Leicester — a lifetime and the blink of an eye.

Villiers Hall - 1980

The city of Leicester may stand roughly at the centre of England, but I doubt many people would describe it as one of our major – or most attractive – conurbations. Unless you live there, or are visiting for a purpose, it’s more likely you think of it as a junction on a journey to elsewhere.  In my case, having arranged my adult life to live as near to the hills and coast as possible, you might assume I’d give the place little thought.

And yet, the opposite is the case. 

Rather — for reasons that will become clear — there’s barely a day that goes by when I don’t think of its streets and parks and the people I met there as a student.  Having read that sentence, you’ll have gathered, it’s where I went to university.  It’s also where I had some of the happiest — and most formative — years of my life. 

Last week, entirely unprompted, my son’s fiancée sent me a WhatsApp message enquiring about my undergraduate accommodation. Was I resident at Villiers Hall, she asked?  Adding that a lady at her office, called Debra, had boarded there at around the same time — perhaps we’d been in the same friendship group?  

After a few exchanges, my phone pinged with a copy of the photograph above.  I’m on the third row, behind a chap wearing a red sweatshirt. Debra is on the far left, sitting on a wall, her face partially obscured by a girl in mustard trousers. There’s enough in her outline, though, for me to remember her, as I do almost all the faces, and many of the names.

The photo was taken at the end of my first year. That summer, I stayed alone in Leicester, working in a crisp factory and learning lessons that would, ultimately, serve me as well as any academic training. Not that I’m cynical about that, for I draw on it daily too. If university was ever intended as a comprehensive education, then I reckon my experience personified it.

Which is perhaps why I loved it so.  Indeed, when I was interviewed by the university some years ago (they were contacting alumni who’d had what they flatteringly described as ‘outstanding careers’), I remember saying it had taken me decades to move on. More truthfully, I never have… and I hope, never will.

For there’s more to this story than last week’s exchange of messages. 

Villiers Hall is no more — replaced by modern self-catering blocks with en-suites, fibre internet and all the rest. However, the grounds and footprint of the buildings remain largely the same. To the right of where the photo was taken is Ashcroft House, the former grace and favour home of the hall’s bursar, where we played snooker in the downstairs rooms.

I know this because more than forty years after I graduated, my youngest son is a resident there. Not only is he living in Ashcroft House, but he’s studying for the same degree that I did forty-five years ago... Talk about life coming full circle!  

Of course, he’s doing it his own way and in his own era; my connections to Leicester are, rightly, no more to him than the nostalgic memories of his old man. It’s a sobering thought, too, that in studying politics, much of his course examines world events that have occurred long after the shutter came down on the camera that captured the faces of my fellow students.

I often wonder what happened to my friends from that time. For all that I loved my time at university, I have precious few connections with the people who made it so special. Perhaps that’s something to do with the need, in those days, for writing letters to keep in touch; the absence of smartphones and messaging apps that we now take for granted.  

How ironic then — or perhaps appropriately serendipitous — that all these musings were triggered by the instantaneous sharing of a group shot that many of those pictured will have long since filed in a box of forgotten memories.  Can there be such a thing as 'forgotten memories'?  Or am I wrong in that assumption?  And would they, like me, smile as broadly on seeing it as they did on that bright spring day in 1980?

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P.S.
And in a spirit of coming full circle, here is me —and my son — standing in roughly the same place last Thursday.

Run for home...

Northumbrian landscape

Every year, as the clocks go back, I think of where I grew up in Northumberland, and the skeins of geese that would pass overhead as we climbed on the sandstone outcrops of Belford Moor. If you’ve not been there, then I suggest you go. For in autumn, beneath its steel skies, with the Cheviots to your west, and Lindisfarne to the east, lies one of England’s finest and least spoiled landscapes.

The irony of this tribute to my home county is that I now live almost as far away as it’s possible to be on the UK mainland. I love my adopted Pembrokeshire, and don’t regret the journey which brought me here. But the pull of home never quite goes, and as I get older, I feel its gravity ever more keenly.

A few weeks ago, I ventured back to scatter the ashes of my mother, who passed away this summer. We did so at the shingle-shored bay where she wrote a children’s hymn that’s now published and sung worldwide. Titled, I listen and I listen, its simple lyrics invite us to pause and make connection — spiritual or otherwise — to the sound of the sea.

In Welsh, that translates as sŵn y môr, coincidentally the name of a cottage down the road from mine. Perhaps aptly, it has no sea view, so whenever I pass, I’m reminded that landscape is always more than what we see. In communing with it, we engage all our senses and not just the ‘physical five’, but our sense too, of the past and what’s to come.

This morning, as I rode my bike over the Preseli Hills (rather like the Cheviots in miniature), I paused to take in the sweep of Cardigan Bay. And as I did so, as if to mirror my thoughts, a skein of geese flew overhead, honking rudely at the figure below. 

To my surprise and delight, they were heading north east… 

Keeping tags...

Carabus auronitens - a ground beetle.

Perhaps it’s an age thing, but most days I carry a series of lists in my head: jobs to do, people to call, articles to write... I juggle calendars too: appointments, holiday plans, who in the family is where and when… And because I live by the sea, awareness of the tides is a constant, not least for walking the whippet.

So, you’d think that when I’m away in the hills I might give up all this mental note taking. ‘Live in the moment,’ is what my wife Jane likes to advise me. She’s right of course, for one of the chief virtues of the outdoors is its ability to shift our focus from the stresses of the everyday.

But that doesn’t mean I stop making lists.

This summer, like many before, I’ve recorded all the wildlife I’ve encountered, from insects to birds and mammals. Unsurprisingly, the list gets longer the more time I spent in the Alps. In part, that’s because of the greater bio diversity here, but I sense it’s also something to do with a landscape that encourages us to look, and not just at the view.

It strikes me too, that my alpine lists are different from those I compile at home. And that’s because, at root, they are founded on place rather than a pressure to complete or comply. Indeed, the word I used in the paragraph above is their defining feature – they are a ‘record’ of lived experience rather than a tick list to be completed.

Looking at my logs for this year, I’ve a few firsts, many old favourites and number of uncertainties to check - largely beetles! Not that precise identification matters. For as I turn the pages of my journals I remember the moments of seeing, the flashes of colour, the shadows on the shifting grass…

Sometimes, with all our daily distractions, it’s easy to overlook what a magical world we live in.

The paths we take

Picos de Europa, Spain

I have a friend who insists that every holiday she takes must be to a new destination; there’s so much to see she says, that returning does not appeal. My late parents in law were similar, clocking over 100 countries in their retirement. But while they clearly enjoyed sightseeing, I always felt their travel was as much about the list than the location.

On the spectrum of a preference for local haunts versus new horizons I’m undoubtedly closer to the former. Years ago, I wrote an article about the most significant places in my life and how revisiting them – time and again – was one of my greatest pleasures. It still is, for the familiar need not be mundane, as anyone who has climbed the same mountain in different seasons will know.

In Wales, where I live, the phrase ‘Dyn y filltir sgwâr’ refers to a person who is deeply rooted in their sense of place and community. It translates as ‘man of his own square mile’, and whenever I meet someone who fits the description I’m invariably in awe – envious even. My elderly neighbour, surrounded by her family and the landscape she loves is a daily reminder of how travelling far afield is not everything.

And yet, for all my love of home, there are times when the shock of the new can be wonderful too. This month I passed through the Picos de Europa in Northern Spain. It’s a place I’ve long wanted to explore and boy, did it not disappoint. Though only fleeting, my time there is already hinting at possibilities, suggesting new adventures…

Often, I ponder how we balance our native roots with the understandable desire to explore and learn and share. Because for all that I’m no nomad, I see the value in both approaches. Indeed, only yesterday, in one of those quiet moments with a cup of tea, I found myself googling the cost of ferries to Santander...

But enough mental rambling from me... I hope your journeys are as joyful as mine were this month — be they to foreign fields or on familiar turf.

This post was originally published in the Austrian Alpine Club (UK) newsletter

The beauty of the earth - and of life

My mother passed away last week; the conclusion of a long and fretful journey that raised many questions about life and its value. If I had a pound for everyone who’s since said it was a blessing in the end, I’d have a healthy donation to the causes she cared for. But the arc of this piece is not to dwell on mortality - rather it’s to remember the joy of living and how we might grasp it.

I was in the Alps the days before she died, walking in the high spring meadows she would have so loved. Indeed, it was her who first took me to the mountains and though no climber, she could have named every flower and tree that we passed. Despite years of making long motorway journeys to see her, I think she would have been glad I was in the hills, rather than at her bedside.

For is there any better place to reaffirm the circle of life than an alpine pasture?

Walking with my son, we saw marmots and lizards emerging from winter slumber, gentians poking through the rocks (oh, how I wish they could make a wreath of those), swallowtails dodging the spray from snowmelt waterfalls… Everywhere, and in different ways, the unbounded energy of the sun.

But most of all, there was joy throughout, even from the ultra-runners that passed us on the descents! As our two-day trek came full circle, they still had miles to go – and though I didn’t envy them their challenge I thought of their drive to push the limits of what’s possible. That’s what my mother would have wanted – for us to live to the full, to be connected to nature and to follow our paths wherever they might lead.

Holding that thought, now and in the future, is the most important legacy she has left me.

Take joy in the beauty of the earth

How do you like your memories…

Unedited imperfection... but true...

The latest version of my iPhone software came with an upgrade to the camera. Evidently, I can now edit my pictures using an AI tool that removes all those imperfections spoiling the view. Never again need my snaps be sullied by unwanted road signs or errant clouds, let alone my fat thumb intruding on the lens.

It was fun to try this out, cleansing several images to create a reimagined perfection. And it’s scarily easy as well, taking mere seconds to achieve what would previously have required hours of skilled programming. Indeed, I’m old enough to have worked with design studios that used to physically airbrush photos!

Which should remind us that there’s always been an element of contrivance to photography. Just as photo journalists compose their shots to better tell a story, my phone is full of smiling portraits and carefully framed views from the hills and coasts where I roam. And as for seeking perfection, let’s be honest, who hasn’t said, ‘Oh delete that one, it makes me look old, silly, awful… (insert as appropriate)’

But the AI tool takes all this a stage further — enabling a quantum leap in artifice and self-deception. Which perhaps explains why, after the novelty wore off, I began to wonder if this is really how we want to remember our adventures? Surely, I reflected, the imperfections are part of our experience too, just as hiking is as much about sweating on the trail as the view from the summit.

Neuroscientists say the human brain is programmed to want to remember the good and the exceptional – but by polishing every flaw are we not also erasing an essential part of the truth?

None of which means we should scowl at the camera or care nothing for composition. The beauty of the landscape, the company of friends, our happening on an unforgettable vista – these are what make memories so vibrant. Which is why I prefer mine to be founded on fact not fantasy – for it seems to me, that a world in which everything was perfect, would actually be pretty dull.

Happy snapping, wherever you may wander.

Reflections on Zen and the Art…

There’s a passage, early in Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, that describes why riding a bike feels so different to making the same journey by car. When sitting behind the wheel, he writes, we experience the landscape as if viewing it on TV: cocooned from the elements, the driver is at a remove from all that passes them by.

In contrast, motorcycling is an immersive experience: you feel the wind and rain directly, the heat of the sun and chill of the shade. What’s more, your body is essential to control of the machine: leaning into bends, absorbing the bumps, reacting to the road with throttle, brake and gears. At its best, the intensity of engagement is akin to a state of ‘flow’, and for some (not least me), the key reason they ride.

Of course, there are other attractions to motorcycles, and touring the US these last two weeks has reinforced many in my mind. On the road, there’s a camaraderie between bikers; a shared passion that’s acknowledged with nods of our helmets, or a wave of the hand. And typically, on arrival, there’s a generosity to the welcome you receive, fuelled (supercharged even) by Americans’ probing curiosity.

All this adds an extra dimension to the quality of the journey, the memories we file and the stories we share. There’s something special too, about being ‘in’ the landscape while travelling through it at speed.  Pirsig’s TV analogy seems not to stretch to a motorcycle visor ( I suspect he rode with an open face helmet) and here on the desert roads, the immensity of the place and smallness of your presence is as tangible as it is intoxicating.

I’m conscious that little of this will be new or revelatory to a hill walker or cyclist. The fellowship of mountain huts is legendary, as is the love of bicycles in, say, France. I was once riding through the Alps on a tandem when a mountain train stopped for the passengers to cheer us on; some even disembarked to offer fresh croissants. Another time, on a mountain trek, I met a blind walker who humbled me with the interest he showed in the achievements of others. 

Indeed, the physical demands of most outdoor pursuits are greater than motorcycling, lacking, as they do, an engine to boost your momentum.  Cycling, in particular, can be so draining that you close in on yourself, leaving precious little energy for admiring the view. Rock climbing and whitewater kayaking - my other lifelong passions - are not dissimilar: the attraction being less an adrenaline rush than their immediacy and intensity of focus.

Perhaps then, my newfound love of motorcycling has something to do with age, coming as it has with a lessening of strength and slowing of the reflexes. I like to think my powers of concentration are undiminished; certainly Jane would tell you I’ve not lost the ability to selectively zone out! Jokes aside, there’s probably some truth in this, though it’s not the full picture.

Since taking up the pastime, I’ve been amazed that motorcycles are not more popular with the younger generation. The vast majority of riders are male, white and likely retired. Yet for less than the price of an average electric mountain bike, you can buy a machine that will capably take you around the world.  If I were twenty years old again, I know what I’d be doing with my summers.

Thankfully, my youngest son is just as happy to humour his old man. Indeed, riding with him has become one of my greatest joys. So while I’ve loved every mile of my two-week tour of the Southwest States, I’d trade them all in a heartbeat for a single one of the trips we’ve made together in Wales. 

Luckily, I don’t have to.

Which brings me back to Robert Pirsig, whose autobiographical journey can be read on several levels: as a travelogue, a philosophical conversation, and a coming of age in his role and relationship as a father. I doubt that he travelled the same roads as me this fortnight, but it’s surely no coincidence that ‘Zen and the Art’ has long been one of my favourite books.