Thursday 18th October – Levisham – London

It seemed to rain all night and I wondered how easy it would be to get back onto the main road. When I arrived last night (in the dark and the rain) it felt as if I’d travelled up a mountain to get here. Would there be water pouring down the hills? Would I meet the brewery lorry coming the other way? In the end, it was fine, there were a few locals who know how to drive the road at speed. I pull over to let them pass and continue to stay in low gear and sedate speed. The rain has passed, the sun is out; the countryside is looking gorgeous. The landscape rolls past – this is evidently good farming country – there are plenty of cattle and sheep and almost as many horses. There are plenty of pretty villages along the road. Once most would have been farm houses or cottages, but while there are still farms I doubt many people work in agriculture. I stop briefly in Helmsley; which is solidly on the tourist track. There is a bakery/butcher/deli and lots of gift shops and pretty things on sale, a church, a ruined castle and a number of pubs as well as the Black Swan hotel. The river runs through the centre and is in full spate. Last night’s rain is making its way down from the hills and the water is filled with mud and fury. After this it’s on through Thirsk (horseracing) and Ripon and into Bradford. I manage to be in the wrong lane and so miss the turning for the car park to the shopping centre. I end up in Magistrate’s Court car park and then stuck behind a queue of taxis. Bradford is a big place and built on hills. The hole in the ground that was supposed to be the Westfield shopping centre is still there. It is now surrounded by hoardings and so a bit less obvious than it was. But Bradford is too big for its current economy. The city centre is busy and vibrant but beyond the inner ring road is the ‘ring of abandonment’. I’ve seen this in a number of industrial cities. The city centre continues to attract people and provide jobs. There are affluent and less affluent suburbs and these have edge of town sheds with supermarkets, pet supermarkets, car dealerships, tech stores and furniture stores. But between the two are the old workplaces. The business and the jobs have gone and many of the mills and warehouses lie abandoned. Abandoned and increasingly derelict. Windows are broken, buddleia and weeds grow out of drainpipes, there is razor wire and lots of padlocks and signs about guards and patrols. The buildings are impressive but it’s difficult to image that they will ever come back to working life. Perhaps there will be a revival. In other towns and cities the old workplaces of the poor have become the new, luxury living quarters of the affluent. It might happen here but it’s difficult to imagine it happening any time soon. I find a car park but it’s on the edge of the centre. I park and wander out to explore – I stand out; everyone around me is either from the Indian sub-continent or dependent on hard liquor. I stand out and everyone stares at me. It is clear I am not from these parts. I don’t stay long. From Bradford I go to Wakefield for a quick tour of the Hepworth Museum (and a nice cup of tea and gluten free cake) and then it’s the A1 south and homeward bound. And it’s always a joy to be home.