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
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