This programme on ITV on Sunday evenings will, this week, show Housteads Fort on Hadrian's Wall. You ought to watch it, if only because we were walking by when they were doing a bit of early morning filming last week. Quite a strange sight to see a 'cat on a stick' as you climb up a hillside. It was tempting to make a loud noise and spoil the shot, but we were well behaved!
I looked at the website today and was intrigued and a bit disappointed how few of my own favourites were there. The choices for London were, I guess, predictable, but for me one of the best views is from Blackfriars railway bridge, the city to the east and the 'Post Ofice' tower west and north - London in an instant. Not sure what my favourite Manchester view is - I always look out for the spire of St Mary's in... Hulme? Moss Side? Not sure which! Where I used to live - sentimental twaddle really. The view from the platform in the Imperial War Museum North is impressive but I actually prefer some of the lower down views. I have a post card Jim Medway's cartoon 'Oxford Road' of some cats catching a No 42 bus near the railway bridge on Oxford Road which is certainly one of my favourite views of Manchester - not pretty but authentic.
Watching last week's programme, I was struck by how many of the views were those people associated with childhood - a kind of nostalgia driven preference. My own favourite childhood views are no more - "Blackey Moor" was our favourite place as children, a very long walk through a farm, over a brook to the grounds of a once grand house where a dogs' graveyard (complete with head stones) lay hidden behind a pond that was great for 'fishing' for tadpoles. Now it is covered in houses, a whole generation has grown up not knowing the simple pleasures we enjoyed. Sad? Maybe, but my own special places have shifted and changed as I have moved around the country. I don't know that I have one 'favourite view' or one special place any more, rather I have places and peoples I love, sometimes despite what they look like.
It is interesting to see what various people consider their favourite view and to hear the stories of why it is so, not so much because of the places chosen, but because it reflects the wonderful diversity of this tiny island we are blessed to call home.