Sayings in English - The Proverbial

Following a conversation with a friend in a local pub about sayings our grandparents used to use, I decided to compile a comprehensive list of all the ones I remember. Some are still in use, whilst others may be quite nostalgic for people who, like me, have grown up hearing them. Many of these are old beliefs about the weather (the English obsession), some are merely phrases used in various situations and others are pearls of wisdom lifted from such sources as the bible and Shakespeare. I have kept the wordings exactly as I used to hear them from my relatives however. A few of these old sayings have even found themselves enshrined in popular songs; others are just Kentish folklore from a bygone era. I have also added a few notes in square brackets where I felt a need.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
A cat can look at a king (so surely I can look at you?)
A cat has nine lives
A change is as good as a rest
A chip of the old block
A daughter's a daughter all her life, a son's a son till he gets a wife
A dead man tells no tales
A dripping June sets all in tune
A fool and his money are soon parted
A friend in need is a friend indeed
A good workman never blames his tools
A hot summer means a cold winter [and vice versa]
A hungry man is an angry man

A leopard doesn't change its spots
A rolling stone gathers no moss
A rose between two thorns
A rotten apple spoils the barrel
A stitch in time saves nine
A storm in a teacup
A taste of your own medicine [also known as 'just desserts']
A trouble shared is a trouble halved
A watch-pot never boils
A wise man keeps his own counsel
A wolf in sheep's clothing
A woman's work is never done
A worm will turn
Absence makes the heart grow stronger
Action speaks louder than words
Adding insult to injury
After dinner rest a while, after supper run a mile
All is fair in love and war
All mouth and no trousers
All roads lead to Rome
All tarred with the same brush
All that glitters is not gold
All water under the bridge [in the past]
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
All's well that ends well
Always look after number one
An apple a day keeps the doctor away
An Englishman's home is his castle
Another nail in the coffin
As the days lengthen, so the cold strengthens
As you make your bed, so you must lie on it
As you sow, so must you reap
Be a brick, my father said, never heed a laugh
Be sure your sins will find you out
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
Beauty is only skin-deep
Beggars can't be choosers
Better late than never
Better safe than sorry
Better the devil you know than the devil you don't
Between one and two you know what the weather will do
Blessed is he who expects nothing
Birds of a feather flock together
Blood is thicker than water
Blowing your own trumpet
Brevity is the soul of wit
Butter wouldn't melt in your mouth
Cat got your tongue? [said to a reticent person]

Caught between a rock and a hard place / the devil and the deep blue sea
Charity begins at home
Cleanliness is next to godliness
Cool, calm and collected
Corn in Egypt! [exclamation of surprise]
Creaking doors last the longest
Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye [said when telling the truth]
Curiosity killed the cat
Cut from the same cloth
Cutting your nose off to spite your face
Dicing with death
Digging your own grave
Discretion is the better part of valour
Don't bite the hands that feeds you
'Don't care' didn't care, 'don't care' was hung, 'don't care' was put in a pot and boiled till he was done
Don't cross your bridges before you get to them
Don't beat about the bush
Don't bite off more than you can chew
Don't bite the hand that feeds you
Don't count your chickens before they're hatched
Don't get your knickers in a twist
Don't kill the goose that laid the golden egg
Don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing

Don't put all your eggs in one basket
Don't put the cart before the horse
Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise
Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die
Elephants never forget
Empty vessels make the most noise
Every cloud has a silver lining
Every dog has his day
Every time you bar you lose a bite
Evil be to he who evil speaks
Faint heart never won fair lady
Familiarity breeds contempt
Feed a cold and starve a fever
Fight fire with fire
Finders keepers, losers weepers
Fine feathers make fine birds
Fire is a good servant but a poor master
Following in father's footsteps
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread
Give them an inch and they take a mile
Gift, friend, foe, true lover, journey to go [superstition about the meanings of white marks on nails from thumb to little finger]
Give them enough rope and they'll hang themselves
God made the country and man made the town
Going round the sun to meet the moon

Gone to the dogs [same as 'gone downhill']
Good riddance to bad rubbish
Grab the bull by the horns
Great minds think alike
Great oaks from little acorns grow
Green with envy
Grinning like a Cheshire cat
Grow old gracefully
Hair of the dog that bit you [an alcoholic drink to cure a hangover]
Half a loaf is better than none
Have you swallowed the dictionary?
He/she could sell snow to the Eskimos
He/she could talk the hind-legs off a donkey
He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day
He who laughs last laughs the longest
He who pays the piper calls the tune
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned
Honesty is the best policy
Hope springs eternal
Horses for courses [to each his own]
Hunting with the hounds and running with the foxes
I feel like a fish out of water

I feel like the wreck of the Hesperus
If a job's worth doing, its worth doing properly
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again
If it ain't broke don't fix it
If the cap fits wear it
If you can't stand the heat stay out of the kitchen
If you pay peanuts you get monkeys
If you want to live and thrive, let a spider run alive
I'll have your guts for garters!
I'm not as green as I am cabbage-looking
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery
In for a penny, in for a pound
Instant heat and instant cold [a reference to electric fires in the coal-fire era]
It never rains unless it pours
It takes all sorts to make a world
It's always calmest before the storm
It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good
It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all
It's easy to be wise after the event

It's enough to make a saint swear
It's enough to make your blood boil
It's no use crying over spilt milk
It's no use closing the stable door after the horse has bolted
It's not worth the paper it's written on
It's the last straw that broke the camel's back
Its bark is worse than its bite
Jack of all trades, master of none
Just what the doctor ordered
Keeping up with the Joneses
Killing two birds with one stone [solving two problems at once]
Know which side your bread is buttered on
Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone
Laughter is the best medicine
Least said, soonest mended
Let sleeping dogs lie
Life is not a bowl of cherries / bed of roses
Like father, like son
Link fingers and make a wish [when two people say the same thing]
Little children should be seen and not heard [old fashioned parenting]
Live and let live
Look after the pennies and the pounds look after themselves
Look before you leap
Looking at the world through rose-tinted glasses
Looking for a needle in a haystack
Love / money makes the world go round
Love many, trust few, always paddle your own canoe
Mackerel sky; not long wet, not long dry
Make hay while the sun shines
Making a rod for your own back
Making mountains out of molehills
Manners maketh man
Many a true word said in jest
Many hands make light work
March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb [or vice versa]
March winds and April showers bring forth May flowers
Marry in haste, repent at leisure
Mind your Ps and Qs ['pleases' and 'thank yous']
Miser, miser, counting gold, what you gonna do when you get old?
Money is the root of all evil
More haste, less speed
Mutton dressed as lamb
Necessity is the mother of invention
Never buy a pig in a poke
Never cast a clout till May be out
Never in a month of Sundays
Never judge a book by its cover
Never look a gift horse in the mouth
New brooms sweep cleanest
No man is an island
No news is good news
No peace for the wicked
No sense, no feeling
North wind doth blow and we shall have snow
Once bitten, twice shy
Once in a blue moon [not very often]
One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told [counting magpies]
One good turn deserves another
One man's meat is another man's poison
One swallow doesn't make a summer
Opening up a can of worms / hornet's nest
Out of sight, out of mind
Out of the frying pan, into the fire [from bad to worse]
Patience has its own reward
Patience is a virtue, possess it if you can, seldom seen in women, never seen in man
Penny for your thoughts?
Penny wise, pound foolish
People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones
Plenty more fish in the sea
Politeness costs nothing
Pot calling kettle black [nothing about race I hasten to add]
Practice makes perfect
Practice what you preach
Pride goes before a fall
Procrastination is the thief of time
Promises, like pie-crust, break easily
Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
Put your money where your mouth is
Rain before seven clears up at eleven
Red sky at night, shepherd's delight; red sky at morning, shepherd's warning
Revenge is a dish best served cold
Rob Peter to pay Paul
Rome wasn't built in a day
Rubbing salt into the wound
Running around like a headless chicken
Rushing around like a blue-a***d fly
Rushing around like a bull in a china shop
Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit
Schooldays are the best days of your life
See a penny, pick it up, and all the day you'll have good luck
Seeing is believing
See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil [known as the three wise monkeys]
Self praise is no recommendation
Set a thief to catch a thief
Shooting yourself in the foot
Six of one and half a dozen of the other
Sometimes you've got to be cruel to be kind
Spare the rod and spoil the child [old fashioned parenting again]
Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me
Sticking out like a sore thumb
Still waters run deep
Strike while the iron is hot
Talk of the devil and he's sure to appear
That gets my goat!
That's just the tip of the iceberg
The best presents come in small parcels
The best things in life are free

The best thing since sliced bread
The bigger they come, the harder they fall
The darkest hour is before the dawn
The devil makes work for idle hands
The early bird catches the worm
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence
The lesser of two evils
The path to true love never runs smooth
The pen is mightier than the sword
The proof of the pudding is in the eating

The right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing
The road to hell is paved with good intentions
There's many a slip betwixt cup and lip
There's method in the madness
There's more than one way to skin a cat
There's no smoke without a fire
There's none so blind as those who can't see
They couldn't run a p*** up in a brewery
Throw your rubbish where you throw your love
Till the cows come home [a long time]
Time and tide wait for no man
Tomorrow never
Too many cooks spoil the broth
Too many chiefs and not enough Indians
Touch wood [to prevent misfortune]
Turn over a new leaf
Two faces under one hat
Two wrongs don't make a right
United we stand, divided we fall
Unlucky at cards, lucky in love
Using a sledgehammer to crack a nut
Variety is the spice of life
Walls have ears and windows have eyes
Waste not want not
Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink
We'll climb that hill when we get to it

What a name to go to bed with!
What a sight for sore eyes!
What are you, a man or a mouse? [said to a coward]
What did your last servant die of?
What the eye don't see the heart don't grieve
What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander
When one door closes another door opens
When the wind is in the west, it is at its very best; when the wind is in the east, 'tis neither fit for man nor beast
When in Rome do as the Romans do
Where there's a will there's a way
Where there's muck there's brass
Why put off until tomorrow what you can do today?
You can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink
You can't burn the candle both ends
You can't get blood from a stone
You can't have your cake and eat it too
You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear
You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs
You can't put an old head on young shoulders
You can't see the wood for the trees
You can't teach an old dog new tricks
You can't teach Granny to suck eggs
You look like a drowned rat [wet]
You look like the cat that got the cream
You look like you've been dragged through a hedge backwards

You wouldn't say boo to a goose [timid]
You're barking up the wrong tree
You've swallowed the dictionary [said to somebody using long words]
Your eyes are bigger than your belly

The South Coast Trunk Road (Part II)

[Last updated January 2020]

Last time I left you stranded near Pevensey in East Sussex. This month we complete the South Coast Trunk Road narrative (purloined from a withdrawn web page of mine) with a large portion of A259.

Nicknamed as the ‘world’s worst trunk road’ by some, this road is of a reasonable standard to begin with, being a long, tree-lined straight (actually some of the gentlest curves imaginable). It then bears smoothly right and climbs, suddenly winding back and forth at the top, before slowing right down to enter unbanity (or ur-banality) for the next ten miles, beginning with Little Common. There is a 30 limit for much of this section.

Bexhill (apparently the home of British motor racing) presents us with one roundabout and a box junction where the A2690 uses a former railway trackbed to bypass the suburbs to reach the A21. Personally I think it would be better utilised by number it as an extension to the A28 as a signed route to Ashford, avoiding the urbanity that is follow on the A259.

So, back to the A259, there is a brief rat-race climb, where the road briefly flirts with dual carriageway around the back of the town centre, quirklily named King Offa Way. Then it plunges back into urbanity with a long, slow straight all the way to the out-of-town entertainment complex that marks the border with Hastings.

After Bulverhythe, the road passes under the railway bridge and finds its way to the sea, running along the promenade of St Leonards, all the way to Hastings, where the greensand escarpment above the old town is ever prominent, crowned with its castle. Apart from Dymchurch and Sandgate on the now-detrunked part of the A259 (Kent), this is the only point that the South Coast route truly hugs the coast.

At the centre of the ‘birthplace of television’, you will pass the pier and fun fair to your right. This epithet is due to John Logie Baird once residing in the town. I have heard that notable births in Hastings include Suggs (of the band Madness) and funny person, Jo Brand.

Beyond a completely pointless roundabout, you will pass the old, black, wooden fishing sheds. The A259 then dives inland for a sustained climb of almost a mile through the suburban housing, to Ore. Trumped ambitiously as ‘Ore Village’, the road forms the main shop-lined street here, and a short climb later, it presents the motorist with breath-taking views before its steep descent.

There used to a crawler lane all the way up the hill for traffic coming the opposite way. This has been shortened in recent years – maybe an attempt at traffic calming!

Beyond Guestling, the road narrows, then winds, then narrows some more, and regains its confidence for a mile or so before Icklesham, which has a windmill. The road regains momentum again beyond this pleasant village, with an impressive descent followed by the resulting climb to Winchelsea – Britain’s oldest ‘new town’, laid out in a grid pattern in the 13th century – well worth a visit and often quoted as ‘England’s smallest town’. Spike Milligan is buried in the churchyard, with 'I told you I was ill' in Gaelic etched on his stone (the same phrase in Engish being deemed too irreverent!).

The A259 has no such interest, and passing one of the three stone archways, it drops steeply down the wooded hillside with a sudden hairpin-bend at the bottom. After a bumpy ‘risk of grounding’ undulation, it uses straight lines along the banks of the Royal Military Canal to plot its narrow route across the marshes to Rye, a larger town which successfully contorts the A259 by 180 degrees to cross the River Tillingham, before hiding it away between the southern undercliff and its Victorian terraces. The Rye town model in the tourist office is a fascinating glimpse of the town's history.

After another mini-roundabout and a narrow bridge over the River Rother, the road streaks purposefully in a dead-straight line out onto the vast expanses of Romney Marsh – totally flat, pastoral, grazing land which remains so for the next 13 miles of our route. This speedy beginning is deceptive - at East Guldeford there's a chicane between two level crossings, and two right-angle bends follow, first right and then left, where we cross the border into Kent.

The Cheyne Court wind-farm is ever present here. After two more right-angle bends, the A259 remembers that it is a trunk road, widening and straightening out, through-passing Brookland with a 50 limit and roundabout. It used to run through the pretty High Street, sadly now devoid of basic amenities, however Brookland's church is worth a visit as its steeple is on the ground! You will barely notice the level crossing as you speed towards Brenzett – the transport hub of the marsh.

The next section is a real ‘rags to riches’ story. From the 2070’s humble beginnings as a B road from New Romney to Ashford, it has now usurped the Brenzett to Folkestone section of the A259, which has been detrunked, due to being a predominantly urban crawl through a series of coastal towns and villages.

The new route is a top-grade single carriageway to Ashford. The road has even been recommended for speed trails by motorcycle magazines – not advised! The terrain is completely flat, passing the hamlet of Snave towards the gently curving section that climbs the clay hills around Hamstreet – worth a detour for its typically Kentish weather-board buildings, and once featured on a set of UK postage stamps. We cross the Royal Military Canal again as we climb onto the ridge of clay hills. The canal was built as a barrier against a feared attack from Napoleon and is the UK's third longest defensive structure.

Beyond this village, the road is almost motorway-like, although still a single carriageway, with five bridges and only one further junction. It climbs through forest which was once part of the great forest of Anderida which covered the whole of the Weald. The picture at the top of the page is of this section. Our road then follows the railway line dead-straight across flat farmland until the roundabout serving the sprawling southern estates of Ashford.

A mile later, the A2070 reaches another roundabout and enters a brief 50 limit, to spiral up sharply onto the dual carriageway Southern Orbital road. This is now the land of business parks, and it is due to become much more urbanised as time goes on, with the proposed expansion of Ashford. Within two miles, you will cross another two roundabouts, taking the dual carriageway to junction 10A on the M20 which opened in 2019 which is where our trunk route ends, as the M20 steals its thunder towards Folkestone and Dover. It's been emotional!

The South Coast route as described is no longer used as a general east-west route, with most patrons opting for the M20, M26, M25 and a suitable conduit southward (M23/A3/M3/A303). Although efforts have been made to improve some parts of this road (Brighton bypass/Polegate bypass/Hamstreet bypass), it is hoped by many locals that no full-scale upgrade of the entire route occurs. In the interest of the countryside that remains along this varied route, they may just have a point.

The South Coast Trunk Road (Part I)

This latest blog is extracted from a web-page I used to run for road enthusiasts (yes, there really is such a thing!). It concerns a 222-mile-long blast from the past - The South Coast Trunk Road, although it it predominantly the eastern half that I am looking at here. I removed the page as I no longer travel the route often enough to keep the narrative updated, so here, preserved in aspic is the route as it was in 2011.

Apart from the odd section that has been dragged kicking and screaming into the modern age (such as the Brighton bypass), it is a remnant of the era of long distance travel without motorways. Formerly known as the Folkestone to Honiton trunk route, it has since commandeered the A2070 to Ashford instead, although the road signs from Hastings to the Kent village of Brenzett still give Folkestone as the end destination.

The route begins as the A35, climbing steeply out of the valley as it leaves the town of Honiton and conveys us to Bere Regis, via the attractive thatch-cottage village of Wilmington and three bypasses, namely Axminster, Bridport and Dorchester. This section is mostly single carriageway. The landward side of Golden Top, the highest cliff on the south coast, can be glimpsed before Bridport.

At Bere Regis the A31 takes over and continues to Cadnam, becoming a dual carriageway around Ferndown and Ringwood, where holiday traffic from Bournemouth joins us for a fern-lined sprint across the New Forest.

Before long the mighty M27 subsumes the role, and our route is now the proud owner of six lanes and a hard-shoulder. The most striking moment during this motorway section (apart from the prices in the service station) is passing a yacht-filled marina between Southampton and Portsmouth.

Some miles later, after bypassing Fareham, Portsmouth harbour is visible on the right-hand-side, as the motorway descends past terraces of houses stacked up along the hillside. This is where our 'narrative proper' begins - the M275 feeds in, expanding the road, now relegated to A-road status, to eight lanes, until the departure of the A3(M) for London. The water to the right is Langstone Harbour.

Beyond Havant, the terrain is mainly flat and the A27 gently curves as it bypasses the villages of Emsworth, Southbourne, Nutbourne, Walton, Fishbourne and Bosham, which many a schoolboy will know a naughty limerick about. Signs appear every mile counting down the distance to Chichester, the country town of West Sussex.

It is often argued that it is quicker to go through the centre of this cathedral city than to use the bypass, as our route makes quite a meal of going round it, with a succession of roundabouts – the cause of many a queue. It is with a sense of relief that one finally leaves the city’s orbit and streaks towards Worthing. There are three roundabouts punctuating this next section; two at Fontwell bookending a short allegiance with the A29 – a route which is largely comprised of the old Roman road, Stane Street.

Just before Arundel, our road becomes a single carriageway and winds through trees, before a gentle descent. The historic town and its castle are well worth a detour left. Our road then crosses the flood plain of the River Arun, bypassing the town between roundabouts. It then climbs gently, after passing the railway station. The junction beyond this is interesting; one feels as though one is descending onto a motorway via a slip-road. This is where the dualling of the A27 from the east came to an abrupt halt.

The road is now fast again, with some moderate inclines and descents, but soon it’s back to single carriageway for a trawl through the northern suburbs of Worthing – Sompting to be precise. There are two roundabouts bookending another short multiplex, this time with the A24.

Briefly leaving the 40 limit, the road has another quick stab at dual carriageway before it’s time to hit the brakes again for Lancing and several box-junctions with traffic lights.

Once open countryside is reached, the road duals again and strides over the River Adur. These concrete bridges have even been painted by an artist and featured on the Southeast news. We climb steeply onto the South Downs to bypass Shoreham-by-Sea, Hove and Brighton via a series of scenic ups and downs. There’s a glimpse of Shoreham before the climb into a short tunnel under the hills. The road resembles an expedient roller coaster ride, until it is rejoined by its former self at Falmer, the site of the University of Sussex and Brighton and Hove Albion's football ground. We then descend into a valley, with trees in between the two carriageways hiding vehicles coming the opposite way.

The next town is Lewes – the historic county town of East Sussex - well worth a quick detour and famed for its annual bonfire-night pageant where effigies of famous figures are burnt, as well as its own currency – the Lewes pound – designed to keep trade within the town.

The dual carriageway road strides across another flood plain (River Ouse) between the two roundabout. An interesting fact is that when the river flooded the town's Harveys brewery, the beer was trapped and fermented for much longer than usual. This extra strong ale was then bottled and sold as Ouse booze!

The A26, joins us from a tunnel beneath the chalk escarpment, and after a short climb and descent (with crawler lane for traffic heading westward) bridging the railway line at the site of the former level crossing, it decides to leave us for Newhaven at Beddingham roundabout.

Beyond this, the trunk route singles again, and this time it is more or less for good. There is a series of long straights across fairly level land, with the stunning South Downs ever to the right (look out for the 'Wilmington man' chalk carving further along).

Just up a lane to the left is the attractive village of Glynde, which has a lot of stone cottages, and Glyndebourne which is famous for its opera. The A27 is muzzled to pass through the village of Selmeston, and it has to halt its flow again after descending to a roundabout near Berwick.

Soon we arrive at Polegate, where our road bears left at the lights and then right at a large roundabout to briefly join the dual carriageway A22 bypass for a mile or so. Our route soon departs this mighty modern conduit which is the main route into Eastbourne - currently England's official sunniest town and the birthplace of TV weatherman Michael Fish – are the two connected?

Unperturbed, the A27 continues in wide, straight, single carriageway style, to meet its demise at Pevensey – a pleasant village with a castle. William the Conqueror’s famed landing-place is nearby. All the South Coast trunker will see though, is a large roundabout where the A259 takes hold of the baton and presses on to Bexhill.

And that's where you will leave us for the moment. The stunning conclusion (Part II) is among the blogs on the right hand side of your screen - go check it out!

The Recession Part II - St Paul's Cathedral Protest

You may not want to read my blogs any more as according to the Daily Mail I am apparently now a member of a 'pot-smoking rabble'!

This is the term used by the paper to denigrate those who protested at St Paul's cathedral against the crazy system that I described last month, conveniently labelling the wide spectrum of views as 'anti-capitalist'. I would use less emotive terms such as 'anti-greed', 'anti-poverty', 'anti-corruption', etc. myself.

I was impressed by those members of St Paul's clergy who supported the protest, and disappointed in equal measure by those who didn't. After all, the Christian faith is supposed to be against amassing riches while others suffer (nb: FSTE directors give themselves a 49% rise while it's more cuts for the rest of us!).

So, as the only people currently respresenting my view are the protesters, I turned up at the Bank of England with a friend of mine to add our support. We soon discovered that the protest had already been moved on, presumably as St Paul's cathedral was a less sacred place to have a protest than the financial district!

Upon arriving at Sir Christopher Wren's most famous building (I visited the Westcountry village of East Knoyle, where he lived, during one of my cycling trips earlier this year), we found the protest to be hemmed in by a ring of officers. They said that there had been violence and that we may not get out again. The 'violence' turned out to be one minor skirmish. In the same way that football hooligans have nothing to do with football, I imagine a similar thing was true here.

Once inside the ring, all I observed was a crowd of clued-up, generally quite intelligent people peacefully waving their banners. There was not a fight or a 'jazz cigarette' in sight. We stayed for around five hours and then left without any aggravation whatsoever.

I was only present for the first day of the protest, but I admire those who gave of their time to stay at the site (cue comments about people not having jobs, but then just who is it that is cutting the jobs?).

So, did the papers take any interest in what anybody there had to say? Er... no! The Express was busy having a rant against the French (xenophobic headline guaranteed every day or your money back!) and the rest were trying to denigrate the protest any way they could, most notably by stating that a thermal image revealed all but one tent to be empty. I later heard that this kind of imaging isn't reliable anyway, and panellists on 'Have I Got News For You' even joked that poking the tents with a large stick would have been more decisive. My friend actually went back for several more visits to find the protesters to be anything but 'skulking indoors'.

Now, has anybody been watching TV illusionist, Derren Brown's latest series?
In one episode he demonstrated how a crowd of ordinary people can be whipped up into a crazed frenzy against an individual (or 'individuals'). Whilst being very uncomfortable viewing, it proved a salient point. Many people shape their opinions from the media/papers, but when reading the headlines I often think that they are trying to stir us into this kind of thinking every day, misdirecting our thoughts away from the real cause of the recession and associated problems and onto other targets of their choosing.

With the emergence of results of a recent survey showing that British people now blame the poor rather than the disgusting behaviour of bankers (watch the documentary 'Inside Job', recently shown on BBC TV, if in any doubt), it seems that these papers are achieving their goals.

We often pride ourselves on being democratic in The West, yet how could anybody say that what it happening in Greece is democratic? The country is now being controlled by more powerful nations and ultimately banks. Quite where the wishes of the people come into things, I have no idea. As ever, money is power, and votes seem to change very little.

We all know how a game of monopoly always ends, so crazy as it may seem, it might even be possible to statistically calculate a date by which point one corporation and ultimately one person will own the whole world. That's unless we can put the brakes on the way things are going. All the while we continue to go down this road, politicians randomly clutch at straws as to how to get out of this mess, never once questioning the very system itself that makes recessions inevitable.

Well, while several people I know struggle to keep their houses and many more complain about not being able to afford basic provisions, I for one am glad to have at least done something, however futile, to challenge things.

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