The Wild Rover: A Blistering Journey Along Britain’s Footpaths Read Online Free
Author: Mike Parker
surface.
Months later, I was walking through the next village up the valley, when an elderly man waved at me. ‘You’re the fella wanting to know about that highwayman’s cave, aren’t you?’ he wheezed in an accent as thick as Welsh rain. I nodded eagerly. ‘We blew it up,’ he said, with an air of triumph in his voice. It transpired he had been part of a team planting the trees in that valley in the early 1970s. A supply of explosives, to blast out occasional rock faces, was part of the kit, and one day they’d egged each other on to blow poor old Wmffre Goch’s hideout into the skies. ‘Why did you do that?’ I asked him. He looked at me as if I were a simpleton. ‘Because we could,’ he said, and shuffled off down the street.
My footpath audit had been a revelation. Within three miles of my front door, I walked nearly 70 miles of rights of way, from gloomy squelches through dank forestry to hawthorn-trimmed holloways high over the hills. I found lakes, woods, views and neighbours that I never knew existed. And I don’t think that the experience was unique simply because I live deep in the countryside. Have a look at the map of your own back yard and, unless you live in the middle of a big city (or the more agro-industrial parts of East Anglia), there will be dozens of rights of way too within your own three-mile radius.
If my little local project had been such an eye-opener, just how much better could it get if I went further afield? The idea possessed me. I was desperate to go and see more, to open the circle across the whole of the country, and to discover the many stories of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, as told by their paths. I wanted to see the finest, the oddest and those most steeped in their own lore and custom. It was time to bring to life some legendary names off the map: Kinder Scout, the Pennine Way, the Elie Chainwalk, Framfield, the Lyke Wake Walk, the Thames Path, Offa’s Dyke, the Ridgeway, Winnats Pass, the Tóchar Phádraig. I took the maps out, and started dreaming.
By now, I felt quite ashamed of my early churlishness. Someone said to me that the British footpath network is worthy of being listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so rare and extraordinary is it. They’re right. And there was I wishing it, if not away, then certainly where it could be seen and not heard. Some kind of penance was called for.
The answer was obvious. I must sweat my misanthropy out by working on the repair of a public footpath, perhaps clad in sackcloth. I should go out and dig, hammer and saw with one of the many voluntary footpath-upkeep societies in Britain. Without them, the network would have disappeared under a siege of bramble and barbed wire years ago, and we would be left with the kind of situation found in most other countries, namely a few well-used, showpiece paths, glistening with signs, benches and nut-brown pensioners, but very little else. Online, I found a group in Kenilworth, which seemed like a suitably Middle England kind of destination, an Everyplace that might slyly reveal universal truths about us and the land secreted in its red soil. Furthermore, it was still part of my extended back yard, in that my grandparents had lived either side of the town in post-war Coventry and then Leamington in retirement, and my mum still lived half of the time in the spa town. So, even if I learned nothing, I could see some old haunts and my old mum.
As I left hers, we discussed what we imagined the members of the Kenilworth Footpath Preservation Group (KFPG) to be like. I predicted an all-male group, mostly bearded and mostly older than me. Mum disagreed on all scores, and she was right. Swinging my van into a large car park that Sunday morning, the first thing that struck me about the cheery-looking group in fluorescent yellow tabards was just how many of them were women. Segregation came swiftly, though: the ladies were sent off on their regular task of affixing yellow arrows to
Months later, I was walking through the next village up the valley, when an elderly man waved at me. ‘You’re the fella wanting to know about that highwayman’s cave, aren’t you?’ he wheezed in an accent as thick as Welsh rain. I nodded eagerly. ‘We blew it up,’ he said, with an air of triumph in his voice. It transpired he had been part of a team planting the trees in that valley in the early 1970s. A supply of explosives, to blast out occasional rock faces, was part of the kit, and one day they’d egged each other on to blow poor old Wmffre Goch’s hideout into the skies. ‘Why did you do that?’ I asked him. He looked at me as if I were a simpleton. ‘Because we could,’ he said, and shuffled off down the street.
My footpath audit had been a revelation. Within three miles of my front door, I walked nearly 70 miles of rights of way, from gloomy squelches through dank forestry to hawthorn-trimmed holloways high over the hills. I found lakes, woods, views and neighbours that I never knew existed. And I don’t think that the experience was unique simply because I live deep in the countryside. Have a look at the map of your own back yard and, unless you live in the middle of a big city (or the more agro-industrial parts of East Anglia), there will be dozens of rights of way too within your own three-mile radius.
If my little local project had been such an eye-opener, just how much better could it get if I went further afield? The idea possessed me. I was desperate to go and see more, to open the circle across the whole of the country, and to discover the many stories of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, as told by their paths. I wanted to see the finest, the oddest and those most steeped in their own lore and custom. It was time to bring to life some legendary names off the map: Kinder Scout, the Pennine Way, the Elie Chainwalk, Framfield, the Lyke Wake Walk, the Thames Path, Offa’s Dyke, the Ridgeway, Winnats Pass, the Tóchar Phádraig. I took the maps out, and started dreaming.
By now, I felt quite ashamed of my early churlishness. Someone said to me that the British footpath network is worthy of being listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so rare and extraordinary is it. They’re right. And there was I wishing it, if not away, then certainly where it could be seen and not heard. Some kind of penance was called for.
The answer was obvious. I must sweat my misanthropy out by working on the repair of a public footpath, perhaps clad in sackcloth. I should go out and dig, hammer and saw with one of the many voluntary footpath-upkeep societies in Britain. Without them, the network would have disappeared under a siege of bramble and barbed wire years ago, and we would be left with the kind of situation found in most other countries, namely a few well-used, showpiece paths, glistening with signs, benches and nut-brown pensioners, but very little else. Online, I found a group in Kenilworth, which seemed like a suitably Middle England kind of destination, an Everyplace that might slyly reveal universal truths about us and the land secreted in its red soil. Furthermore, it was still part of my extended back yard, in that my grandparents had lived either side of the town in post-war Coventry and then Leamington in retirement, and my mum still lived half of the time in the spa town. So, even if I learned nothing, I could see some old haunts and my old mum.
As I left hers, we discussed what we imagined the members of the Kenilworth Footpath Preservation Group (KFPG) to be like. I predicted an all-male group, mostly bearded and mostly older than me. Mum disagreed on all scores, and she was right. Swinging my van into a large car park that Sunday morning, the first thing that struck me about the cheery-looking group in fluorescent yellow tabards was just how many of them were women. Segregation came swiftly, though: the ladies were sent off on their regular task of affixing yellow arrows to
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