13 July 2016 - Chapel Lane Caravan Club site, Wythall near Birmingham

We were away from Onehouse soon after 9 am yesterday morning, dodging the showers and the awful task of packing up in the rain. One positive about camping grounds here in England is that all, or at least most, have a departure time of midday, which means there is in reality no frantic urgency to rise, breakfast, get organised and out. However habits die hard, especially with us, and it is only by deliberate choice that we ever leave after 10 am.

The trip was by far the longest we have done in any one day so far, a total of 152 miles from Onehouse to Wythall. Had we been travelling in the car without our little house-on-wheels in tow, it would have been so much shorter; we would have cut across on shorter routes, although the main highways and motorways do exclude roundabouts, lights and the weaving through streets full of parked cars.

Crossing the country on the A14, which in turn becomes the M6, we stopped very briefly at the Cambridge Services for the newspaper and bakery delights, then again at the Corley Services where our layby was between dozens of trucks, one of whom only just missed us as it departed the tight parking space. Fortunately no one died, nor was our paintwork scraped.

Our trip took us on roads travelled before as far as Cambridge, then new routes just south of Huntingdon and Kettering, then just north of Rugby and Coventry before joining the M42, which we left to join the A38 directly south of Birmingham, and soon up to Wythall and this very pleasant camp. In doing so we crossed five pages of my road map book and passed through the counties of Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, North Hampshire, Leicestershire and finally Warwickshire.

This morning after throwing the washing left hanging on my little clothes line overnight into the dryer, we set off toward the city of Birmingham, pausing at the Sainsbury superstore at Maypole to pick up something for lunch, then on up to Selly Oak where Chris’s paternal grandparents lived all their married lives. He recalled visiting them as a wee fellow of about five years old but most of our references were from the genealogy I had researched in more recent years, and stories recounted between the siblings. 

Fortunately we had no problem parking or finding 115 Hubert Road, a terrace house standing out because it has been dressed with a new façade in the intervening years. We walked up and down the street and decided, given the evidence of “To Rent” signs everywhere and the mattresses and discarded household chattels, that this is principally a university student den, and now, with the last semester having come to an end, the landlords are in the process of swilling out the debris students accumulate in any transient tenancy. 

115 Hubert Road

Everywhere there were tradesmen of all sorts, gutting the houses, reroofing, re-plumbing and doing everything you could imagine. The rubbish truck, or “dustcart” and the dustmen were working hard to clear the wheelie bins but leaving the other inorganic rubbish for the poor landlords to remove. Hubert Road was a very busy place today, but suggested that when the work was complete, would be almost as attractive as the other residences we had seen as we found our way there. Thinking about Fred and Sarah having lived here back in the 1910s through to the 1930s when there were at one time a family of eleven living under the one roof, perhaps a student flat crammed full of a dozen is not so very different?

We entered the words “St Mary” into the Tomtom hoping to locate the church where that brave couple had married and where “Auntie Eileen” had married in 1953; we ended up at a school entrance, obviously misled and gave up. Instead we headed south west to Lickey Hills, another term ingrained in Chris’s memory, as a place he visited when the family had come over from Suffolk for Auntie Eileen’s wedding, and a place his father had spoken nostalgically of.

As we approached Lickey, we found ourselves up in bush clad hills, and soon saw a sign for the Lickey Hills Country Park; bingo! Expecting a park and pay situation, we were delighted to find it was all free! A revelation, which warmed our hearts toward Birmingham even more. Calling into the Visitor Centre, we found a simple café, conveniences and very modest information, but there were excellent interpretative signs all about.

Here we learned that the Lickey Hills have been a popular holiday destination for Brummies (the term given to those from Birmingham) since 1888 when the Society for Preservation of Open Spaces first took ownership of Rednal Hill. With donations of land from local landowners such as the Cadburys, the park had grown into its current size of 524 acres by 1920. Declared a Country Park in 1971 the park has remained at the heart of the local community and in the heart of the people of Birmingham ever since.

Up until 1952, Birmingham’s traditional bank holiday outing was a trip on the Bristol Road tram, most likely the way Chris’s father used to come up as a boy. The hills are covered by a mix of heathland and wetland vegetation, and mixed deciduous and conifer plantation, and offer wonderful views over the city and the countryside all about.  As we walked about we caught sight of a rabbit rushing into the undergrowth, a squirrel doing the same, and several brown birds who on checking my bird book, I believe to have been Dartford Warblers.   We made our way along pathways lined with nettles to which we have become accustomed, and blackberry, bracken and bilberries, the latter offering opportunity for celebration next Sunday, when the masses will arrive for a grand picnic day, titled The Bilberry Wake. Alas there are no bilberries to collect so I suspect it is the idea of bilberries rather than the realty that will lend the theme to the day.

Walking through Lickey Hill's woods

After walking for more than an hour, we returned to the car for lunch, then drove along the ridge to another viewing area on Beacon Hill which at 297 metres ASL is the highest point of the park. From here the views are almost three sixty degrees and the grassed hillside offers a relaxing spot to sit and look out over the countryside below. According to the signage, one can see over ten counties and 13,000 square kilometres. We were pleased to identify the Rover factory at Longbridge and the BT Tower in the city centre. 

Although the afternoon was still relatively young, the showers arrived from the north west and did not encourage further outdoor activity. We set off back toward camp but detoured first to the railway station at Whitlocks End where there is a relatively large Park & Ride facility. We checked the ticket machines and found them user friendly and decided that we would try transport for the city centre from here tomorrow. According to the comprehensive signage and how-to directions, one can buy a multi-craft weekly transport pass, however we would have to travel into the city four or more times to make any savings on a daily ticket. 

We returned to the Sainsbury Superstore at Mayflower and stocked up on groceries and other consumables, before heading back for a relaxing afternoon in front of the television, watching the changing of the guard at No 10 unfold before our eyes. As I have said before, these are interesting times indeed!