The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
‘The Beetle might have become a British success...’
In the latest edition of our series looking at 80 memorable objects scattered around the world, Nick Trend finds himself drawn to Germany, Egypt and New York...
14
THE VW BEETLE
Germany
To millennials, it must seem like the strangest of outliers in the history of motor-car design. That’s probably about right – the curving roofline, bug-eyed headlights and the tinny whirr of its air-cooled engine, located, eccentrically, behind the rear seats, were unlike anything else on the road. It was a design byway which, though hugely successful, led nowhere.
But to those of us who grew up with it, the Volkswagen Beetle was always a simple, reliable, indisputable classic. The bestselling car – based on its original design – of all time. By the time the last Beetle rolled off the last production line in a VW factory in Mexico in 2003, more than 21.5million of them had been built all around the world. By then, it had not only been adapted into the camper van, but had become a Hollywood star – Herbie – of half a dozen comic films.
The original concept came, sad to say, from an idea ascribed to Adolf Hitler. He wanted a fast, efficient, reliable and affordable car for the masses of his new Reich. The prototype was to be called the KdF-Wagen or the “strength through joy car” and the development project was given to Ferdinand Porsche. The first Type 1s, with their distinctive, beetle-like shape – appeared just before the Second World War, though the numbers produced were low.
Ironically, the Beetle was not to prove an affirmation of Nazi ambitions, but a symbol of the recovery of German industry and engineering in the aftermath of the war. And, if history had panned out differently, it might have become a British success.
The British Army took over control of the factory at Wolfsburg in 1945, but no UK companies were interested in the equipment that had been installed there. “The vehicle does not meet the fundamental technical requirement of a motor-car”, “it is quite unattractive to the average buyer” and “to build the car commercially would be a completely uneconomic enterprise” were some of the
Around the world in 80 objects
8
Three’s company: children in I NY T-shirts
jThe death mask of Tutankhamun official conclusions of a subsequent British report.
However, the Army was interested and ordered 20,000 versions of the Beetle, which enabled the factory to keep going. By 1949, the company was back in German hands, had changed its name to Volkswagen, and by 1972, the Beetle had overtaken the Ford Model T as the world’s bestselling car.
You can see them in museums all over the world but, most notably, in the Stiftung AutoMuseum Volkswagen (automuseum-volkswagen.de/en.html) – the official company museum near the VW factory at Wolfsburg – where there are several models on display, including two convertibles and a basketry Beetle made of wickerwork. In Berlin, there is a 1951 “limousine” export model in the German Technology Museum (technikmuseum.berlin/en) and another of the same year in the German Historical Museum (dhm.de/en). And if you actually want to drive one, how about a four-hour tour of Berlin in a Beetle – about £90 (oldie-kaefer-tourberlin.de/en)?
15
THE DEATH MASK OF TUTANKHAMUN
Egypt
No other single image sums up the strange, exotic glamour of the Ancient Egyptians like the death mask of Tutankhamun. It has both extraordinary visual power – the intense black-eyed stare gives an uncanny focus to the burnished golden glow of his face – and its appeal is spiced by the romance of its dramatic discovery almost 100 years ago (and the supposed curse attached to it). It is also unique – the only death mask of a pharaoh to have survived more than 3,000 years of plundering raids by grave robbers.
The Egyptologist Howard Carter discovered the steps down to Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922. The hidden chamber was found to contain 5,398 items, including the solid gold coffin, clothes, furniture and jewellery. But none of the other finds has caught the imagination of the many millions of visitors who have been drawn to see the treasures – both in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and during several world tours – like the mask itself. In the world’s imagination, it quite simply encapsulates the mystique of Ancient Egypt.
It actually took three years from the discovery of the sealed tomb before Carter finally managed to open the stone sarcophagus and the three coffins it contained to reveal the life-size mask laid on top of the mummy. Made of thin layers of very pure (at least 18-carat) gold it is inlaid with precious and semi-precious stones – including the quartz eyes, and the brilliant blue lapis lazuli for the eyeliner, beard and the decorative stripes of the head cloth. It is adorned with symbols of kingly power – the royal head cloth itself, and the cobra and vulture on his forehead, representing his rule over Lower and Upper Egypt. And, on the shoulders, it is inscribed with the hieroglyphs of a protective spell designed to ensure Tutankhamun’s supremacy over the “Kingdom of the Dead”.
Ironically, in the scheme of things, Tutankhamun was a very minor figure, a footnote in the history of ancient Egypt. He did enact some religious and diplomatic reforms in the wake of the death of his father Akhenaten’s eccentric rule, but these were probably instituted by his advisers. He was, after all, a boy king who ruled for only nine years from 13321323BC and was only 18 or 19 when he died. The cause of death isn’t certain, but he was in poor health and chronic inbreeding among the royal family (he himself married his half sister) left him with a cleft palate, a club foot and, probably, a scoliosis.
The mask will be the centrepiece of the new Grand Egyptian Museum which is expected to open next to the Pyramids this autumn (gem.gov.eg).
16
I Ɔ T-SHIRTS
New York
You see them on virtually every souvenir stall in any tourist area of any city. The I Ɔ T-shirt has been adapted as a symbol of affection for London, Paris, Sydney and Bangkok and many, many more cities around the world.
It’s not surprising they are so popular. They make an ideal souvenir – something specific to the destination, which will advertise your globetrotting credentials when you get home, is easy to pack and perhaps saves you washing an extra shirt as you continue on your travels. But, unlike most souvenirs, the I Ɔ logo has some serious design credibility.
The concept behind it was not developed specifically for T-shirts – though they, along perhaps with mugs – are the most popular bearers of the image. It was created in 1977 to front up an advertising campaign promoting the city and state of New York to tourists – and is still the official state slogan.
The simple, direct message, conveyed in single letters and combined with a stylised image of a heart was dreamed up by a graphic designer, Milton Glaser – who was well known for the power and clarity of the way he combined text and images in the past. (He was most famous for a psychedelic portrait of Bob Dylan, which was included in Dylan’s Greatest Hits album of 1966.) The idea came to him during a taxi ride through the city – and he scrawled it down in a barely legible red crayon sketch, which is now in the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, along with more than a dozen more of his designs.
The success of the motto depends on its brilliant simplicity. It is almost poetic: four, emphatic syllables – three letters, one image – forming a neat square in black, white and red. It requires no translation and allows locals to feel proud, as well as tourists to show off. Even the original font – American Typewriter – is brilliantly judged, somehow spontaneous and free of fuss. And, when it is transferred to a T-shirt, something rather wonderful happens. The red heart of the logo appears immediately over that of the wearer.
To read about the other objects in our series so far, see telegraph.co. uk/tt-80objects
She’s hiked for thousands of miles across 160 countries and seven continents, but one thing guaranteed to overexcite Kate Humble is walking in the footsteps of dinosaurs. On a recent filming trip to England’s east coast, the TV presenter gleefully admits to indulging in a childhood fantasy.
“Someone only has to say the word ‘dinosaur’, and I immediately revert to being 10 years old,” she laughs. “There’s something so incredible about seeing a fossil; it’s a direct and very visceral connection with a past so long ago.”
From prehistoric giants and primitive tribes to covert smugglers and marauding pirates, our coastline is awash with tales of colourful characters who’d look more at home in a fictional read than a history book. But as part of Channel 5’s new six-part series Kate Humble’s Coastal Britain, the TV presenter hopes to give those stories a “three-dimensional” quality, while appreciating the beauty of well-trodden paths in a refreshing new light. Revealing hidden spots and jogging memories of forgotten stretches, she reinvigorates interest in an island we thought we knew well.
“It’s always good to be reminded of how unfamiliar we are with places on our doorstep,” says the travel veteran, who has made a proud, personal discovery of her very own during filming: “A place in East Devon called Humble Point, which clearly belongs to me!”
Following trails across Exmoor, York, Dorset and Suffolk, Humble hikes through ancient woodlands and along vertiginous clifftops, often emerging at viewpoints that, in her own words, are “almost too exotic to be England”.
Recalling the Valley of Rocks, the culmination of her hike along Exmoor’s South West Coast Path, she compares the serrated, boulderstrewn hillside to Zimbabwe’s Drakensberg escarpment and South Africa’s Cederberg Mountains.
“You imagine the Devon and Exmoor coast as being quite gentle, rolling and green. But this was so startling, with dramatic skylines. It felt like the edge of the world.”
Although perhaps not on a par with Africa, she claims the wildlife encounters were equally thrilling: adders writhing through the grasslands of Yorkshire; sand martins nesting in soft Suffolk cliffsides; and boisterous kittiwake colonies replicating scenes from Hitchcock’s Rear Window.
In the first episode, traversing Exmoor, Humble quotes musings from a 19th-century guidebook to reflect on her chosen path. Throughout the series, there are references to writers, poets and artists who have been inspired by England’s coastline and countryside, demonstrating the power of nature as a creative stimulus.
“If I want to get my head around something or work out a problem, I find the combination of walking and being in open green space incredibly therapeutic,” says Humble, reciting numerous scientific studies linking enhanced attention spans with time spent in healthy outdoor environments.
“Even if people like Wordsworth and Coleridge weren’t aware of the science at that time, they intrinsically felt it. If their brains needed the freedom to absorb the world around them and translate that on to a page, I suspect they knew being in a beautiful place would give a creative impetus.”
Along with sparking imagination, nature also has the power to restore physical health, a fact demonstrated by Humble’s meeting with author Raynor Winn. Her bestselling 2018 book, The Salt Path, describes walking the entire
South West Coast Path to help her husband, Moth, beat a terminal illness. In a post-pandemic world, when so many people will be seeking a remedy for the mental battering of the past few year, surely countryside walks could be the tonic we all need?
“I don’t think it’s any weird coincidence that the minute lockdown ended last summer, people flocked to National Trust gardens, to parks, to open spaces,” says Humble. “We’ve found a renewed enthusiasm for the countryside. We’ve tapped into an instinct that this is what we need to make us feel better, even if we don’t know why.”
With foreign travel restrictions intensifying, it looks likely the UK is in for another bumper staycation summer season, but Humble warns we should tread with caution. She advises tourists to avoid rushing to honeypot areas, and instead look for alternative pathways, viewpoints or attractions.
“Tourism is incredibly important to a lot of coastal communities, but there needs to be a balance. I live in a honeypot area in the Wye Valley, an area of outstanding natural beauty. Yet I can go for a walk every day and not see a single person, because I take a different route.”
Discovered or undiscovered, there are signs of beauty all over the country. But there are also startling indications of human activity. What’s remarkable, Humble says, is nature’s ability to reclaim and recolonise abandoned spaces. In Yorkshire, she visits Ravenscar, an abandoned town originally built with the vision of creating a Victorian seaside resort, and in Kent she explores beaches running alongside the Sizewell B power station.
“As long as we don’t completely trash it, nature is an amazing thing. It can reform land and recover even after something as dramatic as mining.”
Like anyone with a passion for wildlife and wilderness areas, Humble is acutely aware of the damage we are doing daily to our planet. Britain, in particular, is often criticised for its shocking rate of habitat loss. Currently we have some of the lowest levels of biodiversity in the western world, with only 50.3 per cent remaining.
“Had I been doing these walks a few hundred years ago, it would have been very different,” she says. “We are sadly living in a time when our wildlife has to compete with the unstoppable march of human demand.” Of course, there
‘When lockdown ended last summer, people flocked to National Trust gardens, to open spaces’
are examples of individuals making a positive difference, such as the owners of Kipscombe Farm in Exmoor, whose low-intensity farming methods are highlighted by the series. But we have a long way to go. Inspiring nature programmes might be a start, but Humble believes real change can only be driven by “brave political decisions” and “outdoor education”, giving young people “a chance to become the future guardians of our countryside”.
Ultimately, we all have a role to play. “If we want a world that is going to be a healthy, happy environment for the next generation, then all of us need to step up and play our part,” says Humble. “It’s no one else’s fault. It is our collective fault and our collective responsibility … and should be our collective pleasure, too.”
Kate Humble’s Coastal Britain starts at 8pm on Friday on Channel 5. Travel within the UK is currently subject to restrictions. See Page 2.