Alan Payling pays a visit to Bradford on Avon and finds a delightful town that will both surprise and delight visitors due to its many charms.
Have you ever suddenly found yourself visiting a place that in the distant recesses of your mind you recall having heard about but, if you had been asked for its location or whether you could provide any information at all about the place, you would have had to confess you weren’t quite sure, or even, you haven’t got a clue? Have you ever been taken aback and been really surprised by that same place when you eventually visited for the first time?
It happened to me when I was doing feeders a few years ago and Bradford on Avon was on my pick-up sheet. I’d heard the name but knew nothing else about the place. When I then had to think about it, the places my mind associated it with didn’t cause me to relish the idea of visiting. I’d been in the Yorkshire Bradford a couple of times. The first visit was to pick up a group of rugby fans, supporters of Bradford Bulls, to take them to a cup final at Old Trafford against Leeds Rhinos. As they’d been in the club bar for a few hours before I picked them up, half way across the Pennines they all wanted a toilet, and they weren’t fussy about the one I provided at J22 M62 – Saddleworth Moor is it? I know, the services there aren’t great! In fact, if you look for them, they are non-existent. The second time I visited Bradford I had a free day and looked around the city centre. I wasn’t impressed. Having had a wander around the old mill quarter, which was mainly derelict then, the saving grace of the place for me was the IMAX.
The ‘on Avon’ part of the town’s name I associated with the Bard’s birth place, Stratford-upon-Avon. In the late 1970s, eager to find a bank one Friday afternoon, I drove into the town centre. Unfortunately, I was driving a BRS Seddon diesel six-wheeler on contract to Redland tiles near Rugby at the time. When I came out of the bank, my rather grubby wagon, loaded down with roof tiles covered in a net, had attracted the wrong sort of attention.
‘Didn’t you see the weight restriction sign, driver?’, said the young police constable. Playing it a bit dumb, and knowing I was about 20 ton – in old money – overweight, I waited until the PC said: ‘It’s 3 ton, except for access.’ I can’t recall where I was actually taking the tiles, but it wasn’t to Shakespeare’s birthplace, that’s for sure. So, still being in my cocky younger days, I showed the constable my Access credit card*, and told him I needed to get some cash out of the bank otherwise I would starve. My Access credit card was supposed to be my flexible friend: it was the constable who was neither flexible nor friendly. In a rather weary response, the constable said: ‘That’s not the sort of access the law allows!’
Ah, the officer doth protest too much, methinks. When I then appeared before the magistrates in Stratford-upon-Avon and had submitted my plea of mitigation – in other words, I grovelled a bit – the magistrate handed down an £8.00 fine. It was on the tip of my tongue to say ‘Do you accept Access?’, when I thought better of it, and since that time I have never tried to be funny when faced with the forces of law and order.
Crime does not pay, and neither does wit. So both those experiences caused me to imagine that I was going to either be nicked or find Bradford on Avon was a really dull place apart from some well oiled rugby fans that I wanted to see the back of, and sharpish. In fact, I was seriously impressed.
[…]By subscribing you will benefit from:
- Operator & Supplier Profiles
- Face-to-Face Interviews
- Lastest News
- Test Drives and Reviews
- Legal Updates
- Route Focus
- Industry Insider Opinions
- Passenger Perspective
- Vehicle Launches
- and much more!
