A Walk Around Britain

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The following write-up is for general press use.

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More Photographs follow at the base of the page.

A sample of song can be found here.

Singing for their supper, wintering in Wales.

ed and will at home

the CD Album, "Songs"

The Story…

Ed and Will have become the best-known Wandering Minstrels in Britain today. Now in their late twenties, the pair have spent the last 4 years making long, slow journeys on foot across Britain, singing for their supper as they go.

Their internationally popular website: www.awalkaroundbritain.com, tells more of their story. They update it as they walk, and tell of foraging for food and herbal medicine, the traditional songs they find, wild-camping, and much of what they discover in Britain, among her land and people.

They sing unaccompanied close harmony traditional songs everywhere they arrive. They’ve sung for the BBC World Service, BBC Radio 2, BBC South Television, and have had a half-hour show in BBC Radio 4. They’ve enjoyed feature articles in the Telegraph and the Guardian newspapers. They’ve sung (always without microphones) in the London South-Bank Centre, and have supported Martha Tilston and Robin Williamson while walking.

But they prefer busking to gigging, they say walking is “humanity’s best technology”, and they claim that Britain is only really visible between the roads. They sing everywhere they arrive, busking to earn a few coins, and to meet good local people. They trade music and work, for food and shelter, and it seems to work.

“It’s an amazing thing, how many people will invite singing walking strangers into their home. Hospitality is not an obscure foreign tradition – it is living, right here in Britain.”

The pair combine old and new tech, walking and living outside, gathering wild herbs and traditional songs, while using the high-tech world of websites and mobile internet. It is a strange juxtaposition, but a hallmark of these minstrels’ journeys, and a sign of the times.

“Traditions move forward, they don’t look back. That’s why they’re still with us. Today’s troubadours need to live in today’s world. It is not disrespecting a tradition, but living with it in an honest way.”

On their walks they’ve sung for tramps, Gypsies, OAPs, school-children, pubs, churches, toddlers’ groups, gangs, Lords and Ambassadors, mercenaries, police, families, and farm animals. They have also sung for Sir David Frost, and Mickey Miller from Eastenders.

“We met him in a haunted house, where we all stayed a night together. Drunken local kids broke in that night, and we chased them off together. It was nice.”

The most common question asked of them is “why do you do this?”, which they admit to finding difficult to answer.

“Can you say why you ask that question? There are so many reasons for everything. What we know, is that Britain has much to offer, and she is best met on foot, in the good old way. As for singing old songs, well that surely needs no justification, and just makes sense on its own.”

“We’ve found that Britain is home to more cultural diversity than we’d ever realized. Because we were born here, there are deeper cultural discoveries to be made than if we were somewhere overseas. We can access the subtler understandings of this tribal land, being ourselves a part of it all. Britain’s only real travelling issue is the weather, and with lots of well-woven wool, even that’s alright.”

Where they are now…

They set off on their latest stroll last February, spending 7 months moving slowly between Canterbury and St. Davids, in Wales.

As Autumn came, they started planning for winter, gathering and drying fruit and nuts, and sending “thousands” of emails out to “everyone we’d met”, asking for a Welsh woodland with fresh water in which to spend the winter. They were glad to be inundated with responses.

They always knew they’d be spending their season in Cymru, and are very happy to be here. They reckon there’s a clear solidity to Welsh community, and a shared awareness of common heritage, which they find “refreshing and reassuring”.

“We’re looking forward to learning Welsh songs, too, but its slow going. Dween Dusky Cymraig is what i say. But walking north in Spring will doubtless enrich our cultural knowledge of Wales. We are learning the old branches of the Mabinogion, and are very much aware that Cymru is sacred ground on which to walk.”

They moved into a hazel wood in Radnorshire, bringing canvas and hand-tools, and here they’ve spent the winter outside, trying to learn about coppicing and shelter building. They’ve built a domed-home, on a hazel-wattle platform, roofed with canvas and stuffed with straw. It took one month and £150 to build.

As well as Ed and Will, their respective partners Ayla and Rose have been staying out for the winter, so it’s not been lonely. There’s plenty to do to keep warm, even in the snow and frost, with coppicing, gathering water and fire-wood, riding the bicycle electricity generator, or crafting items from various woods.

“Spending a winter outside, we’ve found the simplest things can become monstrously difficult, like drying clothes, or keeping food mouse-free. Electricity is also a real burden. We have to bicycle for miles just to get on the internet, and the connection is usually rubbish. But there’s always something to do, and every task improves our skills.”

The CD Album – Songs

On top of surviving the cold and wet, they’ve also just released their debut CD album, simply called “Songs”. It contains 16 traditional and modern folk ballads, all songs that they learned while walking around Britain. It is priced £10 (+£2 p&p), and is a stunning item, with a massive booklet of information and tales, and beautiful artwork. “There’s even a free double-sided poster” Will likes to say.

It is currently only available from their website (www.awalkaroundbritain.com/the-cd-album), and each copy sold is walked from the woods to the post office.

It is a rare business model, and a beautiful carbon-free act of eco-commerce. The album was entirely made and released by the singers themselves, with the help of Ed’s brother Ginger. All the recording, mixing and designing was done in-house in East Kent, with the help of various very good friends. Ginger often joins Ed and Will, in travel and song, although is currently focussing on his work as a green (living) wood-worker.

Look and listen out for Ed and Will as they walk on this spring from Radnorshire, to Snowdonia, and then Scotland.

Keep an eye on the website, www.awalkaroundbritian.com, for details of their current adventures and discoveries.