John Dunn

Take an "ordinary road”…

Monday, 15 April 2024 at 21:28

Scheduled for 8pm Wednesday the 17th April

On the Motorcycle England YouTube Channel

A new YouTube video

Take an "ordinary road”…

…in search of Harley Davidson and a friend of Thomas the Tank Engine

All roads are interesting. Take the A1101, with its turnpike history, from Suffolk to Cambridgeshire to Norfolk and back to Cambridgeshire, to find it is the lowest A road in the UK, with the least-used station, a monument to Harley Davidson, near-flooded Washes, and a lost canal haunted by Toby the Tram Engine.

Join me on an ordinary road.

© John Dunn.

They'll intrude if they can

Sunday, 14 April 2024 at 21:18

Oh no, it's them again

They'll intrude if they can

Freedom from The They is what allows me to receive Being and, in turn, what allows Being to give itself to me. In this mutual exchange I am the arbiter of both Being and freedom.



You think spontaneity is the definition of freedom, freedom to do what you like when you like. But what is spontaneity? If you live your life in the apparently ready-made world of thoughts about things reflected back to you as though they were pre-existing, when in truth they originated as the Logos, but were cast aside as fallen angels, then you can never be spontaneous and free. You can only be reactive to the things you think exist around you. Why? Because you are living in the world of the second hand, the presupposed,a world of idols. You are in thrall to idol worship and its priesthood.



But everything is spontaneous, everything is always first hand, as it originates unimpeded from the Logos, from Love. The challenge is to keep The They out of it, when there are only too many who are willing to intrude - if not the children of the Devil themselves, then the dumb crowd of Beulah they perpetuate with the vile poison they feed into it.


© John Dunn.

Which is freedom? Which is real?

Friday, 12 April 2024 at 22:46

Which is freedom? Which is real?

Everyone is the other, and no one is himself. The they, which supplies the answer to the who of every dumb member of the herd, is the nobody to whom every idiot has always already surrendered himself. This is your second hand world.

You live in a playground in which you think you can play as you like. Ha! a playground, exactly that! An illusion from which rises the nauseating refrain “We just want to be happy”. You think it’s here that you can be fulfilled as an individual, left in a room vacated by the father, but under the supervision of an overseer who makes all sorts of promises in return for good behaviour.



I would rather live in Love, in truth, in passion, in mutual indwelling?



Which is freedom? Which is real?



I know that the chaos of the playground is Ananke's realm? Without the violation by the Logos, by Love, I might have lived for ever under the most insidious form of deception, namely imprisonment lived as freedom.

© John Dunn.

Sovereignty of my thinking


Thursday, 11 April 2024 at 20:54

Sovereignty of my thinking


Ideclare the sovereignty of my thinking. It moves as the synthetic powerof the Originatory Principle, the Logos. As the Logos what I am thinking is the multiplicity; and what I think is always one in so far as it is the Logos. I consider the multiplicity as reconciled in the unity of my thinking. This distinguishes me from the misguided herd, whoconsider the multiplicity abstractly and external to being.


Historyis not unfolded in time but rather gathered up eternally in my mind. I reject no single finite thing, for each finite thing is the reality of the Logos, which is Truth and Love. As such, the cosmos is the eternal Beginning of my inner being.

© John Dunn.

The redemption of the multiplicity

Wednesday, 10 April 2024 at 22:29

The redemption of the multiplicity

I must now reconnect what in nature and history appears divided and numerous to its transcendent source. The redemption of the multiplicity is the transcendence of my thinking.



The distinctions alive in the living process of my thinking mind are not reducible to number. This is the polar opposite of Spinoza’s infinite of the imagination, a series without beginning or end, extensible in every direction and so forever falling short of completion. In such a Spinozist regime, the "I"has its true reality outside of itself, a potential infinite, cut off from self-consciousness.



Instead of this, distinctions for me are always an actual infinite, the immanence of the universal in the particular, the all in my thinking, all in all.

© John Dunn.

Take an ordinary road

Tuesday, 9 April 2024 at 10:39

The ghost of Toby

Below is the latest draft of a commentary to a forthcoming YouTube video. (Please bear in mind the spoken word nature of the scripting.)

To be published within the next couple of weeks on my YouTube Channel.

Take an ordinary road

Mildenhall in Suffolk. There’s the parish church on the left, the biggest in Suffolk, and the covered medieval market cross on the right.

My objective is to pick up the route of the Mildenhall and Burntfen Turnpike, later designated the A1101 in the 1920s.

Welcome to the ride. It’s good to have your company.

And here’s the A1101, which I join at this junction.

The current A road goes straight on. I’m following the original route, which bears left.

Opened in 1828, this was one of the last turnpikes established. The trustees wanted a connection to Littleport and roads leading on to the ports of Wisbech and Kings Lynn.

It was so late because of the problems posed by constructing a road across the wide stretch of fenland up ahead.

Still on the old road, but up ahead it comes ignominiously to a dead end. Why? RAF Station Mildenhall opened 1934. The airfield was built over the road.

Having skirted the airbase, I’m back on the old turnpike route, the A1101, just after descending Kenny Hill.

Well that’s a bit of an exaggeration. The hill was just above sea level, and now I’m just below.

Entering Cambridgeshire now, with Shippea Hill Station up ahead (named after nearby Shipea Hill, which rises to the dizzying heights of 0, yes, sea level!)

Shippea Hill Station has been recorded as the least-used railway station in Britain.

It’s a request stop, so passengers must signal to the driver if they wish to get on board.

Now on a dead straight course to Littleport, even though it bucks and bounces over the shrinking peat, something that’s not picked up on a self-levelling Go-Pro.

This is Burntfen, after which the old turnpike took its name. Here the A1101 has the honour of being the lowest A road in the UK.

Having crossed the bridge over the River Great Ouse, I’m leaving the modern A1101 which continues as a bypass around Littleport, to follow the old road, along Wisbech Road, through the heart of Littleport itself.

At its heart is the church of St George. Fine and lofty, the 15th century tower can be seen from miles around.

But at the other side of the church is a monument of very specific interest to motorcyclists. It’s to that that I now wend my way.

(Walk round and read)

This stainless steel monument celebrating Littleport’s connection to the famous brand (however tenuous) was unveiled in 2003 and depicts a 1937 Knucklehead. It was commissioned to celebrate the 100th birthday of the Harley-Davidson company in 2003. Relatives of the Harley family still live in the area.

Having Continued through the village, I rejoin the A1101 where the bypass reconnects with the old turnpike route at this roundabout.

From Littleport I’ve crossed Mare Fen, at or just above sea level.

And up ahead is the great bank holding back the New Bedford River.

At this road junction too I leave Cambridgeshire to enter Norfolk.

This man-made river was cut in 1652 as part of Vermuyden's grand plan to drain the fenlands.

It runs dead straight from Earith to the Denver Sluice, for 21 miles.

The great earthworks were dug by Scottish prisoners-of-war captured in the Battle of Dunbar.

From here I’m looking for the bridge over the river.

I find it at a small settlement called Suspension Bridge. Aptly called because…

…a suspension bridge was erected here in 1826. It had a central carriageway with a footpath on either side.

It was replaced in 1926 by a concrete bridge with a central concrete arch.

In 1996 this bridge was replaced by the modern steel and reinforced concrete structure you see before me.

This New Bedford River runs parallel with two others. The River Delph and another man-made river of Vermuyden’s, cut between 1630 and 1636, known as the Old Bedford River.

The land between them is known as the Washes, and these flood each winter, with the water being contained by the banks of the parallel man- made rivers.

And there you see the flooded Washes.

A1101 that runs across bridges over the rivers is frequently covered by floodwater after prolonged heavy rainfall upstream in Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire. This can result in long diversions. Thankfully, no road closures today, despite weeks of rain.

Let’s take a look.

The water is high, and lapping up the side of the road, but thankfully not flooding it.

This road across the Washes was built in 1820. It was this road of course that made the project of a turnpike to Wisbech possible in the first place.

I’m now crossing the River Delph on a late twentieth century concrete bridge.

Now the Old Bedford River, on a concrete bridge 1994.

And so into Welney.

Here’s an old 19th century milestone at Lake’s End, just beyond Welney, placed here by the Wisbech Turnpike Trust.

The Inscription reads:-
: ELY / 13 : : UPWELL : : WISBECH / 11 :

Travellers in the other direction get to Ely via Littleport.

Still on the A1101, I’ve passed through the village of Upwell and I’m now in the conjoining next village of Outwell.

That wide grassy verge to my right used to be water.

I’m crossing what was the canal to travel down the other bank.

The canal used to occupy the space taken up today with the trees, bushes and grass to my left.

To my left was the old canal basin of Outwell. From this point, an arm of the canal used to continue on to Wisbech. It was opened in 1797, abandoned in 1926, and filled in during the 1970s.

From here the dead straight modern A1101 runs on top of the filled in canal, bypassing the winding course of the old road.

The road at this point runs along the border between Norfolk and Cambridge.

From 1883 a tramway cum railway used to run near the canal to Wisbech.

Here’s the steam tram engine that worked on the line.

Aficionados of Thomas the Tank engine will know this unusual steam engine as Toby the tram engine. The Rev. W. Awdry was the vicar of Emneth, a village near Wisbech and took his inspiration from the Wisbech tramway.

Sadly for Toby, the tramway closed in 1966, many years after it had already made the canal redundant.

In Wisbech now. Having passed from Norfolk into Cambridgeshire.

This dual carriageway, Churchill Road, was built on top of the filled in canal, in the late 1960s and 70s. It follows the canal’s course right upto the point where it meets the navigable River Nene.

That’s where I am now, by one of the towns flood prevention gates next to the River Nene, near to where the old canal met the river and the port of Wisbech.

So… having taken an ordinary road with a turnpike history, from Suffolk to Cambridgeshire to Norfolk and back to to Cambridgeshire, to find it is the lowest A road in the UK, with the least-used station, a monument to Harley Davidson, near-flooded Washes, with a lost canal haunted by Toby the tram engine… this is where I take my leave of the A1101

Thanks for joining me on the ride today, as ever it’s great to have your company.

If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve seen, please like, subscribe, perhaps even share, I’ll then let you know when I’m next out and about.

For now, I’m done.

© John Dunn.

My mind is the one and the many

Monday, 8 April 2024 at 22:00

My mind is the one and the many