LEJOG Day 60: Wark to Bellingham

Weather: Showers to start, then cloudy with southerly breeze

Distance covered today: 8.5km (5.3mi)

Last night's B&B: Hetherington (£32)

Cumulative distance: 1185.4km (736.6mi)/ % Complete: 61.9%

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 60 (click!)

In the last post, I said that this latest stretch would be short. I wasn’t kidding! When it actually came to walking it, it was ludicrously, almost embarrassingly short!! I couldn’t believe it! I reasoned later that I had been using Google Maps to plan this section of the journey, in the absence of anything better at the time, and this was one of those legs where the road trip involves a long detour, whereas on foot, one just hops over the fell and there is Bellingham!  In some ways it is a waste of a day, but it does at least give me a good rest, which will set me up for the challenge ahead.

I was also pleased to arrive early because things were a little chaotic on arrival. My intended hostess was shocked to see me! She stopped running the B&B two years ago when her husband had a stroke! I was sure I had spoken to her on the phone and confirmed the arrangement! Anyway, I found another B&B in the village and booked in, but they sensibly couldn’t understand my story and so started phoning other B&Bs to see whether I was booked in elsewhere, and sure enough they came up with a third B&B who had a reservation for me. Off I went to B&B No.3, only to find that it had no wi-fi and lots of cigarette smoke, so back I went to B&B No 2, a lovely establishment called Lyndale, who welcomed me back enthusiastically! After all this, Sherpavan became understandably very confused about where to deliver my bag, but many phone-calls later my baggage and I were finally reunited.

As indeed were Andrew, Sharon and I! I first met Andrew and Sharon on my way up to Cross Fell. Since then, our paths have crossed on three further occasions, which is extraordinary by any definition. This is partly because my own eccentric routing has taken me on some very long legs, where I would get ahead of them and then some very short legs, where they would catch up again, but to have chosen the same pub on two occasions, where there were others on offer and finally to have chosen the same B&B here, after all my shenanigans, was statistically highly improbable. Last night, we greeted each other as old friends and had dinner together to celebrate.

I found it interesting talking to both of them on a wide range of subjects. Andrew is an Operations Supervisor for a plane-servicing company at Birmingham airport and Sharon works at Tamworth Castle. Andrew generously forgave me for having a daughter who works for Thomas Cook, who recently ended their contract with his employer! Amongst his many activities, Andrew participates in live events at the castle, including being part of the cast for entertainments such as murder mysteries and other events organised by castle staff. It all sounded like good fun, especially when the wheels come off and improvisation becomes essential.

Both Sharon and Andrew are highly critical of the UK government for getting us into “all these foreign wars”, and they feel helpless to do anything about it, because the “other lot” seem to do just the same.  Andrew spoke movingly about seeing plane after plane coming back every week from Afghanistan with badly wounded soldiers on their way to military hospitals, cocooned in bandages, with drips and tubes coming out all over them. He said that the planes would fly out carrying enormously expensive missiles and other supplies and would fly back with these wounded soldiers. The press talk only of the dead who head for RAF Lyneham and then through Wootten Bassett, but the wounded far outnumber them and pass unheralded through Birmingham airport.

I find it interesting that while this endless, low-key war continues, it isn’t actually an electoral issue here in the UK. I am minded to reflect that the British have been involved in war for hundreds of years and perhaps despite the cataclysmic events of the last century, these islands are just more warlike than many other parts of the world. I visited a heritage centre here in Bellingham (pronounced Belling-jim), which spoke almost proudly of the Reivers of the border country who terrorised these lands from the late 13th century to the end of the 16th century.  In one exhibit, an historian claimed that Richard Nixon and LB Johnson were both descended from Reiver stock, who had probably been shipped off to Ulster to do some fighting there and who had made it over to America in two generations. He seemed happy that “the world’s only superpower” was being run by the descendants of the Reivers.

The previous evening, my host and hostess, Alan and Mandy Nichol, he of the Westie Scarf, had similarly reflected on the antagonisms of the border country. Even today, he said, there are strong feelings. He has to be very careful in his choice of language when referring to Scottish friends and, north of the border, any reference at all to any event of English significance is treated with open scorn. He is not at all surprised by the success of the Scottish Nationalists in the recent elections. But he wouldn’t live anywhere else. Both he and Mandy say that they will die in their comfortable, old home. They are respected and established members of the Northumbrian community and I decided that their main reason for having me to stay was to entertain me! They invited me into their home as a guest and even offered me a couple of very welcome malt whiskeys to close off the evening, while telling me of their daughter’s success as an equestrian 3-day Event rider.

Charlotte competed on her horse, Mistatiger, at numerous 3-star Events including Burghley and Badminton and was actually a reserve for the British Olympic Eventing Team in Atlanta, but in the event she was disappointed not to make it over there. Her husband, Nick Ridley owns the Park End Estate near Wark and has had great success in building a number of businesses around the estate, much to Alan’s satisfaction. Alan took me to see his daughter’s state of the art, private, indoor arena, which in my now considerable experience, is better than anything I have ever seen in the South of England. Mark Todd is a regular visitor and good friend. Mary King opened the arena. To cap it all, it turned out that Charlotte had been trained by a trainer, Donald Kear, who was or is associated with the TTT (Training Teachers of Tomorrow), a riding establishment at East Whipley Manor on the edge of our village in Surrey – a small world indeed!

After all this socialising, it will be interesting to get back to the lonely Pennine Way for my last two days on the Way. The weather isn’t looking good and the distances are looking demanding, but, in a strange way, I am finally looking forward to it. I will reflect later on my Pennine penance, but for now, I am just content to take it easy for a few hours and just rest…..

Alan and Mandy relaxing over a malt whiskey, late at night

Charlotte's extraordinary equestrian arena. The surface alone cost £40,000 and is made of something very special

My first burn, and I'm not even yet in Scotland!! This is the March Burn

Stephen and I have crossed paths twice on the Pennine Way. He is a rather lonely young man, half Japanese, half English and determined to get into the Royal Navy, but not too hopeful, given the current cuts. He absolutely refuses to contemplate university. He is walking the whole Pennine Way on his own, camping along the way. He is the only other loner I have met on the Way.

I forded this burn at great peril, having first to construct makeshift stepping stones, only to discover afterwards that there was a footbridge 100m upstream. It wasn't marked on my map. Grrrr....

Shitlington Crags. I shit you not.....

And then suddenly, there is Bellingham. It is actually a rather wonderful feeling, cresting a fell and suddenly seeing the next village laid out below one, again and again and again. One has a feeling of bounding over the geography...

The North Tyne River, on its way to join its southern cousin and then proceed to Tyneside

Sharon and Andrew, just before they set off for Byrness, also my next destination