Ben Harvey: Driving around Britain gives you freedom … but at a serious cost
Today’s column comes in two parts. Exciting, eh?
You’re reading the first bit and can find the second part (should you be bothered) in the travel section.
I was worried the newspaper’s travel editor, Stephen Scourfield, would cut it to make it fit and, well, every word’s a gem . . .
The subject is a glorious, financially indulgent few weeks driving around England in a period I now remember as the “Age of the Mastercard”.
This column was written in what the Harvey household refers to as the “Age of Refinancing” and is on the page this Sunday because the “Age of the Tax Return” is fast drawing to a close.
Before you read about the wonders of a motoring holiday around Britain, let’s address the fundamental question of why drive?
Planes are faster and cheaper and trains are more relaxing than being behind the wheel.
At its worst, driving in Britain, like living in Britain, is expensive and miserable.
Fuel is sphincter-clenchingly expensive. There should be three nozzles at British petrol stations: unleaded, diesel, and lubricant.
When unsuspecting motorists aren’t being trapped by congestion charges, they’re getting stalked by parking inspectors who must have been trained by the SAS, such is their ability to spring from camouflaged anonymity.
The roads are littered with surveillance cameras capable of detecting your speed and whether you are using your phone. You can’t pick your nose at the traffic lights without MI5 knowing about it.
Most of the time the traffic is so bad you will be overtaken by people with ACROD stickers. When they’re not driving.
There was a moment in South Kensington that my car was outpaced by a team of Clydesdales drawing a carriage filled with salted beef and kegs of ale (though that may have been a dream during a sleep waiting for the lights to change on the A316 to Richmond).
Then there’s the parking. If you’re lucky enough to find a space you will get gouged in ways that would make Perth Royal Show vendors blush. Wounded bulls charge with less purpose and ferocity.
“That will be £40 ($80) to park your car for the evening,” one manager at a hotel in Bath told me casually whilst I was checking in at the front desk.
The flippancy which she informed me annoyed me as much as the bill. If I am about to get charged $80 for anything I want the news delivered with the solemnity of a cancer diagnosis.
Fortunately for her she had a Yorkshire accent, which always disarms me. I could get mugged by someone from Leeds and I’d smile while it happened.
I digress. Here’s the one reason to drive Britain instead of fly or train: a car gives you freedom.
Proper Braveheart-style freedom. Freedom spelt “freeeeeeeeeedommmmmm”.
Beware, though, that with freedom can come hubris, as my better half (and usually better-organised) travelling partner Grace and I were discover.
“We’ve got a car so we’ll just play it by ear and book a place to stay when we get there,” we told friends in the weeks leading up to our trip.
“We don’t want to have a fixed itinerary. We’ll just play it on the fly.”
In my mind, having “no fixed itinerary” meant driving through a little village in the Cotswolds and thinking “what a charming place, let’s stay here on a whim”.
We would then have a wonderful evening of food, drink and conversation with someone who either resembled Mr Darcy emerging from a lake (Grace’s preference) or was as rich as Mr Darcy and who offered to pay for our parking (my preference).
Playing it by ear, we thought, would see us pull into a village we never knew existed, enjoying roast pheasant and ales at a cosy pub (perhaps whilst watching a local farmer steer a team of sturdy oxen pulling a wagon of cider barrels) and then deciding to stay the night.
“Lucky for you we have a comfy bed upstairs,” our kindly inn-keeper would say with a gentle smile.
“We’ll get your suitcases sorted while you finish your meal. What’s that? Another Cabernet? As luck would have it you get your fifth bottle free, so this one is on the house.”
With such ridiculously high expectations in mind, we set off from London, heading north.
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