Sunday Times Where Was I? Holiday Competition

Near as I can figure it, as viewed through the possibly flawed perceptual filters of my own reality tunnel, the most likely answers this week, seem to me to be:

Q1. The Worcester and Birmingham Canal

Q2. Godfrey (Cyril) Baseley

The initial clues appear to place us at the Tardebigge locks, which lie to the north west of Redditch, in  Worcestershire. Thirty locks carry the waters of the Worcester and Birmingham canal ( opened c 1815 ), to a height of around two hundred and twenty feet. The tunnels mentioned in the hints are probably the 'Tardebigge Tunnel' ( five hundred and eighty yards long) and the 'Shortwood Tunnel', (six hundred and thirteen yards long).


The Birmingham and Gloucester Railway, according to some of the biographies I checked, was surveyed by a squaddie called 'William Scarth Moorsom' (born c 1804) and it was he who was instructed by the backers, to take the line directly up 'Lickey Incline', which is around two miles long and has a gradient of one in thirty seven. Bankers, in this instance, may not be referring to financiers but rather the extra locomotives that were attached to the trains seeking to ascend Lickey Incline, to provide the power necessary to get them up there.

The maps I looked at show Lickey Incline lying to the east of Bromsgrove and it was just north of that town, at 'Lickey Grange', that the motor manufacturer 'Herbert Austin' ( born c 1866 ) lived. Austin used numbers to designate his products and had car models called the Austin Seven, the Austin Twelve and the Austin Twenty.

The ruined Abbey, is probably Bordesley Abbey near Redditch. Some of the references I checked claim that this was a Cistercian Abbey founded c 1138. There seems to have been a Bishop's palace in the nearby village of Alvechurch, which back in the day, may have had fish ponds, moats and earthworks/palisade to keep live deer enclosed in the vicinity, so that it was easier for the bishop and his team to acquire meat.

Alvechurch, according to some of his biographies, is where the broadcaster Godfrey (Cyril) Baseley was born c 1904. Baseley produced a radio show called 'The Archers', which was first aired c 29th May, 1950.

N.B. Due to the number of people who normally write poison pen letters in green ink posting on his page, the Eastender has moved to moderated comments but rest assured, if you have a non abusive comment relating to the puzzle and its solution, he will endeavour to publish it.