Tall tales and true: of Yorkshire moors and the byways of Surrey: Going to Godalming

There is a better class of homeless in Godalming, it appears. They can erect tents to protect themselves and their plastic bags of possessions from the weather. This one can sleep dry, even comfortably prone for much of the day, tucked under a lofted alcove on one of the busiest footpaths in town with just an enamel 'poor dish' set out for donated coins at the ready for dinner. Makes living in Godalming look rather easy, even painlessly comfortable. It needs to. Some folk may need convincing that life there is that. Others have to be desperate to escape Godalming, and that would include us.

At the moment we live all of 11 or 12 miles north of Godalming, closer to London. A hop, step and jump in terms of distance. Almost anywhere else in the country you can still drive such a distance, no quibble, for something as mundane as a coffee, at times. Getting to Godalming today, even to short order a coffee, was a torturous tortuous nightmare. It took us hours. The twists and turns in and around Guildford enroute, where traffic has few options and is forced into the inner city both ways, contributes to the chaos. So the traffic and constant traffic jams were endless, both ways. We sat in dense non-moving gridlocks for most of a very long afternoon. We ended up with barely an hour to visit Godalming, and that, genuinely, was enough. I doubt there is any reason sufficient to inspire any one of us to ever choose to return.

Yet Godalming is frequently on the 'best places to live in the UK' lists. It has some charming old buildings that offer a street scape straight out of Dickens, with crooked half timbered buildings leaning woozily against black and white arched alleyways built to access livery and mews courtyards at the back of the High street. There are cute characterful butcher shops, and a market place with rounded arches, that looks a little like a pepper pot and is quite distinctive. And there are charity shops every couple of doors. Is this enough to make the drive there worth it? To some maybe. Definitely not to others. We made the effort because I have a relative who just happened to go to school in Godalming a couple of centuries ago. He was a boarder from Somerset. The school had already existed for a couple of centuries even then, so its roots are ancient. Today it is one of the most expensive schools in England to attend, if not the most expensive: in the vicinity of £40,000 per year for fees.

Even there we were uncomfortable. To get a photograph for my family history we ended up turning onto a private school road crawling with security cars and uniformed cops, chatting together around an empty football field. Why they all happened to be so aimlessly congregated at Charterhouse today, with not a single one visible on the streets trying to organise vehicles to get moving again, will remain one of life's mysteries. But in time, Charterhouse and Godalming will be forever frozen still in our memories. Things there will, very shortly, be stuck in a moment in time, and be forever unchangeable. Because seriously no one will be able to access anything anywhere in town anymore to change it. Very soon. The traffic to and fro is beyond controlling. Going to Godalming in the future will simply not be possible.