OPS travel

You might be a spontaneous traveller – you don’t research, you don’t make lists, you just book transportation, show up and then see where your whims take you. Alternatively you might be an OPS traveller.

This week I showed up in Wing, Buckinghamshire organised (or disorganised) with the following:

• Printouts of the current Ordnance Survey map (obtained via tortuous means from their lovely iPad app).
• Scribbled notes and arrows on said maps pointing out a few key named buildings, and the earnest intention to somehow wedge notes about every single building in Wing onto the maps whilst simultaneously walking the streets and photographing them.
• Still more scribbled notes about approximate locations of my own ancestors’ homes.
• Aylesbury Vale District Council maps of the Conservation Area for Wing and the hamlet of Crafton, just in case I somehow miss a very important building, or ancient monument, or hill.
• List of all the listed buildings in Wing from http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/.
• Screenshot of Google’s satellite view of the churchyard (it's bigger than I thought).
• Various historic postcard views of Wing on the iPad so I could refer to them and hopefully do some 'Then and Now' shots.
• A custom Google Map I hurriedly created pointing out approximate locations for pubs, chapels and the like that no longer exist or have changed in nature, because apparently keeping track of just one timeframe’s geographical information wasn’t a big enough challenge.
• iPad (plus UK simcard ordered in advance from New Zealand) so I could access the said map and online Mega account where 8Gb of my Wing data was safely stored.
• Physical addresses, email addresses and phone numbers of those current Wing residents who were kind enough to suggest meeting up.

Unfortunately I omitted the manservant to carry everything and personal assistant to jot down notes for me as I wandered the streets.

Have I achieved everything I was hoping for? No. I was crazy. But I do have a better sense for the geographic character of the place my ancestors lived in, and I do have a photo of me there.

Alex Coles