Walking Home

by Clare Balding

  They are both very active people, and walking is their passion. Caroline could not bear to be incapacitated as she recovered from her back surgery. She treated cancer as a passing phase – a double mastectomy and she says she was right as rain. The back, however, was a different issue and the pain had been getting progressively worse.

  ‘After three years, the surgeon said, “You have only one option left.” He told me that if it went wrong I could be paralysed but, luckily, it worked, and here I am. Walking is the only therapy for me, because I love it so much. I was very despondent, and Gordon thought I would never be going out on walks like this again.’

  In the early stages after the operation Caroline hadn’t even been able to get out of bed to go to the loo. But her fitness from years of walking meant that her muscles were strong and, with a heavy dose of Inner Hope, she started to fight back.

  I think walking together is crucial to a relationship and a way of spending valuable time together. It’s uncomplicated and fluid, unlike driving. Especially unlike driving.

  When I’m in the car with Alice and she’s driving, she gets unaccountably cross with me for pointing to the other lane of the motorway, clicking as I would to a horse to speed it up, or telling her to overtake. Early in our relationship she pulled over and turned the engine off. Using the calm, controlled voice of the shipping-forecast announcer, she said, ‘This is very simple. Either I drive and you shut up, or you drive. Which would you rather?’

  I got the point. In contrast, walking together isn’t stressful at all, apart from keeping an eye on Archie to check he’s not having a stand-up row with a dog he’s decided to dislike. He does let himself down sometimes, which is why he’s only allowed to come with me on special occasions.

  I didn’t have Archie to worry about as I soaked in the fresh air and the freedom of the cliffs above Hope Cove. Gordon was in shorts and a sleeveless top, with a long walking staff in his hand. On visual impressions alone, he is a tough, confident, practical man but, as I have discovered over the years, our eyes are the least trustworthy of our senses in terms of judging character.

  I despair that so much is made of the way people look, what they wear, how they do their hair. Women are constantly judged (in the media and therefore, by extension, in society) in terms of how they look. I walked once with a blind man called David and asked him if he ever wondered what his guide looked like. He replied, ‘You live in a visual world, so you would ask whether I wonder what my guide looks like. I don’t live in that world and I find it much more honest to assess character in other ways.’

  I try to remember David’s words if I catch myself judging someone from afar, or when I look at yet another newspaper article about a woman who has lost or gained weight, dyed her hair, cut her hair, let it grow, worn a short skirt, a maxi dress or no dress, is in a bikini or a coat. It drives me nuts.

  What would the world be like if men were constantly judged by what they are wearing, or how their hair is styled, or how much their waistline has expanded? It would stop working, that’s what would happen. This obsession with the visual reduces women to objects to be admired or rejected at auction. It’s pathetic.

  Gordon was not a man who would judge a woman just by how she looked. He was thoughtful, kind and open about living through his wife’s trauma.

  ‘We’ve been married now for twenty-eight years, and it’s been very tough to see Caroline in pain,’ he said. ‘I shed a few tears, privately. The cancer really took me by surprise, because we were the “action couple”. That just floored me completely. The back operation crept up on us more. She’d always had minor niggles with her back and it just got worse and worse.’

  This was the first time they had attempted a walk of any length or difficulty since Caroline had broken down in tears on the path just before Salcombe because she was in so much pain. She was convinced then that she would never again be able to walk properly.

  We were walking ahead of Caroline and Sam at this point and Gordon kept glancing backwards to check she was OK. We had covered about a mile and everything seemed to be fine, which in itself was a miracle, as he explained.

  ‘The walking truly ended the year before last. I’d decided we probably could do the Thames Path, because it’s all flat and we could do it in bite-sized chunks. We got as far as Oxford, and Caroline’s back was getting worse and worse so we had to stop. I knew then something had to be done, because the Thames Path was about the easiest long-distance walk I could think of.’

  This touched me, because Gordon had thought so carefully about a walk that wouldn’t cause Caroline any pain – yet even that was too much. Now they were back in the place where she had broken down, and here she was, doing that thing that we all take for granted – putting one foot in front of the other.

  The footpath swept on a right-hand curve and, when we stopped to look back, we could see the line where so many boots had trodden cutting through the low heather bushes, the line that showed the distance we had already covered. Caroline was smiling. She was back in a place she loved, with people she loved, and she wasn’t in pain.

  We walked down a wide, grassy path towards the sea. There is a tiny beach, no more than a hundred yards wide, called Soar Mill Cove. The water looked so inviting I couldn’t help but zip off the bottoms of my trousers to reveal my lily-white legs. I took off my shoes and socks and, with a rush of childlike vigour, bounced off towards the English Channel.

  I screamed as soon as my toes hit the ice-cold water, but kept on running. The smell of seaweed filled my nostrils and the shock of the temperature change sent an electric charge through my body. It felt as if I’d plugged into an energy surge. Gordon and Caroline followed me in at a more sedate pace, holding hands. Sam was the only sensible one, staying on dry land, taking photos of his parents.

  Sam was a reluctant contributor to the conversation but, once we’d dried our feet off and climbed up from Soar Mill Cove, he appeared alongside me. I asked him about his university course and what he wanted to do with his life. Then I asked about his mother.

  ‘I always remember the day that Mum and Dad told us that Mum had breast cancer,’ he said quietly. ‘My attitude was: “They can cure that, so it’s not a problem.” I always knew she’d get through it. I never doubted her.’

  As he was talking to me, I realized that Sam had probably never had this conversation with his parents. There are some things that are just easier to say to a stranger. I wondered why he had been so sure.

  ‘I have a very positive outlook on life,’ Sam replied, ‘and I just knew that she would be able to walk again, and if she just started with walking down the road she’d go further and further and she’d be OK.’

  We walked on together, into a field of wild ponies, who came up to investigate the microphone. We had been told that we couldn’t get lost if we kept the sea on our right and just followed our noses. This was an instruction even I couldn’t fail to follow. We puffed and panted up the steep climb to the Warren. The last time she did this, Caroline admitted she had been in ‘excruciating pain’. This time, nothing hurt that wasn’t also hurting on the rest of us.

  We could all see the confidence flooding back through Caroline’s brain as her body did what she wanted it to do. Gordon explained that not being able to walk had ‘challenged her security’, and I knew what he meant.

  We had laughed and chatted for about two hours by the time we had reached Bolt Head for the last section into Salcombe Bay. Caroline stopped and looked at her husband and son.

  ‘The last time we came,’ she said, ‘I couldn’t walk down this final section because my balance wouldn’t allow it and I was in so much pain. So we stopped here.’

  She started to lead us down the path towards Salcombe.

  ‘When you get used to living with constant pain, people don’t realize the stress that causes. It’s so nice to do this walk and not be in that situation.’

  She smiled, and Gordon grinned back. For him, the feeling was the same. Last time,
both of them had been carrying a rucksack of lead. Now the pain had lifted and they could enjoy the walk. They held hands again and I dropped back to let them walk into the village together.

  In high season, Salcombe is so busy you constantly have to step aside on the footpath to allow other walkers to pass. Off season, it’s blissful. The locals have the place back to themselves and the visitors are a welcome revenue stream. It was warm enough for an ice cream and, while we sat waiting for the ferry, Gordon said, ‘She’s come a long way, from a very dark place. Now we can do the things together that we really enjoy doing.’

  He reached over and squeezed his wife’s arm, a gesture infused with pride and relief.

  People fall in love while they walk. They fall in love with their surroundings, with the sound of their footsteps and with each other. When Alfred Wainwright first set foot on the fells of the Lake District, the emotion that washed over him changed his life and set him on a career of mapping and writing about walking:

  The sun was shining, the birds singing. We went on, climbing steadily under a canopy of foliage, the path becoming rougher, and then, quite suddenly, we emerged from the shadows of the trees and were on a bare headland, and, as though a curtain had dramatically been torn aside, beheld a truly magnificent view. It was a moment of magic, a revelation so unexpected that I stood transfixed, unable to believe my eyes. (Ex-Fellwanderer: A Thanksgiving, 1987)

  That’s love at first sight, that is. I can imagine his heart rate quickening and his tummy flipping the way it does when you fall in love. For Wainwright, discovering the Lakelands was a spiritual as well as an emotional experience:

  I saw mountain ranges, one after another, the nearer starkly etched, those beyond fading into the blue distance. Rich woodlands, emerald pastures and the shimmering waters of the lake below added to a pageant of loveliness, a glorious panorama that held me enthralled. I had seen landscapes of rural beauty pictured in the local art gallery, but here was no painted canvas: this was real. This was truth. God was in his heaven that day and I a humble worshipper.

  Mind you, Wainwright was a famously grumpy walker, unwilling to talk to strangers. And the last person on earth he would ever have walked with was Ruth, his first wife, who seems to have got the raw end of the deal. He did walk with his beloved Betty (who became his second wife) … on the condition that she didn’t talk.

  What Wordsworth did for the Lakes in the nineteenth century, Wainwright did in the twentieth. His ‘pictorial guides’ mapped the Lakeland Fells with pencil drawings showing the heights of the climbs, marking boulders and giving advice on where to proceed with care and which routes to avoid in bad weather. Wainwright wanted to stretch the legs and warm the soul.

  He managed to turn a map into a magical tour of a place you wanted to discover. You could read it without being there, and you could dream of one day seeing and experiencing the real thing.

  Ramblings aims to be the aural version of that idea – a vicarious experience for people listening at home. It makes me stop and look more closely when I try to explain what’s around me and share the experience of scrambling down a slope, splashing through a river or puffing up a hill. Even when I’m walking alone I find myself slipping into description mode, wondering what I would say about the scenery around me, the weather or the atmosphere that it creates.

  In a way, doing the programme for so long has probably taught me a version of mindfulness, a way of staying in the moment and making the most of every step. People tell me that they often regard Ramblings as their exercise for the day. I’m not sure I can promise they will burn any calories by listening, but they will be able to escape from the general traffic of life for half an hour.

  Lucy says that a good Ramblings has three essential ingredients – a varied walk, described and shared clearly, a decent guest who can tell their story in a natural and original way, and finally, a bit of magic, that moment you can only get by being where you are in the very instant you are there. It never happens if you push too hard, and neither of us can explain how or why those moments occur. But they definitely happen, and when they do we look at each other and smile.

  Seconds later, I will invariably say, ‘You were recording, weren’t you?’

  Lucy always gives me one of her special withering looks.

  7

  I’m in London, sitting at my desk, and I’m staring at a large photograph of waves crashing into the rocks, foaming as they hit an immovable object and fly backwards on themselves. It’s called Sea Shuffle, and I found it in a hotel in Cornwall. You know those hotels where they hang artwork and photographs on the wall, with price tags? And you wonder who on earth buys them? I buy them.

  ‘Oh no, not another picture,’ Alice says when I come home with a square parcel tucked under my arm. ‘You know we haven’t got room for another picture. What have you got this time?’

  I knew exactly where Sea Shuffle was going to go. I wanted to look at it for creative inspiration, so it would be facing my desk. My desk and Alice’s sit opposite each other, and poor Alice has to look at a very angry painting that I bought by mistake at a charity silent auction. I hadn’t realized the bidding was about to close when I upped the previous bid by £500. Oh well, it was in a good cause … and it’s behind my back.

  So, I’m looking at Sea Shuffle and remembering when I bought it. I was with Lucy, in Penzance, and I kept going on about the photo.

  ‘Just go ahead and buy it,’ she finally said. ‘You can easily carry it on the train and, if not, I’ll take it in the car and give it to you next time. You’ll only regret it if you don’t.’

  She was right. I would have regretted it if I hadn’t bought it. I like to have a reminder of the places I have walked and, despite visiting Cornwall many times, I hadn’t bought anything that really captures the spirit of the place. This photograph of frothing waves gave me a slice of Cornish wildness to stare at every day. Even Alice has come round to it, I think.

  Getting to Cornwall is the tricky part. By car, the journey is interminable. By train, it’s beautiful, and fast to Exeter, but then rather slow. I once took a sleeper to Penzance, and it wasn’t an experience I’d care to repeat. I got on some time after midnight at Reading, found my little cabin, changed into my pyjamas and spent the rest of the night terrified of going to the loo in case I bumped into a strange man, also in pyjamas. What would we say to each other?

  So I drifted in and out of disturbed sleep, desperate for a pee, waking up each time the train lurched forward from one of its resting points. I had imagined the sleeper train chugged slowly through the night, arrived at Penzance and then sat there until its passengers gently woke up and disembarked. There would be a cut-off point, at 7 a.m., when an alarm would sound and everyone would have to leave.

  That’s how I thought it worked. It doesn’t. Instead, it goes along steadily, stops at Taunton at 2.30 a.m., Exeter St David’s at 3.06 a.m., then it pulls over for the driver to have a kip before it starts stopping at every station you can think of between Newton Abbot and Penzance. I mean, every station – Totnes, Ivybridge, Plymouth, Saltash, St Germans, Liskeard, Bodmin Parkway, Par, St Austell, Truro, Redruth, Camborne, Hayle and St Erth – before, finally, it gets into Penzance, just before 8 a.m. If anyone ever gets off at Par or St Erth, I will happily pay the driver £50. I presume he just stops there for fun.

  It all adds up to a rather fitful night for driver and passengers. I was also disorientated in my bunk bed because I couldn’t work out if I was facing forwards or backwards, and that bothered me. The answer was neither, because the beds are at 90 degrees to the movement of the train. Which is plain confusing.

  Lucy met me at Penzance Station, and at least when she said, ‘Christ, you look tired. Are you tired?’, I could answer honestly, ‘Yes. I’m knackered.’

  The good news is that Cornwall is always worth the effort it takes to get there. And the fact that it isn’t easy means that those looking for a quick getaway avoid the kingdom of Kernow.

  For th
e walker, Cornwall is paradise. There are over 2,400 miles of paths inland and along the coast, ensuring that you will never, ever, run out of options.

  My favourite time to walk the coastal paths is January and February. There is hardly anyone else around, the skies are usually clear and crisp and the morning frosts give the grass and bare branches a thin powdering of white. Incomers to Cornwall are known as ‘blow-ins’, which I rather like as a term. It’s not hostile, but it reflects the tidal nature of tourism. If the locals are being slightly ruder, they call them ‘emmets’, after the lizards that come out for the sunshine and then disappear again.

  There are a sizable number who started as blow-ins or emmets but would now happily never again go east of the River Tamar. Cornwall is a magnet for writers, artists, carpenters and craftsmen. Anyone with a heart and an art is welcome. Looking at a map, you’d think from the place names that it is overrun with saints – St Ives, St Austell, St Agnes, St Stephen, St Mawes, St Michael’s Mount – but it is also the land of Merlin, of fairies, witches, ley lines and legends. It is rich with character, myth and mystery. Perfect for a nosy parker like me.

  One of the most popular walks on the south coast is from Looe to Polperro and beyond to Fowey. If you like a rugged coastal walk in the ghostly light of a pale winter sun, this is ideal. Starting in the shelter of the woodland alongside the river, the route emerges through the postage-stamp fields to the coastal path for a full-faced assault on the senses. The footpath is well marked and the undulations are enough to ensure a decent workout, without leaving the body in bits.

  There have been people living in Looe since 1000BC. It was once one of Cornwall’s busiest ports, with exports of tin, granite and arsenic, as well as being a centre for fishing and shipbuilding.