My father’s eldest sibling – my Auntie Mary – though hailing from the family hometown of Bolton, Lancashire, married a highly decorated and highly tall (6’4”) Scottish army officer at the end of WW2.

In 1946, on the way to begin her new life as the wife of a now Glaswegian police officer, two English serviceman in the same train carriage advised her to get off at Carstairs, walk over the bridge, and return home. Glasgow was a terrible place, they said.

She stayed on the train and began her Scottish life, returning to Lancashire to ‘get a refresh’ every now and then. She and her husband raised seven children, getting them all through university and into good careers.

When I was young, we’d visit the Scottish relatives every summer. Somehow, they would squash the four of us into their already-full police house located a short distance from the infamous Castlemilk estate. Uncle Robert was by then a sergeant in the Glasgow police force.

But he, and my beloved Auntie Mary – still with us at 97 – are not the subject of this story.

When I turned 16, my father bought me a Ducati 250cc motorbike and a family friend let me use the internal roadway of the nearby Burton Tailoring factory to learn to ride it – in the evenings.

Having passed my test, I celebrated by setting off on a long-planned odyssey to Glasgow, to stay with my relatives. It was a bold move for a new ‘biker’. This was in the days when the M6 ended at Lancaster, and further progress towards Scotland depended on the trusty A6 trunk road, whose highest point – the Shap Summit – was the scene of frequent ‘strandings’ in the winter, as lorry drivers struggled to haul their loads over the mountains and towards the borders at Carlisle.

Shap is the highest point on the western route to Scotland, and is also one of the most elevated sections of any of the motorway routes in the UK. Its reputation was fearsome, but my trip back then was taking place in high summer. How bad could it be? There was no choice. The A6 was the only sensible way to get north of the border.

The journey from Bolton to Shap had been overcast but dry. The familiar towns of Preston, Carnforth, Lancaster and Kendal passed by as we sped north on the purring Ducati along the venerable A6.

My new (to me) leather jacket had been bought by my mum off the Warburtons bread van driver (they all used to wear them) who delivered bread, daily, to our off-licence.

“It’s due a change,” he said. “Give us a fiver and I’ll tell the boss it’s been nicked again by them kids from Wapping Street!”

The padded and strong jacket was now doing a fine job of protecting me from the inevitable summer chill of riding a motorbike. I’d attached a sheepskin collar with glue and few strategic stitches using an industrial needle and pliers. It was rising up and stroking my face in the wind, a good and warm feeling. A flying ace on his maiden voyage to Scotland… Life was good.

I was exultant, excited and a bit nervous as I took the final sweeping climb out of Kendal and, 30 minutes later, passed the Shap Summit – 1350 ft. It’s a bleak spot, and the winds howl like they’re about to eat your soul – even through the insulation of a second-hand crash helmet.

‘This memorial pays tribute to the drivers and crews of vehicles that made possible the social and commercial links between north and south on this old and difficult route over Shap fell before the opening of the M6 motorway.

Remembered too are all those who built and maintained the road and the generations of local people who gave freely of food and shelter to stranded travellers in bad weather.’

Above: a sober reminder that life was not always comfy cabins and motorway services

And then the rain started… and got heavier and heavier. When I finally passed into the environs of Penrith, I was saturated. My recently acquired leather jacket – not designed for motorcycling – was holding water beautifully, and I was freezing.

The A6 gave way to the A74 and I saw the first signpost to Glasgow … only 90 miles to go…

The sheepskin collar I had proudly added to the jacket had somehow loosened itself. It was sodden and stuck in a vortex pattern that resulted in it slapping me on the cheeks several times a second.

The rain drove at me, horizontally intent on sending me back to Lancashire. When I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore, I pulled into the next town, Lockerbie, and parked the bike in an alleyway visible to the cafe next door.

The kindly lady owner took pity on my state and let me drip all over her floor, bringing me several mugs of sweetened steaming black tea. I hated black tea… but not that day. A bowl of piping hot soup followed, accompanied by thick crusts of buttered bread. Half an hour later, I dug into my meagre reserves and paid her with heart-felt thanks.

Outside, the rain waited… My saddle was as sodden as my jacket. 70 miles to go. I ripped the useless sheepskin collar from my failed ‘flying suit’ and dumped it into the nearby bin. I was now on the A74, nearly as infamous as Shap. I crouched low over the bars and clung on, humming – anything to take away the misery…

When I got to Hamilton, I knew I was near to Glasgow. The rain had continued and I was now shivering all the time. I would look at cars passing me and imagine how lovely it would be in their heated cabins.

With twenty miles to go, the engine began to splutter. The famous Italian electrics, the weak point of an otherwise lovely machine, were doing their best to thwart the final part of the journey. I pulled over. Somehow, I managed to sort it; sitting on the kerb at the side of the road and using my penknife to strip the offending wire and make a new connection.

My brain was numb and slow with cold, I got to the edge of Glasgow; then Castemilk and finally I knew where I was… My destination lay at the end of this dual carriageway, seen, finally, through tired and bloodshot eyes.

Two of my younger cousins came screaming out of the house to greet the ‘drowned rat’ as my Aunty Mary later described me to my mother on the phone, confirming that I was still alive.

I was soon learning to breathe again in a steaming bath…

One of the small girls was Louise, the other Eileen. The elder siblings were all away at Uni or travelling, and Eileen had to leave the following morning. For the next few days, Louise had cousin Steve and his motorbike to herself as she clung to me, young arms strong around my waist while we used the bike to explore local beauty spots, none of them too far from her home, but all of them fun.

All the ‘Scottish cousins’ were our close friends but Louise made heroic efforts to stay closely in touch. Later, as an adult (and qualified Archeologist) she took every opportunity to visit us in Lancashire.

For some reason, my arrival by motorcycle in the storm that day was viewed as heroic. Years later, Scottish family tales continued to be told in summers and at New Year of the cousin who practically fell off his motorbike and staggered to their front door, sodden, bandy-legged and exhausted.

But smiling…

But I am not the primary subject of this double post, nor is Louise, nor even her mother, Aunty Mary…

In fact, the subject of this post will not be born for another 28 years. But she will come to complete this story in a most poetic and wonderful way…

To be concluded in Part Two, next Tuesday.