Through the borderlands, Pencraig, Llangarron signed to the right, Crocker’s Ash, Symond’s Yat off to the left, no language in control now. Through the last of the Forest of Dean, twisting down through the trees, thinking of Dennis Potter, his childhood here which rooted his whole life, and his beautiful anger at the end. Down to the plain at Monmouth and that most theatrical of junctions, the four roads meeting at the bridge over the Wye, points of a compass, suggesting all directions are possible. Lights turn to green, straight on, through the tunnel leading west, and, finally, all traces of England are left behind. The traffic empties out even further as dusk approaches, off at Raglan, then the magnificent sweep of the road towards Abergavenny, demanding a surge of speed, at one with the car, a single entity moving through space and time. All the associations with this place over the years. Walking the Black Mountains with J., sleeping in the ruins of Llanthony Priory under the stars. The Brecon Beacons that cloudless October with another old friend, now living in America. The Walnut Tree weekend for our mother in 1997, only days after Labour’s victory. In the cottage seeing images of Robin Cook as the new Foreign Secretary speaking about a British government having an ethical foreign policy for the first time. Bitter now to think of such a memory post-Iraq and all that’s followed from that …
Always the choice that comes at the end of this road – if it’s summer or still light, and I’m in the mood for twists and turns, I go right, through Abergavenny and take the road to Brecon. One of the loveliest anywhere – between the Black Mountains massing above Crickhowell on one side and the Beacons answering on the other. Up to Bwlch, hairpin bend. Just beyond, the lake at Llangorse and Llangasty, places of sanctuary, recovery. Beyond Brecon, bends winding down to Llandovery and Carmarthen. But, in other seasons, or in the dark like tonight, I go left, taking the Heads of the Valleys road.
As I cross the River Usk, I reflect on my curious, and very recent, love of driving. For most of my adult life, more than twenty-five years, I never had a car. Living and working in London, it was quite unnecessary, and on top of that, the more I worked with my organisation, looking at the global impacts of oil, the more critical I became of car culture. In many respects I still feel that our society needs to revolutionise its transport policies, its whole approach to renewable energy – the entire system needs radical change. But, when I started writing this work, I faced a more immediate challenge. Knowing that I could only work in places far from the distractions of the city, how would it be possible to transport half a dozen boxes of books and papers and research materials, by public transport, to a remote place in the countryside? A paradox soon became apparent: for lovers of wildness and solitude – the places that most lend themselves to reflection and writing – cars become essential.
But this, alone, is to give too simple an explanation; to suggest an instrumentalist solution to a specific problem, the car as a necessary evil. Yet over the last year I’ve begun to realise the intense creativity that driving can release. That these repeated journeys, the very process of rapidly moving through landscape, does something. And so the means has become just as creative as the end. The six- or six-and-a-half-hour journey between Hackney and West Pembrokeshire has created a liminal space, a suspended state of being. Literally so – a couple of feet above the tarmac in a little metal box – but also a time for all the jumbled thoughts in my head about the next chapter to be thrown up into the air, to be gathered when they fall – in a different order, on the other side of this small island. So, as I drive westwards, although I’m following the tarmac with my eyes, my mind is already beginning to write the chapter I will be starting the following morning. And also it’s a space to relinquish all the London lists in my head, all the obligations, the ‘oughteries’ of the city. And escaping too the temptations of sociability, leaving behind the phone, email and also all the piles of papers and bills on various tables and kitchen surfaces. The hundred diurnal distractions that are the greatest inhibitor of any real creativity. Switch off all those tasks in your head, watch the lights marked ‘urgent’ fade and die one by one, and for the next seven, eight days, drift only in a sea of thought and words.
I’ve also come to understand that the rhythms of driving, though obviously quite different from walking, are no less mesmerising. Especially if you avoid motorways as far as possible – which in my experience encourage a zombie-like state of continual, suffused aggression – and use the old main roads where you’re able to feel more connected to the landscape. The experience of rapid movement over several hours, seeing the day fade to dusk and darkness, glimpses of trees at night, foxes darting into the hedge, names of unknown villages flashing by, radio programmes whispered into your ear, music vibrating on a powerful sound system – all these can work together to create a flowing, dynamic state of intensity, which I can only compare to a kind of timeless meditation, on the rare occasions I’ve achieved such a state. It’s about being sensorily taken to another place – and, by the end of these hours, when I’m on the narrow Pembrokeshire lanes and can smell the sea, it’s always very late, no other cars are on the road, so like some lone rider from the past, galloping through the night with a message, I feel I’m on a solitary mission; nobody else is moving through the darkness. Then it’s time for the final piece of music – always the same piece – and, as the last notes fade, then only the sound of the tyres on the road and the wind coming in from the sea.
Over the Usk, across the other rivers – Ebbw Fach, Afon Ebbw, Sirhowy, Rhymney, Cynon. Valleys plundered by empire but at least these rivers still run free. The lights of Nantyglo and Tredegar, far down to the left. Tredegar, the birthplace of Aneurin Bevan, and also of the Tredegar Workmen’s Medical Aid Society. By the 1920s virtually all of the 24,000 people of the town were covered by this health service, established by miners for their families – the prototype for what later became our National Health Service, a beacon of social justice in the world – all from this single valley, this town. And just beyond, Blackwood – home of the Manic Street Preachers – Nicky, James, Sean and Richey – yes, wearing their hearts on their sleeves, but these boys, what hearts, what sleeves! Unparalleled poignancy and sweet melancholia of their valley music – the ‘hiraeth’ they always return to.
Long ascent to Hirwaun. Once the last deep mine in Wales. Our Platform initiative ‘Homeland’ and talking to Tyrone O’Sullivan of the Hirwaun NUM about Orwell’s writing, and understanding that electricity doesn’t come into our cities by magic, but by the labour of thousands of people. The road now all the way down from Pontneddfechan following the River Neath to Swansea. Late now. Few cars on the road, so Manics or Dylan or Arcade Fire turned up to glory pounding noise, and then releasing the car on the downward hill, to significantly over the limit. Feeling the engine given free rein. Just like the horses galloping down the hillside here, for centuries before. Speed as pure speed. Beyond all daily compromises, under the shelter of the night. Not risking anything to anyone else. Answering the instinct inside. Dry-mouthed, ecstatic, pushing further, always. Something recovered in this moment, from wild, unchained pasts. Then easing off the accelerator as the roundabouts begin, back into the realm of street lights, Aberdulais, Neath.