On July 4th 2023 my lovey father died, the day before his 95th birthday. (My Mum died ten years ago) He had a great life that started in Lowestoft with six siblings in poverty in a time that seems a world away from now. I have decided to try and visit his childhood, to explore where he came from – a pilgrimage, albeit a virtual one.
In 1940 him, his older sister and younger brother were evacuated. They had to cycle most of the journey as they only had enough train fare for part of the journey if things got too hard. Inspired by this I plan to cycle from Darlington, where he died, to Lowestoft, where he was born. A convoluted route to enjoy the scenery but also to visit places important to him on the way.
Obviously I can’t actually cycle the route as I can’t leave my daughter so I will cycle everything in my lounge using Google Earth and other research to share with you my journey back in time day by day.
The last journey I did was to find myself – I cycled from Darlington to Colchester in Essex in an Alfred Jarry inspired trip. I documented the journey in a diary, which I am in the process of publishing so should hopefully be available soon. It was done in the height of lockdown and was possibly a little tongue in cheek. More imagination than reality. I certainly cycled the whole length but possibly some of the things I found en route were a mix of research and sheer rubbish. The aim of this trip, although still done virtually, is to maybe have a little more accuracy as well as telling a story of my father. As you can see, my bike is no Peloton super amazing bike with a screen showing my route. It is a foldaway static bike from Amazon for under £100 but it tracks my distance and I just imagine the rest.
Rules
In my last trip I set several rules that I needed to follow each day. I recorded my oxygen, heart rate and time as well as several other more frivolous ones including taking several photographs, which had to be resourceful as I wasn’t actually where I said I was! So what are the new rules?
I certainly want to use it for an element of fitness so recording heart rate and oxygen are still important. Talking about each place I stop, roughly 10 miles each day. This will be based on research of the town or village, helped by Google Earth and other research devices. I will take a picture of the sky each day and report the weather in the area I am visiting as well as how I have found the journey, ie the terrain and how I have felt whilst cycling. I will tell a story of my Dad each day, hopefully relating to where I am and more randomly, as I will be listening to my audio book whilst riding, I will report on a book or author a day. Either related to who I am listening to on Audible or who I have read in the past.
Route
This shows my route actually over 38 days. Starting in Darlington, via Worksop, round the North Norfolk coast and on to Lowestoft.
I plan to ride 4-5 times a week, so I can definitely arrive before Christmas. My own little pilgrimage. I hope you will come with me and enjoy.
Well I am back! It has been a challenging few weeks meaning I haven’t been out on my walks as usual. My foot got very painful. Too painful for walking any distance more than a few steps so I had to rest it. The other thing was that we got a new puppy. A puppy that couldn’t leave the house for nearly 4 weeks as it hadn’t had any injections before he came to us. I say puppy, what I mean is Tasmanian Devil. He has been full on and overwhelming. So small yet, he has completely taken over our lives. Luckily we are now out and about. He is hopefully going to be a therapy dog for my daughter so will be starting to train him as such but for now it is just getting him used to walking out. He is still little and given a choice would definitely prefer to be carried so walking any distance at the moment isn’t going to happen but we did manage a little stroll.
Today was somewhere I had been before, but at a time of year where it was greener and more abundant and somewhere I thought Milo would enjoy sniffing around without too much effort.
A mothers day walk today. My constant pursuit of trees led to a large local forest today. There are many mountain biking routes but also, fortunately for me and Chloe’s chair, there are easier routes through the forest too. It was a beautiful day and the forest was busy so I was very much left with the thought that I would like to revisit in quieter times and on my own so we will see. Because of this I was unable to take my feet pictures but the trail we walked was 1.5 miles, around 3000 steps so I will count it as that. As you can see from the following photos trees are indeed a little bit of an obsession and there were beautiful trees here.
Ok, today I walked but, as I was with a friend, I didn’t do the foot photographs. Instead I did several photomontages and was very pleased with them.
We were by the seaside today. Busy with dog walkers but not tourists and where we were loads of surfers. It was lovely going on a road trip with an old friend and we spent time walking and talking, which was wonderful and inspiring.
Saltburn pierChromatic view of the pleasure pierWalk along the promenade
A continued search for woodland led me one way but I was thwarted by building works again, not, obviously, on the ordinance survey map. However on the way I saw a nature reserve I had never seen where there was quite a lot of trees so I decided to explore this. It was in fact a small little island of nature in an otherwise busy area. Ultimately it led down to a railway bridge and railway line. My daughter loves a train and a forest so It is the perfect walk to take with her I think. Despite the trains it was a wonderful tranquil area just bird song and of course some dog walkers.
A longer walk today, a walk too far you might say as it took me an hour and a half over very muddy fields and my foot was extremely painful by the end so possibly not the best choice I have made. Having said that I really enjoyed it and I really enjoyed the space and fresh air. I loved that apart from one dog walker I was alone the whole time and that is probably why I kept going. That and the fact that I was in search of a wood. A wood that I keep being told about as there are plans to build on it and a wood I can’t seem to find or reach as I could see it today but on the other side of the river I was walking alongside and I walked a good couple of miles without finding a bridge before I had to turn back again so was tantalised by the wood but just didn’t get there.
I don’t know if I was walking where there is talk of building but if I was then my feelings are mixed. Immediate thoughts are how terrible as it is so beautiful and full of wildlife so building on it is a tragedy, bit the other part of me thinks that I am walking on a footpath through swathes of privately owned land. Land that many people don’t and won’t have a chance to experience so why shouldn’t they have the opportunity to live out here too? How can we bring that wildlife and experience into more built on areas and take buildings into rural areas but still maintain a sustainable environment but give more people the chance to feel the freedom and space. Is that possible? or is it just that the wealthy have the countryside to own and enjoy and the poor live in environments that are less healthy both physically and mentally? I don’t know it is something I would like to explore I think.
I’ve not done well this week. Not so many walks as I seem to have had a lot of pressures on my time and when I did get out it wasn’t for long, mainly because in this time of terrible conflict in Ukraine I felt the need to get to the countryside. I needed space and nature. After dropping Chloe at school I drove out to the country but I didn’t have long so I stopped at a hotel in the middle of countryside and I walked round it’s grounds. It was really quiet with the only sound being sheep and lambs and birds. The hotel was an old castle and it was surrounded by quite a few wooded areas. Despite only being there for 20 minutes, it calmed my anxieties and took me to a different place for a short time. I don’t think an urban setting would have done this for me today.
Saturday and thanks to my lovely sister I have managed to get out on my own with just my camera for an hour before my daughter starts stressing too much that I have gone. It is a nice day and I am not sure where to go. I just got in the car and drove and stopped after 5 minutes or so when I saw a small road with a sign showing a public footpath.
It was a footpath that led me past a farm building and next to their field with an electric fence!! I was the only person I could see, despite being on the edge of a village. The footpath went past an area where a Roman fort had been. There were steps down to the area but I decided that I would go down on my way back. However when I got to the end of the footpath, which led down to the river (private land), instead of needing to come back the same way, I could go round past a cottage into the village and onto the green. By the time I had walked round here I needed to go home so the Roman fort needs to be explored.
It felt good to be out on my own, not pushing a chair and not keeping a constant eye on my daughter. Just walking where I wanted, thinking of little but what photos I wanted to take. It wasn’t a very long walk but I have finally done my first 100,000 and my foot is starting to seize up so I wasn’t sorry to reach my car, but not before I took a little look further up the road and saw another public footpath further up and going the other way. Another day I fancy.
Rachel Smith Artist 