On motorways these days to the despair of more macho peers I’m generally to be found pootling along in the

On motorways these days, to the despair of more macho peers, I’m generally to be found pootling along in the middle lane doing around 60 and, when overtaken by Astras, Mondeos and, God help me, Mini-Cooper convertibles all doing 75 or worse, I mutter to myself my mother’s invariable words when someone sped past her: “Well, go on then – kill yourselves…” So I am not a speeder – and yet now, it seems, I most certainly am I have the evidence to prove it In the past two years I’ve come on like a master criminal. OK, I once touched 100mph on the M3, just to see what it felt like What did it feel like? I was petrified. Unfortunately, none of this, gentle reader, is true – not about the car-driving, anyway. Despite all the circumambient speed-worship that’s hummed around my head for half a century, I was never keen on making a car go fast for the sake of it. On motorways, I’d spend, on average, just a few minutes in the fast lane before retreating pronto to the inside, emerging therefrom only to overtake caravans. I screeched along country roads like Mr Toad, shouting “Poop poop!” at scattering hikers; at roundabouts, I cornered on two squealing wheels; I practised handbrake turns in busy streets for the hell of it; if I was late for an appointment I sailed down bus lanes to avoid the traffic; I leapt through red lights, computing there was probably a five-second time lapse built into the mechanism Outside Bow Street police station, I once did 80. It was no coincidence that I was just a few months old when Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile.

‘Speed’ echoed the walls to us galloping through.” Speed echoed through my formative years, as cars became faster, jets broke the sound barrier, Donald Campbell’s Bluebird tumbled to destruction on Coniston Water, rockets hurtled to the Moon. So it was only natural that, when I finally learnt to drive – a late starter at 30 – and bought myself a Fiat 127, I would hit the road like a dervish released from a dungeon Oh yes, I remember those days. Her head went down, reared back up, plunged down again, and suddenly we were galloping for the first time, myself and two tons of barely-controllable horseflesh, and I yelled with delight, like the narrator of Browning’s ” How They Brought the Good News From Ghent to Aix”: “I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris and he; I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three ‘Good speed’ cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew. I submitted happily to the torture of the Rotor, which whizzed round so fast that, when the floor dropped away, you were pinned to the wall by centrifugal force, ducking the flying vomit from revellers 10 yards to your right.
When I learnt to ride a horse, the exhilaration was like learning a new way to breathe. After weeks of walking, trotting and cantering, I guided a grey mare called Winter Lady through a gate in the Brecon Beacons and the teacher murmured, “OK, lead them off – you can go as hard as you like.” The mare, as though she’d heard him, set off at a run It became a canter. I ran everywhere, like Billy Whizz in the comics, before his name became slang for amphetamines. Living a bus ride from Battersea Fun Fair, I spent joyous summers being flung through the air in the Waltzer, the Water Splash, the Big Dipper.

Breaking the law on Britain’s roads has never been easier, but for John Walsh, it took a short, sharp session at one of the Government’s new traffic schools to get him back on the straight, narrow – and slow

I was always a speedy kid. I would have had trouble painting in the middle of a canvas that size while still being able to see the landscape as well. With six separate ones, I could take some away for a while and still keep the whole picture in my head.”David Hockney: A Year in Yorkshire opens tomorrow and runs until 28 October. He’d always regarded himself as a model citizen behind the wheel – cautious, polite, and mindful of other drivers.

But then he began clocking up speeding convictions faster than a gangland getaway driver, and soon he was mourning the loss of his licence Even that didn’t teach him. The show includes two impressive six-part canvases two by four metres in size, which he has combined to make one work.”To draw from nature on this scale was thrilling and, I realised, new,” he says in the exhibition catalogue “It could not work with one canvas 12 foot by six foot… He made his name painting sun-filled canvases depicting his adopted home of California. But at the age of 69, David Hockney has returned to record the landscapes of his native Yorkshire. In a sequence started last year, the artist of that Sixties icon, The Bigger Splash, has been painting the changing seasons of the Wolds near his home in Bridlington.
Working outside regardless of the weather, Hockney has produced 25 new paintings which are going on show at the Annely Juda gallery, London, in his first exhibition of oils in Britain for nearly a decade. Howsham Mill, Howsham, North Yorkshire, North of England winner Now vandalised and roofless, this Grade II corn mill was constructed to use the fast-running water of the river Derwent and also provide an attractive Gothic revival landscape feature for Howsham Hall.

Cromarty East Church, Cromarty, Ross-shire, Runner-up Late 16th/early 17th century post-Reformation church with category-A listing at the mouth of the Cromarty Firth. Cemetery includes gravestones carved by Hugh Miller, an eminent Victorian naturalist.. The quarry closed in 1997 but locals want to use the site for the repair and manufacture of heritage engineering items. Cushendun Old Church, Cushendun, Co Antrim, Northern Ireland winner Deconsecrated in 2003 because of dwindling congregations, this parish church was one of the most significant buildings in this National Trust village, which was designed by Clough Williams-Ellis. Dennis Head Old Beacon, North Ronaldsay, Orkney, Scotland winner Category-A scheduled ancient monument built in 1788-89 and one of the oldest surviving purpose-built lighthouses in Scotland The residents hope to restore it as a tourist attraction. Pen Yr Orsedd quarry workshops, Nantlle, Wales winner Grade II* listed 19th-century slate buildings, including offices and a hospital.