‘You can go back in time & it can be just as magical’
Exploring Britain in a colourful camper van, aka Helen Mirren, is a wonderfully nostalgic road trip for our columnist
SUSAN CALMAN
Our columnist takes a road trip down memory lane
When I was a little girl, my mum and dad used to pack a camper van full of provisions (and children) and drive from Glasgow to the north of France for our summer holidays. I was very young at the time, but these trips have left their mark on me in so many ways, even down to what I like to eat. One of my favourite memories was eating Marks & Spencer Chunky Chicken in White Sauce from a tin. It honestly tasted like the poshest, most glamorous food in the world. And if you haven’t had it, you’re absolutely missing out; there’s not a Michelin-starred restaurant in the world that can beat it. Our holidays seemed magical; all the family, in a small van, driving around France with the one cassette tape we had playing (Jeff Wayne’s The War Of The Worlds), drinking Orangina and watching the sun set from a campsite.
Of course, some would say that you can’t go back in time, you can’t recapture the past, but I wanted to. The nostalgia I felt for those warm times kept playing on my mind until I finally got a chance to find out if reality matched my childhood fantasy. At the end of 2020, I filmed a new series called Susan Calman’s Scenic Britain for Channel 5. The plan was simple. Get a camper van and go travelling in some of the most beautiful parts of the UK. It all sounded rather fun until we realised one very real and almost catastrophic problem: I’m very, very short. The dream was to drive a cool VW van but, when it arrived at my house for a test drive, it became clear that I could reach the pedals but if I did, I couldn’t reach the gear stick. And vice versa. Slight panic set in. Without the camper van, there was no point! Until the production team found probably the tiniest vehicle ever made: 30 years old, needing a bit of TLC but utterly adorable. I fell in love with my ride, and we set off on my own journey.
I decided to name her, in order to have some company on my trip. And to be fair, I have named all of my cars (Molly the Mini, Millie the Metro). I decided to pay tribute to my favourite person of all time and bestowed upon my little travelling home the name Helen Mirren. It’s a dream to one day travel with the Dame herself, but I suspect this is as close as I’ll get.
So, me and Helen Mirren (sounds amazing already) set off on our travels. We went to some of the most scenic areas of the country: the Lake District, Pembrokeshire, the Cotswolds, Devon, Cornwall and Yorkshire, as well as a final stop-off at the Trossachs in Scotland.
It was a huge amount of fun; however, I did encounter some difficulties. When we went camping as a family in the early 1980s, it was in August. In France. And it was sunny. I travelled in October. In the UK. The difficulties started on the very first night when I tried to put up an awning on the back of Helen. In the pitch black, with driving rain and gale-force winds, I realised that I wasn’t a natural camper. Nor was my van particularly equipped for winter stays.
It didn’t stop the fun though. Helen was perfect for day-napping and having a cup of tea in when the weather turned bad. I made a decision to not use sat nav (to try to recreate that 1980s vibe) and stopped off at unplanned destinations. It felt spontaneous and exciting. I raced Helen Mirren along a beach, I jumped off rocks into the sea, I rolled down sand dunes and even recreated the famous Kate Bush Wuthering Heights video on the Yorkshire Moors.
Of course, it wasn’t quite the same without my mum and dad and siblings. But it did feel nostalgic and wonderful. I even heated up a tin of Chunky Chicken in White Sauce for old times’ sake and it was just as gorgeous as I remembered. It turns out that sometimes you can go back in time and when you do, it can be just as magical.
Susan Calman’s Scenic Britain will be on Channel 5 in early 2021
It’s a dream to travel with the Dame herself, but I suspect this is as close as I’ll get