My usual early morning running slot wasted heading northwards up the M40.
But if I couldn’t manage a run today, I did at least collect a running engagement. This evening I went over to Keighley to visit an old friend and his new (to me) wife and baby son. In Keighley, not only can you still buy a 6 bedroomed house with enormous cellar for next-to-nowt, but just round the corner is Timothy Taylor’s brewery, purveyor of the nation’s finest ale. What more could you ask for?
Over a pukka Indian supper of hand-crafted bhindi, chapatis, rice and dal, we talked about running, and agreed to make it up to Bolton Abbey one evening next week. The plan is to walk up a favourite hill, Simon’s Seat, and run down the other side and along the path of the River Wharfe back to the abbey. Perhaps 8 or 9 miles in all. The views from the hill down across the Valley of Desolation to Appletreewick, Wharfedale and beyond, are stupendous. Let’s hope we can squeeze just enough daylight out of the tube.
On the way back to Leeds I drove through Saltaire, that interesting area on the fringes of Bradford. We used to spend a lot of time at Salts Mill, an enormous textile factory built in the mid 1800s by one Titus Salt. It’s now an interesting melange of shops and art galleries. Local-boy-made-good David Hockney frequently exhibits here, and can often be found lurking in the cafe/restaurant, staring glumly through a cloud of cigarette smoke. We saw him one day chatting with Alan Bennett, surely Britain’s most reluctant celebrity. It was Bennett who said, when asked whether he preferred sex with men or women, "That’s like asking a man crawling across the desert whether he’d prefer Perrier or Malvern water". Actually, I have my own Alan Bennett story.
It was a Saturday morning in February, and a pretty typical one at that. I’d been pottering about in my toasty, centrally-heated house, wearing just a pair of Bermuda shorts, a vest and some old flip-flops. I’d spent an idle morning alone with the Guardian and a frying pan with which I executed a peculiarly British tradition. The custom states that the slaughter of a pig and the ritual eating of hot pieces of its flesh will ward off the worst edges of your hangover.
Around midday, I suddenly remembered that M had asked me to post an important letter for her, and I realised I’d missed the local collection for the day. Beginning to panic, I recalled that there was a later one at the main post office in the city centre, and that I might just make it if I was lucky. So I just dashed for the front door, without stopping to get changed. I could park right next to the post-box, so it didn’t matter, I reasoned. I got into the car and drove off towards Leeds.
As I set off, it started to snow. That was bad enough, but when I got into the city, I found that the layby outside the post office had been cordoned off, and I couldn’t park there after all. Snow or no snow, I had no choice. I drove round the corner and parked just past Leeds railway station. It was now snowing thickly. I jumped out, still in my vest, Bermuda shorts and flip-flops, and started to jog back round the corner to post the letter.
As I passed the station entrance there, waiting outside, leaning against the iron railing, was the great Alan Bennett, looking his usual morose self in an impeccable buff crombie, scarlet silk scarf and black leather gloves. Framed by the thick snow shower, he looked rather magificent. His face was totally expressionless. He simply stared blankly at me as I approached and passed him. I knew he looked familiar, but… but it was a few yards further on, that I realised who he was. I glanced back over my shoulder. He had also turned his head, and continued to stare at me with no discernible expression. As a celebrated chronicler of the eccentricities of the British, he seemed quite unsurprised to see this plump middle-aged guy padding along through central Leeds in the middle of winter as the snow fell thickly, wearing nothing but that pair of Bermuda shorts, vest and clattering flip-flops.
I sort of knew what he was thinking.
One day, I may appear in one of his screenplays.
But at least this story has a running connection, albeit faint.
And the letter did make the post.
