Drawing maps...

I quite liked geography at school. It wasn’t the learning about the far flung countries with strange sounding names that I enjoyed, it was the map making.

Of course, when I say map making I really mean drawing maps, because that was what we seemed to spend an awful lot of time doing.

Now copying maps by eye, from atlas to exercise book, might not seem very exciting. But with each squiggle and curve I might have been creating a new bay or headland. To say that my maps weren’t very accurate is a bit of an understatement. If I didn’t quite like the shape of a place I’d change it to make it look more artistically pleasing.

My Sahara Desert was bigger than actual, but it did have a very nice shape – a camel’s head shape which I felt was appropriate. France seemed a bit too square to my mind. But I soon improved that particular nation of smelly cheese and even smellier perfume by giving it a nice squiggly edge down the right hand side. I’ve no idea what this did to the boundaries of the surrounding countries, but I expect Germany invaded, Switzerland remained neutral, Belgium didn’t mind (so long as they had beer) and Italy didn’t make much of a fuss - just in case they had to fight.

My Iceland was a triumph. What fun I had making each inlet and spur, peninsula and outcrop look like one of the trolls which I was sure inhabited the depths of that snow-bound land. Forget the geothermal energy, geysers and the fishing fleets at war over cod - it was trolls for me every time.

Of course my geography teacher wasn’t quite as keen as I on my topographical flights of fancy. He pointed out, quite correctly, that ships would run aground and explorers remain for ever lost if they were to follow one of my maps. Of course he was right. But what’s a few hundred miles here, a few hundred there, the odd unexpected island, or the occasional watery channel (where no watery channel should be) amongst friends?

My school report that year read: Geography – “Andrew works hard and seems to like the subject. However, he must stick to reality rather than letting his artistic skills over embellish what is already there.”

So, that’s been my problem all along; and I'm pleased to report... still is.