Digging out alternatives to motorway service stations

Years of dismay at the grimness of motorway service stations, and the apparent lack of alternatives, have made their mark. Then I had a chance conversation with a friend – and the idea of digging out those alternatives was born.

Those service stations, largely devoid of service, are also devoid of soul and personality, character and humanity. They support fast-food chains, gambling, junk food companies and the gradual elimination of independent shops and eateries. Even their toilets are soul-destroying.

The food ‘revolution’, however, is buzzing (very loudly here in Bristol), with fine people all over the UK offering delicious and decently-sourced food within easy reach of motorways and main roads.

If enough of us use them, there will be more of them and more support for local economies. Rural Britain will be the beneficiary, as will better farming and more honest food production. We hope to be one tiny nail in the coffin of industrialised and junk food.

How much better will it be to stop where good people, with a stake in their businesses, are working? Where the food is of high-quality and sourced locally; where every effort is made to make the visitor feel welcome as a person rather than as a passing wallet.

Salvation on a long and tedious journey, to me, is to come across a church fete or tea-party quite by chance, with cakes made by the women who serve you. Or to come across a wild corner of England, perhaps a river to dip into, a long view for tired eyes and food that you know will nourish rather than undermine you. Thus a journey becomes a pleasure in itself.

I and my wife Em travel often from Bristol to Redruth in Cornwall, and Bristol to Saxmundham in East Suffolk. Apart from our overnight luggage we carry perhaps a copy of the day’s newspaper, a rug for picnics, a flask for hot tea, and sometimes a pillow for a snooze. The journey will fly by with good music and conversation, word games, wild and open spaces seen from the car.

But we have learned, above all, that the best trick of all is to think of the journey as a mini-holiday in itself. So we get off the main road and explore a little, taking only a few extra miles.

En route to Cornwall with the kids we would stop off in Altarnun and dangle our feet in the river while we picnicked. We have come across countless beautiful villages, cosy pubs and farm shops, and autumnal walks in beech woods, let alone castles and stately homes. We have often been to Dartmoor, passing by Castle Drogo with admiring glances but never – in 40 years – with the foresight to plan a stop there. Recently we did, and it is magnificent; and there is a good cafe.

In publishing The Extra Mile we may be encouraging some extra mileage, but the extra boost given to the local economies of England and Wales should compensate. And as you travel, you will be happier and a little enriched.

Travel guide publisher Alastair Sawday’s new book The Extra Mile, written with former Bristol24/7 Business Editor Laura Collacott and published by Printslinger, gives motorists quirky local alternatives to expensive motorway services across the UK. To get £10 off the retail price, buy The Extra Mile at www.centralbooks.com/extra-mile-the.html