Journey Through Britain
Landscape, People and Books

In his 'thinking traveller's tour', David St John Thomas journeys by rail and 'Little Car' around Britain, exploring the fascinating and diverse character of Britain today. He reflects on Britain, Britishness, the British people and how they have changed, not always for the worse, over the fifty-odd years he has known them as an author and a publisher. Taking in places as various as beaches, mountain moors, industrial and early Christian sites, great hotels, art galleries, canals and cycleways, meeting people – famous ones, friends, gardeners, railwaymen, craftsmen, bus conductors – who enrich his journey with their stories and observations, and drawing on literature and history, he discovers the true heartbeat of the country. The result is a narrative that surprises, amuses and engages, as well as offering a treasure trove of facts, anecdotes and new perspectives on our extraordinary nation.

Introduction



The Father of Geology

I am in the middle of reading Simon Winchester's The Map That Changed the World, about the life and times of William Smith, the father of geology. We are staying in Bath, and I've reached the place in the book where there is a description and illustration of the house where Smith used to live when his geological enthusiasm and knowledge were rapidly increasing. As engineer to the Somersetshire Coal Canal, he was carving through a slice of the countryside where rock structures are particularly complex.

After a soaking wet morning, the sun has come out, and I persuade Sheila to drive Little Car while I follow the map to take a look on the ground. Little Car, quite a character by the way, stays in Bath for our West Country expeditions. Though we have spent most of our lives in the south west, home is now in the North of Scotland. The car takes us through a narrow lane to Tucking Mill, where a plaque recording William Smith's life is said to have been put on the wrong house. I am explaining this when the owner of the house comes on the scene.

'No, it's not a mistake. I live in that house and think that Simon Winchester has it wrong.' He is also reading the book, finding it somewhat challenging.

Smith was the first to understand how to date rocks from the fossils found in them, and to know what rocks would follow upon what. Until his day, and by many for years later, fossils, often called divines, were presumed to have been God-given for the glorification of the earth; but then, when Bibles exactly dated each chapter of the Old Testament, geology was seen as sacrilegious. We will meet curious Smith and his map when later journeying takes us back to Bath.

We go through an inviting gate close by, leading to an intriguing lane. I do my best to push it closed, but it seems to reopen and then close itself. 'You shouldn't push it,' says someone who turns out to be the voluntary bailiff of Tucking Mill reservoir, reserved for disabled anglers. We can see several holding their rods from wheelchairs. 'You're only supposed to come in the gate if you have the code.' I explain why we are here in the first place. 'Yes, William Smith probably lived at Tucking Mill itself, not the house with the sign. But I wouldn't advise you to go there. It's an old-fashioned kind of house; they like it that way.'

Beyond the small reservoir we notice the tall abandoned viaduct that carried the Somerset & Dorset Railway over the valley. The route of the much-loved 'Slow & Dirty' is increasingly traced by enthusiasts, encouraged by a TV series. On the way out, we see that the reservoir was opened in 1981, the Year of the Disabled. On the other side of the narrow road lies the abandoned track of the railway which replaced the Somersetshire Coal Canal. And when I open the map, I gather that Little Car is parked on the Limestone Link. Picked out in red diamonds on the Ordnance Survey map, it heads west through the coalfield and well beyond. We pass several walkers obviously out for a more serious trek than just a Sunday constitutional.



Three Ways Through the Hills to Bath

Feeling relaxed, we opt for afternoon tea at the Cliffe Hotel, where the only other couple on the terrace proudly tells us that they had been among the first guests in the early 1960s for their two-day honeymoon. Married in Devizes, they arrived by train without a change at Limpley Stoke. You cannot do that today, but every detail of their itinerary for this trip has been worked out and paid for by their family as a Ruby Wedding treat. The view of the valley and wooded hills from the terrace where we enjoy our tea is compelling.

I recall when, as a boy, I began exploring south of Bath, for example taking a Western train from Bristol to Radstock, returning by the Somerset & Dorset, when at least half-a-dozen mines of the Somerset coalfield remained active. Though I was not hot on geology, it was clear from the superb landscape south from Bath to the Mendips that there had been great disturbances to the earth's crust millions of years ago, eventually resulting in the coalfield and quarries for valuable stone. But it was only in the early days of my developing my publishing house, David & Charles, when pennies were still scarce, that I first experienced the full joys of the Avon Valley between Bath and Bradford on Avon.

A new firm of printers, the Redwood Press, had started in Trowbridge. To bend my ear, they put me up for the night at the Cliffe Hotel at Limpley Stoke. Dinner, at a Bath hotel, had been with the McWhirter brothers, whose fortune was based on the success of The Guinness Book of Records. The printer had been given a head start with the guarantee of the gigantic run of this popular annual, yet 'outside' customers were never treated as second rate. One of the McWhirter brothers, Ross, was later murdered by the IRA.

The next morning I was free till around eleven and walked the muddy footpath of the then closed Kennet & Avon Canal, running beside the river Avon and the railway. What magic!

All around were signs of engineering challenges and achievements. Dundas Aqueduct, carrying the Kennet & Avon over river and narrow Limpley Stoke Valley, had clearly been built for posterity. There had certainly been prosperity. For many generations the Kennet & Avon was a vital water artery to Reading, and so by the Thames to London. At this Dundas Aqueduct, it was fed with the coal traffic of the Somersetshire Coal Canal. Later Brunel's Great Western Railway (GWR) cruelly wiped out the canals, and used much of the route of the Coal Canal for its branch line west through the coalfield. The branch line was made immortal by the greatest of all railway films, The Titfield Thunderbolt, but by the time of my visit it had already been abandoned. 'Our little systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be.'

Then a miracle happened. First the Kennet & Avon was rescued; it took many years to bring it all back to life, but once the volunteers got stuck into the task, ultimate success was assured. David & Charles produced the standard history, and also that of the Somersetshire Coal Canal. How far and constructively the wheel has turned! The Kennet & Avon is no longer seen as a cranky project, but warmly supported by all kinds of people and organisations. Its final restoration has been funded by what was at the time the largest-ever Heritage Lottery Fund grant of £25 million. Like many other canals now being restored, it is a major contributor to the economy of the areas through which it passes. Many explore it by narrow boat; even more use the towpath.

So, after our tea, we park and walk to the Dundas Aqueduct, with the Brassknocker Basin and junction with the Somersetshire Coal Canal, a short stub of which, leading to a marina, has also been reopened. A young man on the aqueduct is enthusiastic about the scene.

'There you see three ways by which they used to bring the stone they quarried at Avoncliff down through the hills to Bath,' he says. 'At first it went down the river in flat-bottomed boats. Then the Kennet & Avon captured the traffic, and that was a big improvement. But later the Great Western took it over. Three routes, but no stone traffic today, or coal for that matter.'

The river is undisturbed, even by an angler. Two narrow boats pass at the canal basin while, on a Sunday of engineering work, the railway is exceptionally busy, diverted High Speed Trains mingling with the usual local services.