MARATHON FEAT

 

As I write, I’ve just completed the marathon. It took the best part of

five hours and I have nothing but admiration for those who habitually push

themselves through the pain barrier, often to raise money for good causes. I saw a side of London that I hadn’t previously known existed: a positive, supportive collective in the face of adversity, all pushing in the same direction for good. But it wasn’t just the seething mass of diversely attired runners who found themselves caught up in a marathon this spring: it was also the multitudes of unsuspecting travellers who fell foul of the now notorious ash cloud, as a bankrupted, vilified Iceland finally got its own back on

the world.

 

Call me irresponsible, but I loved it. For one glorious April week, with no planes flying over Richmond and surrounds, the din of the 21st Century gave way to sweet peace and quiet. The chance to hear oneself think, to be woken up by the heady sound of birdsong – rather than the Boeing 747 from Toronto – was a wonder beyond compare. For a short while each morning the silence was deafening, until the daily gaggle of bare-chested builders

descended upon our street to resume its reconstruction of the world.  Yes there were the trains and cars but somehow it seemed natural and right to have nothing hovering overhead for the first time in I don’t know how many years.  

 

Nor was this crisis of the air lanes without its comic side. I couldn’t help but

smile at the idea of the British Airways boss going up in a ‘tester’ plane to see if it was safe to fly. If it had crashed, presumably, we would all have rested in

peace – some of us for eternity. It didn’t, of course, and on the seventh day the aviatorial powers – prompted, perhaps, by the horror of losing millions of pounds –decreed that we were dealing, after all, with the right sort of volcanic ash. Normal service was duly restored. By then, however, we had succeeded in creating a drama out of a crisis. In the absence of real mountains, we Brits are generally forced to make our own out of molehills. Yet here was a deluxe kind of mountain that obligingly exploded before our eyes. It was one of those surreal tales generally confined to the pages of an improbable thriller. Only this time it was for real.

 

But the story wasn’t the ash cloud itself: it was the variety of ways – ranging from the lacklustre to the positively intrepid –in which those stranded overseas decided to make their way home. Some saw no reason to rush and decided to stay put in paradise. An extra week in San Francisco or the Maldives, or a routine week commuting on the tube? You choose. TV crews trawling the beauty spots of the world had a hard time finding Mr Angry, as the great shutdown became the perfect excuse for indolence underpinned by a

stoical rationale. The British, true to form, were the most indolent of all. As one traveller smugly put it: “We are all pawns of nature.”

 

Others ordered taxis – celebs and self- important business people, mainly, who forgot the truism that no one, but no one, is unexpendable, and who felt that a few grand spent on getting home was worth it for the sake of the few more they would lose if they didn’t make some sort of effort.

 

Then there were those who took whatever planes were flying to get as near home as they could, progressing from Cyprus to Rome to Prague as though travelling to Waterloo from Liverpool Street via Bank. Others again hitched lifts up the motorway through Spain and France on the kind of articulated lorry normally scowled upon by British drivers, or even hired a car for themselves. This, however, proved distinctly uneconomic: I know of one man who paid £3,000 for the pleasure of being driven back home. But at least it

was safer than hiring a glider, as another of my acquaintances tried to do.

 

And then, of course, there were the folk who hitched a lift with Celebrity Cruises, sailing back from Bilbao in northern Spain on the new luxury liner Celebrity Eclipse. The vessel will now be forever known as the ‘rescue’ ship – which, as epitaphs go, is one up on that of Titanic. Curiously, the

launch of the ship – celebrations for which were put on hold during the unscheduled mission of mercy – had received scant coverage until the volcano spluttered in ire.

 

Everyone, it seems, was summoned to the rescue of our countrymen abroad. A friend of mine at the Press Association was inundated with calls and emails beseeching him to organise boats and trains for the collection of the stranded masses. He’s a travel editor, by the way. That means that he doesn’t actually do anything – he simply writes about those who do. But finally we sent in the Navy – or Mr Brown did, no doubt enjoying the last vestiges of power as he sailed into a sunset of his own – and soon everyone was safely back home, noses to the grindstone and grumpy with it. I should know, because the day after ‘normal’ life resumed, and the planes began drowning out the thrushes

once more, I met an obnoxious banker – ill fitting suit and lazy left eye - on the tube who chided me for not telling my son to give him his seat. In truth, the guy didn’t look old enough to warrant it – he just looked tanned and smug and annoyed there was no business class on the tube.   Such a shame he wasn’t one of the stranded souls who stayed put.