Boldly Go Solo

I met Marilyn the same day I met the World’s Top Whistler. She’s American. He’s English. We all converged in Saddleworth, in the north of England. A bit of a drive from Manchester.

Surely you’ve heard of Saddleworth? And the villages of Bleak Hey Nook, Brook Bottom, Crompton Fold, Delph, Diggle and Dobcross.
No?

Well, suffice it to say it’s a pretty little village with old stone houses, flowers everywhere and a local pub called The Swan. I got there by tour bus with about 35 other people attending the Society of American Travel Writers annual convention. I didn’t know anyone on my day tour when the day started.

I sat in the back of the bus, ate the huge beef and cheese sandwich our hosts provided and enjoyed a boat ride along the Huddersfield Narrow Canal during one stop.

In Saddleworth, we stopped for a pint at the pub and a look around. I ordered the Cocker Hoop Golden Bitter. On tap.

While milling about, somehow Marilyn and I started to chat. She was standing on one side of a picnic table in the pub’s courtyard, debating what to drink. When she told me her role in the travel business is promoting properties, I figured  that as a marketer of sorts, she’d be a good person to run some ideas past for naming my blog. This blog.

"What do you think of the name ‘Just Go Away’ I
asked at some point. "Which is better? ‘Go Away’ or ‘Just Go Away?’ "
And that launched a friendship that continues today, seven months after
we met in the village we refer to as "Wigglesworth."

Even though she
lives in New York. And I don’t. We just clicked. And I believe it
happened because both of us were traveling solo. We didn’t have our own friends to shield us from chance encounters and conversations.

As for the
whistler? Well, a photographer on our day tour was taking a photo of a
little building with a "Saddleworth Bank" sign on it. Turns out this is
not a bank at all, but the home of David Morris, world champion
whistler.

He saw the hubbub outside and came out to see what
was up. And then, with some encouragement, he gave us a whistling demo. Of "Flight of the
Bumblebee." Hugely impressive. And, one of those crazy things you just
can’t believe you’re seeing. Or hearing. Listen to a whistler sampler at his Web site.

Photos: Ellen Perlman. Flowers in Dobcross. The whistler’s house. The whistler in action, with Marilyn just visible over his right shoulder.