1884 London by train for £9

This is the ultimate travelling luxury. I am travelling from Newcastle to London, second class, for the princely sum of £9, sitting at a four seat able on my own, mains connected to the internet, listening to Lost FM, and some blues hussy, singing All Night Long. It was nearly very different as for the past week I was uncertain if I wanted to make the journey, even if getting to the station proved practical. The reason for the apprehension was the weather forecast of cold, snow and heavy rain sweeping the country. Heavy rain and snow was forecast for the North East so the first problem was getting from the house to South Shields station, about a quarter of a mile in driving rain, albeit down hill, which is not my idea of fun, having previously being caught out in driving although at the time I had my old luggage which me with meant juggling umbrella with case and a full and heavy haversack over the shoulder.
By Sunday I developed a plan which was to be ready packed by Tuesday bedtime and set off after 9.30 when my travel pass became valid, as soon as it was dry and if necessary ordering a taxi to South Shields station if I was still inclined to go. The plan was a good one but did not allow for not sleeping Monday night as first I stayed up finishing the EastEnders researching and writing and then I could not sleep, rising at six, enjoying bacon rolls and coffee and playing Luxor Mahjong. I then went back to bed around eight and slept uninterrupted until1.30 waking groggy and in need of a reviving coffee. Horror and disbelief, there was no water except what was left in the system. I washed and shaved and made myself presentable and had a cup of coffee, using water from the large litre containers which kept refreshed with tap water just for this purpose. I then went in search of neighbours to find out if the system failure was general or I had a problem. The first four door knocks failed to obtain a response, but the fifth yielded someone who had made a cup of tea half an hour before, but went away to check. Yes his taps were dripping empty, no there had been no advance warning, so we both went back in to make enquiries after checking the back lane and nearby roads for signs of pavement or other works of some kind, There were none and just before ringing, after finding the emergency call number, I made another check to find water spluttering back.
Grateful that it was not a problem which meant cancelling the trip there and then, I will leave what happened and why as one of the many unanswered questions.
The sun is now shining after Northern rain, gave way to wintry mist with areas of recent snow falls, through County Durham and North Yorkshire, all the way to York, as train gets closer to the metropolis. The journey has flown by after reading a collection of writings of John Peel, produced by his family as a tribute from his children and widow. This is civilized travelling and augers well for the rest of the three night, four day trip, arranged on impulse having been alerted to the £9 one way special offer trips to London and arranging travel lodge accommodation for a reasonable £19 a night.
John Peel died suddenly at the aged from a heart attack while on a trip to Peru fulfilling a lifelong ambition. John was as not a popular Disk Jockey and programme presenter as the likes of Terry Wogan, but was the most loved presenter of new contemporary music for close on forty years on Radio One BBC when it was established as the new music station. Over the decades John introduced over a thousand bans to the British Public through his live session in which the band came into the studios to play four numbers live and running through the full list on Wikipedia I notice Joan Armatrading had appeared six times, The Boomtown rats twice, David Bowie six times, Billy Bragg 11 times, Leonard Cohen 1 Elvis Costello 4, The Cure, deep Purple, Depeche Mode, Andy Fairweather Lowe, The Fall 25 times, Genesis 3, Richie Havens, Jimi Hendrix, Jethrow Tull and Elton John 2, Led Zepelin, 4 Lindisfarne 5, Manfred Mann 4 Bob Marley 2, The Moody Blues, Motorhead and Morrissey, Pet Shop, Boys, Pink Flloyd 6, The Police and Prefab Sprout, Queen 3, Sandie Shaw, Simple Minds. Steeleye Sam 8, Cat Stevens, Supertramp 4 T Rex 2 Thin Lizzie 7, Ten Years after 3, Ultra Vox, UB 40. There important reminded is that the groups or individuals appeared before they had a record contract or a following in the UK and that some then came back time after time, reveals the debt they felt to John for first giving them airtime. Many were among the thousand who went to his funeral to show the respect and the love the music industry felt for him.
Once a year listeners of his programme would vote for their best 50 tracks heard over the year and this in turn became something of national event. Teenage Kicks by the Undertones was his favourite track of all time and was played as his coffin left the church for burial in his home village. 11 times he was voted New Musical Express Disc Jockey of the year and was an obvious choice for the Radio Hall of Fame. Glastonbury has names its stage for new bands, the John peel Stage. The BBC arranged its first John Peel Day on 11th October 2005 and some 500 bands participated in live concerts throughout the UK and as far away as Canada and New Zealand. Two other days have been subsequently held.
John also wrote what today we call Blogs and it is a collection of this writing which his family has published under the title the Olivetti Chronicles, after the old typewriter which he kept and did his writing on. I was an Olivetti salesman for six brief months in 1959, failing to sell machine after heading the Sales schools. I was struck my one line, “ I am beginning to face a powerful urge to return to some of the scenes of my early failures.
There has been a little development at Newcastle station with the opening of coffee kiosks within the Metro station concourse and then the railway station concourse. The barrier entry system is now in operation but it is not working smoothly and staff are in hand. There are also two coffee places on platform 3, one in the waiting room which was not used and another combined with a small Smith’s outlet, which had limited customers as where they were desperate to sell me sandwiches or cake as coffee or appeared to be the only choice of those at the other tables in addition to myself. People are so used to calling in at the Smiths on the main concourse that I speculate there is little trade from this as well.
The advantage of the 1.03 is that although it comes from Scotland there is only one stop at York thereafter which restricts comings and goings and makes for a fast journey arriving on time at twenty to four. It is also now possible to take an undercover walk way from within Kings Cross through to St Pancras station where a lift is need to bring one to within the concourse at the entrance close to M and S and then across the concourse for a ticket direct to East Croydon, single at £4.40 where the Brighton Route train was waiting for me as I arrived on the Platform. There are only stops at Farringdon, Holborn and Blackfriars before London Bridge and then it is non stop to East Croydon. There was a light drizzle on arrival which meant using the umbrella which I used with ease on the short journey from the station to the Travel Lodge.
Later, despite the rain I had a walk around the town centre popping in the recently developed super kart taken over by the Waitrose chain. The shop has been enlarged and gone up market full of deli foods although the prices have risen accordingly. I was given a token with my change which I must find out what it is for. I was after some pan au chocolate for breakfast and also bought a couple of custard tarts to accompany a mug noodles and some salami crackers and some tea and later some coffee. Chelsea lost 2.1 to Inter in Milan. The away goal could be important as 1.0 win at home will secure them the tie. Despite this it was a good day and I looked forward to several films and a couple of free concerts at the South Bank, one folk and one Jazz over the next three days. The films include The Hurt Locker and An Education as well as an Ordinary Man, all in for Baftas and Oscars as well at the Last Station.

1410 Returning to Catterick camp after sixty years

One of my earliest of memories is the journey which I made with one of my aunts who was deaf, dumb, blind and bedridden caused by childhood meningitis. It was a journey made during World War II, from our home in Wallington, Surrey, now within the administrative area of the London Borough of Sutton in Greater London, then near to what had been London's premier airport, Croydon, an area which according to the Eden camp Museum in Yorkshire, more flying bombs landed than elsewhere in the UK.

We travelled by ambulance to the home of a married aunt, who lived in army officer's quarters at Catterick Camp in Yorkshire. My care mother, Aunty Harriet, born with the name Margaret and the eldest of the family of seven sisters and four brothers, Lena, travelled with her separately by train, and later we were joined by my birth mother. I was about four years of age and I have only a few visual memories.

I remember being shown the larder at the house which amazed the aunts who I was growing up with because it was well stocked and they were used to ration books and to shops where little was available and on show, The second memory was of an evening walk in sunshine along country lanes and of walking in a field full of corn that was growing higher than myself. The most important memory is of being taken by "Aunty" Mabel by bus to nearby town for a haircut and then buying a small packet of different coloured plasticine strips from a shop in a building the centre piece of a market place. It was a small town in the days where there were few cars or other motorised vehicles. I can remember it being very quiet with few people being on the street. I remember that bus trips were made to Richmond and I also believe Northallerton, having visited both towns earlier to day, as well as Catterick Village and the major military complex of barracks and training facilities that is known throughout Britain and the world as Catterick Camp but renamed Catterick Garrison. It is sixty five years since my stay in the area. It was my first journey of any kind and the first time I can recall travelling or being with someone other than the family.

I used to have a good chronological memory of what I thought and felt as a child which I carried with me hoping one day I would find the words to express which I believed was a unique experience. Later I learnt that the experiences were far from unique although few have been able to successfully communicate themselves although some professionals concerned with young children and some parents who have tuned in have been able to join up their own glimpses and residues of their experience with those of their own children or the children of others that they have been able to communicate with.

I have not visited before during the past thirty five years when a visit could have been made to Catterick and back in a day from my home in the North East, or stopped off on what is by now countless journeys by road south, mainly to see my birth mother and care mothers on the once a month visits between 1992 and 2003 and then to see my birth mother at her residential home between 2003 and the summer of 2004. I would pass by what I now know is one of the barracks which is located alongside the A1M-A1 roadway with a turning off marked Catterick. I did make a few visits to Richmond but could not identify any part which resembled the shop where the plasticine was bought and had thought of going to Catterick one day to see if I confused places as I remember that the visit for the haircut involved what I considered at the time and subsequently to have been a long bus journey. Until the past five years and commencing the 101 project the motivation was not there and since then I doubted if a visit would add anything to my memory or to the significance of what was my first and only recollection of having done anything alone with the person I was subsequently to learn was my birth mother. Even after that visit she remained distant and hostile towards me. Not in any physically aggressive way and even when she was upset with my behaviour I would be aware that she was upset by something that I had or had not done and where Aunty Harriet would be on my side. It has to be remembered that when the sisters talked they talked in Gibraltar Ian Spanish rather than Gibraltar Ian or English, Gibraltar Ian being primarily Gibraltar Ian Spanish with a mixed of English words and sentences included, but omitted if they wished to converse among themselves without English only speaking individuals present understanding what was being said. Of course when you live with closely with someone speaking another language you can pick up the emotional content of what is being communicated, and then its sense as some words and their meaning become familiar, and then as the year pass you assumed you knew what was being said although I did not communicate to anyone that this was so, until doing so by accident. An uncle and an aunt were visiting England on a prolonged stay for the wedding of one of their children and had been told to say if asked that I was the child of Lena the eldest of the sisters. I cannot remember the circumstances in which I was travelling in a car with the uncle and aunt and I believe at least one other relative but not my birth or care mothers or other aunts and during the journey the uncle and his wife spoke in Gibraltar Ian and at one point posed a question or said something which without thinking I commented or answered accurately thus revealing that I knew more what they had been told I knew. I explained that I could not speak Gibraltar Ian but sometimes seemed to know what was being said although I could not usually express it. I was a teenager at the time and could not communicate well in general, especially with adults who were strangers.

There is one other aspect of my memory of this time which is important to mention before trying to write of my experience yesterday when I visited Catterick village and the area of Catterick Garrison I have no visual image or memory of being at Military base. It may have been quite late in the war as my aunt's husband was not there and there is one source which I will approach to learn if they have recollections or information which will fix the period more accurately than I can. The lack of any memory of a military encampment was reinforced because of the experience of Catterick yesterday.

I had not set off until after lunch. I had wanted to write having gone to bed and sleep well before midnight, sitting in fresh air watching the grass grow at Riverside Chester Le Street had good effect and then risen early around six am, something which I repeated again last night and this morning. Last evening I watched some television briefly catching part of a programme which listed the top ten places where it was still possible to buy properties comparatively inexpensively and have a good quality of life. One of the eh places was Chester Le Street and short film of only a few seconds showed the cricket ground as well as the town centre which I had visited only the previous week.

I had made no preparations for the my mini trip and need to be slow and methodical if I am not to set off and then need to return because I have forgotten something important, including in one instance in my former home, closing the front door! It is usually when I am away that I remember I have forgotten something which I need or would have liked to have with me such the connection cable for internet, or the instructions about using my mobile phone to connect to the internet, although in the instance of this visit I had not intended it to be an occasion hen I would need to have internet communication, but I would need to do so on other planned mini trips over the coming two months. I needed to do some ironing having forgotten to take out and hang up several shirts that I washed and dried the previous evening. I needed to carefully water the plants. I made myself lunch and watched the end of Bargain Hunt before switch over to watch a film, The Bold and the Brave with Mickey Rooney, Wendell Corey and Don Taylor as three World War II Gris conquering Italy. Mikey Rooney plays his natural self a cocky street wise private who chases the local ladies who make a living for themselves and their families from the invaders. It is revealed that Mickey has large family of relative which he is expected to support and this includes a wife. He is a brilliant gambler and it one luck game wins several thousand dollars which will provide for his family if he is in a position to get the money to them.

I think Wendell Corey plays his Buddy but it could have been Don Taylor, a man who is also worldly and who finds it difficult to kill when faced with his first experience of man to man combat. This is significant because the two men are led by the preacher, so named because he dos not drink, go with women and is always talking about right and wrong good and evil. His father was a drunk and he has no knowledge of his mother being raised by an uncle on a farm who appears to have lectured him throughout his childhood on the evils of drink and women. I joined the film as Wendell had paid an attractive young Italian girl from Naples (which she had left because she could no longer stand the shame of knowing that her family knew how she was supporting them), to pick up and entertain the Preacher . When he resists all her obvious moves and goes off to find some cold butter milk and then visit a church she is impressed and when he falls in love with her she begins to remember the young girl she had been with dreams of a white dress, a good husband and children.. Then the inevitable happens in that she is recognised by soldiers of previous acquaintance and he rejects her without listening to her story. He also condemns the gambling winnings and instructs Mikey to get rid of the money and then tackles an assignment with ruthless killer ferocity. He is also hard when another GI is injured, putting orders above human and Christian considerations. Having forgotten the name of the film I bought a newspaper during the trip, in part to check on the film title but also because it featured the first young woman killed in combat in Afghanistan. The brief note on the film rightly draws attention that this is film about characters than big battles and about who gets to survive and who does not. The importance of the money to Mickey gets him killed while Preacher is shown to be something of a hypocrite in terms of his theoretical Christian, fight the devil beliefs, although his behaviour is put into the context of his childhood. It is Wendell who finds it difficult to kill and who shows compassion and understanding, ensuring that the bulk of the cash is sent back home to the widow rather than make use of himself and helping the wounded Preacher back to the main force after the mission is completed.

Then in error than intention I forgot the location of Catterick and instead of heading for A1M I went to Sunderland along the coast and took the A19 to Middlesbrough before realising that if I continued I would join the A1M bypassing Catterick. I therefore head across country which involved single track country lanes and attractive North Yorkshire villages to Northallerton which is traffic congested Market when at first I was not clear from the road signs which was the direction to take to reach Catterick and therefore involved two trips through the centre of town is slowing moving traffic passed the old Town Hall building with shops/offices at ground floor and which could have been the building from where the plasticine was bought although it is some distance away from the Catterick complex.

My route took me to the Northern end of Catterick although I was coming from the South and close to the Racecourse and the village which in turn is close to the AIM and what I quickly realised was one of several separate heavily fortified barrack complexes. I recognised nothing about Catterick Village which is very pleasant indeed with several attractive Inns and a delightful Village green as well as few shops and other businesses in a area separate from the Green. There is no indication as with the Racecourse that one is part of what I suspect in one of the major military complex in Europe. It is according to Wikipedia.

I then headed for the main area of the Garrison complex and the extent of the area covered, the number of separate communities involved including the developing Garrison centre when I stopped at a major supermarket for the toilet was overwhelming and had a major emotional impact, not because of my childhood experience but from the combination of that War film and the newspaper article. I have no intention of going into further detail about the nature of the complex other than to emphasis that it is well fortified and that everyone and everything are under the closest scrutiny. However it was at the supermarket that I was made aware that this is an area full of young men and women and their families who have been or who will be going into combat on our behalf and on behalf of others. There was a sense, a contemporary sense of a nation at war, something which one does not get, even in London where there is lots of new concrete around key public buildings. At one level it brought my awareness of what is what like to be under threat during World War 2 not directly from soldiers in combat but from bombs dropped from sky with memories of the air raid shelter and going off to look at the craters where there once had been homes in our neighbourhood, the flying bomb and the trip to Brighton just after the war in Europe had ended and looked at the fortified Beach. These were the connecting links between past and present rather than my own memory of Catterick and the surrounding owns and villages. One discovering was how short is the route from the Garrison town centre to Richmond and where I turned away to return south rather than take the road which head up to Market Square. I had decided that I would return again once I had digested and adjusted to the impact of this first visit. What I need to emphasise that how ever strong the feelings aroused from watching television programmes about operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the subsequent funerals of those killed or programmes about the care of those injured, the debates about equipment and the strength of the forces deployed nothing has had such an effect as a short drive through Catterick and a brief stop at the supermarket to bring the reality. Somehow my experience needs to be felt by the British people, not relayed in this way or rough TV and Newspapers, but the sense of their reality which I experienced.

Later I learn that the Garrison town centre was first created in 2000 and that under Defence plans published in 2005 1 billion pounds is being spent to upgrade an develop the Garrison which now embrace a large number of villages to a population of 25000 about double that at present and there are twice the barracks or unit HQ's that I estimated.

1400 A bus trip to Durham and Newcastle

Tuesday commenced with waking early and writing until nine am when I decided that I would take the bus to Chester Le Street to try and replace the vacuum flask bought the previous day and found to be without its stopper and pouring unit. Because the weather continued to be warm and sunny I also decided to then take a bus to Durham for a visit to the Cathedral and Castle, and to the University sports fields which had been used as the County Cricket ground during the first years as a First Class Championship Team. I had visited Durham City and its Cathedral several times before 1992 but it was only though the temporary use of the University facilities that I came to know and love the city which I came to regard as special along with Oxford, Cambridge, York and Chester, all with great riversides, Durham and York with great Cathedrals, with the exception of Chester, all University Towns and all with ancient and attractive architecture. I lived in Oxford for five years in a period of six years and in Chester for under a year, working in the city for three years, and stayed for short periods in Cambridge and York.

The city would not have existed had it not been for the love of the monks of Holy Island- Lindisfarne (close to the Scottish border in Northumbria), for their former Bishop who became canonised, Saint Cuthbert. When the religious community became threatened by invading Norsemen they left in search of a safer heaven, taking the body of St Cuthbert with them as they travelled from coast to coast and back, arriving after eight years of seeking safety, at the former Roman town of Chester Le Street thirteen miles to the West of Sunderland on the river Wear which also passes close to the town from its journey from where is now known as Cumbria and through the city also now know as Durham. They remained at Chester Le Street between 883 and 995 when it was decided that a hill surrounded on three sides by the river Wear would make an ideal safe location to build a church and a final resting place for their Saint. It was however only after the successful Invasion of 1066 by William the Conqueror, that the Normans through the Benedictines' built what remains one of the great architectural feats of Western Europe, spectacular, grand, wondrous, beautiful and within its walls a place of infinite spirituality and peace.

There was sufficient space on the flattened hill to create a large quadrangle of buildings with the Cathedral surrounded by the river and a great Castle at the open end leading to the rest of the adjoining land. The Castle became the Bishop's Palace and because the Bishop was given authority over the area they became known as the Prince Bishops. When the church decided to create a new Palace at Auckland, now Bishop Auckland the Castle was given over to the new University and University College. Alongside the Castle on one side of the green there is now the university Library and on the side among the buildings is the impressive home of the Dean of Durham, the effective second in command in Diocese and effectively head of the team responsible for the running of Cathedral, including the choir school. Thus the city grew first below hill down to the riverside embankments then spread to the surrounding hills and beyond to its present day location. Such was the power of the church that it had its own jail, separate to that created for civil jurisdiction.

Durham is therefore only secondly an important University Town with fourteen of the sixteen colleges which provide a residential community for the students but who are not teaching bodies, provided by "schools" many of whose administrative offices are located in Old Elvet adjacent to the University Office building on a road which leads to the University sports fields and to the maximum high security prison of Durham Jail which has housed some of the most evil and notorious of murderer in Britain.

Apart from University College located on Cathedral Hill, the colleges and schools are grouped in a wide area south of the Hill and to the North East across one of the river embankments, and therefore there is a constant movement of students throughout the town, day and night as they do in at Oxford and Cambridge, while at York there is a large self contained campus with is a feature of many universities with students only returning to their lodgings in other parts of the city to work and sleep. Although the individual colleges also provide for a total way of life with St Hild and St Bede for example having its own Chapel, Cinema/Theatre, gymnasium in sixteen acres of park like grounds down to the river bank and looking across to the university sports fields. But there is also participation in competitive events and boat crews of both sexes were out practicing on the river over the afternoon for the competitive regatta which takes places at the weekend.

There is also an interaction between Church, the Universities, the County and town at a variety of levels. I arrived on Palace Green hurrying for the toilets within the Cathedral grounds too late to attend the one and half hour concert given by student members of the music department and which was open to the public for a small fee of two powers. Friends of the Cathedral and arranged a major orchestral concert for this Friday evening which will be attend by those in the University, the Town, from throughout Durham and from Sunderland and Newcastle. There were a few small parties of students, some supporting the visiting team at the Durham 20.20 cricket match on Wednesday evening, while students and tourists and visitors queue to takes boats on the river, or walked the pathway beside the river bank and the universities playing fields with views of Durham Jail in one direction and the Cathedral and Castle in another. While the restaurants and Inns are used by tourists visiting Durham for the day to who had come in from surrounding town and villages to shop or for some special purpose, or just to eat out, they are also used by the students.

These day through the dramatic enlargement of further and adult education there are increasingly a cross section of society at University and this is reflected in the style of dress and the host of regional accents including an increasing large number of students who they or their government pay the full cost of fees to attend, and with every university having colonies of students from mainland China and having offices in China as a consequences. However Oxford, Cambridge and Durham in England have tended to attracted those educated at independent residential schools with strong links to land, church, state, the army and the navy. This continues to be evident at Durham in terms of the level of dress and accents. It amused me that the Oxfam Charity Shop is a posh Boutique and that a second shop specialised in Music and Books.

I decided to use the quickest route to Sunderland which passes through the village of Cleadon and the Sunderland Football Stadium complex and International standard swimming pool, avoiding the coast road using new gold coloured buses designed for those with disability or mothers with children in prams and with TV like screens showing and presumably recording what is happening inside the bus. It was fortunate that on arrival there was a bus waiting to go Chester Le Street, the route 71 which is a different route from the 78 which I had taken home from previous trip outside the boundaries of the former Tyne and Wear concessionary travel scheme. The bus visited the town of Haughton Le Spring and several village communities before coming down from Old Lumley, passed the Lumley Castle Hotel, looking over the Riverside Cricket ground before entering the town centre. This route lengthens the journey by a good fifteen to twenty minutes and set my approach for a day which as to comprised a lot of walking about in the afternoon followed by a long meandering bus ride in the early evening.

Replacing the flask took only a few minutes and I quickly found the stop where a bus to Durham and Bishop Auckland was waiting to depart, and consequently full with some passengers standing although I was able to get a seat at the back. It was also a posh bus and externally coloured bright pink. I had left home just before 10.30 and I reached my destination before 12.30 about three times that it would have taken by car. There was a short walk to the new Gate shopping complex passing the Australian bar and night club and then across the river on a pedestrianised bridge to where there are restaurants overlooking the river below and the Cathedral Hill above. I have eaten at the Café Rouge and Bella Pasta which share the same building, one above the other. Over the bridge it is possible to see the weir below which the river continues to Chester le Street, Sunderland and the Sea. On the other side there are some pleasure boats do venture from a trip round the Cathedral and Castle hill.

The walk continued to the Market Square with the Guildhall and Town Hall to one side where there are also two entrances to a traditional indoor market with fishmongers and butchers and green grocers, and book seller, to musical instruments and cloth and clothing and nick knacks. I stopped in square where there is well used seating to drink some coffee, finish a sandwich, and admire a statue of Neptune and of the Marquis of Londonderry, Lord Lieutenant of Durham and founder of Seaham Harbour. It was then time to commence the walk up the hill to reach the entrance to the Cathedral Peninsular. If cars wish to use this narrow way they have to pay a congestion charge although the council now operates and constant bus service ferrying those who wish to avoid the walking up the hill. There are places to eat and drink and to shop in what feels and looks to be a student world.

There were students sitting on the green some working, some playing croquet while others prepared to participate in music department concert, wafts of which I could hear from a seating bench while I drank the rest of the coffee watching three crocodiles, two of primary school children and one of French teenage students as they made their in or out of the Cathedral.

In part because of is location, Durham Cathedral has an extraordinary presence within and without as a spiritual place. There are the two Normal Towers at the Southern end and the central tower with over 300 steps which was open to the public except or who have a disability. Below the twin towers there is a large chapel area, the Galilee or Lady Chapel, because this is where during monastic times women could worship in the building. While there is medieval glass in the windows, two are recent, one given by Friends from the USA in 1993 in honour of the Virgin Mary while the other created in 1973 honours St Bede. Here there is a moving figure carved in polished wood by Joseph Pyrz, the Annunciation, and a Colin Milbourn's artwork also in wood, The Last Supper. I liked its simplicity suggesting a meal of bread and wine (a plague on the highlife banqueting of the rich, the famous, of politicians and monarchs). The main function to day of the Chapel is to house the remains of St Bede of St Paul's Jarrow, who was also raised at the earlier Monastic site of St Peters' at Wearmouth Sunderland. It was through the man who was the first British historian that we were given the history of the British Catholic Church and it is a nice touch that he was ;aid to rest at one end while the shrine St Cuthbert whose life led to the creation of the Cathedral is at the other. Here in the Chapel of nine altars there are also more works of contemporary art with fro me the most affecting the Pieta carved of rough tree wood with metal enhancement, and similarly the sarcophagus, a fallen carved tree trunk but a face and hands of inserted bronze, (by Fenwick Lawson).

Close to the entrance to the tower there is the separate enclosed chapel of the Durham Light Infantry and I noted a young man looking as if he well have been or about to have been a regiment, perhaps with service in Iraq or Afghanistan, perhaps contemplating such service, or just paying respects to fallen comrades through the ages. On this side of the Cathedral there is also the memorial to all the Durham Miners who lost their lives with a book nearby where a page turned to a new list of those who died. On this opposite the door from the Palace Green is the way to the cloisters which in turn to the main Cathedral activity centres which from part of the extended building. The dormitory is a vast hall foe example where once 100 monks could sleep at a time and now houses part of the library of 30000 books, with the majority in the separate Library building. There are also buildings now used for the Friends of the Cathedral, to house the Treasures, very popular restaurant which is also a meeting place, a shop, an audio visual exhibition and offices and meeting rooms. Including the area where the clergy and choristers dress and assemble. The length of the church interior is over 469 feet- 143 metres with a maximum walking width of 59 feet-15 metres and a maximum height of 217 feet-66metres. Used the audio visual programme for the first time and bought the latest picture book guide, with that bought thirty years before to compare. I have met two of Durham's Bishops during this time. In the 1970's I was summoned to tea by the Bishop John Hapgood at his Palace at Bishop Auckland to discuss the future of the Durham Diocesan Adoption Society which ahd provided services for Durham County and to South Tyneside and Sunderland and Gateshead, but where the newly reorganised local authorities had also become registered Adoption agencies, and where some of the Councillors questioned the need to make substantial grants to an organisation which they felt duplicated a Local Authority service. His successor David Jenkins who also served for ten years was a very different style of man, political and controversial he came along one Sunday to the John Wright centre for disabled people in South Shields to conduct a service in its Chapel and thought it was a great idea that he could afterwards walk straight into the bar for a pint where I was the official licensee and which enabled the disabled and their able bodied friends and families to socialise if they wishes, and which in turn also raised some income for other social activities for users. This was the idea of the officer in charge who issued him an invitation which he accepted. In contrast it may be still possible to make a bid on E Bay to spend a day with the Dean of Durham Cathedral, for you and your friends to be given a private tour and in the evening have a banquet with him in the private residence.

It was then time to make a different pilgrimage back down towards the Market Square but across a second pedestrianised bridge across the other side of the Wear where underneath student queues formed to take to the river around the castle or to board a pleasure boat offering one hour trips, or the rowing crews ended their practice runs. Across the bridge their more restaurants and across the road on the corner there is the famous County Hotel and nearby the Three Tuns Hotels, used by the great and the good for stays within the city. I have a number of memories of the County Hotel because it is of the same chain at the hotel in Sunderland within yards of my home where for more than a decade I was a member of the Leisure club and which meant I could use facilities in other hotels in the chain wherever they were located. I could therefore spend a day at cricket and then have a swim in Romanesque surroundings or if the weather was poor have a sauna. I also once met a BBC journalist for the morning News programme here and also with others attend a private meeting with a Secretary of State for Health. Often as I walked up the meandering hill to the entrance to the cricket ground, I would pass the relatives gathering outside the prison visitor's centre.

It is possible to reach the University cricket ground, known as the racecourse from he river bank close to the County Hotel when there is also the old public swimming baths, or from across a bridge where these is public parking below the college of St Hilds where the campus also includes the Education centre where I once met the former Professor of Education who I had known from the days when we walked from Coast to Coast with the Youth CND Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. It was an extraordinary coincidence that we would both hold positions for decades in this previously unknown area of England to us. There is no trace now that then race course University Cricket ground was the home of Durham County Cricket for several years in the early 1990s. The small Pavilion and adjacent sports club is as before, similarly the same single scoreboards but the temporary stands have long since departed. Here at the Pavilion end on backing on to the riverside you could look across to the Cathedral and the Castle. I have a large framed limited edition print of this view in my day room. Backing on to the cricket ground and also adjacent to the river is the ruby field and further along the bank is Maiden Castle Wood, and the agricultural college, for as is customary in such university towns there are also specialist learning establishments and schools.

The race course was also the venue for what used to be the great Miner's Gala at which leading political figures would address a great crowd of miner's and their families, who would parade through town with their banners and attend a service in the Cathedral before partying by the river. You can reach the river from the boat house end of riverside and walk to wear there is now a giant sculpture of a bull before reaching the bandstand. I was able to sit for while on a vacant bench and remember. There were other elders, visitors and a few mother's with their children, but the majority were students running the riverside path shouting encouragement to their rowing teams, or pretending to study. It can be lonely sitting in a room concentrating on work on a warm sunny afternoon while you know others are engaged in sporting activities, boating the river, chatting with friends or holding hands with a close friend. I was able to do most of that while at Ruskin but in two years there was one party in the lodgings of an unknown groups of students, we picnicked in the grounds of a country house once and went on the river in punts once, and visited the village pub in Old Headington a few times during the year spent in the converted stable block which was our residence, but most of the time we worked in our rooms or in libraries alone, as is the situation now. if we were not attending lectures and tutorials. On the day of my visit there were probably one or two hundred of the tens of thousands who were just enjoying the outside and each other's company than engaged in concentrated learning and work. It would have easy to have taken photographs giving a very misleading impression of university life.

Around 4pm I decided that my walking was done and I made my own mistake of the day which was treat myself to carton of diet coke which proved to be warm. On the way back to the bus station I remembered that I had forgotten to look out for he new lap dancing club about which there had been great fuss by local residents because it was located near the bus station. I do have a photograph of a night club sign although the building is discretely located below the roadway near the first pedestrianised bridge into the city centre. If his is the club in question it is difficult to see however anyone could object except in principle as I only realised the facility was there because I like to explore the nooks and crannies of places.

My original intention at this point was to take the quickest bus to towards Newcastle getting off at Gateshead fro the Metro train to Shields which although meant going Northwards and retracing steps would be quicker than repeating the journey around Washington which made the journey from Durham to South Shields at least one hour and a half. However on arrival there was a bus ready to leave showing that it would meander into the Durham Countryside so I thought why not and so enjoyed a two hour jaunt to places where I had never been or was likely to do so discovering some magnificent English countryside in the evening sunshine as a consequence, Sacriston and Stanley, Tantobie and Craghead, Whickham and Rowlands Gill. We also arrived at the Metro Shopping complex, the largest indoor centre in Europe and where there is also a vast area of other shopping stores, including every known furniture and furnishing chain stores. We then went into the Newcastle city central bus station where I forgot to check on the where the bus to Scarborough left on Sundays and weekdays in Summer before making my way to the Haymarket Metro station where a £20 million development is taking place building a offices and restaurants above around the station in addition to morning the station itself. The project is taking two years and the station closed early evening Monday to Thursday to enable the work to continue overnight. By the time I got home, made a stir fry watched the Big Brother House review and the news, and uploaded 101 photographs, I was ready for bed although it was an hour or so later before I did bringing to an end a memorable day.

1389 Francis Durbridge and Paul Temple, A bus ride via Washington to Chester Le Street for cricket

A leisurely and practical morning where I worked until ten before coffee and toast and attended to a number of household chores before turning on the radio before noon to discover the serialization of a Paul Temple mystery.

Paul Temple was an amateur sleuth created my Francis Durbridge 1912- 1998. The books fact followed the radio series creation which commenced in 1938 and continued until the later 1960's and were then recreated commencing in 2006. My memory is of the post war series with Kim Peacock playing the lead, 1946 to 1953 and I may have also listened to some of those with Peter Coke until I left school and who was alive aged 93 in 2006 when he was interviewed about his involvement with the programme. Marjorie Westbury played the wife of Paul Temple Steve.

I was immediately taken back to those days by the programme signature tune which has remained the Coronation Scot, a musical train journey written by Vivian Ellis. In a world where everything appeared to have changed within my lifetime it is was splendid to discover something that had not.

I only heard about half of this episode of Paul Temple and the Madison Mystery, one of eight parts first heard with Kim Peacock in 1949 and then remade with Peter Coke in 1955, and commenced again on 16th May 2008. Among those appearing in the 1949 and 1955 versions were Andrew Faulds who became a Member of Parliament and Richard Waring, then an actor who became an established sitcom writer. It is evident that this a very different version from the original published story.

There were four made for the cinema movies and in 1964 the BBC commenced 64 television episodes with Francis Matthews and Ros Drinkwater. The radio series was also an even bigger hit in Germany where 12 novels were serialised in the German language with actors of national renown and are available as CD audio books to this day. The British Television series was made in collaboration with German TV. The latest radio series commenced with using vintage microphones and vintage sound effects. It was not the programme which affected plans for the rest of the planned day as I received a small package through the post which did, together with the ten black printer cartridges but not the radio controlled model cars.

I will have to make a list of things sent for an outstanding. But the small package, You must now sing the tune of the Coronation Scot to get the flavour of a serial that always ended with a question or a broad hint of what was to come, but then had to wait a whole week before the next part.

The success of Durham Cricket Club in reaching the quarter final stage of the Friends Provident Trophy 1 day 50 over competition prompted me to take out membership again as I discovered I could also buy tickets for the 20 20 series at half price. Although I missed the five free home ties and two four day games involving my boyhood team Surrey and Yorkshire, the nearest in cricket to a derby match, the £90 membership remained of great value for money with six up to four day games and for 4 40 40 games making a total of 28 days.
Whereas the pressure is on in to make reduction for elders as well as children and students, in cricket the need to improve the financial position of players, to encourage schools and youngsters to take up the game means that without membership there are no longer concessions for individual games. However in order to gain immediate concessions and ensure that I gained a seat in an area of the ground behind the bowlers arm a visit to the ground before 5pm Monday was required unless I was certain he post would arrived beforehand, The cost of the entrance fees is about half the cost of attending a cricket match because of petrol costs and car parking charges and a tendency to buy refreshments as well as score card programmes. There is a tradition among avid cricket fans to keep a record every ball and run scored, the details of when each wick fell and the bowling figures for each innings as well as various highlight figures such as rum and bowling rates, highest and lowest scores and such like and these are published in the media and collated annual in the cricketers annual bible Wisden's a monster book where collector will pay a fortune to own a complete set. The present price is £40 but as a club member there is a significant discount, presently £12, and which reminds that I must also collect my free copy of the Durham year book which normally costs £7.50. I have never been into Wisden, but I did follow the game more close at one point winning £250 or it may have been £500 in a Newspaper competition for picking the best composite team over a season and where I achieve a minor prize and overall highly placed with the certificate somewhere. This is along introduction to mentioning the decision to use my all England bus pass for the first time travelling outside the Tyne Wear area.

More Coronation Scot music while I make coffee and toast and which was good. Now to part three.
I knew that there were two ways of reaching the cricket ground from my home. I could take a bus from South Shields to Sunderland where there was a choice of three buses each taking a different route but all going along part of the coast road and from the Sunderland Interchange there were two buses which stopped at the Riverside Ground. I had also recently investigated that there was one bus from South Shields which went to the Bolden Asda and Cineworld Cinema, the to Washington, yes Washington the ancestral home of the first President of the United States, George and then to Chester Le Street where the Riverside ground is located, but I did not know how close to the ground and I had worked out that the bus journey alone took about an hour journey took an hour whereas I could travel by car from home and reach my seat within half an hour. The bus journey along the coast to Sunderland was about three quarters of an hour and a similar period to reach the ground from the what has become the bigger than Newcastle local authority but still second city, although within the region it is third with Durham a more popular destination. So which route did I chose? More Coronation Scot music as we move on to part four.

I decided to try the route which combined two virgin experiences and armed with a rucksack, haversack, backpack containing a note book, umbrella and a booklet of information on the big change to the occupational pension scheme which had also arrived in the morning post I walked to the bus interchange station in time for the 2.50 pm route 50 service to Chester Le Street, arriving five minutes beforehand to find long queue, the majority bus pass owning elders, a small proportion of whom were still on the bus as it left Chester Le Street for Durham and who I therefore presumed had made the trip to Shields on Market day and were returning home for their tea. I was also surprised that several alighted as we made our way out of the town via Bolden Lane where at the of which is located the residential Home where my mother live for the last four years of her life, and a route which I had travelled twice a day for over two years but had never done so by bus. The onward journey to Bolden Asda and Cineworld was also familiar territory as again I have made this trip at least once a month. After Bolden I was in unfamiliar land. Which way would we go? Coronation Scot music leads to part five.

First we took the Sunderland Newcastle Road to the junction with the A19 and then went south taking the first exit leading to Washington, Sunderland, which previously was Washington New Town, County Durham and before that Washington County Durham.

The new Town was created in 1964 modelled on the U S A experience of creating new communities for the car owning democracy. Before then Washington was a collection of communities between Sunderland and Chester Le Street much of it land owned by the family of Lord Lambton, with at least one important coalfield and chemical works, The vision was to create a series of separate but enlarged communities, known as districts with a range housing and local facilities, a number of industrial and business enterprise estates, a new purpose designed shopping centre and central bus station, linked by a major road net work. To the East of Washington there is the dual carriage motorway linking Tyneside with Teesside and on to York the A 19 which becomes the former A 1 to London and to the West of Washington linking South Shields one spur, and Newcastle the main spur to the M1 Motorway is the AIM motorway. Going through Washington from the north to the south and close to the town centre is a third dual carriage way route, and going through Washington are also two East West- West East routes on either side of the Town centre. There is no train centre. Although designed o be so there is in fact no sense of it being a town and soon after the administration of the town was moved from its development corporation to Sunderland the numbered only district approach was abandoned and reverted to named place communities of which there are now some 17 associated with the two each with an average population of three to four thousand with a total of sixty thousand at the 2001 census. Such a significant increase in population has been sustained by the development of seven industrial, manufacturing and business centre and most of all the decision of Nissan to create a car assembly plant in the area, and which is now the only such centre in the England, the pride of Nissan employing 5000, working three production shifts a day and where the wage of trainee is twenty thousand pounds more than a teacher, police or service man. Although Washington Old Hall is the home of the George Washington ancestors, his grandfather John was living in Essex when he first went to America.

In addition to the ancestor's of George, Washington is famed for Bryan Ferry former lead singer of Roxy Music and Heather Mills, former wife of Sir Paul (Beatle). Despite these associations and stopping near the headquarters of the Child Benefit agency, a giant office block from where all the client information of many millions was put on disk and lost in transit to the Government Audit office, the half hour tour of the towns districts is not something I wish to repeat. I will look to see if there is a more direct route between South Shields and Washington Bus Station and then join the 50 service because it was only a quick journey, leaving the Town centre along one north south route, joining one east west route and hen the A1m before taking the slip road to Chester Le Street, just after the Washington area service station. However as I suspected the bus did not continue along the main road to Durham and the Riverside ground but took the first turning at the first roundabout off to the Town Centre where before lighting from the bus I asked the driver, who was also leaving at this point if this was the closest stop to the Cricket ground. Coronation Scot music before part six.

He advised that I should stay on the bus for two more stops and then turn left down the hill. The replacement driver suggested that I should go to the next stand for a 78 which would take me directly to the ground but on reaching the stand I saw that I had to wait 29 minutes so I had just missed the connection. I decided to get back on and was allowed to do so jumping the queue of people buying tickets or showing their passes. As I turned the down the road there ahead of me was the sign Chester Le Street Cricket ground and for half a second I said oh no, I have been sent to the wrong ground.

It was only half a second because for two, may be three or four years I was familiar with the town's cricket ground as it was one of those used by the new county before the purpose design ground at the riverside was created, and I therefore knew that the Riverside was just 100 yards further down the hill and with only the busy and fast dual carriage way road to Durham to cross over. At Chester Le Street I watched an Australian batsman playing for Durham against the West Indies touring side hit 100, in a team which also included Ian Botham, Those were the days.
At Riverside I noted that I could have driven my car into the ground for the box office and the journey from door to door had taken over one and a half hours, three times that of using my car. I obtained my tickets and decided to take the other route home route home. There are two buses which stop at the ground, the 71 service from Chester Le Street to Sunderland Interchange which goes into Houghton Le Spring a journey of 55 minutes and the 78 which commences at the former steel town of Consett in County Durham some 56 minutes further on from Chester Le Street and which then takes a more direct route into Sunderland passing the landmark Penshaw Monument, a journey of 39 minutes to Sunderland Interchange. I was fortunate that this was the first bus to reach my stop and I arrived at Sunderland about thirteen minutes to five. I was even more fortunate as I had just worked out where the stand was for South Shields at the prize winning designed bus and metro train station when the quickest of the services to South Shields arrived, the 40 minute E1 service which took me to a stop at the bottom of my hill. And I was in the house just before twenty to six. The E 6 takes 47 minutes and the E 2, 49 and all three travel along part of the South Shields to Sunderland coast Road so that overall this route can be quicker, more scenic and does not involve walking but does involve a change in buses.

As we any good mystery, just when you believe you know the answers to the questions and solution to the main mystery there are one or two other twists in the story and I have also completed six of the eight parts of a Paul Temple series, so more Coronation Scot music.

The mini adventure and successful completion of my mission was celebrated with a pint of lager, a bream fish with vegetables and a piece of Apple Strudel and Ice Cream followed by coffee, and later night snack of a chunky salami pieces sandwich and the discovery of an on line list of every bus journey with latest on line time table of every bus route within and from Tyne and Wear, some 400 individual time tables. I need to take a detailed look, especially as many of the time tables appear out of date. My interest was routes which take one into Northumberland and Durham:- Newcastle to Durham and Bishop Auckland, Newcastle to Cramlington and Blyth. Durham to Seaham Harbour. Sunderland to Darlington, Sunderland to Middlesbrough Sunderland to Hartlepool Newcastle to Hexham, Newcastle to Carlisle Metro Centre-Bamburgh, Newcastle to Otterburn and Newcastle to Roman Wall.

However my eyes lit up at a service from Newcastle via the Heworth Interchange all the way to Whitby and Scarborough in North Yorkshire operating on Sundays and Bank Holiday in the summer which means that on can use the pass to get Newcastle for the start at 9.15 arriving in Scarborough at 12.15, return at 10 to six arriving back in Newcastle at eight forty five although I would get off at Heworth at 20.29 The question is this a free service or a regarded as a coach? More Coronation Scot Music
The final part starts with a red herring. Have train journeys to London from Sunderland commenced? They have but because of technical problems on the liner between Sunderland and York which take nearly twice the time than from York to Newcastle there appears to be only direct route on some of the journeys passengers are being switched to other services which all sounds a mess. Finding out tickets prices on line was also something of a problem so I can imagine that those living in the Sunderland area will still find it easier to get to Newcastle or Durham that Sunderland which was always going to be the problem especially a as the number of trains a day is also limited.

The main question? Who is going to win Britain's Got Talent. My impression that the public are being steered was significantly reinforced last night. As the order of appearance and comments of the judges was skewed against the singers in favour of others so that the four girls playing classical electronic and contemporary looking instruments a la Bond were set up to go through as the last act on the night and the penultimate act of five young dancers, three black, all with day jobs, were voted through by the judges at the expense of the long time serving comedian. Simon appeared to be pushing the girl musicians at contest winners and in the later programme it appears that Faryl has been persuaded to switch from singing Amazing Grace which would have been ideal to something more contemporary which may not show off the range of her voice. It may have been decided that the twelve year old should be encouraged to continue with her education and enter formal singing training at a specialist school rather than be thrust into the limelight Charlotte Church style. She and her family may not just be ready.

The final question trailed at the beginning of today's writing is what has happened to my occupational pension in relation to those presently in work? However this prompts a second series. Final playing of the Coronation Scot.

1378 Alfred Wainwright Day

This has been a good day, 18th May 2008, and for one moment, a strange day when a ghost returned to remind of dark days past, and overall I did not feel guilt or failure at the lack of time tabled progress in project work. Then this evening there was a fictional tale of recent reality horror which upset me greatly.

The day commenced early around 6 am having gone abed before midnight and a succession of gettings up when it seemed that no sooner did I return to bed that I was awake and needing to get up again, although a hour or so had passed by.

The good surprise of the day was to switch on the TV after an excellent evening meal to find a one hour programme on the life of Alfred Wainwright. I first came across his Cumbrian guides on visiting the Lakes for the first time after arriving in the North East in 1974, although I had stayed at the family home of a friend in 1963 which overlooked Ullswater and I had sat for hours watching the clouds pass over the lake from a large picture window. Later I acquired one of his photo books about Scotland but although I looked longingly at his detailed map guides I never have made the opportunity to follow his footsteps. Then there was the brilliant TV series when Eric Robson, from this region, who accompanied him on some of his favourite walks and outlooks. The evening's programme was a balanced mixture of interviews and reminiscences, (including the delicious Sue Lawley who once interviewed me back in 1981 or 1982 for a London evening TV magazine programme) and fictionalised representations of aspects of his earlier life. The programme explained his background as part of a poor Mill family and community where he was able to break out by being bright at school and getting a post as an office boy for the local council, progressing as part of a Treasurer's department by going to evening classes and taking accountancy exams, going on holiday with his cousin to the Lakes, after saving £5 and dreaming of being able to live and walk as often as he wished.

He married a local girl and had a son, and then jumped at the opportunity of a job at Kendal where he progressed to become the Borough Treasurer,. The programme revealed why Wainwright was something of a recluse and avoided publicity until later on life. The main reason appeared to be that he liked his own company better than most other humans, although he had a love of animals as well as of the Hills and their viewpoints. The for his negative attitude towards others is revealed in an unpublished manuscript after realising early in his marriage that he had made a mistake and that his wife and he did not share interests, his approach to life, marriage and the position of women in society. The programme was more sympathetic to him than his former partner than it should have been. His response to what was for him an unhappy marriage was to work hard during the day and at weekends go off by himself on to the Fells, having decided he would not only climb everyone but make and publish a record with maps and a handwritten diary full of little quips, asides and observations on life. He was a methodical map, primarily a completer finisher, someone who set or had set goals and the meticulously worked out how to achieve the in the way intended and then did so, almost to the exclusion of everything else. He also had a creative streak but not an overpowering one, but he was not an over shaper or leader although he was to become so, because half a century later walkers in the Lakes still rely or his guides and swear that there are none better.

His first publication was a financial gamble and although the subsequent books were critically praised and quickly built up their following he remained a quiet man, intent on his task of thirteen years and avoiding publicity. His marriage ended after more than thirty years and there is no account pf what happened by her or his estranged son who he is said to have disinherited. The Wikipedia entry differs significantly from the TV programme in that it claims he did not meet his second wife until years after the break up, whereas the film suggests otherwise. In fact he encountered Betty fort he first time several years before they commenced a relationship when she wrote a fan letter saying how much she appreciated his books and reminding of when they had met. He had summed her to his office after she had booked a room for a paid period of time and then significantly over stayed the hiring. She is reported to have had the meeting with her daughter. While both still married they had met and commenced a relationship despite the significant difference in ages. He was said to have given her his secret manuscript in which he had revealed the kind of woman he hoped to meet and challenged her only to respond if she felt she was that individual and could fulfil his dream. They were subsequently to spend the rest of his life together, and although he continued to walk on his own further and further affield, they shared a joint passion for animals and used much of his wealth to create an animal shelter for cats and dogs which now bears his name, and she also encouraged him to continue his writing long into retirement. In fact his original seven books became million sellers worldwide and he commenced a succession of new projects on the Pennine Way and then perhaps his most creative and significant walk The Coast to Coast. from St Bees to Robin Hood's Bay passing through the Lakes, the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors to Robin Hood's Bay 190 miles and significantly longer than to the two coast to coast marches I undertook as a young man from Liverpool to Hull His walk was named the second best walks in the world in a survey of experts for Country Walking Magazine. He was a lucky man where hard work and dedication to the point of obsession brought financial and other rewards. He completed his original set task and the publication of his works brought him the kind of satisfying relationship he had dreamt off. He also found fame and recognition during his lifetime and his reputation is undiminished and is unlikely to do so.

There are 214 fells in the Lake District and getting to the top of everyone has become known as the Wainwrights with a register kept of those who wished to record the feat, some 459 people, doing so and some 40 completing more than once with one individual over a dozen times. The youngest recorded was aged under seven years. The Wainwright Society was formed in 2002.

It was while looking at internet references that I downloaded a BBC news feature that Michael Joseph who had published the Cumbrian guides had decided to discontinue because of falling demand. I then spotted the headline "Abuse claims win compensation" which in curiosity I also downloaded only to then realise the date was 14th January 2003, five days after my aunt had been admitted to hospital and when a had returned for a family event lasting 24 hours to find her at death's door. The article referred to the settlement of the Class Action involving 15 Test cases and some 60 former children in which I had provided the evidence of corporate negligence with the assistance of an International Law firm and an International Human Rights Lawyer. Earlier in the day I had written to the Parliamentary and Health Ombudsman giving my response to the letter rejecting my request for their reports to the Health Minister to be amended or withdrawn and which also mapped out how I intended to proceed as a consequence, although I had not set out the time table of years which the task was likely to take and where from its outset I had not contemplated resolution or satisfactory outcome, but where I concluded it was in the public interest and a duty to my former care mother and aunt to do all that was possible within the system. Thus although there are similarities in the approach to a task and to life between me and My Wainwright there are significant differences. My lasting memory of is talking to Eric Robson about his wish to for his ashes to be taken to his favourite Fell something he had written about and where he had already learnt that other Fell walkers had also made it their mission, and indeed one had already done so. He loved love but did not fear death because he felt he would en in the company of friends. My mother had such faith. I wish I had.

During the day I watched two very different programmes which had engaged my attention. The first was an Antiques programme Flog It where the public had brought their items to Newcastle and then subsequently sold at Bolden. Instead of the usual visit to some country house or examination of a special antique, there was an interesting film about the Newcastle Quayside in the 1950's and the efforts to protect from a Council proposal to demolish the area and replace with modern buildings. I wish to watch again and broke off writing to download while I continued writing.

The other programme was the first round of the final of this year's Best of British Cooking in which seven chefs who won the regional finals competed to prepare one or more of four courses for an international gathering to be held at the Gherkin, All seven produced starters none of which I would select if given the choice. The judges agreed that only one was outstanding, a concoction involving a wild pigeon served on a piece of slate, gaining 29 marks out of 30, and where one aspect was healthy eating so there was no dairy content, sugar or artificial substances. The programme made me hungry so I went to my lamb stir fry with a red sweet pepper, a whole onion and a courgette with barbecued flavoured noodles masked by a chill sauce and followed by my first strawberries of the year with vanilla ice cream.

Early on in the day I decided would go for some additional compost to plant the surplus plants from the three for two trays from B and Q. However I wanted to complete correspondence which included an application to rejoin the Tyneside Cinema as a Friend. I therefore did not set off in the bright sunshine until midday and hungry took the car to Asda where I bought a three halves of prawn sandwich and then eat on the way to Wilkinson's having checked that the supermarket did not have any suitable containers. I was not disappointed at Wilkinson's for although the item was plastic it was the right size of oblong in stylish black. I debate if I would need more than one, and similarly when I resisted a two packs for £5 compost offer at the supermarket when I found I needed this later afternoon. I also bought the salad items required, some milk and bread and a frozen food offer of two ready made dishes of pasta with black olives for £2.50 and then 12 packs of 100 plastic pockets at 22 pence less than my office material supplier and of superior quality. On the way back from Wilkinson I had bought two good size cartons of strawberries and a large packet of grapes for under £2, I had also called in at the computer shop to ask about cables to connect the computer to the TV so I can watch the recorded on line programmes missed when they are first shown.

On return I quickly discovered that I should have doubled up the plant containers and then the compost which resulted in making two trips late afternoon. I decided to leave the clearing up until the morning. I will also left until tomorrow writing about this evening's first part of Waking the Dead, except to say that I suspect Boyd's son Like is not dead, as he ahd not been to the mortuary to collect and therefore identify the body. The programme distressed me greatly because of aspects of the main subject of the film and it was only by staying up and writing although tired that I worked through the pain and the sadness of the fictionalised experiences of others what I knew was a reality to many.