The Road West.

[Farmer John]

It has just occurred to me (and I don't know how to write this so it makes sense)

I was halfway through writing this when I was called for my tea and I have no idea how to finish.

[BobClay]

It's an age thing. One day you'll sit in front of the computer and say: "What's wrong with this bloody television ?"

Then it'll go dark.

[Ron Stringer]

Originally Posted by BobClay

... and circumventing a strange dark place called Kidderminster, I arrived at the family home. (About 10 years older.)

Kidderminster was always a dark place to me. Back in 1966, when the M5 and the M6 consisted of a few short stretches of dual carriageway separated from each other by miles of countryside, I was on a 5-month course at Plymouth Tech (as it was then). One or two weekends a month I used to commute on Friday evening between my digs in Cattedown Road, Plymouth and the family home to the East of Manchester, returning on Sunday night.

The route involved following the A38 but taking in what bits of the motorways were available. At that time the M6 stopped somewhere near Cannock, North of Birmingham and coming back I used to divert off to the West and run down through Kidderminster to join the A38 somewhere near Worcester. From then on it was A38 all the way, passing close enough to Highbridge to see the antennas of GKA.

It was just about 300 miles and my personal target was to do the journey in under 6 hours. I only failed a couple of times but as I was crawling through the part of Worcestershire where Kidderminster lies, my average speed was always dropping massively and I was cursing the roads and the traffic. Once I got past Tewkesbury and on into Somerset, I could usually recover the time, but I hated the drag through the West Midlands.

Those were the days, when speed cameras didn't exist and police cars rarely went out in the dark.