Ged's 300-Mile World Heritage Walk - Aug/Sept 2009

2009-10-12T08:02:00.000-07:00

Conclusion – Why I did the Walk

The life and works of Bede, and the Jarrow March are two events separated by 1200 years, but I've always
been fascinated by how with them, this little town of Jarrow stands on 'both edges of England'. At one side, it has a foot firmly in the origin of this country, whilst its other stands equally strong not only in where that idea led, as the first industrial country, but also the 'flip-side' of that industry: the poverty, unemployment, and the social questions raised by things like that.

Instead of being two, isolated 'stories', Bede and the March are two incredibly significant events in two movements which take up huge chunks of all English History: - One, the Anglo-Saxon period, which gave us the birth of scholasticism, the language, culture and art etc.. and, Secondly, the Industrial revolution, from which we got ideas of pre-eminence over nature, mass production, the British Empire and the period which ended with the Second World War. When you see it that way, there aren't really many centuries in English history that are exempt from the spheres of influence in which Jarrow's two events play influential roles.

The walk showed me the history of many places, but very few - especially those of comparable size – possess the 'breadth' of history that Jarrow has. As historian Michael Wood said in his book 'In Search of England' a few years back: 'As an historical landscape, Jarrow takes some beating – to say the least, it holds a special place in the story of England.'

But how can these two events mean anything of relevance, in today's world which is 'post industrial''post-religious' and post-everything except 'now'? Well...I think that Jarrow's 'two big moments' are often viewed in the same way that people today are accustomed to think of the two places where the walk started - St Peter's, Wearmouth, and St Paul's, Jarrow: as two separate churches, in two different towns, on two separate rivers, which support two oppositional football teams. But, as we know, when built, Bede called them 'One monastery in two places.' - there was no sense of separation; the gap between them was what unified them. It made them something bigger: not just two monasteries alone, but something larger than the sum of the two.

That's how I'd like the March, and Bede, to be viewed today. With both pulling each end of the same rope, Jarrow becomes a concept which - as the industry for history, culture and heritage becomes more pivotal in issues of economy, prosperity and simple awareness – can catapult the town out of its reputation as a poor, typically-downtrodden town, to something uniquely placed to ask broad, comprehensive questions of cultural identity.

As the Vikings took away too much from Bede's Monastery in the 8th Century, and then William, and later, those who thoughtlessly demolished the rest of the buildings just 200 years ago, too much of Jarrow's industrial history was taken away between the late 1950s and the 1970s, to be replaced with constructions such as Jarrow Arndale/Viking/Shopping Centre, and Jarrow Flyover. In the 'then and now' tradition of Lavendon, just look at these photos, to see what's been lost from this town's landscape in just the last few decades:

1200 years separate these two destructive actions, but both were done because the word 'heritage' wasn't respected, of if it was, was considered in its narrowest possible sense.

The breadth of Jarrow's history signifies to everyone just how 'big' the word 'Heritage' is. I hope that gaining World Heritage Status will enable people from all over the world to learn that fact, and to learn it here, where English learning began.

Going Home

2009-10-09T08:23:00.001-07:00

After I'd put my fingers on the Jarrow Stone, we hung around a little longer. In all, around 15 people turned up to meet me. There was a service, and talk that there should be some permanent connection set-up between Jarrow and Guildford to commemorate the Surrey Fund, which both towns have forgotten more than they should have.

This is a pile of walk flyers on the entry table:

..and this is me with Frances Dawson, whom I'd first met during my second visit to the cathedral, in 2007, and with whom I'd liaised to gain most of my info regarding the stone in the two years between:

Then, I was overcome with an overpowering urge to just be quiet, and sit down. I was invited to a meal, but I just wanted to get the bag back to Kirsten's, and lie on a sofa. I couldn't think of anything to say, and I just wanted there to be no more hassle, or if there was - like carting all my stuff through people, and getting trains - I wanted it over as soon as possible. Kirsten and I left Kate, Bill and Jenny to have the meal, and went back to the station:

I couldn't even think what route I needed, so Kirsten made all the important decisions regarding getting back to Richmond. It was a nightmare journey, of two hours, in rush-hour people, with a 25 minute wait at Clapham Junction stuck in the middle. We got a taxi from Richmond station to Kirst's house.

I hung around Richmond for another three days, doing not much, except for being shown around All saint's Church in Kingston: the spot where seven late Anglo-Saxon kings had been crowned:

This harks back to a time after the golden age of Northumbria, when the emphasis in England shifted down to the south, and the dominance of Wessex, Alfred the Great, and the growth of the capital of the East Saxons, London, etc.. This led onto Edward the Confessor, who set up Westminster Abbey. With the Battle of Hastings, the emphasis of the entire island shifted from having been East/West, (Germanic, English Anglo-Saxons against the British Romanised Celts) to North/ South (Anglo-SAxons against the Norman French). The Norman French won, and that's the history most of us know best today - one of 'The North/South Divide'. This misses out the Ango-Saxon period -from about 500AD to 1066, calls it the 'Dark Ages', and leaves the impression that those 566ish years were just 'preamble', and that the North has never been anything other than a backwater.

Then, I caught a Megabus to Bristol, to visit my mates Allan and Gail, and their three-year old daughter, Evie, who live just south of the city, in Congresbury. That was just what I needed; I took some photos in the churchyard there:

....and the four of us took a day trip to Glastonbury. This was on top of the Tor, the 9th time I've been up there:

There were some cows trying to stop us getting up:

..but we made it. This is Allan and Evie getting back down:

We went to the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, which had been the richest abbey in England until Henry VIII dissolved it - a process which saw its last abbot, Richard Whiting, hung, drawn and quartered on the Tor, with his head being stuck over the abbey gatehouse. This is what it looked like before the dissolution:

..and this is what's left of it today:

In the abbey ground, we stopped by the site of the story I mentioned back in St Albans - the one about the lead cross, the grave of King Arthur, Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea, and Jerusalem? This is the spot where the monks supposedly dug to find Arthur's grave, with Gail and Evie behind.

Later that day, we went to Wells:

It had been just a few weeks earlier, in a nursing home in Wells, that the last surviving British 'Tommy' soldier of the First World War, Harry Patch, had died, and with it, an entire page in English history, turned. I 'did' the battlefields of Ypres and the Somme five and six years ago, and I can say that a long walk around those areas, and the Western Front in general, is the only walk I can think of which is more historically resonant that the one I've just finished.

Most people agree that Wells Cathedral is one of the greatest in the country. The west front has the best examples of intact medieval statues in the world, although, 'intact' is a big word..

But inside, it's fantastic:

I spent a day in Bristol, looking at more recent history, such as the SS Great Britain:

..and the Clifton Suspension Bridge:

..both of which are the work of the man who was a few years ago voted the '2nd Greatest Briton of all time.' - Isambard Kingdon Brunel, whose name is so common in Bristol, it's almost like he's watching you wherever you go:

I took a lot of buses around:

..and on my final day, I went over to Bath, to see my cousins, who live in Winsley, just a few miles west of the city. Bath is a World Heritage Site, just like we all hope Wearmouth/Jarrow will be one day. It's famous for its Roman ruins, Jane Austen and Georgian Architecture:

..as well as its abbey:

...which has this very original sculpture of angels climbing a ladder on its front:

Then I went up to the Royal Cresent, and the Circus:

..which is covered in strange Freemasonic symbols, like these:

Bath has the greatest concentration of this type of 'golden stone' Georgian architecture in the country, but many people are surprised to find out which city has the second-greatest: Newcastle. Ok, it may have been built about 60 years later, but as we've just seen with the Grainger Towns improvements, Newcastle centre scrubs up very well. It's a shame a lot of people just think of it as a place to come and get up to the type of 'antics' they wouldn't do in their home towns.

I ended my tour of Bath in one of my favourite pubs in the country: The Crystal Palace:

Then, it was off to Winsley, for a great catch-up evening with my cousin, Heather:

her husband, Richard

..and my second-cousins, Victoria, and Dan:

Then it was back to Jarrow..

After a ten-hour Megabus journey via Victoria (which only cost £20!), I found myself waiting for the metro at Newcastle Central Station, then here, Heworth, late the following night:

Fifteen minutes later, I was 'Back ti canny auld Jarraa'

..just across the platform from Vince Rea's sculpture of the March, so too far away to see the grafitti over it:

Tuesday the 1st of September - To Guildford

2009-10-09T04:12:00.000-07:00

I got up really early this morning, knowing that after three easy days, this was one final, long leg. It was imperative that we got there 'at around 3ish' - so Kirsten and I left before 7, passing Kingston town Centre before anyone was really up:

We walked along Portsmouth Road, and soon, entered the final county of the walk:

Here, we saw the first sign for my destination:

In Esher, we walked past this Estate Agents, which is very well-established down here, but which made me snigger nevertheless:

At Cobham, we got a very precise road map, which led us straight over this river:

Because of the map, we managed to make the best of the day by walking on very narrow country lanes. As ever, I can't really recall what order I saw the next sites, but soon we went past this wonderful old road sign:

..over the M25, again. Goodbye London:

..this pink house, somewhere in the maze of tiny lanes and big hedges:

..and, perfectly, the final ISSR of the walk (next to two, sensibly-modelled by Kirsten):

The rest of the walk took us on and on through more country lanes. The map led us through - we would have never reached Guildford by this route without it. We crossed over the A3/ Portsmouth Road, and I had my final stroke of luck of the walk, when a path appeared next to what I'd thought was going to end up being another stretch of grass verges by a dual carriageway. At the end, after this sign:

..the sliproad took us up:

...and at the top, I had my first view of the cathedral:

Then it was into the suburbs, passing this:

Just outside town, was this old tree, straight out of the Bede school of venerability:

A bit further up the road were these defences, set up to stop tanks during the Second World War, and very wisely, kept in situ afterwards. Who needs some out-of-place bit of contemporary public art stuck in a town, when most towns have so many stories already in them?

But just after those, we reached the High Street, and were early, so we went straight to the pub. A bad one, so we left, and went to another, better one closer to the river:

Then, it was time to head for the cathedral. It's such a massive building, on a high hill just outside town, that its presence was felt at every turn through the streets:

The ground became higher, and very soon, we found ourselves just under it:

Then, we cut through the bushes, and were on the approach..just as Kate, Bill and Jenny turned up in the car! It was perfect timing - exact to within 10 seconds. While they drove up the approach, I hung around to 'take in' where I'd walked to:

If you think you recognise this area, it was the place used in the first Omen film, in that scene where Damien's in the car, and goes crazy on Lee Remmick and Gregory Peck, when he realises he's heading towards a church. I think that was a great choice of location, because there's something extremely powerful about the architecture of Guildford:

..many people dislike it, and think it looks like a power station, but...that's the point. It speaks really truthfully of the years it was constructed -between the 1930 and 50s, at the high point of Modernism - and when Modernism was still progressive (before it started building things like Jarrow shopping Centre and flyover -see the concluding entry of this blog). I like it more than the other cathedral to which it's sometimes compared -Coventry. Anyway, even if people are justified in disliking it, a lot of them revise their vitriol when they see inside:

This is just an incredible space - it's like it takes all of the Gothic buildings from the preceding 800 years, and scrubs them down, getting rid of the colour, statues, and any other embelishments, to just show you the essential details of the style. It's rampantly Modern on the outside, and very modernly respectful of the past on the inside, which I like.

Meanwhile, back on the walk..this is Bill, Kate and Jenny parking:

As it had been when I'd left Bede's World, three and a half week's earlier, the rest of the time in the cathedral was a whirl. There was a photographer there, who'd been employed by Sunderland Council to capture the moment, and he did -for 25 minutes, then another one, from the Guildford newspaper, who was a lot quicker. This is the first one, who had a penchant for dropping into impressions of Sean Connery, at the entrance with Kate, Bill and Jenny:

Within a few minutes, we walked down the north wall of the nave, to this little spot,

And that was the end of the Walk.

Monday the 31st of August - To Richmond

2009-10-05T03:46:00.001-07:00

After a very slow morning, I decided that this time, I really couldn't be bothered with the tube. The plan had been to catch it from Kentish Town to Marble Arch, but it was a fine day, and I felt full of energy again, so, I left Emily's Street:

..and walked straight into London in the direction of Regent's Park. In no time, I was passing Camden Town:

..then I walked down Parkway, where things started to look a lot less messy. Just behind Regent's Park, I passed a pub, and noticed that there was 'something about' a guy who was sitting with a few friends, outside. I stopped to buy a coke, and sat three tables away. This guy was very laid-back, wore a trendy hat, and had a dark beard, but...I knew him from somewhere. As I sipped, and made sure everyone -him included- saw the T-shirt, it clicked: It was J Kay from Jamiroquai...but no, it wasn't. Then it really clicked: It was actually Keanu Reeves!

I'm certain it was him, but I didn't have any power on the camera to do any underhand snapping. After making doubly sure he saw the T-Shirt (he's only human), I passed onwards, through Regent's Park, determined to find somewhere where I could charge up the camera battery. Eventually, I came out at Maylebone / Baker Street, and the Sherlock Holmes Statue:

..and just across the road, popped into here:

..to talk electrical sockets. They were very helpful: I got a free pint of coke from the Aussie barmaid, and about half-an hour of charging, which lasted me the rest of the day.

Then I headed straight for the centre, where the well-known sights became almost constant:

After a few turns, I was back at Marble Arch, and the actual start of the day's walk:

I turned off, through Hyde Park, and Speakers Corner. Here, there was a guy talking about anti-globalisation, and the problems of the Recession.

He was very dignified, as far as I could see, but I didn't get the chance to hear more, because it was mostly the crowd who were talking. In particular, a guy in his 60s (in black)was discussing things with a slightly younger guy from Africa (in pink):

They started off full of respect, with them both calling each other 'friend' etc...but in ten minutes, there were ructions on. Neither of the guys would back down, and on one occasion the English guy ran over and tried to push the other one to the ground.

In the end, they had to be pulled off each other by friends, and the English guy left shouting abuse. Great stuff: This sort of thing is what Speakers Corner is all about, and has been for centuries.

I passed through Hyde Park:

past the Serpentine:

..and out at Hyde Park Corner. Here, on the traffic Island, I was under what is my favourite war memorial in the country:

This is the Artillery Memorial, and apparently the gun on the top is angled so that if it were to fire a shell, it would land in the middle of the Somme Battlefield, just beyond Amiens, in France. Not sure how this would work out in reality, but there's something silent and powerful about this memorial, which I was very glad to include in my list of 'important places' to visit during the walk.

Just behind this is the 'Triumphant Arch':

..and of course, Apsley House, Home of the Duke of Wellington, and otherwise known as 'No 1, London.' Supposedly, this actually isn't a sign of the famous arrogance of a man who once called his entire army 'scum' and on another occassion said he'd spent the entire day out in the fields 'shooting peasants' : There used to be a gate, or, I think a tollroad, here, and this was the first house encountered as you passed through it, so the 'No1' designation is actually true.

I was a great day, and the T-shirt was getting a lot of stares, so I milked the moment, and hung around a lot longer than I'd planned. Going down Constitution Hill, I nipped into Green Park, to photograph this tree:

..which I once read has a reputation for letting out blood-curdling screams in the middle of the night...
Then I was at Buckingham Palace:

... no possiblity of me flyering here, but here is a photo of a flyer, just infront of it:

... and one of the T-shirt:

Behind me, I could see the tops of the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey:

I crossed over The Mall:

..to take a closer photo of the Queen Victoria Statue. I was right: the more you focus in, the more you can tell that she's had her nose replaced:

After this, I picked up the pace, past the back wall of Buckingham Palace:

...through St James' and past Sloane Square onto the King's Road, Chelsea:

..where I HAD to stop to take a photo of this property in an estate agent's window:

Yip -£2000 per WEEK.. I also went past this road. I had to stop, and, going into a barber's, I asked 'Can I have a perm?' 'Of course.' The barber said 'Mary hed a little lemb...' Geordie Joke..

Then I was in Fulham, which has this old pottery kiln building stuck in amongst lots of other things:

Soon after, I was crossing the Thames into Putney:

Here, I did another bit of searching, and after a longer walk out of my way than I thought, found the street:

I only really liked two kid's programmes when I was a child, and I'm glad that time has proved them to have been classics, that can be read at very 'different levels' now I'm older. One was, of course, Bagpuss (there's something brilliantly dark about that whole scenario), and the other was based on this road, although in it, the name was changed to 'Festive Road' - This is where 'Mr Ben' was set. Looks a bit like it, really. There was no costume shop on the corner, though. And neither did one appear as if by magic:

I had no map, so I guessed my way through the streets onto a main one, and made up some route that took me to Priory Road, home of the famous 'Priory' -the 'recovery clinic' where all the really important people go because their lives are so stressful:

At the end, was Richmond Park:

Which is a great place, and well worth a visit. Parts of it have always reminded me of being in the African Savannah, and it was even more reminiscent because I got there just as the sun was low:

There were deer all around, far:

..and close:

On the way out, there's a place which has been preserved free from trees, because the view from that point is so extensive - you can see all over London, from The City -the pic at the beginning of this entry - to Canary Wharf:

After that, it was getting dark, and I hotfooted it down the hill for a quick one in The Dysart, and on to the place I was actually staying - a little area between Richmond and Kingston called Ham. Here, I had a great night catching up with Rashmi, her husband Ben, his sister, Kirsten, and the mother/mother-in-law of them all, Sue.

Sunday 30th of August - To Marble Arch

2009-09-25T06:57:00.000-07:00

As arranged, today I was awoken by another radio interview -Radio Newcastle. This one had a big difference, though : I was really hungover, and though -in the words of Basil Fawlty : 'I think I got away with it', I'm ashamed to say that I can't remember a word I said, and after it, I went back to bed for about six hours..

..then I got up, and monged around until it was time to go. This was all according to plan, of course.. Anyway, it was the shortest leg of the lot, so it really didn't matter that I ended up leaving Emily's at 5.30, hopefully.

Her house is just by the tube station, so it was a totally normal journey to Edgware:

..although I did get the idea that I was going the wrong way, as the tube became emptier as we went up the Northern Line:

By the time I got there, there was just me and two half-cut guys on, who spent the last five minutes trying to remember the name of 'The guy who played Pike in Dad's Army'. I reached Edgware just in the last hours of daylight, and for some reason, looked really terrified:

In a minute I was past the pub I'd had my 3 quick pints in, the day earlier:

..and back onto Watling Street. The journey was jut like it had been the day earlier, too - estates, rows of shops, car garages etc, until I reached the place that always marks the beginning of true London: the Staples Corner junction/flyover/railway/roundabout at Brent Cross:

I'm normally going past this on the coach, but this time I had to negotiate the walkways under it:

In the distance I could see the arch of the New Wembley Stadium:

Soon I was getting close to the area I lived in, in 2001 - Neasden, Willesden, Kilburn etc.. I continued straight down Watling Street, or as they call it here:

..and where it changes for a little while into:

Being a straight road full of houses, shops, and other things you normally get on roads, there wasn't really anthing to take photos of except for the street names, which showed how close I was getting to the centre. This one also showed that things were getting posher:

Just off here, I realised that I was close to an area of 'contemporary historical importance' - I was probably close to hundreds, but I knew where this one was, so I turned left off Maida Vale, and walked past some very opulent streets:

I turned onto Grove End Road, and onto this one, where I stopped outside this building:

Just in case the tension is killing, this was the name of the road:

And the building is, of course, the studio. The wall outside is painted white, and is always covered in grafitti, but it seemed that this time it had been cleaned just a day or so before. The words were creeping back, though:

While I was just standing there, with another ten or so people, these three kids appeared with paints, and, bold as brass, just started writing on the wall. They all looked quite well-off, as well, so decorating the wall is obviously not seen as a crime around here - it's probably considered 'just traditional artistic expression of youth's sweet emotions' or something...

Like everyone else, I 'did' the road crossing. It must really irritate the drivers around here:

After that, it was back on Edgware Road again. The last stretch, from the Paddington flyover really starts buzzing with the feeling that you're in the centre of the biggest city in Europe. It's full of all types of life, but most overwhelming atmosphere from the restaurants and shops is one dominated by a Lebanese/Levant feel:

There were people everywhere, and it was a proper 'nightime in London' vibe as I stomped forward through sights that were becoming very recognisable. Sooner than I expected, I was at the Odeon on the corner, and across the road, got my first view of Marble Arch:

It took three minutes to cross the road, through the traffic, and crowd:

..but most were heading down Oxford Street, so I found myself at the traffic island almost alone:

And here was the end of one strand of the walk. There were many dimensions to this little trek of mine, but this was where I finished the Jarrow March one. It had ended here, on a rainy October day in 1936, with high hopes from the Marchers. Unfortunately, MArble ARch proved to be the high point of their entire story. While in London, Stanley Baldwin refused to meet them, and the petition was handed over while the Marchers were unaware, on a Thames boat trip paid for by John Jarvis, which made most of them feel they'd been 'fobbed-off' from the main event. As well as this, the main meeting to welcome them was arranged at the Memorial Hall in Farringdon Street. It had been intended to highlight the plight of Jarrow, yet it was here that John Jarvis chose his moment to surprise everyone - Ellen Wilkinson included - with some unsubstantiated news about an 'imminent steel works to be built in Jarrow.' No-one was aware of this, and even if it was simply over-enthusiasm on Jarvis' part, it was taken as a bit of glory-seeking, which left people saying 'well..if this was in the pipeline all along, what did they/we walk all this way for?'

..and nothing much came of it. The site of Palmers - the yard that in 82 years between 1851 and 1933 built 900 ships:

..is today occupied by the Viking Business Park:

..Rohm and Haas chemical works, and a lot of wasteground between. But there is nothing to let people know what used to be there, and what its closing led to. I know there are a lot of people my age in Jarrow who don't even know where the shipyard was.

Saturday the 29th of August - to Edgware

2009-09-14T12:55:00.000-07:00

Today, I knew that I'd broken the back of the walk, and because I had only nine miles to walk, I could afford to take things easy. This was the first real time of the walk that I felt a weight had been lifted, and there was true excitement for what was ahead: three day's through London, staying with people I'd known for years.

The morning started as a direct continuation of the evening before. There were more stories, first of which involved the object shown above. Peter had this on a bookcase, and I had to take a photo of it, because this is a walk for the history of England, and the cross is a replica of something central to one of the most fundamental stories/legends on which this island's sense of identity, history and importance is based.

It's a copy of a lead cross which was apparently dug up from the graveyard of Glastonbury Abbey by the monks, in 1191. Six feet further down, the story says, they found a huge coffin, with the bodies of a large man and a woman with blonde hair which crumbled away when touched. The wording on the cross says 'Here lies the renowned King Arthur in the Isle of Avalon'. The facts behind this story are that the Abbey had burned down a few years earlier, and that pilgrimages to see relics were big business in those days. Due to this, the story is probably correctly considered today to have been a hoax, especially since the cross was last seen in Wells over 400 years ago.

More interestingly though, is the question why Glastonbury would ever have claimed to have Arthur's grave, and to be 'the isle of Avalon'. There isn't the space to go into that here, because believe me, it's the biggest tale in that entire universe of sources where factual English history becomes literary history, then legend, then myth. All that needs to be said is that the cross is a link to what has been know for over 1000 years as 'The Matter of Britain' - the body of stories which have acculmulated around the notion that Arthur was buried in Glastonbury because he and his knights searched for the Holy Grail, which was buried there, because it was brought there by Joseph of Arimathea after the crucifixion, because he was fleeing the Romans, and knew the area from his voyages as a tin merchant, one of which he'd taken the young Jesus on during those twenty-or-so years when the bible says nothing about him.

The Da Vinci Code has recently brought another take on this story, by shamelessly nicking the research already done by The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, and opting that the whole story hangs on a mis-translation of the word 'Sangraal' - what the Matter of Britain had as 'Blood Grail' was actually 'Blood Royal': The mystery is not about an actual object in which Jesus' blood was carried to Britain, rather, it concerns the line of descent of Jesus' family. This seems to have been the most popular story in the world over the past five years, but in the ENORMOUS context of all the stories concerning the grail, and England, it just seems like a little addition.

What has always fascinated me about the cross since I first heard about it nearly 20 years ago is that it alludes to the first stirrings of belief in these islands as a 'special place'. It's the first notion that Britain was more than just a place full of tin and deep woodland, inhabited by barbarians, and that instead, it was a place of destiny, over the sea. From this came the sense of belief/arrogance that Britain formed of itself, and was able to keep right up until the 2nd World War. This cross sits at the beginning of the momentum which led to Shakespeare's 'This sceptred isle, this demi-paradise', and Blake's 'Jerusalem' - a poem/song which is specifically about Jesus's 'feet in ancient times walking upon... England's green and pleasant land.'

It's always been hard for me to believe the lyrics of Jerusalem. Inspiring though 'And was the holy lamb of god..' and 'Bring me my chariot of fire..' may be, the poem also says: 'those dark, satanic mills.' I don't like the idea that 'green' England looked at industry, and by extrapolation, a place like Jarrow as 'exempt' from its allegorical, Avalonian vision. That's why the March - and the photo taken in Lavendon - is so resonant with me - it reminded those who actually thought that vision was true, what the real England looked like.

Needless to say, this is the sort of history that Bede had nothing to do with. This morning continued with me being shown various buildings, such as this house, built by William Strong, I believe, who was Christopher Wren's main mason, and therefore the man who really did build St Paul's Cathedral:

However, something extra emerged from all the stories that made me feel very close to St Albans: Behind each tale, was the understanding between Peter, me, and everyone we met that everything in this town originated from the tale of Alban, the first Christian martyr, who was beheaded here by the Romans in the 1st Century for giving sanctuary to a christian. And all of us were aware that that tale is only known because it was written down by Bede in the 8th Century, 300 miles north from here, in the little monastery overlooking Jarrow Slake.

As I felt the March had really found a home in Lavendon, similarly, it was obvious to us all that the World Heritage bid has its second home here, in St Albans. Bede is a bigger legend here than anywhere else, with the exception of Wearmouth/Jarrow.

Peter led me through the market place, to where the streets became thinner (older):

In a minutes we were at the Cathedral, an ancient building, and in-keeping with the age of the story it was built to commemorate, older than most others in Britain. A lot of the exterior is made from re-used Roman stones:

To say there's a lot to see inside is an understatment. The cathedral's particularly distinctive in being really long, yet it doesn't seem that way, because the screen which is normally placed across the east end of the crossing, is here placed 3/4s of the way down the nave -the longest part, where the congregation sits. This screen was covered with these unsettling, modern and unforgettable papier mache statues in ancient recesses:

Even more eye-catching are these two in the north transept:

..which are used during the yearly procession through the town, when Alban's execution is acted out. This was the view up from the transept/crossing:

The fact that these arches - the ones that support the entire weight of the cathedral and tower - are semicircular shows just how old they are, although there have been collapses more than once over the years. It was here that I was introduced to a few of the helpers in the cathedral, and I first go the inkling of the high regard Wearmouth/Jarrow is held in down here. Looking down above all of this were these supporting columns:

..yet again..very like the ones in Jarrow, if slightly younger.

Around the corner, in the choir, is this screen, the only stone one in England:

...and beyond, in another chapel, is this remnant of the cathedral when it once had colour:

Behind it is what's known as the Lady Chapel. This area at the head of the church has once been blocked up by a wall, and used as a girl's school. When this dividing wall was demolished to make the cathedral complete again in the 19th Century, it was discovered that most of the rubble filling it was actually the remains of the original, medieval shrine of St Alban, which had been destroyed during the Reformation, and was thought to have been lost forever. Over many years, the shrine has been painstakingly restored, and it's now just behind this picture, intact:

In the coffee bar, I got talking to a couple who found everything about the walk amazing - it was a justified book-signing moment. After this, I said goodbye to Peter in the Market Place, and left to explore the town's clock tower, which has this written on the back door:

..and all of this written just when you come out on the roof:

The views from the top are great. This is looking north:

Looking south to the cathedral:

..and looking down:

Coming down, I had a coffee, and found myself sitting next to an old couple from Houghton-le-Spring, who were down here visiting their son. Another nice talk ensued, with a book-signing, and after they left, the waitress came over and whispered 'when they left, they paid for your coffee too.' Feeling even more happy now, I took a few moments to explore the grounds and gardens around the cathedral:

..and made my way down the hill, for a coke stop in this pub, which is the closest rival to The Old Trip in Nottingham for the title of oldest in the country:

The thing about St Albans is that just when you think you're away from the cathedral, and therefore the 'cultural' part of the town, you stumble straight on even more history at the bottom of the hill. Here, I was taken back a further 1000 years from the cathedral to
the time when Alban was killed, and to the place he lived - today, the green patch at the front of this pic: site of Verulamium, the 3rd-largest town in Roman Britain:

...but just before we get there, notice the lake. Earlier that day, when Peter and I had flyered the Museum, the woman there had told us that there's a story around the town that the lake was dug by the Jarrow Marchers! That's just the way all the stories I've encountered develop- from misunderstandings that stay so long uncorrected that they start to be taken as true. There's no possibility that the Marchers- who only stayed here a day - could have had anything to do with this, and the only tiny speck of truth may be that every one commented on how the towns en route had more work than Jarrow. Some returned after the march had finished to find work and settle in them, and one or two may have come back here.

Close by are remains of Verulamium's town wall:

I'm sure I'm not the first to have thought this made a really clever view point for a photo, but...it made me happy, anyway. Just around the corner are more substantial ruins, of the front wall, which used to look like this:

In the finest Lavendon tradition, this is the view from the exact same spot today:

As can be seen , most of the site is taken over by playing fields:

As I left, there was some event going on in the lake:

I'm not sure what it was , but it seemed to mainly involve men of a certain age standing in it:

I followed Peter's advice out of the park, past an unfeasibly pretty street, the site of Verulamium's amphitheatre, and two roundabouts (not Roman..). Finally, I reached a place that I'd known from the very start of planning the walk meant an important step had been taken:

This was once one of the most important roads of Roman Britain, and finding it not only demonstrated that I was close to London, it also meant that it would be straight path from now on, all the way to Marble Arch, where -after many name changes - Watling Street ends. It's still the same route today, and still follows the same, dead straight path as it did 2000 years ago:

Just as I was about to leave St Albans thinking it was a town where the word 'unsavoury' doesn't seem to exist, I passed under this, right on the outskirts:

After that, it was full steam ahead along Watling Street, through many pretty little towns, for the rest of the day. Being free from map reading gave me more chances to notice the little, eccentric things again, like this house sign:

As they say, an Englishman's home is his castle, and if a guy in a massive house in the Home Counties chooses to name his mansion after an early 80s Scottish pop/punk combo fronted by a songstress with a squeeky voice who was also the supporting actress in Gregory's Girl, then that's up to him.

I also passed this place which, no matter what, can't hide its former use. Or perhaps it still is a pub, and is simply called 'The Traffic Self Drive':

Soon I walked over another sure-fire sign of proximity, the M25:

...which was immediately followed by a road named something a lot better:

...and a place which could have been made for me, but was unfortunately closed:

There was this very 'magical-looking' lane, which would have led me to who knows? I had to stick to the road, though:

..And press forward to my half-way point, a town I'd last visited just over a year earlier, en route to Rashmi's wedding. Never thought I'd be back here so soon, and in this fashion:

Radlett had one of the most tasteful, and original war memorials I'd seen on the walk:

...although just after it, the eccentric 'only here, only now' sights began again:

I was entering a world of detached houses, driveways and large gardens, all clustered around leafy lanes. I can't really recall in what order I saw the next few images, but I do recall coming out at a road junction and seeing the first sign for the day's destination:

..round about the same time I saw this street name:

..and this ridiculously 'keep out' hedge:

..all of which were around the vicinity of these places, famous in the film world for many classics, and specifically famous amongst men of my generation as the place where most of the interior shots for Star Wars were filmed. This area was making films in the 30s, and when the March came through here, a flick about the police was being made. Many of the extras were on lunch break, milling around the streets still in 'constabulary costume', and the Marchers got a little freaked by thinking that now they were in London, the surveillance and security had really stepped up:

Just past here, Marion phoned. I wasn't really aware of what was going to happen that night, other than the fact I would be staying at the house of one of my 'mates from uni', with the other ones there, as well. It had been organised that I'd be at Emily's, in Kentish Town, which was a bit of a surprise because she'd just given birth to her first child, a girl, only about a week before the walk started. Marion had decided to meet me in Edgware, and drive me to Emily's, where -she told me -'There was champagne..'

I followed her directions -she had a London map infront of her - and it was another hour or so before I really started to feel that the fields were far behind. Infront of me, I could see the sure-fire signs that something big was ahead:

I walked through typically wide, 1930s suburban streets, with shops, and estates, blocks of flats and roundabouts, until I got a text saying 'I can see you!' Straight ahead, over a roadside fence, was my old uni flatmate, Marion:

Now things got very fast and furious. Marion had been following the blog/twitter since day one -she was the person who rang me when I was walking with my cousins just an hour after leaving St Peters Wearmouth on the 9th, and in our eagerness to catch up, we said 'let's have a pint..in...this pub.' Just before we went in, she took this, just to prove I'd made it:

And as for the pub..It took a second or two to realise that it wasn't the most classy place in the world. It was full of guys gearing up to watch a match, and although there were a few comments, I think we could have got away with sitting quietly in the corner if it hadn't been for one bloke, louder than the rest, who thought what I was doing was the best thing he'd seen all year. His name was Lee, and he'd had a few already that day, because he was so loud, and enthusiastic, and a little unpredictable. He wouldn't leave us alone, but there was no trouble with him. He just kept on shouting 'This goy's dan free'undred moyles!! I can't f##### believe it! Have you seen -this goy's dan free...!!' Marion took this photo of the event:

It was a great 'welcome' into London -he bought me two pints of Guinness, and ontop of the one I'd got when I first came in, that made three in 40 minutes on a sunny day- I rolled out of the place, and just sat next to Marion, hoping her sat-nav would magic us to Emily's house:

We got there quickly, and I regret that I was a little drunk, because I try to make the most of every time I get to meet these guys. I've known them since the early 90's when I spent 4 yrs at Keele University near Stoke-on-Trent. They were the best years I've ever had - I didn't know what university WAS until about 1991, and due to the education of a great music lecturer at South Tyneside College, Rosie Prince, I was taken through the process of UCCA/PCAS, and getting the right grades to start in 1993. I couldn't believe a place like a campus could exist - an entire village, with its own shops, church, launderette etc..dedicated to learning was something totally new to me. I joined the Drama Society as Stage Manager, and met Emily in about Nov 93, followed by Nick in the summer of 94, when he was roped in to play guitar for our production of 'The Merry Wives of Windsor'. Marion was doing German, and was in Germany, so I didn't get to meet her until the fourth year, 1996-7, by which time I knew everyone, and I shared a flat with the three of them. This was us then -Marion, Me, Emily and Nick, just after our finals:

..and this is us now, in Emily's flat:

The night went on, and became an endless cornucopia of food and drink. Apart from me having walked here, there was something else, a little bit more important, to celebrate, as well... Emily has just had a daughter, who she'd been threatening for months to call 'Popsy'. Anyway, she saw sense in the end, and this is me with 'Esme' - safe in the arms of Nick's wife, Denise:

Sometime during the evening, Nick decided to try his hand at my guitar, which, being strung left-handed, is the wrong way up for him:

..and my brother phoned. Getting a bit freaked by the fact that I was at a party, he handed the phone to my mother, and I handed it to Nick and Emily. My mother met then all in 1997, and their parents, and is always asking how everyone is getting on, so it was good to see them catching up with her after all these years:

Finally, Denise took this photo of us all, including Richard, Emily's partner, who used to teach me English Lit at Keele, and is now a professor of Irish Literature at Kings College:

All in all, along with this walk, going to unversity and meeting these guys was the best thing I've ever done. Ever since I've graduated, and done so many crap jobs, and then started up my business, I feel I've often been criticised by certain people - mostly men aged a few years older than me -for going to university. These are the type of men I believe think they're a little cleverer than the guys they see around them, and have ripped right into me for the fact I went, and yet still don't have any money. That's very true - I still don't have any money, but their error is to believe, hands down, that that's what university is all about. When I tell them that for me, it was about widening what I knew, getting the 'foundations down' and it being a 'frame of mind thing', and that I wouldn't have changed anything about it, because I'm a much better person now that I would have been had I not gone, well...that's when they really start ripping into me, and laughing, and using phrases like 'University of Life' , '...but in the real world' and 'Bread on the table' etc... But, I've met people from all sorts of backgrounds and places, and when I see the attitude of guys like that, I DO tend to think they laugh alone.

..And that's why I can't help but view things culturally in place of economically, because some things should be more important.

Friday the 28th of August - to St Albans

2009-09-07T05:58:00.000-07:00

The view out of the hotel window was this:

..yes, that is the job centre across the road. I had to be out by 10, so I found myself at the Town Hall:

which is an extremely impressive building; probably built around the time the Marchers came through here, and inside, I found one window that wasn't dealing with council tax etc.. I was handed a phone, and did an interview with the press officer, who gave me a few numbers.

First was the radio station, which was just up the hill a little, and across the ring road. There was a group of four hanging around the car park having a fag, but they took one look at me, and knew there was something newsworthy there. I was let in, and ushered straight away into the studio of a guy whose name I missed - although he must be a bit of a celebrity on Luton Radio. It was a recorded interview - about three minutes long, and I don't know when it went out. In total, the entire thing lasted about 15 minutes, but as I left he did recommend to me a good, new cyclepath with apparently led directly to Harpendon; half the way.

In the foyer, I rang the newspaper, and was given very direct directions, which were lost on me because I didn't know any of the major roads she mentioned. Anyway, I found the building, but we arranged the interview for an hour later, so I had to go back into town and kill time with a coffee. I turned up back here at about 12:

and inside, it was the home of these papers:

There was an interview for about three minutes, during which timne I explained the bid in detail. I also mentioned the March, which the interviewer hadn't heard of, and the story that I'd been told in the Olde Trip in Nottingham, about the members of the Luton Co-op staying up all night fixing the Marcher's shoes. This gained real interest for what I was talking about, and another few minutes saw me walking into the town centre with a very cool photographer called Jane, I think, who had me stomping infront of the Town Hall playing the blues, just like I'd done in Leicester. This is how it appeared in the paper:

After that, I was feeling pretty good, so I walked through the Arndale Centre making sure everyone saw the T-shirt. Although...it was here that I got my one and only look of disgust. I was sorting myself out by the Orange shop, and a rastafarian came up, directly to me. He looked past me, to the guitar slung on my back, and closed in, on the words 'Walk for the History of England'. I said 'Alright?' but he just stared at the words, and walked off, not happy. Obviously, there was something in him that misinterpreted the words 'History of England' as 'Walk to celebrate the British Empire' , but, what can I say? There's no point in trying to convince someone who's already seen what he wants to see, no matter how wrong he is. Anyway, this was the mall:

and much more memorably, this was the 'original' idea that the mall had opted for in the male toilets. I know...but I had to take this surreptitious photo, from the safe confines of a cubicle. To explain, the bottom, paler half is the front of the 'communal trough' part, and the bluer part is the back wall, about a foot further behind. To help the weary shopping men, they've put 'targets' on the back wall - six in all - all in a line. A very thoughtful gesture, to enliven the most mundane of moments in this cultural utopia.

Having said that, there was a good view out of the back window:

but after that, I was off, out of town, and soon finding the cyclepath that the radio presenter had told me about:

With this began one of the most pleasant stretches of the walk. I particularly liked the fact that the cyclepath had only been opened a few weeks, and lots of it wasn't finished. As well as this, most of the rest hadn't 'settled' yet, but it wound its way through woodlalnd where once the only option would have been to walk by the road, only a few metres away to the right:

At times, the woodland would open out, into semi-fields. It was a day that older people would have said 'couldn't make its mind up', and the sun would blare for a few moments, before the rain came down:

I stopped for a few minutes to capture this hare ahead, on full zoom:

..and I came out at this sign, detailing the cycleway, but also marking the place where the curving aspect of the walk changed. After this the route became straight because - again - it followed the path of on old railway line, decommissioned in the 60s:

Again, it didn't take much looking to find the legacy:

Although the route would sometime deviate, and once came out at these striking fields, with a freight train going by in the distance:

After two hours, I noticed that the path seemed 'elavated' and that there were houses and gardens through the trees on either side. I asked a woman walking a dog 'What town is this?' and of course, it was Harpenden. Soon after, the path ended, at a suburban street:

..which, although quiet, didn't strike me as the most laid-back of places:

The town was high on the whiff of affluence, and I squeezed down the narrow pavements until I turned right towards St Albans:

There were signs everywhere which made me realise the type of place it was. Look at these; In Harpenden, obviously you can never have too many:

It was another two hours of reasonably good walking until I first realised that I was getting close to St Albans. What I remember most of this stretch were two dead woodpigeons, in perfect condition, barely thirty metres away from each other along the path -both looked like they'd just fallen from the sky about a minute earlier. The first sign I was near was a grammar school, but soon it was obvious:

Then I reached the 'Ancient Briton' junction in the leader picture of this day's entry. This was a large crossroads, and I took the right-hand turn - which turned out to be the second hopeless waste of time of the walk after the one outside Wakefield. I walked for 20 minutes along a suburban road until I turned round and walked the 2o minutes back, to pick the road ahead. I'd hoped it hadn't been the one because it was up a hill, but it was, and in another few minutes I was rung by tonight's host, Peter, telling me where to meet him. I got into town, and missed the place he'd described, when it started pouring with rain:

...So I took refuge in a pub called the Peahen, and watched the biggest rainstorm of the entire walk, that I missed by getting into town with just five minutes to spare:

I rang Peter, and he met me just outside this building overlooking the market place, which I think was once, or may still be, the town hall:

It was only a few minute's drive to get to Peter's, a vicarage next to his church. It was a truly stimulating night talking to Peter - he went to Queens College in Oxford, which he told me is known to be the 'northern' college -with centuries of links to the north of England, and he had the broad, in-depth knowledge of history which meant every sentence seemed to move onto another story effortlessly. One example of this can be seen in this pic below:

This is the maundy money of a man Peter knew, and nominated for the gift. His name was William Bunce, he died when he was 93, and he was apparently a larger-than life character. One of his ancestors -also named William Bunce - was the physician on the HMS Victory the day that Nelson died, and is shown on the famous painting of the scene. However, amongst other things this William had been one of the policemen who escorted the March from Edgware to Marble Arch on its last day -31st of October 1936, which similarly, had been another day pouring with rain.

Thursday the 27th of August - to Luton

2009-09-06T13:29:00.000-07:00

Kate had sent the rest of the flyers to Laura's house, and I stuck them in the bag and was driven to Bedford, where I bidded goodbye to my cousin, and headed off for the centre past this weird building, which apparently was just a private house:

In the town centre, I spoke to a guy who said he had been born in Jarrow, and lived there until he was 30. He was way in his 60s by now, but hadn't lost the...how do you say ...hard as nails Geordieness: Every other word was an 'F', he had no teeth, and despite his age was still stocky, and still had a square jaw. He told me he'd been fx>x/x// brought up in fx..//xx// South Street -where the flats are today, and that after that he'd moved to fxxxxxx Primrose in a street he can't remember the fxxxxx name of. I didn't bother with a flyer, because I had a feeling it wasn't what he wanted to talk about.

I flyered the Town Hall, which told me to get to the Bedford Times asap. This I did, telling my story to their journalist, Hayley, a lady who shared my interest in birds, and who as such became the only other person during the walk impressed that I'd seen a hobby outside Mansfield. I flyered shops, and the Corn Exchange, and this church right in the centre:

....but again..I was in a hurry, and I strode out of Bedford past a newsagents, where two guys stopped me. When the first one asked if I wanted a drink, he suggested I should have a beer, but ..not at the start of a 19 mile slog in the sun.. As he went inside to get me a lucozade, the other shook his head in amazement:

'300 miles on your own?' He said 'Are you not scared someone's gonna try to murder you?'

I said that no-one had tried yet, and was soon back heading south, towards these roadworks..

...which forced me onto the muddy bank for half a mile before I took a risk on a quiet road which seemed to run parallel to the dual carriageway, on the other side. It was strangely silent, and I soon realised why when it passed through the entire new town which seemed to be being built around it:

I wasn't really sure where this little road was taking me, but a turn to the left confirmed that I was on the right path:

As soon as I got on this road, though, the slog started again. As well as this, this wasn't only a bad road, it was the most dangerous road I've walked on. For about three hours up to the halfway town, Clophill, the road cut between trees on either side, and seemed to have a permanent right hand bend to it. This, with the foliage, meant that I couldn't see what was coming until it was right on me:

..and when it did, it was always going over 60 mph, so I had to jump into the trees:

This cat and mouse act went on all the way - at only one time during this entire 8 mile section was I able to walk on the road for more than 30 seconds. There was the other problem, as well, because Luton was the only place on the walk that hadn't given me a reply for somewhere to stay, so instead, I'd planned to get there by 4, jump on a bus 17 miles to Milton Keynes, and find MK Youth Hostel.

But this appeared less and less of a good prospect as I became more tired, and irritated by the lack of progress. Luckily, Kate phoned, and said she'd organised a hotel right in the centre of Luton -very cheaply. This freed up at least a few hours, and allowed me the pace my feet wanted, and I could stop to admire more totally useless things, like the size of this dead hornet:

...and even better, just outside Clophill, a path appeared:

..which took me into another (very English/beautiful/picturesque/ merrie/chocolate-box...) village, and its very typical pub:

It was all very gastropub inside, but I got talking to middle-aged couple, who signed and were flyered, after listening to the story of the bid, and asking all the right questions. They loved the north they said, adding that they particularly liked Newcastle, because 'It's the only city in England that is totally uninfluenced by London.' Oh, and because 'Everyone's so friendly up there' as well, which they supposed was due to the same reason.

I was now well into the commuter belt, and the influence of the Big Smoke couldn't be avoided - as I looked out of the pub window, I saw my first sign for it:

I remember reading sometime in my youth that Clophill has a famously spooky churchyard, but I had no time or energy, so headed straight off over the roundabout, and back onto the grass verges. After another ISSR:

..I fell upon the most welcome sign of the day:

which meant that I had clear path ahead of me until my 3/4 mark. Just past here, I found this watch on the path:

..and as I've spent the last five years checking the time on my phone, I strapped it on. It seemed to work perfectly. However, none of this could stop this from being the the positive apotheosis of three day's pain - it was the worst part of the entire walk, and in Barton-le-Clay I spent about 6 quid on liquid, and flopped by the trolleys outside the Tesco for half an hour. After this, I took photos of things so jokingly idealised that I wondered if I was back in the Mountsorrell mentality, and that some places weren't actually real at all (that roof's far too perfect):

I also couldn't help but notice this in a cakeshop window, specially made for the birthday of a kid called 'Luke' (clever -but what was it doing here - wasn't he supposed to eat it?):

Did all of this make it better? no chance - the chafing was back, and my feet had now lost any sense of cushioning: the muscles were flat so it felt like I stood on bone alone, and my shoes were pressed down so it felt like at every step this bone was forcing down onto plates of wood. Three blisters had appeared, as well, from nowhere, over my heels.

You can imagine my delight, then, when I saw the words 'Barton Hill' coming up. It was a corker, as well - just as long as Harewood outside Leeds:

..although I had to stop at this. What did I say yesterday about that boot stuck in the wall as throwing out the rulebook for ISSRs?

..at least this one was broken, so it had some reason behind it. Reaching the top, I just put my head down, and walked, thinking of nothing else. In time the road started to look more ordered, as though it was 'leading to somewhere bigger':

...and after a mile of it, I saw the sign in the distance.

By this time, the prospect of a further 2 and a half miles to the town centre was abhorrent, but I hobbled forward, maximising any spurious photo opp as a chance to rest, like this one here:

After 80 miles in 4 days, I'd hit a complete wall. Had we not changed the plan, there'd have been no chance of me following the original idea to Milton Keynes, and I walked past a park, under a railway bridge, which was near the station and thereofore must have been near to the hotel. There was great scope for more scraped steps down wrong streets here, but luckily, I found the place more or less straight away. IN two minutes I was lying on the bed in a star shape, where I stayed for 40 minutes, just going 'ah', and staring at this picture on the tv:

Wednesday the 26th of August - to Bedford

2009-09-06T08:38:00.000-07:00

I awoke the next morning to a call for an interview on BBC Radio Northampton. It was live, and a good one, although I was so tired I can't remember a word of what I said. I fell back aslep, and missed the train I needed, so Debbie drove me to Long Buckby station, where I sat feeling a little zonked waiting for the 10 minute ride into Northampton:

I got into town at the same time as everyone else, and with a bit of life in it, the place looked a lot better than the previous evening. Just beyond the station is another ancient church called St Peter's, which was covered in images that come from some very dark parts of the human psyche:

...ok, they'd been renewed, but I had to take a photo, because I love stuff like this. When I was there, I got another call from Radio Northampton, and we agreed that I would meet for another interview at 12.15pm at the sign for a village called Great Houghton, about three miles along the road. I passed into the town, past Hazelrigg House, reputedly where Cromwell slept the night before the Battle of Naseby:

I tried to do some promo in the market place, but was again becoming conscious of the miles ahead of me, and that time was getting on:

So I left, passing this cafe which was overly-covered in symbols of patriotism:

..especially when you take a closer look at its name, and see it's called 'Cafe Continental'.

I found my way to the Civic Hall:

and left flyers there, but I was itching to go. Nobody was behind the desk, and I was alone except for this statue of a famous Northampton man, Spencer Perceval, the only British Prime Minister to have been assassinated:

..who was shot in the lobby of the Houses of Parliament in 1812 by John Bellingham, a merchant who thought the government owed him some compensation money. On the road out of town, I passed this house -the only house in England to have been designed by the famous Glaswegian architect, Charles Rennie Mackintosh:

It looked pretty ordinary from the outside, but I guessed that the interior was where all the good stuff lay. I had no time to look, and hurried out of town, past my first sign for Bedford:

and under this huge roundabout, over which I would be driven about 8 hours later:

If there was any confusion about which road was mine, it was nice of them to let me know which one was certainly not for me:

I took a break in an awful 'Fun Factory' pub just past here, and walked over the Nene, where someone ha decided to leave an 'inexplicable bag by the side of the road' on the bridge:

A kick showed it to be empty, and I walked on, to reach Great Houghton in good time. I had a spare 25 minutes, but although I was going to cross the road anyay, I found myself being hailed over by a guy standing next to a car. Now this guy could see I had the words' 300 miles' below a massive pack on my back, but it looked like he hadn't formed the connection, as he begged me to give his car a push-start. My legs were hurting permanently, but he was a nice guy, so I had to help:

His name was Brian, and as you can see, he's holding a flyer in his hand. Anyway, he clashed the bonnet down, and shoved at a door while I did the same at the bumper. It worked, and here you have a very happy Brian driving off:

I was still early, and took a walk into Great Houghton, a village which boasts this path:

...never has a truer word been said. I wanted something to eat, so I headed towards the post office, only to find that it seemed to have been a victim to the same cuts which have recently done the same for so many similar places all over the country:

Also similar to many other places, there was a great worry here about expansion - which as many people call preservation as others do nimbyism:

Another thing I've noticed on this walk is the way that everyone who lives in the countryside wants their place of habitation to be a 'village'. Long Buckby had been the best example of this - the place is so blatantly a town, because of its size, but Clive told me not to let anyone there hear me say anything like that: it was a 'village' . It seems that 'town' means all the bad things, and apparently opens the door for more bad things to come in. I'd have never realised something like that - how a change of word can change people's perceptions of where they live.

I went back to the village sign:

..which stood next to the least-visible street sign I've ever (not) seen:

I sat on these gas supply markers:

at this T-junction:

until the interviewer turned up:

His name was Martin Heath, and he had his own programme on Sunday radio. This is him setting up:

There were two interviews - a long one, and one not so long. I played my guitar, and let all of Northamptonshire know about the walk -again. At the end though, he flung in an unexpected one: 'His listeners..' he said '..were very concerned about the proliferation of dog mess in Northamptonshire, and did I have an opinion on that?'

Well, it's a subject close to my feet, if not my heart, so I said something about noticing a lot of 'mess bins' over the past two days, so the councils must be doing something about it..etc.. This seemed to do the job, and he drove off after abut 20 minutes, leaving me to really start the big walk.

The road was bad - all grass verges again, and I soon passed the entrance to Great Ashby Hall:

then a very chocolate-box village called Yardley Hastings:

...where it started to rain. Somehow amongst this, I managed to cross over into...

...at a sign that told me this really wasn't a safe place to hang around...and the road just became worse:

Somewhere around here, a guy drove from behind to offer me a lift, which I had to refuse, of course. It was neither the road, nor weather to walk where I was walking, and I stuck out like either a madman or a lost man. I told Twitter that it was like walking on a moor, and it was: drizzle, with just an endless road through it. I was dying to get to the half-way point, a village called Lavendon - so much that I had to take a photo of my first view of it:

I'd been told to watch out for the place, because it was where my cousin's husband Darren -who -along with my cousin - I'd be staying with that night - had been brought up. This, and the fact that I was going to have a break there, were my only planned moments of interest in this nice, typical village; I was very wrong though..

As soon as I walked into Lavendon, something struck me about the houses on the right. As I walked further I saw the church, high on a bend in the road, and above a stone wall. Stuck into the wall was a plaque detailing the church's history, and - as I did before every old building with a plaque - I went over to take a photo in case I forgot the facts. The rain obscured the words, but I ran my hand over it, and instead, saw this:

I'd walked 250 miles along the route, and this was the first reference to the March I'd seen. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Immediately, I clicked that there must be some reason why this plaque was here - I looked around, and even quicker, knew. Look at the centre of the plaque, and you can see there's an image there: forget the one outside Harrogate; THIS is the most famous image of the March - the one that always comes up first when you do a google search. The plaque doesn't show it clearly, but I could see that this was the spot where that photo had been taken.

The trouble was, I didn't have the photo on me to confirm it. I ran around the corner, and into this pub to sit down and calm down:

Inside, a guy immediately clocked my T-shirt, and started talking in glazed amazement at what I was doing. I was sitting garbling things about what I'd just discovered, and together, although we were talking about two completely separate things, our mutual astonishment made for a perfect understanding. This was THE best moment of the walk, followed by one of the best interactions. He was there with his family, and he was another guy called Brian - or 'Browser' to his mates. He bought me a coke, listened to me while I told him all about the bid, and signed the book - underlining what I mean about the book turning into a record of the 'quality' moments of this walk. I tried to get a reception on my laptop, but eventually I gave up, and used my phone instead - finally downloading the image in a tiny format, and asking Browser if he recognised where it was.

'Of course' He said' It's where the road turns just below the church.'

I stayed for 45 minutes, wallowing in the welcome I got from the Green Man pub, and what I'd discovered. Before I left, I had to take this photo of Browser, his daughter and...son, I think, and me:

..and then I was out, back up the road to the church; through the gate and over to the wall, to find the exact spot that this photo - one of the most distinctive British images of the 20th Century, was taken, on the 27th of October, 1936. Here it is:

..and here's the same spot, today:

JB Priestley, whose book 'An English Journey' described the Jarrow of the 1930s as a 'penniless bleak sabbath' saw three different Englands at that time, and the original photo is so distinctive because it shows two of those Englands, with two completely separate histories, so graphically. These men from the soot of the north, walking through such a 'timeless and merrie' English landscape, can't help but make the viewer ask big questions. This fact, in a nutshell, is the reason why the March caught the national imagination so visibly.

If you look closely at the plaque, you can see that it has the 'Jarrow 1986' logo on it - the same one as is on the plaque celebrating 50 years since the March, that's stuck outside the entrance to Jarrow Town Hall. So, this plaque must have been organised back in the North-East, and put here - just as had been done with the Guildford Jarrow Stone. So, in a way, this place is for the March what the Stone is for the Surrey Fund, because there's certainly no plaque on Marble Arch. I've never heard anyone say that this photo was taken here, but someone must know - or at least did know in 1986. I was only 14 at the time, so I can't remember, but it's another story to investigate when I get back...

..and so I pressed on, in pain, but never more proud to be wearing the word Jarrow on my T-shirt. Next village was Turvey -possibly the best-looking place I'd seen so far, and after this, I changed my wet t-shirt in this woody clearing:

..for a one that smelt worse, but was drier. The feet were snarling again, but I just wanted to be in Bedford. I passed this sign:

..and was in the outskirts of Bedford at about 7ish. I'd kept my cousin, Laura, up on my progess, and Darren and her picked me up about one mile outside the town centre. Without stopping for breath, I was whisked right back up the road I'd walked on for the past 7 hours, past the plaque in Lavendon, Great Houghton, and over the big roundabout, to their home on the outskirts of Northampton. I'd walked 22 miles, and looked a sorry sight, but they knew what I needed:

Tuesday the 25th of August - To Northampton

2009-09-03T07:02:00.000-07:00

The next morning, I could see what a nice environment the Johnsons lived in. Their garden was really well-kept, and was embellished with many additions which, I'm sure, can be found nowhere else. Most noticeable was this sculpture:

For the sake of all that's good and decent, I made sure the pink flowers were positioned in just the right place, because what you're thinking is absolutely correct. Bear this in mind, and then notice how the guy also has only half a head/brain. The sculpture was done by a female friend of the Johnsons. Its title? Man Limited.

Graham and I walked back into town, where I stopped to make myself know to the council offices. They hadn't heard I was coming, but they were suitably impressed by my story - I'd definately gone past the point where the distance I'd walked was difficult to ignore - The Press officer came down, and took a quick story, flyer, and a few photos of me playing the blues at the bottom of the entrance steps. All this was just behind the ancient old grammar school in the town centre:

...and just around the corner from Saint Dionysius. Outside was a plaque detailing the Battle of Naseby, which took place about five miles south of MH in 1645, and was a decisive victory for Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army over the forces of King Charles Ist.

Inside the church, I met the verger and gained a few signatures, while a group of young string players rehearsed closer to the altar:

They played a piece by Bach, and then went into that piece which customers always used to ask for when I worked in JG Windows in Newcastle. They'd come in and say they were looking this really old piece, perhaps by Vivaldi or someone. I'd flick through the Four Seasons etc, before they'd say 'Oh! I remember now - it was used on that 'a diamond is forever' advert!'. At that point, I'd put the cds away, and get out the one they were looking for -by Karl Jenkins, which was written in about 1988. It's a good pastiche of an old piece, though, and these players here seemed to be getting stuck into it.

I stopped in Tesco's to stock up on water, and Graham led me back behind his house, and to a path he'd recommended the night before. This was the 'Brampton Valley Cycleway', which led all the way from Market Harborough to Northampton along the line of an old railway which was closed by the Beeching cuts in the 1960s. I bidded Graham goodbye, and set off, almost immediately bumping into, and flyering a woman from Sunderland who'd lived down here for years.

In the back of my mind, I knew the cycleway would be a good move: it was direct, and quiet, and seemed as though it would be like a walk along a canal without the water and endless miles of twists. However, I also remembered that Graham had said 'There are two tunnels in there, as well'. This intrigued me...and it should have.

The path led straight for a few miles, just in the manner you'd expect: hedges on either sides, with fields beyond them. Here and there I'd come across some bit of metal or wood which had obviously once formed a part of the railway, but largely, there was nothing to prepare me for the two gigantic legacies of the steam age which lay just around the corner. The first one hit me unawares after about five miles:

There's an optical illusion going on in this photo - look at the light at the end of the tunnel, and it doesn't really look that far away from this perspective. That's NOT true: this tunnel -the 'Oxendon Tunnel' is 480 yards long, and as I stepped towards it, I noticed that my senses were going into survival mode. Everywhere around was silent and spooky -there was just a slight rustle through the trees - and this sense of foreboding wasn't helped by this bit of grafitti sprayed on the gate:

Yip: that says 'Evil Within'. I started walking into it, and immediately, EVERYTHING went black. I couldn't even see my hands infront of me, never mind my feet, and I had to trust that every next step would be the same slightly soggy splat that the one previous had been. After what seemed like LOADS of steps, I turned round, to the second visual illusion:

Yet again, this photo doesn't show the fact that in the tunnels, the entrance never seems as far behind you as you think it should be. The exit - a tiny dot of light way ahead, never seems any closer, as well. I just walked ahead towards the distant light, hearing nothing but my feet, and drops of water. It was the type of silence that your mind can't help but fill in itself, and you find yourself hearing the noise of steam trains on tracks, and the old whistle, and the hubbub of passengers..At what seemed to be the middle, I turned again back to the entrance to see where I'd walked from:

Then..after the middle, some other light appeared from the roof. As I approached, it took a shape, and looked like...well...see for yourself:

..like some close encounter, or something... It was like a little amphitheatre, and was formed by the shaft of light coming from the chimney for the steam, leading up to the surface about sixty feet higher:

once I was under it, it became just a beam of light from above:

Again, the exit here seems closer than it is, and it was another five minutes of walking until the light started getting obviously closer:

..and then I was out, back into the silent trees and old railway line. You could see remants of the railway everywhere - straight away, there was this old signal post just standing there in the trees:

Things like this reminded me of another fundamental aspect of this walk - Obviously, one of main points of this entire endeavour is to highlight the book that kick-started the concept of 'history' in England. It formed the blueprint of how to 'think' historically, and throughout the walk, I can't help noticing 'historical threads' emerging to connect what seem at face-value to be separate towns and locations. For example, during the whole first two weeks I inadvertently walked right through the centre of the English Mining industry. The tales were everywere of former mining pit heaps that had been landscaped(Ferryhill and Mansfield) , of disasters (Wakefield), and in Barnsley and Nottingham, the Miner's Strike. Here, it wasn't my first -or last - encounter with those huge cuts which rationalised most of the railway infrastructure in the 1960s. All of this is confirming me how 'history' is actually the acculmulation of thousands of 'histories', and that the job of the historian - first championed by Bede - is to pick the sense of 'story' out of these events. Obviously, this job is too big, and every historian has their own 'take' on the task - Bede's was the interpretation of events in accordance with an idea of Christianity's growth and development through Britain. With this walk, I'm finding that the only sense of 'order' is coming from the route of the walk itself: IT is cutting a swathe through these histories I'm encountering, and in its sense of destination, is letting them 'hang off it' - the railways, the mines, the Anglo-Saxons, Byron, The Romans - all of these seem incoherent as one big history, but the route of the walk is like a light shining through them all, and letting them speak for themselves.

It wasn't long until I passed the abandoned site of what had been Kelmarsh Station:

...and soon afterwards, went into the second tunnel:

Here, it felt exactly the same, and the sole difference was that the circle of light in the middle was flooded, so a little pool had formed:

As before , the optical ilusions, sensual overload and disorientation remained...until the exit grew, and I was out again:

Almost immediately, I took a wrong turn, ending at a gate where the track disappeared below a field, full of sheep staring at me..like sheep:

I turned back, and found the right path, past more relics of the railway, like this cast-iron footbridge, which would have once been just the type you see in old films, painted green and red, with steam billowing under it:

However, I was getting the feeling that the cyclpath was endless. This sign didn't help:

..and although the route was quiet, and picturesque, it was straight:

...and below my feet, it was covered with pebbles - not grass -which would have been soft - or tarmac, which would have been a constant hard. Because of this, my feet never knew how to predict the next step exactly: some are sharp, others roll your foot a few inches away from where you want - and most dig into your soles. I short, the path was getting boring, long and after the length of the leg yesterday, was starting to hurt.

My next stop was Brixworth - I'd been reminded to visit by both Kate, and the journalist from the Harborough Chronicle, as it was a perfect spot for me to take a photo they wanted to print with my story. I knew the place as well, and all because of its church, which is the most complete and largest Anglo-Saxon church remaining in Britain.

Here's another thread - the Anglo-Saxons. Legend says they came here to fight for a king in the Midlands called Vortigern, and they were led by two brothers called Hengist and Horsa. They were invited over as mercenaries from their homelands in northern Germany, Denmark and Sweden to fight Vortigern's battles during the 5th-6th Centuries, and their main adversaries were the British, who were the remnants of the Celtic tribes who'd been here before the Romans, and had adopted the Roman ways during the latter's occupation of Britain from the 1st to 5th Centuries. After the Romans had left, all order had collapsed, and there were constant battles while the whole concept of civilisation and learning fell into the 'Dark Ages'. During this time, supposedly the Britons found a leader against the Anglo-Saxons in a tribal king from the Oxfordshire/Somerset area called (King) Arthur, while the Saxons turned on Vortigern, and decided they liked this country enough to settle here permanently. They called their area 'Angle-land', and by the 7th-8th Centuries, they were in control of most of the East of Britain, and had massive kingdoms like Mercia, Wessex, and Northumbria. The latter's 'Golden Age' was from about 630 to 750, when it was the most powerful, and had internal stability to develop intellectual powerhouses like Lindisfarne, Wearmouth, and Jarrow, where the first book chronicling the history and religious conversion of these people was written by a bloke called Bede, who called the area they all lived in 'England'...

During this time, the font I discovered in Chesterfield was made, as was this church I found myself at, in Brixworth:

The spire is later, but the main body of the church looks a lot like what the main ones at Wear and Jar would have looked like. This is what it looks like inside:

These window recesses are exactly the same as the ones in the small/oldest part of Jarrow:

This carving is the same interlaced style that's on the entrance at Wearmouth, various stones around Jarrow, and the font at Chesterfield:

..and these columns supporting the window are almost exactly the same as the ones hanging around near the north wall in Jarrow:

Because of all of this, I'd expected my entrance into Brixworth to be some sort of triumph of cultural discovery etc.. But..my feet were killing by this point, and I crawled up the hill to the church in bigger pain than at any other time on the walk. It was raining, as well, and I took these photos after sitting in a pew for ten minutes just..making sure I was doing nothing involving my feet. After half an hour, I penguin-walked through the village:

and into a pub for a coke break. Here, there was a bit of talk about the T-shirt, and I flyered a group of 4, one of whom was born in Middlesbrough, and another who knew exactly where the March had walked , and told me which road to follow. I let my feet live again, and took his advice out of town, and back along the dual carriageway, where I saw this boot, which, quite frankly, took the whole concept of ISSR to a completely different level:

The road was like all the others for another two hours:

until I passed the sign:

...and made the mistake of taking the wrong road through the suburbs. It led me around the top of the town, and into the centre via the north-east. This must be the worst part of town, because all I could see were cars full of boy racers in baseball caps winding down their windows to play 'bonkers' music so all strangers would respect them and realise that they were cooler and harder than the last boy racer who passed looking exactly the same and playing the same 'bonkers'...

The streets looked pretty run-down, too. I passed the racecourse, which had a tacky fun fair on it that looked like a smaller version of The Hoppings, and was saved only by the amazing old shelter on the corner of the street:

One guy did shake my hand and take a flyer in a newsagents, but largely, it was 6 o'clock - just the time when the centre became overrun with kids hanging about, and the type of guys who are in pubs at that time. It had this sculpture, detailing Northampton's history of shoemaking:

I found the main area, and had arranged with today's contact to meet him outside the train station. I lost that, as well, and my feet were aching again as I crawled over some brick wall near some ring road..

..and heard a beep from a car, which stopped, and ...was the guy I was looking for! I must have stood out, because he had no doubt from 50 yards who I was. Anyway, Clive whisked me out of town to his home in Long Buckby. On the way, we passed the back wall of the Althorp Estate, where Princess Diana grew up and is buried:

We also passed a roadsign for 'Harpole' . Anyone reading this from Newcastle will instantly recognise this name as being a fundamental aspect of the lifestory of Abdul Latif, the guy who owned the world-renowned Rupali's curry house in the Bigg Market. Here, Latif came up with the 'Curry Hell Challenge' - to eat what the Guinness Book of Records has verified to be the world's hottest curry -and thus get the meal free of charge, with an added certificate of proven manliness.

Many people have tried, including premiership footballers, Gary Bushell, and I think, Chris Evans, and Rupalis was endlessly parodied in Viz magazine, but to promote his restaurant even further, Latif bought the title 'Lord of Harpole' for a few grand, which he proceeded to exhibit all over the place. Nobody ever knew where Harpole was, and I think there might be a few across the country, but I'm hoping this was the real one. When he died in Jan 2008, the magazine Newcastle Stuff wrote a respectful obituary befitting such a Newcastle legend, although they did end it with the words 'Unfortunately, this time he's gone for good, and hasn't just fallen into a deep korma'.

I met clive's wife, Debbie, and we talked a lot about walking. Clive has just finished a SIX-WEEK long walk to Santiago de Compostella, which took him across most of Spain. He's a more seasoned walker than I am, but still feels the pain in the feet - his limit per day is 20 miles; but, after the last two long legs, mine was becoming less day by day, and I still had tomorrow, the longest leg of all..

Monday the 24th of August - To Market Harborough

2009-08-27T15:40:00.000-07:00

I woke up to the sound of people coming in, and found Barry and a few others in the kitchen. I got chatting to a woman who had links to the North-East, and she signed. Soon, it was quiet again, and I left flyers and my address for an A4SML in Barry's pigeonhole, and was off, to the Town Hall.

Outside, I gave flyers to two guys you were working on the roads, because the guitar had grabbed their attention. Inside, the guys on reception thought I was mad, but I managed to get the phoneline of the press oficer, who had received the press release from Victoria, and -as he was in another building across town - didn't really know what else he could do except give me the number of the Leicester(....Mercury? Chronicle?). I phoned the paper from this Cafe Nero:

...and they did an interview over the phone, and told me to hang around for an hour or so. This I did, taking the time to wear the T-shirt right through the centre of town, and past its sporty statue:

..and to re-vist the Marcher's church in daylight:

..and the church hall they slept in:

Amazingly, for such an historic place, look at the name of its road:

Straight away, I got a call from 'Beth' -the photographer, who told me to meet her back in the square outside the Town Hall in 15 minutes. I hotfooted it back through town, and met her. She was a great girl, and very interested in the idea, the walk, and the guitar. in seconds, I was walking around Leicester's main square playing the blues, with her snapping away:

We were there for a good 15 minutes, and straight after, a young girl ran up to take another photo. In another 2 minutes she was back again, saying her grandad wanted to know what I was marching for. He got a flyer, which -as we all know by now - explains everything. After her, two older guys came over. I gave them a flyer, but neither of them were really 'with it' - I think they were vagrants, because they asked me to go in the shelter at the other side of the square with them to have a cup of tea, but...I had to be off.

It was much later than I'd planned to leave, and I still had other places to visit..At the Guildhall, I got the kind of welcome that it's difficult to leave. I was straight in conversation with Ben and Mary there, and soon we were in total agreement about the conservation of heritage; they issue a leaflet put together by concerned citizens, which had on it three pictures, the last of which was a 60s concrete flyover: the subject of the last of the three words 'the good, the bad..and the ugly' on the leaflet's cover. I learned how the current hot potato in Leicester concerned the 'Pump and Tap' and the 'railway bridge by the river'. The land has been bought by De Montfort University, and is due to be developed into a sports complex etc.. I said I'd head straight down there, and left a pile of flyers.

Next stop was 'The Jewry Wall' - once part of the Roman Bath complex when Leicester was known as 'Ratae'. Apparently this is the largest intact piece of Roman masonry in Britain..

...although I'm sure there's the base of that Roman lighthouse on the coast somewhere down south, and then there's Hadrian's Wall, as well. Perhaps I'd misheard Ian, the night before. But the entire site is very impressive in its scale, and just as I'd got there, Ben from the Guildhall rang to let them know who I was, and for them to tell me more about the 'pub and bridge'. The guy was -I think - called Chris, and after I'd flyered everywhere there I could, he led me out, on a 'smoke break ' to point me in the exact direction, but first towards the ancient church Saint Mary de Castro:

...and behind it, the gate in Leicester's medieval wall:

..via a statue of Richard III:

And then it was off to find the pub and bridge...
...It didn't take long: they were a minute away:

This whole area is due to be demolished very soon, and I wish the best to those who are trying to prevent it. I don't know why the word 'integrate' is rarely used in plans, and it's beyond me how some people are so clever that they can instantly equate the word 'old' with 'ugly'. People have been trying to define the last word for thousands of years, and...still no closer. Look at the viaduct part on the right of the picture. Leeds has got something just like that, and there's talk of turning it into a gigantic, green, elevated cycle and walkway right into the city centre - why can't they do that here? I look forward to seeing this area inact-but-cleaner when I'm next in Leicester, but I doubt it.

After that, it was time to find the canal, and leave:

I was soon passing Leicester City Football ground :

and this very industrial-looking view:

To avoid a detour along a loop of the canal (that's a laugh considering the miles I ended up doing that day) I joined the main road out of town, through suburbs, and past the place where I tweeted that 62 stationary cars ALL looked at the T-shirt as I passed - it wasn't a lie! Turning left at Glen Parva, I tried to get back on to the towpath, but there was one level of houses between the two of us. I say a cut between them, with the words 'footpath' on it, but ended up at this bridge:

..over the canal, but not down to it. No worry though, soon I found this path:

...and was back on the towpath, which was a little impassable in certain places:

It was a good walking day, in the perfect walking place. I followed the map, but what I didn't grasp was how many miles taking this route was adding to the journey. I knew it was a winding one, but not how winding. The trouble was..I forgot, because the walk was so attractive: you could say that I lost myself in the whole 'ambience' of it all. Being a monday, there were less people than previously, and it was just me and the dragonflies:

...this one was colourful, and might have been a damselfly, but the dragons were real monsters: most of them were about 4 inches long, and would buzz straight into you before swooping off over the canal. Brilliant creatures though - I want one as a pet. I could take it for a 'fly' down the cinder path on a string of dental floss.

Because all of this day was spent walking along the canal, most of the events were things I stumbled across, and were totally unrelated. I was soon entering this pub:

...well it would have been rude not to, wouldn't it? A group for four were flyered there. Then I got best wishes shouted at me from these three guys in pedal boats:

The kids on the side overtook me, stopped while I overtook them,overtook me again.. constantly for about two hours during the afternoon, but they were good kids; just looking for locks to dangle their feet in. I also passed this offputting sight:

..and this kid, who was over the moon about the perch he'd just caught:

It was all great, but as I turned page upon page over in the canal map I'd bought, it became obvious that Market Harborough was a lot further this way than the highway. I was constantly turning around meanders into new, beautiful views that lead to more meanders, and the final straw was when i DID turn over the page with MH on, only to see that the canal did a huge loop of an extra five miles, before it got into town. I spied a road on the map, and headed on past one of the hubs of the British canal system, Foxton Locks:

Here, after half a mile or so, I left the canal, and headed through Foxton village, and into the Black Horse for a coke break:

Here, the locals were so friendly, that I broke my one and only taboo on this walk...Yip, I will admit that I had a drink of alochol BEFORE the day's walk had finished. I thought I only had a mile of so left, and the old guy at the bar had started making funny-but-friendly comments about Geordies, so after the flyers, I thought it was only decent to partake:

After another sip, it was all looking a bit like this:

Luckily, I got some crisps and water, aswell, because as I sauntered out of the pub, I found that it was a further three miles to MH, and I upped the tempo onto a long country road.. It was getting near eight at night, now ,and the sun was setting:...over a guy who was just finishing off with his tractor for the day:

And even the fields looked like they were winding down for the night:

Only two miles left: I was trying to run again at this point, although the 'Leicester yomp' experience had largely destroyed what little enthusiasm I had left after the chafing, so I simply 'walked very quickly'. A hurry it may have been, but not enough to stop me stopping to snap this..on the road...again...I'd lost count of how many by this time:

Luckily, Market Harborough is not such a large place, and after the sign telling me I was there, it was little more than ten minutes until I was in the centre, meeting my contact, Graham Johnson, just outside the large church, Saint Dionysius. Luckier still, he led me to his house, barely five more minutes from the centre, and we had a quiet night. There was a real musical aspect to the the house - one of his sons is the organist at Saint Paul's Cathedral, and the other, I believe, is head of music in Westminster Choir School. I got another lovely room, but something had changed about how comfortable I was feeling. Nothing to do with the surroundings; instead, I realised it when I worked out just how far the deviation around the canal had added to my jouney - I had planned to walk about 15 miles along the road that day, but the scenery had tempted me into a walk of about 23 - the longest walk of the lot. My feet were starting to hurt, and all this was with the longest legs just around the corner..

Sunday the 23rd of August - to Leicester

2009-08-26T14:53:00.000-07:00

The next morning, I left my keys with a guy in the kitchen - with a flyer - and walked through the campus, past this building,which looks like the only thing left from the days when this was probably an HE college:

I took the quick walk into town, and found it to be a very friendly place. It got off to a bad start, with me seeing a sign outside 'The Varsity' saying '1.99 breakfasts - 10 till 12', and trying to get in - in vain. It was 11am, and the manager was sitting outside having a fag. 'You do breakfasts?' I asked '..up to 12?' 'Yeah' she said '..but we don't open until 12 on Sundays.' (!!???)

The centre of town looked ok, and it has this statue, of a fat man sticking his foot out:

In a coffee bar, the T-Shirt magic worked again, and I looked through the map to find the places that might like a flyer or two... In doing so, I found that Loughborough was on the Grand Union Canal. I asked the woman, and she confirmed that not only could I walk along the canal to Leicester, I could also go further - to Market Harborough, as well. In fact, she knew, because she had once lived on a narrowboat, and saying that I was going that way, she wondered if I could do her a favour? I was to keep my eyes open for any nice houses for sale along the water's edge.. That was the first of good receptions in Loughborough, I also got into a conversation about the bid with the women in Waterstone's, and in the library, and after flyering the church, got into another one with the guys in this railway museum, just outside the town - they let me put loads of them all around

..as you can see, it still ran steam trains

In all, I left Loughborough thinking it was a cool and unpretentious town - it didn't have many 'iconic buildings' but it just felt good to be in. Perhaps the amount of students keeps it in check - it had its 'hard' places, but they were balanced with the laidback ones.

Just around the corner, was the start of the canal, and I started a great walk, which lasted for the next two days. Being a Sunday, this was the best day, though, because there were hundreds of couples/ families around. A family stopped me within 10 minutes, then I met a guy who knew a lot about Wearmouth-Jarrow. He was a vicar, and after talking, I handed him a pile of flyers, and worked out a A4SML with him, too. As for the landscape, it was perfect:

...and the walking was great:

The day got better, as I ended up in Barrow-on-Soar, passing this hippy-commune-type of place just outside town:
...which had this character guarding the site:

Straight afterwards, I turned a corner, to this view:

The pub was great, and while I was basking in the wonder of it all, Kate phoned me. Apparently, while I was by the in the sun, by a canal, she was in Hebburn looking at a dead frog... A family came over and asked, and then a biker couple, and I left thinking that not only had I made a great decision environment-wise, but I'd also stumbled on a treasure-trove of 'the type of people who are interested in this sort of thing'.

Yet again, though, it couldn't last. Again I became conscious of the time, and that I'd sort-of told my host that I'd be there at around 5. I hurried along the towpath, past this sad-looking horse:

, and away from the canal, back into a town, and 'reality'. The place was called Montsorrel, and although it was an historic place, with a castle mound, the first view I got from the water was of these new, very fake houses:

There was even a fake medieval ruin:

...and some fake Tudor construction:

I mean...come on.. This is Postmodernism gone mad. Ok, it's probably a very nice (and dear) place to live, but it just stinks of a mindset so terrified of its own times that it's run away to some fairyland in the past, that never existed anyway. What's s scary in a lovely village by the canal that you have to build English Disneyland to blot the rest out?

Ok, I'm off on one again..I passed onto the dual carriageway, and picked up speed coming into the northern suburbs of Leicester. At Birstall, I took a risk, and worked my way past 'The White Horse', down onto the canal again, with the idea that it woud be a more direct route into the centre. Not so right - time was getting on, and, for the first time during this walk, I felt that the only option left to me was running.

..Not really running, but 'yomping'. For those of you who don't know what that means, it's effectively jumping and jogging in the same movement. I was ok with doing it, because the towpath had turned in a curving path through a nature reserve, covered in trees. Just as well, because yomping is a ludicrous thing to do: it makes you look like you're running after having -in the words of James May: 'done a mischief in your trousers'. Any time I even felt there was someone around the next corner, I stopped, and in the end, I stopped doing it, because it was, quite frankly, so silly, and turned back onto the main road straight into the centre of Leicester.

Very quickly, I got to the cathedral:

...which is next to the Guildhall:

...one of the best remaining timber-framed buildings in the country. Even better than the Cooperage down Newcastle quayside, I've read..

In two minutes, by host, Barry Naylor turned up, and let me into my lodgings - just around the corner from the cathedral:

. He had a service to do, so he left alone in an place that was very similar to what I'd had in Sheffiedl. It didn't take me long to make friends with my other lodger, a 700-year-old feller who was sitting on a wardrobe:

Hoever, it was in a funny part of town, and within 20 mins there was drunk woman hammering on the window to be let in. Barry had told me to ignore anyone who didn't have a key, so i did, and spent some time on the blog, going out at 9ish to meet Barry and a few of his friends in a pub. We didn't stay long, but long enough to get them to sign, and for me to learn how Leicester is the only city in England where parliament has sat outside London. With that, the talk stayed on history, and one guy, Ian, commented on the March. He knew where the Marchers had stayed during their night in the city, and what's more, he offered to take me on a tour of the city. We left soon after, and the tour began with him showing me the darkened interior of the church where he was organist, Saint Nicholas'. Unfortunately, I'd left my camera in the lodgings, and I had to use my phone to take the photos of him playing ( I don't have the little adaptor to transfer pics from there to my laptop). After that, he showed me the Marcher's church, which is past a flyover on the ring road, and is now a conference centre, and the church hall just across the lane where they slept.

The tour lasted about an hour, and after that I was straight asleep.

Saturday the 22nd of August -to Loughborough

2009-08-23T16:31:00.000-07:00

Today, Samuel drove me into town, past this view of the Lacemarket:

I flyered the RC cathedral, St Barnabas, the Castle:

....the museum of the Law, and St Mary's in the Lacemarket, which looks like this inside:

..and is watched over by a huge, heraldic lion and Unicorn.

But yet again, I felt in a hurry to get back on the road. The perennial feeling on this walk has been that there is more to do than I have time to get done. Every morning I feel like I need to get into the next town soon, so I have where i'll stay sorted...but that means that as soon as I'm in town, and meeting my hosts, I have no control over the other aspects of the walk. The most I can snatch is flyering the most obvious buildings in the time, which is easy in Northallerton, but impossible in a place the size of Nottingham.

For that reason, I'd pencilled Loughborough in as a 'day to myself'. I'd received a text from Jenny telling me that people had offered a bed there just a day earlier, but I'd had a room sorted in the university since Tuesday. Obviously, the bed was free, but I needed a day away from the hospitality. This was so I could catch up on the blog, but also because I've found myself 'getting into the zone of walking' a lot in the past few days. I've started feeling light-headed when I walk; this is nothing to worry about, because although I've never felt it before, I know exactly what it is: it's the feeling of my body getting used to, and accommodationg that fact that walking has become the norm for it. It's a strange feeling – like I'm drunk on walking, without the incoherence, almost like I'm floating, and that things like that bag don't weight anything.

The point of this is that when I'm walking, I'm 'in the zone' and it takes a few hours afterwards to get out of it. Today I needed a break from the fact that on most days, the walk stops suddenly, in the arms of my extremely-friendly hosts, and as soon as the walk stops, the talk begins. This added, to the fact I've often feel I have to hurry the walk up because the hosts expect me in town at a certain time has let me to feel a little like everything is rolling infront of me a little faster than I can catch up with.

Anyway, I left Nottingham quickly...passing the home of the world's oldest football club, where Sven has just made his home:

….and here, which used to be the home of Brian Clough:

,Trent Bridge, the home of Nottinghamshire County Cricket ground:

...and this building, which..used to be the home of the man who invented HP Sauce.

This was a pretty straightforward walk, along paths, straight out of Nottingham. The only time when it got a little hairy was on the main roundabout outside town, but that was because I forgot to look right where the traffic was approaching..for a second. Quicker than I expected, I ended up here:
...this isn't such a funny name for me, because, I've been here before, on a night out in ...1995. I remember it was being three houses and a pub, but, it certainly isn't:

It's quite a large village, and I stopped for a coke in the pub which seemed closest to the one in my memory from one evening, 14 years ago. Here, I tried -with no luck - to do a search on 'where is Loughborough University?', so I packed back up, and headed up 'Bunny Hill' (which was full of sheep) and on until I came across this chap in the middle of my path:

Now. this shrew-thing allowed me very close - so close, in fact, that I thought he was in the process of expiring. I stuck the camera really close about ten times, and he just sat there. Then, when I raised it, and stood back up, he pelted off into the grass - an exhibitionist shrew, then. I carried on through a few very attractive towns:

and past various churches, like this one, that had no letter box, forcing me to improvise my flyer-drop:

Then, I came down a slow, steady hill for about twenty minutes. At the bottom, I knew I was on the right track:

Immediately, it was followed by a great view:

The entire land around was very flat, and reminded me of Lincolnshire, and I crossed under a railway bridge into Loughborough proper. I'd didn't have a clue what to expect, but it wsn't this immense terraced street

Luckily, there was a corner shop there, and when I asked the guy where the unviserity was, he sucked his teeth and said 'oh, it's a bit of a long walk, you know.' When I asked how long, he said 'well..about half an hour, you know.' I told him I could cope with that, and followed his directions over two roundabouts, and finally, to here:

Big trouble though - nobody had heard I was coming- security hadn't, the group of S.U guys and girls hanging outside their SU bar (called J.C.'s -all SU bars are acronyms - Keele's was the reverse: C.J.'s ). . The only thing happening at Loughborough that night was a wedding reception
, and I wasn't invited. One of the girls was from Sunderland, but she didn't really know what was going on - but the other one did, and she rang a few people, finally telling me to go back security. I did as I was told, and this time a phone call did the job - I was expected in 'The Hub', and after being driven there by a guy who looked like The Terminator, I was given the keys:

..to a room in the proper student accommodation at the back:

My room was typical new uni accommodation- it even smelled that way. There were a few foreign students milling around, and I walked through the campus, which looked a lot like most landscaped campuses made since the 60s; this is the library:

All Modernist, but not bad - I think buildings like this look original, and fit perfectly into landscaped environments like this -it's when someone decides to knock down a perfectly-suited Victorian street, to plonk something like this in the middle, that it doesn't work, and ends up being an 'eyesore' or 'blot on the landscape'. Anyway.. I found my bearings in the bar at the 'hospitality hotel' right at the back of the campus. The barman told me there were other places in the town to go, but I went back to the room to do the blog, and couldn't muster the energy to go and see. I went back to the hotel bar, and gave out a flyer or two, then wrote a little more on the blog, and went to bed

Friday the 21st of August - To Nottingham

2009-08-23T15:38:00.000-07:00

The next day, John and Yvonne took me for a walk out of town. I did the old A4SML, and Yvonne left after a mile, leaving John to lead me on. It became obvious he was up for a proper walk - he's very fit, and he knows the entire area like the back of his hand, so I was happy to give up my route planned with a road altas in Jarrow to go along the dual carriageway, to the leadership of a local who wanted to show me the most attractive parts of his county. We started to climb, and soon left Mansfield behind:

We passed into a place called 'Thieves Wood' which was a huge, silent forest of pines:

and over, down a narrow lane,

It started to rain a little as we passed this HUGE tree,

...which John reckoned was a beech, and we turned through another wood, and out at this:

This is Newstead Abbey, boyhood home of Lord Byron, the ultimate Romantic playboy poet, and he of 'mad, bad and dangerous to know' fame. That's John in the bottom left, looking at the map, and deciding that we needed to re-trace a few steps, and head off down another lane through the trees. This took us past this ...delicious looking thing..

and past some more MASSIVE trees - ones which Byron must have tried to climb as boy:

We left Newstead behind, coming through the very prim village of Papplewick, and over farms. Here, I saw an amazing bird that nobody else ever seems to have heard of. It sped past me, and I knew from my boyhood obsession with ornithology that it was a hobby, a very impressive falcon that I'd only ever seen two times before- one of those being in France. It's one of the fastest things in the air, and really good-looking too (wonderful plumage..etc....yeah, yeah) . Everyone always sees kestrels, and talks of peregrines, but this one's a lot more secret, and better-looking than both.

After more fields, we came out at a weird group of low-level housing spread over a hillside. They looked like prefabs, but every one was perfectly-decorated, with twee little lampposts and manicured lawns. Everything was dead quiet, too, and the whole place reminded me of The Village in The Prisoner. The type of place it was can be seen by these two characters who were sitting in a garden:

We reached a riding school, and took a turn up a hill, to come out at our first view of the Nottingham suburb of Arnold:

We followed the lane out, onto a road - the main one, as it turned out, into Nottingham. Here John left me to get the bus, and I stormed the last three miles into, to try to reach the council offices - that massive white building that overlooks the market square. On the way I passed this object, which I can think of no words to describe:

...except that I'd rather things like that existed, than didn't. I got to the council offices at4.45, but the guy on reception told me that the communications department was in the 'Civic Hall' which closed at 4.30. Bang went the chance to talk to meet another Natalie, because it was a Friday and...that was that.

I used to know Nottingham really well. In 1994, myself and three others from Jarrow -Paul, Fraser and Dougie did a week-long 'tour of England sleeping in a car', and ended up here on the second night, sleeping...in a car on top of the multi-storey. A year later, while I was studying in Stoke, a mate of a mate was here doing surveying at Nottingham Trent uni, and we went over about 15 times. The thing is...the summer of '95 ended, and..I've never been back since. I still had a good idea of the layout, but outside the offices, in what used to be the market square, they've installed a funfair, and a 'beach':

The place was heaving, and the T-shirt worked its magic, as I worked my way up to the Castle:

..and my arranged meeting-place, reputedly the oldest pub in England (1191, they say):

I flyered the Trip, and as I met my hosts, Samuel and Hazel Burgess, I became aware that a woman across the room was listening. As we left, she asked me the reason for the walk, and when I told her, she said she'd write a 'letter' and sign the book willingly. She told me about the March, and how when it went though Luton, where she was from, the local Co-Op deaf and blind group stayed up all night fixing the marcher's shoes. You could tell she was genuinely interested by the way she asked about the Guildford story as well. This is just what I mean about every signature in the book telling a story – this one was exceptional, and could have gone on longer, but we had to leave.

Samuel and Hazel took me to their home in West Bridford, and from there, to a country carvery, which was busy, but we found a seat. Samuel is one of those guys who's always laughing, and we talked a lot about local history. On the way back, he drove half the way to Loughborough, to show me what to expect , which was a great thing to do. He also told me about some congestion charge that's ben imposed by...who do you think? The Sheriff of Nottingham! He still exists!

Thursday the 20th of August - to Mansfield -HALF-WAY

2009-08-21T16:52:00.000-07:00

After a great breakfast, I was taken to Chesterfield for a treat: I was to get a personal tour of the twisted spire, lasting 45 minutes. Anne took me though the town, which I thought would be industrial, but has the feel of a typical country, market town. Inside, I met Paul, who told me all the history of the church. It's the largest church in Derbyshire, and is the 3rd on the site; there had been a Norman one, and before that a Saxon one ( Like St Peter's and St Paul's) there. Of the Saxon church, nothing has ever been found except for its font, which was dug up by a vicar in the grounds during the 1800s, and used by him as a plant pot...A big one, as you can see:

The font is covered in carvings very similar to the ones found at Wearmouth and Jarrow. Here's a close-up:

..now compare them to this photo, which is of the cormorant carvings on the from porch of St Peter's, Wearmouth:

...and you can see they look like each other.

Paul took me through a narrow door in the wall, and up into the tower's interior. Inside therre were 151 narrow, curving steps like this:
...before you enter a chamber, built inside the tower wall, where the bells are rung:

. From here you can see down into the church:

We continued, up into other rooms like this one, where the bells are:
to the back of one of the four clock faces:

until we came on top of the tower, directly under the spire:

. The word on the Chesterfield street is that it became twisted when it bent over to look at a particularly good-looking virgin who was getting married below, and that it'll only straighten up again on the day another virgin is married in the church...(It's been crooked a long time)

In truth, it became twisted because water got in during the 1400s, and in panic, they covered it with lead, which weighed and bent the rotting wood even more. It's the only twisted and leaning spire in the world, and oh, it's not attached to the tower; only held there by its own weight, and it would take a wind of over 150mph to carry it away. We climbed up an ancient ladder, outside onto the tower's parapet, to get this view:

...and looking up, this one:

Yip, I was terrified up there, but I leant out, and over to take this photo of the oldest grafitti on the spire, which says 'F.E. 1657':

As a final photo in this architectural excursion, the main beam in the spire is this:

...which doesn't look much in this photo, but it's part of an 80ft-long bean of oak, which would have been straight when it was felled, but which has bent since. The mind boggles at what the tree this beam came from would have looked like, and the dendrochronologist who dated it reckoned that it was felled in the 1300s, but that it had grown from a seed that first fell to the ground in the 9th Century!

John had given me an old, high detailed ordnance survey map of the area between Chesterfield and Nottingham, and I used it to make today the most attractive walk so far. I set off down the long road towards Temple Normanton, and using John's detailed map, found myself on country roads. In time I was skirting the side of the M1 on a quiet little road, before going under it:

and climbing up a bank, while the wind started getting bad. In the distance I could see Hardwick Hall:

and I passed the entrance, and up the hill towards a hamlet called Ault Hucknall, through lovely place called Rowthorne. I turned right down a track, which had a chimney from a mine far in the distance, and looked great:

Suddenly, though, I went down this sunken lane:

..and everything changed. This was a very 'magical' place - it had walls of stone cliffs around it, which were cracked by water, and the growth of trees from them. It had a real atmosphere, and it felt like I was the only person around for miles. At the bottom were the remains of two former rail lines to Pleasley Colliery:

and I pressed on to a four-way cross roads, just after which I took this shot of me looking bedraggled (I look even worse now..)in one of those convex sharp-turn mirrors:

Then I was in Pleasely, which has kept its mine buildings as a tourist centre (heritage being regenerated not knocked down):

Apparently that meant I had crossed into Nottinghamshire. I called my contact, and John Everitt turned up with his wife Yvonne, who whisked my bag away, while John continued the pretty tone of the day by leading me to his house by the VERY scenic route. We walked though cornfields:

and up this hill (that's John leading the way):

...into the outskirts of Mansfield, past a swimming pool built on the site of the old Sherwood Pit, and to his house past allotments, one of which housed a goat called Clive - (I think: he wasn't there), and another which had...er..this written on the side:

The house was a lovely bungalow set down a secluded street, and I was taken on the very short walk into town. Like Chesterfield, Mansfield was much more 'county market town' than I had thought, and its main feature is this wonderful viaduct:

This splits the town in two, and as Mansfield was my halfway point, this marked the end of the walk's first half, and start of the second.

We ate in Wetherspoons, which quickly became full with some of the thinnest, most healthy-looking spawn of the god of young things (male and female) I'd yet seen on this journey, so we left. The night ended with wine and Southern Comfort in the living room, where John -as a joke - put on a DVD of a band his son likes. I'd never heard of them, but they were a German thrash/goth/industrial band called 'Rammstein' and they were absolutely bluddy awful.. and hilarious. I didn't photo the tv, but I've found this one on the internet, so you get the picture:

Wednesday the 19th of August - To Chesterfield

2009-08-21T14:51:00.000-07:00

I was woken up by a young guy at the door asking for the key back, and telling me that a group would be in the building in the next 30 minutes, so I left a pile of flyers with a note and my contact details, and strode forth into Sheffield, flyering the City Hall, The Winter Gardens, the cathedral, and RC cathedral, where the woman said 'Oh, I just been reading about a man who's doing just the same thing as you' . After that, she turned the flyer over from the back page to the one with my photo 'OH' she said 'It is you!'

I was feeling like I 'hadn't really done Sheffield, and just before I left, I dropped into the Town Hall to ask whether the ''He's coming' press releases that Victoria said she'd forward on after Barnsley had come through. I couldn't have asked for a more helpful communications officer - her name was Natalie; she listened, and said 'Do you want to be on the radio?' She thrust me a phone, and I spoke to someone, then she gave me the names of three journalists on the Sheffield Star. I had my instructions: I was to go down to the Star office, and also wait for a phone call from the BBC Radio Sheffield.

I was walking -lost -around trying to find the office when Natalie appeared again, out of breath from running from the Town Hall, to tell me that 'The Radio wanted me at 1'. I found the Star Offices in York Street, and within 30 minutes, I'd given an interview to ..Tom, I think, and had my photo taken by a very friendly bloke who spoke about whiskey and the Electric Light Orchestra. The interview was fine, but he was desperate to get the 'Sheffield hook' to my tale. Yet again, it was the March that did the trick. He'd never heard of it, but when he recognised that something historical, which had passed through Sheffield was being referred to, that was his story.

Then I was hotfooting it down past what used to be the National Centre for Popular Music, which looks like four silver, ultra modern kettles arranged around one another, and into the BBC Building. I was welcomed, told I was going to be on the 'Rony (not Tony) Robinson show' and let into the waiting area:

Here, I waited with a young guy called Richard, who told me that he appears on the radio every month to answer people's 'insect problems'. He's an entymologist from the university, who got the job last year, when a woman rang the station claiming that a moth with an 8-inch wingspan had landed on her hedge. The station called the uni, and they sent Richard out to check. He turned up, very excited, to find that a bit of kid's decoration made of lace and bent wire had fluttered into her garden...It got him a regular slot, though. He was very interested in a collection of beetles he had, that look a lot like flies:

Fittingly for a man who studies flying things, he got a flyer.

I was ushered into the studio preparation room:

..and then into the studio, where I spoke to Rony Robinson live on air for about four minutes, and was heard by ALL OF SOUTH YORKSHIRE, AND A CHUNK OF DERBYSHIRE, TOO!

I'll admit that I left Sheffield feeling like the cat-who'd-got-the-cream. Even the BIGGEST HILL YET - through Woodseats -couldn't stop it, and as I reached the top, a car beeped, with the driver waving a hand in a way that made it obvious he'd heard me on the radio. It took a good hour and a half to walk out of Sheffield, to the roundabout at the top by a pub called the ...Norton, was it?, where I took the advice of a SteelTown guy I know back in Jarrow, Dave Hirst, that I should go through 'Dronfield instead of the route I'd planned'. I passed over into Derbyshire, and almost immediately into a really picturesque, and typically Derbyshire, landscape of wooded valleys, and towns -such as Dronfield - that have walls of bare rock face around them which makes them look like they've been plonked into old quarries:

It was a great walk, and soon I passed this hill:, which looks like some relic from the way Britain looked three thousand years ago. You don't see many hills with trees all over them thesedays. I passed this sign:

The route continued on in this way until I very- reluctantly had to tear myself off it to rejoin the dual carriageway, and its grass verges, at rush-hour: Luckily, it wasn't long, and it ended at the Red Lion, in Chesterfield, where I met today's host John Duncan, who bought me a pint, and ushered me to his house to meet his wife, Anne. Thus began an absolutely hilarious night of great food and drink. I've learnt to organise the A4SML straight away now, and after that, we just spoke all evening. John was born in Whitley Bay, and educated 'in Gosforth', and he was an engineer who organised the construction of the section of the metro between Tyne Dock and South Shields -he worked out how much of that stone you see before you get into Chi metro station needed to be blasted away, and he also built that metro flyover than takes the line into Shields just down from where OZ (a discotheque fantasy!..) used to be. He also built the 'roller coaster' metro bridge at Byker, which -he confirmed - isn't just held together by glue like everyone says it is. I remember the night ending with him getting out his old LP of 'The Blaydon Races and other Geordie songs' (classics like 'Keep ya feet still Geordie hinny' 'and 'Cushie Butterfield'), and then the three of us watching a DVD of Bruce Springsteen..

An absolutely brilliant day.

Tuesday the 18th of August - to Sheffield

2009-08-21T13:53:00.000-07:00

Pauline also made a great breakfast, and absolutely nothing was a worry with her - she sorted everything out, and I left the Briscoes after setting up another A4SML, to head back into town, and the Town Hall. Here though, there was no Leah, and the other woman on the counter told me that a message had been left saying that the Council could accept NO FLYERS OR CORRESPONDENCE THAT ARE NOT ON HEADED PAPER. I told them that I was backed by Sunderland Council, and that everything was legit. The communications manager came down, and she was fine, saying that everything would have been ok, had they simply known that I was coming, first. True - as I've said, and will probably say a few more times, I needed more time in certain places, and wish I'd had more time to plan this beforehand. We did the best with the time we had, though and so long as I try to get my foot in the door when I'm in a town, it could fail, as it did here, or it could work, as the next day was to prove, in Sheffield...

Anyway, the manager said she's put a link to the bid website on their intranet, and I left, to flyer a few shops, and a lot of people in a coffee bar, before climbing the hill, and reaching the sign above. Father Briscoe has printed me out seven detailed maps , and advised me to take a turn away from the road I'd planned to take (always listen to a local!), and I was soon over the M1:

..through a village, and onto a dual carriageway for a few hundred yards until I reached a big roundabout, with a ..Mcdonalds (I needed a coke). Here I got a very encouraging phone call from Jenny, and got talking, flyering and signing with a guy called Martin. I set off again, taking another call from Victoria, which was interrupted by another man and his dog asking, and getting a flyer in return.

The landscape here, just north of Sheffield was glorious; still the wooded roadsides in place of fields:

but I was soon passing houses, and going down a huge hill, across roads, and under railways. In time, I passed Hillborough:, and the industrial area of 'Owlerton' all around it. Just a bit further on, I noticed this sign:..which is a story waiting to be discovered ...by someone who has the time. I didn't, though, because I recieved a phone call from today's contact, Father Simon Griffiths, saying that he wanted me in town pronto, as he was urgently wanted to give last orders to someone.. I had to run into the centre, which -having never been to Sheffield before - I didn't know at all, and frantically look around all these streets I knew nothing about, looking for 'Carver Street'. I asked a woman, and found out that I was quite close, but at the bottom of a hill I needed to be right on top of. I pelted up 'Parliament Street', which would have been a LOT easier to pelt down, and looked like the archetypal eccentric bloke-you-wouldn't-talk-to-with-a-barge-pole as I sprang into Carver Street:

I was staying in the old, red vicarage on the right, and I had the entire front room to myself:

...and I had my pick of beds:

Father Simon was a very friendly guy - he told me that he had wanted to do the walk with me tomorrow, but, he had to hurry off, after leaving me some food, and the key. It was in this room that I also chose to decorate the guitar with the pen I'd bought in Harrogate. This is the result:

I wasn't sure about putting 'the history of England ' It didn't want it to make me sound like I was doing some 'zenophobic bulldog thing', but I though it over, and this is something I'll never do again, that needs to grab the eye as much as possible. Anyone can see when they talk to me that it's just a soundbite, and that the walk is well-grounded, but that it's also a bit of fun (painful fun, sometimes, but fun nonetheless). I've said the phrase countless times when handing the flyers over anyway, and it seems to work then.

I updated the blog a bit, and headed outside, to a place on 'Division Street' (a U2 title-in-waiting if I've ever seen one), but it was a quiet night of scattered groups deep in conversation. I flyered one group, but got back some sarky reply about 'Well I'm from Runnymede, and we've got history everywhere there - the Magna Carta: that's the start of English history..' One of the guys was from Hamsterley, and he took the flyer. The next place was a meat-market just about to close, and I was exhausted, so I skipped around the city centre taking a few photos like this one:

..and this one of the Crucible Theatre, home of all the snooker matches, including the legendary one between Dennis Taylor and Steve Davis in 1985 that almost grounded the national grid with all the kettles being boiled after it finished...apparently:

...and then I went to bed.

Monday the 17th August - to Barnsley

2009-08-18T14:04:00.000-07:00

I left the Vicarage, and hit out through the south of Wakefield until I got to a little newsagents. Here, there was a lovely old woman who asked all about the bid, so I did the talk about the walk, also dropping in the fact that I didn't want any money, twice. She was really enthusiastic, and after she signed, she said' ..and how much money do you want?' I told her not to worry, and headed off the road following Judith's advice to follow a path towards 'Sandal Castle' See above for what it looks like from the road, and close up, there's enough of it left:

The fields below the castle are the site of the Battle of Wakefield, in 1460, which was one of the major skirmishes during the Wars of the Roses:

From the top of Sandal Castle, the view of Wakefield was great:

..and just before I left the castle, I got talking to a guy walking his dog. His name was Neil, and knew about the March, because he said that his grandfather had been on it, and, afterwards, had decided to move to Wakefield for work. I told him that it would probably have been the 12th of October 1936 when his grandfather passed through here with the March, and he was happy to find out.

Like the previous day, this walk was pretty easy. I went down the hill past a pub Neil had told me used to be frequented by Dick Turpin:

...and in a few miles, the walk became a little hilly,with a lot of woodlands. I felt that I was walking through a wilder landscape, and I came out at Newmillerdam, and this huge reservour:

I continued to climb, but had to stop a in a mile or so. I wasn't tired, but had spotted this written on the side of an old stone bridge:

The wall was covered with grafitti saying 'Yorkshire Miners' 'We want to go back to work' and 'Scargill out' . The paint was faded, but it could only had been put there during the Miner's Strike in 1985. If this is still there in another 25 year's time, this is going to be a site of real historical importance.

I walked on, until I got my first view of Barnsley:

There were some pretty rough-looking areas north of the town, with boarded-up pubs, and wasteland. To get into the town, you climb a huge hill, but that the top, at the bus-station, a REALLY FRENDLy guy started talking to me. His name was Eamonn, and he was employed by...the council, I think, to give travel info etc..He gave me a map, and told me where the Town Hall was, the Newspaper Offices, and...the statue of Dickie Bird, the famous cricket umpire.. He's from Barnsley, as is Michael Parkinson, and Darren Gough, I was told. I headed straight for the Town Hall:

..and spoke to 'Leah', who said she would distribute the flyers throughout the entire building, and that I should come back tomorrow: another Darlington Dolphin, I thought. Good start..

I spend the half-hour so sipping a coke in Walkabout, catching up on the blog, before I headed up the hill more, to the offices of the Barnsley Chronicle. There were a few seconds of explaining to the women behind the counter, but I think I came across as legitimate, so they told me to wait around the table for a reporter. He turned up a few minutes later, and asked me my age, and why I'm doing this crazy thing. He took notes down constantly during it, but as for whether it makes a story, I don't know. It'll be been in Tue or Wed, or Thur.

Then, I set off through Barnsley town centre. As a town, it funnels down a main shopping street towards a large indoor mall at the end, and I got loads of looks, but mostly of the type that look away straight afterwards. The women in The Chronicle offices had directed me out the back towards Doncaster Road, which starts after a sunken 60s roundabout, and I found the church _ St Peter's - easily..but not Osbourne Mews. Anyway, a phone call was all it took, and I met father Alan Briscoe, and his wife Pauline at...Osbourne Mews. Their house was full of books, and I spent most of the night talking, blogging, and reading a book on 'the Heritage of Britain', to gen up on the places I was going to. The meal was great, as well - chicken casserole -lovely.

The next day, not only had Pauline washed my T-shirts, but she'd also put a patch over the obscene hole that had formed in the 'central seams' area of my 'walking trousers'. These had only been bought on the Saturday before the walk - admittedly from Jarrow Peacocks for 16quid, but the hole had started in DARLINGTON, and that's a pretty poor show for pants, no matter how cheap.

Sunday the 16th of August -to Wakefield

2009-08-18T12:31:00.000-07:00

It's becoming apparent that I WON'T get the WAD of signatures in the book that I -naively - hoped I would. I've already gone into the way that people won't sign without having the time to 'digest' the info, and that I'm pinning my hopes more on the flyers, and the A4SML I've sorted out with at least five of my hosts. The signing book that Kate got for me is now on page 4 -not including the bits of signed paper that I've stuck in. BUT! I'm not getting disillusioned, for these reasons:

1 - I almost always get into towns just when everything's about to close, and -if I'm lucky - may have an hour or so the next day before I have to start the walk. The only way I could have wrung the most out of every stop would have been to have planned a rest day in every place. That way, I could have visited every museum, Town Hall, art gallery, heritge site. But that would have made the walk twice as long, which is impractical, for every reason you're thinking. In hindsight, though, an extra day in the big places would have been a good idea.

2 - The signing book is a BIG testament to the truth of the phrase 'quality not quantity' -Every name in that book tells a story, and it's one of me, sitting next to this person, explaining in detail the importance of Wearmouth/Jarrow. Some of these names testify to talks of over 30 minutes: I really love moments like that, and they're the BIGGEST enjoyment of this walk. They're also what I'm best at. I'm learning that at heart I'm an educator, not a salesman.

I was woken up on Sunday by a phone call from Radio Newcastle, telling me I would be live on the air 'in one minute'. They weren't wrong, and after the interview, I fell straight back asleep. I spent most of Sunday trying to catch up with this blog, and after dumping about a quarter of the weight that I didn't need at Rich's, I headed out at about 4 for what I knew would be my easiest leg. Well, it was, and it wasn't..

Clarence Dock is a bit out of Leeds centre, and it's on Hunslet Road, a main artery which very quickly leads to you looking back and seeing the (diminishing) view above. I got a little lost in my panic to avoid walking onto the motorway, but before I even knew it I was walking past Rothwell, and this strange-but-nice-artsy-and-craftsy tower on the left:

It became rural quite quickly, although everywhere had a path by the road, and I felt like I was just having a nice afternoon stroll. I passed a place called Robin Hood, where I got applauded by people in a beergarden, and flyered them for their trouble, and on into Lofthouse before I'd even registered that I was doing a walk. Then I saw this sign:

...and just followed my nose.

The suburbs of Wakefield were stretched all along the road I walked in by, and it was ok. Two 'youths on bicycles' shouted something at me, and I told everyone on Twitter about it, but I REALLY didn't have clue what they had said. Like most Yorkshire stuff, it ended in 'ARRRH, but when you walk past thousands of people who are mostly looking or beeping, stuff like that doesn't matter.

I'd had a call from my host, and she'd directed me with perfect precision - shame I wasn't so stringent in my interpretation of it. I was to 'stay right at the fork in the road', but I saw the fork as three roads, and took the right-hand one of those - a totally unimportant road that took me 45 minutes out of my way, and back in the direction of Leeds. On the way, I saw a building with my name written all over it:

Everywhere you go, there are always 'two guys sitting outside a pub'. I've got room to call them 'TGSOP', because my earlier acronyn 'DSCB' seems like it's not needed anymore- my chafing is totally over. Anyway, outside the Bay Horse, it was like that Monty Python Spam sketch: I told them that I was looking 'for a place called Thornes', and one guy laughed - 'Thornes?' he said 'Thornes..ho, ho!' Here Tom, you heard this? This guy wants Thornes! 'Thornes?' said the other 'HA,HA! Mahles 'way -you want Thornes? Mahles left to go! Bob! This guy wants THORNES!' 'THORNES?' said the other... I found out I was five miles in the wrong direction, and walked back to the fork in the road, and took the middle one.

This took me to Wakefield centre, and a really well good-looking group of buildings:

It was late in the day, though, and everything was closed, so I asked two old characters on a bench, and they directed me down to Wakefield Westgate Station, where Judith Ware rang me. She turned up in five minutes, and drove me to 'Thornes.' I would never have found it by myself, but it was the location of a secluded vicarage on the edge of a park, on the the edge of town. It was a relaxing, quiet night: Judith and I share a fascination with maps, and I poured over her detailed maps of the the next day's walk, before spending most of the evening catching up even more on my blog.

Saturday the 15th of August -To Leeds

2009-08-17T15:35:00.001-07:00

I spent a bit of time in Harrogate town centre the next morning, getting 'things' I needed - like a strap for the guitar, and a pen to write over it. I've decided to put the words 'no money needed -only signatures' on it, and to draw the route, so I got one of those pens which that famous writer David Beckham advertises, and borrowed a screwdriver off the owner of a little camera shop, to get my screws into the cheap thing. After yesterday's light-headedness, I piled the water down me while watching a busker do some Vivaldi, and flyersed places like art shops, fairtrade places and things in the 'Montpellier Quarter' (but not Oxfam-who wouldn't allow me to leave one ((..???))

It was a steady climb out of Harrogate, which became greater up to the top of Pannal Bank. Coming down, the weather turned, as you can see above. At the bottom, I returned to roads I knew from my cycling excursion, which had taken me through Boroughbridge and Knaresborough instead of Ripon and Harrogate. I recognised the road, and remembered that ahead lay the only part of the journey two years earlier when I had to get off my bike. You can tell by the few miles of pleasant decline that you're going into a valley, but after another hour walking, I got my first view of the bank up to Harewood House:

I was going to stop before it, but the path as too narrow, so I just went for it:

It took 20 minutes to get to the turn at the top, and another 15 before I could fall into the 'Harewood Arms' at the top. Here, I sat out the back, and got talking to two guys in their 50s. They were sold on the idea immediately, with 'Jamie' buying me coke, and both signing the book. They were two old friends, and they had that way of taking the mick out of one another that's hilarious when it's done right - very Barker and Corbett. We got onto talking about Bobby Robson, and who he'd called Paul Gascoigne 'daft as a brush', and spent a few minutes asking ourselves 'What is it about a BRUSH that makes it more daft than any other implement?'; I stayed there for an hour.

The Harewood Arms isn't the end of the incline, but and as the hill finally calmed down I hit my worst patch of terrain yet. It was a long turn in the road - obviously accident-prone because they'd put a long stretch of crash barricade alongside it. This squeezed me constantly into the little valley of the verge, with potholes and long grass galore, and I had to use the guitar to haul me through for about half a mile of it. The climb began again, and took me up to Eccup Reservoir, which is just before the Leeds Grammar School, and first houses of the suburbs.

I was still a few miles short of the centre when it started to POUR down. I was also beginning to feel the weight of my bag badly, so this walk through the outskirts was pretty bad. It was one of those walks where things never seem to get much closer, and it took me an hour and a half until I was confronted by this view:

Unfortunately, my mate lives on the other side... I was perked up my a call from my cousins Terri and Julie, who'd walked the first leg from St Peter to Paul's with me 6 days earlier. They'd driven down with Julie's boyfriend, Dave, and were waiting for me by the Royal Armouries - coincidentally, just UNDER the tower where I was going to stay! I hobbled into town, and found them in the pub called the Anchorage -directly under the tower at Clarence Dock - the place I used to live, and where I call my second home:

I got a clap when I went in, and a drink or too, and dinner later:

My old flatmate, Richard Wilson (I don't BELIEVE it! No, not that one) turned up, and it soon became obvious what a scarily similar taste in music he has to Terri -whom he's never met before. As my cousins went home, we met a few of his friends ,who signed. Yet again, though, like Ripon, it was a loud night of people doing other things. The best I could get was hundreds of stares at the T-shirt.

Friday the 14th August - to Harrogate

2009-08-17T07:39:00.000-07:00

Ken came to the hall at 8.30, and drove me to his house, where his wife, Sandra, made me a proper English breakfast. I was gone by 9.30, on the straight road out of town, and back onto the grass verges. Even so, it was a whizz of a walk, and I couldn't believe it when I reached 'Wormald Green' -almost half way - before I'd even felt like I'd walked anywhere.

After this, it got a little worse - the old 'chafing' had improved no end (and hasn't really been back since) but I started to feel a bit 'dreamy in the head' - the few drinks last night? Not enough water? Going too fast? I don't know except that since then, I've developed a cough, so it could all just be my body going into shock at the entire 'reality' of this slog. I had to rest, but I kept saying 'I will at THIS tree, no..THIS one..' By the time I'd found one to sit under, I looked up and saw the village sign for Ripley.

There's a stately hall at Ripley, and a wedding was going on at the Hotel. Everyone, and thing, looked very 'up-to-the-nines', and a guy on the phone at the table next to me was talking of how he'd just loaned his friend '50 thousand' but didn't know when he was going to get it back. The shop there was just what I needed, and I sat at the table for over an hour, because I'd made great time, and only had 4 miles left.

Just outside Harrogate, I had a strange feeling that I 'knew this place'. I turned around, and saw this view:

Although I don't have the image with me, this place looks very much like the spot where one of the most famous photos of the Jarrow March was taken. I think I'd read somewhere that that photo was taken either 'Outside Harrogate' or 'Bedford', and it shows the entire March beginning to climb a hill, on a road with walls on either side, past a tall, old-fashioned town sign, and being led by Ellen Wilkinson. There are more trees today, but if I don't see anywhere else, I think this must have been the place.

I'd received brilliant directions on how to get to the Church, which is in 'Bilton', in the sububs of Harrogate. I met Chris Close inside the church - he was up a ladder- and he gave me the keys to the empty vicarage, next door. It was an entire house, empty of all but the fittings, and I had my choice of rooms:

I went into town, but -idiotically - left the signing book behind, as I'd intended it to be just a getting-my-bearings walk, and not a night thing. But it was evening by then, and I found the T-shirt was doing its magic again, so I went into the Slug and Lettuce, and got talking about the walk to a couple -Kev and Melissa. They didn't stay long -she wanted to get back to watch Eastenders - but Kev stayed long enough to tell me one story about how he had once bought a cayman (a small crocodile) off some bloke in the pub for 60 quid. After that, the sky was the limit for conversation, and as I got onto saying how Loughborough was the only place I hadn't yet found accommodation, it reminded him of the time he'd been talking to two Americans about the town, and how they'd pronounced it as 'Lo-gah-bo-ROW-gah..'

I'd taken in a few shops earlier, and got a great reception. Both the Rohan shop, and a music shop had said I should try 'The Old Bell' later if I wanted to chance to talk to locals who would 'get what I was doing' -they couldn't have been more right. As soon as I walked in a couple spoke, with the woman taking flyers to 'give to the people she worked with.' I found a nice alcove, and got the permission off the manger to give flyers out. Two young guys -Alex and Gareth - were so enthusiastic that I got a free drink, and then I spent another 15 mins with a couple in their 40s, who were both aware of Bede, and fascinated by what I was doing. As I left I flyered about another five couples, and in all, the reception I got made me feel very 'warm' -as I probably showed on Twitter. so warm, that I didn't even need a sheet on my first-class four-poster:

Thursday the 13th August - To Ripon

2009-08-17T06:20:00.000-07:00

By the morning, Bobby's grandchildren had turned up. I'd been told that my presence would quieten them down, and it did for a few seconds, before the eldest, Annie found her tongue - she signed the book as well.

Bobby took me to the church, and I walked to Costa for a coffee. Here the manager was intrigued by the T-shirt, because he was from...Guildford! I also got two free packets of biscuits out of that, as well.

Weeks earlier, I'd rung the newspaper here, and 'Jackie' had told me to visit. I found the place, down 'Central Arcade' and Jackie and two others made me the cup of tea they'd promised. They signed, took flyers, and seemed to be writing something while I was telling the tale of the walk, so I'm not sure if that became a story. They were also apologietic for my experience when I rang the Ripon newspaper, and was told ' no - it's nothing to do with Ripon, so we're not interested.' When people say things like that, my natural tendency is to explain to them how it's not as bad as they think, and that if they were to listen, they'd realise that I've thought that through already, and I'm ringing because -if they gave me a few seconds- it IS something worthwhile...

..But, I'm learning that I can't do that on this walk. If it's 'no' then that's it. It's a shame that that reaction will prevent them being involved in something like this, but there's no time to waste when minds have already been made up.

On the way out, I passed a little music shop, and bought the guitar in the picture above. I've always wanted to take something to 'grab attention', but I gave up on my own guitar because it was too big. This was a kid's one, and only 29 pounds. The woman was from Durham, and she signed straight away.

With that, I met my brother -who was 'lobstered' from the sun of the day before, at the station, and we walked south, past this field of corn/maize things (I'm not from the country..)

We also passed this house:

...shame it wasn't the cathedral, because this was a long day, with terrain as bad as the one before. I'm writing this in Barnsley on day 8, and these two legs between Darlington and Ripon were the worst by far. They weren't a constant bad, but when the length of the route mixed with the bumpiness of the verges, it got painful.

The highlight of the day - apart from the lovely weather, was stopping in the King's Arms in Sandhutton for a DSCB. The manager used to live/work between Jarrow and Wallsend, and was fascinated. We got our shandys and cokes free of charge, and I left my address with him, written on a flyer. i've been doing this a lot, and that's the way I hope to gain the most signatures. Each person I've stayed with has said they 'know....who would definately sign but they're not here at the moment..' So, we've all agreed that they can simply use a bit of A4 for the names of everyone they know, and send it to me before the end of September (known from now on as 'A4-send-to-me-later, or 'A4SML). The manger did this, and here's what the place looked like so you can pay it a visit if you're ever near there.

We passed the pub named after the '......stool' at Carlton Minniot, but by this time, my brother was feeling the strain. His legs were killing him, and our pace was slowing, which frustrated me, as I'd tried to arrange to get into town later, but had been told by my host that he wanted me to get there by 5. As we passed over the A1, my brother was 300 yards behind, and I was constantly stopping to let him catch up. The last three miles were a slog, and we had to fall into a pub on the outskirts of Ripon for three bottles of coke.

As soon as I knew he would find the centre /bus station etc, I ran ahead to the cathedral to meet 'Ken Lancaster'. I found him just under the west end, left my bag there, and ran back to where my brother was at the bus station. He had a further 40 minutes to wait for his bus back to Northallerton and the train, but I gave him my sleeping bag and a few other things which were weighing me down, and left him to it. He DID get back to Jarrow that day, you'll be pleased to know.

Ken walked me through the cathedral grounds to the community hall behind.

I borrowed a duvet from him, but put it in the kitchen next door. I was a bit freaked at sleeping in the hall, which was big, creaky, had lots of doors and had -in the words of Withnail and I - 'The kind of windows that faces stare through.' I didn't fancy jolting awake at any of the many noises a hall as large as that makes at night. The kitchen was perfect, though - I'm not after comfort - just a roof over my head, and any shelter is greatly appreciated -especially one that has its own shower, like this one did.

This was the view from the hall's entrance:

I went out around Ripon, but no-one there was interested. It was a boisterous night in the town, the music was loud, and people obviously had other things to do. I spoke to a few people, and flyered a little, but Ripon wasn't a very good night for promotion.

It's a lovely place though. As I said on Twitter, it's like Northallerton, but seems to have more lanes, and 'nooks'.

This is what it looks like later on:

..and this:

Wednesday the 12th August - To Northallerton

2009-08-12T15:00:00.000-07:00

The next morning, Leon drove me to the station, and drove off with the words 'May the wind be behind you, and the sun on your face' - an old Celtic phrase, he said. I really needed it to come true, because today was the day my brother had chosen to join me. This is him just outside the station, making sure that the pies he got from Jarrow Morrison's (or 'Jarrason's' as it's been known to be called) are packed properly.

First stop was the Dolphin Centre. Sarah wasn't on, but the other manager brought out the list of signers - about 40 in all, which is, I believe EVERY employee in the place - A BIG THANK YOU TO THE DOLPHIN CENTRE IN DARLINGTON!!

The two of us made good time getting out of the town, and the type of countyside there can be seen in this photo:

So, pretty good. We got to Croft on Tees in just over an hour, and had to stop, because it marked us crossing from Durham into Yorkshire, and because the place is so good looking.

Here's the church -looked like it was from around the 1400s to me. I stuck a flyer on the noticeboard:

...and the bridge:

Just beyond here, we had another encounter with an ISSR - only this time it was a pair! Who DOES THINGS LIKE THAT?!!?

Today's word of the day was 'terrain'. The paths ended with Darlington, and the entire route was done more or less on grass verges. This is tiring, and it also runs the risk of the 'twisted ankle'. As well as this, I was quite eager to crack on with the pace, because I hadn't confirmed a time with tonight's contact. I rang him, and arranged 'around 6' as we passed the Canadian Airmen memorial in Dalton on Tees, and after flyering a garage, pushed on into Great Smeaton.

Great Smeaton looks like this:

Lovely, eh? Not the type of place you'd expect two smartly-dressed men in their 60s to face up to one another and threaten fisticuffs in the street..but that's what happened. It was a 'car' thing, and the air was blue..It happened just where John and I could get the best view of the action - on a seat directly opposite. I could have taken a great photo of it, but we all know what would have happened if I had..

There were many other sights to see on the road - like this cow looking a lot like the cover of a Pink Floyd album:

..my brother, who found a stick, which made him look a bit like the Long Man of Wilmington, or someone from The Canterbury Tales:

...and this old, bedraggled, cuddly tortoise, who looks like nothing but just what he is:

When I'd cycled two years earlier, Lovesome Hill marked the end of my first day, but this time, on day 4, we still had four miles left after it before we made it into Northallerton. Just north of the town, we passd the memorial to The Battle of the Standard -a fight between the Scots and the English which had happened here in 1138:

John was in a hurry for the train, and -much to his irritation -he had pay about 3 quid to get a taxi because neither of us had a clue where the station was. We made it in around five o clock - which gave me time to flyer one or two places before meeting Bobby Cooper at the church. This is the church:

..and this is Bobby turning up:

For the fourth night running, the hospitality was astonishing. The vicar came, with his wife, and along with Bobby and his wife Margaret, we had a night of talking about music, history and what the walk was all about. Great stuff.

Tueday the 11th August -to Darlington

2009-08-12T14:49:00.000-07:00

This day was much better weather-wise, and see above for my first stop: that's the view from the front door of Ferryhill Town Hall, where I visited in the hope of gaining the signatures I'd missed the night before. No chance of that: the girl on reception went in the main room to look, and came back, to tell me that there was no-one else in the building. She signed, anyway..
My enthusiasm was given a bit of a knock in Ferryhill library, though. It wasn't that they weren't interested, it was that I didn't have my 'talk' sorted, and they were busy. I tried a bit, and managed to get a signature from a guy on a computer, and a women behind the counter, but I learned a lesson here. They -understandably - thought I was some idiot on the make for money, and I left knowing that I needed to work on my approach. In truth, a lot of pressure has been taken off me by the T-shirts - they do more in a glance than any words can do, and during the course of this walk tens of thousands of people are going to see the website address. On the road out of Ferryhill, I decided that I needed to use the phrase 'walk for the history of England'. People are reticent to sign anything - no matter how good the cause - within seconds of being handed a flyer, and it's crucially important that this bid/walk/cause doesn't give the impression of being pushy. Giving a flyer and the 'history' phrase is the best I can hope to get over unless I actually manage to 'get into conversation' with people.

Still, this was a great day. Two years earlier, I'd cycled to Leeds down this route, and I got my first and only bit of abuse from a group of kids hanging around that fenced playing area just outside Chilton, but this time - nothing, and I pushed over the roundabout to Newton Aycliffe, and a pub called 'The Gretna Green' where I 'flyered' two guys at the bar, and a group of 6 men and women in the corner. It couldn't have been more different: the two at the bar thought it was excellent, and signed straight away, giving me best wishes etc, but the six..I gave them 10 minutes and then sort-of stood a bit close shuffling my shoulders. The guy I'd spoken to looked away, another shrugged, and the other four paid no attention. No interest at all.

Anyway, it was here that I turned over my first page on my route-map of nine photocopied and stapled pages. I stomped forward into the drizzle, and Darlington. I know this area well, having taken MANY coaches through here, and the town begins with a string of detached houses, with their own driveways, before you get into the place properly, at a Morrisons. I stopped in a corner shop, where I flyered two guys, who said lots of stuff like 'amazing..good on you..'

It was in the town centre that the T-shirts really started making their mark: EVERYONE looked, and the URL at the bottom isn't the most difficult one to remember, so this was the first time I really got the feeling I've got to know constantly since - that I'm a walking beacon for the bid.

I stopped under the clock tower, and found my way to the Dolphin Leisure Centre for a bit of opportunism. I managed to get the duty manager -Sarah - and she was fine with it, but after Ferryhill, I'd decided to hand the flyer over, and say 'I'll come back tomorrow wen you've had time to digest it' Then I went for another DSCB in the Penny..something pub, where the T-shirts again worked their magic. First to sign was the barmanageress, and a when a punter asked 'what's it for?' and I said 'the history of England' I'd hardly finished the phrase before he said 'give me the book -I'm signing'. His name was Peter, and his mate was called Hugh. Another guy joined in, too, but it was time for me to go up the hill to the station and meet my contact, Leon Rogers.

On the way, I got a call confirming I had somewhereto stay in Chesterfield, so it was now only Loughborough to find. Outside the station was Leon, a newly-ordained curate who I believe is a few years younger than me, he drove me to his house in the suburbs of Darlington, where I met his wife, Carina, who's expecting in a month or so, and their dog, Benedict (Biscop? Pope?), a one-yr old jack russell who is without doubt the most energetic living creature I've EVER SEEN! Ben 'walked me' around the park, and with one bite, destroyed the collection of feathers I'd been taping to a strap of my bag. Leon and I spoke quite a bit, in his garden, over a few beers, and the chilli we all had was GORGEOUS. I got a lovely room, and my T-shirt washed (again - but it's needed)

All in all, the exceptional level of hospitality was upheld once again

Monday the 10th August - To Ferryhill

2009-08-12T14:44:00.001-07:00

I caught the bus from the Wilson's house to the Market Place, where I'd finished the day before. Just on the corner is a cafe called 'The Coffee Bank', which is owned by Mark Dunn, who studied on the same business set-up course as me two years ago. Inside, I started the signature-getting, and I left with about 15, and only one table saying 'not interested'. A few people had heard about it, and those who hadn't were soon fans.
Walking outside Chester-leStreet, it started to rain, and I got into the 'Church Mouse' on Chester Moor pronto. Here, though, the first problem of the walk raised its head - my laptop stopped working. It would go on, but nothing came over the monitor. To make it worse, it rained all day, which doesn't bother me except when it can't make its mind up, and I have to take my coat off..and on...and off.. It's a very good coat, incidentally - especially saying I didn't pay a penny for it -thanks Barbour!

I saw my first 'inexplicable shoe by the side of the road' (know from now on as 'ISSR') outside Durham, and my first 'tree with flowers and photos'

I took a 'drink-and-soothe-the-chafing-break' (DSCB) in the Duke of Wellington in Neville's Cross, and stormed through the rain to Sunderland Bridge (which IS a bridge, but not in Sunderland), and up the hill to Croxdale. I rested there, and made the first of my video diaries. I don't know how to put these onto this blog -apparently I have to link them up to MySpace, but if anyone can tell me how to, I'd appreciate it.

I'd arranged to meet my contact at Thinford Roundabout - all place where they used to hang people, I found out, but I'd taken longer than expected, and I met Harry Slater, with others at the 'Coach and Horses' about 3/4mile further out. It seemed like a welcoming committee, just like when I had entered St Paul's. Here's my first view of Ferryhill, plus two of my fellow-walkers:

They'd prepared a meeting for me with the mayor, who had waited behind because I'd taken a little longer ('finding my stride' I said...)., but that meant I'd missed out on the signatures from the workers in the Town Hall. However, I did learn that Ferryhill's most famous story - apart from the hundreds involving its mining history -is one about a 'Roger de Ferye', who alledgedly killed the last wild boar in England in hand-to-tusk combat about 800 years ago. You can see it on the Mayor's medal here:

Harry walked me to St Luke's , where I gorged myself on the contents of this photo:

I also met Linda Lyndsey, who took me back to meet her husband, John. Here, in the course of conversation, I told John that my laptop had broken, and within 3 seconds...he'd FIXED IT! It was something to do with the 'F11' button, and it's fit as a fiddle now.

That was the first great event of a great night. Linda and John's friends Cathleen and Richard turned up and we had another night of food, wine and talk. Richard's a legend: you could tell within two minutes of meeting him that he's someone you could listen to for hours -and I did!

Sunday the 9th of August - to Chester-le-Street

2009-08-12T14:42:00.000-07:00

Well , Sunday's word of the day began as being 'Bede', and ended up as 'Chafing' . The day began with me getting a lift to St Peter's with Jenny. I hung around taking photos for about twenty minutes until Tom appeared,to let me in, and I started taking more photos.

Anthony turned up a few minutes later, followed by two cars full of my cousins Terri and Julie,
Terri's husband Martin, and their mates Tanya, Catherine and Gary..and a dog called Isaac.

During the short ceremony at 7.50, my cousin Terri's Ipod wouldn't stop playing, but as she ran outside...it stopped! I took it as a good luck sign, and we set off at 8.15 along Newcastle (or is it Sunderland?) Road. I spent a lot of time talking to Anthony, who didn't know anyone else - he'd said he wanted to walk about two weeks earlier, and his involvement is JUST what this
walk is all about: anyone can join! He's also helped a lot in the preparation, by liaising with Guildford, and discovering more about the Jarrow Stone than I knew myself.

It was a great walk - past the greyhound stadium, through Boldon, and into my cousin Julie's House for a (perfectly-located) stop just before Asda. I got my first 'good luck; phone call there : from a friend who I've arranged to stay with on my first two nights in London, and we continued, on and behind the Cotswolds Estate to the first 'hill' of the walk: up to Brockley Whins Station. It was turning into a glorious day for a lovely walk, but as we got through the Scotch Estate,it
was obvious that it was too nice, and we weren't going to make the 'two hour's' duration I'd promised. I stepped up the pace, and Anthong and I hotfooted it through the Bede Industrial Estate, and to St Paul's for 10.40.

When we went in, we were applauded. That's the first time anyone has ever done that to me, and that was the moment that I knew the walk could never fail, and that it has really started. That - and the blessing Jenny gave me during the service- where the moments I really knew what other people were investing in this walk. The good wishes given were are something I can't forget, or chicken-out of, or give up upon. Thanks to eveyone there: I'm remembering it all the time.

After the service, everything became a 'whirl' for an hour. Victoria and Julie were there, from Sunderland Council, organising the press in the same way that they've made the preparation for the walk seem a lot more professional than I could have possibly mustered, alone. And then there was the press...a reporter from the Chronicle, who tok everything doen in shorthand. a
TV interview with the BBC or ITV - I still don't know which -, loads of photographs. In total, I don't know how many papers were represented, but I'm guessing one put the phrase 'putting his best foot forward' under some photo of me striding out. I met Jenny, and Bishop Mark, and during the photos, Bill turned up. The Mayor and Mayoress were there also; the Mayor telling me that my pack was a lot heavier than it looked. Mu old uni mate, Jan Loland turned up as
well, which was a great gesture considering he's from Oslo, and probably descended from the same Vikings who pillaged Jarrow (and were also shipwrecked and routed at Jarrow...). There was a meal in Jarrow Hall with Bishop MArk, Bill, Bill's wife Angela, Kate, Jenny and myself,
with Jan having a polite cup of coffee, and we were off-after a few photos - through Jarrow.

It had been my intention to walk past the Town HAll, but it didn't seem necessary. This is the route of the March, yes, and that left JArrow via GRange Road, but this isn't an attempt to re-do the March, which was a one-off, and a part of history so perfectly-stated that it needs no revision. It isn't 1936 in JArrow any more, and there'll be quirks to the route, and because roads are more dangerous today, I'll deviate from the exact route many times. The March was a reaction to times of desperation, where this walk is more of a celebration of what WEarmouth-Jarrow have always had.

The five of us left Bede's World at 1.30, walking over the Tyne Tunnel, Up Monkton Road, Croft Terrace, Suffolk Street (you know what I'm thinking, Terri) BedeBurn Road, through Monkton Village, Campbell Park Road and on the footpath through the field to White Mare Pool. Bill
had a problem with his shoes, and on Leam Lane, had to 'order a pair of sandals', ad I'd started to feel a little sandpapered - the 'John Wayne' walk had begun.

At Springwell we did the sharp turn south, past the Angel of the North, into Birtley, down the long street and beyond, into the outskirts of Chester-le-Street. By 5.30 we were there, and I bidded goodbye to the other
four in the MArket Place, where I was handed over to Val Wilson, and in her house, her husand, Bill. I received the best reception I could have possibly wished for, a 'dousing' shower, a lovely meal, a few glasses of red, wonderful conversation and a great bed

What I hope to get out of the World Heritage Walk

2009-08-01T09:26:00.000-07:00

Well, the main gain out of this walk will hopefully be the appearance of two new dots on the UK World Heritage Map, but, although this walk will be tiring, I don't ever expect it to be boring, because I'll also be exercising another of my little obsessions all the way through. For a few years now, I've been genning up on the way that culture /heritage/ history / strange customs are being used throughout the UK as methods to regenerate areas - especially ones that have used to look at industry for their employment and prosperity.

So...I've made it my priority to visit as many 'heritage' sites as I can on the way down - the ones in the town centres, of course - I don't have the legs to bend myself off the route too much. There are two reasons for this: First is that I feel the people working there /visting will be more 'open' to signing a book waved at them by a Geordie stranger, than those busy shopping, but secondly, RESEARCH. I'd hope to leave this walk with a better understanding of what it is to be English -Bede was very certain of that question 1300 years ago, but now, the answer's a bit more fragmented. I'm a believer that a country is best known by what it chooses to take with it from its yesterdays, and I wonder if a walk through England's history, and the way people here consider its history TODAY, may give me a better idea of how that word still holds up.

Those who know me will now be saying that this is all starting to sound 'very Ged' , so I'll leave those thoughts to come out naturally during the walk, and get down to brass tacks, as we say up here int' north. On to the diary...

What the World Heritage Bid means to me

2009-08-01T09:25:00.001-07:00

It would be a lie fo me to say that I know both churches involved in the bid as well as each other. All I can say is that I know there are many people from Sunderland who can talk just as much about St Peter's, Wearmouth as I can about St Paul's, Jarrow. I've visited St Peter's about five times, but only been inside once -it's been closed all other times, or I must just always be there on a Monday. Like every tourist, I was amazed by the cormorant carvings on the porchway, and the red tint of the tower inside, made by the iron content being burnt -by the Vikings, or William the Conqueror, I was told. I also had the strange experience of being handed two bent coat hangers inside two empty bic byros, and being told to walk up the central aisle...I'll leave that up to the reader to try out themselves when they visit. In short, it's an incredible place, and one I hope to discover more about very soon.

St Paul's however, has been the still, silent, dominant 'presence' in all of my life - as has the entire area between the top of High Street and Jarrow Slake /Slacks../ Jarrow's Lake.. I can't remember first visiting, but the list of other memories is endless: the deepest snow I ever saw, piled up against the old Church bank wall in the 70s, a school sports day in Charlie's park circa 1981, Steve Cram's wedding when my father, who had just bought a great camera, pretended he was with the press and got his face on National T.V, Princess Diana's visit to unveil the window.
However, for all of this, I never really knew the church any deeper than it being something that stood there, down from the swings, further down from the posh house with the carving of the horse's head and the model of the church centuries ago, and ringed all around by the oil tanks which stood where Bede's World is now. What were all those ruined bits just outside, and why did it get so quiet inside in the small part at the back? And why did you always see people there who you'd never see around Jarrow Shopping Centre, or ever again, for that matter?

What I did know, though - like everyone else my age - was almost every minute detail of the site. Ask anyone about the particular 'quirks' of the place, and they'll instantly know what I mean - the room with the 'shelves' in it, the blocked doorway high up in the wall, the really high part that some people call 'the chimney pot' and others have been known to try to climb, that hole in the wall that kids always jump through. All of these parts make a person think that there are stories being told here, and that they're very old ones that have to be discovered, if you can take the time to.

The first time I started to understand the area was in 1991, when me and other South Tyneside Colllege luvvies put on a acting/music event called 'Jarrow Hallmarks' in...where else? A few of the people from that course are members of this walk's Facebook group (Brad Tighe, Tony Wilson, Brian Morton, Victoria Smith and Dee Pianogirl) , and this performance involved DeePianogirl -Donna - playing Isabella Drewett, walking around followed by the rest of us playing music of the time. This co-incided with my discovery of old ordnance survey maps , which showed just how much of the town had been demolished since 1960. From this, it was a small step, taken over a few years, to ask what had happened further back in time, and find myself inundated with words like 'Biscop' 'Ceolfrid' and 'Amiatinus'.

The ruins of the old church began to make sense, and strangely, I'd often turn away from the ruined part, because I discovered that the 'small part at the back' was older than it all.

The facts spoke for themselves: Wearmouth and Jarrow were built 400 years before the Battle of Hastings; that's about 500 years before Durham Cathedral, or Oxford University. At the time, London was a ruined, largely-deserted old Roman settlement , and there was no such place as Newcastle. More than this, there were the other aspects - easter, stained glass, the dedication stone, gravity, BC/AD, the first book of English History. There isn't space here to go on about what all of these things mean: there's just enough to say that anyone reading this should find out more about them themselves, because -quite frankly - they'll amaze anyone, and if that person is from Jarrow or Sunderland, will make them very proud, too.

I was beginning to realise that it was a hugely different world back then, and the fact that so many steps attributable to Wear/Jar remain of interest/influence today can't help but make a person aware that these are two very special places indeed.

Since that time, I've been away, and have tried to get the point across to everyone- with varying degrees of success. From what I've seen, this area is too often viewed purely in economic terms, from the perspective of the last fifty years, and the conclusion is always reached is that it's the bottom of the league. But, if anyone, here or elsewhere, takes a second to view this area, centred on St Peter's and Paul's and other places like Lindisfarne and Durham, in CULTURAL terms, everything changes. In a blink, this area is instantly kicked straight to the top of the Premier League. It's not Man Utd or Chelsea - that'll always be London, but instead of being Accrington Stanley, it becomes at least West Ham, Everton, or Aston Villa.

And that's why I'm doing this walk: I think most people in Britain would react to these facts by saying either 'Really? I didn't know that.' or 'So what? I don't care', and I'd like, in some little way, to try and make sure there are more of the former than the latter.

Preparation - from May to 8th August

2009-07-28T18:09:00.000-07:00

Ok - This idea to do a walk from Wearmouth and Jarrow first hit me in Latino's Coffee Bar in Jarrow Shopping Centre on the 17th of May 2009. It was the day of the Jarrow Festival in Charlie's Park (or 'The Drewett Playing Fields' if you're being posh), and I'd noticed that the World Heritage Bid had a stall near the entrance to St Paul's. I'd lingered around a bit, and shuffled a few forms, but this only reminded me that I was a little frustrated about my lack of involvement in the entire WH bid. Prior to the 17th, my input had been restricted to going in every month or so, and asking Jimmy Guy what the latest news was. Always entertaining, but as I walked back to the centre of Jarrow, I still wanted to be more than an interested armchair viewer.

..so, over my large, white filter with sugar, I thought, then said 'no', then thought again. Then I was up, and out, and back down to the festival in five minutes, and to the stall. First difficulty: prove to the volunteers that I wasn't a drunk; second: prove to them that my words 'what about I walk to London to promote the bid and get signatures?' didn't come across as ' I'm some fly-by-night who's come up with something that seems like a good idea now, but will regret saying it tomorrow.'

No chance of that: in a few minutes I'd let Jimmy know, and he'd told me to hang around for 'Jenny' , who turned up ten minutes later, and loved the idea. So that was it sorted, then. I don't have a photo of these momentous actions, but here's one of an Eagle Owl who wisely watched events from the side of the park that day, doing nothing, saying nothing, and knowing all.

Ok - I had intended the rest of this section to describe the rest of the preparation, but...I'm writing this sitting on a bed in Northallerton, four days into the walk. It's difficult to find the time to get all the blog up to date in time, but I'm trying, and the priority at the moment is to start the diary part. I'll finish the rest of this over the course of the next few weeks...