Floating the idea…

When plans become more solid, I’m thinking of raising funds for ‘Help for Heroes’. The drive in an old army truck from the South of England to the Arctic north of Sweden is not a simple one, and I’m doing this way to get to know the country & have a bit of an adventure during the move – but it occurred to me that in using an old army truck I could also help those who used to drive them, for us, in ‘less idyllic’ locations.

It’s just an idea at the moment, but it feels right.

Ulysses

It’s a thought still to be fleshed out, but a thought with some grit and adventure to it.

Drive to the Arctic Circle from the south of England.

The idea that is forming is to take an old army Bedford MJ 4 ton truck and drive all of our gear to the land beyond the sunset (it’s in the Arctic… think about it). It’s a old truck and I’m not as young as I was, but as Tennyson put it in the :

‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world…
…for my purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset,

If the truck idea is to be used, then the truck cannot simply be called ‘the truck’.  It would be deserving of a much greater name.

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

And there you have it. Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses‘ sums it up and gives the truck it’s moniker.

Ulysses is the Roman translation of Odysseus. It was used by Tennyson for the poem of the same name, and in a twist, it was ‘Odyssey’ that was used by Finnish author Thomas Warburton in his Swedish translation of Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’..