Where Have All The Nettles Gone?

FRIDAY 13th JUNE.

I am now sat on the 11:10am to Plymouth at Leeds train station, bound for Administer via Exeter. This is for the “World nettle eating contest” in Marshwood Dorset, and I will be in England now for the next three months recharging my batteries, - (I suppose I could have done that in Spain, - just used a different adaptor).
I had an interesting time coming through security at Alicante airport yesterday. Apart from the usual shenanigans trying to get my belt off, (the metal tip of which snares the loops of my jeans rather like a fish hook in the mouth of a startled Chub), I managed to set off the alarm. During the ensuing frisk, the gentleman found a lump on my leg, - it didn’t worry me, it was my money, it worried him though, and he passed me on to the head of security.
The offending envelope was placed on a desk, the officer looked at me and then asked me how much money I had in there (of course all this is going on in Spanish so I was never really sure at any point what was being said exactly, to whom and why). I’d been to the bank the previous day to draw a few quid out, and this money I had; I then pooled it with the money I had left hanging around in the house, so in truth I didn’t know exactly how much I had at all. I told him this, - or at least I think I did. I was suddenly feeling rather vulnerable and just a mite flustered and my pidgin Spanish was baffling the best of em. I was using words I’d never heard of before, and at one point, thinking that I was being accused of theft or of being a drug baron, I produced my bank book showing at least where some of the cash had come from. He must have asked me if I was travelling alone half a dozen times, before shaking his head and producing a tiny piece of laminated card with a table of numbers on it.
The conclusion of this little one way argument was that I had heinously broken the law by taking more than my allotted number of bank notes out of Spain. Let’s get this right though, I could understand it when they had the peseta, but the euro isn’t strictly theirs is it? Think there’s about another forty countries laying claim to it up to press.
Anyway, I was quite chuffed really, it’s probably the only time in my life that I’ve been accused of having too much money.

Leeds train station is bustling as usual and I settle down for the long journey with only empty cans of Heineken and Strongbow in the seat pocket in front for company, also there were plastic glasses filled with lager (hopefully) in the main luggage rack and several Tetley’s bitter cans rolling about on the floor, and this is 11:00am!. A chap with a plastic bin liner came round just outside Derby and did a half hearted clear up but still left me with my empty ale cans, which was good of him.

It’s amazing how fast these journeys can go if you have something good to read, I’d polished off the newspaper in ten minutes flat as usual, mainly because I only ever read the “Man flushes dentures down the toilet” type headlines and the sport. However at the moment I am reading a quite brilliant book by Harry Thompson called Penguins stopped Play. Harry who? I hear you ask, and I’d never heard of him either, but it turns out that I should have done. The Observer newspaper voted him one of the funniest and most influential people in British comedy. Not surprising really when he was the producer of such programmes as Harry Enfield and Chums, Have I got News For You and They Think It’s All Over, and many, many more. He also was instrumental in creating the Ali G character and did much to further the careers of Ricky Gervais, Nick Hancock and Paul Whitehouse. The book is essentially about his cricket team “The Captain Scott Invitation X1” (so called because Scott was an heroic runner up), whereby he assembles a team of players who have never actually played the game before!. His accounts of these games and the subsequent world tour are absolutely superb and I didn’t look up again until Birmingham New Street station, and even then it was only because a cleaner finally relieved me of the empty Heineken and Strongbow tins, which was a bit of a shame in the end, we’d formed a bond.

At the arrival at each station a scratchy voice comes over the intercom announcing where we are and usually apologizing for it’s late arrival. More often than not this is delivered in stop start mode, a la Norman Collier, either that or the volume is equal to that to a knackered portable radio with flat batteries. This usually results in startled recently awoken passengers croaking “what did he say”, before frantically craning their heads desperately scouring the platform looking for a clue.
While we’re on the subject of craning your head desperately looking for a clue, why the hell are destinations put on the front of trains?, we embark from the side don’t we?. Unless you happen to be in the privileged position of being on the platforms edge when the train arrives, and just happen to be looking in the right direction to see the two inch high letters through the grime, then you’ve got to take a guess and mumble to someone, “This the Exeter train?”. They’ll invariably reply “I think so”, nobody is ever really sure on British railways, talk about magical mystery tour.
In actual fact the intercom had been working fine at the start of the journey, and some bloke by the name of Chris announced himself to us, rattling off our stopping off points and telling us we could get tea, coffee and sandwiches but this wasn’t recommended unless you were earning at least fifty grand a year.
I think that maybe our friend Chris had left his microphone switched on by mistake in between stations, as I distinctly heard a sneeze, a cough, and most bizarrely of all a wolf whistle!. (A couple of hours later I realized that it wasn’t the intercom at all, but a young student type behind me playing some strange game on his mobile phone). He then announced that unfortunately the display screens that tell you what carriage you’re on weren’t working so all those people who had reserved a seat (these were on coach C), didn’t have a clue where coach C was and drifted up and down looking for the conductor. Actually, I’ve got a reserved seat somewhere on this train, but I’m quite happy where I am thank you, whatever carriage I’m on.
There was then another announcement which said “Can I remind you that there is no smoking whatsoever anywhere on this train, including the toilets. And if anybody is found doing so they will be put out on the next platform, regardless of if it’s their stop or not!”. Just who exactly was going to put them out on the platform I don’t know, the conductor was about seven stone wet through and the driver was a bit tied up.
The first leg of my journey complete, I arrive at Exeter St. David’s station and in direct contrast to my other visits this year thus far the weather is fine and warm and I can feel a good mood coming on. I approach a middle aged lady, with a bright yellow waistcoat that says “customer services” on the back.
“Excuse me, I’m after the train for Axminster, do you know when the next one is please?”. She slowly produced her timetable.
“Ooh, yeah, roight, Aaarksminster you say, roight, oil just check thart for yer. Humm, now then, let’s see. Aaarksminster, that would be the London Waterloo train, or at least it is usually”. With that she pulled the piece of paper closer to her nose and with a slight nod of the head. “No, I’m wrong there I think, now let’s see, we are at Exeter St. David’s and you want to get to Aaaarksminster, that would be the London Waterloo train, - which is what I thort it was in the first place. Yes, definitely, that would be the London Waterloo train leaving in twenty minutes from platform number, er, three. No, er, - yes, platform number three in twenty minutes, - definitely”. She was my first contact with people in Devon since I worked in Devon in 1986, and I liked her.
Whilst I was waiting on platform three I heard another strange announcement, “Can we remind all passengers, not to board a train unless you intend to travel on it – thank you”. Fair enough, they must have terrible trouble with passengers purposely getting on the wrong train round these parts.

I arrived at Axminster station (on time!), which is a delightfully small single track station which reminded me of Walmington-on-sea. The place where I’m staying is only about twenty minutes walk from here apparently so I thought I’d just hop into a taxi as I haven’t a clue which direction it is. There were no taxis to be seen anywhere so I made for the call box and picked up one of the business cards that had been left in there. I lift the receiver and put my twenty pence in, nothing, - dead as a Dodo. What’s this? Minimum charge forty pence!, since when?. I phone the number whilst simultaneously rummaging through my pockets looking for the piece of paper with the address of my bed and breakfast accommodation written on it. As I got through I realized that I couldn’t find it. “Er, could I have a taxi please, I’m going to Stoney Lane”, said with a certain relief that I could suddenly recall the name of the road. “Is thart in Seaton then?”.
“I’m sorry, where?”
“Seaton, that’s where we are you see, Seaton”.
“Actually, no, I’m at Axminster train station, I’ve just found one of your cards in here”.
“Well, you’d probably be better off with a local firm, goodbye”.
I then pick up one of the other cards left in there and try again. “Hello, could I have a taxi to Stoney Lane please”.
“Stoney Lane, where’s thart then?, that’s in Seaton is it?, Oym not sure oive ever heard of thart”.
“No, I’m in Axminster one of your cards is in this telephone box, and I just thought that maybe you were a local firm, - sorry, I’ll try another number”.
My third attempt. “Can I have a taxi to Stoney Lane please, the name’s Holt”.
“Stoney Lane, tharts in Aaarksminster isn’t it?.
“Er, yes, yes it is”, I said excitedly.
“Well” (this word was dragged out so long that I just knew there was a “but” coming up in the sentence somewhere).
“We caan do et, but it’ll cost you abowt fifteen pownd – because thess firm is baysed in Seaton you see”.
“Yes, I have heard of it, thank you”.
I had run out of fifty and twenty pences at an early stage and had been shoveling pound coins in for a while and I wasted another on a number I picked up in the train station for “Cheap, local and reliable Taxis”. They weren’t that reliable at answering their phones though and I gave the box a resounding thwack with my palm as I was diverted to an answer phone and winced as my penultimate coin plopped down with rest of my beer money.
I celebrated getting through to a local firm with my last coin with a silent clenched fist celebration, they went up further in my estimations when the driver turned up on time and guessed the name of my Bed and Breakfast from my vague description of “Mill something”.
As we drove through the town centre it struck me that Axminster was smaller by far than I had imagined. I don’t know why, but I had pictured a large bustling town with a dirty great big carpet factory in the middle with a huge steaming chimney sticking out of the top it.
It has it’s origins back in the Celtic times of around 300 B.C, and is set among some glorious countryside on the river Exe (which I never saw). It was Thomas Whitty who invented the Axminster carpet based on a Turkish style and opened his first factory in 1755. Axminster carpets soon became the choice for wealthy English country homes and town houses, they were found in Chatsworth Hall and Brighton Pavilion and bought by King George the third and Queen Charlotte. However by 1835 Samuel Rampson Whitty, the grandson of the founder was declared bankrupt after a disastrous fire seven years earlier which destroyed the factories looms. After a gap of the best part of a hundred years a carpet maker called Harry Duffield, (after a chance meeting with a vicar on a train, who told him the story), the germ of an idea was born and in 1937 carpet making was resumed in Axminster.

We arrived at Millwater House, a former working saw mill which was hidden away at the bottom of a private driveway that it shared with a spacious bungalow. As I waved off the taxi driver and the family of Americans who had shared my cab I was greeted on the doorstep by Ruth the owner, a charming understated woman who looked a lot younger than she sounded on the phone and she showed me to my room with a shy smile.
I immediately began to relax and as I stretched my arms skyward and peered out of the window, and saw a solitary grey squirrel sat motionless beneath a bird table on the lawn outside. In fact it looked so motionless that I thought that maybe it was a little statue, but its living status was confirmed later, - by it not being there when I left for the pub.
I was suddenly in my element as I picnicked on my bed with the leftover sandwiches that I’d made for the train, a couple of bananas were dug out of the bottom of my bag and I made a cuppa with my “tea making facilities”. England cricket team were just kicking off in their opening Twenty20 one day match against New Zealand, the commentary of which seduced me from my portable radio on the bed side table, and there was football on the telly!. I’m definitely coming back here again!, I thought. Okay, the game was only Italy versus Romania, us English weren’t invited to the European Championships of course, on account of the fact we’re rubbish. This does have its up side. It means that my heart rate can stay put all summer long for one thing, although I will miss the glorious uncertainty of just who would despairingly miss from the spot, and thus knocking us out in a penalty shoot out at the quarter final stage.
What added to my serenity was that I was entirely uncontactable, although a pain in the rear end earlier with the taxis, the detached feeling from the rest of the world here in my B and B in a tranquil corner of East Devon was marvellous. My mobile phone doesn’t work properly over here and my English phone number had been cancelled in my absence by “T-Mobile”, I hadn’t had time to fix it before I came, and at this stage I’m not sure I wanted to.

I ventured out at around 8:30pm, remembering carefully the route the taxi had taken that brought me here. The only sound I could hear was my own two feet as I strolled my way up the lane in the early evening sun and into the town centre, it’s Friday night and I was expecting that there would be a few people hanging about. After wandering about for a few minutes trying to get my bearings I called into a large looking pub called The George, there was nobody in there save for a couple of Aussies chatting semi drunkenly at the bar. Shades of the cheese rolling in Brockworth, must be here for the nettle eating I surmised, I fell into line and ordered a pint of Fosters lager. A quick glance around the place revealed a television behind me, I was hoping that they would have the football on but my heart sank when I heard the broad Geordie nasal tones of that bloke who does the commentary for Big Brother.
I moseyed across to a table with newspapers and periodicals strewn across it and picked up the Daily Mirror – again, and didn’t find it much more interesting than I had done earlier on the train.
I drained my glass and set off for another little amble around town, making note of a chip shop for later use I then happened upon the “Red Lion” which advertised “All sport shown”, so in I went and ordered a pint of “Sharps Doom Bitter”. At least the place was quite full, mainly due to a wedding party, but it was another pub that has gone down the line of the Mediterranean terracotta wall look adorned with arty modern paintings (what’s wrong with looking like an English pub these days?). There was a sign above the bar which advertised “O.A.P roasts every Thursday lunch”, Hmmm, they’re probably a bit chewy I thought. The football wasn’t on here either, they’d got a music channel on so I had another swift one and set off for pastures new.
The “Axminster Arms” was the best so far, even though my pint of “Palmers Copper Ale” was presented to me with one of those fairy liquid bubble heads which has usually disappeared before you’ve got the damn thing to your lips. Even so, it felt like a nice pub to me, they had friendly bar staff and a couple of blues musicians in an adjoining room so I shimmied up the bar to get a better view. From where I was stood it appeared as though the chap sat to my right was blowing down what looked to be an electric razor, mind you, it sounded a lot better than mine, and to my untrained ear resembled a clarinet in sound. They went down well anyway and as I spun round to order a “Taunton traditional cask cider” (it must be the real stuff as it looked like second hand dishwater), the crowd showed their appreciation with warm applause.
As far as the blues is concerned, after a couple of songs, a solo on the harmonica and the odd mention of a dead relative or two, I’ve usually had enough, and so it was again here. It made for a good atmosphere though, I’d found a pub here that I really liked and I felt a warm glow (it was probably the cider) as I strolled across by the telly to watch the U.S Open Golf.
I know I risk sounding like a sports bore here but the truth is that when I’m mooching around on my own it’s handy to have something to watch, it keeps me occupied and a little less conspicuous, which in turn makes you a bit less of a target from the local pub nutter.
I made my exit just before last orders to avoid the crush at the fish shop, - I avoided the crush alright, it was shut. There was an Indian takeaway that looked as if it might have been open, but I’m not a big fan so I headed for home instead. As I gingerly made my up the darkened driveway to “Millwater House” my progress was checked by a very sociable tortoise shell cat that folded its self around my shins as I walked, and from a distance I must have appeared steaming drunk as I tripped and stumbled toward the old wooden porch. My stomach was gurgling expectantly as I crept up the staircase and into the room, but I had nothing to offer it and I put the kettle on. The milk was kept in a miniature fridge in the hallway in which were three bottles of milk each with a room number on written in black marker pen, which was very quaint I thought. I sat back on my bed and listened to a debate on the radio, about a school teacher who whipped off his shirt to flash his “man boobs” in order to get his pupils attention. They don’t throw the board rubber, or smack you on the back of the head with wooden rulers any more then?.
I found a packet of “Deans Shortbread”, cut into “petticoat tails” on my tea tray and I feverishly opened the wrapping like a six year old on Christmas morning, and flew at them, teeth first, showering crumbs to all corners.
I awoke next morning in good time for the 8 o’clock breakfast which was very nice, the few beers I’d had the night before once again tweaking my taste buds to enjoy fried food. I looked out of the window and on to the spacious gardens, I could see that once again the weather was being kind and as I spooned out another home made dollop of orange and pineapple marmalade, I promised myself that this would be the last thing that would pass my lips until I tackled my first nettle in Marshwood.
My constant companion the portable long wave radio is once again pressed into action as it accompanies me to the bathroom as England take on New Zealand, this time at rugby. We were 6-3 up when I went into the shower and 23-6 down when I came out, - talk about a shower of shite!. This doesn’t affect my good mood however and I’m whistling as I dress and I notice through my window the elderly bow-legged next door neighbour filling up his ancient looking watering can from the adjoining stream.
As I cheerily walk up the lane, this time knowing exactly where I’m heading, I can’t stop singing the song “The day we went to Bangor”, this is baffling in the extreme, I haven’t the slightest idea why I’m doing this, I don’t know if I passed a sign for Bangor whilst on the train or there were some sausage related headlines in the paper yesterday or what, but on I go belting it out all the way into the town centre. Once there I take a look round the “River cottage local produce store”, this is owned by one of the hundreds of T.V chefs on the go these days by the name of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. You can’t go very far round these parts without hearing his name being mentioned, indeed when I arrived at the Bed and Breakfast Ruth the owner proudly told me that some of the production team from the programme River Cottage were going to be staying there. If you’ve never heard of him, he’s the one with the wild hair and The Good Life approach. He cooks up some pretty weird recipes grows all his own organic vegetables, and feeds his chickens on stake and chips. He has also made his own “Stinger ale” which is beer made from nettles, I wonder if he’ll be there this afternoon?.
I am drawn to the sound of music so I walk through the church yard and find myself at the “Weavers Gardens” where there is a four piece jazz ensemble playing away in the sunshine to an audience politely watching and clapping sat in rows on fold down chairs.
I took a couple of photos and then a leisurely walk around the tiny museum which was situated next door to this and had a good chat with the very pleasant woman who’d accosted me has I’d walked in.
It was now nearing mid day, and I’d already booked a cab in advance to take me the six miles to Marshwood and so I made my way to the taxi rank.
I was dropped off at the “Bottle Inn” pub at around 12:30, in good time I thought to see the lay of the land and get my name down for the competition. I poked my head round the door to find,………absolutely no one, not a soul, not even behind the bar!. After a short while the young bar maid breezed over. “Am I a bit early for the nettle eating competition then?”, I inquired sheepishly
“Yes, by exactly a week”, was the short and to the point answer that had me falling off my stool.
“What!???, you’re joking, I’ve come a long way for this!”.
“No, it’s next week alright, and funnily enough you’re not the only one to get the date wrong”. I mentioned that that was probably because today’s date was listed in every piece of literature I could find for this event, it had been in the country magazine that I had read at the breakfast table at the guest house that very morning and it was listed for today on the pub’s own website!. But it was next week and that was that. I took a few snaps of the empty pub to prove that I’d been here and forlornly traipsed around the huge beer garden morosely sucking on my pint of “Otter Bitter” (The brewery’s slogan being, “relax with an Otter”).
What a bloody farce, I’d just spent £15 on a taxi to get here and now I had to get back again, there certainly didn’t seem much point in staying here. It was obviously going to be throbbing next week, not only nettle eating but four guest beers and a gorgeous looking girl behind the bar I was promised, but today, nothing. I wasted a few more pounds coins on the telephone in the bar, every time I got through to the taxi rank I could hear them but they couldn’t hear me, but luckily they’d put two and two together and phoned me back. They couldn’t do anything for an hour so I ordered a pint of “Murphys” stout and then an “Isle of Purbeck Fossil Fuel” bitter.
Whilst I was at the bar waiting for my taxi one of the newly arrived customers came up to order some food and called the bar maid over, “Excuse me, could I have “Curry of the day”.
“Yes, of course. – do you want me to tell you what curry it is?”
“No thank you”, and with that he sat down again.
I cheered up a little bit when I recalled that there was a beer festival this afternoon on the outskirts of Axminster so I asked the driver to drop me off there to see if I could salvage this operation.
It was around 1:30pm when I arrived at the “Axminster beer, music and cider festival”. It was a huge marquee that could probably house thousands, It was £6 to get in and an extra pound if you wanted to purchase your own glass, otherwise you were stuck with one of those horrible plastic jobs. I purchased my own glass and was greeted with a scene not unlike the one that I’d just left. It was sparsely populated to say the least but it was early doors I was assured. I tackled a glass (the glasses were approximately half a pint) of “Old Knobbly”, the official description said “brown, malty and complete best bitter”, and caught the arse end of “Angelina with Keith Nelson”. They said that they always finished with the same song that they start with, so they did, and came off to the sound of the grass growing.
This sent my “Old Knobbly” a bit flat and I sat there with what looked like a glass of coffee for the next ten minutes.
It was now time for my first visit to the portaloos, which involved washing your hands with skin sanitiser, a strange substance which resembles spittle and acts like metholated spirits, evaporating into thin air after a couple of lusty rubs. By the third and fourth time I’d taken to sniffing it.
Next up it was Steve somebody or other and Al Richardson, and on closer inspection it was our old blues friends from the “Axminster Inn” the night before, and it wasn’t too long before the old “Phillishave” was out again. They didn’t sound quite as good second time round, but that could have been down to the “No Angel Bitter” – “4% - a bitter with a dry hop finish, well balanced and full of flavour with hints of fruit and hops” (tasted like bonfire toffee). I actually devoured a couple of these in quick succession as Al (or is it Steve) had now started on the jokes which resulted in much scratching of heads and puffing out of cheeks.
After an hour there was still not much sign of it taking off and I sat at a large round table on my own reading the beer list (you’ve probably noticed) and the order of acts. On the table to my right sits a middle aged couple, him with a rucksack on his back and a baseball cap, and her looking quite normal – they don’t speak a word to each other.
On the table in front there sits three men of varying ages that look like they’re from the campaign for real ale group, they take turns to go to the bar, like me, trying as many different concoctions as they can. Each time they expertly lift their glass to their noses and take a slow sip, and then either nod or give a shake of the head. They don’t speak either. I’m in full “people watching” mode now and there’s a bloke two tables away with spiky grey hair, mutton chop whiskers and an Elvis tattoo on his upper arm and looks a bit of a sad loner. He probably thinks the same about me.
The crowd is now slowly growing but they pay little or no attention to the show being put on for their benefit, a fact highlighted when they blindly clapped the C.D put on between acts!. To be fair it was a live C.D and there was applause after one of the tracks and they just sort of joined in.
It’s now 3pm and it’s time for Siophan (pronounced Shivon) Park. She begins. “This next song is called “Too much to ask” (think she’d been at the “Old Knobbly”). This was followed with “A bit less guitar and a little bit more vocals please”. A catchy little title. And then. “No, a little bit less guitar” (probably the follow up single). Apart from her run in with sound technician she was a fair singer, from Ireland I think she was, and I was dying to sing along, but the truth was I’d been in there for two and a half hours and I’d yet to hear a song I’d heard of.
It was time for another drink “Stairway to heaven” – “4.2% - a golden bitter, a perfectly balanced beer. The malty and hoppy leads to a hoppy body with some astringency”.
The three real ale experts in front of me are obviously running short of funds and are down to buying one glass of ale and passing it round, each snootily sniffing and sipping as they went. It was now 3:55pm and Miss Park sang Will you still love me tomorrow- hang on, I know this!. I don’t think anyone else did though, and as I peered down to the front of the marquee I counted three people actually facing the stage. As she finished her set to restrained applause the Willie Nelson type compere shouted “Do you want more!?”, this was quickly followed up with “Don’t look so bloody miserable!”. This comment was actually aimed at the singer!.
My table, which had been solely mine up until now is now infiltrated by a bunch of students adopting Australian accents, I’m not sure if they do this intentionally though, the truth is that most youngsters sound vaguely antipodean to me, it’s that bit whereby the inflexion of the voice goes up at the end, where did that come from?, - Neighbours, Sons and Daughters, Prisoner Cell Block H, old repeats of Skippy?.
At 4pm the tone of the thing changed dramatically when a guy called Andy Strickland got up with an electric guitar and let rip with some Bryan Adams, Pink Floyd and The Police’s Message In A Bottle – weh hey!, it’s what was required and the swelling numbers appreciated it.
It was about now that I decided to take time out for a bit and after a brief visit back at the guest house I revisited the “Axminster Inn” where they were watching local hero Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on the box in his latest venture of inviting guests round for dinner and feeding them tree bark sandwiches, Bat’s ears and lentils in seawater and lime juice, Pigs cheeks in batter and a hedgehogs bum for desert.
I later returned to the beer festival, complete with my beer glass in my coat pocket at round about half past nine just in time to catch blues duet Steve and Al Richardson – for the third time in less than 24 hours!. I had a glass of “Yellow Hammer”. I’m pretty sure that’s what it was anyway. I usually have a pad and pen in my pocket to remind me of what went on (especially if I’ve been drinking), but reading back my notes after this point is a bit taxing. They resemble the “after” signature of Guy Fawkes that I once saw on a programme that showed you his autograph before and after he was tortured for being a very, very naughty boy.
The place was pretty much packed by now, I had no chance of a seat and I stood there like a lemon constantly lifting my glass to the air and suddenly turning my body at ninety degrees to avoid revelers heading for the portaloos.
I briefly tried to engage in conversation with a tall bloke with a Mohican hair cut that I’d seen previously in the “Axminster Inn”, but when the conversation turned to what I do for a living I inwardly groan. Trying to explain this is always a bit of a trial, especially so when you happen to be stood in the middle of a field in a tent with a background of mandolins, acoustic guitars and people in beards blowing down electric razors whilst being barged from pillar to post by drunken young farmers.
I left shortly before midnight for the pleasant three quarters of an hour long walk back to Millwater House, which took about an hour and a half.

Slightly disheveled, I made my way down the stairs and to breakfast. The two from the production team from River Cottage were there soon after I got to the table, we never got into conversation though, and anyway, I didn’t fancy letting it slip that I’d come all the way here from Spain a week early by mistake. The owners Ruth and Keith gave the game away though, breezing in and announcing “We were at the beer festival last night and somebody said that the nettle eating is next week”.
“Indeed so, but I’ll be back, not next week, next year”. And so it shall be.
They waved me off, very kindly offering to give me a lift to the train station, which I declined.
As I stood on the platform observing a British Railways employee sat waiting for the train wearing a solitary rubber glove – security must be getting pretty keen I thought, I reflected on another enjoyable trip, I didn’t think it would be as good on my own, but I had enjoyed my visit and was glad that I’d have to come back again.
The train rolled up, all six carriages of it, which was approximately one each which seemed a bit extravagant for a Sunday. You trying getting a train during the rush hour through the week from Leeds and you’ll find yourself stood nose to nose with some stranger on one of the packed two carriages clinging on to a pole or a solitary strap, and not being able to breathe out until you reach Sheffield.
The train was in fact so long, that to get off at some of the lesser stations, which I presumed must have included Axminster, you had to disembark from the front two carriages only. After about five minutes the chap I had seen outside with the rubber glove passed me tidying up the table in front, he was a rubbish collector, which was a relief. So I zipped up my trousers and wished him well.
On arrival at Leeds I had a bit of time before my connection to Guiseley where I was to visit my parents, so I took time out to visit my favourite pub in Leeds “The Duncan”. There’s usually a whole batch of characters to be found in here, and just one short stint at the bar you can observe the full range of human emotions from hysterical laughter to crocodile tears of despair. I ordered a pint of “Sammuel Smiths” bitter. “Well, you can have one but I’ve got no pennies”, says the landlady. This puzzled me somewhat, but it became immediately clear, when she asked me for £1.39, I’ll repeat that, £1.39!, it’s about £2 for a pint of bitter in working men’s clubs!.
Sure enough there had been some sort of argument in the far corner and a middle aged woman was slyly sobbing. The landlady, not even looking over in her direction as she pulled a pint of lager says “Oi, don’t be crying in your beer in here, there’s enough water in there already!”. A conversation started about men and women’s roles in the world, the landlady says, “You earn the money and we spend it”, a grizzled pensioner takes a toke of his pint and says “Aye, and you’re doing a grand job of it, if I may say so”. He went on, “You take advantage of us an all, every time I fall asleep the wife’s got her hands down me underpants!”, she shouts back.
“She’s after yer money, yer silly old bugger”

Chasing The Cheese

The rain is lashing down as I arrive at Birmingham international airport and once again I am to meet my mate Terry, or at least that’s the plan. When I stride into arrivals he is nowhere to be seen and after fifteen minutes of trawling up and down I ring his mobile phone. His girlfriend Pat answers the phone, although they have been together for years, we have actually never met, but she seems very nice and explains that he’d set off some time earlier and really should be there by now. I’m just relieved that he has set off at all to be honest, we haven’t spoken since Hallaton and you’re never really sure if the text messages are getting through.
After about half an hour he peers round the very door where I’m sat reading the paper, “Hello boy!, I’ve been here about an hour – just couldn’t find anywhere to park. I was in a big long line of traffic and thought I’d head for the multi storey carpark. Anyway I gets to the front of the queue – eventually, and it says maximum height two metres, and the van’s two metres and two centre metres – what a bastard!, can you believe it!, there was hell on behind me I can tell you”.
He once again produces the “fool proof” sheets of paper printed from the internet, that give detailed directions of exactly where to turn off, for how long and what your journey time should be. A quick glance at the top of sheet one says 53 minutes and some seconds. This is important to me as Leeds United are playing in a hugely important game today that kicks off at 3 o’clock and I’d rather like to see it, it’s now 1:30pm so we’ve got a chance.
It’s the play-off final, which, if we win it decrees that next season we will be playing in the heady heights of the second tier of English football. I say second tier because it’s actually called The Championship, and the top division is called The Premier league, as apposed to The First Division, the league we’re in now, although it’s actually the third division. Try explaining that to a meek faced girlfriend who thinks you’re a little bit tapped to start with. Which I did by the way, but as I babbled on over my charts and set of compasses, I trod on my calculator and dropped my slide rule to the floor. “It’s a very important game anyway”, I concluded.

Along with directions there’s a tiny little map with a big red arrow where the camp site is situated. “Once we get on this road here, we can’t go wrong I reckon”. I blink at the piece of paper rapidly hoping to make the print larger. “My eyes aren’t what they used to be Tel, think I’m getting to the stage where I need glasses”.
“Aye, me an all, but I’m pretty good close up, it’s distances where I struggle”. At this he briefly flips open the glove compartment to reveal a pair of spectacles – which he obviously never uses. “We should be alright between us though, think we’ll crack it if I take the map and you take the road signs – no problem boy”. At this we chug round the car park several times searching for the exit.

We pick our way through the teeming rain and on to the road, you know, the one which once on, “we can’t go wrong”. This signals a lighter atmosphere and excited chatter as we discuss the forthcoming knees up and the test match (which isn’t going well). Despite the weather and the cricket we were both in a good mood, whatever happened we were going to have a good drink with it, and we’d booked into the camp site for two nights having felt a bit cheated in Hallaton only staying the one.
After a little over an hour we still hadn’t seen any signs for Cheltenham, kick off time was approaching and we weren’t. We peered through the gloom looking for clues and drew a collective breath when we saw the sign for Milton Keynes. “Hang on, that’s London way isn’t it”. Even my lousy geography knew this to be true. “Jesus!, what the hell we doing down here boy!?”.
We pulled into the motorway services for a re appraisal of the situation and a coffee, a quick check of my watch confirmed that I was not to be watching football on this day. I bought a road map and Terry sloped off to the café.
“Can’t believe that, just asked for two coffees and she charged me £5:60! – for two coffees!, I said to her, no! – just two ordinary coffees, the smallest and cheapest you’ve got!.”.
“Did you sort it then?”,
“Not really, it still came to £4:80! – for two coffees, I mean, what the f…., told her she should be ashamed of herself, still, it’s not her fault. - I suppose.”. We turned our attention to the map.
Terry prodded a finger at the offending page, “Arhh, there you are you see, we were on the right road, - just set off in the wrong direction, and now we’re bloody miles away”. I nodded in agreement.
So off we went again, only narrowly avoiding doing exactly the same thing once more. We rolled up to Briarfields campsite just as Leeds United were throwing the towel in against the mighty Doncaster Rovers and I sat there fuming catching the last bit of radio commentary. Terry went to square things with reception. It was now nearly 5 o’clock now and the journey had taken us four and a half hours. What happened to 53 minutes and some seconds?.

It was still raining as we put up the tent, a very small but adequate two man affair which surprisingly turned out to be up to the job considering the buffeting it received. We decided to head into Brockworth and check out the lay of the land for the cheese rolling, we flew round several roundabouts, a couple of dual carriageways and went in the wrong direction twice. We eventually stumbled upon a huge pub called The Cross Hands, popped in for a pint of Guinness and inquired what the crack was for tomorrow. The barman confirmed that Coopers Hill, was indeed just a mile or so up the road and we could park the van there in the car park for a fiver. This sounded pretty good to us, and we did a quick recce to see if we could actually find this hill and save us a bit of heartache the day after.
We drove up a narrow mountain path – for this was no road - for about ten minutes before we surmised that we’d either missed it or come up the wrong road, - which was the more likely to be honest. As we turned the van round in tiny increments we realised that we had picked the exact spot to turn round where Coopers Hill was hidden away, carved out of thick woodland. We both laughed out loud “That must be it there!!”. The temporary bright orange plastic fencing erected at the perimeter of this monster gave the game away. “Good God – look at that!!, I gasped. The photos and video footage I had seen on my computer didn’t really do this thing justice. Terry stopped the van to take a closer look and craned his neck for a better view. He had a vested interest after all, I had come as an innocent observer, take a few snaps and soak up the atmosphere, Terry had come to lay his life on the line as usual. In fact our little partnership was starting to resemble that of Blue peter some decades earlier, Terry as the intrepid John Noakes, throwing himself out of aeroplanes and hurling himself down the Cresta Run on his bare arse, and me as the sedentary Peter Purvis, doing the commentary from the warmth of the studio, sat next to Valerie Singleton whilst patting the dog (Petra I think it’s name was).

There didn’t seem to be a pub, or a shop come to that anywhere near the campsite, and so we decided the best policy was to get a bus into Cheltenham. This, even though we had not the slightest idea which way it was, so we weren’t sure which side of the road to stand on, but when we saw a bus shelter we headed for it anyway as it was still raining. luckily for us there was a young student in it and we cross examined him as to the best watering holes in town. He cheerfully told us of a number of pubs where we could get the cheapest pints of lager and the spots with the best value for money pool tables and best nubile young fillies, I think that we were secretly pleased that he was over looking the fact that we weren’t sixteen years old.

Having been advised by our new friend to get off the bus “when everybody else does”, this we did and rolled into the familiar Irish theme pub O’Neills, we were on old ground here and we gleefully re acquainted ourselves with an old friend – Caffreys bitter.
It looked pretty much like every other Irish theme pub I’d ever been in with its “oldey worldy” wooden alcoves, which I’ve always found hugely appealing, fake aged bare plaster walls and the usual array of Victorian looking clocks and pre war price lists and Oxo tins. I’m all for this kind of ambience and we consumed several pints as I sat back and just savoured the smooth bitter and another animated story as told by my old friend in that special, re-enact every movement, style that is all his own. I was beginning to relax.
We were just thinking that it was pointless arriving at a new town and staying in the same pub all night when the musicians arrived. This man and wife team were surely products of the folk scene of the late sixties and early seventies. We ordered another pint on the strength of these two, for they looked right up our street.
We were sat round the corner, and when we reached the dregs of another relaxing quart and “the band” still hadn’t struck up. I remarked that it was a shame that they weren’t showing much inclination to show us what they could do, when right on cue we heard the distinct twang of an acoustic guitar being primed for action. At this we moved round the corner and ordered another.
They were actually quite passable but seemed totally oblivious to the audience such as it was, mind you, not as oblivious as the audience were to them. Our be-sweatered singer friend sang, albeit quite pleasantly with his eyes tight shut and his missus sat on a stool facing the wall. We were both fascinated at the resemblance of the couple to the characters the Modern Parents from the adult comic The Viz. Him with his aluminium pan scrubber beard and chunky woollen jumper, and her with the long flowing ankle length skirt, round spectacles perched on a turned up toffee nose and her straight black hair scraped back into a pony tail. I had originally planned to visit Stone Henge on the summer solstice this summer, and could just imagine bumping into these two dancing naked round a joss stick with their hands in the air and trying to flog me a precious stone and aromatic oils. I’ve aborted that trip by the way, basically because it’s impossible to get there by public transport, and I didn’t fancy trekking through miles of desolate moor in the pitch black, - especially with my sense of direction, - would probably end up in Milton Keynes – again.
We eventually called time on this when Cressida, I think that was her name, produced a violin or a fiddle, - what’s the difference?, and very mechanically drew the bow over the strings. The resultant sound was something akin to a child sawing through a length of copper pipe with a rusty old wood saw. It was time to explore the rest of the town of Cheltenham. We went to the pub next door.
We quickly realised we had made a mistake here, this was like one of those student bars that our young friend had been describing earlier, everything was chrome, the beer pumps, the bar and tables, and probably even the urinals, it seemed to be men only and the average age was fourteen and a half. We stood in the corner like a couple of under cover drug squad detectives, heaved down our watery drinks, and trotted back next door. Here we stayed until we were politely kicked out at round about midnight, amidst much chatter and merriment and a million ideas for future exploits. The big favourite was to cycle on a tandem from the Lake District across the country via the Yorkshire dales, across the North York moors and landing in Whitby whilst listening to ashes cricket on the radio. All this dressed as W.G Grace. “The five day test”, we’re going to call it. Don’t rule it out!.

We had a little trouble relaying to the taxi driver where it was we wanted to go, mainly because we didn’t really know ourselves. We asked where we might be able to get something to eat, as we’d not had a bite for hours. He suggested the K.F.C all night drive through, we had heard of such places in America but wasn’t aware that we had such establishments over here, and neither of us had actually been to one. We approached the little speaker on a pole with some curiosity, there was a car there and the driver was placing his order as we watched and learned. When he pulled off round the corner Terry moved forward hand deep in his pockets, leant over and somewhat suspiciously shouted “Hello!”. He then turned to me and inquired, “What we havin boy?”.
“Well, I don’t really know, what they got?, we haven’t got a menu have we?”.
He once more cleared his throat and squawked, “Er, could we have a couple of burgers and a bag of chips a piece – er, thank you”.
I think the “er thank you” bit was in a desperate effort to elicit a response as we’d not heard a sausage as way of a reply up to now. After a couple of rough taps and another bellowing of “hello” and “one two, one two”, it was clear that either the intercom system had fallen into disrepair or we were being roundly ignored. Terry turns to me. “Maybe you have to have a car, that’s all I can think”.
“Yes, but how do they know?!”
“I dunno but we’ll go round the front and sort it”. We loped off round the corner where the bloke in the Vauxhall Corsa who we’d just seen was now at the kiosk picking up his substantial order. Instead of storming straight up to the front as I’d expected, my pal stood dutifully and bolt upright behind the car in front. What made this look even more comical was that the four wheel drive vehicle which had now showed up was waiting patiently behind Terry in the queue. As the Corsa in front edged up, so too Terry shuffled forward, with the car behind edging up to him. The sight of this spectacle with my friend absolutely dead pan coupled with shenanigans of what had gone before with the tannoy system suddenly hit me and I jack-knifed forward with one of those “Muttley” type laughs that you tend to do when you’re trying to stifle a big guffaw.
Still worried that you had to have a vehicle to get service Terry stuck his head through the hatch and pleaded, “You won’t believe this, but my car’s just broken down round the corner round here – and ……er…”. This set me off again. He ordered three burgers (two for him and one for me) and two bags of chips and was appalled when told it came to about £8:50.
“How much you got on you boy?”,as I handed over a fiver we were aware of a certain amount of consternation emanating from the kiosk. “This is wrong money” came a muffled voice through the re enforced plastic. “What?”, their English wasn’t the best, then again neither was ours at that stage.
“How do you mean wrong money!?, you said £8:50, - no”, Terry wasn’t seeing the funny side of any of this.
“Yes, but this is wrong money”. And with that he handed back the five euro note that I had inadvertently handed over in the dark. The trouble with going camping is that you feel obliged to take all your money and valuables out with you when you go out. I usually designate one pocket for English and one pocket for Spanish money, but this method had long been forgotten at this stage. We replaced the erroneous currency, sorted the order and Terry high tailed off towards the corner of the building. “Where you going now?” I shouted after him. “Eh?, - well, you just order it from here and pick it up from round the corner don’t you?.
“What you on about?, you ordered it from round the corner didn’t you?, - or tried to, you pick it up from here!”. The poor lad had obviously totally lost his bearings during this farcical little encounter.
Eventually our order was handed to us and we sauntered off, Terry dipped his hand into the greasy bag and pulled out a handful of lettuce and mayonnaise. “Hang on, this doesn’t work does it!”. Further inspection revealed just half of a bread bun inside, which explained why the contents of the burger had made a break for it. “What the hell!….”. He marches back once more into the fray, as I stand my ground.
I couldn’t make out the conversation exactly, but by the sound of things they obviously thought he had scoffed half of the bread bun and was trying to pull a fast one because he was starving. It was only when he handed over the remaining two burgers and they revealed a similar affliction, that the head chef in there turned to his right hand man, shoved the evidence under his nose and administered a Basil Fawlty type bollocking.
We were replenished and sent on our way. As we meandered the short distance toward the campsite my hungry friend mused on the unusual oversight. “I mean, how the hell can they get that wrong?, their training programme’s must be a joke that’s all I can say, all they’ve got to do is say “here, pick this bread up, slap this lot inside of it, and slap another bit of bread on the top, wop it in this bag and there you go”, but they didn’t even do that obviously!. He must have been doing the same all night for Christ sake!, and we were the only ones to complain, because the rest of em were halfway to Gloucester before they realised they’d been seen off!. –Don’t they have Kentucky fried chicken where they come from?, - I mean they even have em in Kosovo now for God's sake!”.
I was so hungry that I snaffled my chicken burger, and had hurled down the stone cold chips in one gulp and had now started on the cardboard container, - there was no discernable difference in taste. As we turned left to the campsite entrance we couldn’t help but notice that it wasn’t where we’d left it. We did a double take and quickly realised we had come down the wrong road. We laughed out loud at our feeble sense of direction which had reared it’s ugly head once more, set off back, echoed our way under the subway and promptly went the wrong way again. This was rather impressive even for us, taking almost half an hour to negotiate the two hundred yards from the K.F.C. to Briarfields campsite and caravan park.

The sleeping arrangements had worried me a little, fair enough it was a two man tent but Terry’s one and a half men. I do actually own a sleeping bag but it’s not much use in my folks’s loft, and I had embarrassed myself somewhat last year when purchasing it. We were heading off to a lads weekend camping trip in Derbyshire’s Peak District and having froze half to death the previous year (in August!), I’d decided to purchase a top of the range thing complete with a hood and duck down and the like. I didn’t have a clue about how much I’d have to pay for one of these as I set off to my hometown of Otley to a sizeable camping shop they’ve got round the back of the garden centre there.
The young lad led me to a long line of sleeping bags and talked me through them. I fingered the material and nodded my head knowingly as he pointed out the virtues of each of them. “This one here is the blue mountain synthetic – that’s 250”. I inwardly recoiled in horror, I only had about a hundred pounds on me, he continued. “And this one here, a double layer freedom, a very warm bag – 300. I puffed out my cheeks and said something along the lines of that they were very impressive and all that but did he have anything cheaper. He gave me a leer and explained that if I was serious about keeping warm then I’d struggle to get anything cheaper than twenty quid. “What!??”. I raised my eye line about six inches to see a great big sign which read £19:99. The 250 and 300 were serial numbers of some sort, he’d obviously said that’s the 250 and that’s the 300, but I’d misheard him.
Terry had borrowed some gear for me, he had a blow up mattress and I had a blue mat, but, surprisingly even as a notorious light sleeper I nodded off remarkably quickly. I don’t know how I’d have managed without my ear plugs and stone cold sober though.

We awoke early next morning to the welcoming sound of “rat a tat tat” on canvas, the rain was to be a constant companion on this trip, but the tent had withstood the precipitation and gusting wind admirably through the night and we were thankfully dry. We had both had to take our ease through the night which can be troublesome when you have to punch in a six digit security number – and two letters!, into little silver control panel thing on the toilet door. This, having to be achieved half asleep, and in the pitch black and with eyes that focus at different speeds.
The first time I’d tackled it, at about 3am, I’d become a trifle agitated after about the fourth or fifth time of scrutinizing the numbers on the tiny piece of paper and then turning the knob (in the wrong direction as it turns out), and getting nowhere. I think I was punching in the ladies toilets number in at first, and it was with huge relief when I finally cracked the code, mercifully sparing the nearby hedgerow.
There was nowhere to eat in the immediate vicinity, that much we knew for certain, and so it was into the trusty old van, tootling off and trying to remember which way we’d gone to give us a fighting chance of getting back again. After a short distance we came across a substantial sized eatery at the side of the main road, a sort of giant Little Chef looking thing from the outside and like a nightclub from the inside.
We waltzed in there rubbing our hands together as once more we were on the other side of peckish. We stood at the sign which said “Please wait here to be seated”, and was asked by a pleasant young girl what our room number was. “Er, what!?”. It transpired that the residents from the hotel next door breakfasted here for some reason, and we were then asked if we’d like a full cooked breakfast, Terry brushed passed her and said “Well, we’ll see what else you’ve got first shall we”.
It was a serve yourself buffet job, either continental or English style fry up, and we opted for the healthy option. As far as we could fathom you paid one fixed price and then could eat as much as you liked, so we stood in the queue for fruit salad and cereal. The serving spoons were designed such that you could just about fit a couple of raisins in them or per chance an under nourished grape, and they were obviously banking on you being too embarrassed to use your fingers, but we were hungry. We went back to our table only to find only knives and forks, tricky when your eating muesli, so off goes Terry to inflict his diplomatic skills once more.
He couldn’t find a waitress anywhere to hand and so collared one of the kitchen staff, a young lad in his early twenties. “You got a spoon mate?”. It didn’t seem to register. “We need a couple of spoons to eat our breakfasts, there’s only knives and forks on the tables”. After several seconds of hard thinking and eventual realisation, the young man came back with two spoons, - two tea spoons.
“Oh, here we go, no, I need two desert spoons!”.
“You eat desert?”. Terry peered beyond the baffled youth into the kitchen and shouted,
“No, we just need two desert spoons, to eat our cereal, you know”. He obviously didn’t know. At this point Terry barged passed him, grabbed a couple of spoons he’d seen laying by the sink, quickly washed them, dried them and returned to the breakfast table shaking his head.
Soon after a nervous looking waitress asked us if we wanted to order a cooked breakfast, when we said no she looked surprised and scuttled off never to be seen again. When we returned to the buffet for a yoghurt and more fruit salad we were met by a commotion at the toast machine. Several people were peering inside of it saying, “Our bread is stuck in there, I think it’s set on fire!”. At this somebody pulled the plug out of the socket before we had a full blown emergency on our hands, while the staff looked on thinking “Why didn’t I think of that?”.
We had quite a job on trying to get them to take our money, it would have been the easiest thing in the world to simply walk out of there, but we we’re thinking of coming back next morning so eventually managed to find the only English speaking member of staff and settled up.

As agreed we headed for the Cross Hands pub car park and was ushered in by a poor unfortunate young girl employee who’d drawn the short straw and stood in the middle of the road directing the traffic looking dishevelled in her rain soaked bellowing ill fitting pack-a-mac. It was now around 10:30, and as the cheese rolling started at midday we figured we had time for a warm drink in the pub. The five pounds we paid for the car park also entitled us to free breakfast as it turned out, so we missed a trick there as we were unable to take advantage, full up as we were with yoghurt, muesli and plastic tasting coffee. As Terry observed the coal black skies and weather of the most foul through the window, - the wind had now got up and was whipping the rain into evil little patterns, he had an idea.
He realised that he had some waterproofs in the van, the very sturdy type that he used when working on top of rain lashed roofs no doubt. They were those day glow yellow jobs with those little grey hoops round the shin, whatever they’re for. He was certainly difficult to miss and he looked for all the world like one of the emergency services as we set off on the slow walk towards the hill.

By the time we’d reached the base camp my trousers were stuck to my thighs, my boots were thick with slimy mud and I eyed Terry’s apparel with rampant jealousy as another trickle ran down my back, proving once more that my cagoule was no match for a summers day in down town Gloucester. Terry had forged ahead of me, whilst I had stopped momentarily to eye a makeshift bookstall, and he was a large luminous blur as he scaled the woodland to the top of the hill. I followed with slightly less haste, and picked my way methodically grabbing at low lying branches, large rocks and the odd human leg or two. This was a real effort and it was with some relief when I suddenly glimpsed daylight, and straightened up as I approached the summit wiping my caked palms on the lush grass. The view was probably not as spectacular as it would have been on a balmy sunny day, but it was still bloody high up and plenty impressive enough.
My friend had been there some minutes and was already fed up with everybody mistaking him for a steward. After originally re directing them to the real race officials, he soon tired of this and grew into the role. “Excuse me mate, where do you register if you want to take part?”, breathlessly inquired one such.
“Arh, well it’s by that table at the bottom of the hill there”
“What!?, somebody just sent me up here!”.
“Sorry about that pal, you might just make it if you set off now.”
The crowd here at the brow of the hill was substantial, all these idiots were willing participants rather than spectators like myself, and most of them were woefully inadequately protected against the elements. An alarming number were bare footed, and wearing flimsy T-shirts or in fancy dress and many clutching tins of lager. I spotted a Batman, Superman, a bloke dressed as a pig and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
I quickly decided that to get any decent footage I would have to try and find a spot about halfway down the hill, this I did and I felt the damp penetrate through to my buttocks as I perched on a sod of grass with my knees trussed up under my chin. I did this because it was proving almost impossible to stand up. The stress incurred in the ankles as you try and maintain your balance on a 45 degree skid pan shouldn’t be under estimated and withered souls were either holding on to the fence poles or on to each other with screwed up eyes and blue cheeks.
Once again, as in Hallaton we seemed to be the only people from the north of England here, but unlike “The Bottle Kicking”, where the crowds were almost exclusively young locals, here there seemed to be as many Aussies and Kiwi accents as English. Immediately in front of me were a group of young Japanese girls, some of whom had retreated to the woods and to the shelter of the trees, and all of whom looked extremely pissed off. It became abundantly clear why. The young local lad who was obviously responsible for bringing them here, presumably to show them what your average Brit gets up to on a bank holiday Monday, told me they had in fact been there since 9:30 in the morning so as to get a good spot!. It was now 11:45 and the little waif in front of me through chattering teeth and in squeaky pidgin English very sweetly declared to their over cautious guide that actually she couldn’t feel her feet any more, she was extremely wet and was possibly about to pass out.
“Yes but Takinata (or whatever her name was), we’ve waited all this time, you can’t go now it starts in ten minutes!”.
“I can watch it on the television tomorrow” was her reasoned response.
In the end she waited for the first race and then gave up the will to live.
To be honest, most of us were struggling by now and we were all longing for something to start happening soon, and it was with intense relief when who we took to be the master of ceremonies appeared in a long white coat, black top hat with coloured ribbon round it and what looked to be a red rose clipped to his lapel, oh, and a beard as well, (though it’s probably true to say that this wasn’t part of the uniform). He also waved around a stick, and when the first competitors appeared at the brow of the hill they were met with a cheer and a sigh of relief they probably heard in Tewkesbury. I fired my camera up as a chant of “Cheese, cheese, cheese!!”, went up, I momentarily lowered my camera again and quipped, “thanks all the same, but it didn’t work, - nobody smiled up there”. Think it’s true to say it didn’t exactly bring the house down.

About a dozen young men with their “game faces” on braced themselves, gingerly placed one foot in front of the other, steadied themselves against the howling gale and the master of ceremonies raised his stick. There’s another chap who’s cradling the cheese complete with blue and red ribbons sat in a little fishing chair. “One to be steady, two to be ready, three to prepare, and four to be off!!”. The cheese is released and off they went, these looked like seasoned campaigners as they shot past me at about 50 mph a mass of flailing arms and piston action legs, occasionally bouncing, as well as full 360 degree tumbling, they were roared on by an appreciative crowd. The winner of this race, a young lad in what looked like cycling gear flew over the finish line and landed on his head to much oooing and aaaarhing. There was obvious concern for him being shown by the medical team as they carefully slid a neck brace on him and on to a stretcher. This must have taken a full 20 minutes and there was a big cheer as he was loaded into the ambulance, thankfully he was given the all clear at the hospital and returned later proudly clutching his winning 8oz Gloucester.

Due to exaggerated reports of injuries in the press in 1998 the landowners got a bit jittery about public liability and this was part of the reason that the event was cancelled on this particular year – outrageous!. This event has been going for hundreds of years, indeed like many of this type, nobody really knows just when and how it started. My research revealed that it could have started by the Phoenicans (whoever they were), the ancient Britains or the Romans. Many think it could have evolved from early fertility rites and hopes for a successful harvest or to safeguard the “commoners” rights of the inhabitants of the hill.
Apart from 1998, the event has been cancelled twice more in recent years, in 2001 the foot and mouth scare, which led to the closure of the countryside accounted for one, and then once again in 2003. By this time the committee had recruited the services of a search and rescue team to assist by treating any possible casualties at the top of the hill. This was because the Saint Johns Ambulance no longer felt they could make it to the top of the hill should they need to, - presumably because they’re all about 70. However, there was an earthquake in Algeria which needed the help of the search and rescue team, and because of this, the Saint Johns Ambulance team backed out – at three days notice, so it went kaput again.
Mind you, on each of these occasions a single, standard 8lb double Gloucester cheese has been rolled down the hill by the committee to maintain the tradition. Well done lads.

We watched several different category races, there was the women’s race, and let me tell you the winner would given the lad in the first race a good run for his cheese, and she finished upright. There were also races for the kids, going uphill though, several of whom got stranded halfway and cried for mummy as they were carted off by the cave rescue team who were positioned halfway up for such an eventuality. Down at the bottom of the hill, there are placed huge bails of hay, sandbags and what appeared to be a local rugby team employed to catch the human cannonballs as they hurtled towards them. There were also several film crews down there and a couple of celebrities of which we were unaware of at the time, Rory Mcgrath, the tubby bearded guy who used to be on They think it’s all over, and Paddy the doorman from Phoenix Nights. They competed in one of the early races and came last and second to last, not so respectively.
After about an hour of races I noticed there was just as much carnage going on the sidelines as there was on the “track”, blank looking wretches from all around me we literally finding it impossible to hang on anymore. Unless you’re sat down (which isn’t nice in six inches of mud), it’s physically challenging to stay upright on that kind of gradient in that kind of weather. Any grass that might have been there earlier on had long since disappeared, and the cold had rendered fingers and toes useless. A child of about ten was treated for hyperthermia just in front of me, the poor mite couldn’t get his legs to straighten and had to be escorted down on a sledge!. It was a bit like the scene in Titanic, whereby chilled bones decreed that grips were suddenly loosened and not being able to hang on anymore, were sent tumbling. Not, to the bottom of the ocean to an icy death in this case, but pretty unpleasant nevertheless scooting, eyebrows first, through some pretty unsavoury sludge, until you either came to rest at the bottom in a heap or if you were lucky, caught by one of the rescue teams. I had sniggered at their presence earlier, but I wasn’t now.

There was still no sign of my mate, but I felt sure I’d be able to pick him out alright once he appeared. As far as I know, nobody in the long history of this event has actually caught the cheese, which let’s face it, is the whole idea as far as I’m aware. But knowing Terry’s sheer belief and confidence he’s no doubt already caught the thing in his own mind, and has probably brought with him a huge family sized tub of Branson pickle to go with it for a celebratory sarney later.
After what seemed like several eternities, the large bright yellow thing came into view, ah ah!, - where’s my camera?!. I reached into my inside pocket but I couldn’t for the life of me feel anything. I knew it was in there though but my purple digits had just about given up the ghost and I feverishly pawed and nosed at the now located camera like a puppy trying to get the lid off the biscuit tin. I had to push the on switch with my chin, but try as I might I couldn’t get the thing to work. I’ve since discovered that they don’t make digital cameras waterproof.

I think I counted two steps that Terry took before being up ended by his own momentum and slid down for the vast majority of his journey on his back, at a far old speed though. The thick mud in centre field probably ensured some all time fast times on this day, and the looks on the faces of these latter competitors seemed to verify their exhilaration as they bounded along like they’d been shot from a cannon.
It was now time for me to descend, and I’d been dreading this moment for some time. I’d stood and watched as the underfoot conditions had become first treacherous and then impossible, there was simply no way you get any purchase and many had resorted to clambering over the fence and taken their chances on the track. Not always the safest route though when there’s the odd human missile coming your way. By a huge slice of luck, the nearby cave rescue boys, (or they could have been the mountain rescue, I wasn’t sure which was which), had tied a rope round a nearby tree to either pull yourself up, or lower yourself down. I was manhandled the twenty yards or so to the rope, but with hands flapping at the ends of my wrists like those mittens on string your mum used to make you, it was still a trial. As it happened I only went arse over apex just the once, and I trotted the last bit – like there was an option!, and on to level ground for the first time for about a week. Once again Terry’s resplendent waterproofs had proved invaluable in tracking him down, even though they were more brown than yellow now, it was just as well, as he had handed over his mobile phone to me for safe keeping and mine didn’t work anyway.
He looked unscathed as he greeted me with a broad grin and dirty face, he’d obviously enjoyed himself, and he began to tell of the tail from the top of the hill.
Of course it would have been colder still up there, and like me he’d marvelled at those clad only in shorts and not much else. They were up there for more than two hours with absolutely no shelter whatsoever, not being able to shelter in the trees even in case they lost their place in the queue and they huddled in lines just waiting to be called forward. As they braced themselves, head slightly bowed into the wind and arms slightly away from their bodies, they shuffled along trying to keep warm, like Emperor Penguins in the Arctic. (This at least is how Terry described it to me).
Apparently one Antipodean voice had remarked while surveying the silent suffering “Aussies, Kiwis, - Poms, - waiting to go over the top – it’s a bit like the Somme isn’t it?”

We now squelched our way down past the ice cream man, (who, I don’t think retired on the strength of his takings), and hands buried deep in our pockets we made our way down towards civilisation once more. We had come prepared and had brought with us a change of clothing, and opened up the back of the van like a wardrobe, rubbed our hands together and peered in. It was a lovely feeling to climb into nice clean dry clothes and as I lobbed my sodden garments into a cement bucket I had the feeling that it might have all been worthwhile after all. This feeling was reinforced I sat in the Cross Hands pub nursing a pint of Pedigree bitter, whilst, Al Jolson like, Terry who still hadn’t washed his face, demolished a pint of Guinness.
Once again there were as many Aussie and Kiwi accents in there, what is this?, don’t they have cheese rolling over there or something?. Of course this didn’t really bother us but I draw a line at the band which consisted of a bloke bashing on a tambourine and another puffing on didgeridoo!. It was monotonous tosh, they didn’t even sing, just kept droning on with the same relentless rhythm for about half an hour until someone had a word and they thankfully packed up.
Although it seemed pretty full to us, indeed, the toilets resembled the changing rooms at a rugby sevens tournament, the landlord was a bit disgruntled that the weather had kept the numbers well down. When we asked him about how to get a taxi into Cheltenham he mumbled something about some chap at the bar might know, and said he was going to shut early. We had tried the only other pub in the area round about tea time, it took half an hour to walk there and the only good thing about it was that they had a television and we caught the highlights of England’s marvellous recovery win against New Zealand, of which we were previously oblivious. We could have rubbed that one in the Cross Hands had we been in the know, and by the time we had returned there the place was almost empty. A helpful if slightly inebriated young girl from behind the bar phoned us a taxi on her mobile. She very politely asked them how soon they could get there and how much it would be. “He can be here in twenty minutes, and it will be about £20”, she relayed. I offered my opinion on the tariff, and mimicking my answer and my accent she replied to the taxi rank, “He says “foooooking hell!”. We didn’t have a choice really, the only pub in the area was shutting and there was bugger all at the campsite, so off to Cheltenham we went. In contrast to the night before the town was not surprisingly quiet on this bank holiday Monday night. The taxi driver obviously didn’t have a clue where O’Neills was, and dropped us off outside Yates’s.
We snuck in for a swift one and then asked a tramp if he knew the way. He seemed very confident as he replied, “Ah yes, just up here and first left”. This must be his stock answer to everything, and we gleefully handed over armfuls of loose change before setting off on our wild goose chase. When we eventually found it, via another stopping off point to ask for directions, they were getting ready to close, so all there was to do was order yet another taxi back to the campsite. “We’ve spent more on taxis than we have on sodding beer!”, was Terry’s furious observation.

Now clued up, we didn’t bother with the speaker system at the K.F.C, just went straight up to the window and ordered, although my pal couldn’t help himself saying once more “You won’t believe this, but me car’s just broken down…….”
We then followed a tradition that we have studiously followed for more than twenty years. After a particularly pleasing session on the drink we almost always go arm in arm at some point and wail Desperado by the Eagles at the tops of our voices. This went down particularly well with the camp commandant who cheerfully greeted us at the campsite gates, (he must have heard us approaching from the rear), and complemented us on our vocal prowess, and with the offer of alternative accommodation waved us on our way. What a nice man.
As a thank you, we dutifully nourished the bushes by our tent. Well, we had to actually as all our worldly goods including the code number for the toilet block were in the van, which was now miles away in the Cross Hands carpark. All our worldly goods included my trusty earplugs, so I had to run the gauntlet of my mate’s wheezing and the striking up for the umpteenth time of the sound of raindrops on canvas. Because of this it took me a while to nod off and I was still half asleep at about 8:30 next morning when Terry announced that he was going to get a bus and pick up his van.
I was mightily relieved to hear this as my lower abdomen was rumbling, and robbed of the cover of darkness I desperately needed that bloody code number. He returned an hour and a half later! (had to get two buses and had gone the wrong way about fourteen times driving back), by which time the inside of my knees were bald through constant rubbing together whilst writhing in the foetal position in my sleeping bag.

We forlornly packed away the tent into the back of the van and headed for the exit. Terry motioned toward the reception hut. “Best not pop in and say ta ra, when I passed earlier he slid down his hatch and glared at me”.
“Fair enough”.
When we first set out, we concluded that the weather was going to ruin our little jaunt, in fact it actually gave it that edge, made it more of a challenge and I don’t think we would have had it any other way in the end.

Terry dropped me off in Sheffield where I got the train back to Leeds and then on to Guiseley to visit the family. Since last I was here I have been made an uncle once again. A bit of a shock really, when my sister Karen said she had something to show me, I thought it might be a hi-tec kettle that you can turn on with your hearing aid or something – the brother-in-law is gadget mad. Either that or the Christmas present that she didn’t send because she didn’t trust the Spanish post, but no, it was a little pink bundle called Mia, she’s beautiful and I was particularly pleased to meet her.

On my way up there I popped into our local working men’s club to meet up with Eddie, my close buddy and uncle. Propping up the bar as usual was Fred Waters, another former Elderly Brother (the name of our “comedy” group in the 80’s). Fred has been suffering with serious liver problems (no surprise there then), and has several times been given the hard word by his doctors, but he looked in fine form as he stood there, his jolly round face lighting up the bit between the beer pumps and the fruit machine.
“You’re looking well Fred!”, I rallied enthusiastically.
Holding up his pint of Tetleys he replied.
“Aye, well, it’s since I’ve come off o’t medication and gone back on this stuff – marvellous”