If you’re thinking about organising a walk in the countryside for a group of friends or colleagues, a frequently offered word of advice is … don’t. What’s the problem? It – or, rather, they – are staring you in the face: your would-be companions. Never was a more popular observation made on the perils of company than Jean-Paul Sartre’s dictum about hell being other people.
The competitive ones are going to want to lead; the nerds are going to demonstrate their map-reading prowess; the narcissi are going to flaunt the Rohan gear; the wimps are going to want to hit the inn at noon. And so on, as character traits that are manageable in the course of the working week bloom into monstrosities in the heady liberty of the South Downs, the Yorkshire Dales or (not a good idea) the Cairngorms. It’s going to be a disaster.
Or not. In the light of nearly a lifetime’s worth of walking the English countryside with groups as small as two and as big as 20, I have to say that the great French existentialist was wrong on this one. What’s more, my compatriots – less hobbled by philosophy than him – keep on voting it their favourite activity. This happens year after year, in poll upon poll. One I remember, by the World Wide Fund for Nature, had it way ahead of surfing the net, in 11th place, movies (in 22nd) and dancing (31st).
In addition, there are more groups dedicated to the pursuit than at any other time. Some 500 of these are affiliated to Ramblers, the national walkers’ rights organisation, whose bucolic title barely hints at its history of militant access campaigns, both now and in its decades as the Ramblers’ Association.
Others spring up with the speed of moorland grouse, most with a local rationale, some with an overtly romantic one: The Walkers’ Dating and Singles Club, Date Walkers and Ramblers. Yet more with a professional or shared interest: leftish lawyers striking out as the Radical Ramblers, reformed alcoholics dubbing themselves the Other AA (as in Amblers Association), with a motto of One Step at a Time.
Some of the groups are heavy-duty outfits, thinking little of knocking off the trio of Yorkshire peaks – Ingleborough, Pen y-ghent and Whernside – in a single day; others are more than happy with a two-mile pootle alongside the calm canals of the big cities’ post-industrial reaches.
What’s the appeal?
One aspect that is regularly upstaged by the lure of the landscape itself is conversation. Get on to a long upland bridleway for the best part of an afternoon and you’d be amazed how the interaction takes its lead from the location. People fall back or move up, merge with others, pick up the thread midway. This is the antithesis of hurry and it’s an astoundingly socialising factor. True, you might get stuck with the mandatory bore, but then, I’m sorry, you might even be that person.
I got heavily involved with a work-based walking group nearly 25 years ago. I still am, even though I don’t work there any more. It’s given me, and others I hope, some weekends that I will never forget. It started because one day someone said, wouldn’t it be nice if we spent more time together out of the office. So we did. It was so convivial that on the first night out we managed to get a life ban from an outwardly charming country house hotel.
From there it was downhill – and uphill and on the level – all the way. We did the switchback paths of the Wessex coast, involving an unscripted appearance by Mountain Rescue. We got evacuated from a Devon hotel because the well had been poisoned in a local feud. We stayed in a scary little Fenland town. We did a proper mountain in Cumbria. We did the glorious desolation of Kinder Scout in Derbyshire, scene of the famous mass trespass of 1932, which helped to secure rights of way we quite possibly now take for granted. We stayed at the oldest hotel in England, or maybe just the oldest in Buxton. We took the sleeper to St Ives and had tea in the Tate. We showed open contempt for the alleged ghost in the Northumbrian fishing pub, and so on, and on.
The best bits?
Seeing everyone again the next year, not least the ones who joined up in spite of officially loathing walking; some absurd sense of survival in the face of never-identified adult forces which would have us stop it at once.
How to organise these things
Don’t ask me. All right, do, but don’t expect adequate answers. Maybe you can settle for some of these:
• Don’t go where you haven’t already been. That is, don’t even think about “leading” a walk unless you are familiar with the route. It’s not fair on anyone. This lesson was scored into me as a teenager in the Cairngorms, when I was on a thing called, with chilling accuracy, an Arduous Training Camp. I think – but here my memory refuses, like a horse at a high gate – it was organised by the CCF (Combined Cadet Force), which seriously dates me. I “led” a group of us, including Major French, five miles in 180 degrees the wrong direction. And that’s all I want to say about it, though others have always been happy to elaborate. I have made other serious navigational errors since then, and have at least been consistent in blaming the fog.
• The thing about weather is, when you’re in it, it can change like David Bowie. Ankle deep in a path that is no longer a path but the corner of a field that is forever cow poo? Not a clue in the closing dusk, not a bar on the once-smart phone? Ordnance Survey’s finest turned to pap in your hand? Drenched novices in useless trainers starting to whine like other people’s children? After you, old boy.
• Also, connections. Which is satire for the hell, far worse than Sartre’s, of Weekend Engineering. No excuses any more for the day-long dawdles billed as short hops. No blaming the regional websites or the timetable services such as Travel Line. They’re up to the mark; just consult, and do it early. And have so many local taxi numbers in your phone that you could convene a drivers’ conference. Split many ways, the fares can give the trains, and even the buses, a run for their money.
• Staying over. If you really can’t view the places in advance, then, basically, good luck. There is an unamusing chasm between the claims of the Ocean Prospect Hotel, affording peerless vistas of blah-di-blah, and the reality of the Car Park View Compound, wafted by nauseous vapours.
• Rooms. Who’s sharing with whom, and what exactly are they sharing? Who gets the window in the “twin” and who’s in the cupboard? Much more important than you think. Potential trip-wrecker. Not my business, so I’ll just say this. Get it right, OK?
FIVE FAVOURITE WALKS
South Downs: Eastbourne to Alfriston
Distance 11 miles
This gloriously varied route takes you first along the undulating cliffs of the Seven Sisters, then inland at Cuckmere Haven with the meandering river to your left and the wooded approach to Alfriston ahead. Less than an hour and a half by train from London, so an excellent coastal option for walkers from the crowded south-east; also happens to be the first leg, east to west, of the South Downs Way long-distance footpath, which goes all the way to Winchester.
Dartmoor: circular walk, from New Bridge
Distance 41/2 miles
You have the 19th-century Dr Blackall of Spitchwick Manor to thank for this one. He it was who had a winding carriageway built on the dramatic shoulder above the river Dart, just to the west of the hamlet of Poundsgate with its considerately located pub. His purpose was no more or less than to command the amazing moorland view across the valley towards the heart of the great moor. Easily approachable from Poundsgate itself or from the New Bridge car park, both on the B357.
Derbyshire Peak District: Kinder Scout from Edale
Distance There and back, 5 miles
Scene of the famous 1932 trespass by ramblers to gain rights of access to the Duke of Devonshire’s grouse moors. Worth doing not just for this historical resonance but for the splendid emptiness – more plateau than peak – and the highest terrain in England outside Cumbria. A proper, rewarding walk via Barber Booth, river Noe and the mighty buttress of Crowden Tower. Accessible by Edale station on the heroic Hope Valley Line between Manchester and Sheffield.
Malvern Hills: Worcestershire Beacon from Malvern
Distance There and back, 3 miles
At 1,394 ft, it has the modest distinction of being the tallest hill in this sudden igneous mini-range that runs down the border of Worcestershire and Herefordshire. The beacon, celebrated by Lord Macaulay in his poem Armada for its signalling role in 1588 when the Spaniards threatened invasion, boasts one of the finest 360-degree views in the country. It also forms part of the watershed from which Malvern’s famous waters spring. An hour’s walk from the town and you’re looking down on its roofs and abbey as if from a skyscraper’s external lift. For a more ambitious hike, the Malverns’ chain stretches south in a very do-able day’s trip.
Northumberland: Alnmouth to Craster
Distance 6 miles
One of the best examples of the kind of walk in which the beach can be the path. There’s always, or almost always, the more formal option of the pedestrian route on the shallow clifftops, picking its way through the holiday houses and golf links to the north of Alnmouth. Huge open landscapes, sky and water are all the way along this famously undetected (by southerners) reach, with places of refreshment at compliant intervals. Between Boulmer and Craster the haunting skeleton of Dunstanburgh Castle starts to loom from its promontory. A visit well worth the extra two-mile total there and back from Craster.
Alan Franks’s novel, The Adventures of Wendy Howard-Watt, is published by Muswell Press (£7.99) on 21 January
