Walking Class Hero: Northern Man

Welcome to Walking Class Hero a regular blog about walking and the walking environment. Whether you like walking on your own, with friends or in an organised group this blog will cover it. It’ll embrace walking in cities and towns and villages. Walking in the countryside and along the coast and up hills and down dales. Walking through parks and by rivers and across heath and down and moor. It’ll comment on public rights of way, access to open country, permissive paths, public urban space and countryside protection. Basically if you can walk there it’ll be in this blog

Northern Man (12 July 2010)

From the sublime to the ridiculous – not only am I not in London for this blog I’m nearly as far away as you can be and still be in England. I’m 320 miles up north within sight of Hadrian’s Wall outside the hostel at Once Brewed. I’ve journeyed up here to walk a stretch of the Pennine Way – 11k (about 7 miles) from Once Brewed to Greenhead – with the poet Simon Armitage. The 429 kilometre (268 miles) Pennine Way National Trail chases the Pennine Mountain tops along the rugged backbone of England. Its route includes the Peak District through the Yorkshire Dales and over Hadrian’s Wall to the Cheviots and is amongst the finest upland walking in England.
 

The day started with a poetry reading in the visitor centre but me and Simon had spent the time before chatting about the previous evening’s World Cup Final (he’s a season ticket holder at Manchester United). We were both outraged at the Dutch conduct – total football to total thuggery if you ask me – and fairly happy that this approach didn’t reap any reward. I’ve no idea whether the reading was well attended – Simon seemed happy enough – cos I’ve never been to one before. The weather was great, nice ‘n’ sunny without being too hot but I was fooled into not applying any sun screen and so finished more than a bit ruddy faced in the afternoon.

We were joined by a local – Marjorie – for the first coupla miles. Simon had been saying that he’d seen very few other walkers so far on his journey but today while not teeming with people we saw enough to keep up a fairly regular ‘hi ya’ greeting along the Wall. Right at this point I can hear the more experienced of you walkers out there muttering ‘but he’s walking the thing in the wrong direction’. Well firstly that’d be reason enough for me but he’s doing it from top to bottom  – finishing in Edale – because he lives near there and he likes the idea of walking home. (The existing guidebooks suggest that to keep the weather at your back you should go south to north – aah that would account for my red face then.)

Simon and I have a mutual friend – The Wedding Present’s David Gedge – and although I’m not very familiar with the poetry I’ve read Gig. As a result when we’ve exhausted the football conversation – there’s really only so much a Man U and a Chelsea can agree on – we start on music. With its mile forts, funnily enough every mile, Hadrian’s Wall counts you handily along the route. Just outside Greenhead we finally get round to talking about walking (see what I did there – poetry huh?). Just why he chose the Pennine Way for his wandering minstrel begging act? Why walking is important to him and much more. All this will appear in a future edition of walk magazine. Here though in homage to Simon’s interviewing technique is the list of ‘or’ questions along with his answers (underlined) I asked:
 
Walker or Rambler
Right of Way or Right to Roam
Mountain or Moor
Lady Gaga or Madonna
Goal line technology or No Goal line technology
Shelley or Keats
iPhone or Blackberry
Serena or Venus
Beer or Lager
Town or Country
George Formby or David Gedge 

He entered properly into the spirit of this only enhancing his answers twice – he was adamant that town did not include city and that Lady Gaga was chosen for his daughter.

All in all it was a great day and I end by wishing Simon well for the rest of the walk especially as the weather forecast for the next few days isn’t as favourable as today. I blag a lift back to Once Brewed and begin the long drive south.

More information:
Pennine Way National Trail http://www.ramblers.org.uk/info/paths/name/p/pennine 

Useful links:
o The Ramblers     http://www.ramblers.org.uk/
o Simon Armitage   http://www.simonarmitage.com/
o Hadrian’s Wall    http://www.hadrians-wall.org/
o Once Brewed    http://tinyurl.com/3a4tag2
o 2010 FIFA World Cup   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_FIFA_World_Cup
o Manchester United FC   http://www.manutd.com
o The Wedding Present   http://www.scopitones.co.uk/
o David Gedge    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gedge
o Gig     http://tinyurl.com/34dqh56
o Greenhead    http://www.hadrianswallvillages.org.uk/

Listen to:
Detroit Social Club – Northern Man
Laura Marling – Rambling Man
Morrissey – Sister I’m A Poet
The Wedding Present – Corduroy – Single Version
The Fall – British People In Hot Weather