The first Briton to climb the world’s highest mountains, the 14 8000m peaks, all of which are in the ‘death zone’. With only another 12 people alive who have achieved this feat, Alan is part of a lucky few.

A straight talking Yorkshire man, I wanted to speak to Alan about the outdoors and what other activities he likes, as for a lifetime mountaineer, being outside and active is obviously something he loves.

So what have you been doing today as a typical day for Alan Hinkes OBE?

I was out in the hills today. Nice and grey, windy and I spent it scrambling. Now I’m back to Hawkshead just in time for the rain; last week was lovely and warm.

You’re still Yorkshire based then? (Alan grew up in Northallerton)

Yes still Yorkshire. I actually got awarded Yorkshire man of the year by Dalesman magazine this year which was very nice.

Did you get a statue you can keep in the loo to impress friends with?

Oh yes I got my ornament! I don’t keep it in the loo though!

 Your achievements are vast. Can you tell us about some of your recent achievements that people might not be aware of?

Most recently was last year when I did the highest point in all the counties in England, sponsored by Casio Pro-Trek for the charity Mountain Rescue. This was a great way to get out and whilst some of these aren’t particularly high, you get a sense that you are looking at some real beauty spots.

What’s your own preference then?

Oh definitely gnarly stuff. There are plenty of nice walks in the UK though. I think because I’m a Yorkshire man people expect me to say that it’s all about Yorkshire but actually, I find the lakes beautiful. Really nice. There’s also Wales. The Dales, the Moors. Plenty of great places.

Do you still get abroad?

Oh yes. I’m off to Nepal and Tibet soon and Bavaria for rock climbing, so yes, I still get out.

How did you get into the outdoors? Obviously we have the problem with obesity and so on, what would you say to that?

I started off at school and then it was a progression really to the Alps, the North Face of the Eiger, the Himalayas.

I think it’s really important to get kids outdoors. I was working with some PE students today with absolutely no experience of hill walking and all you need is a guide to get you out there at first. I’m a really big fan of walking. You don’t need to get out on 15 miles walks to get the health benefits, just a small walk at first. I think just being outside is beneficial.

I’m also involved in charitable work for Water Aid, the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and Mountain Rescue and stuff with the British Mountaineering Council, and any of these charities can help young people get involved.

What do you like to wear? Any brands?

I wear so much gear that I’m not really about brands in particular. You need to have a good waterproof, the right boots for the conditions really. Outdoor gear is so much better now than it has been. Of course there are the pieces that are made for fashion but the kit I wear is some of the best around.

Make sure you have the best kit you can afford – but don’t get bogged down by brands – best to spend time in the hills rather than shopping !

GO Activities is a way for people to book activities that they might not usually do. So what are your activities asides mountaineering?

Most of my activities are hill based – climbing, scrambling, Winter climbing/ice climbing, skiing, cycling/mountain biking, anything gnarly – well almost anything ! Potholing/caving and ghyll scrambling. Away from all that I’m also really keen on photography, I need to carry a camera most of the time  – to try and capture that elusive mountain image ! 

So what’s in the future for you?

Enjoying the hills – if you cut me in half it says mountaineer.

I spend time taking people out in the hills both adults and children. I often work with difficult young people, you can see how a hill experience can affect/help change their attitudes to society.  I’ve got a book coming out next year which is all about climbing the highest mountains  – the 14 8000m peaks.

We’ll be coming to your book signing then!

You’re more than welcome to.

You can have a lot of fun playing with the shutter speed.

And I was NOT trainspotting!

• Go to the web site of the National Archives www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
• go to Search the Archives and then Catalogue
• in department put in PCOM 4 for women or PCOM3 for men
• Go to the top ‘search’ icon then you can search by name, or by crime or, as I have, put in the term “York” and get a description of the female prisoner (between 1853 – 1887)

At the National Archives there is a whole file on each of these, on the web you just get a description of the file. Some files have photographs of the prisoner, their medical history, and what happened to them.

Here is an example – Licence Number: 2515. Name: Mary Ann Sullivan (alias Catherine  Casey). Convicted of: Larceny: stealing 10 yards of black silk. Court of Conviction: County of York Sessions, Northallerton, Yorkshire, West Riding. {?} Date of Conviction: 14 October 1862. Age on Conviction: 18. Sentence: 4 years penal servitude. Place of Abode: [Not given].  Covering dates 1866 Jan 31

Thanks Marion for sharing this useful resource.

Tickets are available priced @ £12 each. Cheques should be made payable to RABI and sent including SAE to: SINGING FARMERS TICKETS, 2 Elmete Croft, Scholes, Leeds LS15 4BE. Please state which concert you require tickets for.

Chris Berry writes every week for the YORKSHIRE POST, he also presents TV programmes for THE COUNTRY CHANNEL and plays in several music acts raning from ROCK to ACOUSTIC. He is a renowned writer and is presently writing the autobiography of JOE LONGTHORNE.

www.chrisberrysingerandwriter.wordpress.com   www.myspace.com/chrisberrysinger    www.myspace.com/cmcacoustic   www.the-fog.talktalk.net    Email: chris@chrisberry.tv     Chris is also on Facebook & Twitter.

Peak of West Burton Walk

Last night marked a week ago that I arrived back from England. I can’t believe already a week has passed, and with each day that goes by, I grow increasingly desperate to keep vivid in my mind my first holiday ever. Being sick on getting home (I’m still sick!), catching up with everything, and even going back to work has prevented me from writing sooner. Something else has, though, too: when I sit here and run the trip through my mind, I think: how to explain how I feel and where to bloody start? This post could go on eternally with all the details I have in my head! I wish I’d kept a journal while over there, or even posted daily (but I wanted to spend as little time as possible on the computer) so I didn’t feel so desperate to include every moment in this one entry.

After eons of wanting to go, at first I was kind of numb when my youngest sister T and her hubby surprised me by buying my ticket over. What did it really mean, since I had no idea what to expect? The imminent change in routine was so extreme I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Things went on as usual, at least until about two weeks before, when I started getting ready and even packing my suitcase.

Studley Royal (taking advantage of my new wellies)

My sister A has lived all over England for 12 years and I’ve never visited, not when she lived in London or Oxfordshire or Middlesex or the other places, including North Yorkshire, where she has lived now for several years. And I don’t think anything really sank in even as I was in the airport saying goodbye to Colin, boarding the plane, or chatting for an hour or two, standing at the emergency doors to stretch my legs, with a woman I met at the gate who was returning home to Yorkshire to visit family, or with my seatmates, a mother and daughter returning home after sightseeing in Toronto and Montreal.

The journey was fast and eventless, the service wonderful, the food horrible. I couldn’t eat or sleep. But I was otherwise fine. I had no idea where I was going, and not until the plane landed in Manchester (which from the air is quite lovely) did I begin to get excited, knowing my sister A and her husband would be waiting for me.

Rievaulx Abbey ruins

I breezed through authorities where others said I would have trouble (I had no address of where I was staying, for one) and finally met A and her husband and we got in the car for the two-hour drive to the RAF base in Leeming, where they live when they’re not visiting their cottage in Pickering (which is otherwise for let).

Only then, looking around me at the tumultuous landscape of multi-coloured peaks and valleys dotted with autumn trees or viewing the russet moorlands, stone walls and barns and farmhouses and cottages, every one looking centuries old, seeing pastures dotted with sheep and cows, and then noticing foreign cars and driving on the opposite side of the road, did I begin to feel as though I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. I think A and J enjoyed my constant awe-filled exclamations.

I have no recollection of actually getting to the house and meeting my mom, who’d been staying with A for the past four months, helping look after the three kids while J was stationed in Kandahar, and whom I hadn’t seen in about three years. Dad stayed home in Malta. I think Mom had made us tea and after our greetings we sat around the kitchen table and caught up while I struggled to stay awake and feel well (I was jetlagged and nauseated for about four or five days).  J and I did the two-minute walk to the school on base (the base is a maze of old stone, terra-cotta roofed rowhouses and hedges and fences and has a store, hairdresser, and so on. It’s surrounded by forests and fields and was a very lovely little village, complete with cobblestones) to pick up the kids, who were very excited to see me, and I them, and then A and I and Mom took Maverick, their very hyper and so hilarious and sweet springer spaniel, for a walk on the Three Fields, which I capitalize because I did the circumference of those vast fields many times during my first week there, and they were awesome to me.

But this post is already long and I haven’t even begun to tell you where I went and what I did and saw! Even now, as details of each day flit through my mind, I know I can’t hope to tell all. Once my sister was off work from Betty’s in Northallerton and on holiday, we could really start tramping the dales like hobbits journeying across Middle Earth, which is precisely how I felt most of the time. That and euphoric.

Castle Richmond, where Henry VIII often stayed

The landscape in North Yorkshire is so impressive it defies description—at least, I find my vocabulary sorely lacking for such magnificence, and my photography skills aren’t anything to boast about. But it was the geography that stunned me most of all. Then the people, who were all sweet and lovely and endearing and so easy to fall in love with. My shopping experiences were nothing short of real pleasure, in spite of the shocking prices. I’m sure I was lucky: naturally, every place on earth is bound to have the same kind of people one might lament in their hometown. But in general, it’s a fact, as written about by other delighted travelling writers and of course their own selves in books and magazines, that the Yorkshire dalesmen and women are an amiable folk, whose voices and accents and manner of speaking emanate as much comfort and joy as their delicious, heartwarming food. It was my excellent and enjoyable experience chatting with the locals, together with the opportunities the history and landscape offered, that made me feel I had finally found Home.

Two weeks is a short time. Probably people think I’ve got to give myself more time in the region and the novelty will wear off. Probably people think that I feel this passionately (for I feel I left my heart there), and that I enjoyed myself so much mainly because I was on holiday, minus work and obligations and the stress of everyday life. Certainly that had an effect on my time and perhaps even my impression. But sometimes, with some things, you just know. Don’t you?

West Burton walk

My sister has lived in England for twelve years and is as enamoured with the country and its character as she was when she first arrived. In fact, I lie: she is much more in love with it now. She would never in a million years leave willingly. She becomes emotional when she’s on a plane bound elsewhere, say to visit us here. J, who was brought up in North Yorkshire, said several times that he never knew or had an appreciation for his own country until A showed it to him. My sister is a passionate and appreciative explorer, as I found myself to be, and while they usually holiday in another country, she won’t rest until she’s tramped every square inch of England she can.

Besides visiting my family, that was my own goal: to hike the countryside and villages until I couldn’t take another step. I have wanted to do this forever, and I didn’t want to waste a single moment. England is notorious for its thousands of footpaths and ancient rights of way through farmland and forests and towns. One thing I was determined to experience as well was the tantalizingly rich history of the area, something I find lamentably lacking here. So I prowled the ruins of castles and abbeys and gazed at cathedrals and minsters and wandered endless fields and woods, walking in medieval footsteps, and stepped through myriad different stiles and pet ponies and horses and fearfully skirted angry young bulls and laughed at sheep. I did a lot of real hiking, though never enough, and I’m addicted.

The Shambles, York

I enjoyed tea and lemon and lime sponge cake in Betty’s in Northallerton (the queue was ridiculous in York both times I went so we had tea in the Shambles instead!), and tea and carrot cake in Ripon and tea and toasties in Pateley Bridge (where on the day I finally went and did the panoramic walk, the oldest sweet shop in England there was closed!!). I found THE pair of dress boots, I stripped mannikins of their clothes in charity shops galore, I splurged on a Tony Perotti handbag (thank you in-laws for the cash!), I bought and got good use out of a pair of Rydale wellies (which I’ve worn a lot here already) from the Yorkshire Trading Company in Pickering (because who in hell can afford those damn Hunters?), and I gorged on Wensleydale cheese and scones and fat rascals and dark chocolate with chili and lime from a specialty shop. I crunched Braeburn apples from outdoor markets, scoured an antiquarian book fair, and attended mass in Bedale. I savoured the best jersey cow ice cream I’ve ever had at The Station in Richmond (flavour: christmas pudding, because where else will I ever get that but in England?) and later enjoyed  Fantastic Mr. Fox there too in the tiny movie theatre with the kids.

I slid into the area as though returning home, and would not have been embarrassed if you’d caught me reading the Dalesman, a small local magazine. I also devoured Dales Life and Country Walking. I totally felt I was meant to live there, that I did already live there. Contrary to feeling what I had expected: uncomfortable living out of a suitcase, the need for peace and quiet away from family, the urge to return home and missing Canada, the shortness of time, I felt completely at ease. I felt I’d been there longer than I had. Surprisingly, my sister and I never tired of each other; in fact, quite the opposite: we discovered how much more we have in common. I always enjoyed J’s company. The kids didn’t bother me. I missed only Colin and Lucy (the ex-pats on the plane home told me they had missed Tim Horton’s!!) and wished that whatever I wanted from here could just be relocated.

While desperate to drink in every moment, every detail of what my eyes beheld no matter where I was because I knew I couldn’t stay, I did not give much thought to returning home.

The hardest bit of the trip, I think, was being a veg when the menus boasted mutton and pork and beef and all manner of delectable comfort foods. I was tempted but didn’t stoop to compromise my health so much by eating a chip butty, and I did find enough good food to eat.

Richmond

I laughed in the rain (and it didn’t rain often) as we hiked over smoothed rocks and roots and stood on castle keep tops. I cried on the cliff overlooking Bishopdale and other villages. I always looked back to memorize where I’d been. I went at the perfect time:  we had fine weather, and autumn, with it’s drawn-out reluctance to come to an end, does not disappoint.

All the while I ached to show Colin what I was seeing, did not think much of where I was from but rather lived moment to moment where I felt I fit in. I dream of doing Land’s End to John O’Groats or the Ridgeway. I watched Henry VIII with Ray Winstone (brilliant!) and walked in the footsteps of monks and kings and archbishops of old. I drank mead in Castle Richmond. I cherished every single  moment of my time there. And I want to go back. I’m so afraid I’ll get back to normal and Life will take over. Already, back to the stress of following a routine and working a job I know is not my life’s ambition, I feel a terrible malaise taking hold. Today at work as I sat at my desk and nursed my throbbing head, memories of my trip hit me (I remember such details, so much of everything!) and tears of “homesickness” sprang to my eyes. I yearn to go back.

Taking a moment

But if I keep looking at my photos, keep looking at my shoes and boots in wonder, thinking, these soles walked on the cobbles of the Shambles in York, on the steep medieval steps built by monks in the forest, on the well-trodden stones of Castle Richmond keep, on the footpaths of livestock; if I keep sipping lapsang souchong tea, comforting on chilly hikes, and the heady, fragrant Earl Grey from Betty’s, if I continue to hear the Yorkshire accent in my head and every Friday when I go to the bank to do our clinic deposit and I see my friend Jan (from Yorkshire), if I keep wearing my comfy sweaters I bought at Oxfam, keep looking at my photos and cut-out pictures from magazines, my tickets and receipts and brochures of where I was, and if I keep my walking gear at hand, I’ll have constant incentive to squirrel away some money every month to put toward next year’s ticket.

I’ll be damned if it’s too long before I go back again.

I arrived in Northallerton late afternoon –it was raining. As I drove down the High Street I saw a few shops I thought I might visit.

Parking was available on the Street – excellent news I thought! But then I noticed that you needed a disk. Still smarting from my pathetic parking fine (‘won’ at 10pm at Canning Circus in Nottingham on a weekday night!) I was reluctant to park without a ticket – or in this case a “disk”. But where do you get the disks. I drove up and down the street twice and couldn’t find any clues.

Guess what? I gave up!

When we were in America we were really concentrating on what makes world-class attractions. Attention to detail was one of the things we noticed – and this sort of detail is easy to overlook. It’s fine for the residents of the town – they ‘get it’, but visitors don’t necessarily. It looks a great place. I was prepared to pay for short-term parking – but even if I knew where I could get a disk – could I risk leaving my car without one? Perhaps they think you should go for the first time on the bus. But where was the bus?

You might say I missed out – but the reality is that the town did. I would have probably spent some cash – in a shop or in a coffee shop. But I didn’t – because I couldn’t!

Top Gear Top Tip – “don’t make it difficult for visitors – make it easy”.

p.s. The Hotel was great!

Firstly we had to go up to Northallerton to the County Records Office – a little bit of local research on both the village and our own house. We took the scenic route – avoiding Sutton Bank as we needed to pick up diesel. However, it meant we enjoyed a drive via York and then up the A19 instead, which has its own views and which we usually miss when heading up north. We didn’t miss seeing the White Horse though!

The White Horse at Kilburn is not a neolithic entity like its cousin in Uffington. It is a Victorian creation (or Folly) which is maintained today by a dedicated group of people, and achieved brief notoriety when it was defaced, along with Uffington, as part of the protest against the Bill outlawing hunting.

Northallerton itself is another town similar to our own Malton, but seat of the North Yorkshire County Council. The Records Office presents a humble face to the public, but I am assured by staff that there is in fact a genuine Tardis behind the public building, and certainly the collection housed there must take up considerably more space than the frontage would indicate. We had a good day and found some great records, both photographic and written; I was particularly taken with the Servants’ Wages Book (although it turned out this related to a different hall owned by the same family as owned the Hall at Kirby Misperton). The other treasure was the School Log Book from the 1870s up to 1916. I am definitely going to go back to get more on that!

The following day we drove from Northallerton to Lancaster – from White Rose to Red Rose country. But my goodness, I always forget how far west Yorkshire goes! We drove along the A684 through the Dales, past endless dry stone walls and boulder-strewn streams, fields dotted with sheep, and the Settle-Carlisle railway viaduct at Ribblehead.

Lancaster, whatever its historic rivalry with York, is a lovely old city with a 1960s university, a mirror image in fact of York itself. Coming home we took the alternative but equally lovely route via the A59 all the way to York, including a detour through Knaresborough by mistake. Mea culpa!

That allowed us to look at the chequered houses though, as we drove past them and Mother Shipton’s Cave. I shall have to write about Mother S. another day I think…but here are some of the houses from a visit a few years ago.

The best bit of this trip, though, was collecting my son.

Next day I went to watch/listen to the service ringing at St Paul’s Cathedral I suppose that is the real one too – but no one has said so The ringing was jaw-droppingly good. I went up to the bells and saw six being raised. I could also look out the ‘porthole’ window space and see great views while being scared out of my wits. Yesterday I saw a construction worker leaning off a beam, hanging out into space, holding on with one hand – obviously without my fear of heights – and also obviously without any safety harness. Crikey!

After coffee with the St Paul’s band I set off, listening to their ringing outside along the way to St Martin in the Fields where I rang some rounds and call changes, butting into their 12 bell spliced surprise practice. E-Aunt had invited me to this … and so I got a piece of a fabulous cream & fresh raspberry sponge she’d made for one of the ringers – very late the night before as she was at Brick Lane for the curry! The birthday ‘boy’ has a brother in Melbourne who used to ring for a while. I’m not sure if it was our ringing or his gaining a wife and family that stopped his ringing career :-/

On Tuesday nights it’s practice at Nutwood, aka Willesden. This was a band I could ring with …. but not without mucking up most of what I tried. I’d like to think it was because I was pretty tired … but that would only be making excuses. It was good to have the company of Rupert Bear and another ringer on my return journey … on three trains as my companions tried to decide what pub to have a drink at before our farewells Mind you, three trains isn’t a problem when trains are so frequent and you only have to jump across a platform.

Next day it was back to Bishopsgate for the lunchtime ring. The church looked lovely, decorated for their patronal festival. Only four there to ring – one of whom was Laura, over from Boston. Minimus it was!!

Due to a change of plan at the venue (it was being used for a church service – quelle surprise!!) it wasn’t Southwark Cathedral but St Sepulchre’s where I rang next. Another serious 12 bell tower but they did have a couple of learners so I didn’t feel bad about joining in rounds and call changes there.

And my last ring – so far – was at St Giles in the Fields. I was expected there on my last visit to London but didn’t make it so made good my lapse … most enjoyably. There was a huge crowd, at least four visitors, including me, so again I was quite happy with my ring of rounds and call changes. A very friendly band with those who didn’t have to go back to work adjourning to the pub. They have a Tuesday practice too so, because it’s close to where I’m staying, I might get there next Tuesday, the evening before I’m due to fly home.

Monday I’m planning to go to Kilburn where I’ll catch up with some of the ringers for the last time.

And for now I’ll sign off as the bloke at the next computer, four inches away, talks to himself out very loud and when I asked if he could speak more softly he was offended that I don’t find his thoughts fascinating. Perhaps someone does ….. (Reading out loud too – learning difficulties??)

As well as putting faces to names I’ve come to know via email, I also caught up with Lynell and Richard from Melbourne. If only there were more time to spend with people at each place ………

The Routemaster outing has been mentioned – although not my first home cooked meal for weeks. It was so good to sit down to meat and salad in a family home.

There have been practices with high-powered bands and local bands that have been much more like home.

Clenchwarton, as well as ringing at three local towers, gave me my first experience on a mini-ring. I don’t like handbells (to ring, I mean – they sound great) but I think I could get hooked on mini-ringing if I had the chance.

There was the whole weekend based around Witham on the Hill with about 10 towers, one of PPB’s famous ringers’ teas (more splendid home baked fare), a pub lunch (no chips!) topped off by my first quarter peal in England – Grandsire Doubles conducted by the one and only Rupert Bear and rung in a tower where the bells echoed in a magical way. As well as organising the towers and local ringers, Pamela also made sure I was able to put faces to many more email names. Surprise, surprise! Not all matched my mental pictures!! What can you expect when such images are conjured out of the ether?!

Then there was Melbourne – the real one, I was told. Can that be right?? I didn’t recognise it ….. and the beautiful Norman church with those wonderfully big pillars looked far too old for the place I call home The very long draught had three levels of rope guides – a real work of art, if the technical feat can be thus described. Before heading off again Tony gave me a walking tour of his village (complete with tower grab!) not far from the English Melbourne – 60 houses, 160 residents …. and beautiful!

The last riging stop before London was Cheltenham. The steam train has been mentioned. But not the friendly ringers and the pub afterwards – the same the trip over. Same old doesn’t quite cover it when the experience is so good! And there was some famous MBD crumble too

En route to Cheltenham was a non-ringing visit to Farmer Mo and her family. It was end of the school day so after collecting her children from school I was given a tour of her church and tower. It’s obviously an active community who take pride in and great care of their surroundings. Although the stairs to the tower were different – a modern design for the lower half and scarily worn wooden treads for the upper half!

The hire car worked very well. As usual I wasn’t bothered by the traffic – just got very stressed when trying to find my way. “Services” are wonderful. Didn’t buy petrol at any of them and sandwiches only once. But to consult maps … many, many times!! At Leicester Forest services I saw a great number plate: MI5 ROX

The best of the car journeys was when I was a passenger. When staying at Clenchwarton the lovely Andrew chauffeured me to some old churches I wanted to see in villages with names that varied on the Burnham theme. We also drove a lap around Sandringham, one of the Queen’s places. Her Maj didn’t invite us in for a coffee – rather bad form I thought, travelling from the Colonies to the Mother Country as I have! We also went to the Walsingham shrines. Very interesting if not my style of religion.

On the buses …. the red double decker is a London icon. I’ve been on a few since arriving in London but the best bus was many miles away. The Unchanging Jennie had organised a special outing. About 20 people travelled from Northallerton to Whitby and back again on a bus owned by one of the ringers: a true icon, an old RouteMaster – the sort where you could grab the pole and leap on while the bus was still moving. A real no-no these days. Those on board had great fun and heads turned all along our route, taking in towers at Stokesly and Guisborough. Whitby was a tower plus fish & chips. Yum!
I had been to the cliff top at Whitby before when I did a five-day tour with the Benedictines of Ampleforth, In the Footsteps of the Northern Saints. If anyone had suggested back then that one day I would ring the bells in that church I’d have said they were crazy. The moral: Never say never!!

The trains have been many and varied. After returning the car, training from Luton Airport to London – dead easy but pretty standard. The Tube – no need to worry about timetables, another train will be along in a minute. And if the line is closed at the weekend as some are (like Sydney, that!), there’s always another route.
The most fun was the steam train from Toddington to Cheltenham Racecourse, with lunch in Cheltenham to break the journey, so to speak. That was made truly enjoyable because Rosie, at 3+a bit, was old enough to take it all in. From being wary of the monster engine at first she became interested and instead of being scared by the awful hissing noise of the brakes, putting hands over ears became a game … one that I joined in too, I might add! Rosie and I were joined by her dad, the inimitable Mark, and her little brother Luke but unfortunately her mum Catherine had to work.

The extravagance was Eurostar – London to Paris in 2 hours 20 minutes!! What a smooth ride. Take a tip though: don’t get a seat at a table. You’ve only got extra leg room if no one is sitting opposite you – as on my trip over. On the trip I had the legs, knees and feet of a very tall man to contend with and had considerably less room than a regular seat has. Of course, Paris meant The Metro too.
It’s hard to know why Melbourne has spent mega millions on reinventing the wheel – and failing! – when both London and Paris have automated ticketing that works!!

Horrified colleagues looked on as Tim Tasane, 46, became engulfed in flames at the rear of Northallerton fire station in North Yorkshire.

The inquest into his death heard he spoke to one of his sons just moments before he took his life, mentioning mounting debts and his home being repossessed.

Fire control officer Debra Pheasant was on duty shortly before midnight on January 9 when she heard noises coming from the back yard.

She initially thought it was the sound of geese but when she went to investigate she discovered her colleague on fire.

She said: “There were several seats of fire in the yard. There was a man on fire at the window in front of me.

“Firefighters were putting water onto Tim. I shouted out ‘what are you doing?’ I couldn’t take in what was happening. I thought it was an exercise. I wondered ‘where is everybody’. I didn’t realise who it was at the time, I knew it was a fireman.”

Mr Tasane had been a firefighter for 28 years and had been based at Northallerton since 1982, often working with children on community safety issues.

He had three sons and a daughter and lived in Northallerton.

One of his sons, Ben, who serves in the Army, told the inquest how his father broke down in tears one day as he dropped him off at the train station.

He was being deployed to Iraq and his father agreed to take him to the station.

He told the hearing: “He did not seem himself at all. I have been to Iraq before, he’d seen me go off before. He was never like this before, he started sobbing and crying. I said to my mother, just watch him.”

Ben said he spoke to his father on the phone several times before his death and he seemed more like his normal self.

However, about 15 minutes before he took his life he spoke to his father again and he mentioned some of his problems.

“He said he was going to go away and I was to look after the others. I rang him back and he said he had mounting debts and the house was going to be repossessed.”

A typed note, which was not read out to the court, was found among his possessions.

The hearing which was held in Northallerton, heard how Mr Tasane used petrol from a nine-litre can which is placed on all fire appliances.

He had used the petrol to douse himself and some towels before lighting the inflammable substance with a match.

He was given emergency first aid at the scene before being taken to the Friarage Hospital in Northallerton.

He was then transferred to the burns unit at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary where he died from his injuries.

The verdict recorded by coroner Michael Oakley was that Mr Tasane had killed himself.