Speaking at this meeting:
- Jane Wilson Howarth “A GLIMPSE OF ETERNAL SNOWS”
- Alan Jones: The History of Coach Travel
Doors open at 1pm for 1:30pm start until 4:30 pm, 25-27 Grosvenor Street, Chester, CH1 2DD. Entrance fee £3 refreshments included. We recommend you arrive early. For more information contact Hanna on 01244 383 392 or Angela on 01244 629 930
Review of talk at Chester Globetrotters
A Glimpse of Eternal Snows: by Dr Jane Wilson-Howarth.
The story of Jane and her family started in Kathmandu, Nepal and we were shown pictures of intricate mediaeval carvings on temples, the stupa in the mountains, the cheeky temple monkeys, water buffalo soaking in the sunny river, of Diwali, the Festival of lights. They were soon off on their first trek as a family to Annapurna Base Camp via the Kali Gandaki valley with its flat roofed dwellings, Annapurna itself, hovering like a huge black and white cobra against the rich blue of the sky. Everything travelled by porter, even David the new baby in his shady conical woven ‘basket with a view’, carefully watched over.
Simon’s work as a civil engineer working on irrigation projects, led to them moving to the large, flat, very dusty, hot, and remote Rajapur Island in the middle of the Karnali River, the largest tributary of the Ganges. At first there was no electricity, no bridge to the river banks (this came later), just paddy fields and dust – everywhere. Buffalo carts were the best transport across the river and tangas or horse drawn carts on the island, often better than the large four-wheel drive which we saw being removed from a ditch amidst much amusement from the local people.
But you could take a wildlife tour on elephant back at dawn into the Bardiya National Park, across the waters and see tigers, rhinos and wild elephants, exquisite flowers and birds, brilliantly coloured, especially during the monsoon, which also brought scorpions and adolescent cobras wriggling under your door. Leeches? No problem – rub your skin with salt and chillies. David as a beautiful baby, became the family’s ambassador, meeting the local mothers in village meetings, as Jane attempted to pursue her health education work, though it was hard to make an impact against poverty and entrenched beliefs about treatment.
Jane’s book, “A Glimpse of Eternal Snows”, is the story of David’s life – he died in Kathmandu, nearly all of his short life spent happy and well in Nepal. This is a deeply moving book – a journey of joys and sadness, set within one of the most colourful and beautiful countries in the world.
Jane specialises in health education, tropical medicine and parasitology, and her “Essential Guide To Travel Health” published by Cadogan Guides will help in dealing with bugs, bites and bowel problems. “How to Shit Around the World” advises cheerfully on the art of staying clean and healthy while travelling. Read and “go” in peace.
Also see more on http://www.wilson-howarth.com or for travel tweets: @longdropdoc for travel health information.
We all enjoyed Jane’s talk and would like to thank her so much for joining us and telling her story
We had a good tea break with lots of networking and friendships being made, then we moved on to the next talk with the title:
THE HISTORY OF COACH TRAVEL by Alun Jones
After the break it was Alun Jones who shared with us the history of Coach travel and how it all tied up with his family.
It started all in the year 1898 when the Jones family made mainly handcart deliveries and used horses to provide people with transport in Flint, North Wales.
When times changed and more people could afford going out for holiday outings, the trains started to organise day trips in the countryside for people from the cities, the Jones family was involved at the start and provided the transport between the railway station and places of interest such as Betys y coed in the Snowdonia Mountains and Rhyl by the seaside. At first the coaches provided were usually open top ones with hard tyres, pneumatic tyres only came into force after 1920.The archive pictures Alun showed us were full of people who always were enjoying themselves. It was a great novelty to ride on a cherabang in those days!
North Wales is just outside Chester and it was decided around the 1920’s to have a terminus between Birkenhead and Loggerheads in North Wales, so that people from the industrial cities could travel by train and then by coach to enjoy the lovely countryside, either for a day or stay overnight in the area.
After WW2, Alun’s father took over the business and started to move with the times, coach travel became very popular to resorts such as Blackpool and Rhyl, industrial towns in the North would close down for their annual holidays and the Jones family would turn up with several coaches to take the local people to their chosen destination, providing a door to door service.Alun had a few stories to tell about picking people up from their homes and sometimes even having to help their customer pack their bags.
Although the renovated coaches of the 40’s and 50’s are still popular, people today travel on the coach in style, airsuspension, sitting up high, toilets on board etc, it is today the 3th biggest part of the tourism industry in this country and towns and cities are becoming more coach friendly as time goes on.
The coach tour still provides people with a perfect view of Brittain and abroad, where you will find new friends and camaraderie very easily and everything is arranged for you! Jones Holidays today will arrange your trip in this country and also abroad for you with friendly service and advice. Their Website is
http://www.jonesholidays.co.uk
We would like to thank Alun and his grand daughter so much for the great talk and very interesting archive photo’s that they showed us!
We closed the afternoon in the pub around the corner, we had a great time again!
All the best from all of us here at Chester Globetrotters!