Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Day 7 - The Severn Bore
Bath to Newent - 50 miles
Max had early lectures to get to, so we were out of the house by 8am. It was another
sunnydayandweplannedtomakeupsomemilesfollowingtheeasytimewe'dhadthepre-
vious day. Max's voice was still absent but he waved us goodbye and whispered that he felt
he had made a couple of new friends, and that he hoped one day he could do something like
we were doing.
That was part of the thrill of our challenge. If I had been Max and had met us, I would
have been incredibly envious, and it was this sort of reaction that we got from countless
people along the way. We were the lucky ones and we had nobody to be envious of.
Bath town centre was a flurry of people on their way to work. We called into a bakery
where a girl named Suzie gave us two freshly-baked sausage rolls, in exchange for two
smiles.Westoodoutsideonthepavementanddevouredtheminseconds,despitethembeing
the temperature of molten lava.
A very tall man approached us. He had a huge, white, bushy beard, and was smartly
dressed in suit trousers, polished shoes, a shirt, cardigan and a panama hat. He was very un-
stable on his feet and stank of alcohol despite it being before 9am.
'Hold these, will you?' he slurred, handing me the leather bag he was carrying and pla-
cing his panama on my head.
'You're not going to undress are you?' asked Ben.
'Don't be ridiculous,' he spluttered, resting his hand on my shoulder to steady himself.
He pulled a penny whistle from the bag and started to play. Despite not being able to string
a sentence together, his fingers glided over the whistle like a magician. With the whistle in
his mouth he came to life. He jigged on the spot like Michael Flatley, having been unable to
even stand upright only moments before. It was quite extraordinary.
'I'm... an... Attt... Atttten... Attenborough, you know, as in... one of the Attenborough
family,'hesaid,whenhe'dfinishedplaying.'PeterAttenborough,butpeoplecallmePeter...
Peter... The... Potter. I'm a busker... and a potter. I make pots.'
'It's really good to meet you, Peter the Potter,' I said. 'If we had any money, we'd give
you some, but I'm afraid we've got nothing.'
'Nooooo,thatwasagift.Amusicalgift…foryou.Icouldtellyouneededit.Goodluck…
on your travels, wherever you are going.' And with that he swaggered off down the street
into the morning bustle.
Ilooked upPeter afew weeks later,totryanddiscover abit more about him. Despite our
brief meeting, he'd had a big impact on both of us and he seemed a remarkable character.
I was saddened to learn that he had died just a week after we had met him. He had fallen
down some steps whilst visiting a friend in their basement flat.
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