Canterbury to St Davids, 2009

In 2009, I walked with Ed (and sometimes Ginger) from Canterbury to St Davids. We went very slowly, and stopped often. It took us eight months.

On the way, things happened. Caves, monsters, national radio, diamonds, ghosts, robberies, and many new friends.

Here is a song from the path, sung in a pub car park near Stroud, when Ed’s brother Ginger came to visit.

And here is a brief tale of our first week’s walking…

Canterbury to St Davids (8 months)

Departure

It is late February, and already dark when we finally leave home. There is no calm moment, everything is a blur of last-minute detail and brisk farewells. If there has ever been a low point in our fitness, bodily and psychological, this is it. I am not sure how we’ll react to sudden immersion in a moving life outdoors. Readiness is not the watchword.

But leaving, finally getting outside with no plans to turn back, is glorious. The air falls deep into my lungs, and the sky is unclouded with quartz stars burning clear above. It is on the cold side of brisk, but inner furnaces soon roar into action.

There is a taste in the air, a promise of freedom awaiting. Ed and I become childish with it, giggling out the “firsts” of our walk: the first dropped staff; the first person who asks if we’re lost; the first car that doesn’t see us in the road.

We stroll briskly and excitedly along the paths to Canterbury. We are heading backwards to begin our journey there, because we feel Canterbury is a place of real power, a centre of communication whose channels flow throughout the land. We hope to find good beginnings here.

Though strolling gently, we soon become uncomfortable. Bag-straps throttle us, feet become sore, backs under bags get sweaty then cool to chill us. This job was never easy.

We take our first rest under the ghostly poles of a winter hop-garden, beneath the chestnut posts and wire-workings. With not a hop to be seen, we de-bag and stretch; but chilling rapidly, we soon step on. February is a month of cold evenings.

We look for a public house to drink a toast to the walk, but peeking through windows we see no cause to stop. So we drink the water we’re carrying on our backs, which tastes fine.

Toward Larkey Wood, we hurry down a dangerous stretch on unlit roads. We’re relying on wiggling our head-lamps, to show we’re not static road objects but living humans. So far so good. But roads are the most dangerous place in the land (statistically, perhaps second to hospitals), and we debate the merits of acquiring shiny yellow jackets.

A Cornish Italian Gypsy farmer friend lives just off the path nearby, and so we pop in to say hello. He lives in a static-caravan inside a timber-framed barn. He pours the wine, pulls out his accordion, and is soon playing Italian mountain music in stamping roaring glory.  Conversation wanders vague realms. We’re told of local recycling firms who bury recycling in the standard landfill sites. We discuss whether anyone will ever dig up the landfills, to reclaim what has been thrown away, or if our city dumps are like the tar-pits of pre-history, black holes whose secrets are swallowed for millennia? They would make a compelling archaeological dig, we think.

We eat bread toasted on the pot-belly stove, dolloped with blueberry jam made with fruit from a local storage depot whose freezers broke down. Our farmer agreed to clear the berries, which had instantly became valueless. He uses this rich sweet waste to feed his pigs. And passing Wayfarers.

We ponder these notions of value and waste, and the loopholes which allow transformation between the two. We hope our journey will be valuable, but wonder at the criteria by which to judge it.

We’re offered a barn to sleep in, so we clamber up the haystacks and make ourselves comfy. Ed’s roll-mat is transfixed in three places by the rough forage straw. He is glad he did not put his sleeping bag down.

As we lay to sleep, shoulders and legs throbbing, the first pattering of rain on the thin roof causes mild panic, as we wonder if we’re sufficiently protected from the downpour. Our routines and disciplines need settling into, before outdoor sleeping can become confident and casual. Deciding the roof works well, we drift back to slumber.

Early in the morning, we eat our breakfast of oats and water while sat in the open cabs of decrepit tractors. Packing away, we stroll the lanes toward Canterbury, the Snowdrops dangling over the young green masses of Cow Parsley and Hemlock, and the ever-welcome Cleavers. 

Entering town, cars at the traffic lights give us an assorted mix of glares, grins and glances. In the still city centre, we sing a song or two, and a gentleman in tweed tells us that he read an article we wrote and he’d like to buy us a morning coffee. We watch the first rays of sunshine strike the cobbled streets, and hear the tourism engines begin to turn, as the Cathedral bells toll their welcome to the day’s business.

Around midday, we visit an intenet-savvy pal who clicks a button or two and puts our website online. It is a tremendously exciting non-event. Hello.

Returning to sing in the carved stone streets, we keep to backroads, where the roar of commerce is less overwhelming and our softer songs can linger.

A fellow steps up to ask us what we’re doing. We tell him, and he is amazed that we can do this in modern Britain, that such ancient systems of movement still work. “I thought it was all no go” he says. “That’s the modern illusion” we say.

We find out he is a Malawian Pop Star, who has been No 1 in his homeland, and who is recently returned from living the Blues Life in New Orleans. We ask if the City is still alive, after Hurricane Katrina’s ravages and Bush’s slowness in rebuilding. He laughs, and tells us that it is more thriving than ever. “It’s the only area in the US where culture matters more than money. People are going there from all over the States.” He starts to tell us about the coded language of hats in Blues music, and how to wear them, before we remember we’re meant to be singing.

So we get on, with our new friend the seed crowd, watching and applauding. It seems to work. Soon 35 people are standing in a ring, listening to the good old songs. A little group of school-girls stand nearby, muttering “…but what are they? Hobbits?” Another man stands with his wife, and we hear him say “I’ve no idea what these songs are.”

It is a good singsong, and fine dinner follows. We eat in a friend’s vegan restaurant above the Whole Foods store, and feel refreshed and energized.

Then we steal a quick song in the Cathedral. This is a fine place, a lily amongst car-parks, and it is always well to spend time here. We couldn’t leave without saying goodbye…

As evening comes, we walk the few miles out of town to a secluded woodlands, to sleep deep, tired from such release of song.

It is good to be going.

Kent

“I am a sailor brisk and bold, that oft has sailed the ocean.

I’ve travelled the country far and wide, for honour and promotion.

My shipmates all, I bid you adieu, I may no longer go along with you,

I’ll travel the country through and through, and they call me the Rambling Sailor.”

(Anon – The Rambling Sailor)

We wake for sunrise, a pink hue of promise over the singing swaying trees.

Some miles on we reach Boughton Street, an old Kentish village, where we rest our feet. A local chap in puffy Barbour layers, with a nicotine stained white moustache, tells us all about his days as a 60’s folk musician in Crawley.

“That was the place, was Crawley. We’d be down playing in every place, and we were doing pretty good too. We made enough money to buy the band a Rolls Royce Hearse, which took us to all the gigs. It must’ve coughed out a gallon just starting up, so we knew we were doing alright.”

Leaving the village, we cross a motorway bridge and wave at cars. Of 20, only one waves back, but that’s good enough to cheer us.

Faversham arrives soon beneath our feet. Like so many places in England, it looks unappealing when driving through it, but the soul of the place is to be met on foot. We recommend a visit.

We sing beneath the town-hall, which stands on arched pillars in the centre of the town. The wooden pillars bear the pin and nail marks of many hundred years’ sign-posting, a transient archaeology of lost civic information.

A policeman approaches as we busk, but before he can engage with us, a man taking photographs steps forward to intercept him.

“Would you mind standing next to the lads, to look like you’re appreciating them?”

A little bemused, the pristine Bobby does so, then wanders off. Faversham is safe. I wish we got that photo.

Post singsong, we go to buy a map with our busking funds. The CCTV cameras follow us through town, and we wave. I hope the watchers also enjoyed the singing.

The local economy to consider, we take hot drinks. The nearest café has four track-suited Faversham lads milling around the front, classic boys in town. The youngest one, about 15, soon pipes up: “Oy, the woods are that way!” he laughs, looking to the others for approval. The oldest turns to him with surprisingly wistful gravity, to mutter quietly: “I reckon they know where the woods are.”

As we sit with our hot drinks, Ed and I begin to mildly bicker. This change in life-pace, the forced dealing with ourselves and each other, coupled with uncertainty of the very near future, is not yet comfortable. We are not entirely at ease.

So we get up to leave, jerkily throwing our bags on our brooding backs. But as we step away, a smiling woman appears, and asks if there’ll be any more singing. We explain that we’re leaving, and why we’ve got to get on; but seeing her face drop, we realize that this is exactly what we’re here for and what we need, an opportunity for restored purpose and unity. So without further word, we blast into a roadside Harvest Song. It is perhaps the finest and fullest rendition we’ve ever given, and we hear our strange rescuer whistling it through the town as she goes.

As we step away from town, a car pulls over and winds its windows down to talk. Inside, a man and his wife say they saw us singing, and offer us a place to stay in their cottage near Rochester. We’re not bound in that direction, but the small meetings like this, a moment or two of human connection, the offer of support given in a stolen roadside moment, leave us cheered greatly. We are reminded of the common bond, the traditions of mutual humanity and kinship, which are the most ancient and vital achievements of humanity. It’s good to remember this.

So aglow and grateful, we leave Faversham.

Chickweed grows in abundance all along the verges of the after-town, and we fill our gathering pouches for later, noting as we do that its tiny white flowers are open, which betokens that despite the gathering clouds, there will not be rain soon.

We are glad to find this proves correct, and we walk through wide valleys toward Stalisfield Green, the sky stays dry. Ed picks up discarded shotgun cases to make a waterproof match box.

Then into hazel woods, along deep mudded tracks covered in rotting leaf, and out again into ploughed fields which clog the boots and cloy the feet. We walk the tractor ruts where soil is compressed, and lay low in a patch of woods on a hilltop.

Walking toward Charing, we duck through a hedge and find ourselves on the Pilgrim’s Way track, which we walked 4 years ago. This is the first time we have ever walked the same path twice on a long journey. It is a curious feeling, to follow familiar currents.

Charing has its own fishmonger, butcher, baker and café. It is a fine little village and community. At 9:30 in the morning, though we are hungry for our breakfast, we whack out our sign and hat, and sing a few numbers. People are only briefly confused. A heavy-set man with shaved head and gold teeth steps over, and we’re not quite sure of his intent, until he throws a handful of coins into the hat, and tells us a cuppa is waiting in the cafe.

We claim our reward, then eat our oats in milk outside the Archbishop’s Palace. This was featured on the TV show ‘Renovations’, but failed to win the funding. A trust is apparently trying to buy the place, with intentions to raise the requisite millions to make it shiny again.

Charing is a most friendly village, and everyone waves or offers advice. It is a good start to the day.

Next village we pass is Pluckley, after hours of ploughed fields and grubbed orchards.

We take half-pints to quench us, and to legitimize our picknicking in the pub garden. The tattooed landlord tells us that this famously haunted village attracts many ghost-hunters, who are in fact “town-lads, in cars, with earrings and baseball caps, causing no end of trouble for locals, hanging out waiting for hauntings.”

He assures us his pub is haunted by “at least 4 ghosts”, but that they are no trouble, and if they were, he’d “chuck them all out”. We believe him.

Passing the village of Smarden, we are warned of a farmer who “doesn’t like walkers”, who the locals call “Mr Scary”. And although we assure the beautiful girl who warns us that we can handle him, we do walk noticeably quicker when the footpaths traverse Mr Scary’s fields.

Resting in empty lanes in dusk, we sit back to back in the middle of the road, certain that any car approaching will be audible long before it arrives. But we do not consider the likelihood of night-joggers, and one nearly jumps right over us as they come striding down the dark road.

Night is almost fully on as we approach the Three Chimneys, a pub so named because Napoleonic Prisoners of War were billeted nearby at Sissinghurst Castle, and this was the boundary mark of their parole. The prisoners called it ‘Trois Chemins’ (three roads), which the locals adopted and adapted.

In the pub, we step right up to the bar-girl and tiredly try to muster the gall of Showmen. She is bemused more than impressed. We sit down to rest awhile, and look in our kitty. We are down to our last £8, and don’t know how that will feed us tonight. This is a high-grade dining pub. We decide to use throw caution to the wind, and pave the way for dramatic rescue. So pints are bought, and we are officially broke. Sat in the warmth, with empty bellies, we begin to lose our cohesion of intent, and the idea bounces between us that we should just leave and find woods. But then the bar-girl tips us a wink and a nod, and we take our pints to the dining room, to softly interrupt the six diners, and croon a gentle Fiddler’s Green and John Barleycorn. Everything works out sweetly, and we are given gold and good wishes.

Buoyed by this good magic, we sing a Tom of Bedlam fireside in the empty parlour. The bar-girl then gives us ales on the house, and tells us that a couple in the next room would like to hear a song or two. They heard Tom of Bedlam, and recognized the Steeleye Span link. The wife loved this band, but the husband did not. We discuss this difficult but groundbreakingly influential Folk Rock group. Some of their music hits the mark perfectly, right on the cutting edge of evolving folk traditions, but some lies closer to glam-clash experimental soft-rock, which is hard to digest with modern guts.

Anyroad, we sing this lovely couple a few more songs, and they somehow rustle up plates of bread and cheese from the closed kitchen. As they leave, they also slip us a note. As we pack up to depart too, the bar-girl slides us a handful of largesse from her tip-jar. The theory of careless final spending is thoroughly vindicated.

Our grateful steps carry us to the first trees we see, in an old bomb crater 50 yards from the now-silent road; and there we sleep.

In the morning we waken a little dry, so head to a stream to filter water. We find an early woodland full of Ransoms garlic, a fine treat to waken our morning mouths and bodies.

The day is hot, and we walk toward Cranbrook past a beautiful lake, all shady boughs and gentle sloping banks. Alas, looking closer we see its burden of bottles, plastic bags and shopping trolleys. We wonder what would be needed to clean this lake for local swimmers, and keep it clean. Such a simple question – but we cannot imagine a likely solution. So we carry on into town.

We pass a fine windmill, and are optimistic about Cranbrook. Seeing a woman pushing a huge double pram, with obvious tiredness and steely joy, we reflect that this must be a fertile place.

In town, we find the perfect shop, selling fresh bread rolls and local fruit, cured meat and ground coffee. We take breakfast in the graveyard of the Church, at the corner of the High Street. Everyone we greet is smiling and tremendously well-spoken.

A couple of youngsters in sports-clothes ask where we’re going, and we chat. They tell us they’re about to make rockets out of Diet Coke and Mentoes. Apparently the reaction produced from an admixture of these two sweetened treats is enough to launch the coke bottle into the heavens. They wish us luck, and we them.

Then we sing a few songs with the hat out, and it goes well. We soon have covered the cost of our breakfast, and can buy a new map. We are given advice on routes into (Royal) Tunbridge Wells, and addresses to stay, if need arises, in and around the town.

Moving on, we wander through a wood full of lethal looking bike jumps. We stop to listen to the “cackle whump!” of logging operations bringing down tall pines, and feel the forest floor shake. We find huge ant-hills and get nicely lost. Eventually we emerge besides an electricity sub-station, around which two young colts play.

Our motivation lags about 6 miles out of town. Ed’s feet are hurting from his new boots and heavy bag. At the peak of his difficulties we take a wrong turn, and walk a circular mile in the dark. This does not help. We discuss lying low in the hedges, but we recall the joy of challenges when they reach crisis point, that endlessly penultimate straw on the camel’s back. So we retrace our steps and walking gets easier, as though it were our bodies’ anger at walking away from their destination that was making it hard. On the right path again, we soon feel stronger.

We decide the quickest and easiest way for our feet to cover the next few miles is to walk beyond the crash barriers on the grass verges of an A road. This is unpleasant but exhilarating, and impels us to move quickly. The jettisoned rubbish is incredible in its diversity and apparent utility. There are Stanley knives, good shoes, and assorted lumps of iron. It is a rich place, in its way.

Then we clamber up the bank, and into instant woodland. Every step into the darkness, away from the rushing metal boxes, is well taken.

At the edge of town, under the first orange lamp, on the first kerb, we rest. A lovely Scottish man winds down his car-window, and tells us exactly how to get to the town centre. We nod along happily, but are too tired to really hear.

We walk the last mile past a road being re-rolled, and assorted gangs of drunk kids snogging. One girl runs after us with a heavy sandwich board from a local café. “I’m carrying it for you…” she hiccups confused.

Here in Tunbridge Wells we have a pal whose flat we visit to crash in. We are asleep within minutes of arriving.

In the morning we visit BBC studios, where we have a Radio Kent interview to give. We can’t agree what song to sing, so flick coins. Rambling Sailor it is.

The presenter Pat Marsh is a friendly guy, animated and skilful. It feels like a good interview, a clearer exposition of our intent than previously given. Immediately after, the South East TV people come to chat, and arrange to film us busking later.

Excitedly, we go to find honey, ginger and lemon, as Ed’s throat is hoarse.

Singing a song to recently met friends, from the balcony of our friend’s flat, we spot the man with his TV camera. “Stay up there lads, and give us another.”

Then we head down to chat with this one-man TV crew. Earlier this morning he was interviewing one of the richest men in England, who owns hotel chains and grows English ‘champagne’. Now he’s here, having a pint with us. He says he likes his job very much.

On the town bandstand we sing a few numbers, and chat to kids. They are intensely curious: “Is that a magic hat? What is the stick for? Why’ve you got a bag?”. We explain everything.

After we sing The Rambling Sailor, the youngest onlooker asks “What was that song about?”. I tell him: “It’s about a sailor, who’s come back on land, and walks about making lots of nice new friends.” The youngster nods wisely, as a knowing old lady nearby guffaws uproariously.

A local fellow outside his pub is incredibly baffled by it all. He was part of a gang of snarling drinkers watching from a local pub, and to be honest we found his derision perfectly understandable. There we were, on a bandstand with a TV camera pointing at us. Who did we think we were?

But when the cameraman leaves, we come down to ground-level and carry on singing without news crews, and his dislike becomes unsure of itself, twisting into curiosity. He slowly approaches and tries to get to grips with it all.

“But, what, no KFC or anything like that? Where d’you sleep? And how d’you pay for it all?” It takes awhile, but we explain, and when comprehension seeps in, he won’t let us leave without a final song. We give him Tom of Bedlam, and head off toward the woods.

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