August 28, 2007
London - Wolverhampton - Bridgnorth
It was a sunny morning for our second departure. This bit always feels good, the sense of anticipation of starting a new trip, however short. We were booked to return from Gloucester on Saturday afternoon. Leaving from Euston station means a ride through the West End. Barbara is never happy in the traffic. In truth, if you keep your eyes and ears open, it's a nice ride for a tourist with views of the river, Buckingham Palace, the Mall, Trafalgar Square, and the British Museum.
There were no arguments with taxi-drivers, bus inspectors or anyone else this morning. We arrived in good time, picked up the tickets and were escorted to the baggage compartment to stow the bikes by a helpful member of railway staff.
I would have preferred to start our tour in Shrewsbury about 25 miles north-west of Wolverhampton, but because of the contradictions of the railway booking system, that would have worked out almost twice the price. The train journey was uneventful. My thoughts turned to what Wolverhampton had done for me. The last time we were there, we changed trains on the way back from a bike tour through Wales. There's not a lot to say about platform 4 on Wolverhampton station., you could eat a Mexican Turkey Chili Wrap and an Olde Massachusetts Brownie washed down with a Curved Earth Nicaraguan Whole Bean coffee, but I don't much like English food. Or, you could go to the toilet.
Back in the day, while on a hitch-hiking trip, I was sitting in a café on Bilston Road, a 16 year-old schoolboy, with a friend, Chris, who was about to visit a friend, now in an orphanage across the street. A crowd of factory girls poured in to the café for their lunch. Some of them teased us at first, then spoke to us more sensibly. One of them bought us sticky buns. She felt sorry for us because we were still at school.
Another, after Chris had gone to meet his friend, asked me, 'Who's your favourite artist?' I was puzzled at first. 'This is a bit highbrow for factory girls,' I thought.
I was about to say Van Gogh, for want of anything better. Then I twigged. She meant recording artists, pop-singers. No-one in Middlesbrough would ever have used that phrase. Older British readers may remember, from the 1960s, the Birmingham produced, Saturday evening pop music show, Thank Your Lucky Stars, during the course of which a panel of pop pundits scored the latest record releases, out of five. A vox pop regular on the panel was telephonist, Janice Nicholls, from the nearby Black Country* town of Wednesbury. If she liked a record she'd say, in her strong local accent,
'It's got a good beat, you can dance to it, Oi'll give it foive.'
'Oi'll give it foive,' became a national catch phrase. For an instant, I felt like I was being interviewed by Janice. 'Who's your favourite artist,' complete with Wolverhampton accent, became for a while, my own personal catch phrase. In the end, I had to say Bob Dylan, which didn't go down that well. The girls returned to making car-door handles.
A friend of mine, Jamaica-born but Dudley-bred [another Black Country* town] studied steam engineering at Wolverhampton Polytechnic, now a university. One day, in a Wolverhampton betting shop, he overheard the following conversation between two old Jamaican guys.
'De captain of de ship dem, deer one place dem cyan't go. You know wheer dat is?
'No, man.'
'De Gulf of Mexico. You know why dem cyan't go deer?'
'No man.'
'Dem cyan't go deer, beca it too deep.'
In May 1992, I took the train from London to Wolverhampton to watch a football [soccer] match. My home town team, Middlesbrough were playing Wolverhampton Wanderers, Wolves as they are more commonly known. Boro needed a win to be promoted to the newly formed Premier League. The game was almost called off because someone had planted detonators on the pitch during the night. Blowing up a football pitch, particularly without explosives, is not easy and mercifully rare.
My brother and his wife, brother-in-law and a friend met me at the station. We had a beer at a Sikh run pub near the station, then walked to the ground. We sat in the newly built stand along the touchline, containing mainly home fans. This meant we had to watch the game in silence. There were other Boro fans in there. A fight broke out behind us. The troublemakers were ejected. Someone must have guessed we weren't locals [not hard to do] and threw a 50p piece at us from behind. It missed me and hit the attractive young woman in front of me, on the crown of her carefully coiffed Princess Diana haircut.
'Fookin' bastard,' she exclaimed.
'Are you alright, love?' I asked. She angrily rubbed the back of her head, while looking behind, futilely trying to identify the culprit. No more coins were thrown. Boro went 1-0 down, had their central defender, Alan Kernaghan sent off, but came back to win 2-1. At full time the girl in front of me shook my hand. 'Yaw're gowing oop, she said, 'But yaw down't deserve eet.'
After the match we walked to a city centre pub. On the way, we passed a branch of the Scottish clothing chain, What Every Woman Wants. My brother pointed this out to me.
'Multiple orgasms and a dishwasher,' I suggested.
In the pub, busy with Wolves supporters, we found ourselves discussing the merits of local hero, striker Steve Bull. A real local hero because, although an occasional international player, he had spurned the advances of wealthier clubs and chosen to stay and play for his home town team. 'They're looking after him,' was the local opinion.
*The Black Country is the name given to the area between Birmingham and Wolverhampton, but inclusive of neither, which grew up after the Industrial Revolution as a heavy manufacturing centre, with its consequent dirt and smoke.
The last stretch of the train journey from London to Wolverhampton passes through the Black Country. When I first traveled that stretch of railway line, in the 1960s the Black Country still merited its name. Now, like most former smokestack zones in the West, there's more landscaping than metal-bashing.
Today's ride: 64 km (40 miles)
Total: 603 km (374 miles)
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