A1 Memory Lane

I spent most of yesterday seated, thereby probably shortening my life by a few hours. But if you want to get from Sussex to Yorkshire in a day, as I did, then you don’t have much choice. You could take the train (or, to be more accurate, three trains) and walk up and down the aisle, but people would be annoyed and think you strange. And anyway, I had stuff to shift, and so I drove the 280 miles.

I have done this route several times now and have refined my technique. Close to hand I keep a water bottle and an open cup of fruit pastilles in case of traffic jams or general despondency. Marks and Spencer ones seem best to me. (Avoid Lidl – too chewy and all the flavour on the outside.)

I aim to stop once, at Peterborough Services, where I use the WC and buy something for dinner at M&S. Nowadays I take my own snack and a flask of hot water with tea bags or (latest greatest thing) individual fold-out coffee filters made of cardboard and paper, bought in India. These don’t seem to exist in the UK but they should.

This route is my memory lane. Going past Gatwick Airport, departure point for Libya, it now seems remarkable I lived in Tripoli for nearly four years. The outward journey was always slow, but coming to England we would leave our villa at dawn and be in Lewes in time for lunch. So close and yet so very different.

On to the M25 and round to the Dartford Crossing. I used this for the first time in 1970 when it was just a few years old and I can remember my father being really excited about driving under the Thames. There was one tunnel with one lane of traffic going in each direction. Now there are two tunnels and one bridge with four lanes of traffic going each way, and it’s still congested. But yesterday there were no major hold-ups.

I go a little further along the M25 before joining the M11 and eventually passing Cambridge where new development extends right out to the motorway. I was a student in Cambridge between 1978 and 1982 and in those days of bulky possessions (record deck, amplifier, speakers, records …) my parents would drive me at the beginning and end of the year. For the first two years we had to endure the road works that built the M11. I spent my third year in France but in my fourth year we enjoyed the benefits of the new motorway. Leaving Cambridge for the last time, the car was fully loaded and my trusty little bike was lashed on to the roof rack . Suddenly my bike flew off and landed on the road, luckily without causing an accident.

‘A1 closed north of Grantham’. What do they mean ‘closed’? For how long? At this point practically every other car turns off to the M1 and the resulting near-empty road is a pleasure. Over lunch I search websites for news of this closure but find nothing and so continue on what is in fact part of Euroroute E15 from Algeciras to Inverness. So exciting!

Past Stamford where I used to stop with my parents and eat devilled whitebait in a pub on the High Street. Past the boarded-up Ram Jam Inn, once a delightful place that could do perfect poached eggs, and where my husband threw away our baby’s soiled clothes, thinking they were a dirty nappy. Not long after, the Ram Jam changed hands and went rapidly downhill.

Woolsthorpe Manor, home of Isaac Newton, is on my left. It’s well worth a visit (a beautiful stray cat spends every day asleep on the bed in Newton’s bedroom) but I’m not stopping today.

Grantham approaches and I start to feel nervous but, to my relief, see the southbound carriageway is closed. I feel truly sorry for the huge queue of cars waiting to follow the diversion.

I realise that I am beginning to see place names of Scandinavian origin such as Skegby and Ranskill and know that I am far away from the softness of Sussex. The name ‘Blyth’ used to conjure up visions of long traffic queues, but the works to remove all roundabouts on ‘my’ stretch are now complete.

Once I reach the steep incline of Barnsdale Bar I am moving into home territory. This was once Robin Hood country; he is supposed to have died and been buried nearby. Shortly after, the A1 becomes a motorway again and I get that wide and spacious Yorkshire feeling. At last I see the Harrogate turn-off and am soon in the outskirts of Harrogate where there is a long, inexplicable traffic queue. We inch past the Yorkshire Show Ground, the place I ran away to with my friends when I was a pre-schooler, and past the cemetery where my father is buried. Everything holds a memory now.

Approaching my destination my eyes prickle because there are no longer any parents to welcome me. However, by the end of the day I have spoken to two neighbours in person and had a telephone conversation with ex-neighbours. In some way, friendliness given out by my parents is now coming back to me!