Category Archives: railways

A London walk – from Westminster to St Pancras

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Let us start from Queen Anne’s Gate in the heart of Westminster. Go through one of two entrances onto Birdcage Walk, cross the road into St Jame’s Park, and then take a route diagonally through the park. Keep the lake on your left, and skirt round the tourists of every tribe and nation – it is nearly always very busy here. As you come round the head of the lake, cross over the road and take a diagonal path across the miniature gravel plain that is Horse Guards Parade.  Whenever I cross here, I am reminded of an old picture of Winston Churchill as a young politician crossing Horse Guards in company with Sir Edward Grey, on the eve of the Great War. The building on the left as you cross, the one with the aerials and wires on top, is the Old Admiralty Building. It resembles – as well it might – Britannia Royal Naval College at Dartmouth.

Go through the arches onto Whitehall, turning left towards Trafalgar Square. This the place where the two mounted sentries are often photographed by tourists. As you come onto Whitehall, you can see Nelson’s Column in the distance. Going up Whitehall away from Westminster, on the right there is a pub called “The Clarence” which I highly recommend. My wife and a friend of hers went in here some years back, on a trip to see the Queen, and they had no food left except for some Scotch Eggs, but this they served most graciously and cheerfully. She was impressed with the service. I’ve quite literally gone out of my way to eat there ever since – eaten there with my wife at least twice, with colleagues from work, and on my own. They have some great upstairs rooms which aren’t always as busy as the main room downstairs. 

Cross Trafalgar Square – generally best done by going to the right, from Whitehall, crossing the entrance to the Strand. Science-fiction author Stephen Baxter wrote a novel about the flooding of London, and his tip, if central London is flooding, is get above the Strand. The clue, as he notes in his book “Flood”, is in the name…

Keeping St Martins-in-the-Fields on your right, the National Gallery will be on your left. At this point, Charing Cross Road dog-legs to the left; if you wish you can follow it to Cambridge Circus, and then turn right along Shaftesbury Street. But the more direct route is to turn slightly to the right and then straight on, along St Martins Lane though Covent Garden. It’s a very relaxing walk along a reasonably quiet road traffic-wise, passing different pubs and restaurants. What you will see, is two unusual and complex road junctions. Inner city five-road junctions are fairly common in the UK. But six-way junctions in the inner city – three crossing roads – not so much. And seven roads, as at “Seven Dials” – very much rarer still. One comes out on Shaftesbury Avenue just near the Forbidden Planet store. Along here is a little café called “Franx” which I like to stop at sometimes.

Continue along a pedestrianised section of Shaftesbury Avenue a hundred yards or so and you find yourself on New Oxford Street – the A40 in fact. Take a right along here, and then a slight left onto Bloomsbury Way, with the main flow of traffic, leaving New Oxford Street behind. At this point the streets are broadly NW/SE and NE/SW. The British Museum is about two blocks away on the left. Continuing along Bloomsbury Way, you will see on the right the Swedenborg Institute”, a modest building devoted to the writings of the philosopher Emmanuel Swedenborg. Further along, on the left, a park – Bloomsbury Gardens. On the right, at the junction with Southampton Row, you’ll see Sicilian Avenue, a delightful pedestrianised interlude of Italianate cafes and shops, under repair in these times, but well worth a visit if you’re in the area.

One thing you will notice on a long walk across London, is the changing architectural styles and the changing atmosphere. Once in Southampton Row, you’re no longer in West London. Really, even though we’ve still to cross the Euston Road, we’re in North London. Here there are shops and restaurants, little dentists and minor medical institutes, and as we approach the station district, a number of slab-sided hotels of differing age and architectural merit. Passing Russell Square on your left (and the tube station on a minor side-street on the right), Southampton Row becomes Woburn Place and then, Tavistock Square. In this quarter, we start to see various hospitals and big, important institutes. You will pass, for example, the headquarters of the British Medical Association. The road continues, and intersects with Euston Road adjacent to the St Pancras New Church, a Regency-style church which I still have not visited. At this point, the depressing 1960’s heap that is Euston station, is on your left across the very busy Euston Road. It’s not widely understood that Euston, St Pancras and Kings Cross are all within half a mile of each other.

But we will take a step backward here. If you turn right off Southampton Row near Russell Square, you can find Coram Fields, a rather lovely inner-city park. This is a university quarter too – the streets are full of students from all over the world. Some of them go for lunch, at a branch of King of Falafel on Tavistock Place, where it crosses Hunter Street and Judd Street. I found this quite by chance one day when wandering through this great city. Here is another great place to just sit at a café at a road junction and watch the world go by, some on foot, some, on their bikes. I was sat here once when the bin men arrived, and I watched the proprietor put together a bag of samosas for the bin men, and give it to them with a smile. Heart-warming: another place I will literally go out of my way to visit.

Let’s go back to Euston Road. Euston Road is part of a great E-W arteries across the centre of London, stretching from Shoreditch in the east, curving north-west to the Angel, Islington (which we will cover later in another London Walk), west to Kings Cross, then south-west to Regents Park, Marylebone and Paddington before it becomes the Westway. It is always a busy road, an artery pulsing with the blood of the city, the hustle and bustle of people hurrying from one place to another. Crossing the road with care, you can then see the British Library – that building that King Charles once called a “monstrous carbuncle”. Personally I don’t agree. The Barbican, or perhaps Euston station – now they are “monstrous carbuncles”.

Next door is the still-magnificent St Pancras Hotel, now beautifully restored and consequently too expensive for most of us to stay at. Outside, on the station forecourt, you will see a purple sports car easily worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. I wonder that the hotel keep it here purely as a tourist attraction. I’ve no idea what sort it is. People take photographs of it, but I take Shania Twain’s view – “OK – so you’ve got a car.”

Carry on up the slope to the far entrance to the station. Going in this entrance rather than coming into the undercroft where all the shops are, you can catch the full glory of St Pancras, to my mind one of the most dramatic and startling railway stations in Europe. When it was built, it was the biggest single arch iron-spanned roof in the world. It is still eye-catching, painted today in a pleasant sky blue. As someone who remembers St Pancras in the dark days of the 1990’s, the Eurostar terminal it is a vast improvement on what it was. In front of you, there will be three or four Eurostar trains. On the right, the Betjeman Arms: maybe time for a refreshing pint after our walk.

From Dalwhinnie to Corrour over Ben Alder and Aonach Beag

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At 5pm, to the station at Cromford. I took train through to Derby through the sunny late afternoon. At Derby I adjusted the straps of my new rucksack to what I hoped would be a satisfactory arrangement. I bought a bottle of London Pride from a shop across the road from the station. Through to London in first class, a most pleasant experience for which I paid about £30. I could have picked up the sleeper at Crewe: I have done this before. But then it would have been necessary to wait on Crewe station for nearly two hours til almost midnight. Even on a warm summer evening, that’s not a sensible way to spend time.  I walked the few hundred yards through to Euston station, walking behind the British Library, before joining the Caledonian sleeper a little after 8.30p.m. I ordered a full breakfast for £10- life is too short!  

I slept fitfully, as I generally do on the sleeper train, but I know I did sleep, for I dreamed. I recommend the use of the Caledonian sleeper. If you can stand the narrow bed and cramped conditions, it is in my view, a cost-effective way to travel to Scotland.  I got off at Dalwhinnie, after my full breakfast, into thick, grey morning mist.  The train rumbled off towards Inverness, its red taillight disappearing into the mist. All was quiet. The time was 0655. One man got off ahead of me and walked away ahead of me. 

I started off on the long walk-in, which begins with a detour along the main road as a key level crossing is closed. It is a long and tedious walk-in along a good and reasonably flat unmade road on the west bank of the reservoir, the enormous Loch Ericht, a loch so long that I could see the horizon at the other end of it. From Dalwhinnie station to Ben Alder Lodge, where the route leaves the road, about 12km. I was consciously and deliberately trying to keep my pace down, albeit with only limited success. I’ve seen and experienced in the past, the effects of walking too fast, too soon. But the slowest I could manage along the flat was about 13 minutes per kilometre.  After Ben Alder Lodge the path trends to the right and uphill, through woods onto the open moor. At this point I found myself ahead of the gentleman I’d followed along the lake shore. The path arrows up into the brown hills; it was so very, very dry. Every small stream I crossed was dry; every drain and ditch, just full of dust. I wondered if there was any water at all in these hills. I was glad to arrive at a big stream, which ran clear and fresh, though somewhat depleted. The stream led up to Culra.

I arrived there at around 11a.m, as I’d predicted when planning this trip as a desktop exercise during the winter months. 17km in four hours. At Culra there is Culra Lodge (a wooden hunting lodge, locked down, with a wind turbine), a bothy (closed due to asbestos), and about half a dozen tents pitched. I added my own tent and sat outside for a leisurely lunch. The older man I’d seen earlier, who I’d burned off on the climb up to Culra, arrived and we had a brief chat. His destination, as was mine, was Corrour.  

Looking up towards Culra, with The Lancet in the background

After lunch I pulled together what kit I needed for hillwalking and stuffed it into my now almost empty rucksack. What did I carry? Sunglasses, sunhat, warm jacket, spare long trousers (I was in shorts), first aid kit, food and water, map and compass, walking poles. What did I leave behind? Tent, stove, fuel, sleeping bag and mat, more food, my Kindle and notebook and power banks. After judicious use of suntan lotion, I set off over the brown moor, under a cloudless sky. Up and over the moor, as dry as any I have ever seen, rising into a small glen containing not a high mountain tarn, but a substantial ribbon lake, Loch a Blealaich Bailthe. The atmosphere was magical as the path led round the lake, with the massif of Ben Alder on the far side. I met a young man and woman, mountain cyclists who had cycled over Ben Alder. This hill is so remote that to climb it in a single day trip without the use of a mountain bike is quite tricky, even in summer. Not long after that I stopped for a while for a second lunch and bathe my feet in the loch. To wash your feet in such water as this, on such a day as this, is to wash away tiredness and pain, to sooth away discomfort and ache.  

I continued up to the col – Bealach Breabag – and then on upwards to the right under hot sunshine. It was sleep but perfectly manageable. As I climbed, I encountered a party of five older men coming down, so I knew I was on the right track. Straightforward enough, in this weather, to continue upwards and onwards to the summit of Ben Alder, a most remote mountain.  

Looking down to Loch a Blealaich Bailthe from Ben Alder. In the far distance, Loch Ericht.

Not long after point 1081, I made a grave mistake. Treading north in the afternoon sunshine, I could see the sharp ridge of the Short Leachas ahead of me. There was no descent possible this side of it; the Harvey’s maps (1:40k and 1:25k) I had on me did not reveal a usable descent on the other side of it. Yet, descent there must be – to this day I do not know where. Possibly it goes directly down the Long Leachas ridge. I opted instead to swing to the left and downhill, aiming for the valley of a stream unnamed on the Harvey’s map, along which no cliffs were marked.  There being no signal, my phone would not resolve to the 1:25k OS map, so all I had was the 1:50k which showed this. After the fact, a close reading of even this low scale map does reveal that this is a hanging valley and that therefore there are likely to be cliffs. I should have known better. The sun was bright, the phone screen was hard to see, and I didn’t see what I ought to have seen. To say nothing of the word ”waterfall” which was warning enough! 

This screenshot from the 1:25k map illustrates what a hanging valley looks like on a map
This photo is looking more or less SSE from the path, at the very top of this map image

I descended on the right, keeping in the sunshine, until I could go no further as cliffs impeded further downhill progress. I put away my trail poles as doing more harm than good in a very steep and rocky place. Then I crossed over to the left-hand side, taking the opportunity to drink from the stream, and continued downhill again before my path was blocked by gently sloping slabs as the hanging valley opened onto the main valley. I was almost down and safe – but not quite. With great care and considerable difficulty, I made my way back to the stream, descending all the while, and crossed over again. Most of the time I was descending sat down, but twice on that return to the stream I had to resort to descending face-in, and down-climb. I do not think I could have gone back up: whatever I was doing, at this late stage I was committed to going all the way down. I should have turned back earlier, but I didn’t.  As I scrambled out of the gorge on the right bank again, I saw a huge deer run down to the water and disappear behind a fold of the land. It emerged seconds later barely yards from me, belting down the hillside in a panic of fear. I shudder to think of my fate had it collided with me.  

In all of this descent I was never actually frightened; I was well aware that I could ill-afford to allow vertigo, or fear of getting stuck, to get the upper hand. That said, my pulse was up to 156 and I don’t think that was down to exertion, as I was going downhill. I was lucky with the weather, and I was lucky with the time of year – whatever I did, I had plenty of time. I had food, water and probably 4 hours of useful daylight to play with. From where I’m stood now I got out of that situation not only by luck, fitness and mountaincraft, but by the sheer grace of God.

In due course, therefore, through great care in route selection and discerning choice of foot placement, I made that perilous descent successfully and safely and found myself on the valley floor. There followed a 3-4km tramp through the mid-afternoon sunshine, down the valley to my tent at Culra. 

My supper was taken outside my tent, sat by the stream in the warm sunny evening. I started with that Englishman’s staple, a Nice Hot Cup of Tea. After a break I followed that with fresh tortellini with an admixture of fried chorizo sausage, washed down by some red wine, and followed by hot chocolate. It was a warm night, and very tired, I slept like a top, turning in not long after 2130. 

I was away by 0700 the next morning. I have divided my tent up into three separate dry bags. This makes it easier to pack and easier to keep important parts of it dry. The inner tent, the flysheet, and the groundsheet and pegs are all in separate bags. That was unnecessary this morning after a completely dry strike – there was not a hint of dew. My path led back up the same route I had came down the previous afternoon, but as the Bible and the well-known hymn remind us, “morning by morning new mercies I see” – this morning, with the sun from a different direction, this was a different place, an absolute paradise. A stream wandered down the brown valley, babbling past rowan trees and chuckling to itself as it ran over boulders. Glad I was indeed, to be permitted to be in such a place as this, on such a bright morn. I passed the scene of my adventure the previous afternoon, appearing this morning as grievous shadowed slash on the hillside, and continued upwards to the Bealach Dubh – black pass. I was entirely alone, at this early hour.

Looking up towards The Lancet

Carrying only a litre of water, augmented in my pack-up by several small oranges and a bag of small tomatoes, I set off up the hillside from the Bealach, conscious that I might not see running water again til late afternoon. There was no cloud in the sky; it was barely 0900. Not far up the hillside I did in fact find the very tiniest little streamlet, a mere dribble running clear and cold. Not something one would normally touch, and certainly never in the Lake District with its ubiquitous livestock. I filled my spare water bottle – another litre – added a purifying tab and marked the bottle so I knew which of the two bottles was which. In the end, I never needed it. It was just there in case. My path led up a shoulder of green grass and grey stones, never steep enough to climb with feet and hands, but rocky enough to make trail poles a liability at times. Geal Charn (1132m) was a dun hill, a huge, rounded plateau, a rolling summit of brown grass. As with some of the landscapes on Ben Macdui, it is reminiscent of parts of the Dark Peak – but this is 1100m above sea level. It’s NOT the Dark Peak. From Geal Charn, easy and gentle hillwalking continues, up and down, over Aonach Beag (1116m) and Beinn Eibheinn (1102m). I rather suspect that the ups and downs I found easy, even carrying nearly 20kg, because I’m very fit. There were no clouds, little wind, and no shelter from the sun. In these conditions, a sun hat and sunglasses are PPE, not an optional extra. I met around ten people at various points on this hike, all going in the opposite direction to me. 

View from Aonach Beag towards Beinn Eibheinn
Beinn Eibheinn
Loch Ossian

From Beinn Eibheinn, down to Meall Glas Choire, crossing a rather strange dry gap at 730436. As someone trained in geology I wondered at its formation. It resembled the Chalamain Gap in the Cairngorms, though on a much less grand scale. It is a strange thing to see, at such a high altitude, boulders rounded by some primordial torrent, in what was clearly a dry riverbed. I suspect that at some point at the end of the ice age, the retreat of a glacier has caused some temporary glacial lake to burst its banks, and a torrent like unto Niagara, has carved through this hillside. This kind of thing happens in the Himalaya even today.  

Onwards down the brown grass to a rocky knoll, Creagan na Craibhe, and thence down through troublesome and difficult heather to the stream. This trackless ground was bone-dry and in a normal May would have been difficult, squelchy terrain. The stream was actually a substantial river and was called Uisge Labhair – “the waters spoke” or such. See that Gaelic word “Uisge”? After you try pronouncing it, it will become more familiar. 

And there I stayed, dear reader. I washed my feet in the waters of that noble river, and made my camp nearby, near the place on the map called Lub Mholach. This was the finest camp I have made in many a long year. It was a magical garden spot. I bathed in the river, dried off and had my supper. Red Lentil Dhal, Farinata, Red wine. Though there was no mountain to the west like last night, to provide shelter from the evening sunshine, I was tired enough and retreated to my sleeping bag around 2100, before the sun had even set. I was very cold that night. I had wondered before the trip if I should invest in a lighter weight summer sleeping bag, but my experiences this night, tell me to stick with the three-season down bag and silk liner even in a warm Scottish May 

Next morning I was awake bright and early and out of bed and breakfasting before 0600. A breakfast of champions: porridge (with Grouse and chocolate in it), black coffee with sugar, and fried bread and fried chorizo with melted cheese. My feet, which had been sore in the late afternoon, felt a little better after a night’s rest and some Paracetamol. I packed up and was away before 0700, to hike something like 10km through to Corrour station, arriving there just after 0900.

Loch Ossian
Loch Ossian, looking back up from near Corrour

A delightful hike through the woods along the shores of Loch Ossian. Arriving at Corrour station, in the brown emptiness, under the endless blue sky, I was dismayed to find the cafe shut, but that couldn’t be helped. I had enough food left to make a cup of hot chocolate, and a cheese and egg sandwich, whilst I waited, in company with others, for the train. 

Corrour station house

By train two hours down the line to Arrochar and Tarbet. I had a “credit” for an unused night in the Tarbet Hotel on Loch Lomondside, and I made use of it to stay here tonight. Once checked in, I enjoyed several cups of tea and a long shower, before descending to the bar without boots on, to sit and enjoy a pint and a pub supper after another successful hiking adventure. 

The next day, I took train from Arrochar and Tarbet to Glasgow Queen Street. I walked the few hundred yards to Central Station and took a Pendelino to Preston, then another one to Crewe. I had a “Standard Premium” ticket which was effectively first class without the catering. I thought it was good value at £130 for a four-hour train ride. At Crewe, a seamless change into a smaller and less salubrious train bound for Newark, which encountered technical problems – the first problems on this complex return train journey – which meant that I missed my connection at Derby. Hey-ho – I got home an hour later.  Sat in the train at Blythe Bridge, waiting for the fault to be found, I remember a similar experience as a boy in the early 1970’s on our way back from Blackpool, when a Crewe-Newark train we were in broke down somewhere along there. On that occasion we had to wait a lot longer than an hour. The trains? Cromford to Derby (£8), Derby to London in first class (£32), London to Dalwhinnie in the sleeper (£255), Corrour-Glasgow (£35), Glasgow to Crewe in standard premium, (£133), and Crewe to Cromford (£20). The journey I made could not have been easily accomplished at all without public transport, and I deemed it good value for money. 

Geek stuff – gram counting and costs

My rucksack, an Osprey Aether Pro 75, weighed around 14.5kg without food and water. The Aether Pro 75 is probably the lightest serious expedition rucksack on the market in the UK, weighing a truly astonishing 2.1kg empty. Here’s a table of the weight of some of my kit:

Kit itemRucsac weight
MSR Elixir 2 tent and pegs stored in dry bags, poles2805
Aether Pro 75 rucksack2100
Skyehigh 700 sleeping bag with compression drybag, cotton bag and silk liner in its bag1300
Trangia 27 with matches, striker etc840
Lhotse raincoat580
Spare clothes (socks, underwear, T-shirt)550
First aid kit 460
Trangia fuel (ethanol) with bottle412
Thermarest mat380
Mountaineering trousers365
Notebook with pens260
Goretex overtrousers238
Goretex gaiters 231
Merino wool leggings (winter only)200
Kindle187
2 x Powerbanks 362
Merino wool hat175
plate, cup and spork170
sun hat133
Black Diamond headtorch w/batteries120
Mittens winter only120
Garmin Inreach Mini 2 with karabiner114
Thick gloves 107
Aftermarket rain hood for rucsac104
Ledlenser lantern with cable and battery (winter only)91
Maps85
Sh1t shovel83
Spare drybag70
2 x lightweight (not climbing) karabiners 50
USB-C charging cable50

Peak travel?

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Travelling to London for work, I find that my train ticket with East Midlands Railway is “cancelled”. The female guard was quite polite about it; she caused me to fill in and sign some kind of penalty notice, and then encouraged me to appeal against it. It was only when I started to look into filling in this appeal form whilst sat in the train, that I started to encounter grave difficulties. And I got to thinking about infrastructure. Here I was, in the third decade of the 21st century, working on a modern laptop, with a modern smartphone, whilst sat on a twentieth century train trundling along at barely 100mph on twentieth century tracks.

South of Kettering, the catenary poles flash by, reminding us of the half-forgotten electrification of the Midland Mainline from London to Sheffield. That particular project has been cancelled. It has been started, and cancelled, and started again, and then cancelled again, according to some arcane and unknowable Department for Transport agenda. I’ve written about the D(a)fT elsewhere on here and noted that the Scots have a much more sensible attitude to railway electrification – that is, do as much as possible, as fast as possible. But that calculus doesn’t seem to apply to England.

The list of half-cocked railway infrastructure projects is not short. There’s the Borders Railway (part of the closed Waverley route from Edinburgh to Carlisle) which was rebuilt on the cheap with a single track; there’s the half-finished electrification of the Midland Mainline, and there is the absolute shambles of HS2, which has become a national embarrassment. Infrastructure does not seem to be a strength of the English. We seem to have forgotten how. And yet, it can be done, it has been done, it could be done. It certainly needs to be done. It is my understanding that Heathrow’s Terminal 5 was built by the contractors of the former British Airports Authority, on time, and on budget. (That it wasn’t actually opened on time is rather a different story, I think, and maybe more to do with British Airways.) So, it is possible.

But it’s not just railway infrastructure that is creaking. I’m trying to work on-line using EE’s mobile phone network. One might expect a usable (more than 5 MB/second) data signal pretty much everywhere in central England. You’ll not be getting that with EE on a Midland Main line train to London. Other providers may do better; this railway may pass through remote “black spots”. After about five or six attempts to do some basic work, I had to give up for lack of internet access. It was quite literally a waste of time. I understand very well the need for competition and a free market, but the way cellular mobile phone infrastructure is organised in the UK, does not provide best value to the customer. In some places and at some times there are overlapping competing services; at other times and in other places, there is no service at all. One buys a new mobile phone, and the sales team will tell you what colour it is, how shiny it is, how good the camera is – when all I want to know is, does it work in my front room? Does it work on the train in the heart of England?

In a few weeks I will take train with LNER, from Kings Cross to Newcastle. I will sit in a Japanese electric train which will take about 2 hrs and 45 minutes for the journey up the East Coast Mainline. Sounds great! What’s not to like? I’ll tell you what: the journey took three hours forty years ago in 1984, using the Intercity 125 – 1960’s technology diesel trains. There’s not much laudable in a modern western country about a train that takes 165 minutes to travel 245 miles, not when the French can journey from Paris to Lyon – a train trip of equivalent length – in 120-130 minutes. Although I suppose we should be thankful for small mercies: to drive from London to Newcastle will be five hours if you’re lucky. And on that note…

I used to know a fellow in East Surrey who as a boy in the 1960’s went on holiday with his family to Devon. Each year they would set out, driving along the A25, and so on through the A-roads to the A303 and on down into the West Country, taking a very long and full day in doing so. This was before the M4 was built, and long before the M25 was built.

There was a time, forty, perhaps fifty years gone by, when you might have driven from London to Derby along the M1, in not much over an hour and a half. You’d be speeding of course, but that’s neither here nor there. I have heard of someone driving from Edgware Road to Derby marketplace in 97 minutes. I myself (albeit very late at night and back in 1995) once drove from Heathrow to Derby in 105 minutes. Journey times like that would be impossible today even late at night, what with roadworks, heavy traffic, and the practical certainty of an automated speeding fine.

The road across Rannoch Moor, a road that thirty years ago you might safely drive at 90-100mph, is today literally – not metaphorically – a white-knuckle ride at 70mph. The reason is, the road is barely maintained any more and is deteriorating rapidly. In a few months time I will be driving from the Midlands to the Scottish Highlands: I expect the journey to take longer than a similar journey would have taken thirty years ago, primarily because of much heavier traffic and more roadworks. I will say nothing of “average speed cameras”.

I wonder that we in the UK have reached not “peak oil” or anything of that sort, but “peak infrastructure”. For all of my life, we have more or less assumed that there has been, and there will continue to be, improvement in transportation infrastructure. We took it for granted that roads are better, faster, and wider than they once were; that railways are more modern, with shiner, speedier trains than in the past. That has pretty much been the case for the whole of the twentieth century. Overland journeys in the UK, whether by road or by rail, became quicker, easier and more comfortable. But now, I think that has changed. In my view we can now look back at “peak travel”. I suggest that there was a moment sometime about 20-25 years ago, when transport in the UK stopped getting better, faster, and more efficient. Now it only gets worse.

Reading in 2023

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This year we’ve been a little busier, perhaps. “The judges’s scores are in”, as they say on Strictly; I have read fewer books in 2023 than I did in 2022. At the start of this year I was reading two books. One was Nick Hayes’ excellent and inspiring “The Book of Trespass”, an ostensibly scurrilous and subversive work about the countryside and how much if it is not accessible because of the draconian property laws in England. The fact that it is in print at all, and was widely and positively reviewed by various national newspapers representing the Establishment (whatever you conceive that to be) indicates that it is perhaps not quite as subversive as some readers might like to think. The other was “Life in the Far West” by G. F Ruxton. I am a student of the westward expansion of Europeans into the north American continent, and this book is a 19th century travelogue of an Englishman who travelled extensively in the lands that became the western United States.

My wife bought me a copy of W. Heaton Cooper’s “Lakeland Portraits”, completing my set of W. Heaton Cooper’s books. I love his paintings. His writing is delightful, spare and concise, as it must be from someone brought up in more spacious times than ours. There was a time when learning to write good English still mattered in schools. I’m no conservative when I say that that time is long past. To be fair this is not the best of his books – for that I’d look at “The Tarns of Lakeland”.

As noted elsewhere on this blog – reviewed here – I found Alexander Maitland’s “The Life of Wilfred Thesiger” very readable in February. At this point my wife and I moved to the edge of the Peak District. Visiting the local library saw me reading Mark Patterson’s “Roman Derbyshire”, Catherine James “Derbyshire – where writers walked” and Stephen Bailey’s excellent “The old roads of Derbyshire”. Local knowledge – every time. I followed these with Lewis Dartnell’s “Origins” about the origin of humankind, and Ryzard Kapucinsky’s work about travels in Africa, “The Shadow of the sun”. Very entertaining. Of Addis Ababa, he writes, “Bullets were the most valuable commodity in that market place, even more valuable than dollars.” He writes about the fundamental differences in the understanding of time, between Africans and westerners. Years ago working in Nigeria, someone once told me “there is no word in any Nigerian language that conveys the urgency of the Spanish word “Manana“... I also read Kapucinsky’s “The Emperor”, a very informative and warts-and-all account of the reign and fall of the otherwise pretty much untouchable Haile Selassie. Everyone has feet of clay, particularly despots and military dictators.

I had a bumper year indulging my interest in the history of the westward expansion of the United States. I started with two works on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Bernard de Voto’s eponymous history of that trip, and “These tremendous mountains” by David Freeman Hawke. I went on to read “Wondrous times on the frontier” by Dee Brown, which covered aspects of social history overlooked elsewhere – saloons and bars, what people wore, what they had for supper etc. Later on in the year I read the second book of Bernard de Voto’s three-part series on the westward expansion, “Across the wide Missouri”. This deals solely with the fur trade, with beaver trappers – the “mountain men” of legend. Also I found time for biographies of Kit Carson – “Kit Carson: A Pattern for Heroes” by Thelma Guild and Harvey Lewis Carter, and “Daniel Boone: The Long Hunter” by Lawrence Elliot. Finally, Alan Taylor’s “American Colonies”, another book that is part of a well-received trilogy of historical textbooks.

Janusz Bardach’s “Man is wolf to man”, recommended by Jacek Hugo-Bader, was quite a difficult read. Well written – just rather hard on the mental health to read of such terrible goings on. Another book difficult for similar reasons was my first Neal Asher sci-fi novel, “The voyage of the Sable Keech”. Asher is a prolific science-fiction writer and this work has immortals, viruses, some very dangerous animals, and is full of violence. Nearly as violent as Richard Morgan’s “Altered Carbon” trilogy about Takeshi Kovacs, and that’s saying something! I found Neal Asher’s crab-like aliens, the Prador, with their taste for eating living humans, particularly unpleasant. 

I read an obscure work called “Earthbound Astronauts” by Beirne Lay Jr. This was a singing of the praises of all the engineers, scientists and so forth that helped to build the Saturn V rocket that put man on the moon in 1969. Max Hastings’ account of Operation “Overlord – the story of the Normandy landings” came in August. I review elsewhere Peter C. Newman’s book “The company of Adventurers”, being the early history of the Hudson’s Bay Company (still extant in Canada today as a minor department store chain) from even before its inception, through, if not to the present, then certainly well into the late 19th century.

Then there was a clump of railway reading – the every delightful prose of O.S Nock (see above on the writers of old having such delicacy and skill in written English) firstly “British Locomotives of the 20th C, volume 3” and secondly, a really good historical read, “Steam Locomotive”. This book highlights the fact that we’ve had trains in the UK for nearly two hundred years. Christian Woolmar, a worthy successor to O.S Nock in my view, wrote “Broken rails” about how and why the privatisation of British Rail under the Major government was such a disaster. His work on the London underground, “The subterranean railway”, was also instructive. In all that reading one became aware that the heyday of the railway in Britain was not “before Beeching”, but before the Great War – the railways were at the best in Edwardian England and have been in decline ever since. Other rail-related reading included several of Brian Radford’s works including “Midland through the Peak”.

Stephen Alford’s “The Watchers” about spying in Elizabethan England, went down well, as did Monty Don’s autobiography “Down to earth”. John Lydon’s “Anger is an energy” is reviewed here.

Fiction? I also found time for some re-reads; Heinlein’s “Glory Road” – always a pleasure, Richard Morgan’s violent “Broken Angels”, my very favourite book, Tolkien’s “The Silmarillion”, and Iain M. Banks’ “Surface Detail”. New reading included Le Carre’s “Silverview”, Erin Morgenstern’s “The Starless Sea” and Adrian Tchaikovsky’s “Children of ruin” – all mentioned here. I read my friend Mrs Ruth D’Alessandro’s second very engaging historical police procedural “Calling Detective Crockford”, being a fictionalised account of her mother’s work as the the first female detective in Berkshire. Amor Towles’ top work on the aristocrat in the hotel in Moscow – “A gentleman in Moscow” – is reviewed here.

Also amongst that lot, a short and informative popular science book on graphene, “The graphene revolution” by Brian Clegg. A textbook “Do safety differently” on human and organisational performance (a new way forward in safety) by gurus Sidney Dekker and Todd Conklin. I finished the year with Peter Fleming’s rather weak and largely cribbed account of the never-was Operation Sealion, the German invasion of England in 1940. His other writing is excellent: this is is poor and though interesting and informative in places, it is not his best work.

On foot from Bridge of Orchy to Fort William

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I took train to Crewe, arriving in good time for the sleeper service to Scotland. The train slipped into the platform almost in silence, as if to not disturb the sleeping customers. I boarded, and off we went. In the morning the train stopped for a while at Tarbet on Loch Lomond-side. I could hear the rain drumming on the roof of the carriage – but that was at least forecast. I was allowed by the male provodnik (Russian for “sleeping car attendant”) into the “Club Car” for my breakfast, and told somewhat loftily to sit “over there” clearly away from the very few first class customers. Feeling less than welcome, I had my sausage bap and cup of tea, and left.

At Bridge of Orchy I got off, and under the shelter of the station canopy, prepared for hiking. It was raining. The buildings of the station have been converted into a low-cost hostel, although I saw on social media that this hostel has a poor reputation as being somewhat spartan. The West Highland Way, or proximity to it, is an opportunity to sell excellent services to travelers, or perhaps, in some cases, a magnet to less scrupulous property owners hoping to make a fast buck from accommodation. The railway station itself is uncrewed – as was the hostel, at this time of year.

I left, in the dripping rain, and almost immediately passed the only southbound hiker I saw in two full days on the hill. It was 9.a.m. The initial part of the route lies over the summit of Mam Carriagh and is marked on the OS map as an “Old military road”. It is one of General Wade’s roads from the early eighteenth century, from the years of the Jacobite rebellions. As I walked, the rain rose to a crescendo, and I made full use of my new Mountain Equipment “Lhotse” jacket, which I bought heavily discounted from Cotswold. It is has a great hood, but as a tall man I could do with a waterproof least six inches longer in the body – a coat in fact, not a jacket. Why are modern mountaineering waterproofs all jackets?

I came down to the Inveroran Hotel, all shuttered up now for the winter, in grey and spitting rain. Onwards onto what was referred to on a sign as the “Old Drovers Road” to Glencoe, which was ostensibly the main road before 1933 when the current road was opened. Of the current road, arrow-straight across Rannoch Moor and with sweeping curves down through Glencoe, the Scots mountaineer W.H Murray once said (a propos of complaints that it spoilt the landscape) that the new Glencoe road could “no more spoil the landscape than the facade of Chartres Cathedral could be damaged with a pen-knife”. Murray was quite right – and he was an early environmentalist.

The drovers road across Rannoch Moor

There is no evidence that this road was ever covered in tarmac – it is stones and cobbles now. Ninety years is a long time; the tarmac could be long gone, but I somehow doubt it ever was a tarmac road. I found the road very hard on my feet, but that may be because my current boots are approaching the end of the natural life and may in consequence be a little thin in the sole. But it is a good road, passable by car even today (were it allowed – of course it is not), albeit at not much faster than 10mph. It rises gently from Victoria Bridge at 174m to a summit of 353m over 7km, before falling again down to the access to the “Glencoe Mountain Resort”.

Is there a sport less sustainable than skiing? I am a mountaineer. I seek to cross mountains for pleasure, doing so on foot, doing so safely, and leaving no trace other than footprints. There are few things I find much more depressing than a ski resort in off-season. (Maybe a British seaside town in February…) A ski resort needs good roads, ski lifts, hotels and shops, bars and restaurants, accommodation for staff. It needs street lighting, drainage and all the other municipal services we take for granted. All these things are good things of themselves. But out here in the beautiful autumnal brown of the Blackmount in November, I find it all rather jarring. Even as I stood by the roadside thinking this, a 32 tonne truck rumbled past carrying a snow-mobile and ski-lift pods. I finish where I started: can there be a sport less sustainable than skiing?

Crossing the A82 as quickly as possible, but with great care, I continued. From here to the Kingshouse the way leads along what is clearly a former tarmac road. The Kingshouse, once merely a hotel, is now a small community. One day, it seems to me, it may be an actual village called “Kingshouse” – there are diverse lodgings and houses, and a community centre, as well as the eponymous and famous hotel with its extensive car park. It even had a roundabout. In the car park I had to detour round tourists taking photographs of a red deer which had wandered in. The weather was darkening.

A hundred yards past the hotel, once again in open country, I decided to stop for a snack. My mountaincraft is sharper and better than I know; it works at a subconscious level. I had barely finished my chocolate and so forth, when a squall of rain and hail descended. I was hard put to get my hat, gloves and scarf sorted and my coat zipped up before the onslaught. How had I known that the squall was so imminent? How did I know to take this last opportunity for a snack for an hour or more? It was surely neither luck nor coincidence.

The next stretch of the road was again an “old military road” more or less parallel to the A82, finishing at Altnafeadh. The weather was dreadful; grey cloud and squall, brash wind and rain. I would have taken more pictures of the magnificent towers of Stob Dearg (“Buchaille Etive Mor”) on my left – perhaps the most recognized mountain in the UK. But others have photographed that graceful hill more effectively than I, and I was loth to take off my gloves in this rain.

Stob Dearg (“Buchaille Etive Mor”)

At Altnafeadh it was 3pm. The traffic rushed past; the clouds lowered. Time-wise I was on target. I had thought I might camp here, having at very best maybe ninety minutes of daylight remaining, and not wishing to be caught in the hills above the Devils Staircase. But there was no suitable location, and the rain came down. I had a little snack and a fat little robin came and sat near me; I fed it with some of my wife’s Rice Krispy cake. Onwards: in heavy rain and hail I started up the Devils Staircase. A struggle if you’re not fit, that ascent, but I pushed very hard and fast uphill, to the point of starting to overheat. Time was of the essence now. I had to find a flat and sheltered place in the hills to pitch my tent, and I had to do so pretty much within the hour.

I thought, looking at the wind direction (this is mountaincraft again) that the weather would be better on the far side of the hill up which the Devils Staircase goes back and forth. I was right to think that; so it proved. On the Rannoch/Glencoe side, grey rain, clag and wind, hail and storm. On the far side, calmer, even to some blue sky. I pushed on over as late afternoon became evening and dusk, looking for a camp ground. I had limited daylight and my salutory experience in the Cairngorms two years ago was fresh in my mind. I found a flat place right next to the trail, right next to a stream. Not a place I’d choose in summer. The place was more or less where I had predicted from theory beforehand that I ought to camp, in order to make this passage from Bridge of Orchy a two-day rather than three-day hike. It was the stream of Alt a’ Choire odhair bhig.

My tent went up easily enough, pitched outer first as rain looked imminent. In fact I had not long been pitched when there was a tremendous hailstorm turning the world white. I found it hard to get warm, but once I’d eaten and gotten into bed, I warmed up in due course and slept passably well, being in bed for nearly 12 hours.

I awoke respectably late, but still before dawn. Surprisingly so given that I had been in bed for almost 12 hours. I went through the drill of having breakfast (porridge with an admixture of chocolate, sugar and sultanas and a little malt whiskey) and striking camp. The practice of solo backpacking and wild camping, particularly in autumn or winter conditions, is the practice of detail, the practice of method, the practice of doing things right, in the right order. In other words, it is the practice of mountaincraft. This is one of the reasons why I put myself through it. It is no ordeal; it is a pleasure and a privilege. It is a pleasure and a privilege to be alone in the wild. I can put myself, in an uncontrived way, in a place where doing things right, in the right order, is the difference between, on the one hand, an enjoyable and relaxing experience, and on the other, a dreadful or even life-threatening experience.

I was on the hill, full of breakfast, by 8a.m. I had a long day ahead of me of 32km, but I knew I could make Fort William, if not by nightfall (about 5pm) certainly not much later. I started out in Gore-tex over-trousers but today’s weather was much more forgiving and they soon came off on the descent to Kinlochleven. Early on, I had problems with very cold fingers, as my gloves were wet from the previous day. I had to use my big mittens, which were still dry. One action from this trip is that I need to think carefully about carrying multiple pairs of gloves (as one carries multiple pairs of socks), or, look into waterproof gloves. The light and the views this morning were lovely.

Coming down into Kinlochleven one sees six tremendous pipes marching across the landscape, bearing water from the faraway dam on the Blackwater Reservoir. At the bottom of the hill by the river, an enormous and striking mill, Edwardian architecture with some Edwardian technology inside and out, as the rushing water from the great pipes feed the hydroelectric plant inside. Kinlochleven at 9a.m was quiet and cold, only dog walkers were around. I’d been aware that I could have resupplied here to save weight, but it turned out that I needed nothing, and I walked on out of town without stopping. Kinlochleven is rather sleepy and forgotten since the opening of the Ballachulish Bridge in 1975. Today it seems little more than the start of the final stage of the West Highland Way. That said, its location is stupendously beautiful, central to a wide range of wild country and high mountains. It reminded me, however – particularly in cloud-streaked autumn at that time of day, of the town in the Pacific Northwest in Sylvester Stallone’s film “First Blood”.

I climbed up out of town through pleasant and fragrant managed pine woods, emerging into a higher, colder valley. “Footpath to Fort William via the Lairig” the sign had said. The path runs true up the right hand side of the valley, reaching a bealach at which there is a substantial ruined house. From here, one cannot see where the route goes, but it curves round to the right and to the north. I passed a young woman out from Kinlochleven; she said she was just doing this last stage. Only the second person I had seen hiking for two days.

The ruins at Lairig Mor

The path continues northward, a little open on the left, with higher mountains on the right. Such trees as there were in the area were not entirely consistent with their representation on the map – this is a working plantation. I had been saying to myself, “Ben Nevis dominates Fort William, but I cannot see it yet. When will I see it, and know that I am getting closer to my destination?” The path kinks round to the right, trending more north-westerly, and finally, in the afternoon, I found myself in a place where I knew that just beyond, lay Glen Nevis. At the head of this valley was a confusion of hillside, rather strange looking. Some odd geological effects were at work here. In the heart of the confusion, lies the ancient fort “Dun Deadail”.

Nevis seen from the trail not far from the fort “Dun Deadail”

From Dun Deadail, the way lies along forest road all the way down to tarmac in Glen Nevis. In the deepening cold of late afternoon (that is, 3pm at this latitude and time of year – it’s great to come to Fort William in May when “late afternoon”, from the perspective of the sunshine, is 8.30p.m!!) I trod the forest road down, and then tramped the final tough tarmac mile or so into Fort William.

Glen Nevis

In Fort William I was met by a friend of mine who kindly arranged for me to stay at the excellent Fassfern guest house on the shores of Loch Linnhe. We had a couple of pints and some pizza at the Black Isle pizza bar in town, but to be honest, after my trek I was shattered, and was glad to be in bed by 9.30pm.

A ten-hour train journey

This first leg of the immense train journey back to the English midlands leads through a brown, grey and relict green autumn landscape, towards Spean Bridge. In the distance, cloud-draped mountains have winter’s first coat of snow. Behind me in the tiny two-carriage train, are five mums with at least that many toddlers, dogs, bicycles and pushchairs, all off on a short winter’s day’s outing to Corrour. The toddlers are all of a gurgle; at my feet, one of the dogs has settled down to hide from the youngsters. The train wends its way along a gorge; the frothing river is the colour of Guinness being poured. You can hear the engines straining as the train climbs the grade up onto the moor. I could be on worse train journeys and I probably will be later today.

Crianlarich: nearly two hours out from Fort William. It would take an hour to drive here from Fort William, though to be fair to the train, it does take that huge detour up to Spean Bridge. As someone with a passing interest in railways it is interesting to note that some of these Highland stations still retain a substantial yard with sidings. Generally these are used, on this remote single-track railway, to store modern permanent way repair equipment. In England, many of these yards have long since been converted into car parks, particularly in the metro area where commuters dominate the market. This little train dates from the late 1980’s, and the technology in it is much older than that. Hearing the sound of the antique brakes, though I’m sure they are perfectly good brakes, makes me feel about 12, so much does the sound remind me of 1970’s trains.

At Queen Street station in Glasgow, a delightful Victorian arched train shed, I join a brand-new electric train to Edinburgh. The Scots at least, have a constructive view on railway electrification: that is, do as much as possible, as soon as possible. I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that English tax-payers will be picking up the tab for it, even if the Westminster government and the Department for Transport feels it can’t afford the same for England. Who needs joined up thinking? I read that these new and shiny 21st century trains are actually owned by a Japanese bank.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_385). Another piece of evidence of the chronic short-termism of the people who manage and finance our railways.

Arriving at Waverley station in Edinburgh, I had to make a decision quickly. I had a seat booked on the 1707 X-Country service straight through to Derby. It was cancelled. The time was 1636. I might travel at 1710 down the east coast route towards Kings X, and change at Newark, and then across to Derby. Or, I might travel at 1652 down the west coast towards Euston, and change at Crewe, and then across to Derby. Which is better? Six of one and a half dozen of the other…or is it? this is advanced travel knowledge. I opted for the latter and joined an Avanti West Coast Pendolino bound for Euston. That was a good decision. As I’d opted for a very reasonably priced first class ticket, I got a nice panini and at least two Gins and Tonic, thrown in. That enlivened my journey to my home, which took until nearly 10.30p.m. That said, I left Edinburgh at 5pm and arrived at Derby about 9.30p.m, and that involving a change of trains. You’ll nae be driving from Edinburgh to Derby at that time of day, or at any time of day in fact, in four and a half hours.

A diesel gala day at the Speyside Railway – November 2019

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I was out touring in Scotland on my own, having a short break to myself, recharging the moral and emotional batteries. After leaving the Atholl Arms Hotel at Blair Atholl (see More Scottish travels) I made two short detours along single track roads through grey and rainswept countryside deep in fall colours, and after some indecision about which route to take, found myself at the Sugar Bowl Café in Kingussie, a pleasant room painted grey and orange, the steamed-up windows indicative of a warm welcome within, shelter from the driving cold rain of November.

grey and rainswept countryside deep in fall colours

I sat over coffee and cake, looking through some purchases from a nearby second-hand bookshop. I had “The sending” by Geoffrey Household, “Raw Spirit”, the de facto autobiography of Iain Banks (but on the surface, a book about malt whiskey), and “The January Man”, an account of a year of walking Britain, by a guy called Christopher Sommerville.

I made an entry in my diary, and put my pen away. I happened to check my phone and I saw that the nearby Strathspey Railway were having a Diesel Gala Day! I left the café on the instant, in a heavy downpour, and returned to the car. I drove to Aviemore and parked up at the heritage railway car park, again in heavy winter rain. It was 12.50.

In the cold and wet station I learned that the next train was at 13.15. On the platform I got talking to Duncan, a professional photographer who took a few pictures of me enjoying myself. https://www.duncansphotography.co.uk/

From here on in the reader has to put up with nerdish trainspotter details about locomotives and carriages (for which – while I explain it – I make no apology.)

Mark I first class compartment

In due course an old English Electric “08” shunter brought in the train, and a Brush type 2 locomotive was attached to the front. I sat resplendent and alone in a very well-appointed Mk 1 FK (First Class Compartment coach). It had an absolutely lovely atmosphere. For me it is the ambience of the old Mk I’s; the woodwork, the lamps, the curved sheet metal ceilings. The sound of the doors slamming that make me feel about 10 years old, going on holiday to Skegness or Blackpool. Notwithstanding the atmosphere, I “bailed”, as the train-spotters are fond of saying, at Boat of Garten, hurriedly crossed the footbridge, and joined the up train back to Aviemore, which was hauled by a Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon (BRCW) Type 3. A “Class 27” since the 1970s. This was mostly the newer (but still vintage) Mk II stock, still atmospheric, still nostalgic, but not quite the same as the old Mk I compartments.

BRCW Type 3 locomotive

When the railways were nationalised, British Railways found itself in charge of an absolute plethora of styles and designs of coaches, inherited from the four large companies that existed before. Some form of standardisation was required: from this, in the late 1950’s, came the British Railways Mk I coach.

This was the experience most people would have on a railway journey in the UK from the early 1960’s until the late 1970’s and indeed later, although newer designs were brought out subsequently. The Mark II arrived in the late 1960’s; the first air conditoned Mark II not long after that, and then the Mark III in the early 1970’s.

These are still around – they are the carriages seen in the old “HSTs” which can still be seen in Scotland and down in Cornwall. The privatised railway of today is up to Mk V which are the coaches used for the most modern trains like the Caledonian Sleeper. The final Mk I coaches were the old “slam doors” used in the south of England, and these were withdrawn as late as 2005.

Mark II first class compartment

I ordered some tea, crisps and a sandwich. The sandwich was freshly made! What a remarkable thing. I chatted sociably with the guy selling the food. At Aviemore, off the train and back on, and then all the way down to Broomhill at the other end of the line.

The sound made by these Sulzer engines in the Brush type 2 and the BRCW type 3, particularly when they are working hard, is really quite something; it is a magical music to my ears. There are, for me, few sounds that have quite the same effect as does the sound of a vintage diesel locomotive – or perhaps in particular, these slow-beating Sulzer engines.

One might have a hopefully pleasant Pavlovian reaction to many sounds – for example, the sound of a drinks can being opened, or that sound described by Alistair Cooke as the “most civilised sound in existence”, that is, the sound of ice cracking as spirits are poured over it. But for me, it is the sound of diesel locomotives, reminding me as they do, of going on holiday when I was a small boy.

From Broomhill back to Boat of Garten, where I changed again from one train into the other. As the afternoon went on, the weather and the light improved, though heavy showers persisted. I took loads of pictures.

From Boat of Garten back to Broomhill, then all the way back to Aviemore, arriving in the dusk after as remarkably moving and relaxing afternoon as I’ve had in recent years. And this on top of everything else this weekend bas brought. I paid £23 for a “Rover ticket” which enabled me to make something like six separate journeys up and down. I think I got my moneys’ worth.

Walk the city, see the centre, feel the heartbeat

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An old aunt has gone home to glory, full of years; the last of her generation. I travelled to the funeral to honour her memory, respect my family and to catch up with my cousins. Today, to Derby for the funeral of that last remaining aunt: I travel to London from my home and walk north across this great city toward St Pancras. After my walk I sit in the Black Sheep Cafe on the Pentonville Road, within sight of the vaulted roof of St Pancras station, and reflect on what I have seen. I’ve walked almost at random through the city streets. Why? Because I can. Because of what I might see, because of who I might meet, what I might learn.

First, Blackfriars: a railway station built on a bridge across the Thames. I walk up towards Holborn viaduct, crossing Fleet Street. At one set of lights, the first six cars to pass me were electric vehicles. Ladies and gents going to work. Beards and bare legs: it is warm weather. Buildings I never saw before; streets I never walked along. A man rides past with one of those dignified little lap dogs sat in a front box on his bike. I consider renting a Boris Bike, but decide not to. Men are working on rooftops. Here in Holborn, a jewellery quarter. Further north, leafy residential streets and red-brick tenements. A junior school. Dentists. An Asian grocer. This is inner London. On Grays Inn Road, I even saw a uniformed policeman.

St Pancras International: this station is like a church to me; it is a temple of all that the railway should be. Also, it has been close to the start and end of dozens of significant journeys, right back into boyhood. I first came here, to my knowledge, for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee celebration in 1977. Now it is Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee, 45 years later. Most of all I recall coming here in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, to the tired, grimy and neglected station of the old London Midland Region of British Rail. I remember the old high-ceilinged booking office – now a fancy restaurant. There are railway nostalgists who prefer the station as it was then, but I think it is tremendous, and a great improvement. Today, in my view, St Pancras is in its pomp.

Sitting upstairs in front of the silent electric Eurostar trains all lined up in a row, I can see two grey-beard older brothers taking brunch together at Carluccio’s. A warm wind blows food smells over me, and outside, it is sunny. But here amongst the marble floors and under the magnificent pale blue roof, all is quiet save for the murmur of electric motors and the occasional explosive hiss of compressed air from the trains. Here, I am off the beaten track. Recently a colleague of mine was lamenting the Lake District as being “too busy”. Get off the beaten track, I told him. It’s not difficult. It’s certainly not difficult here at St Pancras.

Arriving in Derby, I walked through the “Castle Ward” and the shopping centre, bringing me out onto East Street. I detoured around a bit, having time to kill. Derby is my home town and I would visit it even if it was rubble and ruins, but like many British provincial cities, its heart is blasted, wasted, almost dead. It is unfortunate but it is not unique: Southampton and Aberdeen, provincial cities whose centres I know well, are not that different. The reasons for the death of the inner city are complex, but the collapse of walk-in retail – people going into actual shops – through the rise of the internet, will have played a part.

I walked down Sadler Gate, along Bold Lane and up St Mary’s Gate. Up past the Cathedral and onto St. Mary’s for a Roman Catholic funeral mass, something I don’t do very often. Then, with some relatives to the crematorium, and onto a wake. The wake was held at a pub named after a railway – the Great Northern. The pub stood on a road built to access a railway that no longer exists. It’s still called Station Road, but you’d have to have an interest in industrial archaeology, if you weren’t from round here, to know where the railway station was. That’s modern Britain for you.

High Street wet and dry; camping on a mountaintop

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By Pendolino to Oxenholme, tilting through the heartland like an aircraft. In Lancashire the weather deteriorated, to pouring rain as the train called at Preston. At Oxenholme, to the Station Inn for a pint and then to camp in their garden. We were the only campers on a wet and windy Thursday evening. Next day, after a breakfast of champions prepared on a Trangia stove in a pub car park, to Sadgill at the head of Longsleddale.

We were away onto the hill before 0800. It was absolutely pouring. I’d not walked a hundred yards before regretting not fetching waterproof trousers. I stopped to put my gaiters on, which helped somewhat. Earlier in the week I had hurt my heel slightly mowing the lawn while wearing big boots with inadequate socks. I was now on the hill with both heels dressed in prophylactic, pre-emptive dressings, a kind of talisman, perhaps, to ward off blisters.

We plugged away up the valley to Gatescarth Pass. I read after our walk that when a railway through these lands was first proposed, back in the 1840s, one possibility considered was a route through Kendal and along Longsleddale, with a 2-mile tunnel under the Gatescarth Pass and into Mardale – the valley now filled with Haweswater. In the end of course, the route chosen for what is now the West Coast Main Line from London to Glasgow, took the much longer and steeper route over Shap and through the Lune valley. What might have been, eh?

Left up onto Harter Fell (778m) and squelch down to Nan Bield Pass, where there was a shelter, one side of which was exposed to the rough northerly wind. We hid behind it. There was a great view of Blea Water, and Haweswater directly “above” or behind it. Then, on up Mardale Ill Bell (760m) and onto the summit of High Street (828m) where it was possible – just, for they are in a north-south direction – to hide for a snack behind possibly the highest dry stone walls in the UK. They weren’t dry stone walls at that moment, I can assure you.

Then the long walk downhill to Patterdale, past the very picturesque and shapely Angle Tarn (I call this one the “other Angle Tarn” to distinguish it from the arguably better known Angle Tarn high up in the northern corrie of Esk Pike.) This gentler and larger Angle Tarn has a little island in the middle with trees on it! Onwards, down to the Patterdale valley floor as the rain eased somewhat. At one point we passed a frenzy of foxgloves, almost as if someone had gone out of their way to seed the hillside with that lovely flower.

At Patterdale we found welcome at neither the Ship Inn nor the Patterdale Inn. Desirous therefore, of leaving the hospitality of Patterdale behind us, we walked with some effort down the valley towards Glenridding. We found St Patrick’s Boat Landing, a little cafe up a flight of stairs, serving tea and cakes. Here we remained, wet and dripping but welcomed by mine host, for a couple of hours.

Refreshed, we set off again, walking up the eastern and more wild side of Patterdale, through delightful woods – a generation or two ago, one might have camped wild here in these remote woods both with impunity and with great pleasure. Perhaps not today – not really the done thing. We crossed to the right-hand side, walking alongside Brotherswater, through still more lovely woodland. At the campsite at Brotherswater, we found no room for us. To be fair, it was a Friday afternoon in late June, whatever the weather. Jaded, we took a short snack and set off yet again.

We slogged through improving weather, our waterproof gear coming off by degrees, until we reached Hayeswater. Here we made the most excellent camp, along with at least three other parties. Our supper was tortellini with pesto, washed down with some very strong beer, followed by chocolate and fruit. A 32 km hike in two halves.

Hayeswater

The next day, we had a breakfast of porridge and coffee, and then struck camp in light clag. We reversed yesterday’s route, more or less, back over High Street. No rain this time, but it was windy in places. In improving weather we descended into Longsleddale, for a total round of 45km in less than two days.

Thence by car to Bowness, thinking we might rent a canoe and relax with some boating on Windermere. But Bowness was full of tourists and there was nowhere to park. It made Ambleside on a busy Saturday afternoon look like a deserted hamlet. Dreadful place, possibly only the second time I’ve been there in my life; I shan’t willingly go back. We left, and took the chain ferry across the lake, and sat with a pint in Hawkshead.

Later, we met up with some friends, and in the golden evening, climbed up onto the summit of Holme Fell near Coniston, and camped right on the summit. Very fragrant and heathery. Sat on the summit we ate well – this time we had a spicy dal, and some Farinata – spicy chick pea pancakes. Though the evening grew cold, there was tremendous visibility and glorious views as the sun went down.

Coniston Water from Holme Fell – evening
Coniston Water from Holme Fell – morning
the central fells seen from Holme Fell, late evening

Marine seismic in the Tropics – 1989

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Getting up for work at 11.30p.m, I’m happy, because I know this is the last shift of the trip. At midnight I join my colleagues on the gun deck and help the mechanics with recovery of the starboard side seismic guns. For me this is mainly a business of pulling in towing strops, and fixing the hook of a “concertina winch” in certain places on the gun array to bunch the array up or “concertina” it. The gun deck of this old vessel is too short to fit the seven gun array when spread out to its full length.

By 12.30a.m the booms are raised, the big Norwegian buoys are stowed out of the way, and the towing strops have been tightened to pull the slack loops out of the sea to avoid them being caught in our propellor. Shortly, we will recover the seismic cable, and for that, the vessel must be driven backwards.

In a flat calm the single short cable is recovered swiftly. Mostly just a matter of pushing and shoving to keep it neat on the winch drum, which is driven hydraulically. Newer seismic vessels have fairleads and winches which can be used as ways to mechanise this pushing and shoving, but not the Seismariner. What can take hours of potentially hazardous and unpleasant grafting in cold and wind of the North Sea, is forty minutes of tedious work in a flat calm in the overbearing heat of equatorial Africa.

Cable recovered, the ship starts to steam towards Mayumba in the Congo, where we will off sub-contract navigation radio receivers by ship’s boat. (This was a couple of years before differential GPS navigation equipment became commercially available). We all adjourn to the crew mess for a well-earned pot of tea. An hour later, work restarts, and I join the mechanic Eric down in his domain in the guts of the ship. Starting at 3.a.m, I help him strip down and replace the big end bearings in four huge water pumps – 12 bearings in all. It takes three and a half hours and two pots of tea to finish the job.

By now it’s 6.30a.m and it is pouring with rain. This is quite usual at this time of year in this part of the world. Our FRB (Fast Rescue Boat) is made ready to transfer the navigation equipment. The sub-contractors gear – receivers, cables, antennas etc – is made ready on the foredeck. The rain stops, but oppressive clouds remain. The jungle close by is steaming and looks threatening. A short break for what we call “breakfast” (though working nights, it is the main meal of the day), and then the crew is ready. It is an assistant observer (myself), the mechanic (the late Eric Gray), and the Assistant Party Chief (Mick).

We lower the boat, and Eric takes her round to the boarding ladder. I climb in along with our client’s representative, the Texan Dave, and we’re off. The ship grows smaller in the distance as we move inshore. We can discern – with eyes, ears and nose – more detail of the jungle and the beach ahead. As the seabed slopes up to the shore, a huge swell develops, white rollers crashing onto a sandbar. We search without success for a way into the lagoon beyond, passing as we do so, the wreck of a coaster bigger than Seismariner. Her rusted bridge is all that remains above the sand and water. We know that getting into the lagoon will be easy – but getting the boat out again through the immense surf will be impossible.

It’s exciting stuff for a young man: the small boat, the sea, the strangeness of the African jungle close by. We can see people waiting for us ashore, but defeated for the present, we head back to the mother ship. On the way the outboard engine stops, and Eric toils to fix it in heavy, pregnant silence, except for the slopping of wavelets against the gunwhale. The four of us in the boat breath a sigh of relief when the engine whizzes into life; we make it safely back home, and are lifted out of the water.

A while later, a second attempt is made at a slightly different location, and all the equipment and the client rep. are safely dropped ashore. It takes three separate trips to move everything, but all is complete by 10.30a.m. The FRB is recovered once again, and we leave the bay at once, steaming for Pont Noire in the Congo, some ten hours journey away at 12 knots.

After another brief tea break, I spend the final 45 minutes of my shift conducting electrical tests on cabling removed from the gun arrays. My results recorded on a scrap of paper, it’s time once again for “Swarfega” at the close of my 63rd consecutive twelve hour shift – and the last one.

My journey home was instructive. I had no ticket for the last part of the journey (from Paris to my home) and more cash to cover this was offered. I was counselled by my colleagues to refuse this offer as the actual ticket would cost more than the cash being offered by the company administrator. Several of us were taken to the airport and flew in an antique 737 with Lina Congo, to Brazzaville. They did not even pressurize the 737 and it flew at 6000′ the whole way. As it was only the 4th or 5th time in my life I had been in an aircraft at all, this passed me by. Those who knew better were petrified. At Brazzaville we changed onto a 747-combi (half passenger, half freight) of UTA. This was in fact the first long-haul flight I ever took. The flight was to Paris via Doula in Cameroon, and Marseille. All was well until we landed at Marseille at 6a.m the next day, and that’s where we stayed. Owing to fog in Paris, we remained on the tarmac at Marseille for four hours, with neither refreshments nor breakfast served. We eventually arrived at De Gaulle early afternoon. It was February in Paris – foggy.

I spent the rest of the day trying without success to get a flight to England – anywhere – Heathrow, Birmingham, East Midlands. Late in the evening I gave up and took train into central Paris, and secured myself a train ticket to London via the Bologne-Dover ferry. This was 1989 – LONG before the Channel Tunnel. I remember several things about that journey. One of them, is buying a Croque Monsieur from a vendor near Gare St Lazaire, and the second, is sitting in a compartment on the train (that dates this story – compartments??) with a number of men – clearly pilots and aircrew – who claimed to be from Mauritius but who were clearly Scythe Ifrican. This was in the days of apartheid when everything and anyone remotely white South African was considered rather bad form in liberal society. These gentlemen, it must be said, were perfectly upright and pleasant fellows.

We took train from Gare St Lazaire (the first and only time I’ve ever been to that particular station in Paris), crossed the channel, and then on a cold winter’s morning, more trains, from Dover to Victoria and on home. I arrived home on 3rd February 1989, having left on 27th November the previous year. A good trip.

By train to Euston

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The train hisses through anonymous railway stations and anonymous towns. The stations fly past to quickly for me to catch their names. The towns? Houses and streets, industrial units, perhaps the odd ancient church standing out through the early morning mist.

Across the heartland the train goes, through the very essence of middle England. You don’t need to know what the names of the towns are, to know what they are like. The rails shine with use; the electrical wires and their supporting posts flash by. In the distance, green fields and hills under an early morning sky of pale blue. The molten sunshine of not long after dawn washes everything clean. It all looks idyllic. Frost-covered green fields, patches of ground mist.

Waverley station

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One of my favourite places to be “outdoors” is the concourse of a big city railway station.  To have coffee, or better yet, to be at beer, is an added bonus.

After an excellent breakfast at a little deli in Callander, I drove on southwards.  It was interesting to see clouds form over the central valley.  Coming into Edinburgh, there was heavy fog and drizzle, though it remained warm.

On the way down, I happened across an #Engineering #Marvel, and went out of way to go and see it.  Many years ago, touring with a friend of mine, on two occasions, we’d found ourselves at a loose end on a Sunday afternoon, and visited – quite by chance, as it were – engineering marvels.  One was a certain “nuclear installation” on the coast of Cumbria; the other, a radio telescope in Cheshire.  To pass within a few miles of the Falkirk Wheel, and not pay a visit, would be crass.  And I speak as someone who can allow the Flying Scotsman to steam unseen past the end of my garden at 5a.m on a working day, whilst I lie in bed.

I allowed myself the luxury of complete dependence on the Google sat nav to get me to my final destination, with only one or two cursory glances at it to ensure that it knew what it was doing.  There’s no call when using sat nav to switch off your common sense or your sense of direction.  At one point I drove past Fettes College.

But back to the great railway stations: I love big stations.  Victoria, St Pancras. Glasgow Central.  The destinations boards, the bustle and hustle, the romance.  Better still – possibly – in the days of steam, with whistles, steam heating, clatter and bang.  I remember steam heated trains from my youth.

And what of the journey, the pilgrimage, the embracing of change, the understanding that things must change? Steam has gone, but most everything changes.  Tomorrow will be different.  The journey never ends. We must take nourishment from all aspects of it: the good, the bad.  From the  rest and the rush.  From the pleasure and the pain.

On a journey, we may do things differently at the end, than at the beginning.  On a journey we must adapt and learn, most especially from our mistakes.

China by train

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From Guangxhou to Guilin by bullet train

Arriving at Guangxhou South Railway Station, I am quite literally stupified by the size of the place.  It is a Terminal 5 amongst railway stations.  It is hardly distinguishable inside from a large international airport.  It is over three floors – like an airport, departures and arrivals are on separate floors.

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This is a through station, not a terminal. Coming in by taxi, I counted at least 12 separate tracks coming out from under the canopy, all grey concrete on stilts.  The  floor is granodiorite tiles; the passengers are everywhere.  There are shops, booths, queues, scanners. It does not smell of decay and weak air-conditioning, as do so many large municipal buildings in hot climates.

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It is to my eye, no St Pancras: it is not built to last, and I suspect that, rather like Terminal 5, it may look distinctly jaded by 2050.

All must go through luggage scanners merely to get into the building. This is common enough at municipal buildings in China and increasingly so in the West. That said, the people doing the scanning and body pat-down work showed little interest – the scanning process is not strict.  Once inside, you then find what train you are on, and go through the ticket check to go “trainside” as it were.  Chinese high speed train tickets are not usable by any bearer, as train tickets are in the UK and elsewhere in the world – they are specific to you, as well as to a given seat in a given carriage.  Indeed. ours had our passport numbers on them in addition to our names.  But once through the ticket check, no-one was interested in our ID.  Once “trainside” and upstairs, it just felt like the airside of an big international airport. And the other similarity is, access to the platform is tightly controlled – no trainspotters welcome here.  We weren’t allowed onto the platform until only a few minutes before departure,  The train had already swept in.

The station is only a few years old. It speaks of tremendous economic growth, this outpouring of concrete: Bill Bryson once wrote something to the effect that half of all buildings in the United States had been built since 1980, and fully 90% of all American buildings, since 1945.  A similar thing is happening in China.  Natalie Merchant sings, in her song “Motherland”

Where in hell can you go
Far from the things that you know
Far from the sprawl of concrete
That keeps crawling its way
About 1,000 miles a day?

It is applicable here in China, at this time of expansion, as viaducts arc across whole cities, as 150mph bullet trains flash through tunnels so expensive as to defy understanding.  How do they do it? The growth of high speed rail in China today is rather like the development of the Interstate network in the USA of Eisenhower’s time.  And just as the Interstate highways changed America beyond recognition, high speed rail is changing China.  The old China is still visible, but it is disappearing. Go there and see it while it still exists. The old ladies brushing the street with straw brooms.  The scooter riders with no helmet but an umbrella. The little stalls selling foodstuffs. The little motorcycles converted into vans, burdened under seemingly impossible loads.

Off we go and there are almost continuous announcements in Mandarin.  Once through the suburbs, the train perceptibly speeds up and shoots along at 150 mph.  The acceleration is noticeable, and audible, an indistinct and distant hum rather like the sound of the original Starship Enterprise at Warp Factor 10.

We plunge through misty green forests and mountains, brown rivers, farms and rice paddies. There are endless tunnels. Some long, some short. Billions of dollars have gone into building this railway – and it is only one of many.

We arrived at Guilin Bey (North) Railway Station at 12,30pm on a hot and humid afternoon.  We  got off the bullet train, along with myriad Chinese, and followed them down the stairs into the underpass. Chattering, walking, kids laughing, suitcases on wheels rumbling along. The Chinese experience is to be surrounded by people.

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To Liuzhou and on to Zhiangziajie

Onwards: another city, another railway station.  This one is different; older, more prosaic.  The first two, at Guangxhou and at Guilin North, were grandiose to the point of being ridiculous.  This one is more intimate, more obviously a railway station rather than a palace, and very much older, dating from the 1970’s or even older.

In the huge waiting room (a departure lounge really) we’re enjoying massage chairs at Y4 (about 40p) for 10 minutes.  I say “enjoying”.  My wife and daughter think they are great, and had two goes each.  I found the massage a bit heavy handed.

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By bullet train from Guilin to a city called Liuzhou, from whence we will take sleeper train to another city called Zhiangziajie. So many cities I have never heard of.  Here is a train with a front like an aircraft, like a TGV, based in fact on a Japanese Shinkansen train, and the “dwell time” at this station (the time spent stationary in the platform) has been over five minutes.  That said, the train did arrive early.  As a commuter in the Home Counties, I’m accustomed to “dwell times” of less than a minute – in and out, quick quick quick…

Liuzhou is a city of over three million people. I’d never heard of it, and it is just one of hundreds of cities of this size in China.  Here is the railway station:

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We walked a little away from the station, having to run some light interference from taxi drivers, in order to be far enough away from the station to find somewhere to hail a “Didi” (the Chinese equivalent of Uber) where it might safely and legally stop.  We took the taxi to a second railway station, called Liujiang, located in in an area of the city called Labao – a good 40 minutes by taxi.  The driver was an affable fellow; himself a Chinese teacher, and he took our photo when he dropped us off.  The second station, whence we arrived at dusk, was something of a disappointment.  More in the “Inter-Railing” style of railway station – just a single track, a single waiting room.  Outside, some shops and little cafes where we found something to eat.  Though not without some stress and difficulty in establishing what we might eat: no pictures, and of course no English menu.

The waiting room was stressful, to a degree: by now we were tired and the train was late.  “Do not lie down” the signs said. People laid down.  Our  tiresome wait was enlivened by the sign above the door for the “Security” people, where the proof-reading had failed.  The “r” and the “i” had blurred into an “n”. This slightly rude sign cheered us up as eventually the train roared in, and everyone got on.

Victoria

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I sat in the bar on the mezzanine level, looking down at the jostling throng. There were crowds of people, rivers of humanity, rushing streams and babbling brooks of concerns: work, life, holiday, family, health. The people flowed back and forth across the concourse, each intent on their own business.

And it seemed to me as I sat in the bar, nursing my beer, that amongst the swirling crowds, that sea of people, just a few of them stood out. Across space and time, I saw a handful of people crossing this station concourse.

A man – two men – in morning suits appeared as from the pages of history. It was 1957. Britain was only slowly recovering from the austerity of rationing. There was a greyness, a grim and drab feel to the station. These two young men were rushing, desperate to catch their train to Dorking. For it was a special day for them both. One was a Best Man; the other, the Groom. They had been in what seemed like an endless queue, and somehow, they had convinced the staff of the railway company to let them jump the queue and get on. Now, at least, they were almost on the platform and on their way.

I took a pull at my pint, and when I looked down again, the scene had changed. Soldiers streamed across the station. Orderly ranks, serried columns. Rifles, rucsacs, the harsh shouts of sergeants. These men were entraining for Dover, bound for Flanders field. The hopes and fears of a generation of young men are hidden on a thousand faces. Here is a young subaltern, pink of voice and cheek, bravely concealing his worry, doing his best, biting his lip. His men may have to depend on him being strong.

Back in the present, I see a young lady, a refugee from war, crossing the station carrying everything she owns in one immense suitcase. Three young children accompany her, silent, scared, intimidated by the noise and crowds. Their mother knows only a few words of the language; she holds little or no currency. But she and her kids are in a better place by far than where they were before. .

Here is a youth in his eary twenties, visiting the big city for the first time. perhaps. He’s crossed by tube from one of the great northern terminii, and must now make his way to a small town in Kent, for a job interview. Days before, a mighty storm leveled trees all aross the south of England. He will soon travel by bus through all that chaos of fallen branches and broken limbs, from a town whose very name has been rendered a lie by the storm.

The scene changes again and I see a man carrying a small grip crossing the station. The crowds have all disappeared and the grey light of early morning can be seen in the glass roof. He has come up from the underground to find it pouring with rain. He pauses for a moment to take in the scene. Rain cascades from the gutters. The tarmac gleams wet in the reflected street lights. He crosses the forecourt, taking in the calm of early morning. The rain, the sound of the rain, calming his nerves, as he makes his way to the airport train and the other side of the world.

An account of suffering from pneumonia

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Tues 13th January

On my way to Aberdeen on business, I had a beer with AK. in “The Head of Steam” at Euston station, with a nice burger and pleasant conversation as ever. I note in passing that over the last few days I felt some slight aches and pains in my left upper back from what I thought was some kind of pulled muscle.

I took the sleeper train from Euston to Aberdeen. This train was heavily delayed. I was woken up by silence when the train should have been thundering along. As a former seafarer silence can often wake me up – sudden silence on a ship at sea, particularly a seismic survey ship, is always a serious matter.

Weds 14th January

I was not best pleased to wake up finding the sleeper train parked at Edinburgh Waverley and that the time was a little after 6a.m – the train was nearly three hours late. It should have been through Edinburgh well before 4a.m.

We were asked to leave the train, which had broken down. I went from being snug in bed, unshaven, in pyjamas, to being smartly dressed for business and hurriedly shaved, on the station platform, in less than 15 minutes. The time was 6.45a.m and I felt dreadful, like death warmed up.

However, feeling rough at an early hour is part of life for the business traveller, and it wouldn’t be the first time, so I shrugged it off. By the time I got to Aberdeen it was 11a.m, and I had started feeling rougher still on the train North, with an unshakeable headache and terrible weariness. I did some business but the flu-like symptoms worsened to the point that by mid afternoon work was no longer possible, and I cried off sick. I recall shivering hunched in my greatcoat in the foyer of an Aberdeen marine contractor, waiting for a cab to my hotel, feeling like a character out of Dickens – “I have the ague”.

I had a bath, and retreated to bed. During the night the hotel turned off the heating, and I needed to call reception to get it back on again, as I was shivering.

Thurs 15th January

I just managed a light breakfast (always a clear sign that I am not well). The snow was sifting down outside as I ate. I managed to do my job as secretary for a certain committee, the primary reason I was in Aberdeen. Back to London by air, feeling rougher by the second. I was blessed mightily by the lady in the BA lounge who (as a favour to my Gold card carrying boss, not to me) allowed me to travel back on an earlier flight. Answered prayers! Shivering in the taxi back to to my home, into the bath and into bed by 8pm.

Fri 16th  January

A day of unavoidable hard work which was shared by others in the community. I’d given warning that I needed assistance, being poorly, with the setting up of the Frost Camp. My wife helped, and WC, Mrs P and Mrs D. My strength ebbed by mid-afternoon but there was no escape. I was much blessed and encouraged by the presence and the prayers of Susan Hanson at home.

At Bentley Copse my Scout colleague and I worked ourselves silly putting tents up from 3pm til 6.30pm, at which point I could no longer stand.

I went to give team information to the Wardens up in the lodge, and the Warden’s wife made me a cup of tea and brought it to my hand. This caused me to burst into tears, at which point I knew that I was gravely ill and deeply tired as a consequence. (I am often very emotional when exhausted and in my last job sometimes I had to bite my tongue to prevent myself from crying when absolutely shattered. There would be no sympathy for mere tiredness on a seismic ship.) It was warm inside the hut and I was overborne with exhaustion and a sense of responsibility for all our youngsters.

I could not face staying up and went to bed early at 10a.m. I took a very rough night indeed, and slept not one wink, from pain and discomfort in my back primarily, from the noise of the Scouts and from the sound of wind and rain on the tent. On the plus side one of the few things I do enjoy is being snuggled up inside a tent on a rainy night.

After the fact I note that that from Thursday afternoon onwards I had the symptoms of pneumonia, but it really started to kick in on Friday night.

Sat 17th  January

I staggered to life in considerable distress with great pain in the side, upper back and chest. It made my breathing laboured and shallow. After breakfast I made my excuses and walked with difficulty, twisted and bent over, to the office, where I organised a doctor. I sat in the car wondering if I had the strength to drive; I certainly had not the strength to go back to the campsite and make a formal handover, and left all my gear where it lay. Much of my remaining strength was spent on the phone securing the assistance of another Permit holder.

Thence to Dorking to see a doctor, who prescribed “Augmentin”, and thence to Redhill where I was met by my wife who had been kindly driven through by Mrs C. My wife drove me home to a bath and thence to bed with a consolidated infection of the lower lobe of the left lung – pneumonia.

There was no measurable improvement in pain until after 10pm, when I’d had three doses of the antibiotics. Pain became ache. I was much troubled also with waking dreams, hallucinations and unpleasant visions of moving objects, swirling fantastic landscapes of outrageous, out-of-this-world colours. I slept poorly, and for the first time in my life, had to sleep sat up, because it was too painful to lie down.

Sun 18th  January

I had a slow day in bed starting the pattern of the next four days or so. Porridge in bed early, then a cooked breakfast in bed, a long hot bath and back to bed to drowse or read. I became feverish and started shivering violently at intervals, particularly after the exertion of a round-trip to the loo – perhaps eight paces there and eight paces back!

I was still troubled, more so, by hallucinations as soon as I closed my eyes. This induced nausea – as the visions were all of violently fast motion – and I reflected that if this is as bad as it gets, it could get a lot worse.

Mon 19th  January

Recovery continued almost imperceptibly. I managed a bit of email and stuff. Washing machine breaks down – what a time for it to do so.

Tues 20th  January

I watched a movie. I found that I could once again lie on my side for a short period without intolerable discomfort. I was still weak and felt particularly dreadful in the evening and around dinner time. The doc said this was usual – I was fortunate in that a doctor came to the house to see me – I could not have gone to the surgery at all and going to hospital is to be avoided at the best of times.

Ordered another washing machine on the internet – there goes our planned holiday to Lee Abbey at winter half term.

Weds 21st  January

It is becoming clear that the antibiotics are not prevailing against the infection – I am not getting better. The doctor prescribes stronger ones. Reading Scripture, esp. Isa. 38:17.

After a tough time of shivering feverishness, following my morning bath, I spent the morning drowsing and could hardly face some soup at lunch. But I rallied in the afternoon to a worrying degree. I remain ill but better than the same time yesterday. Towards dinner time feeling much stronger, but then rougher again as evening wore on. I was painfully hungry and had a big appetite for a good supper of chilli con carne. Later, another shivering attack after a visit to the loo. Did some leg exercises, as I was worried about the atrophy effects of being bed-bound for days on end. It made me tired – I am weak.

Thurs 22nd  January

An OK nights sleep. I had high hopes that there would be a dramatic improvement in health today, but instead, it has been much like the other days, with incremental, imperceptible improvement. More walking up and down in the bedroom to get my body going.

Fri 23rd  January

Last night I slept on my back for the first time since last week. However I did not sleep well; there were frequent dreams and discomfort woke me up frequently from 4a.m onwards.

After a bath, I went downstairs for the first time in over a week to sit and lie in the study, doing this and that, taking a slow day. I felt I did loads and had a full day. To bed for an almost “normal” nights sleep.

Sat 24th  January

Day nine of my illness proper.

Less sweats in the small hours, but still an uncomfortable night with frequent awakenings and nagging discomfort.

My wife and I sat in bed til 10a.m as if it was an ordinary Saturday morning. I had a shave and a shower rather than a bath, and actually got dressed! Following a hearty breakfast in the kitchen this time, I rested up in the study, though I was pottering up and down the stairs (slowly) several times during the day. By 4pm I felt quite worn out, and My wife bade me retreat to the bedroom. After another bout of feverishness I took a bath and so to bed after a relaxing evening at 10p.m. Too much too soon?

Sun 25th January

Properly convalescent now, but the weather is dreadful. Driving rain kept us indoors all day long. A day of pottering, planning aspects of Scout camp with my wife, and other stuff. I was very hungry. I needed a second cooked breakfast at noon, following my first at 10a.m. Nonetheless I have lost half a stone. At dusk my wife and I played Scrabble.

Mon 26th January

Feeling better at break of day, but still experiencing broken sleep in the small hours. Pain much lessened, now a dull ache under the left shoulder blade, without brufen. I did a little work in the study and went for my first walk out with my wife, to the end of the street and back. My wife wants to nurse me back to health as carefully as possible without relapse.

Scrabble at dusk, and a surfeit of energy in the evening. To bed, but not before 10.30pm – feeling almost normal.

Tues 27th January

Still waking up early, around 7a.m, but for the first time, without feeling the residual dampness from perspiration, coming from feverishness during the night hours. My energy levels are coming back up. No need for painkillers.

There is NO repaying what my wife has done for me as a wife this past two weeks; to say that I am forever in her debt is literally true.

Today a longer walk and a full and active morning. Remaining very hungry at intervals. I started feeling “bath-ish” and a little feverish around 7p.m. Later, at rest, I find I have pain in the left lower lobe at the rear, which feels like a step backwards. I do find more pain in the evenings.

Weds 28th January

A good nights sleep. Noting less and less pain and deeper breathing range. Nagging discomfort in left kidneys, otherwise feeling good.

As afternoon wears on, I feel less special. At 2pm I hit the painkillers again – Cocodamol and Brufen. Discomfort and nagging pain in the left lung, front and back. Feels like it is getting worse again. Feeling ratty, particularly as I find myself losing at Scrabble (itself not unusual!)

No lasting city here, but hope in the City that is to come – Hebrews 13:14

Thurs 29th January

To Westerham for a stroll and visit to a café – my first serious trip out. It was to be just coffee and cake but I was so hungry I ordered a Full English and the best pot of tea I have drunk in years.

Back home, some pottering and a relaxing afternoon. I was sketching and drawing. For some reason I am drawn to sketch, draw and paint.

At 4pm to the doctor, who prescribed a further course of strong antibiotics to finish off the remaining infection. Painkillers in the evening and cards, including a rare family game of Black Maria. And so to bed on this long road to recovery, at 10.40p.m.

A further week off is mandated by the doctor, and a trip to the Royal Victoria at East Grinstead, for chest X-rays. The doctor specifically suggested this hospital rather than the less reputable East Surrey at Redhill.

Fri 30th January

Up and feeling OK; to East Grinstead for chest X-rays. Then a sandwich whilst my wife shopped in Sainsbury’s and back home to rest up. Later, some easy work and a pleasant visit from those two affable buffoons DW and WC, which is a lovely gesture and welcome, even if I find I have little enough to say.

Later on, Anna made a nice supper, and my wife and I played Scrabble, then my wife went out. I felt very tired and had a bath, after which I flopped onto bed, exhausted. I find I have an annoying “crick” in my neck which only manifests when I lay myself down to sleep at night.

Sat 31st January – day 16

This period of illness has caused me to pray much. As I grow more accustomed to prayer, I find long-lost habits and tastes for silence before God returning to me.

Cooked some soup and made supper (Chilli) and then played Scrabble. Had a bath and then to bed – again with a crick in the neck.

Sun 1st February

Did not go to church. At 11a.m my son and I delivered the District mailing in bitterly cold conditions. Briefly saw TB at the Scout hut and discussed the new front door and its keys. Snow flurries at lunch quickly turned into a downpour which continued all afternoon.

Weds 4th February

A first day back at work – a leisured start, taking train only at 0923, but it was late! I did not get to 5LBS until 1040. I put in an acceptable day’s work and left still feeling strong – but was weak by the time I got home. My wife prepared tea for me. She had bought several shirts for me and we had a peaceful time together whilst I tried them all on. Then, I made supper, thence to the doctors and made a shopping list for the forthcoming curry night which I was doing for eight paying customers.