Yes, you can tell that I’m back in the UK, can’t you?
Here’s Caliburn parked up in our little overnight spec about a mile or two from the M1
This was formerly part of the A5 but the road was realigned … ohhh … years ago now. Certainly 40 years ago if not more because we slept here in 1973 as I said last night.
It’s the first decent place to stop north of the M25 and as an added advantage, there’s a transport cafe – the Watling Street Café – just down the road where there are coin-operated showers and good cheap food.
The ideal place to stop when you’ve been spending a couple of nights sleeping in your van.
Having been suitably fed and watered, and cleaned, I took to the M1 to continue northwards. All the way up to where the A50 branches off and where I can head for Stoke on Trent.
I’ve been going this way for years now instead of via the M6, Birmingham and the A500. It looks longer on paper, and indeed it is. But not by much and there’s far less traffic. At busy times, it’s probably quicker.
Apart from the usual bits and pieces that I need to buy here, I went to Benchdollar to order all of the clamps and fittings for the next round of projects.
Regular readers of this Rubbish will recall that on a recent occasion I left it rather too late and the order hadn’t come by the time that I was ready to leave. Don’t want that to happen again so this is the first port of call now.
But I had a surprise – and a pleasant one too.
Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I rent a storage container here in the UK, but it’s up at St Helens. In the days when these weren’t so common and I used to be round there now and again, it was a good option.
But it’s far off my beaten track now that I don’t go up to Scotland so much – 85 miles in fact – and so seeing this warehouse just round the corner from Benchdollar being converted into storage units made me go for a wander down there.
And yes, they do have small 1-metre cube containers. And yes, they are cheaper than at St Helens, even without the introductory offer. And 200 metres is much better than 85 miles, I’ll tell you. I signed up on the spot.
This afternoon we steamed into Nantwich.
This is of course my old stamping ground as Regular readers of this rubbish will remember.
I was born in the hospital here (nearest hospital with the correct facilities to where we lived); lived in various villages in the neighbourhood and went to Grammar School here. It’s always been my home from home.
It’s also where my bank is, and so I had come along to give them their annual kicking. Worst bank in the world but for a variety of reasons, I’m stuck with them.
So leaving Caliburn parked up on the recreation area I took the pretty way into town along the footpath along the banks of the River Weaver
Just in time to see a Crewe-Shrewsbury train go rattling past. Yes, they stil have trains in the UK, although you and I could never afford to use them.
One place that I have never ever visited despite all of the years that I spent in the vicinity, is the memorial to Arthur Brown.
There are various stories about whether he was a hero, staying in his crashing Thunderbolt to steer it away from houses, or whether he was unconscious due to a lack of oxygen.
And various stories whether he’s buried under here, his body is still in the river it whether it was recovered and buried in a cemetery elsewhere
But whatever happened, this is more-or-less where his aeroplane fell to earth with him still in it, just 20 yards from a row of houses in Shrewbridge Road.
The local Brownies tend the spot and every year on the anniversary of his death the locals still turn out to remember him.
He even has his own street in the town named after him.
One place that I hadn’t visited before was Kingsley Fields
Well, yes I had. It was at the back of our school and it was also farmed by the father of a girlfriend of a mate of mine so I knew the area pretty well.
But it’s all changed since I was last here.
The local football club, Nantwich Town FC were perennial strugglers in the North West Counties football league and never ever going anywhere, the butt of many local jokes.
They had a creaking old ground where they had played for 123 years and it was in a pretty miserable condition.
But it did have one thing going for it. It was right in an area that had become a prime residential zone.
At the time, a new inner ring road was being built around the town (right through my old school playing fields) and there was this corner of the land lying between the new road and the River Weaver that wasn’t fit for much.
For once, acting with considerable speed and foresight, the directors sold the football ground for housing and with the proceeds built a modern state-of-the-art stadium on the land at the back of the ring road
The rest of course is history.
The new ground attracted the fans (gates tripled) and the new facilities and the larger crowds (and hence the better wages) attracted a better class of player
The club rose through the leagues and is now on the fringe of the professional game (and not long after I wrote this they qualified through the preliminary rounds for a place in the FA Cup proper against Football League opposition).
When I called here, a training session was just about to get under way so while the players were warming up in the dressing room, I was permitted to wander around the stadium for a short while
Ironically, just after World War I when Jackson Avenue was unavailable, the club was obliged to play its home matches on a temporary site.
That temporary site is more-or-less where the new Weaver Stadium is situated today.
So having crossed this place of my list of things to do, I’m off to find a parking place for the night. Somewhere towards the north, I reckon.
Tomorrow I’m going up to St Helens to close everything down up there as well as doing a quick trip to Manchester.
