Travel Biography - Week 118.

A Flashback to 1962.

As a nine-year-old, three months short of my tenth birthday, I felt excited about standing on the concourse of Paddington Station in London, waiting to board a train that would take us to North Wales. This was when more rail branches were operating than at present, and near North Acton, the Great Western mainline out of Paddington divided. The southern branch is now the only Great Western Line, passing through Slough and Reading and heading for Bristol, south Wales and Cornwall. The presently nonexistent northern branch, back then, headed towards Birmingham and north Wales.

As a boy, travelling by train was a novelty. This was because Dad became a car fanatic, and whenever we went out as a family, his hands were as if glued to the steering wheel. Hence, train travel was virtually nonexistent, despite my keenness for it. That particular train journey from Paddington to Chirk, just within the Welsh border, was accomplished with a group of children from our primary school in Fulham, West London, and three or four of its staff. These children, including me, had parents who paid for their child's two-week school getaway.

The slam-door carriage I was in had wood-panelled separate compartments with a corridor on one side. Throughout the journey, other children from our school passed us along the corridor to the water closets at each end of all the carriages.

We arrived at Chirk Station. At the car park, a coach awaited us for the eight-mile leg to Llangollen. When we arrived, we were told that the property resembling a large private home was actually a hostel owned by an organisation which specialised in bringing city schoolchildren out into the countryside, although this was not the YHA. Instead, the whole hostel was hired out to the group, and there was no morning duty that, in the sixties, characterised the YHA. Directly in front of the building was a swing park, further on, the rushing water of the River Dee made its way towards Chester. In the background, the ground rose to a distant hill, topped by the ruins of Castell Dinas Bran, a 13th-century castle that was built over an Iron Age fort which dominated the surrounding valleys and the town itself.

At Henley-on-Thames.

The jovial spirit At Henley.

Tudor House and Shops at Oxford.

Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-on-Avon.

Day trips included a coach trip to Conway, with its better-preserved castle and the Smallest House in Britain. Both faced a tidal estuary of the River Conway as it flowed into the Irish Sea. A couple of times, we climbed up along the path that led to the ruins of Dinas Bran, opening up a splendid view of the town below. I approached the teachers to ask about the castle's history, but neither could answer. That was surprising to me, as a boy and even without the Internet, I believed that every teacher's knowledge stretched to infinity.

During that two-week trip, any classmates I had remained at home. Generally, I got on okay with the others. However, if any teasing or bullying occurred, we thought it better to stay away from the staff, especially from the male teacher whom I heard replied to one victim, Don't tell tales! - leaving the bullying perpetrator unpunished and the victim further humiliated. This was in the days when the UK mandatory conscription into the military had just ended in 1960 but the last of the conscripts weren't discharged until 1963. The unsympathetic teacher was still preparing us for National Service in expectation of a tough life in the army - perhaps with a belief that mandatory conscription would return with the next Conservative government.

Meal times could get emotional, especially if the head boy at our eight-seated table wanted to prove his power. To do that, he had to bring his chosen victim to tears, knowing that he would go unpunished. One evening, we were served dessert after finishing the main course. The custard in my bowl had some surface skin in it, and having recalled when I was very young, choking the last time I tried to swallow the skin, I refused to eat the custard.

That was when the head boy bullied me to eat. It had nothing to do with my welfare or any concern with food waste. It was purely to bring me to tears. Instead, we were locked in a battle of wills. The boy egged me on to eat. I refused, and the tension between us held while the other boys watched. But I didn't cry. I never gave the perpetrator the satisfaction he wanted. Then, as everyone rose to leave for the lounge, Mrs Light, a staff member, approached, and towering over me, bent down so her face was nearly level with mine and gave me a stiff telling-off for calling the food rubbish. The head boy was leaving the dining room, getting away scot-free.

William Shakespeare's Birthplace.

YHA Llangollen.

River Dee, Llangollen.

The hostel and playpark, Llangollen.

And so, in 1998...

After arriving home from the 1997 ten-week Round-the-World backpacking trip and sinking into post-trip blues, I wasn't aware of the effects that would have had for the following year. Although I quickly recovered emotionally, its long-term impact continued in the subconscious for a long while. Hence, 1998 had three short breaks. In proper chronological order, they were (1) the hike along Hadrian's Wall with two other friends, (2) the transatlantic flight to New York to avoid the World Cup football, and (3) an attempted bicycle ride from home to Llangollen to finish at Chester, around 230 miles (370 km).

Why do I use the word attempted? It was because the pedalling journey was never completed. And have considered myself very fortunate. I could have been killed.

And so, one morning in 1998, with the late summer weather looking ideal, I loaded the luggage on the bike's panniers and set off. I have already worked out the route. The main destination was Llangollen in Denbighshire, Wales. However, the plan was for the journey to continue further to Chester, from where I could board a train with the bike to return home. The whole purpose of this trip was to revisit and revive memories of that 1962 school trip 36 years earlier. From my apartment, the route passed through Henley-on-Thames, Oxford where I would spend the first night, then Stratford-upon-Avon, Birmingham, Wolverhampton where I would spend the second night, Llangollen for the next three nights, before proceeding to Chester via Wrexham to spend a night there. I also had all the accommodation booked in advance, as with the growth of tourism, it was already becoming unwise to rely on "off-the-street" walk-ins.

The bicycle I had was given to me by a friend who had it for years. It was a well-maintained, handsome machine with panniers fitted at the rear to accommodate luggage. The bag I had was rather heavy, as it was impractical to take the rucksack. This extra weight not only made pedalling harder work but has put a greater strain on the frame. 

I arrived at Henly-on-Thames, a border town of Oxfordshire on the north side of the Thames (Berkshire reaches the south bank.) Since this was a sightseeing and memory-reviving tour and not competitive, I had no qualms about a refreshment break before resuming the journey. It was afternoon when I arrived in Oxford, and already tired, I felt relief when I checked in at the YHA Oxford which was near the railway at the time. I had much of the afternoon to check out the city and admire its history and the colleges of Oxford University.

Castell Dinas Bran is seen through the fog.

The ruins of Castell Dina Bran.

Ruins of Castell Dinas Bran

At the hostel, I carried out the usual - bought and cooked my own meals. Early in the morning, I set off towards the Midlands. However, at a rotary interchange, I took the wrong exit. Instead of taking the A4260 for Kidlington, instead, I was on the A34 heading in an entirely wrong direction. Fortunately, further on, there was a minor road connecting the two main roads. By turning onto this road, I corrected the route, and I was relieved when I passed through Kidlington.

It was plain riding until I reached Stratford Upon Avon, the birthplace and hometown of William Shakespeare. It was afternoon, and by calculating how long it would take to reach Wolverhampton, I was able to spend an hour in this historic town. There was a touristic atmosphere with rowing boats plying the river. By the river, the Shakespeare Theatre stood aloof. I also spotted a YHA hostel, and immediately I wished that I could just walk in and reserve a bed there and then. During the seventies and eighties, I could have done that. This was the disadvantage of advanced booking. The hotelier at Wolverhampton was expecting me that evening. I couldn't mess about and screw up the schedule.

I rode on towards Birmingham. I arrived at the Bullring shopping centre and looked around. From the ceiling of the main indoor mall, some giant bumble bees enhanced the precinct. I then moved on toward Wolverhampton where I was to spend the second night at a hotel there.

I was rolling fast downhill on a busy main road. All of a sudden there was a loud CLUNK! and the bike began to buckle under my weight and swayed crazily from left to right across the road. I applied the brakes and found what the problem was. The seat tube, just above the bottom bracket shell, had broken due to metal fatigue. Yet, I was fortunate. Very fortunate. I could have gone under a car. My journey could have ended at a hospital mortuary. Instead, I was fine, uninjured, but holding up a crippled bike.

The bicycle was finished and beyond repair. It was the frame that was damaged. Had it been the wheel, pedal, chain, cassette, brakes or even the handlebars, or the panniers that broke, they could be replaced and the journey resumed. I would have taken the cycle to a bike shop and had the damaged part replaced. But the frame? That is where all the other parts were attached. Once the frame breaks due to metal fatigue, the whole bicycle is finished, even if the wheels are brand new.

I "limped" to Wolverhampton city centre, locked up the bicycle on a sturdy support and arrived at the hotel on foot. That evening, feeling low and defeated, I treated myself to cod and chips at a local fish & chip bar. I settled in my room for the night and moped. The next day, I decided to leave the bike locked up in the city and headed to Llangollen by bus and train. After a day of travelling by public transport, I arrived at the YHA Llangollen by evening.

At the hostel kitchen, I made friends with a Spanish cyclist who couldn't speak English but talked a lot anyway. His spirit was opposite to mine. How could one be in such a jolly mood while the other is so much out of his? That was simple. This young Spaniard is cycling around the UK with success. I was no longer riding but admitted defeat at the challenge.

Bathhouse Hypocausts, Chester

My own Mosaic, Roman Museum, Chester.

The next day, I saw off the Spaniard as he set off on the next leg of his journey. The next three days I spent in Llangollen. Forgetting the failed cycle ride, I spent time in the ruins of Castell Dinas Bran. 36 years after the first visit, I saw no change in the remains. There was no sign of erosion or weathering. They were exactly as I saw them. I sat on the lawn among the ruins and contemplated.

I also approached the hostel. It too looked unchanged. No group was occupying the property that day, but by peering inside through a window, I saw signs above each door saying which room each door led into. After all that time, the hostel continues its intended purpose of catering to the needs of children.

The swing park was still there, although the Witches Hat was replaced by a climbing frame. But the swings were exactly where they always were. I sat on one and swung to and fro as I did as a child. On another day, I saw two elderly ladies laughing as they swung on those swings. Although I didn't approach them, I could see that they too were reminiscing on their childhood experience at that hostel. Furthermore, these ladies looked older than me, hence they might have arrived with their school group some years before we did.

Finally, a bus took me to Chester where, after a visit to the Roman Museum, I spent my final night before taking the train to Wolverhampton to collect my crippled bike, and then boarding another train with the bike for Reading before my final leg of the journey home. The bicycle was never used again but was eventually scrapped.

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Next Week: How an Invite to Lunch is set to Change my Destiny.

Educational School Trip or a Holiday?

The daylight was already filtering through the closed curtains of our small dormitory. A quiet conversation was whispered between us boys when either something was said or something happened which made me let out a whine. Afterwards, I felt nothing more of it, that is until Mrs Brown, fully dressed, strode into the bedroom with her repeated question:

Who squealed? Who squealed?

I admitted that I did. Mrs Brown, a rather tall, choleric primary school teacher then pulled back the bedclothes in which I was under and smacked my exposed thigh. Then she threw the covers back into place and walked out of the dormitory. At least I didn't cry.

Such an act of corporal punishment for what I have regarded as an insignificant offence was quite common around the late 1950s, into the 60s. But we, as the fledgeling Baby-Boom generation, regarded all this as normal, to be expected. Where was I back then? It was our primary school Summer-term two-week trip to Swanage in Dorset. As the school takes some pupils away every year, I remember at least two of these trips. To Swanage in Dorset. The other was at a hostel in Llangollen, North Wales.

Ballard Down cliff from Swanage beach.

Both these trips, which were paid for by my already hard-up parents, were meant to be both educational and for a chance of us inner-city Londoners to acquaint ourselves to the countryside and to the coast. And with quite a high level of disciplinary attitude. Whenever we were out and about, it was compulsory to walk in line with each pupil partnered up into twos, with the staff checking us over before told to move. In the evenings, before bed, we all had to fill in a diary we were each given, describing the place we had visited, even detailing the morning and afternoon weather.

At Swanage, I was immediately struck by the chalk cliffs of Ballard Down. I thought it was some kind of magic as we walked along Peveril Point from the esplanade, and watch from across the bay Old Harry Rock, the two Pinnacle Stacks and the southeast-facing cliffs beginning to unfold from beyond Ballard Point, as if like a telescope. As for being educational, up to this day, it's difficult to work out how knowledgeable our teachers were. Indeed, even at that young age, I was able to identify Ballard Down as a chalk headland, but geological terms such as Purbeck Stone and the very hard Portland Stone, both making up Durlston Bay, south of Swanage, as well as the coastline beyond, I doubt if our teachers knew anything of it all, let alone me. 

View of cliffs from Peveril Point, not seen from the beach. 

Like the time we were at Llangollen. The hostel is towered over by a high hill rising on the other side of the River Dee which flows through the town. The hill was topped by the ruins of Castle Dinas Bran, which gives a spectacular sight from our dormitory window. I asked the headmaster himself if he knew any history of the ruin. He apologised, unable to answer. But to be fair on him, which was long before the invention of the Internet, such research on the castle's history was very hard to come by.

When considering my own childhood experiences of school trips during term time - half-term in my day consisted of just Monday and Tuesday off, thus just a long weekend - I can't help having mixed emotions over those public schools and grammar schools sending their pupils to a skiing holiday in the Alps. Either I was grossly misinformed, or such holidays - and that's what they are, holidays in contrast to educational trips - I have thought such holidays had never existed during my boyhood days.

Physical activity? As a schoolboy, this meant long walks. And in Swanage, this included bathing in the sea at high tide, when there's hardly a beach between the lapping sea and the promenade wall. Although it was late Spring, it was cold and I couldn't swim. Furthermore, I was afraid of the abundance of seaweed washed up on the beach, discarded kelp fronds. From within the pile, (so I thought) some nasty creature may come out and bite! (And for the record, such abundance of kelp and sargassum fronds are now non-existent at our beaches. Indeed, I miss them.) 

What I thought was merely a day of leisure, a day at the (virtually non-existent) beach, it was much later I came to realise that this was part of a toughening up process the staff felt was a necessity in preparing us to face a challenging world as adults. And this included cold sea bathing with practically no other option. Even when we were staying at Llangollen, we were taken by coach to a beach which was infested with live jellyfish. We were still encouraged to swim. As far as I'm aware, there was no record of injury among us.

Kelp seaweed, abundant during my boyhood days.

Wind forward more than five decades and here I am, in full retirement. Although over such a timespan, memories linger. And so we are all under threat of a coronavirus epidemic, and it won't come as a surprise when this crisis is declared a global pandemic. What I have found so infuriating is that posh pupils from grammar and public schools have flown for a half-term skiing holiday to Northern Italy where unknown to them, the COVID-19 virus has already taken a foothold with the infection rapidly spreading.

These trips were proper holidays which, to me, are quite different from the school educational trips I had to go through. At all other times, I would have given them no other thoughts other than to wish them well. How they must have enjoyed themselves as each of them hurtling down a snow slope on two rails fixed to their feet. Then in the evening, it's the bar. Although too young for alcohol consumption, no doubt nightlife was provided for them. All paid for by parents who can afford the exorbitant price.

Apparently, say at a school of 300 students, about thirty go on such trips. Then at the start of the second half of term, a couple of students becomes unwell. The whole school is shut down and all 300 students quail with fear, pondering whether they might have picked up the virus, even if they did not fly out in the first place. And after the school closes down, those living within the vicinity start worrying. Then the rest of us begin to worry.

Maybe it's just me, who knows. But I believe that I would feel far more sympathy had those returning had been casualties of a Middle East war, who caught the infection whilst on the front line. Or volunteering medics out to lend assistance to Third World families suffering from malnutrition, who had picked up the virus. Or Christian missionaries and their volunteers unfortunate enough to become infected. I would even have greater sympathy towards those who flew out to be reunited with their families, or for those who were sent out by their employers to fulfil a contract. But a group of well-off students out on a skiing holiday? I think this what irks me most of all. The fact that skiing is quite an expensive activity which is patronised mainly by the middle-classes is the root cause of the rub.

And here I am, shaking in my shoes with fear, anxiety. Not just for me but for my beloved wife as well. Yes, I know. The death rate is only about 2% of all infected. But the majority who has died was mainly among the elderly and among those with existing health risks. Then what a shock when a newspaper announces that if the infection becomes widespread here in the UK, it's the younger and stronger patients who will be given priority for treatment, ahead of the elderly and the more vulnerable. A revival of eugenics in its own country of birth!

With my wife on recovery from breast cancer and myself, a senior citizen living with permanent heart failure, the risk from such an infection would be considerably higher. Therefore it really irks me to read that NHS doctors will give priority to treat a young student with wealthy parents and just back from Italy over my beloved who is in a worse condition due to an immune system weakened by chemotherapy.

But one thing I must be clear here. I'm fully aware that these pupils had no idea they were flying into an affected area. If they knew beforehand, no doubt they would have cancelled the trip or consider a switch to a safe destination. Therefore, with this in mind, I can't blame any of them. Not individually anyway. But I do blame the system. I know this is quite difficult, this blaming of an abstract quality instead of a person or a group of people. But I guess this is our British culture. Pampering the well-off student instead of throwing him into a cold, rough sea with piles of floating kelp and a few live jellyfish!

The ruin of Dinas Bran dominated our dorm window...

But holding resentment against the British class system will neither benefit nor hurt anyone other than myself. Such irksomeness will only destroy me, no one else. As far as I know, school trips of this calibre will continue to be organised, there will always be parents willing and able to pay. There is no hint whatsoever that skiing will go out of business - unless, of course, global warming will put and end of mountain snowfalls. But even if that was to happen, these elite bunch of pupils will find alternate activities in different destinations. It's all part of once privileged always privileged. 

Therefore, there is no benefit in holding a grudge, nor is there anything good in worrying or feeling anxious, having fears of the future. Instead, I can follow the footsteps of Jabez, an otherwise unknown Israelite found among a long list of names detailed in the first ten chapters of the Old Testament book of 1 Chronicles. In 4:10 an interruption of the long list of names is given for this Jabez, the wisest of a family of brothers. The name Jabez means pain in Hebrew, although it can also mean sorrow as in the KJV, as a more intense birth pain was felt by his mother at his birth, hence was given this name.

He simply turned to God and uttered this prayer:

Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.

And God granted his request.

This verse has been turned into a popular song which we sing at church. However, an extract from the Lord's prayer has been added to the original verse: Let your kingdom come, Let your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven...

It looks as if there is a hint of human nature within the thinking of the songwriter. Jabez prays: "Oh that you bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain." And that's it. Jabez did not condition his prayer with any form of a promise. A very simple request passed on to God, and this request was granted with no strings attached. That is the object of grace, undeserved mercy!

For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Romans 10:13.

Either this is true or it isn't. The only requirement is to believe that this Jesus of Nazareth crucified is the risen Christ. It's a heart belief, a conviction that Jesus has risen from the dead physically. And from such a heart, just call on God to rescue you, and that's it. Paul promises that all who call on the Lord will be saved.

Of course, Paul is applying this to salvation, but not necessarily Jabez. Instead, he asks God for earthly blessings, the enrichment of this life, the here-and-now. I don't think there's any difference between praying for salvation or earthly enrichment. By calling upon God's name both were answered. Jabez may not fully understand about the afterlife in the same way we do, but having called upon God, he was saved as well as looked after whilst alive.

I have been in fear of this coronavirus. Mixed with this fear was my anger directed at those posh pupils arriving back from a skiing holiday now spreading the virus and threatening us all. It was in this pit of darkness when I remembered this piece of Scripture and I read it. And then I prayed:

Oh Lord, bless us (Alex and myself) and protect us, O Lord, from the threat of this virus. May you guard us, protect us and keep us free from this infection and from all illness relating to it.

Bless us, O Lord, and keep us financially secure. In Jesus' Name. Amen.

As the weeks come and go, we'll see whether God will answer our prayer. In the meantime, I have felt relief from such fear and anxiety.