MOTORWAYS are usually associated with providing the quickest route from A to B, traffic conditions permitting.

With the publication of the M5 Sights Guide, one of the country's principal motorways has been turned into something close to a tourist attraction.

One of this unusual guidebook's two authors is Kristina Thimm, a Hereford-based freelance graphic designer who had worked with co-author Mike Jackson on an earlier project for the Rural Media Company.

"I'm sure that lots of Herefordshire residents will find the book fascinating," said Kristina, "as so many of them use the motorway regularly, whether travelling for business or pleasure. I was excited by the idea when Mike asked me to join him."

Malvern-based Mike is a veteran M5 traveller, who had often wondered what lay beyond the hard shoulder.

Anecdotes

One building intrigued him. Researching the book, he discovered that the chimney and campaniled rooftop in Clevedon, Somerset, housed the equipment of the Clevedon Water Works Company.

In the course of researching the book Mike and Kristina uncovered hundreds of anecdotes and trivia about 500 places you can see from the motorway - from electricity pylons to communications masts and service areas to rivers.

Readers may even be tempted off the straight and narrow by some of the many destinations distinctively signposted in blue and brown from the motorway and included here.

The authors issue stern warnings to drivers not to use the guide while travelling, suggesting instead that it is "best enjoyed before and after you have taken a journey along the motorway."

In his introduction, Michael Aspel says that when the first stretch of the M5 was opened, there was talk of creating 'an interesting road with changing vistas'.

There are plans for the Sights Guide team to take to the road again soon - this time to put the M4 on the tourist map.

The M5 Sights Guide is published by Severnpix at £8.99 and is available in local bookshops.