Walking Home

by Clare Balding

  As we walked, I asked questions about the families buried there. Christine, the ‘history detective’, had most of the answers. She was a good snooper. She also told me that ivy, so often found in graveyards, represents eternal life (because it’s evergreen) and friendship.

  ‘It’s a pretty clingy kind of friendship,’ I said.

  She added that the best time to see the Necropolis was at dawn or dusk, because the light was so different; in the winter months when the sun stays low, it throws its beams on to inscriptions that you would never otherwise see. She is always discovering something new.

  Our climb finished at the spot where the grim-faced John Knox, leader of the Protestant Reformation, stands on his plinth. He would have disapproved of Corlinda Lee’s acceptance into Glasgow society, as he had declared war on gypsies, calling them ‘devil worshippers’. Mind you, he’d have disapproved of most things – especially a group of female historians from the Glasgow Women’s Library. The women were kinder to him than the author of that 1558 classic of misogyny The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women would ever have been to them. Knox lived through the reigns of five queens of Scotland and England, was a permanent opponent of Mary, Queen of Scots, and her mother, Mary of Guise, and antagonized Elizabeth I enough for her to deny him safe passage through England.

  My group of historians explained that different generations of academics have had alternative views on John Knox. In the nineteenth century, he was treated with enormous respect as the man who founded the Scottish Presbyterian Church, and praised for his bravery and integrity. In the twentieth century, historians highlighted his miserable nature, the fact that he hated people having fun, that he was a woman-hating bigot and that he ruined the arts in Scotland with his narrow Calvinist views. In the twenty-first century, historians are looking at him again: who knows what they’ll conclude.

  While Knox has a statue here in the Glasgow Necropolis, he is buried in Edinburgh, at St Giles’ Cathedral, where he used to deliver his sermons. The cemetery has long since disappeared under a car park, and Christine told me that his grave is somewhere under stall number 23.

  ‘I hope a lot of female drivers reverse into that spot,’ I said, somewhat uncharitably.

  The joy of walking in a city, whether it be London, Glasgow, Paris or Rome, is in finding the hidden gems. I love the contrast between the bustle of the urban population going about their working lives, the historical significance of the buildings, the traffic, the noise and the oasis of calm that you will always find, if you look hard enough.

  As part of the build-up to the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, I was asked what I liked most about the city. ‘The Necropolis,’ I replied. Some people thought I was joking or somehow mocking the city, but I was absolutely serious. I know a graveyard isn’t everyone’s idea of a major tourist attraction but, believe me, this one is worth taking the time to explore.

  INKPEN BEACON–ASHMANSWORTH

  What had begun as a three-day adventure with my brother covering seventy miles of the Wayfarer’s Walk turned into one day of walking home. Admittedly, we covered nineteen miles in that day, which is no mean feat, but I wanted to do more. So the next morning I thought we’d start at the beginning – Inkpen Beacon – and walk home with my mother and Alice.

  It’s about thirteen miles. I guessed it would take us between three and four hours, a little longer if we stopped off for a coffee.

  I had asked both of my parents if they wanted to walk with me, but Dad ‘didn’t much fancy it’. Walking isn’t fast or dangerous enough for him. Secretly, my mother and I are relieved. It would have turned into an extreme sport with him constantly asking whether we were going the right way and trying to cut corners across private land. (Like my brother, he doesn’t really understand the concept that trespassing is illegal.)

  I am also secretly thrilled that Mum has decided to come. I don’t tell her, of course. That would be too close to being emotional, or even ‘soppy’, and she might think I am going to give her a hug or something awful. She brings Boris the boxer with her and we bring Archie. Anna Lisa drives us to Inkpen.

  As we hurtle down narrow country lanes by car, Alice says, ‘Is it really this far?’

  And fifteen minutes later: ‘Really? Are we walking this far?’

  ‘It’s much more direct when you walk it,’ I say, in my most confident voice. ‘We’re wiggling around here, but the path goes right across the top of the ridge and it’s straight as an arrow. Don’t worry.’

  We start a few yards from Combe Gibbet, a double hangman’s cross standing some twenty-five feet high on top of a Neolithic long barrow that marks the border between the parishes of Combe and Inkpen. Here, in 1676, the bodies of lovers George Bromham (or Broomham) and Dorothy Newman were hung.

  They had been found guilty of the murder of George’s wife, Martha, and son, Robert, and were publicly hanged in Winchester. Their bodies were brought back to the place where they conceived the murder and displayed in chains, suspended from the gibbet as a lesson to all. The gibbet was used only once and has been replaced several times, most recently in 1992.

  Reports differ as to whether Bromham and Newman murdered his wife and son by beating them to death with a stick, and then disposed of the bodies in a nearby dew pond, or whether (and this is particularly gruesome) Bromham took his wife to Newbury market and on the way there asked her whether she’d ever seen a hornets’ nest, because he knew of one just off the path. He then held her head in the nest until she was stung to death. He killed his son because he had discovered George Bromham’s affair and overheard him talking to Dorothy about the plot.

  The story achieved cult status because it was the subject of a student film made by John Schlesinger in 1948, Black Legend. Schlesinger went on to win an Oscar for Midnight Cowboy, but credited Black Legend as his first success.

  With the grisly landmark of Combe Gibbet behind us, we set off across the top of Walbury Hill, with West Woodhay Down to our left. The weather forecast is fine and the dogs are raring to go. Boris is Mum’s latest boxer, and he is, as Jamie Mackinnon had pointed out, ‘A bit of a handful for you, Mrs B.’

  He is now heavier and considerably stronger than when Jamie made that comment.

  Imagine, if you will, tying a rope around a car and then trying to control it while it drives forward, bouncing from side to side if it sees a pheasant, or a rabbit, or a paper bag. (Not that a car would think much of a pheasant or a rabbit, or indeed a paper bag, but it’s the strength I’m looking for in that analogy, not the motivation.) So Mum has Boris on a lead, and he duly tugs her forward and from side to side.

  ‘Why don’t you let him off the lead?’ I say helpfully, as we set out on a wide grassy track with wheatfields to our left, a small wood to our right and the road nowhere in sight. ‘He doesn’t know where he is so he can’t run off home, and there’s no one around.’

  ‘No,’ my mother says through pursed lips as he tows her along. ‘It’s fine. I want to preserve his energy, otherwise he won’t make it home.’

  I have to stifle a laugh at the idea of a young, energetic, fit and healthy dog needing his energy preserved while a woman in her sixties who has just told me she has never walked this far in her life has her arms pulled out of their sockets.

  Archie, meanwhile, trots along merrily off the lead, behaving like an angel. If I sound like a proud parent, I assure you, it is a rare occurrence.

  Archie gets a bad press in my family. He is, according to my mother, ‘a typical only child’ – by which she means he is spoilt. It’s quite unfair on single children and on our dog, who, I admit, does sleep on the bed, gets on the sofa, sits wherever he feels like in the car and demands his tea at four o’clock on the dot by sitting and staring at whichever one of us is at home. If we ignore him, he raises a paw and bashes us gently but insistently on the knee until he gets what he wants.

  He is a Tibetan terrier and has non-shedding hair, so every six weeks or so he has to have a h
aircut. Alice brushes him and quite often gives him a bath. He doesn’t really like early mornings and won’t ask to go out until about ten o’clock.

  This tests my parents’ idea of a dog to the limit. He stayed with them when he was much younger, and when Dad tried to force him out of bed at 6 a.m. Archie growled at him.

  I will confess his faults straight up – he doesn’t react well to discipline and isn’t good inside with other dogs or with very young children, because he doesn’t understand them. Outside is a different story. He comes when he’s called, doesn’t chase every living animal on the planet, doesn’t bark incessantly and doesn’t pull on the lead – all of which I would say scores him quite well compared to other dogs in the family, if we happened to be getting competitive. Neither does he sit at the dining-room table, which Boris has taken to doing – whether or not there is a person already in the chair.

  I have tried to point out that Tibetan terriers, as the name would suggest, come from Tibet, so they’re quite hardy and were used for herding and guarding, as well as being holy dogs in the temples. My father won’t have it. He also cannot understand that Archie will look larger when his hair is long than when it’s just been cut.

  ‘He’s getting fat, your dog.’

  ‘He’s not, Dad. He’s just fluffy. Look, feel his ribs. He’s not fat.’

  Dad harrumphed. He is horribly fattist. A week later, I came home with Archie freshly shaven.

  ‘He’s lost weight, your dog. Looks very fit,’ he said. ‘Well done, Archie.’

  I can never be bothered to go through it all again.

  Archie is a great walking companion. He never gets too far behind or ahead and he has absolutely no idea what to do if he sees a rabbit, apart from squeak. A cat is a different matter – but you don’t get many of those out in the fields of Hampshire.

  ‘Oh, Archie, are you enjoying being a country dog?’ My mother is talking to me through the dog. Don’t pretend you haven’t done it. We all have. ‘Big, wide open spaces, no pavements, and no one has to follow you with a plastic bag.’

  ‘Luckily enough, he can do London and the country,’ I say cheerily. ‘He really doesn’t mind where he is, as long as he gets fed and has a walk.’

  It’s true, he doesn’t mind and, more to the point – he’s a dog. His life is not full of choices, responsibilities and worries. When I die, I want to come back as a dog, and if I had to pick a dog I’d want to be, I’d be Archie. He has life pretty well sewn up and, if he gets a little snappy with dogs who invade his personal space, well, I’d probably do that, too.

  ‘Seriously, Mum,’ I say, ‘why don’t you let Boris off the lead? He’ll stay with Archie and it’ll be good for him.’

  She looks tempted but says I am unaware of the daily struggles at home of trying to keep Boris anywhere near – and, of course, this is ‘the perfect opportunity for lead training’. So I give up: if my mother is happy to be dragged along for four hours, who am I to question her?

  I relax and fall into easy chat with Alice as we admire the views. Mum is a few strides behind, persuading Boris to walk at her pace and gradually winning the battle.

  A tree is down across the path, forcing us to detour into the woods. We can’t get round it, but it is easy enough to scramble underneath its trunk. Boris tries to help by pulling Mum through the gap, a little faster than she would have liked.

  We have seen a Huf Haus from the road and within a mile or two it appears on our right. Alice and I have always fancied the idea of an energy-friendly house made of wood, steel and glass that is built in a factory, arrives in flat-pack form and goes up in weeks rather than months. This one is in a perfect location – perched high on a hill with green fields and trees all around. It’s not my mother’s thing at all, which she makes very clear, so we agree to disagree and plough onwards, towards Pilot Hill.

  Alice and I walk efficiently but not particularly fast, which is a relief to my mother. She is terrified that we’ll leave her lagging, or that we won’t stop to admire a view, but I am very firmly of the opinion that walking is about taking it all in, bending down to look at flowers, staring into the distance and looking up at trees.

  I spent an hour once with a group of artists; we lay on our backs in the snow, staring up at branches. We’d had to delay the walk a day or two because my car had been snowed in at the Mill in Kingsclere (which I was renting from Uncle Willie). The seven hills of Stroud were under a blanket of cold, wet snow and my bottom got very wet, but I came away with a much better appreciation of the filigree of leafless tree branches.

  That walk got a bit weird when the leader asked us all to hug a tree and then quizzed us on what it made us feel. I made up something that wasn’t true but sounded good. I’m afraid that, as hard as I tried, all I could hear was the song from A Chorus Line: ‘And I dug right down to the bottom of my soul, To see what I had inside … Nothing, I’m feeling nothing.’

  Our walk leader also made me draw left-handed, which just annoyed me. I’m bad enough at drawing right-handed, without being made to look like a complete idiot. There was a lot of talk about enjoying the process rather than the outcome. I wasn’t sure I quite understood. Neither did Lucy, who watched me trying to draw an iron gate.

  ‘It looks like a rabbit,’ she guffawed.

  At one point our leader asked me and Lucy what we were up to. Lucy was recording as I described the scenery. I explained that I needed to give the listener a clear idea of location and conditions, and he sniffed as he said, ‘Oh well, I suppose there’s an art to it somewhere.’

  Lucy raised her eyebrows and I tried to force a smile, as if he’d made a joke.

  On the plus side, our snowy walk in Stroud did make me think I should lie on my back and stare at trees more often. We all should. Although preferably on dry ground, or at least on a waterproof sheet.

  Mum’s youngest brother, John, and his wife, Sophie, live in Ashmansworth, which is just under two hours into our walk. The perfect time to stop for coffee and go to the loo, I suggest. Mum phones Sophie, who is going to yoga at 10.45 but would love to see us if we can make it before then. I look at my watch and pick up the pace. It’s 10 a.m.

  ‘We’ll never make it,’ says Mum.

  My brain has already summoned the smell of coffee, and I need a pee, so I will make sure we do make it. I ignore the view, the primroses to the side of the path, the moss-covered bark on the trees around us – things I would normally enjoy – because the lure of coffee and nice loo paper is just too much.

  We knock on the door at 10.35 and Sophie greets us warmly. ‘John’s up in London, but I’ve got coffee and hot-cross buns,’ she says.

  We tie the dogs up to separate benches outside and take them some water. I ease off my Internet-bargain maroon boots, which have by now worn in rather well and don’t press on the same toes which my trainers demolished the day before.

  On the kitchen table is a steaming jug of fresh coffee, some milk, sugar and mugs, plus some plates. I can see hot-cross buns by the toaster. Oh yes, we have landed in walkers’ heaven! The best thing about trekking a long way is that you feel as if you can eat anything and everything. All you need is someone else to provide for you.

  We haven’t had any breakfast, so Alice and I descend on the buns like hungry caterpillars. I have some of Uncle Gub’s homemade jam, which appals Sophie, who thinks hot-cross buns should be eaten just with butter. Alice and Mum are on her side, but I am too busy licking damson jam from the corners of my lips to care.

  It’s amazing how an injection of caffeine and a hot-cross bun or three can pick you up of a morning. We are revived and rejuvenated and ready for the second half of our adventure. Sophie says the next section, from Ashmansworth to the A34, is beautiful, so we verily skip out of her garden and back up the road to rejoin the Wayfarer’s Walk.

  6

  I love the idea of beginning a walk at a place called Inner Hope. It’s right next to Outer Hope. And it marks the start of the most spectacular section of the S
outh-west Coast Path, to Salcombe.

  I would happily live in either Inner Hope or Outer Hope, just to have that address. The walk itself sounds like an Enid Blyton adventure, as it takes you up on to Bolberry Down, above Slippery Point, with a view of Lantern Rock, past Cathole Cliff, up to the Warren, around Bolt Head and into Salcombe Bay. I had imaginary cucumber sandwiches and lashings of ginger beer in my rucksack – sadly, not the real thing, because I always forget I need sustenance.

  This is as close to a perfect walk as you can get – just under eight miles in distance, not too many tricky down and ups on rocky paths and a near-constant view of the sea, with waves crashing into the rocks below. It’s a walk that makes you feel fresh, alive, energized and gloriously, wonderfully happy. Think how much you’d pay to get that in a bottle, and here it is, in return for a little bit of effort – basically, for free.

  The South-west Coast Path is 630 miles in total, starting in Minehead on the edge of Exmoor and taking you right round the north side of Somerset, Devon, Cornwall and then back again on the bottom edge to Poole Harbour. I have walked or cycled various sections of it, but have not yet covered the whole thing.

  Heading to Inner Hope to record Ramblings, we got lucky with a perfect September day: blue skies, a slight breeze and a warming sun on our faces. I was walking with a couple called Gordon and Caroline Luff and their son, Sam. Gordon had written into the programme when he heard we were doing a series of ‘Listener’s Walks’. They were keen Ramblings fans and wanted to share their story. Caroline was recovering from breast cancer and serious back surgery. All through her recovery she had dreamt of walking again, with the ultimate aim of climbing Cader Idris in Snowdonia. This walk in Devon was an important step as Caroline rebuilt her strength and her confidence.