Dome From Dome: 1950s Britain

My father with the bikes in Norfolk.  Yes, that one on the left was retailing at £31. 5s. 11d!

The going rate for a good B&B was 12/6 with the height of luxury being H&C in all rooms - no en-suite of course.  On a tour to East Anglia, the first day started and ended in heavy rain.  On this occasion I was with my father.

15^th Sept 1951.  We stopped for a very nice lunch just outside Hemel Hempstead; also had a tot of rum to keep warm.  Feeling a little better, we cycled through the rain to St. Albans where we stopped the night at the Red Lion Hotel after wandering about for over an hour looking for digs.  B&B 15/6.  Got dried out by a gas fire.

This was the most we ever paid: the cheapest came on the same tour in Sudbury, Suffolk the very next day.

We stopped the night with an old chap named Mercer.  He only charged us 5/- each.

Just one more example warrants a mention. On my Easter Holiday tour in 1953 the long entry for 5^th April ends with this paragraph:

Getting dark now, we proceeded through Stratford Tony (Wilts) Coombe Bissett, Honnington, Odstock, and Nunton asking for accommodation at every pub and inn on the way.  Now pitch black and raining hard, we acted on advice and turned south again to Downton on the A338.  Here it was the same “full up” story.  We were just about to give up when a very kindly lady said she could put us up at a pinch.  This was at the New Inn.  We were, of course, very thankful and after eating a hearty supper of pie, pickled onions and cocoa, we retired for the night. (B&B with evening meal 8/6).

The mileage that day was about 90; no wonder I needed my cocoa!

Adventure

Remote Wiltshire villages like Stratford Tony or Odstock do not have the ring of high adventure about them as they are probably still unknown to most of us because they are not on major roads.  By sticking to minor roads it was, and still is, possible to discover the best of England. 

On all my tours, I was to discover the charm of the English village as well as the beauty and variety of the English countryside.

3^rd April 1953.  After Basingstoke, I took the B3046 to cycle through farming country and the villages of Preston Candover, Chilton Candover, and Brown Candover.  I turned right just before Swarraton into a countryside of heath and woodland with an abundance of wildlife: one very large owl and rabbits galore (one of them would doubtless be his next meal). Then on into Winchester (B&B 14/-).

4th April. After an excellent breakfast, I set off for Southampton by the main A33 road. Went straight through the town to the docks to catch the 11am ferry to Hythe (1/2 & 5d for the bike). Crossing Southampton Water I had excellent views of many large ships including the Queen Mary, which was berthed at the Ocean Terminal. I also saw three flying boats at anchor. On arrival at Hythe pier, there was a small railway train waiting for the passengers to take them into the town.

Flying boats and the old Queen Mary are now museum pieces, so it was quite a thrill for me to see them in their working lives.

As for adventure, each new day I was entering the unknown with new sights and sounds, and even new privations: getting wet through and slogging through country lanes in the dark looking for a bed for the night was not an experience unique to Wiltshire. The summers of the 50s will not be remembered for their wall-to-wall sunshine! But there was always cocoa, and even more importantly, there was always real ale in every pub.

On my tour of Devon, Cornwall and Somerset, the following entries still makes me smile:

24th May 1954. After refreshment had been taken in Devizes, I set off in blustering weather with plenty of rain. I stopped again at Trowbridge where I saw an ultra-modern jukebox, the greatest!

The next day the weather again figures large:

25th May. Again a wet and showery day as I set off for MineheadÉ then to Porlock Hill and the road to Lynton and Lynmouth across Exmoor. Once on top of Porlock Hill, conditions worsened with driving rain and a howling wind. Miraculously, however, as I crossed into Devon, the skies brightened, the sun shone and I could appreciate the grand scenery.

29th May. Padstow to Newquay via St. Columb Major. All hilly going and mostly against the wind. Found very good digs in Newquay. Went dancing at the Blue Lagoon ballroom in the evening.

We are talking foxtrots, quicksteps, and waltzes here of course!

30th May. After overnight rain, it still looked unsettled as I set off for Perranporth and it started to rain again. As I was leaving St. Agnes, the sun came out and stayed out for the rest of the day.

And people complain about today's British weather! To comment that it was windy or that the sun came out shows how much, especially as a cyclist, I valued a calm day after a windy one. It's funny how there is no mention in the diaries of the wind ever being behind me! Is not a sunny day after rain or a cooling breeze after scorching heat something to celebrate? What can be more boring than blue skies all the time!

In the autumn of 1954 I toured Herefordshire and Shropshire. In 1955 it was the East Coast, the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District. Here is a taster from that trip. I had arrived in Scarborough after a full day's pedalling in the rain:

8th June 1955. Starting off in the rain again, I did feel rather depressed. Nevertheless, I decided to keep to my original plan to head for Whitby over the moors. As I climbed I could see the tops shrouded in rain and mist. By the time I reached the moor, visibility was down to about 100yds. With the rain beating down on me, all I could see was the short stretch of road in front of me and on either side the desolate moor. I seemed to be alone up there; shaggy sheep, horned and black faced, my only companions; their plaintive bleating the only sound apart from the rain and a squeaking sound that was developing in my saddle - or was it in me?

Sounds like great fun, doesn't it? How much easier it is to write about hardship than unmitigated pleasure! But pleasures there were in abundance on that trip as on every trip. The Yorkshire Dales were perfect, as for two whole days I was treated to blue skkies with puffy white clouds. The fine weather even lasted into the Lake District:

10th June 1955. Not until I reached the lake (Ullswater) did I get the feeling that I was actually in Lakeland. The weather turned out grand now as I cycled leisurely along the shores of the lake towards Patterdale. The scenery had just about everything. I toiled and sweated up to Kirkstone Pass, then sailed down into Ambleside. From there I made for Grassmere where I spent the night. Went for a good walk in the evening to Easdale Tarn (915ft). Some fine views of the mountains, the tarn, and Sour Milk Gill waterfall.

All this sounds quite unremarkable now, but for me at that time, having never been in the mountains before, it was high adventure indeed.

These were the Frustrating Frugal Fifties, the last decade of restraint, when 'cool' meant neither hot nor cold, 'gay' meant very happy, and 'going all the way' meant staying on the bus to its final destination.

It was not possible to have 'attitude', now considered a desirable character trait. In earlier times the word needed an adjective to give it meaning. People could have a positive, or more likely, a negative attitude. Without that adjective any reference to a person's character would almost certainly be negative, as in: ' He's got an attitude problem.'

One thing still puzzles me: my reaction to the jukebox (1954): 'The greatest!' That doesn't sound like me at all. Size and chrome content, as exemplified by the American car of the time, defined the status and quality of everything. The jukebox had both so perhaps I was taken aback by the fact that such things had reached rural Trowbridge. Did I choose a record? Would it have been the latest hit, the revolutionary Rock Around The Clock, a Big Band recording or a sentimental Vera Lynn ballad? The diaries do not supply an answer; I suspect that I just gaped, kept my money in my pocket, and ordered another cup of tea.

Nostalgia? Yes, of course. Many things are better now but why is all change represented as 'progress'? Attitudes can be good or bad, and change is not always for the better. Would I pedal back to those rainy fifties? Of course I would, I would be fifty years younger. That damp decade was one with few luxuries so there was no yearning after material things that were unavailable anyway.

I now own a mobile phone - who doesn't? Doubtless their very popularity has contributed to today's frenetic 24/7 lifestyle - I think that is shorthand for having no time to 'chill out'. Is that a good thing? Mobile phones are certainly useful, though I personally could live without them.

I love my computer for e-mail and word processing but I hate it for Spam. The computer is not always right: I was once told that a certain item in a store was out of stock even though I had it in my hand at the check out. I shudder to think, however, what would happen to the world economy if computer users were allowed to disregard what they see on their screens and make decisions based on common sense.

The Skylon and the Dome of Discovery are long gone; they were not designed to be lasting symbols of Britain's greatness. As we approached the new millennium, there was obviously a need for a new Dome, but a bigger one. That one is still with us although nobody seems to know what it is for. I shan't be around to see the 2050 version but I bet it will be a whopper!

© Basil Turner 2004