Bradshaw in my back pocket

Our very own Michael Portillo arms himself with an 1863 Bradshaw and tackles the Cotswold Line, from Oxford to Worcester

- Stephen Roberts

A MINI PORTILLO?

I fancy myself a mini Michael Portillo. OK, I don’t have the garish pink jacket, green trouser combo preferred by the erstwhile politician cum TV travelogue host, but I do have an 1863 Bradshaw (that’s the tatty railway guide that Mr P. consults, that lays out a town’s credentials and gives him clues re. where to stay). I’ve decided to tackle the Cotswold Line, not the whole of it, but the bit between Oxford and Worcester, and I’m going to let my Bradshaw be my guide. If you wished, you could carry on through the Malverns to Hereford, but I’ll leave that for another journey.

First, a tiny bit of history. The line betwixt Oxford and Worcester came about by virtue of an Act of Parliament of 1845 and opened six years later in 1851 as the ‘Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway’ (yes, it had industrial pretensions in those days). Railway company acronyms (OW&WR in this case) often gave the wags food for thought, and for this one they came up with the ‘Old Worse & Worse’. Then, a dozen years after the opening of the line came my Bradshaw. I’d like to say it’s a battered original like Mike’s but it’s actually a facsimile, as my budget doesn’t run to such extravagances. *note to editor*

‘DREAMING SPIRES’ (A CLICHÉ)