More Than Words

Episode 32 - Staff and Nonsense

🛶 More Than Words – Episode 32: Staff and Nonsense 🛶 From Cheshire hamlets with population‑of‑a‑pub‑quiz energy to canals that hold 200‑year grudges, Episode 32 is where the walk leaves leafy respectability behind and dives head‑first into industrial heritage, cosmic eavesdropping, escaped Tudor bears, and Stoke‑on‑Trent’s six‑town identity crisis. It’s England at its most gloriously peculiar. Featuring: ✈️ Manchester Airport Mile: fitness, but with the ambience of a long‑haul layover and the glamour of a short‑stay car park 👑 King of Tonga at Yeoman Hey: the royal visit Greater Manchester didn’t expect and still can’t explain 📡 A 25‑metre radio telescope casually parked in a field like it wandered off from Jodrell Bank 🪵 Beating the Bounds: medieval admin that involved walking in circles and hitting things with sticks 🚪 The Wardle Canal: Britain’s shortest canal, built purely out of spite and paperwork 💦 A waterway breach that left narrowboats looking like confused herons 🔥 Nantwich’s Great Fire: 150 buildings lost, four bears escaped, Tudor chaos achieved 🏡 Shavington: where every field is either a housing estate or a planning application in waiting 🏭 Stoke‑on‑Trent: six towns in a trench coat It’s travel with cosmic telescopes, petty waterways, escaped bears, industrial swagger, and a city that built the world’s tableware and now sells the nostalgia back to you with pride.

Episode 31 - The Long and Winding Road

🌿 More Than Words – Episode 31: The Long And Winding Road 🌿 From Alpine sporting delusions to quiet Cheshire villages casually hiding Vikings, ghosts, and one extremely questionable medieval wedding — Stage 31 confirms that England’s countryside has been weird for a very long time. Featuring: 🎿 Skiing: the traditional British activity of falling over abroad 🥌 Curling: sweeping ice while pretending this is normal behaviour 🎸 Liverpool: ships, songs, and a modest global cultural footprint 🧼 Port Sunlight: Victorian soap money accidentally inventing urban planning ⚔️ Brunanburh: the battle that may have created England (location still TBD) ✈️ Hooton: aristocrats, RAF pilots, and eventually Vauxhall Astras 📜 Backford: chained Bibles and a three-year-old groom bribed with fruit ⛪ Tilstone Fearnall: rotating a church so one admiral liked the view 👻 Duddon: headless housekeeper still haunting the customer service desk 🐎 Calveley: medieval knight, massive horses, minimal follow-up questions It’s travel with Viking admin, soap-baron philanthropy, Civil War ghosts, battlefield guesswork, and several centuries of Britain quietly making very odd decisions.

Episode 30 - Keepin' It Rhyl

🌊 More Than Words – Episode 30: Keepin’ It Rhyl 🌊 From Victorian seaside optimism to modern coastal existentialism, Episode 30 drifts down the North Wales coast before sidling into England like the ferry timetable absolutely meant to do that. Featuring: 🐐 Llandudno goats: lockdown hedge-eating anarchists with global fame 🚋 Great Orme Tramway: Victorian engineering that refuses to die 🐅 Welsh Mountain Zoo: exotic animals reconsidering life choices in North Wales weather 🏰 Gwrych Castle: built for ghosts, got Ant & Dec instead 🌊 Towyn: when the Irish Sea popped round unannounced 🎢 Rhyl: Britain’s seaside Time Lord 🧱 Offa’s Dyke: history’s longest passive-aggressive garden fence 🐿️ Formby red squirrels: Britain’s fluffiest Cold War It’s travel with Victorian resorts, celebrity castles, catastrophic seaside economics, and wildlife that absolutely did not consent to the North Wales microclimate.

Episode 29 - In Deep Water

🌊 More Than Words – Episode 29: In Deep Water 🌊 From Proclaimers promises to full maritime delusion, Episode 29 hits 1,000 miles — then spends an entire week floating about pretending squinting at coastlines counts as visiting them. Featuring: 🎶 1,000 mile Proclaimer Promise: completed it mate 🚢 Irish Sea: geography as optimism 🚂 Sodor: fictional island, talking trains, Beatle narrator ⛏️ Millom: mining under the sea because Victorians 🛳️ Barrow: “Sorry, can’t chat, building nuclear deterrents.” 🐟 Fleetwood: Cod Wars, Iceland 1 – Britain 0 🎡 Blackpool: “What if we put the elephants UNDER the tower?” 🌉 Anglesey: Druids, bridges, and cows relieved to avoid swimming 🐀 Puffin Island: Formerly. It’s travel with milestone maths, nuclear submarines, fictional railways, Viking aftercare, and aggressive binocular optimism. Over halfway. Mildly unhinged. Entirely afloat.

Episode 28 - Man, Overboard

🏍️ More Than Words – Episode 28: Man, Overboard 🏍️ From thundersnow skepticism to toilet reviews, because the Isle of Man’s tourism strategy is apparently “motorcycles at 200mph, Victorian waterwheels, and suspiciously clean public loos.” Featuring:  ⚡ Thundersnow: didn’t exist in my day, fight me  🏴‍☠️ St Maughold: Irish pirate → hermit → bishop  🎯 TT races: 200mph through front gardens, neurosurgeon-level precision  🛞 Lady Isabella Wheel: still turning 170 years later  🚽 Maughold toilets: achieving TripAdvisor acclaim unavailable to most saints  🐴 Douglas horse trams: overtaking modern traffic since 1876  🍟 Chips, cheese & gravy: “the national dish of the Manx people,” per one confident chippy owner  🦘 Kerroogaroo: budget kangaroo knock-off you can probably order from Temu It’s virtual travel with Old Git weather complaints, shape-shifting water-horses, 0.12 Manx Gaelic swearers, and public conveniences worthy of UNESCO status.