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The Incredible Journey
Back in the 1960's the word "bypass" had not been invented with the consequence that the route to Cayton Bay involved a slow slog around Leeds to the A64 to join a long queue from Leeds through Tadcaster, York and Malton, each of those places creating their own tailbacks of traffic that, on an August holiday Saturday, would eventually join end to end to provide a 60 mile traffic queue to the coast.
Packing for the holiday was completed with military precision by our mother - the car was our dads responsibility and he did not get involved at all with the packing, but woe betide my mother if she forgot anything though. As kids we wore what clothes we had, there were no clothes for best wear, so the week before the holiday was when our "best" clothing was washed and ironed ready for packing and we had to wear the clothes that should have been thrown out long ago but had been saved for an "emergency" situation such as this (other "emergencies" would include being sick all over your jumper at school, or ripping your pants climbing fences).
Eventually the morning of departure would come and our dad would start to load up the Austin A40 with the old cardboard suitcases that had seen so many years use. He'd curse all the while asking our mother why we had to take two suitcases, and how did she expect him to get her ten crimpolene flowery dresses and fake fur coat in as well, where were the kids anoraks and don't forget my car coat and gloves.
Finally the tiny car would be full, us two kids were wedged into the back seat, sat amongst towels, blankets, coats and the few toys that we were allowed to take, our dad would be sat revving the engine up ready for the off, and finally, in the same routine every year our mother would forget something and rush back into the house, emerging eventually with two pints of milk from the fridge.
"Where the bloody hell are you going to put them ?" our father would yell from the drivers seat
"Well I can't leave them they'll go off" explained our mother patiently.
"Well you can't bring them in my bloody car, I'm not 'aving spilt milk stinking my bloody car up"
"I'll hold them, they won't spill, just set off will you"
"You can't bloody sit there all day 'olding two bloody bottles of milk, don't be bloody stupid woman"
"Well I'll put them on the floor between my feet"
And so she did, and that was the last word on the affair; she put them on the floor and sat there all the way to Scarborough trying to stop the two bottles from toppling over. It was the same routine every year with the milk and every year they had the same five minute argument before we set off, and the crazy thing was that it would break our dads heart to have to throw away two pints of milk, they argued because it was the traditional way to start our holiday.
Thirty minutes later we'd reach the A64 on the outskirts of Leeds, still 70 miles from the coast and one of us kids would ask for the first of many times that day "Are we there yet ?" and earn a clip around the ear'ole for our pleasure.
The long queue to Tadcaster would follow, culminating with the sighting of the John Smiths Magnet Ales Brewery, and as we crawled slowly past our dad would salivate slightly and mutter, Homer Simpson-like, “mmmmmmm, beer”.
After Tadcaster came the long queue to York with its impressive medieval city walls and gates and its equally impressive two and a half hour journey time through its ancient city streets – no bypasses or ring roads remember.
And then just as you thought it couldn’t get any worse, after York came the long slog to Malton, a journey which now takes about 20 minutes on a good day but back then the queue for Malton started exactly as you passed the sign that read “Thank you for visiting York”
Except that our dad had a secret route.
Never a one to queue for anything his years of training as a travelling salesman had furnished him with a knowledge of the back roads of North Yorkshire so that two miles outside of York we’d turn right and head off down a narrow dirt track and across several fields until we found ourselves on a quiet country lane,
“That’s better” our dad always said, “We’ll be there in no time now, we’ll be there long before all of them lot”, signalling back over his shoulder to the poor unfortunates still queuing on the A64 – they wouldn’t see the sea for at least another three hours yet.
Of course we were heading in the wrong direction, and if we had a compass we might even have noticed that we were heading back home, but none of this mattered, this was our dads shortcut and we used it every year, although if we actually paid attention we’d have noticed that it was never the same route twice.
In actual fact he just made it up as he went along, every time we got to a junction he turned towards what he thought was an easterly direction, it was a lovely random route taking us in huge circles across the Yorkshire Wolds, visiting villages where the ducking stool was still reserved for strange travellers who might bring a curse upon their crops, round and around the Wolds we circled, heading for all points of the compass in turn until by some miracle we would eventually rejoin the A64 on the other side of Malton, only to join the last queue of the journey from Malton to Scarborough.
If you really wanted to wind our dad up at that point you could look over his shoulder from the back of the car and tell him that the car in front was actually in the queue behind us when we left the A64 outside of York all those hours ago, and so of course we always did
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