RANDOM AT LARGE

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32037, 11 July 1969, Page 15

RANDOM AT LARGE

CROSS-COUNTRY HUNT

The thought of driving In London traffic may appal some of the less stoic visitors to Britain, but it really is worth trying, just for the experience. We haven’t actually done much of this ourselves yet, but our wife has. She will not only dine out on the experience on her return home; she practically dined out while doing it. Coming to London from the south gave us every opportunity of reaching our destination, the Oval cricket ground, with a hint of expertise, and only a couple of stops to ask questions. It was there we disembarked, leaving the little lady to navigate across London to Primrose Hill. As the helicopter flies, it is a distance of some four and a half miles. She reached her objective quite safely. It took her four hours to get there.

The operations room in the front seat of the car came up with the idea that she could, from the Oval cross the Vauxhall bridge and sort of work her way slightly west of

north, taking in hurried glimpses of the Buckingham Palace gardens, Hyde Park corner, Grosvenor Square and Regent’s Park. The alternative plan was an attempt to defeat the worst of the traffic by circling in a clockwise direction, and this was what she chose to do. But we readily admitted, afterwards, that it is not easy to read a map, look out for street signs, and drive the car, while making certain of being in the right lane for the next turning; we ourselves actually got to Lord’s from our hotel the other day, so close that the ground was just across the road, before reaching a roundabout in the wrong lane and being swept away in a stream of traffic going in the wrong direction. From the Oval, she chose the Chelsea bridge and after a while found

herself in Hammersmith. A little later, she was almost at Wormwood Scrubs. From there, just about back to the hub of the Commonwealth, but, ultimately, home.

We sympathised with her, but she would have none of it. She had had a marvellous day, she said. She had paused when she observed, in some unidentified park, the Grenadier Guards at practice. She had stopped, inevitably, for a cup of tea. She had had earnest conversations with the foreman of a road maintenance gang, a tailor, a milkman and a bowser attendant, on the subject of her future movements. None of them wanted to look at her map. Three of them drew their own sketch plans. All of them said it was dead easy, she just had to take the second on the right and up (or down) the hill and bear a little left before reaching the flyover and miss the next two sets of traffic lights before turning left two blocks before the bridge after which she should stay with the main road until the gasworks ... She says she doesn’t mind driving anywhere in London. As long as she can make an early start