The accession of the UK’s third prime minister in four months reminded me of the couple of times I visited his parliamentary constituency, Richmond in North Yorkshire. The first was in 1989 when I was part of the Labour team helping our candidate take on a new young Tory called William Hague in the by-election caused by the resignation of Leon Brittan to become a Vice-President of the European Commission. I’m going to draw a veil over that experience.

The second was in 2009 when Jacqui and I did the whole St Bees Head-Robin Hood Bay Coast to Coast walk. It took us a total of fourteen days to cover the 195 or so miles, and five of the nights were spent sleeping in various B&Bs in the Richmond constituency. At least one of the landladies whose houses we slept in was a fan of Mr Hague, and had his books displayed on the coffee table in her living room.

The overnight stops are shown below. I see from my notebook that the distances involved were:

Saturday 25 July 2009: Kirkby Stephen – Keld. Distance 12 miles.
Sunday 26 July: Keld – Reeth. Distance 11 miles.
Monday 27 July: Reeth – Catterick Bridge. Distance 14.5 miles.
Tuesday 28 July: Catterick Bridge – Ingleby. Distance 19.5 miles.
Wednesday 29 July: Ingleby – Great Broughton. Distance 12 miles.

Pictures to follow when I dig them out of my archives.