On a hot summer's day in an ephemera box in a charity shop, I came across a clutch of Youth Hostel Association regional guides, four in fact:
- The Midland and Eastern Country: regional booklet (1949);
- The North Country: a handbook to the youth hostels in Northumberland, Durham and Yorkshire (1949);
- South Midlands and Eastern Counties: regional booklet (1947);
- The North Wales hostels handbook, with some diversion into Cheshire and the Isle of Man, published by Merseyside Youth Hostels around 1949.
They were all in pretty good condition despite the post-war austerity in terms of their production. They all cost 6d or post free 7d or seven pence halfpenny. They triggered all sorts of emotions that took my mind off the stifling, gridlocked situation on the M25. The phrase 'with some diversion' in The North Wales booklet caught my attention. That was what it was all about in my hosteling days on my bike. It was always possible to take a left or a right away from the original plan. Those long leafy country roads, sometimes the tarmac melting in the heat, the hedgerows and the lack of cars were the most enjoyable aspects of cycle rides.

The youth hostel spirit captured and liberated me and some friends in the mid 1960s. Poring over maps we planned routes. There was excitement in drawing up the limited list of items that could fit into paniers on our bicycles. We looked forward to longer hours of daylight and a chance to escape.

I remember vividly the first journey to Marnhull and my first ever stay in a youth hostel. We soon got the hang of it - compulsory sheet sleeping bags, a job to do each morning, sleeping in bunks in small dormitories, shared kitchen etc. En route to Marnhull we stopped at Fordingbridge and had sausages for lunch. We felt the freedom, we were out their on our own, breathing the fresh air or on this occasion recovering from the wind and pelting rain on the outskirts of Southampton and through Cadnam. We knew how to ride our bikes; that's all we did. What we hadn't done was practise with paniers weighing down the bicycle's back end.

The Midland and Eastern Country booklet lists Ivinghoe, another hostel I recall from another trip. The entries in the booklet are concise yet detailed enough to provide a potted history, noting that 'behind the house is a large garden sloping down to a little brook, from the banks of which one can look across broad fields to the post mill' (page 7). Our job was to cut the grass round the back. I recall the warden saying those very words. Imagine our shock when we turned the corner, walked round the back, looked at our shears and saw the expanse of grass.

The booklets have bibliographies to help with travel preparations. The North Wales one has a literature review, 'A Welsh bookshelf' by M.Bevan-Evans. It includes The itinerary through Wales 1188 by Giraldus Cambrensus, indicated as 'still of interest'. Were the roads still that bad? ( )