Moreton-in-Marsh, Honeybourne, Evesham, Pershore … The names of the stations along the Cotswold Line railway are familiar as a nursery rhyme from childhood journeys. I grew up near Oxford, but it’s years since I last travelled west on this line and the distant hills have a blue, remembered air. The little River Evenlode meanders through sheep-dotted fields outside the train window before the wider Avon winds through plum and cherry trees. We cross the Severn among the spires and towers of Worcester and race under the Malverns to emerge near gnarled orchards, overgrown with mistletoe.
