Walking Home

by Clare Balding

  ‘Ah, it must be the other path,’ says my mother.

  So we keep Grotto Lodge on our left and wander deeper into the woods, eventually emerging into the light of Sidown Hill. Mum gets excited because she can see Highclere Stud down in the valley on our left. I realize from this angle how wonderfully protected their paddocks are and what a benefit it is to bring up young thoroughbreds on the undulations of rich, chalky downland turf that’s never been ploughed and is protected from the wind by the soft curves of the hills around.

  ‘If we go directly towards Beacon Hill, it will be much quicker,’ observes my mother.

  That’s the trouble with knowing your local landscape too well. You know the quickest route. The way the Wayfarer’s Walk has been negotiated is not the most direct, but it is pretty.

  Harold the tractor driver is working the field to our right. I know Harold because of some filming we did around here the previous summer; Highclere Estates had promised to give me some feed for a charity project I was working on for the Riding for the Disabled Association (RDA), but in return I had to cut some corn on the combine harvester. And be filmed while doing so.

  ‘So, if you can just talk Clare through the controls,’ Tim, the director, had said. ‘Then she can take over.’

  A combine harvester is a beast of a machine. I had never been in the cab of anything so big in my life and I certainly wasn’t about to drive it solo.

  ‘Harold will be in the cab with me, won’t he?’ I asked.

  Answer came there none.

  Harold showed me how to steer, which seemed quite straightforward; how to turn the machine on – again, quite straightforward; and then suggested that I just slip it into neutral when I wanted to come to a halt so that it came to a nice steady stop. Fine. Tim was filming all of this, but it was very cramped in the cab, so he said, ‘Harold, do you mind if you leave us in here, and I’ll just get Clare to do a bit on her own?’

  Harold made the fatal error of agreeing. I started the engine, clunked the lever down into drive and started singing to myself as we chugged up the hill, ‘I’m driving a combine harvester, oh yes I am.’ Ping! went the machine. A bale popped out the back.

  ‘I’m making straw, oh yes I am. I’m making straw on my comb-eye-ine …’

  I thought how proud my nephews would be. I was high up in my engine, queen of all I surveyed, doing something practical and feeling like a land girl. Five bales had popped out and I’d reached the crest of the hill, so I kept my line and said to Tim, ‘Have you got enough now, because I should probably stop?’

  I slipped the lever into neutral, but the combine didn’t stop. In fact, it picked up speed. We had gone over the hill and were heading down the other side, getting faster all the time.

  I’d love to pretend I remained calm and analytical, but I didn’t. I nearly wet myself with panic.

  ‘Tim! Tim! It’s not stopping! What am I going to do? This is all your fault. Oh God. There’s a hedge ahead of us. Oh God …’

  I swore. A lot. I thought of Harold, and James Phillips, the estate manager, and how cross they’d be. I thought of my nephews and how disappointed they would be and then I thought of the insurance forms and whether or not I had signed something that said I was liable for any damage I might cause.

  The combine harvester was picking up speed. I thought there was a pedal that looked like a brake, but Harold hadn’t told me to touch anything other than the lever I’d put into neutral, so I didn’t dare step on it.

  Instead, I had a flash of inspiration. I decided to treat the combine harvester like a runaway horse and turn it into the middle of the field. I did so quite smoothly and gently, talking to it all the while: ‘Whoa, boy, whoa there. That’s it.’

  The pace started to slacken and, although it felt like minutes, it was probably only seconds later that the combine harvester came to a halt, sideways across the field, leaving a stream of curving bales behind it. I swore at Tim. I was shaking with fear and rage. It takes a lot to scare me, but I had been out of control in a 30-ton combine harvester that costs more than the average house. I could see Harold and James running across the field, and I considered crying, just to make sure they wouldn’t shout at me.

  I opened the door and fell down the steps. James caught me as my legs gave way.

  ‘I could see you heading off towards the end of the field,’ he said. ‘And all I could think was “There’s a drop the other side of that hedge of about twenty feet on to a railway line. Don’t go straight on!” ’

  Then he laughed.

  Harold looked very concerned. For his combine.

  ‘I thought you were only going to the top of the hill,’ he said. ‘When you went over the other side I thought, “Don’t put it in neutral now.” But you did. Oh, well. Lucky it didn’t explode, with the bales coming out that quick.’

  He looked at his beloved combine and patted it on the side. ‘Could’ve been worse, I s’pose.’

  I apologized to Harold and James, plus the combine harvester, which I also patted. It seemed the right thing to do. I told Tim I hated him and would never do anything for him ever again.

  An hour later, we arrived at a Retraining of Racehorses centre, trying to find a horse for the RDA. Tim was attempting to convince me that the runaway combine harvester would be the funniest bit of the whole film. I wasn’t so sure.

  When I wave at Harold on his tractor, he doesn’t seem to see me.

  9

  Lucy met me at the station in a hire car.

  ‘Keys,’ I said, and put my hand out.

  ‘Hello, Lucy, how are you? Kids all right?’ she said, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘Yes, yes, all of that,’ I replied. ‘After you’ve given me the car keys.’

  The only trouble with me insisting that I drive is that it means Lucy has to map read. This is never a straightforward affair.

  ‘Wait, wait,’ she said, fumbling with the pages of an OS map. ‘I have to work out which way we need to leave the station.’

  ‘Haven’t you got a road map?’ I asked. Of course she didn’t.

  ‘Here, put the postcode into my phone, that’ll work best.’

  I threw my phone into her lap, then thought better of it and pulled over to do it myself.

  Lucy now has a satnav and knows how to work it. Consequently, our journeys are now shorter, happier and more accurate – as long as her battery lasts and she puts in Newport, Isle of Wight, rather than Newport, Wales, or Newcastle-under-Lyme rather than Newcastle upon Tyne.

  We were heading to the Severn Hospice in Bicton Heath, just on the north-west side of Shrewsbury, to meet a bereavement walking group. It was founded by a Radio 4 listener called Caroline Clegg after hearing an episode of Ramblings featuring a mental-health walking group (of which more later).

  We arrived at the hospice to find a crowd gathered in reception. It was a cold January day, and one of the women, Maggie, who worked there had knitted me a pair of gloves and a scarf.

  ‘It’s a birthday present,’ she said.

  I had no idea that they knew it was my birthday the next day. I was touched.

  Caroline told us that the Strollers group was run by volunteers. What had started as a nice idea – to support the recently bereaved – became something that really worked and mattered to the people who needed it most.

  One of my challenges when we are walking with a large group is to remember everybody’s name, but this was easy in the Strollers because everyone wears a name badge. It removes any awkwardness over forgetting a name or nerves about starting a conversation with a stranger. One man I spoke to had joined when his wife died and then trained as a counsellor so that he could help those more recently bereaved on what he calls their ‘grief path’.

  ‘This is a bridge between dealing with your grief and trying to deal with the new tomorrow,’ he said. ‘You want to be back there in the past, which you can’t be, and you don’t want to be in the future, because that’s a bit intimidating. This starts to move people into a mor
e social lifestyle, with the safety of knowing that those around them have been through a similar experience.’

  The literal movement of walking forwards, clambering over stiles, getting stuck in the mud and asking each other for a helping hand seems to aid the journey from the darkness of grief into a place where the sun shines, at least some of the time.

  We headed out across a busy road, through a gap in the hawthorn hedge and into a field. We were following a section of the Severn Way and within a few minutes we were squelching through the fields, chatting about this and that. After about half an hour a man called Alan offered me a mint. He wanted to say hello and then we started talking about his wife, who had died a few months before.

  ‘This Christmas has been awful,’ he said, ‘and I had an eightieth birthday when I didn’t want to do anything at all. I found it was very hard. We were married fifty-five years, so there was always someone there, and then, suddenly, nothing. It was very difficult to start mixing again. But this is a lovely walk, isn’t it?’ He offered me another mint.

  He had said enough, and it was as if he was giving himself permission to enjoy the views, the company and the exercise.

  The River Severn curled its lazy way through the meadows down to our right, and we ogled a very smart manor house on the other side. We headed up the slope towards an oak coppice, snowdrops shyly revealing themselves, and crossed a stile into the woods. Coming out the other side, it was clear there would be options depending on how far people wanted to walk. Some could take the shorter route back to the hospice, others could come with us and walk a little further via Rossall Grange and Udlington. They weren’t walking for fitness, or necessarily for the view, but the walk was taking them away from the feeling of isolated grief, and the medicine of fresh air and exercise seemed to be working.

  Standing on a wide path by the side of a farm, another walker, who had also ‘graduated’ from being bereaved to becoming a bereavement counsellor, told me, ‘It’s wonderful to be with people who have a bond because of a similar experience, to hear other people confirm some of the feelings you have, especially when you think you’re going a bit doolally with your thoughts. And you make such good friends. It becomes like a bit of a self-help group, because those who are further down the line in bereavement are then passing on their experience.’

  Most of the members are pensioners, and they have more time than they want or need to think about the loved ones they have lost. They told me how good it was to be outside, to have a purpose, to have company, without the pressure of answering the inevitable question, ‘Are you all right?’

  It’s easier to share feelings when there is no pressure of eye contact or long silences in a room. For men in particular, who find unburdening a burden, doing something active while talking is more natural. Walking helps you to get over the shock, to mix gently with others, and to continue to talk about your grief years after your loss with people who understand.

  The group offers fellowship, companionship and practical guidance. I am prouder of that group being set up because of Ramblings than anything else I’ve ever done. It’s important to me that things like the Strollers exist, because it makes me feel that I’ve actually contributed something.

  It’s easy sometimes to fall into the trap of doing one job after another without thinking about it, without creating anything that lasts.

  I take on a lot of work and, although I enjoy it hugely, I’m aware that I am probably the worst kind of person to be freelance. I’m always terrified that if I say no to the job I’m offered today, I won’t be offered one tomorrow. If I take a day off, I will be considered lazy or unambitious; and if I turn down charity requests, I will be labelled ‘mean’. Being a freelance is an uncertain existence, because no one pays you when you’re ill or have time off. There are plenty of people in the same boat – writers, actors, anyone who is self-employed – and I suspect we all share the dread that comes with insecurity.

  On the plus side, the life of a freelance is a constant surprise, full of jobs you never thought you’d do, places you never imagined you’d visit, people you would never otherwise have met. I am making the most of being fit and healthy by having as many different experiences and adventures as I can. Consequently, I don’t have much time off.

  I cope with it pretty well, and Alice insists that we book holidays (left to my own devices, I might forget), but there are times in life and times of year when stress weighs a little heavier. I feel it in the winter months, whether or not I am busy, just because the days are short and the skies are grey. One way of relieving it is to walk.

  The combination of winter months and being away from home is not a good one for me, and I used to suffer badly from homesickness. I first started to use walking as a remedy in Melbourne in 2006. I was there for the Commonwealth Games, doing the night-shift Australia-time for programmes that would go out late afternoon or early evening here in the UK. It meant that I had to try to sleep during the day, but no matter how often I told Housekeeping that I didn’t want to be disturbed, they would knock on my door or ring the room to double-check. It made me quite grumpy so, when I woke up at about four in the afternoon, I headed out for a walk. I would do a circuit down one side of the Yarra River, over the bridge at Flinders Street and back the other side. It was probably only a couple of miles, but it set me up for my night shift, through to six o’clock the next morning.

  When I was in Russia for the Winter Olympics in February 2014, I walked every morning for at least an hour along the promenade. I watched the fishermen casting their lines into the Black Sea, and one morning I saw a pod of dolphins playing in the waves. It was the warmest Winter Olympics host city ever, and most days I didn’t need a jacket. But I wasn’t walking to get a suntan: I was walking because it helped me survive.

  My shifts were early afternoon until midnight, so I could have a late breakfast and then head off for my walk along the Black Sea.

  By day twelve (of seventeen) most people at the Games were flagging. It’s a long haul, and everyone gets a bit tetchy, sniffly, and desperate for a decent cup of tea. I am normally counting down the days to going home, but this time I was fine. It’s not that I didn’t miss Alice – I did – but I could handle it. For the first time I felt really strong throughout, and I’m sure it was because of my morning walks. The programme flourished because of it, and the evening highlights took on a life of their own, with a shopping trolley (our floor manager Mat Wayne had ‘borrowed’ it from a local supermarket and refashioned it with compartments, a screen and even a plastic holder for the microphone) becoming the biggest hit of all.

  Alice had given me a Jawbone UP for my birthday – a wristband that monitors movement – so I was using it to count my steps and record my sleep pattern. Every day, I made sure I hit my minimum target of ten thousand steps. Poor Sue Barker, with whom I had breakfast most mornings, must have been fed up with me banging on about hours of deep sleep enjoyed and numbers of steps taken.

  Some days, by the time I’d done my morning walk, then crossed Olympic Park to the International Broadcast Centre where broadcasters from all over the world were based, come back to the studio for make-up then walked all over the park presenting, I logged over twenty thousand steps (about ten miles). I finished the Games in rude health, thrilled to be back in the BBC fold. I was embarrassingly upbeat, singing when I went into the office and generally behaving like Tigger.

  Digital communications help. Covering previous Winter Olympics, I racked up horrendous phone bills trying to keep in touch with friends and family back home and was emotionally exhausted by the final week. For Atlanta in 1996, the Internet barely existed and you couldn’t take a photo with your phone, let alone instantly send it home.

  In Sochi, video calling was a revelation. From your mobile phone, you can see home, eat supper with your partner, talk to the children (or, in our case, the dog) and just be in the same room, for hours if you want, all for free. Cricketers tell me it’s the only way they can survive long t
ours, and I know it’s a lifesaver for athletes like Mo Farah with training camps abroad. My nephews and niece love it; I took them on a virtual trip through Olympic Park, and Toby told his schoolteacher the next day that he’d ‘been to the Winter Olympics’.

  The downside of mass communication is that everyone can talk to you, and not all of what they want to say is very nice or helpful. I was getting grief from a small group of vocal people who believed I should boycott the Sochi Olympics because of Russia’s stance on the ‘non-promotion’ of homosexuality to minors.

  I had thought long and hard about going, and decided that I was not there to defend or promote Russia, I was there to do my job, which was to cover the Winter Olympics as well as I could.

  I believe in the freedom to pursue your career without fear of prejudice on the basis of race, religion, gender or sexuality. It seemed to me hypocritical and counter-productive not to accept the role as the lead presenter in Sochi because I am gay – that would be playing into the hands of the homophobes who want to judge gay people as lesser human beings. I felt the whole point was to show Russia that being gay or straight is no more relevant than being left- or right-handed, blonde or brunette.

  Also, I thought that if we, as a nation, were going to boycott Russia on the basis of human rights, we should all boycott it – it wasn’t just up to one openly gay presenter. The LGBT community in Russia had made it clear they didn’t want a boycott. The athletes weren’t boycotting, the BBC wasn’t boycotting, Channel 4 wasn’t boycotting. So what would a one-woman boycott achieve? Nothing – apart from making me look like I thought I was more important than the Olympics themselves.