Galahad's VirtualTourist Home Page

I am a retired 66 years old, married with two children (26 and 23) and live in Stourport-on-Severn, in the middle of England. My wife is called Carol, my eldest son is Miles and finally my daughter is called Lydia.
Miles works as a free-lance audio engineer and has now left home to live about half a mile away. Lydia has finally left University as a qualified nurse and has a job as a Community Staff Nurse at Lingfield in Surrey which she started at the end of November.

I love travelling and get as much pleasure from the journey itself as the place I am going to. All my travels for the first 45 years were around the United Kingdom and only for the last 15 or so years around Europe. Carol lived in hope that our horizon would expand further and magically it did in May 2005 when to celebrate our Ruby Wedding Anniversary we went to Boston and Vermont in the USA.
We have 3 cats. Carol and I are into preserving all our different cultural identities, such as language, shops, food, religion and all the things that make your town different from ours.
I have noticed that since I started making entries on my various VT sites in July 2000 that they are increasingly reflecting my own eccentricities and are becoming a more and more eclectic collection of ideas and notes.
I graduated in Sociology with an Honours in Community Work at Birmingham Polytecnic (became the University of Central England and is now Birmingham City University ) in 1972. In September 2002 I went back to University (University of Worcester) after a 30 year gap doing a Masters Degree in 19th Century Studies. I have noticed that it is beginning to influence some of the places I visit and have recorded on VT. In 2007 I am still at the University currently writing a dissertation on "Religion and Railways in the 19th Century" and I am sorry to say it is leaving me very little time for VT at present.
Please feel free to contact me.

Before retiring I worked for 9 years as a public librarian, for 10 years as a social worker and finally as a very unusual welfare/civil rights worker, advisor to the national local government association on social security law, and research assistant in the House of Lords.

I used to record my day-to-day activities but recently I have not been able to keep up. Most days I still do check my VT site record but cannot always write where I have been, and what I have done. However, it has resulted that I have opened up loads of VT pages near to home. What I hope is that if you visit my part of England you will know what is there to see and what is worth doing. It is surprising how many different places you visit in the course of every day living, that can make interesting VT tips.
I used to say that if you commented on my pages I would always write to you and thank you. Unfortunately I almost always a bit behind on my studies so I am not managing to write to most people in the way I used to do. I do still look at the page you have commented on and frequently add to that page or update it. Even if you don't comment on a page but rate something I will nearly always have another look at it to see if what I wrote needs updating.

I have puzzled over this subject. You will not find me recommending the Macdonalds or pizza chains. I would like to say that only a restaurant that would get in a good local guide will get in my list, but I think that is not entirely true. Sometimes a restaurant is trying to do something unusual in a place which is a food desert and they will get into my list.
In October 2007 I became the first Leader of a new Slow Food Convivium for Worcestershire. http://www.slowfoodworcestershire.org.uk/

For the last 50 years I have been interested in British classical music and composers such as Benjamin Britten, Gerald Finzi and Edward Elgar (Worcestershire's local composer). Recently I have become interested in World Music, in particular Cuban, African, Portugese, and in 2004 I added Klezmer music to this growing list.

I have recently enjoyed watching a television series on Dicken's trip to America. I followed this up on my recent visit to Boston.
I quite enjoyed, much to my surprise, reading George Elliot's the Rev Amos Barton story in Scenes of Clerical Life. I have just finished listening to Edmund Gosse's autobiography of his childhood "Father and Son" on audio-cassette and am following this up with the very thick Dicken's "Dombey and Son".
The photo is from the National Portrait Collection.