A Walk Around Britain

We sing in Crowborough, and then spend the evening singing in the Cooper’s Arms, where we meet many fine people. Then we stay the night in a kind man’s summer house.

From here we head back to the woods, and spend the day washing in the lake, and then walking toward Forest Row. We score a surprising gig in a pub in Hartlake, which is a lot of fun. Then we sleep alongside a dismantled railway line.

The morning comes, and we walk into Forest Row, where we sing in a cafe, and then in the town market. We are invited from here to come and meet the good people of Plaw Hatch Farm. Ginger goes off with his girlfriend, and we two go sing some more.

At Plaw Hatch we sing to a few lovely people, and help out with the cows, and learn a lot about farming and biodynamics. Then we walk off, with a new walker Sam, and a retrieved Ginger, toward Windy Ridge.

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We leave Tunbridge Wells in two groups, through Groombridge, and finally quit Kent. Alex and Nejm are our new partners, and we meet to form a full  gang in a woodlands called Bad Brook. We move on the next day, in heavy rain, to the Ashdown Forest, where we build shelters to settle for a couple of days. Storms lash at us, which we weather stolidly, and enjoy the delights of woodland freedom. Then we say farewell to our friends, and move on.

Some get stuck in Tunbridge Wells

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From Faversham we walk to Ospringe, and through the many villages of Kent. We sleep in the garden of the Plough at Stalisfield Green, and in the morning busk in Charing.

From here we walk along to Pluckley, Britain’s most haunted village, and then through Smarden into Biddenden. We are exceedingly tired, but make the final push to Three Chimneys, where we sing to the pub diners, and score bread, cheese and ale.

We sleep in a wooded bomb crater, just off the road. In the morning we walk to Cranbrook, where we sing in the sunshine to many folk. Then onto Goudhurst, by which time the day is advancing and we are fatigued.

But on we push, toward Tunbridge Wells. Through various lanes, till we get lost after dark, and we nearly give up the challenge. But impelled by a fifth wind, we make it.

In Tunbridge Wells we sing for Radio Kent, and meet many kids and local people.

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We stay by the pool, playing in the woods till afternoon. Then, along the stream to Tyler Hill, and into Blean Woods. It rains all night, and in the morning, ginger gets lost in the woods.

We then walk to Boughton Street, and on into Faversham. This is very much home-turf, so we stay on a floor offered by a friend.

In the morning we sing to the town, and meet many fine local folk. Then we hit the footpaths, and step on toward Tunbridge Wells.

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We leave late in the evening, after spending more than a long time preparing. It feels very good, very promising, to be finally out and walking.

We head toward Canterbury, following the country lanes into town,and our planned footpath routes disappear in the dark. So we go other ways.

On the edge of town, we visit a friend, who has a farm and plays a fine accordion. We make music, eat blueberry jam, and then sleep in his hay-barn.

Rising early, Canterbury is soon under our feet, and we meet Alaric, our technical wizard pal, who ritually puts this website online. The day is glorious, full of good meetings and surprise kindness. Canterbury is always a fine place to be, and this is no exception.

We busk in a sunny street, and meet lots of fine folk, including a Malawian pop star. A bunch of UKC drama students ask to film us, and ask intense questions about our political viewpoints. It is an odd meeting; one of them is genuinely surprised that our sign, and our backpacks and staffs, are not just props carried for marketing, to craft a better illusion: “What, so you’re actually walking to Wales then?”

We later visit the Cathedral, sing by the altar, and then say farewell to local friends. We encounter various small difficulties, even at this early stage, mainly due to our physical unreadiness, but we know we will get daily stronger.

The next morning, we leave town, and walk to the woods, to spend our first night in a beautiful place.

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Yesterday, we started walking.

Preparation has been a long journey all of its own, but everything is now in place, and afoot.

We look forward to meeting you, somewhere on the road ahead.

Travel

Travel isn’t slow. Any shift of location challenges our assumptions and habits. Our central-seeming self is more responsive to physical location than we care to admit, for we are each an expression of our local environment, of the land we stand upon. A moving landscape makes for changing folk.

No, travel isn’t slow. But we do possess technologies that function to insulate us from travel’s quickenings. Only through these devices can we create slowness in travel, with time expanding outward from intentions of instantaneity.

In quick silvery modern machines, our cars and planes, we enact a drama of cartographic reduction, a disappearance of landscape, a sensory deprivation. The very air we breathe is monitored and controlled
by devices we mostly don’t understand. This sort of travel delivers only a simulacrum of journey, a departure all blinded by arrival. Although movement at seventy mph allows rapid physical movement,
it is yet incomplete:

“The soul”, goes the adage, “flies like a dove:
for short distances, at speeds of up to 20 mph”.

Still, it is strong goodness to find oneself stuck in a traffic jam, complaining about the other cars. Locked in the heavy metal box, far from here or there, confirms what is known in the heart: “this is the wrong way to get about”.

There is little slowness in walking. Each footstep leads to new vistas, new conjunctions of history, idea, land and self. A constant sense of rediscovery arises, and secret doors curl inward for exploration.

Walking is full-speed work, and requires a response to every nuance of changing weather and environment. With eyes only for destination, you will soon trip up, get wet, and want to go home.

Haraka Hyena Baraka – ‘Hurry up’ steals the blessing.

Then toward Petersfield we stamp, passing a low-cost retirement village, that looked like it was built in a week. We intitially judge it as an ugly sight, but a closer look shows it to be calm, tidy and proud. The materials were budget, but self-respect is evident, and the people here are not living for expensive paving. And why, we consider, should a dwelling cost a hundred thousand pounds? It is a perturbingly ridiculous thing. You can buy land for that money.

Nearby, we find the first blackberries for some days, and realize their prescence is not to last much longer. Then down a main road, and into town. Hale Petersfield, at the end of the South Downs way.

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We bump into a fellow on the street, who tells us how he had heard people talk of a local monastery that used to take in pilgrims. We cannot ignore this perfect hint, so we seek out the place, to make enquiries.

We find its outer doors are shut, but a small hatch swings open through which we duck inside. This building is intense, a great square of apartments, each with its own jagged chimney, surrounding a lush square green and a cathedral-sized chapel. It is an English stone paradise.
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