The melodies of my memories

The soundtrack to the journey does more than entertain, it bridges these two livesGeorgia Gooding with permission for varsity

Closing the door behind me, rows of suitcases rallying against the windows of my Dad's Vauxhall, the car speaker utters its first melodies of the 8-hour drive. Cambridge to Fort William. A canyon carved through the Glens and Fens, a tightrope of motorway held taut by my lives at each end: today, with the opening notes of ?More Than a Feeling' diffusing with the acridity of morning coffee, we will walk the line between.

8am

It's on mornings like this, when the vaulted rooves of Cambridge's chapels cut contrasts into the sky, that the Fort feels like another world.

Leaving the sandstone blushed by early morning, the familiar pangs of Yacht Rock serve to bolster us for the odyssey ahead. Here, like at home, the cacophony of our dubious karaoke hits the ears of crowds of tourists, who seek to be lost among monuments instead of mountains. Now, as the sandstone towers of one life dissolve into hedgerows, I catch the reflection of the road sign disappearing behind us, digesting the feeling of leaving a city I waited so long to approach.

"Cambridge to Fort William [...] a tightrope of motorway held taut by my lives at each end"

11am

Having exhausted the limits of everything easy listening, and too long ignored the craven calls of empty stomachs, we diverge from the unfurling tarmac ahead and stop for lunch. The drive has been long, punctuated with blue signs that promise other worlds, among them an offshoot woven with nostalgia: Manchester. While the morning coming from Cambridge has drifted in and out of easy synth, my home city is frenetic.

A city of millions, of inertia, of street music and the tangled wired earphones hung over the ears of commuters on buttercup trams. It was here I discovered that music, too, could breathe. Wistful exhales in a crowd of thirteen, watching Weyes Blood perform at the Academy; lost breath in 42s nightclub as 'Fluorescent Adolescent' followed 'Not Nineteen Forever', and no one could stand to take a break.

It's a city that taught me never to look back in anger, and now, as I queue the 42s playlist, I look back in the wing mirror with love.

1pm

The North of my childhood disappearing behind us, the playlist shuffles serendipitously as we pass a sign flagging Newcastle - Sam Fender, 'Getting Started'. My family has always been musical - less in the sense that we formed a genetic four-man band, but in my Dad's love of soul on a Sunday as he stirred scrambled eggs to life, or the outburst of saccharine Moldovan pop from my brother's speaker (which reminded us Eurovision was coming back around, and we would again be forced to watch it). Sam Fender was the first concert that brought us together - my love of indie mixed with lyricism that brought along my brother and dad.

This was music that would follow me as my life forged a path down south, keeping home between the arch of my headphones - his music there when my mind is occupied with 'Something Heavy', reminding me, even far from home, to 'Chin Up'. "[Sam Fender's] music would follow me as my life forged a path down south, keeping home between the arch of my headphones"

4pm

Over the years, travelling north to the Fort, some things have become habitual: meandering games of Guess Who? , lively renditions of the folk song 'the Rattlin' Bog', and, as I take a gasp of air in preparation, holding our breaths under Glasgow's Clyde tunnel. As a child, I would be spluttering in the first minute, but years have trained me, my cheeks ballooning as we exit the tunnel and the city comes into view.

Glasgow is an artistic city: the hush of exhibitions in the Kelvingrove, the memorials dour effigies bestowed with jaunty traffic cones - all of this life captured in the city's music. It was here that we saw Paolo Nutini perform, his CDs long since stacked like relics in the glove compartment, and felt the magnitude of 'Through the Echoes' being sung by thousands.

7pm

Having followed Loch Linnhe, soldered beside the road like coiled wire in the moonlight, we are soon greeted with the playful melodies of Gaidhlig on the road signs, reading: Welcome to Fort William. The car pulls in and stops, as does Nutini's 'Acid Eyes'.

We sit for the first time in silence, the vacuum without music as our third passenger - leaving behind the plumes of saxophone that burgeon from the cellars of Cambridge for the heady bow of folk fiddle that lingers here in community halls. The sharp lines of vaulted rooves may morph into heather-sketched outlines of the glen, but what remains is the path forged through choruses - the bridges connecting the verses and cities, somehow, as the notes fade, allowing me to navigate the worlds in-between. Support Varsity

Varsity is the independent newspaper for the University of Cambridge, established in its current form in 1947. In order to maintain our editorial independence, our print newspaper and news website receives no funding from the University of Cambridge or its constituent Colleges. We are therefore almost entirely reliant on advertising for funding and we expect to have a tough few months and years ahead.

In spite of this situation, we are going to look at inventive ways to look at serving our readership with digital content and of course in print too!

Therefore we are asking our readers, if they wish, to make a donation from as little as GBP1, to help with our running costs.

Many thanks, we hope you can help!