The Wild Rover: A Blistering Journey Along Britain’s Footpaths (35 page)

None of this is to advocate complacency, though. The threats to our freedom have always been there, and always will be, though they mutate with time from one gruesome ogre to the next. My near-neighbour, the writer George Monbiot, put it to me that, at almost any given moment in our history, Parliament is full of that particular age’s most venal brand of crook. He’s right, and they’ve all had a go at regulating our relationship with the land according to their own worldview and self-interest. Hoggish landowners begat rapacious industrialists begat bloodless technocrats, all of them seeing both the land and the people as units to be shifted as and where they saw fit. In more recent times, the tedious mandarins of the 1970s were elbowed aside by the city boys and estate agents of the Thatcher age. Once they’d got what they came for, they shifted to accommodate the marketing and PR gurus of the Blair–Cameron era to package their greed in ever-glossier assurances and illusions of choice. It’s all PR, and it’s nearly all bollocks.

They too will pass, and fade from the scene. But our paths will not.

Messing with the mind, at Whitchurch psychiatric hospital, Cardiff Photo by Peter Finch

The Noam Chomsky quotations are from www.chomsky.info, May 1995 interview for
RBR
magazine entitled ‘Anarchism, Marxism and Hope for the Future’.

So many people gave so freely of their time, ideas and special places during the course of writing
The Wild Rover
. In particular, thanks to Audrey Christie and family; Neil Ramsay and all at Scotways; Geri Coop at IPROW and the delegates at their conference; Brian Nicol, Howard Easton, Ian Henderson and their co-diggers at the splendid Kenilworth Footpath Preservation Group; Sian Barnes and colleagues at Powys Council; Anne Taylor at Lancashire County Council; Kate Ashbrook; Roger Jones; Patsy and Helen Cahalan; Gerry Millar; Father Frank Fahey and the pilgrims of Ballintober Abbey; Melissa Coles; Maura and Martin Walshe at Radharc Na Cruaiche; Anne-Marie Carty; Helen Sandler; Jane Hoy; Niall Griffiths; Tom Bullough; Robert Evans; Tony Coleman; Jeremy Grange; Bill Drummond; Rhys Mwyn; Jack Grasse; Meg Thomas; Peter Finch; Jon Gower; John Trevelyan; Sue Rumfitt; Steve Westwood; Sheila Talbot; George Monbiot; Jon Woolcott; Helen Baker; Clarke Rogerson and the Peak & Northern Footpaths Society; Chris Perkins; Paul Salveson; Helen Parker and Julia Griffin; Sue Parker and Andy Knight; Diana Fenton; Susan and Tony at the YHA Ennerdale; Gill at Plas Dwpa and Jane at Carreg-y-Gwynt; Hero Sumner and the team at the John Clare museum in Helpston; Woody Fox; David Archer; Norma McCarten; Julieann Heskin; Caz Ward; William Evans; Peter Finch; Susan Blakiston; Nick Fenwick; Linda Brown; Paul Woodland; Lou Hart; Andrew Gee, Kirsten Hearn; the two Helens at the Ryedale Folk Museum in Yorkshire; Roger Kidd and the regulars at geograph.org.uk. Apologies to those missing from the list, especially the many illuminating people I encountered on numerous paths (and in a fair few pubs).

I am particularly indebted to the staff of the many public libraries who helped with my research, especially in Westport, Machynlleth, Uckfield, Kettering, Ystradgynlais, Crowland, Peterborough, Anstruther, Morecambe, Stockport and Lyme Regis. Dropping in on them unannounced, no question seemed too obtuse, no request too dull for these ever-patient and enthusiastic people. Local libraries are one of our greatest national resources; we let them wither and die at our peril. Thanks too to the staff of the British Library and the National Libraries of Wales and Scotland.

Heartfelt appreciation as well to Helena Nicholls and the crew at Collins, and to my agent Rebecca Winfield for all her sage advice and ability to massage the fragile ego of her clients just when it was needed most. A huge
diolch yn fawr
to friends and neighbours in Esgairgeiliog, a supremely happy home to me for the last ten years, and in particular to Preds for all his unflappable strength and support. Get the jug on, cariad.

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Access to Mountains (Scotland) Bill 57–62, 63, 65–6

Access to Mountains Act (1939) 66–75, 143

Adams, Vyvyan 69–70

Ainsworth, Richard 29–30, 31, 32

Ames, John 253, 254

Ashbrook, Kate 136–7, 138, 139–42, 156–7, 295

Ashcombe Estate 147–51

Attlee, Clement 75, 106

Ayrton Gould, Barbara 79

Bale, Conyers 25

Ballintober Abbey 207–11, 212

Band of Historical Hillwalkers 170–1

Barrow-in-Furness 177

Beamish, Major Tufton 78

Blacks 172–3

Blackstone Edge 122–3

Blair, Tony 82, 91, 107, 148, 177

Bleaklow 21–2, 37, 45

blogs and diaries 87–90

Blue John 53

BNP 19

Boheh Stone 215–17

Borth 305–6

Bottoms path, Flixton 20, 26–7, 28

Brown, Dr Roy 241

Brown, Gordon 80, 82, 107

Bryce, James 57, 58–61, 63, 66

Bryce, John Annan 63

Budleigh Salterton 250

Bush, George H. 82

Cameron, David 82, 109, 176, 294, 300

Camino el Rey, El 259–60

Camino of St James of Compostela 197–8

Camus, Albert 55

Canavan, Denis 81

Canterbury Tales, The
(Chaucer) 198

Capurro, Scott 110

Caravan Club 317–18

Carn Llidi 246

car-inaccessible places 307–11

Castle, Barbara 80, 90

Castleton 52–3

celebrities 151

chalk-and-flint 102–4

Chamberlain, Neville 67

Chequers 105–9

Childish, Billy 171

Chiltern Society 111–12

Chilterns 95, 96–8, 102–6, 109–12, 117, 256

Chomsky, Noam 55–6

Churchill, Winston 105, 108

Chuter-Ede, James 72, 74–5

city centres 125–6

Clare, John 157–67

Clarke, Colonel Sir Ralph 77–8

Clee Hills 5–6

Clegg, Nick 176

Cleveland Way 91, 240

Clifton Brown, Brigadier General Douglas 69

Clinton, Bill 82

Coast to Coast walk 87, 90, 174–86, 197, 240

Coleman, Joe 205–6

Concerned Ramblers 302–3

Conservatives (Tories) 19, 57, 59–60, 62, 68–70, 72, 74, 77–8, 79, 81, 109, 176, 177

Cook, Robin 81

Coombe Hill 95, 105

Coronation Street
53

corpse paths 222–34

Countryside Commission 87, 240, 288–9

Countryside and Rights of Way (CROW) Act (2000) 91, 99, 139, 141, 147–8, 150, 191, 285, 319

County Mayo 201–22

Cowley, Bill 235–7, 238, 239, 241, 242, 243

Cranborne Chase 150

Creech-Jones, Arthur 66–7

Croagh Patrick 196, 199–201, 206–7, 212, 218–222

Cumbria, inept tourism 178–80

cyclists 91, 100

Dalton, Hugh 80

Darwen access battle 34–7, 56

de Quincy, Thomas 192

Devereux, Paul 224, 227, 228–9, 230

Dewar, Arthur 72

Didcot power station 114

disabled people 293–4

Donner, Sir Patrick 69

Drovers’ paths 126–7

Duckworth, Rev. William Arthur 35

DyfiJunction 307–8

Eccles, William 26–7, 28

Edale 41, 45, 49, 50, 52, 289

electronic pedestrian counters 288–9

Elie chain walk 259

Ellis, Tom 62–3

Ely–Walsingham pilgrimage 198–9

enclosures 56, 157–8, 160–2

ethnic minorities 292–3

Exeter, Marquis of 158

Fahey, Father Frank 212, 215, 216, 218

farmers 11–12, 146, 195, 256

Farquharson, Robert 61

Father Ted
206–7

Faxton 311–13

Flavell, Brigadier E. W. C. 79

Fletcher, Reginald 67 Fletcher-Vane, William 81

Flixton footpath battle 23, 25–8, 56

foot-and-mouth (2001) 3, 124, 189–91, 319

footpath-upkeep volunteers 17–19, 294

Forestry Commission 12–16

Framfield 9 path 133–4, 136–42, 156–7

Franklin, Tom 296, 300–1, 302, 303

Fraser, Sir Ian 78

Free Man on Sunday, A
(Sampson) 42

French Lieutenant’s Woman
,
The
(Fowles) 249, 251, 257

gates

around author’s patch 2, 10–11, 287

modern plethora 286–7

Gladstone, William 55

Godwin, Fay 295–6

golf courses 250–1

Goring 112–13

grouse shooting 21, 22, 30, 45, 68, 78, 85

Hadrian’s Wall National Trail 123–4

Hague, William 81

Haldane, Lord 106

Hamersley, Richard 239

Harding, Mike 33, 42, 43, 90

Hardy, Thomas 275–6

Hattersley, Roy 43

Haughey, Charles 204

Hayfield 43–4, 45–6

Heath, Ted 158, 297

Heilgers, Frank 68–9, 69–70

Hervey-Bathurst, James 155–6

Hicks, Bill 245

Highways Act (1815) 26

Holland 60

Hoogstraten, Nicholas van 133–6, 137–9, 140, 142

Horan, Monsignor James 202–4

Hughes, Emlyn 177

Hunt, Henry 27

Institute for Public Rights of Way (IPROW) 282–6

Cambridge conference 282–6, 289

Jefferies, Richard 120

jogging 82

John Paul II, Pope 204

Joyce, Mary 162–3

Keeling, Edward 77

Kenilworth Footpath Preservation Group (KFPG) 18–19

Kinder Scout protest 21–2, 29, 32, 33, 34, 37–48, 52, 56, 66

Knock Airport 201–6

Labour Party/New Labour 19, 42–3, 57, 65, 66–8, 69, 70, 72, 74, 75–6, 78–9, 80, 81, 91, 106–7, 131, 301

Lake District, shortcomings 186–7

Lake District National Park 49, 175, 181

land ownership and custodianship 152–6

Land Reform (Scotland) Act (2003) 91, 285–6

Lee, Lord 106, 108

Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems) 81–2, 131, 176 Liberal Party 19, 57, 59, 62, 63, 70, 72, 74, 106

Lich Way, Dartmoor 224–34

Limitation Act (1623) 71

Lloyd George, David 106, 108

Llŷn Peninsula 193–4

local authorities 76, 79–80, 83, 158, 281, 290

paths strategy 297–9

local path inventory, author’s 7–17

Lockley, R. M. 246

London walks 264–5

Long Distance paths (LDPs) 76, 80, 83, 84, 94, 101, 130, 240, 296–8, 319

Lyke Wake Walk 234–43

Lyme Regis 250–1, 252–4, 257–8

MacColl, Ewan 34

MacDonald, Ramsay 65, 106

Macrae, Murdo 58

Madison, James 56

Madonna 146–51

Mais, S. P. B. 194–5

Major, Norma 108

Mam Tor 50–1, 54

Manchester 27–8, 32, 34

Manchester Society for the Preservation of Ancient Footpaths 26–7

Mander, Sir Geoffrey 74

Manic Street Preachers 55–6

market paths 124–5

Marshall, Fred 67–8

Mary Barton
(Gaskell) 29–30

Maud Heath’s Causeway 124–5

Mawsley Village 313–16

Middlewood station 308

Miliband, David 42–3

Millennium Dome 265–6

Millets 172, 173

Montgomery 188

Moore, George 209

Moorlands and Memories
(Clarke) 32

Morecambe Bay crossing 260–2

Moritz, Pastor Karl Philipp 192

Morris, Adrian 295

Mountain Rivers and Pathways (Wales) bill 62–3

Murray, Andrew Graham 61–2

National Parks 49–50, 76, 79, 83

National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act (1949) 66, 76–81, 82–85, 91

National Trails 86, 90–1, 93–5, 101, 123, 246, 263, 288–9

National Trust 64, 65, 119, 129, 303, 317

New Mills Millennium Walkway 43

Nicolson, Harold 106

Noel-Baker, Philip 74

Norris, Mr 25, 26

North York Moors National Park 49, 50, 91, 241, 242

nouveau riche 142–5

Offa’s Dyke Path 91, 187–8

Open Spaces Society 75, 133, 136, 295

Ordnance Survey (OS) maps 83, 176, 229, 241, 246, 262

Ellis Martin covers 46

Explorer 7, 40, 114, 250, 258

Landranger 7, 129–30

nineteenth-century 10, 214, 313

Orla Perç 259

Parris, Matthew 81

Peak & Northern Footpaths Society (PNFS) 21, 26, 28, 29, 38, 44

Peak District National Park 49, 50

Peake, Osbert 78

Pembrokeshire Coast Path 91, 246–8, 258

Pennine Way 39, 41, 48–9, 66, 80–1, 84–90, 289

‘Pet Lamb Case’ 58, 59, 146

Peterloo Massacre 27–8