When I was small, I used to draw up detailed plans for the car ride to the seaside for the family holiday, labelled “Itinerary” like the plans which the AA supplied to its members in the 1960s, and sit in the back, noting if we were a few minutes earlier or later than planned at various points along the way. When I was a teenager, we started to go on trips to places around Birmingham, where we lived, exploring the Cotswolds and Shropshire, and I drove round parts of Worcestershire as a history student researching one of its 18th century MPs.
I’ve also always enjoyed writing. During my full-time career, the effort went into reports and papers for government work. Now I have more time, and the freedom to write about things I choose.
Journeys take on an extra interest when they follow in the footsteps of earlier travellers, whether a celebrated figure from history, or one of millions of nameless people whose trips to market, to church, or to war together shaped their world. For in shaping their own world, they also laid the foundations for ours. Sometimes these foundations are still visible – a medieval church still standing proudly, or a fading sign that tells you that the mobile phone store was once a haberdashers emporium. In other places, a bit of investigation can reveal that the largely abandoned track beside a dual carriageway was once the main highway from London to the Midlands.
The picture shows me in Holyhead, beside the first milestone on Thomas Telford’s London to Holyhead road, and I have a book in preparation on that great highway, which will feature in some blog posts. But above all, this blog will be about the joy of going on a journey, exploring the country, getting a different perspective on the past, and building an understanding of how places developed as they are. I hope it encourages you to go on your own journeys, and to comment on mine.