‘The darkest hour is just before the dawn‘ goes the expression and it’s one I have used pretty well forever on the assumption that it was true. Scientifically, I know that it’s not literally true and in fact the darkest hour is at ‘solar midnight‘, when the sun is at its lowest point, but in many ways, it is true. Metaphorically, it’s a time when things seem to be at their worst, just before they get better. Today, leaving home just after 3.00 am for an airport run it was hard to imagine things being any darker.
Armed with laser-corrected eyes and night-time driving glasses, just to be on the safe side, I enjoy the quiet roads, the almost complete lack of traffic along the way. I drove a couple of miles until I saw another set of headlights, a couple more before I saw an actual person.
There was some traffic on the inbound M32, in particular two sets of blue and twos heading in the opposite direction at a rapid rate of knots. I cruised into town well inside the speed limit, in part because of the 40 MPH speed limit from the St Pauls Roundabout but mainly because I choose to drive around well within the speed limit these days because it’s less stressful.
The city centre is surprisingly busy at four in the morning. The two Kebab/Burger vans are still very much open, spraying bright lights everywhere across the area. There were people walking and hanging around. I wondered who they were, where they had been and where they were going. Are nightclubs open that late these days? Casinos certainly appear to be. Perhaps, having spent the night losing most of one’s money at the BlackJack table, or on the Roulette wheel, why not spend the rest of it on a hearty Shish Kebab?
Through Hotwells, the traffic is slightly heavier, mainly in my direction but it’s a smooth passage, apart from the occasional red traffic light. Then, it’s the Cumberland Basin.
For me, a trip through the Cumberland Basin, between the floating harbour and the powerful tide of the River Avon, will never happen without thinking of the disappeared student Jack O’Sullivan. On a cold winter’s night in 2024, Jack apparently left a house party in Hotwells, appearing to wander around the streets around the Cumberland Basin area and was never seen again. None of his possessions were ever found, either. Ever since, his family have campaigned extensively to keep his name alive, in the hope that somehow the question of how he disappeared will be answered.
Without taking my eyes of the road excessively, like many Bristolians I wonder, hope forlornly is probably more accurate, that somehow I might be the one who finds the answer to the mystery. I know in my heart that I won’t, but hope runs deep in the human spirit.
A question asked on a Facebook page called ‘Find Jack’ is often wild with theories, almost entirely evidence free. I can’t think beyond the possibility that he went into the water, got caught up in the tide and drifted away, but I don’t know that because, as with everything else, there’s no evidence. The poor lad, the poor family.
Leaving the outskirts and approaching the A38, the traffic is building and it’s still just after 4.00 am. I am in a long line of cars and there appear to be just as many coming the other way, doubtless many of which have done the morning drop-off that I have done. Soon, as we near Bristol Airport, it could be daytime, bumper-to-bumper in both directions. The bleak darkness of the previous few miles replaced by blazing lights. I find a place to drop off my cargo, carry out an elaborate three-point-turn and head back into town.
There are something like 36 flight departures between 6.00 and 8.00 am, the bulk of which depart before 7.00 am. The modern, but creaking airport operates well beyond its designed capacity, and it will be standing room only for most people. I trundle back down the A38 and the traffic build-up will only get worse.
Back through the Cumberland Basin, then back through town, I see a handful, maybe more, of people passing by, some in fluorescent clothing perhaps going to or from work, others shuffling by, their heads bowed against the chill wind. It is June after all. Jack O’Sullivan’s disappearance occasionally makes me more observant of who is passing by and sometimes I see their faces, but soon I forget again because driving requires concentration, especially on the still dark, often unlit roads, with fading paint and pot holes.
Back up the M32 and nothing much has changed. There are big trucks roaring by now, some overtaking me as they head north, past the exit to the Bristol Ring Road that sees me complete my journey. And dawn is about to break as I park on the drive. By the time I get back into bed, it is unhelpfully light, but I still nod off quite easily.
I enjoy the drive and yet I didn’t. I love the empty roads part of the trip, not so much the busier sections where everyone is in a hurry, desperate to clip a few seconds of the journey. Why not do what I do and leave a few minutes earlier than you have worked out? All that teeth-gnashing and occasional fist-clenching can’t be good for you, can it?
Now I’m up again and in truth the dawn and what has followed wasn’t worth waiting for. It’s 14c, we have thick drizzle and it could well stay like this all day. The lucky sods who left Bristol Airport this morning, including my party, will be preparing for an arduous day of applying sun cream, sipping cold beers and, in some cases, tucking into some of that foreign muck. I’m only jealous, but it will be my turn soon enough. And it will be someone else’s turn to drive me through the gloom at 4.00 in the morning.
Photograph of Bennett Way, Hotwells © Copyright Derek Harper
