The Gran Tour

by Ben Aitken

  Clarissa and Jennifer would have done something nice with the wild goats roundabout I’m sure. They’re scattered all over the summit, precariously tip-toeing among the rocks, a mile above the sea, thinking nothing of it. Goat numbers are controlled by use of contraception, says Owen, ‘which doesn’t bear – or baa – thinking about.’ While I’m bearing thinking about goat contraception, Owen says that we should also watch out for shags. This gets a few knowing laughs, but not from me. Owen lets me stew in my own thoughts for a bit then explains that the Orme and its cliffs are home to lots of seabirds including cormorants, guillemots, razorbills, puffins, kittiwakes, fulmars and, yes, shags. Owen asks what I had in mind, which gets a laugh from the rest of the group. I’m glad Nan headed straight for the toilet, and didn’t have to witness any of this.20

  There’s a visitor centre at the summit. I find Nan in the giftshop. As she peruses, I flick through a joke book. There’s one about a Welshman stranded on an island who builds two churches from banana leaves. When the Welshman is finally rescued, he is asked about the churches. The Welshman says: ‘That’s the one I go to, and that’s the one I don’t.’ I wish there wasn’t some truth in this daft illustration of how identity is as much about what we aren’t as what we are, but there you go.

  At the bottom of the Great Orme, on the south side, the Bishops of Bangor used to live in a fancy palace. As far as Owen can remember, the bishops were put in place by the King of England, which can’t have made it easy for them to get on with the locals, who were Celts, and not in the habit of receiving visitors lying down (just ask the Romans). In 1400, one local in particular decided he’d had enough of the English in Wales, and so set about ruffling some feathers. His name was Owain Glyndŵr, and his backlash chiefly involved declaring himself Prince of Wales and pinching a few castles. Owain’s rebellion lasted for another ten years or so, at which point he fled to the mountains and hid in a cave, which is where he remains. ‘But you might want to check up on some of those details,’ says Owen. ‘If not all of them.’21

  Within an hour of Owen’s tour finishing, we’re back on the coach with Tim and heading west to the island of Anglesey, which sits off the country’s north-west coast. I don’t know anything about the place other than Prince William used to live there and it can be reached by two bridges. We cross via the younger of the two, the Britannia. At its far end, Tim encourages us to get off for a picture. It’s undeniably an attractive vista, with the older suspension bridge in the near distance, and the verdant banks on either side, and the tricky water of the Menai Strait beneath. But what I like – and what I photograph – is the others looking, taking, capturing. Most of the present paparazzi were born under an Edward or a George, and here they are snapping a bridge put up under a Victoria (if that’s not too awkward a construction), as well as the dashing river below, that was put down by no man or monarch, but rather given by the grace of geological chance. Patrick has a nifty digital camera. You’d think he was a millennial the amount of time he spends checking the images, fiddling with his haul, doctoring his shots – something of a perfectionist. When he returns to the coach, I ask if he got something nice. ‘Fifteen self-portraits by the look of it, so I’d say yes!’

  We drive for fifteen minutes or so then pull up at RAF Valley – where jet and helicopter pilots are trained. This is where Prince William lived for a few years, and Kate Middleton also. They were occasionally spotted in the local Waitrose considering kiwis. This information causes a few intakes of breath, as if shopping in Waitrose were beneath a prince. Then someone asks, quite sincerely, whether it’s possible to stop at the Waitrose on the way home.

  Tim says Waitrose is out of the question because our next and final stop is Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, a small town (ironically) near the Britannia Bridge. There’s a train station, a small department store, and a chip shop. Nan’s quite at home in the department store, sashaying between sections like a dancer around a ballroom, toying with this, fingering that, flirting with the other. She buys a bar of chocolate whose wrapper says BEST GRANDSON.

  ‘You didn’t have to do that, Nan.’

  ‘I didn’t do that, it’s for Oliver.’

  I take a picture of Nan on the train station platform, under the sign with the longest place name in the UK on it. Everyone’s doing it. Tim said we might want to do it, and it turns out we did. Tim also said that Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is only the second longest place name in the world, which invites the question as to which is the longest.22

  With ten minutes to kill, I nip across to the local chippy. The lady inside is dealing with everyone in Welsh, which is lovely to hear. When she gets to me, I reply to her jolly and mysterious icebreaker by hesitating for some time and then pointing in the direction of the chips. ‘Siaradwch, chi fabi gwirion Saesneg,’ she says, which I assume has to do with salt and vinegar. I nod twice, one for each. But nothing happens. All the other punters are enjoying the standoff. In the end she bags me up some chips with an amused huff and then refuses payment, saying ‘Peidiwch â bod yn dod yn ôl i mewn ar gyfer eich cinio,’ which, given the name of this town, might well mean goodbye. Leaving the chip shop, I’m sure I pass in the doorway the lad who played Elton John in Rocketman.23

  Nan takes a phone call from my Auntie Jo after her main course. Turns out Jo was after some advice regarding the Alice in Wonderland party, something to do with painting white roses red. I ask Nan if she and Jo have always got along. She says that they have for the most part, and adds that one or two traumatic episodes strengthened their relationship when Jo was quite young, namely when she suffered two ectopic pregnancies in her late teens. While I eat my turnover and cream, Nan describes how Jo went to the hospital complaining of abdominal pain but was sent home and told it was constipation. Apparently my mum kept an eye on Jo that night and saw that her arms wouldn’t stop shaking, and insisted Nan took her back to the hospital. Jo was kept in overnight, during which time her temperature rocketed and her heart rate plummeted – and you know it’s an emergency when things are rocketing and plummeting. Fortunately – in fact, thank f*ck – a nurse noticed that Jo was rocketing and plummeting and got the surgeon out of bed. Had she not done so, says Nan, Jo might well have died. This happened twice, and it left my auntie feeling a bit rubbish, and not wanting kids anymore. I think two ectopic pregnancies is enough to put you off the idea. But the desire for children never really left her, and after several attempts she gave birth to the first set of twins conceived through in vitro fertilisation (IVF). The doctor that assisted my auntie was Robert Winston, who got famous after he did a telly program on the BBC. Those twins – who knew nothing of all this at the time; embryos are nothing if not navel-gazing – are Beth and William, a gorgeous bubbly pair that are easy to tell apart. William’s in construction and Beth’s a nurse. I hope she keeps an eye out for any rocketing or plummeting when she’s doing her rounds, and isn’t scared to wake the surgeon up. My mum was also a nurse, and so was Nan at one point. Either our genes are inclined to caring, or lack imagination.

  The theme of childbirth somehow survives through pudding and into coffee. Nan says that her mum lost her first baby during its delivery. She remembers that her father built a little white coffin for the child, but that she has no idea where her brother was buried. ‘I wish I’d asked my mother,’ she says. ‘In fact, I cannot forgive myself for not asking her.’ Then she points at me with her spoon and says, ‘Ask your mother while you can. No matter the question.’

  Listening to Nan talk about these things, something becomes clear to me: the extent to which this woman has lived for, and in the service of, her family. To do so, for her, I can see, has been instinctive and unquestionable. Her family is her instinct – her hope, her fear, her happy, her sad. It’s the chocolate bar for Oliver. It’s the present in the post for her great-granddaughter Annabelle. It’s the white roses she’ll order so Jo can paint them red. It is a good luck message for Daisy, my
sister. It is – I regret to say – my survival boxes when I was at university. It is her never failing to phone and sing on a birthday. It’s her lines, her bad books, her disappointed looks – they all exist because she cares. I’m seeing all this clearly now because I’m seeing her clearly now. The waiter asks Nan what she made of the cake. ‘Lovely,’ she says. ‘My mother did a good roly-poly. Thank you.’

  Patrick’s room is under the stairs – like Harry Potter’s. He has left the door ajar. We knock and enter. He’s sat at the end of his bed, the better to see the television. He’s pleased to see us – or pretends to be at least.

  ‘You’re looking well,’ says Nan.

  ‘Oh don’t say that, Janet. When Ibsen was on his deathbed his nurse said he was looking well and he promptly died.’

  ‘Oh,’ says Nan.

  Patrick passes me the drops and then looks at the ceiling. Standing over him, it occurs to me that I hadn’t expected to be doing this at the start of the week. I squeeze the little bottle; it’s more resistant than you might think. I miss Patrick’s right eye but it’s okay because some of it goes in the left. Patrick calls jokingly for Janet to take over, but I tell him I have to learn and one only learns by missing the target now and then. At the next attempt, I get a decent drop in each eye, and a bit on his nose and chin, which encourages Patrick to ask of Janet whether it has miraculously started to rain indoors. Then he has a laugh at my expense by pretending to dry his face with the hairdryer.

  ‘No, seriously though, did enough go in?’ I say.

  ‘Oh yes, plenty. Good as new.’

  Then Nan asks, impertinently I feel, what Patrick does for a living.

  ‘Oh, Janet!’ he says. ‘It’s kind of you to imply otherwise, but it’s been many years since I did anything for a living. When I was doing something for a living, I mostly did it in the suburbs of Cheltenham.’

  I’m happy to leave it there, to make my own mind up as to what Patrick got up to in the suburbs of Cheltenham, but Nan presses for more detail.

  ‘I worked at GCHQ [Government Communications HQ],’ says Patrick, ‘and I’m afraid if I told you much more than that, Janet, I’d have to kill you.’

  I ask Patrick if he fancies joining us for bingo, down in the ballroom.

  ‘Oh I couldn’t possibly.’

  ‘You’ll be alright. It’s easy.’

  ‘No, I mean I couldn’t possibly get down those stairs!’

  We share a table with Barbara and Keith from Cumbria for the bingo, which proves fruitless. Less fruitless is the company of said Cumbrians. I’m interested to learn that Keith was employed in an iron works all his life, and that Barbara’s a big Tom Jones fan. She remembers a concert in the 70s when all the girls were throwing their knickers on the stage.

  ‘I wasn’t, of course,’ says Barbara.

  ‘No,’ says Keith, ‘because you didn’t have any on.’

  Then Barbara gets a message from her daughter saying she’s got no nappies left. I ask whether Barbara’s daughter shouldn’t be out of them by now, but either I can’t be heard over the music or my remark isn’t considered appropriate, for nobody responds. Anyway, Nan and Barbara start talking about nappies and don’t stop for about half an hour. They talk about methods of washing them back in the day, how they wouldn’t dare hang up a stained one, and how modern mothers would go on strike if they had to do it like Nan and Barbara had to do it. Having grown somewhat comfortable with each other, Barbara confesses to Nan that she thought I was her toy boy. ‘I was watching you at the bar,’ she says to me. ‘I thought, “I wonder if they’re in a twin or a double.”’

  Just as I’m worrying that our chat might have run its course, Keith comes out with something that breathes new life into our double date. He says he races pigeons.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I race pigeons.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘How do you enter?’

  ‘How do they race for heaven’s sake? What do they race?’

  ‘Other pigeons, of course.’

  ‘And where do they race? Not on a track?’

  ‘Yeah, on a track. They do the 400 metre hurdles.’

  ‘So not on a track?’

  ‘Not on a track.’

  ‘So where?’

  ‘Well, the last one started in Barcelona.’

  ‘Barcelona? So you took your pigeon to Barcelona so it could—’

  ‘I didn’t go to Barcelona.’

  ‘So it went by itself?’

  ‘No, it went with the other pigeons.’

  ‘Are you pulling my leg?’

  ‘Why should I be?’

  ‘So did they fly or catch the train?’

  ‘They go by road.’

  ‘They drive?’

  ‘They’re transported.’

  ‘And then your pigeon races some other pigeons?’

  ‘Thousands of pigeons.’

  ‘And each pigeon has a different … coach?’

  ‘No, they go in the same vehicle.’

  ‘No coach as in trainer.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Different trainer.’

  ‘And each coach …’

  ‘Trains their pigeon to fly home.’

  ‘Now just how the f*ck do you train a pigeon to fly home?’

  ‘You’ve got to put the hours in.’

  ‘Yeah, but doing what?’

  ‘Good question,’ says Barbara.

  ‘First you have to locate where their home is.’

  ‘Cumbria, right?’

  ‘Yeah but the pigeon’s home might be elsewhere.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s called one-loft racing. The organisers choose a location, and then the pigeons share a loft.’

  ‘Share a loft?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘They sound like hipsters. And then?’

  ‘And then the pigeons learn to return to that particular home, to that loft, to that finish line.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You take them out a bit further each day. And then when the pigeons have developed a strong sense of home, they’re taken to the start line.’

  ‘Barcelona?’

  ‘In this case, yeah. The pigeons are taken to Barcelona and then released and the winning pigeon is the one that gets home the quickest.’

  ‘And do you go to Barcelona?’

  ‘No. I wait at the finish line, with all the other racers.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘Until the pigeons arrive.’

  ‘And how long can that take?’

  ‘A few days.’

  ‘Do you have an understanding wife?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And what’s the prize?’

  ‘I won 40 quid once.’

  ‘Keith. Please tell me you’re joking.’

  Keith sighs. Then he leans in and looks me square in the eye. ‘There’s no better feeling,’ he says, ‘than seeing your pigeon on the horizon.’

  And at that moment, and with that declaration, I decide there really is no accounting for taste.

  19 I read Alice in Wonderland for the first time not long ago. Delicious nonsense. Although a trifle ageist. This is Alice contemplating the prospect of getting stuck at the age of seven: ‘That’ll be a comfort, one way – never to be an old woman – but then – always to have lessons to learn! Oh, I shouldn’t like that!’ Alice sees that the price of youth is ignorance, and the reward of maturity is knowledge.

  20 As if it wasn’t enough that these goats are forced to use contraception, I discovered another rum fact about them. Each year, The Royal Welsh, a large regiment in the British Army, is obligated to choose an animal from the herd and make it an honorary Lance Corporal. I’m just going to leave that there.

  21 I watched a BBC documentary fronted by a young Huw Edwards. It told the story of Owain Glyndŵr. It was a wholly engaging programme, made comic at times by the automated subtitles, which struggled to render Owain’s name each time Huw mentioned it. I made a list of how Owain Glyndŵr was rep
resented in text at the bottom of the screen, because I clearly had nothing better to do. Here it is: oh inland duel, glynn doon, a wine glyn dude, Glinda, Linder, our England or Wales, Noah and Linda were, ginn do, endure, hinder, blender, and my personal favourite, given that Owain was a Welsh freedom fighter, oh England dude.

  22 Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenua kitanatahu is the longest place name in the world. Translated literally from Maori, it means The-Summit-Where-Tamatea-The-Man-With-The-Big-Knees, The-Climber-Of-Mountains, The-Land-Swallower-Who-Travelled-About, Played-His-Nose-Flute-To-His-Loved-One. Fancy typing that into your satnav.

  23 Could be true. Taron Egerton went to school in the town.