 | | SEE ALSO |  | The Morris Telford archive. Read about Morris's previous exploits, and find out how the adventure has unfolded.
See what everyone's saying and leave a message on our Morris Telford Message Board Follow Morris's journey Day One Day Two Day Three Day Four Day Five Day Six Day Seven |  | | PRINT THIS PAGE | | | | | FACTS |  | Name: Morris Telford
Age: 33
DOB: 18/04/70
Occupation:Unemployed
Hobbies: Enlightenment, Philosophy, Bingo Favourite book – Ordnance Survey Map of Shropshire 1999 edition Favourite foods – Pickled Eggs Favourite film – Late For Dinner
Favourite colour – The delicate cyan of the dinnertime sky in Moreton Say.
Favourite British County – Shropshire
Favourite Place – Moreton Say
Favourite Postal Code Area – TF9
Favourite radio frequency - 96FM
Favourite sound – The gentle breeze rustling through the leafy glades of Moreton Say
Favourite Clive – Clive of India
Favourite Iron Bridge - Ironbridge
Favourite band – Men From Earth *(shameless plug)
Biggest inspiration – Marlowe Bidforth |  | MESSAGES |  | | Is Morris a madman, a genius - or both? Have your say on our Morris Telford Message Board - and see what other people are saying about him. |  |
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IÂ’m walking cross-country with my new travelling companion, Barclay. We are looking for a place to buy a motorcycle because Barclay insists it will change my life. IÂ’ve explained to him that I donÂ’t want my life changing, I want to change other peopleÂ’s lives but it fell on deaf ears.
Barclay is a little hard to talk to; he seems bitter or disappointed most of the time, with the occasional period of heavy sighing and eye rolling. I’ve tried to cheer him up with amusing stories of village life in Shropshire but to no avail.Even the story about the time my Aunt Felicity accidentally set fire to the tea cosy failed to raise a smile from him. I miss the casual banter of my fellow Shropshire folk. No one I meet lately wants to talk about bingo or farming or scones. The sun is shining on the tulip fields this morning as Barclay and I look for somewhere that sells motorcycles. We are stopping at a small village, no idea what it’s called, to have some breakfast. I asked for a glass of water and some toast at the café where we stopped for breakfast, Barclay had a full Dutch breakfast, which is much like a full English breakfast except with more sausage variations. It’s handy having Barclay to help me order food in Holland. Single Dutch is double Dutch to me. I paid for Barclay who tells me he is ‘between jobs’. Apparently he is a qualified air traffic controller. He doesn’t get much air traffic control work as he suffers from narcolepsy, which struck me as odd because he also told me he has had narcolepsy since he was quite young. So I asked him why he trained to be an air traffic controller in the first place if he had narcolepsy? Barclay got terribly defensive at this point. He said he didn’t see why his disability should stand in the way of his dream to be an ATC. I told him that that seemed to be the problem, he was dreaming about being an air traffic controller instead of actually controlling air traffic. He didn’t speak to me much after that, he still managed to force down the breakfast I had bought him though. I must get to know people better before I promise to buy them expensive motorcycles. Anyway he obviously finds it hard to hold down a job in his chosen profession, when he drops off and a few planes crash I imagine it reflects badly on him. He’s sitting opposite me now, not speaking to me. It gives me some time to type my journal though. I expected the water in the café to be bottled spring water, but all I got was a glass of tap water and it tasted like it had been strained through some old infected bandages. It made me think of the tap water in Moreton Say.
Moreton Say tap water is like the very nectar of the gods, clear, clean, fresh, like a little celebratory march of triumph across your tongue. I’m not sure if they add fluorine or chlorine to it, but at some point in the process it has a little something special added to it. Mother bought a Brita water filter once, it actually made the water taste worse, and it filtered out that Moreton Say tingle. Aunt Felicity told me it was something to do with toxic waste seeping into the ground near our reservoir, but I didn’t believe her, I suspect it’s some of that old Shropshire magic working it’s way into the plumbing. Barclay apologised to me this afternoon, I think it has something to do with the motorcycle shop we stumbled upon.Barclay’s mood has improved dramatically. Yesterday we bought a motorcycle. I say ‘we bought’, Barclay chose it, and I paid for it. I had promised him I would and now I see the childlike glee on his face, I’m glad I did. I am a bit concerned that this emotional high is not addressing his deeper issues and he really does need to get himself to Shropshire really soon, at least now he has the means of getting there quicker. We spent the best part of today going very fast around the Dutch countryside, round knee scrapeingly sharp bends and down eye poppingly steep slopes. Conversation was limited to Barclay screaming what sounded like "spoedig cowboy duivel", which I think means something like "speedy cowboy demon", but I could be wrong. When we stopped briefly to refuel, I asked him where exactly we were going and he said, in what I think was a mock American accent "To Holland back baby!!". I’m quite confused by it all. I’ve also noticed Barclay has developed a nervous tick since I bought the bike, his left eyelid flutters and his head leans to one side, it gets worse the more excited he gets. If I didn’t believe so firmly in the greater Salopian purpose of my life I might be afraid of him, but I am secure in the knowledge that my mission to tell the world about Shropshire is not yet over and therefore I cannot die. It has occurred to me that a narcoleptic, manic-depressive with a nervous tick and a man who believes he cannot die are not necessarily a very good road safety combination. I asked Barclay again where we are going and I think I got the meaning this time, he said, "To Hell and back, baby!!". He spent last night painting a liquid paper skull onto my rucksack. I wasn’t very happy about him doing this, not only has he permanently defaced my bag, but it’s a terrible waste and incorrect application of high-grade correction fluid.I feel like I’ve been abducted by the twitchy one-man Dutch branch of the Hell’s Angels. We did cover a lot of ground today, Barclay only fell asleep twice and both times I was able to wake him up before we hit a bend in the road. Barclay did offer to stop at a motel but I could hear dance music coming from inside so we rode all night instead. The past few days have been a blur. Literally, a blur, I’ve had an average speed of about 120mph for the last three days.
I fell off the back of the motorbike about an hour ago now. IÂ’m not sure if Barclay noticed I had fallen off, or if he deliberately pushed me off, or if he was asleep and oblivious to everything, but either way he hasnÂ’t come back for me yet.
IÂ’m dusty, bruised and stranded by a bleak looking road with nothing but my palmtop and a bag with a crude skull liquid papered onto it for company.
IÂ’ve had better days.
I scrutinised my map of Holland and I canÂ’t quite work out where I am, so nothing to do but keep walking until I see a sign of civilisation.
ThatÂ’s another of the good things about Shropshire, you are never more than a few miles away from a pub, a newsagent or a farm. In Holland the landscape just stretches out flat for miles on end without even a Little Chef to break the monotony. IÂ’m going to stop following the road and try walking across country more to see what I come across. I miss home. I miss watching Ground Force and Countdown. I miss playing Scrabble. Some days my epic journey of world improvement seems like a battle against insurmountable odds. ItÂ’s like General CusterÂ’s last stand, only with less American Indians and more windmills.When I was younger I used to watch "Champion The Wonder Horse", an old black and white TV series about a wonderful horse called Champion. I think there was a dog in it too. I remember watching the horse gallop across the screen, saving people, righting wrongs. I remember how disappointed I was when I found out it was all filmed in America and not in Shropshire. I once wrote to the BBC suggesting they do a UK version of the series set in Shropshire based on the horse that lived in the field next to our house. It was going to be called "Jonathan the Shropshire Horse", the BBC never replied. It even had the right number of syllables in the title to fit in with the theme tune of the American version. Perhaps my mistake was writing to the BBC in London, perhaps BBC Shropshire would be interested, I think I still have some of my scripts at home in Moreton Say. I feel a bit like Jonathan the Shropshire Horse today. Full of potential, desperate to do something, save an attractive young lady that has fallen down a well or drive a busload of underprivileged children to Ironbridge for the day, but no opportunity arises to do good so you end up standing in a field all day instead. Feel much better today. After walking for days I finally found some people. They call themselves the "Rainbow Peace Community" and apparently they set up in the mid-sixties as a social experiment and survived all these years on a winning mixture of friendly, cooperative living, long hair and a thriving worldwide demand for tie-dyed garments. They all seem to have names that begin with a colour and end with a creature, the leader of the community is called Gold Dove, his second is called Amber Puma, their children are called Saffron Weasel, Aquafortis Goat, Vermillion Seahorse, Copper Mantis and Brown Cow. I think Brown Cow got the short straw there. I get to choose my honorary name during my stay here. I have chosen Cyan Badger; it has a Shropshire ring to it. I think. They are a third generation community now and some of them have never left the small insular society they were born into. I find this sort of inhibitive upbringing very worrying, how will they ever come to know the glory of Shropshire unless they are exposed to the outside world? ItÂ’s all very well staying put if you are fortunate enough to be born in Shropshire, but there really is no excuse at all for parentÂ’s outside the West Midlands not allowing their children the opportunity to discover Shropshire for themselves. ItÂ’s just cruel. They have invited me to stay and I have accepted, for the moment. In a few days I hope they will absorb my tales of Shropshire life, cut their hair and become another outpost for the Cyan Badger way of living. We shall see. |