1982 - Home Leave to England - Derbyshire and Home Counties

Thursday August 19, 1982 – Derbyshire and Home Counties

We got off early this morning, foregoing breakfast to get clear of the city before the rush hour. We were due back in London to hand back the car but it was such a beautiful day that we decided to carry on and head North, possibly as far as York before cutting back across to Blackpool, The Wirral and Wales. As we headed North however the weather started to deteriorate and the weather reports indicated it wasn’t likely to get better. So we decided to give York a miss and instead headed West across the Peak District of Derbyshire.

View from Snake Inn

We really loved that area with patches of purple heather against the rolling hills and the forests. We stopped for lunch at Snake Inn at the top of a pass with incredible views across the valleys. Matt had finally decided to give his Ploughman’s lunch a miss so we each had a Cornish pie with chips and gravy. As we were eating the skies opened and it really pelted down. When it finally eased off for long enough, we dashed for the car and carried on with our tour. We kept running into heavy showers  and I finally reluctantly decided to pull the plug on our Welsh trip altogether and head back to London. Driving through one of the little towns - Chesterfield - we had a pit stop and Rab took the opportunity of buying wallpaper for the bathroom back in Harare. That’s going to make for an interesting but weighty bit of luggage.

The crooked spire in Chesterfield

We got back on the M5 and were soon bowling along making for Kenilworth as Rab thought I would like it there. (she had spent a bit of time with an old friend there when she was living in England twenty years or so earlier.) as we were driving through some road works on the motorway, the left front tyre of the car burst. Fortunately we had slowed down to about 50 mph and there was a gap on my left so I could pull off the roadway, which was down to one lane. There was not much of a shoulder because of the repairs and when I had the car on the jack it swayed every time a heavy vehicle went past, which worried me more than some. It didn’t take me long to change that wheel though and we were soon on our way again.

 

A storm approaches Kenilworth Castle

When we got to Kenilworth we decided to have a look at the Castle, the main reason being that we all had full bladders and the only toilets we could see were in the Castle grounds. The entrance charge was £1.45 which, as I said to Rab made it the most expensive piddle I had ever had. I was rather glad that Nature had called however because I had a good look around before the biting wind drove me and my companions back to the warmth of the car.

 

Matt and Rab in front of Kenilworth Castle

We headed for London via Berhamstead and Ashridge and got in about 20.45 after some skilful navigating and driving. It was good to be back “home” again and to be able to have a decent bath.

Friday August 20, 1982 – Home Counties

It turned out that it was a good decision to head back because only London and the South had decent weather forecast. It was a lovely day when we woke up this morning, rather late. I had intended leaving before “rush hour” but what with a certain amount of messing about, we only got under way by about 09.45.

The White Cliffs - and stony beach

There was surprisingly little traffic about and, having plotted our route which was well sign-posted, we were able to find our way easily. We had decided to see a bit of the South coast and particularly the White Cliffs of Dover, if we could. As we wanted to see a bit of the countryside on the way to the coast, we meandered around, taking the secondary roads and enjoying the views. We went through Canterbury and had a stroll through the old part of town, but did not visit the Cathedral. We had taken our own Ploughman’s Lunch, so we had that in a lay-bye near Sandwich – seemed an appropriate place to stop.

We went through several nice looking little towns, including Deal where there was a tempting castle to look over. However the combination of resistance from the party and the cost of entry - £1.70 each was sufficient to abort that idea. Apart from our lunch we had also taken some bread to feed the seagulls, so we got out on the beach at Deal to see if we could find any. Some beach! It was made of large pebbles and sloped steeply to an inhospitable green waveless sea. The few gulls that were there were obviously not a bit interested in bread and took not the slightest notice of us and our efforts to feed them. There was an icy wind blowing so we didn’t spend too  much time in persuading them.

With a brief stop at a cycle shop to get Matt a ‘danger’ flag for his bicycle back home, we made our way to St Margaret’s Bay near Dover where at last we found the white cliffs. Unlike most of our experiences on this trip, they were less impressive than we had expected. As it was getting a bit late by this time, we headed back to London. Driving along we thought about our photographs and thought we might pick them up on the way home – at Boots in Piccadilly Circus at 17.30. I was not really looking forward to heading into London at this time of the day, but it was OK. I would certainly rather drive in London than Johannesburg on yesterday’s showing. Admittedly we were coming into town and most of the traffic was going the other way, but it was not as clogged as it was in Cape Town, let alone Johannesburg. We weren’t held up at all in town. I dropped Rab off at Boots, circled the block and parked for  five minutes and then picked her up. The photos are very nice and cheap. Five films for £17.00 including Matt’s half frame twenty four shot film – forty eight prints in all.