Driving Through a Changing Landscape

Abstract

In J. B. Priestley’s 1929 novel The Good Companions Miss Trant, having overseen the sale of her late father’s effects, decides to take a motoring holiday around those parts of England still unknown to her. As she has only vague ideas as to potential destinations, her friend Reverend Chillingford proposes a route taking in as many cathedral cities as possible. ‘“Think what a wonderful picture of England you would have”’, he tells her; ‘“Canterbury, Ely, Norwich, Lincoln, York … Hereford, Gloucester, Wells, Salisbury, and so forth. Wonderful!”’ As the vicar’s plump face becomes ‘alight with enthusiasm’ Miss Trant finds herself ‘faintly kindled’ and replies that ‘“It does sound rather exciting when you think of it like that. And I’ve hardly seen any of those places”’.²

Miss Trant brought out a map and for the next quarter of an hour their two heads were bent over it. Mr Chillingford showered roads, towns, inns, naves, transepts, upon her … He brought out pencil and paper, covered two sheets with directions … Miss Trant wanted to rush upstairs at once and hurl all her things into bags. ‘I’ll start tomorrow morning,’ she announced. (J. B. Priestley, The Good Companions, 1929)¹