A TV show about a bus ride around the Dales? It’s ust the ticket ...
CoNTRol yourselves, but after one hour and 17 minutes, the bus driver scratches his nose. Shortly after this, he has to slow down to allow a sheep to cross the road. on this summer day, with the hawthorn blossom thick in the hedgerows and the sun high in a clear sky, the only sounds are the occasional cry of a curlew or the lowing of cows in the lower pastures.
on the high lands, two ladies, sturdy of thigh and boot, get off the bus to go hiking. Thank you, driver! ‘Have a nice day,’ he says, and presses pedal to the metal as the bus engine rumbles into life again.
onwards we trundle. A passing cloud looks a bit like Mickey Mouse. There is some washing on a line near Reeth. Cars politely slow down to let the bus through.
Nothing much happens, yet — how can I explain this — it is all rather mesmerising.
Welcome aboard the Northern dalesman, the bus service that runs from Middlesbrough to Ingleton, across some of the most stunning countryside in England. A ticket for this trip would cost only a few pounds (concessions apply, ting, ting!) but through the miracle of modern television, you can now take this journey from the comfort of your own home.
For following the success of previous slow television programmes, including All Aboard! The Sleigh Ride and All Aboard! The Canal Trip, BBC Four has used a twohour slice of this bus journey through Swaledale and beyond as its latest venture into the delights of the dawdle.
All Aboard! The Country Bus joins the Northern dalesman from Richmond in North Yorkshire on to its journey’s end at Ingleton; the village where Arthur Conan doyle got married.
The bus has been rigged with specialist viewing equipment and the journey is filmed in real time.
Cameras capture the unfurling road, the passing scenery and the occasional chatter of the passengers, all of whom seem oblivious to the fly on their bus wall. At one point, a gentleman in one of the front seats even nods off.
BUS Ride has been inspired by the Scandinavian craze for slow TV — those meandering programmes featuring continuous views of log fires, railway journeys and even a jumper being knitted. They have become a big hit with audiences overjoyed to find a refuge from the noisy bombast of such shows as The X Factor and Strictly Come dancing, or the endless screaming of overexcited sports commentators.
last year, 500,000 people watched a BBC Four show featuring a barge gliding along a canal, while the Sleigh Ride, filmed in the Arctic Circle, had an even bigger audience.
This time we are a little closer to home in Yorkshire, on a bus ride that is both lush and harsh. We journey through the Swaledale river valley thronged with trees and bushes, alongside meadows filled with yellow rattle and other wild flowers, past ancient mining villages and up, up beyond the treeline and into the high dales.
Here, silent, vast tracts of land are covered with cottongrass, with magnificent vistas including the Three Peaks mountain range in the distance and good views of the remarkable 24-arch Ribblehead viaduct, one of the great engineering achievements of the 19th century.
There are occasional captions which provide details about the natural and geological environment, while sometimes the ghostly figures from another age are superimposed on to the backdrop, to give viewers an idea of how farmers and shepherds eked out a living here hundreds of years ago.
But nothing intrudes or spoils the magic of the thousand shades of green displayed by the glorious English countryside. There is no commentary, no annoying celebrity trying to impose their ghastly personality between you and the sheep, no voiceovers, no presenters, no shrill and panicky music, nothing to distract you from the stark beauty of the dales.
At first, it seems a bit like being inside one of those GoogleEarth street mapping vans with the bus driver at the helm, pen in his shirt pocket, big tattoo on his right forearm, steady as she goes.
This is the only way of crossing the dales from east to west by public transport and he is just the kind of man you could trust to get you round those scary bends further down the road.
on this perfect summer’s day, we get a glimpse of Richmond, a handsome town with not a scrap of litter on its tidy streets. Soon we are in the Yorkshire dales National Park, which must have very strict rules about conservation and preservation; there isn’t a bolt-on conservatory or a carport in sight — even the corrugated iron roofs on some of the barns look picturesque. It is so peaceful and pretty that, before long, I am drifting into a rural reverie. Who lives in those handsome grey stone houses, with their wood framed windows and white doors? do they have an Aga, a dresser for their crockery, homemade jam in pots with gingham tops? Could I possibly live here, with a farmer husband and cows in our field, ladling out milk from a bowl for porridge in the morning, sprinkling parsley on dumplings, waxing the parquet floors with lavender polish? What’s it like in the winter, when the weather closes in and the roads are blocked? Is that a disused barn over there? That would do me. A stove, a dog, a spade, a frontier woman’s spirit. That’s all I would need. or maybe not.
Perhaps it’s just enough to imagine being there, gulping down big draughts of oxygenated Yorkshire air instead of choking on the city smog.
We pass a lovely graveyard, we go through Grinton and Reeth and then Gunnerside, where a Viking chieftain once lived.
The scenery becomes bleaker and even lovelier, with fissures cut by streams forking across the hills as we reach 1,726ft above sea level on one of the highest roads in the Pennines.
It is only on the descent towards Ingleton that the signs of light urbanisation begin to reappear; telegraph poles, trimmed kerbs, road markings piped like neat icing on to the tarmac.
And then, at last, the ultimate sign of proper country life in the UK today — a trusty Spar van making its deliveries.
It is all very thrilling, in its own very quiet way.
All Aboard! The Country Bus, Monday, August 29, 8pm BBC4
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