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NEWSLETTER
DOWN THE BACK-ROADS News, Comment and Travel Tips Winter 2007/2008 |
Compliments of the Season to all clients, suppliers and staff |
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Important
Message to our Alumni
if you haven't yet let us know your e-mail address then
please do send it. It's always useful too if you can remind us which tour(s)
you've taken. |
Well, here we are at the ‘fag end’ of another year. It hardly seems credible but we have just delivered our 21st year of tours. It could be said we had finally come of age! My first duty is to thank all who have made it possible. The only reason we are still here (when countless others have ‘gone west’) is because of the amazing loyalty of our friends and supporters out there. This last season saw so many ‘old friends’ returning. Forgive me if I don’t name-check everyone but it was great to welcome back amongst so many others, ‘Group X’ from Canada, Don Hudak and friends, John Mann and friends, Barbara Holt and family, Harry Sherman, son and grandson, Lucinda Hathaway, Ritchie Whittaker, the Sitzers, the Gemmels, the Coles, Margaret Niall, Lucy Travers, the Hartlands, Pietersens, Sutties and Worners. In fact, above 60% of the folk who travelled with us in 2007 has done so on a prior occasion - many of whom were on at least their 5th or 6th trips with us. Garabed Gulbenkian Graham and Dawn Worner and Margaret Niall have clocked up 8 and above!! I must make special mention of Barbara Zachariae. Barbara broke our ‘all-comers record’ by taking no less than 15 of our short tours in a single season! She’s certainly one of the family now! I also notice many names pre-booked for 2008 that I recognise. Fleming, Bob Steele, Sandra & Susan Burrows, Roselyn Lilleniit, the Worners again (ands all the way from ‘downunder’). Well, for the entire team at Back-Roads Touring Co. Ltd, we profoundly thank you. We do recognise that this is your company and we hope to keep on ‘delivering the dream’ with you support for many years to come. One thing we do recognise for 2008 is that it has become so much more expensive to travel here. Not only does small group travel necessarily have to be relatively more expensive than a 50 seat coach anyway, but the sliding US$ presents special challenges. As indeed does the strengthening Euro against all currencies. For our part, we are trying to hold down our costs as far as is possible but with fuel at record prices, increasing taxes and general inflation, it can be a struggle. One thing we do do is to try and keep our office overheads down. This can mean, however, that we are sometimes slower in our responses than correspondents may like. Alas, the email culture can sometimes mean an expectation of instant response. Please, do have patience with us, though, if we are slower than you’d wish – especially where customised touring is concerned. Our aim is to ensure that everything is all right ‘on the night’ as that great theatrical expression goes, and this with minimal people in our London office means takes time. We look forward to seeing you all throughout 2008 down Europe’s back-roads!Best wishes, December 2007 |
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We would hope that everyone who travelled with us this last year had a highlight somewhere down a particular back-road they travelled. But we’d like to share a few of those that we found particularly memorable. These were just some of the things our guides spoke of in our annual ‘what sticks out for you’ survey. For guides like Barrie, David C, Jeff, Jon and Nora, taking the 90th Commemoration Great War tours provided memorable times. "At both Vimy Ridge and at Passchedaele we found ourselves caught up in the emotion. It is impossible to forget the rededication ceremonies for the Vimy Memorial and the Menen Gate", says Jeff. And, for many, there was the thrill of getting within just a few feet of Her Majesty! On a more prosaic front, there were very special moments on our weekend battlefield tours when we were fortunate enough to witness a family being ‘reunited’ with an ancestor at ‘some corner of a foreign field’. It is mighty humbling when someone says "I’m the first member of my family in 90 years to have visited Uncle’s grave". Being ‘in’ on a historical discovery gave several guides a memorable experience. David was watching what was expected to be a fairly routine archaeological ‘dig’ when human bones appeared … thankfully, there were at least millennia old! Denis recounts the sheer pleasure of being with an American passenger trying to find an old family home in a tiny Southern Ireland village. To his joy they found a very elderly lady in Cork who remembered his great Grandma as a girl before she had emigrated. And could tell tales about his forebears. Doug Leith has several memories of his season in the Orkneys. ‘Talk about a "busman's holiday"!, he says. ‘An Australian farming family joined one of my Orkney tours and was amazed to find so much agriculture in these northern isles. So we took all sorts of little detours and |
expeditions - viewing different types of farm buildings, inspecting the crops, and even giving the late Queen Mother's Aberdeen Angus herd in Cattiness a once over!’ For newer members of our team like Tom, Doug, Martin and June, it was the letters and notes of thanks that tour participants left with them. For June it even led to a holiday in Switzerland. One incident from a few seasons ago remembered by Axel Goldschmidt, bears repeating here - 'On a four-day visit to northern France a few years back, two travellers on their first trip to Europe went for lunch on their own during our lunch stop in a small French town. Neither of them spoke any French, however, the restaurant they had picked, supplied menus with French and English entries for the various meals on offer. The order went to the waiter, who alas spoke only French, by means of pointing at a meal serving 'duck' on the menu. In France duck usually means breast of duck sliced and presented in a fan on the plate, the meat ranging in colour from pink on the inside to brown and a crispy crust. With that comes a red sauce plus sides of vegetables and potatoes. When the waiter returned with the meal, our fellow traveller was clearly surprised and not a little perturbed by what she received. Apparently, our friend had never had duck presented in this way and felt that she had been served the wrong dish. How do you explain this to a waiter who does not speak your language? With ingenuity. Pointing at the meal before her, our friend alerted the waiter to what was wrong: "moo, moo" she said, "moo, moo". The waiter smiled; obviously, he had understood the lady's predicament- "non, non, non, Madame - quack, quack" as he flapped his elbows to underline his point. A delicious meal was had by all - bon appetit!’ |
The biggest downside to the season was undoubtedly the challenges forced on us by the new EU driving regulations. These have certainly forced us into a re-think of our itineraries and how we deliver the tours we offer. We know that it was not to everybody’s liking that we had to take guides off tours just when passengers had ‘trained them’ and replace with another (to adhere to the number of days they are permitted to work). It is not easy for guides to follow one another either as inevitably there will be comparisons and it’s often the case of ‘better the devil you know’. Apologies to anyone who felt these changes diminished the quality of their holiday and thanks to everyone for putting up with what we’re afraid is an unavoidable outcome of political tinkering. Ah well, we can at least all be assured that some well meaning European bureaucrat has your safety at heart in ensuring that a driver doesn’t work too hard! There were also the inevitable problems caused by mechanical failure when vehicles broke down. We do try our hardest to ensure we minimise any inconvenience when this happens but the understanding and tolerance of those on board when it does is always most welcome. Our apologies to those who experienced more of an adventure than bargained for! |
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Canadian & East Coast USA bookings A Reminder |
If you have previously dealt with wholesalers when booking your Back-Roads Touring Co. Ltd tour, then please contact us directly from now on and we'll point you in the direction of your nearest Back-Roads accredited retail agent or try to help you directly from our London office where there is no local agent. |
There have been a number of coming and goings during the year. We welcomed quite a lot of new blood to the team, and shall be doing so again for 2008. But, inevitably, we also bid farewell to a number of colleagues. When a Back-Roader leaves the ship it is normally because of ill-health, or having to nurse a family member. Sometimes it is simply time to move on and in this context we have had to say farewell to Alex Neumann (returning to Germany and work as a journalist), to Sean Hunt (after nigh on 18 years association) facing the pressures of a new, young family, and Erika Hartz (10 years our Accountant) who was given the unturnable down opportunity of a job that takes she back occasionally to her native Hungary. Hearty congratulations are proffered to Tom McIver, a guide many of our regular Back-Roaders will know, who married his American lady in November and who will now live in the USA. We’re also saying ‘goodbye’ to Huw Walton for 2008. Huw will remain associated with the company and assist in guide training in his native South Wales. At 75, he is hanging up his driver/guiding hat and letting someone else do the driving for him and wife, Olwen, for a change. After 14 years or more with BRT, it is deserved but you’ll be missed, Huw! And finally, it’s goodbye to Les Woollams. 'Mr Tubby', our airport meeter and greeter, has actually retired every year since 2001 (and collected the retirement gift…) but finally, at 70, he has decided he has met his last 05.00 am flight at Heathrow. |
| News Tours for 2008 |
We’ve introduced quite a few new itineraries for your pleasure. In keeping with the promotional theme being run buy ‘VisitBritain’, our national tourism board that are exhorting everyone to be ‘a Brit Different’, we’ve designed a host of unusual tours. If you take a minute to surf our website, you’ll find themed itineraries on subjects as diverse as classical music, medical history, the life of Winston Churchill, the Tudor Monarchs, great English artists, witches and vampires and, in his 100th Anniversary year, Ian Fleming , creator of James Bond. There is also a new North Wales gardens tour, an interesting 4-day ‘Home Front’ tour of the 1940s North West, and a 3-day discovery of an obscure part of Scotland’s Highlands wilderness. And many more! All the tours are designed to be fun holidays of discovery for both those with a real interest in the theme, and for those who like to be stimulated a bit by their holiday. Inevitably, they are also ‘sneaky’ ways to get you to look at parts of the WISE Islands that you might have missed on past visits. |
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Scratch us and we bleed history |
It seems incredible that a man out walking a field that has been planted and ploughed perhaps 2000 times since the 1st century, should find the tomb of Romano-British ‘princess’ that has been lying there undiscovered until now just a foot below the surface. Well, it has happened. The find was made in North Yorkshire, just outside Boroughbridge – once the site of a large Roman town called Isurium Brigantium. The well-preserved skeleton was in a lead coffin and had lain untouched, even by the plough, for nigh on 2000 years. They are hoping that analysis will even reveal something of her diet! Literally, just down the road in Harrogate, another couple out walking with a metal detector, unearthed what is thought to be the most significant find of buried Viking treasure found in the last 150 years. It included a decorated gold and silver cup, 617 silver coins, a solid gold arm ring, broach pins and various lumps of unworked silver. Meanwhile, diggings along Hadrian’s Wall unearthed leather shoes worn by footsore soldiers and ‘letters’ home – well, slate tablets anyway. |
There’s a theme here - if you want to travel back in time and to a region of the UK that has quite literally yet to be discovered, then join one of our 4-day Yorkshire tours from Manchester! Maybe a ‘find’ might help pay for the holiday! The north didn’t actually have a monopoly on finds this year, though. Two other notable discoveries in much picked-over London were the foundations of a Tudor Guardhouse at the Tower of London and Roman coins at the 2012 London Olympic building site. Finally, worthy of a mention and really fascinating, was an unsuspected Iron age hill fort in the middle of the Forest of Dean (South Wales/Gloucester borders), long hidden by the forest and now revealed by a new technology of radar reading (which apparently works by bouncing laser beams off the ground from an aircraft flying overhead). Watch this space for more exciting news! |
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Rebranding the Regions |
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There has long been a tendency within tourism marketing to ‘brand’ a particular city, region or locality, in the hope of making it stick out from the rest. Of course, everywhere in the world does it. We do it at Back-Roads by rebranding the UK and Ireland as the WISE Islands (Wales, England, Scotland and Ireland). Some are meaningless in our opinion, and one wonders who got paid for thinking them up! ‘Britain’s best kept secret’ would also be ‘Britain’s most used cliché’. But we have a wide variety of others. ‘Ayreshire and Arran: your excuse to explore Scotland’ (which used to be ‘Robbie Burn country’ until someone realised that most of the modern world have no clue who Burns was!). Then there’s Clackmanshire; the wee County’ (though how associating it with going to the toilet makes it attractive is an interesting question…), and Yorkshire; ‘Alive with Opportunity’ (presumably much better than being ‘dead boring…’). Cities getting in on the act include Leeds, ‘Love it and live it! ‘Glasgow smiles better’. And ‘Totally LondON’ – whatever that is supposed to imply. Too clever by far, perhaps. Then we also have Donegal, ‘Up here it is different’, Moray, ‘Malt Whisky Country’, and Warwickshire’s ‘Shakespeare’s County. All pretty obvious descriptions. Here’s a challenge; two, in fact. We’d like to know how you’d brand where you live for the benefit of tourists visiting you. And secondly, your thoughts on a more appropriate brand phrase for a region or city you’ve been to in England. Sarcastic, congratulatory or even downright silly, we’d love to hear them, please. The best will be printed in our next issue and there’ll be a prize for the winners! To start you off, we’ll improve on Cardiff’s current slogan ‘Gateway to Wales’ with ‘Cardiff: visit, and you’ll want to stay’. |
What’s in Name |
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Can there be a country like England for village, place and road names that get you sniggering? 'Little Snoring' must be one of the best-known, but what about the villages of 'Lower Peover' and 'Whallop'? Street names are a source of wonderful double entendre (though perhaps only to the vulgar minded Brit!). How would you like to have to include following on your postal address? ‘Slack Bottom’, ‘Swinger Lane’, Fanny Street’, or ‘Busty View’? They all exist, honestly! You really do need a camera when travelling along Britain’s back roads or no one at home will ever believe you! |
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| Book Review | |
Some of our clients will remember Christopher Winn who was a Back-Roads guide/companion from 1997 to 2000. When not guiding, Christopher wrote for TV (‘Frazier’ being one show) and spent time scriptwriting in Hollywood. Now he has a best selling series of travel books on his hands and, graciously, he owns that the initial stimulus came from his time with Back-Roads Touring Co. Ltd. The books are all titled ‘I Never Knew That About...’, and include Wales, Ireland, Scotland, England and London. The premise is simply; Chris has sought out a variety of interesting, fun and exceptional places to visit. The sort of places indeed that you’d likely end up visiting on a Back-Roads tour! Now we claim here at Back-Roads to know every nook and cranny of these islands, and to know all of the interesting stories but, to be very truthful, Chris has outdone our collective wisdom and these books are likely to be found in our guides’ reference kits from now on! |
Here are just a few snippets from his book on places in Wales that we currently visit. The World’s first steam train journey began in Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorgan, 1804. Lawn Tennis was invented in the gardens of Nantclwyd, Denbighshire in 1873 (and you can see it on our new North Wales Gardens tour!). William Randolph Hurst owned a castle in South Wales where he installed his mistress – and just about everybody from JFK to Bob Hope visited! If you’ve been on our Red Dragon tour you’ll have seen it! They are superbly illustrated with line drawings by Chris’ Japanese wife, Mai. The book retails at just £9.99 and will make either travelling companions to one of our tours, or great Christmas or birthday presents! You can buy copies of Chris's book through Amazon. |
| Joke | |
Indebted as ever to Back-Roads Alumni, Robert Bridwell Three men died on Christmas Eve and were met by Saint Peter at the pearly gates. The first man fumbled through his pockets and pulled out a lighter. He flicked it on. "It represents a candle", he said. "You may pass through the pearly gates", Saint Peter said. |
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Britons are drinking 14 fewer pints of ale and beer than at their peak in the 1979, a 22% fall. Sales of beer in pubs have dropped to their lowest level since the 1930s and traditional pubs are closing at the rate of one per day. The Royal Mint produced 651,000,00 new pence pieces in 2006, partly in order to compensate for the £26,000.000 worth of pennies that are lying in UK gutters and at the bottom of women’s handbags. Just before the Great War, the Home Office, the Government Ministry responsible for 'Home Affairs' (as opposed to 'Foreign Affairs') employed 28 people. It now employs 70,000. Ed. So, that's where our taxes go! Courtesy of The Week magazine. |
| Word Origins |
It’s a few issues since some word origins were included and the mention above of where lawn tennis began stimulates the inclusion of the origin of the word ‘love’ when used in tennis. Apparently, it was adapted from the phrase 'to play for love (of the game)' (that is, to play for nothing). Although there is a theory that it represents the French word 'l'oeuf', an 'egg' (from the resemblance between an egg and a nought). Your choice! However, it was a duck’s egg that gave rise to the phrase ‘being out for a duck’ in cricket. A duck’s egg is definitely a big ‘0’! |
| Two Sides to Technology |
We are often asked why not all Back-Roads driver/guides have SatNav equipment. That’s ‘satellite navigation’ for those who have yet to catch up with this latest technological marvel (sic). Guide, Chris Nation, has the voice of lovely actress Joanna Lumley telling him how to get from ‘A’ to ‘B’. And telling him of when he takes a wrong turn! These wonderful devices can be very helpful but not always… they don’t know, for example, the width of a particular road they are sending you up! ‘Help! I’m stuck and can’t turn around!’ being one cry that can be heard from a driver who has relied to heavily on his SatNav in Cornwall and Devon. This is an interesting and amusing article on the subject - tech & gadgets. Neither do they tell you what sightseeing treasure you might be missing just off the quickest way that they are directing you to your destination. In our opinion, there’s no substitute for a good, detailed map. That’s the Back-Roads way. And, besides which, some of the best experiences we can have are when a guide gets occasionally ‘lost’! On another technological front, Tom McIver had his anti-technology prejudices confounded this season. ‘My Normandy trip, with father, son and grandson, was enlightening in a different way. The grandson had just turned 18, graduated from high school and joined the Army, so his grandfather decided to bring him (and his father) over to see the Normandy beaches. |
The boy was a typical 18 year old American boy, seriously into his electronic games, PlayStation, whatever. Like, I suspect, a fair few of my generation, I initially despaired of his seeming lack of interest in books and other than recognising him as a really nice young man felt a little sorry for him, for what he was missing by not reading enough. We were driving along a little back road on the way to St Mere Eglise when he suddenly said "Hey, I know this place! This is..." and proceeded to tell us the name of the hamlet, the name of the church therein and what had happened there on June 7th, 1944, including names of some of the protagonists! Was this reincaration!? How did he learn this, we asked? From his PlayStation game! He then spent the rest of the trip giving us details on every action that took place there, all of which he had learned from a computer game he used to play, even recognising locations from the animations in the game! Never again will I disdain electronic games. They can be a far better learning tool than books, it seems! |
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| Desert Island Books | |||||||||||||||
Guide David Brookman has contributed his list of books that he'd take with him to a desert island. The challenge is to select just 7 that you couldn't live without but which are the only ones you'll ever have for your time marooned there - which could be forever!
Writes David, 'My eight books for a desert island are based on my life's love of history and good writing:
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| Oily Character | |||||||||||||||
Sometimes we really get stung when doing someone a favour. Back in 2006, on an August Sunday, there was a major crisis that shut down Heathrow Airport for an afternoon and evening. London staffer, Luis Cardoso, was taking a family from the Mid East to the airport for a flight home when the news broke as they were driving towards the airport. The family had to get to Paris that day and the father pleaded with Luis to take him by road. In fact, he basically commandeered him by refusing to take his bags off the bus!
Whatever, Luis is an obliging chap - despite facing a 600 mile round trip drive to Paris with a return the following day. And so are we in the office; we rescheduled our operations for the next two days and quickly booked an appropriate ferry to get them across the channel. Sheikh Jamal Bin Abdul Aziz agreed to pay by bank transfer on the Monday from his own Travel Agency, Worldwide Travel Tours & Cargo based at the Sheraton, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.
Eighteen months on, many letters and even two personal visit later, the bill has yet to be paid.
We were always under the impression that the title Sheikh meant the holder was a higher order of person but it seems even titles don't necessarily make someone trustworthy. Or perhaps this man is simply a FAKE SHEIKH! |
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| Travel Agent News | |||||||||||||||
Would all our Canadian clients please note that under no circumstances whatsoever are we prepared to take a booking from the following Travel Agent:
June Newhouse
Newhouse Travel
20 Stavebank Road North,
Mississauga, ON L5G 2T4
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| Recipe | |||||||||||||||
Here’s a lovely Sunday dish or even addition to a Christmas meal, supplied by Jane who runs the charming Farmhouse we use on the English/Scotland Borders. Roast Vegetable with Medley of Stilton and Chestnuts Serves 4 3 tbsp French Walnut oil Preheat the oven to 200C, gas mark 6. Add 2 tablespoons of the oil into a large roasting dish and place into the oven for 5 minutes. Mix all the prepared veg in the hot oil and roast for about 1 hour, turning occasionally, until tender and golden brown. Mix in the chopped chestnuts and cook for a further 10 minutes. Mix together with the limejuice, the remaining tablespoon of oil and a little seasoning. Divide the veg between serving bowls, scatter over with the cheese and drizzle with the lime dressing. Serve with crusty bread. |
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ISSUE Spring 2008 WATCH THIS SPACE! |
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