The first scene always begins when I walk into a railway booking office and ask: ‘Please could you tell me the price of a single ticket from Penzance to Berwick-upon-Tweed?’
The journey begins when I am nineteen years old and ends, well, whenever it ends. The staging for the journey is England in the late 1920’s.
The journey is the walk from the actual start to Penzance station; by railway to Birmingham Snow Hill, from Birmingham New Street to Leeds, Leeds to York, from York to Berwick-upon-Tweed, and the walk to my final resting place.
Readers familiar with the early English church will know the actual start and finish points, plus the ‘stations’ on the journey, but may be surprised that the route appears to be being taken in the ‘wrong’ direction - but then, I am a left-handed person in a right-handed world!
In reality the route passes within fifty feet of my present home, within a quarter of a mile of my second childhood home, within two miles of one of my adult homes, within ten miles of my birthplace, within two miles of my father’s birthplace, within a few hundred yards of my paternal grandfather’s workplace, and within four miles of my first childhood home. Physically knowing the route from the late twentieth century, and having a knowledge of railway history, allows the staging to appear real in my mind.
It’s a journey through a constantly changing landscape; speed (the measure of time) also changes, but I for the most part, remain stationary.
The journey begins with the going down of the sun on one day, but ends with the dawn of another.
(At the time of writing I appear to be starting the journey for the fourth time. I am forty-eight years old.)
Nick Hewling 12.8.07
