Happy Birthday

The script of this programme 本节目台词

Callum: Hello – I'm Callum and welcome to my garden.

I don't live in the bustling busy centre of London. I live about 32 kilometres south of the BBC World Service's Bush House home in the county of Surrey.

Surrey is known for being very green. Beautiful countryside, hills and lanes – with typical English villages.

It sounds very peaceful and calm. Relaxing and idyllic.

But there is a noise here, something in the distance, persistent, never-ending. Perhaps you can just hear it in the background. No?

Let's get a little closer.

How about... now?

A free flowing M25 runs through the Surrey countryside

That noise is the steady drone of traffic as one of the busiest roads in Europe cuts its way through the Surrey countryside. It's the London orbital motorway - known as the M25 - and the M25 celebrates its 25th birthday this month. Work began on it in the 1970s and the final section was opened on October 29th 1986 by the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.

Margaret Thatcher
Now you've got the message. This is a great engineering achievement.

Helen: 刚才你听到的是 1986 年 M25 最后一段道路竣工时，英国首相撒切尔夫人在通车典礼上的讲话。

大家好，我是 Helen。可怜的 Callum 站在横跨高速公路的一座桥上看着交通，而我却在录音室里舒舒服服的坐着。那么让我们回到 Callum 那里，学点伦敦的公路知识吧。请留意他提到的一些数据和经常用这段公路的司机们的反应。

Callum: Well, I've come away from the bridge now to somewhere a little quieter. Today's programme isn't so much On the Town as Around the Town because the M25 encircles the capital in a 188km loop. It makes getting around the south-east of Britain easier but it can also be incredibly frustrating as it's well known for its traffic jams, particularly during peak hours. I drive on it regularly and when the traffic is flowing, it's great. But it can be a real nightmare if you're stuck in a jam.

This kind of road has different names in different countries - in some places they are called highways, in others freeways - but in Britain they are called motorways. High speed routes to enable you to get places fast. At least, that's the theory.

The maximum legal speed on Britain's motorways is 70 miles per hour, which is a little over 110 kilometres per hour. Though at many times of day you'll be lucky to get anywhere near that speed. The Highways Agency, which is the organisation that oversees the motorways, estimates that the busiest sections are used by over 200,000 vehicles a day and that there are a million trips on the road as a whole each day.

So what's it like to use it and how do people feel about driving on it?

So what do you think of the M25?

I try to avoid it personally, taking any other route possible because there's always traffic or accidents on there. Apart from that, if it is clear it is quite handy.

I do actually tend to avoid it, even though I've never really had any issues with it. Whenever I'm on it, seems fine. Everyone seems to complain about it but I haven't had any problems myself.

It's a road, it's horrible, it's full of traffic, I don't like driving on it.

Yep I've been on the M25 and I think London is a lot better for it than it would be without it.

It's the biggest car parking lot I've ever seen. But it is a way of getting around, it's the only way of getting up North I have. End up spending half my time on it most weekends really.

I've thought about it a lot recently and there's two ways I look at it. One, in the morning when I'm going to work I use it as a time to reflect on what I've got coming and to start thinking about my day. I've got my coffee, my radio. And then in the afternoon I just want to get back home and I just feel like by the time I've had half an hour on the M25 I just feel like I've got nothing left when I get back home and it's the most depressing place to be.

Helen: 看来大家的反应都不一样。大家认为虽然环城高速是必须的，有时候也很方便，但是往往让人们觉得精神紧张。不过M25 环城高速带来了一些出乎意料的效果，请听 Callum 的讲解。

Created after the building of the M25 this lake in Wraysbury is a centre for scuba diving

Callum: Wraysbury is a small village, just off the M25. It has a number of lakes and this one, where I am now, is a dedicated site for scuba diving. It owes its existence to the M25. It used to be a gravel pit which was used during the construction of the motorway and when it was completed the pit was flooded and converted to a lake.

Helen: 环城高速带来了水上运动的设施，这一点大家可能都没有预料到。看来M25并不完全是司机们的噩梦。不管怎样，M25已经是25岁了，让我们一起祝愿它生日快乐。好了，该我在播音室里和大家说再见了，那么 Callum，你呢?

Callum: That's all from me from the hills, lanes and lakes that border the M25.