Happy holiday as the road to Hull is paved with good intentions

London? York? Or Bath perhaps? If you're anything like me, you want somewhere interesting with a couple of museums and galleries, eye-catching architecture and a few decent restaurants.

So places like Slough and Croydon aren't likely to be top of your list, unless, that is, it's your list of places to avoid. To say they're off the tourist radar is a bit like saying it rains sometimes in Manchester.

But travel writer Tom Chesshyre wanted to put this idea to the test by visiting some of the least likely destination spots in the country to see if they have more to offer than people realise. He travelled to 11 towns and cities all over the British Isles and describes his experiences in his book, To Hull And Back – On Holiday In Unsung

Britain.

"I wanted to journey around Britain and have an adventure but I wasn't interested in going to the usual tourist spots like Bath and York because they've been covered so much already," he says. "I wanted to go to those places that are usually the butt of jokes not to poke fun or patronise them, but to unveil some of their hidden secrets and show them in a better light."

These days travel writing is a well beaten path laid down over the

years by such eminent authors as JB Priestley, Paul Theroux and Bill Bryson. But Chesshyre, a travel writer with The Times, says there is much more to Britain than a handful of flagship towns and cities.

"We have such a rich history and so much has happened on our shores but a lot of it gets overlooked. If you do a bit of digging around, you can

find interesting things anywhere you go."

But we aren't, it must be said, short of dreary towns and cities in this country, so how did he choose which ones to visit? "Initially, I thought I'd go to four places and if I wasn't enjoying it then I could stop, but in actual fact it was a fascinating journey."

He started in Hull which has been much-maligned in recent years. In 2003, it was voted the worst city by the readers of Idler and two years later it topped a similar survey for Channel 4, although anyone who has actually bothered to visit Hull will know this is grossly unfair.

"I wanted to start off in Hull because it tends to get a bad press, but I was also interested in the Philip Larkin connection," explains Chesshyre. He arranged to meet Jean Hartley who made up one half of The Marvell Press, the novice publisher to whom, in 1955, Larkin entrusted the manuscript of The Less Deceived, his first significant collection.

"Larkin used to live in a flat in Pearson Park and she told me how they used to meet on a Saturday and sit in the park and chat. There's a poem of his called Friday Night At The Royal Station Hotel which describes all the businessmen heading back to Leeds and walking around there today you get a sense of the poem. They also have a Larkin Trail now on MP3 players so you can listen to poems in situ."

He found Hull a far more vibrant place than he'd expected. "I really enjoyed going there, the people in Hull were the friendliest of

anywhere I visited. I went there not long after the floods and I found a real spirit of togetherness."

Chesshyre spent several nights in each place and discovered a history he never knew existed. "Milton Keynes is famous for its roundabouts and concrete cows, but it's actually made up of 15 different villages and is one of the greenest towns in the country. It's also close to Bletchley Park where the Enigma code-breakers were based during the Second World War. I was taken on a tour by a woman who used to work on one of the machines and it was incredible listening to her stories

about what life was like."

Even in Croydon, hardly known as a tourist mecca, he found an

interesting past.

"I knew it was going to be difficult when the tourist office told me that one of the most frequently asked questions they get was, 'How do you spend three hours in Croydon?' But I stayed in a fabulous hotel with this mini-aviation museum next door, because long before Heathrow was built Croydon used to be London's airport. People like Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks senior, Winston Churchill and Amy Johnson all used it during its heyday back in the 1920s."

Despite his enthusiasm, he doesn't think people will be changing their summer holiday plans in a hurry. "I had a lot of fun along the way but I don't expect too many people will be flocking to follow in my footsteps."

n To Hull And Back is published by Summersdale, priced 8.99. To order a copy from the Yorkshire Post Bookshop, call free on 0800 0153232 or go to www.yorkshirepostbookshop.co.uk. P&P is 2.75.