Walk & Talk with Janet Street-Porter
From media queen to Vice President of the Ramblers, Janet Street- Porter is a true renaissance woman – and a phenomenal walker to boot. Dominic Bates meets her for a stroll around her adopted home in the North York Moors
You grew up in Fulham and Perivale, the daughter of an electrician and a dinner lady. Where did your love of walking come from?
My mother was Welsh and we spent all our summer holidays in the village she grew up in called Llanfairfechan, on the Menai Straits. Mum and I would walk everywhere, collecting firewood, picking bilberries and hiking over the mountains to Conway.
How often do you go out walking now?
I try to walk every day. If I don’t do at least a short walk every day then I start to feel miserable. In London, I like to keep to the backstreets, avoiding main roads as much as possible. When I arrive in a new place, I always want to have a map to work out where I can walk.
Who would be your dream walking companion?
No one. Walking alone is my idea of luxury, in utter silence, listening to the sound of the wind and the birds. It’s simply the best way to unwind and feel at peace. Nothing is more rewarding than experiencing the landscape and the elements – the worse the weather the better!
Is there nobody at all…?
I’ve got a few close friends I like walking with. Vic Reeves was a good laugh when we walked to Leeds a few years ago; and Will Self and his wife Deborah Orr are good walkers too.
Any pet peeves when you’re out walking?
Don’t get me started about off-road vehicles destroying green lanes and ruining the environment with their horrible noise! I belong to the Yorkshire Dales Green Lanes Alliance and we are fighting to get off-roaders banned from historic drovers’ roads and bridleways.
You have homes in both Clerkenwell and the North York Moors. Where does your heart lie: in the town or country?
Both. I miss the cultural life of London, the museums, theatre, opera and galleries, but I wrote my two most recent books in Yorkshire and I love the solitary nature of the moorland where my house is.
What ambitions do you still have left to fulfil and how best would you like to be remembered?
I don’t care what anyone says about me after I’ve gone! I want to carry on discovering new paths, new landscapes. I’m not someone who harps on about the past; I think the best is still to come.
Read the full interview in the Spring issue of walk magazine, on newsstands now.
