In no time, I was telling him of my intention to do the LEJOG. John was instantly interested, and was asking me all about the route I was intending to take, the details of the trip, etc. Then he told me had done LEJOG not once, but four times! Twice in each direction! I was just dealing with this input, when he went on to tell me that actually, he now pretty much lived on the trails, from about this time of the year to early November. It turns out that there isn’t a trail or significant path anywhere in the UK that he hasn’t covered. I wondered how he could sustain the cost of such a lifestyle and he told me that he had been doing it for twenty years, and he was now 65. He camped rough most nights and carried all his food and camping gear in his enormous pack, which he told me weighed 60 lbs (27kg), almost three times the weight of mine! He talked about life on the trails and how he had managed to whittle away at all the extraneous factors in his life and was now focussed only on the essentials.
I was definitely out of my league. He didn’t seem too impressed at my intention to overnight in B&Bs, because “they will reduce your options and drive your agenda”. Much as I understood what he was getting at, I told him I just wasn’t tough enough, and probably never would be, and what is more, I need to power all my electronics. He looked sympathetically at me, as if welcoming a rather misguided novice into a new and mysterious religious experience. Never mind, my son, you will understand one day.
But he did give me some useful advice and information, all of which will contribute to the planning. He told me that he averaged about 10miles a day, which is roughly what I am planning to do and rather less than the average LEJOGer. He said that if you go faster than this, you miss too much along the way. And he echoed something my daughter Marion had said yesterday, that the time would soon come when the pack became so integrated with the body that it felt more normal to be carrying it than to be without it. Marion said it was actually comforting to have it on her back when she was climbing Kilimanjaro. He said much the same and we spent quite some time comparing the relative merits of our pack designs. It is interesting how quickly one’s perspective about what is important changes....
As we parted, he insisted that if I did indeed succeed, I would be hooked and that we would undoubtedly meet again, because in his experience, one just did. The community of long-distant hikers was smaller than I might imagine. As I walked away, I couldn’t help reflecting that this encounter had taken place on the Pilgrims’ Way....
He was though, the only interesting, if rather eccentric, person that I met today. I reflected ironically that this particular stretch of path is the closest to home of any day’s walking that I will do in the next few months and yet quite possibly the least friendly. This is the inevitable result of the enormous population density of the dormitory towns around London in the Home Counties. People who want to walk in the countryside are getting away from it all for just a couple of hours and they tend to ignore the very existence of fellow walkers, let alone get involved in philosophical conversation with some aging weirdo and his back-pack!
But that doesn’t apply to the dead! At the top of Martha’s Hill, the Pilgrims’ Way runs past the mediaeval church that is said to be associated with the martyrdom of St Thomas a Becket, and surrounding it there is a graveyard. I had seen it before, but for some reason I went again to look at the grave of Lieutenant-General, The Right Honourable, The Lord Bernard Freyberg, VC, GCMG, KCB, KBE, DSO and three bars. Having read a little of his extraordinary life and incredible bravery, I have no doubt at all that this man deserved all the honours that a grateful country could bestow on him. But as I wandered further along the path, I got to wondering just how different my world is from his and how much things have changed. I constructed for myself an imaginary conversation with him, in which I tried to explain how different things are now.
I suggested to him that the ethos of self-sacrifice and duty to king and country were now, in my experience, pretty much nonexistent. I explained that even in the army, motivation seemed to me to be different these days. I had had some conversations with young officers when my daughter Anna had received a gap-year commission in Her Majesty’s Armed Services. They had explained that even for the officers, the army was just a career stepping-stone and that the objective was to avoid getting hurt, much less killed, rather than as an opportunity to demonstrate valour, honour and self-sacrifice, and this was even before the Iraq war. There were exceptions, but they were just that; exceptions. I explained that in my youth in South Africa, I had gradually become a committed pacifist, so much so that I had felt that I had to resign my own commission as an officer in the conscript South African army in very trying, not to say menacing circumstances.
I had remained convinced that there was never a justification for armed conflict, because the people who paid with their lives or livelihoods were almost never the people in power and that no matter how justifiable the cause, the law of unintended consequences almost always meant that the victory was not worth the cost. Over time, I was forced to adjust the simplicity of those convictions, but by then I was no longer living in Apartheid South Africa, and the stark choices facing the countries of Europe in the 2nd War were much more apparent.
General Freyberg pointed out to me that in fact I was being slightly disingenuous. He knew that I had actually supported Tony Blair’s concept of justifiable aggression by the democracies in pursuit of the prevention of genocide and similar acts of terror against dictators and extremists. I was not one of the one million people who had marched for peace through London before the Iraq War. I agreed, but asked him to consider how that had all turned out, and said that if anything, it had again confirmed my convictions about unintended consequences.
He seemed frustrated by my views. He said that they were all too focussed on myself as a protagonist of the “me” generation. He said that modern civilisation would never have been developed if the pioneers had had my convictions. He accused me of having a “soft centre”. He said that I lacked the imagination to understand how the world would have looked if Hitler or Stalin had won. He said that in any case, even though his first commission had been granted by none other than Winston Churchill, in all his acts of bravery, he had never philosophised about it, he had just done his duty to the very best of his ability, and let the leaders decide what had to be done. I asked him why then had he actually volunteered to take part in the civil war in Mexico before WW1? Surely this was just glory-seeking adventurism? He didn’t answer for a while and then agreed that his views had changed as he had matured, just as had mine.
The conversation didn’t actually end. It just kind of petered out when I met John, but I suspect General Freyburg and I will have more to say to each other as I occupy the many hours of my LEJOG. Of course I know almost nothing about General Freyburg, so I would ask you to understand that these musings are purely theoretical and are not intended in any way to impugn his memory, or to suggest that I know anything at all about his actual views. I am just imagining!
Back to reality then! At last I did reach my objective at Ranmore Common, where Marion collected a rather frazzled and happy father. I have proved that I can complete two back-to-back days of 16km (10m) each without too much stress and strain. Now I will rest for a few days and then string three days together with full pack next week. If that goes according to plan, I will consider that I am as ready as I ever will be to start LEJOG!
Leaving Guildford. The rich live on this Soutward facing slope!
St Martha's-on-the-hill
General Freyberg's grave
The vibrant, clear colours of the Cape have been replaced by the mists and subtle greys of Surrey
Pill boxes protected London from potential German invaders in WW2. These punctuated my imaginary conversation with General Freyberg. I passed many of them.
A contrast with the Kogelberg! How about this for a multi-lane walking high-way! "Slow walkers keep to the outside lanes!". (Just kidding!). But I was really pleased to be back on the white chalk.
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