The Recession Part I - What is it?

(From Hamstreet & District Parish Magazine November 2011)

At the risk of being accused of getting 'stuck in the groove' I am going to elaborate on an issue which seems unavoidable these days. Every time you turn on the radio or TV, it's there; open a newspaper and it's splashed across every page; in fact, from what I am hearing it is now affecting many people's daily lives. Yet few people know exactly why recessions happen and quite frankly the media aren't likely to tell you.

Having looked into this online and attended presentations about this topic in London I thought I'd pass on the gleaned information. Apologies if it's a bit heavy but you may just find this interesting!

Now, it seems that recovery is always viewed in terms of how much people are borrowing - the more we borrow, the better the the economy is doing. But wasn't this crisis caused by debt in the first place? So how is starting the debt-snowball rolling again going to provide any kind of long-term solution?

Let's find out why they like it so much then!

Banks are allowed to lend out nine tenths of the total actual money within their keeping, although it is still available to the depositer, miraculously being in two places at once! When somebody borrows money, this is credited to their bank account (usually with a different bank).

This bank in turn can then lend out nine tenths of that money (along with all the rest in their keeping). The next bank in the chain can lend out nine tenths of what they receive and so on. When you add up the chain of loans made possible by the actual capital in the first bank it amounts to nine times the 'real' money. Interest will of course be levied on all of this. So, where is all the money to pay the interest on nine times every pound that is in circulation going to come from?

That's right – you've got it – ultimately it will come from more loans!

In other words the debt will always increase and as a result repossessions, bankruptcies and recessions will always happen with this system.

Once you realise that the availability of money has nothing to do with any actual value that it has in terms of the goods and labour you can buy with it, the gaping holes in the way things are done become obvious. This wasn't always the case, as once upon a time banks had to back up all currency with gold reserves.

Ditto for the fractional reserve 'nine times' loaning system. Inflation was virtually zero for hundreds of years until this system came about. In other words, we didn't have this nonsense before so we don't have to have it now!

Right, is everybody still with me, as it gets more complex still?

When the debt gets out of hand a 'solution' called quantitative easing is often used. I have heard two slightly differing accounts of how this works:

Either way, the Bank of England electronically creates a sum of money out of thin air for the banks to loan out. Some sources state the BofE receives bonds or assets from the Government for doing this; others say that they receive investments from the banks in return. Either way, creating the money requires little more than pushing a button and the rewards are massive.

Now, does any of this sound fair? If I print my own money it is illegal and I get nothing (other than a spell in the slammer). So, here's an idea, why not create this same money electronically (for nothing) and give it to the NHS, public transport, education, etc. and all the things that benefit the public but are having their budgets slashed instead? The devaluation of existing currency would be no worse than creating the same sum and giving it to banks, and the overall standard of living of the masses would improve – now isn't this what politicians are supposed to do – look after the best interests of the majority?

Current cuts are merely a temporary (and for many, painful) fix to an underlying problem, being that the way we do things is simply unsustainable. An economy cannot grow forever to pay off an ever-increasing sum of interest that doesn't exist.

Why? Because we live on a finite planet. How on earth do they think constant growth is going to be possible? Are we going to start drilling for oil on Mars?

Even if you support the cuts, I have witnessed what it is like for my friend in Hackney who recently had her front door kicked in by neighbours, yet the police have told her that they don't have the resources to pursue such 'trivial matters' in court.

And would you be pleased to be one of those cancer patients told you can't have any medication because of a prediction about your life expectancy (as it's clearly more important that the banks have the money)?

Good system hey?

Quite how we put a stop to this madness is the tricky part as the whole world now uses this crackpot system. What's more Britain seems to have staked its entire future on the banking sector. I think the only thing concerned people can do is take on as little debt as possible and spread the little-known facts about how it all works until pressure for change becomes unignorable. Some people say to me 'You're naïve to think it will ever change'. They probably said the same kind of things to those who wished to abolish slavery.

Sadly for those who are borrowing just to buy basic provisions, it seems they are already in way too deep. And those in the city who will benefit from all this are no doubt laughing all the way to the...

New Lighthouse Visits Parts IV - VI (Lowestoft, Chester & Deepest Wales)

Having wrapped up the Isle of Wight, I have just a few more trips to tell you about before putting the lid on my lighthouse missions with my father once and for all.

It was on an overcast day in July 2004 that we returned to the Norfolk Coast and the village of Winterton. Our aim was to check out a few lighthouses we had missed on our first jaunt around the entire English coast.

Abandoning my father's beaten up van, we emerged on the eastern side of the village to find ourselves in a valley of sand and grass between the dunes and the bank upon which Winterton stands. It looked as though the village had been tricked into thinking it had a sea view!

We climbed the bank to find ourselves surrounded by little round thatch-roofed holiday chalets painted in pastel shades of green, blue and pink, looking like a Celtic hilltop village. Each little pot was crowned with its own miniature TV aerial, which made my father chuckle. When asked why, he replied that he was wondering what the ancient Brythons would make of TV programmes such as ‘Teletubbies’.

Continuing through to more conventional holiday residences, the sound of children splashing mirthfully in the swimming pool drifted through the air. Striding over a wire-mesh fence, we found a drive leading to the 62-foot off-white tower with black balcony and black top, now a private residence with its windows dotted randomly up the tower. The window in the large light chamber consists of ‘Georgian’ style squares. This light ceased to operate in 1921, effectively retiring at the tender age of 61.

I glanced at the shoreline from the row of dunes while my dad returned to the van. The dozen or so tiny specks of human life scattered across the sandy shore seemed to look my way the moment I trained the video camera upon this tranquil scene, no doubt cussing about voyeurs.

Next we would return to Lowestoft to check out a couple of lights we had earlier dismissed as beacons.

We bypassed Caister and continued into Great Yarmouth along a four-lane suburban road that has remained this way since my visits as a child. Beyond the town, to the south, the A12 resembles an urban motorway with huge concrete walls steering the dual carriageway through the urban landscape. Upon reaching Lowestoft, this road is a completely different affair, being split off around the town’s narrow streets and often having to defer to the bridge if it is raised to allow a boat to navigate the River Waveney.

This occasional exercise in patience obviously does not go down well, as my dad made the minor mistake of being in the wrong lane here. We were virtually bulldozed off of the road by a 4X4. Such vehicles, designed to be the automotive equivalent of a mountain bike, seem to be most often found around school gates in term time, with ‘off road’ meaning nothing more than parking on the kerb at kiddies’ home time! If you own a 'jeep', please excuse the satire.

In the year that had preceded our visit, Lowestoft had been catapulted to fame, being the hometown of the now defunct rock incarnation The Darkness, a kind of 'Queen' tribute band if you haven't heard them!

The only ‘rocks’ for us today were in our hearts, for the two structures at the end of the north and south piers were, by our own description, lighthouses and not the mere beacons we had dismissed them as before. Shame on us - our tally of missed lights was now up to three.

Guarding the egress of the River Waveney, both structures consist of a thin hexagonal tower with a small balcony at the base and light compartment at the top. The towers both fan out into a canopy supported by six poles.

The southerly lighthouse has a blue door adorned with a yellow sign declaring ‘Protect ears when foghorn sounds’. There was also a red buoyancy aid labelled ‘Theft costs lives’. The northerly one had no such instructions and was merely hovered around by industrial cranes and industrious seagulls. These lights have occupied their respective spots since 1847.

We had hovered long enough, and predictably we popped into the nearby Harbour Inn to sample the Oulton Broad beer. Certain mates of mine (who now renounce pub culture in favour of 'bringing up baby') a few years ago would have cracked a joke about real ale being ditch-water upon hearing such a name. We had no such hang-ups and struck up a conversation with a lively 60-year-old Essex man who informed us that there were two nightclubs upstairs. This youthful chap also dropped in the information that at his recently celebrated birthday bash a very attractive 'kissogram' had performed for him. Enough said.

Feeling much enlightened, we felt that it was time to ogle the town and found an unusally named road called ‘Economy Street’ (presumably the opposite of ‘Quality Street’). To be honest, some of the streets south of the river didn't exactly look salubrious, but we decided to turn a blind eye and tried to get board at a hotel advertising twin rooms at £35.

Our negotiations were conducted via an intercom beside a firmly locked red paint-chipped door - the sort of thing you might find at a block of flats. The reply to our rquests was initially ‘yes’, but was quickly changed to ‘no’. It seemed we did not make the grade to stay at ‘Hotel Fort Knox’ or even ‘Chez Doss House’!

After this snub, we parked our bags in a perfectly adequate guest-house and wandered down to the arrow-straight pedestrianised High Street. Behind us, a gaggle of teenage girls were laughing uncontrollably, whilst in front a gang of trainee youths were determinedly blasting a football into the shop windows and pulverizing the council’s thoughtfully provided bushes, sending a flurry of leaves into the air with each stroke.

Traffic, it seems, is often the life-blood of town centres, for as the police cars whizzed around the one-way systems, this centralised pedestrian area had the feel of a ghetto. Perhaps the frenetic gyrating on the periphery is the cause of this. All that traffic spinning round and round must create a vortex of concentric energy, sending out shock waves to the town’s youth. Or so a Feng Shui expert would have us believe.

Uninspired, we returned to the Harbour Inn, and tucked into a healthy salad whilst observing the epithet that strangely, unlike Eastbourne and Bournemouth that are sometimes described as ‘God’s waiting room’, Lowestoft could more be likened, to an imp’s playground!

Clearing our plates and draining our glasses, we decided it was time to return to the serenity of the harbour. The lights were now lit - the northerly one green; the southerly one red, and the sun set over the sailing boats gently bobbing on the swell - a sobering sight, away from the hurly-burly of the UK’s most easterly town, and we returned placidly to sup a final vittle before bed.

After almost dismissing this particular pub because of its garish exterior, we found ourselves seated at the bar, behind which were mirrors, lights and ornamentation that gleamed in an almost mesmerising manner. Or so it must have seemed to the patrons who sat there, glued to their seats staring, in the way that children are attracted to the constantly flashing lights of the fruit machines.

My father struck up a conversation with a tripper from East London who was sitting next to us, dipping a toe into the conversational water as us Brits do, testing the response to some innocuous remark and then gradually wading deeper until both parties open up. It was when this genial fellow had disappeared to the loo, that my dad asked me who he reminded me of. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but when the answer ‘Tommy Cooper’ was given and our friend returned, it became apparent ‘just like that’.

This gentleman looked like Tommy Cooper, laughed like Tommy Cooper and most of his sentences disintegrated into a wheezy guffaw just like Tommy Cooper’s. Best of all though, at ‘last orders’ he treated us to a round of drinks, and I noted that this was the only time anybody had bought us a drink on all of our missions. Now that’s what I call entertainment!

* * * * *

The final challenge begins in Bicester, a small town in Buckinghamshire, where you find my father and I enjoying a cup of coffee with the lady who prints our books.

We were on our way to Chester, and I had cajoled my father into using a road formerly known as the A41. This highway, which has had almost as many name changes as the pop-star Prince, used to be the tenth longest road in Britain, before it was unceremoniously cut up, with much of it repackaged as a B-road, cunningly named the B4100 in the hope that drivers wouldn't spot that the route still existed.

Passing through Banbury, we glimpsed its famous cross and pondered the nursery rhyme of yore. There are three theories about who the ‘fine lady’ actually was. One is that she was Lady Godiva, another was that she was Elizabeth I and a less intriguing one is that she was just a local girl in a May Day parade.

A little further on we found a suitable layby for lunch. Strands of cobweb glinted in the warm sunshine, seemingly unattached to anything, floating impossibly in mid air, undisturbed by either wind-rustled branch or speeding juggernaut.

Beyond Birmingham, the A41 resurfaced under its own name and proceeded to bore us to tears all the way to Chester. The only thing that broke the monotony was what appeared to be a moving road-sign trundling along the road towrads Chester. We eventually realised that it was just a lorry with a green back and a logo the shape of a road junction.

Now, Chester comes from the Roman word ‘castra’ meaning a fortified camp. Its city wall is the most complete encirclement in the UK and its first incarnation was as a wooden wall in 70AD, before being rebuilt in stone thirty years later. Over the years it has been rebuilt and renovated by successive generations, with the Victorians mercilessly ploughing a railway through a corner of it, creating a kind of precursor to Spaghetti Junction, channelling a canal around it in the process.

Our hotel was located right next to the wall and looked out over the River Dee, just as Edward I might have done when he used the Norman castle as a base for his conquest of Wales.
Completing one lap of the wall makes for a great introduction to Chester. Beyond the castle one encounters the racecourse, located on land which was once the riverbed. Further round is the cathedral and beyond this, the Eastgate tower which was topped off with a clock in 1897.

Just as we were completing our circuit, we spotted a pub with blackboards outside declaring it to be ‘The English pub at its very best – nominated in the top six city pubs in Britain’, prompting us to come down from the wall and venture inside.

The interior was resplendant with old advertising signs for Coleman’s starch, Guinness and the like. We ordered a couple of haggis oatcakes and my dad sparked up the dreaded weed. I expect there was an ancient advertisement somewhere declaring this habit to be ‘good for you’.

After this, it was time to pierce our way into the city centre itself, and as we wandered up Lower Bridge Street a man was itinerantly hassling passers by for cigarettes. My father obliged and our amiable beggar then wandered off to pounce on somebody else.

Just then an almighty bang reverberated through the night air. A car was now heading straight towards us, careering backwards down the road. As a cloud of white ‘smoke’ filled the air, a panic-stricken woman on the point of hyperventilation ran towards us and panted ‘Have you got a phone? Please phone the police’. Naturally we obliged.

We stood around until the law arrived at the scene of this head-on crash. It seemed fairly clear to us that ‘driving without shoes’ had played a part in this unfortunate occurrence. Our work was now done and we decided to quietly slink away to look at The Rows, these being Chester’s unique and ancient method of saving valuable town centre land by building one row of shops on top of another - a kind of Mediaeval shopping precinct.

Our final stop was at ‘The Bear and Billet’, a pub which used to be a tollhouse. After draining our pints of Okell’s Manx ale, it was only fitting to take a wander across the river, which foamed in a trance-inducive manner beneath the orange floodlights. There was little to see on the other side of the bridge, so we soon reneged to our room in the Recorder Hotel, and I climbed into my curtained bed which we had christened ‘the boudoir’ and crashed (a bit like those cars really!).

Eraly next morning we took a wander down the stone steps to the riverside in the cool sunlight, clocking the man swigging from a bottle secreted in a brown paper bag.

Our breakfast was impressive, with both black and white pudding added to the array of fried comestibles.

Our road onto the Wirral reminded me of driving in the USA, being a fairly flat dual carriageway through a semi-suburban landscape, with traffic lights at every intersection and no roundabouts to be seen. Yet, a detour from the main drag briefly transported us into a surprisingly rural area where cyclists seemed to outnumber vehicles. Bliss!

We were headed for Bidston Hill, a high point right in the middle of the wide Wirral peninsular. With the sea perhaps two miles distant in three directions, this was hardly the kind of place you would expect to find a lighthouse.

We parked next to an area of public greenery, and followed a footpath through a small wood. The trail soon emerged onto a stony plateau. Ahead was a windmill surrounded by scaffolding, and beyond this, a great view all the way across to the tower blocks of Liverpool on the other side of the River Mersey. To the left we could identify the coastal suburbs of Leesowe, overlooked by its lighthouse, which reflected the cheery sunlight back at us across the miles of fresh air.

It was just beyond an observatory, clearly well-used judging from the number of cars parked beside it, that we found the chubby round tower of greyish brown bricks that we were looking for. Above the door was the date ‘1873’ and the moniker ‘Mersey Dock Estate’. This was the date that the lighthouse was completed, replacing an older structure built in 1771.

There are two rows of windows arranged neatly one above the other in the tower of the 68-foot-high structure. The light chamber is surrounded by a balcony and has a white top. Although the light ceased to operate in 1913, it was shown for a one off ‘millennium’ event in the year 2000.

Before we left the Wirral, we paid another visit to Leesowe, to discover that the tall lighthouse had been ‘doshed up’ with a new coat of white paint since our first visit, and there were now plans for an information centre to be constructed as an extension.

The clean up exercise for our mission had become a very disparate affair, with our next lighthouse being located at Burry Port in South Wales, so a long journey southward ensued as we plunged in and out of Wales, eventually pausing for a ‘Yuk’ break by a farm gate along a lane just beyond Welshpool.

* * * * *

Our southward journey continued via Montgomery (a small town which once gave its name to a whole county) towards the Shropshire town of Bishop’s Castle.

Beyond this we discovered that Clun, where my aunt and uncle used to live, had lost none of its charm since our last visit. Overlooked by its castle ruins, the narrow stone bridge with inlets for pedestrians to shelter from the traffic remains the centre-piece of this little town. The River Clun gives its name to many villages along its course, as extolled in the oft-quoted couplet:

Clunton, Clungunford, Clunbury and Clun,
Are the quietest places under the sun.

Whenever I hear this I think of poor old Aston on Clun which doesn't even get a mention in the verse.

The road climbs steeply out of the valley and provides fine ‘patchwork quilt’ views descending to New Invention (a fine name for a hamlet if ever there was one). Next up was the border town of Knighton.

Beyond this, the scenery becomes plainer again and I began to nod off, leaving my father to negotiate the route without any navigational assistance.

There was no possibility of sleeping as we crossed the rickety wooden toll bridge to Hay-on-Wye though. This small Welsh town is something of a literary Mecca with an annual book festival, and streets that allegedly once boasted around thirty bookshops. I would estimate that the figure is around half of this today, but in such a diminutive place, such a concentration of outlets still seems rather surreal.

It all began in 1961 when the first second-hand bookshop opened its doors. It was in 1977 that things were given a real boost, with the self-proclaimed ‘King of Hay’ declaring the town’s independence from the rest of the UK as a publicity stunt on April fool’s day.

As we entered our guesthouse, the lady seemed quite curt to begin with. We deposited our bags and after some more 'narcolepsy', it was time for a brew.

The landlord pulled us two pints of Wood’s Shropshire ale and we reclined at the bar where a gentleman, no doubt used an the endless stream of obscure literary characters passing through, struck up conversation with us.

Having been given a platform to extol the virtues of our challenge, we cast our minds back to the very first night we had spent in Fowey, Cornwall after visiting our first lighthouse back in 1999, not realising the gauntlet we had laid down for ourselves.

Picking up on this, our friend proudly declared himself to be Cornish born and bred. This was a shrewd move, appearing to test the authenticity of our discourse. We had clearly passed the test, for just before he left the bar he informed us that he was nothing to do with Cornwall and was in fact the local butcher.

I had printed off some propaganda for our first book before embarking on this trip, and now posted these flyers through the doors of every bookshop I encountered. Just as struggling musicians head for the gold-paved streets of London (and normally end up sleeping on them), writers head for Hay.

Our second alehouse had pre-empted the in-coming smoking ban by already operating a 'no sparking up' policy. This immediately got my father’s back up, and we took our pints outside, while he compared smokers to various persecuted minorities!

Our third and final drinking den had a distinct air of yuppiedom about it, but sadly for us, no aroma of hot food. It was 8.50pm and the kitchen was most definitely closed.

Instead we prepared ourselves for a mouth-watering feast of fish and chips. Our hearts sank to find the lights all out and the door firmly bolted at the chip shop. Our only hope now was a Chinese takeaway.

Surreptitiously we sneaked our purchases back to our room like smugglers concealing their stash. In the absence of plates, we scooped the contents out of the foil containers onto saucers, and wolfed them down using plastic forks. Sheer decadence!

And so, the moral of all this, is that unless you enjoy eating your food off of a piece of china with a four-inch diameter, you need to get to Hay before all the food is put to bed. In short, make Hay while the sun shines. Boom Boom!

Next morning, my dad got up just after 7, which wasn’t at all helpful as breakfast wasn’t served until 8.30. Yet it was still me who took root in the dining room first, and a lady author from Hastings asked me how we were coping with all the Welsh place-names.

As we left, we admired the pretty garden and its array of colourful flowers ranging from red through orange to a golden yellow.

As we continued, it amazed me that the road through Hay, which had begun as a clattering wooden bridge over the River Wye, gradually morphed in an A-road and then into an expedient section of the north/south A470 trunk road, and finally into the dual carriageway A40 bypassing Brecon. From little acorns…

I was keen to travel down to the coast via one of the Welsh valleys, but my dad was having none of it. Beyond Llandeilo, we used a straggling network of B-roads via some fairly large villages to get reach Burry Port, where we found our way to a car park beside the harbour and wandered straight out along the quayside to our final lighthouse in the cool breeze.

This 1842 tower is located at the westerly entrance to the harbour and is a chubby, white-painted brick affair. There is a black balcony surrounding a small, red, hexagonal light compartment. The lighthouse was donated to the yacht club by Trinity House in 1996, and its light could be seen for nine miles.

Across the water, we could clearly see the tin tower at Whitford Point which was famously sold for one pound with a ‘golden handcuffs’ contract to maintain it in the early noughties (as I believe fashionable people call the decade).

Feeling invigorated, we decided to call in at the yacht club. A handful of members were sitting down chatting quietly over a cup of coffee.

We learned much during our ten minutes in the clubhouse, including the fact that a large sum of money had recently been poured into the harbour (not literally I hasten to add), with a new road constructed along the seafront and a cycleway towards Llanelli.

And that really was the end of the road for us.

If you have enjoyed these chapters 'England and Wales in a Flash' documents our visits to 153 lighthouses around the mainland coast, combining this with a satirical look at the nation we saw at the turn of the millennium. The book is available on Amazon and from all good bookshops
New for 2011 is the sequel – 'Bordering on Lunacy' which documents our visits to lighthouses in the Scottish Lowlands and our journey along the border in search of haunted astles.

- Adam and Roger Colton

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 II (Isle of Wight)

Day 2 of the Isle of Wight lighthouse tour:

The first light of the day was supposed to be at Egypt point, at the far north of the island, but it was actually my dad sparking up his first cigarette as we watched the boats running up and down the River Medina. A nearby clock chimed, setting us on our way.

Egypt point is thought to have got its name from a group of sixteenth century gypsies who inhabited the area and were known at the time as ‘Egyptians’. It was less than half a mile up-river from our hotel, but due to the conspiring of the road system, getting there was like driving through one of those mazes where one has to begin in the opposite direction.

We descended from leafy suburban lanes to an empty, tranquil coastline with a wide, curving, ‘made for coaches’ road around it.

The lighthouse is little more than a beacon which operated from 1897–1989. It consists of a thin red tube upon a squat cylindrical base, with a white, square box perched clumsily on top, anchored to the ground with a few white-painted struts.

From here, we continued westward, with the road narrowing into a tiny lane around the coves and the village of Gurnard. Moving away from the sea, things became more pastoral, with green fields and woods in abundance. We were perhaps getting a glimpse at the ‘real’ Isle of Wight, away from the tourist trail at last.

This respite was brief, for soon we were joining the slow-moving traffic on the A3054. This is the island’s principal east/west route, and I mischievously wondered how things would be if a six-lane M3054 was built to deal with the traffic. Imagine doing 70mph on the Isle of Wight – you would be able to cross the whole island in under 20 minutes!

Of course, it is the diminutive size of the island that protects it from such modern intrusions. It wouldn’t take a lot of building to dramatically alter the feel of the place, hence the only new housing projects we would spot were relatively small.

We waited for several sailing boats to pass the raised bridge at Shalfleet, and briefly detoured up a private road to try to catch a glimpse of Hurst Castle and its lighthouse on the mainland, visible across the Solent. There was a small development of salubrious homes (read ‘Yuppie residences’ if you wish) at the end of the lane from which to point our camera lens before continuing via Yarmouth and Totland to the Needles – the island's most westerly point.

At Alum Bay, there is a car park and a small theme park with a breathtaking chair-lift ride over the cliffs, famous for their multiple layers of coloured sand. After attempting to hard-sell 'England and Wales in a Flash' to a friendly car-park attendant, we stomped off up the combined footpath and bus-lane that runs out along the grassy headland for around a mile. And boy, was it windy!

At the point where the white cliffs disintegrate into a series of chalk stacks, we savoured our first view of the lighthouse, directly ahead. In front of it stands a fort built in 1862.

The red and white striped lighthouse rises 102 feet from the sea and has a helicopter landing pad on top. Built in 1859, it replaced an earlier cliff-top lighthouse that was forever shrouded in mist. The present light stands beyond two brilliant white chunks of rock which rise out of the sea like chalk icebergs.

As we explored the southern side of the headland, we became entangled with a large group of elderly tourists, swarming like bees around the viewpoints, giving off a general hubbub of conversational small talk.

A smoothly curving concrete wall is all that remains of a former engine testing site for rockets (used from 1956–1971). The launching tests themselves took place on the other side of the world in Woomera, Australia. These weren’t the only experiments to be carried out in the vicinity. Back at Alum Bay, a plaque marks the location of the former wireless telegraph station where Marconi did a bit of tinkering around in the late 1890s.

Having absorbed all these facts by cranial osmosis, I glanced around to find that my dad had vanished over the top of the hill, drawn zombie-like towards the old keeper’s cottages - a terrace of four or five dwellings. Rather cheekily we wandered around the backyards, and some of the occupants even chatted to us. But once the approaching babble of voices chanting ‘rhubarb rhubarb’ could be heard, we quickly descended back to the path for fear that we might get swept up in the melee and find ourselves bundled into a Shearings coach bound Bournemouth!

Our next port of call was St Catherine’s Point at the southern corner of the island.

The A3055 follows the coast from west to south to east, effectively a scenic alternative to the A3054. The eastern half of this route consists of a series of popular holiday resorts from Ventnor to Ryde. The west side is very different though, being the island’s most sparsely populated quadrant.

At one point we were diverted onto lanes where the cliff road was subsiding. The terrain became quite wild, resmbling moorland, with the tall hills of the south ever-present on the skyline.

The turning for St Catherine’s is just beyond the village of Niton. We parked opposite a charming little pub in a leafy hamlet and walked along the lane to the lighthouse, descending panoramically to open fields. Our tour guide and his wife were ready and waiting.

Like the Needles light, this octagonal 1838 lighthouse replaced a much higher structure, but even this new light was often shrouded in mist, so the tower was eventually lowered from 120 feet to 86 feet by removing several sections of it.
A second shorter tower, open at the bottom, with tall arches, was added to house the fog signal in 1932, looking like something from an M.C.Escher painting. Both towers have turreted masonry.

Before we went to investigate the light's predecessor, it was time for a pint. The dusky wooden interior of the pub provided a mellow ambience for us and a solitary fellow drinker. Pubs like this have so much atmosphere that they seem cosy even when empty, yet other busier pubs, according to a friend of mine, have about “as much atmosphere as a municipal lavatory”. Sadly it is the more rustic kind of pub that seems to be under threat the most.

We returned across the pretty lawn to the car, accompanied by gentle birdsong, and backtracked to Blackgang Chine, where there is a theme park nestled between the cliffs. Our theme was merely to park the car and climb the steep, desolate footpath on the opposite side of the road.

My father’s heavy strained breaths were lost in the intensifying wind, and at last we reached the 1323 oratory which looked like an octagonal stone rocket with its pointed top, perched on one of Wight's highest points. The sides even look as though they are adorned with stone booster rockets! Bar the 46 A.D. ‘pharos’ in the grounds of Dover Castle, this is England's olderst standing lighthouse

It all came about when a ship from France crashed nearby and its cargo of monastic wine miraculously disappeared and ended up being sold to the islanders. The pope ordered that the culprits build a lighthouse to stop further ships crashing, as penance (and they were expecting a dozen Hail Mary's!). Consequently the tower has even been used as a chapel.

With the late afternoon sun still bright, we drove inland, passing farms until we reached the main road at Godshill.

Carrisbrooke is joined to Wight's capital, Newport, by unbroken housing. Yet somehow it still maintains the character of a busy tourist village. The pub we tried didn’t really fit this notion of quaintness though, with three shaven-headed thirty-somethings providing a continual flow of bawdy masculinity. This wasn’t quite what we were looking for!

And so we returned to Cowes and poured ourselves into a wooden seat to peruse the menu. In my best French accent I ordered the moules mariniere.

Stunned by the huge mound of black cracked shells I was presented with, I proceeded to extract the tasty mussels from within, while my father tried to ply me with additional food, stating that a plate of under-nourished whelks wouldn’t fill me up. After his breathless gasps I'd witnessed on that barren hillside earlier, I took this advice, like my meal, with a pinch of salt!

If you are enjoying these 'lighthouse tours' but fancy something a little more polished to read, 'England and Wales in a Flash' humorously documents our visits to every lighthouse around the mainland coast. It's sequel 'Bordering on Lunacy' covering Southern Scotland will be published shortly. Also available are 'Mud Sweat and Beers' (hiking/humour) and 'Seven Dreams of Reality' (dreamlike fiction). Track all 3 down on Amazon!

- 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

Sayings in English - As Tired as a Worn Out Cliché

As a writer I am always interested in the English language, so one night when I was unable to get to sleep, instead of counting sheep (I see enough sheep down here on Romney Marsh as it is), I started counting cliches. Many date back to things my grandmother said a lot when I was a child, but many are in common usage today. This is by no means an exhaustive list; just ones I have heard a lot down here in Kent. I hasten to add that being a polite kind of a chap, some of the less tasteful ones are not necessarily phrases I would use myself and that I would not approve of anybody using innocent cliches for hateful or divisive purposes.

As bald as a badger
As bent as nine-bob note
As black as pitch
As black as the ace of spades
As black as coal
As black as night
As blind as a bat
As bold as brass
As bright as a button
As bright as the day
As brown as a berry
As busy as a bee
As cheap as chips
as clean as a whistle
As clear as a bell
As clear as the day
As clumsy as a bull in a china shop
As common as muck
As cool as a cucumber
As cold as ice
As daft as a brush
As daft as a coot
As dead as a door-nail
As dead as a dodo
As deaf as a post
As drunk as a skunk
As drunk as a newt
As drunk as a fart
As dry as a bone
As dry as toast
As dull as ditch-water
As easy as pi
As fat as a pig
As fat as an ox
As fit as a fiddle
As flat as a pancake
As free as a bird
As fresh as the daisies
As good as gold
As happy as a sand-boy
As happy as Larry
As happy as a pig in s***
As hard as nails
As heavy as lead
As high as a kite
As honest as the day is long
As hungry as a horse
As keen as mustard
As light as a feather
As long as a wet weekend
As loud as thunder
As mad as a hatter
As mad as a March hare
As mad as a box of frogs
As meek as a lamb to the slaughter
As merry as the month of May
As miserable as sin
As much use as a chocolate teapot/fire-guard
As nice as pie
As nutty as a fruit-bat
As old as the hills
As pleased as punch
As poor as a church mouse
As pretty as a picture
As pure as the driven snow
As quick as a flash
As quiet as a mouse
As red as a beetroot
As rich as a king
As right as rain
As safe as houses
As sick as a dog
As sick as a parrot
As slippery as an eel
As sly as a fox
As smooth as an eel
As snug as a bug in a rug
As sober as a judge
As soft as silk
As soft as s***
As solid as a rock
As sound as a pound
As sour as a lemon
As straight as a die
As stubborn as a mule
As strong as an ox
As subtle as a brick
As sure as eggs
As sweet as a nut
As sweet as honey
As thick as thieves
As thick as a brick
As thin as a rake
As tight as duck's a***
As tough as old boots
As warm as toast
As wet as a dish-cloth
As white as a sheet
As white as snow
As wise as an owl

Thames Path & Ridgeway West - a Cycling Perambulation

This is a short resume of a cycling expedition that is featured in more detail in the 2016 book 'Stair-Rods and Stars' (ISBN: 978-1513605258) - available now on Amazon and by order from all good book shops.

From a place called 'Home' in deepest Kent, I caught the train to London Charing Cross and began a mission to follow the UK's second longest river for as long as I could on two wheels; a mission I imaginatively christened 'The Thames challenge'.

A flurry of bells struck midday as I cycled past the houses of parliament – an appropriate soundtrack to mark the beginning of an adventure.

It was when the Thames curved away southward beyond Vauxhall Bridge that I was in territory I had not visited before, and I crossed the river several times trying unsuccessfully to locate the cycle route.

After sheltering from the drizzle by means of eating a pasty at a table outside a convenience store, I crossed to the north bank again and soon found myself cowering beneath trees in a park in Fulham as the skies opened more ferociously. Here, I observed other similar humans standing motionless with bikes beneath various bushes. It felt like watching meerkats in a nature programme. The rains stopped and the humans burst back into motion.

I returned to the south bank using the rail and pedestrian conduit of Barnes Bridge.

Richmond impressed me greatly with its rural feel and the first truly rustic looking bridge over the Thames I had encountered. This seemed an appropriate place to stop for a cup of tea. Later came Kingston's 'doshed up' river front, and Walton where the trail gives up the ghost for a couple of miles as the River Wey feeds in. Having survived a burst of A-road at rush hour, and negotiated my way around an area cordoned off by police at Chertsey, the official route reutrned to traverse the north bank to Staines. The Thames had made a huge 'u' shape which just dipped into Surrey. It had a much different feel now, being lined with small boats and regularly splitting into strands to pass through locks – a far cry from the mighty torrent through central London.

After fish, chips and mushy peas in a modern pub with a loud and lively barman who doubted my sanity(!), I contemplated the hotels of Staines (£100+ per room) for around half a second. I also dismissed my 'Plan B' of camping beneath a secluded arch in the road-bridge on grounds that, whilst the town seemed quite pleasant, it is nevertheless the setting for TV's 'Ali G' character and may have been chosen as the location for the 'urban gangster' for a reason. Instead, I found a copse around a mile beyond the M25 bridge and set up camp there instead. Much safer.

Around here is the first glimpse of nearby hills along the river's course since the brief escarpment at Richmond, and there are some information boards which I had passed a couple of times but failed to read, presumably informing people of the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 at Runnymede. Power to the people.


I was attacked in the night. Not by boy racers from Staines or even by wild boar or common adder; instead I awoke with a swollen lip that felt as though I had just been anaesthetized for a rather large filling at the dentist's. Ignoring this I continued along the path and a section of B-road via the village of Datchet into Windsor (& Eton), eschewing the prospect of exploring the impressive castle in favour of a hearty breakfast in a cafe. Glancing in the mirror my lip looked somewhat crooked. However, today's plan was to press on to Maidenhead, Marlow and Henley, with the river now making a giant 'n' shape and the towpath adorned with annoyingly frequent signs all beginning with the word 'NO'. I ignored the ones banning cycling, on grounds that I wasn't harming anybody and that the Internet did state that the towpath could be cycled as far as Reading

Planes buzzed their way in and out of Heathrow airport above me as I rode through the playing fields that supposedly once sent the rich kids of Britain into an all-conquering nationalistic ego-trip. How little changes!

I relaxed with a bottle of life-giving Lucozade beside the A4 road-bridge at Maidenhead, and as I continued, the opposite bank was now a wooded escarpment, reminding me of scenes of the Rhine cutting through deep gorges. After another rail/pedestrian bridge, the next part of the ride was very pretty with views of the Chiltern Hills, and the path often just a worn line through tranquil meadows.

Marlow's main street was typical of any small English country town, with the exception of a small suspension bridge at one end. The plethora of 'best kept village awards' would indicate that its inhabitants don't think of it as a town though. Tiredness was beginning to encroach and the barman was impressed as I ordered a Guinness and casually slipped in that I had cycled from Central London.

After passing stands for the famous regatta, I relaxed with a pint of Henley Gold ale in the salubrious town of the same name. I ordered a smoked salmon sandwich, and as rain was threatening I decided to check out the room prices. This was when I nearly passed out. Single room: £300, double: £500, deluxe: £600!

And so to Reading.

At the junction with the Kennet and Avon canal, I took a left turn to disect the town, but one look at the room prices sent me scurrying for the railway station. A £21 train fare home or a room for £80 with rain threatening to stop play the next day anyway. You do the maths!


It was over a month later that I returned to the country town of Berkshire to continue my trail. Returning to that same junction of canal and river, an elderly gent who seemed a little worse for wear, asked me if it was possible to walk the entire length of the Kennet and Avon towpath. Feeling proud at the amount of knowledge I was able to impart in spite of living around 80 miles away, he then asked exactly the same series of questions to the lady behind me. I realised that this was merely a means for him to obtain conversation. It is a shame that we live in such an introverted society that venturing any form of conversation with other people is often viewed with suspicion, unless it consists of asking for directions, brief weather-related chat or complaining about public transport. So as a single bloke from deepest Kent, I humorously muse on how so many people manage to bridge the gap from 'Nice day isn't it?' and 'This train has been late three nights running' to wedding bells and everlasting bliss. Is there a sub-clause in British behaviour that allows a more in-depth exchange that I am not aware of?

The slow demise of the British pub is another sad reflection of this trend. With so many going to the wall due to draconian legislation and '5,000 cans of beer for 50p' deals in supermarkets, just where are people supposed to socialise and meet new people? Or indeed, encounter any form of human interaction? Whilst I found this old man a little scary I did empathise with him.

Anyway, I set off along the Thames towards Goring. On the way I came to Whitchurch and crossed the toll bridge (40p to motorists). I called into the tranquil little church surrounded by salubrious looking houses for a brief sit down, and a little further up the road I passed a small art gallery. I was particularly impressed with a dolls' house completely covered with Ordnance Survey maps all perfectly lined up where the walls meet floors, etc. There was also a series of slightly Van Gogh-esque paintings by a local lady.

The path then descended back to the Thames through a wood, and soon I had arrived at Goring, where I enjoyed a 'posh ploughmans' at a hotel, which came on a wooden service board. I then left the Thames to continue its wayward woute to Oxford and beyond in favour of the western half of the Ridgeway. This ancient route runs along the Chiltern Hills from near High Wycombe all the way to near Avebury in Wiltshire. The Ridgeway is even reputed to be the oldest road still in use in the world, with some sections possibly dating back 20,000 years. Today, only the western section is completely open to cyclists, and I had over 40 miles of it ahead of me. You may recall a group of motorcyclists checking out the route in the TV programme Ridge Riders around 15 years ago.

The views were fantastic and, unlike the South Downs Way (which is a little closer to home), once up the initial climb, the undulations were not too severe, at least to begin with.

I set up camp in a small copse several miles after passing below the A34 – the dual carriageway that Swampy and co. had tried to prevent from being constructed by camping out in trees. Determined to keep my own camping at ground level, I tied up my two pieces of tarpaulin and laid out my sleeping bag beneath it. I concluded the evening with a wander up to the Wantage Memorial cross, by which time dusk was falling and I was nearly ready to blow some zeds.


I awoke to the sound of rain and a cacophany of wood pigeons all making the same 5-note pattern in different tones.

Having bought an avocado for breakfast, I realised that I had no utensils with which to eat it. I cut the fruit open with a pair of hairdressing scissors and scooped it out using a debit card. Bliss!

And then the rain turned to mist and I was on my way, with the industrial chimneys of Didcot visible in the valley below.

I serendipitously passed the highest point in Oxfordshire – White Horse Hill, and beyond this I stopped to view the 5,500 year old Wayland's Smithy burial chamber. A couple were eating lunch on top of this. After a brief exchange about the weather, I got them to take a photo of me by one of the large stones at the entrance. To get this into context, this 'barrow' pre-dates many of the famed sites in ancient Rome and ancient Greece by several millennia.

As the drizzle began again, I dropped down off the hill for lunch into the thatched-cottage village of Ashbury. After two cups of tea and a salmon sandwich, I sampled the local ale (Arkell's of Swindon) and the rain duly stopped.

It was a few miles beyond this that the Ridgeway became a lot more undulous, dropping off the hills to use a wide lane to bridge the mighty M4, before climbing steeply again as a trackway. And the rain was coming down!

In the next valley was another village – Ogbourne St George. I dived into a hotel for a coffee and lamented the fact that there was no village shop there where I could get some provisions to last me out until the restaurant and pub opened. Yet, another good reason to 'support the locals' if you live in a rural community.

It was then a steady climb to Barbury Castle – an Iron Age hill-fort. I had passed a number of these en route but this was easily the most impressive – a circular mound with a ditch around it and a raised bank encircling this. The views were again superb.

Another 5 miles later I had reached my destination of Avebury. I surrendered my 'green' avoidance of excessive meat consumption in favour of a juicy steak, and a friend drove out from Swindon to meet me for an evening drink. Now, Avebury is surrounded by a stone circle which is actually several hundred years older than Stonehenge. The pair of us were treated to some in-depth info about rituals, ley lines and the astrological significance of stone circles from a local Druid. Not the brief exchange about the weather I had expected!

Going back to the 'wonder of being single' I congratulated my friend on the recent addition to his family and we both mused on how life takes its course. In my own case, I tend to bring to mind John Lennon's lyric 'Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans' with increasing regularity as life progresses! The media onslaught of love songs, couples-only events, lack of single characters on TV and films (apart from a few oddballs!), expensive hotel rooms, supplements to go on holiday, more love songs, Valentine's Day marketing, family-orienated Christmas marketing, even more love songs, etc. do seem to give an unconscious message that it is pretty much a 'one size fits all' society to anybody who hasn't met the right person by their 30s. Well, I have added 'singles awareness' to my ever-growing list of 'enlightenment' campaigns!

Er, where was I? Oh yes, it was time to leave the only pub I have ever seen with its own 'pay and display' car park and cycle back to a copse I had spotted earlier to set up camp for the second night, although the wind and darkness made this something of a challenge.


The final day got off to an early start (loud adenoidal wood pigeon), and by the time I had descended back into the valley it was raining hard with lashing wind. I headed for the solace of a bus shelter and waited for this to pass. The next dry spell got me as far as Avebury church before the skies opened again. I was pleased to spot a shop, still surviving due to being run as a local community project, and I purchased a pasty and other comestibles to munch upon as I wandered the stone circle anti-clockwise.

Next up was a look at the highest prehistoric man-made mound in the Europe – another Neolithic creation, known as Silsbury Hill. Observing the haze of rain hanging over the hills to the south, I supped a pint of Devizes brewery's Wadsworth ale in a nearby inn while I evaluated the weather.

The plan of cycling 30+ miles to Salisbury was now abandoned in favour of the lesser feat of riding 12 miles to Swindon for the train home. And so, it was back up the now-familiar A4361 which is actually a section of the lengthy A361 cunningly renumbered to deter long-distance traffic.

The sustained climb was rewarded by a panoramic descent, where I succeeded in breaking the 30mph speed limit on a bike. Whilst my brief journey through Swindon didn't make a lasting impact upon me, it does have an impressive industrial heritage with the Great Western Railway, the Honda car factory and the world's most complicated roundabout. It is also the setting for an interesting novel my friend once leant me about a teenager with Asperger's Syndrome, but I am digressing wildly now!

And so, with a combined tally of almost 200 miles, the two-stage Thames and Ridgeway bike ride came to an end.