Once Upon A Time in the West . . . Country

by Tony Hawks

  I was extremely tired after an hour and a half of wheeling the bike up the hill to the small market town of Hatherleigh. I glanced at the map. I was still less than halfway to Plymouth, and yet only that morning, I’d announced on the radio that I would be arriving there at noon the next day. In less than twenty-four hours. I was hopelessly behind schedule.

  I chose a small cafe in Hatherleigh’s main drag. It was a mark both of the nature of this challenge, and the advancement in my years, that I was choosing cafes ahead of pubs as my points of refreshment. Alcohol and cycling don’t mix terribly well. Over the last decade, I’d also become what hardened drinkers refer to as a lightweight. One drink and I’m tiddly, two and I’m sloshed, three and I have a hangover in the morning. It was a shame, because by and large I like the atmosphere of pubs, and although they are all geared up handsomely to cater for the non-drinker, ordering a pot of tea and a piece of cake still seems vaguely impolite. After all, they’ve gone to all that trouble of changing those kegs, choosing those wines, and refilling those upturned whisky and gin bottles.

  They looked after me well in the incongruously named Cafe de Ville. The owner had heard about my antics with Titch on the radio, and complimentary soup and a roll were immediately forthcoming. Following this trip, it would take some time to get used to that old-fashioned notion of actually paying for things. The adulation of Titch followed from the dozen or so other cafe users shortly afterwards, just as soon as I unzipped my coat. Donations in fivers and tenners flowed thereafter. Well, I thought, the journey may not be going as planned, but the funds were still rolling in.

  Peter in the bike shop sounded a little depressed. No doubt he’d lent me the bike so that I could sing its praises whenever I spoke on the radio and boost sales for his business.1 So it was not the best of news for either of us that the damn thing had broken down.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ he said, ‘I’m sending Luke out with a new battery and a load of tools. We’ll get you back on the road in no time.’

  The cafe emptied of diners, all wishing me and Titch well as they departed. Now the wait. Honiton to Hatherleigh was well over an hour’s drive for young Luke, and sitting there alone, I felt like the forgotten ten-year-old I’d been so many times at 4 p.m. on weekdays in the 1970s. My dad, a self-employed builder, was supposed to pick me up after junior school, but so often work held him up. I would stand there, a forlorn figure, watching as each vehicle turned the corner and failed to be my dad’s grey pick-up van. All around me, happy children were reunited with their lovely, loving mums, and whisked off for tea and Blue Peter. I waited. Yes, he always turned up, but the feeling that perhaps I’d been forgotten was never far away. Well, I was a big boy now, old enough to be Luke’s dad, in fact, but I still felt that tinge of insecurity. Medicinal latte and chocolate cake came to the rescue. Complimentary, of course.

  ***

  ‘I think yesterday’s heavy rain got into the electrics somehow,’ said Luke, once he’d checked the bike over. ‘I’ve put a new battery on there, and you should be fine.’

  The trouble was that it was now nearly 2.30 p.m. The brighter weather of the early morning had long gone. Rain clouds loomed overhead and the prospect of darkness engulfing the trail in ninety minutes or so seemed very real. It was still about thirty miles to Tavistock, and three-and-a-half hour’s cycling on a normal bike. With a freshly charged battery performing well on its highest speed setting, and with me cycling my heart out, perhaps I could shave an hour off that time. That would leave me cycling the last hour in the dark. I searched both panniers at the rear of the bike for the front light that Peter had given me. It was nowhere to be found and had obviously fallen out, a consequence of my botched job of keeping the panniers secure with bungies.

  ‘Crappy plastic zips!’ I blurted.

  Without a front light, cycling on an unlit trail would be impossible. Now I was faced with the pressing question of where Titch and I would sleep tonight. We had nothing else booked, and there didn’t seem to be an awful lot marked on the map on the approaches to Tavistock. The rather cowardly option would be to play safe and find somewhere to stay in Okehampton, which was now only nine miles away. However, failing to press on further would leave a colossal task for the following morning to make Plymouth by midday. So I chose to continue without a real plan – almost in homage to the way I’d lived my entire life thus far.

  The race against time was on.

  Titch insisted on a wee break just outside Hatherleigh, which didn’t help matters, but I did my disinfecting duty with due diligence.2

  Both the bike and my legs performed well, as we negotiated the hilly country lanes outside Hatherleigh. An hour later, the trail then painstakingly criss-crossed us through the town of Okehampton, before we found ourselves close by the station and at the beginning of the Granite Way – an eleven-mile cycle path that runs along the north-west edge of the granite massif of Dartmoor.

  ‘Good,’ I said to myself, ‘now we can nail it.’

  Titch had other ideas. Just as I got up to my optimum speed, she began her wriggling escape act, and managed to free herself from the sling and into my coat. She’d recently had a wee. Could she now need a poo? I stopped and allowed her to wander about, but she showed no such inclination. However, when I went to pick her up so that we could continue on our way, she squeaked in protest. What was wrong? This was an extremely untimely moment for Titch to discover a rebellious quality. Then it came to me.

  ‘Ah, you must be hungry!’ I said.

  Titch looked at me with a look – as close as a pig can get to saying: ‘Of course I’m hungry, you idiot. What else do you expect me to be, if you don’t feed me?’

  Titch fairly demolished the carrot that I produced for her. And then another one after that. Poor thing had been hungry and had sat politely through me devouring a soup, roll and piece of cake, but she hadn’t wanted to make a scene in the cafe.

  ‘You really are a nice little pig,’ I said, as I looked down on her, munching away.

  Serious cycling then began in earnest. I tried to imagine that I was in the Tour de France – sleek, super-fit, and pumped full of performance-enhancing drugs (rather than cake). I imagined an enthusiastic crowd cheering us on.

  Allez, Tony! Allez, Titch!

  It worked. My thighs and calves combined in perfect harmony, as we crunched away the miles. We now had spectacular views over Dartmoor, up towards its highest point at 2,037 feet. The sun obliged by bursting through the clouds, combining with the rain to create a spectacular rainbow. We crossed the Meldon Viaduct, an impressive wrought-iron and cast-iron structure built by the Victorians, standing 150 feet above the wooded valley below. In other circumstances, I might have stopped to take in the breathtaking view. But not this afternoon. Every second of daylight was invaluable.

  At the first opportunity, I left the trail and joined up with the road. It was getting harder to see, and with no front light, the possibility of riding into a bush or ditch was an alarmingly distinct one.

  When we made it to Lydford, I was still harbouring some hope of being able to press on to Tavistock. A spotty youth, who was loitering unproductively at the village crossroads, comprehensively dampened those expectations.

  ‘Is there a hotel in the village?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah, I work there. The Castle Inn. Just down there on the right.’

  ‘Thanks. By the way, how far is it to Tavistock?’

  The lad dropped his head and shook it, as if I had just posed the hardest question he’d ever been asked.

  ‘I don’t know by miles. But it’s forty-five minutes by car.’

  My head dropped now, as if I’d just received the worst answer I’d ever been given to the hardest question that had ever been asked. I’d been sure that it was closer than I was now being told. From what this lad was saying, there was still a further two hours to cycle – at least.

  A plaque in the entrance to the Castle Inn announced that it was built in 1550, which, by the 24-hour c
lock, was only fifteen minutes earlier than I was making my arrival. It was a cosy and charming bar. The kind that makes brash American tourists say, ‘We just luurve your English pubs. They’re so cute.’

  The landlady was talking to four drinkers who were sitting on bar stools. The rest of the pub was empty, and yet it had the feel of being half-full. I was hoping that ‘Titch magic’ would work its spell. I would reveal Titch, a huge fuss would be made of us, and accommodation and a lovely evening meal would be immediately forthcoming.

  It didn’t happen that way. The revelation of Titch brought smiles, one vaguely humorous remark, and a £1 donation. Even when I explained about the fading light and my need for accommodation, there was no proposal of a bed for the night, not even as a guest paying the full rates. Perhaps the hotel part of the pub was closed at this time of the year. Even if it were open, stopping this early in a village of this size would make for a very long evening ahead. Either I could sit in my small hotel room – or drink in the pub. There didn’t seem to be any other options. Six hours drinking in a bar would no doubt result in some stories, but would make arrival in Plymouth at noon the next day most improbable.

  ‘How far is it to Tavistock?’ I enquired.

  ‘It’s about nine miles,’ said the landlady.

  Nine miles? Surely nine miles wouldn’t take forty-five minutes in a car? The boy at the crossroads was clearly an apprentice village idiot, placed there as part of his training. Nine miles was doable.

  ‘I can take the roads all the way? Not cycle tracks?’ I checked.

  ‘Roads all the way. Bloody hilly roads, mind.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, making a hasty exit for the door.

  Provided that my back light worked, Tavistock, and the prospect of a quality hotel, now seemed back on the cards.

  ‘Yes!’ I shouted. ‘At last something is going right!’

  The rear light illuminated on demand and I could now be seen by any cars behind me. Better still, the clouds had lifted and the evening sky was clear – the twilight offering sufficient light for me to see the road ahead. All I had to do was continue doing what I’d been doing for the last two hours. Cycling my bloody heart out.

  ***

  There may not have been a crowd to welcome me, but it still felt like a magnificent victory. I may not have been Bradley Wiggins or Chris Froome winning the Tour,3 but as I locked my bike outside the Bedford Hotel, I felt like a champion. I’d beaten nobody, but I’d won a hell of a prize. A comfortable night in what appeared to be Tavistock’s best hotel.

  I reckon even without my current feelings of euphoria, I would have had a very high opinion of this hotel. Currently, I ranked it as the best hotel in the world. Built on the site of a Benedictine abbey that had been looted and dissolved by Henry VIII,4 it was designed by Jeffry Wyatt, the same architect responsible for Windsor Castle. This hotel is castle-like, too, built with battlements in an austere grey stone.

  Right now though, it couldn’t have looked more welcoming.

  At reception, I was met by a girl who had clearly had a hard day. She looked tired, and her manner was grumpy. She looked at me through dead eyes and made the phonetic sounds, ‘Yes, can I help you?’ but seemed to mean, ‘Oh no, not another, what do you want?’ Her manner changed when I gave my name.

  ‘Tony Hawks?’ she said, looking up at me. ‘It says here that someone of your name is arriving with a pig. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ I said, with a smile.

  Now it was party-trick time. It had worked before, but surely this was going to be its most severe test. Slowly, I unzipped my coat and revealed Titch to this poor exhausted girl. In an instant the look on her face transformed. A huge ear-to-ear grin wiped away the grimace, and she let out a loud ‘Aaah’ sound that caused her colleague to appear from the adjacent room, to see what the cause could be. She was then instantly struck in the same way and the sound was doubled. They both called out a name, barely able to contain their excitement.

  ‘Simon! Simon! Come see! It’s amazing.’

  Simon turned out to be the hotel manager who had made the kind gesture of offering me and Titch a complimentary night at this fine establishment. He was far less excited than his junior staff members, but that wasn’t difficult. Instead, he managed to explain some practicalities about the hotel, including where breakfast was served and most important of all, where the room was. The room! I simply couldn’t wait to get to that room. I had been dreaming of a hot bath in a nice, comfortable room for most of the day, it had been what had driven me on through the exhaustion of the last hour.

  I could still hear the receptionist’s howls of delight as I headed up the corridor to my bedroom. The route to the room took me through a luxurious area where guests were having early-evening drinks. Titch’s head was still visible, and one or two seemed to do a double take.

  ‘Did that bloke have a pig in his jacket?’

  ‘He can’t have done. This is the Bedford Hotel.’

  I threw open the door to our bedroom. The room was gorgeous.

  ‘Yes!’

  We had made it.

  13

  Mayflower Steps

  Titch and I were so happy in this lap of luxury. I set her down, and she began her immediate faux-foraging as I checked out the bathroom. Perfect. A big corner bath. Better than I’d dared hope for.

  Whilst the bath was running, I fed Titch, punched the air a few times, and set up my smartphone by the bath to play classical music. There was even some ‘tranquillity’ bath foam, which I tipped in for good measure. This was going to be pure relaxation.

  And it was. As Titch snorted and sniffed around the main bedroom, I slid into the lovely, hot bath whilst the sounds of Beethoven’s piano concerto in C minor filled the room, in a manner totally disproportionate to the size of the device that was emitting them. Five minutes later, I was as close to heaven as a man can be on earth. I was currently experiencing a feeling that is rare and special in life. I was getting absolutely everything I wanted. There was nothing I could add to this moment that could have improved it. I allowed my mind to drift off, soothed by the genius of Ludwig van B. Until disaster struck.

  I was shaken by a sudden, deafening sound, and the water began convulsing and overwhelming me. The ground shook. It seemed impossible, and yet it was clear enough – we were experiencing an earthquake. In a state of panic, I reached for the side of the bath and attempted to haul myself out, but I slipped and fell, my head hitting the side of the bath. The sound continued, and everything was shaking.

  I was still conscious. I opened my eyes and saw, through the steam-filled room, a red light was flashing in front of me. I looked up and noticed that the ceiling was still intact. The floor around the bath had also not collapsed. The sound and shaking carried on, but whatever had happened, I had escaped the worst of it. The epicentre, wherever that was, must have taken the brunt. I looked again at the mysterious red light, and I waved away the steam that was obscuring it. Three letters started to become visible. An S. Then I made out a P. A final letter – yes, A. What did that spell? It spelt SPA.

  Ah. I felt a little silly. It hadn’t been an earthquake. Of course not. Dartmoor is not known for them, after all. No, I was sitting in a spa bath which, for some inexplicable reason, seemed to be equipped with some kind of timer – meaning that it could erupt and frighten the living daylights out of a bather at any given moment. In this case, me. Perhaps a poorly paid maid exacted a kind of abstract and indiscriminate revenge on wealthy guests, by setting the timer after each clean of the room. Perhaps she was sitting at home now, smiling quietly to herself.

  Maybe she also knew that the controls on this spa bath were utterly unfathomable. Whichever sequence of buttons I hit, and in whatever order, I was unable to turn this earthquake off. It raged on, in spite of my desperate button-pushing and howls of frustration.

  ‘WHY DON’T THEY MAKE THINGS WITH SODDING ON-OFF BUTTONS ANYMORE?!!’ I screamed.

  Titch appeared at t
he door, displaying a kind of inquisitive look. She didn’t have an eyebrow to raise, but had she been blessed with one, that’s what she would have done with it.

  ‘It’s OK, Titch,’ I said. ‘It’s the spa, not an earthquake.’

  It had been a long day and clearly I was losing my grip on it. Not only had I imagined a cataclysmic event, but now I was needlessly reassuring a quite clearly undisturbed pig.

  I didn’t get out of the bath. No, my heart had been set on a half-hour bath, and a half-hour bath was what I was going to have. Yes, I had to suffer the ignominy of being shaken to my very core by the fierceness of the spa (the maverick maid had clearly put it on its highest setting), but I was not leaving. Yes, it was difficult to relax, such was the force of the aquatic assault that I was now undergoing, but I would not let the evil maid win. Instead, I would sit there, being shaken, pushed, bashed, battered and buffeted by this man-made mayhem. The perfect storm in a tub. Incredible to think that people pay extra for such a thing.

  I left the bath a dazed man. If not a jibbering wreck, then not far off it. Instead of feeling tranquil, I felt like I’d been mugged – the only difference being that I still had my mobile phone.1

  I lay on the bed in shock. To my left, I could see Titch looking up at me, longingly. She had probably never seen such comfort. A big double bed in a quality hotel. Would Titch ever have a chance of experiencing this again? Wouldn’t she be returned to her sty as soon as she was back on the farm? How could I deny her this opportunity to experience a measure of luxurious comfort?

  I leant down and lifted her onto the bed.

  ‘Here, Titch,’ I said, as she let out a little satisfied grunt, ‘this is how the other half live.’

  She examined the bed, sniffing every square inch, and I laid my weary head down in an effort to recover from a spa that had clearly been on its ‘Niagara Falls’ setting, and immediately I fell asleep.

  An hour later, I woke to find Titch snuggled up by my side. Pigs like to keep warm, and in their natural habitat they would rest alongside each other to maximise bodily warmth. It was definitely a good feeling having this warm little pig at my side. I stroked her, amazed at how well we’d bonded as a team on this trip. A terrible thought then occurred to me. What if a maid had called on her evening round whilst I’d slept? They often do that in posh hotels – freshen up a room at the end of the day. What if she’d knocked on the door, received no reply, and opened the door to discover a man stark naked on the bed with a pig? Yes, publicity for this trip would help the fundraising, but not necessarily the kind that would surround that story. Sleeping naked with a pig is bad enough, but doing so with one that also happened to be under age would put me in a class of my own when it came to deranged perverts.