Where I've been
Do you remember me?
This post will enable anybody from my past to identify me - if they remember me at all - but please note that in real life, I am known simply as Peter (or Pete) Harris. There are so many people out there with that name, although I have only ever met one in person, and that was on jury service.
Note that I may not have picked the best website to represent each village, town or city but I'll change these websites if I find better ones. (I'm not trying very hard to do that.)
Home and work
My father was employed in the air force (based at nearby Hullavington) when I was born in Malmesbury, but we moved away a few months after I was born, initially to Pocklington, but I don't remember anything about that. My first (albeit vague) memories are of Mablethorpe where I started school. We moved soon afterwards, this time to Montrose, which happens to be my ancestral homeland as my parents were both raised in Hillside. Sadly, we were only there a few months before we headed back to the south of England, not all that far from where I'd been born. First, we lived for a couple of years in Marshfield. After the frequent movement of my early years, we had a long period of stability. We moved to Chippenham and stayed there for seven years - well over half my schooldays. These days, Chippenham may be most famous as the place where Eddie Cochran died, but although that happened while I was there, I don't remember it. I was too young to be interested in either music or news. Just when I was thinking that maybe I'd finish school there, we moved to Swindon.
I started work there but the strains of living with my parents eventually made me decide to look for a job elsewhere. I went to London but never liked it much. It's fine for tourists and shoppers but not for workers. After a couple of years, I got a job with the local council in Gateshead but I actually chose to live on the other side of the river in Jesmond, a suburb of Newcastle. During that time, I lived in Eslington Terrace, a street where Bryan Ferry had once lived before he became famous. After a couple of years, I changed jobs and moved to Leeds. I stayed slightly longer there before moving to another job in Bath. So I was not far from Marshfield and Chippenham, but I lived the other side of Bath this time, first in Bristol but later in Keynsham. I suffered my first redundancy only a year after starting in Bath. I decided to go freelance and soon found work in Basingstoke.
I realized that Keynsham was not an ideal base for a freelancer and eventually moved to Basingstoke, where I lived for eleven years. During that time, I did many short-term contracts at various places around England and Wales. Ironically, a couple of them were in Bristol but others were at diverse locations listed in the table below. In between these freelance jobs, I also tried a return to normal work via a job at Woking but it only lasted six months before I became redundant again, returning to freelance work.
| Short term contracts | |
|---|---|
| Aylesbury | Bracknell |
| Caernarfon | Daventry |
| Newbury | Reading |
| Rochdale | Salisbury |
| Southampton | Spennymoor |
| Taunton | Waterlooville |
Eventually, a combination of stresses caused me to take a clean break for a few months. I had plenty of money and could afford to - as long as I got a job again as soon as I wanted it. It was a big mistake. I didn't find work again for many years, during which time I moved again. Forced to sell my house, I decided to base myself in the middle of the country, to be ready for whatever came my way. So I moved to Birmingham. When I finally found a job, it was in Narborough and that's when I moved to my present home in Leicester. I stayed in that job for four and a half jobs but redundancy struck me for the third time. Will I ever work again? Who knows. But at least I'm keeping myself occupied doing something useful. Nottingham seems to be the most likely place in which I'll find a job if I don't find one in Leicester. If that happened, I'd be able to commute from Leicester for a few months while I settle in to a job, but I would eventually move there. Well, I've lived in Leicester for a longer period than anywhere else I've been and there's no likelihood of my moving elsewhere any time soon.
Holidays and day trips
The races
As an adult, I visited a lot of racecourses. I have not listed them here but they are listed in Blame bad weather and Mill Reef. Any places mentioned in this post that happen to have racecourses are here because I visited them at other times, so the links here are for the places themselves and not the racecourse websites.
Childhood years
In those days, the main holiday destinations were Montrose (to see relatives) and South Devon, specifically the trio of Torquay, Paignton and Goodrington. We invariably visited Paignton Zoo whenever we went for a holiday there. In 1965, we went to North Devon for a change and stayed in Ilfracombe and very nice it was too. We never went abroad in my childhood, but I didn't really rectify the situation as an adult. As you'll see, I have been quite happy staying in my own country.
Among places visited on day trips from home, the family visited Cheddar Gorge, Bristol Zoo, Weston Super Mare and Wookey Hole caves in the late fifties and early sixties. We also sometimes visited Wiltshire white horses; the Westbury white horse was visible on a clear day from my bedroom window in Chippenham. Later in the sixties, Longleat opened to the public and that became the favorite day trip.
Of the school trips I went on, the one I most remember was the one to Weymouth and Portland. I also remember visiting London, as well as nuclear plants at Harwell and Berkeley.
Office outing - golf
In my first job, most of the office took a day off on a hot summer day in 1971 or 1972 to play golf at Ogbourne Downs. Some were obviously regular players while others had never played before. I had played pitch and putt in Montrose, but I wasn't great at that. I knew that I wouldn't be much good on a full sized golf course, but I went along in the spirit of things. We went round in pairs, my playing partner also being somebody who had never played golf before. I think he was a total novice who hadn't played any form of the game. Even knowing that I wasn't any good, it occurred to me that if I could get round in a score that was bad but showed potential - say 140 or 150 - I would consider taking golfing lessons.
My playing partner and I set off with some trepidation, but we got round. We each had some spare balls in case we lost any. I managed to lose two balls at one hole, where we had to tee off over a lot of wild growth including stinging nettles. I had trouble getting the ball to carry far enough to land on the other side. At other holes, my lack of distance ensured that I mostly didn't get into trouble. I only lost one other ball but don't remember the details now. I was sort of OK on the putting greens, having played plenty of putting rounds in Montrose. Although not great at putting, it was the best part of my golfing game.
My playing partner liked hitting the ball a distance and he hit it much further than I did, but he was useless at putting. So overall, we both played badly, but as we kept score, it was clear that we were fairly competitive. It was also clear that I wouldn't be taking those golfing lessons. Towards the end of the round - somewhere around 15 or 16 - my playing partner decided that he no longer wanted to keep score as it was too embarrassing. The score between us was still close when he came to that decision, but I can't say I blame him. Nevertheless, I kept my score until the end and the final total was 270. That's the kind of score that can win championships for top professionals, but of course in their case it is for a total for four rounds rather than one. Looking at it that way shows just how bad my round was, but I still follow professional golf with interest when the big events come round. Golf is the kind of game I would like to be able to play reasonably well, but sadly I don't have the talent.
Office outing - Majorca
I have never gone abroad except as an office occasion. The first of these was in 1974. I was working for a small software house and they organized a weekend in Majorca for all the staff. The pretext was that it was a conference to discuss business issues, and as such the cost was shared with the taxpayers. It was therefore a very cheap way of rewarding staff for their efforts. The conference, such as it was, lasted an hour and a half during which the bosses discussed business issues, but otherwise the weekend was spent eating, drinking, sunbathing and sightseeing. We stayed in Magaluf but some of us visited the capital Palma, which seemed quite nice although we weren't able to stay long enough to appreciate it properly. Even so, I felt that we weren't able to see Majorca at its best. Three decades later, I bought a massive book full of great pictures of Majorca, showing that there is indeed a lot more to see. Although I think it most unlikely that I will ever return to Majorca, I would go with very clear ideas about what I'd like to see if that should happen.
Office outing - Cherbourg
The only other occasion on which I ventured abroad was in 1986. I was working in Southampton at the time, so being within easy reach of France, somebody suggested a booze cruise to Cherbourg. We didn't spend much time there, but it was a fun day out.
London
While in London, I mostly either visited racecourses, relatives or various places in London, notably the Post Office Tower and Kew Gardens, but I had one long holiday that included a visit to the lake district and parts of Scotland that I have never otherwise visited.
In the lake district, I stayed in Keswick, from where I visited Windermere and Grasmere. I also climbed to the summit of England's highest mountain Scafell Pike.
In Scotland, I reached my ancestral homeland via a deliberately circuitous route that included Fort William, Mallaig, Portree (in Skye), Harris, Kyle of Lochalsh and Inverness. While in Fort William, I quickly ascertained that Ben Nevis is a much tougher mountain than Scafell Pike, and not just because of the extra height that I already knew about, so I didn't go there.
Newcastle
During my time in Newcastle, I liked to go on day trips to the coast or the countryside. More than at any other time, this was the period when I cursed the cutbacks in the rail network. Not all of them could be blamed on Beeching as some lines I'd have liked to use had closed long before his time and some of the others might have closed anyway, but he's a good scapegoat so let's blame him anyway. Of course, I was still able to go to the nearest coast at Whitley Bay, Cullercoats and Tynemouth by train, and I was also able to head west to Hexham and Haltwhistle (for the Roman Wall) but for rural Northumberland, I had to make do with buses most of the time. I could catch trains to Morpeth, Alnmouth and Berwick and did so if I visited them, but if I went anywhere else, it was the bus that enabled me to visit such places as Alnwick, Amble, Bamburgh, Lindisfarne (Holy Island), Rothbury, Seahouses, Wooler and (across the border) Jedburgh. On one occasion, one of my cousins came down to spend a few days with me, and we took a trip to Whitby on a special steam-hauled excursion. It was his first ever experience of being on a steam train and as far as I know, it is still his only experience. Despite my interest in steam trains, I haven't been on them much either.
Leeds
For one holiday, I headed for Wales and headed initially for Pwllheli where I stayed overnight. Next day, I travelled to Llandudno by several trains, including the Ffestiniog Railway. Basing myself in Llandudno, I took a trip to Snowdon via Bangor. I took the train on the Snowdon Mountain Railway to reach the cafe near the summit. As it was a clear day, I joined some other people to walk down and better enjoy the views. It was a very enjoyable day but I managed to miss a connection along the way and could only get back as far as Bangor that day. I spent the night in a bus shelter there and got an early bus back to Llandudno in time for breakfast. On another journey while there, I took the train to Holyhead and back. It passed through Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, but I can't remember if the station there was open at the time (1978).
Also from Leeds, I based myself in Matlock for a few days, from where I visited Buxton, before heading for the south-west. I stayed in Dawlish, from where I briefly visited my childhood places of Torquay, Paignton and Goodrington, but did not bother with the zoo. While in Goodrington, I noticed a steam train passing through. That's progress for you; the south-west was among the first regions in Britain to replace all its steam locomotives by diesels, but this branch had become a heritage line south of Paignton. From Dawlish, I headed for Looe via Plymouth. I visited nearby Polperro, which I had never seen before but immediately recognized as I was very familiar with it via a jigsaw puzzle I'd enjoyed during childhood. I still enjoy jigsaw puzzles when I set my mind to them, and I see that Polperro is still a popular choice of subject. I also visited Newquay and Truro, which were also very pleasant. Yet perhaps the highlight of my stay in Looe was a visit to the Monkey sanctuary.
Keynsham
I didn't live there all that long really, but I did take a holiday in Southsea, partly to attend a country music festival in Portsmouth.
Basingstoke
As I spent a lot of time working away from home, I didn't do much travelling for pleasure, apart from the occasional racecourse visit. Indeed, I fast lost interest in travelling for pleasure during this period.
Subsequently
Being unemployed for most of the time, most of my travelling has been for need rather than pleasure, though I took the opportunity to visit some racecourses that I hadn't previously visited. Having done so little travelling for pleasure in the last twenty years or so, but having read so many books about places that might be worth a visit, I feel that my enthusiasm has been rekindled somewhat, but I'll wait until I'm pensioned off before I consider travelling for pleasure again. I'll have more money than I do now, but nothing like the spending power I had in the old days, so I won't overdo it. Any travelling I do will almost certainly be limited to England, Scotland and Wales, although I don't completely rule out going abroad, perhaps to America.
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