It can be tough to look back – this week we encountered Adrian Edmondson on his Berserker book tour. He was looking back as one does when launching a personal memoir.
In part, Edmondson looked back at his time at a Yorkshire boarding school. It was a time he recalled feeling helpless; at the mercy of often sadistic masters; with a constant refrain of corporal punishment running through his time there. As he looked back, Steve, his fellow pupil at that same school, nodded in agreement. The two of them and hundreds of other boys experienced the same thing, believing they could say nothing. They all understood that they were at this esteemed public school to benefit them in some way, at no insignificant expense to their families. It was an experience neither of them enjoyed. Steve left with relief before the sixth form but has continued to think he was perhaps the only one to feel as he did about his school days. To look back and vocalise his thoughts came as a therapeutic relief to Adrian as he wrote his memoirs but, in turn, to Steve and possibly to many other public schoolboys. A memory shared and recognised can be invaluable.
I came across another former journalist recently and we looked back at our lives when 24-hour news ruled our days, nights and lives. Looking back like that made me hugely grateful that I enjoyed that adrenaline-fuelled time but also that I left it when I did, that my life has been fuller as a result and I am no longer locked into that hamster wheel existence.
We’ve also been looking back this week at our past 20 days of travelling, 20 often long days that have enabled us to take our floating home and office from Selby in North Yorkshire.
In that time we have operated 201 locks across 191 miles of England, through rural countryside, cities, towns and villages. As we have moved looking back at the photographs of our journey shows us how autumn has been moving with us.
It’s been hard to keep up this pace whilst doing the things on the way we need to do to keep living afloat – sorting rubbish, emptying the toilet, filling the water, washing, drying, shopping and working. Looking back we can feel strong because we have done it, we have travelled in a way we have never done before, and we have maintained good progress whatever the weather. Storm Babet has affected us only in designing a different route as it put the rivers Trent and Soar into flood. They remain shut to navigation, so we are taking a route through Warwickshire and Northamptonshire to drop us down into Leicestershire. We have been lucky – others have suffered dreadfully in this storm.
We are looking back with satisfaction and relief as well as some surprise. The red route is what we’ve completed, the green is yet to come over the coming weeks.
Only when you look back can you really see how far you have come and the journey you have made.
Pickingupducks 