What’s the worst travel experience you’ve ever had?
I once, aged seventeen, made the mistake of accepting a lift home from London with my father.
It ought to have been simple. I could have caught a train from King’s Cross to Newcastle and been home in a matter of hours. Instead, I cadged a lift with Dad, who had a packed working schedule to fulfil before heading north. What could have been a few hours became a couple of days.
Sons are supposed to spend time with their fathers, aren’t they?
That was part of my reasoning, I suppose. I wanted to see him. My parents had separated eight years earlier. I’d barely seen him since the previous Easter. But there wasn’t much point in spending time with my father if I was going to be left sitting in the car while he got on with his work. When Dad is preoccupied it goes in day and night.
I’d already made one questionable decision by going to London to see him the previous week. There had been perfectly good reasons not to go, and I’d ignored them.
I was supposed to be catching up on seven weeks of missed History lessons. I’d been given the lead in a Youth Theatre production and had rehearsals to attend. And there was Debbie, whom I’d only recently started going out with.
I had priorities. Or at least I ought to have had.
Instead, I’d gone off to London.
And in my absence, Debbie had got back together with her boyfriend.
That hurt.
It was an especially painful consequence of my decision to go away. I couldn’t help thinking that if I’d stayed in Newcastle, things might have turned out differently.
Now I was compounding one mistake with another. I had decided to travel back with Dad rather than take the train, without giving a moment’s serious thought to what that would involve.
I was seventeen and quite capable of getting myself home. Yet I’d placed myself entirely at the mercy of someone else’s timetable.
On Wednesday 25 October, we eventually travelled from London towards Cheshire, where Dad had business the following morning. He’d been on the phone all afternoon. We’d been late getting away. We stayed overnight at the Wild Boar, near Tarporley. He ate with business colleagues; I ate alone.
The following day we went to Oulton Park racing circuit. Dad was attending a corporate hospitality event, where a group of businessmen had been invited to drive racing cars. Stirling Moss was there. Apparently.
For the businessmen, it must have been a wonderful day. I spent about six hours sitting in Dad’s Rover. It reminded me of a few ‘days out’ with Dad as a boy: he’d take my brother and I out to do something only to pull over at some obscure house, go in, and be gone for an hour.
I read a bit. But mostly I waited. And while I waited, I thought about all the things I ought to have been doing. The History I hadn’t caught up on. The rehearsals I was missing. Debbie. Especially Debbie.
Time seemed to be running out. Every hour spent sitting in that car was an hour I would never recover.
I was becoming increasingly angry with myself. I’d made the decision to go to London. I’d made the decision to accept Dad’s lift. Nobody had forced me to do either.
Eventually the proceedings at Oulton Park finished, and we set off north. But not to Newcastle.
We were going to Appleby, his business HQ, and Management Training Centre where Dad lived.
Another long drive. Another evening spent away from home.
Dad had business guests to entertain, and asked me to make them feel welcome – there was a gathering in the Hall. I did as asked but Dad reprimanded me for having a second beer. It’s about the only words we’d exchanged in 24 hours.
I was exhausted, frustrated and desperately unhappy. I was still just trying to get home – Newcastle.
It wasn’t simply that I was tired of travelling. I was beginning to understand the consequences of my decisions.
I’d gone to London when I should have stayed at home. I’d missed rehearsals for a leading role I’d only just been given. I hadn’t done a thing about the seven weeks of History I needed to catch up on. And Debbie had gone back to her boyfriend.
Now, instead of getting home and trying to put some of this right, I was stuck at Appleby.
I went upstairs to my bedroom, got into bed and sobbed.
I was overwhelmed by the feeling that time was slipping through my fingers.
There was nothing I could do about any of it that night.
I’d wanted to spend time with Dad, but I’d barely seen him except as someone driving me from one business engagement to another.
I’d wanted to get home, but I still had another journey ahead of me.
And I’d wanted to make the most of my half-term holiday, but I’d managed to waste almost all of it.
The worst part was knowing that I had brought it on myself. It wasn’t really the travelling that broke me. It was the realisation that I’d squandered something I couldn’t get back.
Time.
The next day I got a lift across to Darlington then the train north. I got back to Newcastle a full seven days after I’d left. And what had I achieved? Nothing. How far had I travelled? Over 1000 miles.
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