LEJOG Day 48: Stanbury to Earby

Weather: Cloudy to start, then sunny and very hot

Distance covered today: 21.4km (13.3mi)

Last night's B&B: Ponden House (£40)

Cumulative distance: 940.1km (584.2mi)/ % Complete: 49.1%

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 48 (click!)

Mid-winter to mid-summer in a couple of days!  It is difficult to believe I was sloshing around in drenching rain with a howling wind battering my eardrums just a couple of days ago, when this afternoon, I was overheating in high temperatures and unrelenting sunshine. The forecast is for tomorrow to be even hotter and for the good weather to last for the next few days. It wasn’t just the weather that changed. After yesterday’s sojourn in the high moors, I was expecting more of the same today, but after another couple of ascents into pristine moorland, I returned to the familiar green pastoral lands of England to complete the day. Much as I appreciate these lovely, quintessentially English farmland scenes, I have, with variations, been travelling through similar countryside in many parts of the journey so far. I was amused to read in the official Pennine Way guide, that “…there will be green fields and firm footing…..  The best of the Pennine Way will then brighten any gloom.” For me, it is already clear that it is the high moors that are the “best” of the Pennine Way!  Will I feel the same way in two weeks’ time?

After my encounter with the Brontés yesterday, last evening turned out to be quite a cultural event. As I arrived, I observed that the B&B was unusually, but tastefully decorated with lots of art on display. I was enjoying a cup of tea, when I saw what I thought was an excellent piece on the wall, inspired by David Hockney. My daughter Anna had done a similar Hockney-esque piece for her GCSEs, which I have always liked, so I asked my hostess, Brenda, who in the family had been imitating Hockney? She said “Hockney”. I said, “Yes, I know, but who imitated him?” She said “He did. It was him. It is a Hockney.” After I recovered, she went on to explain that her husband had been at art school with Hockney, and he and his dogs, as well as Hockney himself appear in the artwork. I mumbled something about it being very valuable now, which was a mistake. Clearly art was not to be appreciated for its monetary value in that house!

Brenda then served up a delicious, (if not inexpensive), three course meal, which was thoroughly enjoyed by five of us round the table. Her guests consisted of a delightful young couple from Luxembourg, Carmen and Gilles, Brenda’s daughter Lea and her partner, Peter. Carmen, who spoke excellent English, told us that she had been to Sheffield University, after which she worked in a very high pressure job with architects in the City. After almost burning out, she had decided to return to a more normal life in Luxembourg, where she is now a civil servant in the Town and Regional Planning Dept. Peter explained that his job was “Story-telling”. I didn’t know at first whether to take him seriously, but he was serious. Lea had a job in a Montessori-type school in Leeds, where she worked a maximum of 30 hours a week.

There followed a lively conversation about the effects of stress on modern society. Lea and Peter rather drowned out the guests from Luxembourg, and generally condemned almost anyone with ambition who was working hard to get ahead. They were against competition amongst kids, reeling off reams of information about how many kids are on drugs because of behavioural problems at school, how many adults have their lives destroyed by the stress of modern life, and many other anecdotes of disaster. I was amused to be cast as the villain in this piece when I tried to inject a degree of realism into the conversation. I wondered what Lea and Peter would have thought had they known that they were talking to someone who had once been a wild-eyed, long-haired refugee from convention in a way that made them look positively normal. But of course, like most young people, they can’t really imagine the youth of an older person, any more than they can understand that their views on all sorts of things will themselves change over time. It is, after all, hard to be passionate about something if you think you will soon think differently about it. And it is terribly important to be passionate about things.  So I let it drop. I am still concerned though by who is going to pay Peter’s pension.

My own view, if they had wanted to hear it, is that I do agree that things are out of balance. From so many points of view, as I have discussed in earlier posts, there is something unsustainable about everlasting exponential growth. One consequence if firms can’t innovate their way out of danger in order to satisfy the geometric earnings growth expectations of the markets, is that they cut costs to reach their productivity targets. Some of this is the result of the clever use of technology (innovation by another name), but all too often it simply has the effect of asking fewer people to work ever harder, however the consultants may dress it up. This cannot end happily, and the surprise for me is that there hasn’t already been a systemic reaction in Anglo-Saxon economies to this unprecedented exploitation of knowledge workers. Surely it is only a matter of time? But the form it will take eludes me. It will probably not be the old-fashioned left-wing union response. It will probably be something completely new, but if I was in government or a captain of industry, I would be starting to worry about it about now. Is that just me being Malthusian again?

When Carmen, Gilles and I left this morning, Lea and Peter were still firmly asleep, something which momentarily embarrassed Brenda. I was first away, and twenty minutes after I had left, I suddenly realised at a steep slope that I had left my new walking poles behind. Nothing for it but to return. Who should I discover almost running along the path towards me with the poles, but Brenda herself!

Carmen and Gilles soon caught me up and during the day our paths crossed numerous times. In the end we wound up walking together, until I left the Pennine Way to find my B&B, which irritatingly proved very difficult as its grid reference placed it firmly in the middle of a cemetery, which had an all too permanent ring about it! With Veronica’s ever-helpful and ever-patient assistance, I finally found the B&B!

Perhaps fortunately, there will be no passionate discussions tonight. There is no-one else staying here!

Brenda racing towards me with the missing walking poles!

A scout camp on the Pennine Way

Gilles and Carmen

Gilles and Carmen disappearing on the magnificent moors

This fellow was replacing the grouting on his barn. I asked him if it would be a big job. He said it would take twenty years if he didn't die first!

Can this be England?

This definitely is England. The village of Ickornshaw

My endlest spring continues

I passed many derelict farmhouses today. Apparently, their residents abandoned them for better jobs in the mill towns of the industrial revolution

An almost abstract view of burned vegetation on the moors, after the last heat wave a few weeks ago

Guess who! A portrait by Carmen

A red grouse

These young men cornered me and asked me about my journey. It was special watching their faces change from bravado to wonder. By the time we were finished, they were all for going home and asking their Dads to take them on a grand LEJOG! They are desperate for adventure in this looney, HSE obsessed world. Prevented from experiencing adventure, they will no doubt sooner or later seek it in gangs and violence....

Looking down at the mill town of Earby, the place the boys came from and my resting place for the night

It is worth deciphering this notice. You can deduce that I am firmly in Yorkshire!