of a Biro, not being in possession of a knife or any good preparation skills.

Once upon the ferry, we decided that it would be more pleasant to spend the journey upstairs plotting our course across the Solent, rather than while away sixty minutes in a small hatchback. This was a sensible idea, as the vessel had all the amenities that you would find on a cross-channel ferry (except duty-free of course).

So we ascended to the blustery observation deck, where we were rewarded with an attractive ride into Cowes, with its bright white vessels lining the River Medina, which is like a crack running half way into the island. The sight of the buildings creeping up the surrounding hills as though trying to escape gave a pleasant ambience. This was a gently scenic introduction to the island, only spoiled by my obligation to repeat the old joke ‘What’s brown, steams and comes out of Cowes backwards?’ Answer – the Isle of Wight ferry. The colour scheme has changed since those days.

We docked at East Cowes, a shady village, marooned from the main town by the river, easliy crossed using the ‘floating bridge’. This is what the islanders call a small shuttle ferry that saves the motorist, and indeed the pedestrian, a 12-mile expedition by road.

The River Medina sounds more like a waterway in Spain than on the Isle of Wight. In fact, it is true that the island is not without Iberian influence. After the Stone Age hunters and Neolithic farmers, the Spanish arrived and settled. There would be further influxes of in-migration to come, culminating with a couple of post-modern lighthouse hunters in 2003AD. (By the way, what will they call the post-post-modern era?)

The island, 23 miles from east to west and 13 miles from north to south, was originally joined to Dorset. This is logical really, as the chalk cliffs that disintegrate into the sea at the westerly Needles match up rather neatly with the white cliffs across the water near Swanage.

Cowes is of course famous for its regatta. At the time, a report stated that the people here feel ostracized from big business, and that there should be a drive to encourage such things. The downside is that the place could then resemble just about every other town in the UK. Is this really so desirable? 'What can be so bad about a little bit of individuality?

Our inn had an archway beside it that can be driven through to reach the quayside. We had pre-booked our stay; my father had seen a recommendation for the place in a real ale guide, and that was enough to send him scuttling to the phone to make an inquiry. However, there were no real ales on offer today, so we had to make do with a pint of Guinness which we quaffed by the window, watching the people wander to and fro on this cheery afternoon. A newsagency seemed to be the catalyst for these movements.

My dad Christened our lodgings 'the garret room’, for we were positioned up three or four flights of stairs. This brought to mind a vision of a reclusive author hammering away on an old typewriter by candlelight.

Now to me, the Isle of Wight is a bit like a miniature inverted replica of England. This is because most of the population is crammed into the northeast of the island; whereas on the mainland we shoehorn everybody into the Southeast. Similarly reversed is the topography of the landscape, with the hillier terrain in the south on Wight, whereas in Blighty Major it is the North that is renowned for its uplands. Interestingly, this area of downland can even be seen from Portsmouth and Southampton, making it look as though the Solent isn’t there at all.

Newport, in the centre of the island, possesses the isle's only dual carriageway, this being a mile of the A3020 to the north of the town centre. The town also contains that other great British hallmark – the multi-lane ring road. It is here that one encounters that other stalwart of British life - jams.

The 125,000 islanders own 70,000 cars between them. This increases dramatically in the tourist season and is certainly exasperated by the fact that a once expansive rail network has been whittled down to a single line along the East Coast. At least you can still get a ‘ticket to Ryde’ I suppose!

The nine-mile road journey from Newport to Ryde felt more like fifteen. Here we checked out the island’s only outlet of a high profile pub chain (at the time of our visit, at least). We opted to sample Ventnor brewery’s ‘Oyster beer’. This dark, slightly sweet bitter was the finest we would taste during our trip, and is apparently made with real oysters.

The open-plan pub, located in this seaside town of amusements and fun fairs, was heaving, and conversations knotted themselves into a wall of sound around us.

Although the beer was strangely moreish, this was enough procrastination. It was time to talk ‘lighthouses’ and wend our way to Wight’s most easterly point, across lush, undulating farmland to St Helen’s village, then on past a bay filled with yachts and sailing boats, to Bembridge, a village with its own little one-way system.

Eventually meeting the coast, we parked near a large ‘chain’ hotel surrounded by lawns so neat you wouldn’t dream of stepping on them. It was here that we noticed that the Solent was littered with flat-topped round towers, sticking out like water-borne ‘Martellos’. These Victorian era forts were built to defend the Solent from another perceived French invasion threat (1860s).

I’ve heard that one of these was sold as a bijou residence around the time of our visit (2003) for six million pounds. 'Was it worth the money?' I wonder. Great place to live for peace and quiet; not so great for running out of milk and popping to the local shop!

Standing by the lifeboat station, we moved our plane of vision a few degrees southward and around five miles out to sea, onto a hazy black cylinder protruding from the deep. This was the Trinity House light of Nab Tower, a 90-foot high, 40-foot wide cylinder, designed as part of a defence scheme to protect the English Channel from invaders, which began its work as a beacon in 1920. It was staffed by three keepers until 1983.

The bright sky gave our squinting eyes an effect similar to snow blindness. The distance was too much for the telephoto lens on my video camera to cope with, so we cannot really count it in our tally of lights and felt vaguely unfulfilled during our journey back to Cowes.

Tiredness began to encroach at a rate of knots, and just two things grabbed our attention during our truncated evening at our inn. The first was a ‘Back to the future’ machine. This was just a glorified quiz machine really, but nice to encounter anyway, as I have long thought this trilogy of films to be vastly under-appreciated.

It was holed up in our garret room that we had our second surprise. The only tea bag left for our edification resembled a four-inch-wide parachute. My father managed to dip this unwieldy object into the two cups for long enough to infuse something drinkable from it.

Like I said earlier, it's good to be different!

- Adam and Roger Colton