Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts

26 January 2023

England’s forgotten county

England’s second-largest, yet least well-known, county comes under the literary spotlight in a new book full of evocative and often elegiac descriptions of landscape and wildlife, alongside fascinating reflections on its history, countryside and people, from prehistory right up to the present day.

                                                           *          *          *

IN THE early 1960s my parents relocated from their birth town of Derby (it was only consigned city status in 1977 despite having always had its own cathedral) to start a new life in rural Lincolnshire, the second largest county in England.

I was therefore destined not to grow up in the peaks and valleys of Derbyshire but in the flat Fenlands surrounding the small market town of Spalding, renown at the time for its tulips, sugar beet and potatoes. It is where I attended secondary school and subsequently began my journalistic career on the local newspaper.

So, it is with residential impunity and a little insider knowledge, that I can assert with some authority that the county of Lincolnshire has always had something of a reputation as a political, economic and cultural backwater. By the same token, the propensity of its adult population - at least up to the present time - to vote conservatively in such large numbers was always a bit of a mystery to me.

In the referendum of 2016 it was not hard to predict therefore that such entrenched voting behaviour would culminate with a huge tranche of the county - and most notably the towns of Grimsby, Boston and Spalding - voting to deliver one of the country’s highest collective ‘anti-Europe’ votes.

But the sprawling county, with a surprisingly varied topography allied with an indistinct coastline that barely defines its boundary with the North Sea around The Wash, is so much more than the political summation of its largely ageing and traditional population.

All this, along with Lincolnshire’s unexpected role in defining significant eras of the nation’s history, is brought into sharp focus in the excellent new book ‘Edge of England - Landfall in Lincolnshire’ by Dublin-born novelist and poet Derek Turner. It’s publication by Hurst in the summer of 2022 was as impeccably timed as the content is revealing.

Unsurprisingly, the reader soon learns that after spending two decades exploring and reading about England’s “forgotten county” Turner is now a solid gold Lincolnshire “Yellowbelly” resident himself, keen to pay a long overdue homage to the land of big skies, mega agriculture and an ever-changing way of life.

While much of the book’s prosaic beauty lies in acute observations of time and place, noted in detail on every page via Turner’s poetic turn of phrase and language, the historic importance and influence of the county also comes as a revelation in itself.

Laying out his raison d’etre for his book in the introduction, Turner states that the “proverbial mentions” of Lincolnshire he found during his extensive research were all seemingly “disparaging”, showing the county as “decaying, boorishly rustic”, and even a target of “diabolical ire”.

When asked about Lincolnshire not many, he says, responded with a good word, while others seemed “nonplussed” even to be asked. “The mere word could almost be a conversation killer,” he writes. “Lincolnshire started to look like a continent apart - a large, and largely blank, space, almost islanded by cold sea, great estuaries, soggy wastes, and a filigree of fenny waterways.”

In the book’s opening, Turner defines the county as “an ill-defined, in-between transit zone lazily assumed to have no ‘must-see’ sights and little that was even interesting”. He goes on to say the county was “notable chiefly to agronomists and economists as a high-functioning English version of Ukraine, sometimes even called ‘the bread-basket of England’, where steppe-sized harvesters combed squared fields between equally angular chicken sheds. It was a county very hard to comprehend”.

Turner readily describes his book as "amorphous" and his narrative duly wanders amiably through the different regions, building as it does so a fascinating - and no doubt to many readers unexpected - portrait of landscape and place.

Indeed this county-wide tour covers pretty much every quarter, taking the reader from the "huge and muddy maw" of The Wash and the flat, reclaimed fenland of "South Holland" to Lincoln "the City on the Cliff" and the beautiful Wolds, before heading north-east to the Humber and the once great fishing town of Grimsby.

Turner thinks the county is already less distinctive than when he moved there because every day it becomes “a tiny bit more like everywhere else”. There are “more roads, more traffic, more bland homes, and fewer small shops, fewer mouldering old buildings, fewer quiet places, fewer wild animals”.

Lincolnshire, he also observes, has more than its fair share of bungalows with plastic windows, caravan parks, garden centres and chicken farms. “Is it so surprising that so many passing through shake their heads and tap the accelerator?” he asks.

The book is punctuated too with poignant insights and anecdotes, such as: “Lincolnshire people, like people everywhere, have often misused their environment, would probably have exhausted it long ago had they had the means, and must often have resented their lot. But some at least must have loved where they lived, finding a locus for patriotism in the disregarded plain, just as other English see Jerusalem in Barking or Huddersfield.”

As a true convert to an “unfashionable” county, Turner says he first alighted on the prairie-like plains and marshes of Lincolnshire in search of his own “understanding” and, in doing so, discovered a “huge new side to England”.   
                                           
“For all its problems - past, present or projected - Lincolnshire is still a county like no other,” he concludes. “This is an England time half-forgot, where you can still find an unabashed past inside an unpretentious present - and freedom and space on a little offshore island.”

For any potential visitor, armchair traveller or existing resident, whether born and bred in the county or a relative newcomer, this is so much more than a mere guidebook or informative travelogue.

Lincolnshire’s understated chronicles, unfashionable towns and undervalued countryside conceal fascinating stories, as well as unique landscapes - its Wolds are lonely and beautiful, its towns characterful, and its marshlands and dynamic coast metaphors for constant change.

Turner has produced a hauntingly beautiful and honest lament to a rural existence threatened by encroaching modernity, materialism and standardisation as well as the accumulating effects of climate change. If ever a county deserved a book all of its own then it must be the oft overlooked one of Lincolnshire. 
 


 

 

 

 

Editor's note: This review was written by Clive Simpson for the Central Bylines website and published under the title 'Tesatment to Lincolnshire' in January 2023.

'Edge of England - Landfall in Lincolnshire’ was published by Hurst in 2022, ISBN: 9781787386983. 

Purchase from your local independent bookshop!


04 September 2021

Evening observation

 


THE sea is talking loudly this evening as a strong northerly wind whips in, mysteriously summoned by the rising dusk to herald an end to the tranquillity and heat of the day.

Wind and sea together - like a rogue orchestra’s out-of-control percussionists, one drumming relentlessly and the other crashing wave upon wave on the outlying rocks of the sandy cove.

Gone was the gentle nature of a bright and warm sunny day. The quickly fading light had drained the sea of its shimmering daytime blue and turned it to the colour of darkest ink, aside from regular flecks of curling white foam from constantly breaking waves.

A few miles across the ocean on the near horizon the mountains of Albania formed a grey silhouette, all definition of daylight gone save for the outline of peaks and valleys, neatly framing the edge of sea and sky, and leading the eye to a fading red-orange glow in the west.

On the roadside path above Saint Spiridon cove in the north of Corfu, there seemed no respite from the relentless, discomforting disturbance these twin forces of nature had connived to deliver on this first September evening of the year.

There was no relaxed promenading tonight by lovers hand-in-hand, young or old, and the neatly organised chairs and tables overlooking the beach area and normally packed by day, were devoid of occupation.

Above, the wind whipped the finger-like leaves of palm trees into a frenzy of straight lines, seemingly all intent on pursuing a single direction of pointless travel. 

And the blowsy sun umbrellas of the day were now tightly belted at the waist, rocking and billowing in  windy gusts, like solo dancers performing on the edge of night.

Corfu, September 2021

25 November 2020

Digital identity


THE car park at the Great Northern Hotel just opposite Peterborough railway station on the East Coast mainline is normally packed to the rafters with fancy cars and 4x4s, left each day by commuters who chose to park here because it is closer to the station entrance. In normal times this extended parking lot is a money spinner for the hotel owners.

Today, on a fine late September morning in 2020 during the midst of the Covid-19 global pandemic, it is barely a quarter full and I have the choice of a any number of prime parking spots immediately adjacent to the hotel itself.

The railway station itself is also unusually quiet, just a couple of black cabs wait in the ranks and there seems to be only a handful of commuters and day trippers. None of the normal hustle and bustle.

My East Coast train is one of the latest Azuma models, sleek and lightweight, cutting the non-stop journey time to London Kings Cross to around 40 minutes on a fast run. This morning there are only two other passengers in the first class carriage, another rarity.


Heading from Peterborough towards Huntingdon, the countryside is generally flat and largely uninteresting with a few gently rolling hills, if you could even call them that, on the distant horizon. Pockets of trees, a lonesome church standing on a mound not far from the track like some spiritual railway sentry, and small farmsteads scattered around seemingly at random punctuate the view.

I am on my way to the Estonian Embassy in London to collect my personal e-Residency digital ID card which has been waiting for me since the beginning of March shortly before the initial Covid-19 pandemic restrictions and national lockdown kicked in.

From Kings Cross station the embassy is a walk of up about an hour so I’d already dismissed this option as my intention was not to spend too long in the capital city on this time. I didn’t fancy the tube train either in the pandemic situation so I stepped across the road to the iconic St Pancras Hotel, used the facilities there and hopped into a waiting taxi at the main entrance.

The roads were busy but still unusually quiet for London and the cab driver told me his fare takings was eighty percent down on what he would normally expect for the time of year. As a result we arrived outside the embassy in Queens Gate Terrace in seemingly next to no time.

There was time to kill before my appointment slot so I walked down past the attractive and well-kept Georgian buildings to the end of the street, and then up and down the short high street of Gloucester Road South a couple of times looking for a cafe in which to have a coffee.

Jakobs, a small Mediterranean-style cafe called just off Queens Gate Terrace, looked perfect for my short pit stop. A little rustic but all the more endearing for that, it looked to be owned by a second generation Greek family making a steady living, at least in normal times.

There were several small round wooden tables on the pavement edge outside and though there was a little sun around I decided to step inside. It was casual bistro style, with a long glass fronted counter to the right leading through to the back.

At the end of the counter the passageway opened into a square room, populated with assorted dining tables and chairs, and in one corner a battered old upright piano. It was quite dark but homely and friendly.


The walls were adorned with old family photos and other personal treasures, some of them distinctly religious. There was what looked like a picture of Jesus on the side wall leading to some steep steps down to the basement, and on the end of the counter was a faded photo frame containing the printed out words of the Lord’s prayer.

Behind this middle room and through a wide archway was another more open space. A sloping, glazed roof made the area light and welcoming, and gave it the feel of a conservatory. The walls were rough plastered, some exposed to the brick and a mixture of paint colours.

There were bench seats on three sides, each with a small dark-wood table set with a knife and fork wrapped in a white serviette. The place was immediately endearing and friendly, and it seemed like I has stepped back to a different age. Though, of course, there was the obligatory wifi connection.

Thirty minutes later it was raining when I walked back to the Estonian Embassy. Outside a ‘payments and documents’ sign indicated I should descend an outside staircase to a basement office, so down I went. Impressively, the door swung open automatically before I had chance to work out what to do.

I stepped inside and walked along a short corridor with a natural wildlife scene depicted in a giant mural along the wall. A smartly dressed receptionist with long, blond hair sat behind a desk and perspex screen like a bank teller, and was wearing thin safety gloves, the sort a doctor might put on to examine something personal and intimate. It was a sign of the times.

I sat down and handed over my passport and she efficiently retrieved a small packet from a grey office filing cabinet behind. Accompanying paperwork was passed to me and I had to sign a receipt. We laughed a little as I hesitated with the date, suddenly distracted by the unexpected sound of birdsong which was playing the background from an unseen speaker.

Estonia, a former Soviet Republic on the edge of the Baltic Sea, is now the most advanced digital society in the world. Estonians use their digital ID cards to access all government services, including health, as well as many private ones.

The e-Residency card for non-nationals is an electronic form of identification allowing the holder to log into online services in Estonia such as government portals and online banks. And whilst it does not give  the right of physical residence in Estonia its business benefits are attracting people from across the world in many fields.

It can also be used to legally sign documents electronically within the EU and as an online identification in all EU countries and it offers the chance for non-residents to run and operate an EU based, online business.

After the final day of 2020, now rapidly approaching, my own British passport will become significantly devalued, removing many benefits, including the previously unrestricted right to live, work and study in across Europe.

For those in the UK, working and doing business in the EU and wanting to continue as a freelance like myself, the Estonian e-Residency scheme is an imaginative and small step in the right direction. 


18 November 2020

Monks of Tallinn

I CAME across them all of a sudden the other night after climbing the steep, cobbled street from the old part of town and turning through an ancient stone gateway at the top of the escarpment. Tallinn's giant, faceless monks.
    They have no eyes or facial features but, even so, seem to stare at you through the cold, dark night as they silently keep watch over the ramparts of the old walls, like some menacing alien statues in an episode of Dr Who.
    The sculptures of the monks in Tallinn's Danish King’s Garden allude to the stories and legends associated with this historically significant yard and liven up the area for both the residents and visitors alike.
    At night the three 2.5 metre bronze statues - Ambrosius, the Expectant monk, Bartholomeus, the Praying monk, and Claudius, the Watchful Monk, cast an eery presence over the Danish King’s Garden where they stand.
    Since the end of the 18th century, when the towers surrounding this garden area began to be converted for the use as living quarters, many strange stories have emerged allowing the area to lay claim to be the most haunted place in old Tallinn.

   Among the most popular was the ghost of a monk, or even several monks at a time. Usually, the monk appears as a giant figure of light and other times as a provider of admonishing or inspiring messages. The most recent sighting is claimed to have been in the mid-1980s when the Polish workers were restoring one of the the medieval towers.
    It is not even the end of November but here in the northern Baltic state capital of Estonia, the leaves have long since disappeared. The skeleton trees form tormented silhouettes against the cold, grey sky - a stark winter nakedness, just like the people in enjoying the heat and steam of the hotel sauna back down the road.
    Estonia lies on the edge of the Eurasian land mass. A tiny country with a population of just 1.3 million, spread out over a natural and largely unspoilt Baltic landscape. Having only been independent from the former Soviet Republic since 1991, it is also a very young country.   
    Before that it was an impoverished Soviet bloc republic fronting the chilly Baltic Sea. When you gaze out from the parapet encircling the attractive old town, the Soviet era brutalist-style concrete block towers perch awkwardly in the vista. They still provide many of Estonia’s citizens with utilitarian apartment living.
    There is a distinct sense of place here. Beautiful architecture abounds in the medieval town, in contrast to the austere grey tenements and blocks of flats further out. But everywhere is neat and not a speck of dropped litter anywhere.
    Someone tells me that it is all very different in the summer when the long hours of daylight transform the capital Tallinn, and I can only imagine what it might be like. Not as now when the light on an overcast day rarely gets above the dim setting.
    From the hotel there was a short climb towards the old city walls. Turn left at the top and you enter a jumble of cobbled streets, flanked by the impressive parliament building to my left and the towering  orthodox cathedral opposite.
    Outside of the parliament building was a large group of young children, probably aged around ten years old and obviously mounting a small protest of some kind. They were happy to talk in almost perfect English and told me theywere adding their voice to the climate “emergency”, inspired by the teenage Greta Thunberg. A very modern sign of the times set poignantly amongst the architecture of the past.
    The cathedral itself, built to a design by Mikhail Preobrazhensky of St Peterburg, reflects the typical Russian revival style of the late 1800s, during which modern-day Estonia was part of the Russian Empire.

   The wind was bitterly cold as I trudged the steep flight of steps towards the imposing main entrance of this architectural masterpiece. It was the date anniversary of my father’s sudden passing three years before and inside I purchased a candle for a euro from a polite old lady at the desk to light in his memory amongst the other flickering flames of prayer and remembrance.
    The old part of the city on the top of the hill was a cris-cross of lanes and beautifully styled old buildings. I headed past another immense church and down a narrower cobbled street towards some lights.
    It was three pm in the afternoon and the short autumn daylight was already fading to dusk on a day which had been murky since breakfast time. Candles burning in lanterns framed the arched gateway to an old courtyard with a welcoming warmth. A stylish pot cat was tethered with a bight red leather lead to the bottom of the gatepost.
    Even with woollen gloves my hands were numb but inside the courtyard there was welcome shelter and respite from the cutting breeze. Small tables and chairs were arranged around the courtyard, each with their own candlelit lanterns, and a potter’s workshop lay to one side. No one was sitting outside today but at the far end was an inviting small doorway to a cosy-looking cafĂ©. I ventured through the double doors, seeming much like a basic air lock designed to keep the heat in and the bitter cold out.
    Inside it was dim, the lighting soft with candles burning on each of the tables. The atmosphere made the coffee and local cheesecake taste especially good and I decided I quite liked Tallinn, even on such a cold and austere, early winter’s day.


09 May 2016

Junk yard Shuttle

Atlantis in KSC Visitor Complex                                     Photo: Clive Simpson

Keep you eyes open in and around Florida and you never quite know what you might see. Heading back to Orlando airport the other week demanded a quick detour for the final and unexpected opportunity to photograph a Space Shuttle in a most unlikely location.

Having previously visited Atlantis in its new home at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex a few days earlier this wasn’t quite the real thing - but the marine work yard setting on Merritt Island made up for that.

Glance straight ahead along the 528 out of Cape Canaveral and you might easily have missed Inspiration reposing, as if in a junk yard awaiting scrapage, amongst yachts and boats of all sizes that were in for repair or salvage.

A sign at the entrance discouraged tourists from popping in to take photos but the owner was just locking up and seemed happy enough to make an exception for a couple of journalists with English accents.

                                                                                        Photo: Clive Simpson
The timing was almost perfect because only a few days later on 27 April - and almost five years after NASA's last Space Shuttle had landed in Florida - an orbiter returned to the runway at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC).


Inspiration, a full-scale mockup - previously on display at the now-former location of the US Astronaut Hall of Fame in Titusville - was rolled out to Kennedy's Shuttle Landing Facility where it will be rebuilt into a travelling exhibit.


 LVX System, which acquired the 37 m replica from NASA, moved Inspiration from the Hall of Fame to a work yard in January. It intends to use the Shuttle for both educational outreach and marketing.

Over the past four months, work has been done at the marine yard to bolster the orbiter’s structure and aesthetics in preparation its move at the end of April.

Inspiration was barged from the Beyel Brothers Crane and Rigging yard on Merritt Island to the turn basin opposite the 52-story-tall Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at KSC before being towed to the Shuttle Landing Facility.

Now parked on a concrete apron near the air traffic control tower at the midpoint of the runway, Inspiration will be further modified for its new ‘mission’ before heading out on America's waterways.

Although details are still being determined, LVX plans to prepare Inspiration so that it can travel by barge along the nation's rivers, stopping at ports where the public might otherwise never see a Space Shuttle.

LVX plans to outfit Inspiration's crew cabin and flight deck so that simulated missions can be ‘flown’ by those who visit the Shuttle on its tour. There’s life in the old girl yet!


02 November 2015

Leaves on the ground



We are inbetween house moves and are back at The Jockeys for a few weeks, a holiday lodge in the stable blocks at Casewick Stud which lies in gently rolling Lincolnshire countryside a few miles east of Stamford.

The Stud adjoins Casewick Hall, the attractive grounds and outbuildings of which have a public footpath running through between the village of Uffington on the main Stamford to Market Deeping road and the attractive little hamlet of Barholm.

Casewick Hall is a medieval country house that was substantially remodelled in the 17th century. It is thought to be the location of a deserted medieval village mentioned as ‘Casuic’ in the Domesday survey and later as Casewick in a tax list of 1334. 

Daylight may be in short supply at this time of the year but compensations abound when the autumn sun breaks through and transforms the late afternoons into fiery golden vistas.

Our short walk from The Jockeys leaves the elegant driveway at Casewick Stud and joins a public footpath at the back of the hall via a gated, tree-lined avenue.

If you turn left the public footpath takes you diagonally across a large arable field until it abuts the main east coast railway, where there is a foot crossing for those heading towards Barholm.

The opposite direction cuts through the grounds and outbuildings of Casewick Hall, many of which have now been converted to homes.

An enclosed driveway lined by a tall beech hedge soon opens into parkland via a cattlegrid and gateway. Sheep wander nonchalantly across the drive and cows graze in the adjoining fields.

After half a mile the driveway crosses another cattlegrid under a second ornate gateway to join a twisting country lane and the pleasant stroll continues towards Uffington.

When the light is right photo opportunities abound and so here is a selection taken on a couple of recent late afternoon walks. Enjoy!








 


19 October 2015

Ship of the Fens


THERE are times when embarking on a journey or overnight stay one is lucky enough to come across not one but several unexpected gems which combine to make such a visit to a new place so much more enjoyable and worthwhile.

A recent trip to Ely in the heart of the Cambridgeshire Fens proved one such occasion. This ancient Fenland outpost, founded on a lump of conglomerate rock rising incongruously above the surrounding flat land is, of course, most famous for its almighty and imposing cathedral.

Mindful of the notional nature of a fleeting visit and our proximity at the time to the town of Stamford in Lincolnshire, it seemed that a cross-country train would be the ideal point from which to commence this mini-vacation. We alighted from the gently curving platform at Stamford’s neatly styled stone-built railway station and were soon rattling our way towards Peterborough alongside the main East Coast line which runs between London and Edinburgh.

Peterborough, one of the country’s fastest growing cities, straddles flat fen countryside to the east, while its western reaches extend into the pleasant and picturesque rolling landscape of the Nene valley. A junction of styles and ambitions, the city often feels like a contradiction - a dual-personality crossover of ancient and new, still defending its ancient coaching past as a stopover on the old Great North Road while also being home for modern-day commuters who flit backwards and forwards to the capital by high speed train.

After a brief stop at the newly re-modelled station our Stansted-bound train splits off on a spur to the east and is soon trundling across a flat, diminutive and featureless countryside. The monotonous mono-culture fields that characterise this region and seem to reach as far as the sky, are punctuated by extensive drainage systems with their horizon-defining banks and lone, singular roads appearing from nowhere to intersect the railway.

This late September morning was overcast and grey, offering an indistinct backdrop for the intense arable farming, the murky appearance of which was compounded by greasy and dirst smeared train windows. Soon the line passed through the town of March, which was once the county town of the Isle of Ely until the latter ceased to exist by government decree in 1965. Just a few minutes later the distant cathedral of Ely looms on the closing horizon like some giant alien artefact.

Our short journey through big skies across a bereft landscape has been as stale as the air on this cramped and fusty train that plies its way daily, back and forth between the city of Birmingham and Stansted airport. The sun extends a gentile welcome as the coaches slow into Ely’s business-like station which, with its multiple platforms, is a busy cross-country junction linking Norwich, Cambridge, Peterborough and Birmingham with London.

So what of the gem-like discoveries? Well, first and for such a small place, there is much within Ely that could easily fit the category, not least the stunning architecture of the cathedral itself.


But for now, we are seeking out something on a smaller scale that might otherwise slip by unnoticed. Topping & Company is a suitably fitting name for any high street shop and once inside you can see why the crime author Alexander McCall Smith described it as “the best bookshop in the world”.

For the book lover or casual shopper it is three floors of literary and tactile delight, where serious browsers are afforded complementary coffee, served from a cafetiere in china cups all set on a neat wooden tray.

Beside the second floor window was a small wooden table and chairs where one can sip coffee and repose in literary paradise, surrounded by the smell of book print and with a tantalising view across the street to the cathedral spires and ramparts. There is no sterility here - Toppings is a treasure.


If this is more than a fleeting, day-time visit there ise plenty of overnight accommodation to choose from and nowhere is a more welcoming option than "Peacock’s Tearoom and Fine B&B", just a stone’s throw from the River Ouse and its boating community.

As the name helpfully suggests, this is a traditional English tearoom - tasteful, sumptuous and quirky, with a hint of French eccentricity, all of which makes it popular with locals and visitors alike.


Peacocks is run by the charming George Peacock, a criminal defence lawyer in another life, and his  wife Rachel. More recently they converted the upstairs of the two joined up 1800s cottages into a couple of delightful bed and breakfast suites, each with its own private sitting room, separate bedroom and pleasant facilities.

Peacocks exudes character and charm - overflowing book cases, comfortable old chairs, antique furniture and a restored market trolley doubling as a coffee table. This really is English bed and breakfast as it should be.

Pick the day of your visit to Ely wisely and you can also enjoy the city’s lively, traditional market on Thursdays and Saturdays, along with eclectic craft, flower and food stalls on occasional Sundays through the year.

On non-market days, however, the large, block-paved square is rather featureless and seems surplus to requirements - bland, unimaginative modernity contrasting starkly with the magnificent stonework and intrinsic creativity of the city’s cathedral - a true ‘Ship of the Fens’ dating back to 672 AD when St Etheldreda first built an Abbey Church on the site.

Words and photos: Clive Simpson


25 March 2015

Day trip into history


 

I’ve arrived at Moscow's Domodevovo airport and seem to have been delivered through customs surprisingly quickly. Taxi drivers congregate and I scan their handwritten signs.

I head for one with a Metop logo, the spacecraft I have been brought out to see. I ask if it is for me but he says no. Ten minutes later he comes up and asks “are you Mr Simpson?” It's for me.

It’s a rough old car. None of the dials on car dashboard work so there is no speedo but I guess that’s no problem here. More importantly, perhaps, the radio is working fine, blaring out music and chat in Russian.

Moscow has many airports, both civilian and military. There is a lot of public transport too - trolley buses, railways and trams. At this time the main airport was not linked by rail to the city so it was a one hour taxi ride, if the traffic favours you.

I’m struck by the number of people walking on the side of busy multi-carriageway roads. There also seem to be a disproportionately large number of cars either broken down or parked on the roadside. It’s all very congested and polluted on this warm, summer’s evening - my first experience of Russia.

The sun is still quite high and brings a crisp, reddish outline to the buildings, homes and offices as we speed towards central Moscow and the ‘grand' Metropole hotel, which I understand is close to Red Square.

By now it is 9 pm in the evening local time and it has been a long day. I am one of the last of the international journalists to arrive to join this Press trip so there is just time to check in before we are whisked out and around the corner to a ‘traditional' tourist-style Russian restaurant.

Our hosts are dressed in colourful costume. It is dark and dimly lit inside and we are offered chunks of crusty bread to dip in salt, a traditional Russian greeting. There are shots of mead and of vodka for each of us, along with much cranberry juice and wine for the meal.  We dine on a Russian ‘tapas', followed by a salmon main course and apple pie. Mmmm, slightly English that - didn’t expect salmon and apple pie for my first Russian meal.

It's 11 pm and dusk is falling by the time we finish. Though it is late and the coming day will be long too, I decide to take a stroll to Red Square. It will be my only chance to see this Russian icon.


There are many people about, Muscovites, tourists and a few guards. It is beginning to get quite dark and the illuminated buildings look stunning. I take many photos and wish I had a tripod to reduce the low light camera shake.

The next morning we are braced for a 5 am (2 am UK time) alarm call. No time for any breakfast but there is a table to help yourself to hot takeaway teas and coffees as we are whisked onto a coach for a ride through early morning Moscow. There are many beautiful buildings. The sun is rising into a blue sky. It is still very quiet on the wide roads and boulevards. Much of the city is still asleep.

The trip to Baikonur involves a charter flight from Moscow’s Pulkovo airport. We board a Tupolev TU-134, which I would describe as a rather quaint, twin-engined jet.

It was old and stylish, with wooden fittings, and curtains at the windows. The seats had seen better days and I guessed the aeroplane had already plied many decades of service. Our flight time would be about three hours and ten minutes.

We were headed for Baikonur, the legendary Russian launch site where Yuri Gagarin blasted mankind on the first step of its on-going journey to the stars.

Though we would get to see just about everything else, on this occasion we were not there to witness an actual launch. We would, instead, be briefed on the final preparations for the upcoming flight of a new European weather and climate monitoring satellite, called Metop.


Baikonur is a Russian controlled enclave in Kasakhstan so thankfully there was no need for an additional visa. It is two hours ahead of Moscow, five hours ahead of UK time.

Even from the air you get the feeling that Baikonur is a remote and desolate place. After 30 minutes or so we've flown just east of the Aral sea, a shrinking area of water. Five times the size of France, Kazakhstan is bordered by Russia to the north, the Caspian Sea, and China to the southeast.

Most of the country is made up of steppe, the sand massives of the Kara Kum and the vast desert of Kizilkum, while in the southeast the mountains of the Tien Shan and the Altai form a great natural frontier with tens of thousands of lakes and rivers.

To the east of the Aral Sea, in an area of otherwise un-inhabited desert, lies the Baikonur cosmodrome. There are check points at all major entry points and its airport has two scheduled flights per week to Moscow.

Flying into Baikonur by plane, one can’t help but be struck by the huge expanses of flat sandy desert, broken only by patches of scrub vegetation and deep red scars of rock, exposed by the elements.


The plane looses height quickly, and with a couple of turns we are lined up on the runway. This is the 20 km of tarmac built for the Buran shuttle, which landed here after its one and only flight.

Despite the rough tarmac appearance our landing is smooth and the pilot lets the plane run out for some distance, before executing a sharp u-turn. Eventually he eases off and we come to rest near a near a green shed where two dogs run out to greet their Russian visitor. Luggage is carried from our aircraft in an army truck. There are no civilians in sight, it’s all uniformed military personnel.

This really is like a frontier town, nothing for miles around and about a 40 minute drive for project workers everyday to the famed cosmodrome. As western visitors we are definitely not allowed the freedom of hire cars so a coach has laid on by our hosts Starsem from the hotel.

When it was founded in 1955, the Cosmodrome was dubbed ’Baikonur’ in an attempt to mislead the West about its true location. Infact, the original Baikonur is actually a mining town about 320 kilometres northeast of the space centre.


Administered by Russia and constructed to service the cosmodrome, the city outside the space centre (now called Baikonur as well) went by the name Leninsk until 1995, when it was renamed by the then President, Boris Yeltsin.

Baikonur town is a shadow of its former self. Once formal parks and gardens are now patches of dirty sand and overgrown grass. At the height of the Buran/Energia programme - Russia’s answer to the Space Shuttle - the population peaked at around 130,000 but is now down to around 30,000.

As well as Yuri Gagarin, first human in space, the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched from Baikonur. All subsequent Russian manned missions have lifted off from here, as well as other Earth orbiting, lunar and planetary missions.

As a republic within the USSR, Kazakhstan suffered greatly from Stalinist purges and environmental damage, and saw the ethnic Russian portion of its population rise to nearly 40 percent.

Our appropriately named Sputnik hotel was an unimaginative slab of a building, basic but pleasant enough inside. Opposite the main entrance was it’s saving grace, a monument to Sputnik.


There are monuments everywhere - no mistaking this as a space town. But the parks are mostly overgrown and many of the huge apartment blocks lie half empty.

Outside of the town, the desert-like scenery is unforgiving on the eye and it seems a long drive to Baikonur’s cosmodrome. The scrub landscape is an orange dusty colour and the landscape is littered with regimented and dissecting lines of pylons carrying electricity to the power hungry launch facilities. A railway track alongside the road adds some interest to the wide, flat landscape.


The cosmodrome, too large to fence-in, is a scattering of sites. Old facilities are left to decay, as is any unused or unclaimed item. Derelict buildings, discarded machinery and metalwork populate this desert.


The facilities in use today are smart and efficient. A big attraction of the launch site continues to be its cheapness and reliability in recent decades a significant amount of Western money has come into Russia’s satellite launching business..

We are waiting to catch sight for the first time of the famous launch gantries. The railway bends off to right on a spur. The big sky is overcast and grey but it's very warm, around 40 degrees. I’m pleased we're in an air conditioned coach. As we finally arrive at the cosmodrome there's a very real sense of walking in the footsteps of history.


Article and photos by Clive Simpson. For travel or writing commissions please email.

28 December 2014

A sense of place


Early morning walks - Two Plank Bridge across the Vernatts drain

As well as writing for a living, the author of this blog is also a keen photographer and many of my blog articles are illustrated, where possible, by my own photos. Some of my pictures are also published alongside magazine and online media articles.

It's a useful trait as a freelance journalist to be able taken your own pictures on occasion for either a news or feature article - and it often helps when pitching a piece.

Of course, unless the photo is of extreme or uniquie news value, I'm not talking about shots grabbed on a smartphone camera, though I have to confess I have recently witnessed local reporters using such.

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, so I thought it would be good to end a year of blogging, writing and reporting by publishing some of my photos taken during 2014.

It's a rather random selection of a few favourites, and I've called the piece 'A sense of place' as most of the pictures evoke that in some way. Enjoy!
.
Peace and tranquility on a summer's day in the Fens
Waiting for its catch - a beach tractor at Cromer in Norfolk
Looking the other way - from Niagara Falls viewing tower
Fenland barn and treescape on my way to Peterborough


Great dining at the top of Toronto's very high CN Tower
Toronto skyscrapers and the tower from across Lake Ontario
Early Sunday morning in downtown Detroit
Inside Detroit's opulent Fisher building
Big music came from a little house
Detroit's derelict and eerie Packard Motors plant

Coming to life - Willow Tree Fen nature reserve near Spalding
Premiership promotion - 2015 might be our year
Farewell to the Bittern 4464 - at Spalding on 30 December

Fenland sunsets - big skies make them unbeatable

I hope you liked my selection. And here's a final thought for the year - if a picture is worth a thousand words then a few well-written words might also be worth a thousand pictures.

So if you are ever stuck for words in 2015 - whether it be for a business or company website, blog, article, news item or even a book - I'm here to help. Please do get in touch. And in the meantime, have a very happy and prosperous New Year!

Villagers seek urgent action over flooding threat

Flooding caused by storm Henk at Little Hale (Jan 2024).     Photo: Clive Simpson RESIDENTS of a Lincolnshire village want to call time on...