London pubs February

I used to think that a “port” was a harbour by the sea. But I was wrong. It can just as well be a harbour on a river. So, for example, you have the port of Gloucester on the River Severn, quite a long way from the sea.

Stourport is also on the Severn but that is not why it became a port. In fact, the town didn’t even exist until a couple of hundred years ago. And when it was started, it was quite specifically built as a port. We have to go back into history to understand why.

England was the birthplace of the industrial revolution. Huge factories grew up to process cotton and other materials. But there was a major problem – transportation. The road system was poor and horse and carts couldn’t carry very much. The only solution was to transport goods by water. However the river system by itself was not enough. A way needed to be found to join the rivers together. And so the canal system was introduced.

Until the invention of the railways, canals became the major way to move goods around the country. Rich people rushed to invest in what was a very profitable system and many canals were built around England.

One of the first planned was to connect the rivers Severn, Trent and Mersey. It was decided to start the canal at the point where the Severn and the river Stour met. A new port was built there, Stourport.  For thirty years or so, Stourport was a boom town.

Once the railway system was developed, the canal system quickly fell into disuse. Stourport no longer seemed to have any function whatsoever. However, the increased industrial activity in Birmingham and the Black Country provided a new role for Stourport. The factory workers needed recreation facilities for their days off and their holidays. Stourport, with all its attractive water locations, was a convenient and inexpensive place to visit.

Today Stourport continues to be a nice place to visit. The river there is very beautiful and the canal has been restored and made very attractive.  But it retains the air of a holiday resort, a bit like an old-fashioned English seaside resort but a long way from the sea. There are a large funfair and many tourist shops.

I dont know of any other place quite like it.

You can find old stones in many places. One of the most famous is the Stonehenge stone circle but there are many more I know of in France. However, I want to tell you about a lesser-known stone circle that is my favourite.

Not too far from Stonehenge is the village of Avebury. It is quite well-known,but rarely overrun with tourists, unlike Stonehenge. Here you will find a wonderful stonce circle of really massive stones. You wonder how on earth people could have moved these stones in ancient times. But they came from a long way away and have been carefully positioned in a precise circle.

What is really magical about the place is that you are free to wander around without restriction. It is very easy to drift off by yourself and feel yourself communicating with the ancient people who built this.

And then it is time for a fabulous lunch in the museum restaurant

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It is very easy to miss the turn off to the church. Bladon is a very small village and you can pass through it before you realise it. There aren’t any signs to help you, you just have to guess.

Once you do turn off, there is a short but steep climb up to the church. Still no signs and not really a place to park your car. After you get out, it is very quiet and there are no obvious signs that this is any place special.

The cemetery is to the side of the church. It all seems very ordinary, just a typical English village cemetery. But this particular cemetery contains a very special grave, of a person many consider to be one of the greatest Englishmen ever, Winston Churchill.  There he is, buried next to his mother and father and to his children. The grave itself had had to be protected because, in spite of the seclusion, people still come from all around the world to pay their respects.

But what you will take away from here is the ordinariness of it all. Just an Englishman at peace in the Oxfordshire countryside he loved.

I was investigating the idea of starting a site to do with model railways.  When I saw that there was a model railway exhibition on in Derbyshire, I decided to pay it a visit. What a disappointment. It was full of sad-faced old men in anoraks, not a smile to be seen. I couldn’t get any of the stall-holders to talk to me, let alone try to sell me something. The model railway exhibits themselves were dull and uninteresting.

And yet I had a great day out. The reason for this was that the exhibition was held at the Midlands Railway Centre. The show may have been dull but the Centre itself was great.

You park at Butterley Station, just off the A38, north of Derby. The station itself is fascinating and full of old items. There is also a model railway track there that put the specialist exhibitors I came to see to shame. Then you take a steam train up and down a longish piece of track. My son was intrigued by the old carriages, memories of a bygone era. You then alight at Swanick station, where there is a big railway museum plus various other activities.

I am not a railway enthusiast but I defy anybody not to have a great day out there.

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The small cottage where Elgar grew up.

Edward Elgar was always an outsider. He grew up in a small cottage on the edge of Worcester, the son of a music teacher and church organist. He spent his childhood with the simple countryside pleasures of a comparatively poor child. But even as a small child, playing on the banks of the River Severn, he was listening to the music of the river and incorporating it into the sounds inside his head.

You can ‘get in touch’ with the real Elgar by visiting the cottage where he was born. It is well-signposted from Worcester and is easy to find. There is a separate museum with a very good exhibition showing Elgar’s life but the real treat is the cottage itself. How could such a large talent come from such a tiny place?

The garden is also a delight, an English cottage garden in the best tradition. Elgar himself lives on in a sculpture at the bottom of the garden.

It is all a fitting tribute to a real genius.

Elgar has a break

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It is not too often that a Hollywood celebrity comes to Redditch. They might turn up by accident if they get lost on their way to Stratford but it’s hard to imagine them setting their sat nav for Redditch. But Brad Pitt did and here is the reason why.

In 1970, I went up to Cambridge University. I didn’t go to a very distinguished college. Fitzwilliam was known mainly as a sporting college. We had the current England fly-half from rugby and one of my good friends went on to play at cricket for England for several years.

But I wasn’t very impressed by that. My main interest then was music. And Fitzwilliam had its own star musician, Nick Drake. Nick had been a year or two above me but he had left college without a degree when he got a recording contract. Nick brought out three excellent albums. The critics loved them and he was very fashionable. But they failed to sell. Nick retreated to his parents’ house in the Warwickshire countryside and, shortly after, died.

For a long time, it looked like his music had died with him. But over the next thirty years, new musicians kept mentioning his name as an influence. Finally, a few years ago, BBC radio decided to produce a documentary about Nick. They were hoping to find somebody well-known to present it. Brad Pitt, a big Nick Drake fan, volunteered to do it. Since then, Nick has remained extremely popular.

Nick is buried in the churchyard at Tanworth in Arden, a little village on the outskirts of Redditch. Fans, including Brad, have come from all around the world to pay their respects to Nick. The man who died of a broken heart when nobody wanted his music now will never be forgotten.

He lived a dangerous life but died in a tragically normal way. He went to buy some fish and chips with his kids. He was on the A435 Evesham road just near Portway when a lorry made an illegal turn just in front of him. Mike and his daughter were killed.

So next time you head up to the M42, spare a thought for Mike. And take the one minute detour into Tanworth to pay your respects.

If you’re expecting to visit some fun ‘interactive’ museum, think again. This museum is strictly for those people interested in gearboxes and where the engine was stored on the bus.

The one word to describe this museum is ‘cramped’. Even in the modern block where there are some great explanatory posters, you’ll spend half your time moving out of the way to let somebody pass. There are some lovely old buses in this part but the keyword is ‘look and don’t touch’. You’re not allowed into the passenger section of the bus, let alone given a chance to get behind the wheel.

Elsewhere the museum seems jammed with buses. Much is made about their collection of electronic vehicles such as milk floats. But when I was there, these were stuck at the back of a garage behind loads of buses and were very difficult to see.

It only cost £4 to go to this museum so I don’t want to be too harsh. It’s nice to look at old buses. But this museum could be so much more than it is. Less emphasis on quantity and more on quality.