EXTREME RAMBLING BY MARK THOMAS

 The act of walking has over the years been not only a balm to the troubled soul but also an act of political defiance. The very fact that protestors the world over go on protest marches puts the act of pedestrianism in the realm of politics, not to mention events such as the Kinder Trespass which became the catalyst for the free access movement which has won us so many freedoms today. However, for the majority of us, I don't think we consider the act of walking to be anything overtly political. When I find myself tucked under the Wain Stones sheltering from a gale or dipping my feet in Angle Tarn on a hot Summer's day, I feel a million miles away from the concerns of my normal life and, usually, all the better for it.
   Mark Thomas however is not a man to shy away from expressing his views and his idea to walk the length of the Israeli West Bank barrier cannot really be seen as anything other than overtly political. The route the barrier takes is over 400 miles long, so the walk is a not insignificant undertaking, and it is an undertaking that is made considerably harder by the political situation and inevitable tensions the walkers encounter on both sides of the barrier. Thomas walks with his friend and cameraman, Phil, and an assortment of translators, fixers, guides and oddballs. He interviews Israeli settlers, Palestinian farmers, NGO workers, scrap metal dealers and those striving for peace from both sides of the divide. He is pelted with stones, rained upon, hailed upon, sunburned, tear gassed and arrested, but continues stoically on. He meets members of the Palestinian Ramblers Association and goes for a walk with the British consul general and he experiences a harsh, scarred landscape but one that is still regularly capable of taking his breath away.
   Regardless of your views on the situation, and Thomas's views are clear from the first paragraph, one of the very real things that comes out of this book is how by walking you are forced into contact with the land and the people on it. On a linear walk such as this it is impossible not to meet people, not be confronted with the reality of what we as humans do to the land and each other, and to ponder the notion that travel that is not undertaken on foot often removes us from the very essence of the place we are there to see.

A walk around the Lakes by Hunter Davies

Despite being born in Scotland Hunter Davies is a Lakeland man through and through, he moved to Carlisle at the age of 11 and in addition to this wide ranging view of the Lake District he has also written a biography of the one and only Alfred Wainwright. He has a Summer home near Loweswater and the affection he feels for the area and it's history is clear in this enjoyably written study.
I initially confused the unusually monikered Hunter, with shouty TV comedy army sort, Windsor, (they both have impressive mustaches), and even once I had been alerted to the fact they were not one and the same the vein of humour running through the book is distinctly agreeable. Davies takes an unusual approach interspersing self deprecating tales of his own adventures through all the major Lakes locations; Windermere, Hawkshead, Coniston, Langdale, Grasmere et al with a literary history focusing predominantly on the poetry of Wordsworth, Southey and Coleridge. In addition to these poetic titans further tales are told of Beatrix Potter, John Peel, Thomas de Quincy (a frightful gossip by all accounts), John Ruskin and the redoubtable Canon Rawnsley, all of whom played a significant part in creating what is the modern Lake District.
In spite of his eccentric habits, he decides to walk only in wellington boots or Green Flash plimsols, Davies is an energetic and enthusiastic walker with a nice eye for the absurd and a storyteller's natural flair and rhythm. He gets lost not infrequently, mixes with Earls and commoners alike and has a knack for getting people to talk to him as a conversation rather than an interview.
Written in 1979 it is inevitable that much has changed since this book was first published and it is interesting to relate my experiences of Lakeland walking 25 years on with Davies's, particularly in areas like Ennerdale where the re-wilding project has had such an impact taking over from the heavy forestry so despised by Wainwright. None-the-less for a firm grounding in Lakeland literary history coupled with a profusion of walker's anecdotes this book is well worth digging out.